I'M PEEVED!

OK. So I'm pissed. That's really what I mean to say. Pissed. Why do black folks always talk about supporting our own then do nothing? What's up with that? It's almost six months now that I've been blogging away, all because I had read and heard some things about dkos, (that's daily Kos for you who don't know). Daily Kos, by Markos Moulitsos, is possibly one of the biggest and best known blogs going. I think they had their second conference this past summer, and it was well attended. It draws so many people because it is a left wing blog, which means there's some place for place for democrats to go. Not me. I'm afraid I'm an anarchist, which they did accuse me of being, lol. dkos is a mainly white domain, and those who attended the conference where mainly white. The conference actually caused something of a stir because only a handful of blacks attended. I have no problem with that, except that a well known blog such as dkos, or any of the main stream blogs like it, will tend to shut out blacks and any other person of color. And still think that black owe an allegiance to white candidates, and that's where I have a problem.

That's when I got curious. I wondered if there were any black voices on the web, blogging black voices. There was one that I had known about for a number of years, and that was Steve Gilliard of the News Blog, who passed away last summer, may he rest in peace. So of course I used good old Google and went searching for those other voices and I found them, plenty of them, excellent, wonderful voices, many of them involved in some monumental undertakings, most working to change the world around them. I visited these blogs and read and read, so glad to see that there some wonderful black voices out there, some wonderful brothers and sisters blogging, lending their voices to the world. Some bloggers are even doing web podcasts and have been featured in other forums. There's a black web blog award and there's even going to be a conference in Atlanta next summer.

It's all good, it really is, but. After finding all these great and wonderful voices, posting and responding to their excellent writing, I began to get discouraged. Not in my own posting, you understand, but in theirs. Now, at this point I have to admit that in general, I suppose I don't know anything about blogging etiquette as it were, you know, what the rules are. I thought that if you posted in response on someone else's blog, then they just might come and visit you. Not that they necessarily have to, but they might. I also got the feeling that they wanted to build a coalition of African American bloggers, of voices united, though to a great extent this was accomplished. It was black bloggers who organized the march on Jena, for the kids who were getting a raw deal there. Many kept nooses out there in the fore front of the news. The voices can get out there and move the people when needed.

So. How do you build a coalition of united voices if you don't go to read the blogs of others? How do you know what others are thinking and doing if you don't go to read the blogs of others, don't seek out other voices? How do you encourage others if you don't visit their blogs, let them know that somebody out there had found them? That they should keep on adding their voices to the bloggosphere? Yes, I do know that many of keep on blogging because they have something to say and because they need to, I'm one of them.

That being said, I'm really sorry that I won't be able to attend the conference in Atlanta next summer. I can't imagine what it be like surrounded by so many wonderful voices you only read on the nets. Meeting some of these brothers and sisters face to face. I can only hope that it will be as well attended as the one of dkos, though if there's going to be some barbque there you know black folks will be there too. More black voices are needed out there in the world as well as the bloggosphere where so many people tend to live these days. We all need more and better ways to communicate amongst each other, learn from each other and share our experiences because we're really on the edge of something new if we just get it together.

On that note I hope to do better myself and get my blog roll up and running so that I can hit those blogs every time I log into blogger. I and I promise a certain someone to do better about my communications, lol. Then I will make the effort to visit those on the roll once a week and say something, let them know I was there. Then no one will be able to scream that a black person didn't support them because I did.

MY NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION

I often wonder how America, which has become one of the greatest nations on earth, sends some of its' children to bed hungry every night. How does this happen, when the stores are stocked full of all the finest foods anywhere to be found, and yet a mother cannot place that bounty and goodness on her table for her children to eat for lack of the kindness this nation claims to have? The sad fact is that too many Americans hate the poor, ignore the hunger and want that go on in this country, while rushing to the aid of other countries. Not that they shouldn't, but home first. When no child is without a meal to be had here in this country, then pay attention to others. Stop running over seas, to other countries, where they have an "excuse", that of war, famine and drought, to be needy, while you think that here in this rich nation, everyone should be working, taking care of their reproductive health, not having babies they can't feed and house, while turning a blind eye to the rampant racism and neglect that goes on here. There is no reason there should hunger and want in America, except for the hunger and want in our souls. I am not a rich person by any stretch of the imagination, but it just struck me that I can donate some few dollars at the grocery store where we shop to help feed the hungry.

My New Year's resolution has nothing to do with the ton of weight I need to lose, but it's to contribute every time my sis and I go to the grocery store to make our purchases, to donate what few dollars I can so that others might eat. I wish that everyone would think about this whenever they go grocery shopping; stop and donate what you can, even if just a dollar, each time you go. Or find an organization which feeds children and donate to it. Start a change jar and put no pennies in it, just silver and dollar bills, save it for a month, then donate it to a food bank and start another. Sometimes work places force their employees to pledge donations to United Way. Stop that and organize a monthly fund for the local food banks and donate to them instead. Have charity at home before you give away from home as there is plenty here to be done.

Thank you Marian Wright Edelman for all your years of service, bless you and yours on this Christmas day.

RING AROUND THE ROSES A POCKET FULL OF HATRED

MY HATRED; LET ME SHOW YOU IT.


















Vladimir Putin. TIME magazine's person of the year. You know this choice is so full of hate and venom and we all know it. This choice isn't so much about Putin as it is about Al Gore, and not nominating him at all because of rightwing hatred and vitriol. Ain't it sad?

BLACK LIKE ME; OR SOL!

Now tell me this ain't a scream out loud with laughter! Somebody ought to tell white folks that God don't like ugly, lmfbao!

Revealed: scientist who sparked racism row has black genes
by Robert Veraik

Published: 10 December 2007

A Nobel Prize-winning scientist who provoked a public outcry by claiming black Africans were less intelligent than whites has a DNA profile with up to 16 times more genes of black origin than the average white European.

An analysis of the genome of James Watson showed that 16 per cent of his genes were likely to have come from a black ancestor of African descent. By contrast, most people of European descent would have no more than 1 per cent.

"This level is what you would expect in someone who had a great-grandparent who was African," said Kari Stefansson of deCODE Genetics, whose company carried out the analysis. "It was very surprising to get this result for Jim."

The findings were made available after Dr Watson became only the second person to publish his fully sequenced genome online earlier this year. Dr Watson was forced to resign his post as head of a research laboratory in New York shortly after triggering an international furore by questioning the comparative intelligence of Africans. In an interview during his recent British book tour, the American scientist said he was "inherently gloomy about the prospects for Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – whereas all the testing says not really".

The Science Museum in London cancelled a lecture by him, while the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, branded his comments "racist propaganda".

Other scientists working in the field of molecular biology quickly distanced themselves from the comments, saying that it was not possible to draw such conclusions from the work that had been done on DNA.

The study of the DNA of Dr Watson – who shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for medicine – adds another twist to the controversy surrounding the American scientist's comments.

In addition to the 16 per cent of his genes which were identified as likely to have come from a black ancestor of African descent, a further 9 per cent were likely to have come from an ancestor of Asian descent, the test indicated.

I had responded to an article in Slate about this very same issue and look what happens! I wonder if I should welcome him with open arms into the family, lmfbao!

THIS IS SO NOT RIGHT!

Sean Taylor, #21 safety for the Redskins is dead at the age of 24. I've been a 'Skins fan for 36 years now and I've never seen anything like this. I knew that he had been in critical condition when I went to bed last night, but this morning when I turned on the tv they were posting his death and I cried. It was just too sad. It was just too soon. Rest in peace Sean, my your family be blessed.

THANKFUL TO BE BROWN

i am thankful and proud
that god chose me to be
browm

i feel so honored
that when i was being
conceived he deigned
to confer chocolate
on me
and nappy hair
which has not been processed
for eleven years now

i look at my brown skin
and see its' beauty
its' color
its' texture
and i am eternally grateful
to have been chosen
to represent
my people
chosen in love

i will forget
for the next couple of
months, that i am one
of the most hated things
on mother earth
that because of my beautiful
god chosen brown
people hate me
despise me
say that i am
inherently stupid
because of my brown
because they hate my brown

i will set aside thoughts
that they jail my brown brothers
hate my brown brothers
fear my brown brothers
that they will one day
be seen as equals
as capable of doing as much
if not more as any
of god's other colors
afraid they must share
god's earth with his brown creations

i will chose to do as i have always
done and celebrate the coming holidays
of the birth of my lord and savior
jesus christ
celebrate the many gifts he has bestowed
upon me such as my family and friends
the gift of life after a heart attack
of living one more year
and of having the wherewithal to get by
as we brown people say

it ain't easy being brown
for all that god's other colors
want to deny you
but i wouldn't give nothing
for my journey now
wouldn't take nothing for
my journey now

i pray to god
if i have to come back
this way again
please
i beg you
pray you
please
make me brown
make me cool
make me soulful
make me jazz
make me blues
make me r&b
make me soul food
candied yams
greens
ham bones and green beans
and for heaven's sake
don't forget
to make me
potato salad
make me a sistah

god made me brown
because he knew
i could endure
i could survive
as did
my brown mothers
and fathers
before me
slavery
brutality
jim crow
nigger
lynchings
cross burnings
i've seen one
at my home
no education
poor education
no rights
dr. king
civil rights
i've lived to
witness most of
it change
and not change

but still
i'm thankful
for life
and to be chosen
to be brown
it is an honor
and a privilege
i'm glad to say
i've lived

NEGRO PLEASE!

- Hatewatch - http://www.splcenter.org/blog -

Rewriting History: A Black Neo-Confederate Speaks

Posted By Brentin Mock On November 8, 2007 @ 9:15 am In Neo-Confederate

Last week, African-American neo-Confederate activist H.K. Edgerton stopped by Montgomery, Ala., to commemorate the five-year anniversary of his 1,385-mile “March Through Dixie,” a fundraising trek from his home in Asheville, N.C., to Austin, Texas. He was dressed in a gray Confederate soldier’s uniform and hoisted a large Confederate flag, mounted on a pole, over his right shoulder. While visiting Montgomery, Edgerton — an extremely rare black face in the overwhelmingly white neo-Confederate movement — granted Hatewatch an interview in which he detailed his unique perspectives on the Civil War, the Ku Klux Klan, and race relations in the antebellum and postwar South. Here are just a few of his more interesting assertions:

• Before the slaves were freed, “Black folks and white folks were family,” he said. “We did all kinds of things together here. White people and slaves saw each other on the streets and they tipped their hats to each other … and asked each other about their families.”
• “The War Between the States is not over. This thing is real!”
• “I don’t see [the Ku Klux Klan] as terrorists. I see them as — I hate to use the word ‘vigilante,’ but vigilante sometimes ain’t as bad as you think. When your government fails you and fails to protect you, you have to turn somewhere.”
• The KKK was “just protecting the people — all of the people, black and white. Blacks wanted to be a part of that.”
• “Why would a man tell my babies [that] walking into a classroom with a Confederate flag on [their clothing] that [that is] demonic, evil and offensive? Black folks in the South been living with that flag all our lives.”
• “It wasn’t so much about [then-Alabama Gov.] George Wallace going to the schoolhouse doors, saying, ‘No, you can’t integrate.’ The thought in his mind was, ‘No, you can’t tell me to integrate. Let us deal with this, and we’re gonna deal with it.’”
• Slaves “were given a new pair of pants and a new pair of shoes every day, and he thinks this white man was cruel! [Black slaves] had the same medical facilities that the white man had. … You look at most of the slave pictures … they are not raggedy and torn. They lived better than most! … Most of them looked better than most of the white folks around and lived better than most of the free world!”

KANYE'S MOM PASSES

Donda West, mother of Kanye West, passed away today due to complications from surgery. Ms. West was just 58 years of age, and was quite accomplished during her life time. My sympathy goes out to Kanye on his loss, and may his mother rest in peace.

ARIANNA HUFFINGTON: KING MAKING 101

I am not now, nor have I ever been an Obama supporter. It has nothing to do with race, at least not for me, but for whites, his blackness is what draws them. Why? Because he is not a black man who grew up in the civil rights era and so has no connection to it or the era of angry black men and women determined to drag this country kicking and screaming into the twentieth century. Barack Obama has nothing to do with the atmosphere of poisonous racial hatred and tensions that shaped and impinged on a generation of blacks who grew up with segregation, Jim Crow laws and lynchings. He might not have even been in the country at that time, so in essence, Sen. Obama is untainted as it were by those views, and so can enjoy the cache bestowed upon him by whites. It doesn't hurt either that his black father was not African American, who might have been shaped by that era. You see, whites don't want our blackness, our history continually thrust in their faces. Which is funny since one of the questions about Obama in the beginning was his blackness. Now it is ours, and the fact that we may be too black as voters, unwilling to give our tacit approval to Obama the presidential candidate.

Arianna Huffington of Huffington Post is what has me in a snit today. One thing to remember about Huffington is the fact that she is a former republican turned democrat. If there is such a thing. You see Arianna was formerly married to the very much gay Michael Huffington, an admitted bi-sexual and former representative from California, who sank Arianna's own dreams of becoming queen of America. She is trumpeting Obama all the way and it shows. I don't have a problem with who these people promote, but I do have a problem with their holier than thou attitude and their Kool Aid drinking ways. Actually, I don't think Huffington, in her snarkiness has drunk the Kool Aid, she just uses it to her advantage, knowing full well that for whatever reason, most people haven't thought out for themselves their views on Clinton, they just acceptingly drink the Kool Aid from the picture of those who hated on Bill Clinton, all republicans, and who spent the whole of his administration trying to derail his presidency, making a mockery of this country in doing so, all the while with stinking, unwashed laundry in their own moral closets.

I drank the Kool Aid too. No, I wasn't anywhere near as hateful as most of the country is, I had just decided I didn't like Clinton. Then I began to examine why. I believed most of the things said about her, to a certain degree. It wasn't with that boiling over hatred of everyone else, but nevertheless, it was there. Was Hillary Clinton cold and calculating? No more so than me. I mean, to get the things in life that you want, even as a woman, you have to be don't you? If not then how do you get to where she's gotten, on your back? I don't think so. She has no human warmth. She's a mother with a daughter who seems to have turned out fine, so where did they get that from? She seems warm enough to me in her dealings with the people around her. In contrast look at Laura Bush and those Bush twins. Were they what people would categorize as a couple of sluttish, sleazy tramps? Did Bush ever reign those girls in to act like young women who were representing their country and the White House? Hell naw, she let them have their sluttish ways all over the globe, male reporters following and salivating all over them, wondering when they could get some. Damn. In spite of what went down in the Monica Lewinsky affair, the Clintons have managed to remain married for thirty-five years. Contrast that with Huffington, Gingrich, Vitter, Craig, and quite a few other republicans and their peccadilloes, just look that crap up. The stuff that Gingrich did would make you sick by comparison with the Clintons.

Obama wasn't black enough.
Edwards became the Breck Girl.
Clinton was cold and unfeeling.
Chinese clapping.

All of this according to who? The press? Detractors? You? Me? This is my theory on blackness; whoever showed up is what you are. Brown in color, kinky of hair? You're black. Tiger Woods? He black. Barack Obama? He black too, lol. Halle Berry? She black. Who can really let you know if you're black? Whites and all other non black races, especially when they get good and ready. Just ask Woods. John Edwards is a wealthy white man running for president. I don't resent the mans' wealth in the face of my own circumstances. Dang, I'm desperate for a new car. If it weren't for a wonderful, loving brother, I don't know where I'd be. He's kept Patches on the road for years now, and being disabled this counts double. I need that car. But do I hate Edwards and his family for having what I don't? No. It's as simple as that. God has given me what I need and will continue to do so. Where did the Breck Girl image start? With some unknown republican source, inventing a smear. It didn't help that Edwards paid for hair cuts and makeup for shoots from his campaign funds, which was the start of the whole thing, but to me this was minor, no biggie. His mistake for me was in stating that Hillary made misstatements within in two minutes on the issue of licenses for illegal aliens. She did not. But of course that was the talk of the town last week after the debates. By who's standards? The press? Right wingers? Yours? Mines? Then there's Chinese clapping. At this time the source of this Chinese clapping seems to come from Chris Tweety Mathews, who spent the week asking why Clinton was clapping at everybody as if she were Chinese. How do they dream these things up? Just sitting around a table talking? I guess so, but really, come on, this was so asinine.

If it's out there it's on the nets and it can be tracked down. I don't have the resources of the msm, (mainstream media), but you can always look things up on the web, always make the attempt to track them down. I do. I refuse to drink that beverage served up with lies, innuendos, gossip, some else's half formed opinions, and whatever else garbage they decide to add to it. It's like GHB, it clouds your mind, keeps you from freely thinking on your own, stops the flow of proper discourse. So I make every effort to do my own fact checking now, before believing some else's. As for Arianna Huffington, don't believe her hype either, she's in love. I believe that girl is happy now with her current headlines concerning Clinton.

The nets, a wonderful thing invented by Al Gore.

REDUCED TO SMALL SCREEN, NEEDS TO GO LARGE

Below is my response to an article in the washpo which concerned racism in this country, and how so many of the issues get their 15 minutes of fame, then shoved on for the next issue, while the real deal of racism in this country is never really discussed.

I don't know what those episodes are, but they are not a part of the greater discussion that isn't going on. Racism is deep and it is underground in this country, no matter what anyone thinks, from the segregation of the neighborhoods in this country, to the racism in our schools that sets our children up for failure, to the encouragement of the welfare state that has virtually destroyed black family life. Racism in this country is no longer discussed because whites think that blacks in this country have everything they need or are going to get while all the long discriminating. Liberals are just as bad as conservatives. They may espouse views condemning racism, but they, too, live in segregated neighborhoods, with their segregated schools, or kids in private schools, just as much as the black hating conservatives. Until whites can either look at racism in the forms in which it now exist, or get over the fact that it's more underground than they know, then we cannot possibly have a conversation about racism. In order for us to move forward in this country whites will have to face the fact that the race card is still be played in this country against blacks. Need proof? Just look at immigration and illegals. For generations whites have used education along with low wages and racism to keep blacks out of the skilled crafts jobs held by white men and passed on to their sons until their grandsons began to go on to college to escape hard labor. Blacks, already locked out of those jobs due to racism were further locked out - due to racism. Only now another group of people is being used against them; illegal immigrants. These people accept low wages, no benefits, and bring down the wages of everyone else in doing so. Employers who hire them do not want to hire and train low income blacks and whites who so desperately need the skills and the work. Believe me, this isn't all as I can tell you from my own personal experiences with whites and discrimination. Check out how many blacks consider themselves to have been discriminated against in looking for work or in their current employment. How many young black male children are shuffled off into those low achieving classes when there is nothing wrong with them? They are worth next to nothing when they come out, poor babies. The educational system, instead of trying to figure out how best to serve black children does nothing more than warehouse them in under achieving classes, dumbing down our children. Believe me, these things are nothing to the discussion which really needs to happen in this country. We gained our rights, only to have them deviously subverted and no one wants to talk about it. Why should I, as a black person, wish to talk about illegal immigrants in this country? Just another group of people to discriminate against me as they already have. And let's not forget about reparations. This country had paid every group going, even some it shouldn't have, except African Americans, monies that could go a long way to easing some of the ills we face in this country. Where should the conversation begin, education? Jobs? Housing? Reparations? All of the above, of course, but I won't hold my breath. I do agree with the last statements in this article. Blacks don't need to be victims anymore, but it takes a great effort to out and snatch what is rightfully yours, take it from the hands of whites. The mental effort to do so on a daily basis is almost killing. I'm actually not even sure whether or not any of these small potatoes ought to be punished, really. Except Imus, who had such a huge following. They don't really make a dent in what needs to be done, and besides, we know they're out there, lurking. I grew up with the Dogs of the world, I know who they are. No, our discussions need to be more finite than this, but there is a problem. Those who are white must not only listen, they must hear. Then they must do something to begin to help correct the mess that underground racism has created, so that we can all move forward.

BOW WOW WOW YIPPY YO YIPPY YAY!

Why must I be like that why must I call black folks niggers? Must be the dog in me! No surprise here, let me tell you. I've had to deal with racism in some facet of my life for years now and nothing people of other races say can surprise me. I'm not going to say a whole lot about Duane Chapman because so many others have already said anything I might have said, but I think dirty red said it best at A Black Man's View. As I can tell you, this is one reason we worked so hard all those years ago to erase nigger from the vocabulary of all folks, and as one blogger said, Dog's mistake shows why best of all.

JAZZY'S BOO HOO HOOS OF THE DAY

This wonderful brother, slip slop artist TI wants to be allowed more visitors in his house for Thanksgiving. For this reason, I say HELL NAW, BOYFRIEND, YOUR BUTT NEEDS TO BE IN DA HOUSE! Apparently you need to be off the streets for the arsenal you were trying to purchase.

Rapper T.I. wants judge to allow Thanksgiving gathering

By SAEED AHMED
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 11/06/07

Stuck inside your house, day in and day out, with nothing to do and no one but your wife and children to keep you company will make any man restless.

A jet-setting superstar who's being forced to play stay-at-home dad is no exception.

Atlanta rapper T.I., who's under house arrest awaiting trial on federal weapons charges, is asking a judge to let him host a Thanksgiving Day dinner at his Jonesboro home.

In a motion filed in federal court Tuesday, T.I — who was born Clifford Harris Jr. — requested that the judge waive the no-more-than-three visitors-at-a-time provision of his $3 million bond.

Harris, 27, wants the exception only for Turkey Day, only between the hours of 9 a.m. and 6:30 p.m., and only for a group of visitors whose names he submitted for approval.

In another motion Tuesday, Harris also asked the judge to allow access for workers who can come clean his yard, pool and home.

Harris was arrested Oct. 13 in a Midtown parking lot as he allegedly tried to illegally buy three machine guns and two silencers.

Among the strict bond conditions that U.S. Magistrate Judge Alan Baverman set, Harris can continue to live with his girlfriend and his children. However, visitors are limited to three at a time between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m., and have to be cleared with a criminal background check.

Harris' movements are monitored by a GPS system. And at least one guard lives on his property at all times, said Steve Sadow, one of three lawyers representing Harris.

If the judge grants his request, Harris will pay for additional guards for the celebration, according to the motion.

He can serve sweet tea, but his bond conditions forbid him from consuming alcohol.

Dwight Thomas, another lawyer for Harris, said he could not discuss the particulars of the motion, such as how many family members Harris was expecting.

Thomas said Harris was coping well as a prisoner in his home.

"He's doing fine. He's very upbeat," Thomas said. "He's looking forward to his day in court."

Until then, fans who want to catch a glimpse of the Atlanta rapper can catch him in the movie "American Gangster."

Among his handful of scenes is one where Harris is sitting alongside his drug overlord uncle, played by actor Denzel Washington, enjoying a Thanksgiving dinner.

Yo Clifford, sit your nappy butt down and enjoy your time out of jail, cause you need it.

JUNKET HERE, JUNKET THERE, JUNKET, JUNKET EVERYWHERE

Now mind you, this is the woman who just refused to take more money alloted by congress the better to do her job, and yet she can spend money from businesses she might have to regulate to junket around the world.

Industries Paid for Top Regulators' Travel
Two Heads of Product Safety Agency Accepted Trips From Manufacturer Groups

By Elizabeth Williamson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 2, 2007; A01

The chief of the Consumer Product Safety Commission and her predecessor have taken dozens of trips at the expense of the toy, appliance and children's furniture industries and others they regulate, according to internal records obtained by The Washington Post. Some of the trips were sponsored by lobbying groups and lawyers representing the makers of products linked to consumer hazards.

The records document nearly 30 trips since 2002 by the agency's acting chairman, Nancy Nord, and the previous chairman, Hal Stratton, that were paid for in full or in part by trade associations or manufacturers of products ranging from space heaters to disinfectants. The airfares, hotels and meals totaled nearly $60,000, and the destinations included China, Spain, San Francisco, New Orleans and a golf resort on Hilton Head Island, S.C.

Notable among the trips -- commonly described by officials as "gift travel" -- was an 11-day visit to China and Hong Kong in 2004 by Stratton, then chairman. The $11,000 trip was paid for by the American Fireworks Standards Laboratory, an industry group based in an office suite in Bethesda whose only laboratories are in Asia.

The CPSC says that at the time, the group had no pending regulatory requests. But since then the fireworks group has urged the commission to adopt its safety standards, an idea that is still pending, according to an organization newsletter.

Consumer groups and lawmakers intensified their criticism of the CPSC this summer after several highly publicized recalls of Chinese-made toys that contained hazardous levels of lead. Critics have long charged that the agency has become too close to regulated industries, opting for "voluntary" standards and repeatedly choosing not to take legal action against businesses that refuse to recall dangerous products.

Government-wide travel regulations state that officials from agencies such as the CPSC should not accept money for travel from nonfederal sources if the payments "would cause a reasonable person . . . to question the integrity of agency programs or operations."

But CPSC officials defend the industry-paid trips as a way for the agency to be in contact with manufacturing officials and hear their concerns despite a limited travel budget. Commission spokeswoman Julie Vallese said the agency's counsel and its ethics officers conducted "a full conflict-of-interest analysis" of the trips and stand behind their decisions.

"The mission of the agency and the benefits to consumer safety are two factors that are taken into consideration in approving gift travel," she said. Reports of the trips are submitted to the Office of Government Ethics, she added.

Several ethics experts and lawyers say the two administrators' travel records, some of which they reviewed at the request of The Post, suggest a conflict of interest.

"This is a blatant violation of the ethics code," said Craig Holman, an expert on governmental ethics law for the nonprofit consumer advocacy group Public Citizen. The rules allow nonfederal sources to pay for trips, "but not if you're a private party with business pending before the agency," he said.

The agency's travel patterns during the Bush administration, detailed in internal agency documents, differ from those of the Clinton era. Ann Brown, who served as chairman from 1994 to 2001, traveled only at the expense of the agency or of media organizations that sponsored appearances where she announced product recalls, according to the documents provided.

"We hated to have an industry pay for our staff for anything," said Pam Gilbert, a lawyer who was executive director of the agency under Brown.

The records show that Nord and Stratton repeatedly accepted gift travel for events from industries subject to CPSC enforcement. In February 2006, the Toy Industry Association provided Nord with rail fare, two nights in a hotel, meals -- and even $51 to pay her Union Station parking bill -- to attend the American International Toy Fair in New York, one of the industry's biggest product exhibitions.

Joan Lawrence, the association's vice president who oversees toy safety, said that "I have heard some enforcement officials say that they consider attending vital" because "they are able to see new products before they hit retail shelves" and suggest safety improvements. She added that "approximately 50 percent of the CPSC budget is used for children's products."

But Lawrence could not say why, given the importance of the event and the industry, the agency did not pay for its own travel. "If they came up with the money, that's okay," she said. "The educational component, of course, is our priority, and that's why we pay for the chairman."

Vallese, the CPSC spokeswoman, said Nord gave two speeches at the meeting, toured "new toy exhibits," watched "product demonstrations" and participated in "product safety discussions."

In a presentation to a trade group of product regulators and manufacturers last year, Nord said the agency was "working aggressively" to limit deaths from residential fires and carbon monoxide poisoning, according to an account published on the group's Web site. She noted that "fuel-fired heating equipment" is linked to more than 300 deaths a year.

Makers of that equipment are represented by the Gas Appliance Manufacturers Association, for which Stratton, Nord's predecessor, was a guest speaker at two annual meetings. In 2003 Stratton spoke at the group's meeting on Hilton Head Island in South Carolina. In 2005, he spoke at its annual meeting in Orlando.

The meetings drew more than 300 manufacturers' representatives and spouses for seminars, a dinner dance and golf. While the association's manufacturers are regulated by three other government agencies, its vice president, Joseph Mattingly, said he could not recall paying for any attendees from those agencies.

Stratton said: "My view was we needed to engage industries and not only tell them what we expected but also to learn what they were thinking. . . . You can't do that sitting in the ivory tower at the CPSC."

The records also detail several trips that were paid for by lawyers who represent manufacturers in product liability lawsuits.

In February, for example, Nord accepted more than $2,000 in travel and accommodations from the Defense Research Institute to attend its meeting in New Orleans on "product litigation trends," according to her report. The institute is made up of more than 20,000 corporate defense lawyers. In 2004, Stratton attended the group's meeting in Barcelona, at a cost to the group of $915 for his hotel room.

"They are the biggest government agency that would have impact on the stuff that we do," said Steve Coronado, a former chairman of the group's product liability committee, which has 3,000 members. "They've been very cordial and accommodating and gracious," he said of the agency's past three chiefs.

Coronado said that Nord was the group's main presenter in New Orleans and that she briefed 1,000 lawyers about "what their processes and procedures are, rules and regulations changes." He added: "I don't think it was a very politically oriented presentation." A CPSC spokesman did not respond to a request for direct comment by Nord on this trip and others.

Coronado said Brown, the Clinton-era agency chairman, also spoke to the group. But agency records of her non-CPSC-financed travel do not list that trip, suggesting that it was not paid for by the lawyers group. Gilbert, the former CPSC executive director, called DRI's contribution toward Stratton's hotel bill in Spain "amazing."

Stratton said the group "wanted to know where the CPSC was going on various product issues, and they wanted to know what the companies [the lawyers represented] could expect, what the government was thinking in regard to their issues." He said lawyers who sue companies over product-related injuries never invited him to speak.

Stratton gave a general defense of his more than 25 trips, which included a trip to China that the Toy Industry Association paid $8,000 to help finance. "Everybody wants to see the chairman," he said. The fireworks group that paid for a separate China trip did not respond to an e-mailed request for comment about its contacts with the CPSC.

Some say the commission's approach to gift travel points to a Bush administration philosophy that favors engaging corporations in policymaking that affects them. "This administration apparently has taken the position that speaking and appearing before the regulated community, even where there are enforcement matters pending, does not create the appearance of a conflict," said Kenneth Gross, an ethics lawyer at Skadden, Arps.

"These are difficult and subjective lines to be drawn," he said. "Prior administrations have drawn that line in a different place."

Nord was a corporate lawyer at Eastman Kodak before her appointment. Stratton led Lawyers for Bush in his home state of New Mexico during the president's 2000 campaign and co-founded the Rio Grande Foundation, which advocates limited government and supports free-market economic principles.

The CPSC did not immediately agree to a request to review copies of internal documents related to several trips or its internal gift-travel regulations. But the records document a pattern of travel that varies from the stated habits of top officials at four other regulatory agencies.

The Securities and Exchange Commission, for example, "does not accept host-paid travel reimbursements or in-kind payments from any organization regulated by the agency," said spokesman John Heine. Food and Drug Administration rules likewise do not permit outside travel payments from regulated companies, organizations "engaged in any lobbying activities" or those that receive "more than ten percent of their income from a corporate source," among other restrictions.

The Federal Communications Commission bans travel paid for by regulated companies or others with business before the agency, for officials from division heads upward, according to spokesman Clyde Ensslin.

F. Gary Davis, who helped establish the Office of Government Ethics in 1978 and served as its general counsel and deputy director until 2000, said the government-wide regulations were imposed "to ensure that there is no appearance of impropriety when you're dealing with a prohibited source." He said that it is conceivable that some of the CPSC's industry-sponsored trips were justified but that in those cases, the agency should be prepared to make its decision-making records available.

WTF!@#$%&*

O.K. So now I don't need my voting rights because I'm more likely to die before completely using them?@#$%&* What the hell kind of sense does that make? Fire the fool, please.

Justice Official Apologizes for Remarks on Minorities

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 30, 2007; 11:00 AM

The head of the Justice Department's voting section apologized today for saying that racial minorities are more likely to die before becoming elderly and therefore are not hurt as much as whites by voter identification laws.

In prepared testimony for an appearance in front of a House Judiciary subcommittee this morning, John K. Tanner said his remarks earlier this month at the National Latino Congreso in Los Angeles "do not in any way accurately reflect my career of devotion" to upholding federal voting rights laws.

"I want to apologize for the comments," Tanner said in his testimony. " . . . I understand that my explanation of the data came across in a hurtful way, which I deeply regret."

The apology follows a series of remarks by Tanner this month that have caused a political uproar and led to calls from some Democrats, including presidential hopeful Barack Obama, that Tanner resign or be fired.

Tanner, a 31-year career Justice Department employee, has previously come under fire for his stewardship at the voting section, including his approval of a controversial voter identification law for the state of Georgia and his handling of an investigation into alleged voting irregularities in Ohio during the 2004 elections.

At the Los Angeles conference earlier this month, Tanner said that voter identification laws primarily affect elderly people because they are less likely to have photo IDs, and are less likely to impact minorities who tend to die earlier.

"Our society is such that minorities don't become elderly the way white people do," Tanner said. "They die first . . . And so anything that disproportionately impacts the elderly has the opposite impact on minorities--just the math is such as that."

A few days earlier, Tanner also suggested to the Georgia NAACP that poor people are likely to have photo IDs because check-cashing businesses require them.

Tanner, who is white, also asked the group: "You think you get asked for ID more than I do? I've never heard anyone talk about driving while white."

The remarks prompted widespread criticism from Democrats, who said Tanner's analysis of demographic patterns was flawed and amateurish and indicated a lack of concern for minority rights. In a letter to acting Attorney General Peter D. Keisler, Obama wrote that Tanner "possesses neither the character nor the judgment" to keep his job.

In separate testimony to be delivered later today, a former voting section analyst says that Tanner's remarks about minority voters "are actually a fair example of his approach to truth, facts and the law."

"Broad generalizations, deliberate misuse of statistics, and casual supposition, in my experience, were preferred over the analytical rigor, impartiality and scrupulous attention to detail that had marked the work of the section prior to Tanner taking control in 2005," Toby Moore, a former Justice Department political geographer, said in his prepared testimony.

Today's hearing by the House Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties is an outgrowth of an ongoing investigation by congressional Democrats into the firings of nine U.S. attorneys and allegations that the Bush administration has overtly politicized the Justice Department.

The House session also comes as Democrats in the Senate have delayed a vote on the confirmation of attorney general nominee Michael B. Mukasey, who raised concerns among some lawmakers by refusing to say whether a type of simulated drowning amounts to torture under U.S. laws.

WHITE LIES AND THE MEANING OF THE NOOSE

I don't want to call anyone a liar. But I will. White people who claim that there are some in this country who don't understand what the noose means are liars. Try as I might, I couldn't find the article on Huffpo which convinced me of this. The gentleman stated that he lived in Jena and thought that the truth should be told. We had it all backwards. Those white youths who hung the noose from the tree didn't understand, he said, what that noose meant to black people. Liar. Those boys knew every bit of history behind the hanging of a noose. They have computers don't they? More to the point they have white male relatives, grandfathers, who were only too well aware of what a noose hanging from a tree meant. And you mean to tell me that some old men sitting around with a group of their young male relatives wouldn't tell them the story behind the noose? Might not have even shared a story or two of at least witnessing a lynching? You mean to tell me that those good ol' boys never sat around, recounting the days of when whites reigned supreme and the noose was king? You and I both know damned well that they did.

I am 53 years of age, and grew up not 20 minutes from Washington, D.C., and for all the world you would have thought it was the backwoods of Deliverance. I never really understood how southern Maryland really was until I got older. You would have thought the danged state was somewhere between Georgia and Mississippi. It was that bad. In 1965, at the age of 11 I witnessed something I will never forget. A cross burning. Have you ever seen how those things glow, horribly? It's like nothing you've ever seen. I have never seen a hanging. The pictures are enough to sear the soul. I knew what lynchings were though. I had heard all about them, understood them in all their heart wrenching hideousness. I knew they were used to keep black men in line, understanding where their "place" was.

A lynching is a thing of pure hatred. Don't believe otherwise. A noose hung from a tree, on a door, anywhere, is a symbol of hatred and control. It is a threat. It's statement is a snarled hiss of "I hate you, I hate who you are, and I am using this noose to tell you so." No one who sees a noose should ever believe otherwise, because those of us who are black know its' meaning. We know what those who leave the noose are saying. We know the hatred directed at us for whatever reason. There is no such thing as the noose is a joke. What kind of a joke? A very sick joke? Having hung the noose, knowing its' meaning, knowing what was meant when it was hung, how do you then declare, "oh, it was only a joke, a boyish prank, played by some children." Oh, really? Well black children, yes, they hung those nooses from the tree, they said I hate you, might even like to see you swinging from that noose but hey, they were only playing, why get so upset?

Should the young white boys who hung the noose from the tree charged and punished with a hate crime? Think about this; when black men where lynched no one wanted to see those who did the lynching punished, at least not other whites. Perhaps justice would have been served if those kids had been made to study the history of lynchings in this country, made to put together a packet which could then be shown throughout the school system in Louisiana, and they could also have been made to study the justice system in this country as it pertains to young black men and their incarceration rates. They should not have gone unpunished, and at the very least they should have been made to understand why their "prank" was not a "joke". At least not to black people who have seen such things.

No, the noose as a symbol is not a joke. The author of that piece knew it, and so did those young white boys in Jena, which is why they hung the noose. Why would you hang a noose and not know the meaning? And if they didn't know the meaning then surely this says that they created the same meaning as did their forefathers, doesn't it? I consider that a horrifying thought, don't you? No matter how you look at it, the noose still means hatred and death to black men.

PS:I did find this article again, and it was posted on Huffpo. Apparently, Media Myths About The Jena 6, by Craig Franklin, has been flying around the wed since it was written. Jack and Jill has an article here, taking the myth apart finely.

O.K. IT'S OFFICIAL NOW:THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY IS DEAD

In November of 2006, the people, republicans and democrats alike, went to the poles and did what congress asked us to do. We handed them a mandate to end the war. We voted overwhelmingly to oust many republicans and replace them with democrats, to the tune of regaining congress by one. There is nothing to be said about Joe Lieberman. He is a democrat, turned independent, who is a republican in sheep's clothing. Nancy Pelosi was voted first female speaker of the house for nothing. She came in riding her white horse, assuring us that she was going to issue a stinging defeat to Notpreznitbush, and she caved. She gave into the republicans because she feared that the would paint her with their brush or hatred, she hates America, she hates the soldiers, she's soft on the war on terror. The democrats couldn't stand not to go about their business and make Notpreznitbush blink first. They had nerves, no back bone, no heroicism, they just couldn't bring themselves to do it. We waited and waited in vain, hoping that their spines would come back, but alas, no. A spine doesn't want to be yours if you can't use it properly, and most spines want to be known for standing up to anything, including presidents who were never elected.

Today it is official. The democratic party is dead. Pete Stark, rep. from California, had this to say of Notpreznitbush's veto of the schip program; "You're going to spend it to blow up innocent people if we can get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the president's amusement." Of course, the right jumped on him right away, crying foul, calling for him to apologize. Many of the spineless left also called for him to apologize, and for a few days he didn't. They finally got to boyfriend over the weekend, threatening him with censure. Poor baby, I guess not even knowing ho many of us approved of what he said didn't help. He, like so many others before him, couldn't stand the whinny baby crying of either party, or the vast and vicious hatred of the right. Damn. Just listening to him and that sad, pathetic apology is nauseating.

This is just too much for me. Al Gore should be finishing up his second illustrious term. Instead, he has gone on to win an Emmy, and Oscar, and now the Nobel Peace Prize, and any other award which can be heaped on the man. Our country would know peace now, and probably the prosperity of the evil Clenis, who left us with a surplus in the coffers. Imagine the amount of money that would be in there now with Gore at the helm. Our industries would not have pulled up steaks and moved to foreign countries, forcing the former workers to pack the crates for the move. Katrina would never have happened as it did. Look what's happening [to] for the victims of the San Diego fires. Instead, we have war(s), a recession looming, rampant foreclosures on sub prime rates that never should have happened, the tossing of the middle class into the lower middle class, on and on and on. Our justice system is not our justice system but the right's justice system.

Yes, the dems long national nightmare is over and they no longer have to pretend to have a spine at all, if ever they did have one. They did give it a valiant try though, I have to admit that. It took Nancy Pelosi a few weeks to turn into a bona fide Chicken Head. With Pete Stark's forced apology, it's official now. Nancy Pelosi is a Chicken Head. She swept into office of Speaker of the House and quickly turned it into a barnyard. Everybody is bucking and clucking and doing nothing at all. She promised the war would quickly be ended and here we are, about to end the year, and not the war. All she had to do was send a bill to Notpreeznitbush and let him veto it. That's all. But she couldn't even do that. Just let him veto the damned bill which would have made him look like the idiot that he is. Nooooooooooo. Nancy Chicken Head Pelosi couldn't do that. They listened to the whisperings of the republicans, got their asses kicked and handed to them again, and sat down like whipped dogs.

I don't blame Rep. Pete Stark, really I don't. I imagine that I could hold out against whatever was said to me, because really, why should I care? What could they do to me other than send me home? If I held to my principles wouldn't that be all that mattered? As for Notpreznitbush, hasn't he had enough names hurled at him that he inured to it all? Isn't he man enough to take the names even if he isn't man enough to go to war? Not man enough to not send others to war when he's never been himself? You see, nopreznitbush is a chicken, too. To chicken to go to war. A chicken hawk. Nancy's in good company. No, I don't blame Pete at all, not in the current atmosphere of democratic spinelessness. I know that many of us tried to send him a message of courage, tried to tell him that we appreciated his standing up to those schip vetoing bullies, but I guess when you have all those chickens wildly bucking and clucking at you it's hard.

It's been a long, slow, death for the democratic party. Where did it all start? With the Nixon debacle? Fueled by Carter? Cemented by Regan? Built into a true funeral pyre by Clinton? All of the above probably, but also added to that is the vicious hatred of the republican party. of course, everything about the Clintons whipped the republicans into hate of which I have never seen the likes. Their hatred led them to impeach Bill Clinton for lying about a sex act. Which all men lie about at some time in their lives. It's just that this was Bill Most Hated Man Clinton, and he had to be punished. By Ken I have no life Starr. Al Gore, now one of America's most decorated citizens, having recently won the Nobel Peace prize for his work on global warming. He, or course, would not demand a recount of the 2000 vote. And who could forget that Frenchified John Kerry? How could he compete against a man who does nothing on his ranch but clear brush? Wind surfing! What the hell kind of Frenchified sport is that? Only the French would do it! And of course, once again, there was disenfranchisement in Florida, those damned pregnant chads. The republicans only respect the sanctity of life, not the right of life to vote.

Perhaps the democratic party is only on life support, and not really dead yet. Perhaps if the dems can win the 2008 election, the party can be resuscitated, just maybe. I'll have to take a wait and see attitude, but with things the way they are, I don't hold out much hope. But I won't pull the plug just yet.



----------------
Now playing: Louis Jordan And His Tympany Five - Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens
via FoxyTunes

TALKING GIBBERISH

O.K. I admit that I'm still angry and upset with what digby had to say about Cosby, and madder still that when I checked out the video it was nothing like she said, and not only that, but both he and Dr. Toussaint appeared on Ophra today, something I just happened across accidentally. At least I've calmed down enough not to write a post concerning who and what a Ms. Ann is, lol. She got lucky on that one. For now. Since this fool was still going on about gibberish, I posted again on her blog that she needed to do her research before stating that anyone was talking gibberish. Before I state anything that I've seen, heard or read, I want to make sure that I fact check what I'm saying, and while it may be her belief that Cosby was talking gibberish, he was not. I did a search and found the video of the interview on another site, and I saw nothing of the kind. I also read some of the responses to that video, and they were the usual. There were some pros and some cons for what Cosby had to say, and of course some people felt that we should not be airing our dirty laundry, which is par for the course. But not one person stated that they thought Cosby was talking gibberish.

The interview that Cosby did with Ophra is up on her site here. I watched a whole hour of Ophra and I want you to know that's saying something. I am not a fan of much of commercial television, but for that hour I actually watched. Bill Cosby did not speak gibberish. He spoke about the same subjects he has for the past six or seven years; our kids and education; their discipline; that we should know what's going on in their lives. He also had a brother and sister, who's boyfriend had shot their mother before their eyes, with the brother begging for his life. The sister spiraled into drug use and sale and had a baby at the age of 16. Both were there to tell the audience that in spite of what they went through, with the help of their grandmother and other members of the community, they were able to survive their tragedy and go on to lead productive lives.

If you're going to babble on inanely about someone as digby does about Bill Cosby, why not make sure of what you're babbling about? Why not make sure that what you're giving ignorant views about are true, by making sure that you've carefully listened to what you're watching, and understood it at the same time, instead of running off inanely at the mouth before those who read you and believe every word you print. Perhaps digby thinks she is defending blacks against the undeserved jabs she feels Cosby is issuing to people who can't defend themselves, which he is not. Cosby is not, as I and so many other blacks know, leveling judgment against that segment of our population who honestly cannot do any better, but he is leveling it against those who know they can do better but aren't even trying. We know he is talking to those of us who know we must do better, for themselves and for their children, or we as a culture will slip further and further behind. He does it because he knows that there is no leader out there doing what needs to be done, and he does it because he loves his people. He does it because if he doesn't, no one will.

Because I still can't believe digby said what she did, that she portrays herself as honestly not knowing what kind of "gibberish" Cosby is speaking, I will give her the benefit of the doubt and not accuse her of racism, but state that she does need to examine the video again and visit Ophra's site for the video of her show, then rethink her statements. Otherwise, I'll just go on believing she's a drunken old fool who needs to get her head examined and hearing aid tested.

DEAR MS. ANN; SIT YOUR DUMB ASS DOWN

I am so indredibly angry I hope I don't burn my machine up. Digby, at Hullabaloo, has written one of the most irresponsible pieces I have ever seen. Apparently, Bill Cosby was on Meet the Press this weekend and caused a stir in the white world, setting digby off. She posted a transcript of his comments and none of the questions he was asked, claiming that Cosby rambled on and spoke mostly gibberish, and did not give Dr. Alvin Toussaint any chance to speak whatsoever. Before I even began posting I checked out the video and my anger mounted. The video quite clearly shows that Cosby is speaking clearly, intelligently, and knows exactly what he is saying. He isn't saying anything that he hasn't been saying for the last five or six years, and he isn't saying anything that isn't the truth. Not only did she not do her homework, she misrepresented everything that Cosby was saying, and did a lazyassed hit job.

I am so sick and tired of white people telling black people what to say about their own situations and anything else for that matter. I refuse to link to her site because she ain't worth all that, but I did do a response to her.


Dear Ms. Ann;
I am not going to wear you the brand new ass you deserve because you're so sorry and pitiful. I understood what Bill Cosby was saying perfectly and I wholeheartedly agree with him. What happened to the questions he was asked? Might that have helped your readers to understand what he was saying instead of assigning it as so much gibberish spoken by an "elderly black man?" Perhaps if you jut stuck to trying to interpret the meanings of your own ugly racist culture then all would be well for you. Just stick what you know, white people, and you will be all right. I've grown weary of white people telling black people how to think, what to say, when to say it, when it is proper for blacks to speak, always to wait on whites to give us the signal. Please Ms. Ann, may I speak a word Ms. Ann, ain't meanin' no harm ya understands, but I'se got apiece to speak, iffn' you don't mind. Yessem, I'mma sit down now, sorry to bother you, Ms. Ann. I have no idea what your politics, and could care less really. I don't trust whites as far I can throw em, repugs or dummycrats, because as you can see, racism still exist, on either side. Republicans hate the hell out of us and we know it; democrats, similar to you, think we should just sit at the back of the room and hesh our mouths, and just listen to what the white man has to say, and then vote for them. I'm beginning to believe that we don't owe our allegiance to anyone, right or left, and that you need to work harder to earn our attention. I never read you because you, like many other white bloggers, aren't worth the print or my attention, but since my attention was called to your post, here I am. You might remember me from back in 2003 when I said you were white. At the time I had no idea that anyone wanted to do you harm. Perhaps instead of that white man's pic you would have been better off putting up the pic of a lawn jockey, then no one would have guessed you were a Ms. Ann white woman. I would suggest you look up the term Ms. Ann. Now, you take care, and please, stay on the white side of the tracks and stop venturing into the black world. I wouldn't want you to tarred. I'm also going to post this on my own blog, and try to look up that interview with Bill Cosby.

I have since viewed the video of what Bill had to say, and I got even angrier. digby's post was even shallower and more racist than I thought, and was highly irresponsible. That video of the interview he did with Tim Russert is just as lucid an intelligent as Bill Cosby has ever been, and he isn't saying anything he hasn't already said before. For her to have posted his comments in such a manner, with no questions, and just saying that his statements were the ravings of a senile old man are just beyond irresponsible to just plain racist. The video is available on Youtube, and it shows that Cosby is speaking just as lucidly and eloquently as he has all the years of his long and wonderful career. I would suggest to digby that if she isn't going to do anything but a lazyassed, halfassed job, then as far as black people are concerned- don't do us any damned favors, please.

The video of the conversation with Russert can be seen at msnbc in the video section, and comes right up at this time. Just totally unbelievable.

DAVID BANNER:SORRY EXCUSE OF A BLACK MAN

Apparently, David Banner is still whining, snotting and crying about the fact that black women are demanding that he act like an adult and stop portraying us in an insulting and degrading manner. Here is the interview he gave to Rolling Stone. And below is my response. A tip of the hat to WAOD.

You know, everyone seems to forget what this is really all about. This is about painting black women as bitches, whores, sluts, golddiggers and anything else so called hip hop "artist" care to paint us as, degrading us like so much used toilet tissue, all the while painting themselves as humanitarians. This is about taking away the view of a black woman as a human being, a living breathing entity, and not so much whole sale slop, to be used by black men to earn a dime from the very same folks on this post; whites. How can calling a black woman bitch, whore, slut be art? Who is David Banner to paint every black woman as such? Or any hip hop "artist" for that matter? Is he the arch angel of God that he knows that this is who she is? If everyone in the ghetto is calling black women by these names, doesn't it mean that he should be correcting them not joining them? All David Banner and the rest of hip hop is saying is this; we have found out that by degrading black women in a way in which they cannot defend themselves, and in a way that shows their degradation by us as black men, and in imagery that is insulting, disgusting and pornographic, which sells to the population with the most money, we want to continue as we have because not only does it make us money, it's our freedom of speech. We don't feel as if we have an obligation to portray black women in any realistic light whatsoever, as that does not add money to our pockets, nor to the pockets of our white masters, the record moguls we slave to. Black women should just sit down and shut the fuck up because we have finally found a way to use their black asses in a way that enriches us; writing lyrics like bitch I know; making sex objects out of women for years at BET; showing them in thongs and nipple covers, cavorting around with black men covered from head to toe in baggy clothing, showing nothing; Tip Drill; chinging a credit card card down a black woman's butt cheeks; yes Nellie, you will be forever remembered for that; showing the world that the only thing a black woman is good for is being ready for sex, any time, any where, any place, and with however many men we please; we want to be able to continue the degradation, and to hell with black women and what they have to say, it's all art. David Banner, in essence, is saying that I don't want to be an adult, I want to be forever 16, for who but a 16 year old could write such lyrics? Who but a 16 year old could ask to be excused for the imagery of black women as sexual jungle bunnies? As no more than a lascivious and lewd animalistic being? Only little boys would whine and cry in this way when they know they've been caught doing things they know are past them, when they know they need to put aside cursing women and begin to become men and respect not just black women but themselves. Only little boys would whine at being told they must now put away their "toys" and become men, and act as a man would act, not as a little boy, snickering behind his hand and cursing adults. That is what must happen if hip hop "artists" want to be respected. They must put aside their degradation and misogynistic views of women, and become part of the human race. If they want respect they're going to have to earn it. You're not a humanitarian if you don't treat one half of the race, and part of the race you belong to as so much garbage to be discarded and thrown away. Until you do this, I cannot consider you as men, for how can I when you degrade and disrespect me before the rest of the world? It doesn't work that way, and the sooner you accept this fact the sooner hip hop will grow and become respected for the incredible black created musical force that it can be, and not the destructive force of children.

A RAPE EPIDEMIC

Why I followed a story to the New York Times I don't know, which is often the case for me. My memory ain't worth diddly. I won't print the whole story here, but you can read it here. Be ready with a box of tissues. It's the story of a rape epidemic in the Congo. Damn.

THREE DOCTORS

Authors and 'Three Doctors' bond with fathers

By Bob Minzesheimer, USA TODAY

NEWARK — They're three friends from Newark's inner city who demolished the stereotypes, overcame the odds and became doctors and authors.

They called themselves "The Three Doctors." Their third book, The Bond: Three Young Men Learn to Forgive and Reconnect With Their Fathers (Riverhead, $24.95), arrives Thursday.

That also happens to be the birthday of Rameck Hunt's father, Alim Bilal. An ex-con and former drug addict, Bilal belatedly put his life together, inspired by his son's success.

"The publisher didn't know it was his birthday," Hunt says. "It's spooky in a way, but maybe it's a sign: that it's a book that was meant to be."

Hunt, Sampson Davis and George Jenkins, all 34, grew up in broken homes. As they tell it, their mothers and grandmothers did all the heavy lifting of being parents. Their fathers were mostly absent.

That part of the story is all too familiar. The rest is not: The three friends pledged in their senior year of high school that they would all go to college, then on to medical school.

They did, and they wrote about it in their 2002 best seller, The Pact: Three Young Men Make a Promise and Fulfill a Dream. A children's version, WeBeat the Street: How a Friendship Pact Led to Success, followed in 2005.

Hunt, an internist at the University Medical Center in Princeton, N.J., came up with the idea for the new book. At first, he thought it would be about just him and his father.

But as he talked to Davis and Jenkins, "we realized that each of us had a similar but different story to tell. We had all grown up in a world where it seemed normal for men to abandon their children."

Davis, an emergency-room doctor at Newark's St. Michael's Medical Center and two other hospitals, has a Christmas memory of the year when he was 6 when his father pulled a gun on his mother.

"Mine wasn't the kind of house where you could learn a lot about conflict resolution," he says.

Jenkins, a dentist in Harlem and a professor at Columbia University College of Dental Medicine, grew up with little contact with his father, who lived in South Carolina.

"I'm not sure I even knew his phone number," he says.

Never a Father's Day

In their predominantly poor and black Newark neighborhood, Hunt says, "Father's Day was kind of like Rosh Hashana," the Jewish New Year. "It seemed like a celebration for other people, a day that belonged to another culture."

For their book, they enlisted the assistance of Margaret Bernstein, a reporter for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, who wrote an article about them they liked.

They set out not only to describe their childhoods but also to include their fathers' stories and the sons' attempts to get past their lingering resentments. "Sometimes a son has to take it upon himself to bridge the gap when a father can't," is how Hunt puts it.

At the end of a workday last week, the three doctors all looked tired. They were meeting at the Newark campus of Rutgers University, where they have an office for their educational/medical foundation (threedoctorsfoundation .org). But the more they talked about their book, the more energetic they became.

Not that is was easy to write. Jenkins recalls that his initial enthusiasm for the project dredged up "bitter feelings I had buried about my dad, feelings that eat at you and can eat you up." For a while, he stopped work on the book, waiting to see chapters from Davis and Hunt. And he had to persuade his father to open up to Bernstein about his failures. Jenkins says, "My attitude was, 'At least he can do this for me.' "

Davis' father, Kenneth, 81, became too ill to cooperate, but the other two dads did. "Both were extremely likable men," Bernstein says. "Although they were absentee fathers, they weren't villains."

By then, Hunt's father, 52, had rebuilt his life and talked "easily about his life and his flaws and his many regrets," she says. "He knew how to wield his personal story effectively, like a cautionary tale."

She found George Jenkins Sr., 65, "wanted badly to not repeat the pattern of fatherlessness he'd had in his own life. Yet he didn't know how to create that bond during his brief visits with his son. I found it sad; he had thought he could wait until George became a man to explain his side of the story, but it was too little too late."

Newark: 'Worst of all'

In 1975, two years after the three doctors were born, Harper's analyzed the 50 largest cities and declared that Newark "stands without serious challenge as worst of all." After decades of losing white and middle-class black residents, downtown is in what officials call a "renaissance," but Newark remains one of the most violent cities. Per capita, its murder rate is three times higher than New York's.

In August, even jaded Newark was shocked by the murders of three black college students who, police said, weren't involved with a gang or drugs, just socializing at a playground. Witnesses said they were lined up and shot in the head in an apparent robbery.

"It's so senseless," Jenkins says. "They weren't bad kids. They weren't in the wrong place, doing the wrong thing. How can you protect them?"

Hunt knows how quickly a life can change on the streets. At 16, he got into a fight with a crackhead, and to show off to his friends, he "gently" stabbed him in the thigh with a knife. Hunt was charged with attempted murder, but the case was thrown out when the victim failed to appear in court. The close call helped him realize "that being a rough guy wasn't me."

None of the three doctors is married or a father. All are dating, a subject they kid each other about. And all say that growing up with absentee fathers has made relationships with women harder.

"I never got a chance to see how to treat a lady every day, how to compromise, how to make a relationship work while raising a family," Jenkins says.

Hunt says: "We didn't write a how-to book. We're not telling anyone how to be a good father. But we wanted to help inspire and provoke people to think about their fathers or their sons and daughters."

He hopes the book is "more universal than it appears on the cover: three young black guys, like this is only a problem for black families."

Statistics do show fatherlessness is most common among poor black families, but Hunt says: "It can be problem even if the dad is in the home but emotionally unavailable. They don't have statistics for that."

At the funeral of Davis' father in May, a relative showed Davis a copy of a résumé Davis wrote when he was in medical school.

"My dad had made copies of it and sent it around to relatives down South to show what I had done. He was proud of me, but he couldn't tell me directly. So part of me has to say, 'That's OK. That's who he was.' "

For years, Jenkins didn't want anyone to think "that my father had something to do with the success I've experienced. So I admit that I have put up a wall between us."

Changing that remains a work in progress. His father's chapter in the book ends hopefully: "I continue to invite George to family reunions so he can meet the folks down here who are so proud of him. Perhaps one of these days, he'll make it."

Jenkins hasn't but says he hopes to someday: "It's always at the wrong time. I'm busy. I've got a new job, and I've got the foundation, and I've got my own life.

"But it's not malicious. I used to have a lot of resentment that he wasn't there when I needed him, but at some point you've got to let it go and say, 'What's the point?' One of these years, I'll make that reunion."