Looks like he's enjoying himself image courtesy Steve Myrick.V Times

So there I was, swimming in the waters of a private beach, off the village of Edgartown, on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, courtesy of knowing someone with a key to this private beach. Stroking along in the cool ocean on a flawless, hot day, not a cloud in the sky, I life my head out of the water to breathe, open my eyes, and there he is, the President of the United States, Barack Obama, swimming along beside me. “Hey, President Obama!” I yell when I turn my face up for air again, but before he can respond a wave rolls over me, my mouth fills with not air but water, I begin coughing and then wake up. Need I say that Barack Obama is nowhere in sight?

Which was, for the most part, exactly where he was during his vacation on Martha’s Vineyard. In spite of hope, expectations, and the prayers of many on this small island that has become the summer destination for many successful African Americans, the President and his family spent most of their vacation in private. Sure, you could feel the energy in the air, a combination of pride, suspense, tension, anticipation and celebration, but most people here didn’t see a glimpse of the President and First Family.  Thwarting great expectations, neither the President or the First Lady strolled the streets of Oak Bluff, or swam at the beach known as The Inkwell, or ate at Deon’s, the only black-owned restaurant in town, or visited Cousen Rose Gallery or C’est la Vie, two shops owned by people of African descent.  They came, they vacationed, they left. Press reports have it they enjoyed, too.  As did the rest of us, Obama sighting or not.

Speaking of sighting, the retreat begins tonight!!!! Please check my web site!!! Even if you’re not here, you can join us virtually!!!!

Jill Nelson 8/31/10 – The blog with the musical notes!

The war is winding down! What war? Which war? I conveniently forgot there is a war! The one allegedly ending is the one in Iraq, not Afghanistan, but tell that to the 47 Iraqi police recruits and their families – and the over 100 people injured – by today’s suicide bomber. Talk about giving the United States the finger as it tries to escape the debacle of its own creation in Iraq, except suicide bombers deliver not only the finger but arms, legs, torsos, heads, and all manner of body parts. (And let’s not forget U.S. soldiers killed in Operation Oil Hustle, er, I mean Operation Enduring Freedom.)

Joining that disappearing war are the estimated 4.9 millions of gallons of oil released into the Gulf of Mexico by the British Petroleum oil rig disaster, not to mention collusion by agencies of the U.S. government, etc. Now we’re being told the impact of 93 days of gushing oil was exaggerated, and that the oil has just conveniently disappeared. Presto! Chango! Another comforting illusion, like that rabbit in a magician’s top hat. President Obama and daughter Sasha even took a dip last weekend during a mini-vacation in Florida and released a lovely photo. Michelle was nowhere to be seen – doesn’t swim? hair issues? thigh shy? prefers her water oil free? – nor were the navy seals under water in scuba gear catching globs of oil before they could coat the President and second daughter. Nice photo op, but the First Family’s heading to Martha’s Vineyard, 1500 miles north, for their real summer vacation. Hey, I’m not mad at ya, Barack. In fact, see you there!

Which brings me to Making the Third Chapter Fabulous: Prose! Yoga! Passion, the retreat I’m hosting on Martha’s Vineyard, August 31 – September 5. Registration’s closed for this year, but we’ll be back in 2011. For more information, stay tuned to my web site, and we’ll be live blogging and posting photos during the retreat, so please check us out. History, and Paula Gidding’s wonderful book, When and Where I Enter : The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America, reminds us what can be achieved when women come together, so anything’s possible. Speak out against the madness! Don’t equivocate!

Jill Nelson 8/17/10 – The blog with the musical notes!

Thank Michael Hastings’ leaked Rolling Stone article, The Runaway General, which led to last week’s resignation of Stanley McChrystal, top commander of the war in Afghanistan, for reminding us that there is a war in Afghanistan. Easy to forget, unless you’re in the military or fearful for a loved one who is. I don’t know about you, but in my hometown newspapers the box with the winning lottery numbers is larger and more prominently placed than the names of soldiers killed in the war(s). Let’s not forget the ongoing debacle in Iraq.  We’re at war at the cost of thousands of lives and billions of dollars, and for what? How long is President Obama going to perpetuate a war that was ill-advised from the get go;  serves no purpose other than to make our “ally,” puppet prez Hamid Kharzai, his drug dealing brother, and countless other corrupt “allies” millionaires; kills innocents and further solidifies the United States’ most loathed nation status; and after a decade is clearly unwinnable? I could go on and on and on. Now that the arrogant failure McChrystal’s out, it’s time for everyone else to get out, too. I would say “while the gettin’s good,” but I fear it’s too late for that.  Earn that Nobel Peace Prize, President Obama!

An added benefit of the Hastings article was to remind us how embedded, bought off, and dishonest much of the American corporate media is. Their response to Hastings enlightening scoop? Jealousy, disbelief, personal attack, absurd pronouncements about journalists conduct, and blaming “the culture of exposure” for McChrystal’s unmasking as undisciplined, disrespectful, and way guilty of conduct unbecoming. With a free press like this, no wonder MegaBucks trumps Kabul every time. Aaarggh! I’m not a magazine person, but I may have to subscribe to Rolling Stone on general principal.

Why does every Senator on the Judiciary Committee, all 19 of them!, have to pontificate/make a statement before the questioning of Solicitor General Elena Kagan, the President’s nominee to be an Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court begins? Yesterday’s opening day of the hearings was hard to endure, and ended immediately after Kagan’s statement, a predictable evocation of the immigrant experience, the wonders of America, and that political oxymoron, self-effacing self-promotion, blah, blah, blah. Can a day of observing democracy at work, boredom and 90 degree temperatures cause brain death? If so, I’m a goner. Hopefully, real questioning sans bluster, blather, and staking out the usual positions, will commence today. I’ll be watching, listening, reading, and not holding my breath.

Jill Nelson 6/29/10 – The blog with the musical notes!

It’s been a long, tough winter in fact and spirit, then suddenly yellow and purple crocuses, daffodils, tulips poke through the earth. A fountain of bright yellow forsythia shoots toward the sky, then laughing, cascades down to earth. The fat, lush, sensuous blossoms on the dogwood trees swell and tease, pale pink and brown, just about to open, and it is clear spring  has surprised us and come yet again, not a moment too soon. Still, it is impossible not to think about Baghdad, about Kandahar. The wars being waged there, the lives being lost, the killing of innocents on every side – if there are ever really sides – in these conflicts. Does my counterpart, my sister in Afghanistan (where corrupt Thief President Karzai, who the United states has paid billions, last week threatened, after Obama’s midnight drive by to demand accountability, to join the Taliban) or Iraq, have a moment to admire the flowers, be thankful for spring, luxuriate in and be amazed by natures indomitable ability to come back again and again and again? Will there ever be a spring without blood on someone’s hands?

Just finished reading the satirist and essayist Ishmael Reed’s brilliant new book, Barack Obama and the Jim Crow Media: The Return of the Nigger Breakers, and in response have yet again modified my media diet. For the past weeks I have consumed information about the President’s plans only directly from the President, cutting out the pundits, spin doctors, screaming right wingers, smug lefty comedians, and everyone else in between. It’s just me, Barack, C-SPAN and whitehouse.gov. (I bypass the spin at that site and go straight to the videotape.) Lovely and liberating to actually be able to consume and digest information and formulate an opinion without someone telling me what I heard, saw and think. I highly reccommed it. And Ishmael’s book.

LAST, BUT NOT LEAST:

If you are in the New York City area, RUN to the Lincoln Plaza Cinema, 62nd St. and Broadway, and see “Teza” the new film from Haile Gerima, who made the brilliant film “Sankofa,” the finest film I have ever seen about slavery. The story of an Ethiopian ex-patriate who returns home to his country and village after years abroad, “Teza” is beautiful, powerful, lyrical, and a masterpiece of story telling. It is one of the clearest portraits of post-colonial Africa I can think of, told in a simple, universal, story that wraps itself around you in an embrace that is familiar, unsettling, seductive, critical, surprising, exhilarating, and much, much more. Gerima makes films without the usual Hollywood gimmicks and conceits, devoid of stereotype and contempt, movies that pre-suppose and challenge the viewers intelligence. Need I say without Hollywood money too? It took him 14 years to raise the money to make “Teza” and 45 days to shoot it. A masterwork.  Go see it. Pass the word. Support honest, provocative, enjoyable films by us for us.

Jill Nelson 4/6/10 – The blog with the musical notes!

President Obama boards Marine One Image courtesy AP/Ron Edmonds

I don’t support the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, or just about anyplace else,  but there was a perverse sweetness in waking up Sunday morning to discover that President Obama had made a stealth trip to Afghanistan, leaving the failed opposition to health care reform – and all else Obama – in the dust. (Further stirred up by his recess appointments , no doubt.) Leave it to Obama to brush the snarling right wingers in Congress and their venom spitting, racist, homophobic, terrified and wannabe terrorist followers off his shoulder and move on to a country far more important and potentially explosive than all the states of the New Confederacy and the anachronisms who live in them combined. Nobody’s perfect, but you gotta appreciate Obama’s mastery of the “I-won’t-even-dignify-your-stupidity-with-an-answer” elegant diss.

I’m sick of the term “Hater,” the dismissal epithet of choice leveled at anyone  who has a critical perspective, an analytical position, and dares to articulate it. Apparently, anyone who is rich, famous, or rich and famous, no matter how they got that way, is above criticism and to be celebrated. Those who refuse to do so are dismissed as “Haters.”

Didn’t like the movie “Precious”? Hater! Disturbed by bodysnatching Black men – Eddie Murphy, Martin Lawrence , et., etc., etc. – putting on fat suits, drag, and hideous personalities and playing Black women?  Hater! Don’t consider Tyler Perry on the level of August Wilson? Hater! Have  issues around which you disagree with THE FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT? Hater! Dare to say that Gabourey Sibide is morbidly obese? Hater! Hater! Hater! Hater! Hater!  Enough!

Remember back in the day when we knew the value of a critical eye, an analytical mind, standards? When we understood that criticism was often about love? And no, when Malcolm X said “By any means necessary,” he wasn’t taking about getting rich, famous, or both.

There is one black woman in my Pilates class with straightened hair. There are no black women in my swimming class with weaves. There are no black women in my yoga class with perms, extensions, weaves, or straightened hair. Why? Is this because too often our hair’s length, style and texture trumps health? If it’s a choice between exercising and sweating out a perm or not exercising, too many of us don’t exercise. Instead of pointing the finger at others, shouldn’t we check out the possibilities of our own self-hatred, the kind that is life threatening?

Finally, let’s support a woman’s right to abortion and organizations like Atlanta’s SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective. Also, Color of Change continues to confront and organize around media distortion and race baiting. Check them both out.

Jill Nelson 3/30/10 – The blog with the musical notes!

Whatever your feelings are about the health care reform bill passed Sunday, and championed by President Obama, it’s impossible to be other than angered and disgusted by the behavior of the members of the New Confederacy both inside and outside the halls of Congress. If you didn’t know better you might have thought a time machine had spirited you back in time to Selma, Alabama in 1965, during the height of the civil rights movement, as opposed to the grounds of the Capitol in 2010. As they walked to their offices, members of Congress were spit at, called epithets for black people, gay people, and bullied, bum rushed and otherwise threatened by opponents of health care reform, economic stimulus, immigration reform, and all things Obama. Once again, a women’s right to abortion  was used as the right wing’s bludgeon and battering ram. As always, the so-called right-to-lifer’s abstract and impotent notion of  protecting the rights of the unborn – yet another example of talking loud and doing nothing – trumped the real need to provide health care to children, women and men already on the planet.  Who gives a damn about real needs of real people when we can obsess about and porport to represent silent, immobile fetuses floating in amniotic fluid?  It was the continuation of a horrific scene, neither the death throes or the abominable resurrection of the New Confederacy, but sadly, part of the same old same old. This is sadly, part of what America looks like even though the times, they are a-changin.’

On another note, what’s up with comedien Chris Rock grabbing Gabourey Sidibe’s derriere at Essence magazine’s pre-Oscar Black Women in Hollywood event? Where is the public apology? The outrage? The ire of Black people, especially Black women? (Why didn’t those sisters in the audience rise up and escort Rock out?) Is it okay to do whatever you want if a woman is fat, Black, dark-skinned and young? Do ya’ think Rock would have grabbed the butt of Mo’Nique? Kirsty Ally? Any other woman of any size? Nope, and if he had he’d have made a public apology on a celebrity TV show and checked into the Betty Ford Center, pronto.

Apparently there’s no escaping the butts, even in the wee small hours of the morning trying to watch a 60-year-old  movie. Apropos of the importance of getting back on my media diet, the one that rules out consuming any  information: 1.About celebrities or celebrity culture; 2. That confirms my worst expectations; 3. That makes me feel powerless, I saw  a commercial the other night for something called Booty Pop panties. Time to get back on that diet, pronto, no ifs, ands, or butts!

Jill Nelson 3/23/10 – The blog with the musical notes!

I’m off my media diet, the one that required that I consume no information: 1. About celebrities or celebrity culture 2. That confirms my negative expectations and 3. Makes me feel powerless. Within an hour without these information constraints I felt stressed, trivialized, overwhelmed, generally pissed off, and mentally, physically and psychically bloated. Barely a shred of focused, empowering, serious, positive, necessary information I could use was to be found in our world of infotainment. By the time I dug through to what was useful, I was so tired I passed out in the intellectual equivalent of a sugar overload!

Little had changed during my two weeks of curtailed info consumption, and what change there was was for the worst. Am I alone in thinking that if the racist, right wing citizens who can’t bear the existence of a President Barack Obama had arms and a treasury they’d secede like their literal and spiritual ancestors did in 1850 and and we’d be in the midst of the second Civil War? (FYI, they’re amassing arms at this moment.) Does anyone really believe their alleged concerns – about health care, deficit spending, domestic policy, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, judicial nominees, on and on and on – have do do with anything other than a policy of “Just Say No To Everything” when it comes from the Obama administration? Where were these jerks when Bush-Cheney were invading countries for no reason, erasing the Constitution, flipping the bird to victims of Hurricane Katrina, creating a Supreme Court majority of corporate lackeys, earning the United States most loathed nation status…I could go on, but I’m breaking out in a sweat, feel my blood pressure rising, and even though it’s not 9am I’m contemplating waiting outside the bakery until it opens so I can scarf a few cupcakes.

Dag, they’re even critical of Michelle Obama’s efforts to combat childhood obesity and encourage exercise and better eating. Apparently even these post-modern, 21st century updates on the tradition purview of Mammy and sharecropper are too much to bear coming from a smart, educated, uppity Black woman. It’s time, Mr. President, in the words of the civil rights era athem, to tell these racist, stupid, corporate lackeys masquerading as public servants to “move on over, or we’ll move on over you.” The nearly 70 million people who voted for you have your back, Barack, but nothing lasts forever. Time for the beatdown and the big payback, my brother. You are the ruler of the so-called free world.

Still, one must be on the information highway to find what information is true, useful and empowering. I am trying to find that balance. The diet was a pleasure and brought a redefinition of priorities. Now, I’ve just got to get the proportions right. Working on that new formula, will keep you posted. Please visit me at jillnelson.com and Stay Tuned for information and applications to attend my retreat, “Making the 3rd Chapter Fabulous: Prose! Pilates! Yoga! Passion!” August 31-September 5 on the lovely island of Martha’s Vineyard.

Jill Nelson 3/3/10 – The blog with the musical notes!

I used to periodically quit smoking, “Until I have my next cigarette.”  Ditto, when I eliminated fatty, sugary foods and dieted, “Until I can have my next slab of coconut cake.”  Obvious though it is in hindsight, it took me a while to understand and accept that quitting means both permanently releasing an unhealthy habit and finding more constructive things to do in its place.

My current Information Diet, the one in which I consume no information: 1. About celebrities and celebrity culture, 2. That confirms my negative expectations, and 3. Makes me feel powerless, while without physical cravings, is is no less difficult than quitting anything else. Maybe more so, since information, especially if its negative, trivial, useless, disempowering, mean-spirited, and depressing, is everywhere. Floating from radios in stores or passing cars, blasting from newspaper or magazine headlines in public spaces and on public transportation, screaming from televisions bolted to walls in waiting rooms and restaurants, headlines scream out when I turn on my computer, friends text, tweet and post on facebook.

Weaning myself from negative information takes conscious concentration. I always have a book, music and shades with me, tools to buffer the madness. After 2 weeks I’d say I am more productive and focused, thoughtful and clearer, and overall less vaguely distracted and agitated. So of course, just like with that just-one-cigarette or a-few-bites-of-cake-can’t-hurt, I just had to dive back into the Sea of Bad Information.

So I lowered the barricades and briefly tuned back in. Tiger Woods, Tea Party People, Reactionary Republicans, Obama under attack, joblessness, Lady Gaga, no news but mostly the same old bad news, and not much had changed. In a half hour of consuming news I learned only a few things that were relevant to my life and the issues I care about, but way more than I care or need to know about celebrities and the cynics and opportunists in Congress. I learned nothing about how to effectively change anything. Instead, after 30 minutes I was starting to feel negative, petty, powerless and overwhelmed – reminders of why I went on this information diet in the first place.

Jill Nelson 2/24/10 – The blog with the musical notes!

Last night, the lyrics of Jill Scott’s song  ‘One is the Magic Number’ echoed in my head. It wasn’t Obama’s State of the Union address that elevated the volume but the ‘state of life’ for so many people that I know and certainly encounter on a daily basis. It seems one, everyone — man, woman and child—for themselves. We have become self-driven and survival focused. 

People all over the country are in a massive financial gridlock and playing, watching or debating politics aren’t the priority at the moment. Generating income, providing food and shelter for one’s family are far more pressing than being posted in front of the television listening to the push and pull of unfulfilled promises. Talk is cheap, people are desperate and the tunnel is dark. It’s all a sugar-coat until it makes a ‘better’ difference and can be felt in the day-to-day.

Last night, as I mildly complained about the need to miss the State of the Union address due to a prior commitment, I quickly learned many didn’t plan on watching it, period. Why? Were they they disenchanted with the possibility of hearing Obama’s campaign speech all over again, but now in a D.C dialect?

Number ONE, it was his first State of the Union address, ONE week after he wrapped up year ONE of his presidency. Didn’t they want to hear the next direction or was it the disconnetion of ONEness that we sensed and hoped for from President Obama? There’s a new party out there call the ’slumber party’ (those who are not interested in hearing what is NOT being done!)

Neither here nor there, the mantra was ‘do it right or do it again!’ The same thing I often think when I take the first sip of my tongue twisting coffee order and it’s wrong.  There is a right way and a wrong way to do everything—from a cup of coffee to the political affairs our country. No excuses, we want it right, right now!

Lisa Newell

I plan to listen to President Obama’s State of the Union speech tonight. I’m hoping that the man I thought I voted for will please stand up. I’m prepared to be disappointed.

A year into his presidency it’s clear that while there’s not a whole lotta’ shaking up of the status quo going on, a lot of people have been bamboozled. While I know that group includes those who voted for Obama and for whom having a symbolic and ineffective Black president isn’t enough, I’m not quite sure if Obama is among that group. Either he’s one of the bamboozled or he’s a bamboozler.

What I am sure of is that the president today looks very little like the candidate I voted for. I’d like to think Obama the candidate was real and he’ll be back, but I’ve seen enough science fiction moves, from Day of the Triffids to Night of the Living Dead to Terminator to Avatar to know returning from the dead is make believe. We’re likely stuck with this Obama, the one who after saving the banks, Wall Street, and the auto manufacturers has nothing left for the millions of poor, working and middle class people who actually voted for him. The Obama who days after announcing an escalation of 30,000 troops to Afghanistan at a cost of at least $30 billion and untold lives, held a jobs summit and announced before it even began that the government had no money to create jobs. This in the worst economy since the Depression?

What’s depressing, shocking, and frightening is that Barack Obama seems genuinely disconnected to the apprehension, fear and insecurity about the present and future most Americans are feeling, a malaise and melancholy that permeates the country like cheap air freshener in an unmetered taxi. Even Obama’s eloquence and elegant use of language falls flat when he talks about the crisis facing average Americans, a crisis he’s apparently incapable and unwilling to seriously address.

This at a time when all indicators are that things are bad and getting worse. When everyone I know – hell, everyone I don’t know – who works for a living is worried. About holding on to their home. Or job. About family members. About the price of everything. About their children’s future. About retirement. Worrying if the next unknown bad thing to happen will be the one that knocks them into the abyss. We all live enveloped in a relentless, free floating anxiety that expands every day. What’s frightening is that Barack Obama, scarily like too many of his predecessors, seems to live in a Washington, D.C.induced bubble, not even remotely in touch with the pressures that real people are under. He may have campaigned as the outsider but he’s surrounded himself with so many thick, larded, insulating layers of career policy wonks, former Clinton administration employees, Wall Street titans, corporate capitalists, and tenured, complacent academics, that he couldn’t feel the chill from the real world if his life depended on it, which his political life does.

Leaked previews of some of the proposals Obama will make tonight offer no cause for hope. A 10% cap on the percentage of income that can be used to repay federal student loans? Still exorbitant and more government approved usury by the banks. A tax credit for child care? Too little, too late, and what good does it do if there are no jobs to be had? Financial help for those squeezed by caring for elderly relatives, merely a symbolic drop in the bucket. A spending freeze on domestic programs  - nutrition, education, national parks, air traffic control – to reduce the deficit – barely! – at a time when Americans are desperately in need of these programs? As usual, no freeze on the endless flow of tax dollars to the military-industrial complex.  Why focus on deficit reduction now? The Republicans are the only ones I hear whining about the deficit, and they’re the same idiots who didn’t say a word when George W. Bush turned a Clinton-era surplus into an astronomical deficit. Makes you wonder who Obama’s governing for and brings back that old sinking feeling, but worse. As a friend said before he fled the country a few months ago, “It’s almost worse with Obama, because I’d gotten used to being hopeless with Bush.”

People need  jobs that pay more than a subsistence wage, jobs with benefits. We need an end to bank foreclosures, and an across-the-board reduction in interest rates. We need to put Americans to work rebuilding our infrastructure: roads, bridges, schools, parks, public buildings. We need to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan and spend those billions here at home, in New Orleans, or abroad, in Haiti, places where it will make a transformative, human, peaceful difference. We need real, comprehensive health reform, not a symbolic spanking of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, and then back to business as usual. We need a President of the people, not  the fat cats. What we don’t need are more lofty words, more soaring rhetoric, more hope on a rope. That’s a no-win proposition now that the hope’s slipping away and we’re left holding just enough rope to hang ourselves.

Jill Nelson 1/27/10 – The blog with the musical notes!