little black duck

Just so I’m not accused of shilling for one side (that would be justice, by the way), here is today’s update of the Kwame circus proceedings.

There was a hearing this morning and Kwame gets to remove his tether and travel to the DNC - not that anyone wants him there, but he can go if he wants.  He is however limited to Wayne County and the DNC.  Dawg’s off the leash, folks, lock up your poodles.  Worthy immediately appealed, though really, as many people as know his face and keeping track of his every move, there aren’t a lot of places he can go.  Let the baby have his bottle, Kym. He’s not going to get too many victories after this.

UPDATE: Back on it goes.  Hope you enjoyed those 90 seconds of unmitigated freedom, Kwame.  Thank you Judge Giles.  This makes up for Monday’s bond hearing.

Loony McLoon Sharon McPhail asked Governor Barbie (Govenor Jennifer Granholm) (she’s an ubernym now!) to pardon Kwame, and Govenor Barbie said, “B*tch, please” “Without getting into the rationale, I will not be pardoning or issuing immunity for anybody testifying at the hearing.“  

In other news, The Michigan Chronicle has decided it has had just about enough of Kwame. I’d give you a link to their site, but apparantly it was coded by drunkien monkeys and it refuses to come up for me.

We cannot stand by and watch this city fall victim to the mistakes of the mayor. In the interest of saving Detroit from Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s legal and political issues that have hindered this city’s progress, we strongly urge the mayor to step aside and address his problems. His issues are holding the city hostage. Detroit’s future is bigger than the mayor.

We will not play the blame game and pander to the idea that the mayor’s issues stem from racism. We did not take this decision lightly because of our identity as an African American newspaper operating in a climate where race and racism often command our political discussions. But the troubles of the mayor squarely emanated from decisions he made not to settle the case with the two police officers, Gary Brown and Harold Nelthrope, and instead decided to fight them in court. He came out of those court proceedings charged with perjury, felony and other charges. We cannot allow Detroit’s ability to move forward to be strangled by the escalating legal woes of the mayor.

For an African American newspaper deeply steeped in the traditions of Freedom’s Journal, the first Black newspaper in the country, we have a commitment to not only present an objective view of the Black community, but also, when need be, to be critical and take action when those we elect to office do not represent the best interests of the people.

Kilpatrick should spare himself and the city the embarrassment of being forcibly removed from office by either the Detroit City Council, Gov. Jennifer Granholm, Attorney General Mike Cox or Prosecutor Kym Worthy. The council forfeiture hearings to commence Aug. 18 and the governor’s Sept. 3 removal hearings only promise a sad and troubling future for this city and the mayor.

The Chronicle is Michigan’s oldest Black-centric newspapers, both highly respected and greatly regarded.  This could not have been an easy article to run.

“You haven’t written in your blog in a few days.”

“Yeah, I’ve been writing mostly one person blogs.”

“One person blog?”

“You know, when you write a blog but instead of posting it you just email it to one person?”

“Beth… those are called ‘letters.’”
(context is for the weak)

Julie - I owe you a letter.  I know. I suck.

I love writing letters, even though I really, really suck at actually sitting down to write them.  Handwriting letters is a fun challlenge since I’ve had teh best handwriting, and my thoughts are ararely linear.  Outlining a personal letter - yep, I need to be that anal.  Otherwise be prepared to navigate the stream of conscious rambling that is my usual mode of thought.

Be warned - I get lost, too.

I like to include stuff in letters - pictures, weird bits of deitrus I find while looking for a stamp.  I like an excuse to use the post office because I like getting mail that isn’t a bill or a summons to appear in court.  I like saving envelopes with  other people’s addresses on them, always neatly written out, because it has my name on it and I love the idea of someone sitting down to write out my name.

It’s like a little incantation.

I joined Beth’s LJ a few weeks back.  Beth is Amanda Palmer’s Personal Assistant, and I became aware of her while reading another blog of awesome.  There is a post of a picture of Beth listening to Neil Gaiman read something he’d written for Amamda’s album, and the look on her face transcends joy and happiness. 

It’s a look of contentedness.  It’s a look that says “I’m right where I’m supposed to be and boy, does this rock.” 

That’s a great smile.

So that’s why I’m stalking Beth (because she has a great blog to go with her great smile), and that’s what made me think I owe Julie a letter.  I think I’d like to write more letters, since none of my Little Black Book projects have ever returned to me.

Who wants a letter? Just me and you and some stationary. I’d like to do this too,  but my luck with sending stuff out hasn’t been good at all.  I’d do it with a select few, though.

Who wants to play?

(yes I’m doing her keything too - sounds like loads of fun, yes?)

I was minding my own business standing in line at the local Rite-Aid, picking up some allergy medicine and treating myself to a new lipstick (no, my lips aren’t stained with the blood on innocents - why do people keep asking me that?).  I normally go the Walgreen’s on the corner, but the morning crew has gotten real chummy with me lately and I loathe the familiarity.

There was an elderly couple in front of me in line and as it goes when you’ve just popped in for something and you want to pop right back out, the cashier has done something, and the world must come to a standstill.  She was waiting on a manager materialize and wave some magic wand over her drawer so she could give the man his proper change.  I  never get cashiers who can properly count change. Just Friday, chickie at the Thai place gave me a dollar over what I should have received.  When I handed it back to her, she smiled and stuck it into her tip jar.  *shrug*

So the elderly couple was waiting patiently for his change and the women turned back to look at me.  Now it has to be said, I don’t wear my ears on the weekdays - work doesn’t want me to and I like my job, so I find more conventional things to put in my hair, like ribbons or head bands.  I’m dressed professionally (figure it out) and I’m minding my own business.  I smile when she looks at me because it’s how I was taught: you acknowledge when acknowledged.  She then taps her equally husband on the shoulder, leans in and says in a stage whisper they probably heard in the stockroom, “Never seen one like her before.”  He turns in a shuffle, and his feel drag dirt across the floor in a circle to face me.  He then shuffles back to the cashier and says, “Nope.” Because the cashier cares.

The woman then says to me, “never seen one like you before,” because I couldn’t have possibly heard her the first time, or at least had enough good breeding to pretend to not hear. Old manners and polite society still hold true, and the dance they perpetrate can be awkward, but it prevents social embarassment.  I just play along.

This is Royal Oak, once billed as a Cool City by Governor Barbie (Govenor Jennifer Granholm), and it is primarily made up of old people about to die. Despite the new condos, restaurants, and crazy amount of rental properties, permanent residents continue to live in the older sections of town while their bones and foundations turn to dust.  The “hipper” oldsters live in the happening communities like America’s House or Barton Towers Senior Complex.  They are confused by the influx of people who don’t look or sound like them.  They congregate at the Sign Of The Beefcarver for the Early Bird Special where everything is boiled to a thin tasteless gruel.

“You should get out more,” I say in a soft tone because I don’t want to further startle her more than I already have by a) speaking and b) speaking English. “There are lots of people like me.” This I know is a lie as I am unique and special.  My mom told me so, however for this woman’s sake, I will cross my fingers against my forked tongue.

“Oh,” she says, “I don’t drive.”  This doesn’t surprise me.  D’s mom didn’t drive either and she’d been widowed since 1979. This is an old town with family owned hardware stores and barbershops run by guys named Bernie.  Of course women her age don”t drive.  It wasn’t their place, not while their menfolk could keep the Chevy between the lines.

Royal Oak is also 95% White - with the other 5% divided up with the Asians and Blacks.  We’re an Inner Ring City(as in the cities that ring Detroit), and only barely because we’re buffered by Ferndale and Oak Park.  We’re the city the Whites fled to when Detroit became too Black.  D remembers when north of 13 Mile Road was still farmland.  As recently as twenty years ago when I attended Shrine, there weren’t many Blacks matriculating.  The city is insulated and while Woodward (M-1) runs right through the heart of it, those travelling north are racing to Pontiac, or Birmingham, or even the I-75 Business Loop to head to the really pale places of Traverse City, Muskegon, and the UP.

It’s unsurpising that she’d “never seen one of” me before.  What was surprising was how tactless she was about it.  I steeled myself for the question I never got and there’s a small blessing in that because after all of these years, I still don’t have a polite answer for it.  I’m not “mixed with” anything, though chances are I’d tell someone Ghoul with a hint of Chimera, and the humor would be lost on them. I hate wasting a joke.

D tells me to not be bothered by it, because one day all of the ignorant people will be dead.  However, there’s a problem you see: they keep breeding and passing along the ignorance like a defective gene in a badly-coded strand of DNA, the recessive variety that when combined with other defective genes produces extra eyelids and multiple sets of conversational, yet functionally useless, genitalia.

I give her credit for trying to be chatty. Once my mother and I were at some function and a woman told us how beautiful we were and one day everyone would look like we did.  I’m sure she meant it as a compliment and not to imply that we were some rare species of animal recently discovered in the wilds of Madagascar. Often older women try to talk to me and the (theirs, not mine) husband gives them a gentle but deterrant smack on the arm with a simple, “Hush, Mildred.”  I think he might also add, “she might give you zebra babies,” which was D’s mother’s mortal fear had we decided to actually have children. 

Perhaps that’s what this woman thought I was - a zebra baby, only like a black panther, you can’t see my spots against the background of my skin. She’d never seen one like me before because in her world, all Black women looked Black, not fair with reddish brown hair and blonde highlights. We were a shock to each other because she didn’t know people like me existed and I’d thought people like her were extinct.

The manager eventually rolled up and pushed the magic keys and the cashier was able to return the proper change.  The couple left and as they shambled towards the door in that gait that looks painful but deliberate, she kept stealing glances at me, glances which were a lot like her stage whispers - obvious.  I gave her my lopsided grin. It was all I could do. 

It would have seemed gauche to tell her that there were more of me out there in places she least suspected, but I was brought up better.

(pardon the colors, it’s dark in here)

Still one of the greatest surreal comics out there and I look forward to it every day

No this doesn’t remind me of anyone…

Originally uploaded by MontiLee.

It’s a Retro (meaning discontinued but back for a limited time) Bubble Bar (solid bubble bath) and it’s in the new catalogue. It just caught my eye and I giggled for a bit. I should order, like ten of them.

Must be nice to assume the law applies to everyone but you. 

As of 9:47 a.m. today, Special Assistant Attorney General Douglas Baker was at 36th District Court to file an amendment to the bond in the case against Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.

It is expected that a hearing on the bond amendment will be on Tuesday or Wednesday. Chief Judge Marylin Atkins, who is on vacation this week, was contacted by Baker this morning about the filing. Atkins assigned 36th District Court Magistrate Renee McDuffee — who set the conditions of the mayor’s bond — to hear the bond amendment. McDuffee is off today and Tuesday, but there is a chance she will come in to handle the amendment hearing. Attorneys for Kilpatrick are currently out of town in Alabama, but they are expected to return on Tuesday.

The hearing stems from a complaint by Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox alleging that Kilpatrick violated his bond Saturday by meeting his sister at his mother’s home.

The mayor’s sister, Ayanna Kilpatrick, is a witness to the July 24 incident on her porch in which Kilpatrick is alleged to have assaulted two officers who were attempting to serve a subpoena to his friend, Bobby Ferguson. However, Atkins, and one of the mayor’s attorneys said Sunday that a “no contact” order did not include the mayor’s sister or his police bodyguards.

Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy also is looking into another possible violation of conditions that allow Kilpatrick to remain free while facing felony criminal charges in two courts.

Worthy is investigating Kilpatrick’s broad and secretive city business trips in the wake of a weekend statement issued by the mayor’s public relations representatives about how he has mixed business and personal travel, including a July 21 side trip from a business conference in Ithaca, N.Y., to a water park on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls with his sons.

The attorney general believes the “no contact” order issued Friday by McDuffee included all witnesses in the case, but Atkins said Sunday the order didn’t include the mayor’s sister or members of the Detroit Police Executive Protection Unit.

“I’ll stand by the document, which indicates no contact,” Attorney General’s Office spokesman Rusty Hills said Sunday. “We believe that no contact means just that, no contact.”

Over the weekend one of the Mayor’s Attorney’s appeared on Fox2News Sunday Morning in the most embarassing interview I have ever seen.  Charles Pugh and Deena Centifanti raked the idiot over the coals as he tried to explain that because teh Mayor wasn’t just anyone, he should be allowed special priviledges.  He then went  on to say that he hadn’t actually talked to the mayor in a few weeks.

The mayor currently has seventeen (17) lawyers and clearly none of them bother speaking to each other. It’s no wonder the baby-eating thug will rot in jail.

UPDATE:

Judge Ronald Giles will hear Kilpatrick’s case. That sound you just heard was Kilpatrick and his leagal team smacking themselves on their collective foreheads because they know they have just stepped in it up to their ankles.

Yeah *that* Judge Giles, the same Judge Gilkes who ordered Kilpatrick to jail on Thursday for thinking himself above the law. I feel like taking off work so I can sit in the courtroom with popcorn and a soda. I wasn the dressing down to be epic.

Giles: Didn’t we just have this conversation?
Kilpatrick: I understand that I did wrong and I even brought my boys to witness justice in action but you see, there was this side of beef enhanced with baby-flavoring, and there needed to be an immediate meeting on how it could better the City of Detroit. I’m all about the City and baby-flavored meat.
Giles: *blank stare*

Okay, I don’t know what his excuse will be, but I imagine it’ll go something like that.

Then there will be an order of execution, because clearly some people can’t be learned.  It’s like a dog that keeps biting the neighbor kids.  You can either remove the kids or put down the dog.  Most people will opt for putting down the dog, since sending kids on meaning life-long quests a la Hansel and Gretal is against the law. 

Kilpatrick isn’t going to learn until he’s put down (please read: “remove from office” and save your e-mails of implied threats) beause like an ill-mannered dog, he’s going to keep nipping at the kids until he mauls one of them all the while giving you this “I don’t understand, why is it bad? I’m just the dog” look.

I think he needs to sit in jail a few days to be reminded of his place in this situation.

The blown opportunity to represent his City as a shining jewl of what can  happen when everyone works together for the betterment of the community. 

Unfortunately,  that got kicked to the curb when he decided the City was his own fiefdom.  See, it was never about the City but bragging rights and how fantastic he was.  He was going to be the Savior and he’d already begun building his pedestal. 

His problem was it was made of hookers and lies, which wren’t terribly sturdy balancing on stripper crystal and covered in glitter.  Had he set about the business of the City from the get-go, instead of the business of his pants, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.  It was a missed opportunity for the him and the City, and the City looks foolish because if it.  After all, it kept putting him back in office.

Well, the baby-eating thug is out of jail.

For now.

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was fitted for a tether today and released after arraignment on new assault charges.

This morning Wayne County Circuit Judge Thomas Jackson ruled Kilpatrick must pay $50,000 cash bond and wear a tether before he could be released from the Wayne County Jail. He also was forbidden to travel, meaning the mayor must cancel his trip to the Democratic National Convention and a family trip to Florida.

Looks like if Carlita wants to serve him with divorce papers, she’ll have to do it up here.

Jackson started the proceedings by announcing that he had received and ignored a call from a lawyer who works for the mayor and used to be a City Council member, underscoring his pledge to be objective as he considers Kilpatrick’s bid to be set free.

Jackson did not identify Sharon McPhail, but she is the only lawyer working for the mayor who fits the description he gave.

“I assume they were not calling to wish me a happy day or a happy Friday morning,” he said, explaining why he did not take the call.

Way to  be subtle there, Sharon McPhail.  Throwing your weight around like anyone honestly cares what you  have to say.  Maybe she was warning him that someone had wired his chair to electrocute him.  We’ll never know.

My husband gave me this opinion earlier today.  He believes that the Democratic Party just didn’t want an embarrassment like Kilpatrick at the DNC in August.  Let’s face it,  it’s hard to put the spotlight on a Black candidate who promises change, when there’s is one on the convention floor who has proven himself to be everything people fear about Black men - a philanderer, a thug, a liar, a hard partier, someone who can’t be trusted with some else’s money.  

And of course someone who believes they are being persecuted by Whitey and the Media.  Doesn’t exactly speak to the future of the Democratic Party, does it?

Putting the two together in the same room would focus too much attention on the negative instead of the positive. 

Now that Granholm isn’t campaigning for Clinton anymore and she’s got the support of the full Democratic Party behind her, she can make her move on September 3 to begin hearings to remove Kilpatrick from office - which would come too late for the DNC, so this works out much better.  No travel anywhere.  He stays his butt at home where he can only embarrass the State of Michigan locally as opposed to nationally in front of camera and bloggers.

Only M.L. Elrick would include these details in his article:

When he was processed at the jail, the mayor was wearing a shiny gray suit with matching vest and a French-cuffed shirt with “Mayor” embroidered on the sleeves. 

There you go, Detroit.  That’s your mayor - arrogant enough to have the words “mayor” embroidered on the cuffs of his shirts, lest anyone forget his face.

But the really fantastic news was this:

Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was arraigned Friday afternoon on charges that he assaulted a Wayne County investigator, and allowed by a magistrate to go free on a $25,000 bond with the provision that he not come in contact with any of the witnesses in the case.

Magistrate Renee McDuffee set the mayor’s bond about three hours after Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox announced charges in the alleged police assault. Cox issued a warrant for the arrest of Kilpatrick, charging him with two felony counts of assaulting or obstructing a police officer in a furtherance of duty.

As part of the magistrate’s order, Kilpatrick can not contact witnesses to the incident. Those witnesses include officers from his executive protection unit, the mayor’s sister Ayanna, and the mayor’s brother-in-law Daniel Ferguson. Daniel Ferguson is a relative of Bobby Ferguson who the investigators were trying to serve with the subpoena.

Those of you  keeeping track with your ledger, Kilpatrick has now paid out more money in bond in the two days than most of the residents of the City of Detroit make in a year. How does that shake you?

I must have a friendly face.

Yesterday after over twelve (12) years of marriage, I decided it was time to get my Social Security Card updated to reflect my taken name.  It had honestly never occured to me before now.  It was a brief issue after I filed for unemployement and received six months worth of checks when the State of Michigan threatened to make me pay it all back because the name on my SS Card didn’t match the name I filed under.  Faxing them my marriage license fixed that problem, and I stopped thinking about it.  Then came the new job and while it’s not a problem per-se, my checks are issued under my maiden name. Getting a new teller at the bank is always a challenge.

So yesterday, I gathered my applications and my documents and scooted on down to the local office.  It wasn’t busy and I found a seat quickly enough behind a man who immediately turned around and asked me where I went to school.  Royal Oak being a Catholic town, despite the shrill protestations of the Free-Will Baptists,  has quite a few parochial schools.  I attended two of them, and my outfit yesterday reflected another twelve (12) year block of hard-coded dress-code - a nice Ralph Lauren plaid skirt and white blouse. 

We had a brief but slightly irritating conversation about my outfit and my education and then my work environment.  I don’t go to government offices to make new friends and if I can help it I don’t want to touch anything. 

He asked after my name and after I repeated it twice and then spelled it, he introduced himself as Thomas and then called me Natalie.  Thomas is a handy-man and talked to just about everyone in there.  Most people were irritated by him and would wander to look at the posted signage, but I always like to look people in the eye when they talk to me.  I gave him my attention, even if I really only wanted to read my book.  He was the kinda guy you know knocks back a few beers after a day’s work and doesn’t get too deep into anything.  He was uncomplicated, and there aren’t enough of people like him anymore. 

Thomas launched into a story about his latest job rewiring a kitchen outlet. I gave him my “bored but I’ll listen to be polite” look which he took for “rapt interest”.  My bored look invites more people than any other, as looking keen makes people nervous, like I’m going to slip into their skin then they aren’t looking and take over their lives. 

Thomas even told me that the swelling on the side of his face was from a fight he’d gotten in a few nights prior.  When I asked him if it was from running his mouth, the person behind me snorted and Thomas smiled.  He either didn’t hear me or didn’t get the good-natured jab, but it didn’t stop him from finishing his re-wiring story. It was that important.

His number was called and he took care of business, deciding that it would be easier to call me by my middle name.  “That’s unique,” he kept saying.  “Dolores is Biblical,” I reminded him, ”like Thomas,” and he had to think about it before deciding I probably wouldn’t lie to him.  Business completed, he said goodbye to everyone, and because it tickled me to do so, I said, “Goodbye, Thomas” not intentionally the way  you say farewell to someone you know you’ll soon be burying in an unmarked grave by the side of the road, but that’s how it sounded, all sinister-like.  Names have power, like rhymes that keep the haints away.  It made him stop and turn and give me a goofy, lopsided grin. I hope the rest of his day went well.

People like to talk to me and I don’t do enough to discourage it because everyone has a story swirling around them. What’s banal and ordinary to some is Must-See to others.  It’s why I people-watch at the coffeehouse or eavesdrop on the elevator.  I must have a face that says, “tell me your story”, because random people do.  They turn around in their hard plastic chairs and tell me a story.

This, I think, is the most important part of writing: the listening. I like that I have a friendly face because it means the stories won’t stop coming.

(WXYZ) A statement is expected to be released from the Governor’s office regarding the current situation with Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.

Today, Governor Jennifer Granholm cancelled two events she had scheduled to hold an internal meeting in her Lansing office.

Just so we’re clear - I happen to like Jennifer Granholm.  If Barbie grew up, went to law school and made something of her self, she’d look like Granholm. 

 
(photo credit)

Total Barbie Car!

(photo copyright)

I hope she steps in and removes the baby-eating thug.

We’ll consider it the removal of an external bowel obstruction.