Aaaa! Curse words!

 

The truth

 

Qanon

 

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Antimodernism

 

The Inflammation by Nikky Finney

 

The Inflammation

Nikky Finney

The air in the high school is swollen. My heart balloons as I smooth my name tag down. The woman checking me in at Austin East Magnet High School has a warning, “They might not have much to say.” I have not come to measure their verbs or their vowels. My vested interest is their red blood cells. East Knoxville, where six students in one year, from one high school, are dead by gun violence. As I walk to Ms. Hall’s young writers class, 16-year-olds with the mud-red beauty of the Maasai fly past me in the hall late for class. There are no visible signs of bruising. A blood test could reveal the damage done these last 400 years. A blood test is a fine modern measurement of the homocysteine levels moving through precious growing creative bodies. There are no blood tests in my bag and I only have one hour to measure what I have traveled here to know. East Knoxville, fifty years before, every grocery store, bakery, doctor’s office, barbershop, pharmacy, juke joint, Miss Lucille Reader of Palms, closed down and laid to rest on the new Civic Center pyre. Blood sugar levels bought season tickets to the Moon. Families on the East side came to know American architecture intimately, how the right side of Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard arced into the halls of the high school, and the left side dangled at the front door of Jarnigan & Son Mortuary, oldest Black business in town. A swelling is how the body begins to heal. A blood test can be historical marker for the inflammation of disparity. My ballooning heart enters the door of their A, B, and O world. I am met by 14 framed faces of curious encyclopedic sunlight. Their Wolof and Benin mouths follow me around the room like awakened cicadas. I ask them to read. They stop buzzing, mid-air, hold their patterns, wondering if I have come to take something else from them. The one in perfect white sneakers with BEATS dangling off his ears keeps his head under his hoodie. The two by the window use the glass as dream portal, watching, then aiming, their father’s eyes farther out into the rising Blue Ridge Mountain light settling the pitched roof of Jarnigan & Son. The room is a clover field of hide, luck, and chance, but the burning tenderness of their inflammation wants out. Inflammation is a fight response from the body when the immune system leaps into action even when there is no visible injury. Angelina extends her grey tablet out to me. Her dark Motown eyes begin their return to Earth. I read her poem as if it belongs in my mouth. Their words reach and ricochet. My immune system kicks in just as Jamartray decides I might be worthy, handing me his fragile worry-filled word rope, his mother’s Lindy Hop, in and out of the Double-Dutch rope of illness. Shiasia’s spunky Afro-Latin is read with Black girl attitude kept under my tongue for moments when the fear in their eyes is molten and strawberry. She cheers. Leonard begins with a piercing refusal to never be a statistic and ends with his mother’s double helix—HeLa—never-ending cells of extraordinary love alighting every face in the room. It is 9:00 am on a Friday morning in East Knoxville. I have lost my tally and count. The young poets have broken my fever.

Hi Timor, Life is precious, and I'm so thankful that friends like you agree

 

Hi Timor, Life is precious, and I'm so thankful that friends like you agree. What an amazing gift that God is using our Option Ultrasound program to reveal life to moms considering abortion so that they can choose life. In case you don't know, Option Ultrasound is a donor-funded program that equips pregnancy resource centers with ultrasound machines and nurses' sonography training, as well as defends and protects the sanctity of human life. When mothers can see their babies, their hearts are softened, and minds changed! In fact, more than 54% of abortion-minded women who receive counseling and an ultrasound choose life! Isn't that amazing?! God has called us to an incredible work to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves. I'm humbled and grateful for this effort and for the thousands of individuals like you who make it possible. It all comes down to one thing — the life of a precious baby saved. "I had already decided that an abortion would be the answer for me. I couldn't imagine where I would live or how I could support a baby financially. I went to a pregnancy medical clinic for a free ultrasound to see how far along I was. What an amazing experience. My baby was so big! I was 14 weeks along, and I could see every part of her ... hands and feet and her sweet little face. My heart was totally turned towards this little girl that was growing inside of me." — Kaitlin* Timor, Kaitlin chose life for her child. This is the life-saving impact only possible because of friends like you. It is through your support that women facing unplanned pregnancies are experiencing God's grace and hope. Thank you for revealing life so mothers like Kaitlin can choose life. It's encouraging to know that there are so many caring, God-fearing people — like you — who believe in the sanctity of life. I appreciate you, Timor. Blessings, Jim Daly President, Focus on the Family *Name changed to protect identity

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Antimodern

We didn't used to have nerds

We used to not have people who were smart with no social skills! America used to be a place, where social skills were important to survival, where people did not accept knowledge for its own sake, but only sought for knowledge that had value! There was a time when people did not relax, when people in America understood that nobody owed them anyrhing! There were no nerds then! There were no people who sought useless knowledge! Back before there was all of this new fangled trash, things were so much better! People die not discuss things to death! It was "see truth and how before truth". There was a day in which nobody has to prove that there was a God to anyone! Why cannot we go back to those days?

Ukraine backs trump

Trumpy bear

Why should it matter so much?

A thousand years from now, who will ever care about the Election nonsense that we have? Trumpy bear will be forgotten tomorrow! Who will ever care about such then? We mock the past for liking the leaders that they had! One day, people will mock us for our leaders! Dare to not care about politics!