Sorry about the honey thing. Sometimes it just slips out. I don't consider it condescending at all. I would guess that about 3 out of 5 store clerks (female) call me honey when I check out. It sort of makes me feel good. As far as Michelle's spending reputation, I understand all of what you say. I don't subscribe to it 100% because you know as well as I that those expenses don't come out of thin air. It always comes down to the taxpayers in the end, doesn't it? My main concern is the appearance of reckless spending that it conveys to the average person who isn't able to conceive of that kind of waste. Your last paragraph is so far off base I hardly know how to respond. You liberals seem to find hatred in almost everything that disagrees with your philosophy. There is no hatred there. By the way, I am not complaining about the expenses for ONLY the first family. I am complaining about the fact that we now have a national debt exceeding $18 Trillion - Incomprehensible to most of us. I will confess that I disagree with nearly all of this administration's policies and it has absolutely nothing to do with his ancestry. I want Ben Carson. Nice hearing from you, Ma'm.

KKHI - point well taken.

And a great topic for discussion. I've already replied to SheWolf's topic about this attack in Texas.

It is well worth for many to think about the consequences of free speach.

Ms. Geller was not a "crank". She is, as SheWolf described, self-serving, uncaring, narcissistic, playing with 1st Amendment rights. Yes, I remember the whole exhibit at MOMA, the "piss Christ" and other pieces by other British artists.

I believe one ought to think carefully before doing and/or exhibiting something to which they are fully entitled according to our Constitutional rights. I am not opposed to free speach, by any measure.

I do think that what is amoral and depicts anyone's religious beliefs, or anyone's sexual orientation with hatred and beligerence, needs to step back, and think carefully about the ends justifying the means. To Muslims, depiction, as you said, of the Mohammed, and all sentient beings, is prohibited. This needs careful consideration. What is next? Nazi's again marching in Skokie? The KKK, alive and thriving in, not
only the South? OH, yes, the Khmer Rouge is also alive
and thriving in Cambodia.

Christians, Jews, Muslims, LGBT hatred, all protected under our 1st Amendment rights.

Amoral or perfectly alright?

What do you all think??? Curious in Oakland. Dance
Therapist.

Attack in Garland is an assault on free speech

By Washington Examiner | May 5, 2015 | 5:00 am
Let there be no confusion: The First Amendment exists precisely to protect speech offensive...
On Sunday night, two Islamic fanatics were killed right as they began their attack in Garland, Texas. They failed to kill anyone in their assault against a gathering of the American Freedom Defense Initiative which had been advertised as a contest to draw cartoons of Mohammed, the prophet of Islam.
Some have recognized the attack as an assault on the freedom of speech — the sort of attack that has inspired groups like AFDI to wage public campaigns against the Islamic faith. Others have denounced AFDI as a hate group that routinely demonizes Muslims and in this case tried to provoke them.

Perhaps everyone is at least partly right — but that doesn't mean everyone is morally equal.

In the late 1980s, a U.S. government grant for artist Andres Serrano's "Piss Christ" showed the lengths to which some bureaucrats and artistic elites will go in order to offend religious sensibilities. At the time, those Christians who objected were given high-handed lectures about how, in a pluralistic society where freedom of speech is paramount, they must tolerate (and perhaps even fund) provocations against their religion.
Likewise, the event in Garland was surely provocative, even if it wasn't government-funded. Islamic tradition prohibits the depiction of sentient beings, but depictions of Mohammed are considered especially sacrilegious — the rough equivalent of the desecration of Christian images or relics.

But as provocative as a Mohammed-drawing contest may be, what about all of those lectures from the times of "Piss Christ?" Do those no longer apply now, when free speech offends a group less distasteful to the cultural elite? Are offenses against Christian sensibilities the only ones permitted by the First Amendment?

And will the lecturers maintain their silence if other events that represent potential provocations to some Muslims — say, gay-pride parades — begin to inspire attacks as well?

Let there be no confusion: The First Amendment exists precisely to protect speech offensive enough to motivate a coercive response. To say otherwise is to defeat its purpose. If no one expressed themselves in ways that made others uncomfortable, there would be no need for the Constitution's near-absolute prohibition on laws about what people can and cannot say. This is why the Garland group's provocation is an insignificant matter compared to the lack of restraint shown by the two deceased malefactors. The worst possible response to this attack is to say that those who staged the Garland event are cranks who hold offensive opinions, and therefore somehow their rights are less equal than those of other Americans.

Neither compassion nor toleration permits the drawing of any moral equivalency between provocative speech and violence.

Most Americans learn at a young age that they have no business using violence or threats to force others to conform to or even respect their own religious beliefs. The future must not belong to those unwilling to absorb that very basic lesson of good citizenship.

**I tend to agree with W.E.B. Dubois....Washington's plan was basically to throw yourself at the mercy of the white man and prove your pwrth to them for acceptance...the same thing today'sblack con's do...at the expense of their race.

Two great leaders of the black community in the late 19th and 20th century were W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington. However, they sharply disagreed on strategies for black social and economic progress. Their opposing philosophies can be found in much of today's discussions over how to end class and racial injustice, what is the role of black leadership, and what do the 'haves' owe the 'have-nots' in the black community.

Booker T. Washington, educator, reformer and the most influentional black leader of his time (1856-1915) preached a philosophy of self-help, racial solidarity and accomodation. He urged blacks to accept discrimination for the time being and concentrate on elevating themselves through hard work and material prosperity. He believed in education in the crafts, industrial and farming skills and the cultivation of the virtues of patience, enterprise and thrift. This, he said, would win the respect of whites and lead to African Americans being fully accepted as citizens and integrated into all strata of society.

W.E.B. Du Bois, a towering black intellectual, scholar and political thinker (1868-1963) said no--Washington's strategy would serve only to perpetuate white oppression. Du Bois advocated political action and a civil rights agenda (he helped found the NAACP). In addition, he argued that social change could be accomplished by developing the small group of college-educated blacks he called "the Talented Tenth:"


"The Negro Race, like all races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men. The problem of education then, among Negroes, must first of all deal with the "Talented Tenth." It is the problem of developing the best of this race that they may guide the Mass away from the contamination and death of the worst."


At the time, the Washington/Du Bois dispute polarized African American leaders into two wings--the 'conservative' supporters of Washington and his 'radical' critics. The Du Bois philosophy of agitation and protest for civil rights flowed directly into the Civil Rights movement which began to develop in the 1950's and exploded in the 1960's. Booker T. today is associated, perhaps unfairly, with the self-help/colorblind/Republican/Clarence Thomas/Thomas Sowell wing of the black community and its leaders. The Nation of Islam and Maulana Karenga's Afrocentrism derive too from this strand out of Booker T.'s philosophy. However, the latter advocated withdrawal from the mainstream in the name of economic advancement.

The real problem is the "Police" culture, not the black or any other.
The police, (black - white - pink, or polka-dot)are being militarized so as to be the first line of oppression against the American people. This type of thing has precidence in history. One only need to look at the
"Third Reich" to see the parallels. In every country at every time there is dictatorship, the police are in EVERY instance the front line of aggression against the very people who gave them authority. History has never been learned by the human race, therefore it is once again being repeated. Wise up America, study your past history, because it is becoming current history. Lord help us all.

By N. D. B. CONNOLLYMAY 1, 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/01/opinion/black-culture-is-not-the-problem.html?emc=edit_tnt_20150501&nlid=51247735&tntemail0=y&_r=0

BALTIMORE — IN the wake of the Michael Brown shooting and subsequent unrest in Ferguson, Mo., commentators noted the absence of black representatives among Ferguson’s elected officials and its police leadership. A Department of Justice report highlighted how Ferguson’s mostly white City Council and its courts spurred on explicitly racist policing, in part to harvest fines from black residents.

Then came Baltimore. The death of Freddie Gray, like those of Eric Garner, John Crawford III, Rekia Boyd and so many other unarmed African-Americans, at first seemed to fit the all-too-familiar template — white cops, black suspect, black corpse.

But unlike New York, Chicago and other cities with white leaders, Baltimore has a black mayor, a black police commissioner and a majority-black City Council. Yet the city still has one of the most stained records of police brutality in recent years.

In the absence of a perceptible “white power structure,” the discussion around Baltimore has quickly turned to one about the failings of black culture. This confuses even those who sympathize with black hardship. When people took to the streets and destroyed property, most observers did not see an understandable social response to apparent state inaction. They saw, in the words of Baltimore’s mayor, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, “thugs,” or in the words of President Obama, “criminals and thugs.”

To be fair, the mayor later expressed regret, and both she and the president have tried to show empathy for the dispossessed. But they are also fighting myths about degenerate black culture. Condemning “criminals” and “thugs” seems to get them away from beliefs about broad black inferiority.

Yet when black people of influence make these arguments, it prevents us from questioning Baltimore the way we questioned Ferguson.

Instead, we lionize people like Toya Graham, the Baltimore mother who went upside the head of her rioting son. Baltimore’s police commissioner, Anthony W. Batts, applauded her, pleading with parents to “take control of your kids.” But the footage certainly affirms violence as the best way to get wayward black people under control.

Moreover, by treating a moment of black-on-black violence as a bright spot, we take our eye off the circumstances that created the event. We forget, for instance, about how officials, in their fear of black youth, issued what witnesses said was a pre-emptive riot-police blockade hemming in students around Mondawmin Mall, where looting erupted.

The problem is not black culture. It is policy and politics, the very things that bind together the history of Ferguson and Baltimore and, for that matter, the rest of America.

Specifically, the problem rests on the continued profitability of racism. Freddie Gray’s exposure to lead paint as a child, his suspected participation in the drug trade, and the relative confinement of black unrest to black communities during this week’s riot are all features of a city and a country that still segregate people along racial lines, to the financial enrichment of landlords, corner store merchants and other vendors selling second-rate goods.

The problem originates in a political culture that has long bound black bodies to questions of property. Yes, I’m referring to slavery.

Slavery was not so much a labor system as it was a property regime, with slaves serving not just as workers, but as commodities. Back in the day, people routinely borrowed against other human beings. They took out mortgages on them. As a commodity, the slave had a value that the state was bound to protect.

Now housing and commercial real estate have come to occupy the heart of America’s property regime, replacing slavery. And damage to real estate, far more than damage to ostensibly free black people, tends to evoke swift responses from the state. What we do not prosecute nearly well enough, however, is the daily assault on black people’s lives through the slow, willful destruction of real estate within black communities. The conditions in West Baltimore today are the direct consequence of speculative real estate practices that have long targeted people with few to no options.
On the heels of any ghetto economy based on extraction comes the excessive policing necessary to keep everyone in place. Cities that are starved for income have found ways to raise revenues by way of fines and fees exacted from poor, underemployed African-Americans and migrants of color. These include property taxes and court costs. In Maryland, in particular, these come in lieu of property taxes that many of the state’s largest employers are not required to pay. The dangers of tax burdens and other unseen costs are as deadly to urban households as police brutality or fires set by “thugs.”

In “The Wire,” Lester Freamon understood that following the money took our eyes off the street and up the chain of real political power. We have a right to expect that our administrators will use the bully pulpit to speak about the policies, systems and structures over which they preside.

By avoiding the language of individual failings and degenerate culture, political leaders, black and otherwise, can help us all see the daily violence of poverty. More, they can better use the power they have to do something about it. By calling a nationwide “state of emergency” on the problem of residential segregation, by devising a fairer tax structure, by investing in public space, community policing, tenants’ rights and a government jobs program, our leaders can find a way forward.

N. D. B. Connolly is an assistant professor of history at Johns Hopkins University and the author of “A World More Concrete: Real Estate and the Remaking of Jim Crow South Florida.”