I got a letter from the government...

Americablog/AP - Military: number of black recruits dropping like a stone

Chuck D/Public Enemy - Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos

I got a letter from the government
The other day
I opened and read it
It said they were suckers
They wanted me for their army or whatever
Picture me given' a damn - I said never

'nough said.

Bitin' Kai's Style

Taxation Without Representation

We'll see what happens next. I doubt it's going to muster 60 votes to prevent filibuster, or a veto-proof majority - but it's something!

PJ has his own take on the setup...

Bush Calls in Sick at G8 Meeting

Figures.

MLK, Jr.

Quote (found poem)

Power without love
is
wreckless and abusive.

Love without power
is
sentimental and anemic...

Power at its best
is love
implementing
the demands of
justice.

And justice at its best
is love
correcting everything
that stands against
love.

Can 'The Onion' Top This?

The Huffington Post headline:
Quarantined Man's Father-in-Law a Tuberculosis Specialist at CDC

Priceless.

Black Mathematics

Pig guts + Hot Sauce = Soul Food

Kool-Aid + Pickles = Proof that Black people are on some other shit!

We stand on the shoulders of our ancestors, for real!

Back in the Game?

Tonight I went to a nice little poetry reading.

That bears repeating.

Tonight I went to a nice little poetry reading.

Free Art Free Space Project

The text in the photo is a little fuzzy, so allow me to illuminate; it begins:

The Free Art-Free Space Project
This piece of art was created by a citizen of the urbanized world

(Photos taken at the corner of 12th and Newton Streets, NE > Washington, DC >>
Go, Brookland!)

Dick Cheney Shot a Man in the Face, Son!

Little reported in reference to the brouhaha over Dick Cheney giving the commencement speech at BYU this year is the fact that it wasn't BYU's idea. The VP's office asked BYU to invite him to give the speech, figuring that Cheney'd have a compliant audience for all his "last throes" bullsh*t.

Not so, but hardly suprising. Seems the VP's personal planning is on a par with his war planning.

Just for fun, and because it reminded me of a line Dave Chappelle repeated at his birthday show in DC, here's a snip from a piece on the BYU dust-up...

/snip/
But there are also some noteworthy distinctions between the visits of Dick Cheney and Michael Moore. The major issues people seemed to have with Moore (based on the hundreds of messages I received) were, in order: 1) he was too fat and unkempt, 2) he wasn't objective in his films, and 3) he was too harsh a critic of the Bush Administration and the war. In contrast, the concerns with Cheney are 1) his role in sending hundreds of thousands of young people into a tragically unnecessary war, 2) his advocation of torture as a "no-brainer," and 3) his suspect involvement in the Scooter Libby/Valerie Plame affair. Shooting someone in the face is a close fourth.

Jam Master Jay - Suspect Named

I can't believe it's been over 4 years. At least there's a suspect...


(h/t to Marta)

Sayonara!

It's getting hard out there for a racist-misogynist-homophobe.

Get Your Money Right

I came across this honestly; web searching for my consulting gig.

I'm intrigued. My client's got money to put on financial literacy workshops, geared toward the same demographic, planned for the same time the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network's tour stops in DC. If we can pull off a partnership or tag-on to their stuff, cool.

Barack's balancing act

And so the, ahem, race begins in earnest.

/snip/
Already, that balancing act is causing some strains. Some of Obama's longtime black supporters in Illinois are grumbling about the largely white crowd of advisers who now surround Obama as he gears up his national campaign. "Who does he represent? That is what people are worried about," said Lorenzo Martin, publisher of the Chicago Standard newspapers, a chain of black-oriented weeklies that circulate in the southern suburbs. "When you look and see who is surrounding him, you are not going to see too many brothers. What you see is the liberal left."

What it comes down to in the end is less race than money. Barack Obama can play to any audience he wants, can promise all kinds of "new politics" for a new age - but he's gonna have to raise a boatload of cash to win the Democratic nomination, to say nothing of moving through the general election. At that level, the party affiliation matters less than cash affiliation.

Black, white, whatever... the green is gonna call the shots.

I like Dan Froomkin

It irks me to no end to hear talk about failure and success absent the reality that we failed from the git-go.

At a book-signing/reading years ago at the now-defunct SisterSpace Books, Nikki Giovanni said, "You have to know what a fool looks like." Here are a few.

via MLK, Jr.

Just heard on the iPod Shuffle... an excerpt from a speech by MLK, Jr. where he quoted William Jennings Bryan

"The truth, crushed to the earth, will rise again."

I, too, shall rise. From being self-crushed.

Jingle All the Way 10K

UPDATE: The race folks sent me pics.



I finished my first 10K this morning!

Acumen Solutions Jingle All The Way 10K
Washington, DC December 10, 2006
Official Men's Results

Place Div/Tot Num Name Age Hometown Gun T Net T Pace
317 61/138 851 Jomo Graham 33 WASHINGTON DC 51:20 51:07 8:14

Talking Truth to Power

On the day the Iraq Study Group report came out, I feel like there's a new strain in the national dialogue.

1. Al Gore(from Think Progress)

2. Barbara Boxer (from AP)

I could go on. The point is, I feel less insane to hear something akin to reason and accountability returning to the discussion of the mess we're all in.

A poet I heard about and want to read

Two weeks ago, my poetry workshop at All Souls Church ended. Chris Nealon, a professor at UC Berkeley, introduced us to a number of poets during the five-week course.

Here's one: Nathaniel Mackey.

Mackey recently won the National Book Award for Splay Anthem.

Tuesday Morning: Brookland, USA

I started today with a bagel and a muffin. A bit much, but the belly's full. Now it's time for lists and tasks and measurables. Phone calls and e-mails. W-o-r-k.

Where's the poetry in that?

Just for fun, I browsed my Bookmarks for inspiration; procrastination, whatever...

Eureka! Now I'm ready for the mundane. Work, here I come :)