Earlier, when I was compiling my snark about the lawyerness of what he said in Columbia, the announcement that Democratic candidate Barack Obama would be the keynote speaker at the commemoration ceremony in Selma crossed the wires and because it was on point for my post, I linked the press clipping without comment.

Now, several hours later and after putting much thought into the question; I have something to say.
---

Senator Obama,

I don't know what possessed you or motivated you into accepting the invitation, but I feel a few words of caution may be in order.

By virtue of your position and the amount of hype which is swirling around you, whatever you say in Selma could possibly be the most important speech of the year. I don't know that it'll be enough to propel you into the White House, but not only only does it hold the possibility of pushing you to a higher sphere, but if you're eloquent, find an universal theme and if you play your cards right from now until then; It could have a profound effect on America, our national conversation and the future of the world.

Thus far, you've tapped into something that has always ran chills up our collective spines. You've called it the "audacity of hope" and though I haven't heard any great speeches from you on this theme, I'm immediately put in mind of Bill Clinton declaring that he "still believes in a place called Hope" and Jesse Jackson punctuating his public statements with a steady refrain of "keep hope alive".

There may not be a more powerful human emotion.

Hope is the reason that many of us get out of bed in the morning and though I've tried to fault you for not espousing anything but hope; You've offered few concrete proposals, some of your verbal missteps would be disastrous, if you had any real power and your campaign has reminded me of the one from Dukakis; But, if you can somehow remain above the fray for another couple of weeks and if you can channel anything approaching Dr King, whatever you say in Selma and the fact that it'll be broadcast around the world and preserved forever on the world wide web could have an undeniable effect on our society and the way we relate to each other.

I thought you'd like to know and as I see it, there's really only a couple of ways to go. Of course, depending on who is providing you counsel, it could easily determine whether your speech will go down in history or if it'll just be something that happens in Selma.

The choice will be yours. You've been afforded a great opportunity and I sincerely hope that you can rise to the challenge

Peace, Love & Good Luck;
discreet_chaos

In a 1998 article for the New Yorker, author Toni Morrison declared Bill Clinton to be the first black President and on a recent Saturday Night Live, Keenan Thompson and Daryl Hammond portraying Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson did a bit with a blackness scale, where they put presidential candidate Barack Obama being a little less black than Bill Clinton.

And, during a recent report on CNN, while the following image appeared on the screen, anchor Kyra Phillips concluded; "Black or white; Democrat or Republican; There seems to be no shortage of qualified voices speaking for or against black Americans."



In that same Kyra Phillips report, we hear Sen. Obama say; "At every juncture in our history there's been somebody who has said we can't. There's been somebody who has said you can't overcome slavery; There's been somebody who has said that you can't overcome Jim Crow; There's been somebody who has said we can't go to the moon; There's been somebody who has said that we can't do this, we can't do that, so we shouldn't even try."

Now, perhaps Mr Obama is honest enough that he purposefully alternated between "you" and "we" to make his proclamation into an accurate statement. I'm willing to give him enough benefit of the doubt, that I'll believe he'll not actually try to claim a history which is not his own. Of course through our ancestors, we all did share in these troubles, but like my own; Mr Obama's were not burdened in the same manner as those in the South Carolina audience to whom, he directed these words.

Nevertheless, the whole thing is one heck of a conversation, as can be gleaned from the following opinion pieces;

• Detroit Free Press: What should define 'African American'


• Allentown Morning Call: Obama's candidacy reopens debate on race


• Baltimore Sun: Clarence Page: Racial identification becomes debate topic on the campaign trail


• Salon: Barack Obama would be the great black hope in the next presidential race -- if he were actually black

Update

• Chicago Sun-Times: Obama to speak at commemoration of Selma-to-Montgomery march

(Linked from 2008News.blogspot.com)

New Mexico has part-time legislature, which meets for sixty days in odd-numbered years and thirty days in the evens. Unless they are called into special session, a real rarity, the abbreviated calendar greatly influences, what is and is not passed into law.

During the 2005 legislative session, a medical marijuana bill (SB795) had passed the state Senate, but the clock ran out in the House because Rep. Dan Silva was disappointed that some of his initiatives hadn't been scheduled before the Judiciary Committee, so he worked to delay the vote and freely admitted the motivations for his stunt.

In 2006, a similar situation occurred; The "Lynn and Erin Compassionate Use Act" (SB258) had passed the state Senate, but the Speaker of the State House assigned it to the Agriculture and Water Resources Committee, which was openly hostile to the idea. In the Santa Fe New Mexican, he said that this had been to express his disappointment with it being the first thing passed by the Senate and not because he opposed the act. After some wrangling by supporters of the measure, Speaker Lujan reassigned the bill to the Judiciary Committee at 3:45 on the last morning of the session, which meant the clock ran out at noon.

Throughout this entire history, Gov. Bill Richardson has said that he'd sign such a measure and during his 2006 campaign for re-election, he reiterated his support for medical marijuana in an interview with the Albuquerque Tribune, among other places.

Once again, the legislature is in session and this time around, there have been two "Compassionate Use Acts" introduced. The "Lynn and Erin Compassionate Use Act" (SB238) has made more progress because it has moved to the second step and though I haven't weighed the differences, but SB523 appears to be waiting in the wings.

Thus far, I haven't heard a lot from Governor Richardson on this subject, since he handily won re-election. Polls show that 81% of New Mexicans support medical marijuana, so it is popular with his constituents and because Mr Richardson dreams of a larger stage, it might be beneficial if he's able to sign a bill on a nationally popular subject, his opponents would not be able to address.

Credit: greyvorfeed for some of the links

I don't know who or what alerted me to the story of the 81 year-old Pennsylvania resident's recent visit from the Secret Service. It could've been Yahoo! News, it may have come from a random blog or perhaps it came from one of my lj-friends, I'm not certain and I apologize if I'm supposed to be crediting somebody, but I'm not able to recall.

Anyway, the elderly fellow wrote a letter to his local paper about Saddam's execution and because he said "they hanged the wrong man", without saying whom he meant, the Secret Service showed-up on his door. This reminded me of old episode from the first season of One Day at a Time, so I thought I'd share.

In the television program, Ann Romano had written a letter to the president of the phone company and she ended it with a quote from "For whom the bell tolls". Unfortunately, President Ford was scheduled to visit Indianapolis and his motorcade was to pass by her apartment building and because her letter had somehow gotten misdirected, the Secret Service showed-up and locked the place down until the President was out of the area.

What made me think of this tonight is that I made a snarky "fill-in-the-blank" suggestion on another site; "The State of our Union is..." and I thought better than to say "fine" because we're pretty much united in opposition to the administration, all because of a guy from Bethlehem, who apparently doesn't live under a star.

Dr. King's birthday is coming and has been my tradition, I've been thinking about doing a post. The first year of this blog, I linked to text and recordings from a couple of his more famous speeches and last year, I quoted from his big antiwar speech which was just recently cited in a Washington Post op-ed, which also tried to paint it in the context of Iraq.

Right now, I have a couple of ideas about things that I could write and perhaps we'll have to see if life will allow me to get something done in time to honor the man and his legacy, but as I was rolling through some thoughts, I struggled to remember a roadside historical marker that I believe was in central Virginia. This prompted me to start looking at the more than thirteen hundred titles that adorn those found in the Commonwealth and though I did not find the one for which I was looking, I did notice one marking the "Origin of Lynch Law". After absorbing the enormity of this thought, I flashed over to Wikipedia, where I read their entry on "Lynch Law", followed by the one entitled "Lynching in the United States".

This second Wikipedia entry told me that Tuskegee Institute started documenting lynchings within the United States starting in 1888, which they continued until 1968. And a google offered the following table of statistics, plus someone else's research listing of the documented lynchings between 1865 and 1965 or as the author calls it; "The Lynching Century".

( Lynchings, by State and Race )

The other day in my supplemental blog, I linked to a Christian Science profile of Oprah's South African school for girls, which noted studies that found when women are educated: "its overall per capita income increases and its fertility rate drops". While "other studies show that improved female education is linked to higher crop yields, lower HIV infection rates, and reduced infant mortality".

This afternoon, I became aware of a study from the International Medical Corps which looked at women displaced by the troubles in Darfur and to quote from their press release: "Nearly one third of the 1,283 women interviewed for the study met criteria for Major Depressive Disorder, while double that number reported symptoms of depression."

While a major service has been performed by all of these studies, deep down inside, I just want to say; No shit, Sherlocks.

My father's grandfather was born in 1844 on what some people might consider a plantation, but we didn't have many of those in central North Carolina and instead, it'd probably be more accurately described as a really big farm. My great-great-grandfather had inherited some land from his father, who had added to the grant given him after the Revolutionary War and though I don't know into how many pieces my great-great-grandfather divided his homestead, but my father's grandfather was one of four children and one of them spent forty-two years as a missionary, so I don't know if he was ever deeded his part.

It's been several years since I've walked the old path back to where my great-grandfather had a small compound of houses. When my grandfather first married my grandmother, they either built or took one of the houses near the main house, as did her sister and her husband, who was also my grandfather's brother. On my only visit to the actual house plot, probably ten years ago and before a lot of the original farm got covered by a huge development, the house that one of great uncles had lived-in was still partially intact and down by the old barns, you could see the foundation from the home of the black family who were a constant in their lives.

Now, usually I'd preface this next part by saying that it may not be politically correct, but after posting the thing from professor at Texas A&M, I'm reluctant to do so. Perhaps some of what I'm about to say could be considered racist, but it's also a description from part of my life. It's part of my personal history and though I didn't think of it today because the people were African-American, their race surely did play a role in why they were there. In parts of the north, some people have caretakers and they often come in couples, one who works inside and another for the outside, but on the bridge from the old to the new south, most of ours were black.

For the first fifteen years of my life, all the way up until my parents decided to separate, there was a childless couple who were always around and who really did the bulk of the work. The woman kept the house clean and she watched after us kids, while the man ordinarily worked a shovel for my father, but he also did most of our outside chores, made general repairs around the house and together, they did all of those things that nobody wanted to do.

When the beans were in the garden, the two of them would take them home and would shell them on halves. If we went fishing, one or the other of them were always the one to clean our catches and for the short time that my parents raised a few meat chickens, they were the ones who would kill and clean the birds. Throughout the entire first part of my life, these two people were always around and in addition to doing all of our menial work, a lot of their jobs were simply picking-up behind us, so that things were always in it's right place and everything was kept reasonably neat.

After my parent's separation, they continued to work mostly for my Dad, but he'd sometimes send one or both over to do stuff for Mom. The two of them were an important part of my life until I went away to college. Then, after I had left and until the time they died, I'd occasionally stop by their house to say hello and long before we got engaged, I introduced them to my future bride.

I spent most of today operating a sander. The vibrations were similar to those machines at the fair. or in the mall that'll do your feet for a quarter and the activity was physically exhausting. Of course, I'd take the occasional break and glance at the computer for a few minutes, but running the sander is basically what I've done since morning.

Throughout the entire thing, when I was doing the kitchen cabinets, the walls and the ceiling, I couldn't help but wish that I had someone to do it for me. Unfortunately and I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but in the modern era, you'd have to pay someone a lot more than my father paid those two for their life's work. And though you might be able to get around the normal benefit package with a short-term employee, the two people whom I described, worked for my father for more than thirty years. I know that I wouldn't dedicate my life's work to an employer for such a pittance of a wage, so there's no way that I could expect anyone else to do the same.

And I guess I should add for the reasons stated; By no means, do I wish we'd go back to a previous historical era. I'm glad labor costs, along with living and working conditions have changed for the better, but when you're operating a vibrating sander over your head and you'll only be doing it for one day, you can't help but wish there was someone else handy.

A writer for the Orlando Sentinel used Michael Richards' famous breakdown as a jumping-off point for a story about race relations.

During the course of the article, Joe Feagin, a Texas A&M University sociology professor claims that nearly all white Americans have a "white racial frame" and that we tamp it down as a result of political correctness. To clip a paragraph from the piece; "Feagin said Americans have learned it's unacceptable to make racist comments in public -- in what he calls a 'frontstage' arena. Yet, 'backstage,' in small groups of friends or family members, white people regularly use racist language and tell racist jokes."

This particular concept, while I consider it utterly ridiculous, it did put me in mind of an old filmed piece Eddie Murphy did for Saturday Night Live and while only the first part of the sketch is available, if you watch it, you'd still get the idea.

Later on in Ms Shrieves' article, she details an online test developed by two social psychologists and hosted by Harvard University. According to the authors, Anthony Greenwald and Mahzarin Banaji of the one million people who have taken the racial component of their test, 80% show a preference for whites over blacks.

I took the racial part of their test sometime last week and once the whole thing was over, I was presented with the following graph;



If anyone has the ten minutes or so to take the "Race IAT", I implore you to explain to me how this test is in any way valid and how its structure is not the cause of the results. All in all and I may be prejudiced because of my perspective, but I'd say that pretty much everything in Linda Shrieves' article and all of the learned opinions, she cites are complete rubbish.

(x-posted)

I describe myself as being pro-choice and I consider the other side, right-to-life. Within these two monikers, the very essence of our beliefs are communicated; I believe that a woman's right to choose is of utmost importance, while those on the other side of the question assign more weight to the rights of a fetus.

This post was prompted because as I was leaving the store after buying a tomato for lunch, I noticed a Snap-On Tool truck making a delivery next door, which had a billboard attached to the back espousing the value of their tools. I assume the independent dealer had written "Choose Life" in block letters, along the top margin of the pre-printed sign and I thought about how I'm not offended or bothered by the term because it too, seems to support a woman's right to choose.

(x-posted)

From what I've been able to learn, the children's book pictured above is based on the true story of an unorthodox penguin family, currently living in the Central Park Zoo. I'm not sure where reality ends and fiction begins, but from what I've read; There were two male penguins who would cuddle like other penguin couples. One day they pushed an egg-shaped rock into their nest and started caring for it, so a zookeeper decided to give them a fertilized egg, which they hatched and raised into a daughter.

Apparently this book is in an Illinois school library, which the AP describes as being about twenty miles east of St Louis in the town of Shiloh. It seems that one particular little girl took the book home and when her mother got to the part "when the zookeeper said the two penguins must be in love", she stopped reading aloud and started complaining about the content.

According to the AP story, which is the first I've heard about this book, the school superintendent appointed a task force which recommended the book be moved to the shelves requiring parental permission, but she decided to ignore their suggestion and has left the book in the children's section. Also, it seems that a similar flap arose in a northwest Missouri school and the director of that facility checked with some animal experts, who told her that adoptions are quite common among penguins, so she moved the book to the non-fiction section of their library, where "there was less of a chance that the book would 'blindside' someone"

Therein, we might find the most civilized part of this whole story. The complaining mother from Illinois said that she "wasn't armed with pitchforks or anything. I innocently was seeking answers", plus she agrees with the superintendent that pulling the book would constitute censorship. The local DA says that moving the book could also be considered censorship. So, though it seems some people might be offended by non-sexual gay penguins, nobody appears to want the book completely removed.

Though, if you do click on one of the Amazon links, you will find that the book has been typecast by those who have purchased it.

I only became aware of this young lady's struggle on Saturday, most of the coverage has been in a newspaper which I don't ordinarily read and she lives in a place that I mostly know from the highway. After reading a brief report, I started looking for everything that I could find in hopes of telling part of her story here, as a tribute.

As was detailed in Saturday's Virginian-Pilot, Danielle Smiley told her first person that she was a lesbian, when she was in the seventh grade. As kids do, the first friend told another and they told another until it had become common knowledge among a lot of her schoolmates and she started getting the harassment, which so often plagues our homosexual youth and others who might be perceived as different.

It was while on a field trip during the ninth grade that Ms Smiley got into a heated discussion with her girlfriend and because it was overheard, they became the talk of her classmates. When her teachers got word of this argument, they took Ms Smiley aside and told her that she should come out to her parents because they were going to tell them of her sexual orientation, either way.

According to media reports, her mother had some difficulty with the news because she felt it went against her beliefs, but eventually she came around to accepting her daughter for who she is and once again, she became supportive of her child.

Because of the harassment she had suffered, Danielle started researching and laying the groundwork for a "Gay-Straight Alliance" club at her school. It seems that the purpose of a Gay-Straight Alliance club is just what the name implies; It's designed to help foster understanding and to combat homophobia or other prejudices. The clubs are an offshoot from the "Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network" and there are over 3,000 chapters in schools all across the country.

When Ms Smiley followed procedures and applied to Currituck County High for permission to start an extra-curricular club, I can only assume that she was met with opposition. Otherwise, the tale would've ended there and it would not have played out for so long on the pages of a small North Carolina newspaper, multiple school board meeting, church pulpits and a candidate's forum.

When the Daily Advance interviewed kids hanging-out in the parking lot after school one day, they characterized the support as mixed. Two students opposed the formation of the club, two had no opinion or said it didn't matter, while three were supportive. Though, two of these three made certain the reporter knew, they would not be joining.

When the topic was brought before the local school board, 130 people jammed the meeting hall, but only fifteen spoke. Two of the speakers were Danielle and her mother, who both spoke in favor of tolerance, while the majority spoke about the spread of AIDS, whether it'd be a homosexual recruiting club, promote sex and its appropriateness as a school club.

On November 1st, school board candiates met in a forum sponsored by the NAACP. Two of the candidates for the only open seat said flat-out, they'd vote against allowing the club, while the other two tried to hedge their bets by saying they personally oppose the club, but didn't think they could legally stop it. The ACLU had already spread the word that they were watching, so a reluctant yes came from the two unopposed incumbents and for some reason, the local head of the NAACP volunteered his opposition.

When this story first broke, the initial media reports did not reveal the name of the student and in fact, school officials reassured the newspaper that the proposal had actually originated with a student. From the get-go, the minister from the Jarvisburg Church of Christ, who uses the web addy of bibleonly.com said that he'd fervently oppose it. Yet, Danielle Smiley bravely stood her ground and took responsibility for herself, by publicly becoming the spokesperson for her cause.

On November 6th, the School Superintendent announced what appears to be a compromise, if you don't look too deep. All extra-curricular clubs, such as SADD, the christian groups, choir and the Gay-Straight Alliance would no longer be allowed to use the PA or post flyers, their picture wouldn't be in the yearbook and students would need parental permission to join.

For some reason this is being seen as opening the door to something, they couldn't legally disallow, but it looks more like a distancing thing to me. Apparently they had no problems with christian groups being included in the yearbook, before the possibility existed that the friends to gays might join them.

And, during the raucous school board meeting, Danielle says the club could provide support to students when their teachers are forcing them out against their will. "Sometimes the parent will hurt the child," she is quoted as saying. Unfortunately due to the parental permission requirement, even if a student is just interested in tolerance, in a rural county with no incorporated towns and plenty of cotton fields, it'll still have the effect of raising uncomfortable and unnecessary questions.

Nevertheless, seventeen year old Danielle Smiley is a brave young girl, who took on the forces of prejudice in her community and though she wasn't completely victorious, she valiantly fought for what she believed.

Now, if we could only find her full ride to Chapel Hill, so that she can finally be free.

I've been contemplating starting a couple of LJ communities, one which would focus on New Mexico News & Media (nm_news) and possibly another to replace the short-lived youtubegold, but with a more member-friendly structure. As you might have gathered, I did launch the news/media community, but an interest search showed me that there are already several YouTube communities, so I'd have to take a measure of the need and sample some of their offerings before I took on another task.

Well, because it was me, one of the first YouTube communities that I visited was one called youtube_hotties and though the video that I'm embedding with commentary after the jump was not listed in the community, it is another offering from one of the young ladies featured, which I noticed as I was checking for her age.

( It's YouTube, So She's Clothed, but Maybe Not Worksafe )

The Mayor of Albuquerque, Martin Chavez is not an original thinker, he's politically conniving, an opportunist and an idiot. Pretty much the best that most people say about him is along the lines of "if you think he's bad, you should've seen his predecessor".

Last year, Mayor Marty created a task force to study the issue of racial profiling and the Albuquerque Police Department. This body recently decided that to really examine the topic and measure its occurrence, plus get a baseline to see if their recommendations make any improvement, they'd need the police force to record the race of the people they encounter.

Originally the idiot opposed this common sense measure because he thought it'd be offensive, if the cops ask people their race. Yesterday the task force further explained their reasoning and clarified that the cops could make a judgement about a person's race because it'd only be for statistical purposes and it wouldn't be an exact science. So, the genius responded with the following quote; "Say I'm Mediterranean -- now I've got the police officer guessing whether I'm Moroccan or Italian".

I'd really love to see his census form.