Overdose of Joy! Welcome my Grandchild Sean Lucian

I love to make food for my baby and watch her eat. A game arose between us from when she was learning to talk that I’d ask her “big hungry or little hungry”. We always knew the answer to the question it was big hungry, but the ritual was comforting intimate. Well one day 9 months ago as I’m preparing to do my barbecue magic I ran the question by her again big hungry or little hungry? She said she was little hungry. I walked away as waves of wonder hit me that was strange huh? Is she sick? Oh no what’s the matter!

She didn’t make me wait to long she sat us me down and told me she was expecting, oh so that’s why you’re little hungry. 9 months later the second most precious gift I’ve ever received is here. Behold Sean Lucian my Grandchild I love more than my next breath. Welcome to the world baby Grampy has been dying to meet you.




My own baby negotiated over 30 hours of labor to see that face. That I could produce a creature of such power and grace will always be a source of amazement to me.
Mazel Tov!

The View From Palmour Street

It is entirely pissing me off that I produced this for the Daily Kos and didn't upload it my own work into my own blog.




In 1950 pioneer documentary film maker George C. Stoney produced a film called Palmour Street. The film was a combination soap opera, and sociological educational film that was revolutionary for its time in that it portrayed the struggles and issues of African American family life in a troubled, but positive manner. There was a mother and father and of course children, but their lives as portrayed in the film stood in stark contrast to the seemingly carefree and prosperous lives of white society portrayed in the same era. This film is very personal to me in that it starred my uncles and grandparents.














The film had always existed as a sort of folk lore in my family. I knew it had been made, and I had even seen it once back when VHS was king, and I was shocked once while watching Tupac Shakur’s Resurrection to see my Big Daddy in a clip. Moms would tell the story of opening night when they all got to go to the opening in Gainesville, Georgia in big fancy cars, and that the movie theater was held open specially for them, but she was only seven or so (wide plus or minus I’m not outing Moms age) at the time and the whole thing really didn’t make that big an impression on her. Plus Moms didn’t get to play the roll of the daughter in the film, and my oldest uncle was also replaced for the same reason. They both had complexions to dark in the director’s opinion, so two neighbor kids were substituted in for the roll of daughter, and oldest son, but Moms did make it into the film as the neighbor girl who gets a line.














So, a few months ago as my internet skills started to really sizzle it occurs to me to do the google on Palmour street, and of course I don’t know how it’s spelled and I come up with nothing until my way smarter wife tries alternate spellings, and I find there has been some bit of scholarship on what the film meant and some were using it as a teaching tool.

This 50s public service film shows us the stresses and strains of a typical family, and how the ways the parents handle things affect the children. But with a difference this family is African-American and lives in rural Georgia. The family portrayed is basically a healthy one, though the parents have some flaws. This is pretty amazing, given how much stress they are under from living in a world of poverty and oppression. In fact, this film stands in stark contrast to the other films being made during this time. Instead of being a happy housewife in a clean suburban home filled with modern conveniences, like, say, in Young Mans Fancy, the mother in this film does her laundry with a tub and washboard after she gets home from working all day something that is not a choice for her, but a necessity, as the family desperately needs the money. In fact, she really wants to be able to stay home with her kids, because her only childcare option for the preschoolers is to leave them with cranky Aunt Esther, who showers affection on the baby while treating the other kids like dirt. Still, she considers herself lucky, because she has a good man who works hard, brings home his pay, and showers the children with affection. And you can tell that in her world, that is pretty damn fortunate. The oldest child in the family, a little girl of about 8 or 9, sensibly runs away from a creepy stranger who shouts, Hey little girl, come here! but she doesnt live in the squeaky clean world of The Cautious Twins, or even in the Sid Davis universe, but in a run-down neighborhood that probably has guys like that on every corner, making that interaction seem disturbingly real. The film ends on a somewhat tragic note when the father is seriously injured in an industrial accident. The mother spends a tense night at the hospital, and is finally told by a nurse that her husband will pull through, but you know he was just inches away from death. Still, you know his injury will be very hard on the family, and the film ends like a Centron discussion film, by asking the viewer What would you do?


I look at this film now, and the first that hits home is that these were not sets. This was the actual house and neighborhood that Moms and her family grew up in. I don’t think I would be blowing Big Daddy’s horn to say he was elite in his era. He was a radio disc jockey, sold life insurance inside the black community, and he ran the shoeshine stand at the local barbershop. My Muhdear worked for the same family until she died, and they treated her better than they treated themselves. They considered themselves lucky and well off. Yet when I watched Palmour Street again it was hard for me to see past what struck me as poverty. That’s where my view from Palmour St. comes into focus, and it is one that I am thankful for. I can look back 50 odd years and just two generations upon my grandparents in their 20’s and see what tremendous strides we’ve all made. May your grandchildren consider you poor actually seems like a great toast for the new year.

They tore down Palmour Street in that incarnation in the early 70’s as part of a model cities program, Big Daddy and Muhdear raised the actual children in their family to all graduate from college although the oldest were obligated to attend black institutions there are worse things on earth than a Talladega or Moorehouse education

The Week In UFO Phenomena: Remember the UFO at the bottom of the Baltic? Updated 6/7

Howdy Space Rangers, it’s been a while since I’ve put out a TWIUP and I just saw a story that most definitely warrants another edition.

Back in August I wrote about a group of researchers who using their scanning sonar thought they spotted a UFO on the bottom of the Baltic Sea,  if you dont remember it's ok you can Go back and read part 1 where they show what they saw in August

I was really excited about this incident as it was one of the few I could think of where you could go back for confirmation of what you saw.  Well they went back, and guess what?

Sonar readings show that the mysterious object is about 60 meters across, or, about the size of a jumbo jet. And it's not alone. Nearby on the sea floor is another, smaller object with a similar shape. Even more fascinating, both objects have "drag marks" behind them on the sea floor, stretching back more than 400 feet.

But Lindberg says the ship theory doesn't really hold up because of the unusually large size of the objects. "Of course it would be something from another ship but it's quite big," he told CNN. Lindberg notes that some observers have speculated that the objects may be Russian warships built around the end of the 1800's. However, Lindberg points out that not only were those ships much smaller, they were not patrolling the Baltic during that era.

Yahoo News Report 

UPDATE 6/7/2012

The folks from Ocean Explorer have returned to the site of the object.  I'll let them say it.

Ocean Explorer

2012-06-07
 BREAKING NEWS 2pm, The divers are now down and investigating the circle and reports from the ship say they are really amazed. There is definitely something unusual hiding at the seabed A Mystery Beneath.  More information and pictures will be released next week.

2012-06-04
News; The expedition started Friday 1st from Norrtälje harbor when Ocean X-Team took their crew out for this exciting adventure trying to find out what the mysterious disc-shaped object is. Unfortunately the weather conditions have been really bad the last days, but now they are on a roll.
Stay alert for more updates within shortly.

 2012-06-04 1.00 pm, Ocean X Team on site

The ship Ancylus, carrying the Ocean X Team, is now anchored above the circle-shaped object. They started to scan the seabed and they are taking samples for analyses. Due to really bad weather conditions the operation took a little bit longer than scheduled. But they are working hard and prepare to dive down there for further investigations today.
bed – a Mystery Beneath. More information and pictures will be released next week.

Namaste Friends

Keep looking up

Republicans..Same as it ever was

The Republican party is blowing the dog whistle of racism and calls for white superiority again except this time it is as loud as an air raid siren. Over this past week we have had two major Republican figures reach for the white race card. I'm really in a blah mood over it and as a member of the NAACP I think I want to yell something else at Newt Gingrich. Playing on racial hatred is nothing new for the Republican Party. It has been part of their electoral strategy from the days of Nixon and the early 70’s. The Republicans adopted racial polarization as an electoral strategy. 

Do you support Barack Obama? Glenn Greenwald says you’d support him raping a nun

Do you think I’m being hyperbolic? Did you read that headline and think; no surely he has at least a modicum of respect for supporters of the President. No he doesn’t and he is completely illustrative of this new lean forward pro left.

I’ve explained in a previous post why I haven’t been blogging as much as I once did. I’ve fallen in love with the Twitter for the time being. It is there that Glenn Greenwald showed his entire ass and by extension has damned anyone who supports him to support this point of view.

I heard a few of the old timers complain about the chirpstory the last time I did one, so I’m going to let Zerlina Maxwell of the MSNBC property The Grio tell the story above the fold, you can read Glenn Greenwald’s disgusting spoor in the form of the chirp story below.

Zerlina Maxwell's must read take down of Glenn Greenwald

In a particularly heated exchange on Twitter Saturday night, a blogger named "DrDawg" tweeted about Gandy: "Obama could rape a nun live on NBC and you'd say we weren't seeing what we were seeing." In response, Greenwald chimed in, "No - she'd say it was justified [and] noble - that he only did it to teach us about the evils of rape."
 When twitter exploded in attacks on Greenwald for making a "rape joke," instead of apologizing for the comment, Greenwald doubled down, tweeting that the reference to rape was not a metaphor and in fact Obama supporters would defend the president in the face of "ANY evil: assassinations, child-killings: EVEN rape violent crime like rape."

SNIP

Meanwhile, an irony of the infusion of rape into a debate in which it doesn't belong, is that theNDAA that Greenwald finds so offensive, also includes a provision which finally addresses the serious problem of rape, abuse and sexual harassment in the military.
Before this version of the NDAA, servicewomen who are raped were not allowed to transfer to another base or had a very difficult time doing so. Rep. Michael Turner (R-OH), who along with Democratic Rep. Niki Tsongas fought to get these provisions into the bill has said that, "in civilian life, you have complete control of your movements, and if you're in an unsafe situation, you can remove yourself. In military life, the victim needs permission to take even basic self-preservation actions." 

Don’t believe me or Madame Maxwell join me over the fold and believe your lying eyes.

Adept2u V Nicole Sandler and the National Defense Authorization Act: The Professional Left In ChirpStory

So do you want to see an interesting Chirpstory?


Ok so I'm becoming addicted to Twitter. The thing that so fascinated me about the internet when I first achieved high speed access was the ability to almost instantly talk to mega watt smart people. I chat with people from Astrophysicists to The Rev. Al Sharpton who read my tweet on the air Friday regarding Black conservatives.

@TheRevAl a Black man voting conservative in this day and age is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders #southernstrategy

Heh, Anyhow as I jumped into the Twitterpool I pretty much rushed to follow opinion makers etc. from my side of the political spectrum I could think of but there were a few people who were pretty much always on my follow list and one was The Angry Black Lady. http://www.angryblacklady.com/ A person I've pretty much always read from those magical high speed days, but more than that despite her name and reputation a truly sweet person who provided support for me when I got the ban hammer from the DK.

So anyway I'm following Nicole Sandler for the above reason and she's going all in on the recent Defense Authorization. Now I will admit and would have that I replied initially to the wrong tweet. The tweet I meant to respond to actually asked the question am I wrong, but like I said I'm a newbie twit.

BOOM Goes the Dynamite in the Healthcare Law

It’s not often you’ll see someone advocate the destruction of their profitable business, but yeah I did it, and now the fuse lit with the passage of our healthcare law has hit the explosive.

You know it seemed a lot of the disappointment in the law surrounded the idea that the Insurance companies were making out like a fat rat. Some of us (ME ME ME ME) who actually knew what was about to happen tried to state no they weren't, but because like most things the President does this was subtle this was at the heart of the matter but not loudly just effectively people lost their minds.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2011/12/02/the-bomb-buried-in-obamacare-explodes-today-halleluja/2/

That would be the provision of the law, called the medical loss ratio, that requires health insurance companies to spend 80% of the consumers’ premium dollars they collect—85% for large group insurers—on actual medical care rather than overhead, marketing expenses and profit. Failure on the part of insurers to meet this requirement will result in the insurers having to send their customers a rebate check representing the amount in which they underspend on actual medical care.

This is the true ‘bomb’ contained in Obamacare and the one item that will have more impact on the future of how medical care is paid for in this country than anything we’ve seen in quite some time. Indeed, it is this aspect of the law that represents the true ‘death panel’ found in Obamacare—but not one that is going to lead to the death of American consumers. Rather, the medical loss ration will, ultimately, lead to the death of large parts of the private, for-profit health insurance industry.

Why? Because there is absolutely no way for-profit health insurers are going to be able to learn how to get by and still make a profit while being forced to spend at least 80 percent of their receipts providing their customers with the coverage for which they paid. If they could, we likely would never have seen the extraordinary efforts made by these companies to avoid paying benefits to their customers at the very moment they need it the most.

Today, that bomb goes off.

Here’s how I wrote about it just before passage of the act.

I’ve sold health insurance and health insurance products for coming up on 8 years now. It’s been a fantastic business and a wonderful place to put my skills at communication and explanation to work. Understanding policies is difficult for those of us who are trained and licensed it can be a bear for those who have limited to zero understanding of how health insurance works. I’ve made a comfortable living being a person who takes honesty and integrity into your open enrollment meetings, and as the letters from my policy holders can attest a God send to people trapped in claims hell.

With the passage of the proposed health care insurance reform I will be put out of business, and I couldn’t be happier to have to find another gig in the midst of one of the worst financial crisis in America with unemployment numbers not seen since Ronald Reagan.

You see insurance companies don’t pay the people who sell their products with W2 style wages where you are an employee of the company with benefits and the payroll fairy to visit every other week. Brokers and agents are paid by straight commission, a percentage of the premium written on policies issued. Depending on the product and the carrier it can range from 3% to 25% and for the supplemental type products as much as 40%. So, when you see your little 100 man company has a health insurance bill of say 1 million per year someone your broker is getting bigtime paid.

There won’t be any margin in the new health care bills for brokers as there will be a mandated 85% premium to benefit ratio. That means for every dollar the health insurer takes in 85 cents has to go to benefit. There will be no more 10 cents for me your local insurance agent, and we won’t be needed anyway. The new health insurance reform that I have dubbed the StepOne Healthcare act of 2010 will provide for exchanges where individuals and groups can purchase their policies without needing me the middle middle man. The plans will have a defined benefit so I imagine that they won’t need me to explain them. The plans will have set costs and one huge pool to draw from, so you there won’t be any advantage to a company hooking its wagon to a large brokerage firm that could negotiate with the carriers the exchanges will fill that role.

After next week and the passage of reform unless I’m just an idiot, and I’m not, I’m going to have to look for a new wagon to pull. I imagine you’re asking yourself then why have you been fighting like hell for this bill?

I have collected a file of too many individuals I can’t get covered at any price. One of the ways I made a niche for myself is I would dive into difficult cases and I would seek coverage for people who other big firms or little ones like mine would refuse, and back in the day I could do something for them. Today as my Big Daddy would say they are SOL. Yeah they have maladies, and yes they are suffering. It’s real hard to know that.

I’ve been to open enrollment meetings where a new change in benefit has been installed with one of those $5000 dollar deductibles and I’ve spoken with people who have literally told me that they were not going to let their kids out to play. They were so frightened of what would happen if God forbid they broke a bone or took some stitches that they actually kept them locked up like a prime veal cow. I have to think back to my youthful boyhood and I was so dangerous the ER doctor knew me by first name, but damn I had fun, and this wasn’t the first story I’ve ever heard like that or the 10th.

I’ve met with business owners who loved their employees. By love I mean this person and say those 20 key players behind his door started something together and have been together from the beginning 25 years. The receptionist is like a member of the family, the loading dock guy named his kid after him. I’ve seen them break down into tears as they can no longer afford to offer health insurance to people they consider family. I’ve seen them rage when their group got dropped right when Betty the secretary develops breast cancer and I can’t find them group coverage anywhere. I don't want to see that anymore.

Pass the bill. Don’t fight passing the bill. I've seen a lot of commentary where this will be a boondoogle for insurance companies, and that's horse pucky.

Don't pass this bill and did you see the increases you got? Those near 40% hikes? Well if you don't pass this bill you wont work for money anymore, you'll work for coverage. Those 40% hikes will be broken down monthly, and oh I'll get a raise everytime they put one through, but I don't want it. PUT ME OUT OF BUSINESS!

Don't worry about me folks, I'll be just fine.