Keep It Trill

Kit, Unwired

2010-07-18T16:30:00.012-04:00

My life is in transition, and my daughter Casie and I are in the process of moving. We've looked at a few places, from rooms to rent to apartments and may end up moving in with relatives.

My son, Xavier, has been having a fit over the move, and it hasn't been easy for either of us. He's gone from rage at the lunatic landlord in the basement for telling us we have to move because he's moving, to depression. He'll probably stay with his half sister or bunk with friends.

On a lighter note, the funniest story is when Casie and I had dinner at a New Age, 'go green', vegan group house. I went out of curiosity and because the rent was cheap.

It was hot as mofo up in there. They've 'gone green' to save on air conditioning.

As we finished our dinner, I noticed they have only one refrigerator.

"How do you all keep your foods separated?", I asked.

The head of this cult answered.

"We each pay $100 for the grocery bill each month," he said, "That's to pay for non-food items. Otherwise we grow our vegetables and we liberate food several times a week."

"Liberate food?", I asked, puzzled.

"Yes."

He described what this was. Casie and I stared at our now empty plates. It was all I could do to keep a straight face.

I said, "You mean you go dumpster diving?"

"You could put it that way. It's one of the chores you can sign up for."

When pigs fly.

Damn.

Ya know, our country has taken a helluva beating economically. These were white folks, half who had decent jobs in the recent past but sank to this to survive. They're holding tight onto their middle class image buy dressing up their new poverty with Orwellian-like phrases such as going green and liberating food, and becoming vegetarians because they can't afford meat.

"What if I buy and cook a steak?", I asked.

"Some people might get offended," he replied.

More like hungry, I thought.

The cult leader, which is how I think of him, is raking in the money. Toilet paper, soap and detergent for ten boarders don't cost no got damned $1,000 a month, and lemme tell you, that top floor room they had for rent wasn't nearly as big as advertised and was hot as an oven.

Scams are everywhere to sucker people looking for cheap housing. My own landlord, who ain't shit, will probably skip out of town with my deposit next week. The news always talks about the housing market, yet barely says a word about the high cost of apartments; those rents haven't budged, and from what I see, continue to go up.

Man, I wish the hell I had done some things differently, but I didn't. I did the best I could, so I have to let it go. This transition is presenting some hard choices. I may have to give up my beloved little dog who brings so much comfort to me. Well, with perseverance and a little luck, I think I can rebuild my savings and my life.

I really have no other choice.

My Internet will be cut sometime this week, and I'm not in a hurry to get it turned on again. I've been taking a break from the news and it's felt nice being unwired. Heck, most of the news stories have been horrible this year anyway.

So, I'm in blogging lite mode for the rest of summer. Once I turn in my cable box, I'll turn comment moderation on.

By the way! I was awake when the 3.6 earthquake hit the the DC area. Man, what a shocker. I heard the rumble, the house shook, and my windows rattled. It lasted a long time too, maybe six or eight seconds. I ran to check on Casie (Xavier wasn't home) and it woke her up.

The earthquake made me wonder, along with all of these other converging problems, if the hands of fate aren't pushing me toward a new destiny.

I wish God would tell me what to do. I keep listening...

When Relationships Are Like An Onion And A Maze

2010-07-05T01:42:00.016-04:00

What does a difficult person have in common with an onion?

What does a crazy relationship have in common with a maze?

When you visualize an onion and a maze, and attach the images to those concepts, the answer is intuitive, even when it's hard to put in words.

You might recall your first childhood science experiment with an onion. Remember your surprise when you peeled it, and how many layers it had before getting to the center? How some onions have two centers? How your eyes began to burn and tear up?

How many people have you met like this since then? Or been closely involved with?

The thing about a relationship with, for lack of a better phrase, an Onion Head, is their appeal can be their mystery.

Most of us like a little mystery in those who initially attracted us. It gives us time to build a fantasy around this new person.

"Oooh, he has a good job!"

"She's so pretty and nice!"

Okay, so he has a good job. So what. He might be so incompetent at it that he has one foot on a banana peel and the other on the way to the unemployment line, or worse, he's the office backstabber, which is part of his overall character.

And her? He ain't seen her when she first wakes up, and her family and last five boyfriends can testify she ain't all that nice.

Show me someone who came home from a bad first date, and I'll guess one possible reason is their date revealed too much too soon and didn't know when to shut up.

This should be considered a good first date when the person is solid and genuine, but just awkward. Human nature is weird though, and that need for a little mystery thing has eliminated a lot of good folks.

Some bad dates of this category are good. They tell all and thus reveal their low character and/or questionable values from the start, and when it's over, you know you don't have to waste any further time with them.

But then there are the Mutant Onion Heads. They have lots of mystery, often combined with some characteristic that draws others to them without making them cry until numerous layers have been peeled away.

These are the men or women who lure you into some kind of intense relationship with them. Time is an investment, and like any investment, the more you put in, the harder it is to walk away. The reason again has to do with human nature. We hate to think we gave up a lot for little or nothing in return, so we hang in there, hoping things will return to early days before the onion made you cry.

But an onion is an onion is an onion... and the longer you stay, the more layers are revealed and the more your eyes burn with pain from the noxious fumes of who they really are.

By this time, you're in a relationship with them, which is like a maze. There is no straight path to their intentions much less their heart. It's all about twists and turns and getting lost... so lost that finding your way out is as hellish your previous attempts to find their center.

There is no birds-eye view from above where you can see how to get closer to the person or to find the exit. Don't expect any honest hints from the Mutant Onion Head either. ~~Deception~~ mystery is their thang, remember?

That's what got you into the maze in the first place.

What is normal?

Some of us came from families where a significant caretaker had Onion Head qualities. This can make that kind of behavior normal in our eyes. The norm is not knowing, yet wanting to know, so we re-enact this relationship over and over again as adults, subconsciously hoping we'll get it right by either finding the core, or getting the strength and clarity to conquer the problem by finding our way out of the maze.

This isn't to say getting lost in this kind of relationship with this kind of person can't happen to anyone; it does all the time, just not nearly as often.

What happens when the Mutant Onion Head isn't a person?

It can be a group, such as a workplace, community group, place of worship, training school, street gang, social club, media outlet, corporation, political party, or even a military or nation.

And why not? The mystery is there. It - whatever it is - appeals to our need to connect and join something interesting that we can be a part of.

When things are "interesting", it's usually because you don't know something and want to find out more. We may be more vulnerable to this than previous generations because we live in a fantasy-based, wishful thinking culture.

To compound our need for an interesting experiences, we want to be involved and to participate. Mankind is a social animal that gets lonely, and in groups, wants and needs recognition. This includes groups of two, such as you and the person you like or love, or being part of a larger group.

We naturally look for the core. It is there that the center resides. The question is, or should be, is person, group or nation centered, and without too many layers that involve navigating through a complicated maze to get there, or to get to the truth of what they're really about?

If there is too much mystery and too many secrets, either there is no core, or there's more than one. This means no values, or split values reserved for different people or groups at different times.

"She's nice."

"He has a good job."

"Freedom."

A Prayer For Some Readers

2010-06-29T21:38:00.005-04:00

I'm feeling a little weepy inside now. I've had a few cyber friends confide to me this year about their health. For my readers who believe in prayer, I'll ask you to say one or a few on their behalf. I won't use "he" or "she" because I value their privacy.

One is undergoing an extreme health problem that sounds like a matter of life and death.

Another underwent surgery a couple months back but needs another one. It's not life or death, but it is a quality of life issue.

Two have problems with family. It is just dawning on them that the road will be long and hard with their children.

Another is struggling to avoid relapse and a descent into old ways.

Quite a few of our bloggers are out of work or barely working, and barely getting by. Not knowing if you'll be able to make critical bills from one month to the next and robbing Peter to pay Paul and doing without things that really are necessities grinds you down slowly.

Also two bloggers I am fond of are missing in action. One is a survivalist and another had a personal blog. Poof. Those blogs have disappeared. I hope they're okay and would love to get an email from them.

And a lot of us are just tired.

I lay awake at night, thinking about my own problems, those of those closest to me, my concern for fellow bloggers and readers, and how freaked out I am over the oil catastrophe. It all weighs heavily on me. My mind wanders to a beautiful place, like the one below, as I dream of better days for the planet and many people.

When some things are done, they cannot be undone. A problem can be solved, a condition can be managed. There is a difference.

We work around the conditions in our lives all the time. The weather is one and the simplest example. We can't change it, but we can try to dress appropriately for it and usually find shelter from the storms. Doesn't always work out well. Our problems or conditions can be utterly overwhelming. In times like these, many of us beat the odds and are carried through by sheer luck - or God.

I can't prove it logically, but I have the faith to believe that He listens and answers - unless he has a different plan for us.

This is why I pray. I pray because He can hear me. It's His call on whether to answer me and how. Sounds strange, I guess, to some of you, since I'm not a regular church goer and have a real distrust for organized religion. Yeah, organized by man who corrupts everything he touches.

I refuse to let the darkness in the hearts of us all corrupt my faith. In particular, I never forget that good does spring from out of religion. It's just spotty and inconsistent, ya know?

I credit a lot of my analytical skills and universal way of looking at humanity as one family to those marvelous nuns who taught me so well in elementary school, and to the many other people who roll up their sleeves every day to combat an infinite number of human problems.

But God is different from religion. I trust Him with all my heart, mind, and soul, and trust that His plan is bigger than mine.

Before you leave this post, if you think prayer helps, please say one for my readers, especially the first one I mentioned who is so very ill, and the others who are suffering too, in their own way.

Thank you.

~ Kit

Kit's Dilemma, or Let's Have A Drink Together

2010-06-26T00:25:00.023-04:00

My daughter, Casie, has a friend she spends a lot of time with. I'll just call him Tee. He's smart, funny, and very gay, and her hair has never looked better. Physically, the two resemble one another enough to be siblings.

Tee's grandmother is in town and has fallen in love with my daughter. In the past week, she's taken them to the play bingo, browse at the mall, and out to lunch and dinner. I finally got to meet her yesterday.

She chatted on for about ten minutes about absolutely nothing. I bore easily from superficial conversation, so asked her where she went to school and what she did for a living. That's when the conversation got interesting.

"I graduated in nursing," she said, "and I worked as one for the Army."

"Really? That must have been exciting."

"Yes," she agreed. "I was stationed in Iraq during the first Gulf War..."

Tee's grandmother told me about injuries and the dead and the stress, and the illness that led to her early retirement.

She said, "I developed Gulf War Syndrome."

She described the the chronic fatigue, muscle aches from head to toe, headaches, and sensitivity to chemicals. The symptoms would come and go, at times the pain was just miserable, and it took over three years before her doctors stopped telling her - and other affected soldiers - that it was "all in their head."

As I listened, I wondered about something I'd read the same day.

"It sounds a lot like what the Gulf oil workers and some residents are experiencing from the spill," I said.

Her voice turned sad. "It wouldn't surprise me," she said. "It wouldn't surprise me at all."

She'd already read about the condition 109 workers contracted called TILT, short for Toxicant Induced Loss of Tolerance.

A rose is but a rose by any other name.

Today, Casie told me that Tee's grandmother, who lives near the charming coastal city of Savannah, Georgia, invited her visit in late July.

"She said she'll pay my airfare. Please Mom?"

I know the ocean currents. I know that the toxic witches brew in the Gulf of Death will spread up the east coast by the year's end. I know this, not from reading those stupid, panic sites, but from the hard science of the Gulf Loop and the Ocean Conveyor Belt, and from this abomination of man's stupidity resulting in still gushing oil, now anywhere from one to four million gallons per day. Already ocean wildlife is fleeing the most toxic, low-oxygen areas for safety, even if means them moving into more shallow waters.

Casie hasn't been to a pretty beach since she was a little girl and I had money to burn in Florida. The ones around Savannah are nice too, from what I hear.

"Please..."

I have no idea if a hurricane will come along and blow toxic fumes across that area. Never did I think I'd have to think about this kind of insanity while raising a child. Never would say I no, either, if the weather is calm.

Me, back in the day.

I loved the beach so much that the first summer I had a car, I drove an hour to get to the nearest one three times a week. I'd go alone with a book and a sandwich to heal from my first broken heart. The ocean was calming and did it's magic. In my 30s, I was practically packed up and ready to move to Florida but my mother worried the hell out of me to not go. Here's a sample of our conversations:

"The Klan will lynch you."

"Nuh uh."

"Lighting will strike you."

"Come on, Ma."

She looked at Xavier, who was six years old.

"An alligator will eat him."

I paused. The house I'd picked out - yes, I had even chosen one in the Tampa area - had a lake that was literally a stone's throw from the back door.

"Eh," I shrugged, "he'll be okay."

"I like gators Mommy," Xavier piped up. "I sat on one!"

"Yeah baby, I know."

Indeed he had, at Gator Land. He had waved his hand in the audience and got chosen to sit behind the gator handler. Mr. Gator was five or six feet long, but had his mouth taped shut.

Finally, my mother got to me.

"I'm old," she whined. "I'll die up here all alone."

"Then come with me! How many times do I have to beg you?"

"I can't leave here. It's my home. I'll never figure out how to drive to the stores down there. I don't want get lost or be stuck in the house all the time."

I gave up and stayed. Had it not been for the adoption agency unexpectedly placing my daughter in my arms the following year, I would have regretted my surrender.

Every now and then, I wonder how our lives would be different had I moved a year or two later after the adoption was final, but by then, my mother really was getting a bit more frail.

Such mixed feelings! How do you be true to yourself, yet loyal to those you love when their needs are greater than your heart's desire?

I don't know, I only know that true love sometimes requires great sacrifice. I made a pact with myself, however, that I would never, ever stand in the way of the dreams of my children, no matter how much I may need them one day. Whether or not I can keep that promise to myself is yet to be seen.

So now, my daughter sat before me, awaiting my answer if she could have a week at the beach in late July... and all I could think of was damned hurricane season and the possibility of toxic winds carrying sickness up to Georgia.

Gee-zus!

Finally, I stuttered, "Probably yes, but for now, it's a we'll see."

I felt like such an idiot, but to hide this, I explained wind patterns - again. Before it was just Mama writing about some far away problem, but this time Casie listened carefully since it might affect her, all the while quite possibly thinking, Mama is worrying too much and needs a vacation more than me, or worse, Mama done lost her damn mind.

Yeah, I'm sure some of you parents out reading this know it be's like dat sometime.

At least Casie didn't laugh at me and call me crazy. I'm sure that's what I would have done to my father at age 14 under the same circumstances, and my mother would have been laughing at him with me.

You see, she was a DC city girl, but my dad grew up farming in the Midwest. He learned from nature and knew the weather, and when he talked about it, it's wasn't nothing as banal as "Nice day today, huh?"

If he were alive, he'd be glued to the The Weather Channel and the Gulf oil news worse than me, and had his own personal preparedness evacuation plan ready... just in case.

And bitchin' nonstop.

In these times where Orwellian-style public relations is king, and sweeping problems under the rug and cover ups are the norm, it's like this. Until something is on the front pages and in the news with whoever "is in charge" talking about it, the gravity of a crisis either doesn't matter or doesn't exist. As long as we think we won't be touched by it, many of us sit back and say, oh, that's too bad - for them.

We are rarely "them" - until we are - and this is my greatest fear, that that day of reckoning is almost upon us.

This photo came from this video

Meanwhile, there are:

1) Those like me who are scared. We know the situation is very grim and thus have good reason to worry, but all the omissions, along with the misinformation leaves a void of just how bad is bad?

2) Those who like to scare others. They make up shit for fun, like the bozo who said it was raining oil in New Orleans, or this person who has video of the live stream stream oil well leak where you see a door open in the background. This alleges that the whole thing is being taped in a studio. Betcha he shot that through an aquarium.

Then there's the guy who video taped a field and said "the birds" had migrated to his state when they usually don't. I didn't see no fuckin' birds. There were some in the distance on a telephone wire, probably a bunch of summertime crows, but he didn't walk his azz over there to show them, or the alleged birds in the forest.

Or they scare folks to profit by getting their name out there as an expert, or selling DVDs, books, and/or memberships to their "informative" websites,

Or to push their beliefs, i.e., Armageddon, 2012, or a New Word Order plot (yes I think the NWO exists and that mega-corporate globalists will take advantage of the situation, but I think greed-based gross negligence is the culprit; like the bumper sticker says: Shit Happens); or the lady on YouTube who said the dolphins communicated to her that they're just fine because the oil leak wasn't that bad.

3) The ones in charge who are too scared to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, because they don't want to get sued, lose their political positions or jobs, or go to jail.

All of this leaves me feeling exactly like this person who left a comment at this blog:

There is so much we are not being told about the bad effects of this spill on whales, dolphins, fish, marshes, people, and so on, it is frustrating to also see these crazy, over the top stories.

Do you remember Dr. Dolittle and the creature the "push-me-pull-you"?

That's what this is like.

On the "push me" side, I want to know a lot more about how bad this really is.

I want to hear credible figures about how much oil is coming out, I want to know what is going on on the sea bed, I'd like to know about all the fish and animals.

I want to know if and when the oil is going to go into the Gulf Stream, and what that means for all of us.

What will happen if a lot of the oxygen producing plankton dies?

This is a bad enough situation, and I hate feeling that there is a lot of high priced PR talent working to make sure that the bad news does not come out.

On the "pull you" side, I want these morons with their oil rains and their evacuations of 20 million people to go shit up a tree.

It is an odd feeling, to be simultaneously ready to believe that this is the single worst thing ever to have happened, ever... and also to want people to chill the fuck out.

That video of the oil rain guy made me wish that the man from "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom" would come up behind him with one of those tranquilizer darts they use on bears.

Maybe I just need a cocktail.

Amen, and me too.

Riddle Me This

2010-06-23T17:55:00.028-04:00

Update 6/24 @ 12:10 AM - The EPA has a BP Air Monitoring page with a zoomable map of toxic air quality in affected areas along the Gulf Coast on it's site.

At this moment, they state:

"EPA has observed odor-causing pollutants associated with oil on the shore in the gulf region at low levels. Some of these chemicals may cause short-lived effects like headache, eye, nose and throat irritation, or nausea. Some people may be able to smell several of these chemicals at levels well below those that would cause short-term health problems.

EPA is also conducting additional air monitoring for ozone and airborne particulate matter. The air monitoring conducted through June 21 has found levels of ozone and particulates ranging from the "good" to "unhealthy for sensitive groups" levels on EPA's Air Quality Index."

A week ago on 6/16, "Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals are in, showing 109 reports of illnesses from spill workers and others after exposure to polluted water, tar balls, liquid oil, odor and fumes, dispersant, and heat in the Gulf," and this was a 35% increase since the previous week.

"The illness -- marked by headaches, fatigue, upset stomach, and problems with memory and concentration -- has been dubbed Toxicant Induced Loss of Tolerance, or TILT. People suffering from TILT lose the ability to tolerate exposures to household chemical products, medication or even food...

"Regardless of whether the illness being reported in Gulf cleanup workers and residents ends up being confirmed as TILT, the fact remains that the chemicals people are being exposed to in the oil and dispersants are known to have health impacts including eye, skin and respiratory irritation, as well as headaches, dizziness, weakness, nausea and confusion. An analysis of EPA air testing data has found levels of these chemicals in coastal communities exceeding safety standards..."

********* End Updates *********

Study the wind patterns.
Read the captions.

Gustave, 2008
Category 3 Hurricane

Katrina, 2004
Category 5 Hurricane

Gulf of Mexico, Early June 2010

Highly Toxic Oil Dispersant Overused In The Gulf

Toxic Chemicals & Methane Gas In The Gulf Rise Into The Air.
Moisture is released from the clouds as rain.

Nuking Solution
Roll of the Die, by Kit

Mrs. Smith's Kindergarten Class
Amy, Joe, Jamal, Erin, Samantha, Troy, Tanisha, Larry, Michelle,
Michael, Julia, David, Benjamin, Maria, Chris, Bobby, Ming, Jose, Yasmin
Not pictured: See accompanying In Memoriam book.

Riddle me this:

"The answer is blowin' in the wind."
~ Stevie Wonder

What is the question?

After studying the hurricane wind patterns, are you safe?

Thought for now and weeks to come:
Got a back up plan?

Boodocks Social Commentary: Making Pacts With Racism, And Sistas Expected To Act Like Trannies

2010-06-22T10:35:00.023-04:00

"I will renounce Ice Cube and all his works."

And thus in Season 3, Episode 8, titled "Pause" (start at about 6:30), the Boondocks' Grandfather, Robert, repeated this pact with racism to get fame, women, and escape the boring life he lives.

Now that was deep.

Tying it in with religion was genius.

For you young'uns, Ice Cube and Dr. Dre were two of the original NWA. They picked up on the revolution for justice in the black community when the say it loud, I'm black and proud meme ran out of gas. Until they had beef in the early 90's and gradually became less political by glorifying gangsterism for the sake of it (Dre more so than Ice Cube), those bros excelled at protesting police brutality and "just us" in the jails.

At one time, a sure fire way for brothas to get chicks was to be an activist. Who the FBI didn't kill, the media co-opted. Along came Good Times, The Jeffersons, Cosby, Diff'rent Strokes, and Oprah. None of them were mad, or mad enough, about anything. Just as happy as they could be. Drive a few miles from where those TV shows were taped and you'd be rolling through Black Shanty Town, USA.

My point isn't to bash the entertainment factor of what they had to offer, or Tyler Perry's thang either because I do like him, but to illustrate that Hollyweird is guilty of overusing this script as tool to smother the fires of legitimate concerns about racism, and along with it, the creativity of writers and producers who would address this side of the culture if their work wasn't killed in the cradle.

A second brief segment in this cutting edge Boondocks episode is stunningly brilliant - but a very subtle social commentary made by Aaron McGruder.

In this spoof (at around 5:20), "Winston Jerome" is the cross-dressing director and will play the role of Ma Duke.

He announces, "Ma Duke should find herself a man."

The question to Granddad Robert is, "Do you think you're man enough for Ma Duke?"

Granddad says yes. He's dying for fame, remember?

So in this role, his line is to say to 'her', "You are a strong, intelligent black woman who will make me a better man."

Wow. I had to think about that shit - and then it clicked.

Have we gotten to the point where the strong black woman is expected to act like a cross dressing gay man?

Before you jump up and say oh hell no, think about the increasing sexual expectations of young women.

All year I've been fighting the urge to heave when I read posts promoting sistas to not only suck but to swallow and to take it up the azz, and to stop sweating the men over commitments and marriage, and instead to "just have fun".

Now that's some gay lifestyle shit.

As I see it, it's been pushed on women to behave promiscuously like gay men.

This goes hand in hand with Hollyweird and the feminization our men.

Who is perceived by White America as being less dangerous than the gay black male? I swear they get office jobs hands down twice as much as the straight black male applicants. I ain't hating on the gays, and eff you if you think I am, but Aaron McGruder is on to something in that scene.

McGruder also goes after the loonier, deeply closeted gay yet homophobic side of black churches. It makes me think of this 2007 favorite Ice Cube video as a symptom of straight urban male backlash.

Otherwise I don't feel the need to comment on the religious or the skin complexion issues because Twitter and other bloggers (check out Chauncey's and Nordette's posts) are already smokin' hot on that, and some other angles.

Thumbs up and a standing ovation to Aaron McGruder for being perhaps the best social commentator of our times. You can watch all the Season 3 episodes here.

To The Empty Seat At The Head Of The Table

2010-06-20T09:00:00.004-04:00

Dear Empty Seat at the head of the table,

Happy Father's Day.

I know that you can't talk back, but if the occupant could, he would. He'd smile and say thank you and pretend that he likes the funny tie or pair of socks or the picture one of the kids drew.

I understand your seat is empty because he's dead, locked up, fighting a war to kill someone elses daddy, is too broke and embarrassed to come around, or just had his mind filled up with so much bullshit that he forgot how to love himself, and by extension, anyone else.

Yes, I know that a lot of grandfathers and uncles and stepdads try to fill your space. Even the mothers and women folk try this, but it's a strain for them to sit in two places at the same time, and most prefer not to play an endless game of musical chairs.

I know that substitutes in your spot isn't quite the same, but most people are good and do what needs to be done when they can, so try not to cry.

The world is not ready to throw you away, although there are people in it who would like to destroy you even though they lie and say otherwise about wanting "intact" families. They're really only talking about their group and their chair that sits at the head of their table. If they really meant what they said, they wouldn't make life so miserable and difficult to survive for your occupant.

Maybe one day, a son of the man who should enjoy your throne will avoid or escape the brutality of the world and keep you warm.

Until then, a good strategy is for families to use round tables. There are many reasons people do this anyway, such as preference of design, but one that's rarely discussed is it helps to not be constantly reminded of your missing occupant.

Anyway, I wish you a Happy Father's Day.

Love,

The loved ones left behind

There Will Be No Turning Back: The "Ringworm Children" Story As A Manifestation Of Tribalism & Other "Isms"

2010-06-18T12:28:00.026-04:00

I rarely write about or comment on anything that has to do with Israel, particularly Zionism-based politics. The reason is that the current government is as hard right as hardest right of the GOP, and have that Tea Party flavor when it comes to brown people.

Like our haters over here who are quick to call you a racist for complaining about racism, I've seen too many times anyone criticizing an Israeli policy or practice called an anti-Semite. Writing opinions about their political and military shit is rarely worth the headache.

However, I discovered some history that I had never read about before. Ever hear about The Ringworm Children? I'll tell you about them in a moment.

What happened then is as racist as the 1940s Brits and US Government setting up Israel in 1948 not "just to be nice" to post-Holocaust Jewry, but more to carry out a racist agenda for Jews to be the "plantation overseer" of the olive and browned skinned Persians and Arabs of the Middle East.

The good 'ole boys used the Southern strategy of placing Jews in the plantation 'overseer' role, which is a glorified House Negro as a state, in charge of and the darker "primitive" peoples. No one knows better than the average American black folk that the House Negro often internalizes racism, and become as oppressive as the oppressor, sometimes more so, to prove he's assimilated and better.

This divide and conquer strategy set the stage for hate and war between the two groups, and for both to get used and abused by white Europeans and Americans in power, who historically try to get something for nothing by any means possible.

The documentary film is titled "The Ringworm Children". It's 45 minutes long, has subtitles, and won Best Documentary at the Haifa International film festival in 2005. Author Barry Chamish wrote a review, which was fortunately reprinted here, because the original site, Israeli Insider, is gone.

I like the film better myself because it more graphically shows the racism and the children, and because Chamish, in his otherwise excellent written review, avoided using the word "North African" to describe Jewish children from Morocco who immigrated to Israel.

These darker, Sephardi children and many others from Middle Eastern countries had their brains blasted with an overdose of radiation in a "social medical" program, stated in the documentary to be a eugenics program ridding Israel of 'unacceptable Jews'.

This was done under the guise of treating them for ringworm during a class trip. Anywhere from 20,000 to 100,000 children were irradiated with mega doses of radiation, well known at the time for causing cancer, death, sterilizing, and risking mutant progeny.

*******************

Below are excerpts of the written review of the film in case you don't have time or inclination to watch it, and after that, a brief news clip illustrating the continued divide between the two groups, and a commentary by me.

"The subject is the mass irradiation of hundreds of thousands of Jewish children who immigrated from Middle Eastern and North African countries -- Sephardim, as they are called today.

In 1951, the director general of the Israeli Health Ministry, Dr. Chaim Sheba, flew to America and returned with seven x-ray machines, supplied to him by the American army.

They were to be used in a mass atomic experiment with an entire generation of Sephardi youths to be used as guinea pigs. Every Sephardi child was to be given 35,000 times the maximum dose of x-rays through his head. For doing so, the American government paid the Israeli government 300 million Israeli liras a year. The entire Health budget was 60 million liras. The money paid by the Americans is equivalent to billions of dollars today.

To fool the parents of the victims, the children were taken away on "school trips" and their parents were later told the x-rays were a treatment for the scourge of scalpal ringworm. 6,000 of the children died shortly after their doses were given, while many of the rest developed cancers that killed thousands over time and are still killing them now. While living, the victims suffered from disorders such as epilepsy, amnesia, Alzheimer's disease, chronic headaches and psychosis.

That is the subject of the documentary in cold terms. It is another matter to see the victims on the screen...

The majority of the victims were Moroccan because they were the most numerous of the Sephardi immigrants. The generation that was poisoned became the country's perpetual poor and criminal class. It didn't make sense. The Moroccans who fled to France became prosperous and highly educated. The common explanation was that France got the rich, thus smart ones. The real explanation is that every French Moroccan child didn't have his brain cells fried with gamma rays.

The film made it perfectly plain that this operation was no accident. The dangers of x-rays had been known for over forty years. We read the official guidelines for x-ray treatment in 1952. The maximum dose to be given a child in Israel was .5 rad. There was no mistake made. The children were deliberately poisoned.

David Deri makes the point that only Sephardi children received the x-rays: "I was in class and the men came to take us on a tour. They asked our names. The Ashkenazi [Jews of European descent] children were told to return to their seats. The dark children were put on the bus."

The film presents a historian who first gives a potted history of the eugenics movement. In a later sound bite, he declares that the ringworm operation was a eugenics program aimed at weeding out the perceived weak strains of society. The Moroccan lady is back on the screen. "It was a Holocaust, a Sephardi Holocaust. And what I want to know is why no one stood up to stop it."

David Deri, on film and then as a panel member, relates the frustration he encountered when trying to find his childhood medical records. "All I wanted to know was what they did to me. I wanted to know who authorized it. I wanted to trace the chain of command. But the Health Ministry told me my records were missing."

Boaz Lev, the Health Ministry's spokesman chimes in: "Almost all the records were burned in a fire."

We are told that a US law in the late '40s put a stop to the human radiation experiments conducted on prisoners, the mentally feeble and the like. The American atomic program needed a new source of human lab rats and the Israeli government supplied it. Here was the government cabinet at the time of the ringworm atrocities:

Prime Minister - David Ben Gurion;
Finance Minister - Eliezer Kaplan;
Settlement Minister - Levi Eshkol;
Foreign Minister - Moshe Sharrett;
Health Minister - Yosef Burg;
Labor Minister - Golda Meir;
Police Minister - Amos Ben Gurion.

The highest ranking non-cabinet post belonged to the Director General of the Defence Ministry, Shimon Peres.

That a program involving the equivalent of billions of dollars of American government funds should be unknown to the Prime Minister of cash-strapped Israel is ridiculous. Ben Gurion had to have been in on the horrors and undoubtedly chose his son to be Police Minister in case anyone interfered with them.

Finance Minister Eliezer Kaplan was rewarded for eternity with a hospital named after him near Rehovot. But he's not alone in this honor. Chaim Sheba, who ran Ringworm Incorporated, had a whole medical complex named after him. Needless to say, if there is an ounce of decency in the local medical profession, those hospital names will have to change...

There is one person alive who knows the truth: Shimon Peres. The only way to get to the truth and start the healing is to investigate him for his role in the mass poisoning of over 100,000 Sephardi children and youth.

But here is why that won't happen. The film was aired at the same time as the highest-rated TV show of the year, the finale of Israel's talent-hunt show: "A Star Is Born." The next day, the newly-born star's photo took up half the front pages. There was not a word about The Ringworm Children in any paper, nor on the Internet. Until now."

- Barry Chamish, 10/28/2005

*****************

Nearly sixty years later In today's news in Israel:

"Police across the country were on high alert, as thousands of protesters massed near the main entrance to Jerusalem...

The protests were called after a Supreme Court ruling ordered the jailing of a group of Ashkenazi parents of European origin who are refusing to send their daughters to a school with Jewish girls of Middle Eastern, or Sephardi, descent.

But although the ruling effectively pitted the ultra-Orthodox Ashkenazis against the Sephardis, both communities have come together for a mass protest against what they see as the intolerable intervention of the secular state in their religious affairs."

******************

Sound familiar? It should. Most white, black, and Latino Americans are Christians. The whiter Ashkenazis and more melanin-rich Sephardis are Jews.

What we all have in common is we're still suffering from the devastating impact slavery.

While it's easy to say there is something effed up about "white people", this is too simplistic. Back when whites lived in Europe and thought the earth was flat and knew little to nothing of the existence of non-whites, most of them lived and died as peasants in a brutal feudal system serving lords and kings. These serfs were as mercilessly exploited and expendable as non-whites in many places today.

Prior to this and across every group in the world, we can call it plain old tribalism, which generally includes a component of sexism. Tribalism is not necessarily genocidal, but it can be, and there are plenty of examples of this.

In the more ancient, might makes right times, people sucked up to the chief, and in his absence, whichever man had the biggest fist and could lie the best for his selfish advantage ruled. What, I ask you, has changed? Wars and discrimination continue and the gender conflicts remain fairly intact.

Unless or until humanity stops this madness of allowing divide and conquer strategies by the rich to pit us against one another, and have us believe that one group - race, religion, class, or gender - is superior to another, we will all continue to behave like overseers, house or field Negroes who serve rulers that don't give a damn about any of us, and we will continue to make ourselves and each other miserable.

It is my hope we recognize our modern day tribalism for what it is, lest we wake up one morning and discover that the whole world is one big plantation run by non-human and inhuman mega-corporations.

Given the computer and military technology of today, combined with the let's somehow get rid of them, wall them off, incarcerate them, become a suicide bomber, nuke baby nuke them, sterilize them, or exterminate them mentality of yesteryear, one day we will all be "them", and there will be no turning back.

President Obama's Oval Office Address

2010-06-17T22:00:00.009-04:00

6/15/2010 - Open thread for those of you who listened to the President's eighteen minute speech Tuesday evening.

**************

616/2010 - There was zero interest in discussion here and very little even at Pam's House Blend, so I removed this post shortly after midnight due to lack of interest.

**************

6/17/2010 - I have been quite down about this catastrophe. For my own record keeping of the unfolding events of the Gulf Oil Disaster, I have reactivated this post with the video and added the transcript. No comments necessary.

"Good evening. As we speak, our nation faces a multitude of challenges. At home, our top priority is to recover and rebuild from a recession that has touched the lives of nearly every American.

Abroad, our brave men and women in uniform are taking the fight to al Qaeda wherever it exists.

And tonight, I've returned from a trip to the Gulf Coast to speak with you about the battle we're waging against an oil spill that is assaulting our shores and our citizens.

On April 20th, an explosion ripped through BP's Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, about forty miles off the coast of Louisiana. Eleven workers lost their lives. Seventeen others were injured. And soon, nearly a mile beneath the surface of the ocean, oil began spewing into the water.

Because there has never been a leak of this size at this depth, stopping it has tested the limits of human technology.

That is why just after the rig sank, I assembled a team of our nation's best scientists and engineers to tackle this challenge - a team led by Dr. Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and our nation's Secretary of Energy. Scientists at our national labs and experts from academia and other oil companies have also provided ideas and advice.

As a result of these efforts, we have directed BP to mobilize additional equipment and technology.

In the coming days and weeks, these efforts should capture up to 90% of the oil leaking out of the well.

This is until the company finishes drilling a relief well later in the summer that is expected to stop the leak completely.

Already, this oil spill is the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced. And unlike an earthquake or a hurricane, it is not a single event that does its damage in a matter of minutes or days. The millions of gallons of oil that have spilled into the Gulf of Mexico are more like an epidemic, one that we will be fighting for months and even years.

But make no mistake: we will fight this spill with everything we've got for as long it takes. We will make BP pay for the damage their company has caused. And we will do whatever's necessary to help the Gulf Coast and its people recover from this tragedy.

Tonight I'd like to lay out for you what our battle plan is going forward: what we're doing to clean up the oil, what we're doing to help our neighbors in the Gulf, and what we're doing to make sure that a catastrophe like this never happens again.

First, the cleanup. From the very beginning of this crisis, the federal government has been in charge of the largest environmental cleanup effort in our nation's history - an effort led by Admiral Thad Allen, who has almost forty years of experience responding to disasters.

We now have nearly 30,000 personnel who are working across four states to contain and cleanup the oil.

Thousands of ships and other vessels are responding in the Gulf.

And I have authorized the deployment of over 17,000 National Guard members along the coast.

These servicemen and women are ready to help stop the oil from coming ashore, clean beaches, train response workers, or even help with processing claims - and I urge the governors in the affected states to activate these troops as soon as possible.

Because of our efforts, millions of gallons of oil have already been removed from the water through burning, skimming, and other collection methods.

Over five and a half million feet of boom has been laid across the water to block and absorb the approaching oil.

We have approved the construction of new barrier islands in Louisiana to try and stop the oil before it reaches the shore, and we are working with Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida to implement creative approaches to their unique coastlines.

As the clean up continues, we will offer whatever additional resources and assistance our coastal states may need.

Now, a mobilization of this speed and magnitude will never be perfect, and new challenges will always arise. I saw and heard evidence of that during this trip. So if something isn't working, we want to hear about it. If there are problems in the operation, we will fix them.

But we have to recognize that despite our best efforts, oil has already caused damage to our coastline and its wildlife. And sadly, no matter how effective our response becomes, there will be more oil and more damage before this siege is done.

That's why the second thing we're focused on is the recovery and restoration of the Gulf Coast.

You know, for generations, men and women who call this region home have made their living from the water. That living is now in jeopardy. I've talked to shrimpers and fishermen who don't know how they're going to support their families this year. I've seen empty docks and restaurants with fewer customers - even in areas where the beaches are not yet affected. I've talked to owners of shops and hotels who wonder when the tourists will start to come back. The sadness and anger they feel is not just about the money they've lost. It's about a wrenching anxiety that their way of life may be lost.

I refuse to let that happen.

Tomorrow, I will meet with the chairman of BP and inform him that he is to set aside whatever resources are required to compensate the workers and business owners who have been harmed as a result of his company's recklessness.

And this fund will not be controlled by BP. In order to ensure that all legitimate claims are paid out in a fair and timely manner, the account must and will be administered by an independent, third party.

Beyond compensating the people of the Gulf in the short-term, it's also clear we need a long-term plan to restore the unique beauty and bounty of this region.

The oil spill represents just the latest blow to a place that has already suffered multiple economic disasters and decades of environmental degradation that has led to disappearing wetlands and habitats. And the region still hasn't recovered from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. That's why we must make a commitment to the Gulf Coast that goes beyond responding to the crisis of the moment.

I make that commitment tonight. Earlier, I asked Ray Mabus, the Secretary of the Navy, a former governor of Mississippi, and a son of the Gulf, to develop a long-term Gulf Coast Restoration Plan as soon as possible.

The plan will be designed by states, local communities, tribes, fishermen, businesses, conservationists, and other Gulf residents. And BP will pay for the impact this spill has had on the region.

The third part of our response plan is the steps we're taking to ensure that a disaster like this does not happen again. A few months ago, I approved a proposal to consider new, limited offshore drilling under the assurance that it would be absolutely safe - that the proper technology would be in place and the necessary precautions would be taken.

That was obviously not the case on the Deepwater Horizon rig, and I want to know why. The American people deserve to know why. The families I met with last week who lost their loved ones in the explosion - these families deserve to know why.

And so I have established a National Commission to understand the causes of this disaster and offer recommendations on what additional safety and environmental standards we need to put in place.

Already, I have issued a six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling.

I know this creates difficulty for the people who work on these rigs, but for the sake of their safety, and for the sake of the entire region, we need to know the facts before we allow deepwater drilling to continue. And while I urge the Commission to complete its work as quickly as possible, I expect them to do that work thoroughly and impartially.

One place we have already begun to take action is at the agency in charge of regulating drilling and issuing permits, known as the Minerals Management Service.

Over the last decade, this agency has become emblematic of a failed philosophy that views all regulation with hostility - a philosophy that says corporations should be allowed to play by their own rules and police themselves. At this agency, industry insiders were put in charge of industry oversight. Oil companies showered regulators with gifts and favors, and were essentially allowed to conduct their own safety inspections and write their own regulations.

When Ken Salazar became my Secretary of the Interior, one of his very first acts was to clean up the worst of the corruption at this agency. But it's now clear that the problems there ran much deeper, and the pace of reform was just too slow. And so Secretary Salazar and I are bringing in new leadership at the agency - Michael Bromwich, who was a tough federal prosecutor and Inspector General. His charge over the next few months is to build an organization that acts as the oil industry's watchdog - not its partner.

One of the lessons we've learned from this spill is that we need better regulations better safety standards, and better enforcement when it comes to offshore drilling.

But a larger lesson is that no matter how much we improve our regulation of the industry, drilling for oil these days entails greater risk. After all, oil is a finite resource.

We consume more than 20% of the world's oil, but have less than 2% of the world's oil reserves. And that's part of the reason oil companies are drilling a mile beneath the surface of the ocean - because we're running out of places to drill on land and in shallow water.

For decades, we have known the days of cheap and easily accessible oil were numbered.

For decades, we have talked and talked about the need to end America's century-long addiction to fossil fuels.

And for decades, we have failed to act with the sense of urgency that this challenge requires.

Time and again, the path forward has been blocked - not only by oil industry lobbyists, but also by a lack of political courage and candor.

The consequences of our inaction are now in plain sight. Countries like China are investing in clean energy jobs and industries that should be here in America.

Each day, we send nearly $1 billion of our wealth to foreign countries for their oil. And today, as we look to the Gulf, we see an entire way of life being threatened by a menacing cloud of black crude.

We cannot consign our children to this future. The tragedy unfolding on our coast is the most painful and powerful reminder yet that the time to embrace a clean energy future is now. Now is the moment for this generation to embark on a national mission to unleash American innovation and seize control of our own destiny.

This is not some distant vision for America. The transition away from fossil fuels will take some time, but over the last year and a half, we have already taken unprecedented action to jumpstart the clean energy industry.

As we speak, old factories are reopening to produce wind turbines, people are going back to work installing energy-efficient windows, and small businesses are making solar panels. Consumers are buying more efficient cars and trucks, and families are making their homes more energy-efficient. Scientists and researchers are discovering clean energy technologies that will someday lead to entire new industries.

Each of us has a part to play in a new future that will benefit all of us.

As we recover from this recession, the transition to clean energy has the potential to grow our economy and create millions of good, middle-class jobs - but only if we accelerate that transition. Only if we seize the moment. And only if we rally together and act as one nation - workers and entrepreneurs; scientists and citizens; the public and private sectors.

When I was a candidate for this office, I laid out a set of principles that would move our country towards energy independence. Last year, the House of Representatives acted on these principles by passing a strong and comprehensive energy and climate bill - a bill that finally makes clean energy the profitable kind of energy for America's businesses.

Now, there are costs associated with this transition. And some believe we can't afford those costs right now. I say we can't afford not to change how we produce and use energy - because the long-term costs to our economy, our national security, and our environment are far greater.

So I am happy to look at other ideas and approaches from either party - as long they seriously tackle our addiction to fossil fuels.

Some have suggested raising efficiency standards in our buildings like we did in our cars and trucks. Some believe we should set standards to ensure that more of our electricity comes from wind and solar power. Others wonder why the energy industry only spends a fraction of what the high-tech industry does on research and development - and want to rapidly boost our investments in such research and development.

All of these approaches have merit, and deserve a fear hearing in the months ahead. But the one approach I will not accept is inaction. The one answer I will not settle for is the idea that this challenge is too big and too difficult to meet.

You see, the same thing was said about our ability to produce enough planes and tanks in World War II. The same thing was said about our ability to harness the science and technology to land a man safely on the surface of the moon. And yet, time and again, we have refused to settle for the paltry limits of conventional wisdom. Instead, what has defined us as a nation since our founding is our capacity to shape our destiny - our determination to fight for the America we want for our children. Even if we're unsure exactly what that looks like. Even if we don't yet know precisely how to get there. We know we'll get there.

It is a faith in the future that sustains us as a people. It is that same faith that sustains our neighbors in the Gulf right now.

Each year, at the beginning of shrimping season, the region's fishermen take part in a tradition that was brought to America long ago by fishing immigrants from Europe. It's called "The Blessing of the Fleet," and today it's a celebration where clergy from different religions gather to say a prayer for the safety and success of the men and women who will soon head out to sea - some for weeks at a time.

The ceremony goes on in good times and in bad. It took place after Katrina, and it took place a few weeks ago - at the beginning of the most difficult season these fishermen have ever faced.

And still, they came and they prayed. For as a priest and former fisherman once said of the tradition, "The blessing is not that God has promised to remove all obstacles and dangers. The blessing is that He is with us always," a blessing that's granted "...even in the midst of the storm."

The oil spill is not the last crisis America will face. This nation has known hard times before and we will surely know them again. What sees us through - what has always seen us through - is our strength, our resilience, and our unyielding faith that something better awaits us if we summon the courage to reach for it.

Tonight, we pray for that courage. We pray for the people of the Gulf. And we pray that a hand may guide us through the storm towards a brighter day. Thank you, God Bless You, and may God Bless the United States of America."

The Art Of The End: BP Sucks So Much I Entered A "Redesign Their Logo" Contest For The Hell Of It

2010-06-15T10:42:00.042-04:00

Earlier this morning I ran across an art contest given by Greenpeace, called "Redesign BP's Logo". They think BP's logo is too pretty and misleading.

I hadn't planned on entering, but I figured what the heck, it's therapy, because this catastrophe has been bugging me out. Check out mine:

"BP: Burdened Prophet"
by Kit

Click on for a larger view. Go ahead. I'm so proud of it. It's similar to someone elses, but I added a few things they didn't, i.e. the danger eyes, the doomsday clock, and oil-soaked bird. It's a modification of the famous art piece, Scream.

I always wondered why the original artist painted the dark water and fiery sky the way he did. Perhaps in his worse nightmares, he had a glimpse into the future, like a prophet. Many of us who have read in detail on the science end and can see what's coming feel like that character.

I scream inside with questions like why are those who also know but benefit from the profits of Big Oil behaving differently? Not their wealth nor their power will shield them from toxic air we'll breathe and the toxic rain that falls on us when this thing worsens and hits the ocean conveyor belt. Hell, this is the most obvious deal breaker of our times?

Enough of us have been raising hell that the President will speak to the nation later at 8 PM EST about the Gulf Oil Catastrophe. Hopefully tomorrow he'll kick some BP azz when he meets with them. The escrow account idea is a good start, but I hope for receivership, because the amount discussed now will not cover the estimated $1 Trillion dollars in damages.

Below are other entries I found compelling for different reasons. You can see them all on Flickr, and join the contest here, if for no other reason than to keep sending BP and Congress a message.

Pitbulls: The Four & Two Legged Kind

2010-06-13T00:01:00.031-04:00

I haven't written anything personal in awhile, but what happened late this afternoon made me cry.

My 7 pound poodle was attacked by a pit bull.

The story begins this past Thursday evening. Xavier plopped down $40 before me.

"This is for you, Ma."

"For what?", I asked, "and where you'd get it?"

"I'm babysitting for my friend's dog for the weekend. It's an eight month old puppy. He's in the back now."

Since our live-in landlord is away for the weekend, it sounded okay, until he said, "It's a pit."

"Oh no," I replied. "Oh hell no. Take it back. Now."

"I can't," Xavier explained. "The guy's already gone on vacation. It has a big cage."

"Then keep him in it..."

"He's really nice, and just a puppy..."

A puppy my azz, I thought. At eight months old, he's a teenager and almost grown.

**********************

Memories flashed back to when my brother dumped a six month old part-pit puppy on us years ago. He'd gotten it for a dollar at a yard sale. The only reason I gave it a chance then was because Xavier was doing the please please please can we keep him thang, and the dog was purportedly part retriever. Retrievers are nice. Maybe he'd have that temperament.

At 7 months, I got Radar neutered. This surgery generally reduces aggression when performed at a young age.

A month later, I sat in our backyard on a late summer day and watched the kids play. Radar was on a 50 foot tie. Casey, my daughter, was wearing only a diaper. She was 2-1/2 years old. Xavier was 9.

It all happened so fast.

Casey was laughing and ran past Radar, and he suddenly gave chase. That dog looked like he was running after a rabbit. She was fast, but he was gaining ground on her rapidly. He was almost on her before I was barely out of my chair and over to her.

Then he lunged for her. I could see his teeth as he was a fraction away from grabbing her by the diaper.

At that precise moment, he snapped his jaws barely nipping her diaper, but he'd run the length of his tie, and he flew up the air and fell to the ground with a thud. It is exactly the kind of scene you'd see in a cartoon.

The kids were dying laughing. It was so funny, that I was laughing too, while at the same time, thinking, this shit is serious.

I told Xavier this and for Casey to stay away from Radar.

"He didn't hurt her, Mommy," Xavier said.

"By the grace of God, he didn't," I replied. "He gave into his baser instinct. She's small and vulnerable, like a little animal. He gave chase with the full intention of hurting her. What they say about pits is true, they cannot be trusted. Looks like that goes for part-pits, too."

A few days later, Xavier was tearful as a guy bought and took his dog away. I told him and his girlfriend what had happened. They lived somewhere out in the boonies and had no children, and thought it was funny, but that they could train him.

Lotsa luck, and to this day, I wonder if I should have him put down.

A few years later, a father brought his ten year old daughter to me for therapy. He owned a pit that never gave him a problem. He was in the dining room while the child was playing quietly in the living room.

I guess the dog didn't like not having any attention, or maybe it had a break with reality, and viciously attacked her. The dad grabbed a hammer and had to beat the dog to death upside the head to force it to release her.

She looked a lot like this one

The kid's face was scarred, but it was her arm that was really messed up. She was traumatized months later, which is how they came to me.

I observed the child. She was very still.

***********************

Fast forward to the present, and there I sat, watching my son's mouth move.

"Since you can't send him back today," I said, "here are the rules. Keep that dog in your room with door closed, or in his cage on the patio, and he better be gone Monday."

That was hard. I hate pits, but how you gonna get rid of somebody elses dog? And I damn sure wasn't gonna put it in my car. Years ago, I read about a young woman in her 20s. She loved her pit and took it with her everywhere. One day for no reason, it attacked her while she was driving. She said it "must have gotten upset by something it saw out the window. He's fine now."

Sounded to me like it had a brief psychotic episode.

Anyway, Xavier agreed. I walked to the kitchen back door that leads to the patio, and peeped through the window. There sat it.

Yep, I thought, that's a pit alright.

"His name is Carlito."

This one looks like he could be Carlito's daddy

"Eff him and you too for bringing him here," I growled. "Just keep him away from us and especially our dog. If Jani smells Carlito has been walking around the house, he'll start marking territory. Don't need him peeing on the carpet."

"Okay," he said, smiling.

Idiot.

Maybe me too, 'cause Xavier ain't never been good at keep his word. Give him an inch and he'll take a mile.

The next day I got up the nerve to go out and watch him and Carlito. Indeed, the dog has puppy behaviors. Playful. Friendly. Annoying only in that he jumps on you, but most dogs do until trained. I still didn't trust him.

Then comes today, or I should say Saturday, since it's just after midnight now.

"I'll be back in 20 or so minutes," I hollered at Xavier and his girlfriend. "Keep that dog out of the house while I'm gone."

I dropped my daughter off at a quinceanera party. That's a "Sweet 15" celebration for Latino girls. She looked stunning. I drove back with my little sidekick poodle, Jani, sitting next to me in the car.

He never attacks me when I drive.

This is Jani

I strolled up the path to the front door, opened it, and we walked in.

Within seconds, the demon dog from hell was on Jani. I was horrified. He had Jani's entire front leg in his mouth.

This is what it felt like, minus the chain
and with my poodle's leg in his mouth.

I screamed and tried to pull Jani from him.

My son, who had only been a few feet away, was now simultaneously prying Carlito's jaws open.

Got him!

I ran back outside for safety, slamming the door behind me, and was cussing up a storm.

I then examined my poodle. His shoulder was bleeding from a puncture wound which had split the skin. I hoped it wasn't a crushing injury to his shoulder bone, and was crying as I consoled him. He acted like he was in shock, and was very, very still.

Still...

Still...

It's what I had seen in my client, and also, what I do when I'm hit by unexpected attack or pain from life. Often it's because I don't know what to do. I become very still. This made me cry more.

Xavier came outside, his own face full of pain and more so after he saw the blood. It wasn't dripping, it oozed slowly, very slowly. It was clear that Jani could use two or three stitches.

"I'm so sorry Mom," he said, his eyes pleading for forgiveness. "I didn't know you'd be back this soon."

I spoke almost in a whisper as I looked into his eyes. Maybe the lesson he didn't grasp at age nine would sink in now.

"You cannot trust a pit..."

"But he was so friendly, I thought he'd be okay..."

"Their reputation proceeds them," I said. "They are unpredictable and impulsive. You cannot trust them, because they cannot overcome their baser instinct to attack whatever or whoever they think they can overpower and destroy."

"I'm so sorry," he said repeatedly.

Unlike his usual fake apologies, he meant this one.

Without being asked, Xavier went back in the house and got what we needed to flush out Jani's wound and apply a little hydrogen peroxide around the edges.

I gave my doggie a little left over amoxycillan, like it says on the Internet if you can't get to a vet, to fight any infections. That's the best I can do for him now, because I don't have money to pay a vet for stitches. I just barely made the rent and other bills this month. This has been the new normal for me since the economy went to hell.

When Xavier was done, I said of this pit he's babysitting and others, "They're unlike normal dogs. There is something about pitts where they depart in temperament from other canines, just as some people do."

He was listening hard, not just the Xavier of now, but the boy he was who didn't understand when I sold his pit 12 years ago.

"You're a normal person, Xavier," I continued. "When you go out on your own, get a normal dog, one that will be a true friend whom you can trust to not attack you, your friends, family, neighbors, or others. Can't trust no pit, not the four-legged kind or the two-legged ones in jeans."

He nodded his head. He knows what I'm talking about - a few of his friends over the years.

I see metaphors in unexpected places.

I think of the $40 my son used to win me over in keeping this pit for the weekend, like the 40 pieces of silver Judas accepted to betray Christ.

No, to the morons, I'm not comparing my dog to Jesus, just the concept of betrayal. I wonder if Judas felt he had a choice. I didn't feel like I had one since the owner of this pit teenage puppy had left for the weekend, so intellectually I think I'm not being fair to myself, but emotionally I feel like I wasn't fair to the safety of this family and my dog.

Jani is resting now, and I know that if he ends up with a permanent limp, I'll forever wish I had said, "Tough shit, get that pit out of here and where you put him is your problem."

I also think of this entire, real life situation and compare it to many people I've known who trusted someone, only to be suddenly and viciously treated by them, and this includes a few of my own "friends".

I saw their tendencies to be pits too late, although in hindsight, I can say I ignored their underlying, serious character flaws when these came to light, along with the warning signs - because they were as playful as puppies.

Pit puppies.

Once bitten, twice shy, very still, and no going back.

Kick 'Em In The Head

2010-06-12T06:01:00.017-04:00

Don't think you won't be affected, directly or indirectly.

It will harm us economically, like we ain't already got enough problems, and will affect even what we eat.

It will harm our President politically.

What am talking about? Not quite the same thing I've been posting on the past three weeks, because today is a special day, which I'll tell you more about in a minute.

BP and Big Oil are trying hard to run the show and are doing a good job of running the Coast Guard. As this cartoon shows, Barack is worn out, bent over, and powerless (no hands) to do more. And finally, he’s bleeding, just like Mother Earth. As she may be destroyed from this stroke she’s having, politically, he may too.

Oilbama. Illustration by Andre Carilho, NY Mag

Tragic, ain't it?

Well it doesn't have to end this way. He can start by taking off BP's pipes and shoving them up their azzes. They ain't the only source of oil or energy in the world, so don't believe BP's hype. Nobody, but nobody, is indispensable or beyond the law when the law is determined enough.

That editorial cartoon is from New York magazine. The author of that piece, titled Oilbama, says:

"...the flip side of every danger lies an opportunity - and the BP spill is no exception. As much as pulling the country back from the economic brink or passing health-care reform, the catastrophe in the gulf offers Obama a chance to rise to the occasion, and in the process not only validate his conception of progressive, activist, and competent governance but reclaim the visionary mantle that inspired so many during his campaign."

Yep.

This shit is beyond bad. If it gets worse, possibly your health will be affected if you live too close to the disaster. It now covers several states.

Let's start with toxic oil dispersant called Corexit. It's so toxic that the question is, what will be left after the oil spill? The answer in today's Times Online may give you nightmares.

This dispersant also causes reproductive problems in people.

"Pregnant woman and children should not be anywhere near this," said Riki Ott, a marine biologist who has worked extensively to study and raise awareness about the impact of oil spills on both the environment and on people.

This has already occurred in ocean life. One pod of mammal-eating whales affected by the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill have not reproduced since then.

And, according to this dire report by Russian scientists to their President, the combination of oil and dispersants in the Gulf will cause toxic rains that could destroy up to half of North America (I'm guessing by poisoning our agriculture and plants).

There is much evidence that BP is censoring the media and destroying evidence. Word yesterday you can't even fly a small plane over the affected areas.

"Think globally, protest locally."

Today is Worldwide BP Protest Day. The links are here and here to attend one. Specific locations for all cities are incomplete at this hour.

If you can't go to one, writing a brief post is another form of protest of their crippling and killing the Gulf, negligence and deceit.

Boston.com/bigpicture has up to date, gut-wrenching photos of the catastrophe which covers several states now, which you can post on your blog.

There aren't many unifying tragedies that cut across politics, class, race, and religion, but this is it. So protest if possible, and write, write, write, if that's your thing. Our collective voices count.

Be part of it. It may give Barack the just the push he needs to kick those got damned greedy sons of bitches in the head.

~ Kit

Barack As Our Symbolic Father: A Dilemma For Progressive & Black America

2010-06-09T19:00:00.001-04:00

I've been thinking about how hard it is to love somebody, and for someone else to criticize that person even when it's well-deserved. It feels like someone talking trash about your mama or your daddy, and it hurts like hell when what's said is true.

After a brotha all but flipped out the other day over my criticism of one of Barack's decisions, I think this is where he, and probably much of Black America, is now with Barack.

Stuck.

Stuck on love when the actions and decisions of the object of your love is doing the wrong things or trying too hard to please others at your expense.

What complicates our collective ability to legitimately criticize bad decisions our President makes is that there's a hoard of haters who want to do him in, only because of the color of his skin. We want to complain, and we don't, and some of us get angry when others do.

This just could leave him and the media with the false impression that everything is peachy with us, when it isn't. It's no different than what is seen in dysfunctional family dynamics.

It's also complex for progressive whites who expected him to live up to his campaign promises, and when he breaks them, some don't want to appear racist by criticizing him. They bite their tongue or defend his actions like a child would of their parent's misbehavior.

My view, which some of you will disagree with, is that we must use our voices to help guide him, so he won't over-compromise with the real bigots, or worse, the people and planet unfriendly mega-corporations.

The latter tries every day to use him - and I mean use - to further transform this country into one big plantation where every-friggin'-body is a serf or a slave. Through public relations ads to funding faux news type outlets, and buying lobbists and politicians, they pit the races and religions against one another to keep us all upset and blind to how they're robbing us blind.

We lost many freedoms during the deplorable Bush-Cheney years, and thanks to Wall Street and the banksters, many of us are debt slaves. For the first time in American history, children have far less chance of getting the opportunities, education, and living as well as we have.

In my mind's eye, I see Barack as a David who was appointed by destiny.

His job is to fight in a round by round match with Goliath - symbolic for the corporatocracy, and the clueless mobs who hate for free.

When Barack compromises or gives in to this monster, he loses a round, and by default, so do we. Too many rounds lost in this death match for real democracy will be defeat for We The People.

If Barack Obama is the symbolic father to us, then we are his children, and the children shall lead the way...

That is our job, as I see it, and why I write what I write.

To Barack & America: What Would Be Different If Venezuela's Citgo Was Killing The Gulf Instead Of BP?

2010-06-08T00:01:00.015-04:00

Responsibility

In my lifetime alone, America has taken responsibility for sending troops into other dozens of countries, originally to "fight for democracy", and in this past decade, to "fight against terrorism". Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Irag, Afghanistan are the big ones. There are many more other countries where we had and continue to have "interventions". This is the short list; for a longer one, read the Timeline of US Military Operations.

The United States also plays the good guy over and over, which is one of the things I love about it. They've used the military to help other countries who experience natural disasters. The most recent big one was the January 12, 2010 earthquake in Haiti. By February, we had 22,000 troops there to help.

We help everybody else. We have USAID, a huge branch of our government which spends billions each year to help dozens of countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, South America, the Caribbean, Asia, and the Middle East. That's only one branch and doesn't cover all the help we do. Sure, some of it is about power, expansion and dominance, but not all of it.

We aren't responsible for the well-being of so many other places, including the Haitians in their hour of darkness.

But we are, or should be, of taking care of ourselves now. So why didn't Obama send in our military in the first two weeks of this catastrophe to keep the oil from reaching the shores of the Gulf Coastline?

Receivership

Barack can't part the sea for BP to repair the oil gusher, but a second thing he can do is place every involved, monstrously negligent corporation in receivership.

Doing so "gives the government authority to take over BP’s operations in the Gulf of Mexico until the gusher is stopped," wrote Robert Reich, a policy professor who served under two former administration.

His idea didn't go far enough. I believe that a permanent takeover is the only way America has a chance of being fully compensated - at least in dollars - for the destruction in progress caused at least in part by Dick Cheney's push for deregulation:

"After Cheney and Bush were elected they sought input from oil company executives and made many changes to ensure big government would not get in the way of the opportunity for enhancing profits for the oil industry. Wholesale changes were made to de fang the Minerals Management Service, the entity designed to regulate the drilling industry." (link)

The media has pretty much ignored the idea of receivership, and if Barack thought about it, he's keeping it to himself.

I contend that the idea strikes fear in the money-shaped hearts on Wall Street, and the politicians whom they bankroll and buy via campaign cash and donations.

Instead, he keeps the responsibility in their hands, including allowing BP, Halliburton, and Transocean to keep evidence that will be used in a criminal investigation of them. While this is common practice in large corporate investigations, under the circumstances, it's a joke.

Once BP would be placed in receivership, in addition to sending in the military to help with clean up, our government would be able to try additional options, such as:

A 1998 invention of a 'Absorbente NOW", by a company in Columbia, South America. It captures all oil, is 100% organic vegetable. This one science competitions in Europe. It was approved by the EPA but is held up by "red tape" by the Coast Guard. This news video clip is impressive.

Hay as an absorbent. If the US has a lot of anything, it's hay. And it's ready and cheap. See this video.

Hairbooms work as well and fall into this category. Lots of these have been collected but have been ignored as a solution. See video in that post I wrote two weeks ago.

Putting deep sea film expert James Cameron. He disputes what BP says about there not being a way for man to go as deep as where the site of the leak is.

"I know really, really, really smart people that work typically at depths much greater than what that well is at," Cameron said. He has helped develop deep-sea submersible equipment and other underwater ocean technology for the making of documentaries..."

Other countries have technologies that might cap the well, and at last count, nearly a thousand Americans have sent in ideas to the White House.

Meanwhile, this is being handled like BP is the only one who can do it. One plausible reason from someone on Chris Matthews' show tonight suggested that BP doesn't want to shut it down, because they'll profit if they can fix it and then continue drilling.

Public Relations Fuckery

Barack Obama is getting better with his image in how he's dealing with this crisis. He's "concerned", and "having sharp words", and even "looking angry".

While I'm sure Barack is concerned, worried, and angry, I'll be more convinced if I see him take it to the next level of military intervention and receivership, because right now, none of these expressions amount to a hill of beans. They tell a story of someone who can't do anything about it, or won't.

It doesn't help his "image" either, that only two and half weeks after the 4/20 oil spill began, he broke a major campaign promise and approved twenty-seven offshore drilling projects.

To his credit - and the public for being deeply alarmed - he announced on May 27th that "he is committing his administration to tougher regulation of the industry and a six-month suspension of exploratory drilling at 33 deepwater wells in the Gulf of Mexico."

While this was a start, it's like the best horse in the race getting out of the gate too late to have a good shot at winning. The gate in this race is controlled by Big Oil.

Last week, Tony Hayden, BP's Exec in charge of this catastrophe until he turned it over to a pretty, golden-haired boy with an American accent, likewise improved in "looking sorry", before he ran back to Britain "to get his life back".

It's an attempt to sooth us with images and concerned voices to restrain our anger while BP's overworked engineers try to stop the leak, while they really try to do business as usual with minimal government interference.

Superman don't play that game. Neither would a U.S. President who doesn't take any shit from anyone. What kryptonite do they have over him, really?

Power Unused Is Power Wasted

In short, the Obama Administration and the head of the Coast Guard are giving us updates on how BP is trying to stop the leak - and they are - while not taking full responsibility and power over things that can and should be done. You know, like the way the US takes "responsibility" for problems away from the homeland.

If President Obama is really pissed off and cares, he needs to show this by his actions.

He's in command, but not in total command of his own power, which unused, is wasted.

He'll either put this company and others involved in receivership, or nationalize it. That means that BP, and all of their assets, belong to us. If they resist, we got military muscle and can quash them in a heartbeat. Hell, the police and courts do it all the time. If you have enough drugs in your house or car, the government can permanently seize your property. This shit ain't no different except in the minds of rich, gray or balding farts who get richer from the stock market and want to hang onto the status quo even if means the planet will die.

And no, receivership this won't change BP's work on trying to solve the problem. It will be the same company - with a different master.

Before you jump and say, no, we can't do this, BP is not an American company, I say Yes We Can. And now I'll prove it to you.

What if this disaster had been caused by Citgo?

Citgo is owned by Venezuela. You know... them. Yes, that oil-rich South American democracy run by Hugo Chavez whom George W. Bush and the Right in particular loves to hate and wanted so badly to undermine, if not destroy.

My oh my, but how different things would be if the Gulf Oil Spill had been caused by Citgo. Right off the bat, we can multiply the existing outrage.

There would be no BP executive with a cute British accent, or a blond haired American spokesperson to sooth the public, or even a political puppet for the corporatocracy to justify how it's been handled so far.

Nope, if it were Citgo, the media and a good portion of the public would be far more aggressive and screaming for their heads, hating on even more Latinos here, and calling the Gulf Oil Spill an act of terrorism. They and a bunch of our politicians would be fully ready to use this catastrophe, to not only take over the company, but to invade their country.

Ya think Barack wouldn't go along with that? Think again.

Given his track record to date, I think President Let's Be Bipartisan & All Get Along would buckle under the pressure from Big Oil, Big Defense, the GOP, and the Far Right faster than he did on healthcare reform, FISA, and that bill that says the government can kill Americans on US soil suspected of terrorist activities.

Lao Tsu, a Chinese philosopher around the time of Confucius, said, "Never let someone be your priority when you are their option."

I wish someone would remind Barack of this, because that's my assessment of his relationship with Big Oil and some of the other Big Bastards running the show. No long term good can come of this, for him or us.

I want to see Barack down and ready for taking over BP in a receivership, and sending the military to the Gulf like he did in the Haiti earthquake. Isn't our disaster needs as worthy as theirs? Why is BP's negligence any different than Citgo's would have been in the same situation?

We we need to see Barack take full charge, regardless of the politics involved or who did it, because it's the right thing to do under the circumstances.

How The Gulf Could Turn Into A Fireball

2010-06-04T00:30:00.041-04:00

There is zero room for errors in solving the Gulf Oil Catastrophe. By the end of the grim post, you'll understand how the Gulf could turn into a fireball.

A few hours ago I finally wept, because this really is a "Disaster of Biblical Proportions", as one black blogger aptly defined it two weeks ago.

Right Click To See Slide Show

In mid-May, I stumbled on this article, "The Cover Up: BP's Crude Politics & The Looming Environmental Mega-Disaster", written by investigative journalist Wayne Madison.

I have mixed feelings about Madison as a person, and am cautious about assigning credibility to everything he writes, but he has a decent enough track record to consider. He wrote:

"They [his sources at FEMA and Army Corps of Engineers] add that if the ocean oil geyser is not stopped within 90 days, there will be irreversible damage to the marine eco-systems of the Gulf of Mexico, north Atlantic Ocean, and beyond."

True. I figured that out on my own, which I wrote about on May 19th. Here's my quick summary.

Oceans have highways and freeways to transport water around the world in what's called the Thermohaline Circulation.

Think of the Gulf Loop as a highway that leads to a freeway called the Ocean Conveyor Belt. This "belt" moves warm and cold waters around in a way that stabilizes temperature and climate. When the "saltiness" or salinity of the ocean waters become disrupted, the great conveyor belt is affected.

As I see it, the density of the oil and the ph balance of the toxic oil dispersants can't help but affect this.

This oil dispersant is banned in the UK due to it's toxicity.
The EPA and Obama told BP stop using it,
but they treated it like a suggestion.

Madison also reported:

"At best, some Corps of Engineers experts say it could take two years to cement the chasm on the floor of the Gulf."

Two long, oily years. Imagine the damage after the oil and BP's toxic oil dispersants hit the ocean major artery. We think of the demise death of seabirds, fish, and dolphins, but there hasn't much talk yet about phytoplankton, which makes much of the oxygen for the earth, or algae, krill, and plankton which are at the bottom of the food chain.

This brings me to the #1 thing that caught my eye. Madison wrote:

"There is other satellite imagery being withheld by the Obama Administration that shows what lies under the gaping chasm spewing oil at an ever-alarming rate is a cavern estimated to be around the size of Mount Everest. This information has been given an almost national security-level classification to keep it from the public."

This ties into what nola.com, the kick azz news paper for New Orleans, LA said. To date, this May 10th article of theirs is one I have returned to repeatedly, and urge you to read in it's entirety.

"Deposits of oil are not in underground caverns; they ooze in the pores of a sponge-like layer of rock, along with natural gas in both gaseous and the crystallized hydrate forms.

"But the hydrates also exist throughout the drilled rock formations, and like the oil below, they exert upward pressure when a drilling operation opens a path to the surface."

********************

I awakened from a dream early Sunday morning that nearly all of the Gulf of Mexico was on fire. The image in my mind was a map of that region. Hopefully it won't come true, but immediately, I had an idea of how this could occur.

If there is an underwater cavern beneath the ocean floor and site of the oil leak like Madison said, and it contains a substantial amount of methane gas, combined with the oil on top, at some point there could be a spontaneous methane explosion, or a man-made one which I'll discuss in a moment.

This plausibly could kill tens of millions of people in states and countries around the Gulf of Mexico based on a theory grounded in reality. It occurred on a much smaller scale in 1986 in Lake Nyos, in Cameroon. The methane gas explosion created a ground level carbon dioxide cloud that killed many nearby villagers. See it at about 2:20 on the video below.

It's also theorized this happened on a larger scale during the Permian Period, which wiped out 95% of life and the dinosaurs. A meteor may have struck an ocean, or an earthquake in the ocean unsettled the ocean floor, igniting the methane gases below. That too, is illustrated in the beginning of this History Channel video:

This information ties in with the idea of nuking the oil well leak. It would be the biggest gamble ever taken in the known history of mankind.

Keith Olberman discussed this idea that's floating around in some circles. His guest on 6/03/2010, Dr. Michio Kaku, a physicist professor and author, made a lot of damn sense (along with having the ability to entertain) in discussing the consequences. See him at 2:00 minutes in the video. This was guy was great. What he said about hurricane season and radioactive tarballs on your roof was both sobering and funny. I wonder if BP and those involved will listen to the voice of sanity:

While this technique worked in Russia under certain circumstances, the location of our catastrophe, the amount of the oil spilled, and the presence of gas below the sea surface will ensure the end of a chapter in American life, and perhaps life itself, if nuking the site of the leak triggers a methane gas explosion.

Plausibly, a methane gas explosion in the Gulf could happen in the absence of the nuclear solution. I wonder if one more oil well fire OR lightning hits during a hurricane may be all that's needed to bring new meaning to the word, FUBAR.

Damn but I'd like the see a bunch of people involved in the negligence of this disaster - and the politicians who continue to enable them - confined to an oil-soaked island in the Gulf as a life sentence.

Otherwise, I dream and pray for a miracle... one like the parting of the waters... this time so the folly of the profiteers can be corrected, and the rest of humanity and the planet given a second chance.

If ignored, then what's done, is done, and we just might become the new dinosaurs.

Freedom's Cancer In The Supreme Court And The Murder Of Miranda

2010-06-02T01:40:00.029-04:00

Insidiously and with the stealth of a slow moving cancer, the five conservatives on the Supreme Court yesterday infected another freedom: our Miranda rights.

A suspect now can't shut up cops interrogating him or her unless he knows enough to tell them that he:

1) wants to remain silent, and
2) wants the presence of an attorney when questioned.

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion and was joined in the 5-4 decision by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.

Our new Justice Sonia Sotomayor, said our rights of protection from police abuse "turns Miranda upside down." She was joined in her dissent by John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor,
good medicine for what ails US.

I'm thinking that both career criminals and white collar thugs with high paid attorneys won't have a problem with this "modification" to Miranda.

It's the underclass, working class, people of color, people who don't understand English well, and the average citizen in the right place at the wrong time - like driving while black - who concern me.

Add in the political dissenters, because when SHTF from converging problems by this fall from the growing economic depression, war expansion, and the Gulf Oil Gusher taking us down further, and I think ~~couch potatoes~~ Americans will finally be desperate enough to protest en masse.

Don't get me wrong - I'm all for locking up serious criminals, but it is so incredibly easy to get in trouble with the law even when you haven't done anything or done much, especially the young between 14 and 25 years old. Readers, you know of lots of cases, so spit out your examples if you wish.

But really, what's up with the sickness in the Highest Court of the Land?

Only a few months ago, the Fatal Five gave Constitutional rights of "personhood" to multinational corporations.

This shit is crazy. Those are entities rich beyond our wildest dreams and they never friggin' die. They can bankroll and buy political candidates with unlimited money, whom they're sure will work in their interests.

What I wonder now is will the nominee, Elena Kagan, if appointed, be part of the cure for what ails us, or speed up the disease to freedom? After reading this, you'll see it's practically a rhetorical question.

Highlight from the Huffington Post: "On June 1, the U.S. Supreme Court finally dealt Miranda a death blow. Elena Kagan, Obama's nominee for the Supreme Court, was complicit in Miranda's demise.

"So what was Kagan's role? As Solicitor General, she filed a brief for the US as a friend of the Court. The US was not a party in the case since [the defendent] had been convicted in state court, and it was the State of Michigan that challenged the lower court's ruling. Kagan did not have to enter the fray and take a position, but she decided to do so...

"Superficially, if Kagan had already replaced Stevens on the Court, the outcome [on Miranda] would not have changed. At most, the decision would have been 6-3 and not 5-4. But Kagan's arguments... show no understanding of modern police interrogation tactics or that suspects -- who are in a position of powerlessness during an interrogation -- may have difficulty asserting their rights or using precise language to do so."

Barack was a Chicago civil rights attorney before he turned into a politician. He did the right thing for We The People when he selected Sotomayor. However, he'll be undoing this good if Kagan goes through. The Supreme Court will then be stacked 6 to 3: six conservatives to three liberals.

Our President, of all people, knows better. Here is Mr. Change himself, with the golden opportunity to stack the court with a 4-5 ratio, but this five being those who will keep us safe from harm by multinationals and bad laws, and he fucks it up.

As a former die-hard Obama lover, I've concluded this was not a "misstep". It's become a pattern of his pandering to immoral and immortal vampiric "corporate personhoods" - ones that are screwing us every minute of every day, from sea to shining sea with the oil-drenched Gulf in between and Alaska getting raped to the north, and profiteering from endless wars.

I hope he reconsiders Kagan after Miranda's murder. I ain't holding my breath, though, and I sit here wondering what other death blows to our freedoms and the planet will occur in the upcoming months and years.

A Memorial For Yesterday's Children

2010-05-31T04:36:00.018-04:00

It is just before dawn, and I can hear the first sounds of a few birds outside.

I am thinking of the yesterdays before 4/20, when a cataclysmic and preventable disaster struck the Gulf of Mexico. I am praying there will be tomorrows for God's other children in the oceans and skies - and us, for we are connected.

Sit back and enjoy the music and spectacular beauty in this post. I don't know how it will affect you, but I feel so small, yet so close to God every time I watch it, and my broken heart "hears" Marvin Gaye's song differently. This is my treat. Feast on it, wipe your eyes, and then blog, write or fight while there might be time left...

Below, click on my music player, then mute the video, (because I couldn't attach the song I want to it.)

Marvin Gaye's song, Yesterday
Be sure to cut the sound on the videos while watching.

Al Gore's Voice & Barack's Sword

2010-05-30T00:03:00.014-04:00

Al Gore, looking at a map of ocean currents

Help me, please. I spent years wondering where in the world is Carmen San Diego, and I'm having a here-we-go again moment with Al Gore's voice and Barack's sword. More about our Prez in a few moments.

Al is more famous among literate adults, having being Bill Clinton's VP, and running for President against George W. Bush, only to be cheated out of that election. Afterwards, he wowed the world with his book and documentary on global warming titled, An Inconvenient Truth.

So lately, I'm dealing with what may turn out to be an inconvenient truth of Al Gore's near-absence on the Gulf Oil Spill since that began on April 20, 2010.

Al Gore uses Twitter. On April 7th, he tweeted, "Another great post from Maggie Fox: http://bit.ly/dzp1qh #climate." This linked to his blog, were Gore did a copy 'n paste job of the commentator and partner he endorsed, Maggie Fox.

She wrote: "Expanded oil drilling will simply continue our reliance on dirty fossil fuels, while doing little to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. The President must now deliver a comprehensive plan for curbing carbon pollution so we can invest in the clean energy technologies we will need in the 21st century..."

Blah blah blah.

Dryly written stuff by well-paid white academia that bores the shit out of the general population, and is ignored by the media because it doesn't serve the desires of their avaricious, corporate masters.

The next day, The Hill ran an article titled, Oil Drilling Prompts Al Gore's First Public Split On Climate With President Obama.

The gist of that was, "The statement (Al's tweet, for God's sake) is significant because it marks Gore’s first break with Obama on his signature policy issue..."

Something is not right, and those WTF moments continued to roll through my soul.

I perused through his blog, "Al's Journal". For someone who writes so much about oil and carbon emissions, and climate change, if you go to "Edit" then "Find" on your Firefox browser, not one friggin' time did he pen the words "Gulf" or "spill" from the day of the disaster through the end of that month.

"Well," I thought, "maybe he got his bearings in May."

Again, I searched his May page. On the 7th, he did another brief journal entry, No Fooling Mother Nature, and said, "Tom Friedman publishes another great column in The New York Times..." with a link to TF's article of the same title.

On May 8, he directed his blog readers to an article he did for The New Republic article, "The Crisis Comes Ashore". It was so short I could have made a cup a coffee in the amount of time he must have spent writing it.

Finally, something found, from google searching - not his blog.

On May 17, Al Gore spoke at the Panetta Institute in a lecture, Saving A Planet That Sustains Us.

Gore said of BP:

"I respect a lot of the folks at BP... but ladies and gentlemen, I know a cover up when I see one."

direct video link
Also, here's a YouTube link w/o the commercial
but embedding is disabled.

Whoa!

I leaned into my chair, waiting... and waiting... in vain. He ain't said nothing beyond that, at least in the video, his site, or any thing that I could find on the World Wide Web.

As he left Panetta, a mob of 75 to 100 global warming deniers waited for him and chanted outside. This is typical; they're the small, nuisance crowds. A a few hundred years ago they were the ignorant loudmouths who hated science and believed that the earth was flat, or were paid to lie to support of those in charge.

What is also amazing about that moment caught on film is how it's gotten about zero publicity. The news station who ran the clip has it so that the video can't be embedded. The stories about his lecture at Panetta focus on the protesters afterwards, and either didn't know about or sanitized his suspicion of cover up.

I particularly found it odd that Gore, a Nobel Prize winner on climate change, made no mention in his own journal of his lecture at the Panetta Institute, or more detailed thoughts of BP, and has otherwise been publicly silent about our planet having a stroke.

Surely Al Gore knows what I painfully figured out all by myself and posted about on 5/19: that the oil and toxic dispersants will find their way from the Gulf Loop to the ocean's freeway known as the Ocean Conveyor Belt. It will wreak barely imaginable havoc on Mother Earth. Short of Divine Intervention, we are fucked.

I ain't even wrote in super specific details how fucked I think we are, it's too painful. Maybe that's been Gore's problem too.

Al Gore is the man who won the 2000 Presidential election by popular vote (50,999,897 to Bush's 50,456,002), but lost through what many consider theft by two states and particularly Florida.

How different the world might be now... probably no wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and perhaps stronger regulations put in place which if implemented because that was Al Gore's thang. This would have prevented off shore drilling - and this catastrophe going on now in the Gulf of Mexico.

I wonder if Al Gore looses sleep over not fighting harder for what he won, but was stolen from him - and us - in November 2000.

Perhaps it's a different lesson he learned the hard way of who is really in charge of this nation.

I no longer believe it's democracy or even our current President. Under his directive and the EPA, they were blown off by by BP when told not to use the toxic oil dispersant, Corexit which is banned in the UK. Can you imagine? These bitches treated the order as though this were a suggestion.

I hope Al Gore finds the courage to join the conversation he's been ducking, and do so with passion, like Rep. Charlie Melancon, who cried during a hearing last week, and James Carville and Bobby Jindall with CNN's Anderson Cooper at the sites of the oil disaster in Louisiana.

The world desperately needs more well-known and credible voices like Al's to raise fucking hell.

This goes for Barack too. Realistically, and after spending a huge amount of time this month studying the major and minor players in this deadly game, his role is a delicate as the Gulf of Mexico itself, and may not last as long no matter what he does.

In terms a child can understand, this could be a mega-battle of good vs. evil, if only good will pick up their weapons, and be willing to die for the cause.

Thus, in the end, for the political careers, safety, and lives of those public figures we look up to, it may come down to how they want what's left of history to remember them.

Rep. Melancon breaks down and cries
at a subcommittee hearing over disaster

Anderson Cooper interviews Bobby Jindal this week.
They note (at 3:18) they are under surveillance by air. BP's goons?

Anderson Cooper interviews a very emotional
and impassioned James Carville this week.

Troops At The Border: Are They There To Keep Them Out Or Us In?

2010-05-27T00:15:00.012-04:00

Barack Obama ordered 1200 National Guardsmen at the US-Mexican border. John McCain wants 6,000. Other GOP members want more.

Considering that our problems are so great and that the world is like a lit fuse getting shorter by the week, what will happen if WW3 is triggered?

No, not from a sealed border, but from other events. North Korea and South Korea are a time bomb. Barack and Hillary are pushing a reluctant China to put North Korea in check.

Hell, we owe a fortune to China. Why would they get in the middle of a new Korean war to fight on behalf of our interests?

To save the dollar? Possibly, but I think not, because we're flat azz broke, and unlike them, produce little in the way of tangible goods to earn money. We are a nation of consumers and spendthrifts.

For oil deals with Iran and Iraq? Maybe, since they have invested billions in Iran's energy programs. However, if they can nudge us out of the way, they'd save a bundle, and geographically, they're closer to the oil fields.

No, they might think hard about playing peace maker with the Koreans since a war with them could go nuclear and tie up their manpower and resources.

And speaking of oil, a bad hurricane season will spread the oil and dispersants far and wide. This will undoubtedly put a strain on US relations with affected countries whose seafood industry will be damaged.

Then there are the Russians. We've been quite busy this century surrounding their country with our 2nd level allies. Patriot missiles arrived in Poland this week and will be pointing at the Ruskies, who also have huge investments with Iran.

And last month, Barack said we were "weeks away" from placing sanctions on Iran. I guess he dismissed their leader saying long ago this would be considered an "act of war".

In the middle of all this, we're right smack dab in two wars. Number of soldiers: 92,000 in Iraq, 94,000 in Afghanistan. Cost since the wars began: $1 Trillion Dollars. Number Americans reported killed as of today: 5,456. Double or triple this for the number of serious disabilities and suicides by service men and women.

There is also now a highly secretive, "systematic and long term" cladesdine war program authorized by General Petraeus. Oddly, he did not need the President's approval for this. It includes sending drones to bomb Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia at a huge cost of life to civilians there, and any good will toward us.

We are in a major "recession". All this looks and feels like the Great Depression II and a prelude to bigger wars to me. The last time this kind of shit happened, WWII was the remedy - and for the Nazis, mass exterminations the solution for Jews, and for the US, internment camps for the Japanese before they nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

So this brings me to troops at the border. All it would take is for one mushroom cloud over one American city, and within hours folks would running like roaches for the Mexican and Canadian borders.

Canadian border spots are already tight as a drum: Bush & Co, the greatest warmongers in recent times, ensured that you need a passport to enter. Not true for Mexico.

The official story is troops are being placed there to keep out illegal aliens.

What if the real deal by the powers that be is they anticipate a major war on American soil, and they don't want us abandoning our country - particularly men eligible for a new draft?

So I ask you again, will the troops be guarding the US-Mexican border to keep them out, or to keep us in?

Pesticides Now Strongly Linked To ADHD. Thus, What Can We Expect From The Oil Disperants Used In The Gulf Of Mexico?

2010-05-25T22:25:00.003-04:00

Can't sit still or focus? How about your significant other, BFF, or child? In some of these cases, pesticides in the food, house, yard, and elsewhere might be the culprit.

In a recent U.S. study, "researchers tracked the pesticides' breakdown products in children's urine and found those with high levels were almost twice as likely to develop ADHD as those with undetectable levels."

This shouldn't be a surprise since pesticides and many chemicals are toxic to the nervous system. When you add in the problems from processed foods, it's like the odds for being healthy and normal is stacked against us.

Maybe you've noticed like have that ADHD (Attention Deficient Hyperactivity Disorder) is a miserable condition, both for the person who has it and the ones who have to live with them or work with.

They can be fun at times since they're so spontaneous, but can also drive you nuts because they're often forgetful, speak and act before thinking, and are more accident prone. Impulsiveness tends to impair judgment.

They get bored easily. The temper tantrums of quite a few of these kids are unforgettable, although not all have that problem. Except for the most determined or the brightest, many do not finish school, so their ability to get or keep jobs are diminished.

Special education classes, the juvenile system and the jails are filled with kids and adults with ADHD, not necessarily because they're stupid, but because they can't concentrate, and get into all kinds of trouble. In the UK, 20% of kids suspended from school have the disorder. A quarter to 67% of inmates are thought to have ADHD.

Girls and women with ADHD may not be as antsy in general, but they're less likely to do well in school or go to college. More of them have eating disorders and serious weight problems. Sounds like a lot of young white women I see and know who were working for slave wages long before the economy crashed. Whether this is the result of a lifelong diet of processed foods, ADHD, both, or not being ambitious is anyone's guess. Black women too, but we also have the deck of discrimination stacked against us.

This new info about the link between pesticides and ADHD makes me wonder how the toxic chemicals that are unnecessarily and currently being dumped into the Gulf of Mexico will affect even more unborn and young children.

On the other hand, in the long term, maybe it won't even matter. I've been researching oil dispersants day and night. What I have learned is grim, so grim that I haven't been able to pull it together to write more about this cataclysmic event going on, and how the problem is being compounded by the usual suspects.

Meanwhile, I consider my ADHD and mood disordered son. I shake my head in sorrow, thinking of the possibility for so many more damaged people like him in the next generation...

How Our Hair Can Save The World Soaking Up Oil In the Gulf

2010-05-22T16:24:00.016-04:00

Nobody's hair soaks up oil like black folks hair. Wild and woolly, turns out our hair can save the oil-soaked Gulf of Mexico, and if you read my last two posts, maybe the planet.

Not just our hair either, but all types of hair, fur, and nylons.

This video shows a group called MatterOfTrust.org doing what has to be one of the potentially greatest deeds on the planet. They are collecting what we don't want and stuffing it into nets. so it can be used to make "hairbooms". Hairbooms absorb the overwhelming majority of the oil as shown in this fascinating video.

Seriously, it's good, and it's fun:

Hat Tip: 24-7 Grimey News Cafe

These are what hairbooms looks like:

Here are some of the places they come from:

In their 'About' section, MatterOfTrust.org "was conceived in 1998, by Lisa Craig Gautier and her husband, Patrice Olivier Gautier (Vice President, iTunes Store & iPhones Apps Store Engineering, Apple, Inc.) this nonprofit received 501 (c) 3 public charity status in May of 1999."

That's Lisa Gautier on your far right,
in the "Hairy Situation Room

Filmed by a bro from CBS News

Receiving and distribution warehouses are in many areas, so please do not mail your hair or pet fur to their main San Francisco office!

So folks, tell your barber and beautician collect and mail all that hair they sweep up each day. Offer to help out. Hair doesn't weigh much, so it shouldn't cost much to mail it and is tax deductible since it's a donation to a 501 (c) charity. Their instructions are here, but you (individuals, salons, and businesses) will need to sign up here and will be told where to mail it.

There are visible minority folks in the pictures, and they all look and sound like a wonderful group of people. I'm sure they'd love our help. Sometimes I think that when we don't see any or enough other minorities in volunteer groups, we feel apprehensive about joining out of fear of rejection. This occasionally happens in some places, and it only takes one hater in the group for us to say eff it; been through it myself once.

However, this catastrophe is too important to allow any fears get in the way. Blog about it. If nothing else, print this post or the contact info for Matter of Trust, and please pass it along to your barbershop, beauty salon, or dog groomer. Even the military barber, 'cause I'm sure them boyz have enough hair to soak up a lot of oil.

Insert your fine or adorable self here
as one doing their part to save the world.

Maybe the mainstream ~~propaganda~~ media will get the hint that the hairboom option can no longer be minimized or omitted from their news stories. Call and write your Congressperson about using hairbooms instead of those toxic chemicals BP & their couldn't-give-a-fvck, profiteering cronies are doing.

Maybe we can even convince President Barack Obama to donate some of his hair.

I figure that's one way to know where he or any other politician really stands on the safest way to protect the environment, versus using expensive and toxic chemical dispersants that will make certain corporations richer. Man, wouldn't you love to see Rachel Maddow ask that to all those corporate for hire politicians in her interviews? Heh-heh.

I'm currently doing some investigative work on a related side to this story. So far what I've discovered is chilling, and I'll share it with you in my next post.

Some Of Mother Earth's Terrorists Are Oil Executives, Who Are Screwing With The Global Ocean Conveyor Belt

2010-05-19T02:14:00.022-04:00

Humanity, or the few in charge who pass for humans, have unwittingly screwed around with the Thermohaline Circulation of the all the oceans.

This is sometimes called the

Ocean Conveyor Belt,
The Great Ocean Conveyor, or
The Global Conveyor Belt.

Link: How Stuff Works: Ocean Currents

It maintains the world's temperatures, and was a major part of the dynamics in the last Ice Age and Mini Ice Age.

When the "saltiness" or salinity of the ocean waters become disrupted, the great conveyor belt is affected. As I see it, the density of the oil and the ph balance of the chemicals can't help but affect this.

I learned about this belt which dictates our weather and climate nearly ten years ago while reading about global warming and the ice ages. It's the reason the temperature is similar in Washington DC and London, even though the latter is much further to the north.

When I learned three weeks ago of this oil "spill", I was upset nearly beyond words, but as it continues, I have the worse sense of dread.

I'm no expert, and haven't read a thing yet about how this catastrophe might slow or shut down the ocean conveyor belt, only that it could spread oil and toxins beyond the Gulf of Mexico. However, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to consider the enormous possibility of it slowing down or coming to halt - which would throw many parts of this country and the world into a new mini- or full Ice Age.

Hang onto to that thought, and I'll return to it in a moment.

This little piggy is the Chief Executive for BP Oil, and his name is Tony Hayward.

You'd think he'd be on the verge of a nervous breakdown and crying over this:

Not by a longshot. Despite death threats, this pampered-looking man with soft hands says "he's sleeping well these days..."

That statement alone is infuriating.

The Forbes interviewer who met with him described him as "looking fresh, almost relaxed in his makeshift corner office at BP's emergency response center in Houston," and said "Hayward insists the company has been "extraordinarily successful."

In its response to the spill, "Hayward gropes for an upside," and says, "Deepwater drilling will be transformed by this event. If we can win the hearts and minds of the communities that are impacted, then we have the potential to enhance our reputation rather than have it damaged."

Keep dreaming, bitch.

September 10, 2001, was America's last day of being oblivious to what terrorism feels like or worrying about the spread of wars in the Middle East.

If the Gulf of Mexico inhabitants could express themselves, they'd tell us they feel the same way about April 19th of this year, because the day after, 4/20/10, they have been terrorized and are dying at holocaust levels from a far worse catastrophe.

No, the most affected citizens who try to planet with us are not humans - not yet anyway. They are the birds and ocean life who depend on or live in the sea, and there are billions of them, from microscopic plants to dolphins, shellfish, fish, and birds - more than you can name.

And what's one of BP's solutions?

They are "using two products from a line of dispersants called Corexit, which EPA data appears to show is more toxic and less effective on South Louisiana crude than other available dispersants."

These products were banned for oil cleanups in the UK over a decade ago because they are toxic - to humans.

Worse, "scientists have discovered giant plumes of dispersed oil in the deep waters of the Gulf, though the EPA has said “there is no information currently available to link the dispersants to those deep-sea plumes. The plumes are now fast approaching the Gulf loop current, which could spread the oil into the Atlantic Ocean."

The next two images show the ocean temperature in the gulf, with an outline of the oil spill overlaid. The dark red bulb directly below the spill is the loop current; above it is the cooler and less distinct cyclone.

“It’s highly visible in our imagery,” said Nan Walker, an oceanographer with the Earth Scan Laboratory at Louisiana State University, where a separate analysis of the satellite images is being done. “It’s unmistakable. And oil spills, to my mind, aren’t usually that easy to track.”

The following image shows the spill on Monday, May 17, with a long tongue of oil snaking out to sea:

link

This next photo is from two weeks ago, May 6-7, showing the "spill" in relation to the Gulf loop current.

Once again, take a good, hard look at the thermohaline circulation in this map below of the Global/Ocean Conveyor Belt:

Link: How Stuff Works: Ocean Currents

As you see, what happens in the Gulf doesn't stay in the Gulf. It ain't like your weekend in Las Vegas.

I am dead certain that the cheap bastards running BP understand this. I don't think they give a shit. They are dumping chemical dispersants in the Gulf, and I understand what they most hope to save - things with a dollar value attached to it - but they are literally taking an all or nothing gamble with the entire planet.

I don't have enough nasty names or labels to call the people who made this disaster possible, or who work for or support them in some way, shape or form, and I'll be surprised if any of them see a day in jail, so the best thing I can say publicly is I hope they get the hottest seats in hell.

The Planet Is Having A Stroke How Soon Will We Be Crying Tears Of Oil?

2010-05-18T11:32:00.018-04:00

When you think of the earth as a living thing, it is having a stroke. With the Gulf Oil Catastrophe, instead of blood leaking into places where it should not be, the fluid is oil.

How is this any different from that of a person or animal? A stroke incident is serious. Parts of tissue dies, and it is often fatal.

I'm guessing that it won't be long before people from Texas to Florida, Cuba, and the eastern coast of Mexico, will smell the stench of the dead. Just look at a map and the affected areas. Trillions of lives lost, algae and other sea plant life, fish, sea turtles, dolphins, octopuses, and birds.

Rotting away in a watery mass grave.

One of the strategies has been to add a chemical dispersant to the water. The problem with this is it keeps oxygen out of it. Ocean life needs that to breath. The problem is compounded.

And then I think of the dynamics of rain.

Moisture rises from oceans, forms clouds, which make rain. What will the rain be like in those areas a month or three months from now?

Will it rain oil?

Will people find clumps of tar on their cars and roofs?

How will the chemicals and oil residue in the rain affect agriculture? Will Florida oranges begin to smell and taste funny? Is our food production imperiled?

What happens to all the inland animals that eat the plants which soak up the rain? Most of us eat animals, and if they're contaminated, how will that affect our health?

Our fresh water reservoirs are refreshed by rain. This is the water we drink. How can it not be affected?

Just thinking of hurricane season - which is all about rain and wind - makes me unbearably sad, and nervous for the near and far future. I live in the DC area, but when a hurricane is powerful enough in the south, often a few days later it's windy and rainy up here. I'm no expert, but my intuition screams at me that this can't possibly be good under the circumstances.

I think the broadcast news media isn't covering this story as non-stop as they should, not only because of corporate interests, but because it frightens and pains them too on a primitive, fear-of-death level.

I have barely been able to read or write this about myself. Most of the times when I've tried in the past three weeks, I felt paralyzed. It's like looking at the sun, you know it's there, but it's too painful to stare at directly. Unlike the sun, however, this is a catastrophe that brings death, not life.

Albert Einstein once said, “Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.”

If this planetary stroke cannot be stopped soon by the greatest minds in the world, we may all be crying tears of oil later, and maybe sooner than later.

*******************

Be sure to use the slider under the "Adjust Leak Rate"

You can get the embed code here.

Guest Post: Let's Talk About That Dating Thang

2010-05-14T09:42:00.000-04:00

I don't know if y'all forgot I have a fairly new blog, or if it's because I changed the web address and modified the name (call it blog growing pains), but I'm running a fantastic guest post there thru early Sunday afternoon. Click on the link below and show Black Girl In Maine some blogger love by leaving her a comment, okay?

Letters To A Young Person Of Color

Ramen Noodles For Brains

2010-05-12T05:48:00.017-04:00

Reason #139 why your adult child should not live at home, or at least why you shouldn't ever buy him a video camera:

Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher (D), is running for Senate.
On this night, he is minding his business and working
shortly after midnight in his home. He is shirtless,
and surprise-surprise, is being video taped,
and then interviewed by his son.

And the little prick has the nerve to ask at the start of video, "What could my father be doing now?"

Reason #1039 why the GOP sucks ass and will never be anybody's "Moral Majority":

GOP attack ad,
twisting and inventing shit, as usual.

Those two videos seen together, however, are hilarious. As for Fisher's son, if I had the brute strength of a father and I was his dad, the ER docs would be trying to remove that video camera from his azz.

And I thought my son was bad... Well, I can't lie, he is.

I don't know Lil' Fisher, but mine must have been watching the clock for Mother's Day to end. I woke up from either noise or smoke a few minutes after midnight, and the lil' ninja was having a mini-party in the living room, and burned up a pot of Ramen noodles.

I can't tell you how much I wanted to yell at him - and he knew it - but the loony landlord was in the basement, and that's one dragon who never needs to be awakened.

So I whispered, "Get those mofos outta here now!"

He's the last ninja who should drink because it doesn't mix well with his mood disorder, and his halfway drunk azz thought it was funny.

I didn't.

Smoking up the kitchen: strike one.
Having company over after 9PM and the kind of company he had: strike two.
Boozing: strike three.

Problem though - how in the heck was I to do a you're out, mah'fucka, when I couldn't?

Instead, I whispered, "Ssshh! You'll wake up the landlord!"

Ever the salesman, he tries to cut a deal, saying, "We'll be real quiet if they can stay."

"Oh hell no!", I whispered furiously.

He thought that was funny, too, while I worried about the fire-breathing dragon in the dungeon.

I suppose Lil' Fisher and his buddy were cracking up, too, when they ambushed Fisher's poor shirtless father and then uploaded the video to YouTube. Now poor Mr. Fisher has his own fire-breathing dragons on his azz and may lose a shot a good job.

Been there, done that.

Wish I could end the story there, but that night continued to be surreal. No sooner had I kicked Xavier and his buddies out of the house for the night, we could hear the Fire Department engines screaming. I thought a neighbor had called over the smoke from my place.

Next thing ya know, they're rolling down my street and I'm muttering, oh shit, my landlord is gonna go psycho.

Well, no, I got lucky, but not the house a few doors down.

Their sweetheart of a son was smoking in the car and must have dropped his cigarette... or whatevah. And engine fire my azz; the entire vehicle was flames - the kind of flames that were shooting up as high as the second story to their house.

Too bad it was parked in their driveway right next to it.

And what was my lil' moron and his homies doing? Standing across the street, laughing, while one of them was video taping the shit on his cell phone camera. Tell me, has being entertained at stupidity and destruction always been national pastime, or is it now simply more obvious due to our technology? And how come it didn't dawn on my son that this could have been our friggin' house?

I can just picture the back page headlines now:

Ramen Noodle Eating Ninja Burns Down House,
While Landlord Beats Mother
And Stomps Yapping Poodle To Death

Moral of the story: Who needs enemies when ya got family?

Well, at least my son's shit didn't technically happen until after Mother's Day.

I reminded myself of this yesterday, after my daughter snitched that she caught him trying to "borrow" my car to drive his girlfriend home. Yes, the girlfriend he helped flunk out of her 12th grade year. I found this out last week by accident when he was talking to her crying azz on the phone.

Does he take any responsibility for that either? No.

Xavier really got mad when he overheard me saying this on the phone to a relative that soon enough, maybe he'll be part of her family, 'cause I'm still praying for that full time job and enough money to get the hell out of Dodge.

He said indignantly, "You cannot put that on me! It was her choice to spend time with me instead of going to classes."

This relative, who is also a therapist, could hear his response, and burst out laughing. "That's good," he said.

This made me laugh.

"What's so funny?", Xavier complained with innocence as fake as his indignity.

I relayed the message. Saint Xavier ain't really stupid, and he got that, then got all huffy.

Sheesh.

Parents, this is the risk of what you get when your oppositional-defiant kid spends entirely too much time in therapy during their childhood. They learn how to say all the right things, which amounts to bullshit. I swear, he'd be dangerous if he had the education and connections to work on Wall Street.

By me talking about how he could go live with his girlfriend's family, Xavier suddenly remembered that I have an escape plan. I could tell, 'cause that's when he returned with The Usual Lie, followed by The Suck Up.

"Ma, I did not steal your car."

Somehow, I had a flash back of Bill Clinton saying, "I did not have sex with that woman."

I had to keep from laughing. I said, "You got caught, nigga, you busted."

"Casey's lying!"

I looked at him with that I ain't stupid look and said, "Xavier, haven't you learned by now that when you're caught, the correct thing to do is to apologize?"

"I didn't do that. She just hates me. She's jealous."

"Maybe she hates the idea of you effing up my car and it getting impounded 'cause you ain't got a drivers license and probably had a joint on you."

"Well, if you're so sure I did it, why don't you kick me out?"

"Leave anytime."

"You're just scared I'll break up something or try to commit suicide."

"Ain't like you haven't done that before."

He leaves, and returns 15 or so minutes later.

"I apologize."

"It ain't sincere."

"I need your help."

"Heard this before."

"What should I do?"

He ain't gonna leave my room until I bite the bait.

"You really want to know, Xavier?"

He nods, and I know it's a game, but I tell him anyway.

"The truth needs few words," I say, "and I have three for you. Follow them consistently and everything else will fall into place."

I took a long pause. He waited.

"Stop. Being. Selfish."

He feigned deep reflection for the rest of the evening. Oh, but he's good. I wonder how my son, and the youth a few houses down who burned up his parent's car, and Fisher's son would get along as roommates?

Stranger things have happened, and if it does, I'll send them a case of Ramen Noodles.

My Sunlight From Heaven

2010-05-08T18:10:00.004-04:00

I was feeling pretty sentimental this morning and wrote a post to my late mother for Mother's Day, which is also the same approximate time as her birthday. I replaced it a few minutes ago this evening with this one, feeling maybe it was too mushy and personal for this blog.

It's a mixed bag for me, this time of year. I miss my own mother, yet at the same time, enjoy the extra attention from my children.

Anyway, on beautiful days like today has been, I think she isn't gone; I see my mother in the rays of the sun, shining down on me.

Cheers to those who are our biological or adoptive mothers, who sacrificed and acted toward us in a loving maternal role, and for those no longer here on Earth, leaving us with memories as warm as sunlight from heaven.

Passing Out Awards

2010-05-07T18:00:00.006-04:00

I was pleasantly surprised to receive The Beautiful Blogger Award from Miz Represent of the Miz's Write For Life blog. Now I get to pass along several of these awards, which I've placed in alphabetical order. There is something unique in their perspective that I enjoy.

Abagond

Most of you are familiar with his regular blog, but have you seen his new one on Tumblr? It rocks.

Black Girl In Maine

Here's a sista with a clear-eyed view and is fun to read. I can't count the times she has been inside my head.

Cup of Joe Powell

One of my latest discoveries. I really like his perspective.

Diamond Dust and The Outlook

A. Smith is another intelligent blogger, and she has a mix of new and interesting personal stories and commentaries.

La Bella Vita

La is hands down one of the best writers in Blog Land. If she ever does a book, I want mine autographed. Her archives are amazing too.

Mason Says

Okay, he doesn't need this award, but if you haven't read him, you should.

Maybe So, Maybe No

Brownbelle... Now here's a sista with her head on straight.

Nu Vision For A Nu Day

I feel like I know Angela. Life's view from a wonderful, visually impaired sista who will teach you some things you didn't know.

[Other] Womyn-ism

Livication is political and on point.

Raving Black Lunatic

Brown Man, another brotha who writes current events and puts a smile on my face.

The Intersection of Madness & Reality

Most of you already know Rippa. He does political and news satire, and is a genius at this.

This Side Of The Wall

Another new find. Britni is the wife of a prisoner, and reveals what this life is like.

Thought Swirl

If you like to read what the globalists are up to, Jay Midnight recently began this blog to tell you. BTW, I contribute to it occasionally.

Ugly Black John

John has the feel of an awesome teacher in many of his posts, and tosses out tidbits of knowledge on a huge variety of things.

********************

As customary, recipients can post the award pic on their blog, write a little about themselves, and pass this one along to others if they so desire. So, here goes for me:

~ I like to write essays about things that can be read years later and still be enjoyed. I also like writing news commentaries and political satire.

~ If I'm writing a post and start to get bored, I figure it will bore the reader so I scrap it. One the other hand, I have written a few posts that I knew would make the eyes of most readers glaze over (like this one), but the idea excited me because it connects with so many different human problems that I had to share it.

~ I love to connect with others; to learn, teach, share, and try new things. Keeping a sense of humor about it all and life in general makes the journey more interesting and fun, and helps soften disappointments.

Well, I don't want to drag this out as I'm sure many of you want to check out the blogs listed above.

Heal Or Die: The Challenge To That Diseased Place On The Map

2010-05-02T14:20:00.029-04:00

America's next revolution will be to vomit out the toxic racists who are struggling to take down the President and maintain white privilege.

Let's explore toxicity for a moment. When you ingest something toxic, your body shifts into survival mode. If it recognizes the danger in time, it vomits or craps out whatever is making you sick. If it doesn't, it absorbs the poison. The severity will determine whether you recover, are left in a permanently weaker state, or will die.

Now think of the culture, subculture, and nation you live it as a body. You are part of it whether like it or not.

Social toxins have always been around, particularly class issues and tribalism, aka racism, sexism, religious discrimination and other forms of bigotry. This body we live in has been feeding off various poisons since this nation was founded. It vomited up a lot of it after the Civil War when the slave holders were forced to free their hostages, when Women's Suffrage took place and men were forced to allow them the right to vote, and during the Civil Rights movement, which cleaned up a lot of the injustice left over from the Civil War.

Since a black man was elected to the White House, a huge number of whites have lost their damned minds. Their numbers are smaller than the majority of whites who made Barack's election possible, but the size of this tribe runs into tens of millions. Through medias like Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, and the Party of No, they are as determined as tuberculosis, cancer, or the HIV virus to spread and consume the entire body.

Those are stupid diseases, by the way, because unlike most others, they kill the host.

"Give me your tired, your poor,
your huddled masses yearning to breathe free..."

-Inscription on the Statue of Liberty

We haven't heard that saying in eons, and I think it's because the nation is so ill.

The infected whites and their equally infected, but far fewer in number of black and Latino ~~sellouts~~ conservatives, are oblivious that they are the disease. They actually believe they are the healthy ones. This nation has never fully vomited or crapped them out.

They continue to hijack political parties and media outlets, and recruit and train others how to hate on the healthy parts of the body and soul of this nation, which no thanks to them, has become very, very sick.

The sickest event this weekend was their drunken-like glee over a what so far is an unproved rumor that the President had an affair in 2004 with an intern.

Millions of racists have literally been praying that it's true and even began celebrating ahead of time.

They're the same ones who were glued to the TV and cheering when Bush carpet bombed the entire city of Baghdad - which wouldn't have been done if the city's residents were white, blue eyed and blonde haired. It is they who shrugged when told the WMD story was a lie, and yawned when told that over one million innocent Iraqis have been killed. They have an oh well attitude, and/or snicker over the death of 2,000 mostly black Hurricane Katrina victims and thousands more left to suffer for six days before getting help - yet get all bent out of shape over the 3,000 mostly white professionals who died in 9/11.

Funny thing is, half these white American peasants who hate are so ignorant that they couldn't get a job in the old World Trade Center if their lives depended on it. Now they're getting mental hard-ons at the possibility that our black President bedded down a woman who isn't his wife. They not only get a rush from this, but because they just know that with the help of the mostly racist GOP and fake news, they can get his black azz impeached. They're cut of the same cloth, I think, of the ones during slavery, who'd castrate and lynch a black man who dared to be, and they'd party afterwards.

The diseased ones have been dying to take out our Commander In Chief by any means possible, or cheering on those who are and will do the dirty work, from assassination to character assassination for the simple reason that he is not white.

This mob rarely fights on the grounds of well-thought out policy, which a thinking, non-racist person could respect. No, their #1 agenda is maintaining the illusion that white is superior, and this blinds most of them to legitimate liberal, middle or the road, or conservative concerns of all citizens.

Despite Obama's strength of inclusiveness - that oddly has become his greatest weakness because he tries too hard to compromise for the sake of bipartisanship with the increasingly insane, racist GOP, and rarely acknowledges the haters - they fear he is the antidote to white privilege.

Yes, they believe that if they can accomplish destroying him, the disease process of racism and xenophobia as business as usual will be back on track. They're like a human body that is sick but rejects good medicine.

Should the story of adultery be true and he is run out of office, I predict a greater crime wave by the dis-empowered, frustrated young blacks who have been marginalized and had unemployment rates at the Great Depression level for decades.

Crime will be their form of rioting.

It may not be conscious, but it will be their way of totally giving up hope and becoming social outlaws in never before seen numbers.

Should the story not be true, these infected, white cells among us and their few black servants will continue their effort to take him down, even though on some level most know that the entire nation will suffer.

They don't give a damn. They're as determined as the retrovirus that cannot regulate itself and find ways to live within the body without killing it.

In their greed for maintaining power via what little white privilege that they have or think they have - or to feel less powerless - they are inviting the death of this nation. They are too blinded by fear and hate - or for the handful black neo slave catchers dreaming of opportunities to be rich or famous at the expense of their brothers and sisters - to realize this.

The few non-white conservatives who promote propaganda, in particular, should inspire contempt, boycotting whenever possible, and showing up on election days to vote them out. I view them as the wooden handle of the axe that cuts down trees, and can never be trusted.

They are different from black and white conservatives who argue real points on real policies. Sometimes it's hard teasing out which is which, but legit ones, I at least listen to what they have to say and consider it. The mercenaries for haters can go to hell.

Back to the main infected ones: the fringe white Right. Should they succeed in killing this antidote named Barack Obama - like they've done in the past with Martin and Malcolm and the names of ordinary and barely remembered victims of white violence - we can anticipate the rest of the body trying to vomit out their toxicity through demonstrations and riots.

From the Francois Robert gallery

Perversely, the infected ones welcome this. Their guns are locked and loaded, they have plenty of ammo on the shelf, their vigilante groups formed, and they believe the odds are in their favor that if they randomly shoot and kill innocent blacks for sport, they'll get away with it, like they did during the Hurricane Katrina aftermath or like bad cops do from time to time.

They may be quite wrong about their hoped for end result of taking down the President. The times are different. The whole world is watching these nazi-like and neo-Klan Aryan dreamers try to "take their country back".

Other countries have learned through experience and observation the same lesson that the Native Americans, banana republics, and Iraq and Afghanistan learned, and they ain't having it.

They will shut us out of deals and speed up our economic demise to protect themselves from "that diseased place on the map" and some have already began that process. Like Wall Street, too many of our deals are of the robber baron kind.

Equally, there are too many non-racist white Americans who are fed up, disgusted and repelled by the germs among them. Latinos are infuriated by the stepped up attacks on their group, and blacks are literally sick of, and from, the hate.

This is the stuff of revolutions.

One could begin at any time, and we will either heal enough to function as a nation of many peoples, or die.

The grim possibility of getting sucked into an oil and currency based war with Iran, and doing or supporting a first strike, then getting nuked in return by their allies China and/or Russia will be our kiss of death. This will make for revolution in the form of food riots, more joblessness and lawlessness, and grinding poverty, inevitable. The cause of the problem will be the same old white entitlement, but the story will be spun differently, as it already is.

This body's fate is not a forgone conclusion.

Not yet. We will never stamp out certain physical diseases or the social diseases of tribalism, racism, xenophobia, and greed. However, like safer sex, we can keep them from spreading.

It is in the hands of the healthy - white, black, brown, red or yellow, from teens to seniors - to be the immune system, the right medicine, the voice of reason, and protection for the rest of the body.

We can feverishly fight this disease. It loves money, so boycotting the media advertisers that sponsor the haters, and voting them out will do much to arrest it.

The alternative is for this diseased place on the map is to descend back into the Dark Ages. Some of the infected ones are even lawmakers, who are busy trying to further infect America by replacing freedom with new laws that spread social disease.

It isn't far-fetched to say that the fringe will put those not being the ideal Aryan, you know, those of white European stock, and who are straight and non-handicapped, into death camps, if they can get away with it, because that's where they're really headed.

Ain't like it hasn't happened before.

A Mother To All Lost Children

2010-05-01T09:00:00.009-04:00

My son was fine in April, and by that, I mean he didn't freak me out or anyone else with another suicide attempt when he couldn't get his way.

One of his friends, a very nice young man, showed up at my door, complaining that Xavier had stiffed him for quite a bit of money. We had a nice, long chat and it didn't take long to discover he'd gotten into the moonshine business, or in today's language, dealing weed to keep from being flat-azzed broke.

I asked him how they began doing this. The kid had a friggin' business plan, and is awesome in math. I couldn't keep up with him.

The interesting thing about him is that he doesn't fit the stereotypical profile who deals cannabis. Like his father, he's bright enough to get college degree. He had, in fact, made it to the 11th grade with A's and B's. His life hit a major bump in the road at age 17, when his racist and abusive gym teacher cursed him one time too many, and he cursed him back.

"I told him what I really thought of him," he explained. "I said he was a mean, redneck son of bitch and he could go fuck himself."

The teacher jacked him up in the gym in front of another teacher and student. By jacking him up, I mean this literally. The guy grabbed him by the neck and slammed him against the wall. It was even caught on film. But you know how it is with these videos. Folks cover their azzes and say, "you can't see the part where he swung on me while I had my hands around his shoulders - not neck - to keep him under control."

The young man's mother saw marks around his neck and the video on the afternoon of the incident when she went to the school to pick him up. That was the last time she saw what happened, too, because the video was mysteriously lost.

Teachers get cussed out from time to time, but they aren't supposed to put their hands on the kids. As for the other teacher who witnessed it, she wasn't going to allow some lil' darkie to get rich suing the school system, even if he was assaulted. I haven't a shred of doubt that if the races were reversed, a black teacher would have had his black azz fired and his white victim would have enough money to attend whatever university he desired.

And the other student witness?

She's black. She called him at home and apologized for being unable to help. She said she'd been warned that if she opened her mouth, she could kiss any scholarship recommendations goodbye.

The problem wasn't only that this young man had been bullied for the school year and assaulted by the bully teacher, but that he had to be expelled so the school could justify the teacher putting his hands on him.

"What happened after you were kicked out?", I asked.

He looked really sad.

"I was depressed for a long time, two or three years. My parents were depressed too. They felt as victimized as I did."

I thought about how psychologically hard it is for black folks to sue white folks. Been there myself and know how horrible it feels when they gang up on you with one lie after another to conceal what they did. This is true even when everyone is black, but it's a little different when the aggressors are white, because you have all the historical baggage and know that shit hasn't changed that much.

You know that the system leans heavily in siding with authority and whoever has the most social status. The stress is incredible, and you know that fighting a legal battle will be expensive and the outcome uncertain. This adds to your worry, and if you lose, not only will that re-open the pain from the original wound, but you will have lost money you really can't afford to lose.

Our conversation was an unexpected therapy session in disguise. I explored his hopes and dreams. The kid is intelligent, the real thing, and has always reminded me of someone who could be a math or science teacher, as opposed to a C student jock who was lucky to become a coach in a school. I pointed this out. He smiled.

"People say that all the time," he replied. "I liked school. I did well there. I recently took the ASVAB (the military vocational exam) and they said my scores were great and they wanted me, but I had to get my GED before I could enlist."

"And?"

"I started an online program for this two weeks ago. It's easy."

"Think you'll follow through with it?"

"Oh yes," he said, nodding. "I researched all the branches of the military, and something about the Coast Guard is appealing. By the end of the summer, I should be in."

I thought of long, hot summers, and how shit has a way of happening.

I asked, "What will happen if you get busted between now and then?"

"I'm too careful for that."

I looked him dead in the eye and said, "Not if you're hanging with my son. He'll fuck you over and fuck you up. It won't even be intentional, 'cause shit just happens with people like him."

He blinked.

I said, "When someone's mother tells you this, you should listen. Walk away. Forget about ideas of him being your partner. He can't add, subtract, and he smokes up the inventory. As for the $200 bucks he owes you, think of it as tuition for a class in life."

He gulped.

"That's a lot of money," he said haltingly.

"Cheaper than a felony or paying a lawyer. You do the math."

"Actually," he said, "I have. You're right, but I've thought that I could keep doing this for only another two or three months. I already saved up almost $2,000."

"Remarkable," I replied. "A racist white teacher set a trap for you and other black boys to fail. You were an unknowing child and fell into that trap. This led you to the trap you're dangerously close to now, but this one is filled with money. In the last one, your anger caught you. This one is different. You got some cheeze without being caught. If you can walk away now by not being greedy, you'll avoid getting caught in a bigger trap, one that will hurt you far more."

Kids don't always listen, but this one, not really a kid anymore and now 22 years old, seemed to be.

"I never thought of it like that," he said finally. "I have one, no, two friends, who just when they were ready to quit the game but were going to do it one last time, they got caught. They're in jail."

"There ya go! Greed gets ya every time."

******************

I prayed for that child. I know the odds of my son surviving well in this tough world are thin, because he has significant mental health issues and learning disabilities, but this one can make it.

The next few days I noticed Xavier was a little more irritable than usual. One guess: no weed. A few days after that, I asked him if he paid back his friend.

"That mah'fucka can kiss my azz," he yelled. "How's he think I'm going to get money to pay him? I don't have a job!"

"He said you was his partner."

Xavier's eyes shifted away, knowing instantly that I had once again talked one of his friends out of their secrets about him.

I asked sarcastically, "Did he fire you?"

"Fuck him! I hate him! He quit!"

Good.

Kit's Satire: My Night Out At The UFO Party With Jamal & Stephen Hawking

2010-04-28T15:50:00.006-04:00

Just when Arizona thought they did the right thing in passing a law to cast a wider net to nab illegal aliens, along comes Stephen Hawking, one of the most brilliant scientists of our times, and said we need to leave those mofos alone.

I heard it myself when me 'n my buddy, Jamal, hooked up with Stephan at an outdoor UFO party, on a mountain about a three hour drive away to watch for unidentified flying objects. Like me, Jamal enjoys trying different things.

Stephen said, "Aliens might be traveling the cosmos right now - not for exploration's sake but because they've run out of resources at home."

Two guys named George W. and Tony B. overheard the conversation.

"Well that's their damn problem," George replied. "Them Mexicans gotta find a little country or two to invade like we did that has plenty of resources, but they better not come near us."

A blonde fella named Lou D who used to be a news pundit shook his head in agreement. "I used to say that all the time."

Stephen, Jamal and I stared at them, wondering who the heck invited these men with one-track minds.

"Now, now, boys," I interrupted, "don't go hating and promoting war here. That's not nice or humane."

"Yeah, and karma is a bitch," Jamal added, grittin' on them.

Stephen agreed, and said he thought these illegals might want to invade us. "If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans."

"That's not true," an self-important guy named O' Riley said. "They have very successful casinos, and frankly, I resent it."

Suddenly, we all heard the sound of a gunshot.

"No need for alarm!", an exuberant Sarah P. exclaimed. "I just a bagged a moose. Practice, ya know, for when I spot my first alien invader!"

I turned to O'Riley, "Better try to get first dibs on an interview with her!"

Got rid of his azz quick.

Jamal turned to me. "Lawd have mercy," he said, "I hope these new aliens don't try to re-start the slave trade."

"You bettah hope they don't try to eat us," I snapped.

Skip Gates joined in. "Well, the last time, Africans sold Africans to white slave traders, but nobody got eaten."

"There ya go again, Skip!", I said. "Stop bringing that up! Only right wingers want to hear about that."

"Yeah," Jamal agreed, "and I think some of them would like to see us eaten up now."

"I can't help doing what I do" Skip replied. "I'm not a historical revisionist. I tell it how it was, not how we wish it was... and I like creating opportunities to hook up with my friend Barack."

"Name dropper," Jamal muttered under his breath.

I eased away, rolling Stephen with me.

Our eyes searched night sky and the stars.

"Nope, I don't see no space aliens tonight," I said. "You really think they are dangerous nomads?"

He said, "We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet."

Somehow, I'm sure Stephen is right.

Rethinking Our History, And The Future Of A Nation That Produces Nothing

2010-04-27T16:00:00.030-04:00

Readers,

I have been thinking about this video (below) for many months, thinking about our history, present, and ramifications for our future.

I'd like you to listen carefully to this 2009 presentation by Glen Ford. You need not agree with every word of it, nor do I expect you to. As one who still has a strong level of confidence in Barack Obama, and to some degree, views him as a hero, I understand that some parts will be hard to listen to or accept. Try to anyway, because in the end, principles are more important than popularity.

He will provide you with the big, broad view of history and implications for the future that should not be missed. Liberals aka progressives, on their blogs, rarely use the word "imperialism" when discussing current or past problems. Why? Makes you look like a "radical". The mainstream media can barely use the word "racism" and rarely does. Well, Glen has no problem calling a spade a spade.

He always has, and I'm glad, even when I disagree with him - which is a lot since Obama came along. But still... So many of us talk around the problems and use words to soften the language - and reality - because we are in fear not only of the present, but of our history, and "getting in trouble" with "the man". Well, that's an indicator of a Police State. Not good.

What would it be like without this fear? What would we learn? And, would the knowledge and discussion free us? What would Rachel, Keith and Anderson's news talk shows be like if they could get Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Jimmy Carter, James Kunstler, (or the late Howard Zinn) as regular guests on their shows? The real progressives are generally not invited and fairly invisible in the mainstream news, even on liberal programming.

In this video, ponder on the thought-provoking parts that resonate with you. Have your lunch or dinner while you watch it, 'cause it's a half hour, but I think you'll find it fascinating.

How Henry Louis Gates May Have Effed Up Black America And Africa

2010-04-25T21:05:00.017-04:00

Henry Louis Gates unwittingly has opened the door for the U.S. government to dig it's claws deeper into Africa, insured that Black Americans will nevah evah evah get reparations, and given ammunition to the Far Right, all in one essay of less than 1400 words. This is the kind of genius that places one more chain around our collective souls.

A few days ago, the New York Times published his article, Ending The Slavery Blame Game. In it, he brings up the issue of reparations, i.e., "the idea that the descendants of American slaves should receive compensation for their ancestors’ unpaid labor and bondage." He then ties it in with a grim history that few know, and writes:

"While we are all familiar with the role played by the United States and the European colonial powers like Britain, France, Holland, Portugal and Spain, there is very little discussion of the role Africans themselves played. And that role, it turns out, was a considerable one...

"The historians John Thornton and Linda Heywood of Boston University estimate that 90 percent of those shipped to the New World were enslaved by Africans and then sold to European traders. The sad truth is that without complex business partnerships between African elites and European traders and commercial agents, the slave trade to the New World would have been impossible, at least on the scale it occurred."

Gee, Skip, have you ever heard of something called timing? Here we are, a hair lengths away from the Racist Right dying for us to re-do the Civil War, and Arizona bringing back a revised version of the 1950s "Operation Wetback" law so cops can stop anybody they want to if the person could be an illegal immigrant suspect. Any Latino falls in this category, but so do blacks, because he or she "could be" from the Carribean or Africa. Arab-looking people are easy targets. Even whites could be illegal here as Canadians. Stopping (and harassing) people based on legitimate probable cause has been made into a joke. All of this going on, and you hand the haters ammunition?

WTF were you thinking?

Worse, we've got AFRICOM (read about it here, here, here, and here) digging into African nations that don't want them there, setting up military bases, along with numerous mega-corporations and Big Agriculture waiting to slither in to dominate the production of food.

Can't you see what I can see? America making a case that those countries have to pay for reparations, and not in cash, but in exchange for oil and other resources? And that blacks won't get a dime of that money because Uncle Sam will say they'll use it for corporate run, privatized welfare and the prison industrial complex?

On no bro, not even a nickel will black Americans see, unless you count working for foodstamps - which is a form of indentured servitude - and being free labor on the neo-plantations they call prison. Once again, white folks profit off black and brown sweat.

To add insult to injury, Dr. Gates threw this "complex" historical bomb to Barack, like the President ain't got enough problems to worry about.

I swear, I thought I had too much time on my hands without a full time job. I think Gates needs two.

The Hidden Price Of Outrage

2010-04-23T08:48:00.007-04:00

"I swear, sentry duty gets tiring. I think it's another one of their strategies to wear us down. Only thing is, they get paid for their attacks, but we don't, so for us, it's like having two jobs."

That's what I said in a comment to one reader in my last post where I was cussing more than usual. I don't usually get nearly as angry as I did this week, but reading and writing about the escalation of hate from some of our elected politicians had me seeing red. Instead of making hate crimes against the law, some are trying to make it the law.

Yeah, I'm talking to you, Arizona.

There's a downside to being reactive to the hostility we encounter in life, whether it's as a spectator to politics, race relations, or anything that pisses us off where we have little control.

Fear or anger are useful when we can quickly resolve it, but otherwise, these primitive emotions quash our creativity and divert our intellect from growing in productive ways.

The reason is we're too busy playing cop, detective or soldier to someone or some group that wants to harm us or rip us off.

This could be happening in your personal life right now. For example, while you're reading or skimming through this post, or being busy in your daily routine, in the back of your mind, you're wondering:

- if the man in your life is only showing up for sex, not because he really gives a damn about you,

- if the latest lady you've been chilling with for two weeks only wants to snag you into a committed relationship leading to marriage because you've got it going on economically;

- if your co-worker has been back stabbing you because you're more popular with the boss.

- if the boss has been sabotaging you because he or she is envious and insecure about your superior competence;

- if a friend or classmate has been trying to turn others against you because they think they look good by making you look bad;

- and you wonder, how the non-stop bigotry by those in the media and politics will directly hurt not only your group, but you and your family.

And so on.

When you are chronically placed on guard duty, on behalf of yourself or for others, where is there time or energy left to think about all the cool things in the world?

Or to try your hand at reading, writing about, or doing some of those things?

Nope, you've been siphoned off no differently than the way a thief drains your gas tank. You might even get in your proverbial car and use the remaining gas to catch him, her or them, and run 'em down.

Well, that's one less thief if you succeed. Bravo.

But most of the time, we're just left furious and with an empty tank. You may even refuel with your anger and continue the search, not noticing that the thief has stolen something even more precious - your time and energy, and with that, your creativity.

What would you be doing differently if the confusing OR hostile actions of XYZ, whom you know personally or only read about in the news, weren't consuming you?

What different road might you take if your tank was safe and full because your gas cap had a lock on it?

In The Neo-Race War, The Fight Against "Operation Wetback" Is Our Fight Too

2010-04-21T12:30:00.009-04:00

I'll keep this short and sweet.

There are White Nationalist factions in the Congress and particularly within the GOP who totally lost their minds when Barack Obama became President.

These mostly Viagra'd out old farts serve less as spokespersons for We The People than they do for defense, oil, health insurance companies, Big Pharma, Big Agriculture, Wall Street, and just about anything regarded as "too big to fail." They get paid phat in contributions by aiding those deeply rooted corporate thugs, who in turn make Ray-Ray or Jose's gangbanging look like a bloody nose from a school yard fight.

So who is paying them now to support rewinding the clock to a time when any good 'ole boy hoodlum masquerading as a cop can stop and question people of color in a car without the slightest probable cause?

No one. These bitches are doing it for free.

Their rationale?

Southern drawl: "Dey just checking to make sure dem occupants are here legally."

I call bullshit.

It's a harassment and intimidation bill. Black folks remember when they were (and still are) heavily targeted back those days of racial profiling, and we know that the rebirth of "Operation Wetback" will be used against all non-whites far more than whites will use it with their "own kind". It's so ignorant and hate-based that it's an insult to whites who don't hate.

Yes, Bill 1070, re-born in John McCain's turf has been passed in Arizona state lawmakers. This is really a WTF moment.

Congressman Raul Grijalva looked like he wondered if he'd stepped into the Twilight Zone as he talked about the lunacy of this bill. He's trying to snap those idiots out of the Redneck Zone by advocating the rest of America to boycott his state of Arizona.

Another congressman, Luis Guiterrez, of Illinois, has called for the Governor of Arizona to veto the legislation, and for the President "to intervene if the Arizona governor signs the legislation into passage."

Count me in, my amigo brothas, and Barack, I fully expect you to jump in on this one.

What the hell is it about the noisy and trouble-making large minority of racist white folks that makes them scared to death they'll be outnumbered? They obsess over how soon America won't look like it used to back in the good 'ole days, you know, the ones after their heroes exterminated damn near all the Native Americans as a form of "land improvement".

In this bill, they mix legit problems with the cost of having too many illegal aliens with old style Southern racist strategies and laws to keep non-white American citizens oppressed.

They hide between the the Flag and the Cross, but ain't really ain't feeling either.

Their idea of patriotism is bombing the eff out of brown countries and killing off as many men and teen boys as possible, and over here, locking up millions unlucky enough to be caught with a joint - something damn near all of these friends of Big Alcohol have tried smoking at least once in their lives.

And God? Only the Christian one counts with them, and His appearance is not even geographically correct. Their idea of Jesus is a European-looking white man; were he conclusively proven to be otherwise, they'd revert back to Paganism in a heartbeat.

I think this is the real reason why so many of them are anti-abortion. It ain't because they're "pro-life Christians". If that was truly was their deal, they wouldn't be keeping quite so silent on all the Planned Parenthood clinics strategically placed in black neighborhoods.

No, they're really "pro white lifers". It's killing them that they will be even slightly outnumbered in majority population one day, and they're doing their damnest in the meantime to limit black and Latino births by locking us up in droves.

Can't make babies if you're locked up, ya know? Tell me that mass incarceration of non-violent potheads and minor, victimless crimes ain't a soft form of genocide, and I'll tell you you're a mah' fuckin' liar.

Oh, these paranoid fools keep inventing - and creating - enemies to maintain white supremacy. They'll beat your azz with the Cross and then use the Flag as your body bag.

This bill is also a form of bigot insurgency on the black man who had the audacity to win the White House:

"The Obama administration's decision to focus on apprehending immigrants involved in trafficking rings and criminal enterprises is a more targeted policy compared with the blanket workplace raids of the Bush era. It also stands in stark contrast with the Arizona bill's attempt to target anyone and everyone that authorities suspect of being undocumented."

Did you catch that? Barack's Administration is targeting real criminals, whereas the good 'ole boy Bush and Arizona haters like the blanket approach, where they get to round up everyone and anyone of color, anytime they feel like it, you know, like the Nazi Party started out.

All humor aside about of joining the nicer folks in the Tea Party to run out the hardcore haters, we have a better grass roots train to catch. Maybe Martin Luther King's niece, Dr. Alveda King and rock musician Ted Nugent, who both had a feel good moment yesterday with Glenn Beck as they talked about government and Wall Street corruption, will come aboard this train instead.

We blacks and Latinos - and let's throw in the Middle East folks who live here too, 'cause you know that Officer Billy Bob in Flagstaff AZ gonna be hitting him upside the head for no reason - need to keep our eyes open for an opportunity to ride together in yet another got-damned fight with these racist bastards who are all too willing to spit out new laws to destroy us.

If we don't, we may one day find ourselves riding on trains to neo- internment and possibly death camps. They're already built, manned, and waiting for someone to fill them up. The question is who will be first?

The Dilemma Of Being Part Of A Giant, Mutant, Parasitically Symbiotic Thing

2010-04-20T00:01:00.008-04:00

"How can the US help the world heal and improve its relationships with other citizens of the world?"

This was a question put forth before me by Denmark Vesey, "the blackest man on the Internet." Make yourself a cup of coffee or a drink while I give you a steely-eyed answer that's kind of cold and may not settle well with some of you. The floor, as always, is open for your own ideas about answering this question.

The images that immediately came were:

1) fatally attached Siamese twins, and
2) two species that are parasitically symbiotic in their relationship with one another.

Quick definition of symbiosis:

1. In biology, the living together of two dissimilar organisms, as in mutualism, commensalism, amensalism, or parasitism. 2. In psychiatry, a relationship between two people in which each person is dependent upon and receives reinforcement, whether beneficial or detrimental, from the other. 3. In psychoanalysis, the relationship between an infant and its mother in which the infant is dependent on the mother both physically and emotionally. 4. Any interdependent or mutually beneficial relationship between two persons, groups, etc.

The downside of our symbiotic relationship with other countries is this: centuries of expansionism and decades of technology have led us and much of the world to become parasitically dependent on one another.

Like fatally attached Siamese twins, if we separate them, they go into shock and die.

I think this stage of mankind would happen in any alternative universe, on any planet, where humans are separated by geography and language, because that's our nature. We are territorial, competitive, always looking for the best deal, and will take what we can get when can get it for "free". We see this play out between kids with toys, and nations over resources. The problem is compounded by not every area having the needed resources to make modern life comfortable.

People also selectively share, at times, and I think a degree of empathy is inherent in our nature - because this contributes to the continuation of our species. Conditioning kids through violent video games and other forms of entertainment, as well as adults through all things media, has weakened this natural empathy and redirected it toward a perverse form of empathy that includes only "one's kind". The result is nationalism, racism, and other forms of bigotry.

It wouldn't surprise me if the think tanks in Intelligence agencies have come to the same conclusions, but politics and their decision-making aside, one truly pragmatic national security issue is coping with limited resources and anticipating diminishing ones. Ignore that and you do so at your own peril.

This brings us back to the inoperable Siamese twin metaphor. Instead of twins, you could say the U.S. is part of Siamese octuplets (the G8). Add in the EU and China, Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Venezuela, and other big players all scrambling to hang onto the good life, with the little countries hanging onto them to get the crumbs, and you have a giant mutant, mutually parasitic thing with no name.

So say you're in charge and you see that this thing is very, very ill. To prolong it's life, (and lifestyle), do you let the stronger continue to feed off the weaker and cannibalize it?

A strong case could be made that this "twin reabsorption" strategy is one that powerful nations are taking by waging endless wars.

The problem is it won't work. It is only a short term fix.

I need not address the human and political problems because we know what those are.

Pragmatically and coldly-speaking, cannibalizing smaller nations compounds our problems by the additional waste of resources. War takes oil and money. The returns have been less, to the point where our system has been thrown into shock, and this is because the law of diminishing returns are in effect.

What's that, some of you ask? It's when you give and get something back, usually more. You keep giving, but you begin to receive less for your investment. When the pain exceeds the gain, it's time to quit. Every disciplined gambler knows this.

This applies also to negative giving, like when you give all you've got to win an unwinnable war, as well to love relationships, when the two of you start off fairly even in give and take, but it becomes lopsided when when one's doing all the giving and the other is doing all the taking, but the two can't seem to break it off because they've fallen into a negative, emotionally symbiotic relationship pattern.

Our dilemma can be further explained by:

1) The exponential function of our needs - that when we keep doing the same thing at the same pace, the cost increases over time and within a certain period, has doubled, like maybe Auntie Carol's weight since she was 16; and,

2) The refusal to accept that we must live with less and figure out how to do this, without one country absorbing and/or feeding off another in unhealthy ways.

The globalists in charge "have the attitude or policy of placing the interests of the entire world above those of individual nations", and use both strategies. Here's where they also err.

In a true case of inoperable Siamese twins, the weakest or sickest one will die first, but because they are connected, the stronger one will too, usually within 24 to 72 hours.

On the Doomsday clock of humanity, this geopolitical strategy will buy us some time, and might allow the strongest countries to survive for the rest of the century - especially as they militarily expand further, co-opt and feed off countries that are "under-exploited". I don't know if that term exists, but it's descriptive, and typically, these weaker nations come to depend on the stronger ones by design.

When nations and people ignore the instruction that Nature has set before us, they court disaster.

It's like this: the twin-destined embryo must fully separate into distinct, autonomous, and independent beings in order to survive. Only then can their relationship be healthy, rather than parasitically symbiotic.

The social systems of humanity have so far been a work in progress. These became unbalanced when the first groups developed weaponry more advanced than other groups, and instead of using them for hunting, used them to foster parasitic relationships and/or oppression.

Not being parasites to one another - and the planet - in the future will continue the progress of our species. This goes beyond simple "sustainability". It will require negative growth and use of resources for the fattest countries, and zero for the rest.

The alternative is the endgame. Unless the entire planet goes up in flames, it will also be a new beginning. A few scattered peoples around the world will be the ones lucky enough to be unattached and far away from the damage done by the giant, mutant, parasitically symbiotic Siamese thing.

"And the meek shall inherit the earth."

It is written.

Kit's Satire: My Night Out With The Bloods And The Tea Party

2010-04-17T08:21:00.013-04:00

I met up with Mo in the mall parking lot. He was trying to recruit me to join the Tea Party.

"This is quite a switch from your gangsta days with the Bloods," I remarked.

"Nah, not really, Kit," he replied. "They just wear a different color, on their skin, and I even get to carry my gun in public."

I raised an eyebrow, looking at him skeptically.

"Fo' real," he added. "At the rallies. The feds don't even bother me."

"Unbelievable," I replied. "What about getting spit on?"

"The ones who don't know me see this, and they're cool."

He unbuttoned his shirt and removed it, revealing a tee shirt underneath that said, Negroes United with Tea.

"Catchy," I said dryly. "So now you're a NUT."

"Yep," he agreed proudly.

"Uh, what's your goal?", I asked. "I mean, I have an idea what theirs is, but what's yours?"

Mo looked around furtively, and whispered, "You'll have to swear to keep it a secret."

I looked around too, wondering who to look for. Allegiances change so fast nowadays that I hardly know who the designated enemy is anymore.

"Okay," I said, "tell me."

Mo came closer. He said, "The goal is infiltration. We gonna hijack the Tea Party."

"Didn't Michael Steele already try that with the GOP?"

"Hell to the no," he answered. "He was sincere."

"Poor thing," I replied. "I still don't quite quite get it. A lot of them are racist to the bone, so why join them?"

"We figured out that's the same question that the infiltrators of the Party of Lincoln grappled with. They eased on in anyway, hijacked the party, and boom, next thang ya know, they're the GOP of today, hating on civil rights, pretending that slavery didn't exist and wanting to sanitize the already bloodless history books."

"The Tea Party comes across as being even more racist," I said.

"That's 'cause they don't know us," he said. "Hardly any have ever been real friends with a black person in their lives. People fear what they don't know. People kill what they fear."

"Yeah, I get the impression in the news that a lot of them are dying to re-do the Civil War."

"That's where we come in," he said. "Our role to let them know we have a lot in common, that we're all slaves since Wall Street ripped us off. Debt slaves."

"I get the strategy," I said. "Keep them focused on the greedy rich, instead of taking out their anger on us. But still, the haters scare me."

Mo shrugged. "They hate paying for stuff the most, 'cause they some cheap mofos who don't want to pay for jack. That's why they hate taxes so much, way more than black folks. Because of this, they hate the government even more."

"But why join them? They're still a little scary."

"The Tea Party needs strength in numbers. I been networking with Bloods and Crips, and they ain't scared of nothin'. They thinking about signing on, 'cause in exchange for our membership, we'll get our agenda on the table, starting with making weed legal."

My mouth was hanging open. Before I could say a word, two cornfed white folks came over. Mo introduced us.

"Buck and Becky, meet Kit."

"Howdy!", they said in unison, greeting me as friendly as apple pie.

"Uh, 'sup."

Mo said, "Kit's thinking 'bout joining. I can vouch for her."

Before I could say I am?, Buck spoke. "We're on our way to pick up Jamal and Jamika. Wanna ride with us?"

"Um, where y'all going?"

"To a meetup to make signs for tomorrow's rally at the Medicare building."

"Y'all not gonna bomb it, are you?"

"Now Missy," said Becky sternly, "You been watching them nasty liberal news shows. We ain't like that."

"That's what Glenn Beck says all the time," I replied. "But why Medicare, and whatchu gonna do there?"

Mo jumped in and said, "We're gonna protest all that intrusive government spending on old folk's health. All they really need to do is smoke a little weed and they won't feel sick."

Mo done lost his damn mind, I thought.

Buck agreed with him. "You betcha!"

I followed them to their car, and to be perfectly honest, I never rode in a pickup with a Confederate flag before. I was polite and didn't mention it.

A few blocks away, they picked up Jamal and Jamika.

"Jamal The Plumber!", I exclaimed. "I didn't know they was talking about you!"

"Kit, baby!", he said, hugging me, "ain't seen you since the primaries. You know, the O-man is okay, but we need real change. Glad to see you're on board."

Then he winked at me, and I knew in an instant he was an infiltrator too. Jamal don't smoke weed, so I wondered what his agenda was. I asked him.

He said, "Health care reform should have been all or nothing, but Barack made it too easy for the insurance companies. By 2014, Americans will pay $6,000 a year for insurance whether they want it or not. I'm glad for those who truly need it, but I want what the Canadians and the French have, not being forced to decide between food in the fridge or paying $500 per month when I'm healthy as a horse."

"But what if you get sick? One unexpected surgery has caused a lot of people to lose their homes."

"Well earning only minimum wage while working 40 hours per week barely covers rent. How would l look living in cardboard box by the river so I can pay for health insurance that I don't need?"

Becky piped up, "You got a point, Jamal. That's what we've been saying!"

At the meetup, I saw one of Mo's homeboyz who used to drop in at my house back in the day when my boy was gang banging.

"Waz up, Ma?", his familiar deep voice said.

"Kareem!"

The young man who always called me Ma hugged me tight.

"You the last nigga I'd expect to see here," I whispered.

"I done gone from grass, to grass roots," he said. "Strength in numbers, ya know? Ain't like black folks are still mobilizing since Obama won, so we gonna ride with the Tea Party."

"To do what?"

"To stop the government's welfare system from treating those who need it like indentured servants."

"Whatchu mean?"

"If you need food stamps and temporary cash assistance, in a lot of cities, you have to donate your time and work for free at some place to get them."

"Yeah, I know about that and it sucks."

"Further," he said, "It breaks up families. I can't live with my baby's mama no more because I work two part time jobs, but still don't earn quite enough to pay rent and feed of all three of us. Her slick azz employer invented a reason to fire her so he wouldn't have to pay for her unemployment."

"Yeah, they do that," I said.

"Now the government ties up 40 hours each week of her time, making her work like a damned indentured servant to get food stamps and a lousy $400 per month. Work to eat. WTF is that? And that's time she doesn't have to look for another job."

In the background, country music played. Becky wandered over and offered me a Tea brownie.

"It's from my cousin in California," she said. "Baked with top grade Canadian cannabis and Green Tea. It's very healthy."

"How sweet of you," I said politely. "Thanks anyway, but I'm watching my waistline."

"Hard to do these days," she said, nodding.

I agreed, and added, "I'm not down with genetically modified foods, the high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oil they put in processed foods. Big Agriculture and Big Government in bed together, allowing the poisoning the American people. Is this a Tea Party issue?", I asked.

"I hadn't thought about it," Becky replied. "I guess it could be one. I'll add it to our agenda."

Kareem was standing behind her and winked at me. He mouthed the words, "Powers in numbers."

I began to laugh.

Becky looked at me oddly, then smiled. "I love some of you colored folks. Y'all laugh so easily."

"Um, thank you," I said politely, biting my tongue. This paid off. She ran and got me a free Negros United with Tea shirt.

"Thanks!", I said.

"You betcha!"

Becky smiled and wandered closer to where a speaker was debating whether Sarah Palin is a friend or foe since she paid her taxes.

I asked Jamika what she thought of all this.

"It's a good meetup," she whispered to me, "They ain't drinking beer. That's when they start obsessing over whether Barack was born in Hawaii or Kenya, and looking at me for the answer. I just tell them I hadn't been born then and I wasn't there, so I don't know."

"Sounds like a good answer to me," I said, "since nothing else satisfies them. But why are you in it?"

"I figured out that if one-fourth of the people who show up for Tea Party rallies are black, the really racist ones who are hardcore White Nationalists will quit, and start a new group that's even more fringe. Homeland Security will take care of their evil asses, because they are domestic terrorists."

I couldn't stop laughing. I laughed harder when I noticed that now, Buck was wearing Kareem's do-rag.

Just when I thought the night couldn't get any stranger, everyone pulled out their guns. I didn't have mine, so I watched through the smoky cigarette and cannabis haze while most of them cleaned theirs. Politics and the new Great Depression was an opportunity for marginalized and ordinary people to find common ground, although this would create some very strange alliances. My souvenir tee shirt would remind me of this.

At the end of the evening, Buck and Becky pulled me over to join in for the sing-a-long. I locked arms with the group and we sang We Shall Overcome.

But overcoming Medicare?

I think not.

Barack's Nuclear Genius

2010-04-15T09:20:00.007-04:00

Would you still love Barack if he pushed the nuke button?

And as a result, a city of 70 million were incinerated?

This is the size of Tehran, Iran, and in that tragic scenario, it would not be the end. No, that would be the beginning of WWIII. China and Russia would see to that, and for the first time, Americans would see mushroom clouds rising above at least one American city.

Barack Obama knows this.

He also knows we're broker than a mofo and drowning in debt, and that's pretty damn broke. This nation ain't even nigga rich, but like gang-banging hoodrats, we're rich with weapons and ammo. When that's all you've got, sometimes that's enough.

Not this time, though, and he knows that too. This, I think, is why he said that if an American city is attacked with biological or chemical weapons, we will not retaliate.

Now that was a brilliant move.

The reason is that throughout history, one strategy of war and cutthroat business is the divide and conquer philosophy.

A Perfect Example:

A & B are allies or associates because they mutually benefit from one another. A is a little stronger of the the two, and tends to dominate. However, they are also close enough to being equal in strength that they'd do great damage to one another if they were enemies.

Neither get along particularly well with C, who refuses to go be dominated by either. C also has allies or associates but these relationships are not as tight, or close, as the relationship between A & B.

B does something to undermine A, or even attacks A, but makes it look like C did it. Then A gets mad and attacks C.

A & C are fighting and using up their resources.

C's allies are in a bind, because from all appearances, C started it. Unless they have a lot to lose if C loses, they will not interfere.

B benefits by taking little or none of the risks or damages if and when A defeats C.

B will even help out on the sidelines or in the background. For this, A is grateful, and rewards B with the spoils of war from C.

In slavery, this was the house negro vs. field negro manipulation. We see this in middle school and office politics, business, and the way banana republic and puppet governments are controlled.

In war, this is called a false flag operation. Stage an 'event', point a finger, and sit back and enjoy the fireworks.

Obama's genius is that he knows who has attempted this strategy before, and who is most likely to do it again in an attempt to sucker the USA into turning Iran into a 21st century Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

There is no other reasonable explanation for his decision to publicly state we will not retaliate if attacked other than he's not willing to be party to that and getting quite that much innocent blood on his hands.

Barack knows what time it is, and that the madness certain people are screaming for will guarantee the mutually assured destruction of America, Britain, France, Israel, Russia, China, Iran, and host of other countries like India and Pakistan, Syria, Lebanon, and Venezuela, in a death fight over who controls the oil, energy, water, weapons, and which monetary currency will be used, for the rest of your lifetime.

***************

Early next week, I'll give you the back story and tell you why despite his brilliant move, it may still fail and the US be less than a minute away from twelve on the Doomsday clock.

Until then, share your thoughts here.

The First Wave Of Collateral Damage

2010-04-14T23:50:00.002-04:00

Some of you may like this new four part series by Henry C.K. Liu at Asia Times, The Crisis of Wealth Destruction.

Been thinking about how it ties in with the idea that the people who most need money will spend it immediately, and theoretically, this is enough to keep an economy alive.

In the past, we were a nation that produced tangible and useful items that everyone needed. Then large corporations became multinationals, partly to avoid paying taxes, set up overseas sweatshops and outsourced damn near everything.

As a result, it's been decades since we've been a productive nation that makes a variety of things that other nations might actually want.

In a deep recession, the low wage worker wouldn't be saving a dime. They'd be producing needed goods, and in turn, spend their earnings immediately. This would stimulate the economy. Worked in the past, right?

Not so much now. Since we produce little of value, restoring easy credit and creating more "jobs", (like services, food, and shuffling paperwork in a cubicle) is a poor investment for the rest of the world.

"We'll give you our paper dollars in exchange
for oil, steel, designer clothes, and other tangible goods."

That's become laughable. Even as we devolved further into a Service Nation, we continued to dominate other nations via war or coercion masked as diplomacy. We have the nukes, most of them don't, so the multinationals are hitting us where our wallets are to stop us. We've hit the crossroads where we need them more for their tangible goods than they need us for our "services". They got their own service people.

On the home front, stimulating the economy would at least keep it crawling, and at best, restore it - so we can continue with our Super Power status by flipping burgers, ringing up cash registers, and chatting by the office water cooler.

It's going to take the unspeakable to pull the economy out of its coma, and being a Service Nation ain't impressing nobody. Those days are long gone.

This is one reason why the problems of the unemployed, the new poor and old poor have been written off. Along with other upcoming victims of this Great Depression II, this group of Americans are clearly viewed as collateral damage. Our increasing supply far exceeds our demand, and both the GOP and the Dems know this.

Not good, considering that we're broke, and all that's left to get will be gotten from the spoils of war.

Can you hear the softly beating sound of the war drums?

*********************

Addendum, late 4/14/ 2010

I posted this originally at Jay Midnight's a new blog, Thought Swirl on yesterday morning. In case you missed it there, I'm adding it here.

Being Killed Slowly By The New Ignorance

2010-04-04T00:01:00.012-04:00

This 1st Grade Class
Doesn't Recognize A Tomato or Potato

This video clip is from Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution new Friday night series. Incredible, isn't it?

Now let's jump into what some hot new research elsewhere shows:

Fatty Foods May Cause A Cocaine-like Addiction

"A new study in rats suggests that high-fat, high-calorie foods affect the brain in much the same way as cocaine and heroin. When rats consume these foods in great enough quantities, it leads to compulsive eating habits that resemble drug addiction."

Well, doesn't that explain a lot, and why so many behinds hang over the seats at every eatery and theater in every mall in the country.

And no, it won't explain jack if you're a bigot, and if you categorize all white West Virginians (as seen in the film) as being stupid, which is as bad as thinking of all black folks as dumb. If you have that hater mentality, maybe you'll like this far-fetched futuristic scenario I thought of:

"Oh, they're crackheads?"

"No, fatheads."

"Lock their azzes up anyway, for the children's sake."

Well, there ain't enough jails or rehabs to hold 'em all.

Politics aside, people are people first. All of us are in this ride together, and like a sinking ship, we'll go down together if we can't repair it and set a new course. The problem is not with the passengers, but the design of everything we absorb, from all things media, to the foods we consume.

Now I'm going to view this clip from one African American perspective - mine - and give you yet another reason to laugh at me.

The first thing I thought was thank goodness are hardly any of those kids are black. This is because we can't enjoy watching a fellow black person's shortcomings or for him or her to screw up on YouTube and laughing about it without reading 180 comments about how it applies to all of us. Well, we all have some area of not knowing something.

When I went to a far away, predominantly white university long ago, at not quite 18 years of age, I was 5'6 and weighed all of 115 pounds. Sounds skinny by today's standards, but back then I was considered "slender". Anything over 140 at that height was considered "fat" on a girl. My oh my, but how times have changed...

Next to the dorm was a really nice cafeteria. The food was free, and you could eat anything and as much of it as you wanted, including the soft custard style ice cream cones. They had a wonderful variety of what would now be described as 'home cooked' because the foods were fresh. I couldn't understand why the sistas at my table often bitched about the food; they didn't think it had that home cooked feel to it, but they came from rural areas or their folks did and probably used different seasonings.

My mom, on the other hand, was a born and bred DC gal, just like her mother, and she worked 8 to 5. What she cooked was all I ever knew, so it tasted good to me. Her menu was very limited, and salt, pepper, and hot sauce was the extent of her seasoning.

So one evening, I'm pushing my tray through the cafeteria line, and I see a really funny looking vegetable.

"What's dat?", I ask the black cafeteria worker.

"Dat? You don't know?"

"No ma'am," I replied politely, shaking my head.

"It's broccoli."

I let the word roll around in my mouth to get a feel for it, while she was trying to figure out if I was pulling her leg.

"Hmmm, broccoli," I repeated. "Never heard of that vegetable. How's it taste?"

"You'd have to try it, ~~you little retard~~ to decide for yourself."

I loved it. The next time I talked with my parents, I asked them why they never bought any.

My mother did what she usually did when something involved race and class: she played stupid. It was her way of protecting me.

"Uh, I don't know," she lied. "Never thought about it."

My parents had been long divorced, so later I asked my dad. He seemed a little uncomfortable too. What the hell could be so complicated about broccoli? I nudged him gently.

"I like it," he said, "but, well, it's white folks food."

"Oooh," I said. "Like salad!"

"Yes."

"Well, since you like it, why didn't you buy it or get Mom to buy it?"

"I don't know if they sell it in our stores," he explained, "and she was kind of touchy about me bringing home leftovers from any of the white parties I used to work at to pick up extra money."

He need not explain any further. Like him, she was a child during the Great Depression. Leftover food from others, even if it didn't come off someone's plate, reminded her of poverty and her widowed mother's struggle to survive, especially between her two marriages.

*****************

From Land of Milk & Honey To The Land of French Fries, Fast Food & Tears

This is only one way how food habits take root in a family, and continue from one generation to the next regarding clear food preferences.

To this day, I don't see white folks elbowing me out of the way at the kale bin at the grocery store, and even fifteen years ago only one of my white coworkers knew about it, but otherwise the world changed in the blink of an eye, cutting through race and class.

Grocery stores expanded into huge chains. Fast food restaurants became the norm, and they fried up everything, even those pre-made "hot apple pocket pies". Cheese became very big. Fry anything and load some cheese on it, and wa-laa! Even better, you could wash it down with a thick milkshake, or a diet soda if you were "watching your waistline."

We used to be 'customers'. Just as slaves got renamed when they hit this country, now our new name was 'consumers'. Ain't that revealing? The ad companies symbolically painted a target on every American's back and made us targets for selling processed foods.

When that trend first began, my mama and I were watching a food commercial. It looked so good, whatever it was.

"Mama, we should get some of that!"

She replied, "How come they never advertise carrots?"

Dang she could be funny, even in those teaching moments.

Microwave ovens, pre-packaged frozen foods, and more abundant, mass-produced foods invaded the culture. We can thank or curse technology, insecticides, hormone growth chemicals and genetically modified foods.

For the first time, all races and classes could buy anything in any grocery store, no matter what the neighborhood racial demographics were in your zip code, and, thanks to desegregation and an influx of immigrants, people could shop everywhere.

Sadly, for the first time, an awful lot of people lost the art of eating well... we now have white kids who don't recognize broccoli and black kids who don't recognize kale, and neither who knows what a potato looks like. I'd venture a guess that this ability was killed in The Land of French Fries.

What we're seeing in the Jamie Oliver Food Revolution clip is a second or third generation of kids whose grandparents undoubtably knew all about vegetables and healthy eating, because healthy eating was all they had.

I'm won't speak about the kids in that video per se since I don't know their folks, but I will of the next generation of millions of Americans. We have way more food options, and processed foods are tasty and addictive, and have trumped out the healthy foods.

Like killing and plucking a chicken, or milking a cow, the art of consistently choosing wholesome foods has become obsolete among many adults, possibly including a well known black blogger we lost several days ago, Undercover Black Man, who in real life was David Mills, writer for The Wire and co-producer for an upcoming series, 'Treme.

UBM once said to one of his favorite verbal sparring bloggers, "Yo DV, go eat your veg-gies while I grub on some scrapple and head cheese. Yeah, I might get cardiovascular disease, but when I die they'll still be talkin' 'bout me...", to which DV, a food purist, replied, "When you die, I keep living..."

Now, I love me some wild debates where bloggers challenge one another (with the exception of trolls), but that conversation haunts me because it was prophetic. I get the impression that it's killing DV that UBM is gone, only at 48 years old with so much life, and so much fun to fight with.

I think of the many friends I know who have weight-related health problems, some quite serious. The thing is, I worry about them, more than I do myself, and that makes me nice, but a bit of an idiot.

You see, it's easy for me to do double-think when it comes to my own health, i.e., "I can be more vigilant tomorrow, next week, next month, if I get sick... oh, eff it, I probably won't get sick and I'm not really fat... just need to lose 20 pounds, and my blood pressure only gets high when I'm really stressed, and yada yada yada."

It's all bullshit, the same you hear from any addict.

Not eating healthy has hit a new low and apparently become The New Ignorance among many of our children. How can they not be ignorant, when adults somehow forgot to mention what real food looks like?

How can they, or we, "recover" when high calorie, fatty foods cause a cocaine-like addiction?

And that, my friends, is not gender, race or class-based. Truth be told, alcohol and drugs aren't either. All that mess hijacks parts of the brain, the part that says more, more, more!

Finally, here is a non-partisan, race and class free area that affects us and our kids on a biological level. Can't get any more basic than that. Here's were we can find common ground, and maybe, a way for us to repair that sinking ship together. What an opportunity.

Addendum:

Here are three bloggers I like whom specialize in delicious recipes, which happen to be healthy. Check them out:

Flavor Diva

Traveling Tastebuds

Dragon's Kitchen

Honorable Mention To Coolio:

Ya know, sometimes the only way to start is to start where someone is. For that 'hood brotha or sista in your life whose eyes glaze over their Big Macs when you mention the phrase, "healthy eating", send them to Cookin With Coolio. While his style and humor ain't for everyone, he most definitely knows his veggies and his way around the kitchen. Aside from a few artery-clogging recipes (especially his garlic cheese bread), his stuff looks good.

No Place For A Spirit To Call Home

2010-03-30T17:14:00.006-04:00

Is there such a thing as a haunted house? I don't necessarily mean one inhabited by the classic ghost we've seen in the movies. No, I'm thinking about how some houses have a history of bad things happening to the families who live there.

One of the houses I lived in for several years is a case in point. While doing a thorough cleaning of the heating unit, I found some medical records of the wife of the first owner. She developed MS, a particularly nasty disorder that causes nerve degeneration. I remembered hearing how the second and previous occupant, another woman, also came down with some sort of illness that required her to get a wheelchair, but I no longer remember her diagnosis.

After living there for three years, I got sick for an entire year, but even four doctors couldn't figure out the cause. A 5th doc told me I was probably under too much stress. This was plausible, as my son had entered adolescence and his defiance was overwhelming, but still, something felt like it was sucking the life out of me, literally. I couldn't even tolerate sunlight and had to wear dark glasses during the day outside, and had little strength.

Doctor #6 finally found out the reason: I caught Lyme disease from a damned tick bite. This pissed me off because it had crossed my mind when it began, and asked the first three docs, including a neurologist, to test for it, explaining that I went camping sometimes.

I swear those words fell on deaf ears; they couldn't wrap their minds around the possibility of a black woman living in the area catching Lyme. In addition, they ordered as few tests as possible because my now former health insurance plan was strict about this.

The good news is that medicine knocked that out after taking it three different times over two years, but wearing wrap around sunglasses for all that time was a bummer. I can't express how happy I was when I went a week straight and the sunlight didn't hurt, but this didn't happen until after I moved.

******************

It got me to thinking about houses, though. I have always dreamed of them, often of my original childhood, but more often of being in homes I've never set foot in. Some of these dreams are recurring.

In them, I am always alone and exploring one, and it usually has a hidden room. This mirrors my personality. I'm innately curious and have always wanted to see what the magician or others conceal.

One of the most memorable dreams happened in the last house I owned. I discovered a cavern underneath it that can only be described as nightmarish. I didn't see the monsters, but I could feel their presence.

It was message, I think, from my unconscious that something had gone terribly wrong with my family. This was true - my son was descending into a mental hell that he's not quite yet climbed out of.

At some point I decided to move. I looked at other houses with an agent. (Can't do that now, no full time job yet.)

I noticed things that I didn't when house-shopping before, maybe because I had a heightened sensitivity of houses having a story to tell. Sometimes you get a feel for whether the occupants are happy are not. You may be familiar with the study of feng shui. It's an Asian way of thinking about the "art of placement", architecture and decoration to maximize tranquility and success.

(You might do better checking books on it at the library rather than googling, as you'd have to sift through too many commercial sites that are poorly done.)

There is something to feng shui, but there's something else. It's like spirit of the family who lives in a home permeates it. If you've ever walked into a room and felt a sense of unease, you know what I'm talking about. Law enforcement folks like detectives sometimes have this heightened sensitivity. A home need not be sparkling clean, either. Sometimes a too clean house and lawn indicates something ain't quite right.

The weirdest experience I ever had freaked out my realtor when I was undecided about getting another house or renting down the hall from my now late mother. She and I entered a furnished, four bedroom brick colonial.

Something about that house felt inexplicably sad.

I turned to her and said what I said before I could process the thought.

"Did the owner die?"

She looked perplexed.

"I don't know anything about the people who live here," she answered. "Why?"

"I don't know," I said slowly. "It feels like this house is crying."

Now, y'all know this lady must have thought I was nuts. She did exactly what I would have done: nodded her head and said, mmmm.

We walked around the different rooms some more, and in the kitchen, on a counter, there lay one of those folded funeral fliers. It had a photo of the lady who died, too. She must have been in her 70s. Sure enough, her name showed she was the owner of the house.

I was as astounded as she was, but meanwhile the feelings kept coming in waves. It was weird.

"This house misses it's owner," I said. "Don't know why, but I think it needs a big family, bigger than mine, with lots of kids to make it happy again."

I never did buy another house. Instead, I rented an apartment for several years, and last summer rented this house. Despite the moody landlord in the basement, it has a different feel to it, like it was meant for barbecues and company, and except for when Xavier goes bonkers, that's how it's been. Otherwise I like it, but it still doesn't feel like home, in my heart.

I've been thinking "a place called home", which can be a very different place than where a person actually lives. Many of us move so often that our spirits never connect well with the house or apartment we're in. The residence is seen as a temporary place, while it's inhabitants yearn for a real home.

This yearning is often under our radar. Our lives have stress, but I wonder what part rootlessness plays, from the social alienation we see and sometimes feel, to the personal level of something as basic as yearning to love a home that will cry for you when you're gone.

Except At Zero, We Never Stand Still

2010-03-28T11:00:00.032-04:00

What time is it?

Sounds like a simple enough question, but I'm going to go much deeper than that. Can you think of a single aspect of your life, or in the world, that doesn't move forward - or backwards? That is frozen in time, never progressing or regressing?

Think of your habits, health, relationships, money, possessions, and opportunities, and anything that is important to you. Changes can be subtle or dramatic, and the goal of this post is to give you one amazing reason why.

But first, I want you to think of every asset and every challenge in every aspect of your life in mathematical terms, and I'll make it easy for you if numbers ain't your thing.

There is a wise, older physics professor named Albert A. Bartlett. I like what I've seen of him, a lot. His specialty is sustainable living.

Two weeks ago I stumbled upon an old lecture in 1999 and have been pondering other uses for his wisdom since then. Dr. Bartlett presented a unique, amazing and easy way of understanding the problem of population growth and diminishing resources by using an example he calls Bacteria In A Bottle.

I've taken it a step further.

In this post, I'll quickly show you how to apply this example to the problems in your life, along with the big picture. The advantage is you'll get a peak into the future, your future.

*****************

By knowing when a problem began, you can have a better idea of how it will progress if no action is taken to stop it.

Now for the easy arithmetic. If something grows "exponentially", it only means that it grows at a certain pace over time.

Pretend that one bacteria in a bottle is a problem you have.

This bacteria is an analogy for any kind of challenge, i.e., how you handle your money, homework assignments, office work, eating habits, excessive spending, loneliness, depression, anxiety, alcohol, drugs, gambling, health, dating, love, sex, friends, family, relatives, neighbors. Anything. Like many things or problems, they start off small, or seem small.

Below is his a visual representation his Bacteria In A Bottle metaphor.

It is 11 o'clock. The bacteria (your problem) is microscopic.

It has a lot of space in this bottle. It will grow by doubling in size every minute. We could just as easily say every month, year, or decade, but we'll use Dr. Bartlett's example and say that it doubles every minute.

One

Two

Four

Eight

Sixteen

Thirty two

The bacteria has been growing exponentially, or doubling their number every minute. As you can seen, five minutes have gone by, there are thirty two bacteria, and they still have a great deal of space.

If this bacteria is representative of a problem, it is still so small that it's probably flying under your radar and everyone elses.

What time do you think it will it be when the bottle is half full?

Take a guess.

Here's the answer:

11:59

Guess what time it will be when the bottle is full?

12 o'clock

The reason is that the bacteria did what it always did, and at the same pace - it grew by doubling every minute.

Now let's pretend that bacteria can think.

Let's go back a bit to 11:58. At that time they would have filled up only 1/4 of the bottle because they double every minute, at 11:59, they were at the halfway mark.

Some bacteria may been alarmed over the "sudden" rapid growth, but still thought they had plenty of space and time left, they didn't, because nothing changed in their behavior.

With the bottle full at 12 o'clock, the bacteria would have suffered in numerous ways from overcrowding and not enough resources, but they had remarkable good luck and found three empty bottles!

They sang and danced and celebrated. The one thing they didn't do was change their behavior, because they thought a major change had occurred and that they had plenty more resources to continue doing the same thing they always did.

Since they doubled their number every minute, guess how long it took to fill up three new empty bottles?

At 12:01, the second bottle is full.

At 12:02, they've doubled again,
and the 3rd & 4th bottles are full.

Note: hat tip to this site for the illustrations, two that I slightly modified to make the bacteria clearer.

You can watch Dr. Bartlett explain the Bacteria In A Bottle problem here, in Part 3, beginning at 3:25 minutes, if you don't want watch first three of eight videos that I uploaded.

Also check out Part 2 beginning at 5:00 minutes, and Part 1 is a definitely a don't miss; he explains how the number 70 is like a magic number. It's not; it may have been the genius of the guy who modified a Persian game called shantranj, which evolved into chess.

You can calculate the doubling time of anything by using the number 70, divided by the percentage of growth.

Here's an example that comes to mind. If your Internet bill is $100 per month, with a 7% annual increase, it doesn't sound like much of an increase. However, 70/7 = 10 years. (That's that magic number divided by the 7%.) The answer, ten years, is the time it will take for the bill to double to $200 per month.

If we're talking about your rent at $1000 a month, an annual increase of 7% will have you paying twice that ten years from now.

What if the growth is "only" 5% a year? This would be 70/5 = 14 years before the rent doubled.

So let's look at your weight. Say you weigh around 150 pounds and have had trouble keeping it down, and you gain an average of 4% each year.

"Oh, I gained six pounds this year," doesn't sound like a whole lot. When you do the math, though, 70/4 = 17.5 years is the time it will take you to double your weight.

At this rate, in 17.5 years of unstoppable growth, you'll weigh 300 pounds. This explains how those small moments of eating just a little bit too much add up big time, and why so many Americans are overweight and suffer from diabetes and high blood pressure in their 30s or 40s. Their bodies are the environment, and cannot sustain good health or even life from uncontrolled growth.

Now you might try to what several countries are trying with population problems and sustainability, by doing something called "smart" growth. This is where you see the trend in saving the environment. You may even own a cute T shirt that says I've Gone Green!, but if you haven't quite gone down to zero growth in the resources you use, the pollution you make or the number of kids you have, it only slows down the problem, not stops it.

As Dr. Bartlett said:

"Smart growth or dumb growth, both destroy the environment. Smart growth just destroys it with good taste. It's a little like buying a ticket on the Titanic. If you're smart, you go first class. If you're dumb you go in storage. The result is the same."

We often attempt to use smart growth to solve our personal problems as well. We see dieters, smokers, workaholics, alcoholics, addicts, gamblers and the sexually promiscuous attempt this. Their reasoning is mathematically sound, i.e., "If I cut back on xyz a little each day, by next month (or year), I'll be free of the problem."

Yeah, if you don't cheat and relapse. Otherwise it's true, but even zero growth (or zero dysfunctional behavior) may not solve a serious problem. For these, you will need to go into negative growth to eliminate it.

To use the diet example again, the 150 pound person who loses 4% of their weight each year could theoretically weigh zero pounds in 17.5 years. This is more the case of slow-moving famine or disease, and of course, they'd be dead long before then.

Instead you see people use a different time frame with a different end goal in mind.

If they shoot for six pounds or 4% each month, they can stop after three or four months, depending on their goal - and then go into zero growth, not "smart" growth with the resource that tempts them (or you, if you have the weight problem). Having discipline and determination to do this is a whole 'nuther matter.

As Dr. Albert A. Bartlett said, "The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function."

Discipline and determination can bring some of our problems to zero growth. At least now you have a heads up on how and why our problems never stand still, and without behavior changes, you can guesstimate the end game of your own or those close to you.

Modern Day Feudal Serfs, Stuck In the Land of Stuck, Not Caring That Healthcare Reform Is Good Or Told That College Loans Are In The Package

2010-03-22T20:05:00.005-04:00

Yeah, that's a long title, but it fits.

Anyway, further below is an excerpt from today's post by Shark Fu, titled "On Shock And Tolerance".

In it, she was addressing the despicable behavior by Tea Party demonstrators against Health Care Reform at the nation's Capitol this weekend. This Tea Party mob sank to a primitive state that involved derogatory name calling of black and gay Congressmen and even spitting on one. I even hate to use the word primitive because it's an insult to primates.

You know, I started to go to this thing on Saturday morning. One of the largest and most organized hate groups in my opinion, Fox News, which is second only to the GOP, advertised the Tea Party rally the day before.

I thought it would be an educational experience for my daughter, because the DC-Maryland area is a bubble. A good bubble for minorities, but kids growing up here haven't a clue of what people are like who still live in the Dark Ages. We live only a short distance away and wouldn't even have to change subway lines.

"Cassie, you interested in seeing what white hate looked like in the raw?"

"No thanks."

I almost went anyway to take pictures of this prehistoric weekend of these prehistoric people and blog about it, but the battery in my camera was dead. Instead I enjoyed the weather. It should've rained on those worshipers of evil and injustice, but then that would have messed up everyone elses day who was outside and doing what normal people do: enjoying life and freedom in America.

Anyway, here's an excerpt from Shark Fu's excellent take on the haters and particularly how she put her finger on how tolerance is marketed by the bigot. Read the whole thing at her blog, link following quote:

"Tolerance is a shitty contract between the privileged and the oppressed.

The privileged agree to “tolerate” otherness and difference as long as the other doesn’t make demands upon them...like fighting for rights or equal treatment under law.

The other agrees to not challenge privilege in exchange for a false sense of security.

The health care reform debate and vote broke that contract…and beneath all that tolerance is a whole lot of ig’nance and hate, a kind of infection that hasn’t been treated because too many people have learned to tolerate the stench and pain."

~ Angry Black Bitch blog, 3/22/2010

Yeah, this is why I've always hated those diversity trainings at work that promoted tolerance. It always felt like they were going through the motions to look good, but were really covering their asses to avoid lawsuits. The only blacks in the office (me) or sometimes, two of us, would get stared at, and afterwards, nothing ever changed, including their hiring practices.

I try not to hate haters, but after seeing how the votes for Health Care reform turned out, it's a challenge. I figure some are just fiscally conservative, and others are too cowardly to risk the wrath of their party.

However, I see a bunch of those mofo's representing not the needs or wishes of their districts, but the board of directors for health insurance companies, other mega corporations, and the desire of a significant minority of the white majority to destroy anything that looks like justice for all, not just them.

Oh, I may watch my favorites, Anderson Cooper, Rachel Maddow, and Keith Oberman, but I also watch Glenn Beck, Hannity and O'Reilly, because the latter three, in my view, see us as the enemy and are constantly distorting us. We need to keep tabs on them.

Their greatest weakness is that they paint a picture where a win-win situation for all isn't good for whites. They are hired mercenaries for the wealthy. If there wasn't a single white person in the country, they'd still being spewing out hate-based propaganda to alienate and demonize the white working and underclass - just like they did in not so jolly old Tale of Two Cities in France and England in the 1800s.

I think that the Tea Partiers and generic racists are the equivalent of unenlightened white peasants and surfs. They are lied to constantly by the white elite that they could be rich "if only all those damn niggers would keep their place", or remain invisible and undemanding, and "if the Mexicans and Latinos would get the eff out of the USA."

Hell, if every black and Latino disappeared overnight, they'd still be living in trailer parks and run down old houses, because that's how the game always worked, and the reason so many of their ancestors fled Europe.

But no, they grow up yearning to be modern day princes and princesses, and I don't have a problem with that, but they're also brainwashed to believe that people of color, gays and non-Christians are holding them back.

Hell, the misinformation and omission of information has been so thorough that until today, hardly anyone knew that college student loans will now eliminate the middle men - banks. This will make them less expensive for the government, which in turn can afford to provide more loans for school, and is part of the health reform package.

But if the fixed news folks knew this, they kept that shit a secret. I didn't even find out about it until last Thursday through the Washington Post. I googled for other stories on it and there were damn few. So not only do We the People get this health care reform package signed by the President tomorrow, we'll get student loans as icing on the cake.

Whoopie!

But no, the hardcore bigots don't seem to care about that. They would rather shoot themselves in the foot and burn this country to the ground, along with the Obama White House, rather than move forward from their Land of Stuck.

What a shame. We aren't holding them back. Health care reform won't hold them back. Those union busting corporations that only offers them shitty, part time jobs with no health insurance at big box stores has been holding them back, but they've been duped.

Well, now that civilization in this country has moved one step forward with the health care reform bill passing Congress, we can sit on pins and needles to hope one of the crazies doesn't take aim at Barack.

I swear, things have become too heated over this, and I worry about President Obama and pray for him every day, and the funny thing is, I worry less about the crowds he gives speeches to than the one of the GOP politicians with easy access to him going postal...

A Good Idea Is Like A Gift,And I'm Giving One To You

2010-03-20T23:50:00.003-04:00

My head has been swimming with ideas for the past few months, ideas that haven't had time or concentration to do, at least until now.

One of the ideas I've kicked around was starting a kitchen table type of news opinion blog. It would be earthy, plainspoken, and hopefully, funny at times. Sort of like a cross between Rippa's Intersection of Madness & Reality, and Field Negro, and flavored by me, Kit.

I'm still undecided about this. From a news commentary perspective, the Internet is already a Tower of Babel. Need I really add more opinions to it? Even if they resonate with you? I have to think more on this.

Another idea is one I put into effect today that you might want to do yourself.

I made a blog for each of my children. My son, however, is an adult, and I wasn't sure he'd be interested in reading it. He surprised me as he often does.

"Go for it," he said enthusiastically. "I'll put stuff on it for you too."

"Like what?", I ask.

"My music... and things I might want to say but forget about later."

I smile, he smiles back with pride. His lyrics are probably one of the best ways he communicates his feelings.

So, why should you or I do this?

It occurred to me last year that although I'm young, my son is grown and will be on his own soon, and in only two years, and if my young daughter gets a scholarship and lives in a dorm far away, she'll only be 16 and might find late night soothing words and advice from mama just the thing she needs.

In addition, I also think about life is so uncertain. Any of us could unexpectedly check out. I lost my mother in 2004. I was lucky to have had her for as long as I did, and I miss her voice, her wisdom, her humor.

Thus, should something happen to me while my children are young, they would miss out on so many things I'd like to tell them, particularly my youngest who isn't ready for all the discussions I expect we'll have in the years to come. Thoughts on dating, friends, classmates and professors, co-workers and bosses, religion, spiritualism, money, the seduction of consumerism and materialism, you name it. Just little random bits of wisdom that I learned along the way.

As I've been writing this post, it hit me also that other young women might enjoy a similar type of blog, where I speak to you directly in a way that's different from this one, and I think it'll be different from any other I've seen out here in cyberspace.

*long pause... start creating second blog... will post to it Sunday afternoon, and from there on, each weekend*

Some births, like some decisions, come easy.

The content in this one aspires to be wise and nurturing, distinctly feminine, somewhat old-fashioned, and is called Letters To A Young Sista.

It's for you to read and enjoy, all of you, sistas as well as brothas, for we are yin and yang, and at our best, we compliment one another.

In the meantime, below is the first post for the private blog for my youngest, as a starter idea how to set up one for your son, daughter, or loved one.

***********************************

You'll Always Be My Boo

We're sitting here in my bedroom. I'm at the computer, you're sprawled across the bed. I am laughing and you are laughing at me for my perpetual nerdiness.

Today, the first day of Spring, I'm showing you this blog. No fancy layout yet, and the title of it is undecided. It's for you sweetie, just random thoughts about life that might be helpful to you in the future, when you're in college two years or in the event that I take that trip to eternity while you're still young.

Right now you're eating an orange.

"You know what's good?", you ask.

I raise an eyebrow.

You answer, "Putting it in the freezer for an hour before eating."

I nod my approval. "Better than ice cream and less fattening," I say.

"And what were you eating this morning?!", you demand.

Oh, but your I gotcha tone of voice. I laugh. You scold me and say, "Ice cream on pancakes!"

"It was a rare treat," my inner child replies, still smiling and not feeling a shred of guilt.

"Not at 8 o'clock in the morning!"

You give me that look. You're great at that. I chuckle.

"Okay," I concede. "Tomorrow I'll have a semi-frozen orange for breakfast."

This time you nod your approval. You're so special. You are a child, but I can see the inner-mother in you. Perhaps you should be writing sage wisdoms for me. I love you.

~ Mom

Barely Titled, Like A Life Barely Lived

2010-03-19T10:30:00.008-04:00

Note: If you read this earlier today, I added an addendum this afternoon.

On the last day of this second most difficult winter in my life, I discovered that my son is on crack.

It happened after midnight today that I stumbled upon his stash. I had taken a nap earlier and had a lot of physical energy to burn. I decided to wash the blankets and put many of them away since the days have been warming up. I grabbed the ones in his room, along with several bath towels. One was on an open shelf.

Under it was a little container shaped like a vampire's casket. I remembered seeing it last Halloween when it had held a pair of costume vampire teeth.

The last time I saw it, it was empty and on his floor. Thinking it was now trash, I reached for it to throw it away. I shook it first and heard it rattle. I opened it.

Inside was a small amount of drugs and paraphernalia, but probably enough to get him ten years in a federal prison. There were little amber-colored, pebble-shaped crack rocks. Several white miniature things that looked like funnels. A round thingy that is small enough to hide in your hand, and when opened revealed a wax-like substance that smelled horrible.

Initially I wasn't sure of what I was seeing because I thought crack rocks were white. I googled. No, they're more often amber in color. I googled more to figure out what the other stuff was for. The picture revealed those things could be related to meth.

I returned to my laundry, then sat in the living room a long time, thinking a mother's thoughts. Meanwhile, my son watched mixed martial art videos on the computer, clueless that I had discovered his secret life and the probable source of his off 'n on batshit crazy behavior since November.

If I flushed them, I thought, and he's only selling it, he wouldn't be able to pay his dealer and could or would likely end up getting shot or killed.

If I called the police, with even what looked to my eyes like a small amount of drugs and paraphernalia, he'd likely end up getting sentenced five to ten years in prison.

Damn. If only the laws were designed to treat, not punish, individuals with non-violent and otherwise non-criminal histories, I'd have called the police nine hours ago and happily watched him escorted to a long term rehab. I mean, wouldn't it be cheaper (and better for society) to keep people like him in rehab for 18 months rather than jail for five or ten years? Well, not for the privatized, corporate, neo-slave plantations that get free labor.

I kept thinking. Memories less than a month old filled my mind of him putting a loaded gun to his head and daring me to dare him to pull the trigger when I told him he needed to look for a job. Damn, talk about a missed opportunity!

As I sat after midnight, I worried that he'd flip out again if I now confronted him with threats of kicking him out or demands he go into rehab. The gun is gone, but he's not above deliberately walking into a fast moving car on a busy street; done that, been there.

Rehab is iffy anyway; he has no health insurance, and there's always a waiting list for the few free ones. Knowing him like I do, he'd be lying that he was "only selling" and not using, and if a bed became available in a week, by that time he'd be claiming he was cured, and frankly I don't think I could deal with his hostility if I pushed the issue. On the other hand, I wonder if I could deal with his funeral, but then I wouldn't have a choice.

It's been a really long winter.

My last post of substance was two weeks ago. I've written two since then but published neither. The first was good but too long, and despite it's length, something is still missing from it. The other topic was passionate, but maybe too opinionated. I hate being preachy.

I've toyed with both posts when not job searching, but I've had little ability to concentrate on writing. I'm constantly wondering if one of the last two jobs I interviewed for will come through - so that I can have enough money to move the heck out of here with my 14 year old daughter. A full time job will be our escape hatch, but it pains me that my son refuses to find or accept one for himself.

And finally, the symbolism of what he hid his drugs in is not lost on me: a Halloween toy casket. This is an intersection of childhood playfulness and death, with nothing in between except vampirism. The undead. The not alive. No wonder he begged me for permission to kill himself.

The thing is, I'm not even angry with my son. I am profoundly sad for him. If he's smoking crack, that's horrible enough, but if he's also using meth, he is done. Finished.

And only 21 years old.

******************

Addendum, 1:40 pm

He awakened at noon and approached me where I sat in the living room chair. It is green leather and a hand me down from my late mother.

"Ma, lemme use your computer," he said.

"Sit down first, please, we need to talk."

"About what?!"

Men must learn as boys that when a woman says this, the shit is serious and all about them. Face in a frown, he sat.

"I found the crack."

"What crack?"

I told him where and when, and lil' nigga went off.

"I am not a crackhead!", he yelled.

"I also saw the meth paraphernalia."

"Meth? I am so tired of you thinking I'm a drug addict! I AM NOT LIKE MY BIRTH MOTHER!"

"I saw, Xavier."

"Show me!", he screamed.

His fists were clenched and he looked sooo angry.

"Uh, I don't know if it's safe right now," I said. "You look pretty mad."

"Arrrgh!" he replied, and stormed into my daughter's bedroom to keep a distance between us.

"Go ahead," he screamed, "Get it! Show it to me!"

I went to his room, but then he came in, shadowing me. I looked on the shelf where I left it. He pointed. "There it is! Open it!"

I expected the drugs to be gone. They weren't.

"They're all here," I said, looking at him apprehensively.

"Those aren't drugs," he said with clenched teeth. "Damn you make me crazy!"

"It's looks just like the pictures of crack."

The word made him flinch.

"Crack doesn't look like that. See? This is kind of transparent."

My father was from Show Me state, so I went to the computer. The stuff does look an awful lot like crack, but not 100%.

He lit his lighter to a booger-sized "rock". It stank.

"Well what the hell is it?"

"Glue, like in the little container," he answered. "It's from where it got too hard when I was applying it to the [vampire] teeth and I rolled it up into little balls 'cause I didn't want to throw them on the floor... no trashcan."

"Can I take this to the police?"

"Be my guest."

I smiled my first smile of today. The only reason I didn't feel stupid is because I felt relieved.

"Xavier, I'm sorry."

"Ma, I keep telling you, I'll NEVER get on hard drugs. Weed and booze is bad enough. I've tried cocaine and you know this, but that was a long time ago and I'll never go back to that or mess with crack, meth, heroin, any of that..."

Then his face looked sad. He said, "You keep thinking I'll end up like my mother but I won't."

"That's not true. She has nothing to do with my worrying about you. Hell, three weeks ago you had a gun to your head. In December you were raising hell and overdosed on your meds when I got mad at you. I still haven't recovered from any of that."

"Ma, I wouldn't have shot myself," he said. His voice and face had some uncertainty. This was the first time he talked - really talked - about that day with me.

"Mom," he continued, "I thought about that. My blood all over the walls and floors and me dead. Your brain would have been fried. I couldn't do that to you. You'd have never recovered if I did."

"That's true," I said.

"I'm sorry I put you through that, but please, know that I'll never get into that hard shit. Guys get so bad they end up loosing their teeth, sucking dick for drugs or doing hard time. That's not the life for me. I know this, and you taught me better than that. So trust me, please."

And with those words on this last day of this season, I am freeing my mind and our relationship of the chains of the past... the baggage from his birth family, his hell-raising, gang-banging, and drinking and drug abuse, off and on for the past eight years.

"Spring will be here tomorrow," I said, looking out the window. "With it, you and I are starting over fresh. It's very hard to not judge someone by their many past actions, and just as hard being judged, but I am going to let it go and trust you to be a man, and do the things a man has to do."

Xavier looked so relieved.

"Thank you," he said.

For him, like me, it's been long, hard winter. I think we are both ready for the spring.

For everything there is a season,
and a time for every matter under heaven...

Smart Black Men Talk About Dating & Marriage

2010-03-14T23:00:00.006-04:00

I put up the first part of a three part post for a few hours this afternoon, but took it down after I discovered that the Naked With Socks On blog just covered a similar topic on meeting the right guy and knowing if he or she is the one.

I've never seen any point of duplicating something when someone's done it better, so I'm glad they're doing this... saves me and you the time. In general, I think men are more authentic in giving advice to women - about men. Hell, they ought to know what makes them tick and what they want, right?

I am particularly impressed with their YouTube channel and on-going video collection, The Modern Day Matchmaker. So ladies, here are brothas giving advice, check them out.

Here's one more shout out to VSB: The Naked With Socks On guys will also be doing an eight city tour, including DC on March 27th. Our man Champ from Very Smart Brothas will be there too. Now that ought to be interesting.

Starting Over: From Me To America - Wondering How To Make It In An Era Of Overpriced Housing & College Tuition

2010-03-04T03:18:00.009-05:00

Been apartment searching with Cassie this week. I swear, I must look like Santa Claus to her. She seems to think that pretty soon I'll be working (true), and then I'll be able to afford anything.

Got news for her -- I finally learned to really save in times of plenty, for the inevitable times of scarcity. Thought I knew this and I took a lot for granted. Several months of really bad underemployment taught me otherwise.

The first building we checked out looked really nice and is a block away from a Metro, which is a DC-MD-VA subway if you don't know. One of her friends and his mother moved there last weekend. I knew it would be out of my price range and she did too, but it's free and fun to look.

A sista gave us a tour. This was interesting because a white guy initially greeted us, but she entered the room and without a word, she was turned over to us while he waited on another white guy who walked in seconds after us, and also wanted to see the place. It was done so smoothly, this race and gender match up, that I doubt Cassie even noticed. I didn't mind, but it made me think of how far we have to go as a society.

The first apartment was designed more like a townhouse and has two levels, with a bedroom on each one. Ideal for roommates, but not what I had in mind for a mother and teen daughter; it was like two separate units almost. Cassie felt the same way.

The next one was better. It also had a second floor, but it was a loft that overlooks the living room.

Have a seat now. The rent for these two units: $1725 plus.

Ouch.

And they don't include utilities.

Double ouch.

"Tell me again how your friend's mama makes her money," I asked Cassie. "I thought she was a security guard."

"Nope. She's a cop."

Must've been on the force a long time, I thought. She's divorced and gets child support. If I had that, I doubt I'd spend it on a luxury apartment - unless my ex was so well off and generous that money wasn't a problem.

While the White House and the media focus exclusively on home owners, renters are being charged up the wazoo. The cost of a monthly mortgage payment for a $300,000, three or four bedroom house in this area, at 5% interest, is around $2K per month.

That's not a whole lot more than the rent at the place we looked at. On the other hand, buying a house now is dicey. I don't think the market has hit bottom yet and is a long way from it.

When Cassie and I move, chances are it will be to a two bedroom apartment that charges around $1300 a month, including utilities. That's still more than any of these places are worth.

Where I live, the salaries are higher than the national average, but so is the cost of housing, so you end up not coming ahead much better than if you lived and worked on Main Street, USA. I also have a fairly good idea what the owners paid for these buildings 10 to 30 years ago, and they're making out like bandits - and they are.

Apartments used to be for people who could not afford a house or the monthly house note. They paid less as a result. Now it's almost equal, but renters have no equity and can get kicked out legally in sixty days without the owner giving a reason - which happened to me and several other shocked tenants last year, I think that so the landlord could gentrify the building and increase the rent.

Rent is a little cheaper in the next county and in quite a few areas in my hometown, DC. I tried to talk her into us living there for the short term. The commute would be horrible for Cassie and I, and she'd have to be extremely secretive about where we lived so she wouldn't get kicked out of her beloved school, but the ability to quickly save might be worth it.

"I won't want to be home on weekends," she announced, when I proposed that plan.

"Ya think?", I said. "You might make a lot of neat DC friends."

"Not interested," she replied. "I like my friends now."

"Then you better kick butt on the basketball team next season," I said, "and keeping your the GPA high goes without saying. The way things are, I'm not sure that will be enough to get all the grants and scholarships you'll need. You sure you want to be a lawyer?"

"Yes, Mom," she said in that tone of voice.

"You better be sure, or you'll be in debt for decades, paying back those student loans."

That's so unfair, and I know it.

Just telling her that made me feel guilty. Not many people really know what they want to be at such a young age, and hardly know what's out there, what they'll be good at, or what makes them feel passionate, until they study and try different things. That's one of the main values of a well-rounded, four year college education.

On the other hand, Cassie said at the age of five that she wanted to go to Harvard, which blew me away because none of us ever mentioned it, and at ten said she wanted to work in entertainment law.

Thus, once we move, it looks like a small two bedroom in the neighborhood will be the way to go.

I think of all the families and young adults scrambling to get or keep a piece of the American pie. The average costs runs $30K a year for a private university. In-state is cheaper if you live at home, but it's still expensive; the U. of Maryland (tuition only) is currently $8,053 for undergrad residents, and $23,990 (tuition only) for non-residents. The current cost for undergrad tuition, fees, room and board at Harvard runs $52K a year.

Don't think I didn't buy a lottery ticket this week, and that one was for my boo.

It's no longer cost-effective for anyone to get a four year degree unless they plan on working in a field where a degree is absolutely necessary. Some of these aren't a passport into high paying careers either, especially teaching, nursing, and social work.

I'm thinking along the lines of a tale of two students, where two people get degrees, but one becomes an engineer or accountant, and the other a teacher or nurse. The first one is earning so much money they can repay their student loans in a year or three, while the other one is stuck in debt fifteen years later and struggling to keep up with a mortgage or rent.

Notice too, that the traditional 'feminine' occupations pay so much less.

Even this game is changing, and I wonder how safe accounting, finance, and law will be. The USA is broke and the dollar is anemic. What happens when the Great Depression II hits with full force, and if afterwards, when the dust clears, we have a whole new way of doing business, with possibly a new monetary system and currency? How much will be obsolete of what students in those fields are learning now?

And what happens to a society when young adult citizens haven't had the benefits of taking courses like philosophy, sociology, psychology, literature, and economics, because all they could afford was a tech school - which is about job training - and not provided with a well-rounded education? Or those who went anyway, majored in liberal arts or English or language or sociology, and end up as debt slaves working as a cashier at the local big box store? All that precious knowledge, under-utilized and benefiting so few.

Many questions, and a lot of ideas floating around on how people can get two basic things that weren't that hard to get fifteen to forty years ago: college for every kid who wants to go, and affordable housing for all.

Hope springs eternal that America's social pendulum will swing back in our favor... or is it not a pendulum, but rather, a spin toy that's lost it's rotational stability?

Addendum, 7PM

I couldn't have more surprised to learn today that on over 100 college campuses, students protested high tuition and budget cuts in California, and a few other states, which you can read about here and here and elsewhere.

When The King of Lies Wins A Soul Part 2

2010-02-27T11:24:00.012-05:00

Part 1 of what happened to me recently is here. This is Part 2.

We beat the devil in a death game last Tuesday, and on the following the day, I began calling around to see how much I could get for my gun. A hundred bucks. Damn. That's less than I paid for it before some of you were born.

One salesman explained, "So many people are unemployed now that they're selling their firearms to get money."

My mind did a flash back of my son holding my .38 to his head and begging me to dare him to pull the trigger.

Maybe that ain't the only reason why, I thought cynically.

Hours later I was staring at my son and thinking, bitch, bitch, bitch. Putting me through that shit. Being broke and jobless ain't that bad, not yet anyway.

That evening I told my told 14 year old daughter, Cassie, about the incident over dinner.

"He loves drama," she said nonchalantly.

She never has taken his azz seriously, and that's all she had to say about it.

*************

I actually discovered he'd taken my gun that Monday while looking for batteries in a box in my closet. I keep it in a gray suede case. My hand knows it's weight, and the moment I picked it up to move it aside, I knew it was missing.

I entered his room.

"Gimme back my gun."

He immediately handed it over. I checked the chamber.

"Where's the bullets?"

They were in his pocket. He reached in and gave me a handful.

"Why did you take my gun?", I demanded.

"Ma, I think of suicide every day."

"You were fine yesterday! On Valentine's Day. You were so happy. What happened?"

"The happiness never lasts."

"No one walks around on a happy-high 24/7. That's not how life works. Are you suicidal now?"

"No."

"Why you got all these bullets in your pocket?"

"I don't know."

I wasn't buying it. Sounded fishy.

Sure ya don't, nigga. You wanna go out in a blaze of glory with the cops, dontcha? Drama queen bitch nigga. My son. Damn.

I thought this but didn't say it, 'cause I wasn't sure. What if this was a lie, and the real deal is that he might be planning to step up his game from a sporadic drug user to a drug dealer, and a dumb one at that?

Hand him a stack of cash and tell him to add it up three times and he'll give you a different amount every time. People like this should avoid drug dealing like the plague. Along with me, even his friends have told him this, at least the real friends.

I left the room. In hindsight, that would have been the perfect moment to sneak away and call the police. I think it was fear that stopped me.

Fear of being paranoid and wrong... what if he's neither suicidal nor dealing, and only had it to show off to his friends, and ended up locked up on a felony over acting like a juvenile show off?

That's one of the problems of having a history of doing bad or crazy shit. You never live it down. People always jump to the conclusion you're back into whatever you used to be about, when it might be something totally different.

My mind was struggling to figure out the truth. Suicidal? Drug dealing? Showing off? Or something else?

Raising this boy has been like keeping a tiger in captivity. I keep training it but it can never be tamed. It is wild and unpredictable, compelling but repelling at the same time.

I hid the gun and retreated to my room, where my cowardly mother's heart would wonder again, what do I do about this stupid man-child?

I did what every coward does: I ignored this new event hoping it wouldn't repeat itself, and did it in the name of love and fear. Sometimes I hate myself, 'cause if that ain't some enabling, codependent, and fear-based shit, I don't know what is.

Since he refuses to take medication, I worry his mood disorder and/or wild side will catch him with him eventually, and the group of heartless crazies who own and run the privatized prisons will solve his problems by putting him in a cage for some trifling reason rather than a damned good one.

What a waste, 'cause he ain't all bad, and on good days he's great, and he does have talent.

It's relationships like these that bring confusion to many people, because if a lover, spouse, parent, child, or friend is all or mostly bad, it's easy to ditch their azz. But when it's more good than bad, then it's harder to totally give up on them even when the bad is really bad.

**************

It was the next day that I became his emotional hostage. Wrote about that in Part 1, where his response to my asking him to look for a job was to hold a gun to his head and dare me, bait me, to just give the word for him to commit suicide.

Thinking about it too much gives me chills.

*********************

Have you ever loved a child, parent, sibling, man, or woman, who became lost, and you followed them to their dark place to rescue them, but instead lost your bearings?

And even though you still have a good idea of how to escape, you keep following them deeper into their crazy life to pull them out, only to realize you're too far away from where you need to be?

That's where I've been.

In my mind, I am on a path in a forest with old-growth trees. They are tall and beautiful, and their branches make a canopy. The forest is somewhat dark, but I can see the sunlight peaking through the trees.

I am holding my daughter's hand firmly. She trusts me without reservation, and she's looking up at me for direction. We follow the path, where up ahead we can see the light out of the forest, but I keep looking back, and I'm calling, "Xavier, catch up with us! Please!"

He's so far back that we can't even see him, but I know he's there. I sense the exact place where he is. My eyes adjust to the darkness, and he's crouching under some brambles or bushes, watching us leave, waiting for us to go, believing that he wants to be there and that it's his destiny.

He doesn't know this is a lie told to him by the King of Lies, Satan.

I tried to pull him away so many times, but he won't budge, and instead, pushes me away and runs deeper into the forest. This is why I left and I'm so far up the path.

I know that if I don't leave, whatever he is waiting for has very large jaws and teeth, and will consume me like beast.

I keep moving forward toward the light, slowly, but keep looking back... calling him.

"Xavier, please come."

Cassie always looks up at me when I do, waiting patiently while I pause, waiting for my decision in which direction we'll take. She doesn't know if I'll run back to him and try to save him again, or keep moving on.

Her eyes have the innocence of a child because she is a child, one who without reservation trusts whatever decision I make. I hold her hand tighter, and keep my feet pointed toward the path out of the forest where the sunlight shines. I do this even when I stop and turn my head to look back.

*************

In that visual imagery, she's six years younger, around eight years old and still shorter than I, and Xavier looks to be around 14 or15. He's doing what I've seen him do in real life at that age. He'd sneak off and play war games in the woods all by himself when no friends were available, dressed in military face paint and hiding, crouching in the woods, watching people pass by.

I couldn't put my finger on it, but something about it was disturbing then. I used to tell him not to play this game alone because it scared people taking a walk if they saw him.

He'd laugh.

It's haunting now because my semi-conscious taps into it, and I intuitively feel that he gets off on the power of making others feel fear.

Fear is a bitch, something I learned at an unfortunately very young age. I wonder if he's haunted in his dreams at night that keep him so unrested during the day, dreams of baby boy days before he became my son, horrors that may have happened to him in two substandard foster homes before he had the language to express them or the ability to understand them.

Can you feel my love for my son?

The King of Lies misled him. He's been warring for Xavier's soul for years. Told him that this power to instill fear was good and would make up for the abilities he doesn't have, like getting a GED and learning a trade, or trying to network with others in the creative field. Satan lies to him daily that he never will succeed at anything.

"Join me in darkness," I imagine the King of Lies whispers in his ears and dreams. "I'll make you rich, the easy way, and if that's too hard, death will bring you peace."

Xavier keeps listening.

It hits me that both of my children in this imagery are the age of what they were when the King of Lies really got a grip on my son, the same evil that made him go bananas in the car one Sunday morning six years ago when I tried to take him to church, or led him to put a gun to his head last week and repeatedly dare me to dare him to pull the trigger.

***************

I won't say who, but one person I know told me I should have dared him and said it would have solved my problems.

They must have forgotten I have a conscience.

They must not have thought about the blood, brains, and bone splattered on the furniture, walls and carpet.

They must not have thought about the impact on me or my daughter had the deed gone down from seeing his body and blood.

They must not have thought that God would no doubt consider this murder.

I thought of it all and said these things. I wasn't angry and said it with compassion. I understand this person's fear for me, and their deep anger that would lead them to say this in the heat of that anger.

I've lived with an angry person so long. If I've learned anything, it's that rage causes more problems than it solves, and eventually destroys the containers that holds it - you and your soul.

Inside your soul is your creativity.

What does the Lord do?

Create.

What does the King of Lies do?

Destroy.

*************

I saw Xavier's psychiatrist Saturday morning. Xavier refused to go; no surprise there. I didn't mind. I needed the help myself. The doctor is black, my approximate age, involved in ministry work, and candid in ways that you never see in film or read in books, ways common in black culture. He's also a colleague whom I've referred patients to.

"I hate ungrateful people," he said flatly. "Your son has been a borderline sociopath for a long time. I think he's finally crossed that line."

"I tried so hard."

"You have," he said, nodding his head. "He's suffering from a generational curse that even adoption couldn't eliminate. He was dealt a bad hand, and you were too when you got him. You played it the best the you could. He's 21 now, and if you play any longer, you'll still lose and be a martyr."

I sighed deeply. Martyrdom has never been on my life's to-do list.

"I think the game is over," I said.

I didn't say, but I thought, I think Satan won his soul.

The doctor is spirit-driven and intuitive, and may have felt this too.

Like me, he knows that a woman is in most danger when kicking out or leaving a man with abusive tendencies and on testosterone overload. I truly believe this includes mothers, and sometimes fathers, of sons with these issues. I think a lot of them don't kick their azzes out is because they fear the category 5 hurricane that will ensue, and wonder if they'll survive it. This is why my solution is to move this spring. He won't, so I will.

"Be careful," my friend and colleague said as we parted.

His words made me fearful. I sat in my car a few minutes before driving home, pondering good vs. evil. The latter, when met with apathy or inaction, has a way of destroying good.

What good might my son do if he changes direction?

What good might I do if I overcome my fears and survive this awful time?

What is it, really, that the forces of darkness does not want me to accomplish?

I listened to my favorite gospel radio station. All last week and this one, I've felt the presence of the Holy Spirit swirling around me, protecting me, protecting my family, giving me just enough strength to get through each day. All year, really.

In a burst of energy, I could feel it again. The Holy Spirit was giving me courage.

*****************

My brother and his wife drove a very long way to see me that Saturday afternoon. He knows I'm financially living on the edge, and brought household necessities from Costco.

"Thanks," I said smiling. "I was starting to wonder if we'd need to steal toilet paper."

Everyone smiled. He looked like a knight in shining armor to me. The day before, he agreed to have me do some work for him. This saved my ass from being placed in a mandatory 40 hour per week "volunteer" program to get just a little over $400 per month and food stamps.

Not in a million years did I imagine I'd come so close to becoming an Indentured Servant, which is barely a step up from slavery. Until last month, I didn't know this kind of shit was forced on the broke and the poor, and my brother was last person I thought would buy my freedom.

I ain't poor. I'm just broke.

Ha-ha. It's all semantics, just like forced volunteerism and indentured servitude.

I really hadn't said anything to my brother about what had happened except two sentences in an email of how stressed I was that Xavier had found my gun and put it to his head in front of me while having a tantrum. This was mixed in with my efforts about trying to find a job and an interview in a few days.

I never thought my brother cared much about my parenting problems. Many years ago I begged him to step in and help with discipline, but he told me he wasn't interested in playing the daddy role to Xavier or beating his azz. As a result, I stopped telling him the details of how bad shit was.

Before he left, he did the one thing I was going to ask him to do before I asked him to do it.

"Put the gun in this bag," he said, talking to me but looking at Xavier.

In my family, we talk with our eyes.

Xavier got the message.

*******************

It's crossed my mind in the past that I might not survive being Xavier's mother. I do have one friend that I'm certain is dead and killed herself from years of stress from parenting a son as difficult as mine. I adopted this child, loved him as my own, and made a commitment that was strong as a rock, as granite, to see him to adulthood.

One day, my son may be in prison, and I hope it's not for murder, mine or anyone elses. Regardless of why he's there, Satan will think he won the final victory for Xavier. Maybe he will have.

Xavier may or may not have born with a generational curse of bipolar illness and a vulnerability to alcoholism and addiction, but I have given him a foundation to fall back on. It is strong but not perfect. He can get this only from trusting in the real rock - God.

The other day, Xavier was preparing to leave for a funeral. His birth mother's mother had passed after a long illness. My slender-built son took my place at the computer when I got up from listening to inspirational music.

I said, "You know that your funeral could have been scheduled for today."

He hugged me tightly.

I took a risk.

"Lemme do something to you," I said.

He waited, and I moved close to him and cupped his face in my hands. He didn't pull away, but looked down, as if in shame.

"Turn your body toward me," I commanded.

He did.

I held his face.

"Can you feel it?", I asked.

I think he knew exactly what I was talking about, which I've never done and probably isn't what you might think.

"Look at me," I commanded.

He did.

"Can you feel the Holy Spirit?"

His eyes welled up with tears.

"God is here," I said. "Tell Satan that he cannot live in your soul or take your life or use you to harm others."

He was talking to me with his eyes, watery eyes that told me he thinks it's too late.

"Tell him," I said, still holding his face.

He nodded.

"Out loud," I said.

He nodded again, and struggled to say the words that amazingly could not seem to come out of his mouth - and then his damn phone rang, breaking the moment.

Satan wants his azz baaaad.

*****************

Later, I couldn't find the perfect writing sample I need for an upcoming job interview. I'd have to write it from scratch. In utter frustration, I drove to the store to get a snack because it would be a long afternoon.

Upon leaving, I drove toward the parking lot exit slowly, and suddenly see a speeding car behind me. The driver recklessly zips around mine at the precise moment a pedestrian stepped from behind a column and into the path of danger. Instead, the driver barely missed him - because my presence slowed him down just enough to avoid hitting him. The timing was eerie.

I looked at this young man, and I don't know why, but he looked like someone who would do something good in life. The thought crossed my mind, God has a job for you too.

It hit me that God used me to save this random guy from harm or death. I'll bet this has happened to you, too. This sort of thing has happened to me before, and likewise, it's a miracle I'm alive because of someone else's timing.

I drove home slowly, thinking that the Lord uses us as His instruments.

I think that God brings us pain and grief and mundane inconveniences like not being able to find a writing sample, because somehow, we are pieces of the puzzle of his Grand Plan. He puts us where he wants us to be, often sacrificing our happiness and lives for a greater cause.

In some ways, I hate thinking like this. I live in the Land of Plenty, but what of the billion or two on this planet who are born, live and die and endure so much suffering during their lives?

I think what we go through gives us, who were born with so much even when it doesn't seem like much, a great responsibility to lift up others from war, poverty, disease, hunger, and being treated as less than human, less than animals.

This is why, I think, we get hit with unexpected problems and tragedies no matter how well we plan or are doing in life. Call it random shit that happens if you want. My darkest experiences gave me the gift to understand how to help others. The unexpected pregnancy and reluctant abortion I had at 19, it's resulting trauma, guilt, and then infertility, guided me into a profession where I dedicated my life to protecting children and families as a social worker and therapist.

It's not all in vain.

Or at least, doesn't have to be. We can share and guide others out of darkness, even though we are imperfect teachers.

No matter what happens to me, I have this unshakeable belief that has allowed me to finally kick fear to the curb:

I am His instrument.

*******************

In my mind's eye, I am back in the forest, still firmly holding Cassie's hand. She is looking at me, and I am looking back at Xavier. She's a little older now but still younger than in real life. Xavier is his age in this imagery.

He is no longer crouched under the brambles and bushes. He is standing with his hands in his pockets, looking toward us, but not moving.

My feet are still pointing toward the way out of the forest. I jerk my head toward The Light, the way out, and take another step in that direction, while looking back.

I know without knowing how that bullets are in his pockets. Up ahead, is the rest of my family, waiting for me. My cheeks are wet with tears. Cassie looks up at me.

"This way, Mama," she says, pointing to The Light.

I can feel the waves of uncertainty emanating from Xavier, just as she can feel my uncertainty of leaving him behind.

"I can't come," he yells back. "I have a funeral to go to. My grandmother died."

It crosses my mind that maybe the timing of her death could have been another effort by God to save him; she'd been sick for two years straight and could've checked out awhile back.. but she didn't. It wasn't her time. For all I know, God was saving her to help Xavier, who has courted Death, see what death looks like up close and personal in someone he loved.

God never gives up on us. I know she always wanted to see him freed from the generational curse that hurt her and her family so much, and Xavier knows this too.

Elsewhere, Satan shuffles the deck.

"I got him, and I'll win him for keeps, you just watch," he growls with arrogance.

I don't speak to him. Conversations beyond eff you with the devil are dangerous, because he mixes truth with lies to sucker and seduce us.

I yell to my son, "Coulda been your funeral this week. Remembah that. Come back a better man."

He says nothing, unsure if this is possible.

The devil laughs.

Cassie hates the sound of the Evil One and clutches me around my waist to hide from him.

God gets the last laugh, I whisper to her. Her eyes search mine and she sees the truth. She can hear the determination in my voice and feel the courage in my soul.

We walk toward the Light.

Intermission - The Job Interview

2010-02-25T18:07:00.001-05:00

Spent the past few days preparing for a job interview today, among other things. Woke up at 2 AM and sweated over it until it was time to leave. Tried to study more but couldn't concentrate. Fretted over my clothes and hair.

As I waited for my turn to be interviewed, I heard a lot of laughter from that room.

Keep 'em laughing and they'll like you and maybe not notice you've got some gaps in how to do the job, was an unexpected thought that crossed my mind.

Then the thought about myself: You've got no sparkle. You feel beaten down and so blue and so broke.

I could feel my low energy slip away more, and wondered how much longer God would carry me through.

My cell phone rang.

"This is So n' So. Are you still interested in being interviewed for the position?"

"Yes!"

We set a date and time. I was thrilled, 'cause that's a job that's closer to my home and one that I think I'd like more. Been waiting for their call so long that I thought they weren't interested. Hmmm.

I began to feel better. Having other options has a way of doing this.

Thank you, Lord, I said. Your timing was perfect.

I settled back and listened to the waves of laughter coming from that room.

The Spirit broke through my cloud and reminded me who I am.

I am who I am. I am serious. I am a seasoned defender of children and families. I am relentlessly thorough and methodical in every investigation.

More laughter from the interviewee.

Damn, whoever is in there is entertaining the hell out of them. Wonder if that person is charming and on top of her game.

Sure enough, a beautiful young sista emerged shortly afterwards. Lots of life and sparkle. Looked smart. I couldn't help but like her; hell, she reminded me of me over 20 years ago.

I smiled to myself, remembering who I used to be, liking that person as much as the person I've become.

They'll choose who they'll choose, I thought. If it's meant to be, it will be. If they select her, she'll learn the ropes like I did and probably do fine.

My turn.

There were two interviewers, both women my age or older. I don't think there was a question I couldn't answer well. I took my time, and I was serious as a friggin' heart attack.

Then one asked a long, round about PC type of question, which ended with, "Can you understand any Spanish in an interview?"

"Nope."

I was surprised when they burst into laughter.

The lady said, "Well, that was straight forward."

"I'm never not straight forward."

That wasn't always true, but that's who I've become. As I look back, that was one answer that might give me an edge if that's a quality they value, or eliminate me completely if they're secretly hoping for a bilingual employee, which wasn't mentioned in the job description.

Then they asked how I was in a crisis situation, and to give an example. Had lots of flashbacks then, to all the violence in my previous jobs, and last week, my home, when I wondered if Xavier and maybe even me would be dead before sundown.

The words wouldn't come at first. I wondered if they could read the pain on my face.

Finally, I said, "I handle myself well in dangerous situations. Been in quite a few. The main thing is to stay calm so the person out of control won't escalate."

They moved on quickly to the next question. I think they sensed the truth of what my eyes have seen, but didn't want to know. Or maybe that's just my imagination...

I know there is a job out there for me. I can feel it and have for months. The Lord will determine where He wants me, where I am needed, and I don't think the next job I get will be just a job. This is quite a contrast to how I felt at 2 AM this morning, full of doubt and hardly a shred of confidence.

Otherwise, I'm currently fine tuning the draft that I'll upload Friday or Saturday morning at the latest, of Part 2, When The King Of Lies Wins A Soul.

In the meantime, enjoy this intermission and click the link below. The lyrics are awesome and speak to my experiences, and maybe yours too.

Justified