The Musings of a Latte Queen: Narratives of Everyday Life

After the news reports of the failure of President Bush's bailout plan to be passed, the news reports are all over the place reporting losses of over $1 Trillion on Wall Street, a British millionaire jumping in front of a train, and John McCain's derailed campaign after his premature boast of flying into D.C. to bring his Republican colleagues on board to make the bailout happen. And the morning after, my son got up as usual to get ready for high school, my husband paid a few bills, showered and left for work. My daughters woke up, dressed, ate breakfast and ran to the bus stop to play with friends before first grade. I talked to the other bus-stop mom. My younger daughter watched her PBS Kids morning show and I drank a latte. The sky did not fall, the "sucker" didn't go down overnight, we are still in our home, and there was breakfast on the table. While this is the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, lessons and regulations in place from FDR...

The President's $700 Billion bailout bail did not pass the house as just reported by CNN. The republican leaders are not there for President Bush on this bill. "There is no juice to get it done." The democratic leaders came on CNN Sunday to report that they reached an agreement on paper and CNN spent all day Sunday talking about the bill, yet, the real story is on the floor. The congressmen and congresswomen have listened to Main Street. I know I contacted my elected officials in Missouri to register my stance against bailing out Wall Street. I know the economic market is uncertain right now, but the reality is that the majority of us, the real people, have been living through "the worse economic times since the Great Depression" for some time now. Missouri has unemployment higher than the national average. The National Black MBA Association just had their conference in Washington D.C. My fellow business people reported that there was a gluttony of marketi...

Bullies never stop. They pick and pick and pick until either they have destroyed their prey or their prey has turned and eliminated them. Bullies are really fearful and to mask and cover up their fear, they constantly, unrelentingly attack their prey. Bullies use their words to taunt and haunt their prey more than they use their fists. Bullies create a false reality in that the prey is deserving of their emotional, psychological, and in some cases, sexual abuse. Bullies create an atmosphere of heart-pounding fear and brow-sweating anxiety. Bullies are evil. Bullies come in many forms. We are more accustomed to the big kid on the playground who pushes around the new guy or the skinny kid. Girls bully with their cliques and taunts of the girl without the designer clothes. Bullies are everywhere and they are a plague. Husbands bully wives who stay home by threatening to kick them out, reprimanding them for forgetting to hang up a towel even though they spent eight straight hours ...

So where have you been, President Bush? Last evening you came on national television to once again scare the American people. We are tired of the fear mongering . Didn't you know the economy has already failed? Didn't you realize that when you sent out those "economic stimulus checks" this past spring? Weren't you watching the falling housing prices that actually started back in 2006? Didn't you watch the increasing real estate inventory increase to 14 months in places like Florida? Weren't you paying attention to record high gas prices, record high milk prices, record high cereal prices? The economy has already failed, it is just now a "crisis" because your rich, Wall Street friends are finally feeling the consequences of their greed. Last I heard, you were a believer. Have you ever read in the Bible about the sin of greed? Do you remember the story about the rich young ruler and the eye of the camel? Or what about Lazarus? Does any of ...

"We are where we are now." Senator Hillary Clinton has summed up the economic crisis quite nicely. "Everyone has to take responsibility, but the bulk of the responsibility rests with this administration." The Republicans have taken away the rules, plundered the economy for their gain, and the result is that greed finally caught up to them and the country. Now, they are coming hat-in-hand and demand-in-mouth for a $700B bailout with Henry Paulson as the financial czar. No how, no way! I watched the news every day since September 15th and thought about how we ended up here. I thought about the prosperity of the Clinton years and the recessions of the Bush II years. My musings sent me outside to look up and down my middle-class street. I saw more Obama yard signs than McCain yard signs, however, the lone McCain yard sign baffled me. The houses on my street are quaint, not mega mansions, well, except for one on the end of the block and they have a McCain yard si...

Announcing The Launch Of The Voter Suppression Wiki - Learn, Report, Act Posted using ShareThis

I told my son that I was so proud of him for following his dreams. He is 22 1/2 years old and has always wanted to put his voice to music/rap. I am not keen on his choice of genre, but it is his dream. That's the point, it was his dream and he had something to say. And he didn't let anyone sway him. He made connections with people who had a studio and worked out studio time, he found someone who was a writer along with his own lyrics, he developed the sound trac and he drew the artwork on his CDs. He is also an entrepreneur and born salesman, he is selling his CDs through grassroots efforts. It is a beginning and it is his dream. I told him "don't bankrupt your future to pay for the past." He said, "wow, that's deep mama." It came through my thoughts of my mother's life and dreams and the fact that next month, she would've been gone 40 years. I am exactly the same age as my mother was a month before she passed away. It is pivotal t...

NEW: Obama Raps Direct to You on the Economy Posted using ShareThis

I thought I was just about finished with my comments on the whole McCain/Palin ticket, yet, there is more to say. Sunday, September 14, 2008 rocked the financial world of the United States to its core. It took Alan Greenspan to come out and say this was the worse he had seen it. It was reminded of the Great Depression, also under a Republican president also. I watched the news on CNN as Lehman Brothers employees, many stopping by in their khaki shorts and flip flops, to unpack their offices, their jobs gone with the wind. The investment bankers played Monopoly and lost. It was sad to see and I thought about some of my classmates at the University of Iowa when I was working on my MBA back in 1998. The numbers are bad. 6.1% national unemployment. 6.4% Missouri unemployment. 11% black unemployment. The middle class, in the words of Democratic VP candidate Joe Biden, "I don't care what you call it, the middle class is dying." What has caused this? Let's see, tri...

Originally posted on HuffingtonPost.com and passed on to me via my membership in the ObamaMamas support group. This is precisely the point. I don't know Sarah Palin personally. I'm sure she could be a very capable elected official, she is just not ready to be that close to the White House. Is It Sexist To Want The Person Flying The Plane To Be A Pilot? By Kathleen Reardon http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathleen-reardon/is-it-sexist-to-want-the_b_126021.html Who's Flying The Plane? With all this talk about Sarah Palin redefining feminism and people who don’t support her candidacy being sexist, I think we could use a little clarification. Women’s progress at work and in government is critically important. We are not, after all, living in the Dark Ages. But, and this is a VERY IMPORTANT BUT, consider the following scenario. You’re about to board a plane and a flight attendant says, "Today as part of our responsiveness to customers program you may choose Mr. Jones here as c...

It is no secret that I am an ardant supporter of Senator Barack Obama for the President of the United States. I knew he was the one in 2004 when he gave his speech to the Democratic National Convention. There was a certain charisma about him (the Republicans call this elitist, uppity, or exotic) that would cross racial, ethnic, religious, and even gender differences to bring about the change we need in America. I, like others, watched with pride as he accepted the Democratic Nomination for President. I felt my father's spirit surrounding me and the great cloud of witnesses of my ancestors cheering on this country. It felt as if, in that moment, we would live up to our creed. I remembered the white men and white women I've met in the past year in my Kirkwood community who are working tirelessly to bring about change in this country. It is the reason why I know that Governor Sarah Palin is a danger to this country, to the lower 48 where the rest of us live. One of my Mocha...

After I spent the weekend casually talking politics and nursing a 23-year-old injury from a car accident, I asked a new friend what she thought of Sarah Palin. It was interesting to me to ask her because I am black, she is white, we are both mothers, we both live in the suburbs, we both stay home, we are both have daughters in elementary school, we both have a younger daughter who stays home, we both want change. Lori and I are planning to have coffee so I just asked her, "What do you think of all this?" Her answer was both interesting in her passion and informative of perhaps what other women think. She gave her permission for me to share her response, it is telling. "I think that she's a mess." I'm a horrible feminist, I don't follow the whole mold that a woman- a mother- shouldn't be held to a different standard than fathers. They should be! Even the best father's aren't mothers. There is no relationship in the world as importan...

Well, it is now old news that Senator John McCain chose Governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate. The secretive selection was leaked just before his planned news conference on Friday, August 29th. I said the same thing the rest of the country said, "what?" and "who?" On Saturday, August 30th and Sunday, August 31st, this bit of news was masked with the news of Hurricane Gustav and the Republican National Convention being truncated so it wouldn't appear that they were having a "party" at the expense of New Orleans. In the midst of all of this, more and more news has come out about the unvetted candidate. It is both an insult and a joke that she could stand up to scrutiny, perhaps this is why she was slipped in under the radar. Today, September 1st, I've read everything from her teenage daughter being pregnant with rumors that Palin's youngest son is actually her grandson. The questions fly about this far-right wing, Evangelical Christia...