Watch Your Pets

I felt relief upon learning that canned pet foods were on the list of those to be avoided during this crisis in the food supply. My cats, Frank Sinatra and Sammie Dee, mainly eat dry food – and a by-prescription-only dry food at that.

Now, the federal Food and Drug Administration is saying that the pet foods to avoid may include dry food. So now I am carefully scrutinizing not just the labels of the food, but also watching my cats like a hawk, so to speak. They are definitely not lethargic; they chase each other through the house as always; they like water but don’t seem to be drinking any more than usual; and I haven’t seen any unusual vomiting or any diarrhea. I read the label on a bag of their food and did not find wheat or wheat gluten or additives that include ethoxyquine or propylene glycol. Their brand does include the additives BHT and BHA and one expert on a television show this morning said when perusing labels, look for them.

To learn if your pet food is on the list of brands to be avoided for now, call Menu Foods, which distributes products sold under a variety of names: 1-866-895-2708 or go to the Website: http://www.menufoods.com/recall/. Also check the Hills Pet Nutrition Inc., which has recalled one of its prescription products for cats: http://www.fda.gov/oc/po/firmrecalls/hills303_07.html

My cats consume a different prescription product than the one Hills is recalling. According to wire services: "Hills Pet Nutrition is recalling all Prescription Diet m/d Feline dry cat food, which contained wheat gluten from the same supplier used by Menu Foods - the Canadian company that has recalled 60 million cans and packets made between December and March. No other Hill's Prescription Diet or Science Diet products are affected, said the company, a division of Colgate-Palmolive Co."

Also check the FDA site: www.fda.gov

I appreciate what one retailer, Waggin' Tails, whose products I use (Yes, I spoil my cats with all sorts of gadgets and other comforts!), said in an e-mail blast to its customers: "For over 12 years, we have devoted ourselves to the health and well-being of your pets. Our philosophy is quite simple here. Menu Foods produced toxic food. Without specific information that clearly identifies the problem and assures us that the problem is isolated to just the foods on the recall list, we do not feel safe offering anything produced in their facilities. We will continue to update you as new information is available. Again, we extend our deepest sympathy for anyone with a dog or cat affected by this event. We invite any questions to us at info@waggintails.com"


Let’s be careful out there!

Rev. Jackson Likes Barack Obama

After some Blacks in prominent positions have raised questions about Sen. Obama’s bonafides as the candidate Black voters should embrace as THEIR candidate, the most visible leader in the civil rights community ended speculation about where he stands.

On Thursday, the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. told the Association Press, "He has my vote."

Among Blacks, that endorsement may go far. But we are a multifaceted people with multiple interests. When Jackson sought the presidency in 1984 and 1988, Black pride was a great part of his appeal. But we are past that. Now Obama’s positions must be weighed against those of others who are campaigning for the nominations of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.

Boys Choir of Harlem Founder Dies

Walter Turnbull, whose vision and passion led to the creation of the renowned Boys Choir of Harlem, but whose artistic and personal ego led him to remain in charge of the choir to its detriment in recent years, died a few hours ago.

This is how the news was reported locally in New York City by New York 1 News:
http://www.ny1news.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=1&aid=67985

Rest in peace.

We'll make assessments later. Check out my posting at www.bet.com.

My First Colonoscopy

I'd postposed this procedure twice, but finally got it done yesterday. And, now as with all new converts, I am proselytizing.

Get yourself tested to determine if you are at risk of various colo-rectal problems, including cancer. Check out this informative Web site:

http://www.webmd.com/colorectal-cancer/Colonoscopy-16695

Other than making up your mind to have the exam, the hardest part is prepping the day before, when you drink a fluid designed to, shall we say, "clean out your system." Then there's no eating until after the exam the next day. The procedure was relatively brief and very much painless as I was admnistered a sedative intravenously.

I'll do this again in five years.

This “Blood” Cherokee vs “Black Cherokee Freedmen” Issue Won’t Go Away

The Cherokee Nation, that rump group of Native Americans who are more proud of their White heritage than their Black heritage, voted to expel Blacks from the nation. That means they have to share $$$$ coming to the tribe via US government and gaming enterprises, with fewer people.

Among the many who have spoken up about this is the Congressional Black Caucus, which, according to the Associated Press, is asking the federal government “to weigh in on the legality of a vote by the Cherokee Nation earlier this month to revoke citizenship from descendants of former tribal slaves."

This from the AP: "Saying they were 'shocked and outraged,' more than two dozen members of the Congressional Black Caucus signed a letter to the Interior Department's Bureau of Indian Affairs questioning the 'validity, legality, as well as the morality' of the March 3 vote.

"'The black descendant Cherokees can trace their Native American heritage back in many cases for more than a century,' said Rep. Diane Watson (D-Calif.). 'They are legally a part of the Cherokee Nation through history, precedent, blood and treaty obligations.'”

Read what Mike Shelton, a member of the state legislature in Oklahama, says about how the Cherokee Nation is marching on the wrong trail: http://www.muskogeephoenix.com/opinion/local_story_070192128.html





50 Shots; Black Man Dead

This has been disturbing from the first, when Sean Bell, a young man literally hours away from his wedding ceremony in November, was gunned down by five cops who for some reason thought he was something other than a young man leaving a strip joint with friends on the eve of his wedding.

Apparently three cops have been indicted on charges of manslaughter.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/17/nyregion/17grand.html?hp

This won't be official until Monday. But officials -- elected and appointed and self-appointed --have been encourgaging US to be cool, to chill, to not go mau-mauing no matter what the results.

OK. But let's also put ourselves in the shoes of cops on the beat in a bad neighborhood trying to make the nabe safe for all of US. This is not an easy issue, is it?

St. Patrick's Day

The united states of us requires effort.

I have heard so many people say that they have no knowledge of what St. Patrick’s Day is all about except that it involves Irish people and drunkenness. There is much more to St. Patrick’s Day than that.

I have heard so many people say that they know nothing about Black History Month because they are not Black. Or they don't understand Chinese New Year because they are not Chinese. Or they ignore Columbus Day because they are not Italian.

I have heard so many people presume that Thanksgiving is about turkeys and football, but don’t realize the religious base for it. Or don’t see a commonality of purpose in celebrating Thanksgiving and Kwanzaa or Easter and Passover.

If the US in the United States are to truly be that, we need to reach beyond our limited concepts of from whence we’ve come. Even if that means rejecting some of that which our parents or teachers have burdened us with.

I have heard too many people say that Christianity is Catholicism and that’s it. As a good and faithful Baptist, I try to explain Protestants to them.

I make a point of expressing my Irishness this time of the year and using the opportunity of the holiday to generate discussions – in pubs no less! – about the connections between Blacks and Irish in this country. The Irish were considered the “niggers” of the British empire and then, after a few decades here, considered themselves to be White. Google the Draft Riots for a start. A lot of people of Irish backgrounds ended up in the antebellum South and a lot of us are their descendants, whether acknowledged or not.

In this nation, with all our resources, there is no excuse for not knowing more about our neighbors and workplace colleagues.

I am proudly Irish this weekend – and am preparing to cook my corn beef-and-cabbage luncheon for friends of any hue and religiosity – after an Irish breakfast at one of the nearby firehouses in Harlem.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Let's Find This Cretin!

A guy beating up on old ladies? My first thought was: Let me at him! But, first of all, he has to be caught. This brother is no brother. And I am so proud that the group of Black police officers has offered a reward for the capture of this predator. Who beats up old ladies for $33? A punk. A loser.

Someone out there knows who this is. But to see the video that captured him on tape attacking a 101-year-old woman in the lobby of her building, check this out:

http://www.nbc4.tv/news/11231241/detail.html

If anyone has any doubts about turning this creep in to the authorities, get over it.

As of a few days ago, more than 1,000 tips had come in to the New York City Police Department, but so far this guy is still out there. See: http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/ny-nymug115125712mar11,0,6702012.story?coll=ny-nynews-print

Keeping the Malians in Our Thoughts

Today will be one of the saddest days for the families and friends of the 10 victims of that raging house fire in the Bronx last week. Today comes the funerals and, for five victims, burial in a New Jersey cemetery. Others will be flown to Mali , one of the poorest countries in the world, for burial in family plots.

The public response has been heartwarming with people bringing everything from teddy bears to food to cash. But we have also been reminded that, in situations such as this, there will always be predators. By one account, a man in the neighborhood set up a container to raise money for the families, collected lots of it within a few minutes, then absconded. The City of New York, the State of New York and various civic associations have pledged to do all they can to help the surviving family members. The New York Yankees' principal owner, George Steinbrenner, has offered to cover the funeral costs. A real estate developer has offered, for free, to rebuild the gutted home on Woodycrest. Air France, for free, will fly the Malian funeral party to Mali. Politicians like U.S. Rep. Jose Serrano will try to ease immigration restrictions to permit family members, including a father of some of the children, to be able to travel to Mali for the burials and return to this country even though there are some "immigration papers issues" (You know, red tape?)

As I said in an earlier posting, the neighborhood Islamic center -- and site of the funerals -- is receiving donations. If you want to contribute, here's the information:

Magassa-Soumare Family Fund
c/o Islamic Cultural Center
371 E. 166th Street
Bronx, NY 10456

The telephone number you may call is 718-293-5323.

The Cherokee Nation's "Ethnic Cleansing" Is Not Acceptable

I could not believe what I was learning: The descendants of Native Americans who once owned slaves and later under a federal treaty and other legalities, made the slaves and their descendants citizens in the Cherokee Nation, were stripping them of their rights. The audacity! The racism! The greed! See how the official Cherokee newspaper, The Phoenix, reported this: http://www.cherokeephoenix.org/News/News.aspx?StoryID=2480

The New York Times explains some of the background to this in a Mar. 8 editorial (www.nytimes.com):

“This bitter dispute dates to the treaties of 1866, when the Cherokee, Seminole and Creek agreed to admit their former slaves as tribal members in return for recognition as sovereign nations. The tribes fought black membership from the start — even though many of the former slaves were products of mixed black and Indian marriages.

“The federal courts repeatedly upheld the treaties. But the federal government fanned the flames when a government commission set out in the 1890s to create an authoritative roll of tribal membership. Instead of placing everyone on a single roll, it made two lists. The so-called blood list contained nonblack Cherokees, listed with their percentage of Indian ancestry. The freedmen’s list included the names of any black members, even those with significant Cherokee ancestry.”

The actual election results – 3 to 1 for expelling descendants of slaves from membership, including access to health and educational benefits as well as any profits from tribal gambling enterprises -- can be seen at the official tribal site: http://www.cherokee.org/TribalGovernment/Election/home.aspx?section=ResultsSE&year=2007

At www.indianz.com, Tim Giago offers an explanation, but reaches, as far as I am concerned, an untenable conclusion. See: http://www.indianz.com/News/2007/001790.asp

We sometimes gloss over the complicated history between Native Americans and Black Americans. But, since attending a journalism convention some years ago in Atlanta, where journalists of color – including Native Americans and Blacks, among others – I have never forgotten how the Cherokees in their capital city, New Echota, thought of themselves as White as any “actual” White Southerners. (http://gastateparks.org/info/echota/) Now some of them are behaving like the Whites in the Thomas Jefferson family who refuse to acknowledge Black descendants of Jefferson, refusing them such benefits as membership in various Jefferson societies and the right to burial on the Jefferson estate in Virginia.

Of course, there are dissidents among any group. So there are members of the Cherokee Nation who are fighting against the expulsion of the Cherokee Freedman, just as some White Jefferson family members challenge the exclusion of Black Jefferson descendants.

A member of the Cherokee tribal council, Taylor Keen, has been quoted in various newspapers as saying: “This is a sad chapter in Cherokee history. But this is not my Cherokee Nation. My Cherokee Nation is one that honors all parts of her past.”

Now it is up to the courts, and perhaps the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs, to prevent this injustice being perpetrated by a people who should recall how much the tribe suffered when forced out of Southern states in the 1800s. The Trail of Tears, this episode was called. Now, perhaps the way that abused children often become abusers, the Cherokee Nation is promoting a 21st century version of that Trail of Tears.

After the Fire: The New York Yankees Step Up to the Plate

George Steinbrenner, the Yankees' principal owner, has announced that the team will pick up the costs of the funerals of the nine people -- including eight children -- who died in that awful fire in the Bronx, not too far from Yankee Stadium. Funerals will take place Monday. Some will be buried in New York; others will be flown home to Africa for burial in Mali.

People of lesser means than the Yankees' organization have been dropping by a makeshift memorial outside 1022 Woodycrest Avenue and giving money that by tonight amounted to at least $20,000, according to a WNBC television reporter.

The neighborhood Islamic center is receiving donations. If you want to contribute, here's the information:

Magassa-Soumare Family Fund
c/o Islamic Cultural Center
371 E. 166th Street
Bronx, NY 10456

The telephone number you may call is 718-293-5323.

"We Have A Fire!"

I cannot imagine the horror at that four-story house on Woodycrest Avenue in the Bronx Wednesday night when it went up in flames – possibily because of the misuse of an obviously much-needed space heater – and forced grownups to make split decisions about how to save the lives of as many of their family members as possible, including about a dozen children.

In the end, eight children, some as young as seven months old, perished. God bless their souls. But others survived because one of the adults tossed them out of a third-floor window of the house to Good Samaritans on the ground.

If somehow you have missed this story, catch up with The New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/pages/nyregion/index.html

Also: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Bronx-Fire.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
("Mosques Comfort Survivors of NYC Fire")

… and with one of the local NYC television stations:

www.wnbc.com
www.wabc.com
www.wcbstv.com
www.ny1news.com


So far, there is no really solid information on how to help the family – this was an extended immigrant family from Mali, in West Africa. But they obviously need everything from diapers to dollars. When I learn more, I will post more.

But be vigilant yourselves. When we switch to Day Light Savings Time Saturday night/Sunday morning, have fresh batteries installed in your smoke detectors. And work out family evacuation plans in case of fire. More importantly, I suppose: Know fire safety rules. Talk to your neighborhood firefighters.

Oh, Heck. My Family Didn't Win...

Upon hearing that one winner of this humongous MegaMillions lottery was someone in Georgia and then getting a constant busy signal at my mother's phone in Conyers, Ga., I just let myself imagine that she'd won and that the line was busy with congratulation calls. Of course, I was thinking that in her generosity, if she had won, she'd kick a million or so my way!

Oh, well...

Someone had left the phone off the hook.

Congratulations to whoever won. And please be smart and generous in handling all that cash. Remember Luke 12:48:

"For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask more."

Farrakhan Leaves the Stage

Now that Louis Farrakhan is reducing his role in the Nation of Islam – because of age and bad health – it is time for that organization to rethink its place in the Muslim world and to consider becoming aligned with orthodox Islam.

The Black Muslim movement, begun in Detroit in the 1930s, is rather passé. Malcolm X had turned in the orthodox direction after his expulsion from the NOI and his spiritual journey to Mecca; W. D. Mohammed, a son of the NOI’s founder, and his followers pursue a truer path of Islam than the NOI. Some of Mohammed’s followers consider Farrakhan’s to be members of a cult.

I consider Farrakhan to be a hatemongering, but charming, fanatic. The former entertainer managed to charm his way into some semblance of respectability through such events as the Million Man March. At his two-hour valedictory speech, he was joined on the podium, according to The Chicago Sun-Times, by the singer Anita Baker, hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, US Rep. John Conyers and leaders of organizations involved in reviving New Orleans post-Katrina.

Vibert White, a former NOI minister who is a professor of public history at the University of Central Florida, told The Christian Science Monitor: "His tone has changed because of a changing society. But his history has been one of hostile language, inflammatory language, elements of separation and segregation and 'America is the whore of the planet Earth' - he's not going to change those views overnight."

And, in The New York Times, a spokesman for W. D. Mohammed said of the NOI after Farrakhan: ''In the final analysis, they have no option but to move in the direction we are or to just dissipate or disappear. This community is going to reconcile itself to pure Islam and reconcile itself to being American citizens who are part of a multicultural society.''

I’ve been no great fan of Farrakhan, but I do recognize that this changing of the guard is historical. "My time is up," he said in Detroit. Good. But in the Christian tradition I wish Farrakhan peace and blessings.

Bloody Sunday, Part Two

If this was a competition, Barack Obama won in the Bloody Sunday Showdown in Selma, Alabama, today. No question.

Hillary Clinton gave a speech at the First Baptist Church. Barack Obama Jr. gave a politically-tinged sermon at the Brown A.M.E. Church, which was headquarters for the March 7, 1965, march for voting rights that ended in the beating and battering and tear gassing of the participants. He paid homage to the “Moses generation,” some of whom were in the congregation: the men and women who did so much to lead Blacks out of bondage but never quite made it to the Promised Land.

"We are in the presence today of a lot of Moseses. They are giants whose shoulders we stand on. They are people who battled on not just the behalf of African Americans, but on behalf of all Americans for America's soul....Like Moses, they challenged Pharoah, powers who said that some are on top and others are at the bottom and that's the way it's always going to be."

His is the “Joshua generation,” he said, tasked with the obligation to continue the journey and to move in directions the Moses generation could not even have imagined. "It's because they marched that the next generation hasn't been bloodied so much" and has excelled in many fields, including politics.

Not so subtlely silencing his critics about his racial identity, he recounted the life story of his Black grandfather, still called a "houseboy" when he was in his 60s in colonial Kenya and required to carry a passbook to get from one place in White-controlled Kenya to another part. But he dreamed and passed on his hope to his son, Barack Obama (Sr.), who benefitted from a US program to bring Africans to the US for education and to repair the American image abroad as a result of the well-publicized injustices and brutalities of the civil rights era. The possibilities for the Obamas changed "because some folks were willing to march across a bridge."

"So don't tell me I don't have a claim on Selma, Alabama. Don't tell me I'm not coming home when I come to Selma, Alabama. I'm here because somebody marched for our freedom."

His message, beyond connecting his family’s racial odyssey and his own to the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, was not that different from Clinton’s. They both said that the march must continue.

“We have to finish the march,” Hillary said. “That is the call to our generation, to our young people.”

"There are still some battles that need to be fought, some rivers that need to be crossed," Barack said.

And referring to God's message to Joshua, Barack admonished his listeners to “Be strong and have courage.” Blacks seem to be warming to that message.

The NAACP Is At It Again...Lost!

This news comes from the Associated Press today: The president, Bruce Gordon, who was hailed as the next great wave of leadership of this venerable civil rights organization, has given up -- and quit.


NAACP President Resigns After 19 Months
By ERIN TEXEIRA
The Associated Press
Sunday, March 4, 2007; 2:57 PM

NEW YORK -- NAACP President Bruce S. Gordon is quitting the civil rights organization, leaving after just 19 months at the helm, he told The Associated Press Sunday.

Gordon cited growing strain with board members over the group's management style and future operations.

"I believe that any organization that's going to be effective will only be effective if the board and the CEO are aligned and I don't think we are aligned," Gordon said. "This compromises the ability of the board to be as effective as it can be."

He spoke by phone from Los Angeles, where he had just attended the taping of the NAACP Image Awards.

Dennis C. Hayes, general counsel of the Baltimore-based National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, is expected to serve as interim president, Gordon said.

Hayes filled the same role after Kweisi Mfume resigned the presidency in 2004 after nine years.

Gordon said that while the NAACP is an advocacy organization, it needs to be more focused on service and finding solutions.

"I'm used to a CEO running an organization, with the board approving strategy and policy," Gordon said. "But the NAACP board is very much involved."

© 2007 The Associated Press

Bloody Sunday, Part One

If the New York Times' Maureen Dowd had her way, the bloody part of this commemoration of a very important day in US history, would come from Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton duking it out in Selma, Ala.

But Bloody Sunday is much more sacred than that. The name comes from that date in March 1965 when scores of Black people, including a very young John Lewis who is now a senior congressman from Georgia, had the crap beat out of them as they tried to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in a march to the capital, Montgomery, to demand the right to vote. Because so many people, including those in the White House, were horrified at the televised beatings, another march was scheduled, with Martin Luther King Jr. leading the line of advocates along with clergy of various faiths who came in as reinforcements. And President Johnson decided to use his muscle to convince Congress to enact the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

This is an account of what happened that Bloody Sunday, taken from Juan Williams' Eyes on the Prize, a riveting companion book to the PBS series of the same name in the 1980s. Look for the book in your local stores; the documentary is available on DVD.

"'When we arrived at the apex of the Edmund Pettus Bridge," recalls Lewis, 'we saw a sea of blue[-clad] Alabama state troopers.' Gas masks hung from the belts of the troopers, who were slapping billy clubs against their hands....Major John Cloud ordered them to turn back. 'It would be detrimental to your safety to continue this march,' he said....Fifty policemen moved forward, knocking the first ten to twenty demonstrators off their feet. People screamed and struggled to break free as their packs and bags were scattered across the pavement. Tear gas was fired, and then lawmen on horseback charged into the stumbling protesters....'The police were riding along on horseback beating people,' remembers Andrew Young. 'The tear gas was so thick you couldn't get to where the people were who needed help'....Television coverage of the police assault interrupted the networks' regular programming; ABC broke into its broadcast of the film Judgment at Nuremberg. 'When that beating happened at the foot of the bridge, it looked like war,' recalls Mayor Smitherman. 'That went all over the country. And the people, the wrath of the nation came down on us.'"

Hillary is showing up with her ace in the hole for courting Blacks, former President Bill Clinton. Obama is speaking in the church that was headquarters for the Selma campaign, the Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church, and he has John Lewis at his side, along with others like Joseph Lowery who were King's aides and successors.

But rather that political strategizing, this day should be one for remembering what Blacks and some of their White allies went through to gain the right to vote that had been included in the US Constitution since 1870, but never really enforced. In essence, Blacks gained the right to vote in 1965 because of Bloody Sunday.

So Does THIS Make Obama "Black Enough"?

As you know, I reject this litmus test that some Blacks have for Obama or any other Black person seeking the US presidency -- that is to say, Were your forebears slaves?

Obama's mother, a White Kansan, and his father, a Black Kenyan -- and a healthy dose of ignorance, of course -- are the bases for raising the "Black enough" question.

So guess what? Obama is still showing how our racial identities are all mixed up and should be irrelevant as a determinant of whether one is worthy of our votes. It turns out that some of his mother's forebears OWNED slaves. So, I ask, does that make him Black enough? It's a connection to slavery!

Professor Ron Walters, a political scientist, said this to the Baltimore Sun, which ran the story as a major front-page "exclusive": "The twist is very interesting. It deepens his connection with the experience of slavery, even if it deepens it on a different side of the equation."

Check this out in The Baltimore Sun:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/politics/bal-obama0301,0,789030.story?coll=bal-home-headlines

Here's another article, from the New York Daily News, that suggests that Obama's family tree might also contain Quincy Jones. Does THAT make him Black enough?

A spokesman for Obama said: "It is a true measure of progress that the descendant of a slave owner would come to marry a student from Kenya and produce a son who would grow up to be a candidate for president of the United States."

Giuliani's Repackaging Himself

So Rudy, who says he doesn't always agree with himself, went to the convention of the Conservative Political Action Conference, the folks who don't like gay people, don't support abortion rights and harp upon family values. It seems that Giuliani has absolutely NOTHING in common with them.

But he'll grovel for votes, obscuring his actual pre-9/11 record as a husband and father and as New York City's mayor -- and these desperate CPACers seem willing to hitch their wagon to whoever looks like he can beat Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama or any other Democrat. Forget that he's been married three times, including to a cousin and to a woman he cheated on then announced in a press conference that he was leaving her -- before he let her know it in person. Forget that he's estranged from his children. Forget that he supports gay rights and abortion rights and gun control.

And people wonder why so many of US are cynical about -- and turned off by -- politics?

For Rudy and the CPACers, the theme seems to be: "Anything Goes, As Long as It Doesn't Involve a Democrat."

Don’t Stop With Firing the Secretary of the Army!

I’m dismayed daily when I hear reports that one or two or more of US troops have been killed and some far larger number have been wounded. If we focus on this at all, we focus on the deaths, we may drop a tear when we see funeral processions in our communities or see in newspapers those mesmerizing color photos of families and friends grieving at church services or burial sites.

But what about all those tens of thousands of wounded? Out of sight; out of mind.

Until a Washington Post series of articles that has lifted the curtain – and ending up, so far, with the firing of the Secretary of the Army, Francis J. Harvey. (See: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2007/02/21/LI2007022100671.html)


“I am disappointed that some in the Army have not adequately appreciated the seriousness of the situation,” Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, said yesterday. He was described by the New York Times as “grim-faced” as he said that. Well should he be.

The wounded who are outpatients at the crème de la crème of military medical care, the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, are dumped into a moldy, rodent-infested building across the street from the main medical building – the one that the politicians and celebrities make sure to be photographed visiting – and are forced to jump through hoops – without arms and legs in some cases – to get adequate medical care. Washington Post reporters documented "mouse droppings, belly-up cockroaches, stained carpets, cheap mattresses" as well as crumbling ceilings and floors. Even a Republican Congressman, Tom Davis of Virginia told the Post: "You could put all the wounded soldiers in the Ritz-Carlton, and it wouldn't fix the personnel management and recordkeeping problems that keep them languishing in outpatient limbo out there for months."

Too little too late, President Bush has said: “This is unacceptable to me. It is unacceptable to our country. And it’s not going to continue.”

Some say the military medical establishment has been overwhelmed because it did not expect so many troops to survive such serious injuries as are being seen in Iraq and Afghanistan. Just more proof of incompetence by the entire Bush regime in carrying out this so-called war on terrorism that is so very much helter-skelter.

No Sympathy for Teens Who Tortured and Baked a Puppy

Two brothers who admitted torturing and killing a small puppy by baking it to death inside a gas oven will serve 10 years in prison.

Some people believe that is 10 years too much, that they should have been given some slap on the wrist. Short of a public tarring and feathering, I cannot imagine a sentence more appropriatee.

Justin and Joshua Moulder, who essentially threw themselves on the mercy of the court with guilty pleas to nine felony counts, found little sympathy from Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thelma Wyatt Cummings Moore at a three-hour sentencing hearing last month.

She described the acts the boys pleaded guilty to — taking the puppy and smearing paint on it, trying to set it on fire, hog tying its feet with duct tape and binding its snout before stuffing it into a searing hot gas oven — as "malicious, unbridled cruelty."

"The way we treat animals, the way we treat the least of these is a reflection of society," Moore said.
"We will not tolerate this conduct as human beings."

Moore sentenced the brothers, ages 19 and 17 and with lengthy juvenile records, to the maximum on several counts, merging the times in jail for a final sentence of 10 years in prison, plus 10 years of probation. The felony animal cruelty charge carried a maximum of 5 years in prison. However, the time in jail increased because of charges for burglary, criminal damage to property and child cruelty.

The sentence matched the recommendation of prosecutors. Defense lawyers asked for six months in prison plus four and a half years on probation. The brothers could have been given as many as 90 years in jail.

A few years ago, I would not have paid much attention to this story. I thought of myself as not into pets and not into children, either. But I’m the homework lady and the cookie lady and the Christmas tree lady to kids in my ambit these days. AND, I am the mama cat to Frank Sinatra and Sammie Dee, who I adopted six and five years ago, respectively. They were throw-aways. Now they are two of the most pampered pussies you can imagine this side of what Al Sharpton or Donald Trump can afford.

We share this Earth with all manner of creatures. Some of us like to think of humans as shepherds over God’s flock. These Moulder brothers, and perhaps other members of their family, violated the unspoken covenant we have with our fellow creatures – human and otherwise.

Let’s hope they figure that out while behind bars. In the meantime, the rest of US can do something about abused and neglected animals by contributing to the ASPCA (www.myaspca.org; 888-776-01111).

Clarence Thomas Speaks Out

In many ways, I'm not so different from US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on the subject of affirmative action. I still believe that President Clinton's "mend it, don't end it" approach is, unfortunately, necessary. But I understand Thomas's abhorrence of a policy that begins with the premise that Blacks are, no matter their actual backgrounds, damaged goods in need of handouts to get a leg up.

We do not often hear from Justice Thomas beyond his utterances through the US Supreme Court, where he is the only Black. He is often the butt of jokes, scorned as an Uncle Tom and a conservative lackey, seen as so into his White world that he has forgotten from whence he came (poor Black folks near Savannah, Ga.)

I’ve actually read his opinions and, among the columns for which I was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1996, was one defending his position in a school-discrimination case. (www.pulitzer.org, See Commentary.):


July 12, 1995


Clarence Thomas' Input in Race Debate


THREE OF MY fellow Georgians stand at the forefront of our painful national debate on racism and remedies: House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the self-proclaimed leader of the Republican revolution; Rep. Cynthia McKinney, whose racially gerrymandered congressional district the Supreme Court deemed unlawful, and Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court justice who, if you listen to some folks, was single-handedly responsible for that decision and an earlier one limiting the federal courts' role in the area of school desegregation.

Thomas has been pilloried, "called everything but a child of God," as we say in Georgia. But rather than being "an Uncle Tom," as so many are so quick to say, at times he sounds to me like W.E.B. Du Bois, the scholar, founding member of the NAACP and Pan-Africanist whose bona fides has not been called into question as far as I know.

You probably think I'm nuts, but consider what Du Bois had to say 60 years ago when educators like himself and lawyers such as Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall were debating what to do about segregated schools. Work to raise their quality, while conceding the reality of American apartheid? Or sue to end state-mandated segregation, arguing that integration was the only assurance black children could get a decent education?

In the July 1935 Journal of Negro Education, leading scholars, including E. Franklin Frazier, Ralph Bunche, Horace Mann Bond, Alain Locke and Du Bois, weighed in on the subject. Du Bois chastised blacks for their "utter lack of faith" in their own schools. "[A]s long as American Negroes believe that their race is constitutionally and permanently inferior to white people, they necessarily disbelieve in every possible Negro institution." The quality of the education should be paramount, he said, not whether black kids sat next to white kids in integrated classrooms. "The Negro needs neither segregated schools nor mixed schools," Du Bois declared. "What he needs is Education."

Thomas seemed to echo Du Bois a few weeks ago in finding that a federal judge had gone too far in requiring an elaborate desegregation plan to achieve racial balance in the public schools of Kansas City, Mo., where, in some instances, schools were 90% black. Looking at black students' poor academic performance, the federal judge concluded that there was a link between the high proportion of blacks and the low quality of the schools.

"It never ceases to amaze me that the courts are so willing to assume that anything that is predominantly black must be inferior," Thomas wrote in a passionate critique of the Kansas City plan. Of the Missouri court's insistence on racial balance, he said: "This position appears to rest upon the idea that any school that is black is inferior, and that blacks cannot succeed without the benefit of the company of whites."

Thomas, like Du Bois, would say to local school officials and parents: Fix the schools to make sure that they are indeed educating kids. Demand that every school gets its fair share of education dollars. Let kids go to school in their own neighborhoods if they choose. And forget about what proportion of students are of what race. Thomas agrees with Du Bois that it's wrong to use children as "battering rams" in the elusive goal of creating an integrated society.

Admittedly, Thomas is a strange bird, but he seems to have more faith in the ability of blacks to stand on their own two feet than do some of those who berate him. His is an Old Testament-style tough love. He is yes, I do believe this a proud black man. But a confused one.

"We're a mixed-up generation, those of us who were sent to integrate society," Thomas once said.

I'm part of that generation that was the first to integrate this, that or the other. We've got the bruises psychic, if not physical to show it. So who better than us the expeditionary troops, the cannon fodder to force Americans to confront racism and shape remedies that make sense for the 1990s? Black thought on racism did not begin with the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education case. The remedies we seek should not end with it.

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Check Thomas out now, with his own take on how he got to where he is today. He still thinks he pretty much made it on his own. But the White benefactors probably did see him as an affirmative action hire. Maybe he can only be comfortable in his own skin by denying that.

Go to this web address:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-thomas3mar03,0,4638507.story?track=ntothtml