Lets Watch and Observe the 2010 U.S. Census

We have known for a long time that the US Census has plenty of kinks, although I personally wasn't aware of the intense political contentions surrounding the census until recently. Dr. King spoke about in his speech "A Knock at Midnight" how the census taker missed Black people and other people of color when counting the census because they "didn't count those that ran with the census taker came thinking that it was a bill-collector." Now, I am not sure what the Republicans want to do in terms of messing with the census to work for the advantage of white folks (and that,my darlings, is simply what it is) but we are going to watch and be damned if they try anything, because we will be on their asses.

If You're Out There

John Legend

If you hear this message, wherever you stand
I'm calling every woman, calling every man
We're the generation
We can't afford to wait
The future started yesterday and we're already late

We've been looking for a song to sing
Searched for a melody
Searched for someone to lead
We've been looking for the world to change
If you feel the same
Then go on and say

If you're out there
Sing along with me
If you're out there
I'm dying to believe that you're out there
Stand up and say it loud
If you're out there
Tomorrow's starting now
Now, now

No more broken promises
No more call to war
Unless it's love and peace that we're really fighting for
We can destroy hunger
We can conquer hate
Put down the arms and raise your voice
We're joining hands today

Oh I was looking for a song to sing
I searched for a leader
But the leader was me
We were looking for the world to change
We can be heroes
Just go on and say

If you're out there
Sing along with me
If you're out there
I'm dying to believe that you're out there
Stand up and say it loud
If you're out there
Tomorrow's starting now
Now, now

Oh now, now

If you're ready we can shake the world
Believe again
It starts within
We don't have to wait for destiny
We should be the change that we want to see

If you're out there
Ooooh
If you're out there
And you're ready now
Say it loud
Scream it out

If you're out there
Sing along with me
If you're out there
I'm dying to believe that you're out there
Stand up and say it loud
If you're out there
Tomorrow's starting now

If you're out there
If you're out there
If you're out there

If you hear this message, wherever you stand
I'm calling every woman, calling every man
We're the generation
We can't afford to wait
The future started yesterday and we're already late

Everybody Knows

John Legend

It gets harder every day, but I can't seem to shake the pain
I'm trying to find the words to say, please say
It's written all over my face, I can't
Function the same when you're not here
I'm calling your name and no one's there
And I hope one day you'll see nobody has it easy,
I still can't believe you found somebody new
But I wish you the best, I guess.
'Cause everybody knows, that nobody really knows
How to make it work, or how to ease the hurt
We've heard it all before, that everybody knows
How to make it right, I wish we gave it one more try
One more try
One more try
'Cause everybody knows, but nobody really knows

I don't care what the people say
They brought it all in anyway
Baby don't fill up your head with he-said, she-said
It seems like you just don't know
The radio's on, you tuning me out,
I'm trying to speak, you're turning me down
And I hope one day you'll see nobody has it easy,
I still can't believe you found somebody new
But I wish you the best, I guess.
'Cause everybody knows, that nobody really knows
How to make it work, or how to ease the hurt
We've heard it all before, that everybody knows
How to make it right, I wish we gave it one more try
One more try
One more try
One more try
'Cause everybody knows, but nobody really knows

Oh I wish you'd understand
Oh, just an ordinary man
Listen we'd have known
Everybody knows, but nobody really knows
And I know one day you'll see, nobody has it easy
I still can't believe you found somebody new
I wish you the best, I guess.

'Cause everybody knows, that nobody really knows
How to make it work, or how to ease the hurt
We've heard it all before, that everybody knows
How to make it right, I wish we gave it one more try
One more try
One more try
One more try
'Cause everybody knows, but nobody really knows

Brahma

Ralph Waldo Emerson

If the red slayer thinks he slays
Or if the slain thinks he is slain
They know not well the subtle ways
I keep, and pass, and turn again.

Far or forgot to me is near;
Shadow and sunlight are the same;The vanished gods to me appear;
And one to me are shame and fame.

They reckon ill who leave me out;
When they fly, I am the wings;
I am the doubter and the doubt,
and I the hymn the Brahmin' sings.

The strong gods pine for my abode,
And pine in vain the sacred Seven;
But thou, meek lover of the good!
Find me, and turn thy back on heaven.

Concepts of Beauty Show-On Blogtalkradio at Noon Today

Whitney's Back!

Also Kudos to Whitney Houston for a great comeback!

Last Night Grammys!

What a great list of winners! Kudos to Jennifer Hudson, Mary J Blige, Alison Kraus,Alicia Keys, John Legend, Adele,Estelle and Kanye West,Chrisette Michelle and Will.i.am., the Winans, Mary Mary, and Terrence Blanchard! Wow!

I am watching one of my favorite films,Le Divorce and thinking about Isabel's relationship with Uncle Edgar. Ohh Uncle Edgar! I had my own Uncle Edgar...but he wasn't rich (that I know of), he was a graduate studebt, but he was 41, hot, and Russian. A post-communism Russian, totally capitalistic, he used to ask me "Brandon, why are you so in love with Angela Davis?" haha...

What's Love Got To Do With It?

Tina Turner




You must understand
Though the touch of your hand
Makes my pulse react
That it's only the thrill
Of boy meeting girl
Opposites attract
It's physical
Only logical
You must try to ignore
That it means more than that

[Chorus:]
What's love got to do, got to do with it
What's love, but a second-hand emotion
What's love got to do, got to do with it
Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken

It may seem to you
That I'm acting confused
When you're close to me
If I tend to look dazed
I read it some place
I've got cause to be
There's a name for it
There's a phrase fits
But whatever the reason
You do it for me

[Chorus]

I've been taking on a new direction
And I have to say
I've been thinking 'bout my own protection
It scares me to feel this way

[Chorus]

What's love got to do, got to do with it
What's love, but a sweet old fashioned notion
What's love got to do, got to do with it
Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken

If this country falls apart it will not be the fault of Barack Obama.

Poem For Josephine Baker

Sizzling hot chocolate
and coffee with a dash of liquer.
A snowfall
winter in paris
chocolate chaux en hiver
ballet slippers hanging from
the ballet bars
a grammophone left playing
while no ones in the room.
See that lady in luxurious white fur
her coffee colored skin enchanting as she makes
her way down the boulevard
a leopard in diamonds
her voice rouses a nation
the swivel of her hips enchant the world.
See that star bursting open into the firmaments?
That
is
Josephine

Essay-Memoir pt.1

“Go over there and tell them who you are.” Name recognition is something that I caught on to early. Kinship and family ties were entrenched into my psyche from the earliest part of my childhood. Invoking the name of John Archie DeRamus or Morgan Goodson when I was a child usually illicited kisses and hugs or pats on the head from perfumed older ladies or firm handshakes and knowing, generous smiles from the older men. The incantation of a name could open doors, make you allies, secure bank loans, cement one’s social standing. That said, much broader than the perks that come with being associated with a family name, the clan I come from is large and sprawling, like climbing roses and also like the climbing rose, it carries its own allure, attractiveness, and thorns. This essay is an attempt to explore my roots and my familial bonds. It is an effort towards clarity and an attempt to discover and rediscover for myself the interesting twinge of cosmos that is my makeup. I began this essay speaking of my maternal family, which has left the most prominent imprint on my childhood. However, I want to engage my paternal side as well which has been more elusive and much more foreign to me. My grandfather, Edward Carl Wallace, was a preacher’s son and as I have deciphered it, never did a legitimate days work in his life. My grandfather worked for the mob in Chicago for the entirety of his career. He was a superstitious man and would scare the bejesus out of me as a young boy whenever I would go over to his house with his talk of ghosts and his belief that his dead wife and daughter were coming to get him. I never wanted to stay at his house for too long. He bought holy water and blessed oils by the buckets and frequently made the rounds to churches that promised to cure his arthritis, gout, and other ailments. One story passed to me has it that once he carried my younger cousin with him to a ceremony where they sacrificed a live chicken and laid hands on him. My grandfather was always an enigma to me, a slightly odd picture one could never quite figure out. He had green or blue eyes, white skin, and was completely bald. He was an exact picture of James Carville aged thirty years. He was an opportunity Catholic, meaning that when the right opportunity came along to benefit his children, he became a Catholic. He liked to read my stories and always wanted me to send them to him in the mail or read them over the telephone. He died in my junior year of college. My grandmother, whom I didn’t know, was also the child of a minister. A Baptist her entire life, she went to Spelman College, became a teacher, and had thirteen children. Her brother was some kind of football star in Kentucky. From what I’ve read of the family history, some of her people, the Woodsons, her maternal line, were free people who founded towns in Michigan and other parts of the Midwest.
The two sides of my family met in Chicago with my mother and my paternal aunts all going to Catholic School together at St. Michael’s on the Northside. St. Michael’s was down the street from the famed Cooley High. The children of Cooley High were notoriously juvenile delinquents, bad asses known for their roughness. The poor children of St. Michael’s, who were obliged to share the El back to the Southside with the children of Cooley high , were given the options of running for it, staying and fighting, or getting the shit kicked out of them by the children of Cooley High.
My maternal grandmother moved to Chicago in 1965, the fourth of her siblings to do so. My grandmother arrived in the city after the Great Migration, as a result of a vendetta against her family, carried out after the death of her brother-in-law. My Uncle Archie moved to Chicago first in the early Sixties. He was followed by my Aunt Bertie, then my Aunt Johnnie, and later my grandmother. They all moved to the city for different reasons. My grandmother and Aunt Bertie were both fired from the Autauga County School system in 1963-64, following the death of my Aunt Bertie’s husband, Sterling McDavid, or Fess as he was called. He died in 1963. Fess was the most important Black man in Autauga County as the principal of Autaugaville, or the Autauga County Training School as it was called then. Autuagaville was then and still is the school for Blacks in Autauga County. Fess had been the principal of Autaugaville for nearly fifty years when he died. He was the principal when my grandmother and her siblings attended the school and was principal at his death. His funeral was a great occasion. Held in the gymnasium at Autaugaville, it was attended by many dignitaries. His portrait was hung in the auditorium, where it still hung when I was a child. People still speak of Fess McDavid with great admiration. Fess was widely respected and revered, but he was not loved by all. Many whites resented him because he was educated, had studied at Columbia, and even more so because he did what he wanted to do. Under Fess’ tenure, Autaugaville was the best school in the county, black or white. You can look at the number of medical doctors, lawyers, teachers, Phds, and other learned people that came out of those classes at Autaugaville and see what Fess McDavid inspired at his school. The white superintendents resented him because he had typewriters for his students and they did not. He brought academics and experts from Tuskegee to not only train his students, but to teach the local farmers and other people better techniques of farming, canning, and other industries. His first wife, Mary Foster McDavid, had been the President of the National Congress of Colored Parents and Teachers. What Fess wanted, he got. If he wanted typewriters, he got them. If he wanted new books, he got them, if he wanted a library, he got that. One of the biggest incidents that served as a rift between Fess and some of the whites in the county came when a young white girl from a prominent family got pregnant by a Black boy. Upon becoming pregnant, she was put out of school, as was customary during that time, but her family wanted her to finish her education. Fess was approached on their behalf and was asked to allow her to attend the Black school. His reply was a no. He told them that if she couldn’t go to their school then she couldn’t attend his and they weren’t going to push their problem onto his school. That ruffled a lot of feathers.
Unable to touch him while he was alive, they waited until after he died to get their revenge. My grandmother says that the day after his funeral, the white superintendent, Mr. Hodges, showed up at the door of the home my Aunt Bertie shared with Fess, which was situated on Autaugaville’s campus. She said he approached them at the door and told my Aunt Bertie, “You’re welcome to stay here in the house as long as you want. Just get your sister Thelma (my grandmother)to stay with you.” Now, it was known in the county that Mr. Hodges liked Black women . It was also known that several of the Black teachers slept with him in order to get jobs, or keep jobs, or get their husbands jobs. The insinuation was clear. My grandmother said my Aunt Bertie began packing that night and moved back in with her parents. The next week, she was fired from her teaching position. She later joined my Uncle Archie in Chicago. My grandmother was fired at the end of the year and my Aunt Earnestine was relieved of her principalship and placed back in the classroom. From their, my grandmother went to Mobile where she substitute taught and then went to New York where she received a permanent teacher’s certificate. She finally settled in Chicago and taught there for the next twenty years. She later brought my mother to Chicago with her.
In Chicago, my grandmother was one of the first three teachers to integrate the Northside of the city. My grandmother says that when they told my Aunt Earnestine that she would be teaching in a white school for the first time she cried like a baby. She said when her principal told her to go to the Northside, she just said her prayers and went on. She and the other Black teachers stuck together. During that first winter term, some white teenagers decided that they were going to throw snowballs at the Black teachers as they made their way to the train to take them back to the Southside. They had huge piles of snowballs prepared to throw them. My grandmother says that the three of them thought to turn back towards the school , but instead she walked up to the ringleader and told him “I did not get up at 4:30 in the morning to come over here and let you throw snowballs at me! Not one snowball better touch me or any of these teachers or else I will tear this school down and the whole of the Northside with it!” With that, she and the other teachers made their way on towards the train. That is my grandmother’s temperament. One time while my grandmother was teaching in Opp, Alabama, my grandmother and another teacher were taking their classes out into the schoolyard for recess. There was a huge peach tree in the yard that was filled with worms and my grandmother warned her students not to play under the tree because she was afraid of worms and she wouldn’t be able to come and get them. Now, my grandmother, who does not like animals (she likes dogs and other animals, in their place) is deathly afraid of any kind of bug. The other teacher, who had heard my grandmother admonish her students not to play under the tree, decided that the thing to do was to go and break a limb off of the tree and wave it in front of my grandmother’s face. After several attempts to make the woman stop, my grandmother picked up a great big stick and struck the other teacher across the face with such force that she tore the woman’s earring out of her ear. The other woman, clearly stunned, decided to continue. She told my grandmother, “Oh Thelma, you know I wasn’t going to put those worms on you. Just for that I’m going to put them on you.” My grandmother told her “Woman, if you touch me again with those worms, I’ll strike you so hard you’ll hear thunder.” At the end of her career, her principal apparently irritated her so that she took all of her unused sick leave and vacation time and moved back to Alabama, making the principal pay her salary and a substitute for the entire next year until my grandmother decided to file for retirement. Thank God for the Chicago Teacher’s Union.
My grandmother is not the only one in her family with that temperament. Actually, all of her brothers and sisters and everyone on the maternal side of her family share the exact same temperament (with the exception, perhaps, of my Aunt Earnestine, who was more DeRamus than Goodson). Her grandfather, Morgan Goodson, the son of a full blooded Cherokee woman named Pee-Wy and a mulatto slave named Philip Goodson, had the reputation of being the meanest man in Autauga County. They said he knew more about the law than anyone else around and if you had a question concerning the law, go to Morgan Goodson. They also said he had red eyes and could tell the future. He is said to have told the exact day and hour of his death. When Morgan Goodson took his cotton to the cotton gin to sell it, the owner of the gin is to have said, “ You hurry up and you get Morgan Goodson out of here and make sure his accounts are correct because he is a crazy nigger and you just don’t know what he might do.” Morgan was a dark-skinned man and married a quadroon, my great-grandmother Mattie Roper, who was indistinguishable from a white woman. He was said to not allow any white people in his home except for his mother-in-law. He also said that he didn’t raise his children(meaning particularly his girls, of which there were seven or eight) to work in any white man’s kitchen. He built a church, raised fifteen children to adulthood, and left four hundred acres of land. One of his sons, Macaulay, received his Phd and also served as a principal in Autauga County. One day he was fussing and yelling so his wife told him, “Morgan, if you continue fussing at me my heart is going to overflow.” She got up to use the restroom and fell over dead. His daughter, my great grandmother, Sadie, shared his temperament. She would fuss excessively and would often only be quieted when her husband, my great-grandfather John Archie, would speak to her and say , ”Sadie, that’s enough.” When she had gotten old and had lost her mind, they had to keep her hands tied to the bed and a bridle in her mouth to keep her from biting people.
My Uncle Lawrence, their son and my favorite uncle, also had this temperament. He was renowned for it. The seventh child of my great-grandparents, Sadie and John Archie DeRamus, Lawrence skipped several grades and finished at Alabama State University after returning from Korea. He began teaching fifth grade in Enterprise, Alabama, where he settled and married. Lawrence DeRamus was a resourceful and intuitive man. He loved to read and had long intellectual discussions and debates with his brother and one of his cousins, and had a deep interest in African History and Black culture. When he saw a need, he filled it. Early on in his career, he started a Head Start program and a credit union for teachers in Coffee County. He had a hardwood floor installed in the gymnasium. He started a spelling bee and a boy scout troop. He also had his students start savings accounts and put money in it each day. The white principal did not like this. My Uncle said that one day the principal came into his classroom set on intimidating him. That man did not know Lawrence DeRamus. He said that he was at his desk in front of his students and the man came up in front of him and demanded of him “Who do you work for?” My uncle replied, “Who do you think I work for?” My uncle said he always kept a hunting knife in his desk drawer and after several more words had been exchanged, he made like he was going for his drawer and he told that man, “The next time you come up in here and talk to me like that in front of my children I’m going to have my foot so far up your butt you won’t be able to walk out of here.” He said that man ran out of that room as fast as he could. Later, when my uncle was working for OCAP, the head of the Ku Klux Klan called him and asked him, “I hear you have a white secretary.” My Uncle replied, “yes I do.” He said, “ Don’t you drive up such and such a highway at night on your way home?” My uncle said, “Yes I do.” The man asked him “Well, aren’t you scared?” My Uncle said, “No, I’m not because I always carry a gun right near to my hand and if you want to do something to me then you better come on and bring Jesus with you because I tell you if I have to go I intend to take some of you with me.”Lawrence Deramus was a good and generous man, but he was a dangerous man. He had a violent temper and god help the soul who ever felt it (thank god I never did). When he died in 2002, the Governor of Alabama sent a letter of condolence to his family. Several dignitaries attended his funeral. He also received many accolades for his work over the years including founding the Coffee County chapter of the NAACP, starting the Head Start program in the Blackbelt region, starting a Credit Union, and his work at Fort Rucker implementing anti-discrimination policies.

Be Nobodys Darling

Alice Walker

Be nobody's darling;
Be an outcast.
Take the contradictions
Of your life
And wrap around
You like a shawl,
To parry stones
To keep you warm.

Watch the people succumb
To madness
With ample cheer;
Let them look askance at you
And you askance reply.

Be an outcast;
Be pleased to walk alone
(Uncool)
Or line the crowded
River beds
With other impetuous
Fools.

Make a merry gathering
On the bank
Where thousands perished
For brave hurt words
They said.

Be nobody's darling;
Be an outcast.
Qualified to live
Among your dead.

I am so in love with the new equal pay law!

Karl Rove should be made to testify before Congress. I hope the Obama administration cooperates with John Conyers.

John Legend -Take Me Away

Oh, la la la la la
Yeah, yeah

We dance and sing
Somewhere in between heaven and hell
Gabrielle, that was her name
Everyone was smiling
Even through their tears, under a spell
But in Gabby’s eyes, nothing
I ask, do you not like the music
She says it’s alright
But she dances to her own sad tune
She says…

Take me away from here
Take me somewhere where love is like breathing
I don’t care where we go
Long as I’m there with you, baby
Long as I’m there with you

I could tell she’s been through pain I could only dream
Nightmares that live where you live
Tears well in her eyes, but she wouldn’t let them fall
I’d give the world to know where her smile is
I ask will you dance with me now
Let me try to figure out
The fastest rout out of town
And she said…

Take me away from here
Take me somewhere where love is like breathing
I don’t care where we go
Long as I’m there with you, baby
Long as I’m there with you

Oh, I got a full tank of gas girl
Anywhere, you wanna go girl
All you have to do is ask girl
Oh, she said…

Take me away from here
Take me somewhere where love is like breathing
I don’t care where we go
Long as I’m there with you, baby
Long as I’m there with you

Citigroup Buys $45million Jet After Getting $45billion Bailout

Let Me Get This Straight

Republicans want to 1.) Not Feed the Children 2.) Let people sit in the dark without access to the very airwaves that belong to them and 3.) Give money back to rich people. Oh so so so very typical!

Today is National Pro-Choice Day. Happy Pro-Choice Day!

I do believe that corporate media is the biggest purveyor of cynicism in the world.

Inaugural Address

I Want to Post These Poems Here and Study Them

ELIZABETH ALEXANDER: “Praise Song for the Day.”


Each day we go about our business,
walking past each other, catching each other’s
eyes or not, about to speak or speaking.


All about us is noise. All about us is
noise and bramble, thorn and din, each
one of our ancestors on our tongues.


Someone is stitching up a hem, darning
a hole in a uniform, patching a tire,
repairing the things in need of repair.


Someone is trying to make music somewhere,
with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum,
with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.


A woman and her son wait for the bus.
A farmer considers the changing sky.
A teacher says, Take out your pencils. Begin.


We encounter each other in words, words
spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed,
words to consider, reconsider.


We cross dirt roads and highways that mark
the will of some one and then others, who said
I need to see what’s on the other side.


I know there’s something better down the road.
We need to find a place where we are safe.
We walk into that which we cannot yet see.


Say it plain: that many have died for this day.
Sing the names of the dead who brought us here,
who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges,


picked the cotton and the lettuce, built
brick by brick the glittering edifices
they would then keep clean and work inside of.


Praise song for struggle, praise song for the day.
Praise song for every hand-lettered sign,
the figuring-it-out at kitchen tables.


Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself,
others by first do no harm or take no more
than you need. What if the mightiest word is love?


Love beyond marital, filial, national,
love that casts a widening pool of light,
love with no need to pre-empt grievance.


In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air,
any thing can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp,


praise song for walking forward in that light.



ALICE WALKER: A poem honoring the people who don’t believe this is happening. I wanted to write a poem for the people who are still saying, “Oh, no, this can’t happen,” you know, because all along the line of this struggle to get Barack Obama to the White House, people feared that something awful would happen to him, and so many people hold so many angers and pains that they just can’t believe today. So this is a poem for the people who basically don’t believe that it’s happening. It’s called “The World Has Changed.”


The World Has Changed:
Wake up & smell
The possibility.
The world
Has changed:
It did not
Change
Without
Your prayers
Without
Your faith
Without
Your determination
To
Believe
In liberation
&
Kindness;
Without
Your
Dancing
Through the years
That
Had
No
Beat.
The world has changed:
It did not
Change
Without
Your
Numbers
Your
Fierce
Love
Of self
&
Cosmos
It did not
Change
Without
Your
Strength.
The world has
Changed:
Wake up!
Give yourself
The gift
Of a new
Day.
The world has changed:
This does not mean that
You were never
Hurt.
The world
Has changed:
Rise!
Yes
&
Shine!
Resist the siren
Call
Of
Disbelief.
The world has changed:
Don’t let
Yourself
Remain
Asleep
To
It.

Poem I Wrote

The way we were in West Lafayette, Indiana
Barbra Streisand amidst conformity and corn
they shoot horses don't they rising out of
the bathrooms in the Union
Creativty rising throgh the cracks in the concrete
Touching the slender thread threatens to pull apart
the very fabric that holds it together
The citygo bus rounds the corner towards the mall

I very much like Peggy Noonan.

Welcome President and Mrs. Obama!

I love the Isabel Toledo!

Today was also for Queen Liliuokalani. She can now reclaim her island.

My Lord What A Morning-Marion Anderson

I knew Obama was going to win when Stevie Wonder wrote that song for him. Always works

You can play the game and you can act out the part
Though you know it wasnt written for you
But tell me, how can you stand there with your broken heart
Ashamed of playing the fool
One thing can lead to another; it doesnt take any sacrifice
Oh, father and mother, sister and brother
If it feels nice, dont think twice

Just shower the people you love with love
Show them the way that you feel
Things are gonna work out fine if you only will
Shower the people you love with love
Show them the way you feel
Things are gonna be much better if you only will

You can run but you cannot hide
This is widely known
And what you plan to do with your foolish pride
When youre all by yourself alone
Once you tell somebody the way that you feel
You can feel it beginning to ease
I think its true what they say about the squeaky wheel
Always getting the grease.

Better to shower the people you love with love
Show them the way that you feel
Things are gonna be just fine if you only will
Shower the people you love with love
Show them the way that you feel
Things are gonna be much better if you only will

Shower the people you love with love
Show them the way that you feel

Youll feel better right away
Dont take much to do
Sell you pride
They say in every life
They say the rain must fall
Just like pouring rain
Make it rain
Make it rain
Love, love, love is sunshine.
Oh yes
Make it rain
Love, love, love is sunshine
Yeah, all right
Everybody, everybody
Shower the people you love with love

God Bless Bolivia and Venezeula! Send Israel to the World Court!

Show Me

John Legend

I realized as I lay down to sleep
We haven't spoke in weeks
So many things that I'd like to know
Come have a talk with me
I need a sign, something I can see
Why all the mystery?
I try not to fall for make believe
But what is reality?
Where do we go?
What do we know?
Life has to have a meaning
Show me the light
Show me the way
Show that you're listening

Show me that you love me
Show me that you walk with me
Hopefully, just above me
Heaven's watching over me

Guess it's funny how I say thanks to you
For all you've given me
Sometimes the price of what you gave to me
I can't stop questioning
O God of love, peace, and mercy
Why so much suffering?
I pray for the world, it gets worse to me
Wonder if you're listening
When people go
Why do they go?
Why don't you choose me?
But someday I know
I'm gonna go
I hope you're waiting for me

Show me that you love me
Show me that you walk with me
Hopefully, just above me
Heaven's watching over me

Maybe we'll talk
Some other night
Right now I'll take it easy
Won't spent my time
Waiting to die
Enjoy the life I'm living

Show me that you love me
Show me that you walk with me
Hopefully, just above me
Heaven's watching over me

I LOVE Project Runway Canada!

A Story I wrote In a Notebook A Long Time ago and want to record before It gets lost again

Myrtle's feet were sore and tender having been pricked and stabbed throughout her two days of walking. She had lost her shoes along the way, but in truth felt nothing but damned tired ever since she had been put out by her mistress that past monday night. Myrtle wasn't used to walking. She had been finely bred, raised in the Worthington's house, sleeping at the foot of Alice Worthington's bed. She had always shared in the finest clothes and shoes and really anything her heart desired, especially since the age of 14 when she learned the art of lovemaking and became the mistress to the new Master of the House, Adam. She was prized as a mistress because year after year, since she had assumed the role of his courtesan, she had never become pregnant and beyond that she was demure and ladylike and as graceful as any white woman.

As she hobbled down the long, winding road, her ankles weary, making her way through the woods headed to nowhere, she felt the presence at the bottom of her stomach, that awkward feeling that told her that life was growing inside of her. Her mistress had been extremely jealous of her and when the end of the war came to Charlotte and her master lay crippled and sick and on his deathbed, she wasted not a second in expelling her from the plantation.

As she walked, she wondered what she might do, she was too dark to pass for white and too well-kept to do hard labor. She spoke french and had a prized hand. She had been promised her own plot by Adam Worthington before he fell ill. She walked and fidgeted with her fingers, wondering.

For a slave, she had been quite privileged. She had been to France and Martinique, accompanying her young Mistress Anne before she had grown and become a neglected and jealous housewife. She had had access to books and learning, even keeping books in her own cottage after Master Adam had set her up in her own quarters. She thought back to when Adam had her house built. Master had gotten the sturdiest of his slaves and even some of the white trash, to cut wood and hall stones and sew and hammer for eight straight months til her cottage was complete with three rooms, a kitchen, an arbor, and a huge garden.

"Ain't you a dainty fine mistress," Huckajoe had said to her, the white of his teeth a glaring contrast against his stark black skin as he broke ground for her garden. She was 28 and a whore as most slaves figured her. Many of them were worse than Mistress Anne, whom she always addressed,when she had to address her, as Mrs. Worthington, not mistress. Anne had been extremely jealous since Master Worthington first visited Myrtle's bed. After their first liason, Anne Worthington beat her so bad with a piece of chicken wire she thought she might die. When Master Adam found out, he in turn beat Anne near to death. She never ventured to touch her again, but worked to no end to make her life as difficult as possible, including turning the slaves against her. When mammy stopped sending food down to Myrtle's cabin, Adam bought her her own chef, who also acted as a footman and a butler in her house. He had her portrait commissioned and it hung in place over the hearth in her living room. When she was dismissed, she placed the heavy portrait in a sack and it was the only thing she carried with her from the house.

She had to go into town soon and rest her weary self, otherwise she would collapse right their in the woods and be eaten by something wild. She had seen many others along the road as well, walking along with her. Their ragged clothes and bare black feet were anxious and roaming. She had been tossed into nowhere and as she let the gate of the Worthington plantation swing shut and walked across the bridge that took her from the South Carolina Sea Island that she had known her whole life, she prayed she'd find some place to go. She made her way into the town of Beaufort and hobbled towards a mound of hay next to a public horse stall and their collapsed.

The sunlight burned her face and eyelids. She felt a nudging at her shoulder.
"Wake up nigger!" the man held a stick in his hand and poked her. "By God all of you aimless niggers, got you laying around all over the place!" He nudged her some more and she shifted awake. "This hay if for feeding horses! You are obstructing my business! Get up!" She looked up to see a white haired white man standing before her.

Noah Wylde was a towering man at six feet and his temerity and tenacity were seen in the black velvet vest and top hat he wore in the middle of July heat. He wore a gruffy white beard that with his unkempt white hair aged him twenty years past his forty-five years. Myrtle rose sheepishly from the mouond of hay her heavy sack laying slightly underneath her. She tugged it, heavily bouncing it up, but not able to lift it on her first try.

"What's that in your sack?" he looked on in curiosity. She still hadn't seen anything, dumbfounded by sleep and the shock of being assailed by a white man. "Let me see whats in your bag." She pulled at the bag trying to prevent him, but he succesfully grabbed it from her. The sack tugged downward on his hand and he sensed it was something heavy and expensive. He pulled the sack covering down around the portraid and felt its gold frame with his fingertips. "What?" he grumbled feeling the gold under his hand. He quickly pulled the sack down around the portraid and took a look. He paused with a long silence as he looked at the picture. He looked back up at her face and then down ath the portrait again. "So this is you?" He held the portrait in his hands.

"Yes sir, it is." She answered him half afraid. She wondered if he would take the portrait and leave her alone or what exactly his plans were. She had $130 in her pocket, the only other thing she had taken from the cottage--money she had saved from her allowances that at one point she had thought of giving to Adam to help him in his dire straits now that the Worthington plantation was destitute and worthless. he looked at her again, questions in his eyes.

"What kind of woman are you?" His eyes examined her. "you've certainly been well-kept. You've got a dress on that used to be nice. And this portrait is quite expensive. Tell me, who are you?"

"Myrtle Poitiers," she looked up at him. " I lived on the Worthington plantation out in the Gullah country."

"Were you a concubine?" he asked her frankly. She smiled demurely.

"I was well kept. I was a house slave." He cocked a grin to match hers.

"Are you headed some place?"

"No place in particular." She slightly kicked her foot.

"Well, come along, we'll see what can be done. Can't have you sleeping out here in my hay."
He took her to his house and put her to bed in his only guest room. The next day, he summoned her to meet him in the front parlor by the front door.

"Now, if you're going to stay here, you're going to have to work and you're going to have to pay rent."

"Yes sir." she shook her head obligingly.

"Now, I've arranged work for you as a laundress over at the hotel. They'll pay you two dollars a week for the washing. as for your rent, I'll ask a dollar every other week for board and seventy-five cents every week for food. That means at the end of each month you'll pay me..."he stopped in mid sentence trying to figure it in his head.

"Five dollars," she stopped him in his thoughts. He looked at her, bemused again at the thought that she could calculate--and calculate more quickly in her head than he could out loud.

"You can figure like that in your head?" he questioned her. She threw him a haughty look, taking pleasure at his bemusement.

"I can also read and write in both English and French." Noah grunted under his breath.

"Well, aren't you high and mighty. I thought they beat slaves if they learned how to read?" She smiled demurely. He pursed his lips and rubbed his chin with interest. He had never been good with figuring and barely more able in the reading and writing department. He had become a postmaster and established his hired carriage business out of pure grit and his natural ability to negotiate like a cougar on the prowl. He was beginning to see where this black vixen standing before him might be useful to him beyond the five dollars he might get from her room and board every month. That next week, Myrtle set out early, five o'clock in the morning, and made her way across the center of town to the hotel where each day she spent eight hours dripping sheets into boiling water then lifting them out to be taken and dried. She took her pay earnestly and at the end of each week she faithfully put aside the money that went towards her room and board. She saw that Noah watched her with keen interest and wondered if he meant to make her his mistress. After a few weeks, they had settled into an easy routine and began to feel most comfortable around each other. One eveing, after supper, Myrtle, was sitting at the table, reading while Noah fussed over his books. He called to her.

"Myrtle, you're good at figuring aren't you?" She looked up at him.

"I spose." her hands rested on the table as her body twisted slgihtly in a yawn. He picked up his ledger and brought it over to her to look at.

"Take a look at this," he laid it in front of her. "I can't for the life of me figure these numbers." She took the book and shook her head, scratching out numbers and figuring in the book.

"This is all wrong." After several minutes, she finished. "There. You really have left one thousand two hundered and seventy-five dolloars. Not six hundred and thirty-two." He studied her and the books, thinking.

"Can you figure like that?" he was a bit awed.

"Yes," she nodded. He paused for a long time, then spoke.

"How about you take up keeping my books for me and helping me out with this business. You won't have to do all that laundry anymore."

"How much do you plan to pay me?" he caught his breath looking at the scrawny black girl sitting across from him. He hadn't counted on paying her at all.

"Ten dollars a month. Plus you won't have to pay room and board anymore." She smiled coyly.

"How about ten percent of your profits every month?" He couldn't exactly gather how much ten percent was, but he nodded his head in agreement. He was intimidated by her wits.

"It'll be a good change for you. You shouldn;t be handling all of that heavy laundry with you carrying a child and all." Her eyes got big.

"You know?"

"I know lots of things, my dear." he smiled. It was her turn to be mystified and stuped.

She began managing his books and slowly began taking on other aspects of his business. She soon became the familiar face checking the public mounds of hay and negotiating contracts. After six months of their collaboration, Myrtle considered herself quite comfortable, having made and managed to save over $400 dollars. By then, she was heavy, with cold and due to deliver, yet tried to hide her pregnancy under heavy,full skirts and belts. She bought a bassinet and hired a midwife to help her with the delivery. The day of her delivery was cold and and dreary and the midwife continually dabbed Myrtle's head as she was sweating profusely. Noah stuck around in the periphery of the house, sometimes drifting out to tend to business. Her belly was swollen enormously and she wormed in the bed trying to make herself confortable. As the first of night fell, the baby came, wailing loudly to match the groans that Myrtle made. The midwife, a tin, frail but strong Black woman, pulled the baby up from the bed and washed him off then sat it on the bed next to Myrtle. Myrtle took the baby in her arms and let out a cry and a laught filled with joy. The midwife wiped the sweat from both of them and performed an old blessing ritual.

"I shall call him Adam." she announced forthrightly. Noah walked in the room shortly aftr the birth and saw the mother and child lying together in their natal bliss. "Noah, look at my new son, Adam Poitier." She glowed as she held her baby in her arms.

"Welcome," Noah cooed over the baby. "Adam is a good name. From the bible. I think it'll stick." He left the room and went and fetched his fiddle. He played for a long while for Myrtle and the tiny baby while the midwife danced in time to his tune. The night was filled with joy and after a long while, the midwife left for home and Noah drifted back into his part of the house to allow Myrtle and the new baby to sleep.

The months went by quickly as Adam grew. Soon, he was two years old, running around in his fine leather shoes, his dark golden curls bouncing on his head, his lightly tanned skin glowing. Myrtle had done well for herself, still maintaining household with Noah and earning $800 dollars a year co-managing Noah's carriage business. She was a hard bargainer and negotiated like a rough sailor. In her dealings though, she expanded Noah's business and eventually threw her hand into owning a sawmill as well. The sawmill became highly successful in just five months of operation and as a result many tongues in Beaufort began to wag in jealousy about Myrtle's business prowess. She had become the richest independent woman in town. She had refrained from social contact for as long as she had been in Beaufort, but quickly decided that as her fortunes grew, it was wise to make appearances and let herself be known to the people of Beaufort. She felt quite blessed that she had grown wealthy and had not needed to depend on the $130 dollars or the portrait. After Adam was born, the portrait was hung above the hearth in the home that she shared with Wylde.

The nature of their relationship was constantly in the mouths of the townspeople. Publicly, she was known as Wylde's housekeeper, but she increasingly ran his business and after she bought the sawmill, the spiteful rumours of her being a concubine flared. In truth, though they had grown close and had formed the closest friendship as well as economic and political alliance, they had never slept together. They existed on mutual appreciation and admiration.

Myrtle set into play her plans to throw a ball for the people of Beaufort taking two months to make careful preparations. Since she had arrived, the town had become integrated with colored businessmen, doctors, lawyers, and politicians all present in the middle and upper classes of Beaufort. She ordered ten hogs slaughtered and roasted for a barbecue. She hired three cooks to bake cakes, make puddings, prepare sweet potatoes and other food stuffs for her ball. She bought 200 bottles of French wine and burgundy and had an oak-enlaid ballroom floor built under a series of tents and draped all of the tables and every other tangible object with silk and satin bunting. The night of her ball, she lit 200candles in the faux ballroom and had her hired help set out enormous servers filled with food on the tables. at 7:30, her guest started to pour in. She had a young servant girl greet each guest at the door and a footman to guide her out to the backyard where the tents were set up. Myrtle had large, plush sofas set out in the huge, constructed rooms under the tents and seated herself on an ottoman and waited to greet each guest.

The first to arrive werethe Covettes. Laura Covette was a prim and proper white woman, the daughter of one of the few remaining prominent Beaufort families that still had money. That was due mostly to the fact that they adapted quickly and adopted the ideas and practices of the new carpetbaggers. She had been quite warm, privately, to Myrtle when she first became known in Beaufort. She was one of the few white women she was on cordial terms with. Throghout the evening, droves of people arrived and merriment was made with liquor flowing in every direction and savory violins being played by young black men near the food section of the tent. Conversation flowed free and easy. At one point in the evening, Laura approached her with a young man with soft blond curls that fell into his face and a slender build.

"Myrtle, I'd like to introduce you to my cousin, Preston Herzog. He's visiting from Washington D.C."

"Hello, Mr. Herzog. Welcome to my party. I hope you're enjoying yourself." Preston bowed deeply and kissed her hand.

"Oh yes, Ms. Poitiers. You are a most gracious hostess." Myrtle was immediately charmed. The violinists began to play a waltz. "May I ask you to dance?" He kept her hand firmly pressed between his.

"Why of course." she batted her eyes coquettishly. Preston nodded at Laura and led Myrtle back onto the floor. Sheinstantly felt secure in his strong arms. His hands were manly and filled hers like warm gloves. She laughed softly into his ear.

"You are a woman alone?" He asked her as they twirled around on the floor.

"Yes I am." she dug her nose into the shoulder of his coat. "I have a son. But if it wasn't for the generosity of Mr. Wylde, we would have been destitute."

The dance ended and he led them off of the ballroom floor. They took a walk beneath the persimmon trees.

"What happened to Mr. Poitiers?"

"He's dead." she stated flatly. "He died fighting along side our master."

They stopped over a bridge and looked out over the water. Preston turned to her, took her in his arms and kissed her. She fell into his arms and was drawn to his lips.

After the ball, Preston stayed with his cousins and courted Myrtle heavily. Through Laura, she found out that Preston's family was among the settled Washington D.C. rich. He was a distant cousin of the Custis family and his late father had been the under-secretary of the U.S. Treasury. His mother had died when he was an infant. He had an income of $30,000 a year from his inheritance from his father and as an attorney, he earned another $10,000 a year. By the beginning of September, with the amber fall taking over Beaufort, Preston and Myrtle announced their engagement. The wedding was set for December, to be helt at the Covette House, attended by the gentried colored people of Beaufort and those whites who would come. Tensions between whites and blacks were at a peak, yet their were some points of reserved gentility. The wedding had been announced in the Beaufort and Washington D.C. papers. Myrtle was an elegant bride in a gown of white satin with a five foot train and white orchids. Young Adam, who was almost four, served as the ringbearer. All of Beaufort's elite, white and colored, turned out for the wedding.

It was decided after the wedding that Adam would stay in Beaufort with Noah and not accompany his mother and new stepfather to D.C. When the day came for them to leave, Myrtle held Adam in her arms, standing on her knees as her servants carted out the last of her trousseau. The sawmill was bringing her in an income of over $5000 a year by that time and it was decided that that income would be kept for him under the care of Noah, who would also raise him. Noah also declared that Adam was his sole heir and willed him his entire estate, which would provide him with an extra income of over $8000 a year. Myrtle kissed his cheeks and his soft curls and bode him to be good and obey Noah. At dusk, Myrtle and her new husband set off for D.C.

The Herzog House in Washington D.C. sat on the corners of two fashionable streets. Tall and Tudor, the mansion had fifteen rooms and sat off of the road, surrounded by a wrought iron gate enclosing magnficient gardens in the front of the house. They were welcomed home by the assembled staff of ten servants and the butler. It was finer living than Myrtle had ever seen. Ife in D.C. was a thousand times more cosmopolitan than life on the Worthington plantation. She hired carriages to ride through the park every day. She bought expensive perfumes and shopped at the finest ladies stores. After three months, she and Preston set sail for Spain where they traveled from Cadis to Paris on their honeymoon. She brought back seven trunks from Europe, filled with dresses, trinkets, linen, and fine china. On their return from Europe, she made her first entrances into Washington D.C. society,her first outing to the opera. She cut a very elegant picture in a fox stole, white gloves, and sweeping fog-gray gown with a feather studded cap to match.As she settled into her life, she grew to accept the distance from her son. She wrote to him everyday, even from Europe and collected oods and ends and sent them to him at least once a month. She decided that she would visit him that summer.

By the next July, she was pregnant. As her belly grew, she would stand in front of her mirror and admire herself. Preston saw that she wanted for nothing. She made a small circle of friends among the wives of the colored bourgoeisie and she made friends some of the white women in Washington D.C.'s white elite. She busied herself with converting one of her second floor rooms into a nursery. The baby arrieved as the first ice appeared on the trees and fall turned into winter. Lying in her bed, surrounded by hired nurses and a white doctor who delivered babies among the Washington colored aristocrats, she delivered a healthy boy with a head full of red hair and cream-colored skin. She named him Noah. Preston climbed into bed with her and hugged her and the new baby to him and cried out tears of joy.

I think the death of Jett Travolta ought to spark conversation about the dangers of household chemicals and the awful stuff that is put on the market in the United States passed off as cleaning products.

Potential Secretaries of Commerce

This is a bit of a spoof, but here are some alternatives to Bill Richardson for Secretary of Commerce

Alan Greenspan
Suze Orman
Oprah
Linda Johnson Rice
or
Dr. Julianne Malveaux
Elizabeth Warren

The porn industry wants a bailout?

Justice and Love for Oscar Lee Grant.

Chavez Expels Israeli Ambassador

Caracas, Venezuela (AHN) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Tuesday expelled Israel's ambassador to the country as he accused the Jewish nation of "genocide" against the Palestinian people. He described the Israeli army as "cowards."

This as United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon slammed Israel's shelling of schools run by the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) Gaza that killed 30 people and injured dozens more as he repeated his call for an immediate cessation of hostilities in the region.

The U.N. chief said Israeli authorities and the Israeli army were given the exact locations via GPS of the U.N. facilities. He adds that seven U.N. staff were injured in one of the Israeli air strikes, including three seriously, while three patients in an UNRWA health center were also injured.

Chavez issued a statement read in national state television saying that the Venezuelan people are manifesting their "unconditional solidarity with the heroic Palestinian people, share in the sadness that overcomes thousands of families through the loss of their loved ones, and extends to them a hand by affirming that the government of Venezuela will not rest until it sees those responsible for these criminal atrocities severely punished."

The Venezuelan president say his government strongly condemns the flagrant violations of international law by Israel and denounces their planned utilization of state terrorism.

It is for this reason, Chavez said that his government is expelling the Israeli ambassador from Caracas, including some Israeli Embassy personnel in Venezuela.

Melissa Etheridge On Rick Warren!

Melissa Etheridge


Oscar and Grammy Award-Winning Singer/Songwriter

Posted December 22, 2008 | 05:10 PM (EST)

The Choice Is Ours Now

This is a message
for my brothers and sisters who have fought so long and so hard for gay
rights
and liberty. We have spent a long time climbing up this mountain,
looking at
the impossible, chang ing a thousand year-old paradigm. We have asked
for the
right to love the human of our choice, and to be protected equally
under the
law s of this great country. The road at times has been so bloody, and so
horrible, and so disheartening. From being blamed for 9/11 and Katrina,
to
hateful crimes committed against us,=2
0we are battle wear y. We watched as
our
nation took a step in the right direction, aga inst all odds and elected
Barack
Obama as our next leader. Then we we re jerked back into the last
century as we
watched our rights taken a way by prop 8 in California. Still sore and
angry we
felt another sla p in the face as the man we helped get elected seemingly
invited a gay-h ater to address the world at his inauguration.

I hadn't heard of Pas tor Rick Warren before all of this. When
I heard the news, in its neat little sound bite form that we are so
accustomed
to, it painted th e picture for me. This Pastor Rick must surely be one
hate
spouting , money grabbing, bad hair televangelist like all the others. He
pro bably has his own gay little secret bathroom stall somewhere, you
know . One
more hater working up his congregation to hate the gays, compari ng us to
pedophiles and those who commit incest, blah blah blah. Same 'ole
thing. Would
I be boycotting the inauguration? Would we be march ing again?

Well, I have to
tell you my friends, the universe has a sense of humor and indeed works
in
mysterious ways. As I was wi nding down the promotion for my Christmas
album I
had one more stop l ast night. I'd agreed to play a song I'd written
with my
friend Salma n Ahmed, a Sufi Muslim from Pakistan. The song is called
"Ring
The Bells," and it's a call for peace and unity in our world. We were
goin
g to perform our song for the Muslim Public Affairs Council, a
gro up of
Muslim Americans that tries to raise awareness in this country, and the
world,
about the majority of good, loving, Muslims. I was honored, considering
some in
the Muslim religion consider singin g to be against God, while other
Muslim
countries have harsh penalt ies, even death for homosexuals. I felt it
was a
very brave gesture for them to make. I received a call the day before
to inform
me of t he keynote speaker that night... Pastor Rick Warren. I was
stunned. Myfight or flight instinct took over, should I cancel? Then a calm voice< BR>inside
me said, "Are you really about peace or not?"

I told my manager
to reach out to Pastor Warren and say "In the spirit of unity I would
like
to talk to him." They gave him my phone number. On the day of the
conference I received a call from Pastor Rick, and before I could say
anything,
he told me what a fan he was. He had most of m y albums from the very
first one.
What? This didn't sound like a gay hater, much less a preacher. He
explained in
very thoughtful words that as a Christian he believed in equal rights
for
everyone. He beli eved every loving relationship should have equal
protection.
He strug gled with proposition 8 because he didn't want to see marriage
redefined as anything other than between a man and a woman. He said he
regretted his choice of words in20his video message to his congregation
about
p roposition 8 when he mentioned pedophiles and those who commit incest.
H e said
that in no way, is that how he thought about gays. He invited m e to his
church,
I invited him to my home to meet my wife and kids. He told me of his
wife's
struggle with breast cancer just a year bef ore mine.

When we met later
that night, he entered the room wit h open arms and an open heart. We
agreed to
build bridges to the futu re.

Brothers and
sisters the choice is ours now. We have the worl d's attention. We have
the
capability to create change, awesome cha nge in this world, but before
we change
minds we must change hearts . Sure, there are plenty of hateful people
who will
always hold on to their bigotry like a child to a blanket. But there
are also
good p eople out there, Christian and otherwise that are beginning to
listen.
They don't hate us, they fear change. Maybe in our anger, as we con sider
marches and boycotts, perhaps we can consider stretching out our hands.
Maybe
instead of marching on his church, we can show up en mass and volunteer
for one
of the many organizations affiliated with his church that work for
HIV/AIDS
causes all around the world.

Maybe if they get
to know us, they won't fear us.

I know, ca ll me a
dreamer, but I feel a new era is upon us.

I will be att ending
the inauguration with my family,
and with hope in my heart. I know we
are
headed in the direction of marriage equality and equal protection for
all
families.

Happy Holidays my
friends and a Happy New Year to you.

Peace on earth,
goodwill toward all me n and women... and everyone in-between.

My New Favorite Chocolate Is...

Green and Blacks

The Color Purple

Miss Celie and Sophia are both on daytime tv.

Synonymously Twinned

Truth and Sincerity

True Beauty

I tuned into Tyra's True Beauty last night because I was intrigued and wanted to see how this concept she and Ashton Kutcher proposed would play out.I must say, I will probably watch this show throughout the season. I think she needs to take a big belt and whip most everyone in that house. Someone needs to tell that Joey boy that he is not pretty at all.....

I like Leon Panetta, he is a good man. Thank god he hasn't been involved in the past eight years!

I am just realizing the similarities between Barack Obama and my Uncle Lawrence--they were both community organizers.

It really is happening....we're painting the white house yellow!

J-HUD is Singing at the Inauguration!

Barbra Streisand Quote

"I love information, but I'm afraid of the information age - too much information and not enough spiritual growth to handle it. I'm still afraid our technology is more advanced than our hearts. There's something lacking now - this gap, this void between technology and compassion."

Reverend Wright's Very Good Sermon

Barack Obama is into Ntzoke Shonge?....I am completely in love with the man!

Mambomongo

You Go To My Head

Louis Armstrong/Billie Holiday

You go to my head
You go to my head,
And you linger like a haunting refrain
And I find you spinning round in my brain
Like the bubbles in a glass of champagne.

You go to my head
Like a sip of sparkling burgundy brew
And I find the very mention of you
Like the kicker in a julep or two.

The thrill of the thought
That you might give a thought
To my plea casts a spell over me
Still I say to myself: get a hold of yourself
Can't you see that it can never be?

You go to my head
With smile that makes my temperature rise
Like a summer with a thousand Julys
You intoxicate my soul with your eyes
Tho I'm certain that this heart of mine
Hasn't a ghost of a chance in this crazy romance,
You go to my head.

I sincerely hope that Barack Obama embraces Cuba.

May Israel become a declawed,spayed, and tamed puppy in the New Year! Spay and neuter your pets!

I recieved Barack Obama's Dreams of My Father for my birthday and tonight I have delved into it, reaching the part where his father returns to Hawaii to visit him. This incredible, compelling story inspired me to seek out the faces of the characters being discussed...his stepfather, Lolo, his father, Barack, and also his mother. My quest to see pictures of Obama's family, took me to a family photo of he, his mother, sister, and stepfather. Looking at it, I was struck by his mother's image. What incredible strength,independence, integrity, and humanity. It inspired me to write a poem.



Rockstar Mother
radical and free
transcending boundaries
reaching through the layers to find love
mother goddess lion
shielding her cubs
touching their dusty faces
to wipe away tears
to comfort
to show love
and teach them how to live
with love and compassion
to grow strong and proud
to live with values
human values
child-like eyes gazing upward
into her sweetly smiling face
knowing love and guidance
in this incredible, awesome
mother-spirit.

He's So Shy

The Pointer Sisters

Jewish Opposition to Israeli Attacks in Gaza

American Jews Call for Immediate Ceasefire, End of Gaza
Blockade

by Robert Naiman

Huffington Post - December 30, 2008

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/american-jews-call-for-im_b_154353.html

Expressing views that are surely representative of
American Jews as a whole, here's what some American
Jews are saying about the violence in Gaza.

J Street has a petition demanding that the U.S.
intervene to bring about an immediate resumption of the
ceasefire between Israel and Hamas; the petition also
calls for lifting the blockade of Gaza.

The petition says:

I support immediate and strong U.S.-led diplomatic
efforts to urgently reinstate a meaningful
ceasefire that ends all military operations, stops
the rockets aimed at Israel and lifts the blockade
of Gaza. This is in the best interests of Israel,
the Palestinian people and the United States.

Brit Tzedek v'Shalom has an action alert asking folks
to write to President-elect Obama, insisting that he
speak out now and call for an immediate cease-fire and
humanitarian aid to Gaza, noting that he has spoken out
on other issues. As Representative Barney Frank pointed
out, "Obama says we have one President at a time, but
I'm afraid that seriously overstates the number of
Presidents we have right now."

Americans for Peace Now is asking its supporters to
write to President Bush and President-elect Obama in
support of a ceasefire and humanitarian relief for
Gaza.

Jewish Voice for Peace condemned the Israeli attacks on
Gaza, calling for an immediate end to attacks on all
civilians, whether Palestinian or Israeli, and noting
that the blockade of Gaza is a violation of
humanitarian law and has been widely condemned around
the world. Meanwhile they have been organizing support
for Israeli high school students who have been
imprisoned for refusing to serve in an army that
occupies the Palestinian Territories.

The overwhelming majority of American Jews voted for
Obama -- just as the overwhelming majority of American
Jews opposed the Iraq war. Let's pull for President-
elect Obama to heed Brit Tzedek v'Shalom's call to
speak out now.

[Robert Naiman is National Coordinator of Just Foreign
Policy, a membership organization devoted to reforming
U.S. foreign policy to reflect the values and serve the
interests of the majority of Americans. Naiman edits
the daily Just Foreign Policy news summary. JFP's web
site is www.justforeignpolicy.org ]

==========

Jewish Voices for Peace on Gaza Air Strike

Jewish Voices for Peace
December 28, 2008

http://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/

Jewish Voice for Peace joins millions around the world,
including the 1,000 Israelis who protested in the
streets of Tel Aviv this weekend, in condemning ongoing
Israeli attacks on Gaza. We call for an immediate end
to attacks on all civilians, whether Palestinian or
Israeli.

Israel's slow strangulation of Gaza through blockade
has caused widespread suffering to the 1.5 million
people of Gaza due to lack of food, electricity, water
treatment supplies and medical equipment. It is a
violation of humanitarian law and has been widely
condemned around the world.

In resisting this strangulation, Hamas resumed
launching rockets and mortars from Gaza into southern
Israel, directly targeting civilians, which is also a
war crime. Over the years, these poorly made rockets
have been responsible for the deaths of 15 Israelis
since 2004.

Every country, Israel included, has the right and
obligation to protect its citizens. The recent
ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza shows that
diplomatic agreements are the best protection for
civilian life.

Moreover, massive Israeli air strikes have proven an
indiscriminate and brutal weapon. In just two days, the
known death toll is close to 300, and the attacks are
continuing. By targeting the infrastructure of a poor
and densely populated area, Israel has ensured
widespread civilian casualties among this already
suffering and vulnerable population.

This massive destruction of Palestinian life will not
protect the citizens of Israel. It is illegal and
immoral and should be condemned in the strongest
possible terms. And it threatens to ignite the West
Bank and add flames to the other fires burning in the
Middle East and beyond for years to come.

The timing of this attack, during the waning days of a
US administration that has undertaken a catastrophic
policy toward the Middle East and during the run-up to
an Israeli election, suggests an opportunistic agenda
for short-term political gain at an immense cost in
Palestinian lives. In the long run this policy will
benefit no-one except those who always profit from war
and exploitation. Only a just and lasting peace,
achieved through a negotiated agreement, can provide
both Palestinians and Israelis the security they want
and deserve.

==========

Tell Obama: Your Strong Voice Is Needed In The Middle East NOW!

Brit Tzedek V'Shalom (Jewish Alliance for Justice & Peace)

The escalating warfare in Gaza and southern Israel demands the immediate attention of President-elect Obama. As President-elect, he must speak out about the escalating crisis between Israel and Hamas, call for an immediate ceasefire, and send a strong signal about his long-term objectives for Israeli-Palestinian peace.

In the last month, he and his advisors did not hesitate to release the outline of a large stimulus package and post-Inauguration economic plan in an attempt to contain the financial crisis. Similar action is warranted for the Middle East.

Take Action

Tell President-elect Obama that his strong voice is needed now. Ask him to call for an immediate ceasefire that ends the attacks by all sides and facilitates the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza. He must remind the entire international community of his commitment to Middle East peace and his intention once taking office.

President-elect Obama should also send informal envoys (advisors without formal appointments, members of Congress, etc.) to the region to meet with Israelis, Palestinians, government leaders, and others. Such action will send a strong message about the substantial shift in U.S. involvement he will oversee.

Israel's long-term security lies in a negotiated peace agreement with the Palestinians. As an ally to Israel, there is no more important step Obama can take than to make his positions and concern known immediately.

Please contact President-elect Obama and express your support for his active involvement. Take Action!

L'Shalom,

Sue Swartz, National Advocacy Chair
Deepa Domansky, Washington Liaison and Advocacy Coordinator

http://ga3.org/campaign/obama_your_voice_needed/b5dwg642j7bd37b?

==========

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I support Roland Burris for the Senate.

Some Enchanted Evening- Barbra

From Back to Broadway

Some enchanted evening
You may see a stranger
You may see a stranger,
across a crowded room
And somehow you know
You know even then
That somewhere you'll see him
Again and again
Some enchanted evening
Someone may be laughing
You may hear him laughing
across a crowded room
And night after night
[ Find more Lyrics at www.mp3lyrics.org/stM ]
As strange as it seems
The sound of his laughter will
sing in your dreams
Who can explain it?
Who can tell you why?
Fools give you reasons
Wise men never try
Some enchanted evening
When you find your true love
Across a crowded room
And fly to his side
And make him your own
Or all through you may dream all alone
Once you have found him,
never let him go
Once you have found him,
never let him go

God bless Mychael Bell.

My Fickle Relatives

I was talking with my Aunt Betty the other day and, granted she is old and nearly senile, but that doesnt really explain the hell she is (in). Alas, at one point, she said--I had such a difficult birth (with my son). It almost killed me. But he turned out to be so sweet. Yes, he gave me problems, especially when he was born. But he wrote me the sweetest letter--I still have it in their somewhere. But when he was a little boy he wrote me a letter and said, 'Mama, I wish I had never been born.' So sweet.

Alice Walker has a blog;-)

A Burning Question

Why didn't Paul Robeson go to England and accept UK citizenship?

A Picture My Aunt Betty Recieved This Christmas

Top Row from l-r: Earnestine, Sadie,Archie, and Thelma.
Second Row l-r: Johnnie, Bertie, and Betty. -Missing is Lawrence.

Please God destroy the Israeli military.

I Want To Be Evil

I Love Jazmine Sullivan's Voice

I Bust The Windows Out Your Car

I bust the windows out your car
And no it didn't mend my broken heart
I'll probably always have these ugly scars
But right now I don't care about that part

I bust the windows out your car
After I saw you laying next to her
I didn't want to but I took my turn
I'm glad I did it cause you had to learn

I must admit it helped a little bit
To think of how you felt when you saw it
I didn't know that I had that much strength
But I'm glad you see what happens when

You see you can't just play with peoples feelings
Tell them you love them and don't mean it
You probably say that it was juvenile
But I think that I deserve to smile

I bust the windows out your car
You know I did it cause I left my mark
Wrote my initials with a crowbar
And then I drove out into the dark

I bust the windows out your car
You should feel lucky that that's all I did
After five whole years of this bullshit
Gave you all of me and you played with it

I must admit it helped a little bit
To think of how you felt when you saw it
I didn't know that I had that much strength
But I'm glad you see what happens when

You see you can't just play with peoples feelings
Tell them you love them and don't mean it
You'll probably say it was juveniel
But I think that I deserve to smile


Bust the windows out your car
But it don't comfort to my broken heart
You could never feel how I felt that day
Until that happens baby you don't know pain

Ooh yeah i did it (you should know it)
I ain't sorry (you deserved it)
After what you did to me (you deserved it)
I ain't sorry (no, no, ohh)

You broke my heart (so i broke ya car)
You caused me pain (so i did the same)
Even though what you did to me was much worse
I had to do something to make it hurt yeahh

Ooh but why am I still crying
Why am I the one who's still crying
Ooh ooh you really hurt me baby
You really, you really hurt me baby

(Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey)
Now watch me Yule.
Now watch me
I bust the windows out your car

Julia Sugarbaker

RIP Harold Pinter

RIP Eartha Kitt

We love you Eartha!

Laura Bush is Crazy and Delusional

Her husband liberated fifty million people? Where?

Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, and Happy Kwanzaa to everyone;-)

Do You Know I Just Realized The Message of This Song

Keep On Movin- Soul II Soul

keep on movin
keep on movin, don't stop like the hands of time
click clock, find your own way to stay
the time will come one day
why do people choose to live their lives, this way?

keep on moving
keep on moving don't stop no
keep on moving (x2)

it's our time, time today
the right time is here to stay
stay in my life, my life always
yellow is the colour of sunrays
i hide myself from no one
i know the time will surely come when
you'll be in my life, my life always
yellow is the colour of sunrays

keep on moving don't stop
keep on moving
like the hands of time click clock
keep on moving don't stop no
find your own way to stay
keep on moving
the time will come one day (all)
theme harmony x2

i know the time, time today
walking alone in my own way
extremely cold and rainy days
friends and i have fun along the way, yes we do
i hide myself from no one
i know the time will surely come when
you'll be in my life, my life always
yellow is the colour of sunrays
i hide myself from no one
i know the time will really come when
you'll be in my life, my life always
yellow is the colour of sunrays

Medea Benjamin should have a cabinet position.

Is This Nina Simone?

Happy Birthday to Me;-)

I know Etta James is not happy with Ms. Beyonce.

From Barbra

The Kennedy Center Honors

Last weekend, I was in Washington DC to accept the Kennedy Center Honors, and I noticed that the kiss between me and the “soon to be former” President Bush created quite a stir. The Today Show even proclaimed that it was a sign of the apocalypse. The timing is ironic. After eight years of President Clinton and on the cusp of at least four years of President Obama, I get selected to receive this prestigious award…during the Bush Administration. I have never met George W. Bush, but for the past eight years I have been blogging about him and his administration on my web site. I have relayed my frustration at the direction he has taken our country in no uncertain terms. So it was just as surprising to me as it apparently was to the press that upon meeting President Bush and extending my hand to him, he said to me, “Aw c’mon, gimme a hug and a kiss,” and then he proceeded to embrace me. I must say, I found him very warm and completely disarming…even though I think he was kissing me hello as I was kissing him goodbye…

During the White House ceremony, the President described each honorees attributes. After he listed mine, he added, “She’s also been known to speak her mind,” to which the audience first laughed and then applauded. I genuinely thought he was very funny and very gracious.

During the Kennedy Center Honors, President Bush gave me his signature wink (which he must have passed on to Sarah Palin) and mouthed, “We showed ‘em.” I guess in some small way, he and I proved that we could agree to disagree, and, for that weekend, art transcended politics.

Barbra--Somewhere From West Side Story

Someday, somewhere
We'll find a new way of living
Will find a way of forgiving
Somewhere...
There's a place for us
Somewhere a place for us
Peace and quiet and open air
Wait for us
Somewhere
There's a time for us
Someday there'll time for us
Time together and time to spare
Time to learn, time to care
Someday, somewhere
We'll find a new way of living
Will find there's a way of forgiving
Somewhere...
There's a place for us
A time and place for us
Hold my hand and we're half way there
Hold my hand and I'll take you there
Somehow...
Someday, somewhere...

The Venus Hottentot by Elizabeth Alexander

I wish peace and light for the entire world.

Diane Reeves and Wynton Marsalis

Wow

Creep-TLC

Yes it's me again
And I'm back
Oh I oh I oh I yeah
Oh I oh I oh I baby
Oh I oh I oh I yeah
The 22nd of loneliness and we've
Been through so many thangs
I love my man with all honesty
But I know he's cheatin' on me
I look him in his eyes but all he
Tells me is lies to keep me near
I'll never leave him down though
I might mess around it's only
'Cause I need some affection oh

[Chorus]
So I creep yeah
Just keep it on the down low
Said nobody is supposed 2 know
So I creep yeah
'Cause he doesn't know
What I do and no attention
Goes to show oh so I creep

The 23rd of loneliness
And we don't talk
Like we used 2 do
Now it seems pretty
Strange but I'm not
Buggin' 'cause I still feel
The same yeah yeah
I'll keep giving loving
Till the day he pushes me away
Never go astray
If he knew the
Things I did he couldn't
Handle it
And I choose 2 keep him
Protected oh

[Chorus]

I think about us baby all the time
But you know that I'm gonna need some attention
Yeah, yeah can you dig it
Love you forever baby soul & mind
And you gotta know if
You don't give it I'ma
Get mine

Oh I oh I oh I yeah
Oh I oh I oh I baby
Oh I oh I oh I yeah
Yeah yeah yeah

[Chorus]

I creep around because I need attention
Don't mess around with my affection
Oh I oh I oh I yeah

[Chorus]

I don't see what the big deal is about Bill Clinton's ties to the Saudis. I wish I knew some of them.

I Think Adrian Brody is Absolutely Hot

It is quite a shock to the system. Ms. Lavonia Kennedy was a sweet dear person. She was one of those gentle souls that we are blessed to know who walk the earth. Sweet endurance...she battled both cancer and then an aneurism with dignity and grace. What a loss....

Thank god that there are such good people in the world. It is heartwrenching when they are taken out of the world though. My mother's coworker, Ms. Lavonia died today. She was so sweet to me. Such a wonderful lady. God bless Patra.....