Troy

Call me a snob, but I've never been in a Dollar General and only in a Dollar Tree once. It is simply not a brand that I've knew living in NYC most of my adult life. The Dollar Tree I visited in Tulsa I decided never to visit again. A woman I dated once swore by them, but the appeal was lost on me and it never made it into the rotation of stores I would buy things from, so I have no idea what y'all are talking about

Well @ProfD we know full well that in our racist culture white men get away with thing Black men would be crucified for all things being equal. Obviously, Obama would have been completely unelectable if he behaved as badly as Trump. My mother says her father treated her mother like she was another one of his kids. Now my grandfather was born in 1880 in a children where women were absolutely 2nd class citizens completely subservient to men with rare exception. I do not want to live in a world where women are treated like that, but at the same time we need a culture than both treats everyone with dignity while recognizing the inherent differences between the genders.

Starbuck is a multi-nation corporation. They lost money in lost money in the UK, Middle East and other countries -- $11B over all. Unfortunately the way our system works if you fail for show increase in profit year-over-year -- despite making a profit you get hurt in the markets and it makes thing even worse for you long term.

Unfortunately, this sentiment is shared by far too many people -- including myself. I don't listen to anything Trump has to say. I don't even listen to the thing people have to say about what Trumps says. I try to understand the impact of Trump's policies, but this is difficult to do because so much of the analysis appears biased. Interestingly I do watch Bill Maher's show. His has an interesting set of guests opposing points of views, and his segments are sometimes laugh-out-loud funny. Maher himself strikes me as a little smug and often self-righteous. I have not seen the show since his visit to Maralago. I'm not surprised by this either. Maher's critic of Trump ALWAYS ignored any possibility that Trump could appeal to anyone because he NEVER separated the man from his media persona. Now I can see Will Smith smacking the shit out of Rock for that routine That will never happen as Muslims don't play that shit.

Sure, the aggressive macho behavior you've described has been discouraged -- not just for Black people it is a cultural phenomenon. I think it should have been tamped down. Chivalry was murdered by the time I came of age and we as a culture have suffered for it. I appreciate chivalry is a product of a patriarchal culture; indeed it's demise was brought on by the women's movement, but a cultural code of behavior needs to exist. The vacuum we have has not served us. Some aspects of chivalry need to be returned, but I know that is impossible as there are simply way too many images of men treating women as objects. It is not just our president announcing the grabs pussies, it is built into the popular music, video, strip club, easy access to porn, etc.

Actually Starbuck has lost billions of dollars globally and in some markets are losing money. Domestically they are thrashing reworking their product line... Yeah, even a broken clock is correct twice a day LOL!

@Mel Hopkins any parent who has raised more than one child, and has been paying attention, knows they come out the oven with traits that carry on throughout life. Haven't you observed this? I could spot a gay child from a very early age, whose siblings very close in age and in the same household did not exhibit these traits. There are also kids that are antisocial by nature. Again, I'm not saying the environment has no impact--it does. My argument was never nature vs nurture. Sure, environmental factors like caregivers can of course have some impact - but that are not the entire story. I would think this is obvious. We all know the guy who wants his boy to grow up and be the alpha male, captain of the football team, and lady magnet. The guy does everything he can to help his kid along this path, only for the kid to become a rainbow flag waving "power bottom." I believe parents can best serve their children by helping them become the best version of themselves -- the version that is largely preprogrammed at birth, but can manifest in a variety of different ways because of environment. Imagine how much further along our country would be if so many Black geniuses' lives were not squandered picking cotton or languishing in some failed inner-city school. @Mel Hopkins do you people with genius IQs or gifted musically purely the product of environment? That is, you can turn any kid any kid into a Stevie Wonder.

no, I didn’t move this one. I rarely do that. I recently read something about the boycott being really effective against Target apparently the stock price dropped substantially. I did not have a chance to look into it to understand why they thought the boycott was the reason rather than all the other reasons stock prices have been going down lately, from one thing to another and I subsequently forgot to post it. this is actually a good point that I hadn’t really considered. If the goal is to reinstate DEI initiatives, what had those initiatives accomplished for us in the first place and how are we being hurt as a result now? It’s not like Tabatha Brown’s products, for example, have been pulled from the shelves as a result of the DEI initiatives. How will we know the when boycott will be successful? What specifically does Walmart have to do? The oft cited Montgomery bus boycott’s goal was crystal clear.

Yes, you are right. I swear I don’t know where that word racism came from! Just replace the word racism with patriarchy and what I wrote! Back to the topic: Do you believe that people are born with some mental disorders? I believe that the description of certain beliefs and states of mind described as disorders is a function of our culture. And since our current culture is defined by patriarchy, patriarchy determines what is considered a disorder. That is, disorders are relative. People are born gay (as with all things there are environmental impacts that might affect genetic expression, but ignoring that for now) In our lifetime being gay was considered a mental disorder — There was something wrong with you. Today being gay is considered normal. I believe pedophiles are born. sure there might be some trauma that causes some pedophiles to act on their impulses, but I believe those impulses are a function of biology. There’s very little you can do to me to make me wanna have sex with a child or another man. By the same token, there are other men that will jump on any opportunity to do those things. Again. I think these people are born that way. In our patriarchal culture, most men look upon pedophilia with utter distain and revulsion. So how, in heaven sake can patriarchy give rise to pedophilia?

what I mean to say is that the girl was in motion away from the swinging baton it was not like she was standing still where the impact would’ve been worse. was this someone who ran track and field in the 21st century? I have never seen a solid baton. I’m sure the ones the girls were using were hollow. You can see descriptions of them on the web. as far as a medical doctor line about a diagnosis. I don’t know if a medical doctor actually made one. It has been several weeks since I watched the videos in this conversation, but I don’t remember a medical doctor claiming concussion. I think it was one of the news readers saying that the girl was concusseD.

I think they get rid of it everywhere… They used to have music too when I was in junior high school I played a different instrument every year. Got to take it home too. I was watching this PBS special on funk music. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t terrible one of the reasons cited so many bands being around is that kids got to learn how to play instrument in school when music was taken out of schools. Kids started sampling music playing records, which led to the rise of hip-hop. It’s a shame, though listening to a live band is so much better than listening to some cat spinning records, but a DJ and an MC is better than nothing…. Making a way out of no way. well, that’s true but… I have all the stuff to change my own oil. I did it once and said never again. It is so much easier to pay someone else to do it. . They can dispose of the oil properly. You don’t have to get all dirty. Plus they do it as scale so you’re not really saving that much money doing it yourself. Do you change your own oil?

Most of the people alive today have no clue what true prolonged hardship is. We’ve had it relatively easy. No world wars, no civil wars, no Great Depression, no plagues, no enslavement no genocides, no Jim Crow, no famine… I am optimistic by nature, perhaps that is why I believe we’ll get past all this stuff that we’re dealing with from the current administration relatively quickly. perhaps it’s because I’m part of a culture that has had to deal with adversity, making a way out of no way. My car is 14 years old. If the prices go up for the next few years because of tariffs,, it’s not a big deal. I wasn’t gonna be buying a new car anyway. The tariffs on China are still in effect.

Mel I said nothing about facts. I made it perfectly clear that my knowledge of female perpetrators of pedophilia is anecdotal. All I’m saying is that the experiences that I have and apparently the ones @Pioneer1 one about were not reported. I think it’s perfectly reasonable to question the data that has been published as it relates to reality. I don’t think anyone thinks the stat is a perfect representation of everything that is happened in the realm of pedophilia, but it is better than an anecdote which I freely admit my experience is. Again, incarceration rates are a function of what’s reported. Black men are disproportionately incarcerated relative to their percentage of the population. Do you truly believe that the crimes black men commit are factually representative of their percentages in prison? We can count the number of men and women convicted of pedophilia those data are a facts. However what is also a fact is that we simply don’t know how many pedophilia crimes are committed. But this is really besides the point of our disagreement. I feel that pedophilia is primarily a mental disorder. You think it’s a function of racism so we’ll just have to agree to disagree.

Has anyone here actually ever held a track baton? these things weigh like two or 3 ounces— atypical cell phone weighs more than twice as much! I don’t buy for one second that the girl was concussed by a 3 ounce thick through all that hair while she was running away from the impact is physically impossible. This whole situation has been exaggerated so that media companies can get eyeballs for advertisements. That is all this is. (I don’t know why the font increased. There are quite a few bugs using this software from a cell phone.)

OK, here too I disagree. I would not group pedophilia with racism. I don’t think racism is in the DSM as a mental disorder nor is rape. I could argue that rape is impacted by the culture and therefore patriarchy, same with female genital mutilation, infanticide, sexism, etc — but not pedophilia. I did not read the article that you shared thoroughly. I am on my cell phone, so I don’t know how to search text in an article but I did not see pedophilia mentioned. Was it even mentioned? I agree with @Pioneer1 on that percentage being distorted for exactly the same reason he mentioned. I know our impressions are anecdotal, but I was still question the 90% figure. I assume you pulled it from a reputable source. Maybe that source recognizes the under reporting of adult female male child pedophilia events

No. You mean like Jerry Lee Lewis and hey and R. Kelly probably. Any parent that gives an adult permission to marry, or have sex with their toddler should be crucified. Now if we’re talking about a 15 or 16 year-old I would not call for crucifixion, but I don’t think it’s a good idea. It is arguably debatable.. The feeling is mutual, but I don’t have an expectation of agreeing with anyone on everything smart people can certainly disagree. Indeed there would be no progress if we all did Give me a second to watch the video you shared and I’ll come further to be clear. You are indeed saying that pedophilia is a direct consequence of a patriarchal society is that correct?

my brother, there is a price for everything. One thing I did learn an engineering school is that “there is no free lunch.” ignorance of the cost does not mean that there isn’t one. There are always trade-offs. as with the now proverbial change of the fire detector battery versus hiring someone to do it also reflects trade-offs. Changing a faulty light switch if you know how to do it takes all of 10 minutes.. now if taking the time to change a light switch yourself causes you to lose more than $75 then yeah it makes sense to hire someone. Shoot, if you’re making that kind of loot, you can have someone on staff to do that kinda stuff on demand. in high school I had a class where they taught you life skills like how to buy a used car how to write a check things like that. And junior high school we had classes with a thought boy skills like working with tools — shop classes anchor figure out how to change a light switch. The girls learned home economics, sewing cooking, etc. sometimes boys were up in for those classes. there were no classes that I was aware of that to boys how to talk to girls. Generally, there are rights of passage programs that teach young men and women how to engage with each other, manners how to behave in public and like. I think all kids should take these kind of programs. Colleges shouldn’t have to teach this kind of stuff. People should know it by the time they’re old enough to go to college. I’ll check out homeboy’s video although at my age, I doubt this much you can teach me, but I’ll try to listen with an open mind

I do not believe that nor did I write it. It is unclear how you drew that conclusion. It is unclear how my claim that pedophilia is a psychiatric disorder support your statement.. I don’t think it does. The fact that pedophiles are in churches is based upon the fact that Pedophiles go where they can find victims so whether is coaching girls gymnastics or being a Boy Scout leader it is a matter of easy access to victims, not a function of patriarchy. Our patriarchy is incidental not the determining factor. I’m not sure I follow your argument here, because I’m certainly not defending any religion for violating children or any system that would do the same. Again, all I’m saying is that pedophilia is not a function of our cultural constructs. You obviously disagree by attributing it to patriarchy. Here we clearly disagree. Pedophilia when acted upon is widely recognized as one of the most heinous crimes one can perpetrate on another individual. It is so reviled in our culture that even hardened criminals exact punishment on these individuals in prison — in a patriarchal system.

@Pioneer1 you can see this is in all over in places like the NYC, DMV and ATL. That is one of the things I find most appealing about these areas. I'm not trying to advocate for patriarchy (or matriarchy), but this statement seems hyperbolic it is certainly counterintuitive. For example, I think pedophiles are born the mental disorder is completely independent of the gender of the people in control. I'm sure Brothers and Sisters are not fighting to get into that country.

I would discourage you from using the same password--even a string one. If someone hacks your password from one system, they have it on all your systems. Hackers know people like to use the same password. I use a password manager too and have 586 passwords stored. Obviously, I don't remember them all. Increasingly, in addition to the password I need to have a pin texted or emailed to be as an additional precaution I also have two authenticators that I use including the IRS. Criminals have really created a great friction and frustration when using the web. There are technologists working on this problem. It basically has to do with us managing and OWNING our own personal information securely and not on another corporation's server. You can provide, control, limit and revoke access at anytime. This is not just for passwords but for medical info, address, drivers license, etc. This tech will be implemented, but God only knows when.

Exactly -- and the Brother is still among the living! Little, Brown and Company, did publish the book. I only discovered it because it is #32 on my monthly National Bestsellers list. That list is not public yet but I'm working on it.

I pasted the quote in the title of this post from the opening line of the video (below). George E. Johnson, founder of Afro Sheen, was at one time the richest Black man in America. His memoir came out a month ago, but I only learned about the book today. The video is quaint, but endearing, nonetheless. Afro Sheen: How I Revolutionized an Industry with the Golden Rule, from Soul Train to Wall Street by George E. Johnson

I would go as far as say, never does a human being go through life in solitude. First a human can’t raise itself and I don’t care if they’re human builds a cabin and lives out the rest of his days in complete solitude. There is something that person uses that required other human beings. Maybe it’s the hammer he’s using the clothes on his back…. We are all dependent on each other. Maybe one day we will have a global tribe that will probably be what it takes for humanity to deal with global pandemics, climate change. asteroids on a collision course with the planet, Elon Musk….

if you start a brawl with another parent you are not a failed athlete. You’re just a failed human being. Parents can often be the worst when it comes to their kids and sports.

Do you think so? Maybe they reported on it but we didn’t get the memo because of the racially biased algorithm. I find that you have to seek black media. You can’t wait for it to be pushed to you. I’m not saying that is what you are doing. I’m just saying that it never reaches us the same way. BLACK dysfunction reaches us. A black girl hits another girl with a baton during an obscure track meet and yeah they’re all over it, but a 25 hour speech and we hear nothing of relevance from it, surely he said something.