NYC is DEAD

Systemic Racism In America

Brookings Institute

PREMISE:  If Racism is systemic in America then racism cannot be blamed on President Trump, but on the Congress of the United States and on the American People as a whole, including legal immigrants...

Brookings Institute:  Slavery was America’s “original sin.” It was not solved by the framers of the U.S. Constitution, nor was it resolved by the horrendous conflict that was of the American Civil War. It simply changed its odious form and continued the generational enslavement of an entire strata of American society. In turn, the Civil Rights Movement struck a mighty blow against racism in America, and our souls soared when Dr. King told us he had a dream. But we were and still are far from the “promised land.” And even when America rose up to elect its first Black President, Barack Obama, we may indeed have lost ground as a collective nation along the way.


About Brookings
The Brookings Institution is a nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, DC. Our mission is to conduct in-depth research that leads to new ideas for solving problems facing society at the local, national and global level. Brookings brings together more than 300 leading experts in government and academia from all over the world who provide the highest quality research, policy recommendations, and analysis on a full range of public policy issues.

To blame President Trump for making SYSTEMIC RACISM worse is ludicrous at best and just plain ignorant at worst...

IT IS ALL OF US THAT ARE TO BLAME

Whites as well as Blacks

Blacks as well as Whites

White and Black Churches

Our Educational Systems

Businesses and Organizations

ALL Branches of the Armed Forces

ALL Police and Fire Departments

Media Outlets

The House of Representatives

The Senate

ALL State Governors

Mayors of Cities

The Voting Public

The Non Voting Public

Lyrics of Rap Music

CNN: Hurling Insults At Trump Supporters

CNN's Don Lemon claims Trump voters 

must have  'cognitive dissonance' 

to support such a 'bad person'

'They like the shiny objects. 

They like the racism. 

They like the misogyny'

FOX NEWS Reports - 28 August 2020

I did not know what COGNITIVE DISSONANCE was so I had to look it up, it means:  the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, especially as relating to behavioral decisions and attitude change.

An example of COGNITIVE DISSONANCE:

Cognitive Dissonance produces a feeling of mental discomfort leading to an alteration in one of the attitudes, beliefs or behaviors to reduce the discomfort and restore balance. For example, when people smoke (behavior) and they know that smoking causes cancer (cognition), they are in a state of cognitive dissonance.

What causes COGNITIVE DISSONANCE:
It may also happen when a person holds two beliefs that contradict one another. Cognitive dissonance causes feelings of unease and tension, and people attempt to relieve this discomfort in different ways. Examples include “explaining things away” or rejecting new information that conflicts with their existing beliefs.

It would appear that Don Lemon has COGNITIVE DISSONANCE when it comes to understanding and accepting the fact that people hold different beliefs that he holds, relative to President Trump and the Republican Political Party...

This is HIS PROBLEM that he is now trying to project on others who do not share his beliefs or political convictions.

If I am not mistaken, this is actually referred to as EXERCISING OUR FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS...

Too Old?

Odds and Ends

Cafe De Anatolia

Really???

American Intelligence

Creative

What Is Project Management?

Project management is the process of leading the work of a team to achieve goals and meet success criteria at a specified time. The primary challenge of project management is to achieve all of the project goals within the given constraints. Wikipedia

Project Management Skills

• Planning the project from conception to implementation.
• Mapping out a timeline.
• Executing each phase.
• Creating, allocating, and managing the budget.
• Communicating among all stakeholders.
• Troubleshooting any issues.
• Delivering (and often maintaining) the end product or service.

And...  while Project Management seems like it is just for business, industry, military, and/or government, it can quite successfully be used by individuals and oftentimes is used without knowing what is being used, like:

• Planning Out and Implementing a Holiday Celebration
• Planning Out and Implementing a Vacation
• Buying a Car or a House
• Planning one's Retirement
• Developing a Startup Plan for a Small Business

In short, Project Management Skills can be used for damn near, if not, everything up to and including planning for one's funeral.

Project Manaagement

What We Are Missing

Absurdism: Life Has No Purpose

In philosophy, "the Absurd" refers to the conflict between the human tendency to seek inherent value and meaning in life, and the human inability to find any in a purposeless, meaningless or chaotic and irrational universe.The universe and the human mind do not each separately cause the Absurd, but rather, the Absurd arises by the contradictory nature of the two existing simultaneously.

As a philosophy, absurdism furthermore explores the fundamental nature of the Absurd and how individuals, once becoming conscious of the Absurd, should respond to it. The absurdist philosopher Albert Camus stated that individuals should embrace the absurd condition of human existence.

Absurdism shares some concepts, and a common theoretical template, with existentialism and nihilism. It has its origins in the work of the 19th-century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, who chose to confront the crisis that humans face with the Absurd by developing his own existentialist philosophy.   SOURCE:  Wikipedia

Artist Franz Stuck 1920

The myth of SISYPHUS illustrates a man destined to forever push a huge boulder up to the top of a hill only to have it roll back down and once it does, he repeats the process.

So, does life has meaning?

OR,

Does life have no meaning?

The religious people believe and perceive that life does have meaning and this meaning is addressed each day by serving God and in so doing one will find a place set aside in Heaven after death...  an everlasting life in Heaven with God and Jesus and the Holy Ghost.

But, what about all those people in the world, males, females, and children who have never been exposed to God and therefore cannot make the decision to serve Him, do they not have a place in Heaven?

Since they do not know God, they might perceive life as meaningless...

And, speaking of meaningless...

mankind is born and lives about 80 +/- doing whatever it is that s/he needs to do and then DIES...  and, spends ALL OF ETERNITY in a state of being dead.

Isn't 80 years rather pointless when compared to FOREVER?

WHY WOULD GOD GIVE US LIFE FOR 80 YEARS AND THEN EITHER TAKES US TO HEAVEN OR NOT TAKE US...  DEPENDING UPON WHETHER OR NOT WE HAVE SERVED HIM...

Many of us simply do not want to think about it...

The Price of Life

Politics, like government, is a necessary evil because somebody has to govern the rest of us otherwise there would be lawlessness and chaos.

Governments must exist whether they be Democratic, Socialistic, Fascist, Communist, or Dictatorships.

However, the one COMMON THEME throughout all these governments is the need for ECONOMIC TRADE both domestic and foreign. 

Interestingly, in ALL these forms of government trade profits go to the government, to the owners of businesses, or to the wealthy who finance these business and never to the public who generates these profits unless it is in the form of government benefits, like housing, food, and healthcare.  However, in the case of healthcare, waiting times typically increase if it is government owned and the doctors and nurses and surgeons are of low quality because of the low salaries.

Because of government bureaucracy in addition to the long lines, there are also frequent shortfalls and shortages but only for the general public.  The ones in charge always make sure that they have what they need.

In a democracy where you have elected officials to REPRESENT THE PEOPLE, their actions oftentimes reflects the direction of the party they represent rather than the constituents who elected them or they focus on re-election.

REASON:  once elected officials get elected there is an 80-90% chance that those who elected them won't pay much attention to what they do and those that do, are not of sufficient numbers to remove them from office.

If you don't believe me, do your own research into the various countries around the world and see what is happening there, like:

• United Kingdom
• Russia & China
• North Korea
• Japan
• Australia
• Italy & France & Germany
• Spain & Portugal
• Egypt & Iran & Iraq 
• Afghanistan & Syria
• Brazil & Peru
• Columbia & Venezuela 

When The Music's Over

When The Music's Over

Yeah, c'mon

When the music's over
When the music's over, yeah
When the music's over
Turn out the lights
Turn out the lights
Turn out the lights, yeah

When the music's over
When the music's over
When the music's over
Turn out the lights
Turn out the lights
Turn out the lights

For the music is your special friend
Dance on fire as it intends
Music is your only friend
Until the end
Until the end
Until the end

Cancel my subscription to the Resurrection
Send my credentials to the House of Detention
I got some friends inside

The face in the mirror won't stop
The girl in the window won't drop
A feast of friends
"Alive!" she cried
Waitin' for me
Outside!

Before I sink
Into the big sleep
I want to hear
I want to hear
The scream of the butterfly

Come back, baby
Back into my arm
We're gettin' tired of hangin' around
Waitin' around with our heads to the ground

I hear a very gentle sound
Very near yet very far
Very soft, yeah, very clear
Come today, come today

What have they done to the earth?
What have they done to our fair sister?
Ravaged and plundered and ripped her and bit her
Stuck her with knives in the side of the dawn
And tied her with fences and dragged her down

I hear a very gentle sound
With your ear down to the ground
We want the world and we want it...
We want the world and we want it...
Now
Now?
Now!

Persian night, babe
See the light, babe
Save us!
Jesus!
Save us!

So when the music's over
When the music's over, yeah
When the music's over
Turn out the lights
Turn out the lights
Turn out the lights

Well the music is your special friend
Dance on fire as it intends
Music is your only friend

Until the end
Until the end
Until the end!

Morrison’s father was a naval officer (ultimately an admiral), and the family moved frequently, though it settled down in the Washington, D.C., suburb of Alexandria, Virginia, where Morrison attended high school and was a good but rebellious student. He began his college education in 1961 at St. Petersburg Junior College (now St. Petersburg College) in Florida and developed his talents as a performer by reciting poetry at the local Beaux Arts coffeehouse. He subsequently transferred to Florida State University and then to the University of California, Los Angeles, where he studied film. There he met Ray Manzarek, who played the organ in the rock group that the two formed in 1965 with guitarist Robby Krieger and drummer John Densmore. They called themselves the Doors, taking their name from Aldous Huxley’s book on mescaline, The Doors of Perception (1954), which was itself titled after a line by William Blake.

Wasted Time

Age Is Just A Number Relative To Time

Age is just a number, some say.
You are as young as you act, others say.
Exercise helps you stay young, I have heard.

But, age is a byproduct of TIME and time is not a number, nor is it an action, nor is it exercise... time is a forward movement... a progression.

Time does not slow down, nor does it digress or stop.

The advantage of time is that it is a means to an END... the end of one's life and it is also the beginning of one's life.

However time begun is how it will end.         

Time is related to space and right now space is three dimensional with time being its fourth dimension... and, as we already know, we have been living in space time. Therefore, it is space time that moves forward not just time.

Each moment of time is like a slice of bread, if you can imagine those dimensions.

Inside that slice, we have objects or matter and matter is composed of elements and element are composed of atoms, and atoms are composed of electrons, protons, and neutrons or particles and particles are composed of sub atomic particles and sub atomic are composed of strings and strings live in their own universe and it is unpredictable in which direction they will move and it is possible therefore that other dimensions in space time might have been created.

But, what happens to OUR ELEMENTS when we die?

AND, if there are multiple dimensions, do we die in all those dimensions?

Acceptable... or, Not Acceptable?

Sexual Harassment

NORTH COUNTRY is a movie that was released in 2005 about a group of women who filed a class action sexual harassment law suit again a local mine in Minnesota.

STORY LINE: 

Single mother Josey Aimes (Charlize Theron) is part of a group of the first women to 

work at a local iron mine in Minnesota. Offended that they have to work with women, male 

workers at Eveleth Mines lash out at them and subject them to sexual harassment.  Appalled by 

the constant stream of insults, sexually explicit language and physical abuse, Josey -- despite 

being cautioned against it by family and friends -- files a historic sexual harassment lawsuit.


FACT:  
In April 2006, the Hibbing, Minnesota, chapter of the American Association of University Women held a ceremony honoring the women workers at Eveleth Mines who filed the first class-action sexual harassment lawsuit. Their story became the basis for the 2005 movie North Country.    May 6, 2006

Personally:  I have witnessed sexual harassment throughout my 45 year working career and have oftentimes engaged in flirting with women until informed that my flirting was not welcomed and then I stopped.  However, most males (witnessed by me) refuse to stop when asked politely by women and more often than not take that sexual harassment to the extreme.

Prior to 1990, I was working in North Carolina and one of the people with whom I was associated who worked in the Superintendent of Education office, frequently came to where I was working to try and pick up women with whom he could have affairs (yes, he was married) because showing this behavior where he was working could get him fired.

After 1990, I was working in Tennessee and because of my job responsibilities had to work with a manufacturing company where the technicians were told that the female machine operators were sexually available to them (as a perk of employment) if and only if they were willing participants.  Obviously, many of the females felt like they had to comply.  The situation was so bad because half the corporate Vice Presidents had married female machine operators are girlfriends.

SEXUAL HARASSMENT still takes place in the workplace and as long as married males and females work together will continue to take place regardless of the rules and regulations against sexual harassment that these companies put into place. 

Sexual Harassment is mostly/only reported when the male attention is not wanted/desired by the female.

Odds and Ends

Check It Out....

NEW PAGE ADDED

Waiting For GODOT

I'm A Conservative LIBERAL

Typically we associate Liberal as being a Democrat but since the current Democratic Party is no longer liberal as it moves towards Socialism, what remains is my liberal attitudes and beliefs.

For example, I am pro abortion because I believe that a woman has a right to choose however I would never endorse abortion as a possible solution, even if rape and/or incest is involved.

I believe in a small federal government and I don't believe that our federal government has the right to tell us (Americans or US Citizens) what to do with their minds, thoughts, and/or actions unless those actions endanger the rights of another citizen.

I think the HOUSE and SENATE should have term limits and that we should eliminate the term CAREER POLITICIAN because of the risk that they will start caring more about their re-election than doing what is right for the American people.

I believe in and wholeheartedly support PROTESTS, DEMONSTRATION, CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE because it allows us to flourish as a Democracy and a Democratic Republic in the way that it was intended by the Founding Fathers.

I believe in LAW AND ORDER even though law enforcement and our judicial system have been abused by power and wealth and will continue to be abused by power and wealth but it is a necessary EVIL because of the PERVERSE NATURE of Americans and how we were raised.

I think we should have a STRONG MILITARY but that we should not leave our borders to fight in other people's wars but that we should help our ALLIES fight their own wars...  If other countries take over weaker countries, they might have acquired more land and resources but they will never have the MILITARY MIGHT of the USA...  and, that fact is what we should always protect.

I think our education system especially in high school should be modified to focus on two tracks not just one track or the track towards higher education.  We should have a technical/occupational track as well as an educational track.

I believe that EVERYONE should have to give our federal government two years of their life to serve in the military in some capacity and hopefully will help them understand the importance of protecting our Democratic Republic.

I believe in helping people with with guaranteed jobs and guaranteed healthcare but ONLY IF we can afford with the understanding that we DO NOT TAX the wealthy, forcing them to pay for this guarantee.  We should always take care of the poor, the sick, the aged, and our veterans and find creative ways to find or locate the needed money.

I don't believe in personal or governmental debt.  We should learn and/or be taught how to save the money for what we want and not use credit cards unless that borrowed money can be paid off at the end of the month.

I think there should be a national legalization of marijuana and that we spend a little more time trying to figure out why Americans buy more illegal drugs than any other country in the world.

Female Bodybuilders

How The 1% Think...

Ever Ask Why?

Without Hesitation...

Remembering when...

HINT: There Are 4 "M's"

EURO NEWS

Red Panda is born for the first time in nine years at the Berlin Zoo

For the first time in nine years, a rare red panda was born at Berlin's Tierpark Zoo.  The red panda cub is now the size of a guinea pig and is the 10th young panda to grow in the zoo.  At birth, red pandas weigh only about 100 grams and are blind. They open their eyes for the first time after about five weeks.

On June 6, animal keepers discovered that the female Shine panda had given birth in her den after a gestation period of around 130 days.  Shine and her partner Joel arrived in Berlin from the Padmaja Naidu Himalayan Indian Zoo in Darjeeling, as part of a global conservation breeding program for red pandas, bringing "fresh genes" of these rare animals to Europe.

The red panda is a mammal species native to the eastern Himalayas and southwestern China. It is listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List because the wild population is estimated at fewer than 10,000 mature individuals and continues to decline due to habitat loss and fragmentation, poaching, and inbreeding depression. Wikipedia

Time

What Was Going On in 1958

Eisenhower proposes NASA to Congress

Why 1958?
That was the year that the Hulu Hoop was invested.

I was 11 years old...

What was invented in 1958?

1. LEGOs, 
2. Skateboards, 
3. Beat the Clock Game, 
4. Crayola Crayons '64 box' with built-in sharpener*, 
5. Concentration TV Game home version, 
6. Hula Hoop (U.S.) 
7. The American Express card was introduced in 1958. 
8. The term “meritocracy” was coined by Michael Young in his 1958 dystopian essay The Rise of the Meritocracy.

The price of gasoline was $0.30/gallon

The price of cigarettes was $0.25/pack

The price of a hamburger was $0.20/burger

The price of beer was $1.67/6 pack

Remember the Hula Hoop?

Time to Learn Mandarin

China, officially known as the People's Republic of China, is a COMMUNIST country in East Asia. Currently, China has the largest population in the world.  With more than 4,000 years of recorded history, China is one of the few countries that have flourished culturally and economically since the early stages of world civilizations.

Chinese leaders in 2010 pledged to double China’s GDP by 2020, and the 13th Five Year Plan includes annual economic growth targets of at least 6.5% through 2020 to achieve that goal. In recent years, China has renewed its support for state-owned enterprises in sectors considered important to "economic security," explicitly looking to foster globally competitive industries. 

ANTIFA

Antifa BEGS People To Stop Sharing Photos And Videos Of Rioting Because It ‘Threatens Their Lives’ By Police Catching Them