Monroe Anderson

In Search of Intelligence in the Multiverse--Not in Steelers' linebacker position

When this year's Superbowl champions, the Pittsburgh Steelers, run through the meet and greet ceremony Thursday at the White House, the team's star linebacker will be sitting it out. James Harrison says that he's not going to the Nation's Capitol to hang out with the nation's first African American president because....well, because....WTF?

"This is how I feel -- if you want to see the Pittsburgh Steelers, invite us when we don't win the Super Bowl. As far as I'm concerned, [Obama] would've invited Arizona if they had won," Harrison told WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh.

Has this player suffered one concussion too many?  Had the Cardinals beat the Steelers in Superbowl 43, then President 44 would have been glad-handing with them in the Rose Garden. That's the way it works. The winners gets to the White House. The losers gets to go home. So, yeah, without Harrison's record 100 yard touchdown return, and an Arizona, 23, Pittsburgh, 20, final score, the Cardinals would have gotten the Barack Obama invite.

It was pointed out that Harrison passed on going to Washington three years ago, the last time the Steelers won the Superbowl, to meet with President George W. Bush. Harrison's agent insists that his client's decision to skip the trip to Washington wasn't political. The agent should have insisted that it was downright stupid.

Actually, his agent should have explained it all to his client like he was a six-year-old. If you win the Superbowl, you get a Superbowl ring. If you lose, the other team gets it. If you win, your team gets the Superbowl trophy. If you lose, the other team gets it. If you win, you get to be in the Superbowl parade. If you lose, the other team's town has a parade for them.

      If you win the Superbowl, then you get to go to Disney World. 

      My guess is that since Harrison won, he's been there and doesn't want to ever, ever leave.

(This post was also published on the AgoraVox and Newsvine websites.)

GOP's stingy stance is not a cure-all at all for swine flu

In the movie, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, as far as the father of the bride was concerned, Windex was the miracle cure for anything from "psoriasis to poison ivy."

In real life, among the dwindling membership of the Party of No, lower taxes is their Windex. 

No matter what political, economic or social challenge confronting our nation, the GOP mantra calls for lowering taxes, cutting taxes or flatlining taxes. As individual American citizens, the Republicans tell us, we can spend our money much better than the bureaucrats in Washington. 

So, right now, right here, we have a threatening crisis that could further cripple our sick economy and, btw, who knows kill how many of us along the way: the swine flu outbreak.

At this moment, more than 100 have died in Mexico from the influenza virus, but so far there has been no fatalities in the United State. Should this public health emergency take a turn for the worst by developing into a pandemic that leaves tens of thousands or millions of Americans dead in its wake, the only measure that will outpace finger-pointing will be vaccination shots.

Hopefully, we'll only need vaccination shots in limited regions throughout the states. In the meantime, allow me to be one of the first to point a finger: The Know-Nothing party thwarted one preventative measure, fearing it might lead to more taxes.

In a post entitled, GOP Know-Nothings Fought Pandemic Preparedness on the website of The Nation, John Nichols reports:

When House Appropriations Committee chairman David Obey, the Wisconsin Democrat who has long championed investment in pandemic preparation, included roughly $900 million for that purpose in this year's emergency stimulus bill, he was ridiculed by conservative operatives and congressional Republicans.

Obey and other advocates for the spending argued, correctly, that a pandemic hitting in the midst of an economic downturn could turn a recession into something far worse -- with workers ordered to remain in their homes, workplaces shuttered to avoid the spread of disease, transportation systems grinding to a halt and demand for emergency services and public health interventions skyrocketing. Indeed, they suggested, pandemic preparation was essential to any responsible plan for renewing the U.S. economy.

But former White House political czar Karl Rove and key congressional Republicans -- led by Maine Senator Susan Collins -- aggressively attacked the notion that there was a connection between pandemic preparation and economic recovery.

We don't know where this swine flu outbreak is going or how soon it will end. But the World Health Organization has been extremely concerned and vigilant since the outbreak has already crossed international borders.

In a special report to the GlobalPost, Christine Gorman writes: 

Although no fatalities have been reported in the U.S., the latest reports from Mexico suggest that more than 100 people have died and at least 1,400 may have been infected with the never-before-seen flu.

 

On Sunday, Canadian health officials confirmed six cases of human swine flu — four in Nova Scotia  and two in British Columbia — while public health officials in New Zealand, Israel, France and Spain began testing several patients with flu-like illnesses who had recently traveled to Mexico to determine whether or not they also had swine flu.

 

Part of what concerns health officials is that most of the fatalities in Mexico have involved adults under the age of 60, which does not fit the usual profile of a seasonal flu outbreak. That pattern is, however, reminiscent of the flu pandemic of 1918-1919, in which the very young and the very old tended to be spared while most of the fatalities occurred in adults in their 20s to 50s.

We've got to hope for the best here; hope that this flu virus does not mutate into something as virulent, Infectious and deadly as the 1918 flu pandemic, which resulted in more than 100 million dead worldwide, before it is over. But we've also got to hope that the mantra of the Johnny-one-note conservatives continue to ring false for more and more Americans.         

I, like most of the rest of us, don't like paying taxes. But, besides paying for wars of aggression that I personally oppose, taxes pay for police and firemen, roads and bridges, and they help fund safety nets for those who may not be as fortunate as we are.        

And, from time-to-time, money that we send to Washington comes back to us in a preventive measure that may be life saving for millions and therefore worth its weight in gold.

(This post was also published on the AgoraVox website.)

Black power and reality in the 21st Century

I've been getting this viral email from white friends, black friends, even one of my Indian friends. It's one of these truths that's been hiding in plain site: Black is In!

I'm old enough to remember the '60s when we were last in. It turned out to be short and sweet. By the 1970s, there was talk of our being treated with benign neglect. In the 1980s, under the Reagan regime, it was no longer benign. And then it got worse.

But I digress. Reportedly, we're the new "it" ethnic group. To make it more palatable to the ignorance-is-bliss crowd, the truth is often packaged as a joke. The fact that black people are now the new black is no exception. Check it out.

"Black is in!" 

The most powerful politician in the world is Black.

The head of the Republican National Committee is Black.

The best known media mogul on earth is Black.

 

The greatest golfer in the world is Black.

 

The top female tennis players in the world are Black. 

The highest grossing actor worldwide is Black.

 

The fastest racing driver in the world is Black.

The brightest Astrophysicist under the sun is Black.

 

The Superbowl-winning Head Coach is Black.

 

The most successful brain surgeon in the world is Black. 

The fastest human on the planet is Black. ... 

Michael Jackson must be kicking himself.

Seriously, folks.  We've got a Dickensonian development--best of times, worst of times--in black America that has created a false reality. Because there is an Obama, Oprah and Tiger, white Americans believe that the playing field is level and that all's fair and square.

It is not.

These monumental achievements by individuals--who happen to be black--aside, depressing disparities between blacks and whites persist.

Consider:

*For the last 25 years, murder has been the leading cause of death among African-American men between the ages of 15 and 34.

*In Chicago, President Barack Obama's hometown, only six out of 100 of the students in Chicago Public Schools, will graduate from college.

*For every dollar of wealth held by a white household, the typical black household has 10 cents.

*While the national unemployment rate was 8.1%, for blacks that figure was 13.4% … and for black males, 16.3%.

*Black males are incarcerated at a per capita rate six times that of white males. Nearly 11 percent of all black men ages 30 to 34 were behind bars as of June 30, 2007.

I could go on and on with the alarming stats but I won't. Reading them makes it easy to understand why Michael Jackson has paid big money to turn himself into something he's not and why the individual accomplishments of the Williams sisters, Steelers' coach Mike Tomlin, Neurosurgeon Ben Carson, and Astrophysicist Neil Tyson are so impressive.

(This post was also published on AgoraVox.com.)

Cop killing is a bad political cause

With only one exception, when it comes to police, the "we protect and serve" has meant nothing more than a motto stenciled on the side of a squad car to me. 

Just once, in all my years, did the police come to my rescue. That was nearly 30 years ago when a doped-out burglar was wondering around in my home at the break of dawn. I let the intruder know that I knew he was someplace he had no business and he fled. I dialed 911 and two minutes later, they showed up at my door with the bad guy in hand. 

My other experiences were not so reassuring. I was clubbed by the Chicago police during the 1968 Democratic National Convention for doing my job as a Newsweek Magazine intern. I was stopped and frisked by Chicago police as a young teen because I and a couple of my friends were running along the Lakeshore. I am periodically stopped while driving black.

I am not what you'd exactly call a cop lover. But, when I surfed into an post on the Hinterland Gazette blog that left me shaking my head. The headline says it all: 

Dozens March in Protest Organized by Uhuru Movement to Honor Lovelle Mixon who Shot and Killed Four Police

That any organization, black nationalist or whatever else, would try to make a political martyr out of a cold-blooded cop killer is deadly dumb and terminally stupid.

The Hinterland Gazette said as much in its post:

It is unconscionable to me that people could march and rally to honor cop killer Lovelle Mixon, who was shot by Oakland police after he fatally shot four officers last Saturday. What is the message that the organizer, the Uhuru Movement, is sending? That they are condoning the horrific actions of a career criminal. Sorry, but had that been a white man who shot and killed four black cops, they would be throwing the kitchen sink and everything else that they could find. Heck, they might have even ended up in Washington D.C. at the Capitol in protest. How do you honor someone who has deliberately killed four police officers or anyone, for that matter? This sets a terrible precedent in Oakland and around the country. The shootings were by far the deadliest incident for U.S. law enforcement since Sept. 11, 2001, and the deadliest in California in nearly four decades, according to media reports.

"OPD you can't hide - we charge you with genocide," chanted the demonstrators as they marched along MacArthur Boulevard, near the intersection with 74th Avenue where Mixon, 26, a fugitive parolee, gunned down two motorcycle officers who had pulled him over in a traffic stop. He killed two more officers who tried to capture him where he was hiding in his sister's apartment nearby.

The protest was organized by the Oakland branch of the Uhuru Movement, whose flyers for the march declared, "Stop Police Terror." Many marchers wore T-shirts featuring Mixon's photo, including a woman identified by march organizers as Mixon's mother. The woman declined to comment and gave her name only as Athena. Lolo Darnell, one of Mixon's cousins at the demonstration, said, "He needs sympathy too. If he's a criminal, everybody's a criminal." Asked about police allegations that Mixon was suspected in several rapes, including that of a 12-year-old girl, marcher Mandingo Hayes said, "He wasn't a rapist. I don't believe that."

If I try real hard I can almost understand the twisted rationale behind the Uhuru Movement's thinking. Oakland's black community is still outraged from the murder of 22-year-old Oscar Grant who was fatally shot by a transit cop. In one black community after the next, the police represent and act like an occupying army rather than like guardian angels. It's easy to understand the personal and collective resentment that exists from that constant and predictable treatment. 

Being rich and famous is no shield from police arrogance as Houston Texans running back Ryan Moats discovered when he was detained and lectured by Robert Powell, a Dallas cop, while his mother-in-law lay dying just steps away in the hospital. 

It's the Moats-like incidents that give cover to the anger and resentment that can give rise to the Mixon-like protests. It's unsettling that something as simple as a traffic stop was the beginning that led to both bad endings in the Mixon and Moats stories.

      We'd all be better served if the police took care to treat blacks in America not like suspects but like human beings--and if blacks in America took care to remember that murdered cops were human beings too.

(This post was also published on UK/EU Progressive, Newsvine.com and AgoraVox.)