FLIPSIDE - Monkey on my Back!

By now I'm sure you've seen or at least heard about the NY Post cartoonist Sean Delonas who drew a cartoon supposedly of two police officers shooting down a chimpanzee. Okay, to make the cartoon make a little bit of sense, this cartoon was illustrated following an incident where a woman was attacked by a chimpanzee and police were called in to intervene. Subsequently the chimp was gunned down by the policeman in an effort to stop it from attacking the victim.



With that in mind, it seems as though the cartoonist was making light of a situation where a woman was brutally attacked by an animal and nearly lost her life. If that's not peculiar enough, one of the police officers says "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill". Now what are we talking about? Did the monkey write the first stimulus bill? Last time I checked, president Obama had written the stimulus package, so was he the monkey Delonas was referring to? So, its cool to refer to black people as monkeys again huh? Perhaps it won't be long before we can be called niggers and as long as its in a cartoon it will be considered unoffensive.



To add to the insult, the NY Post editor - in - chief, Col Allan released this statement - " The cartoon is a clear parody of a current news event, the shooting of a violent chimpanzee in Connecticut. It broadly mocks Washington's efforts to revive the economy. Again Al Sharpton reveals himself as nothing more than a publicity opportunist."



Is that the case? So, not only did the Post editor defend the cartoon, but Allan also took the time to inject a character attack on Rev. Al Sharpton.



It seems as though for every step we take forward, there is always a push backwards. A push that sometimes feels more like a slap in the face, waking us up to the reality that equality is still joke to some. There is no defense for blatant racist motives such as the ones presented in this cartoon. Sometimes it feels as though it is beyond words. I remember watching my mom cry as President Obama won the election in November, as did many other Americans. We had come a long way. Then I see a gunned down monkey in a comic strip being compared to our newly inaugurated president. Sickening.



The editor of the Post defending the cartoon was equally as disgusting. But, I suppose that is just as far as we have come. I was so proud knowing that I could really tell my kids that they could be anything they wanted to be and that includes the president of our great country. However, I surmise that I will also have to tell them that some people will still think you're a monkey. Catch ya' on the FLIPSIDE.

FLIPSIDE - Mayor of my City

In a city where the lights seem to be dimming slowly and shells of what used to be homes creep the vacant lots at night, we have three men who fight urgently to take over the reigns to the out of control beast we call Detroit. Three candidates, yet hardly either one of them hardly prove to me to be capable of pulling our steadily sinking city from its own simmering quicksand.

On the one hand you have Ken Cockrel Jr. He is advertising himself as an honest politician with nothing but the best intentions for our struggling city and promises it will not be anymore "Pay to Play" politics going on in the city. Sounds great, but as city council president, he sat through an administration that he claims ran the city wrong. If others were taking bribes and mishandling city money, he as president should have been aware and put a stop to some things. Or was he aware and took no action? Whatever the case, he waits until its election time and the entire Kilpatrick debacle to separate himself from the people who may have dirtied themselves with the the muck of he city and its downtrodden ways of governing and proposes a "change" for the city. How can we expect change from the president of a council who has been involved with the same politics that he now deems inadequate?

On the other hand you have Freman Hendrix, the former deputy mayor under Dennis Archer. Hendrix also claims to be bringing change to the office. He touts the records of Archer's administration and how he is great at balancing budgets. Balancing budgets is a hefty coat to hang on today's diminishing coat rack of an economy. Will Hendrix's balancing expertise work in an economically dreadful administration with more homes being foreclosed than seniors graduating from high school?

Finally, throwing himself into the middle of the mix is Dave Bing. of course, Bing is a great businessman, however business is not the only thing that our city needs to get it's one leg out of the grave and stop the other from slipping on a banana peel. With the down turn of the automotive industry, this city, this region, has to find an alternative direction to focus its workforce or Detroit - like many Midwestern cities - will finally become an afterthought in the minds of the rest of the world.

To turn this city around, two things are mandatory. The first thing is the production of new jobs unrelated to the automotive industry and the second is the resurrection of quality public schooling. One can't exist without the other if a new Detroit is to become the end result. If jobs are created people will travel to Detroit to work. If jobs are created and the school system is productive people will not only come to Detroit to work, but they will feel confident in raising there family here as well. Catch ya' on the FLIPSIDE.

FLIPSIDE : New President, Old Problems

Embedded video from CNN Video


Of course, we have our new President in office and on that same token, we also have our old problems. I ran across this clip of Senator McCain telling a reporter that he feels as though President Obama did not utilize the bi-partisan help of the Republicans in developing the economic stimulus package. This is the same package that both sides read through and had chances to revise, yet instead, Senator McCain admits that he "would not vote" on it because the Republican ideas were shot down during such sessions. He suggests that the sides come together and start all over again.

Okay, let's start over again. Let's go back to the drawing board while 100,000 more people lose their homes, 200,000 more people lose their jobs and more school's shut down. Let all of this happen so the Republicans can help re-write an economic stimulus package with all the creative ingenious of the past 8 years that brought us this massive debt and economic failure. Get real.

When is the Republican party ever going to stop hating and help out. There is no time to sit back and take our time making sure every person has an equal share in passing the legislation. It is concerning to me that McCain's home state of Arizona has an unemployment rate of almost 7% and a home foreclosure rate almost as high as it is here in Michigan and somewhere in his mind he believes that there is time to go back to square one with an economic plan? It is ideas like those that solidified my reasoning for not voting for McCain. I don't think he realises yet just how bad this economy is. Is he that out of touch with my working class society to think we have time to go back to the drawing board on a stimulus package when some Republican idea is not accepted?

Let me suggest what the outcome of a situation like that may mean. Three weeks of negotiating a new revised plan could suggest this - and we're only talking about Michigan - 700 Chrysler employees pink slipped. 300 GM and Ford employees pink slipped. 1500 more houses go into foreclosure. Businesses in those neighborhoods decline and eventually shut down. Evacuation of the neighborhood causes low registration at the neighborhood schools and of course low student registration leads to schools closing.

Okay, with that in mind, go ahead and cry to reporters on national television. Thank you. It always reminds me why I never voted for you in the first place. Catch ya' on the FLIPSIDE.

FLIPSIDE-- It's so cold in the D...

It's so cold in the D. No, it really is cold. We've seen more snow and lower temperatures this winter than we did all of last winter total. It snows every three days. The snow never fully melts because its still cold by the time the next storm system flows through. So we wait.

Somewhat similar to our struggling economy. We just wait.

Wait for the tide to turn or for our luck to somehow change. We are very optimistic. We wanted to believe in our hearts that the Lions would probably prevail in their last game. They couldn't put together a win and finished the season winless. So, we wait until next season to see what our beloved Lions will manage to put together. We just wait.

Wait for the economy to rebound and the recession to end while our workers get back to work. Our homeowners get their homes back and our college graduates have a place to hang their degrees as opposed to carrying them around to countless interviews searching for entry level positions, even though that paper should earn them more than that.

It's so cold in the D. Catch ya’ on the FLIPSIDE.

FLIPSIDE - The city you love to hate

First off, I have to say welcome to 2009! I have been on a small sabbatical, but now I'm back. Back in rare form, I might add. I am ready to tackle the issues - political, social, and cultural everyday. Just as I sit at my favorite laptop computer, you know, the one with the missing "c" button. The one that used to belong to my ex-girlfriend, so whenever I power it on it reminds me of her. Yes, that one. Anyway, just as I sit down to check my email, I open the first one and it is the one I'll share with you today.
The email had a link - this link to be precise - www.weeklystandard.com-content-public-000-000-015-945aynyk.asppg=1.url - The link has a story from the Weekly Standard that talks about one journalists visit to Detroit. It made my stomach turn. The writer in this story repeatedly referred to the city as "ruins". He even compared the East side of our city to that of the 9th ward in New Orleans after Katrina.

I was upset to see first hand, just how bad my city is in the eyes of our nation. The writer even kept referring to us as the murder capital. Strangely enough, cities like Philadelphia, New Orleans and St. Louis have kept us out of the top slot for a while, but Detroit is still the butt of the nations' jokes. How do we fight out of the grave and save our dying city?

The auto industry is failing, so the economy is failing along with it because you are looking at a city that was built on the auto industry. Before Ford offered his generous $5 a day jobs to build cars, there was not a booming population or economy in Detroit and now that the auto industry is crumbling, so is the city that was built on its infrastructure.

Looking back on his article, I guess I am not really mad, just embarrassed. A lot of what the article says is true. There are a lot of vacant houses on the east side. A lot of them have been there since the riot of 1967. Tall burned out creatures casting shadows in the graveyard that we call home. A declining education system and a steadily inclining crime rate add to the dismal economy of our dying city. How do we get out? Catch ya’ on the FLIPSIDE

FLIPSIDE - WJLB at AT&T

Saturday, the AT&T in Roseville, MI was visited by CoCo and others from WJLB, a popular urban radio station out of Detroit. The radio station was brought in to help bring traffic into the store where, in comparison to last year, the sales have fallen off a bit. The radio station gave away tickets to the Katt Williams New Year's Eve comedy show as well as an advanced screening of "Seven Pounds" starring Will Smith. The advanced screening will be at 7:30p Wednesday evening.

The event brought in a lot of traffic, yet the increased traffic did not transform into increased sales. The radio station also gave away two $100 gift cards as well as a new AT&T smartphone.

The afternoon was filled with fun though, where contestants had to compete in karaoke to win Katt Williams tickets. Some of the contestants could sing, but some of them were just willing to do anything to get those tickets.

CoCo definitely made the afternoon interesting and crowd was persistent while the radio station broadcast from the AT&T sales floor. However, the fact remains that the sales did not receive a major boost because of it.

It is just an obvious sign of how tough the economy is these days. Some people are losing their jobs. The others, who still have their jobs are holding on to their money in hopes of a rebounding economy. The pressures of the two allow for a decline in sales across the board, ultimately making retail jobs as tough as the auto industry. Catch ya' on the FLIPSIDE.

FLIPSIDE

Are today's athletes living in fear? More and more, the news of athletes being caught with guns is becoming an everyday thing. Most recently Plaxico Burress was charged with possession of a fire arm after accidentally shooting himself at a night club in Manhattan.

Athletes are not allowed to have firearms with them at the facilities in which they practice or play. This is a situation that some NFL players have said makes them feel uncomfortable. It leaves them in a situation of vulnerability, whereas criminals know there are no guns on premises and the robbery could go that much easier.

The murders of Sean Taylor and Darrent Williams initially sparked the players' unrest and doubt of their overall security. Taylor, probably the most frightening story, because the fatal shooting took place inside his home in Florida.

The high profiles of these athletes is no secret when their salaries and estimated worth are publicized on television, in print and on the internet. Should these athletes be afraid? Should these athletes be able to defend themselves? Catch ya' on the FLIPSIDE.