Friday, September 05, 2008

Everything old is new again!

Thanks to the folks over at "Long live the message" for this little tidbit. Not only are those some funny guys but they have LONG memories. If you see this you should direct it to at least 5 other people!

My first Neighborhood!

Who were the people in my neighborhood? No not my friends that lived next door or across the street from my grandmothers house in Chicago. My first neighbors, like many folks my age, were in a place I could never physically get to but I visited for about a hour Monday thru Friday.

Sesame Street was the place where anything was possible and anyone could get to. (I was especially happy when Uncle Stevie Wonder would come by for a visit.) According to my mother I had a unnatural attachment to “Big Bird” and after being given a Big Bird doll for Christmas we became inseparable.

There was Bob and Linda,

Gordon and Susan,

Maria and Luis

and Mr. Hooper

who ran the store on the corner surrounded by all these felt covered creatures that were just great.

Oscar the grouch, the Count, Bert and Ernie, Snuffy the Snuffleupagus (who was a secret until the mid 80’s) Cookie Monster, Grover, and Kermit the Frog (who left to purse a career on the Muppet Show)

Much simpler times indeed and with all this election/campaigning going on sometimes when it just gets to be too much I just want to go visit an old neighbor.

Let me just say that in doing the research for this blog it brought a tear to my eye as I poured over information about the shows progress since I had stopped watching it over 20 years ago. Not just the Elmo stuff which is well known but also the addition of HIV characters as well as the addition of characters many different nationalities. And even the progress of the Children born to characters on the show. Cant wait to check back in another 20 years.

Racism or just stupidity!!!!!!

So here we go…after 7 months of back and forth Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick “Mayor Bling Bling” the youngest Mayor in Detroit city history and someone who a lot of Detroit residents put a lot of hope into has resigned in disgrace.

“Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick -- who once said God chose him to lead his hometown and pledged to Detroiters "I would never quit on you" -- resigned Thursday, bringing an ignominious end to what once seemed like a career without limits.
In a standing-room-only Detroit courtroom, Kilpatrick pleaded guilty to felony charges in his perjury case and no contest in his assault case, ending his steadfast refusal to resign amid a scandal that only grew in intensity over the past eight months.
"I lied under oath," Kilpatrick told Wayne County Circuit Judge David Groner, almost echoing the Free Press headline in January that sparked the mayor's text message scandal.
Under the terms of his deal, Kilpatrick will spend four months in jail, forfeit his law license and his pension from the state Legislature, pay up to $1 million in restitution and serve 5 years of probation. He will leave office Sept. 18 and has promised not to run for office while on probation.”

I think the most upsetting aspect of this story is not the downfall of a black leader who thought that just because his Caucasian American counterparts could get away with foolishness he could as well. I think it is the screams of racism that I keep reading about. Does racism exist? Yes it sure does this country was built on that. That is not an angry rant that is just the truth which can be proven by any history book. This is the story of someone who broke the law because he thought he was above the law. He had power and abused it. So please guys, while racism is real and true in our society, it is not the case every time a black man goes down.