Merry Christmas!

College Thought Police Ban WikiLeaks

Republican Heroes of yore not like the Tea Party Extremists & Corporate Puppets of today

Boehner weeps for his dad. Cantor mumbles. Palin communes with bears. One of the least diverse, least intellectually-equipped group of freshmen Congressmen invades Washington soon--to lead, create, fix? Nah, to attack and tear up. I was asking many of these folks' supporters what portraits of famous Republicans they felt these folks would hang on the walls of their new offices.

Some suggestions:

Ronald Reagan, of course. But do any one of these folks understand the man and his policies, his struggles, any more than the devil marxist kenyan muslim mythology with they find refuge regarding Obama (or climate change, or science/evolution for that matter?). Or...

Joseph McCarthy. Yikes. Ayn Rand--huh? She wasn't a Republican (or even a citizen?). Rush Limbaugh. Stands to reason. NASCAR pioneer Richard Petty. Ditto. John Wayne. Phyllis Schlafly. Strangely, no Dick Cheney, or either Bush. Thomas Jefferson. Um, no--he founded what is the Democratic Party now. Jefferson Davis. Of course. But yeah, he was a Democrat before he was a traitor. Hmmm....

Well, I decided to stop the madness, and the ignorance. A fool's errand, given this Congress. I compiled my list of Hero Republicans of Yore-- people who should be on the walls of the new Congress. Given the backgrounds of the victors, and the demographics of their supporters, I doubt they will agree. Thus they sow the seeds of their own failure, just like Newt in '97-98.

So...here it goes:

Abraham Lincoln. A no brainer; without him there is no GOP. Funny that he was even more unpopular than his illinois cohort with the darker skin, Mr. Obama. When he was elected many of the ancestors of the GOPs principal human power base decided to tear up the Constitution they crow about now (as hammered home by Roger Taney in Dred Scot), leave and declare war on the Stars and Stripes....all because some wanted to keep black folks as pets, most wanted the economic and political power slavery provided, and poorer ones, as now, needed someondy...anybody...lower than them on the totem pole. Indeed three years and thousands of dead, wounded, homeless and starving American later, Abe would have lost the election had William T. Sherman not brought great news of conquest in Georgia. What might have been? Well the nails in that coffin, so to speak, began to hammer tightly around 1948 when the Dixiecrats changed parties; by Nixon's election in 1968 the South was solidly Republican, but not the GOP Abe expressly envisioned post war.

Thomas Nast, political cartoonist. Invented the Republican Elephant (and Democratic Donkey); arch foe of urban Democratic machine politics (and sadly, by implication, ethnic white voters). Still he supported black folks rights and progressive/reform causes, including corruption within his own party, which was turning increasingly into the party of Wall Street and railroad interests.

James Garfield. 20th President of the US. Union war hero, so that takes him out of the running a lot of rednecks presently. But this man died...LITERALLY DIED...fighting the corruption of federal government workers and patronage, as well as a bloated federal budget. Half of these sots coming to Congress likely have no clue what happened to this man, and the debt, again literally, they owe him.

James G. Blaine. Senator from maine in the 1870s and 80s and US Secretary of State. He kept the GOP on a moderate, overtly pro-big business course, opposing Radical Reconstruction (was he the Evan Bayh and Blanche Lincoln of the 19th century?) and buffering liberal Republicans like Carl Schurz and Sen. Roscoe Conkling. But more so, he envisioned the US as a world power, and advocated military readiness to extend American influence not only in the rest of the Americas & the Caribbean, but also to make the Pacific an "American Lake." Blaine was also a hypocrite who tried to play both ends, and in that, he's a good role model for modern Republicans. Lost a close election to fellow Princetonian and Democrat Grover Cleveland--first Dem to win the White House since before the Civil War.

Mary Hay. Suffragette, Temperance and Prohibition leader, founding member of the League of Women Voters and one fo the first women to sit on the Republican National Committee. Getting the 19th Amendment passed for the 1920 election produced nowhere near the blood and tears spent in the quest for civil rights for African Americans, but it was still a feat no one thought possible during the time of the FOUNDING FATHERS--about whom the Tea Party bumpkins bleat. Yes, things sucked back then for women. Republican Mary Hay changed all of that. She transformed the GOP and transformed America. Of course her pushing Prohibition may have been a terrible idea, but it was the Volstead Act that helped push WOMAN POWER to the fore. She was also a Progressive, a la Republican Sen. Bob LaFollette, reformer-writer Upton Sinclair (who went from Republican to Socialist!) and fellow suffragette and Michael Moore prototype Ida Tarbell (who did to Standard Oil and the railroads what Moore wanted to do to GM, gun and tobaccomakers et al). And yep, Ida was a Republican. Imagine that. So was Margeret Sanger, who fought for reproductive rights--birth control, the right to receive and disseminate family planning information and...uh oh...abortion. She wasn't vindicated in Roe. Rather, she was vindicated in Griswold v. Connecticut. And guess who opposed his own state's position in that case? Sen. Prescott Bush--W's granddad, hater of McCarthy & friend of fellow liberal Republican Nelson Rockefeller. Yikes.

Theodore Roosevelt. Again, a no brainer. For some reason, Teddy's on Glenn Beck's shit list, as if trust busting and creating the national parks/conservation is big government and social engineerign run amok? Teddy was a Progressive too, married to political reform. He tried, half-assedly but still tried, to quell racial terrorism in the South, and held Booker T Washington as one of his close advisors. Under TR, the US legitimately became a world power, and the navy and US Marine Corps truly came into their own as the fist of that power. Then there was the Panama Canal. But again, current Republicans don't seem to give a damn. He's too East Coast. Too...Yale. And that canal: Big Gov, alright. Stimulus money...too many black workers on the payroll. But hey, Jimmy Carter gave it away. The wimp!

Edward Brooke. Senator from Massachusetts, 1967-79. Howard University grad, DC native, like yours truly. And supposedly, Barbara Walters' chocolate lover. That miscue aside, one of the sharpest minds and cagey legislators in the Senate. Was he lead on Fair Housing Act, Equal Credit Act, banking Reform, foreign aid, less restrictive trade/tariff policies. Early supporter of Nixon but then turned on Tricky Dick when he nominated racists/unqualified pols Haynesworth and Carswell to the US Supreme Court. He was the first GOP Senator to openly call for Nixon's resignation as Watergate came to a climax in '74. A statesman. Remember them--folks like Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Everett Dirksen (another prominent Republican who jousted with JFK and LBJ, and would likely laugh at McConnell, DeMint...and snicker at Boehner and Cantor). The next time these pathological Uncle Toms & self-promoters...from Clarence Thomas to Allen West to Mike Steele and MLK's niece...open their mouths, may Ed Brooke sting their tongues. Learn from this dude, brothers & sisters. Learn.

Dwight D. Eisenhower. 34th President of the US. A moderate. Yes, a moderate. Would look at these folks today and grin a bit and say, "darn fools." Despite the revisionist conservative view, he didn't regret appointing Earl Warren to the Supreme Court, or setting the 101 st Airborne Division loose on good patriotic white Christian folk in Little Rock, Arkansas, when these evil Commie agitators likely convinced dopey blacks to try to attend Central High School. Yes, we were locked in the Cold War, and yes, John Foster Dulles was his bulldog Secretary of State. But in 1956, Ike came about as close as any US President to putting a foot in the ass of three of our closest allies: Britain, France...and Israel. ISRAEL--no lie? No lie. Over the Suez Crisis. Nat wrote his Princeton thesis on that. Get it along with Kagan's, Sotomayor's and Michelle's at the Seely Mudd Library, fanboys. Indeed, Israel's actions allowed the Soviets' cover to invade Hungary to put down a democratic revolt against Communism...and the world was on the brink yet again. What did regret: bailing out France in Vietnam. Lord have mercy. And GOP stalwarts in 2010 might want to recall that it was he who warned of the military-industrial complex. see here. Note this preamble to a clip from the film "Good Night and Good Luck," here.

Ike don't sound like no Patriot Act fan in that second clip, do he? LOL. Well general, your party needs you, for even your twisted VP from Cali. was downright tame compared to what we have now. Abe, Teddy, James, can you help, too?

VOTE tomorrow...for me.

Fear, ignorance, selfishness, atavism will always triumph, so just write off the Democrats in Congress. Instead, write-in Christopher Chambers for Mayor of Washington DC.

Why?

Because you don't fight fire with fire. You blow out its oxygen...

WikiLeaks: Americans don't care about Iraq

Abdication of networks and New York Times. So much for "liberal bias!" (smile)

Bishop Eddie Long: Are we African Americans, or Niggers?

Chris Rock rang this bell years ago. What are we?

Forget the hatemongering of gays. Check this out:

“We’re not just a church, we’re an international corporation. We’re
not just a bumbling bunch of preachers who can’t talk and all we’re
doing is baptizing babies. I deal with the White House. I deal with
Tony Blair. I deal with presidents around this world. I pastor a
multimillion-dollar congregation. You’ve got to put me on a different
scale than the little black preacher sitting over there that’s supposed
to be just getting by because the people are suffering.”

Nuff said. Read between the lines. Stop being niggers and start being African Americans...

Hold the phone...Fox's "Judge" Andy Naps Napolitano says Bush and Cheney should have been indicted for torture?

My favorite wingnut gumba with a Princeton degree (other than Justice Alito), Andrew Napolitano, said it loud and clear. Indict them for torture and lying about it. W. and Uncle Dick.

Of course maybe he can claim too much Chianti, as this was the same guy who wrote a book decrying Reconstruction, the NAACP, the 50s and 60s Civil Rights Movement and the Civil Rights and Voting Acts as evil...but hey.

Check it out here. He's on C-SPAN, by the way, not Fox. The real no spin zone?

Glenn Beck calles Reconstruction "evil"

Of course. And Avatar as well (why can't liberals make "Birth of a Nation" over again?). Now he's sending the love to Senator Joseph McCarthy as a hero.

Wake up, America. There's fascism out there, all right. But it ain't in the White House.

Marijuana Decriminalization & the NAACP: Weed Proposition & Racism

Nat on the iPad. The image embodies my opinion...

Why Democrats Fail: Obscure Movie Reference for the weekend

Democrats. Sappy bleeding hearts or cold-blood, naive technocrats? Nah! Too dependent on, on the words of Roland Martin, "getting Pookie off the couch" for votes? Hardly. Forget the usual moronic conventions. It all comes down to philosophy.

One of Robert Downey Jr's early star vehicles (which thus lead to his personal implosion) was an biopic of Charlie Chaplin called, well Chaplin. There's a scene where he's musing about politics and morality with fellow screen pioneer Douglas Fairbanks (with whom Chaplin and Lilian Gish found United Artists film company), played by Kevin Kline.

Chaplin says to Fairbanks: "America...this is a wonderful, country and full of so much potential, Doug...underneath such ugliness."

Fairbanks replies: "You're wrong, Charlie. America's a great country now, on the surface. It's just that there are truly ugly, evil things underneath that we can't expose."

If you approach this nation's body and soul like Chaplin in this scene you'll fail. Democrats tend to organize the world this way. Republicans--not the mass of clowns or demagogues but ones in control, think like Fairbanks--and such orientation makes manipulating people and issues easier to manipulate. This isn't mere abstract thought versus realism/pragmatism. Nothing that facile. There are legions of pragmatic Democrats. This is, rather, about bedrock views.

Your thoughts?

Obama Initiative & Black Fatherhood: yeah, it's about Values. De-valuation, that is

Check my comments on the Alyona Show on Russian TV and come back. Note her pressing me for the facile answer. Note my responses, and even the hint about the departure from Bush/Cheney era philosophy...or even what underlay the current Obama Initiative launched Monday, my reference to "Fences," or fellow Princetonian Rev. Joshua DuBois's pronouncements from the White House Office of Faith Based Programs...

...and here's your answer. It is about values. Not poor ones, ghetto ones, non-white middle class ones (though class enters into it). It's about being de-valued. That is (and watch my fingers in the segment) the intersection of structural oppression (racism, economics, education) and behavior that begets culture. When you are devalued--real or perceived--often the only way you can present yourself as worthy is by having a lot of women...girls, often. Getting them pregnant. bathing yourself in the silly, cartoonish superficiality of quasi-wealth (rims to skids to a 72 inch flatscreen with PS3 in a 500 sq. foot dingy apartment). Or getting pregnant if you're female. And if youYou aren't Michelle Obama--or even Elizabeth Hasselbeck on the View or the girl going to UVA on a field hockey scholarship--how you fill out jeans and blouse or how loud you can be even at age 12, might be all you got to show the world you matter.

Guess what? That's universal, spanning races, ethnicities, world-wide. What would the Palin family be without shady background sponsors pushing them all the way from Wasilla? Answer? Just watch Jerry Springer or Maury. In communities or sub-society's Where there's a history of poverty, isolation from the mainstream, parochial thought/ignorance, lack of opportunity or mind expanding education (for girls and boys) you have this issue. It's just that we have more history and structural buffeting as the basis than most in America. We have a bigger percentage of those living on the fringe, in almost an underground society. So the effects are more acute.

You can't say that on TV. No time.

Angelina Jolie as Cleopatra?! Hollywood...and White Audiences...don't change

Read Talia White's column in MSNBC's The Grio (and check my columns as well, fanboys & girls) then come back here.

Didn't the BBC do an investigation (in conjunction with Discovery) showing that through bone and DNA analysis (on her little sister Arsinoe--pronounced R-SIN-OH-WAY, and depicted in art with major plaited black braids of her own hair) this woman was more African than Ptolemy/Greek?

Note to you history-challenged jerks: Alexander the Great first severed Egypt from the Persian Empire (modern day Iran)...hence we have Alexandria. When he died, one of his best buds, the general Ptolemy, took Egypt as his little prize and made Alexandria his capital (and a repository of ancient art & technology while white folks were painting themselves with bull dung). Hence from that moment till the destruction of the dynasty by the Romans under Augustus, all Pharoahs were at least part Greek. That part diminished to a trickle. And far from being an exotic courtesan [which one would think would thus drive tools in Hollywood to pick someone who's maybe a Latina or with a "Middle Eastern/South Asian look" because that's the "type" cineplex suburban Americans expect] Cleo even as a teenager spoke 4 languages, was a mathmetician, poetess/comedienne and studied diplomacy from materials in the Great Library. She was a more a nerdy chick with a nice sex drive and a lot of ambition, not a scheming ho. But alas, most of that scheming involved killing a lot of folks, and it changed the course of Rome's, thus our, history...

Two years ago, archeologists found the body of Arsinoe (whom she had assassins kill once her old lover Julius Caesar died) and did the forensics. It works the same why as when they do a work up on your sibling, or parents' bodies to determine who/what the heck you are. And unless a Viking had an affair with Cleo's momma, the results and anecdotal/historical Roman (i.e. Plutarch) and Egyptian accounts should be conclusive.

But that don't bother Hollywood none. Somebody has to market to Red State morons...and go with brand names to ensure some semblence of a box office take. But that, interestingly, isn't the most cynical aspect to this. Like Liz Taylor et al...isn't Angelina...or Halle or any other black actress mentioned...too OLD? When Cleo met Caesar she was 16. She died at age 30, maybe? The closest to a decent and accurate rendering was HBO's Rome (more a precusor to Starz's Spartacus: Blood & Sand than 300). The chick still had a little too much Avril Lavigne in her, but also it was clear there was some sistah as well.

So let's stop the bullsh^t. I hear white people whining about Don Glover trying to be cast as Spider Man/Peter Parker, or huffing "Then let Spike Lee make the movie." That's not the point. The point is that Hollywood, as a weird carnie mirror to our society, has been doing the opposite to people of color for decades...indeed, since D.W. Griffith delighted audiences in 1915 by having white actors smeared on blackface to play the treacherous, rapacious, presumptuous, arrogant, not-knowing-their-place mulattoes of Birth of A Nation. Damn, those adjectives sound like Obama, don't it, Rand and Sarah? Guess we should get Fred Armisen in the film version?

Abby Sunderland: such is the world we've wrought

Reality show. Showbiz parent. Sponsor deadlines. Teen wanting fame in our "Twilight" generation. Cash money baby. Such is the media today. Such is the world we've made.

Now, on to Joran Van der Sloot...or Albert Haynesworth of the Redskins?

Alvin Greene: the Stealth Willie Horton or Racial Cypher?

Demint can win with out this nonsense. But then again, so thought Nixon in 72, and he still sat back whilst Liddy and a bunch of Cubans broke into the Watergate. What's the truth here?

Then again, there was Sgt. Watter's cautionary tale from A Soldier's Story...recall his reminescence about World War One and "Moonshine, King of the Monkeys?"

Check out the Washington Post's first efforts at investigating this circus...

Black folks hit hard on the Gulf. Even for clean-up jobs

Read my column on MSNBC's thegrio, here.

Book Expo America--in full effect at the Javits Center

Wish I was there but family matters squat upon me like the iconic gothic "Night-mare" painting of old. The publishing and retail bookselling biz ain't quite dead yet. Of course, having Sarah Ferguson or Barbara Streisand pitching their latest crap draws folks in, along with free books from graphic novels in the DC or Marvel areas, to slews of coffee table tomes and tschotchky. Black folks are there, oh yeah--BEA is like our internecine reunion and gladhanding fest, though other apparently better-heeled ethnic groups don't seem to put the same emphasis on this.

I'm following the Tweets and bit.ly links, and hope something dramatic pops off. In the mean time, back to work. Three unfinished projects. Michaelangelo or Dickens I am not.

Memorial Day Rant to Fox News & Tea Party

Interesting how the children, and now grandchildren, of folk who'd have not a pot to piss in were in not for the WPA, GI Bill, FHA, farm subsidies, interstate hwy and military base construction/contracting, mining on federal land, repeal of Glass-Steagall, federal student loan guarantees...even Medicare & Social Security...complain how "Big Government" is ruining America?

Interesting how so many of WWII's "Greatest Generation" were responsible for racist terror, murder, intrasigence, intolerance not just in the South but across this nation? Pretty much mimmicking the red scares, race riots/lynching and paranoia of their hero doughboy fathers from WWI. And the children/grandchildren now deal with the aftermath.

Interesting how this same group of heroes were responsible for birthing the mass-produced-throw-away-drill baby drill culture and economy that is sucking this ole Earth dry and nastying it up? And the children/grandchildren now deal with the aftermath.

Just interesting, that's all...

Kwame Kilpatrick--Don't drop the soap

Y tu mama tambien...

I'm sure there are young men in Detroit who think you are now a member of the prison tog club and thus held in even higher esteem.

Brandeis U study-Black Family Wealth Tanks, and it's not due to Bling

And read more here for the details.

The Wrinkled White Face of Ethnic Cleansing: Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer

Well, is it sun damage? Jealousy that black don't crack, brown don't frown? And of course in typical wingnut fashion, this, the state that vehemently opposed an MLK Holiday, is trying to misuse MLK's legacy regarding ethnic studies, to wit, "It's just like the old South, and it's long past time that we prohibited it."
What lies and insouciance. I'll leave ignorance and blindness to the rank and file whitefolk. The politicians, however, know exactly what they are doing.

Time for the technocrats in the White House to wake the hell up. But then again, let these crackers have their last hurrah. They will be the minority soon, and it scares the hellout of them. I wonder why?

Lil Wayne, Gucci Mane et al: Keep these Negroes behind bars...

...and black culture, the black polity might rebound. Some Norplant in certain areas of Chicago, given the mindless violence there, might be more effective in the long run than cops, the National Guard, social programs & mentoring, youth groups, blah blah blah...

And here's a cartoon to punctuate it. Enjoy.

And Feliz Cinco de Mayo, you Arizona GOP Hypocrits!

Times Square Hapless Bomber went to Southeastern University in DC

First these clowns at Howard, now this idiot. Wannabees are attending DC area HBCUs. A correlation between dumbasses and who HBCU's let in for the cash? Mrs Nat, an HU alumna, would kill me...

The Harvard Law Student who's the Smartest White Chick since Ann Coulter

Et Voila. The Harvard girl. My pal the Field Negro says she'll likely be doing legal commentary on Fox News soon. Ha! Or Palin's Attorney General?

I still can't believe these little immigrants invented zero, or these Africans and Chinese pioneered medicine, surgery and pharmacology as we know it while whites were still dying of funk. Makes no sense, do it, Steph?

Louisiana Oil Spill--look at the bright side

First, we're all getting more AMERICAN-born gasoline so we can sit in traffic on the Beltway as we drive to buy a carton of milk. At least we keep the road contractors busy.

Second, oil companies are good for the economy, and now can spend money like grains of sand to keep those damn treehuggers in line.

Third, I wish there's massive drilling off the Delaware coast, just like in the Gulf. The Nats dad has a house there where we all vacation, and black goo holds the sandcastles together better...even makes them waterproof!

MIA, Born Free, Youtube censorship and Red Heads

Here's what I had to say about MIA's Born Free:

Life Imitates Art: Adopted Kid returned to Russia, Movie "Orphan"

Read it here. The adopted went beserk, the mom sent him back. Remember the thriller "Orphan?" Gotta watch those Eastern European adoptions. Does the Russian Mafia run these transactions? That's the rumour.

I asked a friend about adopting any number of African American or Latino babies who live within a stone's throw of Nat's abode. She said there aren't a "number." Here we make it easy for any Precious or Juno to keep their babies no matter the cost to the teen mom's future or the kids' welfare. And speaking of welfare, ADFC costs. But the decision is, keep these babies with their baby-like moms, and push "marriage" to the low life or equally young sperm-provider as the solution to all social ills. The result? This surfiet of minority babies in the hood is just an urban legend. Hence, white folks who want a rug rat feel they must fly to China, Brazil or...well...you know the rest of the story.

D.C. Metro: No Fare Hikes! Crash it, then a do-over as a Regional Authority

Metro's troubles are legend. Whether it's raising blood pressures, or murdering its passengers outright. Only hick tourists think it's wonderous, most feeding off the archaic notion that the negative benchmark is the NYC Subway. News flash--I'll take the unheated, uncooled, tiled tunnels and screech of the 1 and 9 lines in Brooklyn than the crap I've experienced since 1976. Perhaps it's yet another in the legion of metaphors for Washington as a orphan child of the republic since 1800, a prison to everything from parochialism to racism, as compared with the grand capitals of the rest of the world.

Just as Metro's Board considers yet more fare hikes, the notorious Red Line suffers another bit of drama today: a fire.

Fare hikes, a higher subsidy from Maryland, DC or newly Confederate Va. isn't going to work. The only answer is to start over, create a Regional Transportation Authority with an individual taxing functionality for a collection of counties and towns in the D-M-V. Bust up MARC and VRE and fold that in, just like the Port Authority of NY/NJ. The buses, too. All of them.

Of course that sounds like too much "change." Even wingnut McDonnell of Ol' Virginny needs some government largesse and fiefs to convey.

Wikileaks video. In Iraq, Truth dies

I'm a member of the National Press Club and saw the "reveal." Members were aghast but apparently that didn't trickle up to their bosses...

Sarah Palin Finds an Uncle Tom in Florida: Allen West

...and true to all Toms, he not only didn't know she'd endorsed him, but shined a hearty hidy-ho in thanks. As my grandfather used to say: "Christopher, even the Confederacy had its coons."

See it here, on the Grio.com

Republican National Committee RNC & Tea Party leaders: Obamacare might work, so sabotage it?

Consider the scoop:
RNC colludes with Tea Party leader Mark Williams to put out the word--in a whisper this time, not the guttural cries of ignorant old white folks--that Obamacare MIGHT just work if the exchanges catch on? Therefore, pressure GOP state Attorneys General and support GOP governors to file suit (I guess it's okay for the government to tell its citizens what to do or deny those fruits when the GOP's in charge)...and worse, put pressure on big employers not to join these exchanges. Concomitantly, they will attack and discredit unions who might be pushing the management to hook up with the exchanges, or community groups who are advocating the same.

In other words, this isn't about right and wrong, or examining policy alternatives? No duh. The wingnuts have a good model for a combination of sabotage and terror: Reconstruction. Read A Fool's Errand by Albion Tourgee.

National Black Writers Conference: some placid ripples on a restive sea

I'm staying in DC to help care for an ailing father, and my mother in law who's up here from Florida for spinal surgery. But you didn't think I'd hold back on the commentary, did you, fanboys? My dad and mother in law spend their downtime reading this blog, among other things, so I'll keep it upbeat!

Here's something to note as you read the links: The subtle contrast between Martha Southgate's observation and that of poet/performer (and I guess, my fellow Yardie on my dad's side) Stacyann Chin. Yes, Center for Black Literature Director Brenda Greene's National Black Writer's Conference will bring together almost 2000 people--many of them nascent authors and artists, or established ones looking for a new groove. "Royalty" (blog-provocateur-speak) like Toni Morrison, Darker Mask (buy it for Kindle, folks!) contributors Walter Mosely and Victor Lavalle, Miracle at St Anna author James McBride, Berniece McFadden, Amiri Baraka et al will descend on Medgar Evers College in the resurgent , robust (and gentrified--and there's some interesting counterpoint for yo' ass) borough of Brooklyn to lead panels and colloquy with, hopefully, the few black representatives of a reeling publishing industry. Read about it here in the New York Times (and check Martha's comment).

Very good piece; wonderful description of the essence of this annual conference. Okay, here's Stacyann's comment, from the New York Post: “Often book festivals and conferences tend to be an inside crowd, but here you can get real people and not just fellow writers that tend to be a little more cynical and sometimes jealous,” said Brooklyn-based poet and novelist Staceyann Chin. “This conference gets real people from the neighborhood.”

As I said, subtle contrasts. As for the cynicism, I think Stacyann's a little pie in the sky. I'm sure it will be there. Street lit and general Tyler Perry-ism enriched a few folk, gave opportunities to many to call themselves published writers. But now, like subprime mortgages and derivatives, the inflated gravy train has derailed (my colleagues would jack me up for ham-fisted joint simile-metaphor but hey...). The Medgar Evers even has always pulled writers in a more literary rather than pop orbit, but they...we?...are feeling the pinch...amputation?...as well. Recycling into script writing or graphic novels is not the answer for many, and I wonder, like Martha, what will be the take-away besides bitching about the same ole same ole, clawing for relevance. Before, this year, it was about relevance in the face of black chick lit, ghettofiction and the Real Housewives of Atlanta. Now, we're competing with "2012"-like cracking and shifting of culture, politics and commerce generally.

Yet it seems the undercurrent, T-minus-48 hours to go, is, well, hopeful. I salute fellow authors, be they coddled or ignored, even as the loam and clay crumbles from under our cultural heritage, and our future. Maybe we're the answer to keeping things together. That's what my proud dad, and my beaming mother in law say, at least...

Hannity, Limbaugh, Malkin attack an 11 year old boy

...but that's ok. He's black so who'll really care, eh? Easy target directly or subliminally, for the rabid fans.

See here. Sad when an 11 year old is classier than adults; look at his response to these dicks. Maybe when he gets older, he can be the dragon killer Joseph Nye Welch was with McCarthy: "Have you no shame?"

Mama'd be proud, kid.

Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour is scum

Forty seconds of contrast on this Nancy Grace clone show speaks 40 decades of racism. And yep, the judge who sentenced these girls was the same piece of sh*t who granted criminally low bail to the Klansmen who murdered 3 civil rights workers in 1964.
Haley Barbour's a product of the fellow travelers of this system; white folks love him.

Afghanistan War Coverage: Patrick Kennedy's rant on the Kucinich Resolution

Books aren't dead: without them there'd be no Oscars!

Keisha Parks schools all of you fanboys, iPhone/Droid app junkies, geeks, gamers and assorted miscreants who feel the written word, and the book, is dead. Many of you squealed...discomfitted (yes that's a word), discombulated...as that 21st Century Tarzan flick, Avatar, lost the Best Picture Oscar. But think about this--Avatar was one of the few movies nominated that wasn't based on the printed page. Yes, even the films Nat loves to hate, like Twilight and the The Blind Side, where wordsmithed in late night sessions with the laptop and scribbled notes (a Princeton classmate of your's truly, Michael Lewis, penned The Blind Side).

Computer games are based on works of literature/epic poetry, short stories, seminal mythology. And indeed the geek wet dream, The Watchmen flick, is based, of course, on 1986-87's The Watchmen graphic novel, which in itself, is so far above what's out there both now & then that scholars consider it a work of literature.

G'won Keisha. Review the piece here.

Nip/Tuck finale: it was a far, far better thing

The image should clue or the flava on how the show--for six years alternately shocking, titillating, shark-jumping--ended.

I won't spoil it. However, as a fan of Charles Dickens I will say that Christian finally had his Sidney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities moment. No he didn't go to the guillotine for Sean, but in sacrificing, all went out happy. Matt the elfin, dumbass son, was, well, Matt. We got to see Wilbur again...once. Everything went to equilibrium, to the strains of Art Garfunkle's "I Love You."

I liked it. Look, given the lame or fanboyish finales of now versus yore, it wasn't bad. "Lost" is looking lame; and remember the "Sopranos" fiasco? The only satisfying finale I note recently was the amazing montage at the end of HBO's "Six Feet Under." Back in the day we had the last "M*A*S*H*," or the second "Newark" series merging with a wink and chuckle into the first.

Nip/Tuck does literally end with a wink--involving Christian, of course. It produced the grin, then chuckle, in me. Then it was 11pm and bedtime. No controversy or debate. No rush to Twitter or fan sites. No gossip over a Nip/Tuck movie or reunion. Just contentment. Equilibrium. Thanks, Ryan Murphy. Thanks for a cool run.

UNITY's Journalists of Color Survey: Mainstream Media Sucks, Obama Hasn't Helped

Surprised? Fox isn't trusted by journalists and other media folks who are black, Latino, Asians, CNN listed as most trusted. NPR scores high for accurate and helpful stories re: minorities, cable news networks and blogs (individual or multi-contributor) score the lowest.

Solution: diversity of views and experiences in newsrooms, production, among editors, etc.; corporate bean counters and "entertainment" model of journalism is undercutting this.

See more here.

Finally, a real Tea Party-Birther recruiting poster...

Perfect. Got the bumpkinesque quality (pitchfork)...the beautify tagline: Fear your neighbor. I love it.

Austin plane bomber: Unless you're a Muslim, you're not a terrorist?

Check the tone of our all news radio station in DC, WTOP--which relies on Fox News for many feeds--regarding the bastard who flew a plane into a building in Austin, Texas. Read here.

So if his skin was darker and his name was Mustafa, it wouldn't be a "grudge" and "pressure"--it'd be terrorism? What a bunch of two faced bullshit. This guy was a lunatic and terrorist. Luckily no one was killed other than his crazy ass.

I wonder if they mention this guy or the Holocaust Museum murderer at Tea Partier rallies? Minor embarassments, certainly not terrorists...

Presidents Day: George Washington and Obama

From MSNBC's the Grio, my take on why Washington needs to get some props from black folks. Stop lionizing Abe Lincoln...oh, and that's the RZA as George.

Disney tells Marvel to play nice with Right Wing Nuts?

My Darker Mask co-editor Gary Phillips takes on the controversy of Captain American, Bucky and The Falcon versus the Tea Partiers...here.

Snowroshima Hurts. DC 2010

Summer 2009, Feb. 2010. Yikes, Mother Nature's definitely missing her Xanax...

Tea Party Racism...the 4 minute US History lesson

On the Alyona Show again on Russian TV, so here's the word on the new face of wackos and coded racism, at least from St.Petersburg to Siberia (and D.C.)...

DC Snowmaggedon (as opposed to Snowpocalypse)

We haven't had a decent storm in the D-M-Va since 2004. Vengeance is mine, sayeth Mother Nature. And frankly, she's getting a little help as warmer seas in the Pacific are exacerbated by drought, dust, deforestation and pollutants in Asia, Australia...the seas drive waves of wet unstable air toward California...across the Rockies, dipping down toward the Gulf, sopping up even more moisture, races back up toward us, sitting fat and oblivious under a typical winter chill.

And what happens? 30 inches on top of the 6 that fell over a week ago. On top of the dirty, oily sooted, spotted patches of December's Snowpocalypse (almost dead from two days of 60 degree weather).

Government response? Well...hahaha

Enjoy the film--and this isn't even the worst of it.

Tea Partiers: Racism we've seen before...

It's Reconstruction's Klannish backlash, 150 years later.

Check it out here.

RIP J.D. Salinger & Howard Zinn

Holden Caufield's finally at peace. The nation isn't.

Stop the Overtime debate. The Vikings lost. Period.

Let's get one thing straight--I'm no Saints fan. They are vastly overrated. But...I wish folks would stop this endless debate over NFL sudden death overtime rules and coin tosses. One of my wingnut pals, who's blog you can access to the right, and who's GOP partisanship belies all of his libertarian, bootstrap let the chips fall jawboning, was quite upset. He wanted a rule change. An accommodation. Fairness. Well, here's what I said:

"

Look if you lose the coin toss, THEN PLAY SOME FRIGGIN'DEFENSE. Or how about just playing to win during regulation time! What--you want the game to last ten quarters? You sound like such a socialist "lets be fair/level the playing field at someone's expense Obama-ite whiner, Bwa hahahaha Please note I'm nowhere NEAR a Saints fan, but if anyone other than Brett Favre was on the losing end, no one would be having this silly debate."

Prediction: Coakley loses Kennedy seat--The NFL as political metaphor

Football analogy time. In this age of Game Change (see previous post), why not?

I'm predicting Martha Coakley will lose. I'm predicting Barack Obama will be a one term president. (More a George Bush Senior than a Jimmy Carter loss, but at this point does it matter?).

Why am I courting the wrath of true believers? Because the Democrats are like the Ravens, Cowboys, Chargers, Cardinals et al.

Both sets rely on big plays on O or D or both, and big personalities to win. If you get behind them, you're dead. Period. Yet if you trip them up, pierce their lack of a fundamental game plan, you win. Little discipline beneath the surface of either the Dems or these teams. The coaches/leaders aren't ruthless field generals. They are arrogant young guys or self-serving paycheck collectors or technocrats or avuncular types. I guess Norv Turner fits the latter two categories?

So where are the fundamentals that truly win games? Block, tackle, run, throw, catch, kick. That's it. The GOP does it well. In Massachusetts, it has. In Virginia and NJ as well. Don't blame it all on weak or sublimely flawed candidates (though that helped!). Fundamentals don't just mean physical or digital grassroots stuff (the latter, ironically, what Plouffe did for Obama with the template laid by Howard Dean...and where are they now?). Fundamentals also mean dirty tricks, soft money, lies, distortion, casting yourself as a victim or oppressed when you and your target demos clearly aren't, displacement of evil out-groups or straw villians (ACORN, illegals and other hobgoblins), recruitment (and eventual casting away...watch it folks) of stormtroopers (e.g. Tea Partiers). Couple that with your own PR arm--Fox News and Fox Business News--well, you have a machine where the players are interchangeable, not irreplaceable.

The Baltimore Ravens kicked Rex Ryan to the curb in favor of Harbaugh. Barack ( or his people, and who are his people, his team, his sanctum? Growing up a loner, a la Tony Romo, doesn't help) punts Plouffe, distances himself from Dean. Brings in Rahm et al. Outsource's his leadership to Harry Reid and former Baltimore Colt-Memorial Stadium in her blue and white booties booster Nancy Pelosi. How's that been working out for the Ravens, the Jets, and the White House's agenda? Ryan was the Ravens' rock for fundamentals, for gritty football. Harbaugh may have just ridden that legacy this season.

Likewise, when I see the Dems in Massachusetts this week I see the Dallas Cowboys. Everyone knew Teddy Kennedy was sick for long time. Why wasn't an heir apparent trained, pimped, hyped and hustled? Well because they were hot, unstoppable, flashy, the boys. Now the Commonwealth will be stuck not with an Olympia Snowe type, but rather with some Rick Santorum clown for 6 years. Nice legacy for Ted. Though I predict Brown will be a one term senator...and none other than Derval "Barack with balls" Patrick will knock him off. I dare you to bet against me.

For Barack the implications are grim. Grim as the post Reconstruction extremism and dark ages of 1876-1898, revisited. As grim as Colts-Vikings Superbowl...

Then again, extreme pain and shame may be a good thing for the Dems, for Barack, for teams like the Ravens, the Cowboys, Kurt Warner's bunch, the Bolts & such. Extreme pain pushes out the conventional wisdom, the entrenched fools, the Kool Aid drinkers. It induces change. Real change, not bullshit. Pain becomes an inducement to fundamentals. Fundamentals win.

Pissed away: What a difference a year makes

You can see Tour of Echoes here, and read the article I did for The Root from which we created the multimedia piece, as a gift for the Inauguration of Barack Obama.

One year later I offered this Facebook status--picked up by the right wing Tigerhawk blog--out of utter dismay:

Christopher Alan Chambers marvels at how Barack Obama's managed to piss away more hope and goodwill in exactly 1 year than teen newlyweds or a bad football coach. Can't blame Tea Baggers, white people's cognitive dissonance/world view or inheriting a vast mess at home and abroad for everything, folks.

Thoughts?

The Best Word on Harry Reid

Game Change is a crazy book. I think Heilemann (whom I've spoken to personally) and Halperin are the Harriet Beecher Stowe of today's Civil War (the opposing forces seem to be the same--right down to the migration to the politics and culture of Reconstruction). Indeed I told Heilemann if he showed up at the White House, Obama would greet him the same way Abe Lincoln spoke to Stowe in 1861: "So you're the little [lady] who helped cause this big mess."

In case you were waiting on my comments on Harry Reid, I couldn't do it any more justice than Ta-Nehisi Coates, resident pundit for The Atlantic. I'm not so arrogant as to say great minds think alike. No, it's that this is a no brainer, and common sense dictates convergence...like coming to the conclusion simultaneously and independently that ketchup and maggots aren't good toppings for vanilla ice cream. So, here it is:

John Cornyn and Michael Steele [on Fox News, of course] think that Harry Reid's comments are the same as Trent Lott's

"In 2002, Democrats expressed outrage at Senator Lott and called on him to step
down as leader. That same standard should be applied to Senator Reid and his
embarrassing and racially insensitive statements; statements, I would add, that
Senator Reid still has yet to clarify," Cornyn said in a written
statement. As we await his explanation, Senator Reid should do the right
thing, follow the example that he himself set in 2002, and step down as majority
leader."

I think you can grant that, in this era, the term "Negro dialect" is racially insensitive and embarrassing. That said, the fair-mind listener understands the argument--Barack Obama's complexion and his ability to code-switch is an asset. You can quibble about the "light skin" part, but forget running for president, code-switching is the standard M.O. for any African American with middle class aspirations.

But there's no such defense for Trent Lott. Lott celebrated apartheid Mississippi's support of Strom Thurmond, and then said that had Thurmond won, "we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years.'' Strom Thurmond run for president, specifically because he opposed Harry Truman's efforts at integration. This is not mere conjecture--nearly half of Thurmond's platform was dedicated to preserving segregation. The Dixiecrat slogan was "Segregation Forever!" (Exclamation point, theirs.) Trent Lott's wasn't forced to resign because he said something "racially insensitive." He was forced to resign because he offered tacit endorsement of white supremacy--frequently.

Claiming that Harry Reid's comments are the same, is like claiming that referring to Jews as "Hebrews" is the same as endorsing Nazism. Whereas a reputable portion of black people still use the term Negro without a hint of irony, no black person thinks the guy yelling "Segregation Forever!" would have cured us of "all these problems."

Leaving aside political cynicism, this entire affair proves that the GOP is not simply still infected with the vestiges of white supremacy and racism, but is neither aware of the infection, nor understands the disease. Listening to Liz Cheney explain why Harry Reid's comments were racist, was like listening to me give lessons on the finer points of the comma splice. This a party, rightly or wrongly, regarded by significant portions of the country as a haven for racists. They aren't simply having a hard time re-branding, they don't actually understand how and why they got the tag.

These guys are lost. But Michael Steele's "off the hook" strategy will, presumably, point the way back. Not for nothing, I offer the wise and venerable words of my people: Negro, please.

How we can defeat al Qaida

First medical marijuana, now Snoop Dog parachutes into Yemen and No. Pakistan. We start them young. They will be mellow, horny and hungry by the time they're angry young men...

The Nimrod Tree

See the annual Infamous Christmas blogpost below to peep a photo of Nat's tree (and Mrs Nat doing her thing on the laptop). Time to take it down sadly. But it had a great run, through three parties and numerous visits, stop-bys, jostling by adults and kids alike...

...but then I hear from a few bammas about how they don't put up Christmas trees. OK in DC the lovely Frazier fur goes for $50-$75 [at a reputable place for a 6ft tree]. OK, some negroes are cheap as hell and $50 for a tree is insane. Yet this goes to something a lot more grounded in ignorance, rather than wallets...sort of like telling people not to get a vaccine--just don't eat lean porkchops else you get swine flu [which is one reason they now call it H1N1 so as not to give credence to this nonsense].

So here's what the black Muslims have to say about Christmas trees (FYI in that's evile white-Jew Santa depicted above to set the mood):

Christmas was set up as a memorial to Nimrod. The Christmas tree is an "Evergreen tree", this means that it is green or has life, all year round and does not die out like other trees.
1. Evergreen tree is used at Christmas as a symbol to represent everlasting life for the white race.
2. It sits in a box held in place by a cross which represents the division of the four brothers; Black, Brown, Red and Yellow, which support the white race.
3. The trinkets and ornaments represents the riches, wealth and knowledge of the Blackman which was stolen by Nimrod and brought back to the white race in Europe.
4. The star on top of the tree represents the superior brain power of the white race to remain on top.
5. Santa Claus represents Nimrod bringing the riches of the Blackman back to Europe. (They do not explain where Santa Claus gets the presents from do they).


Okey-dokey. Now, I always thought Nimrod was just another old Testament douchebag, and other than seeing his character in John Huston's "The Bible" (Tower Babel sequence, Stephen Boyd plays Nimrod) who cares? Well I guess my elitist Princeton bourgie ass was plain mistaken:

Two key figures in the origin of Christmas are Nimrod, a great grandson of Noah, and his mother and wife, Semiramis, also known as Ishtar and Isis. Nimrod, known in Egypt as Osiris, was the founder of the first world empire at Babel, later known as Babylon (Genesis 10:8-12; 11:1-9). From ancient sources such as the "Epic of Gilgamesh" and records unearthed by archeologists from long-ruined Mesopotamian and Egyptian cities, we can reconstruct subsequent events.
After Nimrod's death (c. 2167 BC), Semiramis promoted the belief that he was a god. She claimed that she saw a full-grown evergreen tree spring out of the roots of a dead tree stump, symbolizing the springing forth of new life for Nimrod. On the anniversary of his birth, she said, Nimrod would visit the evergreen tree and leave gifts under it. His birthday fell on the winter solstice at the end of December.
A few years later, Semiramis bore a son, Horus or Gilgamesh. She declared that she had been visited by the spirit of Nimrod, who left her pregnant with the boy. Horus, she maintained, was Nimrod reincarnated. With a father, mother, and son deified, a deceptive, perverted trinity was formed.

According to this stuff adopted by a few idiots, the Christmas tree is really a "Nimrod tree," representing Nimrod's evil...Nimrod's erect phallus, etc. etc. Mix that with the usual Elijah Muhammad crap and you get black folks' number one Christmas myth. Dumb? Yes. But it helps buttress the artifice you need when you aren't going buy a Christmas gift for your kids, yet jack a nice PS3 or new North Face parka for yourself.

Hope you had a Merry Christmas. Now let me curse Nimrod for all these damn pine needles I got to vaccum up!