It's Religion Not Faith

I know a few people that have strong religious beliefs and that fine to a point. But what they are out on in the picture is that on legal level if allowed, this will snow ball in to something far worse. Example: A black family tries to buy a house in a predominantly white Mormon town, the bank, and realtor are owned by Mormons. The family meets all of the legal and financial qualifications, but because of their skin color. Now the the family is protected against this by federal law and can prove that race based discrimination was the cause here. But they still could lose in court based off of a religious belief from the early days of the Mormon religion, that people of dark skin were considered to be cursed by god. Meaning that the bank and the realtor can legally use racist practices under the protection of their religious beliefs. That's why this thing in Kentucky is so dangerous, if she gets to keep her job and continues to denies those marriage licenses more of this will spread into other segments of society. I wonder how Canada handles this crap?

Not so Civil

For months now the Confederate Flag has been in the center of a lot if debates. Myself being a southerner, I don't really care about the heritage talking points that everyone keeps bringing up. To me the flag belongs in a museum and not just because a few racist morons like to wear and wave it with pride. Neither the fact that it's linked with slavery or how it was as symbol of the Jim Crow area. Nope, it's the fact that the flag comes from treason and should not be honored as something of pride. When I think about the "Civil War" and what really started it, which was taxes not slavery. The South  at the time produced a large sum of the country's exported goods, mainly cotton and tobacco. The North wanted more of a tax contribution from the southern states, but those states did not agree nor like this idea as it would take away from their profits. Keep in mind that most of the cotton and tobacco was picked and handled by slave labor, which in today's world would be the equivalent of owning framing equipment or robots. Meaning that the slaves were nothing tools to be bought and sold or just flat replaced. Only given the minimal for housing, food and clothing with no real structured compensation or freedom not even looked at as human beings. The plantation owners didn't have to worry about paying competitive wages, 401k and healthcare cost, making their labor costs lower. This meant that more money went back to them and the trade, but they felt paying more in taxes was unfair and that the northern states were being oppressive. Now when looking at it from this area, the South sounds a lot like the rich do today. The same people who go on TV and claim that paying higher taxes is more of a punishment for their financial success. This was not a rebellion about freedom from a greedy over reaching system of government, that people are romanticizing as history. It was a bunch greedy rich people not wanting to pay taxes and thought that they held enough power to force change. In many ways the Civil War would help set a blueprint for how big business can influence the government and it's many nuances for making policy today. A treasonist flag for a group of greedy money grabbing hypocrites, that only cared about themselves, not freedom. 

                                      Take the flag down and let's move forward together.                   

                                                                 

Not adding my hot air to this fire.

These past 4 years we have seen rights violated, citizens killed by the very people who are sworn to protect and serve, but each time something like this happens people pray, riot or protest. But nothing changes, just the face of the next victim. Afterwards we all go back to our day to day lives with the hope that it's not going to happen to us or someone we care about. And then it happens again, If this is so important, why are we electing the same people to power? Why are still fighting over the same idiotic concepts? Why are acting the same way. How can you expect the benefit of a doubt when can't be bothered to give one. We want to say that it's mainly race, class, religion, gender or sexual preference, but it's simpler than we make to be. You can't just pray for an answer, you have to also look for one. You can't just protest, you have remove the policies and the people that cause you to protest. You can't riot, because that's what the opposition wants you to do. To act like savages, to destroy and stay blind to the world around you.  If you want change it must happen with you first, with conversations about the uncomfortable subjects, finding common ground with someone that's different from you and improving yourself. Not to become superior, but to gain balance and harmony with everything in your surroundings.  If you real change then you have to be flexible, you do not have to bend completely to your foe's will, but only make your foe understand that every gain made from you there will be a greater lose from them. Ture power does not come from a mob, a gun, or a shout, it comes from inside one's self.  I wrote this today because I'm not going to comment on what happened in South Carolina, there are too many opinions flying around on that. Go form your own opinions.

  

Of Prophets, Priests, Pastors, Politicians, Buyers and Their Sellers

Remember the pastor that asked the members of his mega church World Changers Church International to buy him a 65 million dollar private jet? Well looks like it may happen, WCCI has gone on record say that they will buy a G650 for the pastor and the senior staff of the church. What makes this so disturbing is how they are trying to justify the "Airplane Project"  also stating that their current plane is over 30 years and is in need of replacing. This proves that not only do they have too much money to invest their own outlandish needs, but that the church itself functions more as a for profit company. Which brings forth a question why aren't religious organizations paying taxes now? Now a days in the US organized religion has become a billion dollar business, being that most have tax exempt status. In some cases many have used this non-taxed wealth to gain influence on policy not just in a many small towns, communities and large cities, but also on Capitol Hill. Many have formed Non-secular Lobbying and Advocacy Groups to protect their own interest and influence policy. Meaning that they can use the large sums of money to get laws written for their own linear sense of morality or most cases their own benefit. A great example of this action are when certain bills come up vote that they feel imposes on their own believe system. Laws like Prop 8   in California, which most of the media advertising for this bill was backed and paid for by religious organizations and churches. Years ago in Tennessee there was a campaign to amend the state constitution for a state lottery that would fund a scholarship program. In Memphis the biggest vocal opposition came from the Methodist ministers and churches in the area. The amendment did pass and years later the state was able to put more funding in it's post secondary educational programs. Look at this way, everyone is going out to eat as a group, you have member of the group that's not paying for their meal and is trying to get everyone to eat at a certain place. Then when the group gets to the restaurant, the member then tries to order for the group and then dominates all conversations. After the meal is over the whole pays for that member's meal. That member of group leaves in their nice car while rest of the group wait's for the bus. That's how modern religion works in America now, the have money to buy jets, cars, real estate and politicians with donated money, but can't pay taxes. We you think about it, this seems more like a paradox. Church and state are suppose to be separate from each other, yet both use one another for control and gain over the vary people they claim to help.                              

Really?

I had an interesting back and forth on Facebook a few days ago. Like most things on Facebook it was about nothing important but yet showed how people insert race and their own childish fears into some of the dumbest things. It all stemmed for a guy getting upset about the race of fictional characters from movies and comic book being changed, which also was an off shoot of a leaked email from a high ranking movie studio executive. Remember the Sony Entertainment Network Breach? Well that leaked email came from all of that, and it was idea not anything set in stone, but just an idea mind you. An executive from another studio was suggesting Idris Elba as the next James Bond. Naturally this wan't the only the focus of the Facebook pundits, apparently there was another rumor and April Fools Gag floating around about making Batman and Captain America black in the next series of movies, which only added gas to the fire.  Now back to the Facebook version of the The Bell Curve, in this rant of post the writer took the time to state the genealogy of James bond, Captain America and Batman as if they were flesh and blood. As I read the post and continued on to the comments of that same post, the people that replied acted like as if a great injustice was pushed upon White America by changing the races of their most iconic pop culture characters. There are a few things that were taken way out of context here, besides the fact that all three of these men are fictional. Take James Bond for example is an invention of Sir Ian Fleming from a WWII era England. We have seen the story of this character evolve from printed word to motion picture and has since been updated to reflect the both the social and political climate of the world in each movie, which means the only thing that's current with the books is the name of the main character. So after I commented back few times only to hear this person screaming about maintaining the integrity of the author's / creator's original work as if there was some racially based conspiracy for black people to get ahead in the entertainment industry, by taking over roles meant for white actors.  I then tried to point out that we live in time where ideas and visions are bought and sold multiple times over and after someone gives up creative control there's not a lot they can say about how that idea takes form. I not saying that changes are good or bad, just that I see an industry who's changing to play catch up with a shifting demographic and a more open minded world. Sorry but I feel that race and gender don't matter as long as the writing, acting and pacing tie in together to make a great product. After all fictional characters live in our minds, for all we know there's blind kid that thinks Batman is really Native American. If it's all make believe in the 1st place, then why the fuss, it's not like John Wayne playing Genghis Khan in a movie.  Now that was a bad idea.

I would like to say thanks to a friend of mine for telling me about the book Bell Curve, can't wait to read it!            
   

Something I learned from anime. Part 1

I'm about to show you all my age with this one. I was just a teenager when japanese anime slowly just starting to imprint itself into american culture. Shows like Dragon Ball Z, Gundam Wing and Ghost In The Shell just to name few. One thing that I caught from japanese anime as I grew older was that even though it's mostly fictional, the female characters arc evolved and progressed light years ahead of what we had here, women became more of butt kicking bad asses and less of the helpless princess waiting to be saved. In many cases some the stories were centered around a strong female lead with a male sidekick. Take the movie Ghost In The Shell the lead is a female cyborg detective who is trying to break an international espionage base conspiracy. Even though she is a highly sexualized character in this movie, it plays a mere after thought to her persona, which is shows off her problem solving, combat and conversational abilities. The Major as she is called comes across more as Sylvester Stallone from the movie Cobra without the predictable love interest, which something that we rarely saw in the 90's let along anything coming out of Hollywood today. Keep in mind that this is something coming a country that has been  long considered a male dominated society and long way away from being a gender progressive society that America claims to have been at the time. This movie would help a young teenage boy dispatch a few female trophs and later begin to teach him better to respect women and the role they can, will and are playing in the world around him. The question that I should be asking now is, if japanese anime can expand and progress in the 90's, then what's keeping Hollywood?

George Carlin was right.

A Facebook posting has made me think of an old bit from George Carlin. I was about 10 years old when I first watched him perform on HBO back in the day, but in this 1:30 rant about the public makes a lot of sense right now. Think about it this way, how many times have you read a Facebook posting from someone that rejects facts, but yet they keeps asking for facts? Social media is soaked with this type of talk, which shows our own ignorance when it comes to talking about and dealing civic matters both local and federal. Here in the US we have forgotten how our own government is structured. If you don't believe then ask a random person to name the 3 Branches of the US Government or to explain the Electoral College.  

Is Image Really Everything?

I found an interesting nugget of civil rights history a few days ago while hearing about NPR news story. 9 months before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus, there was a black teenager by the name of Claudette Colvin also did the same and who also aided with her testimony to the US Supreme Court in Browder v Gayle, that would overturn Montgomery's bus segregation policy.  But because she didn't fit the image of what the NAACP wanted so she left out of the very fight she help started. My question why discriminate against your own? If you're fighting against segregation, then discount a person just because of their age and social station? She laid the foundation that gave for the protest that got MLK to speak in Montgomery, AL and yet we hear little about her in history. Years later this teenager would leave Montgomery for New York and later become a forgotten side note of a major event in civil rights history. A book by Phillip Hoose called Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice was published in 2009 that tells more of the overlooked backstory of the events leading to the Montgomery Bus Boycott not just from her point of view but others as well. When being to cross and alienate the very people you claim to help, you are not helping them for the right reasons. This also makes you a hypocrite, which added another question. Why is image so important when we have been told since childhood to never judge a book by it's cover.

Preparing for failure

We live in a country where the cart is too often put ahead of the horse. Meaning that we are pushing for more kids to get a college education, but are not laying the foundation for college or life after. High school classes have been cut to focus more on reading and math leaving a lot to be learned outside of the classroom. Long gone are the true Health classes, where we learned how to eat healthy or better take care of our body. The Arts and Music programs have been get by on table scraps while Sports programs tend to be the better feed. Trades paths are something that's been easily pushed to the side in favor of having more college bound students. We want more CEO's, Doctors and Athletes instead of Nurses, Mechanics and Musicians, forgetting that college is not the only form of education available, but remains the most coveted and expensive. There are questions that we are not asking any more. What are some equal alternatives to a college education?  Why does a career require a degree? What happened to Trade/Vo-tech education? Where are the classes that will help prepare a kid for life after High school and College? and If education after high school is so important, then where are the steps and courses that can help a young person, plan, prepare, perform and pay for it? We allow our leaders to spend too little on education, but too much on the military. Yes, power can protect you, but it takes knowledge to control and use that power correctly.



Take a look for yourself here's a link to a website that has the Past Federal Budgets

Yesterday's education at next month's prices.

College an institution that was at one point put in place for the enlightenment and advancement of mankind, has been mutated into a cash grab and degree clearing house. Where it was once meant to be a life changing learning experience, where a person finds some kind of direction. Landing a good job was just a by-product, a bonus or that something extra. But the focus has changed to just getting a better paying and fast track online learning. With online education becoming multi million dollar industry, just look at the University of Phoenix. An institution that has gained so much revenue from the fast track and online degree programs to where a Pro stadium bears their name. A college that doesn't even have an Division 1 football program, but it's name was on one of the biggest sports venues of the year and it along with other for profit online based schools were able to buy advertising time for the night of the big game. Keep in mind that a 30 second ad on average cost 4.5 million dollars and that U of P has to 154.5 million dollars over a 20 year span just to have it's name on an area. Which makes me question the government oversight of higher education in America, we now have a system in place that has people racking up debt similar to home mortgages for an education that in many ways can be inadequate in today's changing career landscape. Another thing to point is that for years these places take federal financial aid like many state run schools, but may not take many of their accredited hours when student transfers for one of these online schools. Which postures another question, if an institution must meet certain standards to receive federal aid, then why is it so hard to transfer credits? To make things clear I'm not just picking at the U of P, there are a lot of other Career Education based institutions out there. Just a few months ago Everest and ITT Tech where at the heart of their own scandals, with Everest being forced to shut down a few of it's campuses. The D.O.E. is trying to bring in more transparency by releasing reports on schools that have accreditation, program and financial reporting issues but is this too little too late? I been hearing reports that enrollment in for profit schools is starting drop, but only time will tell as more and more people weigh in on this.

 Here's that report I was speaking about:
Schools on HCM1 or HCM2
 and
Ed.gov

        

Changing Credit

The Fair Isaac Corporation or FICO is talking about making changes to the way credit is scored. The changes will allow FICO to use things like your cable, cell phone and utility bills as sources for increasing the score, which in my opinion is long over due. But this is not just the only changes being proposed in the arena of consumer credit. Transunion, Equifax and Experian the credit bureaus are also considering making changes to their own reporting and disputing processes. Changes that would that would make it easier to dispute items on your credit, extending the reporting of non-paid medical bills to 6 months instead of 30 days. All of this makes me ask "Why did it take so long?" We all know how flawed the credit system is and how a lot things in our lives revolve around our FICO score, which has a ripple effect on both the ability to save and spend money. Look at this way if need a car loan, but are only allowed one with a high interest rate, it's going to cut into your budget. Meaning that $18,000 car financed at 17.9%  for 5 years could in the end cost you $28,000. That's $166.66 a month and $2000 a year, money that could be placed in a savings/401K account or used to pay for other wants and needs. For the past 30 years our credit system has been used as an economic weapon, only allowing a few to gain from it. The system as it stands now allows almost any business  to report negatively on you, but only a very small amount can report positively on your behalf. The fact that you have to incur a certain type of debt to gain credit is another off balanced problem, that neither FICO or the 3 credit bureaus are willing to tackle. At the end of the day if can't find a way to make the credit system better and balanced, then the gap between the haves and have nots will continue to widen.        

https://nycitylights.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/bridge.jpg

Religious Freedom

With all of the dust that's been kicked up over the "Religious Freedom" Law in Indiana, one question keeps coming to mind. Why are we as a country moving backwards? Yes, Religious Freedom was one of the core beliefs that this country was founded on, but we also spent over 100 years fighting for the proper civil rights of all Americans. For so many people to have fear of groups like ISIS, you would think that the Religious Freedom Law is something that deserves more of a scrutinized look by everyone in this country. Think about it this way, in the world we live in today it's very easy for like minded people to form their community and gain a say in things. The Tea Party Movement serves a perfect example of this, most of the people in that movement claim to want elected officials that only believe in their vision of what America should. And to make matters worse they painted themselves as a group that wanted nothing to do with diversity and logic. But they had such a strong following to where many elected officials lost to Tea Party Candidates, it would come out years later many of their own candidates were financially backed by some of the very people and corporations that they blamed for what has happened to America. That was just a political example, people have forgotten that at one point the KKK used Religious Freedom and it took years for them to get drowned out by progress, only to show lite resurgence in today's America. As a country if we are not careful these unrefined "Religious Freedom" laws will give segway to legalized discrimination, segregation and soon our own christian based version of ISIS.  

At the end of day we all should chill out and enjoy life!

        

Hello World!

Hi there reader,
After years of watching TV, reading blogs, and skimming through bad social media posts, I've decided to step out of my box and try making a blog. With one goal of poking at those thoughts of independence and free thinking we all have from time to time, while sneaking in some venting. There will be only a few subjects that will not be touched on this blog. So since I am at risk of ticking a few people off, for anybody reading this you are being warned. Let the poking begin!