Jingle Beagles

Supply your own caption if you'd like, but I will understand if you prefer not to incriminate yourself. For the G-rated, surfwatch approved version, click here and redeem yourself.

Supreme Court Watch

Court To Rule on VA Cross Burning Law

Four years after a 1998 incident, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday on whether burning a cross is constitutionally protected expression or an overt threat that states can ban. The justices' ruling, expected next year, could affect laws in about a dozen other states.

The Virginia Supreme Court ruled 4-3 last year that the state's 50-year-old law against cross burning violated the right to free speech. Virginia Attorney General Jerry Kilgore asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the decision.

The Virginia Supreme Court relied heavily on a U.S. Supreme Court decision 10 years ago striking down a St. Paul, Minn., ordinance that outlawed cross-burning if it was aimed at others "on the basis of race, color, creed or gender."

That ordinance violated the First Amendment's free-speech protection because it sought to ban only certain viewpoints, the high court said. [more]

I will reserve comment for a later date, but rest assured that I'll be watching this one very closely.

Lott Apologizes

Senate GOP leader apologizes for remark

"A poor choice of words conveyed to some the impression that I embrace the digarded policies of the past," Lott, a Mississippi Republican, said in a statement Monday. "Nothing could be further from the truth, and I apologize to anyone who was offended by my statement."

Uh, Right.

How do you achieve success?

Kenneth Chenault, CEO of American expresss offers some excellent ideas (Via Black Enterperise.com)

Among my favorites:

Personal integrity - Dedicate yourself to a core set of values. Without them, you will never be able to find personal fulfillment

Execution -- performance -- is the bottom line measure for everything we attempt to do. To be successful, our EQ, or execution quotient, must equal our IQ.

Remain open to life’s possibilities but wherever you are, whatever challenges or opportunities you face, know who you are. Approach your career and conduct your business in a way that makes it clear that you do. This seems like a simple concept. But I've seen many people too often lose sight of it, and suffer as a result.

There are uncertainties about what's going to happen in your personal relationships and in your family that is both thrilling and scary. It doesn't matter how successful you've been or how much money you've made, there are things that can happen, such as illness and death. I think recognizing how precious the family experience is, and that it can be taken away at any time, helps to keep me grounded.

...give back to help our community and to ease the way of those who will follow. I believe very strongly in the power of an individual to bring about change, but then I also believe in the influence of events. Sometimes you get the right timing, and match the individual with the event, and amazing things result.

Provoking thought

Ms. Toye over at Webtoye.com shares her thoughts on the direction of music today

For the most part, I have been thinking about the direction of music lately. I see where it's going, and I love it. Strangely enough, though, I see the whole scene bringing back Disco, and parts of the 70's and flashes of the 80's [i.e., Missy's current effort]. Now mind you, I hated the clothes in the 70's, but the music was SHARP! [wooo ... I am dating myself here]. But all this Neo-Soul blah blah and all that ... it's just your Mama's music in different clothing. Even Jahiem's voice is reminiscent of Teddy Pendergrass! And little by little, I see people associating and craving the style of that decade.

Now if we can only go back to some of the ideals and teachings of that decade .. you know, when being Black stood for something other than the diamonds people wear that African slaves die over. When Black was beautiful and it in itself was all the armor you needed. When civil fights begat Civil Rights, and people formulated and digested the Black aesthetic ... When Marvin and Bob, Aretha and Stevie, James and Donny reaffirmed that beauty over rhythm and verse.

Back in the 70's the music was "hard driving" but the lyrics were also sensitive and empowering. That's a hard combination to beat....Some hip-hop groups and many others have indeed picked up on this theme. It would be great to see a return to the ideals of the era, but the world has become so much more challenging and sophisticated that I highly doubt it, but your point is well taken.

While it is true that some segments are craving the style of that decade; I think that the direction may be somewhat affected by an industry (where many artists are being manipulated and) whose sole purpose is to make money and not necessarily to empower the people.

Kid Dynamite

Remember Jimmy Walker, or JJ, as he is well known from the tv series "Good Times"? Check out his website at DynomiteJJ.com and, apparently he is a writer/pundit as well, one of his articles is here

< jjvoice> Dyno-Mite < /jjvoice>

The Wronged Men

NY Newsday has this story about New Yorkers who spent years in prison for murders they did not commit

The typical wronged man was young, poor, black or Hispanic, had a minor criminal record and was convicted largely on the word of a single eyewitness, a Newsday examination has found. In most cases, the testimony was later recanted or discredited, with witnesses saying they had been high on crack, pressured by police or lying for money.

At least 13 men convicted in 11 city murder cases have had their convictions overturned since 1998, Newsday found. The "wrong men,” most of whom were fully exonerated, served a total of 162 years behind bars, from 5 to 21 years each.

Riding on the heels of the recent Jogger Case fiasco, this story is truly a sad commentary on the state of our judicial system.

Faux pas of the week: Trent Lott

"I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had of followed our lead we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either."

—Trent Lott at Strom Thurmond's 100^th birthday party, as reported Dec. 6 in ABC News' political Weblog, The Note. To watch a video of the festivities, click here.

"I want to tell you, ladies and gentleman, that there's not enough troops in the army to force the southern people to break down segregation and admit the Nigra race into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes, and into our churches."

—Strom Thurmond, then-governor South Carolina, in a speech from his 1948 "Dixiecrat" presidential campaign. To hear an audio clip, click here.


Lott is apparently proud of Thurmond's racist past, which I think even Thurmond has repudiated. The motivation behind Strom's 1948 presidential run was racism, so for Lott to put his foot in his mouth in such a fashion is absolutely repugnant. This is a good example of "backwards leadership" and a disgrace to all decent men and women.


In 1998 and 1999, Lott was criticized after disclosures that he had been a speaker at meetings of the Council of Conservative Citizens, an organization formed to succeed the segregationist white Citizens' Councils of the 1960s. In a 1992 speech in Greenwood, Miss., Lott told CCC members:

"In this room I stand for the right principles and the right philosophy. Let's take it in the right direction, and our children will be the beneficiaries."

Asked to comment on Lott's remarks at the Thurmond celebration, Gordon Baum, CEO of the Council of Conservative Citizens, said, "God Bless Trent Lott."

Blond, blue-eyed Muslim terrorists?

World net Daily has this story

Osama bin Laden and his top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, with help from Iran, have recruited and trained brigades of blond, blue-eyed Bosnians and indoctrinated them for martyrdom, according to a report in Insight magazine.

''The next wave of terrorism could be carried out by people with fair skin, blond hair and blue eyes.''

Benzino on Eminem

"Eminem gets to do songs that we would never get to do," he added. "Eminem gets to talk about his issues and his pain ... killing his mother, beating his girl, drugs. We have to rock the party in order to get spins and burn on the radio. We have to entertain more than expose our true issues. When black and Latino people try to give our pain on there we couldn't get burn. The machine doesn't want our pain to be out there."

...I just wanted to raise consciousness. It's not like I'm hating on Eminem, its just a situation that had to be brought up." [more]

It would seem that Benzino is "hating", judging by these Lyrics from one of his songs and the reports on this article from MTV News.

Calling Em a "2003 Vanilla Ice," Benzino's slow-tempo "Pull Your Skirt Up" goes after hip-hop's great white phenom with lyrics like: "Five shades darker, you'd be Canibus/ And no one would care about your complicated rhyme style/ ... What you know about pumpin' on the block 'til you freeze?/ What you know about cutting up rocks, duckin' [detectives]?/ What you know about facing a grand jury indictment?/ As far as I'm concerned, you're just industry excitement."

You think I could grab my crotch and put my ass in people's faces the way he does? No way. But as long as the color of his skin and his eyes fits what America wants, ... it's all right."

Via MTV News