Friday, January 30, 2009

Underneath IV




Despite the election of Barack Obama, we shouldn't forget where we came from and what they think about us. But that's just my opinion though, and who the hell am I?

The Big Three

When I think back on my childhood, I realize that I have TONS of great memories of my Grandparent's house. Oddly enough, one memory kept bouncing around in my head. My Grandparents had the walls covered with family pictures, and I mean covered. There were only three pictures that I can remember that weren't family. I call them The Big Three: Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, and Jesus Christ. My Uncle had a creepy picture of Abraham Lincoln, but that's a different post. Now that they have passed away, I think I'm gonna carry on that tradition. Unfortunately, I can only think of two. Anyone who reads this Blog regularly can probably guess: Barack Obama & Tupac Shakur. I'm stuck on my third. If anyone has a suggestion for my third, please post it under the comments. More importantly, I would love for you to think of what your big three would be. It definitely had a effect on my because I wanted to seek these people out once I got to school to see why they were so important that they were up on the wall next to Uncle Anthony's college pictures. I think it is important to let the young people know that there is world outside of the wall of home, and people you've never met & probably never will can be important to your life. but that's just my opinion though, and who the hell am I

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Speechless


LOS ANGELES (Jan. 28) - In one upstairs bedroom, the bodies of twin 2-year-old boys were found beside their dead mother. In another bedroom, 5-year-old twin girls and their 8-year-old sister lay next to their lifeless father.
Officers discovered the horrific scene after rushing to a home in Wilmington, prompted by the father's distraught letter faxed to a TV station describing a "tragic story" and a call to authorities.

Police believe Ervin Lupoe, 40, killed his five children and his wife before turning the gun on himself. Both adults were recently fired from their hospital jobs.
"Why leave our children in someone else's hands?" Lupoe wrote in his letter faxed to KABC-TV. The station posted the letter on its Web site with some parts redacted.
The station called police after receiving the fax, and a police dispatch center also received a phone call from a man who stated, "I just returned home and my whole family's been shot." Police are unsure who the male caller was, but they suspect it was the father.
Officers rushed to the home in Wilmington, a small community between the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, about 8:30 a.m. Tuesday and found the bodies.
All the victims were shot in the head, some multiple times, coroner's Assistant Chief Ed Winter said. The killings may have occurred between Monday evening and early Tuesday, based on neighbors' accounts of firecracker sounds, he said.
Although the fax — addressed to "whom it may concern" and explaining "why we are dead" — asserted that the wife, Ana Lupoe, planned the killings of the whole family, police Lt. John Romero said Ervin Lupoe was the suspect. A revolver was found next to his body.
It was the fifth mass death of a Southern California family by murder or suicide in a year. Police urged those facing tough economic times to get help rather than resort to violence.

"Today our worst fear was realized," said Deputy Chief Kenneth Garner. "It's just not a solution. There's just so many ways you find alternatives to doing something so horrific and drastic as this."
Ervin Lupoe removed three of the children from school about a week and a half ago, saying the family was moving to Kansas, the principal told KCAL-TV. Crescent Heights Elementary School Principal Cherise Pounders-Caver said nothing seemed to be troubling Ervin Lupoe, and she did not ask why the family was moving.
Kaiser Permanente Medical Center West Los Angeles released a statement confirming Lupoe and his wife were fired as medical technicians more than a week ago. The hospital said the firings followed an internal investigation but would not specify why they lost their jobs.
The letter indicated that Lupoe and his wife — both 40 — had been investigated for misrepresenting their employment to an outside agency to obtain childcare. He claimed that an administrator told the couple on Dec. 23: "You should not even had bothered to come to work today you should have blown your brains out."
Lupoe's letter said the couple complained to the human resources department and eventually were offered an apology but two days later they were fired.
"They did nothing to the manager who stated such and did not attempt to assist us in the matter, knowing we have no job and five children under 8 years with no place to go. So here we are," the note said.
At the bottom of the letter, Lupoe wrote, "Oh lord, my God, is there no hope for a widow's son?" The phrase is frequently found in Internet discussions about the novel "The Da Vinci Code," Freemasons and Mormonism.

Kaiser Permanente said staff was "saddened by the despair" in Lupoe's letter "but we are confident that no one told him to take his own life or the lives of his family."
Lupoe's fax identified his children as Brittney, 8; 5-year-old twins Jaszmin and Jassely; and twins Benjamin and Christian, ages 2 years and 4 months. Winter confirmed the identities of the girls, but the boys' names were pending.
Lupoe got a state license to work as a security guard in 1989 and a permit to carry a gun as a security guard in 1993 but both expired in 2007, said Russ Heimerich, a spokesman for the state Bureau of Security and Investigative Services.
Bob Pierce, a Long Beach attorney who represented the Lupoes in an auto accident, said the case did not involve any serious injuries and the family was expected to receive "well below $10,000," he said.
Lupoe called Monday to find out when the money might be coming, Pierce said. Pierce told him that it might be another week or two "and he said 'no problem.'"
To Amanda Garcia, everything seemed normal in the Lupoe house next door. Her neighbors always had a friendly wave and their five young children would play outside.
"They were happy, they had birthday parties," the 22-year-old Garcia said as she choked back tears near her home. "The kids were always outside on bikes, riding on their wagon."
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.


It's really hard to believe things have gotten this bad. More importantly what are you going to do to make sure this doesn't happen to someone in your family or on your block. If you don't, you're no better than "them", but that's just my opinion though, and who the hell am I?

"Come On, Man" Face of the Week

Send your best one to rsj304@aol.com.
Use the comments to add what you think someone said to prompt this "Come On, Man" Face. I love these, but that's just my opinion though, and who the hell am I?

My Inauguration Post

I know I'm late on this but bare with me. I didn't post anything about the inauguration because I wasn't sure what i could say that hasn't already been said. Since I can't really come up with much that is original, I'll tell you what I did on that day. I woke up an immediately called off from work. Next, I threw on a podcast called Black Media Archives and blasted speeches from Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, H. Rap Brown, Bobby Seale, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and Martin Luther King Jr.; while I cleaned my house. Then, i took a shower and put on my new Obama t-shirt that my auntie bought me for Christmas. I finished getting dressed and drove down to my mother's to watch the festivities on TV. I bunch of my family went but we decided to stay so that we could watch the whole thing together. Me, my mother, my aunt Dar, and my aunt Peachy (who came down from NJ) were all in attendance. It was amazing because we began talking about all of the people who missed this, and all of the ways that the country has changed in the past 50 years. It was amazing to hear them reminisce and reveal racist secrets about the town I live in. They explain how long of a journey this has been. Then things got a little emotional when we started talking about how my grandfather missed seeing a Black president by a few months. Once we saw the ceremony begin, we were filled up with silence and pride. We didn't say anything like, "I hope these fools don't start shootin'!". We knew there wasn't a possibility for something like that to go down. We got to watch history. We hugged, we cried, and we ate. We sent texts to our entire family, and we sent texts to those who were there. It was an amazing day. I believed Barack Obama has raised the bar for black men my age, the way 2pac did, and Jay-Z after him. He didn't judge us, showed us how much we were like him, he condemned the use of excuses, and removed laurels for us to rest on. He is a new hero of mine. I admire him, and I owe him alot. He has made it easier to empower a group of men that I am a part of and that I was fearful for. I don't want to call him a savior, because that is too much. He is an icon to me a beacon of hope, An assurance that someone has your back, and a catalyst of unity that I have never seen before. But that's just my opinion though, and who the hell am I?

Sunday, January 25, 2009

The S.T.G. Award

The S.T.G. Award is an award that will be given to an person or persons that irks my nerves or causes me to want to say, "Screw That Guy". In fact, that is what S.T.G. stands for, but the G can be interchanged with Guy, Girl, or Group.
This weeks Award goes to the guy or group of guys who nominated Robert Downey Jr. and his buffoonish portrayal of a Black man for an Oscar. I know that the role called for him to make the role over the top, but i just don't think the brilliance of his performance out weighs the fact that his character addressed a real problem in Hollywood, where Black actors aren't being considered for roles that they should get a chance, unless they are Will Smith. In the day and age of America's first Black president, I really hope that we aren't faced with the idea of a white guy getting an award for playing a stereotypical caricature of a Black man. Don't get me wrong, I thought the movie and his part was funny. Damn funny. Funny, like a Black joke told by Blacks or a Jewish joke told by Jews, but not the type of humor that earmarks brilliance or sacrifice or the embodiment or pure emotion; but that's just my opinion though, and who the hell am I?

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Sex & Stress

I found an old paper that I wrote while I was in college. I hope you enjoy:

The idea that sex and stress are related shouldn't sound as strange as it does. At first thought it seems like the two should cancel each other out. Sex, to most, is the most soothing, calming, relieving act that human beings can engage in. It’s like a mixture of a good yawn, a great message, that feeling just before you sneeze, and that tingle that a man gets at the end of a tinkle. Stress on the other hand is the inability to cope with a perceived or real threat to one’s mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual well being which results in a series of physiological responses and adaptations: The exact opposite of sex. The trick is not finding where the relationship between sex and stress lies (no pun intended), the trick is finding out if the relationship is negative or positive. There is evidence to support both.

The positives are easy to identify and relate to. Hardly known to many, sex is good for your heart. Besides being a good cardiovascular work out (depending on how you go about things), sex protects the heart. According to a study of 918 men done by Duke University, men who reported the most frequent orgasms had slightly less than half the risk of death as other men, particularly from coronary heart disease. In fact, there appears to be a dose response relationship between orgasm and risk of death from coronary heart disease, according to their researchers. By increasing the number of his orgasms to 100 per year, a man may actually reduce his risk of death by heart disease by about 36 percent. A similar study by Duke University also found that women who said they enjoyed sexual contact also appeared to lower their risk of death from coronary heart disease. Besides what the studies reveal, sex, as a release of stressful, pent-up frustrations is a healthy relief exercise. Unfortunately, only truly mentally & emotionally stable people seem to be able to use sex as a means of relief or release from stress. When sex is mixed with mentally & emotionally unhealthy people or situations it could be lastingly and/or temporarily disastrous. Performance standards for sexual partners are are huge sources of stress in the bedroom; usually, because the standards are unrealistically set by the media. How sexual standards and individual expectations may create stressful situation for a couple may look something like this:
Meka threw a surprise party for her husband Donell when he turned 40. They danced and drank until 2:00am and fell into bed exhausted and exhilarated. Meka changed into a sexy teddy that she’d bought for the occasion. She then proceeded to do a slow, sensuous dance as she approached the bed. Donell was ready to get his freak on. Meka knew she was about to get her back banged out. As the years went by, Meka made every effort to relax, forget outside pressures, and focus on their lovemaking, but she was never able to be the freaky-deaky lover that Donell expected her to be. Donell was touched by Meka’s effort. He was delighted at Meka’s sensuality and told himself that tonight he would break her off something proper. However, after an hour of cuddling and foreplay, Donell had to give up in despair. “Sorry, baby,” he said, “I guess the alcohol must have taken over.”
“You don’t find me attractive anymore, do you? I saw how you looked at Shante tonight!” shrieked Meka. Donell was horrified. “I never looked at another woman since I married you. If you could just learn to relax and stop thinking about everything….”
“Oh, you’re saying this is my fault! Are you blaming this on me??” Hollered Meka. You can sort of guess where it goes from here.

In this scenario, a typical couple turns their sex life into a stress life. Not only is each partner worried about performing to a certain level, but also both are deeply affected by each other’s stress. Stress causes women to have far more interest in sleep than sex and can actually inhibit their ability to become aroused and/or reach orgasm. On top of that, when they are uninterested in sex or non-responsive to sex, it puts an added stress on the relationship. When you’re stressed, sex isn’t even a blip on the radar screen. When the stress goes unresolved and becomes a further distraction, sex becomes just another thing that is expected of you. A key way to avoid this from happening is to talk to your partner about your stress. More than likely, your partner understands the stress that you are under. Talking with each other can act as a release itself and can help you both rearrange you priorities. It is crucial for a couple to share the concerns of performance anxiety, work related stress, and sharing domestic duties. The only way to unearth buried concerns that promote stress is to talk about them.

For a more biological outlook, the body’s process for stress management starts with an emergency perceived by the cerebral cortex. This alerts the Hypothalamus that enacts the pituitary gland, which activates the adrenal gland that releases the stress hormone called Cortisol. This is an average everyday occurrence and it happens in side of our body everyday. The problem lies when the stress level of an individual become so high that there are increased levels of Cortisol in the blood system. Besides putting the individual at risk for developing Progeria, or rapid aging, it has an adverse affect on the sexual activities of a person. According to Russell Fernald, a Neurobiologist at Stanford University, individuals who were the least stressed out and had the lowest blood Cortisol levels, were more sexually active, satisfied, and dominant.

According to the research and findings of many, sex and stress are definitely connected. As most things that are physically, emotionally, mentally connected, it can be used or perceived as a positive or a negative. Ultimately it hinges on the attitude and ideology of the people involved to decide if the connection is going to be productive or counter productive. But that's just my opinion though, and who the hell am I?

A Completed Tree Shaking Ceremony

For those of you who follow this Blog, you have heard me talk about me asking God to shake my tree, and make everyone who isn't working towards my best interests & goals, fall off. Every time I asked God to do this, he would; but every time he would, I'd get scared and ask him to stop. And he would. This time I vowed to myself that I wouldn't stop him, and I didn't. I'm only writing about it now because everyone fell. When I say everyone, I mean everyone: Family, Friends, Lovers, Girlfriends, Co-workers, Supervisors. EVERYONE!!! It is really difficult for me right now, because I always thought that I more of a support system than I had. It is a difficult realization when your tree is bare. It's hard not to begin to question your own judgement and your own attraction of character. People are brought in to your life for a reason, so I can only assume that people are taken out of your life for a reason as well. I haven't began to attempt to understand the reasons yet. I'm still kinda in mourning. I hope that this tree has been shaken bear to make room for new growth. At least, that is what I'm gonna tell myself until I feel better. I don't plan on going backwards and trying to reattach anyone to the tree, but until something new grows, it's hard not to look down and see everything that has fallen. But that's just my opinion though, and who the hell am I?

Friday, January 16, 2009

"Come On, Man" Face of the Week


Send your best one to rsj304@aol.com.
Use the comments to add what you think someone said to prompt this "Come On, Man" Face. I love these, but that's just my opinion though, and who the hell am I?

NEVER BUY THIS PHONE!!!


I got a phone from the fine people at AT&T. The told me all the wonderful things about this phone and I assumed that these people were being honest with me. They were not! I don't think they were being dishonest. I think they generally do not know anything about the products that they sell. These horrible people sold me an even worse phone. They sold me the Nokia 6566. I attached a picture of the phone so you people who read this can never make the same mistake I did. I don't know where to begin posting all of the problems with this phone: The phone just shuts off if you close it too hard, Sometimes it freezes up for no reason, The paint chipped off the buttons and the front in 2 months, Occasionally the memory in the phone gets lost and you can't access your address book or inbox or files, and when it is on vibrate a call will make it cut off. Please PLEASE PLEASE!!! Do not buy this phone! If a salesman tries to sell it to you, He is a soulless bastard. If someone gives it to you as a gift, that person hates your guts. If someone tells you it's a good phone, they want to anally violate your mother. You should smack them in the face and never speak to them again. But that's just my opinion though, and who the hell am I?

Monday, January 12, 2009

Greed

This is something that I've kicked around in my head for a awhile and i wasn't 100% sure about it. I've often pondered whether or not greed is a phenomenon found in nature or is it just in the nature of mankind? Are there instances or examples of animals or insects exhibiting this behavior? I think it would be easier to understand if I just knew that it was a part of all life, not just us. I think it is a large piece of what I believe holds us back as human beings. We do show some glimpses of a pack mentality, but not the glimpses where we sacrifice and do what is best for the pack; but the glimpses where we leave the weak to deal with things on their own. We often try to chalk that up to, "Survival Of The Fittest". I think it's just a by-product of greed. Our greed isn't even based in self-preservation. I think as humans are instincts have shifted from self-preservation to self-advancement. We hoard money, food, land, and even time. I'm not sure if we all understand, but there is enough for everyone. It is a hard concept to grasp, but THERE IS ENOUGH OF EVERYTHING FOR EVERYONE. Trust me. I ask you all that are reading this to try and see if you can observe instances in nature that show greed. If you can't, accept that it is a man-made condition. If you accept that it is a man-made condition, do what you can to reverse it. But that's just my opinion though, and who the hell am I?

Thursday, January 8, 2009

"Come On, Man" Face of the Week


Send your best one to rsj304@aol.com.
This one is classic! He nailed it! Use the comments to add what you think someone said to prompt the "Come On, Man" Face. I love these, but that's just my opinion though, and who the hell am I?

Monday, January 5, 2009

Little Things That Help

In a controversy the instant we feel anger we have already ceased striving for the truth, and have begun striving for ourselves. - Buddha ...

It may not impact you know, but i quote like this can pull you through the most difficult of times. But that's just my opinion though, and who the hell am I?

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Betrayal

Malcolm X once said, "Betrayal is worse than death." I wasn't buying it when I first heard it, but now I'm getting a better glimpse. Death is enveloping and final. It is very difficult to manipulate it. Once you've accepted it, Death is effortless. Betrayal is another monster all together. Betrayal makes you question any and everything that you are. You'll begin to ask yourself, " Who am I?" and "What do I really stand for?" It makes you hate. You hate everything related or anything that reminds you. But most importantly, it makes you hate yourself. It systematically tears you down from top to bottom. You see yourself as 90% weaknesses and 10% strengths. It's like an emotional cancer that attacks your self-confidence. Fortunately, it isn't terminal. It is a hole that is deep and dark, but you can climb out of it. I hope none of you ever have to deal with it. If you do I hope it isn't by someone you care about, or someone you thought cared about you. But that's just my opinion though, and who the hell am I?
 
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