The heavens opened up, god spoke and now Michael Nutter is Mayor of the City of Philadelphia. Uh...Not exactly! Actually the residents of the city of Philadelphia actually spoke with their votes and low and behold...Here's Mike!

For the first time in Philadelphia's history we have a mayor who's not only African American in a city where African Americans predominate but he's an African American who has a brain he's not afraid to use. Unlike previous African American mayors in this city Mr Nutter appears to be a policy wonk and a pragmatist. Given his own sense of style and personality AND pragmatism, he's not likely to get bogged down with political feuds, megolamania, egotism, authoritarianism and the self imposed isolation of his predecessors. He's articulate, intelligent and conversant with the city's pressing issues. He's progressive and is the author of two pieces of groundbreaking legislation in Philadelphia's history..the smoking ban and the Ethics bill. He's appears everybit as invested in quality of life issues as the rest of are. He's concerned about the funding of Philadelphia schools as he has a teenaged daughter who attends Masterman. He is affected by senseless gun violence in the city as his family also resides here. Mr Nutter will inherit a potentially volatile agenda of city governement; Municipal Labor contracts which includes a possible revamping of the pension and medical care systems, The school funding issue, a burgeoning homicide rate and casinos. This is coupled with an attempt to attract the "Best and the Brightest" to work for his administration tackling the city's most serious issues at jobs that pay at the most quite possibly a fifth of what they would earn in the private sector. Mr Nutter has also made the campaign promise to cease this city's "Brain Drain" in an effort to keep the "Best and the Brightest" who graduate from any of our numerous excellent academic institutions employed right here in Philadelphia and contributing to our quality of life. These are not easy issues and Mr Nutter will not be in an enviable place in dealing with these...The saving grace might be the presumptive election of either Hillary Clinton or Rudy Guliani as this nation's 44th president. Both candidates appear to genuinely extol the virtues of saving this nations cities as well as improving the quality of life for all Americans. It will be "Touch and Go" as shortly after taking office in January 2008 Mr Nutter's skill as a politician, reformer and pragmatist will be tested when he is saddled with the cumbersome task of negotiating new Municipal labor contracts. We all wait with "baited breath" and wish mr Nutter success in navigating this city's myriad of social, economic and political issues.

                                                                                                                                  Excelsior

I remember previously viewing an episode of  The Oprah Winfrey Show during which, in an in-depth interview with Tiger Woods, he referred to himself as a "Caublarasian".   In doing so Tiger states that he wished to acknowledge all of his ethnicities; Cau; acknowledging his Caucasian ancestry, Bl for his Black roots from his father and Asian for his Asian mother.

It would be nice if there were more than the four racial types we know of.  And there certainly is no Caublarasia being indigenously populated by Caublarasians.  What IS abundantly clear to me is that this was the begining of Tiger's attempt to disassociate himself from the ranks of those of us whom are proudly (I might add)  classified as African Americans.  Tiger appears to exclsuively date white women (One of whom he recently married) and he appears to not support any exclusive  black causes.  Add this to the fact that he vigorously defended one of his competitor's (Fuzzy Zoeler) racist remarks and it can hardly be argued that Tiger prefers NOT to be classified as "One of us". And we as a people need to disassociate ourselves from him as "one of us".  He is not a "Professional Black Golfer" he is a "Caublarasian" Golfer.

Tiger once complained that as a child he was once tied to a tree by some white kids who threw rocks at him and called him "Nigger".  Professor Eric Michael Dyson of the University of Pennsylvania pointed out that these kids were not attempting to target the 33.33 percent of him he refers to as black. America is the land of "Milk and Honey" and Race and Politics. Besides gender, age and name, Americans are (Quite unfortunately) refered to by their race. And Tiger is not the first of his kind to "Dis" us.  In 1995 African Americans overwhelmingly supported OJ Simpson's defense after he had been accused and tried in the death of his former wife and her friend Ron Goldman. African Americans supported OJ Simpson depsite the fact that he had no record of ever having supported black causes. He also appeared to do everything he could to disassociate himself from his black brethren. If Tiger wishes to be known as a "Caublarasian" then might I suggest that he start his own society, group or community of "Caublarasians" and/or those of mixed ancestries. Until then reality in America dictates that if you have any black blood running through your veins then you are categorized as Black or African American. America purports to be a "Racial Melting pot" with emphasis on the word RACIAL.

 

On Talent

A friend recently commented to me that he belived that Tiger Woods may be the best golfer ever and that he is extremely talented.  I agreed that Tiger is "Talented" although it is difficult to gauge in what context. In most venues Talent is defined as superior natural physical or mental ability. Tiger's father was an avid golfer himself and inroduced the child to the sport at a very young age. By the age four, Tiger exhibited his skills as a young golfer on the Mike Douglass show.

My question is; Given that Tiger was exposed to golf at a very young age and he certainly enjoyed playing as well as the fact that he was certainly influenced by his father who was an avid golfer,  given these circumstances wouldn't the stage have been set for Tiger to develop into becoming a GREAT golfer? I argue that if you took 10 preschool aged children from good homes where their most basic physical and emotional needs were being met regularly and if they took an interest in golf or any other sport for that matter, maybe as many as even 9 of the 10 would develop into world class golfers or athletes as well.  This goes for any physical or mental activity or ability. So how then does one distinguish between natural talent or ability and developed or acquired skill? Should the child who picks up (By ear) and accurately renders complex classical compositions on the piano be classified in the same group with the child who practices and plays golf 4-5 hours a day until he is proficient? How about the child who is able to render, draw or paint accurate images of people or objects without any formal artistic training versus the child who enjoys mathematics and practices solving and learning new mathematic equations? I believe that we must learn to differentiate between natural talent and acquired skill.