I and I

"Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.) "

-- Walt Whitman

What He Said

Frank Rich in Sunday's New York Times:

PRESIDENT Obama did not offer his patented poetry in his Inaugural Address. He did not add to his cache of quotations in Bartlett’s. He did not recreate J.F.K.’s inaugural, or Lincoln’s second, or F.D.R.’s first. The great orator was mainly at his best when taking shots at Bush and Cheney, who, in black hat and wheelchair, looked like the misbegotten spawn of the evil Mr. Potter in “It’s a Wonderful Life” and the Wicked Witch of the West.

Such was the judgment of many Washington drama critics. But there’s a reason that this speech was austere, not pretty. Form followed content. Obama wasn’t just rebuking the outgoing administration. He was delicately but unmistakably calling out the rest of us who went along for the ride as America swerved into the dangerous place we find ourselves now.

Worth reading the rest!

Obama Restores Worldwide Women's Health Services

Just days after President Obama took the oath of office, he reversed the "global gag rule." His executive order reversed the awful policy -- issued by Reagan, continued by Bush 1, overturned by Clinton, reinstated by Bush 2 on his first day in office in '01 -- that canceled US funding to women's health clinics worldwide if they so much as mentioned family planning methods as an option.

The global gag rule forced health clinics in developing countries - which often serve as the only source of birth control for the world's poorest women - to cut their staff, limit services, and sometimes close their doors entirely.


When Obama first launched his campaign, he surveyed his supporters asking what we would like to see him do as his first act as President. My answer was: Overturn the global gag rule that Bush reinstated on *his* first day in office. I feel like my wish came true and am SO grateful that my sisters around the world will be supported by our country in having control over their lives and their health, instead of having their biology rule their destiny and suffering from women's health issues with no local clinics to turn to. And we have rejoined the modern age, in recognition of the need for population control on our overtaxed Mother Earth.


Please consider joining me today in thanking President Obama for his swift action on behalf of women everywhere.

Inaugural B&W crepes

Creamy pale bananas and rich chocolate make this a perfect breakfast or snack this week, LOL.

Serves 2 banana & chocolate freaks. If you make this into 2 crepes like I did, they are humongous. But you'll still wish you had more.

-- a bar of Green & Black's Organic 70% cocoa.
-- 1 c organic unbleached white flour
-- 1 c + about 2T organic 2% milk (untested: substitute unflavored soy milk)
-- 1 egg from a happy, veggie hen (in my book, if the egg has the telltale "fertilized" bloodspot, that was a happy hen)
-- 3 organic bananas
-- decent cooking oil (do yourself a favor & avoid saturated fat, k?)

2. In a mixing bowl, beat the egg and add to it one cup of milk. Slowly add the cup of flour, whisking constantly, until the mixture is very smooth

3. Put half a bar of the chocolate into the top of a double-boiler. Add 2 T of milk. Over a gentle heat, don't forget while doing the below steps to keep checking it. It should just melt slowly, it should NOT simmer. Whisk occasionally.

4. Peel and slice the bananas. Heat up some oil in a frying pan to a nice high temp.

5. Toss the bananas around in the pan long enough to sear the outsides (to a toasty brown color, not charred!). Remove the bananas from the pan.

6. Heat up a 10-12 inch frying pan (or crepe pan if you have one) with a light coating of oil, medium heat. Pour half the batter in a spiral; tilt the pan to nearly cover the bottom. Let it sit over the heat until the top is dry and the edges are very slightly golden-brown. Flip with a spatula and let the other side heat for a minute or so. Slip it out of the pan onto a plate.

7. Spoon half of the bananas in a stripe near one side of the crepe. Roll it up. Generously drizzle the chocolate on it.

8. Repeat steps 6 and 7 for the second crepe.


If you have extra chocolate in the double-boiler, pour it over a peeled banana or some strawberries. Put them in the freezer for a bit, then move to the fridge.


Clean-up tip for the fried-banana pan (and for any kind of mess in a pan or on the stovetop): Put in about 1" of water, bring to a simmer, sprinkle baking soda over the entire surface of the water, simmer a bit more, sprinkle more baking soda and shut the heat off. It will clean up easily after it cools.

Tupac, do ya feel us today? Please pay us a visit

Come on come on
I see no changes. Wake up in the morning and I ask myself,
"Is life worth living? Should I blast myself?"
I'm tired of bein' poor and even worse I'm black.
My stomach hurts, so I'm lookin' for a purse to snatch.
Cops give a damn about a negro? Pull the trigger, kill a nigga, he's a hero.
Give the crack to the kids who the hell cares? One less hungry mouth on the welfare.
First ship 'em dope & let 'em deal the brothers.
Give 'em guns, step back, and watch 'em kill each other.
"It's time to fight back", that's what Huey said.
2 shots in the dark now Huey's dead.
I got love for my brother, but we can never go nowhere
unless we share with each other. We gotta start makin' changes.
Learn to see me as a brother 'stead of 2 distant strangers.
And that's how it's supposed to be.
How can the Devil take a brother if he's close to me?
I'd love to go back to when we played as kids,
but things change, and that's the way it is.

(Come on, come on) That's just the way it is. Things'll never be the same.
That's just the way it is. aww yeah...


I see no changes. All I see is racist faces.
Misplaced hate makes disgrace for races we under.
I wonder what it takes to make this one better place...
let's erase the wasted.
Take the evil out the people, they'll be acting right.
'Cause mo' black than white is smokin' crack tonight.
And only time we chill is when we kill each other.
It takes skill to be real, time to heal each other.
And although it seems heaven sent,
we ain't ready to see a black President, uhh.
It ain't a secret don't conceal the fact...
the penitentiary's packed, and it's filled with blacks.
But some things will never change.
Try to show another way, but they stayin' in the dope game.
Now tell me what's a mother to do?
Bein' real don't appeal to the brother in you.
You gotta operate the easy way.
"I made a G today" But you made it in a sleazy way.
Sellin' crack to the kids. "I gotta get paid,"
Well hey, well that's the way it is.

We gotta make a change...
It's time for us as a people to start makin' some changes.
Let's change the way we eat, let's change the way we live
and let's change the way we treat each other.
You see the old way wasn't working so it's on us to do
what we gotta do, to survive.

And still I see no changes. Can't a brother get a little peace?
There's war on the streets & the war in the Middle East.
Instead of war on poverty,
they got a war on drugs so the police can bother me.
And I ain't never did a crime I ain't have to do.
But now I'm back with the facts givin' 'em back to you.
Don't let 'em jack you up, back you up, crack you up and pimp smack you up.
You gotta learn to hold ya own.
They get jealous when they see ya with ya mobile phone.
But tell the cops they can't touch this.
I don't trust this, when they try to rush I bust this.
That's the sound of my tune. You say it ain't cool, but mama didn't raise no fool.
And as long as I stay black, I gotta stay strapped & I never get to lay back.
'Cause I always got to worry 'bout the pay backs.
Some buck that I roughed up way back... comin' back after all these years.
Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat. That's the way it is. uhh

The At Long Last Death of William Zantziger

So now I find myself wishing that the Christian idea of some sort of final judgment is true. And hoping that Hattie Carrol's family breathes more freely and walks a bit lighter now.

This is what happened in 1963, a short stark write-up from the New York Times.


This is perhaps the best commentary on this "incident" among thousands upon thousands of similar "incidents" in the history of America (and of "civilization" in general):