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Tribute to : Julia de Burgos,(February 17, 1914 – July 6, 1953) a Puerto Rico-born journalist and a pioneering force in the 1960s Nuyorican poetry movement in New York, who often wrote her poems in Spanish. In “Ay, Ay, Ay de la Grifa Negra,” which is presented in English in the anthology, she asserts her Black heritage: “Black of pure tint, I cry and laugh / the vibration of being a black statue.”

Ay, Ay, Ay of the Black Grifa

Ay, ay, ay, that am kinky-haired and pure black

kinks in my hair, Kafir in my lips;

and my flat nose Mozambiques.

Black of pure tint, I cry and laugh

the vibration of being a black statue;

a chunk of night, in which my white

teeth are lightning;

and to be a black vine

which entwines in the black

and curves the black nest in which the raven lies.

Black chunk of black in which I sculpt myself,

ay, ay, ay, my statue is all black.

They tell me that my grandfather was the slave

for whom the master paid thirty coins.

Ay, ay, ay, that the slave was my grandfather

is my sadness, is my sadness.

If he had been the master

it would be my shame:

that in men, as in nations,

if being the slave is having no rights

being the master is having no conscience.

Ay, ay, ay wash the sins of the white King

in forgiveness black Queen.

Ay, ay, ay, the race escapes me

and buzzes and flies toward the white race,

to sink in its clear water;

or perhaps the white will be shadowed in the black.

Ay, ay, ay my black race flees

and with the white runs to become bronzed;

to be one for the future,

fraternity of America!

In the Gospel of Luke, we are told that during Our Blessed Lord’s crucifixion, there were two other men suffering the same death, one to either side of Him. The one to Christ’s right has become known as the “Good Thief,” while the one to His left is referred to as the “Unrepentant Thief.”

While the Gospels do not mention specific names, tradition tells us the Good Thief was named Saint Dismas, and the Unrepentant Thief, Gestas.

While both men were suffering the same gruesome execution and were both in the presence of Christ, their reactions to their situation are quite different. Gestas reviles Our Lord and says, “Are You not the Messiah? Save Yourself and us.” (Lk. 23:39) Gestas asks to come down from his cross.

But Dismas does not ask to be taken down. Dismas rebukes Gestas and proclaims Christ’s innocence, and in one of the most startling and beautiful moments of the Gospel, does not ask to be taken down from his sure and painful death. He asks, instead, to be taken up with Christ, saying “Jesus, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.” (Lk 23:42). Jesus replies to Saint Dismas saying, “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.”

ASALH’s 2019 theme Black Migrations emphasizes the movement of people of African descent to new destinations and subsequently to new social realities. While inclusive of earlier centuries, this theme focuses especially on the twentieth century through today. Beginning in the early decades of the twentieth century, African American migration patterns included relocation from southern farms to southern cities; from the South to the Northeast, Midwest, and West; from the Caribbean to US cities as well as to migrant labor farms; and the emigration of noted African Americans to Africa and to European cities, such as Paris and London, after the end of World War I and World War II. Such migrations resulted in a more diverse and stratified interracial and intra-racial urban population amid a changing social milieu, such as the rise of the Garvey movement in New York, Detroit, and New Orleans; the emergence of both black industrial workers and black entrepreneurs; the growing number and variety of urban churches and new religions; new music forms like ragtime, blues, and jazz; white backlash as in the Red Summer of 1919; the blossoming of visual and literary arts, as in New York, Washington, D.C., Chicago, and Paris in the 1910s and 1920s. The theme Black Migrations equally lends itself to the exploration of the century’s later decades from spatial and social perspectives, with attention to “new” African Americans because of the burgeoning African and Caribbean population in the US; Northern African Americans’ return to the South; racial suburbanization; inner-city hyperghettoization; health and environment; civil rights and protest activism; electoral politics; mass incarceration; and dynamic cultural production.

God Rest : 🙏🕊️⛪

President George H.W. Bush Sr.

Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.

Ephesians 2:8‭-‬9 MSG

https://bible.com/bible/97/eph.2.8-9.MSG

Days before leaving office

In January 1993, days before leaving office, Bush said he intended to “put something back into society" -- but not "at the head of the table."

"I plan to put something back into society, and not at the head table, not always in the glamour, certainly not with a lot of news attention,” he said.

#BeautifulAfrica via @tyrone345345

  A t only seven years old, Hemendra was abducted by an elderly sorcerer and taken to the jungle for days without any contact with his family or village. Hemendra's parents searched for him without success. After only being given worms to eat and learning the mantras and tricks of sorcery for a week, Hemendra was allowed to return to his parents.

Boy Grows Up, Becomes Famous Sorcerer

When Hemendra went home, he had abilities he had never experienced before. His mantras were powerful, releasing people from sickness and bondage to evil spirits, although it was evil spirits that had given him his newfound skills.

As Hemendra got older and grew in his ability to heal and perform magic, his fame as a sorcerer spread across neighboring villages. Sick men and women traveled to him, trusting him to heal them of their minor ailments and severe illnesses. As an adult, Hemendra earned enough money from practicing sorcery to fully support himself and his wife Rani.

Magic Will not Heal Sorcerer's Wife

For many years, Hemendra and Rani lived a life of ease with their four children. But as the couple aged, Rani's health started to deteriorate. She suffered severe stomach pains and headaches. She did not want to eat anything. Hemendra tried everything he knew to heal her but was not able to. Other sorcerers attempted their magic on her without seeing results afterward. Hemendra took Rani to the hospital time and time again. Nothing was relieving her from her suffering. For a man who had always been so powerful, Hemendra was not able to do anything for his wife. For the first time since he had started practicing sorcery as a child, Hemendra was completely powerless.

                                                                                                        Nabhanya's family tried everything from doctors' visits to sacrificing goats to cure her pain, but they everntually began to lose hope of finding a cure.

Prayer is Last Resort

Seeing his wife in her helpless state destroyed any sense of peace Hemendra had ever experienced in his heart. He thought of his neighbors who seemed to live a peaceful life. He had seen their pastor pray for their sick family members several times and then watched them get better. As a desperate final attempt to have his wife healed, Hemendra asked his neighbors to pray for her.

Hemendra's neighbors gladly prayed for Rani to be healed. They asked their friends at church and their pastor, Madesh, to be lifting Rani up to the Lord as well. Pastor Madesh prayed

continually for Rani. Finally, God started to restore her body. Rani's health improved a little at a time.

  The Bible college students continually prayed for Nabhanya's healing until the pain was gone a month later. They rejoiced to see Nabhanya then choose to follow Christ.

Pastor Continues to Pray and Share from God's Word

Hemendra could not deny Jesus' power over his wife's body. He and his grown children understood Rani's desire to follow Christ after being healed, but none of them joined her in that decision. Even after Rani was healthy, Pastor Madesh continued to regularly visit her and Hemendra. Every time he came, Pastor Madesh prayed and shared more of the Bible with them.

Although he would sometimes join his wife in their home for prayer meetings with the pastor and believers if he did not have work to do, Hemendra's heart resisted the words and prayers of Pastor Madesh.

Nabhanya tried to hide her faith in Christ from the family, but when her daughter-in-law discovered the truth, the young woman happily revealed she was a fellow believer.

Sorcerer Finds Freedom in the Power of God

After two years of constantly hearing truth from the Bible and seeing how Pastor Madesh and the church members live out the things they believed by truly loving one another, Hemendra began to soften to the Good News of Jesus.

Finally the love of God and the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross made sense to Hemendra. The Lord's kindness brought him to repentance, and he no longer had any desire to worship evil spirits or call on them for help. Pastor Madesh and Hemendra's new family of believers helped him empty his home of anything that had to do with sorcery.

Hemendra no longer needs the power of magic—he and Rani have been transformed by the power of the living God.

As Nabhanya and her daughter-in-law pray together, they are seeing a change in their family—even a desire to attend church at the Bible college.

Stuxnet Anatomy of a Computer Virus (by syftkog)

Stuxnet is a computer worm discovered in June 2010 that is believed to have been created by the United States and Israel to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.[1] Stuxnet initially spreads via Microsoft Windows, and targets Siemens industrial control systems. While it is not the first time that hackers have targeted industrial systems,[2] it is the first discovered malware that spies on and subverts industrial systems,[3] and the first to include a programmable logic controller (PLC) rootkit.[4][5]

The worm initially spreads indiscriminately, but includes a highly specialized malware payload that is designed to target only Siemens supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems that are configured to control and monitor specific industrial processes.[6][7] Stuxnet infects PLCs by subverting the Step-7 software application that is used to reprogram these devices.[8][9]

Different variants of Stuxnet targeted five Iranian organizations,[10] with the probable target widely suspected to be uranium enrichment infrastructure in Iran;[9][11][12]Symantec noted in August 2010 that 60% of the infected computers worldwide were in Iran.[13] Siemens stated that the worm has not caused any damage to its customers,[14] but the Iran nuclear program, which uses embargoed Siemens equipment procured secretly, has been damaged by Stuxnet.[15][16]Kaspersky Lab concluded that the sophisticated attack could only have been conducted “with nation-state support”.[17] This was further supported by the F-Secure's chief researcher Mikko Hyppönen who commented in a Stuxnet FAQ, “That’s what it would look like, yes”.[18] It has been speculated that Israel[19] and the United States may have been involved.[20][21]

In May 2011, the PBS program Need To Know cited a statement by Gary Samore, White House Coordinator for Arms Control and Weapons of Mass Destruction, in which he said, “we’re glad they [the Iranians] are having trouble with their centrifuge machine and that we – the US and its allies – are doing everything we can to make sure that we complicate matters for them”, offering “winking acknowledgement” of US involvement in Stuxnet.[22] According to The Daily Telegraph, a showreel that was played at a retirement party for the head of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Gabi Ashkenazi, included references to Stuxnet as one of his operational successes as the IDF chief of staff.[19]

On 1 June 2012, an article in The New York Times said that Stuxnet is part of a U.S. and Israeli intelligence operation called “Operation Olympic Games”, started under President George W. Bush and expanded under President Barack Obama.[23]

On 24 July 2012, an article by Chris Matyszczyk from cnet[24] reported how the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran e-mailed F-Secure's chief research officer Mikko Hyppönen to report a new instance of malware.

On 25 December 2012, an Iranian semi-official news agency announced there was a cyberattack by Stuxnet, this time on the industries in the southern area of the country. The virus targeted a power plant and some other industries in Hormozgan province in recent months.[25]