I fought the plague...

Cough.

Daaaaaamn, y’all – a bitch takes an extended trip away from the internets and y’all immediately jump to the conspiracy theories!

No, I'm not done with blogging....and no, I haven't been renditioned.

Shit.

I’ve been beyond ill with an ebola-esque plague from hell, y'all!

It started a little over a week ago…with a light cough and sniffles…and went to shit faster than a GOP frontrunner campaigning in Iowa.

Sneezing and then coughing…and then I lost my voice.

For real!

Hell, it still isn’t all the way back yet…and I’m more than a little pissed off that it doesn’t have that Kathleen Turner and/or Demi Moore raspyfied sexiness that can sometimes result from losing one’s voice.

No…no, no, no, no, NO…I get to sound like Momma from “Throw Momma from the Train” (for those unfamiliar with that film, think Harvey Fierstein first thing in the morning after an evening of cigars and loud talking).

Humph.

All the humans in the house took ill…the dawgs are fine, but tired of our shit.

At some point last week I was certain that we’d end up like those villages they show in CDC outbreak movies where a plane flies in and either drops provisions, a cure, or a giant bomb to halt the plague at the source.

By Friday this damn wretchedness has evolved to the point where I checked the front door to see if someone chalked a fucking X on it.

Pause…cough pathetically…continue.

But this morning I woke up feeling sorta-human…still coughing but way better than before!

Just in time for me to feel healthy enough to get my debauch on New Years Eve…

…and start 2012 with a nice plague-based relapse.

Ah, fate.

Cough...sneeze...sigh.

Enabling oppression…

Hi y’all!

I found out about a Rutgers student’s invitation to an evening of Disney-based racism through the magic of Twitter.

***rubs palms together***

Let’s jump right on in, shall we?

Tis alleged that a white PhD student sent an invitation via email to some of her "Race, Ethnicity and Inequality in Education" classmates (the white ones)…

Wait…hold up!

Am I the only one who finds it confusing that a student interested in that class would send such an invitation?

Maybe she thought the class would be more of a celebration of racism or a gathering of folk who enjoy inequality in education or…oh, fuck it.

Anyhoo…

The student sent the email invitation to her “fellow non-racist racists” for a screening of one of my favorite racist Disney movies to loathe, Song of the South.

Shark-Fu’s thoughts on this shit…

Thought #1 - Could this be an experiment gone wrong?

I know, I know…the fact that the student calls the invited students her “fellow non-racist racists” is damning…and it doesn’t look good that she only sent it to white students.

I was kind of hoping this was a failed attempt at a social experiment…kind of like the blue eye test that Oprah did that show on where folks with blue eyes were treated better than everyone else.

Yeah…um…right.

If that was the case then why the hell hasn’t anyone come out to say that this was an experiment set up to test how the students that received the invitation would respond?

Thought #2 – How the fuck did the students who received the invitation respond?

This is something that fascinates me – when confronted with a oppression-based happening, most people do not respond the way they thought they would, assumed they would, or even hoped they would. In this case, the students who received the invitation didn’t confront the sender and the department has yet to take action.

Soooo…who stepped up?

***cue crickets***

Well, someone had to in order for this to leak…unless the students of color had to overhear that shit in the loo.

Oooooooh, that’s just wrong!

Alrighty then, we’ll move on.

Final Thought – When the class becomes a case study for what the class is about...

I’m betting that this isn’t a social experiment in the classic sense of a professor staging an incident and then calling all parties together for a post-mortem analysis. The loud as hell silence from all parties sans the students who didn’t get invited kind of backs me up on that shit, because an easy way to avoid all this drama would be to announce that the drama inducing ig’nance has a purpose.

No, this looks to be more of an accidental social experiment…the kind that happens every single day in America…the sort that forces us to take our professed values out for a test run and see how they perform. And that casts the lack of outrage, condemnation, and censure from the students who received an email sent to “fellow non-racist racists” in an entirely different light.

Did they laugh?

Did they giggle?

Pause…consider…continue.

Or did they show up with popcorn and beer?

Blink.

I'll betcha a trillion fabillion dollars...

Confession – I missed the most recent GOP debate between would-be nominees because I was at a hockey game (go Blues!).  But thanks to the magic of Twitter...I caught up on the who, what, when, and where.

Shall we?

Two major happenings came out of the Great Most Recent Debate of Would-be GOP Nominees Seeking Power – Newt says the Palestinian people are “invented”…and Newt Romney makes $10,000 bets.

On Newt.

Oh, Newt…Newt, Newt, Newt, Newt, NEWT!

Didn’t I mention in a previous post how much I look forward to his verbal malfunctions?

Even the herd of conservative pundits, not known to chastise anyone for saying ignorant culturally inaccurate shit, thought Newt’s latest pander was off the mark.

But Newtonian form demanded that Newt double down on that “invented people” mess…which he did…and it is beyond telling that he’s still the candidate du jour after making a statement that, if he were President, would effectively toss massive amounts of gasoline on an already volatile situation.

Choosy moms choose Jiff…

….and likely Republican voters prefer zealots, homophobes, and hypocritical lying sacks of shit.

Mercy.

Anyhoo, then we have Romney’s $10,000 bet in response to some challenge about his stand on health care reform.

Where to start?

How ‘bout with the problem?

Every single candidate on that stage can make $10,000 bets…and none of them live on the average American salary. As much as the pundits want to talk about how out of touch Romney is, the real story is that all of these candidates are out of touch.

I'll betcha a trillion fabillion dollars that they don’t know…have never experienced…cannot empathize with floating a bill.

They don’t know…have never experienced…cannot empathize with having to decide between meds or food, heat or rent, transportation or lunch.

These people are so far removed from the masses that they didn’t even realize Romney stuck his foot in it until their aides told them.

And they are the ones charged with fixing the problems that keep so many people trapped in a reality they can’t truly grasp.

Pause…sip coffee…continue.

It all reminds me of the times I’ve tried to describe paying off college loans to folks who had parents pay full tuition.

They’d nod and then grunt…and then talk about how super excited they are that Starbucks holiday coffees are back.

Blink.

Pondering the Newtonian Revival…

I woke up this morning to news that a certain Newt Gingrich has taken a commanding lead among GOP candidates in Iowa.

Every time I read something about Newt it feels all deja vu-ish because I remember him from back in the day…back when I think he was cheating on his second wife with his current wife but blasting Clinton for cheating and...

...damn, damn, daaaaamn there’s a lot of sex going on in DC.

Makes a bitch wonder why DC politicians legislate like puritans when they clearly get it on like folks booking trips to Vegas wish they could get in on.

Anyhoo…where was I?

Oh yes…Gingrich.

I remember Gingrich when he was opposing then President Clinton’s administration on [insert whatever and anything here] and was being such a braying ass about it that he can’t even claim credit for all that economic surplusedness folks now look back on with regret that they didn’t opt for the lockbox behind door number 2.

Sigh.

Ah, Newt.

Newt, Newt, Newt, Newt...Newt.

He speaks so well…with such authority, such confidence and pompous certainty that he almost pulls off making folk forget that he spoke with that same authority, confidence, and pompous certaintude back in the 90s and he was as off the mark then as he is now.

But I'll confess that I’m more interested in what the surge of this new candidate du jour says about conservative voters.

After two years of watching the media fawn all over those who adore tea, I’m fucking fascinated that the candidate currently taking off like a rocket has spent his career drinking from the Potomac River.

Newt, for the love of old school politicians who were in power when Boyz II Men ruled the charts…someone who has left so much evidence of his fuckeduptitude in DC that CSI could do a spin-off on that shit.

Wow.

I was excepting another case of those who adore tea being played for fools…like when their Missouri nest got hustled into voting then Congressman Roy Blunt into the Senate during the last election.

But that’s not what I’m seeing here.

Tea Party darlings surged and then fizzled fast once the GOP faithful got a good look at them.

And now we have Newt.

Newt freakin' Gingrich.

Pause...consider…continue.

We’ll see if Newt lasts…he certainly has a track record of lasting in conservative politics, big time…but right now it looks like the GOP faithful are telling those who adore tea that they really like them and had a nice time but they want to see other people now.

Blink.

The Great Cain Train Derailment of 2011…

Happy Monday, y’all!

I was sick as hell all damned day yesterday. I started feeling plague-ish Saturday and it went downhill from there. Ugh. I’m just grateful to feel human again...just in time for Monday.

Yay.

Shit.

Shall we?

Herman Cain has left the building. Over the weekend Cain officially announced that his non-campaign campaign was suspended.

 

Anyone surprised?

***cue crickets***

Yep.

Now that Cain is semi-gone the remaining candidates for the GOP nomination (Romney, Newt, and a gaggle of anyone but Romney or Newt) are busy trying to gather up Cainiacs and preparing to debate and debate and then debate some more.

I can hardly wait to see who will break free from the herd and indulge in a public display of ‘oh shit, did she or he just do/say that?’ this month week!

Good times.

Pause…sip coffee…continue.

So far the race for the GOP nomination has unfolded like an ice skating competition.

What?

Tis true! 

I always end up watching ice skating when it is on television and there is always this huge build-up from analysts about some superstar skater who totally nailed [insert jump here] in practice…followed by lift off…and then a wipe out…and then a reshuffling of the leader board.

Just like the race for the GOP nomination…

...only without the snazzy outfits

Maybe CNN should get Scott Hamilton on staff?

Blink.

Keep talking...

Shall we?

Full disclosure – I want Newt Gingrich to be the GOP nominee like a Cubs fan wants her team to beat the White Sox.

He’s a walking and talking content creating machine, y’all!

Example… Newt thinks child labor laws are stupid…and that poor people raise children incapable of working because they’ve never seen anyone work ‘cause the only reason anyone isn’t working right now is because they are too damned ignorant and lazy to figure out how to get one of the fabillion trillion jobs out there.

The thing is that Newt holds misconceptions that too many folks do – that poverty is an inner-city problem, that poor people are lazy, and that the current unemployment crisis is some special kind of thing ‘cause it hit regular people, so folks who have been unemployed or under-employed for decades must have something wrong with them while folks who are newly unemployed are totally different.

Back on earth, poverty is an equal opportunity situation. The newly unemployed provide a damn good example of how the long-term unemployment happens…unemployment + bills + no new jobs = economic drama.

But Newt ain’t trying to hear that shit. 

He wants “inner-city” poor kids to learn how to work by providing janitorial services. In his defense, Newt doesn’t cotillion with the masses much. He’s also not half as clever as he thinks he is…which is why he proposed that janitorial solution without pondering the fact that if there isn’t a janitor then that’s a grown-person job that ain’t being staffed not an unpaid learning opportunity for a 10 year old.

Blink.

Keep talking, Newt…please…

On World AIDS Day…

Today is World AIDS Day.

May we remember as we focus on getting to zero.

Remember the names…that those names belong to people…that those people are mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, lovers, co-workers, beloved partners, and friends.

Remember the fear…that the fear so quickly became hate…that the hate was demonstrated in action…and that discrimination, misinformation, and bias didn’t go away when celebrities started wearing red ribbons or when political leaders finally said the word AIDS.

Remember the goals that have been missed and those that were met…the stereotypes that have been deconstructed and those that remain…the life expectancy that has been expanded and those who have died…

…and the number zero on the horizon.

Remember that every day that AIDS is in the world is World AIDS Day…

…and that AIDS isn’t some other person's worry or problem or risk or concern.

AIDS is until we get to zero and even then AIDS will be…for all of us who remember and for all of us who will never forget…

For the names that belong to people who are and were and forever will be.