UKRAINE: NOT ABOUT DEMOCRACY

Look, I’m not an obsessed conspiracy theorist who labors in a grandmother’s basement day and night until he can connect every news item to some American grand scheme for world domination. (Laughing) I’ll offer my previous post as partial evidence. Most people who meet me would say I’m a rational guy who likes to ask simple […]

HEARING IT: CÉCILE MCLORIN SALVANT

I can partially understand Classic Jazz purists who jump into the pit of nostalgia as a refuge from the assault of generic modern music, but that method of escape also means they risk missing brilliant young talent like Cécile McLorin Salvant. She’s earned the right to be recognized as an individual with a great voice, but for […]

1964 CIVIL RIGHTS ACT AT 50 – NEITHER A BEGINNING NOR END

I’ll mark today’s 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act by reading you a piece of legislation: [W]ith a view to affording reasonable protection to all persons in their constitutional rights of equality before the law, without distinction of race or color, or previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude… Sounds familiar? I have […]

UKRAINE, PIMPED-OUT, SHOT-UP AND LEFT TO BLEED

I’ve been telling you for a while that despite America’s, uh, polite meddling for regime change in the name of freedom, hardly anyone gives a rat’s butt-rape about Ukraine as a republic. Its geographic location, proximity to US rival Russia, as well as its possibility of being another source of consumers and low-cost laborers for […]

REMEMBERING JIM KELLY

Actor and martial artist Jim Kelly left us last year on this day. It would’ve been massively cool to have Kelly around for the 40th anniversary of the film Three the Hard Way, which was three days ago. Complaints about the shortage of positive Black images in film have been around for […]

GOODBYE, BOBBY WOMACK.

We lost Bobby Womack, one of our kings of Soul, who leaves behind a creative legacy that’s more than a half-century old. Among many reasons to dig this Brother, I deeply admire him for remaining true to the craft he loved. Think about this for a moment — we began to see a migration away from Soul […]

IRAQ AND UKRAINE – PRIORITY PROBLEM OR OBSESSION?

What happened to the good old days when America can efficiently pull-off a regime change without a massive amount of suspicion or immediate backlash? Has America lost its magical touch for revolution, or is it excessively blinded by the prize it really wants and has become tactically dumb as a result? And is Russia’s involvement […]

THE IRAQ MADNESS CONTINUES

Of course I laughed after I heard the US is upset about Syria President Bashar al-Assad ordering his air force to bomb ISIS positions in Iraq. This new development means the US and Syria are on different sides in the latter’s civil war, but are effectively on the same side in Iraq’s civil conflict. […]

CONFUSED ABOUT KERRY’S EGYPT VISIT?

Let’s quickly replay what happened in Egypt during the past four years and four months, leading up to US Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent talk with Egypt’s President, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. The US supported a brutal Egyptian strongman in the form Hosni Mubarak for decades… …then turned around and requested that Mubarak step […]

STAND DOWN, RANGEL. FOR HARLEM’S SAKE.

Through my lens, these are the Democratic Congressional options for Harlem and Bronx primary voters: a long time situational sellout whose margin of public acceptance has dropped to such precarious lows where he now resorts to fake telephone conversation comedy sketches during debates; a New York State legislator who has never been tested on the […]