Prometheus 6

"The mob I now faced carried no ropes or guns," Thomas writes of his hearings. "Its weapons were smooth-tongued lies spoken into microphones and printed on the front pages of America's newspapers. . . . But it was a mob all the same, and its purpose -- to keep the black man in his place -- was unchanged."

Right.

Lifetime position, $1.5 million advance...have a Coke and a smile and shut the hell up. You knew you'd be reviled for the yeoman-like job you've done in support of the Southern Strategy. You ain't surprised and if it's more intense than you expected, well, tough titty. 

Justice Thomas Lashes Out in Memoir
Book Attacks Liberals and the Media, Breaks Near-Silence on Anita Hill
By Robert Barnes, Michael A. Fletcher and Kevin Merida
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, September 29, 2007; A01

Justice Clarence Thomas settles scores in an angry and vivid forthcoming memoir, scathingly condemning the media, the Democratic senators who opposed his nomination to the Supreme Court, and the "mob" of liberal elites and activist groups that he says desecrated his life.

I got several posts that currently exist only as a set of links to things that made me want to write the posts. One is an offering of information to white folks inspired by a lot of disappointing conversations I've read in the comments around Jena on some progressive blogs. There's just some things I think they can understand, but don't. Feels like I got around half of it done last night...figured I'd finish it up and figure out what to do with it today.

I normally read around the newspapers of record, then I scan the headlines of Black blogs and what I consider "coalition blogs"...Latino, multi-racial, feminist (no gay category...Black gay folks are just Black folks). Today I decide to check the blogs first and (via Electronic Village and Costella’s Urban World) find this story only in a newspaper of non-record, the New York Daily News.

In St. Louis, a mother complained a landlord told her he wouldn't rent to families with pets or children.

In Worcester, Mass., a man with kidney disease said a landlord refused to rent to him because his disability was "too much baggage."

In San Jose, Calif., Hispanic families complained their apartment manager spoke disparagingly of Mexicans and gave their repair requests lower priority.

In Chesterfield, Va., a black woman said a white property owner told her the house she was interested in "will not be sold to coloreds."

"It was like he had just punched me," said Nealie Pitts, 59, whose eyes still fill with tears when she talks about the 2002 incident.

Growing number of allege unfair treatment in housing market
By Deborah Barfield Berry and Robert Benincasa, Gannett News Service

I'm only linking this

Caution by Junta's Asian Neighbors Reflects Their Self-Interest
By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, September 28, 2007; Page A16

BANGKOK, Sept. 27 -- The United States and Europe have fiercely criticized Burma's military rulers for clinging to power during another round of pro-democracy protests, this time led by unarmed monks. But closer to home, the junta's Asian neighbors and trading partners -- China chief among them -- have walked a distinctly more cautious line, expressing distress over the violence and, after long hesitation, renewing calls for reconciliation and eventual transition to democracy.

...as a reminder that there's always more to the story than you are told in the newspapers of record.

Channel 4 Dispatches - Burma's Secret War

Is the headline true for YOU?

And black Democrats in the South are quietly being asked to give some of the heavily black areas of their districts to neighboring Republican districts to put more seats in play.

They're still as fungible as you are, though. 

For Black Caucus, An Era of Progress, A Time for Patience
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 28, 2007; A17

The stage Wednesday night at the Congressional Black Caucus's annual legislative conference was a dream that was 37 years old, as old as the caucus itself.

No longer just liberal backbenchers railing at Congress's leadership, the lawmakers who opened the conference were the power elite: the chairmen of the House Ways and Means, Judiciary, Homeland Security, and ethics committees, as well as the House's third-ranking Democrat.

"I had to keep quiet, I have to say, because I couldn't break in without my voice cracking," said Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), the House majority whip. "It was that emotional."

"These actions raise serious questions about the consequences of engaging private, for-profit entities to engage in essentially military operations in a war zone," the committee report said.

Blackwater Focused on Cost, Not Safety, Report Says
By Glenn Kessler and Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, September 28, 2007; A14

The private security firm Blackwater USA brushed aside warnings from another security firm and focused on cost, not safety, before it sent its personnel to escort trucks to Fallujah in 2004, resulting in four American deaths that marked a major turning point in the war, a congressional report said yesterday .

The report comes as Blackwater -- the State Department's prime security force -- faces new scrutiny for its role this month in the killing of at least 11 Iraqis. Citing e-mails, fresh interviews and previously undisclosed incident reports, the report by the majority staff of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform provides details about how cost considerations appeared to shape Blackwater's decisions that led to the brutal deaths of its employees at the hands of insurgents on March 31, 2004.

People think of ownership as physical possession of an object. Given that you still own an object when you lend it to someone, and given the "intellectual property" construct it's obvious that not the legal understanding of the nature of ownership.

Simply put, ownership is the ability to prevent others from using the thing owned. Physically, legally, however. If you own something, you determine who uses it and how it it used.

Which is why I say Apple still owns your iPhone.

An Apple software update is disabling iPhones that have been unlocked by owners who wanted to choose which mobile network to use.

Earlier this week Apple said a planned update would leave the device "permanently inoperable".

The initial title was Apple and ATT still own your iPhone; might be accurate, but Apple is the one jacking your $600 microcomputer.

Oh, you paid a grand for a pre-hacked iPhone? Heh.

Verizon Ends Text-Message Ban
Abortion-Rights Group Had Been Barred From Network
By Kim Hart
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 28, 2007; D02

After facing criticism for blocking content on its network, Verizon Wireless yesterday reversed its decision to bar an abortion-rights group from sending text messages to Verizon subscribers.

The nation's second-largest wireless carrier said executives determined that the decision was an "incorrect interpretation of a dusty internal policy."

"The decision to not allow text messaging on an important, though sensitive, public policy issue was incorrect, and we have fixed the process that led to this isolated incident," Verizon Wireless spokesman Jeffrey Nelson said in a written statement.

Hopefully that means the fired the dummy that made the decision.

Don't nobody tell me about the Reverend Jesse Lee Paterson today. I know the fool was on CNN.

It's over here.

Not a open thread per se; I'm just feeling a bit oppressed after spending all week hip deep in white folks' not knowing. So I'm going to find me a Japanese restaurant before blogging the Tavis joint, which does threaten to be interesting. Lotta Republicans are expecting nothing but "gotcha" questions, which lets you know THEIR level of race consciousness. Meanwhile, the three reporters are people quite comfortable with Republicans,,,Juan Williams, Cynthia Tucker and Ray Suarez.

That's right...Ray Suarez of PBS. They ran out of Black folks willing to take them seriously.

So the questions should be as interesting as the answers.

Mr. Ensign insists that he only wanted time to strengthen, not obstruct, disclosure ethics.

Nonsense. If he wanted to strengthen disclosure ethics, he would have put forth legislation in his name rather than hiding behind a secret hold.

Let the Sunshine In

Of all the secretive games of Washington, none was cheesier than the Senate’s honored device of the “secret hold” — the power of a lawmaker to anonymously block a bill from reaching a floor vote without stating rhyme or reason or identity. Thus, it was a bit of history Monday night when the Senate discovered the name of the mystery man who for months has been obstructing a long overdue step toward campaign finance reform. This is the simple requirement that senators file fund-raising reports electronically, as House and presidential candidates long have done, rather than through the hoary, paper-intensive route that has let senators obscure their benefactors and beholdings.

Many analysts point to crack cocaine in the 1980s as a catalyst for the subsequent boom in incarceration rates. Attracted by the drug's low price, dealers in impoverished urban neighborhoods began selling it in open-air markets, where they and their customers were targets for arrest. Thirst for the drug also fueled other crimes by addicts.

Why has Crystal Meth not had the same effect? I wonder... 

Influx of U.S. Inmates Slowing, Census Says
Number Incarcerated Still a Record High; Sentencing in '90s Cited as Factor
By N.C. Aizenman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 27, 2007; A12

After two decades of massive growth, the U.S. prison population began to level off in the first six years of this century, according to 2006 census statistics released today.

Black Opinion on Simpson Shifts

African Americans Now More Likely to Say He Murdered Ex-Wife, Her Friend
By Darryl Fears
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 27, 2007; A03

In a nation that largely despised him, O.J. Simpson always had strong support within the black community, where polls showed a majority of people believed he was innocent of charges that he murdered his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her acquaintance Ronald Lyle Goldman outside her home in Los Angeles's Brentwood neighborhood in 1994.

But after a string of missteps by the former football star -- a heated 2003 argument with his teenage daughter in which she called police; a book, "If I Did It," that raised eyebrows last year; and a dispute over sports collectibles in Las Vegas this month that led to an armed-robbery arrest -- black opinion has shifted.

Assholes like ABW dealt with harshly are attacking you, and unless some kind of repercussions you can not stop them. So bring them the pain. We should not suffer, the racists should.

Some might say that I went a bit too far. After all, I could have endangered that man’s job and he might have gotten really pissed at me. Well, you know what, I am fucking tired of you entitled assholes that think it’s your goddamned right to abuse me and my guests without any thought that we might be real people with real feelings in a real world. So I brought the Internet to YOUR house and you’d better believe I’ll do it again. Because I am tired of this shit.

What I Might Do If I Got Really Angry
Posted on September 27, 2007 by the angry black woman

So every now and then we get some semi-hard core trolls around here who decide to make annoying and stupid posts on every post they come across starting on the front page and going backwards. Or sometimes they start out in one particular conversation and radiate out as we get wind that they’re really nothing more that bored assholes with nothing better to do. Usually I can shut these people down by banning them, but every now and then one gets it in their heads that the conversation isn’t over, that they have more to say and, damnit, we WILL listen!

The last time this happened I banned a guy, watched him hit the moderation wall 4 times, then say something like “Huh, I guess you really can ban me. Oh well, I’ll try again on Monday.” to which I thought “Oh no you fucking won’t.” That particular douchebag was not only posting from work, but used his work address in the email field. So I called up his company, explained to them what was going on, and asked if they could ban him from further trolling while he was at work, at least.

That’s right, I called up someone’s job and emailed their HR office comments from ABW.

Spence asked a question here that I responded to over there. You can discuss it here if discussion is warranted.

It will be a bit before I actually get started today.

The comment thread at Metafilter is great too.

"The niggers are coming!"
September 25, 2007 10:03 PM

Through a Lens Darkly - on September 4, 1957, when 15-year-old Elizabeth Eckford tried to enter Little Rock Central High, she was blocked by the National Guard and surrounded by a screaming mob of 250: "Lynch her! Lynch her!" "No nigger bitch is going to get in our school! Get out of here!" "Go back to where you came from!" Looking for a friendly face, she turned to an old woman, who spat on her. Photos. Dramatic news footage. Ernest Green, another of the Little Rock 9 recalls the first day of school.

The result of the immigration debate is preordained.

“I don’t think people knew there would be such an economic burden,” said Mayor George Conard, who voted for the original ordinance. “A lot of people did not look three years out.”

Towns Rethink Laws Against Illegal Immigrants
By KEN BELSON and JILL P. CAPUZZO

RIVERSIDE, N.J., Sept. 25 — A little more than a year ago, the Township Committee in this faded factory town became the first municipality in New Jersey to enact legislation penalizing anyone who employed or rented to an illegal immigrant.

Within months, hundreds, if not thousands, of recent immigrants from Brazil and other Latin American countries had fled. The noise, crowding and traffic that had accompanied their arrival over the past decade abated.

The law had worked. Perhaps, some said, too well.

He obviously came with the intention of getting Bill O'Reilly off the hook. WAAAAAAY too much racial shit that white folks can't avoid going on...

The official narrative on Jena has been decided. There were nooses hung, then six months later a white kid got jumped.

Find me an article less than a week old that says anything different. And I'd rather think there was a meeting where this was decided than think so many white folks coincidentally decided to ignore the exact same information.

This ignorance is promoted when the New York Times gives Reed Walters a platform to present his spin unchallenged. However, by overlaying his explanation of things on the most detailed description of events I can find, we can still see where the problem is and how is is being hidden. We see strong evidence that equal protection under the law is not afforded the Black community in Jena.