Pitbull comes ashore

Sarah Palin has announced that she will not be finishing her term as the Govenor of Alsaka.     

Raise the roof baby!

I’m stunned.

After being exposed as a moron of the highest order in front of the entire globe during the 2008 Presidential campaign, after being ridiculed by every comedian not named Rush Limbaugh, after putting more foot in her mouth than the competitors at a South Carolina ‘pig – foot eating contest’, now she decides to exit sled left?

Did she wake up yesterday and finally realize that she had been treading water in the ocean of national politics without having taken a single swimming lesson? Yesterday? She just realized this yesterday?

Of course ‘moron nation’ will shed tears for her like Michael Jackson fans ,further driving a wedge down the middle of the G.O.P., at least half of whom realized that Barack Obama had sealed up last year’s election the moment John McCain chose Palin as a running mate.

I called my brother as soon as I heard the Palin announcement on NPR and told him literally, “McCain just gave away the election.”

Since Palin is not present to defend herself, and more importantly because she will not be around to poke fun at anymore let us recap some of the highlights of what I like to call the “Palin-eo-this chick? Era”. Keep in mind that I won’t waste any time rehasing her pre McCain years because she wasn’t any dirtier than most of the other politicians That have held public offices nationwide. I mean she didn’t: smoke crack in a hotel room with a prostitute, pardon any convicted felons, sextext any congressional pages,try to solicit sex in a bathroom stall…at an airport…you get the picture. Still she will be missed if for no other reason thatn the fact that her comedic timing rivals Michael Cera and at least we’ll still get to watch him in more movies.

The “Palin-oh-this chick? Era”

August 2008 – Palin announced as running mate to GOP Presidential candidate John McCain. Her primamry qualification? Commander and Chief of the Alaskan National Guard.

September 2008 – Palin is found to have billed the citizens of Alaska for 312 days of per diem while traveling on state business. The only problem? She was staying at home at the time. McCain decides to keep Palin away from the press for three weeks for waterboarding, excuse me ‘presidential training’. In the same month Palin tells CBS’s Katie Couric:  ”As (Russian President) Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where– where do they go? It’s Alaska. It’s just right over the border.” This, Palin says, is what gives her the neccessary foreign policy experience to occupy the White House.

October 2008 -  When asked, again by Katie Couric, after her ‘presidential training, to name a Supreme Court decision that she disagreed with other then Roe vs Wade, Palin responded…”Well, let’s see. There’s ― of course in the great history of America there have been rulings that there’s never going to be absolute consensus by every American, and there are those issues, again, like Roe v. Wade, where I believe are best held on a state level and addressed there. So, you know, going through the history of America, there would be others but ―” Other Palin gems during the month of October:

 “They are also building schools for the Afghan children so that there is hope and opportunity in our neighboring country of Afghanistan.”

“[T]hey’re in charge of the U.S. Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom.”…in response to a question from a third grader. The question? What does the Vice President do?

A top McCain adviser once called her “A whack job.”

“She’s not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president? Look at what she’s done to this state. What would she do to the nation?” ―Alaska State Senate President Lyda Green, who is a Republican.

We’ll miss you Sarah Palin. You were our best hope to fuel our late night shows with comedy material after Dubya. I know that you’ll make a brief re-apperance in 2012 (probably with Limbaugh by her side) to try to jump start your base, but that effort will be short lived as the Republican Party will most certainly bury you faster than you can shoot a mosse from a helicopter.

Still, thanks for the ride. After what Bush and Cheney did to the U.S. we needed some good laughs.

 

Blacks and Christianity…why?

By Curly Morris

Question #1: Are you proud of your supposed lineage from your ancestors who may have been from either the Caribbean Islands or the continent of Africa?

Question #2: Do you celebrate Kwanzaa?

Question #3: Do you call yourself; black or African American?

This is where many (if any) fans that I have of my work decide to jump ship and disassociate themselves with me. I’m fine with that I’ve been going through it for years now and as I’ve always stated to the public…stop me when I tell a lie.

I was raised in a mixed up household. My father couldn’t care any less about religion than he did about how Richard Nixon buttered his toast and my mother was raised a southern baptist in North Carolina. So growing up in the Bronx I never attended church until we went “down south” for the summer where Sunday School and church were mandatory.

Once, while in New York, I attended a religious summit at another school where several experts on various religions presented arguments in favor of their particular faith. I was ten years old and when I left the building that night and I was never the same person again.

I have spent the better part of my life studying and researching not only the various faiths but more importantly how each of these religions came into existence and eventual prominence.

By now you’re wondering what religion I might be? Well, I have no religious affiliation, although I consider myself a spiritual person who believes that I am the purposeful creation of some entity that is bigger than me, I have never found a religion that appeared to be rooted in the actual creation and maintenance of all time and space.

Still, when looking at the multitude of “God Truths” that are paraded across the globe on a daily basis, it is easy to see how many indigenous peoples assimilate with the prevailing culture and subsequent call to faith that most of their countrymen do.
Except in regards to the black American, who has essentially adopted the culture and religion of Europeans who enslaved our ancestors.

The original slaves that were stolen from the African continent and eventually forced into a life of servitude upon arrival to what is now North America were not Christians. In fact the majority of them had never heard of Jesus Christ until they arrived here. Ditto for the tens of millions of natives who occupied this land before the Europeans arrived (you know, the ones we ignorantly call Indians even though they are not actually from India).

So how has it become commonplace for natives of this land and the descendants of the slaves to become the biggest purveyors of and greatest torch bearers for a faith which their ancestors never endorsed?

I suggested to someone once that obviously black Americans most be thankful for the slave era, because without it we would’ve never become “Good Christian Folk”. If that is indeed the case, then shouldn’t we all be thanking white people for introducing us to Jesus Christ even if it meant that hundreds of millions of us would have to die brutal deaths and generations of their survivors would be subjected to lives of inequality and second class citizenship.

At least we got Jesus out of the deal…right?

You see, by calling yourself an African American you assume some allegiance with the continent of Africa (even though there are 53 different countries in Africa that you could be from). But where is the assimilation to authentic African culture?

It’s like Kwanzaa, black America’s answer to Christmas. Could there be anything more ridiculous than Kwanzaa? You know why there was no African version of Christmas? Because hundreds of years ago, people living on the continent of Africa did not celebrate Christmas (maybe because they did not recognize Christ…hmmm).

In our supposed struggle for equality on this continent, (a stolen land, developed by stolen people who were overseen by European criminals and outcasts) we should be striving to find our true identities and lineages like Alex Haley did.

If we were to do that we would find that much of our ancestry was tribal in nature and the concept of Church was a foreign concept to early Africans. Of course if tens of millions of black Americans were to resort to their TRUE ancestry, that would deprive them of the opportunity to dress up every Sunday and rub shoulders with the descendants of the slave masters and plantation owners and pray to the same GOD.

Doesn’t it seem funny that the God we would pray to on a regular basis would be as supportive of the group of people responsible for the slave trade as he is of the people upon whom that tragedy was afflicted?

There’s a loss of logic and reasoning there that I just cannot seem to cross, for it would jeopardize my innate sense that eventually all things balance out and you cannot never escape your karma.

Still, I understand the need to have some answers to life’s biggest questions. Why are we here? Who made us? What does he/she expect from us?

I have those questions all of the time. I just never ask my enemies to give me the answers.

Obama and Hip Hop…the most relevant point of all

For better or for worse and for the record, put me on the for worse side of the fence, hip hop culture has come to be the single most defining culture of Black America…in history.

There’s no getting around the hip

Obama doesn't need the hood...the hood needs him

hop culture. In almost every facet of marketing and promotion, in industries ranging from women’s beauty products to the US Military; businesses, both in the U.S. and abroad, as well as any entity trying to mass communicate a single message or ideal to a large number of people will certainly, at some time or another, use hip hop and/or rap music to get that message out. Hip-hop culture and the accompanying soundtrack, rap music, like Blues music are as American as baseball, hot dogs, apple pie…you know the rest. it is also one of the few economical success stories that blacks have on large scales, wrestled from their white counterparts.

When you consider that there are gansgter rappers who are co owners of professional sports franchises, you have to say that the sustaining power of hip hop to date has seriously restructured the economic paradigm in the black community. In fact if it wasn’t for Oprah, rappers and/or someone in their professional lineage would have a lock on the black music/entertainment industry.

Firstly, I’ll give you the most obvious and significant example of how the world of hip hop has created enough space in the global economy that it’s power and demographic has  forced typically conservative corporate conglomerates to redfine their cultural borders and as such repackage their brand.

One of the most influential, provacative and pioneering rap grouops to come out the 1980’s, when hip hop culture truly began the current social ascention that the genre still enjoys today, was Long Island’s Public Enemy, a militant, pro black group that featured a no nonsense, anti establishment lead vocalist named Chuck D. On stage and on album covers, Chuck was always flanked by band members known as S1W’s (security of the First World) and resident court jester Flavor Flav.

Now if you’ve never seen Flavor Flav on television trust me on this, his appearance could be no further removed from the image that Senator Barak Obama conjures with the Senator’s sleek, clean cut, professional almost regal air. No, Flavor is on the opposite end of the spectrum in in terms of style, looks and even more importantly, ideology.

Flavor Flav

Yet Flavor Flav has become a much bigger social icon years after Public Enemy was a rap group of any major consequence.

Although I despise all reality t.v., you had to be living under a rock to have not caught wind of Flav’s huge television hit program “Flavor of Love” which aired on VH1 for three seasons running, supposedly ending this past May (yeah right). The program’s format consists of having dozens of women move into a mansion where Flav lives and having each of them pine for his affection until in the end, Flav decides that one of the women wil indeed be his true love. This past season offered episodes such as, “Dial M for Mystery Pimp Caller”, “When Flavorettes Attack” and “The Lyin’ The Witch and the Wardrobe Malfunction”.

Flav’s alter ego, (ie….his government name), William Drayton, has seven kids by three different mothers and is still unmarried. Daryton has also had his share of run ins with the law…more anti Obama.

Still, by most standards, people think that Flav is cool. That’s ditto for Ice Cube and Snoop Dogg, both of whom made their early fortunes spitting verses about gang affiliation, drug use and speaking of black women in unfalltering terms. Or as Obama puts it, “…degrading their sisters.” Flav, Ice Cube and Snoop, were at one time some of the most hated black men on the planet, (Ice Cube once did a song about white women called “Cave Bitch”), now hawk everything from cellular phones to Internet service. Gansgter rappers now occupy recurring roles in television sitcoms, police dramas, big budget Hollywood films, prime time aired commercials…everything…everywhere…has a rapper or rap music…in it…astounding.

Recently Reverend Jesse Jackson was embroiled in controversy after being caught on audio tape saying that he’d like to “cut off his (Obama’s) nuts”. Oh and that’s not gangster?”

I wonder why Jackson didn’t make any guest appearances on any of Snoops albums?  In fact revelations about Jackson’s love child in 2001 makes him appear even closer to Flav than Obama.

Here’s a question for Senator Obama to ponder;

What’s a black presidential candidate to do when the majority of the people in his race who have public forums have sold their souls for a buck and have collectively lowered the status quo for their future generations?

The answer; Stay the course brother, stay the course.

Being black is going to be a big enough burden for the Illinois Senator, being hip hop will just flat out be too much to overcome.

Years ago, the most popular black Americans came from academic institutions, religious organizations and cultural groups like the NAACP. If you saw a person of color speaking on network televsion is was safe to assume that individual was being broadcast across the airwaves to make a statement or point, more often than not about a topic that surely had the conciousness of the black American somehow embedded in it somewhere. Today, it’s Flavor Flav on the screen…representing black people…successfully.

To Ice Cube, Flav and Snoop’s credit, as artists they all were pioneers who did in fact asume the role of trailblazers in an industry that had manipulated the talents of black youth for decades. Russell Simmons, the architect behind the rags to riches model that people like Diddy and Jay Z have emulated to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, not only introduced Madison Avenue to the sub culture that was underground urban poets, they intorduced it straight – no chaser. It was that gritty self exploration of deplorable people living in deplorable conditions that so exicted middle and upper America. White kids all across the country were fascinated that there was this violent, drug infested world which mirrored old time ganster movies existing right around the corner from some of their homes. Simmons sold them the stories, Diddy, Jay and many others followed, and everybody got paid along the way.

Simmons personified the business of hip hop

Today, the hip hop model that Simmons created is in fact the black American dream. Complete with drug sales, gun charges, baby mamas, 24 inch rims and dead homeboys, all components utilized to increase the marketability of the prodcut and help everyone get the sale.

But just like in fast food…somebody has to sell the burgers for Mr. Burger King to get rich.

In the hood, somebody has to buy the guns, sell the dope, impregnate the girls and shoot the homeys in order to authenticate the product.

Obama has been thrown under the bus not just by Jackson but by none other than Simmons himself who suggested last year that Obama be more concerned with fixing the conditions of the ghettos where many rappers emerge from than critiquing anyone’s lyrics.

Issues concerning whether or not Politicians should distance themselves from political contributors and supporters who come from the rap community have been drowned out by the argument that these same politicians accept contributions from oil and tobacco companies, which both have their own issues with their effect on the human condition.

When the late Eazy E attended a fund raiser for the first George Bush, he was met with ridicule and promptly demolished in a record by the aforementioned Mr. Ice Cube for dining with the enemy. I wonder, if Obama gets elected, how many time will Ice Cube get to meet him, for that matter how many times have they met already?

Well rap in itself is 100% legal. Is some of it immoral? No more so than many movies current California Governor Arnold Shwarzenegger appeared in before he decided to become a public servant. It’s just entertainment right? And plus, who’s writing the “code on immorality”?

Unfortunately in many urban communities, art imitated life for a while, then life began imitating art and the result has been successive lost generations who like Obama said “are hoping to become the next “Lil Wayne“…as if that’s necessarily a good thing.

Lil Wayne Mug Shot