tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69054364947338954842024-03-13T09:44:58.829-07:00SeeMoEvilSo much trouble in the world.
- Bob MarleyL'Observateurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14056155854527283954noreply@blogger.comBlogger25125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905436494733895484.post-18559510461451753452022-10-30T11:31:00.000-07:002022-10-30T11:31:19.683-07:00An Election Response To My Clan<p>So, first thanks for your feedback. You are among a select few, (meaning less than 10), whom I solicited for thoughts about me working at the polls in a few days here in South Carolina. Your input is valued, and I have decided to move forward on November 8. The reasons are clear: A couple of my respondents said, "They don’t wanna mess with you” because I am just not one to be messed with, LOL</p><p>Most, however, cautioned against me going, saying it wasn’t worth risking my safety.</p><p>But I say that I’m not going to let the dogs win — nor bite me. I trust your wisdom, and I understand there may be some personal peril. That’s life. What’s more important than individual safety is to let folks know that we are STILL in a democracy, and this great experiment may soon be over… Unless people of good conscience and spirit move forward to challenge the cruel, narcissistic, corrupt world that too many Americans now want.</p><p>As you know, I am a student of history, and clearly can see it repeating some of its Facist/Nazi influences in the encroaching future. We cannot let that happen, because we know the outcome. It would be a tragedy. The vote is all we Americans were given. </p><p>It is all that’s left. Moreover, it would be an ultimate disservice to the ancestors who died to give us the opportunity to vote — not to mention being a Black poll worker in the Deep South at this moment.</p><p>So, as I said, we can’t let the bastards win. See ya at the polls. Vote 🗳 </p>L'Observateurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14056155854527283954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905436494733895484.post-57741283602010720612022-08-31T19:48:00.008-07:002022-08-31T20:16:56.014-07:00Emergency: Somebody Please Dial 9-1-1<p>Oh, please — Stop equivocating with this Trump nonsense. Remember, this is the Central Park Five non-apologist; the Obama birther liar; the monster who called Sen. John McCain “a loser” for becoming a Vietnam War POW (while he shirked the draft); the “Stand Back And Stand By” racist hate-monger; the Insurrection Leader; the former president who clearly — and illegally — took the USA’s top secrets (for no good earthly reason, to be sure). </p><p>From the moment he descended on his Trump Tower golden escalator to decry Mexicans, the sorry media has given this guy a platinum pass. Let him hide his taxes. Let him keep making money and enriching deals as prez. Let him shake Putin’s hands while shoving aside NATO ally Montenegro’s leader in a photo op. Let him have extramarital affairs with hush money at hand. Watch him get impeached — TWICE.</p><p>Suffer as we watch him let hundreds of thousands of Americans die needlessly from COVID-19 because, he says, he didn’t think Americans could handle the awful truth. Let him declare, without any real pushback, that he does not believe in science when climate change is closing upon us. Let him toss paper towels in Puerto Rico as hundreds of Americans perish and billions get spent to enrich his cronies. See his daughter and son-in-law get rich in the White House (although they can’t get security clearances). Watch the Trump Hotel host lavish soirées, paid by the Saudis who dismembered an American journalist.</p><p>The list goes on, and on, and on, and…Just call 9-1-1, for the sake of democracy.</p>L'Observateurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14056155854527283954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905436494733895484.post-60066682310776483372021-02-17T15:12:00.005-08:002021-02-17T15:12:52.992-08:00A Rush To Judgment Day<p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>A RUSH TO JUDGMENT </b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The Republicans are absolutely bonkers. Fueled by conservative talker Rush Limbaugh, who died today, they now embrace the stance that if it makes sense for most Americans — then they must be against it.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Latest example: Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott blamed green energy on his state’s deadly freeze. Then there’s the former Texas governor and energy secretary, Rick Perry who proclaims the feds need not get involved to help fix Texas’ electric-grid debacle. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Meanwhile, much of Texas is a disaster zone as the state’s Republicans twiddle their frostbitten thumbs.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Then there’s the mayor of Colorado City,Texas, another Republican, who just resigned under fire because he told his small town’s residents that they should just stop whining and figure out how to stay warm on their own.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Throughout the GOP, it’s anything liberal or progressive that helps Americans, they’re vehemently against. COVID relief, no. Fair housing, equal rights, police reform, immigration reform — all nada. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The Arkansas governor, another Republican, says President Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill is too much, that whatever money is coming should be distributed on a per capita basis. The poor people of Arkansas are hurting, and yet this guy is playing politics.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Clearly, Republicans throughout America are and will continue to be obstructionists. They know they have lost one election after another. They know that Donald Trump is their Death Star.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">And yet they will continue to orbit around him as he draws them into his own black hole of nativist succor.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Rush Limbaugh was an enabler of this mean-spirited stupidity. He was a racist, a drug addict, and a hypocrite who dishonorably received the once-revered Presidential Medal of Freedom. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Wonder whether Rush sees the light now.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p>L'Observateurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14056155854527283954noreply@blogger.com0Virginia, USA37.4315734 -78.65689429.1213395638211523 -113.8131442 65.741807236178843 -43.500644199999996tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905436494733895484.post-88507648535140185382020-06-15T18:36:00.014-07:002020-06-15T19:00:00.098-07:00The mortal storm of deadly force on Black Americans<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div class="AOLWebSuite AOLWebSuiteM1" data-dojo-attach-point="bodyCont" style="background-color: white; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; margin: 10px 20px 4px;"><div id="yiv4307014853"><p class="yiv4307014853p1" style="font-size: 30px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3px; text-align: left;"><span class="yiv4307014853s1" style="font-weight: bold;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4MDHgX0SKCE/XugkKhNGx2I/AAAAAAAAASU/Cp3AKURYu8cqwK7Xdx4VT29rrdGAAtO3ACK4BGAsYHg/s275/george%2Bfloyd.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="275" data-original-width="183" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4MDHgX0SKCE/XugkKhNGx2I/AAAAAAAAASU/Cp3AKURYu8cqwK7Xdx4VT29rrdGAAtO3ACK4BGAsYHg/george%2Bfloyd.jpg" /></a></div>Fatal inaction: Deadly force by police on Black Americans has morphed into a curvature of the American soul.<p></p></div></div></blockquote><div class="AOLWebSuite AOLWebSuiteM1" data-dojo-attach-point="bodyCont" style="background-color: white; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; margin: 10px 20px 4px;"><div id="yiv4307014853"><p class="yiv4307014853p2" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 27.4px;"><span class="yiv4307014853s2"></span><br /></p><p class="yiv4307014853p3" style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv4307014853s2"><b><font color="#b51200" size="6">D</font></b><font size="5">ivided we stand, rooted in the past. It’s a history of symbols of traitors, slaveholders, and racist practices propelled through the decades into a distressful legacy.</font></span></p><p class="yiv4307014853p2" style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 27.4px;"><font size="5"><span class="yiv4307014853s2"></span><br /></font></p><p class="yiv4307014853p3" style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv4307014853s2"><font size="5">Laws have been published and not enacted. A system of inferior edu</font></span><span style="font-size: x-large;">cation, swelling prison populations of black Americans, and inequitable hiring and pay standards – – the list is a multitude of systemic racism.</span></p><p class="yiv4307014853p2" style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 27.4px;"><font size="5"><span class="yiv4307014853s2"></span><br /></font></p><p class="yiv4307014853p3" style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv4307014853s2"><font size="5">It starts in the womb. Black mothers have a considerably lesser opportunity to bring healthy children to life. Racism continues in a black child's educational path. Much more funds go to "good schools," meaning white schools, than "bad schools" nationwide. </font></span></p><p class="yiv4307014853p3" style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv4307014853s2"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></p><p class="yiv4307014853p3" style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv4307014853s2"><font size="5">In the same neighborhoods, a white homeowner’s property has more value than his black next door neighbor. If he’s a high school graduate and his black neighbor has a college degree, the white guy still will earn considerably more. </font></span></p><p class="yiv4307014853p2" style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 27.4px;"><font size="5"><span class="yiv4307014853s2"></span><br /></font></p><p class="yiv4307014853p3" style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv4307014853s2"><font size="5">And when they go to the hospital, the healthcare system will value his care more than the black guy. Just ask any insurance actuary what happens when both are killed in auto accidents. In wrongful death suits, payouts are exponentially higher if the victim is white.</font></span></p><p class="yiv4307014853p3" style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv4307014853s2"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></p><p class="yiv4307014853p3" style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv4307014853s2"><font size="5">The wealth gap in America is growing for whites, and stagnant for Black Americans. Statistics bear out every assertion.</font></span></p><p class="yiv4307014853p2" style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 27.4px;"><font size="5"><span class="yiv4307014853s2"></span><br /></font></p><p class="yiv4307014853p3" style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv4307014853s2"><font size="5">Yet, the institutional powers will never admit that they are part of systemic racism. Corporate America will talk day long about diversity and inclusion. But schools suspend black children disproportionately. Banks redline with impugnity. The news media shies away from divulging their own hiring practices. Police departments will say they view everybody the same. </font></span></p><p class="yiv4307014853p3" style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv4307014853s2"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></p><p class="yiv4307014853p3" style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv4307014853s2"><font size="5">Political leaders jump at every opportunity to proclaim that all men and women are created equally. America’s military leaders say they are a bastion of equal treatment -– yet black Americans receive more disciplinary punishment and far more undesirable and dishonorable discharges per capita than their white counterparts.</font></span></p><p class="yiv4307014853p2" style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 27.4px;"><font size="5"><span class="yiv4307014853s2"></span><br /></font></p><p class="yiv4307014853p3" style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv4307014853s2"><font size="5">There is a curvature to America’s spinal cord, bent through years, indeed centuries of arthritic buildup of institutional racism. </font></span></p><p class="yiv4307014853p2" style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 27.4px;"><font size="5"><span class="yiv4307014853s2"></span><br /></font></p><p class="yiv4307014853p3" style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv4307014853s2"><font size="5">Now a storm is gathering — and it may clear a path to national recovery or damnation. But this time, the shockwave may be too much to bear. </font></span></p><p class="yiv4307014853p2" style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 27.4px;"><font size="5"><span class="yiv4307014853s2"></span><br /></font></p><p class="yiv4307014853p3" style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv4307014853s2"><font size="5">For my part, no matter my life of wartime military service, an award-winning career and accomplishment in the news media, and years as a college professor and federal employee, nonetheless I hold no value on the streets of America.</font></span></p><p class="yiv4307014853p2" style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 27.4px;"><font size="5"><span class="yiv4307014853s2"></span><br /></font></p><p class="yiv4307014853p3" style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv4307014853s2"><font size="5">I can only hope — but I can no longer pray — that my grandchildren will fare better.</font></span></p></div></div><div class="inlineCompose_bar" data-dojo-attach-point="inlineComposeBar" style="background-color: #f1f1f1; color: #666666; display: inline-block; fill: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; position: relative; width: 1005px;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /></div>L'Observateurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14056155854527283954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905436494733895484.post-63590210765857578802016-11-29T08:01:00.000-08:002016-11-29T08:19:30.327-08:00Of two dictators and madness in Miami <h2>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">I </span><span style="font-size: 14px;">treasure my 2015 trip to Cuba. Nine days with real Cubans, learning how they believed in Fidel Castro's vision of racial equality. They also looked forward to better relations with the United States, and praised President Obama at every turn. My hope is that the two nations continue to move closer economically and democratically. But I also remember when I was an editor at The Miami Herald that Cubans fleeing Castro's Cuba got 40 acres and a mule (symbolically) -- but immigrant Haitians fleeing dictator "Baby Doc" Duvalier's brutalty were imprisoned in detention camps in South Florida. That blatant racial discrimination lives on today; just examine the upward mobility of the expatriate Haitian community compared to their Cuban counterparts. There really is no comparison.</span></div>
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L'Observateurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14056155854527283954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905436494733895484.post-5219634544493955602015-11-09T13:40:00.000-08:002015-11-21T09:15:10.706-08:00On Veterans Day – Never Mind<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Fifty years have passed since I last saw many of my high school classmates. Frankly, I could have waited another 50 before seeing them again.</span></div>
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No bitterness here, just the realization that most of them remain so out of touch with the sacrifices and service made by me and a handful of their Vietnam veteran classmates. That our McKinley Tech Class of '65 reunion committee in Washington never thought of recognizing their veteran classmates shouldn't have come as a surprise.</div>
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After all, when it comes to those Americans who halted teenage lives to join the military for wartime service to this country, self-fulfillment, self-indulgence and outright hatred for the war were ways of life for the non-serving. Few in power even wanted to admit it was a war, with politicians and the media alike euphemistically calling it "the Vietnam conflict."</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">Still, this slight may have hurt the most, more than being slurred by fellow Americans, of being spat on and turned down for jobs because of the myth that Vietnam veterans were “crazy” and “baby killers,” even after decades of rejected Agent Orange claims and Vietnam buddies' deaths at the hands of the Veterans Administration.</div>
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One would have thought that my ex-classmates would have been the first to celebrate our collective sacrifice, that they knew and appreciated that it was also for their future security that we enlisted or were drafted. I allow that maybe they couldn’t have understood the political ramifications of the Vietnam War, but I thought surely they, as witnesses to headlines and history, would have celebrated their old classmates who became casualties of war in one way or the other.</div>
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I don’t know whether I should be ashamed of them or for myself for daring to suggest that their weekend of reunion memories should have included a brief recognition of their veteran classmates. Most of those things school chums at my predominantly black high school's graduating class (99 percent) went on to college, created successful careers in education, government, law, medicine – you name it, these middle-class children did it. For me, I had little choice except join the military. My parents weren’t able to afford college and, frankly, my grades were only so-so back then. </div>
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So, it took me a few years to catch up after my four-year Air Force enlistment. It took 10 years to earn that bachelor’s degree. After my cut-rate GI Bill for college stipend ran out in three years, I left college to work full-time as a court stenographer, later re-enrolling to get that elusive degree in journalism. My professional life has since taken me around the globe and across this nation as a newspaper reporter, editor, college professor and public relations practitioner.</div>
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This Veterans Day, and with each passing November 11<sup>th</sup> I find the moment less authentic. For me, and I am sure with countless other Vietnam vets, “the Vietnam conflict” simply mirrors the widening schism between those who served in the most unpopular war in American history and the rest of the nation. Today, less than 1 percent of all Americans are in the uniformed services. That’s the lowest percentage of Americans in uniform in the last 100 years. Most military families will attest to their second-class status as citizens, with many depending on food stamps and food banks while their loved ones are deployed.</div>
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Seems that this country – along with my now-senior citizen classmates – remain all too happy to get on with their lives and leave the fighting to someone else. National service was and tragically remains absent from the American agenda.</div>
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So be it! It will be the nation's loss, sadly, when most Americans fail to have their own skins in the game of serving this great country.</div>
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As for us Vietnam Vets, we are more than willing to thank our own selves for our service. We did our duty – no thank you is necessary.</div>
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L'Observateurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14056155854527283954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905436494733895484.post-41935818827558447502015-04-08T16:41:00.001-07:002015-06-29T08:05:21.263-07:00Duane, Larry and Jimmy: yesterday's heroes, today's conscience<div class="clearfix" style="color: #141823; font-family: 'helvetica neue', helvetica, arial, 'lucida grande', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; zoom: 1;">
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Duane, Larry & Jimmy: Yesterday’s Heroes, Today’s Conscience</h2>
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Duane D. Jackson, 63, a Times Square street vendor, saved New York and the country as a whole from a tragedy that could have derailed our peace of mind and sense of security. Jackson risked his life when he peered into a suspiciously smoking SUV. He immediately summoned a police officer, who then cleared out the tourist-heavy district as the country watched and prayed.<br>
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Jackson is a Vietnam veteran.<br>
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Larry Platt, 62, took the nation by storm on last year’s “American Idol” auditions with a side-splitting, mocking message to America’s black youth:<br>
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<em>Pants on the ground</em><em>Pants on the ground</em><em>Lookin' like a fool with your pants on the ground</em><em>With the gold in your mouth</em><em>Hat turned sideways</em><em>Pants hit the ground</em><em>Call yourself a cool cat</em><em>lookin' like a fool</em><em>Walkin' downtown with your pants on the ground, get it up</em><em>Hey, get your pants off the ground</em><em>Lookin' like a fool</em><em>Walkin', talkin' with your pants on the ground</em><em>Get it up; hey! Get your pants off the ground</em><em>Lookin' like a fool with your pants on the ground</em><br>
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Too old to go beyond auditions, the message resonated with TV hosts and celebrity everywhere.<br>
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Platt is a Vietnam veteran.<br>
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Jimmy McMillan has a painfully clear mantra: The rent is too damn high, and it's hurting the economy, not to mention the quality of life of New York, his home city. Hailing from Flatbush, Brooklyn, the 63-year-old didn't win the state’s gubernatorial election -- though he did receive an astonishing 40,916 votes, which was 0.9 percent of the total. But for a while, he won the hearts of struggling Americans and earned a host of Internet tributes. He became a 2010 cult hero, showing courage in the face of inestimable odds to tell the nation that something was terribly wrong with our economy.<br>
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McMillan is a Vietnam veteran.<br>
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By now, you might have guessed that I love black Vietnam veterans. Now in their senior years, they went to that war young and drafted, baby boomers with little opportunity, but they were young men who saw their way to a good future through life-threatening service to their country.<br>
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Today, as America is ensnarled in another conflict of questionable merit, with trillions of dollars siphoned from economic progress, another group of American heores will need your support when they return home.<br>
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And while one might question how well Duane, Larry and Jimmy individually won their shares of the American Dream, no one can doubt that their ethos of service to America has ever waned. They, like many veterans from all of our wars, continue to push the envelope for the sake of others.<br>
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That is our hope for tomorrow. That is the lesson we learned in Vietnam.<br>
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HAPPY NEW YEAR, FRIENDS.<br>
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L'Observateurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14056155854527283954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905436494733895484.post-9589749611217664412015-04-08T11:29:00.000-07:002015-06-29T08:04:34.856-07:00Since my youth, my only 'crime' has been my skin color<b><span style="font-size: large;">Since my youth, my only 'crime' has been my skin color</span></b><br><div>
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I didn't sleep well last night. Was up until 4 a.m., I guess too wound up to let my body do its job over my mental anguish of seeing a human being -- a BLACK human being, like myself -- murdered before my eyes. </div>
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I spent much of the day after the fateful video surfaced reading the comments from various news sites. To be sure, 95% of them were equally appalled. I found, and verified the irony of ex-police officer Michael Slager's surname. In the Dutch language, "Slager" means "b<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">utcher shop." </span></div>
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<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">I ran back my own memory of being stopped by police...once as a 16-year-old high schooler, while walking to the bus stop after a classmate's birthday party. I was accused of stealing a car. Again, I was walking.</span></div>
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<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">I was stopped in Prince George's County on my birthday (some 40 years ago) for speeding. I knew there was a cop car behind me, and knew the highway I was on, so I slowed down. Nonetheless, the officer lit me up, pulled me over and cited me for speeding. I went to court, armed with a photograph I had taken of the speed sign showing 35 mph. I didn't need that proof, however; the cop never showed and the case was dismissed. But I lost a day's pay back in the day for that foolishness.</span></div>
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<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">It was 1985 in New Jersey, when I was pulled over by a state trooper on the NJ Turnpike; I had just relocated from The Miami Herald, and had Florida tags. The trooper did his usual protocol of running my tags, etc. About 20 minutes later, he returned to my car and said I could go, offering a lame explanation that there were a lot of drugs running up from Florida and that was why he pulled me over. Then, he had the audacity to ask me why I was even in New Jersey.</span></div>
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I told him, "I just relocated here from Florida. I am the new city editor of The (Bergen) Record," and I'm on my way to work. His face turned fire-engine red. </div>
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Today, more than ever, I shudder that there are few black journalists in America's newsrooms to fight the power that be. I am no public enemy. Peace!</div>
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L'Observateurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14056155854527283954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905436494733895484.post-39149848602949826142012-11-06T14:22:00.006-08:002012-11-06T14:25:27.648-08:00A drink of freedom<br />
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<span style="font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>W</b></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">hen I was 18 and in the Vietnam War, I couldn’t drink legally. I remember an editorial cartoon depicting GIs in a foxhole, bombs bursting in air, and one saying to the other, “If I couldn’t drink, then why am I here to die?”</span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-W5dGppOykno/UJmNbolqIVI/AAAAAAAAAH8/w64jWkXyE4I/s1600/photo-3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-W5dGppOykno/UJmNbolqIVI/AAAAAAAAAH8/w64jWkXyE4I/s200/photo-3.JPG" width="150" /></a><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The cartoon brought a brief, knowing smile to my young face, knowing well that, worse, I couldn’t vote myself out of the war, either. You had to be 21 to vote and to drink, yet most of my bros were my age or not much older. We knew the law, but we also knew how to get fired up while “in country." We all needed numbing to get through that unreal, and n</span>o one asked for our IDs back then, not that it mattered. </div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Years passed, and I moved on from Thunderbird -- the vintage of black choice in ‘Nam -- to Boone’s Farm, then onward to something with a cork. In between, there were some name brands as I grew toward sanity after a tour of the duty with Uncle Sam. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Strange how Election Day brings out the patriotism and memories in me. Today I wore my Vietnam veteran baseball cap while waiting in line to vote. I never said a word to my fellow Americans, except to the poll workers when required. I heard my companions banter about Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty, same-sex marriage laws and legalized gambling in Maryland.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">And I silently rejoiced. For I made their banter possible. I stood there, knowing they were free because I did what was asked of me when I was but a child. I enlisted in the U.S Air Force at exactly 17 years and 9 months old; I needed my parents’ signatures to enlist, and they grudgingly signed. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>I</b></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">t was the best move of my life. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Back then, I began to learn how to survive in an unfair world. I learned how to communicate in spite of ignorant and intolerable rants from folks who thought themselves superior in rank, intellect, good manners and beyond. I learned about hate and rage and heroic acts that ultimately bested the former. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Reflecting on that young life brought forward through the crucible of war and a career in public service through the art of journalism, I understand the cries of democracy and the unrelenting forces that seek to mute it. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">I remain a warrior for good thoughts and deeds. Today, while waiting in line, I changed my vote to allow children of illegal immigrants to receive low-cost college tuition. That’s because I saw a young Latino couple cradling their playful infant daughter. They too had come to vote.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">They, too, are part of my America. I figured that out while waiting in line. I changed my mind because I can.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Because I am an American. </span></div>
L'Observateurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14056155854527283954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905436494733895484.post-24270059415593120492012-10-16T17:57:00.003-07:002012-10-23T17:39:43.246-07:00Siding with the truth<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Who’s watching the watcher, now that political hay can be made from untruths that go on and on?</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">No one is watching -- or seemingly caring -- as this debacle of an American presidential election continues to go down Pinocchio’s unseemly path.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Ethical and professional lapses darken our doorsteps with increasing frequency. A meningitis outbreak kills at least 16 Americans so far, and has tragically sickened thousands more. All because a Massachusetts pharmaceutical company was left to its own devices and allowed a fungus to contaminate its drug stock.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The Bay State also has to come up with a tough explanation about how a state police lab technician willingly falsified thousands of drug cases. Her false reports imprisoned hundreds, but no one was watching her for years.</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">As a crisis communicator, I continue to be amazed by the mirage people and corporations create to uphold their lack of character.</span><br />
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<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Pizza Hut reverses itself on a “Free Pizza For Life" contest if someone at tonight's presidential debate asks the candidates whether they prefer sausage or pepperoni toppings -- diminishing the seriousness of the moment.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">American Airlines fails to answer questions today regarding the conviction of a long-time baggage handler who got other airline employees to secrete drugs on passenger jets -- at the risk of downing a jet because their hiding places were in the planes' control systems. His drug ring netted millions.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">A Maryland lawmaker last week pleaded guilty to using $3,500 in campaign funds to pay for her wedding and a second charge in which she was found guilty of using $800 in state funds to pay an employee at her law firm. The woman still believes she should keep her post.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Lance Armstrong, the doper. 'Nuf said.</span></li>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Such arrogance is an appeasement to vanity. Trouble is, today it boils over in more public scenarios than one can list. Yet, the perps think nothing of it, like tailgating speeders with no fear of consequence.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">There is no prescription for humanity to act in a humane way. Which is why, in conscience-free 21st Century America, we need watchers empowered with the soul and commitment to know right from something less -- no matter someone’s ill-conceived definition.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The truth will always outflank a lie. It just takes longer today.</span></div>
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L'Observateurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14056155854527283954noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905436494733895484.post-87531845650167544732012-01-19T18:08:00.000-08:002012-01-19T18:29:35.680-08:00When name-calling is a beautiful thing<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px;">“</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Godfather,</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px;">”</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> he used to call me.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">“Sensei,” I was called by another young brother, years earlier.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">“Big Daddy, Dwight,” was one of my more recent appellations. It came from one of my many young charges who, like me once upon a time, chose journalism as a career with the expressed intention of making waves to change an unfair, racist world.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">“Obi Wan” is perhaps my most favorite nickname. Joe Gray calls me that whenever we talk. It’s not all that frequently these days. He’s really busy, working for Time, Inc., as a page editor. And, yes, he continues to make his mark in New York City, quite a few miles and decades from where we first worked together in Detroit.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">I hired Joe for his first full-time journalism job at the city’s business publishing group. As managing editor, I had just created the region’s first small-business magazine – and Joe was my stable’s only horse. The publication was wildly successful. Now Joe’s shepherding other young black journalists as an elected official with the National Association of Black Journalists. I couldn’t be more proud.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The guy who calls me “Godfather” is now a vice-president at Comcast. Neil Scarborough was a hot property almost 25 years ago when I tried – unsuccessfully – to recruit him to his hometown newspaper, The Record of Hackensack, N.J. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">And the cat who calls me “Big Daddy” – Corey G. Johnson – is now up for a Pulitzer in the investigative journalism category. A few years back as Corey switched careers, I helped train him to become a journalist.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">I like being called names by these young brothers, many of whom now are seeing the other side of 40. Back in the day, I recognized them for who they were and what they wanted to become, and I worked with them to help them achieve their dreams.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">But I was merely passing along the torch. That same torch lighted my way years earlier in the skilled hands of Paul Delaney. He was a national correspondent at The New York Times when he put my name forward to become a news clerk at the paper’s Washington Bureau. I took the job, wrote non-bylined pieces at every opportunity – and remembered his guiding hand and words mixed with an abundance of wisdom and good humor as I – we – launched my career.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">So, for all of my journalist friends who have no doubt propelled many careers in journalism, I have my own name for you: Hero. And I ask each of you to reach back one more time, because we need more young African Americans to help protect our democracy.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">We veterans worked hard for our newsrooms and for <i>all</i> the American people. Now it’s up to the young ones to keep America’s oft-failed promise alive.</span></div>
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Suggest your school emphasize entrepreneurialism even more than currently, because your children (yes, that's what they still are to us parents who send them to school) will be branded by a tarnished Penn State brand. Starting businesses will be the best way for PSU grads to be employed, so get going putting together a new plan to boost your business school. </div>
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As for the business world, one brand management executive says it will take 25 years for PSU to regain its good name. If so, then today's 17-year-old freshman will be 42 before cleansed from the scandal's dirty bathwater.</div>
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Imagine, 25 years, more than a generation. A generation without sympathy.</div>
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That's what you big shots at Penn State have wrought for your children. You all should seek redemption by cooperating with authorities and putting forth an honest effort to help, not hinder, investigations. Do so.....at any cost. </div>
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Remember, you are now in a "No Sympathy Zone" -- and it stretches more than a country mile in Happy Valley.</div>L'Observateurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14056155854527283954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905436494733895484.post-8980251767134598152011-11-12T08:39:00.001-08:002011-11-12T09:07:39.187-08:00Legacies Made and Gone<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">T</span></b>wo sporting Joes, both famous and toughly knit from Pennsylvania, died this week. They died in different ways, one whose body fell to illness, the other whose body of work fell to the illness of winning at all costs.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Joe Frazier succumbed to kidney cancer at age 67. Now after his last breath, the son of Philadelphia is being fondly remembered as a champion. His iron will matched an iron determination. He was consistent. He could be counted on in victory and defeat.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The same can’t be said for Joe Paterno, whose godlike, 46-year reign at Pennsylvania State University will live way beyond Paterno’s last moment on this earth.</span>He won’t be so fondly remembered, no matter what various courts of law and public opinion come to conclude.</div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">For decades, Paterno forged a football legacy of truth, honor, courage, commitment -- yes, sacrifice -- for the team. They won national championships and were bowl perennials. Penn State emulated the best of collegiate sports.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Now, way beyond the collegiate sports world, the globe has judged Paterno lacking, his legacy corrupt, the Penn State brand facing continued ignominy. Even Moody’s investments is considering a downgrade, considering untold court cases soon to make the school liable for millions of dollars in payments to the sex-abuse victims and their families.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">It is the Penn State family that will face the ultimate test. But they already have the answers. Just follow the truth/honor/courage/commitment/sacrifice mantra from here on out.</span><br />
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Those are the best embers to be taken from these sorry ashes. </div>L'Observateurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14056155854527283954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905436494733895484.post-33229155293334981782011-05-01T15:34:00.000-07:002011-10-21T12:35:18.121-07:00'Old School' All The Way<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My brother, Greg Lewis, is a paragon of strength and good humor. Today, I return from his intensive care bedside, not broken but humbled. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I know that God is on top of this, and I am somewhere near the middle of His universe. I know that Greg is now resting his final moments on His creation, and that soon my brother -- who always had sage answers for my undying queries -- will have that omnipresent answer that we all shall seek one day.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Greg Lewis and Rosa Parks, one of dozens of black luminaries</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Greg is old school. We met in North Carolina as a pioneering fivesome -- including Mae Israel, Ron Topping and Ken Campbell. I was the only one from "The North," and my alleged Yankee upbringing repulsed Greg and "Top" early on.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But not for long. We had so much in common. We were all race men, who tackled the white opposition in different venues and always came out superior. Then came the Ku Klux Klan and American Nazi Party to Greensboro in November 1979. We covered the heck out of the story, to the point that at least one of our senior editors was trading our intelligence to the FBI after five people were shot dead in the city's streets during a public protest. (The assailants were never criminally convicted.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Our coverage was tight, and we were named Pulitzer Prize finalists and won the National Headliners Award. We were young and oh-so- awfully good.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I could go on and on about how Greg has inspired me, how our friendship spanned decades and miles, how our phone conversations always ended with, "I Love You."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Never said that to any other man. None other were so worthy.</span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(Here is the link about Greg from Richard Prince's "Journal-isms" blog.)</span></i></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span"></span><a class="twitter-timeline-link" href="http://t.co/yZT0bVz" rel="nofollow" style="color: blue; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank" title="http://mije.org/richardprince/nbc-stands-trump-coverage-apprentice/"><span style="color: #2d76b9;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">http://t.co/yZT0bVz</span></span></a></span></i></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4KMhx96TD70/TqHB3joro0I/AAAAAAAAACA/eiuIMaHwsn8/s1600/6a01116837a6c2970c01543268153c970c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a></div>L'Observateurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14056155854527283954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905436494733895484.post-22199418251182019742010-09-29T21:21:00.000-07:002010-09-29T21:24:25.272-07:00Cheap Lives<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">W</span></b>hat gives with kids wanting to gang? </span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; ">Well, for one thing, these aren't kids, even though chronologically they may be under 18. They have been living adult lives for most of their existence, perpetrating crime and mayhem with the solid belief that they can get away with murder because of their young ages.<br /><br />Bring back harsher sentencing to youths. And stop expunging their juvie records just because they were allegedly too young to know the severity of their crimes.<br /><br />These "kids" are adults, plain and simple. Treat them so, and some of these barbarous acts will lessen.<br /><br />And for all of you bangers, stop celebrating death with T-shirts and makeshift shrines of cheap wine, cheap teddy bears and cheap balloons.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; ">It only cheapens the lost life.</span></div>L'Observateurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14056155854527283954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905436494733895484.post-14984276332691301792010-09-14T23:06:00.001-07:002010-09-15T00:32:36.161-07:00Fenty = Fool<div>Adrian Fenty will go down in political history as someone who squandered a $5 million war chest, the absolute goodwill of the city's electorate and the consensus that the city was moving in the right direction. (Oh, yes, and he squandered the "influential" endorsements of The WaPo, et al.)</div><div><br /></div><div>All because he was tone deaf....for years. Tone deaf = Arrogance!</div><div><br /></div><div>Deaf about inclusion. Deaf about working with the City Council. Absolutely, stupidly deaf when playing by his rules instead of the rules of the order. He held this city hostage for years. </div><div><br /></div><div>He never met with the city's congressional delegation. Why, when we in the city need Congress to understand our issues? He opened schools and the city government with FEET of snow on the ground last winter, forcing his employees to take personal leave. Never mind that Metro was shut down and the federal government had decided to give employees administrative leave.</div><div><br /></div><div>He traveled overseas -- yet the people never knew where he was until after he returned. He went to Dubai and China on those countries' dimes. (The Dubai visit was especially a case of tone deafness when he went to a tennis tournament where an Israeli had been banned.)</div><div><br /></div><div>He kept his family under wraps -- until a few weeks ago when it became politically expedient and his wife cried before cameras, saying she couldn't understand why people had turned on him. Deaf, she too!</div><div><br /></div><div>All along, Fenty told the media to take a hike when it came to his family. Deaf!</div><div><br /></div><div>The Nationals baseball tickets was just the wicked tip of the Fenty Titanic. Throughout these last four years Fenty has told his agency heads not to cooperate with the City Council on even the most routine of matters. He hid information.</div><div><br /></div><div>And, yes, he knew about that fire truck donation to the Dominican Republic. And, yes, he knew that his cronies were going to get tons of cash for no work under the cover of city construction contracts. </div><div><br /></div><div>Yes, his administration has played with crime statistics. Yes, there are more unfulfilled Freedom of Information Act requests from citizens and the media -- even though Fenty promised in his campaign that he would run a "transparent" administration out of the Wilson Building.</div><div><br /></div><div>I have watched this human disintegration with relish these last weeks. Fenty created this train wreck because he is an arrogant jerk. </div><div><br /></div><div>He skipped Abe Polin's memorial service. He dissed Dorothy Height and Maya Angelou, who sought an audience with him to help resolve the Southeast Tennis and Learning Center eviction that his administration handed down.</div><div><br /></div><div>Pettiness + Arrogance = Not another 4 years.</div><div><br /></div><div>His godfather, Peter Nickles, helped take Adrian down this road to ruin. Nickles did not represent the city as the attorney general; he represented his boy king. They belong together, and now they can find new ways to disempower the people.</div><div><br /></div><div>Today, the voters are the ultimate victors. And for those who want to paint this as a black-white thing, believe me it's not. Many people of all racial identities have been stepped on by this man, and they told their friends, relatives, church/synagogue/temple/mosque members, they told their sorors and frats, they told their relatives....and many took to the streets to ensure Vince Gray would win.</div><div><br /></div><div>It wasn't because the Gray campaign promised anything. It's just that WE, THE PEOPLE, can't take four more years of Adrian Fenty's brand of corruption, cronyism and lack of critical thinking.</div><div><br /></div><div>Bye, Adrian. Hope you never even THINK about entering political office again. If you do, no "Apology Tour," no Washington Post endorsement, no matter of money will be believable. </div><div><br /></div><div>Fenty Arrogance = Comeuppance. </div><div><br /></div><div>Oh, Happy Day!</div><div><br /></div>L'Observateurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14056155854527283954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905436494733895484.post-47609421513764807022010-08-30T17:24:00.000-07:002010-08-30T17:26:24.226-07:00Katrina - 5 Years And Counting<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: medium; "></span><tr><td colspan="2" width="434" valign="top" align="left" class="largeBlack" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: bold; line-height: normal; font-family:Arial;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Note to readers: On this, the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, I thought it noteworthy to reprise this editorial, which ran in black newspapers throughout America immediately after the 2005 catastrophe.</span><br /></span><br /></span></i></td></tr><tr><td valign="top" align="left" width="434" height="150" class="article" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-family:Arial;font-size:9pt;"><span class="LargerHeadline" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; line-height: normal; font-family:Arial;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; "><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">ANALYSIS</span></span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Media Hurricane is Spinning Out of Control</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span><span class="smallArticle" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-family:Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">by Dwight Cunningham<br /></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">NNPA Special Contributor<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">WASHINGTON (NNPA) – Watching TV newscasts on Hurricane Katrina’s devastation, I am struck by the media’s obvious tilt to covering the story of lawlessness rather than the bigger story of people who had little in the way of material things before Hurricane Katrina – and who have now been reduced to having nothing at all.<br /><br />It seems the story fast became law enforcement’s inability to maintain law and order during a catastrophe, rather than the story of utter human despair in America.<br /><br />Clearly, the survivor/refugee/rescue/recovery story has taken a back seat as images of Black people – to be sure, poor Black people – is “A” roll material, fed<br />continuously to a ravenous audience.<br /><br />Just as clearly, those indelible images of desperate Black Americans are attempts to vividly portray Black America at its worst.<br />“Wild gangs” and the “urban menace,” Fox newscaster Bill O’Reilly proclaimed, were hurting search-and-rescue attempts.<br /><br />The media is cementing those filtered words and images into the nation’s conscious. So that someday, when congressional hearings and blue-ribbon presidential panels are formed, such biased reporting will be used to formulate policy that could prove equally disastrous to Black America.<br /><br />Who is monitoring today’s coverage? Is it the National Association of Black Journalists, for example, in a real concise, scientific way? That group and other respected journalistic organizations should be in the monitoring mode. Right now!<br /><br />I worry about who is going to tell the story of the recovery effort and its impact on Black America. Will there be equal treatment, or no treatment at all, when federal and insurance dollars trickle in, whenever that is?<br /><br />For the media, and left to our own devices, you can believe there will be huge gaps in the information chain.<br /><br />In the past week, many times I have watched commentators with no new “news” to report. They are just rehashing what is mostly already out there, speculating to no one but themselves.<br /><br />There is pitifully little in the way of racial diversity from the newscasters. Heck, as far as story content, Tuesday night, MSNBC’s anchor opened up the Katrina coverage saying there was also breaking news out of Aruba on the Natalie Hollaway story.<br /><br />Again I ask: Who will cover Black America and the myriad angles as this story unfolds?<br /><br />No doubt, Black households across the nation are dusting off spare rooms and sending Moneygrams to displaced family members. No doubt, people will need to be buried, yet there will be no money to bury them. Sick people will continue to die, perhaps needlessly, because the authorities did not mobilize as quickly as possible.<br /><br />Yet, have you heard a “talking head” psychologist or trauma expert opine about the emotional distress our fellow Americans are under? By the way, when have they been referred to as fellow countrymen?<br /><br />We hear them called “refugees” or “evacuees,” words used to disassociate them from the hard, cold fact that these are Americans perishing before our unbelieving eyes.<br /><br />We have brothers and sisters whose collective lifestyles resembled a Third World nation – even before the hurricane hit. They were already living paycheck to paycheck. They didn’t leave the city because they couldn’t afford $2.75-a-gallon gas. They saw the huge parking lot on the interstates during the weekend evacuation, and decided to hunker down and pray.<br /><br />And now they are dead. Or missing. Many others are certainly displaced and maybe perpetually homeless. They are engaged in basic human survival. And they need their elected officials to help.<br /><br />This is the time for a democracy and the journalists protected under the First Amendment to embrace their basic ideals. For all the people. But will that be the case as the months, even years, go by, if no few Black journalists get to be truth tellers ?<br /><br />The Black journalists association and other such groups may, at some point, look back and decry what the Fourth Estate failed to do. Or the organization can be a true journalistic leader by putting resources forth – today – to be a watchdog for Black America.<br /><br />This is the worst calamity to ever befall the nation in my lifetime. Not the often deadly acts encompassing this nation’s struggle for civil rights. Not the King assassination and its riotous aftermath. And not the 9/11 terror attacks on New York and Washington – nothing matches what we are witnessing in the Deep South.<br /><br />Sadly, this calamity increasingly has a Black face. Judging from the media’s long history of ignoring minorities, I wonder whether we will really witness and hear unvarnished truth in the months ahead.<br /><br />Or will the networks, newspapers, bloggers, talk radio, etc., be involved in pack journalism in a watershed event for Black America and the nation as a whole?<br /><br />If I could wave a magic wand, I would dispatch a team of journalists soon – preferably in the next two to three weeks – to the disaster zone to begin covering the biggest story of the century and how it impacts 2 million Black Americans.<br /><br />Undertaking such a major effort can inform the continuing national dialogue on life after Hurricane Katrina. Numerous human stories will not be covered in the months ahead, such as chronicling the lives of a Black family uprooted and relocated. Will journalists explore whether Black residents of the Gulf South will get a fair share of newly created jobs in the unprecedented rebuilding effort ahead? Who will monitor – watchdog – the distribution of aid, of federal funds, of state and volunteer efforts to rebound?<br /><br />When the media does come around, betcha’ they get to happily film rich neighborhoods in suburban New Orleans receiving their first FEMA checks – but won’t dare ask when the Black folks from Lower Ward 9 will get theirs.<br /><br />Who will do the relocation stories, and what will they say? Who will look for disparate treatment among the races and locales? What media organization, amid continuous corporate downsizing, will expend the resources to embed reporters and photographers to chronicle the biggest disaster in the history of the United States?<br /><br />As a veteran journalist who has covered disasters, my concern runs deep that the Fourth Estate is on the way to missing a seminal opportunity to do its First Amendment job. Witnessing the churn of obvious media bias, I shudder to believe that the media will do a fair job of reporting this compelling human story.<br /><br />I urge journalism foundations to seriously consider this watchdog task. In past years, they have made sincere attempts to racially and ethnically integrate American newsrooms, believing that strategy would add to better, fairer coverage.<br /><br />And it has worked over the past 30 years. Oddly, much of that diversity fervor was generated after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. The nation’s newspapers found they had few Black journalists to get the story of riots and the human despair that helped trigger such an explosive reaction.<br /><br />Many White journalists were just too downright scared to go into the ghetto to do the job.<br /><br />So many newspaper janitors and porters became reporters. And a movement grew to recruit more Black journalists to give a fairer and more accurate picture of what was going on in the nation’s cities and towns. Today, an even stronger effort should be marshaled to give a journalistic watchdog voice to the voiceless.<br /><br />My concern runs deep that the Fourth Estate may miss a seminal opportunity to do its First Amendment job. Witnessing the churn of obvious media bias thus far, I am concerned that the media will continue to do a dishonest job of reporting this compelling human story.<br /><br />The soul of American journalism is at stake.<br /><br /></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Dwight Cunningham is a veteran newspaper and magazine journalist and journalism educator. He is spending a year at the Freedom Forum Diversity Institute in Nashville, Tenn. as training editor.</span></i></td></tr>L'Observateurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14056155854527283954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905436494733895484.post-74280591474314147762010-07-25T10:03:00.001-07:002010-07-25T10:09:22.254-07:00Thank You, Keith Olbermann<div style="padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 10px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; background-color: transparent; font-family: arial; font-size: 13px; color: black; "><br />I am a former journalist, who helped racially integrate The Greensboro Daily News in the 1970s, who was the first black man to become an editor at The Miami Herald (that was '84), who was the lone black editor at The (Bergen) Record in Hacksensack, N.J. and, even then, became a reporter to live in a public housing development in Paterson, N.J. to chronicle the arrival of a new drug called crack. <div style="clear: both; "></div><div><br /></div><div>It was 1985, and my senior editors back then didn't think there was much to covering this drug epidemic. I had weeks of notes detailing that this was serious stuff, that 5,000 people were warehoused in a den of dope and a nexus of crime just short of murder. </div><div><br /></div><div>Of course, my white editors didn't see it coming, but I did. Then, and tragically fortunate, came the death of Len Bias. He died of a coke overdose and -- SUDDENLY! -- my white editors got religion. They allowed me to spend six months eating, sleeping and "gathering string" for our ground-breaking series, "The Poisoning of a City."</div><div><br /></div><div>It won no awards, because the editors didn't submit the series, newsroom politics being alive in well at this same newspaper that wrote "Goetz Vindicated" as a banner headline the day after he was found not guilty for shooting four young black robbers on a New York City subway train.</div><div><br /></div><div>Not much has changed in journalism. Knee-jerk, feeble-minded -- and purportedly left-leaning -- journalists make those same sorry decisions on what's important or not for news consumers. They ignore, perhaps conveniently, the hard stories. Now, even more driven by the bottom line than ever, they push for instant gratification in the form of page views, or "hits," or some other metric that only God, Allah and Buddha together can understand. </div><div><br /></div><div>Yet, as always, human lives are at stake. And nowhere have I seen the outrage more than in your recent take on the Shirley Sherrod debacle. </div><div><br /></div><div>Thank you, sir. A hundred times thanks. The Fourth Estate has now morphed into some "Fifth Estate," as much a "Fifth Element" as the Bruce Willis sci-fi flick, and just as weird. </div><div><br /></div><div>I just finished watching Howard Kurtz's "Reliable Sources" segment on the paucity of African-American journalists at the cable and network news tables in prime time. </div><div><br /></div><div>Nothing much has changed, has it? </div><div><br /></div><div>If you need a producer who knows how to get the story, I know a few -- some of whom are African American -- who can get the job done with vigor, ethics, creativity and courtesy, when such tact is needed. After all, isn't it still about covering the people, all the people, all the time?</div><div><br /></div><div>Our job, as Joseph Pulitzer said, is "to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted."</div><div><br /></div><div>Most of those in journalism have lost their way. Clearly, you are on truth's road. Continue to drop bread crumbs for journalism's wayward souls.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>L'Observateurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14056155854527283954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905436494733895484.post-66177149908014155472010-06-23T13:32:00.000-07:002013-05-30T12:41:50.060-07:00Of lies and war<div style="text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;">Gen. Stanley McChrystal lied to the parents of Pat Tillman and he aided the coverup of his unfortunate death in Afghanistan. He lied to the loved ones of hundreds of casualties in the prosecution of war. Then he goes forward to tell Rolling Stone that his civilian bosses were essentially a bunch of clowns and he knew better how to win hearts and minds.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;">The conundrum of Afghanistan and the West is and always will be a Gordian Knot. Backward in thinking and in deed, the Afghans are rooted in the past. For McChrystal to believe that he possessed some kind of answer to this age-old dilemma and to have the sand to tell off his Pentagon and White House chiefs in the press shows that he too is rooted in the past -- and perhaps smoking some opium as well. Give him a drug test, will someone please? Then knock off one of those stars. Bust him down to lieutenant general and kick him out of the military. He is a disgrace who cared not one whit about his men and women in uniform.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: small;">This clown would not have made it in Vietnam, another failed enterprise that took too many from us. But at least we Vietnam vets had the guts to keep our mouths shut, even as our own people blasphemed our service. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: small;">That is true honor. McChrystal has none.</span></div>
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L'Observateurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14056155854527283954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905436494733895484.post-75430337753665987892010-05-07T19:47:00.000-07:002010-05-28T20:29:11.883-07:00"F" TroopIt was the 1960s when a popular TV comedy, "'F' Troop" entertained the masses. They were corrupt, comedic and cowardly, the way they fraternized with Native Americans who were keenly smarter than the boys in the fort. It was a time of civil rights, Vietnam and aspirations for a better American day. <div><br /></div><div>Today, I have a new "'F Troop," and I am not amused. These troopers are my failing or mediocre journalism students at Howard University in Washington. They don't know that mid-term elections come every two years, that 33 (or 34) U.S. Senate seats are up for grabs, that "ensure" means something totally different than "insure" -- and they don't care about their collective ignorance. </div><div><br /></div><div>They just want a passing grade, to get them to some unknown next level of stupid oblivion.</div><div><br /></div><div>I don't get it. I don't understand how we as Black Americans could have let this happen at Howard University, so called "The Mecca" of black higher education. If this is the Mecca, then Mohammed must be in Acapulco. Although my journalism class, called "Reporting & Writing," ended at 7:30 p.m. twice a week, I routinely stayed hours later to provide one-on-one coaching.</div><div>To no avail for many of my troopers.</div><div><br /></div><div>They would rather watch "The Bad Girls Club" on the Macs in the lab rather than take in "The Elements of Style," an online news site or anything else that would enrich their learning.</div><div><br /></div><div>I saw this early on, when my class was overfilled to 24 students; it usually only holds 16. But so intent was the administration to just take their money, clearly those higher on the academic food chain didn't care a whit about higher learning, either. Still, I provided coaching and mentoring, and warned those clearly failing -- frequently - that "fat meat is greasy" if they didn't believe that their sad ways would be enshrined as "Fs."</div><div><br /></div><div>They didn't believe. They didn't do the work, either, despite the first page of my syllabus urging them to seek knowledge instead of just a letter grade. They skipped classes. It took extra effort to get them to read the bible of journalism, the AP Stylebook. It took even more effort and time to grade their papers, word for word, line for line, and pick up every little error for their own betterment. That was my weekend rigor these last four months. </div><div><br /></div><div>Apparently, many never got the memo that I would not accept mediocrity or their collective BS. They got their "F" grades, deservedly and sadly for all America in this age of journalism that allows blogs to pass for the real deal. </div><div><br /></div><div>They also lack ethics. One student had her parents travel from the South to plead her case to university officials. She somehow believed they could argue for her to receive a passing grade, despite my pronouncements that I would not be compromised. She even got the athletic department's academic advisor to reach out to me because she told her that I refused to engage in a dialogue to hear a final plea. Oh, and one final thought: Her final news story quoted her own mother as one of her news sources.</div><div><br /></div><div>I emailed the advisor back that all this effort was 13th-hour drama, that the student had ample time and my attention during the semester and that I would not change the "F"." The advisor thanked me, explaining that she had not been told <i>the whole story</i>. And I never revealed to anyone except the department chair that the student had used a relative as a news source.</div><div><br /></div><div>Credibility has nothing to do with them getting a grade, they believe. Doing the work has nothing to do with making the grade. </div><div><br /></div><div>Yes, this is about the whole story.....for all the people. But who will accurately tell <i>our</i> story, I repeatedly asked my class, 90 percent of whom were females from Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Boston and points in between. Sixty percent passed -- and I use that term loosely -- because they at least demonstrated some effort.</div><div><br /></div><div>The "F" Troopers, on the other hand, will be back to take the course for a second, third and, yes, even a fourth try. They told me so in their personal tales of travail of having to deal with other professors who, they claimed, either wouldn't or didn't teach them what they needed to succeed.</div><div><br /></div><div>Dear parents, please don't send your kids off to college expecting some miraculous transformation. Don't think for an iota that we professors have some magic potion that will allow them to drink in knowledge or that we can provide sustenance that will get them out of school and into a well-paying job. It's not so, because fat meat is greasy and I'm not easy.</div>L'Observateurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14056155854527283954noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905436494733895484.post-14047062630533408122010-02-06T20:08:00.000-08:002013-10-24T09:57:59.826-07:00Weather sideways<div><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">Plopped sideways in the snow, the yardstick is more than half buried this February, and I am awed by the power of wisdom and foolishness. I won't be among the bravehearty legion who believe they can surmount snowdrifts, black ice and bad drivers. They won't be able to, we know, as we will watch spinning tires and carooming vehicles sliding sideways and upside down.</span></div><div><br></div><div>Perhaps -- indeed, yes, Nature deserves a capital "N" to connote Nasty. How else to explain that which transforms humans into beasts of privilege who stage snowball fights at Dupont Circle, who clog supermarket parking lots for the perceived Last Supper, and who dare travel when common sense says stay home for the day after tomorrow after tomorrow?</div><div><br></div><div>I, for one, will do just that. I will mercifully cancel Monday's class before any official authorizes it. </div><div><br></div><div>When conditions go sideways, common sense always needs to plow straight ahead.</div>L'Observateurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14056155854527283954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905436494733895484.post-22266017778740680192009-11-06T10:12:00.000-08:002013-10-24T09:54:34.293-07:00GregGreg<br><br>We are the 3 Musketeers, African-American journalist-style. We took from the rich and gave to the poor, mirroring Joseph Pulitzer's dictum to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable."<br>We did it with a commitment to Black Folks, poor folks, all folks who wanted and needed the truth told.<br>Now us 3 Musketeers are again challenged, this time by "The Big C." It took Topp, our dear friend Ron Topping at age 42. It threatened me nine years ago, when a surgeon awakened me to say that what we thought was kidney cancer indeed was. Now Greg.<br><br>Lord, give us peace and strength and courage and wisdom and freedom from pain and.....<br><br>Lord, take us when you're ready to start a GREAT! newspaper in Heaven.L'Observateurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14056155854527283954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905436494733895484.post-39994529463558372402009-07-03T21:32:00.000-07:002010-06-07T22:01:24.419-07:00MichaelMichael Jackson powered the world on his artistry, and now that his drug-corroded battery has given out, his fans are left to their hearts and pocketbooks.<br /><br />While they grieve for his soul, they seethe for those sycophants and bloodsuckers who snared his earthly being. Throughout life, Michael Jackson just wanted to give -- because he was deprived of such gifts from those closest to him.<br /><br />He was left to fend for himself, a genius in search of his soul. The irony is that while his fans found him, Michael never found himself. His was a pale skeleton shadowing a childhood never obtained. His was a life mistaken by tabloid innuendo but nonetheless an existence of pain and much sorrow.<br /><br />So pray now for Michael, and continue to joyfully pay when you buy his masterpieces. New generations have joined their grandparents in hearing pop classics crooned by a once and future king.<br /><br />That Michael's music is once again atop the charts is a singular achievement likely never again to be achieved. "Billy Jean," "Thriller," "Man in the Mirror," "Lady in My Life," "Off the Wall" -- no, I never will say goodbye, Michael.L'Observateurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14056155854527283954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905436494733895484.post-4982581240703683602009-04-12T16:27:00.000-07:002009-04-12T16:32:48.114-07:00TeachingWhat gives with today's collegian? Entitlement is their new merit badge. No work, no sweat. Don't show up to class. No sweat. Take a mere passing grade. No problem.<br /><br />In years of teaching, never have I witnessed such a passive group of individuals who expect nothing from themselves, yet they expect the world will be their oyster.<br /><br />And these are future journalists of color, who care less about AP Style than they do about learning the "stinky leg."<br /><br />For my part, it is time to cut the professorial cord. No problem.L'Observateurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14056155854527283954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905436494733895484.post-76694089184832738252009-04-12T07:31:00.000-07:002011-12-05T16:37:36.843-08:00PiracyComes the horsemen of the Somali <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">apocalypse</span>, in dinghy and dhow in the middle of the vast Indian Ocean, lethal weaponry at hand after hijacking an American freighter and taking its captain as hostage.<br />
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Comes the U.S. Navy, FBI, CIA, State Department and goodness knows who else, while foreign navies watch the world's lone superpower held at bay for days by four paltry buccaneers.<br />
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They are from a Third World mess. but as close to a Fourth World catastrophe. Still, these are a people bent on providing a learning experience for the U.S. We are experts at war, much less so whenever we're in the middle of Mideast or African cat-and-mouse drama.<br />
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Now Navy warships and drones monitor every breath. That's a lot of technology for an ancient people.<br />
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We went into Somalia a few years ago to keep the peace. When that didn't work, we had a shot, a real deadly shot at the Somali brass and lost it primarily because we lost a few GIs. Their heroim saluted, we should have gone into Somali like the gangbusters we were in Iraq, then unleashed our own brand of nation building on the Horn of Africa.<br />
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Would have worked, too. For sure, we would have stood a better shot than that tribal curse of Sunni, Shiite and Kurd in Iraq.<br />
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Now we have only ourselves to blame. Because no matter how the hijackers of the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Maersk</span> Alabama fare against the American Navy, the United States will have a stern challenge in dealing with the poorest of the poor, a growing population who have no saner choice than to resort to piracy -- or terrorism -- to survive.L'Observateurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14056155854527283954noreply@blogger.com0