Randon News/Ain’t it Thoughts (Week of February 25, 2011)

Again, for the second time this year I find myself staring at a blank page trying to make something appear via the movement of my fingertips. Honestly, I’ve started four different posts this week and I haven’t finished nary a one.  I’ve got a ton of boo-boo on my brain so it’s been hard filtering it all out. Although this week has presented me with a ton of material, I find it hard to be both random and newsy without just flat out sucking. (Well sucking more than I normally do.)

1. When it comes to accepting money from the Federal Government many Americans refuse for various reasons. Some say it only encourages over-spending by Washington. Others won’t take the loot because the President and his wife are the wrong color. A few just don’t trust the folks in D.C. to actually do the right thing. Some of the first Americans, the Sioux Nation, are refusing over $1 billion dollars for justifiable reasons: The Sioux are claiming that the act of Congress that removed them from their tribal home is invalid. The Sioux Nation are also dealing with massive impoverishment maintains that they will stand their ground. You see Tea Party, that’s how you maintain your principles.
2. Libya has begun its download of Freedom Version 6.7.4. (IIIIIIIIIIIII——-) We’ll see if the download get’s completed. Qaddafi or Gaddafi doesn’t quite understand that his people and the world are serious about his departure.  The Swiss have frozen his assets and the Libyan army has reportedly stopped obeying his orders forcing him to hire mercenaries. Dude if you have to resort to using Hessians you’re usually f**ked. Follow everything here.
3. Qaddafi looks like a cross between someone’s tasteless uncle and the guy from Have Gun Will Travel.
4. Dwayne McDuffie, one of the more prolific black comic book creators passed away this week at the age of 49. McDuffie’s name may not be as well known as the Stan Lee’s and Jack Kirby’s of the world but if you’ve watched the old WB on Saturday morning or The Cartoon Network at any time you’ve probably seen his work. In the mid-1990’s McDuffie founded Milestone Comics/Media with Denys Cowan, Derek T. Dingle, and Michael Davis. The formation of Milestone resulted from the four believing that minorities were underrepresented in comic books. (I still think they are… Another blog, another time.) Distributed through D.C., Milestone created a batch of characters that existed in a separate universe from the one that the likes of Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent inhabited. (This has always been one of my issues with D.C. I hate the thought of alternate universes and the constant reworking of them.) The Milestone characters inhabited a fictional city called Dakota which was an analogy for McDuffie’s native Detroit. Characters like Icon (Think Superman but black) and Rocket (Rocket would be the Kitty/Jubilee/X-23 to Icon’s Wolverine. Logan sure kept a lot of company with teenage girls considering he’s not R. Kelly.), Static, Hardware, and the Shadow Cabinet have survived to be incorporated into today’s D.C. Universe. Static Shock, a cartoon based on Static ran on the WB for four years and was rather good considering Lil Romeo doing the theme song. McDuffie, along with Bruce Timm also helmed the Cartoon Networks Justice League and Justice League Unlimited cartoons, which ran for several years on the network while incorporating the continuity of previous D.C. based cartoons like WB’s Superman and Batman the Animated Adventures. (Think the Wire and Homicide: Life on The Street being set in the same world.) Dude had his hand in a lot of dope nerd moments in my life and I appreciate him for doing so. Read more about McDuffie here, here, here, and here.
5. Anybody heard Adele’s new cd yet?
6. Carmelo Anthony (Sounds like a candy bar doesn’t it?) was finally traded to the Knicks and the NBA is still unwatchable.
7. I’m still trying to find some adjectives to describe my man Shawn Kemp in the picture above but if you don’t have anything good to say…

So those were my seven shots of bullsh*t. Hopefully I’ll get my head straight and  come back hard next week. I still owe y’all the finally Unknown Black Heroes post so you’ll get that soon. I Promise. Okay, bye!

Vaya con Dios.