Friday, July 31, 2009
Thursday, July 23, 2009
On "the Birthers" and Lou Dobbs
See: Dobbs Joins ‘Birthers,’ But CNN Pushes Back
I'm curious: would this controversy have any legs where his name "President Barry O'Bama" and his father were from Ireland?
Barack means "blessing" in Arabic, in Aramaic it is spelled Baruch and occurs 24 times in the Bible (for all you Christian right-wingers)!
5/27/2009 Briefing by White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs
The White House Press Secretary, Mr. Gibbs states:
"MR. GIBBS: Lester, this question in many ways continues to astound me. The state of Hawaii provided a copy with the seal of the President's birth. I know there are apparently at least 400,000 people -- (laughter) -- that continue to doubt the existence of and the certification by the state of Hawaii of the President's birth there, but it's on the Internet because we put it on the Internet for each of those 400,000 to download. I certainly hope by the fourth year of our administration that we'll have dealt with this burgeoning birth controversy."
Snopes.com debunks it: Obama Birth Certificate
Here's a link with the seal of the 50th state of Hawaii:
Hawaii: Obama Birth Certificate with the state seal
Racism. A narcissism of self-centered, paranoia resulting from the notion that right or wrong, all things are "good" when someone like "me" is in charge.
I'm curious: would this controversy have any legs where his name "President Barry O'Bama" and his father were from Ireland?
Barack means "blessing" in Arabic, in Aramaic it is spelled Baruch and occurs 24 times in the Bible (for all you Christian right-wingers)!
5/27/2009 Briefing by White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs
The White House Press Secretary, Mr. Gibbs states:
"MR. GIBBS: Lester, this question in many ways continues to astound me. The state of Hawaii provided a copy with the seal of the President's birth. I know there are apparently at least 400,000 people -- (laughter) -- that continue to doubt the existence of and the certification by the state of Hawaii of the President's birth there, but it's on the Internet because we put it on the Internet for each of those 400,000 to download. I certainly hope by the fourth year of our administration that we'll have dealt with this burgeoning birth controversy."
Snopes.com debunks it: Obama Birth Certificate
Here's a link with the seal of the 50th state of Hawaii:
Hawaii: Obama Birth Certificate with the state seal
Racism. A narcissism of self-centered, paranoia resulting from the notion that right or wrong, all things are "good" when someone like "me" is in charge.
Monday, July 20, 2009
No Prayers
© 20 July 2009, 11:59 PM, The Griot Poet
I have no prayers to utter to God…
It is not that I don’t believe in Him,
I’m definitely beset by some demon
Assigned to my overt oppression and demise…
I pray for others healings and they do recover
I slack and their marriages suffer…
Like Moses, my arms get tired sometimes
Like Elijah, I suffer depression after dueling with the prophets of Baal and Ashtoreth in groves.
Like Paul, I have thorns in my side; I am left for dead many times
Like today: on the anniversary of seeing earth from God’s front porch
I am defeated by nineteen points
Separating me from bidding on a classroom this fall…
What sin can I not be forgiven?
What sin spews back from the sea of forgetfulness?
Back to shore to chagrin me again and again?
What blocks my prayers so that after ravens feed me?
I am seeking for God… to kill me?
GIVE ME AN ANSWER!
So I can declare to my disciples that there are “more with us than there are with them.”
So I can ride a chariot of fire, translate death and give a double portion of my mantle to my sons
As I ascend before Apollo 11 beyond the sun to God’s front porch.
I have no prayers to utter to God…
It is not that I don’t believe in Him,
I’m definitely beset by some demon
Assigned to my overt oppression and demise…
I pray for others healings and they do recover
I slack and their marriages suffer…
Like Moses, my arms get tired sometimes
Like Elijah, I suffer depression after dueling with the prophets of Baal and Ashtoreth in groves.
Like Paul, I have thorns in my side; I am left for dead many times
Like today: on the anniversary of seeing earth from God’s front porch
I am defeated by nineteen points
Separating me from bidding on a classroom this fall…
What sin can I not be forgiven?
What sin spews back from the sea of forgetfulness?
Back to shore to chagrin me again and again?
What blocks my prayers so that after ravens feed me?
I am seeking for God… to kill me?
GIVE ME AN ANSWER!
So I can declare to my disciples that there are “more with us than there are with them.”
So I can ride a chariot of fire, translate death and give a double portion of my mantle to my sons
As I ascend before Apollo 11 beyond the sun to God’s front porch.
Rachel Maddow Correcting the Record
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Friday, July 03, 2009
Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes...
...Who Watches the Watchmen?
(Last page of the comic novel, "The Watchmen," from Juvenal, Satires VI, 347, used during the Tower Commission Report in 1987)
See: Meltdown 101: Unemployment by the Numbers
The markets were pummeled by the news that unemployment was its highest in 26 years: 9.5 percent.
From the article:
"How bad is the current recession? Here's one measure: the United States now has fewer jobs than it did nine years ago, even though the work force - the number of people either working or looking for work - has grown by 12.5 million people since then.
"It's the first time since the Great Depression that a recession has wiped out all the jobs created during the previous business cycle, according to Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank."
I'll let you read the rest at the link above, but some thoughts as to how we're in this mess:
1. Fewer jobs: from a techie standpoint, a lot of that has to do with automation and the Internet. Remember "The Jetsons"? George's job at Spacely's Sprockets was to "push the button": he seemed the only employee needed. Jobs that had to be done in the US can now be done overseas in cheaper labor markets, results delivered in hypertext transfer protocol. (I don't support this, I'm just trying to wrap my mind around it and offer an explanation.)
2. Also, births. That is, those in 1983 - 1990 or so, those kids are now 18 - 25 and looking for something to do.
3. Lifers. I was one of them. And because the lifers are happy doing their part, their "cog" in the great wheel of industry, even though their talents and skill sets may have in many cases atrophied, they don't up and quit and start businesses: they pad their 401k and wait, hopefully for retirement (instead of layoffs = the elephant graveyard).
4. Nine years ago, we weren't as bad off as we are now. The election cycle for 2000 started with a surplus that got spent into a deficit rather quickly.
5. 9/11. Enough said.
6. War in Iraq. A "billion dollars a month" (an estimate I've heard on the news). Hm: March 2003 - July 2009 = 76 months X 1,000,000,000 = 76,000,000,000 of significant deficit reduction.
Our "Brave New World" is here, and we were not at all ready for the rapid changes that would mean. Automation may save "The Big Three" and put out green Hybrid vehicles, but a robot may be able to do what Uncle Billy used to do to put his family through school, making a upper middle class wage without a degree.
The old school sci fi flicks had us all with ENORMOUS heads and small bodies, that was obviously countered and documented in The Assault on Reason and Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free. We obviously are the diametric opposite: small brains and large, grossly out-of-shape bodies.
At this point: the only advice I can offer is to read, read, READ and be ready at a moment's notice to DO something else! I had to learn that lesson the hard way, as many of you are now experiencing the lament of jobs and security that will probably never come back, until we discover Warp Drive.
Niel Postman commented on where we are (from the "boob tube" perspective) in his insightful book: Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. When it takes the National Enquirer to bust John Edwards having an affair, we're at a place where only bloggers scoop the news on the street, because we're not driven by the market, ratings or stock valuations. We are the very expression of democracy, which is a contact sport, not a jingo, market-driven slogan-fest of litmus tests of how "right" or "left" one is. That doesn't come up on my monthly grocery budget, my bills, my mortgage. I've changed and rearranged things in anticipation of less for the time being, ready to evolve into something on the horizon that will be different than any economy we've ever known... for the better.
Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes...Who Watches the Watchmen? WE do!
(Last page of the comic novel, "The Watchmen," from Juvenal, Satires VI, 347, used during the Tower Commission Report in 1987)
See: Meltdown 101: Unemployment by the Numbers
The markets were pummeled by the news that unemployment was its highest in 26 years: 9.5 percent.
From the article:
"How bad is the current recession? Here's one measure: the United States now has fewer jobs than it did nine years ago, even though the work force - the number of people either working or looking for work - has grown by 12.5 million people since then.
"It's the first time since the Great Depression that a recession has wiped out all the jobs created during the previous business cycle, according to Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank."
I'll let you read the rest at the link above, but some thoughts as to how we're in this mess:
1. Fewer jobs: from a techie standpoint, a lot of that has to do with automation and the Internet. Remember "The Jetsons"? George's job at Spacely's Sprockets was to "push the button": he seemed the only employee needed. Jobs that had to be done in the US can now be done overseas in cheaper labor markets, results delivered in hypertext transfer protocol. (I don't support this, I'm just trying to wrap my mind around it and offer an explanation.)
2. Also, births. That is, those in 1983 - 1990 or so, those kids are now 18 - 25 and looking for something to do.
3. Lifers. I was one of them. And because the lifers are happy doing their part, their "cog" in the great wheel of industry, even though their talents and skill sets may have in many cases atrophied, they don't up and quit and start businesses: they pad their 401k and wait, hopefully for retirement (instead of layoffs = the elephant graveyard).
4. Nine years ago, we weren't as bad off as we are now. The election cycle for 2000 started with a surplus that got spent into a deficit rather quickly.
5. 9/11. Enough said.
6. War in Iraq. A "billion dollars a month" (an estimate I've heard on the news). Hm: March 2003 - July 2009 = 76 months X 1,000,000,000 = 76,000,000,000 of significant deficit reduction.
Our "Brave New World" is here, and we were not at all ready for the rapid changes that would mean. Automation may save "The Big Three" and put out green Hybrid vehicles, but a robot may be able to do what Uncle Billy used to do to put his family through school, making a upper middle class wage without a degree.
The old school sci fi flicks had us all with ENORMOUS heads and small bodies, that was obviously countered and documented in The Assault on Reason and Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free. We obviously are the diametric opposite: small brains and large, grossly out-of-shape bodies.
At this point: the only advice I can offer is to read, read, READ and be ready at a moment's notice to DO something else! I had to learn that lesson the hard way, as many of you are now experiencing the lament of jobs and security that will probably never come back, until we discover Warp Drive.
Niel Postman commented on where we are (from the "boob tube" perspective) in his insightful book: Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. When it takes the National Enquirer to bust John Edwards having an affair, we're at a place where only bloggers scoop the news on the street, because we're not driven by the market, ratings or stock valuations. We are the very expression of democracy, which is a contact sport, not a jingo, market-driven slogan-fest of litmus tests of how "right" or "left" one is. That doesn't come up on my monthly grocery budget, my bills, my mortgage. I've changed and rearranged things in anticipation of less for the time being, ready to evolve into something on the horizon that will be different than any economy we've ever known... for the better.
Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes...Who Watches the Watchmen? WE do!
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Friday, June 26, 2009
Threes
© 26 June 2009, The Griot Poet
They say that death comes in threes:
First, my cat Felix died quietly, as mysteriously as she’d appeared on my doorstep fully grown 15 years prior, she expired after mewing on the front stoop and curled up as if to nap – from which she did not come back.
Two weeks later: my mother, Mildred Dean Goodwin expired two days before Mother’s Day weekend. Which is like her: I’ll bet I’ll never forget this anniversary as I had hers and my father’s wedding anniversary. For that, Mother’s Day will always have meaning.
David Carradine: this generation knows him as the Bill of “Kill Bill” with the enigmatic Uma Thurman, but despite his personal demons off camera, he was the star from the Bruce Lee inspired “Kung Fu” series (Bruce was a little too “oriental” for 70s producers back then)…
This week: we lost the perennial “side kick” Ed McMahon, after suffering from breathing problems and cancer. He and he only could laugh at an obviously unfunny joke by Johnny Carson and have the audience guffaw with him.
The modern-day pin-up girl Farrah Fawcett was published in Life in ‘76; it is the best-selling pin-up poster of all time, with more than 12 million copies purchased (exceeding her weekly TV salary)... her show number one because the Corpus Christi beauty admitted “we’re number one maybe because we all don’t wear bras,” lost her life, the fantasy girl of “Charlie’s Angels” to colon cancer…
Now Michael Joe Jackson: the poor boy in the stereotypical crowded black family from Gary, Indiana who’s father was a failed musician who became the “King of Pop,” became the first to star and aligned himself with a sports star – Michael Jordan and “Jam” became the standard of video and performance excellence, became the inspiration of Usher and Justin Timberlake (they were in diapers when he did “Billy Jean” and “Thriller”). His was a “rags to riches (to rags)” story. His was evidence that any dream is possible if you work your behind off and pursue it, despite your culture, color, demons or personal struggles. His is the record of best selling pop album of all time. Any goal, no matter how outrageous is worth pursuing because despite spiritual traditions to the contrary: I suspect we only have this life to pursue it and then oblivion and judgment.
They say death comes in threes:
“For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.” (1 John 5:7 – 8)
If this is truly our reality, then let us pursue our talents and serve Deity and humanity as we walk out our destinies – our judgment of the impact of our storied pasts will be what is said about us when we’ve breathed our last.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Meditation 17 (1623 - 1624) by John Donne
CNN Story: Teen Beating
I put the link because, apparently, their embed code doesn't work. When you go on You Tube and put in "Teen Cat Fight"... let's just say you get interpretations bordering on the profane.
Slowly... we are walking towards the guillotine, happy at our own demise as a civilization. The very thing that frees us - the Internet - enslaves us. We are detached from emotion, affection, true feelings, empathy. We carry on relationships at light speed with people distant from us. The beating of a child only prompted the announcement: "this is going to You Tube" from bystanders that wouldn't call the police.
Our knowledge is incredible; our education suffers; our respect for self and others absent; our wisdom lacking.
We die, with Cheshire smiles as we disappear - TGP
Meditation 17 (1623-1624)
by John Donne
Nunc lento sonitu dicunt, morieris.
Now this bell tolling softly for another, says to me, Thou must die.
Perchance he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill as that he knows not it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me and see my state may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that.
The church is catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does belongs to all. When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that head which is my head too, and ingrafted into the body whereof I am a member. And when she buries a man, that action concerns me: all mankind is of one author and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated. God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God’s hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another.
As therefore the bell that rings a sermon calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come, so this bell calls us all; but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness. There was a contention as far as a suit (in which piety and dignity, religion and estimation, were mingled) which of the religious orders should ring to prayers first in the morning; and it was determined that they should ring first that rose earliest.
If we understand aright the dignity of this bell that tolls for our evening prayer, we would be glad to make it ours by rising early, in that application, that it might be ours as well as his whose indeed it is. The bell doth toll for him that thinks it doth; and though it intermit again, yet from that minute that that occasion wrought upon him, he is united to God. Who casts not up his eye to the sun when it rises? But who takes off his eye from a comet when that breaks out? Who bends not his ear to any bell which upon any occasion rings? But who can remove it from that bell which is passing a piece of himself out of this world?
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were. Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Neither can we call this a begging of misery or a borrowing of misery, as though we are not miserable enough of ourselves but must fetch in more from the next house, in taking upon us the misery of our neighbors. Truly it were an excusable covetousness if we did; for affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it. No man hath affliction enough that is not matured and ripened by it, and made fit for God by that affliction.
If a man carry treasure in bullion, or in a wedge of gold, and have none coined into current moneys, his treasure will not defray him as he travels. Tribulation is treasure in the nature of it, but it is not current money in the use of it, except we get nearer and nearer our home, heaven, by it. Another man may be sick too, and sick to death, and this affliction may lie in his bowels as gold in a mine and be of no use to him; but this bell that tells me of his affliction digs out and applies that gold to me, if by this consideration of anothers dangers I take mine own into contemplation and so secure myself by making my recourse to my God, who is our only security.
I put the link because, apparently, their embed code doesn't work. When you go on You Tube and put in "Teen Cat Fight"... let's just say you get interpretations bordering on the profane.
Slowly... we are walking towards the guillotine, happy at our own demise as a civilization. The very thing that frees us - the Internet - enslaves us. We are detached from emotion, affection, true feelings, empathy. We carry on relationships at light speed with people distant from us. The beating of a child only prompted the announcement: "this is going to You Tube" from bystanders that wouldn't call the police.
Our knowledge is incredible; our education suffers; our respect for self and others absent; our wisdom lacking.
We die, with Cheshire smiles as we disappear - TGP
Meditation 17 (1623-1624)
by John Donne
Nunc lento sonitu dicunt, morieris.
Now this bell tolling softly for another, says to me, Thou must die.
Perchance he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill as that he knows not it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me and see my state may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that.
The church is catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does belongs to all. When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that head which is my head too, and ingrafted into the body whereof I am a member. And when she buries a man, that action concerns me: all mankind is of one author and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated. God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God’s hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another.
As therefore the bell that rings a sermon calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come, so this bell calls us all; but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness. There was a contention as far as a suit (in which piety and dignity, religion and estimation, were mingled) which of the religious orders should ring to prayers first in the morning; and it was determined that they should ring first that rose earliest.
If we understand aright the dignity of this bell that tolls for our evening prayer, we would be glad to make it ours by rising early, in that application, that it might be ours as well as his whose indeed it is. The bell doth toll for him that thinks it doth; and though it intermit again, yet from that minute that that occasion wrought upon him, he is united to God. Who casts not up his eye to the sun when it rises? But who takes off his eye from a comet when that breaks out? Who bends not his ear to any bell which upon any occasion rings? But who can remove it from that bell which is passing a piece of himself out of this world?
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were. Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Neither can we call this a begging of misery or a borrowing of misery, as though we are not miserable enough of ourselves but must fetch in more from the next house, in taking upon us the misery of our neighbors. Truly it were an excusable covetousness if we did; for affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it. No man hath affliction enough that is not matured and ripened by it, and made fit for God by that affliction.
If a man carry treasure in bullion, or in a wedge of gold, and have none coined into current moneys, his treasure will not defray him as he travels. Tribulation is treasure in the nature of it, but it is not current money in the use of it, except we get nearer and nearer our home, heaven, by it. Another man may be sick too, and sick to death, and this affliction may lie in his bowels as gold in a mine and be of no use to him; but this bell that tells me of his affliction digs out and applies that gold to me, if by this consideration of anothers dangers I take mine own into contemplation and so secure myself by making my recourse to my God, who is our only security.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Synapses
© 24 November 2008, The Griot Poet
I dreamt I made poetry to you in Milky Way Galaxy arms surrounded by swirls of stars in an expansive blackness that had no beginning, no ending…
I dreamt I made poetry to you [by] composing sonnets on comets passing by, the ice melting in the sunshine of your sharp gaze, your smile, its trail marking orbital passage…
I dreamt I made poetry to you as you defied physics and I heard you like a siren, serenely reciting poetic prophecies that made each area of my brain light up on an MRI screen like a Christmas tree…
I dreamt I made poetry to you in timeless space-time, so we experimented with cosmic compositions; haiku as short burst of deep and poignant rhythm and rhyme, sinusoidal wave equations, quarks and quantum, Hydrogen to Helium fusion, Schrodinger particle/wave duality… a reality beyond human comprehension.
I dreamt I made poetry to you as my last act in life, my denouement, a solar moth attracted to a red giant flame, mesmerized by all-seeing eyes, pulled in by the third that is a gravity well that heavy particles of lies cannot escape.
I dreamt I made poetry to you and like Shakespeare, heaving my last sigh in the valley made by clockwise and counterclockwise swirling nebula pouring to an abyss of nothingness into the substance of the surrounding universe of teeming life…
Then, I awoke and stared at Venus and the rays of dawn.
I dreamt I made poetry to you in Milky Way Galaxy arms surrounded by swirls of stars in an expansive blackness that had no beginning, no ending…
I dreamt I made poetry to you [by] composing sonnets on comets passing by, the ice melting in the sunshine of your sharp gaze, your smile, its trail marking orbital passage…
I dreamt I made poetry to you as you defied physics and I heard you like a siren, serenely reciting poetic prophecies that made each area of my brain light up on an MRI screen like a Christmas tree…
I dreamt I made poetry to you in timeless space-time, so we experimented with cosmic compositions; haiku as short burst of deep and poignant rhythm and rhyme, sinusoidal wave equations, quarks and quantum, Hydrogen to Helium fusion, Schrodinger particle/wave duality… a reality beyond human comprehension.
I dreamt I made poetry to you as my last act in life, my denouement, a solar moth attracted to a red giant flame, mesmerized by all-seeing eyes, pulled in by the third that is a gravity well that heavy particles of lies cannot escape.
I dreamt I made poetry to you and like Shakespeare, heaving my last sigh in the valley made by clockwise and counterclockwise swirling nebula pouring to an abyss of nothingness into the substance of the surrounding universe of teeming life…
Then, I awoke and stared at Venus and the rays of dawn.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Voyeur Exhibitionists
From: TheFreeDictionary.com
Voyeur:
1. A person who derives sexual gratification from observing the naked bodies or sexual acts of others, especially from a secret vantage point.
2. An obsessive observer of sordid or sensational subjects.
Exhibitionism:
1. The act or practice of deliberately behaving so as to attract attention.
2. Psychiatry A psycho sexual disorder marked by the compulsive exposure of the genitals in public.
At addiction recovery meetings, it is customary to begin with the admittance to the sin before any discussion can begin: "Hello. I'm John/Jane Doe, and I'm an alcoholic/addict."
Hello. I am The Griot Poet. I am a blogger.
That, of course, is not my real name. However, many who know me know me as "The Griot Poet," literally meaning "A storyteller in western Africa who perpetuates the oral tradition and history of a village or family."
At a deeper level, I'm not too different from a voyeur. I get links sent to my profile possibly because my disclosure of age attracts anyone with curves and a web cam: the game is to get me to "look" for free, then for a fee. I typically block them (though I have looked, then blocked them).
And, why am I so "high and mighty"? Am I not writing in Cyberspace to be "looked" at? Aren't we all trying to be "discovered" and famous? Who wouldn't like to make as much as the top-seed bloggers? Be interviewed on CNN, MSNBC for your pontification and comments? I don't actually have a qualification to my audience that might "look" and show interest, benign or lewd. Did Bathsheba accidentally bath in an open window where David could see her? Was it all his idea? I get the idea (translating it into modern speak), that the lady and the king after cutting gazes at each other engaged in the modern equivalent of "the hook up" and "booty call." It takes two to Tango.
That brings up a related point: The very fact I want someone to "look" makes me an exhibitionist. My genitalia are sentences, phrases, quotes and paragraphs. I, and others are voluntarily giving personal parts of ourselves to the world wide web in what once would have been a private diary. Some of it is insightful, lewd, brilliant, crass, thought-provoking and lately, dangerous.
Some of the comments I see posted, for example, at White House Correspondent's Dinner on You Tube are from other bloggers that obviously DON'T like the president. I see the words "n----r" and "b---h" bandied about and F*CK the president.
Yet, I cannot judge them. They, like me, have a "handle," and are probably our co-workers that we respect their output (if we're still employed, that is).
So, they express their First Amendment rights in a medium the Founders had no concept of. They connect with like-minded individuals and comment anonymously with abandon and freedom. The words are on Facebook and Myspace and Twitter and YouTube. And one obsessive compulsive will read them all and repeat them over and over... like a mantra.
And like the doppelganger antimatter equivalent of Langston's "Dream Deferred..." they explode.
Voyeur:
1. A person who derives sexual gratification from observing the naked bodies or sexual acts of others, especially from a secret vantage point.
2. An obsessive observer of sordid or sensational subjects.
Exhibitionism:
1. The act or practice of deliberately behaving so as to attract attention.
2. Psychiatry A psycho sexual disorder marked by the compulsive exposure of the genitals in public.
At addiction recovery meetings, it is customary to begin with the admittance to the sin before any discussion can begin: "Hello. I'm John/Jane Doe, and I'm an alcoholic/addict."
Hello. I am The Griot Poet. I am a blogger.
That, of course, is not my real name. However, many who know me know me as "The Griot Poet," literally meaning "A storyteller in western Africa who perpetuates the oral tradition and history of a village or family."
At a deeper level, I'm not too different from a voyeur. I get links sent to my profile possibly because my disclosure of age attracts anyone with curves and a web cam: the game is to get me to "look" for free, then for a fee. I typically block them (though I have looked, then blocked them).
And, why am I so "high and mighty"? Am I not writing in Cyberspace to be "looked" at? Aren't we all trying to be "discovered" and famous? Who wouldn't like to make as much as the top-seed bloggers? Be interviewed on CNN, MSNBC for your pontification and comments? I don't actually have a qualification to my audience that might "look" and show interest, benign or lewd. Did Bathsheba accidentally bath in an open window where David could see her? Was it all his idea? I get the idea (translating it into modern speak), that the lady and the king after cutting gazes at each other engaged in the modern equivalent of "the hook up" and "booty call." It takes two to Tango.
That brings up a related point: The very fact I want someone to "look" makes me an exhibitionist. My genitalia are sentences, phrases, quotes and paragraphs. I, and others are voluntarily giving personal parts of ourselves to the world wide web in what once would have been a private diary. Some of it is insightful, lewd, brilliant, crass, thought-provoking and lately, dangerous.
Some of the comments I see posted, for example, at White House Correspondent's Dinner on You Tube are from other bloggers that obviously DON'T like the president. I see the words "n----r" and "b---h" bandied about and F*CK the president.
Yet, I cannot judge them. They, like me, have a "handle," and are probably our co-workers that we respect their output (if we're still employed, that is).
So, they express their First Amendment rights in a medium the Founders had no concept of. They connect with like-minded individuals and comment anonymously with abandon and freedom. The words are on Facebook and Myspace and Twitter and YouTube. And one obsessive compulsive will read them all and repeat them over and over... like a mantra.
And like the doppelganger antimatter equivalent of Langston's "Dream Deferred..." they explode.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
The First Amendment: Comments
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
See: Who Called Michelle a Gorilla?
The Founders had no concept of the Internet, 24-hour news, emails or Radio Talk Shows (Marconi wasn't born yet).
They also had no concept of 3/5 of a person occupying the Oval Office (women couldn't vote before the Suffrage Movement).
That being said: Letterman's comments were written FOR him and in poor taste. The joke writer should be fired, not Letterman: he's going from a script he's given and teleprompter he works from. He apologized to the governor. Move on.
The email was equally in poor taste. Demographics is working against the Republican Party. They have to retool from the party of religious conservatives - a brand they picked up after the '88 run of Pat Robertson - and white males. This email and their insistent attacks on Sotomayor, without doubt the most qualified to ever approach the nomination to the Supreme Court, will turn off moderates and ethnic minorities, WHICH THEY NEED if they have a chance of getting back into power. They're own pundits advise it, but they're not listening. Ironically, Matthew 5:5 states (in RED): "Blessed [are] the meek: for they shall inherit the earth."
See: Who Called Michelle a Gorilla?
The Founders had no concept of the Internet, 24-hour news, emails or Radio Talk Shows (Marconi wasn't born yet).
They also had no concept of 3/5 of a person occupying the Oval Office (women couldn't vote before the Suffrage Movement).
That being said: Letterman's comments were written FOR him and in poor taste. The joke writer should be fired, not Letterman: he's going from a script he's given and teleprompter he works from. He apologized to the governor. Move on.
The email was equally in poor taste. Demographics is working against the Republican Party. They have to retool from the party of religious conservatives - a brand they picked up after the '88 run of Pat Robertson - and white males. This email and their insistent attacks on Sotomayor, without doubt the most qualified to ever approach the nomination to the Supreme Court, will turn off moderates and ethnic minorities, WHICH THEY NEED if they have a chance of getting back into power. They're own pundits advise it, but they're not listening. Ironically, Matthew 5:5 states (in RED): "Blessed [are] the meek: for they shall inherit the earth."
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Eighty-Eight
© 13 June 2009, The Griot Poet
He is 88… and 8 is in the English alphabet the letter “H.” So to shout his age, Vonn Brunn also gave homage to his muse and dark sage: “Heil, Hitler!”
He coldly mowed down a gentle giant, Stephen T. Johns, whose only real crime was “HWB”: helping while black.
Now the brazen act is celebrated in hypertext transfer protocol on sites reflective of his dark meditations, disavowed by the heralds of T.E.A. parties: what twisted, dark, demented dreams does Vonn Brunn have while in critical condition, the consequence of his sick mission?
“44” is not the Messiah. At 2% of the total population of presidents, he is the pariah of groups that blame their conditions on “the government” or “the other,” failing to read the first words of the Preamble of the Constitution: “We the people” are what they despise! Their conditions are the result of decisions “We the people” make in November and don’t follow-up in December (and beyond)… Elections matter!
And, it matters if your country’s leader has a C average throughout a pampered, academic career or graduates Magna Cum Laude and edits the Harvard Law Review.
It matters if your country’s leader was bailed out throughout his life by “Pappy,” or pulled himself up as the son of a single mother by his own academic bootstraps.
It matters when your wealthy friends play the same games around Memorial Day and summer vacation with the price of gas.
It matters when lay offs and outsourcing makes the middle class last FAST!
It matters when the sheer concentration of wealth never “trickled down” in David Stockton’s wet dream fantasies, but steadily for eight long years TRICKLED UP!
It matters…
It matters…
IT MATTERS!
I pray that as he dreams Vonn Brunn has vivid visions of Paradise and Tartarus (the latter the result of his choice extreme), and that he is not the root of a salvo aiming at low hanging fruit.
I pray that his generation ages, demography and eschatology favors the “meek inheriting the earth,” and like former Hebrew slaves before he possibly lives to see Canaan: his kind and his hate passes away.
He is 88… and 8 is in the English alphabet the letter “H.” So to shout his age, Vonn Brunn also gave homage to his muse and dark sage: “Heil, Hitler!”
He coldly mowed down a gentle giant, Stephen T. Johns, whose only real crime was “HWB”: helping while black.
Now the brazen act is celebrated in hypertext transfer protocol on sites reflective of his dark meditations, disavowed by the heralds of T.E.A. parties: what twisted, dark, demented dreams does Vonn Brunn have while in critical condition, the consequence of his sick mission?
“44” is not the Messiah. At 2% of the total population of presidents, he is the pariah of groups that blame their conditions on “the government” or “the other,” failing to read the first words of the Preamble of the Constitution: “We the people” are what they despise! Their conditions are the result of decisions “We the people” make in November and don’t follow-up in December (and beyond)… Elections matter!
And, it matters if your country’s leader has a C average throughout a pampered, academic career or graduates Magna Cum Laude and edits the Harvard Law Review.
It matters if your country’s leader was bailed out throughout his life by “Pappy,” or pulled himself up as the son of a single mother by his own academic bootstraps.
It matters when your wealthy friends play the same games around Memorial Day and summer vacation with the price of gas.
It matters when lay offs and outsourcing makes the middle class last FAST!
It matters when the sheer concentration of wealth never “trickled down” in David Stockton’s wet dream fantasies, but steadily for eight long years TRICKLED UP!
It matters…
It matters…
IT MATTERS!
I pray that as he dreams Vonn Brunn has vivid visions of Paradise and Tartarus (the latter the result of his choice extreme), and that he is not the root of a salvo aiming at low hanging fruit.
I pray that his generation ages, demography and eschatology favors the “meek inheriting the earth,” and like former Hebrew slaves before he possibly lives to see Canaan: his kind and his hate passes away.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Homegrown Terrorism and Low Hanging Fruit
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I voted for Obama. I did not wear any buttons, banners, bumper stickers to identify me as an "Obamaite." Yet... my neighbors give me as wide a berth as they do my other white neighbors that PROUDLY displayed their "Obama for America" banner on their front lawns. I guess I am my own banner. If they are Supermen, my family is Kryptonite.
I had neighbors that had Obama banners complain that other neighbors...Palin/McCain supporters - came in to either steal, debase, damage or toss their banners from their yards. And, this is supposed to make us vote Republican?
I remember the accusations of his being a Muslim. The McCain rallies where his supporters announced "off with his head"; "kill him." I'm old enough to remember the deaths of Medgar Evers, John and Robert Kennedy, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King.
The spike in hate groups since his inauguration. The question about his birth in the US coming in the thinly-veiled GOP sponsored birthers bill. The "audacity of dopes" that follow the likes of Hannity, O'Reilly and boss Limbaugh, who compared Von Brunn to a leftist, see: Limbaugh blames liberals for Von Brunn.
How practical is it for them to go after Obama, with a contingent of Secret Service dedicated to his survival?
My fear is we are the "low hanging fruit" of the deranged, the nutcases that are threatened by a world that does not favor their right to power engineered from birth throughout the twisted history of this nation, to favor them. Somehow, their sense of self-worth is based squarely on our debasement, that our second (or third class) citizenship is tantamount to their own sense of well-being. The one thing Limbaugh and I can agree on: this mentality is deranged. The one thing we will never agree on is he and his kind feed the knuckle-draggers.
My prayer is that they consistently MISS their targets (us), and eventually, like the first generation of Hebrews freed from Egypt - die out.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Domestic Terrorism
See: Quitting, this blog, © 22 January 2009, The Griot Poet
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Tuesday, June 09, 2009
[Badly] Needed to be Said (Again!)
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Originally on this blog:
Monday, November 29, 2004
[Badly] Needed to be Said
© 28 June 2004, The Griot Poet
"I think that most of my colleagues felt that what I had said badly needed to be said, that it was long overdue."
VP Cheney, defending his use of vulgarity in remarks to Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy in the Senate chamber.
Fornication
Under
Consent
of the
King... George W. Bush
and his
"Fellowship of the Ring"
of Ali Baba thieves
Conceived a
Project for a
New American Century
That needed
No ties to
Reality or
Democracy
In the hypocrisy
Of FOX-y’s
“Fair and Balanced”
JedI
Mind trick
Declaration of
The latest KKK
Florida
Election
Fix!
We were
Dick-ed as
Harris, Jeb,
Baker-Botts
And Cheney
Fixed some election
Chicanery
Tossing out the
Sons and daughters
Of former slaves
Ballots
That weren’t going
To vote for them
Anyway!
Yet,
These are the
Adults
Who
Promised
“Honor and integrity”
And a return to
Civility
After a
$54 million dollar
Kenn Starr
War
Witch hunt
That took our eyes off
The ball of
Twin tower
Fires planned
By former
Bin Laden
And Saudi family
“Friends”
Closely tied
In oil business
And government
Cabals.
“We the People”
Have no right at all
To read those
Who YOU felt
Needed on
Energy policies
WE pay for!
I deplore
Garrisoned
Governments with
Snipers on the
People’s house
Resembling
Ancient & fallen
Babylon governments
Making death
Covenants
With
Orwellian
Perpetual wars
And bogeyman
Threats.
Yet,
These are the
Adults
Who
Promised
“Honor and integrity”
And a return to
Civility…
I have not
Found the
“F-word”
In the
66 books of
The canonized
Bible.
Yet,
You
Vet vulgarity
Without libel or
Apology,
As my brother and sister
Astrologies
Put star dreams
On hold
Fighting over
Sands of Eden
For an ancient
Resource: OIL!
Yet,
The party that
“Co-opted God”
Won’t apologize
Or recoil
From the obvious
Avoidance
Of Halliburton
Contrivance
In no-bid
Contracts.
Since
“Honor and integrity”
Are locked away
On a dark shelf:
Mr. Cheney -
Why don’t you
Make a plaster cast of
Your
Napoleonic,
Less-than-an-inch long
Insignificant
Male member,
Pull your pants
Down in your
Secret bunker
And joyfully
SCREW yourself!
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
Rachel Maddow & Keith Olbermann Shows-Words and Murder
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
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