Troy

I just published Kam's 100 Favorite films for 2012. He ranked Django, amazing, 3rd in the big budget film category: http://aalbc.it/bestfilmsof2012 Kam and I rarely agree on movies I re-watched Root within in the last few years and it seemed innocuous by today's standards...

Yeah it is interesting how the conversation went quickly from where do we get your inspiration to one of life's most fundamental questions, what is the nature of the universe and where do we fit in it. I guess, fundamentally, the answer to that big question is indeed the answer to the original question; Where Does Your Inspiration Come From? At various readings and lectures I've heard writers say their inspiration comes from the Lord, Our Savior, Jesus Christ, or spirits who speak to them or just the desire to make more money. Religious folks will say religion was inspired, if not outright brought to us by a divine spirit. A Supreme Being or Ominipotent Force are indistinguishable to their God, or Gods, or for some, ourselves.. We all have some belief system. Some believe it is perfectly perfectly OK to kill someone else for something they have, that you want. Others believe this is evil. Some entities, like governments, say something is evil, but take direct actions exhibiting exactly what they said was evil. Of course people do this too, but governments get away with it more. If there is a universal truth -- it is anything but universally accepted, known or understood.

My reviewer Kam liked Django: http://bit.ly/django2012

Pioneer check out this short video where several physical are asked a simple question: Do you believe in God? I'm not suggesting that these responses should be extended to the entire population of scientist, but their reasoning would be useful. Also I think FAR more people, lie about believing in God than the other way around.

Great recommendation Nah'Sun! THIS is why we need independent, Black owned websites AND Black bookstores! I learned about the 1st Hidden Colors, this Summer, in a Bookstore in Virginia Beach, VA, Positive Vibes. I asked them to show me the most popular thing in the store It was the 1st Hidden Colors. I knew the 2nd one was coming but had not heard anything about it until now. The Black people bitching about Tanrantino or what Spike thinks about a movie he has not seen need to be talking about Hidden Colors 2 Nah'Sun, I really can't recommend what people should do about going to see DJango. They will need to make there own decision. For people with a similar sensibility to me, I would recommend waiting for Netfix. But if you want to be part of the conversation, you may not want to wait that long. My wife felt the same way I did, perhaps more negative. My daughters who are 19 and 20 enjoyed the film. Though the 19 year old admitted dozing. It was a long film that felt longer.

You may here Jamie speak here: http://aalbc.it/jamiefoxx2012 and Tarantino here: http://aalbc.it/qt2012

Deep. Pioneer I had not considered Sharpton using Obama. Sort of the woman who marries a rich celebrity she knows is gay. There s something in it for both...

Well Cynique that perfectly explains why Obama aligned himself with Wright, sort of like teaming up with Calvin Butts in Harlem. Obama's current alignment with Rev Sharpton is a little more curious. I guess he needed a foil from the criticism of Dr. West an anit-Tavis so to speak.

There are not very many pure Atheists, people who are certain there is not God, higher power, universal mind or any of the other stuff you mentioned. I'm inclined to agree that most scientists would be agnostic, Since they simply can not prove there is no an after life. -------------------------- Throwing up my hands in exasperation, Del I'm afraid I'll have to give you an "F". What you are saying does not make sense. You are comparing something completely unrelated and drawing a false conclusion. Not everything can be explained or understood with an analogy...

Cynique, children act up as they go through developmental stages where they learn that they are actually sentient beings with wants and desires that are completely unknown to others. It is a complicated process. Tantrums in and "bad behavior" (behavior not desired by a parent) is normal. This is not evidence that people have to learn to be nice, or need to be medicated. I agree completely with Pioneer. Del and I part ways with the love come naturally bit. Sure it sounds beautiful to say and it would be nice to believe, but I see no evidence that it is true. In fact I'm more inclined to agree with Cynique, based upon my observations. People behave like crap because they were not raised properly - taught to respect themselves or others.

You may be correct Pioneer. But I choose to believe he had a plan and advancing in politics was his goal, Wright was a stepping stone. I don't trust politicians. In our current political system righteous people don't seem to do very well -- indeed they don't even get involved. The people who enter politics, at the highest levels are ambitious power or status seekers. Money has screwed the whole thing up...

Cynique scientists are essentially ignorant about the universe. Indeed the more they learn the more they realize how much they really don't know. :-) Del I don't follow your reasoning. A fact is a fact, it is not a function of a belief. It is what is is. It is not up for discussion. Generally scientists are very careful about saying what they "know". If a fact is "proven" wrong then it was not a fact, maybe it was a theory, or a belief, but a fact can't be proven wrong. Pioneer, scientist can reproduce the near death experience in a person. Again, man makes up stories to explain what they don't understand. it is natural, but it does not make it true. I'm not discounting your experiences...I'm just saying... The brain is an amazing thing, but it can be easily fooled. Some otherwise normal people can be made to do astonishingly evil things, with seemingly very little effort. A charismatic leader can get hundreds of people to kill themselves with the promise of being picked up by a comet, or 42 virgins in heaven. Or they get get them to exterminate some Jews or believe they are superior to blacks and enslave them for centuries. Even the God fearing, Nobel Peace prize winning Barack Obama, has a "hit list". My honest opinion is that nobody "knows" anything -- or they know so little it may as well be nothing. Some can can spin a better tale than others but they are still all stories. Scientists are much more rigorous in their thinking because they won't start saying something is true until is has been tested and they are always testing. They've broken Newton's laws when they started looking at matter at the quantum level, then they broke Einsteins laws when they looked at Black holes. EVERYTHING to a scientist is open for analysis. The majority of people KNOW far too much about the universe. It may be the dictates of their religion. They are right and ALL other belief are wrong. People who say they know the answers make me nervous. I'm curious fellow, but I'm find with not knowing, over accepting the beliefs of someone who claims that they do. ____________________ Del now I see why you are confused about the Digital to analog thing. The information is simply stored digitally. You can here this they are discrete samples. Once the signal is decoded into an analog signal (that you can hear). The signal is a accurate representation of the source signal.

http://aalbc.com/aalbc-feedback.html Would you all please consider thanking my website and eNewsletter feedback survey. I'm just looking for information on what I'm going well or poorly. It can be completed in just a couple of minutes. I truly appreciate ALL Feedback. Thanks, Troy

Well I'm back from the flick and am about to play some Monopoly, but I just wanted to pop in and say The movie was a disappointment. Sure there were some entertaining parts, but overall the movie could have been better edited, seemed very disjointed, and was way too long. The quality of the actors saved the film from being a complete disaster. Oh well...

No the government is racist for this reason and many others. Indeed ofr most of out countries history racists laws were n the books. we have not emerged from this situation. Race conscious is too sloppy a term is changes frequently as is based solely on how people look -- which in my mind is just a dumb (and racist) activity for the government to spend my money engaging in...

LOL! The really interesting thing about the Wright affair was that initially when Obama was claiming Wright as his "spiritual leader" , in reality like most Brother he spent very little time in the Church. So when Wright would were being used against Obama it would have been much easier for Obama to simply say well i really did not go to Wrights church very much. Instead since he'd exaggerated his position as this devout Christian, since votes like to hear this, he had to make up another "story" to justify throwing Wright under he bus.

Welcome fengwenshu. ...I think

"Nobody is denying that the government is racist." Funny it never occurred to be to simply say it plainly; the government is racist -- there it is. I agree a child can naturally distinguish that a person looks different from himself (I never meant to suggest otherwise) I do not agree that accepting the difference is a learned reaction. I think not accepting the difference is learned, but I'm sure there have been studies on this. Any rifts in the family because or difference skin color were probably caused by the racist culture not nature. Unless you believe racism is natural... maybe it is. Adopted children develop rifts because the differences cause them to come to the realization they were adopted -- a completely different dynamic.

Here is a better example Del. Remember when we were discussing digital sampling and I said mathematically one could reproduce an analog signal, 100%, with enough samples. You disagreed with this. Your belief ran counter to fact. I challenged your belief until a point that I realized you were fixed. Look, we know what the source of the light is, and have for 100 years. The idea of the light being the sourced from the mind runs completely counter to what we know. The same goes for space being the universal mind. While that may be an "idea" that you "believe" in, it would be be something that I would readily embrace. Our minds are SO limited and space is infinite why would something so measly as our minds be represented in space in a way that we can conceive? I do not believe that humans have the ability to really understand the universe any more than a housefly understands our solar system. We don't even understand ourselves. If would be nice if we did. But if we were close to being that smart we would not be killing each other over the color our our skin or for having different beliefs...

Since it is a belief it is open to challenge Quite the contrary, Cynique I think everyone being the same is boring, perhaps this is why I like large cities and traveling to different places. My problem is the governments fixation on "race" and how it sets people off against each other, creating unnecessary special interest groups. That plus the fact my belief that the term is essentially meaningless when dealing with people. Do realize there is more biodiversity in Black people, alone, than there is in any other "race". We could start categorizing Black people based upon these differences, but that sounds silly -- because it is. As far as Jazz, and i can speak to what Del was thinking, but I was simply thinking of Jazz as an American creation, heavily influenced by Black folks. If we were still in African who know if a Jazz, or the Blues, or Rap would have emerged at all.

Pioneer1, if you are talking about "erotic sexuality" in a major motion picture -- you can forget it. There is simply no way you can generate enough interest among the masses -- I doubt the majority of Black people would want to see that type of film. Black folks can be pretty conservative as a group. Del you are fortunate to be able to related deeply to and actually love people of other cultures and races. Most people in the US are FAR too racist to even consider it. You were made to feel uncomfortable while in Boston because those people, like many of us, are too primitive to see beyond the color of someones skin. The entire culture suffers as a result. People are so fixated on race they refuse to let it go, it is sad really. I don't know if Jazz would exist if Negro were not chained up an dragged over here for hundreds of years. I suspect if that tragedy not occurred the world would have something even BETTER than Jazz! .

Del most people "points" are either expressions of facts or feelings. Feeling can be interpretations of facts or beliefs. I don't challenge facts. I do challenge interpretations of beliefs. Sometimes I may be ignorant of a fact and challenge it as if it were a belief until I learn. I believe most of what you wrote are believe -- open for challenge. I do not make a distinction between a belief and an idea. What do you see is the difference between the two? What was riddly? Your question about the source of the light from a bulb. What was the point of the question? One can easily ask what is the source of anything. Ultimately the answer is unknown -- perhaps unknowable; as you can infinitely regress, repeatedly asking the same question, "What is the source?"

So Del, you won't give me credit for playing Devils advocate well, instead ascribing this ability to my very nature. OK I'll take that, but I think you know me well enough to know that I have a pretty open mind with regard to these things. I also like to think I am willing to see more than one side of an argument -- understanding it well enough to take a position on various sides. Were your last statements meant to obfuscate reason through riddles?. When you flip on a light, the light comes from photons emanating from the bulb at light speed and vibrating in the very narrow EM frequency range that our eyes can perceive. Vision is a function of the eyes, and our mind is a function of the brain. There is no vision without eyes and no mind with brain. Sure there are people who believe our consciousness exists independent outside the brain, I hope if this is the case my mind is infinitely better. I'd hate to think I'd be the same Troy flowing around for eternity with the same nuts walking around on earth Of course it is easier to see fault with in others, But I don't see where I was doing that. If I disagree with you about something that does not mean I see fault in you. I only ascribe fault in a person who fails to see the truth when it is presented or made plain. Like the person who insists the world is round when it has been proven it is flat. In a topic like this, the source of inspiration, no one can "prove" anything. We are just exchanging and challenging ideas. --------------------- There is a LOT we do not know. But I do get nervous when people take situations and ascribe them to otherworldly causes -- with certainty over a more likely physical one. For example, like Cynique I too have thought about a problem gone to bed an woke up with a solution, or completely new insight. I just assumed my brain worked on it unconsciously -- I'd never make the leap that my deceased grandmother gave me the answer or that the universe helped me out. It might be true, but it would not be my first assumption. Sometimes I have that dream where it feels like you've been thrown into bed wake up with a start. Some have told be that was my body returning from an out of body experience. That might be true, but it will take a lot more for me to be convinced of this.

"Racism that involves deliberately persecuting others because of their skin color is, of course, learned." Precisely! And the government is the biggest teacher of the perverse. inhuman lesson. Cynique your statement, "Whether they decide to regard you with suspicion for not resembling them is also a natural reaction because of the xenophobia that resides in our brains", seems to conflict with your final statement. In any event, I know you realize, in the US, Black women give birth to children with every complexion under the sun -- sometimes with complexions dramatically than their own. Do you really believe, absent a racist culture, that these children would "naturally" view their own mother with suspicion or even hatred the way a Xenophobe would?

Since this video was taken Obama has traded in Dr. West for Reverend Sharpton. Obama has also failed to live up to much of what he promised on the campaign trail, to a crowd of adoring supporters in Harlem's Apollo theater. The audience was virtually 100% Black. My oldest daughter and I were part of the audience. I apologize for the quality of the video but the words are loud and clear, It is fascinating to listen to the statements now more than 5 years later. While West's strong support of Obama was strong, he fully recognized Obama was no Dr. King, or Malcolm X. More interesting is what Barack said, about what he was going to do to support the Black community; Obama said he did not want to see, 4 years from then, "...more young Black men in prison than in college". In reality were actually more Black men in college than in prison in 2007 and this is still very likely to be true in 2013. Barack said he would raise miminum wage every year when he became president. The last federal increase was approved by Bush administration in 2007, and took effect in 2009. He said he would give us universal health care without caving into big insurance companies -- without a public option, insurance companies will enjoy a huge windfall. He spoke about the Civil Right Commission. It would be nice if someone could tell me what the CRC has done for Black people in the last 5 years. He spoke about education particularly people in the inner cities of Chicago and Harlem. Today 22% of Black boys graduate high school in 4 years. I could go on picking apart what Barack said he would do versus wast he actually did. But at the end of the day ALL politician say whatever they think the audience wants to hear. My personal problem is that, for some silly reason, I was naive enough to think Barack would actually be different.