Saturday, October 22, 2005

Digital Divide and Betinna Throws A Party

I had a date last night and took the night off from blogging. The plan was to do a long thing today. I did. Once, twice, three times, four. Everyone gets lost.

I'm sick of Blogger. I'm trying one more time and this will be a short post. I'll note two things I really enjoyed this week. One made me think, the other made me laugh. That's all I intend to do blog wise today because I'm getting pretty frustrated at losing stuff each time I try to post.

First this from The Common Ills:

Eli suggests that Eddie check out Stephen Labaton's "A Bill Advancing Digital TV Is Approved by Senate Panel." Here's the most important sentence in the article:

More than half of homes now have no digital signal and no intention to get one, according to Stewart Wolpin, an analyst at Points North Group, a research and consulting firm.

Why do I say it's the most important? Because no one wants to comment on it, let alone mention it. That includes a "brave" watchdog that's pissed Eddie off -- we don't link to it -- because they did a rah-rah, "New World Coming" report that forgot to mention that for a significant portion of Americans, the new world isn't coming.
The article is a typical Times' article meaning it sucks up to big business (and doesn't discuss the Times' own interest in the legislation -- maybe Labaton is unaware of the Times' TV division?). But buried deep in the article is a fact that "brave" watchdog took a pass on.
This is going to be a big issue to people in some areas, to the poor and the working poor in all areas. Right now you want to watch Desperate Housewives (I wouldn't recommend it, but to each their own), you turn on the TV. You don't need cable, you don't need satellite. You turn on the TV and watch for free.
As the industry abandons analog and moves to digital, it will be a huge issue for a significant portion of Americans. But no one wants to talk about that. No one wants to acknowledge that even if we had a good economy (we don't, we have a Bully Boy economy) a lot of people would be left out of "the revolution."

Eddie's right to be upset about this. I'm upset about this.

Eddie's right to be upset about this. I'm upset about this.

I'm thinking about women I know who have kids and are struggling to make it. Now they want to take cartoons away from them?

Your cable bill may only be thirty bucks a month but there are a lot of people who are already stretched to the limit. Now you're going to take away TV? You want to be there in the home when some parent has to explain to their kid why they can't watch Aruthur or whatever?

Now if you can afford digital cable, maybe you can also afford to go to the movies? But for a lot of people, the TV takes that place because there's no money in the budget for entertaining. This is a very serious issue.

I also want to note that Betty has Betinna throwing her first dinner party. I think it's hysterical. Here's a quote:

I put on some Sade and the guests made small talk while Thomas Friedman kept following me around insisting that if I had to do take out, Mickey Dees has a perfectly suitable dinner menu.
Needing a break from his whining, I lied and said I didn't think Rebecca was wearing a bra tonight.
I didn't see him for a half hour which gave me just enough time to warm everything up and set it out. As I did, Gail Collins saddled up beside me and whispered that she thought Ron had "a Newland Archer quality." Having heard that he was single, I tried to suggest she go talk to him.
"Oh dare I?" she asked giddy with excitement. "Dare I, Betinna, dare I? Can you imagine the passion that could exist between us? The type of passion one only comes across in the novels of Edith Wharton."
"Uh-huh," I said counting the water glasses.
"He would be mad for me, mad, mad, mad. And I for him. And then we would steal away for a private moment."
Private moment?
Who knew Gail Collins had it in her?
I was all ears waiting for the naughty bits to begin.
"He would press his cheek to mine and I would press mine to his. Oh Betinna, the moment could be so magical. And then I would look at him with longing and regret as I declared that for us to stay together would kill what I loved in him most. Just like the Countess tells Archer."
"Damn it, Gail," I said frustrated since she long ago exceeded the sell-date on her own Age of Innocence, "you're not the lead in a period novel. You're a grown woman. You have urges."
Gail giggled nervously as a blush crossed her cheeks and she bowed her head.
Ignoring her, I announced dinner was ready and everyone took their assigned seats.

I'll note that Betty has me as a guest at Betinna's dinner party. It's a funny entry.
















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Thursday, October 20, 2005

My great aunty had to have hip surgery and it wasn't planned. She knew she was going to have to have it at some point but Monday morning she was walking to her car from the grocery store and she tripped. Ended up skinning her knees and hands and breaking her nose. She swears she didn't faint and just tripped. But she is getting up in the years and since they took her in an ambulance to the hospital Monday she went ahead and decided to have the surgery she'd been putting off.

Her doctor scheduled her for Wednesday and I didn't even go to church Wednesday night because we were all trying to be at the hospital as much as possible for her. She's the oldest person in our family and I was real glad to see that everyone made time to visit before the surgery and after the surgery. She seems to be doing well but if you're wondering why I haven't been posting it's because this came up and it wasn't expected. I put pretty much everything I could on hold to make sure I could be there as much as possible.


If that hadn't happened, I would've been noting a great column by Jasmyne Cannick earlier this week. This is from The Chicago Defender and the title of the column is "Pimpin ain't easy: The new face of the Black Church:"


"We're not just a church, we're an international corporation. We're not just a bumbling bunch of preachers who can't talk and all we're doing is baptizing babies. I deal with the White House. I deal with Tony Blair. I deal with presidents around this world. I pastor a multimillion-dollar congregation. You've got to put me on a different scale than the little Black preacher sitting over there that's supposed to be just getting by because the people are suffering." Bishop Eddie Long, New Birth Missionary Church, August 2005.
The sad thing is, he's right.
Today's New Black Church is the offspring of the civil rights era but can easily be identified by its debatable and sometimes laughable theology, superficiality, greed, materialism, heavy involvement in politics, tricked-out arena sized church, ten thousand or more member congregation and of course, its superstar pastor.

Cannick's got a lot of guts to speak it straight with no effort to pretty it up. The church is not supposed about the pretty shoes TD Jokes has or all the money he's amassed. It's also not supposed to be about bowling lanes. It's supposed to be about a relationship with God but too many preachers and pastors and congregations seem lost in the very bling-bling thing they scream and yell at rappers about.

All they seem to care about is money. How much do I got? How much can I get?

I think a church is about doing the kind of work Jesus would do. That means you help out the less fortunate. That doesn't mean it's your goal to build the biggest (and ugliest) church in the city or to be the richest man in the world but check with some of our black preachers. Not what they say but how they're living.

Nothing wrong with making a decent living. But the only thing anyone should ever get rich on from a church is God's love and their understanding of Jesus Christ.

For all the griping they do about rappers lowering the standards, I look around and see a lot of black preachers who are lowering standards a lot worse than any rapper ever could. Why is that? Because we expect leadership from our preachers in the community. And they aren't providing it. A lot of them are close to becoming as morally bankrupt as they are rich.

It's disgusting.

I e-mailed C.I. to note the item and said I planned to write about it and hoped to write about it Tuesday night. As always I want to thank C.I. because I didn't have time on Tuesday. But C.I. linked to it at The Common Ills. I'm sure some visitor probably already complained about, maybe more than one, saying it had no place up there or some nonsense.

This issue matters to me. I'm tired, my eyes are narrow slits and I just wanted to crawl into bed when I got home tonight but this is an important issue and all week I've meant to note it and hope that people would think about it.

So I'm putting it up here and wish it weren't so late in the week.




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Sunday, October 16, 2005

Iraq's constitution

Helped out The Third Estate Sunday Review and you should check them out. Their edition isn't "done" yet. They are holding the editorial until we can all get back together. That means Betty and me get done with church tonight.

I've got about ten minutes before I'm out the door but Three Cool Old Guys are furious. They feel C.I. was ripped off. (I feel the same.) They start naming the person who ripped C.I. off and I'm like "But you guys just got online a few weeks ago ... How did you ..." Because they'd figured it out. One of them signed up for some alerts at a web site and one of the things he got late this morning was an announcement about the rip-off artist's story. They said ___ better start doing some soul thinking because the road ___ is on will take ____ straight to hell.

I had to hear about how ____ was a thief. Lots of other stuff as well. I saw them this morning at church but I was tired and they said they could tell so they didn't bring this up there since I visit after church.

They wanted me to put up their thoughts.

1) ____ is a thief.
2) ____ has no shame.
3) ____ better "get right with God" quick.
4) ____ should be outed.

They wanted to know why we didn't just print ___'s name at The Third Estate Sunday Review? C.I. didn't want it. C.I. feels it could be a coincidence. C.I. also says ____ is a little vindictive thing and loves a pissing match so we shouldn't feed into it.

I explained that at length and am not free to do so here because since ___ isn't being named, I won't drop clues. But ___ really is a pyscho when it comes to others and as I detailed that they understood. They also had read Rebecca and took a lot of comfort in that.

This ain't over. They know that and that makes them happy.

They are total Common Ills members now. It's really great to see their enthusiasm. They'd told everyone at the nursing home about ____ ripping off C.I. and were showing them the thing at The Common Ills, the thing at The Third Estate Sunday Review and the thing by ____. I walk in and expect to say my hello to the ladies and the other men but instead I keep getting stopped by residents telling me how disgusting ____ is. This is topic number one at the nursing home.

Now let me put in my part from The Third Estate Sunday Review's news review. Jim wants all of us who participate to do that. A) It's an easy entry if we're short on time. B) It promotes The Third Estate Sunday Review. C) It let's people see another side of us since we are doing that under pressure and time limits.

C.I.: Thank you, Jess. We now go to Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix with a report on the Iraqi constitution.
Cedric: C.I., the Iraqi constitution will give every Iraqi their own iPod, their own swimming pool and streets of gold.
C.I.: Really?
Cedric: Well, it will enshrine the rights of all.
C.I.: Really?
Cedric: The honest truth is that with various versions, most voters had little idea of what they were voting for. The charter continued to change days before the election and this after the "official version" had several versions. Electricity was out Saturday morning in Baghdad. Riverbend of Baghdad Burning reported Saturday morning that: "The referendum is only hours away and the final version of the constitution still hasn’t reached many people." Many people have no idea what they're being asked to vote on and Riverbend makes the point Elaine made which is that suddenly this isn't the Constitution, it's open to more revisions and alterations. Riverbend compares it to the phoney elections of January and notes:
Areas with a Sunni majority are complaining that there aren’t polling stations for kilometers around- many of these people don’t have cars and even if they did, what good would it do while there’s a curfew until Sunday? Polling stations should be easily accessible in every area.
Cedric (con't): We'll no doubt hear that it was another triumph for "democracy" and that there was a huge turnout but the reality is people weren't provided with the Constitution in time to read it and that the voting places aren't accessible to all. We've got a new spin cycle for the adminstration to launch another wave of Operation Happy Talk. The Iraqis have gotten screwed again.
C.I.: Thank you, Cedric. And we'll note that on The Laura Flanders Show Saturday night, we were all reminded that the January elections featured a lot of photo ops of purple stained fingers and only after the spin was in place was it noted that all the photos came from the same polling stations. We now go to Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz and Mike of Mikey Likes It! for a joint report on Iraq. Elaine, I'm guessing, you have the fatalities figure, so how about we start with you?


I'm adding 2 blog links. The first is Wally who's been a great friend to me and a great member of The Common Ills community just started The Daily Jot. The other is Ron of Why Are We Back In Iraq? who C.I. told me had added my site to his blog roll. I'll say thank you to Ron. I know his work from the early days of The Common Ills and he didn't have to add me. Lots of people don't. One thing about Ron that he may not get credit from in the blogsphere is that he is concerned with representation. That's in terms of color, in terms of gender and in terms of sexuality. A lot of people talk the inclusive talk but Ron really puts it in practice. I'd say that if I wasn't added. But I'd argue that I was added because of that attitude on Ron's part.









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Thursday, October 13, 2005

Condi




Rebecca did a thing with links to some of Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts comics. "Three cool old guys" (as they want to be known) loved going through the comics and they picked the one that's up here now.

They chose it because they say Condi Rice has blood on her hands and while they used to long to see a brother or a sister in position of power, she wasn't what they had in mind.

This may not seem like much to you but it does to them. They are pre-civil rights. They lived through it all. They lived through segregation, through the civil rights movement, and the things they've seen are pretty incredible.

But they say it is an affront to MLK and his memory that someone like her hasn't been fired. They think she's as bad as gangsta-thug shooting up things in drive bys if not worse. The minute she took a job with the administration, they feel, her focus should have been on representing the ones who laid down so much that she could get to where she is. Instead they think she's become the white man's puppet and embarrassed herself and her race.

They are so offended by her. I'm offended and embarrassed by her but it's one thing to hear and read about all the work that took to get us this far. It's another thing to have lived through all those struggles.

The worst thing is that we have struggles ahead of us still because we haven't achieved equality and someone like Condi is no help to us. She'll remember her skin color when she's getting an award for "black achievement" but she'll never do a thing to help us. She's the token who's happy being the token.

That doesn't surprise me. But it didn't bother me anymore than Donald Rumsfeld did. Talking to them tonight I realized how severe a disappointment to her race Condi Rice is.

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Monday, October 10, 2005

Sonia Bock

C.I. noted this and my friends at the nursing home, who want to be called "Three Cool Old Guys," said I should note it too. So Three Cool Old Guys were watching Democracy Now! on the main TV and they saw the last story, "Sonia Bock 1897-2005: Amy Goodman Remembers Her Grandmother, a Woman of Three Centuries," and thought it was pretty moving. I think so too. I don't have much time tonight but when my friends want something, they've got it.


Amy Goodman's grandmother, Sonia Bock, died October 5, 2005 at the age of 108. She was born in 1897, in Ruvno, Poland. She lived through the pogroms of Tsarist Russia, the Bolshevik revolution and the Holocaust.
I'd like to take this moment to thank everyone who wrote in last week to express sympathy on the loss of my grandmother. Sonia Bock died October 5, 2005 at the age of 108. Yes, she was indomitable: a woman of three centuries.
She was born in 1897, in Ruvno, Poland. She lived through Tsarist Russia, the Bolshevik revolution, the Holocaust. Though many in her family did not. Two of her brothers and their whole families perished. I remember my mother telling me the wail. The wail that went up in the bungalow colony that my grandparents my mom and her sister went to every summer. The wail when my grandmother got the news that her family had been killed. She came to America by boat in 1929. In 1930, she gave birth to my mother in Harlem with my grandfather, an orthodox rabbi.
In her fifties she contracted cerebral meningitis and was sent to a sanatorium in the Catskills. Not expected to live, she cut everyone's hair and was out in two years. She was an unusual mix of old fashioned in her views of women. "You must always be independent," she would say. "When your husband comes home meet him with a hug and supper, then give him the newspaper to read, but you should have already read it. Then discuss it with him. Communication is everything." She was the eternal student. She spoke four languages: Russian, Yiddish, Hebrew, English and was always taking conversation classes in French. At about 4 foot 10 inches tall, she was a pint size fireball. A life force. My heart. I'd like to share a poem that I also read when my father died. I don't know who wrote it:

Do not stand at my grave and weep. I am not there. I do not sleep. I am a
thousand winds that blow. I am the diamond glints on snow. I am the sunlight on
ripened grain. I am the gentle autumn rain. When you awaken in the morning s
hush, I am the swift uplifting rush, of quiet birds in circling flight. I am the
soft star that shines at night. Do not stand at my grave and cry. I am not
there. I did not die.
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Thursday, October 06, 2005

On churches

Monday, someone asked me what I liked about church in an e-mail.

The easiest way I can explain it is to ask you to remember that slogan Hillary Clinton used to believe in, "It takes a village." Betty and I aren't the only church goers in the community. The Common Ills has a vareity of religions represented by members and certainly Kat and Mike are known Catholics. Betty and I are Protestants. So since we're both church goers and we're both African-Americans (Betty prefers the term "black"), I thought I'd call her up and we discussed this Tuesday night.

For both of us, church is our village. We were raised in it and the extended family it represents to us is very powerful. Somebody's always going to have a squabble in any large group but what I was wondering was about her church's leadership because mine is steady but I have friends who go to "white" churches or "black" churches and have heard horror stories about them running off preachers or pastors or ministers. I've heard stories of battles over who controls the church bank accounts. I've heard of choir directors who tried to take over the churches and when they couldn't, they split off taking parts of the congregation with them.

One friend, Tim, who is white, tells about how he gave up on his church because it was steady until he was in high school and then it became this huge power struggle. To make sure that the new choir director had the votes, they started dropping members, who had been baptized in that church, for any excuse. A blind man who was in his eighties was dropped because he only came once a month when his daughter was in town and could bring him to church. Other people were dropped because they only came on holidays.

The choir director was a real nightmare and had been dating a girl who disappeared and ended up found months later when she was dead. Tim feels that was a shock to the choir director who suddenly found religion and started going to his parents church. He was made choir director within two months and then all the nonsense started. He got his drinking buddies to start showing up with their children and wives and girlfriends. The church make up changed and some of the old people stopped going as often because of it.

But within a year, the choir director and his new group had taken over the church, fired the preacher and taken control of the accounts by intimidating all but one of the elders of the church.

This one old guy was tough and Tim said he refused to take his name off the account and without his co-signature, they couldn't write checks. The choir director was using the church as his own personal playground. He would invite friends over to play volleyball and if members drove by and saw a game and stopped, if he didn't like you, he would tell you it was a private gathering and you needed to leave. Tim saw all of this because his parents' home was right across the street from this church. He'd grown up in this church. He stopped going and so did his parents because the choir director and his friends were falling down drunk every Saturday night and staggering into church Sunday morning to talk about "evils."

When the last holdout, the elder, died, there was no stopping this crowd. They were already dropping by the church all the time to use the phone for long distance calls that the church would pay. With the last man who could stand in their way out, suddenly church funds were used to send the choir director and his friends and their children to amusement parks and on other trips.

None of this was about spreading the word of God and it wasn't open to all church members. The choir director, who'd made himself preacher at this point, would pick who could go and who couldn't. His sister was in the church, his whole family was, but his middle sister was in the church and he didn't like her or her kid and so they'd find themselves not eligible to go on certain events because he just didn't like them.

He and his male friends would hang out at the church after Sunday evening services for three to four hours drinking in the parking lot.

That's the worst chuch story I've ever heard of, where members are stripped of their membership and a coup takes place so that a church can be used for someone's own personal amusment.

When I was telling Betty about this she wanted to know what the religion was. I told her but I don't really think it matters (and don't think it represents all churches that practice that religion). I've heard many other horror stories though none as bad.

I'm not someone who walks around with a Bible or says, "Well I was praying last night." My beliefs are known and if someone asks me, I'm happy to talk about them. But I firmly believe you provide an example, not a lecture.

So with new friends who don't go to my church, religion usually comes up about a month after the friendship begins. I've heard great stories and I've heard horror stories.

But, and this is what I wanted to check with Betty on, the worst thing in my church is when you get two women bringing the same dish to a lunch and they're mad at each other. Betty said that was about the worst thing in her church as well. There were some members who didn't care for one another but it wasn't an open war and they'd just avoid one another unless one of them was in need at which point, like them or not, they were there for one another.

Here's another horror story a friend who grew up in the south told me. His church turned the front pew over to a drug dealer. The priest knew, the whole church knew. But the guy had money and he could show up every Sunday and be treated like a hero. I couldn't believe that or that a priest would hold up such a person to the congregation (we call them congregations in my church, Catholics may use another term and no offense intended if they do). What does that say to the little kids and teenagers coming to the church?

We're not all saints in my church but if someone's doing something illegal, they need to come in, sit in the back and stay out of everyone's way. God, my belief, wants to help everyone. But my preacher did ask one man to leave. His parents and grandparents had been in the church, his parents still were but his grandparents were dead. The guy had faced some problems and ended up a pimp. That's not what the church is about. And the guy was showing up and acting flashy and the precher told him that he was sending the wrong message to the children in our church.

At my church, no one cares about your private business or follows you around. If you have a problem and ask for help, we pray for you and try to help you and know that a problem couldn't happen to any of us. But there are problems and then there is a living a life of crime. Betty agreed with me that our churches had kept people we grew up with away from crime and at a time when there is so little for many African-Americans in the way of economic opportunities, I believe that should be one of the fundamental aims of the black churches: making sure that wealth isn't held up as God.

I think TD Jokes misses that point. I've seen him on TV go on and on about his shoes and how important his shoes are. I think it's a little bit Little Richard-like honestly but if it was just the shoes, that would be one thing. The fact that his church, my opinion, seems to exist to make himself rich and to pass on false messages (like "Jesus was a businessman") digusts me. Most people of any race in this country are not going to end up rich in worldly goods. The church should especially work hard to get across the message that wordly goods are not going to bring happiness or provide anyone with salvation.

So those are some of my problems with some churches.

What binds me to my church is the fact that we are focused on working together. My mother, for instance, always knew if there was an emergency, she could count on anyone in the church. I'm sure some liked her better (and us) than others did but they were always there to help out when the need arose.

If I was acting the fool or showing out (and I did all the time once I became a teenager) and someone from my church happened to see that, they'd call me out on it. By the same token, after my father died especially, if I had a big track meet or was doing something outstanding academically, members of my church would turn out to show their support and when you have that kind of faith behind you, it really helps. It helps you believe in yourself and it helps you feel like you have some value in this world. That's something that the African-American community could stand to hear a lot more of.

My uncle tells me today reminds him a lot of when he was a kid in the early seventies. He says every other movie made for African-American audiences seemed to be about a pimp or some other criminal. He looks around at the bling-bling music videos today and the direct to home video crap put out by Master P and just finds it disgusting. He says that at least there were some alternatives and he'll list Stevie Wonder or Aretha or someone like that and talk about how they were keeping it real. I think kids are lucky to have Kanye West and I'd add in Mary J. Blige because she's come along a way. She could always sing but with each album, she's grown and really tackled some deep themes. Jill Jones is another example. Back during The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill she (and the Fugees before that) were providing a strong alternative to Money is god.

I'm not calling for censorship where the government decides what gets played on the radio or on BET but I am wishing that listeners and viewers would reject that crap that debases us. The church has historically provided an uplifting voice to the African-American community and when I see a TD Jokes who seems determined to not to lead but to be another Pat Roberston sitting on millions of dollars and all about how rich he can't, it really bothers me.

If we lose our churchs, I'm not sure what we have left. They have instilled in us a belief in our own good and our own worth and that's not a message we've gotten very often from the larger society.

I get e-mails about religion all the time. I'm answering this one because it seemed sincere. Last week I got one about Seth. This visitor was up in arms that I had "promoted" Seth's site. I did promote it. I'll promote it whenever I can remember to. If you haven't check out Seth's site, the visitor was offended that Seth was gay.

That's not an issue with my church. With Betty's church, AIDS has finally begun to help them address the issue. For me, it's not an anything to be ashamed of. I don't know if Seth's religious or not but if he is he may feel, as I do, that God makes you in his image. God made Seth the same as he made the visitor, the same as he made me. I am attracted to women and Seth is attracted to men and that matters as much to me as whether or not Seth likes cherry soda or yogurt.

I like Seth's site. I like Rebecca's. I like Mike's. Mike has written about his balls and everything else at his site and I've never had anyone e-mail to gripe about Mike. But if Rebecca talks about guys, I get some jerk having a fit that a woman would talk about that. If Seth writes about guys, I end up with a jerk like the visitor today.

Seth is Seth and Rebecca is Rebecca. They are individuals and they have value and I'm glad to be in the same community with them. If Seth were a member of my church, there wouldn't be an attitude of "He's gay, don't talk to him."

I realize that some southern black churches are still struggling with the issue and Betty can tell you that her church went through a period that AIDS made them snap out of. But whether it was AIDS or something else, it was not an issue when I was growing up in my church. It's about as important to my church as whether or not you're eating pork or shellfish or shaving. They are not issues.

I really like Seth's site and hope he blogs for a long time because there are jerks like the one who e-mailed me about Seth. I think a lot of ignorance is out there and hopefully Seth writing about whatever interests him that day will slowly help even jerks see that gay people are not weird or something to be hidden or shunned.

I have a cousin who is a lesbian and that's never been an issue. She and her partner go to our church. When you're not stuck with stereotypes but with actual exposure you realize that people are people. And hopefully the jerk who wrote, if he keeps reading Seth's site, will have a better understanding of at least one gay person.

A friend played something that had been sent to him in an e-mail. He thought it was hilarious. It was this African-American preachers screaming about gay sex. Just putting gay men down, he didn't mention lesbians. My friend thought it was funny the way some liberals will supposedly listen to Rush Limbaugh for laughs. I told him I didn't find it funny.

I don't. I don't think a preacher screams and yells about a people. I think it's really sad that the preacher was African-American because in this country, white preachers often hid behind their professions to scream about African-Americans and to argue that slavery was right or that we were stupid or depraved or whatever.

They can't get away with that as easily as they once could. So it disappoints me that someone of my race would turn around use the name of God to preach hate. Julian Bond and Coretta Scott King have been leaders in the African-American community on the importance of seeing each other as people and not demonizing gays and lesbians. I was really impressed with Al Sharpton in the 2004 race for making similar comments. At one point, my youngest cousin had some friends over and he mentioned Rev. Sharpton's statements about tolerance and acceptance and one of his friends refused to believe it. Kept saying Rev. Shaprton would never say that. We had to pull it up online to convince him.

I wish more of our leaders would take the lead on this because I think one thing God judges you on is how you handle your experiences. For African-Americans who've been demonized historically as sex craved or rapists or what ever stereotype you want to toss out to not have learned from that and to turn around and do it to another group is something that I personally believe God does not look favorably upon. My opinion is He knows we know what that's like and He expects more from us than to do to others what was done to us.

I asked Betty what her thoughts were on the gay issues regarding the black churches and she thinks it's at the root of where we will be in twenty or thirty years. We will either have the strong community that we've always maintained or we will have chapters of hate across the country turning from the lessons of God's love and embracing the same right-wing nonsense that's overtaken many (but not all) white churches. She said she sees it as the issue because it goes to whether the historical role of the black church will continue or whether we'll splinter into some who continue to speak out for social justice and others who want to preach hate.

I think Betty's right. I'll even thank the jerk for his e-mail because it's been a non-issue to me because it is a non-issue to my church. It was dealt with before I was born (or at least old enough to remember). Betty's church has had to start dealing with it due to the AIDS crisis in the African-American community.

Splintering will weaken the historical role of the church in African-American lives. It will also lead to a loss of good people, some gay, some not, who can't support intolerance and can't reconcile hatred with what the church has always represented to our community which is hope and a place of acceptance.

I've tried to answer the e-mailer, the sincere one, and hopefully this did. My church is important to me because it is a family and not just on Sundays when you're sitting in the pews, but throughout the week. We help each other and we support one another. We work to uplift and that's more important as every other cultural message hitting us seems to be about "bling-bling" or being a gangster. My uncle's looking around for the next Marvin Gaye and not seeing him. I hope that he, or she, is already among us and ready to restore the humanity to popular music because we need a voice like that today.










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Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Todd Purdum

Jim of The Third Estate Sunday Review has one peeve with C.I. of The Common Ills and it's that some of C.I.'s best work is buried within a post. I had an e-mail from Jim and I knew right away, before I opened it, what it was going to be about. I'd read The Common Ills this morning and when I got to "NYT: "Mixed Review of Bush Pick in Oversight of Gambling" I could just hear Jim saying, "You didn't even put Todd S. Purdum's name in the title."

C.I.'s reply would be, based on past replies, that there's not enough time for perfection and if there are going to be entries up at The Common Ills, they just have to be what they are. (Which can be shorthanded to Kat's "It Is What It Is" motto.)

I understand both points of view. Jim wants the best stuff to really be noticed and C.I.'s feelings are that the posts are for the members and there's no point in attempting to cater to outside the membership.

Jim wants it to be the best because Jim's a member of The Common Ills and thinks it's an amazing site (I do too). But the reality is C.I.'s too busy to worry about "Will this get attention?" or "Will this add readers." C.I. doesn't care. The site is a resource/review and any member can tell you it's about helping you find the voices that speak to you.

C.I. truly doesn't give a damn what people outside the community think. And that's probably why the membership is so huge. Kat would say it's "organic" and that's what speaks to people.
But Jim's a friend and he feels like C.I. had some criticism that was both needed and humorous. He was looking at action alerts and media criticism today and found that Robin Toner and Elisabeth Bumiller are the focus of the Tuesday criticism of The New York Times.

Todd S. Purdum embarrassed himself again. C.I. called him on it. No one else has that Jim's seen.

My friends at the nursing home who just became Common Ills members would disagree with Jim. They were raving over this morning's entries and talking about when Todd popped up in the middle, it was a "gut buster" and provided needed laughter.

That might be, intentionally or not, what C.I. was going for. Jim thinks in terms of a journalist filing a single report and C.I. thinks more in terms of film.

But I'm tired and when I called Jim I told him I could excerpt the section. Which I'll do in a minute. But here's my thoughts on whether or not it would have made a difference if C.I. had made Todd a single entry. It wouldn't have made a difference. First of all, The Common Ills is known at this point. It's been mentioned on NPR and all over the web. Second of all, a lot of the Democratic sites refrain from calling Todd out because he's married to a Democrat from Clinton's administration. So I don't think it would have made a difference. (And Dona was agreeing with me, I could hear her in the background while Jim was on the phone.)

The Common Ills is too independent to be noted. C.I.'s too pro-peace, too pro-choice, too-pro minorities, too . . . It's not a site for the centrists or the middle of the roaders. It never will be. Sometimes "helpful" bloggers will e-mail C.I. saying "Don't write about that" and the only thing that does is make C.I. write about it more.

It's not an echo chamber of talking points. Nor is The Common Ills trying to shore up weak spined Democrats (no spines?) just because there name is "Harry Reid" or whomever.

I started my site to draw attention to the community and all the great sites coming out of it. I understand Jim thinking, "Okay, well if it had just been about Todd . . ." but the reality is, it wouldn't have been linked to then. We, members, know who links and who doesn't. We know who highlights and who doesn't and we're very aware that one site in particular doesn't anymore. (Which is why The Third Estate Sunday Review dropped it a few weeks back.) C.I. says, "Don't try to get it linked" and we get the lecture from C.I. in the gina & krista round-robin, then a few weeks later, someone e-mails to tell Gina and Krista about a site (like the one that Third Estate dropped) that didn't link when they'd e-mailed. (Eddie and Ryan are usually the two who will pay attention to C.I.'s lecture for about two or three weeks and then try for links.)

But, and this is something I've realized since I started my own site and started getting e-mails, it doesn't matter. The Common Ills is a big community. And most of members didn't see a link somewhere and become members. We had someone we know pass it on to us. The community built through word of mouth and that's really how it continues to build.

Don't e-mail me to gripe about that because I'm not excusing one site in paticular that no one goes to anymore for a reason (one that Kat will be delinking from either tonight or tomorrow because Jim called her this evening and she didn't even know she had the site on her blogroll).

But I started my site, Seth's started his site and we've got another member soon to start their own site. There's really no need to go outside the community.

If people are concerned with social justice and with issues that Democrats are supposed to stand for, they'll find the site. If they're not, they won't.

I'm not excusing the sites that have certain members upset. I was one of the people saying "Delink from ___" because that person a) insulted Isaiah (which enraged the community) and b) always wants to be mentioned at The Common Ills but when Billie checked that site she found out that he never mentions The Common Ills at his site. A member will notice that the same way that a member will copy and paste and send something through the community.

But we've go the round-robin, we've got The Common Ills of course, we've got Rebecca, The Third Estate Sunday Review, Betty, Mike, Elaine, Kat and now Seth. There will be a new site shortly. We're not getting smaller, we're getting larger. Last Friday's poll in the round-robin is something C.I.'s taking very seriously and thinking about.

Right now, there's the weekly (sometimes more) gina & krista round-robin and nine sites. The Common Ills isn't even a year old. That its launched so many voices in so short a time tells you that with or without someone scared that The Common Ills is too left or too into minorities or too into pro-choice or whatever the excuse is, the community just continues to build.

I see Jim's point but I think he's wrong. (He knows I think he's wrong.) There were times when I felt like he did before I started my site. I'd be upset that a really great entry that was on something important wasn't being noticed. (By mid-day, had anyone else noted Ralph Nader's complaint against Harriet Miers from today's Democracy Now!? Not that I saw and that's pretty important. She refused to comply with a request that she's bound by her office to comply with.) But now that I'm getting e-mails from members, I'm really getting how big the community is. I should have grasped that from the round-robin but I really didn't.

The Common Ills doesn't spit out talking points and because of that, or the decision not to push Harry Reid as the great savior or whatever, it's not noted by those working from a playbook of talking points.

I ended up doing things differently than I planned here. I was going to do a blog report. That was what the Big Mix was going to be. Instead, I've written about the elderly and some of their issues, about race and other things. C.I. told me that the only rule was that there were no rules.
And the result is that if you're independent, you're voice has more value. There are people who never get e-mails and that's probably because they're running down talking points.

I couldn't imagine making time in a schedule with no time at all to just repeat what everyone else says but there are a lot of sites that do that. The fact that The Common Ills doesn't is why all of us value it so much. And it's why Jim likes to think that, for instance, if the Todd S. Purdum comments had been in their own entry, they would have gotten attention from outside the community. But that's not the way it works.

I don't know if there will be changes to the permalinks (C.I. doesn't call it a blogroll) anytime soon or not but I do know that C.I. has read the complaints and is taking the poll from the latest round-robin very seriously. In some ways, its our fault because we follow that stuff, C.I. doesn't. C.I.'s lost in the e-mails and if we'd raised this issue sooner, it might have already been dealt with. Coming on the heels of the continued ignoring of Rebecca, it is something C.I.'s taking seriously. But C.I. didn't know about that until we started bringing it up.

I want to note my good friend Isaiah who had "Celibacy in the City" today, his latest The World Today Just Nuts comic strip. That was hilarious. We were passing it around at work and Isaiah does great work. Ignore ___ who is an idiot who just wanted to use the community and not give back. But Natalie told C.I. about the insult to Isaiah a week after it happened and C.I. asked Isaiah if it bothered him. Isaiah said not really. It's one of those things that festers and it does bother Isaiah now. More importantly, it bothers the members. ___ is no longer linked. Whether we'll have to hear "I was reading and wanted to share" comments in entries anymore or not, I don't know. (I would guess not.)

But members had followed ___ in the copy and pastes and for him to slam Isaiah and also to be saying, "Great post and I wrote about this if members are interested"? Billie went there and if it's a great post, why wasn't it noted?

If a member took the time to provide ___ with raw data for research, why wasn't that noted as well? (That data now goes to Mike.)

So the point is that we take care of each other in the community. We stood by West, who wasn't even a member when he got attacked. Eddie forwarded the e-mail from the attacker and we don't go to that site anymore (C.I. had already delinked from it). It was bad enough what was done to West but to find out that the jerk was e-mailing trying to get dirt on West was offensive.
West was just a high school kid who spoke his mind and got attacked for it and threatened with delinks if he didn't apologize. Then his apology wasn't good enough. That was bad enough to turn us all off that organization. (And give credit to Rebecca because she got the e-mail from West and wrote him back immediately saying, "Call me." She then stood up for him and others didn't. C.I. did. But others didn't. And we note that as a community.) But when the round-robin published the e-mails by the jerk trying to get information on West that so offended the community. He wasn't a member and hadn't even written C.I. at that point. But C.I. and Rebecca didn't play (as some did), "Oh too bad, that's your own personal problem." Their attitude was, "You liked our work and we're not going to pretend like what was done to you was okay just to have a link." They spoke their mind and that's why the community is tight and strong.

I still can't believe that the jerk and his boss got away with what they did. You'd think the organization would have told them, "Look, you were out of bounds. You need to apologize." Because that didn't happen and West never got an apology (for the attacks or for the attempts to go behind his back, a day before the attacks, and pry into his life) and members have never gone back to that site. We never will.

I had an e-mail from Brenda wondering how I searched online and I don't have time to write back so I'll put an answer in here. I'm using the same hub that other members are using. The one that integrates the software that we all purchased and then added the add on from UK Computer Gurus. I don't understand the "hub" talk either but I think it means that we're routed. I'll pass the e-mail onto the UK Computer Gurus because they're back from their September vacation and we should have a newsletter from them this weekend.

Here's C.I.'s latest on "Todd Purdum's Stinky Jock" (my title):

Todd Purdum and Neil A. Lewis file "Miers Known as a Hard-Working Advocate for the President" which is full of "news." Here's one example:

It has been a long time since Ms. Miers lacked encouragement, and for the last 12 years she has had the support of an important patron.

Is Todd trying to get a job at People? "It has been a long time since Ms. Miers lacked encouragement!" The first clause of the sentence screams for an exclamation point. Breathless writing?
You bet. Who can breathe when the fumes from Todd S. Purdum's smelly jock are wafting all around!
It gets better!

Ms. Miers has been a go-to person for Mr. Bush ever since, first as his appointee to the Texas State Lottery Commission, which she helped clean up; then as White House staff secretary, directing the flow of . . .

She helped clean it up!
Uh, Todd, get your fingers out of your jock and pick up the morning edition of your own paper.
Blumenthal's a little less sure than you are. Todd. Todd! Quit sniffing your fingers and read Blumenthal's article.

She is known among friends and associates as a hard-working and thorough advocate, someone staunchly loyal to Mr. Bush and possessing an unusual ability to remain calm and out of public view in the glare of the White House.

Friends don't trash her? It's "news"!!!!

What she is not known for are her personal views on the hottest legal and political issues of the day.

Has a more awkward sentence appeared in the Times this week? Well you can't type with two hands when you're sniffing the fingers of one. Purdum's grooving on his own funk, people. Cut him some slack.

"I think she's conservative in the sense that most lawyers are conservative, that she looks at the issues in that case," said Linda S. Eads, a professor at the Dedman School of Law at Southern Methodist University, from which Ms. Miers graduated and to which she returned as an adjunct professor. "I don't know her to be an ideologue."

Linda S. Eads. She's what, Todd?
Diane Ragsdale (an African-American woman) is identified as a "liberal Democrat" but all the white folks get a pass? Is that how it works, Todd?
Linda S. Eads. Served under Corny John Cornyn. Which means she served under Bully Boy. Why is she treated as impartial? Just a law professor, apparently. One who also fiercly supported Priscilla Owens but the article doesn't tell you that either. So she supported Owens and she was in the attorney general's office under Corny, under Bully.
Todd's surpassed himself today. He must have worn a cup, and not just a strap, while writing this one. Probably gathered all the other kids and went behind the fence with them so he could show off his jock and cup.












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Monday, October 03, 2005

Iraq and The Third Estate Sunday News Review

Here's my section from The Third Estate Sunday Review's news review. We're trying to make sure people know about the news review because it's a feature that Dona came up with and it's proved to be pretty popular. If someone's new, The Third Estate Sunday Review only publishes on Sunday. They're an online magazine. They were the second blog to spin off from The Common Ills. And C.I.'s a member of The Third Estate Sunday Review now. At first, it was just "I help out" but C.I. always helps out and C.I. and Ava do the TV reviews there so C.I. really is a part of it.

A lot of us help out. I help out when I can and I never get to make it to the end because I've always got to get to bed for church. They do this on Saturday nights and Sunday mornings and it's always an all nighter. So I usually bail half way through. But I'm glad to help out in my own little bit. I think, if nothing else, it helps to have one more African-American voice. Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Good Man helps out and Ty is a member of The Third Estate Sunday Review.

The news review is done like it's a radio or TV show. C.I. is anchor (and hates being anchor) and Dona and Jim are going around making sure everybody's got enough material and helping edit if time is short. They're really the producers. All of us doing reports know what we're going to say basically. C.I. has no clue what we're doing until right before when someone's finishing and Dona will whisper over the phone "Okay, Cedric's coming up and he's going to discuss Dahr's latest article on Iraq" and then C.I. will do the introduction and we'll do our report and C.I. may stop you in the middle to ask a question.

The reason for the news review is that it can take a little over an hour. We start at 15 minutes before and then once we start Dona's watching the time and she and Jim will say, "We're long, you'll need to lose a minute" or something similar. They stick to the hour because the whole point of Dona figuring out a new feature was to try to find something we could do that wouldn't take all night. By doing the news review like it is a radio or TV program, we're confined to the hour and that's it. At the end of the hour, it's over. If C.I.'s asking questions, sometimes it's because Dona's just whispered, "We're not ready, stretch." It's fun but I know C.I. would rather do a report and thinks it's just sitting there asking questions. I disagree because you need a strong anchor who has knowledge and if you read the thing and watch for the questions and realize that Dona's just said "stretch" and C.I. has to think "What do I ask or what do I say?"
you realize that you really need someone like that who can think on their feet.

My friends at the nursing home asked me yesterday about how we did this feature and when I got done explaining, they said I should just do a post about it.

They were wondering if we were assigned topics. That doesn't happen. Jess's parents are looking at stuff in the 15 minutes before, looking all over the web, and they'll tell us some topics and if we're interested in one of those, we can grab it. Most of the time, people have an idea of what they want. It might be a topic Jess's parents found or it might be something else. After we pick our topic, we tell Dona and Jim and they may ask, "Why do you think this is important?" After you explain why, they say, "Make sure you're making that point in your report." Kat always closes because she's really good at cutting. So if there's only 2 minutes or if there's 5 minutes, Kat can get up there and wing it. She doesn't even have to time her stuff. She asks Dona to tell her when there's 1 minute left and that's really all she needs.

I think it lets everyone bring something they're interested in to the table.

So once C.I. says "Welcome to The Third Estate Sunday Review News Review," the clock is ticking and everyone's rushing around. The person who's ready in the 15 minutes prior goes first and while that's going on the rest of us are working on our reports and Jim and Dona are checking and seeing if you need help finding stuff and Jess's parents are looking for your topic so it's a real group effort on research. Then it's up to you to figure out what to use and how to say it.

It's better to go early because you can do your full report. If you don't go early, you may get cut. So everyone tries to finish as quickly as possible. But sometimes it's hard to finish early and that's when you end closer to the end. Ava's usually ready early but she waits because she can do the edits easy if we're running short on time.

So that's the process and the story behind it. Now here's my section of the news review:


C.I.: Thank you, Elaine. Still on Iraq, we go to Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix. Cedric, you're focusing on Dahr Jamail, correct?
Cedric: Yes, on Dahr Jamail's most recent article,"Securitizing the Global Norm of Identity: Biometric Technologies in Domestic and Foreign Policy." Elaine just got finished discussing the latest torture revelations and noting how the techniques migrated from Latin America to Iraq.Dahr Jamail, unlike Dexter Filkins of The New York Times, has never shied from discussing realities in Falluja. The "pacification" techniques used in Falluja. As Elaine noted while we researching, the Falluja reporting also depended upon the mainstream accepting military statements as fact and refusing to give voice to the people of Falluja. Jamail writes:


Out of these ruins, occupation forces argued they were erecting a 'model
city', replete with a high-tech security infrastructure centered on biometric
identification strategies to manage returning citizens. Returnees are
fingerprinted, retina scanned, and issued a mandatory identity badge displaying
the individual's home address and collected biometric data.


Cedric (con't): People should be aware of this. They should question whether it's an "American" thing to do in order to "build democracy" and they should ask themselves how they'll respond when the technique migrate back to the United States with calls for a national i.d. card.
C.I.: Cedric, some may hear "biometric" and think, "What is that?" Retinal scans in the film The Minority Report may help illustrate but could you give some more examples.
Cedric: Certainly. Jamail goes into this and explains "the body as passport." Some examples of biometrics include facial scans, iris scans, digitized finger prints and things such as body heat emitting from the face. As Jamil points out, the debate over national security leads to some advocate similar tactics in this country.
C.I.: You mentioned the national i.d. card which would be hard to implement for a number of reasons, among which is the GOP's long so-called support of 'state rights'; however, the way around that has been to require that states develop their own i.d.s and do so under general guidelines. What are your thoughts there?
Cedric: As an African-American male, I worry that digitized cards will be one more technique to disqualify African-Americans. For instance, you go to vote, "Woops, your card doesn't read, you can't vote." The disenfranchisement in the last two presidential elections is enough to cause me to worry whenever a Republican controlled Congress wants to "help" America because some people get helped and some people get hurt and, from my viewpoint, it's the powerless that get hurt and a few years after the fact, the mainstream press can note that in passing while remaining silent in real time. I think you see that in the "pacified" areas in Iraq which result not in safety but in people losing homes and ending up living in tents as evacuees.
C.I.: Thank you, Cedric. With other updates from Iraq as the constitutional referendum approaches, we go to Mike of Mikey Likes It!









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Thursday, September 29, 2005

Dating, pioneers

That’s the way it goes I’m guessing. I was all ready to get on and find out that Blogger is down. I called Elaine to make sure she was seeing the same thing I was seeing and she was.
I told her I’d go into Microsoft Word and do my post and if she wanted to take the night off that was cool. She picks up Wednesdays for me. That’s a church night and you’ll probably never find anything here on a Wednesday night. So always just head on over to Like Maria Said Paz.

So we have a new blogger in the community. His name is Seth and he blogs at Seth in the City. I had planned to add him to my blogroll but now I don’t know. Blogger being down really screws up my plans. I’d thought I’d do an entry and then head on out for dinner at my aunt’s. We’re all going there because my cousin just got engaged.

This isn’t a formal dinner. That’ll come tomorrow night. But my aunt wanted to have everyone over from my cousin’s side of the family. I don’t know about other people and maybe I’m the only one who ever feels this way but . . .

I’m glad for my cousin. He’s got a great woman who loves him and she’s got a great man who loves her. I have no problem being with them. But I do have a problem being with the family during events like this because I’ll hear, "When are you getting married?"

When I find the right woman. Haven’t found her and I’m not desperate to. I date and there are some nice ladies but it’s just not been where you think, "Okay, I want to spend all my life with her."

I said that to this aunt last time when another cousin got married this summer and she grabbed pen and paper and started saying we were going to make a list and then find me someone. I don’t think you go shopping with a list. It happens when it happens.

If I was shopping, it would be probably someone like Betty and that’s not me trying to make a clumsy pass. But Betty’s the sort of woman if I was looking for a type and not that moment when you know "This is the one." She’s pretty, she’s got a great laugh, she’s obviously great with her kids and she’s just really interested in the world.

I can find pretty and beautiful real easy. But it’s not that easy to find someone who’s interested in the world. Two weeks ago, I was out with a woman and she said she’d heard I liked current events. I’m sure my eyebrows shot up because I know I was eager to hear what she was going to talk about.

Turns out that she wanted to talk about this man who’d killed someone or someones in his family. So I listen and wait thinking she’s going to talk about domestic abuse or something like that. But all she did was talk about the gruesome details. She says, "And I love CSI!"
So that date went no where. I don’t care for CSI and you can read Ava & C.I.’s review of CSI Miami to figure out why. I just don’t like those shows and the way we’re supposed to root for the trampling of people’s rights. 24 is just disgusting and I can’t stand that show either.

But I’m not someone who thinks talking about blood stains on the carpet is talking about current events. Maybe I’m crazy or the only one who feels that way but that’s how I feel.
If she’d even done a Headline News kind of thing where she just tossed out factoids and didn’t offer anything of her own, I might have thought about asking her out again. But it was one hour and ten minutes about the crime scene and about her going, "I just can’t believe it! Can you believe it?" every five minutes.

Usually, when it’s obvious that I’m with someone who doesn’t know one thing about the world around them, I’ll try to talk about music. That’s a waste of time too. Unless I want to hear about Little Kim’s trial. Or probably this week, hear about Diana Ross’ DUI bust. Paul Mooney did a thing on that on BET this week. Maybe you saw it, maybe you didn’t. But I agreed with Steve Harvey about it being disrespectful to Tracee Ross who was sitting out front.

I also felt like, that was two years ago. Is that the best Mooney can do? A joke built around something that happened two years ago?

I’m sorry Diana Ross had a drinking problem. Since she’s not been arrested since, I’ll assume she’s gotten help.

But the woman’s been making music since the early 60s. She had her first hit in 1964. That’s over forty years of being a public personality. I don’t think one arrest is that big of a deal. Alcoholism is a disease and she obviously had a problem. It’s not really about who she is to the black community.

Even if Tracee Ross hadn’t been out there, I still would have thought Mooney was tasteless. I hear a lot of jokes about Smokey Robinson’s hairstyle in the Dr. Pepper commercials and it did look weird. If Mooney was doing a joke on Diana Ross like that, I might have laughed. But to pick a moment from two years ago that was disappointing and to be making fun of her like that. I just felt like he was crapping where he eats. He was coming and trashing someone who really broke barriers for us.

Glen Campbell got busted and they had crazy photos of him all over the net. That’s more recent. Why didn’t he make fun of Campbell?

It just seemed to me like there was a line and he crossed it.

There are nothing disappointments for African-Americans, he doesn’t have to dig two years back or try to burn a pioneer to get a cheap laugh. I quit watching Saturday Night Live because Maya Rudolph was always doing Diana Ross skits. I didn’t think they were funny or even well thought out. I felt like she thought, "I put on this wig and I play with the hair and act stupid and it’ll be so funny."

I wonder how she’d feel if that was Minnie Ripperton someone on Saturday Night Live was making fun of. In case anyone reading this doesn’t know, Minnie Ripperton was Maya Rudolph’s mother.

There are enough attacks on the black community without us needing to hear them from members of the community. Diana Ross was busted once. Why is it a big deal? Christian Slater’s been busted how many times and I don’t see people doing jokes about that. And Christian Slater’s not even a big star.

Diana Ross is a big thing. She never needs another hit, we’ll always know she came out in a time when black people didn’t have a lot of crossover success. She and the Supremes got on Ed Sullivan a lot. Her group was second only to the Beatles for having number 1s in the 60s. That’s a big thing. She went on to a solo career, had more hits, got an Oscar nomination (which Halle Berry didn’t mention in her long acceptance speech – probably the only woman Halle didn’t mention), raised three daughters into beautiful strong women and is still raising two sons.
There have been highs and lows but she’s like the black community, we keep on going. So hearing Paul Mooney dig two years into the past for stale jokes to attack a pioneer with just rubbed me the wrong way. I also felt sorry for her daughter Tracee who was in the audience with the camera on her while Mooney was mouthing off and making a jack ass of himself.

Steve Harvey said he would have slugged anyone who talked about his mother like that. I think if Tracee had done anything other than sit there, the press would have been all over it. If she’d gotten up and walked out, the headlines would be "Prima Dona Tracee Ross Storms Out of BET Celebration!" If she’d done like Harvey, it would have been "Tracee Ross? No, Trashy Ross! Ross Slugs Paul Mooney."

I think she was in a difficult situation and you saw that Ross and others in her family had taught her to hold her head high and conduct herself correctly. I don’t think there was anything else she could have done.

But I think Paul Moodey owes her an apology and I don’t think he was funny.

Blogger’s still not up. I didn’t plan to write about Tracee Ross tonight. I was going to do some links and note some stuff that members have been doing at their sites. But I’m going to have to hit the door in a bit. If I have to leave before Blogger’s up, I’ll post this when I get back. It’ll be late so I won’t be adding to it.

Go read Betty's "Thomas Friedman's Endgame Should Start With A Shower," Mike's interview with Betty, Rebecca's "Christine & Pop Politics" Ava & C..I.'s "TV Review: Three Wishes," Kat's "Kat's Korner: Stones Keep Rolling," Ruth's latest "Ruth's Morning Edition Report" and C.I.'s "Quick note." And Elaine's "The gloom of the world is but a shadow." She did that yesterday and it's amazing.

And let me just swipe from C.I. because I've got to run out the door.

From "'Why Are You Here' and 'What's Changed'" (The Third Estate Sunday Review's voices from the protests in D.C. article), we're again noting Benny with apologies that he was overlooked. Thanks to Shirley for catching that.
87) Benny, 17, high school student: For the first time it feels like maybe a difference can come. We're studying about government and it really seems wild and out there but it's about us and I guess Cindy Sheehan drives that point home to me. So I am here for that reason and the change is that people wake up and you can see it in my class. We're debating and discussing what does free speech mean and what are your duties to be an American and stuff that I have never taken time to think on and it just seems real and connected to me. Maybe it's selfish and all too because we got the guys on campus goin, "Sign up and we'll take care of you. Free college." All these promises and you ask about war and like injuries and they don't talk about it. They brush you off or say, "You just watch out for yourself and you're fine." And I bet the 1900 men and women who are dead were watching out but that didn't save them. So it's just a lot to think about and maybe having government this year drives it home.



















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Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Back Home and Blogging

I didn't post last night. I was tired when I got back from D.C. and I had promised the guys at the nursing home that I drop by and tell them all about it. So last night, that's what happened.
I thought it would be an hour but it ended up being three. It was a great visit but I was wiped out.

They care, my three friends. They did their own protest at their nursing home. They're good looking men so they had some ladies helping them out too. They took pictures of their Saturday protest and they were showing me those and I was so proud of them.

I'm not just saying this because they'll be reading it. But they will be reading it because we raised enough money at the church to get them their own laptops. I was so happy about that. I didn't have time to check on that before I left but I knew there was enough for one laptop. But the church really showed them how much they mattered to the congregation and kicked in heavy and hard.

It's also led to the start of a program. Most of us switch computers. And we toss out our old ones or sell them. If we toss them out, they're just going to a landfill.

So from now on, when a church member is upgrading to a new computer, the older one will be given to an elderly person. That'll be great. And my best friend who kept saying, "Well I don't know how to talk to old people" and using that as an excuse signed up to be the one who teaches them how to use their computers. I had asked him to visit on Sunday afternoon because that's one of my usual visiting times but I was in D.C. He visited Saturday and Sunday. Saturday with our preacher and his family to bring them the laptops and then he spent most of the day getting them set up and showing them how to use it.

They were e-mailing each other Saturday. "Is this working" and that sort of thing. They have e-mail down. And my friend Carlton's coming back this Sunday to check them more tricks.

We have a bulletin board at our church. Everyone checks it out on Sundays but it updates all the time. So if you're not coming in for a group or a choir rehearsal or a Wednesday night service, you can miss some things. My preacher's oldest daughter is going to e-mail out the items on Mondays and Fridays to all of our older members with computers so that they can know who's selling what, who's had a baby, who's in need of what and all that.

Guess what they did Saturday night? They listened to The Laura Flanders Show. Online. Their first time hearing that. C.I. had noted it Saturday morning and they wanted to check it out. I didn't hear it because we were still taking part in activism and the fun when it came on but they said she did a great job and had all these people on talking about the protests. They were really impressed with a state senator but they didn't know her name and I haven't heard the show yet.

I got an earful about my site. They said, "You didn't blog since Thursday!" I told them that I blog when I have the time and that I thought I would be blogging but it didn't happen and then there were all the problems with The Third Estate Sunday Review stuff getting lost in posting.

But one thing I did do last night was e-mail Gina and Krista. They wanted to know if they could get signed up for the gina & krista round-robin. Gina and Krista had closed off that a week or two ago. And that is a firm cut off. I knew that, I respected that. But like I told them in my e-mail, these are great guys, they just got online Saturday, they want the round-robin and it would mean a lot to me if they could get it.

So this morning, I'm rushing around trying to get ready for work and the phone rings and it's Gina and she said this once they can waive the cut off. She said not again. She said if someone else at my church wants it, they'll have to get the guys to foward the ones they're sent. But she said these guys are practically part of the community already because we've heard about them and they're like family so this one time.

Thank you, Gina and Krista. This is going to make them so happy.

They really are great. I asked Carlton what they talked about because his big excuse has been he doesn't know what to talk to "old people" about. He said if they were all like my three friends, he'd have no problem. My guys are the best but I bet he'll find out when he starts teaching other people how to use computers, that there are many people out there he can talk to and they've got interesting stories and thoughts.

They had one complaint about C.I. and it was, "Are we supposed to go to all these links?" I told them no and that the whole point of the pull quotes was to give you the information that C.I. or whichever member selected it thought was most important. "So it's like a greatest hits 8-track?" That made me laugh. (Still does.) Exactly. You can just read the pull quotes. A lot of members do that.

They said Mike makes them laugh and they loved the competition between Mike and Rebecca over who was going to declare themselves president with Bully Boy out of D.C. The big surprise to me on Monday night was that they each got e-mails from C.I. They were using the published address and they tell me that they e-mailed C.I. to say how much they liked The Common Ills. I was trying to explain to them that C.I. was still in D.C. for most of the day Monday and that C.I. wasn't checking that account so don't be upset about not hearing a reply yet and they asked me what I was talking about?

C.I. had already written them.

They played it off real cool at first and then they started laughing. They said they had figured it would be a few days before they heard anything so they were surprised too. They were also pleased about having the private address for members because C.I. told them to use that from now on. So they were saying, "We're members now." They are members now. They better start looking for some things to share with the community. I also told them they should think about starting a site. They don't think anyone would be interested. I told them Ruth used to feel that way too and now she does Ruth's Morning Edition Report. They read that Saturday.

I didn't. I am so far behind and need to catch up. But they read it and they were asking about Ruth and Tracey. Mainly they were asking why Ruth didn't think anyone would be interested because they really like her writing. I tried to tell them that the same thing applied to them but they aren't convinced. I'll keep working on them though.

Tomorrow I've got church so there won't be a post. But tomorrow Elaine will be posting at Like Maria Said Paz and she's grabbing Wednesdays at her site so I don't have to feel guilty about always missing them. Rebecca will be blogging tomorrow as well so people should check out Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude. And let me plug my good friends Mike and Betty. Tomorrow Mike will have an interview with Betty at his site Mikey Likes It! So there will be a lot to read without me.
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Monday, September 19, 2005

Rebecca, the heat and C.I. on Iraq

One guy wrote me about Rebecca's "potty mouth" in the Sunday thing they did at The Common Ills. I read it and I didn't have a problem with it. If it had been up at Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude, Rebecca's site, it would have contained a lot more language, explicit.

The guy's got a problem with Rebecca. I don't. He tries to lure me into some debate about Christianity and I'm sorry but my Bible doesn't say "Thou Shall Stab Your Friends In The Back."

I like Rebecca. I like what she says. I like how she says it.

Hope everyone had a good weekend. I don't know. Sunday, at church, I was worrying because we've got air conditioning in our church but the older ladies had their fans out, which isn't uncommon, but they were "glowing" (never tell an older black woman she's "sweating" unless you know she won't be offended) while a lot of the older guys were looking really warmed over too.

My preacher is going to have someone come out and look at the air conditioning because it didn't get very cool in there. Hopefully, it just needs something minor. But it was pretty warm in there. A lot of the older people really need the air conditioning. Some of them don't have any in their homes or, because of tight budgets, can't afford to use it.

If they don't have any, the church tries to get them fans. Not one fan because no old person is going to park themselves in front of a fan all day. If they're living on their own or with a spouse or a friend, they've got stuff to do in the kitchen, stuff to do in the living room. So the church always tries to provide them with three fans.

There's a very sweet older woman at the church who kept saying no the fans because she wanted a boxed fan. The preacher and his wife showed her how the oscilating fan worked better because it moved around and how she could pull up the little lever and make it stay in place.
They visit her a week later and she's got the white levers up on all of them. Why? Because "all that turning can't be good." She thought she would wear it out.

Which reminds me of a story my friend Vern used to tell. It was 1987 and he and his wife had just gotten a new TV because the old one wasn't working. The picture was leaning sideways forever and then the picture and sound just went out. I remembered the kind of TV he was describing and you may too, you had this strip of metal buttons that you touched, not pressed down and you could go up and down the channels. The new TV had a remote and it scared him to death changing channels. Back in his day, you changed channels by turning the knob on the TV set and every time you turned it to a new channel, the picture would jump. So you didn't turn it all that much in Vern's house. Then with the one with touch buttons, it was a little easier. But that was the first time, on the TV set he got in 1987, that they could surf without any concerns. He said he hated it. Said it was better in the old day where you sat through something boring maybe but you saw the whole thing.

I miss Vern a lot. I'm worried about the other three guys at the nursing home because I know they miss him too. The choir director's wife was telling me Sunday that when you got a group of friends like that and one dies, the other's seem to follow after. I hope that's not true.

We hit 1900 U.S. military deaths in Iraq. Made me think of what C.I. wrote Saturday:

I'll note Richard A. Oppel Jr., Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker's "Baghdad Bombings Raise Anew Questions About U.S. Strategy in Iraq" (which is credited with this note: "This article was reported and written by Richard A. Oppel Jr., Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker."):

Although the attacks in Baghdad suggest that there may be cells of insurgents there, or at least that they can sneak into the city to plant bombs, senior officials at the Pentagon and in Iraq say they believe that Mr. Zarqawi and the insurgency's "center of gravity" is now in the bends and towns of the Euphrates River valley near the Syrian border.
Commanders say they plan to squeeze the Zarqawi leadership and Iraqi insurgents in those areas. Throughout the spring and summer marines and Army forces staged raids into those same towns, confiscating weapons and killing scores of insurgents. But many fighters melted into the countryside, and there were not enough coalition troops to keep a sufficient presence in the villages.
Commanders say new offensives in Anbar Province in coming weeks will be modeled on the siege of Tal Afar, which used 8,500 American and Iraqi troops.
"You will see the same thing down along the Euphrates Valley to push back out and restore Iraqi control to the area around Qaim," Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top American commander in Iraq, said in an interview in Baghdad. General Casey said the Iraqi forces had little control of the country's border with Syria on either side of Qaim, a desolate town on the Euphrates.

Why am I noting it? I think we should remember what "commanders" say in this piece for a future date. Also we've dropped to the figure "8,500" (the one Elaine noted was consistent with other reporting but inconsistent with the Times' claim on Sunday [11,000]). And because "you will see the same thing." Not what's reported in the Times, but the same actions in Tal Afar that you saw in Falluja will be repeated elsewhere. Unlike the optimists quoted in the report, this will not be the end of it (even with death squads) but fuel for more rage.

Hopefully, Christian Parenti was correct and the Times reporters (at least Dexter Filkins) are aware that there is reality and then there is the spin that's characterized too many reports from the paper. We're told, by commanders who lead in the story, that Iraqis are cooperating to halt the insurgency (they're supposedly outraged by the violence). We've heard that claim before. We heard that claim, in fact, before we invaded.

It's offered as new and developing as though we've all acquired early senility and forgotten all that's come before. And we're also supposed to believe not only that in choosing between their own citizens and the occupiers, Iraqis are siding with the Operation Enduring Falsehood "coalition," but that they're ratting them out.

"Secretarian" wasn't a word that popped up much in the limited Tal Afar coverage in the Times. But it's worth noting the term. No doubt many sects are turning on each other (some believe that has been the US plan). But the idea that a country of people embraces an invader over their own people goes against history and political theory. Today commanders present it as fact.Here are the facts. Violence rages still. Violence has not been "subdued." It is unlikely that it will be "subdued" with these actions. We could let Negroponte unleash all the death squads his heart may desire but everyone that's killed will be replaced with friends and family. That's how a resistance breeds. That's historical.

There is no "subduing." This isn't a state in the United States (though certain policies seem to attempt to make it that). This is a foreign country. And to the citizens the US is a foreign force.They will argue and fight amongst themselves and we may prove momentarily effective at playing them off one another but not in the long term. In the long term, they want us out and they will not be "subdued" or "channeled." This isn't an issue of "Give us ___!" whatever service. This is an issue of autonomy and it won't go away while we're there.

Our presence only adds to the problems. "Fine tuners" will no doubt trumpet today's claims by commanders with choruses of "See!" I'm not sure what they think they're seeing (possibly the happy talk the Times portrays and gives far too much weight to -- though give the paper credit for clearly identifying who reported what), but it's an ahisotrical approach (and, bluntly, an ignorant one) to think that this is a turning point in the favor of Operation Enduring Falsehood.

"Winning" defined by the terms of the administration will mean more massive killings and they may delay certain attacks, maybe planned ones in the works, but this is how a resistance breeds.If you and I argue over the tree in the middle of both of our properties, I may kill you and claim the tree. Before I claim victory, I better be prepared to kill everyone close to you and everyone who's not pleased that I moved into the neighborhood.

We're talking a Biblical slaughter (term used intentionally). No baby Moses better be floated down a river.If I don't kill everyone then they will be there to tell what happened, to stroke the outrage and to encourage it.

There is no turned corner here. Suggesting there is requires a denial of history and a denial of how a resistance operates. That a nation (the US) supposedly so consumed with the Bible can't grasp the basics suggests that maybe they might need to read a little more closely. Otherwise, cries of "Let my people go" may come as a shock to them.

These are points that are raised later in the article, after the happy talk:

But independent analysts suggest that the strategy of driving the insurgents from urban centers and trying to capture or kill as many as possible, aiming especially at leaders, may be flawed. The violence in Baghdad is only one problem. Another is that the fighting may work against the search for political consensus among Iraqis.

Whether it was an editorial decision or one on the part of the journalists, pushing reality down into the article, as opposed to leading with it, was a mistake.In terms of past reporting, however, I'll give the writers (and the paper) credit for noting reality somewhere in the article. You lead with the most important information, however, and happy talk isn't important to anyone but the people spinning. Readers need reality from the start.

If I reassemble the article on my own, there are few quarrels I have with it. (As always with the paper, the reliance on "official sources" would be a quarrel I have with the article.) For a Times piece it's a strong one. But as assembled, weighted with happy talk at the start, it's not as strong as it should be.

A daily paper wants to provide you with a sense of "This just happened!" so possibly it's a problem with the form itself? However, I'd suggest that the opening paragraph could have been written in such a way that we'd have both history and what the military is spinning today.

Hopefully, this is a sign of stronger reporting to come from the Times.
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As a member of The Common Ills community, I've got to say, I have always enjoyed it best when C.I. addresses the issue of Iraq.
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