to ‘A Cast of Thousands’. Or maybe ‘Adored Supermodel Genius Green’. Reinventing oneself is a fine way of defining oneself to the world. It worked for Laurence Tureaud, When he changed his name to Mr.T…

I think about my father being called ‘boy’, my uncle being called ‘boy’, my brother, coming back from Vietnam and being called ‘boy’. So I questioned myself: ‘What does a black man have to do before he’s given the respect as a man?’ So when I was 18 years old, when I was old enough to fight and die for my country, old enough to drink, old enough to vote, I said I was old enough to be called a man. I self-ordained myself Mr. T so the first word out of everybody’s mouth is ‘Mr.’ That’s a sign of respect that my father didn’t get, that my brother didn’t get, that my mother didn’t get.

That’s kind of sublime. So let’s move on to the ridiculous.

One Million Moms are ganging up on Ellen DeGeneres. They are an online organization. Their website lacks piquancy or finesse. Maybe those qualities are too gay. If you follow that link, you will see that the first thing the Moms want to clarify is that they have nothing to do with the Million Mom March. For sure. That event, May 14, 2000, drew an estimated 750,000 to the White House–I mean physically riding buses to get there. I was in that crowd, and it was vast.

Maybe there really are One Million Moms ready to click a mouse to stop the threat of Ellen DeGeneres making gay look nice (because she is gay and she is nice).

And then again, maybe it’s the American Family Association, a handful of women, and a lot of spambots. How would we know? Ellen doesn’t seem too worried.

J.C.Penney doesn’t seem worried, either. I think they are showing class and confidence, but they probably also ran the numbers and concluded they were not going to lose a million customers for not throwing Ellen under the bus.

In related news, ‘Joe’ the ‘plumber’ is back in politics. God Bless America, land of opportunity.