Brief thoughts on the destruction of civilization
A thought by Chitown Kev
Well...perhaps it’s a good thing that nearly everyone knows now what happened when King Croesus of Lydia consulted the Oracle of Delphi.
I’m all for a rigorous education in history.
I don’t appreciate that it’s f’ing up my high from Michigan’s national championship win last night.
As I write this, I am sitting up listening to all sorts of pundits attempt to predict what will happen at 8pm tonight.
Polymarket or Kalishi might not be posting the odds that the tacky shoe salesman will, indeed, destroy Iranian civilization tonight but I am willing to (ahem) bet that all sorts of off-the-board betting is going on.
I’m...pretty consistent about this: Even if it couldn’t be predicted precisely what would happen if Trump was elected president again, we knew from the conduct of his first term what was in the range of possibilities.
And yet...77,302,580 Americans voted for him, giving him a plurality of votes over the smart Black lady (and that includes at least 2 of my nephews/nieces).
They chose to believe a known and frequent liar.
Therefore, the destruction of Iranian or any other civilization (including American civilization) is as much on their conscience as it should be on the mind of the man (not king) that has no conscience.
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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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The backlash following UConn coach Geno Auriemma’s outburst at South Carolina coach Dawn Staley in the closing seconds of their national semifinal matchup on Friday night has drawn a considerable amount of media attention and support from fans of both teams. Coach Auriemma sparked the heated exchange by allegedly accusing Coach Staley of not shaking his hand before the game, an accusation refuted by a video aired by ESPN that shows the two exchanging handshakes.
As Staley walked away from Auriemma, she yelled, “I will beat Geno’s ass,” a line that has since gone viral with at least one sports bar adding the phrase to its marquee.
In an interview on Saturday, one of Coach Auriemma’s former star players, retired WNBA player Diana Taurasi, downplayed the exchange between the rival coaches, saying it was nothing more than “two people competing at the highest level that have a tremendous amount of respect for each other.”
But, for many Black women, Auriemma’s behavior reflects a familiar dynamic many of us have encountered in the workplace where no matter how hard we work, we still face discrimination and disrespect from white colleagues.
Many of us are taught before we set foot in our first office jobs that to be a Black woman in the workplace means we have to work twice as hard to be twice as good, only to get half as far.
According to a 2020 study released by Lean In and McKinsey and Company, Black women “experience a wider range of microaggressions” and are “more likely to have their judgment questioned in their area of expertise and to be asked to provide additional evidence of their competence.”
As a longtime newsroom leader who has occupied top high level editorial positions at some of the top news organizations in the country, I’ve experienced this more times than I can count. I’ve had my editorial judgment questioned in ways and with a level of veracity my white peers do not experience. I have never been accused of not shaking someone’s hand before a game, but I have experienced managers dwelling on trivialities unrelated to my work and calling into question my personal ethics and professionalism.
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With President Donald Trump‘s endorsement secured, MAGA Republican and Florida House candidate Jon Maples was supposed to win the recent March election. Trump’s urgent call to support the Black Republican marked a rare and memorable sign of the president’s approval. Despite that, Maples lost to a Democrat by less than 800 votes.
What does it say, in that case, when even an endorsement from the president cannot deliver a victory in a very red voting district? In the case of Maples and other Black conservatives, the answer may lie in a disconnect between them and much of Black America– a divide which hasn’t been truly addressed.
The disparities become clear when you look at the current make up of Congress. All four Black House Republicans– Texas Rep. Wesley Hunt, Fla. Rep. Byron Donalds, Utah Rep. Burgess Owens and Mich. Rep. John James– are notably exiting Congress in January, putting the GOP in an even harder position to connect to Black voters. And given Trump juggling war in Iran, immigration and inflation crises at home and his mission to “Make America Great Again,” it’s unclear if he’s noticed or plans to address the potential lack of Black representation in his own party.
Other Black conservatives like former Va. Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears have been forced to watch from the sidelines. She’s an anomaly in her own right as a Black women and ultraconservative with a military background. On paper, Earle-Sears is just the type of leader that President Trump would usually endorse, but she barely received a head nod from the president during her campaign for state governor. She lost to current Va. Gov. Abigail Spanberger, a white female Democrat.
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In a poor neighborhood of Congo’s capital, Kinshasa, the bell tower of a neat whitewashed church rises high above grey walls and tin roofs. Just after dawn on a Sunday morning, the sound of tom-tom drums, electric guitars and lively choral music draws in hundreds of people, who sing and dance through the mass. This is the “Zairean rite”: Catholic liturgical services adapted to Congolese culture. Emmanuel Lamamba, a priest at the church, argues that the unique combination brings the local faithful closer to God.
It seems to be working. Whereas Catholic pews across the faith’s European and American heartlands are often empty, in Congo and much of Africa they are heaving. At the current pace, as many as half the world’s Catholics could be in Africa by 2066, a shift so seismic for the church that it has been compared to the upheaval of the Protestant Reformation.
Africa’s rapid population growth partly explains the shift. But the growth in believers also reflects what Emmanuel Katongole, a Ugandan priest and theologian, identifies as the “vitality, energy and dynamism” of Catholic churches on the continent. As the faith’s center of gravity moves steadily south, they are set to play a pivotal role in shaping the morals and politics of global Catholicism—and perhaps of African societies as well.
It is with such considerations in mind that Leo XIV will visit Africa on April 13th, his first big foreign tour since his election last year. The world’s youngest continent should be an obvious priority for the new pope. Despite its close early links to colonialism, the Catholic church in Africa today is widely seen as a politically independent institution: a champion of democracy and clean government. Its reputation is relatively untainted by the sexual-abuse scandals which have dogged the church in the West. Many in Africa also associate Catholicism with a concern for the poor.
Starting in Algeria, then travelling to Cameroon, Angola and Equatorial Guinea, Leo will thus find receptive audiences. But it will not all be plain sailing. His liberal predecessor, Pope Francis, had fraught relations with the leaders of Africa’s Catholics. On both occasions when the late pontiff’s authority was openly challenged it was by African cardinals pushing for more conservative guidelines on liturgy and regarding gay couples.
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WELCOME TO THE FRIDAY PORCH
IF YOU ARE NEW TO THE BLACK KOS COMMUNITY, GRAB A SEAT, SOME CYBER EATS, RELAX, AND INTRODUCE YOURSELF.
