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Me, myself, I'm glad all the Oscar hoopla is over. It was getting tiresome. I was especially bored with Lupita's (whatever her last name is) over exposure, modeling an endless display of high-priced designer dresses that went so well with her high top fade hair style. Back in 1939, Hattie McDaniels won best supporting actress for playing a slave mammy in Gone With The Wind". In 2014 an African actress wins this award for playing a slave in another epic movie. Ah, the irony. Grade school-educated Hattie was descended from slaves. Yale graduate, Lupita is descended from slave traders. Whoopi! (Yea, Ms. Goldberg was there, too, looking like the flip side of Lupita's coin.) FaceBook was bristling with black women rejoicing over this win. Why? I don't know. Didn't a black actress just win as supporting Oscar for playing a maid in "The Help" 2 years ago? Didn't Monique also just win one before that for playing a negligent ghetto momma? The idea that black women should be rejoicing over the latest awardee whom they presumably regard as an inspiring role model, brings out the cynicism that just keeps rearing its ugly head on my horizon. I like my role models more authentic, and a littlle less frivolus. Which proves, of course, that I am out of step. I didn't realize black women felt so neglected, considering the eye-rolling, booty shakin, hip-grindin dancer who serves as our first lady. Go, on, Girl. I haven't seen any of the nominated pictures, but I'm glad "12 Years a Slave" won. It kinda neuturalizes all the accolades the movie about Lincoln received last year. I thought host Ellen Degenerate did a decent job of reminding us how unremarkable these proceedings really are. Somebody should give her an Oscar for her portrayal of a man. I could go on and on but I would once again be violating my new year's resolution to stop being so negative. BTW, Sidney Poiter looked how I imagined that man in the news who came back to life, kicking off his body bag just as the mortician was getting ready to start embalming him. Louis Gossert, Jr., where are you when we need you? Poor ol Kim Novak, who's the same age as me, looking all bewildered in her JC Penney pants suit, while few people in the audience even remembered her or what a hottie she was back in the day I know the feeling. Bye-bye. I'm done.

People get what they deserve. A person is well informed because he or she chooses to be. One has to take the initiative and diversify. Make the internet just one source of information. Read newspapers and books, watch TV news and documentaries and films. Above all be a skeptic. Pacified by going with the stress-free flow, being comfortable with having others influence decisions in one's everyday life as long as personal relationships are not affected, is the trade-off for surrendering one's identity. "Ignorance is bliss" That's why religion thrives and endures in society because it's so easy to just put things in god's hands and leave the driving to him.