British woman spews hate

You may have heard about this. Old Guru brought it to our attention. A British woman, one Emma West, evidently lost it on a train and started ranting about the number of non-British people in Great Britain, including but not limited to Polish, Caribbeans and Africans. Basically like Eric Clapton and John Cleese before her, she noticed a change in the British demographic and weighed in against it.

West was arrested and charged with a racially aggravated public order offense. She was denied bail and remains in jail.  If convicted she could face anywhere from six months to two years behind bars.

Now from a US perspective  that sentence may seem outrageous for someone who is ultimately just speaking her mind, racist though it may be. But the UK is a different country with a different idea about which ideas may be publicly spoken. The British National Party, an ugly right-wing explicitly white separatist political party, is making noise of support for her.

The problem I see though is that whether we like it or not, people are not fungible. You can not just move millions of people from one culture to another and expect that people won't notice or occasionally have some issues. Most European countries are effectively tribal homelands of one kind or another. With a few exceptions (The Austro-Hungarian Empire being the most obvious) most European countries did not traditionally have a huge difference between country and ethnicity. To be a UK citizen (exceptions noted) was generally understood to mean you were of predominant Anglo-Celtic heritage. This sort of blood based citizenship was common across Europe (and elsewhere) and was essential to some cultures' embrace of the modern nation-state. The US is different.

With the creation of the European Union and increasing immigration from poorer European nations into richer ones as well as immigration from the Global South into the Global North, the meaning of the European nation state is being challenged and transformed. That may be to the best; it may not be. But West's rejection of it is not just a Western European trait.

• Black South Africans complain of (and riot over) illegal immigration by Black Zimbabweans. 
• The Uighur deeply resent the influx of Han Chinese into their areas.
• Russia isn't overly fond of movement of Central Asians or people from the Caucasus into Russia. 
• Dominicans have a history of trying to prevent Haitians from entering.
• The Libyans aren't crazy about the presence of Sub-Saharan Africans within their country.

In short, everyone on the planet has some in-group and out-group thinking. And I think that there are definite limits to how far this can be either suppressed or reworked.  Globalization may increasingly start to run up against those.

QUESTIONS
1) Is it permissible for citizens of one nation to want to keep their nation's current ethnic/cultural balance as is?

2) Should West have been arrested? What should her sentence be if any?

3) Have you ever run across vulgar public hate like this? If so what was your response?

Shutting Detroit Down

What's happening in Detroit?

You may not have noticed with all the national media attention on the Democrat-Republican fracas over the budget, the deficit, the Obama tax cuts, and payroll tax cut political gamesmanship but by some estimates the city of Detroit is on the verge of going belly up as soon as April of 2012. Detroit has a deficit of roughly $150-200 million and accumulated debt of somewhere around $10 billion. Vendors are already waiting in some cases as long as 18 months to get paid.

This has made some of the usual suspects happy but most people are angry or sad. Under the emergency financial manager law (which was given new teeth under the new Republican Governor's administration) the state has the power to appoint a manager who would have the authority to run the city, void union contracts and privatize services and sell assets. 

This being Southeast Michigan (one of the most segregated areas in the US) the race issue is never far from people's minds. Detroit is between 80% and 85% Black. With a few exceptions most suburbs are the reverse image of that demographic.  Detroit has had black political hegemony since the early seventies or so. Within the city there is INTENSE paranoia about the idea of a white governor appointing someone to run Detroit and even more suspicion about white suburbanites taking over Detroit's "jewels". Honestly, some of this is nonsense but some of it is 100% accurate as Detroit and the surrounding suburbs have battled for decades over the Detroit Water Department, (Suburban municipalities have urged greater suburban control over the Detroit water department-a stance greatly at odds with their otherwise anti-regionalism preferences), the Detroit Zoo, the Arts Institute and Library, mass transit, Detroit's income tax on suburban workers, and many other things.


Bottom line is that Detroiters feel it's their city so they get to vote and if you don't like that, quit your whining and move into the city. Otherwise have a nice long drink of STFU. Suburbanites feel that fine if you don't want our say, stop taking our money. We'll take that deal in a heartbeat.

How did this happen?
The city of Detroit has 48 different unions. They have generally refused to offer any more concessions, claiming that they've given enough. They blame bad outsourcing and private contractor decisions for this crisis. The unions have offered some ideas on solving the problem, which include such things as cutting Blue Cross Blue Shield out of the medical payment process and eliminating private contractors. The city council has seized upon an unpaid $200 million block of aid that the State of Michigan was supposed to pay Detroit as the proximate reason for the crisis. However the State of Michigan cut back aid to several localities as it is also cash poor. The city also would like the State of Michigan to forgive some of its debt and help the city to do a better job of collecting city taxes-from both residents but especially businesses.

If Detroit collected all of its owed income taxes each year, the city would receive an additional $155 million annually that could wipe out the deficit in a few years and avoid massive service reductions and layoffs. At a time when the state is about to begin dissecting the city's troubled finances, about half of Detroiters and non-Detroiters who work in the city fail to pay their city income taxes. But city officials said to aggressively go after the delinquent taxes would be time-consuming and require more employees and sophisticated technology than the city can afford. That's why Mayor Dave Bing is lobbying state lawmakers to enact a law that would require suburban employers of Detroiters to automatically withhold income taxes and electronically deposit the money into a city account.

STORY

The rising costs of health care for retirees and some bad decisions with the pension fund are an additional problem. In my opinion the primary cause for this is that Detroit simply has too many costs for the population that it supports. Things that could be done when Detroit was home to roughly a million people can't be supported when only about 700,000 live there. The property tax base and income tax base no longer exist to support the current payroll and other items. There is just not enough money coming in. People have left for reasons both good and bad. But at the end of the day, they've left.


All the other race-baiting and political posturing aside that's what it comes down to. It's like trying to make a monthly payment on a new Bentley Arnage when your job description has changed from international rock star to Olive Garden busboy. Eventually, the numbers turn against you. No matter how much you may hate it, you will need to accept (grudgingly and temporarily perhaps) your new reality. To paraphrase Moe Greene from The Godfather  "..the City of Detroit ain't even got that kind of muscle no more!!!"










What happens next?

Council members JoAnn Watson and Kwame Kenyatta

Well that is indeed the million dollar question. The city council, union leaders and Mayor all came together last Friday to announce that although they had not solved the problem they would solve it and didn't need or want any outside help-period. However this was too late as the State Treasurer announced a 30 day review of the city's finances to determine whether an emergency manager would be appointed. The city is of course free to solve the crisis before then but many think this unlikely. Although it would be more symbolic than not the City Council has so far refused to cut its budget by the amounts it wants other departments or workers to accept.


Detroit faces privatization of lighting, waste management the zoo, the water department, parking, parks, Belle Isle, mass transit, fire, police and other normal city services. This looms in the future, whether it be through an unprecedented bankruptcy or the emergency manager process. In short, Detroit would temporarily cease to exist as an independent political entity. Some analysts feel that emergency manager or not bankruptcy is inevitable.


Others think that the both the emergency manager law and its application (most -not all-of the Michigan cities or institutions where the law has been applied or invoked are majority Black) is unconstitutional and therefore the law should be repealed. There is a petition drive to do just that. US Congressman John Conyers has also asked the Justice Department to review (i.e. block) the law.

Washington — U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is reviewing whether the state of Michigan can legally appoint an emergency manager to oversee the Motor City's finances, Rep. John Conyers, D-Detroit, said late today.Conyers said he spoke to Holder about his request that the government move to block the law."(Holder) said, 'I've got my lawyers working on it right now,' " Conyers said, adding he spoke to the attorney general about 4 p.m. today. "He's trying to find out if my allegations of great constitutional concerns are valid. That's what he's got several hundred lawyers for."The Justice Department confirmed Holder and Conyers spoke — and reiterated that the Justice Department is reviewing the letter.Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, sent a letter Dec. 1 to Holder asking him to review whether the state's emergency financial manager law is constitutional and to intervene if necessary to block it. "(Holder) told me he got the letter and he's going to act on it."

LINK

Detroit Mayor Dave Bing

My take is that even if we believe that this is a dastardly corporate Republican plan to steal and sell off Detroit's assets for their own gain while disenfranchising thousands of black voters to boot, who let things get to this point in the first place?  Whether or not there is an emergency manager appointed is almost irrelevant given the cash flow needs of the city. Detroit leadership is coming in a day late and a dollar short. I mean seriously, folks. You can't say and believe in your heart of hearts that those folks over there hate us and want to control us and then behave in such a manner that shows that despite all of your protestations to the contrary, you can't successfully run your own affairs. This is not a race thing in my opinion though there are elements of that which must be addressed. It's a pure numbers situation. The costs are too high; the revenue is too low. That's been an obvious problem for at least the past 15 years. Now the bill is coming due. This is of immense personal interest as there are people very dear to me who rely on city pensions. Bankruptcy could-probably would-put some or all of those pensions at risk. This goes into uncharted territory as Michigan law places high (but not insurmountable) protections around pension payments-perhaps The Janitor or Old Guru can speak to the legalities.


I'd like to believe that Detroit will find a way out of this but I really don't think it will. Time will tell. Maybe the state should just say," Fine. You the man. Handle it yourself-go bankrupt -just don't come crying to us."


QUESTIONS
1) Do you think the emergency financial manager law is constitutional?
2) Should public sector unions and outsourcing contracts have automatic spending reductions inserted based on the city's financial health?
3) Do you think bankruptcy is inevitable for Detroit?
4) Why hasn't city leadership been able to craft a plan to solve this issue?

Movie Reviews-The Devil's Double, Conan The Barbarian and more

The Devil's Double

I want it all!!!

I wasn't going to watch this movie. But I saw that it was directed by Lee Tamahori-who directed the sadly magnificent Once Were Warriors, and the noirish Mulholland Falls. So I decided to see what he would do with this story. It turned out to be a pretty good film-perhaps even one that could win some awards. This is true despite the fact that although all the people depicted are of non-European Middle Eastern descent, the lead actors/actresses are all of Western European descent. I assume that this was done for commercial considerations as we almost never see the opposite.


The film is based on the true story of a man, Latif Yahia (Dominic Cooper), who was unwillingly made a body double for Uday Hussein (Dominic Cooper again), the eldest son of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Whereas Saddam Hussein is shown as a cold callous man who mostly leaves citizens alone as long as they bow to his rule, Uday Hussein is depicted as a demented psychotic Freddie Mercury look-alike sybarite who views all of the Iraqi population, but especially the female half, as his personal slaves, who may be used and discarded as he sees fit.


It is is Latif's misfortune to be a war hero and thus come to Uday's attention. As there are many people trying to kill all of the Husseins, they have found it useful to have body doubles to trick people as to their true whereabouts and if need be draw fire. Uday has a serious Oedipus complex going on. He decides if Papa (Phillp Quast) can have a double he wants one too. So he has people make Latif an offer he dare not refuse. Latif does not refuse. 

Occasionally this is easy work as all you have to do is whatever Uday tells you to do, give speeches, laugh at his stupid jokes and learn how to move, look and sound like him. But the good days are rare as Uday is a persistent rapist and bully. He thinks it great fun to debauch the bride of a war hero on her wedding day. He is constantly trolling Baghdad for ever younger girls, who he intends to have. Their willingness or lack thereof is of small import to Uday. Uday is usually in a good mood and flashes a goofy bucktoothed grin even as he commits the worst atrocities. Uday enjoys ordering torture almost as much as he enjoys watching it. Latif finds it harder and harder to keep quiet about this evil, even as he enters the nightlife and is approached by Uday's number one girlfriend, Sarrab (Ludivine Sagnier) from whom he has been warned away in the most imperious and explicit method possible. 


Latif has been shown the price of disobedience, as Uday makes it clear that Latif's family remains alive as long as Latif remains in Uday's good graces. Saddam does not like his son but he won't allow anyone else to harm him. This was a frightening film as one pondered what it would be like to live in a country run by out and out thugs. Ultimately violence becomes the only currency. And this film has plenty of it.
TRAILER


Conan the Barbarian

I am a Robert E. Howard fan. Chances were I was going to see this film no matter who starred as Conan. I thought it was a good thing that the actor Jason Momoa,  last seen as Khal Drogo in A Game of Thrones, would star as the famous Cimmerian. Momoa is multiracial while the fictional Conan is most definitely not but I didn't think that would make much difference, and it really didn't. Lines from actual Robert E. Howard stories were used. Momoa, while not a great actor, was able to convey Conan's battle skills, grim wit, and occasional brutal indifference.


So why didn't I like this movie more? It's hard to say. In part it's because the film doesn't really trust its source material enough to follow it. Robert E. Howard was a great story teller but this film is a sort of pastiche of many different Howard stories as well as the scriptwriter's ideas. It's all over the place. The script shoehorns the boy meets girl/boy and girl fight/boy and girl realize they're attracted to each other and do the do/ storyline into the film so ineptly that you can almost call out the changes yourself. I think rather than try to create an original story based on Howard's character, the film might have been better off if it had just fully adapted one of Howard's stories. Just my $0.02.

Anyway the storyline is that thousands of years before the rulers of Acheron created a magical mask which gave the wearer the power to conquer the world. However this mask must have had a warranty issue because the Acheronians were defeated and the mask disassembled. Portions of the mask were spread throughout the world so that no one group could ever try to conquer the world again. But there's always someone trying to iceskate uphill and in this world it's Khalar Zym (Stephen Lang) who has been reassembling the mask in order that he might resurrect his wife, a sorceress of dread might, and yes indeed, rule the world. Yawn.


Zym attacks the Cimmerian village where the young Conan (Leo Howard) and his father Corin (Ron Perlman) the village chief and blacksmith reside. Now pre-teen Conan is already a fierce warrior-having singlehandedly slain several Picts (think Iroquois/Comanche) but against the force Zym has brought there is no chance of victory. In short order Zym finds the missing mask piece, massacres the village, kills Conan's Daddy, and leaves Conan for dead.


20 years go by and Conan has become a pirate, but evidently not one that believes in slavery. Right. Anyway his old nemesis Zym STILL hasn't been able to resurrect his sorceress wife and rule the world. And his creepy sorceress daughter Marique (Rose McGowan in an over the top role) may not be too eager to bring back Mama as it is HEAVILY implied that she either wants to or has already replaced her mother in taking care of ALL of Zym's needs. Yeah. Those too. Anyway Zym finally got a response back from the evil mask warranty department. Evidently it's not enough to rebuild the mask to resurrect your wife and rule the world. You must also pour the blood of a pureblood descendant of Acheron onto the mask. So Zym goes back on the road terrorizing people and looking for a pureblood descendant. Marique helps him but she's more into just torturing people for kicks.

Thru a series of convenient accidents Conan picks up Zym's trail. He also finds the last pureblood descendant of Acheron, the topheavy Tamara (Rachel Nichols), who of course has no use for the brutish Conan...at first. Various buttkickings, duels, poisonings and sacrifices ensue. Although Nichols and McGowan are obvious eye candy for men, Momoa shows some things ladies might like. This movie was just ok. I would have been disappointed if I had paid full price to see it in the theater. The film's action scenes are competently shot but nothing special. It has almost a video game feel to it if that makes any sense.


Trailer



Tucker and Dale vs. Evil

There is a classic tradition of horror movies and stories which feature civilized people travelling to the backwoods where they run afoul of their uncouth countrymen: people who are unwashed, uneducated, hyperviolent, scarily cunning, and have familial relationships that are way too close. These stereotypes feature in both low class horror films (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and all of its descendants) as well as HP Lovecraft's pulp horror (The Lurking Fear) and may well date back to the legend of Sawney Bean or before. In our time, people who inhabit this filmic stereotype usually come from the rural South and drive pickup trucks.


The "horror" film Tucker and Dale... smartly opens with scenes which make us think this will be another movie about murderous Lynryrd Skynrd fans running amok. A college student group which includes all the normal types (the black guy, the nerd, the jock, the busty blonde, the smart girl and the black girl) is going camping in West Virginia. They run across two "redneck looking" characters in a pickup truck who eye them with malice and ask questions about where they're going. Fearing the worst, the students pile back into their SUV and burn rubber to their campsite where they congratulate themselves on escaping a testy situation and tell each other stories of a massacre that took place nearby 2 decades ago.


But the film takes a left turn from usual expectations. The two "redneck looking" men are Tucker (Alan Tudyk) and Dale (Tyler Labine) who are indeed "rednecks" but meant no harm whatsoever. The men have been friends since childhood and have just purchased a vacation cabin near where the college students are camping. Tucker is the smoother of the two men. The imposing and hirsute Dale is frightened to death of women and is about as dangerous as Paddington Bear. He only came over to try to talk to Allison (Katrina Bowden) because supposed ladies man Tucker told him he needed to get over his fears and enjoy life.


Later the two men are fishing when they notice the shapely Allison about to go skinny dipping. In their haste not to get detected watching her they startle Allison, who falls on rocks and knocks herself out. Dale saves the unconscious Allison from drowning. He and Tucker take her back to their cabin to recover. The students see this and think Allison is being kidnapped. They are sure of this when the solicitous but somewhat dim Dale leaves a message reading "We got your friend!".


This sets off a series of comedic yet bloody misunderstanding and misinterpretations. In the meantime as Allison comes to and talks to the shy but attentive Dale she realizes he might be just the man she's been looking for. This was a funny albeit violent film. Everyone reacts and responds to things from their point of view, which is quite rational. In a non preachy way the film shows the foolishness of allowing life to pass you by AND the silliness of stereotypes. Of course it does that in part by showing a kid fall into a woodchipper so your mileage may vary. I thought the film was a fun, silly way to spend some time.
TRAILER



King Arthur

Every generation puts its own take on the King Arthur legend. Some people are fascinated by Merlin's magic and inhuman origins. Others yearn for the sorcery and female leadership of Arthur's sisters Morgan LeFay and Morgause. Some fans love the doomed romance of Guinevere and Lancelot. And some people immerse themselves in the nasty Freudian undertones of Arthur's conception through rape and his eventual "death" at the hands of his incestuously born son, Mordred.


This film, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer (Pearl Harbor) and directed by Antoine Fuqua (Training Day), fancies itself a legend retelling in a deliberately gritty and defiantly realistic fashion. There is no Lady of The Lake, quest for the Holy Grail, courtly love between beautiful maidens and honorable knights. There is no magic. There is no tragic love triangle with Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot. Lancelot does not accidentally kill one of Gawaine's brothers and set off a war.


Instead Fuqua's film uses what some consider to be the true source material of the Arthurian legend: that of a Celtic/British King or warlord who fought against the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain and won the Battle of Badon Hill.  The film alters some timing and facts but that's okay. I thought it was a decent flick. Of course I am the definition of a slavering fanboy when it comes to these sorts of movies so keep that in mind. Fuqua's film is less pageantry and spectacle and more The Magnificent Seven.


Roman power is waning in Britain. Rome is calling home its remaining troops to fight against barbarian invasions. The local Roman military leader, Artorious Castus (Clive Owen), is both a gentle religious man who follows the teachings of Christian Bishop Pelagius, believing that all men are brothers, and a harsh severe warrior, who is already legendary for his devotion to duty, battle skills and willingness to protect the weak. Arthur leads a brotherhood of knights-actually Russian steppe warriors-who have been sworn to him since childhood. They have battled Rome's enemies across the empire, but primarily in Britain where they have been the first line of defense against the indigenous rebel Picts (Woads). Arthur's mother was a Pict. His father was a Roman officer.


Now Arthur's knights have dwindled to a mere handful and their term of service-really indentured labor- is up. They are eager to return home; Arthur is willing to release them from their vows. But the Roman political leader coerces Arthur and his knights into mounting a rescue mission north of Hadrian's Wall to rescue a Roman family who is important to the Pope. This family is in the path of the Saxon invasion. What Arthur and his knights, boisterous bruiser Bors (Ray Winstone), pensive Tristan (Mads Mikkelson), silent, loyal and deadly Dagonet (Ray Stevenson), 2nd-in-command Lancelot (Ioan Gruffudd), and underwritten Gawaine (Joel Edgerton) and Galahad (Hugh Dancy) discover there will make all of them but especially Arthur, rethink their reasons for being in Britain. They have to decide who deserves their loyalty-Rome OR each other and the British people.


The Anglo-Saxons, who were initially a raucous bunch of illegal immigrants, have found official response to their presence weak and have launched a full scale invasion of Britain, killing, looting and raping as they tiptoe through the tulips. (Fun fact: The Anglo-Saxon and Viking invasions of Briton were so wildly successful that by some measures most of today's indigenous Englishmen are more closely related to Germans, Dutch and Danish than to Welsh or Irish.)

Someday son, this will all be yours.

Just to make sure you know these are the bad guys, the Saxons all look like Hell's Angels or skinheads and mutter nasty ethnocentric slurs about the Britons. In fact their leader Cerdic (Stellan Skarsgard) is so bigoted that he stops a Saxon from raping a British woman, not out of any feminist or humane reasons but because he doesn't want any mixed blood children. Killing is okay; rape is not so good. Cerdic's son, second-in-command, heir and would be usurper Cynric (Til Schweiger) is just as brutal as his Daddy and doesn't share his scruples over rape. Cerdic has been hearing Arthur's name all over Britain and he wants a piece. Badly.


Arthur must decide if he can integrate both halves of himself-the Roman and the Celtic-and stand together with his previous enemies the Picts, led by Merlin (Stephen Dillane) and Guinevere (Keira Knightley) to fight the Saxon invaders.


I really liked the cinematography. Much of it was apparently shot outside and on location. A lot of it is dark but it always looks very very real. The battles are shot almost as if you are there. And it has tons of bada$$ lines, which are always very cool in these type of films. Owen does a great job of portraying a decent and majestic man caught up in the fall of the institutions he's always known. This film is full of action and moves very very quickly. You can feel the cold and smell the grime. Except for the aforementioned underwritten characters, you do care about the knights. King Arthur has some classic "I'm tired of running" and resultant "Last Stand" scenes.

With the possible exception of her upper-class (?) accent, Knightley turns in a passable performance as a deglamorized Guinevere. Often, women's roles in period films are ridiculously altered for modern sensibilities. That's not the case here. Knightley's Guinevere IS a very active participant in battles and a more than competent warrior BUT this is actually quite historically accurate. The Celts did indeed have fierce women warlords, Bouddica, being the most famous, who led resistance against foreign invaders. They also had goddesses of war, e.g. Morrigan, who in some scenes Knightley is channeling.
Trailer

December Book of The Month: Malcolm X-A life of reinvention by Manning Marable

Malcolm X A Life of Reinvention

by Manning Marable

Malcolm X remains a heroic, exalted icon for many people. Simultaneously, in some quarters Malcolm was a controversial, maligned and misunderstood political leader. Allegedly murdered by Nation of Islam members acting on winks and nods from the top of that organization, Malcolm's great life was tragically cut short at just 39 years of age. Manning Marable, a now deceased historian and political scientist always felt that the definitive biography and analysis of Brother Malcolm had yet to be written so he decided to write one himself.

Other Malcolm X experts, most notably Karl Evanzz, called into question some of Marable's scholarship and editorial decisions. Honestly, some conclusions Marable reached about Malcolm's life do not appear to be supported by the evidence. This caused a firestorm of controversy to erupt around the book. Some details about marital troubles didn't necessarily add a whole lot to the discussion. Unfortunately, Marable is no longer around to defend his arguments and choices as he died just as the book was released. He said that Malcolm was a hero of his but heroes deserved honest appraisals.

Still, on balance I think this will increase your understanding of Malcolm and the world he lived in, even as scholars point out that some of this book goes over well traveled territory. Please give it a read and come back to discuss. It's long but moves quickly and like its subject is very engrossing.

Kentucky Fried Ignorance

Unfortunately work has me busier than a one legged man in a butt-kicking contest. And believe me it's a full time operation to make sure I don't end up on the wrong side of that kick. So this will be a noticeably brief post. But I thought this news story was interesting for a number of reasons besides the obvious  "drive by and look at the ignorant goobers"aspect. Although that is fun, admittedly...

TOMAHAWK, Ky (Reuters) - A vote to bar interracial couples from a small church in eastern Kentucky has triggered hand-wringing and embarrassment.
Nine members of Gulnare Freewill Baptist Church backed their former pastor, with six opposed, in Sunday's vote to bar interracial couples from church membership and worship activities. Funerals were excluded.
The vote was taken after most of the 40 people who attended Sunday services had left the church in Pike County, near the border with West Virginia. Many members left to avoid the vote.
Most members of the church "didn't want anything to do with this," said longtime church official Dean Harville, whose daughter and her black fiance had drawn pastor Melvin Thompson's ire.
At services earlier this year, Stella Harville, 24, who is working on her master's degree in optical engineering, sang "I Surrender All" with her fiance, Ticha Chikuni, 29, a Zimbabwe native, according to her father. Chikuni, an employee at Georgetown College in Kentucky, played the piano.
"There didn't appear to be any problem," Dean Harville said on Wednesday. "None whatsoever."
But Harville said Thompson told him the couple would not be allowed to sing at the church again. Thompson resigned in August but would not drop the issue.
Thompson told a local radio outlet, "I do not believe in interracial marriages, and I do not believe this (ban) will give our church a black eye at all."

LINK
Well my initial take is to shake my head at the bigotry that is still around in 2011 but I also believe in free speech and the right to assemble with like minded people. So if some backwoods Appalachian church decides that they don't want interracial couples attending services that doesn't really bother me all that much. People have a right to be prejudiced in this country. You learn that quickly growing up in the Midwest.

What I did find interesting and a bit ironic is that there has recently been a bit of a fuss as to whether President Obama is abandoning white working class voters or if the white working class is all that necessary to Obama's reelection chances. This is often done with a lot of hand wringing and inference that the Democrats have stepped away from white voters and need to get them back.

But stories like this are a reminder that it takes two to tango. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that Pastor Thompson did not vote for the current President and would not have approved of his parents' marriage. So with people like this there's not much the President can say other than God Bless You and Have a Nice Day. People like this are a smaller group of Americans but they're not as uncommon as some would believe.

The Pastor may be a bit extreme in his views and more open with his prejudice but IR marriage between Blacks and Whites remains quite rare-about 0.7% of married white women are married to black men and roughly 0.35% of married white men are married to black women. This is not all because of horrible prejudice but it is quite striking that something that remains so rare still excites so much debate and hostility.

The other thing that this story reminded me of is that there was and is a reason why blacks set up their own churches, fraternities, beauty pageants, masonic lodges, hair salons/barbershops, etc. Because there are only so many times that a person can be rejected before they say you know what, forget you, I'm doing my own thing.

QUESTIONS
1) Does the church have the right to discriminate?
2) How common do you think the Pastor's feelings are?
3) Why does interracial anything (dating or marriage) excite such fury in some people?

Book Reviews-Damballa, Breakshot, Harlem, Neverwhere

Damballa
by Charles Saunders

I love pulp novelists, especially the older 1920's-1940's stories that centered on adventure, fantasy or the weird. There was a sense of wonder and imagination in those stories that has shrunken in modern times. The world grows smaller while our knowledge of the world expands and travel duration drops.

Unfortunately, from my POV, many of those classic stories also had a strong streak of racism, that ranged from the casually contemptuous to the insanely hateful, depending on the author. About the best you could hope for as far as black characters was that there weren't any. Asians, Indians, Hispanics and even whites of non-Anglo/Nordic/Celtic heritage were also stereotyped in various ways. There were some authors who were exceptions to this rule of course but not many. I may discuss them later.

Charles Saunders is a current day black author who was deeply influenced by pulp stories. He is best known for his Imaro fantasy stories. Damballa is his attempt at writing a black pulp hero who is akin to such pulp creations as Doc Savage, The Shadow, Marlowe, etc. The story is based on the Joe Louis-Max Schmeling fight as well as the adventures of Dr. William Sheppard, known as Congo's African-American Dr. Livingstone.

In Saunders' story, the world heavyweight champion is an American black man named Jackhammer Jackson. The German challenger is one Wolfgang Krieger, a huge blond man known as the "Aryan Adonis". Unwilling to leave anything to chance, Nazi scientists, overseen by the racist and arrogant Dr. Von Dunkel , have created a serum that exponentially raises a fighter's strength, stamina, speed and aggression. It also runs the risk of shortening his life or permanently turning him into a ravenous beast but the callous Nazis feel that the danger to Krieger is worth the glory to the Fatherland. They pump Krieger full of the juice.

The mysterious Damballa gets wind of this plot. The masked hero tries to find a way to short circuit the Nazi plan, one that does not involve Jackson losing or cancelling the fight, as Jackson is adamant that he can beat any man who steps into the ring, augmented or not. Damballa is reluctantly aided in this task by NYC Detective Bynoe, one of the city's first black detectives, and by the mysterious aged Congolese wise woman Mamadou, who has some strange connection to both Damballa and Von Dunkel.

This was a good story but not a great one. The villain lacked a little bit of well, villainy. The sense of danger that would normally attach itself to Nazis wasn't always there. I liked Damballa's origin story but would have liked to have a bit more storyline from Bynoe, as he tries to work within a racist police department. And although Jackson's girlfriend gets some time, there isn't really a femme fatale in this story nor is the girlfriend ever in any real danger. So the story missed some possible excitement there I thought. But it is set up for a sequel and I'm interested to see what Saunders does next with Damballa. Finally this book was typeset in an Art Deco font, which is cool beyond belief. I like Art Deco almost as much as I like Gothic or Baroque.





Breakshot
by Kenny "Kenji" Gallo with Matthew Randazzo V

As a kid I used to play Dungeons and Dragons. Each character had to have an ethos/morality alignment which was a combination of Good, Evil and Neutrality mapped against a construct of Law, Chaos and Neutrality. This made for nine possible different alignments. Now there were and still are epic flame wars about which fictional character or real-life person falls into which alignment. I've set off a few wars myself back in the day. (Ned Stark is obviously Lawful Good and anyone who feels otherwise simply hasn't read the books!!!)  But if there was anyone who could ever be said to epitomize the Chaotic Evil alignment, it would have to be Kenny "Kenji" Gallo.  A Chaotic Evil person doesn't give a flying fig about anyone other than himself, can't be trusted to honor deals, goes out of his way to hurt people, can't stand hierarchy or order or any restriction on his "freedom", and generally lives by the belief that if you're weak you deserve to be exploited. Gallo is sort of a real life Alex from the movie A Clockwork Orange.

Gallo is of Japanese/Caucasian descent. Despite having grown up upper middle class in Orange County, Gallo very early turned to violence and crime as a lifestyle.  He wasn't abused or denied anything. By his own admission he was just bored. He enjoyed the thrill of hurting people or committing crimes. Gallo was running his own crew of drug dealers, thugs and thieves before he was 21. He and his friends terrorized their high schools and neighborhoods. Gallo is the sort of person who would throw a homemade napalm bomb in your car just to see how it worked. And if he didn't like you..well that called for something more inventive.

Unsurprisingly he came to the attention of the local lieutenants for the Medellin Cartel, who bankrolled his crimes and taught him how to be even more vicious. He also popped up on the radar screen of a local lrvine police department detective, who per Gallo, mentored and protected him, in return for a cut of the profits and an occasional piece of useful information.

Ultimatey his boss runs afoul of the Medellin Cartel and gets murdered. Gallo tries to work for the new boss but finds him just too disturbing.  Gallo's best friend was also murdered. According to Gallo though he had nothing to do with it. One of Gallo's other friends, a black (and stupid) enforcer takes the fall for the crime. Right. As the 80's draw to a close and cocaine demand drops in favor of heroin, Gallo takes the opportunity to transition to a different line of business. Lacking the interest or connections for heroin dealing he becomes a strip club owner, pimp, adult film producer, and white collar criminal extraordinaire. Needless to say he also becomes a dyed in the wool misogynist.


In his new career path he moves closer to traditional organized crime and winds up becoming an official associate to the NY based Colombo Crime Family. This is something that Gallo at first avoided because of the Mafia's notorious ethnocentrism/racism. Ironically though, Gallo is just as big of a hypocrite as his Italian-American bosses. While he complains about "dog eater" or "gook" comments directed at him, he rarely misses a chance to racially insult some of his Black or Hispanic partners/employees. Gallo also married an adult film actress who shared the same warm loving feeling for black people that Pat Buchanan has.

Anyway, once Gallo got some serious charges aimed at him he of course flipped and started informing for the FBI. He saw this as no different than any other criminal act he committed-he got over on people who would have gotten over on him, given the chance. Gallo is convinced that many other criminals are rats. Gallo sent the next Colombo boss-in-waiting, a few small time hoodlums and madams to prison. On a man-to-man basis Gallo is contemptuous of most Mafia members, thinking that few of them have the brains, guts or physical skills to go head to head with him. As a result he still lives semi-openly after his "rat" role was revealed, feeling that the supposedly fearsome powers of Mafia retaliation are not what they used to be. I can't say that I enjoyed this book. I do think that the time has come to seriously reign in the ability of federal prosecutors and FBI agents to give "Get out of Jail Free" cards to snitches. Many have committed worse crimes than the people they're betraying. And they continue to commit crimes after they've flipped. I can't help but feel that Gallo got away with too much.

On the other hand if you want an inside view (albeit self-serving and questionable) of how the late 20th and early 21st century Mafia and other organized crime groups work, this is a good book. Gallo worked a lot with people who he described as the ghetto thugs of the NY Mafia. The book also has some interesting stories about real life mobster turned actor, Tony Sirico, best known for his Sopranos role as "Paulie Walnuts". Kenji is currently a mixed martial artist and gay rights activist. Go figure.




Harlem, a Century in Images
by Thelma Golden, Deborah Willis, Cheryl Finley and Elizabeth Alexander

Pictures speak louder than words oftentimes. That is probably the case with this book which is a photographic essay of Harlem and its residents from the turn of the century to now. The book is split into three parts (the first years of the twentieth century, mid-century through the seventies, and the eighties until present day). It is interesting to see how fashion styles have changed and in some cases come back full circle. Generally, until the sixties, every man is wearing a hat.

It's about 250 pages and includes people both famous and anonymous, preachers, hustlers, good people and bad, people who knew they were being photographed and people just out doing their daily thing. Photographs are in both color and black and white. It was a fun book to "read". Probably no other neighborhood is as closely associated with Black America as Harlem and this book delves into why. This is a great coffee table book and would make a nice gift for someone or for yourself if you are so inclined.

I picked this up at a Borders' closing for $15. Usual retail price is $55 but it can now be found for anywhere between $33 and $45 on Amazon. Good stuff. Again some of these photographs are quite well known, others are obscure. This is a book that can take you on a time travel trip through Harlem. Lots of joy, lots of sadness, lots of life. I may never visit the 125th Street Metro North Station, Riverside Church, or play checkers outside the Adam Clayton Powell building, but this book lets me know what all that looks like.









Neverwhere
by Neil Gaiman

There are quite a lot of books out now that sort of combine an Alice in the Wonderland/Narnia theme in London with a very adult mystery or fantasy storyline. Someone from our mundane world is transported to a very different world, one in which completely different rules of physics and magic apply.  This other world touches on our own but generally speaking can only be reached at certain times by very special people. I won't say that Neil Gaiman was the first to do this (in some respects it is just an update of the Faerie and Tuatha De Danaan legends) but he is among the best.

There are a few authors who stand out among their kin because they can create a world so fantastic and yet so real that you get lost in it and think the characters are real people. Gaiman does this so easily that it's not until you read other authors and miss that feeling that you realize how much skill is involved in doing this.
Neverwhere is a relatively short book by the bloated standards of modern mystery/fantastic literature, clocking in at just under 400 pages in paperback form but it moves so very quickly that you barely notice the length.

Richard Mayhew is a bit of a loser, a nowhere man in a nowhere job that he hates. He is going to a meeting with his pushy fiancee's (Jessica) boss when out of nowhere he sees a young girl begging for help while she's bleeding to death on the sidewalk. Against Jessica's admonitions and threats of ending their engagement Richard takes the young girl back to his apartment to help her. Suspiciously soon afterwards, Richard is visited by two disturbing men of indeterminate age-a Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar, a unfailingly polite duo who claim to be looking for their sister. The shorter Mr. Croup does all the talking.

The men radiate violence and menace and wrongness despite Mr. Croup's kind words. So Richard denies he's seen anyone fitting the girl's description. They ignore him and search his place but do not find the girl-which ought to be impossible since Richard was just talking to her minutes ago.

The girl, whose name is Door, is the last surviving member of her family. Her family was slaughtered by the inhuman and immortal (?) assassins Croup and Vandemar. She is from London Below-a magical and usually unreachable mirror of London. She possesses something which the unknown employer of the assassins wants desperately.
Door sends Richard to meet with the last noble still loyal to her family, an Afro-British man named the Marquis DeCarabas. Once the Marquis arrives both he and Door disappear.

After interacting with Door, Richard notices that he has become invisible to people in our world. Having no choice he stubbornly sets out to find London Below and assist Door and the Marquis in their quest. Words can't describe what a pleasure reading this book is. Just get it. London Below is full of magic, danger, terror and excitement. Gaiman also has a number of multi-cultural characters but doesn't make a big deal out of it. Perfect.  Door reminds me of the character Arya Stark from A Game of Thrones. They are both skilled and dangerous people who miss their families very much.

Police Spray Protesters at UC Davis

I don't really have a lot of words for this other than to say this is why generally speaking I don't have much use for police or think that a man or woman that puts on a blue uniform is automatically a hero, a good person or worthy of my respect. Some are decent; some are not.
Some of them have the moral capacity of Rottweilers or Cane Corsos. They're also much more savage and dangerous.

Comments?
Should the police officers spraying the protesters be permanently removed from duty?
Should the UC Davis chancellor , Linda Katehi, resign?
I thought putting women in charge meant that we'd have a kinder, gentler world and better outcomes. Gee, someone let Senator Gillibrand know...