Hypocrisy of hip-hop

Artists and producers of Hip-Hop and Rap "Music" claim the lyrics are only a statement of our current life and times. A picture of the environment of life in our modern culture. And I suppose that makes it right?

Politicians, journalists, and critics refuse to condemn its content, yet will shout to the walls and condemn the content of "The Song of the South", even today.
Contrary to popular belief, the "The Song of the South" story takes place after the Civil War and after slavery, not during or even about slavery.

Lyrics that are MISOGYNISTIC, homophobic, hateful, racist, vulgar, anti-authoritarian and an all-around bad influence on anyone's children, the list of grievances against hip hop is a long one, are all present in the content of Hip-Hop and Rap "Music", and nowhere to be found in the lyrics of the Disney classic "The Song of the South", which was a statement of our life and times in the 40s and 50s.

"The Song of the South", has a happy feeling and atmosphere, while there is no happiness in any part of most rap and hip-hop music.

I can understand the rationale of the critics of "The Song of the South", but those same critics encourage their children to listen to bad rap and Hip-hop, give them awards in televised events and bestow them with "Best of" honors. Which is a sad commentary on the state of the music industry to bestow accolades on something that is at best a sad story of disrespect for everyone and everything and not even good rhyming.

Don't buy the lyrical abusers' CDs, don't buy their gear, don't go to their concerts, don't watch their videos, don't memorize the lyrics to their songs, and don't dance to their tunes.
Wrong is wrong, no matter what color you are.

Check out:

Hip Hop Hypocrisy: When Lies Sound Like the Truth

Alfred 'Coach' Powell (Author), Donna Williams (Editor)

http://www.acoachpowell.com/

http://hiphophypocrisy.blogspot.com/

Also: Who's Afraid of the Song of the South? And Other Forbidden Disney Stories by Jim Korkis.

The genre may have changed, slightly, but the legacy lives on. It's a sad commentary on the music industry when a Grammy Winner, several times in his career, is looked down on when the fans, fellow artists and producers of Hip Hop & Rap music complain that his music is not "black" enough. Just ask Will Smith about it.

 DON'T BE BLUE 

Consequences => Choices

When I was learning to take tests, one of the benchmarks of taking tests was that anything with "All" in it was false. Not so when it comes to the choices you make and the consequences that result. All choices have consequences!

Choices have 6 stages, related to the 5 senses plus one, which really could be plus 2 if you insert intuition.
Any or all of these could be involved in the consequence of the choices you make.
The first is just thinking about it. The more you just think about it, the more likely one of the 5 senses will come into play. But just thinking about it could be the point of no return in regards to the consequences that could result. Part of thinking about a choice could be effected by your intuition about the consequences, but intuition may not become cognizant until one of the 5 senses kicks in.

Any of the 5 senses could be the trigger to making the choice.
Smell and sight could be the first stage depending on which one becomes the one which jolts your mind, or hearing the known or unknown sound, or even the lack of sound.
A reflex action of touching something, the interaction of taste and smell because taste is largely dependent on smell.

The consequences though are time insensitive. The consequences of the choice you make could be instantaneous or not realized until after you die.
The quicker consequences are realized as being either good or bad or neither, the easier it is to change or reverse them if desired. The longer it takes to determine if it is good or bad, the less likely they can be changed or reversed. Most people just learn to live with consequences that don't cause them physical harm.

The point of No Return is the defining point of consequences. The point of no return doesn't usually start in an instant, it builds until turning back has escaped the thought process or the consequence has reached the tipping point of disaster. Beyond the point of no return lies truth and the understanding that the sign posts along the way were missed.

I know you'll come back home, Dorothy on your return to OZ

Do we really need gun control? Get Serious!

Do we really need gun control? Yes to some extent, but how about regulating automatic firearms and BULLETS!

No, Really, Regulate the Bullets! 

We can and should regulate the sale of ammunition and the tools to make ammunition. 

One box per month per household! 

Seriously, if you need more than a half dozen rounds to bag that deer, moose, duck, pheasant or any other BIG game you are shooting at, you are a very poor shot. 
If you need to practice, go to a shooting range, which should be the only place you can buy more ammunition. Use it there, because you can't take it home. And it should be against the law to send guns and or ammunition through the mail, no online orders allowed.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/12/no-really-regulate-the-bullets/266332/

Every citizen has near instant access to firearms and ammunition trough the Internet!
The United States is so saturated with guns that seeking to control them is futile. People own and use guns made in the early 1800s; guns made last month are on sale in stores now. We have a centuries-old accumulation of armaments that shows no sign of evaporating.

But there are two things that are needed for a gun to work: 

the gun and the ammunition.

Well, ok, actually three, but let's take the uncontrollable human out of the equation. Limiting guns may be hopeless. So why don't we focus on the bullets? A gun can be made from any number of common household objects. But making bullets is much, much trickier.

 Bullets are so easy to come by that that huge stockpiles exist throughout the country. But unlike guns, bullets are single use. While attempts to remove guns from the streets would either be incalculably slow or require heavy-handed, dangerous government action, curbing the ability to buy ammunition would mean a natural diminishment of the arsenal that remains. Every time a bullet is fired, that bullet is rendered useless forever.

Perhaps the best argument in favor of limiting ammunition, though, is this. The mantra of firearms advocates is the Second Amendment to the Constitution, which reads:

It doesn't say a single thing about the right to own bullets.

Bear all the arms you want. Make your own at home. Without a bullet to fire from it -- or, at the very least, far, far fewer bullets -- we can achieve what the Founding Fathers really sought: a stable & secure nation.

The Mathematics of Religion

The Mathematics of Religion: One God, but who's?

.....between religion and arithmetic, other things are not equal. You use arithmetic, but you are religious. Arithmetic of course enters into your nature, so far as that nature involves a multiplicity of things. But it is there as a necessary condition, and not as a transforming agency. 

No one is invariably "justified" by his faith in the multiplication table. But in some sense or other, justification is the basis of all religion. Your character is developed according to your faith. This is the primary religious truth from which no one can escape. Religion is force of belief cleansing the inward parts. For this reason the primary religious virtue is sincerity, a penetrating sincerity.

In the long run your character and your conduct of life depend upon your intimate convictions. Life is an internal fact for its own sake, before it is an external fact relating itself to others.

Religion is the art and the theory of the internal life of man, so far as it depends on the man himself and on what is permanent in the nature of things. But all collective emotions leave untouched the awful ultimate fact, which is the human being, consciously alone with itself, for its own sake.

Religion is what the individual does with his own solitariness. It runs through three stages, if it evolves to its final satisfaction. It is the transition from God the void to God the enemy, and from God the enemy to God the companion. Thus religion is solitariness; and if you are never solitary, you are never religious. Collective enthusiasms, revivals, institutions, churches, rituals, bibles, codes of behaviour, are the trappings of religion, its passing forms.

Accordingly, what should emerge from religion is individual worth of character. But worth is positive or negative, good or bad. Religion is by no means necessarily good. It may be very evil. The fact of evil, interwoven with the texture of the world, shows that in the nature of things there remains effectiveness for degradation. In your religious experience the God with whom you have made terms may be the God of destruction, the God who leaves in his wake the loss of the greater reality. 

For those that say, "God is everywhere, all around us." Your God, nor mine, may not be everywhere. He was not in that cafe in Kabul that was just blown up by a terrorist, at least not my God! He was not in that store or building that was terrorized by some crazed person with a gun that shot those innocent people, at least not my God.

In considering religion, we should not be obsessed by the idea of its necessary goodness. This is a dangerous delusion. The point to notice is its transcendent importance; and the fact of this importance is abundantly made evident by the appeal to history.

You are the sum total of all you have experienced, learned, thought, felt, believed and acted upon. 
What you are -- is inside of you, influenced by external forces, both good and bad. 
You are -- what you believe, based on who taught you and how you interpreted their ideology. 

My God lives and can only live, inside of me, guiding me.

Excerpts from:

Religion in the Making by Alfred North Whitehead (1926)

http://alfrednorthwhitehead.wwwhubs.com/ritm1.htm

Suggested reading:

The Psychological Origin and the Nature of Religion by James H. Leuba

http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=2538692

LET'S HAVE A BLAST

OK, I've had it with these telemarketing phone calls, the ones with the 800 numbers and especially the ones that don't have a caller ID, and those ones about my computer having a virus from Microsoft. I used to pick up the phone and immediatly hang up, I'm going to purchase an air horn can and start picking up the calls again, see who is on the other end and if it's a telemarketer, tell them to "hang up and don't call again, this is your only warning", if they keep talking I"ll blast the air horn into the phone and then say "can you hear me now? Hang up and don't call again", if they are still there, blow the horn again and repeat. Maybe they will get the message or I'll just have some fun with the calls.

Dress Code Rule

The Man-in-the-middle attack or How Facebook took control of your facebook page.

The Man-in-the-middle attack or How Facebook took control of your facebook page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-in-the-middle_attack

Facebook doesn't give you choices. It's their way or the highway! They changed everyone's email address and designated what your Facebook email address would be, you didn't get an option of choosing your Facebook email address. They did let you use a "vanity" email address, but the real Facebook email address is the one they chose for you and it's really all numbers.

Facebook is trying to force its 900million users to switch to its own email service.
It is removing the personal email address displayed on an individual user’s profile pages and replacing it with a @facebook.com address – even if the member never uses it.

The social networking site’s email service was launched two years ago but has failed to take off, possibly because most people do not like having multiple mail accounts. Facebook wants to usurp existing email identities with their own to help drive up traffic to its site and lock users into its service. The problem is the lack of transparency – it has acted without asking for members’ permission first.’ Just like they did withe their Timeline feature.

The US company is under pressure to lift its revenues following a stock market flotation. Because emails sent to the @facebook address will appear on the site’s pages it will potentially boost page views and boost advertising sales.

The social network also launched a new feature this week which uses the GPS signal in cell phones to help you find friends - and potential new friends - nearby. The 'Friendshake' feature will allow you to make friends with people who are close by. The time-saving feature means that, if you meet a group of new people, you can all use this for one-touch friendship, rather than manually finding out each person's name and separately adding them.

It is not the first time Facebook has pulled a 'Big Brother' move on social network users. Anyone who uses Facebook is already turning over reams of sensitive personal information to large companies every day.

Hopefully their stock will continue to tank, but unfortunately it's likely to rise up, unless more Facebook users start unliking pages they liked and switch to Google+.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2164714/Facebook-tries-hijack-users-email-addresses.html

Culture Shock or Talk?

I came across in article in one of my favorite web sites, AL Daily, and after reading the article below, I thought of interactions with strangers, co-workers, friends, and of course, family!

Has this ever happened to you?
What appears to be an argument, is really just normal conversation, sometimes with shouting, but always with gestures.

America, the melting pot of cultures. With more and more people coming from different areas of the world and commingling in our everyday life, these scenarios happen quite often.

We shape thoughts with our hands as well as our words. But don’t give the thumbs up in Iran unless you mean “up yours”!
Two Jews and an Englishman are crossing the ocean on a ship. The Jews, who can’t swim, start arguing with each other about what they should do if it sinks. As they argue, they gesticulate with such vigor that the Englishman backs away to avoid injury. Suddenly, the boat begins to sink. All the passengers except for the Jews, who are too wrapped up in their argument to notice, jump overboard. After a long, exhausting swim, the Englishman finally reaches the shore. He is amazed to find the two Jews there, happily waving him in. Astonished, he asks them how they got there. “We have no idea,” says one of them. “We just kept on talking in the water.”
read the rest at: http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/essays/body-language.php?page=all

WHAT WOULD YOU BE, IF YOU WEREN'T AFRAID?

Interesting question posed by Haw when he wrote on the wall "What would you do if you weren't afraid?", in Who Moved My Cheese, by Dr. Spencer Johnson. His answer was, you would feel free.

It still doesn't answer what you would do, but surely you would do something, as most people who are afraid, no nothing. Fear of the unknown does that, as does fear of retaliation and fear of condemnation. There are all kinds of fears we hold dear, too dear to change our habits. The truth is, that when fear comes upon you, it's because you have been chosen. Fear has chosen you and you are it's target. The only way to fight that fear is to confront it. STOP, for just a second and look at fear and you will know how to defeat it.

I like using, What would you be if you weren't afraid?
It frees your mind to take some kind of action to release the fear that causes you to do nothing. Waiting for the opportunity to act on your fear is sometimes the best action. It gives you time to plan.

When you come upon something frightening, ask yourself, What would you be if you weren't afraid and start a plan of action to relieve the fear.

The Teeter-Totter Paradox

Why Republicans are NOT far-right and Democrats ARE far-left.

When I was growing up, before politics, I had an image of the meanings of conservative and liberal. Conservatives were staunchy, stiff, un-willing to compromise and opposed to change and likely to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change. Conservative meant lacking imagination and slow to consider different ideas.

Liberal meant free thinking; open to new ideas, far reaching in accepting change and all about the freedoms of man and ideas. Favoring or permitting freedom of action, especially in matters of personal belief or expression. Favorable to or in accord with concepts of maximum individual freedom possible,
I was anything but a conservative.

Come to find out, after watching politicians over the years, the political parties actually are complete opposites of what the labels depicted. Republicans are more free thinking, open to new ideas, far reaching in accepting change and all about the freedoms of man and ideas. Republicans believe people should be allowed to advance in class, yearn to achieve success and rise above their current circumstances.

While Democrats are more restrictive, un-willing to compromise and opposed to change, lacking imagination and slow to consider different ideas. Democrats want people to be kept at their current status, prohibited from advancing upward in class and become successful.

Far-right, extreme right, hard right, radical right, and ultra-right are terms used to discuss the qualitative or quantitative position a group or person occupies within right-wing politics. Far right politics involves support of strong or complete social hierarchy in society, and supports supremacy of certain individuals or groups deemed to be innately superior who are to be more valued than those deemed to be innately inferior.

The far right has historically supported elitist society, that's why the far-left use the "elitist" term in every debate. Far-right is too extreme, it stifles growth and fosters a class society, which is very counter to the Republican ideology.

Far left (also known as the revolutionary left, radical left, and extreme left) are the highest degree of leftist positions among left-wing politics. The far left seeks the creation of strong or complete social equality in society. It seeks to dismantle all forms of social hierarchy, particularly to end unequal distribution of wealth - especially identifying capitalism as a major source of social inequality.

The far left seeks the complete equalization of the distribution of wealth, and a society where in theory everyone is to be completely equal and where no one will have excessive power or wealth over others. Funny, since Democrats are wealthier than Republicans, on several scales.

Yes, America, there is a wealth gap.

Seven of the top ten wealthiest members in Congress are Democrats.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, 36 Senate Democrats and 30 Senate Republicans reported an average net worth in excess of $1 million in 2010. The median estimated net worth among members of the Senate Democrats was $2.58 million. Senate Republican median net worth was $2.43 million.

And wealthy Democrats tend to inherit their money, while Republicans tend to earn it.
http://bluecollarphilosophy.com/2011/11/democrats-in-congress-are-richer-than-republicans/

FYI: Who is richer, Democrats or Republicans? 

It depends where you draw the line for being 'Rich'.

Among the Uber-Rich, or top 2%, the majority are Democrats.
If you lower the threshold to include the merely Filthy Rich (say top 10% or so) then it starts to even out more. Continuing down this curve, the more weight you give to the middle class (down to about 40%), the higher the percentage of people identifying as Republicans will be. When you get down to the lower end of the curve, the percentage being Democrat comes back up again.

With a 100% counted, the Democrats are in the majority. The optimal point for Republicans is closer to the 50% threshold. Republicans actually represent a greater portion of the middle income group than their wealthier democrats. There is actually a bigger gap between poor vs wealthy Democrats and poor vs wealthy Republicans. Yet, there is the red--blue paradox: Rich states vote for the Democrats, but
rich people vote Republican.

There is an old saying: 
If you are conservative at 25 you haven't got a heart. If you are liberal at 45 you haven't got a brain.

Democrats say they want a classless society, that's why they say they want to redistribute the wealth. But, Democrats need to be a class society, since the poor tend to vote Democratic, they want the poor to remain poor, and want to attract more poor, hence the attraction of immunity to illegal immigrants. Entitlement programs are designed to keep you poor. Entitlement programs discourage people from wanting to improve. Democrats are not willing to give up their wealthy status, and would rather not have any more join the wealthy class. They can only achieve this if they continue with a far-left ideology.

Republicans actually believe we should be encouraged to rise above our current class and become richer than we currently are, with no limitations. Republicans know that the country can not grow if people are in a have's vs have-not situation. Rich vs poor has never worked, so people need encouragement to rise from poor to middle to rich. Entitlement programs are not supposed to be a career choice. That is why Republicans must maintain a center-right ideology.

Burn the Los Angeles Times Newspapers

I used to subscribe to the Los Angeles Times, but I still subscribe to places where I can get as close to an unbiased accounting of every day and important news. If you go to a news source and everything is good that relates to their point of view and bad when it doesn't, regardless of your point of view, then you should not go there any more. You need both the good and the bad about what happens in our world, if you want to be able to get an honest and educated accounting. The Los Angeles Times in not one of those places to go for fair unbiased news. It's also not a place to go when their only reason for writing a biased story is to bend the news to their perspective or create negativity.

LA Times editor Davan Maharaj must be a member of the Taliban  as he has relegated the paper to the status resembling the Taliban.

They have decided to publish pictures that are intended to incite violence, rioting and bloodshed. The LA Times Editor Davan Maharaj has no regard for the innocent lives that will surely be put in peril, both the lives of our own military and the lives of civilians. The LA Times is only interested in creating sensationalized news, to sell newspapers.

The LA Times Editor Davan Maharaj published photos from over two years ago, against the recommendations of our military, of our soldiers posing with dead terrorist bombers and body parts, when they could just as easily have written the story without photos. Although the acts of our military personnel are reprehensible and those individuals need to be prosecuted, as well as the one who took the photos. Posting the photos will surely cause some innocent life to be lost. That death will be on the hands of LA Times Editor Davan Maharaj and the LA Times organization.

Call 800-252-9141to cancel your subscription 

to the LA Times, as I have just done!

Liar, liar, pants on fire, Hanging by your tongue on a telephone wire…

http://lifeslittleinspirations.com/liar-liar-pants-on-fire by Wendi Kelly


When I was a youngster, this little jump rope chat could be heard daily on the playground as little girls gathered in groups to skip to the beat of the rope. There were other versions too, “Liar, liar, pants on fire, Hanging by a telephone wire!” and “Liar, liar, pants on fire,Your belt’s hanging on the telephone wire!”  are two that I still can recall. Every now and then, when someone is not quite as truthful as I expected, I still hear the little chant inside my head, forever imprinted there.
Liar, liar, pant’s on fire…
Sadly…every now and then, I have to say it to myself.

Not because I have told somebody a lie ( I try REALLY hard never to do that). But because I told one to myself. I don’t MEAN to tell a lie. They just sometimes fall out of my thoughts.
Like the famous, “Today, I’m not eating a single bit of white flour or bread. I don’t eat that stuff.” (Liar, liar…I’ve been scarfing it down for a week now,)
Or, how about, “I’m going to bed early tonight, my sleep is important to me.” (Oh yeah? So why did the clock strike pumpkin time before I ever saw my sheets? Liar, liar…)
I makes my shoulders slump. I feel like I let myself down. I feel like a fraud. It creates pot shots in my self-esteem. I question my personal integrity.

Does this ever happen to you?
If you are human, it probably does. So then, if everyone is doing it, no harm done right? We can just chalk it up to being part of the human race and accept that the things we say to ourselves just don’t matter.

Except that this is the biggest lie of them all.
The truth is, that when we let ourselves down, it digs a hole. When we make ourselves promises that we don’t keep, we feel untrustworthy. We begin to doubt our personal integrity, our motivation, our will power and our ability to make our dreams come true. We begin to look toward outside influences for our accountability because we can’t trust ourselves to be accountable to our own internal being.

Does that mean you have to be perfect?
You won’t be. You can’t be. Perfection isn’t of this world, we call that place heaven. But what you can be is accountable. You can take stock of what you are saying to yourself, sit down and ask yourself,” Hey Self, What’s up with this?”
Get to the bottom of why you are not accountable to your personal word to yourself. There are probably really good, fixable reasons.Here are a few of the most common.

A Few Reasons We Lie To Ourselves
The Goal isn’t really important to us. It’s important to somebody else, but secretly, we really don’t care. We are people-pleasing all over ourselves and our inner being isn’t buying into the program. First available chance and our subconscious mind whispers, “Just kidding! Never had any intention of waking up early to exercise! And we are more than happy to fall back asleep. We never wanted to get up in the first place!
The Goal is overwhelming. We bit off so much that we are choking and our subconscious is talking back through the ginormous bites screaming that this is unsustainable so why even bother?

The Goal is no match for our fatigue. When we are exhausted, there is very little that can keep us on task and motivated without considerable effort. It’s easy to break promises when we have no energy. In order to have more personal integrity, we need to take better physical care of ourselves. In order to take better physical care of ourselves, we need better personal integrity. It’s a tricky one and the trick is this. Establish a bare minimum, no matter what threshold that keeps you honest. That way when you are feeling run down, you can institute Personal Pampering Day, and get by on your bare minimum without breaking your integrity. But at least you are doing something!

The Goal is not part of your routine. Out of sight, out of mind. Routines and systems help us to keep our personal integrity by making habits automatic. The more automatic a habit is, the less time the Liar and excuses voices can sit on your shoulder and tempt you to quit. Here is a tip. Link your new habit to an existing habit so that your brain will accept it more readily and not argue.

Let’s face it, none of us want to be liars. We all want to have integrity, faith in ourselves and great self-esteem. It isn’t like we are TRYING to sabotage ourselves with excuses, lies and broken promises.
When it does happen, be kind. Recover with grace and forgiveness to your struggling self and see if you can implement a few systems or ideas to help your poor self out.
Yourself will thank you for it!

also: http://bluesunstudio-inc.com/

check out http://www.amazon.com/Bonds-Blood-Spirit-Loyalties-ebook/dp/B004GXAW14/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1292979105&sr=1-1

Are you leaving holes in your fence?

NAILS IN THE FENCE
There once was a little boy who had a bad temper...  His Father gave him a bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his temper, he must hammer a nail into the back of the fence.

The first day the boy had driven 37 nails into the fence...  Over the next few weeks, as he learned to control his anger, the number of nails hammered daily gradually dwindled down.  He discovered it was easier to hold his temper than to drive those nails into the fence.  Finally the day came when the boy didn't lose his temper at all.

He told his father about it and the father suggested that the boy now pull out one nail for each day that he was able to hold his temper.

The days passed and the young boy was finally able to tell his father that all the nails were gone.

The father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence.  He said, 'You have done well, my son, but look at the holes in the fence.  The fence will never be the same.  When you say things in anger, they leave a scar, just like this one.  You can put a knife in a man and draw it out.  But It won't matter how many times you say I'm sorry, the wound will still be there.  A verbal wound is as bad as a physical one.

Remember that friends are very rare jewels indeed. They make you smile and encourage you to succeed; They lend an ear, they share words of praise and they always want to open their hearts to us.

Please forgive me if I have ever left a hole in your fence!

The next time you get angry with someone and are about to speak, ask yourself if there was a way to say what you want to say with neutral words. Picture the holes in your fence.
Often the habit of reacting angrily is just that - a habit you learned when you were young and haven´t questioned since. You might have become blind to the effect it has on your life.

It is really so that the world reflects back your own attitude. If you constantly wonder why people are angry at you, perhaps it is you who treated them with anger first? Listen to the words and tone of voice you use. And try, really try to speak neutrally to someone who are angry with. If you know it will be difficult, write the words down first. Rehearse it in your mind. Decide on a prize you will give to yourself if you succeed.

Teach your mind intentionally to use respectful words. And you just might find that life begins to feel a lot nicer - because people aren´t angry at you anymore.
DON'T BE BLUE

Have you lost your Marbles?

The Marble Game
In marriages (and other relationships), there is often a "Marble Game" going on.

At the beginning, each person is perceived to have roughly the same number of marbles. However, as the relationship progresses, and one spouse clearly emerges as being weaker in decision-making, natural intelligence, and/or "walking around smarts," then "Marbles" are lost by that person, and the other spouse gains marbles.

In one case about a dad blaming a mom for a child being waitlisted for school admission, the "husband" lost a whole bunch of marbles when he foolishly invested their money. The "wife" gained a whole bunch of marbles with her decisions to allow the child to be waitlisted instead of pulling him off the list and then finding a way to pay for school. This created a huge imbalance of marbles because of the long-lasting implications of that one mistake. This mistake wasn't something that just caused a minor ripple in the family, such as denting a car or bouncing a check. This "husband" has to live with the fact that not only did he make a very serious mistake, but his "wife's" decisions were not only better, but they saved the family from absolute disaster.

Once you have one spouse with lots of marbles (in this case, the wife) and you have another spouse who perceives himself as having fewer marbles, then you have a situation where the "husband" is going to - lash out - and criticize any imaginable, thing in a way to try to take away some of the other's marble stash.
So, even when other rational people would say that the "husband" has no reason to criticize the wife about the waitlist situation, the "husband" just sees it as an opportunity to say, - "see, everything YOU do doesn't work out perfectly either".

Also...since such a person perceives himself as having fewer marbles, it may take him a LONG time (maybe never) to admit that he was wrong to criticize (because that means losing MORE marbles). This theory may help to explain why a whole lot of situations began to make sense (situations with unreasonable relatives, nutty teachers, stubborn children, etc).

Men may have a harder time dealing with an imbalance of marbles when they perceive themselves as having less because of their culture's perception that men are supposed to be the (gag) more logical, smarter sex. It's also not about who makes more money. When men feel that they don't have more marbles, they can feel emasculated....so he will just be petty...and some will more seriously lash out.

This theory seems to help a lot of people understand weird conflicts that are going on in their lives.... with spouses, kids, co-workers, relatives, siblings, in-laws, parents, etc. (oh yes, with parents!) Parents of adult children do not want to admit that their adult children may have more marbles than they do. It can also occur when one spouse has an addiction (drinking, gambling, etc) or infidelity issues that has had negative affects on the marriage/family, so that a spouse viciously nitpicks the other spouse so as to say..."you're not perfect either...you make mistakes, too" (even though those mistakes/flaws are far more minor and have insignificant negative affects on the family).

How does the partner with the most marbles stop being the constant brunt of attack from the marble-short partner? I think the day you stop keeping a record of the marbles, the problem will end, but it is in our human nature to keep score. We have long term memory, all but sometimes very selective. This is a psychological problem to begin with. If you try to have the upper hand in marriage - you'll loose the relationship.

Make better decisions and you will get more marbles, or attain a balance of marble stacks. I understand keeping score with casual acquaintances and business associates, just because you may need to limit interactions or find a new way to communicate, if it becomes too imbalanced? Keeping score with "family" never leads to anything good. You need to give some marbles back, to keep the stacks balanced, or at least give the appearance of being balanced.

You have to make the other person feel that his/her opinions are valued, listened to, and not immediately dismissed. This can be hard to do if the person is seriously lacking in common-sense, but be very cautious not to be the type who can't "suffer fools gladly." Each person in a valued relationship has to have some worth-while redeeming value.

Hasn't each of us been frustrated when we tell a parent/child to do something and they dismiss it, yet when someone ELSE tells them to do the SAME thing, the parent/child acts like that's the smartest idea they've ever heard!!!???  

That's the Marble Game Theory going on. The parent/child doesn't have that "marble-conflict" going on with that "other person." So, the parent/child feels that he/she isn't giving up any marbles (showing weakness) by following that "other person's advice. (and, we all just shake our heads and wonder.)

FYI:
I get alerts about "game theory" every day, this was one of the better ones from;
mom2collegekids
Senior Member
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/1112882-touched-sore-point-marble-game-theory.html

Shame on our own national news media! CBS NBC ABC

With all the news that's not fit to print or broadcast, why is the significance of Cordoba not getting out to the people?

I was watching the news the other day and noticed a familiar occurrence.

A reporter was talking about new parking meters in Los Angeles and that there would be tens of thousands of them going up in the next few months. His emphasis was on the technology; card readers in the machines, you don't even need cash or coins anymore and there is a sensor that will send a signal out to a central processor when the time expires that will get a parking enforcement officer over to write up a ticket.

What he failed to mention at any time was that right on the meter there was a big label, "$3 for each 15 minutes"! Nowhere in the story was there any mention about the cost to park. Luckily I don't need to go to Los Angeles and fight for parking. I don't really know how much it costs today or if the $3 per each 15 minutes is a new increase. It wasn't reported.

But it's what isn't mentioned in the news that is getting my attention more and more, especially when part of the story is right there in the background or foreground or hanging around in the ether. Not that some stories are not getting aired, but the stories are incomplete. I don't know if it's a carryover from the Dan Rather debacle where the news was being manipulated by the news organization or that there is still too much political correctness going on and they are just afraid to bring out the whole story. Most of the news on TV and in the newspapers is so skewed to the left, mostly, or at least leaning that way or over the top to the right, occasionally, that there are hardly any newscasts or newspapers worth watching or reading. The news should be balanced and fair, or maybe justified, but certainly not steered. That's mainly why I don't watch the national news broadcast on CBS, NBC, or ABC. They are not interested in both sides of the story. It's also why I don't read the Los Angeles Times or New York Times or any of the big newspapers. All of the current national newscasts and newspapers are blatantly biased. Those big stories will get out somehow, on the internet, where you can decide how much to read, but most of the real story on any national news broadcasts will be lost in the bias.

It's kind of ironic that when an event happens that will impact not only the local region but broad reaching enough to tug at the heartstrings of America and possibly the world, the national news stations will broadcast those stories all day, every day for a week or more, until the next "big headline news event" comes up. Even news stories like the oil spill in the gulf, airplane disasters, the kidnapping of a child or finding the kidnapped child, trapped coal miners, devastating storms and the downing of the World Trade Center in New York City, are "sold" to the audience in how they are told, or not told. Questions go unanswered by both the news media and the government. It's so very interesting that with all the competition for the audience of viewers and readers that the news media is trying to attract, they don't even understand how to make shock media work for them. They certainly know how to make it work against them. How many times do you see the nauseating effort the media takes to see someone cry on national TV or invading someone's privacy with an army of reporters and news vehicles camped at a victim's or suspected criminal's house, yet alone someone convicted of a crime.

Just think how more time could be given to real news stories if all that was said was "there was a drive-by shooting in Los Angels or New York or Detroit today, but no one died", read about it on our web site", or some other quick 3 second blurb, and then get to real important news. No one cares about the celebrities and superstars on again off again escapades or lack of social grace. It belongs in its own news show or program. Olbermann, Stewart, Beck and O'Reilly aren't news people, they're news entertainment pundits disguised as political news, but that’s where people are forced to go if they want the rest of the story that started on national news and was left unfinished on local news. We shouldn’t be relegated to getting our national news from CNN or Fox News and no one watches MSNBC anyway. Although Olbermann, Levine and Savage may be in the basement of the political pundit tower, the elevator isn't going anywhere worth stopping. if you are looking for the real story behind those "breaking headline news" stories. There isn't one local or national newscast that would be longer than 30 seconds, if each event was cut to one sentence. Then you could get to the news that actually impacts the city, state, nation or world, from the national news programs (ABC, NBC, ABC) that both the left and the right should be watching.

If National news really wanted viewers to flock to their broadcast, they would let the news happen, give a short summary and then ask the question everyone wants to know, and then go looking for the answers. There are far too many news stores about drive-by shootings and minor crimes that are allowed way too much airtime. We glorify gangsters and criminals, even overpaid unappreciative super stars, by making them headline news, so much so, that 80% of the news is either negative or driven by entertainment gossip. In fact, victims should, by law, be given 3 times more airtime than criminals, and the story should never be more than 6 seconds long. If there needs to be more time, they should be directed to a 'special' news program.

News stations and newspapers will see a resurgence of listeners and readers, if they took a more proactive, but unbiased, approach to the real news. News stories should be politically unbiased, as well as editorially unbiased. Most news organizations are politically bent, they all need to straighten up, or at least announce they are the voice of the left, or right, and see how their audience responds. That way we could have some fantastic news media battles that may actually get the whole story out and let the audience decide, or at least let them be informed enough to decide if they care enough to watch or read tomorrow's news.

Ask a politician a question, and the last thing that will come out will be the answer. Politicians always ignore the question. Their main objective is to get their message out first, because air time is so short and costly to them. Usually the question never gets answered and the news reporter on the scene or the interviewer in the studio, also short on time, lets them off the hook. The first sounds a politician should make when asked a question, must be about the answer. Give them 3 seconds to start the answer or cut them off. You could then have a standard disclaimer, "another long-winded politician that can't get to the answer". The politicians will be screaming, but it should be, answer first - stump second. Everyone knows the news anchor is just really an overpriced news reader anyway; give them something they can sink their teeth into. Congress is currently trying to silence the news that everyone wants under the guise of "equal air time", anyway, let the battle begin. Politicians would then get more air time than they would probably want, if they had to answer the question first, then stump, because there would always be questions that need answering.

The news media could easily put the challenge on politicians, government officials, superstars or the Corporate CEO, and drive up interest in viewing or reading their news. All they have to do is say, "We invited so and so to come on and answer these perplexing questions, but they have declined our offer", and keep repeating it every day. When they do come on, then it's, one question - one answer, stump later, if there is time. There would always be some important news going on in-between the hard hitting world and national catastrophes that occur. The news stories wouldn't have to be dragging on ad nauseam until the next "breaking news" happens.

So with all the news that's apparently not fit to print in our fine national newspapers or broadcast on our upstanding national news broadcasts, why is the significance of Cordoba not getting out to the people?  >>Watch and Learn!<<

And it took a non-American to point it out! Shame on our own national news media! Shame on CBS, NBC, and ABC.

Change you can believe in: The 1st Federal Sales Tax E-V-E-R and next the New Value Added Tax

Motivated Photos

UNCONTROLLED IMMIGRATION AND POLITICAL CORRECTNESS GONE AWRY

This is from 4 years ago.
We should all look to Malmo, Sweden, as an example of the problems of uncontrolled immigration and political correctness gone awry.

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/938

Malmö, in Sweden, set to become the first Scandinavian city with a Muslim majority, within a decade or two, has nine times as many reported robberies per capita as Copenhagen, Denmark.

It is interesting to note that these Muslim immigrants state quite openly that they are involved in a “war,” and see participation in crime and harassment of the native population as such.

Some talk of the possibility of a future civil war in Sweden, the country that gave us Bergman, ABBA and Volvo could become known as the Bosnia of northern Europe. The “Swedish model” would no longer refer to a stable and peaceful state with an advanced economy, but to a Eurabian horror story of utopian multiculturalism, socialist mismanagement and runaway immigration.

Although it is not stated, most of the immigrant perpetrators are Muslims. In one of the rare instances where the Swedish media actually revealed the truth, the newspaper, Aftonbladet, reported several years ago that 9 out of 10 of the most criminal ethnic groups in Sweden came from Muslim countries.

The recent Jihad in the streets of France looked like the early skirmishes of an impending Eurabian civil war, brought on by massive Muslim immigration and Multicultural stupidity. Law and order is slowly breaking down in major and even minor cities across the European continent, and the streets are ruled by aggressive gangs of Muslim youngsters.

At the same time, Europeans are paying some of the highest taxes in the world. We should remind our authorities that the most important task of the state – some would even claim it should be the only task of the state – is to uphold the rule of law in exchange for taxation. When enough people feel that the system is no longer working and that the social contract has been breached, the entire fabric of democratic society could unravel. What happens when the welfare state system breaks down, and there is no longer enough money to “grease” the increasing tensions between immigrants and native Europeans? There will be massive unemployment, and tens of millions of people will feel angry, scared and humiliated, betrayed by the system, by society and by their own democratic leaders.

European leaders decided that therefore what they really needed was a European Union that would obviate their need for nationalism.

They took all the wrong lessons from World War II and continue to apply them, while ignoring the only lesson that’s really relevant from World War II, which is that you have to choose good and defend good, and fight with the intention of defeating evil. We have to be able and willing to make moral distinctions and stand up for the good and fight evil — and that is something that both the Europeans and Obama refuse to do.

Nationalism isn’t evil. British nationalism hasn’t been evil. French nationalism isn’t evil. Polish nationalism isn’t evil. American nationalism wasn’t evil and has never been evil. Contrary to Obama’s actions, American exceptionalism isn’t evil.
http://www.atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/

LJ BLUE
(Holding by breath)

Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil and the one-eyed monkey.

Golda Meir got it wrong, only because of the basic prejudice of the Jews vs Arabs mentality, when she said, "We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us."

It should have been,
"We will only have peace with the Muslims when they love their children more than they hate non-muslims." Not all Arabs are Muslim and not all Muslims are Arabs.

Terrorism, like any other hateful prejudice from the KKK to Louis Farrakhan´s Black Muslim's to Hamas and Hezbollah and Al-Qaida and their ilk, should be dealt with by force, since force is the only language they speak. These terrorists are the cannabalistic kind, it's as if they eat their young, when they use them as human bombs and practice polygamy, so they can make more human bombs. It's no wonder they treat women worse than cattle.

The recent bombings in Moscow are a precursor of things to come in Eruope and therefore destined to happen in America, if we continue on the road to socialism and "political correctness" infesting our politicians. There is no place for "political correctness" in a war on terrorism. Whereas it may be thought of as politically incorrect to put all members of any group in the same catagory as those in the group that are true terrorists, you MUST start somewhere.

The place to start would logically be with the leaders of the group, except when the leaders can not truely lead because the followers will not except their leadership. Whether it's the religious leaders or the political leaders, the truth is that Islam is more about politics than it is about religion. Politics and religion are so intertwined that they can not be separated and the leaders are so powerless, they can not change it. Islam still rules by fear and the fear mongers are the fanatical religous leaders that hide in the shadows of evil.

LJ BLUE
(Holding my breath)

FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY GOT SLAPPED RECENTLY

For the John Gault that lurks inside, once you get past the Jewish bias. Like the Cycloptic Media or one-eyed monkey, that only sees with one eye, hears with one ear or speaks with only one voice, sometimes the message still needs to get out.

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/

You can avoid evil, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding evil.

American business, the motor of the global economy, was dealt a deathblow by the Marxist coup delivered by the Demo-rat party. The numbers are staggering. AT&T, the largest telephone company in the country, will take a one billion dollar hit in the current quarter as a result of this economic attack on America.

Verizon Communications, the second biggest U.S. phone company, told employees that tax burdens under the new law would likely filter down to employees.

Other companies that announced health care reform related charges include Deere, a maker of farm equipment, which sees a US$150-million charge for its current quarter, and Caterpillar, which warned of a US $100-million charge.
 
Unemployment will increase as companies, both large and small come to terms with the intended conscquences of socialism, and the intention is to redistribute wealth.
 
Implementing a doctrine that has no plan to pay for it will eventually cause anarchy among the citizens that will be required to foot the bill, especially when the leaders decide to do it now and fix it later. While they are fixing this one, they will soon try to include the millions of undocumented immigrants in this plan and also put them in our welfare system.

We should never allow a law that costs more than a billion dollars to be passed with less than a 2/3 majority.

LJ BLUE
(Holding my breath)

More on the Games people play and the reasons they play them.

OK, it's super bowl time and another great excuse to have a party. Well, Friday is a good excuse also, but not as sociologically or psychologically of the same importance.
I've heard this before, but never paid than much attention to it. The world we live in is populated by a natural and inbred mentality to survive, expand hunting and living areas and to protect them. This has usually resulted in fights, skirmishes, and other acts of war. We are and always will be a warring species.

For the most part, constant acts of protecting your territory have been subdued in most countries populated by any type if civility. There are some countries that cannot escape that mentality, and don't want to. As much as we would like to believe that people will refrain from their basic instincts and live in peace, that will never happen, as long is there is one person out the billions that inhabit this planet that feels the need to protect what they have or want more.

We, in the civilized parts of the world, have replaced those acts of aggression with sports. Most sporting endeavors have grown from exhibitions that demonstrated the abilities needed for being a warrior and most people are no longer warriors, so we play sports.

We play sports and root for our favorite sports teams. Sports teams have people who are fanatics about how their team prospers. Some are more than fanatics; their whole world revolves around their adopted team, or mentally; their country, their warriors, and their king.

The games are their battles that lead to their own version of a World War, every year or every 2 years or every 4 years, in the form of Championships and worldly contests like the Olympics.

And we need these replacements of acts of war, to allow us to escape, when we can, from the realities of the real acts of war going on every day and the fact that there are bad people who want to do bad things. Out of the billions of people on this planet, there will always be at least one bad person and they will always let you think there is a chance they will become passive. They never will, but will use that hope to accomplish their goals.

Everyone needs something to channel mankind’s natural instincts into. Play sports, root for your team, compete in something that develops your mind, or play poker. All of these activities require some form of aggression, and mankind is nothing if not aggressive, even in it's yearn for pacifism.

DON'T BE BLUE