Open Letter to Fox News: Enough is Enough

Dear Fox News,
On behalf of myself and all the other thinking people in the world that are aware of what you are doing, enough is enough. Your super-biased "news coverage" is an affront to the size of our cerebral cortices. The sting of your condescension and the magnitude of your insults cannot be exaggerated. It is a simple fact, and by constant repetition is made into law: Fox news is not news at all and cannot be counted on to provide a factual account or objective commentary on anything.

Time and time again, you have failed in your solemn charge as a member of the fourth estate. Instead of policing our leaders, you are bought and paid for -- the drooling, mindless minions of rich men with despicable agendas. For the unaware, Fox may just seem a bit cheeky and make a lot of "errors" for which it inevitably fails to apologize, but I am not one of the unaware. Like many, I have had enough of Fox and I'm making it my personal mission to challenge every single one of your patrons and viewers to wake and up and demand better.

How much lower can you sink? I'm not going to tally every single one of your outrageous lies, slipshod reports, or racist statements, but I will talk about the one that pushed me over the edge. For the duration of this election, Fox news has insisted on painting Barack Obama as Osama bin Laden, a despicable, racist mud-slinging tactic. But wait! Crawling around in the muck and mire is not enough, and so you get on your belly and slither. Obama/Biden = Osama bin Laden?! What are you implying? That Osama has a way of possessing certain senators' parents and forcing their hands in the signing of their birth certificates, the choosing of names? That with this time-traveling evil plan he has fixed decades of elections and votes, and will now infiltrate our country and somehow perpetrate his jihad without our notice? In what universe is this supposed to be possible? These wild, astrological conjectures and conspiracy theories are pathetic, and unworthy of any American. Even implanting these ideas, like a faux-Shakespearian Iago, is a crime.

Which brings me to my conclusion. I am fighting you, Fox news, with everything that I have. I am challenging every person I know to do the same. Far from being a mere complaint, this has become another theater for the great battle of right vs. wrong, good vs. evil. What I'm trying to say, what I've said over and over again, is: Enough is Enough!

Post Theme: Sly Fox by Nas

Talkin Bout a revolution: Proud to be an American

As I was watching the Democratic National Convention tonight, I had a totally sobering and honest thought. A thread of conscious consciousness separated itself from the 90+% of me that was paying attention to Gov. Mark Werner, and I realized: I have been far more inclined to be embarrassed to be an American than proud. How debilitating but true! I would never have made the discovery, as I had not ever made a habit of examining my state of allegiance to America. Frankly, I was too busy wrestling with the mandatory bi-cultural identity I needed to develop to survive. I don't mean to make my life out to be some lost episode of Survivor, because I had it really good -- I didn't struggle with being black or being female as a rule until I got exposed to the way other people think, and that didn't happen for me until high school. I was protected; I had quite the blissful childhood. Nevertheless, I never thought of myself as an American first per se. Sounds weird, but I am sure some of my sisters and brothers out there can concur.

My revelation took place not because I suddenly noticed my embarrassment, but because I suddenly felt its complete and utter lack. That is to say, I was suddenly fiercely and unapologetically proud to be an American. Not from a song, a poem, a speech or a flag either. (In fact, corny displays like those often provoke the embarassment.) Not from learning the white man's history lessons, or the African-American version in college.
It was the sight of so many different people, gathered together under one roof and one cause, engaged in the political process, for the purpose of changing this country. It was hearing my own thoughts and feelings echoed by so many people with different accents and ways of living that made me feel like the patch in the American quilt that I truly am. I understood that it was this and only this that had the power to lock me in willingly. I am unable to feel patriotism looking at images of war and destruction, and feel more proud as a black person than an American when I see or hear Obama speak, so I'm sure you can understand the fact that it took this long to make me feel good about it. When I traveled around the world (literally) I could not escape my nationality, but it was less a proud denomination than an albatross. I had seen our global image, heard horrible tales of previous interactions with Americans from during my travels, and saw war-torn countries unable to recoup or rehabilitate after coming into contact with our "war for peace". At those times I would have traded in my American passport for a Canadian one in a heartbeat.

I realize that I am supposed to feel guilt or shame for my admission, but I can't help but feel that it is what it is; I am a generation late to the culturally confused, label-crazy baby boomers, and there is no draft-dodging, protesting, and flag-burning in my past. And so there is no sense of shame, no pointing fingers, no embarassing pictures. It's simply a cloud of identity confusion out of which I've walked today, whole and proud, American and strong. There are people all across this nation who look and think like me, who've been shaped by the same set of circumstances, of values, of faith. They are not all black people, not all women, but they are all Americans. It is to this nation that I proudly belong. That's right: I am claiming this problem-ridden, bloody historied, effed-up foreign policied, racist, classist, age-ist, discriminatory, materialistic, mindless, God-less nation as my own! (My country is a fixer-upper!) And so, today...

I pledge allegiance
to the flag
of the United States of America

and to the Republic
for which it stands
one nation
under God
indivisible
with liberty and justice for all.

Obama/Biden 2008

Post Theme: Talkin Bout a Revolution by Tracy Chapman

They Got Me Pegged

The Wind Says Soon

Hurricane Fay is just kissing Long Beach, Mississippi today, and I am here. The breeze is blowing every which way, and the rain is so light that the drops swirl into mists like Starry Night. There is no sun, but no angry clouds either. The temperature is just right for a windbreaker, although if I had my druthers I would select a violently patterned, swirling caftan. It's a day for drama; the gulfcoast equivalent of a Cornish moor. It makes me contemplative, and a little sad.

I have opened the all the doors and the windows and the blinds, and I am inviting the weather right in for a chat. It's been whispering secrets all day and night, and I can't help but think that if I were a better listener, a dearer friend, I might learn a powerful secret. It will be a night for spells, I can already tell.

Without a car I must scheme and deal for a ride to the beach. I long to be there today, walking in the sand, my caftan blowing about, the scritchy grains dusting my toes and between. I'll stop to pick up rocks, shells, and other detritus, all while getting the pedicure I can't afford. It's there, at that time, I'll sit and stare and The Story might begin, might take me over. It's become not only a dream of mine to write, but also my salvation, the swift boat rescue after years adrift at sea. When will it come? I must admit, probably not during my fanciful imaginings.

The wind frees the strands of my hair from its queue one at a time, and they blow against my face in time with the breeze, and ghostly fingers skim my cheek. Comfort and hope bloom while patience grows. "Soon", Fay says. "Soon."

Post Theme: Clarity (acoustic) by John Mayer

Come the Storm

Hurricane Fay, come blow your horn!
the boards on the window, the cows in the barn
where are brave citizens on coastal streets?
"under their blue tarps starting to weep."
Will you help them? "No not I;
I'll wash all away, with none left dry."


What is the nature of a storm? Is there an evil sentience, or only the focused energy of a thoughtless minion of higher principalities, of deities? Is it sent, or allowed? Believing either is your choice, and the only thing you can control.

Bring it on.

Sisyphus Speaks

It's been awhile, but I've been busy at my task you see. I have become my namesake, Sisyphus, cursed to a backbreaking, soul-stripping, ubiquitous task... survival. I don't even ask why anymore. Or when this will end. It feels like they've got me right where they want me, impervious to well-meaning exhortation, to pie-in-the-sky notions like "someday your prince will come". It's funny, I've never been defeatist, but I don't know what else to call this.

I'm not unaware that my problems and situation are laughable, and that makes me laughable. It's been great for my self-image. I mean, what am I really complaining about? Joblessness? Quarter-life crisis? Even knowing the meaning or spelling of the words marks my place as pampered and middle class. I'd love to pull myself up, but I sold my boots, and so I have no bootstraps.

Nowhere to turn, nowhere to run, no rescue plot afoot. There exists only this continual uphill battle. What kind of mountains are these, with no peaks, no valleys, no sheltering caves, just inclines?

Tonight I feel...

Tonight I feel like the last person standing after a war. The only sane one in the room. And after writing that I can't help but think: how emo! That was the equivalent to a childish whine, "no one understands me!" Crisis averted by my inner wit.

Tonight I feel like there are a lot of stupid people out there, and all of the smart ones are incommunicado, or maybe can only be reached by ham radio, which I don't know how to operate.

Tonight I feel cabin fever crawling up my legs, my back, and through my scalp, like the flesh-eating red ants in the latest Indiana Jones flick.

Tonight I feel frustrated that everyone that I want to talk to, to take comfort in, all the people that I call to get a lift from a funky mood, or a fresh perspective on my dreary circumstances seems to be living a more interesting and fulfilling life and is unable to be reached at this time. I hang up before I can leave a message. I don't want to say something that I will regret, or be unwilling to clarify or discuss tomorrow.

Tonight I feel angry and ashamed of my unwavering penchant for comparing myself to others and envying their accomplishments. However short I may have fallen, or short-sighted I may be to do it, it's like I can't stop. I am certain this isn't why Facebook was created!

Tonight I feel like I am on a giant wheel of fortune, and I keep landing on bankrupt and losing my effing turn. This game is rigged!


Tonight I feel like human nature is a dark thing, and no one does the right thing anymore. An example: I think that HRC is "suspending her campaign" instead of conceding because she plans to wait in the wings in case "something happens" to Barack Obama. It's not too far a stretch for me tonight, especially in light of her bizarre and malevolent statements about Bobby Kennedy's assassination a few short weeks ago. All the evil conspiracies seems totally plausible tonight.

Tonight I wish it were the future. The place where this is a fuzzy memory, chucked into the bucket of melodrama, of bored self-indulgence. The time where my life is so full that there is no room to remember these times as anything other than the desert journey toward an oasis destination. And it would also be cool if Barack Obama were president at that time....

Tonight, I see, will be tomorrow in a matter of minutes. Although not far enough in the future to forget tonight, it is better than nothing.

Post Theme: Sometimes by Bilal