icons

I was back home last year. Stuff was going on in Ft Smith. Important things were happening, I guess. Among other things, the city's legendary Lincoln Highschool was having its bi-annual reunion.

It so happened that both branches of my family were having their family reunions the same weekend. It was a huge weekend, and since I was disconnected from all these groups, I was exploring.

Ft Smith is home, but a rather unremarkable town. Yet, I was standing in a hotel made for San Fran. As the glass elevator rose and fell, I met a former classmate (Jatawn) who gave me love and much respect despite my idiocy toward her years earlier. I had been forgiven or she had not remembered.

Where am I? is this a dream?

I met her aunt. Classy lady.

I took a picture.

A picture I shared with the most favored people I know. Connie and Debbie. They laughed. Poked fun.

At my friend who'd showed me love. And that one's beloved aunt, were the brunt.

I didn't understand the poking fun by them I respected the most.

At that very point I reconfigured what my name meant. Jones. what does it mean, really. At that point, not too damn much. For the first time in my life, my blood, as "great" as they are, were cool with laughing at "ugly" people

never going there, and i lost major respect for some icons of mine

"boy"

There's a select few who can get away with calling me boy.

My mother (or any blood relative)

My homie(s).

My woman.

Everybody else gone have a problem.

leg

I was sitting there in the café, minding my own business. At the same table w/ a couple of workmates but not really *with* them. We were just sitting at the same table, if you know what I mean. Zippo conversation.

She came and sat at the table to my right. 2 oclock.

I'm anal, wanting to know everything I can know about here and now, so I looked around. There were plenty of other empty tables. "Why did you sit *right there*, young lady," I'm asking in my head? THERE ARE OTHER TABLES I screamed in my head. Why you tryna distract me that way?

Answer was obvious. She wanted *me* to see *her*. Arrogant thought, maybe, but hey. *shrug*

She didn't order anything. In this café she had nothing to eat. she just sat there. Seemed like she had a lot on her miind. Maybe even worried about something. Kept looking down... avoiding eye contact. Just seemed to be waiting, for what I didn't know.

I thought it strange, but she wore a pearlescent gray overcoat (do women wear overcoats?), the exact same overcoat I should have bought the first time I saw it 10 yrs ago when I saw it on sale. An overcoat she made no effort to keep from falling open to reveal the divinely almost-too-short emerald green dress w/ black paisley shapes on it.

Right in front of me she crossed her right leg over her left, revealing all sorts of wondrous leg while continuing to avoid eye-contact with everyone in the room. Out the cell phone came. She never looked up once. Until...

I sat facing this way, as I say... minding my own business. I noticed when she sat down. Couldn't help it. The motion had a.... flourish, to it. It was a little dramatic. I could have been wrong, but she wanted *my* attention.

She sat facing exactly that way, no more than 6 feet from me, giving me a perfect view of one outstanding ham. Olive skin. Black hair. That dress was fitting. That leg looking mighty fine.

I did what I had to do. What the natural order of things demanded. Could I sit there and let her be ignored? Of course not. That would NOT have been appropriate. I did the right thing. What the situation demanded. I left the table I was at, not talking to fellow drones, grabbed my plate and Styrofoam cup of coffee, and moved over to hers.

Hey, I'm todd. What's your name? She told me. Would you like a soda, something to drink? Yeah. Pepsi.

Cool. Be right back. I went up to get her a Pepsi.

Before I got back,

I woke up.

Dreams are way too funny.

jesus effing christ.
---------------------------------------

yeah.

pissed me off too. royally. 'cause me and the woman w/ the pearlescent overcoat and the green dress and olive skin and black hair... oh yeah... were jussssst about to conversate. make a "connection."

big time. and i had to go and WAKE UP. my lord.

*shakin my head here*

http://www.kitsnpieces.com.au/catalogue/images/green_feathers.jpg

Boring but you might oughta watch

It's *your* money. Maybe you care where it goes?

R.I.P. Senator Kennedy

Ted Kennedy Jr. eulogizes his father.

So does the President of the United States.

Naomi Sims

May you rest in peace.

stupid is as stupid does

Hey....

... cops *are* stupid. And arrogant. Find a humane cop with common sense and you'll discover a rare find.

The King Is Dead

Long Live The King.

believer

I will never forget that day over on Portland between 10th and 23rd. It was in a non-descript office... an office you could easily drive by every day for 20 years and never know it was there. That pivotal moment in time when maybe God hisself maybe came into my life for once. I forget her name, but she was the second psychologist / marriage counselor a wife and I, hoping to save a never-was and never-could-be marriage, spent time with.

I don't play games with doctors, especially when they make $100 an hour or more, paper that comes straight out of my pocket and all they do is sit and listen, and it's my mental, emotional or physical health that's at stake.

With both wives there were several visits. Hundreds of *my* dollars were spent. I always went in w/ the real... no nonsense... both times hoping to save a marriage that was not meant to be. My thing was: I'm paying hard-earned money, you're working for me? Okay then: I'm saying what's on my mind, straight up. I didn't play. Not at all.

At a certain point of the proceedings, I was blaming myself... beating myself up pretty good about all the my/our failures... all the years I'd wasted. Yeah, it's all my fault. All of it.

Bullshit.

"God" bless her. Instead of siding with the woman all the time, this one Doc seemed to come to my defense that one day. At least not siding w/ the woman all the time, she said something positive toward me. Magic words. An incantation, almost: "but Todd. You were a believer."

You'd have to have walked in my shoes for 30 yrs, been denied much, and heard the words that day to understand the weight that was lifted off me... to understand why those words were so pivotal in my life. In all my years I've never heard words more important than what I heard that day.

Heinous, rusty chains were broken. Weight was lifted off my shoulders. It was like: a slave got loose and headed North, and dude running t'ward Freedom....

... made it.

Easter

What if you were a witness?

What if you were there, to see it all?

What if a heavily-armed, well-trained solider grabbed you, a peasant, a nobody, by the arm. Asked... demanded: DO YOU KNOW THIS MAN!????

What if the answer was yes, but giving that answer meant your life would take an immediate downward spiral. What if saying "Yes, I know him. In fact, he's my friend," meant that you'd never see your children, wife, or family ever again and a death by torture would soon come.

What would you do?

We know what Peter did, but he lived.

The Soloist

I can't speak for you, but I know I've seen a great movie when on the way home I can't get it out of my head. Any of many emotions is right there on the surface.

I wake up the next morning thinking about it. Scenes from what I've seen and heard haunt me for many days after the event. Intellectually, mentally, emotionally.

It never fails. At work, either or I or somebody else catches me wagging my head... me lost in thought. They ask: "Is everything OOOOkay? Are you alright?" Me trying to figure out a dadgum movie I just saw. I usually end up laughing at what the scene must look like.

A Beautiful Mind did that. Dark Knight did that. The Truman Show did that. Seven Pounds absolutely did that like few movies ever have.

The Soloist didn't do that. Looking back on it...

I think the movie makers were a bit unfocused as to what kind of movie they were hoping to make. Jamie's and Robert Downey's performances were excellent for sure--you sensed a human in genuine turmoil and a good soul tryna do the right thing--but what was the movie about, really?

The homeless? The mentally ill? And the problems mental illness creates for the ill, their families, or society at large? The dark side of Los Angeles? The good journalism can do? How to kill raccoons tearing up your yard?

There were a lot of parts here that didn't come together for me, and I woke up this morning with no ghosts from this movie. What's happening here is simply a literary exercise.

I don't know, but I have this nagging feeling that I saw a movie that coulda been great but fell way short.

My recommendation?

See Seven Pounds.

i love me some foo Dick cheeny

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

not a big Beyonce fan, but...

... at about the foh-twenny mark, young lady lets out a laugh that I found to be quite exquisite.



Oh yeah. I'd let her buy me lunch.

spheres

Twenty years ago I had a cleaning business.

It was rare, but sometimes you got to "know" the people who tended to work late in the buildings you cleaned. it was rare but generally impossible to ever become friends w/ office workers. The economic divide was too great--I made more money than them--but they wore suits and pretty dresses to work while I came in wearing jeans and tennis shoes and wiped dirty ashtrays for a living, a demarcation that can never be breached.

But sometimes you'd strike up a conversation w/ someone... a night owl... and after talking to them everyday for a while, you knew some things about them. They became more than a body sitting there. They became, not just a human being, but something approaching friendship, despite the made-up chasm separating you. Two human beings.

There was this guy named Jonathan. He worked at Penn Square after the FDIC took it over in 1983. He worked at least until 7, sometimes later, almost everyday. Even on Fridays. He either loved his work, wanted to avoid his personal life as long as possible, or constantly remained in his immediate superior's doghouse. He was there longer than I was.

One night it became immediately clear that he was in a funk. I asked him why.

"Because my supervisor goes thru people's mail. Even mail marked 'PERSONAL'. By the time it gets to you, the envelope's been opened. So you know. Somebody's read it. it pisses me off. Can't he see PERSONAL written on the envelope?"

"Why don't you talk to him about it? Tell him how you feel."

Jonathan paused, thinking about the question. "Because it might help him," he finally said.

I was stunned. Horrified. I was so terribly young. I had no clue of what he meant.

Since then I've come to find: There are people in your life, hopefully on the barest of its periphery, who you come in contact with but really don't want/need/choose to know. People of whom it can positively be said it would be best never entered your life in any way, shape or form.

Not every person has friend potential. I wish that weren't true, but it is. It doesn't mean they are "bad" and you are "good" (or vice versa) but that is the way it is.

Bottom line: you're better off if your sphere of influence never intersects with theirs.

That's all I'm saying.

Socialism - what it is

There is some confusion about the meaning of "Socialism":

1: economic and political theory advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods

2 a: a system of society or group living in which there is no private property

b: a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state

3: a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done

Of course, a "socialIST" supports the aforesaid. Well, what does THAT mean?

Unfortunately, some words have nuance... different shades of meaning, and like few nuanced words, socialism is a club that some are wanting to misuse to make a particular political point.... idiotic, stupid, and anti-American as they may be. And most people don't like to read, don't know how to look up words in a dictionary--probably couldn't FIND one of those if they had to--and prefer to have "smart" people tell them how to think. And what to think.

Let me give you my take on what the word means: when a collective--a group of people (a community or city or national government, let's say)--either produce a product or service; or administer that product or service.

That was hard but there ya go. Let me give you a few examples of what I think socialism is....

Back in the late 50s / early 60s, the U.S. government decided to build an interstate highway system to replace the railways that, at the time, delivered most of the goods Americans wore, ate and used everyday. The government didn't hire out all those thousands of highway jobs to scores or hundreds or thousands of individual, independent, construction contractors. No. The U.S. government did the job itself. With government employees.

That's Socialism, friends, and ain't it funny? I've never heard anyone complain about the U.S Government's decision to build an interstate hwy system. Ever drive non-stop to Cali on I-40 from back east? Any problems?

Another example: the military. The U.S. government said: we're going to hire, pay, then train to the teeth a bunch of (mostly) bad-ass men who will protect the Nation in the air, on land, and at sea. Then we're going to have a really bad group of monsters. We'll call them Marines. Give all of 'em rules of engagement w/ the enemy; permission to torture (for the last 8 years, anyway) and permission to kill.

Socialism. Any complaints?

Education. The Gubment said we--that is, the gubment--will take it upon us to educate our young people who can't afford private schools. We will not ask permission to do it. We will simply do it.

I live in Oklahoma. There is an Oklahoma STATE University. There is an Arkansas STATE university. A STATE University in Kansas. Ohio STATE. Michigan STATE. Florida STATE. It goes on and on. That's.....

Socialism, people.

How about the police? Are they independent contractors or are they hired by and have their salaries paid by a collective? You. The taxpayer.

Socialism.

Get yourself educated. Stop letting yourself being bamboozled, led astray, shoved under a rock, duped by people who don't care nothing about YOU.

Find a dictionary. Learn how to read. And if you have trouble from then on, ask somebody.

Inhofe is... uh... an interesting guy. He flew half a world away on the Nation's dime only to claim President Obama is gutting the military and increasing welfare (buzz word). Oh, I know what he's trying to do... talking to his largely uneducated and uniformed constituency. Nice move.

Do you think that Inhofe doesn't know that, by a large margin, the majority of welfare recipients in OK are white? Or does he know but have a greater interest in corralling the sheep who voted for him against their own interests?

Dude's got me shaking my head. He prolly calls himself a god-fearin' Christian.

Okie's are largely uneducated, non-thinking, sheep-like "tell me what to think" type people--this I know firsthand--but this guy has to be either one of America's most-uninformed senators or, most likely, one who knows the facts but prefers to lie. On youtube, no less. lol

*shrug*

irony

During the campaign last Fall, (now) President Obama explained his difficulty in winning over working-class voters in Pennsylvania. Remember that. Pennsylvania.

He said:

"And it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

The President was vilified. Even by highly placed members of his own party. Hillary put out an ad she called "Pennsylvania" in which a middle-aged white woman said: "It just shows how out of touch Barrack Obama is. I was very insulted by Barrack Obama.''

The focus seemed to be on the guns.

McCain and Palin said repeatedly during the election of (now) President Obama that, if elected, he would come for your guns!! He's coming for your guns!!

They lied a lot.

One of the biggest voting McCain supporter blocks were policemen who fell for the McCain/Palin spiel. Don't take my guns. My guns. My guns. Gotta have my guns! It's my right!!

Cut to yesterday. A fight breaks out between a PENNSYLVANIA woman and her gun-laden 23-yr old son who'd been stockpiling weapons. His dog was pissing all over her house and his mother, for some reason, seemed not to like it. She was crazy, but she wanted BOTH of them OUT. And called those who say they protect and serve.

The police, hoping they'd do something she couldn't bring herself to do: kick her own 23-yr-old, do-nothing son that she'd help mis-raise, out of her house.

Responding to her call, two social workers with the authority to use guns with impunity... aka police officers... arrive--both, likely McCain/Palin voters--and the do-nothing 23yr old thinks the police are coming for his stupid guns.

McCain/Palin said the Obama supporters would. Come for his guns. Here they are!

Except, the two coming thru the door are McCain/Palin supporters. The ones who said you should have your guns. Have the right to shoot police in the face.

So, the two invading police get shot in the face on the spot by what Police feel the 23-yr old has a right to have -- guns the police have no intention of retrieving. They are there because a dog is pissing all over a woman's house.

Irony all around.

And bush, McCain, palin, limbow, beck all have blood on their hands. The republicans told a simple lie repeatedly, and four now-dead, gun-totin' humans are dead.

at some point...

They got took.

They didn't come right out and say it, but that's what happened. They put themselves out there and came upon somebody all too willing to take advantage. Later, they knew it. Reality came on.

Afterwards in the light of day, they said: what do you think about this....

There are so many gamers out here, why don't I become one? Meet somebody, keep up a good front? Then when I learn they can be trusted I can drop the front and be myself.

I said I didn't think it was a good idea.

touch

I used to go to the Kingdom Hall. In my final days there, I came to know a man named Jim Salda. He was an intelligent man--the first person I ever met who carried a programmable computer in his shirt pocket, a device he talked about with pride.

Brother Salda designed highway construction for the State of Oklahoma. Took a lot of high level math to do his job--I politely got lost every time I listened to him tell about the latest highway he had a hand in. He had his quirks and they did not mesh well with God's People.

One of his quirks was that he hugged people. He hugged everybody--man, woman... boy, girl. He was always in his own peculiar world and, for whatever reason, saw good in every person he met so deemed them huggable.

This quirk of his bothered some people and he got in "trouble." It's sad, I think, but most people are not comfortable being hugged. Some fellow Kingdom Hallers reported him to The Elders®. I understood why they did.

His hugging made me uncomfortable too. I grew up where "I love you" was never heard and hugs were never felt. My upbringing was probably a lot like yours. That's just how it was back then.

Over time, Brother Salda broke down the wall that Life had made for me. I had an epiphany. I came to love Brother Salda. One day I came into the Hall, Brother Salda was there with his usual hug, and it didn't bother me any more. He had passed on his unique gift I will carry with me from now on.

The gift of Touch.

Here's what I know:

1. I will not touch someone I don't like. I keep a distance of at least 2 feet from them. (Normal human beings... like Brother Salda.... are wired to do this naturally. I just never knew.)

2. I cringe when someone I don't like touches me.

3. People who touch me are sending me a critical message. It most likely means they care about me in some special way. To them I am not just another glob of chemicals.

4. If I touch you, I care about you. The act of touching, simple as it is, represents a huge leap for me in the area of personal development.

Brother Salda... may he rest in peace... taught me it's alright to touch.

escort

On November 14, 1960, the schools of New Orleans, Louisiana got integrated. On that day, for the first time since Columbus landed on North American soil, a human being of African descent, went to a previously all-white school in the Deep South in the United States. A little black girl.

Her Daddy didn't want to let her go. He'd been raised in the South and knew to what depths of evil good ol' white "Christian" boys and girls were all too happy to go against people of a different color.

The little girl's mother, as black women tend to do, put her foot down. "Hell nawwww!" She wanted not just for her daughter to get a better education, but all American children.

An artist commemorated the event with a painting he called The Problem We All Live With. Cool work of art. Take some time.

Ruby Bridges thought she was at Mardi Gras. "There was a large crowd of people, they were throwing stuff and hollering... just like at Mardi Gras!"

U.S. Marshal Charles Burks spoke of the American champion he had the privilege of escorting: "She showed a lot of courage. She never cried. She never whimpered. She just marched along like a little soldier, and we're all very proud of her."

Indeed.

As soon as Bridges got into the school that day, all those nice Christian white folks stormed in and snatched their children out. All the good Christian teachers left, too. Except one. Barbara Henry. For the next year, Mrs. Henry taught Ruby alone -- a classroom of one teacher and one child.

Every morning as little Ruby walked to school, one "Christian" woman threatened to poison the little girl. Hearing the threat, the Marshals only let Ruby eat food that she brought from home.

Another "Christian" woman carried on a single woman protest w/ a black baby doll in a wooden coffin. It scared little Ruby "more than the nasty things people screamed at me."

Her mother told her to call on God for help. "Remember, if you get afraid, say your prayers. You can pray to God anytime, anywhere. He will always hear you."

Father Bridges lost his job. Ruby's sharecropping grandparents in Mississippi got pushed off their land. But others in the community, black and white, stepped up and supported the family in a variety of ways.

Some whites kept their children in the school Ruby went to despite the protests. A neighbor gave Mr. Bridges a job. Locals babysat, guarded the house, walked behind the federal marshals' car on the trips to school.

In the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, Life went on for this decent family and innocent little girl. Somehow this girl with a heart of iron... a family that kept believing in America's promise, overcame the ugliest part of America.
________________

On January 5, 2009, a 7 year old black girl no different than Ruby of the 60s was escorted by Secret Service Agents to her elementary school in Washington D.C.

Her name is Sasha, and her daddy is the President of the United States of America.

hair

Twice... two times this past week... two different people asked me the exact same (to me, inane) question: What ARE you????!!! Both times I was a bit confused about where they were coming from, tho I've heard varieties of the same question for 50 years. Fiddy.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN what am I? I'm a Human Being!" I was at work so couldn't/didn't precisely say what I really wanted to say: "What THE FUCK do you mean... 'what am I,' dumbass"?

Both times I asked what they meant, both asked about hair...

Here's the deal: I had nothing to do with the shape, color, texture, or look of my freekin' HAIR. At the least, it had something to do with a union with Ruth and, I presume, John Herbert long about February 1957. At best, God himself had a hand. Least in the equation is me, the molecule in the petri dish who survived from way back then.

Here's the bigger deal:

I like my hair. It's one of my finer physical attributes.

I hate my hair. Over the years it's given me more grief than I will go into here. My hair is a living being. A thing. I wish I could go to a barber and get it really fixed once a week--I've tried--but going to barbers is a waste of money. Because my hair is a monster. I go to a barber and I end up cutting my hair my own damn self anyway.
_____

So maybe you've got issues, too, with some part of you. A feature the world notes but you, if not hate, have problems with.

Well, what you gone do?

Your skin is too white or too yella. Or maybe it's jet-black and don't show up well in photos.

Maybe your eyes are cat-eye green. Or blue.

Or you got a big booty. Or a small one.

Maybe you got luscious "thunder" thighs. Or they're too skinny.

This could go on and on ...

Here's the ultimate question: do you love yourself, jus.t as you are? Andn if the answer to that is no, the second question is "can you?"

Someone supposedly once said: love your neighbor as yourself. The pillar of the Golden Rule.

I'm here to say: loving neighbor as much as self only works if you love yourself FIRST, despite the flaws you are the only one who knows.

head with a heart

True story.

It happened this Thursday. March 12, 2009, in Boston, MA. Don't believe me? Google it if you have to....


President and CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, I'm thinking "smart dude... edumacated" Paul Levy, called a meeting -- the kind that's happening all over the country these days amongst similarly edumated smart boys, with far different outcomes than his. He stood before a mass of people he thought he'd soon be laying off, sending on their way into the cold, dark night.

In the days before the meeting, he'd watched the transporters--people who push patients around in wheelchairs--saw them talk to the patients, put them at ease, make them laugh. Treat them like human beings. The transporters were practicing medicine.

He poked his head into rooms and watched people who deliver the meals, making small talk with the patients and their families. Making small talk. Making them laugh. Forget their troubles. The food deliverers were practicing medicine.

He watched the people who polish the corridors, who strip the sheets, who empty the trash cans. Many had second jobs, were just barely scraping by. He did not look forward to making their lives more difficult than it was.

So, in the Sherman Auditorium that Thursday, he looked out over a sea of people -- technicians, secretaries, administrators, therapists, nurses -- the heart and soul of a hospital. Beth Israel had hired about 2,000 over just the last six years and the chances that they could all keep their jobs and benefits in a free-falling economy weren't good.

He had a bold idea: to keep everybody employed. But he needed some help and had no idea how or if it would come.


"I'd like to do what we can to protect the lower-wage earners - the transporters, the housekeepers, the food service people. A lot of these people work really hard, and I don't want to put an additional burden on them. Now, if we protect these workers, it means the rest of us will have to make a bigger sacrifice if we're going to keep everybody. It means that others--those at the "top"--will have to give up more of their salary or benefits."

The words had barely crossed his lips when the auditorium erupted in thunderous, heartfelt, sustained applause.

CEO Levy stood and felt the sheer power of it rush over him, like a massive wave. His eyes welled and his throat tightened so much that he didn't think he could continue. It was not what he expected. The lump had barely left his throat when he started getting e-mails.

A nurse said her floor voted unanimously to forgo a 3 percent raise.


A guy in finance who got laid off from his last job at a hospital in Rhode Island suggested working one less day a week.


Another nurse was willing to give up some vacation and sick time.


A respiratory therapist suggested eliminating bonuses.

"I'm getting about a hundred messages per hour," Levy said.
______

It's primal.

Sure. People are worried about the next paycheck, worried if they'll have a job in six months... shit... next week. But a lot of them, a lot of us, have figured out that, economy aside, everybody's in the exact. Same. Boat. My boat don't rise because yours sinks. Your boat sinks? Well... here we go...

Good story.

Google it. It was the very nicest thing I heard all week.

enough

When is enough, enough?

You've been hanging with what you thought was a bad-ass "other" but things have not been so peaceful. You'd like to understand them and have them to understand you but such has not always been and never was the case.

Thoughts rush in on a warm Sunday morning with light jazz in the air, it dawns. What do you do?

When is enough, enough?
^^^^

You have a job you truly do not like. Maybe a boss you do not respect. Times are tuff and you try to deal. Maintain. You need a job. But man... you can take only so much and you have your self-respect to nurture.
When is enough, enough?
^^^^

You have a family member who's lost your respect. They family, sho nuff, but they are nothing like you. I mean... they lost your respect, man! Straight up. What do you do?

When is enough, enough?
^^^^

Go here. Click down a couple times on the player and listen to what jazzman Donald Harrison is telling you in his "Mr. Cool Breeze." Around the 2-minute mark... oh yeah. If your mind is right, you'll know exactly what to do.

You'll know when enough is enough. Point blank. You'll be at peace and all will be right with the world.
^^^^

p.s. Stick around for NILS's Catnap. Wow. When *that * mofo plays, hope you got a significant other somewhere around. Oh my.

Eyewitness Testimony

This story will break your heart, then put it back together. It's an amazing 20 minutes of televsion that everyone connected with the criminal "justice" system needs to watch.









For more, click.

art show

A Saturday night in Oklahoma. Oklahoma! Who'd-a thunk it? I'm gonna hafta readjust my world view. Again. Brittaney was right. Whatever.

*shrug*

Leader of The Republican Party®

He is the undisputed Leader Of The Republican Party®

* As a young broadcaster in the 1970s, Limbaugh once told a black caller: "Take that bone out of your nose and call me back."

* On air he once wondered: "Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?"

* Early in the Clinton administration, he put up a picture of the First Cat Socks then asked his fawning audience: "Did you know there's a White House dog?" Next came a picture of 13 year old Chelsea Clinton, a kid who had done nothing to anyone. She was a kid, but a target for limbaw. When some of his fans, to their credit, objected, he claimed it an accident and blamed it on a technician.

* Colin Powell's well-reasoned, impassioned, and logical endorsement of President Obama on Meet The Press was made only because Obama is black

* All blacks say "axe" instead of "ask." (I've joked about this myself but no. Not all blacks. limby knows.)

* It's okay to pronounce New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin's name as Mayor Nay-ger.

* "Blacks can't swim."

* Women live longer because their lives are "easier."

* Torture of un-tried captives is nothing more than a college frat prank.

* President Obama traveled to Hawaii, not to visit his dying grandmother, but to cover-up of his secret KENYAN birth certificate.
And it goes on and on and on.

Here's the deal:

A majority chunk of limbaw's audience are mad as hell uneducated white males from their late teens to early 30s. They are the kind of loser Hitler motivated in the 30s. Except this time the recruits are named Bubba and Billy Ray, drive a rusted 20yr old Ford pickup truck, and speak a form of southern American English; not named Gustaf, drive a '44 Volkswagen, and speak guttural German.

With the advent of this special brand of human in these times, the dictionary has added "dittohead." Meaning: "me too." "What he said." Is limbaw a racist for plumbing the depths of the "base"? Don't know. Not going there. But every educated American with the slightest knowledge of American history knows our racial history. limbaw is wrong, not stupid. He knows his audience and he plays to them. Good for him. He's making money! Millions! On the backs of his white male, uneducated, unemployable pawns. Beautiful. Only in America.

In the past 2 weeks, limbaw's audience has grown from 14 to 25 mil given the media's attention. Almost doubled. Dude is making serious change. And pumping up disaffected, un-employable white males who are mad that, forget their lack of education and un-employable status, are mad that a black family lives in the White House.

I love it. Eviscerated and emasculated republican "leaders" like steele--ain't he a joke?!!--wish limbaw would shut up because they know what I know but they don't have the balls to say it. They all genuflect, every single one. Kneel down to the emperor with no clothes. That's exactly where they need to be.

But being the "leaders" they are, they sit in the corner and mum's the word. The let limbaw paint the republican party as it is: a party of buffoons wanting America to fail so their dwindling base can somehow "win."

The days of me-against-you politics are over. Thanks to limbaw, republicanism is a dead party for at least a generation. limbaw, like the former C+ Yale cheerleader, will be seen as the icons who kept Liberal Democrats in office for 50 years.

doofus

Here's what you get when you're a black boy trying real hard to impress in a white people's party where they don't give a flip about you.

Simple.

You'd think half-way smart colored people would have figured out white people by now. I mean, it's two thousand something, right? Not 1960. Some have, some haven't. My goodness. What's up with house negroes trying to impress mastah? Give me a physical break.

Wake up, black people. Step up. Average ain't no good no mo. Being the average colored boy will make you the butt of jokes. White folks might acutally laugh at you amongst themselves.

They will actually poke fun and post you up as fodder on their websites.

For the record: hip-hop michael steele is an idiot. He does not represent Black America or, it appears, white republicans! His parents are probably twisting in their graves. Most likely, he was raised better.

santelli and other "experts"

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

CNBC Gives Financial Advice

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Joke of the Day

"Experts" are funny.

The heart of the First Lady

I have to tell you--and I don't mind telling you--I teared up big-time when I saw this. If you've ever seen Mrs. Obama's mother interviewed, you'll know this sort of behavior is genuine. One of the best comments I can ever make about about someone is that they were raised right. Well, Michelle Obama was raised right.

At their Convention in Minneapolis this summer, millionaires McCain and Palin made fun of the time President Obama spent as a community organizer right out of college, earning $13,000 a year. On cue, the crowd of mostly white Americans laughed along. The nerve of a low-life like that, hob-nobbing with poor blacks and Latinos on the south side of Chicago, to think he could be president of the worlds greatest nation!

Of his time of service as a community organizer, the President said:

"I can't say we didn't make mistakes, that I knew what I was doing. Sometimes I called a meeting, and nobody showed up. Sometimes preachers said, 'Why should I listen to you?' Sometimes we tried to hold politicians accountable, and they didn't show up. I couldn't tell whether I got more out of it than this neighborhood."

But, "I grew up to be a man, right here, in this area. It's as a consequence of working with this organization and this community that I found my calling. There was something more than making money and getting a fancy degree. The measure of my life would be public service."

Had he wished, he could have done what his fellow Columbia University grads did. At 24, his first job could have paid him a starting salary of six figures. But no. He took a different path. Took a job that paid chump change. One of service to his people. Common folk. And Republicans mocked him. During the campaign last Fall, an idiot here where I work LOUDLY said that "Obama better not come to Oklahoma because if he does, I just might shoot him myself."

I don't know... maybe it's just me... but it seems that Mr. Prez and the First Lady are a nice match.

First Lady, helping to feed the homeless, and happy doing it. Talking to them as if they are regular people. I like the look and sound of it.

Granted: I am one cynical mofo. That said, I really believe America is on the right track. I'm thankful to have lived long enough to see the Nation being led again by two righteous people. Times may be tough but better days are ahead.

Read the whole story here.

drunken Nigger faces

"This president will get what's coming to him, just like Lincoln."

There you go.

White America is waaay cool!

michael steele -- wow

In a dictionary, look up "punked negroes" and you'll see a pic of steele.

wow.

Alabamans? Georgians? Mississipians think this colored boy got clout? Please.

Rush let steele lick him up front-side and back on national radio.

I so sorry rush, boss. I didn't mean what i so inarticulartly said. i bees so wrong, massuh rush.

oh, don't worry yaself about it, boy. it aint no big deal. you a fool and didn't recognize. now, run along and do like i said!

yessah. i sho will!

_____________

Hey steele: I aint mad atcha. You gots a "position" now. You "in". I been where you at right now, but it's been a while. Like, back in the 60s. Good luck, sucking up.

Nazis and other Americans

Americans agree: heinous German Nazis back in the 1940s, them that gassed all them 15 million Jew men, women, and children, were scum. Them nazie a-holes where scumbags.

That view is held here in the U.S. except in the rural South. And the "great" midwest. Nazis are pop'lar down and over there. Hardcore neocons are pop'lar in Texas. I digress. We'll address trailer living neocons who vote against their own interests some other day.

Your boss tells you to do something. From experience, you know. You just know. You KNOW: boss (including "company procedure") is dead-wrong morally, ethically, spiritually. Let's say you know you're smarter than your boss (fat chance) and there's no law against boss's directive. Still. It doesn't feel right. Maybe you like your job and (these days) you need your job. What do you do?

Let's say...

It's the 1940s.
You're in the military. You're a guard guarding prisoners. Your boss/supervisor/immediate uppity-up says your job is: turn that wheel when all the prisoners get in. You know that turning the wheel locks the door. And on the other side is a gas chamber.

It's the late-1950s.
You're in Selma, Alabama. You're a police officer. Hired to "protect and serve." Your boss says: sick the dogs if little "colored" kids show up. Little kids show up... kids not all that different than yours. You got a gun. Or a water hose. Or a rabid dog foaming at the leash?

It's the 2005s.
You're a member of the U.S. Military. You're told to "do whatever it takes" to get information from the "sand niggers, whatever it takes."

It's the 1950s thru to the current time.
You're a taxi driver. Your boss says: "drive by niggers, regardless of how they are dressed."

It's the 1800s thru to the current time.
You serve on a prison parole board. Your boss says: go easy on the whites, give blacks the max because, as everyone knows, blacks lie all the time.

It's March, 2009.
You're a police officer. Your partner totally brutalizes a teenage WHITE GIRL in a holding cell.

(The real problem emerges.)

It's March, 2009.
Within a limited sub-set of Americans, in the midst of the most perilous economic times in the U.S. since the 1920s, on national radio you hear someone saying he wants the president, the symbol of America, to fail. In other words, he wants a less than "white" America to fail.
___________

It would be so funny if people weren't losing jobs and homes.

Those subhuman white German Nazis were tried in German Nuremberg, convicted of "crimes against humanity," and EXECUTED. Why? Supposedly... supposedly because they just didn't have the guts, the common decency, to say "hell naw" when their boss was being an amoral, inhumane and unethical idiot.

So... what you gone do?

the Scorpion

My Great Friend "the Scorpion" blogged:
Watch your Thoughts, they become words.
Watch your Words, they become actions.
Watch your Actions, they become habits.
Watch your Habits, they become character.
Watch your Character, for it becomes your Destiny.

Intriguing. Food for righteous thought.

I Agree some; disagree some.

You? Check out "the Scorpion"!

ps. Don't let the name bug you out. She frontin'. She a widdle bitty kitty w/ a heart a'gold. Her man ain't bad either.

more than a grocery cart

I was sitting in a grocery store parking lot, about to leave. My phone rang. Nephew T had "one question." Yeah. Right.

A young woman, late 20s, maybe early 30s, rolled out of the store with her young fam. She had three little ones with her--ages maybe 7, 4 and 2, the youngest sitting in the cart's baby seat. A gray-haired older woman, maybe her mother, was with them too. Young woman popped the hatchback door of her cute little SUV and emptied the grocery cart. She unloaded the littlest one and plopped her in the rear driver seat. The door closing securing baby girl closed pretty quick. I wonder if little one got buckled in.

My phone convo continues but I keep watching.

Having one of my own, I notice that none of the youngsters were wearing jackets. Not even baby girl. Mom and Gray Hair did, though. There was a definite chill in the air. 50-something.

My convo was going strong. I kept watching.

The time came for her to leave but what happens with the grocery cart? There was a cart corral about thirty feet away, just past one row of cars. Surely this mother, with little ones watching, would have an interest in setting an example for her little ones.

My phone mate said something funny and I broke up laughing.

It was just too far to walk and Gray Hair lost her voice... forgot to speak up and ask "what's wrong with you??" as Mom moved the cart a few feet away from her small SUV so it wouldn't scratch her car. There is a slight pitch in the parking lot--it runs downhill, slightly--so down the hill the cart commenced to roll. Gravity was doing what it do. Bang! against one vehicle, bouncing off, and it continued to roll still. Fortunately it got caught on a curb before rolling into one of the busiest streets in this part of town.

Mom and Gray Hair were oblivious. It wasn't their car.

cannibalism is usually wrong

"I will be voting for John McCain because I'm voting against Barack Obama. My attitude is, from my point of view, we have to defeat Barack Obama, get McCain elected, and then stop McCain from implementing half the things he wants to implement. It's a 2-step process."

Wow. A McCain voter who says he didn't like his vote. Too funny!

In January [2008], Levin predicted: "if conservatives don't act now to stop McCain he will be the Republican nominee and he will lose in the general election."

Interviewer: you still stand by that?

Levin: we'll find out, won't we?

Needless to say...
_________

He makes good points. When asked to define conservatism, he said (among other things):

conservatism promotes individual liberty w/in an ordered society that creates societal harmony;

government is necessary but ought to be limited;

it's not possible that a few human beings can make good decisions for tens of millions of human beings because man is imperfect an will always be imperfect

failure creates success; most successful people have failed more than they've succeeded.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBcMP4y73hE&feature=relatedx





Lone "liberal" on Fox 'News': "Israel certainly needs to defend itself, it certainly should defend it's right to exist, but this administration has had nothing but disengagement that's been their policy for the last six years; Clinton was engaged, Carter was engaged, Bush 41 was engaged with Lawrence Singleburger. This administration -- their policy has been disengagement. Isn't this party the result of that."

The Great One: "Okay, okay... I got it. Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me. Why are you excusing the enemy? Why are you excusing the terrorist? Excuse me. You're blaming george "the former Yale cheerleader" bush."

Wow.

I love these conservative Republicans and Fox News. Love 'em. I hope they stick around forever. America is in real deep trouble, but "I want that hat."

Too funny.

Leader of the party

"... every Republican in this country wants President Obama to fail but none of them have the guts to say so. We want him to fail."

"Republicans are cowards."

That's what I heard.

They don't 1) have the guts to say 2) they hope our President fails in his effort to help the Nation recover at one of the most serious times of trouble our Nation has experienced.

Oh my!

Not only does The Leader of The Republican Party® thinks most of his fellow members are too cowardly to say what they think; and they all want the U.S. to sink deeper into the hole the former president, who they voted for TWICE, left us in.

wow.

Republicans.

A dying breed.

p.s. Keep talking, Limbaugh. I hope you remain the leader of the Republican Party for at least another 16 years!

Official Portrait - First Lady

Wow.

Right America - Feeling Wronged

Last year during the last three months of the presidential campaign up to election night, filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi visited 28 states to get the perspective of mostly of those Americans who would vote for McCain. The result is the HBO documentary RIGHT AMERICA: FEELING WRONGED - SOME VOICES FROM THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL. The 45-minute documentary is mostly the comments of those who feel underrepresented by the mainstream media. Their comments -- about America, about a potential black president -- are at times downright chilling.

With the impending election of Barack Obama, voices from the Right expect, nay GUARANTEE, outright social, political, and economic upheaval like this country has never seen; the loss of their rights as gun owners; the appearance of the Qu'ran at the Inauguration; the end of America as we know it.

It's very scary how delusional, how out-of-touch, tens of millions of Americans are. View at your own risk.

Haggard

Ted Haggard was a powerful and influential evangelical pastor.

He hob-knobbed with presidents.

He founded a mega-church in Colorado Springs. Made major bucks.

He was a star. A bright, shining light for God.

First time I saw him and every time after that, I thought the dude was one of the most self-righteous pricks I'd ever seen. Like so many JW elders too many to number.

Then he got caught in a sex and drug scandal with a male prostitute. He'd been living a double life. Truth, pressed down, bubbled up.
------

I do not describe myself as a Christian. I do not. I question the bible god's very existence. Hownever... Haggard FOUNDED A CHURCH whose purpose was to help people struggling with issues. Sin. He helped one or two make their way.

Does the bible not say that the CHURCH is about healing? Is not the CHURCH solely, mainly, for sinners?

Did not Jesus say that he came for sinners... for the diseased? Not for the healthy? Did he not ask "what use do the healthy have for a doctor?"

The documentary pissed me off, really. Dude fell far and hit hard. He is a family man and at 50+ years old can't find a job. Somehow the State of Colorado was able to kick him out of the state. His family are vagabonds.

Dude said he was a loser.

He got slapped down, but my goodness. How much is enough?

Should I be like god and punish people for their sins FOREVER? Or should I forgive?

Like I said... I got pissed watching. God knows better than me, I guess. He is a more successful father. All I can say is, if I was in charge, I'd let up a lil' bit on my son, especially if he'd asked me for forgiveness multiple times.

I'd give the guy and his family a break but then... I ain't god.

exaleiphein

There is a Greek word: exaleiphein. Literally, it means "to wipe out" or "to obliterate."

It occurs only five times in the New Testament Bible, but at least one of its uses is unusual.

In colloquial Greek, it means 'to wash over' like whitewashing the exterior wall of a house; wiping out a memory; annulling a law; canceling a debt.

In New Testament times, documents were written with an ink made of soot, mixed with gum and diluted with water on papyrus. The ink had no acid so didn't bite into the paper. It would last a long time unless a wet sponge was passed over it soon after was written. In that case, the writing disappeared completely as if the words had been had been written on slate.

At the time, a more common word for canceling a debt was chiazein which means to write the Greek letter chi which was the same shape as a capital X right across the document.

Here's the thing:

Paul does not say that Christ "crossed out" (chiazein) the record of our debt. He says He "wiped it out" (exaleiphein). If you cross something out -- write a big X over it -- what's written underneath is still clearly visible. If you WIPE it out, the record is gone, erased from memory.

Humans can forgive but can't really forget. For humans, it is impossible. But God, according to the Greek exaleiphein, not only forgives but wipes out the very memory of our sin as if it had never occurred.

There is a kind of forgiveness that forgives but still remembers--what humans do. God's forgiveness is that supreme forgiveness which forgives and forgets.

gadget

I bought a gadget, cheap. High-quality, less than a couple hours worth of pay. Given reasonable care, it'll probably be here at least half a century after I'm good and gone.

I can say: There is something to be said for taking a knife sharp enough to kill somebody and put it to a useful purpose. Cutting up once living things -- veggies -- into little bits and creating something fit to eat. Taking one's hands, a couple of kitchen tools, and the proper fruits of Mother Earth and making food.... nourishment. Now that's something, when you really stop and think about it.

The joy of cooking is in my blood--I've know it for a while--but I was last with a woman who knew her way around a kitchen and she took a certain pride in it. Kept her secrets. Made food fit to eat. I respected that so let my talents rest. Mind you... out on the patio, yours truly remained the grill meister. But in the kitchen, she was Queen. I acquiesed.

We're not together no mo', so I've called upon the chef that's lived within to feed me. The one that's always wanting to come out. A culinary artiest, he is.

Dont get me wrong. I don't mind KFC, Burger King, Wendy's, Pizza Inn. This, that and the other fast food joint, but every now and then, I want a home-cooked meal. Who can I count on for it? Well I'll be g dang. I can count on me.

Wherever I live from here on out will be much like the place I live now: the kitchen will have an unobstructed view of the TV. I get in there with a sharp knife, a red and/or green bell pepper, onions, garlic, ground beef and still see ESPN? Oh my. How could life be better?

But the gadget is cool.

I'm prolly gone sell it.

The Reader

There is a line in The Reader: "Societies think they operate by morality but they don't. They operate by law." It is a statement that sets the stage for most of what happens on scales large and small during one of 2008's most thought-provoking pictures of any year -- a movie about sex, ethics, morality, law, right and wrong, judgment, punishment, revenge. Scape-goating.

The marketing says the movie will force you to question everything you believe. There's a little hyperbole in that statement, but not much. It that way The Reader reminds me of Doubt. I left the movie full of questions of what I believe about the topics the movie covers, and that's just fine with me.

The movie jumps around in time a little bit, but the foundation of the story takes place during the summer of 1958. There is a torrid affair between a teen and an older woman who meet by chance. If my math is right, Hannah (Kate Winslet) is 36 and her love interest Michael (new-comer David Kross) is 15. There is mystery to Hannah. She has a lot of secrets. There is an unspoken innocence about Michael, but he has secrets of his own.

At one point, Hannah endures intense courtroom questioning for something she'd done years before. Her primary interrogator, a distinguished-looking judge who appears to be in search of Truth®, asks why she did this and this and this. Her answer astounds. Her question is sincere. She really wants to know.

The courtroom (and the movie audience) goes dead silent. All ponder the question while it hangs in the air like a thick fog and we sit as Hannah's judge. The Truth Seeker® who sits in judgment lowers his head. Not a single word crosses his lips.

The judge is not the only culpable person in the room, and I'm not talking about Hannah, the woman who's on trial. In fact, very few in the movie come thru as innocent and one comes thru as equally guilty as Hannah of crimes against humanity; what Roger Ebert describes as "a fact of human nature: Most people, most of the time, all over the world, choose to go along. We vote with the tribe."

And if you think this is a movie about Nazis then you just weren't paying attention.

It's a great movie. I rate it a 9+ out of 10. Some movies you'll buy, some you won't. I'll buy The Reader. Another test of how good a movie is: would you be willing to pay to see it again on the big screen? On this one, I most definitely would.

****************Caveat****************

There's a lot of nudity for the first 30-40 minutes; frontal, backal, boy, and girl. I don't mind nekidness, don't get me wrong, but it may have been just a tad overdone. Maybe not. Just be ready for it.

I have all I need

The investment banker was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellow fin tuna.

The banker complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.

The little Mexican replied, "not long."

The banker then asked why didn't he stay out longer and catch more fish?

"Because this is all I need."

The banker then asked, "but what do you do with the rest of your time?"

"I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life!"

The banker scoffed, "You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat with the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise."

"But, how long will this all take?"

"Fifteen to twenty years."

"But what then?"

The banker laughed at the fisherman's ignorance.

"That's the best part! When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You would make millions!!"

"Millions? Then what?"

"Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos."

let's talk about race

It was a weird week, nation-wide. A nasty, racist-tinged wind commenced to blow. Hopefully it doesn't speak of the years ahead. Because of America' treatment of Africans during Slavery and the ugly reign of Jim Crow who's legacy survives, race has always been an undercurrent in America. Few have the courage or honesty to talk intelligently about it.

On Monday, HBO premiered the 1-hr documentary Right America: Feeling Wronged - Some Voices From The Campaign Trail.

"Many interviewees were particularly incensed by what they saw as a lack of any meaningful media attention given to their message during the election campaign and by a perceived media bias against McCain and running mate Sarah Palin. Many of them feel so alienated over cultural and political issues that they say they will never trust the new president, the Congress or the media."

They seem to be a collection of scared, angry, and I feel dangerous, people -- very unhappy that a black man who is, supposedly, "not a Christian"; expected by many to place his hand on the Koran come inauguration day, with clear ties to bin Laden, now living in the White House.
--------------

On Wednesday, the NY Post publishes this:


Civil rights leaders and elected officials said it echoed racist stereotypes of blacks as monkeys. Some have even interpreted it as a call to commit violence against if not assassinate President Obama.
--------------

On Thursday, America's top cop, Attorney General Eric Holder, called the country a Nation Of Cowards.



"Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and we, I believe, continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards. Though race-related issues continue to occupy a significant portion of our political discussion, and though there remain many unresolved racial issues in this nation, we -- average Americans -- simply do not talk enough with each other about things racial."
--------------

That same day -- Thursday -- the top-most republican official, RNC Chairman Michael Steele, expressed plans to take the neocon message to the inner city with an "off the hook" public relations blitz into "urban-suburban hip-hop settings" in hopes of wooing African-Americans to the conservative cause. He sees the need for his increasingly irrelevant group to "uptick our image with everyone, including one-armed midgets."
--------------

Then yesterday, Friday, former republican presidential candidate Alan Keyes pretty much called for the President's removal from office... by any means necessary:



In view of the current racially-charged place we're in, what exactly did Keyes mean when he said "we're either going to stop [President Obama] or the United States of America is going to cease to exist." This is especially in view of the undercurrent of hatred for a black president amongst upwards of 60 million republican voters; the cartoon showing police having shot and killed a monkey w/ the caption revealing that it wasn't just a monkey, and so forth.

Interesting times. Watch your back, President Obama.

choice

He was arguably the best ever. I'm not the first to say that, but for the first time you'll read why he was (and it wasn't just the dunks)...

He was physically gifted, yes, but many others in his profession were, too.

One, what set him apart was his work ethic. He respected the game, respected his place in it, and worked at being the best he could be. That alone set him apart from a field where most expected to float to the top on their physical gifts alone.

He hired a personal trainer at his own expense, his off-season training regimen becoming legendary. But he wanted to be the best he could be, and he was not content with what came naturally -- without effort. He understood this very early, and stuck with the program thru-out his career. He pushed his natural ability to he very edge.

Second, he was smarter than nearly everyone else on the floor. He thought about what might/could happen. He anticipated. This video is a testament. I'll never know--I'm not an MJ expert so I've never read anything he's said about it--but I think some of these missed free throws were planned. So he could do what we see him doing. Giving his team an edge, demoralizing his opponent.

Opponents soon understood their physical gifts weren't enough. In the midst of a season, it all of a sudden dawned on them that their lackluster workout regimen during the season AND off-season wasn't enough. This guy is SERIOUS! This guy wants to win! To beat this Jordan fella, you had to actually think a lil' bit. And not just be a thinker -- you had to think all g-dang game long... EVERY GAME.

And that's were he held a significant edge. Most of his competitors didn't care to think on his level or nearly as long. I wasn't there, but I know that during games they lost focus. Not Mike. Not ever. He was out for the kill every moment he was in the arena--the field of play. Like how Bill Russell blocked shots...

To this day, most blocked shots you'll ever see in a basketball game go into the high-dollar seats. The crowd oohs and aahs! How impressive!!

Hall Of Famer Bill Russell understood that blocking shots into the crowd meant the other team would get the ball back. So... oh no. Russell would block the ball into the backboard, grab the deflected ball, follow it up with a quick outlet pass to a team mate for an easy score on the other end.

Yeah, the shot blocked into the seats roused the crowd -- but the ball went right back to the other team. Bill Russell, Mike's predecessor, was smart. A thinker. A high school senior amidst eighth graders, really. I digress...

Third and maybe most important, Jordan WANTED it more than everybody around him. He wanted to be the best... to excel. By definition, he wanted "to do or be better than." I hear it sometimes: "so-and-so thinks they are better than such-and-such." Well, maybe they are. Water seeks it's own level. *shrug*

If you watch the video like I did, you wonder: did he and Pippen (who was usually the one missing the free throws in the vid) plan the miss? Or did Jordan study Pippen's (missed) freethrows, learn which way they were most likely to bounce off the rim, then take advantage?

Then.... if you're like me, you say "no," because Grant Hill in an All-Star game does the same thing -- misses a free throw... and looks stunned when Jordan flashes by to slam in the miss.

Here's the deal:

There are never more than 500 active NBA players at any one time. Tens of thousands of little boys dream of being in the NBA. You and I know: the majority never make it. It goes w/out saying: 99.9999999999% of us can't really relate to Jordan's feats on a pro b-ball court. None of us ever did or ever will get there. Still, there are lessons to be learned...

We do what we do, whatever it is. We go to work everyday. We punch a clock, go to an assembly line, get in a truck, deliver mail, pick up a hammer and build something that we can look back on in wonder at the end of the day. Whatever it is we do, the question hangs: When it comes to what you do, whatever it is... are you like Russell and Jordan... working hard, thinking ahead, wanting to be your best?

Or are you more like the numberless journeymen players Russell and Jordan consistently beat -- employees satisfied with a paycheck on Friday so they can party on the weekend but never reaching the top of the mountain or wearing the crown? The kind of player/team Russell and the Boston Celtics and Jordan with the Chicago Bulls rolled over many years on their way to multiple championships. In other words, a loser.

Being the best you can personally be is not a matter of luck or a ball's good or bad bounce. It's A CHOICE. The work we leave behind says something about us. What we do speaks in our behalf.

Capt Sully knows.

the story of Darius McNeal

... hasn't hit youtube. The pivotal event when the senior highschool b-ball player did exactly what he should have.

Not yet.

Sometimes... every now and then... you hear of a situation where everybody associated with an event does absolutely what you believe is the right thing (meaning: what you would do). Every one of the thousands in the room.

What a gift of Life it is to be alive to see or hear of the basic humanity of humans and that it lives. It's dang near the feeling you get when reading about what Peter, Paul and John described upon seeing the transfiguration.

I'm crusty myself and beyond hope as The Neph will tell you, but maybe you got a chance so hold out. More later on this. Or you can google it.

*shrug*

p.s. how did everyone in the room know what was going on in the life of the kid who just showed up? One wonders.

Diana Krall - East of the Sun, West of the Moon

One of the bad things about my job is that my weekend, my two off days, are sometimes Monday/Tuesday. Or Thursday/Friday. Or any other pair of days other than the traditional Saturday/Sunday.

One of the really cool things about my job is that my weekend is sometimes Monday/Tuesday. Or Thursday/Friday. Or any other pair of days other than the traditional Saturday/Sunday pair. Weekends of the traditional type are vastly overated. I digress.

It was one lazy "weekend" weekday. I was at Circuit City in late 2007, maybe early 2008 -- one of ten customers in the whole store -- when I first saw this video and first heard this song. I instantly became a fan of one Diana Krall and her crew.

It was playing on a big screen TV they had set up with a Bose sound system. With no effort I commandeered the remote and must have hit "Replay" ten times. Dude asked me twice if I needed help. No. Not really. He just didn't understand.

I was little more than a snotty-nosed kid looking thru a candy shop window, dreaming a distant dream. Mesmerized, jaw dropped. The sound was cool enough all by itself, but the visual of Ms Krall's light fingertips dancing on the keys and those magnificent high heels; too-cool bass player, guitarist feeling it, drummer marvelously keeping everybody in check... man.

It was lovely. All of it. Still is. What a remarkable dance amongst truly talented people.

What is it like to look over at a fellow musician whilst making magnificent music? I can only imagine, for this is truly magnificent... top to bottom, start to finish.

What follows is the closest I've seen to sex without people getting undressed. It's not exactly the same vid I remember seeing then, but it's close. And it evokes pretty much the same.

Enjoy!