It's good to see you. Come on in, leave your shoes in the hallway, we've got fire on the stove preparing lunch for later. In the meantime, browse the bookshelves and plunk down on the sofa with one, or pick out some tunes from the music library or come in to the kitchen to help with the cooking. Our special blend of tea is steeping and will be right up.

Make yourself at home...

The night before we watched a really good, almost two hour, PBS special on Maya Angelou. I knew just a little about her, but again as with all great Left Wing luminaries, her story was so compelling, rich and inspiring that it lifted me in many ways. By the time it finished her spirit had me in a celebratory mood and the broad terrain she covered had me hitting the bookshelf and cross referencing things, exploring her time period, marveling at the various paths that took her into the company of so many great minds. She crossed paths with so many we still look to as touchstones who speak a language we understand - and I don’t mean Bill Clinton, for whose inauguration she was asked to compose and read a poem for the occasion and complied. I mean revolutionaries, such as James Baldwin, Malcom X and Martin Luther King Jr.

Maya Angelou & Malcolm X. 1964. pic.twitter.com/wwfPUhR9vp

— Wage BEAUTY (@wagebeauty) May 28, 2014

Her intimate friendship with James Baldwin was pivotal in her development as a social activist. She had been touring as an actress/dancer/singer with Porgy & Bess when she met him in Paris in the 50’s. Her latent views, on the racism she was observing with a keen eye as a young woman having already traveled quite a bit, were clarified by the great American expatriate author's clear and concise philosophical and historical inquiry. On a related note, I'm really looking forward to seeing the James Baldwin film, "I Am Not Your Negro," which Chris Hedges raved about. (As an aside, if you've never see him debate you must watch him do so with famed conservative William F. Buckley at Oxford. Baldwin ranks for me as one of the great intellectual powerhouses the country has ever produced.) She recalled that his brilliantly cogent and developed views of the predicament of African-Americans stemmed from an anger he expressed. She was clearly moved by him, and herself became an activist thereafter. A friend also described her shortly after this time as being “very angry.”

Maya Angelou & James Baldwin. pic.twitter.com/XF3Nh8TBcN

— Wage BEAUTY (@wagebeauty) May 28, 2014

I was piqued when Angelou described Baldwin as angry when they met, and then when a friend of hers around the same time described Angelou similarly. It got me thinking, having become a bit of an activist myself. Occasionally, I’ll hear from family or friends, or they’ll tell me others have said to them about me, “why is he so angry?” or “he’s changed.” How many of you have encountered something likewise? I imagine this occurs when anyone who is willing to put themselves on the line to some degree does so, especially when it is perceived to be taking controversial stances (read: against the status quo or public consensus). Whenever confronted by this simplistic lament I’ll pull out the St Augustine of Hippo quote in order to help explain myself: “Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are.”

If I can be permitted another digression; it seems incredible to me, to be living in such a wondrous age of immediately accessible technology to information, that so would many choose to spend their time so unwisely and/or remained hampered by either a serious lack of intellectual curiosity or have been so propagandized by mainstream media sources. I have a dear friend I went to college with who is a conservative, church-going Catholic. I once asked him if he’d ever read anything by Martin Luther King, and he said no. While that concerned me, it wasn’t as deeply troubling as another admission he made to me. On the subject of reading he said that he got in some of his reading while on long drives, and sang the praise of audiobooks. I asked which he’d heard recently that he liked. “Bill O’Reilly’s gaba gaba hey…” Frankly, it doesn’t matter which one it was, only that he would consider him as an example of getting some serious reading in. The fake historian O'Reilly is a complete lying buffoon, not very bright, fear-mongering RW bigot, who has the vocabulary and cogency of an 8th grade and who most likely hasn’t written any of those books that RW think tanks buy up in bulk in order to scale the NY Times bestseller lists. Getting one’s history from an odious farce like Bill O’Reilly is, to me, like one getting one’s rock history from Tiger Beat magazine.

Seems to me many of these dear and beloved folks who love us, but are “concerned” by our developed, contrarian points of view, are looking at this wide-open Age of Information and opting to spend most of their time fiddling around like easily distracted adolescents unconcerned about anything, it seems, but their own divined American birthright, which is to be entertained 24/7. What invariably occurs to oneself during such times is the realization of both just how powerful the bread and circuses of media distraction/celebrity gossip/manufactured controversy/cheap tv drama are, and how stuck in almost childlike trust (or is naivety) so many deep into adulthood still are about the state of the world.

Back to Maya…

Angelou's burgeoning as a powerful voice also came at the confluence of Malcom and Martin's , both of whom she knew, loved and respected. She says when she heard King speak of non-violence methods she was taken in. Like Baldwin, she became an active member of the movement, understanding and believing in the power of the masses taking to the streets to petition their government for grievances.

In the film, her son recalls watching her on a march, watching here get more and more intense, and thinking they’d maybe they'd gone too far. A sheriff pulls up on a horse alongside them, in what seems like an effort to end the march. He looks over and sees his mother reach arop her head and pull out a hairpin, and sticks it into the horse. The prick sends the horse bucking into the air and the police officer to the ground. The march, which looked to almost be thwarted, was able to continue.

It's as if one day you might be seen by some as a big intimidating black woman at the front of a protest march, compelled by a righteous conscience to risk a dramatic sticking of a pin in a horse to topple a sheriff in order to save a protesters march. And the next you’re an internationally-know social activist being asked by an incoming President to write a poem to address the nation.

Speaking of being given the exalted status of addressing the nation, a socialist poet/author/musician/public servant Carl Sandburg remains the only poet ever invited to address a joint session of Congress.

Not bad for two poets with inclinations toward social justice.

The film contained one of the most arresting scenes you'll ever see. It was the performance of piece she wrote called, “The Mask.”

It corresponds in its heaviness with an essay Mark Twain wrote called, “A True Story, Repeated Word for Word As I Heard It,” about the self-defense/preservation mechanism of black folks to readily smile and/or laugh at all and sundry in the face of brutal indignation and humiliation.

All night as I'm watching this wholly magnanimous, beautiful and mighty woman, I'm thinking to myself, that if one reads the right people, subjects and sources, and keeps an eye open, he will find himself continually coming in contact or crossing paths with the many of the same great minds again, and then often times bring into the fold lesser known but just as great minds. Connecting the dots, one might say.

That kind of experience happened watching another documentary called "Art of Conflict," a film about the murals of of Derry and Belfast in Northern Ireland during "the Troubles," when the British Army occupied those lands and infamously slaughtered protesting Catholic folk. In those sections of town one can find murals containing the images of Frederick Douglass and Bob Marley. Solidarity crosses color, racial and religious lines. As Occupy protesters decreed in one of the many great slogans that continue to reverberate, “All Our Grievances Are Connected.” We are the 99%, indeed.

The indignant anger Angelou and Baldwin that was piqued in the midst of one another, was righteous. Just as it is here at C99. There’s a long line of antecedents upon whose shoulders we stand. Digging into their magnificent stories one can find so much reviving energy and inspiration from their pursuit of what is right. Remember this, whenever you need something to stiffen your spine in the face of ridicule, persecution or intimidation. Or as I’m sometimes inclined to say colloquially, depending on my mood, fuck those fuckers - I know what’s right.

So, what's going on with you?

Back in the kitchen we're listening to:

Reading/Browsing List:

"Pillar of Fire: American in the King Years 1963-65" by Taylor Branch
"Lies My Teacher Told Me" by James Loewen
"Notes of a Native Son" by James Baldwin
"Flyboy" by Greg Tate

On The Spot Vegetarian Moroccan Lentil Tagine

Sautee til brown two thinly sliced, crescent-shaped onions.
add julienned carrot, thinly sliced cabbage, peas, broccoli, mushrooms, chopped ginger, sliced sundried tomatoes, chopped green and black olives, raisins, a little very fine sliced lemon.

Add cooked lentils, plus water. Mix in corriander, paprika and tumeric.

Serve over quinoa.

Lemongrass Chai Blend

heaping scoop of dried Thai lemongrass
shards of cinnamon bark
a few cardamom pods
a few black peppercorns
A few cloves
fresh chopped ginger