50 days and counting down

There are 50 days left in the presidential campaign and if Sen. Barack Obama is to win, he quickly needs to change strategy.

Obama must get 90 percent or more of the Black vote, 70 or more percent of females, and at least 20 percent of those who claim to be independent if he wants to win in less than two months from today.

Sen. John McCain is avoiding urban America like the plague -- he and his running mate is focusing on the suburbs and rural American instead.

If I was advising him, following is my plan to get the three aforementioned groups -- none of which are locks in the Obama camp.

One, there are 14 million Black registered voters, and 9 million of them did not vote for Obama during the primaries. Therefore, he should do weekly teleconference calls with the Black press: mainstream media isn't going to get his message out to urban America -- the Black press is better at doing that.

Two, send Sen. Hilary Clinton out to address the women. If she is committed to helping Obama win as she claimed during the convention, then action and words are better than a glorified speech. She can rally the females, which would truly negate McCain's Sarah Palin, who really is speaking to the White male gun-toters.

Then have her husband, former President Bill Clinton, follow up right after his wife, to charm the masses. No one can give an impromtu speech better than Clinton, who also could follow after Obama to help seal the deal.

Third, Obama must go on radio talk shows (this is what Warren Ballentine has been saying for the longest). But in addition to Black radio program, which Ballentine suggest, I would add that Obama also hit those middle of the road outlet, and take only listeners' questions.

There will be some crazies who will call in, but that can be easily negated with the good ones. This way, the senator is speaking directly to the people, listening to them and answering them. It would be his own town hall meeting, and every city has a talk station or something close to it.
Don't go to those right-wing stations because Obama isn't going to win over those folk.

Fourth, Obama must stay on message every time he speaks. Get your points on every pertinent issue every time the camera and microphone is on. This gives him a free 30-second TV and radio spot because the media are covering him. This would go further than those political ads, and would hit those independents.

Finally, if the Democrats are to win the White House for the first time in this century, then every one of them must get out on the campaign trail. Send Joe Biden to the small towns. As mentioned earlier, send out the Clintons. And where is the Congressional Black Causus -- they should be speaking out more for Obama, talking to the Black press as well, doing the attacking on McCain and Palin, exposing the lies and deceitfulness of the GOP campaign.

The 50-day hourglass sand is running.

Can we get back on track

Is this presidential campaign about makeup or issues?



Sen. Barack Obama's so-called "lipstick" remark wasn't about Gov. Sarah Palin. We all have something like this, including Sen. John McCain, to talk about saying something crazy or bad and trying to dress it up as something fresh and new.



But the McCain campaign's outrage over this smells like Karl Rove. It's stinks!



Using CBS' Katie Coric's earlier remark about sexism during Sen. Hillary Clinton's primary campaign in their latest ad attacking Obama, is another Rove tactic that McCain is using.



But didn't Palin started all this mess with her asinine comments about the difference between herself, a so-called hockey mom, and a pitbull.



"Lipstick," she gladly told the GOP convention folk last week.



However, I am not looking for the next president's Max Factor knowledge; rather I am looking for an extreme makeover.



Am I hearing this so far? Not from McCain. Not from Palin, who's getting more celebrity treatment from the media than anything Obama supposedly received.



What happened to the high road campaign McCain earilier promised that he would conduct? It went out the window as soon as he chose Palin as running mate. She has been on the attack ever since her selection.



Like a pit bull . . . oops!



And just like Obama shouldn't, I won't apologize for this.



Isn't it time to get back to the pertinent issues: economy, health care, education and post-working security? Isn't it time to stop playing up to the crowds, the folk that is going to vote for you anyhow, and tell me something about how as president, you are going to make things radically different than the last eight years of lies and deceit, or

The last night was a bang

While Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain spoke inside on peace and prosperity Thursday night, outside the few blocks away from the 2008 GOP convention, it was a return to the past.

Police from near and far, came loaded for bear, as over 200 protesters were arrested during demonstrations.

As I left the Xcel Energy Center for the final time this week, walking down the narrow passageway created to keep those not wearing convention badges from entering, I watched scores of police dressed in war-like garb from head to toe. Helicopters constantly surrounded us from above.

After finally being allowed to leave the 'compound,' I got to see first-hand what was happening.

A group, estimated at over 700, had a permit to rally and march, but according to police, it had expired at 5 p.m. Thursday. The demonstrators wasn't taking no for an answer, and neither was the police, who lined up across the John Ireland Boulevard bridge over Interstate 94.

One officer dressed for war, complete with gas mask, told me that they stopped the demonstrators in their tracks.

"You can check CNN's web site," said one officer when asked for some details. He and two fellow officers -- all from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, were diverting traffic elsewhere: "We don't know," chimed the other two as they walked away from me.

Since I parked in the Sears store's parking lot, I had to choice but to get in the midst of the mess.

It was nothing short of a scene from those 60s protest marches:

"The whole world is watching," one of the repeated sayings bellowed among the crow

A 30-year-old man, originally from Kenya, who now lives in St. Paul, stood and watched what was going on. He and others wanted to join the protesters but were blocked by police.

"We are just shocked to see what's going on here," he notes. "This is the same as Zimbabwe."

What happened to free speech, asked another 30-year-old, who migrated here from Cameroon.

"We think this is just a method of . . . not allowing the GOP to see people protesting," he adds. "That is so wrong."

Apparently the police earlier decided that they were not going to allow another incident that took place on Monday, where windows were broken and tires slashed in downtown St. Paul.

"They didn't marched when they supposed to, so this is what is happening now," says Marvin, who was among the citizen "Peace Team" that St. Paul police often employ to help with marches and large gatherings. "They (the police) got (the crowd) in an holding area. This is a big night for McCain."

When asked, were all these folk the troublemakers the media has spoke about all week, Marvin responded, "You ain't ducking are you? We are (standing) talking. I would think it is pretty safe. You always have a few folk who does the alternative, but I think most people want to stand up for their rights."

Later, as the protesters retreated off the bridge, being told by police to move, they headed east to another bridge, cutting through the ground around the Veterans Affairs building. It was like following golfers around, I and others followed closely behind, while the police did a John Wayne and headed them off at the pass, stopping at them at the next checkpoint.

"Let us march," said the protesters before they plopped down and sat en masse in the intersection -- police instead stood in a Black Adder array: the first line with officers on horses, who used the street as their convenient restroom, with two more lines with clubs and pepper spray. As most of the crowd members sat unarmed, the police were strapped down like they were about to be dispatched to Iraq or Afghanistan, not downtown St. Paul.

And the crowd chanted: "Whose street? Our street. Whose war? Their war?"

"I think that when the sun goes down, it is going to get crazy," predicted a photographer.

He was right. It did. On this night, it was war in these streets.

Almost 90 people later were arrested, including two reporters. About a dozen more media members were also issued citations but later released.

"I'm seeing police acting like we are in another country," observed a 28-year-old male onlooker. "They are arresting people for nothing. They are using horses to knock people over. This is really weird."

I constantly took pictures (which my newspaper plan to run in our next edition) and recorded sound. At one point, I watched police intensely searched a man for dangerous weapons or something. He didn't have any, and they pushed him along. The police, however, allowed me to keep taking pictures uninhibited.

I spoke to two local reporters were roughed up by the peace officers.

"We were in the circle, and they asked us to leave," explained Jeff Shaw, a City Pages web editor. "I showed them my press pass, and they told me that I had to leave the circle. I told them that this is a public street. I got shoved, and I fell down. The next thing I had three to four cops were shoving (me), and one cop was shoving me with his billy club. Then I got throw out of the circle."

"I kept saying that I was a member of the media and not a protester, but they kept shoving me around," continued Shaw.

Andy Mannix, an intern at City Pages, got maced. "One guy told me to get down (on the ground), and I put my hands behind my head. They started macing me from behind and at the side of my head and face, and told me to get the f*** up. He helped me get up by grabbing my body and hoisted me."

"We didn't nothing to provoke them," says Shaw. "We repeatedly said that we are not resisting and just doing our job."

While McCain spoke of change, and balloons and streamers dropped from the ceiling, was he and the GOP convention goers aware of what was happening outside? Did they really cared during the coronation of their king?

"It is not fair to me," said a 27-year-old mother of two, who only wanted to get to her night job at the "CNN Grill," a restaurant that the cable news company temporary took over for the convention. The police would not allow her to cross their human barrier to continue to work, despite holding a special pass, given out to employees who work at businesses near the convention site.

"The rude-ass police told me that he didn't give a damn what pass I got," she said. "I am not going to be able to cross over until the protesting is down. They (are) missing with my money. I got food and bills to fu**ing pay. They can protest all they want - I just want to get to work."

She soon turned around and walked to the bus line to go back home.

"I've been trying to get to my car for over three hours," adds a 44-year-old man, who works in the area, but unfortunately parked in a garage across the bridge, which was blocked by police. "I was supposed to pick up my son from day care but I had to call my sister to go pick him up.

"There are a lot of people down here who don't have nothing to do with this," he says of the protesting. "It is a mess." As he pointed across the street, "There are people on that side that needs to get over to this side. I have been looking for an escape route but there isn't any. They got all the bridges closed off."

There was good news from all of this -- the GOP convention is now history, and perhaps things around downtown St. Paul and the capitol area will soon return to some sort of normalcy.

"Thank God," the man and the woman both said in unison.

Outside the GOP convention, Part 1

As a prelude to today's scheduled Poor People's March from Mears Park to the arena site of the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, the 2008 National Truth Commission took testimony on economic human rights violations in the U.S.

Hosted by the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign, the Sept. 1 event held at Christ Lutheran Church, just a few blocks from the RNC, was a multi-ethnic gathering of people not wearing outlandish convention-style costumes, or holding state placards.

There were cheers Monday night but not for a presidential nominee, but for the many speakers who came forward and testify not about the virtue of a political party using Madison Avenue slogans, but about the injustices they have faced in the greatest country on Earth.

"I can not afford health care," Annette Toney of Cleveland, Ohio told the audience. "I do not want to depend on others."

Ann Patterson, who has worked as a nurse for 17 years in Minneapolis, says she has seen her monthly health insurance premiums leaped from zero to now $500. "My husband recently lost his job," explains Patterson. "We've used our credit cards, savings and our children's savings. We are not able to make it. It is stressful."

Also a mother of five children, two of which are dealing with regular health concerns, Patterson adds that despite almost two-decades experience on her job, she has seen her job lay off others with even more seniority than hers. "I have no comfort that I will have a job tomorrow," she notes.

Rev. Gregory Lockett of Tampa, Florida is dealing with high blood pressure but publicly admitted Monday night that he had on many occasions become "dishonest" in getting his medications "because if I told the truth, they (officials) would told me to go someplace else," he points out.

"The (federal) government can spend millions on a war but can't take care of its people," says Carol Sawall-Smith of Chicago. "We need to do something about the health care in our country."

Not only health care, but housing concerns also was testified about.

Donte Davis of Louisville, Kentucky and his two children live in a crowded one-bedroom apartment. "They don't understand any of this," says the single father of his children's constant bewilderment of their current living conditions.

William "J.R." Flemming of Chicago says, "(It) is a fact" that the U.S. is in violation of human rights. "I am human. I deserve human rights. If you won't do it for me, do it for my (ten) children."

These violations have been ongoing and "is being largely ignored," says Peter Brown, a Minneapolis attorney who specializes on human rights complaints. "The right to housing, health care and education is the right of everybody, everywhere," he surmises, adding that not only the U.S. is responsible but "we also bear some responsibility, especially in holding (elected) officials accountable."

After its first day, in which activities either were curtailed or postponed because of Hurricane Gustav, the GOP convention is back on track today.

But Monday's night "truth" hearing went on as scheduled. Too bad the GOP faithful, the ones with the funny hats, couldn't had boarded their bus and rolled down a few blocks and heard these folk talk.

Then again, hearing the truth is not what most conventioneers want to hear.

One down, seven to go

After Minnesota's 92-78 victory Saturday over Washington, Lynx Coach Don Zierden was quick to give credit:

"I want to give our practice team a lot of credit," Zierden starts off. "We go against some athletic guys."

These eight guys: Greg Chassen, Kacey Keys, Eli Jermanous, George Dennis, Marcus Williams, along with Romone, Hans, and Joe, often are called in to provide live competition for the Lynx during practices. Using males as live scrimmage bodies is a common practice for women's college teams.

"Of our 15 practices (during the month-long Olympic break), we went against them nine times," continues the coach. "I want to credit them for how hard they pushed us, and credit our players for going against them. I think that made them better in helping them prepare for tonight."

"They really pushed us," Lynx guard Candice Wiggins says of the practice guys. "We were playing defense against them all the time."

Center Nicky Anosike adds, "The guys are bigger, stronger and faster. It really helps us as far as being able to play up to that level. Playing against them, then come into the game, it enables us to match (Washington's) physicality."

Definitely it showed throughout Saturday's contest that the guys toughened the Lynx up.

"Washington is a physical team, and I want to give my players a lot of credit," says Zierden.

Minnesota (14-13) got out in front 15-4 in the game's first five minutes, then hung on to a three-point lead at the end of the first quarter.

Then later, after a 28-28 tie, the Lynx again inched out front, mainly on the play of Vanessa Hayden-Johnson (three points), Wiggins (two points) and Charde Houston (four points) off the bench to give Minnesota a 46-38 halftime lead.

The Lynx never lost its advantage the rest of the game, but it finally took a 14-2 run midway through the final quarter to finally put to rest any notion that Washington (10-18) might had in getting back in the contest.

It was pretty, especially in the fourth quarter, when it seemed like a whistle was being blown every 10 seconds, but Minnesota notched a much-needed win to keep them in the playoff hunt.

"I knew there would be lapses tonight because we haven't played a game in over a month," continues Coach Z. "But I thought our energy and effort was pretty consistent."

"We kept our composure in the fourth quarter," says Lynx forward Seimone Augustus, whose two of her 12 points helped kick-start Minnesota's final scoring spurt.

Zierden was especially pleased with the performance of Hayden-Johnson, who finished with 11 points and nine rebounds. "She was really big tonight," says Zierden. "When she plays like that, she gives us a huge lift."

Says Hayden-Johnson, "I just wanted to help in any way that I could."

She and Wiggins (22 points) led the Lynx bench, which outscored Washington's 43-15. The team also held the Mystics to 41 percent shooting and under 80 points, along with finishing even on the boards (38 rebounds apiece). Every Minnesota player scored as well.

"There were some positives tonight," the coach surmises.

Now it's off on a road trip that either will make or break the Lynx's season, beginning Monday at Los Angeles, followed by stops at Phoenix (Sept. 3), Seattle (Sept. 6), and Sacramento (Sept. 7)

"This is where people are writing us off," believes Zierden. "These young players have fought (all season) and I am so proud of them. We are down to our last seven games -- last year at this time, we were looking at the draft -- and now we are in the playoff mix. We know it is going to be difficult going on the road, but I know one thing -- these young kids are going to compete."

Says Hayden-Johnson, one of only two Lynx players who have seen post-season play in a Minnesota uniform, "We can't depend on L.A. or (another) team to lose. We got to win and help ourselves out.

"We just got to get the job done," concludes Augustus matter-of-fact.

W.W.J.D.?

This presidential campaign has gone on so long that we now must rely on airhead thoughts from movie stars and celebrities.

While watching the Olympic coverage on MSNBC, one of NBC's multiple channels covering the event, I saw a report on Angeline Jolie's voting preferences. That she hasn't decided which candidate she'll support -- Barack Obama or John McCann, because she is an independent.

In such a historical election, news media instead of speaking to common folk, gathering their opinion, or better yet, doing better coverage on issues rather than nonsense, we get to hear what political leanings an overexposed movie star (?) has.

Is America waiting breathlessly for which way Jolie is going to go? Has she suddenly becomes the swing vote this November?

Is this W.W.J.D. -- who will Jolie decides upon?

All summer long, we were needlessly treated to hourly updates on Jolie's pregnancy, who is just another single mother. But this same media that fawns over her, has no qualms jumping on a young woman who have multiple children out of wedlock.

While Russia continues to invade Georgia -- while the current U.S. president has the nerve to tell Putin to pull out, especially this coming from a man who invaded not one, but two countries, Keith Obermann spends last night talking about Jolie's potential presidential choice.

Fortunately, I had my mute button on, so I just got the visuals -- the usual red carpet scenes of Jolie and Brad Pitt, and didn't hear what Obermann had to say about it. It didn't matter because it was such a waste of time, I quickly switched to the mother channel (NBC) and continued watching something much more important -- men's gymnastics.

Is this D.A.C. -- does most Americans care what Jolie thinks who she wants for president?

I certainly don't.

A weekend of sadness

It has been a shocking weekend to say the least: Bernie Mac died Saturday morning at age 50, then Issac Hayes died Sunday at age 65.

Bernie Mac was not an overnight success, at least in the eyes of mainstream America. They knew him either from his television show or appearing in the two "Oceans" movies.

Issac Hayes reached mainstream America's consciousness after he won the 1971 Academy Award for best soundtrack. But he was more than the singer of "Shaft" or the voice of Chef in the obnoxious "South Park."

Black America knew both men, and knew them well.

Mac (1957-2008) accurately brought a slice of Black life to stage, screen and television. He closed "The Original Kings of Comedy" (2000), where he hilariously explained the difference between a noun and a verb. Another bit he did was the prelude to "The Bernie Mac Show," which aired from 2001 to 2006 on Fox, that featured him as an uncle raising his sister's three children. It won a Peabody Award in 2002. He was the rougher side of the Black father figure that Bill Cosby earlier protrayed on television, again showing that Blacks can be more than warm and fuzzy, yet caring.

Hayes (1942-2008) co-wrote "Soul Man" then embarked on a successful solo career, beginning with his 12-minute cover of "Walk On By," part of his four-song debut album, "Hot Buttered Soul" in which only one cut was shorter than five minutes. I discovered him back in the early 1970s on a now-defunct Detroit jazz station -- Hayes' songs were too long for the local AM Black stations at the time.

Hayes followed this classic with "The Issac Hayes Movement," another four-cut masterpiece, which featured a cover of the Beatles' "Something," and ". . . To Be Continued" before he released the "Shaft" soundtrack, when the rest of America finally discovered this man.

As great as these two men were, will they get the type of tributes they deserved.

Will Mac get the lengthy tributes that usually afforded White comedians when they leave for their eternal reward? Will Hayes be honored for his musical contributions as White musicians and singers do when they go?

The Clarence Thomas hearings sadly overshadowed Redd Foxx's passing.

More was said about Richard Pryor's use of profanity than his comedic genius -- it was just the opposite for George Carlin when he died earlier this summer.

Little was said about the late Robin Harris, who like Mac, also died suddenly and way too young. His "BeBe's Kids" told how unruly children can be without proper guidance and supervision.

Topper Carew's excellent documentary, "We Don't Die: We Multiply -- The Robin Harris Story" features Mac and other Black comics. It is a must-have DVD, and can be ordered on TopperCarew.com.

Hayes, who was inducted into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002, was more than Shaft -- one of his best songs was "Part-Time Love" on his "Black Moses" double album. He also appeared in several movies, starring in "Truck Turner" and was a popular recurring character on "The Rockford Files," calling James Garner "Rockfish."

"Isaac Hayes is Memphis," Memphis TV reporter Kontji Anthony told CNN Sunday. He leaves to mourn and cherish his memories a wife and 12 children.

"My heart really goes out to his wife and (their child)," comic and friend Steve Harvey said on CNN. Mac married his high school sweetheart -- she, their daughter and their granddaughter are his survivors.

Mac and Hayes will be truly missed by White America, but Black America will miss them more because we knew them longer and best.