As IF Times

link American Idol Vote Begins – Jacob Lusk, Casey Abrams Impress : People.com.

A few seasons back, the irascible Simon Cowell, arguably the real star of American Idol decided to move on.  Before that happened, the fomat changed to 4 judges and Ellen Degeneres was  inexplicably added to the show.   That was enough for yours truly, causing me to pronounce the show over.  http://asiftimes.com/2010/02/07/talent-must-be-in-short-supply/

Well this season’s crop of  talent has not only proved me wrong, it proved a number of other things as well.  First of which is that Simon was NOT the show, although he dominated the program since inception with his bitingly blunt comments.  The show was supposed to be about singing talent, but with Simon’s presence over the years, it was as much about watching unfolding car crashes and the show had an almost sadistic appeal.

When you look at the talent pool in this year’s edition of AI, the producers and the judges have to be given credit for bringing the best crop ever to the stage.  So, that’s credit to Steve Tyler, Jennifer Lopez and the only carry over judge, Randy Jackson.   They bring credibility due to their backgrounds and generally lucid comments.  The show has moved on to be a talent contest, albeit a contrived one, from being the Simon Cowell show.  I’m not sure what the logic was in bringing in Degeneres, but thankfully, that’s over. 

The success this season also demonstrates that the basic concept reasonates with the public and therefore the show is bigger than its nominal judges.  Karaoke is pretty popular in most of the world and this can be characterized as the Super Bowl of that.   The show is refocusing on the talent, not on the judges.  It’s as if Simon were never there.   Charlie Sheen should pay attention to that.

When you observe the roster of talent that is on display, it makes you wonder where these people were last year, or the year before.  It also should give one pause to think about the pool of talent in every other area of life which will emerge from the wings every year.  From science, to business, to sports, the pool of talent is deep enough down there to give optimism to all aspects of culture and human achievement.   You just can’t be pessimistic.

Now if they could only get rid of that irritating Ryan Seacrest.

link African-American lawmakers blast budget plan as step back for civil rights – The Hills Floor Action.

If I had a nickel for every time a white person complained that public policy laws were racist against them, I’d be two short of enough change for a dime.  According to the members of the Congressional Black Caucus, coincidentally all Democrats,  the proposals by the Republican members of Congress to curtail spending are destined to roll back civil rights advances. 

While this appeal may reasonate with a certain crowd, the logic and validity of the argument are as absent as the missing 14 Wisconsin Democratic lawmakers.  Actually, this notion is insulting to people of many constituencies.  At its root, the logic seems to be that only people of color, namely blacks would be adversely impacted by budget cuts.  It’s truly giving false credit to those lawmakers that apparently are able to  direct legislation to isolate only blacks and exclude other ethnic minorities.  Do these proposed budget cuts somehow not affect Latinos? Chinese? South Asians?  How are they able to do that?

If in fact this is the case, the racism claim is valid since that means only blacks have been specifically excluded from access to prosperity.  This implies that all other racial subgroups have somehow managed to exclude  blacks as well since they don’t seem to be lobbying against budget cuts.  It’s intriguing to me that there are not more vocal black groups complaining about how they are specifically kept out of the grocery store business, or the laundry business, or the gardening business, or the restaurant business.  Those damn ethnic cartels are likely running closed shops.  How are they able to monopolize this slice of American business?  It must be racism.

What’s truly remarkable is that these other visible minorities can hold such influence within the economy without the benefit of significant racial representation in the Federal government.  There is no Congressional Chinese Caucus, no Mexican, Cuban or Central American Caucus.  There is no South Asian Caucus. 

The real racism here is from the Black Caucus itself, which by virtue of its very existence influences policies that have been detrimental to that minority.  The usefulness of this subgroup of lawmakers is very questionable since the world has changed dramatically over the past 50 years.  It’s hard to believe a legislative body exists only to forward the cause of one racial subgroup in an ‘inclusive’ society.  In case anyone hadn’t noticed, the present President is a person of color.  It is the height of hypocrisy to claim that the success of many blacks are due to individual effort while attributing failures to systemic racism.  When failure is rewarded, it perpetuates the culture of dependency. Ask any parent who has a 30 year old living at home.

If anyone needs help, it’s the contingent of Americans who are willfully non productive.  We’ll call it the Congressional USELESS Caucus which stands for  Union of SEdentary,   Lazy, Entitled, Sanctimonious Slobs.  This would work only if you could convince anyone in this group to run for office.  And besides, there already is a Democratic Party.