Subject to Change

This morning I heard about some public figure somewhere who plans to burn a copy of the Quran on 9/11. I wasn’t really interested in the free speech aspect of the idea. I wasn’t sympathetic to him, or opposed.

Then I got to thinking: instead of a blatantly defiant act, what would make a public statement under the guise of being thought provoking? That’s a good liberal tactic, distraction by arguing something other than the point at hand.

Suddenly, it hit me like a ton of bricks. If I were at all artistic and had a massive life insurance policy I would build a paper mache statue of a woman (preferably naked, and maybe two women) out of pages from the Quran. Who would dare be offended? After all, Christianity has had to suffer the crucifix in a jar of pee. Islam can take one for the team, it’s about time we all played by the same rules.

I’m astounded by people who defend the Ground Zero mosque, claiming that it’s not an offensive idea. If you’re one of them do me a favor: the next time a “reformed” pedophile needs placement get your “enlightened” butt on the phone and volunteer your neighborhood. Maybe I’m comparing apples to rotten apples, but that feeling you just got in the pit of your stomach is what it feels like to be a New Yorker right now. Whether that feeling is justified or not, building the mosque blocks away from Ground Zero is just plain insensitive. I thought feelings mattered!

On the other hand, maybe I’m not entirely against building the mosque. It’s not as though Obama’s Homeland Security Department couldn’t use a little help gathering information. Maybe if we handed them suspects on a silver platter they might be able to prevent a few underwear bombs on planes or car bombs in Times Square. Anybody who would choose to worship at the conquering mosque is certainly a person of interest. Heck, we ought to encourage the mosque to put its worship services up on YouTube. That way I’ll know which hot dog carts I might want to steer clear of the next time I’m in Manhattan.

I caught my two-year old telling a pumpkin to “go to daddy.” When I asked him what he was doing he pointed to the largest of the three pumpkins and said, “that’s the daddy.”

The next largest pumpkin was “mommy” and the pie pumpkin was “Cole.” In our house, daddy is not significantly larger than mommy. In fact, she’s taller by an inch (according to her). So, where did my son get this stereotype?

I’ve realized that if it came out of the mouth of a toddler it’s an honest observation. At his age children say what they think, without bias or fear of retribution. There’s no more honest assessment of the world around us, than what’s reported by a young child, is there?

Now, I’m eagerly waiting for my child to report that absentee fathers are a blight on urban society. You’ll read it here first!

I conducted a non-scientific poll about this picture, which has the NAACP crying in their Colt 45s.

I won’t claim to understand why these girls are dressed like shower poufs, or why they were invited to inauguration day. I just know that the cries of racism are patently lame. So, I took a survey of a strong liberal and a strong conservative at work. Kelly, who talks like a conservative but votes like a liberal represented the moderate point of view.

Liberal: “Tell me those aren’t your bridesmaid dresses.”

Conservative: “Looks like Easter.”

Kelly: “Southern dresses?”

So, Kelly gets the prize for getting closest on the imagery. She also gets bonus points for her blank stare when I explained that the NAACP says the dresses are offensive.

The Race Card is now as worthless as the Jose Canseco rookie card I bought for $22. You may as well put it in your bicycle spokes.

I’d like to be happy about this moment, because my public school education taught me to look forward to the day we elected a woman or African American to the presidency. Obama just doesn’t do it for me, though. He’s creepy. It’s that smirk. I know that smirk. I do it too, when I’m about to say something I know you’re not going to like and I’m happy you’re not going to like it.

I’m voting against Barack Obama’s white half.

We put on a kid’s video the other day for Cole. It was one of those corny educational ones, with a hyper adult figure trying to educate a brother and sister about airplanes. I tuned it out until I heard the adult address the two black children as “Katie” and “Jimmy.” I thought to myself, “please say they didn’t make those names up.”

Now I know that it’s possible for two black kids to be named Katie and Jimmy. But, in my experience it’s unusual. So, I watched the credits. “Jimmy” and “Katie” were actually Sean and Latoya. I guess I don’t feel as bad for “Jimmy,” then.

You see, there are some people who would notice what I did and immediately see a conspiracy against African-Americans. Of course they chose “white names” for those kids, because America is still the center of racism in the universe. It was thoughts of those types people which caused me to pray that the video had used the kids’ real names. We don’t need to be handing ammunition to the lunatic fringe, seriously!

I don’t see a conspiracy. I see something much more stupid. I’m betting that this was an ultra low budget production. The script was written before any actors were hired, and then somebody decided to go on an affirmative action hiring spree. With three actors in the picture, at least one of them had better be black, right? Instead of chosing the instructor (another conspiracy?) they selected the children. It probably would’ve been too awkward to pass off an African-American and a Latino as brother and sister, so the African-Americans got a two-fer. After hiring the talent somebody was too lazy or too oblivious to change the script. It wouldn’t have been hard to give these characters more likely names, in fact the child actors each came equipped with names of their own.

I just spotted the headline on the USA Today that has been lining the floor of my car for two weeks: Sweeping study finds blacks in U.S. diverse, optimistic. My sarcasm bone went into overdrive

A study found that blacks are diverse? What PhD needed to be reminded that they don’t all think alike?

Has anyone informed Carlos Mencia or Chris Rock yet?

They’re diverse, yet optimistic. Maybe they’ve all got something in common after all.

When I was in school being black was required for diversity. Now there are lots more options: Latino, Asian, female, handicapped. The list is virtually endless, so long as you can subdivide the population into small enough groups.

I didn’t think there would be much value in reading the actual article, based upon how lame the headline was.

On my drive in this morning Jay Weber’s topic was the problem with teenagers at the ‘Tosa Denny’s. I don’t know the gory details. It’s just another one of those troubling stories about how far astray our city’s youth have gone. Somewhere in that discussion I got side-tracked and started thinking about a little girl I met on 16th and Becher one night.

I wasn’t comfortable standing outside in this neighborhood after dark. I’m white, and none of the many kids who were up past any reasonable bedtime were. They were making quite a commotion, but didn’t seem openly hostile toward me. I resigned myself to minding my own business in the hopes that they would return the favor.

This girl, about 10, approached me to meet Cole. I must have asked her what she was doing up so late, because she told me that her parents had a party going on and they put her out of the house. She didn’t seem really happy about being forced to play in the street at night. I guessed that this was an all too familiar situation for her. Her parents, I discovered, were indeed partying. I spotted one of them hunched over the kitchen table with a towel covering his head, a sure sign of a great party.

Listening to Jay Weber this morning I realized that this young girl’s future is already decided. So long as she’s stuck with those parents, no amount of money, food stamps, schooling, or government pandering is going to save her from her fate. If she doesn’t find a way to save herself, by herself, this girl is another sad statistic within a decade or so. Her parents aren’t raising her, so the lousy neighborhood she lives in will. And, it won’t be kind to her. We should all pray that the spark of intelligence I saw in her is her guiding light, that she will rise above the influence, as they say.

As I exited the freeway I started thinking, the best thing I could’ve done for that young girl that night would’ve been to kidnap her and raise her as my own. But maybe I’m being a little too hard on her parents, who force her to wander the streets after dark.

…Or is it just a bit racist to assume that basketball hoops are only important to black people?