Monday, March 13, 2006
Claude Allen: Smooth Criminal
I like to try to keep up with the rogue’s gallery in the Bush administration, but I’ll admit that I had never heard of Claude Allen until yesterday when I was reading the Sunday paper and saw that a former high ranking administration official had been arrested for what amounts to shoplifting at Kmart. They had a picture of Bush, Karl Rove and some black guy I had never seen. Being damn near brilliant like Columbo, I figured out the black guy was Mr. Claude Allen.
For those of you like me who weren’t too familiar with the man, here is some of his background. In 1984 he was the campaign spokesman for Senator Jesse Helms (yeah that Jesse Helms). He attacked Helms’ opponent by saying he had links to “queers”. He later defended that statement by saying he only meant to say they were “odd”. Later in his career he was the Secretary of the Virginia Department of Health and Human Services. He once kept Medicaid funds from an impoverished rape victim who wanted an abortion. He was named Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services by Bush to keep an eye on the then Secretary of the department, Tommy Thompson because he was thought to be a “moderate”. Bush nominated him to be a federal judge on the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. He was thought to be too inexperienced and too politically extreme to be on the court and the Senate Democrats were able to block his nomination. In January this year, Bush appointed him his top domestic policy advisor at the White House, making him the highest ranking black at the White House, (pushing the cook to the number two slot). Claude Allen was considered the next Clarence Thomas by his right wing masters, but then the niggah screwed up.
On January 2, Allen was detained by security at Kmart when they observed him taking some items off the store shelve, taking them to the store return desk for a refund, and producing a receipt for the items. After the incident Allen informed the White House it was just a misunderstanding. On February 9 he resigned so he could spend “more time with his family”. After an investigation by the Gaithersburg Maryland police, Allen was charged on March 9 with returning more the $5,000 worth of merchandise he did not buy. Here’s his scheme: he would go to Target and Hecht’s stores, he’d purchase an item, take it to his car, return to the store, select the same item, take it to the counter and get a refund based on the receipt for the merchandise in his car. It’s a refund scheme, just another variation of shoplifting.
So here’s my question, with all the big time stealing the crooks in the Bush administration are doing, why would Allen instead of receiving kick backs from Halliburton or Dubai, be shoplifting at his local neighborhood Kmart? Was Target too “upscale” for him? Why didn’t his buddies at the White House cut him in for his take, do they segregate their crimes over there. White folks get to rip off the public treasury while the colored folks have to rip off the local Kmart. So I guess if you see Condoleezza at Wal-Mart, watch her closely.
It’s just another example how warped these right wing Christian conservatives are. I think these people think being a member of the body of Christ is like being in the mob. They steal, lie and do all sorts of morally repugnant acts and think they are protected by the “big guy upstairs”. It seems the black members of this group are the most warped. I guess when you actively conspire to destroy your own people; it must really fuck with your head. On a daily basis you work with people who treat you okay because “you’re not like those other ones.” Too prove that you aren’t like those other niggahs, you take positions more extreme than your white counterparts. You provide them the cover they need to be as racist as they want to be. You’re their chief apologist. Seeing all the vile stuff they do to everyone who isn’t a white Christian male has to eat at you. So you end up having Condoleezza shopping for shoes and going to Broadway plays while New Orleans drowned, some character named Vernon Robinson happily calling himself the black Jesse Helms and of course Claude Allen shoplifting. I guess when they sold their souls to the devil; they didn’t read in the fine print, that he’ll take your sanity too.
For those of you like me who weren’t too familiar with the man, here is some of his background. In 1984 he was the campaign spokesman for Senator Jesse Helms (yeah that Jesse Helms). He attacked Helms’ opponent by saying he had links to “queers”. He later defended that statement by saying he only meant to say they were “odd”. Later in his career he was the Secretary of the Virginia Department of Health and Human Services. He once kept Medicaid funds from an impoverished rape victim who wanted an abortion. He was named Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services by Bush to keep an eye on the then Secretary of the department, Tommy Thompson because he was thought to be a “moderate”. Bush nominated him to be a federal judge on the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. He was thought to be too inexperienced and too politically extreme to be on the court and the Senate Democrats were able to block his nomination. In January this year, Bush appointed him his top domestic policy advisor at the White House, making him the highest ranking black at the White House, (pushing the cook to the number two slot). Claude Allen was considered the next Clarence Thomas by his right wing masters, but then the niggah screwed up.
On January 2, Allen was detained by security at Kmart when they observed him taking some items off the store shelve, taking them to the store return desk for a refund, and producing a receipt for the items. After the incident Allen informed the White House it was just a misunderstanding. On February 9 he resigned so he could spend “more time with his family”. After an investigation by the Gaithersburg Maryland police, Allen was charged on March 9 with returning more the $5,000 worth of merchandise he did not buy. Here’s his scheme: he would go to Target and Hecht’s stores, he’d purchase an item, take it to his car, return to the store, select the same item, take it to the counter and get a refund based on the receipt for the merchandise in his car. It’s a refund scheme, just another variation of shoplifting.
So here’s my question, with all the big time stealing the crooks in the Bush administration are doing, why would Allen instead of receiving kick backs from Halliburton or Dubai, be shoplifting at his local neighborhood Kmart? Was Target too “upscale” for him? Why didn’t his buddies at the White House cut him in for his take, do they segregate their crimes over there. White folks get to rip off the public treasury while the colored folks have to rip off the local Kmart. So I guess if you see Condoleezza at Wal-Mart, watch her closely.
It’s just another example how warped these right wing Christian conservatives are. I think these people think being a member of the body of Christ is like being in the mob. They steal, lie and do all sorts of morally repugnant acts and think they are protected by the “big guy upstairs”. It seems the black members of this group are the most warped. I guess when you actively conspire to destroy your own people; it must really fuck with your head. On a daily basis you work with people who treat you okay because “you’re not like those other ones.” Too prove that you aren’t like those other niggahs, you take positions more extreme than your white counterparts. You provide them the cover they need to be as racist as they want to be. You’re their chief apologist. Seeing all the vile stuff they do to everyone who isn’t a white Christian male has to eat at you. So you end up having Condoleezza shopping for shoes and going to Broadway plays while New Orleans drowned, some character named Vernon Robinson happily calling himself the black Jesse Helms and of course Claude Allen shoplifting. I guess when they sold their souls to the devil; they didn’t read in the fine print, that he’ll take your sanity too.
Monday, March 06, 2006
The Pimp and Ho's Ball: 78th Annual Academy Award Show
I’m not a big movie person. I like movies, but like most Americans, I don’t actually like going out to see them. I subscribe to Netflix and have HBO, Cinemax and Showtime, so I see a lot of movies, just not at the theater. Last night the 78th Annual Academy Awards was on. If you’re hoping to get a minute by minute account of the show last night, you’re out of luck. Too be honest I recorded it and then fast forwarded through the ceremony. I watched a three and a half hour show in two hours. I should get an award for saving an hour and a half of my life. What’ll I’ll do is cover the highlights of the event; the parts that I actually found interesting. This could turn out to be really short.
The show opened with the previous hosts declining to host the Academy Awards this year. Billy Crystal is in a tent with Chris Rock going all brokeback we can assume, or let’s not, YIKES!!! Steve Martin is babysitting his two kids who have hair just like him. Whoopi Goldberg slams the door in the face of the guy who asks her to host. David Letterman can’t host because he’s babysitting Steve Martin’s kids. Jon Stewart dreams he’s asked, but it can’t be real because he’s in bed with Halle Berry. He wakes up to find out he’s in bed with George Clooney and he is happy to be there with him; funny beginning.
Jon starts making jokes about the event, I think the jokes are funny but he doesn’t get a big response from the audience. Chris Rock didn’t get that much of a response either, except to make Sean Penn mad. I think the Hollywood types want their asses gently kissed during the show. People like Jon, Chris and Letterman aren’t part of the mainstream Hollywood scene and don’t hold it in reverence. Jon wasn’t hard on them, but he wasn’t starry eyed about them either. He ends his bit with a film clip showing that movie cowboys have always been kind of gay.
The first award of the evening went to George Clooney for Best Supporting Actor. Clooney was his usual charming self. I haven’t seen Syriana yet so I can’t attest to how good he was, but if the Academy Awards is just a popularity contest, you’d know that Clooney would win. I like him as an actor and share a lot of his views so I’m glad he won.
We’ll skip some awards to get to Best Supporting Actress. The winner is Rachel Weisz from The Constant Gardener. I actually saw it a few weeks ago and I agree she deserved to win. If you haven’t seen it, go out and rent it this week, you’ll enjoy it.
Lauren Bacall comes out to introduce a film noir montage. Ms. Bacall has trouble reading the TelePrompTer; she needed one of the detectives from the montage to find out where her glasses were. I have no idea why they decided they needed to honor film noir during the program. Isn’t that better suited for the American Film Institute to do?
The highlight of the evening is the fake attack ads for Best Actress. The first one has Keira Knightley’s campaign attacking Charlize Theron for getting ugly in her roles to win an Oscar while Keira remains beautiful to win hers. The second ad is a parody of the elderly couple one that was used for the prescription drug law. The elderly couple supports Reese Witherspoon because her name doesn’t sound foreign like the other Best Actress nominees. The last one is a parody of the Swiftboat Vets for Truth, called Dames for Truth that attacks Judi Dench. One one-eyed Dame claims: “Dame Judy took out my eye in a bar fight.”
They do another montage this time covering political films giving Hollywood another chance to pat itself on the back. They forget to do the montage honoring all the pointless movies they make. I guess if they did that, the montage would still be on. Jon did have a great line after it was over saying: “And none of those issues were ever a problem again.”
After some more awards I’m not interested in, they show another montage of movies to encourage us to see movies in a movie theater. Basically it’s a commercial for theatre chains. Don’t buy or rent that DVD, go to the movies instead. I guess they forget that if we didn’t buy or rent the DVDs most of the movie studios would go broke, promptly a lot of these stars to go back to waiting tables for extra income. If they want us in the theatres so bad, start making better pictures and quit charging $3.50 for a small box of popcorn.
Lily Tomlin and Meryl Streep were cute together as they introduced Robert Altman to be honored for his honorary Oscar. That was all nice and good as it set us up for the second highlight of the evening when Ludacris introduced the Three 6 Mafia singing the Academy Award nominated song It’s Hard Out Here For A Pimp (tell me about it). They had hos and pimps dancing on stage. I was as happy as Queen Latifah when she announced they won. The Three 6 Mafia was truly happy to receive their award. Jon Stewart was happy they were so happy that they won. Somewhere Randy Newman is turning over in his grave. (Even though he isn’t really dead)
We’ll skip some more awards, nearly watch my girl Sydney fall on her ass (Jennifer Garner looked good though) and watch the popularity contest of “In Memoriam” to get to Best Actor in a Motion Picture. My boy Terrence Howard didn’t win (too bad pimp), but Philip Seymour Hoffman won for Capote. I haven’t seen that movie but Hoffman is a good actor so I’m cool with him winning. Skipping some more awards and stuff we get to Best Actress in a Motion Picture and Reese Witherspoon wins for Walk the Line. I like Reese Witherspoon, anyone who could out psycho Jack Bauer in Freeway, be Tracy Flick in Election and be that ditz in Legally Blond deserves an Oscar.
Brokeback Mountain won the Academy Award for Adapted Screenplay, while Crash won for Original Screenplay. Ang Lee won Best Director for Brokeback Mountain. In all the big awards, everyone who was favored to win won, but the big upset was saved for last, Crash won Best Picture. Since Crash is the only Best Picture nominee I saw, I’m happy. I thought it was a great movie, but I guess I’ll need to see the other four to know if it deserved to win. The other four are already in my Netflix queue.
In summary, the 78th Annual Academy Awards was no better or worse than they usually are. None of the presenters or award recipients did anything memorable. So they won’t have to suffer with seeing themselves make a fool of themselves every Oscar season. Jon Stewart did a good job and he should do it again some time. I couldn’t have sat through the whole show if I hadn’t recorded it and fast forwarded through all the awards I don’t care about or the insipient intros the presenters give. One thing I like, they have a lot of the presenters’ present solo, saving us from inane banter between the presenters. I’m not a fashion expert but the ladies looked nice and who cares how the guys looked. After I’ve seen most of the nominated movies and actors, maybe I can make a more honest comment on who should have won. The only three movies I saw that had major nominations were Crash, The Constant Gardener, Junebug and Hustle and Flow. I hope you enjoyed it and see you next year at the movies.
The show opened with the previous hosts declining to host the Academy Awards this year. Billy Crystal is in a tent with Chris Rock going all brokeback we can assume, or let’s not, YIKES!!! Steve Martin is babysitting his two kids who have hair just like him. Whoopi Goldberg slams the door in the face of the guy who asks her to host. David Letterman can’t host because he’s babysitting Steve Martin’s kids. Jon Stewart dreams he’s asked, but it can’t be real because he’s in bed with Halle Berry. He wakes up to find out he’s in bed with George Clooney and he is happy to be there with him; funny beginning.
Jon starts making jokes about the event, I think the jokes are funny but he doesn’t get a big response from the audience. Chris Rock didn’t get that much of a response either, except to make Sean Penn mad. I think the Hollywood types want their asses gently kissed during the show. People like Jon, Chris and Letterman aren’t part of the mainstream Hollywood scene and don’t hold it in reverence. Jon wasn’t hard on them, but he wasn’t starry eyed about them either. He ends his bit with a film clip showing that movie cowboys have always been kind of gay.
The first award of the evening went to George Clooney for Best Supporting Actor. Clooney was his usual charming self. I haven’t seen Syriana yet so I can’t attest to how good he was, but if the Academy Awards is just a popularity contest, you’d know that Clooney would win. I like him as an actor and share a lot of his views so I’m glad he won.
We’ll skip some awards to get to Best Supporting Actress. The winner is Rachel Weisz from The Constant Gardener. I actually saw it a few weeks ago and I agree she deserved to win. If you haven’t seen it, go out and rent it this week, you’ll enjoy it.
Lauren Bacall comes out to introduce a film noir montage. Ms. Bacall has trouble reading the TelePrompTer; she needed one of the detectives from the montage to find out where her glasses were. I have no idea why they decided they needed to honor film noir during the program. Isn’t that better suited for the American Film Institute to do?
The highlight of the evening is the fake attack ads for Best Actress. The first one has Keira Knightley’s campaign attacking Charlize Theron for getting ugly in her roles to win an Oscar while Keira remains beautiful to win hers. The second ad is a parody of the elderly couple one that was used for the prescription drug law. The elderly couple supports Reese Witherspoon because her name doesn’t sound foreign like the other Best Actress nominees. The last one is a parody of the Swiftboat Vets for Truth, called Dames for Truth that attacks Judi Dench. One one-eyed Dame claims: “Dame Judy took out my eye in a bar fight.”
They do another montage this time covering political films giving Hollywood another chance to pat itself on the back. They forget to do the montage honoring all the pointless movies they make. I guess if they did that, the montage would still be on. Jon did have a great line after it was over saying: “And none of those issues were ever a problem again.”
After some more awards I’m not interested in, they show another montage of movies to encourage us to see movies in a movie theater. Basically it’s a commercial for theatre chains. Don’t buy or rent that DVD, go to the movies instead. I guess they forget that if we didn’t buy or rent the DVDs most of the movie studios would go broke, promptly a lot of these stars to go back to waiting tables for extra income. If they want us in the theatres so bad, start making better pictures and quit charging $3.50 for a small box of popcorn.
Lily Tomlin and Meryl Streep were cute together as they introduced Robert Altman to be honored for his honorary Oscar. That was all nice and good as it set us up for the second highlight of the evening when Ludacris introduced the Three 6 Mafia singing the Academy Award nominated song It’s Hard Out Here For A Pimp (tell me about it). They had hos and pimps dancing on stage. I was as happy as Queen Latifah when she announced they won. The Three 6 Mafia was truly happy to receive their award. Jon Stewart was happy they were so happy that they won. Somewhere Randy Newman is turning over in his grave. (Even though he isn’t really dead)
We’ll skip some more awards, nearly watch my girl Sydney fall on her ass (Jennifer Garner looked good though) and watch the popularity contest of “In Memoriam” to get to Best Actor in a Motion Picture. My boy Terrence Howard didn’t win (too bad pimp), but Philip Seymour Hoffman won for Capote. I haven’t seen that movie but Hoffman is a good actor so I’m cool with him winning. Skipping some more awards and stuff we get to Best Actress in a Motion Picture and Reese Witherspoon wins for Walk the Line. I like Reese Witherspoon, anyone who could out psycho Jack Bauer in Freeway, be Tracy Flick in Election and be that ditz in Legally Blond deserves an Oscar.
Brokeback Mountain won the Academy Award for Adapted Screenplay, while Crash won for Original Screenplay. Ang Lee won Best Director for Brokeback Mountain. In all the big awards, everyone who was favored to win won, but the big upset was saved for last, Crash won Best Picture. Since Crash is the only Best Picture nominee I saw, I’m happy. I thought it was a great movie, but I guess I’ll need to see the other four to know if it deserved to win. The other four are already in my Netflix queue.
In summary, the 78th Annual Academy Awards was no better or worse than they usually are. None of the presenters or award recipients did anything memorable. So they won’t have to suffer with seeing themselves make a fool of themselves every Oscar season. Jon Stewart did a good job and he should do it again some time. I couldn’t have sat through the whole show if I hadn’t recorded it and fast forwarded through all the awards I don’t care about or the insipient intros the presenters give. One thing I like, they have a lot of the presenters’ present solo, saving us from inane banter between the presenters. I’m not a fashion expert but the ladies looked nice and who cares how the guys looked. After I’ve seen most of the nominated movies and actors, maybe I can make a more honest comment on who should have won. The only three movies I saw that had major nominations were Crash, The Constant Gardener, Junebug and Hustle and Flow. I hope you enjoyed it and see you next year at the movies.
