Target: expect more, pay more

Target: Expect more, pay MORE. Yes, I said it. The shopping experience is better at Target because you don’t feel like you’re in a race with the entire city to stock up on groceries like doomsday preppers like when you’re in Wal-mart. 

At Wal-mart there’s an EXIT above one door and ENTRANCE above the other door. However, you have idiots that enter through the EXIT door and run into shoppers leaving the store. Then you have idiots that exit through the ENTRANCE run into people that are trying to enter the store. At Target there’s only one way to exit and one way to enter. The middle is partitioned off and reserved for shopping carts. 

Target thoughtfully offers an ample number of cashiers at each register in order to ensure that customers can pay for their groceries and exit in a timely manner. At Wal-mart there could be 40,000 people waiting to check out and a gasoline fire in women’s clothing but they will NEVER offer more than just 3 cashiers at any time of the day or night. 

Though Wal-mart has a wider selection and cheaper products, Target offers a better shopping experience and a smaller quantity of higher quality yet more expensive products. Wal-mart parking lots are almost always congested while Target parking lots seem more orderly. So, when I don’t feel like being run over by one track-minded shoppers I go to Target. When I’m broke and I feel like shopping at 1AM I go to Wal-mart.

Blacks Without Borders

On several occasions my wife and I have discussed becoming ex-patriots when we reach retirement age and move abroad. Let me make myself clear in saying that when we do reach retirement age that doesn’t mean we’ll actually retire in the sense that we will quit the 9 to 5, sleep late and watch the remainder of our lives pass us by while sipping a glass of iced tea on the porch. Our goal is to work in a capacity that we can remain relevant and viable yet not have to adhere to a traditional, tedious day-to-day schedule. We’ve both decided to make the transition from teaching and pursue medical careers considering the growing population of older people on the planet and the decreasing number of licensed doctors and nurses. 

At first we considered England since Alecia lived there for a several months. However, the weather, bland food, and touch and go economy proved to be rather discouraging. The next choice: Belize. Yes, the land is cheap and real estate is hot but Belize as a whole leaves a lot to be desired. To go from living in the U.S. to sparse island living sounds romantic but in reality is a little too rustic for our taste. Yesterday, we were lounging while flipping channels and came upon a program on the Documentary channel about successful African Americans that have moved to South Africa, blazed a trail and enjoy a life of relatively superfluous yet economical luxury.

 It’s almost mind-boggling to find out that for the price of my new house here in the states I could purchase an 18,000 square foot fixer-upper in South Africa, remodel it and have it lavishly furnished. But living like a rock star isn’t the only reason to move to the motherland. With each year that goes by I feel less and less connected to a country that feels to be on the verge of ripping itself apart from the inside out. Don’t think I haven’t thought about the pros and the cons of not only moving abroad but also moving to a country where xenophobia is prevalent amongst the indigenous people.

In my experience of not only befriending Africans but also interacting with them on an interpersonal level I’ve come to find that simply being gregarious, humble, genuine, respectful and respectable is invaluable. After watching this documentary we seem to have found a new lease on life, a new goal to strive for—to actually live in a country where the government, society, and economy is run entirely by Africans and experiencing a promising influx of African Americans whose shared goal is to build a new Africa, enjoy the fruits of their labor and indulge in peace and prosperity. 

Stop lying on Barack S.L.O.B.

Imagine it’s your first day at work on a new job as CEO of a major corporation. You walk into your office building and it looks like terrorists have suicide bombed the first nine floors. The floor is littered with unidentifiable bodies as first responders comb the rubble for survivors and tend to the wounded. Suddenly, everyone turns their attention to you and blames you for this utter catastrophe. Sounds like an episode from The Twilight Zone. Actually, it’s just a day in the life of President Barack Obama’s first term.

Right wing, conservative radio talkshow personalities foamed at the mouth as they railed on and on about Mr. do-nothing Obama brought the national deficit to the 5 trillion dollar mark, hitting trillion dollar status for the first time in U.S. history. However, at the end of his second term in 2008, George W. Bush quietly slipped out of the White House back door leaving behind a 7 trillion dollar deficit due to the subprime mortgage crisis. The subprime mortgage market grew 292% under George W. Bush. The Bush administration relaxed regulatory practices and encouraged banks, namely Fannie and Freddie, through financial incentives to grant mortgages to anybody with a pulse—ergo predatory lending, which fermented around 2002 during the Bush administration. Bottom line—stop lying on Barack. The national deficit would not be where it is today if not for the lies that were told and the back door deals that were made under a Bush administration.

Stop lying on Barack—I know right wing conservatives would like to think that at the end of a republican president’s time in office some kind of reset button is pressed and all of the lies that have been told, crimes that have been committed against humanity, and injustices against minorities that have transpired can simply disappear. But you can’t make 7 trillion dollars disappear and all of a sudden blame President Obama for 5 trillion of that inertial debt. The Federal Reserve under a Bush administration can try to hide the $1.2 trillion dollar loan they gave to troubled banks but it’s going to appear again under a new administration. You can try to hide pesky little deals like government backed financial incentives offered to Freddie Mac encouraging them to package bogus loans and drop them off on unsuspecting citizens. But the aftermath of such disengenuous acts surfaced in the new administration. You can pretend that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac didn’t exist in the capacity that they did under a Bush administration but you can’t ignore the ramifications of being in possession of $5 trillion dollars worth of troubled assets.

Many pundits played on the selective memories of Obama haters when they whinned and moaned about gas reaching $4.00 a gallon, and boldly forecasted that gas would reach $5.00 by summer of 2012. However, they neglected to remind these same Obama haters that in the summer of 2008 gas prices rose above $4.00 a gallon and crude oil peaked at $147 per barrel. Anti-Obama drones prefer to sidestep that ugly truth and choose instead to shine the spotlight on the cost of gas at the end of the calender year, which was around $1.68 a gallon, as if the price of gas had never risen—as if gas didn’t also drastically increase from around $1.64 a gallon to $2.10 a gallon at the beginning of the Iraq war. The bottom line is stop lying on Barack—Presidents have no control over the price of gas. Well, unless they wage a preemptive strike on a country based on lies and nonexistent intel.

Under President Barack Obama there are more American citizens on food stamps than under any other president in history. Stop lying on Barack. Over 400,000 more people were on welfare under a Bush Administration. But the ring wing conservatives are right about one thing. George Bush did try his darndest to keep lazy Americans off of the welfare system and out of the pockets of hard-working taxpayers dollars—or did he? George Bush wanted to put an end to the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). If not for President Obama’s reauthorization act, millions of children would be without healthcare coverage. Even if more people became welfare recipients under Obama you can’t ignore the criminal practices that occured under Bush that brought about the great recession and pretend like there shouldn’t be any ramifications from the housing bubble bursting. That’s like holding the new owner of a used car responsible for damages incurred on a used car before the new owner took possession of the vehicle. That’s why they have lemon laws and that’s why people need to stop lying on Barack.

Childhood Obesity

Obesity-enabling parents: Since when is it okay to drive your child to the bus stop, park your car, and wait for the bus to come pick up your child? The only thing that’s worse than sitting there waiting on the school bus to pick up your fat cells-storing child  is to also sit there and wait for the bus to drop your child off at the end of the day.

The reason why I bring this up is because I’ve noticed in the last few years that parents are driving their kids to the bus stop and waiting with their children in the morning, and waiting to pick them up in the afternoon. I would understand if they lived a few miles away but if the bus stop is only couple blocks away then that’s ridiculous. As if it isn’t bad enough that kids spend too much time in the house being engaged in video games and a plethora of other forms of technology.

I had a childhood friend whose mother stocked the kitchen cabinets with junk. You would have thought you were in the candy aisle at super Wal-mart the way every square inch of cabinet space was stocked with Ding Dongs, Ho Ho’s, Lucky Charms, Count Chocula, Pepsi, Coke….well, you get the point. My childhood friend died at the age of 25 and tipped the scales at around 350 pounds.

I’m not going to waste time talking about the statistics of kids that have childhood diabetes and a host of other health problems that stem from poor eating habits and lack of exercise. Don’t be an enabler of foreshortening your child’s lifespan as well as a detriment to your child’s future health and standard of living. Back in the day if a kid lived within 2 miles of a school that kid walked to school and back home on his or her own. If kids had to catch the school bus they walked to wherever the school bus stopped whether it was rain or shine, freezing cold or blazing hot and waited there—actually standing on his or her own two feet.  

Checking White America

Twice as many Republicans as Democrats say there’s been too much media coverage of the death of unarmed Florida teen Trayvon Martin, a new survey finds. Are you serious, white people? If that’s the case, then mainstream media and entertainment needs to stop sensationalizing crimes against white youth decades after the crimes have been committed.

Case in point: Natalee Halloway, Adam Walsh, Elizabeth Smart and the dozens of other white youth who have become household names and been immortalized by documentaries, tabloid news programming, and made for T.V. movies. Adam Walsh was killed over 30 years ago—I can remember it like it was yesterday—All major network news stations covered the Adam Walsh case 24 hours a day, 7 days a week until his body was finally found. Adam’s father, John Walsh, used the fame he captured through media coverage of his son’s death and was catapulted into stardom through hosting his show, America’s Most Wanted for over 20 years after his son’s death. Am I hating on the man? Hell no. But facts are facts—plain and simple.

The abduction of Elizabeth Smart in 2002 recieved unprecedented media coverage not to mention a spot on—yes—America’s Most Wanted. Smart was interviewed on Dateline NBC after she was found and returned to her parents. Elizabeth remained in the media as America watched her grow up, meet President George W. Bush (pictured right), graduate from college, and get married. Elizabeth Smart got a book deal as well as a made for T.V. movie made in her honor.

The world nearly stopped revolving when Natalee Halloway didn’t appear on her return flight from Aruba on May 30th 2005. An investigation immediatley ensued and a preemptive strike of Mogadishu proportions decended upon the tiny caribbean island of Aruba resulting in the mistaken arrest of two Aruban locals, Abraham Jones (pictured left) and Nick John. With no evidence both men were jailed for several days then released. They were subsequently arrested again due to hearsay, then released.

Meanwhile, suspicion was immediately waved from Halloway’s true killer, Joran Van Der Sloot—he went free, wrote a book and continued to kill. Media coverage jammed all forms of communication with the Natalee Halloway case 24-7-365. Thousands of Aruban locals, United States citizens, FBI special agents, Aruban civil servants as well as 50 Dutch Marines searched for Natalee’s remains. The Royal Netherlands Air Force also got involved and deployed three F-16 aircraft equipped with infrared sensors and scanned the caribbean. There are over 200 references alone on the Natalee Halloway Wikipedia page. I decided to Wiki the United States—the most powerful nation in the world, in human history only has 44 more references.

Natalee’s mother, Beth, kicked back at the Wyndham hotel’s presidential suite in Aruba as she talked then Governor of Alabama Bob Riley(R) into boycotting Aruba. They even went so far as to try to convince the U.S. government into participating in the boycott. 

Aruban tourism officials worked to restore its industry’s reputation in the aftermath of this fiasco with a series of T.V. ads reassuring people that the coast is literally and figuratively clear. All this for one white girl. Natalee Halloway continues to surface from time to time in local and national media to this day as she was just declared dead in 2011. Do I need to talk about the 3 day-long made for T.V. movie? They arrested everybody within 50 square miles and turned over every sea turtle, conch, and grain of sand—even a few digested scraps of fabric that washed up on shore but they can’t find George Zimmerman right here in the United States.

The examples I’ve presented are just a few in the long list of crimes against white youth that have been overblown far, far beyond their worth by any stretch of the immagination yet there has never been any kind of outcry against the unfeddered media coverage white victims receive to this day. Forget the ‘Republican’ and ‘Democrat’ labels. White people you need to check yourselves.