“If love is said to come from the heart, what about hate? Along with music, religion, irony and a host of other complex concepts, researchers are on the hunt for the neurological underpinnings of hatred. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has begun to reveal how the strong emotion starts to emerge in the brain.”
A neurobiologist named Semi Zeki of University College London’s Laboratory of Neurobiology led a study last year that scanned 17 adult brains as they gazed at the images of a person they claimed to hate. Across the board, areas in the medial frontal gyrus, right putamen, premotor cortex and medial insula activated. Parts of this so-called “hate circuit,”he researchers noted, are also involved in initiating aggressive behavior, but feelings of aggression itself—as well as anger, danger and fear—show different patterns in…
Eric Von Schmidt was a Fulbright Scholar who made his living as a graphic artist, illustrator and painter. He was also a musician who was a central figure at the 1960’s folk revival, Cambridge Massachusetts, where his musical knowledge and abilities influenced other musicians like Tom Rush and Bob Dylan.
“Joshua Gone Barbados” was one of a number of songs he wrote after he and his family vacationed on the Caribbean island of St. Vincent in 1962.
I actually prefer the Tom Rush version
The song is about the island’s unsuccessful sugar cane strike of 1962. This happened a few weeks ahead of Eric’s arrival. History shows that his lyrics contained mostly accurate observations but also included false rumors that spread all over the island at the time of the strike. One rumor was that strikers were killed and the other was that Ebenezer Joshua had deserted the cause.
Joshua was born in Kingstown, Saint Vincent, British Windward Islands. He was an official of a trade union when he tried unsuccessfully to be elected to the Trinidad legislature.Returning to Saint Vincent, Joshua entered politics, and was elected to the island’s assembly in 1951. In 1952 he and his wife Ivy Joshua founded the People’s Political Party as the political arm of the Federated Industrial Allied Workers Union, a trade union organization aimed at representing agricultural and shipyard workers.
The platform included improving wages and working conditions and severing colonial ties with Great Britain. By the 1950’s Joshua had become St. Vincent’s most well known advocate for the working class and by the 1960’s he ended up as the island’s Chief Minister.
Someone wrote “St. Vincent in 1962 like many Caribbean islands had been swept up in the wave of nationalism inspired by the Cuban revolution.” Really? Darlin you go out in the hot sun with a machete and cut sugarcane for 12 hours a day. Pretty sure people just got tired of being treated like dogs. Try it for a day and get back to me.
At the same time the Caribbean’s economic engine of sugar production began to falter as prices fell. (The plot thickens!)
Stay with me!
In 1962 Joshua discontinued government subsidies for the sugar growers, leading the Mt Bentinck Sugar Cane Factory to close after years of financial mismanagement.
Also, In 1962 two islands , Jamaica and Trinidad, withdrew from the federation. In May 1962 the remaining island members were to hold a meeting in Barbados to discuss the federation’s future. Joshua made the choice between staying at home to help with the strike or to travel to Barbados and continue to work toward the end of colonial rule. He chose to address the long-term challenge in Barbados.
According to Wikipedia a misunderstanding of this sequence of events and Vincentian history by American musician Eric von Schmidt became the basis for the song “Joshua Gone Barbados“
Joshua is recognized as the person most responsible for the rights and benefits accorded the working class and poor in modern St. Vincent: Increased wages, holidays with pay, protection from eviction, and protection against child labor.
IDK Other people have reported other things that you are more than welcome to google.
Who knows?
The point, besides sharing some great music, is that Big Sugar as we call them still get what they want. They swarm the halls of Tallahassee every year making sure they get everything they need from politicians from both sides of isle. Screw the workers. Screw the environment.
Now it’s 2021 and I just found this article from Mother Jones.
“we came to realize the story wasn’t just about Lulu. It was about the 68,000-some Haitian cañeros still in the fields, and their living and working conditions, especially under the island’s biggest plantation holder: Central Romana. Owned in part by brothers Alfonso and Pepe Fanjul, Cuban exiles who are now billionaire Florida sugar barons, Central Romana sugarcane is cut by Haitians, crushed and poured as raw sugar into the holds of vessels, and shipped to the Fanjuls’ ASR Domino refinery in Baltimore harbor.”
This never ends.
Locally, we have our whole story of the Glades. I’m not talking about our farmers. (don’t start pickin on me! We love our veggies but sugar is not a vegetable!) I’m talking about the big corporations.
Pioneer Park is a huge park where children go to play
Right now what goes on is sugar burning. When does it go on? When the wind is blowing from the east. That way only the people that live out in the glades are affected. It would never happen with the wind coming out of the west. I went out there years ago and spoke with a mom whose young son had chronic bronchitis and she couldn’t afford to go to the doctor.
I think Eric Von Schmidt saw the inhumanity of the entire situation. We can thank him for shining a light. Yes, Joshua got a bad rap but after all it was the 60s. Politicians were the enemy (hmmm has anything changed?)
Maybe the events didn’t happen at that one particular time but they did happen, still do happen and politicians are at the center of the whole situation.
At at the end of the day Eric was the one who shined a bright light on the actual issue of cane workers that continues to this day.
It will continue until we have the political will to change things.
Joshua Gone Barbados
Cane standing in the fields
Getting old and red
Lot of misery in Georgetown
Three men lying dead
Joshua, head of the government
He said strike for better pay
Cane cutters are striking
Joshua gone away
Joshua gone Barbados
Staying in a big hotel
People on St. Vincent
They got many sad tales to tell
Sugar mill owner told the strikers
I don’t need you to cut my cane
Bring in another bunch of fellows
Strike be all in vain
Get a bunch of tough fellows
Bring ’em from Sion Hill
Bring ’em in a bus to Georgetown
Know somebody get killed
Sonny Child, the overseer
I swear he’s an ignorant man
Walking through the cane field
Pistol in his hand
But Joshua gone Barbados
Just like he don’t know
People on the island
They got no place to go
Police giving protection
New fellows cutting the cane
Strikers can’t do nothing
Strike be all in vain
And Sonny Child, he curse the strikers
Wave his pistol ’round
They’re beating Sonny with a cutlass
Beat him to the ground
There’s a lot of misery in Georgetown
You can hear the women bawl
Joshua gone Barbados
He don’t care at all
Cane standing in the fields
Getting old and red
Sonny Child in the hospital
Pistol on his bed
I wish I could go to England
Trinidad or Curacao
People on the island
They got no place to go
Joshua gone Barbados
Staying in a big hotel
People on St. Vincent
Got many sad tales to tell
Songwriters: Eric Von Schmidt
Is this really any different from what goes on today?
Make sure to read this and watch the documentary H2 Worker Documentary. Legal Slavery.
You guys know I love when thing happen organically. Something wonderful happened today that gave me hope!
Covid has had the worse triggering effect on people. Social media, conservative news, sometimes just the news in general. We have Covid. We had the election which was totally nuts. Then the capital riot. Now we have Covid Delta. We have vaccinations. The list goes on!
I don’t want to rehash the past. To be able to cope with this crazy world and alternate reality early on I identified being triggered as the big issue. I found folks I needed to help me deal with this and thru some hard work was able to not be triggered (for the most part). In order for me to do the work as a psych nurse and be part of the team at Treasure Coast I had to take care of myself.
This is where I landed. I honestly don’t care what people believe because there is no arguing with them.
The psychiatric community has really disappointed me because they are not really talking about this. No one is. We just get up and go to work and follow what ever protocol we have to follow. We (healthcare workers) do what we can to make the best of a bad situation.
I also run a bunch of local newsgroups that encompasses the Treasure Coast. Some are quiet! Some are quite active and a lot of triggering goes on. My friend Dawn and I have done a great job managing but sometimes I just turn off the comments.
Last night i approved this in one of our groups.
This is what happened! Not only was it a great post but the most wonderful thing happened. A lot of people didn’t read the post so they were totally triggered. Right behind them was another group of members who kindly told them to re-read the post. People did and most laughed. People were being kind and working together which is really all I want in my world.
When you laugh you raise your endorphins!
The psychologist Daniel Goleman refers to “amygdala hijack,” an intense emotional reaction that’s dramatically disproportionate to the situation. When a person has been triggered, their emotions take over, and they see the world through a distorted lens. Being triggered and understanding how to control that is imperative. Not just with this but with everything.
You can google there are loads of good articles! My best advice is to find something that resonates with you and use it to decrease your triggering reaction. Please don’t make me write about the negative effect of stress on your body! Please! Google it like a grown up!
When I’m stressed out I crank up the radio! Nothin like a little Blue Oyster Cult (better than prozac!) Give it a try!
The biggest thank you to Tommy Trail Jr. You healed our group! You gave me faith!
Lastly, I think a mandatory vacation sounds like a swell idea!
Last Christmas my kids gave me a bird feeder guaranteed to keep out squirrels. I’ve had load of birds most notible the woodpecker that comes to procreate every year.
I filled it up and hung it on a tree and off I went.
When I returned it was hanging by a rope and the rope was anchored down. It’s kinda like pulling a sail up and down especially when it full.
I politely thanked my neighbor for being so thoughtful and never gave it a second thought.
Fast forward a few months. I’m sitting here doing my Sunday morning work routine and I loose my internet. I do the restarting routine. I pull out all the plugs and plug things back in. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.
I call At&t and we figure out its gotta be an outside wire.
I can’t get an appointment for days. My fault with a busy work week.
The guys comes. I tell him my sad story. He takes off. Gone for an hour. Comes back and says “squirrels.” You gottta laugh because all I think about is this must be retribution for the bird feeder.
In my imagination the scurry had a meeting and decided to get my attention.
Apparently this is an issue we all need to concerned about.
Sea Level Rise in Miami and Politics. Let’s just say no to the “deniers.”
The last election was the first election I participated in a long time. I felt very disenfranchised and I realized how important it was to get people out to vote. I put together a list of clean water candidates because I thought it would bring us together and it did. It did in a way. In a way it didn’t. We really really need to do this all together.
Now we need this more than ever. Miami is floating away.
When Michael Grunwald was here he talked about the tides comes up to his house.
What’s going to happen? What’s going to happen is what has happened. People are going to stick their necks in the sand and its going to get worse and our fellow citizens are in danger. Please go talk to your party…
My absolutely guiltless pleasure this past spring was Bryan Fuller’s NBC series Hannibal. Besides enjoying the quipping but heavy writing, fantastic performances, morbid crossing of death and food (Pushing Daisies much?), and themes of destructive imagination, this show is GORGEOUS. Design teams did an incredible job throughout, but I especially want to highlight the cinematography.
The image above is representational the show’s aesthetic in general: Tight Framing. Medium-close-ups. Deep, muted colors that tend heavily toward red and bluish-greens. Shadowy lighting. Shallow focus.
Let me repeat that last one: Shallow. Focus.
His neck is out of focus, but I can see every hair on his patch of scruff. Like, what? What?
And this is a constant throughout the show: Features of a face or object are sharp while features just inches away are not. Focus softens and sharpens in single shots. Backgrounds are entirely blurred. It’s beautiful, but also borders…
When you choose a custom home builder, you have decided that you desire a home that is different and unique as you are as a person! To have your home meet the special needs and lifestyle of your family. It is so much fun and more comforting to have a floor plan that revolves around you. Your home is where you spend 70% of your time and is a reflection how you choose to spend your life making memories with your family. It is also very exciting to see your dream home become a reality.
On January 10th, Florida’s Office of the Governor, under very newly elected Ron DeSantis, issued Executive Order 19-12. The title of this order is “Achieving More Now For Florida’s Environment.” It is a remarkable and voluminous piece.
Today, I am going to share it in full as you may have only heard about parts of it in the newspaper.
First, note the “Whereases…” giving background and laying foundation for the order.
Whereas, water and natural resources are the foundation of Florida’s communities, economy and way of life; and
Whereas, protection of water resources is one of the most critical issues facing our state and requires immediate action; and
Whereas, recent algae blooms have resulted in an increasing threat to our environment and fragile ecosystems, including our rivers, beaches, and wildlife…
cyndi lenz 