The Nigga as Hero

"They just don't make men like they used to," said Jesse N., a manager at UPS, oh so many years ago.

And how, Jesse.

In the old days in Boston, if a guy wanted to hang around the seedy part of town, say he wanted to patronize a strip club oh, say, on the night before his wedding because, you know, that's a cool thing for a man to do, he'd have to go to a place called "The Combat Zone," because that's where the seedy places were -- and it will be understood that strip clubs are "seedy places."

If one were to venture into The Combat Zone for "entertainment," he went with no illusions about his well-being. How could he, when he knew he was entering a "Combat Zone?"

Of course those days are gone. "Combat Zones" are not the sorts of things that mayors and Chambers of Commerce are too proud of. Strip clubs are OK, mind you, but not "Combat Zones."

But should Sean Bell have been surprised that misfortune befell his self-gratifying little soul when he was paying girls to strip (and who knows what else) for him while his bride-to-be was presumably trying on her wedding gown for the big day? No, of course not.

But he got shot to death, and that's the sort of thing that happens when you go to seedy places.

And the City Council just named a street after him. As if he were a hero. A guy goes to a strip joint the night before his wedding, and gets shot to death. It so happens that Sean Bell was black, and the shooter was a white police officer. And in places like New York City, that's all it takes to get a street named after you, just like The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Sean, if you'd have stayed home, your kid might have a dad, a real hero to look up to. But because you wanted to be a playah, all he gets is a freaking street sign, very warped legend, and a distorted view of manhood.

No, they sure don't make men like they used to.

When is War Cool?

When it's Obama's war, that's when. We were all alerted, by the "news" media, that he "took ownership" of the onerous war machine that the evil Bush administration bequeathed him. Now we no longer see a body count ticker on the news channels. Instead we hear about how many "insurgents" were killed.

Everything Obama touches becomes cool.

Volcker Says ‘Basic Structure’ of Economy to Impede U.S. Growth

Bloomberg reports:

“Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker said imbalances in the structure of the U.S. economy pose a bigger challenge than the financial crisis and will impede economic growth for some time.

We have another economic problem which is mixed up in this of too much consumption, too much spending relative to our capacity to invest and to export,” Volcker, an adviser to President Barack Obama, said today in Berlin. “It’s involved with the financial crisis but in a way it’s more difficult than the financial crisis because it reflects the basic structure of the economy.”

Of course, we said this over a year ago, when the people in power were running around like chickens with their heads cut off.

"Arguably the most influential blog ever," and apparently it should be.

Affirmative Action is a Zero Sum Game

True story: a man is laid off from a Wall Street job for over a year. He submits resume after resume -- because the Street is hiring for his skill -- but never gets the call.

Finally, a friend, who knows a hiring manager at a Bracket Firm recommends the man highly. The hiring manager's first question is, "what color is he?" He explains that he has to hire an Asian this week, that a white man -- no matter how qualified -- will not fulfill racial hiring quota. He explains that, in fact, he must hire X blacks, X Asians, X you-name-it's, but they already have plenty of white men.

We all knew this happens, but rarely do we hear it described so plainly by those who administer these idiotic rules.

US Bishops Repudiate Markets, Pope Repudiates Marxism

Go figure. Developing.

The Gate Crashers

Well, let's see what we have here: A couple without proper credentials manages to get into the White House with charm and chutzpah, and nobody's really sure how it was able to happen or what motivated them.

Perhaps they figured if the Obamas can do it, they can. Equal opportunity and all.

We think they ought to get a Nobel for something.