"Fight the Powa"

Bred'ren and ladies of the greatest and oldest region of our Nation, wetted by the Chesapeake and all its tributaries: GET OUT AND VOTE TODAY AND GET RID OF THESE SELF-SERVING, SELF-DEALING PIECES OF CRAP. Al Wynn, Hillary...gone. Donna Edwards, Barack--in. Please. Lord, please.
Republicans: send Big John McCain a message, too--that we regular folks, we non-insane, non-right wing fools, want you to stay a maverick, a crusty ol' man not takin' shit from no one! Stay away from Reverend Mike Huck-a-buck. If you're so inclined, vote for Ron Paul if you're tired of folk sneaking into this country and are having kids at 16 with boyfriends in MS-13 in Gaithersburg and Takoma Park and Manassas...OR if that's too Nazi for ya, then vote for Ron Paul if you're tired of these Dick Cheney types who encourage illegal immigration to depress wages and feed Hispanics into virtual serfdom.

Kick these clowns out. Gone, baby gone...

Two wins, one loss

No I'm not talking about Obama, Hillary, McCain, Rev. Huck-a-buck. I mean Amy Winehouse and Herbie Hancock turning what was a vapid, pop- and faux-hip hop shrouded Grammy Awards on joke network CBS (Joe Montegna as a presenter? Jesus, the marketing's getting less veiled because we're getting dumber) into gold.

The loss? Roy Scheider. At least he outlived the shark. But he was so much more. Those of us who still care about art and grit in books and film remember his iconic sidekick role in the best cop movie of all times--The French Connection. RIP Roy. Tell Robert Shaw up in actor heaven that the biting up scene in Jaws still scares folks, and yeah that the little pussy Jonathan Rhys-Meyers (Showtime's The Tudors) can't hold a candle to your Henry VIII. Just send another great white...or hell even a vicious tuna...to eat Kanye West, Jay-z and Beyonce. We are as sick of y'all as we are of the Clintons and Bushes....

The elections and the Essence Literary Awards, part deux

The winners Thursday at Le Park Meridien:

CURRENT AFFAIRS: An Unbroken Agony – Randall Robinson
PHOTOGRAPHY: Daufuskie Island – Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe
CHILDREN’S BOOKS: Marvelous World – Troy Cle
MEMOIR: Brother, I’m Dying – Edwidge Danticat
NON-FICTION: Supreme Discomfort – Michael Fletcher and Kevin Merida
INSPIRATION: Quiet Strength – Tony Dungy
FICTION: The Pirate’s Daughter – Margaret Cezair-Thompson
STORYTELLER OF THE YEAR: L.A. Banks

You can check out my interview last year with Kevin Merida and Mike Fletcher on the blog here. It's also great to see Edwidge Danticat crystallize into a literary jewel, as well as a bona fide public intellectual like Alice Walker or Toni Morrison--with none of Alice's crazy-ass baggage or Toni's literatti crutches and pretense. As I said, a paradigm shift. Yeah Essence is not The Atlantic, and at times seems even worse than Cosmopolitan with a tan. But peep the nominees in my previous post, and check out the winners. All wonderful works, thoughtfully conceived. No street/ghetto "lit" or black porn. Perhaps the rest of the black population should take note and stop the bullshit. Bad taste, low taste ain't cool. We'll look to President Barack to school us from the bully pulpit on that. Oh, and props to LA Banks, who's books are, in my mind, an amalgam of Tolkein, Dante and Milton, mixed with a new hip mythos for a new generation. Her stuff is no more fairy tale than the so-called "real life--hey this speaks to my experience" of thug lit and sex books. And yeah--she does outsell all but the top street and booty fiction. Imagine that...

Now, to the election. Very simple. If Howard Dean allows a small group of out-of-touch politicos and largesse-demanding coons (e.g. the Super Delegates hahaha) to give the nomination to Hillary Clinton, this will sound the death knell for the Democratic Party. Time for Al Gore and few others to ride in and stop this mess. As for Huckabee--so the Christian Taliban comes through for him? So friggin' what. Those people will tank the election for the GOP and the only scenario where they wouldn't would be--yep--if Hillary were the nominee. The ONLY way that scenario helps Obama is if he (1) declines the VP spot and (2) ascends to the podium, like FDR when he endorsed Al Smith for President against Hoover after a long fight, and becomes a mythic figure. Then he shuts up and doesn't support Hillary after that. And, like Al Smith, Hillary will loose, McCain sticks out one term, and Obama's people basically take over the shambles that the Clintons have made, rebuilds and destroys either McCain or his successor in 2012--assuming the country is even around in 2012. Remember, Dick Cheney & Crew are still running things, and how about a nice juicy dog-wagging war on Iran, or some rogue terrorist action which must be avenged. Forget squaring off with the Chinese. Too much money to be made with them. But that's for my NEXT post on Darfur....

The elections and the Essence Literary Awards

What does one have to do with the other? Subtext, my fanboys and girls. Subtext. Did you think I was giving up AUDACITY for Lent? Please!
First, tomorrow night at Le Park Meridien in Manhattan, sandbox of the "Cloverfield" beast, Essence Magazine will honor 2008 nominees in the field of prose and poetry. Now, Essence is no longer owned by black folks (then again, illegal immigrants comprise 65% of the cotton-pickers in Miss. and Alabama, while we're dancing to Soulja Boy on the street corner down there). It's also less Vanity Fair and more Cosmo with a tan--and a stunning number of generic (i.e. white) ads. But Patrik Henry Bass, Book Editor-for-life, has at least tried to maintain standards amidst the flux.
Here are the nominees. Sense a pattern? Hint: think of Nat Turner's trip to the gala Hurston-Wright Awards with Mrs Nat, and to whom I presented the most prestigious award. Edward P. Jones. One of the few Americans who won that night, and certainly no purveyor "genre" fiction...or thug lit, or softcore porn for churchladies...or straight-up hardcore gossip.
FICTION Red River by Lalita Tademy/Grand Central Publishing ; Casanegra by Blair Underwood, Steven Barnes and Tananarive Due/Atria ; The Pirate’s Daughter by Margaret Cezair-Thompson/Unbridled Books ;New England White by Stephen L. Carter/Knopf; Knots by Nuruddin Farah/Riverhead
MEMOIR Brother, I’m Dying by Edwidge Danticat/Knopf; The Women Who Raised Me by Victoria Rowell/William Morrow ; Alek by Alek Wek/Amistad ; One Drop by Bliss Broyard/Little, Brown and Co. A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah/Farrar, Straus and Giroux
INSPIRATION Reposition Yourself by TD Jakes/Atria From the Heart by Robin Roberts/Hyperion Quiet Strength by Tony Dungy/Tyndale Do You! by Russell Simmons/Penguin How Strong Women Pray by Bonnie St. John/Faith Words
NONFICTION The Bond by Sampson Davis, George Jenkins and Rameck Hunt/Riverhead; Friends: A Love Story by Angela Bassett and Courtney B. Vance/Harlequin ; I Got Your Back by Eddie and Gerald Levert/Harlem Moon ; Foreigners by Caryl Phillips/Knopf ; Supreme Discomfort by Michael Fletcher and Kevin Merida/Doubleday
CURRENT AFFAIRS Come on People by Bill Cosby/Thomas Nelson The Covenant in Action by Tavis Smiley/Smiley Books An Unbroken Agony by Randall Robinson/Basic Civitas Know What I Mean? By Michael Eric Dyson/Perseus Books Group Twice As Good by Marcus Mabry/Modern Times
PHOTOGRAPHY Daufuskie Island by Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe/University of South Carolina Press Pop by Carol Ross/Stewart, Tabori & Chang Jimi Hendrix by Janie Hendrix/Atria Let Your Motto Be Resistance edited by Deborah Willis/Smithsonian Press Jewels by Michael Cunningham and Connie Briscoe/Little, Brown and Co.
CHILDREN’S BOOKS Henry’s Freedom Box by Ellen Levine illustrated by Kadir Nelson/Scholastic Sugar Cane: A Caribbean Rapunzel by Patricia Storace and Raul Colon/Jump at the Sun Marvelous World by Troy Cle/Simon & Schuster’s Children’s Publishing The Shadow Speaker by Nnedi Okorafor-mbachu/Jump at the Sun Sallie Gal and the Wall-a-Kee Man by Shelia P. Moses and Niki Daly/Scholastic POETRY Duende by Tracy K. Smith/Graywolf Press Acolytes by Nikki Giovanni/William Morrow Totem by Gregory Pardlo/American Poetry Review
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD Terry McMillan
STORYTELLER OF THE YEAR Eric Jerome Dickey Lori Bryant-Woolridge Trisha R. Thomas L.A. Banks Tananarive Due

Some of the nonfiction's pretty pedestrian (with the exception of Kevin and Mike's bio of Clarence Thomas--they were first interviewed on this blog), but at least it's not another "The Life and Times of Willy Lynch" etc. Now,"Storyteller of the Year" is a weird catch-all. Here, they are trying to nod to "popular" fiction. If you don't count Eric Dickey's cheesing us over The Darker Mask, all of these folks are friends of mine and I am sick to root for just one. Indeed, my wife nominated one of these authors, and I personally voted for another--though it was tough as hell. However, these folks--even Dickey yuckyuckyuck--represent the pinnacle of genre fiction and are about as close in order and genus, though not species, to street lit, etc. as you will get. About as close as humans are to Capuchin monkeys, actually. Both primates, but one far more advanced. So what's the message? Perhap Patrick Bass is telling us that there is a profound paradigm shift. It's not the street lit authors braying about how Essence (orHurston-Wright) is out of touch with the masses. The key is that masses are out of touch with reality. Ignorance and ignorant writing is not something to celebrate. Hell even Bass will say behind closed doors so as not to offend the more bamma bookclubs out there--but maybe they NEED offending. Anyone who says that the mass of garbage out there "speaks to me and my experiences" or "tells the truth" is either high or retarded. 90% of these books are mere brain candy, farce, more fairy tales or soap operas than "hard personal reality." Fans of it and the folks who write it and the WHITE PEOPLE who print it and reap the cash are either lying to you, or themselves. Guess which category the publishers fit it, eh? Paradigm shifts are scary things to some folks. No wonder you heard all kinds of howling when these nominations hit the public. And even Mr. Charlie and Missy Ann, content in sales figures backing up the ignorance, still sweat. Sweat hard. Maybe these nee-grows aren't carnal, wild, sasssy, dumb, sex crazed, dangerous as we'd like them to be for marketing purposes...

Onto "Super Tuesday" and another paradigm shift. Obama's leading in the delegate count. He's got $30 mil in the bank. What he doesn't have are white women ages 36-60. But for the first time since LBJ and Hubert Humphrey were running things is white men. Imagine that. In Utah. What he has are black people who no longer want to follow self-aggrandzing Civil Rights era or 197os-80s FOSSILS like Maxine Waters. Shifts upset people., as will the Essence choices. On the other side, the GOP continues it's friggin' fratricide over McCain. Look, in a contest between McCain and Hillary, guess who I'll be voting for--and a LOT of you, too. He is the reincarnation of Eisenhower: old mean white man from the military who becomes a MODERATE as president, and that has the Dick Cheneyites. the fatcat Wall Street/outsourcing/sell the country to China/layoff everyone-and-take-the-Golden Parachute/greed is good Republicans shitting their breeches. Lord--Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh endorsing Hillary Clinton?! They just as scared of Huckabee (even a VP Huckabee) because even though a President Huckabee might sign a law OK-ing witch trials, burning abortionists, gays and Muslims at the stake, and providing for prison terms on viewing anything but reruns of The Waltons and 700 Club, he'd ALSO sign a law mandating universal health care/cross the board Medicaid-like benefits for all Americans, and a tax on oil companies, etc. Now you see what the drama is all about. Shifts hurt. The powers that be, be they on the "left" or "right", or the annointed ignorant flavor of the month and it's sponsors, will die before they let the shift occur. Us--we got to do what Chuck D says. What the Isleys say. We're so close...

Super Tuesday

The TV "news" networks live for horseraces like this. Is it good for democracy? When since did that make a difference? Hmmm? But let us not forget it's also mardi gras. Tomorrow, we go get that ash on our foreheads. Tomorrow, we're supposed to cleanse ourselves and act like better people. We'll see. Hope abounds, and if it's gone, you can always get it back. Look at the NY Giants, after all.

Giants-Patriots

Like I could give a damn. Two teams for which I have no love. An NFL that feeds off hype, the money machine, image (thus you destroy all documents relating to Coach Bill's spying)...and yet scores of ex players--particular the old timers who built Leagure glory, are crippled and/or demented, and Gene Upshaw lapdogs himself worse than these COONS like Ron Dellums, Maxine Waters, Andy Young, every pastor in Harlem kissing the Clintons' asses. Lord.

No, I don't indulge the ad/pr machine and eat a lot of heart attack food.
No, I don't likewise care about the commercials. Grow the hell up, America.
No, I could randomly give a thrust about the halftime show.

But I will do this--

Prediction Patriots 27, Giants 13
The key to the game will be Eli Manning...and the game itself will be boring as shit. Per usual. Mad worse by the previews of awful reality shows. Enjoy!

Friday Funnies

Prurient Stimulus

People with brains have already weighed in, from Robert Reich to crazy Wall Street barbarian Jim Cramer and a whole lot of others. This voodoo-supply side joke of a stimulus package will not jump start a damn thing. The greed, the skewed markets and structural bent-headedness of both our and the global economy in this new century are to blame. You think big business is going to "invest in new jobs?" Ha! You think there's any demand out there to match this supply-side orgy? You think there's any domestic money investing in anything at home while the dollar is a joke abroad? Nigga please. The whole country's for sale to the Red Chinese and the Emir of Dubai, yet all Fox News wants to harp on is Hugo Chavez using his oil money to get in on the yard sale.
Most troubling though, is what I overheard whilst waiting on dinner at TGIFridays for my imprompty birthday dinner. Yes, Fridays, home of flair and huge portions. How the mighty have fallen! Anyway, a baggie trousered brother, hair tight under a wave cap, toothpick firmly clenched, obscenities and ghetto patios flying despite the presence of children, was also there with his lady-love for a meal. His girlfriend was finely appointed in a business suit and spoke the Queen's English--how low have sistahs stooped just to find a man? I overheard him tell her he was gonna take his money "f'om George Bush" and buy himself some new rims. She said she was gonna pay off some bills but that's all the stimulating she was gonna do. Then she said she was thinking about getting a more gas- and emission-wise car. He said no. He said people would laugh, and he promised to help her keep up the payments one whatever windshield-tinted monstrosity they drove in on.
There is your stimulus. Stimulating? No. Itching more accurately. Oozing. Prurient. Time for a whole lot of Cortisone.

Greatest works of American Fiction

Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Hemmingway, Hurston, Baldwin, Wright, Vonnegut, Mailer, Sallinger, Twain, Cooper, Hawthorne, Maggie Fuller, Tom Wolfe, Alice Walker, more...

...and The Wire? A TV show?! Better than the Sopranos, they say? Five seasons as Five Volumes of possibly the best work of contemporary American fiction to date? So says The Atlantic, Time Magazine, The New Yorker, The LA Times, Tom Shales, Stanley Crouch, hell-- even goddamn BET. Uh Huh...BET. That must've been Hudlin's Harvard folks slippin' that one by the 106th & Park crew.
So what's your take? Yeah, it ain't the favorite of the Dancing with The Stars/American Idol fans, or the Wal mart afficionados or Soulja Boy listeners/Keyshia Cole addicts or NASCAR dads...but these are the folk who don't even know of "Janie" or "Gatsby" or "Holden Caulfied," so screw 'em...

The Wire as literary fiction. Yes, the Sopranos was compelling television. But this is more. Tom Wolfe meets Donald Goines. It should thus be enshrined. Think about it.

Obama Fight Song

I first heard Otha Turner's "Shimmy She Wobble" in the dazzling film Gangs of New York (Daniel Day-Lewis far outshone Leo DiCaprio). The fife and drums got more flava than that crap they play for the tourists down in Colonial Williamsburg; more patriotic than the nonsense on Rush Limbaugh's website. Makes me want to jump up and fight. Win? Hopefully. But the fight's the thing. For as Satan said in Paradise Lost, "And what is else not to be overcome?" Go Barack. Go!!!

Why Karibu failed, why we're all fools...

Karibu biting the dust...

Perhaps another wake up call (but do we rise? Too many of us are still listening to Hillary's siren song). Karibu is likely the biggest stand-alone African American owned and operated bookstore in North America. A legitimate chain. Independent. The bulwark against Barnes & Noble, Borders and gulp...Wal Mart. It was a model for black small business. Here, two young brothers literally do what Mr. White Man says and pull themselves up by bootstraps and build something. No, not a bunch of insipid incense carts that also sell Farakhan quotations. Real stores. Big inventories. Vendor to some of the huge general book events in Baltimore and the Nation's Capital. But now, closing. Sad, evil thing that's happening.

Black shops dropping like flies...but why? Okay, this is a tough economy, I know. There're always gong to be business goblins re: supply, finance, control, clashes of management personalities--from Time-Warner down to the mom and pop deli. Nevertheless, we should ponder an unspoken business model question. Think about it this way: there's always a niche, under the radar. But when you're forced to push the street fiction and the more simplistic/crass chicklit/soap opera stuff and Video Vixen nonfiction--the same product as the huge chains--and there's no price break, better service, more convenience, etc., the chains will win every time. Ergo, put out a unique product and enhanced service. Yes there are large "white" indie stores barely scraping by, but that's how they do scrape by. Different selections, intelligent choices, price breaks, expert staff doing handselling. Special events. Hell, look at the tiny specialty mystery shops which stand the test of time, the comic book stores, even the antiquarian shops. I know that's easier said than done, but it's worth the effort when the alternative is shuttering these businesses, liquidating the stock and Wal-Mart-ing everything in sight. In my D.C.-Balto. area, brimming with black professionals, students, educators, military folk with an education (in other words--officers!!!)entrepreneurs, mid-level managers to corporate VPs, this state of affairs is especially troubling.

Your thoughts?

Can we stop with Britney and Paris and Kim K now?

We are shoveled "news" about these sluts/whores...and yet one of the best young actors of our time slips away, and we don't why. My nephew was looking forward to The Dark Knight (Batman this Memorial Day). He was intrigued by the new Joker. Now my sister has to explain this...

Sad. RIP Heath.

Oscars--in case you care

Stock market plunge? That's just payback for the new "greed is good, let's de-regulate energt/safety/healthcare/transportation, let's sell off the USA to the highest bidders whilst declaring other folk traitors" ethos. Here's the real news (BTW, no people of color this year other than Ruby, and no 3-6 Mafia rapping on stage)--the Oscars. An eclectic mix of films. No blockbuster horseshit this year, or insipid nonsense. Of course, none of these heavy handed anti-Bush/War films either...though Sicko will likely win for Best Documentary and I have a legion of very well paid older doctors who say it should! Surprising? Not at all.
My faves: No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood (based on the book by that Michael Moore of yore, Upton Sinclair). Juno? I can do without it, though a few molester/dirty old men types I know proclaimed their worship of Ellen Page back when she was in the last X-Men flick as Kitty Pride.
Best Picture
Atonement
Juno
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood
Supporting Actress
Cate Blanchett , I’m Not There
Ruby Dee, American Gangster
Saoirse Ronan, Atonement
Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone
Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton
Supporting Actor
Casey Affleck, The Assassination of Jesse James
Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Charlie Wilson’s War
Hal Holbrook, Into the Wild
Tom Wilkinson, Michael Clayton
Best Actress
Cate Blanchett, Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Julie Christie, Away From Her
Marion Cotillard, La Vie En Rose
Laura Linney, The Savages
Ellen Page, Juno
Best Actor
George Clooney, Michael Clayton
Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood
Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd
Tommy Lee Jones, In the Valley of Elah
Viggo Mortensen, Eastern Promises
Best Director
Julian Schnabel, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Jason Reitman, Juno
Tony Gilroy, Michael Clayton
Joel and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men
Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood
Screenplay
Diablo Cody, Juno
Nancy Oliver, Lars and the Real Girl
Tony Gilroy, Michael Clayton
Brad Bird, Jan Pinkava, and Jim Capobianco, Ratatouille
Tamara Jenkins, The Savages
Adapted Screenplay
Christopher Hampton, Atonement
Sarah Polley, Away From Her
Ronald Harwood, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Joel and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men
Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will be Blood
Foreign Language
Beaufort, Israel; The Counterfeiters, Austria; Katyn, Poland; Mongol, Kazakhstan12; Russia
Animated
Persepolis
Ratatouille
Surf’s Up
Achievement in art direction
“American Gangster”
“Atonement” (Focus Features)
“The Golden Compass”
“Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”
“There Will Be Blood”
Achievement in cinematography
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford”
“Atonement
“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”
“No Country for Old Men”
“There Will Be Blood”

Musings on MLK Day

Strange, the only things that stick out are two recent stories in the Washington Post...about local DC-Maryland hap'nins. Both involve black elected officials: golden boy Mayor Adrian Fenty in our Nation's Capital, and County Executive Isiah "Ike" Leggett--first African American elected to run one of the wealthiest (and interestingly most diverse) suburban entities in the U.S.: Montgomery County, Maryland. Of course by "wealthy" I mean per capita income, education, home value, blah blah. Ike is also a law professor at Howard University, whose dean is the Hon. Kurt L. Schmoke, former mayor of Baltimore. ("The Wire" comes to the academy).

Anyways, Ike inked a letter of intent with a group wishing to develop the last bit of rotting storefront in Downtown Silver Spring not occupied by some national chain restaurant or retailer fulla flair. They want to make it into a music hall showcasing cutting edge acts, from reggae to rock. 2000 seats. Originally, the legendary Birchmere would cross the Potomac and claim the space. That fell through. Now it's Live Nation: The Fillmore becomes my neighbor and guess what--I couldn't be happier, at least with the concept. Trouble is, Live Nation wants all these gimmees: the usual ones corporations demand from cash-strapped local governments and these governments usually cough them up. Yeah there's always some quid pro quo working in the other direction, some feather in the leader's cap,some goodies the leader can dangle. Got nothing to do with the Commonweal, or the project. Just self-aggrandizement. See, e.g., The Washington Nationals Stadium, infra. Live Nation's giveback in return for taxpayer spent on the venue is a whole bunch of cash that Ike gets to designate to community groups of his choosing. Hmmm. Now along comes the EQUALLY legendary 9:30 Club and says hey, we'll build this live music venue ourselves. FREE: No taxpayer cash. And we're local. No,says Ike. I mean, I made this deal with Live Nation; I want to direct the give-back goodies. And County Council, don't you dare put me through the same ringer the DC Council put former Mayor and douchebag in charge Anthony Williams! Don't you dare. This is good for Silver Spring! And Live Nation might even allow your kids (or your own fawning NIMBYs or community singers) up on stage with Jill Scott or Matchbox 20!

Adrian Fenty was one of the city's most vocal opponent of the Nationals' stadium deal. His issues ran the gamut, from the labor agreements to the cost to the pandering directed at a fanbase that couldn't care less about D.C. (e.g. Virginia suburb and exurb types, and law/lobbying firm buying up skyboxes to entertain Red Chinese and Saudi "businessmen"). Now, I'm not clear what Anthony Williams got as a the give-back for foisting this literal and allegorical white elephant on the city; because of his policies, not even he could afford to buy a home in the District. Then again, Fenty hasn't done much to reverse this, and the stadium's almost done. That's prologue. The real story is the aftermath of the murder of four black girls by their crazy ass mother in Southeast DC. The Post reported that Fenty fired a bunch of social workers over this. Nevermind that the real culpable party is the mom--a crackhead scumbag who shuffledthese kids about after popping them out. The community and family, not government, is our first line of defense in this. I don't think that's right wing, or anti-nanny state (I love nanny states...I could move to Denmark). No, it's common sense, just like advocating Depro Provera as the fix isn't Nazi. It's ony Goddamn thing that will work!!! But the Mayor goes and blames these folks, then apparently arrives to give the rest a peptalk and "we gotta do better" speech. He's heckled. He gets a tude. He's heckled more. This accompanied other sourball acts by other public employees. I'm betting that that folks who care enough to say, "hold up" are the ones who care about they work they do--not the usual dumb spooks sitting around collecting a check, or the bloated supervisor corps in social services and DC Public Schools. But hey, even they have a hedge--their most needy "customers" are ignorant, ghettofab, crazy, violent, so there's the catch-22. Even schools with gold gilded hallways and taught by MIT and Princeton profs would be jacked up given the populations they serve, and even the toughest yet most angelic social worker can't anticipate the evil, drug-addled mind of a pyschopath who's tubes should have been tied from jump (and the men who impregnated her needed to have their peckers twisted).

Yet the Mayor, ever stalwart and self-important, gets a tude after dumping on them.

Here's a dispatch from Martin...and I'll toss in Malcolm, too: IT AIN'T ABOUT YOU, IKE, ADRIAN. IT AIN'T ABOUT YOUR SPONSORS, BE THEY DEVELOPERS OR NIMBY TYPES OR LOUD MOUTH PASTORS OR GENTRIFYING YUPPIES OR BIG BOX STORES. IT'S ABOUT THE COMMOMWEAL. IT'S ABOUT GOVERNMENT, NOT MACHINE POLITICS OR SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS. IT'S ABOUT THE PUBLIC GOOD. AND OFTEN IT'S ABOUT INSPIRING THE PUBLIC ITSELF TO LIVE AS CARING, GOOD CITIZENS AND NOT SELFISH ANIMALS. Sometimes that means NOT pandering to folk on the one hand, or alienating the conscientious soldiers you need to fight the war on the other. Yeah, something about these stories, coming as they did around this holiday, stuck in my craw. Maybe I can cough it up in time to cheer MLK and tell these brothers hey, you, too, can do better.