Monthly Archives: May 2011

Bigwigs behaving badly

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The list of local, national, and international bigwigs volunteering for scandal and humiliation with highly paid attorneys is an ever-growing one, like the list of publicly nameless wannabe thugs volunteering for their brand of criminal beefs, often with the aid of public defenders. They seem to never learn.

            Former Prince George’s County Executive Jack Johnson seems to me to be the most witless, although former California Governor Arnold Schwartznegger, and former Nevada Senator John Ensign, and former International Monetary Fund Managing Director Dominique Strass-Kahn are certainly no slouches in the department of stuck-on-stupid.

            After being confronted by FBI agents who had been investigating him for several years, with evidence they had the goods on him, Johnson called home, and directly implicated his wife (a former judge who should have known better) in his dastardly deeds.

Uh, Mr. Johnson, you just left a meeting with the FBI where you were confronted about a crime and you called your wife on your cell phone? Continue reading →

Some Myths About Malcolm X

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  Minister Malcolm XBrother Malcolm X looms–on May 19, 2011, the 86th anniversary of his birth–as an icon, almost larger than life itself.

I admit, I never met Brother Malcolm. I never heard him speak in person. I do know however several people who knew him very well. I also know at least two highly respected writers, intellectuals, who told me that they had “intended” to go to the Audobon Ballroom in Harlem on Feb. 21, 1965 to hear Brother Malcolm reveal the platform of his new movement–the Organization of African American Unity (OAAU)–but they failed to attend. Brother Malcolm was assassinated that day with about 450 people in attendance.

Today, there are legions of admirers of this incredible leader, but there were only 450 with him at the Audobon Ballroom that tragic day.

Myth No. 1: “The Black Muslims Murdered Malcolm X.” Continue reading →

President Obama had a pretty good week

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President Barack Obama fashioned for himself a pretty good first week of May.

Just a few short days ago, the President was depicted by a Southern California Republican official in an email as a baby chimpanzee, with a note attached reading: “Now you know why no birth certificate.”

Then there was TV celebrity and real-estate heir Donald Trump and his shrill exaggeration of the merit less “birther movement” campaign. The birthers argued that Obama was not born in the U.S. and therefore he was not a “natural born Citizen” as the Constitution requires, and as a result ineligible to be President.

The President silenced most of his critics with a brief appearance in the White House Press Briefing room, where he announced that the White House had prevailed upon authorities in the state of Hawaii to release his “long form” birth certificate, complete with signatures from the attending physician, and other details from the hospital, attesting that he was indeed born on Aug. 4, 1961 on U.S. soil, to an American citizen mother, and an African national father.

He said the nation had more important business at hand than to waste time being distracted by people he described as “carnival barkers.”

“Hi-yah, hi-yah. Got somethin’ fuh yah,” is the refrain I remember from barkers at the carnival selling everything from chances to win cheap prizes by proving one’s masculinity throwing balls at metal bottles, to selling sure-fire cures for “what ails yah.” Continue reading →

Chinks in the Republican Presidential Armor?

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The early line-up of Republican presidential prospects hoping to challenge incumbent Pres. Barack Obama is weak 18 months before Election Day, Nov. 6, 2012.

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (who had less than a snowball’s chance in Hades, to begin with, in my view) has voluntarily stepped out of the race. That was smart. Keep your good government job, Governor.

It looks like former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s star has begun to dim. Besides, she and others in her family seem content to cash in on their celebrity status. Daughter Bristol, the one who got pregnant before getting married, went to the bank with Crazy Six-Figure Dollars preaching abstinence around the country: “Do as I say, not as I do.” Continue reading →