4.27.2011

Obama's Birth Certificate- Another WOOSAH Moment

I know why he did it. I completely understand the ramifications behind Obama's release of his birth certificate, but it doesn't make me feel any better about the situation.

Since 2008, we have had every white man from a fucking fake plumber to a fake ass paper billiionaire demand to see the President's "papers." As if THEY have the right of approval over all of us at any time THEY choose to ask for it.

It's been that way since 1619 in this country. It changes, but barely.

I haven't felt like this since the day after Martin Luther King was killed and I had to go to class at the high school that me and three others integrated, to hear one of my classmates stand up and say she didn't understand what all the fuss was about, because King was nothing more than a troublemaker...her word!

Before that, I had a 10 year white girl call me a nigger in Pogue's department store. She looked homeless..my clothing was hand made by my professional seamstress grandmother, who was standing next to me in designer attire.

After that, I was talking to some friends at work, casual conversation until some young hillybilly fool from Lebanon injected the word "colored" into the conversation. The others waited for me to explode on his ass, but I have long shied away from being the angry black woman that every white person suspects we all are. I walked away, again.

I chilled again on my birthday when a pale female friend of mine said "come here and kiss me with your big nigger lips!" This from a friend....I didn't kiss...and we are no longer friends.

I was angered on those days and I am angry now. Having spent a lifetime in white neighborhoods, attending white colleges, inside white corporate America, holding my tongue for as long as I could because I was always, always outnumbered and cognizant of my surroundings and the need to survive, and my mother didn't raise no fool.

No matter how high we rise...no matter how much we accomplish...no matter how much money we bank...we are still no better than an illiterate road-kill eating trailer trash white boy from  the Okefenokee swamp.

To be sure, there are good white people out there. I am friends or at least before this note, used to be friends with some of them. But generally, I wouldn't give two lead nickels for the lot of em. If every white person disappeared today, and that includes members of my own family, I wouldn't miss em. Not today.

People who continually vote against their own welfare solely on the basis of race or because some rich white guy has convinced them they can one day be like him, when the deck is as stacked against them as it is me, deserve to suffer what they get.

Colored is the race on my birth certificate.

I am American born and I  happen to be Black, Female, Lefthanded and lesbian.

Today is not a good day to come knocking on my door with some bull shit because there is a reason why I don't have guns in my house.

This is one of those days....

Forget the Mayan Calendar-The World Ends This Year

Okay, the picture is becoming clearer. The end of the world is not gonna happen on May 21st. It's gonna happen on October 21, 2011, later this year. So that gives you five more months to get yourself ready.

What is gonna happen on May 21st is The Rapture according to those in the know. The Rapture aka Judgment Day is when god reaches down and snatches the chosen folk up by their hair and takes them into heaven or into the clouds and out of harm's way in order to keep them from getting swallowed up when the world ends. Based on current hair trends, I would say Rastfarians have the edge, here.

So, if you think you're one of the chosen ones, then you might want to consider forgoing that Christian-Mormon-evangelical buzz cut and grow dreds, so god can get a good grip on your head when he starts snatching folks up to heaven.

It is also safe to say that if you don't get snatched up on May 21st, then you're not one of the chosen ones and are probably going to hell with the rest of us.

These dates have been carved in stone by one Harold Camping, an evangelical radio broadcaster, who claims he has figured out the celestial biblical calendar that governs all our lives and is spelled out in the Book of Genesis in the bible. Back in 1994 Camping said Jesus would come back and the rapture would happen, and the world would end, but he didn't and it didn't. Camping said at the time, on May 22nd, I would guess, that he made a mistake in his mathematical end of the world calculations.

He remains undeterred in his predictions, however. This time around he's put up billboards and has many of his followers driving RV's around the country proclaiming coming events.

What makes Camping think that judgment day is upon us this time around? Well, according to his biblical math, the year 2011 is exactly 7000 years after god flooded the world saving only Noah, his wife and three sons and their families as well as two animals from every species on earth. 2011 marks the end of the time that god has apparently given to man to get himself right with the lord, so to speak.

May 21st also corresponds, according to Camping to the day that god shut the door on Noah's ark, forcing everybody on the outside of the big boat to swim or tread water for 40 days and 40 nights. What is taking place on May 21st is a  symbolical door shutting on those who have not been chosen to ascend during The Rapture.

So, what's gonna happen between May 22nd and October 21st for those of us not chosen? Well, it ain't gonna be pretty. Those five months are going to be pure hell, so to speak. You can read about it in Revelation in more detail. But expect locusts with the power of scorpions to hunt down and kill the billions of people without god's seal of approval on their heads, which is everybody left over following The Rapture, according to Camping.

The dead are going to rise up (think Sean of the Dead), earthquakes will happen all over the world (think Japan), and those who died before May 21st and were saved will be resurrected and taken up with the raptured ones (think Easter Sunday). Those who died without being saved will stay dead and scattered all over.

Then, according to Camping's reading of the biblical calendar the final act on earth will be the great feast (Tabernacles) and when the feast is over, there will be a great fire that consumes the earth. The end.

Camping says our collective goose is cooked unless we get right in the next couple of weeks. However there is a slim possibility that you can save yourself like the good people of Nineveh saved by Jonah. God told the city he was going to destroy it, so the king and all his people shucked off their good clothes and started dressing in sack cloth and poured ashes on the floor from their fires and sat on the ashes and fasted and god had a change of heart and didn't destroy the city, that time.

Camping also says god never destroys the world until after he warns the people, so consider yourself warned.
Judgment Day is May 21, 2011

The world ends on October 21, 2011

Forget the Mayan Calendar...the world will be gone by the time the Mayan Calendar ends on December 21, 2012.


  











4.25.2011

" Honest George, I Really, Thought Turkeys Could Fly!"

Kids, too apparently...In Porkopolis...the land of flying pigs and turkey drops..

So, Cincinnati otherwise known as Porkopolis or the Queen City, builds a new school down in the East End about five years ago, as part of a massive new school construction project.

This new school happens to land in the flood plain of the Ohio River, sitting  on the banks of the great Ohio in fact. The construction gods of Cincinnati Public Schools have the school built  on stilts...to keep the school from flooding and being damaged by high water.

However, they apparently didn't take into consideration how the kids would access the school once the water rose.  Not if...but when the water came up...nor did they consider where teachers and administrators would park or get  safe access to work while the Ohio River is out of it's banks.

Kids and teachers have already been displaced twice this year by rising water...so far...and this was after using up their calamity days because of snow...we've had a lot of bad weather this year.

And...The shiny new school isn't even situated on the site of the old school...The site was actually moved TO the flood plain....in a place that floods even when there are no record breaking rains swamping the Ohio valley, like right now.

So what did school officials do....outsource this school construction project to people who don't live in Ohio and have no idea about how often the area floods nor how to crack a history book and look it up?...Ohio flooding info...complete with pictures is on the internet...and always front and center is the East End, which is what we're talking about here...

Maybe they got tripped up by the name change...East End and Eastern Avenue were changed to Riverview in an attempt to attract rich people to what was one of the poorest white sections of Cincinnati....But call it East End or call it  Riverview or call it Columbia Tusculum...it still floods...yearly.

And I know the rich people are building on the hills overlooking the East End...but then water affects hills, too...witness the occasional mudslides that shut down Columbia Parkway access. Put enough million dollar condos up in them thar hills and the East End will start looking like a landslide of Pacific Palisades, California proportions.

As for the kids...well...they are being shipped off to high ground.... Burton Elementary in Avondale....just behind my house...Burton Elementary was closed a few years ago and the kids there dispersed to other nearby elementary schools...Burton was stipped of electricity and other utilities at the time...These necessities have since been replaced because the kids from the river school are temporarily being housed there while the water is up.....they are in fact being bused..and probably have to get up earlier...their parents have to make unusual accomodations, etc...seems like a lot of wasted money and effort..

I guess the permanently shuttered Burton is the temporarily permanent solution to flooded Riverview, since nobody is talking about studying the matter or moving the school out of the flood plain..

The school is pleasing to the eye...where it sits on its stilts by the River....however...pretty is not always functional, is it....school kids need function and simplicity...not pretty and useless...

The Riverview kids are good kids....I see them when they turn up at the local Avondale Library...which is crowded even on slow days...It literally overflows when the Riverview kids come to the neighborhood and mingle with the Avondale kids. Maybe Avondale needs a new library to accomodate the increase in clientele...

Meantime....Cincinnati Public Schools are laying off a couple of hundred people because of decreasing state education money...as teabag Governor John Kasich continues his plan to privatize education by funding charter schools...bolstering home schooling...while defunding the public schools...

Oh, what a world...what a world...

Sing!

"hey there..if you've ever wondered...wondered whatever became of me...I'm livin' off the air in Cincinnati...Cincinnati WKRP!"

4.19.2011

John Kasich, You're Fired!



There is no law on the Ohio books to allow for the recall of a sitting governor, but there should be. Six months after the perfect storm of the midterm November elections, the teabaggers have swallowed up the GOP and have begun to reshape America in their ultra conservative anti woman, anti black, anti gay, anti union, anti poor people image.

The perfect storm was created when Blacks, young people, many gays and lesbians and just about everyone else except old white people stayed home in droves from the polls, apparently thinking their vote wasn't really necessary or were disillusioned at the pace that Obama was working to change things.

Six months later, it has become painfully obvious that the freedoms and civil rights that we take for granted, are now on the chopping block. Conservatives have begun reshaping America state by state, just as they have done to the Federal Court system in the past several years, all the way to the Supreme Court.

Kasich's first act as governor was to privatize job creation in Ohio, by turning over the job creation function to a non profit corporation that he chairs. Of course this was after he cut administrative wages across the board in order to give his job board and personal assistants a pay increase. He labeled the decrease in wages as a cost saving measure for the state.

Then Kasich got to work on House Bill 5 which bans collective bargaining for unions and makes criminals of anyone daring to take part in a strike against their employer. More than 350,000 union members are affected by this...and I would suspect that many of them voted for the GOP during the midterms, never expecting the GOP to turn on its own....surprise!

A rider on this law also repealed domestic partnership law in Ohio doing away with a long fought for civil rights for the Ohio LGBT community.

Kasich has declared war on Cincinnati, by playing politics with the planned street car, and gambling casino. Kasich pulled the plug on promised state money for the project, effectively killing jobs and possibly the project itself. He has also thrown a monkey wrench into the casino project, hiring an out of state firm to oversee the project, doing away with the time frame for getting the Casino open next year. The street car would have enabled visitors to get around downtown Cincinnati without having to worry about a car or the need to buy gasoline.

Today comes word that he is going to cut the money for child care and head start for those who can least afford it.

None of this has anything to do with deficit reduction or job creation, rather the opposite.....Kasich is playing politics with the very lives and existence of Ohioans. He says he wants to make Ohio “cool”.....well....news flash.... this ain't it Bra....

Meanwhile....Across the country:

GOP/teabag electives are attempting to nullify any federal law with which they don't agree.

Women are being stripped of health care. Health care for women has never been equal to that for men. It is even less so now. Some states such as Virginia have passed laws literally shutting down women's health clinics. These clinics are being shut down, say conservatives, to keep federal money from paying for abortions...Well, here's some breaking news for conservatives....The Hyde Amendment that prohibits using federal funds for abortion procedures is still law....AND...abortion is still legal in America....

Gays and lesbians are in danger of losing recent hard won civil rights...reversing the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, losing domestic partner rights in Ohio (it was a rider on the bill that outlawed collective bargaining), as well as re-entrenchment of Defense of Marriage Acts.

By the way....Speaker of the House....Ohioan John Boehner is demanding the Justice Department reimburse Congress for the money it will use to defend the Defense of Marriage Act. This after Obama told Justice not to defend what is clearly a discriminatory law.

Concealed carry gun rights have come to college campuses in at least three states......nothing like a 19 year old drunken frat boy with a fully loaded gloc pistol strapped to his waist under his hoodie.

Congressman Paul Ryan has introduced and gotten passed in the House, a budget that will require senior citizens to pay $6,400 more when they qualify for Medicare, that is if they qualify. Ryan's plan eliminates the guarantee to provide Medicare and Medicaid to senior citizens, now defined as anyone over 55 years of age.

In fact, two thirds of Ryan's measure cuts low income programs...a balancing act on the backs of the poor. All this while expanding tax cuts for the rich and repealing regulations on business and wall street.

Ryan's bill also cuts Pell Grants for all 9 million college students, putting higher education further out of reach for many. One million, in fact, would be cut from the program starting next year.

Food stamps will be cut by $127 billion dollars over the next 10 years if Ryan gets his way.

100,000 kids will be cut from Head Start beginning next year.

At least 20 states are following Wisconsin and Ohio's lead to limit the rights of its citizens....to roll back long fought for job and collective bargaining rights.....to keep women from adequate health and family planning care.....and to rollback or install discriminatory laws aimed at gays and lesbians.

Public education and the environment are also under attack at a time when we can least afford it.

25 legislatures and 29 governor's offices were turned over to the GOP during the mid term election last November.

So tell me....How's that GOP/teabag “take back our country” thingey workin' for ya?

There is a recall petition circulating in Ohio and online, to throw Kasich out of office...If you happen to run across it...Sign it please....









4.12.2011

150 Years Later-Still Fightin'

"This is a white man's government; that white men are able to defend and protect it, and that to enlist a negro soldier would be to drive every white man out of the service,"-Ohio Governor David Tod responding to a request to allow Black men to join the Union Army to fight against the Confederacy.

"The employment of negro soldiers is...a disgrace to the Government that employs them--a reproach to our cause--calculated to bring upon us the shame of the whole world, and to cause the South to fight as one man against us."-A Cincinnati politician's statement printed in the Cincinnati Enquirer, 1862.

Today marks the anniversary of the shots fired at Fort Sumter South Carolina, to start the Civil War. Southern states have been celebrating since the first of the year, presenting and spinning a squeaky clean image of the turmoil that tore apart the new nation of America. The south argues to this day that states rights were the reason behind the Civil War, while refusing to admit that the only states right in question was the right to own another human being as property.

Meanwhile, northern states such as Ohio, where slavery was outlawed from the beginning, have been content to stand behind an equally squeaky clean presentation of what took place back then...a “south, bad-north, good!” scenario, when the truth is out there and a bit more complicated.

In 1803 Ohio's capital was in Chillicothe, not Columbus. In 1803 state lawmakers decided to outlaw slavery in the newly formed state. However the decision was a majority decision that rested on just one vote. That one vote may have outlawed slavery, but it didn't make Blacks free, especially in Cincinnati which sits on the banks of the Ohio River directly across from the slave holding state of Kentucky.

Blacks who made it across the Ohio river were constantly looking over their shoulder for the Kentucky slave catchers who operated in Cincinnati just like they operated in the Bluegrass state. Blacks had to post a bond just to stay in Cincinnati and another bond to work, if they could find a job in the first place.

It was a common occurrence to see free Blacks literally snatched off the downtown streets by slave catchers and returned to points south, never mind if they were runaways or not. Despite popular notions, many Blacks did not come to this country in chains. Many came as free men, at least or until they crossed paths with a slave tracker.

The Cincinnati Enquirer is still in existence operating today with the same sort of blind eye bigotry that it did back in the early days of Cincinnati, presenting white washed stories of heroic people who took part in the Civil War starting with the Black Brigade and Powhatan Beaty.

Beaty was born a slave in Virginia in 1837 and came to Cincinnati in 1849, although it is not clear if he was freed before or after he arrived here. In Cincinnati, he studied acting and was a free man when the war broke out. In 1862, Beaty joined the “Black Brigade,” a unit of African-Americans who built many of the defenses around Cincinnati when it was threatened by Confederate forces.”- Cincinnati Enquirer, 4/2011.

Or William M. Dickson:

"A Cincinnati lawyer, Dickson organized and commanded the “Black Brigade,’one of the early all-African-American units. Dickson’s Black Brigade didn’t fight, but it built all the breastworks and defenses around Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. Dickson’s wife was a cousin of Mary Todd Lincoln”.- Cincinnati Enquirer, 4/2011.

The truth of the matter is that the Black Brigade, like everything else about Black life back then was not voluntary for Black men. In September of 1862, days after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, Powhatan Beaty and other Black men were rounded up and jailed until they were set free to labor for the Union Army. This was how the Black Brigade was formed, no organization needed from Mr. William M. Dickson.

These men were taken away from their families and were never compensated for their work, barely remembered in historical reference. Other Black men left the state to join legitimate regiments such as the 54th out of Massachusetts. Beaty distinguished himself when he was finally allowed to fight and a was awarded the Medal of Honor for bravery. He is buried at Union Baptist Cemetery in Price Hill.

Ohio, in fact had a law on the books banning Blacks from joining the Ohio Militia in any form, a law repeatedly upheld by the aforementioned Governor Tod until he was forced into action by the federal government.

This white washing of history does no one any good. All people suffer when the truth is not told. The sanitized version of the Civil War as presented by nearly everyone north or south perpetuates deeply buried racism and bigotry that underlies every institution in the United States of America. When Blacks talk about institutional or ingrained racism, this is what we mean. Institutional and ingrained racism is denied by whites today as a figment of a Black mindset that simply won't die.

Ingrained racism is mirrored in insidious, bigoted and cowardly attacks of a bad makeup wearing, on paper, billionaire real estate developer looking for publicity for his television show.

Ingrained racism and bigotry keeps alive the birther movement long after the truth is known.

Ingrained racism against Blacks gives birth to the tea party movement today while harkening backward in history to a movement called the copperhead movement. Today's tea party regularly uses slogans coined by copperheads back in the day.

Institutional and ingrained racism allows deniers of all colors to rewrite history into a fairytale of happy Negroes singing, dancing and smiling on the plantation, safely snatched from the horrors of their African origins and families.....”America, white people, good-Africa, black people, bad!”

Institutional racism allows the news media to give air time to any bigot stupid enough to utter or write out the word “nigger” in an email addressed to people of similar mind set, while ignoring the lack of diversity within their own ranks.

Blacks suffer, victimized outright by white denial and flight, but also from refusing to recognize our own complicity in our degradation.

Blacks must first seek the truth behind the history presented. Blacks must also learn the difference between “integration” and “assimilation.” We are being assimilated and erased...not a good thing.

Salvation lies not in the Black church...another product foisted upon Blacks by whites during slavery...but in education and the taking of responsibility for our own communities and behavior. 72% out of wedlock birth rate is not responsible, nor are the daily killings of young Black men by other young Black men..it is slow and painful community wide suicide.

In 2011, on the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Fort Sumter, Black people rather than celebrating the beginnings of our official fight for freedom are embroiled in a fight for existence.

And the fight for civil rights, well it is basically passe...destined to become a footnote in the history of a now, admittedly mixed race America.

4.08.2011

Congressmen Worth More Than a Soldier....In Whose World?

Under the rules of a government shutdown, congress gets paid...but the "boots on the ground...in the air and manning the ships" don't....

I don't get that.

They are willing to die for us....they are willing to defend this messed up bigoted, racist, backward society for us...they are willing to march into hell and pull dictators out of worm holes so that we can drink Starbucks at 5-dollars a pop and drive around in gas guzzling big ass SUVs while living in one house that would easily shelter four generations of four third world families comfortably, as we watch all the bloody action on TV, like a video game from the sanctity  of our 2000 sq ft living room.

Yet...they can't get paid for their service...It's not enough that they have to buy their own body armor in this illegal warfare....Now, if they survive the illegal wars in the first place....they can't feed their families....they can't pay their mortgages...send their kids to good and safe schools....they can't even count on reasonable and safe medical care for their injuries...nor can their wives get reasonable and safe medical care..just because she is a female...

I don't get that...

The only thing a soldier should have to do when he comes home from war is to put his military Id on the counter and get the services, the goods and medical care that he's risked his life to guarantee for the rest of us.

It's the least we can do to say thank you.


If the government is going to shutdown....then shut the mafuka down....ALL THE WAY...nobody gets paid...period...














4.07.2011

The GOP is Dead-So Says John Boehner

Well, you heard it from the man's mouth...."there is no daylight between me and the tea party." So says the Speaker of the House, John Boehner. He made the statement during an interview today on GMA with gorgeous George. 

In other words, we can stop distinguishing the Tea Party from the Republican Party because they are one and the same. Their agenda for America is the same.

The GOP, the grand old party is no more. The party of Lincoln is history. Rest in peace, republicans...because the GOP is now the party of  radical christian conservatives, bent on taking back their country.

No compromise necessary....no compassion for anyone except the wealthy 1%....no more need to hide any misogynistic tendencies against women....their women are under control....other women...as usual...don't count..except for occasional sex on the down low.

It's a white man's world and welcome to it.

This means the tea party will control the channel....the tea party will control the frequency....the tea party will control the volume and the purse strings....welcome to the Outer Limits...

It will decide who eats....who gets paid...who goes to school...who gets medicine....who lives....who dies...Rape and incest are no longer crimes because women are only good for fixing dinner and servicing the master.

However everyone will have to go to church...Christian church....not catholic...not muslim...not Jewish...Christian..Jesus worshiping in god we trust church...They will call it the church of our founding fathers...except most of the founding fathers were what would be considered atheists in today's parlance...but that won't stop the teabag ruling elite....

The United States of America now runs on Teabag rules....so says the Speaker of the House...He and They are one...he said today.."no daylight between us!"....Boehner's exact words.

 Boehner also signaled today that he is  fully on board with Congressman  Paul Ryan's plan to gut America, and in keeping with Boehner's "we are one" declaration...I am retiring GOP and Republican acronyms, names and phrases from my writings except in an historical sense.

Henceforth from today forward...Congress is made up of Democrats, Independents and Teabaggers...

Teabag Congressman Paul Ryan's budget which was introduced this week and is currently being overshadowed by all the government shutdown talk is nothing more than a scheme to openly wage class warfare against the poor, the middle class or what's left of it, and senior citizens.

Ryan's budget proposal seeks to privatize all services and shift the financial burden off onto the backs of the very people who can't handle it.  Rich people get richer...poor people...well, poor people are left to rot and die within a harsh system not of their making.

By the way...did you know that the richest 5% of America holds fully 64% of the country's wealth? Did you know that the bottom 80% of Americans subsist on 12% of the pot?

Ryan's plan privatizes all entitlement programs and doesn't make any real cost saving cuts. He also refuses to raise taxes on the wealthy upper crust or hold corporations responsible in any way what so ever.

And before you say that is a good thing...Ryan shifts the problem off the federal government...but directly onto the already cash strapped states, senior citizens, the disabled, and the low income...and  even with all this...fails to balance the budget until at least 2040.

Income, estate and corporate taxes would be repealed or drastically reduced while a national sales tax would be put into play, raising the tax obligations of those who can least afford it.

Ryan's budget does not address the massive waste in defense spending or farm subsidies. It does not address the money wasted on two failed wars begun by his party back in the day.

But then neither does Mr. Speaker.

 Boehner said today during his talk with George Stephanopoulos that the problems began last year...not during the previous administration, when he and most of his cronies were in power and could have stopped many of our troubles if they had chosen to do so.

In other words, today's problems are all Obama's fault....nobody else did this...America screwed up when  it put a timid inexperienced black man in the White House. Now suddenly, America is on the verge of default and the rest of the world hates us.

Obama's fault, period.















4.06.2011

Government Shutdown-Are Food Riots in the Offing?


Just like in 1995, if the government does shutdown on Friday certain benefits and services will continue.

Mail delivery will go on...it is a self funded entity...

Food Stamps will continue....can't imagine anybody except a rabid teabagger willing to tempt food riots in the streets of America..

The VA will continue to treat patients...however the armed forces may not get paid on time...wonder if that applies to generals and Pentagon hacks?

Border agents will stay on the job as will other so called essential personnel..

Essential personnel includes the fools of Congress, too...

In other words, they won't have to suffer without a paycheck or their health care under any circumstances...

Passports will not be issued, nor will gun permits, and national parks will be closed.

Thousands of federal workers will simply be told to stay home for a while, so there will be nobody answering phones about taxes, social security benefits or anything else for that matter.

Oh, and forget about getting your IRS refund if you've got one coming because it ain't...coming that is..

The last time government workers were furloughed Congress approved back pay for them, so they didn't really lose anything.  However with the teabaggers calling the shots...retroactive pay may not happen this time.

No one really knows what will happen until it happens since the federal guidelines for a shutdown are so broad.

All we know is that the fools who trigger it will get off scot free without consequences like always...

I am so ready for a revolution.