Fubar Economics continueth…

Well, it looks like the bail out has failed…fizzled…gone up in smoke and been dissed and dismissed.

And the market is taking a dive, y’all!

Wince.

Happy fucking Monday.

So, now what?

Oh, that’s right…the blame game!

Lawd, have mercy.

Bail-out agreements have tons of parents…

…but Absolute Fubar is an orphan.

We better stop, hey, what's that sound…

A bitch is beyond sorry that my sick ass hasn’t been posting much this week! I don’t get truly ill very often but when I do it usually is a full blown festival of Ebola. But I’m feeling much better now thanks to the fantabulous horehound flavored old fashioned hard candies Brother Rob Thurman gave me to shut my loud as hell cough up. They really work and aren’t as nastified as cough drops…plus a bitch just adores the word horehound.

Anyhoo…shall we?

If someone had sent this bitch a prediction detailing the events of the past month I would have told them they had lost the damn mind, but truth truly is stranger than fiction and the world is rapidly going to shit.

Yesterday Congress went from rejecting Paulson’s bailout plan to agreeing on principles detailed in a revised plan…to being summoned to a ‘let’s wrap this shit up with a photo op’ meeting with Bush and his minions only to have insurgent House Republicans toss out their own sorta-plan mid wrap-up meeting…shudder…which resulted in a lot of shouting, a bunch of post-meeting spin sessions and absolutely no fucking plan to address the nation’s economic clusterfuck.

From what a bitch has been able to gather up, the House insurgents want Wall Street to pay for their own bail out...

…and a bitch can only wonder who the fuck doesn’t.

Hell, this bitch is still waiting for Iraq’s oil revenue stimulus refund check to show the fuck up.

Blink.

It’s safe to say that everyone would like Wall Street to handle their bitness their own damn self…the question is whether that’s a realistic possibility.

***cue crickets***

Right.

When I heard about this revolt this hard working American immediately had some questions.

Can we have some fucking details please?

For example, who among the Wall Street herd has agreed…and by “agreed” a bitch means signed the fuck up and given access to their money filled coffers…to pay for the private bail out?

How much power, if any, does Congress have to force Wall Street to pay for the bailout of all these fucked up from the floor up institutions?

When would the first checks show up…how would the frequency of payments be decided…would Wall Street pay in advance and Congress withdraw the money or would Wall Street control the bailout…would Congress draft the plan and use Wall Street’s money or would Wall Street take this shit completely over?

Oh, and if the reason for demanding that Wall Street fix this shit is that Wall Street created this shit…and this bitch loves how that conveniently ignores the role deregulation played in this drama…then isn’t that also a reason to not put the nation’s economic future in Wall Street’s hands?

Everybody look what's going down.

A Girl like Me: A Conversation About Race, Beauty and Self-Image

Join this bitch for some film viewage followed by some keepin' it real discussions!

When?

Wednesday October 1, 2008 at 6 p.m.

Where?

Missouri History Museum in Forest Park in the AT&T Foundation Multipurpose Room

How much money are you talking, ABB?

It’s free, damnit!

Join us for a candid discussion about popular images, race and beauty. The program begins with a short documentary, A Girl like Me (7:08), created by high schooler Kiri Davis through the Reel Works Teen Filmmaking program.

Davis re-conducts the “doll test” used in the historic Brown v. Board of Education case and sheds new light on how society affects black children today.

Discussion facilitators include Nicci Roach, assistant director for Webster University–Old Post Office Campus, and this bitch (wink)!

Brown bag dinners are welcome and light refreshments will also be available.

I hope to see y’all there!

A bitch is a best of!

A bitch’s blog was selected by the editors of the Riverfront Times as a Best Blog in The Lou for 2008.

Blink.

Fantabulous!

***fluffs Afro and checks lipstick (perfection, thy name is MAC Film Noir in Satin)***

And congratulations to my fellow blogger and friend Steve of Urban Review STL for being selected by the readers of the RFT as the Best Blog in St. Louis – you earned the hell out of that one, m’dear!

Congrats!

Fubar Economics…

Cough.

A bitch’s Ebola-esque cough lingereth.

Ugh.

But I do feel better.

Anyhoo, I’ve been watching the media frenzy over The Big Bailout and my ass has been getting more and more disgusted with just about everyone. As I watched the news break…hard as a motherfucker…that the FBI is now investigating the very bitnesses that we the people are being asked to bail out it hit me…

Scooter B. (President Bush for the uninitiated) has achieved Absolute Fubar.

The dude has fucked up on all levels - education, international diplomacy, the war, natural disaster preparedness, the environment, social security reform, immigration reform, HIV/AIDS relief-leadership-prevention-funding-education, healthcare reform.

Hell, he hasn’t even managed to reduce the number of divorces between sanctified man on woman married people.

Now the economy has been turned into a rancid piece of shit that Scooter B.’s minions are trying to wrap up and re-gift as The Great Corporate Felon Bailout of 2008.

And we've still got months of this shit followed by years of clean-up to do.

Mmmhmmm - absolute fucking fubar.

If you don’t think they can fuck anything else up between now and the blessed end of our great national nightmare in January, you just sit a spell and these motherfuckers will prove you wrong.

Pause...consider...continue.

As a matter of fact this bitch is pretty sure that there's a minion working himself into a fit right now trying to prove that the economic crisis is the result of that Big Bang test creating a black hole in the middle of earth that sucked up our money so that he can then justify an invasion of Switzerland and we can take the fight to where the black hole creating enemies of capitalism live and not wait for them to try and test that theory on American soil.

Blink.

Is it just me…

…or is there something hauntingly familiar about the swiftness with which Scooter B. and his minions are trying to cram through the Great Reorganization of All Things Fubar and Money Related emergency legislation?

Blink.

I’m just saying…this kind of 'oh shit, the markets are falling!' massive 24/7 freak-out festival followed by a series of 'hurry, hurry c’mon hurry!!' record breaking (so you know no one really read the shit) expensive as hell proposal creating law writing events…cough…feels a lot like the quick fix head fake war authorization drama that continues to be the fuck up that just keeps on fucking.

Blink once again.

A bitch suggests a multi-hour session of quiet reading time…stat!

Mercy…

A bitch has been sick for days!

Wince…sneeze…hack, cough, hack.

Ugh.

This is my first cold-based Ebola incident since being diagnosed with high blood pressure and let me tell you – the BP safe cold meds are not the same. I was so hoping for that blissful release resulting from consuming 2 tablespoons of foul tasting nighttime liquid…but the good shit is the same shit that I’m not supposed to take now that my pressure is high!

So this bitch ended up taking some blood pressure approved cold meds that made my cough go away and reduced my fever and so forth...but they skipped right over the bliss-based nighttime liquid med sleep.

Shit.

Being sick and responsible is the very definition of not fun.

Anyhoo, I sound worse but feel much better.

Thanks for the well wishes!

Illish…

Some sort of cough-based Ebola like thing has jumped up and taken over my lungs.

Blink.

A bitch is ill.

Sob!

Toodles until I feel human again…

You wanted to tussle…

Okay, this one’s for the assholes who e-mail this bitch because they honestly think I’ve been waiting for 35 damn years for their dumb ass to instruct me on reproductive justice and the souls of black folk.

Lawd, have mercy.

A bitch has a cough and cramps (TMI? Well, too damn bad!!) and y’all picked the wrong day to hit send.

Pause…enjoy soothing honey-lemon cough drop (yum!)…continue.

While the GOP, with the help of minions like you, was busy funding man-on-woman marriage marketing initiatives that fail to preserve man-on-woman marriages, attacking a woman’s right to get a prescription filled/make a decision/choose a damn thing, removing science and facts from our public schools and textbooks, denying the existence of global warming, blocking research into alternative fuel sources, freaking out about what people do in our bedrooms, alienating the rest of the world, destroying the economy, securing tax cuts for rich people, slashing funding for social programs that benefit seniors/the disabled/the poor/the hungry/the mentally ill and making war not peace…

Cough.

…yeah, while all y’all were busy doing that shit the economy has tanked, the environment is telling us to go fuck ourselves, one in four teen girls has an sti, HIV/AIDS numbers are increasing, our roads and bridges are fucked, we’ve alienated the world, our youth can no longer compete academically and the nation is now in dire need of those social programs that are no longer funded worth a shit.

Y'all have a record, assholes!

We're all suffering for it.

And if that's y'all putting country first I'd hate to see what your maverick asses do to those coming in second...

Music and Meaning…

A bitch woke up with this song playing in my head…

Every morning
Every evening
Ain't we got fun?
Not much money
Oh but honey
Ain't We Got Fun?
The rent's unpaid dear
We have'nt a bus
But smiles were made dear
For people like us!

In the winter
In the summer
Don't we have fun?
Times are bum and getting bummer
Still we have fun!
There's nothing surer
The rich get rich and the poor get children

Blink.

In the meantime
In between time
Ain't we got fun?!?

Wince.

…and John McCain reading from the Herbert Hoover Happy Days Are Here Again ‘Cause I Said So, Damnit Playbook of Absolute Delusional Bullshit (National Despair and Guaranteed Suffering Edition Volume II) while appearing live on two morning chat shows at the same time.

Sigh.

***logs off whilst humming It's The Hard-Knock Life***

Belatedly remembering…

Yesterday was the 45th anniversary of the terrorist attack on the 16th Street Baptist Church that took the lives of four young women.

This attack has always touched me emotionally because I first heard about it when I was around the same age as the young women who were murdered. Spike Lee’s documentary Four Little Girls provides an amazing portrait of the young women who lost their lives that day, the movement as it was when the attack happened and the impact of that bombing on America.

Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson and Addie Mae Collins were murdered on September 15, 1963 when a bomb went off at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham Alabama...

...just 45 years ago.

The cost of distraction…

This bitch is disgusted by the number of Missouri children who are at risk because they have no healthcare coverage...and my ass is only more disgusted that talking heads prefer to debate lipstick and pig.

Shit.

Longtime readers know that a bitch has no love for outgoing Missouri Governor Matt Blunt. The freakish experiment in nepotistic drama that was Blunt’s rise to power has taken a serious toll on my home state….and left this bitch wishing Daddy Blunt had found some D.C. based pencil pushing position to install his fucked up from the floor up son in to.

But Missouri can’t blame the entire 44% rise in the number of uninsured Missouri children on Gov. Blunt’s gleeful slashing of Medicaid funding.

He’s a fuck up, for sure…but some of this is due to the fact that Missouri is hemorrhaging jobs and unemployment is soaring and parents without private healthcare through their employers can’t insure their children.

Unemployment in Missouri is at a 16 year high…the national economic crisis is hitting home here and people looking for income must weigh the need for healthcare against the need for shelter and food.

Missouri is writhing under the impact of complete GOP control of our state on top of the GOP’s federal failure to manage the economy.

And trust that Senator McCain offers nothing but more cuts and a Hoover-esque hands off approach to the economy that will have the same nightmarish results.

Shit rolls downhill, picks up speed and usually crashes down on the masses locally. Someone somewhere may want to start asking those specifics avoiding maverick broncos why they are allergic to funding domestic policies and why they speak of reform yet support a political posture that will continue to send what little money we have elsewhere and why their values fail to value hard working American families.

That’s where we are at, y’all…Missouri sure as shit ain’t alone in this…and a new outfit of bedazzled maverick-based bullshit spin followed by a full makeover at the MAC counter won’t make this pig pretty…

CHICAGO 10…

Last night this bitch and Brother Rob Thurman took in a bit of film.

Specifically, we took advantage of the Community Cinema series at the Missouri History Museum. They have partnered with KETC/Channel 9 to provide advance screenings of ITVS (Independent Television Service) documentaries followed by a panel discussion of each film by local authorities on the subject.

Fantabulous!

We saw CHICAGO 10 by Brett Morgan, which follows the conspiracy trial that followed the violence of the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. Some the clips were completely new to me…and a bitch has seen many a documentary about that event. And the use of animation was interesting and creative.

But the real hook of any film that tackles the 1968 DNC and the violence surrounding it is the human drama and bone jarring assault on our basic freedoms. With CHICAGO 10 I found myself becoming very emotional as I watched unarmed people being beaten and gassed in the streets of Chicago. The sounds and the visual chaos were almost overwhelming, but are too important a reminder of what can happen to be ignored.

CHICAGO 10 by Brett Morgan will air nationally on the PBS series Independent Lens Wednesday, October 22, 2008 at 9pm.

Check it out…

...shall not perish from the earth.

It was November of 1863 when Lincoln stood before the field where thousands of souls lay buried and delivered his address to those gathered there in remembrance.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

I have been taught that his words quieted those opposed to the Civil War and somehow soothed the ravaged hearts of those who counted the cost too great and the goal unattainable.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But today, on this day of national remembrance, Lincoln’s great address holds different meaning…not a justification for death and sacrifice, but a declaration of purpose that is beyond conflict and war.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground.

So that those who seek to remember can do so with context.

The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.

So that no one can corrupt that tragedy and the thousands who died as a result of it with politics, fame or glamour.

The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

Despite the praise lavished upon Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, one can not hear it or read it and avoid that call to purpose…the lack of arrogance…the humble exploration of sacrifice too great for mere words to define and loss too raw for comfort to penetrate.

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.

And isn’t that the great and worthy task before us now? Aren’t we now called upon to act and do and move forward toward something…some thing, Lord have mercy…a new era built not through conflict but in the aftermath when the guns fall silent, the dead are buried and the living are left to make sense of it all.

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion...

Life - and the fearless living of it to the fullest.

...that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain...

Liberty - and the brave defense of it from all enemies, foreign or domestic.

...that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom...

And the pursuit of happiness.

Of joy.

Of the blessing that is peace.

And that government of the people, by the people, for the people,

shall

not

perish

from

the

earth.

By request, my thoughts thus far…

A certain Maria in Toronto (much love to my Canadian readers!!) wrote to ask this bitch for my thoughts on the 2008 election coverage/happenings thus far.

Girl, you asked for it (wink).

Shall we?

I don’t know about y’all, but this bitch has had enough political bullshit tossed my way in the last few months to keep me shoveling for a lifetime.

I’m tired of listening to people debate elections and candidates as if this shit were fantasy football.

And I’m tired of discussions about the bedazzling factor of this chess move versus the fantastical cleverness of some other move designed to turn on the press yet full to bursting with nothingness.

So, I’d say my emotional state is damn near Howard Beale-ish.

I live in a city where white flight has left deep trenches that allow too many people to navigate their way through life without ever seeing what the fuck is going on around them. Just by selecting a certain route to work people can go about their business and never see the city…never see what needs to be done and who needs to be given a voice.

Then, come an election, they get some direct mail pieces talking about all manner of progress that hasn’t really happened and threats that don’t really exist and they take their blissfully uninformed ass to the polls and vote for four more years of the same miserable waste of time, space and money.

And my city suffers for that.

Well, I see the same damn thing going on with this election from the bottom of the ballot on up.

I’ve got to be honest…I don’t give a flying shit if Gov. Palin's middle name is AgentforChangeMaverickChangeAgent or if she discovered the cure for the common cold.

News flash - Palin isn’t running for president.

Neither is Joey B., for that matter.

So, unless someone wants to get into an awkward as hell life insurance-esque discussion of why the fuck y’all are really debating her qualifications…

***cue crickets***

…yeah, uh huh...then move the hell on.

The economy is fucked…very fucked…not fixable any time soon and requiring a lot of serious attention…fubar!

Our children are being sorta-educated by a system that is guaranteed to look good on paper and leave them unprepared to compete in a global marketplace.

Immigration reform is still unaddressed and, just like healthcare reform, that shit ain’t gonna get any easier the longer we let it sit.

We are at war without a definition of success or completion…we’ve got a reduction of violence out of a troop surge but no measurable political reconciliation…and the rest of the world is moving into military and political postures that look a lot like the lead up to WWI.

People in my hood are starting to discuss winter fuel prices like Soviets used to lament the price of bread.

The roads are fucked up…our ability to handle natural disasters is so up in the air that news anchors visibly sigh with relief when a flood doesn’t result in a massive loss of life.

The air is polluted…rent is too high and foreclosure too real…the water tastes funny…our food is suspect…and we’re on the way to another holiday season full of “oh shit, don’t let Tommy chew on that!!” recalls from hell.

All of that shit and so much more remain pilled high and stinking with a vengeance.

That’s what happens when we the people discuss whether a candidate would be nice to grab a beer with instead of the issues and the policies being proposed to address those issues.

What we are dealing with right now is the outcome of two back-to-back elections built on the wrong foundation and a media supported policy of ignore and redirect.

And we all suffer for that shit.

Lawd, have mercy.

So when I read reports that people are responding to this insulting as hell intellectually lazy off topic when we can least afford to be off topic pseudo-coverage, I can only conclude that my fellow Americans have either learned to enjoy and eagerly anticipate pain, misery and want.

Or mayhap people have lost their motherfucking minds.

Or could be that there are a lot of us out there about to give voice to our inner Howard Beale...

A political poll pondering…

Happy Monday, y’all!

Shall we?

This bitch has never been asked to take a political poll. I only know two people who have. So, I am always amazed when polls of likely voters come out.

Are these polls really of likely voters or just likely voters who pick up the phone and answer questions?

Hmmm.

Its not as if they release the wording of the questions with the poll numbers on the telly…or even explain what the margin of error means when they release that shit…and they certainly do not explain the math behind that shit or how many folks made up the sample size or how diverse the geography or how they account for dips in that geographic diversity to make sure that all the respondents aren’t from the county or city or rural areas.

Blink.

Politics remains local and this Voter Education teacher knows that what motivates one voter doesn’t mean shit to another…that where a voter lives influences how they vote…that the demands of a voter’s life influence how likely their ass is to vote…and that most motherfuckers make up their damned minds on who they will vote for in November in October.

Late October.

Pretty much the weekend before the election.

Sigh.

A bitch doesn’t think that the late deciding of voters is a bad thing. As a political junkie my ass knows that all manner of shit comes out in the final weeks of an election. Plus, waiting and pondering means that folks are thinking…and that’s a good thing.

I just hope that they are thinking about their lives and what this election will mean to them…

…and not waiting for a poll of likely voters to tell them where to find the rest of the +/- 3% herd.

Pondering skip-based fearless happy…

A bitch woke up this morning feeling all kinds of down.

I’m a wee bit under the weather...all kinds of stress-based drama are going on…and my ass is nervous as hell over just about everything.

Shit.

Anyhoo, I was driving to work…the radio was on and September came over Miss SisterGirl Cabrio’s speakers.

And there I was, sitting at a red light and absently watching a crew of grade school chil’ren skip their way up the sidewalk towards school and it struck me that their kind of happy shouldn’t be fleeting.

Skip-based fearless happy…that emotion that hovers between concern and absolute joy…shouldn’t be a privilege.

Do you feel me?

I’m talking about the hope that today is going to be a good day…that they’ll serve pizza and grape soda pop for lunch (wink)…optimism, damn it.

Yeah, that.

The light switched.

The song faded away with horns blasting.

And this bitch was grateful for the random way my mind reminds me of certain shit.

No matter how much The Man tries to distract and redirect, politics and elections are about our quality of life and the lives of those we care for live.

That is so easy to forget amidst the glitz and declarations…the spin and promises.

Mmmhmmm, and this bitch’ll take skip-based fearless happy over the politics of fear any day…

...with pizza and grape soda for lunch for all!

The third rail…

A bitch is feeling under the everything today.

Sigh.

But I do have some thoughts on the emerging debate inspired by the announcement that Gov. Palin's daughter is pregnant.

This bitch...with a wee bit of reluctance...agrees that a candidate’s family is off limits.

Blink.

What?

Well, shit…a bitch is used to rock ‘em sock ‘em city politics where everything and the temperament of a candidate’s dawg is on the table, everyone knows that shit and folks usually survive in the end.

Oh, catch thy knee and please continue reading.

Mercy.

Of course I object to totally unrelated personal shit that wasn’t introduced by the candidate being tossed out as if it has anything to do with what that person has accomplished, could accomplish or wants to accomplish while in office.

And of course this bitch isn’t going to tear into a young woman who isn’t running for damn thing just because her mother is.

However…and you knew that was coming…the frenzified back-and-forth over the impact of this story did make this bitch do some inner work.

And I realized that I wanted to touch that third rail so bad it fucking hurt.

I did!

Fuck it…a bitch is honest.

The thing is, I wanted to go there because “they” have been going there without a fucking qualm for years…because Gov. Palin is advocating a sex education policy that fails to educate youth about sex…because the young women I have partnered with at local shelters will face motherhood in large part without the support of their family, their community, their government and too damn many of them found out how to prevent pregnancy when they got pregnant.

Yeah, I wanted to go there so bad I could fucking taste it.

Sigh.

But I woke up this morning knowing that the way to combat someone forcing their narrow and flawed values on society is not to do as they do and that they path to funding and support for comprehensive sex education does not run through Bristol Palin’s bitness.

Danger.

No trespassing.

Third rail.

I get it.

But we who support a return to comprehensive sex education and funding for comprehensive sex education in our nation’s classrooms…we who live in communities where sti rates are through the roof and young people risk more than the relentless glare of the national media’s spotlight when they are sexually active…we who believe that knowledge is power need to stand up and declare that shit.

There ain’t no third rail on the reproductive justice tracks…

And away we go...!

Umm.

Okay, so a bitch logged on today to check out the rumor that Gov. Palin’s youngest child was actually her daughter’s child and…well, ummm...cough,

It seems that the rumor is not true…sorta-not true…no, no its not true...okay, the 17 year old daughter is pregnant.

As much as I’d like to take this moment to address the urgent need for comprehensive sex education in all schools…access to birth control and family planning for all people…and sti testing for the masses…I’m going to save that for later (wink).

Senator McCain’s camp has confirmed this story and they say that McCain was aware of the Palin daughter’s pregnancy prior to selecting Gov. Palin.

Daughter Palin plans to take her pregnancy to term…keep the baby…and, of course, man on woman under Gawd marry the baby’s father.

Meanwhile, GOP was set to get their convention on today and a Tennessee Williams play broke out up in the nominee’s campaign!

All this on the heels of Hurricane Gustav, no less…

…and this bitch is wondering when the rain shower of frogs within the GOP convention hall is scheduled to begin.

Blink.