Rocket Ride

Last week, the NAACP of GA announced that they were going to move to get the state to issue a formal apology for the slave trade and so forth.  Now, the site that I read this on offers a way for readers to comment on the stories and, one would hope, have a discussion or offer fresh thought and ideas on the topic.  You would think..but it does not happen.

No, instead the commentary was a barrage of retorts about how silly it is, stupid comments suggesting that there were more slaves in some Union states during the civil war and, of course, the attempt to try to dispell the validity of the topic by saying that another ethnic group was more screwed over than the slaves.

Okay, first off: is it that big a deal?  I mean, yeah, it’s kind of silly to apologize to a group of people whom a majority of are probably NOT decendents of slaves…but at the same time, who’s going to be hurt by this?  Is this a pride thing?  You think you’re Fonzy?  Can’t say “We were wr-wr-wr-wrrrr”?

Second: show me numbers about the slaves.  Show me information from a valid source; something from the library of congress or a collegate library…not some indie website run by a confederate reinactment volunteer who has made a hobby out of the civil war.  And quite trying to call it the “War of Northern Aggreesion”.  The confederates attacked first…sounds like southern aggression to me.  But I digress.

Third: and this is really key and this had me amazed at the stupidity.  This guy suggested that BET, Miss Black USA and the United Negro College Fund were “given” to the black community….I’m assuming he meant “given” by the white community or “the MAN” and went to the level of comparing the suffering of one ethnic group to the suffering of another ethnic group…in this case, the native american’s…because they don’t have a TV network for them, they don’t have a pagent for them and they don’t have a college fund for them (which there actually is…called the Native American College Fund). So,  I quickly dispelled his moronic thought process because all three organizations were founded by african american and like I said, there IS a college fund for native americans.  Nothing was a handout.  And even if it was, we should be proud to live in a country where that’s possible.  There are countries and there were times where you couldn’t just start up a business or operation without having to hand most of the fruits of your labor to “the big guy” and if your business was a threat to “the big guy”, he could have you shut down.

America is the land of opportunity….how is the grant that a small business owner got for opening a textile factory in this GA county (example..I know nothing of something like this actually happening here so don’t quote me on it) any different from a grant for a black man to start up a radio station or an ethnic diversity cultural center for color-blind kids?

But people like to stir the shit up.  They love to argue…they love to portray themselves on the interwebz as something they aren’t…be it bigger, tougher, smarter, richer or even more enlightened.  It’s internet anonymity at it’s finest.

So far…how are we doing?

Meh.

I’m not thrilled about the story I read not long ago about the glacial melt and the threat to the polar bears. I was rather depressed about that.

Former President Ford passed away last week. I hold no political line but I remember when he was president even though it was a short period of time (I was 5) and I’m encouraged by the outpouring of support and mourning for the man.

Saddam was executed…..now there’s all sorts of hoo-ha about how it went down.ÂBut, it’s not our call. Their country, their laws….all these people talking about how we can’t go in there and change the way they live and change their culture….and then we (the west, that is) complain about how they handled the execution. Boggles the mind.

James Brown…..not much more can be said about that. He was a major influence in early rock music and funk. Rest well, godfather.

On a lighter note:
Barack Obama. I like this guy. He was on Conan last Friday and he is one cool mofo. I’d love to meet him and just have a quick chit chat over nothing.

My dad……hooked me up with the coolest gift idea for Christmas. I actually planted the seed in his head but I know he would have fun with it. He’s in his early 80’s and I asked him to hook me up with CD copies of what he would consider the definitive jazz collection….stuff that he would have if he was building a jazz collection. So I got 6 CDs….goodman, baisie, a few others. Very cool.

I’m now over the holidays so I’m now also ready to get back into the swing of doing some side work.  SO, when this stuff gets rolling, I’ll be posting new work.

My in-laws are funny. My brother in-law keeps up with politics and loves to take jabs at Bush…..mother in-law voted for Bush. Safe to say the political rift is prominent with them…it’s all fun though. IN any case, Ted (brother in-law) calls his mom yesterday:

“My tv was out last night…can you tell me who won the elections?”

Mother in-law isn’t falling for it…she knows what he’s after.

“Well…my power went out…so I really couldn’t tell…so i thought you would tell me WHO WON!”.

So, yeah…the power has shifted. Lot’s of newsworthy events with this election. Dems take the house, a Muslim candidate (the first one, at that) gets elected, first woman speaker of the house (also a Dem), then Rumsfeld quits and then the Dems take the senate. Balance.

This should work. I’m excited.

KFed and Brit are breaking up….KFed appearently got the notice from Brit via text page. OWCH!! Now he’s the KFedEx?