MD-80 have had problems with landing gear from ‘way back.’ I used to subcontract with the FAA back in the early ’90s. A poster above, who alluded to the fleet being in worse condition than we think, was spot on.

And the state of aviation took a distinct nose-dive (both technically, loss of skilled labor and moral-wise, loss of camaraderie) when Ronnie Ray Gun fired the air traffic controllers.

There is no wrong greater than any other.

If you haven’t already done so, please read the story on the AJC regarding Michelle Obama’s roomate at Princeton and her mother’s past racist actions and current racist beliefs which she is all too comfortable with associating with what Mr. Cosby said and maybe you will see where I’m coming from.

I am aware of the many problems facing the black community and where some of them stem from, but I’m not ready to join in with the forces complicit in some of these pathological behaviors in a public ass whipping thinking that will change anything at all.

With all respect due to you, I disagree.

I believe that he has been irresponsible in his representation of the black community in the public arena. I really feel that having this open conversation about blacks in mixed-company so-to-speak, he lends to a dangerous practice of feeding prejudices and thereby giving a pass to and providing a false sense of security in superiority for both whites and successful blacks.

I would appreciate him more if his advice were given where it is most needed and not where it draws the most amens!

I have nothing against Bill Cosby. For all he has given, putting his money where his mouth is, for decades, he’s earned the right to say what he wants.

He of course rocked it and served it up to her. He almost laughed at her.

He was clearly more comfortable speaking about his faith and how that guides him through his life and politics.

I am so proud of him and the more I see him the more proud I am. The audience received him well and clapped almost every time he answered a questions.

I keep thinking about how they can call him “elite” and what they are basing that on given his history.

I have come to the conclusion that they believe because he has achieved the success that he has being black – he is then elite in the category of black in America.

Bill Clinton Flashback: “All These Economically Insecure White People…Are Scared To Death”

Those who live in glass houses….

I know – right? That’s another blog!

Ta-Nehisi Coates has an interesting story on his site about Cosby that reveals some interesting facts.

I have no respect for Cosby.

Of course he and Alvin Poussant will be speakers at the Essence Fest CNN sponsored forum on Black in America.

I just know I’m going to be embarrassed and pissed off!

I love how the most racist whites always quote Bill Cosby. He should be proud.

yeah, that was a good article. It galled me when people suggested Michelle was ungrateful to America. What do they know what she went through? I – like every other Black person – knew the instant she said she went to Princeton and Harvard, the kinds of things she went through. Suggesting Michelle has no right to be critical seems an acknowledgment of the rarity of her experience.

Thanks for the interesting article.

This reinforces my position that America knows better than blacks that they were and are prejudice.

I think its laughable that the mother, Brown, agrees with Cosby that blacks are lazy and need to get off their buts and work and educate themselves, but didn’t want her daughter in school with someone who was doing just that.

I hope this story makes it further than the AJC. I know what Michelle Obama experienced and wrote about was real and true and America knows it too. I would just like to see it discussed in realistic terms and not used as a tool to say she was ungrateful for a right that should have been hers all along.

I completed understood and agreed with her statement about being proud of America, she surely had no reason to be proud of an America that included many people like Brown who hated her for her skin.

It’s funny: Hillary gets in trouble when she gets caught lying. Obama gets in trouble when he gets caught telling the truth.

The hypocrisy of the Clintons is classic.

You must read the whole article because rarely are white people so frank about their own racism. Here is one example:

Catherine Donnelly shopped at Kmart, settled into her dorm room and soaked up the Gothic stone buildings where, over the next four years, she would grow into her own woman.

“I told them we weren’t used to living with black people — Catherine is from the South,” Brown said. “They probably thought I was crazy.”

http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/stories/2008/04/12/roommate_0413.html

Perhaps we should re-direct focus on some concrete issues and not the pissing contest. The Alfonso Jackson thing exposes salient themes on race, the economy, greed and the Bush Administration, as an example. The post on China while yes it’s a great vehicle for attacking the Clintons, it should be a wedge into our general problem of CEOs and Wall Street mortgaging this country to a nation that likely bears a bigger threat to us in the long run than jihadis. Likewise, where do the candidates stand on Darfur, on Tibet? On the neo-colonial push of China into Africa, with African govts all too willing to take the cash and turn over their already suffering populaces (after a century of racist imperialist followed by decades of similiarly vampiric rule by their own people) to the whim of China?

If you wish to be the antidote to Kos fine. if you want to battle the right wing blogs, fine. But mix in the more mundane–and critical–matters of life and death and our future as well as the horserace/gladiator carnival of this election and the diversion bullshit issues it has come to embody. I’m not attacking this blog. Quite the contrary. I think it’s a beacon in the fog–but not always. I’m just saying we all need to be a little more Edward R Murrow and a little less O’Reilley or Jay Leno or Michael Moore. Given the monster that weve created, it might be impossible…but there’s nobility and posterity in the fight.

The site is a combination fundraiser for the Obama campaign, and collective storytelling effort (well, we hope it will be collective if other people agree to participate).

Jack and Jill Politics is my number-one favorite site for news and discussion on the campaigns. I would be very happy if people here — site owners, regular readers and commenters — would add your stories or otherwise get involved. And spread the word of you think it’s worthwhile.

We have no idea if this project will be of interest or use to anyone but us. We hope so. But, we’ll see.

Michelle (who has commented previously in a few discussions here)

http://storiesproject.wordpress.com

“If [Republicans] could cut funding for Medicare, Medicaid, education, and the environment, middle-class Americans would see fewer benefits from their tax dollars, feel more resentful paying taxes, and become even more receptive to their appeals for tax cuts and their strategy of waging campaigns on divisive social and cultural issues like abortion, gay rights, and guns.” – Bill Clinton, saying pretty much exactly what Barack Obama’s been saying (and Sen. Clinton’s been attacking Obama for) in his 2004 memoirs, My Life

I am conflicted about ethanol. I’m hearing criticisms like this, but on the other hand, when I look at a country like BRAZIL, who has weaned themselves off of foreign oil dependence because they use a SUGAR-based fuel substance, I just don’t see why the USA can’t do it too. This is a supposedly 3rd world country, and they are less dependent on foreign oil than we are, and have been for a couple of generations. Our dependence upon foreign oil makes us less independent and more vulnerable. Plus, we’re literally funding our enemies.

What are you getting at? Terrorism?

No, I’m getting at that the airlines fleet is probably in worse shape than we thought. That the FAA has probably been letting them slide on safety inspections – choosing profits over people – and only when it got to the point where the planes could be falling apart, as we getting these ‘ inspections’. I just have no faith in Bush’s Government to EVER look out for ‘ the little person’.