Happy New Year!
2009 Hope for a Brighter Future for Us All

It is after 5:00 p.m. here in snowy Boston. I am home with Ma and Joel and we are planning to get some early Zzzz in as a celebration of the coming year. I have no plans to cook anything special nor do I intend to go to any parties or even public prayer service. A meaningful end to this year is a private prayer of thanksgiving to God that He is bringing to an end a very, very stressful year.

The great thing is that for 2009 I have high hopes. My hopes are rising each day. The are not placed on our brilliant new President but on the resiliency of the American people and most importantly on my faith and trust in God. I have been delivered from some very scary things, forced homelessness (hurricane Katrina) , sparse resources, no job, no job again, explosive rent, and family illness. Yet, from each thing I have been delivered. I now have a home, a second new job, the family health is improved, more resources, and the blessing of caring friends and strangers. God has been faithful to me even when I have wavered. For Him I am grateful always.

To the people who read my musings I say thank you. To my friends and family who agree and disagree with what I have written at times or in some cases all of the time thank you. God has bestowed his grace and mercy on us all. May God continue to bless us. 2009 is our year to shine!

Happy New Year!

Christmas Day in a Louisiana Dungeon

Louisiana, the state I was born in, raised in, and lived in until recently is as backwards a place you would ever want to see. It is still living as if it the 19th century and what it calls justice is an atrocity. If you are black or poor white your life has little value. I grew up with the stories of Woodfox and Wallace. I am stunned that they are still there held down by the system. This is a shame in a shameless state.
About Bobby Jindal
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

What Happened to Kwanzaa?

First, Kwanzaa is not a holiday. It is a cultural celebration. I have celebrated Kwanzaa for over 25 years. My family will be celebrating it this year with each of us hosting in our homes a different principle. Kwanzaa was not designed to be a commercial "holiday" because it is not a holiday. It was developed to learn about and celebrate our culture and to use seven principles to guide our lives and strengthen our communities. It is not a separatist celebration just an African centered one.



Most of my friends across the country celebrate Kwanzaa in their homes with the exception of attending large public events on the first and sixth nights (Umoja, unity and Kuumba, creativity). Some cities have large public celebrations each night. Most practitioners have small gatherings at our homes.



Kwanzaa is not a replacement for Christmas. It is not a "black Christmas". It is a ritual developed as a mechanism to learn and to teach about the culture of African Americans.



So, if Hallmark is not making much money from it I am not distressed being a commercial endeavor is not the purpose nor desire of the celebration. Gifts are for children and they are either handmade or books.



To the key to Kwanzaa is its second principle-Kujichagulia, self determination we determine what our cultural celebration will be not Hallmark or American Greetings.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Property Developers Want Bailout Money

Bail out commercial property developers? I think not! Let them go bankrupt and foreclose on their properties like the system is supposed to do. Enough free money. Is no one responsible for their choices?
About The Bailouts
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

FBI Forced To Divert Antiterrorism Agents To Help Untangle $50 Billion Madoff Swindle

Now? That cow is so far out of the barn that it headed over to the other farm's pasture. Why couldn't they do this before we went broke?
About Bernard Madoff
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Rick Warren And Obama: What Is 'Traditional Marriage' Anyway?

Let's let everybody marry so that we can raise money on marriage licenses and divorce court costs. I believe in EEO and all recognized marriages are recognized by the government and not the church so let's just let everybody marry whomever they please...we need the money.



Also, CA was wrong to allow a majority to vote on limiting the rights of the minority. If this is allowed to continue then we have hearkened back to Plessy v. Ferguson.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Will it take 30 years too before this is investigated, prosecuted and put to rest like the Emmett Till case? Will the justice department continue to allow the lawless live out their lives and then say after they are dead what a shame it is that those men cannot be punished because oops they are dead already? The state of Louisiana and certainly the dysfunctional police department of New Orleans will not do anything about these men because they are white and because their victims are black. Louisiana and New Orleans will never progress as long as it continues to live as if it is the 19th century and black lives are worthless.



Louisiana to be viewed as the backwards banana republic it is.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Harry Shearer, an good advocate for the attention to repairing New Orleans from the damages of the flooding after Katrina was het up about the Algiers Point vigilantes. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/harry-shearer/new-orleans-faces-the-nat_b_153163.html

I responded to his post with this:

There was no massive damage until the flooding occurred. Anger still flows at the U.S. Corps of Engineers whose job it is to design, build, and maintain the levee system that prevents off exactly what occurred...massive flooding and a loss of life that exceeded the Oklahoma bombing tragedy. Residents are vulnerable to the weakest of hurricanes coming ashore.

Does it mean that The Nation was wrong in its report about the murder of black men because they were black? I say no. Does it mean that racism is intricately laced in the community where one can kill black people with apparent impunity? I say yes.

Like the Emmett Till case 30 years from now some writer will dig up the the story about men killed by (by then) dead vigilantes pointing out how justice was denied. These men are known and free. There will be no trial and certainly no conviction because a black life in New Orleans, in Louisiana is worthless and that is the ugly truth.

Louisiana operates in a racial atmosphere that still believes that it is the 19th century. New Orleans, the place of my birth, where I was educated and lived for most of my over 50 years is stuck in the 1950's progressive in comparison to the rest of the state. Black life in both eras is valued less than that of whites. The very sad part is that the Algiers Point vigilantes demonstrate how true this remains.

Time Mag Columnist: Obama Is "Very Rational-Sounding Sort Of Bigot"

I am aggravated by the dismissal of the Rev, Lowery , by the gay community of a man who has battle scars from the civil rights movement AND who supports gay marriage . You get all het up over Rick Warren and fail to see the bigger picture of a man who put his life on the line for people and freedom of others, a man who has credibility, who is ON YOUR side as if his stature and influence does not matter. It does. Rick Warren is a bone. Rev. Joseph Lowery is a true example of agape love that we Christians say we seek to exemplify. Listen to his prayer of benediction at the inauguration he will deliver.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Rove Will "Help Lead" GOP Fight Against Holder: <i>WaPo</i> Reporter

No, he needs to jailed for leaking information on Valerie Plame. It seems to me that the Obama administration needs to spend a little time on investigating the Bush Administration for every single crooked thing they have done.If that is a not a WPA project for lawyers and accountants I can not think of another one.
About Karl Rove
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Evan Bayh Forming Conservative "Blue Dog" Caucus In Senate

Please, is it not time to dump both Reid and Pelosi? Supporting the DLC folks...again is simply madness. They were wrong before and surely they are wrong now. Both the DLC (Bayh, Ford, Landreau, and a few other lunkheads) and the awful Democratic leadership need to be banished along with the troglodytes southern Republicans from the Congress.
About Evan Bayh
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Democrats Go Down on the Auto Bailout

At this point I am sick of everybody involved including the media. Millions of jobs are at stake and businesses other than the automakers are too. The unions have given up concessions and I am sure could maybe do a little more but not so much that they are destroyed which is the aim of the Republicans. They weak kneed lily livered Democrats astound me have they no backbone? We need to keep manufacturing companies so that like oil we will not be dependent on foreign countries to build and sell us our own weapons (see bullets) so that we can defend ourselves. Some industries are vital to ourself defense and the automakers certainly are one of them.
About Job Cuts
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Rod Blagojevich Arrested: The Damage He Could Do

What the point of this article? Democrats are responsible for Rod Blagojevich? Or is Obama? Or is it just that the governor is responsible for his actions alone? As a Louisianan I can say the IL politicos are second leaguers compared to us in graft, greed, and corruption. Even Louisianans are getting tired of constantly being embarrassed by the people we have elected to office only to have them get themselves tossed into Club Fed. It's Y'all's turn now. My advice: find another Democrat, one with integrity (don't laugh politician and integrity are not an oxymoron) and let that person lead the way out. You do not want to switch to a Republican because there really is no change there simply better finessed graft.
About Rod Blagojevich
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost