Entries from December 2004 ↓

If you’re a regular viewer of The Wire, by now you surely know that Stringer Bell is dead. Arguably the most cunning, calculating and charismatic criminal on one of the best dramas on television, someone viewers either loved to hate or just loved to look at, he met his end when he made one too many missteps.

Now between he and Avon Barksdale, I always liked Stringer best. I thnk we all did. As drug dealers go, he at least had a more worldly view. Even back in season one, you could tell he had no intentions of doing that “gangsta bullshit” his whole life. He took classes in business at a local college. He had the Barksdale drug money laundered in legitimate enterprises and invested in downtown real estate. He understood that all the killing that comes with the drug trade only drew police surveillance and community opposition. He looked good in a suit. In short, he had all the brains and polish that Avon lacked.

But maybe there was something to Avon’s contention that Stringer wasn’t tough enough for the game. When Stringer called for someone to be killed–young Wallace; various witnesses who were gonna testify against Avon; even D’Angelo, Avon’s nephew–it was always “just business.”

But when Avon wanted someone dead, it was almost always personal first, business second. The vendetta against Omar, resulting in his lover Brandon’s death, was Avon’s idea. This latest war with Marlo Stansfield. He needed to kill to send a message and prove his dominence over his opponents. You got the impression Stringer already knew he was better than everyone else, Avon included.

But he blew it, when he revealed that he had called for D’Angelo’s death. Business or not, that was Avon’s flesh and blood and surely he had to know that wouldn’t sit well. He allowed himself to get played by Senator Clay Davis, justifying in Avon’s mind, the foolishness of all that legitimate business activity.

But while Avon could love him like a brother and try to understand the rationale, and Davis had the protection of his prominent position, Stringer laid the foundation for his own demise last season when he tried to play both Omar and Brother Mouzone in the same stroke. They’re professional killers, who take their business personally. You got the sense they enjoyed pulling the trigger.

This season was interesting in other respects too. Cutty, the ex-con and would-be shooter for the Barksdales, along with Major Colvin, seemed to symbolize a community grasping for alternatives and an escape from all the crime. Cutty just didn’t have it in him any more and found himself trying to turn other young black men around. They wouldn’t have even been looking for alternatives if Colvin hadn’t set up Hamsterdam and taken away the allure of street running.

So, how will next week’s season finale wrap things up, and what’s in store for season four? Let’s speculate together:

• Stringer has already given Avon up to Major Colvin, so I’m guessing when he turns up dead, Colvin will put 2 and 2 together and carry out the raid on his hideout. Parole violation means a trip back to jail for Avon.

• Marlo Stansfield, another straight up gangsta, will now feel empowered to take over the west side. But he’s no Avon or Stringer and without the good heroin supplied by Prop Joe–who will now rise in stature among the cartel–he may find himself a target of either the police or the other dealers. Either way, I don’t feel he’s long for this world.

• Will Brianna step up? I doubt it. All those men will not take orders from a woman, even if her family name is on the business.

• The political establishment and the police brass will get a shakeup. Even though his plan was effective, Major Colvin will probably get the axe, along with Commissioner Burrell and possibly even the Mayor. Councilman Carcetti may be in line to take over afterall and Lt. Daniels wife may also step into a council seat. Corrupt Senator Davis escapes unharmed for yet another season.

• If the Barksdale empire collapses, what happens to the detail? Will they continue after the other drug dealers? Prop Joe still has the connection with the Greeks. Attorney Levy is the man with all the secrets. Will he cut a deal–maybe give up Davis–to try to get Avon a light sentence? What about Slim Charles and Shamrock, Avon and Stringer’s lieutenants, respectively? Slim could fall if Avon gets raided, while Shamrock’s voice is on lots of audio tape.

• Will Daniels continue his affair with Rhonda Pearlman or go back to his wife for her political career? Will Kima and Cheryl reconcile? Will McNulty find a woman to settle down with (don’t bet on it). Will Bubbs get clean? Will Herc and Carver ever become “good police” or will they remain head bangers who don’t know how to work a real case?

• With his vendetta settled, what’s in store for Omar?

There are just two weeks left before Christmas, and I know what you’re all thinking:

“What am I gonna get Bernie?”

Worry no more! Here’s my wishlist. Everything on it is something I’d love to receive, especially if it comes from you!

Choose from any of 108 wonderful yet inexpensive gifts.

You know I’m in culinary school, so there are lots of great kitchen and cooking related items. I love movies. You’ll find plenty of those too. Books? We got ‘em.

So browse the list, find something nice, and get it to me in time for the big day. No fighting crowds, you don’t even have to leave home. What could be easier?

And don’t forget, my birthday is in a month too. So, if you can’t give now–or you just want to give twice–buy now, buy later, or buy both times. But buy me a nice Christmas gift today!

I sat down and calculated that I spend 40 hours at work and another 25 hours at school, over 7 straight days each week. I sleep an average of 5 1/2 to 6 hours a night. About an hour to an hour and a half a day is spent commuting to and from work or school. That leaves 54 hours a week or 7.7 hours a day for me. And some of that is spent doing stuff like homework, showerin’, shitin’ and shavin’, eating, or vegetating in front of the tv or computer.

I’m almost half way through the cooking program at school. The management program is just a month behind that. It’s amazing how time has flown by. I’ve adjusted mentally to the grind, but physically I’m still challenged. Saturdays and Sundays are spent standing for the better part of 8 1/2 hours, literally whipping through the preparation and cooking of six dishes a day, so much so, I couldn’t even tell you what we’ve made.

Round about 1:00 each day, everybody hits the wall, where fatigue just overwhelms you. But it’s shortlived because there is still four more hours of cooking. Sunday is a real bitch because of the exhaustion from Saturday. Then the wall comes at 11:30 or 12:00. And I am soooo not a morning person. When that alarm clock goes off at 6:30, my body still aches while my mind realizes I’m starting my seventh consecutive work day of a week that never really ends. It just melds into the next.

Monday morning brings some relief because at the office I don’t have to work as hard. But I also don’t get home until after 9:00 pm because that’s one of my three management class nights. There’s often reading due night to night.

If I had it to do over again, I would have done this twenty years ago when I had more stamina. But I wasn’t really focused enough to do it then. I am now and fully accept the fact I have to endure this in order to get to where I want to be later.

The saving grace is I’ve got lots of time off from my paying gig that I have to take. Vacation is Decemer 16 to January 2, but I’ve still got some classes in between so it’s not a total time off. I’m just gonna sleep late and do a lot of nothing.

P.S. Did I mention I’m maintaining an “A” and got 100 on a quiz Sunday? If I’d worked this hard from kindergarten through college, I might have made something of myself!

I didn’t write any deeply personal observations on World AIDS Day. I didn’t feel as though I had any to make, but I wanted to observe the occasion and be informative so I did use this space wisely. I hope readers got something out of it. Reading other blogs however has managed to stir some thinking about matters I’ve long tried to suppress.

I left the following comment on Christopher’s site, “I once heard it said that staying HIV negative is a full-time job. I had to agree. The temptation to react without thinking, to respond to basic urges and physical needs without a thought to the consequences, is ever present. Sometimes I feel there is more support after people test positive than there is to deal with the daily temptations.”

Previously I have alluded to how socially unproductive my life has been lately. The combination of being isolated from an identifiable peer group, lonely, horny, and in my mid-40’s in a world that thinks 30 is old, can be a lethal cocktail.

Were I only interested in sexual encounters, this is the Sin City to live in. No matter who or what you’re looking for, you can find someone to do it with without too much effort. But when it is deeper, meaningful relationships you are after, you can die of thirst in this dessert.

And that I suppose is the greatest challenge to staying HIV negative. We all have needs. Hell, I have needs. But they aren’t really being met in any satisfactory way. When you get just a whiff of attention—always in the form of a sexual flirtation—do you ignore it, or act on the impulse? If you act, do you think of the long-term ramifications or just react? If you react, will you suffer consequences you’ll regret later?

People who test positive for HIV can find any number of resources available in most communities to deal with the initial trauma, health management regimens and re-socialization through support groups and therapy. But those of us supposedly healthy need support too in order to stay that way, and I’m not sure if or where it exists.

11.30.04
by Richard Ingham
Agence France Presse

The “ABC” campaign — which advocates abstinence, being faithful to one partner, or using condoms — has come under fire from leading AIDS activists ahead of World AIDS Day. Critics of the strategy — a central component of President Bush’s $15 billion, five-year commitment to fight global HIV/AIDS — say it is frequently ineffectual, sometimes hypocritical and a potential threat to life.

The abstinence message is unworkable in African countries where HIV and sexual activity are rampant, said Mary Crewe, director of the Center for the Study of AIDS at the University of Pretoria. “In countries where there are very high levels of sexual activity around, with social dislocation, family breakdowns, sugar daddies, with young people bored and with nothing to do, to suddenly come in and say you should stop having sex is absolutely ludicrous,” said Crewe. “ABC is a middle-class, middle-aged response to an epidemic, all overlaid with a kind of morality that doesn’t hold anymore.”

ABC can place lives at risk, said Crewe, citing women who face coercive sex from an infected husband or young girls pressured into marriage or coercive sex with an older, infected man. The problem, said Crewe, is not abstinence, fidelity or even condoms, but rights, legal protection, female empowerment, poverty and education. World AIDS Day’s theme this year stresses the vulnerability of women and girls to HIV.

“Our experience, in sub-Saharan African countries especially, is that abstinence-based prevention strategies have a great deal of difficulty in taking hold,” said Sean Healy, spokesperson for Doctors Without Borders.

In an effort to heal the divisive rift, a group of leading figures last week appealed for ABC to be allowed “an important role” along with other anti-AIDS initiatives. South African archbishop and Nobel peace laureate Desmond Tutu, UN Special Envoy for AIDS in Africa Stephen Lewis, and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni were among those supporting the appeal.