Friday, January 23, 2009
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Quitting
© 22 January 2009, The Griot Poet
Unfortunately: there are some really sick people. That can look at the First Family – Barack, Michele, and our little angels Malia and Sasha – that look more like the Huxtables than the Sanford’s or burnt cork face Step-in-Fetch stereotype fantasies and pronounce the head: Antichrist.
From pulpits and talk radio shows over airwaves and the Internet… yet, I didn’t hear these self-righteous ingrates berate: Enron, World-Comm., Tyco, Fannie Mae, Freddy Mac, Wall Street, AIG and Bank bailouts!
While modern-day Robber Barons and fat cats made out like greedy fat rats and fleeced the economy negatively affecting both Republicans and Democrats!
Idolatry is a dementia that ascribes non-human status so that threats to the life of the current Commander-in-Chief INCREASE after a landslide election and an economic recession caused by the Junta cabal that preceded his administration whose only current sin is an inclination towards the promise of CHANGE.
The slew-footed, knuckle-dragging, un-evolved, deranged Cro-Magnon cavemen that listen to Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck and Sean Hannity (minus Combs), like their every twisted, politically-poled-to-manipulate-the-base word came from Mt. Sinai on holy tablet writ!
I QUIT trying to make sense of people whose twisted self-esteem is based on my Step-in-Fetch debasement.
Speaking of Holy Writ: The Scriptures says Antichrist appears after the rapture of the church from the earth, so my question to all those esteemed, evangelical, political biblical scholars: “Why are YOU still here?”
Unfortunately: there are some really sick people. That can look at the First Family – Barack, Michele, and our little angels Malia and Sasha – that look more like the Huxtables than the Sanford’s or burnt cork face Step-in-Fetch stereotype fantasies and pronounce the head: Antichrist.
From pulpits and talk radio shows over airwaves and the Internet… yet, I didn’t hear these self-righteous ingrates berate: Enron, World-Comm., Tyco, Fannie Mae, Freddy Mac, Wall Street, AIG and Bank bailouts!
While modern-day Robber Barons and fat cats made out like greedy fat rats and fleeced the economy negatively affecting both Republicans and Democrats!
Idolatry is a dementia that ascribes non-human status so that threats to the life of the current Commander-in-Chief INCREASE after a landslide election and an economic recession caused by the Junta cabal that preceded his administration whose only current sin is an inclination towards the promise of CHANGE.
The slew-footed, knuckle-dragging, un-evolved, deranged Cro-Magnon cavemen that listen to Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck and Sean Hannity (minus Combs), like their every twisted, politically-poled-to-manipulate-the-base word came from Mt. Sinai on holy tablet writ!
I QUIT trying to make sense of people whose twisted self-esteem is based on my Step-in-Fetch debasement.
Speaking of Holy Writ: The Scriptures says Antichrist appears after the rapture of the church from the earth, so my question to all those esteemed, evangelical, political biblical scholars: “Why are YOU still here?”
Monday, January 19, 2009
Thursday, January 01, 2009
Thursday, November 06, 2008
After Jericho
(c) 6 November 2008, The Griot Poet
The significance of the election of the first African American president holds meaning in the biblical story of Moses and his protégée Joshua.
Moses could not go into the Promised Land but was allowed to see it from a mountaintop. The nation of Israel, freshly freed from Egyptian slavery, still had a “slave’s mentality.” They esteemed themselves “as grasshoppers” in the sight of their adversaries as ten out of twelve spies reported. The minority – Caleb and Joshua – said for all intents and purposes: “Forget that! We can take them!”
The new nation’s lack of faith gained them the chastisement of wandering the wilderness for 40 years until Joshua and a new generation walked through a parted Jordan in similar fashion to parting the Red Sea into the Promised Land. The land “flowing with milk and honey” was rich in resources that needed workers to harness them, and had many battles – starting with Jericho – to maintain their claim to it. The new, younger nation had to WORK for their reward.
A wall has fallen, just as significant as the Jericho wall that a new nation marched around in silence for seven days, increasing their circuit proportionately matching each day’s number, shouting on the seventh and fighting to claim their prize.
I was five-years-old and a month from graduating Bethlehem Community Center, a still mostly all-black kindergarten in Winston-Salem, North Carolina when Martin – our Moses – ended his address to the Sanitation Worker’s Union in Tennessee with “I’ve been to the mountain top.” History reports he afterward collapsed in the arms of his aids, exhausted and depressed due to death threats and self-inflicted stress from his extramarital affairs. Tearfully, my class would learn from our teachers our Moses prophesied his own demise to the coincidental annual date of his opposition to the Vietnam War.
It has been forty years since Martin, and Obama is inaugurated the day after we celebrate Martin Luther King Day. Joshua. Obama as our first man of color as Chief Executive represents a mere 2.3%: 1/44 presidents in the office.
We are the remnant that has wandered the wilderness after forty years of measured progress in Civil Rights post Emmitt Till: separate water fountains and schools, forced integration, prison recidivism, black exploitation films, de facto re-segregation, the Rodney King Riots, O.J. Simpson, James Byrd in Jasper, Texas, questionable police killings, Oscar snubs, negative images in the media and seeing others progress their own agendas – women, immigrants, Hispanics, Gays and Lesbians – using the same tactics birthed in the basements of black churches. Now they with us are a coalition along with seventeen percent Republican voters that supported the candidacy of Obama and are the first evidence that maybe, we as a nation have “grown up” a little from our ignorant past.
However, Google “anti-Obama sites” and see what you pick up. The right-wing is in a dual quandary of an identity crisis and the open sores of a significant political loss. No less than Newt Gingrich is poised to oppose any Obama policy that is even center-right. As I see it: the identity crisis Republicans suffer are from the confusing mix of (1) traditional fiscal conservatism (a stance I think they should return to), (2) evangelicalism and its aversion to science, (3) neo-liberalism and its devotion to laissez-faire “trickle-down” Stockton, Chicago Friedman style economics and (4) neo-conservatism and its now defunct “Project for a New American Century” which staffed much of Bush 43’s foreign policy philosophy in the quest to expand the American Empire in a post-modern version of the Pax Romana (Peace of Rome) to a Pax Americana by force of arms.
So, it’s up to us.
As Maya Angelo stated poetically, we are truly on this new “Pulse of Morning,” the black, the white, the straight, the gay, young and old, men and women that supported this historic election can’t just shrink away and think Obama can govern by himself. He can no more do that than raise record sums in campaign contributions by himself.
Walls fall after a might shout. Victories are won after effort, struggle and a fight. You’ll still need to be engaged after the glow of the election is over. Email President Obama from www.whitehouse.gov after January 20, 2009; call your local Congressional Representatives and Senators.
Stay engaged: pray for Obama. We have a history of martyrs and a culture of violence that must change. Politics in the age of the Internet is no longer a bench-warmer sport; you can’t just vote and hope everything works out OK. Blog and email; chat and post; write poetry and essays. Your ideas are viral contagion, as has been observed and can be spread and shared by all of us benefiting all of us.
The old model observed by Noam Chomsky – Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at M.I.T. – was defined as “the bewildered herd” reacting to sloganeering, mantra, rumor and dogma versus making informed decisions as an electorate. This, of course, benefited business interests that controlled the electoral process with their well-heeled dollar donations to the campaigns. YOU shattered that. This was without a doubt, the most informed decision as an electorate we’ve made for our future. We survived the specter of Jeremiah Wright and charges of socialism, communism and “Joe the Plumber.” That herd was expected to respond like Pavlov’s dogs, then “fade away” after the election and let the business chosen elites govern them. You are not helpless anymore and President Elect Obama needs our help. The economy is in a shambles, the jobless number is bound to be terrible tomorrow and since two-thirds of our economy is dependant on consumerism, it’s unfortunately going to get worse before it starts to get better.
Your mission is simple: make President Obama not only a barrier breaker, but he and Vice President Joe Biden the most successful administration in the history of this nation that proved on November 4, 2008 that we are as good as our promise to all peoples; “We the people.”
The significance of the election of the first African American president holds meaning in the biblical story of Moses and his protégée Joshua.
Moses could not go into the Promised Land but was allowed to see it from a mountaintop. The nation of Israel, freshly freed from Egyptian slavery, still had a “slave’s mentality.” They esteemed themselves “as grasshoppers” in the sight of their adversaries as ten out of twelve spies reported. The minority – Caleb and Joshua – said for all intents and purposes: “Forget that! We can take them!”
The new nation’s lack of faith gained them the chastisement of wandering the wilderness for 40 years until Joshua and a new generation walked through a parted Jordan in similar fashion to parting the Red Sea into the Promised Land. The land “flowing with milk and honey” was rich in resources that needed workers to harness them, and had many battles – starting with Jericho – to maintain their claim to it. The new, younger nation had to WORK for their reward.
A wall has fallen, just as significant as the Jericho wall that a new nation marched around in silence for seven days, increasing their circuit proportionately matching each day’s number, shouting on the seventh and fighting to claim their prize.
I was five-years-old and a month from graduating Bethlehem Community Center, a still mostly all-black kindergarten in Winston-Salem, North Carolina when Martin – our Moses – ended his address to the Sanitation Worker’s Union in Tennessee with “I’ve been to the mountain top.” History reports he afterward collapsed in the arms of his aids, exhausted and depressed due to death threats and self-inflicted stress from his extramarital affairs. Tearfully, my class would learn from our teachers our Moses prophesied his own demise to the coincidental annual date of his opposition to the Vietnam War.
It has been forty years since Martin, and Obama is inaugurated the day after we celebrate Martin Luther King Day. Joshua. Obama as our first man of color as Chief Executive represents a mere 2.3%: 1/44 presidents in the office.
We are the remnant that has wandered the wilderness after forty years of measured progress in Civil Rights post Emmitt Till: separate water fountains and schools, forced integration, prison recidivism, black exploitation films, de facto re-segregation, the Rodney King Riots, O.J. Simpson, James Byrd in Jasper, Texas, questionable police killings, Oscar snubs, negative images in the media and seeing others progress their own agendas – women, immigrants, Hispanics, Gays and Lesbians – using the same tactics birthed in the basements of black churches. Now they with us are a coalition along with seventeen percent Republican voters that supported the candidacy of Obama and are the first evidence that maybe, we as a nation have “grown up” a little from our ignorant past.
However, Google “anti-Obama sites” and see what you pick up. The right-wing is in a dual quandary of an identity crisis and the open sores of a significant political loss. No less than Newt Gingrich is poised to oppose any Obama policy that is even center-right. As I see it: the identity crisis Republicans suffer are from the confusing mix of (1) traditional fiscal conservatism (a stance I think they should return to), (2) evangelicalism and its aversion to science, (3) neo-liberalism and its devotion to laissez-faire “trickle-down” Stockton, Chicago Friedman style economics and (4) neo-conservatism and its now defunct “Project for a New American Century” which staffed much of Bush 43’s foreign policy philosophy in the quest to expand the American Empire in a post-modern version of the Pax Romana (Peace of Rome) to a Pax Americana by force of arms.
So, it’s up to us.
As Maya Angelo stated poetically, we are truly on this new “Pulse of Morning,” the black, the white, the straight, the gay, young and old, men and women that supported this historic election can’t just shrink away and think Obama can govern by himself. He can no more do that than raise record sums in campaign contributions by himself.
Walls fall after a might shout. Victories are won after effort, struggle and a fight. You’ll still need to be engaged after the glow of the election is over. Email President Obama from www.whitehouse.gov after January 20, 2009; call your local Congressional Representatives and Senators.
Stay engaged: pray for Obama. We have a history of martyrs and a culture of violence that must change. Politics in the age of the Internet is no longer a bench-warmer sport; you can’t just vote and hope everything works out OK. Blog and email; chat and post; write poetry and essays. Your ideas are viral contagion, as has been observed and can be spread and shared by all of us benefiting all of us.
The old model observed by Noam Chomsky – Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at M.I.T. – was defined as “the bewildered herd” reacting to sloganeering, mantra, rumor and dogma versus making informed decisions as an electorate. This, of course, benefited business interests that controlled the electoral process with their well-heeled dollar donations to the campaigns. YOU shattered that. This was without a doubt, the most informed decision as an electorate we’ve made for our future. We survived the specter of Jeremiah Wright and charges of socialism, communism and “Joe the Plumber.” That herd was expected to respond like Pavlov’s dogs, then “fade away” after the election and let the business chosen elites govern them. You are not helpless anymore and President Elect Obama needs our help. The economy is in a shambles, the jobless number is bound to be terrible tomorrow and since two-thirds of our economy is dependant on consumerism, it’s unfortunately going to get worse before it starts to get better.
Your mission is simple: make President Obama not only a barrier breaker, but he and Vice President Joe Biden the most successful administration in the history of this nation that proved on November 4, 2008 that we are as good as our promise to all peoples; “We the people.”
Monday, November 03, 2008
Tomorrow
“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
”To the last syllable of recorded time; and all our yesterdays have lighted fools
the way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle!
”Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
William Shakespeare, Macbeth
Tomorrow.
Not just tomorrow: November 5th.
I explained to a friend: Martin for all intents and purposes became "Moses" with his "I've been to the mountaintop" sermon. Prophetically uttered the day before his assassination.
In "April 4, 1968" by Michael Eric Dyson, Martin was said to be suffering from depression. Possibly preaching lifted his spirits a bit, but the constant death threats and juggling what was by history's reckoning a very recreational extra marital sex life, he was approaching a nervous breakdown.
40 years.
We've likened ourselves to the ancient Hebrews in so many ways: about 12 million Jews in the entire world today; we're about 12 percent of the US population. They were enslaved in Egypt 400 years; we were enslaved in a new Egypt 400 years. God sent Moses; we assume He sent Martin. Joshua and Caleb took the remnant into the Promised Land after 40 years of wandering in the wilderness.
40 years ago I was five years old. Mrs. Wooten and the teachers sat our kindergarten class down and explained "Dr. King was killed."
I learned later, coincidentally it was one year to-the-date he spoke out against the Vietnam war. I knew that this significant personality would not be around to see my formative academic years: we all cried at the news, and graduated the next month in May. We all started the fall in a world without our saints: Medgar, Malcolm and Martin.
Forty years: Blacksploitation movies, Vietnam protests, all-volunteer force, recession, Reagan, "trickle-down" economics, the Republican Revolution, 45% of the prison-industrial-complex, recidivism, lack of self-help, still lacking education, not taking care of the babies we make, blamed for welfare while giving corporate welfare, the usual suspect for rape, murder, theft, frisked in King's Department store at 14 ("shut up, boy! I know niggra's steal"), a reprieve from the Bill Cosby show, booty-call-I'm-gonna-get-you-sucka-blacksploitation-movies (again), a few Oscars from liberal Hollywood, a brief solace under the Clinton years, "Oruborous [the world eater] unfettered" as every crazy Friedman/Stockton/trickle-down theory got its day under DUBYA.
400 years. 40 years. 8 years in purgatory. Moses. Martin. Joshua. Obama.
We have this reverential fear of "tomorrow." What will it mean on November 5th?
”To the last syllable of recorded time; and all our yesterdays have lighted fools
the way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle!
”Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
William Shakespeare, Macbeth
Tomorrow.
Not just tomorrow: November 5th.
I explained to a friend: Martin for all intents and purposes became "Moses" with his "I've been to the mountaintop" sermon. Prophetically uttered the day before his assassination.
In "April 4, 1968" by Michael Eric Dyson, Martin was said to be suffering from depression. Possibly preaching lifted his spirits a bit, but the constant death threats and juggling what was by history's reckoning a very recreational extra marital sex life, he was approaching a nervous breakdown.
40 years.
We've likened ourselves to the ancient Hebrews in so many ways: about 12 million Jews in the entire world today; we're about 12 percent of the US population. They were enslaved in Egypt 400 years; we were enslaved in a new Egypt 400 years. God sent Moses; we assume He sent Martin. Joshua and Caleb took the remnant into the Promised Land after 40 years of wandering in the wilderness.
40 years ago I was five years old. Mrs. Wooten and the teachers sat our kindergarten class down and explained "Dr. King was killed."
I learned later, coincidentally it was one year to-the-date he spoke out against the Vietnam war. I knew that this significant personality would not be around to see my formative academic years: we all cried at the news, and graduated the next month in May. We all started the fall in a world without our saints: Medgar, Malcolm and Martin.
Forty years: Blacksploitation movies, Vietnam protests, all-volunteer force, recession, Reagan, "trickle-down" economics, the Republican Revolution, 45% of the prison-industrial-complex, recidivism, lack of self-help, still lacking education, not taking care of the babies we make, blamed for welfare while giving corporate welfare, the usual suspect for rape, murder, theft, frisked in King's Department store at 14 ("shut up, boy! I know niggra's steal"), a reprieve from the Bill Cosby show, booty-call-I'm-gonna-get-you-sucka-blacksploitation-movies (again), a few Oscars from liberal Hollywood, a brief solace under the Clinton years, "Oruborous [the world eater] unfettered" as every crazy Friedman/Stockton/trickle-down theory got its day under DUBYA.
400 years. 40 years. 8 years in purgatory. Moses. Martin. Joshua. Obama.
We have this reverential fear of "tomorrow." What will it mean on November 5th?
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Rain
© 29 October 2008, The Griot Poet
Rain touches my face
after 40 years of wandering the Wilderness of Sin – lynch ropes to frighten us from education, beatings for votes, bombing churches and buses, police batons, German Shepherds, pressure hoses, poll taxes and marching – round and round Mount Sinai,
outside the Promised Land promised by
Moses
who had "been to the mountaintop"
and prophesied
his own demise
but that you and I
Vickie
would see
this Promised Land.
But, we were "as grasshoppers" in our own sight
and we assumed, those of our adversaries,
those that would use devils devices
and apothecary
to defame
a new Joshua
that would refrain
a hope that the slaves
of previous generations
could not conceive
because their yoke
could only be thrown off
by a "renewal of their minds"
for in the economy of God
what is unseen is more real
than Wall Street
Main Street
is under His sovereignty and
CEOs
His feet.
Your husband and your children
rise up and call you blessed,
and you are the wife
dressed in white
of Leon's youth.
What the world will see
is what you have taught
the fruit of your womb
that when they are old
"they will not depart from it"
for we/they are this new
generation
that finally emerges
from this Wilderness of Sin
into a future
of
HOPE.
For Mrs. Vickie Nowlin’s birthday, NC A & T Alumni, English Major, Principal, and friend (I was best man in their wedding)...
James 5:7 "Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain."
Rain touches my face
after 40 years of wandering the Wilderness of Sin – lynch ropes to frighten us from education, beatings for votes, bombing churches and buses, police batons, German Shepherds, pressure hoses, poll taxes and marching – round and round Mount Sinai,
outside the Promised Land promised by
Moses
who had "been to the mountaintop"
and prophesied
his own demise
but that you and I
Vickie
would see
this Promised Land.
But, we were "as grasshoppers" in our own sight
and we assumed, those of our adversaries,
those that would use devils devices
and apothecary
to defame
a new Joshua
that would refrain
a hope that the slaves
of previous generations
could not conceive
because their yoke
could only be thrown off
by a "renewal of their minds"
for in the economy of God
what is unseen is more real
than Wall Street
Main Street
is under His sovereignty and
CEOs
His feet.
Your husband and your children
rise up and call you blessed,
and you are the wife
dressed in white
of Leon's youth.
What the world will see
is what you have taught
the fruit of your womb
that when they are old
"they will not depart from it"
for we/they are this new
generation
that finally emerges
from this Wilderness of Sin
into a future
of
HOPE.
For Mrs. Vickie Nowlin’s birthday, NC A & T Alumni, English Major, Principal, and friend (I was best man in their wedding)...
James 5:7 "Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain."
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Enough!
© 25 October 2008, The Griot Poet
First: he’s accused of being a “closet Muslim” (no one asked my NOI cousin),
Then: a pedophile (for a while).
They’ve run the gambit: eight-years-old when Ayers was so rudely bold and “pals around with terrorists,”
Explaining his heart to “spread the wealth” to “Joe the plumber”: Aha! He’s a socialist!
Even though the Berlin Wall (like Jericho’s) did fall: he’s now a communist!
They haven’t tried Satanist (yet), though after previously being labeled “the antichrist” on right-wing blogs, I think technically that would be a demotion!
A former, noted military man and statesman’s devotion to his party turned on its head as he endorses without fear or dread: “one with style and substance,” “a transformative figure,” “steadiness” with “intellectual curiosity”
According to Rush, though the general wrestled for months before his decision, obviously racially motivated (And…: Scott McClellan’s endorsement?).
We have experienced eight long years of an “Oedipus complex” run amuck. Ross Perot’s “sucking sound” now NAFTA plus 10 billion bucks a month to a war that shouldn’t have been, nearly 5,000 lives and 500,000 mortgages owned by the bailed-out banks (still failing), potentially replaced by another who’s grandfather and father finished their naval careers at flag ranks above his Captain.
He MUST one-up them and insight the nightmare of President George Washington’s “warring factions” invoking the worst in us, skewing unity beneath the Orwellian sign: “Country First.”
This is a referendum on 25 plus years of Friedman/Stockton “trickle down” schlock economics, divisive politics birthed from “the great communicator”: “welfare queens,” “Willie Horton,” “the ’92 LA riots,” “the lesser of two evils,” “right-to-life,” “PNAC Rebuilding America’s Defenses,” “tax cuts for the wealthy,” “swift boating,” “lipstick politics,” “ROBO calls from Giuliani,” “Unpatriotic,” “Traitor,” “terrorist…” ENOUGH!
I invoke Langston Hughes as I say to you all:
We too, are America! VOTE!
First: he’s accused of being a “closet Muslim” (no one asked my NOI cousin),
Then: a pedophile (for a while).
They’ve run the gambit: eight-years-old when Ayers was so rudely bold and “pals around with terrorists,”
Explaining his heart to “spread the wealth” to “Joe the plumber”: Aha! He’s a socialist!
Even though the Berlin Wall (like Jericho’s) did fall: he’s now a communist!
They haven’t tried Satanist (yet), though after previously being labeled “the antichrist” on right-wing blogs, I think technically that would be a demotion!
A former, noted military man and statesman’s devotion to his party turned on its head as he endorses without fear or dread: “one with style and substance,” “a transformative figure,” “steadiness” with “intellectual curiosity”
According to Rush, though the general wrestled for months before his decision, obviously racially motivated (And…: Scott McClellan’s endorsement?).
We have experienced eight long years of an “Oedipus complex” run amuck. Ross Perot’s “sucking sound” now NAFTA plus 10 billion bucks a month to a war that shouldn’t have been, nearly 5,000 lives and 500,000 mortgages owned by the bailed-out banks (still failing), potentially replaced by another who’s grandfather and father finished their naval careers at flag ranks above his Captain.
He MUST one-up them and insight the nightmare of President George Washington’s “warring factions” invoking the worst in us, skewing unity beneath the Orwellian sign: “Country First.”
This is a referendum on 25 plus years of Friedman/Stockton “trickle down” schlock economics, divisive politics birthed from “the great communicator”: “welfare queens,” “Willie Horton,” “the ’92 LA riots,” “the lesser of two evils,” “right-to-life,” “PNAC Rebuilding America’s Defenses,” “tax cuts for the wealthy,” “swift boating,” “lipstick politics,” “ROBO calls from Giuliani,” “Unpatriotic,” “Traitor,” “terrorist…” ENOUGH!
I invoke Langston Hughes as I say to you all:
We too, are America! VOTE!
Friday, October 24, 2008
Epiphany
http://blackmenformccain.com/2008/10/18/barack-obama-for-president/#comment-747
Stephen King in "On Writing" often referred to writing, or the process of writing as I believe "excavation"; "sculpting."
Ray Bradburry in an interview on the 50th anniversary of "Fahreinheit 451" noted a lot of his stories "wrote him," and that he relied on his "secret voice" to make sense of the worlds he created.
There is a boldness in penmanship that you otherwise would find yourself tongue-tied to express. In politics, that makes you "unsure," 'unsteady," "not ready." In academia, you may just be thinking of a reply.
I do not know this writer at all. He is/was a black republican. I respected his views as I read them even if in many cases I did not nor could I not agree.
He (the writer), like a lot of pundits and republicans, struggled mightiliy to excavate the "2000 maverick McCain" from now distant memory. Once labeling the religious right as "agents of intolerance," McCain embraced them at Jerry Farwell's Lincoln University. Once saying he "fought for the stars and stipes, not the stars and bars," McCain allows the vilest vitriol to emanate from his supporters: "terrorist, kill him, socialist, communist," evidence of a campaign that like the man at the helm of the ship has clearly lost control of the rudder that should guide it. A cool iceberg, unrelenting is in front of him off the bow of the sinking ship. He need not hit the behemoth: his Titanic is sinking.
The writer knows this, and I sympathize with him because of the mention of the pending death of his father. Mortality has a way of taking the sureity out of your lifespace, the inevitable memory of the last conversation you had with your loved one before their demise, the helplessness of staring at a coffin when the essence of themselves - their laughter, their warmth, their smile, their hugs and their tears - no longer exists in this realm. Reviewing the tape over again in your mind: "this person used to be alive, and I loved them." It births anger and raises doubts.
What is poignant is the evolution of his whole person: political, emotional and yes spiritual.
Like Bradbury, this blog "wrote the writer." One of the reasons I [personally] voted for Obama was frankly how well he wrote in "Dreams from My Father." I feel if you can write, you can think, therefore reason and then apply critical thinking skills to a myriad of situations. The political and sadly, the American education system "soundbites" this process into meaningless "gotcha" momemts.
I also voted on a cool Monday morning at 7:10 AM in Cedar Park, Texas because http://outsourcedamerican.blogspot.com is more than my story now. It's no longer just me and doubts about whether I "played the game" or "pleased the right people." No. The system is broken, and someone needs to fix it.
Writing is almost a lie detector test even in fiction: the worlds you create must have rules, "make sense" in those rules and follow them to the end. In nonfiction, you try to be narrative and honest and trust where the story leads. The writer swung wildly from blind support, to doubt about Sarah Palin, to applauding her speech at the RNC, to doubt again and to switching his support.
He has excavated the corridors of his mind and found more questions than answers. The whole blog, good points and not-so-good, irreverant, reflective and sometimes funny, is a scuplted masterpiece. Don't just read the most recent post: take time to paruse them all.
Stephen King in "On Writing" often referred to writing, or the process of writing as I believe "excavation"; "sculpting."
Ray Bradburry in an interview on the 50th anniversary of "Fahreinheit 451" noted a lot of his stories "wrote him," and that he relied on his "secret voice" to make sense of the worlds he created.
There is a boldness in penmanship that you otherwise would find yourself tongue-tied to express. In politics, that makes you "unsure," 'unsteady," "not ready." In academia, you may just be thinking of a reply.
I do not know this writer at all. He is/was a black republican. I respected his views as I read them even if in many cases I did not nor could I not agree.
He (the writer), like a lot of pundits and republicans, struggled mightiliy to excavate the "2000 maverick McCain" from now distant memory. Once labeling the religious right as "agents of intolerance," McCain embraced them at Jerry Farwell's Lincoln University. Once saying he "fought for the stars and stipes, not the stars and bars," McCain allows the vilest vitriol to emanate from his supporters: "terrorist, kill him, socialist, communist," evidence of a campaign that like the man at the helm of the ship has clearly lost control of the rudder that should guide it. A cool iceberg, unrelenting is in front of him off the bow of the sinking ship. He need not hit the behemoth: his Titanic is sinking.
The writer knows this, and I sympathize with him because of the mention of the pending death of his father. Mortality has a way of taking the sureity out of your lifespace, the inevitable memory of the last conversation you had with your loved one before their demise, the helplessness of staring at a coffin when the essence of themselves - their laughter, their warmth, their smile, their hugs and their tears - no longer exists in this realm. Reviewing the tape over again in your mind: "this person used to be alive, and I loved them." It births anger and raises doubts.
What is poignant is the evolution of his whole person: political, emotional and yes spiritual.
Like Bradbury, this blog "wrote the writer." One of the reasons I [personally] voted for Obama was frankly how well he wrote in "Dreams from My Father." I feel if you can write, you can think, therefore reason and then apply critical thinking skills to a myriad of situations. The political and sadly, the American education system "soundbites" this process into meaningless "gotcha" momemts.
I also voted on a cool Monday morning at 7:10 AM in Cedar Park, Texas because http://outsourcedamerican.blogspot.com is more than my story now. It's no longer just me and doubts about whether I "played the game" or "pleased the right people." No. The system is broken, and someone needs to fix it.
Writing is almost a lie detector test even in fiction: the worlds you create must have rules, "make sense" in those rules and follow them to the end. In nonfiction, you try to be narrative and honest and trust where the story leads. The writer swung wildly from blind support, to doubt about Sarah Palin, to applauding her speech at the RNC, to doubt again and to switching his support.
He has excavated the corridors of his mind and found more questions than answers. The whole blog, good points and not-so-good, irreverant, reflective and sometimes funny, is a scuplted masterpiece. Don't just read the most recent post: take time to paruse them all.
Friday, October 03, 2008
One-Fifty
© 3 October 2008, the Griot Poet
What was socialism on Monday became capitalism on Friday.
What we needed was some pork barrel spending to sweeten the stinking pot of gruel:
- A provision repealing a 39-cent excise tax on wooden arrows designed for children.
- subsidize renovations of restaurant franchises
- cut import duties on wool and wood
- Virgin Island and Puerto Rican Rum (Section 308)
- American Samoa (Sec. 309)
- Mine Rescue Teams (Sec. 310)
- Mine Safety Equipment (Sec. 311)
- Domestic Production Activities in Puerto Rico (Sec. 312)
- Indian Tribes (Sec. 314, 315)
- Railroads (Sec. 316)
- Auto Racing Tracks that will save Nascar track builders $109 million this year(317)
- District of Columbia (Sec. 322)
- Wool Research (Sec. 325)
- A research tax credit worth about $8.3 billion PER year for:
- Microsoft Corporation
- Harley-Davidson Inc.
- and subsidies for the overseas financial services earnings of U.S.-based multinational corporations such as General Electric Co. and Citigroup Inc.
also known as: the same old offshore SHELL game!
Do they take us for fools?
Hank Paulson originated this while chairman in thief of Goldman Sacks.
And, he's ransacked
the futures of our great-grandchildren knowing full well this will only delay the inevitable:
recession.
"Dick" is currently at an undisclosed location adding up how he's set up
the economy to fund his retirement.
Check Bush and Cheney's exchequer after "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" ride off into the sunset.
What was socialism on Monday became capitalism on Friday
with bipartisan support from both parties
as they flipped-the-script
and made this
150 BILLION dollars
MORE of our tax dollars spent!
And yet: I can't forget the prophetic utterance one of the Founding Father's advised:
"The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty."
What was socialism on Monday became capitalism on Friday.
What we needed was some pork barrel spending to sweeten the stinking pot of gruel:
- A provision repealing a 39-cent excise tax on wooden arrows designed for children.
- subsidize renovations of restaurant franchises
- cut import duties on wool and wood
- Virgin Island and Puerto Rican Rum (Section 308)
- American Samoa (Sec. 309)
- Mine Rescue Teams (Sec. 310)
- Mine Safety Equipment (Sec. 311)
- Domestic Production Activities in Puerto Rico (Sec. 312)
- Indian Tribes (Sec. 314, 315)
- Railroads (Sec. 316)
- Auto Racing Tracks that will save Nascar track builders $109 million this year(317)
- District of Columbia (Sec. 322)
- Wool Research (Sec. 325)
- A research tax credit worth about $8.3 billion PER year for:
- Microsoft Corporation
- Harley-Davidson Inc.
- and subsidies for the overseas financial services earnings of U.S.-based multinational corporations such as General Electric Co. and Citigroup Inc.
also known as: the same old offshore SHELL game!
Do they take us for fools?
Hank Paulson originated this while chairman in thief of Goldman Sacks.
And, he's ransacked
the futures of our great-grandchildren knowing full well this will only delay the inevitable:
recession.
"Dick" is currently at an undisclosed location adding up how he's set up
the economy to fund his retirement.
Check Bush and Cheney's exchequer after "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" ride off into the sunset.
What was socialism on Monday became capitalism on Friday
with bipartisan support from both parties
as they flipped-the-script
and made this
150 BILLION dollars
MORE of our tax dollars spent!
And yet: I can't forget the prophetic utterance one of the Founding Father's advised:
"The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty."
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Bootleg
© 25 September 2008, TGP
Chinua Achebe would say “Things Fall Apart”:
Big government bureaucrats become socialists and print $700 billion dollars not supported by gold or mint and give Hank Paulson a blank check with no oversight attachments…
When you have no spirituality: you enlist an evangelical leggy, ex-beauty queen; political Viagra for a limp, flaccid campaign as your poll numbers had you fading from the scene, that’s herself under an investigation for ethics violations: either firing the top cop for not firing her ex-brother-in-law or his zeal to appeal to Congress to redress the impact of sexual predators in Alaska – take your pick! “Roads to nowhere” end where “bridges to nowhere” should have begun!
Three interviews – Charles Gibson (Hard); Sean Hannity (Soft) – avoiding the Yin/Yang calamity by using leggy photo ops with Heads of State at the UN (talked about Hamid Karzai’s new baby to my chagrin), Katie Couric made the girl WORK because she couldn’t pull her usual Jedi skirt-above-knee testosterone mind trick…(“Why don’t I research that, Katie and get back with YA!”) avoiding at all cost tête-à-tête with the diminished 4th estate, now known in its epitaph as “yellow journalism.”
- Cheney first on the search committee for his candidate, then changing his residency from Texas to Cheyenne, Wyoming so HE could run (for shadow president);
- Hurricane Gustav used to conveniently “un-invite” Bush and Cheney from their own party’s convention;
- Palin selected as last-minute intervention after one meeting, a phone call and calling that vetting a Vice Presidential Candidate;
- The deregulator-cum-regulator-cum-“the economy is sound”-cum-“I meant the American worker is sound”-cum-current crisis manipulator…
Throws his most recent “Hail Mary” pass because he’s a PUNK running completely scared and out of gas faster than price-gouged pumps on the east coast! Winning, not “Country First” is what matters to him most.
Because: political life is scary when you bootleg a “mandate for change” because you were part of the need FOR it, that’s why lipstick politics, bitter comments and charges of elitism – when YOU have 7 houses and 13 cars – matter more than reality, and you have on your own, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to say!
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Friday, September 05, 2008
A Very Selective Amnesia
© 5 September 2008, The Griot Poet
Dear John: One of the first stages of dementia is a mild case of amnesia.
So, it was unpleasing to me NOT to hear anything about the economy during the RNC
Spiteful spit fest that jested against community organizers trying to fix this mess that bureaucracies like yours and Karl Rove’s attempted permanent Republican Majority rule chose to ignore…
So, John:
How do you implore us to “throw the bums out”… when you were ONE?
Voting 90% of the time on tax cuts, oil drilling and what you have intimate experience with: torture. Each of which you were against before you were FOR (flip-flop)!
With a draft-dodging drunk and a punk that had “other priorities” during the same war you refrain again and again that shaped you.
It was quite a coup using Gustav to make them “stay away.” (Wink, wink) They did less this time with FEMA than Katrina, but at least you kept The Penguin away from booze, buckshot; his best friend’s face: and quail hunts in Austin, Texas!
As you tortured our common senses with some uncommon verbal Ju-Jitsu:
You both praised George W. Bush and Dick-the-stick Cheney and damned the last eight years of their administration: 6 of which YOURS was the dominate party!
So, you and the e-Bay, hockey mom, beauty queen, “Hot Governor/Cool State (slogan button), born-again DOMINIONIST that you picked at the last minute are supposed to ignite your party base – Rural, Suburban and Blue Collar Archie Bunker on the street – while Cindy McCain wears $350,000 of dress and jewelry and Barack and Michelle are the uppity elites?
Did you think we forgot the last 8 years and 7 houses that you can’t remember?
Unlike my cousin, your father’s station gave you a choice to leave your Hanoi Hilton. The same privilege that got you into Annapolis and graduated in the bottom fifth!
And, Cindy was your 25-year-old hootchie when your first wife Cathy’s injuries no longer made her worthy to be married to you: for better or for worse; in sickness and in health. You had to BEG Nancy Reagan for her endorsement she’d locked away on a pissed-off shelf!
But, like Bristol Palin’s teen pregnancy, that spiritual baggage has been put on the shelf, even James Dobson and Bill O’Reilly has had second thoughts about the subject, when if the teen was named Sasha or Malia Obama they’d be having conniption fits!
One of the first stages of dementia is a mild case of amnesia.
So, John:
How do you implore us to “throw the bums out”… when you were ONE?
I guess that’s what fits when your real fear is what year 2050 demographers and Public Enemy prophesied:
“Fear of a Black Planet”
Dear John: One of the first stages of dementia is a mild case of amnesia.
So, it was unpleasing to me NOT to hear anything about the economy during the RNC
Spiteful spit fest that jested against community organizers trying to fix this mess that bureaucracies like yours and Karl Rove’s attempted permanent Republican Majority rule chose to ignore…
So, John:
How do you implore us to “throw the bums out”… when you were ONE?
Voting 90% of the time on tax cuts, oil drilling and what you have intimate experience with: torture. Each of which you were against before you were FOR (flip-flop)!
With a draft-dodging drunk and a punk that had “other priorities” during the same war you refrain again and again that shaped you.
It was quite a coup using Gustav to make them “stay away.” (Wink, wink) They did less this time with FEMA than Katrina, but at least you kept The Penguin away from booze, buckshot; his best friend’s face: and quail hunts in Austin, Texas!
As you tortured our common senses with some uncommon verbal Ju-Jitsu:
You both praised George W. Bush and Dick-the-stick Cheney and damned the last eight years of their administration: 6 of which YOURS was the dominate party!
So, you and the e-Bay, hockey mom, beauty queen, “Hot Governor/Cool State (slogan button), born-again DOMINIONIST that you picked at the last minute are supposed to ignite your party base – Rural, Suburban and Blue Collar Archie Bunker on the street – while Cindy McCain wears $350,000 of dress and jewelry and Barack and Michelle are the uppity elites?
Did you think we forgot the last 8 years and 7 houses that you can’t remember?
Unlike my cousin, your father’s station gave you a choice to leave your Hanoi Hilton. The same privilege that got you into Annapolis and graduated in the bottom fifth!
And, Cindy was your 25-year-old hootchie when your first wife Cathy’s injuries no longer made her worthy to be married to you: for better or for worse; in sickness and in health. You had to BEG Nancy Reagan for her endorsement she’d locked away on a pissed-off shelf!
But, like Bristol Palin’s teen pregnancy, that spiritual baggage has been put on the shelf, even James Dobson and Bill O’Reilly has had second thoughts about the subject, when if the teen was named Sasha or Malia Obama they’d be having conniption fits!
One of the first stages of dementia is a mild case of amnesia.
So, John:
How do you implore us to “throw the bums out”… when you were ONE?
I guess that’s what fits when your real fear is what year 2050 demographers and Public Enemy prophesied:
“Fear of a Black Planet”
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Sarah Palin-Gender Card (Comedy Central)
Doublespeak Good
Originally published on this blog: © 20 November 2004, The Griot Poet
Inspired by Jonathan Schell article, “What Happened to Hearts?”:
http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=2014_
we will fight
with the steadfast resolve
of an unusual, artful draft dodger-in-chief
along with his veep
who both couldn't be bothered
when they were young men
to shed blood
for a war in Vietnam
that they steadfastly
believed…
in others bleedings.
we will fight
with strong delusions
guiding our common sense,
lies becoming truth
as greater than seventy percent
still believe Saddam was a threat
and involved in the attacks of 9-11
despite his rival Osama
referring to him
as an infidel.
oh, well!
we will fight
the constitution
with Patriot Acts I, II, and III,
calling it democracy.
we will fight
and twist words of peace
from Palestinian Prophets
into what Cornell West would call
"Constantine Christian"
diatribes, slogans and dogmas
to shepherd
Noam Chomsky's
"bewildered herd"
into the accepted
brainwashed,
corporate-controlled
network germ:
"war is peace.
"freedom is slavery.
"ignorance is strength."
we who bubble forth like fountains
see George Orwell's prophesy
becoming reality,
and General Tacitus'
observations
becoming most poignant in this season:
"they made a wasteland, and called it peace."
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Sarah Palin-Wonder Woman
Source: Moveon.org email.
Transcript follows (TGP):
TRANSCRIPT:
Mike Murphy, former McCain advisor: You know, because I come out of the blue swing state governor work. Engler, Whitman, Thompson, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush. And these guys, this is all like how you want to (inaudible) this race. You know, just run it up. And it's not gonna work.
Peggy Noonan, former Reagan speechwriter: It's over.
Murphy: Still, McCain can give a version of the Lieberman speech to do himself some good.
NBC's Chuck Todd: Don't you think the Palin pick was insulting to Kay Bailey Hutchinson, too (inaudible)
Noonan: I saw Kay this morning.
Murphy: They're all bummed out.
Todd: I mean, is she really the most qualified woman they could have turned to?
Noonan: The most qualified? No. I think they went for this, excuse me, political [B.S.] about narratives and (inaudible) the picture.
Murphy: I totally agree.
Noonan: Every time the Republicans do that because that's not where they live and it's not what they're good at and they blow it.
Murphy: You know what's really the worst thing about it? The greatness of McCain is no cynicism and this is cynical.
Todd: And as you called it, gimmicky.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
The Reluctant Eulogist
© 10 August 2008, The Griot Poet
Like "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card
I find I am a "Speaker for the Dead"
speaking of endings
and beginnings
in two days having lost
Bernie Mac,
Now Isaac Hayes
"He was a bad mother... shut your mouth!"
He brought style to baldness before MJ,
Chocolate was never as sweet as when he sang,
Back in the day
If you HAD no luck with babes... you played a 45" by Isaac Hayes,
And she, felt gorgeous for his refrain...
He wore chains before Run DMC, Mr. T or gangster wannabe's,
He rapped before Ludacris or Nelly,
He was the foundation for disco, urban contemporary music,
midnight love videos, Marvin Gaye, Luther Vandross and Barry White...
Yes, I am a speaker for the dead,
and something about us is passing fast
into the past,
into oblivion,
into the cloud of witnesses...
I quote myself in the piece "Last Days":
I lament the death of soul music:
born of marches,
riots,
Civil Rights songs.
It was OUR marching music,
the beat of OUR drums,
when we sang out
we gave NEPHESH *
back in spirit-filled medley.
I lament the death of soul music
and the architects of its pentameter,
journeymen and master musicians
as capable of 'da FUNK'
as arranging a Philharmonic Orchestra
without sampling past hits,
shocking lyrics
or "lip sync."
I lament the death of soul music
with the sincerest tears...
In twenty years:
Music that calls our women "hootchies, B's and 'hos,"
Music that calls our men gangsters, N's and thugs,
Lyrics so FOUL as to attain the label "parental advisory"...
will
BE
the oldies!
* NEPHESH - Etymology, Hebrew: "Living soul."
Soul, self, life, seat of the appetites, seat of emotions and passions, activity of mind, activity of the will, activity of the character
Soul Music
Date: 1961
: music that originated in black American gospel singing, is closely related to rhythm and blues, and is characterized by intensity of feeling and earthiness
Saturday, August 09, 2008
Bernie Mac - Celestial Effervescence
© 9 August 2008, The Griot Poet
Heaven just got a little funnier,
For a time, our memories
of Bernie will be the only sunny
things that brings smiles to our
visages.
He
was on a mission
to dismiss
his previous
existence
in poverty:
raised on Chicago's south side
by mother, grandmother, Deacon grandfather,
being "from the 'hood" he wore with pride
and a badge of honor:
not dropping his drawers
and acting thuggish
(OK, a few films in a sophisticated way, maybe)
but acting and making people laugh
that garnered him and fellow comedians Cedric the Entertainer, Steve Harvey and DL Hughley
nomination for a Grammy.
Doting father and grandfather,
he carried himself with dignity, honor
and wide-eyed
delight
with laughter
and a joke behind
each smile:
"I ain't scared of nobody!"
And nobody need be afraid:
Heaven just got a little funnier.
Sunday, August 03, 2008
The Chitlin' Era: an essay on TheRoot.com article
On the Chitlin' Era: I never ate them as a child, having the notable experience of seeing (and smelling) fresh-slaughtered bowels at a family reunion: as I recall, flies avoided the aroma. Hot sauce does not cure every taste.
On Obama: I was a late convert to the "Obama bandwagon," and I never viewed myself as a swooner, nor a disciple looking for a political Avatar to follow. I decided on his first book: "Dreams From My Father." Recall that our first stab at commentary about him was that he wasn't "black enough." My observation is the same as Carter G. Woodson [paraphrased]: we are well-conditioned to “know our place,” and react almost violently (Jesse’s “cut his nuts off” comment) when one of us looks to move beyond the crab bucket. It takes all the excuses away for sure. Anyone who can write well is a person with organized thought patterns that can take new information, make an informed decision and go in a particular positive direction. Also, that same intellectual prowess allows one, president or pauper, to admit to mistakes and learn from them.
We've had eight years of "stay-the-course-steadfast-non-flip-flopper-decider" mentality from a person who's not the least bit intellectually curious, the only person in his family (from Connecticut) to speak with a southern drawl; an economy that's been a boon for his REAL masters and our reputation abroad evidenced by the boos and cat calls when our president shows up and the rock star attendance when Mr. Obama speaks in Europe.
Michael Eric Dyson said on Larry King that Mrs. Clinton all but had the nomination sewed up except that "history broke out in the person of Barack Obama," and you want to label this the "Chitlin' Era?"
Forty years ago, we lost Martin; a few years before that Malcolm and Medgar. We owe a debt to them as well as the women in the movement for the kind of world we have now: not perfect, but without the overt signs on bathroom stalls and restaurants.
What will change with an Obama Administration? Nothing overnight except the possibility of young black males growing up to be president and not "ballers and rappers"… An Obama Administration should be held accountable to the US Constitution, unlike the current one that circumvents it almost daily and at will. Pulling the lever, filling the square, punching the chad is not the end: politics is a participatory sport and there are no bench warmers when your premise is rule by the people. If he fails, that's called a term limit and it has no reflection on us as a people or culture. Senators and Congressmen fail and get reelected: that's called apathy.
Though I found your comments witty, “Chitlin’ Era” is almost an apology: a conciliatory mea culpa to the waning majority now moving from the suburbs back to gentrify the inner city to feel a sense of control and lower their outlay of money at the gas pump, and that [majority] will be decidedly browner by the year 2050. It is apologizing for a black man having the audacity to run a credible presidential campaign raising funds and breaking records with the power of the Internet.
If Mr. Obama wins it will be because the last eight years gave him the framework to “break out in history”: now was his time. If McCain wins, then the US richly deserves the inheritance it will get from that decision and the continuation of Bush’s policies: the whirlwind.
“Chitlin’ Era” is on par with his opponent comparing him to Brittany Spears and Paris Hilton: it’s what you say when you’ve run out of material.
On Obama: I was a late convert to the "Obama bandwagon," and I never viewed myself as a swooner, nor a disciple looking for a political Avatar to follow. I decided on his first book: "Dreams From My Father." Recall that our first stab at commentary about him was that he wasn't "black enough." My observation is the same as Carter G. Woodson [paraphrased]: we are well-conditioned to “know our place,” and react almost violently (Jesse’s “cut his nuts off” comment) when one of us looks to move beyond the crab bucket. It takes all the excuses away for sure. Anyone who can write well is a person with organized thought patterns that can take new information, make an informed decision and go in a particular positive direction. Also, that same intellectual prowess allows one, president or pauper, to admit to mistakes and learn from them.
We've had eight years of "stay-the-course-steadfast-non-flip-flopper-decider" mentality from a person who's not the least bit intellectually curious, the only person in his family (from Connecticut) to speak with a southern drawl; an economy that's been a boon for his REAL masters and our reputation abroad evidenced by the boos and cat calls when our president shows up and the rock star attendance when Mr. Obama speaks in Europe.
Michael Eric Dyson said on Larry King that Mrs. Clinton all but had the nomination sewed up except that "history broke out in the person of Barack Obama," and you want to label this the "Chitlin' Era?"
Forty years ago, we lost Martin; a few years before that Malcolm and Medgar. We owe a debt to them as well as the women in the movement for the kind of world we have now: not perfect, but without the overt signs on bathroom stalls and restaurants.
What will change with an Obama Administration? Nothing overnight except the possibility of young black males growing up to be president and not "ballers and rappers"… An Obama Administration should be held accountable to the US Constitution, unlike the current one that circumvents it almost daily and at will. Pulling the lever, filling the square, punching the chad is not the end: politics is a participatory sport and there are no bench warmers when your premise is rule by the people. If he fails, that's called a term limit and it has no reflection on us as a people or culture. Senators and Congressmen fail and get reelected: that's called apathy.
Though I found your comments witty, “Chitlin’ Era” is almost an apology: a conciliatory mea culpa to the waning majority now moving from the suburbs back to gentrify the inner city to feel a sense of control and lower their outlay of money at the gas pump, and that [majority] will be decidedly browner by the year 2050. It is apologizing for a black man having the audacity to run a credible presidential campaign raising funds and breaking records with the power of the Internet.
If Mr. Obama wins it will be because the last eight years gave him the framework to “break out in history”: now was his time. If McCain wins, then the US richly deserves the inheritance it will get from that decision and the continuation of Bush’s policies: the whirlwind.
“Chitlin’ Era” is on par with his opponent comparing him to Brittany Spears and Paris Hilton: it’s what you say when you’ve run out of material.
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Father's Day - a Letter to Sons of the Promised Land
Fatherly angst blogged - TGP
I grew up in a ghetto, glorified in rap videos and CDs that demonstrably are urban reservations for the systemic problems of a society that hasn't grasped the concept of cause and effect, reaping and sowing, chickens coming home to roost.
I now live in a suburb with better access to more expensive drugs and white high school students convicted of counterfeiting - a federal offense - and not serving a day in jail.
I live in a time where the office of father is camp buffoonery in "Good Times", "All in the Family," "The Cosby Show," "Fresh Prince of Bel Air," "The Wayans Brothers," "Family Guy," "American Dad," "The Simpson's" and "The Boondocks." I list them as I've watched them and laughed at them all, similar to blacks laughing at the minstrel show "Step-n-Fetch" in burnt cork faced self-derision.
Then, I demand respect.
But I do live in a time where the Democratic Party decided to be the first to field an African American as their candidate - the Republicans had their chance with Colin Powell in '96 (his wife's mental illness a litmus to his "fitness to command," despite having been National Security Advisor and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Reagan and Bush), and Alan Keyes who said and believed what evangelicals like candidates to say and believe - was summarily thrown out of the Republican National Convention in 2000, though he "still believed in the party." I applaud his faith.
My motivation to be a father was from my example of fatherhood: a man who had no recompense when the supervisor called him "nigger Bob" at work. Human Resources did not exist. They had personnel then, that only served as on-site bean counters, intervention only solicited when things at the workplace got almost hopelessly bad and out of control. I treated him with respect in his home because outside to bring a paycheck home, he literally went through hell...
What do I want for father's day?
I don't want to feel like I'm living by myself anymore.
- If the lawn needs mowing, mow it.
- If done with the computer, shut it off (before midnight preferably).
- If done with video systems, turn them off.
- If done viewing television, ditto.
- If the sink's dishes need washing, wash them (and put them up).
- If your clothing in the laundry room needs folding, fold them.
- If done, then ask "what's next?"
All should be done without thought of compensation. No one calls me "nigger" to my face as my martial skills are well known and respected.
I am the only one in a small company that does not have much in the way of diversity training. Since we're tied to the defense industry, I am not political at all as my candidate is insulted daily, especially since he won his party's nomination. I am making 20% less than my pre-lay off salary, but I have a mortgage and college tuition to pay. My daily hell is less overt than grandpa's, but I, like he, have responsibilities.
You will each be fathers someday, managing your own households. How you behave now is what you [should] tolerate from your own offspring without complaint.
All I ask is not extraordinary or expensive. In a 24 hour day, we each have 1,440 minutes. All I ask is a few minutes of your time, 20 per day at the least of tasks listed above, 120 for the lawn. 1,320 - 1,420 minutes left to sleep, eat, play videos, surf the Internet and generally lead your lives as the values your mother and I model should govern you accordingly.
That is more priceless than a Hallmark card given on a contrived day of "respect."
1 Corinthians 13:13
"And now abides faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these [is] charity (love in action)."
I grew up in a ghetto, glorified in rap videos and CDs that demonstrably are urban reservations for the systemic problems of a society that hasn't grasped the concept of cause and effect, reaping and sowing, chickens coming home to roost.
I now live in a suburb with better access to more expensive drugs and white high school students convicted of counterfeiting - a federal offense - and not serving a day in jail.
I live in a time where the office of father is camp buffoonery in "Good Times", "All in the Family," "The Cosby Show," "Fresh Prince of Bel Air," "The Wayans Brothers," "Family Guy," "American Dad," "The Simpson's" and "The Boondocks." I list them as I've watched them and laughed at them all, similar to blacks laughing at the minstrel show "Step-n-Fetch" in burnt cork faced self-derision.
Then, I demand respect.
But I do live in a time where the Democratic Party decided to be the first to field an African American as their candidate - the Republicans had their chance with Colin Powell in '96 (his wife's mental illness a litmus to his "fitness to command," despite having been National Security Advisor and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Reagan and Bush), and Alan Keyes who said and believed what evangelicals like candidates to say and believe - was summarily thrown out of the Republican National Convention in 2000, though he "still believed in the party." I applaud his faith.
My motivation to be a father was from my example of fatherhood: a man who had no recompense when the supervisor called him "nigger Bob" at work. Human Resources did not exist. They had personnel then, that only served as on-site bean counters, intervention only solicited when things at the workplace got almost hopelessly bad and out of control. I treated him with respect in his home because outside to bring a paycheck home, he literally went through hell...
What do I want for father's day?
I don't want to feel like I'm living by myself anymore.
- If the lawn needs mowing, mow it.
- If done with the computer, shut it off (before midnight preferably).
- If done with video systems, turn them off.
- If done viewing television, ditto.
- If the sink's dishes need washing, wash them (and put them up).
- If your clothing in the laundry room needs folding, fold them.
- If done, then ask "what's next?"
All should be done without thought of compensation. No one calls me "nigger" to my face as my martial skills are well known and respected.
I am the only one in a small company that does not have much in the way of diversity training. Since we're tied to the defense industry, I am not political at all as my candidate is insulted daily, especially since he won his party's nomination. I am making 20% less than my pre-lay off salary, but I have a mortgage and college tuition to pay. My daily hell is less overt than grandpa's, but I, like he, have responsibilities.
You will each be fathers someday, managing your own households. How you behave now is what you [should] tolerate from your own offspring without complaint.
All I ask is not extraordinary or expensive. In a 24 hour day, we each have 1,440 minutes. All I ask is a few minutes of your time, 20 per day at the least of tasks listed above, 120 for the lawn. 1,320 - 1,420 minutes left to sleep, eat, play videos, surf the Internet and generally lead your lives as the values your mother and I model should govern you accordingly.
That is more priceless than a Hallmark card given on a contrived day of "respect."
1 Corinthians 13:13
"And now abides faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these [is] charity (love in action)."
Thursday, May 29, 2008
November 5, 2008
Today is May 29, 2008. I am blogging this in the San Diego Airport on business.
I passed a newstand that had a Newsweek cover: "Obama, Race and Us" with Barack's smiling face on the cover. As I broused the bookstore, I saw predictions like "Will Michelle Obama hurt her husband's chances in the fall?" I opted for a Chai Frappacino at Starbucks (fattening, I know).
I title this November 5, 2008. It is meant to save as draft and on that date I will post it after Obama's election. I boldly make this claim after my business trip with two very staunch republicans that don't mince their words about: Saddam having the capability of becoming operational with regards to weopons of mass destruction, finding Sarin gas, which most experts state have a shelf life of two years (this was manufactured in 1991 or 95), because we're in the business of war, they wholeheartedly support this was that drains our economy and cost us $4 at the pump and increased cost at the grocer.
I am not the result of Obama's victory. My vote is one.
No. Mr. Obama won because of the youth he mobilized that suddenly realize the maddness their parents' made will inexorably be their world.
I type this because I will be charged up, challenged on my vote as much as Mr. Obama can expect to be attacked, threatened and lampooned for the next 8 years as he tries to rebuild from the ashes of the economy, the rubble of Katrina "a more perfect union."
I type this because my vote is one and his win is the result of cumulative votes, cumulative angst and cumulative hope for the future. Oprah didn't cast a spell on us. Michelle didn't embarass us. Jerimiah Wright didn't appaul us. We were better than that.
So I formally thank Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney: without your favoritism of the rich, without your gutting of the abundant surplus, without your invading a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 (that the Pentagon and 600,000 PROVED didn't and you've even said it yourself on many occasions), Mr. Obama's win would not be possible.
By fear and tyranny, you've made us a "more perfect union." Democracy isn't automatic: we found it to be a team sport.
I passed a newstand that had a Newsweek cover: "Obama, Race and Us" with Barack's smiling face on the cover. As I broused the bookstore, I saw predictions like "Will Michelle Obama hurt her husband's chances in the fall?" I opted for a Chai Frappacino at Starbucks (fattening, I know).
I title this November 5, 2008. It is meant to save as draft and on that date I will post it after Obama's election. I boldly make this claim after my business trip with two very staunch republicans that don't mince their words about: Saddam having the capability of becoming operational with regards to weopons of mass destruction, finding Sarin gas, which most experts state have a shelf life of two years (this was manufactured in 1991 or 95), because we're in the business of war, they wholeheartedly support this was that drains our economy and cost us $4 at the pump and increased cost at the grocer.
I am not the result of Obama's victory. My vote is one.
No. Mr. Obama won because of the youth he mobilized that suddenly realize the maddness their parents' made will inexorably be their world.
I type this because I will be charged up, challenged on my vote as much as Mr. Obama can expect to be attacked, threatened and lampooned for the next 8 years as he tries to rebuild from the ashes of the economy, the rubble of Katrina "a more perfect union."
I type this because my vote is one and his win is the result of cumulative votes, cumulative angst and cumulative hope for the future. Oprah didn't cast a spell on us. Michelle didn't embarass us. Jerimiah Wright didn't appaul us. We were better than that.
So I formally thank Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney: without your favoritism of the rich, without your gutting of the abundant surplus, without your invading a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 (that the Pentagon and 600,000 PROVED didn't and you've even said it yourself on many occasions), Mr. Obama's win would not be possible.
By fear and tyranny, you've made us a "more perfect union." Democracy isn't automatic: we found it to be a team sport.
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