mrSingleton | No Chaser

my baby!

2008-08-05T23:47:00.002-04:00

The Nekesa Moody Report:

My boy is a Superpowered Mailman

2008-07-12T09:02:00.002-04:00

Hey watch my boy Kiko star in the online version of HEROES. The NBC show is giving fans spin-off storylines by producing these short webisodes. Kiko has been cast as the lead in "Going Postal" -- a three-part spin-off about a brother named Echo De Mille who they describe as "a seemingly ordinary mailman with an extraordinary ability." If this is well received then he might appear on the main show so comment on the little board there if you dig it:

So since Kiko and I grew up together, that's my boy for life, I can play publicist for a bit and show you a few more links and a video clip. So here's his own site, I Am Kiko

Here's IMDB's list of his work

Here are clips from an episode of Strong Medicine on Lifetime:

Here are two upcoming indie films:

I Am
Staunton Hill

Here's a really long phone interview aired Blog Talk Radio. It's an hour of him making the girls giggle.

Mallie's reply

2008-06-23T19:35:00.002-04:00

If 17 girls popped up pregnant in Irvington High School.
The reason they were susceptible to such an agreement would be the story.
The void they were trying to fill, their hopeless ghetto lives, lack of role models, etc. would be the reason for the local baby boom.

I doubt the pact would even be considered as the "Reason".

This whole "Pact" component makes these girls seem more like victims than young girls making bad decisions.
When our girls do the same thing, they seem like fresh little hoochie mamas exercising bad judgement due to poor circumstances.

What about the baby daddies?

2008-06-23T17:52:00.002-04:00

Hmm -- the four most popular stories on Time.com last week were about teen sex, elder sex, gay sex, and iPhone sex -- interesting (any marketers or advertisers out there who want to target Time.com's readers, well, now you know what they like to read).

Regarding this story, "Pregnancy Boom at Gloucester High" about the teens in Gloucester, Mass. -- if you hadn't heard, 17 school girls made a pact to all get pregnant at the same time -- why does the story hardly make mention of the young men involved? It'd be a different story if the girls were artificially inseminated but they weren't inseminated, they were done the old fashioned way by willing high school boys or in other cases perhaps by local young men. They certainly have a role in this pact as well -- especially if any of the men are legal adults who did this with these underaged girls. Why is it really going missed by the media coverage? Getting pregnant is not an independent decision any more than it is an independent act. So who are the baby daddies?

If this wasn't this small fishing town of Gloucester, Mass., if this was maybe Newark, NJ or Compton, CA, then would the focus change? Would the blame game change? How do I address that without playing victim? I just think this story is odd for more reasons than what the reporters are describing.

George Carlin said it best

2008-06-23T17:05:00.001-04:00

I thought he was pretty funny and my uncle really, really thought so. We sat up and watched Carlin's comedy specials a number of times and he put him right up there with Richard Pryor when it came to making people confront uncomfortable issues through laughter. He hit the nail on the head often with his commentary on race and class and gender and I could point you toward one of his more politically or socially enlightening routines but I think I'll share a funny dose of the real George Carlin at his most lewd and crude because that's a badge he wore with pride. Listener discretion advised - here's a quote from a bit titled "Feminist Blowjob" followed by the extended audio on YouTube:

I do not understand why prostitution is illegal. Why should prostitution be illegal? Selling is legal. F---ing is legal. Why isn't selling f---ing legal? Y'know, why should it be illegal to sell something that's perfectly legal to give away? I can't follow the logic on that at all. Of all the things you can do to a person, giving them an orgasm is hardly the worst thing in the world. In the army they give you a medal for spraying napalm on people. Civilian life you go to jail for giving someone an orgasm. Maybe I'm no supposed to understand it.

Big Big News Day

2008-06-13T15:37:00.000-04:00

First, R. Kelly found not guilty on all counts. Moments later, NBC's Tim Russert has fatal tragic heart attack (totally unrelated).

When she says veep, I say [bleep]

2008-06-04T22:30:00.001-04:00

She's been so hesitant to respect the rules or to show regard for his achievement that she exposes how she's not even a person of her word. Veep can't be an option.

There's been another matter of character looming and Hunter on DailyKos put it like this:

I thought the Clinton campaign was just as historic as the Obama campaign, but every time her own supporters reject the premise of perfect equality between the candidates and demand she be treated differently because she is a woman or because her supporters are women, they tarnish both victories.

Read his full post: Tarnishing The Victory

"Why'd He" is starting rumors

2008-06-02T15:21:00.003-04:00

Let's quell and dispell a cheapshot rumor before it even begins to get traction. A handful of anti-Michelle Obama types are actually accusing the would-be First Lady of saying "Whitey" over and over in a stump speech. She actually asked repeatedly "Why'd he..." in regards to a host of poor decisions made by President Bush during in his two terms in office.

So, perfectly fair questions such as:

Why'd he cut folks off medicaid?
Why'd he let New Orleans drown?
Why'd he do nothing about Jena?
Why'd he put us in Iraq for no reason?

...to an already biased ear might start to sound like:

Whitey cut folks off medicaid?
Whitey let New Orleans drown?
Whitey do nothing about Jena?
Whitey put us in Iraq for no reason?

...which would be completely perposterous speech for a political hopeful (and even as incorrect grammatically as they'd be politically). Michelle Obama is smarter than some are ready to believe, or may ever believe, so the only ones making damaging remarks in this matter are idiot instigators who can't use a lick of common sense when listening to a smart person make a basic campaign speech.

The Rise of Kimbo Slice

2008-05-30T15:53:00.007-04:00

CBS Sports, the program that showed us the world's most unforgettable wardrobe malfunction, now brings us the spectacle of what "might be the first Internet-generated athlete to reach mainstream superstardom" according to TIME Magazine's sports writer Sean Gregory.

This Saturday, CBS will air EliteXC (extreme combat) Saturday Night Fights, the new ultimate fighting league, now referred to as mixed martial arts (MMA, and also written about by TIME). The fighter already being heavily heavily promoted is Kimbo Slice (government name: Kevin Ferguson of Miami).

He's the cover of ESPN Magazine's June 2 issue and story writer Dan Le Batard says Slice is "a very scary guy. He is also a thoughtful friend, loving dad and budding entrepreneur." You may recognize him from an infamous YouTube video where he gives new meaning to pugilism. I watched that video and recognized him in another sense, he was, "that dude" y'know, that dude in the neighborhood who nobody messed with. Every neighborhood has a version of that dude and now the Miami version is a world sensation. The story goes — he'd been a high school football player in Miami (I'm asuming somewhere between 1986 and 1992 because he's 34), later dropped out of college and was even homeless for a period but worked odd jobs like strip-club bouncer, porn company bodyguard till he took up street fighting, which apparently is as lucrative a street hustle as any, people will bet more than a little bit of change on neighborhood matchups between big gorilla bucks — this used to happen for free on plantations. You ever read Ralph Ellison's Invible Man? Literary critic Richard Thorman describes one of the most memorable themes in the book:

The man telling the story says that as a boy, white men covered his eyes with a cloth. The white men tell the boy to blindly fight other black boys. The blacks are forced to fight each other to please whites. At the end of the novel the story has moved from the American South to the North. There are riots in Harlem, the black area of New York City. Instead of ten black children fighting each other blindly, grown black men are battling each other to the death. Blacks still are having their strength turned upon themselves.

Make your own call:

[click here if embed doesn't display]

In this weekend's main event, sposored by Burger King, Slice will fight James "Colossus"Thompson, giving the mayhem an equal opportunity angle. The story on Time.com quotes Slice responding to critics of the sport "It kept me away from dealing drugs, and breaking into people's houses. All that thug s---." He says, "I would rather have my son watch MMA and learn to defend himself from a bully than have him watch the hunting channel and see some guy blow a deer's head off." Good point and clear reference to Stephon Marbury's defense of Michael Vick as if this ish didn't have enough controversy already.

Stephen Colbert and David Gregory danceoff

2008-05-30T11:04:00.000-04:00

This ish is only 2% political, 98% Friday goofiness. In fact, these videos are kind of old but I'm still laughing at them so join in and laugh as well:

Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert does his best Prince dance

NBC's David Gregory spins and slides to Mary J. Blige

The candidates on Darfur

2008-05-28T17:41:00.002-04:00

Today on Time.com's political diary The Page I read that U.S. senators Barack Obama, John McCain, and Hillary Clinton are all supporting the cause pushed by the Save Darfur charity (savedarfur.org). The Times also gives this press today. In a rare joint statement titled "We Stand United On Sudan" the three major White House hopefuls call the crisis in Darfur "genocide" and say "it would be a huge mistake for the Khartoum regime to think that it will benefit by running out the clock on the Bush Administration." Here is a big chunk of the letter:

We deplore all violence against the people of Darfur. There can be no doubt that the Sudanese government is chiefly responsible for the violence and is able to end it. We condemn the Sudanese government's consistent efforts to undermine peace and security, including its repeated attacks against its own people and the multiple barriers it has put up to the swift and effective deployment of the United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force. We further condemn the Sudanese government's refusal to adhere to the terms of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended the conflict in southern Sudan.

Today, we wish to make clear to the Sudanese government that on this moral issue of tremendous importance, there is no divide between us. We stand united and demand that the genocide and violence in Darfur be brought to an end and that the CPA be fully implemented. Even as we campaign for the presidency, we will use our standing as Senators to press for the steps needed to ensure that the United States honors, in practice and in deed, its commitment to the cause of peace and protection of Darfur's innocent citizenry. We will continue to keep a close watch on events in Sudan and speak out for its marginalized peoples.

The charity also released a video featuring snippets they'd filmed of the candidates explaining their positions on the Sudan crisis:

These clips were taken from sit downs that the organization did with the candidates back in November 2007 so the extended samples include John Edwards
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYWGLbgIy2s

McCain calls the Janjaweed militia the "Janjaweeds"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZcDOOnvUA8

Clinton opts to read a statement from a teleprompter
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyEYtHIOGhI

Like Edwards, Obama speaks comfortably off the cuff
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEd583-fA8M

Keith Olbermann for White House Press Secretary!

2008-05-24T14:04:00.005-04:00

Just as Fox TV commentator Tony Snow was handpicked by the Bush administration to be White House Press Secretary because of his support for Bush's policies and record of communicating them, perhaps MSNBC's Keith Olbermann is well on his way to getting that same gig if Obama is elected. Olbermann takes the words right out of my mouth, here he is, my spokesperson regarding Clinton's May 23 'assassination' gaffe:

And for old times sake let's revisit the March 12 special comment, 'Olbermann on Ferraro uproar.' Once again, my spokesperson:

In the event you should miss a live broadcast, here's where you can always find Keith Olbermann's Special Comments

Friday Funnies

2008-05-09T18:36:00.002-04:00

These skits from Funny or Die are funny indeed, but before we jump into these crazy videos, let me be big and state that if Obama is to be the party's nominee then I really want to see Clinton handle that with class and grace, I want to be a good sport about all this myself. I think the public will learn to appreciate her again someday and possibly even forgive some of her behavior on the campaign trail if she shows herself to be a big person. We need to move beyond all this Hillary bashing and move on to what I hope will be a slightly more respectful general election against McCain. That's what I want to see. But unfortunatley this is American politics and she's not even out of the race yet. She's hanging on and going out there making comments about 'hard working Americans' being synonymous with 'white Americans,' really. So before we move on, I think it's fair to get in a couple more giggles because she's practically insisting that we do. Please check out these videos, they are hilarious and perfect fun for a Friday:

HITLERY CLINTON

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BARACK

Gas Tax Debate: Watch This Ad

2008-04-30T18:46:00.000-04:00

Also in the news this week: the economy, specifically the gas tax debate. No I'm not going to return my economic stimulus check to sender (Bush) but I definitely agree whole heartedly with Obama's argument that dropping the gas tax would be an ineffective attempt at a quick fix, an insulting appeasement, a 3 inch band aid on a 12 inch gash. So I hope the Indiana and North Carolina voters see his smart thinking on this issue, and possibly see this ad. Check it out:

My Q&A with Russell Simmons

2008-04-29T19:40:00.002-04:00

I interviewed Russell Simmons the other day(s) and we just published the Q&A on Time.com.

He's cool but it was a minor ordeal trying to deal with him. In response to one question he can fly off into a dozen tangents so that became interesting. But the real headache happened because this interview wound up being a phoner, and although I was on a landline, he was on his cell doing five other thngs at once including riding in a car, speaking with the driver, hollaring out the car window (at a cop). My luck would have it that his cell phone signal would drop out and it took me over a week to lock down another good time to rap with him. I wound up getting enough from him to impress the entertainment editor so check it out: Russell Simmons: Reality TV Good for My Kids

Bruce for Barack!

2008-04-16T12:47:00.004-04:00

Man I've been so disgusted with politics lately that I haven't had the stomach to post anything, but this news today makes it all a little worthwhile again. A little backstory: In the past few weeks I've been on this random classic rock kick and I've had typical stuff like the Stones, Hendrix, Beatles and Dylan on heavy rotation on my iPod. But even more than those acts, a brother like me has had the works of Bruce Springsteen playing over and over, mostly his ballads, and I can't seem to tire of the stuff. I've been playing familiar tracks like Streets of Philadelphia from the Philadelphia movie which won him a Grammy, and also tracks that I only just now learned about like The Ghost of Tom Joad which I'm now completely addicted to. Of course there's one of my absolute favorite live tracks American Skin (41 Shots) inspired by the NYPD's Amadou Diallo disgrace, which really showed his conscience and won me over a few years ago (and made me finally realize why my Jr. high school algebra teacher Mr. Baker used to wax on and on about Springsteen and sometimes not even teach us any dang math so he could teach about 'the Bruce'). Years later I can appreciate him as an enduring artist and small piece of the whole culture.

So what a pleasant surprise it is to hear this news from the man himself, especially during this insane week in the presidential campaign -- Springsteen endorses Obama! That's what's up. Later for all that crap about Clinton representing the blue collar crowd, Springsteen reps that harder than anybody in the public eye and now he's on board with brother Barack. My faith is slightly restored, perhaps I'll watch that last debate tonight afterall.

Here is an all-Springsteen YouTube page.

Here is Bruce's statement from his website, April 16, 2008.

Dear Friends and Fans:

LIke most of you, I've been following the campaign and I have now seen and heard enough to know where I stand. Senator Obama, in my view, is head and shoulders above the rest.

He has the depth, the reflectiveness, and the resilience to be our next President. He speaks to the America I've envisioned in my music for the past 35 years, a generous nation with a citizenry willing to tackle nuanced and complex problems, a country that's interested in its collective destiny and in the potential of its gathered spirit. A place where "...nobody crowds you, and nobody goes it alone."

At the moment, critics have tried to diminish Senator Obama through the exaggeration of certain of his comments and relationships. While these matters are worthy of some discussion, they have been ripped out of the context and fabric of the man's life and vision, so well described in his excellent book, Dreams of My Father, often in order to distract us from discussing the real issues: war and peace, the fight for economic and racial justice, reaffirming our Constitution, and the protection and enhancement of our environment.

After the terrible damage done over the past eight years, a great American reclamation project needs to be undertaken. I believe that Senator Obama is the best candidate to lead that project and to lead us into the 21st Century with a renewed sense of moral purpose and of ourselves as Americans.

Over here on E Street, we're proud to support Obama for President.

Bruce Springsteen

Bet.

UPDATE: Hey, wouldn't it be cool if Springsteen wrote the next catchy Obama song just like will.i.am did earlier in the campaign?

Today the folk musician said, "I always look at my work as trying to measure the distance between American promise and American reality," in comments to the media after his endorsement. Then he added, "And I think he's inspired a lot of people with that idea: How do you make that distance shorter?" (I saw it on Time.com/quotes).

Mallie's reply

2008-03-20T23:08:00.000-04:00

I'm with you Seezie,
I think the official position was that Bush and crew went to war with Afghanistan for harboring Al Qaeda.
Although I don't recall an official position from the Afghan leadership that confirmed any such claim.
Makes me wonder about all the unsavory individuals who, for "Intelligence" purposes, remain protected within U.S. borders. When exactly does the West support terror?

Fact Check

2008-03-20T19:20:00.001-04:00

I'm watching Obama on MTV's 'Choose or Loose' special and I caught a pretty significant error stated by him. He said that we need to refocus our milirary attention on Afghanistan -- and that much of his position is fine, I agree. But the reason he gave to support why we should do so is because the Afghanis were the ones who attacked us on September 11th. Actually, 15 of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden himself is Saudi and al-Qa'eda is a multi-celled terrorist organization not tied to one single country. I know the senator knows this so he needs to be careful about semantics when talking about it. Granted, Bin Laden is hiding in Afghanistan and allied forces will argue that the country's government is harboring him by default if they aren't actively seeking him. But I think that the senator needs to finetune his talking point, especially since he slammed McCain this week for his gaffe misstating details about opposing factions in Iraq and Iran. I totally get Obama's broader point about where we need to focus our military attention, but as his supporter I really don't want him to get stumped unnecessarily on a point like this somewhere down the line and be made to look uninformed.

Mallie's reply

2008-03-18T13:05:00.000-04:00

Son...

Obama delivered this as if he had spent his entire life preparing it.
50 years from now some kid will be writing an essay on the day Obama delivered his "Race" speech.

This was Obama's "Where I'm From (Marcy son)"

Obama's Speech on Race in America

2008-03-18T12:50:00.000-04:00

Brilliant, emotional, commanding and very presidential address today from Barack Obama. He spoke about race in the United States in the wake of the Rev. Wright firestorm.

I was totally moved by his analysis and I think he put out the fire that was threatening to burn his campaign. What I really liked and what I think made him appear most presidential was how he called the black/white problem in America a stalemate which to me sounds similar to the red/blue state divide or the 50/50 congressional divide which each prevent us from getting things done. That comparison brings Obama's talk back into a political context for me and it drives home precicely why I want Obama in office more than I'd want Clinton or McCain. Obama repeatedly demonstrates that he is running to be a coalition builder, a uniter, not a fighter. Clinton and McCain brand themselves as fighers, and respectfully they have each fought important fights that needed to be fought. But now I'm ready for diplomacy. I think American voters are ready for the make up after the fight, and that is what Obama's candidacy represents to me.

Here is the full transcript of the speech.

Here is the video:

2008-03-11T18:09:00.001-04:00

coolness: posting this via dashboard widget at work, best to be low key

Obama's Senate achievements

2008-03-05T23:13:00.004-05:00

Following last night's Texas/Ohio showdown I don't even want to play too much Wednesday morning quarterback. The show just goes on. But more importantly, tonight I found tons of info about Obama's track record in the Senate. I've narrowed it all down to 10 must-reads, but of course most of these web pages link out to dozens and dozens more useful references. So whether you support Obama's presidential campaign or you dismiss it, it's in your interest to know your stuff before debating someone about him. Check it out...

10 informative links that examine Obama's Senate achievements:

1. OnTheIssues.org: Detailed voting record
Barack Obama

2. Charles Peters on washingtonpost.com: "Judge Him by His Laws"
An examination of bills championed by Barack Obama uncovers impressive evidence of his character and ability.

3. The Candid Blogger: "Experience? Hillary's Legislative Record Exposed"
Since entering the U.S. Senate, Senator Obama has written 890 bills and co-sponsored another 1096.

4. Helenann on Daily Kos: I found the BEEF - Obama's Senate Record"
Next time someone asks you 'where's the beef' in Senator Obama's Senate record, please feel free to send the link to this diary."

5. Grassroots Mom on Daily Kos: "I looked up Obama and looked up Clinton"
Clinton is a frequent co-sponsor on many of Obama's bills. So is Ted Kennedy. So are a number of Republicans.

6. Tom Curry on MSNBC.com: "What Obama's Senate votes reveal"
The list of 'yeas' and 'nays' offer some clues to an Obama presidency

7. Andrew Sullivan on TheAtlantic.com: "Dear Chris Matthews: Please Do Your Job"
fallout after Kirk Watson gets stumped

8. Obsidian Wings: "Barack Obama"
While Obama has not proposed his Cosmic Plan for World Peace, he has proposed a lot of interesting legislation on important but undercovered topics.

9. Wikipedia Wikipedia: Barack Obama
Although a newcomer to Washington, he recruited a team of established, high-level advisers devoted to broad themes that exceeded the usual requirements of an incoming first-term senator.

10. Barack Obama: United States Senator for Illinois
Press Releases

into the night

2008-03-04T20:39:00.000-05:00

I said I wasn't going to watch tonight, but here I am, glued to the tube as usual and I'm already wrong about Vermont, thankfully. Earlier I worried that Clinton would win it but I'm glad I'm wrong once again. At the moment Obama has Vermont, so if Obama and Clinton split Texas and Ohio respectively, and early results indicate that they could, then Rhode Island might actually play a slightly more significant role, even if in a symbolic sense. If RI goes to Clinton then she'll spin it, spin it, spin it saying that she earned an even split on Super Tuesday 2 so we're back to things being equal. If Rhode Island goes to Obama then he'll come out of the night with 3 of 4 which should be considered huge, but of course spin and momentum are a mother. So I was wrong about Vermont but my nerves still aren't settled.

As usual, I'm nervous about the primaries

2008-03-04T18:13:00.000-05:00

I'm not in the political predictions business but since my friends and family always privately ask me for pregame analysis I figured I could go out on a limb and share my thoughts for a change. Here's an email I just sent in response to the question, "you excited for tonight?"

I might not even watch all that annoying coverage tonight. I don't think that Clinton even has to win huge, if she wins anything at all even by a tiny amount, her campaign will spin, spin, spin as though it represents a huge momentum changing victory and they'll feed that to the pundits and those parrots will repeat it all night.

The timeline works in her favor. She could win Vermont and Rhode Island and since those states are out here in the east, those polls will close first so the news will announce that she has two new victories under her belt. They'll start to throw out the idea that she has ended her losing streak and then the polls in Ohio will close. If she wins that the talking heads will be going crazy, focused less on the actual numbers than on the fact that Clinton finally won something. Whatever she might win tonight she won't win by large margins, she'll only win in the way she won New Hampshire which was only by two or three percentage points. But momentum is a weird thing. I think Obama will win Texas, but that won't be till much later in the night after everyone has gotten all reenergized about Hillary again and Obama's victory will be far less of a headline. Even if he wins Texas by a larger margin than she wins anything he won't be the talk of the night. The talking heads have already become so accustomed to his wins that they'll just want a fresh new headline for tonight, something to break their own streak of boring primary reporting because it has been the same headline each time for a month. If he takes Texas, which we know in reality will be a huge victory, the talking heads will actually treat that headline like a simple dog bites man, so what. But whatever she wins they'll treat like man bites dog and go nuts.

That's my expectation for tonight. Perhaps I'm over-bracing myself for disappointment, and I've certainly been wrong plenty of times before -- I made conservative guesses going into the Virginia and Wisconsin contests -- but even at those times Obama hadn't been the undisputed frontrunner. He owes a degree of his early successes to his underdog status which seems to sway rebellious voters. That factor could work in her favor this time but what do I know? Read the experts instead. This is still making me feel good amidst all this, it's a report from a Newsweek columnist who says even with a momentum upswing, Clinton can't mathematically retake Obama. Read these:

Hillary’s Math Problem

Slate's Delegate Calculator

And then watch Tom Brokaw's assessment which should provide a little more solace:

My 'responsible journalism' complaint letters to TV talking heads this political season

2008-02-28T19:52:00.001-05:00

Why would I even waste my time and breath with such letters? Because on principle I can't let statements like these fly on TV without speaking up just as I couldn't if the so-called 'expert' were standing right in front of me speaking so loose and unchecked. So I check -- mouths, eyes, gestures, and even TV politicos. They can be sooo irresponsible, way out on live national television, and I just hope that these letters reach them. Here are my responses to MSNBC's Tucker Carlson (today) and CNN's Jeffrey Toobin (Feb. 9):

Hello Tucker,

I'm watching your show, I know you're a fairly smart guy, but I have to say that I think your perspective on John Lewis' superdelegate switch is unfair, as evidenced by your word choices.

Your question for the segment was, 'Will other African American superdelegates make the same move?'

Well it's pretty obvious that you're assuming that Lewis made his choice somehow because he is African American himself, or perhaps because he believes that because his constituency is largely African American he has to somehow vote 'African American' now (if that's even a technically possible thing to do). Well Mr. Carlson that is biased and unfair. African American-ism doesn't have anything to do with this and your interjecting that notion is journalistically irresponsible and politically divisive.

Lewis has clearly stated that he is basing his decision based on the voting results of his bloc, the districts that he represents -- which is a philosophical approach to his superdelegate responsibility. And even if his districts are largely African American, you, Tucker, are hardly in position to make the giant leap that presumes that those voters in Georgia voted for Barack Obama simply because they too are African American. Who are you? Voters vote on issues. Again. Voters vote on issues! Sure some other factors play small parts but none are as great as the serious political issues they face and here's why:

Democrats are energized and all certainly deserve a jolly pat on the back for pushing these historically significant candidates this far, but take a deep breath and be serious, at the end of the day real people's lives are affected by real life -- the economy, education, healthcare, the war, the environment, taxes, their freedoms -- not nearly as much by their candidate's ethnicity or gender. If that were so then far more African Americans would've voted for Al Sharpton, but they didn't. These primaries are about unified Democrats, not divided demographics. Catch up to 2008.

Have a little more faith in voters, African American voters especially if you assume that they'd treat their vote so cheap. That's a very serious distinction to keep in mind so please post this up on your fridge or something. Otherwise, keep up the work and stay on issue.

Malik Singleton
Brooklyn, NY

And my email letter to Jeffrey Toobin written while watching CNN's coverage on the night of the Lousiana, Nebraska, Washington State primary and caucuses:

CNN,

While watching tonight I took extreme exception to analyst Jeffrey Toobin saying "I don't mean to ghettoize Obama's success in these states," talking about the senator's wins in largely black South Carolina and Louisiana. I know that he was in fact speaking in favor of Obama's success in the primaries but what a backhanded compliment. Even if his offense was unintentional it was still a completely ignorant and insensitive remark for a 2008 journalist speaking for such a widereaching news network.

How could he so easily let something roll off his tongue that equates African Americans with the ghetto without considering the images that brings to mind? Deep down does Toobin think that most African Americans reside in ghettos? Even if he did believe that, has he given a thought to the fact that in an election night discussion about how people vote, we're not talking about all people, we're only talking about actual voting people, active registered voters, and in this case African American voters, not the general population of people (who he clearly told on himself over).

If Toobin were to equate the ghetto with poverty that wouldn't be more responsible but it might've been a little easier to let slide. But he clearly equated ghetto with the African American voters who are enthusiastically participating in the political process, supporting multiple candidates, and trying to watch your so called 'best political team' for analysis, only to be slapped in the face in a huge moment of bad commentary from a very uninformed professional, Jeffrey Toobin.

I also wasn't too happy with corresponent John King co-signing Toonin's take in their back-and-forth. Please rewind the DVR and send your commentators to sensitivity training sessions.

Malik Singleton
Brooklyn, NY

Medvedev... whatever

2008-02-28T11:38:00.001-05:00

On Newsvine it looks like I got a little traction on an opinion bit that I whipped up Wednesday morning in response to Clinton's performance in Tuesday night's Ohio debate. I said "She prepared for the last debate by watching SNL, not learning how to pronounce the new Russian leader's name" and got 11 comments and 14 votes up. People began commenting right away and their activity went on till pretty late last night. Looks like most responses are in agreement with my point, which may or may not be a good thing. But then there was one outspoken dissenter in there (someone so supportive of Clinton's debate performance that they sounded as delusional as Saddam Hussein's old press spokesperson from early in the Iraq war... arrghh, what was that dude's name?!?), but the going majority pounced on that person. There's always a good time to be had in web forums, check out my Clinton Wasn't Ready piece and also check out the links I reference from Newsweek and TIME »»

UPDATE: His nickname was COMICAL ALI

Be freaky and multiply

2008-02-16T15:51:00.003-05:00

According to Joy Willson of Book22.com, pray for better sex and God will show you the way (just no sodomy, please, that's a sin).

You just gotta love this report from NPR about sex toys for God's children. According to the good people at Book22.com, an online sex shop for Christians (exactly), thou shalt not be so puritan, prude or ashamed to do it --do it with joy, do it with toys!

According to the Bible (especially if you're interpreting it while horny) sex is a gift from God and we should really "know" what that means. Apparently it means edibles and jelly rings. Finally, a guiltless, Savior sancioned, God blessed sex shop for the rest of us who are sick and tired of hiding away the porn.

But the folks at Book22.com are like cyber missionaries so they have a few caveats of course: before you go shopping like crazy undersand that these products are intended for married couples only, and marriage is defined as a union between couples who can either prove that they are flesh of the same flesh or have proof of residency in Massachusetts.

This is better than Dr. Ruth or that old sex lady on Jay Leno. Co-founder Joy Wilson explains that none of the toys resemble human shapes because that would be idolotry and idolotry is adultry if you also love God. It'd also be weird and creepy and that would ruin the mood. She even warns in the small print that these products must not be used when giving into temptation or committing the five sexual sins: incest, prostitution, beastiality, fornication or homosexuality. As long as you get those activities out of your mind you're free to shop and you'll be screaming hallelujah in no time.

Song of Solomon is the 22nd book of the Old Testament, hence the name of the product line, so I just had to give it a read and yeah, no, don't recall them teaching us this stuff in Sunday School. It reads like erotique noire. Solomon and his black fetish object Sheba go back and forth counting the ways...

[1:4] "The king hath brought me into his chambers: we will be glad and rejoice in thee, we will remember thy love more than wine: the upright love thee" (got it, so doing it upright is better than wine, okay let me keep reading)

[4:5] "Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies" (gotta use that line)

[6:8-9] "There are threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, and virgins without number. My dove, my undefiled is but one; she is the only one of her mother, she is the choice one of her that bare her" (okay so he chooses her above all these other women in his chamber, what a guy)

[7:7-10] This thy stature is like to a palm tree, and thy breasts to clusters of grapes. I said, I will go up to the palm tree, I will take hold of the boughs thereof: now also thy breasts shall be as clusters of the vine, and the smell of thy nose like apples; And the roof of thy mouth like the best wine for my beloved, that goeth down sweetly, causing the lips of those that are asleep to speak. I am my beloved', and his desire is toward me" (okay you two, we get it).

The fun doesn't stop there, Joy keeps a blog too which is very sweet.

Magna comics find Jesus (and he's a samurai badass)

2008-02-10T12:24:00.000-05:00

From today's New York Times: The Bible as Graphic Novel, With a Samurai Stranger Called Christ: Artist Ajinbayo Akinsiku's Son of God is here to shake things up in a new, much-abridged version of the Bible rooted in manga, the Japanese form of graphic novels.

Writer Neela Banerjee talks about book publishers' latest push to reach the Bible market, this time it's Doubleday with a magna version of the text. Magna is known for action and epic (and sex) so in Ajinbayo Akinsiku's graphic novel "Abraham rides a horse out of an explosion to save Lot. Og, king of Bashan, looms like an early Darth Vader. The Sermon on the Mount did not make the book because there was not enough action to it." Akinsiku's next graphic novel will focus on Christ's stories only. Banerjee writes "He has 300 pages to lay it out, which means there will be a lot more action, a lot less talking, something like Clint Eastwood in the Galilee."

Also posted to Newsvine

Right Now: My story is prominent on Newsvine

2008-02-09T21:06:00.000-05:00

I just published and it's Saturday evening so there's not a ton of activity on the site but I'm still going to bigup myself at the moment and take screenshots like a proud dad. Because I tagged my story with clinton and obama, the system is featuring them right up at the top of the sidebar. In the piece I raise the question: Could Hillary Clinton's campaign be starting to get donations from hardcore Republicans who actually need her to succeed?

I'm doing my best to not sound like a conspiracy theorist but it's a fair question when you read the whole piece. Rush Limbaugh is speaking about this subject and everything so check out the sceenshots below and my opinion piece on Newsvine: "Could The "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy" Be Financing Hillary?"

Celeb Roots is good TV

2008-02-06T23:14:00.000-05:00

Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates is doing amazing work with his genetic and ancestral research. I watched his African American Lives show on PBS (part 2) and I was so moved, again! The level of detail he gets down to with the research, even though it has long been attempted by others, just hasn't been seen before on such a public stage, not to this degree. He's helping PBS viewers, non-blacks and blacks alike, fill in the gaps to answer basic questions about info we take for granted, like who we and our neighbors are, why our families live in the places they do, and what connections we have to the greatest American stories ever told (and never told).

Chris Rock found out he's descended from a Civil War hero, Don Cheadle learned that his ancestors we're actually slaves of Native Americans, but one of the surprising stories told in the program involved a woman named Bliss Boyard who is by all appearances a white person but talked about her father who, as a young man, chose to pass as white. He went on to marry as white and raised his kids white but all the while he'd been a very light skinned black person.

I recognized the true story because it was retold in a 2003 movie starring Anthony Hopkins, playing the light skinned black man! You would never have know it from the way it was marketed and it was a surprise to me while watching it (I remember that I was on a date when I saw it, I was just looking for anything to qualify as a dinner and a movie type film, and it turned out to be profound and an instant favorite). It was called The Human Stain and you oughtta rent it.

Yes We Can!

2008-02-02T22:44:00.000-05:00

Yes We Can - Barack Obama Music Video

2008-02-02T22:42:00.000-05:00

Check out this video on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjXyqcx-mYY

Sent from my iPod Touch

Some new Google Video joints

2006-10-24T23:19:00.000-04:00

Not all photojournalism comes from warzones, hope you find these pics a little funny. Make sure your computer's audio is up and check out this slideshow. Yes these are real, folks caught off guard in the city that never sleeps (right). These are my own candid shots from NYC's subways where folks are known to catch zzzs, hardly concerned with who sees them but hardly realizing when they're slowly slumping over. Check it out:
• Caught Sleeping

Also, here's another slideshow that's way more sentimental but pretty cool. Good ol' Uncle Charles stopped by one morning and rapped with my pop, a usual occurrence, so this particular time I pulled out the camera and shot the both of them, but mainly focused on his pride and joy... his beautiful bluesy '69 Coup DeVille:
• Uncle Charles' Caddy

...Apparently you can

2006-10-21T12:12:00.000-04:00

I'm quick to come to the defense of victims but this scene is victimless. I was disturbed but figured there'd be more to explain this so I did some digging (i.e. I called my cousin). Reports show that this is Mr. Carter's good friend Chaka Pilgrim, he works with her and plays with her (a little rough). Here, the two were slap boxing (which ought to be advised against when you're a celebrity) and the documentary "Backstage" shows the whole scene where immediately after the two hug and laugh. I've play-boxed with women before and never went this hard at their face, but that's just me. In a clip this short Mr. Carter is the real victim. Read:

• Jay-Z gets clear of hard-knock strife, NY Daily News

• Rumor Control, Black Voices

• Name Droppings, AZ Daily Star

You can't make this stuff up

2006-10-20T21:27:00.000-04:00

I hate to hate on my own, but WTF is this? Just received this in an email. The sender claims Mr. Sean Carter was reacting to a fan who was trying to take his photo and he didn't approve or hadn't authorized it or something to that effect. I don't know what the full context around this is or if this clip only shows the culmination of some seriously provoking behavior on the the part of the subject, but damn I'm hard pressed in trying to come up with a good rationale to excuse this crazy incidnet. In a room full of people too. The email says this took place in South Africa and that soon afterwards Carter tried to pay off the fan so she'd remain quiet. Man, I think paparazzi is one thing, but a fan? Come on. What does this look like to you? I know the clip is brief, but how much more do we even need to see? I usually dig the man's music, but I'm not fan of whatever the hell this is.

Freedom Still Needs a Ride

2006-06-29T10:42:00.000-04:00

Please, please, please be sure to check out the NY Times Magazine this weekend, it's going to feature stories and images of some 1960s Freedom Riders, two of whom are Robert and Helen Singleton (mís padres). I'm not completely certain of the angle of the article but I believe it will print a number of historic mugshots including these:

read his desccription

read her desccription

A few months ago, when we began planning a project of our own about the Freedom Rides, I searched and searched online and finially uncovered these images of my parents from 1961 when they were arrested in Jackson, Miss. for their involvement with the Freedom Rides. A very long time ago they'd actually shown me fragile xerox copies that they had of these two pictures but not till now did I get a hold of reusable electronic versions. The pictures are amazing, the web is amazing, and there's more info at the site where I dug up these raw jpegs:
http://www.outreach.olemiss.edu/Freedom_Riders/

Migration, immigration, emigration...

2006-04-06T14:09:00.000-04:00

So James Sensenbrenner, a Republican from Wisconsin, and Peter King, a Republican from New York want to build a wall to block people from immigrating to the U.S. Here's what will make that plan even better: Ask Germany to donate some of the remaining pieces of the Berlin Wall so when builders break ground on this wall the ceremony will have just the right kind of symbolism. This wall will follow suit with the one the Israeli government built to block out Palestinians, but I think the only reason they didn't use pieces of the Berlin Wall was because of some weird history with Germany or something like that, but otherwise it would've made just as much sense.

Debating what is legal or illegal is secondary in this discussion to the right way to treat fellow human beings. When I lived in Atlanta it was perfectly legal for the city to remove poor people from their homes so they could build a better Braves stadium right next to the old one. It wasn't right, but it was legal. Somehow there's nothing illegal about imprisoning black men at disproportionately higher rates than any other group for same or for lesser crimes, it's not only legal but to some of people it makes sense. There was a time when slavery was totally legal. Jim Crow was totally legal, so forget about what's legal or illegal. When the law doesn't work we make new laws, we make lawmakers to change the law. And always when we look back we can see the fallacies in the old law.

Quit calling people "illegal." Migration, immigration, emigration, it predates any American laws, it's a phenomenon that is part of the age-old story of humans all over the planet. It takes place here, it takes place overseas. It happens every generation, it will continue to happen as long as people need to feed their kids. Change is inevitable, the goal for any smart society is to learn to adapt to change without turning inhumane.

Debating what to do with all these Mexicans and where to put Mexicans, Arabs, Africans, Asians, sounds terribly reminiscent of debates from a hundred years ago about what to do with all these ex-slaves. After all, black people wound up in the U.S. illegally as well, the trans-Atlantic slave trade was the world's worst example human rights violations. The reason the union wanted to end slavery was to open the West to northern whites looking for farmland as opposed to Southern whites looking to build more plantations. So a whole war was fought so that people could move. The simple fact is, people always move. We continue to move. In the case of Mexicans in America they are actually moving back. If you really want to stop it then you might want to enlist here.

If this doesn't make you preachy...

2006-04-05T21:41:00.000-04:00

This material is not more April Fool's Day spoofing, it's real stuff. Maybe I'm preaching to the converted but I have to get this out here anyway. We really have to popularize different images of ourselves. Production time and money is put into stuff like this while constructive projects can't get greenlighted. Clips will circulate online, why do we ever let it out?

The first clip gets no words. In the second clip, notice how the reporter (who actually sounds black himself) is on his you people thing. He says, "Many of you bring..." and "Many of you say..." as if he's trying to draw a clear distinction between himself and these people in the story. He sounds so cynical, like he hated his job that day? The last clip is backlash and complete mockery, and the crowd can't get enough. The photo after that I nabbed from a Facebook page, WTF:

• N**** Moment [windowsmedia]
• Leprechaun in Mobile, Alabama [youtuube]
• Japanese n**** skit [windowsmedia]
• Bad blood [jpeg]

Our message to the world and its message back to us

2006-04-05T21:14:00.000-04:00

We're on TV, in the movies, up on stages all around the world, entertaining people, singing, rapping, throwing balls, running, jumping, shaking it in videos. This is hardly the majority of us, but it's the majority of what the rest of the world sees. We're very used to being seen but this article asks a very simple question: why aren't we doing a better job of keeping our eye on the rest of the world? Are we watching trends? Preparing for change? How are the rest of us gonna eat? At the very end of the piece the writer touches on a scary idea. He basically says that those of us who aren't watching -- not only referring to under-skilled or under-educated people but also the unconnected and unwired -- are in the unique position of becoming "economically irrelevant." He says that the evolving economy that is making the world so much smaller not only puts us in this position locally, but it's marginalizing us globally! Read this essay by Glenn C. Williams Jr.: "What Does India Have To Do With Black America?" (btw, this essayist is my cousin in Philly, big up!)

Think Different

2006-04-01T03:37:00.000-05:00

I love Apple's latest ad! It shows how they're so in tune with more people and more markets than just the hip young iPod crowd.

(Yeah right!) This picture is actually from FinalCall.com in an article about Farrakhan taking a fact-finding tour through Cuba (March 19-27). His aim was to learn their government's hurricane preparedness practices, considering how their infrastructure endures repeat hurricanes with very little or sometimes no loss of life. Of course the article goes back and brings up how Cuba offered medical assistance to survivors of Katrina in New Orleans (just like it does for other countries in the Americas), but U.S. officials refused it.

An interesting set of numbers in this article is, "Of the over 12 millions Cubans on the island, 72,000 of them are medical doctors. In comparison, of the over 40 million Black citizens in America, only 30,000 of them are medical doctors." I guess the obvious counter-argument to Cuba's stepping in and assisting would be -- how can a country that America has sworn as its enemy be trusted to practice safely on U.S. citizens? Good point... till we realize that that position is being argued by FEMA.

April fool's.

Read article: "Min. Farrakhan leads delegation on successful and much anticipated Cuba visit"
Photo by Kenneth Muhammad
Spoof by mrSingleton

immigration rally

2006-03-30T12:22:00.001-05:00

immigration rally
Originally uploaded by toddhanz.

Here's another news photo from Flickr, this time by a user named toddhanz (and this dude's photos are actually very professional). The immigration rallies in the West looked at first like students walking out of class but they were actually planned for months, at least since December '05. But they quickly grew into something even bigger than what the planners might have expected as masses of the population turned out to support the case for immigrantion reform. I heard how some radio DJs played a huge role in drumming up interest for the events as much of the dance radio, hip-hop radio, and Spanish-language radio in L.A. is anchored by Latino radio personalities.

Duke lacrosse press conference

2006-03-30T12:22:00.000-05:00

Duke lacrosse press conference
Originally uploaded by jacksonfox.

Flickr is ten times more powerful when it is used to post news-related photos. A user named jacksonfox just posted this and nine other photos from a press gathering at Duke U. concerning the now confirmed rape of a woman. Members of the lacrosse team are suspects and athletic activities have been suspended. The story is charged with race, class, gender issues as the woman, a hired entertainer, is a black woman and the accused athletes are white men. Duke U. is in the South, it has a largely white student body, while the city Durham is predominately black. The Duke campus newspaper is all over it (the student journalists are certainly cutting their teeth on this suddenly national story): dukechronicle.com: "Lax games suspended amid controversy".

The student commentary is interesting too, here are two letters:
• "The safety of black women"
• "Throwback to Salem"
And one opinion piece:
• "Alarming Context".

A slice of a slice is not the whole pie

2006-03-30T00:35:00.000-05:00

As soon as I got finished reading that New York Times article ("Plight Deepens for Black Men, Studies Warn") I needed to take a walk, and right across the street at the bodega I overheard about three brothers musing about the jail time they've done.

Of course it's a reality, still, it's not everyone's and definitely not the majority, as the media coverage this week seems to convey. Understandably, I've been upset with the coverage resulting from the article (it's already archived on nytimes.com but someone with the username "bcgntn" was quick enough to post it as a PDF). Just now I was watching News Hour on PBS and took issue with the way they handled their related report, "Black Men Left Out Of Growing Economy" (RealAudio clip). I applaud Jim Lehrer and Ray Suarez for their good faith effort, but like many reporters this past week they were way too loose with how they identified just who they were reporting on. Way too easily, reporters keep interchanging "black men" (which means all of us) with qualified phrases such as "black men who dropped out of high school," or "black men with criminal records," or "black men out of work." Then they'll go on to quote high stats and figures that overstate reality because they're speaking of the high percentages within lower percentages. If we're discussing black men in general then no, we aren't all a bunch of jobless, uneducated, incarcerated absent fathers. Believe it or not the majority of us are living responsibly and contributing to this economy but the reports understate this.

Now I am not at all disputing that an honest look at the numbers makes very clear that the vicious cycle of poverty, absent fathers, poor education, joblessness, crime, harassment, incarceration, and poor re-entry policies has entrapped more black men than it has other groups of men. But the problem is in how we're connected to the cycle, not in being "black men," as some negligent reporting conveys. Some of the reporting makes it seem like, when it comes to the factors contributing to our problems, black manness itself is now a factor!

Unfair education opportunities, unjust real estate practices, or undersupported job training programs are problems that men face because they prevent men from being providers. The fact that these problems face black men in particular actually exposes the enduring, indelible legacy of racial inequality and injustice that we have to deal with on top of the things more in our control (yes, some things are totally in our control: like we have total control over who we get pregnant -- I think the non-custodial father problem should be addressed separately). Brothers who are caught up definitely need help and want opportunities to help themselves, but don't get lost in that style of reporting and start to convince yourself that the NY Times article was about the majority of "black men."

I'm so sick of hearing "black men" when it's not followed with a qualifier -- black men who what? No, black men in general are not all some jobless, drug dealing, prison-bound dead-beat dads. And we damn sure aren't all out here on the down-low or trying to date white and Asian women. Once a small group takes on a trait, it implicates all of us and that's so misleading. Don't believe the hype! People really need to fall back with all these terribly misguided images of who we are (and on our part we really need to proactively put some different counter images of ourselves out here).

Yes the numbers are staggering, really bad: about a third (i.e. a minority) of black men between 20 and 39 (i.e. not all black men) are in the cycle in some way or another. But make sure you read through the info with the whole picture in mind. Alarm is necessary and overdue because the numbers for those of us in the cycle are so much higher than they are for any other group, and I am definitely grounded deep enough in reality to know that for those of us who are not in the cycle, it is easiest for us to get sucked into the cycle. But the 2004 stat that revealed that half of black men were jobless applied only to men in their 20s without a college education FROM A SMAPLE POOL IN NEW YORK CITY! So the number reflects a problem that applies to a whole lot of us, and it needs attention and resources and solutions, but it's just not the vast majority of us.

If you actually read parts of the article in reverse it changes the tone, and the bias. The article states that "By their mid-30's, 6 in 10 black men who had dropped out of school had spent time in prison. In the inner cities, more than half of all black men do not finish high school... According to census data, there are about five million black men ages 20 to 39 in the United States."

So we can flip it and begin with, there are about 12 million black men in the U.S. and of this 12 million, 5 million are between 20 and 39. So 5 million in that age bracket equals about 42% of all black men and of that 42%, the majority of them completed high school and entered the workforce.

Finishing high school is the most crucial factor because its only in looking at the numbers of those who did not finish high school or who did not go on to college that we start to see the numbers skyrocket.

But again, keep in mind that as the article goes, it speaks of percentages of percentages of percentages. Slices of smaller slices. My point is that, although our slices are wider than other groups' slices, we're still just talking about slices, not our whole pie.

On another note, the media seem to be calling black men to task both here and abroad. Read this from Newsweek: African Women Reshaping Broken Continent"

Such love!

2006-03-20T01:07:00.000-05:00

A jury in Colorado ruled that the N-word is no longer an expression of hate... it's love! The Denver Post recently reported that a "Boulder jury convicted Phillip Martinez of beating an African-American college student but declined to find Martinez guilty of ethnic intimidation despite testimony that he had yelled the N-word during the altercation." Well isn't this a new day?!? Folks are finally catching on -- nowadays the N-word just means love thy brother!

It gets better, even more folks are coming up with creative ways to show love. Last fall some students at Baylor University (Waco, TX) threw what they called a "Thug party." Afterwards they were comfortable enough to post the party photos on a Facebook page. As WFAA-TV reported recently, the photos show "at least one student who attended came with her face darkly bronzed to imitate a black person," because black=thug, right? Super. I guess it was all in fun, all done with love. Hey, back atcha!

Freudian slip

2006-03-17T23:08:00.000-05:00

There's no clearer example of a Freudian slip anywhere. Watch this and weep.

Negrophile?!?

2006-03-05T21:08:00.000-05:00

Alright, so I was just searching around for some work-related info and I came across The Black Weblog Awards. I clicked around a bit and saw some familiar names and some not so familiar to me, so I check out all the winners, pretty much with my work-related task of frequently updated news & blog sites still in mind, and I get to Negrophile, winner of the Best Political/News Blog. Right on the homepage they have a dense list of noteworthy blogs. I check out the headlines, okay... then I'm suddenly overtaken with a rush of egoism and I search the list quickly for the word singleton. Low & behold, my blog is listed??? I'm moved, but man am I embarrassed! I have my silly reasons but I haven't made an update to my blog in ages. So I'll be really excited to soon bring to light the good work that has kept me so distracted, but in the meantime let this kickstart the making even more work for myself.

Bright shiny ironies of poverty

2005-09-20T23:59:00.000-04:00

My big brother used to hip me to all sorts of social and political and economic and even religious issues back when I was a kid. Sounds fun, right? I must've been like 10 or 11 years old, old enough to comprehend and discuss with him. One issue I remember very well was the African diamond mining issue because it sounded frightening. I pictured people covered in soot and falling down shafts, going blind, getting real hurt. There was plenty there for my imagination to run away with. But I was still just a kid and I pretty much just stored that info away with all the other depressing stuff he'd tell me. But it's good to see this one getting some more attention these days. My brother is much older than me, and he was this serious anti-apartheid student activist at UCLA back then in the 1980s. At that time South Africa was still the world's number one diamond supplier. The African nations now that are affected the most by illegal diamonds are Angola, DR Congo, and notoriously, Sierra Leone.

Seems like the New Orleans disaster got folks confronting poverty issues, good. I think it connects us with the broader world poverty issue. I was just like a lot of folks watching the coverage of poor folks crying out "Help!" right here in the world's richest nation and couldn't help but notice that blaring irony. So I started looking up details and read that Sierra Leone is actually in a three-way tie to be the world's poorest nation, meanwhile it is the greatest supplier of diamonds! How's that for irony? This little factoid is actually a little hard to back because the millions of rough, uncut diamonds mined in war-torn Sierra Leone are smuggled out to neighboring countries and not officially sold to big buyers until they're recorded there (but read this about Sierra Leone, its neighbors, and leading buyer De Beers).

So now I'm reminded of those public awareness commercials we saw a lot of after Sept. 11, remember the commercials that said decent, well-meaning, middle class, white collar Americans who just wanna buy a few recreational drugs were indirectly, unwittingly supporting jihadist terrorist networks? Well how about piling on a little guilt on decent, well-meaning brides and grooms and rappers? Both Al-Qaida and Hezbollah support their ops with diamond dollars. Gotta mention Pat Robertson in the same breath.

I came across this photo essay "A Trail Of Diamonds" by Kadir van Lohuizen in Foreign Policy magazine last week and it's duplicated online.

In his remix of "Diamonds Are Forever" Kanye West says:
These ain't conflict diamonds, is they Jacob?
Don't lie to me mayne.
See, a part of me sayin', 'Keep shinin'.
How? when I know of the blood diamonds.
Though it's thousands of miles away
Sierra Leone connect to what we go through today.
Over here its a drug trade, we die from drugs.
Over there they die from what we buy from drugs:
The diamonds, the chains, the bracelets, the charmses.
I thought my Jesus piece was so harmless
'Til I seen a picture of a shorty armless.

Alright, kudos to Kanye for speaking his mind even way before his live TV Bush bash. He's apparently troubled deep down about wearing diamonds (part of his rapper uniform), so he demonstrates instead that he does 'care about black people' by at least starting this discussion. The 'conflict diamonds' he mentions are stones illegally traded for weapons from parties at war (or at civil war) due to this corrupt diamond profiteering. During Sierra Leone's civil war (1991-2002) the rebels, the Revolutionary United Front, grew infamous for forcing little kids to become soldiers, making them work in the diamond mines, and even chopping off their limbs (then packing the wounds with cocaine) if they didn't produce enough stones.

I also found this: Kanye's baby step earned him a little credit from the world's last 'conscious' rapper, Maxi Jazz from some British group called Faithless. He brings the diamond issues to light in his interview with the newspaper The Independent. But regarding the rest of us he says, "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that African-Americans on MTV, whose entire video budgets probably cost less than their wristwatches, also appear to be ignorant of just how many child-soldiers are bullying child-workers in blood-soaked diamond mines in Sierra Leone."

Yes, conflict diamonds are officially illegal and, due to U.N. sanctions, are now down to a small percent of all illicit diamonds (themselves just 20% of the global diamond market), but according to The Independent, almost half of all the world's conflict diamonds are sold here in the U.S. Bad. Another irony: Tony Blair wants to take on poverty in Africa like Bush is taking on terror in Iraq (wink), meanwhile 60% of the world's rough stones pass through London, the world capital of the diamond industry.

Hurricane Pam

2005-09-13T19:23:00.000-04:00

A second Hurricane Pam Exercise was planned for this summer
Last year, around the same time as Hurricane Ivan, FEMA, worked with LSU to conduct a New Orleans disaster simulation called Hurricane Pam. The results revealed what came true these past weeks. Last week, before quitting the job altogether, FEMA's Mike Brown said "we planned for it two years ago. Last year, we exercised it. And unfortunately this year, we're implementing it."

"LSU Researchers Assist State Agencies with Hurricane Response Plans"
One important result of the exercise was the understanding among agencies at all levels of the seriousness of such an event. "A White House staffer was briefed on the exercise," said van Heerden. "There is now a far greater awareness in the federal government about the consequences of storm surges."

Not to berate officials unnecessarily but this is so major, mad people are dead or displaced and people really need to take this serious. Read more about how much officials knew and still how inept they were:
• "Experts warned of threat to New Orleans for years" CNN.com, Sept. 2005
• "Washing Away" The Times-Picayune, June 2002
• "Who Is To Blame?" [WM Video] CNN.com, Sept. 2005

So I was on to something

2005-09-10T16:39:00.000-04:00

So I was on to something...
Time to revisit an old blog entry. I read an article about how difficult it was to evacuate New Orleans, but check it, it wasn't even about Hurricane Katrina, it refered to Hurricane Ivan from a whole year ago. I posted this days after it was published (in Mother Jones). I recalled it just now because these aspects of the Katrina tragedy seemed eerily familiar, like I'd already read about them somewhere...

Plights don't change overnight

2005-09-08T22:18:00.000-04:00

Plights don't change overnight
It's been over a week now, and like a lot of folks I've been glued to the coverage of Katrina's aftermath. At this point the political issues are surfacing and it's nuts to me how some folks are saying that this is not a race matter as much as it is a class matter. Man, that's the easy way out of the conversation, it's the quickest way to dodge the tough talk in a sorry attempt to sound PC. But none of us were born yesterday. Clearly, all the poor people, black, white, or other, weren't able to escape New Orleans because they couldn't afford to escape. It was their financial and economic circumstance that caused that part of the tragedy. Class is the culprit not skin color, right? But c'mon, consider broader factors here, step back from the immediate natural disaster and consider the long legacy of race issues in the U.S. that forced "these people" into their class circumstance in the first place. Plights don't change overnight! And I'm not even looking back as far as slavery. Racial discrimination has only been "unlawful" on the books in the recent decades since the 1960s and 70s remember? That's what the Civil Rights movement was all about and that still left plenty to be fixed.

So yes there is a direct correlation between poverty and race. Whoever tries to stand up and divorce this Katrina mess from race issues is ignorant because they are ignoring the obvious historical fact that black folks were forced into their class circumstances JUST BECAUSE THEY WERE BLACK. None of this crap just goes away because it's shameful and embarrassing to admit. What's more shameful and embarrassing is that it's taking this disastrous flood to make the ugliest realities about how we've all been living to rise to the surface.

I'm not mad at her one bit

2005-08-16T13:18:00.000-04:00

I'm not mad at her one bit.
If I was near Crawford, TX I'd have to get out there with this lady Cindy Sheehan. I'm not mad at her one bit. No, Bush isn't going to see her, and yeah, she'll go home soon, but she has added new life to the questioning of so much Iraqi and American bloodshed. She is making people react, have an opinion. That's how you know you're having an effect, when people can't just blankly, stoicly, stand by and not respond. Her protest forces people to make a choice, take a side on the issue, which makes way for relevant decisions getting made somewhere and somewhere else. Some folks have joined her demonstration by camping out with her. Someone else ran his pick-up truck over the mock cemetery crosses that the demonstrators pushed into the ground. So clearly, no one can sit back and ignore her, especially not her husband. They've been separated for some time, so he chooses this perfect time to officially file for their divorce. I guess his opinion about her protest is clear.

My man Hannibal is winning

2005-07-12T16:15:00.000-04:00

My man Hannibal Tabu is winning. He just published his first novel and that is really what's up. Brother man makes me proud, and I want to do the same when I grow up. I'm really feeling the speculative fiction vibe. Check it out and cop your copy here.

I'm in Nürnberg, Germany

2005-05-05T06:09:00.000-04:00

I'm in Nürnberg, Germany on a business trip, watching CNN's International channel in the hotel room, six hours ahead of NY time, and just heard about this small explosion in NY. Yesterday's news story was an explosion in Kurdish northern Iraq where a huge explosion killed 60 people. Now this one is being covered almost as though it was a bigger blast, but of course it wasn't — no one hurt, a little broken glass — but of course it's just a bigger irony. On the way out here the security screening at Newark Liberty Airport went smooth, no "random check" on a brother headed to Frankfurt. Let's see now how security acts as I come back through.

Gunshot survivors meet their match

2005-04-21T22:04:00.000-04:00

Gunshot survivors meet their match
As if all this business with the Nazi trucks hitting the priest, and rappers gaining fame because they've been shot a bunch of times wasn't enough, now the trendy tough guy thing is to take a good animal attack and live to tell about it. Reuters' "Oddly Enough" pages win for the wild story of the day: "Bear-Mauling Victim Survives Rare Second Attack".

The Pope

2005-04-02T18:04:00.000-05:00

The Pope
No matter how famous someone is, when they pass you find out more about them. The Pope got hit by a big truck when he was younger but bounced back. Learned that from this timeline from Chicago Tribune.

Hate him or love him, admit

2005-03-30T10:56:00.000-05:00

Hate him or love him, admit – a phony rapper by any other name is still...
The first time I heard The Game was on an underground track and he flowed for nine straight minutes over Dre's "Deep Cover." I thought, this dude is the next movement. Since then his releases have chipped away at my enthusiasm, seeming to only name-drop and talk tough about the same people, same incidents song after song, yet never captivating me the same way. Then came that whole art-imitating-life charade he put on with 50, and now this news that he can't even rock a live show with just a DJ, a mic, and a rowdy crowd. I hate to hate, but hip-hop has a way of finding imposters and your man Game is fast becoming the black Vanilla Ice. "When trying to get "Start From Scratch"... off the ground, Game stumbled and stopped the song. He tried again, forgot the words and again shut the song down." Read this review of The Game's live show in Toronto by writer Andrew Gorham, first published in The Globe and Mail 3.21.05, republished here 3.24.05 in Langfield Entertainment's newsletter "On Stage, Rapper Not At Top Of His Game".

Re: Fri, 3/11 post

2005-03-26T01:47:00.000-05:00

Re: Fri, 3/11 post
Now look at this... matter of fact, listen as well. Speaking of that Nazi German reparation payout, let's keep our ears peeled about how this case develops and figure out if there's anything so 'different.' Apparently, the US Supreme Court is to decide whether or not to hear a racially charged case more than 80 years old where 300 African Americans were killed and thousands more driven from their homes during 1921 riots in Tulsa, OK's economically thriving black community of Greenwood. My brother lives there today with his wife and kids and I visited with my other brother and parents this past xmas, and I can personally attest to the North Tulsa community looking like it never recovered. Here's an analogy: when the US went in and bombed the hell out of Iraq and Japan, the US then became obligated to implement a nation re-building strategy, at least in theory, correct? (An exception would be Vietnam because they made it quite clear that they didn't want such help.) So why not see a riot as a mini war, a mini civil war that needs to be followed up with a mini reconstruction era? The economic landscape of South Central LA is noticibly different today from what it was following the 1992 riots. I hope the high court can see how that didn't happen with the 1921 riots and makes a retroactive plan, even if it's unprecedented. But no high hopes here because please believe that I'm not one of these folks waiting around for apologies and retribution for wrongs of the past. Better to anticipate wrongs of the future. With this Tulsa issue I'm simply following a news story. With the Nazi/Jewish issue I'm just following a similar news story. Whatever will be will be. Go to NPR

Rhyme of the week

2005-03-25T01:32:00.000-05:00

This track isn't brand spanking new, but since I heard it for the first time last week, then to me it's the rhyme of the week:

Loyalty, undeservedly, never heard of me, I
Be the exception, epitome of adaption.
The superficial surroundings, bullets, fiends cock rounds and
Enemies in my family extorting scheming and scamming me.
I'm like who's rolling, I'm growing until the diesel hit me.
I'm badder than bruised and madder having to choose
'Tween happiness and the blues and who be filling my shoes
When I done had it with crews ecstatic to see me lose
But panic when I be smooth. I'm manic but I'm no fool,
Y'all rapping I'm talking cool. And Columbine is not new,
In Compton they shoot up schools too, riding by to see who's who.
Cock the shotty, they cruise through. Rock the body, blood ooze through.
Tell his family that dude's blue. No coming back from him scrapping
When niggas was packing and he wasn't packing too.
So if you feel me you know
When they try to kill me they slow.
I seent 'em 'round the corner with mirrors and creeped up on 'em.

I'll tell you who spit this next time. First just think whether or not you dig it and let that be that for now.

Hey look, a reparation handout

2005-03-11T14:22:00.000-05:00

Hey look, a reparation handout (Would you say they're not bootstrappers?)
"BERLIN: Jews compensated: A Jewish family whose retail empire was confiscated by the Nazis won compensation this week, in one of the largest restitution cases since World War II. Gunther Wertheim fled to America in 1939, after the Nazi government seized his chain of Berlin department stores. A court ruled this week that Karstadt-Quelle, the company that now owns the Wertheim properties, must pay the family $25 million for two of the properties, with a possible further $200 million to come. Wertheim’s daughter, Barbara Principe, now 71, said she didn’t know about her family’s former fortune until she visited Berlin in 2001, and saw one of the stores with her father’s name on it." (From THE WEEK Magazine, Fri, Mar 11, 2005. See seventh brief.)

Funny what a Google search will turn up

2005-01-24T18:48:00.000-05:00

Funny what a Google search will turn up.
It's rare that I learn of someone with my same name and more rare that such a person is doing enough to get picked up by websites. But this little kid keeps turning up in North Carolina and he's apparently a little rising soccer star. I'm gonna keep up on him. He's in the 6-7 year old boys division and one of the Green Machines' three MVPs. So far the Green Machines have a winning record (2-0-1) and they recently beat the Hurricanes 3 to 1. Find his name ("Malik Singleton") on this page from some local site called LowcountryNow.

Also, he's pictured on this page from Fayetteville Online.

Hardly A Good Endorsement

2005-01-17T11:29:00.000-05:00

Hardly A Good Endorsement
"McDonald's Ex-CEO dies at age 44. Charlie Bell began his career with the chain at the age of 15. [He] said he ate a McDonald's product most days, Bell was diagnosed with colorectal cancer just weeks after being named to the company's top job in April.

"Bell had succeeded Jim Cantalupo, who died suddenly of a heart attack after a little more than a year on the job at age 60. He was the company's first CEO to have worked behind the counter since Fred Turner, who retired in 1987." [Straight from this CNN/Money article.]

Wow, is McDonald's fast becoming the new tobacco? Maybe there needs to be a site like truth.com for fast food. Clearly, it kills.

Uncle Tom Chief Justice?

2004-11-09T18:58:00.000-05:00

Uncle Tom Chief Justice?
Bush is going to go all out this term and try to red-state the whole nation. He'll want credit for a historic move — appointing the first non-white-man as chief of the high court — but who needs this? Here's what conservative insider Matt Drudge found out.

I thought I had bad dreams

2004-11-04T22:18:00.000-05:00

Yeah right
Man I thought I had bad dreams, but this one takes the cake. I feel sorry for this guy because I can relate. Once in third grade I dreamt that I fought this kid not realizing that I'd simply had a very realistic dream. I swear we went all the way through jr. high and high and I couldn't believe he was clueless about it, he just thought I was crazy whenever I 'reminded' him, because it never happened. I only had pieces of memories from that day that never was, so I finally accepted it as a figment. Clearly I'm not the only one this happens to, just one of the fewer who accepts the truth. It's not bad that it happens, it's just bad if you involve the other person in the dream, back in real life, like this idiot did. Tell me it doesn't sound like a stupid dream that he never realized never happened.

Post-election rant

2004-11-04T10:21:00.000-05:00

Post-election rant
What disturbs me about some Bush supporters is their blatant disregard for the Constitution's principle of secular government, separate church and state. I've heard voters say they back Bush because 'he's a Christian like me and he allows God to guide his decision-making like me.' How fundamental a misunderstanding of the Constitution is this? If it's a good amount of the thinking that got Bush re-elected then it shows who didn't pay attention in history class. Folks either have no idea of the real reasoning behind secular government or they understand it and choose to vote against it. Isn't that un-American? Isn't that counter-patriotic? Bush's thinking regarding stem cells, gay marriage, and his appointing of evangelical court justices show he's also someone who either doesn't understand the concept of separate church and state or that he blatantly disregards it. Wow. In one of Tuesday's assembly races, in Southern California, a Saudi Arabian-born candidate lost, but got 41% of her district's vote. Ferial Masry is a Muslim, but do you think Islam was part of her platform? Hell no, or she wouldn't have made it to the primary. The broader the office the more secular a Muslim or Jewish candidate has to appear. But the president, the broadest officer of all, can run with orthodox ideals and be seen as representing the people. Of course I'm not knocking anyone's religious beliefs because the Constitution doesn't knock them, but isn't it the Constitution itself that's been knocked here?

A governor's guarantee goes further than votes

2004-11-01T18:12:00.000-05:00

In an interview with Tom Brokaw that aired this weekend, President Bush said that during a Wisconsin rally just days prior to the election, the governor whispered in his ear and said Bush was guaranteed a win there in that state. Did Brokaw not catch that? He didn't follow up with a question to see what exactly was meant by 'guarantee.' Recall, the governor of Florida guaranteed Bush a victory in 2000. A governor guarantee could go a long way, further than votes. I'm not trying to be too alarmist, maybe the governor was just expressing his hope and gut feeling. But with 2000 as prelude, I think it's just a little disturbing that Bush practically admits to having Governor Jim Doyle in his pocket. And on top of that, the nation's top broadcast journalist didn't catch it. According to Bush, Doyle didn't say I think you'll win, he said, I guarantee you a win. Ten electoral votes at stake in what's considered a battleground state and a questionable outcome looms already. Watch it carefully.

Cousin Monica is in 'Friends and Lovers'

2004-10-21T19:58:00.000-04:00

Man, Cousin Buttons called me today and said she saw a TV commercial late last night advertising something about our other cousin. Apparently, Cousin Monica is in one of those extra fabulous stage plays about black folks' relationships and religion (I'm gonna love it). Don't trip, they may attract a niche but these plays make maaad money. They usually get a couple of familiar names with slightly outdated film or music careers and draw their slightly outdated fanbase, but those folks pack the house night after night. So I'm not mad at all, and it's good to see cuz working again. She had a lil baby boy a couple of years ago and I finally saw lil patna last time I was home in L.A. I realize now that this is the same play with Leon that was going on when I was in Detroit a few weeks back. Alyson and I saw the crowds at the theater downtown, but I didn't know at the time that Monica was in it. Now that I do I'm gonna have to do it right and dress up in my fly hat and shoes, round up a buncha more cousins and go surprise cuz down in Philly. As proud family does, I'm putting her on blast right here:

"Friends & Lovers" is presented by Eric Jerome Dickey and is based on his novel. See if it's coming near you: www.ericjeromedickey.com/news.htm

Damani is in a new Steppenwolf production

2004-10-21T10:17:00.000-04:00

My brother just got a role in a new Steppenwolf production. I'm sick of people saying I look like Kanye West.

AUC peeps in here

2004-09-29T17:36:00.000-04:00

AUC peeps in here! Quick... must... big up... my peeps...
I just got off the phone with my old patna Brandon Shultz and I see my man is doing big things back in LA. He started Imajimation Studios/Street Legends Ink. Among much else, they publish the Blokhedz comic book and will have an animation short included with RZAs soundtrack to the new Blade movie. I see you B. Shultz! I met this cat in LA way, way back, just before we both headed down to Morehouse. He knew a cat in high school who I'd known since jump, and dude introduced us (Khaim Morton). We just reconnected because I'm press and he's he's media and our paths just naturally crossed again. So that's good news for the day. I see he has Lil Nikki (Nicole Duncan) down on his team too, a Spelmanite. Check them both at the group's 'About us' page, click on their faces, and hire them for something.

Media Watching

2004-09-27T23:16:00.000-04:00

Media Watching
What happens when people with no cars are forced to evacuate? Mike Davis articulates another disaster of hurricane season in "Poor, Black, and Left Behind" from the 9.24.04 issue of Mother Jones.

BrownWatch picked up my story

2004-09-27T17:58:00.000-04:00

The new gig has me quite busy, but here's a fruit of the labor... a site called BrownWatch picked up a story I edited titled "Lonely At The Top: Blacks are a fraction of top editors at mainstream magazines" from BE's September issue. It's good to know when I've added something to public discourse.

New gig

2004-06-10T16:52:00.000-04:00

So check me out, this is the new gig: BE. News Editor of the print edition and support for the web edition.

Readers respond to my issue

2004-06-02T12:35:00.000-04:00

Wow! Folks are responding (I love this medium). Read the NY Times Magazine's Readers' Opinions page for what they're saying about the issue (and a little about me).

The Ethicist answers my question

2004-06-01T20:40:00.000-04:00

A gig hunt is a grind unto itself. I've been going at it full time and not taking time to update here as a result. Yet in the throes I find this worthy of mention. It's crazy and I still feel weird about it, but I hope you caught this Sunday's NY Times Magazine (with the Teen Romance cover). THE ETHICIST is my favorite column, and this week it features a question that I submitted and author Randy Cohen's response: "You Name It: Avoiding discrimination the Hollywood way."

For a little backstory, my question was inspired by a 2002 NYTimes article about a name discrimination study. So in a sense I've conducted my own study with the same disturbing results. I plan to write more about it when it's all over. My conflict would come when deciding whether to accept or decline a gig as Ray. The other question would be could RayRay cash that check?

Why I defend music sharing

2004-04-04T12:26:00.000-04:00

Hey look, it's 4.4.04 Okay, first I calmed myself by putting it into perspective. Things could have been much worse. Some people lose family photos in fires. Some people lose family in fires. I didn't even have a fire, I just lost some music. I still have health, life, and liberty. THEN, my roommate reminded me that he'd copied my entire collection onto his external drive, must've been around three months ago. Eureka! So only the few things I've downloaded in the past three months will need to be reacquired. So again, this is why I defend music sharing: because there is no fullproof backup system.

HEATED! LIVID! FURIOUS! VEXED!

2004-04-03T08:51:00.000-05:00

HEATED! LIVID! FURIOUS! VEXED! An electric fuse blew. Lights went out. TV cut off. Music stopped. Music stopped for good. Music is all gone because the momentary disruption disconnected my computer's external hard drive, where I kept all my MP3s. 25 gigs. Two weeks worth of music. So like if you started at the top of my iTunes list and hit play, it would take two weeks for each song to play once. That's a lot of music: long versions, rare versions, import versions, banned versions. The damn hard drive had been improperly disconnected before yet always came back to life with everything intact. Not this time. No iPod. No backup. This thing was the backup. No backup backup. But some stuff is on my laptop, some is on my neighbors drive, some still on CD. I can get some stuff back but not all, maybe half. So this genuinely sucks. I am officially pissed! Ironically, I'd just been telling my cousin about the time, way back in Atlanta, when my house got robbed. They only stole music, CDs and tapes back then. I came home and found my window forced open, dirty footprints, my whole tapecase gone and CD stack too. Come to think of it, that was exactly a decade ago. Around this time of year in '94. Ten years from now I'll be fullproof. This can't happen again. So I'm starting all over. My cousin is in town with the Stevie Wonder box set and a bunch of Jay-Z. Not a bad start.

Now Playing: College Dropout

2004-04-02T09:06:00.000-05:00

Now Playing: Kanye West's album. I finally copped it and I've been into it nonstop for like three days. It's substantive and even a little sad. He's not sad himself, but he questions a sad reality by suggesting that a college education isn't a requisite for success like it used to be. The album is titled College Dropout and he brags on every other track about how college actually hindered his pursuing his ambitions. Once he decided to pursue his art and talent instead, his hard work and connections won him success, not a degree. So it's kind of scary but makes for interesting discussion. And anyone would agree that the beats are bananas! He's the rare producer who can also rhyme, so it's the rare cd that's worth purchasing (even though I copied it from my boy's already burned cd-rw... hey, cash is tight because I'm paying my college debt).

New version of the site

2004-03-10T14:13:00.000-05:00

Happy now. I got sparked by a design idea then sat down banged out this new version of the site. It took me about ten evenings straight, but now it's pretty much done, certainly enough to go live. I'm building a few new pages and redesigning others, but I'm not too shy to set it free. Hope you dig it.

On this day in history: Biggie killed

2004-03-09T14:36:00.000-05:00

On this day in history (1997): Christopher Wallace, aka Notorious BIG, aka Biggie Smalls shot, killed, murdered, slain at an industry party in LA. What always bugs me out about that day is that I was invited to that party but chose to stay home and write up an interview I'd just done earlier that day. I was deep in the scene back then, an entertainment journalist in Hollywood, and there were parties and shows and places to be seen every single night. It was just impossible and too exhausting to show up at every last one, so that night I called my boy back at the last minute and told him that I needed a break, you go ahead. I did my work and went to sleep, and my brother woke me up the next morning and told me the news. That little voice told me to stay home that night, and I'm kinda glad I listened.

Heart disease is no freaking joke

2004-03-09T11:09:00.000-05:00

Damn, I am so upset to hear that Paul Winfield just had a heart attack and died. Heart disease is no freaking joke, especially for men; it's our number one killer. We hear so much about violence and accidents and AIDS because those killers can happen so much more unexpectedly that they're scarier and sensationalized. But their numbers combined aren't nearly as commonplace as heart disease. Yet folks just accept it as one of those things. The man was just 62. 62! Like every year, the TV stations just aired all the brother's movies last month because it was February, which is a shame too but another topic altogether. It's possible to fight heart disease and cancer too by just changing that diet. Eat well and exercise and you will live. I'm about to go running. Read CNN obituary

My brother gets rave review in The Capital Times

2004-03-08T22:39:00.000-05:00

Big round of applause to my brother for getting the rave review in The Capital Times for his performance as the leading man, Boy Willie, in a new production of August Wilson's Piano Lesson. This production is running for at least a month in Madison, Wisconsin. He just came off a DC run of Suzan-Lori Parks' Top Dog Underdog late last year and now, for the moment, he's become part of Madison's nightlife. Read the review.

The same air

2003-04-05T09:49:00.000-05:00

Isn't it ironic that in a time of war, that SARS breaks out? It's almost cliche, but the message that SARS seems to have is: it's airborne so anyone can get it, any country, any city, as if it's reminding us that "we all breathe the same air." Isn't it humbling to realize that no matter what weapons of mass destruction we build to destroy each other or nature, we're still pretty new at this... nature has more ways to destroy us and is way better at destroying us than we may ever be. Follow the logic of this administration and you'd figure that we have cause to take preemptive measures against nature, but even this administration wouldn't try that, albeit they'd say that we just aren't yet that advanced. We stick to the familiar — shooting each other, going to war. That's been the solution no matter what the level of the reigning civilization. It's rediculous to me to hear that any military is 'advanced' when war itself is still the same old war. I'm not impressed with how far the capabilities of soldiers have come when all they're still capable of is killing the other guys. War happens, I know, but with something like SARS in the air, or with Cancer and AIDS still getting in our bodies, you'd think we'd only brag about raising our level of sophistication against things like these — dangers we didn't even create ourselves. Nature's killers are more oppressive to us than our own dictators, more indiscriminate than our own chemicals, killing us more quickly that any human acts of terrorism, and arguably more advanced killers than any of us.