Amadeo Sogni

Die. I know you feel great. You’re really doing something positive and you want to let everyone know. You’re so bothered that I’m not going to sign your petition or whatever the hell it was. I’ll ask you to refrain from trying to lecture me about global poverty and making snide remarks about me “taking a vacation from saving the environment today”. Ahem: DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE HELL I DO FOR A LIVING?!?!?!?! I’ll tell you what you stick a pledge sheet for my organization on your clipboard or get some employers to say they’ll hire some of my clients and I’ll sign your crap. I saw more of you guys standing around than we can even afford to employ. I am Mr. Human Services all week long and I don’t want to use part of the first vacation I’ve had since November to dick around with you. Come back and talk to me when you’ve been doing that shit for almost a decade and then try and lecture me. Not to mention you have no idea who I am. I might be developing a sustainable form of energy for use in third world countries. I might be building a house out of recycled materials that I pull out of the gutter. Really all that’s not important. I said I’m not interested so just let that stand. In my mind you’re no different from the guy that was trying to sell me Nestle Crunch when I got back home. Both of you pushed it too far and made me want to put you in the camel clutch. Leave me the hell alone. Especially since there are like 50 of you guys standing in a 10 block radius I don’t want to hear anymore of your talking points. You have two choices: 1) Die away from me. 2) Concentrate on summoning Captain Planet. By the way…you should find a new means anyway….how in the digital age are you gonna save the environment while all of you are out using paper? Way to go…you could have saved some trees by putting this online. Oh, and global poverty guy. I’m fucking poor and I work with people who make less than me. Cry me a damned river. I’ll let you wipe your eyes on my overdue student loan notices…there’s plenty of them. In short when you see me and I say:
No thanks.
I’m good.
No, but good luck.

Enjoy that along with a coke and a smile and shut the fuck up.

Sincerely,

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
Gandhi

Might as well. Seems like no one wants him to be able to do anything anyway. I can’t help but laugh and be saddened at the same time when I see him held in a similar regard to a Nazi war criminal. Vick did something horrible for certain. His situaiton, however, mirrors those of clients I work with and sheds a light on why cycles keep repeating. It also shows the hipocracy of people in this country. Let me ask a question that I’ll revisit later. How many PETA protestors show up at Preakness, the Kentucky Derby or Belmont Stakes? The crux of this whole issue is not what Mike Vick did, but what he’ll do now. I don’t mean showing contrition, or speaking out about animal cruelty. I mean the fact tha people want to see him suffer. He went bankrupt on the strength of sponsors backing off and the Falcons reclaiming money. So beyond losing any prestige from playing in the NFL…he also lost his money. So now we have a broke, unemployed, ex-con who no one wants to touch and what do I keep hearing? That no one should, he should be banned for life from the NFL. No one should hire him. He should curl up in a ball and die. So I say…kill him then. Enact all of your cowardly online declarations and put him out of his misery, make him suffer first like some of you suggest he should. Despite what he’s done, he’s out now. In other situations people always talk about paying your debt and rejoining society. Yet not as many people are willing to hire people with records. So you want them to become productive, but won’t give them a chance to produce? You say what Vick did was too horrible? Well let’s go back to horse racing. People have eased back on running Fillys in certain races…but they still run horses that are a bit too young. Remember Barbaro? That wasn’t a one time freak accident. Despite all the attention that horse got…nothing changed about racing. I still don’t see PETA ads encouraging me not to support horse racing. There’s not commercial with Sarah McLachlan singing in the background while images of sad looking horses are displayed. The interesting thing about horses (and why it was considered a mercy to shoot one with a broken leg) is that running is a central part of their life. They naturally run…like when they experience pain they try to run from it. So a horse with a broken leg would hurt it self even more trying to escape the pain it’s feeling. Even worse is the actual build of a horses leg and how damage can compound. Most people would rather kill the horse than spend the money it would take to properly care for it in that situaiton. Dogs are cuter and easier to own. I don’t hear any outcry over people making insects fight. I guess a Stag Beetle doesn’t come across as well on a poster. Even worse then the general hatred Vick is getting, has to be sports writers. “We need to know that he’s learned his lesson.” The only way you’ll know is if he’s caught with another dog fighting ring. Other than that how can you tell if he’s sorry. Hell how can you ever tell if any athelete is ever sorry for anything. If they break down in tears complete with sobbing and snot bubbles will that seal it? Maybe if they do a Nancy Kerrigan. What reallly kills me about Sports writers is the “it’s a privilege to play in ‘________’ league”. No it’s not, that’s something nerdy fans who could never get on a team say. People aren’t allowed into professional sports for any other reason than demonstrated ability and even though you’re just a commodity to be used and traded. If it is a privilege, would someone revoke Farves so I don’t have to keep hearing about him playing the, “maybe I will” game. If it’s such a privilege why didn’t they just let Ricky Williams retire instead of taking back money he made in previous years? My job isn’t a privilege and if have issues and resign they don’ demand money back. Hell you can turn down awards and they don’t demand anything from you. All of this makes Michael Vicks situation so much more ironic to me. It’s not like he’s just going to rake in Millions of dollars. Who’s going to sponsor him now? Jason Taylor has never broken the law and he got a miniscule contract this year considering his body of work. Vick would be lucky to be a special teams player….yet people will still be pissed because he isn’t being made to suffer. So kill him. That way I won’t have to watch this spectacle any longer. I won’t have to turn on the news and see a 20 reporters standing on his lawn while legally he can’t even speak to them to tell them to get off of it. I won’t have to watch him absorb hits and play through pain. I’m sure you can think up more ways for him to suffer. So implement them all.

Not the robots. The city…I’ve been watching over the last few years and my city is changing all around me. Some of it is good, some of it is cool, some of it sucks arse. It makes me think about my younger days and the things I loved in the city. More than anything it reminds me that you can’t manufacture cool. Let’s hold up two areas for comparison.

Charles Village:

around late 90’s early 2000 I spent alot of time around this area. I could walk there from where I grew up and I knew a lot of people who lived in the area. The majority of them were college students or dropouts who lived in the apartments all around. The rent wasn’t crazy, but at that age you needed roommates and they were mostly Three story converts so each had some personality to them. Golden Temple was right next to Wazobia’s so you could buy (if you had the money) a Carlton Marshall and some incense then grab a dope salad (best salad bar ever). A few blocks down Charles St. there was Concious Heads where you could get a cut and buy a book. You could walk to the park and kick it or eat on a roof top of one of the apartments. There were decent liquor stores in the area so you could always get a Stout and even some Woodchuck cider if you felt like it. Perhaps it was the high number of students (and drop outs), but there were alot of artists in the are. I can think of two different recording studios on one block not to mention what may have been tucked away. In a word…it was cool. Harmonic convergence kind of cool. Even if for some reason no one I kne was home, I could still go to Charles Village and kick it. More than likely I would randomly meet someone who I become familiar with….especially the opposite sex…Charles Village was a great place to meet women. Either at Golden Temple, a Hopkins party (sisters at Johns Hopkins were so lonely) or just randomly in the street. There were also several “black market venues” in the area. It makes me glad I’m reformed because then I learned that the sad part about dudes who sold weed was that they tended to be home so everyone could get to them, but nobody hung out with them. I always felt a mixture between wanting to invite them along and wanting to hurry up and leave to do my thing. Ahhhh youth. I’m quite sure I heard more new music, wrote more songs, tried more food and flirted with more women in Charles Village than any other place in the city.

Harbor East:

This is the new….when I was really running around this town there was no Harbor East…it was just the end of President st. You could walk through Little Italy to get there…but the only reason would be to get to Fells Point (which was and still is cool). Now there are several things in this area…Whole Foods, Landmark Theatre, Roy’s, Teavolve (which used to be closer to S. Broadway)….there’s a lot of stuff there. The problem with it is this: it feels like it’s trying to be cool which makes it a pretender. I like Landmark…I go to that Wholefoods…I just don’t have the urge to hang out in the area. Harbor east is like that kid that had all the new toys and video games…but no one wanted to go there house. You would avoid them to hangout in someone’s yard throwing rocks. It wasn’t that you didn’t like them…they just tried to hard so they weren’t as much fun. Plus they relied on their toys too much. Harbor East I think, has a bad location if you really know Baltimore…there’s good food in Little Italy and on S. Broadway. The Harbor has a bunch of stores and food spots, but S. Broadway has just as many and you don’t pay tourist money. If you want to do both you can jump on a water taxi that will take you to the heart of either. Harbor east is literally surrounded by these areas and on the south side…water. The area was plenty of new condo’s and parking garages there’s a good place to buy wine and some cool stores. Yet it’s just not cool.

This is what happens when people try to manufacture cool. Charles Village had things in the area to patronize, but it was cool mostly because of the people that came into the area. Harbor East doesn’t have that. Actually it never will. I mentioned this to my girl and she quoted some show that said if you want to find an “up and coming” area, look for where artists live. Eventually that area will be built up and this way you can get in before it prices rise. The bad part about this is…once it’s all built up the artists won’t be able to live there anymore so what initially made it a cool area has been pushed out by….people’s desire to live in a cool area. You can’t manufacture cool…you can be cool, you can join in on cool…but you can’t build it from the ground up, not when we’re talking about a city or part of town. It’s not about stores and design that make and area cool it’s about what happens there. Hampden is similar to a lot of places in various cities…but how many bother to have a festival? South Broadway benefits from it’s proximity to the Harbor and the Water Taxi, but there are stores there that attract certain people. In the end you get a decent mix of people. However, that area has been like that for years. The Harbor has been there for years….but no one really wants to hangout there either. Most people I know wonder why tourists bother to come there in the first place. You can’t manufacture cool.

“You can’t even comprehend what I am! I’a a force o’ nature — the beast in the wild! That little runt you’re all so scared of is nothin’ but a pale imitation o’ me!”
—–
“It’s Latin. Back in the days of the Roman Empire. ‘Quod sum eris.’ ‘I am what you will be.’ No matter where you go, no matter what you do or don’t do, it can’t be stopped. You are going to become… me.”
Sabertooth

In honor of the Wolverine movie coming out and the fact that geeks usually have something to complain about when comic movies are made, sometimes I’m one of them, I thought it would be interesting to look at one complaint about the film from a different take. The biggest group of complaints about any comic book movie rests in getting things right. If it wasn’t like that in the book many geeks won’t like it. However, sometimes there is a bigger issue with the comic than the movie…that issue my friends…is retcon. So here’s the complaint I’m working with:

Geek voice: “Wolverine and Sabertooth aren’t brothers.” That’s true…now. The relationship between Sabertooth and Wolverine is complex and depending on what writer was working on the books at the time it has changed…a lot.

1. Same Person, kinda - John Byrne drew a face for Wolverine and upon learning that John Romita Sr. had done one that had been used…he turned this character into Sabertooth a villan for Iron Fist

3. Father - After creating Sabertooth Byrne, who had fought to not have Wolverine dropped early on, wanted to make him Wolverine’s father (Chris Claremont wanted this as well). Later writers didn’t.

3. Brother - Origins depicted Dog Logan as Wolverines half-brother (who hated him) he had a strong resemblance to Sabertooth and it was revealed that this was going to become a possible origin of their fued. (The writer didn’t intend this, but said it wouldn’t bother him if another writer did it later). Later writers didn’t.

4. Members of rival clans - Some story line in another book had them as members of rival Wolf and Bear Clans that had been fighting throughout history. Other writers did not pick up on this.

5. Son - It’s a different continuity for certain, but in the Ultimates they made Sabertooth Wolverine’s son.

6. Lupines - So a continuing Arc is has some dude named Romulus as a mastermind behind the experiments and tampering done with Wolverine. This dude has an interest in all the “Feral” type mutants. In this arc Sabertooth has been used as one of Wolverines “handlers”.

7. Teammates - One thing that hasn’t changed once established is that at one time the two were teammates working for the CIA and they were both part of the Weapon X project that gave Wolverine his Adamantium skeleton.

8. Rivals - This also never changes…so much so that at one point Sabertooth was apart of the X-Men and when Wolverine heard (he wasn’t around at the time) he came straight to the Mansion and the two of them started scrapping.

8. Whatever comes next - A retcon is a tool for a writer to change something in a stories history. Or for a different writer to toss out his predecessors idea so he can do whatever he now wants. So down the line who knows what the relationship will be?

WWWD:
Wolverine: “I… urkgl.. wanted to know what you… what you meant by.. ‘quod sum eris.”
Creed: “What? You ask me that now after all these years? You can go to hell.”
Wolverine: “Been there. They got your bed all made up and ready for you. Got a feelin’ though. A real sick feelin’, Creed.. that we’re going to be sharing a room together down there.”

“When a man tells you that he got rich through hard work, ask him: ‘Whose?’ “
Don Marquis (1878 - 1937)

I had to give it up. I had a long love affair with Starbucks…but as a vocational counselor it’s hard for me to support a place that fires someone I know on some bullshit. Can’t do it. Now I go to Peace and a Cup of Joe…where the owner is behind the counter. Cheaper, still quality and I can catch some ESPN with my Mocha. Take that bitches.

In other news. Deadliest Warrior now owns my Tuesday nights. Pitting two types of warriors from different time periods may be the greatest idea ever. I totally knew that the Apache would own the Gladiator. This show also reminded me to not go to every website (again). Nothing is more sad than 13 year old boys crying because they didn’t like how things turned out. Just because you guys loved the movie Gladiator does not mean they could beat an Apache. Deal with it. Most of them are stil mad because there hasn’t been a Pirates vs. Ninjas episode. Next week…Pirates vs. Knights….ahhhhh.

I have made up my mind that along with being able to kick Chuck Norris’ ass - Bruce Lee should be recognized as one of the great philosphers of the 20th century.

Heroes season finale tonight….Wolverine on Friday…Ahhh.

My job has moved us back up to four days a week. Who can turn down the money, but man do I miss sleeping in on Monday. Greeny and Golic how I miss you.

Dear USPS,

I have given you a new name. The United States Penis Service. I feel this is appropriate because you seem to have a nature of fucking me. May I present exhibit A:

Now lookit….my man Dallas sends out some cool shit. Not some overly expensive items. Not some rare item I’ll never find again. He just sends out some cool shit. I can understand you needing to take it from me. What I don’t understand is why in the flaming fuck you would feel the need to still send me the empty envelope!?!?!?!?! You not only fucked me, but you sent me the proof that you fucked me. You didn’t even send it an one of those “this item has been damaged” joints. No. You just sent the envelope on as if nothing had ever happened and everything was ok. You fuckwits. If was to show up and rain blows down upon your staff I would be wrong wouldn’t I? Why it gotta be like this? Don’t make me seek my revenge. Let this happen again. Let me miss out on some potentially cool shit again. I will cause trouble. I will call everybody. I will forward pictures. I’ll take sick days and spend them bitching to everyone I can. I’m too pissed to even continue discussing this. Fuckers.

With Malice,

Amadeo

WWWD:

“You’re the one who oughtta be shakin’ ‘cause I’m about to carve you up into sushi.”
- Wolverine

For a long time people have asked a question and today my friends, after the bitter wars and hard fought battles, I have come to answer that question. MJ vs. Prince….Who wins?

My friends I have come to tell you…Prince is the winner.

I’m not even getting into who may or may not have touched little boys. Considering I am a fan of both that discussion kills a part of my childhood as well.

If it pleases the court I will now present conclusive evidence that the winner of the eternal debate, who is better Prince or MJ, is Prince.

Total Albums: Prince 22 (2 live), MJ 9.5 (HIStory is half a greatest hits and half new and since I didn’t include Princes Hits albums I can’t give MJ a whole 10) Winner: Prince

Number of Good Albums: (Universally accepted)Prince -6 , MJ -4 (Total Possible) Prince 9 - MJ - 5
MJ’s first two are mostly cover songs. I’m not sure how many of us can say they own any Prince albums after The Gold Experience (though Rave Unto the Joy Fantastic has good remakes - still remakes.) Winner: Prince

Number of Movies: Prince 5, MJ 5 - Tie

Number of Movies anyone wants to see: Prince 1, MJ 1 (I mean Captain EO? Thriller - it was dope but that’s not really a movie. I think we’ve all seen Moonwalker…but c’mon. I know some folks who like a Prince movie other than Purple Rain…but that’s the “accepted film.)
Since Purple Rain was actually his movie and MJ was just in The Wiz…. Winner: Prince

Songs written for other people: I couldn’t find any for MJ…I’m including 10 of Princes because a few of these I didn’t know about - Prince has written and produced hits for: MC Hammer [(Pray) included because of heavy sample of When Doves Cry], The Bangles(Manic Monday), Sinead O’Connor(Nothing Compares 2 U), Stevie Nicks (Stand Back), Sheila E. (Love Bizarre - which is great to dance to), Patti LaBelle (Yo Mister), The Time (Jungle Love), Chaka Khan (I Feel for You), Sheena Easton (Sugar Walls), Martika (Love…Thy Will Be Done -
probably the worst performing of all these it did reach #5 in the UK). In the case of Nothing Compares 2 U he not only wrote a hit but he came back and performed it waaaaaay better. Winner: Prince

People/Groups made Famous by the artist: Prince: 4.5 (They may have known O’Connor in the UK, but his song introduced us to her thus the .5), MJ: 0 (Unless you count Bubbles)

Business wise: Winner is Prince…he still has his money.

Prince knows his strengths. Prince is a strength. HITS FOR HIMSELF AND OTHERS. MJ has hits…but he has written and produced how many on his own? Prince is the sole source of his hits. Hell…the first band he was with had good songs and Prince refuses to even acknowledge them. Let’s take it a step further, Prince has lied and given credit to other people for writing things so he could have other creative outlets ( The Time,The Family). The importance of this is that you have to look to the Quincy years for MJ for the biggest hits and most solid albums with Prince every time you get: “Produced, Arranged, Composed and Performed by Prince.”

Did I mention this stat: Oscars: Prince 1, MJ 0

Prince was also inducted into the Rock and Roll hall of fame the first year he was eligible…3 years before the Jackson 5 and 7 before MJ as a solo artist.

Everyone who’s been around as long as those two have dated sounded songs. The difference is between the
two of them Prince still has more of an established sound than MJ. The question of influence is quite serious. Elvis is influential, the Beatles are influential, Jimi Hendrix is influential (more than MJ, Prince and most examples we could name)….but in the question of MJ vs. Prince only one of them has introduced other people. As a matter of fact MJ had to get collaborators for his last album (Eve anyone?) to help bring him back to the fore…and I haven’t even seen a copy of it in the possesion of anyone I know. Both of them had problems with their label…Prince gained popularity from his…MJ basically just lost money (Which is why the last album didn’t do as well as it could have).

The Rolling Stone list of Immortal Rock Legends puts Prince at 28 and MJ at 35. Also, Prince will whop your ass on the basketball court (in heels!) and then make you pancakes!!!! I don’t think MJ can even shoot a ball.

“I don’t think about risks much. I just do what I want to do. If you gotta go, you gotta go.”
Lillian Carter

Now, lets take some time to look at the steps that have brought the Anhedonic cat you’ve all grown to know and love (or just laugh at) to where he is in his life. While I do think things through, it’s because of experience and wisdom more than knowledge. Let’s just say having blisters all over the palm of my hand is the way I learned the iron gets hot. So now let us take a stroll through recollection and see some of the things that have shaped me into the twisted individual I am.

1 year + - When we lived in an apartment in Texas I once knocked out the screen in the window and climbed outside. Me and my trusty Dukes of Hazzard car were going for a walk. This is actually one of my first memories. So after a brisk jaunt through the complex I went home. The problem being that all those doors looked alike and I didn’t know numbers and letters. So I picked up a newspaper wrapped in plastic inserted my car into it and started banging on a door Eventually my mother picked my up from behind and whisked me home. Ahh…exploration.

2 years + - In the middle of our apartment complex there was a nice sized swimming pool. One day as I walked my mother to do the wash. I made up my mind to impress her with my swimming ability. With a quick shout of “Look Ma!” I made a beeline for the pool and jumped in the deep end. Of course I had never swam in my life. Thankfully my mother was a champion swimmer in the Airforce. This was also when I learned that your mother shouting the word “Boy” can function as cursing.

4 years - After moving to Bmore My family quickly learned that I was an unusual child. For one thing I was very literal. Telling me to do things like, “Throw this glass in the sink” resulted in alot of broken glasses and a policy change in how I was given instructions. This might be the reason my grandmother still details every step of what she is asking me to do even though I’m an adult. I also used to run with my head down until I hit the porch doors so maybe she thinks I rattled something.

5 - 6 years - Most of the fights in my life have been with people larger than myself (Bully issuess). Well one time I was saved from fighting. There was some teenager (asshole) who thought it was funny to stick his air rifle in the ground and shoot a clod of dirt in my face. I did not see the humor. I didn’t consider that this kid was almost twice my size I was just mad. So He promptly got a punch into the best place I could reach. No not the nuts, but the place I find most fun. The diaphragm. Luckily my aunt realized that it was best to pull me on in the house while dude stood there trying to get his breath.

9 - 10 years - I have mentioned this before, but…look I really used to like the movie “A Christmas Story” and during that time we had an old refrigerator with coils at the top. One morning as the movie was on before I had to leave for school, I happened to be looking in the fridge and I got to wonder…you know the pole scene and all. Well lets just say I sounded just like that kid as I called for help (except for the crying and screaming) I was saved and my mother made me go to school anyway. For the record I was not really thinking, it was an impulse…shut up.

21 years - This is a big forward, but it’s a good illustration. One fine payday I walk to this club spot that has been many things but was at this time (and still is today) called Gordon’s. Someone I know was having something and I had no plans so I went. The event was o.k. but I really wasn’t in the mood and there weren’t that many people. So I end up chilling at the bar and kickin it with the two female bartenders. So I’m ordering drinks and I realize I should have something different. So I started asking them to suggest things. Since most of the people were upstairs I was able to hold their attention and they started getting into it. They would suggest I would give a thumbs down or try the suggestion. Before anyone thinks that I was getting suckered by the cute bartender, I paid for about $30 in drinks that night, I easily drank $60 or more worth of booze. The bartenders really got into it and started thinking up drinks to see if I had tasted them before. They even made up a drink and named it after me. Don’t ask me what was in it. As I stumbled my ass home I knew it was a bad idea…but it sure was fun.

“You know what’s interesting, though? You’re as big a dick on your show as you are on any show.”
Jon Stewart to Tucker Carlson

You all know I think Ed Reed covers whatever portion of the earth that water doesn’t. However, cable television has it’s own version of Ed Reed and his name is Jon Stewart. Last week he did a segment on alot of the CNBC financial experts giving horrible advice leading to the amazing race to the poor house that’s going on right now. For some reason other shows (which normally try to ignore Stewart since he does a better job then them) started talking about it and they focused on Jim Cramer. For some reason that can never be justified…Cramer went ahead and responded. In doing so he has provided me entertainment for quite a while. See kids, the thing is this…Jon Stewart will respond…Jon Stewart will take things to the Nth degree while showing clips of you saying what you now deny. I’m pretty sure if he got on me for some reason I’d just have to catch him in a back alley…it’s the safer method. Is it just me or did Cramer miss what happened when Tucker Carlson went up against Stewart. That established rule #1…Jon Stewart will come on your show and make you look stupid. In fact after his appearance Crossfire got taken off the air. No. He must not have because he keeps on responding. Too bad for him that Stewart won’t just “rise above and ignore it”. Now my friends…I get the delight of Cramer actually going on The Daily Show on thursday. Normally, I might not think much of such a move…the thing is that Stewart is not an easy interviewer. This is the man that grilled Scott McClellan after he wrote a book criticising the administration he worked for. Other shows asked him about his bravery and if he and the President would still talk…Stewart basically said, “You were part of it and in regards to the press you were the face of it.” Once again I heart Jon Stewart.

You may or may not know that Micheal Steele basically said that Frederick Douglass High here in Baltimore is craptastic. Well, it would seem that in 2006 he said the same thing while he was there and promised to help them out as noted here:

Michael Steele’s broken promise to Douglass High
I wonder what recent graduates of Frederick Douglass High School think
of Michael Steele’s rise to the national Republican Party leader.

Three years ago — on Feb. 1, 2006, in the midst of the bitter Ehrlich/
O’Malley gubernatorial campaign that used city schools as a political
football — I was part of the press corps when Steele paid a three-
hour visit to Douglass. At a meeting in the school library, he
humiliated then-schools CEO Bonnie Copeland and then-Principal
Isabelle Grant by talking about what a horrible school it was in front
of the media. And he looked students in the eye and promised them he’d
make it better. “When one asked if he would put that in writing, he
said, ‘I’m asking you to check me on it. My word is my bond,’” my Feb.
2, 2006, article reported.

Douglass has improved since then, as it has parterned with Talent
Development at Johns Hopkins University. But it’s not thanks to
Steele, who said before leaving office as Maryland’s lieutenant
governor that the school system didn’t want his help.

When Steele visited Douglass, he made a point of noting that the
carpet in that library was taped together. That was something simple
he could fix. I thought of that day when I was back in the Douglass
library recently for a press conference announcing a Maryland Business
Roundtable initiative to get students into more rigorous courses. As
it happened, my seat was right next to the piece of tape in the carpet.

Well here is more info on the school and the current CEO basically ripping Steele a new asshole:

March 5, 2009

City schools chief Andrés Alonso publicly asked Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele last night to apologize for making disparaging remarks about Frederick Douglass High School on national television.

A spokesman for Steele, Maryland’s former lieutenant governor, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In February 2006, Steele visited Douglass in West Baltimore, holding it up as an example of the failures of urban education and making a personal commitment to turn the school around. Though he has not returned to Douglass since - a spokesman said shortly thereafter that school officials were not receptive to his help - he again said Douglass isn’t doing its job during an interview this week on D.L. Hughley Breaks the News on CNN.

But, as both Alonso and Gov. Martin O’Malley noted last night, Douglass has improved significantly since Steele’s visit: Its graduation rate went up 14 percentage points last year, from 43 percent to 57 percent.

“I don’t think Michael Steele has been here since he came in an election year to demagogue, kick around our children,” O’Malley said last night before his town hall meeting at Douglass on education and the economy.

The meeting, the last of five public forums the governor held around the state, was scheduled before Steele’s CNN appearance.

Steele’s 2006 visit to Douglass was widely criticized as a tactic to embarrass O’Malley, a Democrat who was then mayor and running for governor against Steele’s boss, Republican Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. Steele did not follow through on a list of specific promises.

“Whatever happened to the new computers?” Alonso asked. “Whatever happened to the carpet for the library? Whatever happened to the new textbooks? Whatever happened to the new cafeteria tables? Whatever happened to just showing up … before you go on national TV and cast aspersions on parents, teachers and students? Not acceptable.”

The controversy comes the same week Steele had to apologize to conservative pundit Rush Limbaugh after criticizing Limbaugh’s comments about President Barack Obama.

According to a transcript of the D.L. Hughley show, Steele said: “You don’t get anywhere without an education. I can take you right now to Frederick Douglass High School in Baltimore City, where the educational system that’s supposedly training and teaching the future generation of black folks ain’t doing that. It’s not doing it at all. … and Republicans aren’t running the City of Baltimore. So the question then becomes, how do we as a community become self-empowered to make the system, whether it’s run by Democrats or Republicans, work for us?”

During his nearly three hours at Douglass in 2006, Steele grilled then-schools CEO Bonnie S. Copeland and then-Principal Isabelle Grant in front of the press about the dismal state of student achievement there. He endorsed an offer by Coppin State University to take over the management of the school.

Four months later, The Baltimore Sun quoted Douglass student Ebony Peacock as saying the school had not heard back from Steele: “We were really excited because he really made it seem like he was gonna help our school. We haven’t heard anything since.”

Since then, a board of the school’s alumni took over governance of the school in partnership with the Talent Development program at the Johns Hopkins University. At O’Malley’s urging, Verizon partnered with the school to fund a new computer lab.

Last summer, HBO aired the documentary Hard Times at Douglass High, which chronicled the school’s 2004-2005 academic year.

The documentary “tells us that only one student broke 1,000 on the SAT in 2004-2005, while another scored 440, far below the 850 required to get into college,” Alonso wrote in an op-ed piece in The Baltimore Sun in August. “In 2004-2005, 77 of Douglass’ 197 graduates (39 percent) applied to institutions of higher education. But three years later, in 2007-2008, 113 of Douglass’ 162 graduates (69 percent) applied and were accepted.”

Officials said the school added pre-calculus and Advanced Placement in five subjects.