Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from November, 2007

Black Murder Victims: A National Tragedy

Driving home last night I listened to much of Chris Plante's radio show on WMAL 630 AM about Sean Taylor and the black murder victim crisis. It was a great and engaging show, the type that I hope I occasionally had when I was a radio host on XM . From Plante's show, according to the WMAL site : Chris wants to also know why no "so-called" black leaders like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are talking about or taking action in this area. "Why am I talking about this and not Al." CJL's answer: Sharpton and Jackson DO talk about talk about black-on-black crime, and it hasn't been a recent thing. For example, in 1984, the Associated Press distributed an article titled, "Jackson calls for end to black-on-black crime." According to that 1984 AP dispatch: "I want blacks who kill and maim other blacks ... to go to jail," Jackson told about 250 people at the headquarters of Operation PUSH, the civil rights organization he founded."

NPR Roundtable

Yesterday I was on NPR's Bloggers ' Roundtable Discussion segment on the show News and Notes. I just listened to the show again--of course, while it was going on, I felt that I was stumbling over my words, but listening again, it didn't seem that way. Of course, I didn't make all of the points I had in mind. This is always the challenge with these live shows. As a writer and researcher, I write and revise. But on live radio, that's it! You've got one shot, no time to reflect on things. The other guests were Debra Dickerson and L.N. Rock of African American Pundit . The first topic was a new survey by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies about black voters preferring Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama . It doesn ’t really matter who blacks vote for in the primary. Democrats can count on them during the general election. My former radio co-host, Eliot Morgan, makes the point that the black vote is as mysterious and as unpredictable as who is in G

Thank God for the Atom Bomb

Paul Tibbets , the pilot who dropped the first A-bomb on Japan in 1945, just died at the age of 92. I agree that the dropping of the A-bombs was a proper and effective way to end WWII. The best defense I've read is Paul Fussell's "Thank God for the Atom Bomb." A couple of random thoughts about Paul Tibbets . 1) His certainty is striking. It is now so hip to be a moderate or wishy -washy. The media in particular seems to enjoy stories about American soldiers torn over the need to obey orders to fight. Tibbets would be loved today if he had expressed anguish over what he had done. In today's climate, he might even be Time Magazine's Man of the Year if he dropped the bomb in an ocean rather than obeying orders to drop it on the enemy--except that the environmentalists might then protest glorifying such an environmental hater.. 2) Soldiers who actually do their jobs—that is, eliminate the enemy—seem to play second fiddle to soldiers who get captured and must be