Dr. Henry Jerome Brown ― A "Radical Republican" of Baltimore

Henry Jerome Brown (1830 - 1920) learned life's early lessons as a child on the same streets of antebellum Baltimore which reared a young slave boy, Frederick Bailey, later to be known as Frederick Douglass. After the war, Brown and others set about the task of defining exactly what freedom was to mean in Baltimore. Late in life, as the Civil War generation of leadership surrendered the mantle of responsibility to younger activists, H.J. Brown was there, taking less of an up-front role than in his younger days, of course, but nonetheless providing valuable leadership which helped to steer black Baltimoreans through the dark days of the 1890s - 1910s.

(Maryland State Archives) 

In 1867 Maryland's Republicans held a convention in Baltimore for the purpose of addressing the political and civil rights of citizens. Dubbed "the Border States Convention", Republicans assembled at the Front Street Theatre during September. In recent years, the Republican/Unionist Party had been losing considerable influence in state government. However, the party seemed poised to stage a serious fight for universal manhood suffrage. It was hoped that if suffrage could be won for black men, the Republicans would create forty-thousand new loyal partymen.


Maryland's recognized black leaders converged in force on the convention. Dr. H.J. Brown was appointed to a Committee of Nine on the Permanent Organization at the convention. Focusing his message on the theme of the convention, black suffrage, Brown first denied that black suffrage would ignite a race war, as Southern Democrats had suggested. Speaking in a tone of defiance Brown declared that Southern "rebels" owed black Americans for two-hundred and fifty years of free labor. He proposed that the U.S. permanently confiscate the conquered Southern territory for redistribution to the freedman. Land ownership, Brown told the audience, was the true road to freedom and equality for blacks. Later during the summer of 1867, the Union League of East Baltimore, a Republican club, appointed Dr. Brown as one of several colored citizens on its committee of one hundred to lobby Congress for support of universal manhood suffrage.

When the state's Republicans gathered at the Front Street Theatre the following year, in March 1868, all the black Republicans from Baltimore City were refused seats on the floor of the convention, and had to take the spectator's view from the galleries of the hall. The leaders of the convention were determined to suppress the issue of universal manhood suffrage--it would have been "inexpedient to force it on the people now." 

Read more: http://msa.maryland.gov/msa/stagser/s1259/121/6050/html/11425000.html

Quote of the Day

"Black children must be allowed to be children, regarded as children, protected as children, and forgiven for mistakes children will make."

  

B. Blunt — My Funny Valentine (Acoustic)

B. Blunt's rendition of the timeless classic "My Funny Valentine".

                

My Funny Valentine (Acoustic) from B. Blunt on Vimeo.

Dr. Elaina George — The Devaluation of The Doctor and Its Effect on The American People

Dr Elaina George is a Board certified Otolaryngologist. She graduated from Princeton University with a degree in Biology.

(hat tip: Dr.ElainaGeorge.com).

The announcement by the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) to move 50% of its non-managed care spending into Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) and bundled payments coupled with the recent passage of Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (H.R.2) the repeal of the so called ‘doc fix’ will lead to the end of private healthcare, narrow the range of medical services offered by physicians, and increase the cost to patients and taxpayers.

It will not accomplish the goal of improvement of outcomes or increase access to healthcare for Americans. Instead, these changes will likely further decrease access for the sickest patients and decrease the quality of care for patients overall. If physicians and hospitals are now to be rewarded for positive outcomes, they will skew their services to healthier patients if for no other reason than to remain open. Under the ACO model members will receive a prescribed amount of money each year. The organization will access this ‘pot’ to deliver all medical services – tests, admissions, procedures and office visits. At the end of the year, members will share in the money left over. This model will inevitably put pressure on clinicians to avoid providing costly services and steer sicker patients to palliative care (hospice), and will most assuredly discourage doctors and hospitals from offering care that will be considered expensive. Doctors who work in this model will be in the business of acting as agents for a system that is driven by external dictates that place an artificial value on an individual and will destroy patient privacy. What was initially billed as a choice is now the law under H.R.2. It sounds good until it hits home when a patient needs the service that is denied because he/she is too old, too sick or otherwise is not deemed worthy because of a dire and/or costly diagnosis.

Read more: http://drelainageorge.com/?p=1122

Book Review: CHE Sadaphal — Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, by Ludwig Wittgenstein

4.9 of 5.0  The bottom line: A tough, yet mind-bending look into the object of philosophy through linguistics.  In Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Wittgenstein “deals with the problems of philosophy and shows … that the method of formulating these problems…

Read more ›

Black in Latin America - Cuba The Next Revolution (Episode 2)

Chairman of the Republican National Committee to Celebrate Black History Month

Just saw this in my email. 

Washington, DC (May 29, 2015) – Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, will participate in a panel discussion luncheon in celebration of Black Music Month on Monday, June 1^st, in Washington, DC.

Priebus will be joined on the panel by:

Sam Moore, legendary R&B soul singer and a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Marlon Jackson, one of the original members of the Jackson 5. Carvin Haggins, multi-Grammy Award winning songwriter/producer. Bria Marie, R&B/Hip Hop recording artist.

Raynard Jackson, a longtime Republican political consultant, will moderate the panel.  He is also chairman of the newly created Black Americans for a Better Future, a federal 527 independent committee “Super PAC” established for the express purpose of getting more Blacks involved in the Republican Party.

The panel will take place from at The University Club of Washington, DC, 1135 16^th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20036

Raynard Jackson can be reached at 202-251-3424 for those with questions.

Haiti and The Dominican Republic - The Roots of Division

The Lincoln Motion Picture company, a first for Black cinema

Staff of the Lincoln Motion Picture Company

                             
(via African American Registry)

The Lincoln Motion Picture Company was founded on this date in 1916, the first movie company owned and controlled by Black filmmakers. Lincoln was the creation of African American actor Noble Johnson and his brother George Johnson (a postal employee in Omaha). Lincoln Films built a reputation for making films that showcased African American talent in the full sphere of cinema. Noble Johnson was president of the company, the secretary was actor Clarence A. Brooks. Dr. James T. Smith was treasurer, and Dudley A. Brooks was assistant secretary. Incorporated in January 1917, Lincoln Motion Picture Company was given approval to issue 25,000 shares of common stock on April 30, 1917. 

 The first Lincoln production was a drama called "The Realization of a Negro's Ambition" (1916). The second was titled, "A Trooper of Troop K," (1917), which dealt with a massacre of Black troops in the Army's 10th Cavalry during the American operation against Mexican bandits and revolutionaries in 1916. Although the Johnson brothers wanted the films to play to wider audiences, they were mostly booked in special locations at churches and schools and the few "Colored Only" theaters in America. By 1920, the Lincoln company had completed five films, including "A Man's Duty" (1919), but it proved to be a minor business operation. 

See more at: http://www.aaregistry.org/historic_events/view/lincoln-motion-picture-company-first-black-cinema

George Ayittey: The Failure of African Socialism

 George Ayittey is a Ghanian economist and the founder and president of the Free Africa Foundation. He also taught economics at American University and is an associate scholar at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.

Anti-Communist Novel of Harlem Renaissance Is Found

via The New York Times:

The authentication of the novel is “scholarly gold,” said William J. Maxwell, the editor of “Complete Poems: Claude McKay.” Its mocking portraits of Communists show McKay’s decisive break with Communism and his effort to turn his political evolution into art, said Mr. Maxwell, a professor of English and African-American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis. 

Moreover, while the flowering of arts known as the Harlem Renaissance obsessively documented black life in the 1920s, he said, far less is known about the period of the 1930s, focused on in “Amiable.” 

Many scholars believe that the Harlem Renaissance’s creative energy had pretty much run out by the late 1930s. But Mr. Edwards said he believed that “Amiable” would eventually be recognized “as the key political novel of the black intellectual life in New York in the late 1930s.”

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/15/books/harlem-renaissance-novel-by-claude-mckay-is-discovered.html?_r=0

Cathy Young ― What Tributes to Bayard Rustin Leave Out

via RealClearPolitics.com

When Bayard Rustin, the often-unsung hero of the civil rights movement, died in 1987, obituaries either evaded the fact that he was openly gay or danced around it—like the New York Times, which mentioned Rustin’s homosexuality but described longtime partner Walter Naegle as his “administrative assistant and adopted son.” Today, such obfuscation looks both laughable and sad. As the nation marks the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s March on Washington, media tributes that credit Rustin’s role in that event have often focused on his identity as a black civil rights leader who was also a gay man. Yet in an ironic twist, many of these commemorations have been just as evasive, if not outright dishonest, about another key aspect of Rustin’s life: the fact that in his post-1963 career, he held many views that were anathema to the left, then and now.

The standard media narrative on Rustin is that he was sidelined in the civil rights movement and nearly erased from its history due to homophobia. But this is not entirely accurate—especially not the second part.

More: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/09/03/what_tributes_to_bayard_rustin_leave_out_119803.html

Quote of the Day

“Marxism has been the greatest fantasy of our century. It was a dream offering the prospect of a society of perfect unity, in which all human aspirations would be fulfilled and all values reconciled.” ― Leszek Kolakowski 

John McWhorter — It’s about time Obama stuck up for his ‘respectability politics’

(The Washington Post)

Did you hear about the black president who gets roasted for the gaffe of presuming black people have control over themselves and their fate?

It’s an old story at this point: President Obama’s speech at the March on Washington’s 50th anniversary commemoration; his commencement address at Morehouse College; the launch of his My Brother’s Keeper initiative. They’ve all come under scrutiny from African-American observers who become alarmed whenever the president strays from treating black people as powerless victims of society whose only salvation will be an upending of the American system that will never happen.

Jamelle Bouie calls Obama’s formulation “wrong” and Jelani Cobb once boiled it down this way: “It has been Obama’s consistent habit to douse moments of black achievement with soggy moralizing.”

But at his “poverty summit” Tuesday, the president pushed back, saying, among other things:

On this whole family-character values-structure issue. It’s true that if I’m giving a commencement at Morehouse that I will have a conversation with young black men about taking responsibility as fathers that I probably will not have with the women of Barnard. And I make no apologies for that. And the reason is, is because I am a black man who grew up without a father and I know the cost that I paid for that. And I also know that I have the capacity to break that cycle, and as a consequence, I think my daughters are better off.

He’s dead on, and he should keep at it. 

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/05/14/its-about-time-obama-stuck-up-for-his-respectability-politics/

Rebuild the Walls

Saying that the culture of thrift has been replaced by the culture of debt, Dr. Soaries Jr. makes the case for social entrepreneurship as a way to cure society’s ills in place of government action. He says while government’s role is important, a limited role provides the best outcomes for the state, for the community, and, most importantly, for the individual.

Quote of the Day

Salif Keita - Yamore

Glenn C. Loury ― The legacy of slavery lingers in our cities' ghettos

Glenn Cartman Loury is an American economist, academic and author. He is the Merton P. Stoltz Professor of the Social Sciences and Professor of Economics at Brown University

A social scientist of any sophistication recognizes that societies are not amalgams of unrelated individuals creating themselves anew--out of whole cloth, as it were--in each generation. A complex web of social connections and a long train of historical influences interact to form the opportunities and shape the outlooks of individuals. Of course, individual effort is important, as is native talent and sheer luck, for determining how well or poorly a person does in life. But social background, cultural affinities, and communal influence are also of great significance. 

This is the grain of truth in the conservatives' insistence that cultural differences lie at the root of racial inequality in America. But the deeper truth is that, for some three centuries now, the communal experience of the slaves and their descendants has been shaped by political, social, and economic institutions that, by any measure, must be seen as oppressive. When we look at "underclass culture" in the American cities of today we are seeing a product of that oppressive history. It is morally obtuse and scientifically naive to say, in the face of the despair, violence, and self-destructive folly of these people, that "if they would get their acts together, like the poor Asian immigrants, then we would not have such a horrific problem in our cities."

The only decent response in the face of the "pathological" behavior of American history's losers is to conclude that, while we cannot change our ignoble past, we must not be indifferent to the contemporary suffering that is linked to that past. The self-limiting patterns of behavior among poor blacks "which some commentators are so quick to trot out" are a product, not of some alien cultural imposition upon a pristine Euro-American canvas, but, rather, of social, economic, and political practices deeply rooted in American history. We should not ignore the behavioral problems of the underclass, but we should discuss and react to them as if we were talking about our own children, neighbors, and friends. This is an American tragedy, to which we should respond as we might to an epidemic of teen suicide, adolescent drunken driving, or HIV infection among homosexual males--that is, by embracing, not demonizing, the victims.

Photograph of members of an African Methodist Episcopal church group in the 1890s
 



Sunday school class at Bethel A.M.E. Church (1935): San Francisco church founded before the Civil War.



Anglican African-American History http://www.episcopalarchives.org/Afro-Anglican_history/exhibit/divergence/episcopal_passage.php

Anita Baker ― Good Love

               
                   

Conor Friedersdorf ― Police Brutality and 'The Role That Whiteness Plays'

(via The Atlantic):

Last week, Gawker interviewed Robin DiAngelo, a professor of multicultural education at Westfield State University. She discussed aspects of her thinking on whiteness, which are set forth at length in her book, What Does it Mean to be White? I’ve ordered the book.

Meanwhile, her remarks on police brutality piqued my interest. Some of what Professor DiAngelo said is grounded in solid empirical evidence: blacks and Hispanics are disproportionately victimized by misbehaving police officers; there are neighborhoods where police help maintain racial and class boundaries. And if our culture, which she calls “the water we swim in,” contained fewer parts racism per million, I suspect that police brutality would be less common. 

But a core part of her analysis is very much at odds with conclusions that I’ve drawn after years of  writing against police misconduct and pondering how to reduce it.

Read more: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/05/police-brutality-and-the-role-that-whiteness-plays/393713/

Black Conservatives Set to Launch New Urban Think-Tank

The Civil Rights Institute is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, nonsectarian , national organization based in Connecticut. Founded on a commitment to the needs of marginalized communities, The Civil Rights Institute (TCRI) is committed these core values:

1) Individual liberty

2) Free enterprise

3) Efficient government

For the first three years our goal is to create a space for researchers to partner with local residents. Our research will explore ways to address the needs of marginalized communities while preserving their access to liberty, markets, and sound government. We are unique in our focus on empowering the communities in which we conduct our research.

Our research will be distilled and disseminated in partnership with marginalized communities, allowing to use it on their own behalf – grassroots not grasstops. Likely areas of focus are mass incarceration, gun regulation, the drug war, racial discrimination, public education and the welfare state.

http://www.civilrightsinstitute.org/

George Ayittey ― The solutions to Africa's problems lie in Africa

C.H.E. Sadaphal — Book Review: Why There Is No God by Armin Navabi

The black libertarian-physician, reviews Armin Navabi's new book "Why There Is No God: Simple Responses to 20 Common Arguments for the Existence of God". 

C.H.E. Sadaphal is a board-certified emergency physician with a variety of passions and interests. He developed a keen interest in writing during the start of his medical career, and is also currently in pursuit of a graduate theological degree.

Why There Is No God: Simple Responses to 20 Common Arguments for the Existence of God is a disservice to both atheists and believers. 

It does injustice to atheists by providing superficial, terse, and porous responses to common arguments for God’s existence. And almost all of the arguments for God that the author does respond to are purely subjective individual perspectives based upon no actual unique claims of the distinct religions themselves. Why There Is No God does an injustice to believers because, although the book may pretend to reveal how atheists think and help you plan a defense of your beliefs, in actuality, it is a marginalizing, prejudicial, and dehumanizing polemic aimed point blank against people of faith. Ironically, then, Mr. Navabi and religious fundamentalists share a common characteristic—they both seem to believe that their way of thinking is irrefutably correct and the world would be a much better place if others were made in their own image. As a result, this book ends up being a written crusade against all people of faith. 

 To be fair, the one advantage this book does have is that if you are a believer and are easily thrown off-balance by the responses (or are deluded into thinking that the chosen “arguments” really are arguments), then it is clearly time to define and elucidate what you believe and why you believe it. 

Read more: http://www.chesadaphal.com/why-there-is-no-god-by-armin-navabi/

Anthony B. Bradley ― The Power of Market-Driven Diversity

The Supreme Life Building is a historic insurance building located in Chicago, Illinois. Built in 1921, the building served as the headquarters of the Supreme Life Insurance Company, which was founded two years earlier. The company, originally known as the Liberty Life Insurance Company, was the first African-American owned insurance company in the northern United States.

(via the Acton Institute Blog):

The story of Chicago-based Supreme Life Insurance Company of America, one of the most venerable black-owned businesses in American history, challenges the prevailing fiction that minority customers need the government to guarantee services for them and is a dynamic reminder of the power of markets as a basis for economic freedom.

Supreme was originally incorporated as the Liberty Life Insurance Company in 1919. An amazing 1969 study of this company by Dr. Robert C. Puth in Harvard’s Business History Review inadvertently dispels all sorts of myths about black businesses and black life during the era of legalized racial discrimination. The article, “Supreme Life: The History of a Negro Life Insurance Company, 1919-1962” details, for example, the existence of thriving black-owned businesses during that era, a fact of which many are unaware. By 1960 the forty-six firms of the National Insurance Association—a coalition of all black owned, managed, and operated firms—had $1.7 billion of insurance in force and held $300 million in assets. In today’s terms, that is approximately $17 billion and $2.3 billion, respectively. In 1965, Supreme Life had assets over $33,000,000 ($251 million inflation adjusted for 2012). Even though black incomes were very low and blacks worked mostly in unskilled labor, black-owned businesses prospered.

These black-owned firms were successful for several reasons. First, legal segregation created a concentrated market free from competition. As such, there was a surge in the 1920s in black entrepreneurship. Second, especially in the North, blacks gained access to manufacturing jobs through the cessation of immigration during World War I. Third, black families epitomized a culture of saving, even more so than white families, making them desired customers. Lastly, it was normal for leaders at Supreme Life and other black firms to maintain relationships with and gain experience working with white business, civic, and religious leaders.

Read more: http://www.acton.org/pub/commentary/2012/05/30/power-market-driven-diversity

First Reads

                        

• Happy birthday, John Wayne, born today in 1907. His 1979 obituary: http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1

• The typical person in deep poverty is US-born, young, white, and living in a family. http://brook.gs/1SpWDNW

• Paul Krugman removed 20 years of data from a chart to show a correlation that wasn't. http://fb.me/41YEd0SCW

• Is there a creeping deregulation of health care? http://dlvr.it/9zFsSK 

• School districts tighten social media contacts among teachers, students. Texts part of cases. http://www.post-gazette.com/local/2015/05/26/Districts-tighten-social-media-contacts-among-teachers-students/stories/201505260032

• Unemployment is falling across a range of measures. http://on.wsj.com/1dnGHMz

• LG invented a crazy, bendable TV that sticks to your wall like a refrigerator magnet http://read.bi/1SjqpE9

• A Thai boxer in Chiang Mai is busted for having titanium shin implants http://bit.ly/1HqHxiD

• “If they had acted when ISIS was small, they could have stopped them, but now it has settled and grown" http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/27/world/middleeast/with-isis-in-crosshairs-us-holds-back-to-protect-civilians.html

"I Want A Little Sugar In My Bowl" by Nina Simone

Zora Neale Hurston and GOP outreach to African-Americans

That time when Zora Neale Hurston gave the GOP suggestions on outreach to African-Americans.They clearly didn't do much with it.

LETTER: That time when Zora Neale Hurston gave the GOP suggestions on outreach to African-Americans. #BlackTwitter pic.twitter.com/peO8ZQyD6K

— Ξ BLACK REPUBLICAN Ξ (@blackrepublican) April 20, 2015

"Blacks in the Military"

Learn about the “Harlem Hellfighters”

This Memorial Day, learn about the 369th black infantry during World War I. http://www.blackpast.org/aah/369th-infantry-regiment-harlem-hellfighters 

Soldiers of the 369th (15th N.Y.) who won the Croix de Guerre for gallantry in action, 1919. Left to right. Front row: Pvt. Ed Williams, Herbert Taylor, Pvt. Leon Fraitor, Pvt. Ralph Hawkins. Back Row: Sgt. H. D. Prinas, Sgt. Dan Storms, Pvt. Joe Williams, Pvt. Alfred Hanley, and Cpl. T. W. Taylor

The arrival of the 369th black infantry regiment in New York after the first world war.

Did African Americans invent Memorial Day?

The first widely-publicized observance of a Memorial Day-type observance after the Civil  War was in Charleston, South Carolina, on May 1, 1865

[h/t Wikipedia].

The first widely-publicized observance of a Memorial Day-type observance after the Civil War was in Charleston, South Carolina, on May 1, 1865. During the war, Union soldiers who were prisoners of war had been held at the Hampton Park Race Course in Charleston; at least 257 Union prisoners died there and were hastily buried in unmarked  graves.^[13]

Together with teachers and missionaries, black residents of Charleston organized a May Day ceremony in 1865, which was covered by the New York Tribune and other national papers. The freedmen cleaned up and landscaped the burial ground, building an enclosure and an arch labeled "Martyrs of the Race Course." Nearly 10,000 people, mostly freedmen, gathered on May 1 to commemorate the war dead. Involved were about 3,000 school children, newly enrolled in freedmen's schools, as well as mutual aid societies, Union troops, black ministers and white northern missionaries. Most brought flowers to lay on the burial field. Today the site is remembrance celebration would come to be called the "First Decoration Day" in the North.

David W. Blight described the day:

This was the first Memorial Day. African Americans invented Memorial Day in Charleston, South Carolina. What you have there is black Americans recently freed from slavery announcing to the world with their flowers, their feet, and their songs what the war had been about. What they basically were creating was the Independence Day of a Second American Revolution.^[14]

However, Blight stated he "has no evidence" that this event in Charleston inspired the establishment of Memorial Day across the country.^[15]

On May 26, 1966, President Johnson signed a presidential proclamation naming Waterloo, New York, as the birthplace of Memorial Day. Earlier, the 89th Congress had adopted House Concurrent Resolution 587, which officially recognized that the patriotic tradition of observing Memorial Day began one hundred years prior in Waterloo, New York.^[16] Other communities claiming to be the birthplace of Memorial Day include Boalsburg, Pennsylvania, Carbondale, Illinois, Columbus, Georgia, and Columbus, Mississippi.^[17] A recent study investigating the Waterloo claim as well as dozens of other origination theories concludes that nearly all of them are apocryphal legends.

Usher - Slow Jam ft. Monica

Phumlani M. UMajozi ― Roland Fryer – an inspiration to troubled Black communities

Phumlani M. UMajozi, the South African libertarian writes about Roland G. Fryer, Jr. , the Henry Lee Professor of Economics at Harvard University, and the recent recipient of the prestigious John Bates Clark Medal.

  



He writes: "When the American Economic Association (AEA), the professional body of academic economists in the United States of America, announces the winner of the John Bates Clark Medal each year, acknowledging the “American economist under the age of forty who is judged to have made the most significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge”, the recipient is usually of white race and from privileged background. But in April this year, things were different. The man who won the prize isn’t white, he’s black, and was bred up in the ghettos of Florida and Texas, poor. His name is Roland Gehrard Fryer, Jnr. – a professor of economics at Harvard University. 

At least a week ago, I read a short article by The Economist about his life, I found Fryer’s story very inspiring. The article was published in the midst of chaos in Baltimore. It was a reminder that there are, African-Americans out there, who overcome serious hurdles to succeed in life. It made think profoundly. That I couldn’t wait to write a piece this week to encourage people to familiarize themselves with this blazingly smart human being."

Read more: https://policydebates.wordpress.com/2015/05/22/roland-fryer-an-inspiration-to-troubled-black-communities/

Lincoln's Barber and Friend: William de Fleurville (1807-1868)

via The Lehrman Institute:

William de Fleurville (also known as "Florville") was a Haitian-born businessman who met Mr. Lincoln in New Salem in 1831. After Mr. Lincoln helped him attract clients in that community, Fleurville moved to Springfield where he eventually opened barbershop across from the State House and served as Mr. Lincoln's barber for 24 years. One White House employee, "Aunt Rosetta" Wells, recalled that back in Illinois there had been a black "man who used to cut Lincoln's hair off, and beat him telling fish stories and knew more jokes than you could shake a stick at. He had a shop for the boys to hang around and listen to 'Old Abe' tell jokes. This man was honest too, and he saved his pennies to make dollars."1 Fleurville had moved from the Carribean to Baltimore around 1820, where he met future Lincoln friend Dr. Elias H. Merriman. He then relocated to New Orleans before he went to Illinois to reconnect with Merriman, who helped set him up in the barber business and attract a clientele. 

 According to Lincoln scholar Lloyd Ostendorf, "A local newspaper editor claimed only two men in Springfield understood Lincoln, his law partner William H. Herndon, and his barber, William Florville."2 Historian Benjamin Quarles noted: "Fleurville's shop was the informal social center for the men of the community; it was 'Lincoln's second home,' before his marriage in 1842. Frequently he would leave his law books there; he would have nobody in Springfield shave him except Billy."3 On one occasion Billy nursed Lincoln back to health. Sometime before Mr. Lincoln was married to Mary Todd he was taken quite ill and was staying at Dr. Anson G. Henry's home in Springfield. The doctor sent for Fleurville to have him stay for a time with his patient and administer the medicine he had prescribed for him. Lincoln scholar Lloyd Ostendorf wrote that when Lincoln married shortly thereafter, Fleurville "had the pleasant task of giving the prospective [bridegroom] Lincoln his special dollar shave for his wedding day.

Read more: http://www.mrlincolnandfreedom.org/inside.asp?ID=85&subjectID=4

Picture of the Day

Antoine Pearson ― Death of Opportunity; Unfree Market

Antoine Pearson, the libertarian-conservative from Memphis, Tennessee writes about the marijuana trade in urban cities.

Antoine Pearson an a Republican from Memphis, Tennessee and is currently and economics major at the University of Memphis.

He writes: "Growing  up in an urban environment, I have always been around marijuana to some extent. People live closer to each other so it’s harder to keep your private matters private. That topped by the general support of the younger black community (and dainty disapproval of the old generations) must have played a major role in the growth of the underground marijuana markets that exist in every city. From my home town of Pittsburgh, to my current place of resident in Memphis, I have seen my fair share of marijuana dealers. The market is simple, easy to navigate, and generates a lot of funds. While growing up I despised drugs, but (for personal reasons) I deplored marijuana in particular. 

I have grown up since then, I have learned that freedom is precious and leads to economic efficiency, and I have learned that marijuana is not the evil that it is often portrayed as. Today I am a strong supporter of the marijuana trade, as I am a strong supporter of any free market, not because I am a big fan of drugs, but because I believe in opportunity through pure capitalism. With so many states legalizing and regulating the marijuana trade many thought that this would be the door way of prosperity, and for some it is, but what of the inner city dealer?"

Read more: http://radicalgop.com/2015/05/12/death-of-opportunity-unfree-market/

Thomas Sowell Brings the World into Focus through an Economics Lens

In this episode of Uncommon Knowledge, Peter Robinson interviews Hoover fellow and author Thomas Sowell, on his 5th edition of Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy. In this interview, Sowell brings the world into clearer focus through a basic understanding of the fundamental economic principles and how they explain our lives. Sowell draws on lively examples from around the world and from centuries of history.

 

William N. Grigg ― Planes, Trains, and Automobiles: None Are Safe from the State's Plundering Parasites

William N. Grigg, reflects on the Drug Enforcement Administration's bent on wreaking havoc on normal, law-abiding citizens.

Freya’s Nazi-era experience, depicted in the 1940 film The Mortal Storm, was a fictional parable intended to shock its American audience: Imagine what it would be like to live in a country where police could board a train, rifle through your luggage, confiscate anything of value they found, and detain you indefinitely if they found suspected contraband in your possession. 

I don’t know if Aaron Heuser, a mathematician from Eugene, Oregon, is familiar with “The Mortal Storm.” He doesn’t need to see the movie – he has lived it.

As Heuser recounted to Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlanticmagazine, during an Amtrak trip from Eugene to Washington, D.C. last fall, he received an unwelcome visit in his sleeper compartment by a DEA agent whose comportment was indistinguishable from that of the cinematic Nazi officials who terrorized Freya Roth.

The DEA agent addressed Heuser by name and claimed that his trip had raised numerous “red flags” – specifically, that “I had a sleeper car, was traveling alone, and did not check my luggage.”

Read more: http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/2015/05/planes-trains-and-automobiles-none-are.html

To win, Dr. Ben Carson must prevail over Fox News Contributor Ben Carson

      

(Rare.us) 

Personally, Carson is a soft-spoken success story. He’s the first neurosurgeon to have separated conjoined twins connected at the head, a task not generally entrusted to those who are indelicate. 

Consequently, on those now-rare occasions when Carson publicly comments on medical issues, he sounds considered and sober. Asked whether vaccinations should be mandatory, Carson said yes: “Although I strongly believe in individual rights and the rights of parents to raise their children as they see fit, I also recognize that public health and public safety are extremely important in our society.” It’s a good quote, one that pays tribute to individual liberty without wandering into the fringe. Last week, Carson was asked whether Freddie Gray might have sustained a spinal cord injury while being arrested. “Putting on my doctor’s hat,” he began, before rattling off a sound and unbiased diagnosis of what might have happened. 

 The problem comes when Carson takes off his doctor’s hat and pulls his pundit’s hat so low over his ears that he can’t hear the voice of common sense. 

Read more at http://rare.us/story/to-win-dr-ben-carson-must-prevail-over-fox-news-contributor-ben-carson/#Fp6pOLCHuodFPDCz.99

Groove Theory - TELL ME

Thomas Sowell ― 'Just Asking'

Despite pious rhetoric on the left about "asking" the more fortunate for more money, the government does not "ask" anything. 

[h/t JewishWorldReview.com].

In a recent panel discussion on poverty at Georgetown University, President Barack Obama gave another demonstration of his mastery of rhetoric — and disregard of reality. One of the ways of fighting poverty, he proposed, was to "ask from society's lottery winners" that they make a "modest investment" in government programs to help the poor. Since free speech is guaranteed to everyone by the First Amendment to the Constitution, there is nothing to prevent anybody from asking anything from anybody else. But the federal government does not just "ask" for money. It takes the money it wants in taxes, usually before the people who have earned it see their paychecks. 

Despite pious rhetoric on the left about "asking" the more fortunate for more money, the government does not "ask" anything. It seizes what it wants by force. If you don't pay up, it can take not only your paycheck, it can seize your bank account, put a lien on your home and/or put you in federal prison. 

So please don't insult our intelligence by talking piously about "asking." 

Read more: http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell051915.php3#ZS0HT8OS6xdakK2w.99

Chris Marie ― When it's hard to make sense of humanity

Christina Marie Bennett, pro-life journalist and black conservative, writes:

My husband and I celebrated Passover this year by spending four hours in a synagogue near our home. The four hour service was comprised of prayers and songs, over 80% of which were in Hebrew. We tried to follow along the best we could, reading the English version while Rabbi and the others spoke in a tongue foreign to us. In a room of elderly Jewish men and women, we were the only Black ones, the only ones not wearing kippahs, the only ones who looked confused. 

None of that mattered though. We were just happy to be there. Just happy to be around people that honor the Passover, keep the traditions of the Bible and worship Yahweh. The Rabbi at this synagogue is one of my favorite people in my city.  Over the years He has welcomed me with open arms and graciously taught me about the roots of my faith. At one point in the service Rabbi gave a short teaching. He read two poems and then we all discussed them. It was different than the Christian tradition of a Pastor preaching and the congregation listening. We all had an opportunity to share our thoughts and express our opinions. Rabbi even asked me to read a passage in English. I felt truly honored. 

Rabbi spoke to us about the miracles of Passover. Most of us are familiar with the splitting of the Red Sea, the plagues being released and God setting the Israelites free from bondage. Rabbi elaborated on it, he dug deeper, helping us to ponder what it must have been like to be living those miracles as they happened. 

He read from a poem called Miracles by Yehyda Amichai. This was my favorite excerpt:

"From a distance everything looks like a miracle but up close even a miracle doesn't appear so. Even someone who crossed the Red Sea when it split only saw the sweaty back of the one in front of him." 

Read more: http://www.chrismarie.com/conversations/2015/4/24/seeing-the-miracle-in-the-mundane

Sonnie Johnson - The Black Community and Conservatives

The World Isn’t Better Off Because of the Iraq War

Only a fanatic could look at the devastation wrought by the Iraq war conclude that the world is better place because of it.

DVIDSHUB / Flickr

        

(The American Conservative)

A.J. Delgado offers counseling to Iraq war dead-enders:

IDS sufferers’ second favorite argument is: “Well, the world is better off without a bad guy like Saddam, so it wasn’t a mistake.” OK, except this is completely inaccurate. The world is not better off without Saddam. Why? Because for all his faults, Saddam Hussein presided over a stable Iraq, served as a buffer to (a now more powerful) Iran and was no religious fanatic. When we invaded and removed him, we created a power vacuum in the country, a vacuum then filled by brutal ISIS.

The hawkish argument that “the world is better off” because of the Iraq war isn’t just obviously false, but it’s the sort of desperate ends-justify-the means claim that only ideologues and propagandists find compelling. If we take Iraq war dead-enders at their word that they think the world is better off, this just confirms that they have no understanding of the consequences of the war they supported. More than decade of conflict in Iraq has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, injured countless more, displaced millions, driven millions more into exile, and has brought about the complete ruination of an entire country. The war empowered sectarians and jihadists, and exposed the country’s religious minorities to an unending nightmare of persecution. Only a fanatic could look at the devastation wrought by the Iraq war and its aftermath and conclude that the world is better place because of it.

Read more: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/the-world-isnt-better-off-because-of-the-iraq-war/