The Many Colors of a W*O*M*A*N XXVI FREE Jazz Festival in Hartford, CT., Sept 5th, 2009

"Thanks for supporting global jazz, our legacy"



Saturday 5 September, 8pm
The Many Colors of a Woman, Inc. Celebrates Women in Jazz
The Many Colors of a W*O*M*A*N XXVI FREE Jazz Festival
Aetna Theater, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art
600 Main Street, Hartford CT 06103
Headlining: Nicki Mathis’Afrikan Amerikan Jazz New Millennium All Stars: Ricky Alfonso, Katwren Anderson, Arti Dixson, Joe Fonda, Janice Friedman, Pat Harleston, Rozanne Levine, Dotti Anita Taylor, Camille Thurman, Deborah Weisz, Mark Whitecage; Special Guest Saskia Laroo; Featuring Carla Dean, Dawn Dumas, & MORE. CoSponsored by MCW, Inc., OPUS, Inc., SAND, Inc. Funded in part by The Evelyn W. Preston Memorial Fund, Bank of America Trustee; GHAC, MCW, Inc. Supported by Smith Whiley & Company, Cull Books, Jim Fentress. Open to the Public. Sponsors Invited. 860.231-0663, 860.429.6859

Monday 14 Sep 7P Nicki w/International Women In Jazz Choir St Peter’s Church
154/Lexington Ave NYC 718 468-7376

Saturday 26 September, 8pm
The Many Colors of a W*O*M*A*N XXVII FREE Jazz Festival
The Hoffman Auditorium, Saint Joseph College, The Carol Autorino Center for Arts and Humanities, Wheelchair Accessible
1678 Asylum Avenue, West Hartford CT, CT. 06117-2791
Map/directions: http://www.sjc.edu/content.cfm/pageid/264
Headlining: Nicki Mathis’ Afrikan Amerikan Jazz
Ricky Alfonso, Phil Bowler; Pat Harleston, Dotti Anita Taylor; Featuring: Carla Dean, Dawn Dumasl; Amina Star & Rodney Decarlos Edwards’ string duo.
CoSponsored by MCW, Inc. Saint Joseph College, The Carol Autorino Center for Arts and Humanities, OPUS, Inc., SAND, Inc. Funded by MCW, Inc. Supported by Smith Whiley & Company, Cull Books
Open to the Public. Sponsors Invited. 860.231-0663, 860.231-5529, 860.429.6859

Friday 9 October, Nik w/Andy Jaffe’s Big Band in Concert, Williams College, Williamstown, MA

Thursday 12 November 5:30P An Evening with Gloria Reuben third annual WE CAN (Women End the Course of AIDS Now) event, The Pond House, Elizabeth Park, West Hartford hosted by CARC, featuring Nicki Mathis’ Afrikan Amerikan Jazz 860.761-6699 x 111 http://matchbook.org/ArtistProfile1.aspxProfileIdt=741


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Dr. Ndibe honors Ted Kennedy and makes comparison to his opposites - corrupt Nigerian pols

"Ted Kennedy would have stood up and championed the cause of the 27 soldiers."

Ted Kennedy and the 27 soldiers

By Okey Ndibe

A few days ago, a friend of mine in Lagos recounted his online conversation with a Nigerian legislator visiting the US. The Nigerian lawmaker wrote admiringly about the crowds of Americans, rich and poor, who streamed into the John F. Kennedy presidential library and museum in Boston, Massachusetts to pay their last respects to Senator Ted Kennedy. Then he expressed a wish for the day to come when a Nigerian legislator’s death would inspire a similar expression of public adulation.

My friend essayed a sharp response. Gushing admiration for a deceased politician, he wrote back, does not come about through the carting away of “Ghana-must-go” bags of cash.

Perhaps my friend was in a testy mood, but his words rang true.

Senator Kennedy spent 47 years as a US senator. He won nine senatorial elections in a row, and these were real elections, not the sham that passes for Maurice Iwu’s idea of an election. But more than pulling off a string of electoral triumphs, Kennedy’s real achievement lay in the superb quality of his lawmaking. He sponsored, or co-sponsored, laws that made the lives of immigrants, workers, the elderly, and so-called racial minorities better.

It is an acknowledgement of his legislative vision, and in particular his drive to utilize his political leverage to improve the lot of numerous constituencies, that millions of Americans, including many political foes, felt drawn to the streets to commence celebration of his legacy. Thousands lined the streets of Boston to hail the memory of a gentle bear of a man. One man recalled a ten-page handwritten letter Kennedy had sent to his wife in reply to hers. Another man remembered how his mother, Kennedy’s constituent, received a surprise at her 80th birthday: Kennedy showed up!

To be true, Kennedy was far – very far, indeed – from being perfect. At one point in his life, he had a reputation both for womanizing and for drinking a pint or two too many. Yet, his constituents were willing to forgive, or overlook, his peccadilloes; they saw a man who was much greater than the sum of his personal flaws. At any rate, his job description was not to be a candidate for sainthood. They perceived in Kennedy a man willing to battle his personal demons – and determined to put in a hard day’s work on behalf of those who sent him to Congress.

Kennedy’s long-time dream was to husband health care reform, guaranteeing every American and resident, regardless of income, access to sound medical care. It is strangely fitting and ironic that he died in the midst of a raging debate over how best to fix his country’s too-expensive health care sector. His death may or may not lend impetus to the cause of universal health care, but nobody can deny that he gave the mission his all – and then some.

Place Kennedy side by side with Nigerian lawmakers – any Nigerian lawmaker – and we immediately shamble from the sublime to the absurd.

Kennedy loved to be addressed as Ted, or Teddy. No such simplicity for Nigerian lawmakers. Members of Nigeria’s House of Representatives have a silly ritual of addressing each other as “Honorable,” even as honor is frequently conspicuously absent from their conduct and lacking in their persons. But the grander gesture of inflation is to be found among Nigeria’s senators. Each member, even those who don’t know how to spell “bill,” is dubbed “Distinguished Senator.”

Yet, this is a body that is distinguished – along with the House of Representatives – by gargantuan greed and mediocrity, compounded by a steely indifference to the palpable, pressing needs of the citizens they purport to represent.

Take the manifest injustice meted out to 27 soldiers, three of them women, who served as part of Nigeria’s contingent to UN peacekeeping operations in Liberia. The Nigerian legislature has chosen to remain blind to the continued incarceration of these hapless soldiers whose crime was to raise their voices and expose a scandal: how some unscrupulous officers divert monies meant to pay these peacekeepers.

The 27 were originally herded to jail to serve life sentences, even as the officers who committed the real crime of sitting on their allowances were given nothing harsher than a (quick) sharp eye.

On August 28, the army announced that the life sentences were reduced to seven years each. In offering this inadequate dispensation, Chris Olukolade, Director Army Public Relations, reportedly described mutiny “as a very serious offence in the military.” He argued that “soldiers cannot exercise the same rights or approach to protests like civilians,” since this would adversely affect national “security, orderliness and survival”.

Ted Kennedy would have stood up and championed the cause of the 27 soldiers. Clenched fists pounding the podium, that extraordinary legislator would have reminded the army hierarchy that the graver threat to security, orderliness and survival comes from officers who eye their subordinates’ allowances.

Nigeria’s Senate and House of Representatives may shut their ears all they want, but the wailing of the 27 and their families will haunt their chambers until justice – in the form of a reversal of the odious judgment – is done to the soldiers.
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Elm Smith on Kennedy

“If it had been my call to make, the political legacy of Edward M. Kennedy would have ended at Chappaquiddick… But the words that come to mind for me as I consider his second-chance legacy are the words he used to describe why he had backed Barack Obama for president…Obama, Kennedy said, is a man ‘who refuses to be trapped in the patterns of the past.’”

Dear friends,

On the link below is a piece by the incomparable Elmer Smith of the Philadelphia Daily News, regarding the recent passing of Senator Edward Kennedy. I must say: I couldn't have said it bnetter than Elm has. Enjoy!

G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/55293337.html
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Sandy Banks on Poverty and Utopia?

"Penny stared at her with raised eyebrows, uncharacteristically silent. Twenty-four years in the projects and she had yet to consider all of its possibilities..."

c Dear friends.

It is easy to understand why luxury is a vice. Yet, its opposite, that is, poverty, can be a vice as well. Moreover, with poverty as a vice, people are often left to being content with their oppression. We witnessed this during the Katrina fiasco where we saw people running out of department stores into the streets, with water up to their hips, holding stolen televisions, as they grinned into TV news cameras. Meanwhile, simultaneously, others who were just as immersed in water as their television-carrying cohorts had several pairs each of expensive sneakers hanging around their necks that they had stolen, gawking the same way into the news cameras (vice). Where were these folks going to plug in the televisions or walk in the sneakers?

In any case, on the link below is a piece written by the exceptional Los Angeles Times columnist Sandy Banks that, although incredibly penned, seems troubling, at least to me, because the alleged vision of what seems to be a community’s future only reveals the fact that they are not a “community” at all (barred windows and doors, and so forth). Rather, many of the people in the story are those who have lived in poverty for generations and appear to have no desire, much less concept, of what it would mean to use their inner and outer powers of energy, physical and mental stamina, concentration, memory, and so many other strengths that will allow them to join in with their fellows and create a loving and prosperous environment in which to live and grow, without needing a great deal of outside aid. Instead, they act as if someone “owes” them something and waiting for a handout (more vice). Still, Sandy, an accomplished and established veteran words the predicament in a way that makes the whole reading experience involving this situation not just palatable, but thought-provoking as well. Enjoy!

G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-jordandowns22-2009aug22,0,7348179.column
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Dr. Ndibe on Real-life African Folklore

"The Igbo have this cautionary tale about the perils of royal hubris. It concerns a man named Eze Onyeagwanam – roughly translated as: 'King let nobody tell me'..."

“Let nobody tell me!”

By Okey Ndibe

The Igbo have this cautionary tale about the perils of royal hubris. It concerns a man named Eze Onyeagwanam – roughly translated as: “King let nobody tell me.” This royal personage is credited with combining disastrous decisions with hectoring pride. If anybody sought to persuade the king against treading some ruinous path, the king screamed: “Don’t tell me!”

In time, the king’s aides learned to keep their counsel to themselves. Even when the king took a manifestly foolish step, his hapless advisors assured him that his action was the paragon of wisdom.

There are different accounts of how the king came to grief. Here’s my favorite: One day, the king set out for the marketplace. He was stark naked, in a drunken revelry. As he strode to his destination, none of his scandalized subjects dared warn him about his flapping manhood. The imperious man stunned onlookers when he finally arrived at the market.

It was one scandal too many for his subjects. Acting swiftly, they deposed the man and led him away to an asylum – where he spent the rest of his days among other deranged habitués.

Lately, I have been thinking about the undeniable connection between Eze Onyeagwanam’s legend and Nigeria’s crop of crass leaders. Nigeria appears cursed, not with one, but a multitude of Eze Onyeagwanams. Morally and ethically naked men and women dominate the country’s public space, but pass themselves off as lavishly dressed.

Last week, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made an Abuja stop as part of her 11-day tour to a number of African countries. Even before she arrived in Africa’s most populous – and most grandly disappointing – nation, the American media were speculating that she would speak candidly about Nigeria’s woes, especially corruption and record-setting history of fraudulent elections.

Mrs. Clinton lived up to the billing. At a town hall meeting in Abuja, she spoke in a manner that was uncharacteristically direct for a chief diplomat. “The most immediate source of the disconnect between Nigeria’s wealth and its poverty,” she said, was “a failure of governance at the federal, state and local levels.” In a country where militancy has become the disorder of the day, the American secretary stated that “Lack of transparency and accountability has eroded the legitimacy of the government and contributed to the rise of groups that embrace violence and reject the authority of the state.”

In speaking so directly, Mrs. Clinton gave Nigeria’s rulers (yes, they rule, but don’t know a thing about leading) a taste of what President Barack Obama thinks of them. Obama riled Nigeria’s rulers when he snubbed them and instead visited neighboring Ghana in July.

Mrs. Clinton took a swipe at Mr. Umaru Yar’Adua’s non-record in the fight against corruption. Her verdict on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission was unflattering. “The EFCC, which was doing well, has kind of fallen off in the last one year,” she said. “We will like to see it come back to business to be able to partner with us.”

Her dour and – going by the enthusiastic applause she got – accurate portrait of Nigeria elicited the laughable pledge by Yar’Adua to continue combating corruption.

Once Mrs. Clinton left Nigeria, the Eze Onyeagwanam impulse was activated. Officials of Nigeria’s ruling party assured that nothing was amiss in Nigeria. David Mark, who presides over a high-priced but largely sleeping Senate, echoed that sentiment. A man who left a career in the military with amazing wealth, Mr. Mark told reporters that Mrs. Clinton’s take on Nigeria was misconceived. Where she abhorred Nigeria’s wishy-washy elections, the senator argued, “We will decide for ourselves what we want as our democratic system.” And the kind of system “we” have chosen is one where the ruling party captures any states and posts that catch its fancy, regardless of what the voters say!

Mark, a beneficiary of a questionable election, asked with a straight face: “What is the problem with the [Nigerian] electoral system?” For him, Mrs. Clinton’s statement that Nigerians lack a credible register of voters arose from her inadequate education. “That is the sort of thing we get ourselves into when we don’t educate those we ought to,” he bemoaned. Had the US Secretary attended Mr. Mark’s classroom, she would have learned that “This country is a sovereign nation, Nigerians belong to Nigerians and we would decide for ourselves the way we want to move ourselves forward.”

How exactly are Mr. Mark and co moving their nation forward? Here’s a sample. New Inspector General of Police Ogbonnaya Onovo has asked the legislature to empower the police to shoot during elections. Does anybody in her or his wildest imagination foresee the police shooting supporters of the ruling party? Mr. Maurice Iwu, who oversees Nigeria’s infamous brand of elections, recently stated that only the military can conduct credible elections. As I sat down to write, news came that veteran actor and broadcaster, Pete Edochie, had been kidnapped in Anambra.

That’s a portrait of Mr. Mark’s country marching forward into perdition.
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Is Single-Payer Health Insurance “Disruptive”, as President Obama insists?

"Mr. President, considering your response to the suggestion of single-payer health insurance, it was very “disruptive” to scores of millions of individuals, including owners/managers of businesses and other economic, political, and social institutions for a Black man who had a good chance of winning to run for the nation’s highest office, so why did you continue running?"

Is Single Payer Health Insurance “Disruptive”?

President Obama says it is. That brings the question, at least to me: Mr. President, considering your response to the suggestion of single-payer health insurance, it was very “disruptive” to scores of millions of individuals, including owners/managers of businesses and other economic, political, and social institutions, for a Black man who had a good chance of winning to run for the nation’s highest office, so why did you continue running?

Meanwhile, many citizens, especially Republicans, complain about not wanting “too much government”. To be sure, such a protestation is quite dubious, since it is precisely the threat capability of the government’s police and military forces that allow the former to be able to accumulate any measure of wealth in the first place. Moreover, without the aforementioned threat capability of the government’s power how would the wealthy be able to stop others from taking their fortunes?

Finally, at least to me, those who have way more ducats than the rest of us should pay far greater taxes as they relate to percentages of incomes, because they have so much more to lose. Otherwise, the wealthy are being even further subsidized than they already are by their fellow citizens who are of middle class and lower-middle class incomes, since the latter make far less use of airports and other facilities - whether for business or pleasure, that rely so heavily upon government funding. Let’s get real!

G. Djata Bumpus
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Dr. Ndibe on Problems and Solutions for Nigeria

"A permanent solution to the malaise in the delta, as well as the broader breakdown of law and order in the nation, lies in pursuing an agenda of accelerated economic development, the restoration of wholesome values, and humanization of the Nigerian space.,,"

"The real amnesty "

By Okey Ndibe

Last week, a correspondent of Radio France International hunted me down in Toulouse, France, where I was making a short visit to relatives. The reporter sought my opinion about Umaru Yar’Adua’s amnesty for militants in the Niger Delta. Did I think, he asked, that the gesture was going to address the festering violence in Nigeria’s oil-rich hub?

My short answer was no. It doesn’t take the gift of clairvoyance to realize that Yar’Adua’s amnesty, however well meaning, is akin to using paper to cover deep cracks in a wall. Sooner or later – in fact, sooner than later – the cracks will show once again.

Yar’Adua’s amnesty, I told the reporter, does little to fix the underlying causes of the crisis in the Niger Delta. These causes include decades of economic injustice, the ecological devastation of the area, and the shortsighted employment of military power to dispose of legitimate agitation for reparation. Add to the mix the irresponsible recruitment and arming of the area’s jobless thugs by rogue politicians – most of them members of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party – and what emerges is a perfect recipe for social combustion.

A permanent solution to the malaise in the delta, as well as the broader breakdown of law and order in the nation, lies in pursuing an agenda of accelerated economic development, the restoration of wholesome values, and humanization of the Nigerian space. Violence is, in the end, the recourse of desperate, hopeless, or broken people. Sadly, Nigeria has become a factory that mass-produces desperate, hopeless and broken citizens.

Are Yar’Adua and his cohorts doing anything to reverse this trend, to ameliorate the brutish conditions under which Nigerians writhe and seethe? Here again, the answer is no. Are they capable of envisioning a transformed Nigeria? Yet again, no.

There are a few exceptional figures in Nigeria’s public life. For the most part, however, the nation is in the hands of wretched pretenders, flight-by-night mediocrities and contemptible usurpers whose mission is to gorge on the public trough. These men and women are so daft that they hardly realize how perilously close they have brought the nation to the edge of unspeakable disaster.

Yar’Adua is a shadow of the kind of visionary leader that Nigeria needs, and urgently. The man doesn’t come across as understanding the depths of the crisis in which the nation is embroiled.

Far from grasping the nature and scope of the nation’s challenge and the rudiments of social engineering required to turn things around, he has at every turn exacerbated the crisis.

His coddling of the nation’s corrupt league is nothing short of scandalous. It’s still open to debate whether his amnesty to the delta’s militants was a success at any level. But there’s no question that his rule has entailed a bounty of amnesty to those who stole Nigeria to penury over the last ten years.

Under his watch, former occupants of public office who once dreaded the prospect of prosecution by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission have regained their swagger. Confident in Yar’Adua’s harmlessness, men and women who amassed illicit wealth by betraying the public trust have since crawled out of their cocoons. They’ve taken to strutting the stage in obscene pride.

The real beneficiaries of Yar’Adua’s undeclared (but more real) amnesty are his former gubernatorial colleagues lifted into cabinet positions in his regime, despite the existence of massive dossiers of their culpability in money laundering. Other profiteers from Yar’Adua’s amnesty are past and current office holders who have been spared fear of the consequences of corrupt acts. In the current dispensation, few undertakings are as safe and sanction-free as graft and money laundering.

Herein, then, lies Yar’Adua’s albatross. If he wishes to reduce militancy and de-criminalize the Niger Delta, then it behooves him to show a comprehensive distaste for corruption, a crime that acts as manure for the violence and instability in the Niger Delta. You can’t be fraternizing with high-intensity criminals like corrupt ex-governors and be preaching to militants and relatively low-grade criminals to disarm. Disarm for what? To watch in stupefaction as politicians fritter their resources?

Yar’Adua’s policies and his body language do not bespeak a man who wishes to lift a finger in anger at his corrupt fellows. Knowing that about the man, one can confidently aver – as I told my French radio interviewer – that the amnesty plan was dead on arrival.
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Jen Armstrong on more of the effects of Violence on Female Growth

Dear friends,

In keeping with her constant effort to bring out relevant issues, award-winning columnist Jen Armstring of the Philadelphia Daily News reminds us of another of the many reasons why violence against females is this nation's, as well as the entire world's, biggest problem. As a matter of fact, if the foes of Michael Vick used their energies towards the aforementioned pandemic violence against females, as opposed to voicing their alleged concern for non-human animals, I am sure that the animal cruelty would dissipate a short time afterwards. Please check out the link below.

One Love,
G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.philly.com/philly/phillywomen/20090820_Jenice_Armstrong__Staying_safe_on_the_run.html
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Smith on Michael Vick's "Second Chance"

"That's what makes second chances so special. They are an extension of grace that says more about the people who give them than the ones who receive them."

Dear friends,

Let's keep the recent re-instatement and signing of Michael Vicks in perspective. My longtime dear friend and veteran columnist with the Philadelphia Daily News, Elmer Smith, does just that, on the link below. Please reflect.

Cheers!

G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/20090817_Elmer_Smith__Credit_the_Eagles_for_trying.html
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Rabid Animal Rights "activists" and Michael Vick - a female perspective

"There are a couple of key parts to redemption," says the Rev. Mark Kelly Tyler, pastor of Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church. "The person in need of forgiveness has to be able to forgive themselves. And the community has to be willing to give the person a second chance..."

Dear friends,

Is there something deeper going on, regarding the issue of Michael Vick and his re-instatement to the NFL? The Philadelphia Inquirer's outstanding columnist Annette John-Hall gives us a special point-of-view.

Cheers!

G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/columnists/annette_john-hall/20090816_Annette_John-Hall__Vick_s_redemption_goes_deeper_than_football.html
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Dr. Ndibe continues to provide clarity about Nigerian politics

"There’s no question that, for the cabal, the protection of its members’ looting rights approaches a sacred duty. "

"Testing the “steak holders”

By Okey Ndibe

Last week in London, a friend asked why I thought the Umaru Yar’Adua regime deployed overwhelming force in dealing with adherents of Boko Haram, the group that blames western education for Nigeria’s woes. His question was informed by a sense of history. He remembered the studied slowness with which this and past governments had tackled outbreaks of sectarian violence. He also recalled the frequency and openness with which armed robbers operate in most states of the country.

“We never hear about the police showing up when armed robbers attack banks in Ibadan , Awka or Benin City for hours,” he said.

Why, then the alacrity and brutality with which Boko Haram was decimated?

My response was that the cabal that runs – and ruins – Nigeria is not in the business of protecting Nigerians’ lives and property. Their mission, instead, is to use the instrument of the state – principally the army and police – to sustain their ability to privatize the nation’s resources.

This cabal, whose members style themselves stake holders, set out to send a chilling message to all Nigerians. And this was the message: that it would not brook any campaign to impede its access to lucre.

It was the second such message that the Yar’Adua government has telegraphed this year. Earlier, the government had authorized a slash-and-burn military offensive in the Niger Delta. The ostensible goal was to rout militants who, in their attacks on oil installations, had shown scant regard for members of the Joint Task Force detailed to contain them.

In the earlier assault, as in the recent one, the Nigerian state beat its chest after slaughtering hundreds of citizens, many of them unarmed and defenseless, quite a few of them women and children. Apparently scared to face the Boko Haram guru in court, the regime contrived to murder him – and then to concoct an implausible account of the circumstances of his death.

As the corpses of hundreds of Boko Haramites defaced the streets of several states, Yar’Adua went off on his jolly way to Brazil . If there’s a worse case of atrocious political instincts, I’d like to hear about it. For Yar’Adua and his ilk, the majority of Nigerian citizens are worth less than cattle. Why delay a foreign junket just because a few hundred “cattle” had been hunted down and killed?

There’s no question that, for the cabal, the protection of its members’ looting rights approaches a sacred duty. There’s ample proof. Remember how, in one breath, Yar’Adua and Speaker Dimeji Bankole told the nation that former President Olusegun Obasanjo wasted billions of dollars on so-called power projects – with nothing to show for it. Then, after a panel of the House of Representatives launched a public probe that unearthed shocking details of the power scam, the entire machinery of the state went into panic mode. In a bizarre and shameless twist, the cabal in Abuja worked in concert to protect a principle dear to its members’ heart: the principle of thieving.

The collectivity of “steak holders” awoke to the grave consequences of exposing some of their number. What if Nigerians arose and demanded that all the players in the power scandal, including Obasanjo, Governor Liyel Imoke and ex-Governor Segun Agagu, be compelled to face prosecution? The nation-hijackers feared the domino effect of permitting Nigerians to see the callous manner in which men entrusted with high office conspired to defraud the nation. A new script was prepared: Tell Nigerians that not a single kobo was misspent on power projects, much less stolen.

It’s such tortured manipulations of reality, such barefaced lies, that ultimately fertilized Boko Haram’s central creed, a belief that secular education was the culprit. The group’s critique may be wrong-headed, but there’s no question that the depraved men and women who daily gnaw away the nation’s promise and potential are a disgrace to their education and training – western, traditional and religious.

Using superior armory, the regime has squelched the Haramites for now. But let nobody imagine, for a moment, that this is the end of the story. It strikes me, at best, as part of an opening act in what’s likely to be a prolonged, multi-pronged resistance to a political system arranged to aid and abet the mindless leeches who feed fat on the collective blood of a nation.

Unless the cabal cultivates self-restraint and learns curb its greed – and nothing inspires confidence in this prospect – the nation better brace itself for many more Boko Harams and other forms of resistance.

I suspect that the cabal’s victory will prove illusory and pyrrhic.

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John McCain Shows Some of His Real Self

When corporate interests were on the line, it seems, the senator hung up on that right to privacy.*

Dear friends,

Imagine that John McCain had been given the nod to be president, instead of Barack Obama. The article on the link below, written by the very progressive and insightful journalist Stephanie Kraft of western Massachuset's The Valley Advocate, reveals the true direction that McCain has taken.

G. Djata Bumpus

http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_action=doc&p_docid=129975A1A8D2F550&p_docnum=1&s_dlid=DL0109073117511825732&s_ecproduct=SUB-FREE&s_ecprodtype=INSTANT&s_trackval=&s_siteloc=&s_referrer=&s_subterm=Subscription%20until%3A%2012%2F14%2F2015%2011%3A59%20PM&s_subexpires=12%2F14%2F2015%2011%3A59%20PM&s_username=freeuser&s_accountid=AC0107071613144804057&s_upgradeable=no
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Gates' Arrest is Good for Obama PR

“This whole affair has given Barack Obama a chance to make a little public relations move after he has recently been criticized for a number of actions that were “anti-Black”, like going along with the US boycott of the International Conference on Racism that was held this past April (2009) in South Africa…”

Dear friends,

The current furor over Henry Gates being arrested is humorous to me. After all, the story is not even newsworthy, in my opinion.

What is more laughable is: For many years, long before this incident occurred, a number of my friends who are longtime progressive African American scholars/educators have considered Henry Louis Gates to be the antithesis of the “angry Black man” that the news media is revealing. In fact, the aforementioned African American professors have, as I mentioned above, for years, attached the same type of pejorative monikers to Henry, as they have/do to Clarence Thomas.

My own personal experience with Henry is old – i.e., not recent. Almost forty years ago, as a young Black Panther from the Boston, Mass. chapter who, along with a dozen or so fellow Panthers from all over the country, was temporarily stationed in the New Haven, CT chapter for about a year (1970-71), in order to rebuild the aforementioned chapter after the F.B.I. had concocted a murder case against our comrades there, including our national chairman and co-founder Bobby Seale, and had them all jailed. Henry was an undergrad at Yale then. As I mentioned in a piece last year about occasionally running into then future President George “Dubya” Bush (who had already graduated), Henry was an unassuming brother who was around Yale campus, during the same period. As best I can remember, he was always with a buddy (I cannot recall the other cat’s name). I do remember Henry being a good brother, nonetheless. But having to take on adult responsibilities can really change some people.

In any case, the point that, at least to me, so many people are missing is: This whole affair has given Barack Obama a chance to make a little public relations move after he has recently been criticized for a number of actions that were “anti-Black”, like going along with the US boycott of the International Conference on Racism that was held this past April (2009) in South Africa. In other words, Obama’s well-calculated remark about the “stupid” actions of police, for example, has certainly won him brownie points with many African Americans.

Meanwhile, genuine dialogue about racism is swept under the rug, as usual, because racism in the context that is being presented by Obama and the government- and corporate-controlled mass communications media is defined as either a “disease” or some kind of xenophobia, as opposed to being what it really is: a system of oppression and exploitation that is instituted by citizens who disregard their true ancestral pasts and make the mean-spirited claim of being “white”, in order to form an artificial “majority” group and maintain White Supremacy. Dig? Peace.

G. Djata Bumpus
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Five Questions for President Obama

In spite of the welcome nomination of Ms. Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, what "change" has occured as promised to the historically exploitative machine of big banks and multinational businesses that enjoy the protection of "our" government, Mr. Obama?


Five Questions for President Obama

1) If there are only a finite number of citizens and, therefore, consumers in America, will there come a time when some American companies will reach their “saturation points” as it is called in “Economics”; that is, will they be unable to do business here?

2) Should the government “bailout” such companies, including banks, when they reach their aforementioned “saturation points”, since their profits will decline?

3) Do companies have a responsibility to produce results in order to keep themselves in business?

4) Does it seem reasonable for UAW members to take over the Big Three, since they are already building and distributing the cars, while being supported by government funds as opposed to helping the incompetent managers that caused the failure from the outset?

5) Is the claim of "whiteness" that so divides America's body politic based upon biology or convenience for some citizens to means-spiritedly pit thenmselves against others and form an artificial "majority" group, regardless of either the length of history of these aforementioned people in this country or even their skin color?
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Is Hartford, CT becoming North America's new "Jazz" capital?

Saturday 5 September, 8pm The Many Colors of a Woman, Inc. Celebrates Women in Jazz @ The Many Colors of a W*O*M*A*N XXVI FREE Jazz Festival
Headlining: Nicki Mathis’Afrikan Amerikan Jazz New Millennium All Stars: Ricky Alfonso, Joe Fonda, Arti Dixson, Pat Harleston, Rozanne Levine, Dotti Anita Taylor, Deborah Weisz, Mark Whitecage; Special Guest Saskia Laroo Featuring Carla Dean, Dawn Dumas, & MORE TBA Hartford, CT.
CoSponsored by MCW, Inc., OPUS, Inc., SAND, Inc. Funded in part by The Evelyn W. Preston Memorial Fund, Bank of America Trustee; GHAC, MCW, Inc. Supported by Smith Whiley & Company, Cull Books, Jim Fentress. Open to the Public. Sponsors Invited. 860.231-0663, 860.429.6859

Monday 14 September 7P w/International Women In Jazz Choir, St Peter's Church, Lexington @ 54 St NYC 718.468-7376

Saturday 26 September, 8pm
The Many Colors of a W*O*M*A*N XXVII FREE Jazz Festival
Saint Joseph College, The Carol Autorino Center for Arts and
Humanities, Wheelchair Accessible
1678 Asylum Avenue, West Hartford CT, CT. 06117-2791
Map/directions: http://www.sjc.edu/content.cfm/pageid/264

Headlining: Nicki Mathis’ Afrikan Amerikan Jazz
Ricky Alfonso, Phil Bowler; Pat Harleston, Dotti Anita Taylor; Featuring: Carla Dean, Dawn Dumas, Latanya Ferrell; Amina Star & Rodney Decarlos Edwards’ string duo.
CoSponsored by MCW, Inc. Saint Joseph College, The Carol Autorino Center for Arts and Humanities, OPUS, Inc., SAND, Inc. Funded by MCW, Inc. Supported by Smith Whiley & Company, Cull Books. Open to the Public. Sponsors Invited. 860.231-0663, 860.231-5529, 860.429.6859 Dean photos

Thursday 12 November 5:30P An Evening with Gloria Reuben 3d annual WE CAN (Women End the Course of AIDS Now) event, The Pond House, Elizabeth Park, West Hartford hosted by CARC, featuring Nicki Mathis’ Afrikan Amerikan Jazz; 860.761-6699

As a New England States Touring (NEST) Roster artist, presenters applying to hire Nick Mathis may be eligible to receive grant funding that can cover up to 50% of artist fee. http://matchbook.org/ArtistProfile1.aspx?ProfileIdt1 BOOKING Information 860.231-0663 websites:
http://cdbaby.com/cd/nickmathis http://www.myspace.com/nickimathis

Producer, The Many Colors of a W*O*M*A*N Jazz Festival
http://themanycolorsofawomanincorporated.webs.com/apps/photos/album?albumid589469

New Boston Fund 2008 Individual Artist Fellowship/Greater Hartford Arts
Council Award Recipient.
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/musicwoman/2008/08/27/Creative-Vocalists-Nicki-Mathis-and-Renee-Fiallos
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/musicwoman/2008/10/01/Metaphysics-of-Music
google Nicki Mathis Jazz

...If the looking glass were asked, Mirror, mirror on the wall who was the coolest of them all? The answer would be Nicki Mathis... Ken Flynn, El Paso Herald Post

Sing Everyday Eric Dolphy

A silver timbered Texan. Owen Mc Nally, Courant Music critic, Hartford, CT

…I just learned that you will be playing at the upcoming WE CAN event for the CARC! I am thrilled to have you be part of this wonderful program. Thank you so much for signing on....You made our PCSW gala last November a huge success and I'm bragging about you to anyone who will listen. Thanks! ... Teresa C. Younger Executive Director Permanent
Commission on the Status of Women

Lots of things contribute to the makings of a great female jazz singer, beside just a great singing voice: a stylishly graceful wardrobe, a laid back (but spunky) demeanor, and a connection with the audience. Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horne, Nina Simone, Dinah Washington and Nancy Wilson all had (have)(sic) it and so, too, does Hartford's own Nicki Mathis. Robert Cooper, The Hartford Advocate

Dear Nikki, you are a Star of Bright Dimension Citizen Carrie S. Perry (Mayor) Hartford
CT
...and another new singer- and what a GEM! she counted off such a fast swing- I said to myself HUH? and she meant it! you knew where you wanted it Ms. Nick Mathis! Taught me somethin! Wow! your amazing! they LOVED you! I cant wait to hear more! Thank you for sharing that with us! ... LaRe, Jazz Fever Jam, Sugar Bar NYC

Thank you for performing at the Festival's Lunch and Evening Concert Series. We appreciated having Nicki Mathis' Afrikan Amerikan Jazz on our stage to engage and entertain audiences in downtown New Haven. We are glad to know that such diverse programming is possible in our region. Thank you again, Melissa Huber, Program Manager, 12th Annual International Arts & Ideas Festival

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Ojo Maduekwe meets Barack Obama‏

"If Maduekwe were schooled in the basics of diplomacy, he would have known that state visits were not negotiated at chance meetings in hotel hallways..."

Ojo Maduekwe meets Barack Obama

By Okey Ndibe

Ojo Maduekwe’s recent account of a supposed encounter with President Barack Obama pointed up the profound confusion of Nigeria’s misruling elite.

Maduekwe, who’s Umaru Yar’Adua’s foreign minister, described meeting Obama in Italy during the recent G-8 summit. According to him, “President Barack Obama told me that he will be visiting Nigeria very soon.”

In what was a textbook case of diplomatic gaffe, Maduekwe claimed that he “walked up to Obama and said, Mr. President, nice to meet you. I'm the Foreign Affairs Minister of Nigeria. President Obama was warm when I introduced myself. He held me by the shoulder and said to me ‘well, Mr. Minister, I will be visiting your country very soon.’ The second time he told me that ‘Mr. Minister, wherever goes Nigeria, goes Africa.’”

Forget that US embassy officials in Abuja have told Nigerian reporters that they were not aware of any plans by the American president to visit Nigeria. Such blunt repudiation is embarrassing enough. But it’s even sadder that Maduekwe should make a statement, in public, that is so jejune as to guarantee him – and the regime he serves – instant ridicule from Washington and within Nigeria.

Poor Ojo Maduekwe! Like many in Yar’Adua’s circle, he’s infected with what one may categorize as Ghana envy. Yes, Obama visited Ghana two weeks ago and spoke charmingly about Nkrumah’s renascent nation. Not only did the American leader laud Nigeria’s much smaller neighbor, he also spoke in barely veiled accents about Nigeria’s deepening pathologies. Nigeria, once self-proclaimed giant of Africa, has cast itself in the tragic position of now looking up to Ghana. Even if Nigeria were to get a thinking, visionary leadership, not the comatose usurpers now in place, it may well take a decade or more to attain Ghana’s level of infrastructural development and civic order.

But the usurpers sulk and chafe when a man like Obama, a figure whose emergence as US president is suffused with historical symbolism, snubs them. Obama is no fool. He knows that, to be seen consorting with the vote thieves in Abuja, is the quickest way to deplete his moral capital and political assets. So he went to Ghana, a country governed with a measure of vision by decent men and women.

Aware of his boss’s pain at being ostracized by America, Maduekwe bravely decided to save the day. Seizing his moment in Italy, he boldly walked up to Obama and (no doubt, self-importantly) introduced himself. He reported that Obama was “warm.” What a merciful thing that Maduekwe is a poor mind reader. How he would have frozen and recoiled in fright to discern the pity and contempt with which Obama regards his ilk – the pompous derelicts who frolic while their nation withers.

Isn’t it something that Nigeria is now reduced to fantasizing about an Obama visit? Isn’t it sad that Maduekwe, much older than Obama, should salivate at the idea that Obama “held me by the shoulder” – much like a primary school pupil getting giddy on account of the principal’s endearing attention and touch?

If Maduekwe were schooled in the basics of diplomacy, he would have known that state visits were not negotiated at chance meetings in hotel hallways. Even if Obama broached a visit, a minister of foreign affairs should have known better than to go to a public forum and blab about it.

But Maduekwe, like the regime he serves, is a desperate man. The likes of Maduekwe have put Nigeria in the position of a sophomoric nation, desperate to prove that what Ghana can do, Nigeria too can do.

What if Obama said, as Maduekwe claimed, that Africa’s fortunes are tied to developments in Nigeria? Did Maduekwe have to hear it from Obama to believe it? Had he not heard Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe and hundreds of other patriots enunciate that point before?

Desperate to snatch cheer out of a charred narrative, Maduekwe failed to recognize in Obama’s (ostensible) words a rebuke about Nigeria’s addiction to failure, its miscarriage of promise, and its habituation to mediocrity. Think of the kind of hope Ghana has given to many West Africans by getting the basic things – credible elections and infrastructures – right. Imagine, then, the kind of powerful, positive jolt Nigeria would have offered to the rest of Africa if, somehow, the worst among us did not always conspire to hijack the nation, and to reduce it to their banal level.

Obama accorded Ghana the respect its leaders and people have worked hard to deserve. Maduekwe sneaked up on Obama in Italy and, in the fashion of those who abort Nigeria’s highest aspirations, attempted to rig respectability for the Yar’Adua regime. It backfired!
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Obama challenges NAACP, but not himself

"We have had an issue with him for refusing to send a delegation to the world conference on racism in South Africa,"

Dear friends,

Recently, President Barack Obama addressed the NAACP’s 100th anniversary convention. He spoke of his “standing on the shoulders of giants”, To be sure, we have heard this from him before, However, ay least to me, it is a disingenuous claim on his part, especially since, as the piece on the link below reveals, Mr. Obama spent so much time talking about African Americans taking “responsibility” as opposed to expecting help from the government, when he, apparently, has no plans himself to take responsibility by allowing other younger African Americans as well as those who have yet to come, to stand on “his shoulders”. In other words, he. in effect, is telling African Americans that, while he stood on the shoulders of giants, he prefers not to reciprocate. He more or less is saying: Sorry Black folks, I’ve reached the pinnacle. Now, you’re on you own.

Wow! Is this the man who African Americans thought would be our newest Jesus? After all, it seems that we are always looking for a Jesus, instead of using our own “divine” inner and outer powers and imitating the path of the historical Jesus, so that we can make our own way.

Finally, President Obama never even hinted about our need to build our communities. Instead, he totally placed the “responsibility” on parents to guide their children to be educated. Yet, what kind of education does he mean? After all, lawyers in America go to jail everyday, for a variety of crimes. Also, Obama called racism “discrimination”. Interesting. Nevertheless, on the link below, a “giant” himself. Philadelphia Daily News columnist Elmer Smith talks about Mr. Obama’s recent speech to the NAACP

Cheers!

G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_update/51004352.html
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Obama goes to Ghana

Obama goes to Ghana

By Okey Ndibe

President Barack Hussein Obama, a man who embodies hope and a can-do spirit, went to Accra, Ghana last week to deliver a clear message: Africa’s future lies in African hands.

It was Obama’s sermon from Mount Accra. As speeches go, this one had two parts to it. Obama used part of his speech to deliver a rousing, and well-earned, praise of Ghanaians – a people who have beaten a path out of forlorn despair into hope, an energetic present and a promising future. He professed pride that “this is my first visit to sub-Saharan Africa as President of the United States.” And then, in a line that must have made every Ghanaian heart swell with pride, he added: “I have come here, to Ghana, for a simple reason: the 21st century will be shaped by what happens not just in Rome or Moscow or Washington, but by what happens in Accra as well.”

Obama’s speech was also a thinly veiled rebuke to those African countries that still murk around, fiddling away opportunities to achieve their promise. Among those countries, Kenya (Obama’s patrimonial homeland) and Nigeria (home to the vast majority of the world’s Black people) stand out.

In 1998, novelist Chinua Achebe gave a lecture at the World Bank and gave his audience the simple, but not always understood, message that “Africa is people.” In Accra, Obama echoed that sentiment when he asserted: “the boundaries between people are overwhelmed by our connections…I see Africa as a fundamental part of our interconnected world – as partners with America on behalf of the future that we want for all our children.”

Obama’s speech was part rallying cry, part deep cry from the heart of one who confessed, “I have the blood of Africa within me,” testifying that “my family's own story encompasses both the tragedies and triumphs of the larger African story.”

Today, Ghana represents the renascent spirit of Africa’s triumphs as surely as Nigeria emblematizes the continent’s abiding tragedies. And Obama’s sermon was attentive to the contrasting narratives of success and failure, hope and grimness, Ghana (as well as Botswana, South Africa, Senegal, Namibia etc) and Nigeria (as well as Kenya, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Niger, Somalia etc).

With his host country in mind, the American president credited “considerable progress in parts of Africa” but also noted, with Kenya and, likely, Nigeria in mind, that much of the continent’s promise “has yet to be fulfilled.”

Obama’s speech was not always historically honest. He seemed in a haste to play down the West’s culpability for Africa’s travails, in the past as now. He acknowledged that the cavalier colonial map “made little sense” and “bred conflict,” and also that “the West has often approached Africa as a patron, rather than a partner.” Yet, instead of recognizing that those foreign interventions and meddlesomeness incubated much of Africa’s malaise, he sought to exonerate the West for “the destruction of the Zimbabwean economy over the last decade, or wars in which children are enlisted as combatants.”

A more nuanced posture would admit that the West, in failing to follow through on its pledge to help Zimbabwe redress decades of racial inequity in land ownership, helped foster violence and precipitate an economic free-fall in that country. Besides, the West’s inordinate appetite for diamonds and gold has fueled many of the calamitous wars in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Congo in which children have become villains and victims.

Despite this historical short circuit, Obama’s message was on target. The European and North American media are often fixated on the image of Africa as a dysfunctional, misaligned location. In Ghana, Obama detected something different, “a face of Africa that is too often overlooked by a world that sees only tragedy or the need for charity.” He pointed to Ghanaians’ effort to “put democracy on a firmer footing”. He lauded them for nurturing “improved governance and an emerging civil society” that have, in turn, produced “impressive rates of [economic] growth.”

Obama could have been looking Nigerian leaders in the face when he uttered the “fundamental truth” that “development depends upon good governance.” He might as well be chiding the “stake holder thieftains” in Abuja who stake out their country’s resources when he described good governance as “the ingredient which has been missing in far too many places, for far too long.” When he declared, “governments that respect the will of their own people are more prosperous, more stable and more successful than governments that do not,” he doubtless wanted Nigerians to take note.

Obama made a wise choice not to grace a disappointing Nigeria with his presence. But he also made sure that his message, taken from Accra, resonated with Nigerians. In condemning repression and the plague of man-made problems “that condemn…people to poverty”; in warning that “No country is going to create wealth if its leaders exploit the economy to enrich themselves, or police can be bought off by drug traffickers,” in portraying a state where “the government skims 20 percent off the top, or the head of the port authority is corrupt,” Obama wanted his voice to resound in Nigeria.
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Murder of Black "gay" activist is receiving no attention

"...with all of the father/uncle-daughter/niece incest and prostitution that has and continues to plague Black and all other cultural/social groups of women in America, why are African Americans so uptight about people who call themselves “gay”? "

Dear friends,

An African American man named August Provost was murdered while on guard duty at Camp Pendleton in San Diego, California. He was an openly active fighter for gay rights. Was he killed because he was an African American only? Was he killed for being a “gay” activist? Or was he killed for being both? Provost, 29, of Houston, was shot, multiple times, to death at the Navy's landing-craft compound adjacent to Interstate 5. His body was found about 3 a.m. June 30.

Thus far, only the “gay” community is protesting this horrible act. This all happened only five days after Michael Jackson died not far away in Los Angeles. It’s interesting that so many opportunistic “Black” leaders who are still trying to cash in on Jackson’s passing have not uttered a word about an event that presumably Michael Jackson himself would have, at least, denounced.

And where are the headlines? There has not been a lot of coverage on this around the nation. Why is that?

By the way, regarding gay rights, Barack Obama promised that he would get rid of the “Don’t ask-Don’t tell” policy of the two previous administrations during his campaign, but did just the opposite once he was in office. Additionally, Obama’s administration, just as his immediate predecessor did, intended to get rid of the nationwide “Free Breakfast Program” for some 120, 000 schoolchildren just last month (June), before being convinced to keep the program. Of course, it was the Black Panther Party that originally started providing the “Free Breakfast Program” for children nationwide twenty years ago. The US government later made that program part of the overall educational budget.

Still, we have a 29 years-old African American Seaman of the US Navy dead. While it was the overwhelming support of African Americans that killed the right for gay people to be married in California on the same as Obama’s election victory, at what point do Black folks decide that all members of the African American experience should be supported on the basis of their being individuals who lead a wholesome life.

For example, Al Sharpton continues to receive media coverage and support from Black folks, even though back in the Eighties, while he was Reverend Al Sharpton he was arrested by FBI agents during a drug sting where he had promised an undercover agent that he would supply the latter with a large amount of cocaine for $100, 000. What preacher do you know who can provide yopu with a quantity of drugs like that? Additionally, where did he expect those drugs to be sold? Who would be the addicts? White folks? Nevertheless, in a deal to stay out of prison, he then wore “wires” for the FBI, supposedly to help them catch other drug dealers.

The New York Post originally ran the story about Sharpton’s drug-dealing escapades, then just stopped it abruptly. Why were they not so politically correct when they ran the cartoon about Barack Obama being murdered, earlier this year?

Also, why have Jesse Jackson and Louis Farrakhan continued to stand with and identify with Sharpton? Does the FBI have something on Jackson and Farrakhan? It makes me wonder.

Moreover, with all of the father/uncle-daughter/niece incest and prostitution that has and continues to plague Black and all other cultural/social groups of women in America, why are African Americans so uptight about people who call themselves “gay”? Besides, who knows what anyone has been doing sexually that is considered “deviant” with others or about what sexual act(s) anyone has fantasized? It is all a sham!

Michael Jackson’s sexually dysfunctional family, of which Michael too was a part, are now parading around with tear-stained faces, while the father, Joe Jackson, is bragging about his new record company, and Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson following the Jacksons around.

Meanwhile, a fine young man who, in the spirit of so many Black activists before him, has been murdered and the three people who have been “endorsed” by the racist US government- and corporate-controlled mass communications media as America’s “Black leaders” are silent, while Obama is throwing baseballs at the All-Star game. Wow! We sure are progressing.

Please peruse the link below.

G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/New-Questions-Raised-in-Pendleton-Murder-.html
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Black and Latino kids Unwelcome in certain Philly Swimming Pool

"As far as I know, all we recommended was to change the time that [the campers] came, from the afternoons to a nonpeak time. We never recommended to disinvite them." - Huh?

Dear friends,

Has Obama's election to the Presidency of the United States really been delivered a mortal wound to White Supremacy?

On the link below, Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Annette John-Hall makes one wonder. And where is the "Black" mayor of Philadelphia in all of this mess?

G. Djata Bumpus

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/20090710_Annette_John-Hall_Ugliness_in_the_water_at_Valley_Club.html
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Palin Quits?

Dear friends,

Imagine if John McCain had won the recent election, then died before finishing his term. On the link below, 2009 Philadelphia Print Journalist of the Year, the ever informing and inspiring Jenice Armstrong has her own special take on this issue. Please check it out!

G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/columnists/jenice_armstrong/20090707_Jenice_Armstrong__Pit_bull_Palin_becomes__quit_bull___and_sets_back_the_image_of_working_women.html
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Dr. Barbara Teer's Legacy Continues

Watch out "Hurricane Season" is coming soon - July 10‏

Dear friends,

Please click on the link below for news about an exciting event that is about to occur.

Cheers!

G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.nationalblacktheatre.org/


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Elmer Smith On Bernie Madoff's Recent Sentencing

"Additionally, perhaps, part of Madoff’s plea bargain was for the government to leave his wife and kids alone, if they did not want to hear him start singing like a grease monkey in a shower stall."

Dear friends,

If Bernie Madoff conspired with others, in order to pull off a 60 billion dollars Ponzi scheme, then it would seem reasonable, at least to me, that along the way he encountered - if not colluded with - people who were/are either directly linked to our federal government or, at least, in some way connected to it. Would he then also know about other happenings involving the US government’s shady dealings and contractors, for instance? Maybe the powers-that-be just want him to shut up. Additionally, perhaps, part of Madoff’s plea bargain was for the government to leave his wife and kids alone, if they did not want to hear him start singing like a grease monkey in a shower stall.

Nevertheless, as far as I am concerned, the inevitable trillion dollars-plus “Bailout” for big banks and companies makes Madoff’s “take” of 60 billion dollars look like chump change, especially since our government has both the right and threat capacity (police and military) to legitimize printing up as much money as they see fit, at any time. Dig?

In any case, on the link below, you will find an inquiring piece from my very dear friend Elmer Smith who is both a columnist and member of the editorial board of the Philadelphia Daily News. Here, Elm questions Bernie Madoff’s recent sentencing. Check it out!

G. Djata Bumpus


G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/columnists/elmer_smith/49489737.html
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The scandal called “security vote”

"Nigerian officials have a penchant for taking an otherwise good concept and bastardizing it."
The scandal called “security vote”

By Okey Ndibe

The far from resolved drama of the N250 million cash which police officers reportedly discovered in a convoy of cars belonging to Anambra State points to a peculiarly Nigerian scandal.

The scandal’s name is “security vote.”

Nigerian officials have a penchant for taking an otherwise good concept and bastardizing it.

Take the idea of executive immunity. In the U.S., a serving president or governor is shielded from litigation in his or her personal capacity for all acts and decisions that fall within the legitimate purview of his or her office. Mark that officials are protected from prosecution for acts that are, as a rule, both legitimate in character and consistent with the job specification.

Corrupt enrichment is neither legitimate nor part of the tasks that voters hire a governor or president to discharge. A U.S. governor who dips his or her hands in the public treasury is apt to invite the ire of taxpayers and a visit from agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Last December, FBI agents stormed the residence of then Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. A handsome, dashing man who briefly dabbled in boxing, Blagojevich was apparently something of a rogue politician. His troubles began after Barack Obama was elected president. It fell to Blagojevich to choose a replacement for the Senate seat the then president-elect had to relinquish.

For the governor, Obama’s seat was a bait to be used in a scheme to rake in cash. According to the FBI, Blagojevich decided to auction the seat to the highest bidder. In numerous taped telephone conversations, he told aides and relatives about his plan to cash in.

Not so fast, said law enforcement agents, who arrested and shackled the governor. They then announced a wide-ranging indictment on federal corruption charges, including solicitation of bribery. On January 29, 2009 the Illinois State Senate voted 59-0 to impeach Blagojevich.

Were Blagojevich a governor in Nigeria, he would still be at his desk today, gloating as if nothing was amiss. The reason is that Nigerian “rulers” enshrined a perverted version of immunity in their constitution. The Nigerian brand of immunity protects a gove rnor even when he betrays his oath of office by committing a crime. Indeed, especially then.

If the Nigerian doctrine of immunity is weird and counterproductive, the idea of security vote is plain wacky – nothing short of a crime in itself.

Each month, Nigerian taxpayers hand billions of naira to the president and state governors in the name of security vote. Each governor receives a few hundred million naira in this slush fund said to be for security purposes.

Bizarre as this “vote” is, what’s even more unbelievable is that each governor is given the absolute prerogative to dispose of the funds as he deems fit, with no oversight whatever.

That kind of license is a recipe for scandal, fraud and abuse. It’s common knowledge that many governors, in the past and now, simply pocket the money. If you dare to ask where the money went, you become – yes – a security threat.

It’s been suggested that the N250 million being ferreted away by Governor Peter Obi’s aides was the monthly security vote. Obi has yet to offer a convincing rebuttal to allegations that, each month, he freighted the security cash to Lagos and “voted” it into his personal account.

To leave so much cash in one man’s unsupervised hands is to encourage unconscionable diversion of public funds in a country where the basic facilities that create a habitable space are lacking. Access to such easy cash explains the desperation and violence with which Nigerian politicians seek political offices.

Who exactly came up with this deranged notion of security vote? The inventor of this scam deserves Nigerians’ collective scorn.

For running the world’s most powerful country, President Obama earns a little more than $400,000. The man doesn’t have one cent of public funds he can spend without answering to the Congress. Why then do Nigerians permit their governors – most of them inept at their job – to cart away the equivalent of $2 million per month, no questions asked?

In America, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has a budget to enable it to carry out its intelligence operations. Owing to the covert nature of its work, the agency does not give a public accounting of how it spends its money. Even so, the agency has accountability obligations, including classified briefings to a select committee of Congress. & nbsp;

Nigerian politicians took from the CIA the idea of concealing how security votes are spent. But they forgot that, in the U.S. and elsewhere, the security funds are handled by agencies with highly trained professionals, not handed out as largesse to politicians seized more by greed than vision.

Nigerians should insist that security vote be expunged – voted out – from their political playbook.
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What is all of the fuss about the recent Iranian presidential election?

"...Iran is a developing “super-power”, with nuclear energy ambitions that include a space program."

Dear friends,

Just this morning, I was listening to the radio program of a good friend of mine at weibfm.com (smooth jazz), as he mentioned, during a news break, what he and some others in the mass communications media are currently calling the “Iranian Revolution” due to the protestations of young people there who are demanding that their government be more fair about the election process, as well as having a more inclusive public leadership and authority, especially for women. Are any of the young people just mentioned calling for the US government and other Western countries to cease their decades-long economic embargo against the Iranian people? After all, who does the boycott hurt the most – i.e., the privileged bodies (both ecclesiastic and political) or the common folks?

To be sure, if the Western powers mentioned above call off their economic boycott of Iran will that not send a positive message to the people of Iran that the US and others are not trying to meddle in their business, but only mean to provide positive and strong support to the people of Iran? Besides, the history of our own government is covered with blood, especially when talking about African Americans and others fighting for equal rights. As well, in spite of the proclamations of having a “Black” president, African Americans are faring no better, as a whole, than we were prior to President Obama’s election into office.

Moreover, at least to me, the real paradox lies with the fact that African Americans will now be even less likely to protest against governmental injustice, because of the illusion that somehow we have gained power through the election of Barack Obama. Yet, if one thinks about it, while for the past forty years Black mayors have spread across America, all the way from Philly to Alaska, little has changed for most African Americans – or many others peoples, including European Americans (so-called “whites”). How will Barack Obama change that grim reality? More often than not, unfortunately, history has taught us that those who fight against the privileged, once in power, have their own newly-acquired privileges to defend. Dig?

Additionally, as they seem to be having with the elections in Iran, why have neither Western governments nor their media outlets shown any concern with the fairly recent election results in Palestine/Israel that excluded the native people from being part of the electorate and promises to further colonize said Palestinian people (if that is possible) with increased Jewish settlements?

Does all of this media frenzy by the US government- and corporate-controlled media reveal any similarities between Iranians and Americans and how we both conform to whatever our government and the cultural institutions that it endorses - like certain media, churches and schools – as they remind us how to behave/respond to a variety of issues and events? Or do many Americans feel that they have minds of their own, in spite of the ideas that are superimposed upon those minds beginning at a very early age?

Finally, Iran is a developing “super-power”, with nuclear energy ambitions that include a space program. These folks are not “desert jockeys” as racist Western media groups often try to portray the people of Iran and her neighbors. About that, how do the earlier-mentioned young people feel? Worse yet, the more that the US and other Western nations hold on to their nuclear weapons to enhance their “threat” capabilities or muscle, as it were, the more other nations feel that they must both develop and maintain nuclear weapons for their own security and ability to threaten. The end result, at least to me, will be suicidal for all humanity, if we continue to resist genuinely democratic principles and do not stop grandstanding with illusions about “freedom, justice, and equality”. For, ultimately, the quintessence of “democracy” is non-violent conflict resolution. Therefore, the claim of introducing it (said democracy) to Iranians, Iraqis, Palestinians, or anyone else, by violently invading their lands, is a pure lie. Period!

Cheers!

G. Djata Bumpus

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Has Peter Obi Let Nigerians Down?

"Many of us applauded the tenacity with which the man mounted a legal effort to retrieve the mandate the voters of Anambra gave him in 2003, but which was hijacked by the ruling Peoples Democratic Party and its candidate, Chris Ngige, a medical doctor. As an unwavering believer in the principle of credible elections, I took pride in Obi’s decision not to abandon pursuit of an office he’d won."

Is Peter Obi a hypocrite?

by Okey Ndibe

Governor Peter Obi of Anambra is in serious danger of becoming a tragic political figure. According to widely circulated reports, police officers two weeks ago caught men close to the governor with a large cache of cash. As I write, there’s some uncertainty about the sum, but most accounts say N250 million.

Apparently, the cash couriers were stopped as they drove to Obi’s business headquarters in Apapa. Since then, Obi’s office has tried to explain away the scandal. The governor’s aides have, to put it bluntly, done a poor job of it.

They suggested that the cash belonged to a contractor who’s done business with the state government. They have also contended that the cash was far less than newspapers reported. Then, in a needless and unconvincing attempt to muster moral bravado, Obi telegraphed a public letter to the Inspector General of Police demanding a thorough investigation.

Even at the most charitable, one must state that Obi’s explanations, so far, about the source, ownership and purpose of the cash have been nothing short of inconsistent and unimpressive. If anything, the tenor of the Government House’s statements suggests the scrambling incoherence of a man caught doing something indefensible.

In the ten years since Nigeria embarked on this strange phase many pundits call “nascent democracy,” no politician has garnered as much goodwill as Mr. Obi.

Many of us applauded the tenacity with which the man mounted a legal effort to retrieve the mandate the voters of Anambra gave him in 2003, but which was hijacked by the ruling Peoples Democratic Party and its candidate, Chris Ngige, a medical doctor. As an unwavering believer in the principle of credible elections, I took pride in Obi’s decision not to abandon pursuit of an office he’d won.

Once he claimed the office, Obi faced twin nemeses: a state legislature dominated by PDP members, and former President Olusegun Obasanjo, a man whose middle name should be mischief. The former president made no secret of his desire to hand the governorship of Anambra to his ward, Emmanuel Nnamdi (Andy) Uba. Encouraged by Aso Rock, the state legislators impeached Obi in a process that was transparently fraudulent. Again, many Nigerians rooted for him and celebrated when the judiciary restored him to office.

Obi’s come-back achieved dramatic culmination when he persuaded the Supreme Court to find that he had yet to serve out his four-year term as governor, and to oust the impostor, Mr. Uba. His victory triggered a paroxysm of jubilation not only in Anambra but also throughout Nigeria and abroad.

In fact, Obi’s triumph came to symbolize a promising dawn for the judiciary as well as the potential for democratic flowering in a country that continually hovers on the edge of despair.

A man with Obi’s political biography should have governed with a sense of history. He might have surrounded himself with the best talent in every area to enable him to succeed.

Instead, Obi appeared to have misread his political fortune as evidence of his genius. By many accounts, he became impervious to advice, however sound. He began to relish the company of court jesters who fed his ego. He began to court a man with the unsavory antecedents of Chuma Nzeribe, a member of the House of Representatives who’s hardly associated with admirable causes. Instead of delegating duties, he began to function as if he and he alone enjoyed a monopoly of wisdom in the state.

Even before this cash scandal, Obi had disappointed many who expected him to help transform his political party into an institution possessed of gravitas, instead of the ragtag it’s become. Under his watch, doctors went on strike for several months because the governor waved them off instead of engaging them in respectful negotiation. His verbal run-ins with his deputy, Mrs. Virgy Etiaba, as well as Ngige left the impression of a man whose personal limitations have confounded his public office.

It’d be hard to forgive Obi if it turns out that he’s been fiddling with public funds. Anambra needs all the money it can get for the great challenge of development. Awka, the state capital, is in a shameful state, an eyesore. The state’s infrastructure is dismal and requires a lot of cash to fix.

Obi liked to say he was a man of means long before he sought the office of governor. I heard him tell a gathering that if he stole one kobo of Anambra funds, he’d invite God to unleash wrath on him as well as his children.

I hope – for the sake of the long-suffering people of Anambra – that it was not a hypocrite who uttered that sentiment.
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Smith on the progress of the "Stimulus" Package

"...the only "stimulus" that has been mentioned by the government seems to be about big banks and companies getting billions of dollars of "bailout" money. What is going on?"

Dear friends,

Throughout the recent presidential campaign and all the way up to the inauguration we heard about part of the new administration's "Stimulus Package". Supposedly, it would involve a massive employment projecct for "infrastructural improvement" like repairing roads and fixing old bridges.

Yet, the only "stimulus" that has been mentioned by the government seems to be about big banks and companies getting billions of dollars of "bailout" money. What is going on?

Fortunately, on the link below, the incomparable Elmer Smith of the Philadelphia Daily News provides us with some clarity.

Cheers!

G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/local/20090609_Elmer_Smith__To_see_stimulus_at_work__follow_the_______if_you_can.html
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Why we need Single-Payer Health Care

"While President Obama and others say that making our current health system a "single-payer" one would "disrupt" the current process..."

Dear friends,

While President Obama and others say that making our current health system a "single-payer" one would "disrupt" the current process, there is no doubt that single-payer health insurance (which is used by most advanced nations) would be a far better choice than the one that we currently have. Besides, while he has been using that excuse of not wanting to "disrupt" lately, perhaps, our president should consider the fact that the same type of people who protest single-payer health insurance as a disruption, probably thought that having a "Black" president would be one too. Eh?

Nevertheless, on the link below, you will find resources for more information about this crucial issue.

G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.ask.com/bar?q=What+is+single-payer+health+insurance%3F&page=1&qsrc=0&ab=2&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pnhp.org%2Ffacts%2Fsingle_payer_resources.php
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Taking a measure of Nigeria in London

"Headlined by Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, the event was organized by the Nigerian Liberty Forum. The NLF, whose public face is Kayode Ogundamisi, exemplifies what can be achieved when committed, mostly young, citizens come together to exclaim no to the diabolical bunch who’re mortgaging their country’s interests."

Taking a measure of Nigeria in London

By Okey Ndibe

Anybody who wished to gauge what Nigerians think about their country’s bizarre brand of “democracy” should have been in London on May 29.

I was there as one of the speakers in a symposium tagged “The State of the Nigerian Nation.” It was clear to me that Nigerians had exhausted their patience with the coterie of criminals who have hijacked their nation, and that something is about to give.

Headlined by Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, the event was organized by the Nigerian Liberty Forum. The NLF, whose public face is Kayode Ogundamisi, exemplifies what can be achieved when committed, mostly young, citizens come together to exclaim no to the diabolical bunch who’re mortgaging their country’s interests.

Given many Nigerians’ tendency to quickly discount the perfidious acts of their so-called leaders, it’s comforting to behold a group that’s sworn not to forget. Instead, the NLF maintains a formidable sense of the multiple ways in which Nigeria has been betrayed. The group’s goals include advocacy of “good governance, accountability and the enthronement of democracy” and the organization of “peaceful public protests against corrupt Nigerian practices.”

It has recorded some remarkable feats. When Umaru Yar’Adua visited the United Kingdom, the NLF mobilized Nigerians to come out and remind the man’s British hosts about his tainted mandate.

More recently, the group pulled off a successful rally that sent former President Olusegun Obasanjo cowering for cover. Obasanjo had been invited by the London School of Economics to talk about his role as a United Nations’ peace envoy to the Congo. The NLF felt that, given Obasanjo’s record as president, his name and peace should never be mentioned in the same breath.

True, the NLF fell short of persuading LSE to withdraw its invitation. Even so, its members ensured that Obasanjo’s inflated and delusional credential as a peacemaker was eloquently called into question.

In a sense, the symposium was proof that the NLF is far from just reactive. Its lineup of speakers was morally august. There was the former Chair of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission Nuhu Ribadu. Soft-spoken in voice and wiry in appearance, Ribadu’s message resonated deeply with the audience. In what amounted to a cry from the heart, he implored Nigerians, one, to reject the false creeds those in power employ to divide and conquer and, two, to reclaim their country from the hands of its despoilers.

There was Femi Falana, one of Nigeria’s most intrepid lawyers, whose insider account of the recent electoral shame in Ekiti reminded the audience about the depth of the ruling party’s determination to emasculate the Nigerian electorate.

The unprepossessing Sowore Omoyele, publisher of saharareporters.com, proved a crowd favorite. Omoyele’s website, which combines hard-edged investigative reports with an iconoclastic style, has endeared him to many Nigerians who relish the way he exposes the cupid underbelly of the ruling class. He challenged Nigeria’s traditional media to awaken to the need to identify with the cause of the masses or risk losing relevance.

Josephine Amuwo, who helps run a highly successful London-based agency that offers training and a variety of other services to women, gave a short but spirited testimony about her passion for Nigeria and her belief in its capacity to rise from the morass and achieve its promise. Affiong L. Affiong, a former student activist, spoke movingly about the role of women in the struggle to liberate Nigeria.

The ever-ebullient Kennedy Emetulu and the energetic Professor Sola Adeyeye gave rousing performances as moderators of the morning and afternoon sessions respectively.

So much was at stake at the London symposium. That it was held on May 29, a day Obasanjo presumptuously declared “Democracy Day,” was at once fortuitous and added to the dramatic temperature.

Soyinka’s speech skewered the notion that May 29, rather than June 12 (when Nigerians held what’s acknowledged as the finest election in their country’s history), merits designation as the day democratic aspirations are to be celebrated.

There was, besides, a running subplot to the symposium that lent it some air of drama. Prior to my arrival in London, I’d received feelers that the Yar’Adua regime was hostile to this gathering of Nigerians to take stock. In London, I was shocked to discover how chagrined Abuja was at the prospect of this meeting. Under pressure from the Nigerian High Commission in London, the London Metropolitan University pulled out as co-sponsors of the event.

When Sowore, Ogundamisi and I sat down in the studios of BEN TV to do a live interview on the conference, the audio became unaccountably mute. I later learned that the High Commission had registered its displeasure with the Nigerian owner of the studio for letting subversive elements appear on his TV. At the symposium, a man told me that the commission had signaled that any Nigerian groups that attended the event courted sharp censure.

Despite these shameful efforts, the hall was packed from morning till the event’s conclusion. Still, the government’s attempt to undermine the symposium struck me as powerful proof that our democracy is yet deformed.
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