Random Whiteness of the Two-Wheeled Dare-Devil Variety

Get ready for five knuckle-biting minutes of fun. I won't spoil the ending, either.

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: Random Whiteness of the Two-Wheeled Dare-Devil Variety, Radwanderung, Single-Track, Death-wish, Mountain-Biking, Acting White

Shameless Promotion Dept.: Fine Art Drawings On The iPhone

My business partner and I are getting close to delivering our first iPhone app (isn't everybody?) - stippled drawings. Android is soon to follow. It's no secret that I love dots, and this has been a labor of such. Look for it in the App. store in a month or so. In the meantime, enjoy these two iconic examples of what can be done with your favorite photographs, inspiration, and some cool software.

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: Shameless Promotion Dept.: Fine Art Drawings On The iPhone, Ali vs. Liston, Norma Jean Dress, Stipples, Apple, Acting White

White-on-White vs. Black-on-Black Violence

New Details Emerge in High School Basketball Game Fight in Baltimore: MyFoxDC.com

One of the most popular Google searches to this site are questions of Black violence. In this post, I grabbed the closest examples I could find showing that neither group holds a monopoly. It really depends on who is looking, and where they look. Interesting.

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: White-on-White vs. Black-on-Black Violence, Basketball, Soccer, Thugs/Hooligans, Europe/USA, Acting White

Why Obama Needs To Indefinitely Detain YOU!

The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) et al Movement is leaderless, fragmented, and muddled in what it seemingly wants from those of various authority. However, what is not muddled is discontent with direct and indirect elites, and steadily reaching significant numbers that are willing to put their displeasure on the line – against batons, rubber-bullets, tear gas, pepper-spray, and arrest.

To date, the Occupy Movement, which has been labeled domestic terrorism by some, has mustered only short bursts of hundreds to thousands of protesters. But what would happen if rotations of hundreds OF thousands of people descended upon Washington or NYC, for weeks at a time, and continually harped on governmental failures? Mr. Obama’s conundrum gains some clarity. Clearing out these disrupters under the Jeffersonian constitution could prove difficult, if not impossible. The fundamental right to freedom of speech and assembly, AND due process, requires that whoever collects and detains these people also have ready and reasonable ‘processes’ for fair judicial rendering. Frankly, the country has no administration in place for such a constitutional exercise, either as a one-time event, and certainly not as continuous public theater, fueled by problems that are not going away anytime soon.

Hence, the president needs the unassailable latitude to label any citizen a terrorista, command the military, forcibly extract said disgruntled accused, and warehouse them in some rural barb-wired tent-city, INDEFINITELY or, until Prez figures out how to release them, ready to behave themselves. This is why the current administration needs NDAA 1031 on the legal books, constitutionally poisonous as it is. Detaining US citizens has little or nothing to do with protecting us from bona-fide terrorist, but rather removing the constitutional barriers to controlling free movement, assembly, and speech/protest – otherwise showing people who the ‘eff’ is boss. Call it a preparatory-step toward Martial Law (here).

O-man's Harvard Law Review plaque is looking like a Crackerjack prize right about now, and the late Steve Jobs may have been more right about a one-term Obama than his Siri could have ever thought differently. Or maybe Americans ARE as ignorant as the White House believes.

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: Why Obama Needs To Indefinitely Detain YOU!, NDAA 1031, Indefinite Detention, Occupy Wall Street, McCain/Levin, Acting White

Why Obama May Lose in 2012

It’s an outrageous thing for a bunch of predominantly white senators and congresspersons to piss on the constitution, via NDAA 1031 legislation (here), because they seemingly lack the cojones or ovaries to tell their parties to go to hell, but I suppose there’s safety in numbers. However, for our first-black President, Barack Obama, sitting at the helm of this travesty is likely to get him run out of office in 2012. Mind you, not just because he is black, or a Democrat, but because he’s the president for godsakes, and his veto and pulpit are suppose to protect fundamental constitutional rights, not strip them away, as does the pending National Defense Authorization Act.

Under no condition should American citizens face “indefinite detainment” by the president or the military, or anyone else. But let’s be clear, Obama threatened to veto the bill if it did NOT contain the indefinite detainment of US citizen’s language (above). How about them apples? If the opposition can only field a candidate with half a communicating brain, Mr. Obama could be in big trouble come next November. Unfortunately, the half-brain requirement has been an on-going problem for the party of Lincoln. Regarding NDAA 1031, we are all in big trouble, forget the election.

And furthermore, how come black folks can’t see that ‘indefinite detainment’ is the wet-dream of every racist ever born – 95% approval rating my ass – folks need to wake up!

So I asked myself, why would a left-leaning, constitutional lawyer-turned-president, want the ability to throw US citizens in jail, without ever putting them on trial. What could make this man toss the constitution he knows so well into the crapper? The short answer is that he thinks he needs it.

To expand, I can only imagine that somewhere within the bowels of the White House, is a windowless room where a bunch of allegedly smart people have surmised that the shit is about to hit-the-fan on the home front. But how so? Hmmmm. Let me think. The country is in financial crisis because a Goldman-Saks led Wall Street decided they could top the Savings & Loan rip-off, with the mortgage-back securities rip-off, and they did. Obama lets the thieving 1% walk. Oh yeah, Mr. Bernanke is printing money as fast as it takes the ink to dry, and giving it to banks for .01% interest (free), who are in-turn buying T-bills paying 3%! The remaining 99% of Americans are increasingly fat, lazy, ignorant and entitled up the kazoo. Europe is in a financial melt-down of its own. China is headed toward crisis, because there may be no one to buy all the crap they are preparing to build. Japan is completely jacked, (see Fukushima). We are fighting battles in the Middle-east that are more about enriching defense contractors, than eliminating terrorist. Yep, the Main Street-level poo-poo could really hit the fan, and I ain't talking occupy.

So, President Obama’s White House, the Senate, and Congress are all preparing to keep order, by suspending our rights. The only thing Obama has to worry about now is if Americans wake the hell up before next November. But, whether voters jam Obama or not, history will say we are witnessing the gasps of a 200+ year-old glutinous giant, about to fall - hard.

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: Why Obama May Lose in 2012, NDAA 1031, Indefinite Detention, Constitution, McCain/Levin, Acting White

Christopher Hitchens: 1949 - 2011

NYTimes obituary.

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: Christopher Hitchens: 1949 - 2011, Writer/Journalist, Secularist, Cancer, Polemic, Acting White

Diversity Pro and Con: A Nigerian Case Study

After recently attending the award-winning Nigerian musical FELA!, about a musician’s travails in that challenged African nation, I was out in Berkeley with friends enjoying a great Nigerian band (BaBa Ken/Katoja). The venue included many ex-patriot African patrons. While enjoying the music, my party ran smack dab into the issue of recklessly importing people who grow up in a very different and, in the case of Nigeria, dangerous place. Shit happens, and it did.

At one point in the evening, my girlfriend whipped out her recently acquired iPhone 4s, to take a picture of me. Immediately afterwards, we were faced with a very angry Nigerian fellow who thought she was taking pictures of him to somehow facilitate his untimely demise. Perhaps he left Lagos under a cloud - I do not know. The country is certainly a very dangerous place where a small amount of tribal difference, hostility, or money, can get someone killed.

Anyway, despite our attempts, the Nigerian fellow could not comprehend that his identity did not reside on the phone, and that we did not work for the government. At one point he grabbed the phone, to get a closer look, and then refused to return it. In all his yelling, he asked me if I wanted to fight. I said no, but also that he was not leaving with that phone. His final word was that he was keeping the phone and dared that I should call the police. It was as though he thought the police would either support his obstinacy, or (more likely) that calling the authorities was silly.

I approached the club owner, explained the events and asked him to call Berkeley PD. Before making the call, the owner wanted to talk to the guy and ‘straighten out this misunderstanding’. That conversation ended with the owner fending off the beginnings of a battery by the Nigerian. I then became adamant about calling the police, even if I had to make the call myself.

The Berkeley PD quickly arrived and patiently threatened the man into returning the phone. On their way to this result, they explained all the rights and responsibilities that governed his free attendance at the night club, including possible photos, and admonished that those ideas he brought from Nigeria carried no weight in the U.S. Although he eventually relented, he clearly was not convinced by anyone that Berkeley was not Lagos, Nigeria and that his understanding was inadequate, nor was his behavior in need of adapting.

I went home that night with a profound feeling that this man should not be here, and there are probably many others like him. It is too damn easy to get into this country! Thank goodness he did not have a weapon. While his influential experiences may be little fault of his own, there is no reasonable excuse for his theft or refusal to accept and follow the laws of his adopted land. And whether his ancestors were brought here in chains or he came willingly, the requirement is the same – know the law, follow the law, or suffer the consequences.

At one point early in the dispute, the Nigerian’s female companion attempted to guide him, but his words and body-language, and her immediate retreat, quickly established that he would not hesitate to ‘knock the you-know-what out of her’. His words to her “you, shut up!” were sautéed in a violent tone and look, and the instant fear in her eyes told a deeper and chilling story, by itself.

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: Diversity Pro and Con: A Nigerian Case Study, Nigeria, Immigration, FELA, Berkeley Police, Acting White