soulbrother v.2

Whats Hot in the Streetz: People Who Drive Minivans

2010-05-19T17:06:00.000-04:00

This just goes to prove something that I already knew. People who drive minivans have a unmatchable level of cool. Posse up!

Identifying the object of our outrage: Some notes on the death of Aiyana Stanley-Jones

2010-05-19T13:06:00.000-04:00

On Sunday, May 16, at a little after 12:40 am, Detroit police executed a raid on a home in which a murder suspect was thought to be hiding, and in the process of executing that raid, a police bullet entered the neck and head area of a seven year old girl, Aiyana Stanley Jones, sleeping in that home, and she subsequently died.

That much is known for sure; however, practically every other aspect of Aiyana’s tragic death is in dispute. And since I first learned of the incident, I have been calling around and scouring the internet for additional news, but the only thing forthcoming are accusations, speculation, and calls for and promises of justice.

And in my best estimation, we seem so caught up in the swirl of emotions surrounding the moment that the moment itself is momentarily forgotten and has become a victim of politics and personal agendas.

Everyone seems angry to the point of utter outrage that police should be so careless in their part in setting the stage for this child to lose her life, and rightly so, but this should not be the only reason we are outraged, and our outrage should not stop here.

First and foremost, we should be outraged that another child’s life has violently and tragically ended all too early. Keep in mind that it was the violent death of another child that led to the violent death of this child.

And we should be in a constant and unwavering state of rage that the violent deaths of children are not even that unusual anymore; they are, in fact, quite commonplace now. The United States has the dubious distinction of leading the world in homicides against children; this country alone accounts for about seventy-three percent (73%) of these homicides.

But it seems that only when such stories make the front page does our shock and outrage manifest itself; suddenly for a week or two, if that long, we are up in arms. We rant, and we rave. We point fingers and demand change. But the moment the media moves on to the next story, we forget.

Remember Derrion Albert? How long did we sustain our outrage over his death? A week after his death it was all but forgotten.

Why are we not outraged all the time? Why is it not enough just knowing that somewhere right now some child is being abused to the point that death seems more desirable than life? Or that somewhere some child is being raped or otherwise sexually abused? Or that children are being sold for the purpose of sexual exploitation?

There are a number of questions that arise from this case. For instance, why would police stage a commando like raid using military style weapons and tactics in a residential neighborhood in a home in which they knew children were present? That seems just an blatant and absolute disregard for the safety of everyone else in the home. They seemed so intent on getting their man that nothing else mattered.

And why would the suspect, if he is indeed guilty of the charges brought against him, seek refuge in a home and area populated with children knowing that police were hot on his tail and how they would react once they found him? He, in effect, put that child in harm’s way. What is his culpability in this matter?

I am not saying that there is something inherently wrong with being angry; often anger is a natural and understandable response given the gravity of the situation. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that there is a certain romance in anger. Often anger and discontent with the status quo become impetuses for change.

However, anger just for the sake of being angry, anger just because everyone else is angry and/or because you think you should be angry, anger un-sustained even while the antecedent of that anger remains unchecked and unchallenged, is simply self-serving. I understand that you are angry. You very well should be. But as we move forward, what are you going to do about it?

A comprehensive list of links of organizations concerned with the welfare of our children.

John McCain’s circle of humiliation is now complete. “Just Build the Danged Fence” campaign ad now a Star Wars mash-up spoof.

2010-05-17T16:06:00.004-04:00

The humiliation of John McCain is now complete. His “Just Build the Danged Fence” campaign ad has now been made in a Star Wars mash-up spoof. Senator McCain, please just retire because I hate to see you humiliated like this.

For the original "Just Build the Danged Fence" campaign ad, click here.

The Long Shadow Cast by Arizona SB 1070: Georgian College Senior Brought to this Country Illegally at Eleven Faces Deportation

2010-05-17T11:12:00.000-04:00

Lately when bigots sense just a little bigotry afoot, they swarm to be a part of it. I guess all those years living in such a politically correct society have left them eager to practice their bigotry openly now that racial prejudice and animus seem to be making a comeback.

Take, for instance, this case near Atlanta, Georgia. A young Mexican girl, Jessica Coliti, was brought into this country illegally at the age of eleven. Now she is a senior in college. But recently during a traffic stop, she was found by police to be an undocumented alien.

After a month in detention, officials finally released her with a year long reprieve before being sent back to Mexico so that she might finish her degree. Tragic story, but this is when the real foolishness begins in earnest.

As has become a common, recurring theme, a local politician running for higher office, Sheriff Neil Warren, seized upon the moment as an opportunity to score a few political points and strengthen his base.

Perhaps emboldened by the passage of Arizona Senate Bill 1070, Sheriff Warren rearrested Coliti citing her presence in the United States without authority, violating Georgia law by operating a vehicle without a license, and “her blatant disregard for

Georgia

law by giving false information.” [source]

I’m sure Boss Hogg would have been so proud.

Arizona state officials have one thing right. This nation needs a comprehensive immigration bill. This case highlights just how desperately so. However, their lamentations ring hollow when it has been Republicans who have consistently blocked any efforts to pass such a bill. Maybe now that the topic is foremost on everyone’s mind, congress will be forced to act.

What do you think? Should she be allowed to stay, or should she be made to return to Mexico.

h/t RiPPa

The Black Vote: Taken for granted, ignored, or necessary

2010-05-16T14:06:00.001-04:00

The black vote is important because it represents the behavior of a group of people whose voting power had been denied for many years, both by political mandate and by threat of physical violence. However, the black vote is unique because African American voting behavior is intrinsically rooted in the people's history.

Since the Reconstruction, the general behavior of blacks is to vote in block, either for one party or the other. Until Roosevelt came into the presidency and began the New Deal, blacks were committed to the Republican Party.

So what happened? Looking back at the 2008 presidential elections, where blacks voted overwhelmingly Democrat, the question still remains: Just what went wrong or has changed?

Tonight we'll break it down with a robust panel of guests representative of Democrats, Republican, and Independents. Most notably to present the case for the Republican party, will be Lenny McAllister, the Hip Hop Republican. Central to our discussion is the question: Which party today, best represents the interest of black

America

? Tonight, our guests will all make their best case for the parties with whom they identify.

Do join us, feel free to share your opinions, and you be the judge, on Freedom Thru Speech Radio at 8pm EST/7pm CST. You can listen through the show's platform by clicking here, or you can dial in on our special dial-in number at 914-803-8441.

Reason vs. Unreason: The Right's Argument Supporting the Arizona Ban on Ethnic Studies Is Falling Apart, but Do They Even Care?

2010-05-16T06:06:00.002-04:00

As the discussion centered around the new Arizona law banning ethnic studies continues, the racist motivations and underpinnings of the law become plainer. Opponents are definitely winning the war of reason, but does that even matter when proponents seem so unreasonable?

Watch as sociologist Michael Eric Dyson completely annihilates Arizona state school superintendent Eric Horne. Dyson posits a very concise, well-informed argument. Too bad the right values racist, jingoistic, xenophobic rhetoric over reason.

h/t Chauncey Vega of We Are Respectable Negroes

Easy Listening Gangsta Rap for You Aging Hip-Hop Heads: Boyz in the Hood by Dynamite Hack [NSFW]

2010-05-15T17:06:00.001-04:00

A Few Burning Questions: Things that Make Me Go Hmmm

2010-05-15T12:06:00.001-04:00

Okay, the weekend is upon us again. It’s been a pretty good week. It was pretty productive for me. How about you? I got a lot done, and I was still able to get me some rest. I even managed to get a little time in for myself this week.

But in my idleness, I began to think. Well, I think all the time, but during this time, a number of questions came to me that I just can’t seem to answer. Maybe you can help.

Why do people with foul breath like to chat so much? I have a good friend. He’s a very amicable fellow, loves to talk, and is an excellent conversationalist. He can go on for hours and never be boring. But his breath stinks. He seems to have the condition that my uncle always referred to as zack-ly. That is when your breath smells exactly like your behind.

And when you are talking to him, it’s almost like you get caught up in this foul green miasma. Even after you are out of his presence, you can still smell his breath. It’s almost as if it gets caught up in the fabric of your clothing or something. He has to know his breath stinks to high heaven. Can’t he see the disturbed, pained expressions on people’s face as they talk to him? Why doesn’t he just shut up?

But speaking of chatty people…

Every time I am in a hurry and run into the store just to pick up a few items, I always end up in the line with the chatty check-out person. Why? I know this has happened to you. You are in a hurry, but you have to stop by the store to quickly pick up just one item. But there is just one line open, and that one line stretches to the back of the store, and the check-out person is the jolliest person who has ever lived and is holding marathon conversations with every customer.

All the while, you are looking on from your place at the back of the line and checking your watch, silently seething. I do believe in service with a smile, and I love a cheerful check-out person, but by all means, greet the customer, smile, and keep the line moving.

But speaking of long lines…

Did Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton sell his soul to the devil in exchange for success? Recently, I ran out of ink at about three in the morning, and I desperately needed to print a document. So I saddled up and headed to Wal-Mart since that is the only thing seemingly open at that hour. However, once I got there, I could not believe my eyes.

It was three in the morning, but at Wal-mart, it was like high noon on Main Street. What in the hell of department stores are all these people doing out shopping at Wal-Mart in the wee hours of the morning? And not only that, it was the motley-est, half-nakedest, most oddly clad, weirdest, most inbred, most tattooed and pierced bunch of human beings I have ever witnessed in the same place at the same time in my life.

It was if the dregs of the earth seemed to converge on Wal-Mart at the same time. And there I was standing right in the midst of it all. Suddenly the thought came to mind, if I am here with them, what is wrong with me?

But speaking of tattoos and piercings…

It seems that a number of young people are choosing to adorn themselves with a multiplicity of tattoos and piercings. Do they ever expect to find a job? In one of my classes, I have two students who are actually a married couple. They are about nineteen or twenty years old and both are very smart and very attractive individuals. They are perhaps the very best students I have had in quite a while. But both are covered from head to toe in tattoos and piercings.

The young man even has this disk through his earlobes that is opening this big hole that is about one inch in diameter. It certainly occurred to be that if they are in college, it could reasonably be assumed that they do desire to enter the workforce one day. But who is going to hire them with them looking like that?

I checked my class rooster so that I might ascertain just what their majors might be, but it said undecided. So, curiosity finally drove me to just ask them. Both said that they planned to be elementary teachers after college. Elementary teachers, huh? Okay.

But speaking of jobs to do…

Why does my wife get to dictate what I do with my weekends? Every weekend, my wife presents me with this honey-do list a mile long. But she doesn’t refer to it as a honey-do list or a to do lists, but a list of “suggestions.” She suggests that I do these things that weekend. However, I know that if I don’t at least make an attempt to get to some of the things on the list, they’ll be repercussions and consequences.

Nothing on that list coincides with what I had planned for the weekend, my weekend that I earned through a week of tiresome, unrelenting work in the salt mines. Well, today is my day. Damn that list. She knows what she can do with that list. I tell you what I am going to do. I’m going to… Wait a minute. Here she comes. Gotta go. Holla.

Do you have any burning questions to add to the list?

I’ve Been to the Mountaintop: Stephen Colbert castigates Glenn Beck for his pitiful attempt at channeling MLK

2010-05-15T09:06:00.000-04:00

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Glenn to the Mountaintop

www.colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor

Fox News

Could some please help me with something? Could someone please answer one simple question for me? Why do people continue to even listen to Glenn Beck and his unique brand of pious, pretentious pomposity? Recently I saw pictures of a Tea Party protest, and some lady was holding a sign which read, “Think you for telling us the truth, Glenn Beck!”. What? Huh?

And why does it take supposedly comedy themed shows like Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show and Stephen Colbert’s The Colbert Report to point out the gross inconsistencies in his message? Is it because everything Beck says is so absolutely absurd that Comedy Central is perhaps the only logical place for it?

[Guest Post] Max, I am a white woman who dates Black men, but I absolutely abhor other white women who do the same. What do you think about that?

2010-05-14T10:06:00.011-04:00

One thing I really enjoying about blogging is that you come in contact with a wide range of people you might never have come into contact with otherwise. JuJuBe, a brand new voice in the brown blogosphere, is one of those persons. Please do check out her site and give her encouragement.

Anyway, we had a discussion around a post I did almost a year ago entitled “Black Mothers, Black Sons, and Little White Girls.” I found her take on the issue interesting, so I had her write it up.

I really dislike seeing white women with Black men. Although I do not have children yet, I have always said I would be extremely upset if I had a son, and he brought home a white woman. The thing is, I AM a white woman. AND, I date Black men. So, why do I have an issue with OTHER white women dating Black men?

First of all, I find that most of the white women who DO date Black men do it for all the wrong reasons. Either they look at dating a Black man as some sort of exciting new adventure, OR they believe certain myths about Black male sexuality, OR they are trying to rebel against their parents, OR they want a "bad boy" and to them all Black men are "bad". It is not too often that I see white women with a Black man simply because she loves him.

The second issue I have with BM/WF couples is that MOST of the time, the white female wants NOTHING to do with Black females, and in fact disrespects Black females every chance she gets. She insists that if a Black female disagrees with something she says or does it is because all Black females are jealous of her.

I have heard it time and time again: a white woman saying they she is not racist because she dates a Black men, and in the next breath go on to enumerate the reasons why she is better than a Black woman.

I also cringe when I hear that white women get offended when someone says her child is Black, protesting that her child is, in fact, biracial. It seems to me that they think that being biracial is somehow better than being Black. And, they often insist on raising their children in their own little lily white world, surrounded only by their WHITE family, living in neighborhoods where their child is the only person of color, having their child attend schools with only white children.

Another issue I have with IR dating is with Black men who ONLY date white women. They give all sorts of reasons for why they prefer white women, and it usually has nothing to do with love, or even with attraction. To them, dating a white woman is "easier" than dating a Black woman. They have the impression that they can do whatever they want and not have to answer for it if they choose to be with only white women. For this reason, I will not date a man who ONLY dates white women.

A Black man who disrespects all Black women and embraces a white woman is disrespecting women as a whole because he is dating a woman based on a stereotyped assumption of behavior. Plus, these men often allow white women to disrespect Black woman, including his mothers, sisters, aunts, and grandmothers. This is deplorable.

Personally, I see so much racism in the white community, including from people who are in interracial relationships, that when I have a child, I would not want my child to date a white man or woman. But of course, I cannot say I would feel that way if the situation actually presented itself. Maybe if I got to know the individual, they may show me something that makes me change my mind about them.

I know, from my experience, friends and family members of men I date are often reluctant to accept me, for good reason. If 95% of white people ARE racists, which I believe to be true, then it is only natural for the friends and families of my boyfriends to be wary of me until I prove myself to them.

And, don’t get me wrong, I am not saying I am perfect by any means. I grew up in my little insular white world believing the same stereotypes that are forced down our throats by the media, the educational system, friends and neighbors. Even though my parents were not blatantly racist, this society teaches white children that they are somehow better than other races. Even when it is not put in terms of race, the implication is there. It is there in the television shows we watch, the books we read, the things we are taught in school.

Personally, when I reached college, I realized there was a whole world out there that I knew nothing about, and I was determined to counter my own ignorance with the truth. Most white women do not feel the need to do that. The think that by having a few Black friends, or dating a Black man, they are “proving” they are not racist. Yet they still hold all of these prejudices near and dear to their hearts.

Until a woman is willing to reject and counter the racism in herself, she really should not be dating or marrying Black men, and she certainly should not be raising a Black child!

[For more JuJuBe, just click here.]

This ain’t your grandparents’ drug dealer. Or maybe it is. Eighty-three year old woman charged with selling crack.

2010-05-14T09:06:00.002-04:00

When I saw this one, I didn’t know what to think. We all have our own stereotypical ideas of what a drug dealer looks like. But with the arrest of eighty-seven year old Ola Mae Agee, that stereotype has been completely and utterly shattered.

On Thursday, May 13, Police arrested the eighty-seven year old Pensacola, Florida, resident and charged her with selling cocaine after undercover sheriff’s deputies video-taped her selling a twenty dollar piece of crack.

Ola Mae got them jumbos y’all.

At first I approached this news item as the story of an elderly lady who was forced to do the unthinkable just to provide herself with the barest necessities, but then I found out that when she was seventy-three, she was charged with the same crime and served two years on probation.

That makes her a habitual offender. Ola Mae is a straight hustla’, baby!

But in all fairness, the sheriff’s department also speculates that others may also be dealing drugs from the house. So, I would like to believe that perhaps she was somehow being manipulated by others due to her old age. Or at least, I certainly hope so.

California Newsreel Doc Blacking Up: Hip-Hop's Remix of Race and Culture Free Online Until the End of May

2010-05-13T16:06:00.002-04:00

California Newsreel is offering up another documentary for free viewing. Black Up: Hip-Hop’s Remix of Race and Identity critically examines the popularity of hip-hop among white youths in America. What is driving this phenomenon, admiration or mockery? Is this simply another episode of cultural theft?

The video will be available for perusal without charge until the end of May. After then the documentary can be purchased simply by going to California Newreel's site. A short trailer is embedded above.

And a big hat-tip once again to Prometheus 6. He has a definite knack for finding free stuff, but I ain’t mad at him though.

And John McCain Finally Nears Rock Bottom: Fellow Republicans Mock His Newest Campaign Ad

2010-05-13T15:06:00.001-04:00

Conclusive proof that Senator John McCain has outlived his efficacy as well as his facilities of good judgment. Watch as Joe Scarborough and fellow Republican Arizona Republican John Shadegg, along with the rest of the panel, laugh at McCain’s campaign ad, “Just finish the danged fence.”

He probably will win his re-election bid, but in doing so he will have also lost any self-respect he might have left. Such a shame. Who would have thought he would go from presidential candidate to this desperate, pandering foolishness?

So, Lawrence Taylor, you didn't have intercourse with that child but only masturbated? And that makes it better?

2010-05-13T11:06:00.005-04:00

Yesterday morning TMZ reported that troubled former New York Giants linebacker and Football Hall of Famer Lawrence Taylor now claims that he did not have sex with the underage prostitute he procured with the help of a gentleman who now faces charges under federal child trafficking statues for kidnapping, drugging, and offering the child up for prostitution. And additionally, the condom found in the hotel room in which the sexual act was to have taken place did not belong to him but to someone else.

Instead, Taylor now claims through his lawyers that his purposes for hiring the young girl were purely masturbatory. No intercourse took place between the two.

You don’t know how much better that makes me feel because when I first heard of the complaints against Taylor, I was somewhat disgusted and more than a bit outraged. But now I’m relieved to know that he displayed such character in choosing not to participate in the further exploitation of this young lady and took his carnal pleasure into his own hands.

Man, Lawrence Taylor, you have got to be out of your drug-addled monkey mind. You just masturbated and that makes it alright, huh? Perhaps this latest claim, if believed by the court may result in lesser penalty, but that in no way makes it in the least bit better. In my mind, you are still a lowlife degenerate perv bastard.

And it dawns on me that you may have a daughter or daughters yourself. I remember a while back you were in hot water for not paying your child support. What would be your reaction if someone kidnapped them, drugged them, and offered them for sex to some perv-ish former professional athlete?

Or perhaps you haven’t spent a whole lot of time with them. It seems that after football you have spent the lion’s share of your time in and out of jail on crack cocaine charges and procuring prostitutes. You, and people like you, make me cringe, Lawrence Taylor.

And speaking of cringing,

This video seems to be making the rounds on the internet as of late. I actually came across it in several places before I decided to take a look:

Is it just me, or is this some abject foolishness? What is wrong with us? One the one hand, we claim to be appalled and outraged when our girls are exploited or otherwise misused, but on the other, we cheer and applaud when they are dolled up and paraded before us in hyper-sexualized situations labeled as harmless performances. A bunch of pre-pubescent girls gyrating suggestively on stage ain’t in the least bit cute.

And recently, I came across a series on TLC entitled Toddlers and Tiaras which features a number of very young girls competing in beauty pageants across the country. The girls were made up and glammed up to be damned, and wearing sometimes the very skimpiest of costumes, encouraged to strut about the stage in the most suggestive of manners.

That’s simply disgusting to me. And from all appearances, it seems this whole spectacle is for the benefit of the overbearing parents attempting to live through their children.

I’m in no way a prude, or at least I don’t believe myself to be, but there seems to be something wholly contradictory in our behavior. And I really hope that I don’t seem to be speaking to you from atop a soapbox. But from where I’m sitting, we cannot decry the sexualization and exploitation of our children in one arena while encouraging and applauding their sexualization and exploitation in another.

Certainly, the kidnapping and prostitution of children is not commensurate with these over-sexualized performances, but they do seem to be simply flip sides of the same coin.

Am I wrong? Am I over-reacting?

Lewis Black Concludes that Glen Beck Has Nazi Tourettes

2010-05-13T09:06:00.001-04:00

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Back in Black - Glenn Beck's Nazi Tourette's

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor

Tea Party

Sitting in on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Lewis Black delivers one of his trademark over the top rants in pointing out the irony of Glen Beck taking offense at protesters labeling the Arizona immigration law as Nazi-like. I always enjoy a good Lewis Black rant, but this one is one of the best.

The Shopping Cart with the Shaky Wheel Theorem: Is It Just Me, or Does President Obama Seem to Be Veering a Bit to the Right?

2010-05-11T21:06:00.000-04:00

Since President Obama assumed the presidency, he seems to be doing a credible job. He got off to a shaky start, mind you, but since his early mis-steps and mis-calculations, he has come into his own. I do believe, however, that his early mis-steps and mis-calculations may have given the GOP a foot in the door in the mid-term elections that they might not have otherwise.

But the president does have a certain predilection that I find curious, that I cannot quite figure out. Let’s see if I can explain it with this analogy.

Have you ever gone to the supermarket and gotten that grocery cart with the shaky wheel? You know the one. No matter how hard you try to prevent it, the cart keeps veering in one direction. Sometimes it’s simply a minor annoyance, but at other times, it bgecomess so utterly aggravating that you just leave the cart there in the aisle in the middle of the store and stamp back to the front to get another cart.

That’s how President Obama’s presidency appears at times. It seems that despite the direction we would like him to go, he keeps seemingly veering right.

Take for instance his nomination of Harvard legal scholar Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court. Admittedly, I know very little about Kagan, but that’s just it. No one seems to know much about Kagan. Since she has never been a sitting judge, she has no important rulings that we might have to examine.

And despite her being a long time legal scholar, it appears she has produced very little in the way of scholarly writing that we might examine to determine her legal inclinations. Besides that, her record of hiring minorities while serving as the dean of the Harvard’s law school leaves a lot to be desired.

She’s basically an unknown quantity; we have no idea what we are getting , so we cannot be positively sure it’s what we really want, if she’s really the change we voted for.

And in addition to Kagan’s nomination, the evidence of President Obama’s tendency to veer right abounds. When he assumed office, he kept many of his predecessor’s policies in place much to our chagrin. And in putting together the HCR package, he seemed to stack concession to the demands of the right on top of concession even when it became apparent that the right just might not be negotiating in good faith.

When we throw in his reluctance to do away with DADT once and for all, his Bush-lite like policies toward the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, his plans to expand offshore drilling, and numerous other lingering glances to the right, you just have to stop and wonder.

Perhaps it is simply a case of political exigency. Certainly, Kagan’s nomination might be considered to be a shrewd move; the paucity of information to sift through gives the GOP little ammunition in attacking her which, of course, we know they’ll do anyway no matter who the nominee might have been.

And in the uber-contentious, partisan climate of today’s Washington, such forays rightward might be necessary in order to gain political traction. And keep in mind that to win elections, to remain in favor, President Obama must appeal to moderates and Independents.

It is the base from which you receive your support, your energy; however, no national politician can win without the votes of moderates and Independents. It’s always a precarious balancing act, placating your base while maintaining the support of moderates and Independents.

And if this is the case, I do understand. After all, the game’s chess not checkers. But again I believe President Obama to be doing a great job. I’m not being critical just for the sake of being critical. I just wish that every once in a while, he would give just a nod and a wink to those of us who are just a bit left of center.

Do you think that President Obama has a tendency to veer left? If so, what do you think of this? Is it simply a case of political necessity?

This Sistah Here Can Sang!: Presenting Avery*Sunshine

2010-05-10T12:06:00.004-04:00

You know, I always say that the very best music cannot be found on mainstream radio, or even on the top ten charts, but reside somewhere off the beaten path, sometimes out of an open window, sometimes in a small smoky room, sometimes at some obscure, small town soul food festival, sometimes sitting on a blanket in a park on a lazy Sunday afternoon armed only with a beautiful smile, dimples, and an acoustic guitar.

Good music sometimes sounds best when it surprises you, grabs you, and demands that you sit and listen.

And as of late, my main man Dewan of Soul Reservoir and I have been on a mission to find these hidden jewels and bring them to you. We complain about the lack of quality music, but we often overlook that which is right there within earshot.

Take this sistah here out of Pennsylvania, Avery*Sunshine, that Dewan pulled my coat to. So, I’m sitting here listening to a few cuts she is offering as downloads on her site, and scrolling through the picture gallery, and I thanks to myself, “Dang, girl child.” And you know when I cease thinking and begin thanking, I usually end up in some kind of trouble. But that sultry, soulful voice coupled with those looks and a personality that shines through even in photographs, even on stage is where the whole concept of soul begins.

Her musical journey has taken her from the church to the stage, even to a number of private performances during President Obama’s inaugural celebrations. On her first CD which is due out soon, she states that she sings about the possibilities of being a single woman and the promise of God.

But anyway, check out the cuts embedded below, let me know what you think, and throw your full support behind this sister’s career. And one day when you are driving down the street with her beautiful voice serenading you, and in that brief moment in which everything seems just right in your world, remember that the soulbrother told you so.

Avery*Sunshine Homepage

Avery*Sunshine MySpace

Avery*Sunshine on ReverbNation

Really, George Rekers, Really?: Just Give Us the Straight Story about the Whole Rentboy Debacle

2010-05-10T01:06:00.003-04:00

When the GOP and the right cloaked themselves in the mantle of “family values,” they made a very politically astute move. In one bold, decisive stroke the party managed both to claim the moral high ground and align themselves with God. Therefore by challenging the GOP party and its ideology, by extension you also challenge divine law and pre-established notions of normalcy and morality.

This position becomes exceptionally useful in a nation most people incorrectly identify as a Christian nation founded on Christian principles despite much evidence to the contrary.

However, by claiming the moral high ground as its own, the GOP and those on the right also invite added scrutiny; every moral failing, every lapse in judgment, takes on a heightened significance. And because we are human beings and, as such, given to human frailties, foolishness is bound to happen at some juncture. Then comes the charges of hypocrisy and rightly so.

Take for instance one Professor George Rekers. Professor Rekers has made a career out of persecuting the gay and lesbian community. Then just last week, reports surfaced in various media of Professor Rekers’ recent trip to Europe on which he was accompanied by a twenty year old male escort he picked up on an online site entitled rentboy.com. According to Professor Rekers, the young man accompanied him to Europe because he, Rekers, had recently had surgery and needed someone to carry his bags.

Really, Professor Rekers, really?

Because if I needed someone to accompany me on a trip to carry my bags, I would probably first call my young nephew who just graduated from college in December and cannot yet find a job. He could more that likely use the money. Or I would call the lazy, good for nothing son of my fourth cousin, once removed, on my step-father’s side. He’s lazy, but he will work when pressured. At the very least, I wouldn’t have sought out an aide from some site named rentboy.com.

And I don’t want to be judgmental, so let’s just conclude he really didn’t know what rentboy.com really was. But the strapping, shirtless youth on the landing page should have been a clue, along with the warning that “This site might contain content or materials of a graphic and/or sexual nature.”

However, Professor Rekers may very well have missed these clues and assumed that the strapping, shirtless lad was just an example of the strong young workers on hand to be rented for odd jobs like bag carrying.

Yet, once you enter the site there is no way you can miss the assorted collection of scantly clothed men and throbbing blue veiners that seem to kind of jump out at you like pages in a really naughty pop-up book. You didn’t realize it was a gay escort site then, Professor Rekers?

Really, Professor Rekers, really?

But let’s still give him the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps he was in a hurry and noted the young men pictured in the sidebar gently cupping each other’s naughty bits and reasoned that if they could hold private parts like that, then certainly they possessed the manual dexterity requisite for carrying bags.

However, that does not explain the contract he drew up with the young man he chose, Lucien:

Young Lucien had to be in his presence eight hours a day? Two meals together? And a one hour sexual message a day? What is a sexual message anyway? And why would a straight man really desire another man to give him a sexual message?

Really, Professor Rekers, really?

Let’s just drop the whole charade and assume Professor George Rekers is queer. And I think no less of him because he is queer; however, I do take great umbrage at the fact that not only has he spent his life in denial of just who and what he is, as is his right, but he then made it his pronounced mission to make the lives of others of the same orientation a living hell. There is a certain hypocrisy here that cannot be excused, that must be decried in the loudest, shrillest tones.

Why don’t we try this? Why don’t we just embrace our humanity and relinquish our control of the moral high ground to whatever gods may be, and then seek to live the best lives we can lead while assisting others to live the best lives they can lead without judgment.

Professor Rekers, if you did this, you could go on trips all around the world and get absolutely whoever you want to carry your bags without consequence. That is unless some asshole like you comes along and tries to use it against you for political and financial gain. Really.

The Writing Lesson; or, My Exquisite First Lie: A Short Narrative by Max Reddick for My Mother on Mother’s Day

2010-05-09T06:06:00.005-04:00

You know, I owe my mother so much. In a number of ways, she is most responsible for the man I have become. At least, all the positive stuff. My mother gave me so many things and taught me so many more. However, there is one lesson that stands out in particular.

You see, in the very beginning it was just me and my mother. She and my natural father separated soon after I was born. And between then and the time she met and married the right Reverend L.G. Reddick, I was being raised by committee in a very rural area of West Tennessee with my mother and maternal grandmother being the co-chairpersons of that committee.

And it seems that their complete child-raising efforts went into assuring that I did not turn out like my natural father. Truthfully, they spoiled me rotten, and I got away with almost everything. But if I exhibited any negative trait that seemed to in anyway be a product of my natural father, they went absolutely nuts. And the foremost of these negative traits was lying.

However, I could not ever understand this extreme disdain for my father because everyone else seemed to adore him to no end. He was this diminutive, pigeon-toed, round headed man. He was maybe five foot seven or five foot eight, but his personality was about seven feet tall.

He was a popular minister in the C.M.E. church, and admittedly, he had his peccadilloes, but people forgave him for it. People overlooked them because they loved him so. And admittedly, he was a bit unorthodox, but the thing is that as much as people loved him, he loved people right back. While most ministers set themselves apart, he was always out right in the middle of people, laughing with them, trading stories and more than a few lies with them.

Perhaps, this love for people and being around people persuaded him to construct that thing that my mother and grandmother held up as prime evidence of his depravity and all-around no-good-ness. At some point doing my childhood, he founded a juke joint.

My father built this little cinderblock structure on the empty tract of land next to his home where my grandfather had once farmed. Now, he says he built it for some other purpose which we never fully knew or understood, but it eventually ended up being a juke joint.

And during the spring and summer, on Saturday afternoons at about two o’clock, he would begin setting up shop outside his juke joint. He would begin to barbq, and he would set the pigs feet and the hog maws and the greens or whatever else he was serving his customers that night to boiling. Around five o’clock, everyone would be returning from town, and little by little, they would drift over to his juke joint where he would be outside cooking and sit for a spell.

I call this the period of preliminary sin. If I were around at this time, he would put me to work bringing more firewood or running this errand or that errand for him. But I couldn’t tell my mother or grandmother that because had they found out that I was an active and willing participant in his little den of iniquity, there would have been smoke in the city. For those early comers gathered, he would sell them a little corn whiskey and pass out small samples of whatever it was he was cooking.

But as soon as it got dark, he would plug up the juke box, and the sinning would begin in earnest. Now, I was never around for the real sin, but my maternal grandmother seemed to be a bona fide expert on the scandalous debauchery that took place there though I’m not so sure how she had such intimate knowledge of the comings and goings of my father’s juke joint since I don’t ever recall her being in very close proximity to the place.

This went on for about two or three summers before the church establishment shut him down. The governing body of the C.M.E. church cited some obscure scripture about not being able to serve two masters or something like that. However, I couldn’t exactly follow their reasoning.

It seems to me that my father had a pretty good set-up which worked in the best interests of all involved. People are going to sin. That’s a fact. So why not let a minister of the church be on hand to supervise the sinning so it doesn’t get out of hand? Then, in the morning, he could just absolve them of that sin, and their souls would not be in jeopardy.

Now, if something dreadful happened to befall them between the time they entered the juke joint on Saturday night and the time they reached the church on Sunday morning, it seems to me that they were pretty much meant to go to hell anyway. No one’s luck could conceivably be that bad.

Anyway, in the fallout that followed, my mother and grandmother found out that I had been witness to, at the very least, the preliminary stages of the foolishness, so my mother decided to move from the country to the closest city, Jackson, Tennessee partly because I would have better educational opportunities there, mostly to get me away from the horrible influence of my father.

So, we moved out of my maternal grandparents’ home, and she bought this little house on Hayes Avenue, right around the corner from Lane College, a local HBCU. During the day, she continued to teach English at Tigret High School, and sometimes in the evening she worked part time at the new J.C. Penneys.

This meant that when I got out of school, often she would not be there, and my grandparents lived so far away in the country that it would not have been prudent for them to drive into town to get me, or if they did, that would mean that my mother would have to drive out to the country to pick me up when she did finally get off work, and then drive back to the city. So, they enlisted the help of this older couple who knew our family and who had made the migration from the country to the city much earlier who just happened to live next door to us in the city.

Please forgive me, but it’s been so long that I have forgotten this older couple’s names. However, their faces are forever etched in my memory. And they were good people too, salt of the earth. Their children had long moved away, and they did not have ready access to their grandchildren, so they readily jumped at the opportunity to allow me to spend the evenings with them until my mother arrived home.

And if I was spoiled before I began to stay there with them in the evenings, I surely got spoiled really quickly once the arrangement kicked off in earnest. They literally adopted me as their new grandchild. These two elderly people doted on me.

When I would get off the bus in the evenings, they would have a snack all ready for me. And they would just sit there across the table from me side-by-side as I did my homework and stare at me, literally stare at me, in anticipation with eyes all wide. With every stroke of my pencil or every turn of the page, they would go on and on about how smart I was, what a little intellect I was. I cannot understate just how much love and affection these two had invested in me.

But then one day I got off the bus in a sullen, morose mood. I don’t know what was wrong with me. I really don’t. It’s just that day, for whatever reason, I felt a little down, and my demeanor reflected that.

And this upset the couple to no end. Normally I was this cheerful, happy little fellow with a big smile on my face and a spring in my step, but this evening my face wore an implacable frown, and I moved about lethargically, and they could not figure out why. So, they begged and pleaded with me to tell them why so they could make it better. However, I could not because I did not know myself.

So, the wife disappeared in the kitchen while the husband kept close watch on me as I lazed languidly on the sofa. The concern could be seen on his face. And I felt bad for them. I really did because they were so upset because I seemed so upset, but I could not even articulate why I was so upset. I guess it’s just one of those things kids go through.

Anyway, momentarily the wife emerged from the kitchen carrying this big platter of cookies and a glass of milk. I sniffed the air. Oh my goodness! Cinnamon raisin oatmeal. My absolute favorite. And I don’t exaggerate in the least bit when I say that each of these cookies was as big as a saucer. Instantly I began to feel just a wee bit better.

So, I sat up, took a cookie from the platter, and took a bite. You won’t believe what happened next. I didn’t even have to chew the cookie. It literally dissolved in my mouth sending reports of cinnamony goodness to the deepest recesses of the pleasure center of my brain. After dissolving the rest of the cookie, I decided to cleanse my palate with a quick gulp of milk, and then it got even better.

This milk was so very cold that it had little tiny flakes of ice in it. After taking a few quick sips, I fell back on the sofa thinking to myself that this must be what heaven is like, spending the afternoon dissolving cinnamon raisin oatmeal cookies on your tongue and washing it all down with ice cold milk.

Just then this couple sensed that they have made some kind of breakthrough, and they then moved to either side of me, imploring me to finally tell them what was bothering me. After the whole cookies and milk thing, I did feel that I owed them something, so I decided to just make something up.

I told them that my grandfather, my mother’s father, was sick. I thought this would be the end of the inquiry, but they pressed for details, so I felt further obliged to give them the details they sought. I told them that he was practically on his death bed, and suddenly my imagination kicked in, and on the spot, I composed a whole narrative around the “illness” of my grandfather. The narrative was so affective that I even made myself just that much more morose, and ended up having to dissolve another cookie or two to ease the pain. They, too, had pools of tears standing in their eyes.

But just as my pitiful narrative of woe and commiseration was reaching its apogee, we heard a familiar knock on the door. My mother. So they let her in, and before she could even get inside the door good, they smothered her with hugs and tearful kisses much to her surprise. Then they laid out the yarn that I had been spinning for about the last hour.

My mother took the time to assure them that her father was in no way ill and certainly not at death’s door as I had told them. She apologized profusely for my overactive imagination, and with her last words, reminded them of who my father was. They nodded knowingly. With the mention of my father, I knew that I was really in for it the moment we got outside.

But for the first time since I had known them, this old couple looked upon me in disappointment. Suddenly the cookies I had dissolved in my mouth began to feel like wet concrete sitting at the bottom of my stomach. So I quickly dissolved another to see if I could make that feeling of guilt go away, but I could not.

And just as I predicted, the moment we got out of their home and crossed the yard into ours, my mother went to work on my behind. She waded into the very center of the hedges in our yard and came out with the longest, thickest switch I had ever seen in my life up to that time and I have ever seen since. Then she went to work in earnest.

But suddenly during her angry strokes of the switch and frenzied shouts of “Imma whip the lies right out of your black behind” and “I betcha won’t do it again, will you?” and my yelps of physical and psychological pain, she just stopped and looked at me there writhing in the dust. Suddenly the look on her face transformed from aggrieved malice to pity. Muttering “My God, my God, what am I doing?”, she threw the remainder of the switch aside, picked me up out of the dust, and carried me into the house.

Upon entering the house, she sat me in a chair at the dining room table. Presently she returned and placed a plate of cookies and glass of milk in front of me. But I wasn’t touching either at this point; that’s what got all this trouble started in the first place. It looked quite like a trap to me.

Anyway, she sat down next to me, and using a warm, moist tile, she began to sooth the many angry red welts that covered my arms and legs. As she did, she apologized to me for disciplining me in anger, in such a rage. She explained to me that my father had many, many amazing talents and gifts; this is what attracted her to him in the first place. But, she explained further, for every talent he had, for every gift he had, he also displayed a conflicting predilection for abject foolishness.

She closed her monologue by explaining that all she really wanted was to see the very best of my father in me while eschewing the negative. She hugged me and kissed me on my forehead, and I rewarded her by smiling and taking a bite of cookie and a drink of milk.

Then she said, “Now there. Tell me all about your day at school today. Did you enjoy your day? Did something happen to make you so sad?”.

Again, she was being so kind to me, and we had just shared such an honest moment that I felt I had to give her something. But because of my most recent experience, I was more than a bit leery. But she pressed, and my imagination took over.

“Well,” I began, “we did get to go out to the playground today. But as I was playing over by the bushes, I heard these strange noises coming out of the bushes.”

Instantly, my mother looked concerned. Her eyes widened, and one hand went to her face, covering her mouth, and the other clutched her pearls. “Oh my God! What kind of sounds did you hear? Could you tell what it was?”

I continued my story. “It sounded like a loud, deep roar, like a lion or a tiger. But it could have been a bear. It’s very hard for me to distinguish between the three types of roars. Anyway, I…”.

My mother stopped me in mid sentence. First this look of utter disbelief crossed her face, followed by a look of abject surrender. “Max, Max, Max,” she said, shaking her head.

She left the room, and then returned carrying a pad and a pen. She then placed both in front of me and bade me, “Just write it down, Max. Just write it down and put a title on it.”

The Chronicles of Max Reddick #1: #housemackfail

2010-05-08T05:06:00.005-04:00

This one goes out to all the young and up-and-coming housemacks, those who put in work at the crib on the daily. I want to give you this advice and leave you with this lesson so that what happened to me does not happen to you.

So, my wife and I were in the bathroom getting ready for work, and as our custom, we had this deep philosophical conversation going on. And that’s not unusual because often we’ll debate the same subject for days. But this morning she made the mistake of re-hashing old material so I found myself losing interest until finally I turned my attention to the television.

And she was in mid-sentence when I burst out with, “Hey, baby. You should see this. During this baseball game this fan jumped on the field and started running around, and they tasered him. This is hilarious!”

So, she stops in mid-sentence and gives me this incredulous look. “You mean I’ve been going on and on, and you’re not even listening to me? You’re watching some stupid baseball stunt on television?”

I knew I had been caught, and she looked more than a little perturbed, so I tried to convince her that I had indeed been listening. But she called my bluff, and asked me what to tell her just what she said last.

Of course, I had not been listening, and I had no earthly idea what she said last, but I intrepidly took a shot in the dark: “You said, ‘I believe that children are the future. Teach them well and let them lead the way. Show them all the beauty they possess inside?’”

We had been talking about education, so I thought this was a pretty good guess. But evidently I was way off the mark because she gave me this nasty look, went back to making up her face, and refused to say anything else. I took this as a reprieve, so I gathered my things and headed on out the door.

Well, later that night after as the day was winding down and the children had retired to their bedroom, I sat in my home office completing one or two miscellaneous tasks. When I was done I got up and headed into our bedroom, and there she was sprawled across the divan looking like some naughty librarian.

She was wearing my huge University of Florida College of Arts and Sciences sweatshirt, and had her hair pulled back in this tight, severe bun with these sexy, sexy reading glasses perched right on the very tip of her nose.

But get this. This is the clincher. She was reading this big, thick book. And she knows what big, thick books do to me. Big, thick books drive me absolutely wild! But I played it cool. That’s the first rule of housemacking. Always play it cool.

So, I went on in the bathroom and took me a nice hot shower. Then I applied three separate layers of lotion. The second layer I applied because I really needed it. I’m an extra ashy brother, and if I apply less than two layers, I stand the chance of turning goose gray. The third layer, though, I applied purely for effect. I wanted that shiny look.

Then I strategically applied a little something, something I picked up in Spain, this exotic fragrance called Pheromones de un Toro Muy Virilo. Roughly translated, that’s Pheromones of a Very Virile Bull. I figured that if it worked for that bull, it would certainly work for the Max-ster.

I finished it all off by slipping into this pair of silk, golden pajama bottoms, and a pair of suede house slippers complete with my monogram, MRR. This is my official housemack uniform that I wear for those special occasions.

Now, peep game! Peep game!

I stepped out of the bathroom, and stood there posing in the archway. I dimmed the lights in the main room, but left the lights on behind me so that as I stood there posing, the light from behind me created this soft silhouette.

Then I used the remote to turn on the stereo and went straight to that old Al Green’s Greatest Hits CD. I turned down the sound just low enough to hear the music and hear Al hit those high notes, but I set the bass really, really high so that when Al moaned, it would cause the speakers to vibrate sending a shiver up your spine.

But you wouldn’t know anything about that. That’s advanced housemacking, and I wouldn’t suggest you try this except under the tutelage of an expert. You have to crawl before you can walk.

Anyway, I’m standing there looking like some shiny Nubian king and smelling all bull-sy. I know those bull pheromones were working because the moment I stepped into the room, my wife asked me if I smelled something.

And in the back of my mind, I have this image of the motherland, and the ancestors drumming and singing around this huge bonfire in the village center in celebration of black love. I could practically hear the rhythm of the drums in my head: boom-back-ticka-ticka, boom-back-ticka-ticka, boom-back-ticka-ticka.

So, then she looks up and sees me standing there, and she smiles this coy smile and chuckles just a little. “Umph. It looks like a have your full attention now,” she says.

So, I kick in with my Barry White voice, all deep and stuff: “Baby, you got everything Max has, now and forever.”

Now those ancestors drumming and dancing in the village center in my head have worked themselves into a virtual frenzy. The bonfire had reached about twenty-five feet high, and they are beating those drums and dancing like their lives depend on it.

“You sure about that?,” she asks.

“I’m two hundred percent sure,” I growl back, my voice one octave lower.

“Then this is what I would like you to do for me,” she says as she lets that big, thick book slide down those big, pretty legs of hers to the floor. She pats the divan right next to her with her hands. “Sit down right here, and let’s finish the conversation we were having this morning.”

And just then in the back of my head, the ancestors stopped drumming and stopped singing. They looked at each other, shrugged their shoulders, and began putting up the drums and unplugging the amplifiers and the microphones before they extinguished the bonfire and retired to the ancestral huts for the night. Nothing to celebrate here.

#housemackfail

Because I’m (Sometimes) Immature: My Chick Bad GLEE AUDITION (NSFW)

2010-05-07T18:06:00.002-04:00

Original video Ludacris My Chick Bad remix ft. Diamond, Trina, and Eve

God’s Law, Man’s Law, or Just a Cynical Attempt to Change the Political Trajectory in Arizona: Why the Constitutionality of Arizona State Senate Bill 1070 Does Not Matter

2010-05-07T11:06:00.004-04:00

Yesterday the spring semester ended for me, and I spent the first day of summer idleness reading Arizona State Senate Bill 1070, the notorious “show me your papers” immigration bill. And I read the whole thing too, not just the naughty bits.

I guess I’m just a big nerd, but I was curious just as to what the bill contained so that I might make my own informed judgments about the bill before I wrote about it.

And honestly I expected the bill to read like the old Southern Black Codes though not as explicit in its aim and targets. But I was disappointed. No real fireworks here. Everything in the bill is pretty much run of the mill and simply replicates laws already on the books. However, the only thing that stands out is that infamous, oft-quoted line, “WHERE REASONABLE SUSPICION EXISTS THAT THE PERSON IS AN ALIEN WHO IS UNLAWFULL PRESENT IN THE UNITED STATES.”

But herein lies the greatest point of contention; does this line negative render the whole bill unconstitutional?

Of course, the most obvious question is just what is it that might arouse “reasonable suspicion” of being an illegal immigrant? The only thing I can think of that might draw such scrutiny is ethnicity. But does that make the law unconstitutional?

But let’s take a second to step back and look at what causes a law to be unconstitutional or not. Now, I’m not a lawyer or a constitutional scholar; my expertise is in reading, explicating, and teaching texts; however, the only real difference between what I do and what a lawyer or constitutional scholar does is the type of texts.

Anyway, from what understanding I have, the U.S. Constitution gains its authority from this notion of a certain natural law that precedes directly from God by the very virtue of our humanity that guarantees us certain rights—the foremost being freedom—that may not be taken or abridged by any man or government.

These rights include, among others, exercising our free will, thinking whatever thoughts we would like to think, saying whatever we would like to say, worshipping as we wish to worship, protecting ourselves, owning and using personal property as we see fit, and moving about freely.

In my best estimation, then, and you lawyers and constitutional scholars might be able to help me with this, the measure of the constitutionality of any statue becomes whether or not the statute violates natural law by impinging on or impeding the exercise of one’s God given rights. If the statute does, then it falls possibly into the realm of positivism.

Positivism runs counter to natural law; positivism accords authority to the government and government officials by virtue of their position as elected legislators. Through positivism the government enacts laws that seek to regulate human beings by virtue of the groups to which they belong.

So, does Arizona State Senate Bill 1070 violate this natural law? Does it impinge upon or impede the exercise of one’s natural rights?

Prima facie the bill does perhaps not violate the U.S. Constitution simply because those the bill is aimed at, illegal aliens, are not covered under the U.S. Constitution. But in the same instance, the enforcement of the bill does threaten to violate the rights of Mexican Americans. So, the problem is not the bill, but the enforcement of the bill.

But, and this is the meat of my argument, the bill was never meant to be enforced; the bill was enacted in a predominantly Republican state by a Republican senate and signed by a Republican governor simply for the effect that bill might have. It was enacted as a measure of self-preservation.

At this time, Arizona’s population is approximately one third Hispanic, and the number of Hispanics is rapidly growing. And Arizona’s growing Hispanic population is tending more and more to vote Republican, so conceivably this bright red state stands the chance of turning blue should this trend continue.

Keep in mind that when Jan Brewer served as the secretary of state in Arizona, following the 2004 elections, she led an effort that either purged or blocked from voting about 100,000 Arizonians, mostly Hispanic. The following year in the city of Phoenix, which was trending Democratic and Hispanic, one in three new voter registration applications were rejected with no real explanation.

So, regardless of this talk of protecting the good people of Arizona from this brown horde of illegal aliens, the Republican legislature in the state of Arizona hopes that the effect of this bill is to drive from the state of Arizona those brown bodies it deems undesirable, who might just vote Democratic, and make entering the state as undesirable as possible to any other brown bodies.

Incidentally, this same desired effect drove the implementation of the Black Codes in the post-Civil War South. The codes were meant to hamper the movement of African Americans, make movement from one place to the next as difficult as possible with the hope that tired of the restrictions and harassment, current African American residents of those states would just pick up and leave, and other African Americans would not move to these areas. Coincidentally, at the time African Americans were overwhelmingly voting Republican in a predominantly Democratic South.

Of course, this went against their own interests just as the immigration bill does now, because these undesirable bodies they sought to rid themselves of were integral to the economy in those states. With these brown bodies gone, where does the cheap labor come from? Who does those jobs no one else will do? It is a precarious balancing acting trying to balance racial and ethnic prejudice and political expediency on the one hand with economic exigency on the other.

But again, the GOP has chosen political expediency and self-preservation over any real solutions to real problems. However, I believe in doing so, the state of Arizona simply postpones the inevitable and grows and cements its own opposition.

So, in the end, I wouldn’t be so worried about whether or not the bill is unconstitutional or not; I would concentrate on the effect it has. The is what the Arizona GOP is closely watching.

Book Review: Glorious by Bernice L. McFadden

2010-05-05T06:06:00.004-04:00

Glorious by Bernice L. McFadden

I have waited a while for a book like this one. Quite a while. Sometimes when you read texts for a living, the pure joy of reading, the ecstasy of wallowing fully and wholly in the language of the text is crushed by a cinderblock of deadlines and expectations.

However, this text broke the tedium of uneventful text after uneventful text; it managed to capture my imagination, to excite and incite me. From the time I picked the text up, I could not put it down, and read on and on throughout the night until the morning when I finally achieved the last word and gingerly searched for a place of rest, exhausted and spent, but nonetheless satisfied as in the aftermath of an episode with a rapacious, talented lover.

In a style and voice reminiscent of famed writer and Pulitzer Prize winner Toni Morrison, author Bernice L. McFadden composes a narrative journey set against and bracketed by the historical coordinates of the infamous 1910 Jack Johnson victory over “great white hope” James J. Jeffries and the onset of the Civil Rights Movement.

Paralleling the life of renowned writer Zora Neale Hurston, the narrative chronicles one woman’s search for self, for a place, in a world that seems to despise her because she is black, broke, and a woman; it is every bit a narrative about the creation of a narrative.

After a moment of good fortune by her father begets a heart-breaking atrocity which, in turn, leads to the gradual destruction of her family and threatens her psyche, the protagonist Easter symbolically buries the word “hate” in a tin in the ground and sets out on a journey which takes her throughout the South and finally to a Harlem, New York, caught up in the cultural transformations wrought by the Harlem Renaissance.

Along the way Easter documents the highs and the lows, the pleasure and the pain, the great triumphs and the crushing defeats, in a narrative which she revisits and revises often. It is this text, this narrative that eventually defines her, imprisons then releases her, that eventually forces her to step back and reclaim and reassess those pages from her narrative that she mentally and symbolically discards to include that long buried and forgotten “hate” so that her journey might reach completeness.

Ms. McFadden creates a work that masterfully weaves fact and fiction into a beautiful tapestry of passionate language that leaves the reader impatient for her next offering. Let us take the time to applaud her for yet another riveting, passionate narrative. Glorious will be released on May 1, 2010.

Game On!: Spanx for Men Are Hitting Store Shelves Near You

2010-05-04T18:06:00.001-04:00

For the last few weeks I have been watching what I eat and when I can, getting a little exercise in here and there in an effort to trim down a bit and reclaim my health. But it just did not seem to be happening fast enough for me. However, now it seems like I’ll be getting a bit of help because Spanx has come out with Spanx for Men. And you know how well Spanx have worked for the sisters.

That’s right. All you brothers walking around with a little extra around the waist can now look all brand new. Just pick up you a pair of Spanx for Men, squeeze your behind into them, and the illusion is complete. I know I’ll be picking up one or two. What about you? And you can thank me later.

Endangered and Missing Animals: Will the Tea Party Movement Follow the PUMA PACs into Obscurity?

2010-05-04T00:06:00.002-04:00

Hey, whatever happened to the whole PUMA PAC movement? I had all but forgotten the PUMAs, People United Means Action or Party Unity My Ass, whoever you wish to believe, but as I was cleaning out my inbox this morning, I came across some information about the PUMAs that someone had forwarded to me some time ago.

Interesting stuff. It seems like that for a brief time they were a red hot news item. The media practically fell all over themselves trying to cover the PUMAs. Anyone identifying themselves as even tangentially associated with the PUMAs was thrust before the camera to voice their outrage and their determination to fight until the bloody end. They vowed they would not give up.

But as the 2008 presidential campaign kicked into high gear, and the MSM found bigger stories elsewhere, their enthusiasm tapered off. And then election night came and went, seemingly ending the PUMA’s whole raison d’etre.

Today, I did take the time to Google PUMA PAC. Most of the many blogs supporting their cause that proliferated during that time are no longer active; it is like they are stuck in time. Most abruptly end around July of 2008. Some continued through the election, though, but eventually the blog authors seemed to just give up and throw the towel in.

Chief PUMAPAC spokesperson and founder Darragh Murphy still has her page, pumapac.org, up, but it now reads more like a personal site rather than a site representing a nascent political movement with the potential of changing the American political system as the PUMAs were reported to be.

However, in assaying the meteoric rise and fall of the PUMAs, I could not help but recognizing the parallels between the PUMA’s and the Tea Party Movement.

First and foremost, both groups were founded primarily to protest the legitimacy of the winning candidate in a political contest. According to their line of reasoning, somehow collecting the most actual ballots cast and the most of any other measuring apparatus somehow means the will of the people has been subverted. I don’t actually understand it; perhaps it’s some kind of Falstaff-ian Jedi mind trick.

And both were born of a bored media, desperate for a sensational story, and driven and buoyed by an over-exaggeration of actual numbers leading to an over-exaggerated sense of importance.

The PUMA’s and the Tea Party Movement both tendered estimates in the millions of members. However, closer examination revealed actual membership and participation was far below estimations, and furthermore, leaders and members were not who they claimed to be. In the case of the PUMA’s, the most prominent leaders were purported to actually be Republican operatives attempting to disrupt the unity of the Democratic Party.

In the case of the Tea Party Movement, it was found that what was maintained to be a grassroots movement was actually being organized and supported by a number of conservative organizations and think tanks. In addition, what was thought to be a broad coalition of disaffected voters was discovered to simply be the most radical and vocal members of the Republican party.

Yet, while the PUMA’s quickly fizzled out, the Tea Party Movement remains strong. But can it continue to flourish? I think not.

First of all, history is against the Tea Party Movement. No third party has ever had any significant success. And while they have managed to influence the trajectory of the GOP, how long before that influence wanes?

Even now they have succeeded in pushing the party further and further to the right. Many GOP party leaders who were once considered too extreme and controversial are now writing policy on the right, while the best and brightest are being pushed out because they do not meet some conservative litmus test.

And while the base may be aroused and enthused, Independents and moderates are slowly walking away, turned off by the vitriol. At some point, the GOP will look around from its place in the back of the line running behind the Tea Party Movement and realize that those they most need to be successful are retreating in the opposite direction.

And just like the PUMA’s, the Tea Party Movement will have then outlived its usefulness and it will have run its course. The Tea Party Movement leaders talk about making history but at some point in the future, just like the PUMA’s, they will become history.

A Good Father, a Good Man, and a Good Writer: Taking Time to Define Myself

2010-05-03T05:06:00.002-04:00

I can’t seem to sleep tonight. I can’t sleep. I can’t sleep. I just can’t sleep.

And I wasn’t able to sleep last night. Or the night before. Or the night before.

But that’s not so unusual; I have written of my lifelong bouts with insomnia before. But this particular night of sleeplessness, as was the previous nights, seemed so much different.

I did not just lie there for a period of time unable to sleep. I did not fall into a light, uneven, fretful sleep only to finally give in to my restlessness. But I was awaken from a deep, satisfying sleep by something, someone, who seemed to shake me awake, who seemed to whisper in my ear in dulcet, sweet tones, “Step outside yourself. Be intrepid. Press forward.”

And I awoke with a start. And I looked around in the darkness, fearful for just a moment at what, who was there. And finding nothing, no one, I cursed aloud because I knew it would be another sleepless night, and I felt so tired, so very tired.

However, tonight I took time to question, to ponder, the charge I had been given: “Press forward!” But go forward where and into what?

So, I got up quietly as to not awake anyone else, intent on suffering alone. I retrieved a pen and a pad from my desk, and I sat down to map out what direction I might take.

I started with those things I knew I needed to do—I need to manage my time better. I need to be more conscious of my health. So forth and so on. Then I moved on to those things I wanted to accomplish. But looking at my pad and looking at my ever growing lists, I just had this nagging feeling that perhaps I still was not on the right track.

Then something, someone, spoke to me: “But what do you want to be? Define yourself. If you died tomorrow, what would you like people to say about you?”

So, I paced the floor for a moment, and I thought. Then I sat down again and wrote, “I want to be a good father.”

My grandfathers are gone now, but I still have nothing but fond memories of them and admiration and respect for them. I know now that they were not perfect men. I know now that they were deeply flawed men; many of their flaws I will never even know. But even with all their flaws, their children, their grandchildren love them still, deeply, unconditionally.

And they did not have much too leave their heirs financially; medical expenses exhausted every cent my paternal grandfather ever saved over his lifetime. Yet, they left us with so much more. They left us with pride in who we are and where we came from, and they left us with wisdom of experience, of the ages that I will pass to my sons and my grandsons. This is the father I would like to be.

Then, I thought of my wife, and I wrote, “I would like to be a good man.”

I don’t have much. But I do have the respect of my wife, of my children, of most people I interact with on a daily basis. And this I value very greatly. They see in me sometimes things I don’t see in myself. They follow me. They listen to me. They show me great deference and affection.

I would like to be worthy of that respect, that deference, that affection. Given all my faults, given all my flaws, I would like them to see me not for what I am, but what I could be, what I desire to be. And I hope that in all I do, I can be a blessing to somebody.

And just as thought I was finished, my feet brushed against a box pushed beneath my desk. Just a few days ago my wife collected my unfinished, deserted manuscripts, miscellaneous notes, and character sketches from my desk drawers, from the top of my closet, from our storage facility, and she collected them all in that box.

Later, Over a cup of coffee and a smile, she informed me of what she had done, and she implored me gently but emphatically to choose any manuscript and finish it. Someone wanted to read what I had written she told me. Someone needed to read what I had written.

So, I wrote one final goal: “I want to be a good writer.”

I wrote my definition of self, those things I most desired to be, longhand and with great flourish on a sheet of paper, and taped it to the wall directly in front of my desk. That way when I am sitting here and I am tired, when my mind wanders and I begin to stare into space, I will see in front of me, “A good father, a good man, and a good writer.” Then I shall remember what exactly I am working for and gather my strength to continue.

But tonight I shall rest, for tomorrow begins my campaign. Tomorrow I begin pressing forward.

The Rise and Fall of Reason on the Right: How Charlie Crist Went from Presidential Contender to Party Pariah

2010-05-03T01:06:00.001-04:00

My voter’s registration card identifies my party affiliation as “No Party Affiliation”; however, I do lean Democratic. However, in the 2006 Florida gubernatorial election, I supported Republican Charlie Crist over his Democratic opponent, Jim Davis.

I saw in Crist perhaps what many saw in him. I saw in Crist perhaps that which prompted pundits, prognosticators, and Republican Party leaders alike to not so long ago herald him as a possible future presidential contender.

I found him to be a man of principles who had the courage to stand on those principles. Tall, handsome, and perpetually tanned, Crist was a consummate politician, a politician’s politician, who had a way about him. He seemed to make reasoned, thoughtful decisions based on what was best for those he served rather than what was most politically expedient.

Yes, Crist was on the rise, and it seemed only logical that the senate was the next step in his assent. But then the 2008 presidential election happened.

Crist’s first mis-step was to not support ex New York City major Rudy Gulliani in the Republican Party primaries as Gulliani evidently assumed he would. Maybe he realized that Gulliani had no substance, or as Vice-president Biden once quipped, every sentence he made contained a subject, a verb, and 9/11, but nevertheless, in the end he threw his support behind eventual Republican primary winner, John McCain which made him more than a few enemies.

However, by the time the John McCain campaign finally found its way to Florida, it had devolved into a traveling circus of sorts and seemed doomed, so Crist seemed to tactfully and tactically kept his distance. He added to his already growing list of enemies by not throwing the full weight of his influence in Florida behind the McCain campaign.

But the beginning of the end came when he embraced President Obama and openly accepted funds from the stimulus plan, The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. He did not put on a show of publically repudiating the stimulus plan and rejecting the funds, but privately accepting the funds and taking full credit for whatever good they did as many other prominent Republican governors did, particularly those angling for their own run at the presidency.

And just as an aside, I cannot see for the life of me what is wrong with a governor of a state in the United States showing deference to the President of the United States.

Finally, he vetoed Florida Senate Bill Six that would have potentially ruined the state educational system in Florida, a horrendous bill ghost written by former Florida governor Jeb Bush and pushed through by a Republican state senate.

Little by little, Republican Party leaders threw their support behind his Republican Party primary opponent, Marco Rubio, until a little trickle became a flood. Finally, significantly behind in the polls and pushed into a corner, Crist announced he would withdraw from the primary and run as an Independent. Curiously, though, polls show that with or without Crist in the race, Rubio probably cannot win.

However, Crist is being referred to now as being without principle and as an opportunist, but I would submit that at this very moment, Crist is perhaps one of very few Republicans exhibiting principles of any kind. Thus far throughout this whole “uprising” from the right, Crist has continued to rise above the rhetoric , the questionable decisions, and the untenable positions to make decisions and take positions based in reason for the best interests of his state.

But this is what the right does not realize in Florida and perhaps throughout the country. Heightened, hyperbolic rhetoric might suffice now in solidifying the support of the base, but as the general elections proceed, it will not be enough.

Right now in Florida, more voters are registered as Independents than as Democrats and Republicans. And this is the crucial block of voters that any successful campaign will have to attract. However, as candidates depend less on appealing to the Republican Party base and more appealing to those independents and moderates, they must be able to outline tenable plans and positions which I am yet to hear. The rallying cry and mantra from the right now seems to be “I will vanquish Obama and his cronies, and beat back big government” without indication as to how this feat will be accomplished.

But soon the layers of unreason will be slowly peeled away, one after another until it is revealed that beneath it all, the emperor is wearing no clothes. By drumming its best and brightest out of the party, the GOP hinders its quest for relevancy now and in the future. But I think that in the end, Charlie Crist will have the last laugh, but at whose expense?

What is the proper expression of fear for a man? (No, I did not scream, and that snake was awfully big)

2010-05-01T13:06:00.001-04:00

Okay, I know that spring is in full swing, and summer is just around the corner; I just had my first snake spotting of the year. Since I have been authoring this blog, several times I have related stories of the snake problem we have around our home [See here, here, and here]. We live in a semi-rural area and have a pond in the backyard. Plus, we have an abundance of insects which brings the frogs around the porch to dine, which, in turn, brings the snakes.

So, as spring proceeds, I have been on the lookout for snakes, and today I finally saw my first snake of this season but quite by accident. But there seems to be considerable disagreement as to what transpired immediately following this snake spotting.

This much I know for sure. I was returning to the house after giving final instructions to the yard man, when out of the corner of my eye I sensed movement. So, I looked down, and about a foot from my feet, I saw what looked to be this huge snake curled up there in the shade. This is where everything gets kind of murky though.

Just moments after I saw the snake, my wife and children came to the door and opened it, and the yard man came running around the house, at exactly the same time. Both asked me what happened because they had heard me scream. Of course I took the time to inform them that, no, I did not scream as a pointed at the confused but alert snake still curled up on the porch.

My wife then closed the door, leaving me still on the porch with a snake at my feet and began talking to me through the closed door.

Just then my neighbor came into the yard as did a jogger who just happened to be passing. They were both concerned because they thought they heard a scream. I had to inform them too they no one had screamed as I pointed to the snake who was now making his way toward the bushes. The jogger took the earbuds out of his ear, and made the observation that he did hear an audible, blood curdling scream even above the music he had been listening to as he jogged alone.

And just as the snake reached the bushes, Jerry the intrepid yard man reached down, grabbed the snake by the tail, swung him around and dashed his head against the side of the house several times before slinging his dead, lifeless body onto a pile of yard waste.

“There,” he told me with a smirk on his face, “He won’t be able to make you scream again.”

So, I had to defend myself because this whole screaming thing was going a bit too far. “I DID NOT SCREAM,” I said emphatically.

By this time my wife and kids were standing in the doorway again. “Yeah, Dad. I think everyone heard you scream,” my son told me. And he’s supposed to be my boy. He defected to the other side.

I tried to continue my protest; I tried to continue to convince them that I had indeed not screamed, but by this time they were all gathered around the pile of yard waste, inspecting the snakes remains.

One of them finally said, “That’s just a little old garter snake. That’s no reason to scream. Garter snakes are harmless.”

So, again, I had to defend myself: “That’s not a little snake. It has to be at least two feet long. AND I DID NOT SCREAM!”

Everyone was silent for a second until someone finally said, “I guess it is big as far as glass snakes go.” Everyone nodded. But then around the corner comes my neighbor’s wife and kids. “Is everything okay here? We heard someone scream.”

“NO ONE SCREAMED,” I said. Everyone pointed to the snake.

“I knew it! I knew it was another snake!” one of my neighbor’s kids said. “Professor Reddick is a screamer!”

So I’m like, “You better get your kids, Pete. Get your kids.”

But let’s say I did scream. It is possible. I did scream when I stepped on a snake before. But what’s so wrong with me screaming? What’s the proper response when one sees a snake at their feet even if that someone is a man?

I Hate It when that Happens!: Just a Few Things that Really Get My Goat

2010-05-01T10:06:00.001-04:00

I’m a mild-mannered kind of guy. In fact, I take great pride in my aplomb, my reserve. Not a lot things get to me and cause me to blow my usual cool. But then again, there are a few little things that simply get my goat, they cause me to grit my teeth and clench my fist and make an audible growling sound.

And I hardly complain, but when I do, everyone seems to think I’m just acting like an old grouch or something. But everyone has their limits. But anyway, these are a few little things that come readily to mind that simply grind my gears:

I hate sharing my dessert! I hate when my wife and I go to a restaurant, and the server comes by with the dessert cart and asks both me and my wife if we would like dessert. If I am not overly full, I do enjoy a nice dessert and a cup of coffee after a good meal, so I usually pick me a little something. But my wife invariably says, “No, I’ll just share my husband’s dessert.”

So, then she proceeds to eat about half, if not most, of my dessert. I hate this. Get your own dessert and quit eating mine. And don’t think I haven’t told her. But she says that for whatever unknown reason, she likes sharing dessert with me, so through clenched teeth, I acquiesce. But can someone please explain this phenomenon to me?

I hate when people make noises while they eat! And speaking of public eating, don’t you hate eating with people who make various species of noise during their meal? I mean, throughout the meal all you hear from their side of the table are grunts and groans and gnashing of the teeth. It sounds like they are human beat-boxing and eating at the same time. And the whole fork against the teeth thing just makes me want to scream!

Now, I don’t claim to be some paradigm of grace and manners, and I don’t have the whole table manners thing down pact myself, but I do try to keep the noises minimal while I am eating.

I hate when I am in a public place reading or doing something on my laptop and some stranger just walks up and wants to have a conversation with me about what I am doing! So, here’s the scenario. I’m in my favorite little coffee house drinking me a nice, hot cup of java, listening to the soft jazz being pumped in, reveling in the whole ambience of the place while enjoying a good book or magazine article or just catching up on what’s going on around there here inna-nets. An ideal moment, right?

But then comes some stranger out of nowhere inquiring as to just what I am reading or doing. I respond by smiling and giving them an answer in such a way that should indicate that I appreciate their interest, but I really don’t want to be disturbed. But they insist on carrying on a conversation anyway. It’s just like a fly or mosquito buzzing about your head and shoulders.

If you are out and about and you see someone somewhere just chilling, enjoying a little me time, just leave them alone. If their life is anything like mine, me time comes at a premium, so don’t mess it up with your need for attention.

I hate when my son’s underwear gets mixed in with mine! Sometimes during the whole laundry process, my son’s underwear gets mixed in with mine. Usually I catch the mistake. I get up in the morning, get all showered and baby powdered down, and slip into a fresh pair of skivvies and think, something just ain’t right here.

But other times I might be in a hurry and miss the most important clues, and about halfway through the morning, I get this binding feeling. Suddenly, it feels like a boa constrictor has intertwined itself about my groin, cutting off all circulation and blood flow to the brain.

It happened one day this week, and I ended up just going into the bathroom, taking off those tiny drawers and pitching them in the trash. I had to go commando for the rest of the day, but it felt a whole lot better than having my nether regions choked out.

I hate when people bring their bad behind kids who they know haven’t been taught to behave into public places! Please don’t get me wrong; Max loves the kids, but the other day I am walking into Walmart—and I know I shouldn’t have had my behind in Walmart—when this bad behind kid jumps out of nowhere, screams “AY-YAY”, and with all his might, hurls this ball of clay at me, catching me neatly in the eye.

And I immediately see stars, literally stars! Then water from my eye is running down my face, and I’m reeling around like Frankenstein bumping into stuff as my hands involuntarily reach in vain for this little monster’s throat.

And the mother is all like, “Little Charlie, you know better.” No, Little Charlie does not know any better because you know you haven’t taught him any better. Hell, even in my state of temporary blindness, I could hear Little Charlie off in another part of the store terrorizing yet another unsuspecting stranger while his mother shouted in vain, “Little Charlie, Charlie, come here now. You better behave. Stop that, Charlie. Don’t do that, Charlie. You are going to be in big trouble, Charlie.” You mean Little Charlie is not in big trouble now after practically detaching my cornea?

But my wife had my back. She stepped right in and let that woman know just what she thought about Little Charlie’s bad behind and her child-rearing strategies or lack thereof. I was so pleased with my wife that when we went out to dinner later, I shared my dessert with her without protest.

And just what get’s your goat?

Previously unreleased remix of Goapele's "Different" featuring Mos Def just for the taking

2010-05-01T08:06:00.003-04:00

I was poking around over at Goapele’s site today, and she was offering this previously unreleased remix of “Different” from her CD Change It All featuring Mos Def just for the taking, and I thought I would put y’all up on it. Take a listen and let me know what you think.

<a href="http://goapele.bandcamp.com/track/different-featuring-mos-def-unreleased">Different Featuring Mos Def (unreleased) by Goapele</a>

If I Were Your Girlfriend: Sisters, Just Give Us a Hint

2010-04-30T05:06:00.005-04:00

If I was your girlfriend
Would U remember 2 tell me all the things U forgot
When I was your man?
--Prince, “If I Was Your Girlfriend”

It all got started just like this.

As I prepared to leave the house, I just stuck my head into the room where my wife sat to let her know I was leaving and inquire if there was something she needed me to bring back. But she gave me the stink eye. You know the one—one eyebrow raised, one eye squinting, and her mouth pursed with the corners downturned into a frown.

Immediately, I knew I had done something, but I didn’t know just what; I’m always unwittingly doing something. So my mind kicked into rewind, and I thought back as far as second or third grade trying to figure out what I had done to upset this woman, but I only drew a blank.

So I made the mistake of asking her why she seemed upset with me which only seemed to irritate her further. As I turned to leave, she practically growled at me, “Think about. I’m sure it will come to you.” And I did think about. I thought about it all the way to my car, all the way up the street, and around the corner, but then something else caught my attention, and I forgot all about it.

However, a while later as I stood in line at the store, almost serendipitously, I overheard the conversation of the woman standing behind me. Not that I was eavesdropping, but she was wearing one of those obnoxious Bluetooth things that everyone seems to be wearing now.

From the tone of the conversation, she appeared to be talking with a friend, a woman. And it appeared that she and her significant other were having some kind of problem, the nature of which I was not able to ascertain, in their relationship. In fact, they had been having this problem for quite some time, and she was about ready to throw in the towel on the relationship.

But it was not this particular problem in question that made her so ready to end the relationship; it was his approach to solving the problem. You see, he had the nerve to ask her just what he needed to do to make her happy. And she was highly peeved that instead of just figuring it out for himself, he should turn to her for the answer.

But this is the thing. It seemed like her girlfriend to whom she was speaking with on the phone knew all about the problem. In fact, from the part of the conversation I could hear, it appeared she knew about the problem in great detail. Yet, he, the significant other, did not; he seemed to have no inkling what was wrong.

Now, I don’t want to get into any broad and sweeping statements here. And I certainly don’t want to speak in any essentialisms like women do this and men do that because some times I have those days when my Jockey briefs are all in a wad, but let me take the time out to just ask sisters, “What’s the matter with a brother just asking?” Is that so wrong? Why leave it to us to figure the thing out all by ourselves because admittedly, we can be a little slow sometimes.

And I don’t claim to speak for all the brothers, but just those who are trying to get this thing right. I’m talking about those brothers who are trying to get keep their home game tight, the house macks who ain’t planning on going nowhere because they haven’t been out there in the streets for so long that they couldn’t even survive in the wild. They have become domesticated.

But just tell us all those things about us that you tell your BFF. Tell us all those things you tell your sister. Tell us those things that tempt you to call into the Gayle King Show on Oprah Network. Tell us those things you daydream about that cause you to giggle for no apparent reason. Tell me what you are thinking when I catch you staring at me when you think I’m not looking, and I ask what are you staring at and you smile slyly and toss your hair a bit and say nothing.

Even tell us those things about ourselves that we need to know even though those things might our feelings. But tell us kindly and with a kiss. Ain’t nothing wrong with a little directions; after all, we are in this thing together.

White Noise: The Deafening Cacophony of Silence from the Right Could Be the Death Knell of the GOP

2010-04-27T12:06:00.002-04:00

white noise --noun Also called white sound. a steady, unvarying, unobtrusive sound, as an electronically produced drone or the sound of rain, used to mask or obliterate unwanted sounds. –www.dictionary.com

“In the end, we will not remember the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” –Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Did I ever tell you that at one time, for a very brief period of time, I wanted to be a playwright? Yes, when I was an undergraduate. I took this class entitled “Reading Drama, Reading Life,” and successive readings of the plays of James Baldwin, August Wilson, and Joseph A. Walker moved me to become a playwright.

So, in a weekend of frenzied and inspired creative energy, I wrote my first play. And on Monday, assured that I had just composed a virtual masterpiece, I presented the play to my professor who read it intently, said he found it quite good, but he offered one criticism. The characters talked too much.

In my zeal to write touching, affective dialogue, I had ignored the silences. As my professor told me on that morning, in drama as in life, sometimes what is not said is as important as what is said, if not moreso. It is in those silences, those vast lacunae between what is said and done and what is left unsaid and undone where true meaning and intent often resides.

But I have already talked too much. I have already given too much time in building this grandiose metaphor. Allow me to put it all in perspective.

For months now we have heard this cantankerous clamor of un-contrite cynicism from the right. This wall of white noise has become such that it has began to define the right. But this is the thing. I don’t believe everyone on the right concurs with those sentiments being expressed by what I take to be a very small but very vocal, very loud minority. In fact I know they don’t.

On a daily basis I interact with right-leaning and staunchly Republican friends and colleagues who are as dismayed as I by the rhetoric seemingly driven by racial animus and resentment. They come to me in private and lament the voices now speaking on behalf of the GOP.

They then shake their heads and dismiss themselves from my presence. Some even seek me out to apologize though I am not certain what a personal apology to me means in the whole scheme of things. But outside the closed doors of my presence, outside the four walls of my audience which hides their secret shame, they say nothing; they cross their fingers, and they whisper a silent, fervent prayer that everything turns out alright.

But such is the posture on the right now. Such is the attitude of the GOP. So desperate is the GOP establishment to return to power that they have cast their lot with the most base, fanatical, and fringe elements. And the louder this minority becomes, the more sensational their rhetoric becomes, the more attention they draw to themselves, the more the right acquiesces.

Even in this fringe’s more egregious assertions and actions, those who know better, those who claim the moral high ground for themselves, say nothing and even seem to be frightened to confront this beast of their own creation until the beast finally has taken over, making any rational, well-meaning discourse and decision making impossible; they now find themselves enslaved by this beast.

But what they do not realize is that at some point, those rational, sensible people looking on from the sidelines, those maligned groups spurned and trampled by this beast—African Americans, Hispanics, and other minorities--, and those who have simply grown tired of the bombastic rhetoric, will look upon the GOP’s reticence, timidity, and cowardice and in the deafening cacophony of that silence they will realize true meaning, motive, and intent, and they will simply turn away.

Myron Rolle Has a Character Problem: Why the NFL Will Forever Be Losing

2010-04-26T16:06:00.000-04:00

Allow me to take the time to introduce you to Myron Rolle. Mr. Rolle is a young, African American man, and scholar/athlete who we should all be very proud of; he is perhaps one of the best this country has to offer.

As a student at Florida State University, Rolle finished his degree in Exercise Science in two and a half years with a GPA of 3.75, and then immediately began pursuing a master’s degree in public administration. As an athlete, he is just as incredibly gifted and started on the Florida State University football team at safety for three years, winning both All-Academic and All-American honors.

Despite his incredible intellectual and athletic gifts, though, in the most recent NFL draft, no team chose Rolle until the sixth round which was a major disappointment being that if he had left school last year, he had been projected to be chosen in the top forty-nine players.

So, why did Rolle fall so far in the draft? You see, Myron Rolle has an incredible character problem.

The first hint of his character problem came in the fall of 2008. His team was scheduled to play Maryland State University, but the date of the game coincided with his chance-of-a-lifetime to compete for the honor of being a prestigious Rhodes Scholar. So, what did Rolles do?

He decided to go to the interview, and after the interview was complete, he took a chartered plan to Maryland to catch up with his team. He arrived late, but he still arrived in time to play in the game. Of course, this started tongues a-wagging, as prognosticators across football-dom began to question his commitment to football. How dare he miss a football game for something so petty as a Rhodes Scholar interview?

And if you think people were shocked that he should do such a thing then, they had to just pick themselves up off the floor when it was announced that he was one out of thirty-two young people in the country to be awarded the Rhodes scholarship, and not only that, he later announced that he would forego the 2009 NFL draft and the chance to make millions with just the stroke of a pen just to attend school at the renowned Oxford University in England.

What? Just the thought of that! And because of that, he fell from the top forty-nine to the six round of the draft, costing himself millions of dollars in the exchange. The NFL establishment actively questioned his character in a round about way. One NFL coach even asked him during an interview, "How does it feel to have deserted your team back in Maryland?".

Allow me to ask you a question, please. Ain’t this the biggest crock of poo you have ever seen in your life? With all the personal and character problems professional athletes are having these days, the NFL should welcome a young man like Myron Rolle.

But I don’t blame the NFL; I blame Rolle because he went about the whole thing wrong. When he came back from England, the first thing he should have done was to cover himself from head to toe with garish tattoos, and by all means, quit speaking that good English, using complete sentences and stuff.

Next he should have gone somewhere in a public place and gotten pissy drunk, then shown the first available group of young college co-eds his penis. Maybe he could even have roughed on or two of them up so they would know he was serious. Then as a finale, he should have gotten caught smoking crack in a hot tub full of hookers.

I’m willing to bet your dime to my dollar that then the NFL establishment would have welcomed him with chants of “ONE OF US!, ONE OF US!”, and then the questions of whether are not he had the type of character which would allow him to fit in with the rest of the league would have been answered.

Don’t You Dare Touch the Animals, but Women Are Fair Game: Why Does Nike Continue to Do Business with Ben Roethlisberger and Other Athletes Who Have Abused Women?

2010-04-26T11:06:00.000-04:00

What do Kobe Bryant, Tiger Woods, and Ben Roethlisberger have in common? Well, perhaps three things stand out. All are highly regarded professional athletes, all have very lucrative endorsement deals with Nike, and all seem to treat women with only the most utmost disdain. Let’s take a look at a few cases in point.

If you recall, in 2003 a female employee of a hotel in which he was a guest accused Bryant of sexual assault. After some coercion, Bryant admitted sleeping with the young lady, but denied that it was assault.

After some sloppy and irresponsible police work that allowed the victim’s name and other very personal information to be leaked to the press, the victim was understandably reluctant to testify, and charges were later dropped. But Bryant did settle the civil suit brought against him by the victim out of court for an undisclosed sum.

Though Bryant did make a written apology, he never took full responsibility for his actions. Nike did not suspend him, but scaled back their marketing efforts utilizing Bryant momentarily, but as soon as the dust settled and the incident dropped from the very short public memory, they went right back to him.

And let’s not forget the recent case of Tiger Woods. No, Woods did not sexually assault anyone, but after an incident at his home in which his wife allegedly assaulted him after learning of an adulterous affair, restaurant hostesses, waitresses, strippers, and porn stars all came out of the woodwork claiming to have had sex with him. Not only that, they had the bawdy text messages to prove it.

Though most of Wood’s other major sponsors dropped him, Nike remained loyal though they scaled back using his image, and when he returned to golf after about a six month hiatus getting his personal life straight, Nike marked that return with perhaps the most ingenious marketing scheme ever featuring a stoic, silent Tiger Woods staring into the camera as a voice over of his deceased father questioned his motives and mindset.

Now we can get to the case of one Mr. Ben Roethlisberger. Now, again because of shoddy, inept police work, the details are kind of cloudy in the two allegations brought against, but one thing is certain; Mr. Roethlisberger likes to drink to excess, and he is very proud of his penis.

In each of the two allegations, the young ladies report a drunken Roethlisberger first exposing himself to them. And I have never seen Roethlisberger’s penis; perhaps it is a majestic, chubby little fellow, and he has every right to be proud of it and show it off. However, this behavior is wholly unacceptable.

Additionally, the young lady making the second allegation reports that Roethlisberger forced intercourse on her even after she told him that it was not okay while two off duty police officers acting as his bodyguards ran interference to keep her friends from coming to her aid.

It seems to me that anytime you pair up professional athletes and policemen, you have to lock up the women folk because absolutely anything is bound to happen.

In all these cases professional athletes took advantage of women in some way. And in all these cases Nike did not terminate their lucrative endorsement deals. But do you remember NFL quarterback Michael Vick? Soon after charges were filled by officials in Vick’s 2007 dog fighting case, Nike summarily terminated his endorsement deal citing the morality and personal conduct clause in his contract.

You might argue that Vick was actually convicted of a crime while the others have not been, but keep in mind, Nike terminated Vick’s contract after he was charged, not convicted. And not only that, a little money spread around and Keystone Cop like investigations by the local police departments caused the charges to go away.

And even if the other athletes in question were not convicted, enough evidence exists of their misconduct and blatant mistreatment and disregard for women to seemingly activate the morality and personal conduct clauses in their contracts because their behavior has cetainly been, at the least, morally reprehensible.

Even NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell suspended Roethlisberger six games after reading the police report and the 572 page report issued by the Georgia Bureau of Investigations detailing Roethlisberger’s actions in this last incident.

But this is the upshot of it all. Nike is perhaps the most powerful sportswear corporation in the world; they dominate the market. And though Nike has done some wonderful things toward the progress of women athletes and women’s athletic programs throughout the control, they have dropped the ball when it comes to policing the conduct of the athletes of their payroll in regards to women.

And because of Nike’s worldwide presence and influence, its inaction reveals the seemingly diminished value it places on the lives and well-being of women and girls. You could make the argument in the case of Tiger Woods that in his discretion, the only people hurt were his wife and family, but in the same instance, his case tacitly makes the statement that money and power gives one license to treat women as they choose.

Even now I am perplexed as to why women, women’s groups, and their supporters have not called for a boycott of Nike or besieged its corporate headquarters in an effort to determine why Nike would terminate its business relationship with an athlete for mistreating animals but not for mistreating women. They seem to be looking on passively, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Blog Talk Radio: The African American Body Image Episode: When We Look in the Mirror, Just What Do We See?

2010-04-25T12:06:00.001-04:00

Do me a favor, please. Go to the mirror and take a good long look at yourself. What do you see? Take a good look at your facial features, your hair, your body type, the lines in your face, the various scars, and tell me what you see. Are you pleased at what you see? How does this affect you interaction with others? How does this influence your attitude and outlook on life?

I know that my questions are a lot to hit you with this morning, but my questioning does serve a purpose. Theory posits the human body as a historical narrative, a broad palimpsest—a scroll written on and over innumerable times—that invariably proceeds us. Even before we open our mouths, even before we have the chance to speak for ourselves, to allow others to get to know us, our body with its various adornments and embellishments is always already presenting its own biography.

The question then becomes just how much this body narrative affects us in our day to day lives. Just how much does this narrative coincide with our own self-image? Just how much does this narrative dictate our actions?

The African American Body Image is the theme of our discussion tonight over at Freedom thru Speech Radio on BlogTalkRadio. Please join me and my co-hosts RiPPa of The Intersection of Madness and Reality and The Janitor of The Urban Politico. Also sitting in on the panel tonight will be @MelzieC of The Curvy Girl Chronicles, Tondalaya from Club Cushions, and our old friend Nic McClean of My Fabulous Boobies.

The show starts at 8 PM EST. You can listen to the show by accessing our BlogTalkRadio platform by clicking here, or you can listen or comment by dialing in through our dial-in number, 914-803-4881.

Don’t miss out because this promises to be an informative, entertaining show, and don’t listen alone; please run tell your friends. And, as usual, the most important voice missing from this conversation is invariably your own.

New and Unique Uses of Gravy that You Probably Never Even Thought Of

2010-04-24T17:06:00.004-04:00

Okay, I’m still doing the whole raw fruits and vegetables and whole grains thing I mentioned last week. I did have to make a few adjustments, though, to keep my system from continuing to go haywire. And, I must admit, I did have a few weak moments in which I ate something I shouldn’t have, or I freaked out about not being able to enjoy some of those foods I most enjoy.

For instance, one day this past week I went into the deep freezer to check on my emergency pork chop stash… Wait a minute. You don’t have an emergency pork chop stash? I do. Or at least, I did. I kept mine way in the back right underneath the Eggo frozen waffles just in case some natural or man-made disaster threatens the world’s pork chop supply, or in the case of nuclear winter, I figure I will have the last pork chop known to man, and then I will be made king.

But anyway, my wife had given my emergency pork chop stash away, and for a minute or so, I had a major anxiety attack, but I took a few deep breaths and said a few “WOO-SAHs”, and I managed to get over it. But then I developed a strange obsession with gravy. That’s right, gravy.

For the rest of the week, all I could think about was gravy. I even had this dream in which I was having a conversation with Oprah, and we were sipping gravy from these delicate little tea cups. But in a week in which gravy was the foremost thing on my mind, I thought of some unique uses for gravy which I will share with you.

You can use gravy to stick stuff together When I reveal this one, you are going to be made that you hadn’t thought of this already. But when I was in first grade, we did this project with my first grade teacher, Mrs. Lane, in which we made our own paste, and then we made these paper mache animal figures.

And what did we make this paste out of? Water, flour, and a little corn starch. And what are the ingredients for good gravy? Exactly! Now you and I are there. We are seeing eye to eye.

So, you could just whip up a big batch of gravy and start sticking stuff together. You can even use your gravy/paste to wall paper a couple of those rooms you’ve been wanting to wall paper.

Sisters, you can use gravy to seduce your significant other Listen, sisters, because I am getting ready to drop that knowledge on you. This is what you do. Whip up a good batch of gravy. Then take a little bit and smear it on those pressure points just like you would perfume. You know those pressure points—the inside of your knees, the inside of elbows, the inside of your wrists, and behind your ears—that heat up as your body temperature rises and intensifies the smell of the fragrance.

When your significant other comes home or comes over, just give him one of those tight soul hugs and let him get whiff of that gravy. Now, once the smell of that gravy hits his olfactory glands, even if he is the most dedicated vegetarian, his primal instincts will keep in, so just hold on, baby. He’ll turn into some ravenous lovemaking beast.

You can use gravy to relax after a long day Last year when we went on vacation, my wife spent an absolute fortune on some kind of mud bath. Spa personnel submerged her in a tub filled with warm but supposedly sterile mud (How do you sterilize mud?) that was meant to draw the impurities out of skin.

The whole thing seemed a little far-fetched to me, but couldn’t you achieve the same thing with gravy? All you would need to do would be to fill your tub with nice, warm gravy, and climb right in. And this is the biggest selling point. You could put a plate of biscuits right there on the side of the tub, and as you are relaxing, as those impurities are fleeing your body, you could swish a few of those biscuits around in the gravy and have yourself a nice snack. Mmmm.

You can use the gravy to entertain your children I remember when I was a child, we had this thing called a Slip-N-Slide. With the Slip-N-Slide, you would attach a water house to this long sheet of plastic, and when you turned the water on, the water would come through these little holes strategically placed in the plastic making it very slick.

Then we would get a good running start and slide the length of the plastic. It made for hours and hours of fun, but most importantly, it kept us out of my mother’s hair for a while.

But in this day and age, water has become a scarce resource. We just can’t waste water like that anymore. But wouldn’t gravy serve the same purpose? If you spread a long plastic tarp with gravy, wouldn’t gravy be sufficiently slick? In this way, you can do your part in preserving one of our most precious and necessary resources while keeping your children entertained for hours. It’s a win-win for everybody involved.

You can use gravy to entertain yourself I must admit that I was kind of disappointed that this last idea was taken, but it is a good idea nonetheless. Who knew that people were actively “Gravy Wrestling”? But evidently this activity is limited to the United States. Perhaps other nations are just too stuck up to engage in such activities, or they have enough sense not to waste time or resources.

Anyway, you and your significant other can fill a plastic kiddie pool with gravy, and either naked or in bathing suits, engage in a little physical activity—gravy wrestling. And when you get all tired and hungry, you can go get those biscuits left over from the whole bathtub episode to wipe each other down.

And for you more adventurous, outgoing types, you can even host a gravy wrestling party. If you are single, you can invite a bunch of your single female friends and some of your single male friends over for a gravy wrestling party. You could put everybody’s name in a hat and whoever name a person draws is who they wrestle. In that way, you are providing the entertainment and putting people together all at the same time.

We here at the Max Reddick Institute for Gravy Research are always looking for good ideas as to how we might use gravy in service to mankind. Do you have any ideas?

Need to know just how many chickens to take to the doctor with you under the new GOP health plan? This site allows you to determine just that.

2010-04-24T11:06:00.001-04:00

Well the GOP finally unveiled their health care plan. Well, sort of. Last week, the likely Republican candidate who will face Senator Harry Reid in the Nevada senate race, Sue Lowden, suggested that we return to the old barter system so that health care might be more affordable to more people. In her example, she used chickens.

So, in other words, you go to your doctor, and you pay him in chickens or butter or corn or just whatever you seem to have a whole lot of. But Rachel Maddow can explain Lowden’s plan better than I can:

Certainly, the question then becomes, well if I am going to pay for my medical care in chickens, just how many chickens do I need to bring with me? Well, someone has done the math for you. A site entitled The Lowden Plan will allow you to choose any medical procedure you might be facing, and it will tell you exactly how many chickens you need to take to the doctor’s office with you to settle your bill.

So, need to make sure you have enough chickens to afford getting that brain tumor removed? Just click here.

See the Zora Neale Hurston biographical documentary Jump at the Sun free online until May 31st

2010-04-23T16:06:00.002-04:00

Another one for you fellow bibliophiles. California Newsreel is allowing free viewing of the Zora Neale Hurston biographical documentary, Zora Neale Hurston: Jump at the Sun, which can be previewed in the short clip above. You can assess the complete film online by clicking here. The film won an award for the Best Educational Film at the 27th Annual International du Film sur l’Arts.

Viewing of the video will remain free until May 1st. After May 1st, the video may be purchased through the California Newsreel site.

h/t Prometheus 6

Black Women Are the New Black and That's Not Particularly Good

2010-04-23T05:06:00.004-04:00

Sisters, let me take a just a minute of your time to just talk to you. It seems that you’ve come under some intense scrutiny but not in a good way. And I ain’t trying to join in, but I was just on the sidelines looking on, and I thought I should say something.

All of a sudden, all the various media seem more than a bit overly concerned with the marital status of successful Black women. According to the media, available, suitable African American men are in short supply, and successful black women are out there languishing, hoping against hope for a man, a good man or, perhaps, just any man to make their lives complete.

Admittedly, I have this loony, quirky, out of control imagination, so when I hear the media continue to beat this dead horse with a stick, a get this image in my mind of a amorphous, glassy eyed, zombie-like mob of successful Black women roaming the streets of any major metropolitan area, arms out-stretched in front of them, moaning “MEN! MEN!” ala Dawn of the Dead.

But this narrative is nothing new; some version of it has been around for as long as I have had consciousness. In fact, this deficit narrative of “successful Black women can’t find no man” goes hand-in-hand with its brother deficit narrative of “the black man in crisis.”

And I am not saying real issues do not exist within the two groups; however, in studying and reporting on these issues affecting these two groups, broad generalization takes the place of any real explication. The situation and circumstance for a few individuals or subgroups became a synecdoche taken as the situation and circumstance for the whole.

Regardless, the level of scrutiny seems wholly unprecedented. From time to time, Black males have come under a microscope but never like this. The difference in this instance, however, seems to be the amount of money to be made and notoriety to be gained explaining and providing commentary on just how unhappy successful Black women are and how they might be cured.

Wednesday night’s Nightline program was but the latest in a seemingly ad nauseum cavalcade of similar articles, blog posts, and television programs. I may be mistaken, but the publicity surrounding the publication of Helena Andrews book, Bitch Is the New Black, just happened to open this powder keg. However, according to Andrews, the book was intended entirely as satire with her and her group of friends and their efforts to find love in the DC metropolitan area at the center. Think an ebony version of Sex in the City.

However, through a masterful marketing campaign, Andrews garnered quite a lot of attention. From what I understand, she had a movie deal for the book even before it went to press. With the potential for that much money and attention just waiting to be had, naturally folk began to jump aboard this gravy train.

Suddenly, people and entities concerned with the plight of successful Black women seemed to emerge from the woodwork. Articles began to pop up almost everywhgere in the print media. Recently, even Economist magazine published an article on the issue. Economist magazine? When did Economist became so concerned with what seems to be a social issue?

In addition, I believe that at this point, every major network has done some kind of special report. In fact, I read somewhere that Chris Hansen is doing a television series entitled To Catch an Available, Suitable, and Single Black Man. Well, I’m lying about that just trying to get attention again, but you get the gist.

And a few brothers have even gotten in on the act. Comedian Steve Harvey suddenly emerged as some kind of relationship counselor, though I’m unclear as to his exact qualifications. He even has authored a best-selling book, Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man, and get this; he just launched a dating site for African Americans.

Actor and author Hill Harper has appeared more thoughtful and introspective in both his book, The Conversation, and personal appearances discussing the issue. He seems really dedicated to affecting change.

However, that’s in stark contrast to Jimi Izrael of tight t-shirt fame whose bombastic, self-serving text seems to depend on purely base and sensationalized conjecture in an attempt to merely sell books and does not contribute anything worthwhile to the conversation.

And just as an aside, is it just me or does Jimi Izrael seem to be always wearing the tightest t-shirts known to mankind? It always looks as if he is walking around in a big, tight onesie. I’m beginning to think that smedium is really a size. Maybe I’ll choose a store in the mall and ask where the size smedium t-shirts are kept. But I digress.

So to continue, we’ve discussed this issue in minute detail on our blogs and BlogTalkRadio programs. I’ve even participated in such a program on a BlogTalkRadio show I co-host, Freedom thru Speech Radio, and it has proven to be our most successful program to date. So we are, in fact, fueling that interest even as we decry it.

And let me say this now. I don’t claim any special expertise in this matter; I’m just a brother who through a series of fortunate events, a bit of favor, and a whole lot of tenacity, made it good. But I’ll just tell you what I tell my two daughters, and that’s what I learned through living and personal observation.

The statistics are real. The numbers are real. Black successful women and Black women in general are at a statistical dis-advantage. But this goes for both men and women—if you base your happiness on a source external to you, if you base your happiness on being able to find a woman or a man, if you are waiting on someone else “to complete” you, you will be forever losing.

You are essentially born with everything you need to be happy. And if you cannot look inward for happiness, if you are not happy with yourself, you cannot make anyone else happy. If you do not love yourself, you cannot really love and be loved truly and fully by anyone else.

The whole upshot of this narrative is that we are being told what we need to be happy. Even though we may be happy with ourselves, even though we may be alone but not lonely, we are told that this is not acceptable. But I really and truly believe, do you, continue to work on you, and everything else will work itself out.

In the Land of the Blind, the One-eyed Man Is King: Could Republicans Be Hurting Themselves by Supporting Rubio over Crist in Florida?

2010-04-23T04:06:00.002-04:00

In the Florida senate race Republican primaries, an October poll showed Governor Charlie Crist solidly ahead of conservative and former Florida state house speaker Marco Rubio though Rubio seemed to be gaining ground. However, the same poll revealed that in the match up between Rubio and the probable Democratic challenger in the general race, Kendrick Meeks, independents and moderates would more then likely swing their support to Meeks.

So, what did the Republican establishment do? Still furious with him for supporting Present Obama’s stimulus plan even though this state sorely needed the stimulus funds, Republicans from all quarters threw their support solidly behind Rubio who then quickly overtook and surpassed Crist in the polls. But keep in mind that this is only the Republican primary.

Now deserted by his former party who seemed so enthralled with him in better days, Governor Crist is considering running as an Independent. And polls show that if Crist were to run as an independent, in a three way race between him, Rubio, and Meeks, he would most likely be the victor.

Let me take the time to make this observation for you in case you have not been keeping score. According to polls, Rubio probably cannot win that Florida senate seat. So, what does the Republican establishment do? They double down on Rubio, and send a number of prominent Republicans and party leaders into the state to further endorse Rubio. Because, I guess, that's what you do when the odds are against you; you beat even more.

If I may quote that great American poet, Forrest Gump, “I am not a smart man,” but even in my state of depressed mental capacity, I can see that this makes no sense. However, I can readily ascertain the motives behind their actions; you see, Marco Rubio is the Tea Party Movement’s candidate, and because the GOP is being driven primarily by the whims of the Tea Party Movement, they must follow the Tea Party Movement’s wishes, even if those wishes don’t make much sense. And herein lies the rub.

Let me ask you a question. Do you think it was necessary for the GOP to embrace they Tea Party so ardently? Oh, I can completely understand why they did it. After President George W. Bush’s abysmal eight years as president and the subsequent drubbing they took in the 2008 elections, the GOP was without direction. They were bereft of ideas.

They were like a room full of blind women and men, milling aimlessly about, bumbling and stumbling into each other. And along came the Tea Party Movement. The Tea Party Movement was not much better than the GOP when it came to ideas. But they did have a palpable, if not racially motivated, rage, and their antics knew no bounds, and the media seemed absolutely captivated by them. So, the GOP grabbed up their canes and their seeing eye dogs and rushed off blindly behind them.

In a period when the nation most needed solid, well-reasoned leadership, the GOP instead chose to follow. And it all seems like fun and games now, but let me make this bold prediction. In about five years or so, the GOP will rue the day they allowed themselves to be seduced by the Tea Party Movement.

Just like right now in Florida, they find themselves having to take more and more untenable positions and make more and more questionable decisions because of their allegiance to the Republic of Tea until that day when they have driven away the moderates and independents and find themselves all alone in a room full of kooks.

But, hey, as the old saying goes, “In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king.” It’s just too bad that the GOP cannot see where it is going.

The Republican Party Has Mistreated African American Voters, Senator Lindsey Graham Is Gay, and Other Terribly Obvious News

2010-04-22T05:06:00.006-04:00

Sometimes “the news” is so utterly obvious that I find myself shaking my head and scratching my behind at the same time, because this is what I do when I am befuddled, while trying to figure out just what makes it news in the first place. Has this ever happened to you?

For example, remember last week when some poll came out that determined that the Tea Party Movement demographic was primarily Republican, white, married, male, married and over forty-five? Did we actually need a poll to determine that? That’s news? Couldn’t we have just looked at a few photographs of a Tea Party protest and made an educated guess?

But I guess today was simply a slow news day because a few of the stories to come out today seemed painfully obvious to me.

In the first instance, Tuesday night in remarks delivered at Depaul University embattled Republican National Chairman Michael Steele announced that African Americans have not been given a very good reason to vote Republican. And this is news?

Perhaps the real exercise here is determining if Steele unwittingly told the truth in saying something he should not have said that the party will take him to task for later, as is his usual habit, or if Steele has somehow grown a backbone and stood erect and decided to just tell it like it is. Hmmm.

Speculation from those I have talked to on this end ranges from Steele having to make a humiliating and obsequious retraction by week’s end, as is his usual habit, to an angry, disgruntled Steele getting touch with his inner Tupac Shakur and giving the GOP the middle finger. I wonder if he has Republi-Thug Life tattooed on his chest. It would be so cool if he did.

However, just as I was contemplating the Steele un-news, I ran across a piece in which an anti-illegal immigrant advocate and conservative Michael Gheen accused Republican South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham of being gay and exhorted him to “come out of the log cabin closet.”

Senator Graham is gay? You mean a somewhat effeminate fifty-five year old life-long bachelor just might be living an alternative lifestyle? Who would have thunk it?

But I have long had the notion that Senator Graham just might be gay. The only thing is I never thought much of it. In fact, until recently when he seemed to fall under the evil spell of the far right as has most of his party, I had a healthy respect for Senator Graham. It didn’t matter to me if he was gay; that’s his business.

However, Gheen is positing this whole spookish, CIA notion that as long as Senator Graham is gay and in the closet, others will use his alleged homosexuality as leverage to coerce him to vote as they want him to vote. Another example of completely inane statements spoken at a Tea Party rally, but is it news?

Lastly, Jon Stewart of Comedy Central’s Daily Show has spent an almost inordinate amount of time and effort pointing out the hypocritical, cynical, disingenuousness of Fox News. But is that really news? Is that something that is so utterly obvious?

Perhaps the fact that fact that Fox News commentator Bernie Goldberg finally had to acquiesce and admit the truth after being confronted with video evidence is the real news; someone at Fox actually can tell the truth.

But anyway, Stewart’s crusade against Fox does make for good entertainment. I’ll leave you with the latest clip of him giving Fox the old tried and true FU once again:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Bernie Goldberg Fires Back

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor

Tea Party

A HIV-positive pedophile is set to be released from prison. It is almost certain that he will re-offend. But what can we do?

2010-04-21T10:06:00.005-04:00

Let me take a second to set up this scenario. Let’s say you have teenage daughter. She’s about fifteen or sixteen. Now, your daughter is generally a good girl, a nice, pleasant young lady, but she’s working through a few emotional and self-esteem issues as adolescents are wont to do.

In helping your daughter through her issues, you find yourself tired and exasperated, but then it gets worse. Your teenage daughter is diagnosed HIV-positive, and on top of that, you find that she exposed herself to the virus through unprotected sex with an adult who knew he was carrying the virus at the time of the affair. How do you feel? What do you do?

That’s a shameful narrative; however, the most shameful aspect of this narrative is the fact that I did not make this up. It’s true.

After police arrested Nushawn Williams on a crack cocaine charge in 1997, he admitted to police that he had had unprotected sex with perhaps 300-400 women, and continued to have unprotected sex even after finding out about his HIV-positive status in 1996. [See a 1997 Newsweek article on the case.]

At least twenty-four HIV cases could be traced directly back to Williams though police state that the number could be much higher; no one really knows. The age range of the victims is wide; however, most were teenagers, and at least six young women were impregnated by Williams.

Now, Williams is set to be released from jail after serving the maximum twelve years. Or at least, he was about to before New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo moved to block him from being released under the authority of a New York state statue that allows the civil confinement of sex offenders.

According to the Cuomo’s office, Williams suffers from a mental abnormality that prevents him from realizing the depravity of his actions and almost guarantees he’ll repeat the same behavior when released. However, there is no guarantee that Cuomo will be successful in keeping Williams off the streets, and because he has served his time, there is a chance he may be released.

But this is a problem the courts are actively dealing with. It has been proven that sex offenders, especially pedophiles, are usually repeat offenders. But once they have served their time in prison, once they can no longer be held, just what is to be done with them knowing that they more than likely will simply find other victims and continue until they are caught again.

Nushawn Williams’ case is more pressing because of the virus he carries; the consequences of sexual contact with him may be much more than just psychological. But what can we do?

What can we do or what should we do with people like Williams? Is it fair to hold a person far beyond the end of their sentence? Should we release them even though we know that are likely to offend again?

James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket [Video]

2010-04-20T18:06:00.006-04:00

I was playing around on You Tube and ran across this short clip. I'm posting it for you fellow bibliophiles and James Baldwin fans.

The Virginia Gun-Rights Rally and the Media: When the Exercise of Inalienable Rights Goes Wrong

2010-04-20T11:06:00.000-04:00

I need you to do me a favor this morning and answer a couple of questions this morning. For one, what is this seemingly uniquely American fascination with guns? And next, why does the media seem lose their mind whenever someone does or says just any old foolishness and blow it all out of proportion?

Nothing gets my hackles up any more than hearing someone say with any degree of emphasis, “I know my rights!” If I were to gauge the numbers by the frequency of times I’ve heard this statement of late, you would think we were a nation of constitutional lawyers.

However, if you take the time to listen to the groans and supplications of these poor citizens whose rights are in danger of being trod underfoot, you’ll likely find either a person or group of people cloaking themselves in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights as cover for some untenable position that either makes no earthly sense or that if they used any modicum of common sense, they wouldn’t be pursuing anyway.

Witness this short clip from the gun rally held in Virginia on yesterday:

Did that gentleman just say“Oh, hell no!”? Oh, hell no what? Because I was thinking, “Oh, hell no! Is he really wearing suspenders with a belt?” You can’t do that. That’s a major fashion faux pas.

But really. What is all the fuss about? What government is trying to enslave him and his compatriots there with him? Isn’t that what he said? Certainly this can’t be about guns because I have no recall of anyone threatening to take their guns from them or rescind their gun rights in the recent past. In fact, President Obama just signed into law the order that allowed them to show up in the park with their guns in the first place.

Hold on for just a second. Here’s an article in the Washington Post in which the interviewee goes on and on about some “capitulation to a ‘totalitarian socialism’ that tramples individual rights.”

Oh, I see now said the blind man. This whole thing is only marginally about gun rights, but really, in the main, is simply part and parcel of a continued and deep consternation on the part of some citizens because they still have yet to accept that the country is being led by a black man.

That whole gun rally this was nothing more than a thinly veiled and somewhat inept threat of violence on the part of a group of people frightened to death of change and either unwilling or unable to admit and work their own individual hang-ups and foibles. And I keep hearing, “We want our country back!”, but who is this “we,” and who has taken the country in the first place?

Furthermore, according to reports, there were only about a couple hundred protesters, at the most, present. So why the horde of media? From what I understand, there was perhaps more media people present covering the protest than protesters actually protesting.

Doesn’t the media understand that when they show up in droves to cover such an event, they only encourage other events of the type. If the media doesn’t show up, it’s a bunch of paranoid nut cases parading around a national park with firearms. But once the media arrives, it becomes a media event. That’s almost like creating a story then falling all over yourself to cover it.

Please don’t get me wrong. I believe that the United States Constitution is an absolutely remarkable document given the depth of thought and foresight displayed by the founding fathers so long again.

However, one thing the founding fathers left out was a sound caveat warning how wrong the rights might go in the hands of irrational fools.

All the President's Men: Is Reverend Al Sharpton the President's New BFF?

2010-04-19T06:06:00.005-04:00

There is this postmodern theorem that states that whatever is considered revolutionary or subversive at the moment will invariably be subsumed into the prevailing power structure to be used toward its own ends. In other words, what is radical and revolutionary and subversive today will eventually yield its countercultural virtues and loyalties to that very thing it wishes so ardently to destroy.

More than a little amused, I have been quietly watching the Reverend Al Sharpton’s flirtations with the Barack Obama administration. Early on in President Obama’s historical campaign, both Sharpton and the Reverend Jesse Jackson tactfully and tactically indicated that they would hang back a bit to determine Obama’s posture toward the African American community.

However, many wondered if more than a little jealously was at play, and Reverend Jackson seemed to make it almost obvious with his remarks that he wanted to “cut [Obama’s] nuts out.” But then he made up for it with the image of tears of supposed joy streaming down his face on election night.

But Sharpton did eventually jump on board, and he campaigned hard for Obama. And when the president finally assumed the office, Sharpton was one of the first he received in the oval office.

And on a later date, as President Obama’s commitment to the African American community and a Black Agenda was being argued, Sharpton emerged from a meeting at the Whitehouse with the president and other black leaders who in their remarks seemed to suggest that President Obama didn’t need a Black Agenda. In facing and taking on the challenges of the nation, he is, in actuality, facing and taking on the challenges of all people to include African Americans.

That seemed like a sharp departure from all of Sharpton’s previous rhetoric. But my eyebrow really went up when Harvard professor and lawyer Charles Ogletree, the president’s former mentor and friend, announced Al Sharpton’s new role as administration ally, President Obama’s voice in the street, “a conduit between the disadvantaged and powerful leaders.” Pretty high-falutin language, huh?

This is problematic because Sharpton’s greatest worth to the African American community is in the role of agitator working from a position outside the power structure to keep it reasonably honest and fair in its dealings with that community.

Never mind the perm and the jogging suits and the big gold medallions of the good old days. No one can whip up an indignant protest like the Reverend Al Sharpton, however self-serving and self-aggrandizing he might seem.

No racist or corrupt politician or government official or police chief or CEO wants to look out their window to see a permed out Al Sharpton marching down the street, bullhorn in hand, leading a crowd of protestors whipped into a frenzy by his rhetoric.

Furthermore, the media loves Reverend Al, and he returns the love every chance he gets. It seems that he never met a microphone or a television camera he didn’t like. But whatever you might say about him, he does use the media to his greatest advantage in taking on those issues and cases no politician would touch; he has, in many aspects, became the voice of the voiceless.

However, now he gives that all up. At one time he fought against the man; now he is the man’s right hand man in the streets. If you think about it, though, it was a masterful move on the part of President Obama. By courting Reverend Al, he kills two birds with one stone.

On the one hand, by bringing Reverend Al on board, he negates a powerful and potential voice of protest from within the African American community and reduces that community’s ability to hold the administration accountable.

Of course, Tavis Smiley is another voice of powerful and potential protest, but a number of African Americans, if not most, are cynical of Smiley’s motives, and should Smiley get too loud, Obama has Al Sharpton to attempt to keep him in check.

What do you think that whole other Black Agenda Summit hosted by Sharpton was about this weekend? It was to counter the Smiley hosted We Count!: The Black Agenda Is the American Agenda Summit. Reverend Sharpton is already on the job.

You know, I cannot figure out if our Uncle Al has sold out or bought in; I am actively trying to figure that out now. But it appears that for the time being, the revolutionary, subversive Al Sharpton has been thoroughly and completely subsumed.

What do you think of the Reverend Al Sharpton’s new role in the Obama administration? Do you think he is selling out or buying in?

Also see: It's official, Al Sharpton finally becomes the HNIC: Sharpton touted as Obama's man in the streets!

A Few Random but Important Life Lessons from Max Reddick

2010-04-17T06:06:00.005-04:00

Day by day I am getting older and older. Who knows? By now I might even be old and just not know it. The signs are everywhere. The other day someone referred to me as “a middle-aged gentleman.”

And my doctor insisted that I get my prostate checked because every man “my age” should do so. In a cruel twist of fate, I did get the little short doctor as opposed to the doctor who played basketball in college when I went in to get my check-up, but this diminutive man had deceptively huge hands.

Also I got a colonoscopy because of my family medical history. The next day the doctor emailed me pictures of the inner walls of my colon. I would have been okay with him just telling me that everything was okay. What the hell do I do with pictures of my colon walls? Post them to Facebook?

Anyway, one good thing about growing older is the wisdom you manage to amass over the ages. I’m perhaps still a big fool, but I’m not as big a fool as I used to be. Let me share some random but nonetheless important lessons I have learned over the years.

Do you remember that young lady or that young man you had such a crush on in high school? When you see them at your twenty-fifth class reunion, you will be glad that she or he wouldn’t give you the time of day. Almost the whole of my high school tenure, I had this crazy crush on a certain young lady. However, throughout high school she wouldn’t give me the time of day. I don’t want to embarrass anyone by using real names, so we’ll just call her Bootzilla. I just wasn’t cool enough for her. Anyway, a few weeks before my twenty-fifth high school reunion, my mother informed me that she had stopped by the house, left her number, and requested that I give her a call.

So, I called, and we had a pleasant conversation. But after that initial conversation, she insisted on calling me almost every day. I sensed that something was wrong because she was way more excited about seeing me than I was about seeing her. Now, I don’t talk about people. I don’t believe in calling anyone ugly because there is beauty in every human being. But in the same instance, I talked to her for about a hour straight at the reunion, and I am still trying to figure out just where her beauty was. Maybe I missed something.

Men, trimming your toenails are an important part of good grooming. I had an aunt who would always fuss at my uncle about clipping his toenails. According to my aunt, my uncle’s toenails were so long and sharp that they would tear her good sheets at night. It was all fun and games then, and I had a few laughs at my uncle’s expense until I had my own long and sharp toenail episode.

When I was in graduate school, my directing professor called me in for a informal meeting. Since I didn’t have any classes that day, I just threw on some shorts and some flip-flops and went on in. Well, while she was talking, she glanced down in the direction of my feet, and her face suddenly twisted into the look of abject terror. Curiously, I looked down to see what had scared her, and I too recoiled. My feet looked like huge eagle feet. They were all crusty and ashy looking as if I had skateboarded barefoot to campus, and my toenails looked like short but sturdy knives.

Since that time, I have gotten a regular pedicure whether I needed it or not.

If you see someone with a grimace on their face coming out of the bathroom holding their stomach, don’t go in! Recently during a doctor’s appointment, the nurse sent me into the doctor’s office unisex bathroom to give a urine sample. However, just as I was going in, this tiny little lady with this huge frown on her face came out holding her stomach. Well, not suspecting anything, I went in anyway.

No sooner than the door shut behind me, I knew I had made a tremendous mistake. The stench was so very overwhelming that I know with some sense of certainty that that little lady couldn’t have done all this by herself; there had to have been four or five huge, burly, hairy back men in there with her helping her out. So, with one hand I am searching for the doorknob and with the other hand I am looking for the light switch in case those four or five lumberjacks are still in there. However, I am having no luck at all, but just as I am about to give up and let the funk take me, the nurse heard me scratching at the door and let me out.

If your wife tries to talk you into joining her on a raw fruit and vegetable and whole grains diet, do not do it; no good can come from it. My wife suggested that we go on some raw fruit and vegetable and whole grains diet that this fruitcake at work told her about. According to my wife, the diet would clean the toxins out of our systems. Of course, I wasn’t with it, but she kept bugging me and bugging me until I finally gave in.

About two days into this whole thing, and my digestive system is like the bullet train; whatever goes in one end reaches the other in record time. Several times I was tempted to cheat, but since I had promised by wife I’d stick with it for at least a week, I stayed the course. However, on the fourth day I’m sitting in my office choking down this spinach salad with raisins and purple onions covered with this all natural peanut butter dressing when I feel myself getting light-headed and I pass out. Ironically and for some strange reason, though, when I finally came to, I was in Kentucky Fried Chicken, and since I was already there, I decided to buy me that three piece meal deal.

Well, I get back to my office, and I am eating this thing like it is my last meal. But as soon as all that greasy fried chicken and fixins’ hit my stomach, my stomach twists into some kind of complicated Boy Scout knot, and I run to the bathroom with an alacrity that I didn’t even know I still had. And minutes later as I am emerging from the bathroom holding my stomach and my face all twisted into a frown, here comes the dean.

What knowledge have you gathered over the years that might be beneficial to others?

Common Sense Ain't So Common (Warning: This Is a Rant!)

2010-04-16T12:06:00.001-04:00

Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes. –Ralph Waldo Emerson

Please indulge me this morning. If you have followed this blog for any period of time, you know that I am not one to rant and rave; in fact, people who know me, both on-line and off, frequently compliment me on my aplomb, my ability to keep my composure and not go off and cuss somebody slap out even when going off and cussing somebody slap out would be understood given the situation and the level of asininity.

But a soulbrother can take only so much, so this will be a rant. However, the good news is that I am unable to sustain anger over a long period of time—being angry tires me out—so this will more than likely be short. “But what has you so agitated?” you ask. This morning common sense, or more precisely the seeming lack thereof, has absolutely frustrated me to no end.

My maternal grandfather did not have much formal education; he only managed to reach the fifth or sixth grade before familial responsibilities forced him to quit school and go to work in the fields. However, he was, in many aspects, the most intelligent person I have ever met.

Back in the day, he was like a negro Socrates or Aristotle or something. Whatever book knowledge he lacked, he made up for through empirical knowledge, through keen observation of the world around him. He listened more than he spoke, and each new experience, each lesson he learned, he filed it in the back of his mind. And when the time came for him to apply that information, he reached deep into the recesses of his mind and applied it to the task at hand. He called this common sense.

When I was growing up, he used to always tell me, “Flukie,”—that’s what he called me because I was a bit uncoordinated as a child—“book sense without common sense is almost as bad as not having any sense uh-tall.”

Since that time I have had the privilege of being around some of the most brilliant people in perhaps the world. Daily I interact with veritable geniuses and people with a gang of degrees from some of the best universities and an alphabet soup of letters behind their names. And daily I wonder how in the hell some of these people manage to be so utterly intelligent without even the slightest hint of common sense.

The most mundane tasks befuddle them. The simplest directions must be explained to them in the minutest detail. Any little disruption of their daily routine sends them into a tailspin. If I might again quote my learned and esteemed grandfather, “They don’t use their head for nothing but a damn hat rack.”

So that I might be perfectly honest and fair, I know that without a doubt that I am perhaps one of the most absent minded people walking. I constantly forgot things like my gym locker combination and my phone number, which is certainly plausible since I don’t call myself anyway. I constantly misplace things like my wallet and car keys. And just last week I actually left the house wearing two different shoes, but you cannot underestimate the difficulty of discerning a brown loafer from a black loafer in dim lighting. It did feel somewhat funny on my feet though.

But, nevertheless, I do take time out to think. I do take time to look at the problem from every possible angle before I decide on a solution. I do try to use my capacity for abstract thought to read between the lines and fill in the information or the steps that are seemingly missing. I do take the time to ascertain meaning and motive before I throw a hissy fit and point accusatory fingers at those who have simply mis-spoke or who are not specific enough in their utterance. In other words, I try to simply use common sense.

Wouldn't the world be a better place if we all took time to do this? Wouldn't you feel less frustrated on a daily basis on a daily basis if people just took time to think? Wouldn't you have more time on your hands if you did not have to spend so much time trying present a common sense argument to people who use no common sense uh-tall?

Ah, now I feel much better. I got it off my chest. And I feel a bit better. I apologize to anyone I might have offended. This rant was aimed at no one in particularly. Well, yes it was but they are not speaking to me anyway, so what the hell.

So, let’s have one big virtual group hug, and carry on with our day. I’m going to get me a Slurpee, then sit back and finish getting my mental mind right, so I can finish what I was working on before this foolishness jumped off.

Could the 2008 Presidential Election Have Been John McCain’s Waterloo?

2010-04-15T06:06:00.007-04:00

At one time, I had a great amount of respect for John McCain. I didn’t agree with him on much, but I did respect him. Perhaps I bought into the whole maverick image seemingly created by the media. Perhaps McCain did as well. But anyway, I felt that he always voted with his conscience on most issues and not along strict party lines.

Out of all the candidates in the 2000 presidential election Republican Party primaries, I thought John McCain to be the better candidate. And when George W. Bush and Karl Rove and his ilk threw a wrench in the works in South Carolina by suggesting that McCain fathered an illegitimate black child with a prostitute, I could only grit my teeth with the knowledge that such an honorable man as McCain, a straight talker and veteran, should be defeated by such dishonorable, despicable tactics.

Of course, Bush went on to a questionable and contested win in the presidential contest against Al Gore, and John McCain returned to the senate. I’m sure that McCain was bitter; he had to be. But he carried on dutifully and without complaint.

In 2008, by the time McCain had secured the Republican Party nomination for president, I was actively campaigning for Barack Obama; however, I still felt somewhat happy that McCain had been able to secure the nomination. But perhaps, securing the Republican Party presidential nomination was the high point of McCain’s political career because then it all started to go downhill.

From the time McCain gave his infamously horrid speech in front of the puke green backdrop to his concession speech, his campaign, and maybe his political career, was doomed. First of all, ironically then candidate Obama had early success tying McCain to the George W. Bush presidency; in a cruel twist of fate, the man who had defeated him by unscrupulous means in 2000 resurfaced to defeat him once again.

And then he selected Sarah Palin as his running mate thinking she would give him the best chance to win. However, as soon as it became apparent to most of the nation that she’s as absolutely dumb as a bag of hammers, the moderates and independents he needed most to have any chance of winning fled in droves. Yeah, she fired up the right, but in the same instance, I don’t think she garnered any votes or support for him that he would not have gotten already.

The town hall style presidential debate held at Belmont University, which supposedly played to John McCain’s strengths, perhaps defined McCain’s presidential campaign—an old, tired, bewildered man wondering around on the stage seemingly looking for inspiration and direction.

After his defeat, I guess I expected McCain to return to the senate again and play his position just as he had done before. I expected him to be the decent, honorable public servant that voted with his conscience that I had always imagined him to be.

Instead, upon his return to the senate, he found his party pushing hastily and vigorously toward the right, and he decided to follow. And in doing so, he adopted this “just say anything to win” posture. In an effort to stay politically relevant and viable, he contradicted most of his earlier positions. He looked pathetically inept and desperate as he switched from one position to another on issue after issue.

However, now not only does he look inept, now not only does he look desperate, he looks simply defeated. In his effort to retain his senate seat, not only is he running from his earlier positions; he is running from himself.

In an effort to appeal to right wing conservative voters, he stated that he was not and has never considered himself to be a maverick.

Huh? What? Well, after years of publically claiming the label, after years of running for office on the label, after writing an autobiography which featured the label prominently in the title, he claims that he actually never was what he said he was, nor did he say he was what he said he was. It’s all like a surreal mavericky political Jedi mind trick.

Up until the 2008 presidential contest, John McCain had served his country and represented his district honorably and with distinction. However, at the point he realized that the terms of his continued service had changed, at the point he realized that his continued service would require him to sell his soul in tiny, excruciating increments, perhaps he should have just thrown in the towel. Now he just looks like the over-the-hill athlete, the punch drunk fighter that continues to compete long after his prime.

Had he chose to retire following the 2008 presidential elections, had he chose not to seek office again and go back to Arizona as a civilian, his defeat would have just been seen as an unfortunate end to an otherwise stellar career. However, his insistence on continuing on means that even if he wins reelection, the price he will have had to pay will have eroded whatever honor and dignity he has left. The 2008 presidential campaign will not be seen as the high water mark of his career, but the beginning of the end—his own personal and political Waterloo.

A Little Fear and Trepidation Are Terrible Things to Waste: A Brief History Lesson by Professor Reddick

2010-04-14T11:06:00.002-04:00

I fancy myself to be a student of history; the past forever fascinates me, and additionally, you would be amazed just how much insight on the present that might be gained by looking critically at the past.

So, this past summer when the Tea Party protests surrounding healthcare reform first arose, when people began to hi-jack town hall meetings with seemingly feigned and contrived outrage, when we began to hear appeals to the “real Americans” to take back our country, it all looked and sounded vaguely familiar to me.

We all pointed rigid fingers and decried the racism inherent in these actions and statements, and rightly so, but in doing so, I do believe that we completely missed the most prevailing motivations. But when on last week Virginia governor proclaimed the month of April to be Confederate History Month, it all started to come into focus for me. And a glance backward to the past would provide the historical correlations necessary to understanding what is afoot.

The first period we would need to take a good hard look at is during Reconstruction and the period shortly thereafter. Things were still pretty shaky then, but black folk were off to a promising start. They were fighting hard and diligently to rise above their station in life, and most importantly, they were actively availing themselves of the political process. And herein lies the rub.

The alarm quickly went up that black folk were taking over the country, that the country had to be taken back and preserved for “real Americans” at all costs. At this time, though, it was the Democrats leading the charge, and they used the fear and trepidation wrought by the societal changes underway to create a certain political urgency and rally people to their cause (and political party).

Historian John Hope Franklin refers to this timeframe as the very nadir of black existence as black folk lost any and all gains made during Reconstruction and found themselves in an even more precarious position. And since people had no inkling of political correctness at the time, overt racists did not have to couch their racism in terms like “Socialists” or “Communists” or “Muslim.” They just came right out with it. I read an account that stated that to win political office in the South during this period, you had to “out-nigger” your opponent; whichever politician could use the word nigger the most times and the most creatively in their stump speeches usually won the race.

Next we would have to fast forward to the period following the Civil Rights Movement. As black folk took advantage of the hard-earned opportunities afforded by the Civil Rights Movement, some white folk became nervous and fearful. And as the riots spread throughout the urban communities in the late 1960’s, that nervous fearfulness transformed into abject terror. And then here comes Richard “Tricky Dick” Nixon.

Nixon was able to capitalize on white Americans’ fears that black folk were moving too far too fast. And by pointing out the riots sweeping the nation and defining them as evidentiary of the lawlessness sweeping the nation as African Americans were allowed to enter the mainstream, he was able to convince them that a domestic barbarian horde of knee-grows stood at the ready to usurp the place of the good white people whose forefathers had made this country what it is.

Nixon’s return to “law and order” and a certain social normality message managed to resonate with voters, and rural and Southern Democrats still aggravated by the Democratic Party’s passing of civil rights legislation were only too eager to jump ship. Nixon’s racist rhetoric greatly appealed to them. Nixon perhaps would have gone down in the history books as being great had his own personal foibles and paranoias not tripped him up.

And Ronald Reagan’s true genius lay in his ability to code Nixon’s almost overtly racist rhetoric, which had begun to turn many people off by this time, into covertly racist, race neutral language.

Now, let’s take a look at what is happening today. If you are like me, the whole furor surrounding health care reform took me completely by surprise. I attended a small local rally out of mere curiosity, and it seemed that the crowd protesting “Obama’s Socialist Health Care Reform” should have been leading the charge to support it; more than a few looked as if they could use at least a good dental plan.

But in hindsight, I remember noting during that protest, as well as numerous others, that the conversation seemed only peripherally about and motivated by healthcare and more about and by President Obama’s perceived difference and change and the concomitant fear and trepidation that attend to both.

Following President Obama’s election and amid the threat of financial crisis and ruin, people—all people—were afraid and naturally so. They were in desperately in need of guidance and re-assurance—leadership, and I still hold firmly to my previous notions that if the right and conservatives were genuinely concerned about this country, at that time they would have stepped out front and worked to allay public fears about the ascendance of an African American president and the meaning thereof. That does not mean that they had to agree with his agenda or his policy; they just had to acknowledge both his humanity and his legitimacy, both of which seemed to be in question.

Instead, they chose to contrive this straw man in the form of a healthcare reform debate, and use any number and/or manner of outright lies, distortions, and innuendo to play upon the worst fears of the most fearful. And Governor McConnell’s proclamation just reminds Virginians and the nation of what once was and makes an implicit promise for a return to the halcyon days of yore.

But perhaps as a student of history I should have expected this. After all, such has been the historical pattern of politics in America; I guess I was just naïvely idealistic in expecting anything different. But I guess in a time of crisis and social upheaval, politically speaking, a little fear and trepidation are terrible things to waste.

Blog Talk Radio: The Prison Industrial Complex Episode: Is the Criminal Justice System the New Jim Crow?

2010-04-11T13:06:00.000-04:00

Where it concerns the criminal justice system and the minority communities—primarily African American and Hispanic, something has changed. Perhaps my experience is unique, but when I was a child, those families in my community with family members incarcerated were few and far between, at least, as far as we knew because going to prison, or the “pen” as my grandmother called it, was deemed disgraceful, so families often went to great pains to hide the incarceration of a family member. But today there is hardly any family that has not been affected the incarceration of a family member. According to the numbers, in 1980 only 350,000 were incarcerated; by the turn of the century, that number had increased to over 2 million.

But let me ask you this question: Why do you believe this is so? Is it because things have gotten so bad in our neighborhoods and in society at large that this level of incarceration is warranted? But what if I told you that actual crime rates are incommensurate with actual rates of incarceration, that though crime rates have remained relatively stable, incarceration rates have continued to rise?

Is it the overall effectiveness of “The War on Drugs”? Or is it warranted because of the prevalence of drugs, particularly crack cocaine, in our neighborhoods? But what if I informed you that “The War on Drugs” actually predates the emergence of the crack cocaine epidemic and was mainly a political ploy to attract swing voters? Or that when “The War on Drugs” was precipitated, drug use was on the decline; in fact, at that time, only 2% of Americans thought that drug abuse was an actual problem?

I have always held the assumption that the criminal justice system’s primary function was that of public safety; it worked to maintain an overall sense of public security by keeping our streets safe and putting those dangerous individuals who threatened that sense of safety behind bars where they belong. However, after reading Michelle Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness and consulting various sources, I am prepared to change my views.

What are your views about the current criminal justice system? Do you think it fairly dispenses justice, or does it unfairly target minorities and the poor? What are your experiences with the criminal justice system?

Join us at Freedom thru Speech Radio as we discuss this nation’s criminal justice system and seek to answer these questions and more. Tonight we will be introducing our new co-host, The Janitor of the blog Urban Politico. Also, gracing us with their presence are Eddie Rosario of the blog [un]Common Sense, The Prisoner’s Wife of the blog This Side of the Wall and LoveBabz of the blog Lovebabz: A Life in Transition.

Tonight’s show airs at 8 PM EST, and you can join us and just listen or have your say by going to our BlogTalkRadio platform by clicking here, or dialing in at 914-803-4881.

A High Price for the Nike Swoosh

2010-04-09T11:06:00.001-04:00

Since Nike released its Tiger Woods’ ad featuring the voice of his deceased father, Earl Woods, a few days ago, there has been no shortage of commentary critiquing it. Whether you like or dislike the ad, whether you think it is absolutely vile or tremendously inspiring, you must admit that as a marketing tool, it was a stroke of absolute genius. Since its release, it has been watched and re-watched and analyzed from every possible angle almost ad infinitum.

This morning Dee Foster, former elite NCAA gymnast and founder of Perfect Ten Consulting, has agreed to grace this spot with her take on the matter.

Before you read my commentary, please view the following ad if you have not done so already:

Now before I get into this, I want to be undeniably clear about two things:

I am a shameless Christian woman, and I am now in the practice of referring everything I say and do to scripture. I am woman-enough to admit that I am not the best navigator of my life’s journey…I need guidance. The Bible is the best self-help book ever written.

As a Christian woman, I in no way condone or endorse infidelity (or any bad behavior, for that matter) on any level. I do however, as a Christian woman, pray for God’s grace and mercy to cover and heal those who commit infidelity and those who are victimized by it. I do judge infidelity – everyone does. But I judge it from the perspective of God’s word: The Bible says that, as His children, we are to confess our sins to each other, to hold each other accountable to all behavior that is in disobedience to how God has instructed us to live and to pray for each others’ healing. (James 5:16). The Word doesn’t say anything about forcing each other to pay public and/or private penance – indefinitely –after God has already forgiven (Psalm 103:12)

Moving on.

The Masters. Golf’s proverbial holy grail of superiority. Masters. Interesting word. As a noun, it has 23 definitions according to dictionary.com. Here’s the 10 I find particularly compelling (and contradicting):

–noun

a person with the ability or power to use, control, or dispose of something: a master of six languages; to be master of one's fate.

an owner of a slave, animal, etc.

an employer of workers or servants.

the male head of a household.

a person eminently skilled in something, as an occupation, art, or science: the great masters of the Impressionist period.

a victor or conqueror.

an officer of the court to whom some or all of the issues in a case may be referred for the purpose of taking testimony and making a report to the court.

a boy or young man (used chiefly as a term of address).

a device for controlling another device operating in a similar way. Compare slave

the Master, Jesus Christ.

The reality is, God has already forgiven and forgotten the marital indiscretion of one Eldrick “Tiger” Woods (…and I will remember their sin no more -Jeremiah 31:34). However, the god-of-the-rubber-sole-and-shock-pads – Nike, Inc. -- has forced its former sacred cow to humiliate himself and continue to be convicted in the court of public opinion on a million dollar ad in exchange for keeping his beloved contract. And, as an added bonus to the great swoosh, they pounced on an opportunity to play God (the real One, not the shoe one).

That, friends, is called a Deal with the Devil.

Elin: The Deeper the Excrement, the More Wifey Smells of Roses

Let me just get this point out of the way before I expound on the Nike ad.

Speaking of deals with the devil…

She knew who she was marrying before she married him.

Considering how these scenarios usually exist (and they're all the same) this is not likely the first time he has cheated on her -- it's likely the first time she got fed up with it and made it public knowledge. Listen, I won’t bore you with my resume, but I’ve been in the branding, marketing and PR game for nearly two decades, so let’s just suffice it to say I know of which I speak, shall we? As a PR pro, I know that by the time someone gets busted, they have gotten away with it a million times.

Elin Whatever-Her-Maiden-Name-Is Woods left all-things-Nanny behind and chose to marry one of the wealthiest, most-famous humans on planet Earth. And she chose to marry him when he was in the prime of his career and in the prime of his life. Not unlike the many wives of professional über-athletes, she very likely turned a blind eye to some undesirable behavior (or at least hints of its existence) in exchange for an extremely comfortable life. She ignored stuff. Again, not likely this is the first time he’s been bad. Just the first time we all found out about it.

Everybody has a price. That was very clearly hers.

The devil, in this case, with whom Mrs. Woods struck her deal is not Tiger – it’s the farce that is their covenant of marriage. Now, I realize that, among females, I’m in the minority with this opinion.

That doesn’t make me wrong, though.

Treading-Not-So-Carefully, Inc.

In the argument (again, in the court of public opinion) about what is and isn’t satisfactory due-paying, representing this particular case are Tiger Woods, Elin Woods, the Woods children, a few Gloria Allred-represented opportunistic, money-whoring groupies (who are also ‘fans’ – which is short for fanatic, lest we forget…) and, last but certainly not financially least, Tiger’s sponsors.

The lone big-hat brand who “stood by” Tiger is, of course, Nike. As you saw on the recently launched, Masters Tournament-timed ad, Nike (also known as Phil Knight and his coveted ad agency, Wieden + Kennedy) is publicizing its official statement on Woods-gate. Actually, Nike has publicized more of a final judgment than an official statement – they are, after all, allowed to judge given they are the one brand not to flee.

Right?

Here’s the thing. Nike conceived this ad to reinvent Tiger Woods. Nike and Wieden + Kennedy – in their infinite marketing wisdom – have taken it upon themselves to re-create, re-brand, re-establish and re-build a broken man. Not a broken brand – a broken man. And again, this is perhaps their not-all-too-obvious way of letting The Tigster know he'd better thank his master (there’s that word again – which definition do you think is applicable?) for his one remaining endorsement contract…and that he's gonna have to crawl for it.

After seeing this ad, it is clearly in the minds of the shoe guru and its relevant partners that they are solely responsible for fixing what is broken, and if they have to dig up the rotting bones and the silenced voice of bad boy’s papa, then that’s exactly what they’ll do. I mean, if anyone can raise the dead, it’s Nike, right?

By the way, I wonder if the name of the marketing exec on this particular campaign is Creepy McCreepington. What delusional egocentric approved this thing? Don’t wanna be around that person when the rapture happens. Sheesh…

If you’re not picking up on my very acerbic sarcasm, hang in there – you’ll catch on by the time the piece is finished.

Part of the great swoosh’s reinvention strategy, by the way, is muzzling and muting Tiger (which is interesting, considering many brands are in desperate search for “articulate” athletes to endorse…but that’s another blog post altogether). Look at the ad. He says nothing. Subliminal messaging is among the most powerful to all the drones watching and waiting to be told what to think. And, in the end, Tiger's real god (Nike, not Buddah) will want to take credit for reinventing – and fixing – the broken man behind the brand.

Playing God. Deal with the Devil. Playing God. Deal with the Devil.

Oh, and if you asked me (which you didn’t, but I’m saying it anyway), Nike’s sanctimonious arrogance is so much worse than all the other brands who dropped him faster than Tiger told Groupie-Whore #1 to erase all those text messages. At least the brands who bailed revealed their sinister judgment overtly.

Oh, and I know that jab at one of Gloria Allred’s clients wasn’t very Christian of me. What can I say? God is no more finished with me than He is with Tiger…

This ad is clearly Nike’s insistence that Tiger continue to atone and, really, beg for the court of public opinion’s forgiveness. But alas, Earl’s son is only required to atone to God, his wife (although she's not blameless) and his children -- not humans. Especially not humans who have nothing to do -- at all -- with his situation. I also don't think there's anything genius about Nike faux-resurrection of a voice from the grave. I have traditionally been a great admirer (notice I didn’t say ‘fan’) of Nike ads - almost all of them are brilliant. But to me, this one is a perfect example of Nike (and its ad agency) believing its own hype and taking its advertising 'genius' over the line into a frighteningly blasphemous area.

When the last chapter of this tale is told, Tiger Woods will have won again, reigned as king of the golf world again and seen redemption in the form of new endorsement deals. He’ll have made more money than he ever dreamed possible, and he’ll sit alongside Marv Albert, Frank Gifford, Bill Clinton and countless other men on the Throne of Professional Resilience.

The real question is, how resilient is his soul?

What’s your opinion?

A quick note from Uncle Remus on Confederate History Month

2010-04-08T06:06:00.002-04:00

People are trapped in history, and history is trapped in them. --James Baldwin (via @beautynubian)

Hiya doing, boys and girls? Uncle Remus here. You know, just the other day, I was telling Aunt Jemimah and Uncle Ben that it was high time for me to make a comeback. Don’t get me wrong, though. Many negroes is coon-ing, but ain’t no negro alive able to coon like I can.

But when Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell issued his proclamation earlier today proclaiming April Confederate History Month, I slapped my knee, did a little buck-jump and yelled, “I’m back!” So, I got in touch with my agent, Pat Buchanan, faster than a negro running from work, and wouldn’t you know it, the offers started coming in. Some new station called Fox News fell all over themselves trying to book me.

But then here come the uppity negroes and they liberal friends trying to throw shade on my hustle. They talking about slavery being all caught up in the history of the Confederacy. Slavery? You mean negroes still complaining about slavery? Y’all negroes need to just move on.

Talking about subjugation and degradation and God given, inalienable rights and other big words you just know they liberal friends done put in they mouth. Negroes don’t even talk like that. It’s just too hard to get they big, greasy soup coolers and thick tongues to even pronounce words like that.

Don’t they realize just how romantic a period the ante-bellum south was? Didn’t they see Gone with the Wind? I’m telling you, some folk just ain’t grateful. Shiftless negroes.

And then they done gone to phi-lo-so-phi-sizing, talking about Governor McDonnell and his ilk trying to pull together an uninformed base by appealing to their basest instincts. Or trying to conjure up old worn out images and symbols to excite, or incite if you listening to Max Reddick, a bunch of folk living in the past, too frightened to move on.

But there has been one huge disappointment, though. BET co-founder Sheila Johnson chose to issue a statement condemning McDonnell’s Confederate History Month proclamation. She wrote something about “[I]ts insensitive disregard for Virginia’s complicated and painful history.” Can you imagine anyone connected with BET having the nerve to be all indignant? Talking about the pot calling the kettle black!

But don’t you worry about old Uncle Remus though. ‘Cause they is a handful of negroes over here at Fox—good people, salt of the earth—who told me folk, especially negroes, would respond like that. But they let me know that I was doing God’s work, so keep on grinnin’, get my check, and just move on.

But to show y’all I ain’t in the least bit bitter, Imma’ leave you with an oldie but goodie to remind you of the good old days.

And don’t just sit there like you ain’t feeling it. Just get on up, and join me. And if you feel like it, dance a jig. Be yo’self. Let that negro dialect out. It’s Confederate History Month, y’all! We all should be celebrating!

When did distinguishing the wolves from the shepherds become difficult?: The Catholic Church needs to clean up its mess

2010-04-07T12:06:00.004-04:00

I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. –Mahatma Ghandi

Out of deference to friends and colleagues who are Catholic, and because my grandmother and mother instilled in me early on to “not touch God’s anointed” regardless of how abhorrent their actions, I have resisted criticizing the Catholic Church. However, at this time I find that I cannot remain idly silent.

When the first allegations of priest misconduct and child molestations surfaced, I thought, as perhaps many did, that these events, though seemingly widespread, were somehow simply aberrations, and that once the Church owned up to its malfeasance and issued the requisite mea culpas, the Church would then work to prevent the reoccurrence of such horrific events.

However, as other allegations within the United States and abroad become known, it becomes painfully clear that these instances of child sexual abuse are not simply aberrations, but part of an ongoing pattern of behavior. Would it be too strong for me to say that his pedophilic behavior is endemic in the culture of the Catholic priesthood?

For years, for decades, those charged with attending to the needs of the most helpless and the most vulnerable—the very “shepherds” of the flock—have used the authority of their office as tools, as fulcrums to gain the requisite leverage so that they might act upon, and continue to act upon, their basest desires.

We have no idea how long this has been going on. We have no idea how widespread the problem is or how many lives have been touched by it. But what we can state for sure is that there is any number of people who have been irreparably wounded, physically and psychologically, by the actions of persons claiming to be representatives of God.

But if the actions of the priests involved are not detestable enough, the actions (or inaction) of the Church in dealing with the whole scandal just magnifies the whole despicable affair one hundred fold. The Church’s response, in the main, has been to circle the wagons and push back against those condemning the Church’s action as well as those working to get the story out.

And the responses of Church spokespersons are just ludicrous and even more enraging. Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, tries to downplay the actions of a priest charged with molesting over 200 deaf boys by stating first that because the boys were post-pubescent, the priest in question was not really a pedophile.

Furthermore, Donohue states that the problem in the Catholic Church is a homosexual problem and not a pedophile problem. Listen as he attempts to make this ludicrous argument:

So, homosexuality is the problem, huh? So, the gays are to blame? That’s complete BS. It’s an attempt to obfuscate the issue by directing attention and energies elsewhere.

I am no theologian, but I do have what I think to be well reasoned response to the crisis. First and foremost, the problem arises when man attempts to apotheosize themselves, elevate themselves to the stature of God, or, at the very least, claim themselves to be God’s spokesperson here on earth.

Secondly, I believe the Church needs to go back and revisit and revise its teachings. Could it be these priests have turned to pedophilia simply because of Church teachings. Could it be this inclination toward pedophilia grows out of the unnatural and forced state of celibacy? Sex and intimate closeness with another constitutes one of the most basic human needs. And to deny this need, these needs, then forces those repressed needs and urges to irrupt as perversity.

As time marches on, as the world changes and human beings evolve, it stands to reason that one thousand year old edicts and laws not longer suffice, and most be thought through from a place of reason as opposed to a place of religious fervor.

But whatever the Churches continued response, the first thing the Church needs to do is tell the truth. It needs to cease attempting to protect persons and personages high in the Church hierarchy; it needs to cease attempting to protect the Church. And it needs to begin thinking first and foremost about the lives and the souls of the people on whose behalf it claims to intercede.