© 26 August 2009, The Griot Poet
“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.” Ernest Hemingway
Ted M. Kennedy died in the comfort of his home in Massachusetts with family and friends surrounding him. He died to the date of his speech at the Democratic National Convention nominating (now) President Barack Obama as history’s first African American candidate endorsed by a major political party. He’d supported (then) Senator Obama in January of 2008 before succumbing to a seizure and the diagnosis later of a malignant brain tumor.
Strength in the broken places: despite getting expelled from Harvard in 1951 for cheating on an exam, he managed to get elected Senator in 1962.
Senator Kennedy championed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He authored more than 3,500 bills, the Family and Medical Leave Act; the Americans with Disabilities Act being among them.
Strength in the broken places: Ted Kennedy lost older brother Joe in battle in WWII. John he lost to Lee Harvey Oswald. Robert was assassinated while running for president by Sirhan Bishara Sirhan (mainly) for his support of Israel in the six-day war one year prior to pulling the trigger.
Chappaquiddick was one of his many “broken places.”
At 37, the young Senator drove off a bridge while in the company of Mary Jo Kopechne. Ms. Kopechne drowned. The Senator was convicted of leaving the scene of an accident with a two-year suspended sentence. Had the Internet been active and fully tabloid, his career and usefulness would be over.
In 1980, he ran a failed, bitter campaign against President Jimmy Carter, ultimately losing to him and then supporting him.
Republicans that are ardently against health care reform, bitterly opposed his support of Roe vs. Wade, counted him as a dear friend.
A “Lion of the Senate” builds a life from repeated failures. He finds strength in the broken places and gives the remainder of his life to service for others. A tombstone listing his accomplishments would be as large as the Vietnam Vets Memorial.
If America is truly a “Christian nation” as is oft quoted in our sound bite, 24-hour news cycle: then the lesson of Senator Kennedy’s life would be that there is redemption after failure and great sin; that the sun ascends and sets on all and as Hemingway also stated: “Every man's life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died [that] distinguish one man from another.” His service and his boisterous, back-slapping laughter were his roar and his strength.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Monday, August 10, 2009
Hierodule, ("sacred servant")
© 10 August 2009, The Griot Poet
You were the reason
Zeus came down from Olympus
Making Hera, his older sister/wife jealous
Yet, that god/human communion birthed: Hercules
One of mythologies greatest heroes
You are Alcmene
"the tallest,
"most beautiful woman with wisdom surpassed
"by no person born of mortal parents;
"her face and dark eyes as charming as Aphrodite's."
Lady of Cyprus,
Myrtle,
Dove,
Sparrow,
Swan,
All her;
all you;
all goddess;
all sacredly...
...sensual...
You were the reason
Zeus came down from Olympus
Making Hera, his older sister/wife jealous
Yet, that god/human communion birthed: Hercules
One of mythologies greatest heroes
You are Alcmene
"the tallest,
"most beautiful woman with wisdom surpassed
"by no person born of mortal parents;
"her face and dark eyes as charming as Aphrodite's."
Lady of Cyprus,
Myrtle,
Dove,
Sparrow,
Swan,
All her;
all you;
all goddess;
all sacredly...
...sensual...
Sunday, August 09, 2009
Past Prologue Strategies
The ghosts of Atwater past: birth(er)s, death(er)s; mendacity
© 8 August 2009, The Griot Poet
Lee Atwater, God rest his soul (a fatal tumor revealed he HAD one), developed and patented divisive identity politics – the mantle taken up by Karl Rove – to get George Wallace “segregation-now-segregation-forever” Dixiecrats to Republican polls.
“The Southern Strategy” opposed the Voting Rights Act abstractly:
Atwater: “You start out in 1954 saying ‘n----r, n----r; n----r’” (when Brown vs. Board of Education received a 9 – 0 Supreme Court pass with the vigor of Thurgood Marshall’s judicial rigor to implement at all deliberate speed), “by 1968 you can’t say ‘n----r’… that hurts you. So you say stuff like”:
- “Forced busing;
- “State’s rights;
- “Tax cuts;
You keep it abstract, but the result is “blacks get hurt worse than whites.”
Now: they say the fight is “health care,” while many of us are unemployed, laid off, on food stamps or welfare. Tabloid journalists insisting on reporting debunked after debunked after debunked FAKED birth certificates (because an exotic name found [Aramaic] 24 times in the King James Bible can’t be from Hawaii!). Governor “good hair” has the highest rate of uninsured of ANY state; he berates stimulus funds, punches his fist high and shouts at treason-speaking, secession-leaning tea bagger rallies: “State’s rights!”
But now: it’s not just color: it’s class! Follow-the-money to the K Street lobby and see [who] are the true masters of republicans and blue dog democrats!
Thomas Frank asks “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” We tax cut and war mongered our way into this huge deficit.
- “Forced busing;
- “State’s rights;
- “Tax cuts;
The only point changed is the first!
Lied ourselves into two wars in Iraq, killing Saddam Hussein and sons Uday and Qusay, bombing Ur of the Chaldean’s back into the Bill O’Reilly stone age (which had NOTHING to do with 9/11 per DUBYA),
Instead of stating: “we don’t want that n----r in the White House” (built by the way on the backs of slaves),
We have “birth(er)” knaves and republican sponsored-for-20-years “Living Wills” transformed to “Logan’s Run” euthanasia, “death(er)s” shout down and stifle Congressional Town Hall Meetings in industry-sponsored Astroturf rallies,
Because 40 plus years later (from 1968), you can’t say: n----r, n----r; n----r!
Atwater said: “you got to be abstract.”
Forced busing becomes:
- “Military-Industrial-Congressional-Complex” (what Ike meant to say),
- “State’s rights;
- “Tax cuts;
A quote from “The Price of Loyalty” by Ron Suskind: “Deficits don’t matter, this is our due,” from then Vice President Richard Bruce (Dick) Cheney!
© 8 August 2009, The Griot Poet
Lee Atwater, God rest his soul (a fatal tumor revealed he HAD one), developed and patented divisive identity politics – the mantle taken up by Karl Rove – to get George Wallace “segregation-now-segregation-forever” Dixiecrats to Republican polls.
“The Southern Strategy” opposed the Voting Rights Act abstractly:
Atwater: “You start out in 1954 saying ‘n----r, n----r; n----r’” (when Brown vs. Board of Education received a 9 – 0 Supreme Court pass with the vigor of Thurgood Marshall’s judicial rigor to implement at all deliberate speed), “by 1968 you can’t say ‘n----r’… that hurts you. So you say stuff like”:
- “Forced busing;
- “State’s rights;
- “Tax cuts;
You keep it abstract, but the result is “blacks get hurt worse than whites.”
Now: they say the fight is “health care,” while many of us are unemployed, laid off, on food stamps or welfare. Tabloid journalists insisting on reporting debunked after debunked after debunked FAKED birth certificates (because an exotic name found [Aramaic] 24 times in the King James Bible can’t be from Hawaii!). Governor “good hair” has the highest rate of uninsured of ANY state; he berates stimulus funds, punches his fist high and shouts at treason-speaking, secession-leaning tea bagger rallies: “State’s rights!”
But now: it’s not just color: it’s class! Follow-the-money to the K Street lobby and see [who] are the true masters of republicans and blue dog democrats!
Thomas Frank asks “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” We tax cut and war mongered our way into this huge deficit.
- “Forced busing;
- “State’s rights;
- “Tax cuts;
The only point changed is the first!
Lied ourselves into two wars in Iraq, killing Saddam Hussein and sons Uday and Qusay, bombing Ur of the Chaldean’s back into the Bill O’Reilly stone age (which had NOTHING to do with 9/11 per DUBYA),
Instead of stating: “we don’t want that n----r in the White House” (built by the way on the backs of slaves),
We have “birth(er)” knaves and republican sponsored-for-20-years “Living Wills” transformed to “Logan’s Run” euthanasia, “death(er)s” shout down and stifle Congressional Town Hall Meetings in industry-sponsored Astroturf rallies,
Because 40 plus years later (from 1968), you can’t say: n----r, n----r; n----r!
Atwater said: “you got to be abstract.”
Forced busing becomes:
- “Military-Industrial-Congressional-Complex” (what Ike meant to say),
- “State’s rights;
- “Tax cuts;
A quote from “The Price of Loyalty” by Ron Suskind: “Deficits don’t matter, this is our due,” from then Vice President Richard Bruce (Dick) Cheney!
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
On Anarchists and Socialists
Anarchist: 1: a person who rebels against any authority, established order, or ruling power2: a person who believes in, advocates, or promotes anarchism or anarchy ; especially : one who uses violent means to overthrow the established order
Anarchism: 1 : a political theory holding all forms of governmental authority to be unnecessary and undesirable and advocating a society based on voluntary cooperation and free association of individuals and groups
Socialist: 1: one who advocates or practices socialism 2: a member of a party or political group advocating socialism
Socialism: 1: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods 2 a: a system of society or group living in which there is no private property b: a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state3: a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done
With those definitions out of the way, the poster depicting President Obama as "The Joker":
Obama Joker Poster
Is uninformed, dumb and ill-advised.
I don't quite understand what the endgame is regarding the GOP: if the goal is to expand the party base beyond Southern conservative whites and evangelicals, I'm not so sure these groups would be anymore comfortable with this caricature than the one of George W. Bush as Anarchist-in-Chief (same article above, see link to Vanity Fair at the end of the article).
African Americans and Hispanics are probably the most conservative, church-going group the GOP has decided in its best interest to alienate with the childish attacks against Eric Holder as Attorney General, President Obama as a fictional psychopath and Judge Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, arguably the most qualified to approach confirmation.
Tellingly (in some historical references), after slavery the first thing husbands did was go looking for wives and families; wives went to look for husbands and children, so our love of family runs pretty deep. After Lincoln's assassination, President Jackson pulled out troops from the South and the Klan and Jim Crow laws bloomed in its aftermath.
George W. Bush solidly carried Hispanics as Texas governor and pulled the group during his 2000 and 2004 campaigns, along with conservative African Americans nationwide.
http://blackmenformccain.com: is a blog by such a conservative African American. His URL says it all: he was solidly for McCain during much of the primaries in the 2008 election. His tragic last entry on October 18, 2008 discusses something we're debating, have been debating for 61 years now: Health Care:
"My father is not well. He readily admits his time is short, and the encroaching spectre of The End has made him a more reflective man than I have ever known him to be.
"Dad is a self-made man who came up from nothing. To him, personal responsibility is the foundation of our society. He didn’t believe that men, black or white, should rely on anyone, especially not the government. But as he watched his life savings drain away with his health, and the dreams of his children fade as we struggled to pay the bills to keep him alive, that ideology began to feel disconnected from reality. The Conservatism he taught me encouraged unrepentant faith in the Free Market–if you believe, you will prosper. But we believed. And we are not prospering. We are withering away."
The title of this last entry: "Barack Obama for President."
Anarchist: 1: a person who rebels against any authority, established order, or ruling power2: a person who believes in, advocates, or promotes anarchism or anarchy ; especially : one who uses violent means to overthrow the established order:
THAT sounds like the disrupted Democratic town hall meetings by "mob rule" sponsored by special interest groups and republican (and blue dog democratic) operatives beholden to the insurance industry:
Health Care Industry Sabotages American Town Halls
Reviewing the History of Fake Conservative Protests
And the ridiculous, oft-sited claim that President Obama was not born in Hawaii (now with an obvious FAKE birth certificate from a man in Australia):
Obama: the Australian?
So my question: how does THIS make me CONSIDER voting for the GOP?
If you have alternatives; propose them and debate them with FACTS, not mad mobs, dogma and childish pranks done in photo shop and posted anonymously (& cowardly); felonious forgeries of official documents of countries and municipalities.
The obvious embarrassing conclusion I foresee to the "birther" movement and this lunatic fringe the GOP feel beholden to coddle is the only "gag" that will shut them: a lawsuit brought by injured parties for copious amounts of money. (If it means anything, Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, Fox News and RNC Chairman Michael Steele are desperately trying to extricate their party from this thorny "birther" association.)
I'm told a few degrees at the beginning of any journey can decide whether you hit the mark of your destination or miss it be several miles. The "few degrees" that lost the republicans control of the White House and Congress were:
-NOT reacting to a CIA brief clearly stating "Osama Plans to attack America with Planes"
-NOT capturing/killing Osama Bin Laden for 9/11
-Stalling/Stymieing the 9/11 commission
-Outing CIA agent Valerie Plame
-NOT indicting Scooter Libby (what GROWN man calls himself "Scooter"?)
-The voluntary war in Iraq costing the country billions a month
-The atrocities at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo
-Giving credence to Intelligent Design and the lack of support for science and science education, thereby lessening our global competitiveness
-Denying global warming and its affect on climate and the global economy
-The Economic meltdown
-Being in control of the White House and Congress 6/8 of the Bush Administration years, taking us from a surplus to a deficit within months (and before 9/11); signing off on everything W ever wanted, the housing bubble that BURST...
I'll stop here. I COULD go on and on.
The GOP's main problem: you administrate without thinking, your dogma has become your religion to which you are more devoted to than common sense or democracy. I personally KNOW republicans that voted for Obama because like the gentlemen that wrote the blog: http://blackmenformccain.com, they were disillusioned by your administrative performance (or, lack thereof) and preferred to exercise a right afforded them in the constitution:
Democracy: 1 a: government by the people ; especially : rule of the majority b: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections.
"We the people" grew tired of tripe, trysts (Vitter, Ensign, Sanford) and circumstance. You lost. Instead of inciting (false) grass roots riots, find out why. Stop pouting; stop manipulating; start thinking and above all: start listening!
Anarchism: 1 : a political theory holding all forms of governmental authority to be unnecessary and undesirable and advocating a society based on voluntary cooperation and free association of individuals and groups
Socialist: 1: one who advocates or practices socialism 2: a member of a party or political group advocating socialism
Socialism: 1: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods 2 a: a system of society or group living in which there is no private property b: a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state3: a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done
With those definitions out of the way, the poster depicting President Obama as "The Joker":
Obama Joker Poster
Is uninformed, dumb and ill-advised.
I don't quite understand what the endgame is regarding the GOP: if the goal is to expand the party base beyond Southern conservative whites and evangelicals, I'm not so sure these groups would be anymore comfortable with this caricature than the one of George W. Bush as Anarchist-in-Chief (same article above, see link to Vanity Fair at the end of the article).
African Americans and Hispanics are probably the most conservative, church-going group the GOP has decided in its best interest to alienate with the childish attacks against Eric Holder as Attorney General, President Obama as a fictional psychopath and Judge Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, arguably the most qualified to approach confirmation.
Tellingly (in some historical references), after slavery the first thing husbands did was go looking for wives and families; wives went to look for husbands and children, so our love of family runs pretty deep. After Lincoln's assassination, President Jackson pulled out troops from the South and the Klan and Jim Crow laws bloomed in its aftermath.
George W. Bush solidly carried Hispanics as Texas governor and pulled the group during his 2000 and 2004 campaigns, along with conservative African Americans nationwide.
http://blackmenformccain.com: is a blog by such a conservative African American. His URL says it all: he was solidly for McCain during much of the primaries in the 2008 election. His tragic last entry on October 18, 2008 discusses something we're debating, have been debating for 61 years now: Health Care:
"My father is not well. He readily admits his time is short, and the encroaching spectre of The End has made him a more reflective man than I have ever known him to be.
"Dad is a self-made man who came up from nothing. To him, personal responsibility is the foundation of our society. He didn’t believe that men, black or white, should rely on anyone, especially not the government. But as he watched his life savings drain away with his health, and the dreams of his children fade as we struggled to pay the bills to keep him alive, that ideology began to feel disconnected from reality. The Conservatism he taught me encouraged unrepentant faith in the Free Market–if you believe, you will prosper. But we believed. And we are not prospering. We are withering away."
The title of this last entry: "Barack Obama for President."
Anarchist: 1: a person who rebels against any authority, established order, or ruling power2: a person who believes in, advocates, or promotes anarchism or anarchy ; especially : one who uses violent means to overthrow the established order:
THAT sounds like the disrupted Democratic town hall meetings by "mob rule" sponsored by special interest groups and republican (and blue dog democratic) operatives beholden to the insurance industry:
Health Care Industry Sabotages American Town Halls
Reviewing the History of Fake Conservative Protests
And the ridiculous, oft-sited claim that President Obama was not born in Hawaii (now with an obvious FAKE birth certificate from a man in Australia):
Obama: the Australian?
So my question: how does THIS make me CONSIDER voting for the GOP?
If you have alternatives; propose them and debate them with FACTS, not mad mobs, dogma and childish pranks done in photo shop and posted anonymously (& cowardly); felonious forgeries of official documents of countries and municipalities.
The obvious embarrassing conclusion I foresee to the "birther" movement and this lunatic fringe the GOP feel beholden to coddle is the only "gag" that will shut them: a lawsuit brought by injured parties for copious amounts of money. (If it means anything, Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, Fox News and RNC Chairman Michael Steele are desperately trying to extricate their party from this thorny "birther" association.)
I'm told a few degrees at the beginning of any journey can decide whether you hit the mark of your destination or miss it be several miles. The "few degrees" that lost the republicans control of the White House and Congress were:
-NOT reacting to a CIA brief clearly stating "Osama Plans to attack America with Planes"
-NOT capturing/killing Osama Bin Laden for 9/11
-Stalling/Stymieing the 9/11 commission
-Outing CIA agent Valerie Plame
-NOT indicting Scooter Libby (what GROWN man calls himself "Scooter"?)
-The voluntary war in Iraq costing the country billions a month
-The atrocities at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo
-Giving credence to Intelligent Design and the lack of support for science and science education, thereby lessening our global competitiveness
-Denying global warming and its affect on climate and the global economy
-The Economic meltdown
-Being in control of the White House and Congress 6/8 of the Bush Administration years, taking us from a surplus to a deficit within months (and before 9/11); signing off on everything W ever wanted, the housing bubble that BURST...
I'll stop here. I COULD go on and on.
The GOP's main problem: you administrate without thinking, your dogma has become your religion to which you are more devoted to than common sense or democracy. I personally KNOW republicans that voted for Obama because like the gentlemen that wrote the blog: http://blackmenformccain.com, they were disillusioned by your administrative performance (or, lack thereof) and preferred to exercise a right afforded them in the constitution:
Democracy: 1 a: government by the people ; especially : rule of the majority b: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections.
"We the people" grew tired of tripe, trysts (Vitter, Ensign, Sanford) and circumstance. You lost. Instead of inciting (false) grass roots riots, find out why. Stop pouting; stop manipulating; start thinking and above all: start listening!
Sunday, August 02, 2009
Shadow Dancing
© 2 August 2009, The Griot Poet
“Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.” Carl Sandburg
My shadow was Mr. Tedford: science teacher from my middle school past that on my lack of completely grasping the principle of linear expansion shouted his bearded disappointment:
“No, You big dummy...!”
I faked an obviously faked laugh as the dagger he stabbed me with sunk deep.
I never told my parents, I never demanded an apology for his pomposity and his mendacity,
I self-sedated; I ate [more] massive amounts of potato chips: comfort food to medicate internal wounds.
My shadow is JROTC Cadet Colonel Wall: Aryan, standing tall, blond-haired, blue-eyed, bedecked in ribbons, highest ranking Brigade Commander of Winston-Salem, Forsyth County schools that at a casual question shot back:
“YOUR kind will NEVER get to this rank!”
(“No, You big dummy…!”)
My heart sank and I expressed my stress and angst to my parents.
“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” my dad said with a knowing glance and genuine pain in tearing eyes that hoped I’d never have this experience.
“You go back and tell that booger-bootch you can do anything you set your mind to with GOD on your side,” mom said parodying Philippians 4:13: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
I did: “In three years,” I said, “I’ll be wearing your rank.”
“I doubt that,” he said in arrogant confidence.
3 years hence:
Veni; Vidi; Vici!
I stood tall, African son, black-haired, brown-eyed, bedecked in ribbons,
Making history in the Winston-Salem Sentinel (no longer in circulation),
My dead mothers’ scribbled note on the article to my Uncle James Dean:
“This is Reggie… your nephew… my son.”
And I, have lost both of them and the innocence of the mythology of my beginnings,
Insurance claims, death certificates, will probates crowds out my time for grieving, economy not allowing me to evening mourn over their sealed graves,
On anniversaries of his death and my corporate denouement: August 26, 1999 and 2003;
On her recent demise two days before Mother’s Day weekend 2009:
One dagger remains:
Tedford/Science/Certification
I did not tell them;
And now I’ve lost them,
I stagger as I attempt to remove (alone) the dagger!
“Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.” Carl Sandburg
My shadow was Mr. Tedford: science teacher from my middle school past that on my lack of completely grasping the principle of linear expansion shouted his bearded disappointment:
“No, You big dummy...!”
I faked an obviously faked laugh as the dagger he stabbed me with sunk deep.
I never told my parents, I never demanded an apology for his pomposity and his mendacity,
I self-sedated; I ate [more] massive amounts of potato chips: comfort food to medicate internal wounds.
My shadow is JROTC Cadet Colonel Wall: Aryan, standing tall, blond-haired, blue-eyed, bedecked in ribbons, highest ranking Brigade Commander of Winston-Salem, Forsyth County schools that at a casual question shot back:
“YOUR kind will NEVER get to this rank!”
(“No, You big dummy…!”)
My heart sank and I expressed my stress and angst to my parents.
“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” my dad said with a knowing glance and genuine pain in tearing eyes that hoped I’d never have this experience.
“You go back and tell that booger-bootch you can do anything you set your mind to with GOD on your side,” mom said parodying Philippians 4:13: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
I did: “In three years,” I said, “I’ll be wearing your rank.”
“I doubt that,” he said in arrogant confidence.
3 years hence:
Veni; Vidi; Vici!
I stood tall, African son, black-haired, brown-eyed, bedecked in ribbons,
Making history in the Winston-Salem Sentinel (no longer in circulation),
My dead mothers’ scribbled note on the article to my Uncle James Dean:
“This is Reggie… your nephew… my son.”
And I, have lost both of them and the innocence of the mythology of my beginnings,
Insurance claims, death certificates, will probates crowds out my time for grieving, economy not allowing me to evening mourn over their sealed graves,
On anniversaries of his death and my corporate denouement: August 26, 1999 and 2003;
On her recent demise two days before Mother’s Day weekend 2009:
One dagger remains:
Tedford/Science/Certification
I did not tell them;
And now I’ve lost them,
I stagger as I attempt to remove (alone) the dagger!
Friday, July 31, 2009
Thursday, July 23, 2009
On "the Birthers" and Lou Dobbs
See: Dobbs Joins ‘Birthers,’ But CNN Pushes Back
I'm curious: would this controversy have any legs where his name "President Barry O'Bama" and his father were from Ireland?
Barack means "blessing" in Arabic, in Aramaic it is spelled Baruch and occurs 24 times in the Bible (for all you Christian right-wingers)!
5/27/2009 Briefing by White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs
The White House Press Secretary, Mr. Gibbs states:
"MR. GIBBS: Lester, this question in many ways continues to astound me. The state of Hawaii provided a copy with the seal of the President's birth. I know there are apparently at least 400,000 people -- (laughter) -- that continue to doubt the existence of and the certification by the state of Hawaii of the President's birth there, but it's on the Internet because we put it on the Internet for each of those 400,000 to download. I certainly hope by the fourth year of our administration that we'll have dealt with this burgeoning birth controversy."
Snopes.com debunks it: Obama Birth Certificate
Here's a link with the seal of the 50th state of Hawaii:
Hawaii: Obama Birth Certificate with the state seal
Racism. A narcissism of self-centered, paranoia resulting from the notion that right or wrong, all things are "good" when someone like "me" is in charge.
I'm curious: would this controversy have any legs where his name "President Barry O'Bama" and his father were from Ireland?
Barack means "blessing" in Arabic, in Aramaic it is spelled Baruch and occurs 24 times in the Bible (for all you Christian right-wingers)!
5/27/2009 Briefing by White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs
The White House Press Secretary, Mr. Gibbs states:
"MR. GIBBS: Lester, this question in many ways continues to astound me. The state of Hawaii provided a copy with the seal of the President's birth. I know there are apparently at least 400,000 people -- (laughter) -- that continue to doubt the existence of and the certification by the state of Hawaii of the President's birth there, but it's on the Internet because we put it on the Internet for each of those 400,000 to download. I certainly hope by the fourth year of our administration that we'll have dealt with this burgeoning birth controversy."
Snopes.com debunks it: Obama Birth Certificate
Here's a link with the seal of the 50th state of Hawaii:
Hawaii: Obama Birth Certificate with the state seal
Racism. A narcissism of self-centered, paranoia resulting from the notion that right or wrong, all things are "good" when someone like "me" is in charge.
Monday, July 20, 2009
No Prayers
© 20 July 2009, 11:59 PM, The Griot Poet
I have no prayers to utter to God…
It is not that I don’t believe in Him,
I’m definitely beset by some demon
Assigned to my overt oppression and demise…
I pray for others healings and they do recover
I slack and their marriages suffer…
Like Moses, my arms get tired sometimes
Like Elijah, I suffer depression after dueling with the prophets of Baal and Ashtoreth in groves.
Like Paul, I have thorns in my side; I am left for dead many times
Like today: on the anniversary of seeing earth from God’s front porch
I am defeated by nineteen points
Separating me from bidding on a classroom this fall…
What sin can I not be forgiven?
What sin spews back from the sea of forgetfulness?
Back to shore to chagrin me again and again?
What blocks my prayers so that after ravens feed me?
I am seeking for God… to kill me?
GIVE ME AN ANSWER!
So I can declare to my disciples that there are “more with us than there are with them.”
So I can ride a chariot of fire, translate death and give a double portion of my mantle to my sons
As I ascend before Apollo 11 beyond the sun to God’s front porch.
I have no prayers to utter to God…
It is not that I don’t believe in Him,
I’m definitely beset by some demon
Assigned to my overt oppression and demise…
I pray for others healings and they do recover
I slack and their marriages suffer…
Like Moses, my arms get tired sometimes
Like Elijah, I suffer depression after dueling with the prophets of Baal and Ashtoreth in groves.
Like Paul, I have thorns in my side; I am left for dead many times
Like today: on the anniversary of seeing earth from God’s front porch
I am defeated by nineteen points
Separating me from bidding on a classroom this fall…
What sin can I not be forgiven?
What sin spews back from the sea of forgetfulness?
Back to shore to chagrin me again and again?
What blocks my prayers so that after ravens feed me?
I am seeking for God… to kill me?
GIVE ME AN ANSWER!
So I can declare to my disciples that there are “more with us than there are with them.”
So I can ride a chariot of fire, translate death and give a double portion of my mantle to my sons
As I ascend before Apollo 11 beyond the sun to God’s front porch.
Rachel Maddow Correcting the Record
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Friday, July 03, 2009
Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes...
...Who Watches the Watchmen?
(Last page of the comic novel, "The Watchmen," from Juvenal, Satires VI, 347, used during the Tower Commission Report in 1987)
See: Meltdown 101: Unemployment by the Numbers
The markets were pummeled by the news that unemployment was its highest in 26 years: 9.5 percent.
From the article:
"How bad is the current recession? Here's one measure: the United States now has fewer jobs than it did nine years ago, even though the work force - the number of people either working or looking for work - has grown by 12.5 million people since then.
"It's the first time since the Great Depression that a recession has wiped out all the jobs created during the previous business cycle, according to Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank."
I'll let you read the rest at the link above, but some thoughts as to how we're in this mess:
1. Fewer jobs: from a techie standpoint, a lot of that has to do with automation and the Internet. Remember "The Jetsons"? George's job at Spacely's Sprockets was to "push the button": he seemed the only employee needed. Jobs that had to be done in the US can now be done overseas in cheaper labor markets, results delivered in hypertext transfer protocol. (I don't support this, I'm just trying to wrap my mind around it and offer an explanation.)
2. Also, births. That is, those in 1983 - 1990 or so, those kids are now 18 - 25 and looking for something to do.
3. Lifers. I was one of them. And because the lifers are happy doing their part, their "cog" in the great wheel of industry, even though their talents and skill sets may have in many cases atrophied, they don't up and quit and start businesses: they pad their 401k and wait, hopefully for retirement (instead of layoffs = the elephant graveyard).
4. Nine years ago, we weren't as bad off as we are now. The election cycle for 2000 started with a surplus that got spent into a deficit rather quickly.
5. 9/11. Enough said.
6. War in Iraq. A "billion dollars a month" (an estimate I've heard on the news). Hm: March 2003 - July 2009 = 76 months X 1,000,000,000 = 76,000,000,000 of significant deficit reduction.
Our "Brave New World" is here, and we were not at all ready for the rapid changes that would mean. Automation may save "The Big Three" and put out green Hybrid vehicles, but a robot may be able to do what Uncle Billy used to do to put his family through school, making a upper middle class wage without a degree.
The old school sci fi flicks had us all with ENORMOUS heads and small bodies, that was obviously countered and documented in The Assault on Reason and Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free. We obviously are the diametric opposite: small brains and large, grossly out-of-shape bodies.
At this point: the only advice I can offer is to read, read, READ and be ready at a moment's notice to DO something else! I had to learn that lesson the hard way, as many of you are now experiencing the lament of jobs and security that will probably never come back, until we discover Warp Drive.
Niel Postman commented on where we are (from the "boob tube" perspective) in his insightful book: Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. When it takes the National Enquirer to bust John Edwards having an affair, we're at a place where only bloggers scoop the news on the street, because we're not driven by the market, ratings or stock valuations. We are the very expression of democracy, which is a contact sport, not a jingo, market-driven slogan-fest of litmus tests of how "right" or "left" one is. That doesn't come up on my monthly grocery budget, my bills, my mortgage. I've changed and rearranged things in anticipation of less for the time being, ready to evolve into something on the horizon that will be different than any economy we've ever known... for the better.
Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes...Who Watches the Watchmen? WE do!
(Last page of the comic novel, "The Watchmen," from Juvenal, Satires VI, 347, used during the Tower Commission Report in 1987)
See: Meltdown 101: Unemployment by the Numbers
The markets were pummeled by the news that unemployment was its highest in 26 years: 9.5 percent.
From the article:
"How bad is the current recession? Here's one measure: the United States now has fewer jobs than it did nine years ago, even though the work force - the number of people either working or looking for work - has grown by 12.5 million people since then.
"It's the first time since the Great Depression that a recession has wiped out all the jobs created during the previous business cycle, according to Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank."
I'll let you read the rest at the link above, but some thoughts as to how we're in this mess:
1. Fewer jobs: from a techie standpoint, a lot of that has to do with automation and the Internet. Remember "The Jetsons"? George's job at Spacely's Sprockets was to "push the button": he seemed the only employee needed. Jobs that had to be done in the US can now be done overseas in cheaper labor markets, results delivered in hypertext transfer protocol. (I don't support this, I'm just trying to wrap my mind around it and offer an explanation.)
2. Also, births. That is, those in 1983 - 1990 or so, those kids are now 18 - 25 and looking for something to do.
3. Lifers. I was one of them. And because the lifers are happy doing their part, their "cog" in the great wheel of industry, even though their talents and skill sets may have in many cases atrophied, they don't up and quit and start businesses: they pad their 401k and wait, hopefully for retirement (instead of layoffs = the elephant graveyard).
4. Nine years ago, we weren't as bad off as we are now. The election cycle for 2000 started with a surplus that got spent into a deficit rather quickly.
5. 9/11. Enough said.
6. War in Iraq. A "billion dollars a month" (an estimate I've heard on the news). Hm: March 2003 - July 2009 = 76 months X 1,000,000,000 = 76,000,000,000 of significant deficit reduction.
Our "Brave New World" is here, and we were not at all ready for the rapid changes that would mean. Automation may save "The Big Three" and put out green Hybrid vehicles, but a robot may be able to do what Uncle Billy used to do to put his family through school, making a upper middle class wage without a degree.
The old school sci fi flicks had us all with ENORMOUS heads and small bodies, that was obviously countered and documented in The Assault on Reason and Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free. We obviously are the diametric opposite: small brains and large, grossly out-of-shape bodies.
At this point: the only advice I can offer is to read, read, READ and be ready at a moment's notice to DO something else! I had to learn that lesson the hard way, as many of you are now experiencing the lament of jobs and security that will probably never come back, until we discover Warp Drive.
Niel Postman commented on where we are (from the "boob tube" perspective) in his insightful book: Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. When it takes the National Enquirer to bust John Edwards having an affair, we're at a place where only bloggers scoop the news on the street, because we're not driven by the market, ratings or stock valuations. We are the very expression of democracy, which is a contact sport, not a jingo, market-driven slogan-fest of litmus tests of how "right" or "left" one is. That doesn't come up on my monthly grocery budget, my bills, my mortgage. I've changed and rearranged things in anticipation of less for the time being, ready to evolve into something on the horizon that will be different than any economy we've ever known... for the better.
Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes...Who Watches the Watchmen? WE do!
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Friday, June 26, 2009
Threes
© 26 June 2009, The Griot Poet
They say that death comes in threes:
First, my cat Felix died quietly, as mysteriously as she’d appeared on my doorstep fully grown 15 years prior, she expired after mewing on the front stoop and curled up as if to nap – from which she did not come back.
Two weeks later: my mother, Mildred Dean Goodwin expired two days before Mother’s Day weekend. Which is like her: I’ll bet I’ll never forget this anniversary as I had hers and my father’s wedding anniversary. For that, Mother’s Day will always have meaning.
David Carradine: this generation knows him as the Bill of “Kill Bill” with the enigmatic Uma Thurman, but despite his personal demons off camera, he was the star from the Bruce Lee inspired “Kung Fu” series (Bruce was a little too “oriental” for 70s producers back then)…
This week: we lost the perennial “side kick” Ed McMahon, after suffering from breathing problems and cancer. He and he only could laugh at an obviously unfunny joke by Johnny Carson and have the audience guffaw with him.
The modern-day pin-up girl Farrah Fawcett was published in Life in ‘76; it is the best-selling pin-up poster of all time, with more than 12 million copies purchased (exceeding her weekly TV salary)... her show number one because the Corpus Christi beauty admitted “we’re number one maybe because we all don’t wear bras,” lost her life, the fantasy girl of “Charlie’s Angels” to colon cancer…
Now Michael Joe Jackson: the poor boy in the stereotypical crowded black family from Gary, Indiana who’s father was a failed musician who became the “King of Pop,” became the first to star and aligned himself with a sports star – Michael Jordan and “Jam” became the standard of video and performance excellence, became the inspiration of Usher and Justin Timberlake (they were in diapers when he did “Billy Jean” and “Thriller”). His was a “rags to riches (to rags)” story. His was evidence that any dream is possible if you work your behind off and pursue it, despite your culture, color, demons or personal struggles. His is the record of best selling pop album of all time. Any goal, no matter how outrageous is worth pursuing because despite spiritual traditions to the contrary: I suspect we only have this life to pursue it and then oblivion and judgment.
They say death comes in threes:
“For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.” (1 John 5:7 – 8)
If this is truly our reality, then let us pursue our talents and serve Deity and humanity as we walk out our destinies – our judgment of the impact of our storied pasts will be what is said about us when we’ve breathed our last.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Meditation 17 (1623 - 1624) by John Donne
CNN Story: Teen Beating
I put the link because, apparently, their embed code doesn't work. When you go on You Tube and put in "Teen Cat Fight"... let's just say you get interpretations bordering on the profane.
Slowly... we are walking towards the guillotine, happy at our own demise as a civilization. The very thing that frees us - the Internet - enslaves us. We are detached from emotion, affection, true feelings, empathy. We carry on relationships at light speed with people distant from us. The beating of a child only prompted the announcement: "this is going to You Tube" from bystanders that wouldn't call the police.
Our knowledge is incredible; our education suffers; our respect for self and others absent; our wisdom lacking.
We die, with Cheshire smiles as we disappear - TGP
Meditation 17 (1623-1624)
by John Donne
Nunc lento sonitu dicunt, morieris.
Now this bell tolling softly for another, says to me, Thou must die.
Perchance he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill as that he knows not it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me and see my state may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that.
The church is catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does belongs to all. When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that head which is my head too, and ingrafted into the body whereof I am a member. And when she buries a man, that action concerns me: all mankind is of one author and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated. God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God’s hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another.
As therefore the bell that rings a sermon calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come, so this bell calls us all; but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness. There was a contention as far as a suit (in which piety and dignity, religion and estimation, were mingled) which of the religious orders should ring to prayers first in the morning; and it was determined that they should ring first that rose earliest.
If we understand aright the dignity of this bell that tolls for our evening prayer, we would be glad to make it ours by rising early, in that application, that it might be ours as well as his whose indeed it is. The bell doth toll for him that thinks it doth; and though it intermit again, yet from that minute that that occasion wrought upon him, he is united to God. Who casts not up his eye to the sun when it rises? But who takes off his eye from a comet when that breaks out? Who bends not his ear to any bell which upon any occasion rings? But who can remove it from that bell which is passing a piece of himself out of this world?
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were. Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Neither can we call this a begging of misery or a borrowing of misery, as though we are not miserable enough of ourselves but must fetch in more from the next house, in taking upon us the misery of our neighbors. Truly it were an excusable covetousness if we did; for affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it. No man hath affliction enough that is not matured and ripened by it, and made fit for God by that affliction.
If a man carry treasure in bullion, or in a wedge of gold, and have none coined into current moneys, his treasure will not defray him as he travels. Tribulation is treasure in the nature of it, but it is not current money in the use of it, except we get nearer and nearer our home, heaven, by it. Another man may be sick too, and sick to death, and this affliction may lie in his bowels as gold in a mine and be of no use to him; but this bell that tells me of his affliction digs out and applies that gold to me, if by this consideration of anothers dangers I take mine own into contemplation and so secure myself by making my recourse to my God, who is our only security.
I put the link because, apparently, their embed code doesn't work. When you go on You Tube and put in "Teen Cat Fight"... let's just say you get interpretations bordering on the profane.
Slowly... we are walking towards the guillotine, happy at our own demise as a civilization. The very thing that frees us - the Internet - enslaves us. We are detached from emotion, affection, true feelings, empathy. We carry on relationships at light speed with people distant from us. The beating of a child only prompted the announcement: "this is going to You Tube" from bystanders that wouldn't call the police.
Our knowledge is incredible; our education suffers; our respect for self and others absent; our wisdom lacking.
We die, with Cheshire smiles as we disappear - TGP
Meditation 17 (1623-1624)
by John Donne
Nunc lento sonitu dicunt, morieris.
Now this bell tolling softly for another, says to me, Thou must die.
Perchance he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill as that he knows not it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me and see my state may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that.
The church is catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does belongs to all. When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that head which is my head too, and ingrafted into the body whereof I am a member. And when she buries a man, that action concerns me: all mankind is of one author and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated. God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God’s hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another.
As therefore the bell that rings a sermon calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come, so this bell calls us all; but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness. There was a contention as far as a suit (in which piety and dignity, religion and estimation, were mingled) which of the religious orders should ring to prayers first in the morning; and it was determined that they should ring first that rose earliest.
If we understand aright the dignity of this bell that tolls for our evening prayer, we would be glad to make it ours by rising early, in that application, that it might be ours as well as his whose indeed it is. The bell doth toll for him that thinks it doth; and though it intermit again, yet from that minute that that occasion wrought upon him, he is united to God. Who casts not up his eye to the sun when it rises? But who takes off his eye from a comet when that breaks out? Who bends not his ear to any bell which upon any occasion rings? But who can remove it from that bell which is passing a piece of himself out of this world?
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were. Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Neither can we call this a begging of misery or a borrowing of misery, as though we are not miserable enough of ourselves but must fetch in more from the next house, in taking upon us the misery of our neighbors. Truly it were an excusable covetousness if we did; for affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it. No man hath affliction enough that is not matured and ripened by it, and made fit for God by that affliction.
If a man carry treasure in bullion, or in a wedge of gold, and have none coined into current moneys, his treasure will not defray him as he travels. Tribulation is treasure in the nature of it, but it is not current money in the use of it, except we get nearer and nearer our home, heaven, by it. Another man may be sick too, and sick to death, and this affliction may lie in his bowels as gold in a mine and be of no use to him; but this bell that tells me of his affliction digs out and applies that gold to me, if by this consideration of anothers dangers I take mine own into contemplation and so secure myself by making my recourse to my God, who is our only security.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Synapses
© 24 November 2008, The Griot Poet
I dreamt I made poetry to you in Milky Way Galaxy arms surrounded by swirls of stars in an expansive blackness that had no beginning, no ending…
I dreamt I made poetry to you [by] composing sonnets on comets passing by, the ice melting in the sunshine of your sharp gaze, your smile, its trail marking orbital passage…
I dreamt I made poetry to you as you defied physics and I heard you like a siren, serenely reciting poetic prophecies that made each area of my brain light up on an MRI screen like a Christmas tree…
I dreamt I made poetry to you in timeless space-time, so we experimented with cosmic compositions; haiku as short burst of deep and poignant rhythm and rhyme, sinusoidal wave equations, quarks and quantum, Hydrogen to Helium fusion, Schrodinger particle/wave duality… a reality beyond human comprehension.
I dreamt I made poetry to you as my last act in life, my denouement, a solar moth attracted to a red giant flame, mesmerized by all-seeing eyes, pulled in by the third that is a gravity well that heavy particles of lies cannot escape.
I dreamt I made poetry to you and like Shakespeare, heaving my last sigh in the valley made by clockwise and counterclockwise swirling nebula pouring to an abyss of nothingness into the substance of the surrounding universe of teeming life…
Then, I awoke and stared at Venus and the rays of dawn.
I dreamt I made poetry to you in Milky Way Galaxy arms surrounded by swirls of stars in an expansive blackness that had no beginning, no ending…
I dreamt I made poetry to you [by] composing sonnets on comets passing by, the ice melting in the sunshine of your sharp gaze, your smile, its trail marking orbital passage…
I dreamt I made poetry to you as you defied physics and I heard you like a siren, serenely reciting poetic prophecies that made each area of my brain light up on an MRI screen like a Christmas tree…
I dreamt I made poetry to you in timeless space-time, so we experimented with cosmic compositions; haiku as short burst of deep and poignant rhythm and rhyme, sinusoidal wave equations, quarks and quantum, Hydrogen to Helium fusion, Schrodinger particle/wave duality… a reality beyond human comprehension.
I dreamt I made poetry to you as my last act in life, my denouement, a solar moth attracted to a red giant flame, mesmerized by all-seeing eyes, pulled in by the third that is a gravity well that heavy particles of lies cannot escape.
I dreamt I made poetry to you and like Shakespeare, heaving my last sigh in the valley made by clockwise and counterclockwise swirling nebula pouring to an abyss of nothingness into the substance of the surrounding universe of teeming life…
Then, I awoke and stared at Venus and the rays of dawn.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Voyeur Exhibitionists
From: TheFreeDictionary.com
Voyeur:
1. A person who derives sexual gratification from observing the naked bodies or sexual acts of others, especially from a secret vantage point.
2. An obsessive observer of sordid or sensational subjects.
Exhibitionism:
1. The act or practice of deliberately behaving so as to attract attention.
2. Psychiatry A psycho sexual disorder marked by the compulsive exposure of the genitals in public.
At addiction recovery meetings, it is customary to begin with the admittance to the sin before any discussion can begin: "Hello. I'm John/Jane Doe, and I'm an alcoholic/addict."
Hello. I am The Griot Poet. I am a blogger.
That, of course, is not my real name. However, many who know me know me as "The Griot Poet," literally meaning "A storyteller in western Africa who perpetuates the oral tradition and history of a village or family."
At a deeper level, I'm not too different from a voyeur. I get links sent to my profile possibly because my disclosure of age attracts anyone with curves and a web cam: the game is to get me to "look" for free, then for a fee. I typically block them (though I have looked, then blocked them).
And, why am I so "high and mighty"? Am I not writing in Cyberspace to be "looked" at? Aren't we all trying to be "discovered" and famous? Who wouldn't like to make as much as the top-seed bloggers? Be interviewed on CNN, MSNBC for your pontification and comments? I don't actually have a qualification to my audience that might "look" and show interest, benign or lewd. Did Bathsheba accidentally bath in an open window where David could see her? Was it all his idea? I get the idea (translating it into modern speak), that the lady and the king after cutting gazes at each other engaged in the modern equivalent of "the hook up" and "booty call." It takes two to Tango.
That brings up a related point: The very fact I want someone to "look" makes me an exhibitionist. My genitalia are sentences, phrases, quotes and paragraphs. I, and others are voluntarily giving personal parts of ourselves to the world wide web in what once would have been a private diary. Some of it is insightful, lewd, brilliant, crass, thought-provoking and lately, dangerous.
Some of the comments I see posted, for example, at White House Correspondent's Dinner on You Tube are from other bloggers that obviously DON'T like the president. I see the words "n----r" and "b---h" bandied about and F*CK the president.
Yet, I cannot judge them. They, like me, have a "handle," and are probably our co-workers that we respect their output (if we're still employed, that is).
So, they express their First Amendment rights in a medium the Founders had no concept of. They connect with like-minded individuals and comment anonymously with abandon and freedom. The words are on Facebook and Myspace and Twitter and YouTube. And one obsessive compulsive will read them all and repeat them over and over... like a mantra.
And like the doppelganger antimatter equivalent of Langston's "Dream Deferred..." they explode.
Voyeur:
1. A person who derives sexual gratification from observing the naked bodies or sexual acts of others, especially from a secret vantage point.
2. An obsessive observer of sordid or sensational subjects.
Exhibitionism:
1. The act or practice of deliberately behaving so as to attract attention.
2. Psychiatry A psycho sexual disorder marked by the compulsive exposure of the genitals in public.
At addiction recovery meetings, it is customary to begin with the admittance to the sin before any discussion can begin: "Hello. I'm John/Jane Doe, and I'm an alcoholic/addict."
Hello. I am The Griot Poet. I am a blogger.
That, of course, is not my real name. However, many who know me know me as "The Griot Poet," literally meaning "A storyteller in western Africa who perpetuates the oral tradition and history of a village or family."
At a deeper level, I'm not too different from a voyeur. I get links sent to my profile possibly because my disclosure of age attracts anyone with curves and a web cam: the game is to get me to "look" for free, then for a fee. I typically block them (though I have looked, then blocked them).
And, why am I so "high and mighty"? Am I not writing in Cyberspace to be "looked" at? Aren't we all trying to be "discovered" and famous? Who wouldn't like to make as much as the top-seed bloggers? Be interviewed on CNN, MSNBC for your pontification and comments? I don't actually have a qualification to my audience that might "look" and show interest, benign or lewd. Did Bathsheba accidentally bath in an open window where David could see her? Was it all his idea? I get the idea (translating it into modern speak), that the lady and the king after cutting gazes at each other engaged in the modern equivalent of "the hook up" and "booty call." It takes two to Tango.
That brings up a related point: The very fact I want someone to "look" makes me an exhibitionist. My genitalia are sentences, phrases, quotes and paragraphs. I, and others are voluntarily giving personal parts of ourselves to the world wide web in what once would have been a private diary. Some of it is insightful, lewd, brilliant, crass, thought-provoking and lately, dangerous.
Some of the comments I see posted, for example, at White House Correspondent's Dinner on You Tube are from other bloggers that obviously DON'T like the president. I see the words "n----r" and "b---h" bandied about and F*CK the president.
Yet, I cannot judge them. They, like me, have a "handle," and are probably our co-workers that we respect their output (if we're still employed, that is).
So, they express their First Amendment rights in a medium the Founders had no concept of. They connect with like-minded individuals and comment anonymously with abandon and freedom. The words are on Facebook and Myspace and Twitter and YouTube. And one obsessive compulsive will read them all and repeat them over and over... like a mantra.
And like the doppelganger antimatter equivalent of Langston's "Dream Deferred..." they explode.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
The First Amendment: Comments
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
See: Who Called Michelle a Gorilla?
The Founders had no concept of the Internet, 24-hour news, emails or Radio Talk Shows (Marconi wasn't born yet).
They also had no concept of 3/5 of a person occupying the Oval Office (women couldn't vote before the Suffrage Movement).
That being said: Letterman's comments were written FOR him and in poor taste. The joke writer should be fired, not Letterman: he's going from a script he's given and teleprompter he works from. He apologized to the governor. Move on.
The email was equally in poor taste. Demographics is working against the Republican Party. They have to retool from the party of religious conservatives - a brand they picked up after the '88 run of Pat Robertson - and white males. This email and their insistent attacks on Sotomayor, without doubt the most qualified to ever approach the nomination to the Supreme Court, will turn off moderates and ethnic minorities, WHICH THEY NEED if they have a chance of getting back into power. They're own pundits advise it, but they're not listening. Ironically, Matthew 5:5 states (in RED): "Blessed [are] the meek: for they shall inherit the earth."
See: Who Called Michelle a Gorilla?
The Founders had no concept of the Internet, 24-hour news, emails or Radio Talk Shows (Marconi wasn't born yet).
They also had no concept of 3/5 of a person occupying the Oval Office (women couldn't vote before the Suffrage Movement).
That being said: Letterman's comments were written FOR him and in poor taste. The joke writer should be fired, not Letterman: he's going from a script he's given and teleprompter he works from. He apologized to the governor. Move on.
The email was equally in poor taste. Demographics is working against the Republican Party. They have to retool from the party of religious conservatives - a brand they picked up after the '88 run of Pat Robertson - and white males. This email and their insistent attacks on Sotomayor, without doubt the most qualified to ever approach the nomination to the Supreme Court, will turn off moderates and ethnic minorities, WHICH THEY NEED if they have a chance of getting back into power. They're own pundits advise it, but they're not listening. Ironically, Matthew 5:5 states (in RED): "Blessed [are] the meek: for they shall inherit the earth."
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