GET INFORMED

So the way I see it, everyone’s got the right to believe what they want. You wanna believe the things I consider absolutely insane – things like: Holocaust denial; no moon landing; that Dane Cook is AWESOME – go right ahead. Long as you’re not hurting anyone, or trying force some impressionable youth to follow your beliefs, then it’s all good in the hood. [READ MORE]

So, check this link out. Read it. Chew it over. Digest it.

Basically, I’m wondering, for each of you, where is that line? We’re talking about children here, and there are a whole host of other issues wrapped up in it. [READ MORE]

One thing I learned from spending the last few days in Beijing is that you can really make your dollars stretch there. You could be stupid and go upscale and stay in a 5-star hotel if you want, and you can find yourself ripped off by shady cabbies if you’re not being a smart traveler (lessons learned on day one...), but I was able to stay significantly under my budget for my trip, and this is without skipping anything I wanted to do. In fact I did more than I originally planned. (Going during low season also helped, which is another thing to keep in mind.) [READ MORE]

I always wonder what initiated our universe, or if multiple universes exist, the first universe. If you think of it chronologically, things can’t appear suddenly without precedent, and hence nothing logical can explain the origin of origin. Theories are therefore pure speculation and there is little mention of a pre-big bang period. In trying to cook something up, I’ve conjectured that before the appearance of the infinitely massive particle that started everything, time did not exist; hence, everything was connected, allowing the accumulation of the decayed mass of another universe existing on its own timeline. However, my argument is still plagued by the chicken/egg dilemma, for it just assumes the (first) universe existed. In fact, there are endless iterations of this problem when you try to go from nothingness to existence; even if you presuppose the existence of a self-emanating god you must account for the creation of its will, and the creation of the creation of its will, and so on. [READ MORE]

So we killed them. The group is gone, much to the dismay of some who stood up for their rights. Once again, pictures of dead bodies (relatives of others) with the caption “Dead Nigger Storage,” is not just speech, is not protected everywhere, and certainly not by the rules of Facebook. (Let’s not go into this again, please.) [READ MORE]

I think, on this day, it would be far more appropriate for me to give the floor to someone else.

No, I’m not talking about Akil and Matt, who should be picking up the slack for me while I’m bouncing around Asia the next few weeks (though I will be posting occasionally). [READ MORE]

Newton’s third law of motion reads, in the colloquial form, "To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." It may be a bit of a stretch, but I think this can be applied to human behavior as well.

As you might expect, I have nothing but sympathy for everyone suffering in Haiti, and for their friends and families in other countries. I gave as much money as I could afford to, and although it’s distressing that it took something like this for people to realize how impoverished Haiti is, there are thousands and thousands of people performing commendable and downright heroic acts to help out everyone affected by the disaster. [READ MORE]

By most definitions of the utterly bullshit phrase, I do “talk white.” There are “gs” at the end of my gerunds. When I say “all right,” it contains two “ls” and one “r.” And, aside from censoring out the profanity, I don’t really have to change the way I speak when I go to an interview. [READ MORE]

Keeping the focus narrow today, folks. I wanted to present some words by James Baldwin (the coolest person to share my third name) and discuss it up close and personal-like.

Baldwin said, "I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain." [READ MORE]

So I posted this article earlier in the week. Wednesday I think. And some of you have read it, I’m sure.

Along with seeing “Up In The Air,” which you should check out if you have the chance, it really got me thinking about my relationships and my connections in life. [READ MORE]