The influence of William Brewster (1560 – 1644) was instrumental in the approval by the Virginia Company for the congregational resettlement in America. He was one of the few original Scrooby Separatists who sailed on the Mayflower in 1620. He, along with Edward Winslow and William Bradford, shared leadership of the Plymouth Colony.

William Bradford (1589 – 1657) was one of the drafters of the Mayflower Compact. He served as the head of the Plymouth government. As such, he was responsible for managing the court system and colony finances, corresponding with investors and neighbors, and formulating policies. Today, most existing information regarding Plymouth colony can be attributed to Bradford’s excellent record keeping.

John Alden (1599 – 1687) sailed to America on the Mayflower and became one of the founding fathers of Plymouth Colony in 1620. He labored as a common seaman aboard the Mayflower and later served in several public offices.

The “indigenous farmers of Southern Mexico” spoken of here is in reference to the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (often referred to as the Zapatistas), a revolutionary leftist group based in Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico.

On January 1, 1994, the day the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) came into effect, the Zapatistas declared war on the Mexican government, which they considered so out of touch with the will of the people as to make it completely illegitimate.

This is a reference to Emiliano Zapata – a leading figure in the Mexican Revolution – who campaigned steadfastly for the rights of Mexico’s campesinos against the hacendados

On April 10, 1919, Jesus Guajardo – the right-hand man of known anti-Zapatista, Pablo González Garza – invited Zapata to a meeting, intimating that he intended to defect to the revolutionaries. However, when Zapata arrived at the Hacienda de San Juan, in the Chinameca, Ayala municipality, Guajardo’s men riddled him with bullets.

http://youtu.be/CySrshUMwIw?t=1m43s

During a 2007 BET Awards press conference, Lee Bailey of the popular black infotainment site EURweb, asked 50 Cent if he would “get with the program” and voluntarily remove offensive lyrics from his music, citing Master P as an example of a rapper who made the decision to only sign rappers whose lyrics weren’t offensive.

50 responded by explaining that “music is a mirror” and that the offensive nature of hip hop lyrics is a “reflection of the environment [hip hop artists] grew up in.”

He then remarked that “Master P doesn’t sell CDs anymore” and was therefore irrelevant, which ultimately made his decision to only sign rappers whose lyrics weren’t offensive a ploy and not some conscious effort to better hip hop.

Shortly after Master P got wind of 50’s diss, he responded with this open letter.

Shihan reminds us that despite our differences, we are all equal in our struggle to escape negativity and monotony while we navigate through life and figure out for ourselves what it truly means to be human

The term “moonshine” is sometimes used to describe foolish talk or ideas and a melody is a “sequence of single notes that is musically satisfying.”

That said, in saying that his daughter will make melodies out of moonshine, he is saying that she will be to take a sequence of singularly foolish thoughts and ideas and put them together in a sequence that is satisfying as a whole.

In a sense, this is what a poet does.

His daughter speaks to him in a voice that is not only divine, but in a way that is so decisively optimistic it alludes to his future playing out like it does in his dreams.

Generally, the saying “I’m only human” is used to excuse a mistake, therefore defining humanity through negativity. As a result, you’ll never him say it because “the inescapable features of being human (also known as the human condition)” aren’t negative or positive, they just are.