ISIS, Black Live Matter, Policemen and Martin Luther King

Please do not get me wrong…I do not in any way, shape or form advocate violence unless it was to save me or some of my loved one’s lives. I am quite sure that if I heard the Russians were coming, I would try to swim to Cuba; a land nearby which I think the Russians would be less likely to attack. I cannot swim, but would try.

That said, it seems that the media and government is sending mixed messages to black people. People riled up by others who look like themselves getting shot are told to protest peacefully since the contrary is not right, it is not good for the cause.

Well look how well that had worked for Martin Luther King!

And if what they are saying is the truth; why is Obama not being asked to have a peaceful chat with ISIS rather than a war on terrorism. Based on our leader’s example one might mistakenly conclude that the proper path for black men might be a war on policemen...and this would NOT do!

Sunrise over the Blue Mountain Peak, Jamaica

Jamaica is very mountainous; its highest and longest range is the Blue Mountains. The British were not very creative or original; either that or they longed for home and so the same old familiar names were applied across the empire.  The peak is 2256 m (7402 ft) above sea level and from there it is said that you can spy Cuba, 90 miles away, on a clear day. So far, my visits have not coincided with a clear day so I cannot testify to this.

While there, I was prudent and do like the locals do; climbing at night so I cannot tell you much about the trip up. Our guide, who must be an owl, since he was able to get us to the summit in the pitch darkness. He claimed that at the end of slavery the slave took to the mountains because Germans had been brought in to settle the free lands on the plain. It did not take many to do this since there had not been much flat land and the little that existed was planted with sugar cane. The plantation owners thought the slaves would soon come to their senses and return since they were sure that the slave would not survive on the mountain. That did not happen and so Chinese and Indians were brought in to work on the plantations. 

Russia, the Olympics and Hacking

Humans and animals act in their own interest…but for the self-destructive few. Vladimir Putin is sufficiently long in the tooth to have already self-destruct if such was his inclination.

A hacking and posting of American Olympic athlete’s medical records so soon after the Olympics using “Russian tools” points directly at Russia and does not increase its chance of returning to sports.

So, what is the benefit to Russia?

This, on the heels of the Colin Powell and DNC hullabaloo, is not to Putin’s gain.

Who gains?

Mother and Child

I was born when my mother was 26 years old. I was in my early teens before doing the maths; it was 6 months before I was born. Well that placed in perspective all the morality lectures and the obsession with the possibility of my pending unplanned pregnancy.

As a child, everyone thought I looked exactly like her. Well, she was very dark-skinned and I light; she thirty-six and I ten; the resemblance was lost on me.

Now I reluctantly face the mirror each morning to the sad realization that they were right.

As the years go by, I realize that it is not only physical, but we both have weak knees, poor eye-sight and hypertension.

It is with great anxiety that I track her appearance and health since it seems it is to be my future.

So far, there has been no unplanned pregnancy and the likelihood of such would take place in history alongside the virgin-birth.