The DISH
Unbossed and unbought news and information you can use
Vol. 10 No. 2…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race…January
12, 2007
Greatest Love of All
By Michael Masser and Linda Creed
I believe that children are our future
Teach them well and let them lead the way
Show them all the beauty they possess inside
Give them a sense of pride to make it easier
Let the children's laughter remind us how we used to be
Everybody searching for a hero
People need someone to look up to
I never found anyone to fulfill my needs
A lonely place to be
So I learned to depend on me
I decided long ago
Never to walk in anyone's shadows
If I fail, if I succeed
At least I will live as I believe
No matter what they take from me
They can't take away my dignity
Chorus:
Because the greatest love of all
Is happening to me
I found the greatest love of all
Inside of me
The greatest love of all
Is easy to achieve
Learning to love yourself
It is the greatest love of all
I believe the children are our future
Teach them well and let them lead the way
Show them all the beauty they possess inside
Give them a sense of pride to make it easier
Let the children's laughter remind us how we used to be
And I decided long ago
Never to walk in anyone's shadows
If I fail, if I succeed
At least I will live
as I believe
No matter what they take from me
They can't take away my dignity
Chorus:
Because the greatest love of all
Is happening to me
I found the greatest love of all
Inside of me
The greatest love of all
Is easy to achieve
Learning to love yourself
It is the greatest love of all
And if by chance, that special place
That you've been dreaming of
Leads you to a lonely place
Find your strength in love
The Dark Knight-Batman, White Ninja/Zorro is a real work in progress. Neither bore nor boar, he happily expressed a desire to make this, the Chinese year of the pig, the best one ever. Given his unbridled enthusiasm for the year ahead, his grandma wondered aloud about his New Year's resolution and any forward-leaning plans he had made to make it happen. Confidently, the Dark One/Ninja/Zorro exclaimed, "Do less work and play more!"
Ernest J. Gaines
"There will always be men struggling to change, and there will always be those who are controlled by the past."
Born January 15, 1933, Ernest Gaines was among the fifth generation of his family born on the River Lake Plantation in Pointe Coupee Parish near New Roads, Louisiana. Although born generations after the end of slavery, Gaines grew up impoverished in old slave quarters. The eldest of 12 children, he was raised by his aunt Augustine.
Gaines received his earliest education at the plantation church school. Black children attended school for five to six months of the year, then worked in the fields as needed the remainder of the year. Gaines studied three years at St. Augustine School, a Catholic school for blacks in New Roads. During this period, schooling for black children did not extend past the eighth grade.
At age 15, Gaines joined his mother and stepfather, who had left Louisiana during World War II, in Vallejo, California, where he entered a library for the first time and fell in love with literature. Libraries had been reserved for whites only.
Lonely for the people he left behind in Louisiana, Gaines began to write about them. His first novel was written at age 17. According to one account, he wrapped it in brown paper, tied it with string, and sent it to a New York publisher, who rejected it. Gaines burned the manuscript, but later rewrote it to become his first published novel, Catherine Carmier (1964). One of his most cherished relatives was his aunt Augustine, who was the inspiration for The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1971). He dedicated the book to his aunt, "who did not walk a day in her life but who taught me the importance of standing."
In 1956, Gaines published his first short story, The Turtles, in a college magazine at San Francisco State University (SFSU). He earned a degree in literature from SFSU (1957). After spending two years in the US military, Gaines won a Wallace Stegner creative writing fellowship to Stanford University. His fiction has received critical acclaim, taught in college classrooms, translated into many languages and produced into television movies. His works' "major themes are survival with dignity, the search for manhood, and giving voice to an unvoiced people so that they know they have the power to effect the affirmation of their existence by writing themselves into the broadest laws of the culture and societies they live in."
In addition to Catherine Carmier and The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, Gaines' novels include Of Love and Dust (1967), Bloodline (1968), A Long Day in November (1971), In My Father's House (1978), A Gathering of Old Men (1984) and A Lesson Before Dying (1993), which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, won the 1993 National Book Critics Circle Award and became the Oprah Book Club Selection in October 1997.
Gaines has received many awards for his fiction, including nine honorary doctorates, a National Endowment for the Arts grant (1967), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1971), a MacArthur Foundation grant, Louisiana Humanist of the Year (1993), Chevalier in the Order of Art and Letters (awarded by the government of France), member of The American Academy of Arts and Letters, National Governors' Arts Award, The Louisiana Writer of the Year Award, and a National Humanities Medal (all in 2000).
In 1981, Gaines accepted an invitation from the
University of Louisiana at Lafayette as a visiting professor of creative
writing. In 1983, he became Writer-in-Residence. (Sources:
www.aaregistry.com, http://en.wikipedia.org/,
and www.louisiana.edu
Disgruntled wants to know: Given the absence of formal
prohibition against the introduction of cloned animal into the food chain,
chances are excellent that cloned animals that matured and/or died were not
incinerated; more than likely they became hamburger or feed for other animals.
To fatten profits, nothing goes to waste. The news of cloned meat and meat
grown in a Petri-dish are two more reasons to celebrate being meatless. Since
the FDA has already decided that there is no difference between cloned meat and
meat that comes from other reproductive technologies, like artificial
insemination, cloning breeders can legally sell this meat in US supermarkets
without informing the consuming public. It is similar to the FDA approval of
products made with genetically modified crops, such as corn, rice, etc.; there
are no labels to inform consumers. When you think about what gets FDA approval,
it is downright scary. Who knows what long-term impact these technologies will
have on humans and the environment?
Disgruntled feels: Incredulous! Did you
see George W. Bush trying to look serious in charting his new course for victory
in the US war against Iraq? At least he did not insult us by ending with
"God bless you and God bless America." My momma always said,
"God don't like ugly." Bottom line, the way forward is more stay the
course; the US will kill more Iraqis and more US soldiers and private
contractors will perish fighting an ill-advised war against a non-existent
imminent threat. It is so disheartening -- the lies told this nation to start
the war. My heart sank some more when Bush threw in 9-11 in his Wednesday
justification of an escalation of this deadly situation - kill more! This
situation has turned the USA into the evil empire - the global pariah. Born in
the USA where citizen protests are staples for positive change, the silence and
lack of genuine opposition to the dangers posed by the administration that gave
us the "war on terror" is incredulous!
Disgruntled says: In this new millennium,
things seem more upside down than usual. Personally, our priorities are mixed
up, off track and a tidbit inhuman. In a country where millions of cows are
slaughtered annually to provide meat for US dinner tables, there was a frenzy
to feed cows stuck in snow and lethargy in rescuing black people trapped in the
aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. It sounds whacked, but there you have it.
Rescue a cow, while you leave a child to die. Hold back on sending food to feed
starving people in Africa, but rush weapons to the same country, even provide
aircraft carriers to secure a commercial interest. It is so Orwellian!
Democrat's De Facto Pardon Bush et al
By Karl Sanchez
In what will be seen as the greatest political crime in US history--the
greatest miscarriage of justice in modern times far beyond Ford's pardoning
Nixon--the Democrats will provide the members of the Bush
administration--who've committed known, documented, most heinous crimes--a de
facto pardon by their unwillingness to do their sworn constitutional duty of
aggressively investigating, impeaching, convicting, removing from office, and
formally charging them with the multiple felonies and crimes against humanity
they've so openly committed. It will be a de facto pardon because if they are
allowed to leave office normally they will be able to use the assets of the US
government to defend themselves from any civil or criminal charges they might
face while retaining secret service protection and the massive pensions and
perks. This act will essentially torch the Constitution.
On the face of it, this might seem surreal, until it is acknowledged that the
Democrats are the other faction of our one Imperial Party and that they hoped
Bush's Iraq project would succeed for the same reasons it was
undertaken--maintaining Middle East hydrocarbon production within the dollar
denominated "free market" exchange system and reduction of Iraq to a
US dejure oil colony through the use of production sharing agreements that
effectively cede all Iraqi hydrocarbon control to the US/UK oil majors--the
so-called international oil companies as opposed to Iraq's state-owned or national
oil company. Another piece of evidence for this is contained in Congressman
Kucinich's observation regarding the lack of Democratic opposition to funding
Bush's Iraq conquest.
The upshot is that Democrats want to maintain the institution of Presidential
Impunity, which is totally opposite any principled stand on the bedrock of Law
& Order. In fact, I would argue that by granting the Bush administration
this de facto pardon for all practical purposes the Constitution will no longer
exist, as the fundamental law consciously will not be upheld, all congress
people who swore to uphold the Constitution will have consciously lied to
Congress--a felony--which means that for all practical purposes our
democratic/republic will cease to exist as the fundamental law no longer
applies if its basic premises aren't upheld. The ground work for our current
dilemma is from the pardoning of the Reagan administration for very similar
crimes whose only difference is their lack of such great overtness. The only
bond holding the country together is the old concept of Union; but we are
beginning to see centrifugal forces driving states away from the federal
organization due to the gross criminality centered in Washington and New York.
There's only one remedy: The proper and immediate use of existing law while it
still exists.
About Me: Karl Sanchez is a retired educator living on the Oregon coast. Visit
his blog http://karlssblog.blogspot.com.
Cloned Food
In December 2006, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued three documents
on animal cloning. These included a draft risk assessment, a proposed risk
management plan and draft guidance for industry. According to the peer-reviewed
risk assessment, "meat and milk from cattle, swine and goat clones are as
safe to eat as the food we eat every day. Cloning poses no unique risks to
animal health when compared to other assisted reproductive technologies
currently in use in U.S. agriculture." This is basically the same
conclusion contained in the 2002 National Academies of Sciences report on
cloned food products.
In its draft guidance, the FDA recommended that sheep clones not be used for
human food, because of the limited data on sheep clones. Notwithstanding its reservations
about sheep, FDA officials believe no special labeling is necessary to inform
consumers that the product comes from a cloned animal. A final decision on
labeling is pending.
Neither the public, nor FDA, know for certain that no clone products have already been included in food for humans or animal feed. However, since 2001, the FDA has asked farmers and cloning companies to "voluntarily" refrain from introducing clones and their offspring into the food supply. The informal ban will remain in place for several months while the FDA accepts comments from the public.
Critics of cloning say the verdict is still out
on the safety of cloned food. They claim the FDA is ignoring research that
shows cloning results in more deaths and deformed animals than other
reproductive methods. Consumers are urged to submit comments at www.fda.gov/cvm/CloneRiskAssessment.htm
and written comments to Division of Dockets Management (HFA-305), FDA, 5630
Fishers Lane, Rm. 1061, Rockville, MD, 20852. Comments must be received by Apr.
2, 2007 and include the docket number 2003N-0573.
Mailbox: E-Mails, Faxes and Phone Calls
Email kristiankaarbo@gmail.com
Far beneath the surface of the tragic drama of Somalia, four major U.S. oil
companies are quietly sitting on a prospective fortune in exclusive concessions
to explore and exploit tens of millions of acres of the Somali countryside.
That land, in the opinion of geologists and industry sources, could yield
significant amounts of oil and gas if the U.S.-led military mission can restore
peace to the impoverished East African nation.
Email valojo@md.metrocast.net
America responds to the Somali Floods and Famine...When you have brainwashed
Black Americans hiding among us, and functioning as agents of CIA and American
Evangelical Revivalism, what do you get? Their skin may appear Black on the
outside, but their thoughts are whiter than white. And their secret motives
even more sinister than those of white Americans. White Americans at least
leave you in no doubt where their interests are - pro white and pro-European.
Many Black Americans on the other hand merely come here as wolves in sheep's
clothing. They are the DANGEROUS ONES - watch out, and be on your guard against
them. Americans caused the Somali disaster - now they are responding. Just like
they "responded" in Iraq and in Afghanistan...what arrant HYPOCRISY!
Drop GMS-spiked food by day, but bomb the hell out of them by night --one for
its long-term effects; the other for immediate media blitz.
Email hungtight@yahoo.com Sale on
Negroponte Move...by Richard Sale..."Contrary to the bland stories in The
New York Times and Washington Post of Friday, Negroponte did not go voluntarily
to State from his job as director of intelligence. In fact, there was
tremendous administration pressure to get him out of his current job. The chief
cause of the quarrel involved Negroponte's balking at requests from VP Dick
Cheney to increase domestic data collection by the National Security Agency on
US citizens. Negroponte flatly refused, Cheney bridled, and from then on the
pressure built to get rid of him. (The White House did not return phone calls,
but there is nothing new in that.)
Email www.commondreams.org There is Only One Way to End The War in
Iraq...By Dennis Kucinich...On November 7, 2006, the American public voted for
a New Direction for our Iraq policy. That direction is--out. As Democrats
prepare to take the majority for the first time in twelve years, Democrats now
have the responsibility to act on the overwhelming mandate issued by the
American public. Will that new direction mean an exit from Iraq? Because, if
not, America will be held hostage by the skyrocketing cost of the war in Iraq
even as President Bush leaves office at 11:59 am on January 20, 2009. And, the
voters will not forget who let them down. There is only one way in which the US
will withdraw from Iraq, prior to the end of Bush's term: Congress must vote to
cut off funds.
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