My "Blog Sister" La Shawn Barber (of La Shawn Barber's Corner fame) is going to be on MSNBC's Connected Coast to Coast with Monica Crowley and Ron Reagan tomorrow afternoon during the 5P ET hour.

She's set to be on with Robin Burk (from WindsOfChange.net) and Wonkette.

The topic? Woman bloggers waxing political.

And yes, La Shawn, you are more than ready. Just relax and roll with it. You'll do fine. I (and all your other readers) have supreme confidence in you and your words.

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On the heels of Black History Month each year, I'm reminded of one particular day of radio broadcasting ten years ago.

Not long after I came to Atlanta as morning drive host of the late, lamented WIGO radio, I did a program about history and artifacts and remembering. The program came about after a caller groused about the notion of preserving slave quarters on an old cotton plantation in southern Georgia.

Ramshackled structures, which looked to be ready to fall down were in danger of doing just that on this particular property. Some people, both black and white, were interested in maintaining those structures, and restoring some, if not all of them, and rightly so, in my estimation.

We, as a people, need to remember the pain and horror of what our ancestors went through. We need to know about that dark portion of American history, and the injustices that some perpetrated on others as America went through it's growing pains.

In any event, a number of callers were upset with my position (as if that event, in and of itself was anything new). They felt that there was no need to maintain such a painful reminder of our collective past; on the contrary - in their eyes, each and every vestige of slave and Jim Crow-days should be eradicated. In their eyes, the very existence of such an ediface would be enough to maintain their ongoing victimhood status at the hands of whites in America.

I strongly disagreed.

I felt (and feel), that just as we celebrate the positives in black history; the black heroes who persevered the setbacks that life handed them across time, we should also know and learn and remember the darkness of the path taken. But it should be remembered within it's proper context. It should be noted that we as a people have come a long way from there to here.

As opposed to using that type of display as a crutch, it should be viewed as a victory - "See how far we have come?"

We don't live life as the footrests of whites in America; we don't live life as collective victims. Our forefathers certainly would be proud of how far we have come.

Some would quickly say that we have "far to go." But in reality, do we?

Opportunity exists for all of us. However, we have a responsibility to take advantage of that opportunity. We have a responsibility to use our God-given talents and gifts to move forward, and not to allow others around us to prevent us from doing just that.

There are those would have you believe that America "owes" us more than that; that America "owes" us jobs, or money, or reparations, or some other nebulous thing.

What America "owes" black America is what she owes to any American: opportunity, liberty, and the fundamental freedoms that are granted by God. I just wish that more blacks in America would reach out and sieze those rights, as opposed to allowing the "Soul Patrol" to tell them that whites in America are playing keep-away with their rights.

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There's a new teenaged trend playing itself out in Orlando, FL, called "garage jumping."

You heard that right - the idea is to go to the top of a high-rise garage and launch one's self across an alley or some other void to another garage, not unlike a sequence from The Matrix. Safely, one might presume.

One teen, Tim Bargfrede, tried in his "infinite wisdom," but missed the other side.

Bargfrede fell six stories and was knocked out cold on impact.

"I just didn't make it," Bargfrede said.

Bargfrede survived the 80-foot fall but was injured.

"The first time I came to the garage after my son's accident, I looked over and I just about broke out in tears," the boy's father Tim Bargfrede said. "I can't believe he actually survived. He looked like he was near death."

"There was a very, very short length of fence that was completely ineffective in preventing this from happening," (family attorney Vincent) D'Assaro said.

Which I guess is supposed to be the city's fault, huh? Yeah. Right.

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(Courtesy Day By Day)

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Idiot moonbat supreme Ted Rall claimed in a column last week that right-wing columnists and bloggers are more likely to post violent and vitriolic threats than those on the left-wing.

Idiot Rall then invited those of us on the right to send proof otherwise to him at rightwingchallenge@rall.com. Several folks have taken the moonbat supreme up on his challenge, but have found that e-mails to that address bounce higher than SuperBalls.

Moonbat Rall claims that no one has sent him anything, but the bounces belie that notion; sounds like he is full of used food. As usual.

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Behind a Houston Chronicle piece entitled "Small study ties Ritalin to higher cancer risk," Laurence Simon over at Full of Crap delivers the ultimate trueism:

This is what you get for drugging kids instead of beating the hell out of them when they act up, America.

"We had never seen The Belt.

But we had heard about it.

The Belt was nine feet long. Eight feet wide. And it had hooks on it that would rip the meat right off of you if it ever hit you.

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Fox News Live host Linda Vester got into it on the air this afternoon with Omarosa of Apprentice fame.

Seems Omarosa wanted to show Linda up with her knowledge of the "television business," based on her Bachelor's, Master's and Doctoral degrees all being in Radio/Television.

Then again, Omarosa's only practical experience in television was as the "queen/bitch/goddess" of the first season of Donald Trump's "The Apprentice."

Johnny Dollar has the video for your edification.

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1 Damn! That was almost painful to watch. But it's Linda Vester, so I was obligated.

Posted by: Toby Petzold at February 25, 2005 08:34 PM (ZYTWK)

2 Omaraso used a common conversational tag -- "my friend" -- to which Vester responded with an extremely rude "First of all, you're not my friend." Well, that's a nasty as it gets, but then Vester compounds the insult by telling Omarosa -- a woman with a BA, Masters and PhD in media -- that she "knows nothing" about television. Now, this could very well be the truth, but what kind of host talks this way to guest? Ric

Posted by: Ric Landers at February 26, 2005 09:36 AM (kJCyj)

3 I agree Ric. I despise Omarosa as much as everyone else but Linda Vester was being extremely unprofessional. I think they're both bitches but I'd like to see Omarosa beat the snot outta Linda .

Posted by: Jasmin at February 26, 2005 10:34 AM (jBVfz)

4 I followed the link and fired off an email to Vester's employers. That incident was complete BS. Virtually everything that came out of Vester's mouth was mean-spirited and insulting. Shocking, really ... Ric Landers

Posted by: Ric Landers at February 27, 2005 08:44 AM (kJCyj)

5 Ric, I checked out her website and she hasn't been awarded the Ph.D. yet. True to form, she is a self promoting liar.

Posted by: Getting My Mind Right! at February 27, 2005 11:48 AM (jca3+)

6 Good for Linda! Just because she's the host doesn't mean that she has to take anyone's verbal abuse!! It's about time somebody put that woman in her place. I wish she coul've asked Oma whatever why she left the JImmy Kimmel show, before even going on air, after finding out that there was a lie detector for the show.

Posted by: oneqtteach at March 02, 2005 10:15 AM (ZCiLL)

7 Please confirm Linda Vester's email address. I have Dayside@foxnews.com and mail is being returned. Thanks

Posted by: Janet Logue at April 12, 2005 10:05 AM (lEOW2)

8 Where is Linda Vester? I miss her!

Posted by: Berta Watson at October 05, 2005 06:33 AM (K2E35)

9 Linda Vester is my favorite Fox person. Where is she? She is an outstanding journalist and interviewer. I miss her. Please let me know what program she has and I will tune in. sbrick

Posted by: selma alpert at October 08, 2005 07:28 PM (wvzNU)

10 Where is Linda? I miss her, she did a great job1

Posted by: Pat at October 20, 2005 03:56 PM (nR8zG)

11 We miss Linda Vester. A good interviewer and has interesting show. The new hosts act like a poor rendion of Regis and whoever. If she took on the Trump protoge good. Alitle spice never hurts a show. Bring her back or at least let us knnow where she is and we can switch to watch her again. Bill and raye Harris

Posted by: Raye Harris at October 31, 2005 02:28 PM (ZPLD3)

12 She is on maternity leave lindavester.net

Posted by: Amy at November 07, 2005 06:34 PM (lds+t)

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Sources inside Buena Vista Entertainment indicate that "Song of the South" will finally be released on DVD in 2006.

"Song of the South." The Academy Award winning film that former Disney Feature Animation head Thomas Schumacher once told Roger Ebert was on "permanent moratorium" has reportedly been greenlit for release late next year. A special 60th anniversary edition that -- thanks to a plethora of extra features -- will try & put this somewhat controversial motion picture in historial context.

"Why -- after all these years -- did Disney finally give in?," you query. It's simple, really. "Song of the South" 's 60th anniversary was simply too good a promotional hook for the Mouse's marketing staff to pass up. More to the point, Buena Vista Home Entertainment could really use a hit right about now.

Given that Disneyana fans have been clamoring for a "Song of the South" DVD for nearly a decade now, BVHE execs are hoping that all of this pent-up demand will eventually translate in really big sales for this disc. Disney is hoping to sell at least 10-12 million units of this particular motion picture.

"But aren't Disney Company execs concerned about how the African American community may response to 'Song of the South' 's release of DVD?," you continue. Yep. I won't lie to you folks. There's a lot of people in the Team Disney Burbank building who are very concerned that -- by releasing this much maligned motion picture on home video & DVD -- that the Mouse House is potentially opening itself up to a ton of bad publicity.

With the hope of avoiding that, BVHE reportedly plans to really pile on the extra features with "Song of the South." Among the ideas currently being knocked around is producing a special documentary that -- through use of clips from that TV movie version of Rodgers & Hammerstein's "Cinderella" that Disney produced back in 1997 as well as sequences from "The Proud Family" & "That's So Raven" -- would demonstrate that a person's color really doesn't matter at the modern Walt Disney Company. There's also talk of including Walt Disney Feature Animation's seldom-seen short, "John Henry," as one of the disc's special features.

Fans of all races have begged and cajoled but Disney has stood their ground...until now.

So you can stop bidding on those overpriced black and gray-market videos on eBay, provided you can hang on for about a year and a half or so.

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Notoriously and hopelessly moronic moonbat cartoonist (and I use the term "cartoonist" loosely) Ted Rall has now taken aim at bloggers in general, and Captain Ed of Captain's Quarters in particular.

Bloggers want you to know that there's a new sheriff in town. Edward Morrissey, writer of the right-wing blog Captain's Quarters, boasts to the New York Times: "The media can't just cover up the truth and expect to get away with it--and journalists can't just toss around allegations without substantiation and expect people to believe them anymore." And what are Morrissey's qualifications to police the media? When he's not harassing old-school journos like Dan Rather and CNN's Eason Jordan out of their jobs, Morrissey manages a call center near Minneapolis.

Bloggers are ordinary people, many of them uneducated and with nothing interesting to say. They're sitting in their rec rooms, regurgitating and spinning what real journalists have dug up through hard work. They don't have sources, they don't report, and no one holds them accountable when they make mistakes or flat out lie. Yeah, there's a new sheriff in town. Unfortunately he's drunk, he's mean, and he works for the bad guys.

I hope you'll excuse me if Rall's credibility is not among the highest in the world.

Captain Ed takes Rall the moonbat to the woodshed and gives him an intellectual beating to try to pound some sense into his head.

He draws cartoons -- badly -- and expresses opinions similarly. I don't pay much attention to him as a rule, as he generally makes almost no sense whatsoever, and this column is a perfect example.

(Rall) expected bloggers to exist only to agree with his radical beliefs. Of course, that's Rall's idea of free speech. He can criticize anyone he likes, including me, but when people criticize Eason Jordan for making unsubtantiated allegations of assassination strategies about our military, all of a sudden it's McCarthyism.

Rall doesn't really even have enough of a connection to reality to enrage; he just provides amusement, like a crazy old uncle locked in his rec room, typing and muttering about all of the people out to get him. Too bad he's not important enough for it, and that he doesn't even know it.

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Congressman Charlie Rangel (Moonbat-NY) told WWRL Radio hosts Steve Malzberg and Karen Hunter today that we shouldn't use the term "Islamic terrorists" when referring to the...Islamic terrorists. Rangel claims it's discriminatory.

(Rangel said,) "To call it Islamic terror is discriminating, it's bigoted, it is not the right thing to say."

Rangel even questioned whether, in fact, a worldwide Islamic terrorist movement even existed, saying, "We just take for granted that there is an Islamic terror movement because we do have some fanatic people who come from Islamic countries."

The Harlem Democrat complained: "When we had the Ku Klux Klan we didn't call them Baptist terrorists. When Hitler was killing Jews, we didn't call it Christian terrorists."

What the hell are we supposed to call the terrorists (for lack of a better term), then?

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Stranger and stranger these things might be.

Bayer trademarked "heroin" in 1898 as a non-addictive substitute for morphine, and marketed it alongside it's other trademarked product, "aspirin," as a remedy to be used in the home by consumers. Heroin was actually accepted as a safe remedy for children as a cough suppressant.

Bayer quit making heroin (as you can imagine, in a very pure form for public consumption) in 1910, after they determined the addictive properties of the narcotic were more than they had originally determined.

The US government outlawed the production of heroin in 1924.

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Jesse Jackson writes a weekly piece for the Chicago Sun-Times, and this week, the Sloganmeister actually sounds conciliatory toward President Bush.

We know now that, thanks to the news media consortium that recounted ballots in every Florida county, recounting under any method and any criterion they tested would not have overturned Bush's exceedingly thin plurality (in 2000).

Uh, Jesse, we knew that four years ago. You and your cronies refused to accept the truth, and continued to peddle your lies and obfuscations as absolute and unquestionable truth from 2000 forward. You expect me to believe that you've had a monumental epiphany now? So does this mean we will have to wait four and a half years for you to accept the Ohio results of 2004?

Democrats hoped that anger over Florida would produce a huge turnout in 2004. John Kerry did win 16 percent more popular votes than Al Gore, but George W. Bush won 23 percent more popular votes than he did in 2000.

What might have hurt the Democrats even more is if Gore's strategy had been successful, and he had been installed as president by the partial hand count sanctioned by the Democratic-appointed Florida Supreme Court.

So are we supposed to smile and let bygones be bygones now? I don't think so.

I don't trust you, Jesse. You've never let the truth get in the way of your own agenda, no matter what that was.

And now, with raving moonbats from Hillary Clinton on down working to present themselves as more moderate in order to woo those of us on the right, none of you have shown that you are still anything but stark, raving, slobbering moonbats. When the moon goes full, you'll sprout wings and rejoin Howard Dean screeching at the top of your collective lungs about how "eeeevil" those of us on the right are, and working to stab us in our collective backs.

No, Jesse, I'll pass on the "Kumbaya" singing today.

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Word just in from Aspen, CO: author, journalist and ESPN.com columnist Hunter S. Thompson, known for such works as "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," and the inspiration for the "Doonesbury" character Uncle Duke, shot himself to death tonight, according to his son.

Pitkin County Sheriff Bob Braudis, who is a close personal friend of Thompson, confirmed the death. His son, Juan, found him Sunday evening.

"On Feb. 20, Dr. Hunter S. Thompson took his life with a gunshot to the head at his fortified compound in Woody Creek, Colorado. The family will shortly provide more information about memorial service and media contacts. Hunter prized his privacy and we ask that his friends and admirers respect that privacy as well as that of his family," Juan Thompson said in a statement released to the Aspen Daily News.

Thompson's first person narrative style, laced with action verbs and exploiting any story he wrote about to absurd levels became known as "Gonzo journalism."

He was also the originator of the phrase, "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."

Thompson's final Hey Rube piece for ESPN.com, "Shotgun Golf with Bill Murray" is dated February 15.

Thompson's final column ended on a strangely appropriate note.

So long and Mahalo.

Hunter.

Farewell, Uncle Duke.

Hunter S. Thompson was 67.

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Rich trailer-trash Paris Hilton's T-Mobile Sidekick was hacked this weekend, and phone numbers and e-mail addresses of familiar Hollywood names from Vin Diesel to Anna Kournikova were splashed across the internet.

In addition to Paris' address book, the notes section of her Sidekick was hacked and also put out in the ether for all to see.

The FBI has opened an investigation into the hack. Not that they'd open one if most of us "great unwashed" got hacked or anything.

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St. Petersburg, FL NAACP head Darryl Rouson may be heading to jail on a misdemeanor charge of trespassing.

Rouson entered the Purple Haze Tobacco & Accessories Shop in St. Petersburg and wouldn't leave, despite admonishments and requests to the contrary by store managers and personnel. Rouson claims he didn't leave because he was afraid of pit bull terriers on the premesis.

Rouson contends that the glass pipes sold by Purple Haze and other shops are used to smoke drugs like crack cocaine.

"The law allows them to operate behind a curtain that says tobacco accessories," Rouson said. "Everybody and their cousin knows that these pipes are rarely used for smoking tobacco."

Earlier this month, state Sen. Stephen Wise, a Republican from Jacksonville, filed a bill for the new legislative session that begins next month to create a yearlong Drug Paraphernalia Abatement Task Force. It would recommend "strategies and actions for abating access to and the use and proliferation of drug paraphernalia," according to the bill.

Even before Rouson first visited the Capitol on the issue in December, Wise said his constituents in Jacksonville had been showing up with glass tubes containing roses to complain at his office.

"It's not something you give your girlfriend for Valentine's Day," he said. "I would suspect people on the street know exactly what it's used for. People who are selling it have a pretty good clue what it's for, too."

Rouson pointed out that Purple Haze is four blocks from Gibbs High School.

Leo Calzadilla, the store's owner, said he was not worried about the legislation.

"It's not going to affect my business because I don't sell drug paraphernalia. I sell tobacco products," Calzadilla said. He said he also sells cigarettes, cigars and 1-pound bags of tobacco bought increasingly by former cigarette smokers fed up with rising costs.

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Word is The Queen of All Evil and hubby Dean Esmay (both of whom do fantastic work on their blogs) are back at home with their son Drake.

Young Drake was in hospital this week with pneumonia, but thankfully is doing better. He still needs to be monitored, but thank God he's resting at home.

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Syndicated radio and Fox News Channel host Sean Hannity accused denizens of Free Republic of being fringe folks who "eating their own" on his radio show yesterday, which brought down the ire of many on the popular conservative forum.

Many on FR who responded to the on-air diatribe pointed out that Hannity appeared to be drumming up support and potential posters to the recently-established message board on his own site, Hannity.com.

"Free Republic is childish. Come to MY board instead".

OK, I concur. The freepers are freakin nuts. There are over 2,500 comments on this post now. It's getting seriously kooky over there.

Radio host Kevin McCullough also points out that Hannity seems to have confused the concept of a message forum (like FR) with what a blog is.

If he took some time, backed up a bit, he would discover that Freepers and Bloggers both would be quite generous to his new site and the new "messageboard" feature that he was pumping in the audio bite. That's part of what bloggers do, generously link and share traffic - based on the idea that the more people who distribute information - the more the public is armed to make informed choices. Blogs are not about crowing over how "BIG" your site is. Bloggers know who is big, and they know better than you do...

Much like many other message forums across the internet, there are good points and bad ones; good posters and bad ones. Free Republic does not have a monopoly on "bad guys" as many (including apparently Hannity) would have you believe. There is certainly merit there as there is in much across the web.

I've met Sean once, and have found him to be polite and gracious and a true gentleman. I'm truly surprised that he would take this "bite the hand that feeds him" tactic in regard to FReepers. If I had the opportunity to talk to him directly, I'd advise him to reconsider his words from yesterday. There is plenty of room for the forum on his site among the others on the web; he might find that there are a fair number of folks who post on his site that also post on FR.

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Yet black conservatives get constantly painted by blacks and liberals as "sell-outs" and "spooks who sit by the door."

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I'm set to go on Bill O'Reilly's talkfest tonight on Fox News Channel.

Tonight's subject has to do with a local Atlanta case where a mother killed her own five-week old baby by shaking her to death in December of 1998.

34 year-old Carissa Ashe pleaded guilty to a charge of voluntary manslaughter last week in Fulton County Superior Court, bringing to an end her murder trial.

Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes sentenced Ashe to five years probation and to have a sterilization procedure performed in order to prevent her from having any more children. Ashe has had two more children since the death of her baby daughter Destiny Ashe in 1998.

The premature infant had been hospitalized for weeks and was killed two days after going home to her mother. Ashe told police the child simply stopped breathing.

Ashe, who has no prior criminal history or complaints of abuse, could have been sentenced to 20 years in prison on pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter — defined as a killing committed with a sudden, violent irresistible passion after the assailant has been provoked.

Instead, Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes ordered Ashe to serve five years on probation and to have the tubal ligation within three months. If she doesn't comply, prosecutors can try her on the initial murder charge.

The judge questioned Ashe to make sure she was voluntarily agreeing to the procedure.

"It was her choice to go forward," said Jan Hankins, director of the Fulton County conflict defender's office, which represented the mother.

Two of Ashe's children are living with her mother, while four are in state custody, Howard said. Her oldest child ran away from home, he said.

I'm set to be on around the bottom of the hour (Fox News Channel - 8P ET/5P PT), in what the producer describes as the longest segment of the program.

O'Reilly tapes during the 6P hour, so I ought to be back home in time to watch and live-blog it here.

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According to published reports this morning, Michael Jackson, who was admitted to a local hospital in Santa Barbara, CA suffering from flu symptoms, is on the same floor as the pediatriac unit.

My "blog-sister" LaShawn got wind of it from the local newscast on WMAL radio in Washington.

I just got off the telephone with WMAL anchor Michelle Basch, who confirms that Jackson is staying on the same floor as the Pediatrics Unit. HeÂ’s supposedly there because itÂ’s the most isolated area at Marian Medical Center. Oh, the irony is disgusting!

I called Michelle Basch to reconfirm. She said the report is an ABC Exclusive paraphrased this way: “ABC has learned that Michael Jackson is staying on the same floor as the Pediatrics ward…”

You simply can't make this stuff up.

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