'Do You...Do Me' Philosophy Takes Ignorant Turn

Lately, in my travels around the city I constantly overhear this refrain in stray conversations...girl I told so and so do you cause I'm sho gonna do me....or dog I'm just gonna do me....condition or circumstance be damned. No matter how jacked up they may be, they still gonna proclaim I'm gonna do me.

I think some of these sistas and brothas need to re-evaluate and really proclaim they are going to "Do Something Else." This reminds me of the forever popular "Keepin It Real" refrain that seems to have shackled the positive mentality and progress of many African Americans for the past 10 or 15 years now. As that great urban observer and humorist Chris Rock once said...Keepin It Real...Real Ignorant.

Well its first cousin expression Do You...Cause I'm Going to Do Me...is keeping the ignorance alive and well. Don't get me wrong, there is something to be said for being your own person and not following the crowd in a positive way - instead of being like Mike, blazing your own trail...that's cool.

But don't do me if that means, everyone else is going to school or pursuing a career, I'll just hang out and chill. Or if everyone has pulled up there pants, or hidden their thong lines and tried to dress in a more mature and neutral way, I'm going to Do Me by continuing to sag with my dingy, skid-mark boxers showing or squeeze my fat ass into some hip-hugger jeans with the top of my leopard-skin thong showing and my gut hanging out. While others adopt a calmer demeanor in public less dropping MF-bombs and N-bombs every third word and constantly splitting verbs and nouns, I'm going to continue to Do Me and never ever conjugate the verb to be and be blissfully ignorant, loud and wrong.

Now before you think I'm coming down too hard on the young people, the older folks who know better are just as guilty, if not more in many instances. Instead of saying do you cause I'm gonna do me, they might as well say I don't care about you, I just care about me. It's a selfish attitude that we don't need today. So please, just don't do it.

On the bright side

Hello family! I am on the library computer! I hope all is well! One of the great things about being unemployed is the amount of time you have.....nothing but TIME! I have been making the effort to make as productive use of the precious commodity (time) as possible. I have been reading! Yes reading! I decided to share my reading list with you. These are the titles of the books I have completed as well as the ones I am in the process of completing.

• boogaloo- the quintessence of american popular music by Arthur Kempton


• Motown-Music,Money,Sex and Power by Gerald Posner


• Sellout-by Randall Kennedy


• SuperCapitalism-by Robert Reich


• Authentically Black-by John McWhorter


• Learned Optimism-by Dr. Martin Seligman


• The End of Work-by Jeremy Rifkin


• Black Rednecks White Liberals-by Thomas Sowell


• Winning The Race-by John McWhorter


• A Love Supreme-by Ashley Kahn

I have expanded my horizons, I have stretched my mind, I am enriched by the experience. I am also troubled that I have read about ten books since the beginning of July. This means I certainly need to get out more often. I am also now enrolled in school. I will be going back in August, I will be looking forward to this. I am on a library computer so somehow I don't feel as relaxed to really write what I want and the way I want. I would however like for any one who may have read any of the titles I have mentioned to send me your comments/opinions regarding any of these books. 'Till next time.

NubianBlues: I hate to lose!

My computer is messed up. I have no money for a new one. This is the losing season. It seems once the job goes. The cosmic vacum goes to work on the rest of your life. Money, stuff, friends, esteem, psychological well-being, snacks, nights out, balance, sleep, peace, the regard of your family and friends,debit/credit card purchases, new clothes. Hell what is the point!?

I had a friend(maybe ex friend) lecture ME!? on her "testicular fortitude" as well as the pride her family raised her with. I had not asked this woman for money.....just some understanding. Family this is not a good look for me. I can remember when other people I knew went through a situation like this. WE just sort of forgot about them. WE just wanted to erase them from our memory. WE began to act as if they ceased to exist .

I am now one of the dearly departed. I have been embalmed, funeralized, eulogized, and finally buried. I had a homegoin' goin' on and did not want to admit it. I know why this happenend, not because all my peeples is bad. It is because they are afraid for themselves. It could happen to them and they just don't want to witness something that might go down with them.

I am now entering the ranks of the hardcore unemployed and my computer, my source for information, my source for stimulation, my source for the JOB search is JACKED UP! WTF!? I am using the computer in the library.......so this is what it feels like to have a losing season. The technical difficulty has kept me from posting. I have all kinds a stuff I wanted to put out. This is the losing season. The vacum of the cosmos is doin' it's work.

Viva Salvador! What is better than one Henri Salvador song? One Mo!

Viva Salvador!

Henri Salvador came to my attention in the Quincy Jones autobiography, he was mentioned as one of the artists he wrote arrangements for on the French label Barclay during the time he spent in Europe 1959-1960. In the book there was a photo of Salvador he appeared to be a light-skinned Nubian, he had the features but the photo was a black and white. I was intrigued by the photo and what those collaborations may have produced since the music that Q creates stirs the soul no matter the language or genre.

In the very same year I had the opportunity to see a documentary called In The Pocket on PBS. In this excellent representation of the lives of Mr. Jones, various musicians tell the story of an arrangement by Neal Hefti. Neal presented his arrangement to The great Count Basie it was uptempo and very much in the contemporary style of the day a "nice chart" as Clarke Terry the trumpet legend and all around beautiful cat remembered (who was also at the rehearsal as he was a part of the heart pumpin' swingin' machine Count Basie commanded).

Mr. Terry recalled The Count listened intently to the band run through it. The Groovemaker said "it was nice". Quincy Jones picks up the story. Count Basie said "let's try it here"and he began to play the arrangement on the piano in a very slow groove and the chart took on a whole new life! Q spoke with amazement about how dramatically the tune opened up because of the change in tempo. Quincy described the new colors within the harmonic structure that were not heard when the tune was played at the original faster pace. Q said "that was when I realized everything is about timing"!

Lil' Darlin' ended up being another hit for The Count! In the same documentary Q was rehearsing a big band at Montreaux and Henri Salvador was the featured vocalist on the song Lil' Darlin' The first thing I noticed about Henri was his wide warm smile and that legendary booming laughter. He was beauty! His soul. His gift. His elegance.I recently saw a video online with Henri and the two supa bad French sistas Les Nubians. I don't posses the words to describe the beauty of this slice of love. I have the video below the Henri Salvador story. Enjoy!

Biography

Salvador was born in Cayenne, French Guiana. His father, Clovis, and his mother, Antonine Paterne, daughter of a native Indian from the Caribbean, were both from Guadeloupe, FranceHe had a brother, André, and a sister, Alice. He played many years in the Ray Ventura (dead on 29 March 1979) et Ses Collégiens where he used to sing, dance and even play comedy on stage, and made some appearances in great movies such as "Nous irons à Monte-Carlo (1950) " or "Nous irons à Paris" (Jean Boyer's film of 1949 with the Peters Sisters) or "Mademoiselle s'amuse" (1948). He is known to have recorded the first French rock and roll songs in1956 written by Boris Vian and Michel Legrand Rock'n Roll Mops, Rock hoquet, Va t'faire cuire un oeuf, man and Dis-moi qu'tu m'aimes rock under the artist name of Henry Cording, (a play on words with Recording).

Despite this historical aspect, he never ceased to claim that he disliked Rock and Roll and even refused to talk about this subject later on. In the 1960s, Salvador was the host of several popular television variety shows on French TV. In 1964 he scored a hit with Zorro est arrivé, which was inspired by The Coasters' U.S. hit Along Came Jones. He is also famous for his rich, catchy laugh, which is a theme in many of his humorous songs. In 1969, Henri Salvador recorded a variation of Mah Nà Mah Nà titled Mais non, mais non (But No, But No or Of Course Not, Of Course Not), with lyrics he had written in French to Piero Umiliani's music.


Henri Salvador and his song Dans mon île (1957) was an influence on Antônio Carlos Jobim in formulating the Brazilian Bossa Nova style [1]. Caetano Veloso, a famous Brazilian composer and singer, made Henri Salvador famous to Brazilian audiences with the song Reconvexo, in which he says "quem não sentiu o swing de Henri Salvador?" ("who hasn't felt the swing of Henri Salvador?"). At age 70, Salvador was the voice-over of the crab Sebastian in the 1989 French dubbing of Disney's The Little Mermaid. Recordings of Embrasse La (Kiss the Girl) can be found on Youtube. Salvador discovered singers Keren Ann and Art Mengo. He died of a ruptured aneurysm at his home in the early hours of February 13, 2008. He was 90 years of age.

Legacy

Henri 's music continues to be popular today among French communities in Canada. In 2000, Virgin Records released a CD featuring popular hits like Jazz Mediterrannee which continues to receive regular air play. In 2002 his album Chambre Avec Vue sold over two million copies. In 2005, Henri Salvador was awarded the Brazilian Order of Cultural Merit, which he received from the acclaimed singer and Minister of Culture, Gilberto Gil, in the presence of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for his influence on Brazilian culture, particularly on bossa nova, to whose invention he contributed.



He was also a commander of the French Légion d'honneur and of the National Order of Merit. In 2007 he released "Reverence" on V2 Records which features Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso. He then went on to perform the track La Vie C'est La Vie from the album Reverence on the BBC program Later … With Jools Holland, which aired on May 4, 2007.

Anonymous

What do Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Isaac Hayes and Stanley Clarke have in common? They are all Scientologists. Scientology is a belief system started by L.Ron Hubbard. He is the author of a book entitled Dianetics. This "church" has been very controversial to say the least, there have been charges of manipulation, mind control and just plain old flim-flamming. Ex-members have told stories about being taken advantage of financially. Several accusations have been made against this organization by the family members of Scientology followers. The basic complaint is the "church" bleeds the follower dry financially and discards them when the money is gone. The information below is from Wikipedia.

Origin

Hubbard established Scientology's doctrines during a period from 1952 until his death in January 1986, establishing the basic principles in the 1950s and 1960s. It was originally secular, Hubbard stating in 1952 that "Scientology would be a study of knowledge."[5] The following year he began to characterize Scientology's beliefs and practices as a religion, and by 1960 he was defining Scientology as "a religion by its basic tenets, practice, historical background and by the definition of the word 'religion' itself."[6] In 1969 he wrote that "It is fundamentally an applied religious philosophy."[7] Hubbard recorded his doctrine in archived writings, audio tapes and films.[8][9][10]

The Church of Scientology defines scientology as "the study of truth."[11] The word itself is a pairing of the Latin word scientia ("knowledge," "skill"), which comes from the verb scire ("to know"), and the Greek λογος lógos ("reason" or "inward thought" or "logic" or "an account of").
Although today associated almost exclusively with Hubbard, the word "scientology" predates his usage by several decades. An early use of the word was as a neologism in an 1871 book by the American anarchist Stephen Pearl Andrews presenting "the newly discovered Science of the Universe".[12] Philologist Allen Upward used the word "scientology" in his 1901 book The New Word as a synonym for "pseudoscience,"[13] and this is sometimes cited as the first coining of the word.[2]

In 1934, the Argentine-German writer Anastasius Nordenholz published a book using the word positively: Scientologie, Wissenschaft von der Beschaffenheit und der Tauglichkeit des Wissens ("Scientologie, Science of the Constitution and Usefulness of Knowledge").[14] Nordenholz's book is a study of consciousness, and its usage of the word is not greatly different from Hubbard's definition, "knowing how to know"[15] (from epistemology). Whether Hubbard was aware of these earlier uses is unknown.
The term "Scientology" and related terms are trademarks held by the Religious Technology Center which grants the mother church of the Scientology religion, the Church of Scientology International (CSI), the right to use the trademarks and to license their use to all other Scientology churches and entities. Other organizations that promote the use of related techniques, developed by or based on the works of L. Ron Hubbard, are the World Institute of Scientology Enterprises and the Association for Better Living and Education.[16][17]

Beliefs

Scientology's beliefs and related techniques comprise 18 basic books,[32] and 3,000 recorded lectures.[33] There is no single Scientology book that is the equivalent of the Bible or the Qur'an, but the study of Scientology is achieved through the chronological study of its basic books and lectures.[34]
Scientology describes itself as "the study and handling of the spirit in relationship to itself, others and all of life,"[35] and "encompasses all aspects of life from the point of view of the spirit" — including "auditing"[36] and training in morals, ethics, detoxification, education and management.[37]
Prime among Scientology's beliefs is "that man is a spiritual being whose existence spans more than one life and who is endowed with abilities well beyond those which he normally considers he possesses."[38] Scientology believes man to be basically good, that his experiences have led him into evil, that he errs because he seeks to solve his problems by considering only his own point of view, and that man can improve to the degree he preserves his spiritual integrity and remains honest and decent.[39]

According to the Church, the ultimate goal is: "a civilization without insanity, without criminals and without war, where the able can prosper and honest beings can have rights, and where man is free to rise to greater heights."[40]
The Church of Scientology declares that the goal of Scientology is to achieve "certainty of one’s spiritual existence and [of] one’s relationship to the Supreme Being,"[41] and says that Scientology's tenets are not a matter of faith but of testable practice: "That which is true for you is what you have observed to be true."[42]
The exact nature of all of existence is said to be stated in Hubbard's Scientology and Dianetics Axioms.
Other beliefs of Scientology are:[43]
A person is an immortal spiritual being (termed a thetan) who possesses a mind and a body.
The thetan has lived through many past lives and will continue to live beyond the death of the body.
Through the Scientology process of "auditing," people can free themselves of traumatic incidents, ethical transgressions and bad decisions which are said to collectively restrict the person from reaching the state of "Clear" and "Operating Thetan." Each state is said to represent the recovery of native spiritual abilities and to confer mental and physical benefits.
A person is basically good, but becomes "aberrated" by moments of pain and unconsciousness.
Psychiatry and psychology are destructive and abusive practices.[44]
Members study Scientology and receive auditing sessions to advance from a status of preclear to Operating Thetan.[45][46

Controversies

Of the many new religious movements to appear during the 20th century, the Church of Scientology has, from its inception, been one of the most controversial, coming into conflict with the governments and police forces of several countries (including the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada[138] and Germany) numerous times over the years.[139][140][141][142][143][141][144][145][146][147][148][149]
Reports and allegations have been made, by journalists, courts, and governmental bodies of several countries, that the Church of Scientology is an unscrupulous commercial enterprise that harasses its critics and brutally exploits its members.[139][140] Some critics of Scientology have recanted under duress.[150] In some cases of US litigation against the Church, former Scientologists appearing as expert witnesses have since stated that they submitted false and inflammatory declarations intended to incite prejudice against Scientology, [151] and harassed key Scientology executives, by advancing unfounded opinions to get a case dropped or to obtain a settlement.[152]

The German government takes the view that Scientology is a commercial, rather than religious organization, and has even gone so far as to consider a ban on Scientology.[153] Belgium, France, Ireland, Luxembourg and the United Kingdom have not recognized Scientology as a religion.[154] Scientology has also not been recognized as a religion in Israel or Mexico. The Belgian State Prosecution Service has recommended that various individuals and organizations associated with Scientology should be prosecuted.[155][156] An administrative court is to decide if charges will be pressed.[155][156]
Main article: Scientology and the legal system
The controversies involving the Church and its critics, some of them ongoing, include:
Scientology's disconnection policy, in which members are encouraged to cut off all contact with friends or family members considered "antagonistic."[157][158]

The death of a Scientologist Lisa McPherson while in the care of the Church.
Criminal activities committed on behalf of the Church or directed by Church officials (Operation Snow White, Operation Freakout)
Conflicting statements about L. Ron Hubbard's life, in particular accounts of Hubbard discussing his intent to start a religion for profit, and of his service in the military.[159]
Scientology's harassment and litigious actions against its critics encouraged by its Fair Game policy.[159]
Attempts to legally force search engines such as Google and Yahoo to omit any webpages critical of Scientology from their search engines (and in Google's case, AdSense), or at least the first few search pages.[160]
Due to these allegations, a considerable amount of investigation has been aimed at the Church, by groups ranging from the media to governmental agencies.[139][140]
Although Scientologists are usually free to practice their beliefs, the organized church has often encountered opposition due to their strong-arm tactics directed against critics and members wishing to leave the organization.

While a number of governments now view the Church as a religious organization entitled to protections and tax relief, others view it as a pseudoreligion or a cult.[161][162] The differences between these classifications has become a major problem when discussing religions in general and Scientology specifically.[106]
While acknowledging that a number of his colleagues accept Scientology as a religion, sociologist Stephen A. Kent wrote: "Rather than struggling over whether or not to label Scientology as a religion, I find it far more helpful to view it as a multifaceted transnational corporation, only one[sic] element of which is religious."[163][164]
Scientology social programs such as drug and criminal rehabilitation have likewise drawn both support and criticism.[165][166][167][168]

I became aware of a group formed to warn the public about Scientology. This organization is called Anonymous. They have a digital press release explaining their objectives. Initially, I thought this whole thing was a hoax. It had a sort of Matrix-type feel about it. Once I began dig a little deeper. It became very apparent to me the group is very commited and serious about their stated mission: To dismantle The Church of Scientology. One of most interesting aspects of this movement is they are faceless literally, they are nameless literally. They could be your neighbor, the mailman, your babysitter. It all seems like something from a psycho/drama/thriller. The Internet is being utilized in executing their strategy in the support of their stated mission. Check out the video.

Our Friend and Brother Bob Marley

Our Brother and friend:Bob Marley part3