Posts Tagged ‘Dwight Hobbes’
Having a heart for homeless cats
By DWIGHT HOBBES "Pretty Mister" of East Phillips If, as the Good Book says, the Lord gave humans dominion of animals, there are those of the mind that dominion doesn’t just mean being in charge. It means providing care. Accordingly, consider the plight of homeless cats that are hungry with no roof overhead not because they ran afoul of a landlord or having applied for housing are stuck sitting on a long waiting list. They are in their condition because some owner’s child no longer thinks kitty is cute, got bored, and no one in the house can be bothered. Or, because a family moves into a dwelling that doesn’t allow pets and, instead of searching out one that does, they simply dropped the defenseless creature off on the street. From there, the felines naturally procreate, resulting in a steadily increasing population that, overrunning areas, has no way to fend for itself. They make a nuisance of themselves, scrounging around in garbage cans, hiding under porches and [...]
Something I Said: Mario and Melvin
By DWIGHT HOBBES The original title of Mario Van Peebles’ Baadasssss! (Sony Pictures, 2003) was How To Get The Man’s Foot Outta Your Ass, entirely fitting for the social commentary his father Melvin Van Peebles’ film Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (Yeah, Inc., 1971) put forth in a time when grassroot black America had grown sick and tired of this country kicking us around to keep us down. Indeed, Baadasssss! is a dramatized, making of historic document, looking at what went into Melvin returning the favor and putting his foot in American cinema’s behind, profoundly challenging its cherished tenet of supremacist propaganda. There is a reason, after all, The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense lauded it, in Huey Newton's words as "the first truly revolutionary…" that, in the opening credits, starred "The Black Community," It became required viewing for Party members. There is the same reason Bill Cosby, who’d narrated CBS’ Black History: Lost, Stolen or Strayed [...]
Society of St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Shop
Something I Said By DWIGHT HOBBES Society of St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Shop is, in very good terms as the euphemistic parlance goes, a beast: the South Minneapolis operation has made it through the corona contagion thus far, the catastrophic 2020 riot and the ongoing economic climate which, stimulus or no stimulus, is in lousy shape. That rioting, supposedly in the name of George Floyd, absolutely devastated the very community it's alleged to have been for the sake of. Overnight - actually the course of a few days - the business outlets along Lake Street that it didn't shut down were flatout destroyed, depriving whole neighborhoods of affordable goods and services in an area where affordable goods and services amount to a godsend. Not to mention store staff glad to have a job with all the contagion-related layoffs and firings suddenly were left wondering how to pay their bills. Fortunately, more than a year later, much, in fact most, of Lake Street's thriving commerce has [...]
