On A Pedestal
I think I've gotten pretty good at ignoring David Blaine. Most of the time that I heard about his various attempts at becoming the New millennium Houdini, I usually thought "what's the point?" and just moved on. I mean, Houdini had a Wolverine haircut and spent his spare time debunking psychics. Who could ever top THAT?

But Blaine's latest stunt, where he locked himself inside a glass box suspended over London for 44 days straight without food caught my attention. Not so much for the feet itself, but for the reactions to it.

For instance, there is a website called "Wake David Blaine", which is a rally point for people who want to take turns keeping Blaine awake by shouting at him for the full 44 days. They even hand out air horns. People have pelted the box with food. One man tried to rip off his air tube. The list goes on and on.

The sense I have is that many of them were angered by the notion that Blaine's stunt could in anyway be construed as magical or miraculous. So, they took it upon themselves to proof that there was no miracle. I wonder if those were folks who loved magic so much that they thought Blaine was defaming it. Or were they people who cannot tolerate the idea of the fantastic at all?

However, as the stunt progressed, the hecklers & saboteurs gave way to more supportive, and eventually, cheering onlookers.

Blaine was in tears by the time he left the booth. He spoke about learning more in the last month than he has in his entire life. And he talked about love.

Personally, I'm just fascinated by the sociology of it all. One man stands up and does something out of the ordinary. Almost immediately, a whole host of people rise up in reaction to him, both for and against.

Is leadership really that easy?

Changing The Game
So, unlike any number of Protestants out there, I actually happen to like Pope John Paul II. I have a tremendous amount of respect for the work that man has accomplished in God's name, and I have a special reverence for the Catholic Church because, hey, it's the wellspring from which the rest of the Christian world flows.

But sometimes the Vatican does things that are just downright evil.

And I'm not talking about the excesses of the Borgas or the Crusades or anything nice and medieval like that.

I mean today, right here, right now, in the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Three.

According to the BBC, among other news outlets, The Vatican is instructing its missionaries in Africa to tell the local population that condoms have tiny holes in them that allow the AIDS virus to pass from one person to the next in the course of sex. In other words, they're saying that condoms don't stop the transmission of STDs so don't use them.

In fact, they're actually claiming to have scientific evidence to support that fact.

If there was scientific research to support such a claim, it would be plastered all over the Western press. If the Vatican really had such evidence, why are they only telling people where the AIDS epidemic is wreaking havoc?

It's a lie.

A bold faced lie intended to discourage the use of condoms in a misguided attempt to curb recreational sex, and it's targeted at the people who rely on the church the most - the world's poor and sick and disadvantaged.

It's a lie that's going to cost MILLIONS of people their lives, while the Church is claiming to save their souls.

I have no other word to use to describe it other than "evil".

Moreover, I think it's just the latest example of how conservative elements in the world, when faced with scientific evidence & procedure that refutes their narrow view of life on planet Earth, are now adopting the trappings of science, minus the actual procedures, to perpetuate lies that support the status quo.

They've lost the argument on it's merits, so they've just degenerated into an "Is not!"/"Is, too!" shouting match.

They Know
Greg Theilman is the former director of the Office of Strategic Proliferation and Military Affairs for the State Department under Colin Powell. As you might surmise from his title, his office was directly responsible for evaluating intelligence regarding Iraq's WMD programs.

In this interview for 60 Minutes, Theilman says that he'd known for months prior to the invasion that there was no evidence to support the Bush administration's claims that Iraq proposed an imminent threat.

And he told Powell, who should have told the President.

Now, while this is just the latest example of White House lies by omission & exaggeration, I think it's part of a larger trend in our culture. (see above)

Willie Lynch is Dead (1712?-2003)

There is No Willie Lynch
OK, this is something I've believed for years, so I'm glad to see someone has finally done a little research to support my theory.

For those of you who don't know, allegedly, there's a copy of a speech written by a slave holder named Willie Lynch to instruct his peers on ways to foster disunity among the slaves as a means of nonviolent pacification. The basic idea is that, if you're too busy fighting your brother, you won't worry about the boot of the oppressor on your neck.

OK, so, for the moment, let's ignore the rather absurd image of the keynote speaker at the Colonial Slavedrivers Convention.

This gentleman, Dr. William Jelani Cobb of Spelman College, points out the obvious inaccuracies, inconsistencies, and anachronisms in the letter itself in this column.

But, at a deeper level, when have young people ever needed someone to tell them to hate old people? When have men ever needed to be formally instructed to hate women? And when have people ever needed a coach to instruct them how to hate people who look different than them? The crux of the Willie Lynch argument is that, if it wasn't for the damned white man, all Black people everywhere would all just love each other and work in spiritual-humming unison towards our common goal.

I'm sorry, but that's simply rediculous. All you have to do is look at the example in the master's house itself. Even rich white people can't get along with each other. As long as human beings have individual & conflicting needs, there will never be a united hive mind where we all agree to do our part & not hate on each other. It's human nature.

But this gets at the larger problem with conspiracy theorists. I think alot of people would much rather that there actually was an all-powerful boogeyman who has some massive document stored on his laptop called toying_with_everyone_elses_lives_for_my_amusement.pps. The idea of a malavolent controller can be far more comforting than the alternative: a world where, sometimes, bad things happen that are completely outside of anyone's control. After all, a bad daddy is better than no daddy at all, right?

Willie Lynch is a fairy tale. Rather than expending our energy assigning blame, maybe everyone (black, white, etc.) should devote their time to doing the things WE ALREADY KNOW WE"RE SUPPOSED TO BE DOING, i.e. treating members of the opposite sex with at least courtesy to give folks the chance to earn our respect; honoring the elders who've been where you're going while respecting the young for their fresh energy; KNOWING (and I don't mean just saying it, KWOWING) that you have intrinsic value because you are a living, breathing human being and not worrying whether some other person is more valuable than you because they're lighter/darker/taller/shorter/skinnier/fatter/etc.

To Hell with Willie Lynch.

Keep working on yourself.

Ole!
There's something wrong with me. I must be a bad person. Because, as much as I love baseball, I think I may love baseball fights even more.

So, the sight of Don Zimmer, the New York Yankees' septegenarian bench coach with a metal plate in his head from being hit with a fastball in his youth, charging asshole Red Sox ace Pedro Martinez during a team brawl, is, well...

It's funny.

Alright. I said it. It's freaking hilarious. I mean, I can just imagine Zimmer just sitting on the bench. Just waitin'. "As soon as these benches clear, his ass is MINE!"

It's rediculous. But I love it. This series just keeps getting crazier. Personally, I'm waiting for Mel Stotlemeyer to crack Nomar Garciaparra with a folding chair. Then, my baseball life will truly be complete.

In case you haven't noticed, there's going to be alot more baseball posts for the next two weeks.

Karmic Justice
The only thing worse than being an Orioles fan in Dodger country, is being an Orioles fan in Yankee country. I had the distinct displeasure of watching 12-year old Jeffrey Maier pull a fair ball out of play during the 1996 ALCS between the Yanks & the O's. The cheating New York umps ruled it a home run, allowing the pinstripe mafia to win the game, the series, and, eventually, the world championship.

Jeffrey Maier.

I almost could have gone to that game. I would have been in the bleachers, not far from that kid. And I can tell you this: any lynching that I might receive at the hands of rabid Bronx baseball fans would have been well worth the satisfaction of snapping that little punk's neck like a twig for robbing Cal Ripken of his best chance to retire with a 2nd World Series ring.

Sorry. Did I think that or write that? My bad. That was the rabid Orioles fan in me. I try not to let it out too much. It's not pretty.

Anyway, if there's any justice in the world, last night's little mishap in the Yankees/Red Sox game was just the beginning of the cosmic chickens coming home to roost for those S.O.B.s.

Go Sox!

Day of the Locusts
The average person who voted for Arnold Schwarzenegger last night was a white Republican woman with a college education whose household made at least $50,000 a year.

Rich, educated white women made a man with a 30 year history of sexual misconduct, but who has a great body and makes fun movies, into the governor of the 5th largest economy in the world.

Most blacks & hispanics basically stayed home. Most of the poor stayed home. The people with the most to gain or lose through their dependence on government programs, decided to leave the decision of the upper class.

That noise you hear is the sound of America's caste system fusing into place.

Report Offered Bleak Outlook About Iraq Oil

What Do You Mean There's No Oil?!?!?
OK, this just seems more and more insane as time goes on.

According to this NY Times report, the White House had commissioned a report months before the war to find out exactly how much money they could get from Iraqi oil sales.

Let's not even get into how this flies in the face of all that "it's not about oil" trash they were talking.

The point is, the report, which came out MONTHS before we invaded Iraq, told them that the Iraqi oil industry was in such disrepair that, without enormous capital investment, there was no way it could cover the costs of rebuilding the country.

And yet Paul Wolfowitz constantly said that Iraq would pay for itself through oil.

What possible reason would they have for doing this, then, in the face of all the evidence telling them why this was a bad idea? Are Bush & Co. really THAT stupid? Is it really about transfer of wealth, and to hell with the Iraqi people? Or were they looking for a really spectacular way to justify bankrupting the government?

George W. Bush's Medieval Presidency

Anachronistic Quote of the Day

"So it is written. So it shall be done."

-Ramses (Yul Brenner) in The Ten Commandments

Just a vivid example of a head of state who is driven by what he wants, as opposed to the empirical evidence of what he actually has (e.g. locusts, rivers of blood, killer hail, and a country full of dead firstborns).

As Neal Gabler points out in this L.A. Times editorial, denial was a fundamental element of monarchy rule back in the bad old days. It didn't matter what was happening, or what the people wanted. All that mattered was what the king thought.

Stupid, right?

Which is why a bunch of guys back in 1776, children of The Enlightenment, rationalism & the value of empirical evidence, thumbed their nose at King George III and decided they'd try making a government of the people, for the people, and by the people.

It's times like this that I wish George W. Bush had been a better student, or had at least bothered to pay attention in history class. At least then he'd know that he was perverting the system instead of thinking that he, himself, is the living embodiment of the will of the people.

The moral of this story: the President is a REPRESENTATIVE of the people. How the Hell do you know what the people want if you don't read the paper and don't listen to polls?

Oh, I forgot. God tells him.

Nevermind.

Pantheon

Pantheon
I remember, back when I was embroiled with the whole discussion about Harry Belafonte accusing Colin Powell of being a house slave, my brother & I bantered back & forth about the need for role models. At the time, I really scoffed at the notion. I couldn't think of any living, breathing person that I'd idolized & tried to emulate as a child (Captain Kirk most certainly didn't count).

But an odd confluence of news helped me to realize that, it wasn't that I didn't have role models, but, in fact, they were so important to me that I'd taken them for granted. They were a part of who I am.

So, after doing a bit of excavation, here are some of my own personal heroes.


Kurt Schmoke
Kurt Schmoke was the first elected Black mayor of my hometown, Baltimore, MD. We'd actually had a Black mayor just prior to Schmoke, namely Clarence "Du" Burns, an old-school veteran of big city machine politics who inherited the job when the current mayor, William Donald Schaffer, became the Governor of Maryland in the middle of his seemingly billionth term. Schmoke, a Yale man (nobody's perfect) and former Rhodes scholar, was intelligent & urbane, a stark contrast to Clarence Burns, who butchered the King's English and barely had a high school education. Needless to say, as a nerdy Black kid in a good old boy school in a crumbling urban city, Mayor Schmoke was an inspiration. He took a real drubbing in the press for advocating the legalization of hardcore drugs, but, given the urban disaster that was the crack epidemic of the late 80's & early '90's, I know the mayor saw what a joke the drug war was. After over a decade in city hall, Mayor Schmoke is now the dean of the law school at Howard University. He's also been rumored to have been seen on the campaign trail with fellow Yale classmate, Howard Dean.

You know I had to work his name in here SOMEWHERE, didn't you?


Kweisi Mfume
OK, so, first, disclaimer: this brother is family. My brother's wife is his cousin and they were raised like siblings. But I doubt he would recognize me outside of the presence of my family.

Having said that, most people know him as the current President of the NAACP, or perhaps as the former head of the Congressional Black Caucus. To me, he was my Congressman. In many ways, Mfume is the exact opposite of Kurt Schmoke. While Schmoke was the golden boy of Baltimore City College, en route to the Ivy League, Mfume was running the streets and staying in trouble under his slave name of Frissel Gray. He eventually found some sense and, apparently, the motherland, at Morgan State before venturing into a career of community activism & politics. My first memory of Mfume was when he ran for congress against St. George Cross, a fatter, shadier, and less-eloquent Baltimore version of Al Sharpton. Cross tried to derail Mfume's campaign by revealing to the public that he had several children out of wedlock. Little did he realize that massive portions of the Baltimore City populace have several children out of wedlock themselves, and they were more offended that Cross thought it was a bad thing. Mfume won in a landslide. If he wanted, he could have become mayor after Schmoke stepped down in a landslide, but he felt his energies were best devoted to a national agenda at the NAACP. Of course, the fact that the NAACP HQ is in Northwest Baltimore probably didn't hurt either. He grew up as a ne're-do-well in a bad neighborhood in a bad city and was able to recontruct himself from the grown up into a titanic figure on the American scene. Mfume, to me, is a living embodiment of what is possible.


Eddie Murray
Baltimore had been a one-sport town years before the Colts left like thieves in the night on a Mayflower moving truck. To put it mildly, they sucked. And, since losing to Broadway Joe & the Jets in 1969, they'd only been back to the Super Bowl once.

In that same stretch of time, the Baltimore Orioles had been to the World Series five times, and won twice. The Orioles ruled the city, and, long before anyone had ever even heard of any of those guys named Ripken, the king of Memorial Stadium was Eddie Murray.

Talk about a black icon. Eddie didn't talk to the press. Eddie didn't smile. He didn't even like it when the crowd went crazy and chanted his name "Ed-die! Ed-die! Ed-die! Ed-die!". The brother just went out there and hit home runs. Just a pissed-off Black man in a tighty-whitey '70's baseball uniform who absolutely did not give a damn that his afro did not fit inside the cap with the cartoon bird on it. What, you got something to say? I didn't think so. Man, when I was 10 years old, watching the O's smack around the Phillies in the Fall Classic, Eddie was better than Shaft in Africa.


Benjamin Banneker
I pretty much summed up my feelings about Benjamin Banneker in an old Macroscope post entitled "The Brother Who Trumped Einstein". But, just for the whirlwind version: Banneker was a free black farmer in a slave state a century before the Civil War who taught himself mathematics so that he was able to public his own almanacs, predict a theory that, in many was, was a precursor to special relativity, do the surveying & design of Washington D.C., and even attempted to predict his own death. I was a little black boy in a Gifted & Talented Math program in the same slave state when I read this. I LOVED this man.

Kicking Ass

Kicking Ass
I can't make this stuff up. After receiving a second mail from the Republican National Committee asking for my support (no, I have never voted for nor registered as a Republican), I decided to see what my silent friends the Democrats were up to, and maybe encourage them to try some direct marketing to their constituency instead of sitting on their, er, ass. So I get to the web site at www.democrats.org and I see that the Democrats have started a blog called. . . Kicking Ass. I'm not sure how I feel about it, but I do know I'm annoyed by the fact that between me one of my friends in particular, we have been contacted approximately 7 times by the Republican party and not once by the Democrats. You want me? Don't count on my black-ness or my labor-ness or my liberal-ness. Come get me. That's what Dean's doing.

-C. G. Brown

SOMEONE PLEASE SHUT HIM UP!
So, any true fan of Ian Fleming's seminal superspy knows that James Bond's cover when he travels around the world is that he's a business executive for Universal Exports, a fictitious company that serves as a front for Her Majesty's Secret Service.

In the same vein, Joseph Wilson's wife, a real-life intelligence agent under non-official cover, used to travel on missions regarding WMDs under the cover of being an energy expert in the employ of a company without a real office or telephone - i.e. a facade to hide her real employers, the C.I.A.

Now, why do I know about this?

BECAUSE ROBERT NOVAK NAMED THE FREAKING COMPANY ON CNN!

Novak, in an attempt to prove that this whole scandal is just a left-wing witchhunt, looked up the Wilson's political contributions, and saw that Wilson's wife gave to Gore's 2000 campaign under the name of said company. Novak went on to say that, since it wasn't a real company, she clearly wasn't undercover because, as far as he knew, they're not supposed to give the names of a false employer.

So, now, the North Korean, Iranian, Pakistani, and Libyan intelligence services can see if there were any other American citizens doing business in their countries for this company and can reasonably assume than those people are CIA operatives and any natives associated with them are probably spies for the Americans. Those agents will get kicked out, and those people will be killed. And the CIA will have to retire that company front and start a new one.

Is he such a stupid conservative lap dog that he doesn't understand he's jeopardizing national security every time he opens his mouth?!?!?!

Arnold Unplugged - It's hasta la vista to $9 billion if the Governator is selected

The New Puppet
For those of you who are considering voting for Arnold Schwarzenegger next Tuesday, consider this:

Gray Davis is trying to get the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to force Enron and the other power companies to give back to California the $9 billion dollars they sucked out of the state during the energy crisis. And Cruz Bustamante is the plantiff in a lawsuit against Enron for the same debacle. Also for $9 billion dollars.

In May of 2001, one month after Bustamante's suit was introduced into the courts, Arnold had a meeting with Ken Lay, the CEO of Enron, here in Los Angeles.

Did I mention that next year's budget shortfall in California is expected to be about $8 billion dollars?

So, since the governor & the lt. governor are the the guys making all the noise about the energy crisis, Bush's people at FERC are pushing for an out-of-court settlement for roughly a 3rd of the money they stole from the state.

Gray Davis won't go for it. Suddenly, there's a campaign to recall Davis.

Cruz Bustamante won't go for it. Suddenly, Bustamante is being smeared for taking money from Native Americans.

But everyone who's at least read this far has to know that Arnold is going to go for it, hook line and sinker. They make him governor, he OK's the theft of $9 billion dollars from the State of California.

PLEASE read this article by Greg Palast.

And then, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE vote NO on the Recall.

Fiscal Doomsday in the Offing (washingtonpost.com)

That's not the horizon ahead.....
David Broder is a syndicated political columnist for the Washington Post, and, as far as pundits go, he's pretty tame. I think he's just to old & conservative to get too partisan in either direction. I tend to read him when I want to get the voice of reason's perspective.

And now, even Broder is saying that Bush's tax policy has engineered a time bomb in the American economy that's going to go off a decade from now. Quoting a consortium of three bi-partisan economic research groups, Broder states:

if current policies remain, balancing the budget by 2013 will require raising individual and corporate income taxes by 27 percent, cutting Social Security by 60 percent, cutting defense by 73 percent or cutting all programs -- except defense, homeland security, Social Security and Medicare -- by 40 percent.

Fresh Air: Friday - October 3, 2003

The Other Side
Grover Norquist is the head of Americans for Tax Reform, and organization that, as you might have guessed, thinks we pay too much in taxes and devotes tons of time, money, & influence to reduce the Federal tax rates.

Grover Norquist has also said he really wants to reduce the size of government until it's small enough to, "drown in the bathtub".

Hmmn.

Norquist is, in many ways, the mastermind behind the Bush tax policy.

Here, in an interview he conducted on NPR this week, Norquist states such gems as
the American people and The Government are two separate and antagonist entities. I guess he missed that whole "of the people, by the people, for the people" business, huh?

I'm always a little scared of really rich guys who think the government does too much. I wonder what's illegal now that Grover & his buddies really want to do. Paul Krugman seems to have an idea, and it's not pretty.