I just saw on the National news, that Pandas from China have been sent to the Smithsonian Zoo in Washington, DC for the first time in 24 years. The original pair (and eventually their cub) in the Smithsonian Zoo was transferred back to China. Chinese and American diplomats and bureaucrats call this “Panda Diplomacy”. The Chinese are very guarded with Pandas and their descendants. It seems they want to own the entire Panda trade, and even control the proliferation of Panda descendants. That being said, it seems to function in practice as a kind of lend/lease agreement, but I do…
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The reader may be wonder how these two subjects interrelate. With God’s help this shall be illuminated further. One of the reasons I like great books and thinkers is because they almost force a person to think in ‘other’ terms than the given set proposition and construct. Kierkegaard’s book Either/Or has fascinated me its discussions of the philosophy of aesthetics, tragedy, Greek Epics, Greek Tragedy, poetry, ethics, sorrow etc. Just because I’m fascinated by something doesn’t mean I want to write about it myself; except that I recently read that the Rapper TI, ‘Wild as the Taliban, 9mm in my…
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I have a saying that I resort to sometimes. It runs, “I miss my White friends.” By this I mean that in my life, a few times in elementary and middle school, a few times in my college years, and a few times in my vocational life, I’ve had White friends that I considered ‘real’ friends. Male and female, the relationship was sincere and casually reciprocal, and my associates quite often benefited me, and I benefitted them in sometimes particular and generic ways. And yet now in my life, living in an all-Black neighborhood, having gone to HBCUs, all Black…