The Sound of Taps

Writen by Carla Philpot

The downstairs classrooms of my Catholic grade school were each painted a different color. All the walls were the same uneven stucco, a bump here or there calling out to me to run my hand over them. Sometimes in the rush to line up for morning prayers, an overzealous classmate would push me into the wall and a sharp stucco glob would jab me in the arm. The classrooms of the lower grades downstairs were each painted a primary color. The first grade classroom was the garish yellow of yield signs. The second grade room was a flat tomato red, and so on. Upstairs, where the upper grades were located, the walls were painted in soft pastels, the colors of babies rooms long forgotten.

I suppose the point was to stimulate your thoughts in the low grades, and calm you down when you reached adolescence. I was in fourth grade, one year away from that prized, magical transformation everyone thought happened the minute you set foot in the upper floor classrooms. The kids that had been downstairs with us the year earlier were now admired from afar because they became part of the “upper floor.” Last year, we played on the playground with them, sat together during mass, traded brown bag lunch items, gagged together over the snot-like tendencies of the cafeteria’s turkey gravy. But now, now they were the mythical dwellers of the second floor. They seemed surrounded by a glowing aura of maturity. How I longed to be one of them.

This was my second school year at St. Agnes. I was not Catholic, nor was any of my family. But my mother, disgusted with the state of the public system after my former elementary was decorated with used maxi pads, wrote a borderline bad-check for the first year of tuition, and plopped me down into these halls dedicated to Mary, Mother of God. I had cried for two weeks straight upon arriving. My plaid uniform was strange and itchy. I was mesmerized by the single thread of neon green that ran through the otherwise somber grey plaid. All the others kids in this school seemed to start each day with a heartfelt Our Father and Apostle’s Creed. I had no idea what they were talking about. Unaware of my two- grade higher reading level, the nun who was my teacher put me in the slow reader’s corner. This nun, when reading, pronounced the letter “a” sound in a word like “ah”, as in “Jack had ah ball.

At my old school, it was pronounced with a long sound, like “ay.” I burst into tears at my frustration over the two, and my mother was called into school for a meeting. She was called again when the nuns became unhappy about my slanted handwriting and the messy state of my cubbyhole desk. How in the world was I supposed to fit thick spelling, math, handwriting, and religion books into that little desk, anyway? My mother didn’t show for that meeting, sending a note with me instead informing the nuns of the migraine that prevented her from attending. The nuns sort of gave up on me after that.

I was always last in line as the classes queued up for Wednesday and Friday mass. We were required to line up with partners. I was consistently paired up with the only other non-Catholic in the class. Her name was Ling and she was a refugee from Cambodia. The church had taken in her family. When she and her family first came, our school held a clothing drive because Ling’s family had left Cambodia with just the clothes on their backs. Ling did not speak a word of English, and I was sure she was the only one beside me who had no idea who Art was and why he was with Our Father in Heaven.

During my first years at St. Agnes’, girls were required to cover their heads upon entering church. Some girls had lacy mantillas to wear, delicate head-doilies with bobby pins clipping it tight to their head. One girl had an antique mantilla that had been her grandmother’s when she attended St. Agnes. The girl’s name was Roberta, but everyone called her Robbie, the ultimate cool nickname. She was always picked to play Mary during the Christmas play. Her hair was long and cascaded over her shoulders under her head covering. My hair had been that long, until last year when my mother cut it off in her frustration at my lack of hair brushing diligence. My hair was now short, and my mother was always forgetting to give me back the one mantilla I had after she washed it. Sometimes when I forgot, the teacher would let me stay behind in the classroom while the others went to mass.

But my third grade teacher, appropriately named Mrs. Hunn, found it her personal duty to fill up the pews of St. Agnes with as many young minds as possible. Mrs. Hunn was small and dusty, but she was strong through the Lord, she liked to say. The two times I forgot my head covering, she made me use a Kleenex. I had to stand at the front of the class while she unfolded it and tried to make it stay on my head. It kept slipping off, so she doubled up scotch tape and stuck it to the Kleenex, then stuck it to my hair. Once she accidentally put her finger through the Kleenex and made a big hole. So, not only did I have a Kleenex on my head, but the Kleenex had a big hole, which, to me, is not really covering my head, so what’s the point?

The uniforms for St. Agnes were so thick and hard, I longed for the comfort of a burlap sack. In the hot summertime, these uniforms of boiled wool would stand on their own, regardless of having a body inside. Up until fifth grade, girls were required to wear a pinafore jumper skirt, which had a chest flap to cover up the idea of any boob potential. In fifth grade, the pinafore was shed and girls wore just a skirt and blouse. Boob potential became more a reality after fifth grade, so I never did understand the point of taking off the pinafore. The standard issue blue uniform blouses had a rounded collar and were consistently paper- thin. Repeated washings made them even more so, so by the end of the school year, girls were going around practically topless. But, in the name of modesty preservation, girls were required to wear thick white socks pulled to the knee. The only outlet for creativity was shoes. The kids expressed themselves through colored Converse high tops, or Nikes with bright swooshes.

One year, the rage was bright white Nikes with a blazing red stripe. I wanted a pair so bad. I begged for them for three months, and finally my dad took me to the store to get some. But they were sold out. Instead, he bought me a pair of cheap white canvas shoes and a red magic marker, and told me to be creative.

One year, the fashion rage was to put metal taps on the soles of your winter boots. The taps made a delicious clicking sound on the cold, waxed stone floors of St. Agnes, and during lunchtime it sounded like a symphony of percussion ringing through the halls. In our class, Robbie was the first to get taps, and the rest of us quickly followed suit. My dad tried to just stick RC Cola bottle caps into the rubber soles of my shoes, but they kept falling out at the least opportune moments. After much begging and pleading, he finally took my shoes downtown to the shoe store and had them put on real taps.

That was the same year I had Sister Mary Margaret for my homeroom teacher. She was an old nun and still wore a wimple. Sometimes you could see her hair and it was gray and stringy. She looked a lot like the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz. Sister Mary Margaret was not a mean teacher, but you could tell she had been around since the first Pope John Paul. It was always considered lucky to get Sister Mary Margaret for a teacher, though, because Sister Mary Margaret had narcolepsy. She would doze off at the drop of a hat, and would sleep for a good fifteen minutes at a time. The school principal, Sister Catherine Patience, told us that we were to simply continue with our lesson until Sister Mary Margaret wakes up, or, if that were not possible, we were to get out our rosaries and have Robbie the beautiful and perfect lead the class in a round of Hail Marys.

One beautiful spring day, just as Sister Mary Margaret was starting a lesson in prepositions, her head dropped to her desk, and the snoring began. It was her longest nap yet, and the classroom became restless. When it became evident Sister Mary Margaret might be out for a while, kids got up from their desks and milled around, visiting one another. One of the most popular boys in our grade, Matt Thompson, decided to sneak along the floor under Robbie’s desk and get a peek up her uniform skirt. He was under her desk, gesturing wildly to his friends, when Robbie reacted. Her shoe, with its metal tap attached, swung up and caught Matt square on the mouth. The metal tap became lodged in his lip. He was frantically trying to get it dislodged, but Robbie thought he was only being obscene. She screamed and jerked her foot away as hard as she could, taking Matt’s upper lip with it. Blood squirted in a high arc over the room and sprayed a red mist over Sister Mary Margaret’s white wimple. Kids were yelling, Robbie was crying, and Matt lay gasping in a heap on the floor, both hands covering his massacred mouth. Sister Mary Margaret awoke with a start, surveyed the scene of blood and panic laid out before her, and promptly passed out.

For the rest of that school year, the tap and mouth incident was all anyone could talk about. It was rumored that Robbie’s parents threatened to sue Matt’s parents, and then Matt’s parents sued Robbie’s family for medical expenses. I think it would have been a great ending to the story of Matt and Robbie and the tap and the lip if they had grown up and gotten married. What a story to tell the grandkids. But I have no idea what happened to Matt and Robbie, or any one else at St. Agnes’. The following school year, my mother, disgusted with the state of Catholic schools, plopped me right back into the public school system. I never wore a uniform again.

I visited a Catholic school a few years ago when I was looking into schools for my own children. Driven, just like my mother twenty-years ago, by the sad state of the local public school. I was surprised to learn that now only one in ten families there are actually Catholic. No one covered their head during mass. Some people even wore jeans. As I kneeled down, the kneelers were cushioned and thick, unlike my brief Catholic school days when the kneelers were solid wood and extra splintery. The kids were still in uniform, but they wore navy pants and white button down shirts. I laughed to look down and notice their bright colored Converse sneakers. No taps, though. Those were probably outlawed.

It is amazing how the smell of a Catholic church never changes, no matter where you are in the world. The thick smells of incense, wax, and age. I decided to stay for the entire mass. Nothing had changed in all those years. I still looked on while the parishioners filed before me and headed to the altar to receive Holy Communion. I felt both peace and nervousness of being somewhere where I don’t belong. At first I mouthed along during the Apostle’s Creed, and then I realized that I still remembered all the words.

Copyright 2006 Carla Philpot
Editor and Guest Author for:
http://www.respectfully-pattipacifico.com

Dame Muriel Spark

Writen by Sharon White

I have read the article about one of the most famous and prominent modern writers of England, Dame Muriel Spark. It is believed that writers and art people in general have their own superstitions about the way the work is done and masterpieces are created. For example, a lot of them use only their own tools in work, as for Mrs. Spark, she is used to writing with her special pens and if someone else uses them, she will throw them away. Or for instance, she has been buying notebooks of only one kind at a certain store for years.

But this “fetish” about writing materials is not the only characteristic of a usual writer. Just like most of famous and talented people Muriel Spark had given all her life to her work, her fame and readers’ respect cost her her marriage and old friends, she had to leave her native London and move to different cities of the world.

Her first novel “The Comforters” was written with the help of her friend, a famous writer himself Graham Green. He believed in a talent of a young woman, who had just returned from South Africa after a bad marriage. His help was in 20 pounds that he paid her every month while she was working on her novel. But the real success came to her after her book “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” was published and later made into a film. It tells the story of a teacher who encouraged her students to believe in themselves. Muriel Spark created this character from a real image of her own teacher who made her realize her talent when she was at school.

By the way Mrs. Muriel Spark gave a donation of ten thousand pounds to her school, which had played a great part in shaping of her character and career. She also received the David Cohen British Literature Prize, which is one of the most prestigious literary awards in Great Britain. While writing her books the writer used her own life experience and believes as the basic in the novels.

Malice In "I Wonder Who I Am" Land

Writen by James Snyder

For many years I maintained confidence in my personal identity. I knew exactly who I was and was quite comfortable in my skin. Although, I must confess my skin used to fit me better than it does these days.

Recently several things happened to shake this confidence in my person. I don’t know about anyone else, but I take pride in my personal mettle.

About two months ago my credit card company informed me somebody hacked into their records and stole my identity, along with approximately one million other customers. They went on to assure me that my account would be safe.

It wasn’t my money I was worried about at the time but my identity. How can anybody steal someone else’s identity?

More important than that, why would anybody want to steal somebody else’s identity? Especially somebody like me.

In thinking about this I wondered, how much can I charge someone for borrowing my identity? I might have a cottage industry here in the making. Or, perhaps it’s just cottage cheese.

I could understand if I were a good looking, rich tycoon with more dollars than sense. I’ve been looking for money all my life and have been unsuccessful. I am so poor some church mice have loaned me a dollar or two over the years. And if I ever see those mice again I aim to repay those loans.

The way I feel about it is if anyone can get money out of my account, good luck to them, because I can never get money out of my account when I need it. In fact, I have a good mind to find these identity thieves and ask how they’re getting money out of my account.

I’d pay good money to find the secret to that puzzle.

The ATM at my bank stands for Automatic Thief Machine. It holds me up from getting to my next appointment with cash and never returns my card.

A second incident furthered my identity malaise. A few days ago, the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage and Yours Truly were in a little bit of a tight spot. Actually, it was I in the tight spot, which is nothing new for me.

I can’t remember the events leading up to the spot I found myself but my wife looked at me, placed both hands on her hips and declaimed, “Who do you think you are?”

At the time, I did not know quite how to answer that philosophical inquiry. I mean, she has known me for over 35 years ,and for her not to know who I am at this point is just a little bit puzzling to me.

At the time, I must confess, I was a little confused about who she thought she was. Being the gentleman I am, I kept my befuddlement to myself.

My selfhood perplexity deepened. One day this week, I was going about minding my own business n which is a full-time job with part-time pay and no benefits n when I bumped into an old friend. After we exchanged a few pleasantries, he looked at me and said, “Is there anything wrong? You don’t look yourself today.”

Now, the question plaguing my mind was simply, if I don’t look like me, who in the world do I look like?

I simply smiled and mumbled something to the effect that recently somebody had stolen my identity. Frankly, I was surprised someone noticed it.

In thinking about this, I wondered when someone’s identity is lost where does it go? Is there a lost and found department somewhere for lost identities?

Then an awful thought tugged at my mind. What if someone lost their identity, went to the lost and found department and, by mistake, picked up someone else’s lost identity?

How do I know it hasn’t happened to me? What proof do I have that I am who I say I am?

The evidence before me is quite overwhelming. A major corporation in the United States has informed me that someone has stolen my identity; my wife asked me who do I think I am; and a friend I’ve known for years tells me I don’t look like myself.

Talk about having your reality check bounce.

I must confess to times when my mind does wander a trifle. But I refuse to accept the judgment that I am absent-minded. I grant you my mind, on the odd occasion, does take a little break every now and then, but it is never absent.

This recent identity crisis caused me to do a little evaluating about my personhood. Who am I really? I jotted down a few notes: son, brother, uncle, husband, father and grandfather.

Although I’m not old enough to be a grandfather, I do accept the privileges of this position. After all, I’m living with a grandmother, so it is easier just to go along with the program, if you know what I mean.

Then a marvelous thought poked its way into my mind. How it got in with all the clutter is beyond me.

The thought was simply this; I am also a son of God. This is based upon a wonderful verse of scripture. “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.” (John 1:12 KJV.)

I’m unsure about many things, but one thing I am confident in is my relationship to God.

James L. Snyder is an award winning author and popular columnist living with his wife, Martha, in Ocala, Florida and can be contacted at jamessnyder2@att.net.

Jewelry Making for Fun and Profit

Writen by Sam Serio

There is an old adage that says work isn’t really work if you enjoy what you’re doing. If one of your hobbies is jewelry making, why not turn this activity into a source of income? You’re already having fun anyway, and it wouldn’t take a whole lot more to share your jewelry creations with people who would appreciate them and be more than happy to pay for them. With a bit of extra effort, time management and discipline, jewelry making is a great way to have fun and make a bit of extra money on the side.

Whether you’re a novice about to enter the jewelry making field for the first time or whether you’ve been doing this for some time now, there are always several basic factors to consider. First, it’s important to have an adequate amount of space where you can work unbothered for a certain length of time each day and where you can store your jewelry making materials and tools. It doesn’t have to be a large space, just a corner or room where you can concentrate on bringing your ideas to life and be free from undue distractions.

Second, if you haven’t already, decide on the kind of jewelry you are going to make. If you’re just getting your feet wet in the jewelry making arena, start out with something simple. Think about what type of jewelry you’d enjoy and feel comfortable wearing and go on from there. Whatever materials you might need are readily available either on the Internet or in a physical retail store. Then, as you become more adept at what you’re doing, you can start exploring other, more complex jewelry making techniques. Remember, there is a plethora of information resources to help you make money from your hobby: books, specialty magazines, the Internet, and other jewelry makers.

After you’ve made a number of jewelry items, there are steps you can take to get other people interested in them. Be a walking advertisement for your jewelry making business. Wear some of your creations whenever you go out: wear them to work, when you go to the supermarket, or when you attend parties. Word of mouth is also a great way to let other people know about your jewelry making endeavor. Show some of your finished pieces to family and friends, and encourage them to spread the word.

The important thing to remember is that you continue to enjoy making jewelry and to take pride in your creations. Your love for jewelry making will be the key factor in maintaining your creativity level and it will help you come up with the designs that appreciative customers will buy. Never forget the ‘fun’ factor in jewelry making, as this will be reflected in your work, and the ‘profit’ factor will follow.

Sam Serio is an Internet Marketer, musician and a writer on the subject of jewelry and gemstones. For more information on jewelry and gemstones, we cordially invite you to visit http://www.morninglightjewelry.com to pick up your FREE copy of “How To Buy Jewelry And Gemstones Without Being Ripped Off.” This concise, informative special report reveals almost everything you ever wanted to know about jewelry and gemstones, but were afraid to ask. Get your FREE report at http://www.morninglightjewelry.com

What Happened on June 21

Writen by Ryan Fyfe

June 21 is always the 172nd day of the year, unless it’s a leap year in which it is the 173rd day of the year. This is on a Gregorian calendar, which leaves 193 days remaining until January 1st, where a new year begins. June 21 marks the summer solstice in the northern hemisphere and the winter solstice in the southern hemisphere. That means that June 21 is typically the day of the year year with the longest hours of daylight in the northern hemisphere and the shortest in the southern hemisphere.

You can tell already that June 21 is an important date to mark for several reasons. Here are several events that have happened on June 21 in the past:

Empathy: The Key to Positive Human Interaction

Writen by Joy Cagil

Yesterday, I had a discussion over empathy with somebody close to me who said, “Empathy is most needed in human communication, but empathy without sympathy has no humanistic value. A con man may feel empathy for you, but if he has no morals or feelings of sympathy, he can use that empathy against you.”

This made me reflect on empathy. To me, empathy is a process of understanding and feeling into another person, as well as it is an internal reaction activated by a cue from the other person.

On Empathy, Encyclopedia Britannica says: “”The ability to imagine oneself in another’s place and understand the other’s feelings, desires, ideas, and actions. It is a term coined in the early 20th century, equivalent to the German Einf

Follow Instructions Carefully

Writen by Joylita Saldanha

Whoever said, “If at first you don’t succeed, follow the instructions” must have lived in a simple world. If he (it can be logically deduced that it wasn’t a ’she’) was alive today, the sheer complexity of the ’simple’ instructions would have had him perplexed and in a state of anxiety.

Literacy is on an all time high, yet, simple tasks call for step-by-step instructions. However, I’m thankful for the instructions on the pack of hair color and my new cell phone. Where would I have been had it not been for that microscopically fine print?

It is highly frustrating, though, when by a certain law of nature the body and the mind don’t work in tandem. Like the packet of tomato ketchup waiting to be spread on a burger. There will be an indentation or a ‘TEAR HERE’ written in bold letters, or both, but what do we do? We try any of the below mentioned methods or in a state of frustration, a combination of all three:

Try tearing it open using our teeth and in the process, discover a new yoga posture.

Burst the packet so that there is a shower of ketchup on yourself as well as the person seated next to you.

Look at the packet in bewilderment; smile a toothy grin at the companion and say, “Will you please open this for me?”(Who always manages to open it right)

Consider Women’s cosmetics my night cream with its strange permutations and combinations of scientific words has me transfixed, if not confused. “Alpha Hydroxy acids in a scientific blend of blah and more blah”. Can anyone care to explain that in layman’s terms? If you are lucky, the instructions could be as simple as “Apply at night” but if Lady Luck decides to desert you, I suggest you dump the cream altogether. Deciphering the description-cum-instruction-cum-ingredient list can be daunting, to put it mildly.

Doors”Push” or “Pull”. Just two words seem to define their existence. How often have I pushed the door when it said, in big black bold letters, PULL? Too many to be remembered. The thought sequence is always present, “Joy, if it says ‘pull’pull open the door, DON’T push it.” In spite of walking through that door a hundred times, the person on the side making use of his dumb charade skills and the six year old opening the door for me, I remain incorrigible.

ATM’s have seen me fumble in spite of them being my places of constant visits (over a hundred times a year). After all the innumerable times I have paid homage to the ATM (by now I have begun to think of the ATM as a holy site), I need the prompts. Mind you, following the prompts doesn’t necessarily mean you will get it right.

Instruction dependency rules my life. It, surely, rules every other human, as well. Super humans are not taken into consideration.

Sometimes, I wish even people I come into contact with had instruction manuals. You know, they would just pop out like a fax the moment we shook hands with them or gave them a peck on the cheek. Consider:

Men: Only for simple tasks. Difficulty is beyond the limit of perception.

Women: complicates anything and everything. Extremely volatile, handle with utmost care.

Children: Human time bombs. Never know when they are ticking and where they are planning to explode. Patience radar always to be on High Alert. Relatives: Simply add to important social event. Stir. Public Embarrassment guaranteed.

Overloaded with instructions, the thin line, which separates times when we need them and times when they are redundant, is blurred. In the meantime, the butter popcorn needs to be popped but I’m yet to read the instructions

The author is a student of engineering in India. With her fingers in many a cream-cakes, she leaves her sticky marks everywhere, including the net. Especially at joylita.livejournal.com

Slavery Reparations: Past Overdue

Writen by William Sutherland

The annals of history are stained by an undeniable era of darkness; though the genocide remains unspoken, trivialized and sanitized - Africans and persons of color were the victims of an unimaginable holocaust that spanned 400 years costing between 50 and 100 million lives.

With their dignity stripped, their beauty and worth denied, and families cruelly torn apart, a proud people were made outcasts in hostile, foreign lands and reduced to material property to labor and toil by an unenlightened society. Bound in chains, an innocent people were stuffed in squalid ship holes to die of hunger and sickness, to drown in ferocious storms or to survive to live an existence of degradation and hell[1]

When Union forces captured the South in 1865 and put a formal end to slavery and its cruel and degrading practices, President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) and the federal government focused on restitution and reconstruction. The earliest reparations plan offered each freed slave 40 acres of land and a mule to work this land.

Under the auspices of this plan, General William Sherman (1820-1891) “set aside tracts of land in the sea islands around Charleston, SC”[2] exclusively for freed slaves. Within a short time, about “40,000 freed slaves [had been] settled on 400,000 acres in Georgia and South Carolina.”[3]

However, when President Lincoln was assassinated, his successor, Andrew Johnson (1808-1875), a southerner from North Carolina, rescinded the federal government’s promise and reversed the reparations program. Former slaves were then evicted from their new lands that reverted back to white ownership. Despite Johnson’s opposition, Congressman Thaddeus Stevens (1792-1868) made a feeble attempt in 1867 proposing an unsuccessful bill that again called for distributing land to freed slaves.

Ten years later, when reconstruction ended followed by the passage of repressive, restrictive laws (e.g. Jim Crow) and the formation of white terrorist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in the south, plans to address “the atrocities of slavery” and compensate its victims were forgotten. Afterwards, African-Americans saw little justice, were denied their constitutional rights, and subjected to terrorism (e.g. the entire town of Rosewood, FL was destroyed in January 1923 by white mobs while local officials sworn to uphold the law watched and even participated, leaving up to 80 black men, women, and children dead) and illegal lynching for nearly 100 years until the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s finally liberated them.

By the time Lincoln’s “Emancipation Proclamation” was implemented through force, four million Africans and their descendants had been enslaved in the U.S. and its colonies from 1619 to 1865, which played an integral role in leading to and accelerating America’s rise in becoming the “most prosperous country.” With this fact, the original promise implemented by General Sherman, calculations of the “sum total of the worth of all the Black labor stolen through means of slavery, segregation, and contemporary discrimination” ranging from $5 to $24 trillion, and estimates of the original plots given to and then stolen from freed slaves being valued at about $1.5 million each,[4] the time for slave reparations is past overdue when the concept of “unjust enrichment” is pursued as advocated by Randall Robinson, the author of “The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks.”

Accordingly, despite many obstacles, including legal and low support among whites, the slavery reparations movement has been revived and is “gaining momentum.”[5] In 1989, Congressman John Conyers (b. 1929) introduced H.R. 40 “to examine the effects [that slavery and its remnants -] Jim Crow have had on African-Americans since emancipation,”[6] which to date lacks the necessary support required for passage. Next in 2000, based on careful research by Deadria Farmer-Paellmann (b. 1965), an Adjunct Professor of Law at Southern New England School of Law, who discovered evidence that Aetna wrote “policies on the lives of enslaved Africans with slave owners as the beneficiaries,” the company issued an “unprecedented apology” giving birth to the “corporate restitution movement.”[7]

By 2002, nine lawsuits had been filed, the most notable in the federal courthouse in Brooklyn, NY against FleetBoston Financial, CSX (a major railways firm) and Aetna for direct involvement in the slave trade. Currently cases are pending “against 20 companies from the banking, insurance, textile, railroad, and tobacco industries.” At the same time, California and twelve other states have enacted disclosure laws requiring insurance companies doing business within their boundaries to reveal “their role in slavery,” while boycotts are being staged against firms named in the Farmer-Paellmann litigation that are challenging restitution demands.[8]

Despite critics, the case for slavery reparations is convincing and strong:

The disparity between African Americans and Whites ($6000 vs. $88,000 net worth) would have been significantly smaller had President Johnson not rescinded Lincoln’s original promise or if the 1867 Reparations bill would have passed giving freed slaves “an economic foothold before waves of European immigrants poured into the U.S. during the latter decades of the 1800s.[9]

The United States has already given land away in its 230-year history. Approximately 246 million acres of “productive” land was given to about 1.5 million people through the Homestead Act. Ironically out of the 1.5 million beneficiaries that included many white immigrants, there were only 4000 native African Americans.

Internationally, land has also been awarded to compensate victims of injustices. The most notable example is the creation of Israel, which has benefited countless Holocaust (1938-1945) victims and their families.

Precedents also exist for monetary payments to victims of injustices. Since 1952, the German government and corporations (along with those of Austria and Switzerland, to name others) have paid more than $120 billion to fund early Israeli projects and compensate Holocaust survivors. Presently about 120,000 Holocaust survivors (once about 275,000) are still receiving lifetime reparation payments. At the same time, “Japanese-Americans interned during World War II are receiving reparation for their loss of property and liberty during that period” after filing a lawsuit under the Federal Tort Claims Act, which “waives the government’s ’sovereign immunity’ in some situations,”[10] and American Indian tribes have and continue to receive compensation for “lands ceded to the U.S. by them in various treaties.”[11]

Many ask, “Would reparations for slavery be just?”[12] arguing that the practice was originally legal, “[n]ot a single person directly affected by slavery remains alive,”[13] the cost of tracing lineages to slaves would be unbearable, the process next to impossible, “no one alive today owned slaves,” and that “payments based on race alone would be perceived as a monstrous injustice setting back race relations”[14] without healing “the ills of the black community.”[15]

Considering that, while every slave and his/her direct family are deceased, African Americans continued to suffer disproportionately from segregation, discrimination, and barbaric attacks into the late 20th century, and at times continue to be the victims of bias (e.g. racial profiling when it comes to jobs, shopping, law enforcement and voting despite equal opportunity and equal protection laws and the 1964 Civil Rights Act), remain disproportionately disenfranchised when it comes to net worth and home ownership and still suffer from a sense of a lack of self-worth versus today’s black immigrants, slavery reparations are not only just but necessary.

Holocaust reparations continue to be paid even though the genocide that murdered more than 7 million, predominantly Jews along with opponents of Adolf Hitler’s (1889-1945) regime and other “non-Aryans” (persons with fair-skin, light hair, and blue eyes), was legal under the democratically elected Third Reich (1933-1945) government. Thus arguments that corporations should not be punished for “legal” acts are baseless. In reality, slavery was as morally repugnant as the Holocaust and “corporations that benefited from staling people, from stealing labor, from forced breeding, from torture, from committing numerous horrendous acts,” in the words of Farmer-Paellmann “should [not] be able to hold onto assets they acquired through such horrendous acts.”[16]

Back in 1999, more than 50 years after the end of the Holocaust, Jewish groups seeking at least $20 billion in new reparations called a $3.3 billion offer made by a German delegation representing the country’s government and corporations “disgusting.” They later agreed on a $5.2 billion “Nazi slave [compensation] fund” that was approved by the German Parliament in 2000. However, while these negotiations were being held, “the World Council of Orthodox Jewish Communities filed a[nother] lawsuit in the U.S. against Deutsche Bank, Germany’s second-largest bank, alleging that it funded and profited from Nazi atrocities.”[17]

Based on these two cases alone, the passage of time and existing “legalities” of the prevailing era, are irrelevant when it comes to redressing inhuman acts like the Holocaust and slavery if justice is to be served. “Slavery harmed slaves and thus, indirectly, their descendants.”[18] Furthermore, as there is no statute of limitations when it comes to the Holocaust, it can also be argued that none should exist when it comes to slavery especially since “African Americans were not allowed access to the courts in any meaningful way - even long after the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery was passed [in December 1865].” Also, consistent with California’s legislation that revised existing statutes of limitations to ensure that “certain Holocaust suits would not be time-barred,”[19] legislation can also provide extensions to African Americans so as not to perpetuate past injustices that were every bit as evil as those committed by the Third Reich.

Therefore, arguments that slavery reparations are illogical and “that tax dollars [and corporate holdings] should not be used for [this] compensation”[20] are equally as “disgusting.” Per Dr. Martin Luther King (1929-1968), the only practical route is for “all citizens [to] engage as full participants in a dialogue examining what is the cost of repairing our society to make it equally accessible to everyone”[21] rather than dismissing and denying the need for past due reparations to the African American community.

In addition, the commentary offered during the 1999 Holocaust compensation fight regarding monetary payments is as appropriate to slavery reparations as it was during these negotiations when it was stated, “how to quantify this in financial terms is a difficult question Money itself cannot bring back the dead, nor can it erase the memory of years of forced labor, but those seeking compensation say it may be the best system there is.”[22] While no amount of money nor steps can redress the sins of slavery, such reparations with a formal national condemnation of and apology for the practice can bring justice and healing, boost the self-esteem of African Americans, reduce current racial net worth and private property ownership gaps, improve standards of life for black Americans, and provide them with new opportunities that might otherwise remain unattainable for generations to come.

Although it may be impossible to give direct compensation to most slave descendants, every effort should be made to locate and compensate those with confirmed direct lineages and to African Americans who had suffered under segregation. In addition, slavery reparations funds should contribute to black foundations, black scholarships, and black community projects aimed at improving infrastructure and standards of life, especially since precedents already exist for the latter. When Germany began Holocaust reparations payments, Bonn “funded about a third of the total investment in Israel’s electrical system and nearly half the total investment in [Israel's] railways, [consisting of] diesel engines, cars, tracks, and signaling equipment [along with] equipment for [agriculture, construction, expanding the country's] water supply, for oil drilling, and for operating the [country's] copper mines.”[23]

Based on the examples of national corporate and government contributions to Holocaust reparations funds, it is not impractical, nor unfeasible for the governments and corporations of the United States, United Kingdom and other European states that benefited from slavery to make payments to slavery reparations funds. When the United States is considered, many of the named firms that have directly and/or indirectly benefited from slavery have sufficient assets and annual profits while the national government has millions of acres of federal land and holdings to utilize for slavery reparations.

Furthermore, the federal government could add a line underneath the “Presidential Election Campaign” section that reads “Slavery and Civil Rights Reparations - Check here if you, or your spouse if filing jointly, want $3 to go to this fund” on every federal tax return while states, especially those in the south that benefited the most from the slave trade and labor, most of which already have contribution lines for causes ranging from breast cancer research to wildlife, could also add such a line.

In conclusion, the African American community and advocates for justice must stand united and demand slavery reparations as stridently as the Jewish community and advocates for justice have for Holocaust compensation. Both abominations require reparations and redress since they share great similarities - morally repugnant brutal treatment and forced labor considered legal in their respective times under ruling governments that perpetrated and encouraged them, and each has cost millions of lives. As the BBC states in “The long fight for Holocaust compensation” reparations are “particularly pertinent for a generation that has little direct memory of the Holocaust [since these financial payments are] akin to acknowledging the horrors of the past and the responsibility of the present generation for ensuring that it does not happen again” such payments are equally applicable for the past practice of slavery.

In the accurate and eloquent words of Kimberley Jane Wilson, “American slavery was a sin The principles of liberty, justice and equality didn’t apply to the millions of Africans brought to America against their will. Our history is full of racial ironies. When Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) wrote, ‘All men are created equal,’ he owned 187 slaves. Patrick Henry (1736-1799) owned over 90 slaves when he shouted the famous words, ‘Give me liberty or give me death!’ Union General Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885) fought the Confederacy, but didn’t free his own slaves until Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Even after slavery ended, America - the beacon of freedom to people all over the world - still treated black Americans with indignity and, on occasion, savage cruelty.”[24]

Accordingly the long wait and many denials must end so that accruing damages can be mitigated and healing can begin. Slavery reparations must be made as soon as possible to establish greater unity with improved standards of life for all, including African Americans. Only then can racism, even if predominantly de facto in nature, be extinguished for once and for all.

__________

[1] William Sutherland. The Unspoken Holocaust. The International Who’s Who In Poetry. (The International Library of Poetry. Owings Mills, MD 2004) 3.

[2] Reparations for slavery. Wikipedia. 4 September 2006. 16 September 2006. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reparations_for_slavery

[3] Reparations for slavery. Wikipedia. 4 September 2006. 16 September 2006. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reparations_for_slavery

[4] William Reed. Blacks worth $6k; whites $88k. Insight News. 12 September 2006. 16 September 2006. http://www.insightnews.com/business.asp?mode=display&articleID=2617

[5] Making Amends: Debate Continues Over Reparations for U.S. Slavery. NPR. 12 September 2006. 16 September 2006. http://www.npr.org/programs/specials/racism/010827.reparations.html

[6] William Reed. Blacks worth $6k; whites $88k. Insight News. 12 September 2006. 16 September 2006. http://www.insightnews.com/business.asp?mode=display&articleID=2617

[7] Reparations for slavery. Wikipedia. 4 September 2006. 16 September 2006. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reparations_for_slavery

[8] Reparations for slavery. Wikipedia. 4 September 2006. 16 September 2006. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reparations_for_slavery

[9] William Reed. Blacks worth $6k; whites $88k. Insight News. 12 September 2006. 16 September 2006. http://www.insightnews.com/business.asp?mode=display&articleID=2617

[10] Anthony J. Sebok. Should Claims Based On African-American Slavery Be Litigated In The Courts? And If So, How? FindLaw. 4 December 2000. 16 September 2006. http://writ.corporate.findlaw.com/sebok/20001204.html

[11] Reparations for slavery. Wikipedia. 4 September 2006. 16 September 2006. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reparations_for_slavery

[12] Would Reparations for Slavery be Just? The Claremont Institute. 5 May 2002. 12 September 2006. http://www.claremont.org/writings/020505erler.html

[13] Even if Millions Rally on the Mall, Reparations Won’t Heal Black America. Project 21 Press Release. 15 August 2002. 12 September 2006. http://www.nationalcenter.org/P21PRReparations802.html

[14] Civil Rights: Should Black Americans Receive Reparations Payments Because of Slavery? The National Center For Public Policy Research. 23 August 2004. 12 September 2006. http://www.nationalcenter.org/P21PRReparations802.html

[15] Even if Millions Rally on the Mall, Reparations Won’t Heal Black America. Project 21 Press Release. 15 August 2002. 12 September 2006. http://www.nationalcenter.org/P21PRReparations802.html

[16] Peter Viles. Suit seeks billions in slave reparations. CNN.com. 27 March 2002. 16 September 2006. http://archives.cnn.com/2002/LAW/03/26/slavery.reparations

[17] World: Europe Nazi slave offer ‘disgusting.’ BBC News. 7 October 1999. 12 September 2006. http://nws.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/468248.stm

[18] Civil Rights: Should Black Americans Receive Reparations Payments Because of Slavery? The National Center For Public Policy Research. 23 August 2004. 12 September 2006. http://www.nationalcenter.org/P21PRReparations802.html

[19] Anthony J. Sebok. Should Claims Based On African-American Slavery Be Litigated In The Courts? And If So, How? FindLaw. 4 December 2000. 16 September 2006. http://writ.corporate.findlaw.com/sebok/20001204.html

[20] Making Amends: Debate Continues Over Reparations for U.S. Slavery. NPR. 12 September 2006. 16 September 2006. http://www.npr.org/programs/specials/racism/010827.reparations.html

[21] Civil Rights: Should Black Americans Receive Reparations Payments Because of Slavery? The National Center For Public Policy Research. 23 August 2004. 12 September 2006. http://www.nationalcenter.org/P21PRReparations802.html

[22] The long fight for Holocaust compensation. BBC News. 26 January 2000. 12 September 2006. http://nws.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/619896.stm

[23] Norman G. Finkelstein. Lessons of Holocaust Compensation. 2001. 12 September 2006. http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=4&ar=14

[24] Kimberley Jane Wilson. Reparations, Anyone? Project 21 New Visions Commentary. August 2001. 12 September 2006. http://www.nationalcenter.org/P21NVWilsonReparations801.html

_______________

Additional Sources:

$5bn Nazi slave fund agreed.’ BBC News. 14 December 1999. 12 September 2006. http://nws.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/565116.stm

Anthony J. Sebok. A New Dream Team Intends To Seek Reparations For Slavery Part I FindLaw. 20 November 2000. 16 September 2006. http://writ.corporate.findlaw.com/sebok/20001120.html

German Parliament Passes Nazi Holocaust Compensation Bill. People’s Daily. 7 July 2000. 12 September 2006. http://english.people.com.cn/english/200007/07/eng20000707_44925.html

Holocaust reparations. Wikipedia. 25 May 2006. 16 September 2006. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_reparations

Sara R. Parsowith. Austria begins Holocaust compensation process. Jurist. 16 December 2005. 16 September 2006. http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2005/12/austria-begins-holocaust-compensation.php

The Hidden Driveway

Writen by Greg Gagliardi

I won’t lie: there are a lot of things I want in life, and some of them I’d even pay for. Rather than listing them in some aimless order so that I can feel bad about not having these things, I will instead focus on one thing that is actually attainable: a hidden driveway…

I’ve wanted a hidden driveway for as long as I can remember, which is sometime between yesterday and tomorrow. I was driving on a busy road when I saw the sign to my right that denoted the hidden driveway existed while implying I should be careful of it. And I was because who am I not to follow a sign, especially when it pertains to something hidden?

Many would consider hidden driveways to be dangerous because a person who backs out of such a location may be hit by oncoming traffic or even outgoing traffic, or even a wandering turtle with a jetpack. Sure, there are rearview and side mirrors, but those with hidden driveways are rebels, and rebels don’t use mirrors except to adjust their ski masks and glow-in-the-dark sunglasses…

One may now be wondering why I would want a hidden driveway if they are indeed so dangerous. To begin, it would help to cut down random visits from people I don’t want to see. I could even be extra nice to these people, inviting them over for the best cheesecake this side of Mouseville. But then, alas, they’d never find my driveway. Thus, I’d be known as a nice person who “unfortunately” lives at a location that is hard to find. This would also elevate the reputation of the cheesecake…

The better reason for wanting a hidden driveway, though, is that it would make me seem like a secret agent every time I leave for work, head for the local convenient store, or even move the car so that there is more room to play horseshoes. To add to the mystique of my persona, I would leave the driveway only when it is dark outside, or when everyone else is at some local festival that I skipped because of how hidden I am. Eventually, after a couple of years of keeping up this routine, I would not even need a car because no one would be able to see it anyway, which contradicts the reason for having one. Rather, I would walk everywhere that is within walking distance and everything else I would have delivered…

Such would be the life of a person with a hidden driveway. If you have one, please invite me over sometime soon so I can practice backing out of one…

But I digress.

Greg Gagliardi is a teacher and writer. His stream-of-consciousness weekly humor column, “Progressive Revelations,” has been ongoing since 1998. (http://www.ProgressiveRevelations.com)

Depressed Rabbit Attempts Suicide

Writen by Tom Attea

A male rabbit named Furball had lost all hope. The female rabbit he had lived with for an entire year had left him for another rabbit. The owner of the garden he usually dined at had just put a fence around it. A fox had nipped one of his ears. And, at his most depressed, it seemed to him that all life is mere ephemera in the eye of time.

The only thing to do was bring an end to his sorrow, hunger, pain, and inability to find meaning even in a moment. He would take his own life. The question became, how?

The first thing he did is look for a cliff to jump off of, but, alas, he lived on farmland that was pretty flat. He did find one high rock beside the pond the cows waded into each day. Up he scampered.

The challenge was to jump and hit the ground, not the pond. He resolved to end his troubled existence and off he leaped. But when he hit the ground, unfortunately, he landed on his feet. He just stood there, regretting the rock wasn’t higher.

Next, he decided to back up and run at the rock as fast as he could, head first. He hopped back far enough to give himself a good running distance and then headed for the hard immensity. He banged into at full speed and knew nothing else, because the force knocked him out.

As luck would have it, after a while, he woke up, with a thundering headache. He rubbed his aching head with his paw and decided to drown himself. He leapt toward the pond and did a belly smacker. He waited to drown. The terrible thing is, he couldn’t stop swimming. Much as he tried, there was a reflex in him that he couldn’t control. So, filled with regret, along with water that had splashed into his mouth, he paddled out and sat down by the bank to dry off.

He thought about human beings and how many ways they had to commit suicide. Why didn’t rabbits have even one? In fact, why didn’t he ever hear of a rabbit, or any other animal, committing suicide?

No, it seemed that only humans knew how to do that. What was wrong with other animals? he wondered. He signed, realizing there were just no examples in the rabbit world or the entire animal kingdom he could follow.

He felt more miserable than ever and his vision blurred, because tears welled up in his eyes. He tried to wipe them away but his paw was still wet, so the clumpy fur only irritated them and made him blink. Oh, how hopeless his life was! He could see no reason to go on. Nothing good, he was certain, would ever happen to him.

But just then something good did happen. An exceptionally cute female rabbit hopped around the corner of the rock. He saw her and just the site of her made his sullen spirits leap up.

She hopped over to him, and said, “You look very sad. What’s wrong?”

“I want to kill myself but I don’t know how,” he confessed.

“Now, why would a handsome rabbit like you want to kill himself?” she asked.

“Because nothing is going right. My girl friend left me. My favorite garden has been fenced off. A fox bit my ear. And I feel insignificant.”

He leaned forward to show her the bite mark.

“My, oh, my,” she said. “Let me lick it.”

“You’d do that for me?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “If a fox bit my ear, I’d want somebody to lick it for me.”

“OK,” he said, “but take it easy. It hurts a lot.”

So the female rabbit licked his ear. He felt good.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Furball.”

“I like that,” she said. “Very cute.”

“What’s yours?” he asked.

“Sweet Thing.”

“Me?” he wanted to know.

“Yes, you’re very sweet,” she told him. “But that’s also my name.”

“Oh,” he said, and tested it with is own lips. “Sweet Thing. I like that.

“Good,” she said. “And I like the way you taste.”

“You do?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Great,” he exclaimed, and continued to enjoy her soothing licks. He couldn’t believe it, but what felt like a new life was swirling all through is body.

“How’s that?” she asked, finishing her TLC of his ear.

“Much better,” he told her.

“You know,” she said, sitting down beside him, “I live by a great garden. There’s no fence, and you’re welcome to come there and eat.”

“I am?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Don’t you have a male rabbit who loves you?”

“No,” she said, “he left me for another rabbit.”

“I’m sorry,” Furball said.

“Don’t worry,” I’ll get over it,” Sweet Thing sort of sighed. “But I wish I could meet another male rabbit, one I really like.”

By now our suicidal rabbit was thinking, Hey, who would have believed it just a few minutes ago? My life just might work out! And, even if life is just ephemera in the eye of time, I might be able to fit in enough happiness to be glad I’m alive.

“How about me?” he asked.

“Well, I like you a lot, but I’m not sure I could be happy with a rabbit who is so depressed he would take his own life.”

“Oh, I’m all over that now,” he told her. “And, if you were my girl friend, I’d be all over it forever.” “You would?”

“Yes,” he said, and snuggled up to her. “I’d have so much to live for!”

“Wow,” she said, “and so would I. Would you like to come to my garden and eat something?”

“Love it,” he told her.

“Great. Then off we go!” she replied.

And so off they hopped, to live happily ever after.