This one waited in the wings for me at least 20 years, but it took a gift from a well meaning friend to make it into an issue. This past December a friend of my wife gave her a Christmas gift in the form of a plaque which ended with the word’s “God Bless the Barbera’s.”

It had some other ridiculous schlock…

I've been away working on another book. I am in the checking of sources phase and have managed time away from staring at words. While away I…

Red States Whip Ass

A recent case that involved an infant stuck to a wall with super-glue and another dropped into a pot of scalding water set my parental fluids to a boil. Almost every evening there is another case of horrific child abuse or kidnapping and neglect. Living in the “Bible Belt”…

The Urge to Explore

Scientists nearly all agree that human life started in mid-Africa thousands of years ago and migrated to all points on the globe. Even though various indigenous groups try to deny it, the trail of humanoids out of Africa is clear in the fossils, historical digs and technology. One question that comes up frequently in tracing humans out of Africa is why did one society thrive and another fail when…

Science is not a subject that is often pushed in the African American community except during black history month when the same scientists of the 20th century and earlier are trotted out again and again to the point that they have lost their meaning other than as place holders. With exception of Neil deGrasse Tyson, most African Americans would be hard pressed…

Although the rate of black on black homicide dropped from the rates of crack-fueled 90's, according to FBI statistics murder of black males under 20 is still the number the number one cause of death, nor is it any surprise that the majority of those numbers are…

I try to spend time with my wife just by being in the same room. Just that little proximity leads to better communication, understanding and sometimes the equivalent of fingernails dragging over a blackboard.

She often watches shows not…

Watching the Catholic Church since the birth control pill came to civilization has been an Olympic caliber gymnastics act as the Vatican has tried to vault, twist and slither over and under science, common sense and the desires of its followers. 

Recently, the government made…

A January 31 report from the PEW Research Center shows that the American people feel that the government is a threat to their personal rights and freedom. The survey of 1,500 people showed that 53% of American believes the government cannot be trusted. This charge led by Conservative Republicans has little…

After all the settled I decided to go back and view Django again with an eye for the story itself and found it to be entertaining and eerily reminiscent of a Sergio Leone "spaghetti western" with Clint Eastwood. After doing a little research I found out why it was so familiar as the original film was directed by Sergio…

I just finished reading The Answer is Never Magic by Robert S. Porter and found it interesting. It is written as a continual conversation between an atheist and a variety of theists that seeks to examine subjects like faith, forgiveness and punishment by a forgiving God.…

. . . b ut someone has to take it and it might as well be me. As a writer and sometimes humorist I could be banned for life from the Writer’s Guild for not picking the low fruit. I ran upon this large sign in Barnes & Noble while book shopping.

I stood there for a moment and thought,…

Nigger! There, now I've said it. Apparently, political correctness, an inadequate grasp of history and a failure to maximize resources have taken the real ugliness from the word and turned it into verbal medallion that hangs in a shadow-box on a museum wall of the minutia of…

A couple of prayer requests for the President came across my desk a few weeks ago. At first I just deleted them because they came from my religious friends and I didn’t want to offend them even though they probably never considered that the people on their mailing list may be of different religions or no religion at all.…

Inhuman Bondage Book Review

I just finished reading Pulitzer Prize winner David Brion…

A few days ago I completed a particularly distasteful task of reading a book that defended American slavery based on "biblical" evidence and opinion considered to be factual. Trying to read the interminable 590 page tract from a point of neutrality never was a consideration. I expected to read a long list of apologetics, justifications and excuses for the enslavement of other human beings and I was not disappointed.…

Nobody talks about it, especially Republicans even though it is election season. The corporate media avoid it with studied efficiency. Even in Dallas, the city he now calls home there is scant evidence that former President George W. Bush resides there. I live in Dallas and in the years the former president has lived here there has been scant evidence of that fact.…

Book Review: The Slave Ship

by Donald R Barbera, October 30, 2012

Rating: Five Stars of Five

Among abominations, American slavery holds a particularly odious distinction among atrocities not only because of…

I saw the documentary and now I’ve read the book. I consider both as enlightening experiences. The following is a high-level review of the book, including a note as to how it affected m e.…