Conversations with The Feath: Hitchin’ Up
Posted: November 30, 2009 Filed under: Friends & People I Know, Pitts Indeed, Relationships | Tags: engagement, jon pitts-wiley, marriage, Pitts Indeed, the feath 2 Comments »
"My jab is serious."
INT – NIGHT
THE BEDROOM
Jon and The Feath are napping in bed before having to go a play and work respectively. After considering her for a few moments, Jon nudges The Feath.
JON: Will you marry me? I’m really asking. I don’t have much but you’re my person.
The Feath claps her hands over her mouth in disbelief.
THE FEATH: Yes!
Jon and The Feath sit in silence, not really sure what happens the moment after such questions are asked.
THE FEATH: Dammit.
JON: What?
THE FEATH: I have to go to work.
JON: Alright. I gotta go to this play.
Fade to black
The Secret Service Doesn’t Care About President People
Posted: November 27, 2009 Filed under: People, Pitts Indeed, politics, Soap Box, Thought Food | Tags: joe biden, michaele salahi, president barack obama, rahm emanuel, tareq salahi, the new york times, white house state dinner, white house state dinner crashed 1 Comment »
I’m sure the Secret Service doesn’t its job right 99 out of 100 times. I’m sure they thwart threats that we never hear about. I’m sure of it.
What I’m not quite sure about is how they let certain confidenc-shaking shenanigans see the light of day.
While I was, like most people, mildly amused by the Iraqi shoe thrower, I was extremely troubled by the incident. Sure, the gesture was meant as more insult than harm, but the fact that a guy got two clean shots at the President of the United States baffles me. The first shoe I’ll grant him because…who the fuck expects a guy to go tossing Docksiders across the room, but as he reached for the second shoe, I would expect the Secret Service to have subdued and/or shot this guy. Period.
This most recent incident at the White House State dinner was probably more troubling. How can two people crash anything at the White House while the president is on the premises? What’s that now, they had a cameraman with them?
The Salahis–the crashers–claim they didn’t crash anything and that there was a misunderstanding that will be cleared up soon. Maybe this is true; maybe they were supposed to be on the list and are owed some apology. But that apology needs to come on the heels of their being barred entrance to the event. This is the White House, not Bungalow 8.
Obviously, I’m sort of pumped that it took place because it is a choice example for white (or white-looking) privilege. If this is a colored (or colored-looking) couple, you can believe somebody get folded up right there at the gate. The story in the Times would have been “There are whispers coming from the State dinner that a woman was scoop slammed and her husband back body-dropped for attempting to get into the event without having their names on the list.”
So0meone will like get assigned to Des Moines over this, but the troubling thing is that, had these people been a well-dressed sleeper cell, they could have brought harm to any number of people, including the President of the United States of America. Not that I’m in the business of quoting Rep. Peter King, but this piece in The New York Times is on point:
Mr. King said he had seen people turned away from similar White House events, including a congressman who brought his daughter instead of his wife, whose name was on the list. He also raised concerns about the Secret Service’s assertion that Mr. Obama was safe because all guests passed through metal detectors.
“The fact they went through the magnometer is incidental,” he said. “They could have had anthrax on them. They could have grabbed a knife from the dining room table.”
He added, “The next time it will be a far worse reality than a reality TV show.”
To the Secret Service: 99 out of 100 is good enough for everybody else.
2009 American Music Awards: ‘Just Jennifer’ Edition
Posted: November 23, 2009 Filed under: People, Pitts Indeed, The Food Of Love | Tags: 50 cent, adam lambert, Alicia Keys, american music awards 2009, angelina jolie, brad pitt, crack a bottle, cyndi lauper, eminem, indian jones and the last crusade, jay-z, jazze pha, jennifer lopez, jlo, kanye west, mashonda, performing live, rick ross, rihanna, swizz beatz, taylor swift, timbaland, val kilmer 3 Comments »
"Have your face set. I don't wanna end up just humping air."
After having my mind blown by Star Trek, I flipped over to the American Music Awards in time to see Jennifer Lopez’s comeback attempt performing a song whose name I don’t recall and am not inclined to look up.
While 1999-2000 really seems like just yesterday, the decade has, indeed, come to a close and things are not what they once were, as evidenced by Lopez’s tumble after vaulting off the back of a dancer while wearing five-inch heels. She recovered from the tumble, gathering herself enough to ask the crowd (via lip-synch) “You miss me?” The resounding response seemed to be “Once upon a time.”
Now, I could go in on Jennifer Lopez about the tumble or the singing poorly and such, but I have to admit: When she fell I gasped. I clapped my hand over my mouth and actually felt bad. Seeing any performer stumble is cringe-worthy because it really is like dying a thousand deaths on stage, but this emotion had something more to it.
I imagine anyone who saw it thought to themselves “JLo woulda nailed that. Jennifer Lopez, mother of two out of the limelight for a few years, apparently cannot.” Watching great performers lose a step always kind of hurts a little. Read the rest of this entry »
…I Don’t Get It
Posted: November 20, 2009 Filed under: People, Pitts Indeed, Thought Food | Tags: abortion, church bishops, crime, health care reform, jon pitts-wiley, men, Pitts Indeed, rape, sex, shniya davis, the public option, women, youth violence 4 Comments »Some things are beyond my ability to understand. Like, I get them…but I don’t.
1. I don’t get how the Church is holding the government hostage on abortion. If Church and State are supposed to be separated, how is the State getting its ass handed to it? Reform hangs in the balance because the Church doesn’t like something? Why is the discussion even going there? It’s not like the State would ever even consider telling the Church what to do with regard to church business.
1A. Since we’re supposed to be a secular nation and our laws are set up as such but we don’t really make a point of conducting ourselves like a secular nation, why don’t we just drop the charade and say that we’re a Christian nation and get it over with?
2. Some guys can pump and pump and pump and pump and not come. I’m sure there’s an explanation, but I don’t get it.
3. People get really mad at politicians for not doing the right thing–which is reasonable–but neglect to remember that politicians are people with power just trying to keep their jobs.*
4. Why people cry in court after being caught committing a crime. I’m especially puzzled by the gun-toting knuckleheads who swore they were nice before they got the cuffs slapped on them.
5. I don’t get how you could rape a five-year-old girl. Believe me, I’m not an advocate of raping any-year-old anybody, but a five year old girl, dude? Like, who are the people that are going to sit across from you and think, “You know what? I totally get it”?
6. I don’t get Beyonce’s life, namely, the way she inexplicably makes the same song and video with impunity for mysterious reasons. Jagged Edge never got such breaks. She’s super duper made it, why can’t she venture out just a little bit?
7. Women in R&B seem to all have traded pants for thigh-high boots. Maybe pants aren’t edgy?
*This probably answers #1 rather nicely.
Satire Done Right: Ashaka Cohen
Posted: November 19, 2009 Filed under: Pitts Indeed 1 Comment »If you’re a buffoonish and cringingly-stereotypical Black woman stuck inside a white guy, you’re probably not gonna like this one bit.
If you think Black women are the object of ridicule in this piece, you’re not gonna like this one bit.
If you appreciate the social constructionist argument being turned haphazardly on its ear by a painfully unaware person worthy of mockery, you’ll probably dig this.
I must admit, the video raises an interesting question for me: If a person can be transgendered–which I think is possible–and gender, like race, is a social construction–according to sociologists and the people who say that sort of thing–why couldn’t a person make a legitimate claim to being a transracial person?
Civilian Court?! You Like ‘Steel Magnolias’ Too?!
Posted: November 18, 2009 Filed under: History, People, Pitts Indeed, politics, Thought Food | Tags: 9/11 plotters, 9/11 trials, adam serwer, khalid sheik mohammed, military tribunals, new york city, steel magnolias, the american prospect, torture, waterboarding Leave a comment »
"We totally think New York has the right stuff."
So sayeth the haranguers spewing poetic on what should be done with Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his merry band of mass murderers. They’ve come up with excuse that range from questions of safety to that of jurisdiction, but the upshot of it all seems to be this:
We don’t trust the Feds in New York City to punch this one through.
To which I ask, as politely as possible: Can you pass that dutchie to the left hand side? It’s clearly some of that deaf bubonic.
Let’s think this out loud: New York City, the site of the worse mass murder in the history of the United States, has a chance to get its hands on some of the scoundrels who perpetrated said mass murder and their gonna bungle this? The same people who would send back food that is “too hot” are gonna let this slide? It would seem the discussion should turn to whether or not New York is a safe place for KSM and Friends to be.
As my buddy Adam Serwer notes, these fools are never going to breathe free air again.
My gut tells me that the supporters of the tribunals have simple reasons for wanting to go that route. Rubberband to my head, I’d say it’s because they think the military will be harder on these guys. Not only will they convict them, they’ll convict them hard.
If KSM and Co. were convicted by a military tribunal, they’d spend the rest of their days getting tapdanced on by dudes in crew cuts in between waterboarding sessions and electrocution that involves nipple clamps. And all of this would take place in that shadowy Military World where the rules are just different. Or so hope, I think, the people who want to see a tribunal go down.
Shorter Pitts-Wiley: They want these dudes put in the hurt locker, military-style.
They want a vicious pimp hand to come down on the 9/11 plotters and they think the Feds in New York are too weak in the wrist.
The Feds in the city where these knuckleheads helped murdered 3,000 people. A city where people don’t even let too-hot food slide.*
Hm.
*Yes; you can probably reasonably argue that the Feds in a city aren’t necessarily representative of said city, but I get the sense that, from sea to shining sea, the Feds in the area take on the musk and complexion of the locale. When something happens in their neck of the woods, they take it personally. If I did something terroristic in New York City, best believe I’m not trying to see their Fed game.
The Detroit Blackfaces and San Francisco Chinamen
Posted: November 16, 2009 Filed under: People, Pitts Indeed, Soap Box, Sports | Tags: blackface, chinamen, fighting illini, fighting sioux, florida state seminoles, jon pitts-wiley, Pitts Indeed, supreme court, washington redskins 3 Comments »
"If I was on the Blackfaces, we'd be undefeated right now!"
Sounds pretty bad, doesn’t it?
The Supreme Court, not wanting to get involved in matters of right and wrong, opted not to hear the case of the Native American activists that find the name Washington Redskins offensive.
Maybe the justices are season ticket holders?
For the last decade or more, teams with questionable names have come under Native American scrutiny and names have been changed. St John’s, North Dakota and Illinois are just a few schools who have been chin-checked. The Seminoles and Florida State came to an understanding after tense negotiations.
Common theme: Maybe it’s not the coolest thing in the world to “honor” the traditions of people whose history you neither know nor actually respect by slapping their name and likeness on the side of a helmet, particularly when approximately zero people representative of that culture and history are in the mix. Read the rest of this entry »
