Friday, August 31, 2012

Trolling the NYT Editorial Pages...

Working on a piece that kind of starts like this:

"We want our country back!"
Gil-Scott Heron rests in peace,
Yet, his piece "B-Movie" might as well be prophesy,
Predicting your look forward is two-faced like the Roman Deity Janus: facing forward while looking back to last week,
To a utopia existent only in your Agmydala driven reptilian minds...

So, you're willing to put out obfuscations and outright lies,
Whacked conspiracy theories on falsified birth certificates, death panels, etceteras,
Voter ID cum Diebold voter purge cum 21st century poll taxes...

Tell me: since when did obliterating the 8th commandment constitute a "family value?"

Get back to you on that. Here are the articles that made me think and the last one laugh out loud!

Checkpoint: Facts Take a Beating in Acceptance Speeches, by Michael Cooper


New York Times Opinion Pages
Editorial: Mr. Romney Reinvents History
Op-ed columnist: The Medicare Killers, by Paul Krugman
Op-ed columnist: Party of Strivers, by David Brooks
Op-ed columnist: The Real Romney, by David Brooks (this is the one I fell out over)

Friday, August 03, 2012

"Don't Drink No Water"...


The quote from this scene and the book bothered me enough to look it up officially:

Drinking plenty of cold, clear water is essential for your health and, in fact, for your very survival. You can live much longer without food than you can without water. Water is an important part of all body functions and processes, including digestion and elimination. When you’re on a diet, water also acts as a weight-loss aid because it can help you eat less.

See: Everyday Health link.

Ray Charles in an interview said: "he just didn't like water." Maybe it stems from this. It would explain our propensity for weight gain, high blood pressure, diabetes and other related health ailments. It would explain our gravitation towards fatback, salt pork and junk foods, especially in the south. Dieticians advise increasing our water intake, as we may not be as hungry more than we are thirsty.

It would explain a lot mostly blamed on biology/genetics (either not to be confused with the pseudo-science of Eugenics), when it just could have simply been the way society was structured, and how our bodies silently endured it for a very long time.

The Dred Scott decision: According to Chief Justice Taney “the authors of the Constitution had viewed all blacks as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”

See also Langston Hughes on Poets.org: Black Like Me