Long Time Gone

As the end of the decade approaches, it is time to take stock into what has been a tumultuous year for everyone. Even if things have gone your way and you feel 2009 events didn't affect you, well, you're wrong. No matter what social or economic strata you belonged to, everything, from the economy, weather, crime, employment, science, all of it, affected everyone.

Our nation added trillions of dollars in debt during the past decade and this will affect everyone for the foreseeable future. There are those who opposed this, but not making tough choices that had to be made towards the end of the decade would have been catastrophic to our nation for years to come.

War, or whatever we are in, is now transitioning into the second decade with no end in sight. We face an enemy determined to destroy us by any means necessary, and we still have no idea who the face of the enemy is. There are those who want to continue the status quo, scare tactics, in order to promote their agenda, keeping the jihad going. There are those who are even in favor of "martial law" in order to achieve this. One of the greatest challenges for the coming decade is to firmly establish who these entities are and destroy them by fostering relationships with those who want peace. Sorry, more troops, bombs or drones, while effective, are not a viable, long term solution.

Another challenge we face is having our nation continue to move forward and not look to the past or the old days as a solution. We in this nation need to realize that the past is what it is, the past, and no amount of navel gazing is going to bring those days back. America is in transition and we, no matter how unpleasant must face that fact. However, that does not mean that opporunitity has taken a vacation. We must seize the day and moment when all is alinged in our favor. The days of false competition are over and the sooner this nation comes to grip with that fact, the better we are attuned to move on and become prosperous.

I have high expextations for our nation in this decade. In order for us to be successful we must shun and shy away from the naysayers who still believe our nation is 20th century urber allies. The next generation is ready to lead and we of the baby boom generation need to let them.

As for me, I am ready to make this decade mine. After all the pit falls and hard stops, I am more than ready to face the challenges we have before us. I am not afraid of the future, but I am afraid of the past because there are so many who still thrill to live in the moment.

HAVE A HAPPY NEW DECADE ALL!

Photo: Downtown Memphis New Year's Eve 2009

The Decade

Out with the old, in with the new. The last Sunday of this decade leaves me with introspection and reflection on the gain, loss, hopes and fears this ten year span brought on me and others.

The beginning for me was shaky at best, but as I sit and write this I look forward to brighter days ahead for me and our nation. The decade began with our nation achieving a balanced federal budget and ended it in the most red ink ever. Those who were prosperous at the beginning, with their 401k's, home equity, stocks, bonds and six figure incomes are now struggling, wondering where the good times went and if they'll ever return. People, like me, who struggled from the onset, found a way to cope and now are reaping the benefits of those earlier hard times.

Our grip on the rest of the world has slipped, with 9-11 being the reset button, making our nation reassess it's values and our dominance on the world stage. The caves at Tora Bora taught us that opportunity is fleeting and when it's lost the resulting consequences are terrifying. A tsunami showed that mother nature still rules and our earth, while still viable, cries for help. Katrina taught us that man, for all his supposed intellect is but a nascent nincompoop.

The decade for all of us was one of loss. The best and the brightest: Michael Jackson, Mitch Mitchell, Noel Redding, Buddy Miles, Patrick Schawyze, Linda Lovelace, Yves St. Laurent, Soupy Sales, Caltain Lou Albino, Johnny Weaver, Sailor Art Thomas, Barry White, Luther Van Dross, Issac Hayes, Wilson Pickett, Miles Davis, Josef Zawinul, Walter Cronkite, Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, James Dewar, Reg Isidore, Brad Delph, David Carradine, Percy Sutton, Oral Roberts, Bernie Mack, Philip Simmons, Maynard Jackson, Koko Taylor, Ike Turner,Bo Diddley, Steve McNair, Dom Deluise, Bea Arthur, Marilyn Chambers, Linda Lovelace, Karl Malden, Dolla, Billy Mays...the list goes on and on. I lost my grandmother, Evelina Carruthers this decade (2003) as well as my dear friend, Randy Washington. Also a gone are Ethyl Mae Washington, Ms. Frazier, Ms Mazyck, Mr. Scott, Katherine Chillman, so many friends and neighbors, gone.

But all was not lost. Joia Williams was born in this decade, as was Annie and Erin Stancel, Christian Johnson, Samone Patrick, India Talbert and her sister, Mya Chillman, all were born this decade, just beginning their journeys.

Our nation elected the first president of color, Barak Obama, who is doing an excellent job despite the odds and naysayers.

As for me, the decade was a mixed bag, but as we head into the second decade, I am hitting my stride, as confident and forward thinking as I've ever been. Leaving the yoke of Atlanta, I have settled in Memphis where I'm expecting great things to happen.

Time magazine's latest issue labeled this decade The Decade From Hell and in some ways that might be true. A perfect storm of financial risk, war, terrorism and calamity made this decade one that would be best to forget. However, I go back to the Great Depression as the standard when it comes to disaster and calamity. I wasn't born then, but photos and visual accounts by those who lived than gives me more than an eyewitness account of the sheer scope of that decade.

As we head into the next decade, it is important realize that in the depths of despair opportunity

abounds. My first trip of the new decade will be to Shanghai, China in several weeks. For all the talk of economic gloom and doom there are nuggets out there. What we have to do as a nation is forget what has happened in the past and concentrate on the future. The last WWI vet is long gone. WWII, Korean and Vietnam vets are next in line. The 20th century is history. If we continue to think and live our lives like the last decade or century we won't make it. Now is the time to seize this moment and I fully intend to do just that.

Have a Happy New Year

- Population Reference Bureau

- Population Reference Bureau

Change Has Come

This photo of me was taken in Centennial Olympic Park on 20 January 2009 during the inauguration of President Barak Obama and I chose it on this day for a reason. This is the last Christmas Eve of the decade, a decade which started with me clinging onto dear life in the nether world of underemployment and culminating in a new career in Memphis, TN. For me, the move from Atlanta to Memphis is my Christmas present, one I know will keep on giving for years to come.

Some people, you know who they are, take the critical path when President Obama talks about change, but his message is one that everybody needs to let sink in and reflect on. Government can only change so much, it is the individual who must start changing themselves. Naysayers never want to change because they feel they have the upper hand, controlling the lives of others, but they are only fooling themselves because that control is ever so fleeting.

Ten years ago Ricky Martin, Kid Rock, Whitney Houston, Brittney Spears, the Backstreet Boys, etc all were riding on a crest, a wave of change in the music industry. Now, none of them are quite what they were. Recently, this bug hit Tiger Woods with a thump, putting his whole professional career at risk. The most important thing to remember is that: Just because you're in control and on top today doesn't mean you'll be there tomorrow.

To me, that lies at the heart of President Obamas message. Whether we like it or not, change is coming and whoever is the swiftest at adapting to that change will be the winner - for that period.

The Rolling Stones learned this fact long ago, that is why their fan base ranges from tween to seventy somethings. They kept their core, but changed the fringes. In order for our nation to progress we must harness the change of the 21st century. Now when I see a bunch of silly looking middle aged white men take the podium railing at President Obama I laugh because that is so 20th century. You can use Twitter, FB and other social media outlets all you want but if your message is one of the past, well, you are still a fossil.

America is not in decline, but in transition and we as a people and nation have to come to grips with that reality. The rest of the world is changing rapidly with a population fast approaching 8 billion souls. If you continue to believe global warming is not man-made you're living in the past.

President Obama never had the lock and key to change, he was the messenger. We The People hold the key and we must acknowledge it and act. Naysayers love to talk about how all this change will affect future generations. Doing nothing versus doing something is not only worse, but dangerous.

The time for change has come. We must seize the day.

Have a very Merry Christmas

To The Bitter End

We will resist to the bitter end any measure or any movement which would have any tendency to bring out social equality and intermingling and amalgamation of the races in our(Southern) states. Richard Russell (D-GA) March 30 1964

This statement, one of many, was part of a 54 day filibuster by the Southern bloc of conservative Democrats during passage of the 1964 Voting Rights Act. Then as now, you have a cadre of senators from the GOP, cut from the same southern racist cloth who want to relive the magic of those days by derailing health care bill.

It is ironic that on this day an African-American president leads this nation while 45 years ago this same president wouldn't have been able to cast a vote because of his skin color. People need to ask the real reason for this protracted war with our president. Yes, we have heard the same worn out mantras about higher taxes, adding to the deficit and our children's future. Yet, it was this same cabal of senators who fell in lock step with the Bush mafia who rammed tax cuts for the wealthy down middle class America's throat.

Every step of the way these senators claim they weren't racists, but sat idly by as their constituents called President Obama a racist, socialist, communist, terrorist, Muslim, monkey, etc. To this ilk they would rather see more than 10 percent of citizens in our nation continue to go without health care than give them the tools to help improve their lives.

Well, just like in 1964, good prevailed over evil. No matter what these senators do this time around it won't matter. The House and Senate Republicans are on the wrong side of history, just like those southern Democrats in 1964. Their votes will forever be linked to their narrow, selfish interests that are as extinct as a quiche eating dinosaur.

Yesterday on C-SPAN, a handful of old, senile, silly looking white men took to the podium to rail against the evils of this bill. So much like 1964, these old 20th century toothless cadavers looked so much like their 1964 inbred cousins. What they fail to grasp is that our nation has changed and moved on. Occupying the White House is an African-American who was in diapers when the first batch of near-do-wells took the podium to rail against evils of race mixing.

Last time I looked our nation still stands as vibrant and prosperous as ever....

I LOVE OBAMA WAFFLES!

Photo: Slave Cabins at Boone Hall Plantation

Christ Church Parish - Mt. Pleasant, SC

Keep On Reading

Within the past 24 hours two events occurred while not perfect, set the stage for change in the coming decades. President Obama brokered out a deal between rich and poor nations to at least start a framework for future climate change agreements. Copenhagen will be looked upon as a mixed bag at best, but the events there clearly showed what I had been stating all along. America, while still the premier power on the global stage is quickly being eclipsed by China and other "up and comers" who want to have a place on the mantle. China flexed it's muscle, not giving into the transparency other nations wanted, dug in it's heels and held out. While they can afford to do this short term, long term stubbornness will be futile because their vast resources will be under stress forcing them to change. At least President Obama laid the foundation, but he is beginning to realize that for all the change he is seeking there are others who still want the status quo. Which brings us to....

The 60th vote by Sen Nelson (D-Neb) sealed the deal for the health care reform bill to finally become reality. Yes, this bill too is not perfect and much had to be sacrificed to get it to pass, but again, this is the first step in a long process. What is important is that President Obama reached a point where other presidents failed. For all their blather, bluster and bluffing, Republicans have to relegated their leadership to reading the bill page by page in order to slow a fast moving freight train. At this point who really cares what they do. The party has become one of an irrelevant bunch of faces average Americans could care about. No one is listening and the public had relegated them to junk bond status.

A couple of weeks ago the naysayers kept crowing that President Obama has not accomplished a thing. To them I say: READ ON, READ ON!!

Photo: Indian Space Painting
Artist: Howard Daum (1918-1988)
Oil on Canvass