I just realized something. I’m pretty sure most of the people commenting haven’t read enough poetry in the past few years to have any standards whatsover. That’s why the stilted iambic tetrameter of Houseman was brought up by stonestools. And it’s not necessarily bad that people who admit they don’t read poetry feel so free to offer complaints, criticisms,etc. It just reminds me of people who criticism, say Young Jeezy, having never heard one of his albums nor any other hip hop from the past five years.

All of that is to say that I thought it would be cool to listen in on this conversation about how folks felt about the inaugural poem, but it really has mostly been drivel, and the open football threads have been much better. I hope though, that some of us pick up a poetry book after this.

You know, I do take Dwayne’s point, that one can have a deeper knowledge of poetry if you’ve studied it and read a lot of it. That’s why I wouldn’t pretend or even attempt to put Alexander’s poem in some kind of broader context within the world of poetry.

But, I am an expert in what I like and what I don’t like. I don’t think my bedrock standards would change just with the addition of more expert knowledge — I might have more appreciation for what an artist is trying to do, but I like what I like. And I don’t think that Alexander is trying to write just for poetry experts.

But I will pick up a poetry book after this. I love the art form, honestly. The Friday discussions have been fascinating and I want to learn more.

Obama told them they would have time to ask questions after the speech was over, and they did. They asked why he was not focusing on issues like the sub-prime mortgage crisis, Jena Six, Sean Bell and “the numerous attacks that are made against the African-American community.” Obama responded twofold: telling the hecklers that he had, in fact, been focused on these issues and explaining that there would never be 100% continuity between his agenda and that of the voters.

“Listen, I was a civil rights lawyer,” Obama said. “I passed the first racial profiling legislation in Illinois. I passed some of the toughest death penalty reform legislation in Illinois. That doesn’t mean I am always going to satisfy the way you want these issues framed… which gives you the option of voting for somebody else, it gives you the option of running for office yourself, those are all options. But the one thing I think is important is, that we are respectful towards each other.”

It is rare for Obama to be heckled in a political forum, but it’s not terribly surprising that the protest came from a fellow African-American. Moments after he took the man’s question, a nearby African-American woman yelled at Obama again. The Senator has trod a thin line on the racial components of this campaign. Witness the uproar over accusations — made by John McCain’s campaign manager Rick Davis — that he played the race card. And his posture as a post-racial candidate has struck some as discourteous (see: Jesse Jackson). Still, the idea that Obama will get anything short of an overwhelming portion of the black vote seems far-fetched.

Obama Heckled For Not Focusing On Black Issues:

“On a day when major news organizations across the country are taking Senator McCain to task for a steady stream of false, negative attacks, his campaign has launched yet another. Or, as some might say, ‘Oops! He did it again.’ Our dependence on foreign oil is one of the greatest challenges we face. In this election the American people have a real choice — between Obama’s plan to provide tax rebates to American families while creating a renewable energy economy in America that frees us from our dependence on foreign oil, and Senator McCain’s plan to continue the same failed energy policies by handing out nearly $4 billion in tax breaks to oil companies while investing almost nothing in the new energy sources that represent our future,” said Obama campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor.

Of course, you may say that rich people donate lots of sources on charity. They just give dollars and don’t care where will they go. Some part of those will finally achieve the desired destination but the main part will take its place on some bank accounts and then will be transformed into Chrysler 300 dash kits or some other useless stuff. And rich patrons will sleep with no worry, thinking that they have committed a good deed. Also wealthy guys use charity like a tool to avoid taxes and their acts are just a dust into the tax service eyes.

The only way to reduce the amount of sufferers and to slightly improve the rate of their living is everybody’s attention and interest to the fate of the poor people. We should create centers, where they can get not only grants and free food but where those people will have a possibility to study for free in order to develop themselves and to find a job. Working places should also be organized for both high and low qualified work with an appropriate salaries. People are all the same. We can’t influence in what family they will be born, but we can create good conditions and help them to get out of the misery hole.

Maybe it’s because I’m here because of an unplanned pregnancy (my older brother’s), and my folks are still married. Maybe it’s because of that line from Cat’s Cradle about unplanned invitations to travel being dancing lessons from god. I don’t know.

And I totally get why someone who thinks that life begins at conception would think abortion is murder and would want to end it. Doesn’t mean I agree, since if God exists and life begins at conception, then God kills more babies than anybody via simple biology.

But those maybes, and those metaphysical beliefs are both deeply personal, and my moral case for a pro-choice position is that we as a society don’t force our citizens to adopt any particular metaphysics as long as they agree to abide by certain rules regarding behavior. And they pay their taxes. That’s a big one.

I’ve never had to make that choice. The closest I ever came was when a friend came to me and said she wanted to have get an abortion, and she needed to borrow money so she could have it as early as possible, and she needed a ride to Illinois because she couldn’t get one in our town. I said yes to both, and I held her hand when she needed me to, because that was the only choice I could live with, and I kept my damn mouth shut about morality and choices and pretty much everything except the weather and traffic.

Because she had made a damn hard choice, and I supported her. Because it wasn’t something I could decide for her, and it certainly wasn’t something that should be up to a judge, or some suit behind a desk to decide for her.

I wasn’t comfortable with it. I’m not particularly comfortable with divorce, either, but I was glad to have the option when my wife left, you know?

I have persuaded several pro-lifers to be pro-choice by talking about my feelings on the matter, leading up to the fact that, in a democracy, we sometimes have to give people the freedom to make choices we disagree with, whether it be for idealist or practical matters, like a tee-totally voting to repeal Prohibition.

It all started and took pace with the advent of colonialism. The old trade routes in the seas (mostly) were the domain of Arab traders who monopolised this trade from far off Malay islands to China and then to the Mediterranian countries and Europe. Silk, spices and gemstones plus food grains were traded all over the Europe and Asia. The workers on the ships were black Africans who were famous for their built and were hardworking. But in those days discrimination was not a part of civilisation as Arabs by virtue of their code of ethics, Islam, were forbidden to discriminate between people on account of the color of skin. A black labourer enjoyed the same rights and privelages as a fair skinned arab counterpart. This was true of the society in general and we are talking of the ‘dark ages’ of Europe (7th century A.D. to 15th Century A.D). The Dutch, The Portugese and The French were being industrialised after the renaissance and workforce was needed. For the produce of those industrial empires a larger consumer population was vital as well. The colonisation had begun. First the African and then the ‘crown of the British empire’, India were colonised by these naval forces of the world. They replaced the Arab traders and superior technological advances helped them in achieving this target. The white man of Europe when confronted with the ‘illiterate’ dark skinned native of Africa or Asia immediately felt ’superior’ to him and developed a superiority complex (read hatred). He needed this hatred to ruthlessly rule over the colonies. French, Dutch, English and Portugese colonies spreaded and by the beginning of world wars most of the Africa and Asia were divided among these powers. They have developed a lavish lifestyle (in contemporary history you can look at the slave trade by Americans and how the blacks were hated for a long time, and even now there are sporadic incidences where it is tried to prove that black-is-inferior).

These powers have the white-man-complex which gradually became an inherited trait and to this day continues to affect our minds and cloud our thinking about darker shades of skin.
Had it not been due to world wars, incidentally, larger parts of Africa and Asia would not have been independent states even today.

bonus article

In Washington, a historically black church is trying to attract white members to survive. Atlanta’s next mayoral race is expected to feature the first competitive white candidate since the 1980s. San Francisco has lost so many African-Americans that Mayor Gavin Newsom created an “African-American Out-Migration Task Force and Advisory Committee” to help retain black residents.

“The city is experiencing growth, yet we’re losing African-American families disproportionately,” Mr. Newsom says. When that happens, “we lose part of our soul.”

So what did Jackson say? In the video Reverend Jackson says that he wants to “cut his nuts out” for lecturing in black churches about the welfare state. The crux of Jackson’s argument is that Obama is not talking racial victimization enough.

Anyone who has carefully heard Obama speak would probably come to the opposite conclusion. Both of Obama’s parents were Marxists and some of the Big Brother attitude toward a care-taking welfare state has seemingly rubbed off on Barack himself.

Most people believe that Jackson’s remarks help Obama by contrasting him with the victimization culture promoted by a few other black leaders. Speculation is already rampant that Jackson’s comments may be a staged event to show Obama is not “one of Us” but that theory seems silly. In only makes sense given that Obama is still paying the price for joining a controversial church and for his wife’s writings at Princeton. Literally Obama clearly is “one of Us” in the black community given the overwhelming support for his candidacy. However, I do not think this was an orchestrated event.

Regardless Reverend Jackson has apologized for the remarks saying they were “crude and hurtful.”

“For any harm or hurt that this hot mic private conversation may have caused, I apologize. My support for Senator Obama’s campaign is wide, deep and unequivocal. I cherish this redemptive and historical moment.”

The worry now is that a Barack Obama presidency could be plagued by racial posturing. Some civil rights leaders like Jesse Jackson will pound on him for not doing enough to lift urban America. Another large segment will continually criticize him for putting individual communities above the common culture by his support for affirmative action programs. Some will do both. Only two weeks ago Ralph Nader simultaneously accused him of appealing to “white guilt” AND talking “too white.”

Such turmoil may be the price paid for our nation’s first black president since we will thankfully have one sooner or later, whether that person is Obama this year or someone else another day. The potential governance problems with having a liberal black president is one of the reasons that pundits have predicted that the first will be a conservative. As always the decision will be up to the electorate.

See the video below.

This is freaking ridiculous! This woman is so ignorant. It’s sickening that we have people like this in America. First off, just because a person is an Arab, doesn’t make them a terrorist, nor does it automatically mean that he/she is a Muslim. In fact, only about 12% of the world’s population of Muslims are Arab. Also, there are more Muslims in Indonesia than in all the Arab countries combined, and the majority of Arab Americans are Christian! People really need to educate themselves.

“I’m very disappointed,” Rev. Al Sharpton said today about the news that Rev. Jesse Jackson used the “N-word” during the same off-camera moment recently in which Jackson uttered a crude remark about Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama.

Black pathologies are labled abnormal and dangerous because they’re different and foreign. White person sits on the train, sees black kids acting rowdy, and has zero frame of reference from which to judge the activity. And thus, finds it patently offensive and inexcusable. Black person sits on the same train, sees the same thing, and remembers how she did the same thing when she was 15 years old and turned out just fine. She inwardly rolls her eyes, conceals a smirk, and goes back to reading her book.

But how do you like that: