Watch Get Futuristic on 'em

I have contributed to the shared Fiction blog, 50 Years From Now.

I would encourage all of you to take a goooood lonnnnnng look at that blog, because the future is closer than you think.

Run along, now..and come back and tell me what you thought.

Another year, another attempt at a football blog

2007's attempt at a Football Blog begins anew

I was born into the family.

Not everyone has been as fortunate.

I was born on June 10, 1970 at Magee Women's Hospital in the city of Pittsburgh.

The Steelers of the modern era were born eighteen months before.

The Elders of our family maintain that the Steelers have a rich history that extends back to The great depression.

I would suppose that to be true.

Click the above link to continue

The Power of Blogging: LaVena Johnson's family needs your help

Allow me to join other bloggers in calling for your support in the case of PFC. LaVena Johnson.

The cover-up of a soldier's death?

Once upon a time lived a young woman from a St. Louis suburb. She was an honor roll student, she played the violin, she donated blood and volunteered for American Heart Association walks. She elected to put off college for a while and joined the Army once out of school. At Fort Campbell, KY, she was assigned as a weapons supply manager to the 129th Corps Support Battalion.

She was LaVena Johnson, private first class, and she died near Balad, Iraq, on July 19, 2005, just eight days shy of her twentieth birthday. She was the first woman soldier from Missouri to die while serving in Iraq or Afghanistan.

The tragedy of her story begins there.

An Army representative initially told LaVena's father, Dr. John Johnson, that his daughter died of "died of self-inflicted, noncombat injuries," but initially added that it was not a suicide. The subsequent Army investigation reversed this finding and declared LaVena's death a suicide, a finding refuted by the soldier's family. In an article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Dr. Johnson pointed to indications that his daughter had endured a physical struggle before she died - two loose front teeth, a "busted lip" that had to be reconstructed by the funeral home - suggesting that "someone might have punched her in the mouth."

A promise by the office of Representative William Lacy Clay to look into the matter produced nothing. The military said that the matter was closed.

Little more on LaVena's death was said until St. Louis CBS affiliate KMOV aired a story last night which disclosed troubling details not previously made public - details which belie the Army's assertion that the young Florissant native died by her own hand. The video of the report is available on the KMOV website.

Reporter Matt Sczesny spoke with LaVena's father and examined documents and photos sent by Army investigators. So far from supporting the claim that LaVena died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, the documents provided elements of another scenario altogether:

• Indications of physical abuse that went unremarked by the autopsy
• The absence of psychological indicators of suicidal thoughts; indeed, testimony that LaVena was happy and healthy prior to her death
• Indications, via residue tests, that LaVena may not even have handled the weapon that killed her
• A blood trail outside the tent where Lavena's body was found
• Indications that someone attenpted to set LaVena's body on fire

The Army has resisted calls by Dr. Johnson and by KMOV to reopen its investigation.

We have seen in other military deaths, most infamously that of Army Ranger and former professional football player Cpl. Pat Tillman, that the Army has engaged in an insulting game of deny and delay when it comes to uncovering embarrassing facts. Only when public and official attention is brought to bear on the matter - as happened, eventually and with great effort, with the case of Cpl. Tillman - do unpleasant truths come to light.

Astonishing as it seems, it takes that level of outrage to compel the Army to find the truth and tell it, to honor its own soldiers. No such groundswell has yet emerged in the case of LaVena; not enough voices have demanded that someone in the military, anyone, speak for her. At first glance, the contrast between the cases of Pat Tillman and LaVena Johnson seems vast, but at the core the situations are the same. In each case, the death of a young soldier in a dangerous place and time was not explained to the families they left behind, the families that gave them up so that they could serve us. An honest accounting of their passing is all the dead ask of us.

The mother of Pat Tillman put the matter in stark and honest terms:

"This is how they treat a family of a high-profile individual," she said. "How are they treating others?"

In the case of Private First Class Johnson, we know the answer.

please sign the i-petition to show your support for finding the truth.

The pattern is starting to reveal itself.

I fucks with Gary Sheffield.

Let me pause to state that, as a card carrying progressive evangelical, I usually refrain from dropping F-Bombs, particularly in public.

Be that as it may, I am a writer, and in this case, *fucks* is the appropriate verb.

In this case, I mean to say that while I am not inclined to nominate him for sainthood, there is a certain nobility, even in his ignorance, that I find endearing.

It is not easy carrying the torch for African-Americans in baseball. If Ryan Howard and Dontrelle Willis are able to maintain their affable demeanors for the duration of his career, I will be SHOCKED.

With each season, the numbers dwindle down, and African-American baseball stars talk quietly amongst themselves and to the media, trying to explain why, in a culture that lionizes sports, they toil in relative obscurity.

Gary Sheffield is a baseball player. He Has Hall of Fame-caliber Numbers and a World Series ring. He broke into the Majors in NINETEEN EIGHTY-EIGHT and has played for seven teams in both leagues.

But none of that matters.


What matters is that Gary Sheffield is unconcerned about how he "appears" to the average Joe. If you put a microphone in his face, he will say whatever he thinks, unconcerned about how he gets percieved as a result.

For the benefit of those unfamiliar with Mr. Sheffield's willingness to go on the record. The fine folk at 100% injury rate were nice enough to compile a nice (if not entirely objective) list of Sheffisms

Well, after about 16 minutes of Gary Sheffield on HBO, my wife looks at me and says...


"He didn't grow with his daddy in the home, did he?"

Please sit a spell while the veteran Molder of young minds drops science like she was in danger of failing it.

"He has no filter. Clearly, he didn't have a man in the house to kick his ass and tell him you can't just do whatever the hell you wanna do. ESPECIALLY not as a Black man in America. Are you enlightened by this?"

Me: well, He did shed some potential light on treatment among certain players with the Yankees.

Her: SHUT UP! You knew that already. You aren't blind. You know how stuff like that works.

Me: well, yeah, I guess you're right.

Her: I see this all the time. The boys who don't have a man at home with a foot on their neck always are the ones quick to just go plumb off. As a man you gain a filter; not to be no punk, but you learn how to choose your spots, and speak authoritatively and clearly. How you gonna just get in front of a microphone and talk crazy just cause someone asks you a question. At some point, boys grow up to be men and learn to pick and choose.


You have to understand that as a teacher, my wife deals with this all the time. She also deals with mothers who enable this behavior and sometimes even encourage it. If you look over Gary Sheffield's career, you see a gradual maturity, but underneath, you also see the constant trend of indifference to public perception.

And so it goes.

If you strip away the minutiae, you can start to see an overarching trend.

From Gary Sheffield on the low end, to OJ Simpson on the high end, what you REALLY and truly have is an intensified version of the same stories that my wife brings home from 4th grade.

Boys who find varying degrees of trouble because they are having difficulty mastering the level of maturity necessary to conduct yourself with adults who don't love you so much that they will put up with any amount of Bullshit you dish out.

You cannot go around "sayin whatever you gotta say and doin whatever you gotta do". It doesn't work when you are nine years old...it works even less when you're 39 years old...and when you choose your particular activities recklessly...


it REALLY goes badly for you.

Just watch.

The Gary Sheffield Prelude

In the process of an interview that will be on HBO's Real Sports tonight, Gary Sheffield, while interviewed by Andrea Kremer, asserted the following:

July 13, 2007 -- Ex-Yankee Gary Sheffield claims that the Yankees, and specifically Joe Torre, do not treat black players the same way as white players, in a bombshell interview with HBO's Andrea Kremer that will air Tuesday night on "Real Sports."

"Black players are treated differently than white players, particularly at Yankee Stadium," Sheffield said.

"Black players had an issue with Joe Torre," Sheffield continued. "They weren't treated like everybody else. Even I got called out in a couple of meetings that I thought was unfair."

During the interview Kremer pointed out that the most popular player on the team, Yankee Captain Derek Jeter, was half black and that he gets along very well with Torre.

"Derek Jeter is black and white," Sheffield responded. "There's really no significance. [He] just ain't all the way black."

"Derek Jeter used to come to me and try to tell you what Joe Torre is all about, he's a good man, he's this, he's that, but like I tell Derek Jeter, that's you. It's one thing that they treat you a certain way; you don't feel what other people feel."

Though he admitted he does not think Torre is a racist, he also said "I think it's the way they do things around there. Since I was there I just saw that they run their ship different."

Sheffield claimed that to survive for long as a black player, the player must be "great," and that is the only reason he has played for as long as he has.

Well...You didn't think he would be able to cast aspersions on His Holiness, Joseph of Brooklyn and the Most Revered St. Derek of Kalamazoo and just walk away, did you?


Surely you knew better than that.

The usual suspects have trotted out and harrumphed in unison. Rather than link them all, I will focus on the words of one Buster Olney, who seemed to have put more thought into his excoriation of Sheffield than anyone else.

Maybe Torre is guilty of misreading how Sheffield would take this. Or maybe Torre is guilty of not liking Sheffield, in particular; other players -- white, black, Latin -- have privately felt that he didn't like them, in particular. But in four years of covering Torre, I never once had a sense that he had less or more regard for any player based on race. His instinct is to like people. Some managers and coaches grow to dislike players intensely as they get older; Joe is not like that. This is a trait which separates Torre and Bobby Cox from some established managers.

And let's face it: Sheffield has a long history of picking verbal fights, of taking shots, of complaining about mistreatment. It's as if he needs to be mad at somebody all the time; it's as if he needs a chip on his shoulder. A lot of managers and executives who have dealt with Sheffield in the past don't take his words at face value, viewing him in the same way they look at a David Wells or a Manny Ramirez. "It's like Manny being Manny," sighed one baseball official on Friday afternoon.

Some like Sheffield, some can't stand him, feeling that he doesn't respect the game. "The most selfish player I was ever around," said one staff member. All respect his ability, his ferocious courage as a hitter. And usually, when he says stuff like he said to Andrea Kremer, the reaction is: Whatever. It's Sheff. He talks, he says stuff.

But in this case, Sheffield's words about Torre are sharp and vicious, whether he meant them to be or not. It feels like he is slinging around words recklessly -- hurtful words which, when coming from a star player like Sheffield, can label someone for life. You cannot on one hand indicate that Torre treats black players differently than white players, and on the other hand say that he is not a racist. That makes no sense, and it is irresponsible.

I will actually WATCH Sheffield on HBO before I comment on the substance of the comments.

What must be addressed is Olney's final statement:

It feels like he is slinging around words recklessly -- hurtful words which, when coming from a star player like Sheffield, can label someone for life. You cannot on one hand indicate that Torre treats black players differently than white players, and on the other hand say that he is not a racist. That makes no sense, and it is irresponsible.

Regardless of the veracity of Gary Sheffield's statements about Joe Torre, Mr. Torre's place in baseball lore is secure, if ONLY because of the lack of credibility of the messenger.

More importantly, I am bemused that Buster Olney can speak so authoritatively about what constitutes racism. He knows his baseball, and I know he was invaluable to Mike Greenberg and his Cow-milking exploits, but I wasn't aware that he was astute in the subtle nuances of racism in the workplace.

Rather than just yell and cuss and berate, let me help Buster Olney out. It is QUITE possible to be discriminating in your treatment of Black and White players and STILL not stoop to the level of being a racist. If you start with the premise that all Black people aren't alike, then it stands to reason that certain Black folk might grate on white superiors while other Black folk endear themselves to White Superiors. These are personal and cultural issues. A white man/woman can be put off by the actions of a Black subordinate and still not paint the entire race with that brush.

All this is especially ironic when viewed in the context that Journalists are so quick to dismiss the presence of racism in Professional sports. Here you have an example of Buster Olney rushing to connect dots that Gary Sheffield refuses to. Sheffield makes point in saying that Torre treated Black players DIFFERENTLY not WORSE. He says it MORE Than once.

Gary Sheffield isn't stupid, some of you just THINK he is.


PS. Ima need white folk to just walk away from the "Derek Jeter ain't all the way Black remark." You don't want NONE of that, I promise you. It is complex and really doesn't have anything to do with random white folk who know nothing of raising Bi-racial children. Just leave it alone.

An Apology:

In the midst of my hard work on my forthcoming debut novel. I Have not given this blog its due.


Let me be blunt.


This blog sucks. right now. There is too much going on in the world, and in my life for me to put the kind of bullshit on here that I have been.

In that spirit, I have deleted the offending posts and will start anew tomorrow. Please accept my humble apologies.

There will be more to come on this development at a later date.

Another great moment in HipHop Nostalgia: Funk Master Flex

Major Props to TreyPeezy for this one

Funk Master Flex dug in the crates for five hours and played all hits from the 90s on the Fourth of July on Hot 97.


Expect lots of bombs being dropped, lots of Flex repetitions and literally hundreds of songs you haven't heard in YEARS.

Flex actually cuts and scratches, too. Thats right, youngins, the man can actually DJ.

This Year I Write my Novel #3

Today's Output: 719
Total Words: 2,041
Words remaining for First draft: approx. 147,959

Sentence of Note:

It was that detailed memory that soothed him into a deep sleep right there in the middle of the floor.

This process continued into the dawn; a moment of clarity followed by a rush of activity, stunted by a rush of emotions, ending in a torrent of tears.

Lather, Rinse, Repeat.

Grand Theft Satellite Dish

They just took it. These Mofoes took the satellite dish RIGHT off my house. Yeah, sure, I got AT&T Dish Network to come put ANOTHER one up, but how you gonna just STEAL the dish off a man's house in BROAD DAYLIGHT?


That's all, just had to get that out.

This Year I Write my Novel #2

Today's output: 763 words.
Total Words: 1,322
Words remaining for first draft: approx 148,678


Sentence of note:
Music shaped Mason's thoughts and enabled him to focus and put the pieces together. He realized now that as long as there was music playing he was going to be alright.

I felt better today than I did last week. I actually stopped myself this time. it feels rough, but I know that sharpening rough text is better than having no text. I am still working on baby steps but I do feel the faintest force of momentum. Time will tell.

Thank you again, Walter Mosley.