DavidPierron.Com – Page 4 – The life and times of a struggling artist…

Offline Rails API layout using RDoc’s RDOCOPT

UPDATE March 29, 2009: This was all solved using:
template="jamis" rake doc:rails

Found on the blog by JamisBuck is the RDoc layout used online at api.rubyonrails.org. Simply acquire the file jamis.rb (posted here if you can’t find it elsewhere) and you’re covered with your Ruby Rdoc utilizing the instructions to append --template=jamis …

But what about Rails? rake doc:rails doesn’t like the --template=jamis argument.

RDOCOPT="-S -f html -T jamis" — Then run rake doc:rails and your offline local API copy will look just like the online version.

Sure there may be other ways of accomplishing this, but this got the job done and will get the job done next time I want to build the latest Rails API. If you’re interested in a more permanent solution, look at setting up variables in your .gemrc file.

FreeBSD and Phusion Passenger

If I don’t write this one down I won’t remember it, especially at this hour when I finally got it to work! I was having a devil of a time on the passenger-install-apache2-module … While it says it “found” everything, I guess it really didn’t … The Apache2 Portable Runtime stuff apparently needs directories to be found. Inevitably, this is how I got it to work:

setenv APXS2 /usr/local/sbin/apxs
setenv APR_CONFIG /usr/local/lib/apache2/apr-config
setenv APU_CONFIG /usr/local/lib/apache2/apu-config

Of course, I found those one at a time Googling all over the Internet and the last was found within the source notes at github … A bunch of what I found had nothing to do with FBSD … Anyway, so the result should look something like this when run:

Checking for required software...

* GNU C++ compiler... found at /usr/bin/g++
* Ruby development headers... found
* OpenSSL support for Ruby... found
* RubyGems... found
* Rake... found at /usr/local/bin/rake
* Apache 2... found at /usr/local/sbin/httpd
* Apache 2 development headers... found at /usr/local/sbin/apxs
* Apache Portable Runtime (APR) development headers... found at /usr/local/lib/apache2/apr-config
* Apache Portable Runtime Utility (APR) development headers... found at /usr/local/lib/apache2/apu-config
* fastthread... found
* rack... found

Sheesh!

Web 2.0 and oh, nice to see you …

Web 2.0: Gaetan sent an invite to my email address to follow him on twitter, so I signed up finally. Honestly, I had actually been meaning to sign up with twitter and facebook … My older brother is terrified of facebook, he thinks Rupert Murdoch is after him … I’m particular in the information I share but let’s be honest, if someone like Rupert Murdoch wanted the goods on you, guess what? He’s going to get you …

There are so many times that I think of something to blog, but I never get around to it. I think of the situation, the story and everything, but then I don’t get to it. Or, maybe the paranoia of what I would be posting and the opinion that may come of it, or too much information shared … Blah, tough living in this day and age, isn’t it? The age of immediate consequences from something you may post online. The Internet is everywhere and immediate. Anyway, here are the current events:

Hosting: There have been several instances in the hosting area that have devastated me. One, I had a disk crash on a machine that I never thought the disk would crash. Like, I had it in my mind that that was a pristine machine and I didn’t have to worry about it. It’s where all my stuff was and where I could just ssh in or sit at its console and update code on the fly … No backups. Gone. Now I have everything important on RAID5 and my personal machines have Time Machine running.

Verizon is a huge thorn in my side. My last mile is Verizon. Verizon is copper. Verizon wants to run FIOS (fiber) in Philadelphia. Comcast rules the video market in Philadelphia. Seems contacting politicians is the only way Verizon FIOS will come to Philadelphia. There is nothing more than I want right now is FIOS to be in Philadelphia because my connection speed would greatly increase immediately. How this affects me now is that Verizon doesn’t want to run any new copper, they only want to run FIOS. I have had a terrible time as of late with my connection and this is the problem. It happened the first time in May and was dormant until Christmas Eve, from then on it was daily bouncing until the last copper pair change. Verizon has been on site over 3 times. It’s too late, the customers that this affected the worst have already found other solutions. Not cool Verizon, not cool at all.

Octane: Sound for Octane continues, but with almost every venue having house sound installed, I can’t rememer the last time I needed my PA. For that matter, the last time I had the PA in the trailer, the trailer was burglarized for one bass bin and one monitor. They took nothing else although much was in there as well as all the band’s gear that was strewn to just the outside of the trailer. Makes absolutely no sense. I still haven’t been able to sell the truck since replacing it with the van and trailer. I should try that on eBay again. While Octane remains booked fairly steady for a band in their position, there are weekend nights that I am sitting home.

Fosterchild: I have mixed Fosterchild a couple times since the lineup change and circumstances warranted it. It was a welcome change from the norm. Apparently we’re going on tour soon!

Out On the Town: I have started working with the paper again. This time I am doing the layout on the computer. Another reason for my Mac purchase. (Still steamed about that one [previous entry], but I will survive. I have rationalized some things away.) Hopefully this will help with the ultimate goal of sitting on my ass the rest of my life.

Windows: I found out that MS Access doesn’t scale, or self sustain. Don’t know how to put it, but left to its devices, a web site utilizing an MS Access database will cause ASP to hang on a Windows Server. The database needs to be regularly reorganized. I can tell you for a fact that this will not happen on any other platform. Thanks again Windows! Way to mess up everyone’s life on your server cause you can’t handle something and don’t report on it either.

Health: My health is getting better. I had my last cigarette September 27th, 2008 at 10:45pm. This was right before Octane’s first set (acoustic) outside at The Whiskey Tango. During the set, pressure mounted in the center of me chest and by the end of the set I was getting sharp pains. I didn’t go out for a smoke after the set, I took it easy but sharp pains came and went and I generally didn’t feel right. I was getting scared and I decided that I thought I should go to the hospital. I spent the weekend in the hospital while they did all sorts of fun tests. All tests were okay. I then went back to have a camera shoved down my throat and that turned up acid damage in my esophagus, stomach and duodenum. I was told to take 4 Prilosec daily. The anesthetic for the tube test was wild, like snapping your fingers, test done and two and a half hours went by. I haven’t smoked since and have started dieting and exercising. I may get a Brazilian and wear a bikini or thong to the beach this summer? … and everyone knows how I love the beach.

The Whiskey Tango: I went back to work at The Whiskey Tango May 20th 2008 to fill in the open nights with Octane and to do the off nights. Ronnie quit to go work for Spellcaster down the shore for the summer with more nights. Since then The Whiskey Tango changed ownership and management and those off nights aren’t happening anymore. Status there is up in the air right now.

Coding: I recently updated some old ASP pages I did way back in the day for the Bigg Romeo site. That was fun. I am progressing on new web development projects and I am very excited about that. Also thinking of ways to further promote the hosting through a better interface. The new trickles in slowly anymore and Verizon isn’t helping with the departed. Here’s hoping FIOS comes through. They are sure to support that endeavor more than they’ve helped me now, right?

OH! and the biggest thing about all of this is that anything new will be in a new location! All the servers, routers, switches, computers, etc. will be moved to a brand new location. We will be moving but still don’t know when yet. I am hoping for A.S.A.P., but that’s me.

That’s all I can think of right now. Any questions?

Apple, on its way to crap.

Of course it’s only my opinion, but to me, that’s all that matters. Self centered? Maybe. But I think I am the person to determine what I find acceptable to me. What follows is my short assessment of what I have observed in the recent months about the cute company called Apple.

An eon ago, I bought the lamp shaped iMac. At the time I was interested in any and all operating systems and alternatives to Microsoft at all costs. I found the iMac on eBay for $1200. I found no use for the machine other than using it to logon to chat networks and utilize the machine that way. I didn’t like the way the text editors worked in that their keystrokes were completely foreign to what I am familiar. All that aside, I didn’t use it all that much. One day, the hard drive was gone – I replaced it with an IDE drive I had and got the machine working again. Had to use those “star” tools to get in there and such, but I was able to get everything working as it should. Sorry for this tangent, but I wanted to explain that I am not new to Apple, I just tried it out and didn’t get “into it” at the time.

I don’t know how, but over the course of time I became more and more accepting of the Mac and was getting used to seeing many of the examples of the things I was getting into done on the Mac. Mostly web development and programming stuff. I also do graphics and video stuff, and the Mac is heavily used there as well. YouTube came popular and the Mac became popular on there as well as many people started making their movies obviously on a Mac. So I decided to give it another try with the latest and greatest Macs.

I was shopping a particular web job and I was thinking of getting back into the publishing of a local paper here in Philly and I thought that I should move toward the Mac. I especially liked some text editors that were now available for the Mac so I researched it up and decided on the Black Mac. It had everything I thought would be satisfactory when it came to development, portability and enjoyment from one machine.

So I start tweaking out the machine and then I determine that the built in iSight camera makes an 8k whistle while recording a video. The microphone itself is fine after testing in GarageBand, just in iMovie when making a movie and it is determined that the auto brightness of the camera affects the squeal. I made a movie about it and posted it on YouTube. For me this is a deal breaker as I had planned to use the machine to make videos for YouTube. I haven’t yet, but I am leaving the option open. I had noticed this squeal/whistle on YouTube members videos, but thought it was something that they must have done to cause it. Either leaving the speakers on while recording or some such option that they wouldn’t have noticed that I surely would have. No, it’s just a faulty piece of hardware, so I took it back and complained.

I first called Apple and went through their tech support. That took a long time and eventually I went to level 2 support. While it wasn’t resolved, I figured it was the problem and made the YouTube video and from the responses in forums et al., it didn’t seem there was any relief. Because of other issues, I decided to return the Black Mac and get a McBook Pro. The tech support guy from Apple was supposed to call me on Thursday (what the wait was, I don’t know) and mentioning Thursday to you without telling what day it was that I called doesn’t matter, cause Thursday is as arbitrary a day as there is from whatever day I was calling originally. It has never been resolved.

So after calling ahead to the Apple store, they said they had in stock the MacBook Pro 17″ with the high res screen upgrade. While this is the case, it was not. The high res screen upgrade was $100 on the web site. The one the Apple Store had in stock was the one with the upgraded screen, hard drive and CPU making it the most expensive iMac sold (and I venture to say EVER sold) but they’re much cheaper now and you get more. I wanted to up to 4G RAM, but I would have to pick up the machine the next day. I obviously wanted to leave with the thing. I also got the Apple Care, an extra keyboard and mouse (both wired) for when I put the big screen dual monitor setup into play. That works out well by the way.

So, this was two trips ever in my life to the Apple store. First time to purchase the Black MacBook and second time to return it and upgrade to the MacBook Pro. Both times I hooked up quickly with someone and was taken care of, it seemed like a normal store-like experience although an Apple store is nothing normal. They waived the “restocking fee” on the Black Mac due to the faulty camera whistle squeal thing. A defective MacBook. It took a while for me to convince the “expert” that there was in fact an 8k whistle (I RTA’d it).

The MacBook Pro has performed as a champ. Lots of nifty features to it and it’s blazing fast. The screen is incredible. Using split screen works wonderfully. I’ve developed several web sites on it as well as produced the publication on it twice thus far. My only complaint as of this date is the lack of keys. There are many keys I would like to use for when I am SSH’d into a machine where use of the F keys would be nice without having to alter my MacBook Pro keys but I have had to do that. The Page Up/Down situation where most times the Fn option works, but many times it does not and some files online tend to be a bit large so it’s a time waster. So that’s it really, is the keys … they could have added another row or something I think. I think it would make a lot of people happy.

Okay, maybe I have more than one complaint. My second complaint is my biggest. About a month later, all the Macs were upgraded. Doesn’t matter that I spent all this money on this particular machine. It’s past 14 days. Sorry. The new MacBook Pro comes with 4G of RAM now. Sigh. To me, it’s bullshit that I wasnt’ notified that this was the case before I spent this much money on something. I can’t even sell it to buy the new one as people can get the new one themselves. I would feel guilty duping someone. I can’t believe Apple doesn’t give a crap that they basically ripped me off. Thank you, please give us more money.

Money aside, I was happy with the nifty bells and whistles that Apple has with their ease of use and their commercials, etc., and was into the iPhone and couldn’t wait until I could renew my contract to get one. That’s 18 months between AT&T renewals. I was getting farther and farther awat from Microsoft and their horrible ways, their monopoly and their power over me to use particular hardware and software to accomplish various things. Blah!

So boom! I get the iPhone and immediately after another iPhone user checks it out he says the Home button is messed up. So I check it out and mess with it and once again, who wants to take something back that they just got. I try to justify that it works fine for me even though once and a while it doesn’t work. Maybe it needs to be worn in? More rationalization. Reality; it’s not working properly, return it. I take the iPhone back to AT&T the very next day. After signing in and waiting, AT&T will swap it but I will have to pay a 10% restocking fee. (On a defective iPhone that I got 24 hours ago). So instead of paying that, I drove to the Apple store to save the 10% restocking fee. On the way over, I used the iPhone to call Apple and verify that AT&T couldn’t swap my phone and that the Apple store wouldn’t have a problem. Yeah, they would take care of it. AT&T doesn’t hold as high a standard in excellence or some crap like that was why it was explained that I would have had to pay a restocking fee with AT&T.

I get to the Apple store and I don’t have a “reservation” so I am going to go “standby” to wait for a “technician” … Uhm, what? My phone broke – give me new one – I say bye bye. Nope. Not even close. I stood there for over an hour. Yeah, I browsed a little bit first, but for being such a huge store, there isn’t a lot there. Remeber I told you it was a weird store? Let me explain.

In an Apple Store, there’s nothing higher than your waist. The entire store is tables. You can see corner to corner nothing blocking your view in the entire store. There is merchandise hanging on the walls closer to the back wall which is lined with their customer service-ish type counter. There is a table with iMacs on it where kids can mess with them. You sit on rubber balls if you’re so inclined. And the tables further towards the back have shelves with the keyboards and mice on them.

The counter is where I paid for both MacBooks and where I stood to finally talk to Eric about my iPhone. I had already decided while waiting that I wasn’t going to buy an accessory for the iPhone. I was upset with this incredible wait. I even had a guy come up to me and ask if I needed help and I said that the girl took my name, etc. and he said oh, okay. So, he had nothing to do, but I was still standing there. At one point, there was about 6 Apple employees standing in and around the iMac that they used to “book” people and some were just BSing and another was texting on his iPhone (I bet his Home button worked). That sort of broke up after some time, then I saw the girl who took my name leave with her coat on taking her break.

Finally the overly happy “concierge” as they call them, said that Eric would be happy to deal with me. Eric said that my Home button problem wasn’t as I described “defective”. I told him that anyone who held my iPhone agreed it was defective and every iPhone in the AT&T store and the Apple Store responded differently than the iPhone that I got yesterday. He said that may be the case, but the button worked. And I said not all the time. And he said that it wasn’t broken, that he could have a technician look at it. I said what is a tech gonna do? It’s defective and gave some examples about broken things and he finally gave in to granting my request for a replacement. It was far too much work, effort and emotion to reach the desired result that in my opinion was obvious.

So why my title to this anecdote? I stood in that Apple store watching the activity going on and had much time to think and observe. I saw many people come and go with problems. I saw people being schooled about using Macs, one an elderly woman. I don’t know, is that free? Maybe, or maybe you can purchase courses via their website? I don’t know, I wasn’t looking for a course. Anyway, I started hearing the silly problems. Then the trivial. I started thinking that more and more people are going to be buying the Macs due to the nifty bells and whistles and the commercials. Where Macs for the most part have been the choice of developers and high end graphics people, now elderly women are “learning” how to use Macs and the general population as whole are starting to buy Macs. They’re told that they’re much simpler, etc., but the fact remains that the gen pop as a whole ain’ta so smart when it comes to these technical thingamabobs. There will be more of the silly and trivial problems.

Then, with my problem is the quality. Eric kept telling me that the Home button worked and that there was no “spec” for it being deemed defective or not. I was like “spec?” are you kidding me. It’s not a spec, it’s obviously defective. Touch every iPhone in use on the planet and then touch mine. I’m sorry, I didn’t know when I bought it cause I never had one before and I wasn’t familiar enough about the Home button to know the difference. Now I’m a Home button expert. But the other ssues is that it’s proprietary. What’s plastic may be cool cause it’s all Apple baby, but it’s plastic and it does break. You can’t go to CircuitCity or Best Buy and fix it up, you have to go to Apple or you have to ship to Apple. What to do if there’s no “spec” on whether your Apple hardware is defective or not? Well, if Eric had his way and I would have accepted his answer, I would have been out a lot of money, again.

They got me on the MacBook Pro and they almost got me on the iPhone. How many people don’t put up a fight or know enough to know that they’re in the right? Having more and more people show up to Apple’s stores and not taking them in a list order or something or having a better mechanism to address people is going to seriously crush them. It’s soured me big time. If anyone knows anything about retail, you make the problems go away first. What would have happened if I had started to share my own opinion with those other Apple customers? What if I were to go down home negative and start pointing out the obvious? When that little ol’ lady says she’s just trying it out to see if she can do some things on the computer, maybe I can chime in that she could save a substantial amount of money if she went to Best Buy. Old people like saving money.

Finally, YES! This is just my opinion. These are certainly things I feel strongly about, but these are things I choose to live with … Because my result is favorable, I can rationalize and accept certain things, but the more the same thing happens, the more that I think that I might think differently in the future. Here’s hoping that Apple can change for the better and not keep screwing people like me.

Loading software on a Samsung Blackjack

I own a Samsung Blackjack i607. I got it because it was “on sale” for half price at the time. I’d have to say the main reason for getting it was access to email. It runs Windows software and syncs up with Windows applications. I don’t run Windows applications on my computer, so there’s nothing to sync with on the computer. The software they give you with the phone (Microsoft ActiveSync) installs on the computer and it loads with every boot. You can’t even disable it, it’s always running. Uhm, stupid. But regardless, it’s a necessity for doing the things I have recently done with the phone.

The phone came originally from Cingular branded with all AT&T stuff. I was originally an AT&T customer, then they changed their name to Cingular and hey whadiya know, now we’re back to AT&T. It seems this longevity of my loyalty has paid off in that I apparently have a good plan in that I have all sorts of minutes and bennies. Regardless, upgrading to the Blackjack required a PDA plan and it was just more money for the unlimited Internet and PDA stuff. It came loaded with Windows Media 5.0. I could text, get email and browse the web just fine after tweaks here and there for minimal issues that would arise every once in a while.

Why I upgraded the phone to Windows Media 6.0 I don’t actually recall. I don’t remember if I was searching the web for something in particular or if I just saw a topic about it and decided that ‘hey, I should get this cause it’s newer’. So I called Cingular/AT&T and asked them if doing the upgrade I would be able to plug in my SIM card and everything would be great again. They transfered me to Samsung and blah de blee dah they said all would be well. The upgrade would blow away anything on the phone and they recommend you remove the SIM card while you go through this process that’s documented on the web.

Again, I don’t remember if I was having a particular issue with the phone or if I just wanted the latest WM6.0. I can tell you that after the upgrade, that’s when issues did start. Most notably calls would fade away. I would be talking to someone and then periods of silence would happen where I would stop hearing them, and then the ‘hello? … hello?’ would start and it wouldn’t work right until you booted the phone. So after the “official” upgrade, my phone reported the following:

PDA version:
i607UCHA1
Phone version:
i607UCHA1
Windows Mobile(r) 6 Standard
CE OS 5.2.1437 (Build 17944.0.3.1)
Radio Version i607UCHA1
RIL Version 2.002
(c) 2007 Microsoft Corporation
All rights reserved.

… and this was the version that gave me problems. I thought it might fix itself, but it didn’t. I then started searching the web for a solution and happened on a WM6.1 “unofficial” upgrade for the Blackjack. So I installed that and while some nifty new features became available for the phone, the fading phone calls still happened. The site that offered the unofficial upgrade also offered me options for the phone as well so I downgraded the phone’s “radio” to the prior version and lo and behold, I now have WM6.1 on the Blackjack with no more fading calls from the official release/upgrade.

There are some bugs to the beta unofficial WM6.1 release and the biggest of those that affect me is the inability to save videos, but I hardly use the phone as a video camera. The pluses far outweigh this tidbit and I trust if I keep checking back for an update, there eventually will be one.

Again, the online community supported me far more than the suits.

WordPress Upgrade

I’ve upgraded to the latest and greatest version of WordPress as of this date. It adds a “sidebar” functionality to it so I had to change my template for the bLog. It was sort of quite painless with directions for doing so, but the original template I bastardized for this site has some very curious CSS. I think one day when I have absolutely nothing to do and contemplate cleaning the house or something, I will get in there and reengineer the CSS, til then, it just works.

Long time, no see …

I was talking to someone who checks this bLog every so often on the phone and they mentioned that they stopped by and there hasn’t been any updates in a while. I agreed, I have neglected my own site for whatever reason. At times, I think of things that I could post up here. Current events, things that I find interesting, but I never get around to it. Then I think of what the point of it would be, surely no one reads this stuff. Then I think, what if people *do* read this stuff? What if the someone that reads this stuff is someone that I need to think ultimately highly of me, and then something posted here reacts negatively to their very being? Well, then I’m screwed, eh? Anyway, this is a short update to say that I will post more here and when it comes to mind, I hope to get it posted. Then again, video may be the faster way to go? Until then …

Save the Internet

Have you ever heard of “Net Neutrality?” … This is currently the way the Internet is run. If some big telecom corporations have their way, this will end much the way newspapers and radio were controlled. The reason this is appealing to government to give in to the telecom requests is that it will help in stifling freedom of speech. More of the “real” public opinion would not be as easily heard as it is today. Can I type this in an understandable manner? Probably not. That’s why I provide a link to a site that keeps you informed on a regular basis as to what is going on.

I used to think things like this were bogus, that they would pass. My reason for this is that I ran BBS systems. I heard all the rumors of the phone company threatening to charge more for lines that answered with a modem. I’ve heard this before that the Post Office was going to dip into the email market forcing people to pay so many cents per email sent. Open threats that caused great scares when and where they were posted. How is this different? It’s history repeating itself. Real people are involved. Named corporations and the government. This is real.

I also respect those that started the Internet and their foundations. Their intent was and still is for Net Neutrality. Vinton Cerf and Bob Kahn were the first to participate in the Internet’s design. As I understand it, it was initially for the sharing of information between scientists, government and colleges. If you’re kinda interested in this, please read a cool book entitled “The Cuckoo’s Egg” by Cliff Stoll … I’ve read this many years ago.

Just some 15 years ago, the World Wide Web was thought up by Sir Tim Berners-Lee where anyone in the world could access this group of computers using standards and publish their own content for viewing by anyone in the world with a like connection. His standards allowed for the user to choose her access to the ‘net as well as the applications that they chose to use to do it. I am also incredibly appreciative of those who took this medium to collaborate on operating systems and Open Source Software. Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds, Brian Behlendorf, Eric Raymond, Bruce Perens et. al., but that’s entirely another story.

If you appreciate these people as I do, please get involved and save the Internet as we know it. Thanks.

Gas Prices

It’s one thing that gas prices change a lot, but the higher the gas prices go, the more they slow down the pumps. This annoys me. Much. It’s not like it’s my imagination. It takes much longer to pump expensive fuel than cheap fuel. This is certainly by design. Much as computers made the taxman ask people to come by the next day for their tax return even though it was done and printed 5 minutes after they left. The taxman couldn’t justify his fee given the time that the results were made available. When computers were originally placed at airline counters, a delay was built into the programming because of all of the reports from the staff that they didn’t trust the results since they were so immediate. Programmers had to build in the “think” time so that the results would be trusted. In this fast paced world, seems “the man” has to slow things down so there seems to be a value in it. It just makes me more impatient and fuels my impulse to announce this to the world.

Thank you, Don Imus

Instead of wasting time on irrelevant shock jock, black leaders need to be fighting a growing gangster culture.

By JASON WHITLOCK – Columnist

Thank you, Don Imus. You’ve given us (black people) an excuse to avoid our real problem.

You’ve given Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson another opportunity to pretend that the old fight, which is now the safe and lucrative fight, is still the most important fight in our push for true economic and social equality.

You’ve given Vivian Stringer and Rutgers the chance to hold a nationally televised recruiting celebration expertly disguised as a news conference to respond to your poor attempt at humor.

Thank you, Don Imus. You extended Black History Month to April, and we can once again wallow in victimhood, protest like it’s 1965 and delude ourselves into believing that fixing your hatred is more necessary than eradicating our self-hatred.

The bigots win again.

While we’re fixated on a bad joke cracked by an irrelevant, bad shock jock, I’m sure at least one of the marvelous young women on the Rutgers basketball team is somewhere snapping her fingers to the beat of 50 Cent’s or Snoop Dogg’s or Young Jeezy’s latest ode glorifying nappy-headed pimps and hos.

I ain’t saying Jesse, Al and Vivian are gold-diggas, but they don’t have the heart to mount a legitimate campaign against the real black-folk killas.

It is us. At this time, we are our own worst enemies. We have allowed our youths to buy into a culture (hip hop) that has been perverted, corrupted and overtaken by prison culture. The music, attitude and behavior expressed in this culture is anti-black, anti-education, demeaning, self-destructive, pro-drug dealing and violent.

Rather than confront this heinous enemy from within, we sit back and wait for someone like Imus to have a slip of the tongue and make the mistake of repeating the things we say about ourselves.

It’s embarrassing. Dave Chappelle was offered $50 million to make racially insensitive jokes about black and white people on TV. He was hailed as a genius. Black comedians routinely crack jokes about white and black people, and we all laugh out loud.

I’m no Don Imus apologist. He and his tiny companion Mike Lupica blasted me after I fell out with ESPN. Imus is a hack.

But, in my view, he didn’t do anything outside the norm for shock jocks and comedians. He also offered an apology. That should’ve been the end of this whole affair. Instead, it’s only the beginning. It’s an opportunity for Stringer, Jackson and Sharpton to step on victim platforms and elevate themselves and their agenda$.

I watched the Rutgers news conference and was ashamed.

Martin Luther King Jr. spoke for eight minutes in 1963 at the March on Washington. At the time, black people could be lynched and denied fundamental rights with little thought. With the comments of a talk-show host most of her players had never heard of before last week serving as her excuse, Vivian Stringer rambled on for 30 minutes about the amazing season her team had.

Somehow, we’re supposed to believe that the comments of a man with virtually no connection to the sports world ruined Rutgers’ wonderful season. Had a broadcaster with credibility and a platform in the sports world uttered the words Imus did, I could understand a level of outrage.

But an hourlong press conference over a man who has already apologized, already been suspended and is already insignificant is just plain intellectually dishonest. This is opportunism. This is a distraction.

In the grand scheme, Don Imus is no threat to us in general and no threat to black women in particular. If his words are so powerful and so destructive and must be rebuked so forcefully, then what should we do about the idiot rappers on BET, MTV and every black-owned radio station in the country who use words much more powerful and much more destructive?

I don’t listen or watch Imus’ show regularly. Has he at any point glorified selling crack cocaine to black women? Has he celebrated black men shooting each other randomly? Has he suggested in any way that it’s cool to be a baby-daddy rather than a husband and a parent? Does he tell his listeners that they’re suckers for pursuing education and that they’re selling out their race if they do?

When Imus does any of that, call me and I’ll get upset. Until then, he is what he is – a washed-up shock jock who is very easy to ignore when you’re not looking to be made a victim.

No. We all know where the real battleground is. We know that the gangsta rappers and their followers in the athletic world have far bigger platforms to negatively define us than some old white man with a bad radio show. There’s no money and lots of danger in that battle, so Jesse and Al are going to sit it out.

**To reach Jason Whitlock, call (816) 234-4869 or send e-mail to jwhitlock@kcstar.com. For previous columns, go to KansasCity.com