Look Ma!!! No Hands!!!

Look Ma... No hands!!!" is on occasion, an exclamation that accompanies declarations of independence from children who've gotten the hang of riding a bicycle without the support of a teaching parent! Some mom's upon hearing this declaration recognize it as that inevitable and ceremonious "flying of the coop" for their children. A second and final "cutting the cord" if you will... the first being the physical severing of the connection between them at childbirth.

Ironic that this statement emblazons upon the psyche of the mother the delusion that there are no longer any VISIBLE LINES OF SUPPORT! Ironic to me because that tag-line: "no visible lines of support" was used by Playtex during the late 70s as part of a marketing of brassieres that provided lift without looking like they did. Mom's whose bodies had grown distorted from their pre-childbirth forms worked hard to show how easy it was to look like they never did...(carry, nurture, deliver, nurse, care for and educate) their newly independent children.

Sadly ironic is that the actions of both mother and child were at once absolute and abstract. Absolute in that the intent of child saying I can do this all on my own, and of mom showing off something close to a pre-pregnancy physique were declarations of independence. And in an abstract sort of way... declarations of interdependence whereupon no matter how loudly the child proclaimed or how obvious the mother works to look like she hasn't had children...there will always be that connection!

There will always be a mother's love that keeps her child in the fold. That always keeps her empty nest crowded with children who're "All Growed Up"[sic]. This connection will always be cause a woman's intuition notwithstanding...a mother's love is longsuffering, full of worry for all that could happen to her child. The strings to her heart cannot be surgically severed...
She will ALWAYS worry about her children, and she will always have emotional ties that will forever bind them one to another!

The question then (and the point of this post) is; what becomes of a mother's love when it's transposed to one who's not of her womb? How is that same concern for others, often to the detriment of self, managed? To wit, the question of being SUPPORTIVE is "crazy!!!" as one such mother is fond of saying...when the person being supported is not a child and worse still...is a GROWN ASS MAN!!!!(GAM) When the only reason the mother with her own, sometimes overwhelming, set of responsibilities are compromised...because he (the aforementioned GAM) is DISTRACTING!!! When as a matter of happenstance...a void of affections focused solely on the mother is filled, and she feels every bit the WOMAN that MOTHERHOOD had pushed to the proverbial BACK BURNER! Ironically, I just got a text message from one such mother and she says matter of factly...that the woman inside is dying to get out and to be fulfilled...to live life for herself!!!

Here's the tangent, that is the point of this post! I find myself in dire straits...and ideologically scrambling to reclaim the MOJO that made me desirous in spite of my diminutive stature! I am quite confident about who I am, cocky even...but it seems during the past year of living dangerously...I've barely been able to manage my affairs, alternately looking for work in corporate Amerikkka and struggling to get my IT consultancy off the ground. In the end I reached a tipping point which caused my life to fall like a house of cards. In the aftermath...a beautiful woman shone to be the direction I should go...moreso than my muse... it became obvious that she was the mate to my soul. We began to plan for our future together
And as we became more comfortable, we opened up more to one another about gaps that required filling.

The more gaps were filled, the more gaps became apparent...until one day it was obvious that we were further apart than when we'd begun our collective Sojourn of Truth. As these things are want to do from time to time...we went our separate ways and at first it was quite unpleasant!! Today however, it seems we understand why things happened the way the did; that Nothing worth having is going to be easy! We are now revisiting the feelings of love we've had for one another since we first met in cyberspace!

We met and connected in cyberspace...she: the mysterious intellectual from the city of brotherly love, me: the bohemian technocrat from the windy city...living in the charm city! Again she texts me...suggesting I'm being inconsiderate by not yielding on things that I was previously unyielding on! I don't know what will come of us...I hope and pray we get together and soon, cause I miss her terribly! But having been through the past month of few highs and far too many lows...I am willing to take the risk to show that I too dream a life where she and I are together as Man and Woman, Wife and Husband. And I can only do this when I know that the only questions of support are those re: our collective endeavors and us supporting one another in pursuing them. And that the only strings attached to our relationship are the ones from our hearts. I know she doesn't need my financial support, but my emotional state and it's need for support from my life partner is inversely proportional to my ability to financially support myself and participate equally in the dispensation of the day to day! I dream a life with her as my soulmate where we are riding a bicycle built for two and I can declare our interdependence on one another by saying quite simply: "Look Ma, no hands!!!"

Conversations with my Wife

The brilliance of Spike Lee's Mo' Betta Blues never shone more brightly for me than this morning as my wife and I discussed relating to people.
Our discussion covered a plethora (she likes that word) of topics; from Steve Urkel's "String to my heart" line on the old "FAMILY MATTERS" sitcom and it's influence on our relationship... to a deeper understanding of the philosophy of Yin/Yang. Somewhere in the midst of that conversation however we began to discuss our efforts to engage in intellectual conversations with people outside our circle of influence. She told me about a book club she hosted before we were married where six women came together with the expressed purpose of discussing their interpretations and/or reactions as they read the books selected. They only got through two books, because neither of the two meetings she hosted had discussion about the books "read". It seems conversation amongst the group was dominated by gossip, about who was pregnant by whom at their job! It was at this point that we shot off together on a tangent to revisit the quote which goes: "Great Minds talk about Ideas, Average Minds talk about Events & Small Minds...talk about People!" It was a short trip and upon returning to our focus (which from the range of topics wasn't very focused) continued with her saying that she was told she "chases people away" and "that she's too mean"! This was in relation to her response (out of frustration) that since neither of the book club meetings had accomplished anything relating to the original purpose...that she was no longer going to host them! We are of like mind on this matter since both of us crave intellectual exchanges that move us toward a brighter tomorrow.

We don't presuppose ourselves to be on the vanguard of some New Millennium Afrocentric Renaissance...No, we've not accomplished artistic brilliance the likes of Harlem Renaissance luminaries....though; like Hamlet considering suicide over murder... have intimated: "'tis a consummation devoutly to be wished!" We do however believe there is nothing wrong with having lofty aspirations. Yes we understand the state of Blacks in America is dire...and we have not distanced ourselves from that struggle to achieve unadulterated equality...how could we!? As Blacks (while on the subject...doesn't that LABEL seem so limiting?) we've collectively been on a crash course with annihilation and It is only through erstwhile futile efforts like her book club that change can be affected from the inside out! Therefore if you set goals and find that even progress toward those goals is a flickering flame it seems like common sense to suggest that changes be made.

And so it was this morning as we discussed her decision to make the seemingly drastic change of disbanding the book club that a light bulb went off in my head! In the interest of full disclosure I am an unofficial All Things Apple evangelist. To that end, I have a playlist in my iTunes library that i loaded onto my 'Jesus Phone' last year. One song on my workout playlist is from the "Things Fall Apart" album by the Philadelphia Hip Hop group The Roots. It's actually not even a song...but a snippet from the aforementioned Mo' Betta Blues movie. For those of you who've seen it: it's where Bleek (Denzel Washington) and Shadow (Wesley Snipes) are debating CHANGE as it relates to the dilemma of artistic integrity (Bleek's perspective) or financial success (Shadow's perspective). For those of you who haven't...the exchange follows:

Bleek: But we don't even come to see our own. Do you know if we had to depend upon Black people to eat we would starve to death! I mean you been out there, you on the bandstand you look out into the audience what do you see? You see Japanese, you see West Germans...Slavovic; Anything except our people! It makes no sense, It incenses me that OUR OWN PEOPLE don't realize OUR OWN HERITAGE, OUR OWN CULTURE; this is OUR music!!!
Shadow: That's Bullshit!!
Bleek: Why?
Shadow: That is all bullsh, everything, everything you just said is bullshit! I mean you complain about the ...
Bleek: I'm talking 'bout the audience!!
Shadow: That's right! The PEOPLE don't come, because you GRANDIOSE muthafuckas don't play the shit that they like...if you played the shit that they like then the People would come...Simple as that!!!
On The Roots' album...they follow that discourse with a comment on the state of Hip Hop music as an art form descended from Jazz and it's maltreatment by the larger record industry.
"Inevitably Hip Hop records are treated as though they are disposable. They're not maximized as product even...ya know not to mention as ART!"

I could pontificate about the intent or hidden meaning behind The Roots' selection of these pieces on an album titled after Chinua Achebe's magnum opus, but it seems pretty clear, and if you're still reading...I dare not to insult your intelligence. What I would like to do is challenge you to revisit the film, and discover the mastery with which Spike Lee personifies artistic integrity as Bleek ....and offers up antagonism in the form of Shadow representing financial success. The selection even of names with Bleek as tacit acknowledgement of the future for those who hold true to artistic integrity and with Shadow as an indictment of those who sell their souls for fast money. Sheer brilliance which did not hit me until this morning while making love to my wife with words, and phrases and ideas. Language and communication are powerful tools which could give flight to a brighter tomorrow, but more often than not serve as weapons of mass destruction. Hopes and dreams are laid waste to daily and we become party to the destruction each time we attempt to clip the wings of those who dare to soar above the mundane. I suppose in closing that I'd like to open a dialog with people out there like my wife so that we know we're not alone!

it ain't [sic] easy bein' green!

Kermit the Frog laments in song: "it ain't easy being green...but today corporate strategies all suggest they're in tune with the environment and most have done this quite simply by slapping the color green on their brands. A tacit assertion of earth friendliness, easily done. A sleight of hand or wave of a digital wand to reinvent themselves overnight. Automobile manufacturers too are emphasizing environmental friendliness with their ads. And when there is no redeeming environmental value...one is often implied by omission. Take Hummer's latest ad's featuring the H3. They show the H3 with the family on a low impact cruise over rocks and streams out communing with nature. Irony is that these ads are still irresponsible! Let's drive a vehicle with poor fuel economy and an ever expanding carbon footprint out into nature and kill a few more trees! I thought the whole point of communing with nature was to get away from vehicles and breath in fresh air; not force nature to breath it's last breaths! Hummers are some of the most egregious violations of corporate responsibility! The H2 has EPA fuel efficiency numbers of 10 city / 13 highway...and with those very generous allowances that's still 3.4 metric tons of carbon emissions in a year. Further, the 8500 lb weight of the vehicle would destroy most any vehicle and the occupants therein in a collision. If that's not enough...pouring salt into the wounds would be the fact that current federal tax laws reward you more for buying an H2 than if you were to buy an electric vehicle. Chrysler and Dodge with their 300 and Charger or Cadillac with their sexy adds asking "...does it return the favor?" also pander to the worst kinds of market activity. But are the manufacturers of these weapons of mass destruction solely to blame? It is like Kevin Costner's character in "Field of Dreams" that "If you build it...they will come!" But does that make it right!? Further does it make sense that the 300 million or so citizens of the US(roughly 5% of the world population(~6 billion)) (191 million licensed drivers in 2000) account for 25% of the world's fuel consumption? How long will this idiocy last? Where is environmental stewardship? Why haven't we ratified the Kyoto Protocol of the the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change? Even India and China have ratified this protocol which intends to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate climate change. To countries like China these are necessary steps because their economy is completing it's transformation as we speak to a free market economy. Factor in the 1.2 billion citizens of China and imagine the impact the projected 300 million new drivers by 2020 demanding their share of the world's dwindling oil reserves. How much more will this exacerbate an already overwhelmed eco-system? Climate change? Let's call it what it is, 'cause the proof is in the numbers: This is unadulterated Global Warming. We can stick our heads in the sand, but this issue will not simply go away! Attempts to raise the issue of global warming are often summarily dismissed as the rantings of a lunatic fringe of society, but the reality is that a groundswell of opposition to mainstream party lines is gaining momentum. Global warming is REAL...first and foremost we must all come to grips with this reality! Secondly, we must begin to make changes in how we live our lives. Sacrificing how things used to be is what must be done. I look at my home in Baltimore and the many flat roofed homes not unlike it throughout the metropolitan areas of this country and I wonder: why doesn't the government institute programs which subsidize the installation of Solar panels onto the roofs of these homes? This would not only reduce demand from utility companies like Constellation Energy, conservative estimates say this would reduce the individual consumer's utility bill by 38% on average per year. There are lots of things that could be done as part of government reform in a free market economy that would benefit society as a whole, but that would be too much like right. It would also be difficult in the beginning! There are lots of things that are really easy, like going to war against a country on "trumped up charges" and manufactured evidence to bolster our control of the world's waning oil reserves. The tougher row to hoe would be implementing public policy which forces auto makers to deliver products which average 75 miles per gallon or better still that were exclusively hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. Force this issue and subsidize the construction of hydrogen fuel cell station infrastructure which make the vehicles even more palatable. Many cities have announced "green initiatives" but are these really anything more than announcements? They throw a few trees in medians of busy traffic routes like Route 40/Baltimore National Pike as part of reforestation programs, but these saplings face low survival rates with auto emissions choking them during morning and evening rush hours. Why not make bicycle traffic to and from major business centers feasible with bike lanes during infrastructure maintenance programs? Milling roads has widened them in many instances...why not carve an eight foot path for two lanes of bicycle traffic to encourage this mode of transport?

I suppose I could go on and on, but until people make the connections...there won't be any sense of emergency and no impetus to act. Kermit lamented it wasn't easy being green but in the 80s and 90s about two-thirds of the 110 known harlequin frog species are believed to have vanished. The situation isn't much better for insects, what with publicly recognized disorders like Bee Colony Collapse being loosely attributed to climate change. Perhaps if we revisit our study of other empires...we might be able to find a fix for our own ills and this American Empire can continue on in perpetuity!

Elitist...

I like the sincerity with which Jon Stewart of Comedy Central's The Daily Show debunked the non-issue du jour that was Senator Obama's comment about "bitter, clingy people in small towns in Pennsylvania". He said, 'matter of factly' that if the office of president was supposed to be occupied by people who didn't have an "air about themselves"...well; (and I'm paraphrasing here (okay!!! I'm taking mad, crazy poetic license)!) we'd be setting ourselves up for a third 'Bush 43' term!

What becomes of a dream deferred???

In Langston Hughes' poem "Dream Deferred" he opines their fate as withering up from neglect like the proverbial 'raisin in the sun'. I am amazed that in a country where we preach, clergy and lay people alike, that "children are the future"...we are quite content to allow the travesty that is: No Child Left Behind! Signed by the 43rd President of the United States, George Bush in January 2002...we've only seen an inevitable decline in the standards of education. In Baltimore, MD yesterday, City Public School System CEO Andres Alonso outlined plans for cash incentives for high school students who show improvement on the High School Assessment. This is similar to a plan deployed in New York city where Alonso served as deputy chancellor prior to coming to Baltimore.

$900,000 plus of a total $6.3 million dollar budget will be allocated to this initiative. There will also be allocations for students who tutor other students to be paid from. Will they have to become certified too? What of this notion of AYP...ADEQUATE YEARLY PROGRESS???? What kind of defeatist attitude is this that's being passed off as EDUCATION???? Ironic indeed that this is happening in Baltimore...inspiration for David Simon's critically acclaimed series "The Wire" where last season centered around the ineptitude of the public school system. CEO Alonso has responded to criticisms about the plan by asserting the success of this hybrid of sorts between Pavlovian conditioning and instant gratification! But, I suppose it's to be expected from an administration that treats their position as more of a zoo administrator than an educator.

I didn't realize until my friend was told she, "cared too much" about trying to actually educate the children in her charge, the hypocrisy of the public education system. The administration is not at all interested in achieving real milestones in the educational process. Their goal is clearly to meet every one of their management objectives to maximize their compensation suggesting a 'job well done'! Based upon results to date however and in deference to the writers of The Wire..."The Game Is Fixed"!!! There is, quite honestly, no difference in the approach taken to deal with educating Baltimore's public school children when compared to the approach for fixing the prison system. It would seem that the game IS fixed and that the Education Industrial Complex is a farm system for the Military Industrial Complex and/or the Prison Industrial Complex! I recall when I was growing up on the south side of Chicago, there was a genuine sense of partnership between the teacher's and the parents. That time, it would seem, has gone the way of the Albatross...nearing extinction. Teachers who do care are attacked on multiple fronts by administrator's who won't suspend/expell problem students because "the numbers" are most important and by parents who were in such a rush to be grown they didn't get an education themselves as well as the children of these parents who understand better than most the futility of gaining a racist education.

The education of our children today is our responsibility! We cannot depend upon the public school system to provide for our children an education that gives them the keys to unlock the glass ceilings in corporate America. The No Child Left Behind legislation is an affront because what it really means is: No Child is Left Behind, because No Child Moves Ahead! Direct Instruction and Inclusion simply don't work in the calamity that is the public school system! And sad as it may seem, it's largely falling along racial lines. Two score and four years ago, a courageous man endeavored to improve the station of his people in this undeniable Land of Opportunity! His efforts inspired a generation of young people who would become instruments of change. But change is cyclical...and the instruments of change yesterday are the vestiges of nothing more than a bygone era today!

Dr King preached about his Dream for a better tomorrow...but today we see that; not unlike the bounced check back then, we're dealing today with a similar phenomenon in the form of dreams so long deferred that today our children are sleepwalking through life. If I might invoke the admonishing of 'Radio Raheem' in Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing, I too would challenge people everywhere to simply "Wake Up!!!"

Coalition Of The Willing

The results of the Iowa caucus last night seem to represent what the President's coalition could not. According to the Agence France-Presse (AFP) Senator Obama won 37.6% of the vote against 29.8% for Sen Edwards and a somewhat surprising 29.5% for Sen Clinton.

All indications are that Sen Obama's win was made possible by democrats, independents and republicans alike. The common denominator across these groups is 'change', and Sen Obama's representation as the best chance for it!

It would seem that people (no matter their political slant) are forming a coalition. And what's more is that this coalition is truly one with willing participants. Unlike the Iraq Coalition Forces these disparate groups have come together without coercion and quite simply it seems because it's the right thing to do.

Beg your pardon?!

Begging your pardon in advance, but I need to get off my chest issues which many of you, by now are sick of hearing about. This past Monday, on almost every channel of my idiot box...artist's renderings of Michael Vick in court for sentencing were in heavy rotation! It's as if they were intended to reinforce age old stereotypes of the African man as "uncivilized" or as Mumia Abu Jamal noted in August of this year...the Bête Noir or black beast. It should come as no surprise then that the reports, ad nauseum on his sentencing were accompanied by stock footage of Vick's numerous "perp walks" in suits being nullified by the courtroom drawings. Artist's renderings of Vick in Black and White prison gear...seemed to celebrate the event as some sort of 'post OJ Acquittal' retribution. It is a wonder today that after Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka, KS, the Civil Rights movement and Voting Rights Act... things are still reduced to questions of Black & White? It's a wonder too that the dithering shades of gray are few and far between!! Black & White assumes both figuratively and literally, that Black and White are proportionate or more specifically; equal! We are all human beings it's true but more often than not, equality of ethnicity is predicated upon numbers. Music, stage and film artist Mos Def laments in Mathematics that "It's a numbers game and somehow the numbers don't add up!" Further, it would seem that if your numbers are less than their's (the mythical 'man') that your collective political power/influence will be less than their's. BTW....according to the 2006 American Community Survey there are roughly 300 million citizens, with 221 million classified as white alone and 37 million classified as African American alone. In light of this kind of empirical data and the utitilarinist philosphy that "The needs of the many outweigh, the needs of the few"...it would seem that life will always be a struggle and games of Cat&Mouse may not always be constant but will be periodic...if your goal is to achieve anything close to the American Dream.

By all accounts, Michael Vick had achieved the American Dream and on paper, by way of contracts and endorsements, had amassed a fortune which would have enabled lives of luxury for even his children's children. Not only has he lost his endorsement deals but it's been reported that the Falcons' won arbitration to be reimbursed bonuses of nearly $20 million paid over that past three years! A pretty compelling argument can be made based on his life alone; that life for many Africans in America is a never ending series of games where the rules by which we play are on a sliding scale.

A news report in Monday's Boston Globe suggests that if Vick had been more honest, he could have gotten a lighter sentence. One I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby lied to a federal grand jury investigating the leaking of a covert CIA operatives name to the media. He was convicted and sentenced to 30 months in prison. When his appeal was rejected, President Bush promptly commuted the sentence of Libby with little if any real time served. I guess

There have been statements suggesting that Michael Vick shouldn't be allowed to play football again and earn untold wealth for his athletic talent playing the game. I believe the rules have not changed and accordingly, if he's paid his debt to society; should be allowed to play as soon as possible. Which brings me to WHEN I believe that should be:
Post Haste!!!! With All Deliberate Speed. If Scooter Libby and others associated with acts that border on TREASON are allowed to get off scot free, well then so too should someone who has done nothing any worse than the members of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). Two employees of PETA were tried for crimes against animals in January of this year. The organization reportedly killed nearly 14,400 animals between 1998 and 2005. The employees were acquitted of the more serious charges, so why shouldn't Vick who has reportedly pledged $1 million for the care of animals??