Friday Rap...

Today would be a good day for President Obama to issue an executive order suspending "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.."

Doing it today would save the job of an Arab fluent linguist who also happens to be gay. He’s been informed by the military that he is going to lose his job because he outed himself on television....

Losing an Arab fluent linguist while we’re fighting two wars in the middle east is like cutting off your nose to spite your face...or like sending soldiers to war with no guns...isn’t it time we get serious and fight like we mean it....like we really intend to do something other than steal oil from the people who own it?

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Question......Are the NAACP and Black Ministers Organizations (all of them) Relevant in the 21st century....Or should they go the way of the dinosaurs, pass out of existence and make way for something new?

These organizations still display a mindset that was good for 1959...but is not pertinent to 2009...

These groups will not get their audience back until they start addressing today’s issues.....HIV/AIDS, Black on Black Crime, neighborhood violence, People not taking responsibility for their kids and their education, Homophobia against Black gays and lesbians....

My sister recently pointed out that the only segregated church in America these days is the traditional Black Church.....think about it....

The mega churches Black or White led.....preach wealth and how to get more.....not religion or sacrifice for the greater good.....

Speaking of Mega Churches....is TD Jakes still talking about the LGBT community and Muslims in negative terms...now that his son has been busted in the park with another man?....Just askin'


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Did you know....that the Bible talks about no less than eight forms of marriage.....so which one is the traditional one that conservatives keep yelling about....

And....if Separation of Church and State is mandated and codified in the Constitution, why is Religion allowed to dictate secular law...

Most of the founding fathers of this country were known to be Atheists afraid of what happens when religion decides law....

Because the truth of the matter is.....America never was formed to be a Christian nation...not legally...

It was formed to enable freedom of religion and also freedom from religion....

Finally...If the LGBT community has the same rights as everybody else...then why is gay marriage a debatable issue....

Under our system and our constitution....getting married is just another civil right...that some are being denied...making the denial...a violation of law...

BTW....Will somebody please grab Pat Robertson....Sounds like he forgot to take his meds again...While you're at it.....check James Dobson, too....He's sounding like a human being today..Amazing...

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The City Manager is in favor of privatizing Cincinnati’s Water Works ....Not A Good Idea....

Despite what government tells us...rates will go up dramatically...and when the stuff hits the fan....they won’t be there to protect us.....

Think I’m wrong....look at the rate increases since Duke Energy took over Cinergy....

Look at what is happening with Time Warner....why can’t Cincinnati make the city a hot spot for wi fi from city limit to city limit.....

Water, Air, Electricity, Food....the stuff needed for survival... should never be allowed in the hands of anyone with more loyalty to its stock holders than to its customers...the people....


It’s time to think about ways to get off this expensive grid.....

How about stimulus money to make all city homes solar powered....we don’t really need a trolley system.......

Give me a grant....I’m willing to be a guinea pig on this....Avondale should be solar powered....

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There is a drum beat that some Blacks in the community are trying to persuade the Black Community to vote Republican in the next mayoral election....

Good luck with that!

The alleged Black pup..er..people who are doing the talking sound like the GOP of 1980 rather than a new GOP...You know the old GOP powered by divisiveness, racism, and old white guys in the closet saying do as I say...not as I do....


The only difference is they have new Black guys mouthing the same old words....

Buy a clue....GOP...Chocolate or otherwise.....until your actions match the words coming out your mouth.......you won’t have many converts to your party......

Do I need to break it down....

28 year old Ken Blackwell/Charlie Winburn wannabes don’t work......

Attacking a popular Black Mayor with innuendo while he’s hustling his butt off to make the city better...successful or not...he’s working...not talking....don’t work....

GOP choosing a mayoral candidate who looks like old GOP candidates and likes Tea Parties...which overtly and racially attack the Black Man in the White House....won’t work...

Black GOP standing by as these attacks happen....what are you thinking....Or do you think your party affiliation will save you....and put something other than chump change in your pocket....don’t kid yourself...

And quiet as its kept.....losing General Colin Powell in the past election did more damage to the GOP than Barack Obama himself....

You wanna get somebody's attention...emulate Powell....not Michael Steele...Charlie Winburn.... or Ken Blackwell....

Even JC Watts went into hiding when these current Limbaugh Lemmings, who now run the GOP took over....


Think about it the next time you open your mouth and before your foot flies upward...

Questions, Questions, Questions and Thoughts

Why are the Spanish in Madrid doing what the US should be doing to the Bush Administration Cabal? Prosecutors in Madrid are going to indict Alberto Gonzales and his top playmates at Justice for condoning torture................
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Where is the All inclusive, all powerful black church now that the Obama Administration has joined the fight against AIDS in the Black Community? The government has decided to do something... Why is the Black Church still silent?

Congressional Black Caucus, NAACP, SCLC, Urban League, you need to step up to the plate, too...........
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Marilyn Chambers has died at the young age of 56. For those who don’t know the name, she was the baby on ivory soap and then grew up to star in the first porn movie that I ever saw..."Behind the Green Door." Marilyn and Linda Loveless answered some of my questions about sex way back when...

May she rest in peace..
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Tour de Force through Europe...check
Visit the Troops.....check
Somali pirates......check
Open relations with Cuba and Iran...check
Black AIDS initiative...check
Don’t Ask...Don’t Tell...working
LGBT marriage....working
Health Care....needs work
Schools....needs work
Iran, Afghanistan.....working
Troops home....not yet
Israel, Palestine.....working
Dummy in North Korea....send in the seals sharpshooters, please!
Economy....improving
Prosecution of Bush n Company....?
First One Days in Office....Looking Good
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Why is Cheney talking....Did anyone ask for his or Karl Rove’s opinion on anything?
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Michael Steele..Yezza Boss!

So Mikey sends out a fund raising letter attacking Obama after the people in his party told him to go after the man directly...In his letter Steele accused Obama of attempting to negotiate with "crackpots." As Steele said everyone knows you can’t negotiate with "crackpots."

Out of his own mouth....because if we can’t negotiate with "crackpots"....then why is anyone talking to the GOP and Michael Steele...........
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Speaking of Crackpots...

This tea party movement....uh....saw the video....they really want to burn books? They really think that college brainwashes their kids?

No science.....no books.....no education......and they want to have tea parties.....hmmmmm!

I guess there is no point in me referring to George Orwell, or Brave New World, or Farenheit 451, The Handmaids Tale, or the Wizard of Oz, Animal Farm, The Bible, or the Talmud, or the Apocrypha or the Koran, huh?
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Thinking about books and their impact upon me.....

All of em, that I read...but to name a few....

Moby Dick
A Tale of Two Cities
Mandingo
Peyton Place
Shogun
James Bond...the original 13
Agatha Christie...all 80
To Kill A Mockingbird
Centennial
A Handmaid’s Tale
PD James....all of em
Octavia Butler...rip....Black female fantasy writer...all of em..
HP Lovecraft....all of em
Edgar Alan Poe....all of em
The Lord of The Rings....when you had to wait for them to be published in America 1957-1960
Three Musketeers, Man in the Iron Mask...(found out Alexandre Dumas was black)
Sonnets from the Portugese...Elizabeth Browning was called "my little portugeses by her husband because she was "dark complected.") I like Robert, too...

A Passing and Stupidity in a Chocolate Nation

Gershwin’s Bess

Ann Brown, a woman that few of us ever heard sing, has died. She was 96. Ms. Brown was a black woman who was pure a pure soprano, who sang Opera and classical music during the time when Blacks were rarely allowed to perform in white theater.

She was Bess in Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess...the first one..the original one..

She predated Marian Anderson, who was the first Black woman to sing at the Metropolitan Opera. She predated Leontyne Price and Jessye Norman and Kathleen Battle.

She was born here, but left the country to live in Oslo Norway and perform in Europe because of the race prejudice at the time..

May she find peace.

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Chocolate City AIDS Epidemic

Where are the Black Churches now? AIDS has reached epidemic proportions among Blacks 40-49 in DC and nobody is saying anything about it...Why?

It is the number one health problem with Blacks and nobody is talking about it....Why?

The virus is killing men especially in DC and the mode of transmission is man to man sex...

Black women are dying in record numbers nationwide, because they are sleeping with Black men who secretly sleep with other men...

When is the Black Church, The Black Community, and Black politicians going to pull their collective heads out of their collective asses and do something....

This is not a White Man’s problem, people...This is us and it’s time we admitted that and handle our business...

World AIDS Day

Did you know that if black Americans, all 13% of us, were a separate country, that our country would rank 16th in the world in HIV/AIDS infections? African Americans represent 49% of all new infections worldwide, according to the Center for Disease Control.

Did you know that black women in America between the ages of 25 and 49, are the group at highest risk for contracting AIDS?

Did you know that black women are infected primarily through their heterosexual partners...men who sleep with other men?

Today is World AIDs Day....the world has 33 million cases of infection, more than 70% of it happening in sub Saharan Africa.

Black AIDS Day is February 7th.....Educate yourself...for your own protection...I say this as someone who has lost too many friends and a couple of relatives to this vicious virus..

When Tomorrow Looks Like Yesterday

2008. Happy New Year to all of you paying attention. I’ve just walked through the door, into the twilight of my fifth decade on this planet. Still kicking, still feeling pretty optimistic about life in general.

Still paying attention to the happenings of the world around me.....the upcoming presidential elections here in this country....the assassination of Benizar Bhutto, may she find peace....the latest nuclear petulance out of South Korea....the continued ignorance and futility out of Washington.

Iowa caucuses in two days and if you listen to the media, all of the candidates are in closing arguments, in an attempt to seal the deal for themselves.

It’s a two man race in the GOP...that’s the “gay old party” for those of you who don’t know what GOP stands for....It used to mean “grand old party.” But the name has changed to accommodate all of the righteous old guys who keep falling out of the closet away from Jesus and the right leaning moral majority.

Preacher Huckabee is slugging it out with Mormon Mitt... but neither is charting new ground....just plowing the same old fields of pseudo hypocritical righteousness trying to out religious the other.

Fred Thompson seems to have fallen by the wayside. I guess he’s still in it for awhile since they’ve promoted Jack McCoy on Law and Order and taken away his day gig. Maybe he can come back as a judge who’s running for president on TV.

Rudy is busy too. He’s working hard to justify the latest group of skeletons popping out of his closet. He seems to have written off Iowa, instead concentrating his attention on New Hampshire.

The media says it’s a dead heat on the Democratic side with Obama slightly ahead of Clinton and Edwards, or vice versa, depending on the poll.

I’m not real excited about the Democrats either. I’m still not hearing anything new. Obama keeps talking about real change and I’m all for that, but is the change that he’s talking about merely changing a black man for a white man in the White House?

Alright, already, I know he is against the war in Iraq...Tell me something else. Tell me about social security...tell me about health care...tell me about ending violence in the streets...tell me about getting rid of guns...tell me about improving education.....tell me about civil rights for all people, not just rich people or straight people or Christians.

The middle class needs tax relief, too. America needs an end to the devastating voodoo economics of the Reagan era. Trickle down economics has never worked and it never will.
All of the people who support this economics plan need to understand that this is merely debt deferment. Your kids are screwed, period. They are dead and buried before they even get out into the world thanks to the past years of tax relief for corporations and the rich one percent of America. We, as Americans owe our collective soul to the banks of China. I don’t want to be around when they call that loan.

How about outlawing lobbyists, permanently. What’s the point of advertising by drug manufacturers? Wouldn’t it be better if that big advertising budget were used to develop new and better medications?

America needs to come to grips with AIDS. Is that in Obama’s health plan? Especially since fully fifty percent of all new cases of HIV infection are straight black women?

Hey Hillary, I haven’t forgotten you. Is the plight of infected black women in your health budget? If the polls are right, you’re favored by black women two to one over Obama. Are you going to take care of your constituency?

Hillary Clinton, like Obama, is the face of change. She is a woman. That is the biggest thing going her. She is not a man. On the face, she is not the status quo. But is that true? She went along with Bush on Iraq. Her health care plan seems a retread of the one that failed when her husband was in charge.

The problem that I have with her is that she has been in Congress and the White House and still feels like the old way of doing things despite her gender. As much as I want to, I can’t get excited about her.

I want someone to talk about really cutting the waste in government...no more automatic raises until lawmakers fix this mess. Absolutely no more pork barrel projects until we have a budget surplus in Washington.

I want the Patriot Act repealed. I want Homeland Security dismantled. It’s a joke on the American people. I want checks and balances restored between government branches.

I want the IRS retired. How about a national sales tax....a user tax...the bigger the item, the larger the tax.....same for everybody.....that way...you could put up a chart for all to see and read what the tax penalty is, instead of the way it is now. ....Or I would be okay with an across the board ten percent....Everyone pays ten percent of their yearly earnings...Kind of like tithing to your church, only it’s to the government....Going even further....take the ten percent and divide it in half with part going to the feds, the rest going to the state where you live.

Bottom line, I want more than I’m hearing. The candidates, none of them, have come close to speaking to the important stuff. So let’s knock off the attack rhetoric and get down to business.

The candidate who does that, will get my vote.

And trust me...........Ron Paul is not the answer!

Another Young Black Man has Died.........

There were three shootings overnight in Cincinnati. A teenager was gunned down during an altercation between several youths at a gas station. Another young man died after being shot in the mouth in Fay Apartments.

It happens every night and all the city can do is put up billboards asking folks who probably can't read cause they dropped out of school, to call a number to get some help.

The Mayor walks around with a bodyguard. A Black activist was recently gunned down outside City Hall after addressing Council one last time.

The republican wannabe governor and native Cincinnatian proudly touts his membership in the NRA while his people die around him and not a word on a plan to stop the killing or to get guns off the streets. He's more interested in making it harder for folks to vote or to keep gays and lesbians from violating the sanctity of his marriage.

Several years ago, I wrote the following words to the people of Cincinnati, published in the local newspaper in June, 2001. The letter came shortly after the April riots. I was more interested in what was being done about the 45 Black men who died between April and June of that year.

I can probably say it better and differently....but why? Nothing's changed since then except that there are more bodies...


"Well, I want to know where the hell is the outrage over the 45 young blacks who have been shot and/or killed in the past month since the April disturbances? No police were involved except as investigators. No white people were involved as perpetrators. All shooters and victims are black.

Why is it that we can so easily voice our outrage when we think we're being victimized by whites or the system, but remain curiously silent when we do it to ourselves, over and over and over again.

There are two things that are killing us outright as a community; black on black violence and AIDS, and we as a community have placed our heads firmly in the sand and have refused to face the problems.

White people are not our problem. Yes, some are racist and yes, some liberals are naive in thinking that throwing money or temporary jobs programs at the problem will make it go away.

Yes, our system, our government is inherently racist having been built by the master race for the master race on the backs of slaves, our ancestors.

But I don't see whites pulling guns and killing us. I don't see white boys standing at the corner of Reading Road and Hutchins selling dope across from the Town Center..........

I don't see white men infecting black women with the HIV/AIDS virus and living a life on the down low because they are afraid to be who they are and admit that they also sleep with men. This is not a sexual issue. For Black women it is a life and death issue....

Black on black violence must stop. Preying on our own community is the ultimate abomination. ..

Drug dealing is not a career move, just a quicker trip to the grave yard. Superfly was a movie, a myth, not reality, once caught up, you're caught up and dead, not caught up and eventually legit.

Our people fought and some died so we could go to the schools of our choice, yet we don't go or make our kids go. My fellow baby boomers, parenting is not a democracy, s/he who pays the bills rules. Bringing a kid into this world and not taking the time to make sure they are educated is a crime.

Sports is not the answer and not all rap is good rap. Just cause Pookie can rhyme don't mean he's the next Ja Rule. Our kids need a plan "B" and that being education just in case they can't be a star.

Malcolm said we must use "any means necessary" to achieve our goals and desires. Well, why don't we try helping ourselves for a change......................"jam 6/2001

Nuff said.