I read on the net the other day about the sad case of Jammie Thomas. Ms. Thomas was convicted of copyright infringement on 24 songs she downloaded using a software program called Kazaa. The jury awarded the plaintiffs $1.92 million in damages.

No I didn’t mistype that. It’s damn near 2 million bucks for downloading 24 songs. I’m sure the jury was trying to “send a message” and they did. Loud and clear. If you want to pilfer music, raid you friends CD collections. You’ll get better quality and the RIAA can’t spy on you while you do it. . . yet.

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So the amazing and tragic story of Michael Jackson is now coming to a close. People who weeks ago were using Michael Jackson as the butt their jokes are now proclaiming his greatness and the tragedy of his loss. Jackson’s final performance will be as the star of a media circus that is now pitching its tent and deploying its side show hucksters for one last money grab.  As if on cue his doctor disappears into the night laying the groundwork for more shocking revelations to come.

Jackson, of course, is deserving of a great deal of scrutiny, not only for his amazing talent but for his bizarre lifestyle. His talent is undeniable, his influence on the industry as well. The real mystery though, and the one thing we can never know for sure is . . . what happened? How did the young boy we all loved and admired turn into the odd caricature of a human being that we’ve witnessed over the past couple of decades? (more…)

In my last blogpost I warned readers to be on the lookout for more insults, barbs and racist attacks to be leveled against President Obama. This past Monday an African American reporter, by the name of Harris Faulkner, read two comments from their website. One of them compared Obama to Hitler while the other called him a monkey. These types of comparisons are expected from the general public, but it is totally out of order for a major news organization like Fox to read it over the air. These kinds of comments should not reach the light of day and should certainly not be given credence by responsible purveyors of the daily news.

Well, that explains it! Obviously, Fox News network is not a responsible news agency, as evidenced by the fact that this is not the first time Fox News has read these kinds of incendiary comments on the evening news. On February 14th, 2008 Tom Sullivan a Fox News radio personality took a call from a listener that compared Obama to Hitler. The funny thing is that he already had a tape of Hitler and a tape of Obama cued up ready to play if a listener called in making this comparison and wasted no time in playing them back to back.

“When a later caller complained that Sullivan was “denigrating” Obama with the comparison, Sullivan said he wouldn’t play it again, then begged: ‘Can I, please, one more time? Just one more time? Then I won’t do it again. … Until the next time.’”There’s an old saying that when you point one finger at someone else there are three fingers pointing back at you. Seeing as how the Fox broadcasters have Hitler recordings so handy, it appears as though they may be some of his biggest fans. How else do you explain their ability to pull up a Hitler recording at a moments notice.

I understand the NAACP has started a campaign to bring these racist assaults to a halt. As Dick Gregory used to say to us in the 70’s “you young people have a big job to do.” Certainly, it is a big job. Racism is woven into the fabric of this country, which makes it particularly difficult to eradicate without destroying the fabric itself.

“Fox News’ Faulkner highlights viewer blog comments on stem cell policy invoking Hitler, comparing Obama to a monkey.” Media Matters staff, 3/9/2009

On January 20, 2009 ago Barack H. Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States. His part was well orchestrated and quite dramatically portrayed on an international stage. With the exception of John Roberts misstep during the swearing in ceremony it appeared to go off without a hitch.

When Obama’s in town it’s as if a hurricane just landed. Thousands of people rallied to his cause during his presidential campaign. Millions attended his inauguration and now the hopes of the nation rest at his doorstep. Will he be up to the challenge? Will the Congress back him to the hilt or will his flower wilt and die along with the hopes of the nation.

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Boy, I’m glad that’s over.

As amazing as it may have been to watch Barack Obama, his wife, and children become the first black president and first family of the United States; the level of self congratulatory conceit displayed by the media and politicians was enough to make you puke. The perfect juxtaposition of Martin Luther King Day and the coronation inauguration of America’s first black President was more than any PR flack could hope for. And the marketers were out in droves pimping brand Obama, a brand more potent than Air, iPod, or Google combined. Hats, coffee mugs, buttons and T-shirts were on display and on sale reinforcing Obama’s tagline of “hope” and “change”.

Implicit in that tagline is the “hope” that black folks will finally stop talking about racism, and that America has “changed” into the land of freedom and righteousness we’ve been pretending that it was all this time. In fact “hope” and “change” can be milked for another couple of decades. We can still run a woman, asian, homosexual, or jew just to confuse the public. Who cares about policy? POTUS 2.0, now available in multiple shades and lifestyles.

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A colleague sent me the link to this video. I was immediately taken by the motion graphics created to open the film. I know how labor intensive it is to put those kind of things together and the way the designer works the text and graphics is tight. As I watched, however, the content started to get to me. It’s the usual story of America projecting power into the third world. I’m no expert on Africom but I’ve been around the block enough times to know how things work. A serious understanding of history reveals the fact that nations don’t spend time and money in other countries unless there is something to gain. America is no different. When we talk about “American interests” we are talking about America’s ability to create wealth for itself. Or it’s ability to project power in order to allow it’s multinational corporations the ability create wealth. America’s foreign policy is an outgrowth of European foreign policy which, for the past 500 years has meant slavery, colonialism and exploitation for non-white people the world over. This is also referred to as white world supremacy and it’s rarely given any attention in the western press. (more…)

With the election of Barack Obama to the presidency the question has come up, are we living in a post-racial society? In otherwords has the concept of race lost its cache, or meaning? Let’s examine this and see what we come up with, it may be that we’ve reached that land that Dr. King saw from the mountain top. Of course, it may be as illusory as a mirage in the Sahara on a hot day. (more…)

The end of this election season is coming to an abrupt close. There are 12 days left to cast your vote. Will you wait until the last moment and then rush to cast your vote in a furious flurry, or will you cast a vote early and free up a space in line for someone who cannot get enough time off from work to go to the polls? Now’s the time to make your decision and take action. It’s such a simple thing that has been complicated by the need to automate every aspect of society.

Voting machine technology, which was supposed to simplify the whole process has come up short of the hype. What was supposed to streamline the process, improve accuracy and reliability is now causing interminably long lines at the polls and in the end is not necessarily accurate. We now know that our “state of the art” electronic voting equipment is unreliable at best (see EVEREST report), prone to tampering at worst. So, here are a few tips to help you successfully cast your ballot in a timely manner.

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So here we are, the democratic national convention has concluded and again a historical landmark has been reached with Senator Barack Obama at the center.   It’s a time to both acknowledge and of course appreciate the significance of the tremendous and impressive broad-cross-spectrum support required  in attaining this milestone in American history.   Now there are those like the Clintons who will stress that most if not all significant gains by black folks have been due to  bold underpinning and perhaps underwriting by white people.   This is a topic that would be interesting to cover separately from my brief comment here.

This moment however raises numerous “man-in-the mirror”  questions for folks on E89th in Cleveland, Bankhead Courts in Atlanta and elsewhere.  One such question can be in seeing that Senator Obama, a black man, is one step from the White House why can’t folks in the hood be expected to have the gumption and drive to raise themselves up and better themselves and community?   If this country may soon elect a president who’s African American, what roadblocks are left for black folk and black communities?  It’s a new day isn’t’ it? Has the “black struggle” become passé?  Maybe not, but its damn sure time to broaden the perception of what our situation is here and how we advance from this point forward.

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So who’d a thunk it? Who’d a thunk that after all this time, America was thinking about trying to elect a black man for president. I know I didn’t. But maybe it’s not as strange as it seems. In this age of media driven, reality-show, American Idol loving, PR and marketing oriented thinking, the time is ripe to throw a brother up there and see how many votes he can get. What is it about Obama that is so mesmerizing? I listened to his speech at the convention; didn’t do much for me. All the hope and change stuff is a bunch of smoke and mirrors to keep him from having to address the really tough issues. Same old stuff as far as I can see. (more…)