Of lies and war

 

 

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.

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.

 

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.

 

That is true honor. McChrystal has none.

"F" Troop

It 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.

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.

They just want a passing grade, to get them to some unknown next level of stupid oblivion.

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.

To no avail for many of my troopers.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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 the whole story. And I never revealed to anyone except the department chair that the student had used a relative as a news source.

Credibility has nothing to do with them getting a grade, they believe. Doing the work has nothing to do with making the grade.

Yes, this is about the whole story.....for all the people. But who will accurately tell our 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.

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.

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.

Weather sideways

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.

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?

I, for one, will do just that. I will mercifully cancel Monday's class before any official authorizes it.

When conditions go sideways, common sense always needs to plow straight ahead.

Greg

Greg

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."
We did it with a commitment to Black Folks, poor folks, all folks who wanted and needed the truth told.
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.

Lord, give us peace and strength and courage and wisdom and freedom from pain and.....

Lord, take us when you're ready to start a GREAT! newspaper in Heaven.

Michael

Michael 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Teaching

What 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.

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.

And these are future journalists of color, who care less about AP Style than they do about learning the "stinky leg."

For my part, it is time to cut the professorial cord. No problem.

Piracy

Comes the horsemen of the Somali apocalypse, 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.

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.

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.

Now Navy warships and drones monitor every breath. That's a lot of technology for an ancient people.

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.

Would have worked, too. For sure, we would have stood a better shot than that tribal curse of Sunni, Shiite and Kurd in Iraq.

Now we have only ourselves to blame. Because no matter how the hijackers of the Maersk 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.