Category Archives: Uncategorized

Chronicles of the asinine: new entry – by Terry Howard

My three granddaughters are, respectively, age 12, 5 and 3. They are also Black and beautiful. I start with that as a link that to what I’m about to write about; something personal, very personal.

You see, I’m ticked off to report that we have still another addition to the umpteenth volume of our “You can’t make this stuff up folks” collection, our chronicles of the asinine. Our latest entry comes from Caldwell, New Jersey courtesy of some “racially nearsighted” dude by the name of Gordon Lawshe. 

Continue reading Chronicles of the asinine: new entry – by Terry Howard

Love Will Come to Me Tomorrow by Mykyta Ryzhykh

Love Will Come to Me Tomorrow

Kherson

She will prick with thorns

She will breastfeed

Love does not know what we call love

She will look for her name everywhere
She will be the life of all
Love will clear the heavenly stars from mines

She doesn’t know what the future is
She doesn’t want the future to come
Oh Love, we’ll all suffocate without you
in the electric sky of wires

 

Image Credit: Sunflowers [wallpapercrafter.com] and Abrams tanks [pngitem.com]

Cedar Christmas Tree by Wesley Sims

Cedar Christmas Tree

Holiday traditions cling like ivy.
As a youth, come mid-December,
I went hunting for a cedar tree with Dad.
We trekked across tan, sage grass fields,
December-drab pastures, or maybe drove
a mile or two into nearby woods
in his ’49 Chevy to find a suitable
dark green specimen about six feet tall,
not so misshapen it couldn’t be trimmed
to some semblance of conical symmetry.
We hauled it home, square-cut the trunk,
made a stand of two crossed boards
nailed to the bottom.
Whacked off a stray branch or two,
whittled the top to take a star.

Continue reading Cedar Christmas Tree by Wesley Sims

Seun Babalola: DOCUSERIES ON AFRICA

docuseries in AfricaOluwaseun Babalola is a Sierra Leonean-Nigerian-American filmmaker who founded DO Global Productions, a video production company specializing in documentaries and docuseries in Africa. Her focus is to create and collaborate on projects across the globe, while providing positive representation for people of color. She is a co-founder of BIAYA consulting, a consulting firm that bridges resource and knowledge gaps for Africa entrepreneurs in emerging industries. BIAYA’s first project was a convention in Lagos, Nigeria  to help build a sustainable creative industry that can grow and export content.

Thanking our ADR Donors

ADROur virtual Town Hall, The Future of Diversity Amid Pandemic,   took place on Sept. 14, 2020 with help from multiple donors.  Your generous support of our mission to Promote Diversity, Foster Inclusion and Counteract Hate is much appreciated. I can’t thank you enough for joining me in these DEI efforts to make a lasting real-world difference – needed now more than ever.

  • Cindy Steede Almeida
  • Lori Strauss Bantz
  • Sandra Benson
  • Earl Berkun
  • David Blair
  • Bill Bond
  • Garnet Chapin
  • Stephen Crevoshay
  • Alnoor Dhanani
  • Lakweshia Ewing
  • Roslyn Gerwin
  • Vivian Hershey
  • Terry Howard
  • Janice Jacobs
  • Marilyn Kallett
  • Elizabeth Keenan
  • Martin Kimeldorf
  • Gene Konsavage
  • Miki Leischner Levine
  • Carole Long
  • Ronald Lake
  • Cathy Light
  • Sharon Riegie Maynard
  • Susan McCuistion
  • Frank Miller
  • Gay Moore
  • Janet Cooper Nelson
  • Jennifer Rose Norred
  • Nicole Sloane
  • Sandy Norris Smith
  • Janet Thal
  • Elwood Watson
  • Barbara Weitz
  • Richard Zachary

Systemic Racism and Corporate Social Responsibility

HISTORIAN ELWOOD WATSON URGES COMPANIES TO SUPPORT BLACK COMMUNITY BY ADDRESSING ECONOMICS OF SYSTEMIC RACISM 

Systemic Racism Corporate Social Responsibility Goes Beyond Cosmetic Changes to Brands, Says Professor  

 

WASHINGTON – Professor Elwood Watson, PhD is calling on corporate America to address the economic impact of institutional racism – in allegiance with the Black Lives Matter movement and all people of color – rather than making superficial branding changes to products some perceive as racist.

Continue reading Systemic Racism and Corporate Social Responsibility

Honoring Vietnam War Veterans – Jenna Spain Hurley

National Vietnam War Veterans Day recognizes veterans who served in the US military during the Vietnam War – observed annually March 29.

Vietnam WarIt’s one thing to return to a place for the sake of your own memories, quite another to go there on the pretext of someone else’s, to walk through their shadows and rekindle their nightmares. As a member of the subsequent generation, the Vietnam War is not a living memory for me, much like the East-West divide and Berlin Wall are not so much defining moments in cultural identity for today’s German teenagers as they are fodder for museum exhibits and high school history exams. Even as someone raised in part by a Vietnam War veteran, somehow, the war was something that just simply was, a small, if persistent, shadow in the background of our lives. Continue reading Honoring Vietnam War Veterans – Jenna Spain Hurley

Toni Crowe: Engineer Goes Writing

Toni CroweIn 2018, former engineer Toni Crowe started successfully pursuing her dream of becoming a full-time author. After growing up in Chicago’s projects, Toni Crowe graduated from the University of Illinois with an Engineering Degree. She obtained her Master’s in Management, became a Professional Engineer, Certified Professional  Manager, and a corporate Vice-President. She evolved into an entrepreneur and CEO of Just One with the goal of  stopping “just one” person from making her mistakes.

CLICK to hear Toni”s podcast

 Sadie Hawkins Day: An Example of Cultural Delusion – by Eileen Meagher

Sadie Hawkins Day!  I didn’t know anything about it. The vibrations though with which the name permeates our culture and whatever the holiday celebrates have always seemed a wee bit strange and but also lighthearted.  It is celebrated on November 13th and since today is November 13th I feel oddly compelled to inform myself of the wisdom or lack of wisdom passed on by this “Holiday.” It would appear to be a very American holiday, but the Scots and my Irish ancestors might argue with that since they celebrate something comparable on February 29th called of course “Leap Year.” But that is another story!

The Sadie Hawkins Story

The American story is that Al Capp, a famous and brilliant cartoon artist of the last century,3 depicted in his daily cartoon, Lil Abner, the trials and tribulations of a hillbilly town called Dogpatch.  The most powerful and the richest man in Dogpatch was named Hezekiah Hawkins who had a daughter named Sadie and at the advanced age of 35 she had not married.  Sadie was also “the homeliest gal in all them hills” and her father was scared that she would spend her life at home as a spinster, a terrible and humiliating fate for any woman in Dogpatch.

Continue reading  Sadie Hawkins Day: An Example of Cultural Delusion – by Eileen Meagher

The Light in the Room – Poem by John C. Mannone

Capernaum, 30 AD
Peter’s house

Four men shuffle their sandals down the dirt
and camel-dunged road bearing their friend
warped with palsy on stretched, brown cloth.

They press through crowds standing dead
in their way to the mud brick dwelling—doorway
glutted with the sick, windows gasping sultry air.

On the roof, fig trees faint, grapes grovel for cool
moist dirt. Overgrown, the garden guards entrance
to the room beneath a straw-hatched door.

Inside the house, the Healer moves among
the sick, and the frankincense of his garment
breezes the air. Radiance spills from his hem,

a cooling glow dispels fever. Thy cluster near him.
Above, the palsied man, held up by the strong
faith of his friends, waits for his touch—for the Light.

Afflicted eyes clear, cataracts fall like dead scales.
Twisted limbs grow straight as the green shoot
seeking the high sun. Obscure spirits flee.

When he is done well into the middle of night,
he goes to pray in the cool of the garden among
fig trees and vines, now lifting high in his light.

In the mauve of dawn, the fishing village is quiet,
boats bob in the ebb, and black basalt cliffs shadow
nets laying empty after sieving the platinum sea
…but only for a little while.

~~~
Near Capernaum, 2030 AD
Ziv Medical Center (Bar-Ilan University)

A man lies on a gurney, in tremors from paralysis,
waits for the good doctor to touch him with his hands,
with instruments that will bring him some comfort.

His wife and children at his side, the sweet
fragrance of prayer mixes with a hint of sea
masking the sterile wisps of antiseptics.

The physicians, gathered in a small room
before their rounds, quietly praise the Healer,
seek his guidance from a shelf full of books—

Gray’s Anatomy, Principles of Biochemistry by White,
black binders with New England Journal of Medicine,
all stacked on leather of the Torah—the scent

of Jehovah Rapha rising from its pages, faith
incandescing the darkness. The light in the room
is not dim.

___________________________________________________________________
Author’s Note: Inspired by the healing of the man with palsy—a paralysis, especially that which is accompanied by involuntary tremors—in the Bible (Mark 2:1-5). Peter’s house was likely excavated by Italian archeologists (Biblical Archaeology Review 8:6, November/December 1982). Also see Bible History Daily https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-sites-places/biblical-archaeology-sites/the-house-of-peter-the-home-of-jesus-in-capernaum/