96 Billion Lbs Of Food Wasted In US In 1 Year

Another Obama Pastor Problem (Video here)

CHICAGO (AP) — Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Thursday that he was "deeply disappointed" by a supporter's sermon at his church that mocked Hillary Rodham Clinton. The Rev. Michael Pfleger, a White Chicago activist, also apologized for last Sunday's sermon at Obama's church, in which he said Clinton's eyes welled with tears before the New Hampshire primary because she felt "entitled" to the Democratic nomination and because "there's a black man stealing my show."

Michelle Obama lynched by the KKK?

Why in the world would someone create this cartoon and post it on a MAINSTREAM NEWS website? (Of course, they pulled it down now...so, no use mentioning the site)

My initial reactions to the picture:

1. WTF?
2. Well, why should I be surprised? We all know how certain people feel about blacks...
3. First the negative talk about "assassinations"....now, people are suggesting lynching? I am scared for Obama AND Michelle....
4. Why do they have her in a sexually provocative red dress, suggesting that she is not the family woman and faithful wife she appears to be?
5. Why are they BRANDING her like an animal? Despite her intelligence, charisma, and educational background, it appears that many people still see her as nothing more than a wild animal that needs to be controlled and tamed....

Sometimes I feel that no matter how educated, articulate, intelligent, kind, and moral I am, many White people still view me as "less than human."

The Value of a Human Life: $129,000

By KATHLEEN KINGSBURY , an article found on Time.com

In theory, a year of human life is priceless. In reality, it's worth $50,000.

That's the international standard most private and government-run health insurance plans worldwide use to determine whether to cover a new medical procedure. More simply, insurance companies calculate that to make a treatment worth its cost, it must guarantee one year of "quality life" for $50,000 or less. New research, however, would argue that that figure is far too low.

Stanford economists have demonstrated that the average value of a year of quality human life is actually closer to about $129,000. To get to that number, Stefanos Zenios and his colleagues at Stanford Graduate School of Business used kidney dialysis as a benchmark. Every year dialysis saves the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans who would otherwise die of renal failure while waiting for an organ transplant. It is also the one procedure that Medicare has covered unconditionally since 1972 despite rapid and sometimes expensive innovations in its administration. To tally the cost-effectiveness of such innovations Zenios and his colleagues ran a computer analysis of more than half a million patients who underwent dialysis, adding up costs and comparing that data to treatment outcomes. Considering both inflation and new technologies in dialysis, they arrived at $129,000 as a more appropriate threshold for deciding coverage.

"That means that if Medicare paid an additional $129,000 to treat a group of patients, on average, group members would get one more quality-adjusted life year," Zenios says. Based on patient surveys, one "quality of life" year is defined as about two years of life on dialysis.

Zenios's conclusions arrive amidst mounting debate over whether Medicare, the U.S. government health plan for seniors, ought to use cost-effectiveness analysis in determining coverage of procedures. Nearly all other industrial nations — including Canada, Britain and the Netherlands — ration health care based on cost-effectiveness and the $50,000 threshold. Medicare, on the other hand, decides whether to pay for new technology based on whether a treatment is "medically necessary and appropriate." But as health care expenses rise and entitlement programs grow fiscally strapped — at least one part of Medicare is now expected to be bankrupt by 2019 — more and more academics have called for this approach to be reconsidered, and for cost to become a factor. Such a move would mean that "if the incremental cost of a new technology was more than the threshold," Zenios says, "then the recommendation would be that Medicare not cover that new technology."

Assigning a dollar figure to Medicare patients' lives may sound crass, but such valuations are routine in Americans' daily lives. Take, for example, the $500,000 death benefit the government pays families when a soldier is killed in Iraq or Afghanistan. Or the cost calculations that for-profit health insurers make to determine how much coverage they'll give customers. In fact, at least some Americans seem at ease with allowing money to play a prominent role in health care decisions. In a 2007 survey of New Yorkers, 75% of participants felt "somewhat" to "very" comfortable with allowing cost to inform Medicare treatment decisions, once they understood how the system worked. "Americans understand and are prepared to engage the issues that arise when setting priorities and limits for their public programs," Marthe Gold, the City University of New York Medical School professor who conducted the study, wrote with colleagues this past fall in the journal Health Affairs.

The Stanford researchers caution that if Medicare fully adopted a cost-benefit analysis model, too many patients could be denied life-saving treatment. They return to the example of dialysis patients. Their study showed that for the sickest patients, the average cost of an additional quality-of-life year was much higher — $488,000. "It is difficult to justify the burden and expense of dialysis when persons have other serious health conditions such as, for example, advanced dementia or cancer," says co-author Glenn Chertow, a nephrology professor at the Stanford School of Medicine. "In these settings, dialysis is unlikely to provide any meaningful benefit."

But with organs including kidneys for transplant so scarce, is it justifiable to deny these patients a chance to live through dialysis? It is a question, Zenios says, everyone should approach with trepidation. "What is the true value of a human life? That's what we're asking people," he adds. "I wouldn't pretend to know."

Black Invention Myths? What do you think?

Recently, I encountered a website that claims to dispel myths about black inventions. My first impression is that his goal appears to suggest that blacks invented NOTHING. He gives no black inventor credit for ANYTHING!!! I wonder what his motives were...

I do agree that perhaps some inventions attributed to black inventors may be exaggerated. However, let's not act like blacks invented nothing or contributed nothing to modern science!

Here's what the author had to say:

"Perhaps you've heard the claims: Were it not for the genius and energy of African-American inventors, we might find ourselves in a world without traffic lights, peanut butter, blood banks, light bulb filaments, and a vast number of other things we now take for granted but could hardly imagine life without.
Such beliefs usually originate in books or articles about black history. Since many of the authors have little interest in the history of technology outside of advertising black contributions to it, their stories tend to be fraught with misunderstandings, wishful thinking, or fanciful embellishments with no historical basis. The lack of historical perspective leads to extravagant overestimations of originality and importance: sometimes a slightly modified version of a pre-existing piece of technology is mistaken for the first invention of its type; sometimes a patent or innovation with little or no lasting value is portrayed as a major advance, even if there's no real evidence it was ever used.
Unfortunately, some of the errors and exaggerations have acquired an illusion of credibility by repetition in mainstream outlets, especially during Black History Month (see examples for the traffic light and ironing board). When myths go unchallenged for too long, they begin to eclipse the truth. Thus I decided to put some records straight. Although this page does not cover every dubious invention claim floating around out there, it should at least serve as a warning never to take any such claim for granted.
Each item below is listed with its supposed black originator beneath it along with the year it was supposedly invented, followed by something about the real origin of the invention or at least an earlier instance of it."

Traffic Signal
Invented by Garrett A. Morgan in 1923? No!
The first known traffic signal appeared in London in 1868 near the Houses of Parliament. Designed by JP Knight, it featured two semaphore arms and two gas lamps. The earliest electric traffic lights include Lester Wire's two-color version set up in Salt Lake City circa 1912, James Hoge's system (US patent #1,251,666) installed in Cleveland by the American Traffic Signal Company in 1914, and William Potts' 4-way red-yellow-green lights introduced in Detroit beginning in 1920. New York City traffic towers began flashing three-color signals also in 1920.
Garrett Morgan's cross-shaped, crank-operated semaphore was not among the first half-hundred patented traffic signals, nor was it "automatic" as is sometimes claimed, nor did it play any part in the evolution of the modern traffic light. For details see Inventing History: Garrett Morgan and the Traffic Signal.

Gas Mask
Garrett Morgan in 1914? No!
The invention of the gas mask predates Morgan's breathing device by several decades. Early versions were constructed by the Scottish chemist John Stenhouse in 1854 and the physicist John Tyndall in the 1870s, among many other inventors prior to World War I. See The Invention of the Gas Mask.

Peanut Butter
George Washington Carver (who began his peanut research in 1903)? No!
Peanuts, which are native to the New World tropics, were mashed into paste by Aztecs hundreds of years ago. Evidence of modern peanut butter comes from US patent #306727 issued to Marcellus Gilmore Edson of Montreal, Quebec in 1884, for a process of milling roasted peanuts between heated surfaces until the peanuts reached "a fluid or semi-fluid state." As the product cooled, it set into what Edson described as "a consistency like that of butter, lard, or ointment." In 1890, George A. Bayle Jr., owner of a food business in St. Louis, manufactured peanut butter and sold it out of barrels. J.H. Kellogg, of cereal fame, secured US patent #580787 in 1897 for his "Process of Preparing Nutmeal," which produced a "pasty adhesive substance" that Kellogg called "nut-butter."

George Washington Carver
"Discovered" hundreds of new and important uses for the peanut? Fathered the peanut industry? Revolutionized southern US agriculture? No!
Research by Barry Mackintosh, who served as bureau historian for the National Park Service (which manages the G.W. Carver National Monument), demonstrated the following:
Most of Carver's peanut and sweet potato creations were either unoriginal, impractical, or of uncertain effectiveness. No product born in his laboratory was widely adopted.
The boom years for Southern peanut production came prior to, and not as a result of, Carver's promotion of the crop.
Carver's work to improve regional farming practices was not of pioneering scientific importance and had little demonstrable impact.
To see how Carver gained "a popular reputation far transcending the significance of his accomplishments," read Mackintosh's excellent article George Washington Carver: The Making of a Myth.

Automatic Lubricator, "Real McCoy"
Elijah McCoy revolutionized industry in 1872 by inventing the first device to automatically oil machinery? No! The phrase "Real McCoy" arose to distinguish Elijah's inventions from cheap imitations? No!
The oil cup, which automatically delivers a steady trickle of lubricant to machine parts while the machine is running, predates McCoy's career; a description of one appears in the May 6, 1848 issue of Scientific American. The automatic "displacement lubricator" for steam engines was developed in 1860 by John Ramsbottom of England, and notably improved in 1862 by James Roscoe of the same country. The "hydrostatic" lubricator originated no later than 1871.
Variants of the phrase Real McCoy appear in Scottish literature dating back to at least 1856 — well before Elijah McCoy could have been involved.
Detailed evidence: The not-so-real McCoyAlso see The Fake McCoy and Did Somebody Say McTrash?

Blood Bank
Dr. Charles Drew in 1940? No!
During World War I, Dr. Oswald H. Robertson of the US army preserved blood in a citrate-glucose solution and stored it in cooled containers for later transfusion. This was the first use of "banked" blood. By the mid-1930s the Russians had set up a national network of facilities for the collection, typing, and storage of blood. Bernard Fantus, influenced by the Russian program, established the first hospital blood bank in the United States at Chicago's Cook County Hospital in 1937. It was Fantus who coined the term "blood bank." See highlights of transfusion history from the American Association of Blood Banks.

Blood Plasma
Did Charles Drew "discover" (in about 1940) that plasma could be separated and stored apart from the rest of the blood, thereby revolutionizing transfusion medicine? No!
The possibility of using blood plasma for transfusion purposes was known at least since 1918, when English physician Gordon R. Ward suggested it in a medical journal. In the mid-1930s, John Elliott advanced the idea, emphasizing plasma's advantages in shelf life and donor-recipient compatibility, and in 1939 he and two colleagues reported having used stored plasma in 191 transfusions. (See historical notes on plasma use.) Charles Drew was not responsible for any breakthrough scientific or medical discovery; his main career achievement lay in supervising or co-supervising major programs for the collection and shipment of blood and plasma.
More: Charles Drew Mythology

Washington DC city plan
Benjamin Banneker? No!
Pierre-Charles L'Enfant created the layout of Washington DC. Banneker assisted Andrew Ellicott in the survey of the federal territory, but played no direct role in the actual planning of the city. The story of Banneker reconstructing the city design from memory after L'Enfant ran away with the plans (with the implication that the project would have failed if not for Banneker) has been debunked by historians.

Filament for Light Bulb
Lewis Latimer invented the carbon filament in 1881 or 1882? No!
English chemist/physicist Joseph Swan experimented with a carbon-filament incandescent light all the way back in 1860, and by 1878 had developed a better design which he patented in Britain. On the other side of the Atlantic, Thomas Edison developed a successful carbon-filament bulb, receiving a patent for it (#223898) in January 1880, before Lewis Latimer did any work in electric lighting. From 1880 onward, countless patents were issued for innovations in filament design and manufacture (Edison had over 50 of them). Neither of Latimer's two filament-related patents in 1881 and 1882 were among the most important innovations, nor did they make the light bulb last longer, nor is there reason to believe they were adopted outside Hiram Maxim's company where Latimer worked at the time. (He was not hired by Edison's company until 1884, primarily as a draftsman and an expert witness in patent litigations).
Latimer also did not come up with the first screw socket for the light bulb or the first book on electric lighting.

Heart Surgery (first successful)
Dr. Daniel Hale Williams in 1893? No!
Dr. Williams repaired a wound not in the heart muscle itself, but in the sac surrounding it, the pericardium. This operation was not the first of its type: Henry Dalton of St. Louis performed a nearly identical operation two years earlier, with the patient fully recovering. Decades before that, the Spaniard Francisco Romero carried out the first successful pericardial surgery of any type, incising the pericardium to drain fluid compressing the heart.
Surgery on the actual human heart muscle, and not just the pericardium, was first successfully accomplished by Ludwig Rehn of Germany when he repaired a wounded right ventricle in 1896. More than 50 years later came surgery on the open heart, pioneered by John Lewis, C. Walton Lillehei (often called the "father of open heart surgery") and John Gibbon (who invented the heart-lung machine).
What medical historians say...

"Third Rail"
Granville Woods in 1901? No!
Werner von Siemens pioneered the use of an electrified third rail as a means for powering railway vehicles when he demonstrated an experimental electric train at the 1879 Berlin Industrial Exhibition. In the US, English-born Leo Daft used a third-rail system to electrify the Baltimore & Hampden lines in 1885. The first electrically powered subway trains, which debuted in London in the autumn of 1890, likewise drew power from a third rail. Details...

Railway Telegraph
Granville Woods prevented railway accidents and saved countless lives by inventing the train telegraph (patented in 1887), which allowed communication to and from moving trains? No!
The earliest patents for train telegraphs go back to at least 1873. Lucius Phelps was the first inventor in the field to attract widespread notice, and the telegrams he exchanged on the New York, New Haven & Hartford railroad in January 1885 were hailed in the Feb. 21, 1885 issue of Scientific American as "perhaps the first ever sent to and from a moving train." Phelps remained at the forefront in developing the technology and by the end of 1887 already held 14 US patents on his system. He joined a team led by Thomas Edison, who had been working on his "grasshopper telegraph" for trains, and together they constructed on the Lehigh Valley Railroad one of the only induction telegraph systems ever put to commercial use. Although this telegraph was a technical success, it fulfilled no public need, and the market for on-board train telegraphy never took off. There is no evidence that any commercial railway telegraph based on Granville Woods's patents was ever built. About the patent interference case

Refrigerated Truck
Frederick Jones (with Joseph Numero) in 1938? No! Did Jones change America's eating habits by making possible the long-distance shipment of perishable foods? No!
Refrigerated ships and railcars had been moving perishables across oceans and continents even before Jones was born (see refrigerated transport timeline). Trucks with mechanically refrigerated cargo spaces appeared on the roads at least as early as the late 1920s (see the proof). Further development of truck refrigeration was more a process of gradual evolution than radical change.

Air Brake / Automatic Air Brake
Granville Woods in 1904? No!
In 1869, a 22-year-old George Westinghouse received US patent #88929 for a brake device operated by compressed air, and in the same year organized the Westinghouse Air Brake Company. Many of the 361 patents he accumulated during his career were for air brake variations and improvements, including his first "automatic" version in 1872 (US #124404).

Air Conditioner
Frederick Jones in 1949? No!
Dr. Willis Carrier built the first machine to control both the temperature and humidity of indoor air. He received the first of many patents in 1906 (US patent #808897, for the "Apparatus for Treating Air"). In 1911 he published the formulae that became the scientific basis for air conditioning design, and four years later formed the Carrier Engineering Corporation to develop and manufacture AC systems.

Airship
J.F. Pickering in 1900? No!
French engineer Henri Giffard successfully flew a powered navigable airship in 1852. The La France airship built by Charles Renard and Arthur Krebs in 1884 featured an electric motor and improved steering capabilities. In 1900 Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin's first rigid-framed dirigible took to the air. Of the hundreds of inventors granted patents for early airship designs and modifications, few succeeded in building or flying their craft. There doesn't appear to be any record of a "Pickering Airship" ever getting off the ground.
US Aviation Patent Database, 1799-1909

Automatic Railroad Car Coupler
Andrew Beard invented the "Jenny [sic] coupler" in 1897? No!
The Janney coupler is named for US Civil War veteran Eli H. Janney, who in 1873 invented a device (US patent #138405) which automatically linked together two railroad cars upon their being brought into contact. Also known as the "knuckle coupler," Janney's invention superseded the dangerous link-and-pin coupler and became the basis for standard coupler design through the remainder of the millennium. Andrew Beard's modified knuckle coupler was just one of approximately eight thousand coupler variations patented by 1900. See a history of the automatic coupler and also The Janney Coupler.

Automatic Transmission/Gearshift
Richard Spikes in 1932? No!
The first automatic-transmission automobile to enter the market was designed by the Sturtevant brothers of Massachusetts in 1904. US Patent #766551 was the first of several patents on their gearshift mechanism. Automatic transmission technology continued to develop, spawning hundreds of patents and numerous experimental units; but because of cost, reliability issues and an initial lack of demand, several decades passed before vehicles with automatic transmission became common on the roads.

Bicycle Frame
Isaac R. Johnson in 1899? No!
Comte Mede de Sivrac and Karl von Sauerbronn built primitive versions of the bicycle in 1791 and 1816 respectively. The frame of John Starley's 1885 "safety bicycle" resembled that of a modern bicycle.

Cellular Phone
Henry T. Sampson in 1971? No!
On July 6, 1971, Sampson and co-inventor George Miley received a patent on a "gamma electric cell" that converted a gamma ray input into an electrical output (Among the first to do that was Bernhard Gross, US patent #3122640, 1964). What, you ask, does gamma radiation have to do with cellular communications technology? The answer: nothing. Some multiculturalist pseudo-historian must have seen the words "electric" and "cell" and thought "cell phone."
The father of the cell phone is Martin Cooper who first demonstrated the technology in 1973.

Clock or Watch (First in America)
Benjamin Banneker built the first American timepiece in 1753? No!
Abel Cottey, a Quaker clockmaker from Philadelphia, built a clock that is dated 1709 (source: Six Quaker Clockmakers, by Edward C. Chandlee; Philadelphia, The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1943). Banneker biographer Silvio Bedini further refutes the myth:
Several watch and clockmakers were already established in the colony [Maryland] prior to the time that Banneker made the clock. In Annapolis alone there were at least four such craftsmen prior to 1750. Among these may be mentioned John Batterson, a watchmaker who moved to Annapolis in 1723; James Newberry, a watch and clockmaker who advertised in the Maryland Gazette on July 20, 1748; John Powell, a watch and clockmaker believed to have been indentured and to have been working in 1745; and Powell's master, William Roberts.
Silvio Bedini, The Life of Benjamin Banneker (Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1999)

Clothes Dryer
George T. Sampson in 1892? No!
The "clothes-drier" described in Sampson's patent was actually a rack for holding clothes near a stove, and was intended as an "improvement" on similar contraptions:
My invention relates to improvements in clothes-driers.... The object of my invention is to suspend clothing in close relation to a stove by means of frames so constructed that they can be readily placed in proper position and put aside when not required for use.
US patent #476416, 1892
Nineteen years earlier, there were already over 300 US patents for such "clothes-driers" (Subject-Matter Index of Patents...1790 to 1873).
A Frenchman named Pochon in 1799 built the first known tumble dryer — a crank-driven, rotating metal drum pierced with ventilation holes and held over heat. Electric tumble dryers appeared in the first half of the 20th century.

Dustpan
Lloyd P. Ray in 1897? No!
While the ultimate origin of the dustpan is lost in the mists (dusts?) of time, at least we know that US patent #20811 for "Dust-pan" was granted to T.E. McNeill in 1858. That was the first of about 164 US dustpan patents predating Lloyd Ray's. See the dustpan patent list.

Egg Beater
Willie Johnson in 1884? No!
The hand-cranked egg beater with two intermeshed, counter-rotating whisks was invented by Turner Williams of Providence, Rhode Island in 1870 (US Patent #103811). It was an improvement on earlier rotary egg beaters that had only one whisk.

Electric Trolley
Did Granville Woods invent the electric trolley car, the overhead wire that powers it, or the "troller" wheel that makes contact with the trolley wire, in 1888? No!
Dr. Werner von Siemens demonstrated his electric trolleybus, the Elektromote, near Berlin on April 29, 1882. The vehicle's two electric motors collected power through contact wheels rolling atop a pair of overhead wires. The earliest patentee of an electric trolley in the United States appears to be Eugene Cowles (#252193 in 1881), followed by Dr. Joseph R. Finney (#268476 in 1882) who operated an experimental trolley car near Pittsburgh, PA in the summer of 1882. In early 1885, John C. Henry established in Kansas City, MO, the first overhead-wire electric transit system to enter regular service in the United States. Belgian-born Charles van Depoele, who earned 240+ patents in electric railway technology and other fields, set up trolley lines in several North American cities by 1887. In February 1888, a trolley system designed by Frank Sprague began operating in Richmond, Virginia. Sprague's system became the lasting prototype for electric street railways in the US.

Elevator
Alexander Miles in 1887? No!Was Miles the first to patent a self-closing shaft door? No!
Steam-powered hoisting devices were used in England by 1800. Elisha Graves Otis' 1853 "safety elevator" prevented the car from falling if the cable broke, and thus paved the way for the first commercial passenger elevator, installed in New York City's Haughwout Department Store in 1857. The first electric elevator appeared in Mannheim, Germany in 1880, built by the German firm of Siemens and Halske. A self-closing shaft door was invented by J.W. Meaker in 1874 ("Improvement in Self-closing Hatchways," US Patent No. 147,853). See Elevator Timeline

Fastest Computer/Computation
Was Philip Emeagwali responsible for the world's fastest computer or computation in 1989? Did he win the "Nobel Prize of computing"? Is he a "father of the Internet"? No!
The fastest performance of a computer application in 1989 was 6 billion floating point operations per second (6 Gflops), achieved by a team from Mobil and Thinking Machines Corp. on a 64,000-processor "Connection Machine" invented by Danny Hillis. That was almost double the 3.1 Gflops of Emeagwali's computation. Computing's Nobel Prize equivalent is the Turing Award, which Emeagwali has never won. More...

Fire Escape
Joseph Winters in 1878? No!
Winters' "fire escape" was a wagon-mounted ladder. The first such contraption patented in the US was the work of William P. Withey, 1840 (US patent #1599). The fire escape with a "lazy-tongs" type ladder, more similar to Winters' patent, was pioneered by Hüttman and Kornelio in 1849 (US patent #6155). One of the first fire escapes of any type was invented in 18th-century England:
In 1784, Daniel Maseres, of England, invented a machine called a fire escape, which, being fastened to the window, would enable anyone to descend to the street without injury.
Benjamin Butterworth, Growth of Industrial Art, 1888
By 1888 the US had granted 1,099 patents on fire escapes of "many forms, and of every possible material" (Butterworth).

Fire Extinguisher
Thomas J. Martin in 1872? No!
In 1813, British army captain George Manby created the first known portable fire extinguisher: a two-foot-tall copper cylinder that held 3 gallons of water and used compressed air as a propellant. One of the earliest extinguishers to use a chemical extinguishing agent, and not just water, was invented in 1849 by the Englishman William Henry Phillips, who patented his "fire annihilator" in England and the United States (US patent #7,269).

Food Additives, Meat Curing
Lloyd Hall "is responsible for the meat curing products, seasonings, emulsions, bakery products, antioxidants, protein hydrolysates, and many other products that keep our food fresh and flavorable"? No! Hall "revolutionized the meatpacking industry"? No!
Hall introduced no major class of additive, certainly not meat curing salts (which are ancient), protein hydrolysates (popularized by Julius Maggi as flavor enhancers in 1886), emulsifiers and antioxidants (lecithin, for example, was used in both roles before Lloyd Hall had any patents in food processing). The so-called revolutionary meat curing product marketed by Hall's employer was invented primarily by Karl Max Seifert ; the number of Seifert's patent was printed right on the containers. Hall's main contribution to this product was to reduce its tendency to cake during storage. Details: Lloyd Hall myth.

Fountain Pen
W.B. Purvis in 1890? No!
The first reference to what seems to be a fountain pen appears in an Arabic text from 969 AD; details of the instrument are not known. A French "Bion" pen, dated 1702, represents the oldest fountain pen that still survives. Later models included John Scheffer's 1819 pen, possibly the first to be mass-produced; John Jacob Parker's "self-filling" pen of 1832; and the famous Lewis Waterman pen of 1884 (US Patents #293545, #307735). Early History of the Fountain Pen

Golf Tee
Dr. George Grant in 1899? No!
A small rubber platform invented by Scotsmen William Bloxsom and Arthur Douglas was the world's first patented golf tee (British patent #12941 of 1889). The first known tee to penetrate the ground, in contrast to earlier tees that sat on the surface, was the peg-like "Perfectum" patented in 1892 by Percy Ellis of England. American dentist William Lowell introduced the most common form of tee used today, the simple wooden peg with a flared top. Details...

Hairbrush
Lyda Newman in 1898? No!
An early US patent for a recognizably modern hairbrush went to Hugh Rock in 1854 (US Design Patent no. D645), though surely there were hairbrushes long before there was a US Patent Office.
The claim that Lyda Newman's brush was the first with "synthetic bristles" is false: her patent mentions nothing about synthetic bristles and is concerned only with a new way of making the handle detachable from the head. Besides, a hairbrush that included "elastic wire teeth" in combination with natural bristles had already been patented by Samuel Firey in 1870 (US, #106680). Nylon bristles weren't possible until the invention of nylon in 1935.

Halogen Lamp
Frederick Mosby? No
The original patent for the tungsten halogen lamp (US #2,883,571; April 21, 1959) is recorded to Elmer G. Fridrich and Emmett H. Wiley of General Electric. The two had built a working prototype as early as 1953. Fred Mosby was part of the GE team charged with developing the prototype lamp into a marketable product, but was not responsible for the original halogen lamp or the concept behind it.

Hand Stamp
William Purvis in 1883? No!
The earliest known postal handstamp was brought into use by Henry Bishop, Postmaster General of Great Britain, in the year 1661. The stamp imprinted the mail with a bisected circle containing the month and the date. See "Bishop marks"

Heating Furnace
Alice Parker in 1919? No!
In the hypocaust heating systems built by the ancient Romans, hot air from a furnace circulated under the floor and up through channels inside the walls, thereby distributing heat evenly around the building. One of the most famous heating systems in recent centuries was the iron furnace stove known as the "Franklin stove," named after its purported originator Benjamin Franklin around 1745 AD. The US had issued over 4000 patents for heating stoves and furnaces by 1888 (Benjamin Butterworth, Growth of Industrial Art, 1888).

Horseshoe
Oscar E. Brown in 1892? No!
Some sources on the web, if not ignorant enough to say Brown invented the first horseshoe ever, will at least try to credit him for the first double or compound horseshoe made of two layers: one permanently secured to the hoof, and one auxiliary layer that can be removed and replaced when it wears out. However, in the US there were already 39 earlier patents for horseshoes using that same concept. The first of these was issued to J.B. Kendall of Boston in 1861, patent #33709.

Ice Cream
Augustus Jackson in 1832? No!
Flavored ices resembling sherbet were known in China in ancient times. In Europe, sherbet-like concoctions evolved into ice cream by the 16th century, and around 1670 or so, the Café Procope in Paris offered creamy frozen dairy desserts to the public. The first written record of ice cream in the New World comes from a letter dated 1700, attesting that Maryland Governor William Bladen served the treat to his guests. In 1777, the New York Gazette advertised the sale of ice cream by confectioner Philip Lenzi. History of Ice Cream

Ironing Board
Sarah Boone in 1892? No!
Of the several hundred US patents on ironing boards granted prior to Sarah Boone's, the first three went to William Vandenburg in 1858 (patents #19390, #19883, #20231). The first American female patentee of an ironing board is probably Sarah Mort of Dayton, Ohio, who received patent #57170 in 1866. In 1869, Henry Soggs of Columbus, Pennsylvania earned US patent #90966 for an ironing board resembling the modern type, with folding legs, adjustable height, and a cover. Another nice example of a modern-looking board was designed by J.H. Mallory in 1871, patent #120296. Details...

Laser Cataract Surgery
Patricia Bath "transformed eye surgery" by inventing the first laser device to treat cataracts in 1986? No!
Use of lasers to treat cataracts in the eye began to develop in the mid 1970s. M.M. Krasnov of Russia reported the first such procedure in 1975. One of the earliest US patents for laser cataract removal (#3,982,541) was issued to Francis L'Esperance in 1976. In later years, a number of experimenters worked independently on laser devices for removing cataracts, including Daniel Eichenbaum, whose work became the basis of the Paradigm Photon™ device; and Jack Dodick, whose Dodick Laser PhotoLysis System eventually became the first laser unit to win FDA approval for cataract removal in the United States. Still, the majority of cataract surgeries continue to be performed using ultrasound devices, not lasers. Details...

Lawn Mower
John Burr in 1899? No!
English engineer Edwin Budding invented the first reel-type lawn mower (with blades arranged in a cylindrical pattern) and had it patented in England in 1830. In 1868 the United States issued patent #73807 to Amariah M. Hills of Connecticut, who went on to establish the Archimedean Lawn Mower Co. in 1871. By 1888, the US Patent Office had granted 138 patents for lawn mowers (Butterworth, Growth of Industrial Art). Doubtlessly there were even more by the time Burr got his patent in 1899.
Some website authors want Burr to have invented the first "rotary blade" mower, with a centrally mounted spinning blade. But his patent #624749 shows yet another twist on the old reel mower, differing in only a few details with Budding's original.

Lawn Sprinkler
J. H. Smith in 1897? Elijah McCoy? No!
The first US patent with the title "lawn sprinkler" was issued to J. Lessler of Buffalo, New York in 1871 (#121949). Early examples of water-propelled, rotating lawn sprinklers were patented by J. Oswald in 1890 (#425340) and J. S. Woolsey in 1891 (#457099) among a gazillion others.
Smith's patent shows just another rotating sprinkler, and McCoy's 1899 patent was for a turtle-shaped sprinkler.

Mailbox (letter drop box)
P. Downing invented the street letter drop box in 1891? No! George Becket invented the private mailbox in 1892? No!
The US Postal Service says that "Street boxes for mail collection began to appear in large [US] cities by 1858." They appeared in Europe even earlier, according to historian Laurin Zilliacus:
Mail boxes as we understand them first appeared on the streets of Belgian towns in 1848. In Paris they came two years later, while the English received their 'pillar boxes' in 1855.
Laurin Zilliacus, Mail for the World, p. 178 (New York, J. Day Co., 1953)
From the same book (p.178), "Private mail boxes were invented in the United States in about 1860."
Eventually, letter drop boxes came equipped with inner lids to prevent miscreants from rummaging through the mail pile. The first of many US patents for such a purpose was granted in 1860 to John North of Middletown, Connecticut (US Pat. #27466).

Mop
Thomas W. Stewart in 1893? No!
Mops go back a long, long way before 1893. Just how long, is hard to determine. Restricting our view to the modern era, we find that the United States issued its first mop patent (#241) in 1837 to Jacob Howe, called "Construction of Mop-Heads and the Mode of Securing them upon Handles." One of the first patented mops with a built-in wringer was the one H. & J. Morton invented in 1859 (US #24049).
The mop specified in Stewart's patent #499402 has a lever-operated clamp for "holding the mop rags"; the lever is not a wringing mechanism as erroneously reported on certain websites. Other inventors had already patented mops with lever-operated clamps, one of the first being Greenleaf Stackpole in 1869 (US Pat. #89803).

Paper Punch (hand-held)
Charles Brooks in 1893? No!Was it the first with a hinged receptacle to catch the clippings? No!
The first numbered US patent for a hand-held hole punch was #636, issued to Solyman Merrick in 1838. Robert James Kellett earned the first two US patents for a chad-catching hole punch, in 1867 (patent #65090) and 1868 (#79232).

Pencil Sharpener
John Lee Love in 1897? No!
Bernard Lassimone of Limoges, France invented one of the earliest sharpeners, receiving French patent number 2444 in 1828. An apparent ancestor of the 20th-century hand-cranked sharpener was patented by G. F. Ballou in 1896 (US #556709) and marketed by the A.B. Dick Company as the "Planetary Pencil Pointer." As the user held the pencil stationary and turned the crank, twin milling cutters revolved around the tip of the pencil and shaved it into a point.
Love's patent #594114 shows a variation on a different kind of sharpener, in which one would crank the pencil itself around in a stirring motion. An earlier device of a similar type was devised in 1888 by G.H. Courson (patent #388533), and sold under the name "President Pencil Sharpener."
Here are several other examples of 19th century sharpeners:Early Mechanical Pencil SharpenersMechanical Pencil Sharpener Gallery ~ 1884-1899
Permanent Wave Machine (for perming hair)
Marjorie Joyner in 1928? No!
That would be German hairdresser Karl Ludwig Nessler (aka Charles Nestlé) no later than 1906.
Postmarking and Canceling Machine
William Barry in 1897? No!
Try Pearson Hill of England, in 1857. Hill's machine marked the postage stamp with vertical lines and postmark date. By 1892, US post offices were using several brands of machines, including one that could cancel, postmark, count and stack more than 20,000 pieces of mail per hour (Marshall Cushing, Story of Our Post Office, Boston: A. M. Thayer & co., 1892, pp.189-191).

Printing Press
W.A. Lavalette invented "the advanced printing press" in 1878? No!
Movable-type printing first appeared in East Asia. In Europe, around 1455, Johann Gutenberg adapted the screw press used in other trades such as winemaking and combined it with type-metal alloy characters and oil-based printing ink. Major advances after Gutenberg include the cylinder printing press (c. 1811) by Frederick Koenig and Andreas Bauer, the rotary press (1846) by Richard M. Hoe, and the web press (1865) by William Bullock. Major advances do not include Lavalette's patent, which was only one of 3,268 printing patents granted in the US by the year 1888 (Butterworth, Growth of Industrial Art). Improvements After Gutenberg

Propeller for Ship
George Tolivar or Benjamin Montgomery? No!
John Stevens constructed a boat with twin steam-powered propellers in 1804 in the first known application of a screw propeller for marine propulsion. Other important pioneers in the early 1800s included Sir Francis Pettit Smith of England, and Swedish-born ship designer John Ericsson (US patent #588) who later designed the USS Monitor.

Refrigerator
Thomas Elkins in 1879? John Stanard in 1891? No!
Oliver Evans proposed a mechanical refrigerator based on a vapor-compression cycle in 1805 and Jacob Perkins had a working machine built in 1834. Dr. John Gorrie created an air-cycle refrigeration system in about 1844, which he installed in a Florida hospital. In the 1850s Alexander Twining in the USA and James Harrison in Australia used mechanical refrigeration to produce ice on a commercial scale. Around the same time, the Carré brothers of France led the development of absorption refrigeration systems. A more detailed timeline
Stanard's patent describes not a refrigeration machine, but an old-fashioned icebox — an insulated cabinet into which ice is placed to cool the interior. As such, it was a "refrigerator" only in the old sense of the term, which included non-mechanical coolers. Elkins created a similarly low-tech cooler, acknowledging in his patent #221222 that "I am aware that chilling substances inclosed within a porous box or jar by wetting its outer surface is an old and well-known process."

Rotary Engine
Andrew Beard in 1892? No!
The Subject Matter Index of Patents Issued from the United States Patent Office from 1790 to 1873 Inclusive lists 394 "Rotary Engine" patents from 1810-1873. The Wankel engine, a rotary combustion engine with a four-stroke cycle, dates from 1954. History of the Rotary Engine from 1588 Onward

Screw Socket for Light Bulb
Lewis Latimer? No!
The earliest evidence for a light bulb screw base design is a drawing in a Thomas Edison notebook dated Sept. 11, 1880. It is not the work of Latimer, though:
Edison's long-time associates, Edward H. Johnson and John Ott, were principally responsible for designing fixtures in the fall of 1880. Their work resulted in the screw socket and base very much like those widely used today.
R. Friedel and P. Israel, Edison's Electric Light: Biography of an Invention, (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers Univ. Press, 1986).
The 1880 sketch of the screw socket is reproduced in the book cited above.

Smallpox Vaccine
Onesimus the slave in 1721? No! Onesimus knew of variolation, an early inoculation technique practiced in several areas of the world before the discovery of vaccination.
English physician Edward Jenner developed the smallpox vaccine in 1796 after finding that the relatively innocuous cowpox virus built immunity against the deadly smallpox. This discovery led to the eventual eradication of endemic smallpox throughout the world. Vaccination differs from the primitive inoculation method known as variolation, which involved the deliberate planting of live smallpox into a healthy person in hopes of inducing a mild form of the disease that would provide immunity from further infection. Variolation not only was risky to the patient but, more importantly, failed to prevent smallpox from spreading. Known in Asia by 1000 AD, the practice reached the West via more than one channel.

His complete list can be found here...

Again, I question his motives. His research appears somewhat credible in several instances. Yet, I CANNOT believe that there were no "true" African American inventors.

A reputable list of African-American inventors and their inventions can be found here if you would like to explore this topic more.

Your thoughts?

Funny Dr. Suess Poem

Funny Hillary Cartoon!

People Giving Blood to Pay for Gas

According to MyFox Cleveland News, business at the ZLB Plasma Service on Cleveland's near west side is booming. The company pays as much as $40 per visit for a donors first four visits, less after that. Each person donating plasma can do that no more than two times a week.

The waiting area is packed with people like Geanie Fox and her boyfriend. "I come here twice a week and I have to, because its like the only place we can get money quickly, for gas." said Fox.

ZLB's parent company tells Fox 8 News donations are up, attributing the increase to what they call the economic downturn.

While many of the donors are regulars, Tialiegh Henry says she just started donating plasma last week, because of what the price of gas has done to her family's budget. "That was my reason for doing it." said Henry, "I just needed the money to fill up my gas tank."

She is far from alone. "If you are out of money and you need gas you can come here and get a little change." said Willie Tyson of Cleveland, who also says the stipend he gets from his donation does not go very far. "I mean it takes all of it at $4.50 a gallon almost."

The increase in donation is a plus for ZLB. The parent company calls it a win-win. Donors get some money in return for their plasma and their time, the company is able to profit from the donation, which can be used for life saving therapy.

Statistics on the State of Racial Inequality (Part 1)

• Percentage of all white children in the United States who are being raised in married-couple families: 75%

• Percentage of all black children in the United States who are being raised in married-couple families: 34%(U.S. Census Bureau)

• Percentage of all white children in the United States who are being raised in female, single-parent homes: 16%

• Percentage of all black children in the United States who are being raised in female, single-parent homes: 50%(U.S. Census Bureau)

• Percentage of all white children in the United States who are being raised by their grandparents: 1.4%

• Percentage of all black children in the United States who are being raised by their grandparents: 5.4%(U.S. Census Bureau)

• Median income of college-educated white women who worked full-time in 2005: $43,110

• Median income of college-educated African-American women who worked full-time in 2005: $45,273(U.S. Census Bureau)

• The median income in 2005 of black men who are high school graduates but have never been to college: $21,241

• The median income in 2005 of black men who have graduated from college: $43,496 (U.S. Census Bureau)

• The median income in 2005 of black women who are high school graduates but have never been to college: $15,768

• The median income in 2005 of black women who have graduated from college: $40,784 (U.S. Census Bureau)

• Black percentage of all public school students in the United States: 16.9%

• Black percentage of all students in the 100 largest school districts in the United States: 27.9%(U.S. Department of Education)

• Black percentage of all public school students in New Orleans: 93.5%

• Black percentage of all public school students in Detroit: 90.5%

• Black percentage of all public school students in Baltimore: 88.8% (U.S. Department of Education)

• Percentage of white adults ages 25 to 29 in 2007 who held a bachelor’s degree: 35.5%

• Percentage of black adults ages 25 to 29 in 2007 who held a bachelor’s degree: 19.5% (U.S. Department of Education)

• Percentage of the total white population ages 3 to 34 in 2006 who were enrolled in school: 56.8%

• Percentage of the total black population ages 3 to 34 in 2006 who were enrolled in school: 58.3%(U.S. Department of Education)

• Number of African Americans alive today who hold a professional degree: 164,000

• Number of African Americans alive today who hold a doctoral degree: 111,000 (U.S. Department of Education)

• Average number of hours per week that white children under the age of 6 are not under the care of one of their parents: 27.1

• Average number of hours per week that African-American children under the age of 6 are not under the care of one of their parents: 35.9 (U.S. Department of Education)

• Percentage of all white students in U.S. K-12 education in 2004 who were identified as “gifted”: 7.9%

• Percentage of all black students in U.S. K-12 education in 2004 who were identified as “gifted”: 3.5%(U.S. Department of Education)

• Percentage of all white students in K-12 education in Georgia in 2004 who were identified as “gifted”: 13.6%

• Percentage of all black students in K-12 education in Georgia in 2004 who were identified as “gifted”: 3.7%(U.S. Department of Education)

• Percentage of all white Americans ages 18 to 24 in 2006 who were enrolled in higher education: 41.0%

• Percentage of all black Americans ages 18 to 24 in 2006 who were enrolled in higher education: 32.6%(U.S. Department of Education)

• Percentage of all African-American high school graduates ages 18 to 24 in 1986 who were enrolled in higher education: 28.6%

• Percentage of all African-American high school graduates ages 18 to 24 in 2006 who were enrolled in higher education: 42.0% (U.S. Department of Education)

• Number of bachelor’s degrees awarded to men in 2006 at the nation’s historically black colleges and universities: 10,364

• Number of bachelor’s degrees awarded to women in 2006 at the nation’s historically black colleges and universities: 20,184(U.S. Department of Education)

• Number of white full professors at colleges and universities in the United States in 2005: 145,936

• Number of black full professors at U.S. colleges and universities in 2005 who were men: 3,498

• Number of black full professors at U.S. colleges and universities in 2005 who were women: 1,986 (U.S. Department of Education)

Quote Reflection #4: Charles Hamilton Houston (1895 - 1950)

"Without education, there is no hope for our people and without hope, our future is lost" - Charles Hamilton Houston



Who was this man? Charles Hamilton Houston (September 3, 1895–April 22, 1950) was an African American lawyer, Dean of Howard University Law School and NAACP Litigation Director who helped play a role in dismantling the Jim Crow laws and helped train future Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall. He was educated at Amherst College, where he was valedictorian, and at Harvard Law School, where he graduated cum laude and was a member of the Harvard Law Review. Known as "The Man Who Killed Jim Crow."[1], he played a role in nearly every civil rights case before the Supreme Court between 1930 and Brown v. Board of Education (1954). Houston's plan to attack and defeat Jim Crow segregation by using the inequality of the "separate but equal" doctrine (from the Supreme Court's Plessy v. Ferguson decision) as it pertained to public education in the United States was the masterstroke that brought about the landmark Brown decision.

Need I really say more? Education is the key. Each one, teach one.

In the past, there was a sense of community. Now, there seems to be a strong sense of divisiveness and lack of passion regarding educating our wayward youth.

United we stand, divided we fall.

Teen Arrested For Turning Grandma Into A Gangsta

Footage you were never supposed to see...

Artist Brian Springer spent a year scouring the airwaves with a satellite dish grabbing back channel news feeds not intended for public consumption.

The result of his research is SPIN, one of the most insightful films ever made about the mechanics of how television is used as a tool of social control to distort and limit the American public's perception of reality.

http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/43.html

The Wonder of God's Creation!!!

David Gallo shows jaw-dropping footage of amazing sea creatures, including a color-shifting cuttlefish, a perfectly camouflaged octopus, and a Times Square's worth of neon light displays from fish who live in the blackest depths of the ocean.

How TV is Used to Control Your Lives...

Artist Brian Springer spent a year scouring the airwaves with a satellite dish grabbing back channel news feeds not intended for public consumption. The result of his research is SPIN, one of the most insightful films ever made about the mechanics of how television is used as a tool of social control to distort and limit the American public's perception of reality.

Take the time to watch it from beginning to end and you'll never look at TV reporting the same again. Tell your friends about it. This extraordinary film released in the early 1990s is almost completely unknown. Hopefully, the Internet will change that.

http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/43.html

Thoughts?

North American Union Now?

Bush signs up for North American Union without vote or consulting congress and against all recommendations of congress.

Vandals Deface Obama Mural in Atlanta

Merchants around the Little Five Points community in Atlanta want to know who defaced a painting of presidential candidate Barack Obama (video: MyFoxAtlanta). Only a few hours after the artwork went up, vandals did serious damage to it.

People must really think that Obama has a REAL CHANCE of actually becoming president...

Is America "ready" for a black president?

I refuse to answer such a pointless question.

Was America "ready" to end slavery?

Was America "ready" to end school segregation?

Was America "ready" to end "Jim Crow" laws?

All I can say is "If not now, when? If not Obama, then who?

Quote Reflection #3: Wendell Phillips (1811-1884)

"One on God's side is a majority"- Wendell Phillips.

Such a simple, yet profound statement. How many of us determine our actions or non-actions based on what the majority of people think or believe?

Sometimes, to do or say what is RIGHT by God, one has to go against the opinion of the "majority."

The majority is not always right, it is simply the majority... It matters not if it is two people or if it is two million people who are wrong. Wrong is wrong.

Standing up for what is right or just will undoubtedly mean that sometimes, we will stand alone.

However, how could you ever be alone with God on your side?

One on God's side is TRULY a majority.

You + God > (is greater than) the majority

Student Brings Pot Brownies On A Field trip And Gets the Whole Class And Teacher High

Fox News Jokes About Killing Obama

WTF? This is NO JOKING MATTER?????????

McCain is really another "Bush"

Quote Reflection #2: Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

"I never told my own religion nor scrutinized that of another. I never attempted to make a convert, nor wished to change another's creed. I am satisfied that yours must be an excellent religion to have produced a life of such exemplary virtue and correctness. For it is in our lives, and not from our words, that our religion must be judged" - (Thomas Jefferson in 1816, in a letter to Mrs. H. Harrison Smith)

Religion and politics, two of the most sensitive topics that I LOVE to discuss.

Yet, I do not claim OR DENY any particular religion. I was raised a Christian (Baptist). One thing that I have NEVER struggled with is my belief in God.

What I have struggled with is how people can kill, judge, hate, engage in holy wars, and other ill will "in the name of God" by means of any religion.

Shirley, thanks for your beautiful expression of your faith. I LOVE when people defend their faith. Was it not Peter in the biblical scripture who said: “Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence” (1 Pet. 3:15)

Even more, as Jefferson said "I am satisfied that yours must be an excellent religion to have produced a life of such exemplary virtue and correctness. For it is in our lives, and not from our words, that our religion must be judged."

Shirley, I see your faith through your actions and your attitude. Is that not the best way to "see" someone's religion? Based on the content of your character and your admirable religious conviction, I definitely admire (dare I say envy?) your faith.

To me, "religion" is a good thing. Spirituality is better. There is a difference...at least to me in my humble opinion.

My struggle continues to be: Why can't the Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, and Buddhist believers ALL BE JUSTIFIED in their faith?

If one religion is "right" and all others are TOTALLY "wrong" (contrary to the true intent of God), then are all the "wrong" religious leaders living their lives in vain, destined to burn in hell forever, despite their good works?

"I do not feel obligated to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reasons, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use" -Galileo Galilei

Quote Reflection #1: Henry David Thoureau (1817-1862)

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essentials facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived" - Henry David Thoureau


How many of us are simply existing, not really living? Most of us are "caught up" in all the trapping of modern life (paying bills or worrying about how we are gonna pay them, working that 9 to 5, credit scores, gas prices, eating or starving ourselves fat, etc...) so much so that we lose sight of what life is really all about.

What is life really about? The answer to that question could be debated for eternity.

However, I know what life is NOT about:

• Life is not simply about working and paying bills. Yeah, we all have to do it, but damn, don't let if BE YOUR LIFE. You are NOT your JOB! Your are NOT your JOB TITLE!
• Life is not simply about the accumulation of wealth and things. One day, you will lose all material possessions, if not by circumstances, then by death. In the end, all material possessions become "utterly insignificant." So, why do most of us spend most of our time pursing things, that in the end, prove themselves to be "utterly insignificant?" Perhaps, for some, the "pursuit" of material things becomes their life...what a waste.
• Life is not about impressing people. I think Oscar Wilde sums up people the best: "Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation." If that is the case, why do most people determine their "worth" by what other people think or say? Maybe, because that is how our society is set up. Are not many of us "slaves to fashion"? Keeping up with the Joneses? Seeking constant validation or approval from others?

Fuck what people think about you! Yeah, I said the "F" word. The reality of life is that no one can live YOUR life, but you, not your mother, not your father, not your spouse, not your children...only you. So, if somebody doesn't like the way you are living, "Fuck them!" I am not saying "write them off." I am saying YOU need to live YOUR life for YOU! If people like you and accept you for who you are, great! If not, fuck them (I mean this in the kindest way possible).

Here's the reality of our "life situation":

• We don't really know how all of this (our reality) came about. I mean, what religion or scientist is TOTALLY right? Can we know ANYTHING with ABSOLUTE certainty?
• Everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY has an opinion about EVERYTHING.
• One day, we will all die.

So, I say, life your life abundantly and authentically. Don't hurt or injure other people. Basically, "do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

To me, life is about taking the time to discover your passions and immersing yourselves in them...A life without passion is not a life at all...

On a personal note, some of my passions include: reading, writing, being outside in nature, landscaping, listening to music, learning about different cultures, contemplating life and death and the necessity of spirituality, etc...

Some things I want to make time for in this life: learning more than one language (being able to speak them fluently); traveling to different parts of the world and country to discover how differently people live, think, believe, and eat; play the piano; read the autobiographies of many famous and not so famous people; grow a vegetable garden; improve my drawing skills; sitting outside on the ground soaking up the sun, doing absolutely nothing at all...

Drugging Ourselves to Insanity

Guns Don't Kill People, Dangerous Minorities Do

On May 22, someone posted more than 200 racist flyers throughout the streets of Drexel Hill, PA and police said they want whoever is responsible to step forward. "I was angry. I was truly angry when I saw these," Upper Darby
Police Chief Michael Chitwood said. "These two are what I call race-baiting type flyers."

The flyers show pictures of white slain police officers and the black men accused of killing them.
But what's written on the flyers is why Chitwood called them racist hate material.

"Guns don't kill people dangerous minorities do," the flyers read.

And another flyer warned, "North Philadelphia is coming to your neighborhood, bringing drugs, crime and graffiti."

Any thoughts?

John McCain "Lost in Space"

Obama Poltical Cartoons (with my comments)

Since when has BEING BLACK been an advantage in running for PRESIDENT OF THE "YET TO BE UNITED STATES???????

Why aren't they saying the same thing about Hillary? Am I the only one who noticed the similarity to the "Run, Barak, run" sign in the cartoon to the "Run, Forrest, run" statement made to the retarded guy in the movie Forrest Gump who was allowed great experiences because people felt sorry for him...

The reality is that Hillary is not Bush either, but HE IS THE ONE CLOSE TO WINNING THE DEMOCRATIC NOMINATION!!!!!! Give the man credit for what he has already accomplished despite his name (which many can't get past assuming he is an undercover Muslim, not realizing that Obama is an Arabic name), race (which many can't get past), and media attacks!

The cartoon speaks for itself... They have attacked him as if he were Jesus.....

But he has a platform, more experience than many, great organization that has resulted in an unsurmountable delegate lead, and has made history in fund raising!!!!!!!!! People will say anything to minimize him, even if it is totally not true...

Well, he was "walking on water" until the media and Mr. Wright (yeah, I did not say "Rev" because his behavior has not been very reverant) starting dragging him down and trying to pull him "under".....

Besides a president running for a second term, who has experience being the president???????? To me, like most jobs, you get "hands on" experience.... And what additional experience does Hillary have? Being a President's wife is not experience being a president... Anyways, all experience is not good experience.... Someone could have 10 years of bad experience being a bad manager, while someone else could have 2 years of great experience being a great, skillfull, proactive manager. Who would you hire? The person with 10 years of bad experience or 2 years of good experience?


The reality is that, if anything, Obama is definitely a charismatic, intelligent speaker. What profound statements have McCain or Hillary said lately?