She Got Game

Chris Brown - Check
Josh Hartnett - Check
Even Stevens (Shia LaBeouf) - Check

And Justin Timberlake's "Conquered List" is too long to mention.

Besides race - what don't these two have in common?

Does It Even Matter ?

Lately, I've been reading the posts on the site of an African-American Atheist.
"Why would you read what a non-believer has to say", some fellow Christians might ask.
But my reasoning is that many "Christians" have failed to provide me with answers to many questions asked.
Many "Christians" have failed to live up to their promise of living a Christ-like life.
Maybe a non-believer has a better perspective from the outside than I do from within.

The above quote ("We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal...") is often cited as an example of our country's intentions.
But how often has our country failed to live up to such a simple concept?
Were our founding fathers lying?

Matthew 22: 37-39 states; "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
Love thy neighbor as yourself.
All the law and the profits hang on these two Commandments."

"But if these be the only two requirements to lead a Holy life - what use is there for the rest of the book ?", was a (paraphrased) question by one of the commenters.
My answer (in short) was that they were just histories and analogies and metaphors for people's attempts at living such a life.
Does this mean that the Bible is infallible, or that the Bible lies?
Neither, it just shows that the Bible is an attempt at communicating the most basic truths to a complex system of cultures.
It just shows that man has the ability to corrupt (for a time) the incorruptible.

Q - Which weighs more; 16 ounces of gold, or one pound of rocks?
A - They are the same. (But this is not correct. Gold is measured in Troy ounces (31.103 grams) while the rocks would be measured in standard ounces (28.350 grams).
This demonstrates that the level of one's knowledge can infer a different meaning.

Q - Would you take one billion British Pounds or two billion US Dollars?
A - Since the exchange rate of Pounds to Dollars is less than 2-1, I'd take the Dollars. (But this thinking is also wrong. One Billion in America is one thousand million, while one billion in England is one million million.)
Again, one's level of understanding can influence their ability to make a more profitable decision.

But let's take the position of non-believers.
What if the Bible is just an amalgamation of moralities and truths handed down from one era to the next?
What if the Bible cannot be taken as fact?
Would that make any difference?
Would we revert to atavistic views of selfishness and greed? (Okay,we're already doing this.)
Is the belief in something better, even if that belief system is a lie, required for us to do better?
Would we be better off if we didn't have a shared system of what is right and what is wrong?
Do these "lies" help our society to function?

In fact, don't we already benefit from our faith in what we don't test?
When one starts one's car;
Do they take the engine apart to inspect each component?
Do they run a test on the wiring system to make sure that all connections are made?
Do they test and re-test the cut of the key before putting it in the ignition?
Most people don't.
Most people have faith that things will work just as they (almost) always have.
It seems that the only thing required, for even the simplest actions, is faith.

But from where is this faith learned?

Movin' On Up

With the return of freshman quarterback Matt Barkley, the Trojans look to be back on track for another run at the national title.
Maybe Cal was just overrated - but USC's easy victory has Trojan fans hopeful of an appearance at the Rose Bowl that comes after January first.

1 Florida - Idle. And a good thing too, the Gators will need a healthy Tim Tebow to fight off the stalking Tigers of LSU.
2 Texas - Idle. I hate any team from Texas (except the one that is playing UT on any given week) so at least I can take solace in the fact the Texas didn't win a game this week.
3 Alabama - A win against a weak Kentucky team proves nothing. While I like The Tide - they had their chance for a national title last year, and they blew it.
4 LSU - I was hoping Georgia could pull off a win. It's not that I hate LSU (most of my family is from Louisiana), I just want every team ahead of USC to lose. But I will root for the Tigers when the next meet the Gators of Florida.
5 Va. Tech - A win against Duke in basketball is a good thing - a win in football... eh, not so much. But is such a win enough to cause them to jump Boise St. in the rankings?

USF - Damn.. it's sad day when Florida State is the fourth best team if their state. USF looked as though they were the team that could gain it's school's first appearance in a BCS game with their crushing win against Syracuse.
Florida State - Oh, never mind...
Notre Dame needed their own version of the Bush Push to beat a marginal Washington team in overtime.
Houston? Told you they were way overrated and this has been proven correct with a lopsided loss to un-ranked UTEP.
Boise St. dropped? After a win?

Signs Of Decay

I remember back when grandmothers used to look like this...

Not like this.

I don't know, maybe I'm beginning to look at things as they are - not just as they could be.

Maybe I'm just tired.

As my early month errand sessions lead me to interact with a bunch of people that most people would shun, it seems that more and more of the traits of the hood are making me sick.

While these traits are not endemic to the hood - their effects seem to be more pronounced for it's residents.

- You know your in the hood (or maybe Appalachia) when you're asking a 33 year old woman how her granddaughter is doing with her asthma and her 50 year old mother (a great-grandmother to the sick baby) tells you that she's doing better since they received the air purifier.

- You know your in the hood when you walk by a Pit Bull that was hit by a car, and the dog chewed the broken leg off leaving it with a festering stump, and the dog's owner tries to ask you for mercy because he can't pay his rent for the third month straight.

- You know you're in the hood when you see all the girls who work the block at their old spots with twenty to thirty extra pounds of fat. (The only time many crackhead prostitutes gain weight is when they go to jail and enjoy the three hots and a cot. Usually, police sweeps pick up and release the same girls at the same times over and over.)

- You know your in the hood when the new police officer on the block pulls you over and asks why it is that you have a bundle of ones, fives and the occasional large bill and a bag of rolled coin that smell of weed and crack in an area that is know for drugs and having the older cop (called in for backup) tell the newbie that that's just how some people pay their rent.

- You know your in the hood when an old, bed ridden, blind lady (who has never owned anything in her life, only has an eighth grade education, and only worked domestic jobs) brags that she isn't as ghetto as her neighbor. (It's odd, most ghetto people don't know that they are ghetto. Most ghetto people don't really care about doing or being better - their only real concern seems to be that they are doing better than the Negro standing next to them.)

I don't know.

Maybe most of these people never learned or accepted that they could do better.

Maybe doing well was a concept too foreign to grasp.

Maybe the state of failure was the only topic of conversations in their day-to-day lives.

Maybe failure was accepted as the norm and doing well was only a dream to be claimed by fools.

Maybe their poverty was taught.

Some of the most ridiculous advice given on how to succeed seems to be given by those who have never enjoyed any level of success.

No, not the advice of what not to do (This advice can be useful.) - but the advice on how one should go about living their lives.

One of the most simple-minded things overheard is the advice that a woman should put up with anything that a man does to her.

As we men were outside scraping and painting a home - the women were on the inside giving the young girls advice on getting and keeping a man.

"If he hits you, that's just what men do sometimes.",

"If he has an outside woman, just ignore it. A piece of a man is better than no man."

"If he has a habit of going to jail - so what, a lot of Black men are in jail.", are only some of the bad advice given from one generation to the next.

Another thing that seems to be a hindrance to progress is the acceptance of any level of performance.

"That's okay, a lot of people don't graduate from high school."

"That's okay, a lot of people often get fired from their jobs for (fill in the blank).",

"That's okay, we didn't steal it, a booster gave us a good deal.",

and on and on.

Why is this lowest level of standards accepted as being normal?

Why are the lessons of how to stay poor taught more often then how to overcome poverty?

Why does the hood keep spreading it's ignorance from one generation to the next?

Olfaction

As at the beginning of every month - I took my tenants and former tenants around town to pay bills and buy groceries.
But today there was something a little bit different.
Maybe it was my allergies, or maybe it was the fact that I hadn't been to that part of town in a while, or maybe things have gotten that much worse.
Today, I noticed the smell of poverty.

No, poverty doesn't smell like urine or feces - although those are the two most prominent undertones.
Real poverty has the smell of death.
But how can one smell death?
Believe me, it smells like something.

Everyone knows the smell of roses, or mama's home cookin', or even of money.
Mothers can identify their children by their sense of smell.
I even enjoy the smell of the dirt just as it is about to rain.
Some people even find attraction in the smells of their mate where others may be repulsed.
But I'm talking about the bad smells.

Everyone knows that "code-smells" are usually the signal for a bigger underlying problem.
If a woman smells like old fish that has been left in the sun all day... ummm... run - she probably has some sort of infection.
If someones ish really doesn't stink - it could be an indication that their liver and kidneys are are failing to filter the toxins from their stool.
If someones feces is watery and has a sweet stink (usually the smell of drug users' diarrhea) - one can usually deduce some sort of organ failure.
If someone has bad breath - it could be a rotten tooth or an early symptom of heart problems.
If one's breath smells of ammonia - they could be suffering from liver failure.
The list goes on and on.

But back to the smell of death.
Well, really - the smell of the walking dead.
As soon as I got home, I had to take a long and hot shower.
It's the same as when one leaves the house of a smoker or the home of a crackhead - these odors seem to permeate even one's pores.

It's the smell of urine, feces, crack, cigarette smoke, mold and sickness all rolled into one putrid aroma.
Now, I hate the smell of fennel and any hippie chick whose home smells of such.
I hate the smell of all the spices at the ethnic stores.
I hate the smell of cheap perfume on a cheap woman.
But I'd take all of these together for a year in place of the smell of real poverty.

I don't know, maybe I'm just not as used to smelling these aromas as in times past.
Maybe it's just my imagination.
But maybe these really are the smells of the walking dead.
Maybe these smells (that are so strong one can taste them) are signs of a societal failure.
Maybe this is really the smell of hopelessness and impending death.
I really don't know.
All I know is that the ghetto really stinks.

Can A Black Man Know...?

brohammas said; "I think I have a pretty solid idea of where most of the white conservatives are coming from."
I read where a lot of Black people state that a white person can never understand things from a Black perspective.
I also read where Blacks criticize whites who dare to share an opinion on Black Blogs.
But is this thinking correct?
Can a white man know how a Black man thinks?
Can a Black man know how a white man thinks?

You see, there is a difference.
Most whites fail to undertake any real study of the experiences of most Black people in this country.
Most whites view the world as "White by right" and seem to expect their opinions and experiences to carry more weight in any conversation.
This isn't racist thinking - it has more to do with the culture that we see every day of our lives.
Most Blacks, whites or "others" have just grown accustomed to being (or seeing) a white person in a position of power.
Since it's always seemed to be the working model of the past, it is just assumed that it will be the paradigm of the future.

But this thinking isn't limited to only whites.
Many Blacks (and other minorities) buy into this mentality of white superiority whenever they discount any success or higher standard as that of white people.
"Acting White" is viewed by some as the same as "Doing Well".
What does this say about their thinking of the value of Acting Black?
Is it the concept of Black=Bad while White=Good?

Maybe most whites can't understand the nuances of Black life - but can Blacks understand the nuances of being white?
Can Black people tell what white people are thinking?
I'd say; "Yes".

You see, the difference is that we Blacks have been taught the ways of white (or what is generally understood as white culture) since birth.
American culture has been claimed as belonging to and invented by whites alone.
Every magazine, television show, movie, newspaper or schoolbook has always had a white spin.
Every social norm or law has been dictated and imposed to ensure the success of whites first.
(Even the social panacea Affirmative-Action has benefited more white women that it has African Americans.)

So, can Blacks speak for whites with any sense of accuracy?
If the Black person has enough experience in mastering (academically, financially and socially) today's popular culture, yes.
Can Whites speak for Blacks with any sense of accuracy?
Umm... not usually.

Beauty Is Learned

I'm not into short (under 5'8") women at all, but a few stand out as being worth a second look.
Eva Longoria, Hayden Pennetiere, Lucy Lui and Alyssa Milano are all often mentioned on lists of The Hottest Shorties or The Shortest Hotties.
Okay, I see that - but my list only has three.
Fitness model Jamie Eason is fit and petite at 5'2" - but she looks taller because her body is proportioned well.

At 5'2", no man would have to worry about getting caught staring at Salma Hayek's boobs.

(Even though, in the above photo, even a long sleeved conservative top fails to hide these assets.)

Her lack of height makes even making eye contact tough.

And no one can deny (okay, maybe some can) the original petite hottie Jada Pinkett's place on the short list.

Ever since we saw her in those braids in Menace To Society we began to give the shorties another look.

Beauty Is Learned

Keisha Coles looked great at the BET Awards when she went back to wearing black hair.
But Ms Coles still has a lot to deal with and overcome before she can put down the weight of her effed-up family.

I'm not into the ghetto-ass hood rat type of woman so none of the RHOA women come across as all that attractive to me.

Beyonce may be pretty, but she is another woman who ,in spite of all her success, seems a bit too ghetto.

Lil' Kim, Lil' Mama, anyone with "Lil" in their name - no, no and nope.

T-Boz comes close - but the only ghetto girl I find attractive is Mary J Blige.

Mary just seems like she's been through some ish.

It seems that Mary is the only woman on my list of Beautiful (former) Ghetto Women.

Beauty Is Learned

The big forehead Bride of Frankenstein look is usually one that is eschewed by most men.
But I now have a new favorite to add to my current list of Big Forehead Beauties (BFB) - which stands at three entries.

While a bit short for my liking, Sade is still my hands-down favorite.

Tyra Banks has to make any BFB list.

And now Tameka Jocobs of Deal or No Deal makes the cut.

"Oh, it's not that bad." one might say.

But as I happened to walk past a group of beastly looking women watching the show - the comment; "But look at her forehead" was the catalyst for a litany of five-head jokes.

The thing was - if I took all of the positive physical traits of the women involved in the conversation and added them all together, they would still not be able to match this California native in terms of looks.

As for me, I'm learning to look past a big forehead if the women are this hot.