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@Pioneer1 I don't need a ghost writer. When you live as along as I have, your life is a book with many chapters. I simply verbalize my memories, utilizing what writing skills I, as a Leo and self-published author, have. Because I always look for the irony in life, that is the angle of my vignettes, and that tends to make simple events compelling. Everybody has stories to tell, but everybody doesn't choose to put them in writing. @Delano I do sorta feel that I have a dual animus, one of which is masculine. I'm not a very maternal person and I often find myself more empathetic with a male point of view when it comes to romance because - I think a woman is silly to think she should be the center of a man's universe, demanding his undivided attention, and that she should get over her goddess fantasies and simply be a woman the man of her choice would voluntarily cherish. I have also discerned that in the cyber world, I seem to be able to infuse my written words with "emotion" and people are often unduly affected by what I say because my subjective sentiments transcend my objective words.

...not to mention all the chemicals in the food supply @Pioneer1. Think about how much faster girls are developing today compared to just 50 years ago. Cynique you are right most negroes are crazy--particularly in the large urban centers. How can you live in a New York City or Chicago ghetto and NOT be hurt mentally--especially today when so much wealth in flaunted in front of your face. Plus advertising drives you to consume more than you can afford--making matters even worse. @Mel Hopkins, in the Amerian culture a "real man" is conditioned to never ask for help. Needing help is a sign or weakness or stupidity. Men are not conditioned to reveal vulnerabilities. "Stop that crying boy, you acting like a /punk/pussy/fag/etc" Men are not going to ask for help, not for driving directions--nothing. Shoot, a man can have chest pains, numbness in his left arm, and be slurring his words--and still won't ask for help--we gonna walk that shit off. But @Mel Hopkins you are my age you know this right? Now these attitudes may be changing with the younger generation, but we still have large percentages of guys this way raised this way. @Pioneer1 you now what I'm talking about right? I KNOW @Cynique knows what I;m talking about. I was talking to an 83 your old guy the other day. "A man's man" as they say. He used to coach football. He was telling me a story about a kid on one of his teams who broke his arm on during a game. The kid was sprawled in the field bawling. He said he went over the boy and told him to "get up and stop crying like a little girl." He did not offer to help, there was no hug, what he was doing was preparing him for the world he was about to encounter. Given recent events, I'm not sure I can argue with the sentiment. Yes we are crazy. But that is a normal reaction given the conditions.

Troy You did an excellent job in breaking down who profits from Black death in society. From more jobs for police, lawyers, corrections officers, to more patients for nurses and doctors and more bodies for funeral directors.....people are getting rich off of Black misery. I don't believe so-called "broken families" (and I say "so-called" because we're living in Western society where everyone is expected pattern thier families after the upperclass European model and when you can't meet that often unreasonable goal, your family is considered somehow "broken" or "dysfunctional"....when in reality it's the model or nuclear family ITSELF that is dysfunctional and unrealistic) is the major cause of violence in urban communities. Is it a problem? Perhaps... But I truly believe that the MAIN cause is chemical: -the drugs and especially the alcohol that Black people consume in an attempt to imitate the larger White society without knowing the negative effects it tends to have on Black, Brown, and Yellow brains. Many of us are old enough to remember the old saying that you shouldn't give a Native American alcohol because it will run them crazy....what makes us think Africans could tolerate it any better? -the lead and other environmental pollutants found in the waters of most urban municipalities that are scientifically proven to cause violence. -the vaccines given to most children in the United States have been proven to have a far more powerful and negative effect on Black boys and have been shown to delay or even retard certain social and intellectual skills as they develop leading to increased frustration and conflict. The psychiatric effect that these chemicals have on the brains of developing young people is the underlying cause of the hostility, low achievement, and violence that you see in urban landscapes all across the nation. If you're over 40 years old you can just stand back and observe the younger generation of AfroAmericans...how dry their skin is, how slow they get around, how fat so many of them are.....and you can tell that something is psychologically wrong with many of them. Especially when you compare them with Black youth from the Carribean or Africa. Until the chemical aspect is properly dealt with.... Until THAT factor is recognized as being a part of the problem......it will not be solved.

As I said before, I do believe there is some validity to ANCIENT astrology, but like many forms of religion....much of what is practiced now a days seems to be just another form of ESCAPISM. A lot of otherwise intelligent men and women make important life decisions such as who to date/marry and what careers choices to make based mostly on outdated and often fabricated Greek mythology....only to end up more confused and disappointed! Rather than going through the trouble to think and make the hard decisions to try and secure a particular outcome....many people would rather leave it up to the "stars" to set everything straight for them. Or on the other side of the same coin....... When something goes wrong, instead of self reflection and retracing one's steps to find out what one did wrong, they'd rather blame it on "fate" or "the stars" to dodge personal responsbility for thier situation. I've also noticed that many historically oppressed groups like AfroAmericans and women tend to be attracted to things they feel will give them some sense of power in a society that often times deprive them from so much of it. So while a wealthy White family has the money to bail their son out of jail and pay for a good lawyer to keep him free, a poor Black family often goes to a fortune teller to get advice on what to do about their son and a poor Latino family will pray to a particular saint and burn a certain candle for a favorable outcome. Cynique Do you have a ghost writer or something? How DO you come up with all these stories....lol. That story you told sounded like something Morris Chestnut and Kerry Washington would star in.

I don't believe in banning people based on race or religion, however.............. I DO think that people from other cultures who come to America should be given a proper understanding on American culture (or the lack of it) and how what tends to be socially or familially unacceptable in the land they come from may be perfectly welcomed here. We have a very large Middle Eastern population in the Detroit area and people from the Middle East have strong cultures that tend to be very INTOLERANT of many contemporary Western values like women's rights, homosexual rights, and even race mixing. Traditionally, most immigrants...especially those from the Eastern Hemisphere...who've come to the United States have pretty much gone out of their way to avoid intergrating into American society. They come here to get an education or own a business, but as far as being an American and mixing it up in this society....many would rather stay outside. They like the freedoms and economic opportunities of America, but they don't want to accept the tolerant and often secular values that made the peace, stability, and economic opportunities that they come here to enjoy! I don't know how many times I've heard men from Arabia or even India and parts of Africa say that they wouldn't marry an American woman, or they don't want their son marrying an American woman. I ask them why, and they say American women are too "loose" and sexually free....yet many of these SAME dudes are trying to bang as many American women as they can get their hands on!!! People should get a proper understanding of American society and our basic customs before they come here and agrees to accept them on condition of being sent back if they start engaging in "honor killing" and other forms of intolerance.

Here's another point of view. In my ongoing quest for the truth, I agree with the idea that African American men are maladjusted due to being cast into the domain of Western civilization. They came to America as strangers in a strange land, constrained by the slavery that was incompatible with a compulsion to be free, and this subjected them to the stress that damaged their psyches. Since not a lot has changed down through the centuries and the pressure has never relented, the evolving victimization of black males has mutated the DNA of their brains, making them inherently dysfunctional inhabitants of a country that devalues them. As for black women, I think they're somewhat dysfunctional, too, particularly the fatherless ones who populate the amoral inner city subculture, looking for love in all the wrong places, indiscriminately breeding children they are ill-equipped to rear alone, raising daughters who will replicate their mothers' lifestyles and sons who will either kill or be killed on the means streets of the ghetto. Upwardly mobile black women fare better, In spite of struggling with the image of being angry ball-busters, vainly searching for the "Mr.Rights" who white women beat them out of, left to put on brave faces in an effort to enjoy the independence they'd gladly exchange for the reliability of a good strong mate, they still rise. I think all black people are basically neurotic. I look around and see the lily white crowds of indignant "humanitarians" responding to Trump's banning of Muslim immigrants, and when I compare this compassionate outpouring to the indifference or disgust currently shown the grievances of Native Americans and Blacks, 2 groups who were here before all the European immigrants, it becomes obvious that the mixed emotions and frustration that comes with being black in America makes being neurotic inevitable. I know there are exceptions to my examples, but all African Americans no matter how well off they are, are affected in some way by the burden of their skin color. Can all of their woes be attributed to a System that is stacked against them? Maybe, it could also be due to the randomness of Fate. Jews made it through the holocaust and never-ending anti-semitism, only to become among America's most affluent high achievers. Some folks have all the luck. Arguably...

@Frederic http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2015/08/21/the-satan-selling-con-men-are-boring-their-satan-buying-audience-is-fascinating/ How did he get his soul back from the Devil? Did he offer the Devil a Twinkie?

The 2015 delineation is very fascinating and eerily insightful. IMHO, what's happening in the USA is inevitable. Nothing stays the same and time brings change. America no longer has a "national character" or a collective consciousness. It's almost like each state is a country unto itself We have become a population of strangers because the great melting pot rather than becoming a delicious soup has become an unappetizing mush. Democracy is not working, and Capitalism makes greed good It's all coming to a head and the future of this nation will be tested. It will either come to its senses or will enter the second phase of the disintegration process. Leaders will be challenged because the Pandora's Box they have all helped to open has unleashed a horde of discontented citizens and it may take a catastrophic event to bring everyone together again.

Well, you can't tell the players without a score card. All I know is that I have a bad feeling about the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election. The losers will not go quietly and the United States will enter the beginning phase of disintegration. The differences between Liberal Democrats and Conservative Republicans are too entrenched to be reconciled. The fall of Rome was not due to outside forces but to internal dissent. "A house divided against itself cannot stand". I sat on my patio last night and viewed the eclipse of the blood super moon. In this nation, the lunatics seem to be taking over the asylum and I found myself wondering whether what I was viewing was a symbolic sign of things to come. Will the earth's shadow blot out what the crazy people have created, and restore "normalcy" ??? The only problem is to figure out just who the crazy people are.