The National Conversation (Raw)

Speed Racer: Update

Speed & Trixie

Emile Hirsch & Cristina Ricci

Chim Chim will be played by a real chimpanzee. (He hates being called a monkey.)

Am I a geek?

As a child, I used to run home from school to watch every episode. On long family vacations, this is the car I drove in my mind's eye as we lumbered across the flat boring plains of Illinois.

Before Spider Man, before the famous Millennium Falcon and X-Wing star fighter, before Star Trek and the USS Enterprise (well almost), there was the powerful Mach 5!

I love Speed Racer! I am a Speed Racer geek! There I said it.  Now you know, and on May 9, 2008, I know where I will be -- watching the film version of the T.V. show, Speed Racer: Demon on Wheels!


Wow!

The brothers Wachowski, who produced V for Vendetta and the Matrix trilogy, are returning to the big screen to bring back Speed and the family (Pops, Spritle, Chim Chim and Trixie). If Racer X and his car Morning Star are in the movie, I.. will… die.

Why should Boomers have all the fun? Gen X had its cultural icons, too!

Go Speed Racer, Go!

Update: The picture of the Mach 5 is not a toy model, it the real deal!!!

Let Black be Beautiful – Not Bigoted

(Why Some Blacks Blindly Support Criminals Based on Race)

Do you remember how the O.J. verdict divided the country along racial lines? Remember how white people were in shock as black people rejoiced over the not-guilty verdict? Question: How many black people believe that O.J. is innocent today?

Only a very special few.

But in pre-verdict America, the nation was oddly conflicted. White people were perplexed as to why so many black folks supported O.J., even though they knew, in their heart of hearts, that he killed two people in cold blood.

In retrospect, the explanation is simple, really . . .many black people didn’t care about the crime.

To them, O.J. was a black man fighting in a white man’s world: the legal system. And so what if he killed white people? If O.J.’s wife and her boyfriend would have been black (so the mantra goes), nobody would have said spit. More than a few black people felt this way. They felt justified in their anger and jaded in their support of O.J. In a word, they allowed their souls to become corrupted.

Remember Michael Jackson? (the real one.) Same deal. Michael Jackson is a pedophile. No sane adult would ever leave his or her child with him, ever. Every intelligent person in America knows this, but some black folks continued to support him based on his race and not on his eventual acquittal.

This is called emotional aiding and abetting, and these days it’s an African-American past time.

So the question is this: Why do so many black people choose to align themselves with criminal crooners, athletic murderers, poverty pimps and “prophet” politicians who love to fleece the community?

The answer is Race holding: Using race to keep from looking at ourselves.

Here are a few more rogues to consider: R. Kelly, Snoop Dogg, Al Sharpton, Marion Barry, Jesse Jackson, Representative William Jefferson... I’m not saying that our own Michael McGee, Jr. is as noteworthy as these luminaries but the ethos remains.

Of course the only exception is Bill Clinton, but author Toni Morrison found a way around this by dubbing Clinton the first black president because as she stated, “After all, Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas.”

If you are black and crooked with at least a modicum of talent, you hold power over the black imagination and a vocal minority in the community will support you . . .simply because you are black. All some people choose to see is skin color, not character. We’re in the midst of an anti-MLK era.

Wow. Talk about your self-hate!

Time For Change

Ahhhhhh.

Like an ice-cold beer on a hot summer day, I found Alderman Willie Hines' response to Eugene Kane’s editorializing refreshing. (I think I even felt a buzz after reading it.)

Why?

Because it is rare to hear a black politician talk about the vision thing, directionless youth, parental responsibility and the proper role of government. That’s usually Bill Cosby's territory.

Disclaimer – I am a constituent of Alderman Hines. As a resident of the 15th district, I live so close to the Alderman that I can hear the same gunshots he hears on an almost nightly basis.

Alderman Hines has been accused of being M.I.A. on the issue of crime in the city but with this invigorating editorial in today’s Journal Sentinel, the bar has been set and the focus is where it is supposed to be: on the individual. We each have a role to play, and Alderman Hines is drawing the lines.

Or in other words, It’s the culture stupid! But don’t blame the system (or look to the government) for what you don’t do for yourself.

When is the last time you heard a black politician tell constituents what they need to hear instead of racially charged histrionics? Now that Alderman McGee is out of the picture (?) maybe a new voice will be embraced…

Or maybe I’m reading too much into this, but that’s the inherent danger in hope.

Who Dat Say?

Soon if not already Memorial Day will have a dual meaning in this country; the traditional day of remembrance for America’s fallen soldiers and new day of grieving for inner city families of murdered loved ones.

In New Orleans five people were killed over the Memorial Day weekend. Milwaukee dropped from its last year’s high of six (correction four) to three Memorial Day weekend homicides.

Ray Nagin, the democrat Mayor of New Orleans, said his city is still struggling to get a handle on violent crime and he blamed the modern culture for part of the problem. “Way too many of our young people turn to violence and have this hopelessness and have this ‘bling-bling’ mentality which they see on the rap videos.”

Say what?

Did Mayor Ray Nagin say what I think he did? Culture, bling-bling, rap videos? You better duck, Mayor… there are a lot of liberals in Wisconsin that don’t like that kind of talk! You’d get a lot further if you just blamed George W. Bush.

Take it from me and shut up! I know it’s Ludacris (pun intended), but speaking truth to power will get you pimp slapped.

Busted!

What’s that they say about the wheels of justice?

Alderman Michael McGee Jr. is finding out right now.

Details are forthcoming but what enquiring minds want to know is, who is going to fill in for Jr. on the hapless Road Warriors talk show now that he is in the poky and daddy has been put out to pasture?

Earl

Anyone who listens to talk radio in Milwaukee has heard of “Earl from Sherman Park.” He is the favorite anti-all-things-Republican who likes to take Milwaukee’s conservative talk show hosts to the woodshed. I’ve heard him spar the best of them so it is always an honor when he calls my show because you are guaranteed to get honest, passionate observations from the dark side.

The reason why I am writing this “ode to Earl” is because all of my lefty friends LOVE him (Many of my oldest friends are liberals. Go figure . . .). For years, I’ve listened to him spar with Charlie Sykes and Mark Belling and on numerous occasions (before I became a talk show host myself) I had the displeasure of following some of his calls. He always clarifies the argument and is pungent in his commentary. Now that I’m on the other side of the microphone, when I see his name on the screen I feel like I’m part of the club.

Feel like…

Not that I am a part of the club, I just said I feel like I’m part of the club. Feelings, nothing more than feelings! (I have to start parsing my words because the leftist blogosphere is spinning them…)

Anyway… To Earl!

On Sunday Insight This Morning

I was on Sunday Insight with Charlie Sykes this morning. (Oops! Forgot to tell you all!)

This week Mr. Sykes had Owen Robinson, Mikel Holt and Lynne DeBruin as panelists. I really appreciated all the help and encouragement they gave me. It didn't stop me from flubbing up a few lines but hey, it was my first time in living color!

Back to the grind.

See ya tonight from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm on News Radio 620 WTMJ.

Old School

Could a rapper ever win on American Idol?

Naaah.

Old school rapper, Doug E. Fresh, “beatboxing” with Blake Lewis is as close as the genre will ever get.  Cool, but also somewhat comical. Which got me to thinking… If you take Eminem, Vanilla Ice and The Beastie Boys out of the mix, are white kids the biggest buyers of rap music?

Nope, I don’t think so.

The faux statistic of white kids buying more rap music than black kids is a “sub-urban” myth. You know, like razor blades in apples and global warming and most black Americans are poor and on welfare . The truth is no one knows the real numbers because the music industry doesn't measure the over-the-counter demographic. It’s marketing. Brilliant marketing, but marketing none the less.

Think about it. What a great way to legitimize cultural poison. “See, even white kids drink the snake oil and nothing happens to them!”

Yeah, and some kids can eat peanut butter and others kids, if they do… die.

Rap culture sung to fatherless, hopeless children is the same as drinking Kool-Aid in Guyana.  The rap culture is a “black thang” and the fad is killing a generation.

So congratulations to Jordin Sparks who wanted her audience to know how “happy she is to come from an un-divorced, intact family, and that she has been keeping up her grades” (all A's and B's!) as she continued her schooling during the months of American Idol competition.

And there you have it: intact family, hard work and good grades. The youngest American Idol in history just unwittingly described the formula for success in America. Too bad she can’t rap.

Lefties Twist Again, Like They Did Last Summer

The only way for some people to win an argument is to twist the words of others and take statements out of context.

You know what I’m talkin’ about.
(click photo)

All of us have experienced this in one way or another, but it’s ESPECIALLY frustrating when it happens in the context of media outlets (e.g., blogs) that reach more than a few people. (A few too many, in some cases.)

Here’s the quick backstory to bring everyone up to speed: I bashed the blind allegiance that many of my brothers and sisters in the black community have to the rap culture. I bashed the music of Ludacris. I bashed a culture where thugs shoot up people – and four-year-old girls! – for no reason at all. I lamented what I see happening to Americans of African descent and to Milwaukee.

Enter the know-it-all suburban lefties who like to throw stones from their cushy armchairs and manicured lawns in Shorewood, Brookfield and River Hills or wherever. These people have NO IDEA what it’s like to live in the city, and what it’s like to work to change a culture from the inside out.

But they know their rap music! (Or so they say.)

They know that they grew up on rap (yeah, right) and now they’re successful doctors, university professors, lawyers – whatever – generally, they are your basic ACLU disciples who take great pride in their supposed good standing in society… their compassion for America’s down trodden.   

These enlightened individuals saw some daylight for an ad hominem argument, so they chastised. Then they took their fact-twisting to another level: they accused me of saying that Ludacris was responsible for the death of Jasmine Owens.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. That is NOT what I said. Instead of my usual slogan, “It’s the culture, stupid,” I’ll have to switch things up today: “Read the post, stupid lefty bloggers!”

Sigh.

That was harsh. I apologize. I’ve already given them too much credit by dignifying their diatribes with such a lengthy response. But let me just close by saying that it’s a sad commentary on race relations, when so many white liberals rush to defend Ludacris, but they demonstrate no genuine concern for Milwaukee’s black community. No desire for it to get better. They defend peddlers of poison while preaching the gospel of handouts. They critique rap as social conscience while they sleep comfortably in security. MLK and JFK would have a lot of trouble recognizing anything that resembles their ideals in this party.

George W. Bush was right when he talked about the “soft bigotry of low expectations.” That’s the funny thing (actually it’s not funny at all): These white rap fans who love the status quo are totally blind to the fact that they’re the biggest bigots of them all. At least the KKK was intellectually honest about their desire to keep black people down. Today’s far-left bloggers take such delight in the poison that plagues black society; they are stubbornly unwilling to recognize my holistic view of the relationship between rap culture and gang culture. 

Did I ever say that Ludacris is responsible for the shootings on 29th Street. No, I did not. But until we teach our young people that there is more than killing – and rapping about (glorifying) killing (and drugs and sex and “bling”) – we will continue to have the same shocking results. And we can’t all retreat to the rolling hills of Brookfield or to a bankrupt ideology that says government spending can solve social problems.