If you haven’t had the opportunity to read what Bill Cosby had to say on the anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, about the failure of Black people to parent, you can find it here. It’s spot on, as the British say, though perhaps not so eloquent as Cosby could have made it. I suppose that’s beside his point, which may not be eloquence so much as simple competence.

My point in bringing it up is that it’s just as true for white people and Latinos as it is for Blacks. The failure of our society to teach and parent is endemic in every stratum of it, and emblematic of the impending fall of the West and the rise of Asia. So the next time you see a sauntering, blathering stereotype, tell him to turn his hat around, pull up his pants, and get his duly covered ass back in English class. It’s for his own good.

This blog stops at nothing to inspire society.

Every town has its haunted house. Here in my area, we have ourselves a haunted town. Summerland. A cute little town on a hill, between Carpinteria, where I live, and Santa Barbara. If you’ve seen my photos of the view from my balcony, you’ve seen my view of Summerland. And won’t bore you with how quaint it is; you can find that here.

The interesting thing about Summerland is that some people say the whole town is haunted. It was founded in the late 1800s by a man named Williams, as a Spiritualist colony. Lots of people with time on their hands were into seances and such back then. And I’ve heard that because of all their paranormal parties, the whole hillside is a little twisted. I think that twist comes more from ganga than ghosts, but that’s me.

The most haunted place in town is Williams’ own house. It’s big. It became a restaurant back in the 70s, was painted yellow and called — wait for it — the Big Yellow House.

I’ve heard a lot of stories about the activity in this place. A guy my Dad worked with lived in the house when he was a kid – before the restaurant – and he said it was haunted. A friend worked there as a dishwasher in the early 1980s, and he said it was too. There’s a ghostly lady in the dining rooms. The ghost of a very large black man conducts rituals beyond the range of human sight. And back in the day, I heard there’s a ghost of one of Williams’ own sons in the wine cellar, locked up down there in life because he was mentally deranged.

Well, right now the place is closed. After driving by several times and noticing it was dark, I called. A disembodied voice explained there are new owners, new management, and sale of the property is pending. They expect to reopen this summer. I wonder how the ghosts are doing, in there all alone. Maybe they’re lonely, weakened and pining for living energy to to help them manifest. Or maybe they’re having a hell of a time, so to speak.

Come to think of it, who are these new owners anyway? The staff says tips have been disappearing from the tables for years. And that’s a costly piece of property, but with interest compounding in eternity … you think?

The Hill:

House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) told Republican colleagues yesterday that they will have a full and lengthy floor debate on the Iraq war, a dramatic change of course for GOP leaders who had previously resisted Republican and Democratic calls for such a debate.

Songbirds: Yahoo! News:

“The simplest grammar, long thought to be one of the skills that separate man from beast, can be taught to a common songbird, new research suggests.”

Dang, send those researchers to Washington. Maybe they can help W make a little more sense.

On second thought, the researchers are busy. Send the birds.

California Becomes Second State to Introduce Bush Impeachment:

The resolution … bases the call for impeachment upon the Bush Administration intentionally misleading the Congress and the American people regarding the threat from Iraq in order to justify an unnecessary war that has cost billions of dollars and thousands of lives and casualties; exceeding constitutional authority to wage war by invading Iraq; exceeding constitutional authority by Federalizing the National Guard; conspiring to torture prisoners in violation of the ‘Federal Torture Act’ and indicating intent to continue such actions; spying on American citizens in violation of the 1978 Foreign Agency Surveillance Act; leaking and covering up the leak of the identity of Valerie Plame Wilson, and holding American citizens without charge or trial.

via all that arises

Bush Brandishes Jail Time at Critics

The Constitution, we were told in law school, is a contract between the government and the people. That’s what the con law professor said. But that same year, in contracts, we were told that there’s little a party can do to prevent a breach of contract, but to sue for damages and specific performance after the fact. So if The Decider decides to suspend such trivialities as free speech, warrants for searches, right of a trial, etc., we can’t stop him. Can we?

Somebody let me know when it’s time to run for the hills.

A jot of Whitman to nail down my Monday:


The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and
my loitering.

I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

The last scud of day holds back for me,
It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow’d
wilds,
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.

I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.

“Song of Myself”
by Walt Whitman