Friday, January 31, 2014

CIRCLING BOOMERANG AND OTHER POEMS

Dear Ones,

 Here is poetry on love and war.  But the great one is love–with war still wondering what for.



Poems by Helene Smith
copyright©2012
www.macdonaldsward.com

CIRCLING BOOMERANG

Mass death to patience, as evolution dies,
Like malignant tumors glowing nuclear in size.
Labyrinths of carnage how much must man bear,
Terrorism to fight violence all caught in its snare.

Archaic slaughter of futile war,
The world ever asking what for, what for?
“The essence of war is violence,” said historian Thom Macaulay,
No better truth ever said, even in our day.

No more mass weapons of mortal sorrow,
Speak out for peace and a better tomorrow,
Not for ourselves programmed to vice,
But for our children we sacrifice.


 DEJA VUE
   
The moment I looked into your eyes
I knew we had loved before.
Your infectious laughter, how could I forget
The memory of your twinkling smile.

Your sweet soul blended with mine,
Passion that will never die,
The light of my life, my constant mate,
My eternal sigh.

CHORUS

The love of centuries still haunts me so,
Somewhere, some place, in space and time,
Like shadow mountains and rolling seas,
I see your face wherever I go.
Deja vue.  Deja vue.  It all comes back to me.  Deja vue, how I love you so.

(Theme song lyrics and poem from H. Smith’s drama, Where Eagles Fly–about homeless veterans of foreign wars,)


       TO BEE OR NOT TO BEE

To bee or not to bee,
Was Shakespeare’s quest,
Whether it is best to bee for peace,
Or whether it is best to sting for war,
I don’t know which bee you will bee,
But for me, a champion for peace I will be.

Thursday, January 30, 2014

AN OLD PIECE OF LACE

Dear friends. An old fashioned day calls for an old fashioned poem–what reminds me of my dear mother and grandmother who used to crochet lace–now nearly a lost art.  This poem is a ballad about life.



AN OLD PIECE OF LACE
Helene Smith©2004


It was just an old piece of lace,
Attached to a dirty old rag;   
A workman had left behind
Women’s labor, a cultural lag.

Stained now with axle grease
“Turpentined” to clean off a brush.  
The man who had used it,
Threw it out in a rush.

A forgotten masterpiece
In whole or twisted in part,  
What caring hands created,
Once a fine piece of art.

Perhaps in few precious moments,
Between caring for children so,
Some woman with feeling for design,
Had created it row after row.

Wishful dreams and hopes
For children yet to be,
Or in resignation, hands caring
For others’ offspring at her knee.

Fancy work, men used to say,
Years ago with women working at home, 
Putting in time, a strange quirk,
More like a legacy and a poem.

A nurturing soul of her own
Under our one and only sun,
Time so valuable to women, 
A life of getting so much done.

Giving rise to “domestic activity”
In the order of each day.
“Frivolous, superfluous, unessential,”
To make the hours go fast, each day.

But for the feminine mind
It was much more than that.
Gentle men fail not to notice,
She wore many a fancy hat.

Now only an old memory
Of time and space,
Someone’s so-called handy work,
Manifold in lace.

Within a dominant masculine world
Among all things that bind,
Lies a feminine mystique,
Needle-work of every kind.

All dreams and wishes, with
Hands holding threads so tight,
Crocheting stories as toddlers listen,
Mystic motion, a splendid sight.

Unaware of ancient intrigue, young minds
Knew not the past and what was said.
Their marvel was in networks,
Fingers weaving a spider’s web.

Interlacing complex threads
In enigmatic confusion, to children
Beauty and wonder of life,
Wound together in one illusion.

Eternal wisdom and fantasy,
A whole cosmos conceived in grace,
Behold old stained and frayed thin strands,
In gossamer, an old piece of lace.



    


Wednesday, January 29, 2014

MAD TORQUEMADA–Predocesser of Military Torture

Today a poem of mine comes to mind after President Obama's'  address.  I'm so relieved that he mentioned a goal for winding down torturous wars  to a roar.  This will help wean off warmongers committing youth-killing aggression with baby-deforming munitions. The US Alien Tort Statute of 1789 prohibits torture–that certainly includes life-long birth malformations.

                                                            TORQUEMADA MAD–Predocesser of Military Torture
Helene Smith ©copyright 2013
www.macdonaldsward.com


  TORQUEMADA
(to rhythm of hip hop)

Mad Tomas was his name, so Spaniards say.
Inquisitor-general,
Persuasion militant of dark dismay.
Unleashed fanatic violence to make men obey, not OK

Torquemada!  Torquemada!

Dominican extremist, died in 1498,
Suppressed heathens and heretics,
After Columbus "discovered" land, indigenous fate.

Torquemada!  Torquemada!

Water-boarding–to abuse and cause pain–no fun water game,
Warped monk dunked victims, in fiendish delight,
No compassion–military tribunal–kangaroo court, its real name

Torquemada!  Torquemada!

Confessions from non-believers under torturous stress,
Make false statements, men forced to endure,
Excruciating corruption and cruel duress.

Torquemada!  Torquemada!

Archaic war turkeys strut in arrogant strides,
Command youths to torture youths, unknown, as all men cry,
Strangers from foreign lands–as soul also die.

Torquemada!  Torquemada!

 Detainee's heads shaved, painted with a cross,
New shades of savage strangulation, blows of shock and awe,
No blood allowed by Inquisitors, but torture at any cost.

Torquemada!  Torquemada!

Church and state, perilous marriage more than it seems,
Jefferson and Madison, wise men of old,
 Recognized insidious, devil-made schemes.

Torquemada!  Torquemada!

No legal charges, a war-board game,
Madmen invent own law and order,
 Not playing by rules, even a kid would feel shame.

Torquemada!  Torquemada!

Truth hiding through codes and secrets,
Covering dirt like a cat in a litter box,
Hypocrisy spun in transparent webbed nets. 

Torquemada!  Torquemada!

Denying human rights, an inherent law,
War–man's worst serial crime,
Spelled backwards is raw.

Guantanamo! Guantanamo!







Monday, January 27, 2014

SONG BIRD ANGELS FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE




Dedicated in honor of Wounded Warriors who are heroes along with the other armed forces

Copyright © Helene Smith, 2013
www.macdonaldsward.com
The Music Maker by Helene Smith

"Each war grows worse till men redeem it, and wars more evil, ere all wars cease."

–G. K. Chesterton, A Song of Defeat

What the world needs now is music to overcome the strain of insane wars.  Lyrics by Hal David and music by Burt Bacharach–"What the world needs now is love, sweet love–is not just for some but for everyone."
Among angels for peace are the song birds–musicians so influential their voices helped bring about the end of the uncivil, civil Vietnam War. Phil Ochs, folksinger on behalf of civil rights, wrote  "one good song with a message can move people more deeply than a thousand rallies."  There are scores of albums crying out against torturous, bloody aggression–but the same description covers all wars.
 So for a sampling of lyrics of war–the worst, endless serial crime on Earth–let's start out with United States wars against First Americans, known in Europe as the Seven Years Wars – in the colonies known as the first biological war of genocide in the western world–all of the Americas–North, Central, and South.  Bruce Cockburn, who earned enough awards through his music to be honored in the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, wrote the following lyrics–a poignant history, only the top of the volcano erupting with conquest and youth-killing wars:

INDIAN WARS
It's not breech-loading rifles and wholesale slaughter
It's kickback and thugs and diverted water
Treaties get signed and the papers change hands
But they might as well drafted the agreements in sand

Noble Savage on the cinema screen
An Indian's good when he cannot be seen
And the so-called white-so called race
Digs for itself a pit of disgrace

For centuries non-"Indians" recorded these unjust times with newcomers only fixated on themselves. But the oral histories of traditionalist wars against foreign conquest are now just beginning to be published–intentional extermination yet to be filmed and recorded in a flame of religious fire, an excuse to clear the way for colonial advancement called the "divine" Manifest Destiny.
David Gerrold said through music "Tchaikovsky was the only winner in the War of 1812." In his epic tale of relentless aggression, The War Against the Chtorr, Gerrold wrote "Only people who have never lived through a war advocate it so eagerly." Musicians protesting wars are the most vocal harbingers of peace with many honored in a variety of halls of fame. Through the Revolutionary War and up to the latest aggression, it is estimated that over 600 peace songs deploring war have been written, according to one source.  However, since music reflects the yearning for peace through the centuries, there are probably millions more lyrics for world harmony that have not been part of the count.
During the War of 1812 Francis Scott Key wrote lyrics to John Stafford Smith’s song composed for a London social club or pub, that became the U.S. national anthem. The Star Spangled Banner graphically reflects war–“the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air.” Patrick Gilmore (writing under name Francis Lambert) wrote the timeless When Johnny Comes Marching Home and other war songs during the Civil War.
 WW I provoked more anti-war music as it did its sequel, WW II. During the later war Gene Autry and Vaughn Monroe recorded When the Lights Go On Again All Over the World. During the same war Harold Adamson and Jimmie McHugh wrote Coming Home on a Wing and a Prayer, with the hope of wars to end as youths work for a better world free of organized bloodbaths since war is revenge on steroids.
The following musicians and war songs are a mere smattering of all the anti-war inspiration, such as War Song (Ancient Times) lyrics, an album by C. Samper and music by J. Lopez. Other anti-war albums were made by Country Joe McDonald and the Fish, such as War, War, War.  Lydia Fish's songs against war is a long, ongoing, growing list.
All-time greats, Willie Nelson, Pete Seeger, and Woody Guthrie keep strumming along the Hudson River with soul music for a greener Earth in boats with these activists leading the clean-up of the river believed to have been impossible. For years these musicians were ostracized for objecting to war and its contamination. The last trickle of pollution came from the General Electric Company, with all hands on board the Woody and the Clear Water working hard at helping the environment.
 Canadian-born Neil Young’s Flags of Freedom and Living with War, part of his war album, reflect the brotherhood of man and sisterhood, too. Through uplifting lyrics Young makes sure no one forgets combat troops who never make it home. With him, war is not the last resort. It is no resort. Song writer Eric Bogle in his Wilderness album sings out for Earth, trees, sky and peace. Echoes from the voice of songwriter John Denver, anti-war protestor having produced 300 recordings of his music. His music continues to be sung about peace and saving the environment, wetlands and nature. Remember his song, Let This be a Voice.
Graham Nash said peace and love are stronger than hate, with young soldiers trained to kill young soldiers in foreign lands. He recalls a childhood seeing his homeland, England, in flames and smoking ruins. He wrote about teaching your children well “their father’s hell,” and co-wrote other songs for peace. Haunted by war, British John Lennon died, but not his soul, for his firm belief in reforming the world through Give Peace a Chance, with Leon Russell and his song about peace, too. Lennon, who said "War is over–when you want it," with the  “Beatles” sang for world harmony and ending the war in Vietnam. Paul McCartney and actor George Clooney, nephew of singer Rosemary Clooney, were appointed in different years as United Nations messengers of peace. Clooney speaks out about the genocide of war.
Listen to Johnny Cash’s anti-war lyrics about a soldier getting over aggression and Bobby Darin’s The Simple Song of Freedom– “Tell the people everywhere, we the people here don’t want war.” Composer Paul Robson sees through the propaganda of warmongers, “When the issue of peace or war is put squarely to the American people, they have registered for peace.”  Oscar Hammerstein revealed, "Peace is the never-ending process, the work of many decisions."
Fats Domino wrote about a friend killed on Hamburger Hill, the day the sun stood still–gun fire spilled blood–as he sees through their masks of war–“a sad high price to pay for politics and war.” Other songs mourning wretched war are Paul Simons War Time Prayer and Bruce Springsteen’s Mrs. McGrath, an Irish ballad about foreign wars, and “living on blood and a mother’s pain.”
Called “the messenger of peace,” Stevie Wonder’s (real name Steveland Hardaway Morris) songs reflect his conviction, “I always have been against war, and always will be against war, any war, anytime.”  Rapper Boots Riley’s song Head refers to the chief of state and in The Coup he sings about malfeasance leading up to the Iraqi War.
 Eddie Vedder’s lyrics in Pearl Jam’s forceful album–the song World Wide Suicide–reflectsit’s a shame to a world of pain, what does it mean when a war takes over, it’s the same everyday in a hell man made.” Paul Simon sings about conflict-ravished families, as Nashville’s Dixie Chicks proved to be right about corrupt politics, the public not permitted to see row after row of coffins of young soldiers. Another protestor is Elton John against war and its aftermath. 2016 Nobel Peace Prize for Literature Award winner, Bob Dylan wrote and sang Masters of War. It bemoans government-built death planes and bombs, as cowards hide behind desks. "You've thrown the worst fear that can ever be hurled, fear to bring children into the world, for threatening my baby unborn and unnamed, you ain't worth the blood that runs in your veins." He sees through their masks of war. He was referring to the government. His Chimes of Freedom ring out–“for the warriors whose strength is not to fight, refugees on unarmed roads of flight.”
Eric Clapton, with his blues/rock songs and blue guitar boat, is a war son of a Canadian WW II father and English mother. Luciano Pavarotti sang an emotionally soul-rending duet with Clapton, a concert on behalf of war children and orphans left behind. And lest we forget (a phrase in one of Rudyard Kipling’s poem) the “Cranberries” sang War Child lyrics, too.
Dolly Parton’s heartfelt song Daddy Won’t Be Home Anymore, is as moving as “The Despairs” singing Burnt Out Souls–“A burnt out life sold to war, a wasted youth searching for a lost childhood.” Rolling Stone songs include Mick Jagger’s War Baby–“children strong and pure heed not the gods of war.”
Michael Jackson’s Earth Song–“All the children dead from war–Did you ever stop to notice the crying Earth, the weeping shore?” What Leonardo DeCaprio is concerned over–the poisoned war environment. Jack Nicholson and Robert Rafelson wrote the “War Chant” performed by the Monkees–Give me a W, give me an A and give me an R–“Rich man’s war, poor man’s fight”–as fashion designer Jean-Paul Sartre said "When the rich wage wars, it's the poor who pay for it"–also on an early tavern sign showing a miserable man making his way across Earth.
Frank Sinatra early in his life was averse to hatred and racism as he raised funds for veteran housing while singing songs of love. He and Sammy Davis, Jr. were adamantly against war. Davis’s lyrics for peace still memorable go straight to the heart. Sinatra spoke of “the revered Prince of Peace, and how “more blood has been spilled in his name than any other figure in history. The modern Prince has some of the most anti-war lyrics in his time. Sinatra said, “It’s all one world, pal. We’re all neighbors”– amen, my friend, amen, what brings to mind Pangaea, Earth before it was literally pulled and pushed apart into continents and islands on tectonic rock plates. I stood alone by Sinatra's grave at Cathedral City in California. At his headstone I looked up and saw a swaying branch with leaves fluttering in the wind. In my mind I could hear the breezes whisper, “I did it my way!” On his grass grave a message from a fan was written on cardboard–“He may be dead but his music lives on.”
Today Barry Manilow who sings at Nobel Peace Laureate performances in Oslo, Norway brings the world together in song and compassion. “We can chase down all our enemies, bring them to their knees. We can bomb the world to pieces, but we can’t bomb it into peace,”–said musician Michael Franti, leader of  “Spearhead.” According to Singer Tony Bennett, pacifist (along with his son, Danny), “War is the lowest form of human behavior.” Bennett found glorified war to be a complete paradox after fighting in WW II Battle of the Bulge.
Again, Pete Seeger singing Down by the Riverside, encourages militants to "study war no more." Along the same Hudson River Bob Lusk reflects a bold social conscience as he became a peace activist, a member of Veterans for Peace and the ”Kings Mall Seven” musicians–all arrested for reading names of soldiers who died in the 2003 Bush invade, attack, and occupy war. In Lusk's song Read Me the Dead, the chorus lyrics are, “Cursed be the leaders who shamed memories of foot soldiers, veterans, each one a hero. These are their names, their battles have ended, we stand in their honor, we stand here for peace”–all victims of U.S. military “shock and awe” strategy. Al Jolson, singer of many minstrels was the first musician to entertain the troops abroad. And he paid his own way.
Dedicative Bob Hope and his troubadour troupe entertained troops in foreign wars for fifty years. "We must see that peace represents a sweeter music, a cosmic melody that is far superior than the disorder of war," said Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He also observed "We have guided missiles and misguided men." Peace activist, David Swanson, author of War, No More–a Case for Abolition, wrote "War is a Lie."
Ted Turner, founder of CNN and Turner Broadcasting Company, said, "Music has a great power for bringing people together."  He compared sports to wars that do not kill. Regarding everything we try to do, wars disrupt and deform the young–all youth-killer aggression. Sadly, women in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and Iran  (from the first Persian Gulf war when Iraq attacked Iran with U.S. help) are traumatized by endless war. They fear pregnancy, as well as combat mothers in America and in other nations–all victims of militants sucking on nuclear pacifiers for false safety.
Many women from the Middle East lost their husbands and sons in battle from the illegal Persian Gulf invasions. They undergo additional grief of burying their infants alone–unrecorded tragedies never making the news.
Sophie Kerr, a writer born in 1880, wrote, "If peace only had the music and pageant of war, there'd be no wars."  In the Jewish Bible is written, "Seek peace and pursue it."  American Indian, Black Hawk, said, "There can never be peace between nations unless it is first known that true peace is within the soul of man."  Mohandus Gandhi said that the worst wars are in the minds of man. And it is these battles that must first be won. One of Great Mahatma's favorite songs is When Hearts Are Hardand "grace is lost from life" bringing on a burst of song.  
Hard-times come no more in wars, what Stephen Collins Foster (1826-1864), Father of American Music, included in his song,
"It's a sigh that is wafted across the troubled wave
It's a wail that is heard upon the shore
It's a dirge that is murmured across the lonely plains
Oh, hard times come no more."  
What every combat soldier knows more than any civilian. The aftermath of wars causing poverty and all troubles within Pandora's Box of evil. Foster's lyrics was about "nations quarreling who is the stronger," and "slaughtering men for glory's sake, shameful rivalries of creed with religions shorn of pride, with charity trimming her lamp and let us aid it all we can, ev'ry women, ev'ry man, even the smallest help, if rightly giv'n, makes the impulse stronger–but 'twill be strong enough some day, wait a little longer." 
By now the world has waited too long, with all time running out. The new rally cry is for all wars to cease since even traditional weapons are illicit and must be enforced with punitive measures against toxic munitions pitting youths against youths in genocide in aborting embryos–chemical, radioactive warfare deforming infants, from parent to child DNA, and crippling youths for life. Together we can make hard times come no more!

Sunday, January 26, 2014

EARTH PROPHETS FOR PEACE

Good morning good people.  All mornings begin each day.  Here is one of my poems.



Helene Smith © copyright 2013
Certified historian and investigative journalist

EARTH PROPHETS BLEW NO TRUMPETS FOR WAR

As they blew not one powder horn
Or explosives slung over one arm,
No deforming toxic harm to any newborn.

In boot-step pollution we come and go,
Through wastelands so proudly we hail
Not even talking of T.S.'s Michelangelo.

Marching and conquering we must
Under bombs bursting red glare
For lies of rocket leaders we trust.

For radioactive war crimes we nod,
Against man and Earth, spelled with an "E,"
War chanting all trust in one absolute God.

Prophets had no weapons of devastation,
Not even a sword or cluster, buster grenade.
No genocide sanctions of kids in any nation.

Their strength in love
Is their only sword of salvation,
Soaring wings of a conciliatory dove.

Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, Gandhi,
Mother Terisa, and Amma–hugging
Prophet from India–and the Dali Lama.

All dark complexioned seers of the brave,
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandela, too–pegged black–code for slave.

What Earth needs now is love that's kind,
With no such thing as "race,"
Invented by a German in 1779.


Thursday, January 23, 2014

THE MIRACLE OF PARAGUAY

Good morning Earth, capitalized for its respect and all those who live in its environment–our only

 sustenance.


Instead of one of my essays,

the following post is a ballad inspired by a true story I saw in a recent

documentary.  These are the lyrics.  Although I wrote the music I have not recorded it for

publication,  This event is a remarkable effort on behalf of restoring a healthy ecology in which

 garbage is treated safely versus being dumoped, especially where people live!

Recycling doens't get any better than this!



(excerpt from poem/essay environmental anthology, Uncommon  Sense about Common Wars)
www.macdonaldsward.com
Helene Smith © copyright 2013

THE MIRACLE OF PARAGUAY

In Cateura the people live on landfill,
With their children labor on oil-can hill,
On the banks of the Paraguay River
Where every child dreams of life anew,
Landfill pickers, day by day,
Recycle trash into cash through sheer will.

CHORUS

O Cateura, Cateura your youths are sweet, fair and good, they make music from water pipes, big jelly cans, crates, forks and spoons, Mozart's notes out flowing–violins, cellos, clarinets and the beat of a rum-a-tump drum.

Angel Earth, sitting on top of the globe
Strums his last string of hope; all other strings broke,
After years sighing and watching proud people labor
In heaps of Trash below,
He ponders the Banada Sur,
Seaming trash survival on rubbish hill.

CHORUS REPRISE

Months went by, and so did years,
As garbage hill swelled the old lagoon,
Now flowing over with trash,
Problems, too, piled up on children's backs,
Until Favio Chavez, an enterprising man,
Came along with a possible dream.

CHORUS REPRISE

That same fine day Angel Earth wondered
About all the little children from afar,
Youths rising into thoughts of his mind,
It was all about clean water and other needs.
As he puzzled about the musical man.
A vision of hope appeared before his eyes

CHORUS REPRISE

Flavio had gathered an orchestra,
With more eager kids than instruments.
Then while rummaging through the trash
He suddenly saw something shiny,
A roll of wire sticking out of the stash,
As the sun shone brightly on his warm back.

CHORUS REPRISE

Flavio taught kids to play in a new kind of way,
As friend,  "Cola," hammered out Instruments from slum trash hill.
But Chevez with a heart of gold
And Cola in a humble way
Could not look up and see Angel Earth,
Strumming his last string of hope.

CHORUS REPRISE

Soon children came by the hundreds,
To escape slum rat gangs and their potions,
Parents in tears reunited with wayward kids
Giving forth soulful music out of the dumps
And boat loads of other people's junk
–1500 pounds of burden, each new day!

CHORUS REPRISE

Now Angel Earth, no more sighing over 
Trash picker kids, heard sweet music
Coming from sour dough hill,
With an orchestra full of youths taking other peoples junk
And Giving back hope in harmonic song,
A joyful dream come true.

CHORUS

O Cateura, Cateura your youths are sweet, fair and good, they make music from water pipes, big jelly cans, crates, forks and spoons. Mozart's notes out flowing–
Violins, cellos, clarinets and the beat of a rum-a-tump drum.












 

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

THE FALSE FACE OF RACE

Good morning people.  I'm not going to differentiate or color-code anyone.  It's taken me 60 years to research what has always puzzled me–why people from various nations and cultures are pegged colors.  The following is what my research brought to light.



Helene Smith © Copyright 2013
(for author's bio, photo and published works)


THE FALSEFACE BEHIND RACE
–Why It Is Dangerous To Color-Code People

"White’ people send ‘black people’ to fight ‘yellow people’ to protect the country they stole from ‘red people.’ “

–Gerome Ragni/James Rado, from Broadway musical, "Hair"

Every time you call a human being a color, you are profiling humanity. Children are born into a life of confusion.  It is especially frustrating for the unbiased to grasp the reality of color-coded people–very narrowing for open minds from which babies get their first view.  As a mother of five children, I decided to research how and why adults take something completely unnecessary, like the hierarchy of race, and let it control and out rule their lives. As a result, bigotry never dug its ugly claws into the minds of my kids. One day my four year-old twin daughters came running up to me when I was doing archaeological work at a historic site. They exclaimed, "Look, mommy.  Look at all those black people."  What I saw was a group of nuns.
Racism is the grit from which youth-killing, filthy wars erupt. For me it was shock and awe to discover race colors did not exist before German-born Johann Friedrick Blumenbach, “father of race,” concocted his rival color-coding hierarchy in 1779. From his deceptive illusion he believed so-called "whites" were pure and "most handsome, the nearest to God" in appearance, especially at the Caucasian Mountains at the Black Sea. Anthropologists say the Hebrew Holocaust was fueled in Nazi Germany by Blumenbach's influence–as religious race wars race on like blazing saddles.  A master race within the same nation is exposed as fake–one man's fatal invention.
Previously Carolus Linnaeus classified animals and human beings as species, stocks, groups or peoples. Blumenbach's bogus color divisions of humanity consisted of Europeans deemed highest power, whom he coined 1. white, Caucasian; 2. black, Negroid or Hamite; 3. red, American ("Indians"); and 4. yellow, Mongoloid, with a later brown Malaysian rung added to the ladder of segregation.
The word Hamite is derived from Noah's mythological sons–Japeth, representing Europe, Shem Asia, and Ham Africa, what originally was called Nigeria, for the most part.  This archaic fable includes the curse of Ham–son of Noah "a black man"–and why he was banished from his homeland due to a  sexual violation, what persists in provoking racism against Africa today.  It is assumed that the word Niger River, stems from Latin, aithlops, "burnt-face," a word for Africa or Negroid since the time of Homer.
From the Judeo-Christian Bible the word "race" is emphasized as racetrack competition–eventually human division for Anglo conquest–divide and conquer. Return race to the horse track where it started during the Roman Empire in 27 CE, East and West, when slaves were forced to their deaths in chariot races held at "bread and circus" coliseums. In the Byzantine Hippodrome the vicious Nike (victory) riots broke out under four rival colors, what spawned later color-coding behavior.  This  pattern of vicious competition was carried over to racial violence today–like shouting, jeering sports teams fired-up, but with more hatred and enmity against the opposition than in tearing down goalposts.
 The word race originally meant slashing with a razor, derived from Latin.  Prisoners were killed until emperors and warlords took advantage of them for free labor and entertainment, a system eventually fixated on dark complexion targeted for bondage–even though there is a saying about attraction–"tall, dark, and handsome." Indigenous Americans on man-devised reservations–the last of their sacred lands now controlled by a historically corrupt non-elected Bureau of Indian Affairs in the Department of the Interior–were the first  US slaves not used to a strange, unnatural culture where many took their own lives. Africans captured for bondage dragged to foreign lands became the next victims, who also suffered from despair and grief for centuries up to the present, based on pigment–melanin that protects against sun rays.
Alienating race has caused frothing rage and eventually a plethora of subdivisions, completely out of control. These new categories are also fabricated, as multiple new divisions make identity even more perplexing to students filling out race boxes on college application forms confused as to which box to check–white, black (most rival categories), with a conglomeration of  nationalities inconsistent with one another.  Why not think out of the box?  And what happened to the red and yellow so-called races?
United we stand, not separated we stand–one nation indivisible. Years ago France eliminated discordant color-coding on race boxes for census reports.  The US conducted its first population census in 1790 by separating people of bondage from the free–later dividing people into colors in racist paranoia. You cannot be prosecuted for not filling in Pandora's Box of trouble that fuels chilling religio-racist wars of power against non-"white" victims.  We are all people.
Novelist Pulitzer/Nobel Laureate Pearl Buck chided Americans for calling Asians yellow. Racism stokes wars, as seen in WWII and the Vietnam War.  Soldiers were trained to call "yellow" people "japs" or "gooks"–to falsely justify savage killing of foes. Harry Truman started the false rumor that nuclear bombs, specifically produced to make Japan surrender, saved American ives–the world's worst nuclear disaster that sent radioactive fallout across Earth, including the US, with an untold amount of deaths from cancer and other diseases.  In a WWII speech this president denounced the Japanese as "dirty Japs," making it easy for him to order barbaric atomic bombs dropped on "yellow people"–even though that nation was ready to surrender, confirmed by top US and Britain military officials, including General Dwight D. Eisenhower.  Already 200,000 people had died in Japan from carpet-bomb firestorms, added to 180,000 more deaths from nuclear missile attack, without warning, that killed mostly civilians.  Today Japanese authorities insist their nation be nuclear free ever since the Fukushima tragedy when an earthquake caused a tsunami and blew up a nuclear complex, as they also protest US military bases posioning their land with leaking toxicants.
The world has long degraded people referred to a black, red, and yellow. A Filipino friend was confused in a segregated restaurant in Pittsburgh years ago.  She read a sign saying, "Black on the left; white on the right." She told the manager. “Where do I sit?  I’m neither black nor white.”  Transparently he said, "I'll pay for your lunch if you sit in the “black” section.
The book of Leviticus 25:44 states bondsmen and bondsmaids should be taken from the heathen as slaves–unbelievers of the Jewish cultural. Later this bigotry was transferred to American "Indians" and American Africans "non believerss." Racial religious bias also has its taproot hooked into biblical times when Paul of Tarsus in Asia Minor (Turkey) demanded that slaves obey their masters.
  We no longer peg indigenous people “red” except for Washington D.C.’s football mascots, even though this divisive, degrading epithet violates label laws. First Americans still resent and are insulted by lack of respect–human beings lowered to the rank of animals.  Bayley Lopez of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation said,  "Economic racism is akin to bribery." Federal corporate funds pay impoverished "redskin" nations to store leaking nuclear waste–following atomic bomb testing "proving" grounds, toxic industrial power plants, uranium mines, and chemical weapon depots built on or next to reservations. Years ago these contaminated sights were marked in red as "Danger Zones" in atlases­ on last sacred lands of traditionalist indigenous people targeted for extermination. Here the first US biological  warfare became genocide when hospital blankets were given to First Americans as "gifts."
The largest US dumping grounds began in WWII at Hanford, Washington reservation representing numerous First American nations.  Here long build-up of nuclear toxicants leak and threaten catastrophe to the lives and health of people and animals, also in Oregon and along the Columbia River–birth defects and diseases.
Why are war-torn genetic deformities in children not an issue on the daily news–even though International Law, Geneva Protocol, and other rules against intoxicants make these youth-killers illicit?  Battlefields of slaughter persist with color-coding, racist religionism fanning the flames of war. Airborne chemical and radioactive emissions blown across the world grotesquely deform and abort with miscarriages–with women afraid of pregnancy.  In war, combat parents and those trapped in crossfire in illegal modern war zones get the brunt of these lethal agents.
There is no glory in racist wars. Aggression is gory violence chasing violence.  You can run but it will find you–in the air, in the seas, in the land–buried in virulent waste. Misguided testosterone energizing hatred is the fuel, the force behind the force that blows up our planet–our only sustenance. Why do men in Congress out number nurturing women who are more interested in education and health for their children than in blowing youths up in combat?  War munitions are the bane of the world–lock, stock and barrel controlling power and greed.
It was John Newton, a former slave captain who transported humans in chains during the middle passage also known as Maafa, the great triangular trade disaster at the point of a gun. Lyrics to the hymn The Amazing Grace was published in 1779 (same year race was invented), by evangelist minister John Newton an ex-slave ship captain. The melody haunted him–the sound of exhausted galley slaves imprisoned as they sang in their own language while plying oars within sweat-filled bottoms of boats.                   
Some people of African descent say they are not from Africa.  But residents of this continent captured for export like bails of cotton first came from Africa and were then taken to America, Portugal and other European countries as well as West Indian Caribbean ports.  At the most powerful Elmina Castle Fortress at Accra, Africa during the height of the slave trade, thousands were chained down in deep dungeons before being forced onto ships of commerce. During the interim, the governor who lived at the castle periodically raped the women in its high tower­ before they were sent on their way during the Mid-Atlantic slave trade. When slavery was at last being phased out, especially by the British, slavers–to prevent them from being caught in the act–would force helpless, miserable people into the waves or in kegs like human cargo to the depths of the sea in fettered iron, with the sick and weak also disposed of like refuse from a ship.  But many escaping cruelty of their shipmasters went willingly to their death, their last jump to freedom.
"Whites" believed people in bondage had no souls.  Yet these experts in agriculture of raising cotton, rice, and Indigo, were captured for their expertise in farming–disgraceful disparity of racism by the top of the made-up hierarchy judging who had souls and who did not–false pandering to the lowest instincts of man. These African men and women forced into free labor increased profits with infants born into the gruesome system, all laboring to the  advantage of their masters. During the holocaust of the Mid-Atlantic slave trade toddlers and their grandparents were left behind to fend for themselves in an economy of abject poverty.
Yeas ago William Ernest Henley wrote Invictus:

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods my be
For my unconquerable soul . . . .
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul

Chained in bondage the young and the strong were loaded into boats of human export, as baptizers threw buckets of water over them, with an interpreter demanding, "Now you're Christians and must obey us as God tells you to."
During America's 1861-65 Civil War 700,000 lives could have been saved if Congress would have prohibited slavery as England's Parliament did between 1807 and 1838.  In vain Senator Aaron Burr spoke passionately before Congress to ban "black" bondage in America in the 1700s, prior to running for president. Although he inherited a few slaves, he taught them to read and write and then freed them. In 1600 a myth was started–“one drop of black blood” makes an African. Yet this quantitative device pertained not to other blood!  Fe, fi, fo, fum, not even to the blood of an Englishman. 
Race and religion continue to fuel the three original Semitic persuasions–Hebrew (through Isaac) Christian (through David, Matthew 1:16-17) and Muslim (through Ishmael)– all stemming from Abraham and Jesus, according to tradition. Due to rival color chaos, Earth (capitalized for respect) and its peoples have died from excruciating slaughter and torture–"business as usual" when it comes to religious, color wars.  It should make one red or blue in the face from the very history of race still ignored.
African Americans have always resisted and revolted from slavery. Two modern-day philosophers summed up this evil behavior that continues to this day, in spite of a war that involved slavery followed by American Africans emancipated, at least on paper.  Daniel O'Connell wrote, "American side of the color-line elevates whites–no matter how wretched–over blacks." David Walker described "white people" as "unjust, unmerciful, avaricious, and blood thirsty" –what so-called "red" and "yellow" people, as well as "brown," also found out. Although Jim Crow laws are no longer legal, they still taint an American culture that is uncivilized regarding the injustice of war. Here are a few human reminders.
In 1995 Coroner Cyril Wecht from Pittsburgh confirmed that five "white thugs"–known for viciously taunting so-called minorities–committed police brutality through suffocation. These cops stopped a Syracuse New York American African businessman, Jonny Gammage, who had borrowed a Jaguar belonging to his cousin, an NFL player. Gammage was accused of braking along an unfamilar winding road.                  
The victim tried to call for help, but his cell phone was knocked out of his hand.  In a struggle the cops jumped the driver, handcuffed him, and beat him with their clubs, a metal flashlight, and a leather blackjack. Five bullies held him down and exerted extreme pressure on his head and neck. He died unarmed.  After five charges of homicide and two mistrials the militants were released.  The ringleader went back to work and received a promotion at his precinct known for demeaning African Americans unmercifully.
This tragedy was committed with no one around to hear blatant, flagrant barbarity as ruthless, out-of-control men bludgeoned their victim. An innocent young man died that night on a dark road–"guilty" for driving while "black."  Lurking underneath this crime is a corrupt police system that holds one's job dependant upon a monthly quota of arrests, stops, and summons. When "white" officers are bigoted against dark complexioned American Africans and Hispanics (Spanish, America Indian, Mexican heritage), innocent people become targets and are incarcerated unjustly, with the US having more prisons than schools.
In 2013 after eons of similar murders, a self-appointed "white" neighborhood guard stalked and fatally shot an American African teenager, Trayvon Martin who was unarmed in Sanford, Florida. While returning to his father's house from a nearby store on a dark night–he died, "guilty for walking while "black."
Another high school student, Kendrick Johnson, an American African from Valdosta, Georgia, was mysteriously found dead in a rolled up wrestling mat–reported accidental.  When his parents had his body exhumed his organs were missing and replaced with crumpled newspapers. His head revealed trauma from a deathblow.  There was blood nearby.  A cut and spliced security video, with missing frames, revealed a person behind the deceased who was running across the school gym floor. The "white" racist volcano still erupts in America, what triggers backlash revenge–why color-coding, that provokes murders and youth-killing wars, needs to be exposed as the world's deadliest deceit.
Why is a white lie small and a black lie big? Today race is stereotyped, as was Little Black Sambo who caused a restaurant chain to close.  The real question is why was Little Black Sambo in a children's book characterized as black. Little Lord Fauntleroy was not titled "Little White Lord Fauntleroy" and was pictured wearing clothes, with Sambo practically naked!  One picture is worth a thousand words.
Racist venom against American Africans and subsequently Africa itself was used falsely to justify prohibition from voting–residents from a beautiful continent smeared as being stupid or simple through crude graphics.  Famous athletes labeled “black,” such as basketball player Michael Jordan, have been banned from “white” clubs, just as early restaurant signs read, "No Indians or Dogs Allowed," as country clubs used to post "Gentiles Only."  Other clubs banned Italians and other people of dark complexion. It was also unpopular for Italians and the Irish, often called black, to fraternize outside the clan.
Sadly identification via term “blacks” disfranchises darker complexioned people from human rights, their original culture and the continent of Africa itself. First Americans and American Africans have had their inherited names erased and replaced by rival colors.  Should the term, human race, be obliterated.  "Black" is historical code for slave–a negative word that conjures up  black list, black market, blackmail, blackheart, black mark, and black farcical humor that is derisive.  Calling human beings "blacks" even sounds bad.  Historically, many different nationalities were "blackened" to demean people.
When people of dark complexion apply for membership at private clubs and are blackballed, even though African Americans are hired to work at these organizations,  the excuse goes something like this, "We're not against blacks.  We just don't want them in our club."  Even the celebrated singer, Marian Anderson, had to enter Carnegie Music Hall when she was a guest entertainer–through a back door since she was African American nationality. (Race also means nationality.) Wilcox County in Georgia had segregated proms as late as 2013. The students now see themselves as Americans, a consistent term across the board.
If we would use our own national or continental origins as identification when necessary, there would be no violent racism. How can anyone hate an entire continent of Africa!  You can call yourself anything you want. But when a person color-codes others with derogatory words, there will always be trouble.   All colors are beautiful in the eye of the beholder, but racial colors have picked up loathsome connotations. So what is the beef?  Cattle are not pegged as colors.  Instead they are classified as to their inherited regions–such as Holstein, Jersey, Hereford, and Angus. Dogs and cats are identified by pedigrees or breeds such as Labrador Retriever and Poodle–all capitalized.  But human beings are color-coded for hierarchical classification, what provokes wars.
It may take a white-out or a black-out to wean man off race. Stuck in a rut with “black” and “white” rivalry is a disease of the mind–"skin supremacism"– a malady of pale people historically shackled to the fear of dark skin? Oxford Dictionary states “white means fearful, coward" –reason alone for not being labeled "white."
Skin-tone results from ancestors living close to or far from the equator. There is no scientific evidence for any race gene (Encyclopedia Britannica). Anthropologists claim 20,000 years for pigment to become part of DNA among original people. Tanning is temporary, unless children are born of parents having different amounts of pigment. By the way, according to genetics, dark melanin is dominant over so-called "white" characteristics­­–why all humanity will reflect one common hue, since people are now permitted to marry whomever they love without disparage or cast as inequality. So why not fast-forward to end all foolish racism now? 
Everyone is similar in tone on palms of hands and soles of feet. From man's beginning these physical areas rarely saw the sun–what started the difference in skin tones in the first place. People wore little or no clothing with their skin all one hue. As human migration moved away from the equator to colder regions, warm clothing became quintessential for survival.
Skin tone graduates from light to dark in India, a cast-off system that Indo-Europeans invented.  In African people of the rainforest have lighter complexions than those in desert regions. Other physical features also mutate through migration. On Easter Island primitive Polynesians discriminated regarding their ears. Short Ears eventually killed off all the Long Ears!
Black and white reflect prismatic values, not colors–white is made of light, as black is devoid of light. Another name for Caucasian is albinism, a "white" person who lacks pigment. Black, white, and color rhetoric baffles most people. Calling people "blacks" and "whites" is in one's face!
Why do people use adverbs “black” and “white” instead of nouns for human beings? I contacted the Associated Press since it covers most of the world and discovered the AP follows the University of Chicago Press stylebook.  Their word manual was updated in 2003, a watershed word moment.  At that time original “black” was changed, to “African American,” although pure “white” was still recommended in the same handbook since Caucasians enjoy being referred to as "pure." Many presses seldom consult new additions of their handbook guides with employees not aware that "black" is out and African American is in.
 If the Chicago Press would change the controversial definition for the word, race to nationality it would help all minorities socially, economically, and spiritually. Race  is no genie and can be stuffed back into the bottle.  Similar to brass cuspidors, now obsolete antiques, these spittoons no longer are used since they were public health hazards as race still is today.
In 1965 the Vatican finally admitted slavery is "infamy"–a crime against people of Indian and African descent. In 1967 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “War is the enemy of the poor . . . .  Militant, racist, zionist colonialism and injustice cause America its spiritual death."  Years ago I visited the gravesite memorial of W.E.B. DuBois, American African educator and founder of the NAACP (color-coding title).  I was the only so-called "white" person to be invited to go to Ghana, Africa,  a trip sponsored by the Urban League in Pittsburgh.  This great man looked forward to the day when skin color was no longer an issue.” And it was James Kellner, a chairman of Turner Broadcasting System, who wrote,

"My hope is that one day we all come together and not see color as it relates to race. Judge not people by the color their skin."

     Among the greatest prophets of the world were Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, and Gandhi, and the Dali Lamae. Confucius, once called yellow, advised, “Don’t do to others what you don’t want others to do to you”–a universal belief echoed by all wisdom keepers. Mother Theresa from Macedonia and the famous hugging Amma from India, as well as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandela who endured 67 years in prison after opposing the dreadful apartheid, all had complexions different from so-called "white people." It is paradoxical irony that much of the world worships dark-complexioned  "gods" while at the same time tries to prevent their descendants from having equal human rights.
     When people call extraterrestrials from outer space "green"–whom no one has ever seen–it just confirms man's fetish for color-coding human beings. Figuratively, Lady Liberty hangs her head in shame as millions of combat soldiers lie in graves from the historic past, after suffering brain injuries, amputations, and suicides from madness of racist color-coding aggression that fuels wars. In Flanders Field the poppies grow, between the crosses row by row–no matter what persuasion. Lady Liberty may be copper green, but no one calls her green!  The false face called race brings nothing but trouble and sorrow.

 ‘We feel invincible crushing little brown, black, and yellow people . . . All we see are little green men running across our screen . . . We drop bombs like rain leaving scorched Earth and broken dreams . . .  we just react and kill to stay alive.”

–courtesy of Jose Vasquez: medic, nurse in Iraq; now a conscientious war objector in a new career involving anthropology 

WAKEY, SHAKEY
copyright © 2012

A new line dance with lyrics and dance.  Introduce it to your favorite social group.

Turn your right palm up.   Turn your left palm up,
Shake and shout,  “We’re all the same!”
Embrace!  Embrace! There’s no such thing as race!
Do the wakey, shakey
Turn yourself around and join in all the fun,
Arms up! And celebrate the sun!

Turn your right sole up, Turn your left sole up,
Shake and shout, “We’re all the same!”
Embrace! Embrace! There’s no such thing as race!
Do the wakey, shakey
Turn yourself around and join in all the fun,
Arms up!  And celebrate the sun!