Friday, May 31, 2002

Some other characters had the possibility of becoming a hero.
They had a long psychological description, a personal history,
material to produce a narration.
They were really expensive when I was cheap!
Designed to join any kind of story,
but with no chance to survive to any of them.

I / was never designed to survive...

June is Black Music Month, you know.

Voice of America reported on President Bush's declaration of same:

"`Black music is the sound of experience, written, as Stevie Wonder would say, in the key of life,' [Bush] said. `For a long time, many citizens have hoped to see a museum in Washington that conveys the experience of African-Americans.'

"Following Congressional approval of the plan, the president has appointed a commission to lead the development of an African-American Museum of History and Culture.

"`I hope the museum, when it is built, will remind visitors of both the suffering and the triumph, the hurt that was overcome, the barriers that are being cast away,' he said. `In the Black-American experience there has been a lot of pain. America must recognize that. There has been progress too. And there needs to be more.'"

I am too kind to repeat spurious rumors about the President waving to Stevie Wonder at a performance back in March.

Heck, I won't even ask if he wonders whether Brazil has something similar.

I will note those fascinating little grammatical constructions in the last paragraph: "hurt that was overcome", "barriers that are being cast away", "there has been a lot of pain".

America's troubled racial past brings out the passive voice in all of us.

Well, in white conservatives, anyway.

(BGM: Opening theme from Escaflowne) 

"I dunno, man. . . her mix cd's are always fulla song choices 
that're, like, fraught with significance, know what I'm sayin'?

"And I'm basically too dumb and insensitive to understand. . ."

-- Grunge, Gen13 #68 by Adam Warren, Yanick Paquette and Andrew Pepoy

All I Need Is Everything - Over the Rhine (available for download)

Agætis Byrjun - Sigur Rós (available for download)

Bhagwan - Karma Sutra (available for download)

Nice Day For A Sulk - Belle & Sebastian

Bizarre Love Triangle - frente!

Wonder Woman - Tricky

Oddities Theme - Insane Clown Posse

Ultra - Kill Mother Fucking Depeche Mode

Godlike - MDFMK

Jesus Built My Hotrod - Ministry

Everyday Is Halloween - TRS-80 (available for download with an EMusic subscription, as part of your 50 FREE MP3s! [bit blantant, I admit, but apparently the exclamation point is required with their affiliate program])

Daydream Believer - Shonen Knife (live version from Viva Variety, available for download)

I Want To Be Sedated - Shonen Knife

Shimmy Shimmy Ya - Wu Tang Clan/Ol' Dirty Bastard/ Big Baby Jesus

Myrr - Happy Rhodes

Om Namaha Shiva - Sheila Chandra


If you want your man to drown in your lust -- or, more likely, flee screaming into the night. A public service brought to you by Uppity-Negro.com. Think of us as your little friend Cupid. Wearing a shirt that says "I'm With Stupid".

[+]

WXIA-Atlanta reports a poll indicating that Cynthia McKinney lags her opponent in the upcoming Democratic primary, with Denise Majette receiving 41% to McKinney's 37%.

The poll, commissioned by Majette, has a margin of error of 4.5%.

I saw Penn & Teller at Mystic Lake a few years back. They introduced one trick with the line, "For those of you who aren't good at math -- and, since we're in a casino in the Midwest, that would be all of you. . ."

[+]

Apropos of nothing, the last poll tracking such things noted that President Bush's job approval rating among African Americans was significantly lower than it was in what we'll euphemistically refer to as the mainstream community.

I imply nothing. Just saying is all.

[+]

From the much-maligned Grey Lady's original article covering the homicide bombing of September 15, 1963:

"The explosion at the 16th Street Baptist Church this morning brought hundreds of angry Negroes pouring into the streets. Some attacked the police with stones. The police dispersed them by firing shotguns over their heads.

"Johnny Robinson, a 16-year-old Negro, was shot in the back and killed by a policeman with a shotgun this afternoon. Officers said the victim was among a group that had hurled stones at white youths driving through the area in cars flying Confederate battle flags.

"When the police arrived, the youths fled, and one policeman said he had fired low but that some of the shot had struck the Robinson youth in the back."

For the slower children in the class, note that after the bombing, people in uniform -- police, in this instance -- fired live rounds at children hurling rocks, killing at least one of them.

Please keep this in mind when drawing analogies to recent events in other parts of the world. You may not be saying what you think you're saying.

[+]

I'd worried, for a fraction of a nanosecond, that I'd been too hard on false, fleeting, perjured Lileks on Wednesday, but then I saw other folks have an even lower opinion of him. Doubt he's losing much sleep over the issue; he's much more worried about evil terrorists striking Mall of America.

Failing to see a down side to that, myself.

Right, the Sanrio store. Terrorist fuckers. An attack on Hello, Kitty is an attack on all!

[+]

They say, here's the truth, and I say, is that 
all there is? And they say, kind of. Pretty much. 
As far as we know.

-- Goliath, by Neil Gaiman, a short story based in the fictional universe of The Matrix (and yes, I'm aware of the ambiguity). There. That's the last of this sort of thing.

[+]

CNN has a transcript of the, um, debate between Noam Chomsky and Fucking White Oppressor William Bennett. Chomsky's argument depends on the absurd notion that the U.S. should be held to the same standards as any other nation on the planet, while Bennett correctly maintains that we are the Indispensable Nation, the Shining City on the Hill, the bestest thing ever in the whole entire history of best things, etc.

View it as a debate between a biologist and someone propounding "intelligent design" as something which should be given equal time in our classrooms; it's more fun that way.

[+]

I've hated Bennett's guts since, as Reagan's Secretary of Education, he breezed into Chicago and informed us that we had the worst public school system in the country.

My teacher at the time a) was Palestinian and b) had worked on the Chicago Seven trial. True, hippies shouldn't be allowed to influence malleable young minds without a counterbalance, but since no conservative would willingly forgo more lucrative income-generating opportunities by teaching in an inner-city public school, what'cha gonna do?

Other than eat your vitamins and say your prayers, that is.

Return.

Negro what? Negro where? Negro when? Negro today.
Son, wipe your feet.