“Trust in Allah but tie your camel” - Prophet Muhammad (SAW)

• As I predicted, the Pistons disposed of the Sixers in 6 games. Since then, the Pistons have regained their playoff form and look quite formidable against an overmatched Orlando Magic. Expect the Magic to squeak out one more victor before falling in 6.
• Why is everyone so surprised that the Spurs have won straight against New Orleans? Last time I checked, San Antonio is still a deep and talented team, not to mention the defending champions. Spurs in 6.
• Many experts predicted that the Mets and Phillies would be fighting for first place in the NL East all year. Right now, the surging Marlins are defying everyone’s expectations by winning at home and on the road. Although they may steal second place from the Mets, expect the Phillies to walk away with the NL crown.
• Will someone please sign Barry Bonds??????
• As always, the Utah Jazz has been underestimated as a legitimate playoff contender. Expect them to take the Lakers 7 games before losing.
• As much as I’d like to believe otherwise, it looks like the Philadelphia Flyers have run out of gas. With their top two defensemen out with injury, the Broad Street Bullies simply don’t have the talent to win this series. Penguins in 6 (sniffle)
• The Mets still suck.

Question to the Sexpert:
“My fiancé and I are both interested in swinging, but we’re both hesitant as well. I know I’d like to be with other women and she has said she’d like to experiment with other men and maybe women but I don’t know how we would handle it if it were actually right in our faces. It’s one thing to talk about, it’s another to see your future wife getting it on with some stranger. Is there some way to know if we are the kind of people who can make this work or if we should just keep it as a fantasy?”

There is one sure-fire way to know if, fundamentally, you are meant to be the type of person who can successfully swing. It includes a blood test, a short written portion taken from the Miller Analogies and a series of breath-holding competitions between you and a sugared up 14 year old. If you pass all three sections, you are cleared for hard swapping and are allowed to immediately begin banging peoples’ wives without consequence- not unlike having diplomatic immunity.

Ummm… Maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration. Perhaps there’s no way to know what you’re capable of, up for and genuinely interested in without giving the challenge an honest try. What I can say is that open relationships, polyamory, swinging, swapping and other varieties of relationship models are not for everyone and may be more amenable to a person’s life at different times than others. But since you’re both expressing interest in the world outside of automatic compulsory monogamy, it’s likely something to keep talking about, even if you don’t go joining a swinger website and start attending key parties.

There are also a variety of ways to enter into The Lifestyle. There are as many ways to open up your relationship as there are stars in the sky and worthless things to purchase at Sharper Image. Just because all you’ve ever known about swingers fit into a particular schema doesn’t mean you have to change yourself to fit that mold, taking steps you’re not ready for or and endangering your relationship.

For your convenience, I’ve compiled a sort of list of potential levels of swingeritude to consider, ranging from the least daunting to most potentially challenging. The exact order is totally debatable and you may find some activities far more intense than others that are further down on the list. But be aware the vast majority of swingers (around 70-80 percent) don’t do full on hard swaps (intercourse with others). Talk it over with your fiancé and see what shakes out of the conversation.

• Dance with other people at a club
• Go to strip club together, get a lap dance separately or together
• One partner watches while the other makes out with others
• Make out with other people, possibly including some genital play (soft swapping)
• Watch others have sex (voyeurism)
• Have sex in front of others (exhibitionism)
• Trade partners for intercourse (hard swapping)
• Open up the possibility of secondary partners who have sex with one or both of you but who remain subordinate to your primary couple
• Introduce one (or multiple) partners into a regular, serious, sexual relationship with both of you (polyfidelity) or only one of you (vee- because charted out the relationship forms the shape of the letter V with one person as a hinge between two others)

Consider that there are lots of little things you can do even within these parameters- like having certain activities that you and your fiancé only do together- be it intercourse, sharing body fluids (all other partners would require a barrier method of protection like a dental dam or condom) or whatever. If you decide to go down this route you will need to know and communicate clearly:
1. What you each want – be honest. If this is just a slow curve towards dropping her ass for the single life, say so. If this is about wanting to see her get fucked by three dudes, put that shit out there. Whatever your interests, motivations or curiosity, it’s best to be real.
2. What is best for the relationship – what you want and want she wants are important, but there has to be agreement or else the ship that is your relationship is going to sink right after launch.
3. How to negotiate these things- be patient, be willing to renegotiate the rules if the need arises and remember that you got into this together and that it will require some effort on your part to keep things running.

Yep, sounds like a lot of work. If it still sounds good, then by all means, knock your selves out.
Timaree Schmit is a trained sexologist who has also worked as an HIV prevention counselor and sex educator. She has written widely for numerous publications and was recently recognized by Coed Magazine as one of the 10 Most Famous College Sex Columnists in America. Timaree is completing a doctorate in Human Sexuality at Widener University.

Do you have a question or comment? Please email Timaree directly at sexpert@MarcLamontHill.com

Still taking the black vote for granted after all these years.

Empty Threats: A History
By Casey Lartigue Jr.

If Sen. Clinton somehow manages to wrest the nomination from Sen. Barack Obama, black voters, we are being told, are likely to sit at home or vote Republican.

But haven’t we heard these types of threats before? Black Democrats have been warning for decades that their party will be in trouble if they keep taking the black vote for granted in the general election. Still others have warned that Republicans could steal a large number of black votes as a result. Based on recent history, Black Democrats will huff and puff, then… stand in line to vote for the Democrat presidential candidate, hustle around the country and exhort blacks to vote.

Let’s take a trip down memory lane:

ELECTION, 1976

At a black political strategy meeting held in Charlotte, N.C., blacks lamented that Democrats take the black vote for granted while Republicans largely ignore it.

–The New York Times, May 8, 1976

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, founded by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., criticized Democrats for taking the black vote for granted and Republicans for ignoring poor and black Americans.

–The New York Times, August 15, 1976

Final 1976 tally

Jimmy Carter, Democrat, 85 percent  of the black vote (election winner)

Gerald Ford, Republican, 15 percent of the black vote.

ELECTION, 1980

[Rep. John] Conyers D-Mich. said it is obvious that [Sen. Edward ]Kennedy enjoys widespread support among rank-and-file black Democrats. “The defections in the Carter camp grow daily,” he said, adding that it would be a mistake to take the black vote for granted.

Source: The Associated Press, Oct 31, 1979

Jesse Jackson said President Carter should not take the black vote for granted in the 1980 election and that the possibility of black support for GOP candidate Ronald Reagan should not  be dismissed out of hand. “His bark is greater than his bite, judging from what he did in California,” Jackson said of Reagan. “I do not want to reduce our options.” He added that Reagan’s choice of George Bush as his running mate shows some flexibility. “The idea that blacks won’t vote for a Republican is inaccurate,” Jackson said, citing black support of Sen. Charles Percy, R-Ill., and former Sen. Edward Brooke, R-Mass.

Source: The Associated Press, July 20, 1980

Maudine R. Cooper, the Urban League’s vice president for Washington operations, echoed Jackson’s warning: “We cannot be wed to any party or candidate.”

Source: The Washington Post, August 9, 1980

Final 1980 tally:

Democrat Jimmy Carter—86 percent of the black vote

Republican Ronald Reagan—12 percent (election winner)

For the rest of the story, click here. 

Optimism Can’t Beat Cancer

A recent medical study suggests that your chances of surviving head and neck cancer are the same if you have a positive outlook or a negative outlook. What do you think?

Alexander Rodas,
Sales Associate
“Please don’t tell that to my dad. He’s been so nice to everyone lately.”

Colleen Curtin,
Store Manager
“Based on my observations, optimism also can’t beat depression.”

Will Braverman,
Systems Analyst
“It must have been great to be in the control group that got all the chemotherapy drugs.”

Today’s photo of the day shows Suge Knight getting knocked out at a nightclub on Saturday. Apparently, Suge was doing his normal bully routine, screaming at some man to “Give me my money!” Instead, the man hit him with a two-piece (no biscuit) that left The Gouch on his wallet. First the Fat Boys break up…

Today’s video of the day comes from The O’Reilly Factor, where Bill and I discussed Hillary Clinton and the politics of race.

How the black pawns got pushed off the board.

End Games
By Michael C. Dawson

The Democratic Party’s primary race has reached a dangerous stage for black people.  It has come to this: Both the Obama and Clinton campaigns are apparently willing to sacrifice black citizenship rights in order to win the Democratic nomination for president.

On one hand, we have Sen. Clinton’s supporters being charged with intentionally trying to disenfranchise black voters in North Carolina and elsewhere through voter suppression tactics taken from Karl Rove’s playbook.

But Sen. Obama is playing his own brand of risky politics. As he works to maintain white support, he is forgetting his black base. Just a week ago he urged voters to “respect” a New York judge’s racist verdict allowing the police killers of Sean Bell to walk. His message was not unlike Booker T. Washington’s admonishment to black Atlantans a century ago to respect the law in the face of a deadly pogrom.  Black rights were sacrificed in the name of electoral expediency. And Obama is resorting to the same expediency now.

Just pay attention to the words. Here is Obama on April 25, in response to the verdict in the Bell case:

Well, look, obviously there was a tragedy in New York. I said at the time that without benefit of all the facts before me, it looked like a possible case of excessive force.  Now, the judge has made his ruling. And, you know, we are a nation of laws. And so we respect the verdict that came down.  I think the most important thing for people who are concerned about that shooting is to figure out how do we come together and ensure that those kinds of tragedies don’t happen again? And so my understanding is that Mayor Bloomberg, community leaders, they are going to be — the police department — they are going to be getting together to find out what changes and procedures need to take place in preventing these kind of tragic shootings. But certainly, you know, resorting to violence to express displeasure over a verdict is something that is completely unacceptable and is counterproductive.

–Sen. Barack Obama

Here is Booker T. Washington commenting on the anti-black Atlanta Massacre of 1906, a killing spree that started as a result of false accusations against black males who were supposedly attacking white women:

I spoke plainly against the crime of assaulting women and of resorting to lynching and mob law as a remedy for any evil….I would strongly urge that the best white people and the best colored people come together in council and use their united efforts to stop the current disorder.  I would especially urge the colored people of Atlanta and elsewhere to exercise self-control and not make the fatal mistake of retaliation.

–Booker T. Washington  

The tactics of Senators Clinton and Obama may not seem connected. But they each signal a bankruptcy within the Democratic Party that black voters need to pay attention to.

In North Carolina and other states, an organization with very strong ties to the Clinton campaign has been targeting black communities with automated anonymous calls from a man calling himself “Lamont Williams,” suggesting that already registered voters are not registered and need to complete additional steps to vote legally.  According to the article at Wired.com, the organization Women’s Voices/Women Vote has agreed, in response  to North Carolina State Attorney General Roy Cooper’s demand, to stop the illegal anonymous phone calls.

North Carolina’s black population, which is 22 percent of the state’s population, is becoming increasingly critical and what was supposed to be an easy Obama win is becoming uncomfortably close. That Clinton supporters would stoop this low, that they would use the very same tactics that Karl Rove and his gang of thugs used in Florida to steal the 2000 presidential election from the American people, is shameful and puts them in the same category as Republicans who,in states such as Georgia, are trying to bring back Jim Crow-era methods of black disenfranchisement, such as a new version of the poll tax.

In the meantime, Sen. Obama has apparently voluntarily fallen off the tightrope that Marjorie Valbrun brilliantly describes in her article.  The Senator’s comments on Sean Bell’s killing, even more than his comments during the current Rev. Wright debacle, show the degree to which, in a few short weeks, he has abandoned the already dubious racial “even-handedness” of his Philadelphia speech (see my previous article ), in order to reassure white voters that he believes in law and order and is not a “militant” like his former pastor.

The Senator found it necessary to denounce his former minister for making statements that, in the main, are supported by large segments of the black community. (Most blacks’ criticism of Rev. Wright has to do with the real harm that Wright’s comments had on Obama’s campaign, not with the substance of Wright’s remarks.). And yet, Obama did not find it necessary to condemn a justice system that ­still does not punish agents of the state who kill black men and women whose only crime is being black. (In Chicago we have had black women shot down in the same manner as Sean Bell.) I will not respect a verdict that once again demonstrates, all too clearly, the continued lack of full citizenship rights for black people in this country.

For the rest of the story, click here. 

Earliest American Scat Found

The earliest-known fossilized feces was found recently in Oregon, placing humans on the American continents 1000 years earlier than previously believed. What do you think?

Sarah Fripp,
Systems Analyst
“I like to think that in thousands of years somebody is going to be looking at my poop.”

Errol Judd,
Line Cook
“Oh, sure. The only difference between a Nobel Prize and an injunction is a couple hundred thousand years.”

Albert MacKay,
Mechanic
“How can we be sure that some ancient nerd didn’t just carry an already thousand-year-old petrified turd with him when he crossed over the land bridge from Asia?”