Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Just Keep Talking.....


I'm not going to beat a dead horse or dog or ELEPHANT! here, but those Republicans just keep on with the personal and mean spirited insults...They may not realize it or care, but each racist statement, each outrageously mean spirited and crazy statement is pushing them all just one step away from the White House that they seem to so desperately need control of...

The White House is criticizing comments by the Republican National Committee chairman comparing President Barack Obama to the Italian cruise ship captain who allegedly abandoned his sinking ship


Here is the latest- RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said Sunday on CBS's "Face the Nation" that Obama was "our own little Captain Schettino." Priebus accused Obama of abandoning ship in the U.S. and spending more time on his re-election campaign.

Former RNC Chairman Michael Steele told MSNBC the analogy was "unfortunate."


In response, White House press secretary Jay Carney said: "If you are so desperate for attention that you make an analogy that Michael Steele deems inappropriate, you know you've probably gone too far."

Sixteen people remain unaccounted for and are presumed dead in the shipwreck of the Costa Concordia.

As my mother would say -"Ummmm Hmmmmm, go right on...go ahead with ya bad self." Keep on talking Republicans...You're waking up a sleeping giant...And if I remember my fairy tales correctly...Sleeping Giants get awful angry when they are awakened from their slumber!

Monday, January 30, 2012

Pointing A Finger

You know...I was just beginning to think that the African American population had gotten a bit too laxadasical politically, that nothing was firing them up and awakening them.   I mean, I didn't feel as though we as a people came out and voted like we could have in the 2010 mid term elections...to give the President a congress he could have worked with.

I didn't feel as though the blatant and racist dis-respect the man has been getting recently had fired anyone up. I mean, when a Senator yells out -"You Lie" on the floor of congress to the President of the United States...That was enough to get my blood boiling...but I didn't feel like anyone else was angry except me...

Then came, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich with their obvious race-baiting statements in the southern  primaries and I began to hear and see a little bit of growing anger.... And then some nut from southern state asked the GOP house to pray for "Obama's death" and I began to see more and more Blacks on Twitter and Facebook begin to wake up and express their outrage at the blatant ,unhidden and unchecked racism now prevalent in the GOP....And then.....

Then.....we get Jan Brewer!!!!!

Her pointing her finger in the face of President Obama has fired up Black America more than anything I've written on this blog and more than anything else that has gone down in the past three years...I am shaking my head..Facebook and Twitter is full of people discussing this and talking about organizing and getting out a strong vote in the fall....Voter registration, Vote fraud protection...and education are now the topics of many....All I can do is shake my head and say ...Thank you Jan Brewer!!!! You'll never know how much I appreciate your act of disrespect!

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Keith's Music Spotlight



Somebody told me that he is on the mend and poised for a comeback...I hope so... I can't wait to hear new music from him....While I'm waiting...Here is a throwback from D'Angelo  and featuring Rapheal Sadiq.

Saturday, January 28, 2012

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANGELA DAVIS!

Revolutionary symbol of my youth...No she doesn't look like this now...This photo was taken when she was 28 in 1972...She's 68 now....but I'm glad she's still amongst us and glad for the struggle she participated in!
Happy Birthday Angela! Power to the people!

Friday, January 27, 2012

Weekend Humor





Several men are in the locker room of a golf club. A mobile phone on a bench rings and a man engages the hands free speaker function and begins to talk. Everyone else in the room stops to listen.

MAN: "Hello"

WOMAN: "Honey, it's me. Are you at the club?"

MAN: "Yeah"

WOMAN: "I am at the shop now and found this beautiful leather coat. It's only $2,000. Is it OK if I buy it?"

MAN: "Sure, go ahead if you like it that much."

WOMAN: "I also stopped by the Lexus dealership and saw the new models. I saw one I really liked."

MAN: "How much?"

WOMAN: "$90,000"

MAN: "OK, but for that price I want it with all the options."

WOMAN: "Great! Oh, and one more thing...the house I wanted last year is back on the market. They're asking $980,000"

MAN: "Well, then go ahead and give them an offer of $900,000. They will probably take it. If not, we can go the extra 80 thousand if it's really a pretty good deal."

WOMAN: "OK. I'll see you later! I love you so much!"

MAN: "Bye! I love you, too."


The man hangs up. The other men in the locker room are staring at him in astonishment, mouths agape.

He turns and asks: "Hey, does anyone know who this phone belongs to?"

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Inside A Bubble




"Can't wait to watch and listen to Obama's "State of ILLUSION" speech tonight! I wonder if he will say that the rich should pay more in taxes (since that's only fair) while conveniently failing to mention that 47% of the population pays ZERO income tax?! LOL

"Mitt Romney made $21 million last year, paid $3 million in TAXES.....AND ....gave away $3 million to charity.....that no good,rich,greedy bastard doesn't do/pay his share!!!!;-
LOL"

 (Actual quotes by a working class Prison Guard that I know on Facebook!)

These two sarcastic quotes above were made by a white guy who happens to be a Facebook "friend" of mine.  I "friended" him only because we served in the same unit when I was in the United States Air Force...Outside of his reactionary right wing politics, he's actually not a bad guy.  Even when we were in the Air Force....In a unit that was predominately Black and Hispanic, this guy often and brazenly spouted his reactionary views....We took turns laughing and making fun of him then...

I'm not surprised at his views ..knowing this guy as I do...But what I don't understand is why this guy feels the way he does...Why he openly defends the richest American's priveledge of not paying any taxes.... You see, this guy I'm talking about is a prison guard.  He works in one of the state's larger maximum security prisons and he lives in upstate Pennsylvania....Where I'm sure the majority,if not all of his neighbors are white...While the majority of the people he locks up and guards are Black and Latino.  He once confided in me that prior to entering the military...He never knew any African-American men who were married and had children ...never personally knew any who had been to college and didn't have some type of criminal record...All of this was new to him he told me.

I was the Non-Commisioned Officer in charge of him at one time and he admitted that I had been fair and that it had been an "honor" to serve under me.. All of this was politics not withstanding of course. I just wonder if he and the people he lives around who think as he does lives in a bubble.

He's a working man, as I am...He pays taxes ,like I do....Probably more taxes than he should, yet he's okay with doing that and with the wealthy not paying their fair share....He believes that Republican lie that 47 percent...(which would be half the U.S. population)...doesn't pay any income tax.....Really?? Are you that stupid?..Do you think this nation could survive and run at all if that were true?? 

Comedian Bill Mahr has this skit he does where he has a man sitting inside a bubble and he and Keith Olbermann  shouted facts at this person...like "One plus one equals two"....but because the person was in a bubble , they didn't want to hear it...They couldn't hear it....They would cover their ears and cover their eyes.

This is how I feel these people...These working class people are who vote Republican time after time after time.  These people who vote against their class interests, who vote for the very people that are screwing them.   So blinded and walled away from the regular world by their racism and their fear and their self proclaimed ,self righteousness that they can't hear, they can't see, they won't understand a fact of life if it stares them in the face.

These are the people that voted in this reactionary and nutty tea party congress...These are the people who might vote for Rick Santorum, Bat shit crazy Ronny Paul and the big fraud, Newt Gingrich....Most sane people of the liberal and progressive bend say that these nutty candidates don't have a chance of winning the election in the fall.

I thought that too...Then I hear the rantings of this guy and know that there are many more like him  who would vote for them. What's more, they might outnumber people who look like me.  I get scared all of a sudden. Very, Very scared.

Do these people live in a bubble?  I'm afraid so.

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Looking At The President's Record



As I write this...I'm thinking that when President Barack Obama addresses the nation for his State of the Union speech, his re-election bid will be front and center. But for all the forward-looking posturing and positioning, the decisions the voters make will be as much about how the country fared during the president’s first term as well as what he proposes to do for a second term, providing he gets one.

Regardless of who the Republicans eventually select as their party’s standard bearer for November’s election, President Obama’s record will be central to any political argument.

His opponents on the right say that his policies and actions have been overbearing and outside the lines of federal responsibility. Other critics, many of whom line-up with the president ideologically,on the left contend he has been too timid and overly disposed to compromise.

But those who supported President Obama’s agenda in 2008 have many reasons to vote for him this November.What are they you say? Glad you asked!


At sometime this spring, the Supreme Court will determine whether President Obama’s signature accomplishment – the law which expands and fundamentally redesigns health insurance in the United States – will survive. If the Supreme Court permits this law to stand, President Obama will have accomplished much of what he pledged to do in his Feb. 10, 2007 speech in Springfield, Ill., when he formally launched his presidential campaign: “We will have universal health care in America by the end of the next president's first term.”He said.

One can quibble about his use of the word “universal” and the timing of the whole thing – The Obama plan or "Obamacare" as the republicans like to call it won’t be fully implemented until 2018.

And according to the Congressional Budget Office, by 2019 the law will still leave 23 million residents uninsured, about one-third of whom would be illegal immigrants. Still, the major overhaul of the nation’s health care system stands as one of the largest legislative achievements in decades. Several Presidents tried and not one came this close.

In a few cases President Obama has disappointed some of his supporters –(Including this one...Surprise, surprise) for example, he hasn’t closed Guantanamo Navy Base as a prison camp for al-Qaida members and other terrorist suspects, as he promised to do in an executive order he signed on the day be took office in 2009. But this was largely to due to Republican opposition.

Here’s an accounting of the reasons President Obama supporters have to vote for him again – and some promises he hasn’t been able to keep.

The Economy
When judging any president’s record, one difficulty is choosing a fair baseline to evaluate economic performance. How much of a recovery, or a recession, is due to a president’s actions? How much is due to long-term changes in patterns of international trade, in the American and foreign labor forces, in technology and in other factors which transcend a president’s four-year term?

When President Obama signed the $825 billion economic stimulus plan into law in February of 2009, there were 141.7 million Americans working and 12.5 million unemployed.By February of 2011, two years after the stimulus was enacted, there were 139.5 million Americans working and 13.7 million unemployed.

Between the month he signed the stimulus into law and February of 2011, the unemployment rate went from 8.1 percent to 8.9 percent. These numbers explain Republican criticism of the stimulus as a squandering of taxpayer money that didn’t result in increased employment.

In recent months, the jobs data has improved but there were still almost one million fewer people employed last month than when President Obama signed the stimulus into law.

The President's critics on the left, such as New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, argue the stimulus bill was too small, while  defenders say it prevented a far worse economic slump.

The Obama administration also decided to spend $80 billion to keep General Motors and Chrysler alive, and as of last November, according to the Congressional Budget Office, $35 billion of that money had been repaid to the Treasury, $7 billion had been written off as a loss, and $37 billion was still outstanding. The two car companies are still operating; in fact, GM reported a few days ago that it has reclaimed its title as the world’s largest seller of automobiles.

President Obama himself said in his speech accepting the Democratic nomination in 2008, “We measure progress in the 23 million new jobs that were created when Bill Clinton was president when the average American family saw its income go up $7,500 instead of down $2,000 like it has under George Bush.”

President Clinton served for eight years and President Obama has served so far for only three, but the Census reported that median household income, adjusted for inflation, declined by 2.3 percent between 2009 and 2010. This was part of longer-term trend that predates President Obama’s presidency: since 2007, median household income has declined 6.4 percent and is 7.1 percent below the peak ($53,252) that occurred in 1999.

The Census also reports that the poverty rate in 2010 was 15.1 percent—up from 14.3 percent in 2009, the third consecutive increase in the poverty rate.

When Barack Obama launched his candidacy in Springfield in 2007, he portrayed these economic woes as Bush Era problems, about which the Republicans were in denial: “For the past six years, we've been told that our mounting debts don't matter. We've been told that the anxiety Americans feel about rising health care costs and stagnant wages are an illusion.”

One sector of the economy where President Obama appears to have fallen short is housing. In his first debate with John McCain in 2008, he said: “We've got to make sure that we're helping homeowners, because the root problem here has to do with the foreclosures that are taking place all across the country.”

Clifford Rossi, a housing policy expert at the University of Maryland business school said, “As well intended as the Administration appears to be with trying to assist underwater and struggling homeowners, if I were grading their performance thus far it would be a C-.”

He added, “Their various attempts to address loan modifications have been ad hoc and missed the mark entirely of what needs to be accomplished... We are five years into a housing crisis unlike anything we've seen since the Great Depression and we have few policy solutions to show for it.”

In the face of Republican opposition,President Obama has been unable to fulfill his promise to enact legislation reducing use of tax deductions by upper-income taxpayers and raising income tax rates for those with incomes over $250,000. But as part of the health care law he did increase Medicare taxes on upper-income people. The law also other imposes other major tax increases including the penalty on people who choose to go without insurance and the tax on high-cost “Cadillac" health plans which takes effect in 2018.

President Obama promised in 2008 to cut taxes for “95 percent of working families.” The 2009 stimulus included more than $300 billion in tax cuts and credits — including the Making Work Pay Credit, a big tax cut for workers earning less than $75,000 and couples making less than $150,000 a year. Making Work Pay has now been replaced by the payroll tax cut.

But tax cutting and spending on the stimulus as well as other spending, has helped enlarge the national debt – which has grown from $10.6 trillion on the day Obama took office to $15.2 trillion.

Environmental policy
In his 2007 Springfield speech  Candidate Obama said, “We can set up a system for capping greenhouse gases. We can turn this crisis of global warming into a moment of opportunity for innovation and job creation … .”

He said in another campaign speech in 2008 that after his election “we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment … when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”

When he first took office, President Obama proposed to enact a cap-and-trade bill and to use revenues to reduce deficits and pay for new spending initiatives.

Although the House passed a cap-and-trade greenhouse gas bill in 2009, Obama along with Sen. John Kerry, D- Mass., Sen. Joe Lieberman, I- Conn., and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R- S.C., the three Senate leaders on the issue, failed to come up with the compromises needed to pass a bill. The effort died in the summer of 2010.

The Obama administration has made grants and loans to alternative energy companies, but it was embarrassed when $535 million in taxpayer money was lost in a loan to Solyndra, the California solar company that went bankrupt last September.

Social and labor policy
President Obama shored up the liberal wing of the Supreme Court by appointing Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan to replace retiring Justices David Souter and John Paul Stevens.

And he pleased gay rights advocates when he ended the legal defense of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which allows states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. Obama also ended the Clinton Era “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy on gays serving in the military.
He also made recess appointments to National Labor Relations Board, which helped fulfill a campaign pledge he made in 2007 to help union organizers “lift up this country’s middle class again.”

Foreign policy
As Candidate Obama promised to do in 2008, he has withdrawn American troops from Iraq. He has also ordered the killing of Osama bin Laden and American-born Moslem cleric and al-Qaida organizer Anwar al-Awlaki. He has continued and expanded the use of drones to kill alleged terrorists in Yemen and elsewhere.
All this is in line with his 2007 Springfield speech in which he pledged to “confront the terrorists with everything we’ve got” and “to track down terrorists with a stronger military.”

On Afghanistan, Candidate Obama said in his first 2008 debate with John McCain, “I think we need more troops. I've been saying that for over a year now. And I think that we have to do it as quickly as possible, because it's been acknowledged by the commanders on the ground the situation is getting worse, not better … I would send two to three additional brigades to Afghanistan” – in other words up to about 15,000 additional troops.


When President Obama took office there were 32,000 troops in Afghanistan. In March 2009 he announced he’d send an extra 4,000.

On Dec. 1, 2009, he increased U.S. troop numbers in Afghanistan by another 30,000, bringing the total to 100,000. “After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home,” he said.

The Tone of Politics and Ethics in Government
Many voters were drawn to Barack Obama in 2008 by his rhetoric denouncing “the smallness of our politics, the ease with which we're distracted by the petty and trivial … our preference for scoring cheap political points instead of rolling up our sleeves and building a working consensus to tackle the big problems of America.”


He lashed out at “the cynics, the lobbyists, the special interests who've turned our government into a game only they can afford to play.”

And on the night he won the Iowa caucuses, he said that he and his supporters had “beat back the politics of fear and doubt and cynicism … .”

In his inaugural address he said, “We come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics.”

There’s no objective way to measure whether President  Obama has “beat back the politics of fear and doubt and cynicism” or ended “pretty grievances” and “recriminations.”

But the Washington reform groups Common Cause and the Center for Public Integrity have accused him of falling short of his anti-lobbyist rhetoric.

President Obama signed an executive order on his first day in office which imposed limits on former lobbyists and others who worked in his administration. An ex-lobbyist working in the administration could not for two years after his appointment be involved in any policy matter on which he’d lobbied in the two years before his appointment, or work in a federal agency that he had lobbied within the two years before being appointed.

But the executive order provided a waiver from the rules if it was deemed in the national interest. Former Clinton administration Defense Department official and former Raytheon lobbyist William Lynn was given a waiver to serve as deputy secretary of defense. And the New York Times reported in 2010 that White House officials regularly met with lobbyists at the Caribou Coffee shop down the street from the White House, avoiding disclosure on the public White House visitors’ log.

Common Cause president Bob Edgar, a former Democratic congressman, chided President Obama last year for accepting campaign funds for his 2012 run which were raised by “bundlers” working for Washington lobbying firms.
.
Despite his obvious negatives...I still feel as though there are enough positives here to garner the man a second chance..a second term...  Despite all of it...I still feel safer with him in the oval office than any of the clowns running from the other side of the spectrum.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

And Now There are four (Clowns)



Lets see...We have had three primaries....Romney won in Iowa...Then he lost to Rick Santorum.   Romney won in Maine.....and Newt Gingrich ,using the most openly racist campaigning in a century won the South Carolina primary...Along the way, Michelle Bachman, Herman Cain, John Huntsman and Rick Perry have dropped out....

Look for Bat shit crazy Ron Paul to be the next person to drop out of this farce of a campaign and remember where you heard it first!


Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney will now take their desperate, yet heated battle to Republican voters in Florida at a presidential debate on Monday evening in Tampa Bay.

The GOP presidential primary having been thrown into upheaval by the former House speaker's victory in this past weekend's South Carolina primary, Mitt Romney appeared to be taking steps to halt any momentum Newt Gingrich intended to carry into Florida at Monday night's NBC News/National Journal/Tampa Bay Times debate.

The forum appeared set to become one of the fiercest battles of the Republican campaign, presaged by a day of sniping on the campaign trail that saw the Romney campaign unveil a more aggressive tack against Gingrich, who responded by characterizing the former Massachusetts governor as desperate. Aren't they all?

"I think as you look at the speaker’s record over time, it’s been highly erratic," Romney told the press after an event yesterday morning in Tampa. "He’s gone from pillar to post almost like a pinball machine, from item to item in a way which is highly erratic. It does not suggest a stable, thoughtful course which is normally associated with leadership."

The Romney campaign suggested that the former governor was likely to make that argument onstage in the next debate too. (I don't plan to be watching.If I need pure comedy,I can watch The Three Stooges.) It accompanies Romney's demand that Gingrich release records related to his lucrative consulting contract with Freddie Mac, as well as a 1997 investigation into Gingrich during his speakership that resulted in an official House reprimand and a $300,000 bill to reimburse investigatory costs.


For his part,Newt Gingrich has shown no sign of backing down from his attacks on Mitt Romney, a strategy he's employed to great effect after having reversed his pledge to stick exclusively to positive campaigning.

"It used to be pious baloney, but now it’s just desperate baloney," Gingrich said of Romney's attacks during an afternoon campaign stop. The former speaker joked his opponent should open up a deli. He could do the same himself with his race baiting self and his own brand of baloney.

The former speaker has been anything but a shrinking violet in his previous debate appearances, excoriating moderators for questions Gingrich asserts are unbecoming of a debate while doling out pithy responses to fellow Republicans.

The tenor of questions posed to Gingrich, though, may be tougher. Now that he’s a front-running candidate, he’ll face the kind of scrutiny accordant with his position. Not only will moderators ask more aggressive questions, but Gingrich will be targeted by Romney and the two other remaining candidates, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and Texas Rep. Ron Paul.


Rick Santorum, the winner of the Iowa caucus by the slimmest of margins, was particularly strong in last Thursday’s debate, in which he reminded viewers of Gingrich’s troubles as speaker, and the positions taken by Romney in the past that run counter to the GOP base.

Rick Santorum, the third place finisher in South Carolina, has vowed to continue fighting forward in Florida, but would need a strong couple of debates in order to avoid being subsumed by Gingrich as the chief conservative alternative to Romney.
Then there is crazy ass Ron Paul!!-The stakes in the next debate are somewhat lower for Paul, who has opted not to compete in the Florida primary in favor of focusing on GOP caucuses in February. But the libertarian-minded lawmaker has sometimes made for an unexpected ally of Romney’s in these debates by launching more pointed attacks of Gingrich and Santorum.

Florida holds its primary on Jan. 31, a contest limited in participation to registered Republicans only. The winner of the primary is awarded all of the state’s delegates; most states award delegates based on candidates’ share of the final vote.

I'm taking all of this in with a yawn....They are practically handing this election to President Obama.....Just with the things they are saying about each other.



Monday, January 23, 2012

Keith's Music Spotlight



Nice Way to start your morning.....With this gem by Keith Sweat


Saturday, January 21, 2012

RED TAILS


I went to see George Lucas (Producer of Star Wars  ,for those of you living under a rock) movie , "Red Tails" with my wife and daughter last night...It's a 2 hour action film that was done very well...This is not the first time a film has been done about the Tuskegee Airmen...There was another film that featured Laurence Fishburne, Andre Braugher ,Malcolm Jamal Warner and incidentally, like this one... Cuba Gooding Jr..


Cuba Gooding Jr. and Terrence Howard were the best known actors in this movie, but the actors playing the fighter pilots are outstanding.Newcomer Nate Parker as Captain Marty "Easy" Julian is a restrained trained pilot, while David Oyelowo plays the talented, difficult Joe "Lightning" Little. (My favorite charactor in the movie for various reasons.)


In 1941, the black airmen trained at Tuskegee Institute broke the racial barrier. The pilots and ground crew were determined to contradict a 1925 Army War College study that concluded blacks were "mentally inferior and not as courageous as the white man."

They proved their worth when the 332nd Fighter Group, with its red-tailed airplanes, was assigned to protect U.S. bomber groups attacking Germany. They brought the vast majority home safely.

In one of the finer scenes in "Red Tails," a group of black pilots walking past the Officers Club in Italy are called back by a white officer.Black officers were not allowed in the "Officers" club back then. Reluctantly they turn around to face what they believe will be an attack.

Instead, the officer wants to thank them -- he's a bomber pilot and the Red Tails had brought him and his 10-man crew back alive. He invites them into the club, introduces them to the startled, hostile white airmen as their saviors, and all the pilots, black and white, end up drinking together.

There's a discussion between white and black pilots of the different labels that African-Americans have been given. As one white pilot says, "We call you colored." A pilot shoots back, "We prefer Negro."

In a more telling moment in the same scene...an Airman played by singer Ne Yo says to a white officer...."When yall get mad, yall turn red...When you're jealous you turn green with envy...and when you're afraid...you turn yellow and yall call us
colored!" The white officer has to laugh..It is perhaps the funniest and yet realest moment in the film in that it demonstrates humanity, a commonality if you will.

The love story between one of the Black airmen and an Italian girl who he marries begs the question of what would've happened to them after the war. Would he be able to take her home to America? Would he come back for her? The film answers the immediate question, but not the larger one. Of course, we know the answer to that!


I don't want to spoil it by giving away anymore of the movie...but you should go to see it...The buzz on Facebook and Twitter is encouraging...Hopefully This movie will help George Lucas at least break even on his investment.

R.I.P. Etta James


January 25,1938 - January 20, 2012

We lost another great one yesterday... Etta James...a talented R& B singer whose career spanned nearly every decade I've been alive.

She was born Jamesetta Hawkins on January 25, 1938..Her vocal styles went the gamut of R&B, Gospel, Jazz,Soul and Rock and Roll.

Starting her career in the mid 1950s, she gained fame with hits such as "Dance With Me, Henry", "At Last", "Tell Mama", and "I'd Rather Go Blind" for which she claimed she wrote the lyrics. She faced a number of personal problems including drug addiction before making a musical resurgence in the late 1980s with the album The Seven Year Itch.

She is regarded as having bridged the gap between rhythm and blues and rock and roll, and was the winner of six Grammys and 17 Blues Music Awards. She was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1993, the Blues Hall of Fame in 2001, and the Grammy Hall of Fame in both 1999 and 2008. Rolling Stone magazine ranked Etta James number 22 on their list of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time and number 62 on the list of the 100 Greatest Artists.

She died of Lukemia.


Friday, January 20, 2012

Weekend Humor



Question:What did the cannibal get when he arrived late for his date to the Hockey game?

Answer:The Cold shoulder!


Okay,I know that was terrible, but I'm writing this on very little sleep! Have a nice weekend!

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Hey Scott, Things Aint Lookin Too Good!



Scott Walker, Republican Governor of Wisconsin ,Land of the cheeseheads!  Darling of the Tea Party, Tried to break the unions and successfully took away collective bargaining from State employees...Was on top of the world for a minute... Not so now...


Wisconsin activists have submitted petitions with 1 million signatures to state officials on Tuesday -- almost twice the number of eligible voters needed to force the notorious anti-labor Gov. Scott Walker to face a new election.

A total of 540,208 valid signatures are required to recall Scott Walker, the Republican governor, who was elected in 2010. On Tuesday afternoon, the United Wisconsin movement that was organized to recall and remove the governor submitted almost twice that number ...

The movement to oust Scott Walker will have secured the support of a higher percentage of eligible voters than has ever before sought to recall an American governor.

Ummph,Ummph Ummph...Where's your swagger now Gov?

These figures are ominous for Governor Walker, whose poll numbers collapsed after he attacked the collective bargaining rights of state, county and municipal workers and teachers in a power move last winter that provoked mass demonstrations. Neither Scott Walker nor his foes now express any serious doubts about the prospect that Wisconsin’s high standard for forcing a recall election will be met.

Petitioners were required to gather 25 percent of the total turnout in the most recent gubernatorial election -- 540,208 valid signatures -- to trigger a new election. That election could take place as early as this April, although the precise date will not be determined until the petitions have been reviewed and certified by the state Government Accountability Board ...

We hope that the hubris among Scott Walker and his ilk (ie- The Tea Party) has been shaken by this movement. Did they think working people would just stand by and let them wage war on the middle class? Did they? Well think again...

In the words of the immortal Dandy Don..."Turn the lights out...The (Tea) Party is over!" Okay,I added Tea Party, but you get my drift!

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUHAMMAD ALI



He's 70 years old today!  Hard to believe...Ali always seemed to be so youthful to me...Even though he's 16 or 17 years older than me....It's hard for me to look at photos and videos of him now...a mere shell of what he was...THE GREATEST..for so many reasons outside of boxing...

Thank God he's still alive and amongst us...Ali...Clay, the GREATEST..The people's champ!

Monday, January 16, 2012

Keith's Favorite Quotes




"Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline." Rev Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.


Saturday, January 14, 2012

Saturday 7 - Seven Books I swear I'm gonna read this year



If you read my other blog Escapades, you know that I enjoy writing Short Stories and Fiction and that lately I've been writing a lot of mysteries...It's time that I study the master, Walter Mosley again so my first three books are going to be by him...Featuring his new private detective...Leonid McGill...


1. The Long Fall by Walter Mosley





it's been laying around my house since Christmas ,2009....Time to read it.


2.Known to Evil by Walter Mosley




The second Leonid McGill mystery...Got it as a birthday present last year and still haven't read it....Spending too much time Blogging and on Facebook and Twitter.


3. When The Thrill is Gone By Walter Mosley




Here he's written a third McGill mystery and I haven't even bought it....I never let a third Easy Rawlins mystery go un bought and un read...


I like erotica too and I have to read the queen of Black erotica...Zane.

4.The Hot Box by ZANE





This has been around my house since last summer.....I've read one chapter!


5.INCOGNEGRO  by Mat Johnson




Mat Johnson is a Philadelphian , who I believe lives in London now....I bought his first novel- "Drop" some years ago and really liked it...I'd love to read his new mystery.

6. Trading Dreams At Midnight by Diane Mckinney Whetstone




Another Philadelphian and I believe a one time co-worker of mine......I've got to read this book...I've read all of her other books and I've had this one sitting around here for the longest time..Longer than the others.


7. And Last  but certainly not least- Anything by my blogging buddy and sister from another mother-Mizrepresent-





I'm not going to put her government name out on my blog...but she is a many time published author and she has at least three novels I plan to read sometime this year...


So if you don't see posts on my blogs for a few days....I haven't quit or canceled my blogs...I'm just reading!

Friday, January 13, 2012

Weekend Humor



An elderly woman walked into the local branch of her bank one morning with a purse full of money. She wanted to open a savings account and insisted on talking to the president of the Bank because, she said, she had a lot of money.

After many lengthy discussions (after all, the client is always right) an employee took the elderly woman to the president's office.

The president of the Bank asked her how much she wanted to deposit. She placed her purse on his desk and replied, ''$165,000''. The president was curious and asked her how she had been able to save so much money . The elderly woman replied that she made bets.

The president was surprised and asked, ''What kind of bets?''

The elderly woman replied, ''Well, I'll bet you $25,000 that your testicles are square.''
The president started to laugh and told the woman that it was impossible to win a bet like that.

The woman never batted an eye. She just looked at the president and said, ''Would you like to take my bet?''

''Yes..Certainly'', replied the president. ''I bet you $25,000 that my testicles are not square.''

''Done'', the elderly woman answered. ''But given the amount of money involved, if you don't mind I would like to come back at 10 ' clock tomorrow morning with my lawyer as a witness.''

"Heh,heh heh ,No problem you come on back.", said the president of the Bank confidently.

"This ought to be easy money." he thought to himself.

That night, the president became very nervous about the bet and spent a long time in front of the mirror examining his testicles, turning them this way and that, checking them over again and again until he was positive that no one could consider his testicles as square and reassuring himself that there was no way he could lose the bet..


The president confirmed that the bet was the same as the one made the day before. Then the elderly woman asked him to drop his pants etc. so that she and her lawyer could see clearly.

The president was happy to oblige.

The elderly woman came closer so she could see better and asked the president if she could touch them. ''Of course'', said the president. ''Given the amount of money involved, you should be 100% sure.'' he said.

The elderly woman did so with a little smile. Suddenly the president noticed that the lawyer was banging his head against the wall. He asked the elderly woman why he was doing that and she replied, ''Oh, it's probably because I bet him $300,000 that around 10 o'clock in the morning I would be holding the balls of the President of the local bank in my hands." she said with a chuckle!

Have a great weekend everybody!

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Who's an Angry Black Woman ? and The Myth of Post Racial America



I used to believe that jive about this being "Post Racial America"....Four years ago this nation elected it's first African-American President...something I didn't expect to see in my lifetime...


The Republican Party appointed it's first African-American National Chairman,Michael
Steele around the same time...I was proud of both men's achievements...I thought that our nation had actually turned a corner.


Then the honeymoon was over....The Tea Party, the personal attacks , likening him to a monkey, hateful calls to kill his family, questions about his birth, a southern senator calling him a liar on the house floor...and I could go on and on about the total disrespect given to this President....

The Republicans even ran Michael Steele out of the chairmanship. He was just window dressing anyway....We all knew it......Their front runner Herman Cain , another black man was scandalized mysteriously...
 Women...White women in particular just kept showing up! And you KNOW, America just aint havin THAT!
So bye Bye Mr. Front Runner...Big Daddy...Go sell some Pizza!

America, your bigotry is showing!!!   Now they are going after the first lady.... Unbelievable....

II-

First lady Michelle Obama is challenging assertions she's forcefully imposed her will on White House aides, saying she's tired of people portraying her as "some kind of angry black woman."

Mrs. Obama tells CBS News she hasn't read New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor's new book that characterizes her as a behind-the-scenes force in the Executive Mansion, whose strong views often draw her into conflict with President Barack Obama's top advisers.

"I never read these books," she told CBS's Gayle King in an interview broadcast Wednesday. "So I've just gotten in the habit of not reading other people's impressions of people."


In this book, Mrs. Obama is said to have occasionally bristled at some of the demands and constraints of life in the White House.

In the interview, Michelle Obama said, "I love this job. It has been a privilege from day one. "Now there are challenges," she added. "If there's any anxiety that I feel, it's because I want to make sure that my girls (Malia and Sasha) come out of this on the other end whole."

The book by Jodi Kantor portrays a White House where tensions developed between Michelle Obama and former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and former press secretary and presidential adviser Robert Gibbs.


The book, titled "The Obamas," describes Mrs. Obama as having gone through an evolution from struggle to fulfillment in her role at the White House, while labeling her an "unrecognized force" in pursuing the president's goals. Neither the president nor his wife agreed to be interviewed for the book.

"I do care deeply about my husband," Mrs. Obama said in the CBS appearance. "I am one of his biggest allies. I am one of his biggest confidants." But she sought to put aside "this notion that I sit in meetings."

"I guess it's just more interesting to imagine this conflicted situation here," she said. "That's been an image people have tried to paint of me since the day Barack announced, that I'm some kind of angry black woman."


"There will always be people who don't like me," Mrs. Obama added, and said she could live with that.

Mrs. Obama said that she's "just trying to be me, and I just hope that over time, that people get to know me."

Asked specifically about an assertion of dissension between herself and Emanuel, now the mayor of Chicago, the first lady said she has "never had a cross word" with him. The same, she said, applies to Gibbs, whom she described as "a good friend, and remains so."

"I'm sure we could go day to day and find things people wished they didn't say to each other," Mrs., Obama said. "And that's why I don't read these books. ... It's a game, in so many ways, that doesn't fit. Who can write about what I feel? What third person can tell me what I feel?"

Mrs. Obama said that when questions or conflicts arise involving her and the White House staff, her East Wing staff resolves the issue with her husband's staff in the West Wing.

"If there's communication that needs to happen, it's between staffs," she said. "I don't have conversations with my husband's staff."

This kind of crap, written in this book and on blogs and on the social networks comes with being a celebrity and in the spotlight...as I guess some of the other indignities....Most of the guilty parties will scream freedom of speech and the first amendment if you dare challenge them or say anything to them about it....but past Presidents and first ladies were given a lot more respect and treated with a lot more civility than this President and first lady. The only Presidential couple who came close to this venom was the Clintons and even they didn't get this type of personal and deep seated hatred aimed their way...They aren't Black.

I hate to keep pulling the race card...but there can be no other excuse for this ignorant and blatant disrespect of The President and now , the First Lady....Post Racial America..my ass..That's right ,I said it...

We aren't there yet...Not as a nation....The bigotry, the pure hatred and disregard for this man's office...The willingness of one political party to jeapordize the welfare of the entire nation to fulfill their one goal of getting this man out of office points to one thing and one thing only...RACISM!

I know there will be many who will dispute me......but it brings up a question someone asked me in 2008. I was asked -''Are you voting for Obama just because he's Black?" To which I replied- "Yes...Just like you're not voting for him because he's Black."

The person who asked me that question hasn't spoken to me since that day!

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

1911 United




Lots of negative things can be and have been written about Black Greek letter organizations....Most of it ,I'm convinced is written by people who are not members, people who ,when they had the chance, either didn't have the guts to become members or didn't have the grade point average or were just plain rejected somehow.

Whatever.!..People bring their own personal agendas and insecurities to this conversation and I see it in just about every article or blogpost I read criticizing Black Greek Letter Organizations. Negative is what always makes the news....It's all some people can talk about since they don't know first hand any other aspect about the inner workings of these mostly secret societies.

"Those that talk don't know....
  Those that know, don't talk"

So when I saw a blurb by one of my friends on Facebook about this super pac called "1911 United" I wondered where all of the nay sayers were who love to write about hazing as if that is the only thing that is noteworthy of writing about Black Greek Letter Organizations..

I thought to myself...What about the good things they do? Almost all of them have community programs that they run consistantly and some of the greatest people of these organizations took part in the civil rights movemant and struggle for Black Liberation.... Dr. Martin Luther King....An Alpha....Dr. Ralph Abernathy, A Kappa, Jessie Jackson, An Omega , Huey P. Newton, a Sigma! just to name a few...

And now , two fraternities...Mine, Kappa Alpha Psi and the men of Omega Psi Phi have joined together and formed a Super Pac called "1911 United" to raise money for President Obama's campaign...It's about time Black Greeks stepped up and got into the political game of our time....Where is the chatter on Facebook and Twitter and in Bloggerland about this?


This is part of what is making election 2012 politically historic. This marks the first presidential election with super PACs. Given free rein by a 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Super PACs are independent committees allowed to raise and spend unlimited amounts of money to support, or skewer, a political candidate.

These Super Pacs are already shaping the election. After a pro-Romney super PAC, "Restore Our Future", spent nearly $3 million on attack ads in Iowa targeting Newt Gingrich, his lead in the state swiftly plummeted. But this new pro-Obama super PAC, 1911 United, has a different strategy in mind: to mobilize an "army of Obama supporters."

Backed by the men of Kappa Alpha Psi and the men of Omega Psi Phi, historically black fraternities that both celebrated their centennials last year, 1911 United aims to raise $1.5 million toward training and organizing African-American voters in key battleground states to re-elect President Obama. Members of the two fraternities joined forces last year, officially forming the committee in December, after seeing that both organizations were running their own campaign volunteer-recruitment efforts at college homecoming events.

Sinclair Skinner, the treasurer of this Super Pac said- ""We were thinking about how we could really honor the legacy of those brothers who got together 100 years ago, and we thought perhaps the best thing we could do is help re-elect our president,"

To achieve this goal, 1911 United plans to organize and deploy 10,000 volunteers to register at least 100 voters each and activate them to hit the polls. The PAC is focusing its efforts in Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Colorado.


"When it comes to putting down dollars, energy and effort, these are the critical battleground states," said Skinner, 42. "We also chose states where the black electorate represents a percentage of the population that will make a difference in the election's outcome if we don't come out. We're not fighting Republicans; we're fighting apathy."

Sinclair Skinner,A brother of Kappa Alpha Psi is a mechanical engineer who served as field director for former D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty's first mayoral campaign, says that he understands criticism of super PACs in general, for allowing corporations to dominate the political process. But he's unapologetic about forming one.

"I am conscious of how money impacts campaigns, and how it's used to control and strangle the process. That being said, we want to make sure that every resource available is being used to empower our people go out and vote," he said.

And yes, that possibly includes the attack ads for which super PACs are so notorious.

"We're going to be able to have advertisements that support Obama, and some might consider them attack ads. But I think it's about time black folks had their own attack ads," said Skinner. "We've borne the brunt of most of them whenever someone's running for office, from the time of Willie Horton. If this vehicle gives us a voice and an opportunity to put forth our agenda, then, in that context, I think it's a good thing."

Another critical aspect of 1911 United's approach is organizing early, instead of the typical model of rushing a last-minute push in the fall. Starting now will be especially important in combating possible disenfranchisement of black voters in the form of photo-ID laws, cuts to early voting and other rule changes in the 2012 election.

Brother Skinner added-""Some of this is about our people maturing in the electoral process,All too often ,African Americans mistakenly view elections as a one-day event. "The issue of voter suppression is not new to us as a people. But getting involved in the process in January will ensure that we're more prepared come November for whatever they try to throw at us. That involvement means making sure that people are aware of all the laws, all the rules, and in a position to address them."

Despite 1911 United's emphasis on racially diverse swing states, the organization intends to work in as many areas as possible. For example, the committee will send a delegation to New Hampshire primary next week to campaign for President Obama during the primaries.




"In every place we can be, we're going to do our best to battle for our president," said Brother Skinner. "We're not struggling. We're a powerful people. We can do anything. And we're going to fight to make sure our president gets re-elected."

This is only the beginning...I'm hoping the Deltas, Sigma Gamma Rhos, AKA's , Zetas, Sigmas ,Alphas and Iotas all join in and help out...Who says that Black people can't come together for a common cause? This is positive news that everyone ought to be talking about more.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Blah ,Blah ,Blah



You know...I didn't really want to talk about Rick Santorum...Our state's (Pennsylvania) former senator, who was booted out of office because at the time...he was too extreme for even the Republicans....This was back when Republican candidates were just conservative , but not crackhouse rat crazy...

Last week Rick Santorum told an Iowa audience "I don't want to make black people's lives better by giving them somebody else's money. I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn money."  I went stark raving mad when I heard this....Facebook and Twitter was buzzing with commentary condemning him and calling for his head.

Then I got ahold of myself....The man is just stupid...Haven't I been saying that for years???...Why am I in such a froth???...This is nothing new or shocking...He has said worse for years...In fact ,it's good that he's showing his true colors...Let people see who they're voting for and let's see how they vote!


NAACP President (and my frat brother!) Benjamin Jealous denounced the comments as "outrageous," and even Fox News host Bill O'Reilly had to remind Santorum that his comments were specious when you consider that "most of the people, as you know, on welfare are white people." Then Santorum made the whole thing worse by denying that he'd even said "black" and insisting instead that what he'd actually said was "blah."

Blah, indeed.Really? Blah!

You know..It's really bad when Bill O'Reilly has to tell you that you just spoke out of term...When Bill O'Reilly has to tell you that mostly white people are on Welfare....Oh My God...See how extreme and crazy this man is?



In this weekend's Saturday-and-Sunday New Hampshire primary-debate double-header, if he doesn't take the opportunity to -- in Senate-speak -- revise and extend his thoughts on blacks and welfare,(In other words...straighten that ish out!!) he'll just wind up being the latest in a long line of GOP politicians who not only can't connect with the black vote, but can't even make a convincing case that they've tried. Santorum tried -- and absolutely failed -- to articulate a position that you hear all the time from black conservatives: that government assistance hurts African Americans over the long term. The problem for Santorum is that it doesn't sound as if he truly understands that message.(Or for that matter, anything!)

Black economist Walter Williams has said that "the welfare state has done to black Americans what slavery couldn't do." And at his Twitter town hall meeting last year, President Obama recounted how, "as somebody who worked in low-income neighborhoods, I've seen it where people weren't encouraged to work, weren't encouraged to upgrade their skills, were just getting a check, and over time their motivation started to diminish." The concept of welfare dependency really isn't news.

I'm not totally against the idea that dependence on welfare and relief can in time destroy the work ethic...but when there are few jobs for people who weren't on it in the first place...what is a person to do? This is where the conservatives and I come to a fork in our road.

But even if you give Rick Santorum the benefit of the doubt (and I certainly am not)-- that he's encouraging lower-income African Americans to strive for prosperity -- that careless line about welfare still doesn't wash. It sounds more like he heard it somewhere and figured it was OK to conflate that sentiment with the prevailing view among many (WHITE)Republicans that the bloated "nanny state" is the cause of all the nation's economic woes.


If, instead, Rick Santorum meant to pander to people who want to believe that everything from the mortgage crisis to the national debt can be blamed on blacks and other minorities living on the government dole, then he'll have shown himself to be unworthy of the office of president.

And furthermore, if he was trying to convince African Americans -- or anybody else -- that they ought to consider voting for him by singling out black welfare recipients in an election year that's mostly going to wind up as a referendum on big-ticket issues like Medicare and national defense, then that's a strange way to do it, but we talkin about a strange man!

Rick Santorum has always been the candidate whose signature issues best mirrored the themes of the conservative movement over the last three decades. His hawkish posture on Iran, his antipathy to gay rights and his economic populist message most closely mirror the "three-legged stool" of contemporary American conservatism outlined by William F. Buckley Jr. and embodied by the "great communicator" Ronald Reagan. The old "welfare queen" riff was part of that too!


If Rick Santorum wants to be taken seriously when he insists that he didn't mean any harm and says that he's "proud of my record" working with the black community, (what record is that?)he should take the time to explain why he believes that black communities are poorly served by government assistance, or make clear that his economic message applies to all Americans -- black or otherwise. If all he can muster is a claim that what he really meant to say was "blah" -- not black -- it won't make him look bigoted. It'll just make him look like a damned fool.


And to that I say...Blah...Blahhhhh...Blahhhhhh!



KEEPING THE FAITH: RANDOM PRAYERS "ON THE DOWNLOAD"










































































"Mommy, can I go to Timmy's blog and play?"



































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Click on image to enlarge for reading



Click on image to enlarge for reading