A Renewed Focus.

 

 

Louisville settled with Breonna Taylor's family over the wrongful death lawsuit for 12 million dollars. The police of Louisville agreed to create a series of police reforms too. The mayor of the city is Mayor Greg Fischer. Breonna Taylor was a 26 year old EMT who was unjustly killed in her own home on March 13, 2020. The settlement deals with the creation of a housing credit program to be an incentive for officers to live in the areas that they patrol, social workers to be invested, and reviews of search warrants before seeking judicial approval among other changes. Tamika Palmer is the mother of Breonna Taylor. The family attorney of the Taylor family is Benjamin Crump. Another attorney for Breonna Taylor's family is Lonita Baker. No knock warrants are banned in Louisville via the Breonna's Law. These actions are not enough as the officers involved in Breonna Taylor's death have not been charged. These officers should be charged, placed into a trial, convicted, and placed into prison. That would mean justice for the family of Breonna Taylor.  

Black Lives Matter.

Today, Dan McNeil is fired from WSCR-AM after tweeting an evil comment about ESPN's Maria Taylor. For those who follow sports, Maria Taylor is a famous, excellent African American journalist who has covered football, basketball, and other sports. She is known for publicly standing up against racism and police brutality. I won't mention what Dan said, because the words are so out of bounds I will say that Taylor made the perfect response to his sexist words. Maria's friends and journalist colleagues also defended her. No matter what clothing a woman wears, she is entitled to dignity and respect. We live in a new day. More women and other minorities are fighting for change. We live in the growing pains of such changes. When our descendants come about, the question is that what we have done to make the world better. It is certainly our duty to make sure that we stand up for black people, for the oppressed in general, and be a living witness to righteousness. Maria Taylor, who is a black woman, shows the world that black women's intellect, dignity, and humanity must always be respected.  Following the Golden Rule in treating people right is easy, and it doesn't cost a thing. Showing respect to our neighbors is not only right, it's a perquisite to holy living.

The California wildfires are historic and represent the reality of climate change. Climate change is real, because of many factors. The decrease of the ice sheets from the Arctic and Antarctica have been documented for decades. The record heat has been recorded for every summer since the year of 2000 especially. Back during the 1960's, scientists warned LBJ of the threat of climate change involving the increasing temperature of the Earth's temperature. At least 33 people have died and thousands of people have had their homes displaced. The August Complex fire alone in California has burned more than 875,000 acres of land. Portland was on alert for mass evacuation. These fires have existed in the Amazon and Australia. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned in 2019 that as global temperatures increase, damage caused by wildfires will grow proportionally. While Biden has said that climate change is a serious issue, Trump questions whether climate change is real or not. Trump has been targeting legitimate environmental regulations like eliminating restrictions on emissions, supporting fracking, and promoting offshore drilling. He rolled back controls of methane. Methane contributes to greenhouse gas. The only solution is to have a policy of a reorganization of the world's energy production and transportation infrastructure in order to develop new technologies to halt carbon emissions. It must be an international approach.

 

One common argument from people of my generation and those of the older generation is that music is dead and that the current generation of artists don't have talent. We have heard this argument before. We have heard those words from back in the day too. A lot of people are hesitant to accept musical change. The truth is more nuisance than that. It is true that the big corporations do promote artists who lack talent, advance nihilism, and aren't real role models for anyone. That is true. It is true that many artists live in gated, mostly white communities, promote degrading black people in music, and falsely claim to keep it real. That is accurate. Many of these musicians do mumble rap and some don't. What is also true is that many young people do have talent. A lot of times, many of the great younger artists aren't supported or not very much known by the people, except in a handful of instances. For me, a lot of new music are things that I don't listen to, because I'm from a different generation. Yet, there are many younger artists with talent. Young artists with musical excellence should receive respect and honor for promoting their artistic integrity without selling out. Many younger artists with great talent are people like Sampa the Great, Kendrick Lamar, H.E.R., Logic, Rhapsody, J. Cole, Ella Mai, Chloe X Halle, Lianne La Havas,  Justine Syke, Tiana Blake, etc.

 

Now is 19 years after the attacks of 9/11. I remember those events just like yesterday. For our generation, it was our Pearl Harbor. All of the time, I think about 9/11, because it defined our time and our generation explicitly. A lot of things on why things are is a direct result of 9/11. To understand the horrendous tragedy, we have to look back. Decades ago, the CIA funded the mujaheddin in Afghanistan in order for the mujaheddin defeat the pro-socialist government of Afghanistan. By the 1980's, Reagan funded the mujaheddin in opposition to the interests of the Soviet Union. The CIA and the Pakistani ISI  funded the Mujaheddin too. 

By the 1990's, the Taliban controlled the nation of Afghanitan. Osama bin Laden have gone through many evolutions. He was born into a wealthy Saudi Arabian family. He spoke his mind. The bin Laden and Bush families had many business connections. Osama had tons of children, and he lived like a coward. Osama later came into the evil path of being involved in terrorism as a means for him to justify his anger at Western society. Osama bin Laden didn't like American soldiers and women from America on Saudi Arabia soil during the Persian Gulf war, because Osama was an extremist. Osama was a murderer who murdered innocent people in Africa and in other places of the world via his al-Qaeda network. By the time of the Bush administration, many warnings about terrorists using planes to harm Americans did exist. On 9/11, I was a freshman in college. The attacks were at NYC at the Twin Towers, at the Pentagon (in Virginia), and one plane crashed at Pennsylvania (after heroes fought the hijackers on that plane). Many schools in Virginia closed early. People walked around in a daze for weeks after 9/11. Almost 3,000 people died. The deaths are among people of many creeds, many nationalities, many colors, and many backgrounds. The evil of the attacks certainly galvanized Americans to stand up against hate and evil. Good people saved lives on that day. Also, evil people did Islamophobic acts of burning mosques, racially profiling Arabic Americans, and showing other hate crimes in America. I saw news on it, and these things happened in America. Later, the war on terror, the Patriot Act, and the TSA existed. For the record, I don't agree with the Patriot Act, the Military Commission Act, or NSA warrantless wiretapping on civil liberty grounds. To this day, we debate on civil liberties. 9/11 taught us that there is no justification for murder, for terrorism, and for bigotry. If we want this justice and freedom, we have to stand up for righteous principles. The pain of the victims are very real and transparent. Many of the first responders have died or are dying of cancer from the air after 9/11. \A great way to honor the victims of 9/11 is to promote truth, to stand up for justice, to research information, and to support those who are really assisting human lives positively.