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

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

Media news bias is ratings driven

Just another reason I don't watch "Prime Time News" or nationally syndicated news shows like 60 minutes, they bend the news to drive up ratings, in some cases they will just make it up.

Why are the major media outlets content to manufacture or bend the hot news stories in order to drive up ratings?
It's because of the mentality of the old saying, "it's easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission"! Unfortunately the bastardized news stories last for days or weeks, if not months, and the asking for forgiveness by broadcast never happens, or in the case of printed news, it's relegated to the back pages or a footnote.

Trayvon Martin didn’t deserve to be lying mute in an underground box at the age of 17. Nobody does. He committed no offense to warrant such a fate. He was simply returning from the convenience store and chatting with his girlfriend on his cell phone, a scene that could be replicated a million times across America on any given evening. http://themoderatevoice.com/142893/pictures-and-prejudice-in-the-trayvon-martin-case/

Here’s all we know for certain about the killing of Trayvon Martin: Zimmerman noticed the black teen wearing a hoodie, tailed him as a suspicious character within the confines of the gated community, stepped out of his car to challenge him (despite instructions from police to keep on moving), exchanged words with Martin and ended up on the ground. Someone moaned for help around the moment that the gun went off, and Martin died on the spot.

Was the neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman out for blood or just taking his job a little too seriously? 

Why was the only picture used by ABC, NBC, CBS, the NY Times and every other major newspaper, from when Trayvon Martin was only 14 years old?
The contrasting photos of cute Trayvon and nasty George undoubtedly contributed to the call for vengeance.
Was the exposure on Zimmerman’s photo altered in some versions to make the half-Hispanic killer look “whiter”?
George Zimmerman is multi-racial. In fact, it’s said that he has black relatives.

For most of the black community and the left-of-center crowd, it’s an open-and-shut case of a light-skinned racist murdering an innocent African American kid for the crime of “walking while black.” The Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton showed up to make racial politics, just to add fuel to the fire. The fact that Trayvon was wearing a hoodie has catapulted that essential item of hip-hop apparel to unprecedented glory as a political symbol of unjustly maligned black youth. By now, every Trayvon Martin sympathizer and his brother has been photographed wearing a hoodie. Congressman Bobby Rush was even kicked out of a congressional hearing because he showed up wearing a hoodie. He was kicked out because he did not adhere to the dress code for appearing before congress. Dress code, 'That' is a subject for another day.

NBC altered the 911 call by Zimmerman to make it seem as if Zimmerman was race obsessed, and every news story used it as part of their coverage. 

Photographs, videos, and recordings can be indispensable clues, but our biases, conscious or not, have a way of tampering with the evidence.
Neither man was all saint or all villain. Both should be given an equal chance to be vindicated or judged by proper authorities.

NBC News has since fired the producer who was involved in the production of a misleading segment about the Trayvon Martin case in Florida. On April 6th, 39 days after the maelstrom, it appeared as a blip in the news, but not on any prime time news broadcast.
The action came in the wake of an internal investigation by NBC News into the production of the segment, which strung together audio clips in such a way that made George Zimmerman’s shooting of Mr. Martin sound racially motivated. Ever since the Feb. 26 shooting, there has been a continuing debate about whether race was a factor in the incident.

Of course the damage has been done in the wake of a rioting public driven to the media frenzy, just as they wanted.

Sometimes you just can't help but be BLUE!

Heroes, terrors and terrorism

A couple of notes on Heroes, terrors and terrorism.

March 29, 2012
US Soldier Killed Trying to Save Afghan Girl
Sgt. Dennis Weichel, 29, of the Rhode Island National Guard died saving the life of a little girl in northeast Afghanistan.

According to the report, Weichel was in a convoy in Laghman Province last week when he noticed some children were in the path of the moving vehicles. Weichel and other soldiers got out to move them out of the way. while most of the children scattered away, one girl went back to the road, as a Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected vehicle continued moving toward her. Weichel saw the massive truck moving toward the girl and grabbed her out of the way. The girl survived, but Weichel died after the armored vehicle ran over him.

These types of stories go unreported everyday. Our soldier's heroic actions are unnoticed by most, if not all, of our major news stations. Certainly lost to the journalists of MSNBC and CBS, who most likely just throw the stories in the trash, deemed not worthy of the liberal rhetoric.

I found this story below and also decided to add it to the mix.

After reading the headlines today about the US soldier who shot up Afghanistan civilians, I couldn’t help noticing an irony.  There is all this clamor to try this guy quickly and execute him, never mind his having suffered a traumatic brain injury.
His actions were that of a disturbed mind and should be delt with by the harshest of penalties.

Yet (another soldier) Major Hasan, who shot up Fort Hood while screaming Allah akbar, still hasn’t stood trial, and they are still debating whether he was insane, even with the clear evidence regarding his motive: slay as many infidels as possible.

So we have a guy in a war zone who cracks, and he must be executed immediately.

But this Muslim psychiatrist who was stateside in a nice safe office all day, murders 13, wounds 29 of our own guys,and they try to argue the poor lad suffered post-traumatic stress syndrome, from listening to real soldiers, and heroes, who had actual battle experience.

Two and a half years later, they still haven’t tried the murderous bastard.

Poor lad my ass, he murdered our own soldiers!

The only thing necessary for evil to triumph 

is for good men to stand by and do nothing.

The Value of Deductive Reasoning

This was a Chemistry Question

The following is an actual question given on a University of Washington chemistry mid-term. The answer by one student was so "profound" that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet.

Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant.

One student, however, wrote the following:

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave.
Therefore, no souls are leaving.

As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different Religions that exist in the world today. Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell.

With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we have to look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell, because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.

This gives two possibilities:
1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.

2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.

So which is it?

If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, "it will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you, and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number 2 must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct...leaving only Heaven; thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting "Oh...my....God....Oh....MY....G O D !"

THIS STUDENT RECEIVED THE ONLY "A

Who wants to live forever? Scientist sees aging cured

The first person who will live to see their 150th birthday has already been born.

Space Age Retirement Homes?

A biomedical gerontologist and chief scientist of a foundation dedicated to longevity research,Aubrey de Grey, reckons that within his own lifetime doctors could have all the tools they need to "cure" aging -- banishing diseases that come with it and extending life indefinitely.
De Grey sees a time when people will go to their doctors for regular "maintenance," which by then will include gene therapies, stem cell therapies, immune stimulation and a range of other advanced medical techniques to keep them in good shape.

That being said,
Does the government really want you to live, forever? Do you really want to live forever?
Retirement ages are getting longer, now it's 66, but in the next 20 years, will senior citizens be living in internment camps or dependent on their children? Social Security will not be able to keep up, but more importantly, Social Security will not be enough. What will the quality of life be like for the Old People? We may be able to advance medically to a point where many of the ailments that plague the aging are eliminated, but many people who retire, lose the willingness to continue. They don't really have a good reason to get out of bed.
We are rapidly getting to the point where the government takes all of your money and issues vouchers to pay your bills, especially if the redistribution of wealth programs become a reality. More to the point is that, if amnesty is given to illegal immigrants, our obligation to those who don't, or won't, or can't work, will quadruple our national debt.

What's your definition of "Millionaire"?

Obama: Anyone who makes over $200,000.
Wikipedia: an individual whose net worth or wealth is equal to or exceeds one million units of currency.
Merriam-Webster: A person whose wealth is estimated at a million or more (as of dollars or pounds).
Dictionary.com: A person whose wealth amounts to a million or more in some unit of currancy, as dollars.
Investopedia.com: It is important to note that paper millionaires are not the same as true millionaires, which generally refers to people who have more than $1 million in cash in the bank.
Urbandictionary.com: A person or organisation that is in possession of over one million of a pre-set currency in liquid assets, except property.

I don't know about you, but I have a great deal of diifficulty believing anything that comes out of the mouth of someone who makes-up definitions of the words they use.

In practically every speech on taxes, President Obama likes to pit the wealthier population against everyone else by using the term “millionaires” to pay their “fair share” of taxes.  Class warfare is unnecessary.  As you know, President Obama wants to raise taxes on individuals making $200,000 and families making $250,000.  First of all, how $200,000 + $200,000 = $250,000, instead of $400,000 as a couple, is beyond me.  Is one spouse supposed to suddenly make only $50,000 from $200,000?  Give me a break. http://www.financialsamurai.com/2011/08/17/how-long-does-it-take-to-become-a-millionaire/

One of the problems of taxation needs to also be applied to Social Security.  The maximum taxable earnings amount for Social Security (OASDI) taxes, 2012, is $110,100. True Millionaires don't have to pay any more into Social Security after they earn $110,100. Fortunately there is no cap on income and payments into Healthcare. However, both Social Security and Healthcare, as well as all government relief programs, are destined to bankrupt the United States, if illegal immigrants are allowed amnesty.

First we need to change the US Constitution to eliminate birth right citizenship for people who are born here, but neither of the parents are legal citizens. Then we need to establish a guest worker visa program that insures that only citizens can get any government relief.

I am with you still

For anyone who has lost a loved one, as we just lost Antionette. Hold them always in your heart when a new day dawns.

I AM WITH YOU STILL 

I give you this one thought to keep -
I am not gone, I do not sleep.

I rustle your hair when the warm winds blow,
I am the softly falling snow.
I am the gentle showers of summer rain,
I am the fields of ripening grain.

When you awaken in the mourning hush,
I am in the graceful uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the star that shines at night.

I am in the flowers that bloom,
I am with you in a quiet room.
I am the song the birds sing,
I am in each and every lovely thing.

Do not think of me as gone -
I am with you still - in each new dawn.
I'm still here --- I have not gone.
I will always be in your heart.

An adaptation of the poem by Mary Frye

The puzzle of poverty.

...it is a world where those without enough to eat may save up to buy a TV instead, where more money doesn't necessarily translate into more food, and where making rice cheaper can sometimes even lead people to buy less rice.
More Than 1 Billion People Are Hungry in the World
Oucha Mbarbk lives in Morocco without enough work, money, or food, but with a television, DVD player, and cellphone.
We asked Oucha Mbarbk what he would do if he had more money. He said he would buy more food. Then we asked him what he would do if he had even more money. He said he would buy better-tasting food. We were starting to feel very bad for him and his family, when we noticed the TV and other high-tech gadgets. Why had he bought all these things if he felt the family did not have enough to eat? He laughed, and said, "Oh, but television is more important than food!"

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink!

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

The Story of the Statue of Liberty

The French, Egyptian and American connection.

The Story of the Statue of Liberty.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Liberty


While on a visit to Egypt that was to shift his artistic perspective from simply grand to colossal, French sculptor Frédéric Bartholdi was inspired by the project of the Suez Canal that was being undertaken by Count Ferdinand de Lesseps, who later became a lifelong friend of his. He envisioned a giant lighthouse standing at the entrance to the canal and drew plans for it. It would be patterned after the Roman goddess Libertas, modified to resemble a robed Egyptian peasant, with light beaming out from both a headband and a torch thrust dramatically upward into the skies. Bartholdi presented his plans to the Egyptian Khedive, Isma'il Pasha, in 1867 and, with revisions, again in 1869, but the project was never commissioned because of financial issues then troubling the Ottoman Empire.

Soon after John Wilkes Booth was killed by one of his captors, Frédéric Bartholdi (according to legend) was enjoying dinner with friends in Paris. Commenting how good it was that the U.S. Civil War was over and how terrible it was that Lincoln had died, one of Bartholdi’s friends (Edouard de Laboulaye) had an idea. What if the people of France, gave the people of America, a monument to commemorate liberty? And ... what if they gave such a gift during 1876, the first centennial of American independence? France, after all, had played a key role in helping America to win her revolutionary war. Enthused with the idea, Bartholdi visited America and ultimately sketched his conception of such a monument.

The first small terracotta model was created in 1870. It is now exhibited at the Musée des beaux-arts de Lyon. The first reduced scale bronze replica was given to the city of Paris by Americans residing in the French capital on May 13, 1885; the statue was originally located in the Place des États-Unis and was moved to the Île des Cygnes in 1889. It was agreed that in a joint effort, the people of the United States were to build the base, and the French people were responsible for the statue and its assembly in the States. In France, public donations, various forms of entertainment including notably performances of La liberté éclairant le monde (Liberty enlightening the world) by soon-to-be famous composer Charles Gounod at Paris Opera, and a charitable lottery were among the methods used to raise the 2,250,000 francs ($250,000). In the United States, benefit theatrical events, art exhibitions, auctions and prizefights assisted in providing needed funds.

Meanwhile in France, Bartholdi required the assistance of an engineer to address structural issues associated with designing such a colossal copper sculpture. Gustave Eiffel (designer of the Eiffel Tower) was commissioned to design the massive iron pylon and secondary skeletal framework which allows the statue's copper skin to move independently yet stand upright. The good-looking French widow of an important American, Isabella Eugenie Boyer, the wife of Isaac Singer, the sewing-machine industrialist, was called upon to be Bartholdi's model for the Statue of Liberty. The Statue of Liberty was dedicated on October 28, 1886 and was designated a National Monument on October 15, 1924.

The Statue of Liberty functioned as a lighthouse from 1886 to 1902. As a lighthouse, it is the first in the United States to use electricity. Birds, attracted by the original torch, sometimes became disoriented from the light of the flame. It was once discovered that more than a thousand had been fatally injured in a single day.
The bronze plaque in an exhibit on the second floor of the pedestal is inscribed with the sonnet:

"The New Colossus" by Emma Lazarus.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
' With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

It has never been engraved on the exterior of the pedestal, despite such depictions in editorial cartoons. The first two lines refer to the ancient Colossus of Rhodes. The bronze plaque in the pedestal contains a typographical error: the comma in "Keep, ancient lands" is missing, causing that line to read "'Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!' cries she", and noticeably altering its meaning. The name "Mother of Exiles" was never taken up as the statue's name.

In 1889, Americans who were living in Paris gave that city a smaller version of Liberty. The thirty-five foot monument is located near the River Seine and faces west, toward its sister.
http://www.awesomestories.com/movies/national_treasure/national_treasure_ch6.htm

Hundreds of other Statues of Liberty have been erected worldwide. A smaller replica is in the Norwegian village of Visnes, on the island of Karmøy, in Rogaland County where the copper used in the original statue was mined.

A Statue of Liberty replica at Odaiba, overlooks the Rainbow Bridge in Tokyo Bay. There is a sister statue in Paris and several others elsewhere in France, including one in Bartholdi's home town of Colmar, erected in 2004 to mark the centenary of Bartholdi's death; they also exist in Austria, Germany, Italy, Japan, China, Brazil and Vietnam; one existed in Hanoi during French colonial days. During the Tiananmen Square protest of 1989, Chinese student demonstrators in Beijing built a ten meter image called the Goddess of Democracy, which sculptor Tsao Tsing-yuan said was intentionally dissimilar to the Statue of Liberty to avoid being "too openly pro-American." At around the same time, a copy of this statue was made and displayed on Connecticut Avenue in Washington, D.C., in a small park across the street from the Chinese Embassy.

The sculptor James Alexander Ewing's most prestigious commission was for the carving of the Glasgow City Chambers' Jubilee Pediment, its apex group of Truth, Riches, and Honor, and the statues of The Four Seasons on the building's tower. The figure of Truth also is known as Glasgow's Statue of Liberty, because of its close resemblance to the similarly posed, but very much larger, statue in New York harbor.

The Statue of Liberty is located in the harbor of New York City, on the Jersey side (but that's another story), on what was originally called the Oyster Islands, which includes Ellis Island, Liberty Island, and Black Tom Island. Both Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty have become powerful symbols of the freedom and opportunity that awaited millions of men, women, and children when they legally immigrated to America from around the world.


Don't Be Blue

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