SCHMOOZING WITH THE DEAD

Your faithful, ambulance-chasing John Q. Public was doing his thing yesterday, listening to my preferred "Traffic, Weather and 'News'" radio station, when I was startled to hear the name of Adrian Fenty, mayor of Washington, D.C. mentioned. Mayor Fenty is the arrogant bikester and "homeboy trotter" who has been mentioned before by me in my blog comments.

What was the issue that engendered a reporter/commentator's indignation which his radio audience was forced to consider?

Let me provide the readers who are not denizens of D.C. Metro some recent history. The owner of the Washington Wizards (formerly Baltimore Bullets) died recently. He was also a prominent figure in the real estate scene locally. He may have properties elsewhere, also. Still, he is best known for building a sports arena in Largo, MD, which is in Prince Georges County (D.C. suburb), and subsequently, a new sports arena in a relatively unpromising area of the downtown. This new facility is the present home of the Wizards professional basketball team.

In conjunction with the Washington Convention Center the new facility built by the Wizard owner was credited with creating a "renaissance" in that part of downtown Washington, D.C. This renewal was not one of beautiful architecture that seized the imagination of the viewer and impowered the spirit to greater achievements. No one has ever lauded the gentleman-owner of the Wizards on that score - at least no one credible in the area of aesthetics. This renewal was of populations of well-heeled individuals flowing regularly to these two facilities (and to the forest of hotels and restaurants that have arisen to cater to their needs). It is money funneled into this area by fans and convention-goers that revitalized the area. How welcomed this money was!

The buildings themselves are like a cluster of warts on the skin: fascinating, perhaps, to a dermatologists, but not reckoned of much merit or value as examples of architecture to the well-balanced mind.

This owner of the Wizards and builder of buildings became quite rich over time. He was praised for his philanthropy. He appeared to be a man who wanted to leave the world a better place than when he came into it. This in itself would separate him from the great mass of humanity. He retained a certain degree of humility.

A friend within the Jewish community of Washington, D.C., who was a principal in the Giant Food Co. before it was sold, Israel Cohen (as I recall), had referred to him as a "mensch" ("a little man, a common man"). He was not trying to denigrate this owner and builder but praising him for retaining that quality. Perhaps for that reason also he had many devoted friends. He was married to the same woman for fifty-plus years, as I recall. He had children to carry on his way of doing.

This deceased owner of the Wizards was named "Abe Pollin." Clearly, he was a remarkable man.

However, probably contrary to his own character and inclinations, his death has been treated as if it were the death of an important head of state, or a globally revered figure, such as the late Pope John-Paul II or Sister Theresa. He is being presented in his death to first the high and then the low. Politicians of the highest rank have paid their respects. Mr. Pollin has been eulogized by Democrat, Republican, famous athletes, etc. Surely, he has been recognized enough; surely it is time to lay the man to his rest.

But, no. The media at the level of national news may omit certain matters, but the local media is locally focused. The death of Mr. Pollin is "too big" to simply drop.

For that reason this radio "talking voice" took Mayor Adrian Fenty to task for not attending one of the memorial events held in behalf of - of - of the memory of Abe Pollin. No one at this radio station (or anywhere else in Washington) is capable of saying when "enough is enough." Things like the death of Abe Pollin don't end until another bigger and better story arises.

This non-attendance by Mayor Fenty had been mentioned before on this radio station, which is apparently Mormon-owned and Jewish-operated (certainly in terms of talent). One might infer that there is a sub rosa defamation of Adrian Fenty as "anti-Semetic" from the pained tones of the questions regarding his "no-show" at a memorial event. How could anyone not weep and gnash his teeth at the death of such a man? the "talking voice" seemed to lament. The clincher in regard to this is that the radio "talking voice" wondered if Mayor Fenty had not "dissed" Abe Polin and/or his family by not attending the memorial event and, instead, flying down to Miami to watch the Wizards play.


True to character, Mayor Fenty refused to answer the question directly, but hid behind the skirts of his family. He's protecting his family, doncha know? He stone-walled all questions with his insufferable air of overweening arrogance.

What entered my mind was this: Why did not the reporters upbraid the basketball players who comprised the Wizards? They were well-paid beneficiaries of Mr. Pollin's search for a winning team - a champoinship team, which he wanted to give to the people of Washington, D.C. If the memorial event to Abe Pollin was so important, why would his team not be there? If one stated that Abe Pollin "would have wanted his team to play," then why is it not fair to urge that he "would have liked the fans to see the Wizards play, also?" It may be fair to speculate that his spirit was in Miami with his team and, perhaps, sitting right next to Mayor Fenty unbeknownst, rather than at the memorial event with all those other politicians and fakes mumbling pieties and "over-the-top" accolades..

I see in this a false piety, as well as inequality of treatment.

How could it happen? Many people who are not yuppies, urban pioneers, or manical bikesters detests Mayor Adrian Fenty. One really can't blame the radio station for "grasping at straws." However, maybe Fenty isn't all bad. Maybe he knew Abe Pollin better than the radio "talking voices."

Let Abe Pollin finally have his deserved rest.

Disparity and DISPARITY

There I was rolling along the George Washington Parkway, listening to my usual "traffic, weather and 'news'" radio station, when the datum fell upon my ears. Northern Virginia educational nabobs had uncovered disparity at an Alexandria school. This school caters to kids who are viewed by "authorities" as gifted intellectually or exceptionally talented. Are idiot savants welcomed? I can't say authoritatively, but they probably don't fit in.

Where is the disparity? Most of you would probably guess that the school was disproportionately Asian-American. Wrong! There seemed to be too many white students. Parenthetically, white students are the only students who don't possess a dignified, specifically geo-racial characterization.

Why is that? It allows census takers more flexibility in setting preferred proportions. That's not the only reason, but I don't want to get into hate issues in this blog. There is a sort of quota system operating. Having one category into which anyone can be tossed is very useful. Let me give you an example.

In the old Spotlight tabloid there was a second page which had several "News You May Have Missed" items. One day, I saw a brief article about an American citizen who had arrived from Egypt not so many years prior. He was classified as "white." He wasn't aware that this might be a liability until he applied for a minority grant or "set-aside." As I recall, he was an academic type, but he may have been otherwise employed. He was turned down because he wasn't a defined "minority," according to the law. The law provided some sort of affirmative access to the grants, et al, for African Americans, Asian Americans, women, sexually confused, and the like. I am referencing the "usual suspects" in minority set-asides/grants.

This Egyptian American was tagged as "white" and ineligible. He was pissed! In the story he lamented because he was darker and more African in his appearance than General Colin Powell, who was legally categorized as "African American." He planned to sue.

I've always maintained that it isn't easy being a white person. You are always both in a limbo category and - at the same time - you are "it" in all legal issues, as well as the "bad guy" in movies.

I believe that you have by now gotten my drift about the flexibility of this white category in the hands of census takers. I'm sure that there are sensible people working for the census bureau, but no one can strike a rational position, where asylum inmates command the institution.

The issue is disparity. Now this doesn't operate at the supreme Court, where Jews are represented at a disparate rate. It doesn't operate at the White House nor in the top positions of the Executive Branch, where Jews hold positions at disparate rates. It doesn't operate in the U.S. Senate nor the U.S. House of Representatives where the staffs of the collective committees and subcommittees are Jewish at a disparate rate. They gather the information and shape the policies that are basically "rubber-stamped" by senators and representatives.

Usually, the issue of disparity doesn't "touch" the high and mighty. The issue of disparity reaches down to the mensch, the little guy. Yet, it is still a good training exercise for the ascending "talent" that there is such a thing as power - and they don't have it. Since all these federal and state-sanctioned educational commissions/councils/associations are composed of Stepinanfetchits, they are anxious to please the "boss in the big house." Coming down on the side of "disparity" will never hurt your standing nor injure your resume among the powers that be in America presently.

As I recall, this Alexandria school had something like 58% white students. According to the report, there was under representation of African Americans and Latinos. How could there be such a result, unless discrimination - however subtly employed - was not a factor?

Equalitarianism is viewed as the first inflexible law of America. Since inequality cannot exist in nature, disparity of results is the first mortal sin. It is a sin of man against nature.

What I personally wondered was this: Of the 58% "white" student population, how many, or what percentage, were Jews? If a "correction" occurs in the future to rectify this disparity, will the resultant white category be disproportionately Jewish? (It may already be disproportionately Jewish).

Jews are counted as whites except when white are getting pummeled by the system; then Jews are a "religious" minority, who are exempt.

America is a nation where a minority rules over the majority, and confusion is the "letter of the law."

PRIDE GOETH BEFORE A FALL

The recent incidence of Mayor Adrian Fenty's mayoral regime provokes normal sensibilities. However, Washington, D.C., has so few such citizens remaining in the town that outrage cannot and isn't expected by anyone. He glibly signals his innocence and near inability to commit errors. Else, he merely refuses to answer. He peddles his political goods to his 500 dearest friends. Adrian's well-liked by "capitalist pigs." His intentions are noble, even visionary, as he fights "for ole D.C." He sees a shining D.C. nestled upon the Potomac River; it will be a beacon to all mankind (especially well-heeled ones, who share his love of the finer things.) He's part "Little Lord Fauntleroy" in garish sportswear that resembles "pantyhose" and part Artful Dodger.

What is truly disturbing about Adrian Fenty is that he is not alone. He represents a type of Post-Yuppie, Post-Urban Pioneer citizen, who dominates the levers of power in Washington, D.C. This is not to say that they are the ultimate "caller of shots" in D.C. Rather, the real power behinds the scenes allows these people to run amok throughout D.C. They are children on a tear. There is no half-baked idea that doesn't "grab" their imaginations. The only issue in debate is the matter of funding. In the language of children, they seek an "allowance" from Congress, tourists, and commuters.

They are all car-haters. Hence, any idea that is anti-car seems "responsible" and "wise." They hope to force a metropolitan area that has its population zooming to ride public transportation, forgetting utterly in its inability to do that task. They envision every street in D.C. to be a ghetto each of which is walled-in by buses which have been purchased as a "smarter way to travel."

They are seriously considering a trolley system. Why? Why use this older mode of travel when the government has previously abandoned it, and the provision of electricity suitable to keep it going is entirely outside the District officials' ability to guarantee? As Congress wrings its hands over exactly how to provision the booming population of America with electricity and other basic utilities, including water, the District of Columbia will have a vast quantity of trolley cars awaiting the required electricity, not to mention the construction of the system. People, such as Mayor Fenty, will be peddling about expressing enthuasiasm for the project and talking about the new jobs and tourist money that the trolley will bring to Washington. You should understand that what these D.C. creeps are expressing is "San Francisco-envy."

As a real leader, Mayor Fenty peddles around Washington, protected by motorcycle cops and provided by them with an eternal "green light," greeting his people (The Urban Arrogant), promoting fitness, and "envisioning" D.C.'s future. He sees twenty years ahead routinely. What do you call someone who sees things no one else can see? Whatever the proper term, one can say with certainty that he's not alone in dreaming. In the old days this collective "spell" was blamed on "swamp fever."

COULD IT BE ONLY COINCIDENCE?

Although lots of Washingtonians know it, very few outside our metropolitan area realise that a very satisfying event is in the making. There is new construction about to begin in earnest in Southeast Washington, D.C. Its symbolic continuity is almost breathtaking. A gigantic new residence is being constructed on the old grounds of Saint Elizabeth Hospital for the Mentally Disturbed. When completed, it will become the new fortress for Homeland Security. A sprawling "campus" is being fashioned for the new American KGB with its Orwellian title.

How do the French put it? The more things change, the more things remain the same!

Now, let me hasten to add that the name I provided is an approximation. We locals have always referenced it as "St. Elizabeth's" or simply, "St. E's." Everyone knew that it was the site where mentally disturbed individuals were placed. However, under pressure from the "Politically Correct Fascist Alliance" ["PCFA"], most never went further than that with the institution's title. In time the exact title of this hospital receded into the dark and hazy parts of the mind. Using it might create "a scene," if a member of the PCFA was at hand to scold about insensitivity.

However, not everone confined to St. E's was crazy. Ezra Pound was tossed into St. E's for political reasons. He was lucky, some think. Nuremberg Trials oversaw the murder of men not too dissimilar from Pound. People who effectively wielded words were thought to be at least as dangerous as Nazi swordsmen. Although Ezra Pound had no part in the Manhattan Project nor in the decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, he was consigned to St. E's for about thirteen years for dropping his dangerous views over the radio airwaves. Over that time period, Ezra Pound was visited by the likes of T. S. Elliot and Ernest Hemingway. They weren't the only men of letters who remembered this gifted man. They would not have continued visiting him and writing letters were he, indeed, "mad."

Of course, men such as Elliot and Hemingway were suspicious characters to the F.B.I., which investigated Hemingway and probably Elliot as well. After the F.B.I. became an international investigative arm of the "World Community," there was a need for a more locally-dedicated spy organization. Voila! Entrez-vous L'Homeland Security. Soon it was apparent to all: they don't take no crepe from anyone!

Initially headed by a quazi-Christian Fascist, Homeland Security was soon under the direction of Michael Chertoff. It was rumored that in Russian his name meant "devil" or "damned." As many people observed, he didn't give a damn about the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Ezra Pound was the sort of man that Homeland Security would have viewed as "dangerous." He would have been spied on by the government; he would have been spied on by special interest groups that specialize in "monitoring" Americans who don't share their agenda. Indeed, if Homeland Security's new home has a detention center where dangerous people could be confined, then Ezra Pound, were he still alive, would probably once again find himself confined on old familiar turf.

What was that again? What did the French say? Cha - cha - changes, do they ever really happen at all?

WHEN NEWSPAPERS HATE

It is said that bad money drives out good. Maybe the same applies to newspapers. Years ago in Washington, D.C., there were at least three or four newspapers to choose from. Some took the "high road" and some took the "low road" in reporting events. Some were more focused on local matters, some more focused on national matters, and others devoted quite a lot of space to world affairs.

In the latter category was The Washinton Post. Its owners were from internationally oriented groups. They guided the Post accordingly. Hence, a confident vision of the future was proffered to its readers. The Post beckoned Washingtonians and world leaders to join them in the world's tomorrow - today. Sure, the Post was accused of being too liberal, too international, and/or too intellectual. How naive we were then!

As it turned out, the Post had taken a "high road" at a high price; they had repressed normal thoughts until such thoughts became twisted, broken and festered within the body of the medium. How could the Post escape sickness?

For the last several years, The Washington Post has periodically flashed the unwholesomeness within. This week from the mouth of the Post issued utterly foul hate which was discharged upon a Virginian, whose only crime had been running for governor as the Republican candidate.

Is The Washington Post at heart perverted? Why does it think it can employ the language of hate, while denouncing "hate crimes" in the presence of solons of national legislation?

MAYOR FENTY: AVANTGARDE OR 'BAMA?

Mayor Adrian M. Fenty of Washington, D.C., is a thoroughly modern politicians, according to criteria used by the contemporary press. He's a "comer" who may be leading a Democrat presidential ticket in eight or ten years. This is especially true if the "movers and shakers" in D.C., including Capitol Hill, can "upgrade" the District of Columbia" into the "State of Columbia." A "make-over" certainly seems possible, especially if all the really positive, enlightened people put their shoulders to it. Governor Fenty is a better platform for president than Mayor Fenty.

Besides being, in the words of Woody Allen, a "glibe, young cosmopolitan," Mayor Fenty is a man of vision. He sees a shining city in a swamp. It's future D.C. All that's needed is a little funding. Construction will be a big part of it, and Metropolitan Washington D.C. has some of the richest builders in America just waiting for politicians to offer them a deal they can't refuse.

Therefore, Mayor Fenty appears to be a "hot" politician. He gets things done.

Still, for all the glittery facade, there is reason to believe that he's just another D.C. 'Bama.

The African American Establishment in Washington, D.C., arose from ambitious sons and grandsons of slavery. A steady train of African Americans worked their way north to D.C., as well as to other places. The liberating forces that began most significantly during the FDR/Truman years carried more of these African Americans into prosperity. The "Ole Southern Charm" of Washington, D.C., was, in a sense, preserved by the established African Americans, rather than the dwindling numbers of White Southerners who still called Washington, D.C., home. The "Gold Coast" in Washington, D.C., was the heart of "Black Dixie."

For many years observant African Americans in small towns throughout the South could see what the White leadership was doing that was working well and what they were doing that was not working well. There was no money-generating plot that worked better than "taxing" Yankee cars passing through the town. They could be "nailed" coming and going. Sheriff's could be creative about moving violations.

A favorite trick was for a major route, allowing 65 miles an hour speed for cars, to pass through a "town" of ten shacks that mandated 15 mile an hour speed limits. Additionally, car break-downs in these robber-barron citadels could end up costing a bundle, starting with the tow.

As Yankees got wealthier and yearned to sample Florida sunshine, the flood of cars heading South became a bonanza. None of this was lost on the leaders of the African America communities in these scattered but numerous towns throughout the New York to Miami corridor. They saw the Scott-Irish preying on their northern neighbors' caravans. They saw that it worked. Ambitious people don't forget money-making schemes. They may re-package them, but they are going to use them again. Why? Because they have seen that they work.

African Americans came up from the South, perhaps bearing little material wealth, but they had within their heads the knowledge of the tried and true means of making money. Tax the "strangers' cars." Money from various routes came to this core of 'Bamas during their transplant years in Washington, D.C. Many grew very wealthy. They created the African American Gold Coast and came to dominant the very important African American institution in D.C., the Prince Hall Masonic Lodge.

It is the Prince Hall Masonic Lodge that has given the local community most of its African American leaders. It has also preserved the "hidden knowledge" of the 'Bama: Tax the Strangers' Cars.

Mayor Fenty is a scion of this tradition. I would be surprised if he was not a member of the Prince Hall Masonic Lodge. I would be surprised if he were not well-known to the Gold Coast Establishment. But, even were he an alien to both, he would still bear in his soul the essence of the D.C. 'Bama: Tax the Strangers' Cars.

Mayor Fenty and former Mayor Williams were and are the High Priests of Vehicular Terrorism. It is my thesis that Robber-Barons aren't "Knights in Shining Armor." This conclusion should be perceived as a political caveat.

D.C.'S NOVEL POLITICS

Washington, D.C. is a city bred to politics, and a political ethos is everywhere evident. In no area of politics has Washinton, the District of Columbia, been more avantgarde than in absentee mayoral leadership. Mayor Fenty has now passed former Mayor Williams as "King of the Road." Whether gay Paris, a Caribbean beach, or meretricious Las Vegas, count Mayor Fenty "in." Absentee mayors are getting to be an urban norm.

Ruling by mobile phone has become very popular with politicians. A few key staff members remain in Washington, the District of Columbia, ever-ready to receive a Fenty-gram or cellphone-ukase. D.C. mayors are thinkers - doncha know? They need to leave the limelight of the Washington fast-life to think about their next five year plan. Stimulated by pleasantly undulating young hips, keeping time to exotic music, the political mind of Mayor Fenty becomes very fertile, siring ideas likety-split.

This is why they were elected - right?

Perhaps no intense political "brainstorming" by a Washington mayor equals that of the struggle against the constitutional design for the nation, which included the District of Columbia as the national seat of government. Just as Freemasons believe that God erred here and there in His design of the Universe generally and Earth specifically (if only He had been advised by the Brotherhood!), so the mayors and pols of Washington, D.C. believe that the Founding Fathers erred. How? The great bulk of Washingtonians will tell you at once: the District of Columbia should have been a state from the outset.

The vanity of these "people of politics" in Washington, D.C. make Ozimandias appear quite modest. Is there an inherent immaturity problem laying waste to sound vision in the District of Columbia? Possibly, but if so, it is an immaturity shared with a majority of "thinkers" on Capitol Hill.

The three main groups of "power-lunchers" in Washington's local government - Freemasonic Blacks, wealthy homosexual "urban pioneers" and Jewish lawyers/office-builders - want to attend meetings of the governors of the fifty states, as equal schmoozers. They yearn to proclaim to their peers that the "great sovereign State of the District of Columbia supports this or that, or opposes this or that. Nay! Not "State of the District of Columbia" but the "sovereign State of Washington II" (too?).

In Washington, D.C. status, turf, and "pecking order" are THE preeminent issues. From it money and fun flow. Hence, by this piece of information the bitter whining about not being a "sovereign state" can be made comprehensible to the "outside" world. ["They don't understand what were trying to say!"]

Every year, Congress grants the District of Columbia a few billion dollars of "other peoples' tax money" ["OPTM"] to try to run a proper government. Every year they fail miserably. It is the sort of place that overpaid "chieftains" abound. They "do lunch" a lot.

One example is the curious pavement on streets in the District that resembles a "sketeboard park" because of all the "rolls and dips" on flat terrain. Clearly, substandard asphalt/paving material is used, as contractors dilute the mix.

Another example is the recent subway train collision. No one in the District EVER thought of a "back-up" system to act as a second monitor of the positions of its speeding or stopped trains.

Still another example is the lack of water hydrants and inadequate water pressure, that seemed to combine to be the "cause" of a real-estate-enriched heiress losing her house and its "priceless" art collection to fire, recently. Sadly, she had probably "entertained" many of these same D.C. politicians at that very home, which is now in ashes.

It is my unofficial understanding that D.C. politicians are "looking into" these problems and that "blue-ribbon" committees are planned to investigate these matters, if Congress will just appropriate "investigative" money.