Dancing with the Underserving, Underaged Mothers

As a general rule, family members of politicians are usually off limits in my criticism. Unless – of course – they throw themselves in the limelight. At that point, the gloves come off. So when I first read about Bristol Palin being added to the lineup of Dancing with the Stars, my critique-o-meter was in full gear.

Perhaps I live in a bubble, but I thought the show features stars; folks who have actually accomplished something in their lives.

If Sarah Palin was invited on as a guest, that would at least make some sense. As dense as that woman is, no one can deny her star power. No one can deny her influence in the world of politics, even to this day. She can’t seem to walk five yards down the street without cameras and reporters monitoring her every move (also, I ain’t gone even lie: I’d love to watch SP prancing around in a salsa skirt. OK, let me stop).

Oppositely, Bristol’s claim to fame is getting knocked up by an Alaskan redneck who lies about as often as most of us breathe, living out a steady diet of off & on dating, and using her knuckleheaded teenage pregnancy to become an advocate for abstinence. For all of this success (sarcasm), she has landed a gig as a celebrity. Never in a million years could I make any of this up.

Each time I think that as a society we can’t become any more inane than what we are now, I keep getting proven wrong. Rewarding knuckleheads for being knuckleheads represents the most ass-backwards aspects of our society. Then again: maybe I’m wrong. If so, don’t be suprised to see Bristol and her 15 kids riding her newfound success all the way to the White House in twenty years.

- ACL

Hooked on Ebonics

Once again party people, I’m sorry for the hiatus. Sadly, I haven’t had a lot of time on my hands to devote to blogging. But as necessary, I can always spend a few minutes to offer commentary on sheer absurdity.

Courtesy of the Smoking Gun – the ultimate site for digging up public records - it appears that the Atlanta Department of Justice is in search of  “ebonics experts.” To wit:

The Department of Justice is seeking to hire linguists fluent in Ebonics to help monitor, translate, and transcribe the secretly recorded conversations of subjects of narcotics investigations, according to federal records.

A maximum of nine Ebonics experts will work with the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Atlanta field division, where the linguists, after obtaining a “DEA Sensitive” security clearance, will help investigators decipher the results of “telephonic monitoring of court ordered nonconsensual intercepts, consensual listening devices, and other media”

The DEA’s need for full-time linguists specializing in Ebonics is detailed in bid documents related to the agency’s mid-May issuance of a request for proposal (RFP) covering the provision of as many as 2100 linguists for the drug agency’s various field offices. Answers to the proposal were due from contractors on July 29.

[...]

Ebonics has widely been described as a nonstandard variant of English spoken largely by African Americans. John R. Rickford, a Stanford University professor of linguistics, has described it as “Black English” and noted that “Ebonics pronunciation includes features like the omission of the final consonant in words like ‘past’ (pas’ ) and ‘hand’ (han’), the pronunciation of the th in ‘bath’ as t (bat) or f (baf), and the pronunciation of the vowel in words like ‘my’ and ‘ride’ as a long ah (mah, rahd).”

Detractors reject the notion that Ebonics is a dialect, instead considering it a bastardization of the English language.

The Department of Justice RFP does not, of course, address questions of vernacular, dialect, or linguistic merit. It simply sought proposals covering the award of separate linguist contracts for seven DEA regions. The agency spends about $70 million annually on linguistic service programs, according to contract records.

But don’t feel bad, negros. It’s not just ebonics linguists they’re seeking:

In addition to the nine Ebonics experts, the DEA’s Atlanta office also requires linguists for eight other languages, including Spanish (144 linguists needed); Vietnamese (12); Korean (9); Farsi (9); and Jamaican patois (4). The Atlanta field division, one of the DEA’s busiest, is the only office seeking linguists well-versed in Ebonics. Overall, the “majority of DEA’s language requirements will be for Spanish originating in Central and South America and the Caribbean,” according to one contract document.

Source

Even though the DOJ is apparently making this a multi-ethnic initiative, I must admit the ebonics bit has me particularly entertained. Perhaps the DOJ can train linguists to the beat of the classic spoof Airplane!

The DOJ is off da hizzle, fa shizzle. SMH

- ACL

The Most Trusted Name in News

Geez. This debate about the mosque near Ground Zero is really bringing out the worst in all of us…including CNN. How do you really feel?

H/T to Gawker

- ACL

A Giant in Alaska (like it or not)

Reports have confirmed that former Senator and President pro tempore Ted Stephens of Alaska, along with four other passsengers, have been killed in a plane crash along an Alaskan mountain. From Yahoo News:

JUNEAU, Alaska – A single-engine plane carrying former Sen. Ted Stevens crashed into a remote Alaska mountainside, killing the state’s most beloved political figure and four others and stranding the survivors on brush-and-rock-covered slopes overnight until rescuers could reach them.

Volunteers discovered the wreckage late Monday and tended to the injured, including Stevens’ fishing buddy, ex-NASA chief Sean O’Keefe, until help could arrive Tuesday.

The 86-year-old Stevens’ death stunned both lawmakers and residents alike, even in a state familiar with plane crashes, because of his pre-eminence in Alaska history: A decorated World War II pilot who survived a deadly 1978 plane crash, he was the longest-serving GOP senator in history and spent his 40-year Senate career bringing billions of federal dollars home. One failed effort — the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere” — became part of his national legacy, as did convictions that helped foil his 2008 campaign but were later tossed out.

Read the rest of the article here.

I wasn’t a huge fan of Sen. Stephens, truth be told. I thought he was a real jerk at times. But I can also appreciate his progressive stance on various positions. I certainly can’t go without acknowledging his role in drafting and pushing key legislation contributing to Alaska’s overall economic and social advancement. It’s just a shame that his career was stained by his recent ethics problems. But what politician isn’t involved in some kind of ethics scandal, right Charlie? Right, Maxine? More on you two clowns in the near future.

Anyway, my prayers and condolences go out to the entire Stephens family.

- ACL

My Letter to Big Mama

It’s been almost two weeks now since God called you home. I think it’s safe to say that I’m over the initial shock of it all. Not so easily remedied, though, are some of the deep feelings of regret that I’m still having; mostly for leaving some things undone and unsaid. My relationship with you has always been about openness and transparency. But I’ve failed you to some extent by leaving some things unsaid. Until now, I guess. This is for you.

As I said, I freely admit to having several regrets. For starters, I regret that I selfishly wanted you to stay with us. The thought of living without you being here wasn’t something I was quite ready to cope with. A person as complete as you leaves unfillable voids in my life…and I wasn’t completely prepared to face that reality. So I selfishly fought it. But equally as regrettable, in another sense, I actually WANTED God to take you away.  The thought of you agonizing over each breath and having fingertips as black as coal from all those pin pricks made me want to see it all end. As you can imagine, sitting in front you watching you take your last breaths left my mind in a pretty frenzied state. But now that I’ve had a chance to clear my head a bit, I’m happy in knowing that God’s will prevailed. In that Divine will, your suffering is over and you’re now somewhere in your mansion, probably getting sarcastic about how Peter needs to cut his beard or something. In hindsight, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I also notably regret that I didn’t always view you as a reliable person to lean on and talk to. While I definitely appreciate how – as the matriarch – you were the “rock” of the family, I also had a tendency not to defer to your thinking on particular things. For example, you had a habit of offering commentary laced with non sequiturs…annoying to a person like me who loves to follow logic. It’s the scholar in me, I know. I’m working on that. You also drove me batty with how you used non-biblical quotes in biblical context (i.e. saying stuff like “God will never put more on you than you can bear”). To this day, I was never able to convince you that some of the quotes you used weren’t anywhere in the Bible. LOL!  But at the end, I knew where your heart was. That, to me, is what mattered most.

Finally, I painfully regret that you won’t be there to see me as a husband and a father. After all, you were one of the driving forces in helping me see the world from a different angle. You may not have thought I was listening to you when we discussed love and relationships, but I was. I found…nay, God sent me a wonderful woman, just like you predicted. And I’ll always cling to your words about doing everything I can to be a good man for her. Regardless to how she and I end up (whether we’re happily married one day or hating each other’s guts from across the room), you’ve fed me with more than you know. You and Big Daddy left an indelible mark on me – on ALL of us — by providing a true model of how a husband and a wife should love one another, and how parents should love their offspring, even when those children are out of pocket. You left me a lot to work from. I’m just sorry that you’re not here to see ALL the fruits of your teachings. But in your storied life spanning eight decades, you’ve seen and done enough. You deserve your rest.

Besides all of that, I believe you’re watching me, even at this moment. And in the off chance that you DO miss something (i.e. if they’re showing All My Children in Heaven or something), I’ll fill you in on the details when I see you again. Just save me a seat at the table.

I love you, Big Mama.

- ACL