Cynique

When it comes to TV, summertime is re-run season. For me it's a time to stray from the channels I usually watch because I've seen all of their episodes more than once. I still haven't gotten into sit-coms or drama series. I just look for quick fixes, and that can involve reality shows. But I only watch one type of reality show; the talent competition ones; or the untalented competitions, as the case may be. What I have observed while watching these shows is a simple lesson. A lesson that is not new but one that TV enhances and dramatizes because it exposes the power of reactions. I have become a regular viewer of a show called The Shark Tank, a program where people appear who have an invention or business venture they want to launch or expand but need large monetary loans to implement their dream. The judging panel consists of 4 astute, successful financial tycoons who harshly evaluate the presentations of the contestants and decide whether or not they want to go into business with them by investing the money being requested which amounts to anywhere from $50,000 to $1,000,000. One by one a succession of wanna-be entrepreneurs come forward and wade into the "tank", full of confidence and enthusiasm as they demonstrate their products or explain their ideas in hopes of getting one of the "Sharks" to advance the money being sought in exchange for a percentage of their enterprise. Most of these propositions are rejected but not before the hopefuls have been raked over the coals by the panel members who deconstruct and ridicule their ideas or make insultingly low counter offers for financial assistance. So right before the camera we see beaming faces deflate into humiliation and bright smiles fade into disappointment. Eyes moisten, lips quiver as negativity does its cruel work. Heads bowed, tails between their legs, the would-be winners are reduced to losers and leave the stage, their hopes dashed by the stark reality of honest criticism. Contrast this to the contestants in whatever venue they appear who have impressed those critiquing them. With their talent validated, their anxiety vanishes and their nervous demeanors are transformed by the glow of happiness. With all that we know about the complicated human psyche, the impact of two simple actions can never be underestimated because they starkly demonstrate the power of language. Words are weapons that anyone can wield, and they can exert a profound effect on individiuals, no matter what their station in life. No one is immune to the Ego virus. Like magical incantations, utterences of REJECTION injure, and the sounds of PRAISE heal. Somebody once said, "life is the question, love is the answer". Someone else intoned: "the truth will set you free". And let's hear it for whomever murmured "silence is golden." And, of course, "one picture is worth a thousand words". Words, words, words...

Heyyyy. I just discovered if I double click on the picture that I posted, it gets bigger. Hummm. Is that a sign of something???

Well, I made it. The big 8-0. Now what? Only time will tell.

Well, I 've been resurrected by all the positive messages sent my way on my birthday. I enjoyed a great celebration with my family and now I'm ready for whatever life serves up to me next. Thank you Troy and Pioneer for your well wishes.

Hello, This is Cynique's daughter. Just wanted to tell you she didn't make it. She was so looking forward to her 80th birthday but last night when she was out staring at the moon, an object fell from the sky and hit her on the head knocking her to the ground. When 911 got here, it was too late. We will have the dinner planned today anyway because we know that's the way she would've wanted it and that she will be with us in spirit. We'll have an empty chair for her and will observe a moment of silence. Pray for us.

The count down continues. Half way there. Yesterday I went to pick out a dress to wear to my birthday gathering. I wanted something festive and frilly and found a frock that pretty much fit the bill, except it was a tad short. But then I decided that wasn't a problem. My husband always said, I had pretty legs. Reminder: this is MY party. My next stop was a beauty supply store. I went there to search for some stickers. I had in mind the kind used to decorate the body, - not that easy to find nowadays since this fad went out of style about 20 years ago. Anyhoo, I finally found some accessories used for decorating fingernails. Perfect. Now I'll have my faux diamond stud to stick in the little indentation on whichever side of my nose I decide upon, the idea being to fool my family until they catch on that I didn't really have my nose pierced, another practice that is not that much in vogue anymore. But nevermind that. Remember: It's My party. On to Office Max to pick up the copies of the little souvenier booklet I put together. They did a good job and, I must say, I didn't spare any superlatives when composing my resume - oops I mean bio. Which is why I'm the one providing this substitute for an obit. I'm not sure my kids would praise me enough if it was left up to them. And, of course, because this is MY party. The pictures included were pretty cool, too. And why not? Most of them were of ME. BTW, in case anyone thinks I'm terminally ill, I'm not. At least not to my knowledge. I just don't take things for granted, and I'm really hoping I make it to 80. If I do, after that. all bets are off. I don't even care what comes next. This crazy-asssed world is so shitty. I'm almost hoping what Edgar Allen Poe said is true when he wrote: "all that we see or seem is just a dream within a dream." Come ooooon, Sunday...

Next Suday, August 18th will be my 80th birthday. I began my week-long countdown yesterday. Can I make it? I seriously wonder. I feel OK but - who knows? Anything can happen. Life is fickle. Because I want to do it my way, I have planned a family dinner to be held in a private banquet room, where my 5 kids, 8 grandchildren and 3 great grands will gather to help me celebrate. My niece and grand nephew live out of state and won't be able to make it. Except for 3 distant cousins, these are all the blood relatives I have left in the world. Most of my close friends are dead and the 4 surviving female ones don't live close. Only casual acquaintances survive. I look upon this upcoming family gathering as a live memorial repast because I plan to be cremated and have left instructions to forego a funeral. Nobody's left to come. Sad? No. I think it's funny. I wanted my ashes to be compressed and the carbon extracted from them so it can be turned into a diamond which could be mounted in some kind of an appropriate setting. But I don't trust people who say they can do this. I think they just dispose of your charcoal left overs and present the family with a cubic zirconia. (Ever the cynic) I have also considered having my ashes planted in a flower bed so I can bloom every spring. I'm still deciding, and I know I have to make a decision soon. The wind will probably be what makes the final decision as to where what's left of me will flutter. C'est la Vie. One grandaughter jokingly asked me if I was going to get a 3rd tattoo to commemorate my 80th year. I said "no" because what I really want, is to have my nose pierced so I can sport a tiny diamond stud in one nostril. But - I will forego this fantasy. That's all I need is to get an infection or other complications as the result of a silly whim. Last night in the wee small hours I ventured out into my yard and gazed skyward, hoping I could spot any streaking comets making up the meteor showers that were forecasted for the week end. I figured I could hitch my spirit to one of them and check out the universe. I wasn't entirely suprised when I would only see flashes out of the corner of my eyes; never head on. I don't know it they were real, or phantoms. The longer I looked, the more the sparks seemed to be flying. Anyhow it was a surreal experience, staring up at a blinking purple-hued sky scattered with feathery clouds, all in anticipation of day break. And the days dwindle down as I complete the memento I am preparing to have copies made of to hand out to my guests. Instead of an obituary, it's a Bio replete with a time-line collage of pictures. It's self-indulgent, I know. But, what the hell. YOLO!

You don't have to be a Conservative to deplore bad or irresponsible behavior. Moderates and Liberals reject these things, too. But the difference is that Conservatives, in addition to being narrow-minded priggish religious hypocrites, somehow think, that circumstances don't matter, and that they are faring better in life solely because they did what they were supposed to do and were rewarded for it. Unlike Conservatives, Liberals are not patting themselves on the back and looking down their noses at the losers in society. They know that the lower classes are not solely to blame for the negative behavior that has spiralled out of control due to outside factors such as racist law enforcement and bureacratic court systems and, of course, the economy where earning a living wage is not a given. Black people didn't invent negative lifestyles. Depravity has been going on among the "hoi poloi" - the unwashed masses - the vulgar common folk for centuries because of an enduring class structure wherein the rich live well at the expense of the poor who are not fortunate enough to pursue better lives, except through illegal means. Corrupt politics are also a contributing factor. In Chicago, the already inadequate schools are wracked with closures due to a billion dollar budget deficit, and thousands are being laid off as a result. Meanwhile, those with poltical clout are living high on the hog, making enormous salaries and double dipping pensions and getting rich off of kick backs and pay offs and misuse of public funds. American society is in a hot mess and there's enough blame to go around. So go ahead and be a Conservative, Pioneer. Who cares? You won't be missed because you and your ilk don't do anything but try to impose your questionable "moral" values on other people.

I never said Whites have no reason to be afraid of Blacks. I just said that if they were afraid, I didn't care. Or was I actually comparing Whites and Blacks when it came to being reprehensible. I conceded that they are both terrible. As usual, however, Whites are more efficient and effective in their undertakings.

I agree with everything you say. Sex in the media is so over the top and frequent that its shock value is dulled. Leaving things to the imagination and suggestive teasing is a thing of the past. As for the book cover you display - I find it more bizarre than lascivious. I wasn't really sure what was going on in this pose of a sleeping woman with an odd looking object in her mouth. If invoking curiosity was its goal, for me it succeeded.

Talk is cheap, and it's obvious what sistas need to do when it comes to finding Mr. Right. But in reality there are not enough good men to go around, much less ones who are receptive to the demands of women looking for mates. Plus, the sparse supply of available black males can pick and choose and what they're looking for is a woman who has a lot going for herself both physically and mentally. On the other hand, attractive, smart, black women aren't that receptive to meeting the emotional needs of black men who are very needy and beat-down and - ego-driven. So the rift between black men and women remains, with the men desiring their women to be more supportive and accomodating and the women expecting their men to be faithful and gainfully employed. It's a scenario that plays itself out over and over in the black community and it undoubtedly contributes to the problems that plague the race. In the populous ghetto culture of the inner cities, when it comes to relationships expectations are not high, and affairs not stable. Add the inevitable pregnancies to the mix and - well, it's all down hill from there... Those of you who insist all problems have solutions, haven't figured out yet how to reverse the mind-sets that perpetuate this unfortunate conflict that aflicts the black middleclass.

My, my, my. What an eloquent indictment of niggers, Pioneer. Poor ol white people. Here they are having trouble sitting back, enjoying all the privileges and entitlement that their skin color guarantees them, - skin color that also identifies them as people who stole the country from the native Americans, who imprisoned loyal Japanese citizens in holding camps during world war 2, who penalize hard working law abiding illegal immigrants, who, oh yeah, enslaved black people uprooted from their country to be brought to this land to live in bondage for 400 years. These are the people who during WWII dropped nuclear bombs on civilians, killing tens of thousands of them. These are the people who invade oil rich foreign countries and wage wars under the guise of freeing the thousands who make up the dead ranks of collateral damage. These are the people who back corrupt dictators and bribe greedy treacherous Arab leaders. These are the Americans who countries all over the globe, hate and despise because of their arrogance. These are the Capitalisitic rogues who ruined the economy, - the corporate bandits who are the role models for the hapless black people that they live in fear of. These are the people who make a mockery of Obama's presidency, even as he bends over backwards to stay in the good graces of those who have allowed him to play at being the HNIC. Pardon me if I don't feel concern for the fears of white America. Particularly since it's not as if black people aren't punished in so many ways for whatever crimes they commit. Black people are scared, too. Scared of being accused of what they are innocent of. Yes, the low-life and gang-bangin element of black people need make-overs. (Anybody for sterilization so they'll stop replicating themselves?? ) If we don't know how disgusting black thugs are it's because we haven't been listening to the "good" Blacks who are running interference for the white team members trembling in their boots - if they aren't murdering their entire famlies for insurance money, or shooting up class rooms and movie theaters, or dismembering a fellow trailer park resident while high on Meth, or kicking out a cheating black boyfriend for sleepin with another fat white ho'. If white people are afraid of angry black people, then that's tough shit. I, for one, don't give a good goddamn about the "Joe 6-packs" and the soccer moms, the profiling cops and the spying salesclerks who are all wary and jittery. Does it occur to them that maybe the sins of the fathers are being visited on the children? Or does it also occur to white folks that when it comes to those trouble making niggers that , "there, but for the grace of Pioneer's white god, go them"? As for other ethnic groups, they are't too scared to set up businesses in black neighborhoods, glad to have welfare recipients as steady customers. Time for me to go back to watching the Science channel.

Is Baldwin a visionary, or what?? Wonder what his take would be on Obama. Like Cornel West, would James chide Barak for catering more to Gays than Blacks? Or would the President's endorsement of same sex marriage win Baldwin over???

Damn. I ask myself why am I’m so negative. And my answer is because it‘s hard to stay positive. My idealism was long ago usurped by my cynicism thanks to the impact of realism. Everyday new headlines fuel my frustration over how things are, instead of how they should be. Everything is just so haywire. So fucked up. So disgusting. How can people retain their faith when trouble is rampant and their prayers for the world to get better go unanswered. Justice is certainly elusive, whether it allows George Zimmerman to go free while Trayvon Martin rots in his grave, whether it penalizes struggling loan-strapped college students while granting the war mongering Military a trillion dollar budget, whether it results in building new institutions that imprison black men while neglecting old schools that fail black children, whether it reminds of all the advantages that accure to the heir to the British throne while it mocks the fate of infants born into poverty. It’s always something. Corrupt politics, rampant crime, blatant vice, religious exploitation, celebrity garbage. Needless to say, I am world-weary. Tired. But escape is just a click away. The same source that delivers bad news and sours my disposition, also offers me a respite from the hell of reality, and launches me into a different dimension. The old boob tube. Television and its hidden treasures that provide enlightenment and diversion. The Science cable is one such gem and is among my favorite channels. Especially when it explores the subject of outer space. I am captivated by the amazing special effects that turn a TV screen into a vast window to the awesome universe, recreating all that the Big Bang has spawned: billions of galaxies containing trillions of planets and suns and moons and meteors, and above all, those heavenly bodies which we, as humans, share every scientific component. **Stars!** With a shout out to Morgan Freeman, accompanying these visuals are the narrations that translate physics, astronomy, geology and chemistry into layman language, offering explanations and postulations that boggle the mind. Phenomena like red giants and white dwarfs, worm holes and blacks holes, string theories and anti-matter are subjects that amaze! And that which really fills this star child with wonder, is what is interdespersed between all of these revolving rocks and mysterious pulsations, a something that remains constant; a paradox of strength and weakness. The clue to a fourth dimension, the yin to water’s yang, the source of both chaos and order. It binds solar systems, and influences the orbits of their planets, controls the flight path of comets and asteroids, creates implosions, causes collisions, interacts with electro magnetism, accommodates aerodynamics. What is it? The powerful invisibility that is everlasting, here, there, above, below, and beyond, holding it together! The G Spot… And because it keeps me grounded, I know that my body is under its earthly spell. My mind, however, has no mass or weight and it is free to soar. Free to imagine and ponder and divest itself of all worldly cares, knowing that this roving element is suckin it up, doin its thing... Y.T.I.V.A.R.G

Can you make a chart for the United States using July 4, 1776, as its birthday, making it a cancer? I think this has already been done. What does the future hold for "America, the promised land?"

Hi Waterstar. I can no longer speak on these subjects with any degree of rational credibility because I am driven by my emotions. I harbor an intense dislike for any white person who doesn't think like me, and I reeeeeally hate black right wing Repubicans. I can't stand Fox News, either. I'm about ready to call it quits. Screw America. It sucks. Here's a link that is kind of relevant to your concerns; White-on-White Crime: It Goes Against the False Media Narrative http://www.theroot.com/views/why...

Does any of this have to do with what is referred to as "black" magic and "white" magic and calling on meta physical powers to conjure up things?

What is your definition of magic, Delano? Pulling a rabbit out of a hat - or something else....

Already a subtle schism has started to manifest itself in the landscape of black America. You have to look for it. Have to scan the rag tag gatherings all over the country being held to protest Trayvon Martin's murder. Grass roots demonstrations, if grass ever took root in the inner cities. Check out the folks milling about, carrying their hand made signs and yelling for action. Note their pained facial expressions and simmering body language. Desperation personified. See who's on the platforms, standing before podia and shouting into microphones, - the neighborhood activists doing their best imitations of Rev Al Sharpton. And speaking of preachers, the pulpit is right in the thick of it, the black robed pastors blotting their sweating faces with their white handkerchiefs exhorting their female congregations mourning their dead sons to trust in Jesus. Yes, Lord. The ghetto is so rich in tragi-comedy. Meanwhile, back in the middle class enclaves, cool-headed Blacks are stepping up, speaking out of both sides of their mouths, lamenting the tragedy of Trayvon' death, glibly comparing their childhoods to his while declaring the verdict to be a sign that the justice system works. The jury has spoken. The versions of the living must take precedence over the silence of those they found it necesssary to kill. Self defense, indeed. So, the perennial parting of ways is underway as the black middleclass distances itself from the common folk, choosing instead to dutifully sign the NAACP's petition before returning to their $50,000 a year paycheck to pay check existences. And the beat goes on. Unless the beat happens to be the throbbing heart of an innocent black kid shot dead by a profiler standing his ground. Or by a thug who can't shoot straight. Just another chapter in the book of Being Black in America. BTW, Troy. I've come up with the perfect person to portray George Zimmerman in a movie. Look-alike Chaz Bono, a wanna-be who yearns to make it as a man. Is that type casting or what?

I must say, - the female on the cover of this new release looks like she's well past the "brink of womanhood",- the phrase used to describe her in the blurb. Do they have implants where she comes from?? Talk about a teaser. Salivating male customers must be jamming your web site.

Guess somebody gave Obama permission to speak off the cuff about the Trayvon Martin verdict. After consulting with Valerie Jarrett, and getting her permission Michelle probably put her foot in her husband's butt and suggested that he appear before the microphones and go into his "persecuted black male" mode. Even so, he was timid and tenative, to say the least, tiptoeing around the travesty of the stand-your- ground "law". Tavis Smiley must've been flushed with mixed emotions. Anyhow, I failed to see how, in the course of his remarks, while making reference to his daughters and their friends, Obama would claim that the present generation is "better than us", Certainly his sheltered children and their elite/white peers are not representative of the average black kid or typical white one. It's easy for children of privilege to express tolerance of others and harbor hope for the future. I don't know what this generation is better at, other than being dumber and more violent than the preceding one. Whatever. it doesn't take much for Obama to retain the approval of his black constituency. All he has to do is throw them a few crumbs and they're thrilled that he has taken baby steps. Listening to black conservative Republicans go public, pleading the case for their white massas is enough to nudge me back into the fold. In spite of my cynicism, I sympathize with Barak. "He could be my son".

How presumptuous of you to draw unflaterring comparisons and conclusions about Harry who you know nothing about, Pioneer. In doing this you place yourself in the "there's one in every crowd" category: a garrulous know it all.

To me, your having a finite mind, Pioneer, means that you can't imagine the possibility that the laws of morality are made by Man not by some vague supreme being who you refer to god. In spite of denying that you are religious, your mind cannot process the idea that the unfathomable omnipotent force you want to personify is simply an impartial power not concerned with the affairs of men or the events that precipitate them, and that in the big picture, randomness plays a significant role and that the closest thing to good and evil is matter and anti-matter. You also seem to dismiss the possibility that man himself is a divine being. It's simple. Your mind is finite because - you do not think outside the box. Africa is nothing to write home about. It's a bereft continent populated with human suffering. What about black Americans? Are they doomed to be like children eternally wandering in the wilderness, despised and rejected, forever needing to be led and told what to do?? When it comes to uplifting the race, nothing has any wide spread results or long term effects. The mantra drones on and on. What black people need to do is....What? Nothing works. Self-styled messiahs utter empty platitudes. blah, blah, blah. The negroid species is supposedly what the first humans were. Somewhere along the evolutionary highway, the prototype of this stock neglected to click onto a link, and they didn't get the memo that all its varied mutations got. In the present, maybe all of the killngs and self destructiveness will run its natural course and what's left will return to square one and get it right the next time around. Wake me when it's over. zzzzzzzz

Hummmm. Very interesting indeed, Delano. Especially if you're saying you thought my "sharing my bearing" vignette was written by - TROY. Egads!

Blacks may be losing ground in the TV newsreader profession, but here in Chicago, it is not Whites who are replacing them. It is Hispanics and, to a lesser degree, Asians. I don't think this is an uncommon make-up in the big cities.