Lies, Distortions, and Gangsta Rap

On Sirius Left yesterday evening, talk show host Mark Thompson was "Making it Plain" (the title of his show) that he doesn't mind supporting false statements made by callers as long as they support his position that Barack Obama deserves the nomination and Hillary Clinton does not.

A caller yesterday who identified himself as a truck driver said that he spends $10,000 a month on fuel, and that "$30" is not going to help him one bit.

I remember when I was a little kid we used to play connect the dots. After doing so, hopefully with straight lines and in the correct order, I could see the picture that has been drawn. This driver must have had a really hard time with connect the dots because the $30 that some are claiming average drivers would benefit does not connect to the amount that would be saved on $10,000 of diesel fuel.

Let's see, estimating, at $4 a gallon that would be 2500 gallons and at 24.4 cents a gallon federal tax on diesel it looks like he might save $610. Why, that is more than the stimulus rebate he might be getting in the mail. I wonder if he would notice if he only got $30 back from the IRS?

And Thompson just went right along with him, they were both so hyped up on berating Hillary he didn't even notice. No, they "made it plain" that facts and accuracy are not important as long as they turn people against Hillary and further divide the democratic party in the process.

OK, enough about that. Now I may slip up on occasion and get a fact wrong, but Mary Kate Rush really goofed in a letter to the Birmingham News this morning. She is complaining about the Jefferson County Commission considering charging non-users of the sewer system a fee, and she wrote the following,

Reading Commissioner Shelia Smoot's recommendation that the nonuser fee be called a "Clean Water Act fee, " I recall that Hamlet said, "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." A nonuser fee by any other name will stink just as bad.

Well, Hamlet was not worried about Romeo's family name, but two young lovers were.

JULIET:
'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.

While her point is well taken, Mary Kate needs to brush up on her Shakespeare before she uses it beside her lessons from history, because as people recognize her lack of knowledge of literature they might discredit her recall of history as well.

And I have to comment on Cynthia Tucker's column which also appeared in the Opinions section of today's paper.

She writes about resume inflation, but not the kind that gets football coaches jobs or ladder-climbers executive positions, but the ones that get gangsta rap musicians their cred.

Atlanta star Akon, who claimed to spend three years the fed for running a "notorious" car theft operation, as it turns out, just spent a few months in the DeKalb county jail on charges that were later dropped. Akon, whose real name is Aliaune Thiam, "made up a criminal history claiming he was a carjacker who owned chop shops but was finally brought down because he was ratted out by jealous underlings."

Tucker points out "You gain respect in thug culture - and millions of dollars in record and ring-tone sales - only if you're a bona fide thug."

The impression is that by abandoning one's middle-class suburban upbringing, which is how Akon was raised, and inventing a thug life history, one can do better than by becoming a "teacher or a chemist or an accountant" or becoming "a responsible father and husband."

And indeed, Akon did do better, after titling his cd "Konvicted" which apparently he never was.

And in an enlightening moment for those of us in Birmingham (area) where droopy pants and poor taste in underwear has been on the city council agenda comes this, from Tucker's oped.

Indeed, the baggy britches that are now de rigeur in hip-hop circles grew out of jail rituals. when men are arrested, their belts are confiscated, so their trousers tend to droop. It's from that unfortunate facet of ghetto life that the ubiquitous sagging pants were launched.

So kids want to be like their prison dwelling role models. We'd better listen to Cynthia Tucker, Bill Cosby and others who have seen the reality of what is and has been happening in our culture over the last several decades. A generation is being destoyed.