That's "Song of the Bully Boy" by Isaiah and thanks to Mike for talking me through posting. I always forget how. He and Elaine used the illustration Tuesday and I thought, "I want to too!" I always forget how to do that, pull something from The Common Ills and post it here. Usually I call C.I. but I figured I'd call Mike
since I hadn't called him on all week. He didn't sound like Mike his voice was so deep, it was like talking to James Earl Jones -- he said he had been asleep and that his throat was dry. I never think about it being hot up north. Of course it is but I live in the south (Georgia) and always just assume those of us in the south have it tough in the summer and the people in the north have it rough in the winter.
I think it got up to 94 here today. And sorry, Betty here substituting for Rebecca. I keep forgetting to put that in. That's hot. I asked Mike how hot it got for him today and he mumbled something. Then he said that it's been hotter but today he was unloading stuff at work and then when he got back, his mother was trying to find something in the garage so he ended up telling her he'd find it and clean stuff up in there. But the point is that the summer is hot regardless of the temperature. It's based on what it was in the spring and what it is in the summer.
Greg Palast is on KPFA's Flashpoints and he's talking to Dennis Bernstein about the energy problems -- who is raking it in and how (deregulation). Since I'm mentioning him, let me recommend his book ARMED MADHOUSE which is really wonderful -- funny and informative.
In case you didn't figure it out, the pink & purple monster did not get me Tuesday night. However, even after we searched the closet, my youngest son would not go to bed. Finally, I asked if he wanted to sleep in my bed. He liked that idea. Last night he slept in his own bed. I always try to figure out what makes him have those nightmares? Did he see something on TV? Did he hear a scary story? Did he eat something that didn't agree with him? Is he having problems or stressed?
In this case, I think he just heard a noise (the fan) while he was sleeping. I've gone over everything else and that's the only thing that's left. And that's how I've spent most of my free time since I wrote last. Trying to see if something was wrong that I didn't know about.
Call it "Mom work" and know that it's never ending. I say that not in the, "Oh I'm so busy" (and certainly not in the "Oh I'm so wonderful") but because Rebecca has a lot of high school and middle school readers and I remember when I was in high school, there were a few girls who thought if they had a baby things would be great. They didn't want a child but they wanted a cute baby. I'd hear them say things like, "I want someone to love." Get a dog, get a cat, get a plant.
Kids are a lot of work. (I love my kids.) If you end up a single parent like me, they're a lot more work. (And I have a family that's more than willing to help out.) But if you're someone who thinks babies are just so cute and just want to spend time with them, my church has a nursery, go volunteer at that or work at a day care. (Work at a day care with the older kids and you'll probably free yourself o the illusions.)
Kids are wonderful but if you're seeing a cute baby who looks so sweet and so wonderful, know that the baby also cries, the baby also wets and poops and it's not cute changing diapers. I have three kids and I'm glad they're older because when they are babies, it's very hard. You have to decipher all the time. "Okay, this cry means . . ." You're always guessing. And with my second child, I'd just seen something on TV about sudden infant death syndrome. For four weeks, I slept on the floor by the crib and kept waking up to make sure he was still breathing. You'd be surprised the things you worry about and that's a direct result of the fact that a baby can't talk so you're always plying decipher.
They are completely dependent upon you and that may seem wonderful until it happens. When someone's completely dependent on you 24 hours a day, seven days a week, you realize how much pressure that is.
I'm not trying to make anyone think, "Oh, I don't want kids ever." If you want them, you should have them. (And if you don't want them, you shouldn't have them.) But don't buy into some idea that it all giggles and hugs.
What am I talking about tonight? I honestly hadn't planned to write about that. The heat's fried my brain! Let me note C.I.'s "Iraq Snapshot:"
Chaos and violence continue.
At least five bombs went off in Iraq today, according to Reuters. But don't fret for the Operation Happy Talkers, the military is pushing "Operation Baghdad is Beautiful" wherein the "trash, debris and barrier materials" are being removed. While it is true that Lady Bird Johnson had a beautification program it in the United States, she didn't try to implement in Vietnam. This as William Caldwell (US major general) announces that attacks in the "Bahgdad area" have incresed 40% this month. Is that 'beautiful' as well? Maybe they can slap some blue bonnets on it? Meanwhile the BBC notes: "But the US military admitted on Thursday the massive security clampdown that followed the killing of al-Qaeda leader in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had achieved only a 'slight downtick' in violence." Or, as Adnan Dulaimi told Borzou Daragahi (LA Times), "What is happening in Iraq is a disaster and a tragedy."
Bombings?
The Associated Press notes that ten are dead as a result of a car bombing near a gas station in Beiji and one dead (and seven wounded) from a car bomb in Kirkuk. Reuters reports five were wounded near Karbala from a roadside bomb; a bomb that exploded near a police patrol in Baghdad killed two (wounded 11 including 5 police officers); while another bomb in Baghdad (the third for the day) killed three; ten people were wounded from a roadside bomb near Najaf; and one person was wounded from a bomb near Diwaniya.
Shootings?
Reuters notes the shooting death of a cab driver in Diwaniya; three oil engineers in Baiji; police officers in Tikrit and Falluja (one in each city); and one in Baghdad.
Corpses? CBS and the AP report that four corpses were found in Baghdad. The AFP notes that Iraqi police are saying the number is 38 corpses discovered in Baghdad "in the last 24 hours." Reuters reports that Baghdad morgues' figures for July, thus far, are "about 1,000 corpses." Reuters notes a cab driver whose corpse was found in his taxi in Numaniya; two corpses discovered near Balad; and the corpse of a translator who had been kidnapped Tuesday was discovered near Tikrit.
Centcom announced "A Marine assigned to 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division died due to enemy action while operating in Al Anbar Province today."
Reporting on Iraq yesterday Aaron Glantz (The KPFA Evening News, Free Speech Radio News) explored the security situation speaking with a number of people including one Iraq male, Ali, in charge of investigating the Tuesday bombing in KUFA who declared, "The police doesn't have any information about anything. They're just kids. They don't really check anything at checkpoints, they just ask people where they are from and let them go without checking anything. Until recently you didn't any kind of diploma to get into the police. Now they have changed it so that you have to have graduated from middle school to apply to be a police officer." Glantz also spoke with an Iraqi professor, Shakir Mustafa of Boston University, in the US who is attempting to get his family out of Iraq. The professor explained how neighboring countries are growing less welcoming to those who flee from Iraq with Glants noting the UN predictions of how things would grow increaingly worse for Iraqi refugees (child labor, sex traficcing, malnutrition and poverty).
Meanwhile, Ahmed Rasheed (Reuters) reports on a refugee camp in Baghdad which Um Abdullah says was attacked with gunfire and that this and other events have caused all but five of thirty-four families to leave the camp. Reuters estimates that over 30,000 Iraqis have fled their homes and become refugess in the last three weeks.
In Australia, the inquiry into the April death of Jake Kovco continues. Australia's ABC reports that Judy Kovco walked out on the inquiry when Wayne Hoffman gave testimony that the wounds that killed her son were self-inflicted. Hoffman's testimony included a twelve-point presentation and flies in the face of the testimony given by Detective Inspector Wayne Hayes which found DNA other than Jake Kovco's on the gun believed to be the weapon. Hayes wants "up to thirty" of Kovco's fellow troops in Iraq to submit to DNA tests and homocide detectives have left for Baghdad to begin testing. Belinda Tasker (Courier-Mail) reports that attorneys for Judy and Martin Kovco, Lt Col Frank Holles, and for the solider's widow Shelley Kovco, Lt Col Tom Berkley, objected to Hoffman's arguments noting "There are a number of assertions in there ... which aren't conclusive of the findings they purport to reach," and "at the end of the day you can't say whether the firing of the firearm was intentional or unintentional, it's all predicated on the fact that it was Jake."
Yesterday in Iraq, an attack in Basra indicated the level of hostility some Iraqis feel towards the occupation. As Daveed Mandel noted on The KPFA Evening News: "Today, assailants slit the throats of a mother and her three children in southern Iraq where the family had fled to escape threats stemming from accusations that they cooperated with Americans. The mother's sister was also slain in the southern city of Basara. Five other family members were rescued but they almost bled to death."
And yesterday in the United States, the AP reports, an Article 28 hearing was held to determine whether or there is evidence to warrant a trial of Nathan B. Lynn and Milton Ortiz Jr. for alleged actions in Ramadi where they are accused of killing an Iraqi man on February 15 of this year and then planting a gun by him to make him look like an "insurgent." The AP notes: "Ortiz also faces one count of assault and one count of communicating a threat for a separate incident on March 8, when he allegedly put an unloaded weapon against the head of an Iraqi man and threatened to send him to prison, the military said."
Finally, the body of Abeer Qassim Hamza will not be exhumed reports Reuters. The family is refusing the request and Reuters quotes Muayyad Fadhil as saying, "It is disgraceful to remove a body after burial." Abeer Qassim Hamza and three members of her family were murdered in March. Six US soldiers have been charged in the incident (one with failure to report the incident) and five with rape and murder. Of the five, four are currently serving in the military. Steven D. Green is the only one charged (with rape and with murder) who has left the military. Reuters notes: "U.S. court documents in the case of Green indicate that other defendants say he killed three family members then raped Abeer al-Janabi and killed her too. They accuse one other soldier of raping the girl and a further two of being in the house during the killings." The five others charged are Paul E. Cortez, Anthony W. Yribe, James P. Barker, Jesse V. Spielman, and Bryan L. Howard (Yribe is the one charged with dereliction of duty for failing to report the incident).
So I'm reading Wally's hilarious "THIS JUST IN! BULLY BOY DISCOVERS RACISM! NEXT UP: GRAVITY!" which had me laughing so hard. Then I look at his recommended links and see two things: "Ani DiFranco and fasting (C.I. guesting for Kat)" and "The Mamas and the Papas (C.I. guesting for Kat)." I didn't know that C.I. was going to guest blog at Kat's site. (Mike said that's what he was hinting about.) Those are really wonderful entries. In the first one, C.I. talks about some of the the things happening while fasting. So check those out if you missed them.
Isn't it great that Bully Boy's discovered racism? That was sarcasm. You wouldn't know it when the adminstratin was trying (first term) to dismantle affirmative action. That was so ridiculouse even house slaves Colin Powell and Condi Rice had to make rumbles. I don't think you can be a Black Republican. Not nationally. I'm sure there are places where you can vote for the GOP and have some local reps who aren't racists but to vote Republican on the national level and be Black, you really have to hate yourself. That party is offensive and always attempting to turn back the strides made. If I'm reading something (like Ebony, US, one of the celeb mags) and come across a person saying they're Republican, I'm usually just like, "Oh too bad." But if it's a Black person, I have a very violent reaction inside -- like a swarm of bees stinging me inside.
That's not "All hail the Democrats." But that is saying when you use racism to campaign, when your policies target African-Americans in a harmful way, when all you can offer are "Yes master" tokens, your party is really sad. 50 Cent was someone I was neutral on, I wasn't a fan by any means, but when I found out he was a Bully Boy supporter, I thought, "Yeah, you really are a thug and you'll support other thugs." Or maybe it's just that trash sticks together?
I'll stop here before I go into a long thing about the rats who sell out their own race.
