Green Lantern John Stewart: Acquaintances

(This is the first two pages.  The setting might throw some of you off, but you will have to just keep reading to understand how this will unfold and tie into the DC universe.)

The October night was unusually warm. It caused John to believe more and more in the theory of global warming. While fighting overseas as a marine, he was only concerned about whether or not he was going to have the supplies he needed in order to accomplish his missions. So what if the vehicles gave off a lot of carbon emissions? If terrorist destroyed the world, who could care less about global warming? A lieutenant once even told him that global warming was just something made up by pacifist who would say anything to convince the world that the military was doing more harm than good.

Sweat ran down his face and arms as he pedaled toward his apartment. He could see blue and red lights up ahead. The campus police had stopped someone. He biked faster. A few seconds later and he saw who was in the stopped vehicle. It was a young white guy with slick brown hair. He was driving a station wagon with a bunch of stuff in the back with a mattress tied to the top. He looked to be either moving in or moving out.

John slowed down a bit to see who the officers were. To his horror, he saw that they weren’t actually officers at all. They were Stackhouse and Mulroy. They were posing as cops and for some reason had targeted this poor kid. He was unsure of what to do. Those two were very dangerous, but he couldn’t just leave that kid to be hurt. He thought to call the real police, but there probably wasn’t enough time. Especially at this late hour, the cops were probably busy dealing with rowdy students partying after the football team’s big win.

He made a right turn down the next sidewalk and sped up. He went about 100 yards down and stopped. Catching his breath, he hoped that he had enough distance and that it would actually work. He started pedaling at a middle gear. He was rapidly switching to higher gears in order to achieve maximum speed from his efforts.

As he got closer, he could see that Stackhouse and Mulroy had gotten the kid out of the car. John was at a diagonal and couldn’t see much of his front, so he just had to imagine the expression of fear that must have been on the poor kids face as Stackhouse raised the real enough baton and brought it down across the kids shoulder. The kid cried out and slumped to the ground. Stackhouse’s face was a profile of demented glee.

When John was shopping for his bike a few months earlier, the store manager had convinced him that he should get the expensive Trek because it had a titanium frame. Just in case he needed something tough for the times he went mounting biking. John knew that he probably would never go mountain biking, but his years of military service had taught him that stronger was always better. Even if it costs a little bit more. Skimping out on good equipment is what often led to needless casualties. He was glad he paid the extra money and he hoped that the company’s advertisements about the bike’s frame were sincere.

He switched into the highest of the twenty-two gears and reached what he thought would be his maximum speed. The south part of campus was nearly empty because even the freshmen were out of their dorms partying. The bike operated smoothly and made so little sound that it was inaudible over the police cruiser’s running engine. Now came the really hard part. John almost wished that he was like Spider Man and had mounted a camera somewhere to take a photo.

Stackhouse and Mulroy were too involved in taunting the kid to notice anything else. Thank goodness the kid was already on the ground so that John wouldn’t have to worry too much about him getting hurt too.

With out about twenty yards left, he did it. He knew he had to aim it just right, especially with the forward momentum the bike would maintain. He also had to make sure it was sideways, in order to take out both. He turned to his left side in the seat so that he was riding the bike on sideways. It took time and distance. He was only ten yards away and then they noticed him, but it was too late. John slammed down hard on the left side pedal and hunched over. His muscles were still ripe from working out at the gym not more than ten minutes earlier, making this easier. The bike flipped up high as expected and he grabbed the top cross bar. With the speed he had going, the hardly needed to add any more torque. The hardest part was just aiming it correctly. The bike somersaulted and turned several times on its side in the air. It went cleanly over the top of the kid’s station wagon and slammed into the upper torsos of Stackhouse and Mulroy. They were thrown several feet back and before they even hit the ground, blood spurted out from where the bike connected with their necks and faces. Good thing they were a pair tall bastards.

John didn’t get to see the impact, but knew it connected from the sound their bones made as the titanium frame slammed into them. There had been times in Afghanistan when he had to fight up close and the sound of bones breaking was familiar to him. Unfortunately for him, the effort of throwing the bike at such a high speed had caused him to flip with it. He landed hard on his back two feet in front of the station wagon with the wind knocked out of him. Hopefully, the kid would have enough sense to run away or call for help, because John was going to be getting up for a while.

Green Lantern John Stewert: Consequences

There were sirens in the distance and John hoped he was lucky enough to have all of his bones intact.  He got up and walked around the cruiser and over to the kid who was still on the ground.  He was clutching his shoulder looked like he was closing to passing out from the pain.

            “You’re welcome.  Hang in there, kid.”

            John didn’t know if the young man could even here him.  He was covered in sweat and it looked like his eyes just might fully rollup into the top of his head.

            He would have liked to have stayed and comforted the kid, but Stackhouse and Mulroy were nowhere to be found.  There was just a lot of blood on the ground.  John grabbed his bike whose tires by some miracle had not been bent to hell. 

            The sirens sounded like they were coming from the north so he headed straight south, across the grass of the dorm buildings, straight toward his apartment.  Once he had crossed the train tracks, a quarter mile away, he could see a multitude of flashing emergency vehicle lights.

            Once he got home, he pulled his bike inside with him and locked the door.  Usually, he locked up his bike on the rack outside, but there was still some blood on it.  He was annoyed at that.  Even though he left it outside, he made regular efforts to keep it regularly oiled and relatively clean at all times.

            John pulled off his shirt and headed into his room.  He got undressed and heading for the shower, but stopped short.  The university owned apartment he lived in was quite small and the refrigerator was just a few feet away from the bathroom door.  He opened the top freezer section and took the rum he had inside.  After taking a long hard swig, he tossed it back inside and hopped into the shower.  The water took a while to get hot, but he didn’t care.  It just felt good to wash away the dirt and sweat.

            After 20 soothing minutes, John got out of the shower.  He toweled himself dry and threw on a pair of sweats and a clean t-shirt .  He sat down in front of the television for a moment.  He flipped through the channels and found a horror movie playing.  He hoped it would occupy his mind for a while and let him doze off on the couch.  The last things he remembered before falling asleep was something about a man named Sutter Cain and the main character freaking out over the color blue.

            When he woke up, everything was turned off and it was dark except for the green LED on his computer.  When he turned on his monitor he could see that it had restarted because it was asking him to log back into his instant messenger account.  He looked outside and did not see any other lights on.  The moon was nearly full, but it was a heavily clouded night, so it did not provide much lighting. 

The power was out.  His computer was running off of the back-up battery he purchased for it.  The back-up power supply only had about 15 minutes of total juice in it and so the power must have just gone out.  He turned the computer off and headed for his room to sleep in his bed.  He walked through the doorway to his room and stopped cold.  He felt terrified and backed up.  He didn’t know if he had time to grab a knife and could not remember if he had washed it or left it in the sink.  He didn’t want to cut himself in the very weapon he would be reaching around for.  So, he just put his fist up.

     John could see the darkness move.  It looked like it was ruffling itself.  He was simply thankful enough that his eyes had adjusted to the lack of light fast enough so that he could tell the difference in colors.  His room was dark, but the figure standing near his bed wasn’t just dark, it looked like it was a depression in the air.  Like a black hole taken form. 

“Ha.  Good job.”  The entities voice was deep and cold.  “This is a dark day for you, John.  This night is only going to get blacker,” the entity said.

John snorted before responding.  “Who or what the hell are you?  Why are you intruding into my home?” John said.

The entity ruffled a bit more and then opened its eyes.  Its yellow eyes lit the room up enough for John to make it demonic features. 

“You know why I’m here, John,” the entity snarkily said while licking its lips.

“Bullshit,” John spat out.  “Get the fuck out or I’m gonna pummel you.”

“Oh come on now, John boy,” the entity said in a mock imitation of pain. 

It unfurled its arms and extended its talons.  “I’m only here because you invited me.  I’m only here because you invited me,” it repeated as it lunged forward.

John stood firm and threw the hardest punch he could.  As his fist nearly connected to the entity and its talons were about to slash into him, he was yanked back by something.  The darkness quickly became light and he wasn’t standing in his room, he was on his couch.  The television was still on and daylight was shining through his window blinds.  As he went to rub his head, he was stopped short by a loud rapping on his door.

He quickly got up and looked through the peephole.  He saw outside his door stood a man and a woman.  Both were in uniform.  They were cops. 

Is this really human nature?

Today, I was flipping through the television channels.  I started to become very irritated.  On every damn channel there were White people.  I have 60 channels to choose from and on them all are people who generally look alike.  So I going to answer the question that many will ask right now.  It matters because people put forth effort to not only put in the media people whom they want to look a certain way, but also work to exclude others based on the way they look.

Sure.  There are some African-American and east Asian anchors on CNN.  Here and there you see a semi-diverse cast on a Nickolodean kid’s show.  But the overwhelming majority of people presented are White middle-class Americans.   The only chance I have a fair chance of seeing an ethnic minority is on the shows Cops and Cheaters.  Hell no!  The show Judge Joe Brown doesn’t count.

Basically, ethnic minorities are shown beating up on one another, yelling at one another or just getting into trouble.  Another question that will come up is “Well what about White people who get arrested on cops or are on court TV shows.  There is a big difference.  Those people are considered quote-un-quote white trash.  When ethnic minorities are on those shows, they are simply considered Black or Mexican.

Why only Black or Mexican? many of you are going to ask (this may seem like a tangent, but I asure you it is not).  It is because aside from people who are assumed to be muslim, most other minorities are considered White.  East Indians are White, Japanese are White.  Italians, Greeks and Jews are White.  I would comment that Native Americans are not White, but they simply aren’t even on T.V. unless it’s for some sort of gimmick.  Perhaps the only exception to this is King of Hill which featured “John Redcorn.”  A Native American who regularly participated in adultery with one of the show’s main characters and also sired an illegitimate child.

If any of you readers mention one of the so called music channels, I hope a shit can falls out of the sky and crushes your fucking head in.

With my 27 years of experience, visual and literary accounts, I know that White people have a general disdain for us for one reason or another.  But something that really pisses me off is that fucking immigrants will come here to the U.S. and fucking be racist.  They will actually take to heart the shit they see on television and resent me.  They will act shitty when I work with them or am in class with them.  They will tell their children not to date us and to not marry us under any conditions.  Yeah, I’m talking about African Immigrants too.

One of the saddest things in the history of media is how east Indians and east Asians assimilated and internalized what europeans fed to them.  The Chinese and Japanese actually paint their brides white on their wedding days because they see being Caucasian as inherently prosperous and all around better.  The east Indians actually went so far as to create a caste system that separted and practically fucking deified a person, the whiter they were/are (they still do that shit).  They even made so that it was tantemount to a sin to marry outside of one’s caste.  However, it’s always okay to marry a White person, even if they aren’t Hindu or east Indian.

I started flippig through the international news channels.  All fucking White people.  Isn’t one fifth of the world’s population supposed to be Chinese?  Isn’t their something going on in Mexico or South America?   Shit, can I see something going on in Africa besides gang rapes and pirates hijacking oil freighters?  There is a huge as African Union that I never hear anything about.

The point is, White people make it seem like there is  no one in the world, but them or people who try to mimic/deify them.  And yeah.  I will write more on the overwhelming number of jewish producers, writers, directors and actors in the media who also have a hand in dictating this.

But there is something that upsets me more them White people and Jews running the media.  Its African-Americans who take on roles portraying “Blacks” the way White people want us to be viewed.  Sometimes, it is even in shows that are produced by African-Americans.  That shit is truly sick.  What ever happened to the Cosby Show?  I don’t remember one episode of A different World wherein being Black was portrayed as only behaving in certain ways.

Yeah.  I know.  This shit on T.V. is made cause people want to see it.  This shit is for White people.

What Journalism Is All About

It is my belief that very few people actually wish to do harm to others. This is because from early childhood, it is easy to see that through and an exchange of services favors, a person is better off than being alone. However, this can sometimes be not true. Such as the case of one group of people who dislike another group. Generally, group hostilities have taken on the form of prejudices concerning civil attributes (skin color, nationality, sex, etc.). It is my belief that such prejudices disrupt group harmony and the exchange of services and favors- reciprocity.

To summarize the logic of Socrates in short: People do bad things because they don’t know what they are talking about. I may not know either, but people need to understand that they are ignorant so that we can all figure things out.

Socrates had a method of questioning a belief to examine its validity in all situations and times. “Such as, a horse is a two legged animal with a tale that eats hay.” If a person could demonstrate that some horses do not eat hay, then the belief of what is a horse is proven to be incorrect. The method was often much more rigorous than this, but the point is easily understood. Also, the Socratic Method is often too linear in its process to deal with complex issues such as reciprocity.

Socrates was indeed on to something. At the heart of journalism is the question, how do you know that something is true?

The famous grand-student of Socrates, Aristotle, helped journalism in an important way. He creating a method of questioning that could be applied to complex issues which he called the Four Causes. The causes can be found in any order, but Aristotle chose to answer them in what I call a “from the ground up” fashion. I believe that Aristotle’s method is much better suited to the issue of reciprocity.

The first is the Material Cause which asked what is something materially made of. For example: bigotry is made up of thought processes and beliefs that are intolerant of something and are often irrational. One could also say that it is made up of electric pulses that travel throughout the brain, but we assume that people already know this.

The second is the Formal Cause which asked what shape it takes. In this instance, bigotry takes on the shape of words and actions toward a person or person that are intolerant and disruptive to reciprocity.

The third is the Efficient Cause which asks what makes it so. This is often what we mean by the word “cause” in present day. In this instance, it is because people are reared to have incorrect beliefs about other people. Such as, African-American men love to rape white women.

Last is the Final Cause which asks, what is it for? In the case of bigotry, it is used as a way to express perceptions and beliefs that white are not true, are held onto. It is also used as a tool to oppress a person or certain persons.

It is fair to respond to Aristotle’s Four Causes with “but that’s just too ambiguous” or “one would have to repeat the process over and over” which would be correct. However, this is the point of being a journalist. To repeatedly questions and examine something is the exactly why I study. People continually hurt one another. They routinely make poor decisions and hold incorrect beliefs. It is my job to inform them. If I am to do this, then I must first understand that I am ignorant and must earnestly seek out the truth. Once I have found it, I will continually share it with the world.

What life is like for some people.

I recently had a conversation with a few associates who were Caucasian. Some lived in the southern United States and some lived in the northern U.S. They said that African-Americans in urban areas complain a lot, but don’t vote. Also, that they were too lazy and ignorant to inform themselves of the issues so that they could vote correctly if they did go the voting polls. In vain, I tried to explain to them that many minorities in urban areas are impoverished and with poverty often comes substandard educations. They either did not understand the issue or just did not care. However, citizens need to understand and care. If I could have informed it to them in writing, I would have done so as follows.

It was a sweltering August night and the buzzing street lights seemed to add to the heat. As I came around the corner with my aunt and cousin I could see a large crowd of people in the street. There looked to be well over 100 people. My cousin was a little curious about the scene and my aunt did not seem to care at all. When we were close enough, my cousin and I stopped to watch.

A young lady was scampering in an erratic course. She was wearing shoes, white khaki shorts and a ripped t-shirt. The sweat was drinking off of her in rivulets. It was easy to see that she was very frightened and fatigued.

My cousin asked, “What going on to a nearby kid who looked to be about 14 or 15 years-old who answered, “That’s her brother.”

I was relieved that her brother had shown up. He was wearing Nike shoes and long jean shorts. He was sweating profusely and looked angry. His sister was afraid and tired and he was going to help her. “That’s a good thing,” I said aloud. My cousin looked at me like I was retarded. He often times treated me that way went I came to visit him and my aunt. I soon realized why he had looked at me that way.

The girl’s brother was skinny. He looked to be maybe a year older than myself and much smaller in size than his sister. When he reached her, his fist clenched and he hit her in the face. She stumbled a bit and struck back at him. Even though she hit him, he landed another blow on her that cause her to tremble and wobble backwards. The crowd whooped and hollered at the spectacle.

“Rip her shirt off!” someone yelled. “Yeah, rip that bitch’s shirt off!” another guy yelled. To my surprise, even the women in the crowd laughed and verbally urged on the spectacle. The boy’s sister must have heard the crowd. He punched in the face again and she cried out loud. I was surprised that she had not been crying the entire time. The two siblings reminded me of trained boxers. As the girl was gasping for air, her brother hit her again and she hunched over a bit. Quickly, the boy grabbed her shirt and pulled it hard. As he pulled with one hand, he punched her with the other. The girl started crying so loudly that she could be heard over the crowd’s cheering. She no longer cared about dodging and returning punches. She only cared about keeping her shirt on. Within a few seconds, she lost both fights. As her right breast spilled out, the crowd cheered. The girl who could not have been more than 15 years-old had breast that were well into the size of a woman’s and the sight was a shock to my thirteen year-old eyes.

The girl ran off pushing her way through the crowd. The people she ran into shouted threats and insults at her. She ran between two buildings and into an ally way. My cousin was laughing and my aunt looked annoyed at us having stopped for even less than two minutes. I looked at the kid who had answered my cousin’s question. “Why was he doing that to his sister?” I asked him. The kid looked annoyed and almost like he was going to hit me. I was thankful when he looked at my cousin first who was tall for his age. My cousin gave a slightly derisive look my way to diffuse the tension. The kid decided that I wasn’t worth trying to beat-up. “She stole five dollars from him.”

“Really,” I asked without thinking.

“That’s what I heard,” the kid responded. Another person chimed in as well.

“Yeah, that bitch always be stealing from him. He told her that he was going to beat her ass if she did it again,” said an older girl who overheard us.

All of this happened in the U.S. in the summer of 1994. It took only 2 minutes and looked to be something that went on routinely. The Chicago intersection near where we got off the bus was 77^th and Halsted Street. A current Google Maps street view of the intersection shows it to be in the same condition, except for this time, there seems to be a small parking lot with parked police cruisers. It did not occur to me at the time, but now I know that it is significant not only that a brother and sister in the streets for minutes on end over five dollars, but that the police never came. No lights flashed through the neighborhood, trying to sort out what happened.

Even in Lansing, 10 years later, the problem of apathy and ignorance plagues us. In July of 2004, I saw a man knock down another man. The man doing the knocking down towered in stature over the other. The smaller one got up and lurched at the taller one, only to be knocked down again, but this time he was bleeding heavily and did not move to get up. I called the police and described the two African-American men and was horrified at what the operator told me.

“Well sir, are they fighting now?”

“No, I the big is walking down the street and the little guy has a friend who I think and hope is taking him to the hospital.”

“Well then sir, call us back if they start fighting again.”

I was livid at this. “What! There were two men fighting right here in downtown. Two blocks away from the capital. One probably has a serious concussion. And you aren’t going to do anything?”

The dispatcher sounded irritated. “Sir, we are too busy with other things going on around the city. You said that they stopped fighting and that the injured one was being taken to the hospital. Now is there anything else?”

How can people be expected to think about voting when they cannot even depend upon their government to be concerned about their safety and health? More importantly, how did things get this way? How is it that a minority group is in such a situation that no one cares about them and they don’t even care about themselves?

I have repeatedly learned that nothing is ever as simple as it seems.

By luck, I found a book at a friend’s home that was in mint condition. The book was a dark red and on the cover was written the name Israel Zangwill and the title “Children of the Ghetto. I looked inside and saw that it had a copyright date of 1892 and was without a reprint date. I was confused. There weren’t that many African-Americans in Chicago, Detroit or New York at the time for there to even be ghettos. And Las Angeles was barely even a city at the time. My friend’s mother would not let me take the book for fear of damage, so I went to a computer lab and did some research. A Google search and book review search on Amazon showed that the book was indeed from 1892 and was about Jews. That it was a journalistic report in novel form of a study of Jews living in England.

This small drop of information empowered me with a healthier and more informed understanding. It is not that African-Americans are more violent and self-abasing than other groups. It is that we are going through what every other ethnic group has gone through already. We are clustered in ghettos and are disenfranchised by means I trust my readers already understand and so I will not go into in this document.

I have come to understand that very few people, if any are evil. Even those who make the worst proclamations about a people are not evil. Often, I do not believe that they view themselves as having any ill intent. They are misinformed and confused. Zangwill was a journalist. He wrote about a people, even if it was a fictional writing, to exposit to the world what he witnessed in his “…Study of a Peculiar People.” Even if everything was not accurate or correct about everything he reported, at least he did it. At least he cared enough to let the world know about the significance of ghettos and social issues stemming from them.

I do not know what it will take to inform others so that they have a healthy understanding of why the world is as it is. People who do not feel safe within their own families and their neighborhoods are not going to see themselves as a valid part of the legal framework for the decision making in community, save for being damned to poverty and as the enemies of the those in authority and those who enforce the will of governmental authorities.

The common response I get when I point out these issues is, “Well that isn’t my problem. I have enough things to worry about.” Much of such a response is narcissism, but to the part of it that is a valid argument, I answer that soon enough, we will be paying for our negligence to one another by way of lowered progress per person and an overall less Gross Domestic Product. People who are less educated, incarcerated and full of angst are not likely to add to the overall equity of our republic. It is my belief that an understanding of the world is easy enough to come by- a person simply needs to be informed. For that I will continue to write. I will continue to inform myself and others around me.

It is coming up on what would be my ten-year high school reunion and it has caused me to spend much time contemplating my life. Technically, I am uneducated African-American from a broken home who has even served jail time and has a brother in prison on a murder conviction and it is important that I point out that I do not have a criminal record. Furthermore, I am probably one of very few students who have ever attended MSU without ever having a high school diploma.

Due to my lack of monies and the efforts of my son’s mother and her family, I have truly learned what it means to represent one’s self in a court of law. I now understand that there are not only strict laws concerning conduct in court, but that half of the battle is in just knowing how to even file a motion correctly. I cannot fully explain what drives some people to hostility and resentment over skin color or economic class. I do not know why my son’s Caucasian grandparents have an inherent disdain for me or why his mother has sided with them. I just know that I have an obligation to raise my son in a healthy fashion and ensure that he is grows up correctly informed about the world he lives in.

To tout my own horn, I can rightfully say that I am awesome. I have battled and won in my fight to be informed. I have been graced with great intelligence and perception. At a young age, I met some men and women who worked hard to repeatedly keep me informed. Two of the names are Orson Scott Card and John Barnes. They are authors who helped me to deal with complicated moral and social issues and I met them via book gifts from teachers and loans from the library.

In the end, I just want to give back. I want for people to not only understand their plight, but to be informed and feel empowered to exercise their inherent rights and abilities. There may be thousands of journalists already in work and more in college, but few of them have seen what I have and understand these issues the way I do. Because of this, I will not stop. I won’t stop no matter how many people have yet to be informed.

Entitlement

This is something that I wrote to my self two and a half years ago.  I did not have any way to save it and I did not want to simply print it out only to have it become lost.  Often times, I wonder if there are others who are going through what I did and feeling all alone.  Feeling as if no one really understands what they are going through and will never assist them in clearing the way.

When I wrote this, I was broke, homeless and saw no way for me to make it back into college.  I was angry and hurt at not having a family to help me.  I was also angry over my encounters with many people who just did not understand what it could possibly be like to only have yourself to depend upon.  No friends.  No family.  No agencies.  Just yourself.

Thank goodness I learned how to type and how to use emails.  I sent this document to myself and with everything that was going on, I forgot about it.  Now, two years later, I smile and am so damn proud of my self.  Not only did I achieve many of my goals, but I had the tenacity to write about my thoughts and feelings.  I articulated what I needed to.  Here on WordPress.com, I see that many others are doing the same.  I am not alone.

Entitlement

By

Etienne L. Fields

Being a young man in this state of Michigan has been very difficult at times. In large part, this is due to the stratification I have suffered under all my life. No matter how I see my self. No matter how good; moral; pious the people around me claim to be, there are always a large number of them who wish to oppress me. From trying to deride me for the way I talk to treating like a villain for demanding equal treatment in the work place.

There have been some persons in my life who have been healthy and supportive influences. These persons told me that I would love college –that once there, I would be free to develop my self and seek out what it is that I want to do with my life. But I haven’t been there yet. Even when at Lansing Community College, I was often restrained. However, I can see a significant difference between a community college student and a university student.

This difference that I speak of is not quantified in hard work. Nor can it be understood by averaging students’ grade point averages. The difference is the realization that a person not only has the right to expect the opportunity to self actualize one’s potential, but should demand it as well. Many people mistake this demand as a sense of privilege and self-entitlement that many Caucasians are said to possess. That Caucasians have an inherent sense of entitlement and should thus let it be expressed. This is a mistake. Just because I am not Caucasian doesn’t mean that I am not entitled to the same environment to develop who I am. Or what I want and how I intend to go about achieving my goals.

If I had my way, I would be at a university. I would be studying history, philosophy, religion and I would converse about these topics with others of like mind. I don’t mean those who simply hold similar opinions, but those who hold the same passions as I do. Outside of a University setting, people rarely discuss these topics in a healthy fashion. Rarely are they appreciative of a person who attempts to.

No matter who I am or where I live, I am entitled to the opportunity to self actualize. I am entitled to be inaccurate and then correct myself. I am so beautiful and I expect to be treated as such. I will not try to prove my self worth, nor gain the respect of others around me.

I am made up of so many wonderful characteristics. If people choose to only speak of my quote-un-quote negative characteristics and judge me upon those- all the while saying how different I am; how weird I am –that is up to them. I will not seek to prove to others about my own self which is self-evident.

If I choose to fly away, they will curse me and throw stones in attempts to sunder me. If I attempt to rationalize with them, they will laugh. Those who would wrench me apart for being better, do so because they choose to.

What is most saddening is that those who choose to attack me are the very reason I am better. They have lowered the bar. They have made themselves less. If I had things my way, I would not be alone in my flight. I would have somewhere to perch myself. If I had my way, I would not be alone in this. If I had my way, I would have the resources to go about this at a place designated for higher thought and significant action.

At a university, I would have my way.

Best Interest of the Child

Last week, during Barack Obama’s acceptance speech, I heard him say to the effect of men need to start stepping up and being better fathers.  He isn’t the first person to make such a claim in the media.  I like Barack Obama, but I’m getting really pissed at here shit like that.

I don’t know how about other states, but from what I’ve read about Ohio and New York, I am assuming that the rest are pretty similar to my state of Michigan.  We have many commercials on television talking about how fathers need to raise their children, about how their children need them and so and son on.  Also, there are commercials about adoption.  I’m sure you’ve all seen them.  They who a mother and child arguing over something or the parent making some sort of mistake.   Then a voice comes on and says something like “You don’t have to be the parent perfect in order to be a foster parent.”

Now this is where I get really fucking angry.

Michigan’s child custody law are written to the effect of courts are only allowed to change custody arrangement for one of two reasons.  First, the parents come to an agreement, which doesn’t happen because if they could agree on it, they wouldn’t be in court.  The other is that there is to be a clear and substantial change of circumstances.  Meaning, the parent with primary physical custody has to go to prison, beat and molest the child, have a spouse who beats and molests the child, be a serious drug addict, be rendered unable to care for the child (i.e. become a quadriplegic).

So why does this make me so fucking mad?  Because I have all these fucking people saying that men need to step up and be fathers to their children, yet the law says that I CANNOT.  It doesn’t matter how clean, safe and great my home is for my son.  I cannot have joint custody.  It does not matter that I have no criminal record and it would benefit my son for him to live with me as well as his mother.  I cannot have joint custody.  It DOES NOT matter how close I live to his mother and how convient it would be for our child.  I CANNOT have joint custody.

Basically, the mother is deemed able to raise the child on her own.  And the father is deemed able to see his child every other week-end and pay a shit load of money.  Is this the way things should be?  Do you all see why I am so pissed?  Yeah.  I’ve gone to my legislators.  They all just look at me like it isn’t a big deal.  Some even say, “Well that’s what happens when you have a kid out of wedlock.”  And then the really fucking stupid ones say things like, “You should save your money and get a lawyer.”  Yeah… save what money?  Recently,  I got yelled at by the judge for not having a two bedroom apartment without a roommate.  So if I am renting a place with two bedrooms all by my self, then how the fuck can I afford pay child support?

So really, what is in the best interest of the child?  To be raised by only one parent and have the other parent treated like a nothing but a damn checkbook?  Or be raised by two loving parents who both have homes for the child and are treated as equals.  I wonder what all the little boys of today are going to feel about raising children when they are Fathers?  I bet they will probably say something like, “That just isn’t on of my values.  That’s just not the way I was raised.”

If you have an opinion about this (which you should) write it down.  Leave a comment.

Music in Film

Often times I get upset and annoyed by something and feel liking telling the world about it.  After a few moments, I start to think of how the matter is actually small and irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.  Then I feel silly about even wanting to write about it.  But hell!  Why shouldn’t I tell the world?  Everyone else does.  And I think that my opinions are among the best out there.  So here this one is.  I want you all to know just how dumb music in movies is.

Unless it is a film based upon music and the music actually occurs in a scene such as in High Fidelity, then it shouldn’t be used.  There is nothing more corny about a almost good movie than having some sythesized mood theme.  It just kills the mood for me.  There are exceptions to this, such as with Star Wars, but those films feature great score writers and orchestral conductors.

This sorry ass phenomenon is more prevelant in TV shows.  I love Star Trek the Next Generation.  It is a television series that dealt with some serious issues in a dramatic and imaginitive way.  However, listening to the damn music used in the show often breaks the illusion of the story.  It reminds me that I’m watching something that could be great, if only it weren’t for some dumb ass directing.  The same thing can be said for so many other shows.  Just flip through the channels and watch some old stuff.

Now I’m going to tell you about something that isn’t exactly music, but still has the same effect of ruining a good story.  Laughter and clapping.  Unless the tv show is Married with Children, I don’t wanna hear anyone laughing or clapping.  If is so damn dumb and pretentious.  I don’t want to hear some invisible people laughing at something that is only marginally funny or clapping because… someone pays them to.

How did all this come about?  Why am I so damn annoyed?  Because right now, I am watching In the Mouth of Madness.  It was a good movie the first time around, but after watching it again, I am just annoyed.  Synthesized instruments are not cool (with the exception of Knight Rider).  Supposedly suspensful music is just annoying!  Of course I’m gonna be surprised at hearing a loud and off pitch sound.  But that is cheap and shows a lack of talent upon the part of the director.

Yeah.  Jaws is good.  Indiana Jones is good.  So is the music in both.  Those are very rare exceptions.  Other directors just need to get some damn common sense and let a film/show’s story be good on its own.

Maybe I’m wrong, but I seriously doubt it.  I hope any present or future directors take my advice and save your selves some embarrassment.

Women and Sexual Edification

Often, I have an encounter with a woman whom I find to be attractive in one fashion or several.  Often times I find certain characteristics she has to be unattractive and this leads me to tread litely in my approach.  However, I have found that women find such a thing to be unattractive for two reasons.  Which are resentment toward the man and a perceived lack of confidence in the man.

The resentment comes about in that they can percieve that the man is not liking something about them and a narcissistic tenancy takes hold of them and causes an emotional response that generally leads to directing insecurities unto the man as his fault.  When instead she should simply ask him what is wrong in earnest and then accept his answer in a healthy manner.  Such as not responding with something like, “Huh… Interesting.” followed by making an excuse to leave the situation.

When it comes to the perceived lack of confidence, I much prefer having to deal with the first flaw than this second.  Plainly put, women who don’t have the perceptive abilities to realize that it is that they are found to be unattractive in some way and not that the man is ill confident are fucking morons.  All too often, women mistake bravado and a man’s poor careless choice in dating partners as confidence.  A man who keeps smiling and keeps up the charm after hearing a women make really dumb statement usually doesn’t care to about being with someone who is of quality.

I would really like to meet more women who understand that it isn’t that a man slows down because he doesn’t know what he wants in a women or is unsure of himself.  It is that he knows what he does not want and is trying to give her a chance to re-convince him that his wallet won’t go to waste on taking her out.  I do realize that there are many, many women out there who can do this, but they are overwhelmingly in the 35 plus age range.  Since I’m 27, I still want some young hot tail.

Maybe I’m wrong about all this stuff, but I really doubt it.

And in case anyone did not understand the title.  What I’m saying is that too many women need for a man to edify their sexuality for them instead of doing some self probing and edifying them selves.

Green Lantern of Sector 2814- John Stewart

Three years ago, I wrote a few beginning pages of a novel about John Stewart.  I ended up losing the pages due to a reformatting mistake of my computer.  At the time, I had heard news of a possible Green Lantern movie.  I had also heard that it would be featuring Hal Jordan or Guy Gardner as the main character.  I thought this to be very odd since John Stewert was the featured Green Lantern in the animated series of Justice League and Justice League Unlimited.

Although, I can understand the marketing of not using John Stewart as the main character.  Plainly put, many viewers are much more comfortable with white heroes.  And when they do see an African American hero, they want it to be in the fashion of Hitch.  A morally and ethically decayed Black man who needs the help of someone White to be all that he can be.  Don’t get me wrong- I liked Hitch.  It was funny and even endearing to me.  But John Stewert simply isn’t that type of character and I don’t think people are ready to see him on the big screen.

Hopefully I”m wrong.  Anyways, I am going to write a novel that features John Stewert.  It will be free and updated with a few pages at least once a week.  I hope you all enjoy it.