2 Cents

I am not religious, but I consider myself highly spiritual. I truly believe in the existence of a higher being. How S/He plays in our lives is what has always been fuzzy to me. The more I try to makes sense of it, the more confused I am. So when I logged on Facebook yesterday and saw this status update from my brother -in-law, I couldn’t agree more: “sometimes i wonda whether God realy tkes care of da poor especialy wen i hear about earthquakes in Haiti bcuz i tink those guys need a break.” (more…)

This afternoon, with my 8 year old daughter in tow, I finally saw “Michael Jackson’s This is it”. The film was all that I hoped it would be. And more. It was Michael Jackson at his usual; meaning it was entertainment at its best. In sum, 50 years old, at the door front of his death, Michael still had it. In fact, in some takes during this documentary of a rehearsal, he seemed as fluid as he did ten and twenty years ago. Perhaps a feat due to the fact that the Michael in those scenes was not Michael Jackson. Many people have complained about the use of body doubles in the film, but it hardly bothered me. Maybe because I had Michael in mind, any images I saw on screen that was staged to be him, I received as him wholeheartedly. Adoration is blinding, I know. (more…)

Like many men,
When it comes to women,
I love that which I cannot have.
I’m in love with distance, you see;
Unbridgeable distance:

When she is over there;
Across the ocean
In a country with bad phone service;
I love her. (more…)

By: Gerald Montgomery

My Dear African Brother,

Have you at anytime in your life (here in America) felt it necessary, convenient or beneficial in anyway to emphasize that you were African as opposed to allowing someone to presume or continue to assume you were African-American, if even for a moment? No need to elaborate if you wish to answer and no need to answer if you wish not to, as long as you know this question is coming from your African-American brother who loves you dearly and only intends to lay the foundation of his argument. Just think about it is all I really need you to do. (more…)

I seem to be a very deep writer’s block I can’t seem to swim out of. So I visited some poems I once upon a time started writing on my PDA. I think I had some lofty ambitions for them, but this time around I just wanted to end them as quick as possible. Just to proof to myself I can still finish a thought. If they don’t make sense, it’s probably because in actuality they are incomplete. But if I can leap, I would like to think of them as complete thoughts having incomplete dreams.

HyeNas
Oh yes
I laugh:
Path my lips
Show my teeth
Smack my belly
And force a sound
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Yesterday, I went to the Opera for the first time. 45 minutes late. At Orchestra Hall in downtown Minneapolis, as I walked toward and past the sea of white heads, I thought I didn’t belong. Why do I let curiosity bring me to situations like these, I scolded myself. But we followed the usher to our seat, and this my latest entry into this American life.
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By Alie Kabba

It is disheartening, once again, to see the butchery of truth by an oversimplification of complex phenomena in a place that has become a metaphor for the grave ills of post-colonial Africa – Somalia.

As we say out here, don’t believe the hype! Or, as Bob Marley and the Wailers succinctly put it, half the story has never been told.

Let’s get through the debris of Gaza, the wasteland of Eastern Congo and the blighted plains of Darfur to get to the facts about Somalia and the Great Pirate Threats to Western Civilization as we know it. (more…)

Recently I was introduced to an upcoming book on development (or lack thereof) in Africa that caught my attention like few books have in the past. In her book, Dead Aid, the Zambian economist, Ms. Dambisa Moyo adds her voice to the bold conclusion that foreign aid to Africa is doing more harm than good, that it is in fact one of many obstacles to development in Africa. Without getting into details (I have yet to read the book), I find myself in complete agreement. The fact of the matter is, no matter the good intention of the donors, only fractions of aid to Africa actually go to the causes intended. If and when they do, they provide at best Band-Aid solutions to chronic issues with roots far deeper than the headlines. But how do you tell good Samaritans not to stop when they see one of God’s angels by the side of the road? (more…)

Maybe it’s because my own mother is losing her mind to the same wicked disease, but I just read a story about an old lady that just broke my heart.

As the story goes, back in 1994, a mute elderly woman was found wondering a mall in New Jersey. When the police picked her up, she didn’t have any identification on her person, and in addition to being mute, she was found to be suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. For 15 years all attempts to identify her returned nothing. Not fingerprinting, not police investigation, not photo circulation…nothing could yield her identity. So where would you suppose she was kept for all 15 years? Not in a nursing home, as you would suspect counting her condition. The poor sick old lady (always well dressed according to witnesses) was sent to live in a psychiatric hospital. Yes, that is right, among mentally diseased individuals. Don’t get me wrong, Alzheimer is also a mental disease, but there is a difference between it and psychotic.
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On Friday evening, my adventures in single dad-dom came to an end, right on schedule. And that right there is one of the most humbling lessons I have learned in this little experiment of mine. I guess that is the difference between an adventure and life. No matter how hard some of the days were, I knew the end, if not quite in sight, was looming not far behind; I could tell myself to hang in there, because when this day ends, it would be one less to go.

Unfortunately, that is a luxury most single-parents don’t have. When they are sick or tired, down and under, yesterday and today, they still plow through the day knowing tomorrow life continues. It can either be paralyzing or motivating. (more…)