"How many houses do you own?"...Part Deux

This video helps to count how many houses McCain forgot he has. The money quote comes at the 3:32 minute mark where Cindy McCain "whines" about how the only way to get around the state of Arizona was by plane. Apparently the state of Arizona does not have any paved roads to speak of, much less cars to drive on them.

"How many houses do you own?"

Sounds like a simple question, right? Well, when you don't even have a clue and need somebody else to tell you (a paid staff no less!!!!), you have no right to call anybody else an elitist or say they are out of touch with Americans. Not only that, chances are you yourself have no idea how to help the majority of poor and middle class Americans when it comes to the economy....or worse, the current subprime mortgage crisis!!!

Hello Kettle. I'm Mr. Pot.

A video test...

Well, here's my first video posting as a test. It's a slideshow video from a trip some of us took to Kauai...Collie, Yraiz, Auntie Janet, Auntie Linda, Auntie Julie, Uncle Kenny, Elise, her brother Jason, and me in 2006. They took a smooth catamaran up the Na Pali coastline, we took a flat-bottomed raft with dual outboard engines. I'll let you guess who "they" and "we" represent. ;o)

Anyhow, I hope to post a slideshow from the Reunion Sunday Brunch this weekend. As well as a link to the original pictures posted in my Flickr account (since it appears I cannot post a video bigger then this size as it would take forever to download). Enjoy for the time being!

Tobago is beat....Part Deux

Why pay for microdermabrasion when you can get it for free down in St. Maarten? Yep, on that same beach. See what happens when an Airbus 340 throttles up all 4 turbines for take off.



How does it look from far away? Even the water isn't safe.

Tobago is beat...hands down.

And you thought the runway at Crown Point Airport in Tobago was close to the beach? Well, this airport in St. Maarten wins hands down. If you were to jump too high playing volleyball, you'd get sucked into the engines and spit out like ground Char Sui Pork.

(Check this site to see other pictures of things that appear Photoshopped (fake) but are actually real.)

Jesse's Marchin Orders - Part Deux

So many of you (okay, like three) have been following my whole Jesse Jackson rant and have posted some great comments and food for thought. I was away from the computer this weekend but was asked to weigh in. I want to start off with two short tales.

This morning Chris and I were watching/listening to News on 1 as we got ready. (News channel with only NYC stuff you cycle through in like 15 minutes). Anyways, one news story was that Queens cops have finally arrested one of two rapists on the loose in Hollis/St. Albans, Qns who was responsible for about 30 rapes that started last November. This guy's MO was that he stalked women at bus stops late at night. Police went so far as to shadow buses to find out when this guy would strike next. Another news story was the police are looking for a man who attacked an 87 woman in the elevator of her apartment building, robbing her of $900. He rode the elevator with her up little while and then got her in a choke hold, before hitting her over the head and robbing her.

Questions: Do the injustices of a previous generation justify the rape of unassuming women?Does institutionalized racism make a person so callous that he loses all respect for human dignity?

Jay and Chris both have valid points. Yes, institutional racism has made it hard for black men and women to get their due in this society, esepcially for the same hard work whites may be doing. We cannot negate that fact. It's horrible and pervades everything from hiring practices to drug sentencing guidelines. (This explains the black men in jail for selling the rock instead of the powder.) I don't think it is something that can be remedied in one generation, BUT we have to stop using past wrongs as a crutch and instead use it as a ladder to something better. Case in point: You see Boodro doing something worng but you resolve yourself to never become a Boodro. We as a people need to wake up everyday and say yes, there are people out there that do not want me to suceed, or my children to succeed, but it is MY responsibility to prove them wrong, and to go over and beyond whenever possible. Yes, this sometimes means that a black man will be working for the same pay to do 105% of what his white counterpart is doing, but at the end of the day, that person is doing something for the greater good of his people that cannot be measured. He is lifting them out of the bondage that they have put themselves in.

Don't get me wrong, I see Jesse's point, and I am the first to admit that the racism that exists has severely hurt our community (namely our black men who don't see much outside of quick money, ballin, or rappin), but where he goes wrong is that he puts EVERYTHING into the "We need governmental assistance" basket and the "Personal Responsibility" basket sits empty. Yes, the government did us wrong, but there comes a point when you have to look inside of you. I have two examples of this (and will then leave you to ponder):

1. Black in America told the story of Eric Michael Dyson and his brother. Both grew up in a pretty rough house with drugs and lots of crime. Eric is now a sucessful author and can be seen on CNN as a contributor (along with his wife) often. His brother: in prison serving life for murder, one he says was stupid and unnesessary. This is the mother of scientific design in a research study (my inner nerd reers it's beautiful head!): two brothers and only one turns out "bad?" Explain.

2. On a more spritual level, Adam and Eve were oblivious and blissfully happy in the Garden of Eden. The snake tricked them and God displayed his displeasure. He left them to fend for themselves, with one main thing to hold it all together: He gave them their FREE WILL! This means the ability to decide good and evil for themselves.

Where does free will and the ability to discern good and evil for ourselves play into this? How are some able to differentiate the two, and others fall into a trap?

This whole rant should have all been prefaced with: I am "privledged" and it is hard to say these things when my reality isn't the mean streets and living from day to day. But really, this is ALL of our reality, and until we look at it truthfully, we can never pose working solutions to problems the government isn't too eager to solve. Just a few weeks ago the US Congress formally apologized for slavery! It took them HOW long? Now Jesse, your great great great great grandchildren will be walking before we see the government instituting some real solution.

We can't wait any longer. Our children are killing each other NOW.

Mundane Super Heroes UNITE!

So if you don't want to be Kanye, you can tell me what your mundane super power would be.

Possibles for me:
The ability to hold subway doors with the power of my mind.
The ability to set clock time based on what time I want it to be.

Fantastic Olympic opening ceremony

Just reminiscing about how amazing the 2008 Beijing Olympic opening ceremony was. How they were able to synchronize and choreograph so many thousands of people...it was truly a breathtaking performance of art, imagination and technical production. Did I say how incredible it was? Easily the most magnificent spectacle I have ever seen in my life. By far. It was like Carnival on mega-steroids! For those of you who missed it....sucks to be you!

Actually, NBC has given those of you who missed it a reprieve. They have the entire opening ceremony video (divided into 3 parts) available on their Olympic website. If you do want to see what all the hype was about, you can go here to get started. Just search through the listings of videos to find "Opening Ceremony Act I: Pageantry". Once you see it, click on it. It will launch another window (pop up) where you can watch the original live coverage over again. You can use my settings: Choose my NYC local zip code of 11428. Then choose Verizon FIOS cable provider from the list. Then just pick the NBC 4 New York original broadcast. You will have an option to install a small Microsoft plug-in. If you do, you will be able to watch the video in near HD quality! Yep, all $40 billion dollars worth! (According to wikipedia, that's how much China invested in the city of Beijing and the opening ceremony.)

The 2008 Beijing Olympics are officially the most expensive games in history with a total of $40.9 billion spent between 2001 and 2007 on infrastructure, energy, transportation and water supply projects.

Here's a slide show of some beautiful pictures taken during the opening ceremony (via The Boston Globe website). Enjoy!!!!

Be someone else. Be Kanye!

After my black people rant in the last one, I thought I'd post something light. I have been seeing these new Kanye West print ads in buses and on the trains. They boast that if you take this pill you can be Kanye West for "up to four hours!" The before and after pics are serious yo: a balding white guy BECAME the tempermental rapper in a gray Members Only jacket and loover shades! Crazy!!!

Question: If you could be someone else famous, who would it be and why?

(Best answer gets a prize!)

Jesse, it's time to pack up the marchin' shoes and go home....

Yesterday I was reading via CNN.com, an interview Jesse Jackson gave to Essence magazine in the wake of the whole Obama "N-word" mini-scandal. Reading through it, the interviewer asked some good questions, and only helped to solidify in my mind why Jesse is no longer as relevant as he would like. He is no Madge. He has not been able to reinvent himself to appeal to both the blacks of 1950's Jim Crow and the blacks of 1990's hip hop.

Two questions that got me:

ESSENCE: In Senator Obama’s speech that he gave at a Chicago church this past Father's Day, he urged more Black fathers to be involved in their children’s lives. He received backlash for that—

JACKSON: Well, the message of responsibility should be broadly applied and not appear to be just directed to Blacks. Black men need to be responsible—they also need to be employed.

Now Jesse, I do not doubt that black men need to be employed. There are jobs out there (albeit low paying, but they pay. The issue of pay is another issue for another blog), but these men can't always be holding out for the job of "rapper" or "baller" and hope that things will fall into place in the meantime. To these men, we need to start saying, "Get in where you fit in, even if you can't stand it, for the sake of your kids, your girlfriend or wife, your family." Until we start saying that, and LOUDLY, we will have more men sitting on the stoop, hoping for that record contract, but not trying to bring in minimum wage, at least, until that comes. We need to focus our boys in school to not concentrate on that jump shot, but that science exam in 2nd period. THAT is our responsibility. I think other communities are saying similar things to their boys and men too, but WE haven't, and have been coasting on this idea that it "isn't our fault, since the massa done done us wrong for a long time." There comes a point (and I think we have reached and surpassed that point in "thinking" black households) that it has to stop being about what the man did to your great great great grandfather, and start being about what YOU need to get doing to get somewhere. The new generation doesn't want to negate the struggles of the past (They helped get us to this point), but we are not as closely linked, and our reality is different. We have to take some personal responsibility for our actions, or else no one is going to want to help. Yes, there are unfair practices in law and sentencing guidelines, but dude, when you sling that rock, you can't say the man put it in your pocket. We can't always depend on the government to fix things, as we can see with the disasters that we have in the US (Katrina, 45 million uninusured) and abroad (Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine...need I go on?)

ESSENCE: So would you say that children without fathers in the home is not that critical an issue in the Black community?

JACKSON: Men across the board must be more responsible. But again, in the context of the Black situation, we have a requirement for governmental ntervention. You’ve got a million blacks in jail with three or four kids apiece; that’s a state of emergency. I think that responsibility was aways embraced. But we’ve got some real structural inequality and exploitation that must also be addressed; that’s all.

Why is it that only in the black community do we require "governmental intervention?" And how can Jesse sit there and say that "we have black men in jail with three or four kids a piece" and not think "wow?" If you look at the median age of these men, they shouldn't have so many darn kids, and shouldn't be out there doing bad things (and I don't mean petty theft, I mean MURDER, drug traficking) to get by. There is structural inequality, but man, we are killing ourselves. Address THAT and we will then be able, as one group, to address the outside influences.

Bascially, we have to look at ourselves, and make over ourselves, before we can ask for "intervention" in regards to other things. I guess I just got worked up reading his interview. In the words of Bill Cosby:

Come on black people. WE have gots to do better!

Read the rest here: http://www.essence.com/essence/lifestyle/voices/0,16109,1832452,00.html

Think. Ponder. Have a good weekend.

[Cleaned up a bit for better reading - Trininuyawka]

12,000 calories per day

Oh, to be able to eat a pound of pasta AND a large pizza for dinner everyday....and STILL have trouble gaining weight. Michael Phelps is clearly not human, but some mutated aquatic-humanoid alien from that water planet in the Star Wars movies. Check it out here.

TGIF...and a hilarious video!

Sure many of us type "LOL" a lot, but this one really made me laugh out loud! I wonder if it was ever played on The Daily Show?

French Connection....?

Slow Friday at work. Just had a random thought. I know we have Chinese in our family.... Ma's long straight hair. Half of us with chinky eyes. Some of us with fair skin. All of us can never pass up a good fry wanton or pow filled with Char Siu pork. (Dude, I had to dig on the internet to find out how to spell that one. LOL)

But where does "Duchaussée" come from? Where is the french connection? I mean this is DNN, it would make sense to explain where our name comes from, right? Does anybody know officially? Where's Uncle Raoul when you need him? (Probably playing Scrabble and giving some poor soul some serious licks.) Inquiring minds want to know.

Back to that Char Siu pork we had at the reunion........Mmmmmmmmmmm! Was that Auntie Chan's or Uncle Raoul's doing? Big round of applause for whomever made it! (And everybody else who cooked too!).

***clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap...***

BTW Horacio, if you haven't used up that gravy from Auntie Chan's Pepper Pot, keep it frozen and send that bad boy up this way please! That stuff was good enough to drink like juice!

Best. Commercial. Ever.

I'm sure some of you have seen this, but I felt I had to share it with you all one more time because it's so good. I think Shell is the only oil company I can tolerate.... because of this commercial. Enjoy!

(HINT: Sounds really good with the volume turned up.)

(Find out how it was made here.)

Operation "Really? You think this is going to get them?"

So the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE (What a great name. I miss INS, personally) folks have thought up a great solution to our illegal immigration problem: Operation Scheduled Departure. It's as if it was a "here, we'll get you a nice seat on a plane" kinda deal.

Read on for more of the absurdity: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2008/08/06/2008-08-06_immigrations_selfdeportation_program_is_.html

Exactly what I have been saying: In a country where you can "disappear" on a student visa and they never find you (even after 30 years), you struggled to come here with risk of detection, why would you say, you know, I need to go back to my crime-ridden, poor poor country?

Um, no doubt, Lou Dobbs was NOT part of the planning for this operation. Neither was Common Sense. He was out of the office that week.

Health myths debunked.

Here are 9 common health myths debunked (i.e. proven to be false). I bet there's something in the list for each and every one of us. God gave you your body for free, it's up to you to take care of it. Can't go out and get another one!

9 Common Health Myths Debunked...

If you can't call him "uppity..."

...then I guess you can call him arrogant and call it a day. Two election cylces ago a no-name guy from Texas who happened to be from a political family came onto the scene. He had a know-it-all swagger and smirk I would have loved to have whipped off his smug face. He was acting, as some would say: arrogant. We (okay, not me, but people), liked that, voted for him and he became #43.

Now, two cycles later, we are back at arrogant. We have a no-name (or funny-name) candidate, who has burst on the scene, a general bad a**, who gives speeches and attracts way more people than bees to honey. Some say he looks "presidential." Some say he is looking arrogant. Why was arrogant okay 8 years ago for the person running for the most powerful position IN THE WORLD, but today, no? Do we want someone to look like he doesn't know what he is doing? Like the person they mean when they say "Somewhere a village is missing an idiot?" (Insert own Val Kilmer or GWB joke here)

I think this article put it best. By saying stuff like Obama looks "arrogant" the other side is saying one thing: he is an uppity negro (I do not use the other word, unlike one Jackson who shall remain nameless) that doesn't know his place. Arrogance will get you strung up. Read on:
http://www.theroot.com/id/47536

A Washington Post writer called Obama a man of "profoundly limited achievement." Yes, my jaw is on the ground. I cannot comment any further.

Taking pride in being ignorant.

Granted this is political, I must say Obama made me laugh today at work with this little nugget from a speech in Ohio. The punchline is at the end of the video.

Real-life "Home Alone" story

Okay, traveling can be nerve-racking. Especially when you're late for a flight. But how can you "misplace" one of your 5 children and not realize it until the flight crew tells you you're missing a child 40 minutes AFTER the flight takes off????

Yeah, the movie was funny only because you knew how rediculous something like that could happen in real life.
Rediculous meets Real Life: (Clicky-clicky)

Joke of the day.

(As overheard in Trinidad)

What do you get when you cross a centipede and a parrot?

Click on "Comments" for the answer.

Garnet: Just had a discussion with Sean...

Hey man, your daughter is going to grow up confused. She has a Spanish first name and a French last name! All her teachers are going to ask her what's up with that. You better make sure she learns Spanish and French so she can represent both names on her resume. It's a good thing you didn't give her a trini middle name like Matilda. Then she'd be all messed up. =o)

Thank You's

Now that we have all returned safely to our respective destinations, I think it fitting that we should offer thanks to the family members who were instrumental in putting together reunion 2008. Top of the list is Julie Barrow and her assistant Chris whose organizational skills and determination saw the thing to it's conclusion. Next but equally important is the hard work put in by Tony, Yraiz and Nancy to find accomodation and also to transport food to Tobago for the crowd and I might add there was plenty to go around. Nick and Horacio are also to be commended for the numerous trips to Piarco, some at ungodly hours, and for so doing willingly and with Nick's famous expression "no probs". We have also to say a great "thank you" to Tony and Yraiz for hosting the wonderful party at their home at the top of POS. It was truly a wonderful evening. Lastly, for those of you who could make it we are glad that you came, as a reunion cannot be successful if no one shows up.
As a btw I challenge any of you young ones (next generation) to arrange another before most of us of the older generation become too physically challenged to travel.

First photos from the 2008 reunion!

Okay, not really. I didn't take these photos for DNN, rather for a friend that wanted to know what Trinidad was like so these photos are more environmental. So don't go clicking on them expecting to see familiar faces. You won't. Some relatives may sneak into a few shots, but we are absent for the most part. They were taken with my camera phone and people with real cameras will post better photos of us in them later. Just think of these as an appetizer for what's to come. And feel free to correct me if I got any of the names of the locations wrong.

(Click on the link in the headline.)

Grandpa Leon and Granddaughter Marisela

Grandpa and Granddaughter's first meeting. Friday August 1st, 2008.

Not unfortunate, let's say hapless...

So I finally made it back and managed to fix the damage to the traveller caused by travelling. The trip back was a study in contrasts. I literally went from sky high to sleeping in the dirt. Here's how it all went down:
I volunteered to leave an overbooked continental plane in exchange for $400 in air travel, first class the next morning and a stay in a hotel.
Conveniently after I stepped off the plane, this generous offer was downgraded to $400 bucks, first class travel and transport to and from the airport.
Landing in Newark the next morning the deal transformed into a 3 hr layover, a half lost half teefed camera.
The three hour layover evolved into a cancelled flight (due to weather) and a two hour wait standing in a giant line for re-accomodation.
The two hour wait morphed into an 11 wait. The airline was not obligated to provide me with accommodations as the cancellation was weather related. At this point, I wasn't willing to eat into my $400 dollar prize with hotel fare, so I decided to "overnight" at the airport. I slept on the floor(sans pillow and blanket which were "reserved for children and babies") And drowned my sorrows at the sbarro.
But don't cry for me Arima, I still managed to leave the ordeal with my travel gift certificate (a trip back to tobago?), my first flight in first class, a belly full of baked ziti and this drawing that I did while waiting in line.
It was inspired by one of the quieter members of the family who was my roommate for a portion of the reunion. I had a chance to pump him for information about the early Barrow family days. Maybe if he happens to see this post he could elaborate on what's happening here and if my interpretation is anywhere close.