work hard and don’t complain

Growing up in Memphis, there were 3 general things I was inculcated with from either my Grand folk, Mom or Uncles:

1] If you gone be a ditch digger be the best ditch digger and they will always call Torrance to dig that ditch

2] Somebody gotta be number one, may as well be you.

3] Competition is for folk who have to prove something to themselves; you don’t need to compete boy if you already know yourself.

Over the years, I have had a lot of things said about me, but never have I been called lazy nor have I ever had my work ethic questioned. The little I know about my mothers father and my granny’s brother, I do recant both of them giving me advice as a child under the age of 4. My Great Uncle, while drinking Scotch and chain smoking Pall Mall Red would say “what makes a man is how hard he works, not for himself but his family and neighborhood – men take care of others.” These were straight old school cats, with my great uncle, like my granny, being straight up on out of Yazoo City, Mississippi.

Even after they both died, and my mother’s brother took over the reign of my family being the last oldest male in the household, he said the same thing to me over and over but added “we will always work hard and take care of out children, and working smart is the hardest work to do.”

I am writing this because of a request I received from one of my readers. He suggested that I was always talking about self suffiency and that I should share my joy of hard work and working for myself to others such to maybe motivates them to do the same. I honestly hope that this tractate does his request honor. For it is a joy, a joy unfortunately equal to that I experienced when my son and daughter were born, only without the tears. You see after both were born, I left the delivery room, looked at the moon in one case and the rising sun in the other and cried, like it was straight out of Roots.

Nowadays, not like there is nothing wrong with it, but many of us want the easy way out, We want to rely on our looks and become models, or we want to rap, or worse, we spend $10 to $20 dollars weekly trying to hit the lotto. No longer do we desire to wait or even earn what we desire for in our myopic purview, me, and me now is all that counts. We will complain while we have other providing or taking care of us because we cannot see that their work ethic is what sustains us, or that the opportunity given to us is always a function of chance; and that we need to make the best of all opportunities for we may not get another.

But for some of us, the easy way is the best way. Even if that means selling drugs, jacking someone’s shit, depending on others or just not being able to be on time for a job if one is fortunate enough to have one. And dont give me this bitch azz shit about its the only way folk can make money. Truth be told, hard work is a throw back like black and white TV. I mean we are so lazy that we will walk in front of a TV looking for a remote control to change the channel instead of doing it manually. We even too lazy to change our oil or even cook our own meals, preferring to waste loot at Jiffy Lube or McDonalds, while at the same time being, or saying we are too busy to sit at the dinner table together. To busy with all the convience around us – go figure. All I am saying is that work ethic is what engenders sprit of faith and accomplishment. Without such, we have nothing, for we will ask and wait for folk to give us shit, even if its freedom, liberty or equality. I see what George Clinton meant now when he said Free your mind and your ass will follow. For I am the last eldest man left in my family and outside of love, alll i can leave them with are my actions through my work ethic - can u dig it?

Amplification: In last post ACTION means macking or trying to get a girls number for yawl lames LOL - not sex.

shysternomics

According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, a shyster is a person "who is professionally unscrupulous especially in the practice of law or politics." Being from the dirty, i have met a many of shysters both in the streets and in the work place. From my recollection, the governor of Mississippi gives new meaning to this word.

We all recant of August 2005 when Hurricane Katrina “Dropped the Bomb” on parts of the Dirty. It was one of the catastrophic storms in the history of the U.S. In many places, it did so much damage that it lead to the displacement of tens of thousands of people. In fact the U.S. Census Bureau, noted that after the event, the population of the state of Louisiana declined by 219,563 (almost 5%). Almost 80% of New Orleans was flooded (neighborhoods that ranged from 75 to 100% African American – see pg 2) by Hurricane Katrina, with some parts documented to have been submerged under 20 feet of water.

Total city of NO displacement was close to 500,000 persons (200,000 households). Mississippi was hit hard too, where the hurriciane leaving almost 300 people dead and about $125 billion in damages. However, it was not hit as hard as Lousiana, in particular New Orleans where the LA Department of Health document at least 1,464 deaths (like im supposed to belive this) across the state.

A recent GAO report I just read (came out end of August) suggest that the Federal Emergency Management Agency administered an alternative housing program that unfairly directed $275 of the available $388 million to residents in the state of Mississippi. A little bit more than 70 percent of the 275,00 homes destroyed or rendered unlivable due to Katrina were located in Lousiana alone. Add in Rita to the mix, 217,245 housing units were destroyed compared to approximatelly 68,000 in Mississippi.

We also know that there are many reports of massive fraud in the state. Take the State Farm insurance Example. Two auditors, in an exclusive interview with ABC news show 20/20, alleged that audit reports that concluded that damage was caused by wind were hidden until new reports could be fabricated to show otherwise – so SFI would not have to pay.

I guess it does pay to be a friend of GWB and the governor of the State of Mississippi (Haley Barbour) as it has been suggested by other writers. I just wonder how much loot in kick backs both them folks got from the Feds and State Farm - go figure

going back to Southwick - i mean southpark

As I return from Raleigh-Durham, NC, I am somewhat in a quandry. Today, the Senate will take up the debate on the confirmation of Leslie Southwick, a retired Mississippi Court of Appeals judge, to determine if he will receive a lifetime appointment on the federal bench. Southwick, 57, is President Bush's choice for a seat on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Although many democrats indicate, they will not support his confirmation, the only one that has openly stated his position is Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. Obama said if the nomination reached the floor for a vote, that he would not support him. Obama is also scheduled to be in Mississippi, Southwick’s home state on Friday.

What is the big deal you ask? Well some use the decisions he made in two controversial cases. The one of interest to me centered on a white social worker who called one of her co-workers a nigger. Southwick was a part of the majority opinion that decided the use of the slur was insufficient grounds to fire the woman.

The case ( Richmond v. Mississippi Department of Human Services), Bonnie Richmond was a social worker for the department who was fired when she referred to an African American co-worker as a “good ole nigger” at a meeting with the Mississippi Department of Human Services top executives. According to the courts, Ms. Richmond’s slur “was not motivated out of racial hatred or racial animosity directed toward a particular co-worker or toward blacks in general.” So in essence if one is at work, and you are called a nigger by a white co-worker, it is legal and does not meet the grounds for dismissal from employment.
I was hoping that folks had realized that it was 2007 and not 1807 – but I guess I was wrong.

historical malfeasance

I am not much of a movie go-er and I do not look at movies that much even at the cut. This past week however, I got a free bootleg copy of 300. They say it is supposed to be a story about the battle of Thermopylae and King Leonidas. It is also supposed to be about 300 Spartans called Hoplites. These were supposed to be elite troops of which they all had sons back home. The logic was men fighting with sons would fight harder.

From a historical perspective, I noticed that Hollywood somewhat took liberty with the actual battle. I mean the Spartans eventually ran from the battle and were killed by Persian archers and Leonidas, it was written, was or beheaded on Xerxes' orders.

What I know about the battle comes from Herodotus. Although he suggested it was about 5 million Persians involved in the battle, other historian’s state that the number was closer to about a quarter million. I do respect Herodotus but at the time of the battle, which is documented to have occurred in 480 BCE (before Christian Europe), Herodotus was about 4 years old.


Then there was the fact that the movie led folks to think that the Spartans' did wear much armor, which was a blatant historical untruth since it was likely what protected them in comparison to what the Persians wore. Then there is the observation that the director or whoever made it seem as if the Spartans were fighting for freedom, liberty and democracy when that could not have been farther from the truth. Sparta was not a free society and was really closer in character to a monarchical dictatorship; with the majority of its population being helots - a service class of individuals owned by the state and perceived to be property of the state property who were slaves and were denied Spartan citizenship.

The movie was cool to look at and the killing and graphic sex and violence was entertaining as well. However, it reminded me why, as an individual fan of history, I try not to go to see such stuff. It makes me believe that folks will take this as being factual, as actual historical occurrences. Just like the Movie Mississippi Burning – it had black folks thinking the FBI and J.Edgar Hoover was on our side and wanted to help African Americans in the deep south – poppy cock.