Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Random B.S.

One of my friends emailed me the following:

ATTENTION ALL STAFF OF SPELLMAN COLLEGE.

DOES SPELLMAN MEAN
CAST-A-SPELL-ON-BLACK-MEN?

BILL COSBY IS PART OF THE FEMINIST
CONSPIRACY TO DESTROY BLACK MEN AND BOYS AND STOP THE RISE OF THE BLACK
MESSIAH!!!

SPELLMAN IS ALSO CASTING WITCHES SPELLS ON BLACK MEN BY
ALLOWING BILL COSBY A PLATFORM TO PROMOTE HIS TWISTED AND DISTORTED VIEWS ABOUT
BLACK MEN AND BOYS!!!!

BILL COSBY CLAIMS THAT IT IS BLACK WOMEN'S
TURN TO LEAD, BUT THE REALITY IS THAT BLACK WOMEN HAVE BEEN IN THE DRIVER'S SEAT
OF AUTHORITY IN THE BLACK COMMUNITY SINCE SHE DESERTED THE 1960's BLACK
LIBERATION MOVEMENT THAT BLACK MEN STARTED AND
INSTEAD JOINED THE WHITE FEMINIST WOMEN'S LIBERATION MOVEMENT!!!
YET, WHAT MOVEMENTS HAVE BLACK WOMEN STARTED SINCE SHE HAS HAD FORTY YEARS OF
"FREEDOM"???

CLICK BELOW TO LISTEN TO A RAP SONG THAT WE HAVE MADE
THAT EXPOSES THE SILLINESS AND DERISION THAT COSBY SUFFERS
FROM.

ADDITIONALLY, BILL COSBY GAVE "CAST-A-SPELL-ON-A-MAN" COLLEGE
MILLIONS FOR THEIR SO-CALLED "FINE ARTS" DEPARTMENT, YET THE CREATIVE ART OF
HIP-HOP CULTURE WAS CREATED BY THE POOREST BLACKS; AND HIP-HOP IS A BILLION
DOLLAR WORLDWIDE PHENOMENA!!!!

YET, WHAT HAS THE BLACK MIDDLE CLASS
CREATED WITH THEIR MILLIONS??? NOT A DAMN THING BUT IMITATE WHITE PREPPY
CULTURE!!!

P.S. PLEASE FOWARD THS EMAIL TO BILL COSBY!!!! I DARE
YOU!!!!

It was sent by some anonymous quack in response to Mr. Cosby's recent graduation address to the Spelman class of 2006. Parts of Cosby's speech were printed in the Washington Post and USA Today, so it had the desired result of getting people's attention. And this jerk thought he could make an alternative point by sending this to the Spelman community.

As an alumna I could be offended, but instead I laugh at b.s. like this because sentiments like this are probably all over the internet. Free speech is one of the things that make this country great--you can be as offensive as you like, and as long as your comments do not cause riots and anarchy, you have every right to express them.

Of course, I could be accused of giving this moron a platform to spout his ignorance, but I am not worried about that either. I intentionally omitted the link to his "proof" in the form of a song, so he will not get any assistance from me in guiding traffic to his website. If anything, all I want to do is expose him for the idiot that he is.

But I am sick and tired of the degredation black women receive at the hands of the men within our own community. We get the message loud and clear from mainstream society--we are not beautiful, friendly, demure, feminine, or respected, yet we endure the blows and persevere. And in return, we come home and get bombarded with more negativity from a bunch of overgrown male-children whose only ambition is to get rich or die trying.

I don't need to defend myself, or the choices I've made with respect to how I live my life. Nor do I need to defend Bill Cosby or the mission of my alma mater (their accomplishments in uplifting the black race speak for themselves), but I do want to speak up on behalf of black women in general. The writer is only half right--black women have been on the front lines since the 60s, but that was necessary because too many black men failed to show up.

In the time since the Movement, too many black men still fail to show up. They fail to be fathers to the children they produce; instead they opt to be absentee baby daddies. Instead of maturing into men, too many remain tethered to childhood as mama's boys and spoiled brats. If half as much energy was spent on developing business plans, getting an education, parenting, or mentoring as is spent on leisure, loafing, and whining, then maybe more young black men would be on the path to productivity instead of in jail or in the streets on the road to nowhere.

No other ethnicity or race of people expend as much time and effort in self-hatred as we do. Most people can agree and disagree without being branded as disloyal traitors to their heritage. In our society, women from every walk of life can aspire to both great and small things, but when black women express similar ambitions, then we are derided for being weak on one hand, or too strong on the other. There is no middle ground.

I'm spending way more time on this post than I intended. I have better things to do than rail on about some idiot's manifesto on the state of the black community (besides, I've said most of this before in previous posts). As a Spelman graduate who happens to agree with most of what Bill Cosby says, I guess my existence will always be offensive to people like him. Good.

Countdown

Type-A personalities like me get a bad rap. Not only do we tend to be anal and controlling, but we are also over-anxious and very particular about certain things. Case in point: I love my Smartwater and I refuse to share it with anybody, not even my husband. It's mine and that's just the way it is.

So this trip to Spain next week finds me in Type-A overload. I've been planning my wardrobe for weeks. I've been mentally packing and re-packing my suitcases and carry-on bags. I've been carefully considering ways to keep myself entertained on the plane (just the right books, magazines, games and music to keep me occupied for eight hours). I've planned an in-flight menu of just the right foods and beverages (since no one feeds you on the plane anymore). I've made lists of the lists I need to make so that I don't forget anything.

And I am determined not to lose anything of value overseas. I read online that American tourists are typically targeted for thefts, so yesterday, I became obsessed with various decoy devices and throw-away items that I would not miss if stolen (yes, it is that crucial). I bought a fake pleather wallet-pursey thing to keep my stuff. I also bought a new CD holder so that I could keep better track of my CDs (not that anything was ever wrong with the other three CD holders we already have), and I spent all day burning copies of CDs so that I don't travel with the originals.

Yep, I'm a classic basket case. The trip that is supposed to help me relax has only increased my stress.

Last night I nearly lost my mind because I could not find my passport a week before my departure. To say that this was the King Kong of meltdowns would not be an exagerration. I seriously thought that forces were conspiring to make me crazy, and that I would be carted off to an asylum.

Of course, I had not lost the passport, I had put it away in a "safe place". That safe place happened to be an actual safe, the very one that stays empty and unused about 95% of the time. I only checked in there after I had gone through every piece of paper on my very cluttered desk about five times, screamed at my husband, and swore to God about 100 times that I had not moved the passport from the desk drawer where I had been keeping it since October when it was issued.

With the passport drama over, now the next dilemma is my ticket. It was issued in my husband's name, only I never changed my last name upon marriage, so we've been waiting for nearly three weeks to get this resolved. Why not just reprint the damn thing, you ask? Because that would be too easy. Air France is requiring a copy of the marriage license and a copy of the aforementioned passport as proof of my real name.

In a post 9/11 world, it should be expected that I would be subjected to intense scrutiny, but before I even get to the airport?

We'll see how this wrinkle gets ironed out. In the meantime, I need to go buy some more plastic baggies because I bought the wrong size yesterday and I need them for double-bagging my toiletry items :)

Yes, it is that crucial...

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Ca va?

I'm going to pull out my old French books so that I can brush up before I head off to Spain in two weeks. Of course, that makes very little sense to most people, but to me it is perfect. I can translate what I hear from the French much better than I would be able to through a crash course in Spanish.

I am really tired, but I was online posting grades and just wanted to check in to see if any additional spam had been posted to my blog. I think it is hilarious that someone would go through the trouble of posting something completely random to my blog. It was a total set-up because I was all excited that someone had read my stuff...them come to find out, it was just some weirdo.

The days leading up to the trip are going to be hectic. I now have to fit in another trip to NYC for family reasons, and it is only adding to my stress. I wish I had the courage to say what I really feel, but it would cause more drama than necessary. I guess I am the only person who feels that a last minute 7-hour car ride the week before leaving the country for two weeks is a bit extreme, but hey. Oh and it just so happens that I have my recital the day before, so I have to rush from the performance and get immediately on the road.

I have other things that are stressing me out, but no one wants to hear about them or even acknowledge that I have a right to be a little anxious about them. Everyone wants me to chill. When have I ever done that? As soon as we get back, I have to jump right back on the treadmill, and I seriously doubt that the husband is going to allow me that much peace on the trip anyway. And then my parents have been giving me grief over everything imaginable.

So, I am cranky. I read an advertisement today that suggested that I might be bipolar because like most people, I get depressed and have mood swings. Hello, I am a woman...but I guess this is just another tactic to scare people into believing normal life requires medication. Maybe Tom Cruise is right about psychology...

Anyhoo, I am rambling and I'm tired. Ciao!

Monday, May 08, 2006

Interesting Spam

This is an actual comment that was posted to my gardening blog:

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Of course, the topic was on how pathetic my yard looked, so I can see how this is related...

This looks like the type of scheme that gets people into trouble when they apply for executive level positions. They get these official sounding diplomas and degrees, but one day someone will do a reference check and will discover that the degree was actually awarded to a dead baby or a lab rat instead of the person named.

If there was any further reason to decry the state of education in our country, this is another one. Who would want to purchase a fake degree? What if someone actually had to rely on your competence in a particular area, and all you had to show for it was this sham? During the course of the nuclear explosion caused, what could you possibly say--oops?

I knew someone who tried to pull a similar scam once...and he almost got away with it. But he was kind of an asshole and had made too many enemies. I saw him recently, though, and he seemed to be doing well. At least that is what he said...

Three Weeks and Counting...

I am headed to Spain for a much needed vacation. I don't speak a wit of Spanish, and I will have to rely on charm and the hub for guidance. But I don't care, because for two weeks, I won't have to think about anything!

Nothing at all. No students. No clients. No bills. Nothing.

I can't wait! I feel like a kid doing the countdown to Disney World or Christmas morning. I'm so excited!

Of course, until the time of my departure, there is plenty of worrying for me. I have a settlement agreement to draft by Wednesday. An exam to draft by tomorrow at 4pm, which I then need to grade by Thursday for some and Friday for others. And then there are papers to grade, because everyone seems to be working on CP time when it comes to my class syllabus. And let us not forget the upcoming recital on the 20th, where I am dancing in four pieces. Then of course, there is the legal work I have yet to complete for my mother. There is always work for the alumnae association as well. I have the class to prepare for the second half of the summer, and if I want, there is tutoring, more essays to grade, and possibly some advocacy that I could sneak in before September.

I am always up to something. But for two weeks, the only thing I'll need to do is look pretty and flirt. I will take books that have nothing to do with school. I will work crossword puzzles until I can't think. I will let someone else do my laundry. And best of all, I won't have to drive. This trip will offer me more relaxation than I've had since...I can't remember.