shameless self promotion

Yo, Sat Dec 22 is my birthday. So happy birth day to me. And I'm selecting these two books to sale in honor of myself for the holiday. So yawl support your folk, and tell all yawl know via smoke signal, email or word of mouth to do the same. Thanks. And happy napy birth day shouts to:

Femigog and my girl Emmanuelle Elie (Dec 21).

Support starving independent african american authors - long live intellectual fiction.
JUST CLICK ON THE BOOK ICONS TO ORDER

A Matter of Attention. Book Reviews.


ButterBrown. Book Reviews.

PLEASE DONT BUY FROM AMAZON THEY DONT PAY ME

again, happy birthday to me.....they make great gifts and keep sakes

Yum yum eatum up,

state of the african american father,
black,brown,beige & undereducated,

far from the truth,
y yawl hang up on me jones,

What dressing u want,
I can’t fight so I talk shit,
he has a Coretta.,

Hook, line & sinker,
Ode to Miss Anne,

a penchant 4 commitment,
the midas touch,
to whom it may concern:,
I, I, My,
They on the other team,

i miss coaching little league,
Lift up Your Skirt and Find Your Balls,
A few of my favorite things,
You a soldier….daddy's going to buy you this chopp...,

The teaching of sociopathy,
the kind of guy u take home to momma,
Father Knows Best,
Where are the Coretta's?,

a penchant 4 committment,
the midas touch,
to whom it may concern:,
thank we free,

basic thrust equation,
foul,
sunni or latter,
hope 2 die,

a new breed of mother,
outside the box,
black skin white mask,
we no longer make that model,
these niggas shooting again,

trick or treat,
fuckd up view of manhood,
punishment of slaves,

age of the fck boy,

the perfect man,
i eat peta's,
where the white women at,
touch downs and chess pieces,

the birds,
female dog gluteus maximus negro,

sophisticated colonialism,
play pusy get fucked,

Leg Blocking,
Dogma of the Excuse,
cuddle if you can,
I dont need no man,

Dear Mr. Crackerfied:,
ungrateful, selfish and lazy,

They Can Sing and Dance Though,
challenge to lyricists,
The New Knights of the KKK,

plush opus in the metropolis ,
Church Schisms over Slavery,

live free or die,
seduction or sincerity,

What u need now,
Worthless Negro,
lucky # 6,
the new super hero,
makin' progress,
Kicking In Doors,

9.9.2007,

the adulteress ,
the name game,
ghost of grover cleveland,
nothin soft bout that,
nothing like the real thang,
LOL,
the adulteress,
the next generation,

live free or die,
when her idol superhead,
we turned 2yesterday,
as a nation,
dog day afternoon,
will real terrorist standup,

what would they say,
4 real though,

500 billion and 4 what

Yo, this may be my last semi-serious post until ex post facto Christmas. I mean, I will post one Friday before my birthday on the 22 of December but that will be merely shameless self-promotion. Been spending the most of the past two days trying to disect the 3500 plus pages of the Omnibus Appropriations Bill approved by the House yesterday. They tell me that it weighs 35 lbs but I wouldn't know since I have been reading it online.

I am not counting all of the pork, or earmarks inserted into the bill, just looking for the outrageous stuff they use my tax dollars for. But I have been told hat there are about 9,000 with about 115 worth about $117 million. This tells met that the majority of the members of both Houses aint even read the bill to know what they spending my loot on. And frankly that pisses me off.

I did see that Senator Hillary Clinton took care of some of her folks. One of the recipients was the National Center on Education and the Economy for 2.6 million bills, which is to be awarded within 30 days of enactment of the measure. These folks have contributed heavily to her campaign. The organization is run by Marc Tucker, a long time Clinton supporter. That is a lot of lot for a $4,600.00 campaign donation, which happens to be the maximum. The bill also included a 3.5 percent raise for members of both Houses (excuse me white-collar federal employees).

Other items I saw included $201,000 used to “clean and green” vacant land in Philadelphia to one million for “Bush Creek Beautification.” It also allocates 600,000 for Christopher Columbus fellowship foundation what ever that is. But most of the Earmarks are what they call ‘Air-Dropped’ Earmarks' - about 300 of them, meaning that they were added at the last minute s if they were dropped out of thin air.

I'm not quite finish yet, I mean its some real boring shit to read and I don't have government-speak down tight yet. But best believe if your folk find something else, i'm gone let yawl know.

swear to blog

Given that I am still suspended with pay, I have more time to read scientific journals. When I was on the job, outside of teaching Research Methods and a Theory class, lecturing around the country on prison health, writing grants and publishing scientific papers, I rarely had time to read scientific journals as I would have liked. Sure I did, but on my free time my preferences was to consume newspapers, books of history and fiction.

Recently I read an article that caught my attention in the Journal Cell. To summarize it, it revealed that skin cells could be used to make embryonic stem cells. This was without the use, need or requirement of an human embryo. This was amazing to me. I mean, just by adding 4 genes to a skin cell, they could be made in essence "Tab-la rasa" to develop any of the 220 known cell types of the human body (so much for the debate on stem cell research based on the creation and destruction of human embryos for the same purpose). These cells were named pluripotent stem cells.

Now this is why I love science and always wanted to be one, outside of Mr. Wizard and Mary Shelly. Namely because science forces one to make use of prior information and think outside the box - such to create just as writing does.

Dr. Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University of Japan and the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease in San Fransisco (in picture), found out he could try and do this procedure in mice. Taking it a step further, showing he could make these cells into any type of mouse cell, he used the cells he made to create 20 new mice. Although about 20 percent of the mice developed some form of cancer - he showed and did it.

I know that the replication studies in humans is some ways off, not to mention such studies in the mind of this humble scientist would have to be preceded by studies that show the procedure can be employed to make the 220 know human cell types in vitro first. Even with all of this, i do not think the debate on stem cell research is over. There is always room for the "holier than thou" to ad their two cents in two forms I figure. First President Bush, whose megalomania will lead him to say that he is responsible for the discovery via his policies that cut funding for human embryonic stem cell research and second, those who were against such research for theological reasons, who now will move the debate to saying only God can make life and man should not, even in the name of disease prevention and treatment, even if it from skin cells. Swear to Blog, i mean God.

of Bushes,Turks & the Taliban

Jones main, it’s on. The news has not even made it yet but it appears as if the fragile whatever you call it we put up in Iraq to represent a government has officially dissolved. You see, while most of us up in this camp were sleeping last night, the Turks were sending warplanes over into Iraq to bomb the Kurds. I suspect they were targeting a political group called the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The Turks have outlawed the group, but it seems kind of feculent to outlaw an organization in another country, which operates basically autonomously. The say these raid were some 60 miles into Iraq.

Meanwhile on the otherwise of the field (it is football season), all I read about Afghanistan' from this side of the block, is that we are winning the battle, that more and more Taliban fighters are being killed and that each day we work with or favorite Dictator in Pakistan to make progress in terror (that is if progress includes more videos circulating in Pakistan that show 12 year olds beheading a Pakistani's accused of being U.S. spys). The Taliban is always executing and beheading folks who they claim to be spys for the US, we just never see it on TV unless the spies are actual US citizens. I mean Bush and the US media obviiously think that it take four such acts or more to equal one US life. But at the same time, Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai is asking for more help to develope his armed forces.

Well I guess the Bush administration has some good news to report by their standards, after all the aforementioned and said dictator, just lifted the emergence rule he just placed over his country because they would not vote for him (during a period in which HE amended the country's constitution). At least we can be thankful hat George W. Bush isn’t a general, no telling what he would have done by now.

Hypocrite Me

You know I love the Christmas season. I don’t actually know why, but I do. It doesn’t have anything to do with getting anything but it may have a lot to do with my childhood memories spent with family during this time of year – oh yea, and the meals.

But I am troubled with myself also about the holiday. I mean, I was taught that it is the celebration of the birth of Jesus, but it seems that I have learned otherwise. At least since I learned that the twelve days of Christmas actually start on the 25th and end on January 6 (the day orthodox Christians acknowledge the birth of Jesus Christ.

Of all the holidays celebrated via European tradition, Christmas is probably the most Western or European of them all. In the early days of this fledgling country, Christmas was not even celebrated and was even outlawed in certain parts of the colonies in the late 1600s. It wasn’t made a federal holiday until June 26, 1870. It was only until after the civil war; with the influx of German immigrants to the United states did it actually begin to spread across the country.

The term Christmas comes from the old English 'Criste Maesse,' and may also be connected to the German word, 'Weihnacht' (Holy Night). Thus I aint surprising that Santa Claus himself also comes from German. But I don’t know if his name “Kris Kringle” or “Sinter Klaus” (which means Klaus of the cinders or as some put – the demon saint of Christmas - in picture with body guards), has anything to do with the Romans (Dionysus was said to have been born on December 25th also-in painting), Horus ,or the birth of Jesus.

History suggest that the Roman pagans first introduced the holiday of Saturnalia, “a week long period of lawlessness celebrated between December 17-25.” It was the celebration of the “Lord of Misrule.” “Each Roman community selected a victim whom they forced to indulge in food and other physical pleasures throughout the week. At the festival’s conclusion, December 25th, Roman authorities believed they were destroying the forces of darkness by brutally murdering [these] innocent men or women.”

Horus, the Kemetic/Egyptian God of the Sun to was said to have been born on December 25 and that during the times of the Roman empire, during this time period, celebrations were conducted to honor the sun at its farthest distance fro the Earth, returning to bring warmer days – this as during the winter solstice, my birthday Dec 22.

With all of this, and my whimsical feelings toward celebrating a holiday that all I can see objectively merely provides to buttress western economic powers by bringing up sales at the end of the fiscal year and increasing the gross domestic product, I still love this time of year. Why, like I said, my memories of family unity more than all else, so I guess that makes me a hypocrite, hypocrite me, kind of like American me.

bad 4 ya health

I am starting to figure out the grand master scheme of the west, of the historical pedagogy of the liberal arts and all the associated nonsense that make them folk click. Honestly, I used to think it was an old school thing, you know sons and daughters of the confederacy and the economic plutocracy of the status quo, but now I am startin' too recognize it, our problems are much more and not improving but moreso getting worse. True, it is going on only 40 years since African Americans have had the right to vote. But voting, what does it really accomplish in a republic? I would answer nothing, just like a baby with a pacifier in its mouth.

This is why nothing surprises me. Nothing. The computer chip maker Intel has just apologized for a print add it ran in several major news papers. It was supposed to be advertising new breed of micro-processors but it do so with old world zeal and fatuousness. The quote was "Multiply computer performance and maximize the power of your employees." The only problem was that it had one white man in the middle of the isle between six cut brothers poising as if they bout to start a race.

Now me and the feeble tequila drinking mind that I tote concluded: 1] white micro-processors must be slowa da a mutha fuka and 2] these saltines and woods still look at us as if we live stock. Maybe that’s why I had the beef with the Morehouse school of medicine. Not only am I not a fuck boy, Nat Turner wont allow kool-aid ruining through the veins and arteries. Some time I wish I was a bitchy type nigga – I mean negro, then I could just open my butt cheeks, hide the Vaseline and say “you called Masta”. I think that’s what my dean in the school of community health and preventive medicine wanted me to do. But i'm suspended with pay, lounging and reading about 10 newspapers a day – what more could your fol ask for (and yes, steak and eggs was the breakfast for the morning).

Intel did release a statement on its website: "We made a bad mistake. I know why and how, but that simply doesn't make it better." It was intended that the advertisement "convey the performance capabilities of our processors through a number of visual metaphors,"

The entire PR had me rolling, and also managed to fill my hemoglobin with vehemence. And just think, them mutha fukas made $8.7 billion the last quarter. But I guess they see white micro – processors, like all else white, salt, rice, sugar and glue – is bad for folk health.

4 real though

I have received inspiration for this post from several fellow bloggers – yawl know who you are. I have wanted to do this for myself; I guess another form of soul searching. So outside of the men and women in my family, these are the people that have informed, improved and assisted in proffering the disposition and molecular mass known and Torrance T. Stephens, PhD. And I would advise this as an exercise for all. For it will be fun, introspective and informative. Not to mention folk here consider himself the truth, just as these mutha fukas – yep they the truth, 4 real tough.

1] Cheikh Anta Diop (1923-1986) – I got a chance to see him before he died, and the Nile Valley Conference Meeting held at my alma marta, Morehouse College, if ever I could foster a man crush, it was with him. Got his PhD from the University of Paris, Sorbonne in 1960 in Egyptology after a nine-year struggle to do so.

I have read all of his books at least 5 times, and such may be an underestimation. The reason I rank him number one is because I read an interview conducted by the Third World Book Review. He said in essence that we as Africans in the Diaspora, for those of us who can just do one thing, do it and do it exceptionally. He said for the rare breed of folk such as he, master it all and don’t be afraid to self inculcate on new subject matter. He studied at the top physic laboratory in the country, was a paleontologist, historian, anthropologist, spoke nine languages and developed the test by which one could discern if melanin was I the bones of mummies found I archeological digs. Dr. Diop was the Director of Radiocarbon Laboratory at the Fundamental Institute of Black Africa (IFAN) at the University of Dakar. Diop’s seminal pedagogic challenges, which was irrefutable via science was that African culture and history was older than any other, and influenced the course of other cultures more than usually given credit. I took up his challenge.

2] Martin Luther King Jr. – Enough said. Not to mention he had Coretta.

3] Rube Foster (1879-1930) – Founder of the Negro Leagues (in picture). Made a way when there wasn’t one for the love of his self, his spirit and the love of sport. Didn’t hurt that he was one of the first multi millionaires of our persuasion of his era. As a pitcher and owner, his brand of baseball was solid defense good pitching and hitting. The same way I coached my Old national Pirates – from 14 to 14 yrs of age, had them from T ball to 13,14). His American Giants won all other recorded championships from 1910 through 1922. He was the founder of two things pf importance t me, the Negro Leagues and the screwball or fade-away. In fact he was paid to teach the screwball to Christy Mathewson.

4] Frantz Fanon (1925 – 1961) - In 1953, he was the Head of the Psychiatry Department at the Blida-Joinville Hospital in Algeria Here he was in charge of patient care and learned of the horrified stories of torture his patients -- both French torturers and Algerian torture victims -- told him. This was the period he penned Black Skin, White Masks (1952) and The Wretched of the Earth (1961). A pupil of the philosophical tractates of Jean Paul Sartre, he took exestentialism to the human level. BTW my favorite book by Sartre is “Being and Nothingness" (had to read it at least 8 time). Fanon developed leukemia, and The Wretched of the Earth, was completed in 10 months, and published by Jean-Paul Sartre in the year of his death. He died at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland in 1961 a year before my birth.


5] Voltaire (1694 – 1778) - My Nigga, writer extraordinaire ( the person responsible the most for my motivation to write). I love this quote "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." Jones made me, me, because he was the ultimate humorist, the ultimate satirist and intellectual philosopher. Only difference was that he was an admirer of John Locke. For me his books were the shit. Candide – the optimist, Micromagus (man and geospatial analysis in the anti Alexander Pope sense if you asked me – none center of the universe), Zadig, the philosophical dictionary and his play the fanatical. Must read, again, if u asks me.

6] George Clinton – “Not just knee deep she was totally deep, when she did the freak with me” and “no head no backstage pass”. What else can I say. Oh yea, can u say FUNKY?

7] Malcolm X (1925 – 1965) - Can you say epitome of well read and riffle? Where would I be without my SKS and the 7.52 slug (full metal jacket of course, with potassium cyanide and candle wax over the top, I know TMI)?

8] Arthur Ashe (1943 - 1993) - Character and integrity, faith and truth, that’s what he defines. And last of the powerful one hand backhands, next to me, but you should have known that. My complete tennis idol. Taught me how to incorporate the game of the swed’s into mine. Shouts out to Joakim Nyström, Mats Wilander, Björn Borg, Anders Järryd, and Stefan Edberg. Long live the high looping forehand. Ashe was one of the first to speak out againts Aparthied and as result, he was excluded from the Davis Cup competition. in South Africa on March 23, 1970, because the country denied him a Visa. Add to that, his afro was tight.

9-tie] Denmark Vessey (1767 – 1822) & Nat Turner (1800 – 1831) – The essence of live free or die, and if I have to tell yawl more about folks who had their heads stuck on poles on the road leading out of town, or one who was lynched in Jerusalem, Virginia, the yawl really aint my folk Jones. But for the record, Vessey was a real man, it cost him $600.00 to buy his own freedom, a lot back in the day but he was not able to purchase the freedom of his wife and two children - Thats him in the pic with his back whipped all up. Nat, well after killing ONLY 50 white folks, they celebrated and had picnics on the Sunday of his lynching, I mean execution.

10] Sheldon Gilbert – Young cat, your folk can can learn from themm too. 32 year old CEO of Proclivity Systems. A Yale graduate. Also conducted genetic genetic research at Cornell University Medical Center and Rockefeller University. A self taught computer programer, he dropped out of the PhD program in computational genomics at New York University. His programing genious has moved beyond that of the basic Google-like searh engine. His is predictive, and analyzes the data left behind from a persons interaction on a Web site. Now a search engine that predics one future searches – that’s ingenious.

Rounding out the list: Ida B. Wells, Muhammad Ali, W.E.B. Dubois, Corretta Scott King, Paul Roberson, Pam Grier. Jack Tatum, James Vander Zee, Richard Pryor.

what would they say

My Boy Tone just lost his mother and my boy Smoove just lost his father. I couldn’t make Tone’s mom’s funeral, since it was in Oakland, but I checked on him as well as gave him his space. But I was able to make my boy Smoove’s father’s funeral.

Just looking at him comfort his mother and his children and his sisters made me understand why he was my boy. He was real and compassionate and creative. I feel that I would have seen and felt the same way if I was at Tone’s mom’s funeral.

I also started to wonder, as I listened to the service, what would my funeral be like? Would they say that I was a good person, that I was kind and giving? Would they honor that I was a hard working man, with a great work ethic, whom worked and provided for his family days up until my death? Would they say that my daughter had my eyes or that my son would have my smile and that thy both had the essence of my spirit? Would they recant that I lived a good life, that I loved living, loved life and loved others as I did myself, even my enemies?

What would they say, for I am not afraid to die, nor am I afraid to Live.

2 things

1] It is a shame when I have to say that I am glad to hear that a rapper at age 33 dies of natural causes and not of gun shot wounds


2] My son’s favorite song when he first started to talk was “Pocket full of stones” by UGK.



Chad Butler, dead, dang. I used to only listen to three six mafia, UGK and 8ball and MJG when I was finishing my PhD. In the late 80’s and early 90s, that’s all we had in the dirty.

will the real terrorist please stand up

In a few years from now, I may not be able or worse, imprisoned or executed for writing some of the things or expressing my personal views, I the manner I desire on such topics. In particular if Senate Bill S.1959 has its way. S. 1959 A bill to establish the National Commission on the Prevention of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism, and for other purposes. The billed has just passed in the house (H.R. 1955) and now is headed to the Senate. To add another stupid pet trick to the mix, the bill only targets United States citizens and make continuous use of basic Constitutional protections it targets in an effort to fight supposedly home grown terrorism.

The general purview for such a law is scary for two reason, first it is buttressed on the assumption that since 9/11, America is less safe (been the same to me all my as a man of color). The second is that the wording is unclear and vague at best. Based on the way it reads, this act could be easily used to label anyone or group that has strong critisim of the government. For example, in section 899a, “violent radicalization” is stated to “means the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to advance political, religious, or social change.” In the same section, Ideologically based violence ” is defined as “the use, planned use, or threatened use of force or violence by a group or individual to promote the group or individual's political, religious, or social beliefs.

Now I may be wrong, but are they saying “thought crimes” in the Orwellian sense, or as they put it, “Planned use” can be looked as an act of terror? Would my thoughts if perceived as hostile to a selected administration and being against our war efforts, posted on the Internet via my blog be considered as acts of terror?

I say yes. In section 899b, finding (3), it is written that “The Internet has aided in facilitating violent radicalization, ideologically based violence, and the homegrown terrorism process in the United States by providing access to broad and constant streams of terrorist-related propaganda to United States citizens.”

The bill is supposed to be an amendment to the Homeland Security Act of 2002 and in the house, was sponsored by Rep. Jane Harmon (D-CA) -in picture. If you asked me, she should be the poster girl for what a homegrown terrorist looks like. For anyone who attempts to restrict my personal liberties under the guise of fear and paranoia, is the real terrorist – so stand up lil momma.