March 17, 2010

Don't be colorblind--be aware.

Don’t be colorblind–be aware.

by Tyree Harris

In a nation that drowns itself in political correctness and shudders in fear of any racial discussion, the notion of  “colorblindness” has been our sure-fire way of not seeming racist or to disregard the racial and class tensions that mean so much to our society.

People who identify as “colorblind” claim [...]

March 12, 2010

The As*holemeter

Invaluable tool for detecting [...]

March 11, 2010

Is there something wrong with this picture?

Today, like every weekday, I got in my car, after work, and head for home listening to NPR. I’ve been thinking about this for some time now and today, after hearing a piece on NPR about Kansas City, Missouri’s school board approving a plan to close 26 schools in one district and Cleveland, Ohio’s school [...]

March 9, 2010

The Culture of Step

Anyone who has ever set foot on a historically black college or university campus knows that there is something called stepping, the form of percussive dance where the entire body is used to produce intricate rhythms and sounds comprised of a mixture of rapid footsteps, spoken word, rhyme, hand claps, syncopation and synchronization. Stepping is [...]

March 6, 2010

“Bleeding Hearts” Cause Many Hearts to Bleed

by Don Maker

In May of 2000, John Albert Gardner III pleaded guilty to molesting a 13-year-old female neighbor. Prosecutors said he lured the victim to his home with an offer to watch a movie. In addition to being molested, the girl was beaten before escaping and running to a neighbor.

First, this was not a case [...]

March 5, 2010

SOME MORE TEA ANYONE?

Why the Tea Party should remain [...]

February 19, 2010

FLY FISHING AT ST. TIMOTHY'S

The art and passion of fly [...]

February 16, 2010

Drunken assaults in Eugene not isolated event

Drunken assaults in Eugene not isolated event

by Tyree Harris

The recent assaults and thefts at University of Oregon involving football players Rob Beard and Mike Bowlin have caused quite a stir: I’ve seen people in Eugene begin to worry about their safety, traveling with friends more often and discussing how violent it has become. However, despite [...]

February 15, 2010

The SWI Question of the Day (2-15-10)

Do you feel a responsibility to take care of the elderly?  Your relations and/or strangers?

We welcome your thoughts and comments.

February 14, 2010

What is Nudity?

What is Nudity?

by Bob Grant

This seems to be the consensus definition of Nudity:

noun:   the state of being without clothing or covering of any kind.

Someone, very special to me, sent out a harmless Valentine’s Day JibJab video.  Someone else wrote something about there was an impression of nudity in this video – they try to keep their kids from seeing [...]

February 13, 2010

The SWI Question of the Day (02-13-10)

What do you think of Body Piercing, Tattoos, and Branding?

We welcome your thoughts and comments.

February 12, 2010

OLD SCHOOL

And the differences with “New [...]

February 12, 2010

We Have No.....

We Have No…..

by Bob Grant

We have no lodge on mountain up high,

We have no jet on which to fly.

We have no yacht on which to ride,

We have no mansion in which to hide.

We have no Harley on which to cruise,

We have no closet with mountains of shoes.

We have no tailor to make our clothes,

We have no autos lined up in [...]

February 10, 2010

Socialists Need Not Apply to the Tea Party Convention

Once upon a time in a land far far away.  

• “Roosevelt is a socialist, not a Democrat,” declared Republican Rep. Robert Rich of Pennsylvania during a debate on the House floor on July 23, 1935. That remark came after Republicans hinted they were considering a move to impeach Roosevelt, according to the New York Times [...]

February 10, 2010

What if an African American were elected President?

First of all it would be very difficult to elect an African American President in America today. There would have to be some sort of cataclysmic event like a massive meltdown of or economic system that would cause people to lurch violently left. But let’s just say that happened and an African American were elected. [...]

February 10, 2010

Somebody should tell President Obama He won the Election

President Obama can stop running now. Someone should really tell him that. He is still in campaign mode and wants to give those feel good speeches. The problem is the speeches don’t feel so good anymore and we really don’t need somebody running for an office he already won. Being President is not about approval [...]

February 10, 2010

So what was written on Sarah's Palm...George Bush?

Sarah reads from her palm. She mixes up names and trashes the English language and makes up little idioms like shout outs and six pack joes and hockey moms. She really isn’t into all that minutia of policy and stumbles around when pressed and mixes metaphors and trips over sound bytes and puts her pedagogy’s [...]

February 10, 2010

The Illinois Quake-

You wake thinking something exploded. Someone hit the house with a hammer and everything shakes. You jump out of bed because something has just happened and yet the house is quiet. A meteorite just hit the house. A UFO landed on the roof. A jetliner crashed in your yard. Your wife runs in and says [...]

February 10, 2010

The SWI Question of the Day (2-10-10)

Should Homelessness concern you/us?

We welcome your thoughts and comments.

February 9, 2010

The SWI Question of the Day (2-9-10)

Do you consider yourself normal or abnormal?

We welcome your thoughts and comments.

February 7, 2010

We have a son who hates school

I can already see the shock on your faces, the blood leeching from your veins, the rolling of your eyes.

Such a dysfunctional attitude might be catching. It might be socially and irresistibly viral. As parents, we spend every day combating even the hint of its symptoms, like ‘flu and cancer. “But you must go to [...]

February 5, 2010

YOU'RE FROM WHERE?

The idiosyncrasies of our [...]

January 28, 2010

A Nation of Squatters--Poverty comes to the Suburbs

When I wrote my last novel Rocket Man about a man struggling to keep his home, I emphasized the chaos of the American Dream and threw everything but the kitchen sink at my poor main character. Now this fictional character seems to have moved down the pike into the mainstream of suburban America. A bank [...]

January 19, 2010

Cambodia – Not drowning, but waving (and smiling, and nodding).

I first visited Cambodia in the late 80’s. It was dangerous place. Small factions of the Khmer Rouge were still at large in the jungle, sheltering Pol Pot. There was little rule of law, armed thugs roaming the litter-strewn streets of Phnom Penh, the capital. I was unable to travel outside the city for fear [...]

January 17, 2010

What's Wrong With This Country?

A woman in a spotlessly clean black Mercedes, mobile phone pressed against her ear, repeatedly lays on her horn, bleating at a car attempting to make a left turn in front of her.

Obama imposes a tax on financial institutions that will surely be passed on to consumers or painlessly padded out in other ways.

The Red-Blue [...]

January 16, 2010

The Haitian Earthquake and Religious Zealotry.

In retrospect though, I have since found myself sympathizing with every religious extremist. My sympathy arises from the knowledge that victims of religious dogmatism and bigotry are as hapless and pathetic as the victims of natural [...]

January 11, 2010

The Color Thing

Senator Harry Reid’s words that have eclipsed the news of late are not so much racism as how most of America feels about race. His stating that Barack Obama would not have been considered electable for president had he not been light skin and void of Negro dialect is something African Americans have dealt with [...]

January 5, 2010

The Toothpaste Defense

Remember the “Twinkie Defense” Dan White used to explain why he killed Harvey Milk 25 years ago? White claimed he was made mentally unstable by ingesting Twinkies – ergo, too much sugar. Now in Boston we have Massachusetts State Senator Anthony Galluccio, who has been thrice charged with drunken driving [in the last instance, after [...]

January 1, 2010

Season's Greetings - I really mean it!

Chris Muther recently did a column in the Boston Globe about writing truly personal Christmas/season’s greetings cards. He wrote, “No matter how passe it may become, I’ll never stop tracking down beautiful letter press cards and writing something in them by hand. For me, tasting gummy envelopes and getting writer’s cramp is just as important [...]

January 1, 2010

2010: Is It The Year We Make Contact?

Happy New Year to all, even though it’s as arbitrary as Time, the Universe, and Everything. I guess we humans need to mark time in order to organize ourselves. Well, I’m organizing my New Year’s resolutions, hopes, thoughts, and so forth, and one of them is to get back into blogging here at SWI on [...]

December 20, 2009

Precious Invictus.

A few days ago, I was privileged to see the movie, Invictus. I consider it a privilege because it’s a fresh breath of air—the type that comes in the heels of a nasty fart.

About a month earlier, I had seen a much more different movie titled Precious. Based on the novel Push, it’s the story [...]

December 18, 2009

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN EAST & WEST

It’s substantial I’m [...]

December 15, 2009

SHRINES OF EGO

What happens when we lose sight of our [...]

December 11, 2009

Christmas 1947

Christmas 1947-Alabama (Not so much unlike Christmas 2009–Alabama—same heart–same spirit)

By Angela Posey-Arnold

“What are you getting for Christmas this year, Jimmy? I think I’m getting a record player. I picked one out at Elmore’s.” Bonnie said to her friend and classmate at lunch.

Jimmy swallowed the last bite of apple, “A record player? That will be neat. [...]

December 11, 2009

HONEST DEBATE (OR THE LACK THEREOF)

The polarity of [...]

December 6, 2009

Bad Habits of Others

Bad Habits of Others

by Bob Grant

 

Bad habits of others get under your skin,

The list is quite long so let me begin.

Grinding the teeth or picking the nose,

Chewing that gum or painting ones toes.

Tapping that pencil or sucking of gums,

Breaking that wind or licking of thumbs.

Belching quite loud or sucking up snot,

Scratching ones crotch or giggling [...]

November 21, 2009

Of science's frightful past & present

First posted on Cnetasia.com by GadgetGirl, Oct 29, 2009 20:33

Whenever thought is directed at something aged, one would never have expected a correlation to that of possessing a scientifically driven nature that is perhaps a little too close for comfort to our current “Super Highway of Technology” age.
Recently, after watching a documentary on the disappearance [...]

November 20, 2009

HOW ARE YOU (REALLY)?

Super? Terrific? Lousy? or just [...]

November 17, 2009

If Not in YOur Neighborhood Then Where?

 

There is a sewage treatment plant in Harlem located under a state park. When David Dinkins was Mayor the project was supposed to be built in a different area, somewhere downtown near West 72nd St. Those is that area got together and rallied against putting [...]

November 16, 2009

Why Lou Dobbs Had To Go

Even if we agree that our journalism is less than objective these days and television now resembles the carnival more than the domain of the Cronkite’s and the Murrow’s with hawkers yelling at us as we walk down the dusty aisles…that still doesn’t mean we can’t try for a representative news channel. You could never [...]

November 13, 2009

ADAPTING TO CHANGE

And why we resist [...]

November 12, 2009

Revenge of the Bimbo--Prejean spanks inappropriate Larry King

“Inappropriate. You are being inappropriate Larry.” Now this sounds like Larry whipped out something from his pants or cracked an obscene joke or flipped Carie Prejean the bird or swore. Larry did something far worse…he hit the wall. The wall is where the Bush Doctrine meets Sarah Palin…what do you think of the Bush Doctrine? It is [...]

November 11, 2009

Have We Seen Enough Naked People in Bathtubs?

You’ve seen it. You’re sitting there with your kids watching Elf or some kid movie and here they come. A middleaged couple yucking it up over some wine and before you know it they are in the bathtubs in the yard holding hands, celebrating the fact that flaccidity  has been banished with CIALIS. So you [...]

November 9, 2009

Lets Hear it for Mr. Cao--Republican breaks ranks.

“I have a constitutional duty to make the right decision for my district whether or not the decision was popular.”

When was the last time we heard that? It gets better. “I had to make a decision based on the needs of the people in my district…a lot of my constituents are uninsured, a lot [...]

November 8, 2009

The Third Party

You really should watch Glenn Beck to understand what is going on. The third party is here and it is a radical amalgam of disgruntled teabaggers and 9/12 ers who have coalesced around Republican contests and are now going to unleash their own far right candidates to purge the republicans of moderates and anyone else [...]

November 8, 2009

What do those elections mean for Obama?

I would think he gets it now. There is a subsonic rumbling in America. It breaks out like a volcano on the cable shows. Gas emits from the Palin Beck coalition in the name of taking back America. They took back the election in upstate New York and gave it to a Democrat. They took [...]

November 8, 2009

The Disappearance of Pedro Gomez

He met him on the third day of the second week after he opened his psychology practice on Rio Mississippi Street in mid-January, 1973 when his receptionist, Luisa Mercedes Rodriguez opened his office door, came in, closed it and said:

“Doctor Manning, he is here!”

“Who is ‘he,’ Luisa?” glancing down at his appointment book [...]

November 7, 2009

A wonderful novel for young adults of any age

Review of “Habibi”, by Naomi Shihab Nye. Mass Market Paperback. Simon Pulse, 1997.

Naomi Shihab Nye brings her poet’s voice to this touching story about 14 year old Liyana Abboud and her family as they move from St. Louis, Missouri to Palestine, where her father, a physician, was born and raised. The move isn’t an easy [...]

November 6, 2009

Review of “…. at last!”, edited by Tim Roux.

“At last!” Isn’t that what everyone says when they have their first sexual experience? “At last!” “it” happened. I recall as a young teenager praying (never out loud): “Please, God, don’t let me die until I’ve had sex!” And by that, I didn’t (and most people don’t) mean masturbation. That goes on without saying once [...]

November 3, 2009

TAKING QUALITY FOR GRANTED

Is it time to bring quality back to the [...]

October 30, 2009

DEADBEATS

A new badge of [...]

October 29, 2009

To Women in Neighborhoods in Fear

There are rapists and murderers everywhere. I have walked with eyes in the back of my head ever since the Hamilton Heights Rapist, now in prison awaiting trial, first attacked. These sick men are still out there. One has struck in St. Albans, Queens, New York. two rapes in as many days. And we are still [...]

October 27, 2009

The Pursuit of Happiness–the public option should be for everyone

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. So  if we are to take these words at their core and apply them to the year 2009 then we [...]

October 23, 2009

WHY WE GET PEEVED

Is the world really screwed [...]

October 14, 2009

Americans Dont want Rush in their livingrooms–NFL Rejects his bid

So Rush Limbaugh is down for the count. No NFL team for him to hang his hat on. Seems the NFL wants nothing to do with him or his views. They repudiated the Limbaugh world hook line and sinker. Which of course for Rush is something he will make much of and increase ratings, but, [...]

October 14, 2009

The House on Usumacinta Street

Ex-pat Joseph Manning falls asleep waiting for his friends Mel and Wanda Blackstone in the apartment they’ve rented in an old mansion. Wanda insists the apartment is haunted. Dr. Manning learns she may just be right. [...]

October 13, 2009

Praise be to the Law! I don’t have to think for myself…

I was incensed to read recently about a 6-year-old Cub Scout who was suspended from school after bringing a camping utensil to the lunchroom. Zachary Christie was only sentenced to reform school for 45 days. Frankly, I would have thought federal penitentiary would have been more fitting.

October 13, 2009

Seamus-Irish Musings–back from Italy

Back from Italy and bummin’-caught a massive cold….funny, in March I was in the UK and they were really slurping Obama. Same in June in Germany although in July it changed when Merkel said he wasn’t going to ruin the German economy.

Obama is not a happening thing now. Saw Obama voodoo dolls in Portofino and [...]

October 13, 2009

Halloween–Halos and Wings

Halloween–Halos and Wings?

By Angela Posey-Arnold

Halloween, 1966, I was an angel and it rained. Now, I seriously ask, how can an angel spread her wings and fly wearing a rain coat? She can’t so the [...]

October 13, 2009

EXCUSES

And the problem with trucks in [...]

October 11, 2009

Mercedes Sosa, July 9, 1935, October 4, 2009

Mercedes Sosa in concert, Quito, Ecuador, 26 October 2008

Following is a post I wrote this morning for my Tostada Speaks blog. I also want to share it here with our readers.

~  ~  ~

My wife showed me an article yesterday about her passing, and it feels like I’ve lost a much-loved member of [...]

October 8, 2009

PLEDGES, OATHS, VOWS & CODES

Who really keeps [...]

October 7, 2009

Curing Depression

Carl Jung

Now here is another brain teaser for your therapist, or should I say mind teaser, the notion of curing someone with depression. Sadly, this is one of the most common causes of problems in marriages, and while we look for help from the professionals they take advantage of that vulnerability with a platform [...]

October 1, 2009

Shields Locked

Shield of Faith

By Angela Posey-Arnold

“…….. hold up the shield of faith to stop the fiery arrows of the devil. Put on salvation as your helmet, and take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:16 [...]

September 25, 2009

WAS THE ECONOMIC PANIC MANUFACTURED?

Was it a true recession or was it a [...]

September 24, 2009

Jay Leno Putting us to Sleep

You know Jay Leno moved to an earlier time slot because demographics being what they are show all the boomers getting older and going to bed earlier and so they don’t want to stay up and watch the edgy late night shows. So Jay is now Jay Lite. No desk. Sitting on a couple of [...]

September 22, 2009

Healthcare reform without a public option is a joke

Leopards don’t change their spots. We see this with the banks. The bankers will continue giving each other bonuses and doing business as usual. Why? Because the market has not dictated they change. They received their TARP money are doing just fine thank you very much. Too late really. But this debate over health care [...]

September 20, 2009

‘Death of a Salesman’

‘Death of a Salesman‘

Stephen Sangirardi Bard715@aol.com
: Biff’s “discovery” up in Boston
 
   There are two schools of thought concerning Biff’s “discovery” up in Boston. Some readers believe that Willy Loman indeed kills what he loves the most when Willy is caught by Biff in the hotel room with his mistress. Devastated by his discovery, Biff not [...]

September 20, 2009

Loveless (An Examination in Love)

What difference does it make why we feel love, when all you have left are the memories of lies, lips, and pain? Such small crimes are these, which we commit with out thought. We choose to forgive those trespasses made. Then in forgiveness we [...]

September 18, 2009

It is not about heathcare

It is not about healthcare

by Bill Hazelgrove

It is not about healthcare. It is the fear of the other. Rural whites and glenn beck runnaways have coalesced with a broad populace that has lost their credit their jobs and their homes. Swindled at the pump they believe ala cable heads there must be a villan and [...]

September 18, 2009

Curing Alcoholism

Equality: The Quest for the Happy Marriage

If you would like to get your therapist’s head spinning ask him or her what it means to be cured and watch as your therapist struggles to answer that question.  The unfortunate reality is the psychology industry, with its biological foundation, has not yet defined what it means [...]

September 17, 2009

Crushes, What Are They Good For?

What good is having a crush on [...]

September 12, 2009

Fainting Over Fret and Fear

 Fear, Fret and Faint

By Angela Posey-Arnold

Frank Parker is under attack, literally. Nothing in his twenty five years as a news reporter has prepared him for this. An all out fear assault explodes every morning as he arrives to the local radio station to report the news. He cannot find an escape as bad news pours [...]

September 11, 2009

Decision Time

Decision Time–Steve Sangirardi
 
  From 1971 to 1976 I was involved with my first girlfriend, Laura. For the inaugural year of our relationship–I was a high school senior and she was a sophomore–we saw each other every day, except one when she had to go to an aunt’s anniversary in New Jersey; to compensate for the [...]

September 11, 2009

Political Correctness Gone Wrong # 4

2nd e-mail from the person that filed the complaint.
Thursday, 2/12/09, 9:49 AM

As parents it is our responsibility to make sure our son is safe and doesn’t do thinks like pull down [...]

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