Midnight Musings

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER – HAPPY NEW YEAR

fulanigirl — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 04:21:57 +0000

Well, yes, I know it’s almost the end of January but it has taken me this long to get myself organized so, Happy New Year. And, good riddance to 2011. It was a dreary, back scrabble of a year, but I’m going to will a better year in for 2012. I did get a chance to get out of town at the end of the year and sit in the African sun for a bit. I really needed that. While I was away, I had an opportunity to catch up with a book I started some years ago but didn’t get to finish at the time. It was a sci-fi book written by Octavia Butler, whom you may know was one of the few African American science fiction writers out there. Butler had an amazing writing talent. She could go all the way on the science end of science fiction, but she also saw our near future fiction clearly. The book is entitled PARABLE OF THE TALENTS, and is the sequel to PARABLE OF THE SOWER. The protagonist in both books is a young black female. In the first book she was 13 or so, living with her family in L.A. in a gated enclave, protected against a growing population of have-nots outside the gates. She has a dream that foretells the destruction of the gated community by the have-nots, but she can’t get anyone to listen to her. Long story short, the dream comes true; the community is destroyed and she has to find a way to survive chaos and violence on her own. The description of the condition of the competing communities was real and raw, quite frightening for its realism.

In the second book we catch up with her six or seven years later. She has survived and drawn like minded people to her, but chaos and violence continues to plague the country, until a politician rises up who claims the country can be saved by returning to “true” Christianity. He campaigns alleging that God sent him to help bring order to the disorder, which he says were caused by immigrants and non-Christians. Does any of this sound familiar?! Again, Butler’s words drew a picture of a reality frighteningly close to what is happening now. In the book, the preacher/politician wins and wrecks havoc on the liberties and rights of all Americans, not just the ones every one found objectionable in the beginning. After much death, destruction and suffering, he is finally driven out of office. This is still violence and some chaos but the people end of believing in their own ability to weather the challenge.

I wish I could make that book mandatory reading before anyone pushes a button or fills out a bubble sheet to vote. Check both books out if you have some time. You will not regret it.

Let me close out by mentioning a couple of items from the end of the year that just needed a word or two:

1) You may recall several states (Arizona, Alabama, South Carolina to name the three worst) have tinkered with punitive immigration bills. The legislative efforts are making their way through the courts (almost all of them have had some major provisions enjoined by the higher courts). But the Alabama bill deserves special mention. Every one knows today you can’t pass a bill that is only for Mexicans. That would be unconstitutional (the civil rights movement took care of that). So Alabama passed a bill that they intended to be only for Mexicans, even though it didn’t say anything about Mexicans. The bill requires anyone doing business with the state to show a birth certificate. The problem is there was also a provision in the bill to punish any state agency that did not obtain the correct proof of citizenship with a severe fine. So, what happened? The agencies started demanding proof of citizenship from every one! LOL Almost shut down business in Alabama. Returning veterans could not get their drivers license renewed. No one could get a permit to do work and professional license applications were being denied. The legislators said they had no idea the bill would create that kind of impact. Right, because they thought only Mexicans would be affected! No surprise that they are now trying to “tweak” the legislation so that it will not adversely impact most Alabamians. But, its delicate because the rhetoric in favor of the bill was so strong, its hard for them to go back on all that hateful talk now.

2) Haven’t been saying too much on the Republican primaries and the “debates.” Our country’s race to the bottom is quite appalling. I’ll try and hold my food down to discuss it a little in the next couple of months but I missed the opportunity to say: Herman Cain? Really?! Not only was his candidacy ridiculous (and frightening how far he actually went), but the reaction to the sexual harassment claims showed what utter contempt these people have for women. Despite the fact three women came forward with documentation of the harassment, the conservatives were all too ready to ignore that. It took his wife to put the hammer down on the campaign after the news broke that he had maintained another woman in an apartment for thirteen years, during the course of his marriage. I guess all that family values crap, yet again, is for others, not the people who spout it.

Sorry, just couldn’t say goodbye to the year without mentioning that. Anyway…

…just something I was thinking about …

LOOKING BACK OVER THE PAST TEN YEARS

fulanigirl — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 01:53:04 +0000

The tenth anniversary of September 11, 2001 passed yesterday. It is hard to believe that ten years has passed. I’m sure the families of those tragically killed feel the loss of their loved ones as acutely today as they did then. And yet, life goes on. That is the real pain of those who survive. They do go on, whether they want to or not.

Are we better off today then back on that fateful day? Probably not. Thousands of young men and women are still dying trying to get accountability on the two war fronts, and many more hundreds of thousands wounded. Now, Congress and the American public have lost the stomach for a conflict they embraced so readily ten years ago. So, I guess we are done with evening the score and getting revenge for that horrible act. And yet, credible threats are still uncovered and weapons (including guns and knives) still manage to get through TSA security at the airport. We have tortured and killed detainees and prisoners and thousands of Americans have been illegally profiled in the interim.

The events of Oklahoma City have faded in the collective memory of the American public, which I am sure frustrates their community to no end. Will 9/11 fade one day from the collective memory? We don’t know the answer to that yet. The real question for me is whether our democracy and the freedoms it is supposed to protect will recover from our efforts to get revenge and to convince ourselves that we have obtained security from terrorism, a goal which can never actually be achieved.

… just something I was thinking about …

FOX SPORTS ACKNOWLEDGES RACIST PARODY

fulanigirl — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 01:19:20 +0000

The Fox Sports division of Fox News was forced to apologize for a racist parody where the reporter asks Asian students to welcome Colorado and Utah into the PAC-12 division. He then mocked their accents. Fox took the video down and apologized to the USC University president and the entire USC community. They promised to take steps to ensure something like that will never happen again.

If I can get the video, I’ll post it for you. Maybe Fox will realize that their approach to inflammatory “news-tainment” (my word for the combination of weak news with the effort to entertain news audiences) created the environment where someone creating content for them thought that behavior was appropriate.

… just something I was thinking about …

SHADES OF THE TUSKEGEE EXPERIMENT

fulanigirl — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 01:07:28 +0000

Last fall the story broke that the U.S. had experimented on many Guatemalans during the period of time U.S. scientists were trying to understand how to cure syphilis. You may recall that hundreds of black men being studied at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama were allowed to die of complications from untreated syphilis. Turns out it was not just black men they were killing but Guatemalans as well. Hilary Clinton made an official apology. But the story would not go away. Turns out U.S. efforts to infect Guatemalans, and the number of people allowed to die from lack of treatment was even greater than previously thought. Seems like frustrated researchers would intentionally infect people by scraping them with a nail or some other object coated with the germ, if they didn’t contract the disease fast enough for the researchers. You would hope these stories could be explained away because they happened in the 1930s and 1940s and racism and lack of concern for black people and other folks of color was normative. But experimentation on people of color have continued into the 21st century and sometimes minority children are the subjects of unethical research. The Guatemalan and Tuskegee experiments remind us that government must be closely monitored when it alleges it is interested in the health of people of color.

… just something I was thinking about …

CHEROKEES PICK UP SOME BAD HABITS FROM WHITE AMERICANS

fulanigirl — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 02:30:00 +0000

This following case has been brewing for a while but it just got some new press last week. The Cherokee nation in Oklahoma has been trying to expel the descendants of slaves (and I think Freedman) as well that were brought to Cherokee territory by the Cherokees themselves during the “Trail of Tears.” The Cherokee Nation Supreme Court just upheld a 2007 decision expelling the black descendants. The Huffington Post has also included some coverage of the litigation. The move seems to be at least partly motivated by the Cherokees not wanting the expelled to share in casino proceeds and federal funding. I’m sure this won’t be the end of the litigation. I have often said that black folks have picked up the worst traits of white society, I guess I can add our Native brothers to that saying as well. A very sad turn of affairs, particularly since the Cherokee nation is the one African Americans seem to identify with most. This one is worth keeping an eye on.

SHAKEN AND STIRRED!

fulanigirl — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 02:08:52 +0000

Well who would have guessed that in a space of less than a week D.C. would have an earthquake and a hurricane. You know Washingtonians are weather phobic, so this has been a very trying time for them. Was out of town for the earthquake..what else is new… but amazingly, although things fell down, nothing broke! I was very lucky there. The National Cathedral and the Washington Monument did not fare as well. Hopefully both can be repaired…but I don’t know…how do you put a spire back on a stone building?? Folks may not remember that we had an earthquake in D.C. about a year ago. It was a 3. something but it happened at 5AM so mostly every one slept through it. Hm… two in a year… don’t like the sounds of that.

The hurricane came with crazy wind and plenty of rain….we got 8 inches in five hours! That’s a lot of dang water. And least you think I can pass an opportunity to say something political…you’re…wrong. That Michele Bachman thought it was funny to joke about the earthquake and the hurricane hitting the nation’s capitol. Some kind of punishment from that wacky concept of God she has. Unfortunately, some folks died as a result of the hurricane and there was massive property damage all over our region, not to mention the millions without electricity. No one here thought the joke was funny and you really have to wonder about the judgment of someone who can make light of tragedy for her own political gain. Can you imagine the headlines if Obama had made some kind of wisecrack when the tornadoes hit the Mid West. Being compassionate really isn’t that hard. Here’s hoping the people in upstate New York and flooded out New England get all the help they need.

I’ll finish this off by reminding everyone that I blogged about emergency plans some months ago. The earthquake proved me right. In D.C. at least, the right hand didn’t know what the left hand was doing. The Feds released workers without coordinating with Metro, which was simultaneously slowing down the trains so that it could inspect the tracks for damage. The result: thousands of Federal workers milling around, not quite sure what to do or how to get home. Get your supplies folks..leave some at work cause you might get stuck there, and leave the rest at home!

… just something I was thinking about….

MEANWHILE AT HOME….

fulanigirl — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 15:34:46 +0000

The racial attacks on President Obama continue. In his latest “I am just a jackass” move, Rush Limbaugh did a commentary on the new Oreo cookie that has vanilla and chocolate. He referred to the cookie as bi-racial and later called it “Or-Bam-eo.” He also made some derisive remarks about Michelle Obama and her health campaign in the context of the creation of the cookie. I sincerely hope the Obamas have thick skin and are using these moments to teach their children something about race in America. I wonder if the liberals who were all touting the end of racism when Obama was elected get it now…racism in the U.S. is still here, alive, kicking and doing well.

… just something I was thinking about …

THE NEO-COLONIALIST MIND HANGS ON

fulanigirl — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 15:26:21 +0000

It has been interesting watching England wrestle with the aftermath of the rioting. Scotland Yard hired Bill Bratton, a former NYC Police Commissioner, as a consultant who of course urged them to get tough on crime with a zero tolerance attitude. Thankfully, other members of the British government are pushing back on that, and urging the UK to follow European Union guidelines (which actually recognize political and civil rights), rather than the American “lock up everybody” approach.

And then there is the British historian, David Starkey, who said in a BBC interview that the riots happened because “the whites have become black.” He stated that the adoption of black culture, which glorifies being a gangster, by whites has essentially corrupted white youth! His ideas were challenged in a rather spirited debate, but still… come on..it is 2011 and a respected scholar comes out with that?! Just goes to show how deeply entrenched racist notions of “them” versus “us” are. The struggle continues.

…just something I was thinking about…

LONDON BRIDGES BURNING DOWN

fulanigirl — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 02:38:58 +0000

Wow! Look at what is happening in England at the moment. Shades of that hot summer when Paris was burning a few years back. Seems like the incident started over a police killing (seems even in merry old England the police can kill ya!), but its obvious the mayhem has spiraled way beyond that incident. The violence of the youth is interesting to me. If it was the U.S. I would say, their behavior partly demonstrates the lack of civic understanding and engagement among the youth. They haven’t been made to feel they are stake holders in a civilized society. But, this is civilized Europe! Even in Europe though, particularly England, the gap between those who have and those who do not is growing and it transcending race issues. It is no excuse for hooliganism, but I’m just saying…. No matter where these youth are, Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, London, Birmingham, Paris, any place in the U.S. we better start paying attention to their development and their dreams for the future. If we don’t we are all in trouble, and I don’t mean for a few hot nights in the summer, but for the long haul.

… just something I was thinking about …

AND HERE COMES THE FALLOUT!

fulanigirl — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 02:24:14 +0000

Well they worked a non deal in Washington, at least the Senate handled the FAA situation. Every one was taking a breath and the other shoe dropped, Standard & Poor downgraded anyway. Well so much for all those people who said the crisis was a fabrication by the administration and wouldn’t affect our standing on Wall Street….wrong! But memories have dimmed on that already.

But you have to laugh cause this is the same Standard & Poor that ranked Enron high right up until the day it fell to pieces. Oh, and Lehman Brothers too! Very highly ranked by S&P until the day it collapsed. And let’s not forget they didn’t forecast any of the mortgage industry collapse. Some days you just have to wonder are the lunatics in the asylum or running the asylum.

..just something I was thinking about…