CNN Takes A Stand With Roland Martin…

Roland Martin is being suspended for tweets he made during Sunday’s Super Bowl. It wasn’t about the game that he was tweeting. It all started with the David Beckham commercial for male underwear. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t care for the commercial at all. I thought David Beckham looked ridiculous and I even asked WHY is he promoting underwear instead of something else? I felt he was posing like a female supermodel instead of a male athlete. But, what do I know? Fashion and modeling are out in left field for me. Never paid much attention to either one. But Roland Martin’s tweets took his dislike a bit further.

His tweets were construed as anti-gay and promoting gay violence. What exactly did he tweet?  The offensive tweets in question were:

“If a dude at your Super Bowl party is hyped about David Beckham's H&M underwear ad, smack the ish out of him! #superbowl”  AND


“Who the hell was that New England Patriot they just showed in a head to toe pink suit? Oh, he needs a visit from #teamwhipdatass”

Three Days later CNN issued this comment and suspended Martin: “Roland Martin’s tweets were regrettable and offensive. Language that demeans is inconsistent with the values and culture of our organization, and is not tolerated. We have been giving careful consideration to this matter, and Roland will not be appearing on our air for the time being.”

I have to say I was surprised to see the network take such swift and decisive action regarding Martin’s tweets and the offensive meaning behind them. It does give me hope, that as a society, that things are moving in the right direction. After reading what the protesters said about Ellen being spokesperson for JC Penney, and the Washington State pastor who feels that people supporting same sex marriage are doing the devil’s work, it is refreshing to see an organization that will take action against intolerance of others.

Sometimes I think political correctness goes too far and becomes absurd, but in this case, I think CNN is to be commended for taking a stand. Promoting hate and violence against one group of our society, because they are different, is wrong. And, as a black man, who belongs to a group of people who have been discriminated against for over two hundred years and suffered great intolerance, Martin really should know better.

Let’s hope Martin uses his time off to reflect on his prejudices and work on changing them. Hopefully, others will learn something from it too.

If you want to see the entire exchange of tweets go to this link: Roland Martin Tweets

Ten Years Later, Church Still Talking!

Look, before you get started reading, this is my top pet peeve, so if you don’t want to read another rant about the Catholic Church today, just skip it or search for a more pleasant blog to read. Every now and then something happens to bring my anger back to the surface and it’s going to spill out right here. I read the other day that the leaders of the Catholic Church were going to meet for a four day symposium, to discuss the prevention of child abuse. Ordinarily I might consider this a good thing, but it comes 10 years after the horrendous scandal broke out. Ten years is a long time. And they describe this as an “unprecedented assembly.” They are going to talk about the “best ways to help victims, protect children and educate priests.” The New York Times sums up my feelings in a nice way:

“As cases of abuse prominently emerged in North America and several European countries over the past decade, the church was often slow and clumsy in its reactions, angering the faithful and inviting accusations of both negligence and cover-up.”

Why all the “talk” just now? Well it seems that the Vatican has a reason to act like it’s trying to do something. I read that they are being brought up on charges with an International Criminal Court amongst others. So maybe self preservation or a line of defense against the indefensible is being launched? Who knows? What I do know is all this talking, ten years after the fact, is not about the children, it’s really about repairing the Church’s reputation. That will never fly with me unless they round up everyone guilty and punish them. That includes not only the priests who committed the crimes, but everyone who covered them up! 

Why am I skeptical and critical? Why don’t I trust the Church? They haven’t done anything, that’s why. What little they did do was to benefit themselves and damage control. And here is another thing that riled me. This morning I heard something on the radio that pissed me off. Remember former New York Cardinal Edward Egan, who was in the middle of the church scandal ten years ago in Bridgeport, CT when he was bishop there? Well he recently gave an interview and in it he says that while he was bishop there was never a case of child abuse by a priest in his diocese and he insists he did nothing wrong. And, he added, there is no legal requirement to report abuse cases in Connecticut AND he regretted making the apology he did back then concerning the priest abuse scandal! 

"Egan is obviously unrepentant, self-absorbed and painfully dismissive of the abject suffering of tens of thousands of deeply wounded men, women and children who have been sexually violated by priests, nuns, bishops, brothers, seminarians and other Catholic officials," said David Clohessy, director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. "We can't help but believe that many other prelates feel exactly as he does, but are shrewd enough to avoid saying so outside of clerical circles."

Maybe this is why I am still fuming over something that didn’t just happen ten years ago. It’s been happening for decades, maybe hundreds of years, maybe as long as the Church has been around. People didn’t talk about these things in the past and are only recently speaking out about it. One example can be found in the graphic movie the “Magdalene Sisters,” a true story of abuse told by the victims themselves. This is nothing new, it’s just that ten years ago victims began speaking out. Before that, the complaints were “handled” within the Church by transferring the guilty priests to other unsuspecting parishes where they could start their abuse all over again.

“In the interview, Egan said many of his accomplishments were unfairly overshadowed by the priest sex abuse scandal. "I'm not the slightest bit surprised that, of course, the scandal was going to be fun in the news -- not fun, but the easiest thing to write about."

That statement also drew criticism. "Cardinal Egan's statements in this article, including describing the sex abuse scandal as being `incredibly good' or `fun' for the news, confirms the extent to which he was out of touch with the reality of what occurred to the Catholic faithful within his diocese," said local attorneys.”

I don’t believe for one minute that Egan is alone in his way of thinking. I believe this type of denial is pervasive throughout the Catholic Church. The fact that they are waiting ten years to discuss the matter now that they are being charged with criminal complaints in an International Criminal Court speaks volumes to me. In fact, all I recall at the time was a lot of denial and excuses and NEVER any outrage as to what was going on under their noses. That’s because they always knew what was going on and never addressed it in a meaningful way. I hope the matter comes to court and they are found guilty. I hope each and every member of the church will have to actually pay for their crimes. We don’t even know the full extent of the problem, which was happening worldwide, because they got rid of much of the evidence when the scandal broke. 

They can talk until they are blue in the face, but as I told my own pastor at my church ten years ago, I will never be satisfied until something is done and the guilty pay for their sins. Unless I am satisfied, I will not be donating my money to the Church for their legal defense fund, but to the many other worthwhile charities who work to protect children make this world a better place!  (No answer from the pastor.)

Super Bowl's Worst Play...

Worst play of the game: Mrs. Brady opens mouth, inserts foot!

I watched more of this Super Bowl than any other in my lifetime. Why? Not because of the NY Giants, not to spend time with my husband, certainly not because I love the game or any sport for that matter. I watched because we had a little company and I was waiting for a little appetite to get worked up.  I have to say that the last minute of the game was very suspenseful. The Giants, “our team,” were ahead and the Patriots could still pull off a win in the last 60 seconds. So that last minute was really something to see. 

However, yesterday I heard something that irked me, and it was a statement made by Mrs. Tom Brady, the Patriots quarterback. I don’t want to paraphrase what she said so I will quote it: 

“You [have] to catch the ball when you’re supposed to catch the ball,” she said in a video posted by TheInsider.com, via TBL.  “My husband cannot f–king throw the ball and catch the ball at the same time. I can’t believe they dropped the ball so many times.” ~ Gisele Bundchen

I have no idea who plays for the Patriots, and frankly I don’t care that much. However, what could sting more than losing the Super Bowl, after having a great season, might be being told that it’s your team’s fault and the only player who deserves any credit at all is Tom Brady, by Mrs. Tom Brady? I am sure that was a boost to everyone’s morale. The Patriots looked dejected and depressed after the game. No one had anything to say. Yes I stuck around for the post game and thankfully it was a mere 20 minutes long. 

But the day after the game, Mrs. Brady had a mouthful to say about the game, criticizing the receivers for not catching  the balls and dropping them so many times. And it’s her remarks that are being publicized and repeated over and over again in the media. So Much for good sportsmanship. 

Only one team can win a game. A lot was riding on this one. Maybe the Patriots were having a bad day, were out of sync, weren’t up to the challenge. Maybe the Giants were playing exceptionally well? Who knows? At the end of the game there can only be one victor and one loser. Then, it’s time for the losers to be gracious and congratulate the winners. I didn’t see any congratulations going around. The Patriots seemed so dejected they couldn’t even speak. But leave it to Mrs. Brady, supermodel, to get a super nail in the coffin of this defeat. Her comments stung. Her husband will have to go and face his teammates soon enough. I imagine he was embarrassed by what she said. I hear his plays weren’t all perfect either, but I’m no expert.  I guess I should be grateful she didn’t lash out at the Giants? 

I just think her comment was so out of line and speaks to her character as a person. People like that should think before they speak. The days of good sportsmanship and grace in losing are over. Money has changed sports. Steroids have changed sports. And people’s attitudes about winning and losing have changed sports…and not for the better.

Maybe Mrs.Brady should stick what she knows best...modeling and footwear!

AT&T Bill $665

Whenever my husband comes to me with papers in his hand, I know there is usually a problem. Saturday he had a fist full of papers and I asked what it was. I never expected him to say it’s the AT&T bill and we owe $665.00. I said, “What!?!” as I jumped up to look at the bill. It must be a mistake. That’s almost $500 over what we typically pay.  I checked all the pages. We have four phones with 1,000 minutes and 3,000 rollover minutes that we don’t use. I don’t get it! I was shaking as I tried calling AT&T three or four times and the call wouldn’t go through. Who knows what number I was dialing? 

As I am waiting for someone to pick up at AT&T, I am pacing in circles and making myself dizzy. My daughter is laughing at me, telling me not to worry, they will fix the bill. She wants me to stop pacing before I end up on the floor. All the while, my saint of a husband is telling me not to worry, if we have to pay it we will pay it. But, I finally managed to get a customer service representative while I am still barely on my feet and shaking. 

It’s Nicole. How can I help you she asks. I tell her my story. I thought I had over 3,000 roll over minutes and now my bill is almost $500 dollars over what I normally pay.  She pulls up my account and says she will see how she can help me. She tells me my rollover minutes were all used up in November, 2011. Apparently, I had been eating into my little “cushion” of extra minutes all along and never realized it. And, now all the “extra” minutes over 1,000 for the month, were billable. She tells me she will see what she can do about it. A couple of minutes later she says she is taking off $303.33 from the amount due; that is all the computer will allow her to do in one day. But, she adds, she will call me back tomorrow to see if she can take off more money and give me some rollover minutes too. She asked me what would be a good time for her to call me and I said 11 AM. I thanked her for her help.

The next day, promptly at 11 AM, Nicole calls. She reviews my account and says she is taking another $178 off the bill and adding 5,000 rollover minutes to my account for me so hopefully I won’t go over again. I laugh and tell her she can be sure I won’t be going over ever again. I think her again for all her help and ask to speak to a supervisor to tell them how much she helped me. She tells me all the supervisors are busy, but thanked me. I said I’d be willing to write a letter or email. She said it wasn’t necessary, I was a good customer and I should have a nice day.  And with that, my phone bill went down to the normal $182 a month and I have more rollover minutes than ever before. 

Yes, I learned a valuable lesson about checking minute usage. Over the years I have gotten very complacent about never going over my minutes. But. It seems it’s very easy to do and very stupid on my part. I do have a landline and many times I use the cell phone because it’s easier and right there. You can bet I won’t be using it as much any more. And now I won’t be able to rant and rave when AT&T has a temporary outage in my area. I usually give them a very hard time about things like that. But, they didn’t give me a hard time when I needed this problem solved. So I owe them big time!  

On top of that, I knew this whole problem was my fault. The other three in my family hate talking on the phone and rarely do. If minutes were being used, it would have had to be me. However, I couldn’t yell at myself, could I? Then I would have looked like an even bigger nut than the one who went over LORD knows how many minutes to add an extra $500 to the bill. Honestly, I couldn’t even tell you how many extra minutes I used. The paper was shaking so much in my hand and I was going into a mini panic attack, that I couldn’t see the numbers.

The next thing I need to do it to see if they have some kind of usage alert feature on the website, so they can tell me when I am getting close to using all my minutes (like that’s ever going to happen again). I think that should be an automatic feature for every cell phone. If you don’t have it activated, you might want to, so that one day you aren’t in my shoes pleading your case to the phone company.

Christians Against Starbucks!

A boycott is being held against Starbucks by a Washington state, Christian pastor, Steven Andrew. What can possibly be behind this? No they have not asked Ellen to be their spokesperson. Starbucks is supporting a bill in favor of gay marriage, and for that, the pastor says, they are following Satan. Using religious rhetoric and saying things like “are you on the Lord’s side” and “will you help the US be blessed by God” he hopes to strike a blow for Christianity. It seems the state of Washington may become the seventh state to recognize same sex marriages and that’s intolerable.

What bothers me more than onemillionmoms.com protesting Ellen, is when religious “leaders” come out against gay people. They flat out say that God wants them to protest the gay population, to be intolerant, cause them hurt and harm, and basically deny them their human rights. What God are they praying to? I want to ask them where is the text message, email, hand written letter from God asking for their help to ostracize gay people from the community? What God are they worshipping who would select a group of people and demand others treat them badly, wound them, shun them, deny them opportunities available to others? It can’t be our Christian God. He sent His only Son here to teach us to “love one another as he has loved us.” I never read anywhere in Jesus’ words where he said, “My father says gay people do the devil’s work, boycott any merchants who are gay or kind to gay people.”  

How can these Christians go around preaching love and hate at the same time? It’s hypocrisy. If you ask me, this is the work of the devil. To use your position as a “preacher,” a man of God, to promote hate. What could be worse? They would sooner forgive a murderer and welcome him into the flock and into heaven than they would a law abiding, God loving gay person. Something is very very wrong with this picture. I wonder what God is thinking when He sees and hears these people? How twisted must their minds be to think that preaching hate is part of God’s message? 

It’s up to the followers of these “men of the cloth” to straighten them out. They need to speak up and show them the error of their ways. They have become misguided, or maybe they always were. If they really understood what God was about, what love was about, what bringing people together was about, they certainly would not be spreading these kinds of bigoted messages. This pastor, Steven Andrew, is not alone is his ignorance, but how many more people will he convince that his words are right and condoned by God? It’s sinful, it disgraceful and even blasphemous to speak on God’s behalf and preach hate.

I hope Steven Andrew gets a message from God and that he gets it soon, when the bill in favor of gay marriage in Washington state passes next week. I hope the other 43 states follow suit. We shouldn’t even be discussing this issue any more. It should have been put to rest long time ago. But thanks to people like Steven Andrews, intolerance and hate are alive and well.

Protesting Ellen DeGeneres?

Heard Everything?

It’s one of those days when I just heard another thing that tops it all. JCPenney is doing a whole makeover of it’s brand. They recently announced they will have no more sales, all their prices are going to be rock bottom all the time. And now, they have hired Ellen DeGeneres as their spokesperson. I thought everyone loved Ellen, but I was wrong. Dead Wrong! This anti-gay group, OneMillionMoms.com, is actually protesting the fact that Ellen was chosen and demands she be replaced. 

They argue that most people who shop at JCPenney have traditional family values and they will not shop at a store whose spokesperson is openly homosexual. They say the majority of shoppers will be offended. I am almost speechless that this kind of ignorant prejudice is around and so openly expressed. They actually feel justified and think they are making a perfectly good and rational argument. Sometimes I feel like we are still living in the Dark Ages and I will never see the modern Age of Enlightenment. I’m not even sure how this group is getting away with making these kind of public statements. They even have a facebook page.

Here is their post: 

Recently JC Penney announced that comedian Ellen Degeneres will be the company's new spokesperson. Funny that JC Penney thinks hiring an open homosexual spokesperson will help their business when most of their customers are traditional families. More sales will be lost than gained unless they replace their spokesperson quickly. Unless JC Penney decides to be neutral in the culture war then their brand transformation will be unsuccessful. Degeneres is not a true representation of the type of families that shop at their store. The majority of JC Penney shoppers will be offended and choose to no longer shop there. The small percentage of customers they are attempting to satisfy will not offset their loss in sales. JC Penney has made a poor decision and must correct their mistake fast to retain loyal customers and not turn away potential new, conservative shoppers with the company's new vision. By jumping on the pro-gay bandwagon, JC Penney is attempting to gain a new target market and in the process will lose customers with traditional values that have been faithful to them over all these years. Make a personal phone call to JC Penney's customer service department. Their numbers are 972-431-8200 (customer service) and 972-431-1000 (corporate headquarters). Ask JC Penney to replace Ellen Degeneres as their new spokesperson immediately and remain neutral in the culture war.

I suggest we call JCPenney and applaud them for their decision. We can't allow people like these to voice their intolerance without drowning them out. They don't speak for everyone! I pray to God they don't speak for the majority, as they think they do. Meanwhile, GLAD has a petition going around online in support of Ellen. You might want to vote there too.

I don’t know where to place the blame for this intolerance. I know it goes way back and it’s hard to eradicate intolerance and ignorance. But, I like to place blame somewhere for the lack of progress we are making. Maybe if different religions would speak up and tell their followers that they do not condone expressions of intolerance, people might listen. I mean the Bible does have passages against homosexuality, but what about the new commandment that Jesus gave us, “Love one another as I have loved you?” Does just apply to certain people and not others? 

I wonder what the people in this group will do when one of their children comes home and tells them they are gay? Would they want their children shunned? Not be able to get jobs? Be discriminated against? Bullied? Beat up? Would they want to have to bury them after they commit suicide? 

I just don’t understand how they can think the way they do in this day and age! They are propagating hate because gay people are different. Can’t they spend their energy doing some good in this world? How about they go after pedophiles, drug dealers, the pornography industry? And really now, who in their right mind can protest Ellen, of all people?

I don’t know about you, but I have always been a JCPenney customer and now I will make it a point to shop there even more. I am going to make up for the tiny percentage of business they might lose due to the stupidity that this group is trying to create.

Be Careful What You Tweet, Big Brother Is Watching!

Well I came across a story too irresistible not to write about. A couple of young people from Great Britain were planning to visit the United States and, in their excitement, they tweeted a couple of comments. To the couple, in their 20’s, these remarks were all harmless fun. However, the Homeland Security wasn’t laughing when they came across them a good week before the couple was due to arrive. How far is our government willing to go? A better question is how can they monitor billions of tweets and zero in on who wrote them? I am amazed. 

So what did they tweet that caused them to be detained, locked up and forbidden from visiting America? One tweet said they were coming to dig up the grave of Marilyn Monroe. The other tweet said they were coming to destroy America. The couple say that their words were taken too literally and all the meant is that they were coming to have a good time.  The male explained the tweet about Marilyn Monroe was a quote from our cartoon show “Family Guy.” The word “destroy” meant they were coming to get “trashed and party.” Security went so far as to search their suitcases for shovels.

Meanwhile, where does this end? Is this overkill? I live in New York and we are still affected by what happened on 911. I am all for increasing security and taking precautions, but seriously can we monitor every tweet around the world? Has technology become that sophisticated? Will our words, even the ones made in jest, come back and haunt us in the future? Who could have ever envisioned this? 

Maybe George Orwell’s book 1984 was a few years before it’s time. I always loved this book. Had he dated it about 20 years later he would have been declared a prophet. Remember the “newspeak” in 1984? It’s described as “the deliberately impoverished language promoted by the state.” It’s a simplified version of English vocabulary and grammar. Well what would you call emoticons and all the text abbreviations of LOL, BRB, 4get, etc etc that we all use, especially teenagers and young adults. One of the characters actually says, “It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.”

George Orwell must be spinning in his grave. If only he could have seen his work of fiction, become reality, right before his eyes. By the way, 1984 was only published in 1949. What do you think about this?