Cloverfield? Day-um!

Dear Fanboys and girls:

Go see this movie. Mrs. Nat Turner and I went to see this and it freaked us the Hell out. New Yorkers--it will bring back memories of 9-11 and the blackout. But sometimes we need a controlled, fun scare to put things in perspective. For instance, the monster and his/her/its "mites" (spoiler there re: the mites) gets pretty far up Manhattan because our military is busy paying bribes to militias in Baghdad. Oh well. Still cool to see Abrams tanks rolling down Lexington Avenue as the monster gets in Manhattan's ass. Maybe Giuliani can use the footage for a campaign commercial.

Speaking of monsters, check out Publishers Weekly, 12/31/07. Listing the dozens of books that won critical, reader and peer awards in 07, major and minor, how many were by black authors? More specifically--how many were by black American authors? Count on half of one hand. Travesty...travesty that there's a bloc of us who refuse to aspire for more, as writers, readers, agents, publishers. Oh let's not forget the publishing houses. Then again, I think the monster took a big squat on midtown so at least in JJ Abrams's world we can start all over again. Thanks, Clove. If you come down to DC, I'll point out the places to flatten.

CAC

What James Fenimore Cooper taught me...

What's he got to do with Obama? Pull up a chair and I'll tell you...

Before there was Eric Jerome Dickey or "Superhead" the Video Vixen or Relentless Aaron or TD Jakes, black boys who aspired to write dared take their nourishment from Baldwin, or Douglass, or Fitzgerald, or Margaret Fuller...or Zora...or a man named James Fenimore Cooper. When I was 12 my grandfather bought me a copy of The Last of the Mohicans, one the great works of American literature. Great movies from it, too, from 1933 (with Bruce Cabot painted up to play an Indian) to the Daniel Day-Lewis version. But what's always been constant is one scene, where the French and Indians are demanding the surrender of Ft. William-Henry, on Lake George in upstate New York, and the British commander Col. Munro (father of the characters Cora and Alice) must relent when he hears that General Webb will not march to his aide. [Note to all dumbasses out there who don't know a damn thing: This is set over twenty years before the American Revolution; for you DC folk "Braddock Road" in Fairfax County got its name during this war, where Gen. Braddock built a road from Alexandria, Va. to near Pittsburgh (called Ft. Duquesne back then, "Doo-kane" and there the French and redskins jacked him up; the Brits eventually won the war and hence it's called Pittsburgh]. He has hundreds of civilian settlers inside the fort, plus Mohawk braves and their families allied to the British (with the Huron and Iroquoise allied to the French, under the mean bastard Magua). He looks to his underlings and says, "I never thought I would live to see the day when a British officer is afraid to support another. Gentleman that day is here." Stuck with me--this man's belief system, and as it turns out, his very life, turns on someone's idea of slick cynical bullshit.

Well, I never thought I'd live to see the day when Democrats, when white soccer moms, when supposedly "liberal" folk from union officials to intellectuals and Hollywood cash taps, would purposely and purposefully attack a viable, vibrant black presidential candidate. Ok, I mean the Democratic party of the last 50 years, not the one which murdered the nation in 1861, or gave us Jim Crow and terror for decades after that. Ok...let me rephrase it...never thought I'd seethe day when other black "leaders" would do such a thing. I can see Gloria Steinham exalting the cult of white middle class womenhood over the journey of African Americans--but Andrew Young? Or Bob Johnson? The latter's big feat was making a billion dollars off of rump shaking and ignorance. So Joseph P. Kennedy made it on booze and bought respectability and his son the White House. Yeah, but Ol' Joe never forgot he was Irish, and it drove him to achieve. He also, as warped as it was, had a broader vision for this nation, and his sons. What does Bob Johnson have? Return on investment, BobCats, 106th and Park, and Sheila's alimony. Please Bob--your arse-kissing of the Clintons is matched only by those of other "established" black politicos, Black Caucus members, pastors who haven't entirely been bought off or bamboozled by right wing Christian Republicans, assorted celebrities. They remora on a shark. They are like minor feudal barons taking handouts and glory from the King (and Queen). I could go on about how Bill (and Hill) weren't good for black folks, as many decree. Compared to daddy Bush or retarded Dubya or evil Dick Cheney? Yeah. But it's like comparing Hitler to Stalin. Who's worse? Who cares if the point of origin's different--the convergence is still the same: your ass. As I've said to fools around here who still think Marion Barry should be canonized and his rolling papers worshipped in a reliquary--what blackfolk did he "help" or elevate or "empower?" Answer: his cronies and his cronies' cronies...and anyone they happened to be sleeping with at the time!

It's about what's right. It's about history. If the Clintons had shared a meal with Karl Rove and gave him Bob Johnson's email address, I'd not be surprised. Sure as Bob tried to set up a Citbank IRA with a couple hundred mil in it before things went corrupt and sour over there, the Clintons would do such a thing. Again, they hired Dick Morris, right? Ask yourself why almost every wingnut blogger, most of the jackasses who call themselves journalists on Fox News, and even Pat Buchanan have stuck up for Hillary--once the antiChrist, the "Cloverfield" monster--in the last two weeks and have stood back with glee during this nonsense?

The true villian of The Last of The Mohicans was not Magua. He was what hate and circumstance made him, like Snoop, or Omar or even the kingpin Marlo on The Wire. No, like the villian was General de Montcalm, who used him cynically as his thug and murderer. Jus like in The Wire the villians are the cynical, corroupt politicians, or the Carlyle Group or Murdoch-like assholes who are destroying the Baltimore Sun (in real life and on the show...they to whom patriotism is a punchline at yacht parties and something to sell to the Wal mart masses as they sell our nation to the Chinese). Barack Obama represents a counterpoint to this, even though he and Hillary aren't that far apart on some matters of policy. It is all about concept, approach, who's people get to profit. Would the French treat the Indians any better or rape North America any less savagely if they'd won the French and Indian War? No. Obama doesn't have any "people." His shadow constituency is, ironically, like John Edwards' and even Huckabee's...hell even McCain's to an extent. Us. Regular people. And with Obama, there's a subset of "Us" who've bled and labored too long to see nonsense like what the Clintons have pulled, or what assholes like Bob Johnson have said, ruin a dream. Dreams count. Back in the day, dreams made freedom, skyscrapers, rockets to the moon. Now what the fuck do we have? Do dreams make overdevelopment and two hour commutes on the Beltway and global warming? Hell no.

There was a threat to the older order back, way back in the day, however. They were called the Populists. They were going de-rail the traditional power base trains of the both the Democratic and Republican Parties. So what happened? Race-baiting in the south. Scaring folk with images of equality and rape of white women. In the midwest--distraction over silver and gold standard and crop prices. Int he cities, fights over immigration, Catholic versus protestant. In the end the movement failed and was co-opted by the ineffective candidacy of Democrat William Jennings Bryan. And our "modern" way of life was born. Well, welcome to the new Gilded Age.

I was once a John McCain fan, a John McCain campaign worker. That was back when dude truly was disgusted by Bush-Cheney and what they represent. Now I have a new champion. He ain't perfect, and neithersure as hell was John. He actually is specific about what he wants to do. Community, Civility, Prosperity, Equality and respect for the rule of law at home and abroad. Simple. Things the Clintons or their bookends, the Bush-ites, only pay lip service to when the cameras roll. That was a message in The Last of the Mohicans--renewal and hope in a time of crisis and blood and despair.

So I urge you to reject Hillary's cynical appeals--both the conscious and subconcious prongs. And I hope I do live to see the day when someone who truly represents me and not the bastard who laid me off, who foreclosed on my house, who led me to wars of profit and cynical policy, who custs my pension, who tells me cheap Chinese money is better than raising taxes on folk 3 times richer than me, who cuts my health benefits, who develops new dick-hardening medicines whilst children die...when that person becomes president of this country. My country. Oh, and I pray he/she will look a little like me. Like us. Who bled from out chains in fetid coffles while patriots wrote paeons to mother liberty. Yeah, us Bob, Andy and the rest of you magnificent turds. Us...

...oh, and just three more days to "Cloverfield."

Friday Funnies: My People...My People....

I'm sure the Clinton Campaign--which seems to have Karl Rove on the payroll (and why not? These are the Clintons after all)--will superimpose Obama's face in this. But hey, I'm a Whopper fan, too...

The American Workplace

Gibbs & Toes

It was a freakishly warm 73 degrees in the Nation's Capital today. More fresh water spilling from the Greenland glaciers and Antarctic ice sheets...but that's all liberal hoakum anyway, right Fox News? The unworldiness of the sun and swoon truly fixed in my brain at the occurence of two events today: the re-appearance of flip-flops, and the resignation of Redskins coach Joe "Holy Ghost" Gibbs.

To the feet: first, I am NOT a Quentin Tarantino-level foot fetishist. yeah, I love the wamr weather and I love to shrimp, but I am not obessed with all things pedal. Second, as you fanboys and girls know, I teach at Georgetown and today all the lil' Hoyas and Hoya-ettes were crawling out of cabs or Mom's soon-to-be gas guzzled out of existence Toyota Tundras. Spring semester starts Wednesday. Well, on-campus the flop-flops, the shower sandals, the genuine and knock-off Birkies all materialized, like those first buds of dogwood in March. OK, so maybe I do notice piggies--on females of course. Nat Turner is straight (unlike my namesake in the William Styron book, giving handjobs to fellow bondsmen in between killing whitey and seeing the Angel Gabriel in the cumulus clouds). Most of these piggies are on younger chicks but a few in my age group shod themselves with the open toe to greet the sunshine. Most of these piggies haven't seen pumice or pedicure since before Halloween, however, so it was a bit like barefoot Dawn of the Dead. Same with the dudes: in the Leavey Center, whilst getting my personal pizza and Coke my superhero nose noted that the cheese wasn't coming from the Pizza Hut ovens...

That said, when did the flip-flop (mostly for girls) and sandals in general become de rigeur for college students and the whole damn American public? Is it a function of what Washingtonian Tim Gunn calls the "slobification of America?" When I was a tot, flip-flops were for surfers and the Viet Cong. Sandals were sort of silly things you only saw in horrendous old Polariods of backyard BBQs and family Reunions. Men hardly everwore them...African American wore them only if they also wore dashikis or some such other 70s attire...and even in my family which is half-West Indian and on Jamaica all you really saw on males were those sandals that looked like sawed-off bedroom slippers!
In college in the warm weather the preppies wore Topsiders and Bass Weejuns. I guess it was around the late 80s when things started to change. Was it the Teva invasion? Please, tell me?
I have nothing but sandals in my closet, and if you'd have asked me when I was 19 that I would, I would have laughed and said, "What, did I become a fag by age 40?" [I was crass back then]. I have two vintage pairs of Birkenstocks upon which I STILL get compliments--from dudes!!! I have flip-flops. I get pedicures. Pedicures! Two a year, but that's more than most men got in a lifetime. My wife has one pair of flip flops but says the demand for pedicures monthly in the summer has dented her wallet. My 8 and 10 year old nieces and my wife's 19 and 24 year old nieces have about 30 pairs of flop flops among them and get pedicures all the damn time!
Now, a few feet on campus did look OK. Young women these days seem to keep their toes painted even if their hair and make-up are jacked. And indeed some Georgetown students do spend Christmas in Palm Beach, or Harbour Island Bahamas, or Maui and thus have the blush to go along with the pampered feet. But day-um...it's 70 degrees but it's still January. Keep your UGG boots on!
At the Hoya bookstore, checking to see how much students gripe about the cost of my texts, I ran into a student taking one of my classes and yeah, she had on the uniform of jeans, a mini tee and a scarf wrapped around her neck. Now, she's an "older" grad student but still part of their generation, not mine. After a battery I'm not a freak precusory putting at ease statements I asked her why people wear these things, even in January. The answer shocked me. Oh yeah, there was the notion of comfort, convenience, etc.--but then came the graveman, the thesis, the gist: "They seem to embody informality...like I'm not all into myself or stuffy, and I'm comfortable with others." Hmmm. VERY interesting. Comments?

From flip-flops to stable boots, can Joe Gibbs be any more out of touch with the carnival monster pro football has become? Not just the players, but the business. This is the era of vapid white pretty boys like Brady, thugs like Pacman, and owners like Dan Snyder. If Gibbs weren't a wingnut Christian and thus dependent on the Jews to trigger events leading to rapture of he and Mike Huckabee and Janet Parschall et al, he'd have nothing to do with someone like Napoleon Danny. His coming was heralded even by George W. Bush, and you see the irony that the years of hidnsight entails. Now he's kaput, accepting the usual consultant position that only middle aged white men seem to get when they are canned or can themselves, and Little Lord Fauntleroy's free to rip-off and rape the fans without an icon like Gibbs as a foil. Of course, who needs a foil? The average cracker from Spottsylvania who comes up for the tailgates in Landover whilst cursing the Section 8 negroes beyond the fence is getting raped by Bushism, and gellfully takes it. Why should that change now vis. the Redskins? Gibbs is likely relieved. Now he can go back to a town that truly revels in his suburban hayseed/urban redneck "Let's pray on it" persona--Charlotte (don't let the skyscrapers and Bob Johnson fool you, folks...)

Who will the Skins hire should Greg Williams not prove to be a decent stop-gap? Danny might go after Bill Cowher, but Cowher's better suited for my Ravens. Jimmy Johnson? Yeah you heard it. This is the era where American Gladiator is the NUMBER ONE rated TV show so while whe intelligent folk watch The Wire, so why not? We are, after all--especially among the young--a bunch of folk who'll break out the flip-flops in January. Smell the cheese?

LSU...Book Biz Blues...And The Wire...

The Wire, Season 5, Episode 51 summary: "The Bigger the lie, the more they believe." -- Bunk Summary Directed by: Joe Chappelle Story by: David Simon & Ed BurnsTeleplay by: David Simon from HBO.com--

"As McNulty and the detail continue staking out Marlo's crew (without any support from the brass), recently promoted Sergeant Carver is welcomed by a cauldron of discontent from officers coping with unpaid overtime. Though he wants to keep his campaign promise to lower crime, Mayor Carcetti is strapped by his commitment to schools, and faces some tough choices. Col Cedric Daniels is forced to reallocate his resources, retaining Freamon and Sydnor for the Clay Davis probe. The Republican US Attorney refuses to help the city unless Clay Davis' case goes federal. Meanwhile, City Editor Haynes and the staff of a local newspaper are reeling from corporate cutbacks and emphasis on "tabloid fluff" and punditry, losing key personnel from both the metro and international divisions. Still, with the help of reporters Gutierrez, Price and Templeton, Haynes is able to break a front-page story that links a politician to a co-op drug dealer. Proposition Joe, Marlo, Fatface Rick others meet in a hotel conference room to discuss divvying up drug frontiers across East Baltimore's county line due to the march of gentrification."

That's pretty sterile but, hey, it'll catch you up. Fight the good fight. Yet despair, for tomorrow, I speak on the joke that is the so-called African American book "market." Take at look at the mega bestsellers, the critics' choices, the major literary awards (and I'll carve out nice niche for my thesis in the Hurston/Wright Awards, trust me) and you won't see "us." Not even Zane or Eric Jerome Dickey, nada. Why is that? Blame the publishing houses, the black folks (dwindling number that there is) therein? Blame the authors? Blame the black book reading audience? Blame the public's tastes in general? Hey, it's analogous to what's wrong with black folks in general, from the immersion in all things ghetto and bamma, in choosing sucking on the Clinton tit over the hard work of putting the Obama vision into practice, of choosing Michael Eric Dyson over Stanley Crouch. In the 21st Century, "selling out"'s meaning has morphed from Uncle Tomism to something utterly worse, utterly more insidious. Ask Jay-Z and Diddy...

Oh, and LSU--who the heck cares?!!! You had my opinion of the whole BCS orgy and you fanboys voted overwhelmingly that the present system sucks and serves only greed. We can have a playoff system that still puts money in TV network and big school pockets and allows theseschools to recruit illiterates and quasi convicts, okay?

The Wire is on HBO on Demand

Bang the gongs. You don't have to wait till Sunday for the premier episode of THE BEST DRAMA EVER ON TV. If you have digital cable, check The Wire, Season 5, on demand. This year, the final season, the focus is on the media. Shrinking newsrooms, more tabloid TV, politics...oh yeah, and the streets. Enough escapist bull. Go treat yourself and learn something before Hillary Clinton and Rupert Murdoch turn us all into lobotomy victims. Dancing with the Stars for Super Bowl halftime's still not out of the range of possibility, you morons!

"Iowa...like I could give a f*#k!"

This erudite quote wafted from the mouth of a Bronx transplant in a "Giant" supermarket here in the Washington, D.C, area. Indeed, I think she...yes, a she...speaks (however indelicately) for a lot of us, regardless of race, political party, etc. who do not live in that overwhelmingly older, whiter, blander state of Iowa. I will diss Iowa because I do not receive farm/corn subsidy handouts from Uncle Sam, nor do I owe the place any allegiance for being plucked from the Hood or Dirty South to play football or hoops for the Hawkeyes. I don't have friends at the Des Moines Register.

Don't look for the Dems and GOP and state legislatures to grow some common sense and testicles and rationalize this insane primary and caucus circus scheduling debacle. It will only get worse. I'll not joan on New Hampshire, the so-called Granite state (even though Vermont produces more). My wife and I went to Meredith, the lakes, the "notches" and mountains for our wedding anniversary. You see, my blood runs tepid knowing that...THE FATE OF THE HUMAN RACE IS BEING DECIDED BY SMALL GROUP OF HAYSEEDS AND HOUSEWIVES WITH NAMES LIKE "DEWAYNE AND TRIXI YODER."

God Help Us. So to take you mind off of this hellish vision, I offer this: Two works by true women of power (sorry Hillary). You've seen the first before. That Mean Old Yesterday by NJ-based essayist Stacey Patton. This isn't for the weak-hearted. It is a frank and stark indictment of the foster care system vis. black folks (and I don't mean how it discriminates...I mean how black foster parents are too often demons from another sort of hell). Stacey crafts this autobiography by intervweaving as allegory applicable observations and vignettes from the slavery, black history. This is NOT "Antwan Fisher" warmed over. This is fresh and biting the January wind off the plains...gulp...Iowa...

And then we come to the new novel from one of the grand-dames whose work inspired me to write in the first place. Of Blood and Sorrow, by Valerie Wilson Wesley. This is the latest "Tamara Hayle Mystery" and no, it's NOT dumbed down for the street fiction/hip hop fangirl. I know Valerie and she would have none of that, despite the "pressures of the market." The title comes from the Langston Hughes verse turned into a mere shibboleth by our present leaders, pastors, entertainers. You must buy this book and see how real genre fiction is crafted for your head and heart. Oh yeah, and to see what's up with Tamara and Basil Dupre...

So once you shed a tear or a cheer for Barack or Mitt or the Mean Queen or that Christian Taliban clown Mike Huckabee (and you know some ignorant black churchfolks will vote for that fool), go online and order/pre-order this books...or do it from this blog. For unlike politics, you ask for better, and I give it to you.

Three More Weeks...

...till Cloverfield. Wisely, JJ Abrams did not fall into the "Snakes on a Plane" trap. The geeks have been restrained, keeping to speculative artwork and masturbation rather than digging out spoilers. I'm wondering though--will we see people of color Katrina-ized as the monster destroys their homes, or will it be the usual: MTV/the Hills-looking yuppies and buxom chicks terrorized by this creature in the streets of the Big Apple with not a brotha, a Dominican apartment super or even a Hasidic Jew in sight?

Happy New Year

Bush Killed "Binky"

Benazir Bhutto was known as "Binky" to her Harvard chick classmates. She rocked a pair of Jimmy Choo slingbacks as easily as a burka and loved to regale folk with the story of how General Zia (so comically portrayed in the new Tom Hanks flick "Charlie Wilson's War") murdered her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the ex-President of Pakistan. Ali was like Mossadegh in Iran: a populist, beholden to neither the US or Europe, or the Soviet Union, or even Islamic extremists. In short, dangerous because he represented an alternative that neither Cold War ideologue right wingers/oil companies and other fatcats/the CIA etc nor the mullahs nor the KGB could accept. Binky was a bit of the spoiled brat with a bit of the Coretta Scot King complex; yesterday morning she reaped the whirlwind from seeds she tossed. And I think she knew exactly what she was doing. Sadly, our government and its apologists and wingnut advocates online and on TV stood back and dicked around, knowing (and secretly hoping), for her Wagnerian self-immolation... for reasons more cynical than her own subconcious competition with daddy to see who could out-martyr whom. Interesting how we had to beg General Zia's protege, Dubya's great pal Mr. Musharref, to stop trying to stomp her. Such guarded words from Condi yet all along our troops are dying in Iraq of all places supposedly to establish democracy. Yeah, right. Go sell that to the rednecks during halftime of one the innumerable and insipid (and now pointless) BCS bowl games. [I believe I posted on that other perversion of America--the BCS system--a few weeks ago... ]

Yes such is the world right wing dumbasses created. (I include Muslin extremists here, OK Pajamas Media folk?) Yet if it came out by some alien invasion that Bush choreograph this with the fanatics and clowns on the other side, hey it'd be no news to me. Wake the hell up. It was the old Reagan-Bush clan and disciples who helped Zia off Binky's dad...so is it the position of the sons of Reagan-Bush that "Islamafacists" killed her to destabilize things...rather than Zia's inheritors--whom we have always courted and protected no matter what (and the Islamafacists they too often ally themselves with)? Wow. Either way, we have an uncanny knack for the same sort of ideological/wallet-related short-sightedness and back the wrong horse time and again. Then the horse turns around and kicks us and we start the whole bloody process over again. And now of course the "danger" will be used to maintain the status quo; right wing bloggers et al will point to an isidious Al Qaida plot, rather than--as we've seen time and time again from the murder of Daniel Pearl to now--a bunch of whacked-out college drop-outs or wannabes, all pathetically huckstering for martyrdom points with yet another bunch of assholes. There's unified no evil empire here. Even al Qaida is just gangs of morons and ass kissers led by the Islamic equivalent of Lumberg from "Office Space." They, like Bush/Cheney/Condi, feed off the chaos. Musharref--that bastard gets to stay in power a bit longer, feeding us a few nuggets the way Jack Nicholson fed the FBI in "The Departed" whilst he plundered and murdered. Yet we're told it would be unPatriotic to hope for a Leo DiCaprio type character to quell the storm. (That's your cue, Barack!).

I'm sure Fox will spin this as "heroine and democracy saint" Benazir Bhutto murdered by Muslims--likely IRAN...or MICHAEL MOORE...as if they gave a crap about Benazir Bhutto or the average NASCAR dad knew what a Bhutto was. ."the President and Secretary rice urge our great ally Musharef to 'hunt down and hang these bastards.'" If it wasn't real life, it'd be opera. And having hillary in charge would just change the libretto a few words when what we need is to sweep all of the cattawalling idiots and fanatics here and over there off the stage. And now the Ringling Brothers clown corps that are the GOP candidates are "sounding off." Cool. I feel better already. So do the oil speculators and the foreigners buying up our country as the fallout from greed and short-sightedness on the home front continues. But let's get to Wal Mart and spend. At least you'll have that new Wii with which to escape reality as the bank takes your home, the stockholders of your boss's company yanks your health plan, and yes, of course...there's Pakistan...

Binky, maybe there will be a groundswell of common sense as they lay you to rest. We can only hope. At least you can drop that burka, slip on them sling-backs and your old Crimson letter sweater, a pair of capris, too and show of them prize gams that drove the preppie fools wild back in the day..."Hey who is that swarthy chick with the limey accent? That's Binky, silly goose." Travel well, sister. But stop by and haunt the booby hatch in Crawford, Texas for a spell. After all, it was his dumb ass who made you the martyr you always yearned to be. In that, you proved to papa that his little girl could out-Ali-Bhutto the great Ali Bhutto...

Merry Christmas!!!

Season's Greetings from the Chambers Tribe. Catch you later...

(see on December 27th!)

Leave your holiday greeting if you'd like, and I'll give you a shout out...

Zero Wolf & the Crew

What do these two stories have in common?

If you know me, then the answer's easy:

Uno: Jamie Lynn Spears, the 16-year-old "Zoey 101" star and sister of Britney, told OK! magazine that she's pregnant and that the father is her boyfriend, Casey Aldridge.
"It was a shock for both of us, so unexpected," she said. "I was in complete and total shock and so was he."
Spears is 12 weeks along and initially kept the news to herself when she learned of the pregnancy from an at-home test and subsequent doctor visit, she told the celebrity magazine, which hits stands in New York on Wednesday and the rest of the country by Friday.

Dos:As if Florida State coach Bobby Bowden didn't have enough problems with his football program that continues to spiral toward the middle of the ACC pack, the university reportedly will suspend as many as 25 players - including 11 starters - for the Dec. 31 Music City Bowl against Kentucky for their alleged involvement in an academic cheating scandal.
According to a story broken by the Tallahassee Democrat, underclassmen who have admitted guilt could also be suspended for the first three games next season. Federal privacy laws prohibit the school from releasing names, but the defense is expected to be hit the hardest.
Involved players are expected to continue practicing but will not travel with the team to Nashville, according to president T.K. Wetherell and Bowden. If the players fight the suspensions, they risk losing their eligibility. The latest controversy to hit this beleaguered program came as a result of an internal investigation by the university in May after the school received information that a student tutor had directed one athlete to take an on-line quiz for another and then provided the answers. The tutor reportedly told officials he had provided student-athletes with answers for the test since 2006, according to a report on ESPN.com.
The university reported its findings in a letter to the NCAA in September after a six-month investigation. Academic adviser Brenda Monk and the student tutor lost their jobs this summer for reportedly offering improper help after 23 FSU athletes were implicated in cheating on on-line exams. At first, the scandal was thought to involve only two Seminole football players. Defensive end Kevin McNeill missed the season and wide receiver Joslin Shaw missed the first four games. But now, following ongoing interviews, the circle has expanded, leaving Bowden and his staff wondering who will be available. "We have some players not traveling for one reason and some for another, including those who are ineligible for the bowl because of academic issues," Bowden said in a statement released by the university Tuesday. Bowden, 78, who has been at FSU for 32years, had been refusing to comment on the scandal. He is in the final days of his career and has been taking heat for his team's fourth straight subpar season.
The school, which announced last week that Bowden had agreed to a one-year extension that will pay him $2 million, designated Jimbo Fisher as his eventual successor. Fisher's new contract calls for him to replace Bowden at the end of the 2010 season.

The little missive in red about this old piece of SHIT Bobby Bowden should give you a hint. Any guesses? Yeah, college football's a sham and these guys--including too many young black men--are students like I can grow wings and fly like a bird, and they perform like seals for these rednecks whilst real students can't catch a break. But that's just the sympton, not the moral disease or hypocrisy. I cut off the Spears story because it would give it away. Zooey 101 will not cease production, by the way...

Celebrities are fools

More from the bread & circus millieu. Oh and by the way, "bread & circus" refers to the Dancing with the Stars, NASCAR and E! of ancient Rome: as long as you kept the average schlub entertained and distracted with "bread & circus," he would wake up and realize the Empire was a sham, the debts and blood were adding up, the silly policies screwing people. Sound familiar? Worked well for a litte while but it didn't really help Rome in the long run(in the west at least, the Eastern/Byzantine Empire lasted until the 1400s--almost to the time of Columbus--and was talen over by...how prophetic...Islam, hence Constantinople becomes Istanbul...ain't history fun?).

Anyways, my point here is that celebs just think differently from we regular folk. Take Marcia Cross of Desperate Housewives. She takes nube photos then dumps them in the trash. Otto the garbageman finds them...boom...on the net and being displayed thusly by Nat Turner. Cross whines and hires shysters but in the end, any PR is good PR in this culture. This is one of the tamer ones. Notice other than Eve and her sex toy act, and Nicole Narain with Colin Farrell and his big real sex toy, you din't see too many black folks doing this. Like facial aging, I guess God gives us some little crumbs of advantage...

No Friday Funnies today...

Dispatches from the Culture War:

1.The Mitchell Report. Lawd. Is it only fatuous NASCAR dads, baseball nerds like Bob Costas and George Will and moronic right wing politicos who are whining about this steroid thing? Last I checked--and this is axiomatic--chicks dig the long ball (and the mean arm). As Colin Cowherd mused on ESPN radio, the sacrifice bunt and the baseball strike, plus greed, corporate consolidation, hedge funds and CEO pay and the new uber-hype culture brought this about, not immoral evil players. Baseball's not called "The Show" for nothing (props to "Bull Durham" for that). Yeah, it's show biz, no less than Dancing with the Stars. Great minds think alike, Colin. Meaning that if you're going to punish these ballplayers then punish MLB, Selig and his gang of douchebag owners, NBC and Fox and even the craven cities, like the District of Columbia, building ballparks and screwing local residents and contractors and neighborhoods and lowering bond ratings. Look, EVERYBODY cashed in on this, and it's telling that the real story here is that ordinary journeyman players and minor leaguers are heavy on the list. How else can a dude with a mortgage and low prospects feed his family in this age of coddled, annointed superstars (hey it's like that in the book biz, too, cuz!)? If somebody came to you and said if you take pill, you'll make 50% more money...and your boss'll be happy with the results, too, wink wink...please kiss my ass if even a Mormon player (as my boy Keith Olberman pointed out) would pop that badboy! Gimme a break. Baseball's more popular than ever and, like so many "culture" wedge issues you see hags like Ann Coulter hiss over on Fox, if you're looking to blame somebody, look in the mirror!

2.Christmas. Guess what, Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck: even my liberal-commie-crunchy granola friends 'round here in the Peoples Republic of Takoma Park, Maryland (but 6 miles from the White House, like the Red Army closing on on der Furherbunker in May, '45) wonder where the f**k has Christmas gone! Seriously, stop your usual red-baiting and lies to keep the redneck and soccer suburb idiots distracted! Again, last I checked, it was BIG everything: Food, Oil, Retail, Pharma just trying to make more bucks who've de-Christmasized Christmas. You can't even quietly blame the liberal Jewish media mogul conspiracy (of course not the "good" Jews in your book, like the neo-cons Ha!). Can't blame the Muslims, either. There aren't enough of them, and frankly they don't care--like the Chinese who keep the carry outs open Christmas Eve and Christmas Day (recall the movie A Christmas Story: "Deck the harls rif borrs of horry, far-ra-ra-ra-ra, ra-ra-ra-ra")

Frankly, I'm apalled that the Fox News brigade and fools like Beck and other facists have the balls to attack liberals for this when they know it's bullshit. OK...yeah...they do it all the time, but come on. Replace "Christmas" with the word "Holiday" is a marketing gimmick, plain and simple. You want to blame someone for shitting all over Linus's speech in A Charley Brown Christmas?" Again, look in the mirror. We are overweight consumer zombies to Wal-Mart, Citibank, Macy's, and 1000 calorie burritos at supposedly healthy Chipotle's (so much for immunizing them from suits on the basis of "free will"), etc etc etc and their institutional stockholders and their bloated CEOs. Sound familiar? See my paragraphs above on baseball. An illustration/analogy: whilst in Home Depot I asked a manager (based on an exchange I had with a sales associate who plainly had trouble with the Kings English) why the aisle descriptions were in English and Spanish. Was there an edict from the county human rights commission? A La Raza lawsuit? A boycott? "No," he said nonchalantly. "We just figure it'll bring more of them in, and make us more money." (emphasis added)

So keep your head down and watch the shrapnel. Spring training's four months away...oh and: Happy Holidays!!!

Andy Young=FOOL?

What did "Sgt. Waters" say about southern negroes in "A Soldiers Story?" Or is this indicia of the rising senility of the old Civil Rights generation? I mean, I've heard stuff like this as long ago as 1987 when "Du" Burns said it of Kurt Schmoke during a mayoral primary, or as recently as Sharp James' attacks on Corey Booker. Should Andy Young have known better? Yes, if only because it draws the curtain back on the self-serving functionaries who haunt groups such as the Congressional Black Caucus, et al. These fatuous folk are disciples of the Clintons the same way a remora sticks to a shark...or a tick digs into a deer, perhaps? Andy Young has long been one of those people living off this largesse. I can't see Jimmy Carter, his long-time friend--countenancing this comment. Yeah there'll be a few ignorant black folks who rant "Yeah, Bill Clinton...he our first black prez-dent" and forget the harm and smoke and mirrors of those years. But there are people who know better. Andy Young's not one of them:

December 10, 2007 -- The silence was deafening in the camps of Democratic presidential candidates yesterday over civil-rights leader Andrew Young's tasteless crack comparing Bill Clinton's and Barak Obama's supposed prowess with black women.
"Bill is every bit as black as Barack. He's probably gone with more black women than Barack," the former UN ambassador quipped on a live TV interview - immediately adding, "I'm clowning."
Clinton's campaign had no immediate comment, nor did Obama's.
Jesse Jackson, who has boasted that Obama "has my vote," wouldn't touch the political hot potato with a 10-foot pole.
"He has no comment," spokeswoman Rashida Restaino said.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, who hasn't yet declared his choice for Dem presidential nominee, likewise had no immediate comment.
Young, the former mayor of Atlanta, made the remark after being asked what he thought of Obama during the Sept. 5 interview.
Young, who has not made an official endorsement, said, "I want Barack Obama to be president," pausing for applause before adding, "in 2016."
"It's not a matter of being inexperienced. It's a matter of being young," he said.
Locally, Harlem state Sen. Bill Perkins said Young's comments were way out of line.
"That's an insult to black women of the ugliest kind that I've heard in God knows how long, and he should be ashamed of himself," Perkins said.