Local Houston KHOU has Contracted the Michale Berry Disease

Gah.

First, I heard about how the expiration of tax cuts would lead to people making not very much money would lead to those same people getting their tax credits for their kids getting cut.  This is not true.  It is just a way to scare people.  If you don’t make more than $250K your taxes have gone down already and they will not go up.  Either you can’t figure out how to read you your paycheck, in which case I can’t help you, or your boss is cheating you.  Simple truth for more that a year and a half now.

Now they are trolling for people hating on the poor — those on “government assistance” getting a little help with cell phones.  WHAT A LUXURY!!!!!  Meh.  I don’t have a cell, but if I didn’t have a job now, I would appreciate it.  If I had a cell, I wouldn’t mind helping some HOMELESS PERSON OR FAMILY find a home or maybe a job.  Thanks KHOU for focusing on how people are shits.  (I got mine FUCK YOU. — That;s the attitude they are encouraging — right up Michale Berry’s alley.)

Gah.

But before Shurn Min Chow’s (that’s how her name sounds, who cares if I get it right?) report on Charlie /Rangel/:  pronounced with stress on the first  syllable and rhyming with Angel pronounced with a Spanish accent.  Shurn Min Chow did it more than once.

Look, if you are a teevee presenter, get your pronunciation right, especially for a man who has been to war and survived and served his county.  Weepy Shurn Min Chow could learn a few things from Charlie Rangel, like compassion for people down on their luck or the poor in general.  But she’s probably just cow-towing to Michale Berry’s point of view.  Because you know in this city that elected a lesbian(!) and has elected liberals for YEARS THAT Michale Berry attitude is predominant. NOT.  Sucking up to the MINORITY (conservative Michale Berry peeps) works, I suppose.  Maybe they are just trying it out for the weekend.

Remember, KHOU did a fluff piece on Berry not all that long ago.  Whose nads does Berry have over there?

Of course there is nothing on their website about the news they just broadcast.

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Diigo and Kevin Whited Piss All Over My Blog

You know, I don’t advertise.  I don’t run this blog for money or fame.  You could say I am sort of a pure blogger.  I do it because, you know what, it gives me the avenue that just wasn’t available when I was in my twenties and arguing with Sterling Morrison.  At a bar.  In the Heights or at the Ginger Man in University place..

I’m not in this for the money.  I’m not in this for the notoriety.  I ran into one of my old boyfriends at the Kroger and he asked me if I was still writing.  I write because that is what I do.  When I was younger, I had hoped to write a novel.  I wrote all of those years — about everything — not just politics — but everything.  I cannot help but write.

This medium has given me the chance to write.

But there are some who think that they can make fun of my writing and all the while shield themselves from any ridicule.  They are Kevin Whited and Corey the Quitter.

I have asked Kevin to stop linking to my blog.  He thinks it is cute to keep calling my posts “nachos.”

I call him and Cory cowards.

This is What People like Michale Berry Do Not Get

Today, Michale Berry spent his time on the radio crying about how President Obama didn’t go speak to the homophobic Boy Scouts organization.  (The fact that Berry supports Perry for gov and Perry “wrote” a book about the Scouts might have something to do with that.)  Of course he got a dig in at Sheila Jackson Lee and Bill White, but most of the time he was mocking black people.  You can get a pretty good idea of how Berry feels about black people from how he tries to mock the way he THINKS they all talk.

(I has  a SAD.  I couldn’t get my audios file up.  Just listen here and see if you don’t get what I’m talking about.)

(Curious how few callers he had) — Michale hopes that his listeners accept his excuse that he had so many things to talk about.  But really, Michale is just filling time.  Nobody really calls anymore.  Not even me.

Let’s put this in perspective.  Today a man who was wrongly convicted of rape TWENTY SEVEN YEARS AGO was not released (on bond?  why is there any bond or anything?) as scheduled.  Why?  He got a little pissed off at being shackled hand and foot, so he spends yet another night in jail for nothing.  This is how black Americans have been treated for years.  You behave — even if all of us were wrong and you were right — you BEHAVE!  It’s disgusting.  I’m pretty sure my choice for the inevitable Republican for District Attorney (Jim Leitner) wouldn’t have made this mistake.

It’s a well known, though little talked about fact that the “law and order” Republicans see the justice system as a way to reduce the number of black Americans able to vote.  Their thinking goes along the lines of hit black Americans with everything available and legislate even more ways to make sure a good percentage of blacks get caught up in the penal system.  If a few whites do too, well they represent a larger group and their punishment can be reduced based on the offense.

Just look at how long it took to black farmers to finally (maybe not, sadly, again) to get a settlement from the USDA.  Show me the white farmers with the same grievances.  Oh yeah, they are all of the wealthy farmers living of of government subsidies and bellyaching about the Bush tax cuts expiring.  Right.

I’ve written about this sort of thing before, but not nearly as much as I should have.

This makes me very angry and very sad at the same time.  Listening to Michale Berry today mock black people — while claiming that he didn’t have enough time to get to all of his supposed topics — just made me mad.

And then I realized something.  Michale Berry doesn’t care about black people singularly or in general.  Michale Berry cares about Michale Berry.  Anything he says will not reflect badly on the Republican party because he’s no longer a real player — except to be a handmaiden to Glenn Beck.  In other words, he’s just a tool.  A means to an end.

And so, I don’t feel so angry or mad because you know what?  I can mock him here on my little blog and he links to it and Kevin Whited links to it and every one of their readers turn out to be lame numskull cowards — or paid lackeys.

Here I am.  I support the Innocence Project.  I support the Southern Poverty Law Center.  I support LULAC and La Raza.  And the NAACP.  And Amnesty International and UNICEF.

I don’t support Texas Direct Auto, Gulf Coast Siding, and now IKEA (learn something new every day), or Houston Siding, nor any of the other people who peddle in the hope of making a buck off of the racist audience of Michale Berry.

Gah (vomit) in listening to him to capture the audio I forgot how he falsely accused a Spanish speaker of focusing on Spanish pronunciation.

This and That Again

Let me repeat, I hate (because I’m bad at it) blog titles.

In a little over a week, I will be on vacation.  YaY!  I’m taking more time this break because I have plans for the house and garden.  I will take pics to chronicle it.  Planting is not in the picture, but seedlings inside are.  I’ve got one more bed to lay in and a new compost pile.  Since it looks like all pond pumps are made in China, I’m opting for a no pump pond.  It’s a pity, since I got the electrician to put in a specific plug for a pump.   Perhaps if I keep looking, I will find a pump not made in China.  I will keep looking.

What about Man Talk at the 950 here in Houston.  On the upside, “Outlaw Dave” was nominated for best Houston talker by Houston Press.  (Sorry Michale!)  I thought about voting, but I don’t care.  If the Houston Press awarded not only Michale Berry, but a dead blog, I don’t think my vote will count much.

At any rate, the Man Talk 950 people on Facebook are complaining about the reruns — which they did again today.  Monday morning was supposed to be Chris baker from Minnesota again but they skipped that after the disaster that was Friday morning and just played MANCOW.

I know that Michale Berry lost his job managing one station.  Will managing the 950 be next?  He’s turning people off.

Michale doesn’t have the reach nor “talent” of Glenn Beck — Beck is going to march on Washington on August 28th, Michale is going to eat oiled seafood over Labor Day (while mocking the people he meets).  There is no comparison.

Michale once mentioned that someone asked him to go national.  He said he declined, but the fact is he never will.  Just listen in when he subs for Mark Levin.   He’s as tame as docile dog.  But hey, Michale is a born self-promoter and there must be something in this AM (dying, changing to Latinos music) radio for him.  Here’s just going to be a day late and a dollar short.  As always.

I wonder, at times, why my readership spikes.  It always seems to be Michale Berry supporters, but since the last time they waded in these waters, none of them are brave enough to comment.

I also wonder about this Berry Brigade to harass people, whether for good or bad.  Is Michale just trying to catch a tiger and get the same people who called all their congress people last summer to do what he wants them to?

I don’t think that will work twice.

My prediction:  Michale Berry will keep running old shows on the 950.  Pags and Dave will get mad and leave for another station, and the 950 will just be reruns (!) and their web site will just be boobs.

You heard it here first!

Michale Berry’s Priorities

Michale Berry wants to make an impact — especially with dollars (yours and his).  He rounded up a few people to go to Arizona in response to the boycotts that their legislature brought upon itself.  Now he’s looking to take yet another group to the Louisiana Gulf Coast.

Let’s look at a timeline, shall we?  Michale Berry seems to be as sluggish as the U.S. Senate.  Perhaps more so.

The Arizona law was passed in April.  Berry’s response took until a convenient holiday (not Memorial Day) July the 4th.

The BP Deepwater explosion happened in April.  Berry’s response will be Labor Day.

Need I say more than this:  Berry is a typical Republican.  Wait until it’s late in the game and then make a grand gesture.

Does that remind you of anyone?

Sorry Nashville.  You were a passing fling for the wingers.  Hope you dug yourself out of the mud — oh wait, the FEDS helped you and still are?  Ok.  You are no longer useful for the radio peeps.

Did a dam break in America and drown some people?  Really.  Good luck with that.  You are not very important to wing nuts on the radio.  It’s much more important to point to BLACKITY BLACK people, including our president as racist.

Feel better now? (That’s for any defenders of Michale Berry who might still be reading this.)

Shame.  Shame on all of you.  All of you who “listen to Michale Berry and nod your heads.”

Paying Cash Means You Spread the Wealth to the Wealthy

This is depressing.  I thought paying cash for big ticket items or any other was good for me.

Not.

If you are rich you get breaks coming and going.

I’m a Lucky Ducky

Our school went to the Museum of Natural Science today and I got to see

She is larger than I expected, but not quite as stinky as advertised.  She may be a bit of a dud as far as the advertised photo of what patrons could expect, but to me, it’s all good.  One negative neddie complained about all of the media hype about it, to which I responded, “It’s for the CHILDREN!!!!!”  Seriously, it’s summer and the media is lazy and this is novel and parents are looking for something *special* to do with their kids.  The homeschoolers are looking for points in particular.  REMEMBER THE CORPSE FLOWER!!! YOU WERE THERE!!!!  That should graduate the home schooled child up a grade or two.

It looks like the museum and McDonald’s made a killing if the lines are proof of anything.

For me, the Corpse flower was a little meh.  I was wowed by the IMAX.  It was HUBBLE!!!!!!  I have loved and mocked Hubble since it needed contacts and couldn’t see Voyager flying by.  Roberto and I used to say, “Voyager, where are you?”  “Over here!”  “I can’t see you, Voyager.  Where are you?”  “Here Hubble.  I’m right here Hubble.”  “Hubble!”

Anyway, the IMAX about Hubble was in 3D and damn cool.  It brought back memories (see above) and was amazing.  The 3D parts about what Hubble can see in deep space were beyond belief.  I HIGHLY recommend seeing it.

I meet a lot of people in my line of work.  They are special in that they have taken the big leap to come to another country.  For some it’s not such a big leap — they have spent most of their lives away from their home country.  For others it is a big deal.  But in the larger scheme of things, they are all people who have done something — live in another country, not just visit — that the vast majority of Americans or any other peoples have never done.

There are times that I meet someone who is really special.  These last few months I have been honored to meet one of those very special people.  He’s a young man from a country that is not so well respected in parts of this country, but I would challenge anyone to beat him at just being a descent person.  Perhaps he might comment here at some point — he seems interested.  We’ll see.  I respect him and genuinely like him.  I hope to stay in touch with him for a long time.

I’m a lucky ducky because I get to meet really special people all the time.  If I didn’t have to feed the pups and kitties and keep up the house, I would do my job for free.  It is that rewarding.

Here We Go! Reparations, Anyone?

I can’t believe Micale Berry didn’t latch onto this for his 950 Man Talk show today (especially after Chris Baker spent 2 hours talking about a Brit chick bagging 1K men).

Here’s the next meme — I thought it would be about the struggle of poor farmers.  NO NO NO NO NO.  It can’t be about that.  It’s about BLACK farmers and Reparations and La Raza and SNCC and every other nonwhite boogy man you can conjure all in one.  From Kathleen McKinley’s Houston Chronicle blog:

We are getting played on the Shirley Sherrod coverage. I did a little research last night and then sat back to watch what was being said about the latest on this case. Fox devoted the opening segment of their 6 o’clock news hour and while I noted Shepard Smith went out of his way to denounce Andrew Breitbart and show Shirley Sherrod as the exact opposite of what the shorter video seemed to imply.

Nightline devoted a segment with fawning coverage of her career as someone who assisted the poor and they didn’t hold back on cracking Fox and Breitbart. This morning they continued with an opening that I tolerated until almost 7:20 with George repeating what had been said last night and then some.

No one mentioned that Shirley Sherrod was a plaintiff in the Pigford vs Glickman case that had sued the USDA and that 1999 settlement has paid out right at $1 billion so far.(1) Nobody has mentioned that Obama allowed the justice department to reopen the 1999 settlement and allow another 73,200 plaintiffs to have a crack at that money that so far has been paid to 16,000 rural southern black farmers (original plaintiff estimate was 3,000.(1) No one mentioned that Obama has already authorized another $1.25 billion be allocated to compensate these new plaintiffs that total four times the number of black rural farmers (est. 27,500) that were identified when the case was filed 1997.(1)

Not a peep was said of the $13 million settlement Mr. and Mrs. Sherrod and their New Communities group received a few days before her July 25, 2009 appointment to her current position by Vilsak.(2) Note that New Communities is solely an enterprise of the Sherrods now as it has not been active for years.

And oh by the way, Mr. Sherrod is Charles Sherrod, a founding member of the Student Nonviolence Coordinating Committee which in 1966 had the reliable John Lewis as it’s chairman.(3) Remember John Lewis and his claims about being spit on a called the n-word a few short months ago? After John Lewis was replaced by Stokley Carmichael they renamed themselves the Student National Coordinating Committee and merged with what became the Black Panthers.(4)

Now here’s a kicker. One of the last active chapters of the SNCC/Black Panther group was in San Antonia and had an officer named Mario Salas who went on to assist in building La Raza.(5)

Now all of that may look like a bunch of tangential information until you realize that the original stated goals of the Rural Development Land Network, whose Vice Chair is Shirley Sherrod, was to “resolve to work toward reform of the land ownership patterns in this country”.(6), (7) Kind of sounds like reparations to me.

For the administration and especially Tom Vilsak to say they shot from the hip and over reacted when Obama, Holder and Vilsak have been shoveling money into the burgeoning settlements of a suit brought by Shirley Sherrod defies integrity, honesty and hopefully the law.

Oh my.

Someone please email this information to Michale Berry.  He’s behind the curve.  I can’t do it because he is afraid of me.

Please someone reading this blog send this VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT REPARATIONS to Michale Berry.  He was all hot and bothered about this topic when he was on the city council.  He would love to have his conspiracy theories confirmed.

What is this really about?  The USDA treated people differently in the past based on their skin color.  The people were finally able to file suit and win their case in court.  THEY WON.  IN COURT.  And there are some people out there — connected with Fox News and Andrew Brietbart, who think this constitutes reparations.

Fucking idiots.

A follow-up to what I wrote yesterday

I don’t have time to read all of these, but here are just a few links to more of the story about what Andrew Breitbart did and what Shirley Sherrod has achieved in working to help others.  For me, there could be not brighter contrast between good and utterly contemptible.

TPM — links Brietbart’s attack to settlement of a suit of racism on the part of the USDA.

Willy Nelson knows her and praises her here.

More later.

About Shirley Sherrod

There’s something that has been lost in all of the commotion about Ms. Sherrod and what Andrew Breitbart did to her:  she has obviously worked for years to help all types of people keep their family farms.  This is a long term mission for her.  Perhaps I noticed this because I have started my own little garden and I also remember what sank my grandfather’s farm.  In other words, family farms have been fighting for decades just to stay alive.   It also brings back memories of the dust bowl and the specter of agribusiness.
Ms. Sherrod has devoted her life to helping family farmers.   She has fought against banks. She has actually helped people in a tangible way.

That’s why I was so sad yesterday — so dejected.  If a woman like her could be dragged though mud by a person like Andrew Breitbart, then no one — no one is safe.  No good anyone does will be rewarded without the possibility of someone like Breitbart attacking.

What happened is clear.  Brietbart had a video in hand and published it on the Monday after all of the discussion about racists in the tea party people.  It was his attempt at exacting a piece of flesh.  It’s also clear that he didn’t give one whit about Ms. Sherrod.

The same bloggers who pounch on and/or make things up, pounced on the video and false characterization and I watched it, hoping that someone somewhere would ask the question — is this accurate?

Finally yesterday morning, I saw one hot link on memeorandum — it was from the Atlanta paper.  It had an interview with Ms. Sherrod.  I clicked that mother fucking link on every computer I could log onto.  Why?  Because it discredited everything Brietbart had said.  Everything.  I’m certain that there were many people like me who clicked on that link, knowing that it would rise to the top of memeorandum.  We may not be big blogger types or radio types, but we can push a story, too, even on a wingnut site like memorandum.

When did someone anywhere say WTF?  If you believe Kathleen, she did, as well as others who travel in her circles (she seems to only read the Corner).  But truth be told, Kathleen’s friends were the first ones on the bandwagon to call Ms. Sherrod a racist.  You will have to look at their blogs/facebook 😦 pages to see if they have apologized.  Here’s what Michela Berry had to say on his teenage facebook page:

Federal Official resigns after caught on tape making racist remarks against white farmer at NAACP event…Andrew Breitbart released the tape which shows Shirley Sherrod, USDA’s Georgia State Director of Rural Development, admitting that she did not help a farm with ‘full force’ because he was white. Interestingly the NAACP crowd was not outraged by the incident. NAACP put out a statement about Sherrod saying, “Racism is about the abuse of power. Sherrod had it in her position at USDA. According to her remarks, she mistreated a white farmer in need of assistance because of his race.”

Michela hasn’t corrected anything. I didn’t expect him to. He just lies and lies and lies.

At any rate, Kathleen claims to have been sole support for Ms. Sherrod.  Given what I have read about Ms. Sherrod’s view of FOX News, Kathleen might not feel so comfortable having a beer with her.

But let’s get back to the main point I have:  for years — decades — farming policy has been dominated by big agribusiness.  Family farms have struggled to survive — and I am not talking about “family” agribusiness farms — just simple family farms.  Capitalism would dictate that the large companies win — little family farms can’t compete — look at any industry and tell me that consolidation doesn’t happen when the market is left to itself.

It’s my hope that this mess will lead to a greater examination of what Ms. Sherrod was working on and perhaps bring some media attention to it.

As an addendum:  Kathleen doesn’t seem to have heard that Ms. Sherrod is no fan of Fox News and proclaims:

She said Fox showed no professionalism in continuing to bother her for an interview, but failing to correct their coverage.

“I think they should but they won’t. They intended exactly what they did. They were looking for the result they got yesterday,” she said of Fox. “I am just a pawn. I was just here. They are after a bigger thing, they would love to take us back to where we were many years ago. Back to where black people were looking down, not looking white folks in the face, not being able to compete for a job out there and not be a whole person.”

Still, Fox continued to push for an interview with her, Sherrod said.

“It was unbelievable. I am refusing to be on there. They have been calling me and calling me. I have refused to do an interview because they are biased,” she explained. “I don’t think Fox News does it fairly. It is worse so now. I have sat and listened to the way they cover the news even before this administration and I saw what was going on.”

Sherrod said this situation has worsened her view of racism in media coverage.

“I think it is race. You think we have come a long way in terms of race relations in this country, but we keep going backwards,” she said. “We have become more racist. This was their doing, Breitbart put that together misrepresenting what I was saying and Fox carried it.”

And reading this, Kathleen says:

This is what happens when one is constantly on the defensive, and trying to control the narrative. Pres. Obama and the left need to stop worrying about Fox News, the blogs, and radio talk show hosts, and DO THEIR JOB.

I guess because Kathleen nor Michela read anything but Fox sites they missed that interview.