Oh hell yes, it’s Friday and bitch is heading to Chicago!

A bitch is taking a weekend trip to Chicago with my sister C-Money!

Mmmmhmm, we’re heading to the windy city ‘cause C-Money is obsessed a huge fan of Bon Jovi.

Blink

What?

Wink.

C-Money loves her some Bon Jovi and they aren’t coming to St. Louis so we’re traveling to Chi-Town to see them and celebrate her birthday a wee bit early.

The dawgs get a weekend at dawg camp and this bitch gets a fun weekend in Chicago away from dawgs.

Happy, happy, happy and joys times three!

C-Money has promised a guest post…we’ll see if she produces one.

Toodles for now!

An update on Arizona…

Yesterday a federal judge put the brakes on the meat of Arizona’s new immigration law.

Specifically, the federal judge issued an injunction that blocks the provision that requires police to "make a reasonable attempt to determine the immigration status of a person stopped, detained or arrested" if the officer determines that she/he has reasonable suspicion that the person is in the United States illegally.

CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin points out that the federal judge’s ruling was based on the likelihood of the federal government to win their argument that the provision violates federal sovereignty and control of immigration laws.  He also believes that this case will ultimately end up in front of the Supreme Court.

Pause...sip coffee…continue.

It’s important to understand that this ruling did not speak to whether the provision would violate a person’s civil rights.  The judge did point out that the law could lead to the detention of citizens who are in the country legally...but she blocked the provision ‘cause it violates federal law.

My take?

I don’t want to live in a country where each state has it’s own immigration law.  We already have a nation where a person’s reproductive freedom varies state to state and that’s a damn shame...that a woman in one state has reproductive rights that a woman in another state doesn’t is fucked up from the floor up and un-American as hell.  So, I’m glad the federal judge blocked that provision and sent a message that the federal government makes immigration policy and enforces that policy for the nation. 

By the gods, I hope support for uniformity becomes a fucking judicial trend.

But that leaves us with a federal government that still needs to revise our immigration policy…and a bunch of polls that seem to say that Americans support the spirit of the now blocked profiling provision from Arizona. 

So we still face the real possibility that the same forces that were at play in Arizona will take their "cause" to the Hill and add that kind of provision to a reform of federal immigration law…and then opponents would challenge it…and our best bet would be for the Supreme Court to take up the case.

Blink.

The struggle continues…

Much better now...

Lawd, have mercy!

My bitchitude has stabilized…but it took a day away from the news to get back to normal.

And decent night of sleep.

And some one-on-one time with my sorta-beagle.

Sigh.

Hold please!

A bitch went to bed feeling like the world has gone to shit and I woke up feeling like I did when I went to bed.

Shit, I think I’ve caught a malaise!

Well, fuck a duck.

I don’t have time for a malaise!

Am I feeling uneasy and out of sorts?

Sort of…maybe…but not really.

Pause…consider…continue.

Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve caught a malaise after all.

Truth is, a bitch’s current state of mind is a wee bit  Fannie Lou Hamer with some Howard Beale thrown in for flavor.

Translation – this bitch is sick and tired of being sick and tired with some tired as hell and not gonna take it anymore on the side!

Mmmhmm, this isn’t a malaise…this is unstable bitchitude!

And unstable bitchitude coupled with this extreme heat is dangerous as a motherfucker.

Shit!

Time to cool it down and soothe my soul a bit.

Toodles until this evening!

Pondering a recent analysis of diversity in media…

Yesterday I watched the Sunday political chats for the first time in a long time.

Shall we?

Things this bitch noticed while watching the Sunday political chat shows…

The round table chat segments lack diversity…big time.  It’s as if producers are working from a 1955 handbook where they can easily check diversity off their to-do list by inviting black men and a white woman on the show.

I’ve long lamented the lack of diversity on shows discussing all things political.  The panels these shows put together rarely feature young people and producers seem unable to find an extra chair that would allow Hispanics and black people to appear on a show at the same time.

This shit jumped out at me yesterday because the chats were discussing how the media treated the Shirley Sherrod story.

Watching Michael Eric Dyson and Cornell West on Face the Nation…two black men who made some good points but who failed to address the role members of the black boys club at the NAACP played in throwing Ms. Sherrod under the bus or the unique experience of black women in the workplace that all too often includes being asked to add teaching Racism 101 to our job descriptions…yeah, watching that shit was frustrating as hell.

But twas also par for the course.

The mainstream press continues to fumble diversity…and, as a result, the panels they put together offer up weak ass analysis because key players aren’t at the table.

And Lawd have mercy, I was fascinated by Sunday’s edition of Reliable Sources where Howie Kurtz had Matt Lewis, Jane Hall and Joan Walsh on to discuss the Sherrod story.

Kurtz then had a segment with Carole Simpson on to discuss the lack of diversity in prime media slots.

Although I enjoyed the discussion of why people of color aren’t even on the short list for prime anchor slots and are too often segregated to the weekend anchor slots, I was more than a little disturbed that black women weren’t featured on the panel to discuss the Sherrod story.

And if women of color can’t get a seat at the table to discuss a high profile story about a woman of color, it’s no wonder we aren’t even on the sort list for invitations to discuss the economy or the war or political tensions with Iran.

Shit.

And I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired of high profile journalists tossing up their hands and indulging in token discussions of the impact the lack of diverse voices has on journalism.

Journalists are journalism.

Don't they have the power to change that which they sometimes critique but rarely take action to change?

Blink.

Sealife is tired of our shit!

Let’s jump in, shall we?

Pause…consider…continue.

Or maybe we shouldn’t.

This bitch has been catching up with the sorta-news on the internets.  My dawg-based companions, Betsey the sorta-beagle and Theo the Bay Master, assisted by curling up next to me and getting their snore on.

I read the story about the whale that dropped some serious whoop ass on a yacht off the South African coast.

Then there were reports of a jellyfish that stung 150 or so humans…even after it died.

And…well, it would seem that sealife is tired as hell and not gonna take it anymore!

Mmmhmm, these sea-based creatures are sending a message – “Don’t fuck with us!”

Oh, ‘tis easy to dismiss an angry whale’s attack on a yacht as a random thang…but, even if reports that the yacht harassed the whale aren’t true, this bitch thinks that whale was pissed at the eco-damage humans have done and indulged in a public display of aqua-anger.

Shit, I don’t blame the whale – some assholes in a yacht are getting their sail on in the middle of the whale’s dinner plate and probably disturbed the whales groove too.

She…and I just know it was a sistah…had enough of that shit and decided to remind the yacht that she’s the Head Whale in Charge!

As for the jellyfish…well, the same holds true – a day at the beach for a pack of humans is a motherfucking mob riot in her water-based living room for a jellyfish.

And no water-based life, be it sea or river or pond, wants to go out like that catfish in Missouri…to live long enough to get big as hell only to be taken down by some humans killing time out on the river.

That was some fish’s Great Grandma Cat, damnit!

Shit.

Pause…sip coffee…continue.

These incidents of sealife anger cast the recent appearance of sharks off the coast of Maine in a different light.

People need to ask themselves if those sharks are just taking a swim…

…or could they be planning something.

Blink.

Serious questions remain…

Okay, I’m not done chewing the Shirley Sherrod bone, ‘cause serious questions remain.

Why the fuck aren’t reporters asking some serious questions of the blogger who got all this shit stirred up?

ABC News has a piece online about how Andrew Breitbart got his start…but I couldn’t care less about that shit.

Has he corrected his story?

Will this pile of absolute bullshit push the mainstream media to revisit some of his other work…will it result in folks not buying what he’s selling anymore?

As a blogger, this is a big fucking deal.

I’ve gotten shit wrong before…it sucks but it happens and when it does happen bloggers need to correct that shit.

But it doesn’t look like Breitbart simply got the story wrong.

It looks like he crafted this non-story story based on bullshit from jump.

Sooooooo…

….what the fuck?

In a world where a reporter can be fired after private emails are released…where comments on YouTube can end a career…hell, in a world where Shirley Sherrod is kicked to the curb faster than I can type “bullshit”…in that world Breitbart should be eaten alive for this story.

I’m not saying that we should ignore the role the Obama administration may or may not have played in this shit….

And I sure as shit am not saying that we shouldn’t examine and critique the knee jerk tossing of Sherrod under the bus by the NAACP…

But this story came from Andrew Breitbart…and this bitch thinks the same journalists who failed in their investigative duty by embracing this shit at face value need to get back to basics and apply some motherfucking due diligence to the How The Fuck Did This Story Happen? angle.

Go out and get your journalist on and follow the money.

Shit, this isn’t even that complicated – just follow the fucking stank.

Blink.

Take a sniff…note the flies…

Dear Secretary Tom Vilsack, reporters and pundits who just were and keep getting played,

When you see a swarm of flies hovering…

…and then the unmistakable smell of steaming hot fresh shit hits you…

…just as you spy a guilty looking bull over yonder…

…you can trust that the steaming stinking fly attracting pile in the corner is bullshit.

How many motherfucking times do y’all have to get played by some not slick and not even bothering to try to be slick conservative asshole empowered by a quick i-Movies How to Edit a Video tutorial and a lust to be Tea Party minion of the month…Lawd, have mercy…before you pause and consider before buying what they are selling?

And cease acting surprised!

Cease!

If I have to listen to another sorta-reporter talk about the “surprising turn of events” in the Shirley Sherrod resignation story I’m going to call ABC News and go off on whoever answers that damn phone.

Shirley Sherrod’s statements on race at the NAACP conference were uber-edited to make her look bad.

No shit!

Someone on the right got pissed that the NAACP called them out on their racist bullshit…then that same asshole or group of assholes got frustrated that their dear leader fucked up his response by indulging in a public display of racism to claim that he and his aren’t racist…so, said asshole or assholes did what assholes do – lied by doctoring a video to attack to reputation of an innocent woman who just happened to say something that could be doctored to serve their needs.

And then they sent that shit out…and y’all dove at it without a pause or consideration to the source or the timing or basic journalism.

That’s what happened…and that’s what has happened with everything from the ACORN fabrications to the New Black Panther Party non-scandal to the horrible treatment of Ms. Sherrod to [insert next target of the right scheduled to be tossed under The Knee Jerk Express bus].

Y’all got played…and the shocking thing isn’t that you got played, but that you still don’t get that you got played and are probably being played on another manufactured story even as I type.

A bitch urges y’all to try something different, for the love of all that’s easy...take a sniff, note the large amount of flies hovering about and then give the next non-scandal pile of bullshit dressed up as a legitimate information what it deserves...

...your complete lack of attention.

Recovering from the previous week while preparing for the one ahead…

A bitch has been traveling and lobbying…melting in the heat and then traveling some more.

Lawd, have mercy.

Last week I attending a fantabulous public policy summit in Washington DC and then got my lobby on with Congress.

Let me tell you, it was hotter than hell on the Hill!

This bitch’s schedule was packed so I wasn’t able to get my visit on with all the folks I know in the DC area…and, after working up a serious sweat from walking about to and from meetings, I was unfit for human interaction.

But I’ll be back!

Onward to the new work week…

…and toodles until tonight!

Vote for the Center for Hearing and Speech – Pepsi Refresh!

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$25,000 will make a huge difference, but the Center needs a lot more votes.  Only the top ten projects will be funded.

Click here, learn more about the Center for Hearing and Speech, and cast your vote for a very worthy organization!

Thanks.

A bitch is on the road…

This bitch will be traveling today, so bitchitude is on hold!

Pause…consider…continue.

If I'm lucky, the process of travel won't provide any bitch-based content.

Wince.

Toodles ‘til later…

Laura Ingraham was on the Today Show this morning…

I can’t remember if I’ve ever written about Laura Ingraham before and it has been forever and a day since I’ve posted anything Today Show related, but…well, this bitch caught Ingraham on the first half hour of the Today Show this morning and I’ve just got to share my thoughts.

A bitch’s first thought after viewing Laura Ingraham’s appearance on the Today Show this morning…

Girlfriend looks good.

Seriously, Ms. Thang has a happy as hell glow about her that can only mean that a Democratic administration has shat the bed!

Ingraham had her hair did…her arms exposed in a curious sleeveless fashion nod to Ann Coulter of the my arms shall always be bare Coulters…and her “I’m a Christian, damn it!!” gold cross necklace was gleaming.

Nicely done, Laura.

A bitch’s second thought after viewing Laura Ingraham’s appearance on the Today Show this morning…

Someone should have skipped that extra cup of coffee in the Green Room.

Confession – I don’t listen to Ingraham on the radio so I’m not familiar with her broadcast style, but she was firing off rambling what-nots on fast-forward this morning.  I half expected Matt Lauer to pour cold water on her to prevent spontaneous combustion!

A bitch’s final thought after viewing Laura Ingraham’s appearance on the Today Show this morning…

I get that the Today Show has signed some sort of deal with Satan that they will conduct interviews with conservatives about their tired ass books in exchange for a cease fire in the war on Matt Lauer’s hairline…but damn.

From what I was able to grasp…and I’ll confess that Laura was talking so fast I only caught every third word out of her sanctified mouth…the book is some sort of fantasy exploration of the Obama Administration through faux diary entries.

So, why the fuck was she channeling Vince from those Shamwow commercials to pitch that shit?

A bitch wonders if Laura refused to stop talking...or take a damn breath...for fear of having to actually talk about the book.

***cue crickets***

Blink.

By request – my thoughts on the latest “she/he is successful because she/he is black” charge…

A bitch was traveling last week and kind of missed Rush Limbaugh’s latest public display of rancidity…but a certain Tabitha from Madison, Wisconsin (birthplace of my remarkable sister, C-Money, btw!) sent an email about the shit and asked for my thoughts.

Lawd.

You asked, sister!

My first response was to ignore Rush’s comments about certain people only being successful because they are black. 

I’ve been black since birth and have heard that shit almost as long…in school and in my professional careers, people have enjoyed dropping that diss on a pretty regular basis.  In many ways, I owe them for it – a bitch has worked hard to counter the “she’s just here because she’s black claim.”  But the sad reality is that lots of folks could give a shit about a body's actual accomplishments…they need to believe that some other person is successful simply because they are black because it helps them ignore their own inadequacies and lack of achievement.

‘Tis tempting to list out the many ways a person is challenged by bigotry because they are black…I’ll confess that I wrote out a long list and then deleted it. 

What?

A bitch is easily tempted (wink).

But you know and I know this isn’t a debate over the real…and Limbaugh wants folks to dive for this shit because that would validate the premise of his argument.

He ain’t slick and this bitch isn't in the mood.

Limbaugh is an ass and, since he makes a pile of money being an ass, he’ll probably be an ass for life.

I suspect that Limbaugh likes to claim that folks are successful because they are black because he feels that he’s successful simply because he’s white. 

Truth is I’m not all that concerned about Limbaugh or Beck or Bennett or Buchanan or any of the other intellectually challenged fools of conservative media…

…’tis their audience that worries me.

Odds are the pundits are indulging in lucrative hustles.  Oh they believe what they say, but they only say it because it resonates with their audience.  If their audience wanted them to praise certain black people they’d belly up to a pulpit, light some candles and start chanting that black is beautiful.

But the undeniable fact is that these fools have found and built an audience through hate dressed up as analysis…and that audience is not offended by the shit they say – they eat that racist shit up and then call in and beg for more.

And while Limbaugh and his kind travel in wealthy circles and rarely mix with the masses…

…their listeners are our neighbors.

Blink.

On legal test drives...

A bitch has got to pack, so this one’s gonna be quick.

The Justice Department is suing the state of Arizona over their new immigration law on the grounds that the federal government, not states, is responsible for immigration.

Now some people are pissed off that the federal government is taking Arizona to court…but a bitch applauds the hell out of this shit.

Since this law was signed, people have been arguing and boycotting and protesting and drinking tea like they're a Tory and it’s 1776…

...now this shit will finally be argued and decided in a court of law.

That’s not to say that the court will get it right (anyone remember Dred Scott?)…but we are a nation of laws and a nation that has been struggling with this states rights issue since Independence Day, so this upcoming court battle was inevitable.

So, let’s take this Arizona immigration law out for a legal test ride and see how it handles on Constitution Ave…

Halak!

My beloved St. Louis Blues have finally officially signed our new goalie Jaroslav Halak!

Hooray…hooray…HOORAY!

I had a feeling some shit was going to go down yesterday.

This bitch had jury duty, so I parked at Scott Trade (home of the Blues)…where I noticed a section of the parking lot reserved for hockey personnel only packed with cars.  I had to delay my jury duty for a month (going out of town today), so when I got back to the parking lot it was still rather early and…well, there were even more cars in the hockey personnel section and a certain buzz in the air.

Sure as flies on shit, the Blues got their contract signing on yesterday afternoon.

Cam Janssen for one year…Carlo Colaiacovo for a two-year deal…and former Habs goalie now official Blues netminder Jaro Halak for four years of Blues hockey!

Hooray!

A tip of the Afro to all the Jerry Maguire’s involved in getting ink on paper…

…and a bitch is thanking the hockey gods we didn’t put our shit on hold to participate in The Great Kovalchuk Frenzification of 2010.

Jury duty!!

A bitch has been called for jury duty.

Lawd, have mercy!

Bitchitude shall be delayed until this evening.

Toodles!

Happy birthday to my brother Bill!

Today is July 5, 2010…and my older brother Bill is 40 years old.

Yay!

Pause...consider...continue.

Lawd, have mercy…we’re 40!

I say that we are 40 because my siblings and I are so close in age that their milestone birthdays feel like teaser ads for my own ass.


Cough.

Anyhoo, today my brother Bill is 40 years old.

He’s at a post-brunch visit to The St. Louis Zoo and the gods graced us with a fantabulously beautiful day to be out and about.

Hooray…hooray…HOORAY!

Happy birthday to the best older brother a bitch could ask for!

A bitchfirmation for Brother Rob Thurman…

This bitchfirmation goes out to Brother Rob Thurman from the Mother Church of the United Church of Bitchitude and Latter Day Drunks...


...with a little help for the Jackson 5!

We love you like cold fried chicken with a slice of chocolate cake at 3 o’clock in the morning!

Can you feel it?

Can you feel it?

CAN YOU FEEL IT?

Your family of friends send you extreme positivitude and encouragificaton (wink)…we are inspired by your dedication as a son and brother…and we know know that you will gain strength through your inner power.

Now tell me!

Can you feel it?

Can you feel it?

CAN YOU FEEL IT?

We love you…we’re with you in spirit…and we miss you!

Happy Canada Day!

A bitch wishes all my Canadian readers a Happy Canada Day!

I’m celebrating right along with you by diving into my stash of Smartie-based yummification…

Pondering the teachable moment when justice is denied…

A bitch read this news item on Stltoday.com and it really touched my heart.

A woman of color, denied admission into Missouri State (then Southwest Missouri State College), is being given and honorary bachelor’s degree.

60 years ago Mary Jean Price graduated from high school and applied to college.  She applied to her local state school…travel to the state’s historically black college, Lincoln University, was too expensive.  But Southwest Missouri State did not admit students of color and Price was denied admission.

Mary Jean Price went on with her life.

But she never became the school teacher she had planned to be…could have been…should have been had justice not been denied.

Now Missouri State is giving Mary Jean Price an honorary degree.

While some speak of how far we’ve come a bitch thinks that the teachable moment within this story has more to do with the limits of gestures when justice has been denied.

To learn from this and perhaps give it meaning beyond a terrible wrong done to Mary Jean Price and all the nameless people of color who were denied admission to college because of racial discrimination, we must apply this lesson to the present.

Making shit right after doing someone wrong ain’t easy…thus, we should strive to learn from our mistakes and avoid repeating them.

So, along with honorary degrees and public expressions of regret, maybe we should add a call to question some of our present day shit…question the current popularity of immigration legislation that empowers and encourages police to question people’s citizenship based on their appearance…question the anti-knowledge opposition to comprehensive sex education and who it benefits…and question a society that where LGBT people can be fired or denied housing for being LGBT people.

Question...debate...and then challenge.

History is more than an opportunity to see how far we have come.  It is an opportunity to learn about the past, question the present based on that knowledge and work to make progress in the here and now.

In 1950, Mary Jean Price was denied admission to a college where today more than 600 black students now pursue their degrees.

And I’m not pondering how far we’ve come.

Social justice demands that we question what can we do right now to impact what people will write about us in 60 years.

Will our actions inspire regret and gestures...

...or respect and honors?