After you were gone the only thing I have left is everything.

A friend of mine, who shall remain nameless, is currently going through a painful relationship. We spoke for some hours and I could not help but think of my last really painful relationship. So this is about my ex and this piece is dedicated to all people who have been in relationships with persons who take, take, take, and take and at the end of the day after you thought you would loose everything when they were gone, you found relief.

I found you somewhere I would rather not discuss, under circumstances that were less than ideal for the both us. I remember remarking that you were attractive though not in the traditional sense, but in a way that made sense to me. It was your style; I thought what a diamond a hidden gem you were, nothing like a beauty only visible to the beholder.

We would spend all night on the phone and in between working hours: lunch breaks, fifteen-minute breaks, on the way home; we spoke about everything. I remembered your stories about past pain and traumatic experiences that shaped who you were to become (past is always prologue). I thought looking at who you had become meant that you had changed, that you had overcame the things that tried to destroy you. I was wrong; I didn't yet know who you were.

You sucked the life out of everyone, and used what you had been through as an excuse for who you are. I was flexible, I caved, I loved, I gave and gave, and you took and took. So I finally left; out of town, out of state, I met someone who made me happy, but I felt with you there was something unfinished. You stayed on my mind, maybe I was masochistic, maybe it was true love or I was possibly confused. So I came back.

Then one day I got the phone call from you for the last time. You blamed me, you couldn’t do it anymore, you were too flaky, too fleeting, and you didn’t have the energy. I was devastated. I got home and looked around my apartment and realized that there was nothing in my apartment attributed to you: nothing in my home, nothing in my car, nothing at my workstation and finally nothing in my heart. Then suddenly there was relief. I smiled and realized that after you were gone the only thing I had left was everything. In fact I can go on because I had never lost anything.

OJ Simpson Revisited

In this brief article I am going to try and present some evidence that OJ is innocent email me bostonnian@gmail.com and let me know what you think.

Dream Team – What Dream Team?

The LA County District Attorney’s office had never deployed as many prosecutors as they did for the OJ Simpson trial. At any given time there were more than forty, yes forty, deputy district attorneys and more than a dozen clerks working full time to prosecute OJ. The LA DA’s office had the technical services of the FBI’s crime laboratory, the worlds finest, as well as the services of the entire state of the California, Interpol, and the private facilities of Cell Mark, a DNA testing firm. By the time the trial was through, the prosecutor had spent 8 million dollars, a sum OJ never could match. This overwhelming advantage allowed them to prepare 58 witnesses during their prosecution and put on 488 individual exhibits. In whole, the prosecution of OJ Simpson took 6 months an obscene amount of time for a case that was not a civil one.

Another caveat to the dream team myth is that the FBI sends its agents to a special class to teach them how to appear in court. They teach the agents in this school how to look directly at the jury when answering a question, how to sit properly in the witness’s chair, and how to appear affable. All the federal agents who testified against OJ had gone to this school as well as the LAPD officers who had testified against OJ.

The Evidence

Mark Fuhrman, the infamous detective was the first person on the crime scene and one of the principle witnesses to the prosecution, but he was in fact a racist, who collected Nazi paraphernalia, particularly medals and badges.

Why was Fuhrman the first on the scene, when he was off duty? Fuhrman bragged to two officers that he had a sexual relationship with Nicole Brown Simpson; they apparently met after one of the domestic disputes between OJ and Nicole. According the two officers Fuhrman made a point of describing what he called Nicole’s “boob job.”

DNA – The LA DA’s office DNA evidence divided into two parts: The samples taken from the socks found in OJ’s bedroom at Rockingham and off the back gate. The socks were likely a product of tampering. The socks appeared to have been placed at the foot of the habitually neat Simpson’s bed to create the impression that he had left in a hurry. However the chief investigator Dennis Fung, who collected the socks, saw no blood on them neither did the three criminologists who examined them in the LAPD lab. In fact no blood was found on them until weeks later.

There was also the blood in the Bronco, it has went to the LAPD lab, none was found, then to the FBI lab, were the FBI found no blood, then suddenly a cop in the impound finds a spec of blood.

So where did the blood come from? After the initial interrogation of OJ Simpson Blood samples were taken from him and a large quantity of them ended up disappearing from the laboratory.

The list goes on

OJ made statements to the police during his initial interrogation those statements had disappeared.

The coroners could not determine how the victims where really killed and in what order; this suggesting there were probably multiple culprits.

There were no bruises on OJ’s body.

Almost all the DNA evidence showed up weeks after the murder.

Mark Fuhrman and other detectives lied multiple times and in fact Fuhrman plead the Fifth Amendment the second time he was called to the stand to avoid a charge of perjury.

Fuhrman had access to OJ’s blood and was at the crime scene alone for 18 minutes in the first few days of the investigation.

There were shoe prints at the crime scene that were unaccounted for, at least two that did not belong to OJ.

I could go on for days listing all the reasons OJ did not commit the crimes he was charged with despite what he says.

Time Out

I wonder why I don’t have more time. I read an article this week by a lawyer who stated that lawyers should not work more than 40 hours a week because after that it’s simply a case of diminishing returns. Hmmm, well if that’s my true entire life has become a case of diminishing returns.

I am of course not alone in this dilemma; I would imagine that most young professionals share a similar story. We have sacrificed much in order to fulfil a destiny that many of us may not actually want. We have become content to confirm to the standards set for us by society, but have therefore perhaps lost contentment in general. According to wisegeek.com, the average age that a man marries (26.8) has increased by one year in the past 100 years and has increased for woman by three years (25.1). However, anecdotally it appears that the rate of marriage for professional people, especially women, is much higher than the average. Of all of the female lawyers within my age range that I know none were married before age 25 and only 2 were married before age 30. The story is not very much different for my male colleagues. This is not very surprising when you consider that at 25 many of us were still in college and at 30 many of us are still struggling to get out of the debt of student loans. Even more inhibiting is the fact that a 65 hour work week leaves little time for romance and socialising. For me, the free time that I do have I find is best spent resting in bed recovering from a long day and getting ready to face another day of work.

I think if there is a positive, if I was to get married I would certainly be too busy to have an affair. That is small consolation, and in any event moot because I’d never have the time to get married in the first place.

What I want is more time; I want to have time to catch up with my friends, to spend with my family, to go on trips during the weekend, even to go to the movies occasionally! I want more time to write my columns! I wanted to write about the dilemma of being a conservative but not having the ability to support conservative parties (because they are absolutely mad), but of course I had to work on Saturday and it’s now Sunday night and I have to get to bed to get to work. So I don’t have the time to write the column that I actually wanted to write. You see it is quite a pervasive thing this modern urgency, this marriage to work. It takes everything from you and offers little in return. Instead of a 2,500 word column about a serious topic, I only had enough time to write a 500 word column which admittedly is far lighter. However, although this column is not particularly long I wonder if you’ll have enough time to read it all.

Audley Hanna Jr., Esq

Montana Fishburne “A Review”

I love to keep up with the most extreme forms of pop culture, generally I don’t like peeking into the personal lives of celebrities, but I will try to catch a popular movie, or viral YouTube clip that may come my way. So when I got wind that Lawrence Fishburne’s daughter was making her entryway into porn my interests naturally peaked. I wanted to know why the 19-year-old daughter of a millionaire would venture into pornography. So I viewed the clip.

Chippy D is the name porn name of Montana; the scene is with a popular male porn star by the name of Brian Pumper (both viewed in the picture below). From the opening scene you could see there were scars all over the backs of her legs and on her behind. She looked as if she had either been burned or severely bruised. It immediately made the scene uncomfortable. I sped through what seemed to be a classic porn clip, with oral sex, regular sex, and the facial and thought to myself if I were a father of a young woman what could I do to stop my daughter from destroying her life. The answer is tragic, absolutely nothing.

What I learned after viewing the clip is that Montana was arrest for prostitution and that she had been beaten and pimped out by her boyfriend on many occasions. The scars all over her body were evidence of this.

I was deeply saddened by the clip, not only for her, but also for her parents and her family. I thought how sad was it that a teenager should be in control of her life at 19 and essentially destroy it without all her mental faculties in place and her parents are powerless to stop her.

Laurence should not be ashamed, but angry, and we should all hope and pray that our children don’t fall victim to the same fate.

On Wyclef and His Bid For The Presidency.

Recently with my son we watched “Schindler’s List” as we watched this amazing piece of cinema I was amazed at the sacrifice that Oscar Schindler made in order to save the lives of people who were not his own. At the very end of the movie we saw one of the greatest scenes in movie history, where Oscar Schindler, played by Liam Neeson, says, “this car, why did I keep the car, ten people right there, ten people, ten more people. This pin, two people, they would have given me two more at least one.” Oscar Schindler breaks down and cries, he says, “I could have gotten one more person and I didn’t.”

I am half Haitian, although I claim no connection to the country as I was not raised a cultural Haitian. I was raised primarily by a single mom from Alabama. But as ignorant of the culture as I am, like most Americans I could not escape the stories of horrific poverty. One of the stories that broke my heart was hearing that Haitians were actually eating dirt. A business has thrived in Haiti where people are creating and selling mud cakes. If you look at the picture just imagine.

Brittle and gritty - and as revolting as they sound - these are mud cakes. For a long time these mud cakes had been eaten by impoverished pregnant women seeking calcium, a dangerous and medically unproven supplement, but now the cakes have become a staple for entire Haitian families. It is not for the taste and nutrition, it contains tiny bits of salt and margarine, but the salt and margarine do not disguise what journalist who have tried these cakes describe as eating dirt. This picture was taken in 2008 long before the earthquake that wreaked havoc on the poverty stricken nation.

Lets move a couple years forward; the recovery efforts in Haiti are proving nearly impossible, with poor leadership and mounds of rubble still uncleared, according to a report by the RAND Corporation. Unqualified and poorly trained government workers, general lawlessness, poor policing and bad prisons are among the concerns. A former United States special envoy to Haiti says while the humanitarian response was quick, very little rubble has been removed and few basic decisions have been made.

Out of a country that has been for many reasons a disaster, natural and otherwise a young savior has emerged, Wyclef Jean. Wyclef has been an incredible musician, but what are we to make of him as a potential leader of Haiti. I want to preface this by saying that I do not know Wyclef’s soul. I do know that he owns 37 cars. The auto collection Wyclef includes an ultra-rare, 543-horsepower Pagani Zonda C12-S, an exclusive Italian-built sports car that sells for $350,000 according to Motor Trend Magazine.

I read about other cars that Wyclef owns some of them so rare that less than 50 exist in the whole world. The prices of many of the cars were upwards of a half a million dollars.

Wyclef now cries in his public interviews, but he claimed in his open letter on why he is running for president, "I'm not crying for myself; I'm crying for the people of Haiti." In the midst of his tears I would ask him the question Schindler presented to the rabbi, how many could you have saved? How many could you have fed? I would ask him your $350,000 car, how many Haitians would not have eaten dirt, how many lives, and how much medication?

I am not critical of a man who makes a lot of money and indulges himself, but if you are to run for president of a country that is the poorest in the world, what does it say that you accumulated 37 cars while your people ate dirt.

You can view the last scene by clicking on Schindler's List in the first paragraph.

Get Your Ticket

Professional athletes are lucky. Perhaps that goes without saying. In an era in which athletes are celebrities entirely removed from the day to day reality of their fans, we pay large sums of money for the opportunity to watch them shoot a basketball, pitch a baseball or catch a football and cheer them to victory. We grow attached to these complete strangers: they become a part of our family and our circle of friends. We discuss them as if the connection is real. We fantasize about meeting them. They who we want to be and who our children wish we were. In short, they are our heroes and we shower them from afar with our reverence and admiration. Odd, because if you think about it, the vast majority of athletes are merely the beneficiaries of circumstance. They are the ones which the Fates smile down upon. In a society that tends to favor meritocracy, it is curious that we have grown to idolize those who attain their success, in large measure, as a result of pure chance.

What would tell your child if he wanted to become a doctor? You would probably tell him to be disciplined and diligent in his studies, pay attention in class and work harder than he’s ever worked before. In addition, you’d devote your available resources to improving his chance to achieve his dream by paying for test prep, tutors, special summer programs and enriching extra curricular activities. Now, while everyone does not possess the intelligence to realistically become a doctor, with the right work ethic, even those with normal intelligence can achieve this goal. Now what would you tell your child if he told you that he wanted to become a professional basketball player? Well, you would have to tell him that he needs to be about 6 feet 6 inches tall, be able to run extremely fast, have a vertical leap of at least 36 inches and be able to shoot a ball with a diameter of 9.5 inches into a hoop with a diameter of 18 inches from a distance of 15 feet about 50% of the time. Other than perhaps the latter of these requirements, mere hard work and discipline play no role in attaining this goal. Basketball is essentially something that you are born to do. Of course training and refinement play a significant role but only to the extent that it sharpens innate skills.

In reality, being a professional basketball player is dependent upon a series of factors over which we have no control. The requirements for being a basketball player are entirely counter intuitive to those that we would consider necessary for success in day to day life. Often genetics contribute to success, but rarely is success almost entirely dependent upon genetics. Every field in life has its prodigies and savants. Some children may be born to play the violin or to excel at quantum mechanics. The difference however, is that many people can learn how to play a violin functionally or to become competent in mathematical physics though it may take more time for some than for others and while you may never become as good as the prodigy, at some point the difference becomes virtually indistinguishable to all but the aficionado. On the other hand, there is no amount of practice or training that would enable the average person to dunk a basketball or to throw a baseball 100 miles per hour and the difference between a professional athlete’s ability and that of an average person is clearly noticeable.

The professional sports we have come to love today were, by and large, all invented within the past 150 years. They did not become at all profitable until the construction of stadiums and arenas. These sports had no potential to make a person rich until the invention of television specifically the ability to broadcast games “live via satellite”. Therefore, when one considers the amount of luck involved with being able to earn 10 million dollars a year by playing a game, it defies logic. Ultimately, being a successful professional athlete is akin to winning the lottery: extreme profits obtained largely by chance.

Now, I do not think that there is anything wrong with making huge sums of money simply for being tall or fast, I just think it’s…interesting.

Audley Hanna Jr.

The Ventriloquist and the Dummy

When your career consists of parading around like an immature 17 year old, you can be worth 150 million dollars and still look like a dummy, especially when there’s a billionaire real estate tycoon with his hand up your butt.

Barclays Center, the $4.9 billion sports arena and business and residential complex slated to be the centerpiece of the extensive Atlantic Yards redevelopment project in the Prospect Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY, was to be one of the great American entertainment complexes. Barclays planned to be the host of the New Jersey Nets, concerts, conventions and various other sporting events placing it in direct competition with both the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey and Madison Square Garden in Manhattan. Barclays Arena was to bring sports back to Brooklyn for the first time since the Trolley Dodgers relocated to Los Angeles following the 1957 season. Barclays was masterminded by of the current minority-once-solo owner of the financially fledgling New Jersey Nets, Bruce Ratner who plotted from day one to relocate the team to New York. Moving the team from New Jersey and to New York would be some feat but Ratner was determined. After paying $300 million in 2005, beating out a group led by Charles Kushner and former New Jersey governor Jon Corzine, Ratner became the owner of the New Jersey Nets and Ratner knew in order to make this multi-billion dollar deal a reality he would need a dummy: one with money to burn who was willing to spend it buy a modicum of respectability.

Brooklyn born and raised Shawn Corey Carter is the local boy who made good if you consider parlaying a supposed career peddling illegal drugs into one peddling expletive-laden beats and rhymes as making good. Known to the world as Jay-Z, Mr. Carter has sold over 40 million albums and is reportedly worth over $150 million, has a young beautiful successful wife and has done his part to increase the sale of Bentleys, Range Rovers, button down shirts, Cristal and snow white Nikes to his listening constituency. In addition to a lucrative career as a rapper, Jay-Z has spent time engaging in the usual rapper-esque forays into the mainstream business world such as: being the part-owner of a nightclub, starting a clothing line that is able to provide his fans with all the sweatpants and hoodies they desire and running a now defunct record label. Jay-Z is at the pinnacle of his life and the world seems to be his oyster but these ventures indicate a presence of money rather than respectability and respectability is what Jay-Z is after. Being a worldly man, Mr. Carter had come to understand that it’s not about how much money a man makes but rather how a man made his money and when Bruce Ratner approached him with the opportunity of a lifetime: partial ownership of a professional sports team.

Bruce Ratner knew that moving the Nets to Brooklyn would be quite a challenge and after the check cleared on his $300 million purchase, he sought out one of Brooklyn’s favorite sons, Shawn Carter. Jay-Z needed respectability and Ratner needed Jay-Z and his hype machine to bring attention, support, a fan base and hopefully Lebron James to his endeavor to revamp the Nets into a championship team. Ratner could use Jay-Z’s hip hop connections to propel him to where he wanted to be in the sports world and Jay-Z could use owning a slice of the Nets to prove that he was a bonafide business man that could transcend his questionable beginnings and the limitations of hip hop. For $4.5 million Jay-Z became part owner of the New Jersey Nets and Bruce Ratner acquired a new mascot. Yes, a mascot as although Jay-Z is a part-owner of the Nets, he is a silent partner making him little more than a stuffed shirt. Jay-Z can brag about owning a team but in reality, he has absolutely no control over the day to day operations of the team and no one will be eliciting his opinion on these matters. For Ratner, it’s a win-win: he gets the advertising power that goes along with being a platinum rapper without spending a dime or getting his hands dirty. Rater brought Jay-Z into his world just enough to control him.

In the meantime, due to the economy, the downturn in real estate markets, and eminent domain lawsuits, the deal for the Barclays Center is hanging on by a thread and although concrete was poured on June 29^th, uncertainty still exists regarding the future of the entire Atlantic Yards redevelopment effort. Looking to cut his losses, Ratner sold 80% the team to Russian billionaire, Mikhail Prokhorov for a paltry 200 million dollars. It is unclear what Jay-z’s partnership position is with the new owner and this is clear to everyone. As I was leaving NYC recently, I noticed they were taking down the prominent billboard featuring Jay-Z and Bruce Ratner, who ironically are virtually equals with regards to controlling the Nets. I stared at the giant photo very carefully and maybe it’s just me, but if you look closely it appears that Ratner’s hand is in Jay-Z’s back prompting him to say something nice to the audience.

Ernest J DuBose

I HOPE I AM WRONG

Prior to the American Presidential elections of 2008, I found myself in the US for a few weeks while preparing to sit the New York Bar Exam. For most of this time, I stayed just outside of Atlanta, Georgia. This was February; the heart of the Primary season and the anticipation was palpable. It was as though there was electricity in the air that raced across the heart of the entire country. Everyone had an opinion and everyone seemed to have a hope. Among Blacks around the globe, much of the excitement had to do in large measure to race, but this cannot completely explain the pervasive enthusiasm shared amongst a vast cross-section of the population of the globe. For the eight years previous, there had been a tidal wave of hopelessness and uncertainty. Many viewed President George W. Bush as obstinate, ineloquent and perhaps ineffective. George W. Bush, who had once hailed himself as a unifier, had become certainly one of the most divisive figures of my era. The world was now ready for a change. The world was now bold and audacious in its hopefulness. The eagerly anticipated CHANGE seemed inevitable. The world seemed poised for renaissance.

What Barack Obama represented was this hope. He brought to the world’s stage a brand new era not only in politics but also in culture. It seemed as though all of humanity’s innate cravings for peace and harmony vested solely upon this eloquent Hawaiian who just a few years before had been a complete unknown. His words wove a tapestry that spoke to the hearts and minds of all who heard them. By and large, those who listened to his speeches were left convinced that their political messiah had finally arrived. Save those controversies, which cunningly concocted by his adversaries, there was nothing controversial about Mr. Obama: he was a man who represented everything that everyone wanted, and it was because of this, that I was extremely concerned.

To my mind, the world is divided into three major categories of people: 25% who stand on the two extremes of each issue and 50% who stand, to varying degrees, in the middle. The extreme sides can never agree and the only way to move issues forward is either to sway the middle or to pacify it. Barack Obama however, appeared to appeal to everyone. His positions were amorphous to the point that no one could reasonably disagree with him. He was in favor of kittens and sunny days. He was going to unite all Americans behind the belief that America was a great nation. The problem is that while there are these three categories of people (the left, the right and those in the middle) who never agree on anything, there are argument-transcending certainties that are just taken as fact. For instance, no reasonable person is anti-kitten or anti-sunny day. However, to me, Barack Obama appeared to take facts, turn them into controversies and then feign consensus where there was no disagreement in existence. Where there was a controversy, he deftly straddled the slight lines of agreement all while never presenting an actual view. His ‘if by whiskey you mean social turmoil, I am vehemently against but if by whiskey you mean more small town revenue, then I am all for it’ rhetoric led to overwhelming agreement; although in my mind, no one seemed to know what it was they were agreeing with. To paraphrase the Bard, in my eyes, Barack Obama was little more than a poor player strutting and fretting upon the stage. His words were full of sound and fury and signified nothing.

Now, my worst fears appear realized: nearly two years later, the hope has escaped from the Obama administration like air rushing from a balloon. The excitement has turned to disenchantment, and apathy has returned to the masses like a once eradicated epidemic. Young people, wrenched from their indifference, flocked to Mr. Obama and once his victory was obtained they waited, breath abated, for the kinder friendlier world that his hope and change campaign seemed to promise, but the danger has always been that such a world would not come. They have wiped the faith from their eyes and to see that such a world has not come and in all likelihood would not come. President Obama’s ability to avoid disagreement now appears like indecisiveness. His desire for consensus and bipartisanship seems nothing more than weakness and inactivity. The young and once enthused who were waiting for the world to change are still waiting, only now it is far more devastating for they are waiting for the fulfilment of promises that allowed them to glimpse the bit of sky that they secretly dreamed of but never admitted yearning for. The funny thing about hope is that in can survive with the face of almost total darkness but when the last candle is extinguished, so is the illumination that hope brings. It is much easier to climb a mountain when you are starting at the bottom than it is to start from the middle once you have had the precipice just outside of your grasp. It is during the slide down the peak’s face that the hope’s final glow dies, leaving one no life with which to tackle the task once more. I fear that Barack Obama was not the beginning of hope for this generation but rather the end of it. I fear the hope that the world exuded, during those unforgettable days in 2008 will not be felt again; at least not in my generation for we now truly know the reason that hope rested in the bottom of Pandora’s accursed jar.

Audley Hanna

Apple and the Rise and Fall of Man

The serpent was slier than any creature the heavens wrought. It approached her and in a quiet, an oh so quiet whisper, he seduces her, smiling, looking her in the eyes, he says sit next to me, she sits. The serpent says “I can make you powerful; your husband he too can be powerful. Right now you are in the dark, but the light is not far, God knows of your darkness but chooses to keep you there; if you eat from that tree, it will make you as powerful as God himself. There will be light, no death, only the light that will make you Gods yourself.”

She was anxious, she asked herself “who is this creature, what is this creature.” But the creature knows her thoughts, he says “God has made the heavens and the earth, everything from the stars to the depths of hell, but the power is not his own, he keeps it for himself. The fruit from that tree your husband has named apple will give you the power of God, so eat, share with your husband and you will see.”

She succumbs, and gives the fruit to the man, who eats also, and the eyes of the two of them were opened.

Flash forward 2000 years and humanity is succumbing to another Apple, except there is no sly serpent, but a first class sales men from Cupertino, CA. The upcoming release of the new IPhone and its operating system has me pondering what new powers I can wield. While it might not make me god; it does me all knowing; no I can’t make a woman from a rib or man from dust, but I can create HD movies with the tips of my fingers, something the bible never attributed to god. Apple has made me a super multitasker, I can check email, talk, figure out the name of a song, find a restaurant, and send video all without resting on the 7th day. So I welcome the new IPhone and its features. Why, because I remember the darkness, colorless phones lacking style and swagger; however unlike our greatest ancestors this byte of the apple will pay off.

Adventures In Love

For 30 years he had always been a good father, husband, lover and friend and today he looked across the table into her eyes and instead of remarking on how wonderful their lives were and how happy he was, he said quietly but forcefully, “I am leaving you. I don’t love you anymore. I want a divorce.” She blinked in confusion and wondered if she had hallucinated. She leaned forward and attempted to force her lips to say, “Excuse me” but before she could get it out, he repeated himself this time louder: “I am leaving you. I don’t love you anymore. I want a divorce.” She looked into his eyes. They revealed nothing. His face was stone. Wait. He meant this. He was serious. She had heard him correctly. Like it had just appeared she saw his weekender at the door. He slowly rose from the table and without another word or a backwards glance, strode out of the door of the home they bought together 25 years ago. Her breath caught in her throat as she was smacked with the realization that her entire life just fell to pieces. She had planned on retirement with him. They had kids in college. Their oldest was trying for a baby. They were to be grandparents soon. She sat like a stone: numb and lifeless. Hours must have passed. The house they had raised a family in was empty. The life they had worked to build together was gone. Tears begin to stream down her face and her pain reverberated through the empty rooms. She didn’t know if she’d ever stop crying or if she could ever get out of that chair. The love of her life was…..gone.
********************
In researching this piece, I found numerous women who have posted messages on message boards who tell a similar story. Many have never worked outside of the home and are for all intensive purposes, helpless. These women sacrificed careers for family. They had never saved for retirement or even gave it a second thought. They built their lives around their families. Now, their kids are grown and just when they thought it was now time to rekindle the flame that smoldered for the last 30 years, their devoted husbands walk out on them. They want to know why. They thought everything with their husbands was in perfect working order. They thought their marriages were solid. They were the ones that younger women sought for advice on how to maintain marital bliss and they had given it freely. These women often remark, “Sure, there was no passion but we had each other.” They are surprised and devastated. They had no idea that he felt this way. They had no idea he wasn’t happy. He never seemed anything other than content. Yes, maybe the romance and excitement had waned but isn’t this what happens when you add kids, work and the stress of juggling finances to any marriage? Were they not just like millions of other couples entering their third stage? Weren’t they….happy?

Divorce after 30 years of marriage, also known as a grey divorce, has been on the uptick in the Western world and is such a rare event that few have bothered to study it. Some researchers state that these grey divorces of those aged 65 and over have increased to 10% in 2001. Overwhelmingly, the majority of divorces occur within the first 8 years of marriage. These are often the young struggling divorced mothers that we hear about and read about in national reports concerning the overworked and underpaid who are worried about their futures. No one thinks about the 55-65 year old woman with grown newly independent children and how a divorce after 30+ years can devastate her life: these women lose their life partners and their financial security and cannot count on their energetic youth to help them spring back.
Many therapists cite a meltdown or a midlife crisis as the cause of these events. What else can lead these otherwise sane men to abandon their wives without the slightest indication of his unhappiness? Stephanie Coontz, a professor of family studies at Evergreen State University and author of "Marriage, A History," has a very different answer; she says that couples breaking up after 20 to 30 years together are becoming increasingly common. "In the past, even if a marriage was unhappy, couples stayed together. What else could you do?" Coontz said. "The idea that you could meet another person at this stage was totally foreign. But now, people in their 50s and 60s are healthier, can look forward to another 25 to 35 years of life … and have more options, including a much higher chance of meeting a new partner." Although the chances of meeting another partner have increased overtime, there is a wide gap between the remarriage rates of men and women with women being much less likely to remarry than men.
Personally, I do not buy any of the simplistic assertions that we are living longer and that men are having a crisis of sorts that cause men to walk out on their families. Actually, according to a survey from the AARP, more often than not, the women are initiating the divorce, though this is not what is reflected in the current media reports of grey divorces. Time and time again, we are reading that these women are claiming that they had no idea anything was wrong. They were under the impression that their lives were the picture of domestic felicity. In many cases, the comfortable lives they were living were largely for the comfort and happiness of these women and the children. We are seeing that comfort and happiness for men and women tend to mean two completely different things. In her world, nothing was wrong and in his, everything was and her happiness blinded her to this fact as often happens in relationships. Many of these men are yearning to recapture the sense of adventure and exploration that they gave up for marriage and children. We see these men as walking out on their families when they are really waling into a life not marked by the discontents of civilization that say they must be complacent with a life that consists of little more than going to work and coming home to a Sam Adams and a Red Sox game and a “honey do” list.
What men seek when they leave their wives after 30 years is a new beginning and a sense of adventure. They are yearning to blossom out of the mundane lives they’ve lived for the last several decades in order to explore the world and rid themselves of tireless familial obligations more biologically suited for the feminine.
Wives should encourage their husband to go and explore before it’s too late. Instead of yet another weekend with her mother, she should send him off on his annual trip with his college buddies to go fishing or camping. Wives should encourage his golf outings and other hobbies that make him feel like he can escape the reality of ordinary family life. Wives, if you can get him away from the house without a wife and the kids a couple times a year and encourage his hobbies (even if they are slightly dangerous), you may be able to prevent one of those late evening conversations that mean the end of your 30-year marriage.
Many will point to Al and Tipper Gore’s recent announcement of divorce as being completely antithetical to my argument: here is a man who lived a life full of adventure. He has been a senator, vice president, presidential candidate and is currently the world spokesman on the all things environmental. What many pundits will admit is that Gore could have run again in 2004 and defeated his nemesis, George W. Bush. Gore could have also run in 2008 and been the anointed one and Barack Obama still would have been the senator from Illinois, but he didn’t. He stated that Tipper could not deal with another campaign and his family wanted him to spend more time at home.
Presidential candidates will admit that longing to be being president, once in your mind is an itch that does not stop until you are six feet under. Who knows if Gore would have been a great president? What he knows is that he was elected once to the presidency and there is a better than average chance he could have done it again, but for his wife. Now that Tipper is home alone, I wonder if she thinks she would have been better served letting the man fulfill his dream of trying to change the world rather than keeping him at home civilized and discontent.

Kwame Kilpatrick

Kwame Kilpatrick stood in the courtroom and begged for forgiveness. His lies in the text messaging and perjury scandal that rocked Detroit in 2008. Kilpatrick speaking softly portrayed himself as a bit beaten. He claimed to be a victim of a vindictive prosecutor who is fixated on the old Kwame Kilpatrick, the one who lied in a police whistleblower lawsuit when he denied being romantically involved with his then chief of staff Christine Beatty. He claimed to be a good husband, a new person, but Judge Groner’s response was simple “Your testimony in this court amounted to perjury” the end of the line had been reached for Kwame. He will now spend the next 2-5 years in prison. His law license has been taken from him, Compuware, the company paying is 120,000 dollar salary will be releasing him at the end of the month.

It is a strange and interesting result for a man to whom the mantle had been passed in 2002. He was crowned the hip-hop mayor: a new breed of politician from the streets who could understand the plight of the city while displaying an amazing aura of cool. In his 2002 inaugural address, Kilpatrick said:

“I stand before you as a son of the city of Detroit and all that it represents. I was born here in the city of Detroit, I was raised here in the city of Detroit, I went to these Detroit Public Schools. I understand this city. ... This position is personal to me. It's much more than just politics.”

All this was news to people who knew him. His mom, Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick had been a state representative (a seat Kwame took over after she vacated the seat to run for congress) and is now a member of congress where she has served since 2003. His dad, Bernard Kilpatrick was a chief of staff for a Wayne County Executive and now runs his own consulting firm. Kwame had never been what he said he was, and is no more hip-hop than the suburban middle class children who drive their expensive SUVs while singing along to the latest Lil Wayne.

All of this came to a head in the courtroom on May 25, 2010. For once, someone saw right through the mayor. The man who disgraced his office by inviting strippers into the mayoral mansion. During the first 33 months of the Kwame administration, he managed to rack up $210,000 in city issued credit cards to pay for travel, meals, and entertainment. He managed to install a 131 million dollar radio system that was used by the Detroit police and fire departments. He gave out no bid contracts and wantonly squandered the resources in the most economically depressed city in the country. Yet, in 2005 he managed to win re-election. How? He won with 53% of the vote, a victory he secured by sending his staffers to nursing homes to help dying patients fill out their ballots.

So who was the real Kwame? Probably a pimp who managed to jive is way into Black people’s hearts by providing them hope that even their hypersexual, irresponsible, earring wearing entitled sons can finagle their way into positions of power. There should be no place for that in our community. We should expect our politicians to speak without using colloquial terms, treat their offices with a tremendous amount of respect and more importantly love their wives and children. While this is an ideal, it is not one that we should be willing to compromise from the start. The mayor should be about the people’s business, not auditioning for a rap video.

I do not doubt that people will say it was racism, but I want to remind them that Kwame plead guilty and agreed to pay a fine of 1 million dollars to Detroit in payments of $79,000. Instead of paying his fine, he lived in million dollar homes, sent his wife to plastic surgeons and rode around in expensive SUVs. Some may see the sentence as too harsh. Kwame’s lawyer has already said that it seems as if they are "out to get" Kwame. It is a harsh sentence but unlike most things in Kwame’s life of privilege it may teach him and others that follow suit a valuable lesson: there is no space in our lives for people who take more than they give, misuse others for personal gain and take advantage of poorer and weaker members of the community to advance their own motives.

"Welcome to the Journal"

I didn’t grow up with a father, so I grew to my principled liberal ideas largely on my own and with a little nudge from mom; there was one man, however, who helped me focus my ideas and put them into practice. I began listening to Bill Moyers show several years ago because John Stewart was making an appearance and an interview with John Stewart is rare. What I saw was the father that I wish I had.
Since viewing Bill Moyers I have developed; I became a more responsible citizen, I became more informed, I volunteered, my world mattered more and eventually because of something I saw on his show I got a job. I looked forward to his program, the only passion, besides football, I would cancel dates, ignore family, and become upset if I did not catch.
With his white hair and Texas accent I loved Moyers like he was my own family. I knew Bill had daemons. I knew that he was the press secretary during Vietnam espousing the lies that lead to the deaths of millions of people. I also know that he will spend the rest of his life repairing the damage, for which he felt responsibility, but that is what made him real to me and an example for my life, mistakes are made; horrendous ones, but you can still live with purpose and inspire others.
Moyers was my champion, my hero and a voice I never wanted to stop hearing. He has reshaped my world and because of it will be thoroughly missed. So as I heard “Welcome to the Journal” for the last time to Bill Moyers I say thank you and you will be missed; you were like the father I never had.

Cooking With Greece

You may have heard on your nightly news program about a country named Greece and their current bit of financial trouble. As a result of their troubling debt to GDP ratio and the recent downgrade of their credit by Standard & Poor’s not to mention the 54 billion Euro payment due this year that the country seems unable to raise the capital to pay, the country of Greece now finds itself in dire straits and their populace has succumbed to violence. Now, before you stop reading and say, “why should I care about a country thousands of miles away?” WAIT! I am going to tell you: because what happens in Greece doesn’t stay in Greece.

Now, let’s say a Chinese or Saudi official shows up at the United States Department of Treasury to cash one of the trillions of dollars in US Treasury Securities (on which we pay $500 billion in interest a year) only to find out that the US does not have the money to pay. What do you think would happen? 1. The US’s credit rating would fall meaning that we would pay more to borrow money (if anyone decided to lend to us. I mean, would you lend to a person who had bad credit?) 2. The value of the dollar would immediately plummet. Unlike Greece, America is not part of an economic union and unlike Greece, our currency is ours alone. 3. As a result, oil prices would skyrocket and the cost of goods would increase exponentially. Yes, this is bad but because of the high cost of importing goods from other countries, the market would respond with an increase in manufacturing ergo the creation of manufacturing jobs. The unemployment rate would fall to “full” employment meaning the official numbers would decrease from 9.7% to below 5%.

Why? Because oil is traded in American dollars. If the dollar looses value, economies that use a stronger currency--primarily those who trade in Euros--would increase their purchases of barrels of oil. At such a cheap price, these countries could get more oil for their money and gain higher returns on their investments when the price of oil eventually rose. The increase in manufacturing would come as the result of the cheapness of American goods that are manufactured with the now devalued dollar. Suddenly, cars manufactured in America would cost next-to-nothing to a person buying them with Euros. Inevitably, Europeans would buy more of them. American products would not be able to stay on the shelves in other countries because they would be cheaper than those that are locally manufactured. Therefore, if we don’t pay our debt oil goes to 5 dollars a gallon and everyone gets a job. Not a win-win to me, but good enough.

Now, back to Greece, their epic economic crisis and how it affects us: Greece is a small beautiful European country near the Mediterranean. Besides being known for fantastic EVOO, romantic weddings, a history of brave warriors and angry gods, the invention of Western Civilization and the Olympics; Greece is also known for corrupt government, poor budget management, and a lethargic populace. This lead them to try to cover up there budgetary shortfalls by hiring Goldman Sacs (when you need to do something dirty and deceitful, you hire the best) to review their books and hide their debt. This worked until recently when the you-know-what hit the fan and they could no longer hide their debt. It turns out that Greece has more debts than they have in assets and according to some, their debt to GDP ratio is 125% (one of the highest in the world). As it stands, in Greece has been bailed out and provided with a 110 billion Euro rescue package in an attempt to stop the Greek crisis from spreading through the rest of the 16 country European Union. Greece has been forced to cut government spending and is currently faced with an unemployment rate that is over 20%. This in addition to major cuts in social services needed in order to survive this crisis has the Greeks are rioting in the street and burning banks with Molotov Cocktails.

The million-dollar question is what does this mean for you? Greek debt means the Euro will become significantly devalued but unlike what would happen in America, the Greek crisis means the opposite for them than what would happen to us if the dollar decreased in the manner explained above. Unlike the win-win situation that America would have with the devaluation of the dollar in the face this Greek crisis and a possible European one the dollar with rise. The prices of oil will not plummet but the number of American exports to the European Union will keep us in a longer and deeper recession that we expected. In our current global financial system, everything is cyclical: a burst of the American housing bubble leads to a collapse of the banking system, a decline in Greek tourism and a bruised European system with a devalued currency and a decrease of American exports to Europe. What happens in Greece doesn’t stay in Greece, it reverberates throughout the world. Can you feel it?

Treason

Treason

John Harington invented the precursor to the modern flush toilet in England around1596 hence the reason we often refer to the bathroom as "the John". Sir John was an avid writer and wrote about his invention, which he referred to as the Ajax, in his 1596 work A New Discourse on a Stale Subject: The Metomorphasis of Ajax. Although he did present his new invention Harington also used the volume as a political allegory in which he attacked the excrement that he felt was poisoning society. John is known for epigram: “Treason doth never prosper, what is the reason? Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”

Treason is not a term we often hear in this country as it is a rarely prosecuted crime. Article III, Section 3 of the United States Constitution defines treason against the United States as levying war against the US or giving aid and comfort to enemies of the US. Treason is a crime punishable by death. The last truly famous trial for treason was of the infamous Julius and Ethel Rosenburg who were accused and convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage and executed for it June 19, 1953 in Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, NY. More recently (2001) Robert Hanssen, whose treason was made famous by a major motion picture, pled guilty to espionage. For 22 years, Hanssen spied for the Soviets and the Russians all while appearing to be a loyal FBI and competent agent in the FBI. Hanssen's involvement with the Soviets and later the Russians has been called the worse intelligence disaster in US history. If we wanted to go further back to the first infamous traitor to the country, we must go back to Benedict Arnold show while the general in command of a fort at West Point, NY plotted unsuccessfully to surrender his fort to the British. When his plan was revealed, Arnold defected to the British army. At the time, Arnold was viewed in a harsher light than Judas Iscariot who, as Benjamin Franklin noted, "sold only one man" whereas Arnold sold three million. Knowing how we as a country punish those who we deem betrayers to the Union, many of us continue to celebrate the treasonous acts committed by those who seceded from the Union and for four years chose to exist as another country: The Confederate States of America.
Beginning on December 20, 1860 with the state of South Carolina, 11 states asserted that they had the legal right to secede from the United States of America--Abraham Lincoln did not agree. These states: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina (Kentucky and Missouri have been claimed by the Confederacy although they never formally seceded from the Union. The New Mexico Territory which consists of modern day Arizona and New Mexico also seceded though for very different reasons) were in dispute with the Union states over the expansion and maintenance of slavery. The spark that lit the fire was the magnitude of the support for Lincoln's party in the northern states. According to Civil War historian, James M. McPherson quoting the Richmond Examiner, the Lincoln's Republican Party was viewed as "A party founded on the single sentiment...of hatred of African slavery" and the New Orleans Delta referred to the party as a revolutionary party. It was for this reason, that southern states in their belligerence rebelled against the United States and chose to commit the greatest act of treason ever recorded in American history: The American Civil War.
In Virginia and across the South, treason has endured. Confederate influence remains remarkably poignant the death of this "nation" 145 years ago. The Confederacy little more than an outlaw band of traitors responsible for the murder of hundreds of thousands of Americans. They murdered not for patriotic cause but, as Lincoln so eloquently stated, to continue “wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces.” The actions of the Confederacy are not cause for celebration. In remembering the Confederacy we should honor the sacrifice of life and limb by thousands of Union solders and the theft of the lives and labor of Blacks in this country. Yet, like a petulant child the South cries and longs for the return of the antebellum norms and mores. For them, a simpler time when cotton was king, women were at home, and when a nigger knew his place. This White supremacist attitude is clearly expressed in the motto of the Arlington Confederate Monument which reads "Victrix causea Diis placuit, sed victa Catoni" which translates into "The winning cause pleased the Gods but the losing cause pleased Cato", a stoic advocate of freedom. To imply that Cato would have sided with the Confederacy in support of their freedom proves that they viewed (and still view) the defense of the enslavement of Blacks as a just and righteous cause.
What simultaneously disturbs and surprises me is that American establishment at large, including the United States government, tolerates the remembrance of Confederacy and its treasonous past. Confederate flags wave atop of capital buildings, in state schools and in and around the homes and vehicles of many Americans and not just those in these 11 states. How the display of Confederate flags is not seen as unlawful and seditious behavior is beyond my comprehension. It would seem that a state that flew a Confederate flag would at the very least place its federal funding in jeopardy for essentially advocating the overthrow of the United States government. It would be appropriate for a governor who advocated for a state sponsored celebratory period of the Confederacy be immediately removed from office for violating his oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America.
Besides being seditious, the major issue with the Confederacy is that it fuels (and is fueled by) racist and xenophobic behaviors. Southern obsession with their illicit past has lead to the mistrust of government resulting in the lack social safety nets that have stunted the type of economic growth that leads to large gains in quality education and employment opportunities. If you want to find the states that are the unhealthiest, most illiterate, polluted, underpaid and uneducated look to the states of the Confederacy.
As a nation, we should begin to marginalize Confederate romantics. We should threaten to withdraw funding to states and institutions that wave the Stars and Bars. Politicians that advocate views of the Confederacy (such as Texas Governor Rick Perry, Virginia Governor Robert McDonnell and Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour) should be charged with treason. For the many Americans who claim that the remembrance of the Confederacy is about heritage and not hate, let us revisit the words of Alexander Hamilton Stephens, the vice president of the Confederacy, as quoted in his famous Cornerstone Speech:

"Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical and moral truth"

With every Confederate flag displayed and purchased, symbolic violence is inflicted upon Blacks in this country and warfare is declared: a treasonous act. Those who claim the Confederacy as heritage should be reminded that a patriot cannot exist where treason is a celebrated and their heritage is one of hate. In our country if we are to exist as a people we must call the Confederacy what it really is: treason and we should force our people to turn away from treasonous acts and work to heal the rupture that these actions have caused and continue to cause.

I think about John Harington and his invention of the early flush toilet and his controversial book. How odd is it that a man who would invent the toilet would speak so eloquently about treason? Maybe it is not such a stretch to think that treason, if left to fester can sink an entire nation down the toilet.

She Don’t Want No Scrubs: Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas and her search for love

The media has made it has been a rough few weeks for black women. In addition to the new-found fascination with their seemingly inescapable singleness First, there was the release of Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married Too that displayed black women as little more than sophomoric children who only care about money and conjuring up ideas in their heads about who and where there loyal husbands might be cheating. Then, Basketball Wives made its premiere. This show depicted Black women as money hungry groupies who are currently or formerly married NBA players. They were crafted as desperate, jealous and self-centered women who cared nothing about their families or building a future. Finally, there was the more interesting What Chilli Wants?

What Chilli Wants followed the former music sensation as she searched for a man on the streets of Atlanta. She had a laundry list of specifics. Chilli wanted a man who was a teetotaler, non-smoker, had a six pack, successful, saved and sanctified, got along with her family, an abstainer from pork and hung. After watching the show I had to scratch my head and ask if Chilli is representative of the wants of Black American women and if so, could this be the reason that so many Black women are sans husband.

I decided to take an informal poll and ask some Black, White and Hispanic women what they were searching for in a husband. Though not a representative sample, the answers were somewhat surprising. The White women focused heavily on humor and adventure. They felt that their men did not need to have an education but they did need to have a career and be ambitious. The Hispanic women said college was important but not necessary. They thought religion was important and had a height requirement though it could be waived. They stated that a man had to be open-minded, funny, intelligent and knew how to have a good time. Black women placed a heavy emphasis on education and career but more importantly occupational prestige. Black women did not say funny. They did not say adventurous. They did not say intelligent or ambitious. In fact, Black women used no adjectives that would endear a man to them personally. Black women presented a list that was less like a shopping list for a husband and more like a list of qualifications for a new corporate hire. In many ways, their list was very similar to Chilli’s: all shine and very little substance.

Everything on Chilli’s list made her man appealing to people who don’t know him. He looked great on paper. A college would happily enroll him. A job would happily hire him. A bank would gladly give him a loan. Chilli failed to mention those qualities that facilitate true intimacy. She spoke nothing of a compassionate, loving, understanding, man who would support her on her worst days and laugh with her on her best. The characteristics that Chilli omitted from her list of qualifications are exactly those that Chilli Should Want if Chilli wants to be happy and have her relationship blossom into something more than a temporary distraction. If Chilli wants a Sunday kind of love that lasts past Saturday night (as Etta James would sing), then she needs to reevaluate her list.

I read an article in the Boston Globe written by Dr. Robin Schoenthaler, a radiation oncologist at Massachusetts General Hospital. She wants women to ask an important question when attempting to ascertain if a man is husband material: Will he hold your purse? After years spent providing medical care to women with breast cancer, Dr. Schoenthaler feels that everything she learned about marriage, she learned in her cancer clinic. Dr. Schoenthaler has seen thousands of couples and encountered many men that she refers to as great “purse partners.” Every day these men drove their wives in for radiation treatments and every day these couples silently sat side by side in the waiting room. Dr. Schoenthaler describes, “Each wife, when her name was called, would stand, take a breath and hand her purse over to her husband. Then she’d disappear into the recesses of the radiation room, leaving behind a stony-faced man holding what was typically a white vinyl pocketbook.” Dr. Schoenthaler reports that of all the men that she’s seen pass through her clinic, the “purse partner” is her favorite. He sat in silence holding that purse “with the knowledge that 20 feet away technologists were preparing to program an unimaginably complicated X-ray machine and aim it at the mother of his kids.”

A man with a great career and education is important, but will he be there when you need him the most? Can he make you laugh when things are the most difficult? Does he stick by you when you are at your worst? Would he sit in the waiting room and hold your purse?

I encourage Black women to find happiness with compassionate steadfast men and not to put something as shallow as looks or wealth ahead of those things. Relationships such as marriage and parenting are long term ventures that outlast the transient characteristics that Chilli is looking for in a mate. In order to have a relationship that endures, you need a mate to love you when even when you feel there is no one else who does. You need a great purse partner.

Below I’ve posted the ad that Dr. Schoenthaler would recommend for any woman who is dating online and the ad that I recommend for any women who is looking for a long-term mate. In a few simple sentences, she’s encompassed the highs and lows and joys and sorrows that a couple will experience over time and the type of man that a woman needs in order to get through these experiences in one piece. She’s described the perfect purse partner.

WANTED

A partner for richer or poorer and for better or worse and absolutely, positively in sickness and in health. A partner for fishing and French food and beach walks and kayak trips, but also for phone calls from physicians with biopsy results. A guy who knows that while much of marriage is a 50-50 give-and-take, sometimes it’s more like 80-20, and that’s OK, even when the 80-20 phase goes on and on. A man who truly doesn’t care what somebody’s breast looks like after cancer surgery, or at least will never reveal that he’s given it a moment’s thought. A guy who’s got some comfort level with secretions and knows the value of a cool, damp washcloth. A partner who knows to remove the computer mouse from a woman’s hand when she types phrases like “breast cancer death sentence” in a Google search. And, most of all, a partner who will sit in a cancer clinic waiting room and hold hard onto the purse on his lap.