Valley Bookstores & Beyond

How One Becomes Wealthy Despite Society's Ignorance and Stupidity is a novel based on hard-core reality.  It is a no-holds barred and personally profane look at what one has to do to overcome in the American capitalist system that's not taught in schools or churches, thus why poverty is relegated to certain segments.  The book can be ordered online at http://infobuck.com/custom2.html  and will be shipped C.O.D. Due to mature adult material the book should be ordered by adults only.

Copies can be ordered or purchased at the following independent bookstores:

Cantos Booksellers
18 Campbell Avenue SE
Roanoke, VA 24011
540-342-100

Printer's Ink
4917 Grandin Rd Ext.
Roanoke, VA 24018
540-774-3500

Ram's Head Book Shop
2137 Colonial Avenue SW
Roanoke, VA 24015
540-985-6469

Too Many Books
1330 Grandin Road SW
Roanoke, VA 24015
540-985-6469

Edward McKay's Bookstore
1607 Battleground Avenue
Greensboro, NC 27408
336-274-4448

Chris Rock's "Good Hair"

Chris Rock's documentary hits the cinema this weekend about women and their adorning crowns or in some cases, bad weather "curses" which are sometimes referred to as the "bad hair" days by women of all races. I don't know but I think Chris might be just a bit naive with this finished product.

In the book "How One Becomes Wealthy Despite Society's Ignorance and Studpidity" reference is made to the hair style for black males during the forties into the seventies, before "Black became Beautiful" with the sporting of the "Afro" for men and women of color,  the "quo vadis", a hair style similar to that worn by the President. The style was of course healthier and easy to manage. But however, this hair issue has been around a long time since the end of slavery.

As a matter of fact, if a person didn't have a neat hair cut, he was considered too poor or uncouth to recognize the importance of being "cultured". Some people considered this to be restrained or a deprivation of freedom and thus the "Afro" sprouted from the cranial as if to say I am "shucking my shackles."

As a black kid growing up in Mobile, AL during those days of the segregated south, whenever the "rock n roll" shows came to town the black stars stayed at the all black Le Grand motel. We kids would go down to the motel to run errands or shine their shoes for what were good tips. We would stand down in the parking lot and observe them standing on the balcony trying to determine who was who.

This particular show had the Drifters, Solomon Burke, the Coasters, Little Willie John, and Sam Cooke. They all sported "conks" or the processed hair do's with the customary "do rags" with the exception of one Mr. Sam Cooke. Frankly, we kids considered the conk to be a modicum of success because they could afford to do it. Whereas, the stars who did not have a conk were not doing all that well; thus, the thinking of young, stupid, dumb-down-south black kids in Alabama..."true Bamas" in every sense of the word.

When I graduated from high school and left home and traveling with the military, I got to observe various perspectives of particularly my cultural roots and realized later on that people like Sam Cooke and Muhammad Ali were sending a clear message with their natural hair styles long before the rest of black America got it with the "Afro" in all of its sentiments of race pride.

Many black males today sport the shaved head look but that style was a mark of then the Black Muslims along with their customary bow ties. As with any fad, they never really go out of style...they simply revolve with time.

Nonetheless, what should be the constant, is that an individual has to  "be true to him or herself" and that is not determined by the grade of one's hair but rather by one's internal character.

HBCU Fomenting Black Racism??

Article taken from Black America Web:

"Hampton U's First White Queen Causes Stir"

"Nikole Churchill, a 22-year-old from Hawaii whose mother is Italian and father is from Guam won against nine black students in the 15th annual Miss HU scholarship pageant... according to Virginia's Newport News Daily Press"

Hopefully, I'm not premature in commenting on what appears on the surface to be an ugly, stupid, ignorant display by the student body and administration of Hampton University. It is after all the alma mater of a man I have and still highly admire, one Mr. Booker T. Washington. See what he has to say about race and its relation to humanity, click http://theroanoketribune.com/contact_2.html 

However, if there is any remotely insidious truth to this situation, then I compare it to former Alabama Governor George Wallace in standing in the door way to block Vivian Malone in attending the University of Alabama. My thinking at the time was that President Kennedy should have gone farther than Federal Marshalls removing Mr. Wallace, but should have shut down the whole d--n school. Vivian Malone who is now deceased is the sister-in-law of Attorney General Eric Holder.

Therefore, if there is any remote possibility that racism is blatantly practiced at this world-renowned university, I suggest that President Obama does not visit to soften ill feelings, but send a clear message that he will shut down the whole d--n institution, starting with the removal of any Federal assistance. Also, make it a clear warning to other HBCU's that this nation will not tolerate these sorts of displays from the past to erupt in the future...at least on his watch.

Rush Limbaugh...the little tin god that couldn't

Listening to Limbaugh whining in his beer after being rejected in his bid to own an NFL team, caused me to reflect on former Governor George Wallace who ran for President of the US, before being struck down. "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever" and vowing not to be "out-niggered"again when running for governor of the state of Alabama. He later on apologized in his waning years of which I believe a man can be forgiven as long  as his actions did not cause irreparable and permanent harm in the human family...but I also believe the wise adage of "watch while you pray"...in other words, never forget the core of an individual's thoughts and actions. Rush Limbaugh of which I believe his core of existence in the initiation of his so-called trek of "conservatism" was and still appears to be as diabolical as the former Governor of Alabama. No matter how he attempts to re-package himself as being just a harmless entertainer, this man is as deadly as any viper in the talk show arena and wants to sleaze himself into mainstream civil society, by whatever socially acceptable tricks at his disposal, be it sports, a beauty pageant judge, or appearing with the affable Jay Leno, and to a position of expanding his wealth and train of thought beyond the 20,000,000 ditto heads he's currently confusing and using. Eventually, all tin gods have the same predictable fate...they self-destruct and fade into oblivion.

The Cloak of Conservatism...

The argument surrounding Rush Limbaugh's NFL bid rejection as he claims, is because he is a "conservative". Far from it, Limbaugh is an intelligent, southern racist with a disturbing dislike, although camouflaged by tolerance, for all  that are not protestant white folks including Catholics, Jews, and immigrants. He has attempted to cloak himself in a conservatism offered up by Bill Buckley and Bill Kristol but has never been accepted by this class, for his pedigree is that of just a hillbilly disc jockey and low-caste southerner in their eyes. It is quite obvious that Limbaugh comes out of a past where what he wants to call conservatism was really no more than racist animosity with a template characteristic of the KKK, the White Citizens Council and other sundry groups that used lynchings, murder, rape, and other hostile acts to maintain control of people that were not protestant white folks. As I have cited, some people such as Alabama Governor George Wallace regretted and apologized for their thoughts, campaigns, and actions but only after a tremendous amount of human wreckage. So, for Limbaugh to try to hide behind a "conservative cloak" and supported by people such as black correspondent, Juan Williams, in this NFL issue(somehow, I saw guilt rolling in his eyes on Fox Sunday) is as despicable as Clarence Thomas trying to destroy the Voting Rights Act. These gentlemen are either in denial of their past of which I don't think they are, or just as deadly as Limbaugh in the future course of healing for this great nation. Limbaugh, you were not rejected for who you are but instead, what you stand for and the potential of opening old wounds that have not completely healed.

America's Amazing Fools

  Last night, the President of the United States reported to the nation his decision in having to send 30,000 men and women, family members, relatives, sons and daughters, mothers and fathers into harm's way to face death and human destruction to protect our nation, by destroying the capability of those desirous of carrying out this destruction.

Yet this morning, the right wing talk show hosts, namely America's foremost capitalist pig and windbag, Rush Limbaugh, let's this woman who has a son among the military personnel at West Point, comment that she did not see the enthusiasm in her son's expression that was there when George Bush last made a visit to the historic military institution. This typefied the kinds of people that we can certifiably acknowledge as "fools" who listen and support this bloated radio buffoon. Her petty comment centered on the President's personality and never once did the thought or expression about the future of her son going into combat as being one of the military personnel who may be ordered to do. Everyone knows that only the fools who call to "suck up" to this AM radio fool, who is now the leading conservative for the other right wing fools, will get through. However, even I, who will listen to better counter Limbaugh's  rhetoric in my blog since before President Obama's election, was astonished at this woman who's a mother of a brave soldier and could not express more heartfelt sentiments about life and death as opposed to such shallowness.

No "good Samaritan" churches in the Roanoke Valley?

During this incredibly cold snap, you would think the churches would be opening their doors to the hapless, hungry, and cold...but no such luck here. Again, reflecting the hypocrisy of Christian worshippers not only here but throughout the nation, when it was only days ago, it was celebrating just such a moment in history. How quickly they forget and mask their forgetfulness with Sunday Morning Socials. Read the book below and find out why there is such increasingly disdain for this western belief.

Senator Reid, no need to apologize...Intelligent Black Folks know what you meant.

Matt Drudge and kind are simply trying to make something out of a non-issue, and intelligent folks know his modus operandi when it comes to the President and his team, including the Senators and House Members trying for a better and safer nation.

So the President doesn't speak with a "Negro dialect"  nor does he have any "slave blood" as noted by some black leaders some months back, and I dare say if he had either, he would not be the 44th President of the United States. Therefore, for all of you critics of the President as well as Senator Reid, get a life! The book below refers to the use of the term "negro" when it might have been an otherwise delicate use of the flagrant colloquialism spouted by young blacks today.