PittsburghThoughts

Two black men and a bug man, 

It seems that everyone has something to say. People with no more oratory skill, or knowledge than Sarah Palin are given a world stage to pontificate on things far beyond their ken. Worst still, credentials have been replaced by notoriety: *Tom Delay, **Ken Blackwell and ***Alan Keyes come to mind but the choices are endless and the nation's premier nut house (Washington) is rife with choices.

Like a cricket's stridulation we are incessantly beaming our noises into the ether, but, while Crickets have their "ears" located on the knees of their front legs, we have our heads up our asses., probably accounting for the shitty discourse that passes for normal today. And let us not forget that the most beautiful array of Peacock feathers emanate from his anus.

All this is to say that our sometimes beautiful, floral speeches are as much meant to attract as our outraged screeds are to repel. Although we wish words alone could do the trick, it isn't that easy, words, in no way, necessarily define our thoughts or positions.

What does define our ethos, logos and pathos then? Just like momma used to say, "Our actions speak louder than our words." It's our actions that matter, call it what you will, but our refusal to be civil and moral, check that, a refusal to do what's required of us to be upright human beings, we fail to florish, and while branding it as good policy, it is as selfish and thoughtless as it is expedient and in most situations, ruthlessly discharged.

Man's default position is to be always be stuck in a decreasingly spacious box. Some start off in large boxes and some in small ones. To push back has limited value. Like Obama and his people we can hope to not lose more ground, or, like Alexander the Great we can cut the Gordian knot that ties us to our potential fate and in one decisive, bold stroke free ourselves from the bonds that hold us powerless . . Gene

*In 2005, a Texas grand jury indicted DeLay on criminal charges that he had conspired to violate campaign finance laws during that period. DeLay denied the charges and pled not guilty, saying they were politically motivated and the law he was indicted under did not apply until later,

**Ohio voters sued Blackwell on August 31, 2006 in a case called King Lincoln Bronzeville Neighborhood Association v. Blackwell in which individual voters and three voters' rights groups alleged that, in his capacity as Secretary of State, Blackwell "allocated [2004] election resources in a racially discriminatory manner and instituted racially discriminatory procedures for provisional voting, purging voters from the statewide voter registration database, and maintaining the chain of custody of ballots. The complaint alleged that these actions led to the dilution and/or cancellation of plaintiffs' vote due to ballot cancellation and tampering, long poll lines, mechanical difficulties with voting machines, and unclear precinct boundaries." The complaint claims that plaintiffs reasonably feared these problems would recur in the November, 2006, election, and asked the court to appoint a special master to perform Blackwell's election administration duties in that election.

This is the same Ken Blackwell that wrote, criticizing ACORN:

As negotiations over Congress’s emergency rescue bill continued over the weekend, repeated rumors leaked out that the Democrats were trying to funnel money to a hyper-partisan organization involved in criminal voter fraud. I’m speaking of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now — known by its acronym, ACORN. Although ACORN was cut from the final legislation, it’s important to understand this organization and its long history with, of all people, Barack Obama. And it’s important to see how partisan this emergency legislation has become.

***Goofy black bastard: