ALAN writes:

I read a funny article last week.  “Fentanyl Arrives in Poland, Shocking Video Captures Its Devastating Effects” was the headline.

The article asserted that Fentanyl is “a drug that has ravaged the United States and taken hundreds of thousands of lives.” It is “a drug that is increasingly infiltrating Europe.”

So I wondered: On which flight did it arrive? And what a remarkable fellow Mr. Fentanyl must be: He “ravages”, he ‘takes lives”, and he “infiltrates”.  My, he is a busy fellow.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!! (more…)

THIS 1937 interview with ex-slave Molly Ammonds near Eufaula, Alabama was conducted by Gertha Couric and John Morgan Smith, as part of the Federal Works Progress Administration’s compilation of slave interviews:

I walked along a dusty road under the blazing sun. In the shade of a willow tree a Negro man was seated with his legs drawn up and his arms crossed upon his knees. His head rested face downward upon his arms, as he had the aspect of one in deep slumber. Beside him munching on a few straggly weeds, a cantankerous mule took little notice of his surroundings.

“Can you tell me where Aunt Molly Ammonds lives?” I asked in a loud voice.

The Negro stirred slowly, finally raising his head, and displaying three rabbit teeth, he accompanied his answer with a slight gesture of his hand.

“Yassuh, dar her house raght across de road; de house wid de climbin’ roses on hit.”

“Thank you,” I said. “Yassuh,” was the drawled response, and the Negro quickly resumed his former posture.

Aunt Molly Ammonds is as gentle as a little child. Her voice is soft and each phrase measured to the slow functionings of her aged mind. (more…)

"PRAY, even if you feel nothing, see nothing. For when you are dry, empty, sick or weak, at such a time is your prayer most pleasing to God, even though you may find little joy in it. This is true of all believing prayer." ---- Julian of Norwich  

"MARRIAGE is an institution for the perpetuation of the spiritual life of the species. Unlike the more durable elements of nature, the everlasting hills, the solid rocks, organisms are frail and short-lived. They bloom and they wither. It is curious to reflect how soft or brittle is the material of which they consist — flesh and bones that crumble at death into a little heap of dust. Organisms, therefore, need constantly to be renewed or reproduced if the species is to continue; and this is as true of the human species as of any other. But in the case of human beings, spiritual factors enter in and constitute an enormous difference between them and the inferior creatures. "In the lower ranks of life the individual exists for the sake of the species. Nature has implanted the strong attraction of sex, as a lure, to accomplish her ulterior purpose, that of the continuance of the species to which the mating individuals belong. Unconsciously they serve her ends. Among human beings precisely the opposite becomes true in proportion as the sex relation is ennobled. The more it is ennobled, the more is the continuance of the life of the species made the occasion of furthering the spiritual interests of the individual, of conducing to the highest and subtlest development of individuality." --- Felix Adler, Marriage and Divorce; 1915  

FROM The Negro in Africa and America (1902) by Joseph Alexander Tillinghast:

In 1899, at the town of Fayetteville, N. C, a silk mill was established by an able mulatto, Mr. T. W. Thurston, acting as agent for the silk manufacturing interests at Patterson, N. J. Within a short time there were 400 operatives at work with 10,000 spindles. It was avowedly an experiment with negro labor, and it ” has proved a signal success.” Let us note carefully the conditions upon which success has depended. A correspondent of the New York Journal of Commerce, writing under date of October 27, 1900, says: ” Mr. Thurston, who is evidently a man of ability and strong character and well educated, has a theory of his own in regard to the way in which a negro mill should be managed, and it is of a somewhat startling character.” He then quotes Thurston, who, after stating that his operatives have proved quite satisfactory, adds:

“But no one can make a success of a mill by applying white methods to colored people. With the latter there is but one rule to follow, that of the strictest discipline. Call it military despotism, if you will. There are no indulgences in this mill. Kindness would be construed as weakness and advantage taken of it to the detriment of our work. Faults and irregularities are severely punished.”

The correspondent then drew out the fact that this discipline takes the form of whipping. (more…)

FROM Ernest Sevier Cox’s 1937 book, White America:

“During the centuries of contact, the white man has looked upon the Negro either as a case of hardened degeneracy or he has gone wild in the other extreme of expecting the Negro to assume equal rank with the Caucasian. Both theories are wrong. Possibly equally so. To deny the Negro the right to develop according to natural laws is unjust; to expect him to develop as a Caucasian is a species of sentimental insanity. The one overlooks that he is human, the other ignores that he is a race. He is human and should not be denied the right to work out his own salvation. He is a fully constituted race and like other races, is possessed of ineradicable race instincts and tendencies, and may work out his salvation along race lines only. This understanding of the Negro and the Negro problem will be at the bottom of any rational dealing with the Negro and the problem he constitutes to civilization.

“In the Ideal Negro State the Negro will develop as a Negro, in accord with his race instincts and capacities; but he may need white guidance in the first stages of his independence. Heretofore the white man has made the Negro work for the white man’s advantage. In the ideal Negro State, the white man, if there be need, may direct the Negro’s work for the Negro’s welfare. Heretofore the white man has received chief profit from the Negro’s labor; under a rational system of developing the Negro the latter alone will profit from his toil. (more…)

THE CATARACT OF LODORE
by Robert Southey

“How does the water
Come down at Lodore?”
My little boy asked me
Thus, once on a time;
And moreover he tasked me
To tell him in rhyme.
Anon, at the word,
There first came one daughter,
And then came another,
To second and third
The request of their brother,
And to hear how the water
Comes down at Lodore,
With its rush and its roar,
As many a time
They had seen it before.
So I told them in rhyme,
For of rhymes I had store;
And ’twas in my vocation
For their recreation
That so I should sing;
Because I was Laureate
To them and the King. (more…)

"WE are prepared to believe that the African has almost no sensibility to suffering in others, nor compassion for them. Such refinements of the social spirit have never been developed among these peoples. [Alfred Burdon] Ellis thinks that their constant familiarity with bloody scenes of torture and death in connection with religious ceremonies or witchcraft executions, has rendered them exceptionally callous and pitiless in the presence of human agony and pain. The exhibition of sentiments of pity by white persons is a standing puzzle to them. After a description of some of the frightful cruelties practised upon war prisoners, Ellis tells that 'the Ashantis were much surprised that the missionaries should exhibit any emotion at such spectacles; and, on one occasion when they went to give food to some starving children, the guards angrily drove them back.' He adds further: 'Nor is it to prisoners and aliens alone that such barbarity is exhibited by the northern tribes, for an equal indifference is shown to the sufferings of their own people. Servants or slaves, who may fall sick, are driven out into the bush to die or recover as best they may; and the infirm or helpless are invariably neglected, if not ill-treated. In the village of Abankoro the missionaries saw an orphan boy about five years old, who went about unnoticed and reduced to a skeleton. He was thus neglected because he could not speak, and was regarded as an…

FROM William Thomson's 1842 memoir, A Tradesman's Travels in the United States and Canada, in the Years 1840, 1841, and 1842: I took particular notice how masters treated the old slaves after they were unable to work in the fields. Their laws provide that they shall be fed and clothed; but I found that a better feeling than necessity prompted the planters to minister to the wants of their aged servants. They have their houses, blankets, shoes, clothing, and their allowance of corn, the same as prime hands. I knew some of them that had been toddling about for twenty years after they were unable to work. Many of these old hands keep themselves in tobacco, molasses, etc., by feeding a pig, or raising a few chickens. To feed them, they will cultivate a little patch of ground, but as frequently steal corn from "Massa" for this purpose; and, after all, if the planter's family want to buy any of their eggs or chickens, they will not sell them to them one cent cheaper than the regular market price. These old hands are a sort of privileged persons, and are never abused or neglected.  

BILL G. writes:

Your recent post on white guilt from 6/5 had me remember a neighbor we had in a mixed neighborhood in St. Louis county (near Ferguson).  During the late 70’s my parents had an economic set back and we moved into my great grandmother’s house which had recently been vacated when she moved into a nursing home. The neighborhood was comprised of mostly empty-nester whites and younger black families. It is now all black.

The black family who lived behind us had a mother who was quite friendly and had a huge presence in the neighborhood. I would hang out with her kids with whom I attended school as I was a free range latchkey kid with parents who were not home until evening.  She would make us fried bologna sandwiches and occasionally bring us along to her church in north St. Louis city where she would work on some weekday activity while we ran around the building. I remember her as a very tall, warm-hearted lady who had a voice that carried far.

One day I heard her yelling for my mother over the fence. (more…)

PATRICK O. writes in response to the entry “Golden Boy:”

Lutheran science teacher with a chart depicting the evolution of a Neanderthal man into a human? Well, it certainly wasn’t a Missouri Synod Lutheran, at least not the Lutherans I know. They think, they know that evolution is nonsense. Betcha that Fr. Shudda believed it, though. Perhaps a long-range cause and effect as to why his school was closing. (more…)

MEESHA writes: I just re-discovered your blog and I am really enjoying your writings. I thought it was interesting that we are reading about the same things at the same time. I was just reading about prolonged slavery and slave memories. I am a black woman myself and I'm re-educating myself on these topics. What I'm finding is that what I learned in public school...of course...is all wrong. I'm finding so many consistent writings of positive stories from slaves and plantation owners that I'm convinced that so much negativity was mainly to destroy the South, its people and the relationships most whites had with blacks. I can go on and on, but I'll stop there. I just wanted to let you know that I'm really enjoying your blog.  

NEHEMIAH ADAMS (1806-1878) was a graduate of Harvard University and pastor of Union Congregational Church in Boston, Massachusetts for more than 40 years. He was also a staunch abolitionist.

In 1834, he visited the South for the first time with the idea of confirming his notions of the institution of slavery as practiced in that part of the world.

In the book he subsequently wrote,  A South-Side View of Slavery, he recalled his trip and his first impressions of “Negro slaves:”

The steam tug reached the landing, and the slaves were all about us. One thing immediately surprised me; they were all in good humor, and some of them in a broad laugh. The delivery of every trunk from the tug to the wharf was the occasion of some hit, or repartee, and every burden was borne with a jolly word, grimace, or motion. The lifting of one leg in laughing seemed as natural as a Frenchman’s shrug. I asked one of them to place a trunk with a lot of baggage; it was done; up went the hand to the hat: “Anything more, please sir?” What a contrast, I involuntarily said to myself, to that troop at the Albany landing on our Western Railroad and on those piles of boards, and on the roofs of the sheds, and at the piers, in New York! I began to like these slaves. I began to laugh with them. It was irresistible. Who could have convinced me, an hour before, that slaves could have any other effect upon me than to make me feel sad? One fellow, in all the hurry and bustle of landing us, could not help relating how, in jumping on board, his boot was caught between two planks, and ‘pulled clean off;” and how “‘dis ole feller went clean over into de watter” with a shout, as though it was a merry adventure.

One thing seemed clear; they were not so much cowed down as I expected. Perhaps, however, they were a fortunate set. I rode away, expecting soon to have some of my disagreeable anticipations verified. (more…)

ADAM -- I mean, the Adam -- was not the ideal father. He messed things up for his children. Big time. He was maybe what is called in today's parlance a "toxic narcissist." He chose what suited him, rather than what suited others. He disrespected his own father in the one thing he had requested. In that moment, he said, "You don't matter. I do." It was the ultimate expression of self-will -- and ever since the world has suffered imperfect fathers and unhappy children. Only God, the perfect father, would have thought up the right response to this sad reality: God told us we can't throw fathers away however much they make their children unhappy, displeased or annoyed. He didn't say, "Honor your father and mother if they are perfect" or "Honor your father and mother if you like them" or "Honor your father and mother if it's convenient and easy." He said, "Honor your father and mother." Period. Human beings wouldn't have thought that up. They would have hedged and modified. They would have come up with contractual contingencies. One of the saddest things today is that so many people discard imperfect parents when they are old and their imperfections are more apparent than they were in their children's childhoods. Psychologists are there to help. They cheer on alienation and estrangement. "You deserve to be with people who lift you up," they say, "not people who make you down."…

IT WAS the last day of school at St. Athanasius. The hulking buses had just pulled away, their passengers whooping and pummeling each other with joy.

Fr. Shudda walked up to the third floor. He was conducting a final tour of inspection. The hushed hallways resonated with emptiness. Even the teachers had left instantly.

Things were unusually orderly. It was as if it was the first day of school and not the last — the last day for good. St. Athanasius was bringing its educational enterprise to a close. On Monday, June 28th, after the odds and ends were removed, Scaramucci Bros. would start demolition.

He walked into Mrs. Binzer’s science class. She had already left. A chart depicting Neanderthal man morphing into a human being still hung on the wall. Mrs. Binzer was a nice woman. She was a Lutheran who really knew her stuff when it came to science.

Fr. Shudda was so old he remembered the time when the Mrs. Binzers were industrious virgins with starched wimples and hidden, mysterious necks. He remembered — from his own distant childhood of course — when the classrooms were cram-packed, the desks lined up in tight rows like infantrymen on a battlefield, each one occupied by a victim of Original Sin.

He walked over to the metallic windows. These banks of cheap glass had let in frigid breezes in January and waves of heat on tropical days in September. Would he miss it all?

Fr. Shudda had long ago embraced change.

He looked toward the rectory and remembered that day when an especially distraught parishioner had visited him. He didn’t want to be like her at this moment. There had been other inquiries from diehards.

“Father,” she said respectfully, her eyes appearing to hold back a fountain of tears, “I don’t understand. I feel, I feel desolate …. as if I am offending Him.”

“Desolate.” It was melodrama like this that really bugged him.

She was complaining about the liturgical renewal. The marble altar had been trucked to a local quarry. She refused it as “renewal.”

“It’s not really different,” Father said. “We still say the Our Father, don’t we?”

After a while, he couldn’t help it. He began to despise hold-outs. It was as if they expected him to do something when he had no power at all and when he had vowed obedience no matter what. They were malcontents and he was glad when they finally drifted away, replaced by the kind of people he preferred — those who were loyal instead of questioning and excessively pious. He preferred these good and decent people — the sort who seem to have never faced a serious temptation to sin in their entire lives and dutifully confronted the tedium of parish life with untold hours of voluntary labor.

They were loyal and decent — and so was he. (more…)

"THOUGH Southerner George Mason tried, unsuccessfully, to prohibit the U.S. slave commerce as early as 1787 -- referring to it as a 'wicked, cruel and unnatural trade' -- and though Southern President Thomas Jefferson finally permanently banned it in 1808, the law (as even Lincoln observed) was routinely ignored by Northerners (mainly from New England and New York), who vigorously  continued to illegally traffic in human chattel, even during and after the Civil War. Not a single slaving captain or trader was punished by the U.S. until Nathaniel Gordon in 1862, and for good reason: the federal government was completely controlled by slave interests right through to the Lincoln administration. Indeed, as just mentioned, this is how "Honest Abe" funded his war: chiefly with profits from Northern slavery and the Yankee slave trade. "Yankee abolitionist, individualist, and natural rights advocate Lysander Spooner saw right through Lincoln's duplicitous treachery, correctly referring to the president's 'Wall Street Boys' -- that is, New York City's business establishment (bankers, merchants, manufacturers, and stockjobbers) -- as the 'lenders of blood money.' Wrote Spooner: "... these lenders of blood money had, for a long series of years previous to the war, been the willing accomplices of the slave-holders in perverting the government from the purposes of liberty and justice, to the greatest of crimes. They had been accomplices for a purely  pecuniary consideration, to wit, a control of the markets in the South; in other words,…