Paris, Texas--Its Your Turn to Laugh

West Sacramento Gang injunction voided

Police serve only one gang member wanna-be whom they expected to notify all 350 Broderick Boys gang members

Read full story: Published 12:00 am PDT Wednesday, April 25, 2007, Sacramento Bee

A three-judge panel for California's 3rd District Court of Appeal unanimously and rightly struck down a court order that imposed an overly broad injunction against a West Sacramento gang known as the Broderick Boys.

The sweeping injunction, first imposed in 2005, had been criticized by law-abiding citizens and even members of the West Sacramento City Council. It barred some 350 unnamed gang members from "standing, sitting, walking, driving, gathering or appearing" together in a 3-square-mile area that police designated as a "safety zone." It also imposed a curfew that prohibited gang members from being on the streets after 10 p.m. or before sunrise.

The Bigger the Bra--The Badder We Are

She has to be an Air Mom! Check out her lesson: How to put on a bra.

clipped from www.youtube.com

Pay as you go jails

clipped from www.brendan-nyhan.com Anyone convicted of a crime knows a debt to society often must be paid in jail. But a slice of Californians willing to supplement that debt with cash (no personal checks, please) are finding that the time can be almost bearable. For offenders whose crimes are usually relatively minor (carjackers should not bother) and whose bank accounts remain lofty, a dozen or so city jails across the state offer pay-to-stay upgrades. Theirs are a clean, quiet, if not exactly recherché alternative to the standard county jails, where the walls are bars, the fellow inmates are hardened and privileges are few. How long until we offer rich people nicer courts too? Or let them buy their way out of their sentence?

Calling All Wizards!

I was reared Catholic. I received my first communion in a little white bridal dress. I did the confirmation thing. I was devout. Today, I consider Antioch Progressive Baptist Church, here in Sacramento, my home church. We held my mother’s funeral in our family parish, at St. Joseph/St. Andrews Catholic Church, in Oakland, California. The American Friends have always been my friends. My boyfriend is a Buddhist.

Now, I’m a Catholic/Baptist/Quaker/Buddhist on my way to becoming a secular humanist.

Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m a wonderfully, well adjusted, Boomer Mama/Air Mom, of African ancestry with the good fortune of having been born in Tucker, Arkansas yet reared in California—at least that’s what my therapist says, minus the back-story.

If my variegated religious background has taught me one thing, it is how to deal with evil. You pray, anoint, fast, burn stuff, sacrifice things, read ancient texts, dress in certain ways, eat some stuff/avoid other stuff, dance, sing, believe…I could go on, but I’m sure you get the idea.

A great evil has befallen our land. Our children are being gunned down in the streets, in their front yards, at their houses of worship, in their universities, and on foreign soil. Babies are dying in Mississippi because it is cheaper to let them die than provide prenatal care for mothers.

And an evil, death worshiping, cabal, dressed in the flesh bags bought on the cheap from old men weak enough and evil enough to trade their own skins for a bit of power, has taken over this country and most of the world. Folks, we are in great peril. The fate of the planet is at stake.

I’m putting a call out to wizards—real ones, not you Dungeon and Dragons types—the kind Michael Gruber writes about in, Tropic of Night, because the evil in the Whitehouse is so great only the worlds greatest wizard can take it on now. And I don’t mean the Washington Wizards, unless they have some very strong mojo.

You may scoff, but enough of you believed in the bush baby to elect him, not once but twice, so keep your condescending smugness to yourselves. I believe in a lot of things unseen, like Social Security, liberty and justice for all, and fat burning pills.

If you know a wizard, please have it get in touch with me—pronto!

Slurs: The Fable

There once was a very nice lady who lived next door to a young couple who held one another in very high regard, in fact, you could say they were very much in love.

One spring day the nice lady was in her backyard weeding her petunias and the couple next door was in their backyard cleaning their pool. The nice lady overheard one of them say to the other, “Please hand me that gizmo over there, Babycakes.” The other replied, “Sure thing, Suga Booga.”

The next day the nice lady was walking her dog, when she passed the couple next door. As the nice lady not only was nice, but was also exceedingly polite, without a bigoted bone in her body, she nodded and said, “Good morning, Suga Booga. Beautiful day isn’t it, Babycakes?”

The couple next door did not return the nice lady’s greeting. They stared at her until she turned the corner, then they went directly to the Human Rights Commission and filed a complaint charging the nice lady with making slurs based on their ethnicity, race, gender, and sexual orientation.

The moral of this story is …

Mother Needs a Moral for this Story

Write the moral to this fable and win a copy of Mother's anthology, Shades of Black. Three winners will be chosen. Contest ends when Beltane begins.

Take The Duck!

Air Mom Parenting Tip #17

When I'm trying to give the young folk in my family good, sound advice such as, stay away from the home of a certain distant relative because you never know when it might be raided, and they, the very picture of ennui, roll their eyes, sigh, and say, "Oh mother/auntie..." I say, quit firmly, "Take the duck!"

In the parlance of our family, "take the duck" means, "I know you are all grown up, but listen anyway."

It hasn't failed yet. They settle down and listen. And I owe it all to Sony. Take a gander at the commercial below.

56 Day and Still No Apology

56 days and no apology from Eddie Murphy, no contact from Biden’s office, and now Imus shows his behind. I offered the services of my public relations firm, Act Like You Been Raised, but neither Murphy nor Biden saw fit to contact me. My rates are steep, but my services are well worth it. Maybe Imus will have his people call my people.

You know what my sainted mother used to say (and yes, I was raised Catholic and my maiden surname is Irish), “Hard head, soft behind.” You people better start listening to me—and yes, I said “you people.”

You know why Imus apologized and Murphy didn’t? Because a lot was at stake for Imus and nothing was at stake for Murphy. Imus lost sponsors. You remember what sponsors are, don’t you children? That’s right Jamal, sponsors are the guys who were paying Imus tons of money to spout mean spirited, bigoted, diatribes that appealed to other mean spirited, bigoted people. But once “We the People” raised our voices in protest, the sponsors took their money and slithered away trying all the while to look sanctimonious about cutting and running.

Remember this children—under the right kind of light, slime trails glow in the dark.

Why hasn’t Murphy apologized for virtually calling black women big fat nappy head hoes for close to two hours? (Mixed race black women escaped his slimefest) Because he doesn’t have to, that’s why. A little matter of $94,815,036, says he doesn’t have to. That’s what Norbit has grossed so far according to Box Office Mojo. Expected worldwide earnings are $150,250,410.

Maybe Paramount’s Dreamworks should be apologizing. Imus took 10 seconds to say what Dreamworks took nearly two hours to rub in our faces.

Children, remember how Mother frequently says it all about the money? Here’s something else I won’t you to remember, “Money talks, bullshit walks” (yes dears, Mother is bilingual)

Don’t worry, Mother hasn’t forgotten about those little rappers out there saying all those nasty things about women, and making those blue movies they call videos. But all of this talk about ill manner children saying and doing things that reflect so poorly on their mothers has got me feeling a little dirty. Let me go take a bath and we’ll talk more later.