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.
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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?