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VOL 3. NO. 16 Friday, April 13 - Thursday, April 26, 2001
AFRICA
AGAINST THE GRAIN
BUSINESS/NETWORKING
CARIBBEAN CONNECTION
CONSCIOUSLY SPEAKING
FOR THE FAMILY
GALLERIES/MUSEUMS
GET YOUR LAUGH ON
GO GO GROOVES
HEALTH/LIVING WHOLE
HIP HOP/R&B
JAZZ/CLASSICAL
JUST CLUBBING
MORE MUSIC
PRAISE & WORSHIP
SOULFUL CUISINE
SPORTING ACTION
STAGE
THE WORD
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AGAINST THE GRAIN
Babylon's Buckshot: Standing in line for Millennium Wolf Tickets
By C.D. ELLISON
SLUMPED SHOULDERS IN MY HOME CHAIR, SICK & AGITATED BY THE FLU somewhere IN BOWIE, MD (Thursday, April 12th) - was the perfect All-American DAY ...

"Glory be to God" across the backdrop of morning Aloha and Big Brother network news were the solid, stone-grit faces of saluting servicemen and women once shaken "spy-plane" survivors stranded by fate and Chinese military arrogance. As they strut and broke into ceremonial rank and file, I browsed those annoying template television screen tickers flash the time, when it was LIVE, and a rising Dow Jones at +113.47 followed by a tech-tattered NASDAQ at +62.48, each making swift, weekly, pre-Good Friday recovery amid the search for refuge from the market bear.

It was Red, White and Beautiful ... The flu was flowing through my veins and falling in puddles on the floor. My muscles rippled; hands reached and cocked the clips of pens like gun triggers; that bowl of chicken soup boiled as eyes waited to see the white in the eyes of some vague, forgotten, but identified enemy. "Make ... my ... day." We sized up China as China stared us down. Even after that and the threat of an endless wave of Chinese infantry, no way; surveillance in overused and aging propeller driven reconnaissance airplanes would continue. Despite the fact we have satellites orbiting Earth that could photograph a pin drop, let's aggravate the situation. Retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Eric McVadon blew his gung-ho soap box spot that morning on C-SPAN's "Washington Journal": "We need them to know we're watching them."

At a Senate-hearing the embattled, now chip shouldered Attorney General stood tall and firm like Judge Dredd on Viagra among his poor and downtrodden, announcing closed-circuit television access to grieving Oklahoma City bombing survivors eager to watch the final breath of terrorist-turning-militia-martyr Tim McVeigh. John Ashcroft's echoing bass blew the speakers in the 19" tube: "Their lives were shattered, and I hope that we can help them meet their need to close this chapter..." Lawyers for Voyeur.com stood by, waiting to launch legacy and reputation beyond the sleazy college co-ed ribald. Give them Liberty, yes Your Honor - but give us Death by Pay-per-View at $2 a pop ... proceeds go to a Victims Fund. Risk of underage viewers, sir? Not a problem - that's what secure subscriptions are for. Uhh, yeah - we thought about hackers and downloadable images ... but, that's outside anyone's jurisdiction. You deal with it when the next trench coat clad teen unloads a clip in a school hallway.

James Gandolfini's now notorious Tony Soprano mug pressed against my conscience and all I could think about was "blood money..."

Capital punishment proponents were spit shining their dentures. The easy way out always comforts the soul in the wake of a stuck, skin-splitting band-aid pulled by sudden force. But, then again, wouldn't you want the merciless killer of your next generation either rotting under concrete or walking that last Green Mile? Death penalty opponents yell foul in slippery-sloping waters because it's looking like the Middle Ages again. Middle Ages? More recent than that, friend. It's a fairly fascinating feat of wording when both activists and media hacks use "execution" and "lynching" in separate tense. As though one is nothing like the other, or the latter actually wasn't a form of public execution and Jim Crow sanctioned castration. But McVeigh's not black. Hence, the reasoning behind the disquieting silence of civil rights vanguards is deafening. It's not the matter of the execution - it is the matter of why it must be public in the first place.

It's all-American, though. Everyone is pulling the national weight to get tough. To eat pounds of cheese and get mad nasty, man. To contort their faces into the most hideous World Wrestling Federation case of constipation they can muster. In the name of the Father, the Flag and who sits i nstigating it on Capitol Hill and in the White House, it's national buckshot. Watching who gets booted off "Survivor" and learning to survive to the last episode of "Boot Camp" is incredibly nostalgic. A virtual State of the Union-wide Pan-Hellenic hazing.

Rays of blazing patriotic glory graced the television screens in surreal cataracts flashing neon parlance. The paralyzing parallelogram of the manufactured and cosmetic forces known to the controlled and caste-tripped establishment of man spread its tattered, manipulated wings forth in beautiful synchronization. It was absolutely splendid. Yes, so splendid that it left the most parched and phobic souls gripping earnestly for straws of sense in a darkness known to few, but traversed by many. The day was blessed by the deliberate tact of scripted magnetism and benign beguilement.

It was red, white and beautiful.

C.D. Ellison is a contributing writer to Metro Connection. Please feel free to contact him by email - againstthegrain@metroconnection.info - or phone: 202.777.2643 x7915


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