Too much to write about, so little time. I took off work today and tomorrow to get ready for my trip to go diving in the Bay Islands. So, I'm gonna write a little about a lot today. I'll put headings on each one, so if you're not interested in that particular topic, just pass it by.
This article was in yesterday's Atlanta Urinal and Constipation. Excerpts follow.
Metro Atlanta is emerging as the new heart of the nation's black middle class, surpassing the traditional center --- Washington, D.C. --- in many key measures, analysis of census data released today shows.
Among major metropolitan areas, Atlanta had the fastest growth in the proportion of black households in the middle-and upper-income brackets during the 1990s, and now boasts the nation's highest percentage of black middle-income households.
The Atlanta area has also joined a list of metro areas where more than half of black households earn at least the mid-range income of $35,000 to $75,000.
Wait a minute! That can't be right. $75,000? Why, that would make them rich(!!) according to the Dimocrats. I thought all blacks were poor and oppressed. What's going on here?
The dramatic growth of metro Atlanta's black middle class in the 1990s has already helped reshape the region's economy, culture and national stature. If, as demographers expect, these trends continue, the changes will become even more pronounced.
The changes are already starting. When the Dimocrats gerrymandered redrew the congressional districts this year, they removed inner city blacks from Cynthia McKinney's district and replaced them with middle class blacks. These voted overwhelmingly for Denise Majette who is much more moderate and more inclusive than McKinney. The dirty little secret that the Congressional Black Caucus doesn't want us to know is that McKinney would have lost even without the crossover vote in the Dimocrat primary.
Howza 'bout some examples?
Winston Strickland has been cutting the hair of a mostly African-American clientele at his barbershop in Cobb County for 40 years. He no longer has to work the second job he once needed to stay afloat, and he credits the rising black middle class.
It used to be guys making $3 an hour, now it's professionals making $50,000, $60,000 a year," he said of his clients.
$50,000, $60,000 a year? That can't be right.
One is insurance agent Don Johnson. He said that when he started his business in 1986, he felt like a taxi driver.
"I was driving to Cascade [Road], I was driving to Stone Mountain," Johnson said, referring to longtime strongholds of African-American affluence. "I was driving like crazy."
Johnson now has an office in east Cobb County and business comes to him.
East Cobb? That can't be right. East Cobb is almost all white. The highest performing school in all of Georgia is in east Cobb County.
"There was some anxiety when I bought this building 13 years ago," he said, "I wondered, 'Would an African-American do well opening an office in east Cobb?'
"It was the best move I made. People don't care about race if you provide exemplary service," he said.
People don't care about race? But I thought all white people, especially in Georgia, were racists.
Such success stories show that, increasingly, the suburban experience has less to do with color than with class.
Uh oh. This can't be good news for Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, the NAACP, the Congressional Black Caucus and all the other people who exist by playing the race card. Black people are joining mainstream America.
Census figures show increasing dispersal of blacks throughout Atlanta's suburbs, most of them middle-class professionals with plenty in common with their white neighbors and less to divide them, said Charles Lollar, a black Cobb County mortgage broker.
"A white person will see: 'There is a person of a different color who likes his grass cut just like I do, who fertilizes his lawn just like I do, who likes flower beds just like I do, who jogs in the morning just like I do,' " said Lollar.
And just maybe hates paying high taxes just like I do; and just maybe hates seeing excuses made for poorly performing inner city schools just like I do; and just maybe insists that their children do well in school because it is the way to get ahead and not 'acting white' just like I do; and just maybe hates the RWPP's (race warlord poverty pimps) just like I do; and just maybe starts seeing the Dimocrats as a bunch of socialists who want to turn this country into another Cuba just like I do.
Blacks have shown up in the suburbs as Republican candidates in a Cobb County Commission race and a state House race in Alpharetta.
Wow! That's even worse news. But not to worry, the RWPP's are not taking this good news lying down.
But an undercurrent of concern remains among some black leaders, who point to high poverty and a lack of strong black institutions outside education, religion and civil rights organizations, said Charles Jones, chairman of the African-American Studies Department at Georgia State University.
"The problem is that once you move beyond the Madison Avenue notions of this being a black Mecca, once you start looking beneath the surface, we're not sure how this newfound black wealth has translated into the welfare of black people generally," he said.
I have an idea. Why not have successful black people speak at inner city schools and tell them how to escape poverty? TCIDNN (The Company I Dare Not Name) used to have a program where we did just that.
Jones said it is critical for newly affluent blacks to remember their cultural history.
Stay on the Dimocrat plantation.
Social and economic problems continue to depress the inner-city black economy and, he said, even some wealthier black communities still must struggle with poor schools and environmental problems, issues not typically associated with affluence.
Translation: Keep voting for Dimocrats who will continue to throw money at failing schools without demanding accountability of teachers.
All in all a very positive article. Despite what all the RWPP's keep tellin' 'em, blacks are finding out they can achieve the American dream on their own. RWPP's like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are becoming more irrelevant.
And that's a good thing.
Well Mr. Obstructionist, l'il Tommy Dasshole is at it again. I read this in this morning's paper.
Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) demanded President Bush apologize for saying the Senate was "not interested in the security of the American people."
It all depends on what your definition of the 'American people' is. Bush is interested in the security of all the American people. The Dimocrats are interested in the security of American federal employees.
"They've criticized me for having criticized the president," he said. "This is politicization, pure and simple." The dispute erupted early Wednesday after Daschle read in The Washington Post a remark Bush had made Monday during a public event before a political fund-raiser in New Jersey.
"The House responded, but the Senate is more interested in special interests in Washington and not interested in the security of the American people," the president said Monday. "I will not accept a Department of Homeland Security that does not allow this president and future presidents to better keep the American people secure."
I'm all for that!
Bush then tempered his remarks by praising both parties for work on the bill. "This isn't a partisan issue," he said, "this is an American issue."
No, this is a partisan issue. There are 170,000 union jobs (170,000 votes for the Dimocratic Party) at stake here. To the Dimocrats, votes are more important than national security.
"That is outrageous," Daschle said, whipping off his glasses and glaring out toward his Senate colleagues, among them Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), who lost an arm in combat during World War II.
"The president ought to apologize to Senator Inouye and every veteran who has fought in every war who is a Democrat in the United States Senate," Daschle said. "He ought to apologize to the American people. That is wrong."
And you, Mr. Dasshole should apologize to the American people for putting federal union employees ahead of national security.
In response, Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) said he was "saddened" that Daschle would attack Bush.
"Who is the enemy here?" Lott asked. "The president of the United States or Saddam Hussein?"
What's this? Is Trent Lott growing a spine?
In the Senate, Inouye defended his party's devotion to national federal union employee job
security.
"I'm concerned about the security of this country," Inouye said, his eyes welling with tears. "I didn't vote for him, but he is my president, and it grieves me when my president makes statements that would divide this nation."
How come I never heard any of this grieving during the eight years of the divisive Clinton presidency Senator In No Way? And I don't wanna hear about how patriotic you are after you spent eight years supporting a goddamn draft dodger. Yeah, we know, you lost your arm in the war. You lost your morals, integrity, and decency during the Clinton years. Sit down and shut the fuck up!
The rest of the article is more squawking by the usual Dimocrat suspects about the usual Dimocratic bullshit. Hillary Clinton is surprisingly silent. The Dimocrats are just pissed that Bush is pointing out to the American people that the only reason the Senate hasn't passed the the Homeland Security bill is that they want the employees to be union workers with protected jobs.
Damn! I just love the sound of Dimocrats squawking in the morning.
It sounds like victory.
About every 4 to 6 weeks I write sumpin' I call Bitch Slapping. I mention public figures who have pissed me off and give 'em a big ol' bitch slap. Like that idiotic New York City councilman Charles Barron who said at that stupid black reparations thing that he'd like to walk up to the first white person he saw and slap him in the face. When called on it later he said he was only joking and that it was an example of 'black hyperbole'. Well, as an example of white hyperbole, he deserved a big ol' bitch slap ... Whap!
I have decided what I really need to do is create sumpin' new called Just Shut the Fuck Up! The first person in that post would have to be Jimmy Carter. He's at it again. This was in today's AJC.
Former President Jimmy Carter warned Wednesday that the United States would make a "tragic mistake" if it attacks Iraq without the support of its allies.
When I hear 'Jimmy Carter' and 'tragic mistake' in the same sentence, I think of the 1976 election when we made the tragic mistake of electing Jimmy Carter.
He also said a military campaign to topple Saddam Hussein would put U.S. troops at greater risk than they faced in the 1991 Persian Gulf War and recent attacks in Afghanistan. Those efforts relied heavily on aerial bombardment, but Carter said air attacks alone will not dislodge the Iraqi dictator.
"To capture him, we would have to go into the streets of Baghdad," he said. "The costs would be enormous."
This from the genius who tried to supervise the bungled rescue of the hostages in Iran.
Carter made the remarks at a town hall meeting in Atlanta in which he reiterated criticism of laws restricting trade with Cuba and said the Bush administration has endangered civil liberties in its investigation into the Sept. 11 attacks.
Oh. My. God. Here. It. Comes.
He criticized the government's secret detention of hundreds of Middle Eastern and South Asian immigrants since Sept. 11. Most were charged with violations of immigration law that were once considered minor, such as overstaying a visa. None is accused of terrorism.
Carter said the government denied many of them access to a lawyer and failed to timely notify them of charges against them.
"They have been deprived in this country of their basic rights," he said.
Jimmah, if they ain't citizens, I don't give a crap about their rights. If they're here illegally, ship 'em back to where they came from.
He also questioned the decision to detain Taliban and al-Qaida fighters captured in Afghanistan at a U.S. Navy base in Cuba. Human rights groups have criticized the detentions because the fighters lack access to lawyers and have no recourse to challenge their detention in court.
Aw man. You're breaking my heart here. Tell it to the wife of Daniel Pearl. What about his rights you stupid fucking asshole?
Carter said people in U.S. custody deserve to know the charges against them and to have contact with lawyers and have a timely trial.
If they're citizens, yes. If not, then I really don't give a shit. We've treated the bastards in Cuba a damn sight better than any American POW would be treated. We even gave 'em their turbans back. We're treating 'em a damn sight better than they deserve to be treated.
Carter said he despises Saddam and would welcome his departure, but he said a unilateral U.S. attack could
Wait for it ... here it comes ...
destabilize the Middle East,
And what else would it do ... ?
alienate allies
And what else ... ?
and hurt relations with other nations.
Why don't these clueles idiots just make a tape? Then they can just play it over and over again.
"The loss of Iraqi civilian life would certainly be enormous," he said.
OK let's have a vote over whose lives are more important, American lives or Iraqi lives. I vote American lives.
He urged the United Nations to require Iraq to comply with previous resolutions calling for inspections to detect weapons of mass destruction. If that happens and Saddam once again flouts the United Nations, Carter said, the United States "would have massive support of other nations to force Iraq to comply."
OK Saddam this is absolutely, positively your last chance. We mean it this time. If you don't comply we're gonna pass some more resolutions. That'll show you!
It's absolutely crucial that we have unimpeded inspections," he said.
No, it's absolutely crucial that we take Saddam out.
And it's absolutely crucial, Jimmah, that you just Shut the fuck up!!!
Posted by denny at September 26, 2002 11:20 AM