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
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
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
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
[Badly] Needed to be Said (Again!)
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
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
Monday, June 01, 2009
For Tossed Salads, and Other Human Wastes
© 1 June 2009, The Griot Poet
(Written assisting a middle school class in East Austin)
I
Am
Infuriated at
Seed donors
That for one night’s
Pleasure
Refused to measure beyond
Liters
Or
Years
The
Impact
Of
Their
Actions…
They might as well as put the gun to their son’s heads.
1 in 3
Will spend their
Time in the penitentiary
(Instead of a university),
Becoming a useful
Member to society…
Rather than a menace and dark
Statistic…
1 in 4
Will follow 2 PAC
& Biggie,
Unraveling the mystery if “Heaven’s got a ghetto” (not!).
I want 5 minutes with
The WANNA-be
Gang-banger,
That measures his manhood, by collecting “baby mammas” repeating the desperate, death drama
Making Martin (like Marvin) “WANNA HOLLA, and throw up both his hands…,”
Laying hands on him SWIFTLY,
With the background of intellectually coming out of this kind of hell and a full 30 years of martial arts FURY!
Your baby is still crying, brother!
In a harsh world:
Bloods, CRIPS, Latin Kings, Gangster Disciples, MS 13s…
Bluffing and Bogarting his way through because he doesn’t understand: his model is “missing in action” on HOW to be a man!
(Written assisting a middle school class in East Austin)
I
Am
Infuriated at
Seed donors
That for one night’s
Pleasure
Refused to measure beyond
Liters
Or
Years
The
Impact
Of
Their
Actions…
They might as well as put the gun to their son’s heads.
1 in 3
Will spend their
Time in the penitentiary
(Instead of a university),
Becoming a useful
Member to society…
Rather than a menace and dark
Statistic…
1 in 4
Will follow 2 PAC
& Biggie,
Unraveling the mystery if “Heaven’s got a ghetto” (not!).
I want 5 minutes with
The WANNA-be
Gang-banger,
That measures his manhood, by collecting “baby mammas” repeating the desperate, death drama
Making Martin (like Marvin) “WANNA HOLLA, and throw up both his hands…,”
Laying hands on him SWIFTLY,
With the background of intellectually coming out of this kind of hell and a full 30 years of martial arts FURY!
Your baby is still crying, brother!
In a harsh world:
Bloods, CRIPS, Latin Kings, Gangster Disciples, MS 13s…
Bluffing and Bogarting his way through because he doesn’t understand: his model is “missing in action” on HOW to be a man!
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Saturday, March 28, 2009
We Are The Ones We've Been Waiting For...Remember?
Related_Article
"When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.'' 1 Corinthians 13:11
I attended Galilee Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, NC well within the cultural demarcation point of US Highway 52, a.k.a. ''the hood.''
Every November, like clockwork, we'd get a visit from a local white politician. You can imagine, they weren't hard to miss.
They'd invariably get time at the pulpit, courtesy of our Pastor, Reverend Dr. Warnie C. Hay (deceased). Some of them had mastered ''call and response'' preaching, yes PREACHING and could really whoop! After getting us excited, calling forth Lazarus and every other near-do-wells for the power of resurrection, they would shake hands and leave... until next November. The politicians that mastered this methodology of voter registration were Democrats.
Noting the success enjoyed by their political rivals, Republicans began ''walking the walk'' after Pat Robertson's failed presidential attempt in 1988, noting his vast mail lists (pre Internet) and the power of the right placed ''spoken word.'' Never mind that the things they promised evangelicals never materialized: a ban on gay marriage (unconstitutional); a ban on abortions (would be abrogated to the lower courts if no longer federally supported); conservatism that never conserved anything except the status quo. My premise is that we all have become - Democrats and Republicans - the willing participants of a class war that pits us against one another for the sole purpose of control. As long as we have the attitude of ''us''; ''them'' we never get anything accomplished.
''We Are The Ones We've Been Waiting For''... remember? The $5, $10, $25 here and there we gave to the Obama campaign when we all decided, he might, just MIGHT have a chance. We were right. However, as vastly profound as pundits like to make the Founding Fathers, they had no political parties, Internet, 24 hour news, Talk Radio (Marconi hadn't been born yet) nor K Street Lobbyist to deal with. And yes, like those politicians of my early formative years, Prez can whoop a speech when he wants to!
So he won't forget his promises, don't forget to call your Senators and Congressional Representatives. They take polls of the for and against calls. It's relatively cheaper and just as efficacious as a lobbying firm. ''Be the change you seek in your world.''Gandhi
"When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.'' 1 Corinthians 13:11
I attended Galilee Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, NC well within the cultural demarcation point of US Highway 52, a.k.a. ''the hood.''
Every November, like clockwork, we'd get a visit from a local white politician. You can imagine, they weren't hard to miss.
They'd invariably get time at the pulpit, courtesy of our Pastor, Reverend Dr. Warnie C. Hay (deceased). Some of them had mastered ''call and response'' preaching, yes PREACHING and could really whoop! After getting us excited, calling forth Lazarus and every other near-do-wells for the power of resurrection, they would shake hands and leave... until next November. The politicians that mastered this methodology of voter registration were Democrats.
Noting the success enjoyed by their political rivals, Republicans began ''walking the walk'' after Pat Robertson's failed presidential attempt in 1988, noting his vast mail lists (pre Internet) and the power of the right placed ''spoken word.'' Never mind that the things they promised evangelicals never materialized: a ban on gay marriage (unconstitutional); a ban on abortions (would be abrogated to the lower courts if no longer federally supported); conservatism that never conserved anything except the status quo. My premise is that we all have become - Democrats and Republicans - the willing participants of a class war that pits us against one another for the sole purpose of control. As long as we have the attitude of ''us''; ''them'' we never get anything accomplished.
''We Are The Ones We've Been Waiting For''... remember? The $5, $10, $25 here and there we gave to the Obama campaign when we all decided, he might, just MIGHT have a chance. We were right. However, as vastly profound as pundits like to make the Founding Fathers, they had no political parties, Internet, 24 hour news, Talk Radio (Marconi hadn't been born yet) nor K Street Lobbyist to deal with. And yes, like those politicians of my early formative years, Prez can whoop a speech when he wants to!
So he won't forget his promises, don't forget to call your Senators and Congressional Representatives. They take polls of the for and against calls. It's relatively cheaper and just as efficacious as a lobbying firm. ''Be the change you seek in your world.''Gandhi
Friday, February 27, 2009
A quote by Dickens and thoughts on the joint address to Congress...
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."
Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, English novelist (1812 - 1870)
I had two very strong reactions to President Obama's speech to the Joint Session of Congress last night: weeping and cheering.
I teared a little at the beautiful young lady next to First Lady Michele Obama: "We're not quitters." As a nation, we're not quitters, but we have been cowards, meaning we have not as Attorney General Eric Holder stated, acknowledged the impact of our past on our present global competitiveness.
Langston Hughes said in the poem "I Too": "they tell me to 'eat in the kitchen' when company comes. But I laugh and eat well and grow strong. Tomorrow, I will set at table when company comes, no one will dare tell me to 'eat in the kitchen' then."
Company has come. In the Jim Crow, segregated past, our economies were segregated as well. The world wasn't as interconnected as it is now. We are in competition with European and Asian countries that for the most part are homogeneous and had no need for a Civil Rights or Voting Rights movements due to that fact and the structure of their governments. One noted exception would be China's human rights struggles in general and specifically Tienanmen Square.
The president articulated such in his speech last night. We need "everyone at table" to be competitive globally. A failing school in a predominately African American or Hispanic district is a failure for America as a whole. To use a sports metaphor, there are less people to compete on the floor of the global basketball court and the same players are getting outrun and outgunned. When the drop out rates increase in such municipalities, the recidivism of the prison-industrial-complex is not the solution. So, everyone at table means we're going to have to solve the legacy of segregation and "Separate, but (Un) Equal" not only for this nation to be competitive, produce and sell, but to survive.
I cheered when President Obama stated we're going to stop giving tax breaks to companies that outsource American jobs. I have an Engineering Physics Bachelors from North Carolina A&T State University. I am a US Air Force veteran. I worked in the semiconductor industry in Process, Device, Manufacturing. Yield Enhancement and Product Engineering for 15 years. I was laid off August 26, 2003, my wife May 31, 2001. Our income has never recovered from our highest earnings at that point in time.
I now run into a lot of engineers and tech types that can't find employment. They may hear as I have that I'm "overqualified based on my years of experience." Technically, that's not saying I'm old, but the result of the twisted flattery is I'm currently underemployed as a commission-only sales rep and drawing on unemployment benefits. That's not the best usage of mine nor my fellow comrade's considerable talents.
I can be and a lot of others can be better utilized employed in this country, paying taxes and buying STUFF! This economy has slowed to a crawl because a lot of people like me - tech, HR and management types - have to do the delicate balancing act between dwindling assets, gearing up to pay for college and keeping a roof over the heads of our families. I honestly don't care how much cheaper you made it overseas: I eat and live over here!
I wrote an open letter on another blog regarding this to the previous administration. It's also published in the book: "Unemployed: A Memoir." I end this essay with the link to it. I doubt President Bush nor Congress read it. My hope is that it makes us all think about what we're creating for our grandchildren:
Chapter 19: Open Letter
Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, English novelist (1812 - 1870)
I had two very strong reactions to President Obama's speech to the Joint Session of Congress last night: weeping and cheering.
I teared a little at the beautiful young lady next to First Lady Michele Obama: "We're not quitters." As a nation, we're not quitters, but we have been cowards, meaning we have not as Attorney General Eric Holder stated, acknowledged the impact of our past on our present global competitiveness.
Langston Hughes said in the poem "I Too": "they tell me to 'eat in the kitchen' when company comes. But I laugh and eat well and grow strong. Tomorrow, I will set at table when company comes, no one will dare tell me to 'eat in the kitchen' then."
Company has come. In the Jim Crow, segregated past, our economies were segregated as well. The world wasn't as interconnected as it is now. We are in competition with European and Asian countries that for the most part are homogeneous and had no need for a Civil Rights or Voting Rights movements due to that fact and the structure of their governments. One noted exception would be China's human rights struggles in general and specifically Tienanmen Square.
The president articulated such in his speech last night. We need "everyone at table" to be competitive globally. A failing school in a predominately African American or Hispanic district is a failure for America as a whole. To use a sports metaphor, there are less people to compete on the floor of the global basketball court and the same players are getting outrun and outgunned. When the drop out rates increase in such municipalities, the recidivism of the prison-industrial-complex is not the solution. So, everyone at table means we're going to have to solve the legacy of segregation and "Separate, but (Un) Equal" not only for this nation to be competitive, produce and sell, but to survive.
I cheered when President Obama stated we're going to stop giving tax breaks to companies that outsource American jobs. I have an Engineering Physics Bachelors from North Carolina A&T State University. I am a US Air Force veteran. I worked in the semiconductor industry in Process, Device, Manufacturing. Yield Enhancement and Product Engineering for 15 years. I was laid off August 26, 2003, my wife May 31, 2001. Our income has never recovered from our highest earnings at that point in time.
I now run into a lot of engineers and tech types that can't find employment. They may hear as I have that I'm "overqualified based on my years of experience." Technically, that's not saying I'm old, but the result of the twisted flattery is I'm currently underemployed as a commission-only sales rep and drawing on unemployment benefits. That's not the best usage of mine nor my fellow comrade's considerable talents.
I can be and a lot of others can be better utilized employed in this country, paying taxes and buying STUFF! This economy has slowed to a crawl because a lot of people like me - tech, HR and management types - have to do the delicate balancing act between dwindling assets, gearing up to pay for college and keeping a roof over the heads of our families. I honestly don't care how much cheaper you made it overseas: I eat and live over here!
I wrote an open letter on another blog regarding this to the previous administration. It's also published in the book: "Unemployed: A Memoir." I end this essay with the link to it. I doubt President Bush nor Congress read it. My hope is that it makes us all think about what we're creating for our grandchildren:
Chapter 19: Open Letter
Monday, February 02, 2009
Self-Portrait
Langston Hughes said: “I, too sing America.
I am the darker brother.”
I am the one
Burning under the hot sun
You derisively nicknamed
“Buffalo soldier”
Because of my Afro?
I am also the Cherokee:
Befriending the runaway,
Giving my daughter to him in marriage,
Joining him to my tribe,
Creating the Seminole.
I am the Irish overseer:
Bursting into the slave quarters,
Raping my own great-great grandmother,
Siring Julius Goodwin and a host more mulatto children.
I am the offspring of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemming:
Some of us destined for the last class,
Others hair so straight; skin so bright to crossover as white
So, when you call me “n----r”
You obviously
Can’t see
You vituperate
A pureed pedigree
As everyone has had
Their piece of African me!
As would be the case
Someone related to Egyptian race
Would decipher the hieroglyph
“America”
Into three distinct words:
“I am race?”
Check your attitude!
For pride in
My negritude
Allows me to enlighten your case
As you point your
Jeering finger
At me through space,
You will inevitably
Pimp-slap your own damn face!
Without me, though you wouldn’t hear it
Would you have the hairstyle “The Bo Derek?”
Would dreadlocks, locks and fades have left the east side venturing to the west side?
And hip hop become hip POP?
Forced here in chains and cargo crates,
It was you who gave me great chase
Bring me to this place
That by GOD’S
Grace
The cane came together
Where Ezekiel’s dry bones
Dotted the landscape:
“Son of man: can these bones live? O Lord GOD, thou knowest! *”
I am the darker brother:
I am the Mende; the Ashanti; the Yoruba; the Igbo.
I am the Seminole; the Cherokee; the Choktaw; the Sioux;
I am the Irish; the Italian; the German; the Arab; the Jew.
I am the melting pot: I am all of you!
As Langston Hughes said,
I say again to you:
“I, too sing America.
I too am America.”
I, too!
* Ezekiel 37:3
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