Amadeus

© 24 April 2016, the Griot Poet

He prophesied of heavenly realms and afterworlds;
We partied like it was 1999 in 1982 with his lyrical missive: “parties weren’t meant to last.”
24 hours hadn’t passed
When the blood sport of trashing just dead icons began
A “save shot” six days’ prior
When your former heroin habit;
Conversion to veganism and Jehovah’s Witness religion
Were public record

We have to rehash as we trash
The idols we once built up
Because like parties, popular deities weren’t meant to last
Little mention of your gifts to Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis and Eric Garner’s mothers
Your free concert in Baltimore;
You channeled pain that would fell normal mortals into madness
Into creative genius
Teaching yourself to play 27 instruments
Without formal lessons;
Singing lead and backup vocals
Arranging and producing all of your albums;
Playing 24 and 48 hour straight sets
In Paisley Park
Where they found you in the elevator
We “all went crazy” on social media
At the news of you
Having “punched a higher floor” leaked out…

Though your lyrics were decidedly heterosexual
Your androgyny and celebration of human sexuality
Freed many an LGBT teen
Before suicide and apathy claimed them.
Now since Will and Grace,
LOGO and Ru Paul;
This freedom has become cliché

The freedom you championed
With the tattoo “slave”
On your right cheek
Giving way to the Independent Artists movement
That aren’t waiting to get “discovered”
Or giving over their power and ownership of their works
To corporate conglomerates
That leave them penniless.

In many ways
You were our Amadeus:
Genius and malevolent;
Pious and irreverent;
Small in stature and giant;
You were mystery incarnate,
The question: “am I black or white; am I straight or gay?”
You posed in the song Controversy
And like a Zen Koan, refused to answer it.
You told everyone to hold their prayers
For a few days,
Knowing you’d prepared
Not an unmarked mass grave as your namesake,
But a private pious ceremony
Planned with no flash or aplomb
As your stage presence had been.

Your ashes – like Einstein – scattered to the winds
And we are left with, like him, the body of your many works.

Trench Coat...

Source: 7 Essential Items for Parisian Chic Style

© 9 February 2016, The Griot Poet

"Can you please take care of the check?"

Let me rewind how we got to that...

We meet for dinner.
We have a good time over food and atmosphere

You even pretend that my corny jokes are witty,
Your very presence has made me more giddy
Than the best dinner Moscato

You excuse yourself to go
To the ladies room

I stand at your departure
(another part of me stands as well)
and almost swoon at your walk:

graceful;
powerful;
confident.

I can't think of better time spent.

You return, not in your dress,
but robed in a trench coat,

I confess confusion: "are you expecting rain?"

You drop science in the vein
of the contents of your purse:

Your dress;
Your panties;
Your bra...

Wearing nothing else except your pumps and a smile.

I stare in awe at your audaciousness and guile,
You break the silence with:

"Can you please take care of the check?"

I am a nervous wreck,
Trying to appear cool driving,
as you direct me
to your apartment...

Pre-planned candles are lit
as my own clothes shed

In your bed
I kneel between the pillars of your altar to speak in 10,000 tongues
Careful not to miss a single one,
Palming your ass; kneading the nipples on your breast;

Savoring the flavor of your cum momentarily,
You draw me to your lips;
then into you

My incubus...my dominatrix...

Your legs wrap me
and whatever machismo
I've ever felt
melts away.

A haiku
my father would say
comes to remembrance
In my ecstasy and to my chagrin:

"my son, know this, a
man has 'caught' a woman when
she embraces him."

Near the Levee (repost)...

Architecture About.com: What is a Levee?

© 21 September 2005, The Griot Poet

Inspired by the article from Dr. Cornel West: “Exiles from a city and from a nation,” 11 September 2005.

Note: I corrected the spelling of levee in the title and text (it was originally "levy" as a double entendre). On reflection of the carnival barking political times we're in and to avoid the appearance of xenophobia, a preposition and country name were both exchanged from their original versions. The piece still hits powerfully, and clarifies instead of stereotypes, origin of the demand for drugs in this country is this country in total, and no one group in particular.

Dedicated to my cousin from New Orleans, John (Gus) Holmes, Jr., his beautiful family, and the survivors of Hurricane Katrina (note: they're all fine, and relocated to another state).

**********

“When you live so close to death”

You create songs in the French Quarter on Slave Sundays that follow no pattern.

Rhythm set by clap and tambourine; washboard and kettle drum,

Old people hum in accompaniment to a Constantine Christian jubilee celebration of no cotton bailed; no backbreaking labor toiled.

The one suit you own is spoiled from overuse, and your children’s children carry on the tradition of “dress up” to anesthetize their pain.

“When you live so close to death”

The Mississippi delta builds a sediment foundation for your tragicomic pain:

“Laughing to keep from crying” births the blues!

“When you live so close to death”

People of your hue fought and escaped the French back in the day, and each day are turned away each year as they try to escape the death-hole now known as… Haiti.

“When you live so close to death, you live (life a little) more intensely,”

You create order out of chaos, from Massa raping your sisters and mothers to slaves tipping with another man’s lover: “hey baby, can we JAZZ around a little bit”?

Fighting fiercely in mock duels modeled after “southern gentlemen,” feeling disrespected, passing it down from Jazz procreation to your Hip Hop great-grandchildren’s generation as being “dissed”: with the same deadly consequences.

“When you live so close to death”

What are scraps from Massa’s table become culinary creations:

- Craw dads;

- Jambalaya;

- Gumbo;

- Shrimp Creole

- And Etoufée!

“When you live so close to death”

Lead and pollutants they allowed for your kind to warp your minds & drive the I.Q.s of your babies down scarred your psychology

BEFORE the levees broke;

BEFORE the drug flights to America!

“When you live so close to death”

You are not counted; clouded – an invisible majority under the all-mighty shadow of insignificance: exiles in your own country, resembling from years of neglect more “third world” than ninth ward or US citizenry

Hence, their news media in their quest for a ratings spree mislabeled you “refugees.”

Now, suddenly they are on our side, “shocked and awed” back to the reality of their sacred duty to inform the citizenry of a democracy… neglected for five years.

Shocked by the sight of dead bodies marred by dogs and crocodiles, piled in stairwells like logs… floating downstream! It seems perceptions change once you’re beyond a sheltered, suburban political haze, and find YOURSELF for many days

Breathing the stench,

Your own eyes seeing,

Your own ears hearing the gunshots and screams… in this country,

You cannot believe you could stay reasonably SANE…

Living so close to death!

Open Letter to SAE...

© 13 March 2015, the Griot Poet

Dear Sigma Alpha Epsilon (founded in the Deep South; University of Alabama; “true gentlemen”):

Some history: a mystery to you, I’m sure.

The “Divine Nine”: Alpha Phi Alpha (1906), Alpha Kappa Alpha (1908), Kappa Alpha Psi (1911), Omega Psi Phi (1911), Delta Sigma Theta (1913), Phi Beta Sigma (1914), Zeta Phi Beta (1920), Sigma Gamma Rho (1922) and Iota Phi Theta (1963)

Each were founded in the 20th Century,
Spanning the breath of Civil Rights history
From the lynching era, through Jim Crow to right before the Civil Rights (1964) and Voting Rights (1965) acts,
I know you lack the knowledge
As you and your kind spent your time in college
You had, and have had privileges, not frustrations
Without the threat of your rights being stretched at the neck
By a long noose,
Nor your women raped;
Nor your men burned and castrated;
Except by faux boogie men you created
In blockbuster “Birth of a Nation” silent movies
That shouted volumes of disdain at the freest labor
This nation has ever had
That would bankrupt it and the whole world system
If they ever tried to pay reparations

Many like my noble founders in Kappa Alpha Psi
Were the servants in your frat houses that waited your
Tables;
Scrubbed your bathrooms;
And cleaned your floors;
All the while planning their own version
Of Pan-Hellenism
Our founders knew
Education was our key
To uplift and prosperity

Our leaders were trained
In Robert’s Rules of Order
And parliamentary procedures
To eventually elevate some
To the front of the bus
And the front of movements
Like Rosa Parks (AKA); Dr. Maya Angelou (AKA); Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (Alpha); Ralph Abernathy (Kappa); Jesse Jackson (Omega)
That would and still is changing America for the better…
Your little chant: you had decades of practice with that,
Rap music didn’t fuel the venom we all heard,
You’re sorry: because before I-phones and YouTube
You would have never been caught
Big brother isn’t just watching you,
That video came from a disgusted brother
Of Sigma Alpha Epsilon
That whatever “ideals” you once taught
You completely jettisoned
In a fortnight of utter error
For the pleasure
Of slapping every African American
Across the face,
Just like 47 senators sending punk letters to Iranian Mullahs
To openly disrespect and deplore a sitting president
In support of perpetual war
Please counter now with “you use it too!”
We’re aware of that,
But yet, when our founders formed,
Their Pan-Hellenic
Respectability wasn’t just “politics,”
It was survival,
So, we have no songs to rival
The casual poison you at least had
For an impressive instance

ON BEAT

So, I repeat:
The “Divine Nine”: Alpha Phi Alpha (1906), Alpha Kappa Alpha (1908), Kappa Alpha Psi (1911), Omega Psi Phi (1911), Delta Sigma Theta (1913), Phi Beta Sigma (1914), Zeta Phi Beta (1920), Sigma Gamma Rho (1922) and Iota Phi Theta (1963)

Each were founded in the 20th Century,
Spanning the breath of Civil Rights history
From the lynching era, through Jim Crow to right before the Civil Rights (1964) and Voting Rights (1965) acts,
I already know you’re “lawyered up,” and will likely escape
The fate that canned a broadcaster at Univision
For daring to reference our lovely “let’s move” FLOTUS and “Planet of the Apes,”
You’ll be careful; measure your words;
And hope to God you’ve never again have to publically recant
And, no other turncoat brother of yours
Is present at your next racist chant!

An ironic motto...

Cowards...

© 28 August 2014, the Griot Poet

I don’t hear Jay-Z
Or his soon-to-be-ex-wife Queen Bey
I don’t hear Nicky Minaj
Nor do I hear anything sobering from “Weezy”
And Kanye – nothing more brilliant than “George Bush don’t like black people”
In the “shock and awe” of Hurricane Katrina

Rhythm and Poetry – RAP
Was supposed to be the “CNN of the streets”
Telling you like Marvin Gaye “what’s going on”
To a hip-hop beat
Until the suits
From Wall Street
Started putting percentages
On how many
Times you called yourselves
Or our queens
Outside of our majestic names for a plantation profit

Giving us bullshit
Step-in-fetch minstrel lyrics
Pimping our ears
With destructive metaphors

Programming us to think
We can’t be scientists, engineers or educators

Programming us to think
We can’t be anything more than
Thugs and twerking video vixens

The blood of recent ancestors calling to us from the ground:
Trayvon Martin…Jordon Davis…Renisha McBride…Eric Garner…Michael Brown…

Yet,
Our so-called, from-the-hood “real deal”
Lyricists haven’t put paper or pen on first date
To comment on these public, serial lynching’s
And, like the NRA (which stands for “not responsible anytime”)
Who should have something to say about the “jack-booted, government Barney Fife thugs”
In Ferguson
Who after a nine-year-old girl
Blew the brains out of
Her Uzi instructor in Arizona
Just like them
I hear the same “substantive” refrain from our so-called rap artists:
.
.
.
Crickets!

Stage 1...

Source

© 11 August 2014, the Griot Poet

Stage 1: may last for five to 10 minutes. Many may notice the feeling of falling during this stage of sleep, which may cause a sudden muscle contraction.
Stage 2: The heart rate slows and the body temperature decreases. At this point, the body prepares to enter deep sleep.
Stage 3 and 4: During the deep stages of NREM sleep, the body repairs and regenerates tissues, builds bone and muscle, and appear to strengthen the immune system.
Ref: http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/guide/sleep-101

It's like killing the dream before first REM stage.
Taking a page from Eric Garner: “I can’t breathe…”
This one – Michael Brown, eighteen – in Missouri
Visiting his grandmother
Two days BEFORE he was to enter college…
“Pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps”
That’s what’s said,
You can’t pull when you’re shot dead before life’s journey begins…

It's like killing the dream before first REM stage.
He’ll be vilified in public:
Just like Renisha McBride (knocking on the wrong door after wrecking her car),
Just like Trayvon Martin (wearing a hoodie; carrying skittles),
Just like Jordon Davis (playing loud music),
Just like Amadou Diallo (raising his hands; one with a wallet),
Just like Sean Bell (coming from a bachelor party before his wedding day),
Just like Barack Hussein Obama (“President While Black”)
Just like my sons, me and every black person
Whose ancestors were stripped from their mother continent for a
Trip on the "Good Ship Jesus"
Laying in bile and filth
Surviving a mind-numbing conditioning
That buried our native tongues and customs
In distant memories
We can no longer access
Disrespected
From slavery to Jim Crow to passed-over applications to disrespect
On elevators, escalators and department stores
Our queens treated like two-bit whores
And our princes gunned down like dogs in the streets
Channels my inner Pablo Neruda, and I find myself "Explaining a Few Things”
For anyone who’ll listen, and trolls who won’t

It's like killing the dream before first REM stage.
Stage 1: may last for five to 10 minutes. Many may notice the feeling of falling during this stage of sleep, which may cause a sudden muscle contraction.
I am falling…
Raging that I and my loved ones who’ve never broken a law
Cannot be LEFT alone
To live out our lives in grace, dignity and citizenry
Pharaoh always kills the young
My muscles contract in Rachel shouts and screams
I am sleep deprived…I cannot dream…

It's like killing the dream before first REM stage.
“I can’t breathe”…
“I can’t breathe”…
Eric: “I can’t breathe!”

Often...

Source: link

© 8 August 2013, the Griot Poet

I think of you quite often,
Body framed in sundress,
Bare shoulders, cleavage leaving just enough mystery
Eloquent and silhouetted next to Town Lake
Or Oasis sunset

I think of you quite often,
Sliding a supply of Shea Coco Butter ointment
To anoint your pedicured confidence
Slyly cradling your foot in my lap under clothed table
As we make appointment with our waiter…

I think of you quite often,
Reciting at a poetry venue
Thrilling audiences with your command of diction
Challenging the coefficient of kinetic friction
Where you have the proclivity
To line dance Electric Slide and “The Wobble”
In the denouement of festivities

I think of you quite often,
Saying goodbye at your front door
[You] Pretending to be in a hurry for an appointment
Wrapped in towel that you suddenly let
Fall effortlessly to your floor

I think of you quite often,
The cloth pallet at your front door
Might as well be adhesive spider web
And I, the fly, are caught in your spell
And any other appointment just lost meaning…

I think of you quite often,
Moving from the floor to the dining room table
Clearing the bar
Finally making it to your bed
Covered in rose petals and scented to fragranced bouquet…like you.

I think of you quite often,
As you “annoy me” when I’m trying to make us
Turkey bacon omelets
To the point I surrender and give obeisance
Turning aisles off
And using olive oil for a different lubricant
Kneeling to lift you on my shoulders as suddenly I realize I’d rather taste…you.

I think of you quite often!

Can't [Not] Be...

Source: here

© 8 August 2013, the Griot Poet

I can't not be your boogeyman,
When your self-esteem is fashioned
Around me accepting
Second or third-class citizen status.

I can't not be your boogeyman,
When your echo chambers are fashioned
By bloviating college non-graduates
Treating others' histories like they never happened.

I can't not be your boogeyman,
When merely my entrance on elevators
Elicit stares of fear, dread and shifted purses; staring at automatic doors;
Michael Jordan and Eddie Murphy treated to the [urban legend] buffoonery when requesting a
floor.

I can't not be your boogeyman,
Levar Burton has his own ritual
With the police that was obviously amiss
When NYPD stopped their plain-clothes police chief in a back-in-the-day "stop-and-frisk."
(No Christmas bonuses)

I can't not be your boogeyman,
When store detectives piled me
Bodily into a wall of toys
While he turned blind eye to four pairs of
Keds walking out on their "own" (4 white kids feet)
'Cause he *knows* NIGRAS steal!

I can't not be your boogeyman,
When you know George Zimmerman
On a first-name basis on an impartial jury
Of his peers with visits by B37's lawyer husband,
Manicures, pedicures, massages; movies
NY agent book deals
Dependent on but one outcome.

I can't not be your boogeyman,
When one out of 44
Causes some of you to lose your minds and common sense:
2.3% isn't statistically significant,
Everything in probability and physics
Tells us there's no such thing as 100% efficiency.
(That is perpetual motion - real or political - and violates the Law of Entropy)

I can't not be your boogeyman,
I will not put my hand on a burning aisle
And hope you crisp;
I will not drink the same poisonous vitriol
And hope you succumb to death's grip:

I will extend my open hand
As our ancestor's evolved the handshake
To represent no weapons and our shared fate:

"For he has made man of ONE BLOOD..."*

The choice is yours; karma pays in full
Because, you see

I can't not be your boogeyman!

*Acts 17:26 NKJV - "And He has made from ONE BLOOD every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings,..."

America's Book of Secrets: The Drug Wars...

Carl Sandburg...Wow!

I bow to you, sir:

A REVOLVER

Here is a revolver.
It has an amazing language all its own.
It delivers unmistakable ultimatums.
It is the last word.
A simple, little human forefinger can tell a terrible story with it.
Hunger, fear, revenge, robbery, hide behind it.
It is the claw of the jungle made quick and powerful.
It is the club of the savage turned to magnificent precision.
It is more rapid than any judge or court of law.
It is less subtle and treacherous than any one lawyer or ten.
When it has spoken, the case can not be appealed to the supreme
court, nor any mandamus nor any injunction nor any stay of ex-
ecution come in and interfere with the original purpose.
And nothing in human philosophy persists more strangely than the
old belief that God is always on the side of those who have the
most revolvers.

From: Addicting Info

Quvenzhané

© 3 March 2013, the Griot Poet

If I had a daughter, she’d look like Quvenzhané Wallis.
And her name would be the combination of my wife’s, Qulyndreia, a teacher, and my own, Venjie Wallis, Sr., a truck driver.
And we’d anoint the creation of the third syllable of her name with the Swahili word for “fairy.”
Flitting like one, eyes beaming, pearly-white teeth, dress of royal hue; rocking the toy "pooch pouch."

And we,
The descendants of diaspora
Ripped from the shores of Eden
Through Gorée Island gates
To Atlantic Oceans vast
Sleeping in bile and filth
Separated from families, children, tribes, language
Piled up end-to-end like logs and shipping crates
Endure captivity, Civil War, lynching and Jim Crow
Repeated in Louisiana
Near the French Quarter where slave Sundays birthed Jazz, Gospel, Blues, Ragtime
During Hurricane’s Katrina and Rita
Tossed over like so much trash
And fish food to “Jaws”...

And we,
Creators of algebra, astronomy,
Architects of pyramids,
Taken to Rome to engineer the aqueducts, buildings, obelisks and modern plumbing
The descendants of 3/5th humanity
Teeth examined like livestock,
Skin lightened by forced miscegenation,
The first thing post emancipation…we went looking for wives, husbands…children.
So, we weren’t looking for disrespect
To our young queen on her night,
From Seth “American Dad,” “Family Guy” McFarlane
Insulting her and George Clooney
Or, the self-important Onion

Of which,

You don’t have to peel too many layers

To see three important things:
1. You entered this life from a woman’s womb!
2. Nine-year-old children are not “small adults” you can insult.
3. It’s never a joke in this American rape-celebrating culture…to insult a woman!

Fear and Consumption...

The video (w/Spanish subtitles):

Marilyn Manson: The two by-products of that whole tragedy (Columbine) were, violence in entertainment, and gun control. And how perfect that...that was the two things that we were going to talk about with the upcoming election. And also, then we forgot about Monica Lewinsky and we forgot about, uh, the President was shooting bombs overseas, yet I'm a bad guy because I, well I sing some rock-and-roll songs, and who's a bigger influence, the President or Marilyn Manson? I'd like to think me, but I'm going to go with the President.

Michael Moore: Do you know that on the day of the Columbine massacre, the US dropped more bombs on Kosovo than any other day?

Marilyn Manson: I do know that, and I think that's really ironic, that nobody said 'well maybe the President had an influence on this violent behavior' Because that's not the way the media wants to take it and spin it, and turn it into fear, because then you're watching television, you're watching the news, you're being pumped full of fear, there's floods, there's AIDS, there's murder, cut to commercial, buy the Acura, buy the Colgate, if you have bad breath they're not going to talk to you, if you have pimples, the girl's not going to fuck you, and it's just this campaign of fear, and consumption, and that's what I think it's all based on, the whole idea of 'keep everyone afraid, and they'll consume.'

And, now...

Very familiar with Alex Jones. Went to his web sites from time to time. Bought his DVD "Endgame" I'm sad to say. He was ranting against Rick Perry back then (rants are what Alex calls "moderated debates"). Perry did attend a Bilderberg meeting before he went all religious on us, and I frankly don't know which is worse. The only pol he seems to have some affection for is Ron Paul.

With very nebulous evidence, he so-called "connects the dots" and rants about a world government takeover - mind you, he's been ranting about that for 15 years, and "white" apparently is the new brown/black.

Like Rush Limbaugh, like Howard Stern, like most shock jocks, Alex follows the Marilyn Manson formula - fear and consumption - you only have to look at any of his web sites. He's either selling books, DVDs, e-diets or survival kits. EVERYTHING is a conspiracy theory, no entity or governing body based on the Constitution is to be trusted because the neat and wonderful thing about conspiracy theories is: you really, really don't have to be an expert at what you're saying (just an associates level of education will do) and you don't have to PROVE anything. We no longer have a standard for decency, veracity: truth. We've reaped the whirlwind of "creating our own realities," "magical thinking," and a slick presentation that anyone with software and a web cam can produce to "prove" from the moon launch was faked to 9/11 was an inside job. We're at a point where we can no longer respect any authority: clergy, congress, each other, parents, the president nor the very mechanisms like reference and veracity that make us a civilized society. I'm afraid with this delusional bent, we won't be civilized for too much longer.

Sometimes, it depends on how loud you rant, rave and as Piers Morgan stated: "sound terrifying." He should remember the Bard: "Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury: signifying nothing!"

Fear. Consumption. Moolah. Home boy doesn't look like he's missed any meals. Just saying...

The Interrupters...

Watch The Interrupters (Graphic Language) on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

These Little Ones...

What Threat Are Children?

It's Time To Call It What It Is...

My previous posting on "Cognitive Dissonance" was rather wonkish to say the least; clever if I do say so myself, but this is raw hatred bred deeply in our classmates, coworkers, church members, bowling partners, fantasy league members and in general cousins in the human species bones. It's beyond class warfare or a war on women's rights. It's deeper; darker: uglier and more dangerous.

Never mind that human life originated in Africa; that the oldest known footprints of Homo Erectus happens to have been found in Kenya. It makes us all African, this expressed malady over class, place and pigmentation a form of melanin-envy and self-loathing.

Never mind that hate is not an election-winning strategy and that Karl Rove waisted a lot of billionaire's money trying to throw the election from "We the People" to the oligarchs.

We worship money. The free market is god (small g), and like the law of gravity and the ten commandments cannot be altered in anyway that might be beneficial to the rest of us. We apotheosized it in prosperity gospel ministry, which is expressed in the Bible, but wrongly applied by certain operatives, thereby leaving the faith community impotent to critique greed and avarice when they see it: since many of the wrong applicants practice it.

We're supposedly divided between "makers and takers" and the self-labled makers seem to have no problem taking another tax cut. Their recipe for job creation has so far equaled Marie Antoinette's famously attributed comment (actually by Maria Theresa 100 years before in Spain): "let them eat cake." There is no room at the oligarch's Inns, mansions or dinner tables.

We're headed for the so-called (and poorly named by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke) fiscal cliff with the same recalcitrant players in the House of Representative that really represent the 1% aforementioned that wasted their investment on "Turd Blossom's" political acumen and math skills.

Joel Osteen believed Mitt Romney to be a Christian despite decades of demonization from evangelical groups that suddenly out of political expediency decided they were not.

THIS IS A MENTAL DISORDER: on the day Jared Lee Loughner was sentenced to 7 consecutive life sentences plus 140 years (geez), we'd be mindful that this information age may be overloading weaker minds. Thus, birth certificates in short or long form; Harvard transcripts and passports demanded by bloviating reality-show hosts that could spend $50 on a good toupee versus 5 million on an empty stunt are irrelevant when you've already a made-up mind that what facts don't agree with your skewed worldview will be judged false.

I'm not saying the shootings in Arizona were racially motivated, but the so-called "End of Days" comes once again 21 December 2012 -- which is correctly the winter solstice. I for one, am not going to be in public places nor am I going to Times Square in NYC to ring in 2013.

And don't worry: once this one dawns, sunsets and 22 December happens: they'll find another thing to fear and dread. Which only makes me fear and dread their reactions to an ever-changing demographic.

Cognitive Dissonance...

Cognitive Dissonance

From Hey to Rant!...

This is the most partisan posting I've done on this blog. However, this is far too important, for the country possibly being led by an extreme fringe that put on a show Wednesday trying to go "relentlessly to center" to paraphrase Nixon. It started with a lackluster solicitation email I received Thursday morning titled: "Hey."

Dear Mr. President,

I was at work Wednesday night, but I have heard the coverage regarding the debates. They said Governor Romney won. It was like getting punched in the gut.

No mention of the 47%. Or the fact that he was 47^th in job creation while governor. Someone with your rhetorical skills should have made poetry with those two items; mincemeat out of Mr. Romney.

Wednesday was you and First Lady Michelle's anniversary. Do me a favor: FIRE the lawyers that deliberated and put the first debate on what should have been YOUR and the First Lady's private day.

Also sir: Mr. Romney obviously suffers from Pseudologia Fantasticia, AKA pathological lying. His running mate is a "chip-off-the-old-block" with admiring Ayn Rand in one video-taped breath, then repudiating her as if he never knew the author of "Atlas Shrugged" was a militant atheist (her words: I know some atheists, and they're quite pleasant).

What's at stake: we're in the "Twilight Zone" with a dominionist-dominated Republican Party hijacking privately-practiced religion for one public end: power. Former GOP operative Mike Lofgren says it's become "an apocalyptic cult." You won only on facts, not style, and the crowd that's adamant about voting for Willard ain't thinking about the "facts": they once labeled his faith as a cult until left with no other alternative. In the words of a political operative to Run Suskind, they "create their own realities."

It's a shame we're discussing the "controversy" about evolution, question whether the earth is over four billion years old or six thousand years old. Meanwhile, "back at the ranch" of global competition, countries we helped build up with the Marshall Plan post WWII have no such delusional machinations. They march forward in STEM careers, creating more scientists and engineers than our own universities as we put our heads in ostrich sands; our minds in reverse back to God-knows-where, but I bet where we land won't have a middle class or America as fabled "shining city on a hill." I'm a year younger than you, and I can recall getting more on evolution and sex education during the late seventies than my twenty and thirty year old sons. Science is no threat to religious faith, and any reality created, virtual or imagined, cannot govern.

Let me end with Kevin Costner and Sean Connery in The Untouchables: "Don't bring a knife to a gun fight," and by the way: you're FROM Chicago!

Related link: William Rivers Pitt - A Nationally-Televised Presidential Fail

Morning Joe...

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Mindful Of Matters...

This would have been my mother's 87^th birthday. I am thinking of her, mindful of matters near and far, great and small.

The current conflagration in the Near East at the US Embassies in Egypt and Libya that have spread to even more countries, my curiousity led me to this entry on PBS.org:

Muslims believe that God had previously revealed Himself to the earlier prophets of the Jews and Christians, such as Abraham, Moses, and Jesus. Muslims therefore accept the teachings of both the Jewish Torah and the Christian Gospels. They believe that Islam is the perfection of the religion revealed first to Abraham (who is considered the first Muslim) and later to other prophets. Muslims believe that Jews and Christians have strayed from God's true faith but hold them in higher esteem than pagans and unbelievers. They call Jews and Christians the "People of the Book" and allow them to practice their own religions. Muslims believe that Muhammad is the "seal of the prophecy," by which they mean that he is the last in the series of prophets God sent to mankind.

Poughkeepsie Journal: “Any way you dissect it, from a moral or religious standpoint, those protesters broke our commandments,” said Umar Ahmad, a longtime member of the Mid-Hudson Islamic Association located in the Town of Wappinger. “What happened in Libya is unforgivable.”

I am not a Muslim. I do have Muslim members of my family, as well as agnostic, Jehovah's Witness, nondenominational, etc. We respect one another. Proselytizing one another has never occurred in any conversations I've had with them. What counts most is the relationship; the familial bond.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow...one of the most famous soliloquies written by Shakespeare, spoken from the mouth of Macbeth, a fictional ruler grieving the loss of his wife, musing aloud the futility's of life, the emphasis on unimportant things with respect to the brevity of existence.

We have selective amnesia regarding John Donne's admonition and cautionary warning.

We are all involved in mankind by virtue of being a part of it. The oceans no longer separate us; our worldviews aren't dictated by our limited experiences where we immediately are.

I reject the notion any culture's sacred text - Buddhist, Christian, Hebrew, Hindu, Mormon, Muslim et al - is somehow in some bigoted comparison, worthy of desecration. I reject the notion of demonizing Agnostics or Atheists. I reject - as does the US Constitution - the idea of religious tests as a qualifier for elected office (though news pundits seem to count how many times the president uses the word "God" - and he does quite often - as if this is relevant). I reject the notion that an amateurish video of moribund, racist stereotypes falls under "free speech" and "our American values," unless those values now typify the classroom bully; the boot of empire stamped on the neck of the world. Freedom of speech does not give one the right to yell fire in a building not ablaze!

I am as diminished by the loss of diplomats abroad as I am military service members deployed, as I am the senseless loss of life in inner cities across the United States.

I quote President Reagan, post the failed rescue attempt 1979 in Iran, Desert 1:

"This is the time for us as a nation and a people to stand united and to pray."

Simple, elegant, sober, reflective and quite presidential.

It is in times of triumph and tragedy our leaders are called upon to quell our fears; raise our hopes. Personal vendettas and assaults are the mark of petty minds, I am particularly diminished by candidates that would take death so lightly as to score political points.

Isaiah 11:6 ends: ...and a little child shall lead them. I end with this photo from Facebook, the future meek that will "inherit the earth." I wish mom could see it. I think it would make her smile, and speaks more volumes than the cleverest self-serving sound bite:

Facebook

Happy birthday, mom.

Janus Speaks Utopia with Forked Tongue

© 2 September 2012, the Griot Poet

"We want our country back!"
The question is: back to when; to what?

Gil Scott-Heron rests in peace

Yet, his piece "B-Movie" might as well be prophesy,

Predicting a looking forward two-faced like the Roman Deity Janus: facing forward while looking back at least to last week (or, our own anus),

To a majority utopia existent only in your Amygdala fear-driven reptilian minds...

Descendants of migrants from Europe to Plymouth Rock and Ellis Island

Dependent on newer ones from Africa or Central America as servants until the PIE: performance, image and exposure, has to eventually be upturned in 2042 when you are no longer a numerical majority.

The White House, so named in 1901 because it was easier than “Executive Mansion”

Became a symbol of what you’d refer to as American Exceptionalism

And like fascism, cloaked it in a flag, and carrying a cross.

So, while you’re still culturally “the boss”

You're willing to put out obfuscations and outright lies,

Whacked-out conspiracy theories on falsified birth certificates, death panels, “he’s going to take away our guns,” “secret-Muslim-in-the-church-house-Resurrection-Sunday,” etcetera’s,
Voter ID cum Diebold voter purge cum 21st century poll taxes...

**********
In a February appearance on The Daily Show, Bruce Bartlett (former Reagan Economic Policy Advisor), said "Frankly one of our political parties is insane, and we all know which one it is.'

"They have descended from the realm of reasonableness that was the mark of conservatism…"

"They dream of anarchy, of ending government.''

Bartlett argues a new radical right in the Republican Party will oppose anything - even good conservative policy - if Democrats agree to it.

**********
Tell me: since when did obliterating the 8th commandment constitute a "family value?"

Or, running from your own policies because your opposite tries to reach consensus constitute reason and governance? Sounds like tyranny…

You rail against gays and lesbians, yet have them prominently in your Grand Old Party, for one (no, two): George W’s reelection campaign manager and Dick (Darth Vader) Cheney’s daughter and her companion.

Hell, Rush Limp-bah had Elton John perform at his fourth “traditional marriage” from-the-previous-train-wrecks wedding ceremony with notably his beau from the UK in tow.

(And Rush: we THANK YOU for practicing good birth control/safe sex and not procreating!)

Let’s not forget: Newt-the-scoot’s blood sister,
You blithely dog whistle at the tin edges of racial insurrection, yet think yourself a big tent because you have Condi Rice and Allen West? Keep ‘EM!

And when disturbed minds take your wit as holy writ resulting in a congresswoman’s recovery from a murderous attempt, or your pundit’s caustic rhetoric causes an abortion doctor’s assassination in a house of worship, you’re quick to quip: NOT ME!

If you have an argument, voter ID cum Diebold voter purge cum 21st century poll taxes is completely unnecessary.

The electorate in a representative democracy votes rationally, not like text-in adherents to American Idol.

No wonder you ride the train of “limited government,” by which you mean:
- Education
- Police protection
- EMS and Fire Departments

Or, the very bedrock of representative government
Because your avarice Mammon billionaire gods can afford that,
(And wonders why the rest of us can’t)

Kissing butt on Scrooge McDuck is the height of idolatry (and hypocrisy)
And idiocy to the “trickle-down” fantasy
You listen to lobbyists outnumbering you five-to-one senator or congress member

And you can’t remember
Any promise you made beyond the grace of their campaign donations
To “protect and defend The Constitution from all enemies both foreign and domestic”
And have the “Audacity of Dopes”
To not see
That enemy
Is in your own

Reflection!

Trolling the NYT Editorial Pages...

Working on a piece that kind of starts like this:

"We want our country back!"
Gil-Scott Heron rests in peace,
Yet, his piece "B-Movie" might as well be prophesy,
Predicting your look forward is two-faced like the Roman Deity Janus: facing forward while looking back to last week,
To a utopia existent only in your Agmydala driven reptilian minds...

So, you're willing to put out obfuscations and outright lies,
Whacked conspiracy theories on falsified birth certificates, death panels, etceteras,
Voter ID cum Diebold voter purge cum 21st century poll taxes...

Tell me: since when did obliterating the 8th commandment constitute a "family value?"

Get back to you on that. Here are the articles that made me think and the last one laugh out loud!

Checkpoint: Facts Take a Beating in Acceptance Speeches, by Michael Cooper


New York Times Opinion Pages
Editorial: Mr. Romney Reinvents History
Op-ed columnist: The Medicare Killers, by Paul Krugman
Op-ed columnist: Party of Strivers, by David Brooks
Op-ed columnist: The Real Romney, by David Brooks (this is the one I fell out over)

"Don't Drink No Water"...

The quote from this scene and the book bothered me enough to look it up officially:

Drinking plenty of cold, clear water is essential for your health and, in fact, for your very survival. You can live much longer without food than you can without water. Water is an important part of all body functions and processes, including digestion and elimination. When you’re on a diet, water also acts as a weight-loss aid because it can help you eat less.

See: Everyday Health link.

Ray Charles in an interview said: "he just didn't like water." Maybe it stems from this. It would explain our propensity for weight gain, high blood pressure, diabetes and other related health ailments. It would explain our gravitation towards fatback, salt pork and junk foods, especially in the south. Dieticians advise increasing our water intake, as we may not be as hungry more than we are thirsty.

It would explain a lot mostly blamed on biology/genetics (either not to be confused with the pseudo-science of Eugenics), when it just could have simply been the way society was structured, and how our bodies silently endured it for a very long time.

The Dred Scott decision: According to Chief Justice Taney “the authors of the Constitution had viewed all blacks as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”

See also Langston Hughes on Poets.org: Black Like Me

Myth vs. Reality...

Scoreboard

© 23 July 2012, the Griot Poet

Tyrants overthrown: 0
Co-workers, students, spouses, store clerks’ * et al: near ∞

And we cower
Kowtowed by lobbyists’ power
NRA clout and dollars
Make our representatives “want to holler”
They “throw up both their hands” GLADLY – with open bank bags
Raking in dollars
Dialing for dollars
As far as their main occupation,
Legislation: Oh! “Our main objective is to make Barack Obama a one-term president.”
Holding up the vote for raising the debt ceiling
Has the world economy reeling from the stench
Of Tea Parties
And downgrading precedents
In harbors
Harboring
Reflections back to times that never existed
Reagan raised taxes eleven times
Yet, they apotheosize him as a deficit hawk
And freedom – for the one-percent he served…

Gabby Giffords had to quit
A “blue dog” democrat
From Arizona
Because a disturbed Jared Lee Loughner
Thought she’d help initiate 2nd amendment Ragnarok

Major Nidal Hasan lost it in the heat of a Texas summer
On Fort Hood
The largest military base in the US
Should not be a place for “that kind of” combat stress
For military members
And innocent dependents
Victims of his ideology birthed by
Rants from a cleric
He’d met over the Internet…

Now, we have Colorado
Colored by blood in a theater
Once more: a disturbed member of humanity
Orders 6,000 rounds of ammo
Two semiautomatic handguns
One shotgun
An AR-15
And Kevlar armament
Saying to anybody paying attention
(Before he went from brunette to orange)
James Holmes was preparing
For war
As his own anarchist “Joker”
Though, [I] not being an expert at poker
Nor a neuroscientist or psychologist
Can see someone associating orange
With Batman’s nemesis
Is NOT playing with a full deck!

No less than
Mayor Mike Bloomberg
And former presidential candidate John McCain
Call for sane gun control
Beyond the political roll refrain
Of protecting the 2nd amendment rights
For law-abiding citizens

Seung-Hui Cho WAS a law-abiding citizen
Before causing a wreck at Virginia Tech!

How many more
Than twelve plus fifty plus
Would have died
If the NRA
Had their dream no longer deferred
Of arming ALL citizens
When a wallet
Birthed nineteen shots landing
Out of forty-one
From NY cops
For Amadou Diallo?

Or Sean Bell
Was sent to the gates
Of Heaven (not Hell)
When his only sin
Was attending his own
Bachelor party?

Were the Founding Fathers
Thinking of semiautomatic
Weapons
When they penned
The 2nd amendment
Or, were they
Thinking of the Minute Men
Defending their homes
From Red Coat British muskets?
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana
My corollary:
“Those who do not learn from (or learn) history, are doomed to be sheep!”

* Inspired by political cartoon

They Called It Football...

R.I.P. Andy Griffith...