7.30.2007

Monday Meanderings

Contempt for Congress

Congress has issued a subpoena for Karl Rove. Does anybody really think he is going to show up? And while we’re at it.....Just what does Congress think Gonzo can clarify, this time? He seems to be compounding his lies about the AG firings rather than explaining what happened. And without a special prosecutor who is going to conduct the investigation of the Justice Dept....the Justice Dept?!

Did you know that Dubya, by order of executive mandate has...

Done away with special prosecutors
Done away with habeas corpus
and
Can declare martial law in the USA if and when he wants to?

All hail King George!

The last time this stuff happened we had a revolution.

*********

Ohio got it right!

Turns out it’s not okay to beat the crap out of your live in girlfriend in Ohio. The State Supreme Court has finally ruled in the Michael Carswell case. Mr Carswell had argued that he could not be charged under Ohio’s domestic violence laws because the state’s newly enacted Defense of Marriage Law did away with all common law legality. According to Mr. Carswell, the term “spouse” could only apply within the confines of a legal marriage between a man and woman. Common law wives and husbands and all LGBT couples were living illegally under DOMA, according to Mr, Carswell’s interpretation and therefore domestic violence couldn’t happen between two unmarried people.

The High Court ruled that while the state can define what constitutes marriage, cohabitation happens when two people decide to live together and therefore domestic violence can happen and is covered by law, DOMA not withstanding.

7.20.2007

A scary thought....

Dubya is having a colonoscopy. That means that while he is unconscious (for real), Dick Cheney will be in charge of the government for a couple of hours.

Somebody please...please go hide the red button so that fool can’t fire nukes at Iran. We’ve got enough trouble now. We don’t need another war front.

We don’t need expansion of the Patriot Act or suspension of more of our civil liberties.

Hell, he’s already declared himself outside government. He refuses to talk to anyone except his assistants...Is he still even talking to Dubya, except to say, “I don’t have to...I’m the VP?”

Anyone looking at us from outer space would see Dubya in the White House and think that Cheney was emperor of the USA the way he behaves.

After looking at Cheney, I can understand why his daughter feels she can be a lesbian, have a baby and not have to face the consequences that others of us have to live with daily.

Can’t Bush appoint someone else to take over...someone with common sense, common decency and an understanding that other people live in this world beside him, his family and his business friends and associates.

7.10.2007

Morality Plays

Yesterday, the NAACP buried the “N” word...literally. The organization held a funeral for the word, duplicating it’s actions of a couple of decades ago, when it buried Jim Crow.

Burying Jim Crow will prove to be the easier entombment, I think. That’s because so many of us use the “N” word when talking to each other. We only have a problem with it when white people use it.

It’s always been considered a bad word. I come from the generation where parents didn’t curse in front of the kids. And, we never, ever used the “N” word for any reason to refer to anyone else. It was a term of disrespect with the obvious racist connotations. We were taught not to denigrate ourselves because we would get enough of that when we stepped into the white professional world. Trust me, as someone who has spent her entire life being the “first black this and only female that,” there are actually hundreds of ways somebody can call you a nigger without using the word itself.

Nowadays, kids toss the word around like a water balloon and people have become desensitized to it. The problem with using it so freely is that people with no sense of history or anything else for that matter, think they can use it like we do. That’s when it becomes offensive.

As blacks we can’t be so hypocritical. If we’re going to use it, we must expect that others will too. We need to get over ourselves and really, really make the word inoffensive, much like gay and lesbians did with the word “Queer.” The LGBT community owns that word, having taken possession of it a long time ago. You can’t hurt us with it anymore. Blacks need to do the same with the “N” word. If we intend to use it, then we have to stop reacting to its use by others. Once it loses it’s shock value, then it is buried for real, not symbolically like the NAACP tried to do yesterday.

The NAACP would do better recapturing its relevance if it would go after the things that are killing our communities, like AIDS, Poverty, black on black violence, out of wedlock children, and the school dropout rate.

Remember, the old nursery rhyme....”sticks and stones can break my bones...but words will never hurt me..”

Good words to live by..

7.03.2007

His World

In the wee small hours after midnight, when Dubya is out of the public eye and into his own little world under the covers, I want to know what he is smoking/drinking/snorting. I mean he’s got to be using something to maintain this Buddha-like calm he displays while standing in the midst of his self created shit storm. I haven’t seen this kind of calm exhibited since the self medicating days of the sixties. “Hey man, got any ‘ludes?”

For the past seven years he’s done stuff.....started a war, ripped up the constitution, trashed civil liberties and flooded the judicial branch with inexperienced hacks and extreme right wing politically driven judges. He’s gutted the justice department, compromised and outed our spies to our enemies. He’s lied to the American public, repeatedly. Dubya has all but erased the line that separates church and state. He’s killed scientific study and research. He’s replaced learning with testing in our schools.

His court, after first giving him the election, has now reversed Brown vs the Board of Education. Can Roe v. Wade be far behind? Ladies throw away your Manolos it’s back to bare foot and pregnant unless you have the money to circumvent the law.

His politically appointed cronies have killed the great city of New Orleans, set back women’s health initiatives, and practically done away with birth control in favor of sticking your head in the sand and hoping that no pregnancy results.

He’s thumbed his nose at the rest of the world and sits on his daddy’s yacht while the planet goes to hell in a hand basket.

How is it that this out of control, ex crack head frat boy got elected to the most powerful office on the face of the earth?

Scooter gets tried and convicted and sentenced to jail. Dubya commutes the sentence claiming his boy had been treated harshly and his family is suffering. Well, what about the family of Valerie Plame? He outed her as a spy to get back at her husband. His vindictiveness could have gotten her killed. Does he care? Apparently not.

Generations in the future are screwed because of his irresponsible fiscal policies. Does he care?

Dubya is the original bubble boy...hiding behind his calm inside his dome while his rogue vice president runs rampant, trampling our laws and system of checks and balances.

Dubya needs to share whatever he’s toking, because the rest of us are a bundle of nerves. We’re so stressed out, we don’t take vacations. We’ve got a president who tells us that except for his war on terror, the rest of the stuff is not that serious. Oh, but it is.

I want your drugs Dubya. That way I may be able to relax and share your vision. Your world must be wonderful. I need some of that virtual reality inside your bubble.

Yeah, you really need to share your stuff, man, so that we can all escape this hell on earth world that you’ve bequeathed upon us. Passing the bong, it's the American way.