Speaking of Lenny Kravitz, who says he’s abstinent (for over three years now – good role-modeling if sincere) until [re]marriage:
Rest easy, everybody. And thanks for reading LBC. 
January 2009
The web has changed the way we do so many things, especially the way we consume news. The video below is a 1981 news story about reading newspapers online. It’s quaint, and there’s a sci-fi quality about it. Several newspapers engaged in a then-time consuming task of putting print news stories online. Check out those computers! (In fact, technology changes so fast that computers made at the turn of the century look ancient. Then again, that was almost a decade ago…)
David Cole of the San Francisco Examiner describes his paper’s experiment. They were trying to “figure out what it’s going to mean to us as editors and reporters and what it means to the home user. And we’re not in it to make money…We’re probably not going to lose a lot [either]…”
Man. Little did they know. Good thing they weren’t in it to make money. The world wide web caused newspapers to lose money as print readership dropped and advertisers went online. Laid-off editors and reporters and former owners of shuttered newspapers owe their downturn to the computer.
In 2007, I wrote this about Rosanna Pulido, head of the Illinois Chapter of You Don’t Speak for Me, a vocal group of Hispanics opposed to illegal immigration:
“Rosanna Pulido reminds me of me…She’s a woman, a racial ‘minority,’ a member of a so-called ‘disenfranchised,’ preferred, and protected group, [some of whom engage in] a myriad of disingenuous yet highly effective justifications to rely on skin color to get by in life and excuse the acts of badly behaving members of her racial group.”
I started writing for publication in 2002 and blogging in 2003, and I’ve had more than my share of nasty e-mails, 99 percent of which were ad hominem. Fortunately, I was not deterred by the “self-hater,” “race traitor,” “Aunt Jemima,” and “coon” epithets. Being called names made me more determined and more rebellious. Rarely did someone write to me attacking my arguments. When I did receive those e-mails, I read them carefully and learned how to strengthen my own positions.
I don’t blog as much about politics these days not because I’m intimidated. I’m just bored by it. There’s more going on in the world, and I want to write about it. The archives are here for the world to see, and I stand by every post.
Back to Rosanna Pulido. No doubt she’s received similar e-mail. It’s tough being a “voice in the wilderness” and having the guts to call a thing by its name. I can’t stand euphemistic talk or mealy-mouth attitudes or people who’re afraid to tell the truth.
I wanted to let readers know that the pro-enforcement, pro-Second Amendment, pro-life Pulido is running for Congress in Illinois.
Ms. Pulido, thanks for having the courage to speak up for what’s right. And don’t waste time thinking about the haters. They’re gutless.
Update: Michelle Malkin posts e-mail from haters. I’d say it’s typical. The well-reasoned stuff is atypical.
I read the novel Push when it was published over 10 years ago. I wasn’t heavily into fiction and wasn’t drawn to novels like this one, but the intriguingly simple title caught my attention. I skimmed the first couple of pages and decided to check it out.
The novel is about an overweight, HIV-positive black teenaged girl named Precious Jones, pregnant for the second time with her father’s child. (Her first child has Down syndrome.) Yucky, I know, but it gets worse. Her crazy mother is molesting her. Precious is a rough-around-the-edges, foul-mouthed, inner-city (Harlem) girl who uses bad grammar and mispronounces words. She talks back and curses at teachers. She can’t read but likes “maff.” If I recall correctly, Precious was suspended from school and sent to an alterative school. She meets a teacher who helps her learn how to read, and her attitude changes.
Once you get past the character’s defensive, stereotypical attitude, and vulgar language (yeah, I know…why bother?), the book becomes absorbing. The book ends with Precious, who so far as lived a chaotic, pitiful life, is feeling joyful because she’s doing something as ordinary as drinking hot chocolate at a café with girls who care about her. She’s “alive inside,” and her degenerate parents haven’t broken her spirit.
I think I either cried or was close to tears as I read the last few pages. A used and abused young girl who initially saw no value in herself becames a cared-about person, and it made all the difference. The theme is about pushing oneself: to improve, to get out in the world, to do the right thing, etc.
Push was made into a movie and won the grand prize at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. It stars Gabourey ‘Gabby’ Sidibe as Precious, Mo’Nique as her mother, Paula Patton as the caring teacher, and Lenny Kravitz (!) as a nurse.
I don’t know how the movie handles the book, but either way, the subject matter is awful. The redeeming factor about Push is that it shows how the human spirit fights to survive (and thrive) even in the midst of unspeakable pain. That’s what I got from it.
