Sunday, December 23, 2007

The Unfortunate Plight of White

First, check out THIS ARTICLE about Mitt Romney in the Boston Globe. Apparently there were two separate references made by him regarding he and/or his father marching with Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights movement. The truth is that neither he nor his father marched with King, though his father did march in various marches to support the civil rights movement during his time as Governor of Michigan. Obviously as white people of that time they were at least somewhat supportive of the situation for black people at the time of the civil rights movement. As a white person myself I feel I can discuss what Mitt Romney is going through with regards to history and his own history etc. For those of you who don't know it, white people run around much of their lives suffering from a certain amount of guilt. Some of this guilt is their own and some of it has relationship to their ancestors. While many other ethnic groups have various methods of honoring their heritage and their ancestors white people generally don't have any method for this honoring of heritage and ancestors. The average white person likely knows only what some or all of their ethnic background is and does not have much if any familiarity of any cultural rituals that relate to their own background accept the cultural benefits of manifest destiny at the detriment of those of color. We have a history in America of white being the group of individuals that holds more power than those of color and therefore over the last couple of centuries it has been the practice of those who "pass for white" to do their best to whitewash themselves in order to appear more white. People changed their names to appear more white in the eyes of Americans, they hid their true cultural rituals and religions and traded them for hate-fear and violence in most cases. (unless they were fighting against these things they supported them sorry to get "black and white" with my point of view but it's the truth. You don't fight for what is right and educate yourself on what is going on around you then you are supporting what is wrong. It's my opinion so get over it.) So this is "The Plight of White". We as white people suffer from a history where our ancestors as a majority have supported the perpetration of hate-fear-violence on people of color. This means that if we had a culture back when our ancestors first arrived to this country it was likely either replaced with the version of Christianity that existed at that time (which centered much of the time around hate-fear-violence against those of color) or it was replaced with nothing at all. In the end the result you end up with is the America you have today. Today's America is filled with white people and people of color both who have no concept of culture and ritual and a true connection to anything deeper than themselves. We allow ourselves to be pacified by the luxuries provided us by the pseudo freedom we have to run around and purchase items of technology to keep us busy and not paying attention to the fact that we Americans as a majority lack culture completely and that the civil rights movement has not yet succeeded in it's goals for having all people be equal. Black people get paid 60cents to ever dollar white people make statistically to this day. Men make on average somewhere near $10,000 dollars more per year than women. We still see situations in places like Virginia where a woman was kidnapped, raped and tortured for days by a family of white people simply because she was black. We still see situations in places like Jena, Louisiana where black youth are harassed and picked at by white youths to the point that requires self defense and when they defend themselves they are exposed to further political lynching by their community while the white youths receive little or no punishment at all. This is what is still going on in our society day by day. Some of us support it and some don't and then there are a big percentage of the white people who don't that are afraid to admit that fact for fear of losing their privilege. This is why people fight reparations. If there was nothing to lose to give equality to people who deserve it then white people would never argue with it. People like Mitt Romney have a mixture of all of this. Because of his religion he has a little tiny piece of what it means to be judged and oppressed for something that is not necessarily bad and so he feels a bit like he can relate to the black community. Add to this that he has benefited and become more privileged because of the efforts of black people who have always been treated as less than he but because he can relate to the plight of these people who he benefits from he feels helpless to help them without hindering himself and this makes him feel guilty. What does he do because of his guilt? He does the same thing as other guilt ridden white people. He takes things from cultures of color and assimilates them into his own life in attempt to bring back that thing which he always feels deep inside is missing CULTURE. So his children listen to MTV and wear their pants baggy as often as possible and if they don't do that then at the very least they use slang terms commonly used by youths of the current time after they were stolen from youths of color. They benefit from the music past and present, the technological inventions, the fashion and more from those of color and they take it and they make it their own. Why? Because they have no culture. They are empty and without culture because their relatives long before them dumped culture in trade for survival-fear-hate-violence simply because they could pass for white or they were white. Now in attempt to gain the culture that we all feel empty without we do our best to pseudo relate to those people of color who we feel guilty for benefiting from. We as white Americans are all at generally the same place. How do we treat others with respect and equality without losing all our benefits? Well the answer is simple. Assimilate the cultures of people of color to make us seem as if we are all the same and then pretend we don't realize this is what is happening. Later, when someone says the civil rights movement isn't over and people aren't equal we tell those people they are wrong. We run around saying things like "I don't see color" knowing that if we don't see color then we are blind because it exists and it would be an insult to those of color to pretend it doesn't. We tell people we aren't racist despite the fact that none or few of our friends and associates are people of color. We think that because we believe that our country should be a free place where all are treated equal that it means we have done our part. We forget that our part will not be done until we educate ourselves on the TRUTH of what is going on racially in this country and then fight for freedom and equality for all people at the risk of losing our privilege. We have so much fear of losing the control we have over our own lives because we have lost control of the lives of others that we are afraid to admit that we know it would be better. We would benefit so much more from allowing others to be equal to us because at the very least those people would bring things to our culture that we could all share equally and it would come at a much higher rate than if we cherry picked from the cultures of others and stole only that which we liked at the moment that we thought would not erase our status as white people. Just think our music could have more of African and Latin cultures than just their stolen beats. People of color would be exposed with a higher level of education and perhaps we could have more people who think like Obama to run for president or we would finally have something else to talk about during February besides old inventions like the stoplight and the cotton gin and botanical breakthroughs in hybridization. We would benefit. So what are we afraid of? White people are all afraid of losing power and will therefore feel guilty for taking it away from others so that they can keep it. And so the cycle will continue we will keep our power out of the fear of losing control of our own individual lives while we steal the cultures of others and feel guilty for it. So forgive poor little Mitt Romney for suffering from "The Plight of White" and trying to steal a bit of culture by pretending that he and/or his father marched with black people instead of simply for black people (which back then was more than most white people did). FORGIVE HIM BUT WHATEVER YOU DO DON'T VOTE FOR HIM UNTIL HE CAN PROVE HE HAS GOTTEN OVER HIS GUILT BY FIGHTING FOR TRUE EQUALITY INSTEAD OF JUST PRETENDING TO.

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Friday, December 21, 2007

Papa Smurf Lives Thanks To Colloidal Silver



Check out this video of Paul Karason whose skin turned blue because of constant drinking of colloidal silver. He has been living with a blue face for over 10 years now. About 14 years ago he developed a severe case of dermatitis and decided that colloidal silver was the best solution to this problem. He began drinking it an rubbing it on his skin and he now swears by it despite the fact that he is now permanently blue. He and the people around him on a daily basis did not notice the change in his skin tone as the change was so gradual that they had become used to it. He didn't even realize that it was an issue until a friend he hadn't seen in months came to visit him and asked what the heck he had done to himself. Apparently people in Oregon where he lived originally were rude to him to say the least so he moved to Madera, CA about 6 months ago in the hopes that he would be treated with more respect despite his weird appearance. I say he should apply a bit of peroxide to his hair and whiten it a little if he's gonna be stuck with this blue color because he looks odd with the yellowish twinges in his mustache and beard. Just Sayin.

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Friday, December 14, 2007

Video of a "Profile Fitting" Man On A Plane Freaking Out

Someone must have provoked this man into having some sort of fear for his life and safety. He is seen in the video tape freaking out while he is flanked by two men who seem to be officials trying to calm him down while keeping him restrained. This is on an Air Canada flight to London, England. I'm not sure how long that flight is, but it would sure suck to do the whole thing with this guy screaming paranoid fear based jargon while spouting of about white people. Kinda nerve racking and possibly a bit scary.



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Straight No Chaser - 12 Days of Christmas

Check out this men's A Cappella group singing their own somewhat comedic version of The 12 Days of Christmas. I think it is a great way to bring in the holiday with a bit of fun and a lot of talent. Kudos to these guys.



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Thursday, December 13, 2007

UPS Is Doing Their Part To Save The World!!

Kudos to UPS who has been doing its part recently to save the world. Apparently the mathmaticians who you see in television shows like "Numbers" really do exist and big giant companies like UPS hire them. What UPS has discovered is that sitting around waiting to cross traffic and make a left hand turn is not only annoying it is a waste of time, fuel and money. UPS has implemented a "package flow" software program which has basically recalculated the routes that those big square brown trucks. The program has shaved 38.5 million miles off the delivery routes resulting in about 3 million gallons of gas and has reduced CO2 emissions by 31,000 tons. So for those of you who care about the Global Warming fiasco and saving the Earth feel free to send UPS a thank you letter for not only doing their part to save the environment but also for getting the hell out of the left hand lanes so they aren't clogging it up for you.

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Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Americans Cover Up Gang Rape Of Woman In Iraq

Check out this story from ABC News about a woman who was working in Iraq and was gang raped both vaginally and anally by her coworkers in Baghdad. The woman was drugged, raped and injured, then when she reported the rape her employers notified her that if she tried to seek medical help outside of the camp where she was housed she could plan on never having a job again in Houston or Iraq. Army personnel did a rape kit on her and turned it over to KBR/Haliburton representatives where it promptly disappeared. When this process was over the company she worked for placed her in a shipping container where there was a bed and left her for at least a 24hour period where she could not escape due to being under armed guard. She eventually convinced one of her guards to let her use his cell phone and she went into the container and called her father explaining to him that she had been brutally gang raped and was now being held captive by her employer. Her father called his congressman and immediately after that the congressman made it clear of the importance of rescueing an American citizen from her American employer. Agents from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad were then quickly dispatched to the camp where she was at and she was released from the container. Now, however bad it is and however much Kharma it would bring on - I am definitely a person who believes that there is a place for revenge. I myself have a personal quote: "Revenge is for those of us who don't have the patience to wait for Kharma." I am a big fan of the movie "A Time To Kill" and I am one of those people who when it comes down to the choice between "fight or flight" I am all about the fight. It is an instinctive reaction that comes from deep within me to kill or be killed and I have always reacted to threats on my life, my family/friends lives, and mine/family/freinds physical and financial well being in a way that insures those who threatened our well being do not recover. So call me names, curse me out, do whatever you feel but the men who did this and all who allowed it to be covered up should pay physically in the same manner as this woman has paid if they are found guilty. Go ahead and quote Ghandi and tell me that "An eye for an eye leaves two people blind" and in the mean time I will be learning and brail. The fact of the matter is that I don't see how Haliburton/KBR wouldn't be found guilty. The woman can prove she was raped without having a rape kit, she can prove that regardless if she was raped or not she was wrongfully imprisoned by her own employer and in need of rescueing, and there is proof that her rape kit was done which means that if it is gone there is an obvious reason as to why. With Haliburton and KBR being all over the news for their blatant overspending and wastefullness of supplies - their clear overpayment of all those who work for them, and now the company sanctioned gang rape and cover up I believe that the company should be jerked the hell out of Iraq and their contract lost to the next lowest bidder. Of course, as long as old Georgie is in charge that will never happen. So I suppose all I can do at this point is go to sleep and like little kids every where dream of marshmallows dancing in my head. Of course, my marshmallows are being roasted on the dead carcass of those who would perpetrate violence against someone for their own benefit as opposed to an eye for an eye type payback. I suppose I would reverse this point of view if it was proven that this woman drugged, raped and imprisoned someone before it was done to her.

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Sunday, December 09, 2007

Movies Rock!!! - Who Knew That Today's Musical Pop Artists Could Actually Sing?

Wow. I was proud to see some of the videos on You Tube after this show aired. I am one of the many who has become jaded by the many many musicians who have taken to forgetting about writing or buying music that was written well or was not sampled from somewhere else. Half the music these days is full of the sampled music of some of the greats we were used to hearing as children. It is about time that someone brought out a few musicals into modern times and made "actual music" an important thing once again. I look forward to more "actual singing" of songs which were written in full as opposed to being stolen from somewhere else. It almost brings a tear to this music lover's eye to hear it once again. And for this I'd like to thank those people who made Chicago and brought back the musical in a "not so geeky" way therefore opening the doors to Dream Girls and High School Musical and Hairspray being done in these modern days and times. And I'd like to thank people like Simon for being truly critical of those who are lacking when it comes to true talent. Here are some samples for your enjoyment.

HERE IS BEYONCE SINGING "SOMEWHERE OVER THE RAINBOW"



Wow!!! Who knew Beyonce could sing like that? I knew she could sing and I knew she had a good voice but not until now have I heard her actually sing a song that brings out her voice completely in a way you can actually hear it. The artists you hear these days generally have a bunch of filler music and flash around them for the entertainment of the crowd which in the case of the singer who sings well covers up their voice and in the case of the singer who sings not so well covers up their voice. Either way it's a bad thing I say.

HERE IS USHER PERFORMING "SINGING IN THE RAIN"



Amazing performance!!! That is all you can say about this one. We all knew Usher can sing and dance so this is no surprise but damn I have to say I wish this guy had a million albums. I wonder why he can't be more like 2Pac and have so many recordings that we don't run out even after he is dead.

HERE IS CARRIE UNDERWOOD PERFORMING "THE SOUND OF MUSIC"



Another great performance from someone we knew could sing but would love to hear more often without all the fluff behind her.

HERE IS JENNIFER HUDSON PERFORMING "SOMEWHERE (THERE'S A PLACE FOR US)" FROM WEST SIDE STORY



Again we knew this one could sing and the fact that she didn't win on American Idol shows you just how kids these days care much more for performance, look and show than true talent.

HERE ARE MARY J. BLIGE AND JOHN LEGEND SINGING A SONG FROM CASABLANCA "AS TIME GOES BY (A KISS IS JUST A KISS)"



We knew John Legend could sing because he doesn't bother to hide his true self in his music. He definitely tends to actually sing in his performances. I can't say so much the same for Mary J. Blige. She's not bad but to me she definitely is in flow with the youngster who learns to sing in church and ends up thinking that yelling your voice to a tune means you are a good singer. Singing has a lot more to do with belting your voice out to a million people while hitting a note. You have to be able to harmonize when you're used to leading etc. etc. But she does well and much better than some others I could mention.

HERE IS WILL I AM, BUSTA RHYMES, LL COOL J, & EVE PERFORMING "SHAFT"



This one is decent but not my favorite I have to admit. Truth is it seems this one need the "fluff" of LL, EVE and Busta in order to entertain the crowd because Will I AM is definitely IS NOT!! I do however have to support him because I think there needs to be a place for gays in hip hop and he should be able to be out of the closet with his stuff without his career suffering.

HERE IS NICOLE SCHERZINGER FROM THE PUSSY CAT DOLLS PERFORMS "DIAMONDS ARE A GIRL'S BEST FRIEND"



Very good performance. Happy to see a PussyCat without the Dolls. And the song makes a good point too. Men are fleeting and eventually those louses go back to their spouses so Diamonds are a girl's best friend.

HERE IS FERGIE PERFORMING "LIVE AND LET DIE"



Thank goodness for James Bond, hips and rocker girls!!

HERE IS CHRIS BROWN PERFORMING "JAILHOUSE ROCK"



Of course we knew this little dude could sing and dance and to be honest just the simple hip twists and knee bends of Elvis limit Chris Brown from dancing like he really can.

So there is your little sample of some of the modern singers and the fact that they can sing without having someone behind them rapping, or a bunch of fluffer noise to cover up their voice. (Accept for maybe Will I AM)

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"Islam's Silent Moderates"

Check out this article in the N.Y. Times. This article basically questions the claim that the majority of Muslims are moderates and that the stories we hear so often are about a small group of fundamentalist extremists who does not represent the majority of Islam. The article cites a quote from the Koran "The woman and the man guilty of adultery or fornication, flog each of them with 100 stripes: Let no compassion move you in their case, in a matter prescribed by Allah, if you believe in Allah and the Last Day. (Koran 24:2)" and asks how can anyone follow this verse and also show moderation when the verse and many others like it require the reader to "Let no compassion move you in thier case.... if you believe in Allah and the Last Day". Lately I am inclined to wonder the same thing. In water cooler discussions at work I have frequently heard this claim of the small group of extremists making a bad name for the majority of Islam that is apparently good. In those discussions all I can say is this..... If the majority is compassionate, understanding and moderate then why in the last few weeks have there been so many "majority sanctioned" events bringing a bad light to the Islamic religion and it's followers?

First, you have a 20 year old woman in Saudi Arabia who is kidnapped and brutally raped by several men and yet when it all comes to light in the end the woman is sentenced to 6 months in jail and 200 lashes with a bamboo cane for "mingling" with a male who was not related to her by marriage or blood. When the woman gets out of jail she will likely be killed shortly after as her own brother has already attempted to murder her because of the shame she has brought to the family.

Second, you have a 54 year old female teacher from England was sentenced to jail because as she began a reading lesson in her classroom of small children she gave them the option of naming the teddy bear involved in the lesson and the children chose the name of a much loved prophet as well as many much loved men in their country "Muhammad". What did honoring someone and something they loved with the name of a much loved prophet and man get the children? It got them the lesson of seeing how they had the power to put their teacher in jail for what was twisted into blasphemy against Islam. What a lesson to teach your second grader - immediately your child learns that if you don't do as those who preach your religion to you regardless of how much sense it makes you will be thrown in jail - and the next most immediate thing learned by these little tikes is that they have the power to take something good or that has good intent and twist it to thier will in order to punish those whom they don't like if that is what they choose to do.

Third, you have Taslima Nasreen the Bangladeshi writer who bravely defends the rights of Muslim women worldwide. And what does she get as her reward for wanting equality or at the very least non-violent, logical, and compassionate treatment of women? She gets forced out from her home counry of Bangladesh and ends up having to move to India where there is placed a price for her head of $500,000 rupees. In August she was assulted by Muslim militants in Hyderabad and in recent weeks she has been forced to leave Calcutta, and then Rajasthan. All of this shunning and ostricism for protecting a minority from blatant abuses. This shows the lengths that people will go to in order to be able to continue abuse in the name of Allah without punishment for this violence in any form because they are taught to do these things and believe these things without the consideration of compassion.

It is odd to me that a group of people of any sort whose 'religious texts' require them to obey a God only and not to consider their own thoughts and compassion would obey a book and some men reading it to them instead. This is exactly opposite of what most religious texts require. Most require that you have a personal relationship with the God and that you follow only God's instruction. I find it odd that there is anyone who has the twisted belief that to have a personal relationship with your God you have to go through a middle man interpreter. Why would they not tell you to come to church and read the word of our great prophet who received the ultimate word from God and then go home and pray and meditate and chant your brains out until you yourself receive a message and then you commit whatever acts that message told you to do. The problem with this is that those in charge of various religions can't accept this because it would remove from them two very important things 1- power; 2- money. If we all had the freedom to speak with God directly then we could come back from our private conversations with him and do the same thing as our "clerics" do and twist it to our own benefit without enduring a lot of questions because we claimed that it came from God. Clerics of any religion would pee their pants if this became widely accepted to speak with God yourself instead of with an interpreting cleric. As a matter of fact that is exactly what these clerics of all religions are metaphorically doing is peeing in thier robes. That is why in America gay people, transgendered people and those of color still don't have rights because the religious clerics are the metaphorical dogs pissing on the metaphorical tree of lawmaking in order to show their strength, power and territory. As it is said in Habakkuk 2 in the Christian bible I believe all these people who lift up their own egos while leaving their shrunken souls inside them, becoming victim to their own pride and desire to collect the control of people and countries through bloodshed and violence will eventually get their payback in such a way that makes all of the earth silent in amazement.

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Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Teacher Jailed and Eventually Released in Sudan For Allowing Her Students to Name a Teddy Bear Muhammad

A teacher in a Sudanese school was jailed at the end of November. The teacher was from the UK and was jailed not for killing a child, abusing a child, molesting a child, theft or anything so major. She allowed the children in her class to name a Teddy Bear after someone they had grown to love on a spiritual and personal level in stories of the man who after much trial and tribulation received a message of God's word from an angel and preached the message in Mecca in turn going through more trials and tribulations but eventually being the man who was responsible for the beginnings of Islam. What better way to honor this man - this prophet than to name a character after him? If this wasn't the intent of the children in naming their Teddy Bear after this great prophet then what was their intent? The other option is that they were naming the Bear after some friend or family member with the same name as the prophet. There are many many men across the world with this name and many of them worthy of much love and respect so perhaps this was the reason for the name. Interesting that with the intent of honor it would be against what is accepted by a group of people to honor a prophet by naming something after that prophet. Isn't that what they have been doing since at least the year 632? The name literally means "Praiseworthy" so what is it that makes these babies worthy of praise who are named after a great prophet? Many of the babies named after such a praiseworthy human being grow up to be nothing close to praiseworthy. Some of these men have grown up thinking that women are to be submissive as if they are livestock used for nothing more than the purpose of completing a particular work to meet the needs of men. As if she is property because without equality that is all you can be is someone elses puppet as opposed to a completely contributing individual in your family and society. Many of the men named after this great prophet have created laws which prevent women from associating with men they do not know so that when they are attacked and brutally raped they are treated as criminals instead of victims of a brutal crime. The men (some of them named Muhammad) are given minimal punishment for their rape while the women are punished by being jailed, shunned and in some cases put to death. What would we do if men got raped so brutally I wonder in this society? This society where men named Muhammad can be named after a great prophet and not live up to the name or even come close. All of these attrocities happen on a daily basis and people are up in arms protesting and jailing people for naming a Teddy Bear after a great prophet. Where is the logic in this? If it is offensive to name a Bear Muhammad then it should be offensive to name a man the same unless he has earned the title through great works in his society. Without having gone through similar trials and tribulations, without having traveled and been educated similarly and received similar messages from God how is anyone or anything to be worthy of the name? I say to the people who are opposed to the honor of anyone naming anything after a greatly respected and loved prophet "BE CONSISTENT IN THIS RULE - DON'T ALLOW ANYONE TO BE AWARDED THIS NAME UNTIL THEY HAVE EARNED IT - OR TAKE IT AWAY AND SHUN THEM AS IF THEY HAVE BROKEN A LAW WHEN THEY DON'T LIVE UP TO IT - IF IT IS A NAME WORTHY OF HONOR AND PRAISE THEN WHY NOT TREAT IT THAT WAY AND STOP GIVING THE NAME TO MEN NOT SO WORTHY OF SUCH PRAISE AS THE HONOR OF CARRYING THE NAME OF A PROPHET."

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