Comfortable or Cracked Out?

In his novel The Celestine Prophecy, James Redfield speculated that mankind sent scientists into the world to explore its mysteries and come to some conclusions about the origins of the universe and our place in it. But, when the scientists went out to gather information, they found more than they were prepared to handle. The questions vastly outnumbered the answers, and after decades of searching mankind either lost interest or forgot why they sent them out in the first place. This “failure” on the part of science to explain the meaning of life was a pivotal point in the evolution of human values, because while mankind waited for answers they tackled an issue of their own: How to make life more comfortable.

When I look at the world around me, it seems that comfort is a top priority for the vast majority of Americans today. Whether it’s reclining in an easy chair watching TV and drinking a beer, or resting their asses on the plush leather seats of a luxury sports car while driving in traffic, comfort is like crack to Americans. We can’t get enough of the stuff. We need it all day everyday, even when we sleep. We want to be comfortable while we do even the most uncomfortable things. It got me to thinking, is being constantly comfortable a realistic expectation? And if so, what are some of the side effects of our obsession with comfort? Is it just making us weaker?

One of the most common definitions of comfort is: A state of ease and satisfaction of bodily wants, with freedom from pain and anxiety. Notice the word “bodily” in that definition. Somewhere along the line, we began to believe that being physically comfortable was equivalent to being mentally, spiritually, or emotionally comfortable in our own skin. Perhaps we thought, if I could just make my physical environment comfortable enough, everything else would follow suit. Perhaps being physically comfortable allowed us to dull our perception enough that we don’t perceive any discomfort within ourselves, much like taking an aspirin relieves pain but does not eliminate the problem.

And so here we all are, together, confined within the comfort zone we created. The question I can’t stop asking is, are we comfortable or cracked out on the most addictive, invasive drug mankind has ever known – luxury.

Photoshop is the SHIT!

My blog looks amazing, if I do say so myself. And it only took me 3 hours to do it! LOL

Let's watch a video and celebrate. :)

Baby Got Back... And A Rapper Got Jacked

At first glance, this is not a subject I would have chosen to blog about, but I would like to address the situation that occurred this week with “self-proclaimed groupie” Kat Stacks and rapper Soulja Boy. Apparently, Kat took some incriminating video in Soulja Boy’s hotel room while he was in the shower, which showed lines of cocaine. She also had a lot to say about how the coke was affecting his sexual performance, and how he was a huge “cokehead”. This whole situation is obviously dramatic for those involved or directly affected, but many others in the hip-hop community have taken it upon themselves to address the situation and Kat Stacks in particular.

I definitely don’t think what Kat Stacks did was cool, but I find it funny that all these rappers are jumping to Soulja Boy’s defense, and posting anti-Kat-Stacks messages on twitter. In my opinion, you boys are getting exactly what you asked for. All I ever hear on the radio is how some rapper needs a girl with a big ass and a cute face, and how all she has to do is shake it on the dance floor in order for him to like her. This attitude towards women seems to have transcended hip-hop in more recent years, and become the dominant attitude for men in popular culture.

I don’t really want to get into all the details we could analyze as to why this is, I just want to say look at the monsters y’all have created! It is a widely published and accepted scientific fact that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, and apparently choosing a mate or sexual partner solely based on the size of their ass has some pretty hefty repercussions.

I also find it extremely entertaining and funny that Fabolous chose to speak out with some of the harshest remarks against Soulja Boy, because Soulja Boy allowed Kat Stacks to be in his room alone. Fab called it “Stupid Boy Swag” after one of Soulja Boy’s recent songs “Pretty Boy Swag”. Well, Fab should know all about it, since I seem to recall an incident back in 2003 on the Roc The Mic Tour (which I did promotions on) where everyone, and I do mean everyone, that was working on the tour was laughing at Fab because he was robbed for $10,000 by a stripper who he let into his room, had sex with, and apparently fell asleep on. Soon as he closed his eyes, girlfriend jacked him for everything he had and bounced. Don’t get me wrong I like Fab, but come on. That is obviously the teapot calling the kettle black.

Be careful what you wish for guys, because there is power in the words you speak, and the subjects you choose to rap about can easily become themes in your life. So, if you want to make these songs glorifying groupies and their behavior in the club, don’t be mad when one of them catches you off guard and puts you on blast or even worse, sets you up. And if what you want is a good woman who has some class to go with her ass, maybe you should make some songs praising women for being intelligent and worthy of respect as well as being sexy. I’m just sayin……….

Sticks and Stones...... and Enriched Uranium?

It’s hard to be an American sometimes… Not because our country is one of the worst socially, economically, or from a development standpoint, but from the perspective of a citizen of planet Earth, watching fellow citizens from other countries go through ridiculous, unfair punishments that do not fit the crimes they have supposedly committed; the Iranian woman sentenced to stoning for adultery, the Australian woman who narrowly escaped the death penalty but was sentenced to 20 years in a Bali prison for smuggling drugs even though it was proven that drug smugglers were present and hiding their illegal wares in the bags of unsuspecting passengers the day the woman was caught… These are the kind of stories that make my skin crawl as an American, because even though our country has its imperfections, at least I will never face the possibility of being stoned to death. At least in America, you have the right to a kind-of fair trial judged by a jury of your sort-of peers.

It is mind boggling that the same Iranian government that accepts stoning as a sentence for the crime of adultery receives support from the international community when it wants to buy enriched uranium (supposedly for medical purposes). Obviously, there are cultural differences at work here, but at some point (hopefully when the words “enriched uranium” come in to play) we have to ask ourselves, can a country that is willing to stone someone to death for adultery in the year 2010 be trusted with the ingredients of a nuclear weapon?

Let’s examine this critically. In Iran, a woman can be stoned to death for allegedly committing adultery, but not only that, a woman can also be sentenced to death for fending off the attacks of a rapist. So obviously, according to this school of thought, a woman is not the equal of a man. If it can become a widely accepted cultural norm to think of a woman as a lesser grade of human being, it could be just as easy to think of an African, Latino, or Asian person as a person of lesser value as well.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, if your country wants to be trusted with a do-it-yourself WMD kit, please at least do the bare minimum and prove that you have the morality to treat your own countrymen and women with the level of respect that all human beings deserve regardless of gender, religion, or race.