Author of Urban Fantasy & Advocate of Egyptian Myth
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Red Stone Scribe

A discussion of news, ideas and opinions regarding the relevance of Feminism, Antiquity, Literature & Multiculturalism to the existence of urban communities 

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In Theaters Soon: Gods of Egypt, or is it “Gods of Scotland”?

2/11/2016

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Hollywood has historically been abysmal in depicting ancient Egyptian civilization on the silver screen. Think of all the insipid movies featuring walking mummies of the horror genre. And the casting decisions made in connection with the upcoming film, Gods of Egypt, do little to change those appalling habits. Only one of the stars of this big-budget fantasy flick is of African ancestry, i.e., Chadwick Boseman. This begs the question of why box office magnets such as Idris Elba, Zoe Saldana or Lupita Nyong’o (just to cite a few) are not part of the cast of a movie whose plot is set in ancient Africa. (Let’s be real clear, Hollywood: ancient Egypt was an African civilization.) Either Zoe or Lupita would make for an eye-riveting Hathor, the Egyptian goddess of love and a character in the movie. And, with due respect to Gerard Butler, who is the male lead in the film, both Mr. Elba and Chiwetel Ejiofor have the gravitas to portray a villain of divine proportions. Or, to expand the ethnic horizon here, why aren’t Arab actors with distinguished theatrical pedigrees part of the cast? (Ghassan Massoud comes to mind as someone who delivered a compelling portrayal of the Muslim ruler Saladin in the 2005 historical epic, Kingdom of Heaven.)
 
This cinematic disregard of diversity, authenticity, and inclusion by director Alex Proyas has aroused swarms of controversy on social media—and deservedly so. And the studio’s apology for this act of cultural piracy is insufficient to assuage the brewing furor. One could not imagine Hollywood attempting to make a movie about ancient India or imperial China with a nearly all-Caucasian cast. Consider this: what if the Academy-award winning Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was produced with a cast predominantly of European ancestry? One could anticipate the outcries that would be forthcoming for such a Eurocentric repainting of historical fact. That is probably why one commentator on social media suggested that Gods of Egypt should be renamed “Gods of Scotland.” Nevertheless, this upcoming movie release may have some intrinsic merit, after all.

The production, which was filmed in Australia and has been released by the motion picture company Lionsgate, tells the mythic tale of the conflict between Set, the god of chaos, and his nephew Horus, the son of Isis and Osiris. This is probably the first time that Egyptian myth has been explored in a major film. Contrast that with the numerous occasions that tales of the Greek Olympians and the exploits of Heracles (aka, Hercules) have been depicted in cinema and on television. Think of Clash of the Titans and its sequel, Wrath of the Titans. When we consider the influence that ancient Egypt had on Greek civilization, it is refreshing to finally see Egypt have its day in the sun in a plot that doesn’t involve mummy curses or Cleopatra. By the way, that legendary female monarch was Greek and ruled Egypt millennia after its greatest days had passed. (As a side note, African-Americans who want to believe that Cleopatra was black should disabuse themselves of that notion. Focus your energies on reclaiming the earlier periods of Egyptian history before Egypt was conquered and ruled by Alexander the Great and his heirs.)
 
It is because of the seminal influence of Egyptian culture on ancient Greece (and Western civilization) that I welcome an effort to recreate its myths on the silver screen. I will defer judgment on the authenticity of its adaptation of Egypt’s mythology—and Nile River culture—until I see the film. So, I suggest that others should hold their noses, buy a ticket, and join me in watching the movie—and then voice your criticisms on social media. Otherwise, if the movie does bomb at the box office, it will be too easy for the high priests of Hollywood to hide behind the excuse that the modern public has no interest in Egyptian culture. The success of the Tutankhamun exhibit that traveled to the U.S. in 2005 proved that American audiences retain a fascination for the land of the pharaohs. They could have the same fascination with Egypt’s legends—if they are done right.
 
However, while we should allow a smidgen of literary license for the craft of movie-making, the history of an African people should never be whitewashed. Alexander Proyas reportedly was born in Alexandria, Egypt to Greek Egyptian parents. He is unquestionably a talented director with fantasy films such as The Crow and I, Robot​ on his resume. However, he would have done film-making a better service if his casting decisions were shaped more by homage to his Egyptian heritage than his Greek ethnicity. Alexander the Great co-opted Egyptian civilization millennia ago; Egypt does not need a later Alexander to repeat the disservice. – Geronimo Redstone, author of The Bachelor Scrolls – Isis Unleashed (2nd edition). 
 
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Actor Gerard Butler as the god Set
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Revised 2nd Edition Coming Soon...

2/10/2016

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After a long hiatus, the revised second edition of Part One of The Bachelor Scrolls has been completed and should be available on Amazon and other online retailing platforms by late March. The revised edition has been expanded and edited to make the epic more accessible to the reading public.

The story begins with—what is probably—the longest prologue in literature since the 14th-century classic, The Canterbury Tales. With that bizarre introduction, the second edition blends elements of the gothic genre, political commentary, lyric writing and mythology into a feminist declaration of independence. To avoid dates that are literally from hell, unmarried females of this wretched, fictional future take defensive action.
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Blog Name Change...

3/11/2015

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To eliminate potential confusion with another web site, the name of this blog site has been changed to Red Stone Scribe. Same focus, same themes.
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A Tragic Exchange of Great Hate for Greater Art

3/3/2015

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My admiration for the artistic mind, and those works which it spawns, demands that I conjure a horror, a nightmare of an alternative future that all Americans should consider unthinkable, yet we must think of it—if we are human, and consider all men and women as children of the same God.

Imagine if the United States democracy should fall victim to an insurrection by a confederacy of well-funded, well-armed and well-trained white supremacist groups. Think of something of the ilk of the Ku Klux Klan or some modern reincarnation of post-Weimar Germany’s Nazi Party. After implementing a systematic campaign of slaughter of the majority of African-American males by burning them alive, or for dramatic effect, in public displays of lynchings from streetlight poles lining downtown districts, the conquerors would amuse themselves with the most feral prosecution of rape against the adolescent and adult black female populations. Assume, further, that the women and girls who survived such an onslaught would be consigned to the reinstitution of slavery in the new American nation-state. Not content with mere biological extinction and subjugation of an ethnic group and gender, this confederacy of supremacists would then turn its attention towards a campaign of cultural genocide. There was little debate among their leadership as to the merits or legitimacy of this new chapter of the war, and the intent was clear: to erase all vestiges of black folks in America as thinking, spiritual and creative citizens of the globe. And since the warriors of this supremacist movement viewed themselves as righteous Christian crusaders undertaking a mission ordained by a white Christian god who had elevated Caucasians to hold dominion over the dark-skinned races of the earth, the purge proceeded methodically from state to state, from city to city. No museum, no classroom, no library, no gallery and no public square escaped the cultural cleansing. No more Romare Bearden originals, no more Elizabeth Catlett sculptures, no more James Van Der Zee photographic prints and not a single Richard Yarde canvas were left to be enjoyed by any teary eyes.

In Hartford, vandals invaded the Amistad Center for Art & Culture, either looting or destroying its precious collection of artifacts of the African-American experience. In New York City, these zealous Christian knights firebombed the interior of the Studio Museum in Harlem. In the nation’s capital, the Martin Luther King Memorial at the National Mall was toppled and shattered, torn asunder with the assistance of a motley assembly of pickup trucks, grappling hooks and jackhammers enlisted for breaking down the 30-foot statue, as well its adjoining components, into easily-manageable slabs of granite. From there, a task force of true believers would carry on with their mission. Since they were commissioned by the provisional government’s new Council of Righteous Arts Volunteers & Evangelical Nationalists (aka CRAVEN), they would zoom south on I-95 to Richmond, VA while whistling Dixie and bragging how a vengeful Christian god had made their movement invincible and beyond any earthly judgment. As such, condemnations and sanctions from Mexico and Canada fell upon deaf ears.

Upon arriving in the capital of the old Confederacy, which they treasured as sacred soil, those steadfast volunteers would topple and melt down that bronze statue erected to honor the legacy of tennis immortal Arthur Ashe. There were, of course, itinerant groups of true believers recruited in every city and village to assist with the cleansing. But the honor, the quintessential honor of destroying the Barack Obama Presidential Library was to be bestowed on only those most dedicated of zealots, those Christian warriors whose acts of genocide and rape held highest the burning cross before an honor guard dressed in white robes and hoods. Within three years of the supremacist conquest, the Pax Caucasiana, all vestiges of African-American creativity and accomplishment had been expunged. Black folks had once again become the invisible man—and nearly extinct.

By these acts of vandalism and cultural obliteration, the supremacists had administered a perverse auction of time itself. In that demonic exchange, all the time great artists expended to fund the creative process, to ferment their creative vision and to wield, mold and apply their plastic media, all of those weeks in the studio and months of labored artistry were traded for the time it took to destroy unique creations. But zealots could care less that months of painstaking precision by an artist’s paintbrush or a sculptor’s chisel should be so devalued, should be so diminished, that they were traded for the eighty-three minutes it took to topple the MLK Monument or the thirty-two minutes it took to burn a collection of Beardens. However, this exchange had linked to it a corresponding trade. The time that the viewing public had to enjoy those works of art, whether that be a decade or a slow-moving century, was itself mortgaged for that eternity which unfolds, and which we and successive generations must endure, without the calming presence of a particular masterpiece. For even if sanity could somehow be restored, even if efforts were made to recreate, painstakingly, all the shattered and melted monuments or incinerated paintings, they would never be that exact same phenomenon ushered from an artist’s hands and eyes and soul.

That is the horror story; that is the wretched nightmare. But it is more analogy as opposed to fantasy for such is the nature of what is happening in the Middle East. The depredations of ISIL fanatics are destroying works of art millennia old, a heritage—not only of the Arab world—but of all humankind. We were first alerted to this Islamist (not to be confused with Islamic) madness just months before the 9/11 attacks. It was then when the Afghan Taliban destroyed the Buddha sculptures of Bamiyan. Those twin wonders were carved long ago within the side of a sandstone cliff and, for 1,700 years, once constituted the tallest standing Buddhist statues in the world at heights of over 170 ft. and 115 ft., respectively. In March 2001, the Taliban had the monuments dynamited because they were deemed to be idols inconsistent with their warped vision of a great faith—as if Buddhism itself was not a great faith. (The next time you fly to Rio de Janeiro imagine what the Taliban or ISIL or any group of that ilk would do to the 125-foot-tall statue of Christ the Redeemer which has become symbolic of Brazilian tourism.) Recently, reports have circulated that the war criminals known as ISIL had ransacked a museum in Iraq, smashing 2,000-year-old artifacts from the ancient Assyrian empire. And for the same reason as the Taliban: a supremacist view of Islam that finds it impossible, not only to tolerate cultural diversity, but to even respect the artistic achievements of a long-dead civilization that posed no threat of revival. So with the work of smashing sledgehammers, ISIL trades the time it took to destroy those historic artifacts for the eternity they will be lost to the eyes of humankind. Once again, fanatics offer nothing but their hate in exchange for mankind’s art.

We did not need any more reasons to condemn the ISILs, Taliban and Al-Quaedas of the world. And murder, rape and slavery cast a more towering shadow of evil over the conscience of civilization. But attacks on cultural diversity constitute an assault against us all. As MLK stated, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” So I ask the African-American community directly, but really all Americans: how would you feel if white supremacists destroyed Dr. King’s monument? Would you be irate? Then have the same outrage of Iraq, and don’t be blind to the horrors unfolding in the Near East. However, just as important, be thankful that the treasures we have stored in Hartford’s Amistad Center, Harlem’s Studio Museum and all other similar venues will never fall victim to a supremacist ideology that would trade expression of great hate for expression of far greater art. – Geronimo Redstone, author of The Bachelor Scrolls
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The Bachelor Scrolls on Amazon -- Coming Soon

3/1/2015

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To expand distribution to the marketplace, I will soon have Part One of The Bachelor Scrolls distributed on Amazon as an e-book. This will be significant since Amazon remains the dominant digital book retailer in the world as a result of the success of its Kindle line of e-book readers. Stay tuned for updates. And stay tuned for my next post and opinion piece which hopefully you will find thought-provoking. -- Geronimo Redstone 
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Malcolm X in 2015: No More Relevant than the Afro & Hair Pick?

2/22/2015

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There is a scene in the first installment of my novel, The Bachelor Scrolls, in which the protagonist asks a scholar of South Asian ancestry about the three debts a child is born with—as told by Hindu tradition. The scholar replies that the first is the debt he owes to the sages. In acknowledgment of an answer he already knew, the protagonist suggests that too many males in America “have failed to repay the Western equivalent of those debts.” I fear the same is true of the national response to the legacy of Malcolm X (aka, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz), the self-educated sage who played a leading role in establishing the conceptual foundations of racial justice and the Black Power Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. And that is a fear shared by at least one of Malcolm’s daughters.

In a Newsweek interview, Ilyasah Shabazz (featured in the clip below) confided that she was worried that her father “was being written out of history.” And although there has been some limited media coverage to mark the fiftieth anniversary of his assassination, it seems unbalanced in comparison to remembrances of Selma and the legacy of the now-immortal Dr. Martin Luther King. (One of America’s favorite public intellectuals, Melissa Harris-Perry, is a notable exception.) That prompts me to ask whether Americans—more specifically, African-Americans—still view El Hajj Malik El-Shabazz as relevant to the history of racial justice and black empowerment in this republic. Or, alternatively, do we think of him as some campy but fading holdover from a pre-Millennial generation like Shaft movie reruns, bell-bottom pants or the Afro hairstyle? That would be regrettable, but isn’t even the Afro making a comeback?

If Malcolm X is being written out of history, it may be because the American culture has a checkered past in embracing its agents of progress—something akin to a national split personality disorder. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover would conspire to destroy a determined Dr. King, yet an admiring nation would eventually grant MLK's memory a federal holiday. And Frederick Douglass didn’t have many advocates in a post-antebellum South, although today some southern Republicans may wish to invoke him as a symbol of party inclusiveness. They may accept Mr. Douglass’ audacity framed in the dream of racial equality; it may take another century for them to eventually respect Obama’s love of country and audacity of hope.

Malcolm, to the annoyance of condescending authorities, was also audacious; he rhetorically equipped himself to play the role of a prosecuting attorney against a negligent and indifferent republic, a career option he was discouraged from pursuing by a supremacist system of education. Indeed, Malcolm was audacious enough to expect that an underclass of second-class citizens of a democratic nation, a republic that guaranteed the right to bear arms, should also have the right to defend themselves from the ever-present threat of lynching, beatings, bombings, burnings and police brutality. But somewhere along the formation process of public opinion, that conviction was translated by an American media and sympathetic liberals who were not accustomed to black assertiveness, it was interpreted into a caricature as “militant” and “violent” and “radical.” You know, just like the British colonial powers must have reacted to Patrick Henry’s exhortation of “Give me liberty, or give me death!” (That was an analogy that Malcolm himself invoked.) The one difference I would suggest is that Malcolm’s brilliant rhetoric of the “ballot or the bullet” was less extremist than Patrick Henry’s posture. It also suggested a more optimistic belief in the possibilities of the democratic process under a system controlled by a dominant power. Nihilists and anarchists see no possibility of success in the quest for freedom; optimists and patriots see nothing but victory for those determined to embrace it. Nevertheless, it seems that Malcolm is still viewed—even in 2015—as some twentieth-century equivalent of the gladiator Spartacus, whose legend is of incited slave revolts against the power of ancient Rome. Malcolm X assuredly was a useful and evolving tactician in using hyperbole and threats as external sources of pressure for White House negotiations with civil rights leaders (a classic exercise of the good guy-bad guy stratagem), but I see nothing in his record that suggests he ever came close to inciting a revolt akin to the Spartacus legend. Even the Black Panther Party, which was influenced by his ideological constructs, never posed any real threat to the republic.

So, I will here suggest that if your intellectual or moral temperament towards the advancement of human rights can be described as existentialist, progressive, just, freedom-loving, assertive, conservative (but not reactionary), freethinking, internationalist, Pan-African, uncompromising, democratic, community-oriented, entrepreneurial, anti-colonial, religious, results-oriented, compassionate, determined, disciplined, inquiring, defiant, courageous, indicting, analytical or just simply critical, then you must—by definition—admire the legacy of Malcolm X. And that is because Malcolm was all those things. Now, if by chance you don’t feel you fall into any one of the aforementioned categories, you should accept Malcolm’s significance anyways—if you happen to be black. And also if you believe that all people should always embrace one or more of the above temperaments in the conduct of their daily lives.

But that’s a moral argument to advocate Malcolm X’s status in the nation’s history. In a subsequent post, I will cite two reasons why, now more than ever, it is strategically essential for all Americans to embrace Malcolm X as a national symbol in order to bolster the welfare and security of the American republic. In ten years, we will mark the centennial of his birth. The clock is ticking if we hope to see it become a national holiday by then or, at least, a monument erected in his honor in the nation’s capital. Neither may ever happen, but he is worth the try. MLK earned his right to national honors because he became this nation’s moral compass. I note, however, that the needle of any compass is only functional because it has two opposing points. – Geronimo Redstone
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Kurdish Female Fighters: Showing American Support for Global Feminism

2/15/2015

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Instead of exposing themselves to accusations of waging a “war on women,” Republicans in Congress—in bipartisan support with Democrats—can help women to wage war. Historically, warfare has been considered to be the exclusive province of men. The problem with that premise is that it imposes the burden of defending an entire society’s gene pool on just one-half of its members—even while further eliminating the youngest and oldest citizens of a nation-state (or territory that aspires to that status) from the call to arms. And, of course, universal ethical standards and effectiveness in the conduct of war dictate that children and the elderly should never be called upon to carry the spear, sword or Kalashnikov. However, the more self-defeating aspect of that sacred cow has been the arrogance of assuming that the moral virtues of soldiers—courage, cunning, leadership and the will to win—are also the monopoly of men.

America’s military has slowly maneuvered along a continuum away from such delusions. In my inaugural novel The Bachelor Scrolls, the character Athena, a Marine Corps major, represents a fictional construct of what equality in the military might entail. And we should hope that recent American experiments to assess the combat effectiveness of women on the battlefield will yield encouraging results for female military careers. American legislators should be diligent in monitoring those experiments.

However, perhaps the most consequential examples of the equality of women in warfare are the Kurdish female fighters of the Syrian and Iraqi theaters of combat, women who are fighting against the threat of rape, slavery and extinction by the so-called Islamic State. Constituting nearly a third of Kurdish fighters mobilized in Syria, they have captured the fascination of many in the West who are typically accustomed to seeing women marginalized in other Middle Eastern cultures. With battlefield courage displayed and broadcasted by a curious Western media—much to the misogynistic chagrin of ISIL fighters—these warrior-saints of feminist empowerment are shattering preconceptions of female capabilities and vulnerability. Arguably, one of their most significant combat accomplishments has been the propaganda value of shaming Arab men to take the battle to ISIL and terrifying jihadist war criminals with the notion of being slain by a woman. 

So as the United States Congress debates whether that body should provide President Obama with authority to wage war against ISIL, it should consider the example of these female fighters. It should not be forgotten that distinction earned in warfare has an interesting way of eventually advancing the rights of oppressed peoples. Although it happened far too slowly, and to the lasting shame of the American republic, the prowess of America’s all-black regiments of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as well as the African-American military accomplishments of WWII, all would help awaken some sectors of a racist America to the inherent dignity and rights of its dark-skinned populations. And that would help usher in the eventual victories of the so-called Civil Rights Movement. Granted, the American human rights campaigns of the 1960s were waged with a strategy of non-violence. But one of the most enduring questions that history asks of objective observers and political tacticians looking back on that era is this: just how effective would Dr. King, and the sons and daughters of Selma, have been without the threat of Malcolm X and his ballot or the bullet rhetoric? This is an important question to ask as the fiftieth anniversary of Malcolm's assassination is marked this week.

In a manner similar to the pressure point that Malcolm X provided, I believe that these Kurdish female fighters will, in time, prove an existential threat to the patriarchal prerogatives of Middle Eastern leaders in Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq, a threat that will ultimately force concessions that move the needle on the register of female empowerment. I say this because, once the battle against ISIL has been won, those same Kurdish women warriors will not be satisfied to be relegated to bit roles as cooks, wet nurses and the erotic play toys of males. And I suspect that the heroism and exploits of these warriors, broadcasted via social media, will eventually shape the consciousness of women in the Middle East—exploits such as those captured in media video clips. Congress should also be diligent in supporting the ripple effects of such waves of self-determination, as they occur. And legislators might—if their constituents encourage them to do so. After all, there may be no better opportunity to spread the seeds of sustainable democracy in the region.

While always an option of last resort, freedom is sometimes only obtained at the end of the barrel of a gun. That is not mere sloganizing courtesy of the National Rifle Association; it is something that the French Resistance understood to be essential during the Nazi occupation of World War II. Therefore, if Americans truly believe in human rights and female equality, they should also believe in the valiant female fighters of Kurdistan. Among women in the Middle East, we most certainly will see that fighting back against evil and injustice has a way of becoming an ingrained attitude of mind. And, maybe, the story and example of Kurdish women fighters will eventually spread to the female generation endangered by Boko Haram? Or the teenage girls and women of Darfur? But only if they know of them and are equipped and trained to defend themselves.

So, perhaps the only thing that the populations of the former Assyrian Empire and Mesopotamia may be missing is their own female equivalent of a Malcolm X. And their valor suggests that, if well-armed with more bullets, they will ensure that all women (and men) in the territories they control have full access to the ballot and the God-given rights of men (and women). Indeed, the Kurds are showing the world that more boots on the ground can come in a size 6 or size 7.

–- Geronimo Redstone, author of The Bachelor Scrolls, the modern fantasy of female empowerment
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Manhood & the Power of Verse -- Part One

2/8/2015

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During an interview with a major newspaper, the current poet laureate, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Charles Wright, was asked this predictable question: why does poetry matter? His retort was that he could only answer why it mattered to him. That response was conveniently subjective and entailed no risk of refutation, but it failed miserably at giving the angel her due—particularly for someone who should be poetry’s greatest advocate. That is said with due respect to the professor’s prolific career.

Poetry, in fact, has always mattered to mankind. We first hear a faint hint, and nothing more than that, of its incantatory power in the nursery rhymes we learn—or the lyrics of popular rap artists. And through subsequent years of programming at elementary and secondary schools, we may be fed some standardized offering of authentic poems, perhaps much like the prescribed menus at cafeteria lunch counters. For most in America, the rite of passage through high school marks the last time we ever look upon a poem or call upon her beauty to arouse the human spirit. That explains why poetry exists forgotten and ignored as the Cinderella-sibling of fiction, hidden in the back corners and remotest bookshelves of book stores—or, at least, those that still operate these days in bricks-and-mortar outlets.   

There are, however, those rare moments when we are reminded that poetry is essential to the soul—even essential to our ability to exist and survive within a hostile universe. No better example of this phenomenon occupies our recent memory than that testament to the power of the human will, that prophet of multiculturalism the world knew as Nelson Mandela. For some twenty-seven years, Mandela survived the confines of a mortal-manufactured hell on earth by the agency of the character forged in the furnace of his will. But that furnace was fueled by his favorite poem: Invictus, a classic invocation of our higher angels penned by the nineteenth-century English poet William Ernest Henley. The special role of that poem in the life of the father of modern South Africa was delivered by a nuanced Morgan Freeman in the movie by the same name. A video clip describing the import of that verse to Mandela appears below.


So I would suggest to Professor Wright (and others) that poetry matters for a variety of reasons that are waiting to be discovered in its lines, its cadence and its choice of words. And at least one is its power to remind men to be men. – Geronimo Redstone
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    The blog's goal is a focused discussion around issues of feminism, antiquity and a multicultural world outlook & how they are tied to the progress of urban populations -- themes hinted at in The Bachelor Scrolls.

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