Everett Jenkins Birthday Blog

It is June 24 and I have not yet begun reading my book of the month "Black Rednecks and White Liberals" by Thomas Sowell.  But that is not surprising, I am still only four-fifths of the way through "Autobiography of a Yogi" and I still need to finish the Notes for "Awe".  However, even before beginning Thomas Sowell's book, I stumbled tonight upon the bio for a contemporary black economist, Thaddeus Spratlen, and I was struck by the contrast in the lives of these two black economists and their vastly different economic perspectives.  Thaddeus Spratlen - Wikipedia Teacher, advocate and pioneer: Thaddeus Spratlen’s trailblazing legacy | Fisher College of Business (osu.edu) For those who have read Thomas Sowell's book or who are familiar with his economic philosophy, I wonder if it is at all beneficial to look at his personal background to better understand the foundation for his economic philosophy.  I wonder... Peace, Everett "Skip" Jenkin...

 88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888 Alphabetical Index 2022 9/11 Remembrance Day  A00067 A Day with Bernadette, A Few Moments with Moses the Ethiopian A00063 A Day with Bernadette ... and the Lady  A00144 A Full Card Table of Black Economists  A00163 A Happy Fourth of July Dancing Under the Stars  A00167 A Most Profound Thich Nhat Hanh Memorial  A00113 A Poker Game in Heaven  A00155 A Return to Allensworth: From a Field of Weeds to a Field of Dreams  A00149 A Return to Monserrat and a "Miraculous" Introduction to the Black Madonna  A00145 A Side Trip to Dublin and an Exploration of Black Irish Roots  A00146 A Surprising Connection to Our American Soul  A00148 A Tale of Two Black Economists  A00161 Abdul Qadeer Khan, Father of Pakistan's Nuclear Program  A00003 Ahmad Jamal, R. I. P.  A00147 All the Beauty and the Bloodshed and All That Breathes  A00131 April 2022 Mu...

    This year the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association was held in San Francisco from May 20 through May 24.  2023-APA-Annual-Meeting-Guide.pdf (psychiatry.org) One of the discussions was concerning the alarming increase in the suicide rate among black youth: Suicide Among Black Youth: Where Are We in 2023? APA Distinguished Psychiatrist Lecture Series 10:30 a.m. - Noon Rooms 305/309, Third Level Moscone South Presenter: Tami D. Benton, M.D. Moderator: Eric R. Williams, M.D I do not know what was said at the conference.  However, I am aware of the issue and I am concerned. 5 Reasons Suicide Is on the Rise in Black Communities | Everyday Health During my tenure with the YMCA, one of the programs that we began was a psychological counseling service to address the trauma experienced by essentially black and brown youth in the urban war zone known as the Iron Triangle of Richmond. However, for all the good that our YMCA program did, it was really only a...

On my slow journey through Black History, I have now reached a "bump" that is causing me to stop and pull off to the side of the road.  The "bump" is the biography of one Thomas Sowell Thomas Sowell - Wikipedia and what causes me to pull off to the side of the road is a consideration of a Thomas Sowell book recommended by one of my Amherst College classmates entitled  Black Rednecks and White Liberals Black Rednecks and White Liberals - Wikipedia In reading the Wikipedia bio for Thomas Sowell, it appears that his brief stint at Amherst College in the late 1970s was one of the main reasons that he decided to abandon his academic teaching career.  Given all this, I am pausing in the month of June 2023 to read  Black Rednecks and White Liberals , my Book of the Month for the Month of June 2023 to see if the Amherst men and women of the late 1970s performed the world a great service in helping to end Mr. Sowell's teaching career. Y'all are welcome to join me.  P...

Last night, the PBS NewsHour highlighted Bruce's Beach and some additional efforts to effect restorative justice in California Movement to return land taken from Black and Indigenous people in the U.S. gains momentum | PBS NewsHour As the segment indicates some progress has been made but, as is also evident, the question of whether justice can ever be fully obtained remains unanswered. Peace, Everett "Skip" Jenkins Fairfield, California June 10, 2023

I attended the premiere of a new production of Madame Butterfly last night at the San Francisco Opera San Francisco Opera presents new co-production of Madame Butterfly (sfopera.com) Madame Butterfly is considered a masterpiece Madama Butterfly - Wikipedia and indeed, even today, the opera carries an emotional punch. The San Francisco Opera production was especially poignant for me because it was the first time that I saw a production with two Asian women singing the lead roles of the Japanese Cio Cio San and her handmaid Suzuki. Most of the productions of Madame Butterfly tend to have white women singing the leads.  This has led to allegations of orientalism being applied to the performance of Madame Butterfly.  However, this production of Madame Butterfly had Korean women (Karah Son and Hyona Kim) singing the lead roles and the director of the opera orchestra was a Korean (Eun Sun Kim). As the opera progressed, with these women in charge, the story began to shift in my mind ...

"Awe is the motion we experience when we encounter vast mysteries that we don't understand. Why would I recommend that you find happiness in an emotion that is so fleeting and evanescent?  A feeling so elusive that it resists simple description?  That requires the unexpected, and moves us toward mystery and the unknown rather than what is certain and easy? "Because we can find awe anywhere  Because doing so doesn't require money or the burning of fossil fuels -- or even much time. .... Because we have a basic need for awe wired into our brains and bodies, finding awe is easy if we just take a moment and wonder.  Because all of us, no matter what our background, can find our own meaningful path to awe." Page xvi) ***** "How does awe transform us? By quieting the nagging, self-critical, over-heating, status conscious voice of our self, or ego, and empowering us to collaborate, to open our mind to wonders, and to see the deep patterns of life."  (Page xx.)...