Risk of Dating a Negro, 2008

This is the new version, updated for 2008. Some things have changed, but some things stay the same. Many people are unaware of ways to tell if they or a loved one are at risk for dating a Negro. Here, as a public service, I provide for you 10.

1 You’re A White Female, Especially Italian, With a Big Ass.

As always, the reasons for this one abound. Especially since Ice-T has his white girl with a big ass, not only is such a woman sexually desirable, they are also seen as a status symbol. There has been much speculation that CoCo T has Ass Implants (honestly, who was the first person to ask for those?) but the effect on the imaginations and libidos of American men has been unmistakable. Witness the popularity of Kim Kardashian, Jessica Biel, and (thick) Britney Spears. They were always thick, but their Hollywood managers wanted them to hide it. These same Hollywood types occasionally make Beyonce lose a lot of weight so that she can be more appealing to white moviegoers, which is absolutely ridiculous because it’s pretty certain by now that all men like curvy girls anyway.

For some reason, and the hypothesis out there are numerous to be sure, the I-talian women have rear ends that draw black men like moths to a flame. A white girl with a big ass is like chocolate and peanut butter; two great tastes that go great together. At this point you are at risk simply because of the enormous volume of demands for your attention. Unless you have a personal bodyguard, any appearance in a mixed or, God help you, hip-hop crowd will have you drawing a crowd like a Black man at a routine traffic stop. Honorable mention; the Latina’s butt, the Polish girl’s butt.

Rule-outs: Here we will rule out the wide, flat butt, as no one likes a two-dimensional ass.

2 Good “ratio”

The ratio I speak of is waste-to-hips, and is closely related to number 1. Although for some reason the white girl with the big ass is most preferable, any girl who has a positive WtH ratio is fair game to the Black man. For instance, if you have 24 inch waste and 42 inch hips, you might as well start picking out names for your future mulatto children now. Again, the overwhelming volume of offers of love, money, and affection will wear down even the mightiest will.

Rule-outs: There aren’t very many rule-outs here for a good Ratio, unless, you know, she has a developmental disability or something… that’s just wrong. Also, rule-out Indian girls, for even though you may find one with a Good Ratio, chances are her parents would disown her for dating a Negro, and let’s face it, Indian girls just aren’t rebellious enough to risk getting cut off from their parents money.

3 Excessive BET Viewing or Hot 97 Listening

Look, Black people don’t even watch BET excessively. If you or a loved one is watching more than 4 hours a day of BET, then going Black cannot be far off. Actually, now that I think about it, my brother watches a lot of BET. This concerns me and I’m trying to get him into treatment for it. But in any case, if you are anything but Black and you watch a lot of BET… You are gonna date a Negro.

Rule-outs: If you’re doing this for research for a paper on screwed up gender roles in Hip Hop.

4 Tupac

Tupac is a definite risk-factor for dating a Negro. If you find that you have a definite appreciation not only of the man, but if his message and his music, this denotes two things: 1. you most likely harbor a deep attraction towards African Americans, and 2. you have just enough white, liberal guilt that you feel the need to make up for slavery with oral sex. I, personally, commend you on this act of reparation.

Rule-outs: Maybe she just really, really, likes his lyrics. Yeah, right…

5 General Rebelliousness

Do you have staid, conservative, stick-in-the-mud parents? Nothing will put a bug up their ass faster than bring Tyrone from Marcy Projects over for Christmas Dinner. And I’m not talking about a Sidney Poitier “Guess Whose Coming to Dinner” cultured African American either. For maximum effect, have him bring one or more of his “baby-mommas” over, if applicable. If your Black BF/GF is an upstanding member of society, he or she can always have a more uncouth sibling and/or cousin stand in to gain the necessary pants-wetting effect from one’s parents.

Rule-outs: If the subject has to chose between Tyrone and having her parents cut off the payments for her new Jetta, bye-bye Tyrone.

6 Jewish Rebelliousness

Do you have staid, conservative, stick-in-the-mud Jewish parents? Well, nothing will put them off of their Matzah faster than bringing LaDanien home for a nice Passover dinner. The only thing that will twist your mom’s panties tighter than bringing home a Gentile will be bringing home a Gentile Shvatza! Oy vey!

Rule-outs: Same as above.

7 Previous History

Say it with me, “Once you go Black, you never go back.” Actually, statistics prove that up to 20% of those who go Black do indeed go back. Still, if your subject goes Black 3 out of 4 guys, then that’s a statistically significant percentage of times gone Black. Trends like that do not just reverse themselves.

In a longitudinal study done by the University of Wisconsin, it turns out that previous studies about how many people go back suffered from Validity and Reliability errors. In their new double-blind cross cultural study, it turns out that the actual percentage of those who do go back is closer to 15.35%, which is still statistically significant at an Alpha level of .1%

Rule-outs: Some of those who go Black one too many times end up getting the shit kicked out of them by an irate baby-momma. That significantly reduces the likelihood of going Black again.

8 Substance Abuse

Do you or someone you love have a very large Marijuana habit? Do you have a tendency to listen excessively to Snoop Dogg and Cyprus Hill songs? Combined with certain aspects of number 4 and you have a sure-fire Negro-Lover.

Rule-outs: The Grateful Dead/Phish dirty hippy marijuana abuser avoids Negroes like the plague, because they know we absolutely hate White people with dreadlocks. Drives us mad. They also avoid the Police for that matter, and by the Police I do not mean the band lead by Sting.

9 Social Influence and Naming

Where you the only white kid in a sea of Black faces growing up, and consequently, is your snowflake of a daughter named Shaniqua? And now is she the only White girl in a sea of Black faces? Do you really think she’s going to go out of her way to find the only other White person in the school to date? No. If the subjects entire peer group that she socializes with regularly is black, and her friend’s call her “White Chocolate”, and most of your friend’s are Black, there’s virtually no chance that your gene pool is going to stay melanin free for much longer; that is, if it has stayed so already. You might as well invest in some Magnum condoms for her now… “just in case”.

Rule-Outs: If said “White Chocolate” speaks hip-hop very well, is immersed in Black culture, but hasn’t actually spoken to a Black person face to face in 3 years, then the likelihood of dating a Negro is similarly low. Such “suburban hood-rats” can be tantalizing to the average Black man, but they usually turn out to be no more than teases who appreciate everything about Black culture except for actual Black people.

10 First Contact

If you’ve been sheltered your entire life, cut off from any “negative influences” and somehow, somewhere you come across the first Black man in your life… in person? Well, everyone has an attraction to what’s new, mysterious, and exotic. It only takes a few right words for that exotic man to have that girl exploring his exotic penis.

Rule-outs: Some women have never been exposed to Black men for a reason… Say, they believe we are all gun-toting rapists and murderers. Now, I wonder where they would get that idea? *coughFOXNEWScough*

Being a Good Man

For me, being myself, being a man, and being a good man are three totally separate things. I will explain. When I am being myself, I am considerably strange. Most people cannot understand me. I in fact, kind of scare people. Very, very few people know how strange I really am. Extremely few. And it is not the ordinary amount of when people say “if you knew what I really thought you’d be horrified”, because no, I wouldn’t. I have encountered the worst of humanity, so what bad thoughts you have about your mother really would not impress me. I’ve heard people’s worst fears and darkest secrets, and I was not taken aback. What is going on in my head is a dozen times worse. So, being myself is out of the question, completely out of the question. The me I am is an approximation of me based on what I feel my environment can handle at the moment. Then again, maybe that is what everyone believes; that their thoughts are worse than everyone else’s. Maybe my thoughts really are tame compared to the basest desires of the most innocent looking person I could find. I guess with myriad personalities on the world, I really could not know for sure.

Then there is being a Man. That one I think I have down. I have some extremely girly moments, but I got thrown out of a bar a year or two back, and I think that puts me firmly in the Male category. Also I am unabashedly into guy things. I like violence, sports, fighting, and crassness, all things typically associated with males. I have a reputation as being a skirt-chaser, which is somewhat groundless, but I will not deny that I am in love with women, the entire gender and all contained therein. I also would say that I possess the more noble attributes of my gender. I consider myself to be strong in mind and body, and am fiercely loyal to my friends and family. Fiercely might be an understatement; it is the reason why I was thrown out of said bar, Olde Queens. I am rabidly devoted to my friends and the women I love. Unfortunately this leads to another unfortunate male trait, jealous rage. I know women can have jealous rage as well, but it seldom reaches the intensity of mine I think; maybe it does and women just have way more self-control than I do. That is entirely possible. But in the end, I think I am a fairly decent example of what a man is and should be.

The last part is the hardest, being a Good Man. Being a good man does not come naturally to me; I have to work at it. My definition of a good man is shown by the things I am trying to be. I am trying to be more considerate of the feelings of those who care for me. I am trying to be more considerate of others feelings in general. I am trying to use my talent for empathy for good instead of evil. I am trying to be a one woman man. I am trying to think about things that affect the planet. I am trying to be more considerate of my fellow man, and brighten up the days of those around me. I am trying to not let my bad moods spread to those around me. I am trying to not take anyone or anything I have for granted, to be appreciative of everyone who loves and cares for me. I am trying to be more responsible, more productive, and more self-sufficient. I am trying to be less selfish and more giving. I am trying to achieve better health, both mentally and physically. I am trying to not let the ghosts of my past catch up to me and bring me to a similar fate as my mother. I am trying to be a better brother, grandson, and nephew. I am trying to put myself in a position to be the best father ever one day. I am trying to make right what once went wrong, much like Scott Bakula, and do right to those to whom I have done wrong. I want to be stable and interesting, to be me but better, more refined, more desirable. I want to be a good and decent man. And I am close, so very close… but not there yet..

In my opinion many, many people get by in life but just being themselves, or some very few manage to just be men. So few strive to actually be good men. It seems that in my life, people will not let me get away with just being a man, or much less being myself. Mostly it seems that people expect more of me. I cannot get away with being a lousy, piece of crap scumbag like most men. I have to strive to be better, because when I do not the people who care about me become very disappointed and disillusioned, and that is not a pleasant feeling for me. I have to achieve a higher standard of behavior than most guys, mainly, I think, because I seem to be capable of it, or at least that is what people tell me. Even people who have only known me for a while seem to think I have the capability to be much more than I am, in fact, more than most men have the capability to be, if I can just figure out how to fulfill my true potential.

Not that I should feel any pressure… I remember, when I was young, very young, thinking highly of myself for being a good person. When I was in 5^th grade I found a wallet full of cash and returned it. I probably did more for my race at that moment than at any other point in my life, seeing as how I was the only black kid in the school. But as time went by, my sense of morality slid and slid and slid, to the point where I am the writer you are reading now. I’m fairly immoral, or “morally flexible” as I like to say. I think I can be a good man and be morally flexible (being myself) all at the same time. I can be a synthesis of the immoral me and the good man I want to be. I am trying and I think I am getting there. But being a Good Man takes a lot of effort, more than people realize. It is so much easier to be evil, and sometimes it feels, more rewarding.

How to Properly Celebrate Black History Month

There is only one way to properly celebrate Black history month. There are many ways that people do so; they educate themselves on famous Black people, they visit museums, they may even think twice before shooting Black suspects. But really, there is only one surefire way to celebrate Black History month, and that is by rescinding white privilege. Now I know many of you are unaware of white privilege; by it’s definition you should not be aware of it, especially if you happen to be white, so I will attempt to define it for you. Wait, better yet, why should I define it when I can have someone else define it for you;

"white privilege, a social relation
1. a. A right, advantage, or immunity granted to or enjoyed by white persons beyond the common advantage of all others; an exemption in many particular cases from certain burdens or liabilities.
b. A special advantage or benefit of white persons; with reference to divine dispensations, natural advantages, gifts of fortune, genetic endowments, social relations, etc.
2. A privileged position; the possession of an advantage white persons enjoy over non–white persons.
3. a. The special right or immunity attaching to white persons as a social relation; prerogative.
b. display of white privilege, a social expression of a white person or persons demanding to be treated as a member or members of the socially privileged class.
4. a. To invest white persons with a privilege or privileges; to grant to white persons a particular right or immunity; to benefit or favor specially white persons; to invest white persons with special honorable distinctions.
b. To avail oneself of a privilege owing to one as a white person.
5. To authorize or license of white person or persons what is forbidden or wrong for non–whites; to justify, excuse.
6. To give to white persons special freedom or immunity from some liability or burden to which non–white persons are subject; to exempt."
From http://whiteprivilege.com/definition

So yes, there ya go. White privilege. They enjoy every day of their lives and are many times not aware of it. We as Black people are quite aware of it, because we do not enjoy such privilege. We in fact suffer from something that can be called Black Disadvantage. Black Disadvantage means you have to work two or three times as hard just to achieve the same level as white people are given on a silver platter. For instance, I have not spelt the word "privilege" correctly once in this entire essay. I blame the public school system for giving me a substandard education compared to my white classmates, and not on the fact that I am for some reason convinced that privilege has an "a" in it.
I digress. I celebrate Black History Month by denying white privilege to all white people I see. I don’t grant them special privileges. I cut them off in traffic. I don’t let them merge. I cut them in line. I steal their girlfriends (especially if they are dating Brown or Black girls). I urge all of you to do the same in any way you can. Deny White people loans, keep them from moving into good neighborhoods, don’t pick them up in your cabs in favor of Black people. The best way to celebrate Black History month is to give White people a month long taste of what it’s like to be Black. Black men; date lots of women even though you’re ugly, have terrible bodily hygiene, no personality, and no social skills to speak of, but get the benefit of the doubt simply because you’re Black (the most coveted of White Privileges, being able to date any race of girl despite being a troll). Black people should be allowed to get out of all sorts of legal trouble because of either A. being cute and blond, B, having big boobs, or C. knowing somebody. Also, the rate of White people being pulled over, ticketed, and arrested for no good goddamn reason should increase by 70% during Black history month.
White people, you can do your part too; give up "Friends" for Black History Month. Forego all your white niceties for a month. Try your hardest not to call us niggers when your alone with your friends (don’t pretend you don’t; we know). Eat soul food until your blood pressure gets dangerously high. Get rid of your health insurance for the month and see how hard it is to get by. Go Up to Harlem and see how we feel in small suburban towns in New Jersey. Get shot 20 or 30 times by NYPD. Really get the feel of what it is like to be African American in America today. This part might be hard, but try mightily to give up your air of self-entitlement, as if the world owes you something; don’t enter every establishment with the attitude that everyone there should kiss your ass. This is more a result of a lifetime enjoying white privilege than of white privilege itself, but still, it’s extremely annoying. Try to accept that you aren’t always in charge of everything; everyone doesn’t have to speak your language, everyone doesn’t have to like your music, and everyone does not have to do things your way. Once you have accepted these facts, you are well on your way to rescinding your own White Privilege, and truly Celebrating Black History. Oh yeah, and don’t Lynch anybody; that’d be in extremely bad form.

Crouching Fierce

I love Street Fighter. If you did not know that about me, I would be quite surprised to think that you are my friend. Wait, I more than love Street Fighter, Street Fighter is like a cherished pet that I’ve had for the last 15 years. I love Street Fighter. Chun-Li, Ryu, and Ken are like brothers and sister to me.
So, that being said, the decline in popularity of fighting games is very distressing to me. It reflects the incredible puss-ization of America’s youth. The same way kids are more prone to shooting each other than having hand-to-hand fights and taking the possibility of being humiliated publicly, kids these days don’t want to play someone in an arcade head to head. They just want to sit n their x-boxes and PS2’s and trash talk each other from the safety of their living rooms, never once risking actual humiliation, or in fact real human interaction. Kids these days suck. They don’t know what it is to gloat over another persona’s fallen digital form. They do not know the joy of a UUUUUUUUUULLLLTRAAAAAAAAAAA COOOOOMBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They don’t know that an Aerial Rave can be just as exciting as a real one. It really is sad.
Samurai Shodown, if you hit someone just right, you cut them in half when you beat them. THAT’S COOL! Of course nothing beats that Innovator of Violence, Mortal Kombat. When I was in school MK people and SF people did not get along, they were like cats and dogs. I, as you know, was a SF person, I hated MK people. They were just generally bastards and jerks. They preferred things the easy way. Street Fighter was too complicated for them. They also were those really, creepy heavy metal guys who always drew bloody pictures in their notebooks and didn’t smell quite right. But, for what it is worth, I always liked watching MK. I remember the first time I ever saw it was in the arcade at Middlesex County College. I was mesmerized, my eyes had been opened to something fantastic and wonderful. I just could not stop uttering those magical phrases in that famous guttural tone, "EXCELLENT! FINISH HIM!" I was in another state of mind. Imagine my disappointment when I discovered how terrible the gameplay was, and how hard the fatalities were to execute. Back to SF for me
Samurai Shodown came from the SNK camp of fighting games, those geniuses who brought you Fatal Fury and King of Fighters. Nobody put more effort into fighters than SNK, and that’s including CapCom. SNK is out of business now, and I think that was a major blow, but they've been bought, so at least their characters are still alive. CapCom owns the rights to many of the characters, but they seem loathe to do anything new with them. Except now, there is the news of the orgasm-inducing Street Fighter 4. Everyone is into first person shooters now. Cold impersonal games where you run around shooting people with exotic weapons. No strategy, no tact, no personality, just running and shooting. No creativity, no action… it seems incredibly boring to me. But it is more popular now than ever, certainly more popular than SF. But then there are sites like http://www.shoryuken.com/, that reaffirm my faith in humanity. The real fighters are still out there. It kind of makes me feel good to know that I am the last of a dying breed. I feel like a guy who makes guns by hand, or a blacksmith or something. Fighting games are a niche now, a psychotic subculture that worships the crouching fierce. We know chain combos like the back of our hands, and we can do Hadokens in our sleep. Most people don’t understand us, but we understand us. It’s nice to belong, it’s nice to know that no matter what I’ll always have a scar because of my first Shoryuken. I know when I’m old, there will only be a few of us out there, but even when I’m 80, I’ll still smile when I hear the words "TIGER, GENOCIDE!!!"

Extrastentialism

"We Do All That We Can Do, the Best We Can, and Await the Results"
- Literal translation of the Japanese word "Nintendo"

It has been established that I have some unique views about spirituality, philosophy, and the function and purpose of the Universe, as well as our places in it. Most people get the answers to these questions from organized religion. My sources are no more or less real than that, but they are generally more entertaining. My view of the world is mostly cobbled together from pieces of Futurama, Native American Mythology, Boondocks, large doses of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and bits and pieces of whatever theologies I find convenient at the moment. From these sources, and many more, I have cobbled together a word to describe my world view. This sorta new philosophic theology I call Extrastentialism.
Extrastentialism is on the surface the exact opposite of existentialism. The main theme of existentialism is "A philosophy that emphasizes the uniqueness and isolation of the individual experience in a hostile or indifferent universe, regards human existence as unexplainable, and stresses freedom of choice and responsibility for the consequences of one's acts." The way I see it, the universe is anything but indifferent, but it is definitely hostile. The world as we know it is not set up to let humans survive. This is largely our own doing, but we love to blame the things that are wrong in the world on God. Even worse, we constantly ask him or her to fix the messes that we, as humans, have made for ourselves. And I’m not just talking about things like pollution, war, and general cruelty. I’m talking about the little stupid things that we do to ourselves, like getting pregnant when we have no business having children, pushing away the men and women who love us most, or drinking and driving. These are afflictions that do not come from God, but from our own foolish choices. And instead of doing what we have to to fix these problems, we pray, or have lucky charms, or trust in any number of invisible forces to pull our fat out of the fire.
The Universe is not, however, indifferent. Simple physics teaches us that everything is interconnected, that everything in the universe is affected by everything else in the universe. Existentialism leads most people to a feeling of nihilism where they believe that nothing matters, least of all arbitrary distinctions such as good and evil. That is part of the equation, but it is not the whole story. That’s where my thing differs, I say that everything you do matters to someone or something. The problem with humans is that we tend to get so wrapped up in ourselves that we stop seeing how interconnected we are with the world. If we spent more time thinking about all of the positive and negative effects we have on the world, no matter how large or small, I believe there would be less suicides. Suicide happens when people lose their connections, when they feel that they have no effect on anything in the world. The ironic and sad fact is that suicides cause a huge negative effect on the world. They create a vacuum in the string of cause and effect that powers reality, a vacuum which is inevitably filled in with negative emotions. Everything you do causes far ranging effects, a theory known as the "Butterfly Effect". The butterfly effect is a mathematical representation of chaos that shows how the smallest action has the biggest effects. Whether you leave for work at 8:10 or 8:15 matters, and it likely effects a large number of people in the world. Therefore, careless actions should not be done so carelessly, because who knows what you are doing when you say things like "I am having tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle". The point? Do whatever you can, and do it well. Chances are if you do something good, it will spread and have many more positive consequences than you intended, most of which you will never see. Likewise, negative actions spread out in a wave of negativity across the universe, carried by hundreds of trillions of little cause and effect coincidences and actions. So everything you do does matter, so try to make the things you do improve the world. It will help, even if you don’t think so.
This brings me to the point where extra and exi-stentialism cross over. I believe that we make our own miracles, luck, fate, etc. We have freedom of choice, we have knowledge and freedom of thought, which is either a blessing or a curse depending on your theological views. I learned that invisible forces may or may not effect our lives, but we can have a more immediate effect on our realities. There is no fate but that which we make for ourselves. We have to give our own lives meaning. If you count on outside forces to give you a purpose for living, you will be waiting a long time. The Universe may not be indifferent about what you do, in terms of cause and effect, but that does not mean that it cares about, say, whether you chose to become a dentist or not. It is only concerned with the effects of you becoming a dentist or not. As Shakespeare’s Caesar said, "The fault lies not in the stars, dear Brutus, but in ourselves". That’s basically the point of Extrastentialism. Things are not going to get done unless you get off your ass and do them. Everything has a point, a reason, and cause and effect. You just have to assign meaning to events in your life, and no matter what happens after that, you have done a little bit more to order your universe. Of course, life is not going to go the way you want it to, but my philosophy allows people to change, adapt, and move with a chaotic and hostile world. In the end, the only thing we can depend on is ourselves, for we always have ourselves there to depend on. Again though, you can only depend on yourself if you believe you can. Faith and belief really are the basis of functioning in this world, but that faith and belief has to be personal for it to be of any good. And that, in a convoluted and confusing way, is extrastentialism. It may sound silly and impractical, but it works for me.

Dying to Live

You know, I wonder if they'll laugh when I am dead
Why am I fighting to live, if I'm just living to fight
Why am I trying to see, when there ain’t nothing in sight
Why am I trying to give, when no one gives me a try
Why am I dying to live, if I'm just living to die

I have been under the assumption that I have been living for the past few years, but at times it seems like I was mistaken. I have been in a funk, a malaise if you will, and I have been laboring to get out of it. I have spent most of the last 5 years of my life chasing something. I do not know what it is I have been chasing, or running after if you will, but I have been running hard. I suppose you could say that I've been running from some things and chasing other things at the same time. I’ve been chasing women mostly, mostly out of habit. It’s all I knew to do. I was chasing women because there was a great hole in my heart, a deep seated longing that was left by a woman. I guess unconsciously I believed that a woman could fill the need that a woman left me with. As time went on I found that one woman could not fill the hole in my heart, so I sought out more, and for a time I believed that no one woman could help me, help me fill the great sucking emptiness that lay where my heart had been. So I chased every woman I could, and believe me, I got around. In the process I destroyed many relationships that could have made my life a nice, fulfilling, loving one. The hole sucked up every bit of love that came my way, but it never got smaller. It just got hungrier.
So then there is the thing I was running from. I’m still running from that, and I think if I run fast enough I can get away from it. What I’m running from is worse than what I stated in the previous paragraph. And it’s faster, and it will probably catch up to me eventually. It is my Fate from which I run and I do not think I can escape it. It’s dark and foreboding, but it’s there. And I can’t avoid it. I have a history of mental illness, heart disease, and cancer in first degree relatives. That’s a lot to deal with.

Now I used to live my life as an illusion
But reality will make my dream come true
So I'll keep fighting to live
If there's no reason to fight
And I'll keep trying to see...
Until the end is in sight
You know I'm trying to give
So come on...give me a try
You know I'm dying to live
Until I'm ready to die
-Dying to Live by Edgar Winter

And now I find that I have had a change of heart in many ways. I met women who cared enough about me to stay around me even though I am broken. They hugged me even though doing so was like hugging broken glass, and they put me back together, cutting themselves many times in the process. They gave me all the pieces I need to get better, I just had to see that they were there. And I have. In the process I seem to have found some old parts of my personality that I had thrown away, that I had not used because they lead to me getting hurt time and time again. It seems like I am at last ready to feel again. I am ready to love someone the way they love me. I am not afraid if hurting everyone, because I have far less sharp edges than I once did. I know what I want, and I can pursue what I want with a single-minded resolve that I hadn’t had before. When I was in High School I was a one woman man, but I could not find one woman who wanted me. Now if I do find that one woman who wants me, and who I feel can handle me, I think I can be happy again. I did not think that I had the capability to be happy anymore,. But I know now that I can be, because I know some of the greatest women in the world. I think I can be happy with one woman now, I really do. I feel more stable, like I have a sense of direction now. It’s a sign of healing, but that does not mean that I can escape my fate
I know I can’t but I know that my friends won’t let me face my fate alone. I know that one day I’ll get sick and depressed, but I won’t have to do so alone. I have my friends to help me get through whatever may come, and for that I will be eternally grateful. I just have to prove to myself that I am worthy of having friends like I do. I have to prove to myself that I am worthy of a girl who is worthy of me. I have a lot of things to prove to myself, and for the first time in a long time I feel like I have a reason to get up in the morning. I feel like I have goals, things to move towards, things I want to achieve. I want to change, to be the best man I can be. I want a girl who loves me to be secure in the fact that I love and only want to be with her. I am very, very close, and I think I will get to that point soon, when I can look at myself and say that I deserve something good to happen to me. Hope has always been a four-letter word to me, but for the first time in a long time I feel it, and it’s scary. I hate being disappointed, but you have to risk it to get what you want. The things I want are very important to me, so I will have to risk a lot, but it will all be worth it. And if I fail, my friends will be there to help me up, like they always are. I’m not ready to die yet, not by a long shot. Now, here’s to hoping I live past 65.

The Love Myth

I believe in the idea that humanity invents what we need to explain things that have no explanation. This idea is illustrated by the hypothesis that if there was no God, humanity would invent one, because it is something that we as a species need in this stage of our development. Many people need the idea of "God" to be able to lead their lives. It is a lot easier to believe in God to explain why things happen than the idea that we live in a random and chaotic universe where the only laws that really apply are the rules of nature. And, therefore, since humanity believes in God, God is real. Belief is perhaps the most powerful tool human beings have, for it can shape the present, future and past, and make miracles. Maybe it’s true that there is a little bit of God in all of us, and when we effect reality with the power of our beliefs, maybe we are tapping into that shard of the Maker that’s in all of us. Or maybe it’s all in our heads.
Which brings me to the subject of my discussion; love at first sight. Now before you people go getting your panties in a bunch, this does not mean that I do not believe in Love, whatever you happen to define that as. I just do not believe in Love at first sight. First of all, first sight is just that, sight, it’s visual. I maintain that you cannot fall in Love with someone just from looking at them, unless they are doing something spectacularly good for you when you first see them, like saving your mother from a burning building. Then I could maybe excuse Love at first sight. But in general one cannot fall in love at first sight. You can fall in Lust at first sight, you can fall in Lust from 200 feet away, but love? No. People are very good at rewriting their own personal history. It’s one of the perceptual biases we all have. People rewrite events to be what they thought it was, or what they believe it to be. For instance, a person may have only been physically attracted to another person upon their first meeting, but then fall in love later. What will happen is that the first person will superimpose their feelings of love onto their memories of the first meeting. So in their minds they will remember being in love at first sight, but that is not what happened. This is part of the power of the human brain to rearrange the past. That’s why police have such problems with eyewitness testimony; often people did not see what they thought they saw.
Like I said this does not mean that Love cannot happen ever, it is just that Love is a construct, a thing that we make, not something that happens. What people fail to understand is that their anecdotal evidence of something happening is flawed by not only their perceptions, but by their failure to take notice of when their individual theories about the workings of the world are wrong. In other words, we never think about how many times we don’t fall in love at first sight with people who we might otherwise. To go back to my previous example, if the first time you saw your future significant other he were, say, kicking the shit out of your mother, I don’t care what he did after that, you would not fall in love with him. I don’t care how good a reason he had for kicking the shit out of your mother, you just would not be that into him. And these sorts of things happen all the time. We often see people we would otherwise fall in love with, but it doesn’t happen because they don’t give very good first impressions. In fact, I would say that these occurrences happen a lot more than love at first sight. A lot of things that we attribute to fate or luck or God are usually just constructions of our minds. But our minds are so powerful that what we imagine can sometimes be very, very real to us. When our personal realities clash with consensual reality, we run into a lot of problems, which is where some mental illness springs from. What people fail to do is look for events that contradict what we believe. If you looked at the world truly objectively, one would find that an equal number of events happen to counteract those events that we wish or think were true. The world is truly random, which is the major truth I want to bring out here. That doesn’t mean that good things can’t or won’t happen, it just means that we should take a little more personal responsibility and initiative in making sure that those good things that we believe in actually do happen. We can’t expect God to do the work that we can do ourselves. We can’t let faith be responsible both for the cracks in our understanding of things, and for those things that we actually do understand and have control over.
Of course I expect that some people will disagree with me, and claim that love conquers all, etc. But some people need that sort of thing to fill in the parts of their life that they don’t understand. We all have cracks in our understanding of the universe and reality, and faith is what we use to fill in those blank spots. Whenever I express my theories about things, people inevitably crawl out of the woodwork with thousands of stories that directly disprove whatever I think. But these stories never stand up to reasoned questioning, and the person I am arguing with usually just gets angry and shuts down. It’s really hard being right so much, but I don’t know any other way to be.

On the Matter of Donovan

I like to think that being an empathetic person, I can imagine anyone else’s situation as if it were my own, and for the most part I can. It’s an ability that has served me well in life. Many other people have this ability as well. Part of empathy Is being able to take a piece of your life, and superimpose it over a similar piece of someone else’s life. Allowing this, it follows that a person could not be empathetic to s situation they have never experienced. If the experience that they are trying to superimpose is too different, then the images won’t fit, and the empathic experience will be incomplete, to say the least. This is usually defined by this exchange;

Person A "Hey man, I know what you’re going through."
Person B "You have no idea what I am going through!"

This is a situation that is preferably avoided, since there are few times when a person feels worse than when they reach out to connect to another person’s experience, and fail. The time when such attempts tend to fail the most is when people who are not Black try to understand something that is uniquely Black. Some Black things really can’t be understood unless you are really immersed in what it is to be Black. This issue came up during the Donovan McNabb - T.O. saga. Many people in the media did not understand that the real rift between McNabb and T.O. wasn’t over money or playing time, but it was over status in the Black community. Some Black people perceive Donovan to be a "House Nigger" and T.O. basically referred to him as such on national TV. Black people have had a perception about ourselves since slave times, that some Black people are down for the struggle, and others of us suck up to white people in order to gain favor. In slave days, those slaves who sucked up where called house niggers because they got to work in the big house instead of out in the fields. House niggers were generally light-skinned, as the slave masters found the darker skinned slaves to be more offensive somehow. Because Donovan is the face of the Eagles, and the person they hold up as being their premiere player, T.O. and some other Eagles players viewed him as a sellout. Throughout Black circles this was debated far and wide. The head of the Philly chapter of the NAACP echoed these remarks. The national head of the NAACP told the Philly head that he had far better things to think about than the Eagles, and that there was nothing wrong with McNabb.
Things like this happen all the time in the Black community, and most people don’t know it. There is a racial subtext to everything that happens in the world, and unless you have known the shared experience that is being Black in America, you really can’t understand some things. There are several groups who have attempted to equate their struggle with ours, and it really just does not work. There really is nothing worse or more stressful than being a Black person in America. Women try to say that they have a claim, but even then, if you’re not a Black woman, then you’re life is fairly good, especially if you’re a white woman. Gay people try to say that they have it as bad, but that’s not true as well. They can hide their gayness, I can’t hide my Blackness. No matter what group you are, it’s worse if you’re a Black member of that group. Some Hispanic peoples have it pretty bad in this world, but it is always worse if you are a racially Black member of a Hispanic group. Did you know that there are Black Cubans? Of course not, you never see them. They are generally too poor to leave the island. The same is true for Middle Eastern and Indian people. Sure they are viewed as being terrorists wherever they go, but that will pass in time, and Black people still garner more attention and suspicion.
Sometimes I wish I could get people to see things the way I see them, then they would understand a little more why I feel the way I do. I was raised amongst white people for most of my life. I am most always the only Black guy in any given room, so I have a unique vantage point from which to view racial matters. I don’t think I’m racist but I probably am, and just getting more so with time. Yet I still have friends of all races and ethnicity. I’m not quite sure how I manage to reconcile these two subjects, but somehow I do. I hate many, many peoples, but I hang out with many, many peoples. Maybe I’m just a hypocrite. I try and explain some of my viewpoints to my friends, but they don’t get it, and sometimes they quite vocally don’t get it, and that’s OK. Friends don’t have to agree about everything. I let people think what they want to think. I know some people don’t understand what I’m saying and that’s fine. There are situations that I don’t understand, like what it’s like to be a young Indian-American girl who has to fly back to India to find a husband. That I cannot begin to empathize with, but I can try. I think as long as we try to see things from other people’s point of view, that’s enough, even if we don’t get it right.

The Ultimate Truth

There is no reason that most men have trouble with women. Technically, there are so many women, that it shouldn’t be a problem. But it is, it’s a huge problem. The main component of this problem is that 100% of women are chasing the same 10% of the male population. Which means that if there’s ten women in a room, and 10 men in a room, all of those women will be chasing one guy out of the 10. These are not good odds for us.
Many of us tried to win women, with a fairly logical course of action. If we listen to them, we reasoned, and do everything they say then they will like us. And this tactic worked, to a point. Girls liked us, sure. They liked us so much they never, ever had sex with us. Ever. And then there was the horrible side-effect that we had the unfortunate pleasure of listening to women complain about all the assholes who they where having sex with. These were usually men who treated the women like carp, yet the women repeatedly went back to. If not that specific guy, then the girl would date that type of guy over and over and over, whilst repeatedly leaving you blue-balled and pissed-off.
After 10 or 12 years of this one tends to get a little bitter and pissed off. Well, I have finally figured out how so many seemingly decent guys so often are relegated to the "friends-only" aisle of the supermarket.
Apparently, women find nice guys to be boring.

Now, hear me out. Would you want to date someone who was really nice and fairly all right looking, but utterly boring? Well, OK you would. But most women would not. They like nice guys, but they don’t want to date a guy who doesn’t excite them, and it seems that a guy who does whatever they say and constantly aims to please does not excite them. They want some degree of conflict, some sort of drama to keep them interested. Now this does not mean that you have to give a girl an open-handed smack in the mouth to keep her, but threatening to every now and then wouldn’t hurt, as long as it’s all done in jest. When queried on this subject, women will respond that they date lots of nice guys who have great personalities. This shows an inherent misunderstanding of the question. They answered a different question, about dating nice guys in general. There are nice guys who have good personalities. They may not in fact be nice guys, but jerks who are able to put on a happy face, before they kick an old lady down a flight of stairs. And, secretly, women love that dichotomy.
Women love contradictions. They’re famous for wanting their cake and eating it too. The woman’s perfect man is a Pulitzer Prize winning heavyweight boxing champ with A Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering and who can run a 4.2 sec 40. So it’s not surprising that so many of us become so confused by their behavior. Women will claim they want a "nice guy" but often date jerks. Repeatedly. They may not stay with said jerk for long, but they will repeatedly date that jerk, or others just like him, until they eventually figure out that punches are not a way people show affection. It’s not really their fault. I believe that the majority of women under 25 just really do not know what they want, or in other cases they do not know how to recognize what they want. So they date guys who are quite obviously jerks to the rest of us, but who they think are Mr. Right.
As the best friend, we always tell the girl that the guy is a jerk, but therein lies another problem with women. When they ask you for advice they do not actually want advice. They want you to listen to them bitch about their problem, then agree with whatever conclusion they come to on their own anyway. They do not want your input. So no matter how much you tell a woman that something is a bad idea, the chances are great that they’ll do it BECAUSE everyone says its a bad idea. Obviously every woman isn’t like this, but the majority are. I know a lot of girls who are smarter than this, but they still have made their slip-ups. So in essence, what you have to do is watch what a woman does, and not what they say, because what they say is not what they really are after. Watch a woman’s habits and that is the real her. Now you may find out that you cannot approximate what it is said woman is after, but at least you won’t waste a lot of time listening to her stupid problems and not getting the least bit of action from it.

In the end, that is the stupidest thing of all.

Being a Grown Up Sucks Ass

So I’m about four years out of Graduate School and I’m still just another anonymous blogger. Lucky you. Let me tell you something; the real world sucks ass. The only real nice thing about it is health insurance, health insurance kicks ass. But this is what all of you lucky sons-a-bitches have to look forward to.

After graduating, be prepared to whore yourself out to whoever will have you. You may want to leave your dignity and self-respect on stage after you take your diploma, because you won’t be needing it out there. Chances are you’ll be broke as hell and willing to do anything short of sucking dick for money. Wait, I forgot what population I’m writing to; some of you will be sucking dick for money again. You’ll be talking nice and friendly to people you ordinarily would not piss on if they were on fire. You’ll be smarter than them, sure, but they are in control of whether you get a check or not, so just bend over and take it.

Next once you get the job (which may or may not have something to do with your major) you get to spend every second of your life praying for a death that will never come as your job slowly strangles any hope and creativity from your beleaguered soul. Your supervisors will devalue everything you do, and the good ideas you do have will be stolen by someone, again, less educated and far less talented than you. You will probably be working with people 10 to 20 years older than you who have died inside long before their bodies cease to live. They will be extremely jealous of your youth and vitality, coupled with the fact that you got a position right out of college that it took them 20 years of promotions to attain. These people will hate you and everything you stand for. They will make it their mission in life to sabotage you to make themselves look good. Women are lucky to meet a special brand of this type of person, the male chauvinist. They have all of the traits of the other corporate zombies, but they have the added bonus of devaluing everything you do or say because you are a woman. God help you if you end up supervising one of these miserable types, for they will disrespect you both for your age and your gender, generally misbehaving to make you look bad.
Combine all of this with the fact that you’ll probably be trying to get a higher degree just to get a job that pays enough for you to be able to break even, which no one you work with will care about, and somehow try to have a social life. Your significant other will leave you because your job sucks up all of your free time. You will not be paid what your worth, and any bit of joy in your life will be systematically hunted down and exterminated. But congratulations on graduating! Poor saps…

A Response From The Hetero Male in Question

This one needs a little set up. I wrote a literal ton of stories about two superheroes called Captain Hetero and Iron Dyke. I printed one of my Iron Dyke stories when I was on the school paper at John Jay College in NYC. I assumed, New York being the liberal place its supposed to be, it would go over well. I have been writing issues of I.D. AND C.H. at Rutgers for 4 years and had nary complaint, mostly because people got the joke. At least one person at John Jay didn't. This was my response to her. It was originally printed 05/12/03

I guess I should have expected this, but , honestly, I did not. It is not that I do not understand where Prof. Yukins is coming from, because I do. I even see where she could draw her conclusions from, I really do. The only problem is that , with all due respect, she is completely, utterly wrong about all of it.
I guess I should start from the beginning. My "compilation of bigoted stereotypes and trite heterosexual male fantasies" as she put it, are really things I could not possibly think up myself. Iron Dyke’s views and opinions are an amalgam of things I’ve heard and read from actual lesbians who I am very good friends with and feminist literary theory which I am fairly well versed in. Seeing as how I am going to be a psychologist, I have also read many feminist perspectives on psychology. So I do not sit around and fantasize about man-hating lesbians; any fantasizing I do about lesbians has nothing to do with that.
Oh, and you needn’t remind me of all of the daily violence committed towards gays and women. I am a Black man after all, which makes most criticisms against my writing all the more hilarious. The fact that Yukins compares me to ultra right-wing conservatives "Minus’s writing echoes the rhetoric of social commentators like Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robertson" provided me with a very good laugh (by the way, you missed Bill O’ Reilly in that group). I hate those guys; in fact I guess if she was going to find people I was least like, they would be it. I love it when people who do not know me presume to lecture me about the plight of minorities in America. No one, and I mean no group in America has it worse than Black men, even homosexuals. You can pretend to not be gay, I cannot pretend to not be Black. So don’t give me that I’m justifying oppression garbage, I know all about it.
But I really can’t blame her for being wrong; she does not know me. And that really is the bottom line here. It’s why her whole argument against me is wrong. I can’t blame her for not knowing my opinions on things…wait, yes I can. I’ve wrote more than a few editorials in my first year of going to John Jay, and if she had read any of those, then she would know how Liberal and what a generally pissed-off Black man I am. So, keeping that little fact in mind, it means that the only bit of my writing that Prof. Yukins has read is the one thing that would piss her off. Interesting.
There’s another reason I cannot blame her for feeling the way she does, she has only read the first issue. You see, Iron Dyke is a series of short stories I’ve written; the one in the last issue was the introduction of her character. In later issues, as she is fleshed out more and we see her in interpersonal relationships, we see how her views are challenged by more level-headed thinkers. She does in fact believe very strongly in everything she said in that last issue. She sees herself as The Superhero for all gays everywhere. It is not satire or sarcasm; I’m from New Jersey, I’m very good with sarcasm. My goal with her character is to expose people who have very little sense of humor and take themselves waaay too seriously. Mission accomplished I’d say. Another thing that amuses me about all of this is that in the four years I’ve been writing her story, none of the feminists I know have reacted this way; they love Iron Dyke. And these girls are pretty damn serious about their views. Here in the big city, I’d expect that people would be sophisticated enough to understand the point. But as I said, it was only the first issue. Maybe it exposes some flaws in my writing style that I didn’t expose the entire message of the series in the first issue, but somehow I doubt it.
Prof. Yukins is right about one thing, I would like to reform the activity of feminists. Oftentimes the massage is delivered in such a way that it prevents people from hearing what they are trying to say. Feminist theories and activities often immediately alienate the very people they need to hear their message; mainstream America. I can’t really go into my views on feminism here, that’s a rant for another day. Prof. Yukins, and I think a lot of other people, completely, utterly, and hopelessly missed the point of that story. You have to be pretty open-minded to enjoy Iron Dyke. Calling me a women fearing/hating heterosexual male all you want, but please, continue to read my stuff. Maybe then you will understand me and we won’t have more of these little misunderstandings.

I Guess We Can't All Get Along

I think it’s about time we gave up on the idea of racial unity. It has become pretty obvious to me that people just are not going to be able to get along. People are always going to be the way they always have been. I’ll give you an example. This Sunday I was at a Caribbean day celebration at my old school in NJ, Rutgers. There were lots of West Indian types of food, gifts, and of course, lots of music. About 6 hours of reggae music to be exact. Now one would expect that if there was a lot of reggae music, there would be a lot of white people there too right? No? Well, look at it this way. A lot of people are into the music genre of Ska. If you aren’t familiar with Ska, just think of it as a musical ,mix of punk music and reggae. It sounds a lot more like reggae than anything else, accept that it’s mostly performed by white bands with the occasional black member. Ska’s fans are also mostly white, with occasional black fans as well. The point is that you would think that if these people liked Ska, they would like reggae too right? Well, that just is not the case. It seems like people only like music if people that look like them are singing it. There’s a band called 311 that sings a lot of songs that have reggae beats to them, but oddly enough, none of their fans were in attendance either. Rock and Roll only became popular among white people after a white man sung it, and it seems like the trend hasn’t changed since.
It may seem a little pessimistic, but I don’t think that people are in fact getting any closer. I mean, look at this whole war thing. Most people were all for the bombing of those brown people because , well, it wasn’t them who were being bombed. It was not them or anyone they knew. I’m sure if Europe were being bombed a lot fewer people would have supported the war. The expression out of sight, out of mind really applies here. It is easy to accept the deaths of people you know nothing about and will never have anything to do with. One of the most disturbing parts of this war is the absence of PTSD among the vets. Vietnam vets came back all messed up because of what they saw, and what they did. It seems like today soldiers have no conscious, that the fact that they’re bombs were killing innocent women and children in the name of freeing them did not phase them at all. They were OK with taking away other people’s children as long as they are able to go home and see their own.
It’s not that I have anything against the soldiers, I hope they come home safely. It’s the fact that the government has demonized the Arab people so much that Americans believe that they are all bad, and that we should bomb all of them. I wonder where it will stop. Arab people are being rounded up and forced to register. I wonder what would happen if Irish people had to do the same, just to make sure that they were not terrorists? Is there any evidence that America is not waging war on the Arab world? Is there any reason for them to believe that we care about what happens to them? Of course not. America’s intentions are not as important as what our perceived intentions are. America’s actions have only shown aggression, threats, force and intimidation. What have we done accept for provide unconditional support for Israel?
The news is not all bad. People are starting to like music of other cultures regardless of who sings it. People are starting to have friends of other races, but it is not enough. Most people do not know or care the difference between an Indian and a Pakistani, and most don’t even know that those two countries are almost constantly at war. The average American thinks we should bomb both countries. Our ignorance is our downfall, and President Bush’s black and white view of the world doesn’t help. We as Americans are very ready to hate any country which disagrees with us, just as we are ready to blacklist anyone who disagrees with the president. It’s like we are back in the 1950’s again, instead of Communists we are afraid of Terrorists. But McCarthyism seems to be back in effect, and no one cares, or else they are too afraid to say they are. No one will speak up for the Arabs whose rights are abused, no one will say that Israel has committed acts as atrocious as the Terrorists attacks against them are. No one will say what’s on their mind because God knows what will happen if you do. That’s America as it is now, but not as it should be. This isn’t where we are supposed to be. Am I bitter and cynical? Yeah, a lot actually, but that changes nothing of what I said. But as long as gas prices go down,. Who cares who gets bombed and who dies?

addendum 02/16/07 I've met some Iraq veterans, and talked to a lot more, and they do have PTSD just like anyone who has been in a war. War I think now that I'm older, has a way of humanizing people in the end, even when the enemy is trying to kill you, you understand a little better why they want to kill you. And, war or not, gas prices have gone up no matter what since I wrote this back in April of 2003. Still though, I don't think race relations have gotten any better; it's just something we are going to have to accept.

The Spoils of War (originally written 04/14/03)

It’s a beautiful day outside. It really is. In fact, the whole last weekend has been nothing but beautiful days. Spring has sprung, as they say, and it’s very apparent that our snow days have been put of for at least another 6 months. I have been trying to enjoy this new spring, this new beginning, but just as the season started, so did the war. That tends to put a damper on any celebrations of new life, especially when so much life is being taken halfway across the world.
I’ve spent the last few weeks telling anyone who will lesson why this is an idiotic war. Not because there needs to be a less psychotic political system in Iraq, because there does need to be. The real reason why this war is pointless is because it will not solve anything, in the long or short run. Many, many Americans are for the war, and I’ve talked to many people who are. The reasons they give for the war are as vague as the ones they have heard on television and from the President. In fact, most people I’ve talked to have only regurgitated the broad reasons that the president has stated. However, if you really think about any of the reasons that have been given, none of them make any sense. At first, the government stated that they wanted to create a democracy in Iraq, but when you look at history, bombing a country has never, EVER created a stable working democracy. In fact since the end of WW II we’ve bombed 22 countries, and a real democracy has not come out of any of these instances. So, there goes that. The question I ask is, who the hell is going to replace Saddam as the leader of Iraq, one of his equally psychotic sons? Who is going to control Iraq when Saddam is gone? (Note I say "when"; this war is the most expensive, expansive assassination attempt ever).
One of the few (very few) humorous moments in all of this tragedy is when American troops raised an American flag over a port that they had taken, and then were told to take it down. I’m assuming there were some British troops with them who filled them in on the idea that they weren’t supposed to look like they were taking Iraq over for America. It is bad enough that that is what the world thinks, without our troops reinforcing the fact. Here is the real reason that this war is going to mess America up far more than it will help us. Bush has burned so many bridges in his push for war, that after this American is going to have to fight every battle, militarily or otherwise, by ourselves. A lot of people I’ve talked to say that Britain will always be on our side, but guess what? Come next British elections, Tony Blair is not going to be there any more. He is known amongst his people as Bush’s Poodle. Brits have no respect for him, and widely, widely disagree with his blind support of President Bush. In fact, the leaders of many countries that support us do so against their people’s wishes. The leaders of these countries (Pakistan, India, Turkey, Britain, Italy, Australia, Spain) will probably not see another term because of their support of the US. Many of these countries, such as Turkey, Pakistan, and Jordan are being basically paid off to support us.
Bush has made it clear that countries are only important as long as they are of use to us. President Musharraf of Pakistan has been made to feel like a fool for supporting the US, as we continue to economically repress that country’s exports for our own gain, while he risked his leadership role to support America’s war against the Taliban. If you want to read about the reasons why this war is a terrible idea, as is the entire Bush administration, read the Newsweek article from a few weeks ago entitled "The Arrogant Empire". The world is afraid of Americans because they know what is happening to Iraq could happen to each and every one of them if they should anger us. What people fail to realize is that we took military action around the world three times under the Clinton Presidency, and he never asked anybody for permission. The difference is that the world community trusted and liked Clinton and they hate Bush. You know why the world hates Bush and America? They hate Bush because their leaders have prostrated themselves before America, and the people of those countries do not know who runs their own home. Are foreign countries such as Britain and Italy lead by their elected leaders, or by Bush? World leaders and ambassadors feel like the American government treats them like wayward children. That is no way to rule the most powerful country in the word, and We The People, not Dubya the Idiot, are the ones who are going to have to pay for his arrogance and violence.

My $.02 on the War (originally written 03/03/03)

I, like a lot of other people I suspect, am really at odds as to whether or not we should go to war. There are many reasons why we should not. The first and foremost among them is that all of this seems to be the end result of the Bush family’s personal dislike for Iraq and Saddam Hussein, and their love of oil. I am fairly certain that this is why many other countries refuse to support our war effort. They probably cannot help but think this is another attempt by an arrogant and boastful nation full of arrogant and boastful people to impose their will on another country, regardless of whether they pose a threat or not. Other countries, most likely believe that we will take anything as a sign of terrorism in order to attack those who don’t fall in line behind our lead, and for the far less complicated reason of revenge for the 9/11 attack. Looking at our president, I can understand where this line of thinking comes from, I actually happen to share it. The rest of the world is finally starting to stand up to America, which is good because we are not always right…especially not with Bush’s fool ass in office. There has been a lot of public discord about the fact that France is not supporting us when "We saved their asses in WW 2!" First of all we were dragged kicking and screaming into World War II, and if we hadn’t been attacked there’s no telling if and when we would have joined in to "save their asses".
Does this mean that France and England and really all of Western Europe should eternally subjugate themselves to America? No. They should be grateful, and be our allies, but a country must always vote their conscience. If it seems to them that America is pushing for war because it is the only way Bushes know how to stimulate the economy and divert people’s attention form the fact that they have no jobs and no money, then Europe must do what they feel they need to do to avert war. Now if they could only get America to not be so one-sided in it’s support for Israel, we’d really be getting somewhere in the war on terror. There is only one problem with all of this anti-war sentiment: what if they’re wrong?
What if we are right? What if Iraq is building weapons of mass destruction, and war is the only way to safeguard ourselves? What if he is pulling the wool over the eyes of the international community? In a way that would be nice, because it would prove that America was the only country in the world really up to speed on what people are doing. But it could also be terrible because the USA is one of the top targets of terrorism. If the rest of the world is wrong, they are not the ones who will pay for their mistake, we are. If Iraq successfully hides weapons, those weapons will not be unleashed on France, or Germany, or China or Russia. They will be headed straight here to where we live. We have the most at stake in this argument, which is why we should have the most say. But if we are perceived as unjustly attacking Iraq, that could go just as badly as moving the US up the list past Israel as the #1 enemy of the Arab world. So it seems we may be damned if we do, and damned if we don’t. But I still have this nagging feeling that we may be worse off if we do than if we don’t.
A friend of mine said that she is sure that if we do not attack Iraq, terrorism will drop off considerably. But if we do, terrorism will rise a lot. Many of the people of the countries who claim to support us do not. The best example of this is Turkey, whose Prime Minister pledged their support, but whose Parliament voted down allowing US troops to fight from Turkey. In northern Iraq there is the threat of there being a four front war between the Iraqis, the Kurds, Turks, and the Americans. That is a disaster waiting to happen. The war is not exactly popular in Britain either. Last week 122 members of Tony Blair’s own party called the case for war unproved, 199 British lawmakers in total revolted against Blair. The problem is that Bush is blindly pushing for the advancement and safety of the USA at the expense of the rest of the world. The US is sucking up the resources of the planet more than any other single country, (and more than most other regions in fact), while giving nothing back. That is why people expect so much from us, because we have so much. The American president should put our interests first and foremost, but not at the expense of the rest of the world. We cannot screw over the rest of the world and expect to stay safe here at home. We do not live in a snowglobe. I would really like to be able to travel abroad some day, but at this rate there won’t be anywhere safe in the world to go, except for Canada, and that barely counts as being a foreign country. Bush does not know how to play well with others, and his attitude and policy has made him and consequently America intensely hated in the Arab world, far more than ever before. American reporters who have talked to Iraqis on the street have said that they don’t hate America, they hate Bush. And we end up getting hit by another terrorist attack because of Dubya pissing the world off, I’m going to hate him as well.

Kickin it Old School

So I was going through my pile of freshly bought comics recently, and I read three in a row. It was not until I was done that I realized the common theme that all of these comics. They were all based off of TV shows I watched in the 80’s, namely, ThunderCats, G.I. Joe, and Transformers. So now, for all of you who know exactly what I am talking about, let us take a walk down memory lane with some old faces on fresh pages.
First we will start with ThunderCats #2 from Wildstorm. Now I was always somewhat ambivalent about the ThunderCats. You see I liked the concept fine, and the opening and closing credits were really cool. These are important things when you are a kid. The show had two major, major flaws however. The animation was sketchy as hell. One show it would be decent, the next show…well…let’s just say that the Korean animators probably went on strike. The animation was often terrible. The second, and less forgivable sin, was that the stories always had cop-out endings. It would seem like Mumra had all but won, and some fluke, deus-ex-machina plot device would intervene and save the day. Now if, I don’t know, Lion-O did a ThunderCats Ho, and all of the rest of them went straight into ass-kicking mode, that was cool. But too often the plots just had really lame resolutions. I was 10 years old but I could still tell when the writers had run out of ideas. I wasn’t stupid. So the major task of the new comic would be to solve those plot problems, right? Well, they try. Seems Mumra is tired of Slithe’s shit, so he puts Vultureman in charge of the Mutants. Yeah, that’s what the team needed, a change in leadership. So, with Vultureman at the helm, the Mutants get their asses easily kicked once again by Lion-O, Tigra, and some random Samurai named Hachiman. Same shit, different decade. The best thing about this comic is the Jim Lee comic. Lion-O wished he were as cool as he looks here.
Moving on to G.I. Joe #8 from Image, we find a nice little family reunion…that family being the Dreadnoks. The Gangs all there…literally; Ripper, Thrasher, Monkey Wrench, Zarana, and the leader, Zartan. I always liked these guys, just because their major motive in life seemed to be to break things and get paid for it, two ideals very close to my heart. Zarana is transporting a sensitive piece of computer equipment to Dr. Mindbender, looking Fabulous in his Purple Full-length Cobra Blouse. Hilarity ensues. Seriously, the G.I. Joe is worth it. It has all of the plot and characterization the show lacked, but without the ridiculously high turnover rate of the original comic book run. That was realistic, true, but did they have to kill off EVERY Joe I liked? Geeze.
Lastly, we have Transformers: The War Within preview issue from DreamWave Productions. Now DW is also responsible for the wildly popular, and very good Transformers Generation 1 series that’s on its 5th issue now. Since those comics are so damn good, and faithful to Transformers, I knew this series would not disappoint. And it does look promising; this series will tell the story of the original civil war on Cybertron, sometime after they kicked the Quintessons into space, and before they arrived on Earth. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, then you are reading the wrong article. Anyway, the Transformers you know are there, but they look different because they are still in their Cybertronian bodies. All this adds up to some really fucking cool new versions of Grimlock (who’s a tank now), Starscream, Bumblebee, and Devastator (whoa). Long story short, buy these comics. Actually, no don’t because I don’t want them to be sold out before I get one. So for the ratings. I give ThunderCats #2 2 Energon Cubes out of Five, G.I. Joe #8 3 Energon Cubes, and Transformers; The War Within preview 4 Cubes. Enjoy your flashbacks kids. BTW, DreamWave folded, and someone else picked up the Transformers label, I think it's IDW publishing.

Maybe We Aren’t Number One…

You know, I think I finally understand why the rest of the world dislikes Americans. The rest of the world dislikes Americans the same way Black people dislike White people. OK, now hear me out on this. White people can go years without ever seeing anyone who does not look like them. White people do not have to learn anything about anyone else’s culture besides their own. I mean really, who do you think diversity training curriculum is for? If you are Brown or Black, you have already had to learn about a culture other than your own. We do not really need diversity training. It is White people who more often than not know nothing about the other races and ethnic groups that inhabit the country.
The same is basically true of Americans. On the average we do not really have to know anything about any other country in the world. We are ignorant of other countries basically because we can afford to be. American culture is everywhere. English is spoken in many, many countries in the world. It is fast becoming the most international of languages. American movies play everywhere. In most international sports, (accept for rugby and soccer) Americans reign. The Olympics, Golf, Tennis, Baseball, Football, Hockey (Canadians may be really good at Hockey, but where do they come to play?), and even Basketball are all international sports ruled by America, although that has changed in recent years. Everybody knows about America, you cannot escape American culture. Basically we don’t have to know about them, but they have to know about us. That kind of situation breeds resentment, which could lead to hatred. Sometimes, and I know this is something everyone can relate to, you really hate someone in your life for no other reason than that you see them too damn much.
And that, I think, is the basis for a lot of Anti-American sentiment, even among our European allies. It does not help that Americans have this…attitude, that we have. We almost cannot help it. A lot of countries believe that they are the best in the world, but Americans know it as an undeniable fact, like gravity and the sun rising in the morning.. I have to admit to being guilty of this way of thinking myself. Americans honestly do not understand why other countries would not want to be like us. The odd part is that we are all acutely aware of the many faults with our country, yet we still encourage other peoples to be like us. It is this attitude that many White people possessed throughout the history of this country, and it is an attitude that many Americans possess today. People resent us because we are so sure of ourselves, so sure that we are right and that we are the good guys and that we will save the world, even though it is Americans who are doing the most to ruin the world. That is why people hate us, and I can understand that. But that view is wrong. We know we often end up screwing things up more than we help, and we know that our leaders are idiots, but we are trying to do the best we can, I think. On this planet it is kind of like we are driving, but we have all had one drink too many.
So what do we do about it? Try to be a little more humble? Humility is the rarest thing in America, and I do not know if you’ll find it at all. This country lives and dies by being number 1, with all of the responsibilities that entails. I guess the rest of the world will have to learn to deal with us insufferable Americans. We can help however, by reading the international section of the newspaper every now and then, and trying to not be assholes when we travel abroad. Hey, its the least we can do for the uncivilized countries of the world, i.e. everyone but us.

Chat Transcript From God to Woman

GOD32: Ok, is this working?
LrdNSvyr01: Yes Father
GOD32: OK Jesus, I have a message for my children again. Let me just run it by you.
LrdNSvyr01: Go ahead Father, you being God, this has to be good.
GOD32: You know Jesus, I can never tell if you’re being sarcastic or not. Anyway here it goes. It’s an open letter to Woman.
LrdNSvyr01: Oh you mean the first one you made?
GOD32: Yes, her, and by extension all women. OK, here goes. Woman, I know you may still be a little miffed about the whole Eden thing, and the menstruation unpleasantness, but it had to be done. Trust me, I’m God.
LrdNSvyr01: Nice God, start off mending some bridges.
GOD32: Thanks. I think…anyway Woman, we have to talk. It’s about Man. What have you been doing? They are completely out of control! You Chicks have got to get your act together.
LrdNSvyr01: Uh Dad, they don’t like to be called chicks. They find it demeaning.
GOD32: Why? I always used to call Woman my little chick, the way she would scamper around the office, just like a little bird chick. It’s a term of endearment. But whatever, Woman, I made you smarter than Man for a reason. You have got to control him. You have let Man run amok, now look what is happening. I’ve got the Angels working two or three shifts straight trying to clean up all of the messes Man is making. Yes he is stronger, bigger faster, and more enduring than you, but why do you think I did that? They are there to protect you, to do all of the manual labor. Do you know that I used the same basic system to build ox as I did Man? They are there to be your servants. Why do you think I gave you all of those controls over him?
LrdNSvyr01: What do you mean Dad?
GOD32: Why do you think I made them so irresistible. I think that I did too good of a job, even Woman is love with Woman now. I used stars for their eyes, solar wind for their breathe…do you know how expensive that stuff is? I made their bodies all round and curvy because that is the most irresistible shape there is…round. Why do you think that all things in the universe are round? Why do you think sex is so good? Why do you think Man calls my name when Woman touches him? Why do you think that vagina is addictive?
LrdNSvyr01: Dad, do you have to talk about that?
GOD32: C’mon Jesus, don’t be such a prude. I made sex so good in order for Woman to enslave Man. He will do anything for Woman, and think that it is all of his own free will. Woman, you are smarter than man, wittier. Man’s body may be better physically, but your mind is perfect. You have to get off of your butt and take control of the planet before it’s too late. You’re mind is stronger, more resilient…I tried to balance out the cramps thing by making you more resistant to pain.
LrdNSvyr01: OK Dad, I think by now you should have her on your side, it’s time to drive home your point.
GOD32: Woman, you are as close to perfection as you can get without being Me. All of you should know that. However you look is how I meant for you too look. And I don’t make mistakes; it’s one of the perks of being God. So start kicking Man’s butt Now! The Angels are going to go on strike if I don’t give them a break. I want you and Man to live together in peace, but you have to be dominant over them or none of us will have any peace.
LrdNSvyr01: Well said Dad, I love you.
GOD32: OK, ok, Jesus Christ you’re mushy, you know that?
LrdNSvyr01: Dad, don’t take my name in vain.
GOD32: Jissy Chrissy!
LrdNSvyr01: Don’t call me that either.