Thanks Squarespace

Now, for the most part, Squarespace has been good to me. I’ve never had any issues with them and the one or two technical problems I’ve had in the past were quickly rectified. However, I’ve always had in the back of my mind the fact that if I turn my head away for too long that something like this would happen.

In the course of working on filling my brand new house with furniture and running all over the city with my wife trying to quench her insatiable appetite for new home decor, I haven’t kept an eye on my blog. Yesterday I go to sign on to update my blog and I get the infamous “sorry” message. 

Did I receive an email warning me that my account information needed to be changed? Noooooooo. Did I get an email AFTER my account was suspended to notify me that my blog was being held for ransom? Nooooooo. For a person that could care less about appealing to a large audience it was unnerving to see that my statical graphic flatlined and my handful of faithful subscribers have disappeared. 

Oh well. I’ve lost a hell of a lot more and survived. 

First Time Buyer

My blogging has suffered dramatically—even more so since I’ve returned from basic training. I know my handful of subscribers are wondering where the hell I’ve been these last few months. I’m not making any excuses for my long periods of absence. Like my doctorate professor said: “Life happens.” 

March 2011—I’m preparing for the most life altering experience I’ve ever had in my life to date. I’ve burned as much weight off my gutt as humanly possible without some type of major supplemental advantage. I develop tunnel vision as I am focusing on overcoming the trials and tribulations that I would incur while at basic training at Fort Benning. Suddenly I’m faced with the task of having to purchase a new home. Under any other circumstances I would have scooped the house up and not given it a thought. Shopping for a new home was in the cards but actually buying a house was the last thing I wanted to do before shipping. Nevertheless, as a still fairly new newlywed, I aim to please. 

After some careful searching I came upon the perfect neighborhood, the perfect house. The house was only 40% completed—it was enticing to walk through a ‘new new’ house that not only had never been lived in by another human being but also a house that wasn’t even completed. My parents have never lived in a brand new home, Even my oldest sister, the big success of the siblings, bought a house that had already been completed and sitting in the middle of a completed neighborhood. The advantage of an up and coming house is picking everything from the color of the brick, the location of an extra bathroom, fixtures and anything else that you would have to simply deal with if you had moved into a completed or previously lived-in home.

Fortunately for us, time constraints didn’t allow us to complete the purchase of the home before shipping to Fort Benning. This, however, is what people would refer to as serendipity. For, several months later, I happened upon another up and coming neighborhood. We spotted a home that was 80% completed. 

The house was twice the size of our first choice, has an open floorplan, a larger front and backyard, and—wait for it—this house listed at the same price as our first choice. So, for the next few weeks, we jumped hoops as we carefully chose the right accessories for the house and signed our lives away to this fabulous new home. 

I stand before you (figuratively speaking) as the first man in my immediate and distant family to purchase a new from the ground up home in a neighborhood that isn’t even completed. It’s a bittersweet victory of sorts—Alecia’s family has already taken a tour and marveled at our new home. My family is still in the dark about our purchase. I haven’t spoken to anyone in over a year. What good would it do at this point? I’ve reached the end of my rope with them in every sense of the term. What do you do when there’s nothing left in your heart for them? A family that has all but dismissed me as the black sheep, the outcast, the one that wouldn’t amount to anything? 

So, I bury myself in the process of emptying our old house and filling the new one. So, how do I feel? I feel hollow. I’m sitting here in a cigar bar as I type this entry because all if this is still very strange. Never for a split second did I ever think I would fade into obscurity. So, with blind rage, hunger and determination I accomplished every single goal I set for myself. 

After 35 years of struggle success is at my fingertips. I am not happy—a focus, a drive, a determination to show my mama that I could conquer all. In the end she doesn’t have the mental faculty or physical being to enjoy my triumph. 

Find Our Missing

Let’s be real here people. When was the last time any cable news station ever reported about crimes against black children? I can count them on one hand and, as my mama used to say, still have some fingers left over. Any time you do hear about criminal activity involving black children, more often than not, it’s about some violent crime a black child has committed or been involved in. 

How many hundreds of thousands of man hours and air time has been devoted to over analyzing and over sensationalizing the caylee Anthony case? How about Elian Gonzalez or Natalee Halloway? These names and more are household names that are embedded in the fabric of our society. More often than not, black youth are portrayed as villians, the scourge of society rather than children that are vulnerable to the evils of society. 

Okay—lets take race out of the equation. So why is there almost always little to no publicity on major network news programing or cable news? I’m waiting to hear a plausible explanation. And I’ll be waiting until the end of time. I don’t claim to be on the leading edge of any and all current events around the world but the vast majority of information that circulates in the mainstream and even underground sources have a tendency to be about a victimized caucasian that more than likely was in a hostile area of a foreign country where they shouldn’t have been in the first place. 

It’s a bittersweet feeling to have a television show dedicated to finding missing black children. No case of a missing child, no matter what race, creed, class or religion should be excluded from arena of national publicity. But to ignore 99% of the cases where black children are victims yet devote 99% of media attention to 1% of the cases of victimized white children is absurd and borderline inhumane. 

Racism is alive and well. I wonder how long this series will last before it disappears into obscurity as yet another failed experiment? I’ll be watching.

Why Herman Cain?

Because the rest of the peanut gallery known as the 2012 Republican candidates fizzled out before the end of the last Republican debate. They said Barrack Obama would make a poor choice for president because he had no executive experience. But wait—Herman Cain has no politlcal experience. Great choice, white America. So, the question remains: WHY?

Herman Cain has demonstrated, among other things, time and time again that he has no clue about politics in general, and particularly, foreign policy other than the currency exchange rates in the countries he’s visited on senior cruises. We’re not even going to address the fact that Uncle Herman’s 9-9-9 plan will actually cost middle class Americans more in the long run. What uncle Herman doesn’t know (because he doesn’t won’t do his research) is no presidential candidate that used a simple one shot business proposal type approach (remember Ross Perot?) to solve multiple and complex problems has been taken seriously. 

The question remains: Why? Because there’s only one kind of man right wing conservatives like more than a white man with strong christian values and deep pockets. An ignorant, elderly black man that speaks like a right wing conservative white man. Apparently, the GOP didn’t learn their lesson with their other great white hope, Michael Steele. Herman says black folks can’t use the race card to defend President Obama because [President Obama] is just wrong. But when asked what he thinks about increasing taxes on the rich, he said black folks need to leave his money alone and earn their own money. That’s telling em’ uncle Herman. But seriously, uncle Herman, that’s just wrong.

Congresswoman Maxine Waters said Barrack Obama is out of touch with the black community. Well then, congresswoman Waters, uncle Herman is the black man you’re looking for to lead this country—hell—the black community out of calamity unlike President Obama because we all know how much time uncle Herman has spent in the black community listening to his people. Oops, I’m sorry. My mistake. Those were Tea Party rallies uncle Herman visited on 50 separate occasions, not black communities. 

Uncle Herman is the black man for the job because he said “I’m a real black man that doesn’t want race to be an issue” yet he says “They don’t like me because I’m a black conservative.” Yes, congresswoman Waters, Herman Cain is the black man for the job—a real black man that wears his rags to riches badge with pride and crows (pun intended) about experiencing racism during the civil rights era but doesn’t want race to be an issue. Uncle Herman urges black America not to use the race card but when faced with constructive opposition he pulls his they-don’t-like-me-because-I’m-a-black-conservative card with the finesse of a Las Vegas poker dealer.

And Maxine Waters says that President Obama doesn’t care about black people. Well, congresswoman Waters, feel at ease in knowing that uncle Herman is a real black man that has his own brand of tough love for his “brainwashed” black community. Uncle Herman has made it known to his own staffers, when they offer him constructive advice that they should stay out of his face because he’s a real black man that knows about the American experience. How’s that for transparency and bi-partisanship, Miss Waters?

While it may be true that more blacks should learn how to pick themselves up by their own bootstraps, it’s a complete fallacy that anyone black or any other race wants Mr. Cain’s money. We just want you to pay your fair share of taxes. When asked about the immigration issue Mr. Cain said we should build a 15 foot wall and top it off with barbed wire to keep them pesky mexicans out. That’s his plan for the immigration issue. Way to pander to right wing, white conservatives uncle Herman.

Again, Why? Because Morehouse grad uncle Herman is simple—he sticks to what he knows, which appeals to the simple-minded masses, aging white republicans that are susceptible to telemarketing scams and flim flam artists alike. That’s why he won the straw poll in Florida and the reason why he’s stomping around in Alabama trying to drum up a republican base. He uses common pizza-selling advertising slogan strategy to appeal to the masses.  9-9-9 sounds more like a 9 pizzas with 9 toppings for 9 bucks pitch (for a limited time only) rather than the kind of flat tax strategy Ronald Reagan tried to pass during the 80’s. If this is the guy that the Republicans think is going to run against Barrack Obama in 2012 then I say more power to you, GOP!!  

Are You Serious?

No president, no politician, in the history of the United States of America has been as tenaciously and compulsively attacked—over analyzed, marginalized, subjected to such an unjustifiably, excruciatingly poignant, acute and heterdoxical deformation of character by the mainstream media as President Barack Hussein Obama. Forget about Barack’s first 100 days—Not even an hour into his presidency, President Obama is scrutinized by political pundits that are determined to covertly and overtly assassinate Mr. Obama in every sense of the word if not physically. 

The name, Barack Obama, has been associated with an overabundance of firsts—one of those firsts being that he’s the first president whose abilities to lead the most powerful nation in the world were placed in doubt before he was elected to office. Forget about President Obama’s first 100 days—After his speech at the Democratic National Convention, Jimmy Carter referred to Obama as a “boy”. Not even 12 hours after his inauguration most of mainstream media, cable news, and every talking head with a microphone in front of his flapping gums did their very best to all but forecast President Obama’s premature demise.

I can’t make the claim that I’ve followed the political careers of every notable politician in history. In fact, besides a mock presidential election in 1983 when I was in 3rd grade (I voted for Carter), I’ve never been more interested in the political diaspora than I’ve been in the last 4 years. Never in the history of the United States has a president had to deal with such a disturbing dichotomy. How can a president that has accomplished more against insurmountable odds than any other president in recent history be considered unfit to serve a second term? I could understand the disdain and animosity if Obama promised he would turn the economy around, eliminate world hunger, employ every single U.S. citizen, slash taxes, and end all military occupation in the Middle East in 30 days or less. But I seem to remember the night that Barack won the presidency when he said the economy is “an ocean liner not a steam boat.”

I don’t need to waste time defending President Obama by posting fallacy-crushing fact after heresy-abolishing fact. Al Sharpton, Fareed Zakaria, Keith Olberman, The Norwegian Nobel Committee, Benjamin Netanyahu and the majority of the rest of the free world have already done a great job of that. I don’t even need to get into the reason why Mitch McConnell’s treasonous actions are beyond preposterous or that people are still trying to question Barack’s citizenship and his religious preference. What cracks me up is the energy various forms of media types are trying to put into propping up the republican presidential candidates. 

If the GOP had a sensible alternative to President Obama perhaps I would entertain the thought of having another republican president. But when you have front runners like Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, and Herman Cain you force me to think—are you serious? Romney’s a boring, out of touch, multi-millionaire businessman that represents everything middle class America resents. Ricky is ole’ Dubeeya reincarnated but twice as ignorant and three times as arrogant. Michelle Bachman reminds me more of one of those psychotic, paranoid, sociopathic antagonist female characters from a cable T.V. drama on Lifetime rather than a presidential hopeful. Talk about Joe Biden—Michelle is the first presidential candidate that has eliminated herself from the running because of her string of compulsive lies and gaffes. Herman Cain would have a stroke before he completed the first 100 days if he were elected president. Are you serious? If those bozos are the best the GOP has to offer 2012 is going to be a repeat of 2008. All I have to say is four more years!