Sure, It's Never About Black And White Until It Is

Stolen from Steve Gilliard's great blog, stevegilliard.blogspot.com


Lower Manahattanite wrote this in comments



I had some time to think about this walking home last night, so here goes:

Well…I screwed up last night. I made the grievous mistake of making day three of the transit strike the day I panicked and shopped a bit too heavily for the kids’ gifts. A little Daffy’s, a touch of Old Navy and Modell’s, capped off with a whisper of Steve Madden for the daughter (poor baby’s a bit of a Bigfoot at 11) and before I knew it, I’d loaded myself down with three shopping bags of ersatz Santa leavings in addition to the slim valise I’d been carrying during the strike in lieu of my heavy computer bag.

The delicate balance had been lost. The not too bad walk to Brooklyn became a f*cking ordeal. The top of my right foot began throbbing as I neared the Manhattan Bridge. Midway, it was a hot icepick stabbing through the foot. By bridge’s end, I envied Kunta Kinté, who’d had his foot chopped off by an angry massa.

I rested just after the walkway in front of some high school or other, marshaling strength for the trudge ahead. The traffic was scream-worthy. A call to the wife to drive down to downtown Brooklyn to get me was out of the question—it was inaccessible.

So I walked some more.

Slowly though, as the pain returned. I found myself at Grand Army Plaza. I stopped to gather myself and let out a huge exhale when a car pulled up next to me, honking. It wasn’t a cab, or livery car—just a small black Honda with a mid late 20’s/early 30’s Black woman in the front seat and one in back. Did I know them?

“Goin’ to Rochester Avenue…you headin’ that way?, the squat woman in front asked.

“F*ck yes!”, I screamed in my head—which came out of my mouth as “Yup! Utica and Eastern, thanks so much!” I loaded my bags in the back next to the other woman and fell into the front seat as we pulled off for the final 2 miles or so home.

After a long, pregnant pause (and making sure I wasn’t gonna be mugged by the cast of “Set It Off II—The Reckoning”) I piped up, “I really appreciate this—you heading home from work?”

“Nah.”, she replied. “Just tryin’ to make a little extra paper goin’ between here and the bridge. You’re my last one.” After a pause, she continued, “I know I confused you with this little car an’ all, but I got m’ girl ridin’ with me—one woman in a car is kind of a target, soooo…I’m rollin’ like this. Made about two-hundred dollars tonight.” The butchy friend in the back seat gave a half-nod as if to say “We cleaned up…big time.”

“How much for my ride?”, I asked, figuring I could maybe live without the pint of blood I’d be charged along with fifty bucks.

“Eight dollars.”, she said.

Which was a f*cking steal as on non-strike days, the livery guys’d charge me ten for the same ride.
“No problem.” , I said. “I’ll give you ten.”

The ride was hurtling by now as my foot croaked out a ‘thank you”. The driver continued. “Glad it’s over, right?”

“Yes-I-am.”

“Yeah…”, she went on. “I hope the union gets some of that surplus.”

When I agreed, it was officially “on”—(she felt comfortable with me as a passenger—and my guess is she talked like this to several of her passengers to “feel ‘em out” before speaking her mind) and proceeded to lay down a rather detailed pro-union stance.

Things like, “It was nice to see them stand up to the mayor, regardless of how it turns out.”, and how “Bloomberg never expected Toussaint to defy him—that’s why he went off, calling them ‘Thugs’.” “And what the f*ck is up with “Thugs” anyway? Why go there?—You know why he went there!” “Sittin’ on a billion dollars an’ gonna lie about it—then when time comes to pay some people, it’s ‘I’m broke! I’m broke! I ain’t got nothin’!” The kicker was when she talked about her co-workers at the hospital (at this point, I noticed she was wearing nurse’s scrubs as was her silent buddy in back) on Long Island and how she’d had arguments with them about the strike. She took great pains to point out the background of these co-workers, and let me just say that…well, according to her, they were quite eh…”different” from her own.

Okay. They were suburban White folks who basically wanted Toussaint and the TWU thrown under the jail. There.

As we pulled up to Utica, she also noted how her Black co-workers came down very much on her side of the fence. Imagine that.

At any rate, it was time to get out and walk the remaining few blocks home. (Rule of thumb from daddy—“never have a stranger drop you off right in front of your house---you never know…) And after I handed the woman a ten-spot, closed the door and walked about fifty feet—it hit me.

I had, what Samuel L. Jackson called in ‘Pulp Fiction’, “a moment of clarity”.

I was looking at a poster for some Reggae jam and the club throwing it was in Brownsville. Then three words came to me.

“Ocean Hill-Brownsville”.

Ocean Hill-Brownsville—the infamous battle in ’68 where the experimental (in that it was locally controlled) Ocean Hill-Brownsville school board wound up in the hands of an elected group of Black parents who wanted a more culturally sensitive group of teachers in the district—so they ditched nine White teachers they’d had a problem with and the White-run UFT went berserk, shutting down the entire public school system three times in protest of the dismissals—bringing about a coalescence of then disparate White groups, namely the predominantly Jewish UFT and the suburban Jewish population and the White Catholics they up until that time, distrusted. The two groups came together and forced Ocean Hill-Brownsville to re-instate the teachers and forged the now-larger White right-tilting alliance that would depose the liberal Lindsay and bring in Beame and Koch to bring the dusky masses to heel.

Black folks finally get a chance to be something in this town and got smacked down for it.

As I walked, my mind flashed ahead to 1975, when due to mismanagement, the city’s finances had gone into the sh*tter and the D.C. GOP said “Drop Dead”. One of the casualties of the city’s budget crisis was the end of free admissions to the City University system. Free since the 1850’s and right through the Great Depression, the system changed all that in 1976—which affected me drastically because as one of seven kids, I knew my folks could not afford to send us all to college. So I was counting on my grades getting me into CUNY. But alas, that was not to be. Took out a huge loan for college that f*cked me financially for years. Oh yes…did I mention that the year CUNY went to a paid system, 1976--was also the year that minorities became a majority of the students? Rudy Giuliani, who loved to throw venom about not granting special rights to special interest groups got a free education via CUNY years before. Funny, that.

Black folks finally get a chance to be something in this town and got smacked down for it.



My mind was whirling now as I trudged down the hill—I thought about the Knicks team of the late 70’s—coached by Willis Reed and boasting a first for the team--an all-Black twelve man squad. I remembered how ownership complained about how attendance was down and then…the derisive nickname the team got during this time began to repeat in my head, as if chanted by a 14,00-strong Garden faithful crowd.

The New York “N*ggerbockers”. N*ggerbockers. N*ggerbockers.

Black folks finally get a chance to be something in this town and got smacked down for it.

A pattern was, shall we say…”developing”. Or rather, had developed and I was just really noticing it.

Remember when in a fit of upheaval, the New York Post wound up being run by Abe Hirschfeld in the early 80s? Remember when he appointed Wilbert Tatum as Editor? Wilbert Tatum of the Amsterdam News? Black, liberal, friend of Percy Sutton and every major Black politico in NYC, Wilbert Tatum? Remember what the staffers at the Post did the day after Tatum took charge? They went berserk, mutinied and put out a vicious, racist (for them), crazed edition of the paper full of fat gorilla caricatures of Tatum and scandalous, scurrilous headlines showing their disgust at the man who was going to be their new day-to-day boss. I remembered that as I crossed Crown Street. They forced him out after three weeks.

Black folks finally get a chance to be something in this town and got smacked down for it.

David Dinkins is elected mayor and BEFORE he can even screw up, Staten Island, the 90% White one of the five boroughs with a population of 450,000 declares it wants to secede from the city. F*cking secede. The NYPD stages a riot against Dinkins near City Hall, led by the curse-spewing loser of that mayoral election, the free CUNY educated Rudy Giuliani. The battle lines are drawn early in the disastrous Dinkins term. He would not be given a fair chance to govern unencumbered.

Black folks finally had a chance to be something in this town and got smacked down for it.

The Apollo Theater comes into focus. Let’s just say…I did some work up there for a few years and got to know the folks there pretty well. The folks at Inner City Broadcasting in particular. They ran the theater as a performance venue AND as a television and music production facility, producing two TV shows from there as well as broadcasting live, community radio from the theatre itself (inviting audiences in free). All this after the Schiffmann family who owned the place in its salad days had run the place into the ground and let it sit vacant and decaying for years. Former Boro Prez Percy Sutton got enough money to buy the Apollo and got it back to its glory, cross-pollinating it with his Inner City Broadcasting holdings. Soon, there were rumblings, rumors and leaks that the city wanted him out of the picture, and wanted that considerable media entity in the hands of someone more “responsible”—a.k.a., not challenging the city’s power structure. The rumor, and it was laughed at out of hand when Mayor Dinkins worried about it publicly, was that Time-Warner wanted the Apollo as an anchor holding for the gentrification of 125th Street. People howled at that idea—it was “tin-foil hat” stuff. But Zuckerman’s Daily News got in on it, and for years, crawled up the butt of Sutton and ICBC and the Harlem politicos who held on fast. He and his attack dog, editor Michael Goodwin, and Black hatchet people Jonathan Capehart (who would later go on to work for Bloomberg News and as an advisor to Bloomberg’s campaign—fancy that!) and Karen Hunter went after the theatre management, hounding them and blowing small differences out of all proportion until eventually, thanks to their mighty Wurlitzer of white noise, the years-long campaign (coupled with an investigation by GOP Attorney General Dennis Vacco) ended with the Suttons losing the theatre, the Daily News with a Pulitzer for muckraking and a new board taking control. Who runs that board? You guessed it..Time-Warner…of-f*cking-course. And the theatre did become the anchor in the gentrification of 125th Street. Never mind that the place was turned over to actual crooks (who tried to break the theatres unions and stiffed them to this day on payroll—as well as stiffing outside vendors) and mismanagers who after five years in charge…just fixed the f*cking marquee.

Black folks finally get a chance to be something in this town and got smacked down for it.


I’m passing the White Castle on Empire Boulevard when Roger Toussaint’s face pops into my head. The leader of a key city union—the mover of it’s people, the beneath-the-skin “bloodstream” of NYC TWU, decided to stand up to a known crooked management and its equally duplicitous political muscle-men in the Mayor and Governor. The moment he does that, the moment Toussaint and his 70% minority (sounds so stupid to say 70% “minority”, but hey…) stands its ground (after cutting the city a break a few days before), the tabloids—Zuckerman’s Daily News and Murdoch’s Klan-screed of a rag Post try to lead a virtual lynch mob against Toussaint and the union. The News fantasizes in its pages about Toussaint’s being tossed into the river by Brooklyn Bridge walkers, while the Post—God bless it, runs a photoshopped pic of Toussaint behind bars on its front page (White collar crime like accounting fraud, two sets of books and disappearing hundreds of millions of dollars doesn’t warrant jailbird photoshops on major metropolitan daily’s front pages I guess.) and mocks his Caribbean background with a page two headline “Here’s Your New Island Getaway—Rikers Island!”, replete with a spread of pics of the interior of a jail cell and Rikers amenities. “Mad As Hell!”, “You Rats!” “Jail ‘Em!” blared the headlines. You’d think he was the one ranting like Bloomberg and Pataki, or screeching like a crazy, old ninny like Koch the other day, but no…their venom was turned on a 70% minority union and it’s leader in a futile attempt to sway the populace towards practically killing this guy and his workers. But it didn’t f*cking work. The most reliable polls, the targeted ABC and now the NY1 poll out today show the heated anti-union rhetoric didn’t take and in fact, the Mayor, Governor and MTA caught a sh*tload of hell for what went down.

http://www.ny1.com/ny1/NY1ToGo/S...tid=1&aid=55816

Take a read of the breakdown of the poll racially insofar as opinions.

Yup. It wasn’t a factor in this, my *ss.

As I neared my door, I thought about an episode of “Eyes on The Prize II” about Martin Luther King’s final battles against racism in the north. Having won huge battles in Birmingham and Montgomery and all over the south, he tried his hand at fighting entrenched northern racism and found himself running into a brick wall of resistance. The venomous, over-the-top reactions he got in daring to challenging bigotry in Chicago and the suburb of Cicero, Illinois depressed him and he basically went back to the south to fight, having tasted defeat in the allegedly more “sophisticated” north.

Up here, racism has never really been discussed frankly. It’s always easier to simply make fun of Southerners for their alleged “backwardness” in their clunky practice of racism instead of ever focusing on our own up-north silky, subtle, but just as destructive meting out of race-hatred. It has…never been confronted honestly. And thus, it festers…from Cicero, Illinois, to Boston Massachusetts, and yes...to so-called “liberal”, “blue” New York f*cking City. What we saw this past week in the handling, coverage and opining about this strike had a lot to do with class and economics…but the easiest, at the tip-of-the-tongue, quick-reaction venom that got spewed about this strike had an undeniable racial edge to it…and you have to live here awhile to understand it in a continium—from Ocean Hill-Brownsville, to CUNY, to the N*ggerbockers, to the Post, to Dinkins, to the Apollo, to the transit strike just ended. Yahoos who freep a CNN poll sitting in a cubicle in Sandusky have no clue. The post-strike polling done here in NYC bears the truth, and a bitter truth at that. A truth that doesn’t sadden me at all, but rather is just a given—something you just learn to deal with in this town and somehow work the hell around.

Black folks finally get a chance to be something in this town and got smacked down for it.

I got to my door and realized I’d forgotten about my foot pain entirely as I’d walked and thought.

Walked and thought.

Ain’t that a b*tch?
LowerManhattanite

Letter To NY Citizenry

Dear New York,

My love for Wu-Tang knows no bounds. I haven't slept in years because I'm lost on my way to Brooklyn. You make the best pizza on the planet. I love you and I've been only twice in my life.

But you have to treat your transit workers like human beings.

Currently we're on a worker's rights trend that will certainly leave us broke, blind, bedlam, or all fucking three. The people that are striking are doing it to protect people they've never even met: the future transit workers. Some of them may be your sons and daughters. It's important work because you need to use the subway to get to fucking work, don't you? And now you're left with the proverbial dilznick because "the workers are greedy," right? Wrong. MTA has a huge surplus this year, and rather than share it or at least use it to improve the service, it will probably use it to pay top officials. In short, the greed you see is on the top not on the bottom.

Not only that, but they're going to go two-tier wage system. The workers don't want it not because it doesn't benefit them (which it doesn't) but because it will hurt future workers (a definite truth.) By going two-tier, it means that people in the future will make less and get less as a raise when they start after this contract. In theory, the workers under the previous contracts should be happy (they get to keep their good wages and other people start lower) but they KNOW ITS WRONG.

NY, show some nuts. I know you guys have them, you're the home of Law and Order and of NY Undercover, and those guys were fucking tough. Show people that you're not the greedy, selfish, dickheads that the public thinks you are (and oddly strives to be) and be the asskicking, nutbusting, don't-take-any-shit-off-nobody-because-I'm-from-Brownsville-and-I-live-in-a-ninth-floor-walkup kind of town that I think, know, and admire you for being.

No deal, no work, no discussion.

Live+die=Bedstuy

PS - Give my regards to Brooklyn.

Next Question

"I thought you didn't like organized religion."

Well, not to get all semantical, but I just don't like religions that say that they love people yet do all that they can to screw them. It doesn't seem like the Salvation Army does that. The people that I've worked for/under here seem devoted to doing the best that they can for those that come to them for aid. They struggle with common problems like love, anger, frustration, and exhaustion, but in the end they are there for those that they are there to serve. I like that. I think it deserves some aid.

Just wanted to handle that one first since I got it the most yesterday.

Fundamentally, this has been an incredible experience. Once I get the chance to do some hard research, I'll put some stuff out there about my talks with people while wearing my red apron and ringing my bell.

Who I Am Temping For... :)

In 1865, William Booth, an ordained Methodist minister, aided by his wife Catherine, formed an evangelical group dedicated to preaching among the “unchurched” people living in the midst of appalling poverty in London’s East End. Booth’s ministry recognized the interdependence of material, emotional and spiritual needs. In addition to preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, Booth became involved in the feeding and shelter of the hungry and homeless and in rehabilitation of alcoholics.

Booth and his followers, originally known as The Christian Mission, became The Salvation Army in 1878, when that organization evolved on a quasi-military pattern. Booth became “the General” and officers’ ranks were given to his ministers.

The Salvation Amy has functioned successfully within that unusual structure for more than a century. As of 2005, its outreach has been expanded to include more than 100 countries, and the Gospel is preached by its officers in more than 160 languages.

Services

The basic social services developed by William Booth have remained an outward visible expression of the Army’s strong religious principles. In addition, new programs that address contemporary needs have been established. Among these are disaster relief services, day care centers, summer camps, holiday assistance, services for the aging, AIDS education and residential services, medical facilities, shelters for battered women and children, family and career counseling, vocational training, correction services, and substance abuse rehabilitation. More than 30 million a year are aided in some form by services provided by The Salvation Army.

Structure

The General, with headquarters in London, is the international leader of The Salvation Army. In the United States, the functions of The Salvation Army are coordinated by the National Commander, whose office is at the national headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia.

For administrative purposes, the nation is divided into four territories: the Central Territory with headquarters in Des Plaines, Illinois, the Eastern Territory with headquarters in West Nyack, New York, the Southern Territory with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, and the Western Territory with headquarters in Long Beach, California. Each territory is under leadership of a territorial commander.

Nationwide uniformity of policy is the responsibility of the Commissioners’ Conference, whose membership includes the National Commander, the Territorial Commanders, the National Chief Secretary (COO) and the four Territorial Chief Secretaries. Standing commissions devise and evaluate strategic initiatives to further the mission and ministry of The Salvation Army and then make recommendations to the Commissioners’ Conference.

Territories are made up of smaller units known as divisions. There are 40 divisions in the United States and each is headed by a divisional commander. Divisions consist of corps centers for worship and service, which are the basic units of The Salvation Army, and various specialized centers. The functions of each corps include religious and social services which are adapted to local needs. Each corps is under the supervision of a corps officer.

The Salvation Army is a participating member in various religious and human services associations, coalitions and conferences having similar principles and practices. Legally, each of the four Salvation Army territories in the United States functions as a tax-exempt corporation with the National Commander as Chairperson of the Board.

Fundraising

Salvation Army fund-raising campaigns are conducted on a local and regional basis. There is no fund-raising at the national level. The normal source of funds are the traditional Christmas kettle campaigns, direct-mail programs, corporate and foundation gifts, planned giving, and government contracts. In most areas, The Salvation Army is a member agency of local affiliates of the United Way of America where such affiliation has proven to be beneficial to The Salvation Army. The organization’s stewardship of its funding is noted throughout philanthropy; 83 cents of every dollar collected by the Army goes directly to client service – among the highest percentages of any non-profit in the world.

Advisory Organizations

Advisory organizations, comprised of representative community, corporate, and civic leaders, perform a valuable service by providing advice and acting as liaison between The Salvation Army and the community. The advisory organizations interpret community needs to The Salvation Army and facilitate the development of resources, enabling The Salvation Army to respond to critical community needs. A national advisory board makes its recommendations to the Commissioners’ Conference.

The People

The Salvation Army’s membership consists of 3500 officers, 60,000 employees, 113,000 soldiers, 430,000 adherents , and more than 3.5 million volunteers. Adherents are people who have elected not to be enrolled as soldiers but consider The Salvation Army to be their place of worship. Soldiers are those who have signed a declaration of faith and practice known as A Soldiers’ Covenant and worship and serve through a local corps. Employees are personnel hired to perform specialized duties in fields such as social services, youth service, accounting, development, law, and property. Volunteers are those who give freely of their time, enabling The Salvation Army to meet far more community needs than otherwise possible.

Officers are the clergy of The Salvation Army. They have either completed training as cadets or auxiliary captains and have been ordained and commissioned to officership. All officers are engaged in continuing education. With its Christian heritage and motivation, The Salvation Army continues its unique service to all people in the name of Christ.

Fast Food Fridays Returns!

How to Make Coca-Cola by Penguin

The following recipe produces a gallon of syrup very similar to Coca-Cola's.
Mix 2,400 grams of sugar with just enough water to dissolve (high-fructose corn
syrup may be substituted for half the sugar). Add 37 grams of caramel, 3.1
grams of caffeine, and 11 grams of phosphoric acid. Extract the cocaine from
1.1 grams of coca leaf (Truxillo growth of coca preferred) with toluol; discard
the cocaine extract. Soak the coca leaves and kola nuts (both finely powdered;
0.37 gram of kola nuts) in 22 grams of 20 percent alcohol. California white
wine fortified to 20 percent strength was used as the soaking solution circa
1909, but Coca-Cola may have switched to a simple water/alcohol mixture. After
soaking, discard the coca and the kola and add the liquid to the syrup. Add 30
grams of lime juice (a former ingredient, evidently, that Coca-Cola now denies)
or a substitute such as a water solution of citric acid and sodium citrate at
lime-juice strength. Mix together 0.88 gram of lemon oil, 0.47 gram of orange
oil, 0.27 gram of lime oil, 0.20 gram of cassia (Chinese cinnamon) oil, 0.07
gram of nutmeg oil, and if desired, traces of coriander, lavender, and neroli
oils, and add to 4.9 grams of 95 percent alcohol. Shake. Add 2.7 grams of
water to the alcohol/oil mixture and let stand for twenty-four hours at about 60
degrees Fahrenheit. A cloudy layer will separate. Take off the clear part of
the liquid only and add to the syrup. Add 19 grams of glycerin (from vegetable
sources, not hog fat, so the drink can be sold to Orthodox Jews and Moslems) and
1.5 grams of vanilla extract. Add water (treated with chlorine) to make 1
gallon of syrup.

I certainly can't make it rain, but I can let the sunshine through.

Today is the start of the big move.

Today I find out where I'm going on my next big organizing adventure.

Today I also buy boxes.

Hooray for me!

I'm happy to rejoin the social justice experience.

I'm terrified.

I'm excited.

Hooray for Pepto Bismol!

Molten Lava

Your life and my life are filled with the routine of a caveman: although it is a simplicity that most older people envy, in reality only the ones living it can speak of the harshness that accompanies that simplicity. The routine is unbroken for most of the year, with the exception of those little snippets of time with our families allowing for a glimpse at life away from college. That is, until you graduate. Then you hone your skills at studying and scheduling to the kind of edge that only razors embrace, with the metal gasping at the sight of how truly powerful the student mind actually is at full tilt.
-I. M. Wamocha

---------------------

I wrote that when I was in school.

I can't fucking stand school.

School for me was the last place I ever wanted to be.

My mom, when I told her this, told me that she knew. I asked her why she didn't say anything, and she just shrugged her shoulders.

When I was in school, it was like being compressed by large weights all day. I was depressed, lonely, surrounded by people that I didn't like and totally unchallenged by the classes I was taking. In the end, the frustration made me rebel and I paid for it.

My family, the eternally damned to fecundity, responded with "Why didn't you just make perfect grades and hurry up to finish if you were so bored?"

They were probably right. I should have just stuck through it.

Or maybe they were wrong.

Any guesses?

My cousin actually had the nuts to rebel against his peers and actually tell me that if he was in the same position he was in at my age (30 years ago) he would have done what he loves instead of just settling. He's the same age as my mom, but he swore me to secrecy.

Secret's out, I guess.

The Break Is Over

Going to Cleveland for a few days, but I wanted to drop something before I left.

Hip hop, to me, has always been the higher form of art that has been distributed, packaged, and sold as music. It's the boombip, the drum sound, the ability to make a rhyme keep time. In short, you have to be a master of the craft and it has to reflect both your natural talent and your ability to practice that talent until it becomes something both real and unreal in its capacity to relate.

To me, that previous paragraph does nothing to describe my feelings about hip hop. I leave you with Mos Def.


I start to think, and then I sink
Into the paper, like I was ink
When I’m writing I’m trapped in between the line
I escape when I finish the rhyme (aiyyo)

My pops said he was in love when he made me
Thought about it for a second, wasn’t hard to see
I could hear he was sincere, was a game of promotion
The entire affair’s probably charged wit emotion
But love call your heart, I guess you got to persue
12-11-73 my life is testament
Praise the beneficent, element that rest
Devoid in the form that make love manifest
I spent my early years in roosevelt project
It was a bright valley wit some dark prospects
In ’83, venny c was the host wit the most
I listened to the rap attack and held the radio close
I listened to the rap attack and held the radio close
This is far before the days of high glamour and pose
Aiyyo power from the street light made the place dark
I know a few understand what I’m talkin about
It was love for the thing that made me wanna stay out
It was love for the thing that made me stay in the house
Spendin time, writin rhymes
Tryin to find words that describe the vibe
That’s inside the space
When you close yo’ eyes and screw yo’ face
Is this the pain of too much tenderness
To make me nod my head in reverence
Should I visit this place and remember it?
To build landmarks here as evidence
Night time, spirit shook my temperment
To write rhymes that portray this sentiment
We live the now for the promise of the infinite
We live the now for the promise of the inifinite
And we believe in the promise (love, love *repeated*)
Yes yes y’all and we don’t stop because

Fast Food Fridays

Because I've recieved so much angry mail from McDonald's over my posting of their recipes, I'm going to continue the tradition as a regular part of my weekend posts.

God speed and Amen.

I'm gonna need a lawyer fulltime. Any recommendations?

----------

McDonald's® Chicken McNuggets™

SPECIAL TOOLS: Deep fryer

Ingredients:

vegetable oil (in fryer)
1 egg
1 cup water
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup tempura mix (or 1/3 cup flour for a total of 1 cup if tempura mix is unavailable)
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon Accent®
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder

4 chicken breast filets, each cut into 6-7 bite sized pieces.

Cooking your McNuggets™

1. Beat the egg and then combine it with 1 cup water in a small, shallow bowl. Stir.

2. Combine the flour, salt, Accent®, pepper, onion powder and garlic powder in a one gallon size zip lock bag.

3. Pound each of the breast filets with a mallet until about 1/4-inch thick. Trim each breast filet into bite sized pieces.

4. Coat each piece with the flour mixture by shaking in the zip lock bag.

5. Remove and dredge each nugget in the egg mixture, coating well. Then return each nugget to the flour/seasoning mixture. Shake to coat. Put nuggets, bag and all,
in the freezer for at least an hour. Cover and refrigerate remaining egg mixture.

6. After freezing, repeat the "coating" process.

7. Preheat oven and large cookie sheet to 375°

8. Deep fry the chicken McNuggets™ at 375° for 10-12 minutes or until light brown and crispy. (cook only about 9 at a time.)

9. Drain on paper towels 3-5 minutes.

10. Place deep-fried nuggets on preheated cookie sheet in oven and bake another 5-7 minutes.

11. Serve with your favorite McDonald's dipping sauce.
| Back to the McMenu |

Film Noir

I watched Sin City last night, and after much deliberation I've come to the conclusion that my friends and I are going to make one of our own.

If you want to be down with us on it, feel free to email me at solidarious54@gmail.com or just comment here if you're feelin ballsy. You'll have to live in the area or at least have the ability to send and recieve large audio, video, and text files. We'll make those decisions as they come.

--------------------

Rumi talked about a point where the camel's back bends and the load looks to teeter. Sometimes you'll see your packages eye the ground with longing, anxious for that drop towards the bottom. It's a long way down so they'll want something for the trouble of giving in to gravity's wishes. They'll be honest and fair with the trip towards the end of it's downward selfishness.... it can't last forever, Gravity. Force of forces, you might keep me here but my corners can't remain pointing toward the earth. Eventually I'll get used to it, and I might even bend a little at the edges. But I'm still a square. And squares gotta be squares.

Too far? Maybe.

I'm at my end. Maybe they can beat me. Maybe they can't.

But if I had to bet money, I'd throw down on the kid.

Your choice though.

To Make Ends.

I've got pockets.

Today, I'm now an employed person. Hooray for me.

So now onto more important matters.



Filet~O-Fish®

You'll need a DEEP-FRYER for this one. (this is a per-serving recipe. Multiply everything by each serving needed.) Fish patty can also be baked per package directions.

1 Van de Camps frozen breaded whitefish patty*
1 small, regular hamburger bun
1 Tablespoon prepared tartar sauce
1/2 slice real American cheese
dash salt
1 12"x12" sheet of waxed paper (to wrap)

**use any square whitefish patty not extra crisp, like Mrs. Pauls, or even the store brand.

(as with the burgers, pre-heat your oven to warm. This is your warming "bin".)

Pre-heat you fryer to 375-400 degrees. After its ready, cook fish 3-5 minutes until done.(do NOT thaw first.) Remove and add a dash of salt.

In the old days, the bun was quick warmed using a steamer. We'll use the microwave. Microwave the bun about 10 seconds, until hot and steamy. (Do NOT toast the bun) Add about 1
Tablespoon of prepared tartar sauce to crown side of the bun. Place the cooked fish filet on top, add 1/2 slice american cheese centered on the fish, and add heel of the bun. Wrap in a
12"x12" sheet of waxed paper and warm in oven's lowest setting for 8-10 minutes. Dig into a fabulous Filet~0-Fish!

****************ONCE AGAIN**************** An alternate "Q-ing" method would be to wrap the sandwich tightly in wax paper, let sit for 5 minutes, and microwave on high
for 15 seconds (while still wrapped.) In fact, you can use this method on ALL of the burger recipes on this site, with the exception of the McD.L.T. ("Q-ing" was a McDonald's term for
helping the flavors to meld via mechanical means; ie heatlamp or microwave.)

Bottomkido

My given name is different from the name that I commonly use. If that's the case, is my other life a lie?

I found out last week that I was being sued. I won't get into details.

Still unemployed. Two more interviews this week, making my interview total 21. If my interview was a kid named Lloyd, Lloyd would be going out to get hammered on Wednesday night. Let's hope he's blowing his brain out as a newly employed fool.

No money. Having no money is awesome. It's like living... without the life thing getting in the way.

More to follow.

Noteworthy Description of a Fucked Up Situation

tribeofshugbazz: i'm just tired of choking on swamp water and swimming in my own shit
ReeceP1: you'd be doing that on this side too, man... remember how I would look after coming back from MS?
ReeceP1: lol
ReeceP1: like I'd killed Swamp Thing
ReeceP1: lol
tribeofshugbazz: yeah, but you'd been in MS doing shit
tribeofshugbazz: we're wanting some of what the other person has
tribeofshugbazz: and it's like glass is in betweem
tribeofshugbazz: when all we really need to do is take the time to break down the glass in such a manner that it doesn't cut us.
ReeceP1: lol
tribeofshugbazz: but i like wooden bowls anyway...
ReeceP1: lmao
ReeceP1: so well said that it will be quoted in my Blogger

... and there it was

And That's Why They Call It...

After a stunning amount of technical futzing, I have incorporated an old drive into the home Dell. Oh the wonders I have bestowed upon this machine... 2500 music files, 15 divx files, and a host of video...

Dear God.

I got a call today from an 808 zip code. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I got a serious offer from Hawaii. For a job. A real organizing job. In fucking Honolulu.

Dear God.

I should consider it, but me and my man Miznike are getting a place. Sure, I haven't worked in months, sure I'm completely broke, sure I'm pretty much dead in the water otherwise in the job department. But I bet you I'll turn that down like a hooker in a hallway in Hanoi. At 4 AM. And she's only wearing one shoe. And some kind of insect is running down her leg at top speed. From the area that rhymes with fraginal.

Dear God.

Heh... Wasn't that the end of one of my posts awhile ago? Should really stop writing God letters Postage Due... fucking with my credit.

Dear God?

Dear God!

Everybody's Talkin At Me... I Can't Hear The Words They're Sayin

At the behest of my psychiatrist, I'm constructing a kind of plan for myself.

I'm thinking this next year should be a year that I spend trying to get myself on some kind of educational way point. I need to own it, in every sense of the word. I need to tell my parents to shut the fuck up, and pay for everything myself.

I want to ultimately be done with my degree plan by 2006-2007. Either way, in between school and work, I'm leaving the country for a few months.

So I've started planning for my exodus.

Anyone who wants to flee the nation with me, feel free to shout at me about it.

We're doing this backpacker style, and if you have a preference as to what countries you'd like to tag along with me on, feel free to let me know whenever.

It may seem like I'm doing this way too far in advance, but according to most sites I'm actually hedging my bets a tiny bit by doing it now. They say to plan in the fall and start saving by winter, especially since you'd have to save enough for gas and other fecundities.

Oh, and there's no way I'm going to Ibiza. This isn't the "party and bullshit" trip. You should do that when you're ready to stay in a hotel with room service in my opinion, so I'll do that some other time. If you want to, obviously you're welcome to go.

My real post will come soon, but I just wanted to put this out there.

A Metallic Scraping Sound...

"He pulls a knife you pull a gun, he sends one of yours to the hospital you send one of his to the morgue!"
-Sean Connery The Untouchables

-----

CAM'RON: Where did you start covering up the fear, right?

O'REILLY: No, wrong.

CAM'RON: I'm going to get at you in a minute.

O'REILLY: You go ahead. You get at me.

-O'Reilly Factor interview with Cam'ron and Damon Dash

-----


A few days ago, there was a pretty serious protest @ Howard U. It was primarily about the siege that precedes a presidential visit. The act itself was actually amazing, especially since Howard usually isn't exactly the first place people think of when they think "protest" nowadays.

I made the comment that living mere miles from the White House lends itself to a need for a bit of gumption.

Living in DC, for all purposes, is a bit of a contact sport. It is definitely you versus the forces of government. Whether its a day of Code Burnt Sienna alert or a distinct clarion call for serious marching, you're facing off against the Beast. You live there. You stay in his backyard, so naturally you're gonna have to fight him for the chewtoys and the doggie dish. Let's get gully here... you also have to fight for his prize, his bitch, the Money. He doesn't just fuck it, he births it. His innards grind out the slightly smelly notes, and you take them and buy CDs and MP3 players and condoms and hot dogs and weed with it. No matter how green your grass, he owns your ass, and until you face it and him, you're standing in a pile of shit way too big for your tiny limp pooperscooper.

If I was still a student, my time in class would be spent cultivating all manner of revolution. My school would be nothing short of a place known for yet another PLO with MD instead of the P. Even if my group was as small as it was at VState, I'd at least put up enough of a fight to where they'd have to recognize my irritating boils that fester on its lumpy, overfed ass. In short, I'd be a worry. I'd be a constant problem. To solve me, they'd have to treat me like a Rubix Cube: either break that motherfucker or respond to his code. Solve the puzzle and save your ass. I'd probably fail a lot of classes, but who gives a fuck about your diploma if tomorrow you can't eat with it anyway? Who cares if you're dead how many degrees you have and where they came from?

You live ten miles from the center of the pentagram. Are the candles you're lighting white or black? Or are you like the many who will stand and wait, hoping that an end result yields gas prices and peace in the Middle East, rights for women yet free ass, and a government where we vote Demmycrat or Repubbican and yet still have truth and fairness as part of our national collective?

Where's the mosh pit?

Truck Stop

So now I'm applying for AmeriCorps.

Wish me luck.

Now watch... I'll enter the program, excited and ready. It pays dick and the work is immense. Then, I'll get endless amounts of responses from my union organizing gigs. Unable to quit, I'll get pissed off and shoot someone. I'll then enter prison, where I'll lift weights and work on my criminal skills.

Wow, I really need a job.

Because If Luck Were Oxygen... Well, You Can Just Go To Hell

So far the count is thirty two. Thoroughly rejected by them all.

I'm still on hold for ten.

I might end up a garbageman yet.

George Bush and his economic prosperity can get fucked.

Get fucked I say. Get fucked.

The Myth of the Magical Negro Chapter 1: Negroidian Principles

"I learned from TV that if you hit a midget in the head, gold coins will drop out."
Patton Oswalt


Contrary to popular opinion, if you stop referring to us in conversation or popular media we don't disappear like apparations or those little trolls in nursery rhymes.

Black people do not refer to themselves as "mulatto" or "octaroon" in either public or private. Those are names that refer to slave trade classifications. My background, while a truly fascinating subject, is not something for you to know or try to know unless I tell you, either orally or through some form of written communications.

You don't know how black people are, shall be, or will be.

Race may mean nothing, but being black will always carry a legacy. If you want to blame someone, there are many white males both alive and dead that are responsible for the massive burden that is race and racism. Feel free to give them a call, chant, present, or explosive device.

Black people exist collectively as a statstical base. Again, not our fault. Consult the above dead white guys.

Ghetto, urban, and/or black don't rhyme and they certainly aren't synonyms.

I am a large black male. Despite your own vision problems, I am not always angry. Then again, if you're stupid enough you might just piss me off all the time... so maybe it's just your fault.

Don't clutch your purse when I enter an elevator. There's nowhere for either us to go... oh, and I'm not a thief.

My baggy pants conceal neither a constant erection nor a shotgun. I wear them because I feel like it.

And my personal favorite:

Dave Chappelle is funny for reasons that you don't even get. And secretly he quit because you, after two seasons of it, still couldn't figure it out.



That is all for now.

Si, que puede?

In a discussion about union democracy, I mentioned mobilization. Other people mentioned mobilization too, but as a kind of salve to be placed upon gaping organizing wounds already slashed into the labor framework.

Mobilization is a kind of plan carried forth only in situations of extreme peril. It seems like its almost put into action when the situation is so bad that you need some kind of union chemotherapy. Sure, you might lose some hair and your skin might yellow like old books... but what else is there at this point? You want to live, don't you?

I think we should be thinking about how members feel about unions before we even start talking about making them members. How do we know that they aren't confused by what we're saying? How do you use a thirty-day blitz to introduce someone to the labor movement when we can't even decide on how useful blitzes are?

More later... probably a part two to this one. Gotta go.

I had proof that black was beautiful

She liked my dredlocks.  But the thing was that I really just had kinky twists.  

I’d met her way before that, probably some months prior, in Olive Branch.  I was really hot for her then, but I was so focused on work that I felt like we shouldn’t get down like that.  She was into me, but then again, it might have all been play regardless.  I was trying to get her attention, but it wasn’t working at all…

Then I come back to Memphis.  All people can talk about is how much she’s been asking about where I’ve been.  Personally, your boy was under the impression that she didn’t care in the least.  On top of that, my job was basically on the verge of being eliminated.  Things couldn’t get worse even if I’d tried to make them worse.  So what did I do?  I fell in love with her.

We fought a lot.  We laughed a lot.  We spent a lot of our time watching movies and making fun of each other.  She held my attention.  I missed her when she was gone and although she feverishly denied it, I know she missed me too.  There was no way that I was going to go back to twists though.  And that probably should have signaled my end… or our end anyway.  But I’m blind when I’m like that.  All caught up in how I felt and probably not listening to her and how she felt is what got me here in the first place: typing in the dark.

I love her.  I still do, even when things couldn’t possibly get better.  Even when I was with the other girl, especially when I was with the other girl probably.  I told her a lot of the same things that I told you… only she listened to me a little more when I told her I cared about her.  I imagine I was really talking to you.  How fucked up is that, right?

When things get worse sometimes I blame her.  She told me to erase her from my phone, and she’d do the same with me.

I lied.

Some lies are better left untold yet cherished, like old jewelry from new department store boxes… shiny paper makes anything seem legitimate, even when covering something taboo.  We’re all liars anyway right?  All hypocrites, so why not shame myself a little more?  

I probably should have called her by now.  But I can’t because deep down I know that she’d just hang up the phone.  So I’ll sit here, with my hand on Send.

Well, I did until about five minutes ago.

Get better, lady who constantly confuses me.  If you don’t make it, I’ll keep lying to myself and saying I don’t miss you anyway.

The Adventures Of...

So today, of all days, I decided that I was going to make a mess of Holiday Inn.  Not in my usual organizing way, but by applying for a job.

So I go up to ask for an application, and this is how it went down:

Counter Guy: So, what position are you applying for?

ME: I dunno.  What's open, off the top of your head.

Counter Guy: Well, for guys like you, we usually have the restaurant or the buffet.

ME:... (leaning in REAL CLOSE) What kind of guy do you suppose I am?

Rocksmokingcockblocking
BIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATCCCCCCCCCCHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!


I should have throated that guy.

New Blogger Account

Anyone who is reading this now knows that I am making the slow transition to Blogger. Mostly I'm moving just because the interface is so much better. We'll see how well it takes...

Those who are new, welcome. Be prepared for complete and utter nonsense.

Its late part three

If I stay here, I'll surely drown.

The waves aren't getting any lower. I could lie to you and say that I'm going to graduate.

It's not going to happen.

At least, not this year.

I'm going back to organizing.

The, Until Recently, Hidden Cost

Jesus was a huge fan of the poor. In fact, so much so that he was a poor man himself when made human. In every version of the Bible, both ancient language and current conversions, the scene with the temple full of bankers and moneychangers is actually one of the only ones that has survived as an account unquestioned by contemporary scholars.

Most conservatives consider moral values a part of their dictum. And most of the time that's a dictum that includes religion as a kind of moral pH. Now, while this pH test may not be used for everyone, it is quite common.

I think what Jesus has to say about money is always, regardless of what passage you use, clear: money, while useful for survival, can't make a life. Only the joy of giving to others is what can make your soul something that will stand up to God's eternal example, Jesus Christ.

Just because you give money when there's a disaster doesn't make you a giving person. Money really only goes so far, and what ultimately needs to be given but usually isn't is compassion. I've seen very little compassion this year from conservatives in the government as well as in the general populace. Most of what I've seen in the forum as well as in the world at large is a kind of disdain for the poor unless they are directly in front of those same poor people. They blame them, saying that they are victims of their own misdeeds and bad decisions.

Often I'm called to think of Elijah Muhammad's analogy about water tainted by ink, and that when a man is thirsty he will drink that tainted water because his choice is thirst or no thirst. Now, given a clean glass with pure water and that dirty glass of inky bile, he will drink from the clean glass with pure water. But only if he is thirsty.

I think a lot of the people that I have met in my time in New Orleans, Biloxi, Corinth, Olive Branch, etc. have been folks that are just in need of some clean, clear water to drink, metaphorically speaking. I find that I'm lacking all the time in my efforts to help, and for the most part I try to shore up those obstacles by helping. But I do that NOT JUST WHEN THERE IS A DISASTER.

THAT, for ME, is the biggest indictment of the rich and powerful, especially those who are those things and "conservative." When the chips are down, it is truly nice to see people donating time and money. But what about the other times?

What about not fighting organizing efforts that are perfectly legal for those who make minimum wage, so that they can afford prescription medicine and doctor's visits instead of trying to self-medicate (which incidentally is also linked to occurances of mental illness)?

What about raising minimum wage so that those who work those jobs can live well enough to have good employment records, move when there is a disaster, and avoid getting sick from substandard food and dwellings?

What about fighting FOR funding for improving upon the way we educate children so that they can go beyond the economic stratum placed upon them at birth and ultimately make their own lives better?

Flux

So this morning at 8 AM I get a call from the owner of the video place. Apparently he has now completely overextended himself and now must realign his schedule of employees. Moving me to another store is apparently his favorite option. So now, after working half a day, I'm going to get paid part time to go on another three interviews.

Seeing K today at 12 instead of 5, ABK at 9 hopefully.

Whee! It's like being a DJ without the good music.

Guns don't kill people, I kill people.

Quote:--------------------------------------------------------------------------------That disaster did not cause looting, people caused looting.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And guns don't kill people, people kill people, according to some. But guns have bullets. And while those bullets are not responsible for the trigger, they do cause the injury sustained. So why is it that we don't throw people in jail and through the miraculous healing of justice someone is in turn completely cured when the guilty party is prosecuted? Because fundamentally we still have to repair the damage the gun and its fodder, the bullets, have caused. The violence could come from another direction and still has a primary (or secondary, depending on your choice of prima facie investigation) source, but we're still talking, simple and plain, a gunshot wound. Not to say that the gun is the primary cause, but A cause (one of many, in fact.) Its level is not the same as the person's culpability, but definitely holds true to form as a contributor to injury.
Your analogy then only holds so much weight with the disaster argument. Both indeed are causes, but to say that they are not dependant on one another is like saying that cholesterol didn't contribute to a man's heart attack or that pollen doesn't make me sneeze. The truth lies in that the causes are neither independant nor weighted. They're BOTH part of the same conclusion: poor people who were already struggling to begin with ultimately losing all assets and becoming overtly destitute in a concentrated, polluted area. Which leads to another statement made:

Quote:--------------------------------------------------------------------------------I beat my wife, the devil made me do it, I rape your sister, the disaster made me do it. Sorry, I do not buy the bleading heart liberal montra at all. Everything I have done in my life, good and bad, are because of CHOICES I have made. None of my choices were the results of a disaster, the devil, society. I made the choices, and those who looted made the choices. No one FORCED them to loot. They were not at the point of starvation, they were being challenged for the first time in many of their lives, challenged to be human beings, they were challenged to actually TAKE CARE OF THEMSELVES.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A blanket characterization appears here that is troubling. The they in this argument has been molded out of a disturbing model: the welfare queen and/or drug dealer and/or pimp and/or king of the block. To save myself some time, I'm going to repost something that I put up earlier. I think it relates better to our conversation and its something I wish to reference later on.
The human body's systems are dependant on multiple chemicals, nutrients, and solvents to make it function. These vital fluids are determined by the brain to be necessary for survival unless told otherwise. Our bodies, not unlike car engines, run slower and operate at a diminished capacity when unable to find sufficient fuel.

So when people riot, doctors are never called to report on the situation. Why? Because doctors would say that the desire to loot, to find food or water, or whatever the media is calling it is COMPLETELY NATURAL. The human body does anything it can to ensure its own survival. That's why people are known to flee with an almost supernatural sense of eminent danger, exhibit feats of strength that they previously have never shown prior to the extraordinary event, and in times of strife tend to go a little crazy.

In New Orleans, there are five plants that are part of a union I worked for some months ago. Those plants printed all sorts of magazines and newspapers and used a chemical called toluene as a solvent. This chemical is a carcinogen and a level four risk as a hazardous material. It is volatile, so much so that if you filled a coke bottle with it and shook it for a good one or two minutes, you would probably be covered in flames or fatally burned from the blast. In an emergency, MTs of five are called to turn off the pumps, evacuate the facility, and decide who is going to remain because if there's a breach as much as square mile could be incinerated by the amounts in most printing facilities of medium size.

All of the plants I know of were affected by the disaster. And this toluene is now in the water all over town. It is also on fire, and residents have reported coughing and contamination-related symptoms. Now, going back to our previous analogies, this isn't a simple "toluene made people crazy" suggestion. This problem is one of many contamination problems that are now a serious ecological threat. But the contamination also adds to the myriad of reasons why a group of poor people would decide to lash out at aid workers and soldiers trying to save their lives: the events have driven people mad. The overarching conclusion and truth has to be this then:
The current survivors of the disaster are screwed up by the unfolding events. They are probably not going to be well for a long time, and before they were unhinged in this way they were poor and that ALONE can make you crazy if it is the level of poverty that is known of in Ward 9. We're now reaping the benefits of being a society with wealth in that we're alive, but we're experiencing the inverse of that when poor people get angry: our wealth and pleasure penultimately contributed to their hungry and thirsty madness. And we're fundamentally screwed if we don't address it in a healthy way.

The poor people that you describe as animals are typically people who work blue-collar jobs. Plants in NOLA actually have great attendance records, make award winning products, and generally have employees who work hard. There are also people who work in stores like Wal-Mart, KMart, Piggly Wiggly, etc. All of these people in these places make much less than your average white-collar person and live in an area that takes economic advantage of that. As a result, people live paycheck to paycheck.

There are definitely people who take advantage of the system, but they are fundamentally few and far between. We see more of them because it is much "sexier", but being a person who has to compile the statistics out of the field and then go into the worst neighborhoods in the United States to try and help these people, I must fundmentally disagree with the idea that they are animals in search of a handout or a victim. For the most part, they don't have the money to move and are terrified that they will lose all the headway they have made against their own economic situation. Add to that a chemically induced high from the air and water full of toxins and a desire to get some nourishment, and you'll get a lot of angry broke people with nothing left to lose.

gotta break the post here... will continue addressing your letter soon.... feel free to address what I've written so far...

Obligatory Katrina Post

I've been writing it for a few days, taking time to read the news and make sense of the madness for myself. When I get back from Family Time, I'll post the whole thing, step by step.

Apologies to those in the dirty dirty that I couldn't respond to in time. I'll make sure to return your calls tonight, but if I can't get through, know that I'm praying for all of you.

Hi! My name is...

organize_crime... and I deal in videos.

Now I know that you're thinking I'm a dealer of Disney films and movies about piano players.

No, no, my friend, we only sell martial arts films and porn here.

I deal only in the finest of smut, the most primed hardcore and fetish-based pornography this side of the Mason-Dixon.

LOL

I'm gonna love working here.

What can I say to a man that thinks himself a scholar when he behaves as a fool

So I've got these cheeseburgers... haha just playin.

Thursdays are always great because until Saturday I usually forget that I even have an Internet connection, so I figured I'd make this "alles klar" post before embarking on the voyage.
I was up late last night playing well with the other children (MATT DAYMEN!)

I got an email from a few friends at Georgetown who are currently doing a study on St. Maarten and the current political climate of Caribbean nations. St. Maarten/St. Martin is currently trying to revitalize its economy since the hurricanes have been so merciless.

"We were wondering what you thought about its relationship with the United States since you spent so much time there. Also, what do you think about their continuously recanted and then reasserted support of the war, especially since in many ways they are still a French/Dutch colony?"

There's these dope green monkeys on the island that will follow your car for miles. Sometimes they throw fruit or shit, but only because they aren't used to favorable interaction with tourists. Mostly they just watch you from the street, hoping to catch a glimpse of you so they can alert the other ones to get out of the road. Monkeys are neat.

The island itself is pretty much at the political mercy of whatever international superpower visits them the most. I can remember a time when Desert Storm (or maybe it was still Desert Shield at that point) and my cousin went to Iraq, where he spent most of his time on munitions shit (I rarely understand what he does during the day, although I have to say that it mostly just involves his graduate major, chemistry). He told me that the soldiers came back tired and that a lot of what he worked on, what we now know is a derivative of Agent Orange, injured many soldiers on both sides. He described 115 degree heat, melting his boots. And he also told me many times about how much he hates, as he put it, "sand niggers." Now, St. Maarten/Martin as a collective island is pretty diverse in its international citizenry. But on the dutch side, St. Maarten, there's a fairly large contingent of Muslims from Pakistan, India, Iran, Iraq, Syria, etc. And they support the local economy so well that most of Philipsburg is dependent upon them for its survival during the summer months, when the economy slows. So for at least half the year, in St. Maarten, "sand niggers" run the show.

The debate about the war, at least at this point, has become rather moot. We're in there, neck deep. So for the residents of that island they're just as in as everyone else. But because its a small island, completely dependant on its beautiful beaches, liquor, and tanned rich women and medical students, you can see how uneasy the huge political rigamarole is. I mean, after all, we're just a bunch of hedonistic freaks to most of them anyway. While the prostitution trade on the island can pretty much assure you the girl of your dreams for one thousand dollars a night, most girls are fairly devout Christians if they are island natives.

I asked a friend or two of mine from there to give me some insight.

"So the political establishment there, at least those who make actual decisions, are in a tough spot: these soldiers that park their boats near our shores, enjoy our island nightlife, and actually aren't too loud or mean or crazy are not exactly a burden on our island. They are great for our economy. Some of them married our local women or men, and some of them mean a lot to our own families. It's a small island, and a lot of us are indirectly related here. But in the inverse, we're an island of poltical refugees. Many of our people that are now citizens of St. Maarten are definitely not natives. Many of them came from the same countries that are currently being invaded, and by supporting the war in some ways we support those who fled Saddam's reign. But some of them have also left family there, most of whom are now either impoverished or in the process of fleeing the country.

"So what do we do? If we support your stay, Reece, we stand the chance of losing a lot of our economic partners. The island depends upon a lot of the trade in Front Street for its ability to function as a cohesive trade market. Nevermind the fact that many of us bought our wives their wedding rings, bought presents for our daughters and sons for christmas, graduation, and birthdays there, so losing those businesses would also leave a little something in our memory behind.

"But if we don't, surely even more people will die and the economy will most likely get worse anyway. Consider it from an international perspective, and you'll see that most of our impotence is based upon a stark inability to choose between what will mostly likely impoverish us and will most likely kill other people.

"But we CAN say that we are not in support of the start of this war. We say that because we are not in support of the start of anything that leaves us, your friends, with no options. While it was your decision (yes, yours Reece) to start the war, it is up to everyone to pay for it. I indict you and your country for trying to take the process away from me even though you want me to help you. I don't like the fact that you, Reece, say you do not support the war, yet you say yourself that you have driven yourself to job interviews for the past three weeks in a car with poor gas mileage. I don't like that you, an American, considers yourself that much of an impact while instead of taking the buses that run on natural gas in your country, you drive your Buick. What can I say to a man that thinks himself a scholar when he behaves as a fool, even though I do the same as he does: the best he can? I say that you yourself must make a choice as to what you think your life means and what your decisions mean for others."

Motivational Thinker Seeks Prolific Death Coach For Bonding on Molecular Level... Smokers NNA plz

Today was brought to you by the letters W, H, O, and A.

My classes are early in the morning this semester so I went in to look for books... wanted to see how much they cost. Naked materialism rose immediately from my skin, since by that point I was also wondering how much a Montgomery College bag would cost so I could look as goofy as I felt. HAHA... School? For me? No thanks. Last time it repeated on me, leaving my shirt covered in that cartoony green and orange vomit (is that shit carrots or something... never could figure that out... maybe yams lol)

Small wonder that I also decided to visit a professor and try for some counselling.
Her first glance at my transcript produced some horror. She asked me why I dropped so many classes. "I was asked to for some... others I left voluntarily after angry quarrels with professors." She recommended that I take things very slowly and not take too many classes this semester. Then, next semester, go for a full time load if I think I like where things are going.

Financial aid, back to the bookstore, etc.

Interview was great. Test next week, after courses pan out.

At some point, I'm ordering Wu-Chronicles. That shit looks dope.

Nat King Cole (From LJ)

I don't usually post links, but this story was unbelieveable. I charge anyone, republican or demmycrat to try to hold in their vomit.

"Sensenbrenner is your basic Fat Evil Prick, perfectly cast as a dictatorial committee chairman: He has the requisite moist-with-sweat pink neck, the dour expression, the penchant for pointless bile and vengefulness. Only a month before, on June 10th, Sensenbrenner suddenly decided he'd heard enough during a Judiciary Committee hearing on the Patriot Act and went completely Tasmanian devil on a group of Democratic witnesses who had come to share stories of abuses at places like Guantanamo Bay. Apparently not wanting to hear any of that stuff, Sensenbrenner got up midmeeting and killed the lights, turned off the microphones and shut down the C-Span feed, before marching his fellow Republicans out of the room -- leaving the Democrats and their witnesses in the dark. This lights-out technique was actually pioneered by another Republican, former Commerce Committee chairman Thomas Bliley, who in 1995 hit the lights on a roomful of senior citizens who had come to protest Newt Gingrich's Medicare plan. Bliley, however, went one step further than Sensenbrenner, ordering Capitol police to arrest the old folks when they refused to move. Sensenbrenner might have tried the same thing in his outburst, except that his party had just voted to underfund the Capitol police."

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/_/id/7539869?rnd=1123888123586&has-player=true&version=6.0.8.1024

The Z06 girls

We've all got one.When I worked for the Library of Congress, she was on the same train I was on. My headphones were playing Bilal, and she walked to the beat of Soul Sista. She had great bone structure and a beautiful face with a tiny bit of makeup on. Her eyes were green with gold flecks and her hair was blown out like Pam Grier's in Cofee. Her dress was a wine burgundy with sandals that matched the hem. Her legs were solid masses of muscle, calves oiled up hours before since by that point they had become a little less shiny from all the running and exhaust. Oh, and she was black. Not black like me, or even Black Like Me, but black like Ukrainian soil. Her oiled black hair made her skin shimmer in the Metro lights. What's funny about her is that some people noticed her and some really didn't. The guy next to me had been talking about politics with me for a few minutes, but he began to stammer when she walked on. When she sat down, he laughed and said, "I'm glad we can't smell her from here... I'd probably have to get off at Dupont with you."

Personally, she reminded me of pictures I saw of Zaire. Not the women, but the mountains or the small creeks... the heat that's actually visible... the nightime sky.

But I never saw her again after that. Most of the time now, when I get on the Metro, I feel like I'm fighting the urge to stare at the entrance to the train, mostly out of fear that the one time I do I'll indirectly stare someone down. Silly, I know, but it's still out there for me. And since the Library of Congress job was the best internship I ever had, it probably just solidifies how great I imagine she was. Just goes to show you how quickly life can take you past what you're looking for into what you THINK you want.

This post is for those girls in our life, or rather, passing through our life. Its for the women that capture your attention for a brief moment, moving unscripted. For the ladies that you see and imagine fighting with over the last bit of peanut butter in your flat in Greece. That you imagine probably clip their toenails over a trashcan in the bathroom while talking to you on the phone, make pasta that you must eat when anticipating the arrival of their parents but won't even eat what you cook when your parents show up, and can't stand your Slum Village remixes. They're perfect, but only for you. Other guys might not be into them. Other guys might not even notice them as they walk past you, but all that really matters that you do.

This post is also for the guys who know these women. For the underdogs with the Caddies that smoke that Mustang every single time, even though they really should have lost. For the hopeless romantics, without (or with) the romance. For the guys who read shaky poetry at the cafe about them, only to find out that most people think its about a fish or some strange obsession with Zaire. And, although this probably includes just about everybody, this is for those guys who know there's nothing quite like seeing someone who makes your mind travel through time to your best days on your worst days.

To those who found them, kudos. To those who lost them, condolences. To those who are steadily waiting for them to board the train, there's always tomorrow.

Post Three (email and forum responses)

I'll apologize ahead of time for cutting up your email, but you've made comments that have to be addressed separately.

(edited by request of person quoted)

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I have no sympathy for the war or for Bush or any other politician. It's true that they can send other people's kids into fight because that's a part of how our government works.
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While definitely true that right now our government can take volunteers and use them as they see fit, historically this is a pretty recent development. Conscription for the purposes of war is usually mandatory in countries that are not democratic and a draft actually was part of it until it was suspended due to the political minefield that was Vietnam. Now, while not necessarily a bad thing (that it was suspended), the Draft was at least somewhat of a way to level the playing field. If you weren't rich enough or powerful enough to get out of it, you'd have to go. A lot of today's senators and other assorted politicians were members of those units that served as draftees, so obviously many of them are not fans of a draft. So it shouldn't surprise anyone that when a draft came up, it didn't pass.

But why have they approved, either in committee or general vote, increased advertising expenditures for recruitment? Why have they built multimillion dollar recruitment centers in rapid time in the poorest of areas (Baltimore has one that looks like a gigantic shopping mall... and it's in the center of the Market Square area, which is home to lots of the city's recovering addicts and working poor) and made commercials showing people how to talk to their relatives about "accepting their sacrifice as one that is necessary to our liberties?" I think, and so would anyone who read and watched these ads, that they're desperate. They are seeing people who usually would cheer their sons' and daughters' entries into service turn their children away because they are frightened that their children won't come back alive. And the worst part for most of the recruiters and congressmen and other political figures is that when it comes to the lives of their own kids they AGREE.

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But since I had no say in going to war and nothing I could have said would have stopped it, I have to accept it in so far as I'll support our troops and anything they do because to do otherwise is the same as telling them that they are chumps and stupid to be where they are. I know they are not either of those things. They are for the most part, fine men and women and I can't denigrate their sacrifice by making a mockery of what they do, while being back here where I'm not being shot at.
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To address your second statement, I have to tell you that I agree that we should support the troops, but I don't think that accepting what they are being told to do is responsible or respectful. In fact, I think that by reducing them to pawns in a war that we accept yet somehow don't have "any control over" is the real way that we call them "stupid or chumps." What it ultimately comes down to, again, is what you think patriotism is. Patriotism, according to our own Constitution, is not sitting back and waiting for someone to tell us what to do. As citizens in a democracy, we do have representatives who help facilitate the process, but our penultimate role is Big Boss Man. We tell those guys, no matter how rich and powerful they think they are, what to do. And when we don't, we run the risk of doing our country a disservice. When they lie and we let them lie, we are cheating ourselves as well as the kids that we sent overseas.

You're right, those kids trust us to take care of them and appreciate their sacrifice. But appreciation of any gift requires the full and appropriate usage of that gift, which right now we are definitely not doing. By asking people who are trusting us with their lives to violate international law, psychologically harm citizens of a nation that we are supposedly helping, and betray our allies that are also in the field right alongside them, we're endangering them and disrespecting them at the same time.


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Her protests won't end the fighting. If it would, we would all go out and protest. Even if it did end it at the time, it will come back after us another day. The inevitable will happen, regardless of what we do in the meantime.
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You've got that backwards. Her protests alone won't end the fighting. If we all went out and protested together, it would end, because you can't silence everyone. The inevitable will most certainly happen if WE BELIEVE THAT IT WILL regardless of what we do in the meantime.

Throughout history, protest has stopped tanks, gave me the right to exist as an black man, allowed Christians all over the world to read the Bible in their own language as opposed to listening to a priest read it in Latin, gave women the right to vote, stopped a war, ended lynchings as legal resolution to conflict.. the list goes on and on. But we as people have decided to not believe in it as a salve for the inequality of our system because those that have money to buy airtime told us it was pointless. It may seem hopeless right now, but that's what people WANT you to believe. In truth, there's more evidence now more than ever that we're at a tipping point in terms of socioeconomic and political change. But the proof of this pudding lies with us. If WE don't act, nothing will get done.


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Was her son better or more important than those still facing death every hour of every day?
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No one is more important than another, but I don't think that she's calling for answers just for her son. I think that the answer that she could have gotten from GW was probably one applicable to all. But I think you should direct those questions to those who haven't had to sacrifice their children to the war machine because its obvious that they don't value any soldier's life if they'll send them out on falsehoods.


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Or we can give up and let the terrorists of the world take over. At least I'm inclined to fight for our way of life the best way I can, as imperfect as it is. It's far better than a life under Islam.
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Islam is a lot like Christianity. Imagine if someone in Iran said the same thing about Christianity. The first question you'd have is "Why? What have I done?" because most likely, at least in the US, you're of that particular faith. But then, the second question, which is most important, is "Which Christianity?" Within Islam, there's a heap of different sects and branches. Some of them, like the insanely orthodox (or unorthodox, depending on your division) Islam that is practiced by terrorists, aren't even endorsed by clerics because they usually are in violation of doctrine (the 9/11 attackers, for example, wore cologne and went to strip clubs, which breaks tons of Islamic rules.) Then there's Sufism, which is a kind of ecstatic Islam that's not too far from being parallel to a Baptist (there's a lot of great Sufi poetry... try Rumi or Shams if you're interested... I'll throw you a link if you want one). Then there's the ones in the middle - Sunni, Shia, - and the ones that want to be a part of the faith but aren't yet considered true Islam, whatever that means, - Nation of Islam, Five Percenters, etc. With all those different sects, you know what they say when someone asks them who they are? They say, "I'm Muslim," just like a Presbyterian and a Baptist would say they're "Christians." But Christians do bad things, just like Muslims, yet no one in the US is declaring a moratorium on hiring Christian professors or closing universities that are faith based. We're also not deporting Seventh Day Adventists because of David Koresh or imprisoning Pat Robertson.

I'd argue that we do these things, just the same as why we villify anyone, because they are different than what they're used to seeing in the roads or on the streets. But if we're smart, we'll recognize the beauty in our differences and recognize the human potential in each person.

Part Two (Forum and Email Responses)

This entire topic reminds me of one class where the professor told a story about a man he met on the bus a few years prior.

The man had lost his son the previous year to cancer and after long battles and stays in the hospital, his son's body just gave out. He said his boy had lots of mental fight, but sometimes the body just can't support it. When he died, he and his wife moved to a new house, unable to sleep in the same place. They felt haunted by their own grief. Eventually the marriage ended, and the man was now moving on to a new city where he had some old college friends. He showed my professor a picture, and he literally gasped in horror at the sight of a man that looked at least thirty years younger than the man he met on the bus. The child, a ten year old boy, was using braces to walk and had a big smile on his face. I raised my hand and asked if he remains in contact with him, and my prof said sadly no. He did offer the man prayer which he politely refused, saying that he felt abandoned by God. 'Teach said he understood and moved on, but he remembers the last thing the guy said before they went their separate ways, "I wish I could ask God why."

George Bush didn't kill her child. Neither did God, really. Someone, somewhere gave an order to do so. But the fact remains that Bush sent lots of other people's children somewhere to fight a war that he has no intention of personally sacrificing for. At no point will Bush EVER send his own children, because I know that he believes that they are the most important thing in his life and that losing them would certainly destroy him and his wife. But he also wants to see them grow and marry and have kids of their own. And that is certainly more important than whatever he thinks he's fighting for over there, because if he really thought it was that important he'd send them. So a mom, who has lost her child, changed her mind about how she felt while meeting the man she thought would answer her concerns. Maybe she did some reading. Maybe in her search for answers she read commentary from different political figures, conservative and liberal, who think that the decisions made were dangerous. Or maybe she just thought about it while she wasn't so broken up about her child and decided to take action while she felt composed enough to respond but still sad enough to cry.

In the Revolutionary War, there are lots of stories of children fighting alongside fathers and brothers arming siblings for battle. Kids lied about their age so they could be conscripted. It was a war of passionate belief, and while it was also a war that had plenty of people who disagreed with its fundamental tenets and did prove to be controversial for its time, there was a tenor of singularity present that allowed for people to understand its motives and desires as ones that were essential to freedom.

This war, however, is clearly about corporate division, profit margins, and basically just doing favors for friends and family of those in power. The reasons have been baseless and false, the preparations hasty and clouded with denial of informational access, and the overall justification patriarchal and divisive. People may not agree about whether we should stay or go, but the facts clearly point to falsehood when it comes to whether or not this war was righteous or legal.

Other moms have come out in favor of the war even after their children died or were wounded. But a lot of them aren't, and while I don't think the opinions of those moms who do come out are invalid I do think that despite their opinion of the war they'd rather have a live son and no war than a dead one. That, my friend, is what aligns those parents together and is why a conservative man, who voted for Bush, volunteered his own space for protestors to sleep. He might enjoy the press, but as a veteran I'm sure he knew that when he went home, his family was happy to see him. And that's worth 1000 Iraqs, dude.

Thoughts About The War Part One

I posted an info chart on Iraq, running down some facts I found interesting. The first time I was introduced to that list, I was taking part in a debate between pro and anti war students. Some were in ROTC on the conservative side, some were getting into it for the first time, and on the other side were just interested students and some staff. I used it, and after reading it aloud, both sides issued their displeasure with my reading it. In fact, every time I've told someone about it they've said the same thing: What does that matter? Why is that relevant?

The reason it is relevant is the same reason why Cindy Sheehan is camped out in Texas: truth and facts are important when you are discussing something of great importance, especially when you're making a decision.

Most of the people that I was on the panel with graduated, most going into the military to serve. In a war where the forward areas are claiming lots of lives, it shouldn't surprise anyone that a lot of these kids that I knew have either been injured or killed.

Their parents are not crybabies. My friends are not crybabies. No one who wants to mourn the loss of their family, blood or spiritual, should be told that they are complaining. The issue of whether or not life is tough is irrelevant and selfish, regardless of who asks. Loss is loss, and just because someone with no human stake in the war sees it as an acceptable fate doesn't mean that other people do, and asking why they died does not mean that they seek the country's destruction. Assertion of anything to the contrary is cruel, mean, and unacceptable.

What IS acceptable is a search for answers that isn't stymied by those in power. Mothers who want answers shouldn't be ridiculed because they desire resolution. Ultimately we should be asking what's wrong with US if we can't understand why it's going on and are unwilling to ask.
In my life, I want to be considered a radical. I say radical because the Latin meaning defines radicals as those who seek the root of the problem or cause. Radicals are often in danger because truth is, in many different ways, expensive. In fact, most would say that it is worth a life. People also say that radicals are dangerous, and I agree. But what I don't agree with is labelling any dangerous fool a radical. True radicals accept no answer as definitively true without study, leaving most of them to spend their lives questioning everything, living in uncertainty. But in that uncertainty I think there's pleasure in knowing the truth, and that for me is what's most important.

To tie things all together, we as a society are trained to be afraid of the truth. Our government has a vested interest, at this point, in keeping us this way. The system, democracy, goes right against this trend in the way that systems are supposed to: just by existing, democracy gives us a choice.

So given the information available, you have a choice to make. Are you going to question what you're being told and use actual reason and logic to make a decision? Or will you blindly follow along? And the kicker is that by making this choice, you ultimately are deciding whether or not you are truly a good democratic citizen. Our founding fathers were patriots and citizens in the truest sense: they believed in being a true radical and using rebellion and dissent as a democratic tool, not supressing it. But they also knew the value of leadership and the relationship required in order for leadership to be truly valuable. But, most importantly, they wrote down what they thought and left it to be read, changed or destroyed as we saw fit because true freedom and democracy is shaped and molded to fit the container that is the governed population.

?!?

So I had an interview with some guys from a union a few weeks ago. The meeting itself was pretty negative, and I wouldn't expect to hear from them... except...

I got an email from the organizing director's girlfriend this morning.

Asking me if I would be interested in working for the union she works for.

But here's the thing...

other locals in this union have told me that my name has been thrown to selected locals in the midwest and farwest. All the East Coast locals have, one by one, interviewed me. Most haven't rejected me. Except for this particular one.

Now, here's what I'm wondering when I get the email:

Does he really know that his girlfriend is going after me as a new hire? Or did she, like most of the other locals, pick my email up off of a list on the AFL website? OR, unlike the others, did she pick my resume off of his desk? Does she know that he hasn't called me back? Is THIS my returned phone call?

Raiding (From LJ)

Here's the problem that I see with raiding.

I'm sitting in a bar with my girfriend. She buys me a drink, tells me to cheer up. I'm totally bummed out, moaning and complaining. She's trying her damndest now, really giving me a reason to believe that if I just snap out of it, we can turn things around. She's always been a giving, considerate, woman and she's proving it right there. But I just can't see it, for whatever reason, and I just don't pay attention to what she has to say. She starts to feel hurt now and tears up a little. Before she can full-on cry, I head for the bathroom shouting "Now the waterworks start."

Now you've been sitting at the bar too, drinking and watching this ordeal. I obviously appear ridiculous, but the girlfriend seems worth her salt and in need of some bolstering. You talk and after a few minutes, you begin to find yourself attracted to my girlfriend. You tell yourself that it's okay, too, because the attraction is mutual and I'm a big jerk who doesn't listen. You invite her to leave with you, and as you get up and pay for your drinks, I walk over. I point to your girlfriend, who's currently crying in the corner...

Here's where paths diverge:

In the movement, we seem to think that we know best all the time. As a collective, we can agree on a course of action that can best help all of us, but we hate to even think that singularly we might just be stupid. The truth is, regardless of how awesome you think your organizing model is, or how sweet of a rap you think you've got, or how much money your organizing department has, Members Run Their Union and it is their job to make changes by being an informed body.
Members are often kept out of the loop by an exaggerated process and convoluted rules and regs. If we wanted them to feel good about their participation and fight hard for their contracts, we'd involve them in a real way and sincerely support them when times got hard.

The sad truth is that none of that happens. Usually once they are members they are dutifully ignored until we need volunteer ridealong partners for housecalls or until contract time rolls around and we send out the fleet of reps. We don't talk to them unless we think we need them, and that's just foolish. I've seen it in the internationals I've worked for and it never makes for a good situation.

Getting back to the analogy, you're not paying attention to your own partner. It's fine to make friends, but you're obviously not doing that. What you are doing is looking for a way to increase your own happiness with the caveat that you're doing something good for something else so it must make it okay to cheat on your girlfriend. I might be a jerk sometimes, but I'm her jerk...sometimes. You weren't there when I was there for her birthdays and weddings and funerals. You haven't been on our dates or read our love letters. You haven't been there long at all, and really couldn't hear so good from your barstool anyway. So what makes you think you could even do better? You don't even know her yet. You don't know how demanding a relationship can be on both sides in our case. I work all the time away from home and she needs more support. But she also needs me to go out and get that money so we can both eat. While it's not romantic, it's the truth. And the truth builds relationships, not drinks at a bar with some guy with a good shirt on and some hair product. Because tomorrow, you'll look just as grimey as me, you'll just be a different dude. And you'll go to work too, because you can't eat off love, as hard as we try to.

New Plan (Saved from LJ)

So my first setup didn't last. I don't know why I stopped posting, but I think it was mostly because I wasn't writing for what I thought was myself. So now, I'm just gonna write like I don't know anyone.

We blow the weed smoke, straight out of our lips...

Quebecor World, the corporation that I am currently organizing, is undergoing "corporate restructuring" due to some managerial decisions made while we were running this campaign.

Hehe

Translation: We did so many protests and filed so many charges that the company was forced to blame SOMEONE for their problems with our program.

Pierre Karl Peladeux, the CEO of QW, decided to fire his main negotiator, a man by the name of Hugh Gaylord. Hugh Gaylord was often known as simply "Gaylord" or "The Man Who Shows No Concern." Workers hated him because he consistently denied them such things as bathroom breaks, turkeys at Thanksgiving that management included in contractual negotiations, lunch breaks, pay raises that even are EQUAL to the cost of living, and my personal favorite, leave for pregnant mothers. He'd allow it if you wanted to grieve it but as far as he was concerned, unless you were making so much money off the Q1 gate you aren't getting shit at contract nego time. The bottom line wasn't just his focus, but his line in the sand.

Here enters our hero.

Gaylord was in Halifax, NS and we ended up running into each other. Literally. Gaylord dropped his pen, looked up and saw me, of all people, standing in front of him with my luggage in hand. He stammered for a second, and I said "Aren't you Hugh Gaylord?" His reply was a blustering, "Yeah." I extended my hand and he excused himself, refusing to even make eye contact.

He really should have shaken my hand, because if he had shown me that he was not as much of a dick as I had previously expected, I would certainly not have used his name in every anti-QW management chant at every action. I told Kohl's to call his personal office line if they ever had any questions about QW policies regarding employee overtime (think 130 hour work-weeks with scheduled mandatory overtime included as 60 percent of those hours...) and attendance policies. And as a personal fuck-you, I made sure that his archnemesis from a local union shop in TN was always at his bargaining sessions on time and well-fed. When Dave showed up, his skin was always rosy and he'd be ready to say, just for me, "Reece says hey and watch where you walk."

So from me to you, Gaylord, I hope your retirement is full of denied pension withdrawls, 401k buyouts and depletions, high-cost prescription drugs accompanied (or even caused) by crippling nerve disorders, urinary tract infections from drinking too much iodine-depleted water, and diabetes from too much fast food. I hope every single day that you spend retired is equivalent to a month's worth of suffering that you heap on the people that work in these communities. And I certainly hope that your personal life impoverishes you and allows the members of your family that actually wants to help the downtrodden and depressed to prosper, so you can watch and see what your life's work should REALLY be.

Happy retirement, fucko. May you cease to get an erection for your remaining years