After being overshadowed by another spunky statehouse figure, Alaska's Governor finally gets some attention this weekend as Colin Powell emerges on CNN with a little lecture for her on American values.
"Gov. Palin," Powell tells Fareed Zakaria, "pushed the party more to the right, and...had something of a polarizing effect when she talked about how small town values are good. Well, most of us don’t live in small towns. And I was raised in the South Bronx, and there’s nothing wrong with my value system from the South Bronx."
I admit bias here. Colin Powell started life in Harlem and the Bronx of poor immigrant parents, as I did, and was given an education at the City College of New York, as I was, by the American people. He spent his life serving them with honor and valor until George W. Bush and Dick Cheney trashed his reputation by putting him out front at the UN with doctored intelligence about Iraq.
Having taxpayers give you what your parents could never afford gave generations of us values of community and responsibility that led many to try to do more than make money and reputations.
Colin Powell, with his endorsement of Obama and now his attempt to push the Republican Party back to its roots and ahead to its future of talking to all minorities, including hockey moms, is still trying to serve his country.
In the music section, I noticed our local Walmart divides racks of CDs into two broad categories: COUNTRY and URBAN. The "country" artists are white, the "urban" artists look to be black or mixed-race.
ReplyDeleteI didn't see and Moden Jazz Quartet in the urban section.