I Saw Racism Received Like a Body Blow Today
If you grow up in America it is hard not to incorporate some racist attitudes into your being. Sadly, it is just part of the DNA of an American. When I could just barely read I remember seeing signs that read, “Whites Only”, and being perplexed by it. While I could read, I had not assimilated the cultural norm that some people are better than others based solely on the color of their skin. I believe that as a nation we have been working very hard to move away from this paradigm. I believe Dr. King’s dream will be fully actualized someday.
Prejudice and bigotry is something I have thought about a bit over the last few years for a couple personal reasons. One being that when I lived in Jackson, Mississippi I became good friends with a black man a few years older than myself. We remain the best of friends to this day despite the change in my geographical location. He grew up in an area of town not too far from the street now named Medgar Evers Blvd. He has told me stories of the Civil Rights era in that town that left me less than proud to be white. When we first started hanging around together we had a series of discussions about race. It is just something that has to happen in this society in a “mixed” relationship.
The other reason is that a few years ago I started dating a Jewish woman, and eventually married her. Continue reading “I Saw Racism Received Like a Body Blow Today”
Rev. Joe’s Random Thought # 5,386
yeah I know you did not ask!
I’ve decided the phrase “Smart Phone” is really an oxymoron. People generally look less than intelligent as they wander around with their faces stuck in their screens. How smart is it to use your “Smart Phone” to text while driving your car into a possible life ending accident.
Big Pharma Spent $24 Billion Dollars Advertising to Doctors
Wonder why your prescriptions cost so much?
Tips to Make Your Social Media Experience Safer
Links to tips to make your social media experience a little safer
Rev. Joe’s Random Thought # 4,320
yeah I know you did not ask!
Not all things should use the capitalist/profit paradigm. One big one is pharmaceuticals. We are all already being taxed by excessive drug prices. Have the government support pharmaceutical research at the CDC and at various universities across the countries. They could aim their research dollars towards conditions most needed, rather than those that would bring in the most profit. Drugs could then be sold and manufactured for a reasonable profit, and not at prices inflated to “support R&D”.
Rev. Joe’s Random Thought # 5,438
yeah I know you did not ask!
Can you imagine how much better a world this would be if folks cared for things that really matter as much as they do sports?
Rev. Joe’s Random Thought # 4,994
yeah I know you did not ask!
Can you imagine how much better off we would all be if we gave up the myth that is the Horatio Alger story? We are all so concentrated on believing that we can go from rags to riches that we do not allow ourselves to invest in community wealth that would benefit us all.
Vermont High Schoolers Just Destroy Fox News About The Ethics Of Journalism
Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
As good as the play is it is but a hearty soup when compared to the book. Of course, at 1100 pages, some folks may consider the book a gluttonous meal. For this reader, in those 1100 pages, I found very few times that the book dragged.
The book is many things besides the story of Jean Valjean and company. At its heart it is a religious work. At the beginning of the 7th book of volume II, Hugo pens:
“This book is a drama, whose leading personage is the Infinite. Man is the second.”
With the story as the driver, Hugo interweaves history, philosophy, sociology, politics, religion and accounts of contemporary social norms and practices. Ultimately, it is a book about morality and self-sacrifice.
This is a story we all know well from the play and from the movies.
Jean Valjean is sentenced to the galleys, Continue reading “Les Misérables by Victor Hugo”