The PBI Index

I have devised a new strategy towards gaining acceptance, but first let me premise it with the statement that I believe in evolution. A nagging question with this belief is tied to the evidence that the first man evolved in Africa. What does this mean to the average citizen? Are Africans somehow inferior because we evolved first? Are Africans somehow endowed with ape or chimp like characteristics? I think about our cousin the ape, and notice his strength; I see myself and am often perplexed by my own effortlessly sculpted physique while listening to the complaints of my Caucasian counterparts. I tread on very dangerous waters, I am sure by making these statements, but the question nags. Plus I have carte blanche with that bill of rights document.
Recently, there was an arrest and release of a prominent Harvard professor, Henry Louis Gates. The media and Gates played against each other in a game of words where the media attempted to sensationalize a "racial profiling" meets a Nobel laureate scholar scenario. I don’t think Gates is a Nobel laureate, but you can catch my drift. Even Barak Obama got into the fray before somebody important to him thought he might have stuck his foot in his mouth with his initial "the police acted stupidly" response. So I am left to wonder what really went down that day, while trying to keep an open mind. I hate prejudice, even within myself, so I try to detach all analysis from a race perspective, and exist as a colorless observer, not tainted by my own ethnocentric experience.
I often hear that white people derisively refer to African people as monkeys. I hear that they throw bananas at us when we take the field in soccer aka football games. Why the hate? Studies have shown monkeys to be superior to college educated humans in certain cognitive functions. http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2007/12/young-chimp-bea.html . I get the connection with the bananas, black people are simian and monkeys eat bananas, so therefore we must love bananas..yea yea yea.....I personally think the banana, called the fruit of the wise, is an excellent food, stocked full of potassium and essential for healthy brain function. Potassium assists in the sending and receiving of messages between brain cells thus promoting an optimal cerebral environment. So great, keep those bananas pouring out of the bleachers you racist hooligans, yea you, over there in the Chelsea jersey. Think I can't see you? But I digress.
A Boston Police officer was placed on administrative leave pending a termination hearing because an email he sent out was leaked in which he called professor gates a "jungle monkey" whose "belligerence" was deserving of a face-full of "mace". Again we are called monkeys, but why? Does America know us to eat bananas? Do we Africans consume the most bananas per capita?
So I am on a campaign, because I don't want my daughter to hear someone calling her father a monkey, as I am certain it would be damaging to her psychic well being. I am not going to eat bananas in public. I am, in effect, going to decrease my own PBI Index. I am going to improve my "Public Banana Intake" index. I think it behooves all Africans and people of even marginal African descent to improve their own PBI index so that we will not be derided and humiliated in such a dehumanizing manner. By no means will I cease eating bananas outright, I will only try to cut down on how many bananas in eat in the public eye.

PASTA

So, I am starting a new group in response to an annoying circumstance I seem to encounter about 3-4 times per week. The group will be called PASTA; People Against STaring at Accidents. In a recent drive to class I was forced to add an additional 10-15 minutes to my commute due to an accident. I can understand if there were actual victims suffering and samaritans trying to lend a hand. From three miles back I imagined a real community effort to pull children from burning wreckage, clouds of billowing smoke, smoldering tires melting into asphalt and a make shift field hospital...This particular traffic jam resulted, however from people pausing to stare at a parked bus on the other side of the highway...There was no real obstruction to traffic flow on my side of the interstate asside from the artificial one created by drivers slowing down to gaze at people milling about a large bus pulled to the side of the road. I guess it had run out of gas or overheated or something. My question to society is "When are we going to evolve beyond this type of voyeurism?!?" Is gauking at hapless victims somehow gratifying? If you are fed-up with unesessary traffic jams, join PASTA today! Members of PASTA will recieve a T-Shirt with the PASTA logo and a quarterly newsletter. ($25 annual membership fee; tax deductible)

Time or Money

Time is more valuable than money.
As we age our time becomes more scarce and
therefore more valuable. This is especially true when one places great value
in vitality. In this sense, a waste one's time is a waste of one's vitality.

Money is always diminishing in value due to the constantly
changing cost of production. The history of all types of production
shows a sporadic trajectory in the total cost of production,
yet the overall trend is always directed upward. There are many factors
including human population fluctuation, technological transition, human genious
and failure, natural disasters, and the constantly increasing scarcity of
raw material, which contribute to the rising cost of total production.

The state at which currency dimishes at the greatest rate
is when it is "kept under our bed in a box".
The state where it dimishes least is when applied to investments with the greatest rate of return.
In this sense there is a broad spectrum of currency efficiency.

Even as our currency gains tenuous footing when hedged
by interest rates through investment at varying degrees of risk,
inflation is a constant that drains and deflates
our efforts as it taxes our every waking moment.

Inflation is a natural response to the subtle or volitile multilevel
interactions between supply and demand throughout
the heirarchy of production and consumption.
Since the total cost of production is always trending
upward...there will always be a general trend to inflate the
the diminishing value of our money against the increasing cost of production.
Remember when a loaf of bread was $0.25? you probably don't,
but your grandparents would if they bought bread in the 1960s.

the HULK on an eighth of a gallon of gas:

How to feel like the HULK on an eighth of a gallon of gas:
Get in your vehicle.
Roll up the windows.
Get on the 695.
Pop in "I don't give a fuck"
Album: Kings of Crunk
Artist: Lil John and the Eastside Boyz

they say that rap is dirty, that the stories told by the artists degrade women, that they glorify violence, that it induces intellectual stupor.....then why is there such a demand for it? is the reason that we slow down to passively observe anguished accident victims on the side of the road an explanation for our rabid consumption of rap?

I mean really, do you think these rappers actually enjoy having to kill 3-10 people in their own neighborhood before being allowed a meeting with a major main stream producer like *^$$ #@##& ?
Personally, I think not.

America....Change your taste
or shut the __ up.

OWED TO RAP

rap music is the deep resonating bass drum
vibrating with the frequency of change
sent to galvinize the masses.
recognize the endurance of this rebellious
artform. thirty plus years and counting;
as infinitely diverse and ubiquitous as it is controversial. from the last poets to
lil wayne, from mellie mel to master p..accross foreign lands, and infiltrating
the pulse of the global intellectual discourse. Rap music
is the most potent art-form beside kung fu. Irrefutably the voice of
the oppressed majority, a readily accessable tool of pure self expression.
a completely organic mode of mass communication...a soliloquy,
an uninteruppted train of thought sometimes guided by the structure of the written form,
sometimes spiritually inspired and improvised...recited to the pulsating, and
often hypnotic thump of the modern drum. recognize that the
poetry of rap reaches a complexity that only those who are
forged in the most sincere jihad can hope to master. nuff respect due
to the one six ooh.

rap is about maintanance of one's integrity despite the
overwhelming institutionally
reinforced
odds against your
survival.


KEEP BOUNCING

Zizwe Allette

icon avenger

I came up with a term tonight, I call it the icon avenger...I suppose you would like to know its relevance. ok...Our culture in recent months, years, decades, has placed increasing importance on celebrity in chosing our role models. With this celebrity comes a state of semi-worship. It is almost as if our chosen celebrities act as personal deities/fetishes ie idols. almost like our parents...So when they fall from grace, or when their human frailties surface,,,society feels betrayed, causing it to lash out in great anger...,aahhhh ...the fall from grace, it tends to be a highly polarizing event in our culture. it seems to galvanize class and race friction. The cultural biases are on open display.

So, this is where the icon avenger comes in....The icon avenger chastises society for its incessent need for celebrity approval.

I am trying to think of an icon avenger...

The Concept of Having and Not Having

I recently lost a black camera bag which contained a rather large and expensive lens. It also contained a flash card with quite a bit of storage space. Retail value, I'd estimate close to 550 bux. In addition last week, my Camry of 10 years was towed away from me, it's current value approximately 250 bux. (not running awaiting tax deductible donation/ junk sale) I won't plead for its return. But the problem here is simple; I lose things, and lose them too often. In college we developed the concept of having and not having. We concluded that having and being aware of the location of our things was a good thing, while being oblivious to the location of our things was not. We realized that this was an essential concept to learn, as many of us habitually lost our posessions, often never to regain them. Today, I pledge to apply myself to fully grasping the concept of having and not having.

Breathin down Obama's neck

Why is the mainstream media seemingly consumed by curiosity over who Obama will choose for a VP? He has barely had time to digest Hillary's "suspension" of her campaign. The wording here is quite interesting as well; "suspension". It's as if Hillary plans on resuming her campaign in the remaining weeks before the Democratic National Convention. Perhaps this is a veiled illusion to the Bobby Kennedy reference she made a few short weeks ago.
In terms of the VP selection, I am intrigued by the amount of media attention given to Barak's "short list", and the disinterest given to McCain's. Why the imbalance? Is the implication here that Barak needs to hurry up and choose a "good ol boy" or gal for that matter, so he can start to woo middle America? Perhaps. Or maybe a more sinister plot is amiss aimed at stirring up additional instability and strife within the Democratic Party's already tenuous ranks. Whatever the case may be, the media frenzy over Barak's VP choice is an interesting phenomenon which in some way reflects the psychology of our popular culture and casts a bit of fog over the real issues; ie the economy, the impending fuel crisis, foreign policy, health care, immigration, etc.......