Healthcare Reform
While Americans are clammering for reform of a totally screwed up system, Obama's real enemies on healthcare seem to be within his own party. Dismiss the GOP..they can't do anything, really...
However....The Democrats who are working against the President's proposal for a public option...Tom Daschle...you should be ashamed...
Kind of a good thing he washed out of consideration for Obama's Health Care Czar..
His money ties to big insurance and health industry giants show they mean more to him than helping the people..
-0-
Why We Need Healthcare Reform
The House Subcommittee on Oversight Investigations held hearings this week on the healthcare industry's policy of recission...
Recission happens when the insurance company cancels a policy...supposedly for fraud...
However...Insurance giants also use it to boost the bottom line...They do this by canceling policies of the very sick and most in need of help...
In order to keep from paying huge medical bills...even though the families affected religiously pay their premiums on time...The companies refuse to pay...flat out....
Wellpoint, Inc....United Health....and Assurant are the three biggest companies in America...
And when asked if they would halt the practice...
They told the Congressmen....Hell No!
The cluelessness in the room from the insurance industry harkened back to that which was exhibited by the big three automaker CEOs who flew into their congressional hearings on private jets costing hundreds of thousands of dollars...
These three companies canceled 20,000 very sick people to keep from paying 300-million dollars in medical costs...and they rewarded with bonuses the employees who did the canceling...
These companies specifically target women with breast cancer s, lymphoma sufferers as well as a 1000 other conditions.....
We really do need health care reform....
-0-
Put Away the Manolos Ladies
What's up with high powered women falling all over DC. First Sonia Sotmayor..who breaks an ankle...now Hilary..who shatters her elbow and needs surgery...
Ladies...it's time to either slow your stroll....or go back to comfortable shoes while walking...
Think about all those high powered female execs in Chicago and New York....
They wear Nikes on the street or when they need to speed walk, and change into the Manolos in the office..
It's safer...........
-0-
Too Casual Friday
The city of Orlando wants people to start using deodorant and wearing underwear when they come to work...seems casual friday as well as other days have gotten out of control, apparently..
The lone vote against the new code was the mayor...who says wearing underwear...or not...is a matter of freedom of choice....
-0-
PETA
The president of PETA needs some diversion in his life....a new boyfriend maybe...
Any bug...fly, mosquito or otherwise that makes it near me...on my body...flying around my head can prepare to meet its maker...
PETA has way too much time on its hands....
-0-
Shout Out to Ashanti
Who is appearing in The Wiz....baby....There are some shoes that cannot filled....Chaka Khan, Gladys Knight, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, and Stephanie Mills to name a few...
Ya just can't...
When these women step out of their shoes...throw them away because nobody else will ever be able to wear them.....
Impossible..
-0-
Slavery Apology
The Senate has formulated its own apology for the damage done to Blacks by two and a half centuries of slavery in this country...
The Senate Bill now must be reconciled to the one the House passed last year....
No reparations..in fact the bill was crafted with language to prevent future lawsuits seeking payment.
What will this apology do.....
Not a damn thing for those of us who are here....However, it will be good for those yet to be born..
So...Thank you, I guess...
I'm sure those who still suffer from Plantation mentality will celebrate and joyously jig for their masters...
Recently found a good definition of PM...
Plantation mentality: enslaved Blacks who have inherited, internalized, expressed and acted based on a perspective or deference that was most acceptable to those that dominated their view of reality — particularly exhibited by early African American generations recently freed by plantation masters, and sometimes exhibited by some among latter generations of the global Black diaspora.
Dennis Moore — Publisher
thank you Dennis for that definition...He was referring to Shelby Steele....
I can name a few others.....Thomas....Keys.....Blackwell....That fool in California who hates affirmative action....and all those young Black GOP talking heads who have no clue...have grown up privileged and untouched by their Blackness...historical or otherwise..
.
6.19.2009
6.18.2009
Sorry President Obama, But My Sugar's High
Obama passes out candy to the LGBT Community while urging patience....
Apparently seeking to placate the more vocal members of the LGBT community, the President signed a memorandum granting a few domestic partner benefits to federal employees-health and survivor benefits not among them.
I have a few problems with this scenario...
First, the action only affects a very few people...
Second, Obama used a memorandum...for those of you who don't know...memorandums are only in force for the lifetime of Obama's presidency...
In other words, if he should fail to be re elected in 2012, the memorandum dies...If he is re elected then it's good until 2016....
Memorandums come with a sunset clause....much like the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which must be renewed every 25 years or it expires...
Sunset Clauses are typically used by Presidents and Lawmakers to get the opposition to compromise...as in....”sign off on it now.... harvest the goodwill, now...it will go away later....”
Now I'm assuming, optimistically, that Obama thinks he can get things taken care of by 2012-meaning he can get DOMA repealed and DADT off the books and therefore all he needed was a memorandum today and the future will take care of itself...
I know he has only been in office for 150 days. I know that in order to spend political capital, you've got to make some first. In other words, he needs help changing this massive agenda so he has to quietly placate certain people in order to get them to go along with him.
However, while I still counsel younger community members to be patient, I am a little ticked.
Check that....I'm a lot ticked..
I've been waiting all my life.....and like Fannie Lou Hamer said....I'm sick n tired of being sick n tired...
I am ticked off at the President's silence....He needs to utter something other than tired platitudes.
And this not only includes the LGBT community...but the Black community as well...
Unemployment nationwide may be only 10%....In the Black community it is double that easily...
“last hired...first fired” is still in operation..
I'm sorry Mr President....but right is right.......
He has admitted the laws are wrong....He is the one who chose to do something about it...yet.. he remains silent...
There comes a time.....Like Lincoln and like FDR...like Truman...
When as President..you have to say....damn the law.....I will do what's right....like you promised...
Obama needs to remember that if Lincoln hadn't done what was right and just...Obama's Daddy's ancestors would only have seen the shores of America by disembarking from a slave ship...
Obama needs to remember that his mother and father literally broke the law to give him life....
It was right and it was just...
All these years...he has been chasing his destiny....Now that he is where he should be..in the White House...
He hesitates....I don't understand....
The Department of Justice equating same sex marriage with incest....cuts deeply...it is indefensible and completely wrong....
The White House defense of an indefensible act...is an insult to my intelligence and has me second guessing my vote back in November....
I remain in Obama's corner....
But today....I'm just too ticked to be a fan...
Apparently seeking to placate the more vocal members of the LGBT community, the President signed a memorandum granting a few domestic partner benefits to federal employees-health and survivor benefits not among them.
I have a few problems with this scenario...
First, the action only affects a very few people...
Second, Obama used a memorandum...for those of you who don't know...memorandums are only in force for the lifetime of Obama's presidency...
In other words, if he should fail to be re elected in 2012, the memorandum dies...If he is re elected then it's good until 2016....
Memorandums come with a sunset clause....much like the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which must be renewed every 25 years or it expires...
Sunset Clauses are typically used by Presidents and Lawmakers to get the opposition to compromise...as in....”sign off on it now.... harvest the goodwill, now...it will go away later....”
Now I'm assuming, optimistically, that Obama thinks he can get things taken care of by 2012-meaning he can get DOMA repealed and DADT off the books and therefore all he needed was a memorandum today and the future will take care of itself...
I know he has only been in office for 150 days. I know that in order to spend political capital, you've got to make some first. In other words, he needs help changing this massive agenda so he has to quietly placate certain people in order to get them to go along with him.
However, while I still counsel younger community members to be patient, I am a little ticked.
Check that....I'm a lot ticked..
I've been waiting all my life.....and like Fannie Lou Hamer said....I'm sick n tired of being sick n tired...
I am ticked off at the President's silence....He needs to utter something other than tired platitudes.
And this not only includes the LGBT community...but the Black community as well...
Unemployment nationwide may be only 10%....In the Black community it is double that easily...
“last hired...first fired” is still in operation..
I'm sorry Mr President....but right is right.......
He has admitted the laws are wrong....He is the one who chose to do something about it...yet.. he remains silent...
There comes a time.....Like Lincoln and like FDR...like Truman...
When as President..you have to say....damn the law.....I will do what's right....like you promised...
Obama needs to remember that if Lincoln hadn't done what was right and just...Obama's Daddy's ancestors would only have seen the shores of America by disembarking from a slave ship...
Obama needs to remember that his mother and father literally broke the law to give him life....
It was right and it was just...
All these years...he has been chasing his destiny....Now that he is where he should be..in the White House...
He hesitates....I don't understand....
The Department of Justice equating same sex marriage with incest....cuts deeply...it is indefensible and completely wrong....
The White House defense of an indefensible act...is an insult to my intelligence and has me second guessing my vote back in November....
I remain in Obama's corner....
But today....I'm just too ticked to be a fan...
"We only want, we only ask, that when we stand up and talk about one nation under God liberty, justice for everybody, we only want to be able to look at the flag, put our right hand over our hearts, repeat those words, and know that they are true."
...Barbara Jordan, Late, Great US Congresswoman and member of the LGBT community.
6.17.2009
Cincinnati News
If it happens today....it's news to us
I stopped reading the Cincinnati Enquirer a long, long time ago. To put it bluntly, it has been an insult to my intelligence since I graduated the third grade....
It's ongoing racist, republican slant has always driven me up a wall...and I'm talking 50 plus years...since my people taught me to read...with comic books and the newspaper by the time I was three...The newspaper sections were handed around the kitchen table...each of us reading something..
But today...
Occasionally a story posted somewhere else may get my attention, however going to the Enquirer for more detail rather than the tease I'd just read, is a big waste of time.
Used to be you could get some news from the Post Time Star...but that was before it combined forces with the Enquirer and became a subsidiary before going out of business altogether..
The most wonderful thing about the internet is being able to read real newspapers from across the country and the world.....which I do daily with my breakfast...
I know they are going away, slowly, but it's good while it lasts...
Anyway...
I've been very upset with what passes as news on Cincinnati TV as well and after today, I'm turning it off too...
With the exception of Deb Dixon's work at Channel 12 and Hagit's work on the I team at Channel 9..there is no real news on Cincinnati TV.....Channel 5...well, I do like Andrew Setters....known him since he was a cub reporter....I don't get up early enough to watch Sheila Gray on 19 anymore..
This breaking news thing...which is little more then what is coming across the scanner...that's not news gathering...folks..
What set this rant off today is that the station that happens to be on my television...
leads with the fact that Simon Leis has bullied the Hamilton County Commissioners into allowing him to buy a new toy...in this case a boat..
When the real story should be....Why is this man still in office? Yeah, I know he is elected....He stopped being a sheriff a long time ago...
Given his age...he is probably double dipping just like all those people he refuses to let go under his command, because he doesn't want to train anyone new....
He said that....
Can you imagine a county or city official in any other state in the world, telling the administrators on camera, he's not going to make budget cuts because he doesn't want to pass the torch to younger and lesser paid people..
I paraphrased his words..that's not an exact quote...but you can go back and find it..
The Commisioners took it as usual..should have just stood up dropped their pants and bent over..no vaseline needed..
And Cincinnati news dutifully and quietly reported it...no pushback...no investigations....dropped the story.....like it never happened...
I know the reason is that the assignment editors and news directors are afraid that the newsmakers will stop talking to them..
News Flash Guys....They don't talk to you now!
Another story that should be screaming from the headlines...
A 20-million dollar unexpected shortfall in city money...due to an error...cuts have to come...okay...how many days off are city council and city administrators going to take unpaid...along with their hourly employees...
And if the answer is none....Why not?
It's the same as CEOs who screw up their companies and still want big bonuses...
The city is in trouble....the hourly workers didn't screw up....administrators did though..
Why should they still be paid in a business as usual fashion while hourly workers are forced to take unpaid days off to compensate for the shortfall
Another one...anyone figure out why it's easier to do business in Northern Kentucky then in Cincinnati...
Might make a nice investigative piece....
How about the real reasons why Black and other minority contractors can't get work on the so called big building projects in Cincinnati......
Or has anyone looked into the squeeze that a certain local health insurance agency puts on local doctors forcing them to cut services ..
Some doctors are charging an extra yearly service fee to patients, in addition to co pays..been going on for a while...
Why not look at the health plans being offered....rather than bitch about the changes...The changes may be legal...but are they fair....or do they allow the insurance giant to gain larger profits off the backs of the people...
Or why is everyone congratulating the new incoming head of Procter and Gamble, when this guy says he is going to move jobs into Asia and the Middle East....
Question.........are those Cincinnati jobs that are being outsourced? Even if the answer is No..there undoubtedly will be some "shrinkage" as in fewer people hired here and job consolidaion...
Questions...Questions...Questions.....And nobody is asking....hmmmmmmmmm
I stopped reading the Cincinnati Enquirer a long, long time ago. To put it bluntly, it has been an insult to my intelligence since I graduated the third grade....
It's ongoing racist, republican slant has always driven me up a wall...and I'm talking 50 plus years...since my people taught me to read...with comic books and the newspaper by the time I was three...The newspaper sections were handed around the kitchen table...each of us reading something..
But today...
Occasionally a story posted somewhere else may get my attention, however going to the Enquirer for more detail rather than the tease I'd just read, is a big waste of time.
Used to be you could get some news from the Post Time Star...but that was before it combined forces with the Enquirer and became a subsidiary before going out of business altogether..
The most wonderful thing about the internet is being able to read real newspapers from across the country and the world.....which I do daily with my breakfast...
I know they are going away, slowly, but it's good while it lasts...
Anyway...
I've been very upset with what passes as news on Cincinnati TV as well and after today, I'm turning it off too...
With the exception of Deb Dixon's work at Channel 12 and Hagit's work on the I team at Channel 9..there is no real news on Cincinnati TV.....Channel 5...well, I do like Andrew Setters....known him since he was a cub reporter....I don't get up early enough to watch Sheila Gray on 19 anymore..
This breaking news thing...which is little more then what is coming across the scanner...that's not news gathering...folks..
What set this rant off today is that the station that happens to be on my television...
leads with the fact that Simon Leis has bullied the Hamilton County Commissioners into allowing him to buy a new toy...in this case a boat..
When the real story should be....Why is this man still in office? Yeah, I know he is elected....He stopped being a sheriff a long time ago...
Given his age...he is probably double dipping just like all those people he refuses to let go under his command, because he doesn't want to train anyone new....
He said that....
Can you imagine a county or city official in any other state in the world, telling the administrators on camera, he's not going to make budget cuts because he doesn't want to pass the torch to younger and lesser paid people..
I paraphrased his words..that's not an exact quote...but you can go back and find it..
The Commisioners took it as usual..should have just stood up dropped their pants and bent over..no vaseline needed..
And Cincinnati news dutifully and quietly reported it...no pushback...no investigations....dropped the story.....like it never happened...
I know the reason is that the assignment editors and news directors are afraid that the newsmakers will stop talking to them..
News Flash Guys....They don't talk to you now!
Another story that should be screaming from the headlines...
A 20-million dollar unexpected shortfall in city money...due to an error...cuts have to come...okay...how many days off are city council and city administrators going to take unpaid...along with their hourly employees...
And if the answer is none....Why not?
It's the same as CEOs who screw up their companies and still want big bonuses...
The city is in trouble....the hourly workers didn't screw up....administrators did though..
Why should they still be paid in a business as usual fashion while hourly workers are forced to take unpaid days off to compensate for the shortfall
Another one...anyone figure out why it's easier to do business in Northern Kentucky then in Cincinnati...
Might make a nice investigative piece....
How about the real reasons why Black and other minority contractors can't get work on the so called big building projects in Cincinnati......
Or has anyone looked into the squeeze that a certain local health insurance agency puts on local doctors forcing them to cut services ..
Some doctors are charging an extra yearly service fee to patients, in addition to co pays..been going on for a while...
Why not look at the health plans being offered....rather than bitch about the changes...The changes may be legal...but are they fair....or do they allow the insurance giant to gain larger profits off the backs of the people...
Or why is everyone congratulating the new incoming head of Procter and Gamble, when this guy says he is going to move jobs into Asia and the Middle East....
Question.........are those Cincinnati jobs that are being outsourced? Even if the answer is No..there undoubtedly will be some "shrinkage" as in fewer people hired here and job consolidaion...
Questions...Questions...Questions.....And nobody is asking....hmmmmmmmmm
6.14.2009
Cincinnati Pride Sunday-Part 1
Veggin' out at the gay pride parade in Bowdie Park on Ludlow.
Pride Sunday, no matter where you are, meaning in what city you happen to reside, is a feel good day. For years, I have begun this Sunday, no matter where I lived, at brunch with friends, some easy conversation and good food before spending some time partying at the parade.
Since the parades, all over the country , are on Sunday, it's also a good time to see who went home with whom from the bar, on Saturday night... But I digress..
I intended to write a feel good piece about the parade because I do feel great from the camaraderie. For a change I wanted to not include politics on a feel good day, because politics feels like work to me and sometimes that's not good..
However, I can't do that today...I have to jump into politics for a little bit before I get to the feel good...so here goes...
I don't intend to vote for any person running for City Council who did not shake my hand in the Pride Parade today.
Greg Harris, Tony Fischer, and Laurie Quinlivan were there and shook my hand, coming out of the parade to meet and greet voters. They smiled, they looked me in the eye and they shook hands.
Now I can't say for a fact that they will support every issue that I think is important, but being strong enough to attend and march in the parade says a lot to me.
I will vote for Jennifer Brunner ...she wasn't there, but after that letter of support she wrote on marriage equality...can't say no to the lady, and she has to cover the whole state...
However...
These three asked for my vote....and you know what...I intend to give it to them....
I have a long personal and professional history with city council (going back to when my uncle was Vice mayor of this city) as well as many local, state and national Ohio politicians.
Some of them read my blog and tell me so....When we meet....
Some of my “friends and acquaintances” had people in the parade today...they weren't there themselves...but they had people in the parade....
And to them....I say this....It is not enough to have your token gay or lesbian staff member put on a shirt with your name on it and walk in my parade...and expect me to support you...
If you can't show up personally for an hour or so and look me in the eye and ask for my vote..
Then I got no use for you...
You are wasting my time....
Even if you are kinda sorta my cousin by marriage....
Having your token gay or dyke friend or the kid of your token, walk down Ludlow waving a rainbow flag or carrying a rainbow balloon is lazy and cowardly campaigning.....
It is completely arrogant to assume, that I am going to continue to support you when you don't give a damn about me....
I hope that maybe if enough LGBT community members read this and see some truth in what I write...maybe they will join me in a quiet protest.....
No visible support....no vote...simple....
And if you think you can get elected without the LGBT vote.....Think again...Go for it....
Mayor Mallory
Roxanne Qualls,
Laketa Cole,
Cecil Thomas
David Crowley.
To name a few.....
To be continued............................................
Pride Sunday, no matter where you are, meaning in what city you happen to reside, is a feel good day. For years, I have begun this Sunday, no matter where I lived, at brunch with friends, some easy conversation and good food before spending some time partying at the parade.
Since the parades, all over the country , are on Sunday, it's also a good time to see who went home with whom from the bar, on Saturday night... But I digress..
I intended to write a feel good piece about the parade because I do feel great from the camaraderie. For a change I wanted to not include politics on a feel good day, because politics feels like work to me and sometimes that's not good..
However, I can't do that today...I have to jump into politics for a little bit before I get to the feel good...so here goes...
I don't intend to vote for any person running for City Council who did not shake my hand in the Pride Parade today.
Greg Harris, Tony Fischer, and Laurie Quinlivan were there and shook my hand, coming out of the parade to meet and greet voters. They smiled, they looked me in the eye and they shook hands.
Now I can't say for a fact that they will support every issue that I think is important, but being strong enough to attend and march in the parade says a lot to me.
I will vote for Jennifer Brunner ...she wasn't there, but after that letter of support she wrote on marriage equality...can't say no to the lady, and she has to cover the whole state...
However...
These three asked for my vote....and you know what...I intend to give it to them....
I have a long personal and professional history with city council (going back to when my uncle was Vice mayor of this city) as well as many local, state and national Ohio politicians.
Some of them read my blog and tell me so....When we meet....
Some of my “friends and acquaintances” had people in the parade today...they weren't there themselves...but they had people in the parade....
And to them....I say this....It is not enough to have your token gay or lesbian staff member put on a shirt with your name on it and walk in my parade...and expect me to support you...
If you can't show up personally for an hour or so and look me in the eye and ask for my vote..
Then I got no use for you...
You are wasting my time....
Even if you are kinda sorta my cousin by marriage....
Having your token gay or dyke friend or the kid of your token, walk down Ludlow waving a rainbow flag or carrying a rainbow balloon is lazy and cowardly campaigning.....
It is completely arrogant to assume, that I am going to continue to support you when you don't give a damn about me....
I hope that maybe if enough LGBT community members read this and see some truth in what I write...maybe they will join me in a quiet protest.....
No visible support....no vote...simple....
And if you think you can get elected without the LGBT vote.....Think again...Go for it....
Mayor Mallory
Roxanne Qualls,
Laketa Cole,
Cecil Thomas
David Crowley.
To name a few.....
To be continued............................................
6.13.2009
Freelancing-Confessions of an All My Children Junkie
I have to confess, the soap opera All My Children rules my work day. I am a morning writer, a freelance writer, who works from home.
My brain functions best early in the day, shortly after daybreak and after I’ve breakfasted and meditated, doing my favored exercise this month. Sometimes that’s just reading the morning paper. I get comfortable, while grabbing my laptop and settle in to knock out the articles to which I’ve been assigned by my editor.
Utilizing Background Noise
The television is on for background noise, a habit I picked up while working in TV news for 27 years. The newsroom is always humming with background noise, primarily from the monitors, 30-40 TVs turned to every other news channel. You get used to working in the noise. In fact, I can’t do computer work at home without it, so I turn on the television set in my office and work away.
Dealing with Interruptions
Now in my neck of the woods AMC comes on at 1pm. That means I stop to eat lunch, check out the noon news, let the dogs outside and get myself settled for my date with Erica Kane and her friends, family and neighbors. I wasn’t always like this. I used to scoff at those who dropped everything to watch the soaps. When I worked at ABC, the newsroom literally ground to a halt because nearly everyone with a couple of exceptions like me, were hooked on the Ryan’s Hope-All My Children-General Hospital block. It was amazing that any news got covered at all during those two and a half hours. But we managed
Resistence is Futile
But somehow, while working at home alone, I got hooked. I started peeking at the soaps while writing. Then I started listening to the soaps. Then I started asking my sister to background me on what led up to what I was watching and not understanding. She’s been hooked for 40 years. My dad, too. He got hooked while changing work shifts from first to second. Finally, I had to stop pretending to work and just give in. I don’t write when All My Children is on.
I’ve got to see who killed Stuart, and why Liza is back in Pine Valley and whether David will get his come uppence or if Zach will get out of jail. I mean it is driving me crazy waiting to see this stuff unfold. I can’t believe it.
Pushing Through the Block
I should be searching for new writing gigs. I should be formatting new proposals, making new bids for newly posted jobs in the database. I need to do the things that will keep my work from home income from dropping below acceptable levels. Waiting for Erica Kane to pick out her 12th husband is not what an efficient freelancer should be doing with her day.
I am as disciplined as all get out, as long as AMC is not on. I can crank out with the best of them. However as long as Kendall Slater is being a self centered little tyrant, or crazy Annie is shooting people for justifiable reasons I’m catatonic, hanging on every word in the make believe world of soaps.
Junkie to the end.
My brain functions best early in the day, shortly after daybreak and after I’ve breakfasted and meditated, doing my favored exercise this month. Sometimes that’s just reading the morning paper. I get comfortable, while grabbing my laptop and settle in to knock out the articles to which I’ve been assigned by my editor.
Utilizing Background Noise
The television is on for background noise, a habit I picked up while working in TV news for 27 years. The newsroom is always humming with background noise, primarily from the monitors, 30-40 TVs turned to every other news channel. You get used to working in the noise. In fact, I can’t do computer work at home without it, so I turn on the television set in my office and work away.
Dealing with Interruptions
Now in my neck of the woods AMC comes on at 1pm. That means I stop to eat lunch, check out the noon news, let the dogs outside and get myself settled for my date with Erica Kane and her friends, family and neighbors. I wasn’t always like this. I used to scoff at those who dropped everything to watch the soaps. When I worked at ABC, the newsroom literally ground to a halt because nearly everyone with a couple of exceptions like me, were hooked on the Ryan’s Hope-All My Children-General Hospital block. It was amazing that any news got covered at all during those two and a half hours. But we managed
Resistence is Futile
But somehow, while working at home alone, I got hooked. I started peeking at the soaps while writing. Then I started listening to the soaps. Then I started asking my sister to background me on what led up to what I was watching and not understanding. She’s been hooked for 40 years. My dad, too. He got hooked while changing work shifts from first to second. Finally, I had to stop pretending to work and just give in. I don’t write when All My Children is on.
I’ve got to see who killed Stuart, and why Liza is back in Pine Valley and whether David will get his come uppence or if Zach will get out of jail. I mean it is driving me crazy waiting to see this stuff unfold. I can’t believe it.
Pushing Through the Block
I should be searching for new writing gigs. I should be formatting new proposals, making new bids for newly posted jobs in the database. I need to do the things that will keep my work from home income from dropping below acceptable levels. Waiting for Erica Kane to pick out her 12th husband is not what an efficient freelancer should be doing with her day.
I am as disciplined as all get out, as long as AMC is not on. I can crank out with the best of them. However as long as Kendall Slater is being a self centered little tyrant, or crazy Annie is shooting people for justifiable reasons I’m catatonic, hanging on every word in the make believe world of soaps.
Junkie to the end.
6.12.2009
Friday Rap
You're fired! Now Shut up and Go Away, Please!
Carrie Prejean...the fired Barbie Beauty....The new Christian right wing cutie who can't keep her mouth shut.....
She's been turned into the 21st century version of Anita Bryant....At least Anita had a real career and real fame before she started trashing talking....
What Prejean needs to understand is that she's not the only one with first amendment rights...she does have a right to her opinion....
But so do the rest of us.....Honest....Don't believe me...go ask the people on the right who are giving you the bad advice...
-0-
Black Baby Sale Goes on...
Madonna's been handed her latest Mommy publicity prop....I don't begrudge the kids....But I do question girlfriend's motives...it looks shallow...artificial....not real....sincere or genuine....Then again...who am I to judge....It is not my right to do so...
I wish little Mercy a good life and well being..
-0-
Sarah, Sarah, Sarah....
Darlin......you were used....you served a purpose....you been kicked to the curb....you're supposed to go away....
Not pick fights with celebrities who make their living making fun of people...
The more you squawk...the less presidential and governor-like you look...It will not....I repeat...will not translate into votes come 2012...
Give it up already..
-0-
Lawmakers bought and paid for by the Tobacco Industry....
Mitch McConnell....got nearly a half million dollars....nearly double the next name on the list...
Good old Mitch was just taking care of his corporate constituents, giving them the best law money can buy....
Have to admit, that I have a problem with legislation intended to change certain behaviors like smoking...
I think it's an ugly habit...but if you want to do it...then do it...
Kind of like telling me I shouldn't drink wine or beer....my poison....my choice...
Of course the difference is that drinking wine only kills me, maybe..while smoking cigarettes can kill others with second hand smoke...
Still....There is that thing called freedom of choice...isn't there....
Prohibition didn't work....the bogus war on drugs is a big failure and should be ended.....Prostitution bans only penalize the women....
This thing with tobacco....consenting adults should decide...if they're willing to pay the cost as well as the price..then..let em..
-0-
Officials bought and paid for by Saudi Arabia...
Some guy, who no one's ever heard of but who was a deputy director of the Agency that sells advanced weapons systems to foreign governments..
Seems one of the many Saudi princes picked up the travel tab of this guy..named...Richard Millies and his wife to vacation in Riyadh to attend a festival..the eight day trip cost $24,000.
The Saudis spent $4.4 billion to buy weapons including smart bombs...
And they paid the tabs of many other Pentagon officials desiring to spend time in the Middle East....a total of 22,000 trips by Pentagon officials and their families, costing the Saudi princes $26 million dollars...
Spending that kind of money....No wonder Bush chose to dump on Iraq rather than go after the country that spawned the 9/11 hijackers..
You can read more about it here...
-0-
In Fear of a Black Planet...
Not content to blame the victim...the pseudo christian conservative right is blaming Obama for the guys with the guns attempting to turn back time or die trying....
I don't know what all the fear is about now...Earth has always been a mostly Black planet....
Power changed when Europeans couldn't take control of the oil....like they did with land, gold, diamonds, religion and other wealth generating commodities....
With Obama...the pigeons are coming home to roost, so to speak....Karma comeback....
-0-
ChastityBono
Good luck Chaz....as you transition...I can't imagine what it must be like to have lived for 40 years knowing you were born in the wrong body.....
God may not make mistakes...But Mother Nature certainly does...
And apparently did....
Take care of yourself first, the others will come around later.
-0-
Pride Weekend
It's Pride weekend ….Let's go Party....
Yeah!
Carrie Prejean...the fired Barbie Beauty....The new Christian right wing cutie who can't keep her mouth shut.....
She's been turned into the 21st century version of Anita Bryant....At least Anita had a real career and real fame before she started trashing talking....
What Prejean needs to understand is that she's not the only one with first amendment rights...she does have a right to her opinion....
But so do the rest of us.....Honest....Don't believe me...go ask the people on the right who are giving you the bad advice...
-0-
Black Baby Sale Goes on...
Madonna's been handed her latest Mommy publicity prop....I don't begrudge the kids....But I do question girlfriend's motives...it looks shallow...artificial....not real....sincere or genuine....Then again...who am I to judge....It is not my right to do so...
I wish little Mercy a good life and well being..
-0-
Sarah, Sarah, Sarah....
Darlin......you were used....you served a purpose....you been kicked to the curb....you're supposed to go away....
Not pick fights with celebrities who make their living making fun of people...
The more you squawk...the less presidential and governor-like you look...It will not....I repeat...will not translate into votes come 2012...
Give it up already..
-0-
Lawmakers bought and paid for by the Tobacco Industry....
Mitch McConnell....got nearly a half million dollars....nearly double the next name on the list...
Good old Mitch was just taking care of his corporate constituents, giving them the best law money can buy....
Have to admit, that I have a problem with legislation intended to change certain behaviors like smoking...
I think it's an ugly habit...but if you want to do it...then do it...
Kind of like telling me I shouldn't drink wine or beer....my poison....my choice...
Of course the difference is that drinking wine only kills me, maybe..while smoking cigarettes can kill others with second hand smoke...
Still....There is that thing called freedom of choice...isn't there....
Prohibition didn't work....the bogus war on drugs is a big failure and should be ended.....Prostitution bans only penalize the women....
This thing with tobacco....consenting adults should decide...if they're willing to pay the cost as well as the price..then..let em..
-0-
Officials bought and paid for by Saudi Arabia...
Some guy, who no one's ever heard of but who was a deputy director of the Agency that sells advanced weapons systems to foreign governments..
Seems one of the many Saudi princes picked up the travel tab of this guy..named...Richard Millies and his wife to vacation in Riyadh to attend a festival..the eight day trip cost $24,000.
The Saudis spent $4.4 billion to buy weapons including smart bombs...
And they paid the tabs of many other Pentagon officials desiring to spend time in the Middle East....a total of 22,000 trips by Pentagon officials and their families, costing the Saudi princes $26 million dollars...
Spending that kind of money....No wonder Bush chose to dump on Iraq rather than go after the country that spawned the 9/11 hijackers..
You can read more about it here...
-0-
In Fear of a Black Planet...
Not content to blame the victim...the pseudo christian conservative right is blaming Obama for the guys with the guns attempting to turn back time or die trying....
I don't know what all the fear is about now...Earth has always been a mostly Black planet....
Power changed when Europeans couldn't take control of the oil....like they did with land, gold, diamonds, religion and other wealth generating commodities....
With Obama...the pigeons are coming home to roost, so to speak....Karma comeback....
-0-
ChastityBono
Good luck Chaz....as you transition...I can't imagine what it must be like to have lived for 40 years knowing you were born in the wrong body.....
God may not make mistakes...But Mother Nature certainly does...
And apparently did....
Take care of yourself first, the others will come around later.
-0-
Pride Weekend
It's Pride weekend ….Let's go Party....
Yeah!
6.11.2009
Old White Guy Sacrifice
The Wingnut KamiKazi Mission to Save/Bring Down America
Is this the way the Grand Ole Party is going to save itself from itself....Send the racist, homophobic, I hate everybody old dinosaurs of the right, on suicide missions ...to wipe out as many “enemies of America” as they can.....get killed in the process....and thereby purge the party of all the ugliness...so they can start over with newer, younger and more subtle ugliness..
Is this what they're doing...first Dr. George Tiller....Now Stephen Johns....Who's next...
Except these two shooters didn't die....they will survive to spew their hate from behind bars...to clueless reporters from the main stream media, only too happy to seek them out and then play it back to the rest of us..
Hope they lock em up in the chocolate wing of the prison where some muscle for brains knucklehead named Adebisi decides to make one of them his new wife...poetic justice..
“They made me do it”...
That's the excuse to kill innocents....or Black people, or Jews, or Hispanics, or some other alternative thinking-different looking person....
It's always “our” fault....the so called "victim" always does something to “provoke” these people....
“If I can't have(control)you.....no one will..”
The “it” was America's decision to put a Black man in the White House....a nationwide rejection of the status quo.....
It said to the old white guys and the young white guys in training.....”sorry....but Daddy really doesn't know best....”
And as any wife or girlfriend of an old white guy can tell you....they don't handle rejection at all...
They just start killing...or trying to kill...everyone they say they love and anyone nearby..
And all the while...the talking heads...the real hatemongers...the draft dodgers...the college dropouts...the pill-popping, red light district visiting hypocrite, sit back silently celebrating, taking no responsibility for their repeated calls to the old dinosaurs, egging them on to kill...
Well, you know what....The plan is not going to work....We've been there....done that...and we're still standing....
The battles of the 1960s were training sessions for what the conservative right is attempting to unleash today...And back then...the numbers against us were astronomical compared to now....
The most difficult thing about these kamikazi white guys today is it's hard to see them coming...
And I have a question about that too...
Both these last two shooters...as well as that Black simpleton muslim wannabe embarrassment, in Arkansas who killed the soldier... were on the FBI radar....for years....
Yet...they still got off enough rounds to kill people...
Is that the price of freedom in America?
In order for all of us to walk free...we have tolerate the crazies in our midst...even when we know the danger....just askin'
Old white guys and the GOP should know....We will not be moved...
Continue to Obfuscate.....spit your Hate....bring your guns....bring your dogs...bring your fire hoses...
It don't matter...
Never did.....
I've said it before...the only game we don't win...is the one we don't play....
This time....we playin' politics, baby.....from the White House..
And....we're packin'....
thank you second amendment and concealed carry...
So Get ready...cause it's on...
Is this the way the Grand Ole Party is going to save itself from itself....Send the racist, homophobic, I hate everybody old dinosaurs of the right, on suicide missions ...to wipe out as many “enemies of America” as they can.....get killed in the process....and thereby purge the party of all the ugliness...so they can start over with newer, younger and more subtle ugliness..
Is this what they're doing...first Dr. George Tiller....Now Stephen Johns....Who's next...
Except these two shooters didn't die....they will survive to spew their hate from behind bars...to clueless reporters from the main stream media, only too happy to seek them out and then play it back to the rest of us..
Hope they lock em up in the chocolate wing of the prison where some muscle for brains knucklehead named Adebisi decides to make one of them his new wife...poetic justice..
“They made me do it”...
That's the excuse to kill innocents....or Black people, or Jews, or Hispanics, or some other alternative thinking-different looking person....
It's always “our” fault....the so called "victim" always does something to “provoke” these people....
“If I can't have(control)you.....no one will..”
The “it” was America's decision to put a Black man in the White House....a nationwide rejection of the status quo.....
It said to the old white guys and the young white guys in training.....”sorry....but Daddy really doesn't know best....”
And as any wife or girlfriend of an old white guy can tell you....they don't handle rejection at all...
They just start killing...or trying to kill...everyone they say they love and anyone nearby..
And all the while...the talking heads...the real hatemongers...the draft dodgers...the college dropouts...the pill-popping, red light district visiting hypocrite, sit back silently celebrating, taking no responsibility for their repeated calls to the old dinosaurs, egging them on to kill...
Well, you know what....The plan is not going to work....We've been there....done that...and we're still standing....
The battles of the 1960s were training sessions for what the conservative right is attempting to unleash today...And back then...the numbers against us were astronomical compared to now....
The most difficult thing about these kamikazi white guys today is it's hard to see them coming...
And I have a question about that too...
Both these last two shooters...as well as that Black simpleton muslim wannabe embarrassment, in Arkansas who killed the soldier... were on the FBI radar....for years....
Yet...they still got off enough rounds to kill people...
Is that the price of freedom in America?
In order for all of us to walk free...we have tolerate the crazies in our midst...even when we know the danger....just askin'
Old white guys and the GOP should know....We will not be moved...
Continue to Obfuscate.....spit your Hate....bring your guns....bring your dogs...bring your fire hoses...
It don't matter...
Never did.....
I've said it before...the only game we don't win...is the one we don't play....
This time....we playin' politics, baby.....from the White House..
And....we're packin'....
thank you second amendment and concealed carry...
So Get ready...cause it's on...
6.06.2009
Last Man Standing-D Day, 2009
Black soldiers in World War II have been called the Ultimate Patriots of America...
They got this moniker because they fought and died for a country that refused to recognize their humanity before, during and after the great war. When they came home....
if they came home...
they were relegated to second class citizenship...the vestiges of which still exist today....
The last known member of the all Black 320th returns today to the beach at Normandy....You can read about it here...
I have already chronicled the story of the only Black women to be sent overseas during World War II....I have reposted that here as well...for anyone who likes history...
The story of the 6888th Central Postal Directory WAC Battalion
Buffalo Soldiers, Tuskegee Airmen, Black men, bigger than life historical figures. Their stories told over and over. Their exploits dramatized on television and in movies. Rightfully celebrated as warriors and men who helped to create this country we call America.
In recognition of their accomplishments, President Elect, Barack Obama, has invited the remaining members of the Tuskegee Airmen to attend his inauguration, in January.
That invitation should also be tendered to the members of the Women Army Corp, the Black WACs of World War II.
There is always a distaff side to history. The 6888th Central Postal Directory Women Army Corp Battalion, was the only unit of Black women to serve in the European theater during the great war.
As were all units, it was a segregated unit, created specifically to handle a monumental problem overseas.
You see, the mail, the packages, the letters and boxes of food, sent to the troops, piled up in a warehouse in Birmingham, England for the first few years of the war. The mail was not making it to the soldiers on the front lines.
The workers, both soldiers and civilians assigned to process the mail, were overwhelmed by the volume of their assigned task.
The 6888th CPD, was quickly formed. The unit was comprised of women from all over the country, who had signed up to serve.
My own great Aunt, Sargent Bessie L. Robinson, was one of them. If she hadn’t been a member, then I don’t think even I would have known of their existence, or their contributions to history.
I had the privilege of delivering the keynote speech at their first reunion, after the war, in June, 1979, in Cincinnati, Ohio. By this time, they were old, but still full of life, sparkling as they recalled the memories of their great adventures.
The women trained at Ft. Olgethorpe, in Georgia. Among other things, they had to complete five mile hikes in full battle gear, which included, pistols belts, gas masks, canteens, packs and helmets.
They made these hikes under, what the army calls, active war conditions, meaning, somebody was shooting at them, or blowing up stuff, while they did it. After training, the battalion boarded a special train to New York, and Camp Shanks.
From there, they took a ship to Europe, and on February 12th, 1945, they landed in Scotland and boarded a train for Birmingham, England. Battalion Command was entrusted to Major Charity Adams, who died in 2002.
The unit’s job was to clean up the backlog of mail. They accomplished it in record time, working two eight hours shifts, per day. They processed 65,000 pieces of mail per shift, in order to get the job done.
The 6888th CPD also served in Rouen, France as Allied troops liberated that country. They also pulled duty in Paris, France before returning home to the USA. Three members of the unit died while stationed in France.
While overseas, they learned about the death of FDR
They shook hands with America’s only Negro general at the time, Brigadier General, Benjamin O. Davis. He greeted them when they arrived in England.
When they returned to America, the 6888th was disbanded. The women dispersed. Some stayed in the service. Some retired and went home.
The war was over, the country was still segregated, and there was very little said or written about their tour of duty. The women who are still alive, are well into their 80's, now.
The unit totaled 824 women and 31 officers. My aunt, Sgt. Bessie, passed away several years ago. The small part of history that I have presented here was passed down orally.
A couple of books have been written, however, the official web sites, detailing the exploits of women in war, glance over, or fail to make any mention what so ever, of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion.
Take nothing away from the Tuskegee Airmen. They deserve their acolades. I'm just saying that someone should remember their sisters, too.
They got this moniker because they fought and died for a country that refused to recognize their humanity before, during and after the great war. When they came home....
if they came home...
they were relegated to second class citizenship...the vestiges of which still exist today....
The last known member of the all Black 320th returns today to the beach at Normandy....You can read about it here...
I have already chronicled the story of the only Black women to be sent overseas during World War II....I have reposted that here as well...for anyone who likes history...
The story of the 6888th Central Postal Directory WAC Battalion
Buffalo Soldiers, Tuskegee Airmen, Black men, bigger than life historical figures. Their stories told over and over. Their exploits dramatized on television and in movies. Rightfully celebrated as warriors and men who helped to create this country we call America.
In recognition of their accomplishments, President Elect, Barack Obama, has invited the remaining members of the Tuskegee Airmen to attend his inauguration, in January.
That invitation should also be tendered to the members of the Women Army Corp, the Black WACs of World War II.
There is always a distaff side to history. The 6888th Central Postal Directory Women Army Corp Battalion, was the only unit of Black women to serve in the European theater during the great war.
As were all units, it was a segregated unit, created specifically to handle a monumental problem overseas.
You see, the mail, the packages, the letters and boxes of food, sent to the troops, piled up in a warehouse in Birmingham, England for the first few years of the war. The mail was not making it to the soldiers on the front lines.
The workers, both soldiers and civilians assigned to process the mail, were overwhelmed by the volume of their assigned task.
The 6888th CPD, was quickly formed. The unit was comprised of women from all over the country, who had signed up to serve.
My own great Aunt, Sargent Bessie L. Robinson, was one of them. If she hadn’t been a member, then I don’t think even I would have known of their existence, or their contributions to history.
I had the privilege of delivering the keynote speech at their first reunion, after the war, in June, 1979, in Cincinnati, Ohio. By this time, they were old, but still full of life, sparkling as they recalled the memories of their great adventures.
The women trained at Ft. Olgethorpe, in Georgia. Among other things, they had to complete five mile hikes in full battle gear, which included, pistols belts, gas masks, canteens, packs and helmets.
They made these hikes under, what the army calls, active war conditions, meaning, somebody was shooting at them, or blowing up stuff, while they did it. After training, the battalion boarded a special train to New York, and Camp Shanks.
From there, they took a ship to Europe, and on February 12th, 1945, they landed in Scotland and boarded a train for Birmingham, England. Battalion Command was entrusted to Major Charity Adams, who died in 2002.
The unit’s job was to clean up the backlog of mail. They accomplished it in record time, working two eight hours shifts, per day. They processed 65,000 pieces of mail per shift, in order to get the job done.
The 6888th CPD also served in Rouen, France as Allied troops liberated that country. They also pulled duty in Paris, France before returning home to the USA. Three members of the unit died while stationed in France.
While overseas, they learned about the death of FDR
They shook hands with America’s only Negro general at the time, Brigadier General, Benjamin O. Davis. He greeted them when they arrived in England.
When they returned to America, the 6888th was disbanded. The women dispersed. Some stayed in the service. Some retired and went home.
The war was over, the country was still segregated, and there was very little said or written about their tour of duty. The women who are still alive, are well into their 80's, now.
The unit totaled 824 women and 31 officers. My aunt, Sgt. Bessie, passed away several years ago. The small part of history that I have presented here was passed down orally.
A couple of books have been written, however, the official web sites, detailing the exploits of women in war, glance over, or fail to make any mention what so ever, of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion.
Take nothing away from the Tuskegee Airmen. They deserve their acolades. I'm just saying that someone should remember their sisters, too.
6.04.2009
6.02.2009
Gay Pride Month...Big Whup!
Pardon me for being a day late, since I’m writing this on June 2nd, but there were other things on my mind from this past weekend....
Yesterday President Obama signed the first ever national proclamation designating June as LGBT Pride Month. Check out the statement here.
I will be perfectly honest with you, I feel the same way about Gay Pride Month that I feel about Black History Month....
I’m Black since birth....58 years....I’m lesbian since well, probably from birth, but I had the epiphany at the age of five the first time I fell in lust for a girl, so I figure I’ve been officially gay for the past 53 years...
So since I’m this way all of my life....24/7...365...366 during leap years.....one month don’t cut it....simply ain’t enough...I prefer to celebrate my fabulousness everyday and will....
However...
Black history is American history....I will not celebrate until all...history is taught as a part of the regular curriculum, period...It should not be a separate but unequal section in the Library, as it still is...There is more to Black history than Martin Luther King and the Black Panthers or Malcolm X....
The same holds true for LGBT Pride/history....let’s start with the Black openly gay man who stood beside Martin Luther King, yet is never mentioned when talking about the Black Civil Rights struggle....I’m talking about Bayard Rustin. You can read more about him here.
Suffice to say never got his due respect...
Obama’s proclamation comes 40 years after Stonewall...
Check out Stonewall history here...
During those 40 years, too many of us have been beaten or been killed.... The Black Community and Black Church remains as homophobic as ever.....Hate crimes continue to happen....two this past week in my neck of the woods...one passed off as a street robbery..but it was covered on the news...the other passed off as bar fight...instead of a homophobic attack...it, too received coverage on the news...that’s a good thing.....that is progress....
However...
I’m trying to be patient with Obama...but his foot dragging is honestly getting on my nerves...
Instead of the platitudes and "let’s all respect each other crap" I would love to see a little fire and kick ass attitude.... like.....I don’t know...."I’m the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces....and it’s gonna be this way from now on.....No More Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell..."
Worked for Truman when he desegregated the troops....
Or maybe...."I’ve changed my mind....gay marriage is better than civil unions... and prop 8 is bad law."
Smart man that he is Obama knows that there are a thousand federal benefits difference for couples between civil unions, domestic partners and marriage....so let’s cut the crap.....marriage between consenting adults is the only real equality....
Even if he can’t automatically reverse these crappy policies....he can at least speak out about them...decisively...instead of this namby pamby BS of....."We’ve got to love one another and respect one another".....or silence.....
Especially since I don’t see any bipartisan respect coming back in anything Obama’s done....
Don’t matter what he does....the so called right wing conservatives are so pissed off about having a Black man in their White House that he will never be able to do right in their eyes....
So...
When somebody spits in my face....I throw a left hook....plain and simple....Obama needs to flex those well honed muscles of his....
I would...
Obama’s got the people behind him....He’s got the numbers on Capital Hill....What are they going to do.....impeach him?....
they can try.....
Okay...given the choice of having an LGBT proclamation from the most powerful leader on earth....I am happy he did it....
Thank you Mr. President....
But I wish you’d put the hammer down and get to work....on some of the things that you promised during your campaign...
Yesterday President Obama signed the first ever national proclamation designating June as LGBT Pride Month. Check out the statement here.
I will be perfectly honest with you, I feel the same way about Gay Pride Month that I feel about Black History Month....
I’m Black since birth....58 years....I’m lesbian since well, probably from birth, but I had the epiphany at the age of five the first time I fell in lust for a girl, so I figure I’ve been officially gay for the past 53 years...
So since I’m this way all of my life....24/7...365...366 during leap years.....one month don’t cut it....simply ain’t enough...I prefer to celebrate my fabulousness everyday and will....
However...
Black history is American history....I will not celebrate until all...history is taught as a part of the regular curriculum, period...It should not be a separate but unequal section in the Library, as it still is...There is more to Black history than Martin Luther King and the Black Panthers or Malcolm X....
The same holds true for LGBT Pride/history....let’s start with the Black openly gay man who stood beside Martin Luther King, yet is never mentioned when talking about the Black Civil Rights struggle....I’m talking about Bayard Rustin. You can read more about him here.
Suffice to say never got his due respect...
Obama’s proclamation comes 40 years after Stonewall...
Check out Stonewall history here...
During those 40 years, too many of us have been beaten or been killed.... The Black Community and Black Church remains as homophobic as ever.....Hate crimes continue to happen....two this past week in my neck of the woods...one passed off as a street robbery..but it was covered on the news...the other passed off as bar fight...instead of a homophobic attack...it, too received coverage on the news...that’s a good thing.....that is progress....
However...
I’m trying to be patient with Obama...but his foot dragging is honestly getting on my nerves...
Instead of the platitudes and "let’s all respect each other crap" I would love to see a little fire and kick ass attitude.... like.....I don’t know...."I’m the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces....and it’s gonna be this way from now on.....No More Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell..."
Worked for Truman when he desegregated the troops....
Or maybe...."I’ve changed my mind....gay marriage is better than civil unions... and prop 8 is bad law."
Smart man that he is Obama knows that there are a thousand federal benefits difference for couples between civil unions, domestic partners and marriage....so let’s cut the crap.....marriage between consenting adults is the only real equality....
Even if he can’t automatically reverse these crappy policies....he can at least speak out about them...decisively...instead of this namby pamby BS of....."We’ve got to love one another and respect one another".....or silence.....
Especially since I don’t see any bipartisan respect coming back in anything Obama’s done....
Don’t matter what he does....the so called right wing conservatives are so pissed off about having a Black man in their White House that he will never be able to do right in their eyes....
So...
When somebody spits in my face....I throw a left hook....plain and simple....Obama needs to flex those well honed muscles of his....
I would...
Obama’s got the people behind him....He’s got the numbers on Capital Hill....What are they going to do.....impeach him?....
they can try.....
Okay...given the choice of having an LGBT proclamation from the most powerful leader on earth....I am happy he did it....
Thank you Mr. President....
But I wish you’d put the hammer down and get to work....on some of the things that you promised during your campaign...
6.01.2009
A Use For the Patriot Act
Make no mistake about it, I consider the USA Patriot Act, pushed through Congress by Bush&Co, into law just 34 days after 9/11, to be very bad law.
It should not be on the books, if America is to remain the Republic and bastion of personal freedoms that we delude ourselves into thinking that it is.
However, since it is on the books and the Obama Administration is so far comfortable in leaving it there intact, then I think it should be put to use post haste.
The Patriot Act can legally be used to go after domestic terrorists such as the guy who killed Dr. George Tiller, yesterday while he was at church.
Those of us old enough to remember, recall the days when the so called pro life movement regularly used this kind of activity to scare doctors and medical providers away from rendering legal medical help to women, and also to scare women into hiding, fearful of the crazed masses of pro-birth fanatics camped outside clinics.
Yesterday’s killing was merely the first salvo.
The killings always follow after movement leaders or talking heads take to the airwaves stirring up the base to take action to save the babies..no matter who else dies in the process.
Title VIII of the Patriot Act redefines the term "domestic terrorism" to include assassination or kidnaping as terrorist activity in addition to mass murder and destruction. The murder of Dr. Tiller was assassination, plain and simple.
The definition also takes in activities that are "dangerous to human life, that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or any State.....that are intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population.... or influence the policy of a government..
The Patriot Act also defines the steps that can be taken to penalize those who support the terrorist. It is a crime to harbor or to conceal a terrorist or to help them in any way.
The government can legally seize any property or bank accounts of any group or individual who gives so much as information or vocal support to terrorists. Supporters can be jailed for up to 10 years in federal prison.
Remember how pro birth radical Eric Rudolph was found practically hiding in plain sight for several years. Many people in the area helped him elude authorities. Rudolph bombed the Atlanta Summer Olympics killing five people...he confessed to bombing women's clinics, and gay clubs.
He had help doing what he did...those helpers have not even been arrested, or prosecuted.
And, inciting to riot or to do violence is not protected speech under the First Amendment to the Constitution either. The Federal Communications Commission would be within its rights to levy some heavy fines, rather than twiddling their thumbs or worrying over the ramiifications of Janet Jackson’s nipples at the Superbowl.
Ya hearin’ me.....Bill....Rush...Randall Terry...Dick....Tancredo...Newt?
Although these clowns will never take responsibility for the effect of their words. Nor will anyone in the mainstream media be bold enough to step back from the controversy and not give these men the platform they crave. After all they do serve the same master....broadcasters and newscasters all owned by the same corporations chasing the same big bucks to fuel the bottom-line.
Nobody bites the hand of the man who signs their paychecks..
These days..the guys in government...the guys on the radio and at the news desks and own the corporations...are all the same...
It should not be on the books, if America is to remain the Republic and bastion of personal freedoms that we delude ourselves into thinking that it is.
However, since it is on the books and the Obama Administration is so far comfortable in leaving it there intact, then I think it should be put to use post haste.
The Patriot Act can legally be used to go after domestic terrorists such as the guy who killed Dr. George Tiller, yesterday while he was at church.
Those of us old enough to remember, recall the days when the so called pro life movement regularly used this kind of activity to scare doctors and medical providers away from rendering legal medical help to women, and also to scare women into hiding, fearful of the crazed masses of pro-birth fanatics camped outside clinics.
Yesterday’s killing was merely the first salvo.
The killings always follow after movement leaders or talking heads take to the airwaves stirring up the base to take action to save the babies..no matter who else dies in the process.
Title VIII of the Patriot Act redefines the term "domestic terrorism" to include assassination or kidnaping as terrorist activity in addition to mass murder and destruction. The murder of Dr. Tiller was assassination, plain and simple.
The definition also takes in activities that are "dangerous to human life, that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or any State.....that are intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population.... or influence the policy of a government..
The Patriot Act also defines the steps that can be taken to penalize those who support the terrorist. It is a crime to harbor or to conceal a terrorist or to help them in any way.
The government can legally seize any property or bank accounts of any group or individual who gives so much as information or vocal support to terrorists. Supporters can be jailed for up to 10 years in federal prison.
Remember how pro birth radical Eric Rudolph was found practically hiding in plain sight for several years. Many people in the area helped him elude authorities. Rudolph bombed the Atlanta Summer Olympics killing five people...he confessed to bombing women's clinics, and gay clubs.
He had help doing what he did...those helpers have not even been arrested, or prosecuted.
And, inciting to riot or to do violence is not protected speech under the First Amendment to the Constitution either. The Federal Communications Commission would be within its rights to levy some heavy fines, rather than twiddling their thumbs or worrying over the ramiifications of Janet Jackson’s nipples at the Superbowl.
Ya hearin’ me.....Bill....Rush...Randall Terry...Dick....Tancredo...Newt?
Although these clowns will never take responsibility for the effect of their words. Nor will anyone in the mainstream media be bold enough to step back from the controversy and not give these men the platform they crave. After all they do serve the same master....broadcasters and newscasters all owned by the same corporations chasing the same big bucks to fuel the bottom-line.
Nobody bites the hand of the man who signs their paychecks..
These days..the guys in government...the guys on the radio and at the news desks and own the corporations...are all the same...
5.31.2009
Real Domestic Terrorism
The killing of Dr. George Tiller
Let’s call it what it is......Domestic Terrorism......
This was not a group of people duped by phony FBI informants into playing terrorists for the benefit of the cameras, and microphones of the main stream media...
This is the real deal in America.....
A man with a gun and a perverted determination to use it...in order to enforce his messed up view of the world....
Most assuredly calls himself....pro life.....Bet he’s also....pro death penalty...pro war... and pro torture.....anti women...anti birth control....anti immigration...
But I’ll bet my next paycheck he thinks of himself as a patriot...and
Probably labels himself Christian....despite never having cracked open King James..let alone read it...
Dr. George Tiller died today doing his job and helping women...He was a good man and the very definition of Christian.....
May he rest in peace...
Let’s call it what it is......Domestic Terrorism......
This was not a group of people duped by phony FBI informants into playing terrorists for the benefit of the cameras, and microphones of the main stream media...
This is the real deal in America.....
A man with a gun and a perverted determination to use it...in order to enforce his messed up view of the world....
Most assuredly calls himself....pro life.....Bet he’s also....pro death penalty...pro war... and pro torture.....anti women...anti birth control....anti immigration...
But I’ll bet my next paycheck he thinks of himself as a patriot...and
Probably labels himself Christian....despite never having cracked open King James..let alone read it...
Dr. George Tiller died today doing his job and helping women...He was a good man and the very definition of Christian.....
May he rest in peace...
5.29.2009
Friday Rap
So If I understand the GOP conservatives ranting about Obama’s choice for the Supreme Court...
All of the White Men Chosen by the other white men who occupied the White House...were selected for the High Court solely based on their qualifications and no other reason...
Yet...
The Women on the Court....The Blacks on the Court and the nominees chosen by the Black man in the White House are selected only because of their color and gender....not because of their qualifications or measurably high intelligence for doing the job...
So this must mean.....
That only White men are qualified?! Intelligent enough?! Temperamentally suited to be nominated for high court or other high office in America....
In whose world?
The self proclaimed masters of the universe have collectively lost their fuckin’ minds..
All pretense has been kicked to the curb...
they are revealed for what they are and what every minority in this country has known our entire life.....the GOP is made up of bigoted, racist men who hate everybody who isn’t white and doesn’t have a natural dick...
whether it functions naturally or not....
Women...white, black or otherwise are for having babies...
whites for making more masters..........
Black women and otherwise women...for making babies for fun that they don’t have to support or acknowledge....unless they get caught after the fact...
then they say "yeah" I’m her daddy...all that segregationist talk was just talk...I didn’t really mean it....Does this mean I can still go to heaven when I die?"
Boys...young and nubile are for sex and discard, when the sex is over....again acknowledged after they get caught...."but I’m not gay....I’m just confused..."
Their offspring...allowed to flaunt their homosexuality covered by the privilege of wealth and Daddy’s power...While Daddy relegates the rest of us to second class citizenship...
or
Following in Daddy’s footsteps of multiple Military deferments while others go to war...
Our offspring....targeted to fight and die in illegal wars.....4500 troops....and who knows how many suicides did not have to die.....totally unnecessary deaths of kids who could have been doing other things like...living and raising their own kids....
I could go farther...but I’m pissed...too pissed to pursue this dangerous line of thought..so I will move on...
-0-
What can I say about a young black cop, cut down in the prime of life by another cop..a white man...who rather than ask a simple questions...opened fire...
It’s in the Daily News today.....The rookie cop was off duty...saw a carjacking....chased the suspect with his service revolver in hand in Harlem....
Three undercover cops saw the one man chasing another.... The three Id’ed themselves as the rookie turned toward them...one cop opened fire...got off six rounds...killed the rookie cop before he was able to ID himself.......
Isn’t it funny how this story did not make national news on the morning shows today?
-0-
Or that blonde bitch who went to Disneyland after stealing a million dollars from her employer...tried to cover by claiming to be jacked by two black men in a cadillac....
Still think we live in a post racial world.............Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!
All of the White Men Chosen by the other white men who occupied the White House...were selected for the High Court solely based on their qualifications and no other reason...
Yet...
The Women on the Court....The Blacks on the Court and the nominees chosen by the Black man in the White House are selected only because of their color and gender....not because of their qualifications or measurably high intelligence for doing the job...
So this must mean.....
That only White men are qualified?! Intelligent enough?! Temperamentally suited to be nominated for high court or other high office in America....
In whose world?
The self proclaimed masters of the universe have collectively lost their fuckin’ minds..
All pretense has been kicked to the curb...
they are revealed for what they are and what every minority in this country has known our entire life.....the GOP is made up of bigoted, racist men who hate everybody who isn’t white and doesn’t have a natural dick...
whether it functions naturally or not....
Women...white, black or otherwise are for having babies...
whites for making more masters..........
Black women and otherwise women...for making babies for fun that they don’t have to support or acknowledge....unless they get caught after the fact...
then they say "yeah" I’m her daddy...all that segregationist talk was just talk...I didn’t really mean it....Does this mean I can still go to heaven when I die?"
Boys...young and nubile are for sex and discard, when the sex is over....again acknowledged after they get caught...."but I’m not gay....I’m just confused..."
Their offspring...allowed to flaunt their homosexuality covered by the privilege of wealth and Daddy’s power...While Daddy relegates the rest of us to second class citizenship...
or
Following in Daddy’s footsteps of multiple Military deferments while others go to war...
Our offspring....targeted to fight and die in illegal wars.....4500 troops....and who knows how many suicides did not have to die.....totally unnecessary deaths of kids who could have been doing other things like...living and raising their own kids....
I could go farther...but I’m pissed...too pissed to pursue this dangerous line of thought..so I will move on...
-0-
What can I say about a young black cop, cut down in the prime of life by another cop..a white man...who rather than ask a simple questions...opened fire...
It’s in the Daily News today.....The rookie cop was off duty...saw a carjacking....chased the suspect with his service revolver in hand in Harlem....
Three undercover cops saw the one man chasing another.... The three Id’ed themselves as the rookie turned toward them...one cop opened fire...got off six rounds...killed the rookie cop before he was able to ID himself.......
Isn’t it funny how this story did not make national news on the morning shows today?
-0-
Or that blonde bitch who went to Disneyland after stealing a million dollars from her employer...tried to cover by claiming to be jacked by two black men in a cadillac....
Still think we live in a post racial world.............Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!
5.27.2009
Another Crack in the Ole White Guy System
The Karmic corrections to the old white guy system of governance have come fast and furious this past week....
President Obama elevated a Black man, Charles F. Bolden Jr, to head NASA....He’s piloted the shuttle several times in the past....
Then a Black woman, Ursula Burns was tapped to run Fortune 500 company, Xerox....
Then Obama comes back again and nominates Judge Sonia Sotomayor to replace Justice David Souter on the United States Supreme Court..
She is Latina and the first to get the nomination....
This morning I listened as James Carville "debated" Ann Coulter about the nomination. It was little more than a snipe fest between two people who make their living playing a vanilla version of the dozens on television before a semi comatose audience.
During this pseudo-debate Coulter wondered aloud what the big deal was about Sotomayor being a Latina given the fact that the GOP already had appointed Latinos and Blacks to high office....
She failed to mention Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales by name....However she did mention Justice Clarence Thomas....
Failing to mention Gonzales points to the fact that even Republicans are embarrassed by this guy....
Otherwise Coulter would have jumped at the chance to bring him into the conversation...
And as for Thomas.....Bush’s third choice after the first two failed to pass confirmation....the man who stands firmly in the shadow of Justice Thurgood Marshall and has yet to offer so much as a thought without Justice Scalia’s approval......
Coulter should not have bothered to go there either since Thomas has lived his entire life hating the fact that he was born Black and demonstrates his self hate on every one of those very rare occasions where he opens his mouth to speak........
Thomas is not a source of pride for Blacks because he doesn’t see himself as Black...and neither do we....
I hope that Sotomayor gets a swift Congressional approval, she’s earned it.
-0-
Prop 8 Stands
As much as I hate to admit it.....The California Court got it right....
They were never asked to decide about Gay marriage or a ban on such.....They were asked to make a very narrow decision involving legal semantics...
In other words....was the ban a revision or an amendment and who has the right...the people or the legislature...
That was the question....
The answer/decision was the people have the right to vote...
It never adjudicated the legality of gay marriage....That’s why the California Justices tried to have it both ways...upholding the ban....but allowing the 18,000 gay marriages to stand...
Like it or not...the Change is going to have to come from Washington...Until there is a federal move...the mismash of nonsensical state laws will prevail...
A two tiered system of civil rights laws cannot stand....it is simply unconstitutional....
It’s just a matter of time...
President Obama elevated a Black man, Charles F. Bolden Jr, to head NASA....He’s piloted the shuttle several times in the past....
Then a Black woman, Ursula Burns was tapped to run Fortune 500 company, Xerox....
Then Obama comes back again and nominates Judge Sonia Sotomayor to replace Justice David Souter on the United States Supreme Court..
She is Latina and the first to get the nomination....
This morning I listened as James Carville "debated" Ann Coulter about the nomination. It was little more than a snipe fest between two people who make their living playing a vanilla version of the dozens on television before a semi comatose audience.
During this pseudo-debate Coulter wondered aloud what the big deal was about Sotomayor being a Latina given the fact that the GOP already had appointed Latinos and Blacks to high office....
She failed to mention Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales by name....However she did mention Justice Clarence Thomas....
Failing to mention Gonzales points to the fact that even Republicans are embarrassed by this guy....
Otherwise Coulter would have jumped at the chance to bring him into the conversation...
And as for Thomas.....Bush’s third choice after the first two failed to pass confirmation....the man who stands firmly in the shadow of Justice Thurgood Marshall and has yet to offer so much as a thought without Justice Scalia’s approval......
Coulter should not have bothered to go there either since Thomas has lived his entire life hating the fact that he was born Black and demonstrates his self hate on every one of those very rare occasions where he opens his mouth to speak........
Thomas is not a source of pride for Blacks because he doesn’t see himself as Black...and neither do we....
I hope that Sotomayor gets a swift Congressional approval, she’s earned it.
-0-
Prop 8 Stands
As much as I hate to admit it.....The California Court got it right....
They were never asked to decide about Gay marriage or a ban on such.....They were asked to make a very narrow decision involving legal semantics...
In other words....was the ban a revision or an amendment and who has the right...the people or the legislature...
That was the question....
The answer/decision was the people have the right to vote...
It never adjudicated the legality of gay marriage....That’s why the California Justices tried to have it both ways...upholding the ban....but allowing the 18,000 gay marriages to stand...
Like it or not...the Change is going to have to come from Washington...Until there is a federal move...the mismash of nonsensical state laws will prevail...
A two tiered system of civil rights laws cannot stand....it is simply unconstitutional....
It’s just a matter of time...
5.23.2009
Bulls*** , Audacity and Mendacity...The Week that Was..
1. Watching Whoopie Goldberg on The View, call Glen Beck a "lying sack of dog mess..."
2. Watching Jesse Ventura, again on The View take on Elizabeth and demonstrate how intellectually stunted, she is....(see, I can use euphemisms too)
3. And speaking of euphemisms.....the big Dick Cheney accusing Obama of using euphemisms while delivering a speech that refers to torture as "enhanced interrogation technique" rather than torture....a name by any other name is still bullshit......Mr. Former VP.....
4. The GOP, having discovered women ( as something other than a sex object alternative to little boys) in the past election with the elevation of Sarah Palin are now looking at any woman who can string two sentences together to lead their party, since the old white guys are having such a hard time....
This time out....Liz Cheney....the other daughter of Dick....not the gay one...the one with five kids who is writing Dick’s book....
Some in the GOP are saying she should run for office....shows they still don’t get it.....it is not the messenger that’s wrong.....It’s the message.....
I will say it again....Bullshit wrapped in 10,000 dollar bills is still bullshit....
And by the way........where is Mary Cheney....the gay one with the baby and the female wife...still hiding out in Virginia which doesn't reconize same sex partners?
Baby must be walking by now..bet Grand pa Dick is soooooooooooooo proud.....
5. I hope this was a joke.....Palin/Bachmann in 2012?......Better joke....Steele/Bachmann in 2012
6. White Flight Texas Gov Rick Perry warning the GOP that it’s not safe to let just anybody into the Party..that would be like throwing your principles out the door and becoming a whorehouse....
7. Donald Rumsfeld....using the Bible to justify the illegal war on Iraq....
8. Another euphemism....calling those idiots in New York who tried to bomb the Synagogues, Muslim or Islamic terrorists....
They may be terrorists....but they’re Domestic American grown terrorists who converted to Islam...Calling them Islamic terrorists implies they are of middle eastern descent which perpetuates the stereotype and is an insult to Arab Americans...
Question...........How is it that the FBI and the rest of the alphabet soup of law enforcement can only infiltrate domestic terrorist groups who can’t tell a real C-4 bomb from a fake one?
What about the really dangerous guys like Tim McVeigh...there’s a bunch of em out there in them there hills and they are armed to the teeth.....
Besides....they don’t use C-4....they prefer to make their own bombs with stuff you find in the kitchen from recipes easily available on the internet...
9. Typical MSM ploy.....get gay Clay Aiken to comment on maybe gay Adam Lambert.....
10. The male Texas Mayor who resigned this week to be with his lover a guy who can’t qualify for papers to come to America......sweet.....
11. Democrats in Congress....clueless and in most cases....ball-less....
2. Watching Jesse Ventura, again on The View take on Elizabeth and demonstrate how intellectually stunted, she is....(see, I can use euphemisms too)
3. And speaking of euphemisms.....the big Dick Cheney accusing Obama of using euphemisms while delivering a speech that refers to torture as "enhanced interrogation technique" rather than torture....a name by any other name is still bullshit......Mr. Former VP.....
4. The GOP, having discovered women ( as something other than a sex object alternative to little boys) in the past election with the elevation of Sarah Palin are now looking at any woman who can string two sentences together to lead their party, since the old white guys are having such a hard time....
This time out....Liz Cheney....the other daughter of Dick....not the gay one...the one with five kids who is writing Dick’s book....
Some in the GOP are saying she should run for office....shows they still don’t get it.....it is not the messenger that’s wrong.....It’s the message.....
I will say it again....Bullshit wrapped in 10,000 dollar bills is still bullshit....
And by the way........where is Mary Cheney....the gay one with the baby and the female wife...still hiding out in Virginia which doesn't reconize same sex partners?
Baby must be walking by now..bet Grand pa Dick is soooooooooooooo proud.....
5. I hope this was a joke.....Palin/Bachmann in 2012?......Better joke....Steele/Bachmann in 2012
6. White Flight Texas Gov Rick Perry warning the GOP that it’s not safe to let just anybody into the Party..that would be like throwing your principles out the door and becoming a whorehouse....
7. Donald Rumsfeld....using the Bible to justify the illegal war on Iraq....
8. Another euphemism....calling those idiots in New York who tried to bomb the Synagogues, Muslim or Islamic terrorists....
They may be terrorists....but they’re Domestic American grown terrorists who converted to Islam...Calling them Islamic terrorists implies they are of middle eastern descent which perpetuates the stereotype and is an insult to Arab Americans...
Question...........How is it that the FBI and the rest of the alphabet soup of law enforcement can only infiltrate domestic terrorist groups who can’t tell a real C-4 bomb from a fake one?
What about the really dangerous guys like Tim McVeigh...there’s a bunch of em out there in them there hills and they are armed to the teeth.....
Besides....they don’t use C-4....they prefer to make their own bombs with stuff you find in the kitchen from recipes easily available on the internet...
9. Typical MSM ploy.....get gay Clay Aiken to comment on maybe gay Adam Lambert.....
10. The male Texas Mayor who resigned this week to be with his lover a guy who can’t qualify for papers to come to America......sweet.....
11. Democrats in Congress....clueless and in most cases....ball-less....
5.20.2009
A Tribal Conversation
There seems to be some confusion over the NAACP position on the civil rights goals and aspirations of gay and lesbian Americans, especially here in Cincinnati. Current National Board Chairman, Julian Bond was very clear and did not equivocate during his speech in March before the Los Angeles Branch of the Human Rights Campaign...
Julian Bond speaking before the Human Rights Campaign.
With the National organization setting the tone, why is the local chapter bogged down in simple mindedness?
Or is the local chapter, like the GOP-useless.
The time has come to talk with the Black LGBT community. Acknowledge us, make us welcome and understand that as long as one is chained...we're all chained.
We're waiting for you Mr President Obama...we're waiting for you....
Julian Bond speaking before the Human Rights Campaign.
With the National organization setting the tone, why is the local chapter bogged down in simple mindedness?
Or is the local chapter, like the GOP-useless.
The time has come to talk with the Black LGBT community. Acknowledge us, make us welcome and understand that as long as one is chained...we're all chained.
We're waiting for you Mr President Obama...we're waiting for you....
5.18.2009
It Ain’t Broke-So Don’t Fix It
By Any Name, It’s Still a Move To Privatize the Water Supply
Cincinnati City Manager today reportedly gave his conditional support to spinning off the Cincinnati Water Works into a separate entity. He claims it will work better for citizens if a regional board takes over governance of the facility. Milton Dohoney says the plan is not a move toward privatizing the water.
But I’m not so sure about that.
Let’s go there shall we.....
The same crappy governance that has this country trying to weather the current economic tailspin is responsible for this move to spin off the Water works to control of a regional board and or private corporation.
Both former presidents Clinton and Bush worked to ease federal regulations on water to allow states more autonomy and independence. In 1996 the EPA issued a report identifying the need for improvements to US water infrastructure.
To make that happen, Congress passed bipartisan legislation in 2001 to fund the water infrastructure renovations.
However, in order for the states to get the mandated federal money, they had to look at alternate management options, like regional boards, and private corporations before they could qualify for the federal money.
Further, the IRS extended privatization contract limits as well as libralized federal tax law to encourage privatization or regionalization.
When the IRS backed off...Foreign Corporations jumped in to buy the waters rights of America as they’ve done worldwide, since about 1988.
American Water Works...a corporation working in Ohio and Kentucky, right now, is owned by Suez Corporation a French Multinational entity..
I’m not saying foreign ownership is bad...but it is about making money off the backs of customers...the name of the game is profit.....
Since 2001 water industry lobbyists have been pushing for more and more tax breaks to complete the private takeover of the water supply...
You will recall that deregulation of the financial industry, the airline industry and housing market, etc is at the root of the current crisis that America finds itself mired in as we speak....
Other nearby cities are paying big bucks to keep control of their water rights...sort of..
Indianapolis....In 2001 the city purchased the Indianapolis Water Company for 522 million dollars. In April 2002, the city then sold out to Vivendi, a foreign multinational corporation for a 20 year 1.5 billion dollar deal. It was a management contract to operate and maintain treatment plants. As part of the transaction, the company agreed to freeze rates for five years and promised not to lay off employees for two....
July 2003, Lexington, Kentucky voted to acquire the local water facility Kentucky-American Water Works Company. . As I said before American Water Works is also a foreign owned corporation masquerading as an American company.
It’s called a condemnation proceeding and is a legal process that would compel Kentucky American to sell itself to the city with the price to be determined by the courts. Lexington is the largest city in recent years to take this step against a local utility.
The city of Atlanta took on a contract for its water....it was a 20 year multimillion dollar deal that was supposed to generate lots and lots of money for the city. All it generated was higher rates and bad customer service and fraudulent billing both to citizens and the city itself. As a result Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin canceled the contract after three years...
Now Atlanta finds it self of having to go back to the old way of doing things, when they should have left well enough alone...
The same "what-if" is in play here in Cincinnati....
Officials have said it is not a broken system....therefore why fix it....
Changing to a regional authority....will raise rates...will cost jobs.... service and repair will suffer .....and it will spread out the responsibility so that no one is ultimately responsible...
The bottom line is that customers get screwed, again...
And I have to ask.....If the city can’t afford to run the water works in the first place...can it afford the extra cost of buying it back....if the regional board doesn’t pan out as advertised
Are we willing to take that chance....
Worldwide.....Water has been referred to as the new oil...It’s where the money is....or where the corporations are betting the money is....
That’s why Coca Cola, Pepsico, and Nestle to name three sell tap water in a bottle. They are making bank because people believe that it’s better if its encased in a plastic bottle. That is not the case...
Coke admits that its product is purified tap water...And unless it names the source of the water on the bottle...chances are that whatever is in your plastic bottle is tap water, too....
You’re better off grabbing a glass and turning on the tap, it is better regulated.
I spent time actually looking for a success story anywhere for a city that has begun to slide down this slippery slope.....
I have not been able to find one....anywhere....in the world....
Water and food should not be used by business to make a profit....ever....
Cincinnati City Council....needs to look harder at the situation...
Cincinnati City Manager today reportedly gave his conditional support to spinning off the Cincinnati Water Works into a separate entity. He claims it will work better for citizens if a regional board takes over governance of the facility. Milton Dohoney says the plan is not a move toward privatizing the water.
But I’m not so sure about that.
Let’s go there shall we.....
The same crappy governance that has this country trying to weather the current economic tailspin is responsible for this move to spin off the Water works to control of a regional board and or private corporation.
Both former presidents Clinton and Bush worked to ease federal regulations on water to allow states more autonomy and independence. In 1996 the EPA issued a report identifying the need for improvements to US water infrastructure.
To make that happen, Congress passed bipartisan legislation in 2001 to fund the water infrastructure renovations.
However, in order for the states to get the mandated federal money, they had to look at alternate management options, like regional boards, and private corporations before they could qualify for the federal money.
Further, the IRS extended privatization contract limits as well as libralized federal tax law to encourage privatization or regionalization.
When the IRS backed off...Foreign Corporations jumped in to buy the waters rights of America as they’ve done worldwide, since about 1988.
American Water Works...a corporation working in Ohio and Kentucky, right now, is owned by Suez Corporation a French Multinational entity..
I’m not saying foreign ownership is bad...but it is about making money off the backs of customers...the name of the game is profit.....
Since 2001 water industry lobbyists have been pushing for more and more tax breaks to complete the private takeover of the water supply...
You will recall that deregulation of the financial industry, the airline industry and housing market, etc is at the root of the current crisis that America finds itself mired in as we speak....
Other nearby cities are paying big bucks to keep control of their water rights...sort of..
Indianapolis....In 2001 the city purchased the Indianapolis Water Company for 522 million dollars. In April 2002, the city then sold out to Vivendi, a foreign multinational corporation for a 20 year 1.5 billion dollar deal. It was a management contract to operate and maintain treatment plants. As part of the transaction, the company agreed to freeze rates for five years and promised not to lay off employees for two....
July 2003, Lexington, Kentucky voted to acquire the local water facility Kentucky-American Water Works Company. . As I said before American Water Works is also a foreign owned corporation masquerading as an American company.
It’s called a condemnation proceeding and is a legal process that would compel Kentucky American to sell itself to the city with the price to be determined by the courts. Lexington is the largest city in recent years to take this step against a local utility.
The city of Atlanta took on a contract for its water....it was a 20 year multimillion dollar deal that was supposed to generate lots and lots of money for the city. All it generated was higher rates and bad customer service and fraudulent billing both to citizens and the city itself. As a result Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin canceled the contract after three years...
Now Atlanta finds it self of having to go back to the old way of doing things, when they should have left well enough alone...
The same "what-if" is in play here in Cincinnati....
Officials have said it is not a broken system....therefore why fix it....
Changing to a regional authority....will raise rates...will cost jobs.... service and repair will suffer .....and it will spread out the responsibility so that no one is ultimately responsible...
The bottom line is that customers get screwed, again...
And I have to ask.....If the city can’t afford to run the water works in the first place...can it afford the extra cost of buying it back....if the regional board doesn’t pan out as advertised
Are we willing to take that chance....
Worldwide.....Water has been referred to as the new oil...It’s where the money is....or where the corporations are betting the money is....
That’s why Coca Cola, Pepsico, and Nestle to name three sell tap water in a bottle. They are making bank because people believe that it’s better if its encased in a plastic bottle. That is not the case...
Coke admits that its product is purified tap water...And unless it names the source of the water on the bottle...chances are that whatever is in your plastic bottle is tap water, too....
You’re better off grabbing a glass and turning on the tap, it is better regulated.
I spent time actually looking for a success story anywhere for a city that has begun to slide down this slippery slope.....
I have not been able to find one....anywhere....in the world....
Water and food should not be used by business to make a profit....ever....
Cincinnati City Council....needs to look harder at the situation...
5.13.2009
On the Subject of Marriage Equality
It would seem that there are many more definitions of marriage than the ones I alluded to last week....I wrote that the Bible talks about no less than eight types of marriage...
Today....broadening my research....I found some more definitions....
Check this out...
Thanks to Jack and Jill for pointing me toward this article...
Today....broadening my research....I found some more definitions....
Check this out...
Thanks to Jack and Jill for pointing me toward this article...
5.09.2009
No Justice....No Nookie!
The women of Kenya in Africa are staging a protest...and I love it!
They've told their men.....give me my rights or go play with yourself...literally....
Check it out.....here
They've told their men.....give me my rights or go play with yourself...literally....
Check it out.....here
5.08.2009
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?
-0-
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'
-0-
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...
-0-
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....
-0-
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...
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?
-0-
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'
-0-
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...
-0-
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....
-0-
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...
4.29.2009
Smitherman vs the LGBT Community
I want to say up front that I am a "johnny-come-lately to this topic, basically because I have problems with both the LGBT community and the Black Community for the very reasons being debated, racism and homophobia.
I also have a problem with Mr. Smitherman...When he talks, I turn off, because I have yet to find him credible on any topic. I am mystified by his election to head the NAACP. I am mystified that so many others apparently find him to be a man worth following.
I found Jill Benavides comments after the meeting at City Hall to be patronizing, and condescendingly PC with regard to Smitherman. It was as if she were talking about a child. In other words..."let him have his temper tantrum, we love him anyway."
Having said all that......Let’s go there...shall we...
Nowhere on either side of this clueless conversation has the Black LGBT community been talked about or included in the conversation. Smitherman talked about his one white gay male NAACP member, as if having one represents all. That is the same way the white LGBT community talks about Blacks...you know..."some of my best friends are....."
The conversation that took place at City Hall obscures the fact that Black gays and lesbians are totally invisible in Cincinnati. And it’s like that across the country. Much of it due to the queer hatred within the Black community, in addition to the racism in the LGBT community
As Black people..we spend most of our lives being beaten up because of the color of our skin. It’s been a very difficult road to electing our first Black president. We have been killed for simply wanting to be treated equally. Laws were passed to make that happen, yet it’s still a problem in 2009, and you have only to look at two recent incidents of men, white men, killing their families and police for fear of a Black man in the White House.
You’ve got white governors talking of secession...that has got to be the ultimate in white flight..think about it...the same thing happens when a black family moves into a previously all white neighborhood...still....that’s not past history...that’s last week....
Now compound skin color with being gay or lesbian and you go from being beaten down on a national level to somebody, maybe your own brother, sister, mother, father, neighborhood, kicking your ass because you’re a sissy or you’re a bulldagger. You get tired of being a target, you get tired of being called names....for Black gays and lesbians...being called a nigger is not much different than being called queer or fag or bulldagger.
Trust me, you’re not going to run out and join the very community organizations that want you dead...
The white LGBT community doesn’t feel it’s racist, but it is no different, really than liberal whites who like using that.."some of my best friends are....." phrase. Blacks are not taken seriously within the LGBT community, usually being dismissed with a patronizing pat on the top of our fuzzy little heads, with a "thank you for coming...but we know better, what’s good for you..."
The prop 8 vote in California exposed the LGBT racism, when it was erroneously reported that Blacks were the reason it passed....Blacks gays and lesbians who took to the streets to protest the vote, were attacked by white gays and lesbians.....called niggers among other things....The white LGBT community has yet to apologize for their assumptions during that time...
Being Black gay and lesbian means you’re caught up between the proverbial rock and a hard place.
Not feeling accepted by anyone can be a very lonely way to grow up and to live.
Smitherman and the NAACP need to realize that there have always been Black gays and lesbians active within his organization and the civil rights movement. What they need to do is to recognize that the NAACP and other Black organizations are also not inclusive organizations working for all Blacks.
There is no mention of the devastation of HIV/AIDS on the Black Community. In fact Smitherman as a straight man is probably more susceptible to getting the virus than any gay black man at this stage, not because he is gay or down-lo, but because Black straight women are the ones being infected at record breaking rates.
Black women are sleeping with down-lo men and taking the germ back to their straight boyfriends...
And why are men down-lo...because they stand to be judged not men, if they come out..being labeled soft is worse than being called a nigger in the Black community. Witness the death a couple of weeks ago of a 12 year old Black youth, who hanged himself, after being repeatedly called a fag at school.
Why was he called a fag, or labeled soft.....he liked school and his mother taught him to comport himself like a gentleman...he was not gay, by the way....just a clean cut little boy...dead...
It is killing our community...yet....I hear nothing from the NAACP about this massive problem. If the women die...who is going to bear your sons? Or will any white or J-Lo looking Latina woman do?
It is no proof of your so called inclusive tendencies if all you can talk about is one gay white boy as a member. Remember, he can always go back to his community in which by birth he is a master of the universe.
Black gays and lesbians must go home to the same hate that they suffer from in the streets.
The entire Smitherman statement left women out the conversation, altogether. That is typical of the misogyny that also permeates the Black Community.
So, to put an end to this ramble.....
NAACP....you need to talk to Black gays and lesbians first.....you need to address the number one killer of Black people in this country and the world....second only to gun violence...which is another problem in and of itself...
Opening the tent to include all Black people will send a bigger message than a useless conversation with white gay and lesbian organizations with issues of their own to deal with..
It doesn’t matter who turns out to support what....until we recognize the problem within our own community, we will be having this worthless conversation in 2010, 2011, 2012.....
I also have a problem with Mr. Smitherman...When he talks, I turn off, because I have yet to find him credible on any topic. I am mystified by his election to head the NAACP. I am mystified that so many others apparently find him to be a man worth following.
I found Jill Benavides comments after the meeting at City Hall to be patronizing, and condescendingly PC with regard to Smitherman. It was as if she were talking about a child. In other words..."let him have his temper tantrum, we love him anyway."
Having said all that......Let’s go there...shall we...
Nowhere on either side of this clueless conversation has the Black LGBT community been talked about or included in the conversation. Smitherman talked about his one white gay male NAACP member, as if having one represents all. That is the same way the white LGBT community talks about Blacks...you know..."some of my best friends are....."
The conversation that took place at City Hall obscures the fact that Black gays and lesbians are totally invisible in Cincinnati. And it’s like that across the country. Much of it due to the queer hatred within the Black community, in addition to the racism in the LGBT community
As Black people..we spend most of our lives being beaten up because of the color of our skin. It’s been a very difficult road to electing our first Black president. We have been killed for simply wanting to be treated equally. Laws were passed to make that happen, yet it’s still a problem in 2009, and you have only to look at two recent incidents of men, white men, killing their families and police for fear of a Black man in the White House.
You’ve got white governors talking of secession...that has got to be the ultimate in white flight..think about it...the same thing happens when a black family moves into a previously all white neighborhood...still....that’s not past history...that’s last week....
Now compound skin color with being gay or lesbian and you go from being beaten down on a national level to somebody, maybe your own brother, sister, mother, father, neighborhood, kicking your ass because you’re a sissy or you’re a bulldagger. You get tired of being a target, you get tired of being called names....for Black gays and lesbians...being called a nigger is not much different than being called queer or fag or bulldagger.
Trust me, you’re not going to run out and join the very community organizations that want you dead...
The white LGBT community doesn’t feel it’s racist, but it is no different, really than liberal whites who like using that.."some of my best friends are....." phrase. Blacks are not taken seriously within the LGBT community, usually being dismissed with a patronizing pat on the top of our fuzzy little heads, with a "thank you for coming...but we know better, what’s good for you..."
The prop 8 vote in California exposed the LGBT racism, when it was erroneously reported that Blacks were the reason it passed....Blacks gays and lesbians who took to the streets to protest the vote, were attacked by white gays and lesbians.....called niggers among other things....The white LGBT community has yet to apologize for their assumptions during that time...
Being Black gay and lesbian means you’re caught up between the proverbial rock and a hard place.
Not feeling accepted by anyone can be a very lonely way to grow up and to live.
Smitherman and the NAACP need to realize that there have always been Black gays and lesbians active within his organization and the civil rights movement. What they need to do is to recognize that the NAACP and other Black organizations are also not inclusive organizations working for all Blacks.
There is no mention of the devastation of HIV/AIDS on the Black Community. In fact Smitherman as a straight man is probably more susceptible to getting the virus than any gay black man at this stage, not because he is gay or down-lo, but because Black straight women are the ones being infected at record breaking rates.
Black women are sleeping with down-lo men and taking the germ back to their straight boyfriends...
And why are men down-lo...because they stand to be judged not men, if they come out..being labeled soft is worse than being called a nigger in the Black community. Witness the death a couple of weeks ago of a 12 year old Black youth, who hanged himself, after being repeatedly called a fag at school.
Why was he called a fag, or labeled soft.....he liked school and his mother taught him to comport himself like a gentleman...he was not gay, by the way....just a clean cut little boy...dead...
It is killing our community...yet....I hear nothing from the NAACP about this massive problem. If the women die...who is going to bear your sons? Or will any white or J-Lo looking Latina woman do?
It is no proof of your so called inclusive tendencies if all you can talk about is one gay white boy as a member. Remember, he can always go back to his community in which by birth he is a master of the universe.
Black gays and lesbians must go home to the same hate that they suffer from in the streets.
The entire Smitherman statement left women out the conversation, altogether. That is typical of the misogyny that also permeates the Black Community.
So, to put an end to this ramble.....
NAACP....you need to talk to Black gays and lesbians first.....you need to address the number one killer of Black people in this country and the world....second only to gun violence...which is another problem in and of itself...
Opening the tent to include all Black people will send a bigger message than a useless conversation with white gay and lesbian organizations with issues of their own to deal with..
It doesn’t matter who turns out to support what....until we recognize the problem within our own community, we will be having this worthless conversation in 2010, 2011, 2012.....
4.28.2009
About the New Flu...
A couple of days ago...I asked how this new strain, which the experts said was a swine, bird and human variation...
could come about without manipulation....
Well, after a little research, I've come up with this...Interesting reading from the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy..
Check this Out.........
could come about without manipulation....
Well, after a little research, I've come up with this...Interesting reading from the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy..
Check this Out.........
4.25.2009
Just Askin’...........
About this new flu strain.....how does the swine, bird and human flu virus combine into a new and powerful strain without some kind of manipulation?
After the Tuskegee experiments....where Black men were used as human guinea pigs..
After AIDS/HIV...where Black people are being infected at unheard of rates...
And after living in the country where unrepentant eugenicist Margaret Sanger founded Planned Parenthood and created birth control clinics because she felt that black people needed to be eliminated because they were inferior to whites...
For that reason she said the Planned Parenthood clinics should be located in urban neighborhoods....and indeed today...in 2009....nearly all of them are still....
Let me say, that I am and remain pro choice.....I just have a problem with the "white washing" if you will of the historic profile of Margaret Sanger....she didn’t have a problem with her racism....in fact she went to her grave in Arizona as president of the Eugenics organization that wanted to wipe out anyone not Aryan in appearance.........
It’s part of the history that never seems to be taught in schools in America...
As is the truth that Hitler got his inspiration for his final solution of the Jews from Margaret Sanger and her friends’ movement....
Eugenics is one of America’s quieter exports...
This history of the pseudo science of Eugenics makes for interesting reading....
-0-
Just Askin’..........
Does the accused Craigslist killer look like Jeff Dahmer....or is it just me.....
-0-
Why do they have to kill the Pontiac?
My first car was a 1963 Le Mans Convertible...teal blue...white interior....white drop top...loved that car.....
-0-
Golden to the End
The Golden Girls were the reason I got my first and so far only speeding ticket....I was down in Mississippi, visiting friends....flying through the Natchez Trace to get back to catch the Golden Girls on Television....this was before the days of TIVO.....I paid the ticket....$55.00..
Bea Arthur was my favorite Golden Girl....
May she Rest in Peace
After the Tuskegee experiments....where Black men were used as human guinea pigs..
After AIDS/HIV...where Black people are being infected at unheard of rates...
And after living in the country where unrepentant eugenicist Margaret Sanger founded Planned Parenthood and created birth control clinics because she felt that black people needed to be eliminated because they were inferior to whites...
For that reason she said the Planned Parenthood clinics should be located in urban neighborhoods....and indeed today...in 2009....nearly all of them are still....
Let me say, that I am and remain pro choice.....I just have a problem with the "white washing" if you will of the historic profile of Margaret Sanger....she didn’t have a problem with her racism....in fact she went to her grave in Arizona as president of the Eugenics organization that wanted to wipe out anyone not Aryan in appearance.........
It’s part of the history that never seems to be taught in schools in America...
As is the truth that Hitler got his inspiration for his final solution of the Jews from Margaret Sanger and her friends’ movement....
Eugenics is one of America’s quieter exports...
This history of the pseudo science of Eugenics makes for interesting reading....
-0-
Just Askin’..........
Does the accused Craigslist killer look like Jeff Dahmer....or is it just me.....
-0-
Why do they have to kill the Pontiac?
My first car was a 1963 Le Mans Convertible...teal blue...white interior....white drop top...loved that car.....
-0-
Golden to the End
The Golden Girls were the reason I got my first and so far only speeding ticket....I was down in Mississippi, visiting friends....flying through the Natchez Trace to get back to catch the Golden Girls on Television....this was before the days of TIVO.....I paid the ticket....$55.00..
Bea Arthur was my favorite Golden Girl....
May she Rest in Peace
4.19.2009
Happy Negroes, Unhappy Slaves Redux
A continuing conversation on race in America
Back in February of 2008, I wrote about a conversation that I had with a man, whose name I don’t know, about Black people, white people and the political campaign of Barack Obama, who, at that time was merely running for president. You can read about that conversation here.
Even after the conversation, we continued to talk and a year later, we’re still engaging in our favorite weekend past time and still talking. He’s not happy with Barack as president. He voted for him as did I, but he is unable to be patient. He wants change now, as in "Okay, we put the Black guy in.....now what’s the difference..."
Today we went back to race again coming at the question from differing viewpoints. He has progressed from slaves being happy during slavery to Blacks should be grateful they were taken off the slave ships and allowed to live. According to my friend, Blacks don’t show gratitude for what whites did for them way back when, which was to save our lives from the big bad Spaniards who stole them in Africa, forced them onto ships to survive or die.
He told me that Blacks should be glad nobody forced them to get back onto those ships because the Spaniards would have killed or drowned them rather than transport them. So slavery was something of a godsend for Black people. It was a blessing that we, Blacks today, are not properly thankful enough or respectful for.
That last thing on respect comes from my reading of him as he was telling me this. He didn’t say it, and I don’t want to put more words into his mouth because he is well capable to choking himself. He doesn’t need my help to do that.
As I listened to his theory, it dawned on me that I was hearing a theory that under lay the thoughts and actions of a lot of white people....that Africa, the slave ships, were bad, but getting to America was the good thing for Black people. It saved us.....I asked him....saved us from what exactly.....the freedom of living in your own country, with your own family, on your own land, surrounded by your own stuff? Being free to make your own decisions and not have to worry about whether you put too much starch in your master’s underwear?
How can being brutally snatched to another country to serve and become the property of another man be considered salvation? He still has no answer for me. He can’t seem to get past the "Africa bad, America good" scenario, or that Blacks blame whites for a situation not of their making. I couldn’t get past the "issues" of choice.....once Blacks were unchained and taken off the ships...no one forced white people to engage in slavery....It was a conscientious choice to do that after attempts to enslave Native Americans failed. It was a dehumanizing situation from which we all, both Black and white, still suffer.
So at this point, after a couple of thrusts about the still ongoing institutionalization of racsim that permeates everything in America, we move on, saving this saga for another day. We turned instead to Herbert Hoover’s presidency as the reason why most Black people are democrats. Seems he saw something recently on television that made this connection.
In my friend’s mind he felt that Blacks should have been republican from jump instead of adopting the politics of their owners who were primarily southern democrats. I explained that many blacks were republicans or believed in the politics of abolition and the party of Lincoln, and that persisted well through the 1960s.
I have already chronicled how much of my family was republican. The switch happened when southern democrats left the party to become republicans rather than allow Fannie Lou Hamer to be seated the Democratic Convention, I believe in 1964. I can remember hearing older family members talk about the death of FDR, and of watching his funeral train. They recalled the tears they shed and shock they felt when this man passed. Yet they still called themselves republicans.
I reminded my friend that what Blacks may have felt politically, was different than expressing it, because getting the right to cast a vote was in and of itself, an adventure. It remains that way today despite the voting rights act of 1965. And unless anyone thinks the fight is over, the Voting Rights Act is not a permanent law-it must be renewed every 25 years.
It is also coming before the United States Supreme Court in the next couple of weeks. A Supreme Court that is led by an activist conservative. What will happen is anybody’s guess.
There are any number of possibilities, including striking it down and declaring it unconstitutional....just like affirmative action in California.....In the aftermath....the colleges and universities have once again become primarily all white institutions.....Will that happen to the right to vote?
Don’t know.....Just asking questions....as always....
My conversation with my friend.....to be continued....................
Back in February of 2008, I wrote about a conversation that I had with a man, whose name I don’t know, about Black people, white people and the political campaign of Barack Obama, who, at that time was merely running for president. You can read about that conversation here.
Even after the conversation, we continued to talk and a year later, we’re still engaging in our favorite weekend past time and still talking. He’s not happy with Barack as president. He voted for him as did I, but he is unable to be patient. He wants change now, as in "Okay, we put the Black guy in.....now what’s the difference..."
Today we went back to race again coming at the question from differing viewpoints. He has progressed from slaves being happy during slavery to Blacks should be grateful they were taken off the slave ships and allowed to live. According to my friend, Blacks don’t show gratitude for what whites did for them way back when, which was to save our lives from the big bad Spaniards who stole them in Africa, forced them onto ships to survive or die.
He told me that Blacks should be glad nobody forced them to get back onto those ships because the Spaniards would have killed or drowned them rather than transport them. So slavery was something of a godsend for Black people. It was a blessing that we, Blacks today, are not properly thankful enough or respectful for.
That last thing on respect comes from my reading of him as he was telling me this. He didn’t say it, and I don’t want to put more words into his mouth because he is well capable to choking himself. He doesn’t need my help to do that.
As I listened to his theory, it dawned on me that I was hearing a theory that under lay the thoughts and actions of a lot of white people....that Africa, the slave ships, were bad, but getting to America was the good thing for Black people. It saved us.....I asked him....saved us from what exactly.....the freedom of living in your own country, with your own family, on your own land, surrounded by your own stuff? Being free to make your own decisions and not have to worry about whether you put too much starch in your master’s underwear?
How can being brutally snatched to another country to serve and become the property of another man be considered salvation? He still has no answer for me. He can’t seem to get past the "Africa bad, America good" scenario, or that Blacks blame whites for a situation not of their making. I couldn’t get past the "issues" of choice.....once Blacks were unchained and taken off the ships...no one forced white people to engage in slavery....It was a conscientious choice to do that after attempts to enslave Native Americans failed. It was a dehumanizing situation from which we all, both Black and white, still suffer.
So at this point, after a couple of thrusts about the still ongoing institutionalization of racsim that permeates everything in America, we move on, saving this saga for another day. We turned instead to Herbert Hoover’s presidency as the reason why most Black people are democrats. Seems he saw something recently on television that made this connection.
In my friend’s mind he felt that Blacks should have been republican from jump instead of adopting the politics of their owners who were primarily southern democrats. I explained that many blacks were republicans or believed in the politics of abolition and the party of Lincoln, and that persisted well through the 1960s.
I have already chronicled how much of my family was republican. The switch happened when southern democrats left the party to become republicans rather than allow Fannie Lou Hamer to be seated the Democratic Convention, I believe in 1964. I can remember hearing older family members talk about the death of FDR, and of watching his funeral train. They recalled the tears they shed and shock they felt when this man passed. Yet they still called themselves republicans.
I reminded my friend that what Blacks may have felt politically, was different than expressing it, because getting the right to cast a vote was in and of itself, an adventure. It remains that way today despite the voting rights act of 1965. And unless anyone thinks the fight is over, the Voting Rights Act is not a permanent law-it must be renewed every 25 years.
It is also coming before the United States Supreme Court in the next couple of weeks. A Supreme Court that is led by an activist conservative. What will happen is anybody’s guess.
There are any number of possibilities, including striking it down and declaring it unconstitutional....just like affirmative action in California.....In the aftermath....the colleges and universities have once again become primarily all white institutions.....Will that happen to the right to vote?
Don’t know.....Just asking questions....as always....
My conversation with my friend.....to be continued....................
4.16.2009
Tea Party Questions....
Okay....So We had a tea party....
And they were protesting because they don't like the fiscal policies of Barack Obama...
They do have that right....after all....this is America....land of the free, home of the brave and sometimes of the monumentally stupid....
90% of those who protested in Cincinnati yesterday....got a tax cut, not a promise...Are they going to give it back.....,, are they going to refuse to allow Obama to pad their paychecks with the rest of us deadbeats?
They marched on City Hall demanding that the City refuse stimulus money...okay...does that mean that all the senior citizens in the crowd are now going to refuse their social security or their medicare?
Aren't those the socialist programs that they are railing against?
Isn't the patriotic thing to do is to not take any of the government's money? Or is picking and choosing which socialistic activity that you engage in the way to do it..
George Bush/GOP socialism okay.....Barack Obama socialism=equals welfare for black people...not okay....just askin'....I'm trying to understand...
How about all those student loans...did they all come from the private sector...or are there some Pell grants thrown in.....you young'uns refusing that money and allowing your parents to foot the bill for your 8th grade education?
They are protesting policies...policies that were put into place by George Bush...
They were silent while Bush took a government surplus and turned it into two wars costing a billion dollars a month...two wars that we still have to pay for and to deal with....Americans are still dying for lies....
They were silent while Bush gave Obama and us.. a 1.6 billion dollar deficit....
Tax laws haven't been changed for 16 years....Obama didn't do that.....
Since these guys are also against education....how could they know that capitalism in its purest form is a consumer driven situation.... a survival of the fittest, darwinian system..the kind of system that is currently killing us and would kill them...
because 90% of the protestors at the tea party are road kill in a pure capitalistic system... and god forbid that we should ever turn to pure capitalism like George Bush tried to do...by privatizing everything including social security...
Hell....how could they know...since they don't like books or learnin'.....that America is a republic...not a democracy....how could they know that democracies lead to tyranny...without fail...
I would say go back and look at the past eight years if you don't believe me.... but would they understand....given their demonstrated level of understanding and comprehension....
How could they know the difference between capitalism, communism, socialism and fascism...they keep tossing those words around with nary a clue as to what they are talking about....c'mon now...the best way to seem smart...when you don't know...is to keep your mouth shut....
For the record....the Boston Tea Party...the last time I checked....was about "no taxation WITHOUT representation" .......well, we have representation in America...trouble is..the protestors don't like their representation.....King George (I love that) wanted to tax the colonies to pay for the French Indian War..And he wanted to do this without giving the colonies representation in the British House of Lords..
Oh yeah...one other bone to pick....the news media said the crowd was diverse....the phrase was....out of the mouth of my old friend at channel 9...who said "diverse...young, old, men, women"....c'mon Tom....you didn't finish it....young, old, men, women, black, white...
Where was the black-white part of that standard diversity phrase straight out of reporting school...
Maybe because the only black people and brown people down there...were the ones protesting the protestors....huh..ya think?
And they were protesting because they don't like the fiscal policies of Barack Obama...
They do have that right....after all....this is America....land of the free, home of the brave and sometimes of the monumentally stupid....
90% of those who protested in Cincinnati yesterday....got a tax cut, not a promise...Are they going to give it back.....,, are they going to refuse to allow Obama to pad their paychecks with the rest of us deadbeats?
They marched on City Hall demanding that the City refuse stimulus money...okay...does that mean that all the senior citizens in the crowd are now going to refuse their social security or their medicare?
Aren't those the socialist programs that they are railing against?
Isn't the patriotic thing to do is to not take any of the government's money? Or is picking and choosing which socialistic activity that you engage in the way to do it..
George Bush/GOP socialism okay.....Barack Obama socialism=equals welfare for black people...not okay....just askin'....I'm trying to understand...
How about all those student loans...did they all come from the private sector...or are there some Pell grants thrown in.....you young'uns refusing that money and allowing your parents to foot the bill for your 8th grade education?
They are protesting policies...policies that were put into place by George Bush...
They were silent while Bush took a government surplus and turned it into two wars costing a billion dollars a month...two wars that we still have to pay for and to deal with....Americans are still dying for lies....
They were silent while Bush gave Obama and us.. a 1.6 billion dollar deficit....
Tax laws haven't been changed for 16 years....Obama didn't do that.....
Since these guys are also against education....how could they know that capitalism in its purest form is a consumer driven situation.... a survival of the fittest, darwinian system..the kind of system that is currently killing us and would kill them...
because 90% of the protestors at the tea party are road kill in a pure capitalistic system... and god forbid that we should ever turn to pure capitalism like George Bush tried to do...by privatizing everything including social security...
Hell....how could they know...since they don't like books or learnin'.....that America is a republic...not a democracy....how could they know that democracies lead to tyranny...without fail...
I would say go back and look at the past eight years if you don't believe me.... but would they understand....given their demonstrated level of understanding and comprehension....
How could they know the difference between capitalism, communism, socialism and fascism...they keep tossing those words around with nary a clue as to what they are talking about....c'mon now...the best way to seem smart...when you don't know...is to keep your mouth shut....
For the record....the Boston Tea Party...the last time I checked....was about "no taxation WITHOUT representation" .......well, we have representation in America...trouble is..the protestors don't like their representation.....King George (I love that) wanted to tax the colonies to pay for the French Indian War..And he wanted to do this without giving the colonies representation in the British House of Lords..
Oh yeah...one other bone to pick....the news media said the crowd was diverse....the phrase was....out of the mouth of my old friend at channel 9...who said "diverse...young, old, men, women"....c'mon Tom....you didn't finish it....young, old, men, women, black, white...
Where was the black-white part of that standard diversity phrase straight out of reporting school...
Maybe because the only black people and brown people down there...were the ones protesting the protestors....huh..ya think?
4.14.2009
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................
-0-
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...........
-0-
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..
-0-
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
-0-
Why is Cheney talking....Did anyone ask for his or Karl Rove’s opinion on anything?
-0-
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...........
-0-
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?
-0-
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...
-0-
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...........
-0-
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..
-0-
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
-0-
Why is Cheney talking....Did anyone ask for his or Karl Rove’s opinion on anything?
-0-
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...........
-0-
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?
-0-
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...
4.06.2009
Best Black Movies
My brain is still on vacation from the politics of the past two years, that has actually continued to swirl around our first chocolate covered first family.
So while the Obama’s are touring the world, that fool in North Korea is firing missiles that he says sing songs about him into the air, and everyone else is going crazy killing people while the rest of us pretend there is no gun problem in America...
I choose to think about movies....
I got started on this subject because I’m working on an article about the dumbing down of America, kids, and grown ups via education, television and the mass media....
Which brought to memory movies that I needed to see again, one of which was NETWORK, the Paddy Chayevsky story about an anchor man, played by the late Peter Finch who goes crazy on air. The network allows it to happen strictly for ratings. ..The movie is on point for my article and also a prediction of what we are currently experiencing......if you haven’t seen it...you should dial it up and watch and learn....
There is also this movie channel network called THIS....Don’t know who owns it.... It’s playing movies that I had forgotten existed, like...they played back to back.....IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT, followed by THEY CALL ME MR TIBBS, followed by THE ORGANIZATION, followed by PRESSURE POINT....all Sydney Poitier movies, where he was not playing the acquiescent Negro.
THIS tends to play black movies and cowboy movies like....Jane Fonda, James Caan and Jason Robards in COMES A HORSEMAN....This channel even plays the old Bat Masterson series with Gene Barry..On Saturday, it plays THE OUTER LIMITS.....watching that program as a kid was one thing...watching it from the future is amazing....
All this got me thinking about the number of best ever movie lists and how many of them contain movies by and about black people....
I found two lists of best 100 that listed THE COLOR PURPLE....I found one list that included Spike Lee’s DO THE RIGHT THING....after that nothing.....other than lists made up completely of black movies....no comparisons or competitions between "regular" movies and our
movies...
Regular movie lists always start with GONE WITH THE WIND or CITIZEN KANE...
So without further ado....I’m giving you my top 20 list of black movies...
1. In the Heat of the Night
2. The Defiant Ones (the original)
3. A Soldier’s Story
4. Shaft-(both of them)
5. Come Back Charleston Blue
6. Sweet Back
7. New Jack City
8. Lady Sings the Blues
9. Set it Off
10. Harlem Nights
11. Inside Man
13. Trading Places
14. Car Wash
15. The Mack
16. Man on Fire
18. Spawn
19. Blazing Saddles
20.Cotton Comes to Harlem
This list differs from my favorite all time list which is has more action...in no certain order
1. Aliens
2. Alien
3. Star Wars
4. Raiders of the Lost Ark
5. The Magnificent Seven
6. Seven Samurai
7. To Kill A Mockingbird
8. Moby Dick (gregory peck version)
9. The Three Musketeers
10. Psycho
11. When Night is Falling
12. Bound
13. Matrix
14. The Usual Suspects
15. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
16.The Tin Drum
17. Batman Begins
18. Chocolate
19. La Femme Nikita
20. Gladiator
Honorable mentions: The Count of Monte Cristo, Rage in Harlem, Glory, The Debaters, The Killing of Sister George, Midnight Cowboy and Victor/Victoria, The Sting, Deserts Hearts
My criteria....I will watch these films anytime they are on, can quote lines, and have memorized segments such as when the emperor demands that the gladiator say his name in the arena and gladiator turns and says..........."my name is......etc"
So while the Obama’s are touring the world, that fool in North Korea is firing missiles that he says sing songs about him into the air, and everyone else is going crazy killing people while the rest of us pretend there is no gun problem in America...
I choose to think about movies....
I got started on this subject because I’m working on an article about the dumbing down of America, kids, and grown ups via education, television and the mass media....
Which brought to memory movies that I needed to see again, one of which was NETWORK, the Paddy Chayevsky story about an anchor man, played by the late Peter Finch who goes crazy on air. The network allows it to happen strictly for ratings. ..The movie is on point for my article and also a prediction of what we are currently experiencing......if you haven’t seen it...you should dial it up and watch and learn....
There is also this movie channel network called THIS....Don’t know who owns it.... It’s playing movies that I had forgotten existed, like...they played back to back.....IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT, followed by THEY CALL ME MR TIBBS, followed by THE ORGANIZATION, followed by PRESSURE POINT....all Sydney Poitier movies, where he was not playing the acquiescent Negro.
THIS tends to play black movies and cowboy movies like....Jane Fonda, James Caan and Jason Robards in COMES A HORSEMAN....This channel even plays the old Bat Masterson series with Gene Barry..On Saturday, it plays THE OUTER LIMITS.....watching that program as a kid was one thing...watching it from the future is amazing....
All this got me thinking about the number of best ever movie lists and how many of them contain movies by and about black people....
I found two lists of best 100 that listed THE COLOR PURPLE....I found one list that included Spike Lee’s DO THE RIGHT THING....after that nothing.....other than lists made up completely of black movies....no comparisons or competitions between "regular" movies and our
movies...
Regular movie lists always start with GONE WITH THE WIND or CITIZEN KANE...
So without further ado....I’m giving you my top 20 list of black movies...
1. In the Heat of the Night
2. The Defiant Ones (the original)
3. A Soldier’s Story
4. Shaft-(both of them)
5. Come Back Charleston Blue
6. Sweet Back
7. New Jack City
8. Lady Sings the Blues
9. Set it Off
10. Harlem Nights
11. Inside Man
13. Trading Places
14. Car Wash
15. The Mack
16. Man on Fire
18. Spawn
19. Blazing Saddles
20.Cotton Comes to Harlem
This list differs from my favorite all time list which is has more action...in no certain order
1. Aliens
2. Alien
3. Star Wars
4. Raiders of the Lost Ark
5. The Magnificent Seven
6. Seven Samurai
7. To Kill A Mockingbird
8. Moby Dick (gregory peck version)
9. The Three Musketeers
10. Psycho
11. When Night is Falling
12. Bound
13. Matrix
14. The Usual Suspects
15. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
16.The Tin Drum
17. Batman Begins
18. Chocolate
19. La Femme Nikita
20. Gladiator
Honorable mentions: The Count of Monte Cristo, Rage in Harlem, Glory, The Debaters, The Killing of Sister George, Midnight Cowboy and Victor/Victoria, The Sting, Deserts Hearts
My criteria....I will watch these films anytime they are on, can quote lines, and have memorized segments such as when the emperor demands that the gladiator say his name in the arena and gladiator turns and says..........."my name is......etc"
3.24.2009
Thinking Out Loud
Mexican Drug War
Word that Obama is going to help Mexico battle the drug cartels on the border...Seems to me that the best way to do this is to simply end the failed war on drugs....
Admit that some people are going to use, no matter what....
Legalize the market, just like liquor stores, tax with user tax, controlled from state store...
the war on drugs is another failed program that has gone on for way too long...Prohibition war on alcohol is the precedent....it didn't work then...it's not working now...
legalizing the market....immediately stops the violence at the border and in the neighborhoods...
legalizing the market....immediately stops warehousing people in private prisons for profit...
legalizing the market....can work with the planned revisions in health care in America...revise everything in health care toward prevention, rather that penalty for illness...because addiction is illness...not crime...
This country spends billions on this war....more than Iraq and Afghanistan put together...
-0-
Tim Geithner
My gut tells me he's a crook, just like the rest of them....but we're in a position of having to trust him...so let's hope his handlers know what they are doing...
-0-
Barack the Magic Negro
Man, that song must have gotten some traction, somewhere...all these folks throwing tea parties and protests because of what the prez is doing....
He's only been in office about 60 days give or take....
They really do believe that he is magic if they actually thought he was going to be able to clean up this mess in about 2 months on the job....
Ya'll need to chill....
Other Magic Negroes have taken a while to find their game, too...
After all...
Michael Jackson didn't make Thriller as his first record...
Micheal didn't win a championship the first year he got to Chicago...
How old was the Doctor the first time he dunked....
Michael Johnson didn't win his first 400m dash...did he?
Tiger didn't win the Masters the first time he played it...
Arthur Ashe didn't Grand Slam his first year on tour....
I don't think Hank Aaron hit a home run the first time he stepped up to the plate...
Even Willie Mayes dropped a fly or two in the outfield...
Patience, grasshoppers....Barack will work his magic....give him a minute or two..
Word that Obama is going to help Mexico battle the drug cartels on the border...Seems to me that the best way to do this is to simply end the failed war on drugs....
Admit that some people are going to use, no matter what....
Legalize the market, just like liquor stores, tax with user tax, controlled from state store...
the war on drugs is another failed program that has gone on for way too long...Prohibition war on alcohol is the precedent....it didn't work then...it's not working now...
legalizing the market....immediately stops the violence at the border and in the neighborhoods...
legalizing the market....immediately stops warehousing people in private prisons for profit...
legalizing the market....can work with the planned revisions in health care in America...revise everything in health care toward prevention, rather that penalty for illness...because addiction is illness...not crime...
This country spends billions on this war....more than Iraq and Afghanistan put together...
-0-
Tim Geithner
My gut tells me he's a crook, just like the rest of them....but we're in a position of having to trust him...so let's hope his handlers know what they are doing...
-0-
Barack the Magic Negro
Man, that song must have gotten some traction, somewhere...all these folks throwing tea parties and protests because of what the prez is doing....
He's only been in office about 60 days give or take....
They really do believe that he is magic if they actually thought he was going to be able to clean up this mess in about 2 months on the job....
Ya'll need to chill....
Other Magic Negroes have taken a while to find their game, too...
After all...
Michael Jackson didn't make Thriller as his first record...
Micheal didn't win a championship the first year he got to Chicago...
How old was the Doctor the first time he dunked....
Michael Johnson didn't win his first 400m dash...did he?
Tiger didn't win the Masters the first time he played it...
Arthur Ashe didn't Grand Slam his first year on tour....
I don't think Hank Aaron hit a home run the first time he stepped up to the plate...
Even Willie Mayes dropped a fly or two in the outfield...
Patience, grasshoppers....Barack will work his magic....give him a minute or two..
3.17.2009
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.
-0-
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...
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.
-0-
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...
3.12.2009
Joe Deters Sucking on His Toes
Once Again with Foot Firmly Planted in Mouth...
Hamilton County Prosecutor just can’t seem to resist grabbing publicity at every opportunity. I guess not content that he hasn’t been in the news lately, decided to issue his two cents worth on Cincinnati’s latest crime wave.
Of course I’m talking about the murder of Esme Kenney, may she rest in peace.
But why wasn’t it a crime wave when the 14 year old was killed on Blair or the other woman died under similar circumstances in Avondale?
Why is it only now a crime wave?
Deters implied that the closing of the jails had something to do with her murder...as if the alleged killer would have been locked up and thereby unable to do what he did to that young girl.
Police may have been looking for him, but he was on the streets legally because the system...and I don’t mean the jail system....broke down...
Even if the Queensgate jail had been open, this guy would not have been locked up there or anywhere else.....
He was on the streets because he’d served his time....served his parole...legally....
He got kicked out of the halfway house because he started fighting another felon....
Those at the halfway house didn’t bother to alert his parole officer that he was becoming violent again, until days later and probably after he’d killed a couple more times...
For some reason....this guy snapped....his history shows that he is able to work the system...the problem is that when he does fall through a crack........ people get hurt or die...
There is a big problem with our system....when we lock them up... and after we release them.....they sometimes come back to haunt us....
But it did not happen because the jail was closed and the accused killer couldn’t be warehoused as Deters put it.....
We can’t keep warehousing people.....the more we just warehouse...the more violent some of them become....
Walking time bombs stalking our streets for prey.....
The judicial system, prison system, and post release system needs overhauling just like the government
Like it or not....out of sight....out of mind...is not the answer...
Hamilton County Prosecutor just can’t seem to resist grabbing publicity at every opportunity. I guess not content that he hasn’t been in the news lately, decided to issue his two cents worth on Cincinnati’s latest crime wave.
Of course I’m talking about the murder of Esme Kenney, may she rest in peace.
But why wasn’t it a crime wave when the 14 year old was killed on Blair or the other woman died under similar circumstances in Avondale?
Why is it only now a crime wave?
Deters implied that the closing of the jails had something to do with her murder...as if the alleged killer would have been locked up and thereby unable to do what he did to that young girl.
Police may have been looking for him, but he was on the streets legally because the system...and I don’t mean the jail system....broke down...
Even if the Queensgate jail had been open, this guy would not have been locked up there or anywhere else.....
He was on the streets because he’d served his time....served his parole...legally....
He got kicked out of the halfway house because he started fighting another felon....
Those at the halfway house didn’t bother to alert his parole officer that he was becoming violent again, until days later and probably after he’d killed a couple more times...
For some reason....this guy snapped....his history shows that he is able to work the system...the problem is that when he does fall through a crack........ people get hurt or die...
There is a big problem with our system....when we lock them up... and after we release them.....they sometimes come back to haunt us....
But it did not happen because the jail was closed and the accused killer couldn’t be warehoused as Deters put it.....
We can’t keep warehousing people.....the more we just warehouse...the more violent some of them become....
Walking time bombs stalking our streets for prey.....
The judicial system, prison system, and post release system needs overhauling just like the government
Like it or not....out of sight....out of mind...is not the answer...
3.05.2009
Insulting Obama
Debate a talk show host?!
Rush Limbaugh, the hill billy heroin using, viagra popping, red light district cruising, 100 million dollar walking waste of oxygen....
Please!
Obama can’t bend down that low!
In his whole life Obama has never even accumulated that much dirt on the bottom of his shoes...
Rush and the rest of his crowd keep forgetting.....Obama won the election.....He can do whatever he wants to do...He don’t have to run it past Rush, the self proclaimed great white hope for old white men..
....He has to deal with "we" the people.....
The polls show that only 14% of Americans like Rush...that means 86% of us support Obama....I don’t even understand why anyone is bothering to even include this guy in the conversation except as a joke....
This is the second time in two weeks that the Gay Old Party of which Rush is a card carrying member....has insulted the President...
The first was Michael Steele....who wants to hip hop the Republicans....
Question....when was the last time you heard Obama use street language in order to get his point across? I don’t know how he talks among his friends..but I do know that when he talks to America, he comes correct....
Take a lesson Steele....What Steele said is racist....period....if the president were white...there would be absolutely no one putting GOP, hip hop and urban in the same sentence.
Hell, if truth be told....if Obama hadn't won the election...there would be no Michael Steele or Piyush Jindal being touted as the saviors of the GOP.
Steele insulted not only the President....but the rest of America as well...
Hey mikey...hey rush...apologize !
Rush Limbaugh, the hill billy heroin using, viagra popping, red light district cruising, 100 million dollar walking waste of oxygen....
Please!
Obama can’t bend down that low!
In his whole life Obama has never even accumulated that much dirt on the bottom of his shoes...
Rush and the rest of his crowd keep forgetting.....Obama won the election.....He can do whatever he wants to do...He don’t have to run it past Rush, the self proclaimed great white hope for old white men..
....He has to deal with "we" the people.....
The polls show that only 14% of Americans like Rush...that means 86% of us support Obama....I don’t even understand why anyone is bothering to even include this guy in the conversation except as a joke....
This is the second time in two weeks that the Gay Old Party of which Rush is a card carrying member....has insulted the President...
The first was Michael Steele....who wants to hip hop the Republicans....
Question....when was the last time you heard Obama use street language in order to get his point across? I don’t know how he talks among his friends..but I do know that when he talks to America, he comes correct....
Take a lesson Steele....What Steele said is racist....period....if the president were white...there would be absolutely no one putting GOP, hip hop and urban in the same sentence.
Hell, if truth be told....if Obama hadn't won the election...there would be no Michael Steele or Piyush Jindal being touted as the saviors of the GOP.
Steele insulted not only the President....but the rest of America as well...
Hey mikey...hey rush...apologize !
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