Monday – 07 March 2011
Today was one of those “Do I really have to get up and go to work today…?” days. Not that there was anything overly ominous waiting at the office. It was more of a “Monday…blah,” kind of thing.
The weekend was good. On Friday, I had brunch with at Gourmandise. The food and the company were both excellent. Later in the day, and I made our way to the Hostler’s Train Festival, in Ogden. It was a good show; it may have even had a better turnout than last year’s show. While wandering, I saw something that I have been pondering for a while – an MTH gas station. This one was a Shell station and the seller had a really good price on it. So… I bought it:
The only difference is that mine has a VW minibus, rather than a Beetle. I also bought a/another USPS rail car:
Friday night, after work, I changed the layout again, as I mentioned in Saturday’s quick post. I like it. I may take a spur or two out of the long end… and run some SuperStreets track up there, giving me the possibility of having road traffic moving alongside rail traffic. We’ll see.
Saturday, I judged another HeroClix event at Dr. Volt’s Comic Connection. It was a themed event – “Science vs. Magic” – and had a good turnout. After the game, I headed back home for a quiet evening in.
Yesterday was also rather low-key. I woke up to a grey day, which didn’t do much for motivation. I spent the morning watching TV for a couple of hours, before moving on to Call of Duty. After brunch with SaraRules, I played DCUO until it was time to do some errand-running. We had dinner-and-a-movie night with the in-laws. Last night’s fare was Unstoppable, which the in-laws hadn’t seen. Back at home, we watched a little television and then I met a coworker online for more CoD action. I wrapped up the night/early morning with a Skype call to the Vancouver branch of the family. I didn’t get to talk with Bit or Pixel, as it was well past their bedtimes… but I might do that this evening.
Tuesday – 01 March 2011
A new month begins.
Today also marks the beginning of Women’s History Month.
T minus three days to the train show.
T minus sixteen days until Green Lantern/St. Patrick’s Day.
Last night was very low-key around the house. SaraRules! fixed soft-shelled tacos and rice for dinner. While eating, we knocked out the last two episodes of NCIS: Los Angeles on the DVR and watched an episode of House Hunters about a couple in Texas. (They were almost as finicky as the couple I posted about a few days ago who were looking for the one-level home.) But, they found a spot they liked.
Tonight, SaraRules! and I are attending Utah Symphony‘s 2011-12 Season Announcement Reception at Abravanel Hall. (Yeah, I get some pretty swank fringe benefits of having a wife with a cool job.) After that, I’ll be dashing off to join ‘ D&D game. No rest for the wicked, I guess.
I finally got robandsara.org back up and running… only to realize that we never posted much after (read: “anything”) after the wedding. There’s still some fine-tuning to be done, but the pages are there. I’m thinking that I’ll be adding content from here (and from some photo galleries) over the next little while to bring it a little more up-to-date.
I bought a new van for my railroad layout’s Superstreets last night. I should have it in-hand sometime next week, God willin’ and the creek don’t rise.
Saturday – 26 February 2011
I woke up this morning to find it snowing. Not a problem, as I hadn’t really planned on doing much today.
I slept in (until about 0900) and then headed downstairs to watch some TV and surf. HGTV provided a good episode of House Crashers, in which the target couple had a kitchen remodel done. It looked pretty amazing when all the dust settled. After that I remembered that I still had an episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold on the DVR, “The Knights of Tomorrow!”
Something that I had completely forgotten: It was co-written by my friend, Jake Black. The story nicely blended elements of the Golden, Silver and Modern Ages, including:
The “graduation” of Robin into his Nightwing persona
The passing of the Batman mantle from Bruce Wayne to Dick Grayson
The introduction of Damian Wayne (the current Robin)
It was a well-told story and was quite fun to watch.
After SaraRules! woke up, we headed to Millcreek Cafe and Eggworks for brunch. We tried their coffee cake, which was good – it seems as though they use a spice cake base (as opposed to yellow cake). As always, the food was good.
After we got back home, SaraRules!’ parents came over for a few. Her dad is going to help us finish the last 40% of the basement. Today, we started the ball rolling on what will be the new bathroom. We went through a few ideas and came up with something that we think will be really good.
Chew on This: Food for Thought – Black History Month
Today’s item is Motown (1, 2, 3), a record label that was originally founded by Berry Gordy, Jr. and incorporated as Motown Record Corporation in Detroit, Michigan, on April 14, 1960.
Motown played an important role in the racial integration of popular music, as it was the first record label owned by an African American even if it was not the first to feature primarily African-American artists. Motown achieved a crossover success. In the 1960s, Motown and its soul-based subsidiaries were the most successful proponents of what came to be known as The Motown Sound, a style of soul music with a distinct pop influence.
In 1959, Billy Davis and Berry Gordy’s sisters Gwen and Anna started Anna Records. Davis and Gwen Gordy wanted Berry to be the company president, but Berry wanted to strike out on his own. On January 12, 1959, he started Tamla Records, with an $800 loan from his family. Gordy originally wanted to name the label “Tammy” Records, after the popular song by Debbie Reynolds. When he found the name was already in use, he decided on Tamla instead. Tamla’s first release was Marv Johnson’s “Come to Me” in 1959. Its first hit was Barrett Strong‘s “Money (That’s What I Want)” (1959), which made it to #2 on the Billboard R&B charts.
Gordy’s first signed act was The Matadors, a group he had written and produced songs for, who changed their name to The Miracles when Tamla signed them; their first release was “Bad Girl”. Miracles lead singer Smokey Robinson became the vice president of the company.
From 1961 to 1971, Motown had 110 top 10 hits, and artists such as Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, The Supremes, The Four Tops, and The Jackson 5, were all signed to Motown labels. The company operated several labels in addition to the Tamla and Motown imprints. A third label, which Gordy named after himself (though it was originally called “Miracle”) featured The Temptations, The Contours, and Martha and the Vandellas. A fourth, V.I.P., released recordings by The Velvelettes, The Spinners and Chris Clark. A fifth label, Soul, featured Jr. Walker & the All Stars, Jimmy Ruffin, Shorty Long, and Gladys Knight & the Pips. Many more Motown-owned labels released recordings in other genres, including Workshop Jazz (jazz), Mel-o-dy (country, although it was originally an R&B label), and Rare Earth (rock). Under the slogan “The Sound of Young America”, Motown’s acts were enjoying widespread popularity among black and white audiences alike.
In 1967, Berry Gordy purchased what is now known as Motown Mansion in Detroit’s Boston-Edison Historic District as his home. In 1968, Gordy purchased the Donovan building on the corner of Woodward Avenue and Interstate 75, and moved Motown’s Detroit offices there. Motown had established branch offices in both New York City and Los Angeles during the mid-1960s, and by 1969 had begun gradually moving more of its operations to Los Angeles. The company moved all of its operations to Los Angeles in June 1972, with a number of artists, among them Martha Reeves, The Four Tops, Gladys Knight & the Pips, and Motown’s Funk Brothers studio band, either staying behind in Detroit or leaving the company for other reasons. The main objective of Motown’s relocation was to branch out into the motion picture industry, and Motown Productions got its start in film by turning out two hit vehicles for Diana Ross: the Billie Holliday biographical film Lady Sings the Blues (1972), and Mahogany (1975). Other Motown films would include Thank God It’s Friday (1978), The Wiz (1978) and Berry Gordy’s The Last Dragon (1985).
By the mid-1980s, Motown was losing money, and Berry Gordy sold his ownership in Motown to MCA Records and Boston Ventures in June 1988 for $61 million. In 1989, Gordy sold the Motown Productions TV/film operations to Motown executive Suzanne de Passe, who renamed the company de Passe Entertainment and runs it to this day.
By 1998, Motown had added stars such as 702, Brian McKnight, and Erykah Badu to its roster. In December 1998, PolyGram was acquired by Seagram, and Motown was absorbed into the Universal Music Group.
Tuesday – 22 February 2011
Work Week: Day Two. The sun’s out, but the temps are still kind of low. (Although we might actually break 40F today…)
On the “up” side, I am definitely feeling better. I also no longer sound (completely) like a reject from the old Budweiser frogs commercials. I’m still a bit congested, but I can breathe… for the most part.
Last night, SaraRules! made a tasty chicken pot pie for dinner. We ate and watched a couple of episodes of NCIS: Los Angeles and then a couple of episodes of House Hunters.
Generally speaking, I enjoy House Hunters, but last night’s episodes contained a couple of families who the Logic Fairy seemed to overlook – or at least skimp on – when she was doling out common sense:
A family in the suburbs of Louisville, KY decided that they wanted to purchase a vacation home.
(So far, so good.)Let me reparse the above with the kicker: “…they wanted to buy a vacation home, twenty minutes from their current home.” Yeah, we were dumbstruck. They wanted to take out a second mortgage ($250, 000) on a “vacation condo” in downtown Louisville. Twenty minutes away. That doesn’t even make good crazy people sense.
The second family wanted to buy a new home in which to raise their 18-month-old daughter. Their main “wants” were:
One level.
Three or more bedrooms.
A yard for their daughter to play in.
All-in-all, their wants weren’t too outrageous… especially when compared to some of the things that people have sought on this show. The “one level” requirement was because they saw stairs as a safety hazard. (I guess they’d never heard of a child safety gate. *shrug*) They saw three houses:
One level, but the “back yard” was largely taken over by a large, in-ground swimming pool.
Multi-level house, with a couple of notable potential hazards.
Two-level house with a loft.
They chose House #1, despite the wife’s early – and quite vocal – objections to having no back yard and the giant water hole. I can understand some of their reasons for avoiding the second house, but the third house’s stair “problem” could have easily been handled with a gate.
I also spent a little time in Metropolis before bed. I started off just flying around, exploring parts of the city that I hadn’t yet visited. I decided to tackle a mission that I’d let languish for a couple of levels.
Chew on This: Food for Thought – Black History Month
Today’s personality is: Carter G. Woodson (1, 2, 3)
Carter Godwin Woodson was an African-American historian, author, journalist and the founder of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. He was one of the first scholars to value and study Black History. He recognized and acted upon the importance of a people having an awareness and knowledge of their contributions to humanity, and left behind an impressive legacy. A founder of Journal of Negro History, Dr. Woodson is known as the “Father of Black History.”
The son of freed slaves, Woodson worked as a sharecropper and a miner to help his family. He began high school in his late teens and proved to be an excellent student. Woodson went on to college and earned several degrees. He received a doctorate from Harvard University in 1912—becoming one of the first African Americans to earn a Ph.D. at the prestigious institution. His doctoral dissertation,The Disruption of Virginia, was based on research he did at the Library of Congress while teaching high school in Washington, D.C. After earning the doctoral degree, he continued teaching in the public schools, later joining the faculty at Howard University as a professor and served as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.
Convinced that the role of his own people in American history and in the history of other cultures was either being ignored or misrepresented among scholars, Woodson realized the need for research into the neglected past of African Americans. Along with Alexander L. Jackson and three associates, he founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History September 9, 1915, in Chicago. That was also the year Woodson published The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861. His other books followed: A Century of Negro Migration (1918) and The History of the Negro Church (1927).
After leaving Howard University, Dr. Woodson devoted the rest of his life to historical research. He worked to preserve the history of African Americans and accumulated a collection of thousands of artifacts and publications. He noted that African American contributions “were overlooked, ignored, and even suppressed by the writers of history textbooks and the teachers who use them.” Race prejudice, he concluded, “is merely the logical result of tradition, the inevitable outcome of thorough instruction to the effect that the Negro has never contributed anything to the progress of mankind.” In 1926, Woodson single-handedly pioneered the celebration of “Negro History Week”, for the second week in February, to coincide with marking the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. The week was later extended to the full month of February and renamed Black History Month.
Dr. Woodson’s most cherished ambition, a six-volume Encyclopedia Africana, lay incomplete at his death on April 3, 1950 at the age of 74. He is buried at Lincoln Memorial Cemetery in Suitland-Silver Hill, Maryland.
Saturday – 19 February 2011
It’s a grey day here… and there’s the possibility of snow in the forecast. Yay.
Last night was the beginning of the end of an era. The local Borders, where we spend the “coffee” portion of our Clitorati gathering, is one of the nearly 300 stores that is slated to close. I’ve been going to that store for close to ten years; I started going there on Friday evenings because that was where and I would meet so that she could coach me at drawing. In fact, the entire Clitorati gathering came about from me telling people that they should come and hang out with us while we were there. And now, nearly ten years down the road, we find ourselves looking for a new home-away-from-home.
We knew that the stor was closing. What we didn’t know, until we arrived last night, was that the Seattle’s Best Coffee franchise/sublet that ran the cafe closed – for the last time – on Thursday night. This means that for the next two months (or however long it takes to liquidate their inventory), there will be no cafe service. At all. I spoke with Brandi, one of the sales associates about the closing: She said that she and the other employees found out about it on Wednesday… from The Wall Street Journal article. According to her, employees:
…had no advance warning.
…haven’t been offered any kind of relocation/transfer package to the Orem/Provo store.
…will be officially unemployed when the closeout sale is over.
While Borders has been on the rocks financially for a long time, I think that it’s poor form to let your employees be blindsided by the closure news and have to find out from mass media.
Since the list of closing stores came out on Wednesday, there’s been chatter among the group as to where we should now meet. We bandied about a few places and decided that we’d test drive the new location when the time came. Funny, we weren’t quite expecting it to be so soon. We had eight people show up for coffee last night, which made for a decent litmus test. I think that our new choice fared decently; we’ll have to see how it stands up over time.
After coffee and dinner, I came home and played DCUO for a bit. I’ve decided that I don’t necessarily want to plow through the game. Instead, I’m enjoying just roaming around the city (I haven’t even left Metropolis yet) and enjoying the view. Jim Lee and his crew did an amazing job of bringing Metropolis to life. I’m looking forward to seeing the other settings the game has to offer.
Chew on This: Food for Thought – Black History Month Today’s person of note is: Wallace Thurman (1, 2, 3)
Thurman was born in Salt Lake City, UT to Beulah and Oscar Thurman. Between his mother’s many marriages, Wallace and his mother lived with Emma Jackson, his maternal grandmother. His grandmother’s home doubled as a saloon where alcohol was served without a license.
Thurman’s early life was marked by loneliness, family instability and illness. He began grade school at age six in Boise, Idaho, but his poor health eventually led to a two-year absence from school, during which he returned to Salt Lake City. From 1910 to 1914, Thurman lived in Chicago, but he would have to finish grammar school in Omaha, Nebraska.[2] During this time, he suffered from persistent heart attacks. While living in Pasadena, California’s lower altitude in the winter of 1918, Thurman came down with influenza during the worldwide Influenza Pandemic. Considering his history of illness, he surprisingly recovered and then returned to Salt Lake City, where he finished high school.
Thurman studied at the University of Utah and the University of Southern California, although he did not receive a degree. He moved to Harlem in 1925, and by the time he became managing editor of the black periodical Messenger in 1926, he had immersed himself in the Harlem literary scene and encouraged such writers as Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston to contribute to his publication. That summer, Hughes asked Thurman to edit Fire!!, a literary magazine conceived as a forum for young black writers and artists. Despite outstanding contributors, who included Hughes, Hurston, and Gwendolyn Bennett, the publication folded after one issue. Two years later Thurman published Harlem, again with work by the younger writers of the Harlem Renaissance, but it too survived only one issue.
Thurman was lauded as a satirist and often used satire to accuse blacks of prejudice against darker-skinned member of their race. He also rejected the belief that the Harlem Renaissance was a substantial literary movement, claiming that the 1920s produced no outstanding writers and that those who were famous exploited, and allowed themselves to be patronized by, whites. He claimed, as did a number of authors of the decade, that white critics judged black works by lower standards than they judged white efforts. Thurman maintained that black writers were held back from making any great contribution to the canon of Negro literature by their race-consciousness and decadent lifestyles.
Thurman and others of the “Niggerati” (the deliberately ironic name Thurman used for the young African American artists and intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance) wanted to show the real lives of African Americans, both the good and the bad. Thurman believed that black artists should be more objective in their writings and not so self-conscious that they failed to acknowledge and celebrate the arduous conditions of African American lives. As Singh and Scott put it, “Thurman’s Harlem Renaissance is, thus, staunch and revolutionary in its commitment to individuality and critical objectivity: the black writer need not pander to the aesthetic preferences of the black middle class, nor should he or she write for an easy and patronizing white approval.”
Thurman died at the age of 32 from tuberculosis, which many suspect was exacerbated by his long fight with alcoholism.
Thursday – 17 February 2011
It’s another NBN Thursday in the valley. The sun is shining. The sky is blue. And the mountains (and a fair portion of the valley) is covered in white. That’s right: It snowed last night. Of course, that also means that the air is clear and one can see the west side of the valley clearly.
Last night, after work, I ran up to Dr. Volt’s to pick up this week’s four-color goodness before dashing back home to grab a quick bite to eat. SaraRules! had a Justice Junior League meeting and I had coffee with my friend, Frankie. While out, I had thought to kill multiple avians with a single piece of silicate and get the batteries in a couple of my watches replaced. The snow made me decide to deal with that tomorrow, on my day off.
After coffee, I headed back home – time for comfy pants and comics! – to wait for the missus to get in. I even had the presence of mind to throw in a load of laundry. When she got in, we finished watching Prince of Persia. I swear that movie had more gratuitous slow-motion scenes than The Matrix, Dhoom and Resident Evil: Afterlife combined. On the whole, it was an entertaining movie — it was kind of like a live-action Aladdin. I also found it amusing that “foreign” (or at least “non-American”) still seems to mean “just speak with an (affected) British accent” to most people. *shrug*
Chew on This: Food for Thought – Black History Month
Today’s personality is Paul Robeson (1, 2).
Paul Leroy Robeson was an African American concert singer (bass-baritone), recording artist, athlete and actor who became noted for his political radicalism and activism in the civil rights movement. Robeson was the first major concert star to popularize the performance of Negro spirituals and was the first black actor of the 20th century to portray Shakespeare’s Othello alongside an all white cast.
The son of a former slave turned preacher, Robeson attended Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., where he was an All-America football player. Upon graduating from Rutgers at the head of his class, he rejected a career as a professional athlete and instead entered Columbia University. He obtained a law degree in 1923, but, because of the lack of opportunity for blacks in the legal profession, he drifted to the stage, making a London debut in 1922.
At the height of his career, Paul Robeson chose to become primarily a political artist. Increasing political awareness impelled Robeson to visit the Soviet Union in 1934, and from that year he became increasingly identified with strong left-wing commitments, while continuing his success in concerts, recordings, and theatre.
During World War II, Robeson’s support for the Allied War effort had made him the world’s most famous African-American and his previous statements and advocacy for socialism had been ignored by both the media and the white establishment. The start of the Cold war led to a social climate in which most civil rights and anti-imperialist groups in the United States were considered “Communist affiliated.”
In 1950, Robeson’s passport was revoked under the McCarran Act over his work in the anti-imperialism movement and what the U.S. State Department called Robeson’s “frequent criticism while abroad of the treatment of blacks in the US.” Under heavy and daily surveillance by both the FBI and the CIA and publicly condemned for his beliefs, Robeson was blacklisted, his income fell dramatically and he became very nearly a non-person.
Robeson’s autobiography, Here I Stand, was published by a British publishing company in 1958. As part of his “comeback”, he gave two sold-out recitals that month in Carnegie Hall, which were released on LP and later on CD. They were his only stereo recordings.
Also that year, Robeson’s 60th birthday was celebrated in several US cities and twenty-seven countries across Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa, as well as in the Soviet Union. Later, in May 1958, his passport was finally restored and he was able to travel again, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in Kent vs. Dulles, that the Secretary of State had no right to deny a passport or require any citizen to sign an affidavit because of his political beliefs.
By 1965, he was forced into permanent retirement. He spent his final years in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, unapologetic about his political views and career.
Wednesday – 16 February 2011
It’s Midweek. Which also means that it’s new comics day and D&D 4.0 night. Win-Win-Win.
Last night was D&D 3.5 night, but it was also “The Game Night That Almost Didn’t Happen.” Of the six (6) players in our campaign, only and I made it. Fortunately, had a small side adventure ready to go. We ran through it, picked up some “free” XP and have something new for our characters that the others don’t/didn’t get. (Neener neener neeeeeeeener!)
After the game, I went home and watched the first half of Prince of Persia with SaraRules!. It’s not the greatest movie ever made, but it has been entertaining. We will most likely finish it tonight.
Chew on This: Food for Thought – Black History Month
Today’s item is the Plessy v. Ferguson court case.
Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896), is a landmark United States Supreme Court decision in the jurisprudence of the United States, upholding the constitutionality of state laws requiring racial segregation in private businesses (particularly railroads), under the doctrine of “separate but equal”.
After the American Civil War (1861–1865), during the period known as Reconstruction, the government was able to provide some protection for the civil rights of the newly freed slaves. But when Reconstruction ended with the Compromise of 1877 and federal troops were withdrawn from the south, southern state governments began passing Jim Crow laws that prohibited blacks from using the same public accommodations as whites.
The Thirteenth Amendment (1, 2)served to abolish slavery and involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime. Under the meaning of the Thirteenth Amendment, the term “slavery” implies involuntary servitude or bondage and the ownership by human beings of other human beings as property. According to the Slaughterhouse Cases, the Thirteenth Amendment was intended primarily to abolish slavery as it had been known in the United States, and that it equally forbade involuntary servitude.
In 1890, the State of Louisiana passed Act 111 that required separate accommodations for African Americans and Whites on railroads, including separate railway cars, though it specified that the accommodations must be kept “equal”. Concerned, several African Americans (including Louisiana’s former governor P.B.S. Pinchback) and Whites in New Orleans formed an association, the Citizens’ Committee to Test the Separate Car Act, dedicated to the repeal of that law. They raised $1412.70 ($33716.44 in 2008 USD) which they offered to the then-famous author and Radical Republican jurist, Albion W. Tourgée, to serve as lead counsel for their test case. Tourgée agreed to do it for free. Later, they enlisted Homer Plessy, who was one-eighth black (an octoroon in the now-antiquated parlance), to take part in an act of planned civil disobedience. The plan was for Plessy to be thrown off the railway car and arrested not for vagrancy, which would not have led to a challenge that could reach the Supreme Court, but for violating the Separate Car Act, which could and did lead to a challenge with the high court.
The Committee hired a detective to ensure that Plessy was arrested for violating the Separate Car Act, which the Citizen’s Committee wanted to challenge with the goal of having it overturned. They chose Plessy because, with his light skin color, he could buy a first class train ticket and, at the same time, be arrested when he announced, while sitting on board the train, that he had an African-American ancestor. For the Committee, this was a deliberate attempt to exploit the lack of clear racial definition in either science or law so as to argue that segregation by race was an “unreasonable” use of state power.
The decision was handed down by a vote of 7 to 1 with the majority opinion written by Justice Henry Billings Brown and the dissent written by Justice John Marshall Harlan. “Separate but equal” remained standard doctrine in U.S. law until its repudiation in the 1954 Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education.
Stray Toasters
Why is it that most people elide the first “r” in “February?”
Monday – 14 February 2011
It’s Monday, which means that it’s the start of another work week.
It’s also Valentine’s Day
or, as Neil Gaiman put it:
Happy Valentine’s Day. Or take pride in Being Single Day. Or join me in the newly-created Why Is My Wife In Australia Day (people who live in Australia are not eligible to join).
or, as I was just reminded: It’s Anti-Green Lantern Day. (Look at a color wheel, it will make sense then.) I wasn’t thinking about it when I got dressed this morning, but I selected a green shirt, white turtleneck and black slacks for today’s fashion fare. It wasn’t until Julie came into the office, in red-and-black that I thought about it being Anti-GL Day, too.
Yesterday, I finally picked up a six-car hopper set that I’ve been eying at a local hobby shop. It’s an older set – and showed no signs of moving any time soon – so they cut me a rather nice deal. (That didn’t hurt my feelings.) After that, I headed home and saved the world (DCUO-style) for a bit before heading over to the in-laws’ for dinner and a movie. Last night’s feature was Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.
Chew on This: Food for Thought – Black History Month
Today’s person of note is: Huey Newton (1, 2).
Huey Percy Newton was a political and urban activist who founded the Afro-American Association and co-founded the Black Panther Party for Self Defense.
Newton was born in Monroe, Louisiana, the youngest of seven children to Armelia Johnson and Walter Newton, a sharecropper and Baptist lay preacher. In 1945, the family settled in Oakland, California. The Newton family was destitute, and often relocated throughout the San Francisco Bay Area throughout Newton’s childhood. Despite this, he contended that his family was close-knit and that he never went without food and shelter as a child. Growing up in Oakland, Newton claimed that “[he] was made to feel ashamed of being black.” In his autobiography Revolutionary Suicide, he wrote, “During those long years in Oakland public schools, I did not have one teacher who taught me anything relevant to my own life or experience. Not one instructor ever awoke in me a desire to learn more or to question or to explore the worlds of literature, science, and history. All they did was try to rob me of the sense of my own uniqueness and worth, and in the process nearly killed my urge to inquire.”
Although he graduated at Oakland Technical High School in 1960, Newton was illiterate. During his course of autodidacticism, he struggled to read Republic by Plato. He read it five times to better understand it, and it was this success that inspired him to become a political leader.
In the mid-1960s Newton decided to pursue his education at Merritt College where he met Bobby Seale. The two were briefly involved with political groups at the school before they set out to create one of their own. Founded in 1966, they called their group The Black Panther Party for Self Defense. Unlike many of the other social and political organizers of the time, they took a militant stance, advocating the ownership of guns by African Americans, and were often seen brandishing weapons. The group believed that violence—or the threat of violence—might be needed to bring about social change. They set forth their political goals in a document called the Ten-Point Program, which included better housing, jobs, and education for African Americans. It also called for an end to economic exploitation of black communities.
The Black Panthers wanted to improve life in black communities and established social programs to help those in need. They also fought against police brutality in black neighborhoods by mostly white cops. Members of the group would go to arrests in progress and watch for abuse.
Newton earned a bachelor’s degree from UC Santa Cruz in 1974. He was enrolled as a graduate student in History of Consciousness at UC Santa Cruz in 1978, when he arranged to take a reading course from famed evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers, while in prison. He and Trivers became close friends. Trivers and Newton published an influential analysis of the role of flight crew self-deception in the crash of Air Florida Flight 90. Newton earned a Ph.D. in social philosophy at the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1980. His doctoral dissertation was entitled War Against the Panthers: A Study of Repression in America.
On August 22, 1989, Newton was fatally shot on the 1400 block of 9th street in West Oakland by a 24-year-old Black Guerilla Family member Tyrone Robinson during an attempt by Newton to obtain crack cocaine.
Thursday – 10 February 2011
Another NBN Thursday is upon us.
Last night was D&D (4.0) game night. We started a new encounter, created by . It was good… and a little odd. We were traveling down a road, minding our own business, when we were ‘jacked by a goblin… which stole an item that we were trying to return to its rightful place. We chased the gob through woods and into a clearing. There, we found:
A goblin corpse (the goblin we’d been chasing, in fact) and
A pink slime
For those of you – like me – who have never encountered Item #2 before, allow me to share with you a little insight:
The key thing to note there is its “Seasoning Mist.” All but two of us were caught in the mist… which nearly turned us into a party of cannibals. Nearly. Instead, a few of us (those who missed our saving throws) wound up eating some of the carrion in the area. Yeah, it was like that. We managed to survive the encounter.
Back at home, SaraRules! and I tackled another recorded episode of NCIS and a couple of other shows before she called it a night and I dove into yesterday’s four-color haul.
Chew on This: Food for Thought – Black History Month
Today’s item is Juneteenth.
Juneteenth, also known as Freedom Day or Emancipation Day, is a holiday in the United States honoring African American heritage by commemorating the announcement of the abolition of slavery in the U.S. State of Texas in 1865. Celebrated on June 19, the term is a portmanteau of June and nineteenth, and is recognized as a state holiday in 36 states of the United States.
Though Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862, with an effective date of January 1, 1863, it had minimal immediate effect on most slaves’ day-to-day lives, particularly in the Confederate States of America. Texas, as a part of the Confederacy, was resistant to the Emancipation Proclamation, and though slavery was very prevalent in East Texas, it was not as common in the Western areas of Texas, particularly the Hill Country, where most German-Americans were opposed to the practice. Juneteenth commemorates June 18 and 19, 1865. June 18 is the day Union General Gordon Granger and 2,000 federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, to take possession of the state and enforce the emancipation of its slaves. On June 19, 1865, legend has it while standing on the balcony of Galveston’sAshton Villa, Granger read the contents of “General Order No. 3”:
The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.
Stray Toasters
On the way to work this morning, I was listening to X96’s Radio From Hell morning show. They had an interview with Gregory Bright, who – after serving 27 years in prison for a second-degree murder charge – was released from prison due to wrongful conviction. Mr. Bright and Lara Naughton have turned his story into a one-man play, called Never Fight a Shark in Water, which is being performed at the University of Utah this evening; there is no admission charge for the performance. For more information about tonight’s performance, click here.
Tuesday – 08 February 2011
It’s a sunny day in the valley. That is in stark contrast to the snow that fell yesterday afternoon and last night. Although, on the “plus” side: The air is clean(er) and you can see across the valley:
Last night, SaraRules! and I had a Date Night Adventure! It was really just supposed to be dinner and a concert, but the first half turned into something of an ordeal. Shortly after last month’s Preservation Hall Jazz Band concert, we learned that Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra was going to be performing.
So, we decided to go and celebrate Valentine’s Day a little early.
This came under the heading of “Good Theory.”
“Practical Application” went a little something like this:
We drove to the University of Utah campus and found parking. We walked down to 13th East, as we had planned to eat at Aristo’s, a restaurant that SaraRules! had heard was good and wanted to try. We walked in to find they had at least a 45-minute wait. No good.
We walked next door to Indochine, a Vietnamese restaurant. The restaurant was fairly packed and there wasn’t anyone at the front counter. Again, no good.
We headed over to Market Street Broiler… and were met with people walking out, saying that they’d lost some power – the block across the street had a complete power outage – and were closing. *sigh* We were starting to see a pattern and it wasn’t good.
We then walked back down to B&D Burger. We were at the “beggars can’t be choosers” point of the evening and we were also running out of time. It was 6:30 PM when we walked in and the concert started at 7:30. Fortunately, we were only a five-minute walk from the hall. SaraRules!, in her near-infinite wisdom, suggested that we grab what looked like the last available table before we ordered. (Very good call on her part.) We stood in line for about 10 minutes, as the place was full of people – like us – who were unable to get into the other restaurants. We ordered and we sat down and waited.
6:50…
7:00…
7:05…
Around this time, SaraRules! went up “to have words” with the young lady at the counter. Granted, the place was full and the cook – the sole cook – was busy, but apparently the cashier had an “Oh, well…” attitude about the whole affair. And, at no point did anyone call in additional help to cover the rush.
7:15…
SaraRules! went back to the counter to get our order “to go.” Many other patrons had just decided to leave, without getting their orders AND without demanding refunds. (SaraRules! told me later that the cashiers were like “Hey… more money for us!” about those customers.) Contrast that attitude with this, taken from the back of the customer survey card:
We got our food about 7:25 PM. We hurried back to the car – we couldn’t exactly take our dinner into Kingsbury Hall – dropped off the boxes, took our gyros with us and ate them as we headed to the hall.
Fortunately, the performance started a few minutes late. I literally sat down a couple of seconds before the orchestra started playing.
It was a fantastic performance. One expects excellence when listening to Wynton Marsalis play. It was great to see… um, hear… that he surrounded himself with phenomenal talent, as well. It was an amazing show. There was no band leader/conductor. In fact, Wynton Marsalis wasn’t even front and center; he played on the third row, with the rest of the trumpeters. Mr. Marsalis even explained, between a couple of the pieces, why we saw the band talking amongst themselves during the performance: It was to decide who was going to solo or be featured in some pieces. On the fly. They played for about an hour-and-a-half and came back for an amazing encore. It was a great way to cap off an evening that began less-than-auspiciously.
Chew on This: Food for Thought – Black History Month
Today, let’s take a look at the Harlem Renaissance.
The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned the 1920s and 1930s. At the time, it was known as the “New Negro Movement”, named after the 1925 anthology by Alain Locke. Though it was centered in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City, many French-speaking black writers from African and Caribbean colonies who lived in Paris were also influenced by the Harlem Renaissance.
The Harlem Renaissance is unofficially recognized to have spanned from about 1919 until the early or mid 1930s. Many of its ideas lived on much longer. The zenith of this “flowering of Negro literature”, as James Weldon Johnson preferred to call the Harlem Renaissance, was placed between 1924 (the year that Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life hosted a party for black writers where many white publishers were in attendance) and 1929 (the year of the stock market crash and the beginning of the Great Depression).
The Harlem Renaissance grew out of the changes that had taken place in the African American community since the abolition of slavery. These accelerated as a consequence of World War I and the great social and cultural changes in early 20th century United States. Industrialization was attracting people to cities from rural areas and gave rise to a new mass culture. Contributing factors leading to the Harlem Renaissance were the Great Migration of African Americans to northern cities, which concentrated ambitious people in places where they could encourage each other, and the First World War, which had created new industrial work opportunities for tens of thousands of people. Factors leading to the decline of this era include the Great Depression.
Characterizing the Harlem Renaissance was an overt racial pride that came to be represented in the idea of the New Negro, who through intellect and production of literature, art, and music could challenge the pervading racism and stereotypes to promote progressive or socialist politics, and racial andsocial integration. The creation of art and literature would serve to “uplift” the race.
There would be no uniting form singularly characterizing the art that emerged out of the Harlem Renaissance. Rather, it encompassed a wide variety of cultural elements and styles, including a Pan-Africanist perspective, “high-culture” and “low-culture” or “low-life,” from the traditional form of music to the blues and jazz, traditional and new experimental forms in literature such as modernism and the new form of jazz poetry. This duality meant that numerous African-American artists came into conflict with conservatives in the black intelligentsia, who took issue with certain depictions of black life.
Some common themes represented during the Harlem Renaissance were the influence of the experience of slavery and emerging African-American folk traditions on black identity, the effects of institutional racism, the dilemmas inherent in performing and writing for elite white audiences, and the question of how to convey the experience of modern black life in the urban North.
The progress—both symbolic and real—during this period, became a point of reference from which the African-American community gained a spirit of self-determination that provided a growing sense of both Black urbanity and Black militancy as well as a foundation for the community to build upon for the Civil Rights struggles in the 1950s and 1960s.
Stray Toasters
Since we were heading out for Date Night – and since we were going to an event – I decided to wear my black suit, a white shirt and my African masks tie. While standing in line to get dinner, a woman (who was obviously aware of the concert) came up to me and asked,”Are you playing tonight?”
*sigh*
That’s right, lady. I’m a black guy in a suit and tie near the university campus. I, obviously, must be playing in the concert.
I simply told her, “No, I’m not.” My second – and, unfortunately, much-delayed – thought was to tell her “Yes, I’ll be playing trombone.”
If you haven’t taken a look at Google’s home page (“Google classic,” that is), check it out.
Sure, there were other things that happened over the weekend, but those were the big ticket items.
And, tonight, SaraRules! and I are celebrating an early Valentine’s Day by going out to dinner (none of those Feb. 14th dinner crowds for us!) and going to Kingsbury Hall to hear Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra perform.
Chew on This: Food for Thought – Black History Month
Today’s person of note: Althea Gibson
Althea Gibson was a World No. 1 American sportswoman who became the first African-American woman to be a competitor on the world tennis tour and the first to win a Grand Slam title in 1956. She is sometimes referred to as “the Jackie Robinson of tennis” for breaking the color barrier.
Gibson continued to improve her tennis game while pursuing an education. In 1946 she moved to Wilmington, North Carolina, to work on her tennis game with Dr. Hubert A. Eaton and enrolled at Williston High School.
In 1958, Gibson retired from amateur tennis. Before the open era began, there was no prize money, other than an expense allowance, and no endorsement deals. To begin earning prize money, tennis players had to give up their amateur status. As there was no professional tour for women, Gibson was limited to playing in a series of exhibition tours.
According to Lance Tingay ofThe Daily Telegraph and theDaily Mail, Gibson was ranked in the world top ten from 1956 through 1958, reaching a career high of No. 1 in those rankings in 1957 and 1958. Gibson was included in the year-end top ten rankings issued by the United States Tennis Association in 1952 and 1953 and from 1955 through 1958. She was the top-ranked U.S. player in 1957 and 1958.
In 1971, Gibson was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame, and in 1975, she was appointed the New Jersey state commissioner of athletics. After 10 years on the job, she went on to work in other public service positions, including serving on the governor’s council on physical fitness.
On September 28, 2003, at the age of 76, Gibson died in East Orange, New Jersey due to circulatory failure and was interred there in the Rosedale Cemetery.
On the opening night of the 2007 US Open, the 50th anniversary of Gibson’s victory at the US Championships in 1957 (now the US Open), Gibson was inducted into US Open Court of Champions.
Instant Replay: Football
Yesterday, Super Bowl XLV was played in The Temple of Jones Cowboy Stadium…
The Steelers and the Packers, teams from a couple of blue-collar towns, battled for the Vince Lombardi Trophy.
The Packers took advantage of key Pittsburgh turnovers in the first half, establishing a 21 – 10 lead by halftime.
The Steelers returned to form in the second half, scoring 22 points and coming within two minutes of potentially winning the game, but couldn’t pull all of the pieces together to make it work.
I would love to know who at Microsoft and/or Treyarch thought that it was a “good idea” to make this a “Double XP Weekend” for Call of Duty: Black Ops.
I finally remembered to get screenshots of (the DCUO version of) Nefer-Tem:
I ordered a Superstreets vehicle and a CSX water tower for my layout. I should probably start putting some brainpower towards of the logistics involved with building the multi-level deck that I have in mind.
Thursday – 03 February 2011
It’s my NBN Technical Friday. Amen.
Last night was D&D (4.0) game night with and company. We almost team-wiped twice. It wasn’t pretty. But, we finished two encounters… and everyone survived. Barely. One neat, but unrelated thing: Jack and I noticed a Justice League Chess Set for sale for $50 (USD). We were intrigued. We pondered it for a bit before realizing that we could just “build” a chess set, using ‘Clix figures for the pieces for a lot less, should we decide that we really couldn’t live without one.
I also played a little DCUO last night. I’m still having a lot of fun with it. Last night, I was sent to a new (to me) part of Metropolis, Chinatown, to meet Zatanna for my next set of missions. Let me just say that this part of the city looks simply amazing. The DCUO team also released another teaser video that portends ill things…
AND… new information has been released about new content being added to the game, including their Valentine’s Day event content, as well.
Chew on This: Food for Thought – Black History Month
Today’s personality is: Stokely Carmichael
Kwame Ture, also known as Stokely Carmichael, was a Trinidadian-American black activist active in the 1960s American Civil Rights Movement. He rose to prominence first as a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, pronounced “snick”) and later as the “Honorary Prime Minister” of the Black Panther Party. Initially an integrationist, Carmichael later became affiliated with black nationalist and Pan-Africanist movements. He popularized the term “Black Power”.
In 1960, Carmichael went on to attend Howard University, a historically-black school in Washington, D.C., rejecting scholarship offers from several white universities. His apartment on Euclid Street was a gathering place for his activist classmates. He graduated with a degree in philosophy in 1964.
He joined the Nonviolent Action Group (NAG), the Howard campus affiliate of SNCC.He was inspired by the sit-ins to become more active in the Civil Rights Movement. In his first year at the university, he participated in the Freedom Ridesof the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and was frequently arrested, spending time in jail. In 1961, he served 49 days at the infamous Parchman Farm in Sunflower County, Mississippi. He was arrested many times for his activism. He lost count of his many arrests, sometimes giving the estimate of at least 29 or 32, and telling the Washington Post in 1998 he believed the total number was fewer than 36.
Carmichael saw nonviolence as a tactic as opposed to a principle, which separated him from moderate civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr.. Carmichael became critical of civil rights leaders who simply called for the integration of African Americans into existing institutions of the middle class mainstream.
The Black Panthers and Carmichael disagreed on whether white activists should be allowed to help the Panthers. The Panthers believed that white activists could help the movement, while Carmichael thought as Malcolm X, saying that the white activists needed to organize their own communities first. In 1969, he and his then-wife, the South African singer Miriam Makeba, moved to Guinea-Conakry where he became an aide to Guinean prime minister Ahmed Sékou Touré and the student of exiled Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah.Makeba was appointed Guinea’s official delegate to theUnited Nations. Three months after his arrival in Africa, in July 1969, he published a formal rejection of the Black Panthers, condemning the Panthers for not beingseparatist enough and their “dogmatic party line favoring alliances with white radicals”.
It was at this stage in his life that Carmichael changed his name to Kwame Ture to honor the African leaders Nkrumah and Touré who had become his patrons. At the end of his life, friends still referred to him interchangeably by both names, “and he doesn’t seem to mind.”
Carmichael remained in Guinea after separation from the Black Panther Party. He continued to travel, write, and speak out in support of international leftist movements and in 1971 collected his work in a second book Stokely Speaks: Black Power Back to Pan-Africanism. This book expounds an explicitly socialist, Pan-African vision, which he seemingly retained for the rest of his life. From the late 1970s until the day he died, he answered his phone by announcing “Ready for the revolution!”
The Super Bowl is Sunday. As the Ravens (and Dolphins and Panthers) are not in the game, I guess this means that I’m a Packers fan… at least through the weekend.
Thursday – 27 January 2011
Another No Bad News Thursday is upon us. This one greets us with sun and the hope of a (reasonably) warm day.
Last night, SaraRules! and I met downtown for dinner at Settebello Pizzeria Napoletana. I had been there twice (I think) before, though I’ve been to Capo, the gelato shop next door, a few times. SaraRules! had the Margherita; I had the Quattro Stagioni, which was quite good. After dinner, we walked to the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center for our fifth Sundance movie, Perfect Sense:
When Susan (Eva Green), an epidemiologist, reemerges from an affair gone sour, she encounters a peculiar patient—a Glasgow truck driver who experienced a sudden, uncontrollable crying fit. Now he is calm, but he has lost his sense of smell. Susan learns there are 11 cases like him in Glasgow, 7 in Aberdeen, 5 in Dundee, and 18 in Edinburgh. In fact, Great Britain has 100 cases, with additional ones reported in France, Belgium, Italy, and Spain, and they all appeared in the last 24 hours.Although Susan’s encounter with Michael (Ewan McGregor), a local restaurant chef, holds the promise of new love, the world is about to change dramatically. People across the globe begin to suffer strange symptoms, affecting the emotions, then the senses.
This description doesn’t really do the movie justice. While it does touch on the epidemic, it focuses mostly on Susan and Michael, their relationship and how it changes as the world around them changes. It was a dramatic piece with very human comedic moments interspersed through it. I’ve noted before how I appreciate movies that use silence – or, more aptly: the absence of sound – well, like Contact and Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams. This movie joins the ranks of those films in its excellent use of silence.
Stray Toasters
We had an “all-hands” meeting this morning, kind of a “state of the company” address. It went well… I personally think that it may have been made a wee bit better, thanks to the Saint Brendan’s Irish Cream in this morning’s coffee.
I have a new personal goal: To make at least one person per day smile or laugh.
I liberated this goal from Matt, last week at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore.
Wednesday – 12 January 2011
It’s midweek, which means that it’s Comics Wednesday.
As for returning the “sushi” to Wednesdays, well that’s something that we’ll have to see how it develops… but last night, the missus and I had dinner at Tsunami, so the sushi craving has been abated for the time being.
SaraRules! and I, along with Melissa and her friend, Kate, went to see The King’s Speech after dinner.
We had heard a number of glowing reviews from friends who had seen it, so it seemed like a fairly safe bet. At least in my case, friends’ comments didn’t do it justice. It was a fantastic film. Colin Firth did an excellent job as Albert, Duke of York (and later, King George VI). Geoffrey Rush was equally good in his role as Lionel Logue. And, this was the first movie in some time in which I’ve seen Helena Bonham Carter act and didn’t just want to shake my head and go, “Really…?! This again?!” She was… charming… in her role as Queen Elizabeth. This was a wonderful bit of cinema, proving that you don’t need to spend exorbitant amounts of money on special effects in order to tell a compelling story.
Stray Toasters
I pre-ordered DC Universe Online: Collector’s Edition two months ago, because I wanted perks that came with it.
The game went live yesterday.
I received an email from Best Buy – at 11:09 PM last night – saying that it was “backordered.”
I am not happy.
Wednesday – 05 January 2011
It’s midweek, which means that it’s Comics Wednesday! Unfortunately, no word has been given on if/when “Sushi Wednesday” will be reincorporated into the mix. I guess time will tell.
Last night was D&D 3.5 night with and company. Our party got into a fight… and got seriously smacked around. In fact, ‘s character took a beating at the hand a a war chief and came down with a sudden case of death. And, even though my character has some cleric-like (read: “healer”) abilities, he was beyond the scope of my power. So, I called in a favor. A big one. Really big. We got ‘s character back, but it came at a pretty steep cost. (That whole cleric thing I mentioned before…? It’s gone, at least for the foreseeable future.) Hopefully, that won’t come back to bite us in the collective recta.
Today, I got to work only to discover that I had left my ID badge at home.
*grblsnrkx*
I have a temp badge. Yay. Although, I really shouldn’t gripe too much… it does what I need it to. Mostly.
A new edition of “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” is missing something.
Throughout the book — 219 times in all — the word “nigger” is replaced by “slave,” a substitution that was made by NewSouth Books, a publisher based in Alabama, which plans to release the edition in February.
Alan Gribben, a professor of English at Auburn University at Montgomery, approached the publisher with the idea in July. Mr. Gribben said Tuesday that he had been teaching Mark Twain for decades and always hesitated before reading aloud the common racial epithet, which is used liberally in the book, a reflection of social attitudes in the mid-19th century.
I read this article before heading to work this morning. When I got to the office, angstd messaged me to ask if I had seen it and what I thought about it…
I first read Huck Finn when I was in 8th Grade. I remember having a little bit of difficulty with it, not because of the content or offensive language, but from a few of the slang used. Aside from that, it was “just a book.” The fact that it dealt with social issues – especially slavery – wasn’t a big concern of mine, at the time. (Come on… I was 13 and it was reading for school.) I do remember thinking that it was a good book, however.
I’m not on board with Professor Gribben’s argument. I understand translating books from one language to another, but this was written in English – granted, some word structures are a bit dated, but English, nonetheless – and as a classic work of American fiction, I say leave it. Mr. Twain wrote it in a particular manner and I think that it should remain in that form. “Nigger” has a… colorful… history, but it is part of the American lexicon and, more importantly, it was part of the daily speech of many in the 19th Century. Changing the word to “slave” changes the dynamic of the language. I’ll concede that both words were used to denigrate the people about whom they were used, but one has a history of being used more harshly and cruelly. (Three guesses which it was.)
I was pleased to note that the article included a counterpoint:
“I’m not offended by anything in ‘Huck Finn,’ ” said Elizabeth Absher, an English teacher at South Mountain High School in Arizona. “I am a big fan of Mark Twain, and I hear a lot worse in the hallway in front of my class.”
Ms. Absher teaches Twain short stories and makes “Huck Finn” available but does not teach it because it is too long — not because of the language.
“I think authors’ language should be left alone,” she said. “If it’s too offensive, it doesn’t belong in school, but if it expresses the way people felt about race or slavery in the context of their time, that’s something I’d talk about in teaching it.”
Agreed. Were some of the issues that came along with and out of slavery offensive? You bet they were. But I don’t see them as things to be swept under the rug or turned away from. If we do that, we forget about a powerful and divisive part of our history.
I’m sorry that Professor Gribben has a hard time with a few words. But, that’s all they are: Words. They can be used destructively, but we can learn many things – from who we were and where we’ve come from to what we have achieved and where we are going – from even the most harsh of words.
Perhaps the professor should take some time to read Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word, by Randall Kennedy. The book takes the word and attempts to present ways to diffuse its volatile nature and history.
I’m not a big country music fan, but I do like Darius Rucker… and Hootie and the Blowfish (much to my friend, Peggy’s, chagrin). I caught a performance of this song on Palladia the other night. I was amused and entertained by it:
