Jimmy Heath "I Walked With Giants" Available On Line & Book Stores!
Jimmy Heath and Joseph McLaren,
foreword by Bill Cosby, introduction by Wynton Marsalis "I have long
admired Jimmy's passion heard so clearly in his music; he is a soulful
musician and a consummate educator. In these pages he gives a new voice
to his love of life and music. He once told Dr. Camille Cosby that ‘our
history is a mystery,’ so here he pulls back the veil and sets forth a
wonderful collection of reminiscences culled from a long life of
accumulated wisdom."
Our beloved Sista Sandra Bland
failed the tone test when stopped by the Texas Ranger. Based on one's
tone of voice when stopped by the police, one can be killed, arrested or
released. The Oakland CA police denied the tone test some years ago,
even after one of their officers (a former student of mine at Mills
College, 1972) revealed it was in use by the OPD. But we know the tone
test is a fact as we see with the pig slamming Sister Bland to the
ground. Did her mental state qualify her to be treated like a dog,
especially for failure to signal a lane change. Why would she want to
commit suicide when she was about to begin a new job? Wouldn't she be
happy, joyful? Sadly, Dr. Nathan Hare tells us, "...In the bottomless
caverns of addiction in any form, there seems no amount of religiosity,
coke, crack, alcohol or sex sufficient to sedate the social angst and
shattered cultural strivings." Thus, it seems, white supremacy is so
pathological and pervasive it will take ineluctable energy to find
happiness in this wretched land, soaked in the blood of Indigenous
Nations and North American Africans. Would that job have been sufficient
to satisfy Sandra's social angst and shattered cultural strivings? Yes,
her Black Life Matters because we must learn from her experience that
we live under the shadow of death in this land. When the white devil
doesn't take us out, we take out each other, thus becoming white devils
in black face. So not only must we be conscious of the Tone Test with
the pigs but with each other, another brother and/or sister. We can
escalate or de-escalate a conversation. It is up to us, just know our
life may be at stake, if we fail the Tone Test! --Marvin X
Mourners Gather to Celebrate Sandra Bland, Her Life Does Matter
Mourners
for Sandra Bland will gather at alma mater Sunday evening to celebrate
“the life and legacy” of a woman who regularly spoke out on racism and
police brutality before her death in a Texas jail cell last week. The
idea is to make certain that Sandra Bland is remembered. Yes “Black lives matter.”
As far as Texas law enforcement officials are concerned, 28-year-old Sandra Bland died in a jail cell Monday after hanging herself with a plastic bag.
But her
family says the idea that Bland would kill herself is “unfathomable,”
prompting questions about the circumstances of her death. There are too
many questions that need to be addressed. There’s the conversation she
had with a friend while awaiting bail. There’s the question of
possible brain injury caused by the slamming of her head to the ground
by the police and question of exactly why was she arrested and not just
given a ticket and sent other way.
Authorities
have recored that she was arrested for assault on a police officer. What
was the assault? And exactly how and when did that occur?
To those who
believe her death is suspicious, Bland is the latest victim of racial
bias and police brutality. To drive home the point, social media users
are imagining themselves in her place and sharing directives for what to
do “if I die in police custody.”
Police say
they found the Ms. Bland dead Monday after she hanged herself with a
plastic bag inside the Waller County Jail, where she was incarcerated
after allegedly assaulting an officer during a July 10 traffic stop.
Interestingly,
there is no footage of her assaulting the officer but there is
footage capturing the officer assaulting her and her response. She
printed out to him that he slammed her head to the ground and that she
can’t hear as as result. There is no empathy or compassion expressed
verbally or shown by the officers. Only the instruction from the
officer to the bystanders to leave the scene and run along.
She was found
“in her cell not breathing from what appears to be self-inflicted
asphyxiation,” a sheriff’s office statement said. Bland received CPR,
and an ambulance was called, but she was pronounced dead a short time
later.
Bland lived 1,000 miles away from in
the Chicago suburb of Naperville, Illinois, but was in Texas because she
was taking a job as a student ambassador to the alumni association at
Prairie View A&M University. She graduated from the historically
black school in 2009.
Mourners Gather to Celebrate Sandra Bland, Her Life Does Matter
Mourners
for Sandra Bland will gather at alma mater Sunday evening to celebrate
“the life and legacy” of a woman who regularly spoke out on racism and
police brutality before her death in a Texas jail cell last week. The
idea is to make certain that Sandra Bland is remembered. Yes “Black lives matter.”
As far as Texas law enforcement officials are concerned, 28-year-old Sandra Bland died in a jail cell Monday after hanging herself with a plastic bag.
But her
family says the idea that Bland would kill herself is “unfathomable,”
prompting questions about the circumstances of her death. There are too
many questions that need to be addressed. There’s the conversation she
had with a friend while awaiting bail. There’s the question of
possible brain injury caused by the slamming of her head to the ground
by the police and question of exactly why was she arrested and not just
given a ticket and sent other way.
Authorities
have recored that she was arrested for assault on a police officer. What
was the assault? And exactly how and when did that occur?
To those who
believe her death is suspicious, Bland is the latest victim of racial
bias and police brutality. To drive home the point, social media users
are imagining themselves in her place and sharing directives for what to
do “if I die in police custody.”
Police say
they found the Ms. Bland dead Monday after she hanged herself with a
plastic bag inside the Waller County Jail, where she was incarcerated
after allegedly assaulting an officer during a July 10 traffic stop.
Interestingly,
there is no footage of her assaulting the officer but there is
footage capturing the officer assaulting her and her response. She
printed out to him that he slammed her head to the ground and that she
can’t hear as as result. There is no empathy or compassion expressed
verbally or shown by the officers. Only the instruction from the
officer to the bystanders to leave the scene and run along.
She was found
“in her cell not breathing from what appears to be self-inflicted
asphyxiation,” a sheriff’s office statement said. Bland received CPR,
and an ambulance was called, but she was pronounced dead a short time
later.
Bland lived 1,000 miles away from in
the Chicago suburb of Naperville, Illinois, but was in Texas because she
was taking a job as a student ambassador to the alumni association at
Prairie View A&M University. She graduated from the historically
black school in 2009.
'Oldest' Koran fragments found in Birmingham University
By Sean CoughlanEducation correspondent
22 July 2015
What may be the world's oldest fragments of the Koran have been found by the University of Birmingham. Radiocarbon dating found the manuscript to be at least 1,370 years old, making it among the earliest in existence. The pages of the Muslim holy text had remained unrecognised in the university library for almost a century. The
British Library's expert on such manuscripts, Dr Muhammad Isa Waley,
said this "exciting discovery" would make Muslims "rejoice".
The
manuscript had been kept with a collection of other Middle Eastern books
and documents, without being identified as one of the oldest fragments
of the Koran in the world.
Oldest texts
When
a PhD researcher, Alba Fedeli, looked more closely at these pages it
was decided to carry out a radiocarbon dating test and the results were
"startling". The university's director of special collections,
Susan Worrall, said researchers had not expected "in our wildest dreams"
that it would be so old. "Finding out we had one of the oldest fragments of the Koran in the whole world has been fantastically exciting." The fragments of the Koran are still legible
The tests, carried out by the
Oxford University Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, showed that the
fragments, written on sheep or goat skin, were among the very oldest
surviving texts of the Koran.
These tests provide a range of
dates, showing that, with a probability of more than 95%, the parchment
was from between 568 and 645.
"They could well take us back to within a few years of
the actual founding of Islam," said David Thomas, the university's
professor of Christianity and Islam.
"According to Muslim
tradition, the Prophet Muhammad received the revelations that form the
Koran, the scripture of Islam, between the years 610 and 632, the year
of his death."
Prof Thomas says the dating of the Birmingham
folios would mean it was quite possible that the person who had written
them would have been alive at the time of the Prophet Muhammad.
"The
person who actually wrote it could well have known the Prophet
Muhammad. He would have seen him probably, he would maybe have heard him
preach. He may have known him personally - and that really is quite a
thought to conjure with," he says.
First-hand witness
Prof
Thomas says that some of the passages of the Koran were written down on
parchment, stone, palm leaves and the shoulder blades of camels - and a
final version, collected in book form, was completed in about 650.
He says that "the parts of the
Koran that are written on this parchment can, with a degree of
confidence, be dated to less than two decades after Muhammad's death".
"These
portions must have been in a form that is very close to the form of the
Koran read today, supporting the view that the text has undergone
little or no alteration and that it can be dated to a point very close
to the time it was believed to be revealed."
The
manuscript, written in "Hijazi script", an early form of written
Arabic, becomes one of the oldest known fragments of the Koran.
Because
radiocarbon dating creates a range of possible ages, there is a handful
of other manuscripts in public and private collections which overlap.
So this makes it impossible to say that any is definitively the oldest.
But the latest possible date of the Birmingham discovery - 645 - would put it among the very oldest.
'Precious survivor'
Dr
Waley, curator for such manuscripts at the British Library, said "these
two folios, in a beautiful and surprisingly legible Hijazi hand, almost
certainly date from the time of the first three caliphs".
The first three caliphs were leaders in the Muslim community between about 632 and 656.
Dr Waley says that under the third caliph, Uthman ibn Affan, copies of the "definitive edition" were distributed.
"The
Muslim community was not wealthy enough to stockpile animal skins for
decades, and to produce a complete Mushaf, or copy, of the Holy Koran
required a great many of them."
Dr Waley suggests that the
manuscript found by Birmingham is a "precious survivor" of a copy from
that era or could be even earlier.
"In any case, this - along with
the sheer beauty of the content and the surprisingly clear Hijazi
script - is news to rejoice Muslim hearts."
The manuscript is part of the
Mingana Collection of more than 3,000 Middle Eastern documents gathered
in the 1920s by Alphonse Mingana, a Chaldean priest born near Mosul in
modern-day Iraq.
He was sponsored to take collecting trips to the Middle East by Edward Cadbury, who was part of the chocolate-making dynasty.
The Koran
Muslims believe the words of the Koran were revealed to the Prophet Muhammad by the angel Gabriel over 22 years from 610
It was not until 1734 that a translation was made into English, but was littered with mistakes
Copies of the holy text were issued to British Indian soldiers fighting in the First World War
On 6 October 1930, words from the Koran were broadcast on British radio for the first time, in a BBC programme called The Sphinx
The
local Muslim community has already expressed its delight at the
discovery in their city and the university says the manuscript will be
put on public display.
"When I saw these pages I was very moved.
There were tears of joy and emotion in my eyes. And I'm sure people from
all over the UK will come to Birmingham to have a glimpse of these
pages," said Muhammad Afzal, chairman of Birmingham Central Mosque.
The university says the Koran fragments will go on display in the Barber Institute in Birmingham in October.
Prof Thomas says it will show people in Birmingham that they have a "treasure that is second to none".
PEN Oakland has informed Marvin X he will be the recipient of their Lifetime Achievement Award
at the annual ceremony in December at the Rockridge Library.
Our beloved Sista Sandra Bland failed the tone test when stopped by the Texas Ranger. Based on one's tone of voice when stopped by the police, one can be killed, arrested or released. The Oakland CA police denied the tone test some years ago, even after one of their officers (a former student of mine at Mills College, 1972) revealed it was in use by the OPD. But we know the tone test is a fact as we see with the pig slamming Sister Bland to the ground. Did her mental state qualify her to be treated like a dog, especially for failure to signal a lane change. Why would she want to commit suicide when she was about to begin a new job? Wouldn't she be happy, joyful? Sadly, Dr. Nathan Hare tells us, "...In the bottomless caverns of addiction in any form, there seems no amount of religiosity, coke, crack, alcohol or sex sufficient to sedate the social angst and shattered cultural strivings." Thus, it seems, white supremacy is so pathological and pervasive it will take ineluctable energy to find happiness in this wretched land, soaked in the blood of Indigenous Nations and North American Africans. Would that job have been sufficient to satisfy Sandra's social angst and shattered cultural strivings? Yes, her Black Life Matters because we must learn from her experience that we live under the shadow of death in this land. When the white devil doesn't take us out, we take out each other, thus becoming white devils in black face. So not only must we be conscious of the Tone Test with the pigs but with each other, another brother and/or sister. We can escalate or de-escalate a conversation. It is up to us, just know our life may be at stake, if we fail the Tone Test! --Marvin X
Sandra Bland’s death causes questions
Mourners Gather to Celebrate Sandra Bland, Her Life Does Matter
Mourners
for Sandra Bland will gather at alma mater Sunday evening to celebrate
“the life and legacy” of a woman who regularly spoke out on racism and
police brutality before her death in a Texas jail cell last week. The
idea is to make certain that Sandra Bland is remembered. Yes “Black lives matter.”
As far as Texas law enforcement officials are concerned, 28-year-old Sandra Bland died in a jail cell Monday after hanging herself with a plastic bag.
But her
family says the idea that Bland would kill herself is “unfathomable,”
prompting questions about the circumstances of her death. There are too
many questions that need to be addressed. There’s the conversation she
had with a friend while awaiting bail. There’s the question of
possible brain injury caused by the slamming of her head to the ground
by the police and question of exactly why was she arrested and not just
given a ticket and sent other way.
Authorities
have recored that she was arrested for assault on a police officer. What
was the assault? And exactly how and when did that occur?
To those who
believe her death is suspicious, Bland is the latest victim of racial
bias and police brutality. To drive home the point, social media users
are imagining themselves in her place and sharing directives for what to
do “if I die in police custody.”
Police say
they found the Ms. Bland dead Monday after she hanged herself with a
plastic bag inside the Waller County Jail, where she was incarcerated
after allegedly assaulting an officer during a July 10 traffic stop.
Interestingly,
there is no footage of her assaulting the officer but there is
footage capturing the officer assaulting her and her response. She
printed out to him that he slammed her head to the ground and that she
can’t hear as as result. There is no empathy or compassion expressed
verbally or shown by the officers. Only the instruction from the
officer to the bystanders to leave the scene and run along.
She was found
“in her cell not breathing from what appears to be self-inflicted
asphyxiation,” a sheriff’s office statement said. Bland received CPR,
and an ambulance was called, but she was pronounced dead a short time
later.
Bland lived 1,000 miles away from in
the Chicago suburb of Naperville, Illinois, but was in Texas because she
was taking a job as a student ambassador to the alumni association at
Prairie View A&M University. She graduated from the historically
black school in 2009.