Why they hate the police...

Why do young black and hispanic kids hate the police? Because of what is in this video. About two or three weeks ago, there was practically martial law in Brooklyn. I wasn't paying attention because I was in the DMV(DC, Maryland, Virginia area) taking care of my life. This wasn't in the news so I didn't pay attention...But one of my students who had just been to Brooklyn was telling me about the shooting(which is sadly common at this point) of a young black man by police, and how kids in the neighborhood where just frightened of the police. She told me about the constant harassment, the intimidation, the fear. Now, having lived in Brooklyn for many years, I didn't disbelieve her because I saw it, but I've been a van driving mom/musician/educator/hustla, so I am not confronted by it. And since it didn't happen to me personally, I thought she was slightly exaggerating.

This is why we as humanity needs to reconnect with those outside our experience because we loose empathy if we do not experience and see what it happening around us. How do we expect young people to have respect for authority and create a models of success when they are treated as criminals because of their color, age and attire? We manifest what we create. If we manifest hostility, expect hostility. If we manifest disrespect, expect disrespect. I am a believer in dressing and acting appropriately for your age. I believe in hard work and respecting elders and authority. But there are hostile forces in our neighborhoods that are supposed to be protecting us. What do we expect...Which type of human do we want to help produce? Who get's to decide who is human and how do we treat them...#H-U-M-A-N

Enough is enough!

Anyone who knows me knows that I like music. Not only because I'm a musician, but I just like it, like a kid likes cake. I love the act of making it and singing it. I teach it, I perform it, and proselytize about the wonders of it. I think that all forms have great merit regardless of what people think about the style that is supposedly destroying little minds.

But.... there is a limit. I was working with some 4th graders recently and I have been encouraging them to bring in lyrics and music from their experience for the class to listen to and analyze. I gave them parameters of no profanity or overtly sexual lyrics. One young man, who is Hispanic, originally thought my group would be boring(his exact question to me on the first day was: Is this class going to be boring? Are you boring?  Seriously, that's what he said) only to find out that singing is great fun and music is a blast. He wanted badly to bring in a song that he could have the class listen to. However, he has nothing to bring in. He said he listens exclusively to hip hop. There is no music he knows for him to bring in from home. His words, not mine.

Now everybody knows there are plenty of rappers who have music that can be played in a classroom.  I arranged a choral version of a couple of hip hop songs that were popular back in the day: the Sugar Hill Gang's Rapper's Delight, Goodtimes (the song Rapper's delight is based off of) and Erick Sermon's Just Like Music, which featured music from Marvin Gaye. Kids love hip hop...shoot erry'body luvs hip hop. But when a child can't bring any music to school from home to share...that's a problem. That his parents allow him to listen to music that is inappropriate for his age is the real problem.

Where is my frustration coming from? Here, a statement from Michigan radio station, WUVS-LP:

The questions have been asked, Is Hip Hop Music Destroying America, Is Hip Hop A Threat To Our Children or Should Rappers Be Accountable For Their Lyrics? You be the judge.  Earlier this year the song “Karate Chop” leaked online featuring rapper Lil Wayne.  He raps, “Bout to put rims on my skateboard wheels/Beat that (expletive/woman genital) up like Emmett Till.”  A few weeks later a song by rapper Rocko featuring Rick Ross was released called “You Don’t Even Know It.”  Rick Ross raps, ‘Put molly all in her champagne, she ain’t even know it/ I took her home and I enjoyed that, she ain’t even know it.’ Yes, we have our freedom of speech right, but when is freedom of speech taken too far?” 

“Many would say both rappers have taken their lyrical content too far and offended too many.  The family and estate of Emmett Till have released a statement of disapproval over Lil Wayne’s disregard and disrespectful lyrics. Though his record label issued a statement of apology, the rapper has yet to do so.  In the case of Rick Ross, a petition has been started over his blatant disregard for women and the issue of date rape. The U.S. Department of Justice estimates that over 300,000 women are raped or sexually assaulted per year in the United States alone. That is a disturbing number and should not be taken lightly. His lyrics not only condone the behavior, but he boasts about it in the song.  While some feel it’s only entertainment, many feel it sends and encourages the wrong message.  Several individuals and organizations have taken a stand and so are we.  Effective immediately Muskegon’s WUVS-LP 103.7 the Beat has pulled ALL Lil Wayne and Rick Ross music from rotation.  We pride ourselves on playing music that is non-degrading and non-violent. While we believe in freedom of speech, creative writing and individualism, we refuse to be part of the problem by spreading messages that could harm or end someone’s life.”

At some point parents and people of good conscience need to say, enough. The problem is not just in hip hop, and people have a right to listen to whatever they choose. But it's parent's job to make sure that their child is surrounded by things that encourage positive growth. Let me make clear again, there is plenty of hip hop that is perfectly fine for children to listen to. PLENTY! The child I'm talking about is 10. What an adult listens to privately is their own business. But it is not ok to expose children to rape, misogyny, gun violence, excessive cursing, etc., with no context of what they are hearing other than, "I like it and my brothers and I listen to this all the time...." That's what parents are for....

Gardening in da hood: Parenting a Community

         

My friend, jazz vocalist extraordinaire, Denise King posted this on my Facebook page since she knows I'm a gardener.  I love putting my hands in the soil and getting my hands very dirty, especially under my fingernails...my mother hates that since she grew up on a farm and it's not professional to have dirt under your fingernails...I guess I'm a rebel.

I wanted to share this with a larger audience because this is parenting at its best: parenting of a community. This man decided to plant food in the unused spaces in South Central LA. The main crux of his doing this was that he was seeing the food was the problem and the solution to the health crisis in his community; all at the same time. Get the wrong food out, and the right food in and many diseases are prevented. He gets volunteers to bring in plants and seeds and do all the work. Connections are made by children who work in the gardens in these urban areas that food comes from the ground and is tasty.

This parenting of a community is what many urban and frankly, suburban kids need. Parenting is about showing a child what the right way is through their own actions. Parents stand up for what they believe in and lead by example. Parenting is also not giving into what is popular or easy all the time. Food is the sustenance of our physical, mental and spiritual bodies. Now many times I want to put in my gullet some tiramisu or my favorite meat candy-like substance: bacon...mmmmm. But, I and my children know what a fresh tomato tastes like. A fresh cucumber.  Even the dreaded zucchini(which can be made into hash and deliciously moist bread).

I'm not comparing adults to kids, but, in some ways I am. Holding up a big gulp as a sign of liberty(y'all know who I'm talkin' 'bout, and if you don't, betta ask somebody) is as stupid as a kid holding up a piece of crack or putting a gun to their heads as a sign of their adulthood. If you saw that as a parent, you slap your child sil-- ... wait, wait, wait ... you would sternly speak to your child and tell them how stupid that was because it would ruin their health and/or kill them. Our diets are killing us slowly, and sometimes the slowness painful. How you eat determines how you live. I want my children to live well. This gentleman wants his entire community to live well. That's what good parents do....

Good parents don't have to perfect...

This is a picture of my dad when he was in college. My dad was a musician who played saxophone and piano. He got his bachelors degree in Composition and Arranging at Amherst University. I posted this because I want to talk about parenting. My father was an alcoholic. He sat in a chair and listened to music at concert loudness levels every night while he drank. My room vibrated because the speakers were right underneath my bedroom.  He died when I was 14.

But my dad loved me deeply. He drank at home rather than goto a bar because he wanted to be near his family and provide a stable environment and though that may sound like a cop-out, it wasn't. He played songs just for me. Stevie Wonder's "Isn't She Lovely" was my song, and I knew when he played it, he was thinking of me. He played it often. It was the reason I put the song on my second record, Bare, as a similar tribute to my first daughter. My father was proud of the musician I was turning into as a child. He was a brilliant student and he wanted his children to be brilliant so if I ever asked him what a word meant or how it was spelled, I was told to goto the dictionary. Grrrr...But I do this with my child now.  He loved to fish and shared that love with me. He took me fishing and taught me how to bait a hook with a worm. He loved that I could play piano and loved that I played his favorite composer, Bartok. He would tell me that my compositions I made up at age 7 or 8 were "Complex! You don't even know what you're playing!!" We used to swim in the pool together and he would lift me up like the female side of a ballroom dance team or pairs ice skating in the water while I did what I thought were fancy poses. He taught me to dive and swim underwater. He told me this about life: "The school of hard knocks is a tough school...." that's all he said. I have learned he was right. 

He was not perfect. But he was was my father. He worked hard to provide the best life he could for me. He made choices that were not always the best for him, but did his best to make the right choices for me.  Perfection is not the goal because it can never be achieved. Many get to be parents. Some are better at it than others.  But I wanted to share that good parents aren't great all the time and don't always lead the greatest lives. This is my dad and he did his best. He strived to be a good parent, and in many ways he truly was...I hope I turned out the way he wanted...

The parenting crisis

I was reading an article from a prominent republican figure recently and I felt I had to start talking about a particular subject of importance to me: Parenting. I am going to start speaking as much as I can about the crisis of parenting in this culture. Primarily because I deal with children from a lower socio and economic background daily and have been for many years.  What I do not see is a crisis of teaching, though there are teachers of various degrees of excellence and there certainly are failing schools that are failing children. I see a crisis of parenting: kids not knowing how to be, behaviorally, emotionally, physically... They have no idea because their surroundings are not devoted to their success.

Poverty does not mean that you can't be a great parent. I just recently watched the Ben Carson story on Lifetime with Cuba Gooding, Jr. What struck me the most was his mother who inspired her children to be successful, no matter how much knowledge or money she had.  Good parenting is not republican or democrat, rich or poor, religious or atheist. Good parenting is creating an environment of the expectation of success for your children. You need not be perfect or do everything right. But my time in urban schools has taught me that parenting, or lack thereof, is the true issue. There is only so much damage a single teacher in a single year can do to a child if the parent is solid and supportive. If the parent wants the child to succeed, most likely, the child will succeed. Not be rich. Succeed.

Watch this to see what Ben Carson's mother did. This is a woman with little education, who worked 2-3 jobs and was a single parent. When her children were not doing well, she challenged them to do times tables or they couldn't go outside. She made them read. She did what she could do and her lack education or resources did not stop her. She created an environment of success around her boys to the best of her ability. Imagine what she could have done with the proper resources and knowledge...her children could have been...oh wait...her sons are an engineer and a world famous brain surgeon. Regardless of your politics or what you think of his ideas, Ben Carson is a success story. And the key to his success was good parenting.

What if food companies promoted actual food?

In April 2010, he met with three executives from Madison Dearborn Partners, a private-equity firm based in Chicago with a wide-ranging portfolio of investments. They recently hired Dunn to run one of their newest acquisitions — a food producer in the San Joaquin Valley. As they sat in the hotel’s meeting room, the men listened to Dunn’s marketing pitch. He talked about giving the product a personality that was bold and irreverent, conveying the idea that this was the ultimate snack food. He went into detail on how he would target a special segment of the 146 million Americans who are regular snackers — mothers, children, young professionals — people, he said, who “keep their snacking ritual fresh by trying a new food product when it catches their attention.”He explained how he would deploy strategic storytelling in the ad campaign for this snack, using a key phrase that had been developed with much calculation: “Eat ’Em Like Junk Food.” 

After 45 minutes, Dunn clicked off the last slide and thanked the men for coming. Madison’s portfolio contained the largest Burger King franchise in the world, the Ruth’s Chris Steak House chain and a processed-food maker called AdvancePierre whose lineup includes the Jamwich, a peanut-butter-and-jelly contrivance that comes frozen, crustless and embedded with four kinds of sugars. 

The snack that Dunn was proposing to sell: carrots. Plain, fresh carrots. No added sugar. No creamy sauce or dips. No salt. Just baby carrots, washed, bagged, then sold into the deadly dull produce aisle. 

“We act like a snack, not a vegetable,” he told the investors. “We exploit the rules of junk food to fuel the baby-carrot conversation. We are pro-junk-food behavior but anti-junk-food establishment.” - Michael Moss, New York Times

I just spent about an hour reading this article from the New York Times about the science of junk food I heard about it on NPR this afternoon. It took me an hour because I fell asleep repeatedly while reading it. Mom-hood means that sleep is a commodity that I don't always get and if I'm remotely warm and comfortable, I fall asleep easily, especially if the reading is just a little dense; this article was dense…but in a good way.

I am planning to make coq au vin for dinner tonight. And don't get your knickers all in a bunch thinking this is complicated. For those of you who don't know, it's just chicken stew with a whole lotta wine in it. I haven't gotten to it yet. I'm hungry but you know what I really could go for: chips. Salty, crunchy chips. I have given up  potato chips because of my acid reflux. But it was a hella hard thing to do because any kind of fried potato will cause me to sell a kidney in order to eat it. For a long time I only ate Utz unsalted. Then I started eating ripple cut and salt again became a part of my diet.  It hurt me in a special way when I understood that potato chips and hot, salty, delicious french fries messed me up royally in the digestion department. So now I eat Trader Joe's multigrain corn chips. I tried many different healthy brands but this one worked because…it had enough salt for me to suck on. Seriously.

Why have I gone on with this diatribe about chips? Because this article is an in depth report on the history and tactics the food industry has used to sell their products, resulting in the public becoming extremely unhealthy and making themselves very profitable at the same time. By essentially addicting people to the things that our body instinctively craves, we have consumed more of it and now have 12 year olds with Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and the beginnings of heart disease.

Though people can and should make their own personal choices, these business strategies heavily encouraged the behavior of eating processed foods. This article points out that industry insiders were well aware of what their foods were doing to people's health outcomes and some of them were trying to change it. But food companies are there to make money, not be healthy. More salt, fat, and sugar makes things good and in the heavily processed food world, that is gold. So what if they are incrementally causing people's deaths and harming society? Their job is to make money and they do that very well.

But it's a lot more complicated that that. People's lives are busy. These businesses are filling a niche that has been around since the 1940's: Working people. Convenience foods are extremely helpful in a lifestyle where both parents work and cooking has become a lost art for some. Now people have been trained generationally to crave certain foods and if they can't make it at home, it's incredibly easy and relatively cheap to get it. Advertising, food research and psychology are being used to entice people into thinking that their food is (insert whatever "they" think you think you want) -- therefore, you purchase it.

So back to my quote up at the top of this blog. The reason I chose this one, was two-fold: I wanted show just how much thought and effort was put into turning foods that shouldn't be good into good food, worthy of purchase. I also wanted to ask the question, what if food companies put all their research and psychology towards the marketing of healthy food? What if companies had a sense of community responsibility as well as a profit motive and came away from the dark side of the force, and marketed actual healthy food and not pseudo healthy food, i.e. yoplait-like yogurts, which have more sugar in them than a candy bar. What if there were basic standards for how much sugar, salt and fat could be used in mass processed foods? And the entire industry had to adhere to this so no one could gain market share over another? And if those foods didn't taste good without those additives, that we could think about not having those foods produced -- which would probably wipeout tens of foods including but not limited to colas, cereals, crackers(chees-its without salt and powdered cheese, probably disgusting), some chips, breakfast foods... 

Food might become quite a bit more expensive as you needed more "real food" in order to make…well…real food. Most processed foods are made with chemicals and processed sugar, fat, and salt, to make it taste good. (try this experiment at home: make a meal that sucks and then add a lot of sugar to it, and watch your children devour it. It actually does work. Not so well with salt…)That type of food may not last as long on the shelves because real food decomposes relatively quickly. However, we would be paying for food, not food product. There are all sorts of issues that come up for me economically and socially about higher food prices. Yet we as a society have to think about the long term health of our country's people. Do you want people to pay less for food and then get ill later on in life and create extremely high medical bills, or do we want to encourage responsible eating habits to hopefully avoid those issues en masse? 

Update: the Coq au vin was slamming and made in about 30 minutes! However, in true kid style, my kids were less than impressed...

The sequester and my family

I was just on the phone with my cousin who is in IT for a well known defense contractor. I was speaking with him about the various certification issues I have to deal with as a teacher and I knew that he had similar issues and then he brought up something unexpected: the sequester.  I had forgotten that he was vulnerable. Someone in my close family is facing the possibility of furloughs and being laid off. The sequester was quite honestly just a political exercise in the stupidity of government for me. I was watching the Rachel Madow show last night, and the conversation with Ezra Klein about the sequester was actually eye opening. Basically, since it's a man made crisis, it can be unmade just as easily as it was made.  The congress could just decide to not do it, understanding that a manufactured crisis is obviously not going to force them to make decisions. 

Yea! I thought to myself. Cause this stuff's really gonna hurt somebody, not really thinking about that the people it could hurt are MY people. My cousin has 4 children and his wife is a stay at home mom. They own their home. They have two cars. They have children in school. Fortunately, he has saved money in the eventuality that he will be laid off. "I've been laid off before, so I know what it's like. I can't change what could happen, and I'm not going to stress out over it," is what he essentially said to me.

I don't think I could look at the possibility of my job(s) being gone with such ease. And then I remember, my mother's pension is federal. If the sequester goes into effect, what happens to her? This was a major concern when there was a threat of a government shut down.  

Why am I writing this? Because this is not a game or a frustrating news story to me anymore. People that I love will be affected if the sequester happens. These people have real lives that will change significantly if they do not get paid or are laid off. The macro vision of this mess is scary, but the micro vision is even scarier. The regular people are not really being looked at. I know where I place some of the blame for this situation, but I really don't give a rats a**. The government should be ashamed of itself. We as people should be ashamed that we voted these people into office and they can't seem to figure out how to do their jobs. There's a lot of politicking and strategy that each side has to do, but if America is about the individual, then we need to actually see the individuals lives as important to the whole. The sequester is not just a political exercise; it's real and has real life consequences for real people.

3-D Printers: A replicated gun in every household

This is the kind of thing that make the sci-fi nut in me get all geeky but scared at the same time. It's like Star Trek and Terminator mixed together. What am I talking about? The Washington Post recently posted an article about a 3-D printer that will create plastic guns -- right now. A 3-D printer? What is that you say? You tell the thing what you want and it creates it right before your eyes; layer by layer, like an inkjet printer. That's dope right? It's like living on board the Star Trek enterprise where you can just goto a food replicator kiosk and ask for whatever food you want and it just makes it right there for you. Well, we have that right now! The 3-D printer can be used to make almost anything. You want a certain type of shirt? Just add materials and feed the machine the pattern, and it will make it for you -- in your house! The implications on manufacturing alone are huge if you can make your disposable goods at home -- instantaneously. 

Here's the Terminator part -- someone is deciding to go around the proposed semi-automatic weapons ban and make a plastic gun that would be undetectable by modern equipment. This is in his house. He found the specs on, you guessed it, the internet.

Making guns for personal use has been legal for decades, but doing so has required machining know-how and a variety of parts. With 3-D printers, users download blueprints from the Internet, feed them into the machine, wait several hours and voila. 

"Restrictions are difficult to enforce in a world where anybody can make anything,” said Hod Lipson, a 3-D printing expert at Cornell University and co-author of the new book, “Fabricated: The New World of 3D Printing.” 

“Talking about old-fashioned control will be very ineffective."... 

...working in his spare bedroom, is using a $1,300 machine called the Cube, which is made by a division of 3D Systems, a large publicly traded manufacturer of consumer and industrial 3-D printing machines. The cheaper, consumer versions of 3-D printers like the one Lerol uses are only capable of printing with plastics, while more expensive, industrial-scale machines can print sturdier materials such as high-grade polymers. 

Experts expect printer prices to fall as part of the normal technology curve. (Think about the price of flat screen TVs five years ago. Or a computer two decades ago.) 

And that makes Lipson, the Cornell expert, nervous because cheaper machines could help people make cheap guns for one-time use. 

“The threat is not of 3-D printing military-grade weapon components from standard blueprints on industrial 3-D printers,” Lipson said. “The challenge is that [do-it-yourself] 3D printers can be used by anyone to print rogue, disposable and shoddy guns that could be used to fire a few rounds, then be recycled into a flower vase.”

A flower vase!?!?! You can make a gun, shoot a person and then put said gun in the recycling bin to be made into vinyl flooring. And anyone -- anyone -- will be able to do this if you have enough money to buy an over the stove mounted microwave, because that probably how much it's going to cost. If you can buy the computer you are reading this blog on, you can buy a device that will make whatever you have specs to feed it. That, my friends, is Star Trek when the Borg come.  As that drone is coming to get you for not paying that parking ticket, you can just replicate a firearm to "protect yourself". Neat world, isn't it?

You know when your own party calls you out, it's bad...

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The House has delayed voting on a bill to give over $60 billion in aid to hurricane Sandy Victims. Republican representative, Peter King lays the argument against this action out very well. The "dismissive" attitude that Boehner has in not bringing this up to vote now is ridiculous. King lays out that it's going to most likely take about a month to get the new congress going again and the people in Connecticut, New York and New Jersey can't wait that long. He basically says that if this were a southern state, no one would have a problem giving out money for relief. 

This is the delusion that again seems to take hold of the GOP. Are the people in the northeast somehow not worthy of the money? It was said that the bill introduced by the Senate had lots of pork in it. So the House cannot amend it and send it back to the Senate?! Isn't that how government works?!

This is ridiculous!

The 47% Disney-fied….

Sofia the First with animal "friends"

Ok, it's Sunday morning. My daughter is ill. We got up at 5:45am, that's right…AM. She's not going back to sleep so it's Disney time. Don't judge me, the TV is our friend when kids are sick. Since I can't go back to sleep, I decide to clean the extremely messy kitchen that I left after making catfish fingers for the first time. For some reason, Little J didn't want to see her girl Doc McStuffins(a black female character that of course I root hard for her to watch for obvious reasons). Since Disney wasn't working we watched how Blue, the dog from "Blue's Clues" came to be, and then that was over so we moved back to Disney.  The made for TV movie "Sofia the First" was on. So we watched. I like princesses so I was eager to see it. It was…. confusing.

The first thing was the beginning: The King, who's some sort of British-type European, which is expected, is getting new shoes and falls in love with the lovely shoemaker and marries her. 

They create a blended family: he has two kids, a boy and a girl(no mention is made of who their mom is but its the standard M.O. for fairy tale dads to just magically have children, usually a girl, with no mom in sight) and the shoemaker has a girl named Sofia, hence the name of the series. I was hearing the Brady Bunch theme in the background of my head…Here's a story, of a lovely lady… 

Then the kids all fly off to princess school, which isn't princess school, because there are boys there, but it's still called princess school. Sigh... Just let it go…. But, more importantly, Disney tried to be diverse and having some cultures at least represented in a token fashion: an Indian rajah, a Japanese girl, a light skinned African-type prince, and the rest were European. The prerequisite for being included were really nice costumes a la "The King and I" or "My Fair Lady". But, cognitive dissonance set in as I just thought: ok, so they're going to princess school - with boys - and they are all different cultures, but they are learning European etiquette and dancing. Is there some sort of exchange program where they learn the ways of the other cultures too? So the other cultures have to come to the European school to learn how to be royal?! Turn your brain off Diva, it's a kids show. Just enjoy it.

But here is the coup de grace: The Sofia character can speak to the animals, courtesy of a magic amulet her new "dad" gave her. When the birds, squirrels and "streetwise" bunny come in to Sofia's room...

break - the bunny is voiced by Wayne Brady. And not Wayne Brady from the improv comedy show, but the Wayne Brady from the Chappelle Show. You know the episode where Dave and Wayne are in the SUV and Wayne asking a Ho: "Is Wayne Brady gonna have to choke a bitch?" That's the bunny in this cartoon. Back to our regularly scheduled blog…. 

…they tell her that they are not doing all her work for free. Hell naw! You need to pay us: with food!! At this point the cognitive dissonance just made my head explode. They started singing about all this work they did for these princesses all these years. "Pay a n---a, bitch!"  in disney speak, while they dance around eventually ending up with Sofia going to the kitchen to get them a salad.  The "47%" of animals need to be paid fairly for their efforts.  Respect.  

So this show wants my child to believe in mythical princesses that are risen up from essential poverty by her mom marrying rich, they get a multi-cultural "education" which really only teaches one culture knows how to be "royal" and then the black bunny's friendship is conditionally based off of him and the rest of his crew needing to be fed?!  

Oh, and by the way, Sofia is Hispanic or Latina with blue eyes, red hair and porcelain skin. I was wondering why her mom was dark skinned. I just thought she was Italian-like. Now I know that Hispanics come in different shades and colors, just like black people. But the Sofia character was voiced by what was obviously a white actress! (at the end they had this voice over actress live in a princess decorated room, singing one of the songs. She looked white to me)  If I hadn't read that the character was Hispanic, I never even would have known. Could she have a slight accent or something to indicate that she was Hispanic?! I'm not talking a Charo accent, but a Dora accent. The voice of that child sounds Hispanic(I believe she's voiced by a Cuban girl). And don't tell me people can't tell. Doc McStuffins speaks perfectly and you know she's black. You can hear the characters on Ni-Hao-Kai-Lan are of East Asian descent. If Sophia's supposed to be Hispanic, give some indication that she is or else just call her white and be done with it. It was just strange trying to figure out why her dark skinned mom had a white child in a mythical kingdom where everyone else is pretty rigidly defined by their ethnicity.

This was Disney trying to twist the the princess idea into something modern, non-classist/racist and socially relevant to today's culture. 

Well, to this adult, it was so weird, condescending and strange I had problems not yelling at the tv. 

To the child -- it was a cute, sweet tale of trying to fit into a new place with new people and a new family. 

To the adult - the 47% have spoken, they will be paid well for their time and efforts you rich people! If I have to be at your beck and call, I need to be paid greenbacks, as in lettuce! And does the HIspanic mom have to be a shoemaker who is kneeling at the king's feet putting on his shoes?!  Since it's pure fantasy, why couldn't she be a doctor or a fashion designer or…. well not a frickin shoemaker?! 

To the child -- Wow, that bunny's funny. Of course Sofia should give him a snack. Isn't the Queen's hair pretty? I want to talk to animals, too.

Adult - This is insane!

Child - Goodie!!! Cinderella just showed up!

WIll I let my child watch this post modern drivel? Most likely…. sigh.... I just want to see the dresses and which princesses come out of the amulet next…just don't have Tiana talk about hard work while she's cooking something in the kitchen….Please?!

Tragedy hopefully leads to true change...

I had written a whole diatribe about rural vs urban gun control fantasies and how I believe rural people are insanely controlling the ideas about gun control in this country. It makes no sense to me that people who don't live in population centers seem to control the argument about assault weapons, which do the most damage in - you guessed it - population centers, like cities and suburbs. I also was talking quite eloquently about our mental health status in this country and how it sucks. But I saw so many clear little essays on Facebook thought it made more sense to display that rather than my own not always clear thoughts. Here's a couple. 

I didn't want to goto the gun control debates because I find those to be trite and not up to the real challenge that we face. Suffice it to say, if the crazy man had a knife, or a colt handgun with 6 bullets that he had to reload, a lot less damage would have been done. Let's just pray that now, in this environment which seems to be a little more interested in reality and the true causal relationships of events, we will have a discussion leading to legislation that brings assault weapons bans, coverage and the beginning of rationale policy, housing, and treatment of the mentally ill, and though there are no real affects on this type of behavior, address the coarseness of our culture in general. 

You can't go to school, can't go to the mall, can't go to the movies, can't go to restaurants (Killeen, TX), can't go to church (folks were burning those down), can't stay home (home invasions)...what in the heck can ya do? WTH!!!! - Sharolyn DeWitt

People want to debate gun control, or blame this tragedy on "Evil".
But this is truly about one thing only- Mental Illness. You can't do what this man did and be a sane person. Mental Illness differs from Physical Illness in only one major way-- the mentally ill person, if untreated, can harm others. The physically ill can only harm themselves.
It is paramount that our society begins treating people for mental illness without charge. One of the main impediments for people getting treatment is how expensive it is. Usually mentally ill people can not hold down a job. How are they supposed to get care for their needs?
Trust me....this man's family knew there was a problem here.
But if it was free to get the man cared for, and if there was no dark ages type stigma associated with his condition, those kids would all be alive right now. 

- Wayne Wilentz

People of God, please do not use the Newport tragedy as an opportunity to shove Jesus down people's throats. Do better and just show the love of Christ. 

- Jean Baylor

Magical Thinking Strikes Again

Mr. Norquist is entitled to his magical thinking. But when he uses it to try to intimidate Virginia lawmakers, Mr. McDonnell must push back. - Washington Post Editorial Board

This quote is from an article about the transportation system in the state of Virginia referencing the governor of that state, Robert McDonnell. The basis is that the state budget will not be able to handle the crumbling infrastructure that are the Virginia roads.

"In four years, the state will have no money to devote to any new road, rail or bridge construction. That’s right, zero. At current trends, every available dollar will be sponged up just to repair and maintain existing infrastructure. And if the state’s road-building money dries up, so do millions in federal matching funds."

So it's time to raise taxes right? Raise the sales tax or (God Forfend!) the gasoline tax. Or just put it in something that will have everyone pay essentially the same amount so that the growing population of Virginia can continue to grow and expand without never ending, and I mean, never ending traffic jams.  My family and I drive through Virginia regularly to see family in the south and we all leave very early or very late to avoid the parking lot-like I-95. To get to see friends and family in Northern VA, I have to pack snacks and movies for the kids, leaving at a time where a nap would not be an unnatural to my kid's body rhythms because the trip is so long due to traffic. 

No one wants taxes to go up cause no one wants to pay more. BUT, I have no problem with taxes IF there is a definable benefit like a metro extension, better roads without tire exploding pot holes, a modern air traffic control system, etc...  Taxes help to create that. There are times when taxes are good and there are times when taxes are bad. As I was saying to my daughter last night,(really, she was bawling her eyes out because I made her read a book she didn't want to read...) just because you don't want to do it, doesn't mean "it" doesn't have to be done. You can't make up the world. Rain falls, water evaporates, makes clouds, and rain falls again. Magical thinking only comes true in fairy land....

"Urban" vs "Rural"

Two articles I've read recently  from The Atlantic and The Republic have made it clear that the reasons for GOP going down is linked to geography and population. I have gotten really angry in the past at certain GOP remarks about "real Americans" obviously pointing to rural Americans of a lighter hue as being somehow better than those city slickers. Democrats seem to own urban centers in America. One reason is because you can't get too crazy if you got to pick up the trash, clean and police the streets, educate the populace(though there some crazy's in city government right now concerning this, but that's another story), and transport masses of people to and from work daily. There is no right or left wing bus system.

The main points of these articles is that Republicans have ceded the cities to Democrats because their ideology of rough and rugged individualism doesn't really work there.  I don't know about that, as it simplifies their platform a little too much, but it does bring up the fact that they are not using their ideas in dealing with the challenges that occur in city environments. As more and more people live there from a variety of economic and cultural backgrounds, they cannot be ignored and demonized if one wants to win national, regional, and of course, local elections.

If Republicans are ever going to earn real votes in cities in the future, though, they'll have to do more than just talk about them differently. The real problem seeps much deeper. As the Republican Party has moved further to the right, it has increasingly become the party of fierce individualism, of "I built that" and you take care of yourself. Cities, on the other hand, are fundamentally about the shared commons. If you live in a city and you think government – and other people – should stay out of your life, how will you get to work in the morning? Who will police your neighborhood? Where will you find a public park when your building has no back yard?

However, as usual, it's the comments section below that gets the blood boiling.  It started off with welfare queens of all things, and how living in a city you see that that stereotype doesn't exist, and then it does exist, and then people have babies just to get more money, and then….sigh.

No one seems to ask the right questions. There are people who game the system yes. Why would they do that? Are they just naturally degenerate? Could there be some reason for it beyond their  "degenerate nature"?  The delusion of moral superiority due to geography has to end. We need to look at issues in our democracy square in the face and devise the best solutions for them. These surface bogeymen distract from the issues of making society work so that the gamers of the system have less to game.  The point is that the GOP needs to get their feet into population centers so that there is a vibrant debate which can lead to better governance for all. 

The Death of White Supremacy

With the election over and Obama re-elected, my brother, who is my political pundit cohort in the family, had a really interesting conversation. What we both came to as a conclusion is something that we as "post-black" "modern" adults have difficulty saying because it's of our parents generation. It's a phrase that is generally associated with sweaty baptist preachers, street-i-fied black academics from ivy league type universities, and red, green and black clad afro-centric protesters. But we came to this conclusion because the blindness is so obvious, so delusional, that there's no other way to say it:

We are watching the death throws of White Supremacy.

Twitter and Facebook are good for something because there was no way to avoid seeing the hysteria in the first few days after the election.  There are all sorts of people tweeting their upset that we are re-electing a "Nigger" back to the white house. Trump called the election illegitimate and said people should march on Washington. Later, Cable TV spewed all sorts of stuff. Bill O'Reilly spoke about the death of "traditional" America with its "Traditional American Values." The Five on Fox News just kept saying over and over again that half of America just voted a certain way so they could get free stuff. When Fox news called the election for Obama, the news anchors interviewed their own election data crunchers because they just couldn't believe that Obama actually won Ohio. 

With the beginnings of political parity in America of people of non-european ethnicity, no longer can others point of views be shunted to the side.  No longer can people believe only what they want to believe, just because it "seems right".  One of my older white Jewish friends basically said to me, now everybody else's voice can be heard! When the delusion is seen by white people themselves, you know it's on it's way out. 

Let me say quite clearly that the Republican party and all white people are not racists. Most people have no problems individually with anyone. However, white privilege has been so much a part of the American zeitgeist for so many years it has been the natural order of things. Privilege is not just about money and opportunities. Its also about seeing what one want to see because there are enough people like you to block out other's reality.  White supremacy is frankly the best way I can put what Americans of primarily Northern European descent have lived through in America, whether specific individuals oppressed another individual or not.  

Let me explain my view on this further. Part of White Supremist thought is the ability of white people to be completely wrapped up in their own world view thereby negating other's experiences. If other ethnic groups do better economically or politically, or want something different than what white people want, they have difficulty dealing with that reality and either destroy that thing or become delusional and just make up the reality that suits them. In the past destruction was fine (anyone remember the real town of Rosewood. A movie was made  about the destruction by burning of a black town in Florida by whites).   When the Declaration of Independence was written, in order for the statement, "All men are created equal" to make sense while having slaves, the white power structure had to make black people three-fifths of a man and not a "real" man.  You can't enslave another man if all men are created equal.  They created a delusion in order for their world view to make sense. That "fact" was made up to fit a situation.

Fast forward to the 2008 election. Republicans thought Obama's election and turnout was a fluke. A moment in time, not repeatable.  The media was in the tank for Obama. All their pundits believed that minorities would not vote in force again. Not only that, the polls were also in the tank for Obama and were wrong. Nate Silver was wrong. He was an ideologue. By the way, Nate Silver is just an aggregator of polls. He looked at the math that was available to everyone, and said Obama had a much better than 50% chance of winning. But the polls were skewed, so said the Republicans. There was a website, created by Dean Chambers, dedicated to "unsckewing" polls simply based off of belief that the polls were wrong. 

“Most of the polls I ‘unskewed’ were based on samples that generally included about five or six or seven percent more Democrats than Republicans, and I doubted and questioned the results of those polls, and then ‘unskewed’ them based on my BELIEF (emphasis mine) that a nearly equal percentage of Democrats and Republicans would turn out in the actual election this year,”

What did he expect? That blacks, hispanics, and asians would just magically disappear after the last election? This especially after the Republican party did literally everything they could to piss them and women off? The voter id laws essentially energized people that may not have been energized because they knew what it felt like to not be able to vote. My mother grew up in the segregated south and told me flat out that what was happening now felt just like that time. However, the delusion doesn't come from the desire to have an id to vote. The delusion comes from the "fact" that there were significant cases of voter fraud to cause this plan to need go into effect. The delusion also comes from not understanding how people might feel about this especially when it's put into effect right before a major election, and basically disregard and deride the anger it might cause.

The engagement strategy of pandering to delusional thinking had unintended side effects. The most recent one is the Todd Akin debacle.  Todd Akin listened to "a doctor" who just made up what a women's body's does in order to bolster his pro-life argument. The "legitimate rape" statement falls in the white supremacy category because it's nonsensical, equating pseudo-facts with actual facts to back up a skewed world view. Let me be clear: the pro-life argument is not skewed, Akin's argument concerning rape and it's "legitimacy" is.When Akin's delusion was laid out this bluntly, people recoiled in horror.  Yet, many still embraced him. How does one consider sending someone to congress who doesn't understand basic biology?  In the 21st century? He was defeated.

So now that Obama is president again, what the country is learning that we are not a melting pot where all ethnic groups' identities merge into one zeitgeist, but a tossed salad of ideas and concerns. The strategy of delusional thinking and blindness to others interests won't work anymore. You cannot win elections by deciding to kick everyone else's concerns to the curb. White people's concerns are as important as black people concerns, which are as important as hispanic people's concerns…and so on. You cannot pick and choose which facts you are going to choose to believe and still win elections.

Here is Erik Erickson of redstate.com trying to step away from white supremacy by embracing the facts without laying down his ideals. 

…Romney made a conscious decision to blow off Hispanic voters. Yes conservatives, we must account for this. The Romney campaign to the hispanic community was atrocious and, frankly, the fastest growing demographic in America isn’t going to vote for a party that sounds like that party hates brown people. That does not mean the GOP must offer up amnesty. It does mean that a group that is a natural fit for the GOP on social issues, must in someway be made to feel comfortable with the GOP…. 

As for you conservatives who are convinced today that suddenly we are a socialist nation, sober up and pay attention... Republicans who, overnight, were screaming about the country headed toward socialism are, if we are honest, not yet deprogrammed from defending Mitt Romney. The Romney campaign, truth be told, has been pathetic at defining a real, right-of-center alternative to Barack Obama. It’s hard to say Americans embraced, overnight, socialism, when Americans delivered back the status quo — including the “crazy” tea partiers in the House of Representatives — rejecting only Mitt Romney’s brand of “I’m going to do what the President is doing, but with more tickle.”

Here are the comments underneath and you'll see the delusional thinking.

Commenter #1: The electoral problems do indeed go deeper because Obama has created a very socially liberal urban based coalition, a coalition that is at odds with a large part of the American cultural tradition. Limited government requires a people of self-reliance and moral fiber; without that, our vision of governance is not just unpopular, but kaput.

So…"socially liberal urban based people" don't have self-reliance and moral fiber? They are at odds with "american tradition"? What is that tradition pray tell?  And you know this information how….

Commenter #2: A nation that can RE-elect a man as unqualified as Barack Obama is in deep trouble." We are stocking up on guns and ammo in Texas - on the outside chance Perry decides to defend our border.

So now because Obama has been elected again, you're going to get some guns and secede from the union?! What year is this?!  Watch as someone tries to detach and move into reality.

Response to Commenter #2: Are we going to retreat into wild fantasies of succession? That is not going to solve the basic structural weaknesses in the Republican party. We need to be looking forward and deciding how we can change to become America's inclusive party. Any other course will navigate us unto the shoals of despair.

Do you see it? How does the passage of Obamacare, the bank bail outs and just Obama himself move into a violent hostile federal takeover of a state? Why does one, all of a sudden, have to buy some guns? If it does not fit into the world view they would like to see, they just make up something, some fact to just make themselves feel better. That's how white supremacy works. When someone tries to detach from it, they are being blind to the realities of the "true" situation and are banned from the conversation. Literally.

But with the discovery that there is now an emerging political parity of ethnic groups in America, the blinders are being taken off.  But more importantly, the what's underneath the blinders are being seen and believed!  On CNN's State of the Union, Carlos Gutierrez tries to tell Gary Bauer of American Values that the reason Hispanic voters did not vote for the GOP was because they were frightened of them. Bauer tried to say there was a lot of fear mongering because of the TV ads Obama put out. Gutierrez just kept hammering home that these are people he spoke to and knows. They are afraid! Listen to me!  Bauer refuses like a woman who has been in multiple bad relationships refuses to see a jerk coming a mile a way.

The election also proves is there is no more delusion without consequences. The republican party cannot put a token black, hispanic or asian up and say, "Hey look! We're diverse and we understand you!"  There are already small amounts of those constituencies present in the party. However, they can no longer be used like show pieces.  Their ideas must be taken into consideration and used to reach out to the rest of the electorate. This means that the ideas of small government, low regulation, market supremacy must be translated into practical ideas that relate specifically to their experience. Cultural and religious differences cannot be discounted or dismissed.  Using phrases like the " death of American tradition" to signify change in the party does not feel like a positive shift. Calling the group who did not vote for you "takers" will not inspire those outside the party to vote for you. The GOP must release and repudiate the dog whistles that speak to white supremacy. No more food stamp presidents or welfare queens or socialist or sharia laws scares. This is a delusion. It is not real.

Our two party system should have all people on both sides. But one cannot make up one's own reality because the reality doesn't fit their desired outcomes. One side can have it's own set of interests that they can rally around and fight for. They can come together with other ethnic and cultural interests that may share their beliefs and ideals. But if others don't believe in your ideas, you don't paint them as other/evil. Each way is A way not THE way. We're all just trying to live on the planet as humans. There are philosophies that are dangerous and there is rhetoric everywhere that is over the top. But the delusion that is White Supremacy is dying. Children are growing up with everybody in the sandbox and everybody wants use the digger cause it's cool. Each kid makes up why they should have the digger first, but what ends up happening is they take turns because it's fair. They are equal. They are all human beings. Ding Dong, White supremacy is dead.

Global Warming: The New Normal

Ok everyone. You might not even read or hear this because you my not have any electricity in your home. But I'm going to say it anyway: I can't stand global warming and those who think it's not happening. We just went through a storm that has affected 50 million people across the entire eastern seaboard, flooded New York City, destroyed the New Jersey coastline and caused A BLIZZARD IN THE MOUNTAINS!!!  When I grew up in the Washingon, DC area, there was this large snow storm in the late 70s and it was rough with a couple of feet of snow on the ground.  But it was just one blizzard, it didn't happen that often, and no power was lost. Since I moved back to the DC area we have had thunder snow, blizzards, tornadoes, durechos, extreme draught, heat advisories and hot weather in February (regularly). I have gone thru power outage after power outage and trees falling down on my car and house. The mid atlantic states are supposed to have relatively tame weather. All of these weather incidents happened in the last 4 years. This is what we have to get used to in the future; the new normal so to speak. Face it: global warming is blooming. The chickens are coming home to roost.

Though the science is in concerning global warming, it's the weather that should make us believe.

[Nobel Laureate Mario J Molina, PhD] emphasized that there is no "absolute certainty" that global warming is causing extreme weather events. But he said that scientific insights during the last year or so strengthen the link. Even if the scientific evidence continues to fall short of the absolute certainly measure, the heat, drought, severe storms and other weather extremes may prove beneficial in making the public more aware of global warming and the need for action, said Molina. 

"It's important that people are doing more than just hearing about global warming," he said. "People may be feeling it, experiencing the impact on food prices, getting a glimpse of what everyday life may be like in the future, unless we as a society take action."

However, this is where the internet and it's openness goes horribly wrong and why it's so easy to deny climate change. As we all know, any crackpot with a computer can put any theory up on youtube. And those voices can seriously muddy the waters of common discourse. Who do you believe? With hurricane Sandy, those voices have everybody under the sun but mother nature herself creating it. This Salon article nicely lists all the theories out there. 

The one I hate the most is the HAARP program and chemical trails one. The government controls the weather. Really?! Then they are doing a really bad job! The problem with this theory is that if they created this storm, why didn't they stop the heatwave that destroyed crops all over the US? My favorite is that the gay's did it. God doesn't like gay people and so He sent this storm to chastise us for supporting for gay marriage. This is like when I tell my two year old why it's raining: it's just a giant crying. We can't tell you why it's raining, but it is and here's a nice little story about it to make you feel better.

This stuff is ridiculous. We can debate about why the weather is changing and whether it's man made climate change or not,(but it is, so those crazy scientists say) but the weather is changing. I've experienced it. We've all experienced it. There will always be freak storms and freak times, but we've had a lot of freak storms recently at freaky times. The truly freaky part is that these freaky things happen all the freakin' time now. We better freakin listen and do something about it.

Political Carnival of Stupid

Is there something in the air right now? There seems to be a carnival out there. A carnival of stupid. Two are just side shows of stupidity and one is a serious threat.

Donald Trump acted like the carnival barker that he is and announced to everyone that he had something that's going to change the course of the election.  It's like he's saying this:

Ya got trouble, my friend, right here, 

I say, trouble right here in River City

Trouble with a capital "T"

And that rhymes with "P" and that stands for pool!

- from the Music Man

His hyped up youtube video of stupidness lasted approximately 2:30 minutes. Trump basically said: "I'll give the charity of his choice FIVE MILLION DOLLARS!!!(said in best Dr. Evil/Bob Barker voice) If Obama will just release his college records in a way that is satisfactory to me by 5pm eastern standard time. I really WANT TO WRITE THIS CHECK!"  I'm sure the President is real scared and will capitulate immediately….

Then you had Sarah Palin, someone who could sell oxyclean on an infomercial to a man who loves dirt, then get mad at him for not being clean enough when he was done. She posted that Pres. Obama should stop the…

"…shuck and jive shtick with these Benghazi lies...”

Uh huh. It's not racial. Nope. Obama's black, so he knows all about shuckin and jivin. I'm sure he carries a razor wherever he goes and sings ham bone under his breath to amuse his foreign affairs team.

Then there's the serious one. Indiana Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock stating in a debate on Tuesday that rape resulting in pregnancy is what God intended. First you have Todd Akin saying that a woman can't become pregnant where there is a "legitimate rape" and now you have this person saying that "legitimate rape"-induced pregnancies are acts of God. Which one is it?! 

These people are on ballots and you can vote for them to be in office. They are in tight races which means that there are people who either believe this hogwash or are holding their noses and pressing a lever so they can win majorities in government. This is where I now completely understand why character and values are of great importance in a candidate. If these two candidates, Mourdock and Akin are a part of fixing the economy, who are they fixing it for and when they introduce legislation will it be to limit woman's ability to make a horrifyingly difficult choice? It's like we're in the 50's. I'll repeat the reason again why my  formerly anti-abortion Christian conservative southern black mother is pro-choice: She worked in the hospitals as women were brought in bloody and dying from coat hanger abortions. She said she couldn't take seeing the death and destruction and if having abortion legal would stop the suffering she saw daily, she was for it. It was the poor people she said that were dying. The rich people could quietly and safely get whatever procedure they needed. A good economy doesn't matter so much when you have been sexually assaulted.

These side show salesmen and women statements have all happened in the space of 48 hours. It's not like there is not more important news out there that needs to be covered, but when a a confluence of events starts happening, you have to take notice like the Houstons(a reality show about Whitney Houston's family) just premiered. The real hucksters have stood up. Yea, I said it…hucksters. They just need to take their malarky and go back to Europe…. 

Character Really Does Matter

 “And I—and I went to my staff, and I said, ‘How come all the people for these jobs are—are all men.’ They said: ‘Well, these are the people that have the qualifications.’ And I said: ‘Well, gosh, can't we—can't we find some—some women that are also qualified?’ And—and so we—we took a concerted effort to go out and find women who had backgrounds that could be qualified to become members of our cabinet. I went to a number of women's groups and said: ‘Can you help us find folks,’ and they brought us whole binders full of women.” - Mitt Romney, debate #2

The comment by Mitt Romney in the latest presidential debate about "Binder's of Women" has created a thunderstorm of controversy. It's all over my Facebook friends pages and twitter is all a-twitter with comments about it. What this statement has cemented for me is something that I never really believed in before: character really matters.  Now this doesn't mean that I never thought it was important before, but that I just never put it on the same level as competency. When Republicans would state that character is really the most important thing in a presidential candidate, I would just turn off.  I thought it was a cop-out. But now I actually see the merit of this reasoning.

When Romney said that he didn't have any qualified women to fill cabinet positions during his tenure as governor of Massachusetts, that right there is a very telling comment. The fact that it didn't happen the way he said it is not as material to me as politicians change past events all the time to fit their version of the story (though this is problematic as well).  He was in business for 25 years and didn't meet and get to know 5-10 women who could fill those positions?! We're not talking about 1965, we're talking about the mid 1990's. There should have been loads of women whom Romney knew at least professionally, that should have been able to fill those posts; he should have been able to name 3 or 4 off the top of his head!  This is a character issue. Say what you will about Bush II, but his friends were of many hues and cultures. He was loyal and supported them with high visibility posts. They were hispanic, black, and female…Kanye wasn't accurate when he said George Bush didn't like black people.

Nonetheless, Romney's limited exposure to people outside his wealthy business lifestyle really concerns me. Maybe he can fix the economy, but for whom would he fix it? He talked about his having given his chief of staff flex time so she could go home and "fix dinner for her kids". I'm going to leave that alone because many women, including my mother, worked a full-time job(s) and fixed world class meals for their children. But there are many positions in today's workforce that can't have flextime. The money IS the important thing. Equitable pay means more take home pay for her and her children, which eventually means more churn in the economy; from the bottom up. 

Romney's limited familiarity with people outside his experience means that if he becomes president, he will have very little clue how his legislation will affect the rest of us who don't have parents who have enough money to send their kids to college or to help start a business. The fact that he has difficulty connecting with average people outside of his church is not because he's rich…it's because that's who he is! There are plenty of people of means who have been able to connect to people outside of their sheltered existence.  When creating legislation and consulting with different parties about how to go about crafting them, one's empathy and understanding of people's needs affects the decision-making process. 

So I say again, maybe Romney can fix the economy. But who's he gonna fix it for?!