Here are some New Year's Resolutions for many of you to rifle through and pick, just in case you haven't thought of any, or if you already quit your diet and/or workout routine, or perhaps even started smoking again: 1. When parking your car next to a grocery cart parking stall (you know those that litter the parking lot at grocery/retail stores), and you know that you need a cart, then pick one up from out there instead of getting a 'fresh' one from inside the store. 2. Take off ...
For quite a few years now, I've been writing in various newpapers, websites, and local publications about the different plights of Africans. I've conveyed how a whole continent has avoided the media unless there is a cause: something to ruffle feathers; something to create a stir in the public eye. I remember writing about the Hutus and Tsutsis and machete-hewn children; Rwandan soil being saturated with the blood of tens of thousands. It stirred the American psyche about as much as a can ...
Blah blah Kerry, blah blah Bush. We tally up our scorecards like this is a boxing match. We glue ourselves to the television screen, and we make crucial mental judgements on the future of our nation, as if the debate depended on it. And doing so we become an official mark for the media. I'm going to demonstrate to you how this debate, on Television, is desensitizing you to your values and original thought... Ladies and Gentlemen, I hate to break this to you, but you have ...
At the risk of throwing a grenade on the horse that has already been shot...after viewing the much anticipated debate between President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry, I've been left with a different taste in my mouth - a flavor that I haven't anticipated, but one that still isn't palatable. Before I digest the debate, let it be known that I had originally tuned into the program for entertainment primarily, as an American voter secondarily. And a David Copperfield was almost p...
Forget about the election mumbo-jumbo in the United States of America. I'm pushing that topic to the side in favor of humanitarian rights and global samaritanism. Once again, there is another catastophe in Africa; one that has been going on for quite some time, but is now only getting some attention, thanks to a combination of civil war, famine, disease, and government crime. I'm mentioning specifically the country of Sudan. Sadly, it is only because of an international pl...
Holy Cow. Not to really drag you through the mud again, but this issue is serious enough to warrant a closer look. If it's NOT a serious issue to you, then life must be nice to watch it whiz by without touching your senses deeply. So, after writing my previous article regarding Bush as a preacher and not a President on the issue of Gay Marriage, I really started to do some homework. And, being a resident of California (see: San Francisco licenses), as well as integrated with close f...
Ok, regardless of whether or not you are conservative Christian, or if you are in the gay community, or even if your best friend or relative is gay, this issue skirts the, well, issue. It doesn't matter what I think, either, and I'll spare you the majority of my own opinion. What I'm talking about is the Separation of Church and State. A wonderful rule, it is. It keeps religious ethics from interfering with logical progression. We all know that some religions progress slowly. The Ro...
Well, here we are again, involved with the battle of Israel and Palestine. Only this time a suicide bomber is immortalized through a piece of artwork in the Stockholm Museum of Antiquities. Last Friday a Jewish man, Zvi Mazel, disonnected cabling that supported lights for a piece of artwork, which caused it to fall into the set. The artwork was a piece of floating paper in a 'boat' with the picture of the deceased Palestinian bomber Hanadi Jaradat. The solution that the boat was floating...
At first I thought I was the only one wondering if there was something amiss with the NAACP and their 'image awards'. Besides their obvious choices for popularity votes in the music industry, it came to light that R. Kelly was one of the recipients. Now, before I get to the obvious implications of this, I have to restress that to be a NON African-American, and to criticize something as sacred as the NAACP is to commit 'humanitarian suicide'. Well, after really reading into this, I'm tired...
The way I look at the situation is this: Whatever platform or political sway you vote for, you are voting on the war. Is that what Bush had in mind previously? Vote for Dubyah, and you concede that deception and power are quality virtues, or at least they are traits that can be overlooked in a World Leader. Vote for Dean or Gen. Clark, and you overturn the sacrifices of our nation in that land called Iraq. My first moral question: Assuming you opposed the war in Iraq, as well as th...
I'm not ashamed to admit it. I'm really wondering what we're doing in Iraq. I mean, news media and political messages aside, I know that Saddam Hussein is an evil man. His regime is guilty of atrocities, and I, personally, am glad to see my Kurdish friends here finally relieved that they are able to go back and help their families rebuild. I'm glad that fellow humans are able to have a better chance at a life that is significantly better, and hopefully longer and more fruitful. I'm glad t...
The military is fast becoming a torn image. They are trying to retain their old values, and keep the tradition of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), and at the same time cater to modern views, which are most certainly influenced by the liberal media. As for me, my opinion doesn't matter, necessarily. What I do know is, the military cannot function on both ends of the spectrum, and expect to achieve a positive or progressive end result. Consider some of their controversial issue...
If any of you have been keeping up with the Japanese and their current events, then you know of the controversial visits of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to the Japanese shrine of the war dead. What is controversial about it, you may ask. China and North Korea continue to express their opinion that Japan owes war reparations and apologies for the atrocities committed by Japanese troops during and before World War II. Koizumi was quoted by Reuters to say, in response to his visit to the shr...
Maybe I ought to clarify a few things, just to remedy a few misunderstandings. Earlier, while writing an article on how the Book of Revelations was coming to California, I made a poke at 'a plague of immigrants', which seemed to be misconstrued to some folks as a 'lack of value for human life'. Not true at all. In fact, I've donated a lot of time and work into contributing to my neighborhood via volunteer work and through education and service to others. And that was regardless of who was in...
Are you proud of the year that has passed us on by? Or are you living vicariously through somebody else's year? Perhaps you judge whether or not a year was successful on behalf of George W. Bush. Or maybe this year's music awards gave everything away to hip-hop and R&B stars, and you swear, just SWEAR this nation's music scene is going to hell in a handbasket. Maybe you are disheartened by the amount of troops that have died in the line of fire, or maybe your cable television programming con...