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 

Has HE seen the Elephant?

Michael Moore calls our soldiers cowards!

"Has Michael Moore seen the Elephant", or anyone else who wants to criticize our soldiers?

http://www.military.com/NewContent/0,13190,Galloway_062304,00.html

One phrase familiar in enlisted men's writings is, "I've seen the elephant," or, "I'm off to see the elephant." Used to describe the experiences of war and soldiering, the term has many possible origins. Old soldiers in the Civil War coined a phrase for green troops who survived their first taste of battle: "He has seen the elephant."

This Army lieutenant sums up the combat experience better than many a grizzled veteran:

"Well, I'm here in Iraq, and I've seen it, and done it. I've seen everything you've ever seen in a war movie. I've seen cowardice; I've seen heroism; I've seen fear; and I've seen relief. I've seen blood and brains all over the back of a vehicle, and I've seen men bleed to death surrounded by their comrades. I've seen people throw up when it's all over, and I've seen the same shell-shocked look in 35-year-old experienced sergeants as in 19-year-old privates.

"I've seen that, sadly, that men who try to kill other men aren't monsters, and most of them aren't even brave - they aren't defiant to the last - they're ordinary people. Men are men, and that's it. I've prayed for a man to make a move toward the wire, so I could flip my weapon off safe and put two rounds in his chest - if I could beat my platoon sergeant's shotgun to the punch. I've been wanted dead, and I've wanted to kill.

 "I've heard the screams - 'Medic! Medic!' I've hauled dead civilians out of cars, and I've looked down at my hands and seen them covered in blood after putting some poor Iraqi civilian in the wrong place at the wrong time into a helicopter. I've seen kids with gunshot wounds, and I've seen kids who've tried to kill me.

"I've sworn at the radio when I heard one of my classmate's platoon sergeants call over the radio: 'Contact! Contact! IED, small arms, mortars! One KIA, three WIA!' Then a burst of staccato gunfire and a frantic cry: 'Red 1, where are you? Where are you?' as we raced to the scene...knowing full well we were too late for at least one of our comrades.

"I've heard men worry about civilians, and I've heard men shrug and sum up their viewpoint in two words - 'F--- 'em.' I've seen people shoot when they shouldn't have, and I've seen my soldiers take an extra second or two, think about it, and spare somebody's life.

"They say they're scared, and say they won't do this or that, but when it comes time to do it they can't let their buddies down, can't let their friends go outside the wire without them, because they know it isn't right for the team to go into the ballgame at any less than 100 percent.

"That's combat, I guess, and there's no way you can be ready for it. It just is what it is, and everybody's experience is different. Just thought you might want to know what it's really like."

The challenge: "Can't think of a book title" or "Can't think of a book idea"?

I've always thought that the book title was the easiest part, but the book story the hardest. I tried this idea for both titles and story lines. Use the names of songs and the lyrics to get ideas. When listening to a song one day I said, what if that was a book title, what would the story be, and it took off from there.

Top 10 songs today:
Royals; Roar; Wrecking Ball; Wake Me Up; Hold on, We're Going Home; The Fox; Rap God; Holy Grail; Applause; Blurred Lines.

All but two are easy or the least challenging. Wrecking Ball and Blurred Lines look the most intriguing.
Let's take Wrecking Ball as the title of a book.The best part is whether you like or don't like the song and or artist, it doesn't matter. You don't even have to listen to the song and it's probably best not to be swayed by the meaning of the actual song. You could even take the worst song and make a book title out of it.

What could the title be about? An abused relationship, or some crazy home breaking adultery, a couple of angles here; the last dance at a high school homecoming; a detective or soldier who goes on a rampage.

How about some Lyrics to the song as titles:
WE clawed, we chained our hearts in vain.
Some possibilities here. Mostly as a love story gone wrong, but the clawed part could lead to a monster or the current vampire/werewolf craze.
We jumped, never asking why.
How about a sky diving group and their charismatic or hypnotic leader.
We kissed, and fell under your spell.
Lots of obvious ones here. Black magic, etc.
A love no one could deny.
This one has a very wide range of topics. Love of whom, what, where, even Why. Love of adventure; self; addiction; God; food; dieting; just too many to chose from.

Blurred Lines is an interesting title:
Obvious is right and wrong, but what kind of right or wrong? Same thing about Good and Bad; How about a race driver losing his sight. A portal between two worlds. Someone deciding to come out of the closet or have a sex change.

You could probably take each of them and try to match a genre to it. Mystery, Detective, Science Fiction and Fantasy, Love Stories, even your favorite person as a back door approach to their life or a back door approach to a time in History.

You could do the same thing to the Top 10 Songs of all time or the Top 10 songs of an era or year or ANY song if you thought about it.
Just try the title or look at the lyrics.
There are endless possibilities.
Misspelling the title or using homophones, homographs or homonyms also works in thinking of book titles.

Explore your fun side or dark side.

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

One Baseball Record That Did Get Broken

Hats off to Jackie Robinson, but.....................

John W. "Bud" Fowler

Born: March 16, 1858 in Fort Plain, New York, US

Died: February 26, 1913 in Frankfort, New York, US (Aged 54)

Played from 1878 to 1895.

John "Bud" Fowler is the earliest known African-American player in organized professional baseball; that is, the major leagues and affiliated minor leagues. He played more seasons and more games in Organized Baseball than any African American until Jackie Robinson was into his 11th professional season in 1958.

Moses Fleetwood ″Fleet″ Walker 

Born: October 7, 1856 Mount Pleasant, Ohio

Died: May 11, 1924 Cleveland, Ohio (aged 67)

Moses Fleetwood Walker and Cap Anson
Better known, and credited for being the real reason it took so long for players like Jackie Robinson to be allowed, as well as encouraged, to play Major League Baseball, was Moses Fleetwood Walker and his brother, Welday Walker, thanks to the Hall of Fame player Adrian "Cap" Anson, the Babe Ruth of his time.

Walker had his first encounter with Cap Anson in 1884, when Toledo played an exhibition game against the Chicago White Stockings on August 10. Anson refused to play with Walker on the field. However, Anson did not know that on that day Walker was slated to have a rest day. Manager Charlie Morton then decided to play Walker, and told Anson the White Stockings would forfeit the gate receipts if they refused to play. Anson then agreed to play.
Walker and Anson crossed paths again with the famed Negro pitcher George Stovey, making them the first negro battery, Walker was the catcher. As portrayed in the book Get That Nigger Off the Field. by Art Rust Jr., Cap Anson did not back down, and segregation was cemented in Major League Baseball until 1947. Both Stovey and Walker watched the game from the bench.
On the same day as this exhibition game, the owners of the International League formally voted to not sign black players to their team rosters. Soon, the National League and American Association would follow suit, and blacks would be excluded from all minor and major leagues by the beginning of the 1897 season. Although nothing was formally put into the major league rule book, baseball’s color line had been drawn.

The owners made the rules and it took Branch Ricky, the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers to break the ban.

Jack Roosevelt "Jackie" Robinson 

Born: January 31, 1919 Cairo, Georgia,

Died: October 24, 1972 Stamford, Connecticut (aged 53)

The first African American to play in Major League Baseball (MLB) in the modern era. Robinson broke the baseball color line when the Brooklyn Dodgers started him at first base on April 15, 1947. As the first major league team to play a black man since the 1880s, the Dodgers ended racial segregation that had relegated black players to the Negro leagues for six decades.

It's Baseball time again. Here are some Baseball Records that will not be broken. Not this year or EVER!

Charles 'Old Hoss' Radbourn's 59 games WON in 1 year.

OK, pitchers don't even pitch 59 games a year now, unless they're a relief pitcher. The last pitcher to even get 30 was Denny McClain in 1968 with 31 wins. Radbourn not only won 59 games, he started 73 games. He had an ERA of 1.38 and struck out 441 batters.
Ted Williams, 84 game On-Base Streak
And I thought the 56 game hitting streak of Joe DiMaggio was the one to beat. Getting on base 84 times in a row, WOW!
Matt Kilroy's 513 KO's in one year
No modern pitcher, Nolan Ryan, Sandy Koufax, Randy Johnson, even had close to 400.
Joe DiMaggio's famous 56-game hitting streak
Never, never, never, going to be broken, Pete Rose came close.
Ted Williams .553 Single Season On Base Percentage
No one will even get close to .500
Babe Ruth's .847 Single Season Slugging Percentage
Hugh Duffy's .440 Single Season Batting Average
The last one to do it was Ted Williams .402, in 1941. Closest after that is George Brett's .390 in 1980
Babe Ruth's 1.379 Single Season OPS (On Base + Slugging %)
Billy Hamilton's 198 Single Season Runs Scored
Chief Wilson's 36 Single Season Triples
Tim Keefe's 0.86 Single Season ERA
George Bradley's 16 Single Season Shutouts
Fernando Tatís 2 grand slams in a single inning

Josh Gibson’s 84 Home Runs in 1936. (Negro Leagues, no steroids!)
Cool Papa Bell's 175 stolen bases in a 200-game season in 1933

Cy Young's 7356.0 innings pitched in a career.

Cy Young's 511 Lifetime Wins
Sam Crawford's 309 Lifetime Triples
Pete Rose's 4,256 Lifetime Hits
Tris Speaker's 792 Lifetime Doubles
Nolan Ryan's 5,714 Lifetime Strike Outs
Nolan Ryan's SEVEN Lifetime No Hitters
Only 26 players in baseball history even have two. Only five have three, only two have four

But -----Johnny Vander Meer  had TWO in the same year, 
Back-to-BACK!

Cal Ripken's 2,632 Consecutive Games Played
Joe Nuxhall, Youngest Player, 15 years old and 316 days,
Satchel Paige, Oldest Player, 59 years old and 80 days
Will White's 75 Most complete games in a season

The safest of them all is Walter Johnson's Lifetime 41 triples, as a batter, and he was the PITCHER!

Possibilities for this and any season, BUT HIGHLY UNLIKELY:
Rickey Henderson's 130 Single Season Steals
Baseball Almanac
Major League Baseball

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 future of Presidential Elections in America.

 In the future, all presidents will be elected by minorities, entitlements will be the law of the land, and entrepreneurship will be a thing of the past.

Obama and the Democrats believe demography is on their side. Census 2010 made abundantly clear that racial and ethnic minorities, especially Hispanics, are dominating national growth and will for decades to come. The Democratic agenda— favoring broader federal support for medical care, housing, and education seems designed to curry the favor of these groups, which played a huge role in tipping the balance in his favor in several key swing states.

In 2010, minorities were 26 percent of the electorate. Yesterday (Nov 7, 2012), 28 percent. A 2 percent bigger slice of the pie doesn't sound like much, but in a tight election it's everything. If conservatives want to win, we must broaden our appeal. But that doesn't mean abandoning our core principles. Assuming the country can survive another four years of Obama, Tuesday's loss might actually be good for the long-term health of the GOP, and thus, the nation. A victory would have allowed Republicans to sweep their problems under the rug — and postpone taking that long, hard look in the mirror. But let's face facts: Republicans simply must confront the fact that, at minimum, they need a makeover.

By next year, 500,000 more Latinos will have turned 18 in our country — and every year after that for the next two decades.
The irony, for those Republican primary voters who demanded tough stances on immigration, is that this is one problem Obama has inadvertently solved. The economy is so lousy under his stewardship that immigrants have stopped coming.

The Census Bureau also makes projections of the future population based on fertility rates, family size, immigration and other factors. Its latest estimate projects that by 2030 the black and Asian populations will be about unchanged in percentage terms, but the Hispanic population will rise sharply from 16 percent to 22 percent. On the question of whether they favor bigger government or smaller government, Hispanics favor big government by a 75 percent to 19 percent margin.

We must also address the issue of birthright citizenship or we will continue to have illegal immigration as far as the eye can see. Without changes in birthright citizenship, we will have future waves of illegal immigration looking to take advantage of the soon to be implemented plea for amnesty. The 14th amendment in its current form ensures birthright citizenship, automatic citizen status to anyone born or "naturalized" on American soil. Changing the Constitution to deny citizenship to children born in the US but to parents who are not documented citizens is the solution Graham and many in his party are advocating for.
The bill for the Social Security and Medicare alone will be over 500 trillion ANNUALLY, once amnesty is given to ILLEGAL immigrants.

The worst part is that the Democrats refuse to acknowledge the word ILLEGAL, since it can not even be found in any dictionary used by the Democratic Party.

http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2012/05/01-race-elections-frey
http://theweek.com/bullpen/column/236006/what-the-election-means-for-minorities-the-supreme-court-the-gop-and-more
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/election-2012/latinos-minorities-obama-win-election-article-1.1198477
http://www.hacer.org/usa/?p=1799

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

Sweet Home Alabama - The Southern Rock Saga

Documentary on the BBC about the rise of Southern Rock in the 1970's, featuring The Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Charlie Daniels, Marshall Tucker, .38 Special...

Lynyrd Skynyrd Live at Austin City Limits 1999

Homemade Jamz Blues Band

Great music and they made their guitars out of automobile mufflers!!!

POST TURTLE - what is it?

 When you're driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that's a 'post turtle'.


You know he didn't get up there by himself, he doesn't belong up there, he doesn't know what to do while he's up there, he's elevated beyond his ability to function, and you just wonder what kind of dumb ass put him up there to begin with.

 'Well, ya know, Barack Obama is a 'Post Turtle''!!!

Of course this "Post Turtle Joke" has been used on just about every political candidate since the joke started.  The only thing that changed from the original joke, is the last line, which is really, "and you just want to take the poor thing down."

LET'S HAVE A BLAST

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

Dress Code Rule

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Culture Shock or Talk?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Teeter-Totter Paradox

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yes, America, there is a wealth gap.

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

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

FYI: Who is richer, Democrats or Republicans? 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Burn the Los Angeles Times Newspapers

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

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

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

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

Call 800-252-9141to cancel your subscription 

to the LA Times, as I have just done!