Saturday, January 31, 2015
Friday, January 30, 2015
Weekend Humor
He said there would be no excuses for not showing up tomorrow, barring a dire medical condition or an immediate family member's death.
One smart ass, male student said, "What about extreme sexual exhaustion?", and the whole classroom burst into laughter.
After the laughter had subsided, the teacher glared at the student, and said, "Not an excuse, you can use your other hand to write."
Everybody have a super groovy weekend!
Thursday, January 29, 2015
Death Of A White Girl
Now before my detractors get started..I am not anti-Police...Not in the least bit..I like cops....It's hard being a cop having to deal daily with the worst possible human behavior and waking up everyday just wanting to be able to come home alive...I get it!
I appreciate the millions of great police officers and law enforcement personell who protect and serve and who do the job professionally everyday and put their lives on the line for us all..
But in the wake of the very unnecessary deaths of Eric Garner, Sean Bell, Mike Brown and others, all unarmed young black males this summer and the almost unanimous decisions by grand juries to do nothing to the offending policemen involved...It was only inevitable that eventually the victims would cease to be African-American and eventually be White....
What I want to know is how will America respond to this?
Here is what is known-
Just after sunset last Thursday, 17-year-old Kristiana Coignard entered a police station in Longview, Texas, a small city two hours east of Dallas with a history of police violence not all that different from the rest of the United States – but no less mysterious.
The teenager may have been “wielding a knife”, this,according to the mayor. Police say “they were confronted by a white female who threatened them” – after which she brandished some sort of weapon, “made threatening movements toward the officers and was shot”. Motives on either side are still relatively unknown. A Phone? What, Were they near sighted??
What is clear, nearly a week later in Longview, Texas and six months after police killings and community relations starting coming under renewed scrutiny across the US, is that another teenager has died after being shot “multiple times” by local cops.
The Three officers involved are on paid leave, the Longview police told the Guardian. A preliminary autopsy report has ruled the death a homicide. So was Eric Garners and a grand jury in New York City,still did not indict the policeman responsible for putting him in a choke hold and killing him.
And in the case of Kristiana Coignard, as in what both advocates and sheriffs agree constitute more than half of US police killings each year, the victim appears to have had mental health problems.
Call it “justifiable homicide”: FBI statistics counted 461 encounters between police and those they killed with the threat of violence in 2013. Some have dubbed it “suicide-by-cop”, as about one-third of such cases can be classified – in addition to undoubtedly many more undercounted deaths. The hacktivist collective Anonymous prefers “trained to kill”.
Whatever you call the overlapping patterns of police violence and brief encounters with young and possibly unstable citizens, mental health advocates insist the United States is “not keeping track”.
“We’ve deputised America’s police to be mental health workers,” Doris A Fuller, executive director of the Treatment Advocacy Center, told the Guardian. “We’re asking cops to make a split-second decision about whether someone is actually a threat to them.”
A Gun or even a toy gun from a distance...I can certainly understand...but a phone? Help me to understand.
On a Facebook page- a user claiming to be Coignard’s uncle wrote that “for quite a few years my niece suffered from mental illness”.
The teenager was taking medication, seeing a therapist and living with her aunt, Heather Robertson, according to an interview with Robertson at ThinkProgress. She told the website that Kristiana Coignard had struggled with depression and bipolar disorder since her mother’s death when she was four years old. Robertson said her niece had been “only violent with herself”.
“I think it was a cry for help,” Robertson said of the incident in the police department lobby. “I think they could have done something. They are grown men. I think there is something they are not telling us.”
There is video of the killing, Coignard’s aunt said the police told her.
A Longview police spokesperson, Kristie Brian, told the Guardian there are currently no plans to make footage available to the public. She declined to confirm the type of weapon Ms. Coignard allegedly brandished but said the department expects to release more details about the shooting later this week. The Texas Ranger Division is investigating the incident.
Brian said Longview officers “are trained in all kinds of different situations”, including dealing with people with mental health problems, and that the county has a Crisis Intervention Team (CIT), which sees specially trained officers dispatched to urgent psychiatric situations. She said she did not know whether the three officers currently on leave had been CIT-trained or not.
Kristiana Coignard is the third person – and the third young person – shot dead by Longview police in less than a year. No charges were filed by a grand jury against three officers who killed a 15-year-old robbery suspect during a shootout last March. He was Latino. A 23-year-old cook with a history of making threats died in August after a routine traffic stop went awry. He was White.
Three-and-a-half hours south, in Houston, the 2012 death of Brian Claunch had exemplified the potential for tragedy when police with limited training encounter a troubled individual in a pressurised situation. He too was White...
So maybe if we take race out of the equation and take a good look at all of these incidents ,we can get more clarity...As long as the majority of Americans think that only "Young Black thugs are being killed nothing is going to be done...It's unfortunate...but they have to see the faces of people "Who look like them" getting shot down in order for them to be moved to do something.
Though Houston has a widely praised CIT programme, two officers without that experience were called to a care home one night when Claunch, a schizophrenic, wheelchair-bound double amputee, started behaving erratically.
Police said that he grew violent and cornered an officer while waving a shiny object in their direction. Matthew Marin shot the 45-year-old in the head. The object proved to be a ballpoint pen. In June 2013, a grand jury declined to bring charges against the officer.
That year a police officer in Dallas was dismissed from his job, and indicted by a grand jury in 2014, after he shot a mentally ill man who was holding a knife but standing still several yards away. The encounter lasted less than 30 seconds from the officers’ arrival to the gunfire.
A 2013 joint report by the Treatment Advocacy Center and the National Sheriffs’ Association found that while no national data is officially collected on fatal police shootings of the mentally ill, “multiple informal studies and accounts support the conclusion that ‘at least half of the people shot and killed by police each year in this country have mental health problems’.”
A third of “justifiable homicides”, the study found, could be characterised as “suicide-by-cop”, and many victims were not taking their medications nor under close supervision by mental health agencies.
Not unlike the larger call for more reliable nationwide numbers to address all police killings, advocates say a lack of firm data leads to a standard of police responses to encounters with the mentally ill that depends on officer training and varies widely from department to department.
“We’re not keeping track of that, so we don’t really have a handle on the situation,” said the Treatment Advocacy Center’s Fuller, adding that research indicated about half the US population lives in counties served by CIT policing.
Ron Honberg, national director of policy and legal affairs at the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said his organisation has called on the US justice department to keep better track of deaths involving police and the mentally ill. Outgoing attorney general Eric Holder, whose replacement was expected to pass confirmation hearings on Wednesday in Washington, recently called the lack of more comprehensive police incident data “troubling”.
Honberg said the standard police response to someone behaving aggressively is often to “come in and be very assertive, and that can be exactly the wrong way to deal with someone who may be having a serious psychiatric episode” and may have a fear of the authorities.
While better training and protocols are vital, he told the Guardian, at their core the violent encounters are “a manifestation of a broken mental health system”.
Anonymous, in a video posted on Saturday, cited Ms. Coignard’s death as the impetus for a new operation called Stop Lethal Force on Children.
“In 2014, we watched as police killed children and it started a army [sic] of angry Americans,” the group said. “This teen girl’s death just put fuel on that fire.”
I hate to say this...but maybe...maybe now ,something will be done about these senseless killings.. Maybe no mother or father, Black,White,Latino or whatever will have to bury their child.
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Marissa Is Free
While George Zimmerman was allowed to use the "Stand Your Ground "defense...Marissa Alexander was not...
At any rate,Marissa, who says she fired a warning shot at her abusive husband was released from a Jacksonville jail yesterday under a plea deal that capped her sentence to the three years she had already served. She shouldn't have served a day.
Marissa Alexander, 34, was initially sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2012 but her conviction was later overturned. She faced another trial on charges that could have put her behind bars for 60 years before she agreed to a plea deal in November.
Her case helped to inspire a new state law permitting warning shots in some circumstances.
Leaving the courthouse, Alexander cried as she thanked her supporters, sharing plans to continue her education in order to work as a paralegal.
"My hope is for the people who were involved in this case to be able to move on with their lives," she said, reading from a prepared statement.
She declined to answer further questions.
At her sentencing hearing, Ms. Alexander's attorney noted that she had agreed to the deal to avoid putting all involved, including her three children, through a high-profile trial.
MarissaAlexander pleaded guilty to three counts of aggravated assault for firing a shot in the direction of her husband, Rico Gray, during a 2010 argument while two of his children were also in the house.
She also agreed to serve two years of house arrest, wearing an ankle monitor. She will be allowed to work, attend classes and take her children to school and medical appointments.This is no more than the State of Florida trying to save face...Her freedom, and they don't have to admit that they were bumbling idiots as far as this case goes.
Circuit Court Judge James Daniel denied a request by prosecutors to add two years of probation to her sentence at the conclusion of the house arrest.
Prosecutors called as a witness 15-year-old Pernell Gray, who said his life changed the day his stepmother fired the gun in his presence.
"I was not hurt physically, but I was hurt emotionally and mentally," he said.
Outside the Duval County courthouse, Marissa Alexander's supporters from around the nation unfurled pieces of a red quilt memorializing victims of rape and abuse.
"Self-defense is not a crime. Marissa should not be doing time," a group of about 50 people holding hands chanted upon her release, calling for her to be pardoned. I agree.
Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson, a civil rights organizer, had come all the way from Chattanooga, Tennessee to support Marissa Alexander.
"Marissa's story resonates with people because it was a victimless crime," she said. "There is no justice in it."
No Justice in it or in the State of Florida if you're the wrong color...Funny I'm writing this in 2015...Sounds like I'm writing it in 1955..
Monday, January 26, 2015
Tall Black Male
In between the ages of 12-46,I can't tell you how many times I have been stopped and frisked by cops because I "Fit the description of a black male suspect." Tall,slender Black male...One time, the police caught the guy they were looking for while I was still in the area and he looked nothing like me..He was two shades lighter and had freckles...he was tall and of African-American disent.
Such is the life of an African-American male...in these United States....Always a suspect and never,ever given the benefit of the doubt...I don't expect a lot of my white readers..If I really have any to understand because this is something that probably won't happen to them...
I understand that the police have to do their jobs...I understand this...But how much,I ask...How much is doing the job and how much is just racial profiling?
This is a question every Black person asks and whether white people want to believe it or not...A conversation that a lot of black parents have with their sons when they become of age to walk the streets alone.
A lot of white people believe that all of these black males who have happened to get themselves killed were in the commission of some crime and there for deserved to get killed somehow... An unarmed boy coming from the store ,minding his own business with some skittles and an ice tea....might have been up to something because he was wearing a hoodie...Four teenaged boys sitting in a parked SUV were playing their music too loud....A Black man who might have sold some loose cigarettes in the streets and a 12 year old with a toy pistol all put themselves in a position to be killed...If you read the tweets and post written by some whites...
Yet , a white kid who shot a U.S. Senator and a young white male who massacred 23 people in a movie theatre were both taken alive without a shot being fired at them...Explain that!
Oh and here is the kicker....If you're Black and over six feet and over 200 pounds...Well then you have to be killed because you are too big and scary to be left alive....(Eric Garner, Mike Brown)
As a Black man, I might just make it a habit to travel with a White male friend at night, just so white officers and white people in general know that I'm a good guy and I mean them no harm...
II-
My frat brother, Charles Blow(Pictured above) who writes for the New York Times...is fuming....he has every reason to...
The Yale Police Department is conducting an internal investigation of an incident in which a New York Times columnists' son was stopped by police, who were seeking a burglary suspect, according to the Yale Daily Mail.
The paper says college students had described a tall,
African-American male wearing a black jacket and a red and white cap, as
having attempted a theft in a dormitory. A suspect was later arrested. Sounds familiar doesn't it?
In a scene that has become all too familiar to New York Times
columnist Charles Blow—who has written extensively about racial
profiling—his son was stopped Saturday by Yale police as he walked home
from the library, according to a report at Mediaite. And Brother Charles Blow is “fuming.”
He took to Twitter late Saturday to express outrage that his son, a
third year biology major, was stopped because he “fit the description”
of a suspect they were looking for, the site notes.
If A third year biology student at prestigious Yale can be profiled...What chance does the average guy out here in West Philly,or Harlem or Chicago's South side have? I really think I will call some of my white friends up the next time I venture out at night.
If A third year biology student at prestigious Yale can be profiled...What chance does the average guy out here in West Philly,or Harlem or Chicago's South side have? I really think I will call some of my white friends up the next time I venture out at night.
Sunday, January 25, 2015
Saturday, January 24, 2015
Saturday 7 - Seven Things That Kill Your Sex Drive
Sometimes, despite the fact that you know how mind-blowing orgasms can be, the thought of having sex just feels so...well...meh. Luckily, if your sex drive is tanking lately, there’s usually a reason why—meaning it’s not you, per se; it’s your habits. (And you can do something about those!) Read this post to see if you see yourself and also to see if any of these strike a chord with you.
Everyone knows that when we guys overdo it with the alcohol, it affects our uh performance big time. But it turns out that when you ladies throw back too many glasses of wine,trying to be like Olivia Pope on Scandal... it can have a similar effect. Yes, alcohol can lower your inhibitions, but if you drink more than one drink, it can also decrease your sexual performance—and your libido in general suffers...So fall back on the boozing...
2. Depresssed??
Speaking of depression, taking antidepressants can also wreak havoc on your libido. “Studies show that up to 30 percent of people taking SSRIs—that’s selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors—can experience sexual side effects, including lowered libido, erectile dysfunction, and orgasm difficulties.. I can't tell you to be happy if you're not...but being a little happier helps...It certainly doesn't hurt...
Maybe you have prescription medicine...That can do a job on you too...Anti-depressants aren’t the only drug that can lower your libido; other everyday meds can do it, too: Birth control, anti-histamines, decongestants, and high blood pressure medication can all interfere with a person’s sex drive...Be careful and read the labels and google your medicine..be aware of the side effects.
4. Are you both getting enough sleep?
If you cheat on sleep, you may lessen your libido—and also have a harder time climaxing in bed. Aim for seven to eight hours a night if you can...Unless of course,you are actually having sex..
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Being overweight..may decrease your sex drive and your performance in bed...certain medical conditions linked to obesity, like diabetes and high cholesterol, can also impact your libido. The good news? Losing weight can fix these issues.Lose the weight..Exercise..You'll feel better.
6.You Don't know how fine or gorgeous you really are.
7.You are a SOCIAL MONSTER...hAVE A VERY BUSY SOCIAL LIFE!!!
So if you feel yourself saying yes to coworkers and no to your Significant.Other take a minute to assess your priorities and make sure you're not spreading yourself too thin to enjoy a good romp in the sack.
Friday, January 23, 2015
Weekend Humor
TWO FOR FRIDAY!
1.A trucker who has been out on the road for two months stops at a brothel outside Atlanta. He walks straight up to the Madam, drops down $500 and says, "I want your ugliest woman and a grilled cheese sandwich!" The Madam is astonished. "But sir, for that kind of money you could have one of my prettiest ladies and a three-course meal." The trucker replies, "Listen darlin’, I’m not horny – I’m just homesick."
2. A woman places an ad in the local newspaper. “Looking for a man with three qualifications: won’t beat me up, won’t run away from me, and is great in bed.” Two days later her doorbell rings. “Hi, I’m Tim. I have no arms so I won’t beat you, and no legs so I won't run away.” “What makes you think you are great in bed?” the woman retorts. Tim replies, “I rang the doorbell, didn’t I?"
Everybody have a groovy weekend!
Thursday, January 22, 2015
Keith's Favorite Quotes
*Republicans clap*
President Obama: "I know because I won both of them."
John Boehner's head explodes!
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
No Justice For Mike Brown (or anybody else for that matter)
But I thought an impartial group of Justice Department attorneys would at least bring civil right s charges against the officer...I'm afraid that that is too much to hope for...Not gonna happen..
The Justice Department is taking the final steps toward closing the politically charged investigation into the shooting death of an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Mo., and clearing the white police officer involved of civil rights charges.
Federal prosecutors have begun work on a legal memo recommending no civil rights charges against the officer, Darren Wilson, law enforcement officials said.
That would effectively close the case in the death of 18-year-old Michael Brown. An investigation by the F.B.I., which is complete, found no evidence to support the charges against the officer, the officials said.
UNBELIEVABLE !!!!!
A broader civil rights investigation into allegations of discriminatory traffic stops and excessive force by the Ferguson Police Department remains open, however. That investigation could lead to significant changes at the department, which is overwhelmingly white despite serving a city that is mostly black.
The state authorities concluded their investigation into Mr. Brown’s death in November and similarly recommended no charges.
There is a high legal bar for bringing federal civil rights charges, and federal investigators had for months signaled that they were unlikely to do so. The Justice Department plans to release a report explaining its decision, though it is not clear when.
I don't even want to read it...I've read enough fairy tales in my life.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., has said that he plans to have it done before leaving office, probably in the next month or two if his successor is confirmed.
Three law enforcement officials discussed the details of the federal investigation on condition of anonymity because the report was incomplete and Mr. Holder and his top civil rights prosecutor, Vanita Gupta, had not formally made a decision. Dena Iverson, a Justice Department spokeswoman, declined to comment.
Benjamin L. Crump, a lawyer for Mr. Brown’s family, said he did not want to comment on the investigation until the Justice Department made an official announcement. “We’ve heard speculation on cases before that didn’t turn out to be true,” Mr. Crump said. “It’s too much to put the family through to respond to every rumor.” Mr. Crump said that at the end of last year that the Justice Department had told him that it was still investigating.
The lawyer for Mr. Wilson did not return calls for comment.
The shooting touched off protests that included violent clashes between demonstrators and heavily armed police. That incident, along with the death of Eric Garner — an unarmed black man who died after a chokehold by a New York police officer in July — sparked a nationwide discussion about policing, race and the use of deadly force.
President Obama, Mr. Holder and Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York, speaking about the issue in personal terms, said they understood the concern that minority neighborhoods had with the police. Those comments prompted rebukes from some law enforcement groups.
Mr. Holder said that the Justice Department’s investigation would be independent from the local authorities. While the F.B.I. and local officials conducted some interviews together and shared evidence, the analysis and decision-making were separate. Mr. Holder resisted calls from local officials to announce his conclusion alongside the county prosecutor last year, in part because he did not want it to appear as if they had reached their decisions together.
Federal investigators interviewed more than 200 people and analyzed cellphone audio and video, the law enforcement officials said. Officer Wilson’s gun, clothing and other evidence were analyzed at the F.B.I.’s laboratory in Quantico, Va. Though the local authorities and Mr. Brown’s family conducted autopsies, Mr. Holder ordered a separate autopsy, which was conducted by pathologists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner’s office at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, the officials said.
The federal investigation did not uncover any facts that differed significantly from the evidence made public by the authorities in Missouri late last year, the law enforcement officials said. To bring federal civil rights charges, the Justice Department would have needed to prove that Officer Wilson had intended to violate Mr. Brown’s rights when he had opened fire and that he had done so willfully — meaning he knew that it was wrong to fire, but did so anyway.
Soon after the shooting, witnesses told reporters that Mr. Brown had his hands up in a gesture of surrender when he was shot and killed by Mr. Wilson on a city street. The investigation, however, painted a murkier picture. Mr. Wilson told investigators that Mr. Brown tussled with him through the window of his police car and tried to grab his gun, an account supported by bruises and DNA evidence. Two shots were fired during that struggle.
What happened next as the confrontation moved into the street is in dispute. While some witnesses were adamant that Mr. Brown had his hands up, some recanted their stories. Mr. Wilson testified that Mr. Brown charged at him, and other witnesses backed up his account.
“I’m backpedaling pretty good because I know if he reaches me, he’ll kill me,” Mr. Wilson told a state grand jury, in testimony that investigators said was consistent with what he told the F.B.I. “And he had started to lean forward as he got that close, like he was going to just tackle me, just go right through me,” Mr. Wilson said.
The Ferguson investigation drew Mr. Holder into the spotlight on the issue of race, one he cares about deeply. He traveled to Ferguson, spoke of his experiences as a victim of racial profiling and emerged as a peacemaker during the tense days after the shooting, when police used tear gas on demonstrators and the National Guard was summoned.
The shooting also inflamed longstanding tensions between Ferguson’s black community and the police. Residents told investigators that the police used traffic citations in minority neighborhoods as a way to raise money for the city.
“These anecdotal accounts underscored the history of mistrust of law enforcement in Ferguson,” Mr. Holder said in September after returning from Ferguson, a suburb about 10 miles northwest of St. Louis.
It is not clear when the broader civil rights inquiry of the police department, known as a pattern or practice investigation, will be completed. Under Mr. Holder, prosecutors have opened more than 20 such investigations nationwide. The Justice Department recently called for sweeping changes to the Cleveland Police Department and negotiated an independent monitor to oversee the department in Albuquerque.
Mr. Wilson resigned from the department in November, citing threats of violence against him and other officers. “It is my hope that my resignation will allow the community to heal,” he said.
How can a community heal when they can't get justice in even the most blatant case of police misconduct??
I'm going to stop before I say anymore.. Something that can be read as inflammatory...but I don't know what a Black person has to do to get some justice in this country....It just feels like open season...
This could escalate to something far worse...and when people other than Blacks start attending funerals..perhaps we'll take another look at this issue...but by then it will be far too late won't it?
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
Me And The Oscars
I was always furious and always vowed to never watch them again...Well I might boycott them this year too.
And for the same reason.....All of the Acting nominees are white...Not one Black or Latino nominee...
In 2011, the 20 nominees also were entirely white. Before that, one has to go back to 1998 for an all-white acting group.
The all-white nominees list comes at time when Hollywood is fielding criticism for not doing enough to promote diversity in filmmaking. And just last month, Sony Pictures co-chairman Amy Pascal and producer Scott Rudin were apologizing for leaked emails that appeared to be racially insensitive. Rudin was nominated this morning for producing best picture nominee The Grand Budapest Hotel.
Rev. Al Sharpton -- who formed a Hollywood diversity committee in response to the leaked emails -- has already reacted angrily to the nominees list: “The lack of diversity in today’s Oscar nominations is appalling ... With all of the talent in Selma and other Black movies this year, it is hard to believe that we have less diversity in the nominations today than in recent history." Sharpton added, "The movie industry is like the Rocky Mountains, the higher you get, the whiter it gets."
The Oscar acting nominations are typically a reflection, in some part, of the best roles of the year available to actors and actresses, which makes 2015's lineup troubling.
The two writing categories also were dominated by white men. Not a single woman was nominated in either category. Though the Academy doesn't reveal a breakdown of its membership, a 2012 report by the Los Angeles Times found that of the nearly 6,000 members, 94% are white, 77% are male and 86% are age 50 or older. Last year, actress Lupita Nyong'o took home the best supporting actress Oscar for the film 12 Years a Slave, which featured a mostly black cast and also won the best picture statuette.
But this year’s Oscar nominees, including the best picture heat, has a decidedly racially homogenous feel, with the exception of Selma, which was nominated for the top prize -
But Selma Director, Ava DuVernay, a Black woman was overlooked in the best director category, which was all male, with Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu representing the lone example of diversity. Despite its strong reviews -- Selma has a 99% rating with critics on RottenTomatoes -- and epic scope, the film only received one other nomination: best original song. If DuVernay had been nominated in the director category, she would have been the first black female director ever recognized. In response to the nominations, DuVernay offered a diplomatic tone: "Happy Birthday, Dr. King. An Oscar gift for you. To SELMA cast and crew led by our miracle David Oyelowo! To Common + [John] Legend! Kudos! March on!" -
I used to do that a lot when I was younger...Put a good spin on every situation regardless...but today I'm reminded of yet another thing my mother told me..
"Sometimes you just have to see the world for what it is."
And the Oscars this year don't seem any different from 1972....
I think I'll boycott them...See you at the NAACP Image awards..
Monday, January 19, 2015
Sunday, January 18, 2015
Saturday, January 17, 2015
Keith's Music Spotlight
Friday, January 16, 2015
Thursday, January 15, 2015
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
Monday, January 12, 2015
While Paris Mourns
Last Week as you all know (unless you were living under a rock) Two gunmen ,claiming to be Al-queda operatives entered the offices of a satirical magazine called Charlie Hebdo and shot and killed 12 people, including a police woman...in what is being called one of the most horrific acts of terrorism in French History.
The victims of these crimes are being mourned worldwide: they were after all human beings, They were loved by their families and precious to their friends.
On Wednesday, twelve of them were targeted by gunmen for their affiliation with the satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo. Charlie has often aimed it's biting humor at Muslims, and it’s taken particular joy in flouting the Islamic ban on depictions of their Prophet Muhammad.
The magazine has done more than that, including taking on political targets, as well as Christian and Jewish ones. The magazine depicted the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost in a sexual threesome. Illustrations such as this have been cited as evidence of Charlie Hebdo’s willingness to offend everyone. Some folks think that that is cool and hip and edgy...I just think it's mean... Being offensive for no reason is just plain mean spirited..But that's just my humble opinion.
In recent years the magazine has gone specifically for racist and Islamophobic provocations, and its numerous anti-Islam images have been inventively perverse, featuring hook-nosed Arabs, bullet-ridden Korans, variations on the theme of sodomy, and mockery of the victims of a massacre. It is not always easy to see the difference between a certain witty dissent from religion and a bullyingly racist agenda, but it is necessary to try.
Even Voltaire, a hero to many who extol free speech, got it wrong. His sparkling and courageous anti-clericalism can be a joy to read, sometimes (and depending on if you're not Jewish)...but he was also a committed anti-Semite, whose criticisms of Judaism were accompanied by calumnies about the innate character of Jews.
This week’s events took place against the backdrop of France’s ugly colonial history, its sizable Muslim population, and the suppression, in the name of secularism, of some Islamic cultural expressions, such as the hijab.
Black people have hardly had it easier in Charlie Hebdo: one of the magazine’s cartoons depicts the Minister of Justice Christiane Taubira, who is of African origin, as a monkey (naturally, the defense is that a violently racist image was being used to satirize racism); another portrays U.S. President Barack Obama with the black-Sambo imagery familiar from Jim Crow-era illustrations.
All of this is edgy and funny (To Them)...
I'll bet they aren't laughing now!
I'm not trying to justify the whole scale slaughter that occurred...As my mother always told me..Two wrongs don't make a right...But they had to know that something like this was bound to happen..
So let me ask this...because I know this post is veering in an unpopular vein...Is it possible to defend the right to obscene and racist speech without promoting or sponsoring the content of that speech?
It is possible to approve of sacrilege without endorsing racism. And it is possible to consider Islamophobia immoral without wishing it illegal. Moments of grief neither rob us of our complexity nor absolve us of the responsibility of making distinctions.
The A.C.L.U. got it right in defending a neo-Nazi group that, in 1978, sought to march through Skokie, Illinois. The extreme offensiveness of the marchers, absent a particular threat of violence, was not and should not be illegal. But no sensible person takes a defense of those First Amendment rights as a defense of Nazi beliefs. The Charlie Hebdo cartoonists were not mere gadflies, not simple martyrs to the right to offend: they were ideologues. Just because one condemns their brutal murders doesn’t mean one must condone their ideology. They were racist and cruel.....And it's not popular to say that right now after a terrorist attack that took their lives...But I'm also not crying many tears for them either...
As I said...If you're being cruel or offensive to make a point to accentuate an ideal or a position...that is one thing...but just to say I'm being an offensive asshole because I have that right is a whole different animal..And still I'd defend those cartoonists right to publish whatever they like, just like I have the right to write and say what I like on this blog without violent repercussions...I would... I want to make that clear...They should not have been slaughtered...Violence is never the answer to anything..
To sum it all up in a nutshell-and to quote my frat brother, Nate Davis who was speaking on this-" The people who work for Charlie Hebdo should not have been killed for their freedom of expression no matter how vile their art was considered by those of the Muslim faith. But then the question must also be asked how disrespectful should one be allowed to be towards another's religion, race, or creed? The Muslims forewarned the magazine of their actions and yet they continued to continue disrespectful publications. Was their freedom of expression to criticize another's religion worth their lives?"
Something I also said must be stated... We have freedom of speech, but we do not have freedom from the consequences of that speech....Kind of like a catch 22 isn't it?
Friday, January 9, 2015
Weekend Humor
One Sunday, in the pulpit, he said, "If I hear one more person confess to adultery, Ill quit!"
Well, everyone liked him, so they came up with a code word. Someone who had committed adultery would say instead that they had fallen.
This seemed to satisfy the old priest and things went well until the priest passed away at a ripe old age.
A few days after the new priest arrived, he visited the mayor of the town and seemed very concerned.
"Mayor, you have to do something about the sidewalks in town. When people come into the confessional, they keep telling me they've fallen."
The mayor started to laugh, realizing that no one had told the new priest about the code word. But, before he could explain, the priest shook an accusing finger at him and shouted,
"I don't know what you're laughing about, because your wife has fallen three times this week!"
EVERYBODY HAVE A SUPER GROOVY WEEKEND!
Thursday, January 8, 2015
Wednesday, January 7, 2015
Especially Not This One
They say you get the government you deserve....So for all of those people who didn't vote...This is what you got...Hope you can deal with it!
Tuesday, January 6, 2015
What I've Learned
1.Life is Short
2.Death is Certain
3.People need to stop making a big deal out of the little things
4. When someone is gone , all of the little things about them that annoyed you, don't seem so annoying anymore..
5.If everybody agrees on something...It's more than likely wrong.
6.One thing I've learned with age is that you never solve the great mysteries...That's why they're great!
7.People who laugh the most are the people who have suffered the most.
8.Truth will always make itself known eventually.
9.Every Day is a good one...It's one day extra.
10.Always Remember to Remember.
Peace!
In Loving memory of
Staurt Scott (1965-2015)
and
Edward Brooks (1919-2015)
Monday, January 5, 2015
Sunday, January 4, 2015
Friday, January 2, 2015
Weekend Humor
When she asked how her grandfather had died, her grandmother replied, “He had a heart attack while we were making love on Sunday morning.”
Horrified, Katie told her grandmother that 2 people nearly 100 years old having sex would surely be asking for trouble. “Oh no, my dear, ” replied granny. “Many years ago, realizing our advanced age, we figured out the best time to do it was when the church bells would start to ring. It was just the right rhythm. Nice and slow and even. Nothing too strenuous, simply in on the Ding and out on the Dong.” She paused, wiped away a tear and then continued, “
"And if that damned ice cream truck hadn’t come along, he’d still be alive today!”
Everybody have a super groovalicious weekend!
Thursday, January 1, 2015
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KEEPING THE FAITH: RANDOM PRAYERS "ON THE DOWNLOAD"
"Mommy, can I go to Timmy's blog and play?"
