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One Liners (Sleep, Soft Porn and Baldilocks Edition)

• One Day Left to help Ian win a new pair of kicks.
• Never sleep again...really.
• Watch the 49er's Training Video.
• We almost got rid of one...

What Sharpton and Madonna Know That You Don't (Or How To Be As Popular As Angelina Jolie)

Is Rush Limbaugh back on the "pain medication"?

After delivering on-air remarks that he was considering allowing Rev. Al Sharpton to host his syndicated radio program for 30 minutes a day to "teach" Sharpton the ins and outs of the medium, Rush Limbaugh now seems to be backing off in the wake of Sharpton's quick acceptance.

I know we live in a virtual world but lets get real for a second. The best speaker on the National stage is Al Sharpton. If you heard his speech at the Democratic convention in 2000 you could not be anything but moved.(watch it here) I realize most white people hate his guts. That people see him as divisive. But if you have been listening to him for the past 3 years (when he finally understood he had a national audience) he has been making sense.

Here's my take on Al. Few people understand the power of a good soundbite like Sharpton. Few people know how to exploit the media's thirst for sensationalism like Al. He caught on to the same thing Madonna did. You polarize first. Get your core audience. Bring your message mainstream. And most important: Be entertaining.

Of course you'll be hated for a while (maybe forever to some unforgiving folks) but in the end you'll end up with everyone on your side.

This formula always works.

Look at Eminem. Or Public Enemy. Angelina Jolie. Or Madonna's first husband. Most politicians also live by the rules. Pick your enemies well. But they drop the ball with the entertainment factor. George Bush is President today because he was more entertaining than the other guy (Diebold was just backup).

I say all that to say this. Sharpton on the radio would literally kick-ass.  He'll change minds. And having Limbaugh's audience to kickstart his radio career would probably be the dumbest move a Republican ever made since invading Iraq.

Mark my words. It will not happen.

Abortion, Genocide and Garbage Can Lids

Life, in general, is a minefield. You take one step in the wrong direction and find your legs staring you in the back.

I'm a pro-abortion guy. Not just because I'm a guy but because I truly believe in my heart that grown folks should be able to do to what they want with their bodies. No one should suffer for the rest of their lives because of a one-night stand. We don't give most murderers life sentences but the fact that some of us want to do it to women is ludicrous. America is the land of second chances, ask Donald Trump, Martha Stuart and your next door neighbor. Mistakes happen.

But like I said, life is a minefield. And you never know who to trust.

Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in America. 78% of their clinics are in minority communities. Blacks make up 12% of the population, but 35% of the abortions in America. Are we being targeted? Isn't that genocide? We are the only minority in America that is on the decline in population. If the current trend continues, by 2038 the black vote will be insignificant. Did you know that the founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, was a devout racist who created the Negro Project designed to sterilize unknowing black women and others she deemed as undesirables of society? The founder of Planned Parenthood said, "Colored people are like human weeds and are to be exterminated." Is her vision being fulfilled today?

Tough questions. And I am not the only one twisting the abortion/genocide question in their mind.My take is a little different, though. It makes me wonder how important is history?

My favorite poet as a kid was e.e. Cummings. The verbal and visual inventiveness of his work fascinated me. But then as I got older I found his depictions of society's hypocrisy and monotony elitist and self-indulgent. Then one of my teachers claimed that some of his work features racist and anti-Semitic overtones. No matter what the truth is, I never looked at his poetry the same. It's like steak served on a garbage can lid.

So am I aiding my race's destruction by supporting abortions?  I really don't think so. It is a woman's right to her life that gives her the right to terminate her pregnancy. There are many legitimate reasons why a rational woman might have an abortion--accidental pregnancy, rape, birth defects, danger to her health. The issue here is the proper role for government. If a pregnant woman acts whoreish, then she should be condemned morally--but not treated as a murderer.

The anti-abortionists' claim to being "pro-life" is a classic Big Lie. You cannot be in favor of life and yet demand the sacrifice of an actual, living individual to a clump of tissue. It is serving women life on a garbage can lid.

 

Michael Eric Dyson no longer to use N word

Syndicated national radio host Tom Joyner has announced that Michael Eric Dyson wont be using the N word anymore. Playahata.com asked Dyson
if it this was true and wanted to find out why is contoversial regional  DJ Star, of the Star and BucWild show  always talking negative about him on the air and Dyson set the record straight on all the rumors.

Dyson  told Playahata.com "I showed love to Star and Buckwild because despite the fact that they were hating on me, I chose to acknowledge the good work that they do. Even if I disagreed with their characterizations of me, I could forgo personal feelings of anger or hurt and embrace the need for healthy critical dialogue. I would love to appear on their show and engage in an open, honest examination of the problems that continue to confront the black poor in particular, and black communities at large.

George Bush's Africa Policy and Who's Not Paying Attention

I've been cruising the Black Republican websites and I see very few of them are talking about the meeting between Condoleezza Rice, "senior" White House officials and members of the black clergy on developing U.S policy in Africa.

Could it be they saw it for the sham it was?

The high-level session occurred the same day that the all-Democratic Congressional Black Caucus conducted a long-planned outreach meeting with 200 Black pastors from across the country seeking to solidify bonds between the Democrats and religious leaders. Could it be the State Department meeting was an effort to upstage the Black caucus?

Instead of dealing with the real problems facing Africa, like the genocidal wars and the AIDS epidemic, all they really focused on was care for orphans with AIDS. Noble but c'mon, it smells of an attempt to use the Black Churches to get more Black support but to really do nothing to help the continent long-term.

DuaneSmith says all this and more but better than I did here. And check out the LA Times article for more info. Just don't look at the Black Republican sites 'cuz, as usual, most of them aren't paying attention to what's happening to Black folks anyway...

40 more Jamaicans deported from US

Forty deportees from the United States of America arrived at Kingston's Norman Manley International Airport on Thursday, bringing to 1,165 the number of Jamaicans kicked out of the USA, Britain and Canada since the beginning of the year.

War: What Is It Good For? (Republicans Can't Make Up Their Minds)

Cheap labor republican Micheal King continues to be confused.

He seems to think that Senator Rangel's a hypocrite because he was against the war and now calls for a draft.

Here we have a great disconnect which Republicans can't seem to grasp. If we are really at war then we should be doing everything we can to win. That means a draft. It means the public making sacrifices.

If what we are facing is not a "threat against Democracy and Our Way Of Life", then not only should we not have a draft, we don't need a soldier in Iraq. It's not Rangel who is confused. It's the Republican party who are using our soldiers to benefit multinational corporations under the cover of "the fight against terror" that's the problem.

The End Of Civil Rights?

U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is closing offices around the country.

The commission will shutter the Denver office and another in Kansas City, Kan., in October, laying off six people.

The move will force anyone with a federal civil rights complaint in those districts to seek help in the commission's Chicago office. The Denver office covers Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Utah and Colorado, while the Kansas City office oversees complaints in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Iowa, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri.

Some say the office closings are a harbinger of the slow death of the civil rights agency, which, riven by partisan politics, long ago strayed from being the "conscience of the federal government," as President Dwight D. Eisenhower intended when he created it as part of the 1957 Civil Rights Act.

The commission has been plagued by political power struggles and by fighting among its Republican and Democratic members.

Cheap labor conservatives in Congress kept its budget at $9 million for most of the 12-year term of

liberal Chairwoman Mary Frances Berry, who left the commission in December. That is $3 million less than its budget during the Reagan administration. The new Staff director is Kenneth Marcus.

AB Four (Prince, Babies, And A Solution To The Mississippi Problem)

We all know about Africa's precious resources are being exploited  by the West. What isn't widely known is the exploitation going on today. Not of national resources, but human resources. Black Looks explains it all.

Ashley Burwelll will graduate from Northern Vance High School today with honors. Next, she will head to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on a full scholarship. Unlike the typical college freshman, Burwell will have a little something extra with her in Chapel Hill - her 18-month-old son Traejon. Read her story.

Carve out a new state in the Delta region.  Call it New Africa, as a tribute to the Africans on whose backs the South was built.

Editorial writer and former music critic Eric Deggans wonders this: Could Prince get a recording contract in 2005?

Nancy Grace, Lisa Wayne and the reasons people climb cranes.

Former crooked prosecutor Nancy Grace complained that she lost respect for her guest  Defense Attorney Lisa Wayne,for saying that the murder suspect on the crane actions "may lean toward his innocence."

Here's why Lisa Wayne is right and Nancy Grace is  just a blowhard.

Carl Edward Roland, 41, whom Florida authorities are seeking in the death of Jennifer Gonzalez, is Black. If he is innocent, the idea of going to Atlanta and drawing attention to his case by climbing an 18-story crane at a construction site, was brilliant. Black folks run Atlanta. They won't let the city destroy some Black guy just because the victim was Hispanic. If he was arrested in Pinellas County, Fl. where the victim was found, the case would be considered solved. Now everyone is paying attention. And everyone now wants to know what he has to say.

Now even I will admit that the Brother looks guilty but it was nice having a smart Sister giving another view.