Coliseum Books, a bookstore that I considered to be an institution in New York City, is closed. Another independent bookstore that just couldn’t compete with the Borders and Barnes and Noble onslaught is gone. Coliseum was the first bookstore that I discovered as a browser during my teenage years. It was located in Columbus Circle back then, which was the entry to the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Before the Disneyfication of Manhattan occurred, the Upper West Side considered itself the literary center of the city, if not the universe, and Coliseum was an anchor. It wasn’t a particularly comfortable bookstore by today’s standards, but you found a book that was intriguing in just about every aisle on subjects you didn’t even know you were interested in. But then Donald Trump bought the largest building in the area, did a very gaudy renovation, and it’s been a slow downhill ever since that culminated in the construction of a huge luxury mall with condos on the top. There went the neighborhood. Coliseum moved to a smaller location in midtown Manhattan.
This past holiday season was a time for family get-togethers and as such I had time to talk with family on a variety of topics. Politics is not a major source of discussion but it does come up over a period of time and I was curious to find out how other family members felt about potential Presidential candidates.
Does he identify ? That is the question many African-American people ask when they see another African-American who does not spend much time in the black community. A person who has unconventional views, tastes in music, appearance, or a paucity of black friends may be viewed as eccentric, but the question people want to know is whether this person 'identifies,' i.e., considers himself a part of the black community.
Fellow kossack balzac, http://balzac.dailykos.com/... wrote a recent diary in which he showed his support for Cynthia McKinney and asked " Wouldn't it be nice to show this kind of solidarity for Cynthia McKinney?" Well, I want to express my thanks to Cynthia McKinney and believe that there are many others who would like to do the same.
The annual State of the Black Union, an annual symposium hosted by Tavis Smiley, was broadcast on C-SPAN yesterday. The focal point of the symposium was the publication of the Covenant with Black America, a series of essays and position papers that is intended to plot the course of economic, political and social development of the African-American community. For those of you who were unable to watch, below the fold is a summary of various participants' comments on The Covenant and state of black America in general.
WARNING: THIS DIARY IS NOT FOR THE POLITICALLY CORRECT
I've avoided the pie controversy until now because it just wasn't anything that I was interested in though it obviously has set off a furor. So today, I finally watched the ad and below the fold I will raise an issue that I don't think has been addressed.
...a/k/a Joanne Chesimard has political asylum in Cuba after escaping from a New Jersey jail. She was convicted of taking part in the 1973 murder of a New Jersey State Trooper when she and her friends were pulled over on the New Jersey Turnpike for a DWB and a shootout occurred. Different versions of what happened were told, with each side claiming the other initiated the violence. Assata and her friends were members of the Black Panthers.
Today seems to be the day for obituaries and here's one passing that went unnoticed by many last week but I think is significant.
Judge Bruce Wright was one of the more prominent jurists in New York for about twenty years because of his outspoken views on how the criminal justice system is unequal when it comes to treatment of African-Americans.
I watched most of the State of the Black Union on C-Span this afternoon. Great discussion on variety of topics. I missed most of the health care panel but caught the political panels. I took notes on the various speakers and will summarize for those of you who were unable to catch coverage.
Too many Americans, and liberals in particular, are Europhiles. At times, these attitudes are just outright effete. The truth is that European wealth was based on exploiting the New World and the greatest tyranny the world has seen has come out of Europe over the past 400 years, going right through the end of the 20th century. Yet, many Americans sound and act like European models of social structure are to be emulated.
Karl Rove, George Bush et al. are looking toward their second term with the purpose of building a lasting legacy and the Dems seem to be asleep at the wheel. There will be no legacy of an ambitious domestic agenda like the New Deal or Great Society. There will be no monumental foreign policy success like rapprochement with China and Russia, or brokering a Middle East peace treaty. This Administration has never been about substantive accomplishments that benefit the working man or woman, or about enhancing the United States' stature in the world. This Administration is about raw power, pure and unadulterated. Therefore, they are aiming for a legacy that eluded Nixon, Reagan, or Bush's dad. This Administration is determined to make the Republican Party the majority party for the next generation.
John Kerry made a concession speech but by now it's obvious that voting irregularities have probably resulted in the Bush Family Mafia stealing a second Presidential election in a row.
There is no reason why this election cannot and should not be legally contested right up until the time electors meet to cast the final ballots in January. During the post-election mayhem in 2000, the Republican spin machine continually put out the lie that Richard Nixon graciously accepted defeat in 1960 and conceded to JFK rather than contest the result in spite of evidence of fraud in Texas and Illinois. Well, nothing could be further from the truth. Fact of the matter is that Nixon just used the strategy of conceding to maintain a positive image for future political ambitions, then fought tooth and nail right through December to try to have the election results overturned in his favor.
A Kerry victory would mean that George W. Bush would become the first President since Jimmy Carter not to have an opportunity to appoint a member of the U.S. Supreme Court. We would all be able to breathe a deep sigh of relief. It would also put Kerry in a position to nominate up to three members of the Court during his 1st term
We all know that W has been the problem child of the family. Like all good parents though, Mom amd Pop Bush have tried to work with their unambitious, drunken son and set W up with good jobs, courtesy of their friends. Even with such parental support, W would always find a way to fail. Babs and Senior even called in all their favors to get Junior appointed to Pop's old job at the WH. They figured that with enough home schooling and hand holding, Pop's old employees could manage to get Junior through at least one term without tearing things up. But true to form, Shrub has let down his old man yet again. It just breaks Pop's heart.
There have been way too many threads out there picking VP candidates and even quite a bit on naming prospective Cabinet members. But I haven't seen any threads out there for the party planners who want to schedule the convention. The keynote speaker, the speakers allocated to primetime, the theme for the night, even the singer(s) who belt out the national anthem are all choices that have to be made. There are usually three big TV days. Let's hear how Kossacks would plan the party.
Sorry if this was posted earlier, but I took a short hiatus from dKos after Wes withdrew. It was sent out by Wes after his official announcement and I think all his supporters and others in the party would appreciate it as well.
