BCS Picks

Rose - USC over Penn State - USC by 33. (Goodnight Joe Pa.)

Orange - V Tech over Cincinnati - (Neither is in the top ten, who cares?)

Sugar - Utah over Alabama -( Alabama will still be stung by the loss to Florida.)

Fiesta- Texas over Ohio State (Texas has more to prove.)

Championship - Florida over Oklahoma (Oklahoma is 0-4 in BCS games. Should be a shoot-out. Take the over.)

Other;

-How did a 6-6 Notre Dame make a bowl?

-Undefeated Boise State will be tested in San Diego in the Pointsetta Bowl by tough 10-2 TCU squad.

- Former Nebraska quarterback Turner Gill has coached his Buffalo team to it's first bowl in 50 years (Buffalo had earlier turned down an invitation to the Tangerine Bowl because it's Black players were banned from participation.).

Coach Gill is now one of the few coaches mentioned for the few high profile head coaching slots in NCAA football.

(BMI - can we get a few points on the index for this?)

Asians II

Hawaii born Japanese American Eric Shinseki was named as the nominee for President-Elect Barack Obama's cabinet as the secretary of Veteran's Affairs. The double Purple Heart winner is best known for his Cassandra Complex relating to the Iraq War - warning; "Beware a 12-division strategy for a 10-division army".

Joseph Cao (pronounced GAO) unseated embattled nine-term incumbent Representative William Jefferson to become the first Vietnamese-American elected to Congress.

Filipino Manny Pacquiao effectively beat "The Golden Boy" Oscar DeLaHoya into permanent retirement this past weekend in Vegas to claim the tittle "Best Pound-for-Pound" boxer.

I have no fixation or fetish for Asian women (although some (well...many) are damn sexy).

But in an environment where many of us Blacks are seeking to redefine our ideas of what a certain race or culture is - we may want to start viewing other cultures as valid too.

CVT at Choptensils has a great piece on racism and different perceptions of what is "History".

http://choptensils.blogspot.com/ On The Invention of Racism; Part I
Dark Ages?

For Whom?

Gnostics to NATO (A New World Order?)

From the Gnostics,
to the Masons,
to the Merovingians,
to the Illuminati,
to the Rockefeller Foundation,
to the PNAC,
all have sought to acquire (or claimed to possess) the secrets of God - in their quest to form the next New World Order.

Some Lessons From the Underground History of American Education
http://www.scribd.com/doc/6129392/Some-Lessons-From-The-Underground-History-of-American-Education-by-John-Taylor-Gatto
tells the story of America's architects of modern education and their plan to create the two class system that America seems to be embracing today.
Who would have known that The Rockefeller Foundation was so instrumental in planning for a global economy?
The lengths that the establishment seem to be going to retain their power would almost seem Machiavellian.

Venus + Jupiter + Moon = ?

Man...
I gotta" stop reading Subrealism and FreemanPress.
When I stepped outside this past Monday evening - I saw this (only with a "frown").
One of the lights in the sky is Venus, one Jupiter and the other a crescent Moon.
It was a beautiful night, but the image just seemed odd.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/12/081201-jupiter-venus.html
I just know that I'm having Apocalyptic or Dystopic nightmares tonight.

Moon - (Selene, Artemus, Diana, Isis, Thoth, Hecate) - Fertility

Venus - (Lucifer, Aphrodite, Ishtar, Our Lady Mary) - The Creatrix

Jupiter - (Zeus, Thor, Wotan) - King Of the gods
In Kabbalistic mysticism (Jupiter) is the symbol of the angel Sachiel of the order of the Cherubim and is associated with the "new" age.

I'm not into astrology but WTF?

PNAC

Total world domination.
The idea is nothing new.
No amount of prescience is required.
Just a little reading.
http://www.newamericancentury.org/index.html
If the state of current world affairs seems to be out of control, read who is in control.
Did Obama seem a bit unsure of himself after his briefing by by the CIA? Maybe he learned a truth that many of us never will.
Maybe he was told that he is now a lifetime member of the club (for how ever long that may be).

Cha - Ching !

Does paying people to do what they're supposed to do anyway help or hurt them?

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/content/education/chi-money-for-grades-11-sep11,0,7506945.story

After our last hurricane, some people were upset because FEMA didn't pay them to leave town. Some people are calling for student athletes to be paid for playing for the university team.

Now Chicago (and other cities) are experimenting with the concept of paying students to do well in school. That the program seems to be working would lend credibility to the idea that the students were doing poorly by choice, and not circumstance.

Does paying students create a population that only does what's in it's best interest only when being paid?

Don't you feel like punching your nephew in the throat when you ask them to do something and they ask how much you're going to pay them?

The program may be working, but at what ultimate cost to society?

Or do these kids only understand a society of pimps and the pimped?

(As far as paying college students for playing for a school where they're being given the opportunity to earn a $40k a year education - nope!

If a school sells your jersey and makes a profit, a percentage should be given to that student upon their graduation or upon leaving the school [and at the loss of their eligibility].)

The Wisdom of the Surfer

I've always hated school.

Getting good grades was easy, I didn't even have to learn anything.

My sixth grade teacher was a big believer in personal responsibility. At the beginning of each year, we would be given contracts of what we were to learn by the end of the year.

I was lazy. At the beginning of the year, I spent about a month doing all of the required work for the coming year - only handing it in when it was due.

If we finished our work early, we were given free-study. During this time, the teacher would engage us in discussions which we couldn't win. On one occasion, the topic was ownership. His argument was that as children - we owned nothing. I stated that I owned my clothes and toys. He stated that my parents had bought them so they owned them. I told him that I had bought some of them. He stated that my parents had given me the money so they still owned them. We went back and forth. I stated that I owned myself. His retort ; It was illegal for me to kill myself so my parents and the government owned me. I asked him if he owned his car. Yes, he replied. Well ...you can't drive too fast and you need a licence so the government owns it. I had seen a news story about arson so I told him that he couldn't burn his house down without getting in trouble so he didn't own that.

"Go read a book", he said.

"I'm smart", I said. He said something like, "No, you're intelligent. Smart is the application of intelligence".

He always had to have the last word.

My "book' of choice was a comic book. I'm no fan boy so I hated most comic books.

But The Silver Surfer was different.

The Surfer was wise. The Surfer wasn't a beotch. ( http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Silver_Surfer )

Silver Surfer #1 - "In every part of the globe it is the same! Hatred, fear and unreasoning hostility have possessed men's hearts. But the Silver Surfer will have no part of it!"

Maybe it was time for me to leave the hood behind.

SS # 3 - "Again, you substitute force for understanding. Again, you would destroy that which you cannot understand... From the cradle to grave - your lives are rooted in senseless violence. Since power is your god - I'll show you power - such as you have never known."

Kind of sounds like a scene from Gladiator or Braveheart.

SS # 3 -"If die I must - let it be as I have lived - soaring swift and silent - striving for the right - no matter the cost!"

Kind of sounds like an MLK speech.

Maybe it was the influence of the Surfer that I remember whenever I say I'm through helping the hood but return to help again anyway. Maybe it's why I sit in roach infested houses, acting as if nothing is wrong, just because these old people just need the company. When I wrote that I wasn't collecting rent from my tenants, it didn't mean that I evicted them. They can stay there forever for free. I just wasn't going to help them run errands and visit them anymore. I wasn't going to make anymore repairs. (Later I found out that some of the elderly were having me make repairs just for the company.) One lady just offered to pay her rent again if I would come by to visit like I used to.

I'd tried to relate my affinity for the Surfer to one of my young cousins. But The Surfer wasn't his man.

His man was Kratos from the God of War video game. I'd taken him to see 300 so he understood the severity of the Spartan creed. He was studying mythology at school so he could relate to the characters.

This cousin has a useless mother and an unknown father.
He's been from foster homes to homelessness and was on the verge of giving up and giving in to the streets.
I'm strict with him and he loves it.
His Spartaness (and that I had earlier told him the story of Ronny Lott cutting off the tip of his finger in order to not miss playing any more football games) caused him to cut off his cast and return to playing for the football team because he didn't want to appear to me as weak.
This kid walked to my house, through the rain, for five miles - because his mother had hit him. (I just took him back home and explained that he didn't have to respect his mother but he did have to treat her with respect.) This is the kid who tells me that he likes working (whenever we make repairs to his family member's homes or cars) because it makes him feel like a man. Most people would write this bad little fourteen year old niglet off. Most would hide there purses or lock their doors.
But this kid is good.
I often explain to him that it's hard to be good - but it's going to hurt to be great.
He tells me that he's up to it.
I just hope that I'm not teaching him to work for goals that he can never accomplish. (As his family members tell him.)

What's The Point Of Religion

Mark 2:27 ..."The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath:"

One of my best friends often brings up his contention with my religious past.

When I was young, I attended the Catholic Mass with my mother. The Liturgy was in Latin so I understood little (or nothing) of what was being recited. I learned the proper time of when to sit, kneel and stand but learned little about the Bible. I couldn't understand what was being said so I would just say my own prayers.

Later in life, my mom was too busy to take us to church. She would just drop us off at the nearest neighborhood church (Baptist). I learned about the Bible and watched the weekly floor-show (song, dance, scream and shout) and fashion show (big hats and bright suits).
I experienced something called the Holy Ghost in this church. I was afraid of ghosts so I wanted nothing of that.
During one service (my last at this church) the plate was passed five times with the desperation and implied guilt being stressed more each successive time. The pastor's children and wife all had new cars, while I had to get a ride to the service. After giving up my lunch money and allowance, I'd had enough.

There weren't many Black kids in most of my middle school classes.
One group of particularly nice kids were a group who belonged to a church called the Mormons. I'd see these kids and their families at school events and I would marvel at how close their families were. I had NO structure at home and was at the point in life where I was seeking guidance. These kids invited me to church - even offering to have their parents give me a ride. The taking of tithes wasn't a shameful or ostentatious exercise but one of placing an envelope into a small box in the hall just outside of the sanctuary. The members seemed to abstain from premarital sex, drugs, alcohol and even caffeine. I liked the rigidity of their doctrine. (I had quit drinking when I was twelve, lost my father and uncles to drunk-driving accidents, been "experienced" with my half-brother's cousin at eight, and seen enough of my step-father's drug induced rages. Like I said, I needed structure.) Dropping my past practices opened doors socially and culturally that before I would have never known existed. Believe me - it's hard to be good in the hood.

I have no issue with the esoteric beliefs and history of these churches. I have no problem with Opus Dei or the Catholic churches attempts to rule the world. I have no problem with the Protestant history of anti-Semitism or witch hunts. I have no problem with Joseph Smith or brass plates or their racism. Each church served my needs at a different point in my life.

A Muslim guy gave me an Islamic book in an effort to convert me. I looked through it and came upon a passage that read - God loves all righteousness. If this is the case, one's religion doesn't matter. When a follower asked Christ about the greatest commandments, Christ replied; Love God with all thy heart and Love thy neighbor as thyself. Simple. Anyone from any denomination or religion can do these two. It would seem that the practice is more important than the philosophy.

I still go to church, usually with whomever and wherever I'm invited. I'm not a little kid who needs a lot of fanfare to keep me interested. I don't need the floor show or the "good seat". When I go to church, I sit in the back with the rest of the sinners. I still like the Catholic church because I can still just walk in and kneel whenever I need to pray (Well... not in bad neighborhoods. They lock the doors these days.). I like the helpfulness of the Mormon church during and after our hurricanes. I usually go to Baptist churches for social reasons (fellowship). IMO - church and religion is supposed to help one rule over and govern themselves - not to rule over and oppress others.

My Second Time

Siditty (Angry and Black Since 1976) ( http://siditty.blogspot.com/ ) is my second. Wow, I guess I'm no longer a blogging virgin. I've just been given A Brillante Weblog Award from the young Ms (Is this a joke or is there an "I" missing?).
The young lady speaks from the perspective of a Black woman who happened to marry a white man. Or a Black opinion on suburbia, politics, relations, ....

In turn, I must pass the award on to seven other bloggers. Most of the bloggers I'll list are beyond this type of web award (but are worth looking at anyway).

Conservative Black Woman ( http://conservativeblkwoman.blogspot.com/ ) is someone that most other Blacks would find offensive. IMO - Most Blacks are conservative - they're just not Republican. As a FOC (Friend Of Cobb) her opinions seem to be more right than left. But who wants to read the same opinions written by different people anyway?

Ed Dunn, over at Dream and Hustle ( http://dreamandhustle.com/ ), writes about going from start-up to major-player (and everything in between). This MochaSpot CEO gives advice and even answers my simple questions.

If you scored below 1500 on the old SATs, chances are you'll need a dictionary AND thesaurus to follow the flow at cnulan's Subrealism ( http://subrealism.blogspot.com/ ). But the site is didactic without being pedantic or sumpsimus.

The Angry African at Angry African On The Loose ( http://angryafrican.net/ ) offers an Anglo-African point of view on life, politics and social issues.

Okay Freeman, I know that the comparison was in sports. But we have to use a Sun Tzu philosophy in all things (politics included).

FreeMan at Free Man Press ( http://freemanpress.wordpress.com/ ) offers the point of view of an aspirational professional who came from the life that most others only read about.

Sheila at Black Tennis Pros ( http://blacktennispros.blogspot.com/ ) focuses on tennis. But she is not afraid to opine on weightier issues. Black Tennis Pros...who knew that there were so many?

Aby Rad seems like a little Muslim woman from Malaysia who has an eye for the strange. Aby RAd's Blog ( http://abyrad.blogspot.com/ )focuses on things that make you say "WTF?". After all, life's too short to be so serious about everything.