Its been a while.....

Riding in to work this morning and listening to the radio which i never do ( unless i'm getting a ride from someone), i heard a few people voice the opinions about same-sex marriage especially after Iowa and Virginia joined Massachusetts to legalize same-sex marriages a few days ago. Well i thought it was the perfect topic to comment on and said why not blog about; given i haven't blogged on here in a while. So here goes....
First off, congratulations to the newest states on joining the legalization of same-sex marriage and to those who still lag behind i ask what are you waiting for? Some african-americans say legalizing same -sex marriage is not the same as the civil rights movement and i say why not? Just for the record i am straight and African-american as the come ( born in Boston by african parents and lived my first 15 years of my life in Cameroon, west africa before moving back to the US) and i say dicrimination is discrimination be it for our color or sexual preference. I think its ludacris that someone ( over the radio); african american would argue that " we didn't choose to be black but they choose to be gay". The matter at hand here is not the reason for which people are being prejudiced but that they are being reciepents of prejudice period!
So in that sense same-sex amrriage's legality is in every right equal to the civil rights movement because it is witholding the benefits and "luxuries" of life from a select people (which are avilable to everyone) based on something about them as a person...

Let's Be Green

Over the last few years in particular, the cry for mankind to be more "Eco-sensitive" or in other words to be green has grown louder. The effects of our pollution and total disregard for nature is affecting this ecosystem we call earth and as scientists dwell on how to save migratory birds and animal species whose livelihood have been disrupted by the drastic changes, even the layman is noticing as the temperatures are getting hotter and the snow caps are disappearing on the mountain tops! The plea to mankind has been for us to use cheaper and Eco-friendly fuel sources, cut down on our lavish lifestyles, refraining from the excess use of chemical in farming and animal husbandry that only lead to the defacing of mother earth, and saving the forest just a to name a few in the name of giving our future generations home on earth rather than trying to invade mars!

As i echo out this plea of self-examination and call on us all to help curb this growing problem of Global warming, i want to point out something interesting, something we need to exemplify as a human race. What does it mean to be green? I say to be green means we should be more like plants! We should use more natural and Eco-friendly energy sources (sunlight) rather than coal and oil which burn and release hazardous toxins into our atmosphere. I say we use install solar panels on our rooftops and fight for our tax-dollars to be spent to foster research for lithium battery cars rather than ground breaking techniques to eradicate wrinkles on our faces. Nonetheless, i suggest that for the time being when we still have to use electricity or oil to light up and heat up or houses respectively, how about we turn the lights and heaters of when we leave the house!

We can also follow the footsteps of our Kingdom Plantae relatives who have mastered the act of recycling. In a world where things are manufactured with the sole purpose of being thrash and where we are running out of space for dump sites and the rivers and seas are becoming overly polluted, i think we should rethink our thrash issues. If possible, we should all go through our thrash and see if we can reuse stuff or recycle them before disposing of them the same way plants use oxygen from photosynthesis in respiration and carbon dioxide from respiration in the manufacturing of glucose!!

The time to act is now and as i take this personal vow to become green ( NO; not like the incredible hulk) and i beg you all do the same and join in making our beautiful home more habitable and have other life forms (from different planets) envy us rather than we trying to see if we can live on Mars or wherever!!!!

Natural Instinct?

In most philosophical debates,the word "instincts" is mentioned constantly be it in discussing the theories of human development ( Freud, Erickson,Piaget etc) or why we would save a loved one before someone we don't know or in the case of the life-boat save a stranger over an animal. The word instinct is tossed around to explain why we do the things we do when reason or logic isn't necessary; it is just normal (instinct) to eat meat or want to eat meat? Well so what exactly is this instinct? Is it a genetic code in all animals that make us act they way we do when reason and logic has no say? Or is it a memory imprint we adapted from our ancestors? Well the reason this comes up and why i address it here today is because, recently i was playing a video game (Assassin's Creed) on my PS3 and during one of the dialogues between my character and the operator of the animus ( a device that puts me in an alternate universe sort of like in the matrix trilogy), the operator of this animus asked my character what memory is? My character correctly define it as " a mental recollection of past events" and i was impresses ( because i probably wouldn't have defined it as that) but the operator then said something which broke my train of thought regarding the definition of memory. He said well "memory isn't only the recollection of past events experienced (via our senses) by the individual having the memory but also a recollection of event experienced by the individual's ancestors".So to my understanding, he meant that some how our ancestors or previous relatives pass on their experiences and we can sometimes experience them as our memory; so it got me thinking! What if he is right? What if we can somehow pass down our experiences to future generations who can have a mental recollection of them? What if that is exactly what instincts are? Hear me out before you think I'm crazy! Maybe the reason we act out instinctively is not because we a genetically programmed as animals to act that way but because that is the way it has been done in the past and we've acquired that knowledge and now call it instinct because we can trace it to any theological school of thought?

Is $3.17 paying to much for a gallon of gas?

As someone who has had to buy gas over the last few years or so, i have to agree that i have at some point complained that gas was getting expensive and ridiculous. Matter of fact i used to cherish the days when gas $1.65 or so a few years ago (when i moved to the US) but then i  was amazed when people tell me gas used to $.79 (79 cents or less) a gallon. But then it got me thinking, what is the actually price of gas? How much should i be paying for gas?  With my little knowledge of cost 0f production from microeconomic classes i realized that for me to asses the actual cost of gas, i have to take into account the military budget set aside to protect oil fields, the lives probably lost in protecting these oil fields ( we all know a person's life is beyond any monetary value ), the lives lost since 2003 in Iraq; soldiers and civilians alike (if we agree that the war was for oil), the cost to pay the workers and employees of the oil company, the amount of money for transportation of oil to the refineries and from the refineries to the gas stations and of course the actual refining process. So now i ask myself and in so doing  ask you all that how much do u think is the price of gas? Before you even think of saying I'm crazy of thinking like this, keep in mind that this is the same procedure used to assess any  business venture worldwide by entrepreneurs of any caliber (small and big business alike)- the difference between this cost and the outcome is what we all call gain or profit. Personally i think that it might be more than $3.17 a gallon but now before we can complain, i think we should consider how lucky we might actually be to pay $3.17 giving how much is put into oil production. We should think of the brave men and women over in iraq every time we stop at a gas station when we fill up the car to drive down the street " and cool our heads" when we could just walk. We should think of the lives lost in making sure we pay $3.17 a gallon since 2003 rather than fuss about paying for gas (granted it may be a strain on most of America). Most of all we should count our blessings for being part of a free nation and know that there are people out there who can even afford a single decent meal, let alone a car or gas for its smooth running                                                                                         

Why are we in Iraq?

Well this question has pondered  everyone from the political minds in our government  to the layman in every city and even to students in colleges across the nation. This question has been posed in different forms and versions since 2003 when the United States Military invaded Iraq but here I am today still been faced with the same question; a question even our President hasn't till date answered confidently and sincerely. To some, we are in Iraq because they had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and they posed a treat to the US and the world as large. Members of our government even took it a step further;Donald Rumsfeld said he could even pinpoint the actual locations of these WMDs and Colin Powell boasted to the UN the actual weight in pounds of how much weapons Iraq was concealing. Nonetheless, the UN's inspectors could find anything and the US government could assist to protect their confidential sources... Moving on! 

Another possible explanation for our massacre in Iraq was to dethrone Saddam Hussein the dictator but then we all know the long history of the US working hand in hand with Saddam as well as other "dictators" especially when it is to our interest as a nation. 

                               

 Point is this wasn't the reason either why we went to war because the UN has in place procedures for dealing with war criminals and leaders like Saddam as seen with the those involved in Rwanda's genocide.

Bottom line to me at least is that we went to war for our selfish economic reasons and whatever positives we got out of that like dethroning Saddam and introducing democracy is nothing more than a cover-up. The US sought to control Iraq be it for its oil or whatever natural resources because it once more put us in control of other nations who might need these resources and more importantly restored the US as the "superior" nation. Supporting this train of thought crossing the minds of every free-thinking American, Harley Sorensen even writes that; " conquering Iraq was the first step toward dominating the oil-producing nations of the Middle East and eventually the world" as well "eliminate Iraq as a treat to other nations like Israel!  

Saying Goodbye to "the American Patriotism" and Hello to an "earthly patriotism": A response to Robert Jensen

To quote Eugene Debs, " I have no country to fight for, my country is the earth and i am a citizen of the world", i think this hits the nail on the head as to why i agree with Robert Jensen's position in the article "Goodbye to Patriotism" because we have to stop think of ourselves as citizens of individual nations but more of as citizens of one race belonging to the earth. When the terrorists bombed the World Trade Center amongst many other realted attacks, they claimed they were doing it in the name of Allah (God); some may claim that to be patriotism-the love and loyalty to a belief or religion (rather than a nation) so how different are we who despise terrorists when we bomb Iraq, hurt innocent civilians and claim we are defending our country or worse of all as some say "the lives of US citizens are more important that the lives of Afghanistan citizens". Why do we continue to isolate ourselves be it by sex, race, ethnicity and nationality from those of the opposite sex, race, ethnicity or from different countries? Last time i checked. the USA is part of this world so when people say "we should bomb Afghanistan till there's no earth to bomb" doesn't that include bombing the US as well? Its time i think we start looking at the bigger picture- World Unity and fighting for a common goal and being patriotic to the world rather fostering our individual goals as a nation. American feel the same grief when they loose a loved one and i can bet my life savings that Afghanistans who have lost loved ones feel the very same grief! So the question isn't being patriotic to the US, the question setting aside all our differences as a nation( from others) and realizing that we would achieve more if we all show "love and loyalty for the world".

Two Wrongs Don't Make A Right

Personally i think capital punishment (lethal injections or hanging or electrocution) for crimes like murder or whatever are morally wrong for the simple reason that we are indeed killing someone-granted that they killed too. Some may even make the ethical argument that capital punishment is also wrong because it defeats the purpose of correction (correcting someone) because the person doesn't live to learn from their mistakes but the purpose of this blog isn't to get into a debate about capital punishment and all that hoop-la. I used that example because i think it is fitting with the topic of patriotism and our support of the war in Iraq. I condemn acts of violence be it the 9/11 attacks, or apartheid in South Africa or better yet wars because i think there might be more-peaceful alternatives and especially since innocent citizens get harmed in the process. How is destroying a whole nation solve the problem of terrorism or better yet how does it prove my patriotism if i don't support this war. The war in Iraq affected many citizens for the worse and the grief those people feel for their loved ones is the same as the grief felt by families across the US who lost friends and family to the 9/11 attacks.Fighting violence with violence isn't necessarily the answer thus why i don't support the war in Iraq but that doesn't make me less patriotic to the US. If anything, i wished we didn't have to send troops (our brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, uncles and aunts, friends and neighbors) out to war but since we did and can't go back in time, all i can do is support and pray that they return to their families and loved ones.