It's not often that I miss not having my own TV show, but I'm there right now.
If I had a TV talk show, I'd love to book two guests for a joint appearance: General Larry Platt and New York Gubernatorial Candidate Jimmy McMillan.
Between the two, they cover the current American political spectrum.
You may remember General Platt from American Idol when he performed "Pants on the Ground," a whamit, bamit, cut-it-out damnit song about young men wearing baggy, saggy pants.
And, of course, Wannabe New York Governor Jimmy McMillan of the Rent is Too Damn High Party is the media story du jour after yesterday's gubernatorial candidate debate.
If I had my show, the three of us could talk politics and culture. We could talk about how the war on drugs and the outsourcing of unskilled jobs have produced a guns and drugs commerce in the nation's inner-cities that has led to a prison culture in America from inner-city to suburb to farmland to the world.
After that, the three of us could discuss how Reaganomics and deregulation has led to the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. Of course, I'd drop in the fact that the CEO compensation ratio to worker was 24 to 1 in 1965 while today it's 300 to 1, therefore highlighting one reason the rent's definitely too damn high.
Unfortunately, I no longer have a TV show, so I'll just have to have Platt and McMillan as my guests right here, right now.
I was a columnist at a major American newspaper nine years before three black East Coast columnists brought "the idea that a group of black columnists would come together to share our common experience and probe the soft underbelly of our craft" to fruition in 1992.
By the time these three men had formed The Trotter Group, I was no longer writing a signed, op-ed column for the Chicago Tribune but had moved on to a post as a department head at WBBM-TV and the executive director and host of Common Ground, a public affairs TV talk show.
Five years ago, I was back in print, writing a signed, op-ed page column for the Chicago Sun-Times. It was during that time that I became a member of The Trotter Group.
I've gone into my ancient history because of current events that are still unfolding.
Ten members of The Trotter Group met in the White House with President Barack Obama and other key staff a few days ago. I only learned of the meeting after fellow Trotter, Robin Washington, the editor and a columnist at the Duluth (Minn.) News Tribune--with whom Obama spent a better part of a day for an interview 20 years ago, even cutting class at Harvard Law--sent me an angry Facebook message questioning how certain Trotters were selected to attend the meeting and others were not. While I didn't receive an invitation at all, other Trotters were invited then dis-invited. As a result, travel plans had to be changed and there was considerable explaining to do to the editors who had signed off on the trips to the White House.
So far, the aftermath has fallen just short of that old axiom: Hell has no fury like a columnist scorned. But just barely.
There has been a flurry of emails between Trotters criticizing the selection process. Trotter member Faye Anderson (no relation), didn't write about it on her blog, Anderson@Large but did discuss it on her Facebook page. Under the headline, Did White House Decide Who Represents Trotter Group?, Trotter member Richard Prince brought the controversy to light in his Journal-isms column.
And, of course, I've just written about it, here, on my political blog. This may be the end of the story. Then again, it may not be.
As far as I’m concerned, James Jones should be a candidate for Father of the Year. Instead, the Central Florida father is just one more mug shot of just one more black man who had a run-in with the law.
Jones was arrested Thursday in Lake Mary, Fla. and charged with disorderly conduct and disturbing a school bus for this crime: Protecting his 13-year-old daughter.
Jones’ daughter, a transfer student, had been bullied time and time again by some of her fellow students. Deciding that he was mad as hell as wasn’t going to take it anymore, Jones boarded his daughter’s school bus and threatened to open up a can of whup ass on the students who had been bullying her and the bus driver for allowing them to do it.
According to an ABC News account, Jones boarded his daughter’s school bus, obviously angry. "Everybody sit down. Everybody sit down," Jones said, not caring that the bus’ surveillance camera was recording him. He then ordered his daughter to point out the bullies. "Show me which one. Show me which one," he demanded.
Jones confronted the middle school students he says have been bullying his daughter, who has cerebral palsy. He charges that they had taunted, hit and even thrown condoms at her, ABC News reported. "I'm gonna (expletive) you up.…this is my daughter, and I will kill the (expletive) who fought her," Jones said.
He also had a few choice words for the bus driver: "If anything happens to my daughter I'm going to (expletive) you up and everybody on this (expletive)," he said.
As a father myself, I understand his anger. In fact, I resembled his remarks.
But, beyond just threatening, I took action. A taxi cab driver nearly hit my then pre-teen sons, Scott and Kyle, while we were out riding our bicycles. The cabbie cruised through an intersection, ignoring them, although they were already in the street. Luckily, they stopped in time, since he had only bothered to slow down before blowing his stop sign. Although he cleared the intersection, there were too many cars stuck in traffic ahead for him to go anywhere. Thinking of what almost happened, my rage, like Jones’, got the better of me.
“You almost hit my kids,” I yelled as I rode my bike next to the side of his cab. I dismounted and kicked his taxi as hard as I could startling his passengers in the back seat.
Later, after I’d cooled off, I thought about what I’d done. I realized then, what Jones realizes now, that I may have over-reacted.
On the other hand, to this day, I can’t help for hoping that the cabbie’s passengers gave him this tip in lieu of money: Watch out for children.
For pundits, comedians and Cable TV show hosts, Gov. Rod Blagojevich is the Energizer Bunny of comic material gift giving. His latest foray into the land of There-Is-No-Such-Thing-As-Bad-Publicity was yesterday at Chicago Comic Con in suburban Rosemont. During his appearance at the show--where he stood among grown men dressed as Superman and Batman while charging $80 if you wanted to be photographed with him and $50 if you merely wanted his autograph--Illinois’ second convicted-governor-in-a-row compared himself to a superhero.
Not being able to resist, this is what I posted on my Facebook Wall, giving my FB friends a chance to beat the punits, comedians and Cable TV show hosts to the punch.
Here was my commentary: Which Superhero would you liken Gov. Blagojevich to?
And this is how the thread was running at the time of this blog post:
Ej Murray-- How about Wonder Woman? He's got the hair.
15 hours ago · Like ·
Angela Ross-- Supermouth, a super hero whose mouth has sink many ships including his own.
15 hours ago · Like ·
Monroe Anderson-- @Angela How about Superblabber?
15 hours ago · Like · 2 people ·
Ej Murray--The man can not keep his mouth shut for one darn minute.
15 hours ago · Like ·
Phil Melcher--I'd kind of like to see him run into The Punisher...:)
15 hours ago · Like ·
Susan Mazzeri--Pete says the atom. he had a suit that when he put it on he shrunk real small.
15 hours ago · Like ·
Terry Senner Davis--The Joker b/c he's a joke?
15 hours ago · Like ·
Dana Camp-Farbe--George of the Jungle!!! If George is a superhero!!
14 hours ago · Like ·
L.b. King--@Monroe-"Superblabber"
14 hours ago · Like ·
Monroe Anderso--Oh, oh, I got it: Fuckinggoldman!
14 hours ago · Like ·
Brian Ray--The Eel, one slippery mofo.
10 hours ago · Like ·
Florence Tate--mighty mouse
10 hours ago · Like ·
Dick Kay--Have no fear... Underdog is here.
9 hours ago · Like ·
Christopher Lenz--10.Rasputina 9. Elmer Putz 8.Captain Nim-ROD 7. Lois Lame-Brain 6. The Boy Wonder-Woosy 5. The Green Hoarding-Maggot 4. Mister Schlock 3.The Un-Amazing (full of) Crap-man (!) aka Peter ("How's My Hair?") Peckerhead 2.The "Thing" 1. The Adventures of Rob and Rod: "The Wonder Twits"
During yesterday's fleeting hour, while he was interviewing the very troubled former New York congressman, Eric Massa, Glenn Beck was out of his mind.
This was the first time the whining, weeping conservative talk show host sounded, sounded, sounded, well.....thoughtful as he tried to get freshly-resigned Massa to dump all over his fellow Democrats and the Obama Administration.
When I say Beck sounded thoughtful, let me be clear: I'm speaking relatively here.
Any other time Beck favors staying stuck on stupid, saying stuff like President Barack Obama is a racist who "has a deep-seated hatred for white people."
As Media Matters points out, Beck "has flirted with the idea that FEMA is building detention camps,
suggested that President Obama is purposefully "tanking" the economy to
force young people to work for ACORN and AmeriCorps, and said that
Obama and former President George W. Bush are 'moving us away from our
republic and into a system of fascism.'"
Beck, who was named Media Matters' Misinformer of the Year, also thought the Tea Baggers march on Washington was 1.7 million strong--about seven times as much as the number of anti-reform protesters that actually showed up. He apparently thinks the ideas enumerated in his banal 912 Project, with its nine principles and 12 values, are something new, necessary or profound.
But right after I saw Beck's broadcast yesterday, which left me hoping against hope that he wasn't the dullest knife in the drawer, I read that on Monday he was urging the listeners of his syndicated radio show to leave churches that preach social justice.
As it turns out, Beck thinks that the term many Christian churches use to describe efforts to tackle poverty and promote human rights is a "code word" for communism and Nazism.
Who would dare think the teachings of Jesus Christ were the ambitions of commies and Nazis? Glenn Beck.
This commentary was cross-posted on the AgoraVox website.
Barack Obama has been POTUSfor less than a year and a month and already the wingnuts have launched a slew of wacky Impeach Obama campaigns.
In Wisconsin, an Impeach Obama billboard mysteriously appeared last week on U.S. 41 near the Oshkosh Correctional Institution. And what are the grounds for this call to remove our nation's first African American president?This punch line on the billboard explains it all: "America's small businesses are failing. Help us spread the message."Oh, sorry, that was no punch line, thesesorry folks aren't joking. There's also the Impeach Obama Campaign.com website that claims to have "Over 100000 signatures and growing." Go there and you'll be able to read the revealing reasons why America's legally elected head of state should be removed from office:
Radio-personality Tammy Bruce may have said it best:
"... ultimately, it comes down to... the fact that he seems to have, it seems to me, some malevolence toward this country, which is unabated."
Speaking of the best sayings of vitriolic, slime-spewing right-wing radio personalities, there's Michael Savage who demands that we "Impeach Obama now. Stop him before he kills this country."
Savage's padded-cell rants are kissing cousins to what's being sung by some jackleg rock group called Sleuth. If you're into poorly performed songs with poorly written propagandistic lyrics, then the group's Impeach Obama is the song for you.
And, of course, there's the Tea Baggers and the bumper stickers.
Why do a plurality of Republicans, according to a Daily Kos poll, want Obama impeached? Why is there this wingnut zeal to topple America's freely elected leader?
Has he been convicted of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors? Nope.
Has he lied to our citizens about WMDs so that we could invade and occupy an oil-rich, Muslim country in the Middle East? Au contraire.
Has he broken U.S. and International law by allowing POWs to be tortured in violation of the Geneva Conventions treaty? I don't think so.
Has he even been caught lying about getting some head in the Oval Office? No. No. No.
So why--just one-fourth through his presidential term--are these crusades to remove the Leader of the Free World out there?
Keith Olbermann, my favorite cable TV host on the "whites only" MSNBC line-up, summed it all up in a special commentary, "Beware fear's racist temptation," on Countdown last night. His commentary, I think, got to the heart of conservative America's thinking and to the soul of the Impeach Obama fantasy.
My younger son, Kyle, still bears an ugly scar on his right eyelid from an attempted mugging on the CTA.
In 2008, he was on his way home on the Green Line from his part-time job at Kennedy-King College as a City Colleges student when he was jumped by a gang of thugs out to relieve him of his Zune, his cell phone and the lonely and solitary singles hanging out in his slim wallet.
After failing to beat Kyle down, the pack of muggers jumped off at the next L stop, vanishing into the rush hour crowd waiting to board the train. Their quick and vicious attack was witnessed, but neither interrupted nor protested, by the packed car of transit riders. It was only after the thugs had scurried away that one compassionate passenger provided Kyle with a handkerchief to wipe away the blood flowing from his open wounds.
Unfortunately, that's life in the big city. Citizens don't want to get involved in all-too-common outbreaks of violence for fear that they may themselves become unwitting victims. I think that kind of conduct is cowardice but I also understand it.
I don't understand, however, what went down late last month in Seattle, Washington. Four teenagers--a girl and three boys--attacked a 15-year-old girl in a Macy's department store. Seattle police reportedly witnessed the row and then ordered the teens to take it outside.
The targeted girl retreated to bus tunnel at Westlake Station, purposefully standing by security guards, thinking she would be safe.
She wasn't.
The guards stood idly by and watched as she was allegedly (and I use this as an innocent until proven guilty phrase) badly beaten by the teenagers who had followed her out of the nearby department store.
It's one pathetic thing for citizens to watch and do nothing while an innocent victim is being beaten and mugged but it's something else altogether for hired hands to keep theirs in their pockets as they whistle while they work.
In Kyle's case, he fought off his offenders. They ended up hightailing it empty handed. The 15-year-old Seattle girl was not so fortunate. Her attackers stole her phone, her purse and her IPod, leaving her temporarily unconscious from a kick to the head.
I know the right-wingers aren't about to agree with me on this, but I'm hoping the trial lawyers help the teenage girl victim and her parents get as much as a Wall Street CEO's annual bonus in lawsuit judgments against the Seattle police department and the security company that failed to step up when regular citizens were afraid to do so.
In this pretend post-racial era, there are those who argue that Black History Month should be a thing of the past. Since we're all getting along so well in our newfound colorblind society, why muddle things by celebrating Black History with its taint of slavery, lynching, segregation and all that over negative stuff when we've finally leveled the playing field?
Just yesterday, Lionel Canterbury posted a comment on a post entitled "Is Obama really the magic one?" that ran on this blog a year ago. His comment is deeply rooted in the same twisted thinking that rationalizes racial bigotry and discrimination. Click on Lionel's name if you want to read his comment or reply to what he wrote. To make it easy for you, I've cut and pasted it below. You can also reply or comment about it at the end of this post.
Here's Lionel's comment:
racism
cannot be confined to prejudice and injustices by whites towards
blacks. in the larger scope of things, it is not necessarily unnatural
for any human whatever their race, to harbor some feelings of racism
simply by being. Indeed, it seems plain to me that blacks are in
general much more inclined to make decisions, form opinions, or take
actions towards others based on their race than most other races do.
perhaps they feel more threatened by race, perhaps they feel they are
superior.
there will be a racism problem as long as blacks keep talking about.
imo many blacks would lose a deep sense of purpose if they could no
longer claim they were being discriminated against based on their race.
In case you're having trouble figuring out the point of the comment above, allow me to shorthand it for you: He's blaming the victim.
His logic, if you want to call it that, goes something like this: It's natural for human beings to be racist and naturally black people are more racist than others. And, without pointing out racism when it happens, black people wouldn't have anything else better to do with their lives.
Well, at the risk of seeming both racist and purposeless in Lionel's mind, I'd like to rant about the photoshopped picture at the top of this post. IMO, a photo with the POTUS shining the shoes of a half-term Alaskan governor is racist--should he happen to be black and she happen to be white.
This racist little photo ran on Sarah Palin's Facebook page. It speaks volumes about those who are so enraptured with what she doesn't have to say and what she does represent.
I don't know if Lionel is a wingnut, a racist, an idiot or all three, but I do know that contrary to what he thinks, it's very much the duty of black folks to call out this stupid, ugly behavior--during Black History Month in particular and during the other 11 months in general.
Come to think of it, we're not so much in a post-racial era are we're in a neo-racial era. The N-word is now considered too gauche in polite society so code words have replaced it. Instead of publicly calling him the nigger president, Barack Obama is monumentally magical in the wingnut definition of him, code-worded as the socialist-fascist-racist-tyrannical-punk-shoeshine boy-illegal immigrant POTUS.
All this tortured thinking from the far right immediately brings to mind what Malcolm X had to say nearly half a century ago. Check him out:
Just days before the 2008 Summer Olympics, Richard M. Daley, Chicago's Mayor-For-Life, was in China taking test rides on Beijing's new state-of-the art subway.
With dreams of the 2016 Chicago games dancing in his head, Mayor Daley wanted to have a first-hand look-see at the modern marvel of the Beijing subway lines so he could augment his planned plea for help from Washington to rehabilitate his city's century-old creaking and cranky transit system.
As
it turned out, the day after I'd watched TV reports about the mayor's
magical transit train trip 7,000 miles away from home, I happened to be
downtown, descending into the Chicago Avenue station at the early end
of the evening rush hour. I had barely cleared the bottom step before I
bumped into a mob of CTA passengers lined up as they waited to feed the
transit card machines.
"What's going on?" I asked one of the 15 riders ahead of me in my line.
The
woman I stood directly behind shrugged. I looked at the machines. Out
of the six, four had out-of-order stickers slapped on them in the area
where the money should have been going. I
stood there puzzled, slowly shuffling forward, fighting that feeling I
get when I'm stuck in traffic on the toll way braking my way towards
the booth for those without an I-Pass, when a uniformed CTA employee
showed up within earshot.
"Why are so many of the machines broken?" I asked.
"They're
not broke," he said, stopping and approaching me with a body language
that said he loved taking on customers with a beef.
"They're not." I said in a questioning sort of way.
"No. They're full. They can't accept any more cash."
"What?"
"These people they got in charge don't know what they're doing. They come in from out of town thinking they're so smart, ha." Listening
to the rumble of the Red Line train having come and now going while I
was still waiting in line left me missing the humor of it all.
"Gas
is up to four bucks a gallon. It cost too much to drive so everybody's
taking the train," he said. "The geniuses in charge haven't figured
that out yet, so they only send a collector once a day. They ought to
be sending somebody out here twice a day to get the money."
"I see," I said.
So
that was it. The always broke and begging Chicago Transit Authority was
so incompetently managed that it wasn't bothering to collect the money
it needed so that it could be sure it collected more of the money it
needed.On
Friday, I was reminded of my up close and personal observation of the
CTA management's business acumen when Mayor Daley made a failing
attempt to broker an agreement between his CTA officials and labor
union leaders.
Obviously,
the CTA's union leader knows the same thing the Chicago station CTA
employee knew. After the mayor's futile effort, this is what Darrell
Jefferson, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union, local 241 had to
say about CTA bosses: "Outside of Enron, they probably have mismanaged
themselves more than any corporation in America."
To
the casual observer like myself, Jefferson's pronouncement applies to
small things such as the rehab of the Armitage Avenue L station where
the track platform was extended to allow longer trains while the
outdoor heater was left some distance away from the new boarding area.
But it also applies to much more important things such as the 13 L
derailments in the past five years. That grand sum amounts to more
accidents than the New York City subway and Washington Metro combined
during the same time period.
Of
course, for the irregular CTA rider like me, tomorrow's bus route
eliminations and schedule cutbacks is no great big deal. But it will be
for the 1,100 CTA employees who will be laid off to cover the systems
$95 million budget shortfall.
There is, however, more than one sign of hope. Out
of curiosity, I went underground Saturday afternoon at the Chicago
Avenue station for a reality check. Only two of the six cash collecting
machines had out-of-order stickers slapped on them.
Whether it's Sarah Palin, Mitch McConnell, Jon Kyl, John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Mike Pence, Michael Steele or Rush Limbaugh, you can almost always count on Republican leadership to say something stupid.
In some cases--take Palin for example--the simple-minded statements come from an uniformed mind. In other cases--take Limbaugh this time--it's a matter of fabrications, deceptions and out-right lies.
In the end it really doesn't matter rather it's an imbecile stuck on stupid or a madman on a misinformation mission: there are low-information Americans out there soaking it all up. They all seem to be conservative and think they alone have ownership of all things American. Even so, I was shocked to find out how many Americans who call themselves Republicans know so little about so many things--or are just plain mad as a hatter.
And with that, I give you--
The 2010 Comprehensive Daily Kos/Research 2000 Poll of Self-Identified Republicans
OBAMA and AMERICA
Should Barack Obama be impeached, or not?
Yes 39 No 32 Not Sure 29
For what? Who the heck knows. Who needs high crimes or misdemeanors when...
Do you think Barack Obama is a socialist?
Yes 63 No 21 Not Sure 16
That's the power of Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, after one year of relentlessly claiming Obama is the second coming of Lenin ... and Hitler!
Do you believe Barack Obama was born in the United States, or not?
Yes 42 No 36 Not Sure 22
We still have over a half of Republicans who don't think Obama was born in the US or think it's a matter open to debate.
Do you believe Barack Obama wants the terrorists to win?
Yes 24 No 43 Not Sure 33
Not just a quarter of Republicans believe this ludicrous premise, but another third think it's a matter open to debate. How do you negotiate with a party whose rank and file are that divorced from reality? And speaking of divorced from reality...
Do you believe ACORN stole the 2008 election?
Yes 21 No 24 Not Sure 55
One in five Republicans think ACORN is so powerful as to magically make 10 million votes appear. Another55 are open to the theory. In other words, just 24 percent of Republicans have an even passing relationship with reality.
Do you believe Sarah Palin is more qualified to be President than Barack Obama?
Yes 53 No 14 Not Sure 33
Sigh...
Do you believe Barack Obama is a racist who hates White people?
Yes 31 No 36 Not Sure 33
I bet more people think Obama is racist, but were too afraid to tell a live operator the truth.
Do you believe your state should secede from the United States?
Yes 23 No 58 Not Sure 19
42 percent of Republicans aren't really patriotic. They pretend to love America only when they approve of the president. These traitors don't believe in democracy, in our nation's founding ideals, or in our flag. To them, those colors run. They are cowards.
Note, secession sentiment is MUCH stronger in the South than elsewhere -- 33 percent want out, compared to just 52 percent who want to stay. In the Northeast, "just" 10 percent want out, in the Midwest, its 18 percent, and in the West, it's 16 percent. Can we cram them all into the Texas Panhandle, create the state of Dumbfuckistan, and build a wall around them to keep them from coming into America illegally?
The comments following the polling numbers came with the Daily Kos report. To read more--and weep or laugh depending on your mood--click here.
I'm assuming the more extreme moronic thoughts belong to the Tea-baggers and wing-nuts. Other than that, what can I say? I could paraphrase Moma Gump with a "Stupid is as stupid thinks." Or I could point out that this proves the current axiom "Garbage in, garbage out?"
But mainly it informs us that the GOP may not so much be the Party of No as it is the Party of Know Nothings.
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