Enjoy Isaiah's comic but, warning, I've got a cold and am doped on cold medicine

I started to blog about four hours ago now. I even had this screen up the whole time. But Kat called and I heard Jill Scott in the background: Who Is Jill Scott? We ended up talking about that CD for about an hour. I didn't even know Kat was a huge Jill Scott fan. I really am too, just something about her voice.

I like a wide variety of music but of people who've come out in the last few years, Scott's probably one of my favorites.

So I got off the phone with Kat, forgot I was online, ended up putting on some Jill Scott and trying to clean the place. I sometimes feel like I must be the last person in my area without a dishwasher. I live in an older complex from the sixties and none of us have dish washers. I liked the place when I was looking at it and always had a dish washer before so it didn't even register that there would be work involved. In case anyone wonders, there's no room to have a dishwasher put in my kitchen (about why I don't buy my own and have it put it in).

There tearing down some of the complexes around and putting up condos. I think sometimes that I should move but I really like the place. It's got a lived in feeling and I'll probably stay until it gets sold and torn down.

But no dish washer . . .

I always worries about bugs, specifically ants & roaches. In college, a group of us decided sophomore year to get an apartment together. It was like living with Lenny Kravitz! (That was a joke and I like Lenny's music.) But you had this one guy who would just leave food lying out for days in his room. He'd do it in the living room but one of the three of us would usually toss it out if we saw pizza sitting on the coffee table. We ended up with this swarm of ants and "swarm" probably isn't the right word. Army?

That's the only time in my life I've ever had bug problems but I'm always paranoid. And with work, church, friends and family, I don't always make it home with a lot of energy. I fix something quick in the microwave and then eat it. I'm usually not up to washing it then and just want to get to bed. So I'll put the dishes in the fridge. This was a busy week so when I remembered I needed to do dishes, there was a pile of stuff in the fridge.

So that was my evening. It's cold out and I've got a cold. Valentine's was great, I've started seeing a woman pretty regularly and we had a pretty good time but she didn't dress for the weather. She looked great, don't get me wrong. She was stylish because we were going to her favorite place which has a pretty strict dress code. But she may have been hurrying or she may not have thought she had a coat that matched or I don't know what. But when we finished eating and left, it was even colder than when we went in, so I gave her my jacket to wear. (And would again.) But I ended up with a cold and was just going to stay in tonight and try to get over it because it's one of those sniffles and light sneezes you carry around all week and can't shake -- the kind that if they continue turns into a really nasty cold which it started to do right before lunch today so I'm doped up on cold medicine and feeling lightheaded.

Probably not the best time to blog but I try to blog twice a week. Usually Tuesdays and Thursdays. But with V-Day falling on Tuesday, no offense to anyone, blogging could wait.
Betty had a funny comment. She said that she, Kat and me are kind of like the characters on a soap opera on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The audience likes them and enjoys them but Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, they're focused on the heavy hitters. That would be people like Mike, Elaine, Rebecca and Wally. C.I.? Betty goes, "That would be the soap star because C.I.'s got a minimum of three posts a day at The Common Ills." True that.

I wish I had that kind of . . . I can't call it time because I've probably got more time than C.I. does. So I'll call it focus. C.I. can juggle and focus. (And go without sleep.)

And like Elaine pointed out recently at her site:

I always assume every reader who reads this site is coming here via one of the community sites and that we're all on the same page. However, a reader wondered why I take Saturday and Sunday off?I don't know that I truly do. Most Saturday nights/early Sunday mornings, I'm am helping out with The Third Estate Sunday Review. I see that site as an online magazine, if you're new to it.

That's really true. Because we all do work on those things. And we get credit for it. But I think sometimes people just visit our sites and think something like, "Oh Betty didn't do much this week." When the truth is we put in between 10 and 16 hours at The Third Estate Sunday Review.

But maybe we don't do enough to point that out? Betty can't because she has to write in character at her site. But for me, this was supposed to be like Trina's Kitchen in that Trina's doing one entry a week. This was never supposed to be a daily site.

But I'm a member of The Common Ills community and a lot of times members are nervous about sharing -- sometimes for good reasons. Billie e-mailed me to follow up on our phone conversation and asked me if I was aware that Trash had mentioned members at her site?
Nope. I didn't go there really. Like I said, it took too long for that site to load and usually you got an error message when it did try to load.

But like C.I. would always tell me when I was nervous about sharing there, "If you mispell a word, make a typo, leave out a word, whatever, it's not the end of the world. You live. Life goes on." Sometimes I think C.I. makes typos intentionally sometimes just to foster the DYI spirit.
(Rebecca suspects that too.) The whole point of The Common Ills, besides being a resource/review, was to encourage people to use their voices. And C.I.'s fostered that and done a great job of it. Most members won't hesitate to do something for the gina & krista round-robin when Gina, Krista or C.I. ask. But they're still hesitant about doing entries at The Common Ills. If nothing else, I've proved at my site that anyone can put stuff out there.

You live. You may see a name mispelled and think, "How did I get that wrong?" but you live. I'm the only member whose name C.I. has mispelled, by the way. This was like a year ago. C.I. put a "k" at the end of my name and didn't notice it until a member e-mailed on it. I told C.I. to leave it. It's just a typo and correcting it goes against the whole feel, in my opinion.

Plus we'd just gone through the nightmare corrections/additions. Some members were offended by C.I.'s note thinking, "Why talk about members like that?" But C.I. wasn't talking about members. It was an entry on our favorite books. Besides including members, C.I. had also invited some sites that members like to participate. One blogger did a huge list, I found out about this from Rebecca, and the blogger didn't have the titles right. C.I. tried to provide links for every book mentioned and it was a pain in the butt to try to find out these obscure books. But C.I. did it. The list finally goes up. And?

This is where we see the note a day or two later. Where C.I. says, "If you e-mail your choices, that's your choices" or something similar. And if you looked at the entry, you saw that blogger had a huge list of books by the name. That blogger had read the entry when it went up and because one member had given a children's book, the blogger wanted to add seven favorite children's books as well as five other books. A lot of them did get added, though not all. Titles were wrong again.

But that was a headache and a half. I wouldn't have done it. I have little time to blog as it is and I don't need to be going into old entries and fixing typos or adding something someone forgot to pick.

It's weird to think of how large the community is. When I started reading The Common Ills it was right after Thanksgiving of 2004 and it was already starting to grow. I think I started blogging around the time West got attacked and C.I. and Rebecca stood up for West (which cost C.I. a link). [If you're not a community member, West is under 18. He blogged at a site and got nasty e-mails saying he better apologize and take back his criticism or the sites he'd plugged in his link -- two in the community, two outside of it -- would never be mentioned again. In addition, the site was trying to get dirt on him by sending out e-mails asking for dirt.]

Like any other member, I'm impressed with what C.I. does and what the community stands for. The fact that C.I. was willing to give up a big link because it was more important to stand up for a kid was just . . . so C.I. I mean, really, it's just so social justice, so "I will not be silent while someone is attacked." And the kid wasn't even a member of the community. He'd never e-mailed The Common Ills or Rebecca before all this happened. But you know C.I. always sticking up for the underdog/little guy. So I thought, "Damn, that's the kind of thing I should be showing my support for." So I thought, "Okay, I create a site and that replaces the link lost."

So I did that. That was my only point. I figured I'd do a community blog report and show you some stuff from the other sites but not really write about stuff on my own.

But when I started out as a member, there was one site and look how large the community is. You've got ten sites, you've got the weekly round-robin, the biweekly newsletter from the UK Gurus.

That's pretty amazing. And I just remembered Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts so let me put his comic from Sunday up at the top of this post.

Isaiah added another element to the community because he lets all of us use his visuals anytime we want to. He says, "You don't have to ask."

A lot of sites post comics from newspapers and I enjoy seeing that. But if anyone ever wants to crack down, they might use that as a reason. So the community has their own cartoonist. And if you think about it, even with Isaiah taking a vacation and needing time off sometimes, he's easily done 52 illustrations and comics by now. He's really talented. Sometimes he doesn't have time and sometimes he's blocked for something to draw. But hasn't he created some amazing stuff?
I love his work. It has an edge that really makes me laugh. Anytime he does something for the round-robins, he'll do a little write up explaining it, and saying that if anyone else wants to do some illustrations as well, that's cool with him, but we're all kind of awe of him.

He's had some great ones, not just make you laugh ones, but some really great ones. If you ask him, he'll tell you those are the worst because he ends up blocked after out of intimidation and a feeling of, "I can't top that." He marvels at the fact that C.I.'s never taken a day off. (We're all hoping C.I. will take a day off. No one deserves it more.) He says he couldn't do that, day after day, the way C.I. does. But C.I. will say you just accept that everything's not going to be perfect, give it the best that you have at that time and move on to the next day.

The one at the top is one of my favorites. It's hard to chose "the" favorite because they're so many great ones. But that's funny and makes a point about signing statements. I'm going to end this because the cold medicine is really making drowsy but somewhere in this entry I wrote that the community has ten sites now. That's wrong. It's eleven.

the world today just nuts

signing statements

signing statement

bully boy

comic

the common ills

the third estate sunday review

kats korner

like maria said paz

sex and politics and screeds and attitude

cedrics big mix

the daily jot

mikey likes it

thomas friedman is a great man

trinas kitchen

You drop the Trash at the curb and let it go

Do people "get it"? Nope.

I got a number of e-mails on "the Scold." I think, "Good riddance to bad trash." You're talking about someone who has this image of herself as "inclusive" but she's not. Trust me, as an African-American, the few times I've gone to her site I've seen White world, White world, White world.

She's jerking off with lame topics every entry.

It's her loss, not the community.

I avoided talking to C.I. about this because judging from the tone of the e-mails I've received a number of you are calling for some sort of statement. I didn't want C.I. to think I was one more person saying, "So what are you going to write?"

There's no need to write anything. She's a White woman (girl?) living in a White world that wants to get on her soapbox about what people aren't writing about (important stuff) and then can't even follow her own scolding advice the next time she blogs.

She's nothing. She's trash. The first time my grandmother ever said that, I was shocked. I was probably about seven or eight and I said, "Grandma, God made all of us equal." She agreed with me but she said when someone wants to hold back others, they're "trash."

There are a lot of ways to hold back others. The most popular way is silence. She practices silence with regards to race. She won't note an African-American, she won't blog about an issue that has to do with the African-American community.

I'm looking at two forwarded e-mails. The first one basically says, "I felt like you just pulled the welcome mat" and it's to the Scold. Then the Scold writes back, basically, "I didn't pull the welcome mat!" She did exactly that and she did it a long time ago.

Who cares what her problem is? Who cares if she's pissed off that C.I. linked to Joan Mellen's
"HOW THE FAILURE TO IDENTIFY, PROSECUTE AND CONVICT PRESIDENT KENNEDY'S ASSASSINS HAS LED TO TODAY'S CRISIS OF DEMOCRACY"? Who cares if she's pissed off because the sun was shining on on her empty inbox at the start of the week or because she woke up with a boil on her butt?

That's what my grandmother means by "trash." Someone's poor, they're not trash. They're homeless, they're not trash. Someone's trying to hold others back, they are trash. That woman is trash. Forget the rest of the world for a second, in this country things aren't that great. They're not great for African-Americans, they're not great for gays and lesbians, they're not great for single-parent families. They really aren't great for anyone.

Now if someone's sole concern is herself and in whining day after day about herself, that should tell you something. If, in all her whinings or false claims (I especially laughed at her claim to be 'the one' promoting media from outside of the United States -- I think we all know which site dedicates Sundays to that) she can't write about the reality beyond her own comfort zone, she's trash because there are people fighting for survivial, forget their rights, just fighting for survival.
And she's not interested in that. As she promotes herself as some sort of 'progressive' or whatever the popular term is, she's playing the same handbook that always gets played.

At the risk of being rude to the community, this nonsense destroyed a great entry. You've got a taste of it in "Other Items" this morning. If you read the tail end of that entry, you know what we missed out on. I know very well because it actually happened in the book discussion before last. Jim said, "That's too strong to go up here, it belongs at The Common Ills." Because it's C.I.'s point to make and C.I. should get the credit for making it.

So the whole thing got pulled and those of us in the discussion have waited and waited for that to go up. It should have gone up last night. That was the plan last weekend. Instead C.I.'s dealing with "nonsense" (I agree with that word choice) that has nothing to do with The Common Ills. Trash wants to do something "attention-seeking" (as Elaine pointed out) and we're supposed to stop everything to address that?

Mike angry and I understand that and understand why others are too. But I asked Mike to take Nina out, have some fun tonight and then, when he gets back, read my entry before he posts. I'm not angry. The word that describes what I feel is "relief." Why?

I don't think she was worth being linked to and now she's not. Good riddance. Trash was taken to the curb and it no longer pollutes the community.

There was never a welcome mat put out to the community. That was obvious when she attacked C.I. and Ava for highlighting an important front page story from the New York Times.
Now they highlighted it on Sunday, when it ran in the paper. On Monday, the paper's article was the talk of the net. Trash had already trashed Ava and C.I. on Sunday with some distorted reasoning of how it didn't matter (the story). Well the article did matter. But did you see her scream at anyone else that week for noting that story? No. She shut up on that.

The few times I'd read her (which were honestly in copy & paste e-mails, her site had huge troubles loading), she was obviously pulling that nonsense again. Like when she was screaming about the "free speech rights" of military recruiters - after C.I. had written repeatedly that recruiters do not have free speech rights. She was just trying to stir things up all along. She's a bitter person and we're all better off now that we don't have to worry about her.

Elaine told me that C.I.'s biggest concern was Billie and Wally. Billie because she did her Black History Month highlight the night before The Common Ills was pulled. I talked to Billie and she told me, "If my writing's that bad, so sorry, kiss my ass." I agree. If Billie's writing was a problem for the woman, and it more than likely was because she's one of those 'I am color blind!' types, then get gone. Don't let the screen door hit you where the good Lord slit you, but get gone.

I talked to Wally and he said C.I. had spoken to him in the same way Billie's phone call went. 1) Are you okay? 2) Would it help you if I posted something about this or would it make it worse for you? 3) Read _'s writing and think about the lack of quality before you question your own.

We're better off without linking to her. The woman is just evil. She's trash. In one entry a week, Ruth does more than that woman does in a month. Trash drags you down. You can try to make peace with it or to be tolerant but what's the point?

If someone's a racist, they're a racist. You're better off not associating with them.

So we're better off and she never resulted in anyone e-mailing The Common Ills (according to
Jess and Ava). The Common Ills didn't grow because of links. It grew because of the passion of the members. Now that passion is being misdirected. It's being directed to a "You must comment" movement. Why?

Why does C.I. have to comment on everything? Older members will remember we went through nonsense with Frank in Orlando. We'd have to constantly put everything on hold because he'd be ticked off and whining. And people were getting sick of it.

I think the energy is wrongly directed again. Trash is gone, rejoice.

Don't get bogged down in nonsense.

Did you read KeShawn's entry last night? It's funny and it makes some strong points. KeShawn almost pulled it because of this nonsense. He was worried what Trash might write. Guess what, Trash and all her Trashy brothers and sisters, will write whatever. It doesn't have a thing to do with what we're doing or what we're emphasizing.

If past experiences are any indication, C.I. could care less about Trash. But when everyone tries to draw C.I. into something, it is draining. When there's a community issue, C.I. goes through every darn e-mail. A few people who e-mailed today were noting C.I.'s comments in the replies that got sent out last night. Did you not get the point? Trash doesn't matter.

We do what we do in this community and we're not obligated to anyone. If someone delinks, too damn bad for them. It was a different issue when Kat was attacked. That was someone actively sticking their claws out. Trash isn't even a worthy opponent.

Her nonsense was as weak ass as everything else she does. So let's rejoice that we never have to hear anymore of her dithering thoughts about the White race (because that's all she could write about) and stay focused on what's important.

Today, Margaret Kimberly wrote about "Haliburton Detention Centers" and, if you think about it, the only other place you probably remember focusing on that was The Common Ills. That's what the really important voices do. They catch what could fall through the cracks otherwise. But C.I. won't be able to catch anything if everyone's screaming, "You must respond!"

Everyone needs to speak in their own voices online. And if they do, and they're honest, you'll realize quickly whether you're welcome there or not of if the person has anything worth saying.
Trash had a long list of topics that people should be writing about but Trash never wrote about them. Didn't we just go over this on Sunday at The Third Estate Sunday Review with "Cowardly Journalism Review (Parody)"? Those people make themselves useless.

I mean look at Trash's book reviews and you'll note that her idea of politics is Al Franken. That says a lot about her level. She has to read commentary because she can't handle actual ideas. For all her soap boxing, she can't go beyond Baby's First Political Reader. Ask her who Bayard Rustin was and she'll probably have to do a Google search before she can answer. And she fancies herself an "intellectual" while she reads those dumb-downed books (all by White males).
Where does she steer you? To a newspaper story. You seeing a big suport for indymedia there because I'm not.

She thinks NPR is alternative media obviously. She's another pampered, White woman who thinks she gets the news she needs from NPR's canned programming. A few minutes is about all the attention she can give to an issue and she needs the calming, White voice of NPR to serve her up the news. Her apartment probably smells like patchouli oil and is covered with cat hair. Are you starting to get the picture? She's sipping her latte from Starbucks and headed to the big-box book store where she will relate only with Whites except possibly for some African-American child that she'll feel is cute so she'll smile to the parent of the child, pay for her watered-down books and leave feeling she's really 'progressive.'

The thought of listening to Pacifica probably strikes her as "radical." She's more comfortable looking up her horiscope in Town & Country while NPR drones on in the background with all the voices droning on in that NPR sound as they play the usual lean right coverage.

That's your snapshot of Trash. She's not about promoting anything but what's acceptable to the mainstream. She doesn't challenge and she certainly doesn't support independent voices. (Do you ever see Trash promote RadioNation with Laura Flanders? No, that's too 'out there' for her delicate NPR sensibilities.) If you're lost, read "It's all White" because it addresses more reality than Trash ever could.

the common ills
the daily jot
like maria said paz
mikey likes it
kats korner
the third estate sunday review

Random thoughts

Did the New York Times ever do an editorial or column devoted to Coretta Scott King? Nope. Never. She wasn't "important" enough. Her life wasn't "important" enough. Her actions weren't "important" enough. It would be interesting to know exactly what qualifies for "important" in their limited minds.

Betty's got two great chapters on this at her site. One was up when I wrote last and I meant to note it but there just wasn't time. If you've missed them, please read "The Pig Is Racism, The Pig Is The New York Times" and "Thomas Friedman plays the woman scorned." I really have nothing to add to that. I think that Betty and C.I. have covered it very well. Another thing you may have missed (and I helped with this) is The Third Estate Sunday Review's "Editorial: Does The New York Times editorial board not know that Coretta Scott King died or do they just not care?" which went up last Sunday.

So what can I add? Three Cool Old Guys told me that the paper of record's treatment of Coretta Scott King demonstrated to them that there's nothing an African-American can do to be honored by the paper. They say that if, after all of Coretta Scott King's work, she can't get as much as a playwright most people have never heard of (or know the plays), then that pretty much tells you where we are in terms of civil rights.

They can't believe that the paper of record got away with this nonsense but feel that African-Americans have been losing ground for some time. But no one would have expected that we'd lost so much ground that the New York Times op-ed pages could get away without honoring the life of Coretta Scott King.

And, they also pointed out, that this is during Black History Month.

It goes back to learning who really wants to be inclusive and who doesn't. It's the same as when the Bully Boy speaks in code and signals to his base. The paper signaled to their base not to worry because even a historically important woman can be ignored, they will remain a White paper for a White audience.

It'll be interesting to note which death the paper chooses to editorialize on next. And, it should be remembered, that the paper didn't root for MLK in life, only in death when they could reduce him to "I have a dream" and not focus on his speaking out against the war, speaking out against poverty, speaking out against racism in the north. They were comfortable as long as civil rights meant the south was the focus of the efforts.

60 Minutes, a year or so ago, did a story on African-Americans choosing to move from the north to the south and had a panel of people living in and around Atlanta. It was supposed to be a fish out of water story -- one of those, "How strange" stories. But what was strange about it? Do reporters really think that racism is confined to the south?

That seems to be the impression. It's not reality. Talk to any African-American living in the north and you'll learn that racism isn't absent from that geographic zone.

But it's one of those pleasing tales we tell ourselves. Encouraged to do so by the media.

Did you know I was an identiy-politics type guy? I didn't. I hadn't heard of that until we were working last weekend on The Third Estate Sunday Review's "State of the web: NARAL as the new Ralph Nader." See, according to critics, someone like me focuses too much on race. Now the Whites presenting that "identity-politics" argument are focusing on race as well. They can lie and say they aren't. But when they want to argue that the Democratic Party is too identified with racial minorities, women, etc., who do you think is mainly making that argument?

I know it's not African-Americans who are getting pretty tired of the Democrats showing up every election cycle (at churches) to promise the moon and then failing to deliver even the dirt on the ground.

It's interesting that this "movement," led by White males mainly, isn't called on their nonsense. As the gatekeepers deciding what gets attention and what doesn't, they're awfully lucky that no one else gets to be the bouncer. Otherwise, they might find themselves on the other side of the rope, trying to get in.

But when you're the gatekeeper, you can define what's "important" and what's not. And the fact that groups traditionally discriminated against aren't "important" has nothing to do with racism, sexism or homophobia, to hear them tell it. It has to do with what we can all agree upon. "We" of course is the group that looks like them.

The gatekeepers might want to worry because they could easily become cryptkeepers if they aren't careful. If that happens, what happens to the Democratic Party?

It goes the way of the Whigs Party. Maybe something to think about?

Gail Collins and the New York Times can't have it both ways

I don't usually blog on Wednesday nights because it's a church night and Elaine's kind enough to grab the night for me by blogging at Like Maria Said Paz. (Thank you, Elaine.) But I wanted my last post about the racism of the New York Times' editorial board and Gail Collins up until the day after Coretta Scott King's funeral. I didn't think they'd bother to note her the day after since they've kept their White lips sealed all this time.

If you read C.I.'s "The New York Times and the Coretta Scott King coverage (not a pretty picture)" you know they didn't have a thing to say about her on their editorial pages today. If you read C.I.'s "The New York Times and the Coretta Scott King coverage (not a pretty picture)" and "Democracy Now: Priest Gerad Jean Juste, tributes to Coretta Scott King; Robert Parry, CCR ..." you know that they not only mocked Reverend Joseph Lowery but they took his joke and gave old Poppy Bush credit for it. Imagine that, an African-American does something and a White guy gets the credit for it. Didn't we all think we'd moved past those days?

Well not at the New WHITE Times apparently. Gail Collins can blather on about her friend who passed away and how, busy career gals, they had to schedule time to meet up. Rush, rush, rush.
How very Sex in the City, we're supposed to think. But the thing was the women on that show made time for their friends (even if they worked a "few blocks" away or whatever Collins whined in her supposed editorial on her friend that read "Look how busy I am! I am busy! I am important!"). You also knew that Carrie Bradshaw, Samantha, Miranda and the other one had a life. Get the feeling "I'm Busy!" Gail Collins has a life?

I think she's too busy being "important" to have a life. So I'll say she fell into a racist trap and wasn't herself racist. I'll give her that much credit. She's "Busy!" so she didn't stop to think, "Coretta Scott King might actually mean something to people, might actually be worth noting and editorializing on." But when you are "Busy!" it can be real hard to see anything that's not in your own world. So Gail Collins couldn't see how important Coretta Scott King was because in the "I'm Busy!" world, there's not time to think. There's no time to talk about things that really matter when you're so "Busy!" and trying to convince yourself that you have a life even if you have to pretend like your a character on Sex in the City to do that.

While Collins was so "Busy!" celebrating herself and how "Busy!" she is, she missed the fact that a historic figure died. She missed the fact that she, Collins, wrote a dopey book (on an important topic) about how women deserve a place in history. She was so "Busy!" that she didn't realize that here was a woman, Coretta Scott King, that had a place in history and that if her dopey book meant anything to her, which I assume it did, here was a chance for her to put her money where her is mouth is.

So I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt and say that she herself isn't racist, she just fell into a racist trap because she was so "Busy!"

If that's not the case, then there are two more options.

One, she's racist.

Two, she's a first ("First woman to be the editor of the editorial page! I'm busy!") so she's scared to rock the boat. She's scared to actually use the power of her position. And all the other saps on the editorial board reflected years of conditioning from the paper that spit on MLK when he was alive. She didn't want to go out on limb.

Regardless of which of the three it is is, and it may be something else completely, by not covering Coretta Scott King's passing with an editorial or op-ed (not one that mentioned her, one that was about her), Gail Collins made herself the biggest huckster in the world. She wants to write about women in her books, about how they are important. But when it was time to put her money where her mouth was, she had nothing to say. That's pretty sad if you ask me. Gail Collins is pretty sad if you ask me.

So maybe the next time she writes (badly writes) another book about how women have a place in history, an interviewer can ask her, "If you really believe that, why did you fail to note Coretta Scott King when she passed away?" She can't have it both ways.

the new york times
the common ills
coretta scott king
rev. joseph lowery
like maria said paz

About the New York Times's racist silence on Coretta Scott King

I want to give a shout and a thanks to C.I. Now there's any number of reasons on any number of days for me to do that. But this is specifically regarding this:

From the war to Coretta Scott King. We have a a highlight but before we get to that . . . Does the New York Times believe that Coretta Scott King's passing didn't matter?
This week Wendy Wasserstein passed away and it was a tragedy. On the day the New York Times front paged their article on Wasserstein, they also featured a lengthy editorial (signed by Gail Collins). One would assume, with Coretta Scott King's historical significance (a level few ever reach but she did), that at the minimum she would receive the same level of coverage as a playwright. That still hasn't happened. The Times editorial board either doesn't appear to know King died or they just don't care. In addition to refusing to run an editorial on King's passing, there have been no op-eds on her passing. It's not Bob Herbert's job (as the only African-American columnist on the op-ed pages of the Times) to cover every 'Black' issue so the Times doesn't have to be bothered. Coretta Scott King is historical for every race in this country. And let's not pretend Herbert covers Coretta Scott King today. He doesn't. He opens with a quote by her and she's not mentioned again until the second to last paragraph of a 21 paragraph column. The Times can't pretend that was a column about Coretta Scott King. (Check my math and I'm including the quote that opens the column as a paragraph.)
Exactly when will the New York Times get around to noting that Coretta Scott King passed away. Was she not friends with Gail Collins? Is that the criteria for getting an editorial on your passing written? At present, they have noted her death with only one article (which they did front page) and her passing is mentioned in a column today by Herbert (a column that's not about her life or her passing -- it's a state of the world column).
Now maybe some people missed it, but they want the King Center to be turned over to the government, the paper does. No surprise there, we noted that here before the editorial made it into the paper (ahead of the editorial by many days, I believe five or six days ahead of the editorial being printed). What to do with property, on that they have something to say. With regards to Coretta Scott King, they're strangely silent.

I asked Mike about it and he said C.I. and him were talking about this yesterday and C.I. thought, "Okay, they're in love with the official talk, so day after the State of the Union, that's all their editorials will be about." So C.I. waited to see what happened the day after that day.

Still nothing. Mike said when he called C.I. today, C.I. was especially furious that the paper found the time to editorialize today on the Oscars but not on Coretta Scott King.

I've talked about this before (at my old site) and Betty and I've talked about it in roundtables at The Third Estate Sunday Review (probably Ty weighed in as well) but whether it's online or in print, African-Americans do look to see if we're included. Are our stories covered? Are our historic moments noted?

If they aren't, we know it's really not an inclusive paper or TV show or website. We can take a hint and we don't use those resources in large numbers as a result of the hints dropped.

It's 2006 and C.I. has to remind the New York Times of Coretta Scott King's historical importance. That's really shameful on the part of the paper. It'll be interesting to see if anyone else bothers to pick up the drumbeat or if they all act like, "Oh, that's not really important." You can tell who really is inclusive by what they determine is "important."

If really are all in this together, then our actions need to demonstrate that. And doing an editorial on a playwright, any playwright, dying but then ignoring the death of Coretta Scott King doesn't say much about you. The New York Times should be embarrassed and ashamed that they still haven't devoted an editorial or an op-ed to Coretta Scott King's death.

They may feel it's not racism but what is racism but ignorance?

They can editorialize about the King Center but they don't have a word for Coretta Scott King?

I was disappointed in Bob Herbert's op-ed (no link since you have to pay to read their op-eds) but just because he's African-American doesn't mean it's his job to write about Mrs. King. I know Betty's going to pick up on this topic and Mike will too but this is racist. A historical figure dies and the paper's editorials and op-eds don't bother to cover it. A playwright who was friends with Gail Collins (the editor of the paper's editorial pages) dies and she gets a lengthy editorial penned by Collins. It goes without saying that the playwright was White.


This happened with John H. Johnson's death as well. And I'm getting real tired of having to depend on The Common Ills to be the one calling out racism. Don't get me wrong, I love C.I. for it. But I really don't think this is something that only one person in the world can notice. Time and again, it falls on C.I. to speak about what no one notices or doesn't want to talk about.

On the plus side, that's why the community has such a large number of African-American members. Probably why the community has such a large number of people of color to begin with. The Common Ills never winked "Whites Only," it's always been a site that's been welcoming.

I'll give you an example. In April, C.I. asked members who spoke Spanish to find a periodical they could endorse and a committee of members was set up for that. They've yet to find a periodical they could all agree on. They've come close but so far, they're still looking. As they've looked, Democracy Now! has begun offering their headlines in Spanish. As soon as that happened, the committee decided that might be a weekly entry (and it has been). So three members of the committe (Maria, Francisco or Miguel) take responsibility for compiling headlines in Spanish and English once a week. That may be all the committee can ever come up with. A periodical should be of the left and it should represent all equally (from Honduras to Mexico, from Spain to Puerto Rico, go down the list) and they've examined a number of them but always found the suggestion lacking. (So much so that they're even floating the idea, which C.I. says is fine, of just picking a mainstream periodical that's in Spanish.) But that's the sort of thing that C.I. thinks about and doesn't wait for it to become an issue.

It's why if you send in something to highlight, C.I. always asks that if it's important to you (and not just something you found "interesting") that you say that in your e-mail. C.I. doesn't pretend to know everything, every issue or every person, and sometimes the people that the majority know the least about are the people we really should know about.

coretta scott king
the third estate sunday review
mikey likes it
the new york times
the common ills

Thanks to Elaine who called me earlier this evening and advised me to save this entry before attempting to publish it. She and Mike had huge problems with Blogger and Rebecca couldn't even log in. I was able to save it, I wasn't able to publish it. Hopefully, I can publish it now. Like Rebecca, Betty's been unable to log in. I called C.I. and no problems on that end but C.I.'s immersed in the Church Committee entry and redoing whole sections on the advice of friends the entry was shown to today. Look for that at The Common Ills (hopefully tonight) because the section C.I. read me over the phone was pretty powerful.

Coretta Scott King, 1927-2006

Civil Rights Icon Coretta Scott King, 1927-2006
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rev. Joseph Lowery and Herb Boyd reflect on the legacy of freedom fighter Coretta Scott King, the widow of Martin Luther King Jr.

That's from today's Democracy Now! and they did a strong job organizing it basically while they were on the air. Juan Gonzalez filled in for Amy Goodman who's somewhere overseas. They announced where but it's been a daze day due to the news of the passing of Mrs. King.

1927 seems so long ago and that may be due to the fact Mrs. King aged well. My cousin pointed out that Jack Nicholson and Jane Fonda are only a decade younger. (He pointed that out when someone trying to be silly on a sad day said, "Black don't crack!" No one was in the mood for yucks and ha-has today.)

It is so strange and distant to think of Mrs. King not being in this world with us any longer. I grew up hearing about her, reading about her and, honestly, kind of feeling her. There's a sadness that sort of falls today and it's really sad.

Dr. King was taken from us before people my age were even born but we had Mrs. King and she just always seemed like this smiling, kind giant, so strong and so comforting. They killed her husband and she still found her way to love the world. Growing up, I got angry and mad about Dr. King being assassinated and I'm sure she did as well. But she was just this ocean of gentleness.

You knew she could stand up to anyone and would do it. But she just radiated sweetness and kindness. I can't believe she's gone.

I looked at The Third Estate Sunday Review today because I knew she'd been brought up in discussions there and I found these two things in November.

First, "Five Books, Five Minutes:"

Rebecca: C.I., Elaine and I have all been joking back and forth with each other at our sites about books we give to each other. One book that C.I. gave me that I've always meant to read but never gotten around to was Alice Walker's In Search Of Our Mother's Gardens.
Ty: This was a great book. These are essays, the subtitle to the book is "womanist prose," and they are some outstanding essays. Like most people, I knew Walker's fiction. And we've read some of her poetry for discussions here. But this was my first time reading any of her essays.With a lot of writers, you read one genre and that's their solid footing. Walker's really able to work in various genres and do strong work throughout. My favorite was "The Unglamorous but Worthwhile Duties of the Black Revolutionary Artist, or of the Black Writer Who Simply Works and Writes."
Cedric: I'd agree that's a good one but for me the one that stood out was "Coretta King Revisted" due to Coretta Scott King's recent health problems.
Betty: I actually skipped that one because her stroke still saddens me. She's someone who's always been larger than life to me, someone to look up to and, since her stroke, the tears well up too easily so I took a pass on that essay. Her essay on Buchi Emecheta's Second Class Citizen was the one that had me thinking the most.


Second, a later "Five Books, Five Minutes:"

Cedric: One thing that puzzled me was why the host of the discussion between Malcolm X and Rustin wasn't identified except as "HOST"? I'm also wondering who you found yourself siding with in the discussion?
Jess: For me, it was Malcolm. I know his writing and his story, so I may have been filling in details that I wasn't able to with Rustin but I got the impression that Rustin grew more cautious with age.
Betty: I'd agree with that except for the issue of sexuality. That reads cautious today but for the time period, that is a big deal. And I'll add that he was known within the civil rights movment as gay and, in fact, within the nation since an arrest was used by a White senator to force Rustin out of the movement. But in terms of discussing his sexuality publicly, that's in the eighties. And it was a big deal.
Cedric: And you can say it still is a big deal because Rustin is one of the civil rights pioneer, very essential to the movement, and he's not someone that is stressed when you hear of the civil rights movement.
Betty: I'd agree with that. I'd add that it's part of our community's, I'm speaking of the Black community and directing the "our" to Cedric, refusal or reluctance to address the issue of sexuality and orientation. I think it's embarrassing. Of course some do address it. But we've allowed it to be a something that can turn against each other. Bully Boy's been able to use it with some Black churches, sexual orientation, to turn them against their own interests. In my church we had to deal with it, we had too many members and families of members who were dealing with AIDS. It's one of the healthiest things we've done. With the empahis on family in the Black community, I look skeptical at any Black person that tells me they've never met a gay or lesbian. They are in our families, they are in our churches and it distresses that a White Bully Boy has been allowed by some "Black leaders" to turn us against each other. There's some idiot. and I use that term by choice, Cedric's also heard him, his "sermons" get passed around in e-mails. And for someone so supposedly opposed to gays and lesbians, he sure knows a lot about gay sex and he sure seems to enjoy talking about it in terms that I can't imagine sex being talked about in my church.
Cedric: Yeah, that guy is an idiot. And every month or so, it'll pop up in an e-mail forward to someone in the office and they'll be giggling at it. They say, if you ask them, they're laughing at how stupid he is. Well that doesn't help the race either, flaunting ignorance. I really do not have respect for people who pass that around, either out of their own beliefs or to giggle over.Ty: And this goes to what erases Rustin for history and how a race whose leaders want to fuss and fret over language don't want to address serious issues. I mean, where is Bill Cosby on this issue? Where his speech on the need for us to embrace one another?
Betty: Exactly, you can list the leaders who've addressed this topic in any form and it's a small list. Coretta Scott King and Julian Bond would be on the list but a lot of other so-called "brave" voices wouldn't be. I like Jesse Jackson but I don't respect his opinions on this issue.Rebecca: Which is interesting that you cite him when Rustin cites him as one of the people working to turn MLK against him.
Ty: And it's forty years later and he still hasn't changed his tune.
Cedric: I don't know if Dona wants to call time or not, I know we've got Betty's pick still to do.
Dona: No, this has been an interesting discussion and we can extend. We actually have two more books.
Cedric: Well I'll make my comment and try to be brief about it. Some African-Americans are offended when sexual orientation is likened to race. And it's not just that. You heard some nonsense about "Cindy Sheehan is no Rosa Parks!" As though allowing someone else to build on a very powerful movement will erase Ms. Parks. It won't. It will only extend her reach and future generations' knowlege of her. I hear, everyone hears, modern day comparisons to George Washington or Thomas Jefferson or whomever. They become points of reference. I can understand the fear here because any minority group risks being stripped of whatever place in history they've earned. But while realizing that, we should realize that part of what makes Whites such a point of history, besides who got to draw it up, is that it is a short hand. Most people couldn't tell you where Thomas Jefferson was born. But they can use him as a point of reference. When the civil rights movement is used as a point of reference, I think it extends the movement, keeps it alive in history and increases knowledge. Otherwise it's going to be confined to one time, one period, one group and it will be ghetto-ized in terms of how history is taught. I'm thrilled that we have our African-American heroes but I want to see them be heroes for all. They fought as hard as anyone else and they are a part of American history. I was thrilled to hear some people calling Cindy Sheehan the Rosa Parks of the peace movement. I see it as a huge improvement over years of someone being "the Black __" who ever. We have heroic figures and their struggles are heroic. If they inspire people that's a great thing, regardless of race. The point of teaching Black History is to get it back into our understanding of history. It's a part of American history and hopefully it will be worked into American history more and more with each generation. I'm done.
Ty: I'll add that I agree with Cedric. I've attended predominately African-American schools and predominatley White ones. And I've seen a "Oh, it's Black history" type collective groan at some of the White schools. In standing up for her race, Rosa Parks stood up for a better nation.I didn't always hear that point in made in school.

If you were talking about civil rights then or now (and civil rights is still a battle to be fought today), you couldn't have much of a conversation without mentioning Mrs. King. She really was something special and that's going to have be it because this is upsetting to write about.

Alito and Inclusion

Noting this from the Feminist Wire:

Judiciary Committee Votes Tomorrow on Alito; Filibuster Possible, Says Durbin
Tomorrow, two days after the 33rd anniversary of Roe v Wade, the Senate Judiciary Committee will vote on Samuel Alito, a Supreme Court nominee who in 1985 wrote that the Constitution does not protect a woman's right to an abortion. Women's rights leaders and activists rallied last night at the Supreme Court in support of the landmark Supreme Court ruling.
"Since we last gathered to commemorate Roe v. Wade, two seats have opened up on the Supreme Court, and George W. Bush has used both opportunities to nominate judges whose records show a disdain for privacy rights and individual liberties," said Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women. "The Senate is poised to vote on confirming Samuel Alito, who would replace Sandra Day O'Connor, a justice whose vote has upheld women's rights for nearly 25 years. How quickly the fate of women's reproductive rights could turn in this nation."
Already, at least nine Senators have come out publicly and strongly against Alito's confirmation, including four who voted in favor of confirming John Roberts as chief justice. In an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times, Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL), the Democratic Whip, said that a filibuster was possible.
"A week ago, I would have told you it's not likely to happen," Durbin said. "As of [Wednesday], I just can't rule it out. I was surprised by the intensity of feeling of some of my colleagues. It's a matter of counting. We have 45 Democrats, counting [Vermont independent] Jim Jeffords, on our side. We could sustain a filibuster if 41 Senators ... are willing to stand and fight."
GET THE INSIDE SCOOP with The Smeal Report and the New Leif blogs at MsMagazine.comTAKE ACTION Call your Senators and urge them to oppose AlitoDONATE Make an emergency contribution to the Feminist Majority’s Save Roe Campaign. We must be a strong voice in this crucial fight to save Roe and the Supreme Court for women’s rights.
Media Resources: Feminist Majority; NOW statement 1/22/06; Chicago Sun-Times 1/20/06

It's the last lap in the home stretch. We can pull it out, we can dig deep and grab onto those last bits of energy.

Now we just got done with a roundtable for the gina & krista round-robin and you can consider what follows to be the writing of Betty and Cedric. If there's something we feel differently on or want to make our own point on, we'll indicate it, but this is our joint entry.

Every Saturday when we get together to work with The Third Estate Sunday Review gang (the gang is Ava, Jess, Ty, Dona, Jim and C.I; we are Rebecca, Wally, Mike, Elaine, Kat, Betty and Cedric) there are any number of items that are proposed for a feature. Some ideas are shot down because they're too big to undertake (unless they can be repitched as something easier in scope) and some are shot down because there's not enough interest in them from enough people. On something like that, if it's not just an idea you had but something that is really important to you, you can state that and everyone's willing to include it. But each edition there are ideas that we never end up having time to get to.

Everyone usually tosses out interesting ideas even if they are too large in scope. One idea that came from C.I. this weekend was about an article in the New York Times. It was on a topic that we hit on a lot in roundtables there. Ty usually has something to say on the issue as well. We made a point not to invite Ty to help on this entry because we know he would have said "yes" or felt guilty. As you'll see in the round-robin tomorrow, Ty's got a major exam first thing in the morning.

We left Ty out of this trying to make sure he was able to focus on studying. Had we not known of the exam, we would have brought him on board. We are the three Black voices of the community in terms of doing sites.

The article C.I. brought to the table was Neela Banerjee's "Black Churches' Attitudes Toward Gay Parishioners Are Discussed at Conference" and it ran in Saturday's New York Times on page A10. We'll note that Betty is from the Atlanta area and she does know of Dr. Kenneth L. Samuel of the Victory Church.

The article addresses a meeting last Friday between Black clergy and and the National Black Justice Coalition and the issue discussed was prejudice against gay men and lesbians. We have spoken repeatedly in roundtables about what has happened in our churches and how our congregations have had to face up to the fact that many of our brothers and sisters include those who are gay.

Betty: Cedric's church dealt with it way before mine did.

Cedric: The AIDS epidemic led to my church addressing it long before I was an adult.

Betty: Dr. Samuel is well thought of and respected by many in the Atlanta area for his work on this issue. Banerjee has no control over where the article appears or the length the paper decides to go with but this really should have been an article in the paper's Sunday magazine. Had there been more room, I'm guessing Banerjee would have noted that Dr. Samuel not only has critics but he has support from outside his own church. He, rightly, has made a name for himself by taking the gospels to heart.

The article details how Bully Boy and the Republicans were able to lure some Black churches into their tent by making gay marriage a wedge issue. African-Americans/Blacks should have known better than to throw in our lot with someone who stands in direct opposition to our own advancement as a people.

Whether you are an integrationist or an isolationist, the last thing we need to be doing is dividing our collective power by drawing a line between those of us who are straight and those of us who are gay. When our ancestors were working on plantations, masa' wasn't concerned about who were fantasizing about, just about squeezing every bit of life out of us he could. When the civil rights movement fought for integration, the racists standing in our way didn't care if the brother or sister sitting at the counter or going to the school dreamed about the opposite or same gender. When we were disenfranchised in Florida in 2000 and in Ohio in 2004, no one was concerned about what was or wasn't going on in our bedrooms. From way back to the current day, the line against us was and is drawn based upon our skin color.

Like it or not, we are in this together. And as a race, we have collective power. The Republicans attempts to divide us and turn us against one another is just another attempt to co-opt elements and dilute our power.

When we talk to brothers and sisters who are skittish (or worse) about sexuality, the first thing we usually ask is, "Who in your congregation has died of AIDS?" The awful disease has made gay men more visible (in death) but what you find is that a church that hasn't attempted to have a dialogue about this issue is a church that goes out of its way to erase the contributions of a deacon or a choir director, you name it.

Brother Ray that you were always so happy to see dies of AIDS and suddenly it's as though Brother Ray never existed. That's not right.

And the only way this changes is when we start getting honest. Gays and lesbians have always been in the Black chuches. You might not have known it at the time, but they were there. They were there on Sunday wanting so much to take part and they were there contributing to the church in spirit and with tithes. They are us and we are them.

It shocks us that our proud race which can rally when we see a brother or sister demonized, even if they may very well be guilty of a crime (including murder or child molestation), wants to turn against our own brothers and sisters.

In unity we have power and strength. In unity we are one and able to help one another. Though some churches do have sports team, it's not a requirement that you shower with your congregation so the silly notion of "What if we were in the locker room together?" is even sillier.

God made each of us. But for some reason we want to kick some of our brothers and sisters out of the boat and instead break bread with a Bully Boy who's declared an illegal war and attacked a people but expected us to fight his war in large numbers seems far from the teachings of Jesus Christ. To be there for our brothers and sisters, all of our brothers and sisters, who are attempting to struggle on their own paths to spirituality seems very much in keeping with the teachings of Christ.

At a time when so many Uncle Toms and Aunt Tomisinas are willing to turn their backs on race to enrich themselves, we don't think it makes sense to turn our backs on those who want to stand with us.

We also think that this turning is the sort of thing Jesus counseled his disciples against.

We have relatives who are gay and lesbian so we saw a long time ago that they're not the "other." They are our family members and they bring much to our families. African-Americans/Blacks who have not been uprooted repeatedly due to the economy and other factors usually not only have a strong sense of family but are also close to many of their kin.
We don't think any large family gathering takes place without at least one gay or lesbian family member attending. You may not realize that or you may go out of your way to deny it. But they truly are us and we truly are them.

The article makes the point that in the 19th century scripture was used against us to justify slavery. Jesus and his teachings rejected that argument. We believe that this is true with regards to sexuality as well.

The article notes that "Blacks often bridle at comparisons made between the civil rights stuggle of African-Americans and the campaign by gay men and lesbians for equal protection under the law." We think that's a mistake and have addressed this before.

The civil rights movement is something we look to with great pride. We'd love to see it taught as something that not only brought African-Americans/Blacks closer to equality but that provided a framework and sense of justice to inspire people of all walks of life. We're quite aware that we work and work to create something (blues, soul, rap) and then a White person comes along and rides it to popularity while our own work is often ignored.

But with regards to the civil rights movement, it seems to us that nothing could be a better legacy than for people of each generation to learn of it and honor it by utilizing it to make their own strides towards equality. It's our legacy and we'd like to see it be a living legacy that continues to inspire.

That could remove it from something that's only noted one month a year (Black History Month) and instead becomes something all value. An activist, of any color, gender or orientation, a hundred years in the future turning to the civil rights movement for inspiration speaks to how important that movement was. We also believe that this attention can only provide a renewal in interest of the objectives we are still striving for.

The Rev. Al Sharpton is noted in the article and we'll note that we remember in the recent Democratic primaries, he was one of the few voices that could speak out for all. He didn't shy from the issue of gay rights and we think that's because, due to our own struggles, we are inclined to grasp anyone's struggle. We have had to overcome so much and we can identify with others who are also struggling for equality.

This is our better nature. We are more than track stars and basketball players, rap stars and comedians. We are the ones who shook off the shackles of extreme discrimination (and still live under discrimination often in less overt forms). We are leaders. Our struggles have made us that.

Our gay brothers and sisters shouldn't have to hide in closets from us or risk scorn if they come out. We shouldn't return to a past that rewarded those who could pass or gave preferential treatment to those among us who were lighter skinned. We are a race, a powerful race, and unless someone's working to hold us back, they are in our boat. We need to welcome them and we need to reach out to them.

We sincerely pray that we will have the strength as a race to welcome all who want to continue the fight for equality. As so many of us continue to live in poverty and below the poverty line, we need strength. The only line drawn should be the one that asks, "Are you for us or against us?"


feminist wire
alito
supreme court
the new york times
neela banerjee
the common ills
mikey likes it
like maria said paz
sex and politics and screeds and attitude
the third estate sunday review
cedrics big mix
thomas friedman is a great man
the daily jot

Stop Alito, keep the momentum building

Elaine called and said great post yesterday (thank you) and that she saw something at The Common Ills and was calling around to see if I was interested in noting it. Rebecca's noting it too so hopefully, the word will be out on this. It's some good news from Feminist Wire:

January 19, 2006
No on Alito Momentum Building
The momentum to stop the confirmation of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court is growing. Several Democratic Senators have already announced their intention to oppose Alito.
These Senators include Patrick Leahy (VT), Ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee; Judiciary Committee member Ted Kennedy (MA); Barbara Mikulski (MD); and Max Baucus (MT). Senators Leahy and Baucus had voted to confirm John Roberts in September. The option for a filibuster to block Alito is still on the table.
GET THE INSIDE SCOOP
with The Smeal Report and the New Leif blogs at MsMagazine.com
TAKE ACTION
Call your Senators and urge them to oppose Alito
DONATE
Make an emergency contribution to the Feminist Majority’s Save Roe Campaign. We must be a strong voice in this crucial fight to save Roe and the Supreme Court for women’s rights.
Media Resources: Feminist Majority

I want everyone to remember that Alito was a member of CAPs, Concerned Alumini of Princeton. He may still be a member. How would we know and how would he? He can't remember being a member so maybe he's still a member and just can't remember that either?
He remembered when he filled out an application in the eighties. Guess he bumped his head.

So what was Concerned Alumini concerned about?

They weren't concerned about ROTC.

They were concerned that too many of "the wrong people" were getting admitting to Princeton: African-Americans, women and gays and lesbians.

This man wants to sit on the Supreme Court and he can't explain why he was a member of a bigoted organization.

That's not justice, that's not fairness, that's not right.

Let your senators hear from you. Loudly. Let them know that you aren't taking this lightly.

A racist doesn't belong on the Supreme Court and since Alito can't give a straight answer about why he joined the organization and can't remember being a member, we'll have to put it to the smell test: Alito's lying because he joined a racist organization and he never had a change of heart so he can't own up to being a member.

Momentum is building and we've got to keep it building and keep the ball rolling.

sex and politics and screeds and attitude
the common ills
like maria said paz
samuel alito
supreme court

Flibuster

I've got church shortly and I don't usually even try to blog on Wednesdays but Wally called today and asked me if I saw the nice thing C.I. wrote about us at The Common Ills?

I did and Wally appreciate the kind words but Wally's back in college and trying to get into the swing of that while also helping out with the gina & krista round-robin this evening. So I told Wally, I'd take care of it.

Gina and Krista are doing a great thing, each day between now and the 24th, they will be putting out daily round-robins with action tips and explaining why you need to contact your senators to tell them to filibuster Alito. That's more than an e-mail or an e-mail and a petition.

Gina and Krista deserve huge thanks.

But like Wally pointed out, slice off some of that thanks for C.I. too.

Here's how the daily round-robins came about (and Gina backs this up). C.I. asked for a copy of the mailing list for the round-robins and Gina said sure. While she was pulling it up on her computer, she was making conversation and asked what special thing was coming up? That's when C.I. said there's no point in just waiting for the Democrats to wait. So Gina and C.I. brainstormed, then Gina phoned Krista and by the end of Monday evening, they all three had the Tuesday round-robin done.

Gina and Krista deserve huge praise but Gina said, speaking for her and Krista both, that C.I.'s not just adding a thing here and there and that the nothing would have come about without C.I. pursuing it in the first place.

Wally and I appreciate the kind words and we know that's because we volunteered as soon as we saw the Tuesday round-robin. But we also know C.I.'s giving every inch of energy and then some and so from Wally, Gina, Krista and me, we say thank you to C.I.

You know you won't read anything like this at The Common Ills. C.I. will say it's "self-referential" but the truth is, C.I. will cop to blame before praise. So when Wally pointed out that something needed to be said for C.I., I volunteered to say it for us and when I talked to Gina, she asked that it be from the four of us.

So this our thank you to C.I. for the idea, for the energy and for the never give up spirit. This morning, C.I. hit on Alito and civil rights. Each morning, you're going to see another topic and if you didn't already get it, Alito's only good if you're White, male, straight and rich. If you don't have all four of those qualities, you're out of luck in Alito Land.

So let me close with this, contact your senators, demand that they filibuster the Alito nomination. If you're a community member, you get a lot from the community, give back by standing up for the community and for yourself. Make yourself heard every day. This is too important.

Disappointed and Disappointing

Disappointed and disappointing are the two words for the night. Disappointed is the way I feel because disappointing was the way the Democrats handled the Alito hearings.

There's no excuse of "we're the minority party." Some of the worst moments were from Democrats. Joe Biden obviously spent a great deal of time planning his questions and he obviously enjoys the sound of his own voice. But he was incapable of listening. He had no real follow ups. Time after time when Alito would answer in a vague or troubling manner, Biden would basically rush on to his next prepared question.

Herbert Kohl? Was he even there? He'd speak and it would be, "Who's that?" On the third day, he did seem to have a point or be close to one.

Ted Kennedy, Charles Schumer, Russ Feingold and Patrick Leahy did the best job. But why were the other Dems unable to grab the baton on the handoff?

Diane Feinstein was just embarrassing. She never followed up on questions others had asked.
It seemed like she was trying to score points with various factions in the party. "Here's my Roe questions" and "Now here's my environmental questions."

Both are huge issues but others hit hard on Roe and managed to note other things as well.

Feinstein didn't hit hard on anything. She had no follow ups. She felt the need to say, "I'm not a lawyer," as if she was the anti-Star Jones, over and over. Since Florida's the sunshine state, and not California, I have no idea why she wanted to act like a ray of sunshine.

But there she was joking and saying sweet things. Vouching for him at times.

Does she know how to handle a witness because it never seemed like it in the hearings.

Mike's parents have been saying Hillary Clinton should be on the committee. I'm sure that will make some people groan. She's not exactly been the person that a lot of us who voted for Bill Clinton thought she would be. But as a lawyer, I think she would have done a better job. As a professional lawyer with experience, I think even if people were whispering that she'd cut a deal with Alito ahead of time, she'd still feel the need to semi-rise to the occassion if only because she conducts herself like a strong woman, not like a little girl.

I'm not saying she'd cut a deal ahead of time, by the way. I am saying the rumors wouldn't be surprising if they popped up and I'll add to that this: she's done so much damage to her own reputation over the war that the generic reaction to rush to her (and Bill's) defense may not kick in the way it did in the past.

But Diane Feinstein gave no indication that she was equipped to handle a committee assignment.
Kat's called her "The Little Lady of the Senate," Rebecca's noted "Miss Diane" (since the Roberts' hearings, in fact) and Elaine's questioned the image considering Feinstein's hawkish rep and her husband's business. It seemed like an act. All it needed was Louis Armstrong on the trumpet blasting out "Hello Dolly" right before she spoke each time.

I want strong leaders. C.I. floated a question tonight of were we focused on her too much? (That wasn't an accusation, just something C.I. tossed out to the roundtable.) The consensus was that we weren't. It's not charm school, it's the Senate. Diane Feinstein is as embarrassing as Lindsey Graham who speaks like a melodramatic heroine in a Tennessee Williams play. But he's a Republican. It's irritating to hear him speak but that's the Republicans problem. Diane Feinstein was the Democrats problem. From interrupting Ted Kennedy (twice), as he attempted to ask a question, to playing like Miss Manners, she was a huge embarrassment.

She had issues she touched on but she did them a huge disservice by constantly presenting herself as not fit to serve on the committee. I don't just mean "not fit to serve" in our judgement. She truly approached each questioning period with the theme of "I'm not fit to serve." She'd say she wasn't a lawyer or that she didn't understand something. She undercut herself repeatedly with her own words admitting she wasn't up to the task.

I'm glad C.I raised the issue because it was worth exploring. I call her out not because she's a woman but because she won't conduct herself like an adult woman.

You won't find any praise for Barak Obama here. He's African-American. I'm African-American. It might seem to some that he and I should be "on the same page." We're not. Word of him spread through the African-American community quickly and there was a lot of hope pinned on him. A lot of people are disillusioned with him now that he's in the Senate.

I'm not. He blew the illusion of hope for me when he gave that speech at the DNC convention in 2004. I know the White media applauded him. That speech was worrisome. For any speaker, that speech was worrisome. Coming from someone campaigning as a "progressive" only made it more so.

He spoke like a charter member in the DLC and I lost all hope and respect for him.

Is he still the darling of the White media because he doesn't even register in my community except for grunts of disgust if his name comes up. He comes off like Hillary Clinton's soul twin.
If I followed any hearings or events he participated in, my comments on Diane Feinstein would seem mild by comparison. I think she's embarrassing. Women may think worse and that's their right. But as an African-American, I think Obama is more than embarrassing, I think he's shameful.

Feinstein needs to grow up and act her age. She's not the little lady of some fifties sitcom. She's a United States Senator. If you don't own your power, you lose it.

But anything I've said about her is nowhere near what I'd be saying if Obama had been on the committee. He's not just refusing to use his power, he's betraying it.

And I could talk about that without mentioning the jokes in the community (African-American community, just to be clear) about him trying to pass and worse.

There are women and men in Congress that speak to the African-American community. The White press isn't too interested in them. Maybe if Maxine Waters, John Conyers, Jesse Jackson Jr., Barbara Lee, Cynthia McKinney and others watered themselves down, the White press would cover them. But don't make the mistake of thinking that just because the White media crowned Obama as some sort of victory for "the people" that the "the people" see it as such.

What we (African-Americans who aren't Republicans) see is a future O.J. Simpson. That's not suggesting he'll be tried for murder. That is saying that as soon as he finds himself in the midst of a scandal, he'll suddenly remember he's Black and rush to the community to plead his case so that we'll get behind him when the White community is done with him.

Until that scandal comes, he doesn't appear to be willing to do anything for African-Americans.
So speaking only for myself, my comments on Diane Feinstein are nothing compared to what I will write when I see or hear Obama speaking on some "We're all one" issue where the community is once again screwed and a token is used to make it seem like it's not happening.

And if any of that is a surprise to you, I'm guessing you know of him through the White media that's rushed to crown him. Once he started mentioning Iraq less. When he was having to compete, before the Republicans couldn't mount a real challenge, he had quite a bit to say about Iraq. He gave that up. As those speeches got toned down more and more, the White media came sniffing. They know he'll play the game.

Changing to better news, Betty has a new post at her online novel Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man. That's how I see her site, an online novel. So check out Betty.

And C.I. had the best call on the hearings today so here's a sample of that:

So what has today been like? Not as lively as yesterday. "Enough of that. Let me move on." Who said that? Which Democrat? Does it matter? Doesn't that seem like those two sentences summed up much of what's gone on so far today? (Diane Feinstein said it today to Alito, for those who missed it.)

the common ills
mikey likes it
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Supreme Court, TV and Ty

If you missed this at the other community websites, you can listen to the hearings on whether to confirm Samuel Alito Jr. to the Supreme Court or not by going to Pacifica and listening online.

Yesterday, I was talking to Three Cool Old Guys and they were pointing out that not only is Alito not a woman, he's White. So when Sandra Day O'Connor steps down, we'll have one female on the bench and one person of color. We're going backwards. And that's just like everything else the Bully Boy does. He wants to turn back the clocks to before FDR when the robbers baron ran free and if you were poor, working class or lower middle class, you were just screwed.

Three Cool Old Guys pointed out that Clarence Thomas being African-American didn't influence the way he looks at things "But he still doesn't realize that he's Black." He acts like he doesn't realize it. They said something else too. I thought about it today when one of the Republican senators was going on in the hearings about porn and those 'bad liberals.'

They pointed out that the only time you can expect Thomas to fight is when the case has to do with porn and his love of porn may be the only thing he brought to the bench.

I don't know if you know this, but Clarence Thomas never speaks in Court. He's the only Justice that doesn't ask questions. He says it's because people picked on the way he spoke earlier in life.
So?

Three Cool Old Guys said that's not an excuse, that when he's a national figure, he has an obligation to learn to speak. But he doesn't speak. Maybe if he started asking questions, he'd find his voice, his real voice. Instead, he just shuts up and pretends he's white.

And votes however his babysitter Scalia votes.

Unless it's porn, according to Three Cool Old Guys. He can break ranks on porn.

Listening to the hearings on Pacifica, I heard one of the commentators point out, I think it was Larry Bensky, that the Senate's no better. There's only one African-American in the Senate.
Barak Obama is the one out of fifty. This is unacceptable.

In terms of the way this work on TV, check out Ty's piece at The Third Estate Sunday Review.
That's good writing. Ty didn't think so and had showed it to C.I. C.I. told him it had to go in the Sunday edition but Ty's too modest. C.I. floated the idea of a solo piece at The Common Ills Friday and then really rallied everyone to ask Ty if they could read it. Once we did, and once we told Ty how great it was, he told us it could go in.

So if you read it, make a point to let Ty know by dropping a line at thirdestatesundayreview@yahoo.com. And you don't have to say thank you to C.I. but know that part of the story because C.I. really is the most supportive person I know outside of my family. You can say, "It's crap" about something you're working on and C.I. will find the good part of it and steer you towards that or you can write something and think, "Oh who's going to care?" and C.I. will hear that and convince you that because most people may not care is the reason to post the thing you wrote.

And that is the best reason to put something out there, because no one else is talking about it.
And no one in the community with a website has been talking about cooking but that changed on Saturday when Trina started her site Trina's Kitchen. Trina is Mike's mother so be sure to check out her site.