Cobb

Smog Check

Ecological patriotism. I live in California therefore I am green. The more likely truth is that because i drive the Transporter, I'm green. Hard to say very precisely. Today I took my car to be smogged. Here are the results.

At the 15mph test, my CO2% is 13.2. My O2% is 2.7. My HC (presumeably Hydrocarbon emissions in PPM is 6. The average for the State of California is 9PPM. The max allowable is 45PPM. For Carbon Monoxide, the max % is 0.45. The average is 0.02. Min was half that. As for Nitrogen Monoxide I was measured at 2 parts per million which is way below the average of 57 and the maximum of 393. At the 25mph test, my emissions were even lower.

Brain spew for the day. There is no crisis. That was easy.

Grozny: The Belyakov Photo

This photograph of downtown Grozny taken in February 2000, after the Russians stormed the city is a chilling image that haunts me to this day. I cannot find a better copy anywhere on the web, but when it was on the front cover of the NY Times (or perhaps the LA Times), it had a devastating impact. Wretchard reminds us, on this, my patriotic Wednesday, how we do in Iraq as compared to the Russians.

Ralph Dumain & The Minds of SCAA

I'm still deleting duplicates out of my Outlook contacts. I'm down to about 6800 names which is about right. Who did I stumble across this morning but Ralph Dumain.

Back in the golden age of SCAA, during the early 90s, there were several standout intellects. I've already talked about Eugene Holman. But he was an island in a sea of calm compared to the tempests that Dumain would stir up. Dumain was a great fan of Ellison. He wrote:

Ellison's significance is manifold.  His place in American history is on a par with that of Richard Wright; the two of them together as cultural figures punctuate 20th century American history. Ellison represents the heroic reach of black modernism, taking Wright's achievement into the realm of cultural philosophy. Wright pulled himself up from the backward environment of the rural south, threw off the smiling mask of submission, and intervened in world culture to place himself and Black America at the very center of the existential and political concerns of the twentieth century, fighting for a secular, humanistic, and rational philosophy of man and warning of the violence to come if the thrust toward freedom were not accommodated.  Ellison reiterated these political and existential themes, but took Black modernism one step further.  I detect three central themes in Ellison that demand recognition today more than ever.  These themes would seem to work against one another but in fact are complementary: (1) the relation of self to environment and the primacy of individual responsibility over collective identification; (2) the Negro (his term) as the cultural and intellectual foundation and avant-garde of American society; (3) the multidimensional, essentially multicultural and non-stereotypical cultural being of the Negro-American.

He wrote of MLK:

Metaphysically, King's major objection to Hegel comes from the influence of Personalism.  King felt that for some thinkers -- Hegel and Spinoza among them -- the individual tended to disappear into the whole.

The section "Dialectical opposition for total truth and freedom" [p. 119-128] explains the influence of Hegel on King.  Most interesting is King's analysis of the dialectical interaction between repression and nonviolent resistance as the motor of progress of the movement for social justice.

With any luck, Dumain might come out and blog with us. The great minds of SCAA are missed, and the security and freedom now afforded by the blogosphere would be greatly enriched by their presence.

If you're out there, Burlinda Radney, James White, Hal Womack,  Pilar Quezzaire-Belle, Ron Buckmire, Rodney Coates, John Alexander Clark, Stephanie McNeal, Rodney Jordan, Darryl Hamilton... give us a hat tip.

I still keep in touch with Charles Isbell, Kenny Crudup, Ed Brown and Lester Spence.

Imperfect But Still America

Fresh from the Kwaku Network:

Yes, we're an imperfect country...and some of the media delights in that, pointing it out to us repeatedly. But here's a pleasant read about America and our unselfish motives around the world.

When in England at a large conference, Colin Powell was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans for Iraq were just an example of empire building by George Bush.  He answered by saying, "Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for  freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of  land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those that did not return." It became very quiet in the room.
--

Then there was a conference in France where a number of international engineers were taking part, including French and American. During a break one of the French engineers came back into the room saying "Have you heard the latest dumb stunt Bush has done? He has sent an aircraft carrier to Indonesia to help the tsunami victims. What does he intended to do, bomb them?" A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly: "Our carriers have three hospitals on board that can treat several hundred people; they are nuclear powered and can supply emergency electrical power to shore facilities; they have three cafeterias with the capacity to feed 3,000 people three meals a day, they can produce several thousand gallons of fresh water from sea water each day, and they carry half a dozen helicopters for use in transporting victims and injured to and from their flight deck. We have eleven such ships; how many does France have?" Once again, dead silence.
--

A U.S. Navy Admiral was attending a naval conference that included Admirals from the US, English, Canadian, Australian and French Navies. At a cocktail reception, he found himself standing with a large group of Officers that included personnel from most of those countries. Everyone was chatting away in English as they sipped their drinks but a French admiral suddenly complained that, 'whereas Europeans learn many languages, Americans learn only English.' He  then asked, 'Why is it that we always have to speak English in these conferences rather than speaking French?' Without hesitating, the American Admiral replied 'Maybe its because  the Brits, Canadians, Aussies and Americans arranged it so you wouldn't have to speak German . ' You could have heard a pin drop!

A Dreaming American Man

Bombs Over the Beltway

A lot of inside political baseball socks have been knocked off by the announcement of two bombshells this week. I yawn and speculate.

Trent Lott Resigns
To spend more time with his family? How about to spend more money with his family. Dude has the opportunity to walk into some serious walking around money. And why shouldn't he? I don't think anyone has suggested he was particularly bribable as Senators go, so let him go for the dough. He obviously didn't have it coming in, and he's made a big splash in his career. I never liked Trent Lott although I forget exactly why I didn't in the days before the Strom Thurmond remark. Nor am I particularly interested in looking up why not in my own blog. Senators come and senators go. He's gone. It looks like John Kyl is in. That is to say, he is in line to become the new Senate Minority Whip. I actually do like Kyl. He's clear and forthright as politicians go. Not much doublespeak with Kyl. On the whole, I think it's a good thing.

Oprah Backs Obama
You could see this one coming a mile away. In fact, I thought it was already official. Apparently not. Fresh from handling her South African business recently, Oprah's got a new pet. That's nice. It's probably not much of a double-edged sword for Obama. I can't imagine that anyone who was for him will back away because of this, and those of us who think he can be pretty loopy on foreign policy aren't going to change our stripes because of the great Ms. Winfrey's sterling endorsement. I can imagine that his publisher is going to be pretty happy and he'll certainly get another book out if he doesn't suck up to become Veep in the next four years (given Clinton).

oh yeah and one more bombshell, but it was in the prior week.

Petraeus as Vice President
Petraeus could even make Sam Brownback electable. No matter what kind of conservative you are, you like Petraeus because he was the first leader in the entire Iraq War that made sense at the beginning and still makes sense today. But of course the killer combination would be Giuliani and Petraeus. How likely? Not bloody likely. David has got a job to do and he's still doing it. Our future security problems are not even reflections of our current ones, so it would be purely symbolic. DP ought to go to the Joint Chiefs or Sec Def. He sure as hell would make a better impression on the military than Rumsfeld, desptie Rummy's bold leadership. There's got to be another magic bullet for the ticket somewhere.

Black Attention To Mainstream Media

On the interminable commute on the 405 yesterday I was treated to a new statistic about AIDS infection in Washington DC. It has reached something on the order of 213 per 10k which is, apparently obscenely high as compared with the rest of the US. I could imagine that this could be a K Street phenomenon, but like most Americans, I think that the racial stereotype applies. In other words, this is black Washington DC.

In my life, I've only known one person to die of AIDS, and he went to his grave practically in the closet. The conventional wisdom is that 'the' black community is particularly harsh on gays and treats AIDS more like the 'gay plague' than the real threat to public health that it is. Part and parcel of that conventional wisdom is that the solution to HIV/AIDS in 'the' black community is a fundamentally different mission than in the rest of America.

How seriously are we to take the idea the African Americans, by and large, need their own cable channel to be reached?

Are we so in the dark about what goes on in the country? Are we so immune to any video or television show that doesn't feature black characters? Do we in fact actually ignore messages that are not tailored with African Americans specifically in mind at our own peril?

I'm not one of those guys who spends a lot of time worrying about black images in media. That's primarily because I'm more literature oriented. I have been thinking a little bit about black cultural production and consumption though. This is particularly related to my recent trips to downtown LA. The first, featuring the Mark Morris dance troupe I wrote about here, and the other I haven't blogged. The short end of it was that I dug a concert of Brahms and Dvorák last Friday by the LA Phil. I wasn't particularly counting African American noses but there were somewhere between 3 and 12, not counting those of me and the Spousal Unit in the packed house. My excuse is simple. I'm hungry. I couldn't imagine a life without hiphop and classical, but neither is enough solo. Gotta have both and more. I couldn't just read African American literature alone, nor would I be satisfied with only Latino cuisine.

But what is the presumption about the hungers of the average Joe? Do we assume, given our variety of choices, that everybody is entitled to their own ethnic channel, or that we all pay attention to the mainstream whether or not our particular flavor is represented? If the former, do we assume that if the message isn't spiced properly that nobody cares, or that some discrimination is afoot?

I seem to recall some WW2 propaganda from my Bugs Bunny years. At the end of every important message was the phrase: This Means You. Maybe that's what more Americans need to assume.

King's Monument: Money, Politics & Race

I've got a rare moment and opportunity to bring to the attention of the wider blogosphere as well as my radio connections, the deeply held convictions of Clint Button, associated with the 'King Is Ours' movement. Mr Button is a stonecutter in a great family and American tradition who is immersed in the complicated controversy surrounding the MLK Memorial in our nation's capital. There is a lot more than meets the eye here, and I am coming to understand some of the complexities involved.

My fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha, has been involved for many years along with others dedicated to making this monument a reality.

Recently, the mayor of Barre, VT met with some of the team involved in making the project real.

Mayor Thomas Lauzon met this week in Washington, D.C., with the executive architect on the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial project to make a case for the use of Barre granite in the four-acre monument.

Lauzon said Thursday that he came away from his meeting with Dr. Ed Jackson Jr. uncertain whether the project would look to Vermont for any of the tons of stone needed to complete the memorial.

"Did it really matter to them? Were they quaking in their boots because the mayor of Barre was coming to see them? I don't think so," he said of the Wednesday meeting.

Lauzon said the conversation, which lasted just over an hour, was very cordial and there was an exchange of information.

He left Jackson with an invitation to visit Barre and meet with granite industry staff here before making final decisions about some of the big pieces needed to complete the memorial.

I've got my own gripes about outsourcing work that Americans do simply in order to save money, so despite a lot of noise about race (and there's bound to be some), my spidey senses are tingling. Why would we send away for granite and sculptors from another country?

But I'm only beginning to grasp the subtleties involved. Consider Button's own words:

The denial of American Granite Resource and Labor is just as wrong as the representation that no African American Artist could be found to produce a likeness of Dr. King. In our stone business, it is much like a patron in a restaurant. You walk in, order a combination of items from a menu or maybe even ask if something can be prepared that is not on the menu. Then, a qualified cook or chef obediently does your bidding. You pay, leave happy and everybody wins. Few patrons care where the food comes from or how it was produced. As an industry carver, my job is to produce the designs brought to me. If they are ugly and you pay, I'll make them ugly. A chef doesn't have to like to eat what he cooks.

Having never met you, I'll argue I could send you a bucket of clay and you could produce a good likeness of Dr. King. Might take a week, a year or a decade. But you can fix it until it is right. Then you send it to someone like me or my Masters and we reproduce your clay model, same size, larger or smaller in stone. In stone, however, you only have one chance. That is the process. If I get to produce the model, I will also be the sculptor- not just the carver. By their actions, the King Memorial Foundation asserted no artist in America, Black or White, was qualified to participate in this project. Neither was any American stonecarver. Given 300 million people- even if there are only about a dozen of us granite industry sculptors left in the USA- that is unacceptable. It is also untrue.

In Lei's model, the loose fitting suit of Dr. King is not accurate to his persona. That was one of Ed Dwight's first complaints. It is correct iconography in Chinese sculptural protocol, in depicting leaders like Mao. The posture of Lei's model is nearly identical, except for the head, of one of Lei's previous statues of Mao. Dr. King was right handed. Lei has him only holding a object (a pen) in the left hand, which in Chinese sculptural protocol is indicative of a individual in defiance. Perhaps suitable, but covert in nature and inappropriate here. Thus a billion people in China can look upon this image of Dr. King and possibly see him as a peer or product of the Communist regime that murdered 70 million. That's a dangerous precedent.

King as Mao? Not in my capitol.

There's admittedly a great deal to absorb here, but this is the strength of the 'sphere. We have lots of bandwidth to surface stories of great impact and we can get into the details, many of which will never surface in the mainstream media. I'm always proud and happy to get people very close to the action. I also need to retract some of my more caustic rhetoric directed at Gilbert Young based on my misinterpretation of the scope of his protest. I apologize for calling him a loser and await further comment and information before I pass judgment.

There is a great deal of sentiment that will always be associated with the building of monuments. In this instance, perhaps above all, there is some serious consideration that must go into our evaluation of it. There is time to reconcile our differences and get behind something all Americans should be proud of. Let's take that time and see clearly on this.

News & Notes

From Today's Recording:
Here are some of the points I didn't raise in today's forum. It was my first time back on the air in a while and I like Farai's format, so I wasn't going for the controversy as I do more often on Michel's show.

DNA
I remain rather skeptical about the utility of DNA testing to get folks in touch with their 'true' heritage.
Skip Gates complained that his testing lab didn't tell him about his results that put some European lineage in his actual background. Is it because we know that African Americans who do this really just want to hookup with Africa? Let's not forget Toni Morrison's Jazz. We're responsible for all of our families. That in and of itself is a scary prospect, but it's even scarier when you realize you have real Europeans in your family tree. Can we dismiss them so casually? There's your provocative question of the day. What if you actually do have white trash cousins?

Missing
As far as I can tell, this is a species of story that evokes my perverse question: What kind of whitefolks are we comparing ourselves to today. There might be some good that comes of it considering how many people go missing in the US. According to CourtTV, about 2300 folks are reported missing every day. That's more than can be handled by its own cable channel. Are we a society of dropouts? When it comes to children, this is a well of misery that seems to have no bottom. If our attention to that misery, starting with the racial comparison, can beget some good, then I'm all for it. But generally speaking, I like my black vs white comparisons done by Richard Pryor.

Vaccinated
It's tough all over, and the fact of the matter is that you simply can't get your kids in school unless and until you show those vaccination records. My back has been up against this wall personally and it ain't comfy. I don't see why a judge has to threaten jail, unless parents have been massively intransigent or someone has declared a public emergency. Just having kids miss school ought to be enough. I'm old enough to remember when the public health inspector would come to the neighborhood and declare a house under quarantine. It happened to my house when the lot of us came down with the measles. That would have been a more judicious use of power in my view.

Tearing Gates a New One

Joshua Cohen and Glenn Loury tear into Skip Gates' light reflections on the recent Pew study. This is a great little dialog of a quality I'm unaccustomed. I like it a lot. I may comment at length. I'm a fan of Loury. Thanks George.

A Slow Race Car

I've been told that a 'moderate conservative' is as oxymoronic as a slow race car. Here's what kind of moderate conservative I am. It bears repeating.

The kind of moderate conservative I am would be simply this: I'm a fiscal conservative, believing in small government and generally against the welfare state, but I'm not a social conservative. I don't believe in political activism which values a particular lifestyle or degrades another. My own personal beliefs about lifestyles (for lack of a better term) is indeed conservative, but that's not something I want my Americans to be politicizing.

My think tank is the Manhattan Institute. Of all of them out there, I find most in common with what the guys at Manhattan say, including John McWhorter and Kay Hymowitz.

A Choice of Appeals

I went to MOCA this weekend. It gave me a few things to think about. I'll be blogging about them this week.

  PB240037 
  Originally uploaded by cobb_tcb

The Portal

The past month has been something of a bonanza for us on the 360. I must have grabbed about 800 gamerpoints just playing Halo 3, PGR4 and Assassin's Creed. But the most intriguing and fun game I've enjoyed in a long time is The Portal from the Orange Box. I knew this was coming. It was worth the wait.

The Portal is a challenging spacial puzzle game for the XBox 360 brought to you by the Valve folks who brought you Half-Life.  It is part of The Orange Box, which contains all three sequels to Half-Life, the award winning FPS/adventure game. If you don't understand, it's your fault. The Portal places you in the shoes of a test human in a physics lab called Aperture Science. You are challenged, basically, to use a Portal gun to get through a series of mazes.

There are 19 mazes (so far as I can tell, I'm still working on #19) that go from the simple to the complex. Although they all have similar themes and are constructed with some fairly basic elements, they are the most fun and unique challenges I've seen in a video game since Myst.

When I first saw the Orange Box, I was somewhat disappointed that The Portal was its own game, and not part of some FPS. I originally considered the Portal in the context of Prey, another game in which gravity is a key player. Instead, everything in The Portal resembles tutorials of the sort you would think Morpheus would design in The Construct. The whole theme of the game is just that, a tutorial with a disembodied computer voice (every bit as distinctive as Guilty Spark) that becomes more and more sadistic and cruel over time. With each successive level, the puzzles get more complex and 'impossible'.

This is as clever a game as it gets. It's a great entertainment for everyone.

Wretchard Opines on Power

Good Stuff:

Recent scandals involving both Democrat and Republican candidate's supporters have shown that all sorts of moths are attracted to the flame of politics. What people like Vinod Gupta and Norman Hsu hoped to obtain by "ingratiating" themselves with high-profile personalities is a fascinating question. Graham Greene unpersuasively argued that corruption mostly demeaned the corrupter. He wrote, "I have often noticed that a bribe has that effect -- it changes a relation. The man who offers a bribe gives away a little of his own importance; the bribe once accepted, he becomes the inferior, like a man who has paid for a woman."

But I think it would be plausible to argue the reverse: that the superior once corrupted becomes the inferior; a mere hireling. The King, once bought, is no longer the King. And it is to redress this reversal of status that treachery is introduced to square the relationship. Thus both the corrupter and the corrupted must retain the power of denunciation to avoid being completely dominated by the other. The potential to treachery defines a criminal relationship because it is the only way each can keep his self-respect. There are only two virtues in the criminal world: keeping your word and making sure you get even.

Yet despite this, power undoubtedly attracts. Most, if given a choice between flying a corporate jet or becoming one of the targets of crooked telemarketers offering deals for “Elderly Opportunity Seekers” or “Suffering Seniors,” might well choose the corporate jet. As Adlai Stevenson said, "Power corrupts, but lack of power corrupts absolutely."

Happy Thanksgiving from the Bowen Family

Controlling the Planet

David Keith breaches the question of Geoengineering. "You could create an Ice Age at .001% of GNP". His idea about the moral hazard is preposterous. He believes that the cost of doing nothing is too high. Wow.

Three Angry Black Men & A Job Well Done

Last night I took it upon myself to indulge in a little self-pity. It turns out that I'm not going to get my bonus until the 4th Quarter is closed. Pisser, that. So I sped down to Marina Del Rey with Blink 182 on blast.

I determined that I was going to conspire with a bartender somewhere to invent a new drink, an 'Angry Black Man'. And so I found myself finally at the Cheesecake Factory sitting in front of Sean, an actor who did an episode or two of Monk for USA. I toasted to Sean, 'characters welcome'. So it began.

Angry Black Man #1
So I tell Sean that this is going to take some time, and that it may take up to 50 bucks, but I was determined to coin this new drink. The first try was actually pretty good. A shot of Courvoisier and Southern Comfort. Taking a big gulp I realized that this worked a lot better than I expected. It has got a serious burn to it, and if you're really angry it will slow you down. But it seemed too simple and a little more harsh than I wanted. It wasn't sophisticated enough for the kind of anger I wanted to express.

Angry Black Man #2
ABM1 needed something to lighten it up, water it down and give it another flavor. So I said to repeat the formula as a cocktail instead of a shot. So we did Courvoisier and Southern Comfort with Drambuie on the rocks.This was one beautiful looking drink. The color was perfect. I raised it to my lips and took a deep swallow. It was awful. That one was cough syrup, just nasty. It wasn't a drink that worked. I think I lost Sean on that, and as he went to tend other customers, I scanned the bar to find the right combination.

Angry Black Man #3
This time I came totally out of left field. Start with dark rum. Gotta be Myers. Then something for more flavor..hmmm Frangelico. OK now something completely off the wall. Harvey's Bristol Cream. That's ethnic. And finally to make it ugly, a few drops of Bailey's. Put this in a sipping glass and Bam. I did it. This was a great drink and ugly as hell. I called my dog who was out at the black lawyer's expo downtown and asked what I should put in an Angry Black Man, and he said 'something white'. The Baileys did it, but it couldn't mix. Instead it clumped up and floated around the glass like plastic flakes in a snow globe. The concoction has an orangy look and the taste was undefinable, but it had a tart finish that left a strange sensation in your mouth. This was anger. Something you could drink up, appreciate and savor and have enough of a tang to remind you that you were hurting yourself. Perfect.

As I was putting this final mix together, an old silver-haired gent sat next to me. Ahh. Now things are interesting and fun. He slams down a gin and something and introduces himself. His name is Lance and he's an attorney. He cracks up at my project but realizes I'm deadly serious. After kicking back a few, he begins to interrogate, sloppily but earnestly.

Do I follow sports? No not really, only when extraordinary teams are playing like Jordan's Bulls, or the 84 Bears and so forth. I tell him that I prefer football in the end. The last time I played basketball, other than in my periodic dreams where I have mad ball control and am extraordinarily quick (although I don't have any  memories of actually slamming to add to my 5 foot 11 game) was in 93. Then the game had changed and I hated the way kids played pickup - no driving the lane only staying out for the three point shot. I liked short quick brothers like Nate Archibald who weren't afraid to go to the hoop. I like power forwards, Rodman, Worthy, Barkley. That was my era. So no I don't give a rat's about this guy, gesturing to Kobe Bryant on the screen behind the bar. I like a real team sport, like football. This opens him up.

Lance was a hillbilly from Eastern Kentucky and his father was a factory worker. He moved to Cincinnati Ohio where he played right tackle. He was the only white player on an all black team and every day he lived to hit, hit, hit and protect his quarterback. His parents bought him the best equipment. Wilson knee pads, shoulder pads and helmet. Because he took the punishment. Lance is a good 6 foot even I'd guess, a bit small for a tackle, even back in the day. The brothers took their pound of flesh, and he got it in the teeth. But he still loved the game and he was dedicated.

Satisfied with my Angry Black Man, I returned to tradition for the rest of the night. Jack and Coke, thank you. Lance continued his tale, because we finally got to politics. It turned out that Lance was an official commie pinko hillbilly lawyer full of genuine concern for the plight of the black man. He went down south to the Mississippi bayou. Now when somebody from Kentucky talks about 'down south' it must mean down south. He talked about his friend, Corey or Kody, I forget which, who accompanied him. There he was in the dirtiest of the dirty south, with his black suit and tie and his new rented Hertz car sponsored for him by the American Something Association of [Commie] Lawyers, digging up evidence for class action suits to be pressed in service of civil rights law. There he was, not fooling anyone, asking about how much federal money was being spent for swimming pools for black kids vs those monies spent for white kids. He had a case. He was stirring up trouble.

It's not often that you see a grown man cry, but they tend to be moments that you don't forget, and they tend to be about moments that grown man cannot forget. For Lance it was the night that the locals decided that they had had enough of him and his pals. He was there because for him it was the right thing to do. He was a young idealistic man doing his part, but suddenly he realized that he was facing men with shotguns. They were shooting at him. What was he doing here, what had he gotten himself into? All of this rushed through his panicked mind. He was only trying to do the right thing, just a hillbilly from Eastern Kentucky in the Mississippi Delta running for his very life.

I toasted him for a job well done, and I would have raised the glass to the room but I was squirting tears myself and I thought better of the moment. But I told him in no uncertain terms that he did the right thing, and that it worked. I don't know what kinds of satisfaction Lance gets on a daily basis. He started his drinking that evening because he 'won' a divorce case for his client. Nobody ever really wins in those he said. But by the time we got through that history, the popcorn shrimp and three or four more drinks all I could do was remind him several times what I told him the first time. Thank you. You did the right thing, and it worked.

Not long after that, Lance was forgetting my name and reintroducing himself to me and the woman who sat to my left. He asked if we were happy together and when we first met. I told him the first time that we met in Marina Del Rey around Thanksgiving of 2007. I told him the next time that we were reincarnated from iguanas on the Galapagos Islands.

It turned out that Julie and I had partied in the same clubs a lifetime ago. Glitter, Paradise 24, 24K, The Five Torches and a host of other joints. We all talked about music while Lance periodically reintroduced himself. It occurred to me quite frankly that he was an estimable man in his time who only had to introduce himself once and could watch that affect. I looked him up this morning and it turned out that he had argued before the Supreme Court of the US and had hung around cats like Thurgood Marshall.

I always dig hanging out with old guys. It's one of the most fun things I do, and whenever I put on the Hollywood suit it's the best thing that ever happens. I don't think I've blogged about anyone of this sort for a while, but I aim to collect men like Lance and hear them out. In the end, that is the best way to get my mind off my own business and get a bit of America too. Now I can't vouch for his taste in music, he seems to have a woody for Woody Herman, and he seems to think that Diana Ross is not just good but great, and of course he's a Commie Pinko Hillbilly, but he did the right thing, and it worked.

Cheers Lance. See you around.

The First 22 Rules

A cat named Charles Sykes has written a book I just have to have in my library: 50 Rules Kids Won't Learn in School: Real-World Antidotes to Feel-Good Education

1. Life is not fair. Get used to it.
2. The real world does not care as much as your school does about your self-esteem. It'll expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself.
3. Sorry, you won't make sixty thousand dollars a year right out of high school. And you won't be a vice president or have a company car. You might have to wear a uniform that doesn't have a designer label.
4. You are not entitled...
5. No matter what your daddy says, you are not a princess.
6. No you cannot be everything you dream.
7. If you think your teacher is tough, wait until you get a boss. He won't have tenure, so he'll tend to be a bit edgier. When you screw up he's not going to ask you how you FEEL about it.
8. Your navel is not that interesting. Don't spend your life gazing at it.
9. You school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblence to ANYTHING in real life.
10. Life is actually more like dodgeball than your gym teacher thinks.
11. After you graduate you won't be competing against rivals who were raised to be wimps on the playground.
12. Humiliation is a part of life. Deal with it.
13. You're not going to the NBA so hold off the bling and spare us the attitude.
14. Looking like a slut does not empower you.
15. Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for flipping burgers, 'opportunity'.
16. Your parents and your little brother are not as embarrassing as you think. What's embarrassing is ingratitude, rudeness, and sulkiness.
17. Your parents weren't as boring before you were born as they are now. They got that way paying your bills, driving you around, saving for your education, cleaning up your room, and listening to you tell them how idealistic you are.
18. Life is not divided into semesters and you don't get summers off.
19. It's not your parent's fault. If you screw up, it's your responsibility.
20. Smoking does not make you look cool. It makes you look moronic.
21. You're offended. So what? No, really, So what?
22. You're not a victim, so stop whining.

Black Proof

Here's a curveball question. I don't have an answer and I don't know where exactly it will lead. And I'm not going to think about it any more before I write and post...

The idea came to me in a flash about a discrimination trial. It happened while I was writing about no moral imperative against racial discrimination seems to me superior to the moral imperative for healing the sick.

Imagine a plaintiff in the EEOC and he alleges that he has been discriminated against because of his race. By what standard does the court accept the plaintiffs claim that he is black? Now consider the very specific case of Michael Richards talking about n*ggers in his monologue or diatribe or whatever it was.  Let us imagine that Richards could be sued for having grossly offended a patron. Would a nominally white person be able to sue? Do we presume that the N-Word is psychologically more damaging to so-called blacks than so-called whites? Doesn't it depend upon the sensitivity of the person?

OK enough. It's meta, I know.

Now I know what I want to say. What I really want to say is that 'the sound of the drum' should inoculate the proper black man from being offended to the point at which he complains to a judge about the offense. This is Ralph Ellison all over again.

Aww Shoot

Just got back for the woods with Boy and an inch of dust on the Transporter. We went target shooting with the local Troop. Shooting is now officially boring.

Due to some glitch in the works, our range master didn't show up at the appointed time, and we spent half of Saturday doing things we'd rather not do. Like throwing tomahawks. There are any number of things one can do on a Saturday afternoon, but after having heaved a five pound steel tomahawk at a tree stump from ten paces, I can tell you that I'm glad I live in the city. Because if this were considered fun in the sticks, I think I'd go stir crazy.

Jim and Bob were my two dad-pals on the trip, both are first responder sorts of guys, the kind I might have been had things gone a little different. I almost forget that when I was still living below the "LA poverty line", making less than 38,000 back in the late 80s, I seriously considered giving up my career in software and becoming an EMT. It wasn't the first time the notion struck me. Just before Y2K, I considered joining the National Guard, just to be in the loop if the poop got ventilated. Once again, Pops' most strenuous objection to anything I've ever attempted raised its hoary voice and told me that under NO circumstances should I subject myself to the depersonalization of military command. So, I packed a few canned goods, said that I'd buy a Honda generator and discovered other ways of listening in to first-responder radio. But there has always been a part of me, whether Pops likes it or not, that is responsive to his style of command and control, which he got from his father, and from the Marine Corps. There are just some things that must be done, and I admire and respect people who do it. Plus, I'm really rather ashamed that I don't know what to do in an emergency. So I really dig that my brother is a cop, and I like hanging around firefighters and paramedics and pilots and ex-military. Jim is a firefighter at the local refinery and has quite a bit of medical knowledge, Bob is certified in any number of first responder skills and is a film industry vet and polymath of sorts. He's libertarian, I'm going to see if I can drag him over to the dark side.

At any rate, Jim brought some old school rifles. He has a single shot bolt action .22 rifle from Sears that's about 25 years old, and a single shot 'crack in half' 12 gauge shotgun. He and several other of the dads have collections and were pretty fluent about all sorts of gunnery smarts. Bob says of a certain pistol, that it has exactly 38 parts and once upon a time he could field strip and reassemble that puppy in 1 minute flat. Me, I can juggle 3 rocks.

We had lots, even too much time on our hands before the dude with the firearms showed up at the range. It wasn't until 2:30 that we traveled over hill an dusty dale back in the boondocks east of Yorba Linda and Brea until we got to the newly built short range firing range. This summer the scouts had to shoot prone in the dirt under the sun. This time around, there was shade, and 10 nice benches from which to fire.

The guy passed out 10 rifles, and our range master, Brian, certified from the NRA for rifles walked us through all the rules. There were two police officers and two NRA certified personnel at the range as well as our dads, the scoutmaster and a few other responsible folks. Safety, Safety, Safety. I didn't get a good group at all. At about 40 feet my ability to hit the 11 dot target was pretty lousy. I even left my evidence there.

Like last time, about 30 bullets through, it all starts to get rather tedious. Shooting with somebody else's gun is like bowling in rented shoes or skating in rented blades. You know there's something fundamentally second-rate and funky about the entire affair. Nevertheless, there's also a bit of a thrill casting off hot brass when you work the bolt, even on tiny little rimfire 22 caliber bullets. We had one misfare with the shotty near the end of the day, and a few of the kids were hesitant about shooting, but other than that it was all uneventful. much to everyone's relief and satisfaction.

The kick of the shotgun worked me right into the rhythm it looks like on TV. There wasn't much too it. I can see how that might become boring as well. But for the most part, popping off 50 rounds was a real blast, even though I couldn't hear with the plugs, see with the eyeshields or line anything up reasonably with the sights on my generic 22 rifle. The difference between rifles must be enormous and I'm really thinking that what I want to do is snipe. Scope, tripod, match ammo. I feel the desire for greater precision, much much greater.

As a father-son thing, I'd have to say that target shooting rates rather low on the camaraderie scale. You basically have to pay attention to the shooting, and not the person next to you. I think hunting and fishing would top this. Plus, it's no place for a dog. You gotta have a dog for it to be that great. As well, the gearhead in me is not satisfied by this outing, but a lot of curiosity has been. Rifle shooting with 22s is an order of magnitude more safe, I would say, that shooting of .45s from a pistol.  But the big brass and booming makes the pistol more fun.  So I gotta get a little more caliber and a little more optics and precision in my next outing. Hopefully sooner, rather than later.

Military Mortality

                                                                                     

YEAR	TOTAL MILITARY FTE(a)	NBR OF U.S. Military Deaths
A. 1983-1986
1983	2,273,364	2,465	0.11%
1984	2,297,922	1,999	0.09%
1985	2,323,185	2,252	0.10%
1986	2,359,855	1,984	0.08%
B. 2003-2006
2003	1,732,632	1,228	0.07%
2004	1,711,916	1,874	0.11%
2005	1,664,014	1,942	0.12%
2006	1,664,014	1,858	0.11%

A Stupid Jena Question

A week or so ago, I listened to a snippet on the Dennis Miller show in which he had some white dude from Jena, LA say that race relations were just peachy in his little ole town. This character had the temerity to suggest that the media had made a mountain out of a molehill.

Uhh. Did somebody burn down the high school or not?

Anyway, that's not the question. This guy said that the white teenagers whose beatdown brought the charges against the black teenagers DID NOT HAPPEN UNTIL 3 MONTHS AFTER THE NOOSES WERE HUNG IN THE 'WHITE TREE'. That's huge. I think. He went on to insist that the whole noose thing was a great big misunderstanding and was not directed at the black students at all, instead it was a practical joke directed against the Rodeo Club. Huh? What?

Could somebody straighten me out on these rather incredible revelations? Cuz Jena's just way out in the weeds and I don't much care, but if it doesn't really fit my narrative of ordinary racial bullshit in Sherwood Forest, perhaps it doesn't fit other narratives either. The truth is stranger than fiction. Perhaps it's too strange for our politics.

A thoughtful reader says the lead dog of the Jena 6 (and the commentator said there were more like 14 in the beatdown, but only six were selected for prosecution) will be tried in open court. So all of this may come out in the wash.

Dr. Jan, Wanted Man

Uhm. How can I put this in a way as not to offend or unnerve? BUT.

Jan Adams is the doc that killed Kanye West's mother. Apparently, he's got issues. I don't generally follow the trials and tribulations of celebrities, but I do consider at length those related to new money. I'm interested to see that Bobby Brown is the last of his kind.  Kanye West is new money and as such has made some whopping errors. This, the most costly of all. I'm certain that this young man who is obviously not a complete idiot, is going to think long and hard about his associations from this point forward.

I haven't hung out with my peeps from the black Hollywood crowd for many months. I do need to put on the new Hollywood suit and reconnect. But my first peek at Dr. Jan's website took me right there. He has all the appearances of somebody in the category of Aggregation, my term for the social and political connections of the black upper middle class and above. I do not doubt for a minute that in black Hollywood, he's got the hookup. 

I stumbled across the story this morning and found that Adams had drunk driving convictions (OK) but also some malpractice issues as well as a restraining order against him. So I say to myself, for a breast reduction and a tummy tuck, how tough can this be, and why would Kanye West choose anybody but the best Beverly Hills has to offer?  I mean the guy's not even board certified. Whoa. Could it be that he was looking for somebody who 'cares about black people'? Yeah I know. Low blow. Get over it. That's what Jan Adams has going on. When I talk to my Hollywood peeps, I'll confirm the gut reaction. Or not.

Obviously Adams is over. The character assassination has begun over at TMZ (what else could one possibly expect?) and he's got a lot of 'splaining to do. In court. Hmm. I wonder how West will go about selecting his choice of professional assistance this time around. I'm not staying tuned for the drama.

Free Ramos & Compean

News this morning is that the drug smuggler who got shot in the ass by Border Patrol agents Ramos & Campion has been arrested on charges of ... wait for it... drug smuggling.  The injustice here, of course is that the smuggler was given immunity for his testimony against R&C, and no charges were pressed against him for the crime he was shot committing. So what did he do with that immunity? Go right back into business.

But that's not the end of it. It turns out that one of the ways that he was positively identified by one of the other suspects he was arrested with was by the presence of a catheter in his belly - something he got as part of the free surgery he received from the US as part of his deal. Can you believe that? This asswipe, Osvaldo Aldrete Davila, is using his catheter as a calling card to pursue his dubious business.  Good God, man can we finally bust some heads?

I'm at the point at which I'm rooting for black prison gangs to join with white prison gangs and get medieval on these illegals. Did I say that?  Nah. Just overturn the convictions. Get a pardon. Something.

The Old School Revisited

I have been blogging here for about five years although it doesn't quite seem that long. But it has been long enough for my thinking to evolve on several fronts. Given the great blessing of Socratic dialog and the wit and candor of Cobb readers and commenters, I have grown a great deal more knowledgable, robust and realistic about a good number of things, especially politics.

Part of the charter of Cobb has been to promote black Republicanism as an empowering choice for African American citizens. I've set a number of goals that are perhaps unrealistic for any blogger to set, but I have definitely seen my influence increase. When I was running my own business, I had time to be involved in local politics and sought to assist in state congressional races, but those fortunes have changed. I assumed that there would be a significantly wide consensus among African Americans on the right, but I found greater diversity than I ever expected. I thought the term 'black Republican' would be a good idea, I have since abandoned the term.

The Old School Core Values were started as a way to personify where I was coming from. I think it was very important as a writer for me to exemplify as well as to bloviate. I specifically didn't want to appear to be a clinical sort of think tank personality, instead I wanted my readership to recognize me as a type of black person they have always known. To that end I considered the best of the values my family passed on to me and wrote them up. When I reviewed them, I was satisfied that they were conservative in the way people generally interpret many African Americans to be 'naturally conservative'.  The values themselves were widely accepted by many as reasonably representative of those virtues key to American success and became the gating factor of those inducted into the Conservative Brotherhood which I began soon thereafter. Some definitional issues with the value of 'pluralism' raised internal controversy in the Brotherhood and prompted two members to leave, among other reasons. Other than that, there has been little debate over their applicability or substance.

What has caused a great deal of controversy is 'ownership of black'.

Implicit in the expression of these values, and of Republican partisanship, is that this is the best way for blackfolks to go.

As an aside, I have used the term 'blackfolks' and 'whitefolks' for about ten years now and I think it's about time to abandon the terms. They originated out of my anti-racist activism and for a number of reasons that would complicate this particular essay, I think they hove outlived their usefulness.

So as an activist for Old School Conservatism, I was asserting a modified Talented Tenth privilege which arrogates the right to decide what is best for black people. But I wanted to do more than that, which was to wrest control of the very term of 'black' from those cultural producers who I think have distorted American perception of what African American culture actually is. Specifically among them, rap and hiphop as it explicitly vulgarizes and ignores those values and virtues of not only the Old School but of common decency. Indeed I would seek to do the same thing in black politics as well.

In the political realm, the targets were also easy, but defining the burden was not. Nor was tracing the provenance of the Old School itself. For all of us are black, originating out of the various movements associated with black nationalism. I myself claim black cultural nationalism as a great inspiration. But there were certain aspects of black nationalism, specifically it's economic agenda, which came in direct conflict with conservative values. It should go without saying that I believe communist and socialist political agendas and economic theories have no place in the Old School. It is from that perspective that great conflict was afoot in any discussions of African American progress, for many Progressive and nationalist partisans are deeply invested in programs of the Welfare State. If there was a primary aim of Old School activism, it would be to take some advantage of the grounding identity politics of black cultural nationalism and reform its economic outlook towards global capitalism.

But  perhaps equally if not more important was to counter black separatist nationalism. It is an axiom of the Old School that we are patriotic. It acknowledges that we have a choice of loyalties and we choose to be loyal to America, that our fate is uniquely bound to the fate of the nation and that we would be leading participants in American life. This owes to the moral imperatives of fighting for civil liberty, lessons we have taught the world in our successful struggle. But I've always seen black nationalism in all of its forms as desirous of greater goals than civil liberty and equality under the law - this was its great energy and why it continues to inspire political activism latent in most African Americans long after its actual demise.

If I could capture the strengths of the African American family from before the Civil Rights Movement, of those men and women who fought for freedom in WW2, the spirit of my grandparents who survived the Great Depression, and combined it with the supreme determination and the aspect of 'bogarding' in the spirit of blacks in my generation as we triumphed in ways nobody expected, then I would have something truly extraordinary. This is the essence of the Old School quest. To define and reify the best of what we have been over three generations.

It has been extraordinarily difficult to say the least. It is a great task I have taken upon myself and I'm willing to admit that I may not be the best man for the job. Along with Joseph C. Phillips and other members of the Brotherhood, we have made a dent in the public consciousness, but we still seem odd out of the bunch, exceptional and not expected. And still we must fight over the existentials of blackness and the political pitch and moment of the day.

I expect that I will continue this effort for the rest of my life. I am convinced that what I have learned from my parents and grandparents examples and from parallels I see in the lives of other emergent families is key and core to success in American life. I have had confirmations from too many directions for this to be a fluke.

These days at Cobb, and since I have posted The New Black Burden of Proof, I have taken to a counter-attack mode. Which is instead of leading from the front a more difficult position to defend, but they are arguments I find must be expressed for a fuller understanding of the evolution I propose. And from this position I have turned to fight the implications and influence of all black identity politics. This includes my own presumptions in assuming a Talented Tenth position. I am submerging all politics of the Welfare State and all entreaties to racial politics under the waters of market economics, and I am defying all political partisans to demonstrate that they provide any infrastructure for progress which cannot be better accomplished by individual initiative in America. I calling into question the very basis of black political activism with regard to its efficacy in delivering any material benefits to its narrowly defined target market. I do so comfortably as a Christian, as a moderate Conservative Republican, as things other than the exemplar of blackness so unarguably appropriate to my humble beginnings as a person. In other words, I don't forget where I come from, I question the very terms of my upbringing to the extent they lead to a racialist identity politics and the arrogance implied by America's ill focus on 'black leaders'. I say it is an undemocratic calamity we have brought on ourselves despite the promise that the Old School holds.

All of this is about approach. None of it is about questioning the ends of sustaining the nation. I believe all proper Americans want what's right for those we presume to assist. If black nationalists of any stripe were infrastructurally capable and successful, there would be no reason to speak up. But instead, I believe black partisans have racialized the public sphere and reinscribed racial identity in collaboration with multiculturalists to the detriment of all concerned. They have not engaged a multiracial anti-racist coalition, but instead have become a hit squad for slights against blacks only... I wont belabor the point.
I'm not unaware of how all of this counter-attacking makes me into a crab of sorts. But I expect the tack to serve its purpose and then I'll move on to the next thing. When? I dunno.

Black Racial Self-Interest

Nobody knows the trouble I've seen. Nobody knows my sorrow.
-- Traditional

EC suggests that a member of the class of 'successful US blacks'  should be on the hook for their moral obligation to African-Americans who are less fortunate. Given the example of a rich (not wealthy though) successful surgeon 'Clarence' who is dedicated to his profession, he responds:

However, I’d not make up my mind about whether I thought Clarence were a successful U.S. Black unless I learned more about how he used his wealth, power, and prestige for the direct political, economic, and cultural uplift of Black Americans.

This is the 'black man's burden', but what it more plainly denotes is special consideration for black racial self-interest. And so I have to wag my finger from a Christian perspective, not so fast there buddy.

Like most blackfolks who grew up in the city, more specifically the 'hood, I grew up around mostly other blackfolks who lived in the same place primarily because we didn't have much choice. When we first moved to 90016 in 1964 there were still white families on the block. A few split around 67, and only one remained thereafter. She was the lady who never came out of the house. Some families were from Louisiana, several from Texas, but nobody was originally from LA. We had Japanese families in the neighborhood and a few Chinese too. No Mexicans or Koreans until the 80s.

It was a black neighborhood but the blacks were from different parts, went to different churches, had different class backgrounds. One was a childless couple, a minister and his wife. I never saw Reverend Robinson drive anything but a new Lincoln Continental, and I never saw him wear anything but a suit. Ever. Mr. Haney was the divorced drunk who ran a barbershop on his front porch. Punishment was getting a haircut from him instead of the Magnificent Brothers on Crenshaw. Mrs Myers raised four boys by herself. The Arnolds had 8 rowdy kids who went from bad to worse when Mr. Arnold, an ex Sea-Bee and truck driver from Texas died. Mother Sadie always had the polling place at her house. But I'm waxing nostalgic and painting more good than bad. There was plenty bad too. My point is that the brotherhood we established as neighbors was only marginally thicker than that in any suburb. Parents didn't stop by for drinks or party together. We never had so much as one block party. We knew we were black but we weren't that close.

The politics of black nationalism brought us closer in political aim and established brotherhood, but it had its limits. They are the limits inherent in the false reciprocity of a racial standard.

If you ask me the greatest fault with black nationalism, I would say that it's transcendence is limited, and in the absence of a disciplined institutional backbone it has slipped down to a few simple-minded imperatives. EC echoes the primary one. From blacks to which much is given, much is expected to be given back, to blacks.

This is a racial game which assumes that it is the natural duty of races to behave this way. Birds do it, bees do it, Whites do it, Jews do it.. While it is just a short step from this to a general expectation of mutual antagonism, a lot of well-meaning progressives in the racial uplift game don't go there. But their disdain for how the rest of the world operates on a non-racial basis is self-evident. "I don't care what white people think about..." is a common preface of many rants.

There is a certain self-righteousness implicit in the race raising game. The assumption is that there is always some moral benefit in giving to those nobody else gives to, so long as they are black. There could be no clearer evidence of this than the support given for black criminals, deadbeat dads, and other social misfits deemed victims of Cosby-style opprobrium.

But I think the most egregious sin of black nationalist race-raising is the extent to which it reinscribes racial caste into people who are otherwise thoughtful and considerate. It was whiteness that made us black, and now we are doing whiteness the favor of continuing the reactionary identity of blackness. If the next mass-murderer on the tube is about to be revealed, we cross our fingers and hope that he's not "one of us". Whenever we hear the Urban League tell its annual tale of woe, about how many African Americans are in prison, we hang our heads in special shame. We don't weep for American society, but only for blacks. Public education, public health, whatever the issue, black nationalist politics makes us single out the African American component and spend our entire moral power dealing with the 'black' part.

What is so striking is how easily this attitude becomes paramount and how it trivializes other problems in America, how it trails media and decries a similar fixation on black problems as yet another species of white supremacy. What it simply cannot face is that that old spiritual ain't exclusively Negro. All the trouble in the world isn't blackfolks' trouble, but the nationalists assure you that it's all the 'successful' blacks ought to concern themselves with. Healing white people's pain is verboten. Making whitefolks feel good and comfortable is traitorous. Anything done at the expense of a 'black' soul for the benefit of a 'white' soul, is an unforgivable crime. You're familiar with the ostracism. "Uncle Tom".

A true Christian, or anyone who sees true equality of souls without regard to race is incapable of being consistent in racial uplift. I can see no moral imperative against racial discrimination that matches the moral imperative of healing the sick. I recall the Book of Common Prayer:

For all people in their daily life and work;
For our families, friends, and neighbors, and for those who are alone.
For this community, the nation, and the world;
For all who work for justice, freedom, and peace.
For the just and proper use of your creation;
For the victims of hunger, fear, injustice, and oppression.
For all who are in danger, sorrow, or any kind of trouble;
For those who minister to the sick, the friendless, and the needy.
For the peace and unity of the Church of God;
For all who proclaim the Gospel, and all who seek the truth.

We are all limited, and we can only do so much in our limited ways. We must, all of us, have our priorities and our special talents to guide us. I'm sure there are those who can only see the world in black and white and know only the special oppressions that fall on those closest to them. And for them, the special emphasis of black nationalism's race raising cures what ails them. But for those of us with wider vision, let us remember that in the ways I have outlined, the cure is worse than the disease.

The Economics of Indifference

People talk about Ron Paul as if he were onto something. They're all kooks.

Today I am recalling the man standing in for the Ron Paul Revolution on the radio call-in who felt as if the Feds are poking too much into his private life. What private life? It turned out that he was a convicted felon who did time for GTA in his misspent youth.

The IRS already has everything it needs to know to get money out of you. You file taxes, then they have your name, your kids names, your wife's name, all of your social security numbers, how much money you made, where you live. They have everything they need to get anything they want, but all they really want is your taxes. Well, their taxes. And there's nothing you can do about it. So what privacy are you attempting to protect?

The credit bureaus have everything they need on you. All they want is for you to pay on time. Screw them and they screw you back. They know all they need to know, and all it takes is a seven year slice of your life. What difference does it make?

If you lived in Brazil, in the favela, you wouldn't wear a watch. You don't have a 'regular job' nor do you have a 'regular paycheck'. Nobody is interested in whether or not you pay your bills on time because there is no credit bureau worth having. That's because there isn't a class of landlords for whom you might fill out a rental application. There's no low cost housing, nobody's financing it. That stuff happens in America. People over here need a culture of 'regular job' because it means something - something to the credit bureaus and the investor class who are financing apartment buildings and mortgage instruments and all that borrowing economy. You're not smarter or harder working than the man in the favela. But you have a regular job and an infrastructure of credit that he doesn't have.

What do you Americans have to lose? Nothing. The economy is already paying off the credit bureaus and landlords and mortgage brokers and bankers. Your privacy doesn't mean anything to them. They already get what they want. They have no more reason to ask you any more questions. If the collection agency is calling you at dinner time or on your cellphone - that's as deep as it gets. And you feel guilty why? Because it's affecting your credit rating. You are, after all, keeping your kneecaps.

Nobody cares about you that much.

This Week's Theme: The Isolation of Modernity

If the poor knew how to work the system, they wouldn't be poor.
-- John & Ken

This week I'm focused on anomie. I'm feeling it today because I've gotten a case of the rat's ass. Meaning I don't give a rat's ass about society this week, and I am turning that into a theme.

One of the things that's gotten my attention was a conversation I had with one of the neighborhood supermoms. We've been friendly since our family moved here and we gabbed about Obama the other night when I was picking up Boy from a party chez lui. We were struck by the fact that Obama is turning into a Democrat, whereas four months ago he was something different. He looks as if he is subtly trying to get the Clinton blessing eight years from today. In other words, he's turning into Edwards, kinda like I thought he would.

It's just that Clinton is such tool, you'd think that people would resist. But people are not resisting. People are conforming. People are losing touch with their ability to do anything different. I get nauseated, like I did at the all you can eat breakfast bar Sunday morning, staring into the immensity of tourist ass. I could feel my sodium count go up just looking at the tangled morass of bacon, the bright yellow egg mass, the woodpile of sausage, the forest of hash browns. And we ate it. And we watched Maria Bartiromo talk to a fund manager who said, 'get out of consumer products'. Well, of course. Why would the smart money be in consumer products?

I'm wondering if it makes sense, and it's going to take me a long time to figure it out, if we should try and have second-class citizenship in America. You know, officially. I mean there's always going to be a black market and a shadow economy, but as Cringely knows, credit card companies already know the size of that economy. Does it matter if you actually care about America, or is it merely sufficient that you live here? I mean a lot of people are too blind to care and don't think about it much - or have been convinced that what they think doesn't matter so they don't. There are also a good fraction of people who care but their care is contingent on things that are irrelevant to the actual meaning of the nation. Then there are a fraction of people who actually care and know what their caring means. Then there's a clever fraction who know but don't care at all because they're gaming the entire system, and of course I had laywers in mind when I mentioned that last fraction.

So if you had to pay 1,000 bucks to be a voting class citizen, would you pay? Would you care? If you got a tax rebate for selling your citizenship, would you sell out? If non-voting citizens got a tax ceiling of 15% would you give up the vote, and if voting citizens... ahh. You know what would happen. The political class would vote itself superior. We do that already. That's what you do with what you inherit. You use it.

So what if your time in America was just uncivic? If you just didn't care about all that political crap. You've got your apartment, your sports team, your TV, your job and your supermarket. All you need is a lover and some spare time. Who cares about the rest. You're just surviving right? Why would you need to care about Iraq? It doesn't matter who is president, none of that makes a difference in your life. Just don't drive drunk, pay your taxes and stay out of trouble. Simple.

Where this becomes very interesting is with regard to the Internal Empire and the External Empire.

Let's say you're the exact same person, an uncivic civilian, and you live in Iraq. Why would you care if America is the boss's boss's boss or if it's Saddam Hussein? You're just surviving. All that matters is the basic human stuff. Why does anybody need to belong to a nation? What is the point if its politics become impenetrably complex and way over your head? Where does that put anti-Americanism in an American world hegemony?

Once upon a time I said, half jokingly, that the greatest thing about being an American is the comfort of knowing that the US military will not be used against me. I'd hate to be the bad guys in America's sights. But maybe there are another billion or so folks who feel the same way elsewhere on the planet. People who wish they could be here but can't. People who want maybe a little bit more than just Levi's, Coke, McDonald's and Air Jordans. Why can't we offer these people citizenship, or half-citizenship?

I forget what it is that people who live in Puerto Rico or Guam get. They can't vote. They're right smack in the world of the American Protectorate. Iraqis are sorta in there too, especially if the state of Iraq eventually fails. And of course every illegal alien residing in the Internal Empire are right there. How to recognize them - these legions that don't really give a rat's about following the rules of full American citizenship. Those who just dig being an uncivic civilian.

We could grant them some limited rights and get a real class for them. The precedent stands. Think about it.

Dunbar's Number Again

I have been deleting people from my Outlook. I'm down to about 8700. Most of them were duplicates, but some of them were people I don't really remember, nor did I have a good reason to want to try and remember. I've been thinking about an ROI on positive karma, and part of me doesn't give a rat's.

Like many sorta smart people, I am blessed and cursed with an unusually dense memory. I remember people I have no business remembering - people who probably don't remember me and probably have nothing to say about me if they do. Why am I such a nice guy?

I'm thinking about this in regards to the odd thing about modern society - how it puts you in contact with so many hundreds of people - enough that you get their name and phone number or email addresss, but little else. I could do this a thousand times.

Georgina Kelly. Oh she's the rep I spoke to who sold me the Mortice Kern Toolkit way back in 96 or 97. I was going to get MKS into my company so that we could do better scripting. It never happened.

Charles Lane. Oh he's the guy who knows everything about construction. He was going to hook me up with the County of LA. it never happened.

Marilyn Parker. Oh she's the guidance counselor that got me into Claremont, and later worked for Drake Beame. Nothing much came of that relationship either. And I had a crush on her.

Hestia Sander. Oh she's the babe who had a brand new Toyota Celica and a friend who lived in Malibu. She was going to get us invited to Hollywood Parties. Never happened.

Dunbar's Number is about 150. That is the limit of people with whom anybody can retain good solid human relationships at any one time. I have 8000 others in reserve. For what? I have no idea. I have no idea.

On this tangent, I am thinking about the 'socialist' ethos of Christianity. Christ asks us to love our neighbors as ourselves. And he must truly have understood, being God and all, how this would work in the world of the future before his second coming. It must have meant everything to him to ask this of us as his primary commandment. And yet we know that human beings are so very different that only on the most intimate level does this injunction mean anything at all. We can't love everyone. We can't even keep track of everyone. Where is the power in that? Where is the wisdom in that? it only makes sense if you give into it absolutely, one must be an apologist for Christianity in order for it to be comprehensible.

It leaves us with a series of smudgemarks we make on people, like bumpercars in the eternal human circus. It is an absolute reason to be charitable but to no end other than the belief that you become a better person for doing so. If you tell everyone in life to have a Coke and a smile it's good enough. The net effect is positive. It scales wide, but not deep. None of those thousands will do so much as call you back on the phone. All you merit is a pleasant memory, a few calories worth of effort to put the name with the face and say a sentence or two. This is how we exist in the margins of other people's lives.

I am feeling ill today, and finally it makes me write something I'm actually feeling. I haven't been feeling much for a while.

More Statistical Morality

Fresh of the Kwaku Network.

From the L. A. Times Not a hot bed of conservatism!!!

1. 40% of all workers in L. A. County ( L. A. County has 10.2 million people) are working for cash and not paying taxes. This is because they are predominantly illegal immigrants working without a green card.

2. 95% of warrants for murder in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens.

3. 75% of people on the most wanted list in Los Angeles are illegal aliens.

4. Over 2/3 of all births in Los Angeles County are to illegal alien Mexicans on Medi-Cal , whose births were paid for by taxpayers.

5. Nearly 35% of all inmates in California detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally.

6. Over 300,000 illegal aliens in Los Angeles County are living in garages.

7. The FBI reports half of all gang members in Los Angeles are most likely illegal aliens from south of the border.

8. Nearly 60% of all occupants of HUD properties are illegal.

9. 21 radio stations in L. A. are Spanish speaking.

10 In L. A. County 5.1 million people speak English, 3.9 million speak Spanish.
(There are 10.2 million people in L. A. County. )

(All 10 of the above are from the Los Angeles Times)

Less than 2% of illegal aliens are picking our crops, but 29% are on welfare.
Over 70% of the United States' annual population growth (and over 90% of California, Florida , and New York) results from immigration.
29% of inmates in federal prisons are illegal aliens
We are a bunch of fools for letting this continue.

It looks as though blackfolks are starting to take this situation a great deal more seriously. Hmmm.

Finger Break

Finger BreakDancing

 

Stay Illegally, Drive Legally

You know I actually went for this goofball scenario once before. You basically get drivers licenses to illegal aliens, aka undocumented workers and they become (voila) documented workers.

I understand and recognize the basic body count scenario. Illegals are going to drive. Sure they are a menace just being in the country, but if they don't know how to drive, they are a clear and present danger. Drunk drivers are much more of a threat to life limb and property than somebody who makes it harder to get a job. So you may as well let them come and get a special class of non-citizen driver's license. it is, after all, what we do for legal visitors to this country who want to drive.

But as soon as you start being practical about this and not theoretical, the whole thing falls flat.

IF I were to actually be a drunk driver and an illegal alien and I got in an accident what would happen? If I  at fault, am I wait for the cops to show up? Less likely if I am not licensed in any way. Somewhat likely if I want... hmmm the protection of the legal system.

Where do I get this license anyway? Practically speaking, you reach out to everyone who might be illegal in order to grant them training and privileges. Something you refuse to do in the interest of enforcing current immigration laws. So we're going to spend all this money creating a new class of driver's license, bankroll the bureaucracy and train the illegals. With whose money?

Understanding?

Never trust anything that can think for itself, if you can't see where it keeps it's brain.
-- Arthur Weasley

I've been trying to spoof the 'Blog Readability' engine forwarded to me by a thoughtful reader. I've decided that it's not worth the effort. I'm at once determined to prove it a fraud, but then Mr. Weasley has the better idea. 

According to this black box, the main of Cobb is a High School reading level. Which is fairly good. I remember when I was in the 8th grade, I was told that journalists were supposed to write in such a way that 8th graders could understand it. I think that's entirely reasonable. And so even if I had a Jr High rating, it wouldn't trouble me much. From time to time I've played around with those little tools in Microsoft Word and found that various things I wrote required some '14th grade' reading skills. But I'm not sure that's all very complimentary.

Now as you could expect, the cats over at Crooked Timber have had their writing process thru the black box and come out labeled 'genius'. A check of poetry by Lord Byron is considered 'Postgrad'. My stuff over at the Race Man's Home Companion was rated 'College Undergrad' as is my Cubegeek blog, and my junior high school daughter's blog is rated...junior high school, as is Instapundit.

So now we have to parse for content. What about the guy who spoofed academics with post-modern drivel? That would be Alan Sokal. His entire site, he's a physics prof, ranks 'Postgrad', but two of his spoofy papers ranked 'High School'. I find it odd because this page on bioconjugate chemistry also ranks 'High School'. One is always tempted to compare Crooked Timber to computer generated mosh. Well, I am anyway.

So Lord Byron, whose work is taught in high school ranks 'Postgrad' and bioconjugate chemistry, which I've never even heard of before ranks 'High School'. I imagine that there are any number of conclusions that could be drawn from that. Perhaps the appearance of the word 'thee'  might flick a switch in the black box. Who knows?

Anyway, I dedicate this post to R. Geib, who long ago left the internet as he considered it a vast intellectual wasteland. I had something to do with that. And by the way, my own postmodern drivel got rated 'College Undergrad'. 

Cognos To Disappear Inside IBM

I have three gut reactions to the news that Cognos is going to be acquired by IBM for 5 Billion.

1. OK it's official and now there is 'nobody' left standing. 'Nobody' meaning Information Builders, Microstrategy, SAS and the open sourcers. SAS is not going anywhere and was never the same kind of player as everybody else. Microstrategy is probably not an attractive target, nor is IBI. They will not be assimilated and will basically die off, like everybody else.

2. Cognos is going to disappear inside of IBM. It will be absorbed into the Blob of Websphere and will be IBMized into marketing oblivion. Very little of Cognos branding will survive once the product integration is complete. It will find itself barely recognizable amongst other brilliant IBM technologies like Cube Views etc. The good news is that if the DB2 engineers get their hands on it, Report Net will ultimately and finally work as it had been advertised.

3. Microsoft stands alone, again. We (now that I've sold out to the dark side) have a lot to prove in the enterprise space, but what we won't have is a huge product integration story to have to sell. That is actually a big deal in the enterprise space and the FUD works in Microsoft's favor in the short term. Whether or not MS reps can and will capitalize on this moment is anybody's guess. Even though I'm on the MS extended squad, I'm still from Missouri.

Outside of that, I will speculate that this finally represents the top of the bell curve in an industry that has taken too damned long to mature. I walk around with my jaw dropped when I think about what a focused industry might have done with BI had any of these monster companies done this acquisition work in 1999 when they should have. Then again, maybe you're nothing until you're a 5 Billion dollar company as far as the IBMs of the world are concerned.

Which is why everybody ought to be scared as hell of Google. One of these days, the 20%ers are going to recognize what they can do with Gapminder + BigTable. The lightbulb is going to go off in their heads and they're going to see how a bunch of their technologies can be put together into a zero footprint xPM stack. If they do it within 5 years, then they will make all of the big BI acquireres look dumb. What Google doesn't realize is that their ability to structure data from multiple sources is a huge strength considering that they've built an empire with data people have volunteered to them.

What is BI, in the end? It's gobbling up and spitting out very small chunks of data each cell of which has an extraordinary amount of metadata associated with it. Nobody has done that in parallel scale. The entire paradigm is ripe for re-invention. And this time, I hope they put some nicer graphics into it.

Eighty Five

I now know my sleep number.

Gangster Civil Liberties

News from New York:

NEW YORK -- Edgar Morales, a member of the St. James Boys gang, who was accused of killing 10-year old Malenny Mendez in August 2002, is the first person to be found guilty of a terrorist act in New York, reports El Diario-La Prensa. The charge is based on a state law against crimes intended to “intimidate or dominate the civil public.” Morales, 25, faces life in prison for first-degree manslaughter as a first degree terrorist crime, intent to kill as a terrorist crime, possession of a weapon as a second degree terrorist act and second degree charges for conspiracy. A juror later said that terrorism is not just something that happened on 9/11, but also signifies an attack on the public meant to dominate them. Prosecutors painted Morales' gang as having a fanatical, terrorizing grip over St. James park in the Bronx. There, the prosecutor said, a gunfight among gang members interrupted a church festival and killed Malenny.

This is going to be a real issue in the next few years because local law enforcement is already (well the LAPD is) using allternate means than traditional policing to limit the influence of gangs over communities.

Sacrifice

This woman set herself on fire in protest. I am astounded by the inversion of logic that would be swayed more by this kind of sacrifice than that of a soldier. It represents to me, a parlor trick - the evasion of the physical, the de-moralization of war. The real believe that symbolic death is more real than death in combat.

Writers Strike

Today I had lunch at the world's most luxurious food court, the one in Century City at the Westfield. The place was lousy with Hollywood types, as usual. Today there was an additional heaping helping of writers. You could tell because they had on one of four sorts of T shirts that let you know.

"My movie was on You Tube and all I got was this lousy T-shirt".

With humor like that, one wants to sympathize with the studios and producers. In fact, all during lunch as i was eyeballing the crowd, I kept coming up with better slogans. For example, a picket sign with no writing. Or at least one with the small print "This picket sign left intentionally blank". I couldn't help but notice that writers were enjoying lunches at the most luxurious food court in the world. I sat near the wireless powered speakers that were carrying the tunes strummed by the strolling acoustic troubadour. I asked, and he obliged my request for "Hotel California".

As the troubadour played, I wondered about the mentality which would ask for a cut of his tip cup. After all, Hotel California is surely a copywritten song. And I'm sure that somewhere there are entertainment intellectual property lawyers out there who know exactly which clause in the law which allows street musicians to ply their trade of playing and singing popular songs without being forced to fork over a percentage.

Gerard reminds us that most writers, especially in the news business, write to be read, not studied. Hmm. what about bloggers? I know in fact that most of the time, well anytime I write under the category of Critical Theory, I write to be studied. Since I am a syndicated blogger and I do NPR I catch a little money on the side. Something like 170 bucks a month, in a good month. I hardly think that qualifies me as a professional. But I think I'm a good writer nonetheless, and I count myself fortunate that I don't have to work for the kind of asshats that would make me feel as though I needed the benefit of collective bargaining. I don't know, there's something about the very idea of a writer's union that sounds oxymoronic - it is bound to the assembly line of entertainment product. That's all we've heard in the news this week, how this disruption of labor is effecting the economy of Los Angeles. Nothing could be more un-writerlike from my perspective. I suppose that's because of my intellectual bias. I think of a writer first and foremost as an intellectual, a facilitator of an environment for the critical exchange of ideas central to ... yeah well that's my conceit.

In reality, the writer's strike is going to put more people out on the street at night. I mean with nothing good to watch on the tube, people are going to have to face their misery without relief. Good news for bars, taxis and eventually divorce lawyers. Just imagine the ripple effects. That's what they want you to do.

In the end, however, I fall into the same camp as Bill Handel, who explained the deal this morning on the radio. Writers get, from the sale of every DVD, approximately 4 cents. The studios get about 3 bucks. The writers want 8 cents, which is still less than what the guys get who make the box. I think that's reasonable, under the circumstances.

The Return of Wally George

I find it rather astounding that the controversy surrounding Dog, The Bounty Hunter has sustained as much interest as it has. Then again, I read a very specific set of blogs and news sources. My providers may be biased. But it just occurred to me that we are really, really overdue for some anti-PC backlash.

If you're half as old as I am, you probably remember two of the loudest blowhards ever on TV, Morton Downey and Wally George. Wally was one of those TV hosts whose sloganeering patriotism was delivered in a pull no punches, in your face, gutbucket attitude-fest. You could count on Wally and his audience to shout down any pinko they declared a pinko, and it didn't take much to get on Wally's bad side. I happen to think that the bombast of Wally paved the way for a lot of conservative radio. After Wally George, even Rush Limbaugh's 'feminazi' phrase seemed tame. Having graduated to 'El Rushbo', he doesn't need to be so crass.

But somebody needs to.

Like I said yesterday, I'm a huge new fan of Dennis Miller's radio show. As much as I enjoyed his TV show, especially in the beginning, I enjoy his radio show even better. He's a smarter, (yes), more refined and sensible person, and at the age of 54 he is beyond making a fool out of himself for a laugh. He acts like a Dad, which makes him doubly aces in my book. Dennis is not disrespectful nor phony and he doesn't have a raucous studio audience to cheer him on for the cheap laugh. In that way he is a much better host than either Bill Maher or Jon Stewart. Dennis is more of a class act than he ever was. He's not the Ghost of Wally George. I don't know who is, but he's coming.

The time is just about ripe for somebody to rip all the PC pantywaists a new one. The way I react to Miller shows me that there are a lot of people who are a lot less sophisticated who feel the same way. It's going to be a more cultural show. I happen to know the young people who will dig it. I work with some of them. Good people who aren't all in to politics but who enjoy a good smoke, a good drink, who aren't necessarily afraid of meat or loud music, who occasionally say shit that's uncomfortably true and really don't have much patience for a lot of politically correct bullshit.

Mark my words. Somebody like..hmmm. maybe Eddie Griffin.. is going to say something entirely reasonable like, who give's a rat's ass about blank, and a bunch of Lefties who are over 35 are going to hit the roof, and young people are going to say WTF and it will be on. Paris Hilton and all similar celebrity ho-bags will be disapperated by this new star of the Gen X Right. Maybe it will be somebody like Travis Pestrana. Maybe it will be somebody like Puck from the original Real World. Maybe somebody like Paul Jr from the American Chopper show. Or perhaps it might even be Dog The Bounty Hunter himself.

Already Nas has said he doesn't need to give a rat's about the N word. He's straight capitalizing, so we know the sentiment is out there that says to hell with PC, we're keeping it real. But Nas is only in the spotlight periodically. I'm talking about doing something like giving somebody like that a talk show. And I'm not talking about somebody who is counter-cultural.  I'm talking about somebody relatively clean who has about as many vices as John Cougar Mellencamp, which is to say enough to show that they're not Mitt Romney and can actually sport a leather jacket without trying. Somebody cool. Somebody extreme. Somebody with working class and middle class appeal.   

Mark my words. Somebody young and angry is going to become a media star by giving PC a boot to the head on the regular.

The 'King Is Ours' Movement

I get into architecture. Every once in a while I'll just drift off into a daydream while looking at a car commercial, not because of the car but because of the gorgeous building behind it. One of the reasons 'The Cell' is one of my favorite films is because I often dream of being a zillionaire scientist with an extraordinarily architected headquarters.

On a more prosaic level, when I do get a chance to check out a building of historical note, I often do want to know who built it. For example, I took the tour of St. John the Divine in New York City and marveled about the work that has gone into it for generations. It turns out, that along with a lack of funding, one of the biggest problems in completing this, which will be the largest cathedral in America, is a lack of talent. To fulfill the architectural design and theme of the building, you need stonecutters in the tradition of the great Italians who pioneered the method used in many great buildings. There just aren't a lot of Italian stonecutters hanging around at the Home Depot parking lot. That doesn't change the fact that St. John the Divine is a magnificent structure. I put my dollar in the box. Some day.

I expect however that my geeky interest in the provenance of a building is of a different sort than that expressed recently:

Held in Dente Park in the shadow of the towering granite statue depicting an immigrant Italian stonecutter, Gilbert Young, the African-American artist from Atlanta who founded the "King Is Ours" movement, delivered his own "I Have a Dream" speech. Joining him was Chelsea native Clint Button, who honed his sculpting skills in Barre before moving to South Carolina and urged onlookers to "join us in the fight."

"As Americans we now have an opportunity to properly memorialize Dr. King in America, with American perspective in American granite," Button said. "Together we can strike the mighty stone. Together we will do what Dr. King did.

"I stand proudly with Gilbert Young to show all the world that, together, a black man and a white man can make a difference in America," he added. "Join us in the fight."

Young suggested that fight, which started in February when the M.L.K. foundation announced Lei Yixin, a sculptor from the People's Republic of China, had been selected to carve the centerpiece of the King memorial, was starting to take its toll. He claimed the foundation's fundraising efforts have, and will continue to be, hampered by the King Is Ours movement.

So perhaps you've heard about this sentiment. Now it has a movement. Well, it has a website that is calling itself a movement, and it has the voice of Gilbert Young. Rather shrill, I think.

If a monument to MLK gets built, all the controversy over its construction will be forgotten if and only it is beautiful. I've seen the King Center in Atlanta and it's a pathetic looking building. I've seen better looking train terminals. What matters most in the business of monument building is the integrity of the monument itself. Nobody cares who built the King Center because, in the end, it's not an appropriate monument.

Ultimately a monument is a symbol to a symbol. The artist disappears in good work and the person or thing represented emerges. Only somebody who completely doesn't understand that fundamental concept would protest against the designers and builders of a monument. There is either an aesthetic critique or there is not. Without an aesthetic critique, it's all about money and politics.

The OG Blackosphere

Oooh. Look what I found.

This is a list of dialup Bulletin Board Systems/Services(BBS) in North America that are members of Afronet.  This list has been gleamed from Arthur McGee's popular African-American BBS list (copyright Arthur McGee and Associates, 1993.) 

This list is up to date as of JULY 29, 1994.
*
LEGEND: A=Afronet; B=BDPA; F=Fidonet; R=Rime
*
NAME                     NUMBER         BPS  NETWORK ADDRESS
*
*
AfraLink                 (***)NOW-DOWN  ***  101:19/2(A)
Kinky Kumputers          (***)UP!-SOON  ***  101:13/136(A)
Black Business Net[1]    (201)836-0602  144  1:2604/315(F), 101:13/132(A)
Black Business Net[2]    (201)836-1844  144  1:2604/315(F), 101:13/132(A)
Boardroom(IABPFF)        (201)923-3967  96   1:107/819(F), 101:13/111(A)
Tracks From The Past!    (205)237-6074  144  101:13/134(A)
Invention Factory[1]     (212)274-8110  144  101:13/125(A)
Invention Factory[2]     (212)274-8111  144  101:13/126(A)
Invention Factory[3]     (212)274-8112  144  101:13/127(A)
Informed Sources         (212)281-9478  144  1:278/303(F), 101:13/108(A)
Poetry In Motion         (212)666-6927  144  101:13/130(A), #1064(R)
Humanity                 (213)936-6009  96   101:10/5(A)
Alex's Place             (213)937-8734  24   1:102/744(F), 101:10/4(A)
Minority Affairs(BDPA)   (214)517-7254  144  1:124/3121(F), 101:19/1(A), (B)
Vulcan-Net III(IABPFF)   (215)223-2995  144  101:13/123(A)
African American[2]      (215)842-1560  144  1:273/957(F), 101:13/121(A)
African American[3]      (215)842-1561  144  1:273/957(F), 101:13/122(A)
Jailhouse                (305)944-6271  144  101:13/135(A)
Inglewood RoofTop!       (310)677-4007  144  1:102/355(F), 101:10/6(A)
Nefertiti(BDPA)          (312)488-8969  96   101:11/2(A), (B)
Wit-Tech(BDPA)           (410)256-0170  144  1:261/1082(F), 101:13/103(A)
Heritage                 (410)732-3368  96   101:13/114(A)
U-People                 (419)589-2310  144  1:234/62(F), 101:11/1(A)
Online In d'hood(IABPFF) (609)645-7080  144  1:2623/65(F), 101:13/118(A)
AfroConnections          (613)237-9531  24   1:163/511(F), 101:12/1(A)
Spirit DataTree          (617)983-9590  144  101:13/119(A)
Timbuktu                 (714)638-2954  144  1:103/197(F), 101:10/3(A)
Imhotep                  (718)297-4829  144  101:13/120(A)
Treasure Chest           (718)525-5610  144  101:13/128(A)
Holman's World           (718)529-8890  144  1:278/511(F), 101:13/107(A), (B)
Utmost Quality Bulldog   (718)562-2745  144  101:13/131(A)
Ashanti Connection       (718)634-4175  144  1:2603/214(F), 101:13/110(A), 1718000(V)
The BlackNet             (718)692-0943  144  1:278/618(F), 101:13/104(A)
Systematic[1]            (718)716-6198  144  1:2603/505(F), 101:13/106(A), #5210(R)
Systematic[2]            (718)716-6341  144  1:2603/505(F), 101:13/106(A), #5210(R)
Spaced Out               (718)778-5637  24   1:2603/108(F), 101:13/116(A), 7:718/1(SACnet)
Cypress Hills            (718)827-4933  144  101:13/115(A)
Fort Knox                (718)969-6910  144  101:13/117(A), 7:718/4(SACnet)
Vulcan-Net(IABPFF)       (908)769-7882  144  1:107/918(F), 101:13/105(A)
Islam On-Line[1]         (912)929-1073  144  1:3611/21(F), 101:19/3(A)
Islam On-Line[2]         (912)929-2873  144  1:3611/21(F), 101:19/3(A
Outside The Mainstream   (914)381-2390  144  1:272/74(F), 101:13/124(A), 1914000(V)

* For those unaware, Afronet is an echomail backbone supported by African and African-American BBS Sysops across North America.  The goal is to distribute conferences with African and African-American themes throughout North America.  It was originally conceived of by Ken Onwere, and implemented with the help and skill of Idette Vaughan(The BlackNet), Alex Hartley(Alex's Place), Nathaniel Saunders(Minority Affairs), and John Alston(Vulcan-Net).  For more information about Afronet, please post a message to SYSOP on any of the boards listed above. * (c)1993 Arthur R. McGee & Associates(AKA Africans Around the World)

You all just do not know the kind of stuff we used to deal with in the bad old days. I haven't spoken to Art McGee in a long time, not for any good reason.  I wonder if I can find any of the conversations we used to have about cyberspace in the early 90s. It would be fascinating. Where is Carter Bing?

Paks, Pat, Punts & Puns

Pakistan Trouble
Old Pervez is in deep trouble, and there doesn't seem to be a way for him to win. It's hard to imagine, however, that a state of emergency that lasts several weeks could be worse than a radical islamist regime. So long as he can remain in charge of the military, I'm hoping that things can't get too bad in the future. NPR is all over everything that comes out or Benazir's mouth, and I think American public reaction is going to be all wrong in the near term. I can recall a fairly decent interview with a foreign minister from Pakistan early this summer. There are good people in Musharraf's administration and they really have not been as corruptable as their enemies have suggested. All should note that right now, there has been democracy to shut down. Musharraf is not and was not a dictator.

Pat Likes Rudy
As always, I think the Christian Right is the 200 pound gorilla in the room, not the Elephant. But you know gorillas, always jumping around screeching that they're in charge. Yes I like the triangulation that's going on here. No I don't like the idea that Robertson's OK is more important than say, Arnold Schwartzeneggar's. But you already know I'm a moderate Conservative and I don't like social engineering, even from well-meaning Christians.

Notre Dame Sucks
I have decided to start paying more attention to college football and football in general. I'm already sure that it is my favorite spectator sport. And now that it's easier this week for me to get up at 7 in the morning, I'm listening to The Herd in the morning. This morning he absolutely smashed Charlie Weis, the ND head coach, and well, the entire Notre Dame program. And suddenly I don't feel so prescient about betting on USC all these years against the Irish.

• Something's Wrong- Colin can't define "sexy" but he knows it when he sees it. Same thing with Notre Dame football. He can't define what's wrong there, but there is something very wrong. There's body language, the way players interact with Charlie Weis. The team shouldn't be this bad. The offense is last in college football despite a top recruiting class! Notre Dame.
• Perception Vs. Reality- Maybe it's more of an "us problem" with Notre Dame. They've won one national championship in 30 years, had one Heisman winner in 40 years and haven't won a bowl game since 1993. Perhaps we should change our perception of them. Perception.

He's so right.

Dennis Miller Republicans
I am so very much a Dennis Miller Republican. I still dig Hugh Hewitt, but with my new job, I haven't had many spare brain cells to waste on the partisan issue of the day. Miller's new radio show is a smash hit. You know him and you know where he's coming from. Listen to him talk respectful, lane-driftingly funny  common sense about the world of public affairs. Many thanks to AM 870 KRLA for putting him on the air in place of the increasingly shrill and marginally entertaining Michael Savage.

Truth and Reconciliation

I'm going to try a short experiment. Well, I'm going to make some changes may become permanent and some that will be permanent.

The first is to ban the word 'nigger' from comments and trackbacks. This is certainly the most controversial change and the one that will probably most readily be reversed. I do so only in the context, somewhat symbolically, over Michael Fisher's excess some time earlier this Fall.

Fisher himself has been unbanned from commenting on Cobb as has Chance Kelsey, riding on the coattails of goodwill and the opportunity for more debate in this corner of the 'sphere.

Additionally, I will turn off Capcha and try to manually add text filters to get rid of spam. This should encourage more comments by making it slightly easier for folks to say what they want.

I Am Not A Pimp, I Am Not A Pimp

NPR Reports:

Talk About It:
New York Times: Protesting Demeaning Images in Media -- "Wearing white T-shirts with red stop signs and chanting "BET does not reflect me, MTV does not reflect me," protesters have been gathering every Saturday outside the homes of Viacom executives in Washington and New York City. The orderly, mostly black crowds are protesting music videos that they say degrade women, and black and Latino men."

The protesters maintain that negative images of blacks and Latinos are so widespread in mainstream media, "they infect perceptions of ordinary nonwhite people."

Do you agree? What about improving black self-perception? What do you think will be the result of these protests?

I am so very much reminded of the Monty Python skit "Burn the Witch" by this controversy. In the skit, a woman has been brought to the village elder with demands to burn her. Except the villagers (naturally bohunks straight out of Sherwood Forest) have put on the false nose and hat. What follows is the most retarded exercise in logic imaginable in which the woman is placed on a scale which declares her equal to the weight of a duck. This proves, by this twisted logic, that she is indeed a witch.

There is no denying that the same kind of horde mentality is convinced that blacks are pimps and whores, and BET and MTV are providing the wardrobe for this sorry excuse for entertainment. But respectable folks should be able to see through the entire charade. There is no way to win the 'positive images' debate, because anyone idiotic enough to believe that MTV and BET reflect reality are just on a witch hunt in the first place. Including, ironically, all the protesters.

The results of these protests will be identical to the protests against... hmmm. How about Soul Plane?

Cobb Sez, there's always somebody with a perverted idea about black culture.

Respectable Negroes

I know I've lost my sense of humor and I've been a real grouch. I could feel it last night when I hung out with my brothers and Pops. But it's Friday, and although I'm about to launch into a huge debate, I'm going to try to chill out a bit. Nothing has aided that aim so much as a new blog that a thoughtful reader has just passed on to me.

It's called Respectable Negroes, and it took about 12 seconds to squirt milk out my nose. I say it now joins Hot Ghetto Mess and We Love Black People as the most hilarious sites in this vein. It's about time.

We are 3 black people whose friends got tired of hearing our daily rants, and reading our many (and often forwarded) emails. Collectively, we read too much, have opinions on everything, and have too many degrees--and the debt to prove it. We are respectable negroes who are just a little angry (and you know what happens when we get angry). It may appear that we are the same, but as you will see, we are quite different. We often agree, and we often don't. We be respectable negroes who will remain anonymous for now, but there will be clues, tasty morsels of information, that friends (and perhaps enemies) can use to find out our gov't names.
 

                     

Our Charter

    Whenever three respectable negroes, heads of families, shall desire to settle on land, and shall have selected for that purpose an island or a locality clearly defined, ...the Inspector of Settlements and Plantations will himself...give them a license to settle such island or district, and afford them such assistance as he can to enable them to establish a peaceable agricultural settlement. The three parties named will subdivide the land, under the supervision of the Inspector, among themselves and such others as may choose to settle near them, so that each family shall have a plot of not more than (40) forty acres of tillable ground.

Woohoo that's funny.

                   

Friends Far and Near

I'm having a fit of nostalgia today thinking about people I've lost track of over the years. There are a couple occasions. One is that I'm backing up my contact list, and another is that I've been eyeballing some of the websites of the community organizations I used to hang with. Particularly outstanding in my mind is DJ Riley.

At the very beginning of the spoken word movement out here in LA, there was the primary joint called The Good Life. Right about the time I was just about ready to take my diary public I met with and hung out with the brothers at The Good Life. It was located in a strip mall on the corner of Exposition and Crenshaw and it was an all natural food kind of place. Yes there was a time when I used to chew on licorice roots. Got mine at The Good Life.

In fact, now that I think about it, I was probably one of the first posers who sat in coffee shops with a laptop computer saying "I'm a writer". It was a Zeos computer. This was back in 1990 or so. It had to be because Xerox never gave me a laptop, and I hadn't started reading Beloved much before then in my break with buppie brotherhood. So I think I should have the timing about right.

Right about this time, I was extraordinarily impressed with a progressive brother named Ron Daniels. I was I learned about him hanging with DJ and the brothers at The Good Life. The very first conversation I got into there was appropriately deep, and DJ, in his own inimitable way, was holding court. Somewhere in my Contacts are the names of the female urban planner and the UCLA undergrads I was talking to that day, as is the name of the political dude whose fund raiser I attended some weeks later as I began insinuating myself into local LA politics. What I most fondly remember was the apparent ease with which DJ inched into a wide variety of conversations, how he was level headed when others tended to shout.

DJ also has, or had, a radio show. Check out the article: It's hard to tell, looking at the site, if he's still around.

It turns out that DJ has a little bit of a blog, but he hasn't been very active on it. I can't remember the disease that put him in the chair, but I know it didn't mess with his brain. I think he might need some assistance to get his stuff online. At any rate, he's posing with notable blackfolks on his Flickr site, it's good to know he's still around. I'd like to hook up with him one day soon.

Fear and Respect

On one day a man is heard saying the following:

"I'm not taking a chance...not because she's black but because we use the word n----- sometimes here. I'm not going to take any chance ever in life of losing everything I've worked for 30 years because some drunken n----- heard us say n----- and turned us into the Enquirer magazine…I'm not taking that chance at all never in life. Never…"

Subsequent to that day, the same man is heard saying this:

"I have the utmost respect [..] for black people who have suffered so much due to racial discrimination and acts of hatred. I did not mean to add yet another slap in the face to an entire race of people who have brought so many gifts to this world. I am ashamed of myself and I pledge to do whatever I can to repair this damage I have caused."

That sounds to me like fear and respect, a perfect example of black social capital.