What I Think about 9/11

As with most Americans, I can remember vividly what I saw and how I felt on 9/11/2001.  I remember the helplessness I felt watching the TV, my frustration at the lack of information as that long morning and afternoon progressed, the fury I felt towards those who did this to us.  I remember the long night sitting at home watching the replay of the day’s events over and over again, barely believing what had happened.  I knew then, as I’m sure we all did, that everything had changed.  I wrote down my thoughts and feelings in a document that is lost in the ether of my old computer.  I remember the crux of it though … 9/11 was a massively important day in history, a day that would be remembered all my life and beyond.  With the 10th Anniversary of that day finally here, it’s clear how true that still is … we all still remember.  We look back on 10 years and marvel at the things we’ve seen, the things we did, the lives lost, the lives forever changed.  I could never have predicted or imagined the world we live in today.

For me though, 9/11 taught me what heroism really is.  Before 9/11, it was a general concept applied primarily to the long dead.  The heroes of World War II and the wars since.  The firefighters and policemen whose names are forgotten so quickly and whose actions are lost in time.  When I think of a hero today I immediately think of those men and women who ran into the Twin Towers, ran into the flames, knowing full well the risks.  I remember the everyday men and women on Flight 93 and their brave acts.  I remember their selflessness and their sacrifice.  They are true heroes, and all of us who remain have a very high bar to reach to compare to them.  And I remember how great this country is and how amazing our people can be.

9/11 hurts, make no mistake, but it also uplifts.  It reminds of us of the human race at our worst and at our best.  We can see clearly, in the course of a single day, the great potential of us all in how we can impact the lives of those around us.  We can choose to care for each other, to sacrifice ourselves for each other, to take pride in our country and our way of life.  Those brave souls who died on 9/11 taught me that, and teach me that again each and every day.  To them I say, God bless you and may he bring you rest.  For the rest of us I say, never forget, never surrender and never be less than those heroes who came before us.

What I Think about Gang Violence

I think the dumbest people in the world are gang members.

When I say "gang" I'm referring to groups of folks, usually in their teens to 30's (assuming they live that long), who, for reasons of their own, have bonded together into a loyal cadre, usually within a specific geographic region or common ethnicity. The goal of the gangs I'm talking about are not to better its members or the community they live in. Their goal is to dominate that community, to control it through violence, intimidation and exploitation. Since there's usually more than one gang in a community, there is violent competition between gangs for control.

Insanity.

Communities thrive when we help each other, lift each other up, help each other out. A community controlled by a gang is pushed down, ridiculed for yet another violent act in their neighborhood, admonished for their savagery, and worst of all soiled by the acts and attitude of the local gangs. If I walk through a neighborhood where there had been a drive-by shooting, I can see kids playing in the yards, someone mows their yard or cares for a garden. In appearance, the neighborhood is unlike any other. However, underneath that facade is a world where the next car driving down the street could hold someone who will shoot at you, attempt to rob or extort you or sell you drugs to fund their petty operations.

Gang members feel good about themselves. They have power through their guns and drugs and intimidation tactics. They feel in control. They have money. They feel accepted by their fellow gang members, and they feel obligated to follow whatever negative path they choose. Thus, the membership of the gangs continues to grow and feed the violence.

I'm sad to admit that part of me wants to just let them fight it out and kill each other. If they are so hell-bent to dominate and wage war, then let them! Let them wipe each other out as so many societies have done in the past. Gang members aren't going to be contributing to the welfare of their communities, strive to advance some noble cause, or heaven forbid make the world a better place. No, all they want is power, control and money. Well, instead of feeding off your community like the parasite you are, just kill each other and be done with it. That's your fate anyhow, a rival gang member is scheming to see to that right now.

Anyone who joins a gang, picks up a gun, sells a drug, etc. has no right whatsoever to feel good about themselves. They are parasites, sucking the life out of themselves, their families, their neighborhoods, hell, society itself. You are de-evolving the human race, forcing us to feed off each other rather than live together and thrive. You are wastes of space and you're using up valuable resources that more worthy humans, animals and single-cell organisms deserve. Please, just kill each other and let us go on with our meaningful lives without having to deal with your bullshit.

But, I like to think there is more to people, that we can exercise our free will and make good choices. We can choose to abstain from violence, choose to find professions that don't take advantage of the weaknesses of others (i.e. drugs), choose to make the world better rather than control it. But that requires everyone to do that. Even if one person grabs a gun and wants to take control, the problem starts up all over again. I call on parents to raise your children to stay out of gangs, to strive to make the world a better place rather than quash or dominate it, to set an example of how a modern human being should live. It starts with the parents. If they can teach their kids to be better people then violent gangs can disappear forever.

What I Think about Facebook

I can recall vividly the first time I heard the word "Internet" used. It was the fall of 1996. 14 years later, I can't imagine my world without it. Not just 3 years ago I was sitting in the cafeteria of a church in Biloxi, MS when Bret Norton asked me if I wanted her to create a Facebook account for me. I thought, what the heck, knowing full well that my MySpace site was coming along just nicely. A year later, the plug-ins on my MySpace page began to fail and I decided to see what Bret and so many others from my church had been talking about. I quickly became a hardcore Facebook user (and leaving my MySpace page behind for good). Since then, I have done the following:

- Reconnected with dozens of elementary, high school and college friends, most of whom I hadn't heard from in years.
- Found new ways to share stories, photos and links with my "core" group of friends.
- Found new ways to connect with members of my church, workplace and other activities I've done, like Camp Floyd Rogers and PCM Youth Group.
- Reconnected with ex-girlfriends.
- Learned the latest news about ex-friends.
- At times, learned WAY more about the lives and feelings of my friends.
- Reviewed the interests of potential employees and girlfriends.

Facebook is a wonderful tool for connecting people over this flat world. Accessible from anywhere in the world, including my smartphone, I can be sitting in the airport and get updates on my friends, send them notes about where I am and what I've seen, and stay connected to those people who matter most to me in the world.

As much as I would like to make Facebook mandatory for people to use and update at least once a week, I have noticed a few good and bad things ...

- Games and applications in Facebook bore the crap out of me. Anyone who is addicted, and they do get addicted, to Farmville and/or Mafia Wars have my pity. I enjoy a good game as much as the next guy, but that stuff would put me to sleep. Instead, I have to comb through countless updates for these apps from my friends. I'm very happy that they have managed to build families of anteaters while their kids are getting C's on their homework assignments.
- Attention all college students ... the adults you added as friends in high school are reading about all the shit you're doing in college. We can even see the pictures. Please note BEFORE updating your information.
- It's okay to curse once in a while, but think of it like public speaking ... eventually you're going to upset people, and rightfully so.
- I'm amazed there aren't more outbreaks of spyware from Facebook.
- As much as I would like them to see all the pictures and stories from my life on a daily basis, I'm actually pretty glad most of my family (especially my parents) do not have Facebook accounts.
- I swear, when I filled out the "Interested" portion of the personal information, I thought they meant "interested in meeting" not "interested in relationships with." If I'd know that, I wouldn't have had men and women selected, just the womenfolk. Sorry, guys.
- It's funny and sad that I learn more about my friends' relationships from Facebook statuses than from them directly. You want to know if a couple is still together? Check their Facebook info.
- It still seems hard to meet single people through Facebook. Now, getting to know someone through Facebook is easy as pie.
- Did I mention how annoying the application updates are?
- Facebook Stalking ... it's safer than doing it in real life.
- Thank god people have an unwritten discipline to use Twitter for hourly updates and Facebook for the important stuff.

Where will Facebook end? Will they start charging for it? Will we become a society who relies more on texts and Facebook messages to communicate with each other? I hope we never get so distanced from each other, but you've got to admit it's an easier way to let 500+ people know my latest good/bad news without making so many phone calls, e-mails or personal appearances. If nothing else, it's allowed me to connect with more people throughout the world ... especially those people who found out about this blog through my Facebook account.

What I Think about Male Enhancement Drug Commercials

There is an epidemic in the U.S., one that has quietly slipped in and taken hold over a sizable portion of the male population. It somehow became a more widespread affliction than AIDS, swine flu and, hell, prostate cancer. The epidemic is penile dysfunction ... at least, I have to think it is.

Consider for a moment all of the television you have watched so far since the beginning of 2010. Good. Now, think about the commercials you've watched during your favorite shows. Aside from those annoying E-Trade babies, what is the most-mentioned theme of those commercials? Well, considering this blog is about "male enhancement drugs" you'd better be guessing along the lines of what I'm thinking. Yes, I'd say an easy 30% of the commercials I've seen in the past 3 months have been about these little pills, each with names that make me think of anything other than my penis, which will somehow enhance my love life (no matter what my age may be). Add that to the number of spam e-mails I get every day, at no point in my life have I had some many companies concerned about the welfare and performance of my penis. They're so nice.

Now, here's the kicker ... it's not just about getting it going for when your lady needs some. Nope, now it's about making it awesome whenever your lady needs some. When Viagra came out, it was definitely the pill to help erectile dysfunction. If memory serves, there was statistically a portion of the male population who had problems getting it up due to whatever circumstances. But now, it's not just about helping those men out ... now it's about making you a better lover. Huh? It's as if the 30% of the male population needs help to get ready for sex! I don't buy that.

Commercials for these pills don't focus on overcoming a deficiency as much as they are about being able to make fantastic love at a moment's notice. Not that I'm opposed to it, but is the problem so widespread that we need a commercial twice every 30 minutes? Guys, is it really that hard to get going when your lady starts to shimmy in front of you the way you like? If the problem is that big (hee, hee) then fine, bring on the blue pills and let's save our libidos. If not, can we tone down the commercials a bit? If nothing else put research money into curing diseases that kill us instead of conditions that if they last longer than 4 hours ... well, you get the point.

What I Think about Fat People in Hollywood

I hate to say it, but I happen to agree with Howard Stern. This past week he said that actress Gabourey Sidibe will "never be in another movie" because she's "enormous." Since then, many people including Jessica Simpson have come out and said that he was wrong to say it. But let's face it ... he's right. We Americans, particularly when it comes to our popular culture, treat people differently if their bodies have even the smallest of beer bellies. The people we choose to lavish with adoration and try to emulate are the super-thin, almost transparent celebrities usually with rippling muscles to show-off in their performances. I haven't seen "Precious" but it's a good bet Sidibe is a better actor than Robert Pattinson. But whose every move do we follow, spend hundreds of dollars to purchase things with his picture on it, and who do young women want their boyfriends to look and act like? That's right, the thin, charaismatic guy.

In a perfect world, the amount of praise and adoration we give to individuals would be based more on merit, personality and achievements than looks, but we don't live in that world and probably never will. While it is an achievement to work out and develop the healthy physique that casting directors and photographers look for, it is perhaps a greater achievement to be an excellent person of high moral caliber and talent. But that just doesn't make money for anyone, whereas the beautiful people can bring in the dough.

So Jessica, Oprah and anyone else out there who thinks that the world is changing and we're ready to accept celebrities as fat as Sidibe, take another hard look at the world we live in. Nothing has changed. Hollywood, as well as American culture, will never value a fat person as much as the thin person because our society is more attracted and interested in the beautiful people. That goes all the way from Hollywood down to the local bars to the pictures we put on our blog sites (guilty). We are a society that uses physical appearance as one of the main qualifications for whom we choose to respect. That means if Sidibe wants to be respected as much as Sandra Bullock or Meryl Streep, she'd better drop about 200 pounds.