V.S.

Flying or floating?

A friend  and I were having a discussion about religion and the conversation eventually evolved into a single point of contention for believers and non believers.

Does a spirit world actually exist?

To people of faith this is a matter of fact contention, for in order to believe in the existence of God, The Devil, angels and the like are par the course. To skeptics such as myself, the lack of any empirical evidence to suggest that spiritual or unseen entities are part of the natural order of the universe, immediately regulates any suggestion of their existence to mere fantasy or more appropriately wishful thinking.

According to a study done by the web site The Christian Post, 34% of Americans belive in ghosts. I was very surprised that the percentage was not significantly higher.

Other interesting numbers from that study include:

19% believe in witchcraft and spells

48% believe in ESP

23% say they have actually seen, communicated or acknowledged the presence of  a ghost

A poll done by the Washington Post asserts that 92% of Americans believe in God or a Universal Spirit and an astonishing 80% believe that miracles occur.

So I have found yet another minority group to be a part of.

While I personally ascribe to the realization that universe is too symmetric to not be the result of intelligent design, defining the parameters or characteristics of that intelligence continue to allude me. This lack of understanding of what composes the creating force is not due to any lack of effort on my part to seek out a universal truth about the existence of mankind and the universe in general, but rather to my acknowledgment that on every level of the human condition, basic laws of logic and reason have not only maintained universal order but have given our species the platforms necessary to advance our culture, society and most importantly, our survival.

It is on this foundation that I vehemently reject any notions of any matter, beings (physical or not) or concepts that do not conform to the laws that not only define our universe but dictate the very notion and acceptance of reality altogether.

I have always told my daughter not be afraid of the dark because monsters don’t really exist. Ditto for vampires, werewolves, zombies and yes ghosts. It seems to reason that if any one of the aforementioned anomalies actually existed than they should all exist. Think about it, if a human being could transform into a creature that was immortal, could only come out at night and subsisted on the blood of other human beings, than why shouldn’t there also be humans who turn into wolves during full moons or rise from the dead and human flesh?

Translation: If you are going to live in a Harry Potter world don’t stop at the wizards.

Ghosts seem to have a more acceptable place in the human psyche however, primarily because people see ghosts as images of ourselves or people we have known, but in a translucent or maybe gaseous state.  In my opinion the concept of ghosts is far and away a more ludicrous proposition than say zombies. At least zombies, vampires and werewolves exists as anomalies to the known physical laws of the universe. Ghosts, on the other hand, appear to have their own distinct rules of matter and structure that do not seem to be confined to any physical properties of the universe whatsoever.

It is suggested that you can kill vampires, werewolves and zombies, but as far as I know you can’t kill a ghost because there is really nothing to kill. I feel comfortable in making the direct parallel between ghosts and spirits because in the view of most people the inherent properties of the two are interchangeable.  Spirits are seen to be of the same translucent condition as ghosts. It is suggested that they can move freely throughout the universe and I would guess space and time as well without any limitations whatsoever. This is why the concept of the God is both easily accepted by so many people and easily rejected by others.

Let’s use Jesus as an example. It is known that according to Christian theology, the central figure was murdered on a cross and arose from a state of death three days later. He then eventually ascended to what is considered to be Heaven.

Example #1

The skeptic asks: If Jesus was dead for three days, didn’t his body began to decompose? Isn’t that what we would call a zombie?

The religious person suggests: When Jesus arose from the dead his body was in a different form than it was before he died. In fact he was able to touch things as well as be touched by people and he was also able to appear in rooms where he had not been. (Which means the new Jesus could either walk through walls or just pop in and out of thin air).

While a person of faith just accepts Jesus’ new abilities and properties as absolute truth, a person like myself is utterly confounded by the willingness of so many people to accept such monumental exceptions to logic and reason simply on the evidence of a single book produced by men who themselves had no supernatural properties or have ever given cause to suggest they had any divine or outer-worldly attributes.

Example #2

The skeptic asks: When Jesus supposedly ascended to Heaven did he do it in a spirit form or human form? Did he actually fly away like superman having to zoom by the planets in the solar system and any other galaxies that are between ours and Heaven, or did he just vanish into thin air?

The religious person suggests: ???

…truth be told…I’ve heard no less than five different responses to this question, all of them effectively ending in some thing that boils down to…it’s beyond the realm of your mind.

It appears that the belief in the spirit world is bound by the same constraints that the religious world is and that is a distinct faith that what you have been told by those who preceded you is true.

I’ve met many people who say that they talk to God and while that does not seem at all strange to me, I am intrigued by those who say that God has spoken back to them. I never seem to remember to ask at the time but I always wonder later, what does God’s voice sound like to them.

Does God sound like James Earl Jones? You know a big deep robust voice that fills the air?

Does God sound like Morgan Freeman? A cool, calming assuring and friendly voice like in the films Bruce and Evan Almighty.

Does God sound like a woman to women and a man to men?

Does God sound like parents to Children?

Does he/she  sound like T.D. Jakes? Pat Buchanan? Your minister or pastor?

Is God a spirit or does he/she exists in human form?

If God speaks does he/she/ have a mouth? If he/she has a mouth does God have to breathe? Eat? Spit?

How do ghosts talk if they don’t actually have throats, tongues and windpipes?

I could go on forever with questions about beings that supposedly exist in a spiritual realm. In my opinion the reason that some things add up and others don’t is because simply put, somethings add up and others don’t.

I find it odd that most people who believe in spirits don’t go seek spirits when they are sick, need car repairs, need a financial loan or need legal advice. They save those important matters for doctors, mechanics, bank officers and lawyers.

But doctors, mechanics, bank officers and lawyers can’t move about space and time the way spirits do. So why even bother with any so-called professional in the physical world when the spritual world is always at our disposal.

For that matter why even bother hanging around a low level physical realm like the planet earth when a translucent time/space traveling existence awaits us in the next life(?).

Have you ever heard the expression; Everybody wants to go to Heaven, but nobody wants to die?

I’m sure you have, maybe it’s because even though we allow our minds to run rampant with thoughts of spirit worlds and free traveling afterlives, the molecules that actually make up our physical bodies have no plans to surrender their existence to appease our frolicking minds.

In a nutshell, your mind may want to believe in the supernatural, but your ass damn sure don’t agree.

Neither do I.

Conspiracy or Stupidity?

Well, let us attempt to make sense of the actions of these individuals before we determine a winner to our ’stupidest’ contest. I will not rehash the entire story because by now anyone who follows any news source is familiar with the incident in Cambridge Mass. on July 16th. In summation,Gates was arrested by officer Crowley and charged with disorderly conduct after being questioned about a suspected “break in” by Gates at his own home. President Obama subsequently chimed in with his opinion on the incident, infuriating law enforcement officers nationally with his unflattering characterization of Crowley’s handling of Gates.

Immediately after Gates arrest, every major (and minor) media outlet seized the opportunity to bring yet another story of racism among police officers against African Americans. Unfortunately for Crowley and the Cambridge police department, Gates, to paraphrase the words of that great negro poet Ice Cube was obviously the wrong brother to mess with. All charges against Gates were eventually dismissed.

I decided to hold off making any commentary about the incident until I heard all the talking heads who offered opinions and analysis on the matter, and until I felt as though I had enough factual information about the events on July 16th to make a qualified assessment.

Now, back to the contest.

Professor Gates has been one of the premiere voices of African American experience for several decades now and has been recognized as one of the most distinguished and articulate voices to come from Black Academia in the history of our nation. Gates has a degree from Yale, has taught at that University as well as Cornell and Duke University. He has authored or co-authored no less than 11 books and in 1997 Time Magazine listed him as one of the “25 Most Influential Americans”. Oh, did I mention that he has the President of the United States on his speed dial? To put it bluntly, the man is very, very, very smart.

Still he obviously is not smart enough to know that black people are not allowed to get belligerent with white police officers in Massachusetts. I wonder if throughout Gates’ career defining the African American experience anyone ever bothered to hand him a copy of the memo that has been circulating around ‘the hood’ since the beginning of time that says black man rule number one: police do not need a reason to arrest black people and any arrest could easily result in a severe beating and/or being shot. Gates was within his rights to be perturbed that he was being questioned about his identity while standing in his own home, but if Crowley had decided to shoot him instead of arrest him (a real possibility in America) the story coming out of the Cambridge P.D. would have been very different. Plus when the President is your man there are two things to immediately consider. Firstly, if he had kept his cool he could have had Crowley demoted to School Crossing Guard with one phone call. Second, when your man is the big boss, don’t put him out in public to deal with a mess, have that conversation on the low.

Sgt James Crowley is a member of the Cambridge Mass. Police Department…translation: Sgt. Crowley has been trained the there is no bigger threat to this nation than a black man. It doesn’t matter if the black man is 60 years old, walks with a cane and is standing in his own home, black is black. Crowley had an opportunity to give Gates what I call the Fred Sanford pass. If you’ve ever watched the 70’s television show Sanford & Son, you’ll notice that Red Foxx’s character Fred G. Sanford was always loud and obnoxious whenever the police showed up at his place of business. Sanford was never degrading per se, just loud enough to say to the police, I’m a black man that had made to 60 years old in this country and your desk Sgt is going to look at you like a moron for dragging me down to the station because I was shouting. Instead Crowley, clearly disrespected by Gates’ remarks, one of which evidently referenced Crowley’s mother, decided to arrest Gates on the old ‘Disorderly Conduct’ law. A law so vague that I’m sure that if your neighbors hear you and your spouse making love too loudly, you can be booked.

Crowley is a police Sargent, not some beat cop fresh out of the academy. He has certainly seen enough real crime and debauchery in his career to understand how a black man that can afford to live in the community where Gates lives is certainly going to get a few things off his chest when the police are harassing him, and once Gates produced identification that verified that he was indeed in his own home, then every moment that Crowely remained at the residence in a shouting match with the professor was indeed harassment.

President Barack Obama has a million things on his plate right now and the Republican Party is breathing down his neck every second of the day. He also has at least half a dozen writers and/or advisors who are supposed to filter his every word before he verbalizes anything to the public. Saying that Crowley acted ’stupidly’, while indeed quite accurate, is not speech that becomes the President of the United States. That was a George W. Bush slip-up. Although I sure Bush would said something like “Sgt Crowley acted un-racified” or something along those lines. Obama should’ve taken the high road on this matter, a simple “The incident with Mr. Gates seems to be the result of several layers of miscommunication and while unfortunate for Mr. Gates, I’m confident the Cambridge P.D. will have Mr. Gates best interest in mind once things settle down a bit”. Then he could’ve called the Governor of Massachusetts and made it clear that Gates was a friend and Obama would like nothing more than for Crowley to be working the crosswalk at a local elementary school by the next day.

For all you Obama haters that think that would tantamount to abuse of power I have two words for you ‘Scooter Libby’.

Instead Obama jumped the gun and has since been forced to back pedal and even offer up an apology to Crowley who in my humble opinion really does need to be working school crosswalks, preferably in black neighborhoods for at least the next six months. What Obama did was give fuel to all self respecting, profiling police officers nationwide to inform us how much their feelings were hurt and they felt disrespected (which seems to me to be grounds for mass disorderly conduct arrests…hmmmm).

So who was the most stupid Gates, Crowley or Obama?

Neither of them, if you ask me, they were all about the same. In my opinion the stupidest person in the entire affair was Lucia Whalen who works for the Harvard alumni magazine and you would certainly think she knows who Gates is and where he lives, I mean she works on the same block where Gates lives and Gates is probably the most recognized black man in the region not named Kevin Garnett or Paul Pierce. Whalen, who was driving by the house told two police she saw two black men with backpacks on the porch of Gates home. When in fact the men had two suitcases and one of them was indeed a gray haired man walking with a cane and it was broad daylight. Excuse me if that visual doesn’t strike me as a your typical ‘breaking and entering’ scenario.

Then again to an overzealous 40 something white woman maybe that does look like a threatening situation, which I guess if the problem in the first place.

Hey G.O.P....Who Ya Wit'?

At one point while discussing the GOP’s handling of the Sonia Sotomayor hearings, Maher made this statement:

“Of course it would be ludicrous to insinuate that if you are a Republican than you are a racist, because obviously not all Republicans are racists. But it certainly seems that if you are a racist then you are a Republican. Fair or not fair Joe?”

Scarborough immediately dismissed Maher’s assertion while going on to chide the GOP’s obsession with alienating future Hispanic voting blocks with their public gaffes challenging Sotomayor’s position on race issues.

Scarborough, a Republican and former Congressman in the state of Florida, deftly buried the depth of Maher’s question and skillfully went on the attack against current GOP tactics, thereby avoiding both any confrontation from Maher as well as avoiding finding himself in the position of having to defend any slips of the tongue he might have been subject to had he himself gotten embroiled in a racially charged discourse concerning the Republican Party.

The man’s smooth.

Still, Scarborough’s artful dodging did not satisfy my hunger to hear that topic addressed by some of the GOP’s more vocal mouthpieces, although I’m sure that will never happen.

So to all members of the Republican Party let me address that topic from the point of view of most minorities in America. Most Black Americans do in fact think that most if not all of you are racists.

Sorry for being so coy, but it’s the truth. Now I know that most Republicans will point to talking heads like Niger (are you serious?) Innis, Michael Steel, Juan Williams and Armstrong Williams and their frequent appearances on FOX New programs as evidence of the diversity of the GOP. As for Innis, Williams and Armstrong, trust me, their credibility in the black community has been shot down so long ago I find it laughable that FOX News even bothers to trot them out (I guess to speak to people in West Virginia).

In fact, Steel’s appointment as the Chairman of the Republican National Committee as well as Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s rise to prominence in the party seems like nothing more than Democratic Party’s equivalent of kissing black babies at churches during election campaigns.

Despite hip hop mogul Russell Simmon’s endorsement of Steel while running for the Maryland Senate in 2006, Steel so played himself with his Rush Limbaugh debacle, first denouncing him as pretty much a media clown on D.L. Hughley’s show and then calling Limbaugh to apologize for his remarks, this after Limbaugh saying publicly that Steel wasn’t fit to lead to Republican Party.

What a sellout.

By the way…99.9 percent of Black Americans despise Limbaugh as well as his pocket lawman, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

(Ditto for Bill O’ Reilly)

If Jindal was so much the face of the new GOP then why wasn’t he a keynote speaker at the GOP Convention last fall?

I’ll tell you why.

During the McCain – Obama race the Republican Party was so sure that it could garner enough anti – black sentiment from it’s base that by selecting a moron like Sarah Palin (who could not articulate the alphabet to second graders) they would certainly dominate the white female oh I’m so scared of the big black beast vote and rustle up enough dormant hard line right wingers to seal Obama’s demise.

Personally I am still so flabbergasted by that absolute and total inept strategy that I still find myself shaking my head whenever I see Palin open her mouth on television.

Obviously the GOP’s strategy did not work, primarily because the Bush Cheney regime had indeed further alienated the black population from the GOP after the debacle that was the White House’s response to Hurricane Katrina. While there is still more than enough racial distrust in the nation, most Americans have at least gotten used to the fact that although we may not necessarily break bread or worship together on Sundays, we do indeed have to work together and live in close enough proximity of each other that any overt show’s of bigotry could certainly be detrimental personally as well as professionally.

Yes Rodney King, we can all just get along.

As Americans are in fact getting along, the Republican Party’s assault on the lower class, which is overrepresented percentage-wise by minorities, continues. The biggest disappointment in the Republican Party right now is the lack of strategy. This lack of strategy has manifested itself in overt racial attacks as in the instance of Young Republican National Federation Chair Audra Shay, and even outright comments that border on treason as in the case of Rush Limbaugh.

I have attempted on many occasions to eloquate the position that the Republican Party has held in the ascension of black Americans into national politics. From Frederick Douglass to Abraham Lincoln to Colin Powell to Condaleeza Rice, the Republican Party has always been on the forefront of black pioneerism in U.S. politics.

The current mouthpieces for the black experience in the GOP are nothing more than poo colored figureheads in the minds of most black Americans, primarily for the company they keep.

The new GOP strategy has nothing to do with creating a new agenda for the country which can be outlined and demonstrated to our Republic as a way out of our current diaphanous position in global politics and finances. It is, rather, an attempt to create deep distinct divisions not nearly as much among lines of black and white, but even more so the informed and under-informed.

By appealing to the lower ebbs of our respective cultural ethnicity, the Republicans have managed to exacerbate the fragile divisions among races that so American community and spiritual leaders have worked and died to eradicate.

For years most of black America has felt as though the Republican Party had no love or concern for African Americans or any other minority group in America. Instead of using its vast intellectual and supposed patriotic resources to quell any such notions, the party of O’ Reilly, Limbaugh, Cheney and now Shay has only verified it.

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.

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

Look, I don’t have any particular love for the Democratic party. I’ve always felt as though they pandered to the black community for votes by creating this facade that it is their party only that has the welfare and well being of minorities in their platform.

The Republicans have of course helped exacerbate that stereotype by electing blatant racists to key positions in their party and by assimilating with obvious bigots like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O Reilly.

Still, both policy wise and politically, it has been the GOP that throughout history has created more opportunities for black Americans than their Democratic counterparts (don’t believe me? do some research), and still this underlying feeling that members of the GOP are an elitist group that has no concern for any of our nations underclass does not seem to want to dissolve as the party and it’s presumptive nominee continue to make decisions that border on lunacy and then support those decisions with the most asinine justifications that you could possibly imagine coming from the mouths of supposed intelligent people.

Imagine this scenario:

You are in your kitchen cooking dinner and you need to chop up an onion. Instead of using the “onion chopper” you just bought at your local Dollar Tree, you decide instead to go with the 12 inch butcher knife.

Of course you inevitably cut one or more of your fingers and are eventually forced to do something to stop the bleeding. Yet instead of dealing with the blood that is trickling all over your hands and onions, you decide to keep chopping and of course you cut yourself some more. Your spouse walks in and sees all the blood and notices that you are cutting miniscule pieces of onion wit a butcher’s knife and inquires as to why you will not use the aforementioned “onion cutter”. Because you have no logical answer you respond:

“This onion was the key ingredient to this meal and I needed the biggest most powerful knife to ensure that it was cut properly.”

Your wife immediately recognizes your lunacy, but realizes that you are indeed holding a huge butcher knife so she humbly plays the background.

“You should at least put something on your hands for the cuts.” she advises.

You grumble something about how she isn’t committed to this family and grab a few paper towels to wrap around your cuts. Of course now there is blood all over the kitchen counter and it’s certain to get on all the other food and the fact that if you had only used the appropriate tool to begin with your meal would stood a much better chance of being “bloodless” seems to have escaped you altogether.

Two minutes after grabbing the paper towels you, and your wife, notice that there is still blood leaking onto the counter and you are having so much trouble chopping onions with a butcher knife that the other parts of the meal are just lying around the kitchen getting blood all over them and you haven’t even started attending to those items, some of which are much more importatnt to the overall meal than these stupid little onions bits you insist on chopping (in fact you have onion powder in the cabinet!).

You really need to do something about the bleeding.” she adds

You inform her that she obviously doesn’t understand the importance of onions to this meal but if it would keep her quiet you’ll put some bandaids on the cuts…surely they’ll stop the bleeding.

You leave the kitchen and head to the bathroom only to return with two boxes of bandaids, one box has little small bandaids made especially for fingers and toes and the other box has huge bandaids for gaping wounds. She tells you that the small bandaids should do the trick. Your response:

“No, you insisted I use a bandaid so I’m gonna use the big bandaids to make sure there’s no more blood for you to complain about!”

One minute after covering your hands in huge gaudy bandaids, the bleeding does in fact stop and you triumphantly turn to your wife and say:

“Aha! I told you these big bandaids would work! Mission accomplished!”

Your wife sighs, turns and walks away, leaving you standing there with your butcher knife, onion bits and bandaided hands with a ridiculous sense of accomplishment.

The moral of this story is:

Of course the big bandaids worked you dumb ass, but why the hell were you cutting onion with a butcher knife in the first place!

You see, this is analogy is how intelligent people view the war in Iraq and the subsequent surge that the Bush administration and now John McCain are so fond of touting as their major accomplishment since Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” moment five years ago!

Of course the surge worked…but did we really have to wait for over 3,500 soldiers to die before you sent more troops? Does that really justify the fact that since Al Queda was primarily stationed in Afghanistan and the supposed 19 hijackers from 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia that we should have never invaded Iraq to begin with? Has the Bush administration completely forgotten about the individual who they blamed this entire mess on to start with, Osama Bin Laden?

Has the GOP lost all sense of reality and common sense?

Are Republicans too stubborn to admit that they were/are wrong?

Obviously.

Anyone who has ever read anything that I’ve written about Kobe Bryant knows that I have been a huge fan of his…and I still am.

Kobe has treated us to some of the most memorable moments the NBA has seen in the post Jordan era.

Unfortunately he has also given his fans some disappointment to go along with his hoops greatness.

While his infidelity, smugness and often abrasive personality has given rise to quite a bit of unnecessary venom from sportswriters and NBA fans, his basketball skill has usually been unchallenged.

This season had been a sort of coronation of Bryant as he finally seemed to come from under the shadow of the baggage he had accumulated over the years; The Shaquille O’Neal trade, the Eagle Colorado sexual assault trial, the so called selfish on-court play as well as his willingness to throw his teammates and management under the bus.

He won his first NBA MVP award and he finally led his team back to the NBA Finals in a season that began with his tenure as a Laker in serious doubt.

Bryant and the Lakers’ blitzkrieg of the Western Conference in this year’s post season had many basketball pundits etching L.A.’s name on the Larry O’Brien trophy before they had even stepped on the floor for Game 1 against the Celtics, present company included.

Even after the Lakers went down two games to zero, most people thought that once Kobe went home to play in front of his Hollywood pals, the series would dramatically alter course.
It almost did.

After wining an ugly Game 3 at home, the Lakers started Game 4 playing as if the Boston Celtics didn’t even belong in the same league as them. Then came the biggest collapse in Finals history and the writing was on the wall. Surely Number 23 would never have given up a 24 point lead at home.

Like the guy in the GMC commercials that saturated the Finals coverage said;
Kids in America don’t walk around with shirts that say “I almost won.

This was supposed to be Kobe’s year. It was all laid out for him. The stars appeared to be aligned in just the correct sequence for us to witness another Jordanesqe moment of KB 24 as we all prepared for the inevitable tears and champagne that would finally solidify Bryant as being truly “like Mike”.

But alas, there will be no cheers in Tinseltown. No parades down Rodeo Drive. No I told you so from Kobe or his legion of fans.

After Game 4’s meltdown, the Lakers managed to win an even uglier Game 5 to send the series back to Boston with a chance to make history. More importantly a chance for Kobe to make his own history.

No team had ever come back from a 3-1 deficit to win the Finals. Surely if there was a player who could pull off the impossible, it was the guy who once scored 81 points in a single game. The guy who once outscored the Western Conference Champions by himself over three quarters. The guy who once scored over 50 points in four straight games.

The moment was there for Kobe to seize and KB24 fans waited with baited breath to say to the world we told you so. But the moment never came.

Bryant nailed three shots from the behind the arc in the early moments of the first quarter in Game 6 and I thought to myself, those shots were pure liquid.

I had flashbacks of Jordan dropping 63 on Bird and Co. in 1986.

But that was it. The highlights were over as Boston’s suffocating defense and spirited bench play eventually ran the Lakers out of the gym by halftime.

Forget the controversy surrounding the officiating. Forget the fact that the Celtics did in fact play superior defense than Lakers, (who looked like they were studying the George Karl defensive play book). Forget the fact that Doc Rivers was schooling Phil Jackson on the bench. Forget even the fact that Kobe’s supporting cast never really showed up for the Finals.

I, we, were waiting for the moment when Bryant said forget this, it’s time for me to take charge.

The moment(s) never came. The victory by sheer willpower never materialized. In these Finals, Kobe played a little too much team ball and too little ‘Black Mamba’ ball.

Kobe may very well be the most talented player to ever lace ‘em up, he certainly has the statistics to argue the point.

But unless he rattles off about three titles in a row, these Finals will be the blemish that all of his detractors will point to as the moment we all had to face the fact that maybe Kobe really isn’t like Mike.

Bryant still has a lot of basketball left in his tank, but with younger players like LeBron James, Chris Paul and Kevin Durant hot on his tail, his window is closing sooner rather than later.

Maybe Kobe fans should just take the 81 point game, the scoring titles, the three rings with Shaq, the MVP award and enjoy it, because maybe we won’t get much else.

All in all a superb, Hall-of_fame career without question.

But when Kobe had a chance to become a legend, well, he just didn’t make it happen.

Not yet anyway, maybe not ever.

Two years ago I wrote a column that pretty much echoed the sentiments of many Americans where I stated unequivocally that Hillary Clinton was going to be the next President of the United States. Then her campaign managers loused up the Democratic Primaries and the lock became the locked out.

Although Illinois Senator Barak Obama has been slated as the presumptive nominee (I never heard that term until this campaign) for the Democratic party, he still has two huge hurdles to climb before he can make history as this republic’s first black President.

The first hurdle is John McCain. While it’s true that McCain is this election’s version of Bob Dole, the sacrificial lamb thrown out by the Republicans in the face of an almost inevitable slaughter come November, the fact that he is running against a minority candidate will make this race closer than it really should be.

Obama’s second and most pressing concern however is actually making it to Election Tuesday…alive.

I find it eerie that during the Democratic Party’s primary campaign there were two references to assassination or at the very least shooting and guns. The first by former GOP Presidential candidate, Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, which was actually a supposed stab at humor directed at the Illinois Senator, at a National Rifle Association meeting no less. Talk about feeding a bunch of Bubbas some incentive! Why didn’t he just hand out shooting range targets with Obama’s picture on it while he was at it!?

The next reference to assassination came from Hillary Clinton while in South Dakota, defending her decision to remain in the primary race despite what appeared to be an insurmountable lead by Obama. At least Clinton didn’t direct her insinuation at Obama…directly.

Huckabee apologized, of course, and said that he was just making a poor joke. So tell me this then. Why, as soon as an opportunity to make a gun joke became available, the first person he thought of was Barak Obama? Did he have that joke already prepared and was merely waiting for the off-stage-cue to interject his morbid humor into an already GOP biased event?

While Clinton’s reference to the 1968 assassination of then Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy wasn’t aimed at Obama, coming on the heels of Huckabee’s joke, Clinton’s reference only reinforced the fear that many black Americans have had ever since Obama began his ascent to the White House.

They’re gonna try to kill him.

I find it hard to believe, correct that, I find it impossible to believe that tens of millions of Americans will go to the polls in November and vote for Obama to be our nation’s next President. The concept that America has moved beyond issues of race enough to select a black man to be the face of our republic is just too much for me to swallow.

No, white America would rather lose thousands of more lives in the U.S. occupation of Iraq, start a new war with Iran, pay $6 for a gallon of gas, $5 for a gallon of milk and have their phones wiretapped before they let a black man be the president.

Don’t believe me?

This is the real heartbeat of America:

Yeah…that’s what Obama will face more than anything else in his run for the White House, the real America.

The media pundits and members of academia in our society are too smart to allow themselves to get trapped in any politically incorrect statements concerning Obama’s race, knowing full well that any such slip ups could be career suicide. But as Huckabee and Clinton showed us, just because they might not say it, doesn’t mean they aren’t thinking it.

The problem for Obama is that the majority of white America is more like West Virginia’s alien abduction candidates than Keith Olbermann. They would rather starve and/or die, than live in a country run by a black man, and in essence that’s been Clinton’s assertion all along. Unfortunately, she’s correct.

The Democrats are going to have a hard time defeating McCain come November even though this should be a landslide for them. President Bush has done so much damage to the nation and his party that anybody could win the election from the Democratic party, except a black candidate.

Even Hispanics don’t like the idea of a black president, with early polls suggesting that a majority of the Latino vote will side with McCain who offers nothing more than four more years of the same type of politics that have driven our country into the perilous conditions which we find ourselves in today. Bad economy, failed foreign policies, distrust from the international community, never ending pointless military conflicts, abuse of the Constitution from the Oval office, infringement on the privacy of American citizens: These are all aspects of the Bush regime, and McCain will certainly come in and follow suit.

Still, to most of white America even that is better than having a black President.

Maybe Obama should take heed to what Eddie Murphy had to say on the subject in 1983:

Maybe Clinton and Huckabee were just prepping us for an event that may seem ghastly, but is an American inevitability.

The World According to MO

As if I didn’t have enough blogs on the internet, I have now invaded WordPress. Thanks for having me guys/gals.

Let’s see, where should I start?

I’m neither a Republican nor am I a Democrat, in fact I’m nothing more than a Black American loudmouth (don’t believe me, check out my other blog)

I love the concept of God, but hate all religions equally for the mess they have made of civilization.

I do not understand or appreciate the concept of Kings and Queens in today’s world (idiot British and Japanese).

Shaquille O’Neal is the most overrated athlete of our era.

Any media person who hates bloggers should be kicked in their ass for presuming they have something better to say than anyone else on the web. Oh yeah I’ll do the kicking, try me.

The greatest rapper ever is named Black Thought…he’s the lead emcee of the Legendary Roots Crew from Philadelphia (and I’m from the Bronx and I know that), he’s closely followed by Can-I-Bus.

Cobain was a better songwriter than Morrison and Hendrix, but not quite as good as Elton John.

Erykah Badu is the shizznit but Jill Scott is dead on her ass.

Kobe is better than Jordan and when all the Baby-Boomers die, that fact will finally be established.

Babe Ruth couldn’t carry Barry Bond’s jockstrap.

Barry Bonds couldn’t carry Ken Griffey Jr’s jockstrap.

Roger Clemens is hilarious.

Hockey is only good during the Olympics.

George ‘Dubya’ Bush being appointed President by the Supreme Court was the final sign that the end is nigh.

Hollywood actors should never be asked their opinion about anything that doesn’t concern a script (They’re actors, get it? Actors! Do you understand what actors do for a living? They act like other people. In some circles that’s called schizophrenia.)

I still do not understand how marijuana is illegal but cigarettes aren’t? Well, I understand, but it represents the epitome of hypocrisy in out nation’s so called war on drugs (which by the way has outlasted two gulf wars and five U.S. Presidents…and we’re still losing).

Speaking of drugs…how is that we can find an ounce of cocaine on street hustler in the pitch black of night, but nobody can seem to find the billions of tons of cocaine that comes into our ports every single day of the year?

Condoleeza Rice should never be allowed into Harlem, the South Bronx, Watts, South Side Chicago, East St. Louis any ghetto, hood, projects or any black barbershop or beauty salon on the planet without somebody slapping the absolute shit out of her. Then again…she never will venture into places will she. I guess that’s the point. She thinks she was born a Bush.

Colin Powell is still cool, barely, but cool.

If we evolved from apes then why are there still apes? I know that’s not original but still, I want an answer.

If God can create or destroy any thing, any person or any place at any given time, then why is he supposedly so jealous and petty. ((Exodus 20:4-5)

It’s okay to be gay, just like it’s okay to be heterosexual. The problem is, I didn’t f**king ask you about your sexual orientation, so stop trying to shove it in my face.

History suggest that one day, the Chinese will in fact rule the world.

Since we supposedly first sent a man to the moon in 1969, how come we haven’t been able to do it since?

A black President in the United States? I’ll believe it when I see it.

I guess that’s all for now, but only for now.