Phones and hand jobs!

This week iPhone will be launched by Apple.It says to be the next innovative thing and its coming has been heralded like the coming of Christ. Apple is gaining ever so much on the evil Republic of technology i.e. Microsoft, and that is a good sign.

But there is something to be said about phone technology and how consumers are fascinated with this.It seems the cellphone business is one that is ever changing like its big brother the computer. Folks will line up a mile away and empty their life savings to be on the cutting edge.

I'm not hating on the cellphone makers,( I wish I had a business model like that),but I tend to only use a cellphone to make and receive calls.Texting is neat and beyond that I see no other need for all those features.Why would I want to browse the web on such a small screen to worsen my eyesight?All that fancy schmancy, stuff music and this and that with its crappy sound and stuff who needs it.

I am not anti technology but I believe that some tech's purpose is not to advance mankind but to advance a company's bottom line.No useful and practical purpose whatsoever.The cellphone jive is one of them.$500-$600 for a phone, now that's a high price hand job. Most of the time all you have to do is wait a month or two and the price becomes reasonable.


Besides my country's phone system can only handle so much and any Bahamian who would buy one would be a complete idiot and a phony( no pun intended) in my book.But hey,everyone has a right to be an idiot.So as you get your iPhone and you stroke it with your fingertips.Its vibration and sophisticated "bells and whistles" whip you into an orgasmic euphoria.Its smooth sleek design arouses all of your senses.Give me a call and please don't call collect!

Don't Apologize!

Never apologize for who you are or what you believe!

Artificial insemination

Yesterday on CBS' 60 minutes aired a story about artificial insemination but was concentrating on the sperm donation. A lesbian couple was profiled who had partaken in the process and they decided that they wanted to find out who the donor was. Apparently this info is stored on the Internet by an ID code.The donor can specify if he wanted to be reached.

A turn in the story was that they found out that a single mother who didn't live to far from them had used the same donor.So 60 minutes tracked the donor down.He was now a married doctor who had a child on the way.He said that he did it to help alleviate his tuition cost.The doctor said he had given over 100 samples.They also found other cases where one donor had fathered numerous children through sperm donation.

Watching this I didn't know what to think and it seems neither did the reporting.I have traditionalist views about child bearing.My views are shaped by my religious and social background.A child should be produced through intercourse with a father and mother.But every individual has their choice and I respect that.

I couldn't understand why I felt so indifferent,even after the donor said he won't be in the children's lives.I know through the traditional method many children still end up fatherless.So I understand that view.After further thinking about it, something dawned on me. All of us who had been conceived the natural way,as I put it, was done so with some human interactive emotion.

We were conceived between two people who felt either,passion,lust,anger,euphoria,happiness, revenge or some emotion, good or bad.And I think in a spiritual sort of way that has been imparted to us in our souls.Not to say that these children are soulless but just watching them I just couldn't feel no emotion.I don't know if that was done intentionally by the reporting or if my mind just automatically kicked into a biased mode but I just wasn't feeling it.

Whatever the future holds for these children only God knows.Science may have help in creating them but the universe must still watch over them!I wish them all the best.

Beep, beep, buzzz,shreink!

There are television commercials for a certain credit that shows people making purchases with the card in a mechanical way and everything is running smooth until someone pulls out cash.Then the machine comes to a grinding halt and resumes after that "horrible" cash purchase.

What arrogance!This big company has decided now that we have become slavish and robotic in the use of their product and boldly telling us we can't do without it.Their product makes the world go round!The marketing and advertising people for this company should be fired.


This commercial is an insult to persons who value their personal freedom and liberty.Have we given up the pillars of our individualism for a feeling of being secured?Are we that fearful of cash that we now must be yoked to credit cards and become cogs in the wheel of consumerism?

It is not a coincidence that most of us live in constant fear.Fear is used by our governments, big business ,media houses and advertisers as a weapon in controlling us. Controlling how we think,our responses , what we buy.

I refuse to exchange my soul and spirit for parts, oil,nuts and bolts.Wake up people!Shake of the shackles of fear.Take back your right to be who you are.If not for yourself do it for the next generation.Stop allowing outside forces to shape who you are. Let change come from within.

Thank you for lending me your screen!

Saturday downtime!

Today is downtime for me .So just going to relax go the beach spend some times with friends.

Sports and the juice!

For years I have been a sports fan! I have turned from an avid fan to a casual fan.Not because of what is going on in sports but because I have found so many other things to do.One topic that seems to be on every sports show is the use of performance enhancing drugs,steroids or my favourite "the juice".

The juice is talked about in most sports thus the constant testing of athletes from all types of sports. The governing body of most sports just don't test for a specific substance they also test for the mask substance or the substance you would take to hide that you was taking a banned substance.If that makes sense.

Fans, team owners,the sports media, sponsors and even governments expect normal human beings to perform superhuman feats.The body was only design to do so much, no matter how much "grit and determination" one has. A certain athlete has won an event so many times and has never come under much scrutiny.He has passed all of his tests but couldn't he have found something that cannot be detected?Other athletes are villains while some are revered.

An athlete is placed under so much pressure,granted most make salaries that could clear some countries national debt,but don't we want them not to be ordinary. We want to see men and women run as fast as locomotives.We want to see muscle bound men crash into each other at phenomenal speeds. We want to see someone hit a ball so hard and high it alters the flight pattern of a passing jumbo jet. We want superheroes.

Isn't Superman powered by the sun.The Hulk a radioactive experiment gone wrong.God made flesh and bones not pistons and fuel injected carburetors. Maybe if less emphasis was placed on how incredible it was that men were playing children's games then the juice may stop flowing.

It is no use telling a kid playing sports, don't take the juice, but you have to leap tall buildings in a single bound if you want to make it.It's all entertainment nothing more,nothing less. Actors use makeup, athletes use steroids. Yes steroids destroys the body,and athletes from high school varsity to the pros know this and they still do it.In a weird sort of way they are doing it for you, the avid sports fan. The fan who cries when their team loses.The fan who riots in the streets when their team wins.In some extreme cases, who murders a player for scoring for the other team.

My belief is that everybody does it just that some get caught and some drugs just aren't illegal.So sports' fan, the next time a modern day athlete is about to break one of your revered hero records under suspicion that he was on the juice, remember he is doing it for you and those million dollar homes and wife he has to maintain. He or she is doing it so that you could live out your childhood fantasy through them.

Just get the juice and let's PLAY BALL!

Understanding women!

From the tittle of this blog, most women will think this will be long and detailed.While most men will sit up straight and will correctly guess most of this blog's content.

Understanding women has been a challenge for men from the beginning of time.Many philosophers,scientists and men from all walks of life have partaken in this quest for this treasure.The results of these quests have left men unresolved to finding the truth and in most cases,even more confused than before.

But I am here to say that it has taken me a mere 35 years of living with a mother,grandmother,aunts, cousins, girlfriends and a wife ,to understand women!

Here it is! Don't try to understand them, just love them . Your life will be so less complicated!Be yourself and usually that will attract the type of women who likes your type.God took something from us to create them.It is obvious it was the more complicated part and it makes us complete.

Saying that we are trying to understand them is so condescending so I just do my best as I do with everyone to accept people for who they are and love them all the same.Instructions in a manual are simple, understanding another human being,well I like to think that should be a little more complex, beyond my understanding.

Just a thought!

a thought just came to me:" If millions of scholars can be duped by an ignorant man why be surprised when millions of ignorant men are duped by a scholar."

A Good Day!

With all the wrongs going on around me and in the world,I have hope that today will be a good day! I am trying to do my best to live day by day!

The Forgotten!

Each and every day in the Western media there are constant detail reports of conflicts! Conflicts in the Gaza Strip between Hamas and Fatah,conflict between the U.S. troops and Iraqi insurgents and many other Middle Eastern, Israeli conflicts! I am often pained and amazed at what extent men will go to enforce their religious and political views onto others.

What even pains me more is that how the conflicts in Africa seem to be absent from the media.Why is this? There are ongoing civil wars and conflicts in Angola,Congo,Democratic Republic of Congo,Sudan,Burundi and Ethiopia/Eritrea just to name a few. The world jumped on the "ethnic cleansing" in Kosov but yet seem silent on the "tribal wars" in Africa.

As a "global villager" should I only be concerned about one part of the world and not the next. By the time the international communities step into the African conflicts,hundreds of thousands have already been killed and millions made refugees ( case and point Rawanda). Then we see the IMF and World Bank enter to offer so called relief.

I understand that the instability of the African nations is caused by corruption and lawlessness but aren't all these conflicts, Middle eastern and European included.The colonial powers have raped and robbed Africa of whatever resources they could,have put their support system in place under the guise of independence and left the continent to fend for itself without even a thank you.This indifference and racist attitude have greatly helped in ravaging Africa.

If you look closer and at all the angles,it seems more profitable, for the West, to keep Africa at war than it is in the Middle East.In the meantime hundreds of thousands are dying, millions made homeless and countless women and children being exploited.

I end with a quote from Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa:


" When the missionaries came to Africa, they had the Bible and we had the land.They said 'Let us pray'. We closed our eyes.When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land".

Enjoyed Father's Day!

Yesterday I spent the day with my father and it was great! He runs a small business by the beach and from time to time I stop by to see how he is doing and we always chat for awhile!

My dad and I talked about everything from family to politics to women to state of the world. Whenever we have our sit downs I am always amazed of how much we are so alike and yet different in many ways! Sometimes when he tells me of past experiences it is eerie because alot of them is what I have seen or done in my life. Yesterday was no exception! I am always impressed with his views on things and he often times leave me with something to think about!

I truly enjoyed my day and hope to have many more like them!

Happy Father's Day!

This goes out to all the fathers everywhere. To the fathers who have packed lunches,made the school runs and cooked the meals. To the fathers who haven't missed a game,a recital, a play or making sure all dentist and doctor appointments were made.

This goes out to the fathers who have taught how to throw and catch a baseball,softball, a football. The fathers who helped perfect a jump shot,slap shot,a hat trick.

It also goes out to the fathers who worked hard to ensure food is on the table,bills are being met,kids get a good education. To the fathers who can sit down and watch cartoons with the kids,play tea party or just joke and laugh.

This especially goes out to the fathers,who like mine, taught valuable lessons and gave the confidence so that you believed you could be whatever you wanted to be.

Happy Father's Day,Papa,Dad,Pops and this day is just one of many, that I appreciate you and thank you for making me who I am!

Chilling

There is nothing like a day off from slaving all week! Just chilling today.

Perseverance

Recently ,I have read a story about a 73 year old Indian farmer who has taken and failed his high school exam for the 38th time! He has vowed that he will not get married until he passes . From 1969, when he was in his 30's, he has been taken the exam which he usually has problem with in the math section.

Now if that isn't perseverance in a day and age where folks give up at the drop of a dime,then you tell me what is! Not only that, he is revising for his 39th attempt so, as he says, he can marry a girl under 30. Some may say that he is a failure but what hasn't failed him is his belief that he will succeed.

Always remember, it is not how many times you fall down but how many times you get up!

Summer is here!

Now that summer is here and the heat and humidity have begun, two things are of much concern to me, hurricanes and personal heat discomfort.

With this region already in the hurricane season all one can do is be well prepared ,take all the necessary precautions,and hope and pray for the best.With personal heat discomfort one thing islanders can do , go to the beach!

In the Bahamas a beach is always within either walking distance or a short drive.That is good especially if you work outdoors like me. Air condition is cool ( no pun indeed) but there is nothing like stopping to the beach before you go home and taking a nice cool dip!For me yesterday was no exception!

I pulled up to the water's edge stepped out my car and first allowed all my senses to experience the moment.The feel of the cool breeze against my face.The sound of waves softly lapping on the shore.The smell of the fresh, salty sea air.The taste you get in the back of your mouth as you breathe in. The sight of turquoise blue water meeting seamlessly with an orange tinted sun setting sky.

Peeling of my uniform and shoes I exposed my "non beach" body and headed for the water.The feeling of nice, soft, powdery sand under my feet and between my toes is a welcomed one. As I entered the water, the contrast between the sun on your body and the coolness of the water at your feet immediately gives you chill bumps.

I walked out a few feet sloshing through the water and dove underneath the waves.surfaced a few feet out,threaded water a little and then turned over and floated on my back.Jealous yet you should be! Closing my eyes and relaxing all my muscles, I floated and allowed the sea to carry me away! What a wonderful way to end the day!

Promised help for Africa!

One conclusion about the G8 summit that I am excited about ,is the promise from the most powerful nations in the world to allocate $60 billion to fight AIDS,malaria and tuberculosis in Africa.These diseases have ravaged the sub region of the continent and being of Afro descent this is welcomed news.

I applaud this effort and my hope is that all the funds are delivered in a timely basis as other "promised" funds from certain nations have yet to be seen.

My excitement exists because I have had a few family members and friends die from AIDS.The disease itself is so devastating and tragic but what disturbs me most is the stigmatises attached to the disease. This disease is indiscriminate towards sex,race,religion or creed.I hope now that even more funds and resources will be found and used for its total eradication.

Let us all remember disease and sickness has no one owner.Have compassion!

Crime and punishment

There is a report by the Associated Press of academic studies that claims the death penalty is a deterrent to murder.The studies suggest that between three and 18 lives would be saved by the execution of each convicted killer.While I am wary of all surveys,studies and polls this one is quite interesting.

The death penalty is considered cruel and inhumane in civilized societies so it has been banned in many.It is also cruel and inhumane for a civilized society to lock up an individual for the rest of his life to languish.It is even more cruel and inhumane to release a criminal, who hasn't been reformed,upon an unsuspecting civilized society. What's a civilized society to do?


It is my belief that in a democratic society,one of the duties of its government is to ensure the safety of its citizens.In a country like the Bahamas,whose economy is based on tourism, the "safety net" must also extend to its visitors.So crime especially murder,can have a devastating effect, not only on law abiding individuals but also to a country's financial stability thus affecting the quality of life.

Let countries decide for themselves whether the death penalty should or should not remain on their law books without the rest of the world labeling them.After all justice is blind and She does have sword!

Paul you naughty boy!

On June 30th Paul Wolfowitz will officially step down as the president of the World Bank. Mr. Wolfowitz resigns under allegations of giving a generous and unauthorized pay incentive, and a promotion, to his companion Ms. Shaha Riza, a bank employee.

As Mr. Robert Zoellick, the newly appointed president is touring the world and trying to regain the confidence of the nations of the world ,Mr. Wolfowitz is blaming the media and the bank employees in aiding to force his resignation.

While Mr. Wolfowitz actions aren't unheard where I am from, you really don't expect it from the most elite bank. One of Mr. Paul Wolfowitz's objective as president was to wipe out corruption in countries who received aid from the World Bank. I guess it must not have applied to the bank itself.It truly isn't a big world after all!

A new beginning

Living in the Bahamas a small island nation you tend to be isolated from the rest of the world yet the changes of the world can affect you immensely.Our proximity to the United States has coined an adage here "when the US cough we get the cold".A former British colony and the Gateway to the New World ,the Bahamas has a unique quality we seem to be the transitional melting point between the Old World and the New World.An example our architecture, to me, seems to be a mixture of foundational colonial and functioning modern American style.
Discovered by Christopher Columbus, an Italian,under a commission from Spain thus being traded to the British and now dependant upon the U.S. economically,you can say that the Bahamas has seen its shares of "conquerors".But I am not using this platform to rant and rave about the countrie's position with respect to the international community rather this is soapbox which I hope will be the voice for all islanders,people from small countries and anyone in general who feels they need to be heard.To often our countries policies are not a reflection of our views as the masses but rather they are shaped by nations larger than us who impose them on our leaders under the guise of becoming "developed".Don't get me wrong some of them are excellent but sometimes they can have an adverse affect on a small nation. A small nation can become easily engulfed and soon its sovereignty,culture and way of life is lost an is replaced by one that is foreign and often without substance.
All this being said I hope to daily express my views on current events and what I think it means to my country and myself and sometimes give the reader an insight on life in the Bahamas. Be forewarned my views may be controversial or even off the wall but I will try my utmost best to put up content that is interesting, insightful and hopefully get you to see the world through the eyes of an islander.