Cynique

What do you think is the ultimate goal of FaceBook and Amazon and Google? is it really to diabolically turn the masses into victimized robots whom they can control? Do these corporate giants actually want to mesmerize and enslave the minds of the population? If so, then what? Should I stay awake nights, worrying about people exploiting and being exploited on the cyber highway, when this has been going on in the physical world since ad infinitum? Can I just scroll down FaceBook and read what interests me, and bypass what doesn't, stopping along the way to discuss and fuss, all the while being wary of any ad seeking to gain personal info about me. The alternative to this is to delete a provocative pass-time in my daily routine, a diverting, and often amusing change of pace after I've engaged my mind in more enriching activities.

Actually I, Cynique, am the one who brought up the Jennifer Hudson commercial, and also the one who compared the Chris Brown and Rihanna brouhaha to the Bill Withers and Denise Nicholas situation. ...Yet another example of people being confused about who said what.

@TroyWell, you didn't discern that I wasn't accusing you of "mansplaining" when it came to the Bill Wither's subject. My first response in my last post was specifically directed to the last sentence in your second response wherein you said " I guess I'm looking at it from the perspective of a 50+ year old raised in a culture where we gave up our seats, held doors; you know all the stuff people seem to give two sh-ts about nowadays", an observation which struck me as kind of a non sequitur. Note that I started a new paragraph when I switched to the subject of mansplaining, - which is a ticklish subject. Moreover, "relativity" and "reality" are two different words. There are no relativity shows on prime time TV. But there are a plethora of reality shows on it. The word "relativity" would be more appropriately used on the Science or National Geographic cable channels in connection with Einstein's theory of "relativity". You didn't misspell "relativity", which was why the spell check didn't kick in. Your brain inadvertently mixed up the similarly-spelled words when you were keying. Technical expertise doesn't require being "nuanced". This is more in the realm of a woman's instinct which is triggered by her fine-tuned antennae. So you and I do have difficulty in being on the same wave length.

No, I didn't even know about these books until the series came out. Readers say the TV version is fairly true to the books. As for the phrase, "winter is coming" , it is the motto of the House of Stark. Each of the great houses has its own slogan. Where the Starks dwell, summers last about 10 years, but winter is always in the back of their minds as it grows ever close. For one of the other houses, the slogan is: "The Lanisters always pay their debts". The Greyjoy house's slogan is something about "what is alive cannot be dead". i'm surprised you are a fan of this series. It requires the audience to totally suspend its belief system. That's one reason why I am so into this compelling, well-directed, well-produced epic fantasy. Game of Thrones has fan sites all over the internet where each episode is avidly discussed and of course everybody is looking forward to the final season next year as the plot has thickened. That is actually my inspiration to try and hang around for another year. Guess why I posted this? Can you say "quiet" instead of "quite"? BLM has been laying low lately, just waiting for another incident to revitalize their cause. They have remained on the fringes of the Colin Kaepernick ongoing protests.

This is the statement that gave me the impression that you thought I was saying that Rap influenced Bill's behavior. So you initially misunderstood my original statement about how Bill's abuse allegations wouldn't have impacted on his career in today's show biz scene because misogynistic rap made abuse irrelevant. This is your admission that I might be "right", but in your second sentence, i didn't see its relevancy to my original statement. I now assume you meant that in today's world you would still be scandalized by Bill's alleged abuse in spite of gangsta rap. So, yes, people do tend to either misinterpret or misunderstand what others say in both oral and written discussions. This seems to often be the case when men and women are discussing something, and why, as women have come into their own, "mansplaining" has become such an issue. The scenario is too often where a man simply recycles what a woman has said and feeds it back to her as if it was his idea; men are probably unconscious of this because they automatically think that women need to have things explained to them. I have always thought that women's brains are more fine-tuned and detailed oriented than men's and this contributes their being more sensitive. Males are also supposedly more prone to ADD in its various degrees of severity because it's like their brains transpose letters or add or omit words or confuse similarly spelled words. e.g. Just the other day in the posted Lil Kim video you wrote: "The video did not lie, except for when they spoke about "talent" of the relativity TV show participants" Did you mean to key "reality" instead of "relativity"? And was this maybe because your fingers and your brain are not in sync? I think that is why "no" often comes out as "not" or "the" as "they". I also think that some people unconsciously key what they hear in their head, and this is why they carelessly misuse "to" and" two" and "too" or "there" and "their". Even when they proof read they are skimming and don't catch typos, etc. Of course, the most simply explanation is that people in a hurry make more mistakes! My problem is typing a word twice in a sentence. I've also been told that I write in a conversational style with a certain cadence. I know that I insert a lot of parenthetical expressions in my writing because I do like to write the way I talk. The human brain is an interesting and complicated organ.

Here we go again. Black people taking to the streets protesting white cops found not guilty of killing someone driving while black. The crowds will be referred to as rioting mobs, and the cop will be referred to a trigger happy racist. Same ol scenario providing ammunition for the opposing sides. Will there ever be a truce in this black against blue war? Like so many problems confronting this country, there seems to be no resolutions in sight. Even national disasters like hurricanes and floods spark divisive controversy. Can this house divided against itself stand? Lincoln's words of yesterday have not lost their impact today. They particularly resonate because slavery and all of the political and societal spin-offs it spawned are still having a negative impact on this country. And winter is coming...

@Delano @TroyI am not saying that Bill Withers was influenced by Rap! I am saying that, as witnessed by how Chris Brown's career has not been derailed by his beating up Rihanna, in today's musical climate, Bill Withers' career wouldn't have been so negatively affected because the misogyny of gangsta rap seems to have removed the stigma of abuse. I don't really have to seek out discussion. There are all kinds of articles about current events and controversial subjects jumping out at you on as you scroll down FaceBook where in addition to a "like" option, there is a "Comment" one to click onto. Once you click on to it, a whole thread of discussion is opened up to you where highly-opinionated strangers from all over the country engage in heated exchanges. I also argue with friends when they post something I don't agree with. FaceBook is the only social media I participate in. It's enough. @dashi365 I'm sure the royalties are rolling in for the insurance ad featuring singer Jenifer Hudson's "impromptu" duet with a guitar player on Withers' "Gonna Be a Lovely Day". TV is literally saturated with this commercial. Which is to say that Bill Withers' music certainly seems to have adequately compensated him for whatever his shortcomings were because his songs are still popular. I think he should've just manned up and not let the criticism take such a toll on him. Whenever I heard the rumors about him and Denise, it was usually in a humorous context.

I don't think Bill Withers career would be affected by his alleged abuse of his wife in today's show biz climate because.gangsta rap robbed such behavior of its shock value. I haven't notices any drastic changes in FaceBook fare. It's as stupid and pedestrian as ever. I appreciate, however, the memes for people of every persuasion. Heated political and religious discussions are still just a click away.

Over-the-hill baseball player, and former drug addict Darryl Strawberry has come to Donald Trump's defense in light of this latest incident. He calls Trump "a good guy". Seems like many black sports celebrities and Trump share a mutual admiration, probably because he was a celebrity whore who sucked up to famous jocks dumb enough to be flattered by this.

I don't think Bill's marital problems would be a factor in the climate of today's musical industry. Chris Brown's beating up of Rihanna didn't seem to affect his career. He's kind of become the poster boy for irresistible bad boys, of which there are many nowadays in the show biz world. Maybe we can thank the misogyny of Rap for that.

Too bad Serena is regarded as not desirable enough to simply appeal to a man who appreciates her for herself. Something she has said was not the case with the black men she dated. Just maybe the parents of newborn , Alexis Olympia, really like each other. This same old litany about self love is growing old. Black people are going to wear their hair however they want and date whomever they choose, and laying guilt trips on them , parroting the same old patented arguments dating back to the 1960s is apparently not going to change things. Welcome to 2017, like it or not. Maybe this is what diversity is all about. And it's not as if brothas and sistas have yet to develope wide-spread, harmonious rapport. They still voice the same old complaints about each other. BTW, i wasn't aware that there was a reservoir of wealth in the black community that could be taken out.

The video struck me as showcasing how shallow rather than "diverse" Americans are.

America, the beautiful... a circus presided over by an inept clown.

@Troy it's not so much about grammar; it' s about omissions or additions. With a garbled sentence like the one you posted, one is so busy figuring it out that the meaning can be missed. When i stumble over typos, or omitted or added words, what is written loses its impact because my mind is busy correcting what i'm reading or figuring out what was meant to be said. Also, to me, these threads are posts that will be saved in the archives for others to browse through and read cold. Many are like articles in a magazine, the equivalent of essays or dissertations for people to read. i don't think of them as being "informal". But i don't think this bothers anybody else. So, no "biggie".

Read your first sentence word-for-word out loud to yourself. Did you write what you meant to say? Troy apologized for the typos in a post which, itself, contained 2 typos. i wouldn't bring this up if there wasn't an "edit" feature on this board. What this says to me is that you, and Troy, and Pioneer often write what you don't mean to write, and don't realize this. This is something Mel never does. Her writing is perfect. ( It may be a male thing.) All 3 of you are very intelligent men but if you can't discern your simple mistakes, does this carry over in other areas? i just ask these things because I'm curious and I'd be interested in your responses, which may very well put this ol nit-pickin' bitch in her place. Slow day...

i haven't seen it yet. Hopefully it will be available on Cable TV when it's run its course in the movie theaters. i didn't go see it because i am too old to be included in its demograph. Which means that i don't relate to a lot of the things young folks of today find "cool". But in the comfort of my cave I will have no problem checking it out. Apparently, this movie genre has certainly found an audience among a segment of black women - and maybe even the white ones, too. Sistas are so hard-up for anything geared at them in a positive way that they turned out in droves to patronize it. Everybody is a winner in this project. You go, Girls!

So after you went to all of the trouble to travel to South Carolina to see the solar eclipse, you now refer to this celestial phenomenon as "stupid", huh? That's like saying rain is "silly"; as if acts of nature have an obligation to live up to human expectations. You don't sound like an open-minded person to me but rather someone who requires the instant gratification of tangible ,observable results as opposed to spiritual essence. Whatever. Since the sun emits rays which are neutrinos why wouldn't they have an effect on the energy frequency that represents an entity gazing at the moon passing across it? i was in awe of being able to witness something that was happening billions of miles away in a universe that I felt in sync with. I opened my spirit, not my intellect. For whatever reason, i am experiencing subtle changes in my life.

Well Troy's not open enough to have experienced any results. Subconsciously he may be skeptical. My dreams are ongoing; different, but always the same and i forgot to mention that in other recurring dreams i am able to levitate. i guess my interpretation of my dreams is that I yearn to soar but i'm constrained by practical things.

@Troy Your mind functions in the well-defined realm of scientific technology which interferes with your going with the random flow of the spiritual domain. It's kinda like you were subconsciously challenging rather than anticipating the eclipse to have a profound effect on you. This made you less receptive to experiencing what was contrary to your vibe. Has the eclipse turned things around? All of the high winds and flooding in certain areas and rampaging forest fires in other locations are not anomalies but rather events that naturally occur in the environment and atmosphere of Earth. If biological species are in the path of these forces, then the survival of these creatures is threatened. That's Life. Which doesn't mean that these phenomena won't impact on the ebb and flow of human activity i have certainly been experiencing some weird things lately. Time is not a factor in my solitude, so i live around the clock, sleep when i'm sleepy, eat when i'm hungry and just do whatever i feel like doing at any given moment. (by choice, my outside social life is limited) Away from the computer, my favorite spot is my recliner which is my phantom lover in whose arms i am so comfortable and content that i just drift off into dreamland. i have forsaken my bed for this seducer. Lately, in the middle of the night, when i'm dozing off while watching science channel documentaries about aliens or the big bang, or true crime programs about spouses killing each other to collect insurance, the recliner begins to rock ever so gently and gradually my body is overtaken by a tingling feeling that begins at my toes and crawls upward. Sometimes this is proceeded by my foot being jerked. Engulfed in waves of sensations, i simply lie there and keep my hands clasped and silently communicate to whatever this entity is, that i am not interested in going to the dark side or doing evil, but i wouldn't mind winning the lottery and being cured of all my annoying little ailments. Then, before i realize it, I am asleep and having crazy dreams. These dreams involve different scenarios but the underlying theme is always the same. I am trying to get someplace but I'm never able to find my way or complete what i have to do to get where i want to go and i am constantly misplacing my purse during all of this... Guess the implications of theses dream are pretty obvious, huh, Del? I read that the eclipse overshadowed another phenomenon which will be occurring on September 23rd when there will be an alignment of Jupiter, the Moon, Mercury, Mars and Venus with the star Regulus in the Leo sign. The 9 stars of Leo and the 3 aligning planets will make a crown of 12 stars for the Virgo sign which will be “clothed with the sun,” with the moon under her feet. ???? Doomsday predictors are saying this will herald the end of times as predicted in Revelations. Winter is coming... Why do i have the feeling that the intense media coverage of these hurricanes is over the top and the networks will be disappointed if the storm would just blow over?

So you think Hillary's continued, unwavering support of Planned Parenthood and all of the women's services this includes does not qualify her for being supportive of women and children issues? i can't believe you would bypass someone who, in being qualified, was savvy and clever, in favor of someone who was incompetent and ham-fisted and obvious in being this! SMH But you are not alone. Bullies actually command a lot of admiration among certain types who scorn what they perceive as being wimpy. But there's no excuse for ineptness. If anonymity allows them to not be held accountable for their true motivations and actions , i don't think Americans are people with a lot of scruples. l confess that i am a lot more sarcastic and critical on the internet than i am in person, mainly because i don't want to get my ass kicked. The things i say and write when squabbling with people on Facebook discussions boards are really scathing. So although i don't consider myself unscrupulous, i will admit to being over zealous in my iconoclastic existentialism. i am, who i am.

i wouldn't know, but people tell me that "Stoners" tend to deconstruct sights and sounds when high... I've always been able to become entranced without the benefits of drugs; just my innate ability to become "one'" with ethereal things.

My argument has always been that Hillary wasn't a saint but, then, America isn't heaven. She was, first and foremost, qualified by virtue of being very knowledgeable about global and domestic issues and she knew how to be selectively ruthless; a formidable bitch. Plus, her future Supreme Court choices would not undo all of the judicial rulings that were so hard-fought-for to bring about a modicum of equity and justice for women and marginalized minorities, - decisions that are now in danger of being rescinded and replaced with conservative dogma that will transform this " democracy/ republic" into a "fascistic theocracy". Many are saying, and i agree, that Trump is not the real danger; it's his supporters who are the menace. And it seems to me that more and more of the common people are falling under his sway as a backlash to how they think the liberal media is bashing him, and - as we all know, everybody hates the media and its facts that Republicans call "fake news". This push-back is what evolved with Joel Osteen, the con man leader of the mega church who closed its door to flood victims in Houston. The Internet bashed and ridiculed him so badly that the Christian community started coming to his defense, and this included many blacks who felt that he was being picked on, reminding everyone that this multi-millionaire who lives like a king, is, after all, just human and should not be judged so harshly. There are all kinds of variations of the Stockholm Syndrome at play out there, not to mention the grip of cognitive dissonance. This is a nation at odds with itself. ...Grooming my bearskin cloak here in my cave, getting ready because - winter is coming...

Being detailed-oriented is very important. Sometime when we read fast, our eyes trick us and fill in missing letters or words. Misspellings or typos are unprofessional. You learned that the hard way. But it was a valuable lesson.

Poor Hillary Clinton. She just can't win for losing. She's really catching it from the haters responding to what as been leaked from her soon to be released book in which she offers her explanation and theories as to why she lost the election. Naturally, her detractors accuse her of blaming everyone but herself, but she reportedly does devote space to describing where she went wrong. In one chapter she takes Bernie Sanders to task for making her campaign harder, likening him to a father who promises his children a pony and when his wife questions where they will get a pony or how they will pay for it and where will they house it, he accuses her of not liking ponies. She pretty much accused him of putting her in a Catch-22 position from which she could never recover. She also said that she really believes her sex worked against her because many of both sexes just weren't ready for a women president. I think Hillary is destined to go down in history as a tragic figure. And i also think she should just retire from politics because she will be a disruptive force in the Democratic party which needs to re-invent itself. Below is an interesting perspective of her long political career, a blog essay by Larry Womak which appeared in Huffington Post in September of 2016, two months before the election. Is it biased? i dont know. But it does "out" her haters for their sloppy vetting of her. “Why Is Clinton disliked?“ “Why the hate for Hillary?“ “Why do people hate Hillary Clinton so much?“ Is it because of partisanship? Or a hard-fought primary? Maybe, NBC once suggested, it’s because “she’s not a train wreck.” Funny how the answers seem to be everything but the obvious. We go on endlessly about how “untrustworthy” she is, while fact checkers rank her as the second-most honest prominent politician in the country. (And her opponent as by far the least.) We say that she has trouble with transparency, while her opponent refuses to release his taxes and the current administration sets records for secrecy. We decry her ties to corporations and the financial industry, while supporting a walking tax shelter or mourning the exit of a president whose re-election was funded by a record-shattering Wall Street haul. We list so very many explanations, all of them complete bullshit. In truth, the Hillary haters seem to resent her more than disagree with her. They demand to be humored and catered to. They hold her to wildly different standards than her male counterparts. They regard her with an unprecedented degree of suspicion. Above all, they really, really want to see her punished. And an aggressive male presence—even if dangerously incompetent—seems to comfort a great many of them. Everyone but them knows damn well why. Bad news for the haters: History is decidedly unafraid of “the woman card.” It doesn’t care how many people will stand on tables today and swear they’d feel the same if she were a man. It will see us for what we are—a sick society, driven by misogyny and pathetically struggling to come to terms with the fact that women do not exist solely to nurture. If that answer isn’t as nuanced as the average thinkpiece, that’s because we, as a people, are not. No matter how many branches have formed, they all emerged from the same seed, planted way back when Bill Clinton first ran for governor. She wouldn’t be so suspicious of the press, or so measured in her presentation, or so any one of a thousand other things, if she had been born a man. The lengths we go to in order to rationalize this all will be seen, in retrospect, as extraordinary. When the Bush administration was discovered to have erased millions of emails illegally sent by 22 administration officials through private, RNC-owned accounts, in order to thwart an investigation into the politically motivated firing of eight US attorneys, just one talk show covered it that Sunday. When Mitt Romney wiped servers, sold government hard drives to his closest aides and spent $100,000 in taxpayer money to destroy his administration’s emails, it was barely an issue. When Hillary Clinton asked Colin Powell how he managed to use a Blackberry while serving as Secretary of State, he replied by detailing his method of intentionally bypassing federal record-keeping laws: Yet the fact that Hillary Clinton emailed through a private server and didn’t use it to cover anything up is somehow the defining issue of her campaign. “My God,” people cry, “anyone else would be in jail!” Or is the real scandal that her family runs but does not profit from a charitable foundation awarded an A grade byCharity Watch, a four out of four star rating by Charity Navigator and responsible for helping 435 million people in 180 countries get things like clean drinking water and HIV medication? Because the AP seems super concerned that she encountered people who donated to it—specifically Nobel Peace Prize-winning economist Muhammad Yunus—in her official capacity as Secretary of State. It should at this point be observed that her opponent is a shameless con artist who has built an empire bilking people with fake businesses, fake universities, fake charities and, now, a fake campaign. Last week, he told a lie every three minutes and fifteen seconds. Oh, and did we mention that he, like so many of his online “supporters,” is a goddamnRussian stooge? I tried to list all of the dumb, awful stuff that he does every day and I cannot come close to keeping up. Voters, it seems, are his easiest marks yet. And it isn’t just Republicans. The double standards are even more transparent on the left. Back in the mid-90s, Clinton’s persistent unwillingness to hide the fact that she was a thinking human female really freaked the center-left establishment out. Michael Moore observed that, “[Maureen Dowd] is fixated on trashing Hillary Rodham in the way liberals love to do, to prove they’re not really liberal.” The bashing slowly morphed into a creepy, extraordinary sort of policing. Since then, Clinton racked up a Senate voting record more liberal than any nominee since Mondale. Her 2008 platform was slightly to Obama’s left on domestic issues. Her 2016 platform was barely to the right of self-proclaimed socialist Bernie Sanders. Yet, we have all heard and seen countless liberal posers passionately decrying her “far right voting record,” untrustworthy promises or ever-changing policy positions. Jon Stewart recently called Clinton “a bright woman without the courage of her convictions, because I don’t know what they even are.” Because if he doesn’t know, she must not have any, right? In fact, there is a very lengthy trail of public records all pointing in the same direction. If you can’t figure out which, maybe the problem is you. Yet, many on the left who gladly voted for John Kerry, two years after he voted to authorize the Iraq war, now say they couldn’t possibly vote for Clinton, because she did, too. And view her with contempt for opposing same-sex marriage in 2008, while fawning over men like Barack Obama andBernie Sanders, who held the same position at the same time. It’s time to stop pretending that this is about substance. This is about an eagerness to believe that a woman who seeks power will say or do anything to get it. This is about a Lady MacBeth stereotype that, frankly, should never have existed in the first place. This is about the one thing no one wants to admit it’s about. Consider, for a moment, two people. One, as a young woman at the beginning of a promising legal career, went door to door searching for ways to guarantee an education to the countless disabled and disadvantaged children who had fallen through the cracks. The other, as a young millionaire, exacted revenge on his recently deceased brother’s family by cutting off the medical insurance desperately needed by his nephew’s newborn son, who at eighteen months of age was suffering from violent seizures brought on by a rare neurological disorder. What kind of a society treats these two people as equal in any way? What kind of society even considers the latter over the former for its highest office? Generations from now, people will shake their heads at this moment in time, when the first female major party presidential nominee—competent, qualified and more thoroughly vetted than any non-incumbent candidate in history—endured the humiliation of being likened to such an obvious grifter, ignoramus and hate monger. We deserve the shame that we will bear.

Or maybe just smoking weed.