A Thought Before I Leave You

"I'll leave it right there.....Happy New Years...Maybe we'll all do better."- Keith

Keith's Favorite Quotes

Clear And Present Danger

HAPPY BLOGOVERSARY!

I can't believe it!  Seven Years...Seven Years In .!!! Seven Years since I started this blog and I'm surprisingly enough still writing this and two other blogs!  Here's to seven more!

Weekend Humor

After nearly 2 years of marriage, a couple was lying in bed one evening, when the wife felt her husband, begin to massage her in ways he hadn't in quite some time.

It almost tickled as his fingers started at her neck, and then began moving down past the small of her back. He then caressed her shoulders and neck, slowly worked his hand down, stopping just over her stomach.
He then proceeded to place his hand on her left inner arm, working down her side, passing gently over her buttock and down her leg to her calf.

Then, he proceeded up her thigh, stopping just at the uppermost portion of her leg. He continued in the same manner on her right side, then suddenly stopped, rolled over and became silent.
As she had become quite aroused by this caressing, she asked in a loving voice, ''Honey, that was wonderful. Why did you stop?''
 
To which he responded:

"I found the remote."

Everybody have a super groovy weekend!

MERRY CHRISTMAS !

All Life Matters

8-years ago, CHP Officer Kevin Briggs talked this young man out of jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge.

That young man's name is Kevin Berthia.
Today he is 30 years old and married with 2 children.
This week he presented Officer Briggs with an award on behalf of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

The story of how Officer Briggs talked Kevin down is remarkable.

As you can see in the picture, Kevin is literally one step away from jumping to his death. But for more than hour, the officer listened to Kevin pour his heart out about his troubles and told him, “I know you think things are bad, but they can get better.”

Kevin says, “Officer Briggs never made me feel guilty for the situation I was in. He made feel like, I understand why you are here, but there are alternatives”

Kevin is just one of countless lives Briggs has saved over his 23 year career.

Briggs, who was promoted to Sergeant five years ago, is humble about what he does. He says, ”they make the decision, when they step back over that rail it takes a tremendous amount of courage”

I salute Sergeant Briggs!-


-Julie Haener


I post this to say..All Life Matters, Black Lives, Blue lives, Yellow Lives, Brown Lives, Red Lives, White Lives...


Life Matters

Viva Havana

I was one years old in 1959 ,when Fidel Castro took over Cuba and made it a Communist State, running the gangsters, prostitutes ,crooked politicians (hard to tell the difference) and all of the others out and breaking relations with the United States..

I think I was three when President Kennedy launched the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba and four when The U.S. and the then Soviet Union nearly came to war during the Cuban Missile crisis....

So The U.S. and Cuba have not had normal diplomatic relations my entire life until now!

Last week President Obama voted to normalize relations with Cuba.....Something that hasn't existed for 55 years...

A political standoff that spanned five decades and 10 presidents began to crumble Wednesday with President Barack Obama's move to normalize relations with Cuba.

The announcement was the product of a year of clandestine back-channelling between the U.S. and Cuba, facilitated by the Canadians and the Vatican and with personal involvement from the Pope.

"Today, America chooses to cut loose the shackles of the past, so as to reach for a better future for the Cuban people, for the American people, for our entire hemisphere and for the world," President Obama said in a statement announcing his decision.

He added: "It's time for a new approach." Yes it is.

President Obama said he's instructed Secretary of State John Kerry to immediately begin discussions with Cuba to re-establish diplomatic relations, and that the U.S. will re-open an embassy in Havana. The administration will also allow some travel and trade that had been banned under a decades-long embargo instated during the Kennedy administration.

"Neither the American nor Cuban people are well-served by a rigid policy that's rooted in events that took place before most of us were born,"  President Obama said.

President Obama's move risks triggering another fight with Congress, which will come under the full control of Republicans in January.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, told CNN's Wolf Blitzer he would do everything in his power to block any potential U.S. ambassador to Cuba even receive a vote.

He also called the easing of economic restrictions "inexplicable" in a statement.

"Appeasing the Castro brothers will only cause other tyrants from Caracas to Tehran to Pyongyang to see that they can take advantage of President Obama's naiveté during his final two years in office. As a result, America will be less safe as a result of the President's change in policy," he said. Oh Go somewhere and take a seat Rubio.

Senator Rubio promised that as the incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Western Hemisphere subcommittee, he'll "make every effort to block this dangerous and desperate attempt by the President to burnish his legacy at the Cuban people's [sic] expense."

Can we get rid of the Republican Party? Please.

Speaking at the same time as President Obama from his own country, Cuban President Raul Castro lauded the move.

"This expression by President Barack Obama deserves the respect and recognition by all the people and I want to thank and recognize support from the Vatican and especially from Pope Francis for the improvement of relations between Cuba and the United States," he said.

President Obama's announcement comes as both nations have released political prisoners in a show of goodwill, with American Alan Gross headed home on "humanitarian" grounds from Cuba early Wednesday morning. In a separate swap, a U.S. intelligence source held for 20 years was released in exchange for three jailed Cuban spies.

President Obama said he and Castro spoke Tuesday in a phone call that lasted about an hour and reflected the first communication at the presidential level with Cuba since the Cuban revolution.

But some Republicans are warning the move will only strengthen the Castro regime in Cuba, which has long been accused of human rights abuses and is listed by the State Department as a state sponsor of terrorism.

President Obama said Wednesday he has instructed John Kerry, however, to review Cuba's place on the State Sponsors of Terrorism list.

 Wednesday's announcement that the U.S. will move toward restoring diplomatic ties with Cuba will also make it easier for Americans to travel to Cuba and do business with the Cuban people by extending general licenses, officials said. While the more liberal travel restrictions won't allow for tourism, they will permit greater American travel to the island.

If Jay-Z and Beyonce can go...I want to go too!  I'm all for this new move! Viva Havana baby!

An Eye For An Eye (Leaves All Of Us Blind)

Last Night...Two New York City Police Officers were murdered in Brooklyn...Shot ,while sitting in their patrol car by a deranged assailant , who then shot and killed himself...

He alledgedly shot and killed the two innocents in retaliation for the deaths of Mike Brown and Eric Garner at the hands of police in seperate incidents this summer..

This is not the way to get justice...This was just terrible..Two more innocents lost their lives in New York City last night....

This grieves me to my soul....and I felt I had to write something about this...

I do not endorse this type of action....Not EVER!... I am not anti-police...I know and am related to a lot of great police officers who serve and protect the way they are supposed to and it's a shame that one crazy deranged man allowed the bad apples to cloud his judgement and thus make him no better than the two killer
cops...

I'm just shaking my head...So much violence....So much hatred...So little understanding...and almost no dialouge...Everybody just returns to their tribe....and the truth gets blotted out!

II-
A man who posted anti-police rantings on the Internet ambushed and shot to death two New York City police officers at they sat in their patrol car Saturday, authorities said.

"Two of New York's finest were shot and killed with no warning, no provocation," Police Commissioner William J. Bratton said. "They were quite simply assassinated—targeted for their uniform."
The officers were identified as Rafael Ramos, 40, who was married with a 13-year-old son, and Wenjin Liu, who was married a few months ago.

Commissioner Bratton, speaking at a news conference Saturday night, said the gunman took a shooting stance on the passenger's side of the patrol car and fired several times, striking both officers in the head.


The gunman fled to a subway station and shot himself in the head, Bratton said. He was taken to a Brooklyn hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The gunman also shot and seriously wounded his girlfriend in Baltimore County, Md., on Saturday morning, Bratton said. County detectives received information from the victim's family that the man had associations in Brooklyn and could be going there. Maryland authorities sent a wanted flier about the man to New York at 2:45.

"Tragically, this was essentially at the same time that our officers were being ambushed and murdered," Bratton said.

The shooting, which occurred around 2:50 p.m. outside a housing project, comes amid heightened tension between New York police and activists who have held nearly nightly marches to protest what they say is police brutality.


The marches began in July after the death of an unarmed man, Eric Garner, following an altercation with Staten Island police officers.
A grand jury declined to indict the officer involved, who was accused of using a banned chokehold on Eric Garner.

Last month, more protests erupted after a police officer fatally shot Akai Gurley, an unarmed man, in a stairwell of a Brooklyn housing project. Police said the shooting was an accident.

Tension between New York police and protesters crested last week when officials say two officers were attacked by protesters marching across the Brooklyn Bridge. One of the officers suffered a broken nose. Four people so far have been arrested in connection with the incident and face charges ranging from assault to rioting. More people are being sought.

 The last officer shot to death on duty in New York was Peter J. Figoski, who died in December 2011. Earlier this year, Officer Dennis Guerra died of injuries suffered while responding to a fire.

III-

I think people ,at least in New York City on both sides need a cooling off period...I fear things are going to get worse and escalate because of this, even though the perpatrator is dead...

 I'm just shaking my head...So much violence....So much hatred...So little understanding...and almost no dialouge..This was bound to happen sooner or later...

My heart goes out to the spouses and families of those two police officers.

An Eye for an Eye leaves all of us blind!

I Don't Hear Anybody....

Keith's Favorite Quotes

Weekend Humor

Wife: "Ouu Honey I want you to whisper dirty things in my ear!'"

 Husband: " Dirty Kitchen, Dirty living room, laundry,  dirty dining room...."


Everybody have a groovy weekend!

Another Word From Our Sponser

Make Sure you read the words in the above photo carefully.....Make sure you understand!

This was written by the man in the photo- Andrew Hawkins...If you're not a sports fan and a football fan,I don't expect you to know who he is...Andrew Austin Wyatt Hawkins is a football player ,a wide receiver for the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League..

The Police departments of Ferguson,Missouri and Cleveland ,Ohio are up in arms about the fact that he and several African-American athletes in both the NFL and NBA have been showing their support  of the mounting protests of police brutality and the murder of young black men recently...

This shouldn't just be about Black and White...this should be a human rights issue...but read the words...This is what he had to say in response to their protest of him exercising his first amendment rights...To free speech and expression...

 
"To clarify, I utterly respect and appreciate every police officer that protects and serves all of us with honesty, integrity and the right way. And I don’t think those kind of officers should be offended by what I did. My mom taught me my entire life to respect law enforcement. I have family, close friends that are incredible police officers and I tell them all the time how they are much braver than me for it. So my wearing a T-shirt wasn’t a stance against every police officer or every police department. My wearing the T-shirt was a stance against wrong individuals doing the wrong thing for the wrong reasons to innocent people. Black Lives matter."

I couldn't write or say this any eloquently than what this brother just said.

You know...A lot of people get mad when certain people exercise their rights to free speech and expression in this country....and the same people get mad and hide behind their right to free speech when THEY get called on the carpet for something THEY said....

I've heard some trolls on the internet and social media say that they are "tired" of Black people playing the victim card and screaming racism.....

Well...I'm tired of BEING A VICTIM and living under racism...You're tired of hearing about it...Try living under and being a victim of it...Not just brutal acts...but institutional and cultural racism that is so ingrained in our society that none of us...It's victims and it's perpatrators even notices just how much it affects us.

Makes My Head Explode

Let me first say that I am no fan of North Korean Strongman, Kim Jong Un....I hear the little dictator is a tyrant....But I am also no fan of American filmakers at Sony who released the film-"The Interview"...A comedy in which two half wits are hired by the CIA to murder him....

Can you imagine how we Americans would react if say the Soviets or the Chinese or any country made a movie in which an American Head of State (other than Barack Obama) was murdered...Even in jest?

This is the height of American Arrogance....

And as a result...Even though it hasn't been proven...It appears Sony's corporate website was hacked and a lot of embarrassing emails were released to the public which has the corporation and it's execs apologizing on top of each other...

It has me laughing my ass off...Serves them right...

In case you've been living under a rock or more concerned about Bill Cosby's mis-adventures...Here is basically what happened..

When Sony Pictures began casting last year for a new comedy to be called “The Interview,” early scripts included the assassination of a fictionalized North Korean ruler. It was not until auditions began that actors learned that the movie would portray something much more brazen: the violent killing of the actual leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un.

Sony’s executives now say they knew that basing a film on the assassination of a living national leader — even a ruthless dictator — had inherent risks. But the studio seems to have gotten much more than it bargained for by bankrolling what it hoped would be an edgy comedy.

 

The still very-much-alive Mr. Kim, the leader of an isolated and unpredictable nuclear-armed nation, appears not to have been amused when the premise of the comedy became clear. North Korea branded the $40 million film, to be released on Dec. 25, “an act of war” and vowed a “resolute and merciless response.”

 

Then, last month, hackers unleashed one of the most punishing cyberattacks on a major corporation in recent memory, pilfering private emails, detailed summaries of executive salaries, and even digital copies of several unreleased Sony films that they posted online. It remains a mystery who was responsible.

 

Suspicion has fallen on Mr. Kim’s Bureau 121, an elite cyberunit, or patriotic hackers. But experts say pro-North Korea messages left behind could be a ruse to cover the hackers’ real tracks.

 

What is clear is that by deciding to go ahead with the film, Sony stumbled into a geopolitical mess complete with all the elements of a Hollywood thriller: international intrigue, once imperious, now humiliated, film executives, strong-willed leading men and highly sophisticated cyberattackers.

 

The studio’s first miscalculation, film experts say, was in venturing beyond where big-budget moviemakers dared to go in the past.

 

“The gory killing of a sitting foreign leader is new territory for a big studio movie,” said Jeanine Basinger, a professor of film studies at Wesleyan University.

 

From early on, “The Interview” seemed to pit the sensibilities of filmmakers in the United States, where the portly North Korean leader with the cherubic looks has been a target of easy humor, against those of Sony executives in Japan, where he is reviled but taken deadly seriously.

 

While many Americans seem to see North Korea as too distant to keep them awake at night, many Japanese see it as a very visible threat. Until three decades ago, North Korean agents occasionally snatched people off beaches in neighboring Japan to serve as Japanese-language teachers, and long-range North Korean rockets on test runs still fly ominously over Japan’s main islands.

 

Disturbed by North Korean threats at a time when his company was already struggling, Sony’s Japanese chief executive, Kazuo Hirai, broke with what Sony executives say was a 25-year tradition. He intervened in the decision making of his company’s usually autonomous Hollywood studio, Sony Pictures Entertainment.

 

According to hacked emails published by other media and interviews with people briefed on the matter, he insisted over the summer that a scene in which Mr. Kim’s head explodes when hit by a tank shell be toned down to remove images of flaming hair and chunks of skull.

 

In the emails, he also asked that even the less bloody shot not be shown outside the United States. A final decision on how the assassination scene will be rendered in overseas release has not been made, a person briefed on the film’s international roll out said Sunday.

 

Hollywood films have mocked North Korea and its leaders before. In 2004, “Team America: World Police,” a feature film made with puppets, portrayed Kim Jong-il, the father of the current leader, as a lonely but sadistic despot who eventually turned into a cockroach.

 

But with “The Interview,” from the casting calls onward, Sony studio executives in the United States seemed aware that they were treading into a sensitive new area.

 

“In the original version of the script that I got, it wasn’t Kim Jong-un,” Randall Park, who was cast in the role, told bloggers invited to the Vancouver set last year. “But I was told right before my audition that it was going to be Kim Jong-un.”

 

Whether the switch reflected a possible alternate creative direction, or was the result of an effort to keep an incendiary element of the movie quiet, is unclear.

 

A Sony spokesman declined to comment. But some in the film industry said the film’s co-directors, Evan Goldberg and the actor Seth Rogen, were trying to push creative boundaries, and that Sony allowed them to do so in part to keep them from going to a rival studio.

 

“That was always the whole point,” said one agent familiar with “The Interview” from its earliest stages, speaking on the condition of anonymity to preserve ties to Sony. “Buried inside that comedy is a really sharp geopolitical satire.”

In the movie, two American journalists are recruited by the C.I.A. to kill the North Korean leader.

 

Experts on North Korean society said that it would not be much of a surprise if the country was behind the hacking, which it appeared to delight in even as it denied involvement.

 

“In Korean culture, there is a real need to protect your leader’s dignity,” said Toshimitsu Shigemura, an expert on North Korea at Waseda University in Tokyo who believes that North Korea probably had at least an indirect hand in Sony’s hacking woes. “The North Korean leader’s subordinates were probably desperate to make some sort of gesture, in order to both prove their loyalty and to save their own skins.”

 

(Mr. Kim, after all, had his own uncle executed in a struggle for power and is reported to maintain an extensive network of brutal gulags for those who displease him.)

 

The hacked emails that have been published paint a picture of a corporation torn between trying to be respectful of artistic license, while also trying to prevent the film from being too inflammatory.

 

After pressure from Mr. Hirai, the emails show, Amy Pascal, co-chairwoman of Sony Pictures, repeatedly pressed Mr. Rogen to soften “The Interview’s” climactic assassination scene.

 

“You have to appreciate the fact that we haven’t just dictated to you what it had to be,” Ms. Pascal wrote in September to Mr. Rogen. “Given that I have never gotten one note on anything from our parent company in the entire 25 years that I have worked for them.”

 

According to the emails and a person briefed on the matter, Mr. Hirai inserted himself into the film’s editing after North Korean officials, apparently having seen promotional materials last summer, called the film “an act of war.” In one email, Mr. Hirai approves a newly altered assassination shot that had “no face melting, less fire in the hair, fewer embers on the face and the head explosion has been considerably obscured by the fire.”

 

At one point in the tug of war over the script, Mr. Rogen weighed in with an angry email to Ms. Pascal. “This is now a story of Americans changing their movie to make North Koreans happy,” he wrote. “That is a very damning story.”

 

How about if they had done the movie at all...or made it a fictionalized movie?  That would have seemed like the right thing to do...And I wonder if in all this posturing to be edgy if they would have made a movie about Vladmir Putin....Who we DO TAKE VERY SERIOUSLY...being murdered???? I wonder...

 

Other published emails and interviews show Michael Lynton, chief executive of Sony Pictures, stepping in to distance “The Interview” from its Japanese owner after North Korea’s initial blowback last June. In particular, Mr. Lynton pushed staff members to remove the word “Sony” from promotional materials, including billboards and trailers, and from the end credit crawl.

 

Sony also decided not to release the R-rated film in Asia, but executives at the studio said the decision had been made largely because crudely irreverent humor does not translate easily, particularly in the more culturally conservative societies in the region. Still, the studio was aware that the raw geopolitical content would make booking the film even more difficult, according to Sony executives interviewed in recent days who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the nature of the discussion.

 

Some analysts speculated that Sony might have been pressured to tone down the film by the Japanese government, which is in delicate negotiations with the North to discover the fate of more than a dozen Japanese abducted by North Korean agents in the 1970s and 1980s. However, many say the Sony chief executive intervened because he was alarmed by the very public — and possibly private — threats being hurled by the Kim regime.

 

“Such threats against a specific company by a sovereign state were so shocking and unusual that it is natural for the top to want to get involved,” said Tomoichiro Kubota, an analyst at Matsui Securities in Tokyo who specializes in Sony.

 

In the end, the Sony edits might not have had the desired effect. Although they did not specifically mention “The Interview,” the hackers demand that Sony not release what they call “the movie of terrorism.”

 

I hate to say this...but I agree with them....I remember sitting in the theatre with my wife watching the preview of this movie and shaking my head....

 

"They can not be serious..." I thought...

 

Unfortunately...They were.

Weekend Humor

Three dead guys are in line waiting to get into heaven.

Before they go in, St. Peter asks them how did they die.

So he asks the first man and the first man says,

"Well I've suspected for a while that my wife had been cheating on me with another man so I came home early from work on purpose. When I got back to the apartement she was lying naked in bed like she had just been having sex. So I checked under the bed and there was no one there. I checked in the closet and there was no one there, so I looked on the balcony and there was some guy hanging from the railing. I got so angry I beat his hands until he fell, then I ran back in the apartement, grabbed the refridgerator, brought it back out, and dropped over the railing right on top of him. Then I was so mad I had a heart attack and died and came here." 

 
St. Peter said, "It sounds like you've had it rough, so I'll let you in." 
 
The next man walks up and gets asked the same question. 

So this man says, "I was in my apartement when I slipped and fell over the railing. I was able to grab onto the railing of the apartement below me but then this guy starts pounding on my fists until I fall. Then he goes and dumps this refrigerator on me and I wound up here." 

St. Peter lets this guy in too because he has also had it rough. 

Then the third guy comes up and is also asked the question. 

This guy replies, "Okay, so I'm banging this married chick when the husband comes home early. So I go and hide in the refrigerator..."

 Everybody have a groovy weekend!

Who Is the Real Thug?

Take a good look at the man in this photo...Would you look at him and think he is a triple murderer?  No you probably wouldn't....

But I digress...Let me tell you about him...

His name is Eric Williams and he is on trial for murder in the state of Texas....

Here is why he is so important...He killed the Prosecutor of Kaufman County in Texas and his wife and also killed the assistant prosecutor...

Yes..This man pictured above...

  Not only did he ruthlessly kill Michael "Mike" McClelland, 63, the  the Prosecutor of Kaufmann County and his wife Cynthia, 65, but also the assistant prosecutor, Mark Hasse.  Hasse was ruthlessly gunned in the street in January, 2013, while walking home. The McClellands were callously shot down like dogs in their home in March of the same year.

All three, were viciously butchered  by this large, ugly brute who calls himself Eric Williams.  It goes without saying he was a felon who had a prior record of burglary and theft.  Yet somehow he had amassed a veritable arsenal of weapons as prosecutors during the penalty phase of his triall revealed:

On Tuesday afternoon, prosecutors assembled the arsenal of weapons found in Williams’ storage unit in the courtroom. The guns were displayed on three wooden racks in the middle of the courtroom, 42 handguns in the middle and 22 long guns flanking each side.

In front of the racks were boxes of ammunition — thousands of rounds were recovered — and a crossbow. Bullets were loose in bags, as well as still packaged in boxes.

Yes...the man pictured above is the face of the killer of these three upstanding citizens, a true animal (if I may say so) with no sense of morality and little if any respect for human life.

He got a trial.  He lived to get a trial is more important. He wasn't shot by the police when they went to arrest him.  Sure he didn't steal "cigars" (allegedly) or sell loose cigarettes in public.  Williams wasn't caught carrying a toy air rifle around Walmart (John Crawford) or playing with a BB gun in a park (Tamir Rice) or dressing up like his favorite Anime character (Darrien Hunt).  He only stole county equipment and hoarded enough guns to arm a small militia.  

Unlike the young men and boys listed above, no one had to gin up evidence of his wicked character, or post facto justifications for why he should be killed by officers of the state.   I'll bet I'm the only person to label him a "thug" or a "brute" or an "animal."

 That's because the use of those terms have been reserved for young African American males of late.  These terms, such as thug, are acceptable code words for a certain racial slur that starts with the letter N.  They are used to reinforce racial stereotypes among whites regarding African Americans - that we are criminals, a brutish, dangerous, amoral, drug infested  people who represent a threat to civil society.

So while Eric Williams is one sick, evil SOB, he does have the color of his skin going for him.  You won't hear of any Fox News host or right wing radio jocks calling him a thug. They probably won't mention this guy at all, and if they do, there won't be any discussion of white on white crime...Like they have when the victim is Black and killed by a white gun toting citizen or policemen.  They sure as hell won't touch the subject of his gun collection, which we know  is every white American's God given right under the second amendment.  

White people with strong political agenda can walk around the street and in stores carrying their semiautomatic "long guns" and nothing happens to them. The Black Panthers tried that...If you're old enough...You know what happened to them...Fred Hampton anybody???

A drunken, angry white man stand outs in the street pointing a loaded rifle at passersby, and law enforcement treats him with respect and spend as much time as they need to "de-escalate the situation."  Black boys play in an empty park with a fake gun, or carry a fake samurai sword and get shot shortly after police arrive on the scene.

And let's not forget the masses of white men who took their guns to Cliven Bundy's Ranch in Nevada to protect the rights of a common criminal. They threatened and intimidated local law enforcement, Federal officials and the people of Clark County, but not one of Bundy's numerous supporters who endangered the lives of everyone withing the range of their high powered rifles was arrested or charged with a crime, much less fired upon by law enforcement - with the possible exception for Jerad and Amanda Miller who were kicked out of the Bundy compound and then went on a shooting spree in Las Vegas, killing two police officers and an armed civilian at a local Walmart before killing themselves.

So, people, who are the real thugs?  The armed white people who shoot to kill, such as Mr. Eric Williams, pictured above or the unarmed black men and boys killed by police and left to die?  Michael Brown, Eric Garner, John Crawford, Darrien Hunt, Tamir Rice and so many more have been labeled "thugs," their reputations smeared in the National news media.  In the case of 12 year-old Tamir Rice, his parents' past history and their alleged bad parenting were blamed for his death by cop. Protestors in Ferguson and elsewhere these past few months have been described as looters, rioters, criminals, et cetera, who deserved the massive militarized police response to what were primarily peaceful protests.

Words matter.  They define how we interpret events, and how we judge the character and actions of individuals.  They reinforce existing bias, prejudice and stereotypes.  They justify violence against innocent people when those people are labeled with words that have negative and sinister connotations.  Native Americans in were constantly called savages in the 19th century.  European Jews in the 20th century were labeled cockroaches and vermin.  African Americans, especially males, in the 21st Century are now called "thugs."  Words that dehumanize their subjects.  Words that lead to fear and loathing.  Words that make it easier to kill and/or tolerate, and in some quarters of our society celebrate, the deaths of those so named.

Words like "Thug" for instance....So I ask you..Who are the real thugs?

Keith's Favorite Quotes

Coded Language?

I Can't Breathe

Every day now I sit and I wonder just how the mind of conservative White Americans work...I'm talking about the type who get all of their news and facts from FOX News, Rush Limbaugh,Sean Hannity and their ilk...

Just how do they think?

Why is it that I as an African-American and they can look at the film footage of Eric Garner and see two different things?   I see a man being taken down by the police who actually was not posing a threat and who did not throw a single blow and they see a big black scary boogey man who was breaking the law and deserved to be killed by the police officer...

I know they saw that he was outnumbered  five to one ...and I know that they saw after he was down, an over zealous cop put a headlock on this guy, while another cop had his knee on his head...

I know they heard the man say eleven times...ELEVEN TIMES..."I can't breathe, I can't breathe, I can't breathe...I can't breathe, I can't breathe, I can't breathe..I can't breathe...I can't breathe, I can't breathe,
I can't breathe......I   cant.......................................................................................................................
breathe!"

But that was of no consequence to them....You know of course how tricky those people can be!!.....

They still saw a big scary black boogey man...

What they didn't see....and this is important now is...a human being....

They didn't a husband...He had a wife...They didn't see a father...He had children....They didn't see a grandfather...He had grandchildren....

All Eric Garner was , was a scary black man who was breaking the law by selling loose cigarettes on the street who did not obey the officer and who lost his life because he did not obey...

You know I even heard some idiot State Senator from New York say that Eric Garner died because he was "obese and out of shape..." How bout he died because his windpipe was blocked and his chest compressed??? How about that??

Doesn't matter now....Once again a predominately white grand jury has refused to indict a police officer for whatever reason....

I wonder how this would have gone down had Eric Garner been white ,under the same circumstances and a bunch of Black officers had done this to him?

I don't even have to speculate....They would be under the jail by now!

That jury would have seen a human being...One of their own...brutalized by some scary black men in uniform.

I think if Eric Garner had been white and the same officers were involved...They still would have at least been indicted.

Every now and then I listen to Right Wing Radio and I glance at Fox News...for as long as I can stand it...I heard some idiot say that the racial tensions we have is President Obama's "plot to divide US as a nation." 

I think they would blame the Ice Age on President Obama if they could, but most of them are so stupid they have probably never heard of the Ice Age....but I digress....

A plot to divide US as a nation?  Like we were ever a truly united nation to begin with? Really?  When I heard that..I had to laugh and then turn the station...

Some people actually think that we had no race problems until Barack Obama became President....No..Nobody was talking about race that much until he became President...People weren't arrogantly and boldly showing their racism the way they unashamedly do now until he became President and some of you white people lost your freakin minds....No..they weren't..but we've had a race problem....We've had one since the first African slaves arrived in this country to work for free......Talk about taking handouts...

This country was built on the enslavement of the African and the near genocide of the Native American or "Indian" as they like to call them....We've had a race problem.....It's always been the elephant in the room that nobody wants to acknowledge until Ferguson happens, Until Trayvon Martin happens,Until Eric Garner happens...

Some people say...Oh get over it...This is Post Racial America..Why are you guys always pulling the race card?  I'm tired of hearing about racism....

As Jon Stewart said...If you're tired of hearing about it....Just imagine how the victims of it are tired of living it?

This race thing depresses me and angers me so much at the same time that-

"I can't breathe"

Weekend Humor

A mailman who had delivered mail to this neighborhood was finally retiring after 30 long years. So on his last day each house had little gifts for him to show him how much they cared, the first house he came to gave him a gift basket full off food, the next house gave him some baked goods and so on.

Then he comes up to this one house and standing in the doorway is this gorgeous woman and she is wearing nothing but this little neglige' She takes the mailman by the hand and leads him upstairs where she gives him the best and the longest sex that he has ever had. 

Man talk about every fantasy fulfilled. After that she walks him downstairs and fixes him a wonderful breakfast. After he finishes he sees a dollar bill under his water glass so he asks about it. She says, "Well I was telling my husband that today was your last day and asked him what we should do for you and he says Screw Him, Give him a dollar."

Everybody Have a Groovy Weekend!

What Does It Take?

What does it take for a predominately white grand jury to indict a cop or anybody white for that matter for the murder and or brutalization of a black man?...

Is it racist for me to ask this?

A few weeks ago a Ferguson Grand Jury refused to indict Officer Darren Wilson in the murder of Mike Brown, who was unarmed...

Now A grand Jury in Staten Island, New York has refused to indict the officer that choked this man to death..

Again I ask..What Does It Take?  Why is the black male victim always villified in death? Why do these juries always tend to beleive the worst about black males and always give the white officer the benefit of the doubt...

They gave George Zimmerman the benefit of the doubt in the Trayvon Martin case...They had to have two trials before Micheal Dunn was convicted of killing Jordan Davis in Jacksonville....

What is it?

A Staten Island grand jury has voted not to bring criminal charges in the death of Eric Garner, a black man who died after being placed in a chokehold by a white police officer.

 

The decision was reached on Wednesday after months of testimony, including from the officer who used the chokehold, Daniel Pantaleo. The grand jury reached its decision less than two weeks after a grand jury in Ferguson, Mo., declined to bring charges against a white officer who fatally shot an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown.

 

For days, the New York Police Department has been readying for a new round of protests, which first began in the city after the Ferguson decision and were expected to continue and possibly grow if the grand jury declined to bring charges against the officer.

 

Mayor Bill de Blasio, saying that it was a “deeply emotional day” for the Garner family and all New Yorkers, acknowledged that many people would not agree with the grand jury’s decision.

 

That's putting it lightly...

 

The officer at the center of the Staten Island case released a statement offering the family of Mr. Garner his sympathies.

 

“I became a police officer to help people and to protect those who can’t protect themselves,” Officer Pantaleo said. “It is never my intention to harm anyone and I feel very bad about the death of Mr. Garner. My family and I include him and his family in our prayers and I hope that they will accept my personal condolences for their loss.”

 

Jonathan C. Moore, a lawyer for the Garner family, said they hoped that federal prosecutors would continue to examine the case, and he urged people upset by the decision to voice their dismay, but to do so peacefully.

 

“We’re astounded by the outcome of the grand jury process and that after hearing months of evidence and having deliberated that they would find no true bill as to any potential criminal charge,” Mr. Moore said in a brief phone interview.

“It’s very upsetting to us – we obviously hope that the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District, Loretta Lynch, will take a close look at this.”

 

In Ferguson, protesters and police officers clashed in the streets almost immediately after Mr. Brown’s killing by Officer Darren Wilson in August; riots erupted on the night the grand jury’s decision was announced last month. By contrast, in late August, a demonstration on Staten Island over the death of Mr. Garner, 43, proceeded without confrontation or arrest.

 

Police Commissioner William J. Bratton, speaking at a news conference earlier Wednesday, said that he expected any protests to be peaceful and that the police were prepared to deal with anyone seeking to cause trouble.

 

I can't blame people for being frustrated beyond belief with this....It seems like there is open season on black men and all you have to do is say you were afraid for your life and Grand Juries and more than likely th white public will believe it...

 

Take race out of the equation and I wonder how different the scenario would be!

 

What Does it Take?

Keith's Favorite Quotes

What I've Learned

1.Poverty taught me not to worry about Money.

2.Never wear clothes with the sole purpose of making people notice you. (My Aunt Jean taught me that.)

3.If You live five years...Modern Medicine will come up with so much that you'll be able to live another five years....

4.With age, your fears diminish because your memory fades and you forget what it was you were afraid of.

5.The more mistakes you make, the more you learn...

6. If you're smart...A set back is a lesson on how to eventually succeed.

7.My cousin who we call Poncho said something inspiring to me a few years. ago.He said.."Life should always be about more than chasing a dollar."  I never forgot that...

8.I have since lived for the special moments..A child's first steps...a child's first words...You can't pay for that...That's priceless.

9.It always helps to get a little guidance....Especially if you don't know what the hell you're doing.

10.Give Up your Grudges...Life is too short.

PEACE!

About Class~!

Hmmmmm.....Is that Elizabeth Lauten?   The Press Secretary for some Republican Congressman who told the daughters of  President Obama to have some class and not to dress like they were headed to a bar........Like she is here in this photo....Ohhhh,Okay!