Cobb

New Barbaria

It will be some time before there is a universally accepted definition of terror, but we in the Old School think we know it when we see it. While we've been strong enough and our enemies weak enough since the Civil War to have it reduced to a few massacres, Tulsa and Rosewood come to mind. (You can count Orangeburgtoo if you like.)

There's a disjointed, dislocated empire of dissolution out there called New Barbaria, and Chechnya has just joined the Axis. Or perhaps they joined when they took over that theatre several years ago; they're certainly there now. How the rest of the world is to repel the onslaught of this new barbarism will occupy our best minds for some time.

Like Nine Cans of Shaving Powder

Keywords: Greatest Funk of All Time

Last week, NPR interviewed Xeni about her iPod. Now that's news. Xeni is one of the oxygen suckers on the LA scene. I'd have to be a transvestite sky-diver with a pierced eyeball to get more attention than she, but that's almost besides the point. The end of her piece with Noah Adams proved that he had no clue whatsoever whe the Gap Band is. Now that's really sad.

But it brings to mind a number of sticky problems. The first problem is easily resolved because of a fairly large number of P2P networks out there. The problem is that I only have 4 Gap Band tracks in my collection (Outstanding, Yearning for Your Love, Early in the Morning & Burn Rubber). The second problem is more tricky, which is to decide who occupies Grand Funker Number Two.

You can't get anywhere without saying that George Clinton is the undisputed center of the funk universe. But who is number two is a damned hard decision. Some people would say Bootsy, but I don't think so. It ain't James Brown either - he's soul. Now it's true that JB musically invented funk, but he came nowhere close to taking it to its limits, some of which are still being explored. So I'm just going to start the controversy here and now with some hellafied bands and songs that must be considered.

I think that if you consider the quality and number of funky ass songs that have that ineffable quality, there are four contenders for number two, and several others that are right there.

Ultimate Funk:
Ohio Players
Cameo
Roger Troutman & Zapp
Steve Arrington & Slave

There is so much that can be said about those bands that I could spend 500 words on each of them. But I won't. I just want you to get your head around the size of this task by complicating it with some more artists who must be considered.

Superstar Funk:
Bar Kays
Rick James & The Stone City Band
Bootsy's Rubber Band
Prince
Commodores
AWB
Kool & The Gang
Gap Band
Confunkshun
Tower of Power
Larry Graham & Graham Central Station
War
Brass Construction
SOS Band
Skyy
Lakeside
Brothers Johnson
Ray Parker
Chic
Frankie Beverly & Maze

In There
One Way / Brick / Chuck Brown & The Soul Searchers / Pleasure / Johnnie Guitar Watson / Chocolate Milk / BT Express / Dazz Band / Midnight Star / Fatback / Wild Cherry / Jimmy Castor / Trouble Funk / Mother's Finest / Herbie Hancock / Whodini / Breakwater / Pockets / Ozone / Faze-O / Sun / Mass Production / The Meters

For Honorable Mention, I 've got to give props to the artists who weren't really funky most of the time but dropped bombs nevertheless, espeically the class of jazz funkers who dropped the most awesome funky cuts ever made.

George Duke: Reach For It
Lenny White: Peanut Butter
Tom Brown: Funkin' For Jamaica
Michael Henderson: Wide Receiver
David Sanborn: Wake Me When It's Over

Then there's there's the late 80s electric funk on the verge of hiphop:
The Family: Suzanna's Pajamas
Herb Alpert & Janet Jackson: Diamonds
Hashim Al-Naafiyish: The Soul (It's Time)
Africa Bambaataa: Planet Rock

DQ:
Even though they can be funky, I don't count James Brown, The Isley Brothers, EWF, Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, Sly & The Family Stone, Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield or Michael Jackson. I probably shouldn't count Prince either, but if I had to drop him on one bucket it would be Funk.

Have at it.

Missing

The North Korean Bomb

Q: If the DPRK did successfully explode a nuclear device on Thursday, why did we not hear about it until today?

Answer 1: It didn't happen.
Arrogant Analysis 1: Stupid fascists just blew up their own plant trying to stage a bogus test and make everyone fear them. Another escalation of rhetoric will ensue. The North Koreans are all hostages.

Answer 2: That's just how long it takes newspapers to find out because North Korea is so isolated.
Arrogant Analysis 2: Which only proves that the North Koreans are a threat to nobody but themselves. If they dared make a move against anyone, they would be crushed. Blowing up a remote part of their own country is all they can do. The North Koreans are all hostages.

Answer 3: That's just how long it takes newspapers to find out when the US Government wants the news suppressed.
Arrogant Analysis 3: Worry.

That's What It's All About

Rudy

I've written that I don't know what to think of Italians. That may be true, but Italian-Americans: we're dogs.

One of my homies from NY and I agree on damned near everything except one: Rudy Giuliani. We both loved him from the beginning up and until Diallo, at which point I kicked him to the curb, especially after he had Carl McCall arrested during a protest. And though I'm glad he rounded up the squeegee pests, I was real keen on his falling out with Chief Bratton. My sentiments were with, and still are, with NYC's former and LA's current Chief of Police. Luima, we don't even need to talk about. So that was three strikes against a guy I used to respect and admire. If Giuliani were a martini, he'd be ice-cold with prime Stoli vodka. But his arrogance added just too damned much vermouth, so I poured him down the drain.

Like a lot of harheaded skeptics, I wasn't prepared to call anybody a hero for doing their job >= nine-eleven. I just don't have that kind of thing in my constitution. People who do admirable jobs do admirable jobs. Medals are for soldiers. But clearly, aspects of the old Rudy shone through, especially because America was not in the mood for too much vermouth in those days. But since I am long gone from NYC and also pleased with various aspects of Bloomberg, I wasn't expecting Rudy to recover.

As it happens, I found this over at Negrophile spoken by none other than Diallo's dad:

"We think at last he has become a good leader," Diallo said in an interview last week. "Because of what he did on Sept. 11th."

"We hope that he has changed. I hope that if he wants to become a leader for the country that he has changed for the better. I think he has the potential."

Huh? What?

If you ask me today who I'd rather have represent my kind of Republican to the nation, I'm not sure you could do much better than Pataki, Giuliani and Whitman. You could throw Arnold into that too, but I prefer the career guys. In fact, I prefer Giuliani because of his background as a prosecutor. He knows where the law and order rubber meets the road, no cheesy legislator or baby-kissing pol he. I like that in my political dudes. I don't believe he has a political future, but I like the stuff he's made of, whereas creatures like Tom DeLay, Phyllis Schlafly and Carl Rove make my head hurt and the back of my throat tingle. I like very much that New York Republicans make Schlafly's stomach upset, but enough with the metaphors of malaise.

If Rudy G has a political future, I think he would be a damned fine replacement for Hillary Clinton. Unlike many on my side of the aisle neither Clinton raises my blood pressure. I could take them or leave them, and although I never trusted Bill, I think he admirably kept his head on when the VRWC was losing its and blaming everything on him. Even though he got creamed in the end, Clinton played defense better than GWBush whom if he loses will be considered the biggest putz in history.

If I were a New Yorker, and I had the option, I'd want to hear something from Bratton, but then I'd very likely vote for Giuliani for Senate in a heartbeat. Then me and my dogs could have a cold one and some sausages on 7th Ave at Tonio's. That would be nice.

Coop's Chicks

I just had to put this picture up on my site. It's not often that I talk about sex or relationships. It's just one of those rules. If you're not married to me or thinking about my children, I simply don't care. Dowhachalike.

But this is the contribution I wanted to make to Tooley's discussion about interracial relationships.

Ocean Charter Needs Your Help

I forward this on to my readers from my sister Dutz.

As many of you know, N will be starting a new school this fall. The school is opening its doors for the first time September 13th. Ocean Charter is a community of families and educators interested in using innovative teaching methods to educate and nurture children. The method espouses whole child learning which integrates arts and academics together through experiential learning. If you're interested, please check out their website.

The school relies almost entirely on parents' support. Many of the parents have now taken the reigns from the original development team to reach out to the community and ask for help. The originial development team has been working hard the past 2 years to find a site, get the charter approved by the state, hire teachers, contractors, and raise funds. There are still tons of things that the school and specifically N's classroom needs......this is where you all come in (hopefully!)

Following is a list of items we need: (no need to buy, just look through all those bags of goodies you were planning to thow out or give away!)

small book shelves
small sofa (loveseat) or futon
floor pillows
large area rug
small file cabinet
percussion instruments (drums, cymbals, rainsticks)
clip boards
plants
children's books
jump ropes
power strips
cooking utensils
clock
flower vases
baskets (any size)

Please forward this on to anyone you know who might be able to donate or have them contact me directly. THANKS SO MUCH in advance for your donations and time!

Boredom

Another Day

Patches

Sylvester James Gates, Jr.

Pops hipped me to SJ Gates who is apparently keeping it right.

Sylvester James Gates, John S. Toll Professor of Physics at the University of Maryland, College Park, told a radio audience of African American children and their families that they should strive to find the playfulness in science and math, and to understand the role of physics in everything from cell phones to space travel.

"What I would like most for your audience to understand is that (science) belongs to them," said Gates during an interview on a radio program called Delta SEE Connection. "You see for me, all of the mathematics I know, and all of the physics that I understand and the equations that I deal with — for me this is like a basketball and a court. When I go out and do science, I am having fun. I'm doing the thing that's truest to being me. And as an African American I am not separated from this. This is so much a part of me that it's like my listening to music; it is like watching Michael Jordan play or watching Venus or Serena…"

To produce Delta SEE Connection, a weekly radio program, AAAS has joined forces with the nation's largest African American sorority, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., and the Delta Research and Educational Foundation (DREF).

Entire Article

Fearless

Southern Strategy & Goldwater Revisited

A new cat out there in the web copied me into an email discussion about the Republican's Southern Strategy, and I've just learned (damn am I late or what?) that Carl Rove was best pals with none other than Lee Atwater. By coincidence some bot found me and reminded me of some statements I made over at Dean's World on the subjects.

I'd like to focus on one figure, that of Barry Goldwater:

I'll name two. Strom Thurmond who broke ranks from the Democratic party to create the 'Dixiecrats' and Barry Goldwater who broke ranks from the Republican Party and President Eisenhower to specifically argue against the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

In light of this comment written by John Thacker, a dude from Cornell, Goldwater gains relief which might be interesting:

Cobb, your criticism of Strom are fine (though those racists Ernest "Fritz" "I put the Confederate Battle Flag on the SC State Capitol" and Robert "I don't regret having joined the KKK in my youth/ White niggers" Byrd seemed ok with staying in the Democratic Party), but you're completely wrong about Goldwater.

Goldwater was a member of the Urban League who had fought against segregation and restrictive housing convenants in Arizona. He completely supported earlier Civil Rights Law. He completely supported the aspects of the 1963 Civil Rights Act that applied to the government. However, given his libertarian beliefs, he opposed the more coercive aspects of the 1963 Act on private businesses.

He correctly feared that the act, as written, would be interpreted as mandating quotas and Affirmative Action. (Hubert H. Humphrey notably vowed to eat the entire text of the Act if it were ever taken as requiring such a thing.) He attempted to amend it, but to no avail.

Yes, Goldwater's position, honorably and consistently taken, gained him support for racists who saw him as better than the alternative. But slandering him as racist is NO BETTER and NO MORE ACCURATE than slandering honest pacifists as terrorist sympathizers.

When we hear today through the fog of advocacy about the Southern Strategy it is almost inconcievable to hear Goldwater portrayed as anything but a blind screaming racist dedicated to make the Republicans the party of racists. But considering that he lost to Nixon but won the Southern vote, who was actually more racist and which strategy prevailed?

I don't have an answer to this question yet, and I am being Socratic as usual, but it appears that there is a reasonable possibility that some principle stands from the tree of Goldwater which is pro-Civil Rights and anti-Affirmative Action and that's about as 'racist' as it gets. Whatever qualms Goldwater may have had about Affirmative Action having a retarding effect on business profitability has certainly been disproved. And I don't believe he could have countered Loury's astute observations on the persistence of racism via economics. But it stands to reason that if today's Republicans are Goldwater Republicans as contrasted to Nixonian Republicans is their reputation as racists actually earned over the matter of Affirmative Action? After all, it was Nixon who signed the executive order and launched 1000 economic ships. Goldwater's objection, if Mr. Thacker is to be believed, was strictly Libertarian and made for a convenient excuse for Segregationists to side with him against the Act of 64, but not for the same reasons.

This distinction is very important as far as I'm concerned. I'll be looking for further confirmation of it as items float by me.

Ossetia

I find myself astonished by the magnitude of the Ossetian crisis, and I don't like to be. Yet I am not familiar with the history of armed conflict which must inform military commanders; surely there must be some.

Are there not massacres of this sort throughout history? Where? When?

As I listened to the latest report the other day, the BBC reporter suggested that there were about 700 hostages, double the original number reported. Now I am hearing the number was around 1200 and the Russian news deliberately deflated the number. Now there are some 300 plus dead, half children and another 450 hospitalized and 200 missing. This is the sort of madness that can inspire generations of hatred. What to do?

It seems to me that the Russian people must be appeased. Now is the time for grand gestures. I'm never going to be Putin, but if I were, I would do two very large things. I would destroy a city and I would offer unconditional independence. I hesitate to even say.. this is the level of atrocity that make people crazy. I'm glad I'm not Putin.

Preparedness

Richard Forno

Richard Forno is the coauthor of Incident Response (O'Reilly) and The Art of Information Warfare (Universal). He helped to establish the first incident response team for the U.S. House of Representatives, and is the former Chief Security Officer at Network Solutions. Richard is currently writing and consulting in the Washington, DC area.

Keep this man's name in mind when you start hearing discussions on security. I'm thinking these days of the amateur CT person who helped the FBI nail the latest domestic traitor to AQ.

Here's a few of Forno's wise words:

Let’s play devil’s advocate for a moment and see what the real consequences of a cyber-terror attack would be. Could someone shut down part of a power grid or water system via a remote dial-up connection? Perhaps, but the same could be accomplished if someone managed to gain physical access to such facilities to throw a few switches and turn a few knobs. Besides, we’ve proven during countless natural weather disasters that we can live without electricity for short periods of time. Should critical networks be compromised, we can still pay for groceries with cash.

Even if any of these scenarios were realized, life might be a bit inconvenient or slower than normal at times, but we will still be alive, and buildings won’t have toppled. Life will continue to go on, and soon return to normal, likely more quickly than if recovering from a physical type of terror attack. A potential compromise of the air traffic control system doesn’t necessarily mean that planes will start falling from the sky: airplanes have arcane backup systems known as “pilots” and “co-pilots” who can fly and land them safely.

I've recently signed up to Cryptogram and started perusing back issues. Great stuff. If you don't know Bruce Schneier, you should.

The Ownership Society

I just gave a skeptical once-over to David Boaz' essay on 'The Ownership Society'. I don't buy it. (heh)

I think everyone was being more realistic when they were talking about 'The Investor Class'. In fact, I think this is fairly weak logic of the investor class trying to persuade more people to get in the game, and having done that proclaiming an ownership society. I can't guess the ulterior motives of the proponents of the this new idea, but there were two other terms that set me in my direction on this. They are 'consumers' and 'wage-earners'. That's what most of us are and that our economy works primarily to our benefit as such is what we ought to focus on - and keep it that way.

There are many hundreds of thousands if not millions of Americans in the investor class. A good portion of them make money simply through being smart about money. The best of them are pillars of our society - they are the wealthy that can make some of us rich. But there's only so much of that talent and money going around. The essence of free market capitalism is that it punishes mistakes by the wealthy as well as the poor. There will always only be a transitory few at the top of the pile. The answer to the question "If you're so smart, how come you're not rich?" is that markets are fickle and timing is everything. You've got to make the right move at the right time for investments to payoff, and then you start all over again. The only truly safe place to hide money away from the angels and demons of the market is in government securities. Keep that in mind.

When I was a kid, my parents didn't have credit cards. In fact, most Americans didn't have any line of credit with their banks. Only the rich had those kinds of instruments, and they weren't even done with cards, but with personal contact with bankers. That was stuff that the Beverly Hillbillies did. They called up Mr. Drysdale and make him do something clever with their money. The rest of us just saved and waited. That changed around the time Hank Aaron hit #715. Do you remember the famous video clip? There was a big Bankamericard billboard on the back fence of the Fulton County Stadium. Today, lots of consumers and wage-earners have lines of credit, most of us have done well playing rich with all these financial instruments, 401Ks, Roth IRAs, Term Life Insurance, Flex Benefit Health Plans, Mutual Funds, Second Trust Deeds. Every few years there are more of these tricky instruments afforded to the public. Do you have an accountant and a tax attorney? I do. This stuff ain't easy, it's damned difficult. Keep that in mind.

No matter how many copies of Microsoft Money and Quicken are sold, we are never going to turn our consumers and wage-owners into miniature capitalists. Nor should we try. I'm in a business where a significant percentage of the workers are independent contractors and small business owners. We're sorta like tradesmen and sorta like professionals. That's difficult too - we sink or swim not only for knowing the trade but running the business. Gnarly buggers like me enjoy the challenge, but it's not for everyone. These days I have to think about how to pay mortgages, payoff tax debt, put kids through school, plan for retirement, value the business, pay employees, get investors, all kinds of crap. Some days I'd rather be a ski instructor.

The Death of the Digital Divide

Ha ha ha I spit on the grave of the Digital Divide, and I declare victory for me and people like me. 13 years ago I famously (for me anyway) went to a black academic conference at Harvard and sat amongst the elite including Robin DG Kelley, Lani Guinier, Ella Bell, and others semi-forgetable in crap-talking retrospect. I made myself as loud as possible in proclaiming the future of the internet in reaching out to the blessed Community the Left Professoriate keeps ranting about. I explained to them that it could disintermediate those monstrous institutions they kept railing on about and allow them to speak directly to the People. Naturally, they figured I was crazy. The People, quoth they, don't have computers. It is an elitist tool. Chief among my targets was my intellectual hero of the times, Cornel West. I accosted him on several occasions in NY and Boston. Professor West employed a secretary to print his emails. I couldn't believe it. I have come to expect and have yet to be dissuaded from the conclusion that it lies directly against the interests of the Professoriate to publish on the Internet. It doesn't pay. It competes with their lucrative positions within the academy. Why give away for free that which you get paid to talk about within the hallowed halls? I have come to accept this rationale as perfectly acceptable and I probably won't accept any other. It's all about the benjamins, baby. At any rate, all these lefties spewed back Digital Divide rhetoric a year after they figured out what I was talking about. (I shudder to think how many scones were consumed during those seminars.) And from there it was perfectly understandable how they ganged up to concoct all manners of arcane policy fodder to insure that there were 'offramps' from the 'information superhighway' that went to the ghetto. Meanwhile, normal people bought modems from Best Buy. The beginning of the end was the long in the making as Moore's Law continued its inexorable influence on the macroeconomics of the industry. But the coup de grace arrived in the person of Marc John Jefferies, cute black kid spokesman for PeoplePC. Over here, it's been a slow year for digital divide issues for left wonks. In fact it has been a total bust. There is no successful policy against the digital divide. It was solved by the economics of the PC industry, whose aim was to sell as many PCs as possible and by the ISP industry whose aim was to connect as many people as possible to the Internet. There was never a regulatory parallel to a 'universal dial tone' for internet access; it was never needed. Here's an interesting paper whose abstract indicates agreement with me. UPDATE: NIH is battling for free information.

Undone?

Over at Vision Circle, I'm uploading several hefty documents about race that I collected when that was part of my Boohabian focus. One of them was part of the outputs of President Bill Clinton's Initiative on Race, which I imagine became part of the legacy Democrats use to demonstrate how much more cool they are to blackfolks. I find that an admirable but dubious claim, but not for lack of trying. Still, I wonder if anyone anywhere on the planet actually took such deeds to task. Since I'm willing to bet that I'm the only race geek who bothered to download any such artifacts I find it hard to believe that anyone is acting on them in a constructive way today. But I'd like to be proven wrong.

Be that as it may, in the spirit of 'what have you done for me lately' I ask the question what has the Republican Party undone for blackfolks lately. I suspect that people will go all the way to Iraq looking for an answer, if they don't get caught up in Haiti first, but that they will find little that Clinton has done that Bush has undone.

Since I'm not studying race relations I leave that question open to anyone who is willing to bring forth some adequate proofs, and I provide the docs. There will be more to come at Vision Circle, so keep your eyes peeled.

Hero

Somewhere in the middle of watching 'Hero', I wondered if I might not be living in the Old Country.

What is coming out of China has impressed me over the past few years as being a kind of fundamental expression of humanity. I see Chinese people as the emptiest of humans, completely without affect, translucent even, such that whatever their character is, it shines through completely. Whatever their skill, their ailment, their vice, their sorrow it is that which they are and nothing more. It is only through their interaction with each other that I percieve this. Somehow they become complicated when dealing with me or other non-Chinese. But to themselves, the Chinese reveal.

I am wanting to say that the Chinese in this way have no eternal soul. If you are a farmer that is all you are. The only interest anyone or anything can have in you lies in your ability to farm. If you are a warrior, it is the fight in you that is beheld and nothing else. It is this notion that carries the weight of tragedy in the film Hero - an assassin who seeks the wisdom of the world to assist in his perfection as an assassin ultimately makes him something else, and as soon as this happens, he must die.

Many people will tell you how fabulously beautiful this film is. But I found it transcendant, in the way special American films must be to those who dreamed of America when they lived in their old countries. These days as I purchase DVDs in search of tales worth owning, I am drawn to the performances of Shakespeare's history plays. But in the American cinema I have yet to find a thread as noble. Yet with Iron Monkey, Crouching Tiger and now Hero I find three excellent examples in Chinese, and so they take the fore. Perhaps it is unreasonable at this moment in history to expect much else. Lessons in English might be those which warn against the dissolution of decline, perhaps we should look to Thackeray. But for now it is that spirit churning in the blank slate of the Chinese body that fascinates.

Hero says so much without words. I have not seen such breathtakingly brilliant color in filmmaking since 'The Cell' and 'What Dreams May Come'. Yet as ugly as the poisoned minds of those films were, even the bad guys in 'Hero' remained, well, heroic.

Just last night, several days after my viewing of Hero, I watched Kill Bill 2. That film says so much about our capacity for deciept and our vulgarity. There is nothing quite like the metaphor of a one-eyed woman who comes with a million dollars and a poisonous snake to ransom a stolen Asian sword from a drunk killer who lives in a trailer at the edge of a desert. The only pure emotions are avarice and revenge. And next to that was 'Love Actually' whose distorted emotions all going by the name of 'love' were a hash of confusion and cowardice. Granted, I fell asleep before the jaded old rockstar's record reached the top of the charts but a saw no true love worth consummating in that motley bunch. Nothing that compares to that exemplified in Hero.

I don't like to dog America for what it lacks. Instead I prefer to inoculate my family and Recover that of lasting values. One would think that artists would be a bit more bold. Even if I can't be forgiven for not knowing where to look in American film, the fact that it's hard to find speaks loudly enough to this problem. We should be thankful for those few who made it their priority to import soul from China.

The Return of GDZ

I hung out with C4 yesterday.

It has been about 7 years since I've seen him. I'm sure we crossed paths one way or two, who knows. Except one Thai dinner when he was feeling out of sorts, there hadn't been much communication between us in a very long time. But that didn't really count because JB wasn't there since '98 when we had just gotten back to LA from the East Coast or 96 when we had the Easter Party in Carson. But yesterday was a righteous reunion. I know this is true because he brought out the GDZ flag.

The last time I saw the flag had to be somewhere back in 89 or 90 when we had our notorious beach parties down in Hermosa. There's not much I can do after all these years to evoke the spirit, and in some ways it's not important that I do. I can just tell you that a very cool network of very cool people wove in and out of our sphere, and it was the place to be.

After the BBQ was consumed, we reflected back on those days amid huge screaming fits of laughter. It was a very easy afternoon and it did a lot to remind me of how uptight I used to be. Very. The best thing about having friends is that they can see through you, and you know it. I enjoy being translucent around these guys, and I haven't felt that way in a while.

I discovered more long lost links to my young adulthood and childhood hanging out there. I remember that JB's folks and my folks grew up together in New Haven, many of them going to Hillhouse or working for Winchester. It turns out that one of JB's best college buds and I knew each other since we were babies - our dads were frat brothers. Still I haven't seen him since highschool; he's in San Diego now. We marvelled at the people we knew in common, but then again it shouldn't be a surprise. We were the People of the Dons. In fact, that's where C4's new pad is: 90043, yet another Geographically Desireable Zipcode. C4, his wife and baby are definitely Money and Brains, although most of the joint is American Dreams in that neck of the zip.

I'm coming back into the circle and it feels like home. Even though we stop and look at our guts and our kids running around in momentary disbelief, it's still us and we're here. We survived and did OK for ourselves. So I'm doing some serious recovery on this as well. Maybe I'll put together a private portal, because what gets us perturbed is how we 'fall off the map'. Even with C4's prodigious memory for all kinds of stories about us, we lose touch. I know it's been too long for me.

The Hook

Well, it's clear that we have the critical mass to create the black hole even though some stars decided to stay in their own orbits, but from all sorts of matter, this thing will be born.

Discussions are going further and we'll have something nice before the end of the year. It promise to be fabulous and fascinating.

I am on the hook to make that work, of course. And I am off the hook for my blog hiatus. But that makes me on the hook for writing more blog stuff whereas my mind has been elsewhere.

The hook of the new site has not yet been decided by the adhoc blackhole planning committee, but I have a lot of confidence given the quality of ideas currently spewing that it will be decidedly compelling. I think it will live up to its potential, which is all one can ask.

Stay tuned.

The Black Hole

I am not going to post another entry on Cobb until 20 black bloggers agree to start a singularity in the blogospheric universe. I have been provoked, and I can find no good reason not to have a black group blog that will climb into the top of the Ecosphere. Let's see if the blogosphere thinks we're just playful primates.

What!

GMail Monopoly

Everybody I know online already has GMail. And I've already heard from 4 of them complaining that GMail is telling us all to tell 6 friends. We travel in small circles.

The Hatred Continues

Those who hate Microsoft use Linux.
Those who love UNIX use BSD.
-- Anonymous

I can tell that the headaches are about to start. I can feel a new brace of wind from the ever squabbling factions in the mind-numbingly tedious OS Wars. In today's installment, the open sourcers are crowing that some new winky blinky has been dropped from a future release of Longhorn, an MS OS version that's somewhere on the horizon to be released in the next year or two. Not only that, there's scoffing about XP's new Service Pack and bragging about Apples new iMac.

As the bored chicken said, cockadoodle-whatever. Is there anything really new in computing?

Duty

I guess that I'm going to break my promise and actually say what I think about this Esmay vs Willis thing. I don't want to say that I'm defending Dean, because I'm really trying not to care. But I have been down this road with him before - I've heard the hardtime Chicago story. I understand where he's coming from, and this is what it sounds like to me.

Dean is kind of coming at blackfolks right now with a straight gangsta rap attitude, but before he did that, he was minding what he thought was his own business. He was talking on his website to his people and saying some crazy shit about race, trying to get a rise out of them. Then a lot of people called him on it. The ways he responded reminded me of black street performers at Venice Beach trying to get money out of white gawkers:

"Stop looking at me funny - this is just entertainment. You got to pay me some respect as an entertainer. If it wasn't for this job I'd be robbing you, be glad I'm an entertainer - but I'm letting you know the deal. I'm keepin' it real." He's smiling when he says it, but people are clutching their purses.

Like the gangsta rapper who is representing thug life, Dean cannot abide people who are genuinely offended by his message. If they can't take the message, how the hell could they deal with the reality behind the message? He's right.

Like the gangsta rapper who is representing thug life, Dean is feels he has a right to artistic license and people shouldn't mistake him for the real thug. He comes from a place where thugs rule and he turned away from that so he's really not a thug. He's wrong.

The substance of this debate has been long lost in everybody's willingness to say what it means or doesn't mean in the context of our society. I'm as guilty as anyone pointing fingers. Hell, I double dipped. This is my second post. But I tell you I don't have any sympathy for all the hurt feelings. This is what happens when you talk about race. And what's more, this is what happens when you only talk about race when it suits you. If you think you can get in and get out of the discussion, if you think it only applies to other people, if you think you can sum it up all in one quick MLK soundbite, this is exactly how you get screwed over. Because when you don't talk about race on the regular, you forget how deep it goes. You find yourself talking about your dying grandmother, and experiences that formed you when you were a kid. You start talking about violence and hatred - and you sorta know it, and then you find yourself feeling it.

I've been retired from talking about race for a while. I had my Vietnam War of race. I signed up for multiple tours of duty. And that's how I felt about it, duty. I don't like to talk about it, that's why I use all these metaphors. But here I am at 30 minutes past midnight writing about it. I am concerned that we have lost our ability to talk about race; that we are at a point of equilibrium at which people don't give a rats ass one way or another. We all know, or think we know enough examples of everything we knew nothing of, and still haven't experienced, to say that it doesn't matter what we think. We can say 'Tiger Woods this' or 'Eminem that' and somehow that proves that we individually don't have to work any harder. We all think we understand quite enough. I know I feel that way.

Perhaps out of a sense of obligation we ought to sacrifice a bit of our pride at being above and beyond this nasty business, and get down and dirty into it. Talking about race is difficult and nobody likes it except maladjusted weirdos. But we even-tempered people, at the horrible life altering risk of being called a name ought to do so. Especially if we consider ourselves thoughtful.

Annoying Stupidity About Race

I sure am glad that I know a few things, because if I didn't, I'd probably be symbolizing up a storm about a sissyfight between Oliver Willis and Dean Esmay.

As far as I can see, it got started because Dean dared to ask whitefolks if they found blackfolks annoying, which is of course an annoying question in and of itself. But it's also a somewhat clever way of getting people to air their frustrations about an annoying topic that a lot of people are mad about because they can't find much neutral ground.

As you might imagine. This little dustup has caused a small black hole in the blogosphere and attracted all kinds of extraneous junk from the surrounding space-time continuum. I found it while pissing on P6 who was passing comments about something or other I've already forgotten about. See - even thinking about this is making me stupid.

Oh wait. Heres the trick. Since Dean is Repub and Oliver is Donkey, the spew from this catfight had to spill over into why black conservatives and Republicans are stupid, why Dave Chappelle isn't funny, why Harold Ford is a 'pampered little bitch', and why Zell Miller is a racist. That's why this annoying conversation went over into stupidity. Chappelle is hilarious, Miller is a genuine ass-kicker without a dishonest bone, Ford is uppity and classy like me and black conservatives are [generally] brilliant. Plus, even a homeboy from my hometown dissed my Brotherhood mate LaShawn as not representative of most blackfolks. (Duh, she has a blog!).

So I'll view this as an opportunity to attract attention to myself because I am above all the nonsense and have the proper perspective on racism. This is most clearly an episode of Class Three. (Namecalling & disrespect). But it also illustrates how a little racial tension goes a long way in political discussions, even when they descend into utter sputtering madness. Maybe I'll keep the black modifyer on Republican for 18 months instead of just 12.

My trackback exerpt (An honest to God black Republican defends Dean Esmay's annoying question.) is a lie, because I don't think Dean's question is particularly useful, insightful or pertinent to any issues of concern other than generating some more traffic among people who think they know everything about race, blackfolks or conservatives. I am happy to have such individuals frequent Cobb, even if by accident or trackback trolling.

I will say this of Dean Esmay though. He's not trying to be anything he ain't and he steps up and says what he means. That's why the blogosphere remains interesting, and at turns annoying.

Real Black Republicans

This is tiring, but I'm going to post it anyway. I will say that in about 12 months I'm going to stop being a black Republican and just become a Republican. I've got about a year's more BS to deal with as a Sophomore and then I'm going to graduate early. I still have yet to make any T-shirts, but that's coming too.

My boy Joe Phillips is doing fine. It's nice to see him mentioned. Meanwhile, lazy editors of presumptuous publications mischaracterize what's real about black Republicans. I'm starting to see why Thomas Sowell spends so much ink. It really is a fight over who owns the race. But as I said, I'm not long for this game. I say that as a [Black] computer scientist. Watch my race disappear and then show up stunningly.

Meanwhile to the text:

The percentage of black Republican national convention delegates grew from
10 percent in 2000 to 17 percent in 2004, he said. Black Republicans hold
office in 22 or 23 states across the country, Watts said.

The former college football star called on the party activists in the room
to support black Republican candidates financially and to spread the
message themselves of how the Republican Party better matches blacks'
values. Bush-Cheney campaign staffers and celebrities, such as former
"Cosby Show" actor and Republican Joe Phillips, are overwhelmed by
invitations to speak, Watts said.

"We don't have enough time to cover the requests that we have," Watts
said. "I am appreciative of all the efforts that all of you make."

I'll be getting in touch with these guys in California in due time. Meanwhile here's the full text of the article reprinted without permission for discusssion and review.

Taking Money From White People

P6 has a snarky report on Project 21's recent interview on C-SPAN.

He suggests that blacks are not led astray, hoodwinked or bamboozled by white liberal politics. That is putatively because political organizations like the NAACP are directed by blacks. So he finds it credible when Mfume suggests that Project 21 is a make believe black organization. Why? Because it takes money from white people.

I'm really not in the mood to return snark for snark. But I wonder how it is that any black people could possibly be possesed of their own minds if they are willing to accept assistance from whites. I wonder if Kwesi knows whether or not the pipes that bring water into his house were laid by blacks or whites. Because if he has been drinking white water for all of these years, I don't know that we can trust his opinion, as a black man.

By the way, wasn't there some white guy who went by the name of Springarn? I heard he had something to do with the NAACP. No maybe my memory is bad. Maybe it was Moskowitz or something like that. Nah. Couldn't be.

Cornel West: A Mouthful

George, as usual is looking out for my interests and sends me West's intellectual PR for his next book 'Democracy Matters'. An exerpt of West-speak:

Free-market fundamentalism—just as dangerous as the religious fundamentalisms of our day—trivializes the concern for public interest. The overwhelming power and influence of plutocrats and oligarchs in the economy put fear and insecurity in the hearts of anxiety-ridden workers and render money-driven, poll-obsessed elected officials deferential to corporate goals of profit, often at the cost of the common good. This illicit marriage of corporate and political elites—so blatant and flagrant in our time—not only undermines the trust of informed citizens in those who rule over them. It also promotes the pervasive sleepwalking of the populace, who see that the false prophets are handsomely rewarded with money, status, and access to more power. This profit-driven vision is sucking the democratic life out of American society.

It's amazing. I'm starting to see through Cornel West. 10 years is a long time.

I think his assumptions about the responsibilities of the market are misplaced as well, exactly where the DOJ is failing us. He should be watching the difference between people like Rudy Giuliani who come from the prosecutorial side law and order guys who get government power and Michael Bloomberg, who comes from the corporate side to get government power.

You can depend on the former to exercise toughness wrt law and order and are not going to be punked by corporate elites. Eliot Spitzer is a good example. You can depend on the latter to make governement actually more efficient, effective and responsible to the public. Although somebody needs to follow up on Bloomberg's initiative to have a centralized call center to handle all complaints of New Yorkers.

None of these are democratic in the way I think West wants to see democracy, which is more of a call of social justice in all things which depends too much on outsized symbolism for my taste. Enron is no more. Plus it took out Arthur Andersen. You cannot think of a more incredible story of justice, and yet West would harp on that as exemplifying what's wrong. He simply has no respect for the intelligence and probity of investors, nor the flatly undemocratic prosecutorial powers of the DOJ. And he doesn't seem to give organizations like FASB the time of day but rather lumps them indistinguished as agents of 'market fundamentalists'. He simply doesnt' bother to give any value to the elements of trust that businessmen must establish one to the other, nor the institutions that make this possible.

In the end, his noises about King, Coltrane, Mobley and Douglass are non-sequiturs, and I think he's bitten off more than he can chew as he talks about empire and geopolitics. But then so do we all.

I would like to send West on a mission to that great creator of profits: Johnson & Johnson and see how well his rhetoric stands up to reality. The fact of the matter is most of the largest corporations who are the most influential in our society operate in relatively thin profit margins. And yet like moths to a flame, or perhaps deer in the headlights, we find Leftists completely overwhelmed by two words 'corporate profits'. They cannot fathom how it motivates people in any but corrupt ways. I daresay it is because of their complete lack of experience and understanding of how small folks become big folks and how 30% profit margins on 10 million is a completely different animal than 3% margins on 100 million.

Maybe we expect too much of them.

Kobe Be Free!

I'm 14 hours behind the facts on this. But the case has been dropped against Kobe Bryant. I'm stunned, surprised and glad that Bryant didn't go down in flames. I had already written him off, not so much as a predator, but as an idiot and a soon-to-be has-been. It appears that the Lakers have a future after all. Yay LA.

While we're doing the black man proxy thing, let me say for the record that if Michael Jackson get's off, I think that would be less of a happy day. There's nothing Michael Jackson can do for me but fade away more gracefully. He's definitely a has-been, and I have no sympathy for him at all.

Captain Blackman

Ever since I read Captain Blackman by John A. Williams back in the 80s, I knew not to take any guff about African Americans not being patriotic. In fact, while I was in college, I had to work hard at keeping my own dream alive in order not to be seduced by the real leadership opportunities of the armed forces. Back then, my promised land was Corporate America. I know better now, but that doesn't change the fact that the military is a great opportunity for millions of Americans.

Now, check out this military acadamy in St. Paul. I have a feeling something incredible is under way. I wonder what history we don't know about blacks coming to serve as officers from our traditional universities. It would be interesting research.

I hope that the Charles Young is successful. I have every reason to think it will be. There's a big discussion of this over at Joanne Jacobs' blog.

Building Defensive Weapons

The other day a specialist was on NPR bemoaning the lack of organization in the Department of Homeland Security. I have my biases.

I think that, depeding on your defintion of 'win', we can win the WoT. If the goal of terror is to terrorize, then we must refuse to be terrorized. That starts with reducing the hyperbole associated with manic rhetoric about how shoddy DHS is. The fact of the matter is that we have had no significant events of terrorism since three years ago. We must be doing something right. But let's dig deeper.

It has been said that mechanical engineers build weapons and civil engineers build targets. What are the targets of terrorism and what are the defensive weapons we can build? I hear grousing about the lack of sophisticated airline security with regard to the number of bags that are x-rayed and scanned. Some context should be drawn as to whether this legitimate complaint has merit in perspective.

I come at it this way. AQ had a number of years to plan the plane hijackings. It involved senior planners and fairly large cells. Let us assume that this was their Pearl Harbor. They will never again be able to pull off a stunt of this magnitude unless we are totally inept. Secondly, we have captured or killed most of the senior leadership. We have attrited their ability to create, plan and carry out such massive attacks. We've had two Olympics and two major political conventions without incident. Is it possible that they can no longer plan well enough to take out the biggest targets? Is there no mother of all terrorist acts in the works? I think there aren't quite enough masterminds remaining to pull it off, and we've demonstrated our willingness to run our military through two countries making sure.

On the other hand, there are baby Bin Ladens with one and two, perhaps three years of experience. Relatively speaking, these young turks will be amateur terrorists. What do amatuer terrorists do? That's easy - look to Iraq. They kidnap and behead. They use car and truck bombs. They attacked the UN headquarters in Iraq. They form ragtag militias.

So now we throw in a bit of rhetorical thinking. It seems to me that when one thinks of AQ capability of fielding weapons of mass terror, our attriting ability and record is parallel to that against Saddam Hussein ability to field weapons of mass destruction. Once you start taking out the leaders, you reduce the net ability of the enemy to field sophisticated super weapons. Iraq, after our total domination of it, no longer poses a threat, not for the lack of trying as Baathist and Sadrists prove - but for lack of ability based on our battle of attrition. Understand that it is the ability of AQ to recurit minds like Atta which increases their ability to deploy weapons of mass terror. But men such as Atta are as scarce as weapons scientists. Each officer we take out of AQ, exponentially aids our cause and reduces the net potential of that organization. When we prevail, what will be lef of AQ is a network of suicide bombers and rock throwers. We don't defeat terrorism, we defeat mass terrorism.

What this means for our defense is that here at home we will face, perhaps what Russians face with Chechnya or what Spaniards face with ETA or what Chinese face with Falun Gong or what Israelis face with Hamas: an unending stream of small acts of terrorism. Will America be able to absorb a monthly bus bomb? Hard to say. But the fact that we have no large attacks - nobody taking out the Golden Gate Bridge, nobody cropdusting cities with Anthrax says something.

The expert made a point that I think bears repeating. We don't have enough EMTs. We don't have enough ambulance drivers. We don't have enough firefighters. These are the people who are going to make a difference in dealing with the 3 year old terrorists. But it hasn't come to that even in three years.

I think as we advance most forcefully against the masterminds and the networks of WMD proliferation, we will severely attrit the ability of anyone but state sponsored terrorists to recruit for, plan and carry out acts of mass terrorism. But we'll never stop the molotov cocktails, rock throwers and mad bombers. They can be anywhere, at any time, for any fool reason. But I think the lessons of the Sadrists in Iraq are very instructive, for to carry out a radical jihad, some loud mouths must be heard and some holy order must be established. They are the groups, like Hamas, in the middle. There is where we will watch.

Spitballs

Dorian Gray

Oscar Wilde: The Portrait of Dorian Gray. You are a
horror novel from the world of dandies, rich
pretty boys, art and aesthetics, and
intellectual debates between ethical people and
decadent pleasure-seekers. You value beauty and
pleasure but realize their dangers, as well.


Which literature classic are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Famous Last Words: AfricaPundit

AfricaPundit has been incactive for several months. As I review my blogroll I found his last post somewhat inspiring. Whenever I see people carrying children it makes me feel good.

I'd say carrying babies piggy-back is probably a reflection of African ideas about proper childrearing. When a mother carries her baby, she is always available to feed, burp, change, or comfort whenever the baby gets whiny. You'd think that all this attention would lead to spoiled children, but everything seems to work out somehow.

Yup.

Ivan Get Your Dragunov

This is the last straw. Chechan rebels have taken schoolchildren hostage in Ossetia. It would be so hard for me not to go to the army surplus and pick up a sniper rifle if my kid was in that school.

This has got me thinking about what practical kinds of things we ought to be working on with regards to Homeland Security, which is probably a lot simpler than most experts are saying.

Outward Bound

This week, I am listening to a lot of other people besides myself. That's because right about now I am full of myself. I'm here to tell you that everything is running on all 8 cylinders. The business is growing and the money is flowing. The kids are all getting the right teachers this year (and my first grade daughter is reading at a seventh grade level - yay F7!) and I'm getting up at 6:30 am from now on, even on days when I work from home.

It's at times like these that I circle back and figure out what I'm doing wrong, and it's true that I still have to buy a new KVM for my next (linux) box, sign an NDA and review some code from Latvia, talk to the solar energy guy, continue my market research on the Alameda Corridor, get right with CCR, install more ProClarity, firm up my role in the October deal, finish recovering the files I deleted, find a camping space, rent a minivan, send those training materials, and update the business website, and recalculate my second quarter taxes, BUT
there's so much interesting news going on out there I can't ignore.

This is my curse. Curiosity.

I actually feel guilty for not having been reading Abiola and Drezner until recently. I feel guilty for not writing code to yank econometric data from the web and compiling it for display on my own website. I feel guilty for not having watched Michael Steele speak, even though the stuff at C-Span doesn't work. So for a few days, I'm going to let people tell me what to do. I'm going to relent and be submissive.

I'm going to watch television. I'm going to continue to try Mozilla & Firefox (so far I really see no advantage whatsoever). I'm going to ask harder questions about Wn2k3, which works perfectly, just like XP without the patch. I'm going to do all kinds of things I don't want to do because I didn't think of them first and I'm going to do them grudgingly because I'm usually right anyway. But this is how I learn. I manipulate people into attacking me and I let them win. I give them all the credit and then I integrate the lesson. Either way, my ego is maintained and that's the point isn't it? Go ahead and say no. OK you win. See how it works? Gotcha.

I didn't win the lottery this weekend. But I'm glad I played because it gave me a new reason to like somebody new. And suddenly I came up with a new theory - yesterday at lunchtime to be precise. Since it was Duc who sold me the office pool ticket, I speak to him more often (and he was the reason I made another set of business cards, one type each for my 5 public faces {Dad, Metro, Cobb, Vision, Value}). I found out that his sister is an Oakley manager's dentist and that he can get me Oakley stuff real cheap. And I realized that this is the third Vietnamese guy who has done me some good or potential good in the past 3 months. So I says to myself, 'I like Vietnamese', ever thinking of Tre who introduced me to nukmom 15 years ago. So my theory is that America's pluralism and ethnic diversity gives us constant new reasons to be optimistic about humanity. There's always some people whom you don't know who can surprise you pleasantly and show you something you never knew before.

And as I walked past the Benzos and Bimmers in the 90 degree heat to my Chevy, I wondered what I would drive if I had won the lotto. I absolutely know: A silver BMW M5 with Centerlines, a black Yukon Denali XL with tinted windows and fat mud tires, a black Jaguar XJR with spoke wheels, and a custom black and yellow Ducati Monster. I don't care where in the world I live, as long as the schools are excellent and the broadband is cheap. I have no desire whatsoever to outperform the market, so I'd be happy to live off tax-free strips, just like Greenspan.

OK. That's enough blabber. I have to get onsite and reconcile these transaction counts...

Kayne West: Whatever To That

Jesus Walks.
Through the Wire.
Overnight Celebrity.
Love You Better.
All Falls Down.

Weird, Wack, Weak. Another waste of time and typical noise. Don't say I never gave you a chance. The last song has some potential, but it's all retread. Am I missing anything?

Laughing in Your PJs

Wherever there is suffering, injustice and oppression, America will
show up six months late, and bomb the country next to
where it's happening.
-- PJ ORourke

ORourke is hilarious. I've finally come around to his sensibility. Nothing works. We survive. Have a drink and laugh. You gotta love a guy who can say this of NPR:

"NPR Headline: World to end soon. Poor & minorities hardest hit."

Kerry's Think Tank

OK somebody help me out here. We know about the PNAC, and true most of us didn't know who they were or what they stood for until after GWB was elected. But who is Kerry's Think Tank? Show me a statement of purpose because the crap at johnkerry.com doesn't cut it. There is nowhere near enough detail for a wonk-head like me. So where do I go for the meat?