Cynique

@TroyWell, one man's opinionated dissertations are another man's boredom. In my current role as lurker, i tend to look for quick fixes, not long drawn out posts. My tendency is, of course, to challenge self-important pontificating, and this can lead to the bickering that may turn others off. Maybe posting a daily question, preferably a provocative one that would motivate the audience to chime in with the responses that would clearly be opinions rather than "misinterpreted facts". There is nothing more inviting that a chance to volunteer advice about another person's dilemma. Or a chance to spout off about this "cancel culture" that has taken political correctness to the extreme. Even encourage people to post pictures of themselves in interesting poses ala FaceBook. Btw, I'm FaceBook friends with some of the old crowd. Yukio, Yvette, Linda Watkins, Linda Chavez(Li-Li), A Woman, LambD, and my boy, Chris Burns. Deesha Philyaw (Ferocious Kitty) unfriended me after we clashed over my throwing shade on BLM. Thumper and Kola are on Facebook, but I'm not friends with them. Who i would really like to track down is my lovable ol adversary Chris Hayden. I fear he's deceased. Social media would really be his natural habitat but he's fallen off the radar!

@TroyWe always clash on this subject. One of the missions of journalism is to "shine a light in dark places" and over time this has been taken to the extreme providing a gateway to the sensationalism that the public eats up. To paraphrase H. L. Menken, nobody ever went broke banking on the stupidity of the American public. it is what it is. In today's world all of the noble institutions of society have been corrupted, including the electoral process which the Republicans are turning into a farce with their "big lie" tactics. As i said, everybody hates the media so its not as if folks don't know what's going on. But if they wait long enough something will come up that puts their antagonists in a bad light. So, bitch on. Reform is not an option. Welcome to the real world.

@DelanoAll I know is that I have a compulsion to question everything. Being a polemicist is in my DNA. Thank you for indulging my curiosity. You, yourself, are perhaps the definition of a modern day oracle. I would just add that we are a society that tends to combine the old platitude about "hope springing eternal in the human breast" with the "power of positive thinking" slogan. Btw. Jupiter is boldly on display in the autumnal sky along side the full moon.

@DelanoI think this is a many faceted subject that can be further explored. Semantics and metaphysics are always components of my approach. I think you can energize the act of hoping for something to happen to someone else. and this can reap results. And, again, what is the difference between wishing and hoping? Where's my boy, Troy? I'm waiting for his input.

I hope that people can objectively see themselves and act accordingly. If your hope is for someone else to reach a goal. Then it is something you will never attain, since you are neither the subject or the object. This subtlety of this statement is invisible to the practical or myopic thinker. What discipline is this that you are advancing? Who or what is the source of it? Are the words "hope' and "wish" interchangeable? And i emphasize the concept of words as components of language which when used to to describe emotions can be an inexact science. "Myopia" aside, I am going through my "the only absolute truth is that there is no absolute truth" phase.

Forever the cherry picker. Nothing is keeping you from watching your vampire movie but your ego centric consistency.

i repeat: you are deluded in that you have convinced yourself that I have ulterior motives and am spending my time psycho-analysing you. Delano is right when he says you have an egocentric consistency.

No, i don't live in the city. I live in a suburb of Chicago and i stand in my front yard at night and gaze at the moon on a regular basis. And of course this inspires a diagnosis from pioneer, that deluded, well known authority on nothing. I do not associate with my white neighbors so on the rare occasions when i sit on my front steps, i am in the company of my cat.

You're too deluded to realize you're deluded.

There is no porch where i live.

@Delano If you no longer had hopes would you lack delusions? Sometime hopes come into fruitions. If you hope your delusions return and they do, then....??? You're deluded about your infallibility.

No I don't. My essay is a testament to my world weariness. Blah, blah, blah, making up a false scenario to bolster a dubious conclusion, - as usual.

The media, the media, the media. Everybody hates the white mainstream media! Sooo, it must be doing something right. Its crime, of course, is not reflecting the views of all its critics who, themselves, are at odds with each other. That's really what the complaints amount to: being offended by not having one's opinions reinforced. It would also seem that many want the media to ignore anything that is not serious; no gossip. no rumors nor anything that could be construed as being politically biased or racially offensive. Just about shit that happens. If an alien from another planet were to observe the American scene, would this viewer wonder whether things would be different if the status of Blacks and Whites were reversed? Would the white minority be crying "racism" at every turn, and would the black majority be corrupted by the power it had ruthlessly acquired over centuries. Surely black supremacy would be an issue because Blacks definitely think they are superior to Whites. Would this spectator from outer-space conclude that Earthlings are doomed to be in a constant state of discontent? And that, ideally, each race should simply have its own planet so the conflict would not be about superficial differences! Even aliens can dream. Meanwhile, the third rock from the sun continues to wobble on its axis, rocking its dizzy inhabitants, leaving them to lament its atmosphere of turmoil and bigotry. But there are exceptions. Me? I no longer give a damn.

@MzuriI'm not a free-thinker anymore. I have become partisan and, like you, who identifies as a conservative Republican, i am a luke warm Democrat. (Not a far-left AOC one.) I also reserve the right to bash Hershel Walker, something you have consistently done to Obama. I now indulge my tendencies to like people based on nothing more than their agreeing with my political views, no matter how irrational they may be.. Consequently, i abhor what the conspiracy theorist, anti-vaxxer, lying, fascistic Retrumpican party has become, which means I am repelled by the likes of Tim Scott, Hershel Walker, Ben Carson, Candance Owens, Larry Elder and any black denizens of FOX ''news". In the midnight of my years, the primitive area of my brain now dominates motivating me to dislike the unlike. Most revealing of all. is that what civilized instincts i have left, are what force me to tolerate the political correctness which i secretly hate. Whew! I feel like I'm lying on a psychiatrist's couch, bearing my soul and acknowledging my hypocrisy.

MLK's younger brother A.D. King did drown in his swimming oool, and just recently King's 20 year old niece dropped dead while jogging.

@MzuriWell, I didn't find Trump's repetitive chant very entertaining but anything is better than the utterances of that mutant gorilla, Hershel Walker. As you may have guessed, in view of everything that is currently happening in the country, I felt the need to choose sides, so i have become a member of the bumbling Democrat tribe, which means that i automatically reject everything that reeks of Retrumpicanism. i have not mellowed with age; i have become set in my ways. Right wing conservatives still turn me off.

@MzuriWarm our hearts with some little known facts about tRump's talents. Surely there are some YouTube examples of his appeal to his cult members.

Well well, well! A voice from the past. Mzuri! Welcome to the ranks of AALBC alumni who have re-surfaced. i see you are still a loyal "Republican", one from the Candance Owens school of thought,I suspect... and to think we used to be friends.

I knew MLK's mother was murdered. i remember when it happened. i always thought it was peculiar that so little attention was given to this truly tragic event. She seemed to have been a very innocuous figure in this famous family. Never honored nor given a lot of attention. This family was wracked by tragedy. King's oldest daughter, Yolanda, died suddenly at 52 years old. And i believe his brother drowned. None of these events which occurred after his death, ever garnered a lot of press coverage. Strange.

Thank you! August 18th is my birthday. 'Can't believe i made it to the big 88 but my luck held out. I've been keeping up with the star\planet which my son has informed me is Jupiter. it's visible almost every night, there for me to" listen" out for. Tonight there's also a big half-moon hanging up there in the sky. A couple of afternoons ago, i got to see the moon in the daytime! There it was sitting up there in a cloudless blue sky. Meanwhile, over on the western horizon, the sun was shining away. Seeing both of them in the sky at the same time was a sight to behold, Something I've witnessed once before. Thank you, too, for the birthday greeting! Just wish it was a better world for me to still be living in. But you can't have everything. Longevity has a down side. But life goes on...

@DelOK, so i when outside last night to star gaze, and whichever planet it is that I've been having a rendezvous with was there, very visible and very bright. After i got acclimated to the atmosphere, i proceeded to follow your suggestion in regard to seeing if I could feel the presence of this heavenly body- but I didn't have much luck. Too many interferences; it was kinda cool out and the chill in the air was all I experienced. The normal night sounds, mainly tree crickets and distant traffic activity made it hard for me to try and discern my own breathing - without focusing on it. Mastering this technique is obviously something that takes a lot of practice but i intend to pursue doing so because i think it's an interesting exercise in mind control in general. I also checked the sky earlier to see if i could detect any activity during day time. Until you mentioned it, i didn't know that stars are sometimes visible during the day. But pollution from many sources is making it difficult to see much of anything up there besides clouds and air planes. Anyhow, me and my cat will keep trying. I forgot to mention that optical illusions(?) continue to give the impression that I am seeing 2 stars or 2 moons instead of one. Oh well, all of this weirdness is a distraction from what's going on in this screwed up world. Being a lunatic helps. Stay tuned.

@Pioneer1Yeah, yeah, yeah, talk to the hand. You have to know better than to think I'd waste my time reading anything else you have to slobber about .

@Pioneer1OK, hell. A typical example of how you frame your rebuttals by putting your spin on what has transpired, supplying motives for what you say someone has done as if you can read their minds. Which you can't. You can't even manage your own discombobulated mind. This desperate tactic says more about you than the people you try to discredit. And, believe me, the stigma of your respect is something i can do very well without! For somebody who thinks he's so smart you obviously cannot make a distinction between "conspiracy" as a noun and "conspiracy" as an adjective. When the word conspiracy is used as an adjective to modify the noun "theory", then it's a whole new situation. I never said there were no such thing as conspiracies. What I contended was that theories about the nature of a possible conspiracy were what i was skeptical about, especially since none of the theories had ever been officially declared to be indisputably true - the reality of which your brain can't seem to process. Now excuse me while I borrow another of your pathetic ploys: making up scenarios... I can picture you over there in the corner, mentally as well as physically contorted as you attempt to pat yourself on the back for the strike-outs you've convinced yourself were home runs, - something your warped ego demands.

@Pioneer1We have no common ground because when it comes to America, my sentiments are in the abstract, and are about ideals and concepts while you, as usual, resort to conjuring up images and scenarios and providing pictures and articles, all in support of what you consider your "critical thinking" which reeks with irrelevancy. You are patriotic. I am not. You revere the flag. I don't. You think America is your country I think it's where I reside. How people feel about America is very subjective. So I don't have to justify my cynicism or provide you with explanations for it. Nor do I need you to impose your standards on me. (btw, I earned the pension that i am living on).... I never said that conspiracies don't exist. it's the theories they concoct that i question. In the course of human events wherein humans do what humans do, no organized secret plots are necessary for shit to happens as nature takes its random course. That's the way of the world. Public policy or political conflict are not conspiracies; they are overt not covert. I look at the big picture but you create your own B-movies that premiere in Pioneerville.

@Del. i mean whatever star/planet that I see every night when i go outside. It might be Mars. I called it Venus because Venus is the evening star so i thought maybe that was what I was seeing. i don't see any stars in the sky during day time. Whatever this star is, it is the only one I see. That's why i was wondering where all the stars went.