One of the joys of reading is the ability to plug into the shared wisdom of mankind.

Two of the great leaders of the past - Booker T. Washington and Frederick Douglass - had White fathers - who deserted them. Now Margo Jefferson, who is hard on me and the fellas, wrote in the Times that she has nocturnal, erotic fantasies about John Wayne. What's up with these feminists? Do you see these double standards these feminists have? They dream about John Wayne, but they're hard on us [Black men].

One of the joys of reading is the ability to plug into the shared wisdom of mankind.

I asked Joe Weixlmann why he would print a death threat like that in light of the fact that there are all of these armed ideological nuts wandering around loose. He said that for him, to "ice" someone means to reprimand them.

We not only grew up on Be-Bop; Be-Bop raised us. For my generation, Be-Bop came on like a light bulb going flash behind the eyes.For us, it was not only an intellectual movement, but a way of life. We walked, dressed, and rapped Be-Bop.

I walked out on American Gangster: this evil piece of dreck. Defenders of this junk say that these movies give Black actors jobs. So did "Birth of a Nation."

I think there are fundamentalists all over the world. I think all religions have fundamentalists who have different interpretations of scriptures that are very vague.