its that little shower on his head that got my vote
been a lot of controversy about it since it came out
bet that cartoonist quite pleased w/himself
zuma sued him once before over a cartoon
both suits a waste of time but i guess he had to do something
not much you can do when you lose the highground, zuma is fair game
damn near a moral imperative to take a whack at him
im outta here
rdoc
FRIDAY
we lost a cat today, about a month ago this mangy stray started coming by the house begging bonnie and i finally took him in, he was resistant, but it was that fake resistance they do
he didnt put up no real struggle,
so we started taking him to the vet - at 1st we thought he was a pregnant female, turned out to be an old guy w/worms, anywhere from 14 - 17 years old
and a thyroid condition,
and, we find out later, a heart condition
old boy costing big ducats at the vet, right and its like damn this aint even our cat
but he was worth every dime, he was just the most adorable kitty, the best purrer ive ever known
vet said he was too weak to be out in the cold so we took him in and named him 'old country'
from no country for old men
he had worms, a perforated eye, a ragged ear, coat all matted, spine thin, that thyroid condition and apparently heart disease, old boy was a wreck
but the sweetest kitty, he would ignore our two youngsters hissing and spitting like the true gentleman he was, he was the mighty old country
turns out the whole neighborhood was feeding him, bonnie went to a neighborhood party and everybody was asking what happened to the gray cat, and bonnie told them we have him, everybody was happy he had found a home, had found him a couple of suckers
he was so sweet tempered that in spite of his mangy ways we think somebody abandoned him when he got old and sickly cause he was real even tempered, and loving
we tried to get the rescue operations to take him - one of them, mary beth, we met her when we were kitty hunting earlier this year, said she was full, why dont we take him and we told her we already had two cats and she looked at us like - so - just two
finally we took him in, he was just too sweet to leave out in the snow, we worried about him all the time, wheres country, but from the minute he got in it was doctor him up for this, doctor him up for that, god i hope we didnt wear him out
so we took him in for the eye, which had infected, and while handling that they said they needed to hydrate him and for awhile he was looking good but not long after that he did the whole crawl off into a corner bit and stopped eating, so we took him back in, to vociferous protest, and they said he had fluid in his heart, said his heart had given out on him
and that we could put him down or take him home but he wouldnt last more than a day or so
we took him home, cause it dint feel right leaving him, we had promised him when we put him in the cage that it would be okay, that we would be bringing him back, cause he was stressed about the earlier trips
so we did and he died about 4, 5 hours later, in bonnies arms, the mighty old country
i fear that we killed him, he was in rough shape as a stray but if they say it was fluid on his heart that did him in then we probably shouldnt have had him hydrated, ima ask the vet but they are going to tell us that we did right by him, that he would have died a harder death if we hadnt taken him in but i will always wonder
i know i cant afford to go there, guess i wont ask them, i will take their word for it
got to appreciate the time we had him
got to hope we made his final days comfortable
got to hope we did not harm him in our attempt to care for him
ima bury him out back if i can get thru that frozen ground
im trying to bleed off some of the pain by writing about it, a praise song for old country, but it feels a little indulgent i guess to be broke up about a cat, feel like i need to man up
he was a scrappy little kitty, i liked his style
i took his picture that last night, he kinda claimed my chair when he came into the house, i thought that was cute, i let him have it
so when we brought him home we put him there and he settled in for awhile, then bonnie held him till
so apparently ayman zawahiri, al qaidas #2 tried to play the race card aint that something, trying to play us, old boy trying to play the players
and did so kinda clumsy, called obama a house negro what they translate as house negro is actually the arabic term for house slave,
which is a door they dont really want to open if they trying to play black people lets talk about the arabic slavetrade why dont we and why
all those enslaved blackfolk have disappeared as a people
if they want to play blackfolk do someting about darfur
al quaida need to work on their propaganda, they a little dated
and crude too - clumsy propaganda is propagana you see thru - when its sharp you dont realize you been had - thats when its clean okeydoke
whats interesting is that some hardleft blackfolk will be susceptible thats whats sad - nation of islam will not, hardleft will - thats sad
im buried in manuscripts but getting thru, one by one im clearing the decks meccas novel, beccas shortstories, no more studentworks after dec 1st
and i will be a free man
rdoc
WEDNESDAY
hello dear regulators, got a little something something for you
other day eoghan on the conjure list held forth on ndoki - fascinating concept as he laid it out, struck me somewhat like the mojo,
i believe he congo and that this is a congo concept, hope he dont object to shango presiding - i thought it appropriate
let me try to digest the gist of it for you. apparently he had been on the old hoodoo radio hour talking about ndoki. one of the folk on the list ask him to clarify
this what he wrote:
-------------------------
ndoki is simply a notable energy, or an extraordinary talent. although there are certain specific differences in the kongo understanding of it and how it works, it is roughly analogous with aché. ndoki, being energy is in itself neutral. how someone uses it - either for personal gain or for the communal good will determine if it is good or bad.
all people, places, and things have energy or strength, ngolo, but those which have a "don" as it were, have ndoki. a doctor has ndoki, a successful gambler has ndoki, an herbalist has ndoki, as does the diviner, and even the mass murderer or witch. clearly the last two would be viewed as evil....
as for it being viewed as a plus or minus, that would depend on whom you ask. generally, as with most other african traditions, and quite a few non-african one as well, most people go out of their way to avoid initiation into any ritual priesthood. it is not something anyone in their right mind would be eager to do if it could be avoided. it means restrictions and hard work and usually a fair bit of expense. all of this is followed by what usually amounts to very little benefit for the trouble.
you initiate only if there is no way to avoid it. and even then, you often try to see if you can buy your way out of doing it. anyone in a culture where such things are normal would consider you out of your effing mind if you told them you wanted to do that. of course, they know, as does all the rest of the world, that people from the us are crazy.
eoghan
-------------------
he was then asked if it could be said that we all have ndoki, even folk who do not manifest it got some thing special about them - his response:
--------------------
absolutely not. we all have a measure of ngolo which means power, some have quite a bit of ngolo, but not all are ndoki. and the truth is that it is not the potential, but the demonstration and exercise of exceptional ability that may be identified as ndoki. further, it is not just something, but specific somethings, extraordinary somethings. it is exceptionalism, and frankly we are not all exceptional, no matter how pc it may be to say so. any kongo would be very quick to assert that no, not all people or things are ndoki.
and, if it isn't demonstrated, then it isn't ndoki. ndoki may be political power, healing power, financial power, magical power, divinatory power, military and or athletic power or intellectual power. whatever kind of extraordinary power it may be, and these pretty much exhaust the main categories to which the term ndoki might be applied, it must be demonstrated in practice to be ndoki. potential does not exist within the definition of ndoki. it is as much as the extraordinary character of the gift, its exercise that defines someone or something as ndoki.
lastly, ndoki is not a natural quality but a super-natural one. it is by definition, not only exceptional, but un-natural. normal people, and the vast majority of people are normal, do not possess ndoki. by the way, kongolese would assert that "normal" is good. while you might respect and even honor ndoki, good ndoki anyway, you are as likely to simultaneously fear it, and you would not want to be it.
it, like initiation, like priesthood, is something that may be thrust upon one, but not a thing to be desired.
eoghan
-------------------
to which the person who had been inquiring replied she understood now that its only ndoki if its unnatural extraordinary demonstrated quality and even if its good its to be feared. she say it look like if you dont have it you dont want it or best not to demonstrate/develop it.
say she know people who “struggle not with the extraordinary ability they have, but because of it." say they got to manifest like they got to breath
i could relate, was telilng one of my students the other day, he got talent but he say he dont know if he want to be a writer, i tell him forget about it then and in my heart i gave up on him, writers got to have that fire in the belly got to want to write so bad it dont matter what the world say, otherwise when the going get rough you gon fall by the wayside and the going always get rough, want to be an artist aint no wanna, got to be gotta
i email this eoghan, told him i detect true force, (part of my job description) ask if i can quote him, ask him who are you, come macking like that im spose to know who you are, what practice you do, what brought you to a hoodoo list, whats up partner
he do cuban palo he say, "grew up around" hoodoo and haunted hoodoo 'curio' shops as a child, noted similarities when he start practicing palo
"I am one of those odd birds though, both scholar and practitioner. The result is that all too often neither camp wants me. So, I continue to look for my own place. Fortunately, I sense that it is more about the journey than the destination. I hope that's so... the destination doesn't seem to be on the map. As for whether I am a true force or not, that is not for me to say."
true force he may or may not be but he is a mack far be it from me to begrudge nobody pontificatory skilz
his reply to her insight:
-------------------
basically, yes. the thing is that any unnatural power is feared...one may desire the good fortune or the wealth, but one is very cautious about anything unnatural. apart from it's potential for evil, there always exists the potential that one may be accused of evil in such cases.
one seldom hears of kindoki being unhappy about being kindoki, at least not the good ones...being ndoki like all other gifts, has its good and bad side. nothing is without its price. but does the swan dislike its feathers?
eoghan
-----------------------
indeed
guess thats it for today, done my duty little aggregating and im gone
so leiberman has been left in a government oversite capacity no less - demos too close to 60 to dump him easy, but if he say one mumbling word against obama he need to go
hello world, aint got time to stay, still trying to clear my decks - that damn race in the south piece still burning up time and got to get thru manuscripts been on my desk all semester
got a mess of personal tribulation i wont bore you with, suffice it to say the old conjureman feeling a little pressed right along in here - ima clock me a 3, maybe even a 6 - cause otherwise i feel like life beating me all about the head and shoulders
every 2 years mccain family, black & white, hold reunions in carrol county mississippi
black mccains say they dont know if they was family slaves or family miscegs though many white mccains attend the most prominent mccain has not
apparently slave traders ancestors embarrasses him politically 2001 he claimed the mccains never owned slaves
but apparently the good folk at the mccain plantation were not only slave owners they were slave traders
another article i read say michelles family was owned by anderson coopers family in south carolina throw in obama and cheney and you start getting a feel for just how tangled a racial web we weave
guess im sensitive to this backlash working on that race in the south piece, just thought to call this backlash the 2nd reconstruction, gon have to look at that
im gone
rdoc
POSTSCRIPT: 11:22am and clocking pages. god is good
clocking pages, well paragraphs actually but you got to start somewhere
all my love
rdoc
FRIDAY
hello world,okay, palf gearing up for round two nice looking poster no, i will keep you up, if you can
you need to show up, gon be the place to be, and remember, 2010, timbuktu, im really excited about that, but let the moment suffice
ghana, 2009
nice to see buffalo soldier on the prowl
i suspect though rickydoc gon come up short on you for awhile
semester almost over, that mean woodshed time and i got to focus now so come the end of the semester old steamboat rick have a good head of steam up
i got a novel to kick,
want a moneydraft by the end of the year lord
got to get all these obligations off my plate, get thru manusripts on hand, no more manuscripts after dec 1st, finish that damned race in the south piece, finish drafting it today,
clean it up, send it out, gt it off my plate steamboat rick need a head of steam
i suspect next two months just going to be me and that novel, i suspect my engagement gon fall and im about to get very self referential
i apologize dear regulators, woodshed time
ima let obama take care of his business, ima take care of mine
this my working outline for that race peace:
1 i am flowers: oxford ask me to do, decision to say yes 2 i know what they expect me to say - we are the post race world 3 but as i work on it my black nationalism start to show 4 my racial vision as shaped by definition of myself as delta conjuror 5 shaped by childhood experience of apartheid south, 60s struggle, and the griotic line of o killens 6 traditional sense of responsibility as committed southern black
bougie - ima raceman 7 sense of responsibility as hoodoo shaman - custodian of the tribal soul and destiny 8 the vision: empowerment of the black world and all its generations 9 the age of obama: struggle in the 21st century 10 obama and the south: entrenchment and extremism, challenges and opportunity 13 obama and me: following obamas lead - reaching for higherground 14 the longgame: serving both families: blackfolk and all humanity 15 endgame: the geas of rickydoc
Somalis Grow Fearful of Islamists - BBC News Africa
aunt say her 13 year niece was raped by 3 armed men, say she took her in to report it to the al shabaab militia, say when two suspects were captured they asked her to bring her neice back in to identify them, instead she too was arrested, next thing she know she hear her neice been stoned to death
apparently al shabaab the fundamentalist military wing of UIC, the islamic courts, recently split with UIC over peace talks with government, running large chunks of territory and imposing a fundamentalist islamic thugocracy being haltingly resisted by islamic courts
look like a least of my enemies situation
The Daily Beasts Excerpts of Newsweeks Campaign Secrets Articles even as palin denied clothing reports they were still being delivered, they still dont know how much stuff she bought initiated ayers attacks without permission mccain ruthlessly kept certain attacks off limits: wright, michelle, children, racial, etc bill clinton kept a 81 page enemies list a 'foreign entity' hacked both campaigns for future bargaining intel, they assume russians or chinese
wed 5:25 am - whoa, this newsweek special is fascinating reading, passages like this one reinforce my contention that palin is not just a joke, shes a dangerous joke, she got to be defanged:
"The Obama campaign was provided with reports from the Secret Service
showing a sharp and disturbing increase in threats to Obama in
September and early October, at the same time that many crowds at Palin
rallies became more frenzied. Michelle Obama
was shaken by the vituperative crowds and the hot rhetoric from the GOP
candidates. "Why would they try to make people hate us?" Michelle asked
a top campaign aide."
Wednesday 6:02 am: just finished reading that newsweek article it was totally fascinating, god i love inside information
on a lighter note this got sent to me, according to snopes its urban legend but still i enjoyed it, a little corny perhaps but i guess im easy to please
ima pass it on like it came to me
-------------------
As I grow in age, I value women over 40 most of all. Here are just a few reasons why:
A woman over 40 will never wake you in the middle of the night and ask,
'What are you thinking?' She doesn't care what you think. If a woman
over 40 doesn't want to watch the game, she doesn't sit around whining
about it. She does something she wants to do, and it's usually more
interesting. Women over 40 are dignified. They seldom have a screaming
match with you at the opera or in the middle of an expensive
restaurant.! Of course, if you deserve it, they won't hesitate to shoot
you if they think they can get away with it. Older women are generous
with praise, often undeserved. They know what it's like to be
unappreciated. Women get psychic as they age. You never have to confess
your sins to a woman over 40. Once you get past a wrinkle or two, a
woman over 40 is far sexier than her younger counterpart. Older women
are forthright and honest. They'll tell you right off if you are a jerk
if you are acting like one. You don't ever have to wonder where you
stand with her. Yes, we! praise women over 40 for a multitude of
reasons. Unfortunately, it's not reciprocal . For every stunning,
smart, well-coiffed, hot woman over 40, there is a bald, paunchy relic
in yellow pants making a fool of himself with some 22-year old
waitress. Ladies, I apologize.
For all those men who say, 'Why buy the cow when you can get the milk
for free?', here's an update for you. Nowadays 80% of women are against
marriage . Why? Because women realize it's not worth buying an entire
pig just to get a little sausage!
-----------------------
40? 50 is when they really hit their stride
all my love
rdoc
TUESDAY
recently did this post on black agenda report glen did one of his hardleft condemnations of obama and
i felt the need to speak, i know its a waste of time but i just couldnt help myself
a luta continua
-------------------------
on the nature of struggle in the age of obama November 11, 2008
even
though we are on different sides of the strategic fence, ive always
been a fan of the bar crew but i believe you out of step with history
on this one
and have retreated into boilerplate hardleft rhetoric with no real attempt to struggle w/this issue
in spite of the colored apologists yelling i told you so, the election of obama is not the end of struggle, he is a politician and he will break our hearts
its inevitable, you dont run for president unless you willing to play the game i personally wouldnt want to be president of the united states
but
i do expect him to try to be righteous, i believe that barack is
essentially still the community organizer he started off as but that
frustrated with swimming against the tide he decided to take his game
to higherground
anytime you move into higherground you make
more compromises and the odds of getting played get stronger - but so
are the odds of making fundamental change
those of us who
have entered the system hope to outplay it, to get more than we give,
and we often lose but that aint no reason not to play
i believe barack think he playing it, i believe he sincere, i believe he think he winning, just like the rest of us
couple
of weeks ago a writer on the national review complained that "Unlike
past Democrat presidential candidates, Obama is a hardened ideologue.
He's not interested in playing around the edges. He seeks "fundamental
change," i.e., to remake society."
ima try to help him be the force he want to be
problem
with the hardleft position is that you dismiss all reformist moves as
sellout and way too restrictive in what you approve of
those
of us sincere about this trying to figure it out, asking questions,
soul searching trying to adapt to developments, trying to be more
effective forces in the struggle
i dont see no questioning
here, all i see is the presumption that you have all the answers -
rhetoric pertinent only to true believers
i dont believe for
one moment barack is going to wave his magic wand and everything will
be okay for black america - but politicians too have a role to play and
there is more than enuf struggle to go around - everybody aint got to
do it like i do it
i for one am willing to give him room to
run his game and im gon judge him on a sliding scale - when he step
wrong ima call him out but im not going to join in a blanket
condemnation of his game – that aint struggle, radical purity is an
indulgence,
effective political forces cant afford to believe
they know all the answers and that the answers even the questions never
change – you got to constantly be assessing your game and constantly be
questioning your verities and constantly be growing – im not seeing
that here
i have long been a fan of what you do and it pains
me to see you stuck like this - i can only hope blackfolk approach
this phase of struggle with more sophistication than i have seen in
bars analysis
i can only hope that you will spend more time
questioning and less energy posturing - struggle too important to be
caught up in a time warp - fighting
"Almost every aspect of the Republican ascendancy has been discredited
and lies in tatters - its policies, politics, and even its version of
patriotism. . . .
"Now, certain factors that have dominated US politics for 40 years
seem destined to recede to the far corners. In economics, supply-side
panaceas and deregulation created the worst crisis since the Great
Depression, requiring a conservative Republican administration to
part-nationalise banks, something unimaginable under any Democratic
administration. In foreign policy, neoconservatism led to the morass in
Iraq and Afghanistan while undermining the western alliance. In social
policy, the evangelical right battered science, the separation of
church and state, and the right to privacy. Finally, the conservative
principle of limited government has become a watchword for
incompetence, cronyism, corruption, hypocrisy, and contempt for the
rule of law."
now this one i really like, the conservative pundits are all in a tizzy bout what this means a lot of questioning about which way the repubs will turn, will they assess themselves
or decide they havent been rightwing enuf, krugman say the rump party will be even more so
this guy talks about how much obama playing the community organizer role on a larger stage and he makes it an accusation while i for one think its a wonderful thing
i gotta go, hate that i got to schoolhouse today but such is life
i will be back, you can bet on that, this is a special day
still dont know what im doing w/this tech, probably some of these i would have used to generate commentary that one about bullets and ballot in kenya was interesting, the darfur and intervention, the bush o crats
man you know bush laying mine fields for obama - iraq, bailout, politicized government, late regs, et al but im so confident that obama gon be able to handle it, im confident obama got this
frank richs piece not as pointed as some of his previous but he still my boy, might be i object to that guess who coming to dinner frame
finally drafted that piece on race in the south for the oxford american its going to be an interesting piece, got till january to deliver it so it will be
sharp by the time im through with it, need it to be profound cause my name gon be on it and its a profound subject, only time i do pieces for mags, etc
is when folk ask me to, cause otherwise its all going to novel and personal projects so i dont get published a lot and my name aint out there like i like, so when i do something
for the public (and the paycheck) its got to be sharp, let folk know what they missing, little promotion of the real thing
speaking of which i got to go, i been clocking pages all morning, got about 12 so far redpen - which means its already a good day but i want to do more
i will get back on this later, give you something more focused
all my love, im gone
rdoc
SUNDAY
3 days before election somebody leaks that baracks half aunt is an illegal alien is this the best october surprise the republicans can come up with - try again you
incompetent bastards - forgive my language but this is beyond pitiful
rod jackman dropped this one on me, this for the swing voters takes a little time to load: patience puppy, its worth it
for the aurally challenged here the lyrics:
Hate to see the nation being run by a hack
Dig the situation that he dug in Iraq
Half the population wants to give him the sack
And now he’s lookin’ round for somebody else to attack
We need somebody great to get us back on the track
So we’re takin’ it back with Barack, Jack!
Choo Choo, Change to believe in
Woo woo, we can achieve it
Choo Choo, Change to believe in
Takin’ it back with Barack, Jack!
Now that global warming is a matter of fact
The only real question is just how to react
The new administration needs the guts to enact
Drastic legislation, leave the planet intact
We can’t be foolin’ round with some Republican Mac
So we’re takin’ it back with Barack, Jack!
Choo Choo….
He only gets his money from your regular macks
Doesn’t take a penny from some whackity PAC’s
For bringin’ folk together he’s the man with the knack
And he’ll supply the hope and inspiration we lack
Cause he’s the best we got and did I ….mention he’s black?
ive become fond of real clear politics in spite of its rightwing slant, i like the aggregating format i think ima start aggregating articles i think pertinent, some from rcp, some other sources
usually progressive but occasionally other perspectives, just to keep up with whats what maybe a little commentary on them, will have to work the kinks out on it but i like the idea
notice how i went straight to black commentator and black agenda report, two sites i respect, thinkng about supporting them like i did obamas campaign but cant send them money till election is done deal cause their hardleft thirdparty politics be working against obama and i cant support that
bar seems to be more rigid than black commentator but i have not closely assessed either, i will do so before i send them any money, dont feel like supporting severly retro politics even ii do approve of what they do
dont know how this aggregating gon work; may take too much daily time and a lot of kinks got to be worked out - should i do a little one line comment on each or just leave as is like rcp does; how much of my traditional commentary do i continue to do; how do i work it out graphically - its mostly the time factor, this may be another good idea i just dont have time to implement
but im kinda excited about the potential increasing rootsblog substance and perhaps help my standing goal of making rootsblog the place to go for the real deal information
im outta here, i got to clock some pages
i had a conference with a student yesterday and she said she doesnt really care about her characters, she works them (and works them well) but she doesnt care about them (or her work) i said thats the mfa curse, when its all head and exercises, and no heart, you want work that matters, that means something to you, you got to write work that cost you emotionally, she asked how do i do that and i had to think about it and i was kind of please with what i came up with - you got to write into your obsessions i told her, you got to write into your fears, she suggested time as one of her obsessions, i replied that time is a motif, not an obsession, fear of getting older is an obsession, fear of dying without making your life count, thats an obsession, something where literary honesty and digging deep cost you
questions in your life that aint no if and or maybe questions in your life you just have to resolve
do or die
all my love
rdoc
FRIDAY
hello world
i saw the most powerful show on tv yesterday, a huey p. newton story
one man play written by and starring roger guenvuer smith, directed by spike lee
it was so powerful i went online and ordered it and will come up with
some pedagogical justification for playing it in my oraltrad in afroam lit class
old boy smith played the hell out of newton - respect respect
wrote the hell out of it too - i was so jealous
old boy gave me more respect for who newton must have been
i remember feeling bad when i heard back in 1989 that newton had been shot
during the great crack binge trying to score drugs in oakland
a tragic and almost iconic commentary on what the panthers could have been
bring to mind the different phases of struggle, how different types of leaders are thrown
up as necessary and now we got barack, for whom we all praying on some many levels
of their voting potential and makes them a dependable voting block, we could do so much
if obama wins i see heavy black turnouts for at least 8 years, maybe it will beome a habit
rdoc
THURSDAY
say what?
"He needed to make himself look totally white," says direct mail pioneer Bill Thompson, referring to baracks infomercial on foxnews.com, "It's going to come down to whether the average Joe or Jane accepts Barack
Obama as an African-American or a human being,"
ol rickydoc gon leave that one alone, i believe it spoke for itself
on a lighter note this email made the rounds after the last debate i dont know who did it, i wish i had, ima edit it when i get a moment
i dont know half of those dances, make me feel out of touch
i been impressed with blackfolks understanding of the game in this thing mostly they havent been trying to jack obama up, make him prove his
After watching the final debate the other night,
it dawned on me that Obama could actually win this thing. If that
happens there will be a lot of people (some of our co-workers included)
who will be afraid that an Obama presidency will usher in the end of days. They'll be watching us on November
5th (the day after the election) for signs of the end times.
To keep the peace and keep a lot of folks from
getting nervous, I think we should develop a list of acceptable
celebrations and behaviors we should probably avoid - at least for the first
few days:
1) No crying, hugging or shouting "Thank you
Lord" - at least not in public
2) No high-fives - at least not unless the area
is clear and there are no witnesses
3) No laughing at the McCain/Palin supporters
4) No calling in sick on November 5th. They'll
get nervous if too many of us don't show up.
5) We're allowed to give each other knowing winks
or nods in passing. Just try to keep from grinning too hard.
6) No singing loudly, We've come this Far By
Faith (it will be acceptable to hum softly)
7) No bringing of barbeque ribs or fried chicken
for lunch in the company lunchroom for at least a week (no
chittlings at all) (this may make us seem too ethnic)
8) No leaving kool-aid packages at the water
fountain (this might be a sign that poor folks might be getting a break
through)
9) No Cupid Shuffle during breaks (this could
indicate a little too much excitement)
10) Please no Moving on Up music (we are going to
try to remain humble)
11) No doing the George Jefferson dance (unless
you're in your office with the door closed)
12) Please try not to yell----BOOOO YAH!
13.) Just in case you're wondering, Doing the
Running Man, cabbage patch or a back hand spring on the highway is 100%
okay.
If I've missed anything feel free to add to the
list. I just want to make sure we're all on the same page when Obama
brings this thing home on November 5th. Now go get your early vote on and
let's make this thing happen!!!
-----------------------
my peoples at they best
the game is on
BOOOO YAH!
rdoc
WEDNESDAY
well i will just be blessed, did a reading at jefferson community college today and they start quoting me telling me what army unit i was with back in the day and im like where did yall get all that
and lo and behold, somebody put my iraqi vets against the war march speech on youtube generally i cant watch myself cause all i see is what i could have done better
same way i cant read my old novels, they just make me cringe, i got another one on youtube from a presentation i did with terry adkins, cant imagine watching it either, though i will probably post it
sometime this week too, might put some of my other performances on youtube, i kinda like seeing myself there i must admit, and this particular presentation i was rather proud of
i was rushed cause the organizers were ringing a little bell offstage telling me my 4 minutes were up, i had clocked it at 4 minutes but i kept getting interrupted by applause, i couldnt dis audience appreciation could i
i just ignored the bell and said what i had to say, according to youtube 4:59, that aint bad
kinda interesting, i was telling them that the rightwing had outorganized us
that we got to move past the marches and protests of the 60s and come up with something new, something they hadnt seen before
now we got obama, a brand new game its on
a luta continua
TUESDAY
hello world,
some fascinating reading here on how sarah palin got chose jane meyer of the new yorker lays out how she seduced shall we say
the rigtwing pundits of national review and the weekly standard when they were on a cruise to alaska and their subsequent campaign to get her chosen
apparently she is not as disdainful of the media or washington as she has claimed
always nice to see what really goes down behind the curtain
and surprise surprise, its been okeydoke all along and indicative of the contempt in which they hold the rest of us
nov 4th real americans are sending caribou barbie back to the hinterlands and she can take her pom pom wielding sycopants with her
rdoc
MONDAY
somalian transitional gov and islamic courts movement have signed a ceasefire that calls for withdrawal of ethiopian troops by end of november
im pulling for this but i dont give it a lot of hope, somalia a rough nut to govern i assume all this will end up with the islamic courts in control of somalia
which i am not in favor of but it seem to be the only option that will stabilize somalia somalia will never tolerate occupation by the ethiopians who have issues of their own to deal with
it goes without saying that rickydoc is not in favor of another fundamentalist islamic gov in africa, the creeping islamic conquest of africa irk my pan african soul
but the humanitarian consequences of inaction in somalia is brutally sobering, i will just have to
accept the hammer on this one, try to encourage the moderate factions such as they are
and longgame for the blackworld flip - strategically speaking we lost this one - again
wonder what obama will do about somalia, darfur, zimbabwe et al - russia, europe, iraq, aghanistan et al i have been restraining myself from speculating on obamas policies as president, foreign and domestic
for fear of somehow jinxing november 4th, but im very eager to engage that, was thinking today that if he allow himself to be captured by his base (folk like me) he will make the same mistake
the republicans did, obama will have to defy me and mine in order to be a successful president
thats going to be a bummer, gon break my progressive heart, but hey ima wait till nov 5th to engage all that
till then im staying on the gun (like it really mean something to obama and the world what i do)
recently got back on the hoodoo lists, been off all year, felt the need to see whats what still the same, exchanging a bunch of magical recipes, man that folk magic thing bore me
they just not interested in the kind of hoodoo i do, hoodoo as guide and guardian of the tribal soul and destiny - high hoodoo - high magic
they so passionate over that slaverytime magic - about a 100 years out of date, i just aint got time for that, rickydoc thrive on the cutting edge
reminds me why i pulled out the hoodoo dialogues in the 1st place just got tired of swimming upstream - trying to bring them into the 21st century
figured i would come back and just observe but if thats all they talking about they just wasting my time
you know im kinda discouraging myself here, bringing myself down and giving myself the blues
that wont do, im out, this novel my best bet for destinywork like i like it best i remain focused
a luta continua
rdoc
SUNDAY
hello world, ive added real clear politics to my daily news scan, definite rightwing tendency and a lot of what they highilght i just briefly scan a para or two
to get the gist of it but still they have substantive articles aggregated there i enjoy substance whereever i can find it and always nice to see what the competition doing
was reading one of their many rightwing alarmist pieces about obama
the republican line now is warning of a one party government, is that the faint smell of surrender, hang in there dear regulators - one more week or so
anyway i ran across this line, which the writer was putting forth as cautionary it is a line from which i take heart "Unlike past Democrat presidential candidates, Obama is a hardened
ideologue. He's not interested in playing around the edges. He seeks
"fundamental change," i.e., to remake society."
i believe obama must be a closet hoodooman cause he be working the roots
ima get into this more later today right now im more or less clocking pages
about acorn, and this was her response, i suspect this a slip of the tongue, you know she
didnt mean to tell the truth: how unrepublican, what you heard is not what she meant:
"You know, we have our young men and women fighting in war zones for
us today, trying to protect our rights to free and fair elections. And
how dare anyone take that away from our electorate? And how dare anyone
not disavow a group that has engaged in that voter registration?"
okay, okay, not that deep, what about this, japanese woman jailed for
its being called the million dollar mistake, congreswoman bachmann calls for investigation of fellow congressionals to see who pro america and who antiamerica and
money (1.3 mil) and support starts flowing into opponents corner and a race that was hers is now a toss up
republicans and bachmann say it aint fair, say matthews tricked her, and if you look at the tape he did, he badgered her into it (way to go chris) but this is because she was
sprouting the party line and he pushed her to take it to its logical conclusion, which is the problem with so many of the repub partylines, take them to their logical conclusion
and its beyond the pale, its like do you hear what you really saying
so now her defense is im not venal, im just stupid well no, congressman bachmann, try venal and stupid
this gets better every day, the republicans have gone tonedeaf and they just
cant seem to realize that the game has changed, that old amo samo just dont fly no more (we hope)
there is a side of me hopes they never figure it out but it would be better for america if they do
rdoc
WEDNESDAY
forgive me dear regulators if i seem to be unduly tickled that palin got caught in 150,000 worth of high end attire
thereby undercutting her hockeymom, jane 6 pack rhetoric and exposing republican hypocrisy
its just too rich to not to savor more stumbling by a tone deaf republican campaign, why not jc pennys
oh no that would never do, even 1st dude got duded up, oh this is getting good to me even more when you take into consideration that the fellow who made the purchases was larsen
the same guy who is responsible for the nefarious robocalls against obama and also worked on the robocalls used against mccain in 2004
then when they get caught its like with all the impo issues facing us why would the liberal media focus on such trivia - the charge so often leveled on them
they are so funny, you find folk defending them these days and you wonder how they can do so with a straight face
said purchases violate the spirit if not the law of the campaing bill mccain sponsored i cant wait to see what saturday night live, stewart and cobert have to say - this is sweet
this election has moved into farce, now that we are reasonably sure of winning it we can take time to smell the roses
perhaps not so hilarious is another farce, palin accuses barack of palling around w/terrorists but al qaeda just gave its endorsement to mccain as the president most likely to keep their stock up
their true favorite apparently is george bush for bankrupting america financially and politically and for being a great recruiting poster - but mccain will do in a pinch -
my only real fear is that they will pull off some act that will get their boy mccain in
still worth reading if only to scan the oppositions positions, notice i said scan, not read, just enuf to get the idea, they have some 'balance'
pieces worth reading, but mostly its a mccain rag and give me a break
with all the leave poor joe the plumber alone articles, it was joe inserted himself into the national dialogue, and when mccain decided to use him
he eagerly embraced his role as opinated rightwing mouthpiece its legit to question his bona fides, try to determine if he authentic or just
another republican trick, if he wants to be left alone he should stay off the rightwing talk shows, wolf bleats to leave poor joe alone just mo okeydoke
and by the way - whats wrong w/spreading the wealth around let everybody get a little piece of the action - the disparity of wealth
has grown to historic proportions under bush - fdr tell you that dont work
this the youtube of powells statement
,
was considering using powells photo for todays post, decided to go w/a real hero
pic is ma moyo, nonviolent thorn in mugabe's side, leads a womens org in zimbabwe called woza, women of zimbabe something or other
according to this nytimes article she is a champion of the people you never can accept one source, even my beloved times
but she do seem to be a champion, one woza woman said they have to do it because 'the men have failed us'
ima have to come up with some way of honoring the champions of our people, our struggle, some rickdocian honorific = her name is jenni williams
but they call her ma moyo
a luta continua
rdoc
FRIDAY
hello world
well im glad to see the obama campaign finally pushing back on the gop voter fraud trick - everybody know thats just more voter suppression
and an attempt to derail obamas new voters - nothing but okeydoke, obama finally pushing back, asking for the special prosecutor investigating
the firing of attorney generals who wouldnt follow partyline on voter suppression
mccain say he is appalled that john lewis would accuse him of dirtytrick racism well i just dont know what else you would call it, example of robocall hes been sending
out in maine, make repubs look so bad congresswoman collins of maine asked that he stop audio of call here - or if you prefer you peruse the text
"Hello. I'm calling for John McCain and the RNC because you need to
know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill
Ayers, whose organization bombed the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, a
judge's home and killed Americans. And Democrats will enact an extreme
leftist agenda if they take control of Washington. Barack Obama and his
Democratic allies lack the judgment to lead our country. This call was
paid for by McCain-Palin 2008 and the Republican National Committee at
202-863-8500."
cant help but think that bailout just another bush trick, they aint never cared about nothing but rich folk, i hear the banks just gon hold on
horace hardleft himself and its good to see some forward thinking
going on up in there, i will do some commentary on it when i get
a minute today, 1st i got to recover from a rough schoolweek, been swamped in manuscripts, im just chilling right now, ima rest some, get me a couple of
novelhours in, catch up with you on the rebound
look here did folk see the rap amy did on snl w/sarah palin girl 8 months pregnant too, she threw down, b girl got chops
saturday night live vice prez debate starring incomporable tina fey
SATURDAY EVENING
well well, somebody went into my site and ripped off everything ive ever written
went to everypage and stayed a couple of seconds a page, not long enuf to read anything, just long
enuf to select all and copy, always knew that was a concern w/putting your stuff online
and i guess its respect of a sort - i got a book worth of stuff on here easy, just trying to
finish novel before i whip it into shape, been clocking redpen today, got my groove on
so whoever stole my stuff you best to work fast, one hopes instead that its some
academic preparing to study/write about my work but w/my luck its more likely a thief
price of doing business on the internet
well i am more about the dispersion of my vision and the seeding of my words than i am making money or getting credit and i aint got time to worry bout gnats and fleas
i figure whoever steals my raw stuff is stealing trash, wont nobody be able to riff it
like me, nobody else got my vision and i wouldnt put it online if i wasnt prepared to lose it
let me give you a hand sucker, the back of my left hand, one day i plan to sit down, extract the best into my
hoodoo holybook
what do you plan to do with it
somebody want to be a imitation rickydoc
be my guest
rdoc
SATURDAY
now that the bill been passed, the same greedy fat cats that got us into this mess will be crowding up to the trough to get a piece of the asset management action
i predict this money will be about as effective as that 600 they sent us and will instead be the bush administrations usual excercise in crony capitalism and governance
my understanding is that once we pay them for their foolishness the hope is that they will now act responsibly, dont hold your breath, or buy a new home
i thought this sarah palin flowchart was cute, what she couldnt memorize or find on her stack of index cards she just refused to answer and for that we got folk saying she won the debate, politics in america today
i was thinking about sites i dont check regularly because of that last post and thought to see whats happening over at chickenbones, me and rudy used to be close but what little play i was getting there i dont get no more, he dissed me like so many folk do - the literary world has basically written me off
so 1st thing i notice is their listing of writers, im not on it, probably why i dont go by like i used to, hurts me everytime
but john o killens was, and john is my mentor, so i went to their john o killens page and put my name in just to see and got this quote from my boy keith gilyard, who has just finished a john o killens tome:
"I have to stop and thank Louis
too for his insight and support. He sort of inspired me to write
Liberation
Memories. Louis knew and was vocal about
the fact that John had been underappreciated in critical
circles. Only a few people—like Addison Gayle and William Wiggins,
Jr.—tried to do him justice in the
scholarly literature. But even they missed articulating some of
the richness of John's writings. And Arthur Flowers is a good
friend of mine—and present-day underappreciated novelist and
Killens protégé. Interview with Keith Gilyard"
underappreciated, that was a delicate way of putting it, keith one of the few folk in afroam literature that hasnt written me off
it was keith and safiya (and toby wolff) hooked me up here at syracuse i wonder sometime if toby regrets betting on me like he did
if nothing else i got to come thru for the folk who have kept the faith
ive decided to start my redpen today, im tired of waiting, still two more manuscripts to wade thru but im tired of waiting, get thru this redpen and i got a novel
wish me luck, no better still pray for me
aint taking in no more manuscripts till i finish this novel
no more trying to help other folk till i help myself
she didnt self immolate, which is what i was hoping, she slip, she slide, she got away
no big thing, so its back to the trenches, i always expect struggle to be trench warfare, i wouldnt trust a gift if you gave it to me
it was clear she was out of her league, but not clear enuf to tear away conservative support - about what i expected
but old boy joe biden put in a stellar performance didnt he
in fact he could have been a little rougher on her, challenged her a little more but he was clearly on lockdown, i know he had a hard time not touching the general mcclellan bit (who is that)
and ive had enuf of that fake folksy you betcha, what i do thats folksy, that other thing thats theater, george bush was folksy enuf thank you mam
so i didnt get what i wanted but i came away satisfied, joe biden held the line and we clearly won on substance, final analysis always got to go with substance
by the way that student i said chose sarah as a change agent upon follow up question "do you think it will work, if not why" said:
"i absolutely do not think this woman belongs anywhere near the presidential office her religious views and asinine policies will only cause problems"
now thats what im talking about rickydoc dont have no lame students
rickydoc dont play that, way to go meridith
okay, one more: excavators have found a bowl on which they believe is the earliest reference to christ it says DIA CHRSTOU O GOISTAIS which the excavation team translate as
christ the magician
as he was apparently perceived in the early days (you could call this holy grail if you so inclined)
that jesus was considered a magician is not news to me, high magicians have always recognize jesus a fellow traveler
pretty good at what he do
rdoc
THURSDAY
hello world, old boy just barely hanging on, dont have time for this post just feel like i should, last one was tuesday morning
tueswedthurs its just straight up schoolhouse cause i should have prepped for class that weekend
but i take the weekend so its crunchcity during the week
didnt do no work this weekend, burning thru palf and manuscripts - got to clear my decks of obligations
when i throw down on this redpen i dont want any distractions gon get thru these manuscripts and my palf obligations this weekend
get started on my critical redpen, if i get thru this 1 i have a novel
8 years now on the real side i been working this novel
20 if you count starts and stops, hardcore since about 2000 its hard to believe i got so little to show for it
okay this aint your concern, im feeling a little under the gun one of my 1st year forum students today said when the
questions of blogs came up, nobody reads anybodys else blogs and she said it with authority, class kind of agreed with her
and i had to acknowledge myself, i dont read the blogs i enjoy blackpotmojo, rawdawg, prometheus6, bookerrising, blackagendareport et al
who got the time, i go by every once in awhile, see if they still there take a quick look, see if they said anything worth stealing lately
who got the time for more than that, i do my daily newscan, nyt, washpost, googlenews, latimes, wsj, timemag, newsweek - basically in that order and hopefully i didnt get obsessed with some trail
that has led into the thicket of the internet, googlenews good for that, i can either do my obligatory daily newscan in a disciplined manner or spend half a productive day, who got time for ofp
other folks blogs
so im real appreciative of my little 100 a day, sometime i get jealous of those 1000s a day sites and then i think of how many billions of blogs there must be out there and
im satisfied with getting enuf play to stay in the literary game, 21st century stylee
i appreciate it dear regulators, ima always do my best for you
okay a couple of quickies and its back to manuscripts (not pages lord) interesting article here about mccains strategy lately if you can call it that
say the only chance they got are these disruptive moves that shake it up say you can expect more of them, say mccain as recently reported is a gambler
"ima a betting man" mccain say, i bet you are, but the question is do we want a gambling man for president
each move bring him shorterm gain but longterm it leave him looking flaky look to me like he the one dont know the difference between tactics and a strategy
you can see that in the steady downward pressure on his numbers lord knows i shouldnt bring up numbers but numbers different for a politician
and a visionary
so much riding on this debate tonight, i am concerned that biden will blow it cause he not a disciplined mack, i hesitate to call him a mack at all
all palin got to do is not blow it, like bush in his debate against kerry, came out of it without mangling his sentences and folk called it a win
we need a mangle from her, need it desperately, if we dont get it, no problem its back to the trenches and the trenches is where we belong anyway
cause its all on the groundgame now, early voting has already started, i plan to do absentee myself cause i dont want no adversity keep me away from the polls
somehow on nov 2nd, aint gon leave that one up to god, im taking steps on this one lord
but a good mangle will give us some breathing room
had ishmael baeh for a shared reading at syracuse, i gave my students an assignment, write a save the world manifesto, in the discussion after we were talking about all the different approaches they took
one of the axis was changing individuals and shaping policy instruments, we had already agreed that difficult to change the world thru individuals but often all the regular person could do, change one person
and youve changed the world, but sigificant change is more difficult i gave them a quiz to make sure they had read each others works
i knew i shouldnt but 1 question was what change agent was in the news lately and asked about that changes agents tech in terms of indiv influence and policy
was gon use subsequent discussion to explore his frustration with affecting one person, one community as a community organizer
and how that lead to trying to be a policy insturment to achieve more significant and lasting change i wasnt even thinking overtly political, thought it was a great way to illustrate the point, a teaching moment
bonnie told me i shouldnt but i was fired up and willing to take the hit
of course the discussion did not go in the direction i intended, some students chose obama some diplomatically chose both presidents, one said
sarah mccain was the most significant change agent in america
and all i could do was sit there and accept that w/the same grace i accepted other positions
it was kinda funny but kinda eye opening, palin god i hope she mangles something, sooner or later she gon
get her footing, other political dummies have done it i just hope its too late for this election
i was in my office preparing for class when i heard fellow facutly members in the hall arranging to watch the debate together because they say they afraid to watch it alone in case biden stumble
i fell out laughing, i thought that was so cute i understand, i feel you
may the ancestrals who truly love what america could be watch over us tonight
i had something else to say but ive wandered afield and dont recall now
i got to go, i got to get thru these manucripts lord, got to clear my decks
rickydoc got to throw down
whether palin and what she represent win or not, whether obama pull it off or not
win or lose i got to keep my hoodoo perspective
win or love i got to be dong my part
to make a better world
all my love
rdoc
TUESDAY
i think will i am produced it, this zoe kravitz, daughter of lisa and lenny:
palin preparing for that debate, epectations so low she might slide like bush did
she went back to couric with mccain riding herd on her this time, i would put that interview
up but this snl one is much better
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdDqSvJ6aHc
so, the house voted the bailout bill down, im conflicted
i will accept that the economy needs something but i wouldnt
trust bush and his with a discretionary nickel, they ranked me
when they came out talking about 700 billion with no insight and
its got to be done by friday or else, well friday has come and gone
and aint been no else, and the loopholes in the rewritten bill could
have let wall street bull thru without much help for regular folk
who are expected to fend for themselves whatever happens to wall street
bush has just cried wolf too many times
as cover for rapacious power grabs, not inclined to give him benefit of the doubt
im concerned but conflicted, i suspect if i check my retirement account
im runniing low, but i dont retire for 10 years or so, it will be fixed by then
unless we fool enuf to elect mccain palin, either way im hunkering down
either way its going to be rough and you best pinch your pennies children, pinch them till they hurt
america is about to pay the price for living beyond its means
me and mine bracing for the hammer
colored folk use to finessing the hammer, least oldtime colored folk was
dont know about this new post colored batch, guess we will see
what they made of, struggle aint nothing but a hump
rdoc
SUNDAY
some speculation mccain/palin pushing daughters boyfriend to marry her before the election in shotgun marriage as november surprise hailmary
surely they dont think the american voter would fall for such
most surely they do and surely they might
obama not depending on the good sense of the american voter, he hoping on it but he depending on a good ground game,
two traditionally underrepresented constituencies, blacks and young voters, been registering in record numbers,
that dont mean they will turn out
the black vote is historicallyvunderrepresented but this remind me of the voting rights campaign and what we went thru in the apartheid south to get the vote
how i vote every election to honor the dues we paid as a people
not only do we have to ensure the black vote turnout for obama but we somehow have to leverage the moment so it becomes the watershed moment the 60s civil/voting rights campaign was for my generation
so those numbers come out in force forever informed and engaged
winning this election come november thats the shortgame, the longgame is
turning the black vote into a gatekeeper voting block that engages every election whether they got a champion in it or not
then you will see more champions more policy influence, more power
its unlikely, life just dont work neat like that but that dont mean we dont try, win or lose we
move the board
you know what tickle me, i know obama know that cause that boy a player, that boy do longgame real sweet
it tickle me to see him treat this election like its some ramped up community organizing project, tickle me whenever i get one of those corny hello arthur emails
you go boy, play on
one son to the other
a luta continua
rdoc
SATURDAY
this is who mccain wants to put a heartbeat away form the presidency the couric interview of sarah palin trying to explain her foreign policy creds
this country facing some of the most serious challenges ever the economy has tanked, america under the gun all over the world
okay, so mccain throws a monkey wrench into negotiations which may be for the best, i dont much care for the plan myself
feel like mccain and the house republicans setting up some sort of mccain coup we will have to see how it plays out, but too much politics on it will turn americans
off on this one, folks against it and bush aint convince nobody w/his weak mackology
as for the debate:
“With new polls showing his campaign dead in the water among
California Republicans, Arizona Sen. John McCain has pulled out of a
long-scheduled debate with Texas Gov. George Bush, set for Thursday in
Los Angeles. ”
--San Francisco Chronicle, Monday, February 28, 2000
---------------- didnt work then, wont work now
i know i know, i used doc snake yesterday didnt i but the good dcotor speak to me
i got a couple of days, have finished rebuild on rest - ima try to redpen it again
redpen is i print out the manucript (i read better hardcopy) sit down w/a redpen - or blue, green
purple - i like doing different sessions in different colors cause it look pretty) and read thru rewriting
the 1st redpen i actually get thru is a brutal process of bleeding all over the page
but at the end of that 1st redpen ive got my real draft, from that point its just polish
problem is you start redpenning you get halfway in and find structural problems
then its back to the drawing board, last redpen i attempted was about two months ago,
last couple of months been cleaning up structurals, so lets try it again, dont really expect to get
thru, im willing to bet ima find structural problems but im sure going to try to forcemarch thru
gon stonewall all these student manuscripts and take fri & sat poss sunday for my novel
went to see juno diaz last night, he spoke here at syracuse, kinda interesting because juno
used to teach here and left not under the best conditions, must have felt good coming back w/a
pulitzer under his belt, he gave a reall strong presentation and talked about the 10 year span it
took him to write oscar wao, talked about how you had to have the courage of your literary convictions
and now be susceptible to the external pressures and give your book whatever it take
when juno was here we were the ones working on forever novels and it really meant a lot to me
when he finally finished his and got acclaim and putlizer for it, it was like okay rick, juno did it you can
too, then he talked all that literary courage at the presentation and im liked fired up and ready to go
but later at the house he told me that mit had jacked him up and forced him to do it cause of tenure
and like some reformed junkie out to clean up the rest of the world he start jacking me up talking about
just close it down and call it a deal and bonnie susceptible to this argument you know and he real
insistent about it and im feeling kinda under the gun and had to tell him you got to back up off me on this
man, told him i might have been more susceptible if he had jacked me up before he gave his manifesto
on literary courage, start dropping his own words on him - if it take me 10 years to do the next one thats
what it take - he had laid out some wonderful mackology at the presentation, talked about how he had
to write 200 (his count) versions before he hit on the write one, and he had to be wiling to walk into
uncharted territory to come up with something new and fresh and be impervious to external pressures,
it took me a couple of years just to get comfortable with this language im using, this colored mackology i be trying out here in rootsblog, this the voice of my novel, i be using rootsblog to trialrun, work out the kinks but i struggld with it years before i accept it as my rest voice, years i try to force rest into conventional narrative strategies but the novel wont accept being told in no other way with licks so strange i cant judge them but am forced to accept on faith cause novel just wont tell no other way
so i just got to make it work, i do not accept failure in this regard
juno say he could probably do another novel real quick if all he want to do is reprise oscar wao but he gon want to stretch and i felt that in my soul, i remember some years ago as in maybe 2 when i realize i was just rewriting another good loving blues and i couldnt do that, this novel saying something different and so i had to sitdown and refocus it and that cost me a couple more years
i got segments, my historical one for instance, that i thought to invest a couple of months into that turned into investments in the case of the historical section of about 4 years, actually a novel in a novel, a story in a story - it cost me years
and i still fear this novel doesnt and never will be the wondrous tale i have in my head to tell, i just really have reached that point in a work where its like okay, time to close it down
but that aint like a switch where you just stop and its done, that mean okay we driving toward closure here, whatever aint been said aint going to be said with this one, polish this bad boy off take what i get
but at the same time there is my mentor, john o killens, the great griot master of brooklyn,
i followed john killens from school to school for 13 years (sometime that amaze to this day) i was his chief acolyte and went to workshop every sat for 13 years as john grew older and finally died and there are certain precepts of john that have been burned into my literary soul because he said them over and
over and over with total conviction of life experience as a literary visionary
i remember when he told me i was a brilliant writer but with a little compassion i would be profound
i been trying ever since i figured that out to manifest the compassion of o klllens in every thing i do
i remember john used to tell us a writers name is sacred, that you never sell your name
i remember johns constant rejoinder for us to be long distance runners, long game players
i remember how much john considered literature a sacred calling, being a writer meant something to john killens
he passed that sense of literary responsibility on to us, he taught us to be literary visionaries
i remember his generosity to young students, he gave so much to pass it on, i can do no less
i have so internalized john o kllens precepts on what it mean to be a writer that they guide me to this day
and one thing i remember he used to tell us is that all future generations will have is your work, they wont
care that you were pressed for time, for money, for tenure, for nothing, all they will have is your work,
john o made us to understand you better leave something worthy of the struggle, that you give your work
whatever it take, john o made us understand that the 1s thing you must learn as a writer is patience,
that is if you would be a writer of historical stature and significance, if you would be a voice of destiny,
if you would as as penda aiken once said, move a novel from bad to good to great
juno basically say the same thing last night, course he say it like the dominican mackologist
he is and im sorry they didnt tape it, even though i know as he saying it some of it presentation it
was damn good presentation and presentation count when you a mack, the boy mackdown last night
hadnt seen juno in years and he was still juno but he a mature juno now and sharp as ever
and his presentation spoke to me, made me that much more assured im on the right
track but i got to be on it to justify my stubbornness in this matter, i want a moneydraft by the
end of the year do or die,
fri and sat im taking for sure, sun i might have to give to palf, depend on how much i get done tomorrow
and day after, okay forgive me, the minutiae of production, my apologies cause i know this a personal,
its just where my mind is at my mind my heart and my soul
all my love
rdoc
THURSDAY
im probably my biggest fan, i think im so good it amaze me the world dont was just reading over my latest posts and im thinking i wish
i was getting paid for what i do, i put as much time in as any columnist my mack just as strong - it perplex me sometime why life treat me so hard
only thing speak in my favor is i got no gatekeepers, nobody to please
but you dear regulators, i like that freedom of movement i guess say what i want and how i want to say it - i like that, i like that a lot
and i feel like im in tune with my literary times, anything that force words for my legacy im down with that, it dont cost me a lot to do this, i just sit down and
start typing and usually something interesting come out words that have value and perhaps historical/destinical substance
that kind of time investiture i can live with that
ima delta mack - got to mack to live
okay some quick commentary, got to prep my 330 class - so what do you think about this campaign suspension, smell like another hail mary pass by john mccain to me
numbers start falling and he suspend his campaign say he want to delay the debate (and palins by the way)
goes back to dc to inject presidential politics into an already toxic mix then when it becomes clear just how much of a bungle this move is
bush pull him out of the fire by calling leaders to whitehouse (at mccains request) otherwise mccain would have been just standing there looking like a fool
he is not even part of the committee considering this rules say he cant even be in the room
this is a transparent even clumsy stunt and will be ridiculed as such, also show that him and his hug buddy bush working as a team, need to spotlight that
then mccain diss letterman, canceled out on him then show up at courics joint, letterman diss back
WEDNESDAY
as expected, economic meltdown increasing obamas numbers
white w/o college education favor mccain by 17 points, whites w/college ed favor obama by 9%
(rootsblog management has no comment on these number, well maybe one comment, it has been made abundantly clear that we have to educate whitefolk)
palins unfavorable numbers have risen from 28% to 38% and she is still being shielded from press (becoming obvious even to whites w/o college ed)
palins support among independent women dropped 65 to 43%
84% of obamas say fervent, 46% of mccain (was 50 50)
tied among men, whitevoters 50% mccain 45% obama
african american voters 96% to 3% (ima let you guess who got what)
50 50 white women but black womens 90 something put him ahead w/women
independent 53 obama 39 mccain (reversing mccain lead after repub conv)
who do you trust on the economy: obama 53% mccain 39% (whoat planet they been on)
shift toward obama on iraq, foreign policy and who can be trusted to deal with major crises
among 'economy voters' obama leads 2 to 1 these some good numbers dont you think
numbers that dont support my case im not interested in but right now numbers across the board looking good
im outta here, mcarthur awards broke my heart again, how is it they keep missing me
show some love
rdoc
TUESDAY EVENING
the more the bailout terms become known the more problematic they become
stocked with passage like this one:
“Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are
non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be
reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency,”
they expect us to give bush and cheney and their operatives total power beyond any precedent
review or control of any court of law or agency
“The Secretary is authorized to take such actions as the Secretary
deems necessary to carry out the authorities in this act without regard to
any other provision of law regarding public contracts.”
this is breathtaking, they must think we fools, absolute fools, worthy of nothing but contempt
“Any funds expended for actions authorized by this Act,
including the payment of administrative expenses, shall be deemed
appropriated at the time of such expenditure.”
they must be kidding me, we aint talking millions or billions, we takling trillions here
they can do whatever they want to do, with no recourse if we dont approve
they must think we forgot how quickly iraq became a giveaway to war profiters (an all purpose disaster)
they must think we forgot how quickly the medicaid bill became a welfare program for big pharma
how quickly the patriot act became a violation of civil liberties and breeder of the imperial presidency
how all of these were sold as too urgent for measured review, trust us
last time they sold a bill as too urgent for review we got iraq - we got the patriot act
how many times we gon fall for bush okeydoke #1
they aint never done nothing that wasnt about the imperial presidency and taking care of the rich
they aint never cared about governing, they let a whole city die cause of bad weather
once again bush shows his disdain for governing in favor of using a crises to forward his ridiculous agendas - hasnt he done enuf damage
agendas and a disdain for governing that has left us in most perilous circumstance
then we got the financial companies lining up to manage the trillions to be spent fixing their own mess - their latest proposal
is that other bad paper be included and a threat that they will reject any federal offer they consider too low - well aint that nothing
reject this whydont you
emperor say he dont need no stinking clothes
then we got the congressional democrats focused on mortgages and ceo salariies
instead of facing down a constitutional power grab of bodacious proportion
focus people please, work with me, i cant do this by myself
obama in a tactical bid for party leadership say he will approve it if 4 conditions met
taxpayer payback plan bipartisan oversight board making sure bailout doesnt become wall street payday help homeowners with trouble mortgages:
this the gist of his statement on it, this the good part:
Given that fact, the President's stubborn inflexibility is both
unacceptable and disturbingly familiar. This is not the time for
my-way-or-the-highway intransigence from anyone involved. It's not the
time for fear or panic. It's the time for resolve, responsibility, and
reasonableness.
And it is wholly unreasonable to expect that American taxpayers
would or should hand this Administration or any Administration a $700
billion blank check with absolutely no oversight or conditions when a
lack of oversight in Washington and on Wall Street is exactly what got
us into this mess.
Now that the American people are being called upon to finance this
solution, the American people have the right to certain protections and
assurances from Washington.
First, the plan must include protections to ensure that taxpayer
dollars are not used to further reward the bad behavior of
irresponsible CEOs on Wall Street. There has been talk that some CEOs
may refuse to cooperate with this plan if they have to forgo
multi-million-dollar salaries. I cannot imagine a position more
selfish and greedy at a time of national crisis. And I would like to
speak directly to those CEOs right now: Do not make that mistake. You
are stewards for workers and communities all across our country who
have put their trust in you. With the enormous rewards you have reaped
come responsibilities, and we expect and demand that you to live up to
them. This plan cannot be a welfare program for Wall Street
executives.
Second, the power to spend $700 billion of taxpayer money cannot be
left to the discretion of one man, no matter who he is or which party
he is from. I have great respect for Secretary Paulson, but he cannot
act alone. We should set up an independent board that includes some of
the most respected figures in our country, chosen by Democrats and
Republicans, to provide oversight and accountability at every step of
the way.
-------------------------
it seem to be a done deal but i want some hard bargaining, dont want this to be no giveaway to wall street, i aint feeling that
its a shame the way bush cheney, mccain and palin and all their ilk treat us they act like the american people aint got a lick of sense, and too often they
seem to be right
my position is just say no
last 50 days of their administration they gon come up with this imperial power grab
and its so urgent they have to have it passed by friday or civilization
as we know it will fall
buck up democrats
buck the fuck up
im gone
rdoc
TUESDAY MORNING
hello world, ive discovered the lazy mans way of blogging, use other folks words, with attribution i might add, that wise piece obviously hit a nerve
wise did another piece addressed to white women but it basically says the same thing and that the only reason they would vote for mccain, a man that so embodies the antithesis of all they have struggled for is - right, you got it
but we dont want to make this about race do we, then obama lose for sure oxford american just ask me to do a piece on race in the south and it feels
like foreign territory to me, my race thoughts for some 20 years now have been how to advance blackfolk, not particularly concerned with race relations, thats another issue
one thoroughly connected to be sure, just not my turf
as a hoodooman and a cultural nationalist child of the black arts movement i started addressing myself to empowering blackfolks, to working their spirit, their culture, their souls a long time ago - i believe its on us to flip this script, to be stone cold achievers, to be exemplary in every way, then racism will take care of itself, got to force folk to respect us thru the quality of our game
like obama
but i will come up with something, obamas run has kinda raised the curtain off race in america okay so anyway, as i was saying, frank rich still my boy, did a hellvua column sunday on truthiness
but mareen dowd took the mackdaddy prize this week, a column written by aaron sorkin i think of president bartlet from westwing giving obama advice, edgame is obama asking how do he hit hard w/o being considered angry, elite or heaven forbid uppity
---------------------------------
OBAMA The problem is we can’t appear angry. Bush called us the angry left. Did you see anyone in Denver who was angry?
BARTLET
Well ... let me think. ...We went to war against the wrong country,
Osama bin Laden just celebrated his seventh anniversary of not being
caught either dead or alive, my family’s less safe than it was eight
years ago, we’ve lost trillions of dollars, millions of jobs, thousands
of lives and we lost an entire city due to bad weather. So, you know
... I’m a little angry.
OBAMA What would you do?
BARTLETGET ANGRIER!
Call them liars, because that’s what they are. Sarah Palin didn’t say
“thanks but no thanks” to the Bridge to Nowhere. She just said
“Thanks.” You were raised by a single mother on food stamps — where
does a guy with eight houses who was legacied into Annapolis get off
calling you an elitist? And by the way, if you do nothing else, take
that word back. Elite is a good word, it means well above average. I’d
ask them what their problem is with excellence. While you’re at it, I
want the word “patriot” back. McCain can say that the transcendent
issue of our time is the spread of Islamic fanaticism or he can choose
a running mate who doesn’t know the Bush doctrine from the Monroe
Doctrine, but he can’t do both at the same time and call it patriotic.
They have to lie — the truth isn’t their friend right now. Get angry.
Mock them mercilessly; they’ve earned it. McCain decried agents of
intolerance, then chose a running mate who had to ask if she was
allowed to ban books from a public library. It’s not bad enough she
thinks the planet Earth was created in six days 6,000 years ago
complete with a man, a woman and a talking snake, she wants schools to
teach the rest of our kids to deny geology, anthropology, archaeology
and common sense too? It’s not bad enough she’s forcing her own
daughter into a loveless marriage to a teenage hood, she wants the rest
of us to guide our daughters in that direction too? It’s not enough
that a woman shouldn’t have the right to choose, it should be the law
of the land that she has to carry and deliver her rapist’s baby too? I
don’t know whether or not Governor Palin has the tenacity of a pit
bull, but I know for sure she’s got the qualifications of one. And
you’re worried about seeming angry? You could eat their lunch, make
them cry and tell their mamas about it and God himself would call it
restrained. There are times when you are simply required to be impolite. There are times when condescension is called for!
OBAMA Good to get that off your chest?
BARTLET Am I keeping you from something?
OBAMA Well, it’s not as if I didn’t know all of that and it took you like 20 minutes to say.
BARTLET I know, I have a problem, but admitting it is the first step.
OBAMA What’s the second step?
BARTLET I don’t care.
OBAMA So what about hope? Chuck it for outrage and put-downs?
BARTLET
No. You’re elite, you can do both. Four weeks ago you had the best week
of your campaign, followed — granted, inexplicably — by the worst week
of your campaign. And you’re still in a statistical dead heat. You’re a
47-year-old black man with a foreign-sounding name who went to Harvard
and thinks devotion to your country and lapel pins aren’t the same
thing and you’re in a statistical tie with a war hero and a Cinemax
heroine. To these aged eyes, Senator, that’s what progress looks like.
You guys got four debates. Get out of my house and go back to work.
OBAMA
Wait, what is it you always used to say? When you hit a bump on the
show and your people were down and frustrated? You’d give them a pep
talk and then you’d always end it with something. What was it ...?
BARTLET “Break’s over.”
SUNDAY I THINK?
hello world
dont really have anything to say, just figure it was Wednesday i last posted numbers been going up, want to keep them that way
kinda working kinda not, putting hours in just not enuf of them, behind on manuscripts, got to focus on that one weekend, just burn thru them
all the laudatories coming out on davidfoster wallace have been moving, i have a radical idea, how about showing writers a little love while they living
okay, you came here for commentary, let me give you commentary - mbeki going down - shame how that went down, in spite of being an mbeki doubter i thought he deserved a little more respect than that, zuma faction played him hard
zimbabwe, still waiting, still trying to give that benefit of the doubt - just like the rest of th world
as for the big news of the day, the bailout, dont quite know what to say about it, instinctively against it, bailing out the banks, do they get to keep the ridiculous profits, salaries, bonuses, options et al they been raking up
or do they get to start all over on the next get ruthless rich scheme, whats the penalty, what new regulations set in place to insure this doesnt happen again with a different set of exotic instruments, a different playing field next time
and let me get this straight, we spose to give bushs treasury secretary unbridled power over trillions of dollars and the economy, the imperial presidency/vice presidency, politicized bush administration
i dont think so, whatever bush doing its a trick he aint never been serious about governing
and i am not willing to give him or his benefit of no doubt
paulson and bernake made a presentation to congress about it consisted of 9 pages that bush admin pushing to get done by friday or else they claim civilization as we know it will fall
ie another blank check for bush, remember the last time we gave him a blank check, a lot the same rhetoric, same playbook
i dont think so, no more blank checks for you buddy, sound too much like the okeydoke they brought to trick us into iraq
bailing out the bankers, giving more imperial powers to the bush administration - that have to be looked at w/all deliberate speed
been interesting to see de regulation republicans claiming biggest government failure/intervention since the depression, cute to hear mr de regulation mccain transformed somehow into a raging populist
they are signs all this face paint not working, the lipstick neither, im detecting i hope signs the fascination w/sarah palin starting to wear thin, depend now on how mccain and palin handle themselves
in the coming debates, whether they can maintain the illusion they are a viable option under the glare of the spotlight, whether they can sustain the okeydoke
dont even have to gaffe though that would be nice, just the exposure will help, which is why palin dont do interviews that havent been thoroughly vetted (unlike her own selection),
now todd say he will ignore the subpoenas too - what exactly was todd palin elected to, is enforcer a job definition that allows you to ignore the law
like cheney bush et al, do they get to determine which laws they will obey too, howcome they get to do what would land us in jail
is this the way they gon do government business
been there done that
yet and still in spite of all the factors working against the republicans i still fear racism will be decisive come november
this is a very unique moment, a unique political landscape
wasnt for bush and the republicans total loss of credibility neither obama nor hillary would have had a chance in hell, its only because of national weariness w/republicans
that a black democrat has the slightest chance of beating the mccain palin farce
the financial crises been an opportunity for the obama campaign, keeps the focus on whats real and what republican policies, shameless de regulation and unbridled support of the wealthy, have wrought
i like seeing them wiggle, i feel guilty about it cause i know folk suffering but it will be worth it to get entrenched republicans out of office
only way we will foil the assassins they have put in charge of regulatory agencies, whose primary responsibility is to kill the agencies they are supposed to head
i dont expect this bailout to do what it says its going to do, no more than that 600 check they sent us,
this move suppose to make the bankers loosen up credit, restore their shattered faith in the system by buying up their bad debts
we will see, they will probably just pocket it like i did that 600, that 600 did not change my newfound determination to cut back the inessential
times are going to be hard for awhile and everybody knows it bankers will stay bunkered and if you got any sense at all so will we
got to live within your means, stock away savings and prudent investments, help your family members get solvent, hunker down children, the rootdoctor call for defense
the easy credit party is over and probably for the best it was an illlusion and you know what the old rootdoctor
think about illusion
the pendulum has swung and concentration on the fundamentals is required, position yourself for the comeback
hello world, now you know me, i like to think ima champion, not no victim and i shy away from addressing myself explicitly to pointing out whitefolks peculiarities
however this white privilege blast been getting around, bonnie forwarded it from black anthropology list
its been getting around
one darlene gray post it w/o attribution on newsweek stumper article on palins falling favorability numbers
true author seem to be tim wise, author of white like me and speaking treason fluently
kinda unethical not to attribute it, whoever wrote it its good to go: ima account it whole:
==================
For those who still can't grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are
constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this
list will help.
White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin
and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a
personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents,
because 'every family has challenges,' even as black and Latino families
with similar 'challenges' are regularly typified as irresponsible,
pathological and arbiters of social decay.
White privilege is when you can call yourself a '***' redneck,' like
Bristol Palin's boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with
you, you'll 'kick their ***' ass,' and talk about how you like to 'shoot
***' for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a
great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.
White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years
like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then
returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no
one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a
person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and
probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative
action.
White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller
than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the
same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes
you ready to potentially be president, and people don't all piss on
themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state
Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you're 'untested.'
White privilege is being able to say that you support the words 'under God'
in the pledge of allegiance because 'if it was good enough for the founding
fathers, it's good enough for me,' and not be immediately disqualified from
holding office--since, after all, the pledge was written in the late 1800s
and the 'under God' part wasn't added until the 1950s--while believing that
reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because, ya know, the
Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school requires
it), is a dangerous and silly idea only supported by mushy liberals.
White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people
immediately scared of you. White privilege is being able to have a husband
who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to
secede from the Union, and whose motto was 'Alaska first,' and no one
questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you're black and
your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with
her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she's being
disrespectful.
White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers and the
work they do--like, among other things, fight for the right of women to
vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or an end to child
labor--and people think you're being pithy and tough, but if you merely
question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month governor with no
foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college--you're somehow
being mean, or even sexist.
White privilege is being able to convince white women who don't even agree
with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your running mate
anyway, because all of a sudden your presence on the ticket has inspired
confidence in these same white women, and made them give your party a
'second look.'
White privilege is being able to fire people who didn't support your
political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power or being a
typical politician who engages in favoritism, while being black and merely
knowing some folks from the old-line political machines in Chicago means you
must be corrupt.
White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose
pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George
W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian
nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological
principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict
in the Middle East is God's punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and
everyone can still think you're just a good church-going Christian, but if
you're black and friends with a black pastor who has noted (as have Colin
Powell and the U.S. Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often
the result of U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism
and its effect on black people, you're an extremist who probably hates
America.
White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by a
reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for asking you such a
'trick question,' while being black and merely refusing to give one-word
answers to the queries of Bill O'Reilly means you're dodging the question,
or trying to seem overly intellectual and nuanced.
White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has anything
at all to do with your fitness for president, while being black and
experiencing racism is, as Sarah Palin has referred to it, a 'light' burden.
And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow
someone to become president when he has voted with George W. Bush 90 percent
of the time, even as unemployment is skyrocketing, people are losing their
homes, inflation is rising, and the U.S. is increasingly isolated from world
opinion, just because white voters aren't sure about that whole 'change'
thing. Ya know, it's just too vague and ill-defined, unlike, say, four more
years of the same, which is very concrete and certain.
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