Vision Circle

Random Edness

• This happened during business travel.

  I'm late leaving the office because of administrative issues. I get to the airport one hour before the flight is scheduled to leave. I grab a salad and eat it for lunch.

  My stomach was already.... Uhhh.... Bubbly. So, no cheese.

  I'm on the plane and lower the window shade after it takes off and I fall asleep. Two hours later, the plane is descending and I wake up.

  *Snif*

  OK.... Someone cut a good one.

  *OH DAMN*

  I cut a good one.

  "Oh well, I'm the only one on the row."

  The plane lands, and is at the terminal. I get up to get my bag out of overhead and this Asian woman cuts me a look. The man next to her also gives me a look.

  OH. Well.
  You should have moved.
  

• Hillary Clinton used the term "plantation" in a speech and, of course, set the political opposition off. Well, you can't say jack until you say something about this.

  I find this type of political games to be childish, illogical, and appealing to hard core partisans who are irrational, IMO, any way.
  

• 24 is one of the best shows on television. Overall, I'm enjoying this season, even if it has some major holes.
  
• The implementation of "work ethic" is dying in this country. All you have to do is do a job to meet standards, and you will be seen as a shining star.
  
• The Venus and Serena Williams have lost their competative fire. It's a shame. I hate McEnroe and his comments are turning out to be right.
  
• If Black politicans, on both sides, become adults for 1 year, I wonder what would happen. That's why I think a race between Mfume and Steele would be a good thing for Blacks in Maryland.

  One, they both say they are friends.

  Two, I've seen evidence to support what they both say.

  Three, it would force them, even if not their supporters, to hit on all issues without the race baiting. If Blacks are evenly split, it's a win because Steele should then be looked at as a model. I think he should anyway because he actually talks TO people instead of AT them. If Steele wins the Black vote by a large margin, then he would definitely be a model. If Mfume wins, then you can look at Steele's performance and try to find out why he has done so bad.
  

• Ray Nagin cracked under pressure, real-time. And his melt down is continuing under stress of attempting to rebuild New Orleans on what is now (actually, has been for some time), a toxic waste dump.
  

P.S.

Payton Manning is a punk.

Marion Barry: I Told You So

I told you so:

Barry Tested Positive for Cocaine Use In the Fall
Drug Check Ordered After Tax Case Plea

By Yolanda Woodlee and Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, January 11, 2006; A01

D.C. Council member Marion Barry tested positive for cocaine use in the fall in a drug test ordered by a court after he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor tax charges, according to two sources familiar with Barry's case.

Barry, who served four terms as mayor and was elected to the Ward 8 council seat in 2004, has since begun treatment for drug use, the sources said, but Barry's failure to pass the mandatory drug test puts him in legal jeopardy.

Because he violated the terms of his release, Barry, 69, faces an increased risk of serving the maximum 18 months behind bars -- rather than probation -- for his failure to file tax returns for six years. He is scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 8, but a federal judge could jail him or sanction him at any time.

"Mind, body and soul" that!

That reminds me.

If anyone remembers Barry saying that at the press conference, they may have overlooked his surprised reaction when people really responded to that phrase. He KNEW then he had a winning theme and his "come back" started at that moment.

The Media: 01/04/2006

I go to bed last night and the news is reporting that one miner is dead with the fate of the others unknown.

I wake up and I hear that all miners except for one is dead. Then I hear a woman saying that orginally, they were all lived except for one and that they found out the truth hours later. This woman is now saying she's going to sue someone.

WTF?!?!?!?!??!?!

Your "loved one" has just been confirmed to have been killed in a mine accident and the first thing you think of is to sue someone?

Then I get home and my wife is livid because it's being reported that they were all in church praying when an "outsider" came in and said they were all alive except for one person. The people in the church start cheering. Then the pastor of the church asks people to pray for the family of the dead person, and very few people came up to pray for that family. The, later....

Right now I'm doing something dangerous, and that's writing when I don't have all of the facts. That's the blame being put on the media by the standard media critics, but I have to say if a rumor that the people are alive is going around, it's not a surprise that the media will report it, especially in this age of media competition. But they should have tried to fact check.

The media screwed up.

In the Baltimore area, a columnist for The Baltimore Sun resigned because "he had used sentences and paragraphs from other newspapers in some of his columns without attribution."

So another white newspaper person resigns because of suspect reporting/sourcing. What does this say about white newspaper writers?

I guess affirmative action is to blame.

The Depths of Black Boogie Man Thinking?

I really don't like what I am about to do, but this is another moment, to me, where something must be said.


Again, off of this post, in the comment section:

But the question I really have for anyone is this:

Cowgirl

I'm sorry, but this is the sort of race baiting, making the Black Boogie Man garbage that I cannot let stand.

My response:

The supposition is wrong.

So tell me why your comments should not be considered race baiting.

OK, now the reply?

Please get my comments straight - It has nothing to do with race baiting - it is factual.

Black Americans are the fast growing segment of the total population jumping on the Muslim bandwagon here in the US. Most of the recruiting is done in US Prison where Blacks make up a disportionately amount of the prison population. ...

Fact 1: After leaving jail, most of the people who joined Islam, don't maintain the adherence to it.
Fact 2: We are STILL talking about a Black Mulsim population of about 1-2% of the Black population.

Again, that's 1-2% of the Black population. Wow.

By the way, please don’t start on the poverty band wagon....

Given, I never mentioned poverty, and I am on record as saying poverty is not an excuse, why would that poster go there?

Farrakan, Ali, Mumia are Black Muslims who make racists statements about America and whitey keeping them down and enslaving them. Yet they belong to a Religion that has done more damage in the past and today to the African nations and Their African ancestors than another other nation, country or group of people that exists today or ever existed. These are all facts and have nothing to do with race baiting.

When a person writes "asks", So why do blacks so hate America, and then goes on to make 1-2% of the population as representative of the entire population, why is that NOT race baiting?

This Just Needs to be Said

The below are comments I put on LaShawn Barber's blog in response to this post.

I just shake my head and wonder how I see positives and negatives while others seem to see just the negative or just want to focus on that, but not both.

In context, there was nothing wrong with what Morgan Freeman said. Those in my circle of the universe who heard the complete comment, in context, agreed with his comment. Most said that when Black history is accurately engrained in American history, then Black History Month, which is just designation, can “go away”. Wasn’t that the intention Dr. Carter G. Woodson creating Black History Week in the first place? Why does that bit of history get removed from the picture? Pun intended.

OK, now a specific comment:

Rarely, if ever, do you hear black people expressing disgust for out-of-control crime rates or lecturing other blacks about their responsibility to stay out of the criminal justice system.

Strange, I hear it on a not infrequent basis. My circle of travel includes poor to well off and I hear it across the boundaries.

But, hey, I’m considered “liberal” by some and thus can be discounted.

BTW, others consider me "conservative", so I think that says A LOT about the definitions.

Honestly, between the negativity coming out of public Black liberals and the comments coming out of public Black conservatives, it’s a wonder more Blacks don’t blow their brains out (drinking, drugging, or literally) in dispair.

Merry Christmas.

Upset About Happy Holidays

I'm really upset about the use of happy holidays instead of Merry Christmas.

This time of year is about Christmas which is celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, our Savior.

If you are upset about people saying Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas, I trust:

• that you are upset that the commercialization of Christmas has led to some stores advertising Christmas before Thanksgiving.
• that you are upset about the fights and mayhem that happens on "Black Friday", the day after Thanksgiving.
• that you are upset that many stores need the consumerism of Christmas to stay in business.
• that you are upset of the near deity status of Santa Claus.
• that a mall Santa, coming late from lunch break, can cause a near riot. (I would not have believed it would be possible).
• that you are saddened by the rise in suicide attempts and successes this time of year.
• that you are saddened by the level of stress that results from people running around trying to buy gifts.
• that you are saddened by the debt that families find themselves in after Christmas?

If not...

*S*M*A*C*K*

That cyber pimp smack was for you to knock some damn sense into your head!!!!

Where are your priorities?

So what if store management tells its employees to say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas"?

What is Christmas really about anyway?

Merry Christmas.

A Thought About "Saving Christmas"

Well, there are some people out there who seem to be on a crusade to save Christmas in the public square of business. Some want businesses to continue wishing "Merry Christmas" instead of "Happy Holidays".

Well, if you ask me, those who really care about Christmas should want to disassociate Christmas from the "holidays".

Read this post I did earlier and you should get my point.

Black Intra-Racial Politics: Name Calling

I've written about the alleged name calling against Michael Steele.

I've written about my distaste for the name calling, but questioned the article because of what was directly quoted vs. what was paraphrased.

This is now national news and I'm wondering why:

• When Black Democrat politicians and commentators in Baltimore called Mfume a sellout because Mfume backed Martin O'Malley and refused to get involved in the case of the Baltimore City Public Schools hiding the fact of lead in the drinking water, it wasn't national news.
  
• When Black Democrat politicians and commentators called the Black members of the Baltimore City Council sellouts and Uncle Toms because they were a rubber stamp for Martin O'Malley, it wasn't national news.
  
• When Black Democrat politicians and commentators called Black people on the Baltimore City Public School board sellouts and Uncle Toms because they are useless, it wasn't national news.
  

Actually, I do know why and I have to ask why Michael Steele, someone who, from what I know, I think I like, politically, needs to be protected from normal Black politics?

What I Have Witnessed

I know you don't care, but this is what I have personally witnessed:

• A womb after child birth.
• A cesarean.
• Three "fresh" dead bodies.
• A woman scream, "I got 'em!" when she walked out of the church after just getting married.
• Stonehenge.
• The Eiffel Tower.
• The Mona Lisa.
• Westminster Abbey.
• Pure love.
• Prince.
• James Brown.
• Earth, Wind, and Fire.
• Rick James.
• Eddie Murphy.
• Oprah before she was national.
• Pure hate.
• Jerry Lewis.
• Being "walked" by an Olympic champion.
• Sam Donaldson prove that he is a pompous ass.
• Live fish in the waters of Caribbean islands.
• The wonder of a child after seeing something new.
• Life.

Hate Mail: Redux

The following are samples of hate mail that Colbert I. King received:

Some folks are really touchy these days. Take, for instance, these four readers: D.G., J., W.T. and D.L. They didn't care for my column on Harriet Miers ["The Right, on Fire Over Miers," Oct. 8] and thus availed themselves of the opportunity to tell me so by e-mail.

Wrote D.G.: "Some portly Episcopalian [an indelicate reference to moi ] who condones the systemic elimination of the helpless Unborn styles himself a good heart because he happens to be black and benefiting from the Graham family's quota mania. What a joke!!!"

From J.: "If you weren't Black, you wouldn't get a job in journalism. You are in due to a tacit quota system."

And W.T.: "Reading your article is like watching a black minstrel doing his song and dance with words. Pure buffoonery! Affirmative action writer in action."

Finally, D.L.: "king...your article was biased and fulla[expletive] . . . so pack it up your liberal [expletive] sideways."

I seem to remember Michelle Malkin showing some hate email that set off a round of faux disgust from around the right leaning blogosphere.

I wound up writing:

So, Michelle Malkin gets hate mail. What's the big deal?

Really.

What makes her special?

Since I have time to waste, I decided to check the blogspot.com domain to see if anyone referenced the hate emails Colbert I. King received. I found one reference to the article but it was for the article itself.

I searched the typepad.com domain as well, and saw references to other articles, but not this one.

That's different from Michelle Malkin's situation, isn't it?

It seems, to me, that "minority" conservatives are being given special treatment by conservatives. Some would call that patronizing.

Civil Rights

The Civil Rights Movement was about changing public policy to allow full access to the promise of America.

It was about allowing full access to all schools.

It was about allowing full access to the voting booth.

It was about allowing full access to jobs.

It was about allowing full access to opportunities.

It WASN'T about disallowing people to "act the fool". That is a home training and/or moral and/or gray matter issue. It's not a "Civil Rights" issue.

Stopping rappers from spewing filth isn't a "Civil Rights" issue, it is a moral and human rights issue.

Stopping the insane use of "nigger" by Black people is not a "Civil Rights" issue, it is a self-respect issue.

Stopping crime is a moral and community issue not a "Civil Rights" issue.

Lowering the high rate of out of wedlock births is a moral issue and a poverty issue and a social issue, not a "Civil Rights" issue.

At least that's how I see it.

Thoughts While on Biz Travel

• Job well done Mrs. Parks. Thank you.
• Black women with apple bottoms should not wear low/no waist pants. The sistas look like they have a fully loaded diaper. Yes, I've written that before, but some things need to be restated.
• When you are on biz travel, and you are socializing with customers, you shouldn't drink so much that you get tipsy or drunk. It's not good business. Saying "I don't remember what happened" will erase the memory of you "acting the fool."
• Some nomination was withdrawn. blah blah blah. Somebody faces obstruction of justice charges. blah blah blah. But that's big news but not government abuse of power?
• It's interesting that the common question after Katrina was, "Why didn't they leave when they were warned?" Well, how come the national media isn't asking that question about Wilma victims?

  The local media is asking the question and the response being shown is, "I didn't think it would be that bad".
  

• Business travel gets very old very fast.
  
• So, when you make a flight reservation, you KNOW that you are leaving a warm climate to go to a colder climate. Yet, you insist on wearing shorts, flip flops/sandals and no coat. Well, in doing so, you have no reason to complain about how cold you are when you are standing outside in 40 degree temperature waiting for your ride. And, yes, I SAID so to a stranger.
  
• Southwest has opening seating, but they let you board based on 4 groups: kids/special needs, A, B, and C grouping. A, B, and C grouping is determined by when you check in. Southwest needs to put lines on the floor to help maintain the A, B, and C lines. When the flight is delayed by an hour or so, and people jump the line "by mistake" because they were in the wrong letter line, some people can get nasty.
  
• Job well done Mrs. Parks. Thank you.
  

On The Road Again

Some thoughts:

• Traveling during a hurricane is an interesting undertaking.
• I don't eat as well as I do when I'm at home. Actually, I eat too well, it's good for the palate but not for the cholesterol.
• Expense tab is nice.
• Hotel rooms and suites, are nice in the short term, but now it's old. Real old.

Biz Travel Gets Real Old

The title says it all.

I remember when airlines served "decent" food, now you have to load up before the flight, in the airport.

I had to laugh when I saw a Black woman break out aluminum foil from a big bag and pass out home fried chicken.

I started to pay her for a piece of the bird.

Random Edness

• Business travel gets very old, very fast.
• I understand supply and demand. I understand how people panicing helped to drive the price of gas up.

  I still don't understand why speculating can drive up gas prices so fast, but reality causes downward adjustments to happen slowly.
  

• As I get older, I get to know more of the "adult bizness", otherwise known as the family secrets. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss.
  
• For the past few years, people have been complaining about the bias of the press. Those same people have been pointing out how the press gets things wrong but refuses to correct what they reported. But these same people will trust the press to present racially tinged issues truthfully.

  You tell me that makes sense.
  

Don't Get to Start Givin' Oxford props

"Amerikkkan" has made it's way around the world.

The Government Fails, Time and Time Again

The government fails, time and time again, and it is due to its massive size, politics, hubris, incompetance, and graft.

While I wasn't blogging when the Department of Homeland Security was created, I stated in web forums and email lists that creating that department was nothing but a waste of time and money.

If its main job was to prevent another 9/11, all that had to be done was to add a cabinet position to head over seeing of the different 3 letter agencies to make sure that they share information in a timely and efficient manner. Then all that had to be done was to give that position the authority to fire people at will and remove regulations that prevented information from being shared. That position should also have had an inside track to be able to go to congress and state what laws needed to be changed or removed to bring down the legal barriers between the different 3 letter agencies.

Note: Some of those laws are the reason for "The Wall" and those laws are on the books because of prior abuses by the different 3 letter agencies. I know this, but some of the resulting regulations were a burden.

As anyone should be able to see right now, putting FEMA under Homeland Defense was a stupid move. And putting Brown in charge of FEMA was also a stupid move. Yes, it was everyday politics, but the man is in over his head.

Before the hurricane, the mayor of New Orleans said that because of the size of the hurricane, the people of NOLA would be essentially on their own. After the hurricane hit, he was on the air, rightly, blasting lack of a response from the federal government.

Well, he should have included local government and state government in that, but he didn't.

Note: I'm on the road again and I just don't feel like web surfing to find the links to back what I'm writing. Yeah, I'm lazy, cranky, my head hurts, and I ate some bad airport food that is tearing my stomach up. So go look for it for yourself.

The local and state authorities told those who couldn't get out to go to the Super Dome. They did. Then they were subject to searches before being allowed to enter the Dome. The local authorites in the Dome, apparently, couldn't do anything about the criminals who entered the Dome and took advantage of the situation. They should have let people keep knives and such.

Note: I've started to question what is being reported about the crime. Not because of race issues, but because of things like this. Yeah, I linked it. It's in another tab right now, that's why.

Trying to get back on track....

The local and state government failed those who couldn't get out. They failed the hospitals. When the local police were in search and rescue mode, they let the looters rules, so they failed to protect those who needed protecting.

The authorities are sending children without parents or guardians to locations outside of LA. Now you have parentless children, possibly STATES away from their family. Children are being harmed while being saved. This is like foster care. When it goes right, it goes right. When it goes wrong, the foster care system destroys families and harms kids. (Don't. Even. Get. Me. Going. About. The. Foster. Care. System).

There is a radio interview being played on talk radio concerning a woman who is relaying her experience with FEMA. FEMA asked her for an address. She has none. They asked her for her telephone number. She has none. She was calling from a temporary space set up by Allstate. The location? A field. They asked for a fax number. She had none.

Oh, and let us not forget about the NOLA evacuation plan that called for buses to be used to transport people out of The Big Easy. Instead, they are flooded.

That's the government in action.

The government is best at confiscating money from tax payers. But otherwise, people should consider to be on your own and operate from that premise.

If you didn't know before, now you know.

And to anyone who is surprised by what I'm writing, it's because you never asked, otherwise I would have told you something like this before.

Contradictions In Black

Black Americans have to be the most internally questioning people in the U.S.

The idea that Blacks "speak behind closed doors" is a farce. Things are mentioned on Black talk radio. Things are mentioned in Black print media. The idea about Blacks "speaking behind closed doors" rests on the idea that it's "behind closed doors" because media appointed "Black leaders" aren't QUOTED as saying certain things. Then, critics of the American Black community, white and Black, say that because those "leaders" aren't saying things, it isn't being said.

False.

Then those same critics will say that those "Black leaders" don't speak for all Blacks.

True.

Then those same critics will say that the Black community, in general, is being "lead" by the "Black leaders".

Then those same critics will point out where the "Black leaders" are not sychronized with the general Black community.

Ummm.... Ain't there some contradictions there somewhere?

The Human Spirit

• If you currently have the spirit of a criminal, given a bad situation, your criminal spirit will jump with glee and you will go the criminal route.

• If you love someone, like your sister, there is no way you are going to kill your sister over a bag of ice. You are going to share that bag of ice with your sister.

  If you love your brother, you are going to share that bag of ice with your brother.

• I bet there is a lot of human kindness going on that the media sees but isn't reporting.

• I would like to see the media approach someone suffering in this situation, only to have the person turn around and shove the microphone up the newscaster's nose, and then shove the camera up the backside of the camera man.

  A person I know was living in a multi-family dwelling. One of her neighbors was a crack head. This crack head started a fire because she fell asleep while cooking her next dose of crack.

  The house burned down.

  The "11 O'Clock News" arrived and went on air live. The camera approached the woman I know. The next thing you see is her mouthing, "If you don't get that camera out of my face, I'm going to shove that camera up your ___".

• The national media ain't jack.

• Anyone who, in the midst of suffering, takes the time to humiliate and denigrate a woman by raping her, deserves death by a colony of fire ants.
  

Katrina Thoughts

Some thoughts coming out of this mess:

• Open a bank account in a national bank. Set up a means of transfer from your main account.
• Buy hand guns and lots of bullets.
• Learn gun safety.
• Learn how to use the guns.
• When a hurricane is forcast for your area:
  • Load up cars with gas.
  • Get batteries for the flashlights and radios.
  • Gather important papers and place in water resistant containers.
  • Get bottled water and food supplies.
• When they say get out, LEAVE!

Grieving Mothers

I haven't written anything about Cindy Sheehan, because, frankly, I don't see the point in it.

The woman was anti-war before her son was killed. After her son was killed, she was still anti-war, and is doing what she thinks needs to be done so that no other mothers face what she is facing.

Other mothers take a view opposite of Cindy Sheehan. That's their view.

To date, I think many on the anti-Sheehan side have been pathetic and over the top in their opposition to her. Frankly, it's made me sick to my stomach. However, on the Fox News Sunday, I saw some sanity.

Chris Wallace had two mothers who each had a son killed in the war. One wanted the troops to come home IFF the reason for being there could not be explained well enough, while the other supported the mission as is.

Wallace and the segment producer did an outstanding job presenting rational women who presented rational views. And at the end, Wallace did something that too many pundits and news articles are not doing: he asked about their commonality.

Introducing the VisionCircleWiki

You asked for it, you got it. Let's get this party started HERE.

Black IntraPolitics

I bit the title of this entry from P6 because the phrase fits.

• Black Intrapolitics: So What Do We Call It?
• I Changed My Mind
• Black IntraPolitics: That most dangerous of activities

The more "conversations" I have online, the more hardened my idea becomes that Blacks shouldn't be involved in the "left" vs. "right" garbage.

From the online conversations, and a few "real world" conversations, I get more data points to support my thesis that most people don't understand what "conservative" means or what "liberal" means.

For example, I've been called conservative because:

• I know that the government wastes money and I don't think that the government deserves more of my paycheck than God.
• I don't think there is enough evidence to "prove" global warming.
• I support vouchers.
• I support charter schools.
• I don't trust the government to solve problems.
• I don't think that President Clinton was good for Blacks.
• I've criticized Jesse Jackson.
• I believe in a strong U.S. military because the best offense is a great defense.
• I think that the economic system of the U.S. is the best system in the world.
• I have criticized Democrats.
• I have criticized Black Democrat politicians.

But at the same time...

I've been called a liberal because:

• I've criticized Republicans.
• I've supported Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton when they have been right.
• I've criticized Black conservatives when I think they are wrong.
• I question the continuing negative representation of Blacks by self proclaimed conservatives.

Let's just state the obvious. The sad state of politics in the U.S. has lead to an even sadder state of politics within the Black community.

For liberals, if you support Republicans or too harshly criticize "Black leaders" -- although most Black criticize "Black leaders" -- or don't buy into the insane mau-mauing by the "Blacker than thou" cabal, then you are a conservative.

For conservatives, if you don't continuously attack "Black leaders", or you don't support Republicans, or you don't like Clarence Thomas, then you are a liberal.

It's insane.

What happened to the "right" to "think for yourself"?

But what do I know? This is just mental masturbation.

Giving The People What They Want

On the most segregated day in the country, a thought just occurred to me.

Some accuse "Hollywood liberals" of being racist because Blacks and other "people of color" have a very hard time getting roles. But Hollywood is a very capitalist system, meaning those who generate money, get money to generate more money.

If "Hollywood liberals" give Blacks and other "people of color" fewer roles, maybe it's because they think that Blacks and "people of color" won't generate the type of revenue that they are seeking. And if that's the case, is it Hollywood, or the audience, who is to blame?

A Rant

• Maybe I should do podcasting. I get a lot of quick streams of thought that I say I need to remember so that I can blog about it, but then I forget what I first thought.

• The Black community is suffering from a major case of scrambled brains, first scrambled because of the social situation in the United States. Our collective minds are still scrambled, but not it's scrambled as a residual affect of the prior scrambling.

  Think about it. How can the collective group with one of the lowest average net worth be such consumers instead of savers?

• The true independent thinkers are always outside of the society's mainstream. They are admired and disparaged by the same people at the same time.

• "Victimology" is a red-meat phrase that seems to be applied to people who have a complaint about something in society. The people throwing around the phrase seem to be the people who are more likely to adopt that "mindset" and complain about what they believe are forces against their way of thinking. They need to either stop whining or drop the b.s. phrase.
  

• In writing that last bullet, I had a thought and lost it while I completed that thought. Damn.

• When Democrats where in office, the Republicans, rightly, said that the Democrats were drunk with power and were abusing the perks of office and using the government treasury as their personal bank accounts. Now that the Republicans control the both halves of congress and the presidency, they are doing the same thing that they accused Democrats of doing.

• Negative news sells. Even when it distorts the picture of society or a part of society, negative news sells.

  One day, Gregory Kane was the guest of a conservative radio talk show host. Kane was going on about some "problem" in the Black community. Actually, the "problem" was that "Black leaders" weren't saying something about a situation that Kane believed they should be saying something about.

  I called in and launched on him and the host. I asked why it is that "Black leaders" are blasted for thing they are "not doing" when Blacks who are doing things are not pointed out. Specifically, I pointed out Black Professional Men, Inc., and asked why they are not given more press when they are doing things that "Black leaders" are not doing.

  The host jumped in and said, essentially, because negative news sells. No one wants to talk about positive news.

  That's the mindset that is part of the scrambled brain syndrome that Blacks suffer from that I wrote about above.

• Read this.

• Whe the Democrats controlled the House of Representatives, many on the right said that term limits need to be put into place to stop the abuses by the congresscriters. One of the voices AGAINST term limits was Rush Limbaugh. After the election which occurred prior to the Republican take over of the House, Rush Limbaugh was spitting fire about the Democrats retaining control of the House. He then became a term limits supporter.

  The next election cycle, the Republicans gained control of the House. For most people, term limits stopped being an issue.

  Does anyone else notice that the same people who were backing term limits of congress criters are now backing term limits for the Supreme Court?

• When someone says that capitalism is evil, do the following:
  1. Smack them.
  2. Tell the person that capitalism is an economic system. As such, it can't be evil. People are evil. It doesn't matter what system that person is in, if he is evil, he is evil and will find a way to exploit the economic system in a way that favors him.
  3. Smack them.
  4. Ask them if they realize that socialism and communism has similar abuses occuring those economic systems.
  5. Smack them.
  6. Tell them that you were mistaken. Capitalism is more economic based, while socialism and communism, while economic in theory, needs a repressive political system behind it to get it to work.
  7. Smack me for messing this up.
• The thrust is, people corrupt the system, the system doesn't corrupt the people.

• Many public Black conservatives, IMO, are just as much race hustlers as are "Black leaders".

• Women control relationships.

  Attractive women -- women who are physically beautiful, have bodies that are "ideal", or have personalities that shine -- know that they are desireable. They know that they are wanted. They know that they have a larger pool to pick from. As such, they act accordingly.

  Meanwhile, the men that go after them do some stupid and/or degrading, to themselves, things.

  Until...

  The women meet that man that they find attractive -- physically, financially, or socially -- then they lose control of the relationship. They tend to want that man so much that they "over look" things like behavior, attitude, the other women, etc.

  Then the men gain control. If the men want to take advantage of the situation, they will. Then the woman gets hurt and blames men.

  But in all of the bad relationships she has been in, she's the constant factor. So why doesn't she blame herself and get herself together?

• Men can only take advantage of women while the women allow men to take advantage of them. If women want better men, become better women who demand that their men are better men.

• Blogging, for me, is mostly brain spew, mental masturbation, throwing out of stuff. Spelling isn't a high concern for me. Make that of it what you will.

• It's easy to stand above the crowd because the average size of people in the crowd is small.

• Even though I wrote that Blacks as a group have scrambled brains, we still have a strength that cannot be denied. Well, actually, it is often denied. John H. Johnson is an example of the strength. The Perry family is an example of the strength.

  You never heard of the Perry family? Well, you're right. But I can tell you stories of my clan that are nothing short of inspiring and life affirming.

  I stand on their shoulders. I will not let them down.

• Being positive is hard work. Being negative is easy.

• Blacks can't afford to get caught up in the liberal vs. conservative garbage. The "conversations" based on "liberal" vs. "conservatve" proves it.

Ask DarkStar

Are you "tired" of my comments in blogs where you assume I never tell what I think or advocate?

Here's your chance to ask me a question. The ground rules are this:

• I won't answer vague, open ended questions. In my view, they can never be answered. For example, when I am interviewed, and the interviewer says, "Tell me about yourself", I always respond with, "What do you want to know?" By nature I am short and to the point. An open ended question leaves me wondering what is being asked so I am stuck in giving the answer.
• State if you think I'm a liberal, conservative, moderate, contrarian, or whatever and why.

Everyday Extraordinary

The worst thing about being ordinary is that since you are surrounded by same, there is nothing to remind you of your condition.

If the only place you know is the area of neurons where your consciousness was born, then no matter how much you glance around, everything seems fine and in order;

The ordinary human is born, wired & programmed in the nervous-system to be a seventy-year continuity; to live & die ordinary; to think only ordinary thoughts, and feel only ordinary emotions;

What are you if you choose to leave ordinariness – leave your natural-born-mind? Employing nothing but your own awareness, how might you accomplish a permanent escape from the ordinary?

Running Errands

While running errands with the wife and kid, all around me I saw young children, young adults, and adults, all reading a green book.

Amazing...

Sources of Destruction of the U.S.

The following are the sources of the current destruction of the U.S.

• The 24 hour news cycle which is forced to fill the "down time" with useless junk like Michael Jackson or emotional overloading of Terri Schiavo.
• The now full-time political campaign which now includes the use of talks shows.
• Congress spending out of control.
• More efficient means of communication, or better yet, the overloading of communication devices.
• Sensory overload.
• Willful ignorance of the general population.
• Cynicism.

Black America: My View

Cobb wrote this about his view of the Black Political Spectrum.

I put the following in the comment section.

Thinks a bit...

But racism or other's ignorance ain't our greatest foe, though it is one that can beat down those who aren't prepared. Our own ignorance is greater. But I'm hard pressed to think of something that IS our GREATEST foe.

After writing that, I'll add some more thoughts.

There are those who will say that morality is our greatest issue. I understand that point as well and have some sympathy for it, but if you go strictly by the Bible, most of America is immoral. If you don't believe me, look up the statistics on out of wedlock sexual activity of those under 21 and ask yourself if it moral to have sex outside of marriage.

Education definitely is a problem as well as business creation. The latter is improving, the former has some bright spots and some bleak spots.

Now for the big "DUH" moment: it's not one thing is the combination of all things that provide the biggest challenge.

But African-Americans are Americans, and most Blacks know and understand this. I say to you, question all of those who say otherwise. Question all of those who say Blacks are not part of the mainstream. No matter what they tell you to support their idea, the are shoveling muck.

On Cobbs analysis, it breaks down in my view because it doesn't take into account the role of government. Despite what the critics state, the view of Blacks toward the government is more complex than "depending on the government for everything." Welfare doesn't define Black America, neither does "depending on the government."

Liberal, conservative, progressive, whatever. Trash those labels. Blacks can't afford to be a part of that nonsense.

Ignore The Messenger, Listen To The Message

The Good Reverend Pays A Visit

Rev. Jackson's message is to stay in school, stay off drugs, and get involved in civil service. Rev. Jackson was introduced by Key Club president, Kendra Chapman-Small. As he spoke to the student body, he emphasized society's continual confusion about teenagers' role in the community. "...we can't quite find a place for you," said Rev. Jackson.

"Life is full of choices and consequences," said Rev. Jackson.

Public Schools

Jesse Jackson likes to say that we don’t lower the basketball hoop to nine-and-a-half feet for our students and we shouldn’t lower the academic hoop either.

Sharpton and Rap in 1998

Sharpton recalled running into a couple of young gangsta rappers at a Los Angeles nightspot a few months ago. He said they approached him and commended him for his work.

Sharpton said he told the rappers, "You should not get paid to disrespect yourself and your mother and your wife and your girlfriend and your sister and your daughter."

Feeling A Bit Salty, II

OK, so if people constantly criticize the actions of the U.S. in Iraq, and never show the positive side of what is going on, then they are said to hate America.

Soooooo....

If people constantly criticize Blacks in the U.S., and never show the positive things that are going on, can they be said to hate Blacks?

Mind and Culture

· Patients with schizophrenia, a disease characterized by hallucinations and disorganized thinking, recover sooner and function better in poor countries with strong extended family ties than in the United States, two long-running studies by the World Health Organization have shown.

· People of Mexican descent born in the United States have twice the risk of disorders such as depression and anxiety, and four times the risk of drug abuse, compared with recent immigrants from Mexico. This finding is part of a growing body of literature that indicates that the newly arrived are more resilient to mental disorders, and that assimilation is associated with higher rates of psychiatric diagnoses.

· Black and Hispanic patients are more than three times as likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia as white patients -- even though studies indicate that the rate of the disorder is the same in all groups.

· White women in the United States are three times as likely to commit suicide as black and Hispanic women -- a difference that experts attribute in part to the relative strengths of different social networks.

Reparations

Reparations for Jim Crow makes much more sense than does reparations for slavery.

The same holds true for Tusla riot victims and Rosewood victims.

My mother is still alive. Her social security "income" is based on her salary, which was retarded most of her working life because of Jim Crow, segregation and legal discrimination. In turn, money is coming out of my pocket because it is my honor to help my mother out.

That's generational affects of discrimination and Jim Crow.

Mental Health

OK, after a meeting I decided I need a mental health break, so I went out for lunch. Since I was in a mall, I decided to check out Batman Begins. This is the best in the series, both in the actor to play Batman, and in the story. I give this a rating of 9 out of 10.

On the way home, I turned into a talk show and the hour's guest was Gregory Kane.

The host and Kane were deriding something called "Ethnic Math". Now, I have no idea what it is, what is behind it, or if it works or not. But what I do know is that it set me off.

I called in, got through the call screener and was placed in the top of the queue.

I asked Kane why is it that he doesn't spend more time show casing that Blacks aren't total screw ups. Why is it that "Black conservatives", who claim that "Black liberals" only show that Blacks are pathetic people looking for a government hand out, don't show things like The Algebra Project, or Black Professional Men, or 100 Black Men, etc.

I asked Kane, directly, why he doesn't write MORE about them? He replied that he has written about Ted Coates, to which I responded that I asked why he didn't write MORE about such groups.

He was someone lost for words at that point. And I admit at being a bit animated in my speaking. The host thanked me and disconnected me.

When they returned, Kane wasn't saying anything but the host was saying, essentially, that bad news always gets reported and its bad news that makes for good talk show topics.

Make of it what you will. Too bad I'm not a gamer. I'd put on GTA or some such thing and go off.

Mo' Black Leadership

So a comment on Cobb has me somewhat torqued. And the comment can't get past a filter, so I'm putting it here and trackin' back.

I think he did answer your question, DarkStar; he simply declines to be constrained to answer it in a manner demanded by you. Because the question includes a presumption he doesn't accept, right?

Wrong, but thanks for playing.

Look at all that I wrote:

Why is that that "Black conservatives" and conservatives in general, in denouncing "Black leadership", never promote the people and organizations like those listed here, as being "Black leaders" or being representative of the Black community or the strengths of the Black community?

Note the bolded part?

I'm not pulling this question out of thin air. It's based on LONG TIME observations as well as taking part in a past "Black conservative email list" where they, THEMSELVES, were asking each other the same thing.

Look, I saw a dang near civil war over the 1st Trent Lott and CofCC association mess on that email list. What blew me away was a list of self proclaimed Black Republicans saying the same things about themselves that Black Democrats say about Black Republicans. When "sellout" was flying between them and when the phrase "Black CON-servative" was used, from a Gingrich staffer no less, I took notice.

So back up. I'm not constraining anyone. And I don't ever expect a straight forward answer from Cobb, based on experience. And that's not a bad thing, that just is what Cobb is.

I don't accept that Blacks are not mainstream. I've traveled outside of the country enough to know that line is garbage.

A separate nation is foolish. A separate agenda is NOT foolish but will never happen because the Black community is not monolithic; radicals, conservatives, liberals, apathetic, all have a place in the mix.

I recognize and say that the civil rights battle has been fought and won and the next needs are economic and moral. You pick the order of importance.

Straight up, the questions about Black politics are annoying on all sides. I'm not being wishy washy or a "stick my finger in the air and see which way the wind blows" or whatever slander some conservatives place on those who proclaim the "moderate" label. BTW, I proclaim no label.

Straight up, it's all b.s. and I call 'em all on it. "Both sides" are equally pessimistic, negative, and degrading of the Black community. Neither show the positives going on. And as a parent who has one on the cusp of standing on her own damn 2 feet, and another just on the breast, I don't have the patience for the garbage being spewed.

When a proclaimed liberal calls a man like Clinton a brotha and gets cheers, and Fox News proclaims a semi-literate, race pimp reverend named Jesse Lee Peterson a "Black leader" while at the same time denouncing the label "Black leader" and the need for such, some Blacks need to stand up and call people on their b.s.

Yeah, I called Jesse Jackson a punk some years ago. And I just called Jesse Peterson a race pimp. What other man of God would say that if a person wants to get saved, they should not go to a Black church? No, he didn't say a particular type of Black church, but any Black church.

Yeah...
I'm pissed.
I'm sleep deprived 'cuz the new baby has "cholic", plus the ish is hitting the fan on the "9-5".

It took WHITE CONSERVATIVES to point to good goings on in urban schools across the country. Something REEKS about that.

Breathe....

Presumptions my fanny...

Feeling A Bit Salty

I'm doing Google web searches for a web site that I'm doing and I put in the search string black mentor program.

While scanning the result list, I noticed the number of colleges that had mentorship programs. Now, I realize I'm a bit short of temper due to lack of sleep, but I got a bit salty.

You see, I realized that I have NEVER read any of the well know Black conservative commentators, who have spoken out against "Black Student Unions" and "separatism in colleges", mention that the Black Student Unions provide mentor programs or study programs for students at the colleges or for students in surrounding areas. Then I remembered that offspring #1 mentioned that she learned of a mentor program of "inner city students" her first year attending a university, and she will help out the rest of her time at the school.

Again, it seems that "Black conservatives" voice opinions that are overwhelmingly negative about the Black community. Then this "revelation" hit me:

Why is it that it took white conservatives to write a book that demonstrates success of Blacks in public schools?

Transitions

Come July 1, I'll no longer be associated with Washington University in Saint Louis. Instead I'll be making the move to Johns Hopkins, the first modern research university. The decision to make the move was a lot harder than I thought it would be, so I'm taking the time to publicly thank the students and administration of Washington University in Saint Louis. I know some of them read the posts here. One of the things a school like Wash. U. promises students is personal relationships with their professors. At a school like Michigan, we never got those promises...and I wasn't mad. I WANTED a 35,000 Big Ten, Division I, Rose Bowl type groove. I expected to tolerate Wash. U. at best, with its 38,000/year tuition.

But going back for graduation it was clear to me how much I left there. I'll be back more than a few times. It's pretty cheap to get there, and the summers are cool (figuratively not literally). Damn it was a good run though.

For those of you reading, send this around. You know where to find me. If you need anything, LET ME KNOW.

Commentary Thoughts

• Hat tip: The Scott Wickham Experience

  1. The U.S. is a Constitutional Representative Republic.

  2. The Senate exists to protect the "wishes of the small states" against the "wishes of the big states". Thus Delaware's senators have the same weight as California's.

  The fillibuster is fine. "Secret holds" that prevent the committee from even voting is "undemocratic".

  Let's get down to the basics, senate and house committees are undemocratic. Why should, say, 12 representatives or senators get to decide the bills that make it to the floor or appointees that get a vote? Why should the chairman of a committee, ONE PERSON even get to decide whether or not a bill or appointee gets a chance to face a vote in the committee?

• Hat tip: Booker Rising

  I keep saying that Sharpton is doing more to break the binds of Blacks to Democrats than Black Republicans are doing to break the binds of Blacks to Democrats; and he is.

• Why is it that most "Black conservative" commentary, when the topic is the Black community, is overwhelmingly negative?

• By the reasoning of those who say Blacks shouldn't support the fillibuster because it was used to try to stop civil rights legislation, those who support the Confederate flag shouldn't do so because it was used by anti-civil rights supporters.

  And who are those Confederate flag supporters today?

• Black Self Help.

Thoughts

• Matt Drudge IS mainstream media. His web site is mainly links to news articles.
• LaShawn Barber points out "liberal" media bias. Media matters disagrees. I happen to think that media matters makes some interesting points. The media IS biased, but I don't fully by the "liberal" line.
• Michael Eric Dyson is making the rounds pimping his new book. I heard parts of different interviews. I find it funny he blasts the "Black middle class booo-zwaaa-ZE" for their ills of not embracing hip hop. Seems to me that many younger people did. But they don't embrace the crap, now. Dyson has been on my list since he defended the disrespect of Black women by some rappers.
• Is Project 21 representative of Black conservatives? If so, does it mean anything that I think most of the commentary is negative about the Black community? Is there nothing good to proclaim?
• I'm branded a "liberal" by "conservatives" and a "conservative" by "liberals". I think that "fact" alone means most people tossing the labels don't have a clue.
• I have a "secret"...
• Those who push the idea of "blue" and "red" states, are pimps pushing the divide of the country. They are intellectually lazy and it is easier to categorize people and thought instead of actually thinking. They mean the country no good.
• I'm not a Democrat. I'm not a Republican. Right now, I find the harshest criticism directed towards me from Republicans for daring to challenge them. Democrats concede my criticisms of the Democratic party. At least this is the case as it concerns Blacks and the Democratic party and Blacks and the Republican party.
• I'm not rich. I'm comfortible. I'm blessed. I see no reason why the government should take more than 10% of my money. Why is the government getting more than I give God?
• I don't get the WalMart haters. I like the prices. I hate going to the store because it is ALWAYS crowded. And, I'm sorry, but it seems like a large majority of the workers, excluding the door greaters, aren't too swift. But, they allow shoppers to save money. So, what's wrong with that?
• WARNING! Never mix the less mentally acute and self service check out lanes.
• The "discussion" between the "Black left" and the "Black right" has left me convinced that American Blacks, in general, are brain damaged. We can't afford to get caught in the mess. But yet, I'm in it.
• Tom Delay is not in trouble. Many of his ethic sins are sins that all congress-criters take part. The fact that most of the American public who pays attention, hasn't rushed the congress with burning stakes, shows to me, that the congress-criters can feel safe in continuing to play the American populace for fools.
• Booker Rising is a great blog.
• Black Self Help Dot Info. Yeah, I have to update it. I have a lot of links on the hard drive.

Imagine

Your mother and father are together.

They are having problems, but everyone has problems. You love them both.

The neighborhood finds out that your father is cheating with an old girlfriend. Your mother is embarrassed, you are embarrassed, and everyone knows your family business. Meanwhile, your mother is getting some on the side but is doing a better job keeping hush hush about it.

Later on, your mother is killed in a tragic accident. Then to your dismay, all of her business becomes neighborhood gossip as well as your father's business.

Some time later, your father decides to marry the woman who he was cheating with on your mother. The same woman who used to be an old girlfriend. And your father asks you to take a part in the wedding.

If that ain't Jerry Springer, what is?!?!?!

Poor trash meet royal trash.

Facts And Acts Don't Match

The answer is: “The facts don’t exactly match the acts.”
So what is the question? -- that’s right:
“How would you best describe an ordinary man’s intellectual life?”

Acts and Facts

Only acts have a past and future;
facts have only memory and imagination.

Schiavo Brain Spew

Some random thoughts that have arisen because of this sad affair:

• Congrats to Terri's parents for running one of the best media campaigns in recent history.
• Apparently, in Texas there is a law that allows hospitals to end life support if it is deemed futile and if the patient doesn't have money to pay for the continuing life support. If one of the issues in the Schiavo situtation is ending a life of someone who has a "poor quality of life," isn't this Texas law outrageous?
• When Tupac was shot, the doctors brought him back to life a few times. Finally, Tupac's mother told the doctors that if he died again, let him go.

  Suppose what happened with Tupac happened today. Suppose people found out that the mother decided to tell the doctors "DNR". Would his life be worth saving?
  

• We have a situation where a person has enough function to regulate breathing and heart beats. But the person can't feed themself. Someone wants to have the feeding tube removed. Terri is being murdered.
  
• We are in this situation because of the advancement of technology and medicine. Medicine has gotten to the point where someone like Terri can be kept alive after suffering brain damage. Technology has gotten to the point where someone like Terri can be kept alive after suffering brain damage and the story can be beamed across the world via satellite, talk radio, and the internet.

  Many of us will have to deal with this situation, if we haven't done so already.
  

• Updated:Tay–Sachs disease
  
  
  Inherited disorder, due to a defective gene, causing an enzyme deficiency that leads to blindness, retardation, and death in infancy. It is most common in people of Eastern European Jewish descent
  
  

  
  When I worked in the U.K., a woman needed to have the test done for Tay-Sachs disease. She had it done, but the test results got lost in the medical system. She and her husband had a window of opportunity to get the test done and they feared the second test results would not be returned in time.

  You see, on a regular basis, children in the womb who test positive for the disease are aborted.

  And the outcry there is where?
  

• This is worse than O.J.
  

Things I Forgot To Mention

• On "Meet the Press" last Sunday, the Dem. senate-critter said that private accounts don't address the issue of Social Security solvency. The Rep. senate-critter countered by avoiding the comment. When Russert pressed the Rep. senate-critter, he dodges again.

  Oh. My. How did I miss THAT okie doke? I've been doped on a rope. I didn't connect the dots.

• M.J., all the time. Just like O.J. This sucks.

• But because of the above, the brazen attack on property rights, one of the core elements of our economic system, has been over looked.

  What am I talking about? Eminent domain in New London.

  I read somewhere on the web where eminent domain was used by a local government to condemn a Toyota dealership so that someone could open a BMW dealership.

  I know why congress hasn't addressed it loudly. It's because the buggers benefit. The government doing a land grab and not paying fair value is something the critters like. The fact that they can do it for people who will fill their coffers, is even better.

  The bastards.
  

Race Hustling

[ Edited for some clean up ]

If "Black liberals" can be race hustlers, why can't "Black conservatives"?

[ edited ] Didn't Alan Keyes race hustle when he ran for the senate seat in Illinois? Come on, tell the truth.

From an exchange on Booker Rising:

Massie as race hustler, DS? Which race is he hustling?

LB, I number of times I've pointed out glaring inconsistencies in some of his pieces.

In this one, I point out that he's slamming Blacks for the idea of a Black community. If he believes that Blacks should look at Blacks as a part of America, then he should stop bashing the Black community because it's something that he doesn't believe in.

By bashing the Black community, which he doesn't believe in, he's using race when it's convienient. Thus, to me, he's hustling the race issue.

Next, the idea that most Blacks don't consider ourselves as being part of America fails under the light of inspection.

Start with the fact that Blacks are more likely to live in an integrated neighborhood than whites. Continue with the fact that most Blacks still strive for, and believe in, integration.

Consider the make up of the military, recent recruiting data not withstanding. The percentage of Blacks in the military exceeds the percentage of Blacks in the general population. If Blacks didn't consider ourselves as a part of America, the percentage in the service would be lower than in the general population.

Condi Rice and Colin Powell have called themselves African-American. Now tell me that by them calling themselves African-American, they don't consider themselves to be American. Yet, those who are intellectually lazy or who just want to throw flames, state that by calling themselves African-American, they are belittling themselves as American. Or better stated, they are down playing that they are American.

There is a sticker that says, "American by birth. Texan by the grace of God!". I've seen that sticker a lot. Does it mean that the person is not considering themselves to be American?

Of course not.

Let's look at something here. More and more, employers are complaining about high school graduates, no matter what race, not knowing basic things to make them good ENTRY LEVEL employees. McDonald's uses pictures on their registers for a reason. It's because the employees are less prone to errors if there are pictures on the register instead of ordinary numbers.

"Anti-intellecutalism" exists in America, in general. People don't want to admit it, but the "geek" vs. "cool" thing is an issue of "anti-intellectualism". But, it's a Black issue?

In "The End of Racism", D'Nish D'Souza bashes Blacks for believing in the group. But then he turns around and writes that Blacks should act like Jewish people whose money circulates in the Jewish community a number of times before "leaving" the Jewish community. "Black money" cirulates less than 1 time before it leaves the Black community. He wrote that Blacks should act like some immigrant groups who poll money to fund start up businesses for others within their group.

Am I the only one to see the intellectual flip-flop there? How can you say Blacks should not act as a group and then turn around and say Blacks should act like these groups who act like a group?

I keep writing that Blacks shouldn't allow ourselves to be caught up in the madness and this is just a small example of why I think so.

Randomness

• Award shows -- I don't care.
• Why should Jesse Lee Peterson be taken seriously when, IMO, a third grader can pick his logic apart in a minute?
• If "conservatives" ask why "Blacks need a leader", why are "conservatives" pushing people they like to be "Black leaders"?
• The Center for New Black Leadership was run by conservative individuals. It went under and the domain is now under control of the Republican party.
• When it snows, some fool is sure to clear a little spot on the windsheld for him to see through. The fool is sure to not clear snow from the hood, roof, or trunk of the car. While the fool is flying down the highway, snow is coming off and flying into the visibility area of drivers behind the fool.

  Such people must die.
  

• The Maryland House passed a slots bill. When it passed, local television news stations showed 2 Black delegates from Baltimore, both Democrats, jumping up and congratulating each other. I don't know why this would be the case.

  They successfully lobbied to exclude Baltimore from locations where slots would be placed. They claimed that minority businesses would get a "piece of the action" but the bill had nothing in it concerning minority business.

  Once again, the local "Black leadership" failed and has demonstrated they lack any political skills. Some Blacks in Baltimore are calling them on that very fact.

  They are rejoicing yet they got played.
  

• Girls loose their minds when they become teenagers.
  
• To get you to upgrade, thus helping their revenue stream, Intuit is disabling the connection feature of Quicken 2002 and older versions. If people use that feature to update stock and mutual fund prices, as I do, you are now faced with doing it yourself or upgrading.

  This type of forced update bites. Hello Microsoft Money, which I got for free.
  

The DNC Chair

OK, so if I'm reading things correctly, all Black people who were running for the chairmanship of the DNC have pulled out.

That means they couldn't get wide support and I have to ask why.

Ron Brown's daughter wrote that there were racists in the Democratic Party that did not want Brown to win the DNC chair. The foolishness stopped when Bill Bradley called it what it was, racism, and then backed Brown. Meanwhile, Clinton stood on the sidelines and didn't do a thing.

So, are we seeing racism within the Democratic party raise its head again? Or, are we seeing the Clintons demonstrating their strength in the party? Or, are we seeing other elements in the party vying for control?

I think, again, that Black Democratic voters are getting pimp smacked by the Democratic party, but I could be wrong.

You Can't Tell Me Nuthin', The College Years

Allow me to ramble for a bit.

Now I'm about to enter college.

Some of my friends went into the service, either enlisted or military acadamies. Some went directly into the work force. Most of them had no desire to go to college because, for them, it wasn't a good fit. Some went to college and dropped out because they realized it wasn't there thing. Some dropped out because of funding. In fact, one friend dropped out because it came down to him or his sister going to college, and he decided to give her the shot.

Now...

It's now my 3rd day of my first year in college when I get the list of classes I'm supposed to take. I compare my classes to other engineering students when I see that I'm taking pre-101 level classes. I go to my advisor to find out why I have such an easy load when I find out that because I'm from Baltimore, whose students have not done well historically at the school, I'm in a "transition program." Simply put, I'm in a program to ease my way into the college life.

If I had attended any public school in Maryland, I would have qualified to go in at the sophomore level. If I would have attended RIT or Virginia Tech, I would have qualified to go in at the sophomore level.

And now, this school wants me to go in at a "pre-college" level. My SAT score exceeded the average score by more than 100 points. My senior year of high school was, essentially, a freshman level of college work except for English. In fact, some students in the A course, took an English class on Saturdays for their entire junior year, so that they could graduate a year early!

After discussing things with my advisor, I was told that the only way out was to get the approval of the transition program head. She told me I had to do exceptionally well on a placement test that all transition students had to take.

I was paired with a Black room mate. I was one of the very few Black students who was paired with a Black room mate. It turned out that he was also a transition program student. I told him about the situation and he said I should just go with the program. But I wasn't about to spend an additional year at that school if I didn't have to do so. I was paying for my schooling and I worried about my funds.

He studied hard for the test. I didn't study. We took the test. I finished the test in under 1 hour. I was the first one to finish. The proctor, who was the transition program head, asked me how I did. I told her I got every question right. She laughed and said we'll see. I was wrong. I got a 98 out of 100. I was let out of the program and scrambled through the ADD/DROP process to get a full load.

At the end of my first year of college, I chose to major in computer science, as did many other students. By many, my guess was that it was greater than 30 students, with a fair number being Black students. By the end of the first semester of my second year, about half of the computer science majors switched majors. By the end of the second year, most had switched majors. That means, most white students and most Black students.

I recall one major computer science project in the 2nd semester of my second year. One woman cried because she couldn't get it right. One man kept cursing and banging on the table. Another man just looked, stood up, flicked off the computer terminal, smiled, said he quit, and walked out of the computer lab.

I was an engineer. I was an athlete. I graduated in four years. I was the only Black person to graduate with a computer science degree from the engineering school that year.

My first full weekend at the school, I found out which frats were known for having drug parties. All frats had keg parties so that was no big deal. By the end of the first year, I found out that the police raided the Black "townie" area on a regular basis for drug raids. Meanwhile, one particular white frat was known for marijuana, mushrooms, and speed. But it wasn't raided until the year after I left. It took 4 years, and federal funding, for them to go after college kids. In the end, some college kids did time, one who was well known and later had a pro football career, and a national frat lost a frat house with the frat being kicked off of campus.

There was a house on campus that housed the Black student union. Near that house was a college bus stop. "We" knew it as the BBS -- Black bus stop. One day, someone decided to spray paint "NIGGER" on the sidewalk of the BBS.

The school has an honor code system. Black students were being disproportionately charged with honor code violations and many believed that racism played a part. A Black professor stated that Black students should sit as far apart from each other as possible when taking tests. They should not look at each other during tests or look at someone else's direction during tests. Years later, one student was thrown out of school for an honor code violation. His parents sued the school over lack of due process. They won in court but by the time the case was one, the student had attended another school and graduated. He was vindicated and the school's honor system took a hit.

The school responded by re-evaluating the honor system and how it functions. The student run re-evaluation, one where white students dominated the process, suggested changes which made the system MORE unfair. For example, they suggested that those accused not be given the chance for defense! The school ignored the recommendations, and made other changes.

Close to 10 years after I graduated, I attended a cookout where I met the mother of a student at the school. She told me she was trying to keep her son in the school, even though he didn't like the school. She, like I, am Black. I then listed the reasons why he didn't like the school and she shook her head in agreement. Things had not changed.

Four years ago, I was in the process of selling my previous house. The realtor, who was Black, had a daughter at the same school. In talking, she said that the daughter liked the school, but there were issues that bothered her. I gave the reasons and the realtor said I was correct. It was the same list that I gave previously.

About 5 years after I graduated, the school complained about high schools not properly preparing students for college work. They decided that the high school of students who needed to take remedial courses, would pay the cost of the student's remedial classes. About 2 years later, the school said the cost of remedial classes were too high. They were no longer going to offer the classes. It would be up to junior colleges to fill the gap.

The school graduates Black students at a similar rate as white students. It also has the highest graduation rate of Black students in the country.

Yet, Linda Chavez says that the affirmative action program at the school is unfair because white students, more qualified than the Black students, are not let into the school.

See the mixed bag here?

You Can't Tell Me Nuthin', Grade School Years

My mother had a friend who was a grade school teacher. After talking with her friend, my mother and father brought me a blackboard, magnetic letters, and instruction books concerning reading, writing, and simple math. On the first day of school, I was placed into the class of students who were already reading and writing.

This was a private school. My mother was a nurse at a public hospital, my father was a policeman. Gasp! Government workers!

At the start of the second grade, because of a family situation change, I was now in a public school in Baltimore. I was considered "smart", most likely because I was ahead of my peers.

At another school, in the 5th grade, some people said I was "acting white." But I recognized, even as a kid, that the people saying it were the FEW who were not doing well in school, so I ignored it. With very little effort, my grades were fine.

In the 7th grade in junior high school, I was placed into the "fast track" section. It was in the 7th grade that I discovered girls were nice in a different way. ;-) By the 8th grade, I was still in the "fast track," still getting good grades, and still doing so with very little effort.

We played spades at lunch, tried to flurt with the girls, and took life for what it was. One day, I noticed Tank and Billy talking about going to Poly. I owe Tank and Billy a big thank you because they said I was "too stupid" to get into Poly. Well, I got in. We all applied for Poly's "advanced college prep" course. We all got in.

In high school, we were in the "higher section" of the A course 9th grade, which meant we had a high probablity of leaving the A course. I faced a Spanish teacher who, really, just chose me to make an example of. I faced a self-professed redneck pig farmer who threw me out of class for responding "yeah". I faced a counselor who insisted that I wasn't capable of doing the work and should "fall" to the B course, which was the college prep track. Billy and Tank dropped, but I refused.

We were already behind when we entered Poly. Some had already had alegbra and geometry in jr. high. We had "pre-algebra."

To get up to speed, which took 1 1/2 years, my mother enlisted the aid of family members who were engineers. There was also the help of the counselor, who hated the "pig farmer" because he didn't like her son, who was Jewish. There was the help of 2 Black teachers, one in math the other in history. Mrs. Wade, the history teacher, had her son, a Naval Acadamy attendee, tutor me.

I caught up and, in my senior year, was taking advanced calculus, electrical engineering, and thermodynamics.

I took the SAT test. After the test, I noticed some people leaving the test shaking their heads, literally, in dispair. It turned out that I knew some of them from elementary or jr. high school.

One girl who I knew from jr. high was crying. She kept saying she was never taught most of the things on the math test, nor were the words on the verbal portion familiar to her. She was just getting into a harder form of algebra. She was just taking geometry. Meanwhile, I had had algebra and geometry in the 9th grade. I knew she was smart. She just was not educated as well as I was at that point. We had taken the PSAT. Before that, we were given practice PSAT and SAT tests. We. Were. Prepared.

Tank, Billy, and I all attended a major four year college. I don't know what happened to the girl who was crying.

Again, Tank and Billy, THANK YOU. My grades were good in jr. high school. I was in the "fast track". When my mother checked with other parents concerning what their public school children were doing, I was doing well. But Tank and Billy teased me to going to an engineering and science high school. At that time, I had no such desire to go that route. Your teasing made a difference.

During this time, I happened to attend a speech given by Jesse Jackson, Sr. It was during this time when he was famous for his "Keep hope alive!" speeches. During this speech, he told us to stay in school. He told us to do the best that we could do. He told us to study. He told us to stay away from drugs. He told us to not give into crime. He told us to stay away from drug users and dealers. He told us to not be sexually active until we are married. He should have took his own advice on that one. Well, he should have only been with his wife.

Next, the college years.

You Can't Tell Me Nuthin', Prologue

Many times, the "Black left" presents an image of Black America that is one of poverty and near hopelessness that cannot be overcome unless outside intervention is made.

Many times, the "Black right" presents an image of Black America that is one of poverty, laziness, and mired in self-induced hopelessness. A Black America that is incapable of thinking unless one of the appointed "leaders" tells Black America what to think.

That's what I get from much of the commentary by the elite "Black left" and "Black right" media figures.

"Both sides" are full of it. "Both sides" are negative. Both sides, for the most part, push negativity, in my opinion.

It's my strongly held belief that the "Black left" dwells too much on the plight of Blacks who are not achieving instead of also highlighting those Blacks who are achieving.

It's my strongly held belief that the "Black right" dwells too much on the plight of Blacks who are not achieving, instead of also highlighting those Blacks who are achieving.

The only difference between the two is how they go about their hyper-criticism. And, frankly, it's to the testimate of Black America that Blacks, as a whole, aren't more mind scrambled.

I had the opportunity to be a part of a "Black conservative" email list for a time. There were conflicts among the "Black conservatives" that took me by surprise because at the time because all I read from "Black conservatives" seemed to indicate a "Black conservative unified front."

All "individual thought" but thinking as a unified group. But, that wasn't group think...

But on that email list, I read Black conservatives calling some other Black conservatives "sell out" or "Black CON-servatives".

From that point on, you couldn't tell me nuthin' about the so-called "Black left" vs. "Black right" debate. From that point on, I've been convinced that it's all a bunch of useless nonsense that Blacks shouldn't be taking a part in.

Seeing that debate solidified the idea that I had in my mind at the time: the view of the Black community, be it from the outside or the inside, was too simplistic and all of the noise from the "elite" members kept it that way. And the Black community as a whole should be ashamed because no one is calling "both camps" out on their foolishness.

This is a prologue. I intend to give insight to what I have seen in my now four decades of life. I hope that I'm capable of showing the mixed bag to which life in the Black community is. I'll touch on:

1. The grade school years;
   
2. The college years;
   
3. The "running the street" years; and
   
4. the parent years.
   

If I do my job well enough, you should be able to see that the "Black left" and the "Black right" media elite are selling a bunch of goods.

P.S.
One last thing, the major driver behind this series is the inability of people to take questioning of ideas (dogma?) without assigning a political label to it.

I challenge global warming support, anti-capitalistism comments, ultra-Black nationalism, the "definition of Blackness", the Black support of Democrats, the Black support of Bill Clinton, etc, and I get called a conservative.

I challenge the dogma that the support of Democrats is not based on Republican action/inaction, the idea of "victimology" in Black America, that Blacks are some how anti-American, that Blacks are sheep of "Black leaders", etc, and I get called a liberal.

Can't a person intellectually embrace both? Seems like many people don't think so.

Just Because

http://www.reason.com/0411/co.cy.defending.shtml

It is useful, too, to remember that defending the indefensible has long been a popular sport on the left, whose own revisionist historians are busy trying to sugarcoat not McCarthyism but Stalinism. (See "Fools for Communism," April 2004.)

Also at work, however, is the dark side of modern American conservatism. The left�s obsession with America�s allegedly unique evilness, and in particular with real or imagined racism, has prompted a fully justified backlash. But that backlash can morph into an ugly and disturbing mind-set -- one that regards all efforts to confront America�s past wrongs as the province of sissy liberals and wild-eyed lefties.

As the revisionists plow ahead, sometimes one wants to ask, "Have you no sense of decency, folks, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"

http://www.reason.com/0410/fe.ls.no.shtml

Since the No Child Left Behind Act was passed, less than 2 percent of parents nationwide have transferred their children to other public schools. Teachers unions, school administrators, and journalists have argued that the low transfer rates prove parents do not want more choices and that they prefer their local schools. But while parents have more information than ever about the quality of their children�s schools, in most cases they still have no way out of a failing institution.

Districts have not made a good-faith effort to implement public school choice. Sometimes parents are not notified of their option to change schools at all; other times they�re told only after the school year is well under way. Some districts send parents letters discouraging them from transferring their kids. The choices themselves are limited to marginally better schools, with superior institutions often refusing to accept low-performing students.

In the end, though, the problem is not the parents but the law itself. Under NCLB, Title I federal funding -- money used to provide extra educational services to disadvantaged students in high-poverty schools -- does not follow children to better-performing, non-Title I schools. The result is that better-performing schools have no financial incentive to admit low-performing children.

In practice, children are offered transfers only to other Title I schools. Since most Title I schools are mediocre performers at best, parents have a choice of schools that are only marginally better. Furthermore, the school districts decide which schools parents will be allowed to "choose"; often they offer only one or two alternatives.

Many parents are offered "choice" schools that are just as low-performing as the failing school they are trying to break away from. In the words of school choice advocate Angel Cordero of the New Jersey-based Education Excellence for Everyone, "Camden children are transferred from one bad school to another bad school."

Family Reunions & Funerals

I've attended 2 funerals in the past 3 weeks. One was a cousin in NY and the other was my wife's uncle.

I found out about my cousin 2 days before the funeral. In short order, I determined I had to go. My uncle went with me. I drove up I-95/N.J. Turnpike/I-95 to the wake and funeral. The next day was the burial. I drove straight back from that.

During the repass, I "caught up" with some of the NY family and got the family history from the "NY branch" side of things.

The family was part of the Northern Migration. My great aunts and uncles came with their parents from S. Carolina to Baltimore. One great-great uncle didn't like Baltimore, (or maybe being so close to so much family), and went on to New York. He found work then sent for his family.

I heard some nice stories concerning going to church, singing in the choir, and general living in NY.

After the burial, email addresses and telephone numbers were exchanged. There's a family reunion being planned so that they younger members of the family get to know each other outside of funerals.

It was being planned before the death but it didn't happen.

Back down I-95/N.J. Turnpike/I-95 my uncle and I went. It was the first time my uncle and I spent that much extended time together.

On Thanksgiving, while over my sister-in-laws house, we got a telephone call saying that her uncle had passed. The funeral was the other day and it was intense. But the gathering of the family for the days afterwards was fun.

In both cases I wondered why funerals can make some of the best family reunions.

So What Would He Call Me?

Adopting my best imitation of Prometheus.

Interesting.

Just Because

Paul Craig Roberts:

There was a time when I could rant about the "liberal media" with the best of them. But in recent years I have puzzled over the precise location of the "liberal media."

In the ranks of the new conservatives, however, I see and experience much hate. It comes to me in violently worded, ignorant and irrational emails from self-professed conservatives who literally worship George Bush. Even Christians have fallen into idolatry. There appears to be a large number of Americans who are prepared to kill anyone for George Bush.

An Open Letter to Cathy Hughes from Bob Davis of The Soul Patrol website.

There are some people who think that Soul-Patrol should be a big supporter of Cathy Hughes. After all, she is the owner of the nation's largest Black owned radio network (with 69 stations in 22 cities). That network is growing larger each day and she is to be commended for having accomplished that.

However we can't in good conscience support her radio operations as currently configured. It is my personal belief that her current programming policies have actually set the freedom movement of Black Americans back by about 40 years.

I am willing to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume that perhaps she may not even realize that the overall net effect of what she has been doing in pursuit of more profits, has been to set back most if not all of the advances that our people have made over the past 50 years. It is in that spirit that I would like to propose a few concrete suggestions for Cathy Hughes that could help to reverse this trend. My belief is that the pursuit of these ideas could well postion Cathy Hughes to become one of the heroes of OUR freedom movement.

Dell does Plasma?

But according to this, it isn't href="http://reviews-zdnet.com.com/Dell_W4200HD/4505-6482_16-31138026-2.html" target="review">digital cable ready out of the box.

My Color Is

I don't agree with the "go-getter" part. Asking others, they don't agree either. But here it is:

Tech Convention Thoughts

I went to a technical convention in San Diego last week. Even though I knew there wouldn't be many Black people there, after seeing myself as the only Black person in the rooms, I started doing the number count.

In all, there were about 10-12 of "us". Overall, the number of attendees of the convention was about 1300. The "head nod" acknowledgement then became the "thing to do" when we saw each other.

Another convention in the area, a banking convention, had a much larger number of Blacks attending. From listening to the side discussions, Check 21 seemed to be the big deal.

One of the issues being talked about amongst the attendees at the tech convention was the H1-B visa stuff. (Meanwhile, there were more "Indians" present than Asians).

There was also discussion of outsourcing. The main vendor addressed managers by saying their software enables outsourcing strategies. And there were outsourcing vendors manning booths.

Vision

When I read this article,
A Future For Enterprising Black Students , this is what I see:

I found the kids thoroughly engaged in a smaller session with energetic alumnus Derwin Corria, whose Five Guys Famous Burgers and Fries franchise is a favorite hangout for the Howard community. And while it's a fabulous idea to break the entire freshman class into 54 groups that compete for scholarships by coming up with a business plan for a new enterprise, it's obvious from the couple of working sessions I attended that real-life entrepreneurs are needed to guide students through the process.

...

But a recent study, also funded by Kauffman, puts the lie to the notion that blacks don't even think of starting their own businesses. At any given time, a significantly greater percentage of blacks than either whites or Hispanics is attempting to start a business. And this difference widens further among those in middle age, in upper-income brackets or with advanced degrees. Among black males with graduate degrees, for example, the "nascent entrepreneur" rate was 25 percent, compared with 11 percent for whites.

Howard University has now taken up the challenge of understanding this gap between entrepreneurial impulses and entrepreneurial success among black Americans, and coming up with strategies for closing it

That's a positive vision. But how many would read the information about Blacks lacking in owning businesses and take it from there?

Whose vision is positive? Whose vision is negative?

And what does it mean?

Who do you want filling the airwaves toward your community?

The World of Disney

Thoughts about my vacation to Disney World.

• It was draining on the wallet. But it is an interesting thing to behold.
• Going during the time I did, it has a more international flare: many families were from the U.K. and Japan on "holiday."
• Under the section of TMI, the restroom facilities were VERY clean. When I'm in public for a long time, I often alter my eating habits so that I don't have to use the restroom for other than #1. With Disney World, it wasn't an issue.
• The Epcot Center is nothing but a great big advertisement for things other than Disney. For some reason, I can understand Disney selling Disney, but I couldn't understand Disney advertising GM, who paid Disney to advertise for GM.
• Kids who are tired, become "bad" kids. Kids, who are bad AND tired are on their own level. A few times, the wife and/or I wanted to scream, "Smack the kid then give him/her a nap!"
• Women, with low/no waist pants/mini-skirts/mirco-mini-skirts, a size or more too small, with "dunlap disease" is NOT a good sight.
• Tatooes on kids, even the "fake/temporary" ones are a no no. What the HELL are parents thinking?
• Disney has taken customer service to a level of true art form. You are PAYING for the customer service and the temporary suspension of reality, but you don't mind because you are customer serviced to death.
  
  
  
  I often tell people around me that the lack of customer service on the day to day level is in indicator on the "fall" of the U.S. society. In fact, I now NEVER go to a drive thru because it is a certainty that your order will be messed up, and never in your favor. With Disney, there is a glimer of hope.

How's that for a non-political post?

The Internet Killer

SPAM.

Random Comments

Camera Cell Phones

The mortal enemy of players/playettes of the world.

"So, you were out last night with another woman!"

"Wasn't me"

"Then who is THIS?"

[ insert stupid busted look here ]

Mental Illness

You have no idea of the living hell that families of the mentally ill go through, if you are not in their shoes.

It's. Not. Pretty.

Pandering

Democrats pander to Blacks by going to Black churches. Then watch the outcry of pandering.

Bush goes to Florida and panders to "Cubans" by denouncing Castro. He even speaks some Spanish when addressing "Hispanic" groups. Then watch the silence on his pandering.

HBCU Battle of the Bands

Based on the new song by Beyonce and 'em, also known as Destiny's Child, I wonder if HBCUs and the "Battle of the Bands" that happen at HBCU football games may help save "Black music."

SOA

Service oriented architecture is the latest craze in computing. I wonder why it's such a "novel" concept. I've always thought that software for the "enterprise" should be designed in this way.

Web Services

Highly over-rated. It seems useful for a limited set of consumer oriented applications and for a limited set of B-to-B applications. But for the enterprise as a whole, it's over-rated.

So is XML. It's useful in places. But what do I know?

"Bob" Must Die

Inside joke.

"Group Think", Part II

Let me say from the start, I don't agree with saying someone who is Black, isn't "really Black" for some silly reason or another. That really makes no sense to me. But it also is asinine to say Blacks are prone to "group think." The fact is, if you take any amount of time to provide some thought to the idea, you realize "group think" is the standard of every society that is not in anarchy.

Think about the phrase "community standards". The people within the community, in some way, work to maintain the standard. When people step outside of those standards, the community works in some way to bring them back in, denounce them, or shun them. That's what the "not Black" charge is about.

When people use "group think" and apply it towards the Black community ( is it ever not applied to the Black community? ), it is always given a negative context. Then any "debate" from that point on is defending against "the negative" which is always harder.

Let's flip things just a little bit.

When J.C. Watts refused to back the anti-affirmative action package being developed in The House of Representatives, Wes Pruden, an editor at The Washington Times, wrote a column which stated, literally, that J.C. Watts knows why the Republicans need him to head the effort. Thus, he should get in line. When Watts refused to "get in line," Ken Hamblin used a segment of his radio talk show to denounce J.C. Watts.

As a side note: Did anyone else notice that for a short time, there were references to J.C. Watts being a pastor?

Then there is the saga concerning friends Shelby Steele and Glenn Loury. Those two, along with others, formed the now defunct Center for New Black Leadership. But guess what happened when there was a disagreement over Prop. 209:

http://phuakl.tripod.com/eTHOUGHT/Loury.html

A few days later, Steele phoned him. ''Where do you stand on race?'' Loury says Steele asked him. ''It's as if you're a racial loyalist here. I thought we all agreed.''

''No, Shelby and I didn't agree,'' Loury says now. ''I was always aware that, whatever I thought about race, I'm still black. Shelby's position. . . . '' Loury starts to laugh. ''I was about to say, Shelby's position was that we had to completely transcend race, though I can imagine saying those words, too. But my heart wasn't in them, whereas he really meant it. How could it have been otherwise? His mother was a white woman. His wife is a white woman. When he looked at his own children's racial identity and wondered about an oppressive world that would say to those children, 'Choose sides' -- a dilemma I'd never faced -- Shelby's angle of vision was really quite different from my own. So in all honesty, it was I who betrayed him, not he who betrayed me.'' The two men have not spoken since that conversation.

What about the recent events of the current political season? Alan Keyes has mentioned his support for reparations for Blacks. After that, there was a mini-firestorm of opposition to Keyes for supporting such an idea.

"How dare he support reparations! He's gone off of the deep end!"

And then there is Clarence Thomas, who is known to surround himself with people who are similar in views to his.

Does it matter that the examples I used all involved Black people? Does it matter that the examples I used all involved "conservative Black" people?

I say it doesn't.

Let's be real!

The whining about "group think" isn't that people are thinking similarly, it's really about people thinking AGAINST what you are thinking and you don't like it.

The "group think" charge nothing more than a means of harassing people into thinking along your line of thinking, or at least not vocalizing opposition to your line of thinking.

And isn't that the complaint about "group think"?

I'll post more about this in a broader context. For now, I have real life concerns to take care of.

"Group Think"

Collective thought, aka group think.

What a concept.

At a GOP convention, Colin Powell said he supported affirmative action and he was booed. No group think there.

Better yet, let a white person agree with Blacks on issues and sooner or later, someone will accuse that white person of being a "guilty white liberal."

So tell me why those who call people "guilty white liberals" are NOT taking part in group think. Aren't they assuming that all whites should think alike?

And if conservatives believe that Blacks don't need Black leaders, why are conservatives trying to pass off people like Jesse Lee Peterson as a Black leader?

Identifying as a "Black conservative". That's not "group think"?

Isn't it interesting that "Black conservatives" seem to have a scream of "victimology" when stating certain things? What's not "group thinking" on the misuse of such a silly phrase?

Black Farmer: The Promised Land

This appeared in The Washington Post. It's a story about a Black farmer who is part of the FDA discrimination case.

This story has a lot woven into it. It's a good read.

It has what, I think, most Blacks know about and do every day: persevere. Here's a man, facing some serious odds and family troubles, but still he keeps going.

At first, I thought he just over extended himself. And, in fact, he did. But he kept on going. His drive is what is familiar to me.

Some may say, "This is an example of not letting discrimination stand in your way." To that I say, most Blacks do that and by saying what you did, you demonstrate how LITTLE you think of Blacks, in general.

More Black "Us" vs. "Them" Silliness

I wasn't going to go here.
Really.

But comments to blog entries by
dcthornton and Black Republicans don�t really want to go down this path.

Black GOP�ers claim that Blacks are emotionally tied to the Democrat party.

That�s a fair comment.

Black GOP�ers say that Blacks need to examine politics in a non-emotional way.

That�s a fair comment even if idealistic. The reality is politics is emotional.

Now they start with the plantation stuff?

Ya�ll don�t want to go down that path. Especially when there are Black GOP�ers whose words can come back to haunt them.

Think I�m kidding? Do this search in Google. Use the quotes. It�s one search.

�shannon reeves� �window dressing�

When you get the results, use the cached copy to get to the Contra Costa Times article.

Here�s a quote:

�Black Republicans are expected to provide window dressing and cover to prove that this is not a racist party, yet our own leadership continues to act otherwise,� party Secretary Shannon Reeves wrote in an e-mail to party board members.

This is a URL I have, but I don't know how long it's valid.

Condenscending

The following was said about Blacks who are "achieving":

I think that these are people who haven't let historical prejudices stop them.

Why isn't that a condenscending statement in and of itself?

I have to think more about this...

Contradiction

Some in the GOP are saying that the number of Blacks owning homes is at a new high, so credit should be given to Bush because of some of his housing initiatives.

Blacks are starting businesses and getting more SBA loans so some in the GOP are saying that the credit should be given to Bush.

The Black unemployment rate is falling so some in the GOP say that the credit should go to Bush.

Meanwhile, the GOP is saying that they foster things so that people don't depend on government, and that Blacks really need these things because Blacks are too dependent on government.

So, isn't there a contradiction somewhere? If you give Bush credit, you have to say that Bush is fostering government dependence. But that's not what the GOP is about, right?

:-)

I look forward to the end of the silly season.

Blacks Can't Get A Break

The "Black left" seem to think of Blacks in dire straits, that we all are poor, unable to process any complexities.

The "Black right" seem to think of Blacks as sheep, stupid, and lazy.

Is it no wonder that the "Sterotype Threat" rings so true?

I'm going to get into this pretty soon. The silly season seems to be bringing this out in full force, and I'm friggin' sick and tired of the Black self-hatred -- YEAH I WROTE IT -- from both sides.

World War III

Let's call it what it is, shall we?

Silly Comments, Continued

So, here is a quote that I hear a lot:

The war on poverty has failed. We have spent a lot of money on it, and the poverty rate is virtually unchanged.

[ On edit ] Well, that's an interesting comment.

But for the war on poverty to be declared a failure, it would have to be demonstrated that the poverty rate would have been lower without it. But, no one can demonstrate that it would have been lower.

Conversely, no one can demonstrate that without the war on poverty, the poverty rate would have been higher.

Ehrlich Can Kiss My... III

Subtitle: Checkin' a Fool III...

Ehrlich stated that Blacks expecting Blacks to vote a certain way is racist.

Welll.......

Isn't the GOP expecting Blacks to vote a certain way, also racist?

Isn't the GOP refusing to go after the Black vote, then racist?

If you say it's because the payback is so small, what about the fact that Jewish voters vote for Democrats 80-85%?

Booker Rising has another way to look at it. I think they are wrong, but here it is.

Black GOP'ers

White Republicans messed up with the Black vote.

If I remember correctly, Nixon received 20% of the Black vote. But then he implemented the Southern Strategy.

So, why is it left to Black Republicans to make inroads into the Black community?

Why should Black Republicans clean up the mess of white Republicans?

I just don't understand it.

Jewish voters vote 80-85% for Democrats but the Republicans still go after the Jewish vote.

But similar percentages and white Republicans say the Black community is a lost vote.

And now the Black Republicans have to clean up their mess.

I don't get it.

"Victimology"

Victimology.

Can someone give me a definition that makes sense?

Right now, I conclude that it's useless rhetorical hyperbole soon to be over used like "political correctness".

Long Term Friends

My uncle had a great cookout yesterday.
Some Temps, some James Brown, some EW&F, some Smokey, some Stephanies Mills...

A LOT of good food.

Many of his long term friends were there. One mentioned that he enjoyed these types of things, more so to see people he hasn't seen in years. He said he thinks about his younger days more and wonders what happened to certain people. The cookout was a good way for him to find out.

That's deep.

Now I have a different understanding of why some people read the obits.

Stats

Let's assume you have 100 of gidgets. Of those 100, 5 are purple. The rest of them are brown. For some reason, the brown gidgets start to turn purple.

At t0, there are 5 that are purple. At t1, there are 10 that are purple. That's a change of 100%.

At t2, there are 15 that are purple. That's a change of 50% over t1.

At t3, there are 20 that are purple. That's a change of 33 1/3% over t2.

Even though there is a constant increase of 5 units per unit of time, the percentage of change falls.

Remember that the next time someone says:

In fact, the growth of the black middle class was more rapid before affirmative action programs were put in place.

Ask more questions to determine how this is measured and what is meant.

Self Hate

Is hyper-criticism of yourself a form of self-hate?

Is not seeing anything good about yourself a form of self-hate?

Is only pointing out the negatives about yourself a form of self-hate?

Is only comparing yourself to others, in the negative, a form of self-hate?

Jesus was WHAT?

Jesse Jackson argues that Jesus was a liberal. La Shawn tears into him, with Michael King picking up the rear.
On the one hand, they are definitely correct to critique Jackson. Jesus was no more a liberal than Malcolm X would be a supporter of Clarence Thomas. The language we speak, much less terms like "liberal" or "conservative" didn't even exist during the time Jesus lived.

But.

It is clear to me that Jesus was a champion of the poor. Not simply in the spiritual sense, as LaShawn argues, but in the material sense. Now it could be that he did so because they were the most spiritually bereft. But this doesn't quite play out in The New Testament. Jesus notes time and again that the poor, the meek, are actually closer to God than their rich counterparts are--which seems to go against the claim that we are all sinners equally. It is clear that he nourished and helped them. It is also clear that he NEVER turned his back on them.

Furthermore, Jesus was fully invested in emending Jewish law. When I say "emend" here I am not making a term up...I mean that he was actually attempting to bring the law back in line with the Law. Given that the Jewish faith was also a system of governance, I don't see how you could say that Jesus was above "politics." In as much as he sought to change the material world, so as to save the people in it, I don't see how his movement could be anything OTHER than political.

I think Jackson would've been better off saying that Jesus wasn't conservative. Not in the contemporary sense of the word. Nor even in the historical sense of the word. He would've been a lot closer to the mark. Oral Roberts, Jimmy Swaggart, Pat Robertson, and the scions of the Moral Majority have used Christianity as a way to put a sheen of legitimacy on their record. It's wrong and Christians everywhere should be ashamed.

Oh. One more thing. When Jackson says:

The Suffragettes were liberals; those who opposed the vote for women were conservatives. Martin Luther King was a liberal; the segregationists were conservatives. He wanted to end racial discrimination; they wanted to conserve it.

...he's right. It is also true that many of the segregationists were Democrats...but don't get it twisted. Partisan preference (also known as party id) is very different from political ideology. One can be a Liberal Republican (though this is becoming a bit hard) just as one can be a Conservative Democrat (ask Zell Miller about this one).

Shocked

According to Salon there are some serious questions about how Sharpton has been spending his campaign loot. I'm shocked. And Paul O'Neil (former Secretary of the Treasury) has come forward stating that Bush is a bit....disengaged. I'm doubly shocked.

Another thing on inter-racial comparisons

I'm thinking about those tables in No Excuses again. The ones comparing blacks to whites to asians? I already noted one reason why these simple comparisons reflected ignorance on the part of researchers--no controls for other factors. Not region, not education level of parents, not amount of school spending (which ITSELF must be measured carefully, as old schools spend a LOT less on students than newer schools do because old schools have infrastructural problems), etc. This would be akin to measuring voting patterns of blacks and whites in the fifties and coming up with the conclusion that black folk don't give a damn about politics because they didn't vote at the same rates.

There is another significant problem in making blanket comparisons between Asian Americans and African Americans. The Asian American population is a conglomerate of several different ethnicities. Thai, Laotians, Vietnamese, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Indian, plus several others...all fall in the same pot. These groups have very different trajectories, and by lumping them together we are ignoring significant differences. I am fairly sure that scholars actually CAN disaggregate the "Asian" population they choose not to. Perhaps this is because only by aggregating them are the populations SOMEWHAT comparable in size (black population is around 40 million, the asian population is around 12 million). I also think though that aggregating them (particularly without controls) presents a statistical picture that is in line with the "model minority" myth. If for example, every Asian ethnicity other than the Japanese were shown to have lower incomes, and educational levels than whites, what would that do for the idea that Asians have this culture that causes them to succeed?

Dean again

Been here done that.

If you've got access, check out this article. Talks about Dean reaching out to black voters. Where does it start, praytell?

In a baptist church, where for once a black dean supporter "doesn't stand out."

But it gets better. When Dean supposedly describes what he has that connects him with black voters how does he respond?

"In a recent interview, Dr. Dean summed up his relationship with black voters the way he had at a dinner with black leaders in South Carolina: "I've got soul."

"I don't know what I mean by that � I wish I could tell you," he said in the interview. "There's something in me that gets it."

I know a whole lot of people who went to B school. I wish to God I knew more who went to J school.

Because, and maybe I'm wrong, I don't think the whole black people spirit soul god thing would fly if people actually were forced to study the intricacies of black life. To reiterate--not all black people go to church, not all black people believe in God, not all churches are political, most black people don't make their political decisions based on what their pastor (if they have one) tells them to.

I recall when Clinton had his troubles, and it seemed like whenever he was down and almost out, he'd go to a black church and everything would like magic, get better. A colleague of mine wrote a paper arguing that in the face of growing economic troubles in the mid nineties (which in itself should burst the bubble that a rising tide raises all boats) black people were blind to the facts because of their intense love for Bill Clinton. I thought that argument was strangely APOLITICAL, particularly coming from a political scientist. But it is par for the course when it comes to black people.

But wait, there's more:

"Since hiring Andi Pringle, an African-American strategist, as his deputy campaign manager, Dr. Dean has spent many Sundays in black churches. He recently told congregants in Detroit, "Its going to be a long time before I go to a white church again." He also has aides devoted to promoting him in the African-American news media and has hired Doug Thornell, the former spokesman for the black caucus, as his traveling press secretary."

Yep. Make a few hires. Put a few black faces in there. I'm all for brothers and sisters getting gigs. And to be fair there aren't enough of us in political advising positions (if Jesse Jackson didn't do ANYTHING ELSE in either 84 or 88 he at least made it possible for black folk to see the inside of a presidential campaign, something we hadn't seen before). But I wonder if Dean really thinks this will make it all better? I bet I know Pringle's answer.

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome

Listening to the Diane Rehm show today gave me confirmation about a dynamic I thought may be racially tinged. Turns out that the number one environmental cause of mental retardation in kids is fetal alcohol syndrome. Not being born to a crack addicted mother...being born to an alcoholic mother. A group of researchers out of Detroit were actually able to do comparison studies between groups of people addicted to alcohol, groups of people addicted to cocaine (who did NOT use alcohol), and I THINK (the show is still on as I type, so I might be getting this wrong) groups of people addicted to both. This method allowed them to tease out the differences between the two groups. Whereas the babies addicted to cocaine had social problems...and responded very quickly (and wrongly) to stimuli, the response rate of the children addicted to alcohol was very slow (in comparison).

Given all the stuff we used to hear about crack babies back in the eighties (when these kids grow up, we're going to need a WHOLE BUNCH OF PRISONS), this finding gives us pause. Do any of you remember some of the draconian policies enacted against women addicted to cocaine (particularly crack) to keep them from having kids?

Do the words FORCED STERILIZATION ring any bells?

While such a policy enacted to alcoholic women would be just as problematic, I doubt we have anything to worry about. Soccer moms represent a powerful voting demographic...compared to poor women addicted to crack.

Getting old to hip-hop

The home opener of the Detroit Pistons had Kid Rock singing America the Beautiful with a couple of backup singers. When I first saw him I thought it was a joke...but he didn't do badly. In fact, when I heard him I realized he had some serious country skills. Not Garth Brooks country...Johnny Cash country. So I'm flipping through the Free Press, and check this article out.

What jumps out at me are his comments about hip-hop. How the hell can you be 32 years old and still be in the same artistic place you were at 23?

Here's another way to think about it. Last night I got food poisoning. Like an idiot, I ate some food that was bad...thinking that it didn't matter.

And it didn't. Like TEN YEARS AGO!

So here I am writhing in pain with four kids to take care of, and a basketball game at 3:30. I make the game in time for the beginning of the second half...but it dawns on me. While I have known for quite some time that I am now in middle age--I had a middle aged revelation this summer--I hadn't yet made the transition in my eating habits. I just can't down anything like I used to. I'm in another place.

So when Kid Rock talks about having a 10 year old kid and not wanting to be about wearing bulletproof vests and issuing vendettas I see exactly what he means. MCs are now at the point where they have to make a choice. Mick Jagger in the early seventies said he'd NEVER be playing rock n roll at 50 or 60.

Yeah right.

How would we judge DMX as an artist, as an MC, if at 35 all he's got going on is still the growl?

Outkast has got it right I think.

Uplift and Positive Images pt. 2

Flash forward.

The positive images argument goes something like this. Images have an impact on how we perceive reality. Our understanding of events on a local (in the case metropoles), state, and national level is at least partially driven by media images. As such, they have an impact on how we think, and how we feel.

Given that most images of African Americans on the local news are negative, it stands to reason that these negative images have a negative impact on how people perceive African Americans, and how they feel about African Americans. If we change the images, it stands to reason that we change the way people think, and feel about black people. The solution then, is for us to get more positive images of black people in the news to counteract the negative ones.

Does this sound familiar?

This dialogue sounds a lot like it was ripped out of the uplift writings of the early 20th century. Our problem is largely a perception problem, driven partially by the media (as it is "the media") that shows the images in the first place, and partially by problematic African American behavior.

Now to be fair, there is research that links policy preferences to media images. Rosalee Clawson (Associate Professor, Purdue University) has found for example that whites tend to think of social security as a form of "white affirmative action" and that they are more likely to support social security if they see images of older white senior citizens along with news stories talking about the policy. Shanto Iyengar (Professor, Standford University), and Frank Gilliam (Professor, UCLA) have shown that the average "crime script" in local news features Blacks prominently, and that these images had an impact on evaluations of President Clinton (people shown news stories with black criminals were more likely to base their evaluations of Clinton on how he dealt with crime, people shown those images were also more likely to evaluate Clinton on how concerned he was about whites). Finally, Martin Gilens (Professor, Princeton University) in his work Why Americans Hate Welfare finds that the reason whites hate welfare is because they associate poverty with black women.

So there is reason to focus on "positive images." As they structure responses to public policy, it is important that we fight to ensure that blacks are at least accurately depicted. This fight must be waged...we must make sure that newspapers for example do not simply show images of black women whenever they run poverty stories. We must make sure that if black suspects are shown prominently whenever they are arraigned the same thing happens with white suspects.

BUT....at the same time we must realize that this dialogue is still mired in the conservative "uplift" concept. It takes the structure as a given, and only articulates change around the margins. In this case for example, dealing with the nature of images rather than the wider context. Two dynamics loom large.

The first is growing media concentration. As the stories (nonfiction and fiction) we watch, read, and hear, become more and more concentrated, the nature of those stories change. Rather than watching or reading news about our local state representatives, we are watching (on the NEWS no less) interviews with national tv stars. The new season of Alias just started on Sunday...I wouldn't be surprised if the lead-in for the local ABC affiliate's nightly news was an interview with Jennifer Garner. (I like Alias...think Garner is beautiful. But DAMN.) Rather than spend time tracking environmental dumping (a corporate crime of vast proportions) news agencies simply run to the scene of the latest carjacking.

The second is growing hypersegregation. As our metropolitan areas become more and more segregated not only on racial dimensions but on class based dimensions, it becomes easier to surveil problematic behavior on racial angles. You want to see someone on welfare in St. Louis? Just go to the North side, where all the poor people who just so HAPPEN to be black, live.

Note here that explicit racism doesn't even have to come into play on the behalf of news reporters or producers. It takes an arm and a leg to drive to the Appalachians (or their local equivalent) to get images of the white poor. Let's just go down the street! Gotta love bureaucratic efficiency.

So by focusing on the positive images without examining media concentration, and urban re-segregation it becomes impossible for black people to do anything more than change things at the margins.

Uplift and Positive Images pt. 1

I just gave a talk at a Think Tank sponsored by Brothers of the Academy. I'm pretty blasted...the Think Tank was in Kansas City. I didn't want to spend too much time away from the family, so I got a rental car at 12am drove to KC...got there about 4am. Then woke up at 7:30am to get ready for the presentation. Presented it at 8:45am then got back on the road at 2pm. Drained.

The concept of racial uplift is I believe a true part of the Old School. But while I agree with the general concept....uplift after all is a Cardinal Principle, it is also deeply problematic in some important ways.

As used in the early 20th Century--when organizations like Omega Psi Phi were started--it was used ostensibly to imbue African Americans with a sense of agency, with a sense of responsibility. African Americans as a whole had the power to lift themselves up from conditions of material subjugation. Wealthier African Americans (they DID exist even during this time) had the responsibility to serve as role models for those less fortunate.

Now I believe that black people have agency. Contrary to popular belief we aren't totally powerless...and our lives are not individually or in the aggregate, pathological.

But the concept of "uplift" as disseminated by scholar activists such as Anna Julia Cooper, and WEB Dubois, is conservative to say the least. It is based on the fundamental premise that white supremacy is an attitudinal construct that is caused by black pathology. In blunt terms--the reason black people ain't got nothing is because black people don't act right. If black people were to properly organize their lives (establish modern family structures with a strong man at the head; stop having children out of wedlock; establish honorable jobs; carry themselves the correct way in public) two things would occur.

First, poorer black people would, from "role modeling" the behavior of the organized blacks, act better. They would organize their homes, organize their lives, and in the process improve their neighborhoods--which because of the disorganization was wracked by crime, disease, and harlotry.

Second, white people would see blacks carry themselves in a different way, and they would in turn realize that black people are responsible enough to bear the burdens of citizenship. They would then realize that the norms of white supremacy which forced them into all black wards, and kept blacks in the south from voting, were antiquated. A new era would begin.

The problems with this should be apparent, and I'll briefly touch on two. In its "pure" form, the notion of uplift is apolitical at worst, and at best articulates a vision of racial subjugation that is attitudinal rather than structural. Dubois in his strong social science phase believed that all he had to do was use the tools of social science to show whites and blacks how things really were and they would change their minds, leading to a change in relationships. It doesn't quite work that way.

The second problem is that the Victorian model upon which the pure vision is based, is itself, deeply sexist, racist, and classist. Folded into the model are notions of "civilization" which are based solely on European upper-class norms and standards (a civilized family is patriarchal, a noncivilized family is not; a civilized woman works only in the home, an uncivilized woman does not).

(As a sidenote come black nationalists flipped this on its head by arguing that the best civilizations were actually the OLDER civilizations. The Western vision was--the younger your civilization was, the better it was. The Southern vision was the exact opposite, which is one of the reasons why Egypt becomes so important in the African American imagination.)

In as much as black people living in America were influenced by American ideas, it shouldn't be surprising that black people attempted to flip the script on the Victorian model of success. But it should also be unsettling to know that many blacks supported the logical ideological conclusions (racism is attitudinal rather than structural, blacks are pathological), and the policy conclusions (many indicated support for some form of eugenics).

Now what the hell does this have to do with "positive images"? I'll get to that next.

(This brief piece is a snippet of a larger lecture I gave in my black politics class. It is based on the work Uplifting the Race)

Moore's Treadmill

Apple announced its new G5 today. Big whoop!

The big deal about the G5 is that it's a 64bit chip built by IBM that will run at some obscenely high clock speed. If you can't guess, I'm not particularly impressed. In fact, I think the greatest thing that could happen to increase Apple's influence on the market would be for them to get off Moore's Treadmill and put that fabulous OS of theirs on cheap hardware.

So let me start the meme. Moore's Treadmill is the narrow view by the computing industry that faster chips is always better. So long as the economics are working and people keep upgrading their old machines, the Treadmill works. You could say that in the 60s and 70s, Detroit was on an equivalent treadmill for engines. The car was essentially the engine. The more the horsepower, the more attractive the car. So they thought. Of all the companies to be stuck on Moore's Treadmill, Apple provides the most irony because their marketing has always focused on usability. So it is this contradiction that strikes me as Steve Jobs announces 64bit computing.

I believe that with Jaguar, Apple has proven itself to be a great competitor to the Linux desktop. It's even fair to say that the Linux desktop won't happen in any consumer markets, and certainly not in the corporate sphere because of Apple, at least not until blade workstations become mainstream. But as long as the Mac OS is limited to Mac hardware, Linux will continue to be strong.

I don't have anything against Linux. Quite the contrary. But a Linux desktop makes no sense in corporate IT right now. Its too costly to maintain, not because of the software itself, but because of the cost of tech support for network guys. Imagine retooling the helpdesks of the Fortune 500. This is the hidden cost of the Linux desktop in business. Enabling end-user support for Linux desktops would require a substantial investment in retooling a big workforce. When blade desktops come around and PC support can be handled as nicely as some internet cafes are, that will be a different story. But today when it means a box on a desk, Linux is out of the question.

The Mac could swing the corporate desktop, and probably would have by now if they hadn't killed Power Computing, the hardware clone out of Austin. Certainly the same Dell folks who commoditized the PC and slammed manufacturing costs would have bled some influence over there. Clearly Apple revoked the Power license because Power undersold the Macs in retail. But that same low price combined with the fabulous thing the Microsoft Office Suite has become for Mac could have made a big dent in corporate business. I'm not fantasizing however. As quiet as it's kept, Microsoft wasn't the only vendor hostile to Java. There are a lot of reasons Apple hasn't gone corporate.

At home and for geeks, that's a different story. There are plenty of reasons to run OS X at home for geeks and non-geeks alike. But speaking from the geek side of the equation, the single computer home is a thing of the past. Moore's law looks very good when it applies to the reselling market. Perfectly good Pentium 3 machines can be had for $150. I've got such a Dell at my house. A revolution could be afoot if I can think about buying a machine for each of my kids at that pricepoint. Wouldn't it be nice if I could manage all of that home networking under the Apple paradigm? Yes, without question. The problem is that I have to shell out megabucks for Macs. So Apple is out of the question.

I am accustomed to Apple doing the wrong thing. It doesn't affect me half as much as it used to. Maybe I'm growing up. Yet I still admire their style, nerve and quite frankly their hardware. But it's really the OS I want. Too bad it's stuck on the treadmill.

Mighty cancer-proof mice

US scientists have discovered a cancer-proof mouse, according to this piece in New Scientist, and have successfully created a colony with this inherited trait. One can hope that the immune mechanism used by this mouse could translate into future cancer treatments. If so, how long before some demand that we cancer-proof the human germ line?

Sex & Cultural Dissonance

About two years ago, I finally got on the air for the first time with Ira Flatow on his Science Friday show. One of the subjects of his show was the bonobo ape and its sexuality. I haven't been thinking about sex so much, but about cultural dissonance. According to Ira, Japanese researchers had less difficulty studying these primates' complex sexual behavior but Westerners found a great number of their acts unconscionable. So when the question came around about which of the apes are most like humans and the most intelligent, the Japanese picked the bonobo. Meanwhile, Europeans and Americans alike settled on the chimpanzee. As time moves forward, it may turn out that the Japanese were right. A cultural interpretation of the meaning of sex acts is inevitable, no matter what our biology. We may never know.

As I reflect on cultural dissonance in the context of empire, we also may never know how our acts may ultimately be interpreted, or whether a question of the value of any particular act can and will be perceived as we expect. I mean how many Americans have ever heard of a bonobo ape much less consider it more intelligent than a dolphin or a chimp? The very idea is foreign.

Nevertheless in considering this matter of ape sexuality I have become moderately curious about how much of our own sexuality derives from observation of animals. Surely we humans have watched dogs, pigs, sheep, horses, cats and cattle copulate since the beginning of civilization. Often our health and wealth has depended on knowing when such activities were going right or going wrong. Surely our concepts of male dominance and female submission in things sexual comes more from horses more than say, black widow spiders or salmon. But what we say, what we think and what we do are surely divergent. After all, horses don't masturbate. Are we indeed like monkeys? Probably more than we'd like to admit.

Another great matter of sexual import which has passed through the old bean this weekend has to do with my anticipation of the great female prophet. My daughter asked about world religions and I pointed to my old, and fun reference on such liberal arts matters, An Incomplete Education. This book reminded me that there were approximately 650 million Roman Catholics. Knowing how much the Virgin Mary means to Catholics, having audited catechism myself, I wondered what a huge impact it would be to the world if some future Council of Nicea decided to make the Holy Spirit female.

A female pope would change the world in ways we cannot imagine. In this way, I tend to believe that all feminism is pre-historic. The day will come.

What story do you want to hear?

I found this CIA text on the psychology of intelligence analysis quite interesting. URL: http://www.cia.gov/csi/books/19104/index.html

In particular, the section on cognitive biases seems particularly relevant these days. Professional analysts are more conscious of such biases and their impact, compared to the casual viewer of the news. How much and how far does intelligence get distorted when presented to the public by the media in a manner that makes a better story?

Needless to say, I'm fairly cynical when it comes to the nature of popular punditry. Cognitive dissonance is uncomfortable, so people will opt for pundits who echo their own beliefs at some level.

Good References

This site is a good reference on terrorism. Try it.

Interesting Times

Plato attributes these words to Socrates: "The unexamined life is not worth living." I am inclined to agree, though I'd rather not end up taking the hemlock express as the latter did.

I find myself wondering what good I can accomplish in this world. For years I've been absorbing much in the course of my readings, and while I feel that my understanding of this world and the people in it have improved, it won't amount to much of a legacy in the end unless I act upon it. Is that what we strive for? Legacies, to leave our marks upon this world to prove that we once walked its surface?

Grandiose visions aside, perhaps it's just as well to take small steps and see what emerges from the complexity. And so, with a few words I sally forth. I might yet be a butterfly amid the chaos of the forces for good.