9 Gullah ProverbsWalter Rhett (3,313)      Charleston Perlo I Endorse Barack Obama for PresidentPosted Monday, November 03, 2008 (16 days 22 hours ago.) Viewed 30 times. I will be voting for Barack Obama. Nations falter both from within and without; history shows that Rome as an Empire and many other nations, even Cuba, collapsed from weakening within. With state pensions funds down billions of dollars, with 2 trillion dollars worth of captial value removed from US markets in the last year, with a war costing 10 billion dollars a month, with its effort misdirected, with the neglect of schools, and roads, and energy policy, and health care, and unemployment rising, I must vote not only for change, but for a person who has the vision, intelligence, and insight to grasp the huge agenda before America. I believe Barack Obama's model of governance can be seen by the conduct of his campaign. He thought of new ways to expand participation in electoral politics. He made brilliant use of technology. He empowered individuals. He attacked in red states. He went against conventional wisdom. He remained steady, thoughtful, and unfinching under fire. He reached out to (rather than went against) many who were disappointed in his own party. He has the respect of foreign leaders and the support of many of our troops, including a former Chief of the Joint Staffs. He build a wide coalition; Julie Eisenhower, the daughter of Republican President Richard Nixon supports him. His supporters include Warren Buffet and Jay - Z. He will not tax and spend. He will not be weak on defense, he will not be overwhelmed by the decisions of the office. He will appoint men and women of sound reasoning to help develop and implement policy. He will be a good stewart of our tax dollars and our resources. He will listen to others, and the people. He is a family man with a wonderful wife and precious children. He is not reckless, does not rush to judgement, and is not bull headed, leading a charge going nowhere when faced with the pressures of high stress. He is not Muslim, socialist, or anti-American. He has my vote, and hopefully, will be the next President of the United States of America. And after the election, let's put our differences aside and truly rebuild America and set new national priorities. God Bless America! walterrhett wrote the above on 11/03/2008 07:48:35 AM: and posted on the Southern Perlo blog at The State, South Carolina's largest newspaper and the Clarion Ledger, Mississippi's number one website, and the Detroit Free Press website. 
Permalink Comments (1) "The Monster Mash": Be Careful--the Traffic is Scary!Posted Friday, October 31, 2008 (20 days ago.) Viewed 21 times. Heavy traffic is predicted in most places for Halloween--and that is scary!
Parents, please take extra caution driving and transporting your children, and take special precautions getting them into and out of the car or van. Dressed as their favorite characters, the children are eager to run. So remind them before you stop the car to wait for you to let them out!
Pick parking spaces carefully. Look for safe entry and exit places. Remind the children to stay together in a group.
Look for alternative parties at church or sponsored by civil groups. Haunted houses are fun!
In traffic, pay special attention to other families crossing the streets or walking along parallel to moving traffic. Look both ways before moving forward from all stops.
Reduce speeds tonight. Slow is better.
And please put all cell phones away! Taking on the cell with van full of children, driving around the neighborhoods with streets teeming with young ones--now that IS a SCARY thought!
Be safe. Please!
Permalink Comments (0) "Lay Down my Burdens": Harriet Tubman and Meta Grimball Tell Us about the Civil WarPosted Friday, October 31, 2008 (20 days 2 hours ago.) Viewed 19 times. The Fortunes of Zion: Harriet Tubman and Meta Grimball In the whole, one of the lowcountry's most important Civil War heroes was a slight-built black woman who gathered intelligence, conducted raids, trained refugees, nursed the wounded and sick, but never fired a shot. She arrived by steamer in the Beaufort-Hilton Head district in 1862, and served with the Second South Carolina Volunteers as a nurse, squad leader, and scout. Her remarkable abilites saved lives. With her knowledge of plants, of how to prepare herbal medicine and administer treatments, she treated dysentry with lilac root and crane's bill. The refreshing sips of elixir she put to parched lips cured many soliders who lay in tents with vacant eyes, delirious, near death. Her methods were openly ridiculed as superstitution, but her resultsproved the better science. She taught refugees how to earn a living by doing the camp's laundry, or by baking favorite cakes and pies for the soliders, the same means by which she supported herself. The hundreds of black refugees were contraband--property siezed during the war--and still not free. Many found work during common labor and camp chores, digging fortifications, gathering firewood, cultivating crops, handling supplies. Hundreds of others were idle, and resented. In one particularly chilling incident of monstrous brutality in the Beaufort district, ten regular army soldiers, after drinking heavily, participated in the rape of a nine year-old girl. Near the war's end in nearby Georgia, two thousand contraband, trapped when a bridge was removed to block their crossing, were driven into rain-swollen icy black cypress swamp by calvary rifle fire. With piercing wails that echo in the swamp when it rains, men and mothers clutching children totheir breasts dove into the black waters, disappeared in the blackness, and drowned at Ebenezer Creek. The Charleston papers twisted the story, claiming slave mothers drowned hundreds of their children. Local legend says their bodies carried downstream made a series of human dams. At Fort Pillow in Tennesse on the Mississippi in 1864, black soldiers were buried alive, many of those wounded set on fire, and others senselessly murdered after they surrendered. Miles downstream, the waters of Mississippi are stained red with blood. The war to end the horrors of bondage and restore union brought new levels of dread and repugnance, with hideous atrocities committed both sides. Fought for principles, this war attacked its victims. The nurse, scout, and squad leader fought evil on every side, and toiled tirelessly for peace. Her experience had prepared and steeled her against unspeakable cruelty. She had been the object of a bounty and thoughout her career, constantly exposed to physical danger. And so this gaunt, wisp of a woman, her head tied, her clothes tattered, her gait a swift shuffle, her body deceptively frail, knew the accounts of the massive and singular horrors. Consequently, she preferred to operated alone. She moved behind enemy lines, in enemy territory, surveying ammunition depots or cotton warehouses. With men she handpicked, one especially who rode with John Brown, she raided bridges along the lowcountry's rice rivers. In June 1863, leading a raid of gun boats to sweep the Comhabee River of topedoes, she liberated over 800 adults and children from nearby plantations. Word spread, leaping across the fields that the woman named "Moses" had come as the three gunboats she directed glided noisily up the Comhabee. Their wakes shook and churned the waters, their steam whistles blasted like trumpets. On shore, many people, cowered by the gun boats, whispered her name. And at its mention, they found the courage to run through the cutting sting of the overseer's lash to freedom. Thrasting through the waters, carrying children and babies hanging on their heads, their shoulders, their dress tails, carrying rice-pots and wild pigs and screaming chickens, 800 came to freedom crowding every square inch of the ships. Others hung on to the sides, refusing to let go. This woman known as "Moses,:"once had a $40,000 price tag on her head. Her crime? "Negro-stealing." Before the war, she lead over 300 former slaves to freedom in more than 18 trips into slaveholding states. Her greatest offense was to richly embarass those who deceptively argued slavery was a benign service that burdened only its master and benefitted its chattel. Her success resulted in a pride-driven, ridiculous fortune being offered for her life, when her own work as the real presence of the underground railroad never harmed or took a life, except to escape with "the property" of those who bought and sold--and "owned"--human beings. Born as a slave in Bucktown (near Cambridge), in Dorchester County, on Maryland's eastern shore, she was marked for a lifetime by its bruality. At thirteen she was nearly killed when she was struck in the head by a heavy iron scale weight thrown at someone else. The sickening thud fractured and crushed her skull, and left her unconscious for weeks. The overseer who threw the iron block that nearly killed her went unpunished. Ariminta Ross, Harriet Tubman's born name, suffered sizeures and servere black-outs, and difficult lethargic and depressive periods through the rest of her 76 years. But her spirit appeared strengthened, became as "strong as Daniel's, its its fearless purpose to serve God." One of 11 children of Harriet Greene Ross and Benjamin Ross, her grandfather was African. Through out her life, prayer was her greatest tool. And she wasn't praying alone. She recounted years later the story of one of the lowcountry fatihful who also prayed ceaselessly during his bondage: "I'd been yere seventy-three years, workin' for my master widout even a dime wages. I'd worked rain-wet sun dry. I'd worked wid my mouf full of dust, but would not stop to get a drink of water. I'd been whipped, an' starved, an' I was always prayin', 'Oh! Lord, come an' delibber us!' Now he 's come an' we's all free." She took her mother's name, Harriet, and married Joseph Tubman, a free-born black in 1844. "Moses" she was called for her gifts of the sacred heart, her ability to be guided and warned and protected by God, confident that the voice of God spoke directly to her soul. Moses she was called for the spiritual, "Go down, Moses," she sung to the slaves she came to lead, when it was time to flee. And to those who warned her of dangers, she replied,"didn't John see tweleve gates?[In Revelations.] Weren't three in the South? If I have to leave here, I guess I will get in heaven that way." Nelson Davis with was one of a group of African-American Union soldiers she led on raids along the Combahee River in 1863. They married in 1869. The lowcountry saw its share of well-known war veterans. In Hilton Head, Harriet Tubman served with Clara Barton, who founded the American Red Cross. Robert E. Lee was dining at the Mills Hotel the night the Charleston fire of 1861 begin, and escorted several ladies home. Frederick Douglass' son survived the assault on Fort Wagner. Among locals, Susie King, a 16 year-old recruited by the army as a laundress, served as sectretary for the Union command, a reading teacher for the newly freed, and a nurse for the dying and wounded. Bivowaced at Morris Island, she often passed through fields of corpses and moved the skulls of dead soldiers from the path to camp. At night by the fire, King records in her account, the soldiers laughingly tossing the skulls to each other. They wonder aloud if they were "Union" or "Sceesh." Who could tell now? Who could tell now for which cause these bones lost their flesh, poured out their blood and knew neither light, laughter or promise? William Henry Grimball is listed on the St. Michael's plaque for the Confederate dead. His mother, Meta (Martha) Morris Grimball, filled her diary with a mother's tender sorrow: "at about 7 o'clock on Wednesday morning William passed away, his father closing his eyes. It has pleased Almighty God to take from us this good, affectionate, and gifted child, just when the promise of his youth might have borne fruit. My God give me Resignation to thy will, and lift up my poor, sinful heart to trust, & to pray always. -My dear, dear child, how I think of you, and all your unselfish, thoughtful ways; I believe-". Meta Grimball, born in New York, marrried in South Carolina, was a sensitive, caring woman of clear vision whose sense of duty included a remarkable understanding of the inner life of her times--the emotional trials brought by the war, the surreal mood of a beautiful spring which served as an elergy for death. Her sly sense of humor loved the contrast of personalities around her, but she quickly knew the deep hurts, the furrow of concern, that lay behind the veil of good cheer. In her diary, she called upon memory to celebrate, to reconcile each tragedy, to find the peace and acceptance her faith compells. Zion symbolizes such a place of peace and refuge. Meta Grimball heard mentions of Zion in the hymns and sermons of 19th century Charleston. Though unmentioned, Meta Grimball certainly knew Zion as the largest church in Charleston with seating for more than 3,000, sitting on the rise at Calhoun and Meeting Streets, in sight of the Citadel, built for a slave congregation in 1850. The biblical Zion could be found in lessons heard by Harriet Tubman. The real Zion, the source of scripture, hymns and prayer, is a hill in the center of Jerusalem captured by David, an ancient temple site. The Zion of praise is a place to be delivered out of terror, to sow tears and reap joy. On different sides of the hill, In the whirlwind and the wilderness, Meta Grimball and Harriet Tubman, by their experiences strong women of faith, were pilgrims of Zion, holding to the eloquent intercession asked in Psalm 20: 1-2: May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble, the name of the God of Jacob defend you; send you help from his holy place and strengthen you out of Zion. The brimstone and thunder of war smothered many hearts in a mountain of smoke and darkness. The beloved cried out for Zion, a place where the smoke had cleared and the thunder called the faithful to be set free, to walk in wisdom and love. "We are sheep from thy hand," a prayer pledged. For Zion--mythic and real--is a special place of grace and strength that shelters pilgrims in the midst of sorrows and storms--is known to some and open to all hearts. In the midst of despair, when all is lost, Zion calls above. And lo, from above, redemption comes." I am so glad trouble don't last always." the spiritual gives witness and affirms, "Hush--hush! Somebody's calling my name; what will I do?" Meta Grimball gathered up her family at war's end and cherished their weddings. Harriet Tubman retired to New York, where despite letters of support from federal cabinet members, her pension was cut, after being held up for more than a decade. Zion--the place and symbol--its terrible journey, its darkest fears, its sustaining light was certainly known to Meta Grimball and to Harriet Tubman. From different sides of the hill, each experienced and knew firsthand the pain and grief of both winners and losers. Each knew the vale of misery. Each drew out the living waters of the well. These two women who cried out and sought the refuge of Zion to protect and heal their fears and wounds. These two women put their yearnings, cares, and sufferings before the God of Zion who knew these two women whose hopes and hardships were joined in common cause, despite their differing places. They stood as pilgrims in communion before God, before whom their hearts and names were the same.
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