Everett Jenkins Birthday Blog

  8888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888 Alphabetical Index 2022 9/11 Remembrance Day  A00067 A Day at the Beach with God  A00229 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 Meditation on John Coltrane  A00197 A Most Memorable Date  A00276 A Most Profound Thich Nhat Hanh Memorial  A00113 A Musical Meditation on Rumi A00180 A Poker Game in Heaven  A00155 A Return to Allensworth: From a Field of Weeds to a Field of Dreams  A00149 A Return to Disneyland, A Return to Tomorrowland  A00218 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 Tw...

  Growing up in the High Desert town of Victorville, California, one of the truly spectacular sights occurs almost every night when the stars begin to emerge and shine.  In the High Desert in the 1960s and early 1970s, the town of Victorville only had 15,000 people and the light pollution was minor.  So, for many Summer nights, an African American boy could go outside, look up, and dream about worlds where life would be better. Fast forward sixty years or so, and that African American boy is now 70 years old.  He still has a fascination with stars, but he marvels at the notion that all he can see -- that all anyone can see -- is only a small portion of what must be. How can that be? Well, while waiting in the Portland Airport after my Bucket List adventure in Eugene, Oregon, I spotted a magazine that immediately caught my attention.  The magazine was a Special Edition of  Scientific American  magazine, and the title of the magazine is "Dark Universe: M...

  Last night, while trolling through miscellaneous Netflix offerings, I stumbled upon "TLC Forever" TLC Forever | Rotten Tomatoes TLC Forever | Rotten Tomatoes TLC Forever, premiering Saturday, June 3 at 8p/7c, chronicles the journey of the female group who led the way wi... Strangely, I found this documentary to be compelling and felt that it not only filled in a gap in my musical knowledge but also presented a compelling story of faith and resilience.  In the end, one learns about the birth of the Atlanta hip hop scene and about the origins of this girl group which is still the best-selling American girl group of all time, surpassing the Supremes and Destiny's Child.  However, one also learns about how these young women overcame tragedy and illness to re-emerge as a performing powerhouse. It is the story of TLC that makes "TLC Forever" my Must See TV for the Month of July 2024.  And accordingly, I encourage everyone who has Netlix to learn about TLC (group) - ...

Sometimes, I watch the news and feel a bit of PTSD coming on.  Such a feeling arose from watching the PBS News Hour yesterday and becoming angered by this report Why Gary, Indiana’s decades-old lawsuit against gun industry may soon be over | PBS News This report disturbed me because one of the most troubling aspects of my 39-year career at the City of Richmond was the inabliity to curtail homicides within the City. Violent-Crime-Report-Final-3-29-07 (richmond.ca.us) Despite all the innovative initiatives,  East Bay Public Safety Corridor Partnership -- Oakland, CA (ojp.gov) Program Profile: Richmond (CA) Comprehensive Homicide Initiative | CrimeSolutions, National Institute of Justice (ojp.gov) the problem of having an extremely high homicide rate did not seem to go away.  Over time, I began to wonder if there may be forces from outside the City which impacted upon the City's ability to permanently address the homicide problem. In the late 1990s, some cities came to the b...

  One of my bucket list items was to attend an Olympic Track and Field Trials competition at the Track and Field Mecca known as Hayward Field.  This weekend I decided to fulfill this bucket list item by traveling first to Portland and then driving to Eugene for the final two days of the 2024 Olympic Track and Field Trials. For me, entering Hayward Field was like going to Heaven.  It is a beautiful facility, and the track and field fans are superb.  For the two days, the participation of the fans seemed to propel the athletes to new personal and meet record bests.  It was a remarkable display of track and field prowess from across the country.  Amazing! Today, I had to pay extra because I wanted a good seat near the finish line so that I could see how the races would end.  I made the right choice.  There were quite a few thrilling races.  Both the Men's 5000 Meter race and the Women's 1500 Meter race were decided by full out sprints to the fin...

  Mat, Thank you for your sage advice.  It is a formula which has guided my life since 1973.  Below is a link to my bio.  If you read it you will find that I spent almost 40 years working in the War Zone that is known as Richmond, California.  I suspect that there are few who can match that level of commitment.  Additionally, if you read further, you will find that I spent 34 years as a noted volunteer for the West Contra Costa (Richmond) YMCA and 17 years as a noted volunteer for the YMCA of the East Bay -- the Oakland based YMCA.  I doubt few can match that record as well.  At Richmond, I spent my career trying to make sure that black men were not killed by police.  I think I did a fairly good job there.  To address the violence, it was during my tenure as the Interim City Attorney in 2005 that we implemented a program that identified the potential shooters in our community and brought them together in a program that gave them a stipen...