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 

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

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

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!

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.

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

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

The mayonnaise jar...and the coffee...

Another oldie, but one of my favorites.
When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar...and the coffee...
A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.
The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. Again, they agreed it was.
The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous "yes."
The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand. ..........The students laughed.
"Now," said the professor, as the laughter subsided, "I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life.

The golf balls are the important things - your God, family, your children, your health, your friends, and your favorite passions - things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house, and your car.

The sand is everything else - the small stuff."

"If you put the sand into the jar first," he continued, "there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls.

The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you. Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your partner out to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal."

"Take care of the golf balls first, the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand."

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented.

The professor smiled. "I'm glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend."

DON'T BE BLUE

You have two choices

This was emailed to me once and is one of my favorites.
This is a story about how we all should choose to start our days.

Jerry's the kind of guy you'd like to hate: He's always in a good mood and always has something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, "If I were any better, I'd be twins!"
He was a unique manager because he had several waiters who followed him around from restaurant to restaurant, all because of his attitude - he was a natural motivator.

One day I asked Jerry, "I don't get it! You can't be a positive person all the time. How do you do it?"
Jerry replied, "Each morning I wake up and say to myself, 'Jerry, you have two choices today: You can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood.' I choose to be in a good mood.
Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life."

"Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people will affect your mood."

Soon thereafter, I left the restaurant industry to start my own business. We lost touch, and several years later, I heard that Jerry did something you are never supposed to do in a restaurant:
He left the back door open one morning and was held up at gunpoint by three armed robbers. While trying to open the safe, his hand, shaking from nervousness, slipped off the combination. The robbers shot him.
After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Jerry was released from the hospital with fragments of the bullets still in his body.

I saw Jerry about six months after the shooting. When I asked him how he was, he replied, "If I were any better, I'd be twins. Wanna see my scars?"

I declined to see his wounds, but did ask him what had gone through his mind as the robbery took place. "The first thing that went through my mind was that I should have locked the back door," Jerry replied. "Then, as I lay on the floor, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live or I could choose to die.
I chose to live."

"The paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the ER and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read, 'He's a dead man.' I knew I needed to take action."

"What did you do?" I asked.

"Well, there was a bossy nurse shouting questions at me," said Jerry. "She asked if I was allergic to anything. 'Yes,' I replied.
The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled, 'Bullets!' Over their laughter, I told them, 'I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead.'"

Jerry lived thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude. I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully. Attitude, after all, is everything.

How do you chose to start your day?

DON'T BE BLUE

"True" Friend Test

There was an e-mail that went around as a chain letter, you may have received it, but not from me. I've amended it to be a "True" Friend Test. The amendments are underlined and in blue.
Was - Friend Test - now it's the True Friend Test

This is NOT a test of the Emergency Friend System. This is only a test of HOW TO BE A FRIEND

A Friend............................

A)ccepts you, and is accepted by you
B)elieves in "you", and helps you believe in you
C)alls you just to say "HI", but doesn't expect you to be there to answer the phone
D)oesn't give up on you, and doesn't let you give up on you
E)nvisions the whole of you (even the unfinished parts), but doesn't try to remake you
F)orgives your mistakes, and expects the same in return
G)ives unconditionally, but even more, receives unconditionally
H)elps you, and expects you to help you
I)nvites you over, but expects you to know when to leave
J)ust wants to "be" with you, but not impose on you
K)eeps you close at heart, and always in their heart
L)oves you for who you are, and even more for who you think you are
M)akes a difference in your life, but doesn't expect you to change your life
N)ever Judges, but will listen to your judgements
O)ffers support, but shouldn't be a crutch
P)icks you up, but not so high you will get hurt trying to get down
Q)uiets your fears, and calms your exuberance
R)aises your spirits, but not your skeletons
S)ays nice things about you, especially behind your back
T)ells you the truth when you need to hear it, and lies when even the truth won't help
U)nderstands you, even when you don't understand you
V)alues you, but doesn't put a value on it
W)alks beside you, but will pull you in the right direction and even will push you if you need it
X)-plains things you don't understand, and accepts that you may never understand
Y)ells when you won't listen, and whispers when you don't know how to listen
Z)aps you back to reality, and will help you to reach for your fantasies

"Flexible people don't get bent out of shape, but even trees can be blown over by a big wind or burnt by a random lightning storm."

A true friend doesn't expect you to try to count how many friends you have (by asking you to send an e-mail), but to accept all those who want to be your friend. So the rest of the chain letter doesn't matter, not to a TRUE FRIEND------ not in the slightest.

(of course, a true friend doesn't need to be tested!!!!!!!!!)

DON'T BE BLUE