Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Class Warfare: The Slick Rick Way!

It's time to Break It Down!

As the Republican Presidential Primary process winds it way to conclusion, slowly, but inexorably, the term class warfare is becoming a ubiquitous staple of campaign-speak.  Frequently it is bandied about by the GOP quartet seeking the Party’s nomination for president, as they mischaracterize President Obama’s effort to promote making the American tax system fairer.  The President has made a case for revising the tax code and adjusting tax responsibilities so that the middle class absorbs less of the over all tax burden, while the wealthy assume a larger share.  Interestingly, but not at all surprisingly, a clear majority of Americans agree with the President on this matter.

Given that preamble, I viewed it as a matter of sublime irony when last Saturday, Rick Santorum labeled President Obama a snob.  He did this because the President is an advocate for higher education for all Americans.  As the Senator put it, President Obama has said he wants everybody in America to go to college. What a snob!”

As he waxed philosophical, the good former Senator from Pennsylvania did not stop there.  He went on to say, “There are good, decent men and women who go out and work hard every day, and put their skills to test, who aren’t taught by some liberal college professor (who) tries to indoctrinate them. I understand why he wants you to go to college. He wants to remake you in his image. I want to create jobs so people can remake their children into their image, not his.”

It surely makes for a compelling story; the key problem is it reshapes and spins the facts.  In elevating the focus on university education, Santorum blithely disregards the crux of the Obama argument.  Mr. Obama’s proposal incorporates technical and vocational training as central components of a plan to “Win the Future.”  The Senator’s dissembling commentary takes on the President’s message in a frontal assault, and skews it beyond recognition.  Could this be intentional?  You be the judge!

To interpret this narrative effectively, it is important to recognize that the Republican Party eagerly embraced the Limbaugh-inspired mantra of, above all else, wanting this President to fail.”  In a toxic and negativist environment, such as this, it has become commonplace for Republicans to blame the President for every conceivable ill that has occurred in American, and abroad, during his years in office.

President Obama, addressing governors at the White House on Monday, emphasized that goal again.

“When I speak about higher education we’re not just talking about a four-year degree.  We’re talking about somebody going to a community college and getting trained for that manufacturing job that now is requiring somebody walking through the door, handling a million-dollar piece of equipment. And they can’t go in there unless they’ve got some basic training beyond what they received in high school.”

Even after accepting the preordained reality that political opponents often resort to sleight of hand, it appears Santorum must have crossed the “Bridge to No where” when he suggested President Obama’s support for making higher education an imperative for all Americans equates to snobbery.  In short, Santorum’s position on this matter strains credulity.

One may infer even GOP Primary voters were, like a majority of Americans repelled (or at least de-incentivized) by such inanity.  In fact, even one of Mr. Santorum’s rivals for the Nomination distinguished himself by disagreeing with him.  Newt Gingrich conceded the President’s call for Americans to “commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training" seemed "perfectly reasonable."

Gingrich said on NBC’s “Today Show” yesterday, that Mr. Obama’s comment “strikes me as perfectly reasonable. Everybody in America is going have to get re-educated all the time because jobs are going to change, technology is going to change, and if we're going to compete in the world market, we both have to have the best equipment and the best training."

The Senator’s reward for this and probably a series of other ideological tacks voters may consider gaffes, including on religion, and on female reproductive rights, was a reversal of fortune from his four-state sweep from a few weeks ago.  He lost both of yesterday’s contests, Michigan and Arizona, as well as, most likely, Wisconsin today.  There had been significant speculation Santorum might win Michigan.  That he did not does not eliminate him for the over all race by any means.  What it does do is take air out of the sails that were, metaphorically, the ascendency of Rick Santorum as frontrunner.

Mr. Santorum’s latest gambit is literally, class warfare.  He emphatically, and inexplicably, I might add, attacked the viability of the classroom and its influence on the potential for America to regain its future buoyancy.  Suffice it to say, most Americans of all stripes reject this premise.  Ultimately, in assessing the extent to which Santorum inserted his views on higher education into the discourse of the public square, I apply the WWRD (What Would Rick Do?) test.

Aside from his attempt to throw a lance into the heart of the Obama campaign, the legacy and perspective of Mr. Santorum on college is pretty clear.  Santorum earned a BA, an MBA, and a JD, his wife is a lawyer, so obviously has multiple degrees, his 93 year-old mother, as he shared last night in his concession speech, holds two degrees, and he indicated he recommended higher education to his children, including college.  And yet, the President is a snob, according to Mr. Santorum’s diatribe.

In characterizing some of Newt Gingrich’s tactics a few weeks ago, I borrowed the catch phrase, Dog-whistle politics.  The practice describes the use of code words to gin-up excitement and voter turnout among discretely identifiable subsets of voters.  Moreover, an important element of the practice is to appeal to fears and baser instincts.  It is a methodology at which the former Speaker of the House excels…and one for which the former Senator from Pennsylvania is quickly gaining experience and notoriety.  We have now seen first hand, “Class Warfare: The Slick Rick Way!”  Bring on Super Tuesday (March 6th)!

I’m done; holla back!

Read my blog anytime by clicking the link: http://thesphinxofcharlotte.blogspot.com. A new post is published each Wednesday. For more detailed information on a variety of aspects relating to this post, consult the links below:



















http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/diatribe

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

The Rise of the Dow: When 13 is a Lucky Number

It's time to Break It Down!

By now you probably know the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) briefly eclipsed 13,000 yesterday…ever so briefly, before closing at 12966.  The 13,000 mark is considered a key psychological point for the Index and a signal that may encourage investors to get back into the market.  In an instant, people near and far shed their triskaidekaphobia, at least for a day.

While the market-savvy know about the intricacies of the Dow, not everyone is conversant with the lingo of financiers, investors, and market gurus.  The shortened version of the explanation is that the DJIA is one of several indices created by Charles Dow, who was the WallStreet Journal editor, and co-founder of the Dow Jones & Company.  The Index tracks the performance of 30 large, publicly-traded companies based in the United States.  Specific measures tracked include how the companies have performed during a session of the Stock Market.

Yesterday we witnessed the highest level the Dow has reached during the tenure of President Barack Obama.  The last time the Index closed higher was May 19, 2008.  This is important for many reasons.  One that will be highlighted frequently as we progress through the coming months is the debate on the economy by the principals aspiring to claim the highest elective office in the land, the Presidency.

Almost since the advent of Mr. Obama’s Presidency, critics, chief among them Republicans, have contended the President’s policies have been ill-suited to the economic challenges we face, and worse, ineffective.  President Obama has countered for some time that the current state of the economy is substantially improved relative to when he took over, and he has a compelling case.

While we are not where we want or hoped to be, the fact is the contrast is stark.  The month before Mr. Obama took office the U.S. was hemorrhaging jobs, losing over 750,000.  In January 2012, the nation added 243,000 jobs; this represented the 23rd consecutive month of job gains.  But that is not all the President’s policies have wrought.  Naysayers will point to every negative statistic available as proof of Mr. Obama’s failures.  In that light, he should be credited with the successes, including (but not exhaustively):

  • Rescuing the banking industry (Those institutions recued have repaid their loans, including interest)
  • The automotive bailout (General Motors and Chrysler have repaid their debt, and rebounded to become profitable enterprises again, joining Ford)
  • Avoided national bankruptcy, despite opposition that tried to force the country over the precipice
  • Oversaw the creation of 1,600,000 jobs net, in 2011, compared to 1,080,000 during the entire 8 years of the Bush Administration
  • The current Unemployment Rate fell to 8.3%, lowest since February 2009
  • Stabilization of mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures, both of which are trending downward
  • Dow reaches 13,000, and closes at 12,966
Of course, these financial indicators must be added to President Obama’s Foreign Policy and War Zone portfolios, which include a significant disruption of the reigning global terrorist network, headlined by the assassination of Osama bin Laden, and the on-time terminationof the War in Iraq, respectively.  The GOP continues to sort out its Nominee selection process; the next GOP Debatewill be tonight in Mesa, Arizona.  This will be the last Debate before Super Tuesday(March 6, 2012).

There will surely be a spirited contest in the fall, once the GOP gets their man…or woman some might say, in the event Sarah Palin is drafted in a brokered Convention.  Meanwhile, for all the energy invested in making sure that President Obama is a one term President, and in painting him as the scapegoat for every ill the country faces, he is quietly and increasingly adding a number of very potent arrows to his quiver.  Indeed, he may remember well February 21, 2012, for it signaled..."The Rise of the Dow: When 13 is a Lucky Number!”

I’m done; holla back!

Read my blog anytime by clicking the link: http://thesphinxofcharlotte.blogspot.com. A new post is published each Wednesday. For more detailed information on a variety of aspects relating to this post, consult the links below:


















Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Last Saturday The Music Died: Déjà Vu All Over Again!

It's time to Break It Down!

In 1971 Don Mclean released an album (sorry about that CD/iPod/MP3 generation) entitled American Pie, which included a cut of the same name, that would become his signature song.  American Pie is an anthem that was an ode to a February 3, 1959 plane crash that killed three Rock & Roll talents; Buddy Holly (age 22), Richie Valens (age 17), and J.P. Richardson (The Big Bopper) (age 28).  The catch-phrase, “The Day the Music Died” was immortalized by the song American Pie.

Losing those three popular artists in one foul swoop could be characterized aptly as, “The Day the Music Died.”  Of course there have been numerous such days since that wintry evening in 1959.  November 10, 2006, June 25, 2009, and February 11, 2012 all come to mind.  I recall, vividly in fact, what I was doing at the pivotal moment when I heard the saddest of news on each of those days.

Friday evening, November 10, 2006, I was attending Homecoming/Black Alumni Reunion activities at the University of NorthCarolina (Chapel Hill) when a newsflash interrupted regular programming to announce that singer Gerald Levert had been found dead at home in his bed.  Gerald, who was known as the Teddy Bear, was my favorite male vocalist.  While it was initially reported that he died of a heart attack, an autopsy later revealed that his death was caused by a lethal combination of prescription narcotics and over-the-counter drugs.  Gerald had been self-medicating for acute pain lingering from shoulder surgery, and he also had pneumonia.  He was 40 years old.

Thursday afternoon, June 25, 2009, I was taking a break between games hooping (er a, playing basketball, that is) at First Baptist Church in “up-town” Charlotte, when some one indicated TMZ had just reported Michael Jackson died.  Jackson also died in bed, at home.  For those who do not routinely follow such esoterica, the letters TMZ stand for thirty-mile zone, referring the studio zone" within a 30 miles radius of the intersection of West Beverly Boulevard and North La Cienega Boulevard in Los Angeles.  This is significant because shooting within this zone is considered local, while locations outside the zone are subject to mileage and travel time charges by the talent and crew.  Just thought you’d like to know.

News of the King of Pop’s death spread so quickly online that both the TMZ and the Los Angeles Times websites experienced outages, Google believed it was under cyber-attack and blocked searches for Michael Jackson for 30 minutes, Twitter and Wikipedia crashed, and AOL shut down for 40 minutes.

Michael died of acute propofol and benzodiazepine intoxication after suffering from cardiac arrest.  His death was ruled a homicide, and Dr. Conrad Murray, his personal physician was convicted of involuntary manslaughter.  Jackson was a mega-star in life, and in death, his impact was just as enormous.  He became the biggest selling artist of 2009; in 2010 Sony signed a $250 million deal with his estate to retain distribution rights to his music until 2017; and to release seven posthumous albums over the decade following his death.  It is estimated that a billion people around the world watched his memorial service.  Jackson was 50 years old.  (I memorialized Michael in this space July 1, 2009 in a post entitled, "The King of Pop: Gone Too Soon."

Saturday evening, February 11, 2012, I was at Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte, enduring a basketball game between the Los Angeles Clippers and the Charlotte Bobcats…or more precisely since it was throwback night, the Los Angeles Stars and the Carolina Cougars.  While the game was essentially over after the first quarter, (the Clippers/Stars would go on to win 111-86 and the only pertinent question remaining was how many dunks would Blake Griffin get), is was near the end of the second quarter when news emerged that yet again, the Music had Died.  Smart phones throughout the arena began chirping, buzzing, dinging, ringing, or whatever they’d been programmed to do.  I noticed mine, and saw a news crawl exclaiming Whitney Houston dead, at age 48.”

Of these three icons, Gerald Levert claimed the biggest physical stature.  He had a voice that could fill any venue, but his voice and talent were always matched, and occasionally overshadowed by his size and weight, with which he admittedly struggled.  Michael Jackson was the King of Pop.  His showmanship was matchless, and his career accomplishments dwarfed most, and paled in comparison to none.  But Whitney Houston was “the Voice.”  At her peak, she commanded a combination of range, pitch, and power, accented by a complementary subtlety that was not just unique, but stellar.

She was also an actress, a producer, and a model, but really, she was such a commanding presence in the arena of her principal craft, singing, she would never be fully appreciated for what were considered her ancillary talents.  The Guinness World Records  cited Whitney as the most awarded female act of all times.  All times!  Her awards include two Emmy Awards, six Grammy Awards, 30 Billboard Music Awards, and 22 American Music Awards, among a total of 415 career awards in her lifetime. Houston was also one of the world's best-selling music artists, having sold over 170 million albums, singles and videos worldwide.

Without question, Last Saturday The Music Died: Déjà vu All Over Again!”  I’m done; holla back!

Read my blog anytime by clicking the link: http://thesphinxofcharlotte.blogspot.com. A new post is published each Wednesday. For more detailed information on a variety of aspects relating to this post, consult the links below:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitney_Houston








http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Levert










Wednesday, February 8, 2012

PAC-Man-in-Chief: President Obama Joins the Fray!

It's time to Break It Down!

In one of the latest revelations in political developments, a “secret that was no secret,” has been revealed.  Yesterday, President Obama assented to Democrats' use of “independentexpenditure only committees.”  As the label implies, these groups raise money expressly to make “independent expenditures,” which in coded Federal Elections Commission (FEC) language describes ads that support or oppose candidates, but are not coordinated, condoned outright, or prearranged by those candidates.

You have likely heard of these organizations referred to, in the more rudimentary vernacular, as Super PACs.  Regardless of which euphemism one uses, they are instruments by which a donor or donors, who may (and most likely will) remain anonymous, are permitted to make an unconstrained number of contributions, totaling a limitless amount of funds.

Avid political observers as well as those involuntarily annexed into the daily swirl of angst, jabbering, and vitriol, spewing forth from the slowly shrinking, but increasingly vocal quartet of GOP Presidential candidates have come to know all to well the “Power of the PAC;” Super PAC, that is.  Conventional wisdom suggests, with more than a little documentation, that the genius of the Super PAC has three significant components:

  1. Unlimited ca$h
  2. Anonymity
  3. Negative Advertising
Up to this point Super PACs have been largely the purview of the Republican Party.  The GOP is currently engaging in its Primary Election process, while President Obama, who has no intraparty challenger, waits on the sideline for his eventual opponent in the general election.  However, the handwriting is already on the wall.  The Super PAC’s have been a key element in the GOP primaries, and negative advertising has been paramount.  A soaring Newt Gingrich was pummeled by Super PACs supporting Mitt Romney.  Not surprisingly, Super PACs supporting Mr. Gingrich have responded by thrashing Mitt Romney…and so it goes!

The GOP has far and away outpaced Democrats in terms of numbers of Super PACs, and the money they have raised.  The underlying, but undeniable message is while the Super PACs, their money, anonymous donors, and ads, have all been trained on each other, they will be refocused to point at President Obama in the fall.

It is in this inexorably trending light that Presidential advisers and would-be donors alike prevailed upon POTUS to revisit a long-held, and I might add, principled stand against accepting money from Super PACs.  In the end, the President reasoned, as one reporter noted, “What good is your “Brand,” if you don’t win?

In essence, in the backdrop of battling a Republican Party that established its top priority, in 2008, “making President Obama fail, and limiting his presidency to one term,” it was inherently clear that he would need to foster and promote an environment in which he was not unduly limited by an insufficient fund-raising apparatus.  The GOP, of course, will argue that President Obama back-tracked and flip-flopped.  Campaign reform proponents will submit that he blinked, or worse, flat-out capitulated.  This decision will not be without its detractors.

Yet, if President Obama intends to vie aggressively for a second term (and few doubt he does), he had to at least provide his supporters the chance to create a level field of play, as it relates to fundraising.  He has now taken what I believe is a necessary step to that end.

Super PACs are a relatively recent development, in sheer historical terms.  Two Court decisions, both rendered in 2010, coalesced to enable to creation of Super PAC’s. In the first, the Supreme Court in, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, held that the government may not prohibit unions and corporations (which Mitt Romney defines as people) from making independent expenditures to political causes, including candidates.

Shortly afterward, the Federal Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit held, in Speechnow.org v. FEC, that contributions to groups that only make independent expenditures could not be limited.  Super PACs are prohibited from coordinating directly with candidates or political parties, because they are “independent.”  Candidates may however, talk to their associated Super PACs thru the media.  Moreover, the Super PAC may listen.

Ultimately, Super PACs are required to disclose their donors, as traditional PACs do.  However, in their brief history, many have exploited a technicality in the filing requirements allowing them to postpone disclosure until after the elections in which they participated.

The GOP Primary Season took an unexpected twist, last night as Rick Santorum made a clean sweep of elections in Missouri, Minnesota, and Colorado.  Ron Paul came in second in Minnesota.  Mitt Romney put on his game face for his Colorado speech to supporters before the final results were known, while Rick Santorum and Ron Paul were exultant due to their individual finishes.

Undoubtedly, President Obama and his team looked on with interest as the expected coronation of Mitt Romney as the Party’s nominee was “Delayed until further notice!”  Indeed, congratulations to Senator Santorum...and a word of caution: that sound off in the distance, akin to an approaching herd of elephants, is the streaming media that are about to alit on his path.  Oh yeah, time for another turn.  Meanwhile notice has been given, “PAC-Man-in-Chief: President Obama Joins the Fray!”

I’m done; holla back!

Read my blog anytime by clicking the link: http://thesphinxofcharlotte.blogspot.com. A new post is published each Wednesday. For more detailed information on a variety of aspects relating to this post, consult the links below:















Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Black History Month: Chronicles on the Evolution of African American Life!

It's time to Break It Down!

Two years ago in February, I wrote a series of 4 profiles on African Americans, 3 of which were little known.  While their exploits were dramatic in all four instances, they were simply fundamentally, even stunningly life altering in some cases.

We live in an age in which, despite the ubiquitous nature of the Internet and the pervasiveness of the 24-7 news cycle, the names, exploits, and accomplishments of luminaries such as Henrietta Lacks, Charlotte Hawkins Brown, and Alexander Manly are enmeshed in an historical nebula; present, but barely known or visible.

By contrast, speak or write the name Barack Obama, and due to a variety of factors, almost anyone you meet in the civilized world is capable of spouting off a vast array of factoids, real, imagined, true or false.  While POTUS has certainly earned all the notoriety he has amassed, the relative lack of knowledge about Lacks, Brown, and Manly is in no way a function of their relative importance.  All made important contribution to life as we know it in America; at least one altered the dynamics of medical history around the world.

Alex Manly, who was African American, was also a descendent of Charles Manly, North Carolina’s 31st Governor.  In 1898, Wilmington held the dual distinction of being North Carolina’s largest city, and predominantly black.  Mr. Manly was the editor of the Wilmington Daily Record, the only black-owned newspaper in the United States at the time.  He wrote a controversial editorial with both racial and sexual implications.  The piece was so super-charged that it is cited as the catalyst for the infamous November 10, 1898 Wilmington race riot. The gist of Manly’s editorial comments is aptly distilled in this quote:

·         our experience among poor white people in the country teaches us that women of that race are not any more particular in the matter of clandestine meetings with colored men than the white men with the colored women."

The rest is history; it took three months, but in November, after the August editorial that included that quote, Wilmington burned…and Manly and the robust black leadership class fled the city.  Manly was an example of a bold and defiant voice that emerging black leaders would demonstrate in the American South and across this country in the coming years.  The reaction of much of Wilmington’s white citizenry was equally clear, and at that juncture, more powerfully defiant.

Charlotte Hawkins Brown was a native North Carolinian who was educated in Massachusetts, and who returned to her home state to lead an all girl’s school, which she later transformed into a Junior College.

Ms. Brown made her mark fostering and improving African American achievement, especially among women.  Her considerable legacy includes:

·         Active involvement in the National Council of Negro Women

·         The first black woman to serve on the National Board of the Young Women’s Christian Association

·         Retired in 1952 as President of the Alice Freeman Palmer Memorial Institute, better known as Palmer Memorial Institute (PMI), the school she founded in 1902

·         Ultimately responsible for educating more than 1,000 African American students who attended PMI between 1902 and 1970, when it closed

Henrietta Lacks is not from North Carolina (she hailed from neighboring Virginia), but her story’s impact permeates not only the Tar Heel (and Old Dominion) state, and the rest of the country, but spans the entire globe.  Ms. Lacks, who lived a short life, by almost any measure, died of cervical cancer at age 31 in 1951.  Posthumously, she would go on to have an inordinate impact on cancer treatment as well as a number of other serious diseases, all over the world, through cells removed prior to her death.  The essence of her story is that:

·         Researchers at Johns Hopkins discovered a scientific breakthrough related to Ms. Lacks’ cells. In a departure from anything the scientists had seen before, the cells culled from Ms. Lacks continued to grow, outside of her body, and after her death. In fact, they did not just survive, they multiplied. In a circular irony, cells from Ms. Lacks’ culture were used to help Dr. Jonas Salk develop a vaccine for polio in 1955. Of course, Ms. Lacks had marched to help find a cure for that disease just four years earlier.

Of course the Barack Obama story is one that most Americans are familiar with, at least tangentially.  President Obama, the son of a Kenyan father and a Kansan mother, was born in Hawaii, graduated from Columbia University, and Harvard University Law School, and went on to become a Chicago community organizer.  Oh yeah, on November 4, 2008, he was elected President of the United States.  As such:

·         He became the 44th American to serve as our nation’s President.  POTUS is at the epicenter of national and world news coverage on a daily basis. His address, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, is among the most famous in the world; his title, Commander in Chief of the United States Armed Forces is one of the most revered. As President of the United States most people consider him the most powerful man on the planet.

One of President Obama’s historic appointments was the selection of Eric Holder as Attorney General.  That would hold special significance this month anyway, as Mr. Holder is African American.  It has taken on an added dimension however, as Dr. Sharon Malone, Mr. Holder’s wife, distinguished in her own right, shares a part of her family history in a PBS Special, in which she details how her Uncle Henry, born nearly 30 after slavery ended officially, was one of thousands of black men arrested on fabricated charges and forced into labor camps and compelled to work without pay.  As Dr. Malone tells the story, she asks you to:

·         Imagine that this "convict leasing" system saw the groups of prisoners sold to private parties - like plantation owners or corporations - and that it was not only tolerated by both the North and South, but largely ignored by the U.S. Justice Department.

·         Now, imagine that nearly a century after your uncle served 366 days in this penal labor system, you find yourself married to the head of the U.S. Justice Department, who, ironically, just so happens to be the first African American in the position.

There are many reasons why this information is not just historically significant, but contemporarily relevant.  None is more compelling than debunking the idea that the vagaries and vicissitudes of slavery and its variant offshoots no longer plague our society in general and African Americans in particular.  As Dr. Malone put it:

  • “I want people to understand that this is not something that’s divorced and separate, and this doesn’t have anything to do with them.  If you were a black person who grew up in the South, some way or the other – whether or not you were directly involved in the system as my uncle was – you knew somebody who was, or your daily lives were circumscribed by those circumstances.”
Unless you are part of Dr. Malone’s immediate family, her Uncle Henry is likely even more of an unknown to you than Alex Manly, Charlotte Hawkins Brown, and Henrietta Lacks.  Yet, his story is as irrevocably interwoven into the fabric of African American and American History as that of President Obama.  In fact, African American History is American History.  Over the coming month, by all means, take some time to reflect…Black History Month: Chronicles on the Evolution of African American Life!

I’m done; holla back!

Read my blog anytime by clicking the link: http://thesphinxofcharlotte.blogspot.com. A new post is published each Wednesday. For more detailed information on a variety of aspects relating to this post, consult the links below: