GRAVITAS

Recently, my brother, the other member of Verily Prime, took our beloved mother out to dinner; apparently, during the dinner, the surrounding tables were opining about Michael Vick. My brother conveyed to me that the consensus among the dinner guests was that Michael Vick was an ogre and basically should be a candidate for the funeral pyre. Of course my brother had to engage the guests by asking the question--has anyone around the tables had an abortion and if she did, did she consider herself better than Michael Vick? I am told that there was an elephant pregnant pause, along with unsettling silence at the tables. I am not certain if I would have had the gravitas to do what my brother did, especially with our mother at the table. In a similar vein, to that lady who, via this blog, has argued the merits of her abortion and boasting about being a Christian, I am not worthy to judge, but I will vehemently disagree with you that abortion is an act sanctioned by Jesus. I say to my confuse sister, peruse anyone of the Gospels, especially Luke, and you will be edified. In law school, one must stud y Roe vs. Wade and one will learn about quickening, trimesters, and demarcation lines like 24 weeks. To my sister, I put no stock into those brilliant Constitutional judicial prose authored by flesh and blood we call jurists--my stock is in the Gospel of Luke, and we are told that John the Baptist, while he was six months old in his mother, Elizabeth’s, womb, started kicking his mother when Jesus, who was only three months (12 weeks) old in Mary’s stomach, passed by--John the Baptist kicked out of respect when he recognized the Messiah. I need not go any further my sister because you could decipher for yourself the meaning and believe me when I say that part of the Gospels refuting abortion is not written allegorically. Many of my brothers and sisters on the left would always repeat the mantra that only Cuba, South Africa, Russia and the United States sanction Capital Punishment; they say this to make people like me feel guilty…Right back at you brethren, not even bin laden would engage in the abomination call abortion….

-Verily Prime

Affirmative Action

Many are loathed to opine on the subject of Affirmative Action but this is the freedom a blog provides…to lave our dirty laundry. How could I as a Christian decide that those fire
men in Connecticut did not deserve their promotion in light of their test scores; yet, I would be hypocritical because I too have been a beneficiary of Affirmative Action. To attend law school, it requires good grades—of which I had—and a good LSAT score—of which mine was average, yet I was accepted into law school. Now, I met the criteria of my law school by maintaining my 75 average and wrote what amounted to a dissertation to graduate…the later is only required in a few law schools. I surmised that because I graduated, the template to get into law school is not a definitive barometer as to success….In law school, I studied Bakke, the seminal case on Affirmative Action and the fur flew and the Socratic debates on the subject matter were spirited. Now, before some of my white brothers/sisters start engaging in the merits of eugenics about whose mental faculties are superior-incidentally, we are told now that East Indians and Chinese students are being discriminated when it comes to entrance in our Ivy League schools even though they are consistently scoring hire than others-is it because they have superior faculties than whites or blacks or is it that they have figured out a way to take the tests and are simply more discipline.…In Connecticut, the substance of the test was given to all the potential candidates and the scores reflected the diligence that each candidate put in…To punish those who studied hard is just wrong…but someone also must explain and provide a remedy on how to address an all white fire or police department…in New York, I am reminded that an Irish man in the fire department is said to be partaking in “Irish welfare…”are we to believe it is not who you know, sometimes. I have a lawyer friend in New Jersey, who gave me my first job out of law school as a legal consultant. I watched this Black man, who had passed the respective bars of New York-a feat I have yet to conquer—New Jersey and Florida, and still wasn’t hired as an associate, yet he had to teach many whites, who were hired as new associates, the duties of the position...The reason this was so was because he did not know the right people. We cannot look at Affirmative Action in a vacuum…I watched a Sixty Minutes episode where this law professor was saying how immoral Affirmative Action was with respect to entrance into the University of Michigan…this may have been so but the Michigan basketball athletes, who were 95% Black, were providing hundred of millions of dollars to the university and they were not paid…I wondered how much that law professor salary was dependent on the revenues brought in during March Madness….I do not recall the case in Law school, but I know it dealt with Pornography, where one of the presiding Associate Justices, Potter Stewart, opined on porn, saying, “I cannot articulate what it is (Porn), but I know it when I see it.”…It is the same situation I am in when I look at all the current remedies for addressing past prejudice…I’ll know it when I see it….
-Verily Prime

OUR MOUTHS AGAPE LIKE THE DUCK IN THE AFLAC COMMERCIALS

There are things that the members of Verily Prime see and hear that make our mouths hang open like the Aflac Duck in those funny insurance commercials: some of the women whose birth canals are veritable highways of death, yet pointing their accusing fingers at Michael Vick; during the primaries when our current Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, said that they should fumigate the White house because of the deeds of President George Bush and Cabinet--and she said it with a straight face; the deafening silence by so many women’s groups, as all manner of chauvinistic diatribes are directed at Sarah Palin; watching Terrell Owens explaining why he is estranged from yet another quarterback; the love fest between Hugo Chavez--who have curtailed all manner of free speech and who have persecuted the gays in his country--and Sean Penn; the fact that the young man who got mauled at the San Francisco zoo received much, much less flowers than the tiger who mauled him and was put down; watching Nancy Pelosi’s press conference explaining her water boarding briefing from the CIA and then not being immediately taken out in a straight jacket; President Obama being lauded on the speech he gave on race after sitting for over twenty years listening to his preacher espousing that perversion call Liberation Theology; illegal immigrants flying the Mexican flag during their protests than Old Glory; some advocates of Obama’s health care plan extolling the Cuban health care system over that of the USA; the Mother Teresa like coverage Michael Jackson received after his death; the Boston Police Officer who called Professor Gates a “jungle bunny” and is now suing the Boston Police Department; the many explanations given by Casey Anthony why she waited over a month to report her daughter missing; those who would tell you that George Bush made America less safe, even though we’ve had no more attacks since 911; those who will tell you that 911 was an inside job, blaming George Bush, and when you ask them to explain who was responsible for the first terror attack on the first World Trade Center when Clinton was the president, they become mute with a look of confusion; the sheer hypocrisy of members of the current administration opining on CEOs pay, when many of them came from Goldman Sachs; and one of the readers of this blog who accused Sarah Palin as pretending to be the members of Verily Prime…our mother thought that you were hilarious….

-Verily Prime

MARKED DIFFERENCES

It was the poet warrior, King David, who coined the phrase, “I hate you with a perfect hatred” in one of the many Psalms he authored--so I am adopting this phrase for the recent death, via a drone, of one of the prominent leaders of the Taliban in Afghanistan. This posture is a marked difference on how many on the left would have reacted if it were President George Bush in office. Anyone who reads this blog knows that the members of Verily Prime are not adherents of President Obama, yet we will adamantly support him on his policies in Iraq and Afghanistan or anywhere the troops are fighting. When Bush was in office, much of the discourse on the war from many on the left seemed to have want the casualties to be astronomical so that Bush would look bad; some of these Democrats were so partisan that they did not care that soldiers were dying in the interim--so long as it was a catalyst to drive the Republican President from office. The members o f Verily Prime will make no such mistake…notwithstanding our opposition to many of Obama’s policies. I hope and pray that the President successfully prosecutes the wars in all the theatres where the United States is fighting and we will not be partisan, so as to overtly or tacitly put our men and women in jeopardy. There have been recent policies enacted supposedly to honor the military families; an example is letting the media take pictures of the caskets of fallen soldiers. I am almost certain that this was not done out of respect for the military heroes/sheroes, but to embarrass the President, especially if said president wears Republican stripes. Another difference between the members of Verily Prime and some of the loons on the left--is the later penchant for excoriating America on foreign soil, especially, again, if a Republican is President. When members of Verily Prime travel outside these United States, we become mute on matters concerning America’s foreign policy, and confine our critique of this great country within its borders. We cannot say the same for the Dixie Chicks, Harrison Ford, and Gwyneth Paltrow, all who have spouted anti American rhetoric to appease those who would give their kidneys to walk these shores; and then these Hollywood loons would feign amazement when there was a backlash against them, bitching when the folks did not go to see their movies or purchased their CDs. And finally, the loons are saying that conservative talk radio are influencing sociopaths like the recent shooting at the holocaust museum in DC-I wonder who enticed the guy who went to Yemen for Muslim training and came back and murdered the Arkansas soldier…perhaps, it was the pictures depicting prisoner abuse at Abu Grave being shown repeatedly on MSNBC or on the pages of the New York Times…as I’ve said, marked differences….

-Verily Prime

POURING GASOLINE ON A RAGING FIRE

When I first came to this country from the Eastern Caribbean in1981, I resided in Concord, California; and my father, who was an Oakland police officer then, recommended to me and my brothers that we should read the newspaper editorials and watch the program Nightline to get knowledge about our newly adopted country. I cannot say how much my brothers adhered to dad’s edict-but I did. On one occasion, I was watching Ted Koppel’s Nightline when I realized what a fraud Jesse Jackson was…allowing race to take precedence over what is right. Our Civil Rights leader told, the host, Ted Koppel and a number of black foster care children, who were adopted by whites, that he would have preferred if they had remained in the foster care system, even though they were now living among loving parents. All Jesse cared about was that the foster parents were white--and not the fact that they were loving....Even as young boy, I knew something was seriously flawed with that kind of thinking; perhaps, this was because of my being from the Caribbean and that I was putting too much=2 0credence into the fact that Jesse was known as “reverend.” In the same vein, recently, five police officers were brutally murdered in Oakland, California, and our Civil Rights leaders (Jesse and Al) were conspicuously absent; yet, when the police shoot someone unjustly, they are out there--as they should--but no such discourse, healing or otherwise, and visibility in the case of the five murdered officers mentioned above. No one can or should take these so called Civil Rights leaders seriously because of their obvious bias and blatant racism. Take for instance, when Martin Luther King wife died, President Bush attended the funeral. You would have think that the funeral would have been void of politics, but you would have been wrong--instead, it was one the most despicable act of incivility I have ever witnessed. The hatred and vitriol that were directed at President Bush, while his wife sat with him, by these civil rights leaders and President Jimmy Carter, were unprecedented--I recommend you go to the internet to see it. Only Andrew Young had enough class to chastise these civil rights leaders and politicians for using Mrs. King Funeral to berate President Bush. Just imagined, if President Bush had not paid his respects and not attended Martin Luther King widow’s funeral….In the future, we will see these so called civil rights leaders--and to borrow and paraphrased lines from one of David Bowie’s song--putting out the racial fires with gasoline…or petrol.

Verily Prime

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY CRITIC

The members of Verily Prime have extolled the merits of those who are expressing their Constitutional rights to protest, but we would be hypocritical if we did not take issue with some of the tactics of those who are voicing their opinions in these town hall meetings against Obama’s health care reform. When advocates for the Armed Forces were trying to argue the merits of having the National Guard on our academic campuses, and were denied by opponents shouting the advocates down, we were outraged, even though then we were not authoring a blog. But we are equal opportunity critics…so that those who read this blog can say, even though I seldom agree with the members of Verily Prime, they make more than an effort to be even keeled. Now, to get back to the issue, we watched many of the politicians who were advocating President Obama’s health reform being shouted down-this is not civil behavior for addressing members in authority, no matter that you do not agree with their positions. It was wrong when the students of Columbia University here in New York acted in the most uncivilized of manner against the advocates for the Armed Forces or those who they disagreed with on other topical issues of the day, and it is wrong now for those who opposed the advocates for President Obama’s health care reform. The least we can do is listen…then vehemently disagree in our responses…But at least, we should give the opposing advocates, no matter their positions on any given issue, the courtesy to voice their opinions, especially when they are invited to the forum.

-Verily Prime

HYPOCRATS

A few blogs ago, the members of Verily Prime coined the phrase “Hypocrats” to show the dearth of coverage received by the Democrats when they engaged in hypocrisy as opposed to when Republicans do it. Last week down in Ohio-in counties that the President carried in the elections—many of the citizens were out protesting the pending health reform legislation being debated in Congress. No sooner had the White House Press Secretary was asked about the protesters, he deemed them as right wing fanatics. The reason why this is of such import is that it is coming from the White House, meaning that it was sanctioned by the President. It is one thing for the New York Times and CNBC to deem protests against our secular messiah as right wing fanatics--but not from the White House. The White House actually told people to report to them anyone who basically reached out via e-mails, if said missives opposed the President’s position on health care-we do not know what the White House will do if and when it receives opposing missives against it health care position. Recently, we wrote and briefly discussed George Orwell’s 1984 and its all consuming corrupt power; it seems life is imitating art. The sickening irony is that we have a President who has a law degree from one of the most prestigious law school in the world-I did not attend such a prestigious law school, but I got the gist of the First Amendment Jurisprudence-I may not have agreed with what Cindy Sheehan and the many critics of President Bush were positing, but it was their rights under our Constitution First Amendment jurisprudence to do so. Think of all the protests we saw against President George Bush—some even took place down in Crawford, Texas where President was vacationing. It is a mark of a narcissist not to understand why everyone does not genuflect when he or she makes an entrance--such it seems is President Obama’s psychosis.

-Verily Prime