Boxing Day: Humans Are The Only Creatures That Appreciate Irony. Surely Thoust Jiveth !!!

The day-after-Christmas holiday is celebrated by most countries in the Commonwealth, but in a 'what-were-we-doing-again' bout of amnesia, none of them are really sure what they're celebrating, when it started or why.

The best clue to Boxing Day's origins can be found in the song "Good King Wenceslas." According to the Christmas carol, Wenceslas, who was Duke of Bohemia in the early 10th century, was surveying his land on St. Stephen's Day — Dec. 26 — when he saw a poor man gathering wood in the middle of a snowstorm. Moved, the King gathered up surplus food and wine and carried them through the blizzard to the peasant's door. The alms-giving tradition has always been closely associated with the Christmas season — hence the canned-food drives and Salvation Army Santas that pepper our neighborhoods during the winter — but King Wenceslas' good deed came the day after Christmas, when the English poor received most of their charity.

King Wenceslas didn't start Boxing Day, but the Church of England might have. During Advent, Anglican parishes displayed a box into which churchgoers put their monetary donations. On the day after Christmas, the boxes were broken open and their contents distributed among the poor, thus giving rise to the term Boxing Day ...
(Maybe)

But wait: there's another possible story about the holiday's origin. The day after Christmas was also the traditional day on which the aristocracy distributed presents (boxes) to servants and employees — a sort of institutionalized Christmas-bonus party. The servants returned home, opened their boxes and had a second Christmas on what became known as Boxing Day.

From this also came the term Christmas Box: the container where people placed gifts whether it was for the needy or from employer to employee ...


So which version is correct? Well, both. Or neither. No one, it seems, is really sure. Both the church boxes and the servant presents definitely existed, although historians disagree on which practice inspired the holiday.

Boxing Day's origins aren't especially important to modern-day folk. Few people can afford to have servants anymore and the religious significance has been lost by many.
Today's Boxing Day festivities have very little to do with charity. Instead, they revolve around shopping, food, football (soccer), visits from friends, food and drinking at pubs and/or the nearest watering hole.

Louie Ranking aka "OX"

Louie Rankin (b. Leonard Ford) was born in St. Thomas, Jamaica even though he was brought up in Rockfort, Warika Hill and finally East Kingston. Musically he is perhaps best known for the crossover hit »Typewriter« released in the early 90's. He has been an active deejay since the early 80's though with noticeable singles such as »Vibes Inna Me« that was featured on the Tidal Wave album comprised by Nicodemus, Louie himself, Bobby Culture and Brimstone & Fire.

L. Rankin has also found success as an actor in the movies Shottas and Belly. The latter directed by Hype Williams and also Louie's film debut. He is probably the only reggae artist to be a member of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG). Louie Rankin often refers to himself as the Original Don Dada.

Things We Used To Do

“I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.”

Eish! A New African Language

Bad - you sleep on it in the badroom Beds -,eagles, doves, sea-gulls etc Beg - container, as in shopping beg, hend-beg, tog-beg Ben - to set alight Chealdren - our future is in their hands Chetz - where worshippers go on Sundays Cuds - you can play poker or rummy with them Cut - a small donkey-drawn vehicle Debben - city in KwaZulu Natal Deekshunry - where you find weds Detty - opposite of clean Driva - holds the steering wheel of a teksi Duck - very duck at night when the lights are all off Ebben - you get ebben erriors and rural erriors Effrican - from the continent of Africa Erriors - districts, e.g. ebben erriors Ewways - eg. SAA, Comair, Lufthansa etc Fems - companies, e.g., Anglo-American Fest - the one before second and third Fok - used with nifes Fok ass - focus Fum - you can fum with ship or kettle Fumma - he owns the fum and grows bins Guddin - where you grow kebbijees and rep Geave - you MUST geave, I WILL take Get - a hinged device in a fence, may be used instead of door Hair - as opposed to heem/hairs (gender) Heppi - state of elatement, e.g. I'm so heppi - I just voted Hiss - masculine form of hairs Hubba - where sheeps dock amd boats sell Jems - little bugs that give you the flu Kah - what you drive around in Kebbijees - vegetable Keptown - some think parliament doesn't belong there Kettegry - in a system of classification Kipper - one who kips, as in goal kipper Kleenix - where nesses wek Kot - where the judges sit and you pay fines Len - to acquire knowledge Leeda - as in Arwa Leeda, Obama the president Lungwich - weds that are spokkin Nesses - they wek in kleenix and hospitals Pee pull - powa to da pee pull Peppa - one way to get the news Pesson - one of pee pull Pees - symbolised by white dove Pees-Tox - between IRA and Tony Blair Reeva - e.g. Limpopo, Vaal, Mississippi Ree kwest - replaced by dee mands Sheep - big boat Shex - houses in squatter camps Ship - provider of wool Shuck-attak - if the shuck-net is brokkin Shuck-nets - at Debben, for safety of sweemas Spitch - what politicians make at a relly Sweemas - compete in a sweeming pul Teksi - kah for hire - sometimes parrot teksi Thest - ice cold Coke will relieve it on a hot day Tipic ally - characteristically Tox - negotiations Ummy - military force Wee men - ladies We pon - a gun Wean-dow - with glus for throwing bricks through Weaner - the one with the most votes Weds - what the dictionary is made up of Wekkas - do the wek Weld - the whole eth Wems - small crawly creatures

2 In The Morning

I smoke two joints in the morning,
I smoke two joints at night.
I smoke two joints in the afternoon,
And it makes me feel alright.
Smoke two joints in time of peace,
Into the time of war.
Smoke two joints before I smoke two joints,
And then I smoke some more.....

John Arthur ("Jack") Johnson

The “Galveston Giant."

Arthur John (Jack) Johnson was the first black and first Texan, to win the heavyweight boxing championship of the world.

Born in Galveston Texas on March 31, 1878, he was the second of six children of Henry and Tiny Johnson. Henry was a former slave and his family was poor. After leaving school in the fifth grade, Johnson worked odd jobs around South Texas. He started boxing as a sparring partner and fought in the "battles royal," matches in which young blacks entertained white spectators who threw money to the winner.

Johnson turned professional in 1897 following a period with private clubs in Galveston. His family's home was destroyed by the great hurricane of 1900. A year later he was arrested and jailed because boxing was a criminal profession in Texas. He soon left Galveston for good.

Johnson first became the heavyweight champion of Negro boxing. Jim Jeffries, the white champ at the time, refused to fight Johnson because he was black. Then, in 1908, Johnson knocked out Tommy Burns in Australia to become world champion, although he was not officially given the title until 1910 when he finally fought and beat Jeffries in Reno. Jeffries had come out of retirement to become the first of many so-called "great white hopes."

Race rioting was sparked after the Johnson-Jeffries fight. A number of leading American film companies joined forces to shoot footage of the Jeffries-Johnson fight and turn it into a feature-length documentary film, at the cost of $100,000. The film was distributed widely in the U.S. and was exhibited internationally as well. As a result, Congress banned prize fight films from 1912 until 1940. In 2005, the film of the Jeffries-Johnson "Fight of the Century" was entered into the United States National Film Registry as being worthy of preservation. The Texas Legislature banned films of his victories over whites for fear of more riots.

Johnson didn't merely offend the whites through his physical prowess, but also through his flaunting of wealth, racing cars, and most egregiously, associating with white women, often several at a time. This was also a great offense to many blacks.

Johnson was charged with violating the Mann Act in November 1912 for traveling across state lines with his white mistress, prior to the enactment of the Act. The Mann Act was designed to stop the interstate prostitution trade. It was not intended, and could not reasonably interpreted to apply to consensual adults. In 1913, Johnson fled because of the trumped up charges of violating the “Mann Act's” stipulations against transporting white women across state lines for prostitution.

During his exile from the U.S., Johnson lost his championship to a white man, Jess Willard, in Cuba in 1915. He returned to the U.S. on July 20, 1920 and was arrested.

Sentenced to Leavenworth in Kansas, Johnson was appointed athletic director of the prison. Upon his release, he returned to boxing, but only participated in exhibition fights after 1928.

Although married three times, Johnson never had children. He died in a car crash June 10, 1946, near Raleigh, North Carolina.

"Fighting Shirley Chisholm. Unbought and Unbossed."

Shirley Chisholm was born as Shirley Anita St. Hill on Nov. 30, 1924, in New York City to Barbadian parents.

At age three, Chisholm was sent to Barbados to live with her maternal grandmother, Emaline Seale, in Christ Church Barbados. She did not return until roughly seven years later when she arrived in New York City on May 19, 1934 aboard the S.S. Narissa. In her 1970 autobiography Unbought and Unbossed, she wrote: "Years later I would know what an important gift my parents had given me by seeing to it that I had my early education in the strict, traditional, British -style schools of Barbados. If I speak and write easily now, that early education is the main reason.”

Chisholm earned her BA from Brooklyn College in 1946 and later earned her MA from Columbia University in elementary education in 1952. She was a member of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority.

In 1949, she married Conrad Chisholm, a Jamaican who worked as a private investigator. Shirley and her husband participated in local politics, helping form the Bedford-Stuyvesant political League. In addition to participating in politics, Chisholm worked in the field of day care until 1959. In 1960, she started the Unity Democratic Club. The Unity Club was instrumental in mobilizing black and Hispanic voters.

In 1964 Chisholm ran for a state assembly seat. She won and served in the New York General Assembly from 1964 to 1968. During her tenure in the legislature, she proposed a bill to provide state aid to day-care centers and voted to increase funding for schools on a per-pupil basis. In 1968, after finishing her term in the legislature, Chisholm campaigned to represent New York's Twelfth Congressional District. Her campaign slogan was "Fighting Shirley Chisholm--Unbought and Unbossed." She won the election and became the first African American woman elected to Congress.

During her first term in Congress, Chisholm hired an all-female staff and spoke out for civil rights, women's rights, the poor and against the Vietnam War. In 1970, she was elected to a second term. She was a sought-after public speaker and cofounder of the National Organization for Women (NOW). She remarked that, "Women in this country must become revolutionaries. We must refuse to accept the old, the traditional roles and stereotypes."

On January 25, 1972, Chisholm announced her candidacy for president. She stood before the cameras and in the beginning of her speech she said,

"I stand before you today as a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency of the United States. I am not the candidate of black America, although I am black and proud. I am not the candidate of the women's movement of this country, although I am a woman, and I am equally proud of that. I am not the candidate of any political bosses or special interests. I am the candidate of the people."

The 1972 Democratic National Convention in Miami was the first major convention in which any woman was considered for the presidential nomination. Although she did not win the nomination, she received 151 of the delegates' votes. She continued to serve in the House of Representatives until 1982. She retired from politics after her last term in office. She has received many honorary degrees, and her awards include Alumna of the Year, Brooklyn College; Key Woman of the Year; Outstanding Work in the Field of Child Welfare; and Woman of Achievement.

Shirley Chisholm passed away on January 1, 2005.