Couples and another "Magic Negro".

A friend of mine went and saw The Blind Side, and he was going on and on about what a tear jerker it was. Sorry, I will pass. I am not ready for yet another Magic Negro story. I know it's the Christmas season and some of us want to feel good about ourselves, but this is one feel good story I can do without. Been there done that. Remember The Green Mile ?

Tonight I am thinking about couples. One in Washington D.C. and the other one in Orlando, Florida..

Let me start with the Orlando couple, first: It's been a slow news day so I am sure that you have all heard about Tiger Woods doing like the crash test dummy with his Cadillac SUV. (Why doesn't he drive a Buick?) His publicist has been in full spin mode ever since the mishap. It's a minor accident, Mr. Woods has been released from the Hospital; and he is fine. The spin- master had better be in full spin mode because the rumors are flying really fast. I am not a real journalist guided by the punctilious nature of that profession, so I can repeat one of them here: Tiger and Mrs. Tiger were in a heated fight and he tried to roll in the middle of the night. Not so fast. Seems Mrs. Woods is pretty good with the clubs as well and took an iron to the back of the SUV causing Tiger to- using a golf analogy- hit a sand trap.

Now what is not in dispute is that Tiger was leaving his spot at two thirty in the morning; he was involved with a one vehicle accident; and Mrs. Woods did take the irons to the back of the SUV. It will be really interesting to see how the press treats this story. Tiger is an icon and he is loved. Will the vultures start to circle to get to the bottom of this, or will they leave him alone?

The other couple that intrigues me are the two reality show wanna be clowns in D.C. Crashing a state dinner is no easy thing to do, and yet they did it. How? What the hell is up with the Secret Service? Field, they did not pose a threat to the president. Maybe not this time. Although isn't that one of the crashers I see shaking hands with his O ness in the pic? Is it me or does it seem like it's so much easier to get next to this president? Ahhh stop it field, what about the Iraqi who threw the shoe at George Bush? Yes, but that happened on Iraqi soil. This happened in the White House for crying out loud!

Another fascinating aspect of this story is the lengths A-merry-cans will go through for their 15 minutes. (Think "Balloon Boy's" parents). Are we that obsessed with face time as a culture that we would risk fines and imprisonment to get in front of the camera? Of course we would. That was a rhetorical question.

The irony of these two couple stories is that one couple is trying to stay out of the news while the other one is desperately trying to get in it. In the end, they will probably both get their wish.

Only in A-merry-ca.

Junk in your trunk? If so, you just might not graduate.

*

I am sure that we have all gotten our turkey and mac and cheese on by now. If you live anywhere in the continental United States you had a very big meal today and you are probably just sitting around letting the calories soak in.

So this is a perfect time to blog about this story.

It seems that Lincoln University, an HBCU here in Pennsylvania, has decided that if you are not healthy and watching your weight you could jeopardize your chances of graduating. The folks at Lincoln are tired of obese students not taking care of themselves and they have decided to take the knife and forks into their own hands.

"We know we're in the midst of an obesity epidemic," said James L. DeBoy, chairman of Lincoln's department of health, physical education and recreation. "We have an obligation to address this head on, knowing full well there's going to be some fallout."

Well hell yes Mr. DeBoy, you best believe that there is going to be "some fallout". You can't stop black folks from getting their grub on. And college students at that. Ain't gonna happen.

And I agree with honor student Tiana Lawson-who happens to be a senior- who says (and I am para-paraphrasing here) that she didn't go to Lincoln to be told about her weight; she went for an education. Let's just be glad that kids like Ms. Lawson are in college holding it down and hitting their books, instead of burdening them with the added pressure of having to watch their weight. If Ms. Lawson chooses she can worry about her weight later. Besides, how do we know that she isn't just as healthy as a size six freshman with a coke bottle shape?

"In an interview Friday, Lawson said she has no problem with getting healthy or losing weight. But she does have a problem with larger students being singled out.

"If Lincoln truly is concerned about everyone being healthy, then everyone should have to take this gym class, not just people who happen to be bigger," she said.
The mandate, which took effect for freshmen entering in fall 2006, requires students to get tested for their body mass index, a measure of weight to height.

A normal BMI is between 18.5 and 24.9. Students with one that's 30 or above -- considered obese -- are required to take a class called "Fitness for Life," which meets three hours a week."

Great. I wonder if they teach the kids to skip Thanksgiving in "Fitness for Life" classes?

Props to Mrs. Field and her sister who threw down in a way that is sure to make my BMI inch towards that 30 mark.

*Pic courtesy of The Grio.

Just being thankful.

*

Field, I know you are Jamaican, and you people aren't really into the whole Thanksgiving thing. But are there some things that you are thankful for?

Hell yes, I can think of a bunch of things:

I am thankful that A-merry-cans did not select the McCain/Palin ticket.

I am thankful that the Eagles didn't draft Ricky Williams.

I am thankful for "Saved By The Bell" reruns.

I am thankful for Mrs. Field's Uncle David and his Louisiana deep fried turkey.

I am thankful that I live in one of the greatest-if not most underrated-cities in the world.

I am thankful for black women.

I am thankful for my elders who give me knowledge.

I am thankful for Jamaican food.

I am thankful for other bloggers and people who comment on this blog.

I am thankful that I recognize injustice.

I am thankful that I lived to see a black president get elected.

I am thankful that I lived to see Tiger Woods play golf and Roger Federer play tennis.

I am thankful for Usain Bolt.

I am thankful that I got a chance to meet two of my heroes. (Bob Marley & Michael Manley)

I am thankful for my parents who taught me the importance of an education.

I am thankful for my sister who taught me how to use it.

I am thankful for the men and women who volunteer to fight in the armed services.

I am thankful for Michael Kors.

I am thankful for the state of Louisiana.

I am thankful that I live in a country where I can vote for who I want to lead me.

I am thankful for the Internet.

I am thankful for Brazilian soccer and American football.

I am thankful for the freedom of staying home on Sunday mornings.

I am thankful for real journalist.

I know that I am fighting with them; but I am thankful for google.

I am thankful for my family and friends.

And finally, I am thankful that I am not a turkey.

HAVE A HAPPY TURKEY DAY EVERYBODY!

*Thanks for the pic Felix. That is too funny.

George's Wars....for now.

*

I would like to start tonight's post with a letter to the editor penned by a reader named Roy Lehman in my hometown paper.

"John Yoo continues to live in a fantasy world of the Bush administration that he had a large part in creating ('No clear benefit to holding 9/11 trial in New York', Sunday)

He continues to frame the actions of what would be more accurately described as a gang of civilian religious fanatics as an "act of war". Bush administration members labeled the terrorism an act of war in order to expand the powers of George Bush and cover their behinds for what they were about to do.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. seems to have decided that the actions of these religious fanatics were, in reality, crimes. I agree and will not live in fear , demanded by the right wing, of a band of disjointed religious fanatics, when the real threats to my family are job insecurity and a health catastrophe that may bankrupt me and my family. "

Citizen Lehman I loved that letter!

My friends, as we all get ready to get our turkey on, let's not forget our troops in harms way on two different fronts and who caused them to be there in the first place. George W. Bush and his neocon friends.

The war rages on, and A-merry-cans are stuck with paying for it with both precious lives and dollars. (BTW, I agree with David Obey, let's put an added tax on everybody to pay for the wars.) The phony patriots will give us all kinds of reasons why these wars are necessary, but don't believe any of it. They are not. A few religious fanatics hell bent on kicking it with some virgins in their other life is not a foreign threat. They have no country, just a sick twisted ideology. The biggest threat to A-merry-ca comes from within not in the deserts of Iraq or the mountains of Afghanistan.

The brilliance of the neocons and the right-wing in this country is that they have hoodwinked everyone into thinking that in order to protect our country we must attack someones else's, and if we don't wipe them from the face of the earth they will come again for us like they did on 9/11. The problem with that, of course, is that we don't know who they are, and we sure as hell don't know where they live or where they will be coming from. -The Ft. Hood shooter was in our military for crying out loud! Where will the next fanatic come from? Even if we bomb everyone of these countries into nothing it won't guarantee that some sympathizer living in Dearborn, Michigan won't strap on a bomb and decide to become the half time show at a Red Wings game.

Thank goodness a bunch of Rastafarians didn't decide to blow up the World Trade Center. Because if they did, and George Bush was in power, Jamaica would be nothing but a memory.

That's how twisted the neocon logic is, and that's what got us into this mess.

The problem now of course is how do we get out. Here is hoping that his O ness, unlike the guy before him, actually uses his brain and not his bible.

*Pic courtesy of Phtobucket

The Butler Did It.

You know what I hate about that SOB racism? I will tell you what I hate: Sometimes he will do sneaky shit to instigate me into chasing him and then when I catch his ass he tries to act like he wasn't the one messing with me in the first place.

Take this latest brouhaha over a Wall Street Journal article. Have you all heard of this? Seems the Journal is pissed off about one of the O man's appointments to the federal bench. They think that the guy is way too liberal and shouldn't be given a federal judicial appointment. So far so good, right?

Yes, but then in their article decrying the pick, the Journal let their inner "R" show by referring to the nominee as "the White House Butler." Nice. I love their play on words. The guy's name is Butler, and he does happen to be black. So was the Journal using their cute play on words because of the guy's race? Or was it just a play on his name? Wait....let me look at the actual article. It was the headline? And here I thought it was just a line buried deep in the op-ed piece. Oh yeah Mr. R, I have your ass now.

Oh field, there you go again, you must be really desperate to find racism if you are going to accuse a fine paper like The WSJ of being racist. So a bunch of tree hugging white liberals in Wisconsin see racism, it doesn't mean that it is there. Field, not everyone is a racist, some people don't even think of such things. News flash, field, this is a "post racial America." You know who is a racist, field? The tree hugging liberals in Wisconsin who just naturally associate a black man with a butler.

"The headline was a play off of his last name, and to suggest anything otherwise is absurd," said a statement from Wall Street Journal spokeswoman Ashley Huston."

OK field, that ought to settle it. Once again you are chasing racism when there is nothing there to chase.

I swear the next time he comes around I am going to tell racism to go and play with someone else. His ass is way too slick for me.

Tipping and the Klan.

I found the following story involving Mrs. Field's alma mater and Ole Miss interesting. [Oh my, this can't be good for recruiting all those black athletes.] I wasn't in the least upset, because I happen to agree with Dr. Boyce Watkins whose article you are about to read.

"I was intrigued by recent reports that the Ku Klux Klan had a rally on the Ole Miss Campus recently. It might surprise you to know that I am essentially unconcerned by their presence on campus. Don't get me wrong, Klansmen are incredibly ignorant. Also, we cannot deny their historical reign of terror over people of color in America. But I can also give you a list of reasons that we should stop paying attention to the KKK.

1) They thrive off of attention: The KKK has very little power. They don't do very much anymore, and even in this rally, it appears that there were only a few members present. The truth is that the klan only has power because we give it attention. They are like a grease fire: The more water you put on it, the more it grows. But if you starve the fire of oxygen, it eventually dies out. The klan must be starved of attention, and then they will go away. They only remain relevant because we want them to be.

2) The KKK distracts us from real racism: While Ole Miss can proudly brag about how they ran the KKK off their campus, they then turn around and face a college campus that doesn't hire very many African American Professors and doesn't graduate black athletes at a very high rate. But they are not alone in their campus segregation. According to a survey we conducted on YourBlackWorld, over 1/3 of all black college students have never had a single black professor, and over 60 percent of them have only had one or less. That should embarrass our universities and be the source of absolute outrage among African American students. Rather than fighting against Klan members they will probably never see again, the Ole Miss students should focus on dealing with the professors in the classes that they attend every day. Also, we are allowing the campus to brag about something that is not worth bragging about. For campus administrators to fight against the KKK and simultaneously support systemic racism via the lack of campus diversity is like them saying, "I am completely against rape, but I plan to molest you every single day."

3) The KKK has freedom of speech just like everyone else: Whether we like it or not, the KKK has the same liberties that most of us have as Americans. As long as they are not out encouraging people to kill African Americans, they are protected by the constitution. I want to protect the klan's right to speak because that also gives me the right to speak. The last thing we want is to live in a country where the government decides whose opinions should be heard. The Klan has a right to exist. I don't support the KKK, but I also have major problems with Ole Miss. The university was built on a foundation of racism and like most campuses, they are probably not being very progressive in terms of fighting it. But in order for us to accurately fight against the disease of racism in America, we must be intelligent about our targets. The KKK should not be a meaningful part of that dialogue." [Story]

I agree 100%. So take that all of you people who think that all I do is chase racism. I could care less about a few Klansmen on the Ole Miss campus. (BTW, the guy in front under the white sheet looks rather portly. Are they sure that's not Haley Barbour?) I am more concerned about all of their secret sympathizers in state houses across the country and in the halls of congress, than I am a few marchers in Klan costumes.

Hell I am more pissed off about a story from my home state, where it seems that it's cool to lock up people even after you give them lousy service.

Oh come on field, you are a lawyer, the restaurant's policy is that there is a MANDATORY 18% gratuity. It is a built in cost, you have to pay it. Why? As my man Lamont Hill said, that is incredibly oxymoronic. -Kind of like intelligent conservative- How can something be a mandatory gratuity? I mean why should the actual cost of the goods that I am purchasing not be enough? And what if the service really did stink? Wait.... "You can't give us terrible, terrible service and expect a tip," said Pope, a 22-year-old Moravian College senior who's a Pottsville native, according to the Lehigh Valley Express-Times. They had to find their own napkins and cutlery while their waitress caught a smoke, had to ask the bar for soda refills, and had to wait over an hour for salad and wings, they told NBC10. " See, the service did stink. Why add the cost of the service that stunk and tell me that I have to pay it? Remind me never to go to the "Lehigh Pub" in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Oh field, you are just saying that because you black folks don't like to tip. No, us black folks, like white folks, and all other kind of folks, don't like to get ripped off. Having the cops run down this couple and arrest them after giving them lousy service in your establishment, smells like a rip off to me.

That's where the Klan should have been marching; in front of the "Lehigh Pub". Unlike those poor patrons, I am sure that they wouldn't have been arrested.

Another American tragedy.

I'm baaaack.

My man racism is on the loose again but tonight I am going to leave him alone. There is just too much going on within my community right now to even trip. There will be plenty of time to chase his ass later.

Tonight I want to blog about a very sad story from Motown. (No, not the Lions.) And I want to thank fellow field hand, Tokeya, for sending it to me.

Imagine, for a minute, that your name is Lazette Cherry, and you have reason to believe that your son molested his three year old half- sister. Do you now call the little girl's father and tell him of what might have transpired? I think most of us would probably say yes. Unfortunately that might have been the wrong answer. Because after telling the little girl's father of the alleged sexual assault, the enraged man beat and gun butted the boy (his own son) and shot him execution style on his front lawn.

Now Lazette is not only mourning the loss of her son but she is no doubt having to deal with the added guilt of knowing that she caused his death by telling his father of the alleged assault.

Without getting into too much detail, I will say that I represented a parent in a similar type of case in the past, and I vowed after that case that I would try my best never to do it again. These types of cases tear at you emotionally, and they are the hardest to put out of your mind.

"Jamar, 15, had confessed to her that he had inappropriate contact with his 3-year-old half-sister in his father's home on Newport on Detroit's east side.
"I called and told his father this isn't something you sweep under the rug," Cherry said Wednesday.

Jamar Pinkney Sr. showed up at Cherry's house in Highland Park on Monday afternoon with a gun, she said.

"He started beating him right here," Cherry said from her living room. "I said, 'No, please stop!' "But the father marched Jamar, a sophomore at King High School, outside.
“He got on his knees and begged, ‘No, Daddy! No!’ and he pulled the trigger,” Cherry said from her home on North Street in Highland Park. “There wasn’t nothing that my son wouldn’t do for his father. He loved his father so much.”
Jamar was shot once in the head."

As is always the case with these types of stories we want so much to find someone to blame. Should we blame Jamar the son? Should we blame Lazette? Or should we blame the father?

"Cherry said the 3-year-old's mother took the girl to a hospital to be examined Sunday. But she said her son claimed he didn't rape the little girl and kept his clothes on.
The exam showed no physical evidence of sexual trauma, Cherry said. Still, she added, he knew he was wrong."He told because he knew it wasn't right," she said."

I would love to hear what Ms. Cherry said to Jamar the father when she called him on the phone to tell him of the assault. I think that would help me to understand everything a little more and make more sense of yet another tragedy from urban A-merry-ca.

[Story here]

I am into something.

So I am not posting tonight. I will catch you in the a.m.

Here in Mississippi we don't need our blacks educated.

So they invited me to attend the Minority Broadband Summit hosted by ADE down in D.C. this past week, (Shout out to the ADE staff and the great work they did. I keep telling these people that I am not a real journalist) and I got a chance to meet and hang out with some cool people. Props to Roland Martin from CNN. Dude is alright but he has got to let me hook him up with my clothes guy....let me stop. I met and chatted it up with folks like the former mayor of Houston, Lee Brown, and Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson from Texas. I also have to give props to all the people who attended and to the man who organized the entire thing, Julius H. Hollis.

Still, one of the real reasons I went was because I knew that my best friend from law school would be there. Antonio Clayton is the chairman of the board of the largest HBCU in the country and he ran a Jedi on these folks as well because they thought he was important enough to invite.

We met and hung out a little bit and got caught up on all the happenings. When it was time for him to speak my man actually broke some news which is what I really want to blog about tonight.

Seems the governor of Mississippi, Haley Barbour, has decided that it would be best for the folks in Mississippi to merge some of the HBCU's into one school. I guess he has been channeling his inner Wendell from Get On The Bus. Remember Wendell? He hated those "nigger schools" didn't he?

Well, I have news for Haley Barbour and the Wendell's of the world; those "nigger schools" educate more than half of the black professionals in this country, and schools like Xavier in New Orleans produce more successful African American medical school applicants than Harvard and Johns Hopkins combined. So no doubt that it is important to keep these schools alive for the purpose of educating our children. I think on that we can all agree. The key is that they don't fall prey to mismanagement and poor fiscal policies that has plagued some of these schools in the past.

So now, I ask you, why would the governor of Mississippi want to close some of the HBCU's in his state? Well, after listening to Tony's speech, I actually looked up the story to try and find the reasoning behind Barbour's position, and here is what I found:

"Under Barbour's plan, no campuses would close but Alcorn State and Valley would be merged into Jackson State. Each of the smaller schools is roughly 100 miles from Jackson. Barbour said the merger would save money by reducing administrative costs and eliminating academic duplication. He also wants to consolidate Mississippi University for Women with nearby Mississippi State University. The governor said the restructuring could save the state $35 million out of a nearly $5.5 billion budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1.The black university presidents have made clear they want to remain independent."The governor's proposed budget cuts will change the face of higher education in Mississippi for decades," JSU President Ronald Mason said in a statement. Alcorn State President George Ross said the university leaders didn't find out about the plan until Monday."

Damn! He even wants to close down Mississippi Valley? Does he realize that's where Jerry Rice played ball? And does he realize that Steve McNair played at Alcorn State? And doesn't he realize that an HBCU produced his states most famous football player, Walter "Sweetness" Payton? His ass ought to be shipped off to Abu Ghraib right now. In all seriousness, what are all those proud alumni of these schools going to do? I sure hope they don't take this lying down.

And here I thought republicans wanted blacks to be educated. Why doesn't he merge Southern Mississippi into Ole Miss? I am just saying.

"Barbour said a state with about 2.9 million residents can't afford eight universities. He said Monday he's not worried about appearing racially insensitive with his proposal."

Of course not, republicans never care about such silly things as racial sensitivity. I sure hope the O man himself will have something to say about this, I know he prefers the Ivy League types, but the Ivy isn't for everyone.

Oh well, here is hoping that old Haley has a change of heart and drops this silly idea. Segregation and racism created the duel system of higher education in many southern states. And, unlike other aspects of racism, the end result of this has worked out just fine. Barbour should just leave it alone. He should try to find other ways to raise money for his state. And he could start by giving himself a pay cut.

How did it come to this in the first place?

So, like the rest of you,I have been reading this Alexis Hutchinson story. Poor woman. The Army has arrested her for refusing to deploy because she has no one to take care of her baby. Seems she did submit a "care plan" to the Army, but her mother had problems with taking care of the little guy at the last minute.

So I have a couple of thoughts: First, where the f&*k is the child's father? Why can't he take care....wait, change that. Why shouldn't he be made to take care of the little guy while mommy goes over sees to defend her country? I have read this story in a few different places and not a word about daddy. Daddy, if you are alive, shame on you.

The other thing that bothered me about this story is that, once again, it's a grandparent [usually grandma, because more often or not grandpas sorry ass got up as well] that is being depended on to raise a grandchild. Come on folks, that stuff is getting old.

Maybe it's because of what I do for a living, but I am sick and tired of seeing plaintiffs who are grandmothers having to hold it down because mommy and daddy aren't doing what they have to do to raise their child.

Alexis, believe me, this is not personal to you, because I don't know enough about your situation to pass judgment. But your situation seems all too familiar to me. It's just that unfortunately for you, unlike with so many others, your situation has serious consequences attached.

And finally, I have to get on Uncle Sam a little bit: Why did they have to arrest this woman and take her to jail, forcing her infant son to go into the foster care system if only for just a couple of days? I mean maybe someone familiar with the way the military does things can help me with this. Couldn't they have put her under house arrest or something? At least that way she would have been with her child.

"Kevin Larson, a spokesman for Hunter Army Airfield, said he didn't know what Hutchinson was told by her commanders, but he said the Army would not deploy a single parent who had nobody to care for his or her child. "I don't know what transpired and the investigation will get to the bottom of it," Larson said. "If she would have come to the deployment terminal with her child, there's no question she would not have been deployed."'

Yes, and part of the investigation should be to find daddy's sorry ass.

Guess Who Came To The Television Studio.

"Conservative radio and television talk show host Glenn Beck has made his reputation and fortune in part by taking innocent if not strictly professional relations and turning them into major political scandals. His crusades against Obama administration advisers Patrick Gaspard and Van Jones, who has since resigned, stand out as crowning achievements of the guilt-by-association game.

What happens, however, when one looks closely at the people Beck has chosen to invite onto his show, and to whom he has lent his megaphone?

The Huffington Post took a look some of the bombastic host's past guests and found names steeped in controversy. Beck has hosted, and even occasionally praised, a renowned white supremacist, a devout southern secessionist, a defender of slavery, and a 9/11 skeptic.

On October 4, 2007, for instance, Beck had on his CNN/Headline News show Michael Hill, the founder and president of the League of the South, and Thomas Naylor, a secessionist who is head of the Second Vermont Republic. The conversation, which centered on dissolving the government, was at times, contentious. But Beck - for all the pushback he offered - did acknowledge that he was kind of intrigued. "Don`t get me wrong,"

he said. "There`s part of me that says, mm-hmm."

Hill's League of the South (LOS) group is a decidedly white supremacist organization, arguing that the "Anglo-Celtic" culture of the South must be protected and insisting that "white men" must "shed the guilt heaped upon them by their opponents and defend their interests." The group has questioned "what sort of ammunition is being given to black 'racists' by the media's skewed coverage of interracial crimes." Hill himself has been quoted as saying, "Let us not flinch when our enemies call us, 'Racists;' rather, just reply with, 'So, what's your point?'''

Now now now Huff-Po, just because Mr. Beck chose to have those people on does not necessarily mean that he sympathizes with their extremist views.

Still, I wonder if he buried them on a Friday night like he did my black conservative friends?

I bet if most of my black conservative friends knew about Mr. Beck's previous guest list they would not even have gone on his show.

Ain't that right folks?