simple pagan ritual

The history of the world is replete with situations of conquest, adoption and out right thievery. Antiquated times saw Alexander name a library after himself, and Pythagoras take claim for a mathematical theorem that was obviously used thousands of years prior to his birth as evidenced via the construction of pyramids in Egypt. In modern times, the same can be said of jazz and Blues and even Rock music.

Now, it seems nothing is sacred, not even the collective experience of being a descendant of Africa in America - not even in south central LA. If you have not heard by now, "Margaret B. Jones” whom we have come to find out is really Margaret "Peggy" Seltzer recently published a book. Reviewers raved about the book called Love and Consequences, a memoir by Margaret P. Jones. NPR described it as being about “a half-white, half-Native-American foster child growing up in the gangland milieu of Los Angeles.” Unfortunately Seltzer was raised by her birth parents in the suburbs around Orange County, California. This where she grew up and attended the best private schools (Episcopal day school) that loot could purchase. In addition, she has never lived with a foster family as she claimed nor did she ever run drugs for any gang members let alone belong to the Bloodz. She even lied about where she went to college and her graduating at the University of Oregon, which she did not. She was exposed by her older sister days before being profiled in the New York Times.

And when she was busted, what did she say? “For whatever reason, I was really torn and I thought it was my opportunity to put a voice to people who people don’t listen to,” Ms. Seltzer said. “I was in a position where at one point people said you should speak for us because nobody else is going to let us in to talk. Maybe it’s an ego thing — I don’t know. I just felt that there was good that I could do and there was no other way that someone would listen to it.”

I only read what I could online before they took the book excerpt offline. I tried to find her myspace page but it is gone too. But one section talks about, her African-American foster brothers, Terrell and Taye. They supposedly joining the Bloodz when 11 and 13 years old as well as how she got her first gat as a gift when she was 13. The catch is she did all this dirt s she could save to get a cemetery plot – LOL. Oprah couldn't ever tell, which is scary on several accords to me.

Before she was exposed to be a faker, her publisher Penguin Group released an interview on their web site with the author. It was also included in press kits. I just selected this to hope that u laughed as hard as i did.

Q: How did this book originate?
A: During my senior year of college one of my professors told me a friend of hers was working on a book and wanted to interview me. I declined. I wasn’t interested in the whole “South-Central-as-petting-zoo” thing. Then my home girl said the teacher might mess around and fail me for rejecting her friend, so I ended up calling the author and doing the interview. She was real nice and asked me if I had ever written anything. I ended up giving her one of a number of short stories I had written for my brothers’ kids and for the kids of my homies serving life sentences. ...

Q: What makes the difference between someone who is able to move up and on and out of the inner city and someone else who follows the trajectory into crime, juvenile detention, prison, and so on?

A: I wish I knew. I’ve got my homeboy who’s doing life who wrote me, “You and OG homie are the only ones who made it out.” Well, OG homie is now locked up. And I can’t even judge.

LMAO now

Q: What was the scene that affected both of you so much
A: It was the scene in which my little sisters and I were walking home from the Korean grocery store and Nishia dropped a carton of milk. It burst open and the milk streamed into the gutter. She burst into tears, begging me not to be mad as she stooped down trying to scrape it all back into the broken carton. I told her I wasn’t mad. But I was. That was a half-gallon of milk wasted and two dollars gone. Even now, as an adult, just thinking about that—thinking about the choices you were given as a child that weren’t kid choices—makes me want to cry. ...

Q: You were 16 when you cooked your first batch of rock cocaine. What led you to do that?
A: Our water had been shut off because Big Mom couldn’t pay the bill. If your water is cut off social services is going to come and say it’s bad living conditions and take the kids out of there. Where I was was cool. I was with people who loved me. I didn’t want us to be split up so I was trying to be part of the solution. That meant bringing in money and getting the water turned back on. Once again that’s not a choice kids should have to make. I knew it was not right—cooking up rock. I knew I was contributing negatively to the community. But the water got put back on the same day. The reward was there. To go from wearing third generation hand-me-downs to wearing name brand everything—when you’re a kid that stuff matt

Guess I can’t blame her, well yes I can. Although for a white person to write a book on African American culture, all they need is a few hip hop cd’s, Menace to Society, maybe even the Wire (but I aint never seen that show) and maybe a week of listening to urban radio to have the language down pact. At least they pulled the book. But then again we all make mistakes, i mean who know black folks and how we live better than white folks.

What gets me is that it is easier for a white person, more accurately a Valley Girl that claims living the experiences of being black to get a book deal with a major imprint than an actual person like me – who lives and get “well your writing is unrealistic, no one wants to read about black men who think like philosophers.” True story. Sad thing was that she sold and sold. Guess this is just a simple pagan ritual, not for all but for some, who cant think or create in their own, sure she had creative writing classes, just like Pythagoras may have had a ruler, but neither of the two lived what they created.

U promised me a rose garden folk

Book is out: Click on cover to right to order: DIRT BEHIND MY EARS: ESSAYS AND SATIRE FROM THE DIRTY
Addiction is a very serious disease (yep disease). Just like depression and/or cancer, it disables the body in various fashions and can be stimulated prior the consumption of any substance such as cocaine and alcohol, or via disruptions in cyclic AMP pumps or varying levels of naturally occurring chemicals in the body such as enzymes and neurotransmitters.

Now I know a many of bloggers have touched on a few speeches recently, in particular the one delivered by Barack Obama. However, it was really something I could not attend to since it was based on old news, albeit I was asked to consider writing about it by some of my fellow bloggers. I did not for it would have been a short brief; one that would have advocated that he listened to School House rock too as a child.

Today, our recovering addict in chief, President George W. Bush, addressed the Pentagon in honor (if it can be considered a celebration) of our fifth year anniversary of our invasion and occupation of Iraq. To me considering such as an anniversary is like celebrating the coming of the plague.

In his first speech, in 2001, which I have only read and not heard, he made several statements that stuck out like a hard dick. He made a few statements that stuck with me. The first was “One by one, we are eliminating power centers of a regime that harbors al Qaeda terrorists.” Moreover he added that “Enemies of America have now added to these graves, and they wish to add more.”

This time, he did the same, and like an addict, it appeared as if he was intentionally misleading or even lying to the America public. He said that "The tasks that remain in Iraq - to bring an end to sectarian conflict, to devise a way to share political power and to create a functioning government that is capable of providing for the needs of the Iraqi people - are tasks that only the Iraqis can complete.''

I find this strange since first, the sectarian conflict hat he speaks of did not start till expost facto our invasion and next because the violence that is sectarian, has been mainly promulgated by our policy – namely of paying insurgents and militias that are apart of Awakening Councils, to protect each neighborhood. Now Iraq may as well be like Compton, California, where each block is maybe controlled by some set of Crips or Bloods. In Iraq, especially Baghdad, each neighborhood is controlled by their own militias, who we pay, like sects, to war against each other neighborhood.

Mr. President also suggests that: “…for the terrorists, Iraq was supposed to be the place where al-Qaida rallied Arab masses to drive America out. Instead, Iraq has become the place where Arabs joined with Americans to drive al-Qaida out. In Iraq, we are witnessing the first large-scale Arab uprising against Osama bin Laden, his grim ideology, and his terror network. And the significance of this development cannot be overstated.''

This too is strange since the CIA and his own military and other assorted advisors admitted that Al Qaida was not operating in Iraq when Sadaam was in power. In particular given that they wanted to see his form of government abrogated and replaced with a theocracy – meaning he was a thorn in the side of Al Qaida and observed as their enemy, an infidel. And again, the only way one could say that Arabs are working with the American military is to say that the 1) assist with maintaining the roughly 2hr of continuous electricity the have a day when before the war it ran uninterrupted and 2] that accepting payola from the US military, to use insurgent groups to protect their neighborhoods and battle with other neighborhoods is considered the definition of working together with the US military.

For a person that doesn’t live in or visit Iraq regularly, it is unintelligible to cognize how he can make such a denouement. As a scientist, I can’t use a single indicator to mark such a consummation. For it appears to me that the only one he is using is the number of death, or the reduction of deaths thereof. The killer was the catch phrase of how it ended up being “The battle in Iraq has been longer and harder and more costly than we anticipated” – like I am supposed to believe he gave this war serious ideation in the first place – LOL.

To me, they only difference from the first speech and this one today was that back then, by his side, well almost was his distant cousin of the executive office, Senator Hillary R. Clinton. In addition, I guess today he was trying a wag the dog and remove all of the attention from the fucked up economic position his deficit spending war-mongering ass has facilitated. All in all, I just know he said we would triumph and that I have yet to get the rose garden he promised. And mean while, Mr. 100 year war - John McCain (albeit he is ld enough to have been in the war between France and England), is in Israel, campaigning, like the a state in the US.