U.S. Flies B-52s Into China’s Expanded Air Defense Zone

Two long-range American bombers have conducted what Pentagon officials described Tuesday as a routine training mission through airspace recently claimed by China as its “air defense identification zone.”

I think China (or Russia for that matter) should fly a few bombers 13 miles off the US east coast and see how Washington reacts to that.

Compare and Contrast

So Counterpunch has a piece on the American Criminal Elite Where we find this gem:

Let someone die in a gang-banger crossfire in South Central, and William Bennett will rush to indict an entire generation, an entire race. Where are the sermons from Bennett, Murray and the Sunday Show moralists about the CEOs scuttling off with their swag, leaving their employees to founder amid wrecked pensions and destroyed prospects? A street kid in Oakland is in the computer by the time he’s 10. No “criminal propensity” profiles for grads of the Wharton or Harvard business schools.

It takes the special thinking of a liberal to actually write something like this. The authors would seriously want us to say that stuff like the Knockout Game which has been claiming victims for at least 2 years now is somehow equal to the might be criminal propensity of a business school grad? Really?

The above is supposed to be the same as studying in business school.

Seriously.

This is not to dismiss the criminal conduct of those in the industry who have given us the housing collapse among other things, but really, that's on the level of random gun [and non-gun] violence?

No. And don't insult black people's intelligence with that nonsense either. One of the most pernicious forms of white supremacist racism is the dismissal of agency of black people when they do wrong. If the authors want to talk about the crimes of corporate elites, do so, but leave out the rank comparisons to street violence.

Living Wages and Inflation

Reading through comments about that "socialist" city council member in Seattle made me think I should revisit my support of livable wages. Some commentators brought up the potential for prices to rise dramatically if the minimum wage is increased.

On the surface such a concern seems valid. After all labor is the highest [recurring] cost for most businesses. Equipment has a high one time purchase and then a cost associated with maintenance and then can be sold to recoup some of the original costs. But as automation has shown, machines cost far less than human labour, particularly when measured against sheer productivity gains.

There are businesses that run at very high profit margins on their final product. It is completely false to claim that somehow raising the wages of workers who put together say Nike sneakers would push prices of Nike sneakers up. The only reason why Nike sneakers would go up in price would be because Nike was protecting it's profit margins. Smaller mom and pop stores would have larger problems with large increases in wages. On the one hand many family run stores with family as employees are somewhat immune from the issues, because the family generally co-owns the business and so money is evenly split. They live their lives with the business and nobody is really getting insanely rich off the business. They may be a part of the 1% due to raw income but they are at the bottom part of the 1%.

At the upper end of the 1% are folks who aren't really making money because they produce anything. They make money off of money off of money. Minimum wage increases will do nothing to their wealth. Not one bit. In fact I would hazard to guess that a lot of those top top top earners give away more money than a lot of workers make in a year or ten.

On the other hand one has to be pretty careful about wages. Should a no skill job pay the same as one that takes 8 years of specialized training to do? I certainly do not think that the guy who changes the oil on my car deserves the same pay as the one who can take apart my engine or transmission. I DO think that the guy who changes my oil should have the opportunity to get the training to take apart my engine so he can get that pay if he so chooses. But I'm not up for increasing his oil changing pay because he simply thinks he should be paid more to do it.

Of course therein lies the conundrum: What job deserves "living wages" as opposed to shall we say "entry level, HS student, don't expect to support a family on this" pay? If a lot of people who should be in "support a family" job are in "HS Student part time" job trying to support a family then there is a problem with the kind of work available and not so much what is being paid to do it. As I've pointed out in other entries, those "part time, don't expect to support a family" jobs are going to go away with automation and self-service. So, for example, if you think you will be able to be a cashier at a department store for the next 30 years and support your family, you have a whole other thing coming. And no amount of minimum wage is going to help.

This brings us back to the point I made in the last post: As technology decimates low and medium skill work (anything done by hand) and those previously employed doing these things (and the future would have been workers) are no longer employable but are still, you know, alive, what is government going to do? That is the policy question that needs to be looked at.

Flex Point

Kshama Sawant recently won an election in Seattle. She says she is a Socialist and has some ideas about how businesses should be run:

I wouldn’t call it “more socialist,” in the sense that it doesn’t make sense: It can be either capitalism or socialism. But what we can do, in the journey toward making the economy into something that works for everybody: We have to fight for major reforms under capitalism … We are going to be pushing forward for $15 an hour minimum wage in Seattle in 2014 …

I'm not opposed to a $15/hour minimum wage. In fact I'm all for a livable wage.

But we also have to be honest … That’s not going to be enough. Because the system itself is a system of crises … Capitalism does not have the ability to generate the kind of living wage jobs that will be necessary in order to sustain a decent standard of living for the majority …

Well here starts the problem. It isn't that Capitalism does not have the ability to generate living wage jobs, it that technology, the very sector Kshama comes from, has completely upended labour. Anyone familiar with history knows that for a while between Unions and business ideas like that of Henry Ford created quite a few middle class jobs where a man could, on his own salary, purchase a house, marry and support his family. That man could do so without a college education. Those days are fast closing.

Boeing has an enormous factory, [as well as] all the auto factories that are lying defunct right now in the U.S. — they all have enormous capacity for production. And there’s any number of workers with the skills, and people who have the potential of learning those skills. And instead we have a situation where, because we don’t have a say in the production, either the machines are lying idle, or the machines are being used to produce destructive machines like drones.

So what we need to do is to take the machines and the factories into democratic, say, democratic ownership — and the workers can contribute rail cars or buses, something like that, something that is beneficial to society. And that’s something that creates jobs — it will create living wage jobs …

Are you comfortable with the government telling you what your business should and should not produce? I'm all for responsible business but I am not for dictating what businesses should be in the business of doing. Boeing would not produce "destructive drones" if there were no customers for said drones. Kshama should be more concerned about why those customers exist more so than the means of their production

But her commentary about Boeing also underlines her complete blindness to business realities. Boeing factories aren't sitting idle because they don't want to use them. Boeing has idle factories because it no longer needs to use them to produce what they want. And why should a business pay to maintain a factory they have no need for?

And apparently Kshama thinks that Boeing would pay people x amount per hour to produce "rail cars or buses" when robots (who I'm sure she programmed for at some point) could do the job far cheaper. Unless of course she thinks the government ought to pass legislation requiring a certain number or percentage of human employees. Good luck with that.

See, I don't mind Kshama's attitude and vision for the people. The problem is that she apparently does not realize that the tech ship has sailed. More and more jobs previously done by "the people" (those who are not college educated and who's jobs do not require a college degree of any sort) are soon to be automated. How long do you think a $50k/year Starbucks barista job will last against the soon to come fully automated coffee stores that makes perfect coffee every single time?

or a Burger King?

Or a totally self service supermarket where RFID items are automatically checked and paid for so there are no cashiers or lines?

Department stores with RFID on all items so you pick up and go? Where robots can and will restock items (assuming one goes to shop).

Where there are no gas stations or attendants?

Where there are no road crews?

Where there are no bus drivers?

What happens when the minimum wage hits the reality of the jobs they were intended for are gone? That is the real problem facing the people. A technology makes human labour more and more unnecessary what do the countries do with the people who will supposedly still need money to get the stuff they need and want?

This is the real question for those concerned about the future. The flex point is fast approaching. Who's paying attention?

Who Says Illegal Immigration Doesn' Hurt Blacks?

From the NY Times:

“I’ve been turned down from McDonald’s because I was told I was too articulate,” she says. “I got denied a job scrubbing toilets because I didn’t speak Spanish and turned away from a laundromat because I was ‘too pretty.’ I’ve also been told point-blank to my face, ‘We don’t hire the unemployed.’ And the two times I got real interest from a prospective employer, the credit check ended it immediately.”

Not French, German, Italian, Swahili or Arabic.

Spanish.

Not even a language indigenous to this hemisphere.

I've already laid the case out of why those so called black leaders who are good with illegal immigration are throwing black folks (particularly those without college educations) under the employment bus for political gain. Someone ought to demand that these black elites explain to regular ol' black folks, who are experiencing double digit unemployment, as to why they are OK with adding more competition into the workforce and helping to create an employment environment that blocks them.

The Affordable Care Act "Issues"

So it is amusing to see the great whale fail of the ACA website coupled with the millions of cancellations of insurance policies made illegal by the ACA. All of it was avoidable. First and foremost, had we passed go (The insurance companies) and went directly to a single payer policy by expanding medicaid and medicare to cover everyone, cradle to the grave, none of the policy cancellations we have seen would have happened at all because everyone would be covered once the expansion kicked in. No looking for a policy. No figuring out what your budget could afford. You have a Social Security card? You have insurance. Easy peasy.

There would have been no website to sign up. You ever use a website to get your SSN? I didn't. When my mother had to claim her SS and Medicare benefits the already up and running structures in place, though a bit rough around the edges, worked fine. Why it was thought it would be better to make up a brand new system, process and bureaucracy to implement something that is already working and already scaleable.

It was clearly a bad idea and this whole thing makes the opposition look like they were right all along which of course they were, even if for the wrong reasons. Yes the ADA ought to be done away with but not for the status quo. The ACA is a poor excuse for handing insurance companies more customers. And a lot of people are finding out I and others were absolutely right to point out that said companies will make more money because they have every right to charge more to meet the new "floor" of coverage that is legally required (the reason why so many are getting cancellations in the first place).

I'm certain that this will be rectified in the near future with modifications, deadline extensions and the like. And the insurance companies are about to make a nice bit of change even with the so called increase caps. All in all, all of this would have been better with single payer.

Who Played Patsey?

Were you familiar with the story of Solomon Northrup before? Absolutely not, and I was shocked and dismayed that I hadn't heard of it. I, of course, talked a little bit with my friends about it, and few if any had heard of the 12 Years a Slave autobiography.

And many will continue not to know.

But she did an excellent job. Excellent.

The Simple Beauty of Tanned Skin

Just don't have the other things that usually go along with dark skin.

Women quickly realized that they looked and felt better with tanned skin. But why?

Tanned skin hides skin imperfections like cellulite, dark spots, wrinkles and veins. Suddenly the skin, even of an older woman, suddenly looks glowing and more youthful when tanned. Cellulite is smoothed, dark spots are muted, wrinkles seem to disappear, and varicose and spider veins are camouflaged and sometimes completely covered by the bronze glow.

Women? What women?

Men notice you, girlfriends comment on your beautiful tan, and clothes and jewelry look even better against tan skin.

Really?

I wonder when these women figured that out?

Wouldn’t it be great if we could get that tan we all crave without ruining our skin? Coco Chanel had no choice but we do, because we have sunless tanners. Sunless tanners offer a safe option to get the tan we crave without the dangers of the sun.

We who? I believe nature provided some of us protection from the "dangers of the sun".

And What About The People?

Neil Winton is very excited about the future of self driving cars.

he avoidance of accidents will cut insurance costs, while fuel savings from more efficient long-distance cruising and congestion avoidance are big potential pluses. There will be industrial winners too. Software for in-car applications to entertain drivers with new time on their hands will boom. Radio and recorded music businesses will lose a captive audience. Railroad and short-haul airlines will suffer. If you can move from your home to your destination, door-to-door in the comfort of your car, who’s going to take the train or plane? Highway speed limits are likely to be raised significantly when the new technology demonstrates it can eliminate accidents, cutting journey times and adding to the virtuous circle. All those high speed train schemes being touted in the U.S. and Britain are likely to end up being used by driver-less cars, not hugely expensive and inflexible high-speed trains.

In Neil's piece he waxes poetic about the benefits of all this automation but fails to mention the real human costs. Sure a few disk jockey's on the radio may lose a few people (who will listen to them while in their commutes anyway) but what about all those people who drive trucks for a living? Do you really think a human is going to stay awake, at the wheel doing absolutely nothing for 8-12 hours while his or her truck does the driving? You think a company will pay for that? Really? How many truck drivers would be out of jobs? Truck Driver Salary.com says there are 3.5 million truck drivers in the US alone.

There are approximately 3.5 million professional truck drivers in the United States, according to estimates by the American Trucking Association. The total number of people employed in the industry, including those in positions that do not entail driving, exceeds 8.7 million. About one of every 15 workers in the country is employed in the trucking business, according to the ATA. These figures indicate that trucking is an exceptionally stable industry that is likely to continue generating jobs in the coming years.

Well there goes 3.5 million jobs. Doesn't include the soon to be automated loading and unloading jobs.

According to the BLS There are 239,900 taxi drivers. Add that to your loss of truck drivers and there's nearly 400 million jobs up in smoke.

But these "lowly" people barely rate a mention among the educated class with jobs where there is little competition from automation and immigrant labour.

Oh yeah and most of these jobs that will go poof? They are done mostly by men. Oh I know, they can all be retrained as mechanics.

In The Back Of The Head

Members of Renisha McBride’s family said they believe the African-American woman was racially profiled by the homeowner. They said McBride, whose cell phone had died, had gone up to the house on Outer Drive seeking help after she was involved in an auto accident early Saturday morning. They say McBride was shot in the back of the head with a shotgun as she turned to leave. [My emphasis]

Shooting at someone in the back, particularly if they have not entered your home or threatened you in a credible manner is murder. The castle doctrine does not apply here. There is no reason for this man to not be in jail right now. If he was THAT nervous about someone knocking at his door in the early morning he should not have answered and called the police, or spoke through the door after checking the window.

This man came to the door, locked and loaded. That means intent to shoot. He should be in jail.

Why the US Lags Other Advanced Economies in Women’s Employment

Eileen Appelbaum's latest published in Counterpunch.It contains this bit:

The share of women 25 to 54 years of age who are employed tells a similar story. This ratio peaked in 2000 at 74.2 percent before falling to 72.5 percent in 2007 and 69.2 percent in the second quarter of 2013 — behind even the employment rate of women in Japan, which reached 70.6 percent in that quarter! Today, the U.S. lags behind not only the Nordic countries but most other advanced industrialized English-speaking nations (Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the U.K.) and the major continental countries (Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland).

While that may be true. Ms. Applebaum fails to note one very important thing about all if not most of the countries she has listed: The have stagnant or negative population growth. The average age of their population ranges from the late 30's to mid 40s. A lot of those countries (Japan very much excepted) are dependent upon immigrants to fill work and to boost their tax base (and care for their elderly).

The US has a birth rate of 13.82
Australia 12.47 Canada 10.28 New Zealand: 13.94 (only one higher than US) United Kingdom: 10.65
Austria: 8.65
Belgium: 10.15
France: 12.57
Germany: 8.18
Netherlands: 10.40
Switzerland: 9.59
Japan: 7.64

Median Age:
United States: 37.2 years
United Kingdom: 40.3 years
Canada: 41.5 years
New Zealand: 37.4 years (again the only one comparable to the US)
Austria: 43.9 years
Australia: 38.1 years
France: 40.6 years
Germany: 45.7 years
Netherlands: 41.8 years
Belgium: 42.8 years
Japan: 45.8 years
Switzerland: 41.8 years

So yeah. I could look at this data set and say, well if you want your country to die off slowly, do please "improve" women participation in the work place. The data would sure support that. But I'm not a feminist so I won't do that. How about it's best for the country if women don't feel that they are only worth something if they are working to make someone else money. How about not shaming stay at home mothers? How about not shaming the men who support those stay at home mother's (and the children they care for)?

Of course the reason why Applebaum doesn't see this issue is because to many in so called feminist circles population growth is bad. Some going so far as to believe that having children is destructive to the environment (it is not, it is all the junk we modern people associate with families that is degrading to the environment, starting with the huge gas guzzling vehicles many parents have for "convenience").

I guess it's too hard for some people to understand that if women, who are often the primary caregiver to young children (and there is nothing at all wrong with that) are to be primary caregivers to young children, they cannot also be in the workplace. And there is nothing wrong with that either.

White People Use Crack?

There is a running "joke" in some white corners of the internet about how Marion Barry's drug habit was indicative of what to expect from black politicians. I wonder if the same will be said about Rob Ford, the Toronto mayor who has a crack habit?

I doubt we'll hear anything. After all, that corner of the internet has been mighty quiet about the recent shooting at LAX, while they spilt much digital ink in regards to DC.

I'm Sure It Isn't

Wall Street Journal opinion piece by Tim Cook:

Workplace Equality Is Good for Business

Said by the head of a company with nary a negro at the top executive level. Ever.

Say Mr. Cook, is not having black people at the top of your company "Good for business"? Given the profits I suppose it is.

And if that is so, then if a company is equally profitable without homosexuals (known and out) then how is it "good for business" to change? Are homosexuals more profitable than blacks?

Serious question.

Are homosexuals better for business than blacks? Looking at Apple we seem to know the answer to that don't we.

Don't get me wrong, as I explained before, I get it. Really I do. I just find it highly, highly, highly ironic that a Companies near and far, bend over backwards to play the "we support women" game (of which the homosexual thing is actually a part) while they are blatantly No Negro Lands(™) in their employment practices (particularly in the upper levels) and nobody calls them on it. But hey, like the Oracle of Matrix fame, I understand "the why". So none of this surprises me.

Verone Mankou Get's It

In light of yesterday's post here's someone who understands what I'm talking about:

"Now we are building our factory in Brazzaville. Before we designed in Congo, assembled in China and sold in Congo -- no! I want to design it in Congo, assemble in Congo and sell it in Congo."

The Walk Video

First watch the video.

Now read.

Apparently the video was made last year. I first saw it today while watching the NYC marathon. This video is amazing in it's complete exposure of the total fuck up that African/Black so called leadership has been. For those who are unawares, I am a Garveyite. Marcus and Amy repeatedly and forcefully told black folks that they needed to get their act together and do for self. What was "do for self"? Do for self is what every other group on the planet does. It is living together in communities that you control economically and politically. It is valuing your culture and people. It is passing traditions and knowledge onto the next generation. It is not being exploited by others.

A cursory look at African history will show that the start of the "great stagnation and devolution" of the African starts roughly with the Jihads in West Africa which allowed the slave trade to flourish in that area of the world. Similar issues were in play in central Africa among the Ngola with different groups warring with each other and selling their captors whome they, even today, didn't even recognize as better allies and kin than material for barter. But those issues are not the point of this post.

Since the so called emancipation of African nations from colonialism there have been innumerable coups, counter-coups and general bullshit. All this warfare, that continues to this day, and a total lack of unity of purpose and direction (not necessarily of thought) by the so called leadership has left a number of resolvable issues STILL plaguing Africa. The above video highlights one of them.

While so called "rebels" in Africa exploit their natural resources to purchase arms, the people they give their money and resources to build state of the art hospitals and orderly societies where their women can complain about "first world problems". Meanwhile all these "rebels" have managed to do is continue to make life miserable for the people I assume they are liberating. Hell, the other day I was reading an article on one of the countries and between the two blocks of buildings was a dirt road with garbage strewn along the gutters on each side. No, let me rephrase, garbage about two feet or so extending from the sidewalk.

Question: What the hell is that about?

Why is it that a country with so many unemployed men, has streets so filthy? You want to tell me that the folks living there are so accepting of filth lining the streets that it hasn't occurred to anyone to clean it? Even if there is no money, do it for fucking barter! All those businesses supposedly operating on that block could not band together to afford to pay some enterprising folks to keep the street clean? Really?

Don't even get me started on the apparent "necessity" of getting the Chinese to build roads. You'd think that as long as concrete and asphalt has been known about that these countries could manage to make them without outside intervention.

Anyway back to the video. Recently I criticized the defense of Cecile Kyenge's appointment to the Italian cabinet as being incredibly short sighted because Italy did not need her, but people in her native land did.

I've seen video of European doctors who visit various places in Africa to do what is considered routine eye surgery. I am annoyed that while these folks are doing that work, Africans apparently cannot help themselves to run to various European countries to gift them with their skills. I suppose I'm the only person annoyed by this. I suppose I'm the only person who thinks that Kyenge's service to the people of the Congo as a doctor is more important than "diversifying" the Italian cabinet. But what do I know?

Given that, how ironic was it that the doctor delivering the white woman's baby is black?

I nearly fell out my sofa laughing when I saw that because it was SUCH a counterpoint to the scene on the right. There is a black woman walking (who knows how far) by herself to some location to give birth, ALONE whereas the white woman in "the west" has not only her husband but a black man to attend to her every need.

That video is so emblematic of the multi-fold failures of the collective black leadership .

Let me end this by asking a hypothetical set of questions:

1) If tomorrow those persons classified as white were to disappear from the planet what would go missing? A large portion of global finance (for better or worse). Most governments would shut down. 4/5ths of all vehicle manufacturing. The vast majority of advanced scientific study stopped. Many schools would simply shut down (including many in non-white areas). One could honestly say that aside from the missing population, there would be major worldwide disruptions in commerce, etc.

2) Similarly, what if tomorrow all persons classified as Asian were to disappear from the planet? The US would go broke. No, really, China and Japan alone have so much money invested in the US that for them to no longer exist would kill the US economy. Not only that, since much production of the world's goods are done in Asian countries, say goodbye to all that cheap clothes and electronic goods. Say goodbye to Honda and Toyota too. Oh yeah, Asians happen to be some of the top programmers in the world so there's that too. But lets not underestimate the loss of manufacturing output. All you need to do is look at the things in your home and office to know what that would do.

3) Lastly, imagine if every person classified as black were to disappear tomorrow: What would be totally disrupted? Nannies? Fast food workers? Rappers? Name me a major industry, governing body or human endeavor that does not involve entertainment or art that would have a massive disruption if Black people were to exit the earth en mass. There is nothing and I mean nothing manufactured in an African country that is consumed globally. Even the oil is refined elsewhere. No cars, no trucks. No solar panels. No clothing (well I do have ONE shirt made in Kenya). No electronics. There is a possible exception of food, which dessert Arab countries have been buying up land to produce. Oh, I did forget something. If all persons classified as black were to disappear tomorrow then in many metropolitan areas in the US, violent crime would drop anywhere from 60 to 90 percent. That would impact the employment of police and corrections officers as there would be far less crime to prevent and inmates to watch over which would devastate the economies of Fed Pen Towns(tm).

This takes us back to Garvey. Garvey told us that we would need to control businesses in our communities and countries. Failure to do so would leave Africans at the mercy of those who had done so. But the idea that won the day among Africans was that it was better to "diversify" white spaces than to strengthen our own. So we fight over Affirmative Action at various schools rather than how to get more black folks to attend a Tuskegee or a Howard. We complain about the lack of black professors at so and so HWCU (Historically White Colleges and Universities) and complain about low wages at Tuskegee, the same place they didn't go to and won't send their kids to, thereby depriving those institutions of funds that would pay those higher wages they want.

So this attitude has given us the video above. Black folks suffering massive brain drain and white folks continuing to reap the benefits of a cultural orthodoxy that places a higher value in diversity than their own group well being. And it is ONLY Africans that suffer from this nonsense. Asians stick together, Latinos do the same (mainly for their non-black members). But apparently I'm one of the few who are bothered by all that.

So if you're new to this blog and read this far, congrats. Now go back and watch the video again and see what I see.

Actual Blackface

Any questions?

Blackface Explained

This is a black face.

This is Blackface.

This is a white character playing a black person.

This is a black character playing a black character.

This is a white person, who plays in the same show as the above black person, dressed up as the black character played by the black actress.

This is Blackcake.

If you don't know the difference between a black face, Blackface and dressing (or playing) the part of a black fictional character as shown on TV, then you are not qualified to complain.

But for the benefit of those who still don't have a clue:

Blackface "minstreling" was done with the sole purpose of employing white persons to play the white supremacist idea of a "common" black person for the sole purpose of entertainment of white persons at the expense of the humanity of black persons. THAT is the defining characteristic of Blackface performance. It's counterpart, Black characters played by actual black people who performed much the same way as their blackface counterparts were (and are) no better. As a matter of fact it could be said that modern day "cooning" is far worse than it's ancestral performances because there is no need for it to be done.

Flavor Flav.....nuff said.

Julianne Hough did not perform blackface. Julianne dressed up as a character from a show. If you are mad about Julianne then you gotta be mad at Crazy Eyes and direct some criticism her way for being a character that you think is degrading in and of itself that it's imitation is deemed offensive. Of course there is a class of professional black whiners who like to get attention by being oversensitive about bullshit *cough* Adria Richards *cough* who love to simply complain apparently for the sake of complaining. And then the white liberal talking heads who fear falling out with said professional complaining class who ought to have stayed silent on the issue.

Now why am I out here talking about this? Well because this nonsense is a part of the overwhelming censorship that is running wild in this society. Can't dress up in "muslim attire" because someone might be offended. Can't dress up in Mexican attire (something I actually did when I was a kid) because someone might be offended. Simply put, the thin skinned, professional complaining class are amassing great powers of censorship and I. do. not. like. it.

There are actual cases of intentional blackface done by people with the express purpose of denigrating black folks. I know it when I see it. I also know when I see a costume of an actual character which if one is not the color of said character, it makes perfect sense to color oneself to match. *cough* Hulk *cough*

“For Black Boys Who Have Considered Homicide When The Streets Were Too Much”

Click title for information.

12 Years A Slave (no spoilers)

I definitely suggest a viewing of 12 Years A Slave. Certainly brings a vivid look into the "art" of slave purchasing and treatment. In the viewing I saw, a female audience member did not last past the first beating. A few notes:

1)As someone who is basically a non-drinker and who definitely does not, and does not encourage, getting throw up drunk, this story underscores why one should not do so. Solomon could have still ended up kidnapped in his regular sleep, but being fall out drunk, in a country known for kidnapping people who look like him for the purpose of involuntary servitude, is well, not the best idea. And remember James Byrd Jr. went out the same way. Protect yourself. Enjoy yourself, but protect yourself.

2) It's funny how becoming a victim suddenly makes one an advocate. There were two points in his "pre-slave" life where Solomon had no problem with folks describing Africans (like him, like it or not) as savages and didn't really give a hoot about the "servant" that had entered the store. Of course after his ordeal he became an abolitionist but when one is a "freeman" with "papers to prove" and living in relative safety, it's easy to be aloof.

In my own life it could be said that I have no incentive, other than shared genetics, for being a Pan-Africanist. I have never been particularly ill treated by non-black people. Experienced very little overt discrimination or any of the usual things that would usually drive a person to such a "pro black" position. So why do it? Because of the principle. When you are a person of principle you do not have to wait until you are personally affected.

3) Nit pick: The accents of the enslaved Africans seemed way off to me. Often times they would slip between current language and what I assume to be "slave language". I'm not sure if this was for the benefit of the audience who likely would have had a difficult time following a heavy "accent" or simply a difficult time maintaining linguistic form.

4) Whoever that woman is that played Patsy (sp?) deserves recognition for her role. Long ago I took an acting class and volunteered to do a Civil Rights era sit in scene. That was a particularly rough thing to do (and showed me that I was not the sit in type at all). The emotional weight of putting myself in that time and space was very very heavy. As heavy as it was it was by no means close to what the Patsy character endured. If for nothing else but to have put herself through that, she deserves an award from somebody somewhere.

5) The film gives a great look at the "learned indifference" to black life that many of us today see in the black communities. The lynching scene IMO was the best example of that. Children playing. Folks going about their business. It seems odd, looking at it from today's eyes, but putting yourself into that time and space you understand the ever present fear of coming to a person's aid.

6) The destruction of black manhood. Early on we get a glimpse of what was the usual fate of those black men who dared to fight back or attempt to protect black women. I'm not sure if this point will be caught by many, but if one is cognizant of the situation you will see how the status of black men into what amounts to less than a child is quite powerful. It is also the reason why I have serious issues with so called "black feminists" and their asinine discussion of "black male privilege".

There is no privilege when a man knows that his wife, daughter, mother, sister can be snatched up by another man and he can do nothing at all and receive no justice. When "niggas ain't shit" means more than you can possibly understand.

Anyway. Add this to your collection. You DO have a collection right?

Let's Just Admit it: The US Govt. Is Out Of Control

The headline says it all: NSA Accessed Mexican President's Email

he National Security Agency (NSA) has a division for particularly difficult missions. Called "Tailored Access Operations" (TAO), this department devises special methods for special targets.

That category includes surveillance of neighboring Mexico, and in May 2010, the division reported its mission accomplished. A report classified as "top secret" said: "TAO successfully exploited a key mail server in the Mexican Presidencia domain within the Mexican Presidential network to gain first-ever access to President Felipe Calderon's public email account."

According to the NSA, this email domain was also used by cabinet members, and contained "diplomatic, economic and leadership communications which continue to provide insight into Mexico's political system and internal stability." The president's office, the NSA reported, was now "a lucrative source."

This operation, dubbed "Flatliquid," is described in a document leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden, which SPIEGEL has now had the opportunity to analyze.

Of course there are people who will pooh-pooh this kind of news as the kind of stuff that is done to get at drug cartels, etc. As if the same or similar excuses would be found acceptable if it were found that some other country had done the same to US officials. Meanwhile...France in the NSA's crosshair : phone networks under surveillance

According to the documents retrieved from the NSA database by its ex-analyst, telephone communications of French citizens are intercepted on a massive scale. Le Monde has been able to obtain access to documents which describe the techniques used to violate the secrets or simply the private life of French people. Some elements of information about this espionage have been referred to by Der Speigel and The Guardian, but others are, to date, unpublished.

Amongst the thousands of documents extracted from the NSA by its ex-employee there is a graph which describes the extent of telephone monitoring and tapping (DNR – Dial Number Recognition) carried out in France. It can be seen that over a period of thirty days – from 10 December 2012 to 8 January 2013, 70,3 million recordings of French citizens' telephone data were made by the NSA. This agency has several methods of data collection. According to the elements obtained by Le Monde, when a telephone number is used in France, it activates a signal which automatically triggers the recording of the call. Apparently this surveillance system also picks up SMS messages and their content using key words. Finally, the NSA apparently stores the history of the connections of each target – or the meta-data.

Apparently nobody ever tells the NSA "no" and means it. Apparently we have a president who is more interested in prosecuting those who whistle-blow these intrusive programs rather than stopping the intrusions.