I've been seeing all these shows on tv talking about celebrities we've 'lost' this year. Like Richard Pryer, Rosa Parks, Johnny Carson, to name but a few. It's the 'lost' that gets me. Like maybe if we just look around that corner, we'll find them. We didn't 'lose' them, they died. We're all going to die some day. It's perfectly normal. What's not normal is 'losing' someone.

Do they shoot guns off at midnight on New Years Eve where you live? It's a frightening tradition here in the metro Detroit area. The idiots who do it just don't seem to understand that what goes up--the bullets--must come down. For all those who don't shoot off rounds of live ammunition at the stroke of the new year, and for the next hour and a half, we stay in the house and away from windows to lessen the chance that we'll get shot.

Tawny

Have you read Patricia Cornwell's newest book, Predator? I'm reading it now and I like it. I've pretty much liked all of her books, except for the one she wrote about Jack the Ripper. That went back to the library after about two chapters.

While I read a lot all year round, the cold days of winter are perfect for curling up with a good book and an afghan in the recliner.

Do you have plans for tomorrow night, New Years Eve? I'm staying home. I have a pile of dvds, some cds and my book to keep me occupied. Friends are going to a party at a club, but I've ever been fond of going out on NYE. I don't like the crowds, and I really don't like all the driking and driving. The only years I've been out on NYE have been when I was working as a bartender.

If you feel like talking tomrrow night, give me a call.


Tawny
248-615-1300
www.tawnyford.com

My plan had been to tell you about this incredible contest that Metro Times, the free weekly alternative paper in the metro Detroit area, was running, then suggest you enter it online. Then if you won it, what with you not being from around here, suggest that you give the prize to me (smile)! But the contest they have advertised in the paper edition of this week's issue, Big Ass Holiday Gift Package, is not the one shown on the contest page. Oh well.

But there is a really interesting article on the front page of the online edition (www.metrotimes.com)--Power Walking Down the Year by Jack Lessenberry. You might want to check it out.

Today has been incredibly dark and gloomy. I left the house around 9am to go run errands and had to use the headlights. It never got any better.

I seem to be affected by dark and gloomy days. I've gone through my house and painted all of the walls bright and cheery colors in an attempt to off set the winter lack of sunshine. And I bought a desk lamp at Sam's Club that is supposed to simulate sunshine. Neither are much help, although it would probably be worse without them.

Here's hoping it's a sunny bright day where you are.


Tawny

Was watching a borrowed dvd last night, The Brothers Grimm (doesn't qualify for even a half a thumb up, it was horrible!), and got to thinking about priorities. You know the message from the feds that starts each dvd off? About how if you copy a dvd you can get a prison sentence and a $250,000 fine?

It's a perfect example of America's priorities.

What sort of a sentence does a child molester get? Generally speaking, they get very little time. And they certainly don't get slapped with a monetary fine of a quarter of a million dollars. And this is despite the fact that they have wreaked havoc in a child's life.

But copy a dvd, wow!


tawnyford@webtv.net

Ran across this on the internet and laughed myself silly. Thought you might get a giggle out of it too.


Ten simple rules for dating my daughter.
Rule #1:

If you pull into my driveway and honk you'd better be delivering a package, because you're sure not picking anything up.

Rule #2:

You do not touch my daughter in front of me. You may glance at her, so long as you do not peer at anything below her neck. If you cannot keep your eyes or hands off of my daughter's body, I will remove them.

Rule #3:

I am aware that it is considered fashionable for boys of your age to wear their trousers so loosely that they appear to be falling off their hips. Please don't take this as an insult, but you and all of your friends are complete idiots. Still, I want to be fair and open minded about this issue, so I propose this compromise: You may come to the door with your underwear showing and your pants ten sizes too big, and I will not object. However, in order to ensure that your clothes do not, in fact, come off during the course of your date with my daughter, I will take my electric nail gun and fasten your trousers securely in place to your waist.

Rule #4:

I'm sure you've been told that in today's world, sex without utilizing a "barrier method" of some kind can kill you. Let me elaborate, when it comes to sex, I am the barrier, and I will kill you.

Rule #5:

It is usually understood that in order for us to get to know each other, we should talk about sports, politics, or other issues of the day. Please do not do this. The only information I require from you is an indication of when you expect to have my daughter safely back at my house, and the only word I need to hear from you on this is "early."

Rule #6:

I have no doubt that you are a popular fellow, with many opportunities to date other girls. This is fine with me as long as it is okay with my daughter. Otherwise, once you have gone out with my little girl, you will continue to date no one but her until she is finished with you. If you make her cry, I will make you cry.

Rule #7:

As you stand in my front hallway, waiting for my daughter to appear, and more than an hour goes by, do not sigh and fidget. If you want to be on time for a movie you should not be dating. My daughter is putting on her makeup, a process that can take longer than painting the Golden Gate Bridge. Instead of just standing there, why don't you do something useful, like changing the oil in my car?

Rule #8:

The following places are not appropriate for a date with my daughter: Places where there are beds, sofas, or anything softer than a wooden stool. Places where there are no parents, policemen, or nuns within eyesight. Places where there is darkness. Places where there is dancing, holding hands, or happiness. Places where the ambient temperature is warm enough to induce my daughter to wear shorts, tank tops, midriff T-shirts, or anything other than overalls, a sweater, and a goose down parka - zipped up to her throat. Movies with a strong romantic or sexual theme are to be avoided; movies which features chain saws are okay. Hockey games are okay. Old folks homes are better.

Rule #9:

Do not lie to me. I may appear to be a potbellied, balding, middle-aged, dimwitted has-been. But on issues relating to my daughter, I am the all-knowing, merciless god of your universe. If I ask you where you are going and with whom, you have one chance to tell me the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I have a shotgun, a shovel, and five acres behind the house. Do not trifle with me.

Rule #10:

Be afraid. Be very afraid, it takes very little for me to mistake the sound of your car in the driveway for a chopper coming in over a rice paddy near Saigon. When those memories return, the voices in my head frequently tell me to clean the guns as I wait for you to bring my daughter home. As soon as you pull into the driveway you should exit your car with both hands in plain sight. Speak the perimeter password, announce in a clear voice that you have brought my daughter home safely and early, then return to your car - there is no need for you to come inside. The camouflaged face at the window is mine.


hugs, Tawny

Before you ask, the answer is no, no I don't celebrate Kwanzaa either.

Kwanzaa is just another one of those made-up days for people to celebrate. Do a google on it and you'll find out everything you ever wanted to know about its origins.

Kwanzaa is a way for Black people to have a celebration without it being a hand-me-down from 'Massa'.

After saying all that, let me tell you about this cd I bought. The Kwanzaa Album by Women of the Calabash. Distrbuted by Bermuda Reefs Reccords.

The music is great! It makes you want to get up on your feet and sway to the beat and the rhythms.


Tawny
www.tawnyford.com

This weeks issue of the Metro Times, metro Detrot's free alternative newspaper (www.metrotimes.com) has an interesting article about the death penalty written by Keith A. Owens.

Relax, I'm not going to make your eyes go all bleary and retype the piece in here. But I am going to touch on a few of the things Keith mentioned.

He broke it down to arguments that he has with himself when he thinks about the death penalty--fallibility, race and class, and redemption.

Under fallibility he mentions how the death penalty, as it currently operates, has too much room for error.

Under race and class, it's a matter of how it's the poor and the Blacks who populate the deathrows around the country. Black people are 12% of the population, yet they make up 43% of death rows population. Black people make up 50% of all murder victims, yet 83% of the victims in death penalty cases are white. While there have been over 18,000 executions in the US's history, only 37% of those executed were white people.

Under redemption, and this is where I'm going to quote him:

"On a moral level, wanting to believe that all human beings, no matter how misguided, possess the inherent potential to recognize and correct their failings, I want to sy that redemption does matter. If there is no forgiveness in the world, then we are all damned. If none of us is willing to allow for the capacity for growth and to allow people to atone for their missteps, then all of us need to be perfect from birth. And if all of (Tookie) Williams positive acts--and all of the additional positive acts he may have produced had he not been put to death--are
collectively not enough to signify sufficient redemption, then what would the proper amount have been? Schwarzenger said that Williams' refusal to admit his guilt and to accept responsibility for the ugly deeds of the gang he co-founded is all the proof he needs that Williams' is not a redeemed man. So does that mean an admission of guilt--whether or not he was actually guilty--is more valuable than the lives he
touched, and possibly saved, once he began his anti-gang crusade? How do you weigh these things?"


Tawny

Are you iterested in latex wear? If so, you may find this website interesting:

www.wearelatex.com



Tawny

If you haven't read my blog entry for August 30, 2005, or if the last time you read it was on August 30th, then you need to read it now, before you you read today's entry. Why? Because it's a companion piece to what I'm going to write today.

Okay, I am reprinting this from the most recent issue of A Little Good News, the publication of the Human Kindness Foundation. It was written by Bo Lozoff. If you would like to read more by Bo, here's the web address: www.humankindness.org

Any and all typing mistakes in this piece are mine. I am hand typing it in to the blog.

-----


Bad Joke, Great Punchline by Bo Lozoff


Dear Family,

In our last newsletter, I wrote about "finding the Kingdom of Heaven in profoundly negative times". We received a lot of response about that article, but most of it seemed to be agreeing with me about the "negative times", which was only half the topic. The part about "finding the Kingdom of Heaven" was not just a little fairy tale thrown in to make the reader feel better. It's really the only thing that can put everything else into proper perspective. The whole point of our lives--and I really mean the whole point, the only point--is to touch the Divine Reality, whatever we may wish to call the Ultimate Truth, Ultimate Intelligence, Ultimate Love, that exsists within, around, above, below, and throughout everything else. We can touch It. We can know It directly.


This is not just sweet mystical poetry. It is the only true success that is possible in life. Everything else is vulnerable to hurricanes and earthquakes and poitics, or to betrayal and greed and jealousy and decay and corruption and loss. Everything else gets ripped away from us in the end--even our own sight and hearing and the ability to walk, talk, or think clearly. Nothing is complete and lasting, nothing is final, excet the transcendent reality that most of us call God.


A prisoner in Corcoran wrote me recently that his life sucks. I wrote him back, "everyone's life sucks!" The ky is learning the Mystic's Way to move through this world where life generally sucks, learning how to "suffer gracefully", how to groan good-naturedly like you do when a friend tells you a really bad joke that ends with a great punchline. That's life on Earth: A bad joke that has a GREAT punchline.


What do I mean by the "bad joke"? Well, there's cartoonist Gahan Wilson's classic remark: "Life essentially doesn't work; that's why it's the basis of endless humor." Or the fact that cooked carrots are better for us than chocolate. Or the old German saying, "Too soon old, too late smart." Or my brother's saying, "No good deed goes unpunished." Or "nice guys finish last." Or why the girl you're in love with says "I just want to be friends." Or whywe lck children up in classrooms day after day and then we complain that they don't feel a connection to Mother Nature.


Countless ironies could be written to illustrate why it's accurate to call life a bad joke. Not just the cute stuff, either. Racism and poverty and injustice and fear, children dying, millions starving, all of it--a joke often not funny at all, a joke not in good taste. For countless millions of people, a sick joke, a cruel joke. The joke is Jesus up on the cross in what seems to be total failure, misery, broken
idealism, shattered hopes. And then--The Punchline: He comes back three days later and calmly says "Even death is not final in my Father's Kingdom." Not death, or blindness or imprisonment or capital punishment or any of the rest. Jesus really did die on that cross. Yet that death wasn't lasting. Nothing lasts except His Father's Kingdom.


So what's the deal about this Great Punchline? Well, the Ultimate Goodness, the Divine Love, that exists within, beyond, above, below and throughout everything else, is SO good, SO wonderful, SO impssibly joyful, that by comparison, even the worst, most horrible suffering we can imagine seems small, trivial. In his book The Great Divorce (the seperation between Heaven + Earth), C.S. Lewis uses the imagery of size to make this point.


Standing on the ground of Heaven, he shows a newly arrived soul a tiny crack in the ground near their feet, and says that all of Earth and Hell, all negativity and suffering and problems and ambitions and limitations, all our wars and famines--everything in the world of time and humanity--exists in that tiny little crack in the ground. Life in this tiny crack is compressed and stifling. The ground of Heaven is expansive and unlimited. The greatest joy or worst sorrow in worldly life only takes place in that tiny little crack in the ground of Heaven. Even the death of a newborn baby, the execution of an innocent man, the starvation of millions of people--these things are profoundly negative in that little crack, but that doesn't make them any bigger. They are part of the compressed world; they are contained entirely in that world. In that crack, we cannot even conceive of the vastness of the Divine
Goodness, the Divine Joy.


One moment's experience of that vastness is millions of times more positive than the negative on Earth is negative! It's like the size of a planet to the ize of a pea. It's not like a "balance" to it or anything like that. What's positive is infinite and unceasing, and what's negative is comprssed and constantly changing. Goodness is an enormous mountain, and evil is no more than an annoying mosquito with the life
span of a few hours.


That's why, when some of us dirctly experience that mountain, or "Promised Land", as Dr. Martin Luther King called it, there is nothing--NOTHING!--in the tiny world of the mosquito that ever holds much fear for us again. Dr. King knew he was going to be assassinated, and it didn't change his mssion at all, because even an assassination is trivial after seeing what he saw. Once we have sen the Larger Reality, it is SO much larger than the compressed world of all of our hopes and fears, it holds no power over us anymore.Pontius Pilate screams at Jesus, "Don't you know I can crucify you or set you free??", and Jesus replies calmly, "You have no power over me at all."


Don't you want that to be true for you?


And so He gives us instruction: Don't focus all your time and energy, hopes and dreams, on the world that does not last. Focus instead on what does last. It may be very frustrating to want to touch that Divine Reality when it just doesn't seem to be happening. For some reason, tht's part of the bad joke--God doesn't necessarily reveal Himself the moment we say "Okay, I'm ready!" So when our patience wears thin, whether that takes a day or fifty years, we tend to give up and go back to focusing our main energies on the stuff that does not last. We think, "I'm just going to be a realist from now on! Enough of all this spiritual crap. It doesn't work!"


But is it realistic to look for our keys under the streetlamp becase it's brighter there than in the dark alley where we actually dropped them? Dark or not, even if it takes all night, the alley is the only place we have a chance of finding the keys. It doesn't matter how light the street is under that lamp, they will ot be found where they do not exist. Ou joy, or peace, will not be found in the mundane world even if we become the wealthiest or most powerful personin the world, or head of the world's largest charity, or the new Ghandi who brings peace to the Middle East. The eternal will not be found in the mundane. The absolute will not be found in the relative.


So I certainly did not intend for the last newsletter to simply lay out all the misery, point out how the world is fallingapart at the seams, and leave it at that. There is a Treasure awaiting each and every one of us, closer than our own breath. We're getting sick and tired of the Bad Joke within and around us, but it is vitally important not to lose faith in the Great Punchline. We have an opportunity to live in this world but not of it, as Jesus advised. We have an opportnity to respect and deal responsibly with the problems and limitations of this worldly life, without being run into the ground by them. And that's the only value of sererating "worldly' and "Divine", or as Jesus put it, "Mammon" and "God".


There is a point when we cease to see or talk about "two worlds" at all. Remember, Jesus said, "When thine eye be single, thy body will be full of Light." When we aaken fully tothe Big Truth, there are not two worlds at all; there is Spirit alone, no second thing. The mundane world is realized as a mysterious, shifting embodiment of the Divine. In The Great Divorce C.S. Lewis points out that once we arrive in Heaven, we look back at our lives and see that we were never anywhere other than Heaven. The whole thing--our tragedies, betrayals, depressions, suffering--ws all like a mosquito bite in the beautiful realm of God. Not just the future, but even our history changes when our vision clears and we see what life has really been about.


We experience this in little ways all the tie. You have a little car wreck that ruins your day and pisses you off, cursing your bad luck, but then later that week you fall in love, and when your lover asks you about the car wreck you say, "Oh it was nothing." And you really mean it, when you think of it from such a psitive state as being in love. Well, imagine being in God's Infinite, Unceasing Love! The past thirty years of imprisonment for a crime I didn't commit? Oh, it was nothing! My wife running off with my best friend? Oh, it was nothing! Being diagnosed HIV+ and Hep C+? Nothing. The world falling apart at the seams and about to destroy itself? Nothing.


So let's not let the world's ills make us completely lose sight of the Positive, of the Great Punchline. If we make it a high enough priority, we have an opportunity to walk through this valley of the shadow of death with a rod and a staf that profoundly comfort us, that empower us. We can be in the world of bad news and decay, but not of it. We must function in this world, it is our sacred duty. We're suppsed to help and comfort and solve problems and make peace and feed our famiies and all the rest. But we do not belong to any of that. We belong solely to God. None of that can harm who we really are, it can only affect the material world, it can only affect the part of us that is physical and temporary. That's why Jesus said that what is born of flesh must die of flesh, and we need to be born again in Spirit to find our eternal nature. It's right here, always waiting for us to awaken to it.


My deepest Christmas wish for you all is to discover even a shred of your Bigger Nature. A shred of that is bigger than this whole world with all its hurricanes and earthquakes and planes and bombs. Until you experience it for yourself, hold firmly to your faith in the experience and advice from the sages and saints who have directly experienced it. As one of my favorite elders, Father Murray Rogers, has put it, "Faith is not the most important thing; it is the only thing." This is not just wishful thinking or using religion as a crutch to help us cope with hard times. This is the only thing that really matters.

---------


hugs, Tawny
tawnyford@webtv.net
www.tawnyford.com

Back to the death penalty. Again, America oh so loudly proclaims that it's value system is based, is foundated in Christianity.

Redemption is a big factor, supposedly, in Cristianity.


Moses, raised up in the household of a Pharisee, was not a saintly man by any means. Until he found God and turned his life around.

Peter, one of Jesus' apostles, was not a saintly man either. Nor were any of the apostles prior to their becoming part of Jesus' crew.

These days Peter and John and the rest of the apostles are considerred saints. Moses too.

These men found God and changed their ways. They redeemed themselves for all of the filthy vile things they had done in their lives prior.

Tookie and Karla Faye, to name a few people who have been executed, redeemed themselves while in prison on death row. They found God and changed their ways.

If we go by previous folks who were bad and got good, then Tookie and Karla Faye are saints.

It sure does give you somethig to think about.


Tawny
www.tawnyford.com

If you or any one you know is a former prisoner and needs some understanding regarding their rights and how to overcome the baggage of a criminal record, check this site out:


www.sentencingproject.org/rights-restoration.cfm


Hope it helps.
Tawny

Although I'm a fan of country music, I can't say that I've ever purchased any music by Trisha Yearwood. Until today. I was at Costco this morning and some way some how her cd, Songbook, ended up in my shopping cart. Okay, I put it in there (smile), along with a double cd set by Reba.

But the Trisha Yearwood cd--oh my! I really like it! Especially the first song, How Do I Live. I've played that about a zillion times already. Such a beautiful love song.


Tawny

Look, I don't observe Christmas so I'm not going to give you ideas to make your shopping easier, okay? But for gift giving any other time of the year, here are a few places that have some interesting items:


www.frankencutters.com
This place sells cookie cutters. Yeah, I know, big deal, cookie cutters, but these look really nice. They're not those cheesy plastic ones that the discont stores try to pass off as cookie cutters. These are solid, sturdy and metal. Check out their online catalog or request they mail you one. The instock cutters are amazing, plus--they'll make cookie cutters to order. Look at their website, you'll be amazed.


www.cherryhutproducts.com
Homemade jams and jellies, etc., all produced here in Michigan.


www.thimblejerryjam.com
Homemade wild berry jam.


www.michiganwildflower.com
Michigan wildflower seeds.


www.Michigania.com
Michigan themed gifts.



Happy shopping.
Tawny
tawnyford@webtv.net

I don't know how you feel about the death penalty. I don't know if you're for it, against it, or oblivious to it. Me, I'm against it. Totally against it.

All the time you hear the people in this country, private citizens and politicians alike, flapping on and on about what a Christian country this is. Blah blah blah. That mess down in Alabama when they had to remove a big old stone thingie with the Ten Commandents carved in to it from the courthouse. The Christians acted like it was the worst thing in the world. Like hell fire and damnation were waiting just around the corner for anyone who didn't stand up and object to that thingies removal. Wasn't that a hoot? They acted like that was the only copy in the whole world. Like that was the very one God gave Moses. Like it wasn't in every Bible ever printed.

I'm not saying that fellow in California on death row, I don't even remember his name, Tookie, maybe (?), didn't do some very bad things in his life. He was convicted of killing four people. And to make matters worse, he founded the Crips, a nasty-assed very bad no good street gang that has managed to infiltrate almost every state in this country.

But. If this country is so doggone Christian, isn't redemption a really big Christian thing?

Surely Tookie redeemed himself in the years he spent on death row. He was a tireless advocate when it came to keeping kids away from the evil of gangs through books he wrote. By the time they executed him he wasn't the same man who had gone to death row all those many years before. He had grown. He had seen the errors of his ways. He had changed.

If this country is so darn Christian in its morals and ideals and principles, then he shouldn't have been executed.

The victims families always act, at least when they're interviewd on tv, like as soon as their loved one's killer is executed, they are immediately, miraculously, going to feel so much better. Ha.

They're always looking for that extra pound of flesh, that extra stick-it-to-them. Remember when Karla Faye was executed in Texas a few years ago? Tell me the husband of one of her victims wasn't looking for blood out of a stone. That crap he said about how he "knew" that when Karla Faye ran into his wife in the afterlife, his wife was going to kick Karla Faye's ass. What kind of Christian talk is that? Where did he learn that view of the afterlife? That's not in any Bible I've ever read.

Me, I've spent a lot of time in prisons. No, I wasn't a prisoner. I was a visitor and a volunteer, for years and years. If you really and truly want revenge on someone, what you do is get them sent to prison. Prison is the worst place in the whole wide world. Think I'm kidding? Visit a prison some time. There is no hope or true happiness in prison. None. Make them spend forever, their whole lives, life with no chance of parole. That's what you do to them.

Christians always go back to that eye for an eye thing when they try to justify executions. God, and only God, has the right to take a life. He gave life, He can take it away.

If Christians really and truly believed that the evil, the murderers should die, then you'd think they'd be storming the White House looking to get their hands on Bush. Through his actions, and his inactions, so very many people, both here in America and abroad, have died. His hands are coverred in blood. How come the Christians aren't going after him???

Tawny

I don't know about you but I love reading other peoples blogs. I saw these in an article in the most recent Metro Times:


info.detnews.com/weblog

tu-tutimes.blogspot.com

motorcityrocks.com

snowsuit.net

hamtown.blogspot.com

detroitblog.com

sweatymen.blogspot.com



I haven't had a chance to check them out yet so I don't know which ones are any good, nor if any of them even are worth reading. Let me know what you think.

Tawny
tawnyford@webtv.net

Shame on me for not sharing this with you sooner! www.tasteeapple.com These people make some wonderful apple chips. Apple chips, you know, like potato chips, but apple chips. They come in four different flavors--caramel, cinnamon, granny smith and red delicious. My favorites are caramel and cinnamon. First time I tried them was this fall at the cider mill and it was love at first taste.

I just orderred a case of them, 24-2.5 ounce bags, an assortment of each flavor for--get this--$19.95, taxes and shipping included!

Come Tuesday I am going to be one happy little camper!


Tawny

December 1, 2005

Friends,

I just thought we should all pause for a moment today to remember the simple act of courage, defiance and dignity committed by Rosa Parks when she refused to move to the back of the bus because the law said she had the wrong skin color. The greatest moments in history, the ones that have truly mattered and have taken us to a better place, are made up of scores of these singular acts by ordinary, everyday people who could no longer tolerate the crap and the nonsense of those in charge.

Today, whether it is a student who holds a sit-in to get the army recruiters off his campus, or the mother of a dead soldier who refuses to leave the front gate of the president's ranch, we continue to be saved by brave people who risk ridicule and rejection but end up turning huge tides of public opinion in the direction of righteousness. We owe them enormous debts of gratitude. It is not easy to stand up for what is right, especially when everyone else is afraid to leave the comfortable path of conformity.

Rosa Parks may have been alone on that bus at the moment of her arrest but she wasn't alone for long. The old order was shaken, the world was upended and, as a people, we were given a chance for a bit of redemption.

Perhaps the best way to celebrate this most important day in American history is to ask yourself what it is that you can do today to make a difference. What risk can you take to move the ball forward? What is that one thing you've been wanting to say to your co-workers or classmates that you've been afraid to say -- but in your heart of hearts you know needs to be said? Why wait another day to say it or do it?

There is probably no better way to honor Rosa Parks -- and yourself -- than for you to put a stop to an injustice you see, not allowing it to continue for one more second. Do something. Then send me an email (contributions@michaelmoore.com) and tell all of us what you did (I'll post as many as I can).

Fifty years later, the bus we're on could use a few more people simply saying, "No. I'm sorry. I've had enough. I'm not going to take it anymore."

Yours,

Michael Moore
www.michaelmoore.com

Today is the 50th anniversary of the day that Rosa Parks sat down in the white section of the bus in Montgomery, Alabama and refused to get up.

The local news programs are all abuzz about how the INS center in Detroit is going to be renamed after her. The city of Detroit has issued an all-you-can-ride bus pass for the month of December with Rosa's name and likeness on it for approximately $2.50 less than a regular non-Rosa pass would cost. These are just some of the 'honors' being bestowed on the "Mother of the Civil Rights Movement".

Last Sunday's Detroit newspaper ran a story--"Marketing Rosa Parks: It's a fine line". In it they discussed how companies that market dead celebrities are eager to get going. While they don't think dead Rosa will bring in the amount of money dead Elvis does, it could still be a tidy sum. Enough to make it worth figuring out who owns the rights to her 'name'. Potentially, several hundred thousand dollars can be
generated from her name per year for years and years to come.

Rosa's relatives are suing her lawyer, retired judge Adam Shakoor, and her long time caregiver, Elaine Steele. Her relatives claim that when Rosa signed a will in 2003 making Shakoor and Steele representatives of her estate, it was because she was suffering from dementia and undue influence.

Obviously, whoever wins this lawsuit will end up with the 'rights' to the Rosa Parks name, and the opportunity to make some serious money over the long haul.

What makes it interesting, at least to me, is that a few years ago Rosa Parks faced eviction from her home, an apartment in Detroit, for unpaid rent. Hartford Memorial Baptist Church, not Rosa's church but one that obviously cared about her well-being, stepped in and caught up her back rent, then continued to pay her rent until her death.

This is just me, but, if her relatives cared so doggone much about her, or the judge and her caregiver cared so doggone much about her, how come it took a church that Rosa didn't even attend to keep her from being put out on the street?


Tawny
248-615-1300