Kwame Brilliance

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick has been an embarrassment as Mayor of Detroit. From the credit cards, to the Navigator, to all of the overtime by his posse.......I mean his security detail, he certainly has been colorful, as well as a clueless civic servant. Under his tremendous stewardship, he has cut city services harshly, including the police force. You know, the people who try to keep the city safe, which in Detroit is truly a thankless and almost impossible job. We have seen, since The Hip-Hop Mayor took control, the population of the once great and proud city fall to below the symbolic number of one million. Does Kwame have a grasp of the reality around him? Based upon this......truly amazing quote that he offered at a campaign stop last week, I would have to say..No, he does not.

"The mayor of Detroit is the most global, strategic, important position in America."

Does this not explain the utter lunacy and false sense of oneself that this man exhibits? Mayor of Detroit is that important? How about the mayor of Chicago, or even better, New York City? How about the governor of California, the 5th largest economy in the world? Oh, wait, I've got it. The most important global, strategic, important position in America? How about the President of the United States, you dink??!! I think that may be slightly of more significance.

People of Detroit. Please be smart and do not re-elect him. I know the adage that "Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it", as well as "What's worse? The devil we know, or the one we don't?" When it comes to Kwame, I'm willing to take my chances.

Discover Some Text Books!

Back in June, the Discovery Channel ran a contest, asking for votes for 'The Greatest American'. Then they ran with their top 25 vote getters. The top ten were:

10. Franklin D. Roosevelt
9. Oprah Winfrey
8. Elvis Presley
7. Bill Clinton
6. George W. Bush
5. Benjamin Franklin
4. George Washington
3. Martin Luther King, Jr.
2. Abraham Lincoln
1. Ronald Reagan

Let's look at this list. Oprah Winfrey. The fact that she makes the list is disgusting. Let alone top ten! She's a talk show host. That's it. Big furry deal! What makes her so great in people's minds? "But she does such wonderful topics on her show." I've heard that argument many times. And? It's a TV show! Yes, her wonderful topics are just so special that Tom Cruise has to be on and jump around like an orangutan. Yeah. That's the stuff of a Great American. If we need to have a diverse list, and a black woman is needed, where's Harriet Tubman?

Elvis Presley. I love the King. He was an amazing performer. But the 8th Greatest American of all time? Please. If you're looking at entertainers (and shouldn't be) why not Johnny Carson?

Bill Clinton? An impeached President? Why not Andrew Johnson then? Whether you like Clinton or not, what did he actually DO to be ranked so high?

George W. Bush? Too high. Way too high.

Ronald Reagan at Number 1? I love Reagan, and I think he was the best president of the 20th Century. But not the Greatest American. But I would have him on the list, probably in the teens.

Glaring omissions from the complete list: Paul Revere. Alexander Hamilton (Founder of the U.S. banking system). Douglas Macarthur/George S. Patton. Alexander Graham Bell (After all, Bill Gates, Thomas Edison, and the Wright Brothers all made it).

Certainly, ignorance runs rampant throughout our nation. You have to love our public school education! Just looking at the top ten is frightening. But then you add in others who made the top 25, such as:

14. Albert Einstein (He was German!)
17. Bob Hope (Granted, he always entertained our troops, but he was a comedian!)
20. Lance Armstrong (He rides a bike around France. That certainly makes one a GREAT AMERICAN!)
21. Muhammad Ali (Boxer who was a draft dodger)
22. Rosa Parks (For all the hype about her, all she did was be too tired to get up. She didn't "plan" to start a cultural change)

If you want to see the complete list, here is a link to it:

http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/greatestamerican/greatestamerican.html

Who would be my Number 1? Easy. Thomas Jefferson. (Number 12 on the list) Wrote the Declaration of Independence and was one of the authors of the Constitution. The Louisiana Purchase. That is certainly more impressive and worthy of high ranking than hosting a TV show, singing songs, or playing with interns.