Everett Jenkins Birthday Blog

It is Christmas Eve and I am about to begin my Christmas tradition of watching Franco Zeffirelli's  Jesus of Nazareth .  However, before doing so, I wanted to note that there is much trouble in the world and one of the more troublesome places is Ethiopia.  Those familiar with what is going on there cry out for the horror to stop  ... but it does not.  There is not much I can do to change what is.  However, I will note that the Bay Area has a large Ethiopian community and sometimes, because of my height and skin coloration, even Ethiopians ask me if I am from Ethiopia.  Well, I am not, but during my life I have had cultural connections to Ethiopia.  One of the more recent cultural connections is through the Ethiopian born Meklit Hadero. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meklit_Hadero You can learn more about her through this NPR interview https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125120472 and you can glimpse her talent through her channeling Nina Simone through this renditi

A little over a week ago, there was the notice of the passing of "El Rey", Vicente Fernandez https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/12/arts/music/vicente-fernandez-dead.html I probably would have not paid much attention to this obituary, except that this notice reminded me of Felix Diaz, Tio Feco (see the email below).  I actually attended the memorial service for Felix Diaz.  I intended to speak but before I could get up to tell my high jump story, one of my Bell View Heights neighbors got up and told a story that dwarfed my own.  My Bell View Heights neighbor happened to be one of the best basketball players in the history of Victor Valley Senior High School.  However, his older brother was arguably the best.  To the best of my knowledge, Victorville has produced only one professional basketball player, and that was his brother. The two brothers starred at VVHS during the mid-1960s and everyone in the neighborhood idolized them. My Bell View Heights neighbor said that he felt comp

  Over the weekend, the 2021 World Chess Championship reached a stunning conclusion with the World Champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway winning his fifth world title by demolishing the Russian challenger Ian Nepomniachtchi  7.5 games to 3.5.  The victory cements Carlsen's reputation as being the best chess player of all time.  He is certainly the highest rated (2882) of all time. You can read about the match at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_2021 and you can read about the career of Carlsen at  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnus_Carlsen For me, what made this match particularly intriguing was that the sometimes three to four hour games were condensed into 30 minute replays with commentary by Maurice Ashley, the first "official" chess grandmaster.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Ashley Ashley, whose siblings are professional fighters, made the chess games sound like boxing matches with Carlsen seeming to be a young Mike Tyson stalking his prey

According to NPR's The World, the best selling poet in the United States for the last twenty years is the Afghanistan born Sufi mystic, Rumi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumi Rumi's poetry is filled with love and passion and it is spiritual. It is difficult to convey the feelings that it conveys, however, a recent musical offering from Shujaat Khan's This Pale begins to convey what is so important about the work of Rumi.  If you are wishing for a brief respite from this world, please listen to these selections and pause to meditate in the world of Rumi. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oER4L2heyc0&list=RD29b_QKhqamo&index=3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkOH0dacov4&list=RD29b_QKhqamo&index=2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29b_QKhqamo&list=RD29b_QKhqamo&index=2 Peace, Everett "Skip" Jenkins Fairfield, California December 10, 2021

On yesterday's BBC World News, the remarkable artistry of Willard Wigan was profiled https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-england-birmingham-30824816 Willard's artistry is more remarkable because it stems from his coping with certain learning "impairments"  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willard_Wigan Seeing Willard's story brought to mind a similar story from a decade ago about another remarkable black savant, Stephen Wiltshire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Wiltshire and the extraordinary talent that his learning "impairment" brought him https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlQIHEciRZI In this season of light, I thought it would be good to shed some light on these two individuals and the miracles that their lives have expressed. Peace, Everett "Skip" Jenkins Fairfield, California December 9, 2021

  Below is an article that appears in The New York Times, California Today regarding the work being done on reparations in California.  At the end of the article, reference is made to a book written by Kirsten Mullen entitled  From Here to Equality.   As it happens, one of my fellow Amherst College Black Alumni recommended this book to me some time ago.  I purchased it and it has been residing next to  Schizophrenia for Dummies  since September.   I have not yet finished my books of the month for November and I have not yet begun addressing my Season's Greetings cards for this holiday season so I do not have the time to read  From Here to Equality  this month.  Nevertheless, it is my intention to begin reading  From Here to Equality  in January of 2022.  For those who are interested in the subject, please do join me in reading  From Here to Equality ...  and please continue to stay apprised of the issue of reparations.  I suspect that in the coming years it will be an issue that wi

For those who believe in God, and who study the history of prophecy, the recent obituary for Marcus Lamb should cause one to pause and contemplate what his passing means. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/01/us/marcus-lamb-dead.html Once upon a time, we learned of false prophets.  I fear that we, as a people, no longer pay attention to discern whether our prophets are false or not.  However, it appears that God does. Peace, Everett "Skip" Jenkins Fairfield, California  December 3, 2021  

Early this week, I read about the amazing career in the short life of Virgil Abloh https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/28/style/virgil-abloh-dead.html In a rare existence, Mr. Abloh, an African American, appears to have greatly impacted the fashion industry beyond all expectations. By coincidence, this week, I came to read about the court of 'Abd ar-Rahman II in ninth century Islamic Iberia.  One of the key persons in the court was Ziryab -- the "Blackbird" of Cordoba.  I encourage all to read about the life and career of Ziryab at  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ziryab and to contemplate how much of a cultural influence this "black" man has exerted on Western civilization for the last 1200 years ... and continues to exert to this day. Peace, Everett "Skip" Jenkins Fairfield, California December 2, 2021

On Thanksgiving Day, I wrote the following: *Today, it is estimated that some 25 million turkeys will be consumed in the United States.  This is a large number but it pales in comparison to the total consumption of birds (especially chickens) that occurs on a daily basis throughout the world.  As was noted in  Extra Life: A Short History of Living Longer,  "The most numerous wild bird on the planet is the African red-billed  Q Quelea , with an estimated population of 1.5 billion.  At any given moment, something in the range of twenty-three billion chickens are alive, and human beings consume more than sixty billion chickens each year.  (The second number is so much larger because chickens are slaughtered for meat after only a few months of life.}  There are now more chickens on earth than all other species of birds combined. The rate of population growth of chickens far exceeds that of humans over the past century.  But, of course, the two growth rates are fundamentally linked: we