…Though I will admit that other items of priority (an an unexpected sinus/flu) have left me feeling like a zombie lately. Thanks to those who sent e-mails of concern.
I’ll ante up my two cents on the May Day (or is it “Mayday! Mayday!”) events hither and yon, as soon as possible.
Last night, SnoopyTheGoon of Simply Jews and I broke bread and devoured spareribs and chicken at Memphis Championship Barbecue. It was my first visit to the Rainbow Blvd. location, and the crew there didn’t disappoint. As always with a Memphis dinner, portions were abundant, and leftovers were taken home for another meal.
Photos from last night are still on my cell phone; I’ll download them for the EATAPETA gallery as soon as I can get the Bluetooth hub to play nice.
Earlier yesterday, I had a Chicken Caeser burrito from Taco Bell for lunch. Not too shabby either.
So, what animal did you eat for PETA yesterday
Update: SnoopyTheGoon has an in-depth report of Wednesday night’s repast. It was great meeting him in person and I hope to do so again.
Update 2 (3/23): After some Bluetooth wrangling and a software installation later, I was able to procure the photos from my cell phone. Laurence Simon has them posted on his site.
I’ll be on the road this weekend, so no posting ’til Tuesday. Good tidings to everyone and best wishes for the holiday season.
I was offline for a while due to the compounding stress of work, buying a home, and selling the old condo.
As of the day before Thanksgiving, I closed escrow on a 2-story townhome in northwest Las Vegas. For the past couple of weeks, I’ve engaged in the off-and-on rituals of upgrading the amenities and fighting with a local furniture store to get the house furnished with first-quality items. So far, I’m managing to settle in quite well in a more comfortable and friendlier neighborhood.
With a new home for myself comes the time to fix up the web home as well. I’ve commissioned E.Webscapes to give the weblog a complete makeover with some new features. The new design should be ready by early-to-mid-January.
Barring work schedule demands, blogging resumes in earnest.
As I write this, convicted murderer Stanley “Tookie” Williams is scheduled to die after Midnight tonight by lethal injection at San Quentin Prison in California, a sentence which was handed down by a jury 24 years ago.
Much has been said about Williams, including comments from those who wished him to be spared from the will of the people on behalf of the four victims who died at his hands, as well as those who strongly believe that justice for Albert Owens, Thsai-Shai Yang, Yen-I Yang, and Yee Chen Lin must be served.
Count me among the latter.
For all the fervor expressed by the usual celebrities, the race warlords, the radical left, and sadly, those who are morally opposed to the death penalty (whom, IMHO, are using the wrong vehicle to advocate their cause), California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the California Supreme Court, and the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals have agreed with the People that Williams must pay for his crimes as judged by a court of law. For all the protests, all the last-minute appeals, and all the false cries of the death penalty being racist, an unrepentant man will meet his well-deserved punishment.
Why should I care?
Well, I do have a few reasons:
* In the Spring of 1981, I was walking home from John Muir Junior High School in South Central Los Angeles. A crowd of older boys in mostly blue garb walked up behind me as I crossed Vermont Avenue and 67th Street. They engaged in light conversation, and then, for no reason at all, they began throwing punches and kicking me. As I took off running for my life, I can remember the malt liquor bottle zooming inches past my head in an attempt to deliver a life-threatening blow.
I was jumped by a group of boys who were being initiated into the Rolling 60s Crips gang.
* Later that year, I came home to the two-story house on West 70th Street between Normandie and Vermont where I lived as a kid. I was privileged to have a small bedroom to myself. That evening I felt a draft, but the French windows were closed. I noticed a small hole in the heavy glass, then I noticed a bullet lodged in the wall across from the window.
I was lucky that night. There was a shooting, possibly related to a fight from either the Rolling 60s or the Eight-Trays. Both are Crip gangs that bordered my old neighborhood.
* In the Spring of 1988, I mourned the death of a childhood friend who I grew up with (his foster parent used to babysit me while my parents worked during the day). He was gunned down by the Inglewood Crips in a drive-by shooting. Prior to his death, he had been approached by gang recruiters who wanted him to join up. Having just married and seeking to be a responsible father to his newborn child, he said no to them. They didn’t like his answer.
* Ten years ago, my cousin, an ordained minister, was visiting friends. He and his wife had just returned from their honeymoon. As he left, he was approached by a teen who shouted out to him, “What set you from?” My cousin replied that he wasn’t with a gang set. The next moment, he was on the ground, wounded from being shot in the left shoulder at close range.
After three years of physical therapy, he regained use of his left arm and hand.
The shooter, who happened to be a member of the Bloods, was never caught for the crime.
I know that “Tookie” didn’t personally order these crimes to be committed. However, as a co-founder of what became known as the Crips, he helped spawn a legion of psychopaths who committed heinous crimes for crime’s sake. These domestic terrorists, along with their rivals, have brought needless death and destruction upon the communities of Los Angeles and beyond.
Those who are involved with saving “Tookie” often cite his efforts at “redemption”, namely his anti-gang books for children, his “peace protocol” for gang intervention, and his alleged renunciation of his gangster past. However, as Schwarzenegger stated in his clemency decision, “without an apology and atonement for these senseless and brutal killings there can be no redemption.”
“Tookie” has never shown remorse for the crimes he committed. By feigning innocence, refusing to cooperate with law enforcement to help stop the violence, and by falsely taking on the role of a martyr, he willfully refuses to accept responsibility for his actions.
Such behavior is not fitting for a peacemaker, but for a coward.
It’s amazing that cold-blooded murderers are fearless when they rob an innocent bystander of life; but when it’s their turn to die, they are quick to beg for mercy.
I have absolutely no sympathy for Stanley “Tookie” Williams as he prepares to die this evening. I feel no joy tonight as his death will do little to take away my painful memories of childhood and youth. Also, Williams’ well-deserved demise will neither bring back my childhood friend, nor erase my cousin’s physical pain which he must live with for the rest of his life.
However, it is my hope that the families of his victims (known and unknown) may find peace and closure when justice is served after Midnight.
I will shed no tears for “Tookie”, and quite frankly, you shouldn’t either.
Update: baldilocks confronts a Williams apologist, and Cobb reflects on “Tookie’s” South Central L.A. in the 1970s. David Anderson also recalls growing up in the ‘hood and surviving the Crips.
Update #2: Justice Served. And there was no rioting.
37 years and still ticking. Yay.
Ben Stein in the NYT:
The best salesman I have ever encountered is Barron Thomas, who sells real estate and airplanes in Los Angeles, Scottsdale, Ariz., and all over Texas. He and I are close friends, and most of our talk turns to techniques of selling. His basic ideas, which rank high in the firmament of good ideas, are generally two: bond with your buyer, and listen to your buyer.
In other words, align your interests with those of the buyer. Don’t try to shove something down his throat. Don’t try to hoodwink him. Just listen to what he needs and wants, see if you have the good or service he needs and wants and then arrange to make it easy to buy. Make sure that the buyer is a real buyer with a real need, a real timetable to buy and the real means to buy. Then satisfy that need.
It is also important to be a friend to your buyer. In fact, I observe that almost all success in life comes down to being a friend to someone: a friend to the voter, a friend to the judge, a friend to your spouse, a friend to the client, a friend to your parents. As Miller said so aptly, you have to not just be liked, but “well liked.”
Those are the qualities that I look for in salespeople. Meet the above goals with me, and you’ll have a satisfied customer for life.
(link via what if?)
I’ve just about had it with these far-left, wacked-in-the-head, more-blacker-than-thou nutjobs.
Harry Belafonte Calls Black Republicans ‘Tyrants’
Celebrity activist Harry Belafonte referred to prominent African-American officials in the Bush administration as “black tyrants” at a weekend march, and he also compared the administration to Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany.
Belafonte, a featured speaker at Saturday’s march in Atlanta commemorating the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Voting Rights Act, previously ignited a political controversy in 2002 when he likened then-Secretary of State Colin Powell to a “house slave.”
At Saturday’s civil rights march, Belafonte said the Bush administration has been “rather dismal” for the lives of black Americans. The march, which featured prominent civil rights groups and labor union representatives, was intended to drum up support for extending and strengthening the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Belafonte used a Hitler analogy when asked about what impact prominent blacks such as former Secretary of State Powell and current Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had on the Bush administration’s relations with minorities.
“Hitler had a lot of Jews high up in the hierarchy of the Third Reich. Color does not necessarily denote quality, content or value,” Belafonte said in an exclusive interview with Cybercast News Service.
“[If] a black is a tyrant, he is first and foremost a tyrant, then he incidentally is black. Bush is a tyrant and if he gathers around him black tyrants, they all have to be treated as they are being treated,” he added. See Video
When asked specifically who was a “black tyrant” in the Bush administration, Belafonte responded to this reporter, “You.” When this reporter noted that he was a Caucasian and attempted to ask another question, Belafonte abruptly ended the interview by saying, “That’s it.”
Another prominent celebrity marcher at Saturday’s civil rights march also employed Nazi analogies to the GOP and conservatives.
Civil rights activist Dick Gregory mocked the existence of African-American conservatives in America.
“They (black conservatives) have a right to exist, but why would I want to walk around with a swastika on my shirt after the way Hitler done messed it (the swastika symbol) up?” Gregory said in an interview with Cybercast News Service. (The swastika was an ancient symbol generally regarded an emblem of strength and luck before the Nazi Party adopted it in 1920.)
“So why would I want to call myself a conservative after the way them white racists thugs have used that word to hide behind? They call themselves new Republicans,” Gregory said.
Belafonte, Gregory, and their ilk are beyond reason. They would rather have all blacks drinking from the same vat of hate-laced Kool-Aid than allow one iota of free, individual thought to exist in the black community.
Sometimes I can’t believe that I once used to look up to these people. Now, I just want to tell them to kiss my black ass.
Yes, it’s black.
I’m confined to bed for the weekend, as the flu developed into pneumonia.
Post away.
After spending the last three days and counting betting my butt kicked around by the flu, I only have one thing to say: My health plan WILL have a flu shot with my name on it ready and waiting for me this Fall.
Dadgum vaccine shortages.
Happy New Year!
Thirty-six years older. Whee. 
For all of you keeping track of these events, I share the same birth date with John Jay, William Garrison, Grover Washington Jr., Chief Stand Watie, Gustave Flaubert, Joe Williams, Sheila E., Ed Koch, Dickey Betts, Wally Dallenbach, Terry Kirkman, Mayim Bialik, Madchen Amick, Wings Hauser, Jennifer Connely, Tracy Austin, Bridget Hall, John Osborne, Bob Petit, Cathy Rigby, Paul Rodgers, Hank Williams III, Dionne Warwick, Connie Francis, Nicholas Dimichino, Sheree J. Wilson, Bob Barker, Mike Pindar, Frank Sinatra, Ralph Garr, Clive Bunker, Rubin Carter, Ana Alicia, Rafael Septien, and Edward G. Robinson.
Also, on this date in history:
On Dec. 12, 1787, Pennsylvania became the second state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.In 1870, Joseph H. Rainey, of South Carolina, became the first black lawmaker sworn into the U.S. House of Representatives.
In 1897, “The Katzenjammer Kids,” the pioneering comic strip created by Rudolph Dirks, made its debut in the New York Journal.
In 1913, authorities in Florence, Italy, announced that the “Mona Lisa,” stolen from the Louvre Museum in Paris in 1911, had been recovered.
In 1917, Father Edward Flanagan founded Boys Town outside Omaha, Neb.
In 1937, Japanese aircraft sank the U.S. gunboat “Panay” on China’s Yangtze River. (Japan apologized, and paid $2.2 million in reparations.)
In 1947, the United Mine Workers union withdrew from the American Federation of Labor.
In 1963, Kenya gained its independence from Britain.
In 1975, Sara Jane Moore pleaded guilty to a charge of trying to kill President Ford in San Francisco the previous September.
In 1985, 248 American soldiers and eight crew members were killed when an Arrow Air charter crashed after takeoff from Gander, Newfoundland.
In 2000, a divided U.S. Supreme Court reversed a state court decision for recounts in Florida’s contested election, transforming George W. Bush into the president-elect.
Ten years ago: The Brazilian Supreme Court acquitted former President Fernando Collor de Mello of the corruption charges that had forced him to resign in 1992. IBM stopped shipments of personal computers with Intel’s flawed Pentium chip, saying the processor’s problems were worse than earlier believed.
Five years ago: Author Joseph Heller, whose darkly comic first novel “Catch-22″ defined the paradox of the no-win dilemma and added a phrase to the American language, died in East Hampton, N.Y., at age 76.
One year ago: Paul Martin succeeded Jean Chretien as Canada’s prime minister. Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger was knighted by Britain. Keiko, the killer whale made famous by the “Free Willy” movies, died in the Norwegian fjord that he’d made his home.
Also, a few hours after I entered into this world, actress Tallulah Bankhead made her departure. However, on my 18th birthday, the L.A. Lakers beat the Boston Celtics 117-110, becoming the first visiting team to break their 48-home game winning streak at the old Boston Garden since December 1985.
I had a very good day today. And I hope yours was just as fine.
Due to a week-long certification course at work, the blog will be quiet until this weekend. My evenings will consist of studying, studying, and more studying.
For lack of a nuanced explanation, I was just plain tired.
When I come home from work, the first impulse is to get warm, have dinner, relax, go to sleep (oftentimes in the recliner, if not in the master bed), wake up, lather, rinse, and repeat. Said impulse lasted for a long period of time, and even into the Thanksgiving weekend spent in Southern California — which was compounded by the absence of television, no computer access, one faraway sister visiting from the East Coast, three nephews, one niece, four cousins, and a three-day diet of good, home-cooked food.
With that being said, I hope that your Thanksgiving holiday was a thankful one.
While I hope for more time and energy to write and post more meaningful entries here, I can’t promise that the blogging mill will be running at full speed. However, I’ll continue to do my best to make whatever gets posted here worth reading and talking about. Also, I’m looking for like-minded folk and kindred spirits who wouldn’t mind being featured guest bloggers here. The pay isn’t much (OK, it’s nothing), but you’ll have a dedicated audience of readers. If you’re interested, drop me a line and show me what you’ve got.
In the meantime, thank you dear readers for your continued patience and understanding. Your support guarantees that the sky will not fall and the world will not stop turning — even when yours truly gets a bit tired every now and then.
Michele Catalano speaks for me on the following subject:
I do believe that even if every person in America who voted for George Bush marched themselves in front of a line of lefties outside of George Soros’s mansion this morning and pledged that they did, indeed, vote for GWB, they would claim that Karl Rove implanted mind control chips in each and every person.Why is it so hard to imagine that not everyone thinks like you? Are these people so arrogant, so self-smug that they truly believe their way is the only way? Funny, that. They accuse Bush of that all the time and here they are engaging in it, with relish.
If you don’t mind, I’d like to address the throngs of Chicken Littles who seem to be out in full force on the net today. I just want to clear up a few things, as you all seem to be pretty misguided in more than one area today.
I voted for George Bush.
I am not a redneck.
I do not spend my days watching cars race around a track, drinking cheap beer and slapping my woman on the ass.
I am not a bible thumper. [...]
I am not a homophobe.
I am educated beyond the fifth grade. In fact, I am college educated.
I am not stupid. Not by any stretch of facts.
I do not bomb abortion clinics.You will not be thrown in jail for the sole reason of being a liberal.
Your child’s public school will not suddenly turn into a center for Christian brainwashing.
Your favorite bookstore will not turn into puritan central.This is not Nazi Germany in any way.
You will not be forced into concentration camps.
You will not be burned in human-sized ovens because of your religion.
We will not be forced to wear uniforms and march in line every day.
You will not live in fear.
If you think this is a country in which you have to live in fear, I have some friends in Iran who would like to have a little talk with you.What does the election of George Bush mean to you, as a member of the left? It means you and your party have four years to get yourselves together and figure out exactly what you stand for. It means you have a couple of years, max, to come up with a viable candidate who represents the majority of you and doesn’t pander to every knock off group of your party. It means you have time to get your act together and decide once and for all what you stand for and produce a leader who will stand up for your ideals. It means you better find a candidate who is someone you can vote for with conscience, and not just vote for out of hatred for his opponent.
What did you all believe in this year? Hate? Anger? You ran your own campaign, one filled to the brim with bile and acidic spittle and you wonder why you feel so black today? You were pinning your hopes on the the wish that the rest of America harbored the same intense hatred as you and would vote with their clenched fists. Now that you are left without the hoped for victory party as an outlet for your rage, you have to direct it somewhere else. If not at the candidate, then at his voters, right? What I am seeing today makes me pity you, and it’s a pity tinged with disgust and should not be mistaken for empathy.
It means the same things for us moderate Republicans. Maybe in this time we can produce a candidate who doesn’t alienate the social liberal in us, yet speaks to our concerns about defense, security and the war on terror. I am not completely enamored with the Republican Party. There’s a lot of work to be done within the ranks. I’d like to see a full stop of the move towards the religious right.
Perhaps there is the perfect candidate out there for both of us, someone just making his or her way up the political chain right now. With any luck, there will be a day when a president is elected who is liked by both sides of the fence, who is respected by everyone.
There a whole lot more to the small amount above which I cited.
Please read the essay in its entirety before you reply.
I’m taking the evening off for some much-needed rest. Final poll results for Nevada will be posted tomorrow evening here and at The Command Post. I promise!
Update: Gloating? Who’s gloating? Moi?
