And the word for today is...Gentrification

Spike Lee

And the word for today is...Gentrification

(Can you say that?)

 

By Glenn Peppers                                                                 2-28-14

You know, I agree that sometimes Spike Lee can go off on a tangent that is most often very self serving, and almost always personal and sanctimonious. Yet this time, I think he has a valid point! Check out what the word "Gentrification" means in the Wikipedia link below!

Gentrification: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentrification 

Gentrification is something that is happening in most urban cities across America. Midway of the article that I posted below this paragraph focused on Spike Lee’s argument on the subject. Within the article, New York University Professor, Mitchell Moss was indeed in my eyes, grossly misinformed and dead wrong as far as his opinion on Detroit and its Gentrification status. Gentrification “is” in fact going on right here and now in the city of Detroit. 

Here is that Spike Lee article that sparked my interest! 

http://atlantablackstar.com/2014/02/27/spike-lee-rips-gentrification-refuses-backdown-backlash/

New DOT Buses equipped with Video Cameras

As far as Gentrification and odd goings on in Detroit; for example, where were all those nice new public service vehicles last year? Were their debut in the works just before Christmas of 2013? And if so, why was there no mentioning of such a thing forthcoming in the near future, as badly as the city needed to hear something encouraging civic wise, especially just around Christmas time? 

Take for instance, all those nice brand new Police Units, and EMT rescue units, and a virtually all new fleet of brand new city buses equipped with video cameras. Where was the talk of those items coming soon? Not to mention the offering up of some sane and level headed (for once) workable solutions to the city's street light problem; as well as (from what I am hearing) a much better trash pick up system than just three months ago? 

Wow! I find it amazing that after Detroit attains a newly elected mayor, suddenly out of nowhere, all the civic-circus-fuss and strife, and gigantic cash-flow problems appear to no longer be a problem. Hmmm! Then also out of the blue, Lansing all of a sudden magically “Discovers” an surprising cache of funds that includes, millions and millions of dollars, out of nowhere, as well!... Hmmm. Could it be (and let me remain tactful) the result of our recent mayoral change of office?... I wonder! 

That "You don't belong here" Look!

Yet on a more personal level, what I am getting thoroughly, and completely tired of is this one tremendously annoying thing. I’m so through with going places within the city of Detroit, and having people (mostly whites) who are outsiders or newbies to the city of Detroit looking, staring and talking down at me, and responding to me as if I do not belong there. 

I lived in Detroit for well over 48 years, and have been an active member of the community, and a tax paying, fine upstanding citizen of the city of Detroit! I was a Detroiter longer than some of those looking down at me with distain have been alive! 

So yes, I understand what Spike Lee is talking about when it comes to people trying to Minus You Out! From deep within my heart, my belief is this; fine, move back into the city (yet do so not before asking yourself why you or your parents left in the first place). Yes Live in Detroit! Enjoy it, and please do, build Detroit back up again. Yet at the same time, don't feel that in order to do so, you have to destroy or diminish its hard working industrial, musical and cultural history, as well as expel or ostracize Detroit's present citizens! 

Don't feel that you have to now banish people of color (folks like me), or the poor, as well as middle class folk of Any Color out of the city in order to make that happen! That my friend is classic, Gentrification in its truest form! 

Ya ever feel like the Yellow Chickadee?

What is Gentrification like? Well its kind of like, you're a Yellow Chickadee, talking to a brown chickadee, and then while you two are talking, another brown chickadee walks up, and then another, and then another, and before you know it. All of a sudden all those brown chickadee's who just showed up begin talking among themselves, completely phasing you, the yellow chickadee out of the conversation, as if you weren't even there or didn't even exist! Its kinda like that!

Remember, everyone who lives or lived in Detroit is not responsible for its decay and blight, nor its financial ruin and practical demise! If anything, those who stayed, paid the bills, and contributed! They actually helped keep the city going by simply being there to pay those extremely high taxes and and home and auto insurance rates; that oh by the way, are slated to soon magically come down and be more reasonably priced, for some strange reason. Hmmm, I wonder what that reason could be?

For those citizens who have stayed in Detroit, and are staying in Detroit, sticking it out, I commend you. Yet for those newbies to move in, and treat those who still own (and even rent) their homes, who keep their property immaculately polished as if they are squatters in their own hometown is unfair, and wrong! 

The lies were put in place long ago that the city and its public school system was all broken down and in danger of crumbling. As a result, services were cut throughout, and unions were destroyed, and jobs lost. I'm still amazed that people fell for that hype put out that the sole reason for Detroit  supposedly going broke was the fault of a selfish arrogant former mayor. Placing the blame every other place but where it should have been, therefore leaving the city to rot and simply deteriorate, on purpose so that it would be ripe for Urban Renewal, and revitalization! 

Fixing Detroit's Street Light Problem

Do you remember not so many months ago that at one point, the only solution to solving the Street Light issue in the city of Detroit was a stern threat from the Mayor (and our Governor) to Shut Off the remaining street lights in certain blighted areas in order to force folks to move out of their homes? So your option back then was if they lived in areas where there was high crime, and a lack of inhabitable housing and/or population within their community because of blight, you would be minus'ed out of the equation! You'd get no police service. No fire and rescue, and heaven help you on trash pick up day!

Now all of a sudden, within a few months. Everything's magically springing back to life... almost instantly! And now all of a sudden, out of the blue there are workable solutions to the Street Light problem, as well as other things that just a couple of months ago were deemed almost impossible situations to solve! 

For some folks, everything remain's the same. Nothing has changed. 

Sure I say clean up the blight. Lock up and/or reform the Thug Element. Just don't sweep out the Marbles and Jax (the good folks) with the Dust and Trash on the floor! And that goes for anyone who preys on the good citizens of Detroit. No matter who they are! 

Well here we are. Long time citizens of southeastern of Michigan being Reclassified (so to speak), ostracized and Minus'ed Out! So if all this talk about Taking Detroit Back really means, (as Spike Lee termed it) “Bogarting” those out of the city who have been nothing but good citizens, patiently waiting for (and even participating in) Detroit's resurgence to happen; this is wrong! 

This act of Gentrification can be deemed (as Spike Lee called it) a Christopher Columbus style move indeed! I guess that old saying and cliché is in fact true! "The more things change. The more they do in fact stay the same!" 

Glenn Peppers

"Sagging!"

"Sagging!"

(The Trend that seemingly won’t go Away!) 

By Glenn Peppers                         2-13-14

I find it odd that all of a sudden in the last 15 to 20 years or so, people have such issues with how to wear their clothing! Folks wear their underwear to Wal-Mart. Their Pajamas just about anywhere! And at one time because of that rap act Kris-Cross, folks started wearing their clothes backwards... in wild crazy colors along with being backwards! Now you have men wearing Skinny Jeans, Women wearing Leotards and or Tights as outer wear! And the ever-annoying, yet long dead (get over it already) Pants around the Butt thing from men, seemingly of all cultures. Young and old! 

Justin Bieber

So I guess that old stereotype of the thong wearing, low jean sporting females, and the repair man or plumber bent over fixing the sink, revealing his hairy cheeks on his back end is not the only butt revealing thing going on these days! My question (much like yours) is simple... What the heck is Wrong People? Is it that bad?

Shorts in WINTER?... WHY?

Apparently this enigma doesn't stop with personal everyday clothing. It has even gone over into outer wear! What's the deal on people, in the dead of winter, in subzero degree temperatures wearing winter coats and summer shorts with tennis shoes and no socks? I'm not getting that one at all! I mean, why even wear a coat at all for that matter? And they say the emergency rooms are filled with people fighting colds and the flu and upper respiratory aliments... Gee I wonder WHY?

I find peoples eversion to wearing any sort of hat or hood in the freezing cold and in a snow storm, or not even buttoning their coats at all disturbing. These kids now days with these waist length jackets (with no lining). No gloves, no scarfs, and a pair of stereo headphones for earmuffs is very noticeable! 

Oh wait, that brings me to my next odd people observation! Folks walking around in the dead of winter with no coats on, AT ALL! So tell me, is it that bad out here where people are either losing their minds to where they no longer dress for the weather, or is it they just don't give a care? And please don't give me that, "Maybe they can't afford a coat line!" Believe me, anyone in need of a coat clearly shows how cold and uncomfortable they are without proper winter wear! 

Or are these people we see doing this not quite normal (or human for that matter)? So this sudden eversion to clothing; either wearing it wrong, not wearing it all, or wearing clothes Out of Context means something. What it is I do not know!... If you know what this is supposed to say, Please Enlighten Me!

A thought came to me the other day. I thought to myself, "Is this the next phase in Darwin's so-called evolution theory?" If this is that, then I think there must definitely be a flaw in Darwin's whole evolutionary theory process, in that this appears to be some sort of Backwards/De-Evolutionary activity I would call, "Dumb-dom!" 

Sagging in tandem

We as a species must not be very concerned about our average everyday problems and issues at hand when we have time to occupy ourselves walking around physically holding up our pants (totally ignoring a perfectly good belt), as our economy goes south, or say for instance, if I take a notion to raise both my hands or applaud anything, my goofy pants'll fall to the floor!... Give me a break! ! Why do I need the added worry that because I wear my pants around my butt, that if I let go of them, they will fall to the floor? HUH, really? Com'on people!

As the earth's crust shifts, and meteors and comets glide eerily close past our planet, and it snows in Texas, and winter storms riddle Atlanta, Ga, and increase with intensity world wide; as we sit idly by and watch the world go to hell in a hand basket. I have to hold my pants up during all that? I have this image in my head of the constant motion of holding up my pants with one or both hands! The very thought drives me crazy! Think of it! With all that stuff on my mind, and going on around me, all I'd need is another bothersome thing weighing me down, like grabbing at my pants! After decades of having worry-free pants that fit, I all of a sudden would have that ever annoying need to grab at my dang pants in order to keep them up, in an apocalypse! That alone would push me right over the edge! How annoying!

I'd hate to think that all that would be available or sold on clothing store racks everywhere are pants designed solely to hang just below my butt or just above my knees! So in other words, that would mean that I now would have to learn how to walk around with what use to be a free hand (or two), and now hold my pants up just below my butt! Now I ask you, is this not one of the most exhaustingly depressing ideas imaginable?... Sigh!!!

To be perfectly honest with you, I'd rather wear a Kilt! Yet not having any known Scottish heritage about me, I think in all actuality I'd prefer simply wearing silken Afrocentric Robes and various classy linen Dashiki's. I'm also partial to soft sleek Egyptian cut layered pant and shirt Linen outfits, and espadrilles and sandals (I was never a Nike kinda guy anyways)! 

Heck, I'd even grow some serious Dread Locks, or let my naturally curly afro grow back out to my old 1970's style length. Come to think of it, I think I'd look rather handsome in my Afrocentric garb! I'd make an appointment, and sit down with famous Walking Stick creator, and renowned artist, David Philpot, and have a world class, jeweled Rain and/or Walking Stick designed, just for me! My style of clothing (casual and dress wear) would be something not too fancy or overdone, yet clearly classy, sexy, afrocentric, and masculine! So as you may have guessed by now, clothing being worn or taken out of context is clearly not for me! I'll leave that for the followers of folly. The foolishly trendy, and those who have no real sense of individuality and style!

Glenn Peppers

“Understanding Soul Food this Black History Month”

Sweet Potato Pie

“Understanding Soul Food this Black History Month”

(A lesson well learned for the Carondelet High School for Girls)

By Glenn Peppers  2-8-14

Everyone is talking about the Carondelet Catholic High School for girls, in Concord, California. They were in the news because they tried to have a Soul Food Lunch commemorating Black History Month, and the menu was less than desirable, and came off as racist and stereotypical. To be honest about it. I don't think that this school was trying to be racist in attempting to adopt an African American food selection, symbolizing African American History Month. I just feel that it would have been executed much better if they had done their Soul Food Homework, and featured foods that were not the common flashing billboard stigma Red Flag for bigotry; and did not symbolize or historically represent stereotypical, and derogatory jokes, and belittlement. Along with the insults and shortsightedness that come along with such things. 

Speaking personally, of course I feel there were many other food items in the realm of our soul food universe and experience that could have exemplified our culture perfectly without appearing snide, typical and ignorant! There are healthy menu food choices in our culture, just like in any other culture, as far as soul food goes.

Ethiopian Plate

There's vegetarian/Ethiopian dishes that qualify. There are gourmet soul food, and specialty items that are now main menu selections in a lot of america's major chain restaurants, that twenty years ago weren't even thought of as dinner or snack items. Things like chicken wings! Back in the 1960's and 70's, and even 80’s, you could buy chicken wings for a little bit of nothing at most any supermarket! But ever since the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York discovered them, and smothered them in hot sauce, like we use to back in the day. They suddenly became, Buffalo Wings. Now at most “ALL” supermarkets that I know of, the price of wing dings, and whole wing cuts of the chicken are through the roof! 

Hot Wings or Buffalo Wings

There's even a national restaurant chain built on the business of, Chicken Wings. You may have heard of it. Its called, Buffalo Wild Wings! 30 years ago, the business of chicken wings as a featured item wouldn't have even been a thought! I think had this school hired a chef whose forte was southern, and or gourmet foods that the black community enjoys, and that is also good for you, and didn’t fit the negative idiom of the Jim Crow stereotype, that “all black people love to eat is Fried Chicken and Watermelon.” This might have worked out perfectly! Yet the menu inference was so pitifully, and poorly planned, it was insulting to the point of almost being revolting! Personally, I detest watermelon; yet at the same time, who doesn’t like fried chicken, black white or otherwise? 

Do you know that at present there are just as many (if not twice as many) KFC Chicken restaurants in the suburbs just outside of Detroit, Michigan than within the city of Detroit itself? So again, had this school done their cultural homework, they'd have known that soul food is much more than the stereotypes handed down through the ages!

BBQ Ribs

Black Culture is not all about greasy, unhealthy foods! We're about great yam dishes and casseroles. Soul food has always been about Great BBQ and grilling. Now days you have places like "Slows BBQ" (who in technique and theory has copied most all of what they know about grilling and smoking BBQ from southern grill masters) is making a killing in downtown Detroit, in an upscale setting or guise of Soul Food. 

Smothered Cabbage and Brown Sugar Ham

My idea of Soul Food is great Ethiopian food like at "The Blue Nile” in Ferndale, Mi on Nine Mile Road! Soul food at home to me is Corn Muffins and Smothered Cabbage with Fried Apples and Brown Sugar cured Ham; along with Banana Pudding for dessert! Its Cajun Fried Cat Fish and oven Garlic Parsley Potato Wedges and Hush Puppies with homemade Coleslaw. Soul Food for me growing up was fresh hot Baked Ginger Bread with a dollop of warm Molasses poured on top, with homemade Whipped Cream! Sure some black folks like their ham hocks and salt pork. So do a lot of white folks for that matter! But there are many of us out here who like to cook slow roasted Basil Turkey Drumsticks, and Turkey Wings, along with Sage Cornbread Dressing, Stir-fried garlic Spinach, and kicked up, Loaded Mashed Potatoes and Homemade Rolls. As my Grill master Brother In-Law says about cooking and preparing great meals and BBQ... “Its a Labor of Love!”

Peach Cobbler

My soul food experience as a child growing up with a southern mom has been (in short)homemade Pecan Pie, Chocolate Creme Pie, Peach Gobbler, Homemade Fried Pies, 7Up Cake, Triple Layer Lemon and Devils Food Cakes. I remember my mother (and now my Brother In-Law) making Bread and/or Rice Pudding with a Vanilla Hollandaise Sauce. Now that surly would have qualify as soul food! Not to mention what I think is, the south’s biggest well kept secret... Chess Pie! And of course, who can forget everybody’s favorite. Simple as pie -- Apple Pie! 

Salmon Patties, Eggs and Home Fries

If you know what I’m talking about, than you know that soul food is, Sausage Biscuits and Gravy with Cheese Scrambled Eggs, and Pear Preserves on the side! This is a good southern soul food breakfast food. Lets not forget, Salmon Patties and Rice (or Grits) with Eggs anyway you like them... I like my salmon with my own special buttery Home Fries and Onions, with a hint of sauteed red and green Bell Pepper!

As I mentioned earlier. I won’t even go into how much Barbecue plays a gigantic role in southern cooking, and/or soul food, period! Soul Food is not all about fried chicken, by any means! Thus the stereo types!... Thus also why so many were upset at this school’s inability to exemplify, and pay homage to cuisine that basically has sustained and inspired America’s kitchens and culture like none other, yet at the same time doesn’t get any of the accolades for the latter! Let some folks tell it, people like Paula Deen was the end all, be all of southern cooking. Believe me, she was not the last word in soul food. Not by any means! Black white or otherwise! 

Pan Roasted Green Beans and Potatoes 

Soul Food is what my people had to exist on, for hundreds of years, during the time of slavery, reconstruction, and the Jim Crow era of america, and even on to this very day! Before whites discovered that we had this knack for turning less than desirable cuts of meat and vegetables into delicacies, we survived on foods that was considered of lesser quality than the slave owners would ever eat. Slaves through necessity and creativity, would salvage this food, and make due with it; turning things like second rate cuts of pork, beef, and chicken, and wild root vegetables, and greens into something special!... Something called Dinner! 

Yes, a lot of soul food based items then and now features some kind of cut of the hog. Now tell me, who doesn’t like bacon? They even have bacon milkshakes now days! Pork was not a healthy food choice then, and still isn’t a good for anyone. Yet people from all walks of life love it! Pork has flavor! Pork belly’s and rinds and shanks, and hog heads was just one of many food items we had to work with back then. 

Beef Brisket Slices

We learned to use the worst cuts of the hog, the scrawny backs and wings of the chicken. The toughest cuts of the cattle, (that being cuts like the beef brisket) and make a meal out of it! We learned that through low and slow roasting, and grilling with wood, and slow smoking how to command flavor and tenderness. You could take a piece of meat that is normally tougher than shoe leather, and turn it into a cut of beef that taste better than Prime Rib, and would end up being so tender, you can slice it with a butter knife! 

Had the Carondelet Catholic High School for girls put the research work into their Black History lunch project, it could have came off quite beautifully! Instead, they settled for the typical. The thing they’ve heard all their lives! “All black people eat is fried chicken, cornbread and watermelon!” That’s about as incorrect, and as stereotypical as saying all Asian people eat Chop Suey! 

The entire incident in and of itself was off handedly bigoted, and at best lazy! Because of the stigmas involved with such a touchy subject, careful planning should have been done. In fact they would have loved the results! Their effort demanded deeper insight, and careful diversity. And it wouldn’t have hurt to have had some kind of participation from people of color involved as well. The whole thing screamed, “Do this with class and dignity, or do not do this at all!” the Carondelet High dropped the ball on this one, be it intentional or not. So to sum it all up. From my perspective, if there is one thing to be learned from this incident, it is to always respect the feelings and cultures of others, as if they were your own!

Glenn Peppers   

“George Zimmerman to Box Rapper DMX on TV”

George Zimmerman and Rapper DMX

“George Zimmerman to Box Rapper DMX on TV”

By Glenn Peppers                         2-6-14

Rapper DMX to box with George Zimmerman in a televised boxing match? Give me a break! Have we as a society regressed that far back in our thinking; back into the Gladiator days of old, and are willing to dish out justice as if we are grape gobbling Emperors, unleashing lions upon battling contestants in the Coliseum? Will we byway of Twitter or Facebook electronically be voting a rousing thumbs up or down/life or death for sport? The very idea is insane! Don’t you think so? 

Ok then if not, say this out loud to yourself and see just how ludicrous this all sounds... “George Zimmerman is going to box rapper DMX on TV in a boxing match!” If that doesn’t sound ridiculous to any of us, than I think the trappings of Reality Television has surly started to melt the reasoning processes of our brains!

Believe me, this clown will get his soon enough! And when he does, it won’t be in some televised boxing match! From day one, Zimmerman has made a circus of himself, and a mockery of his family, as well as the Martin family by playing himself off as some self-justified, victimized vigilante. Now this ego maniac is playing himself off as this, villainous reality show TV star with this whole boxing fiasco BS! I guess this is his follow up to his Sesame Street American Flag, Arts and Craft thing he pedaled over the airwaves. As if this would cause everyone to stand and salute! Give me a break! 

Wake up people!!! Pure and simple, this man murdered a child in cold blood, and got away with it, yet the media, and the public treats this man like he is some self-styled, all american renegade bad boy/Amorosa-sque reality show darling! This much hated media born, Red Headed Step Child is playing this off as if this was some kind of Wrestle Mania Event! 

Unbeknownst to many who want to see this foolishness come to pass, all this hype and fever is doing is making folks like me mad as hell! For George Zimmerman, its doing two things for he and his cronies... One: Its feeding his ego! And two: It’s lining his pockets, and generating monies for this idiot who I’m certain cannot get, keep or find a job worth having. I suspect Zimmerman is about as successful at finding work as he is at keeping a steady mate, or maintaining a permanent residence to comfortably lay his big fat head, most anywhere he seems to roams in that dark windowed Tonka Truck of his! 

I think the biggest and yet worst thing that can happen to George Zimmerman would not be a boxing match with a washed up rap star in need of rehab! I think the worse thing in the world for George Zimmerman would be to fall into Total Obscurity! 

Face it, George Zimmerman is a Publicity Hound! To Ostracize and Ignore him would be nothing short of destroying him! Come on folks! Zimmerman is proud to play the hated villain to the many millions out there in TV land who want his head on a platter! He knows most of the world hates him with a passion, and now he wants to cash in on it! 

I say lets not give this murderer the slightest bit of satisfaction on this exploitive, pitiful Three Stooges Scheme! Ok, ok. Lets just say this whole thing does come off, and DXM’s lil’ scrawny detoxed azz (or any other boxer scheduled to box this clown) does knock George Zimmerman on his butt, and draws blood and the like. What will it prove? Better yet, what will it change? Trayvon Martin will still be dead, and even more so, nothing will have changed with Zimmerman’s attitude and demeanor or guilt processes. Nor will any such fight affect any of the laws and racially motivated polices put against people of color in Florida. So, what’s the point? 

I am certain that one day soon, life, time and karma (or whatever you call it) will catch up to this man. And when it does, I hope that deep inside his soul, he has suffered greatly in his spirit for what he has done! I'm glad he feels he has to run the soles off his shoes, and the tread off his tires as guilt corners and blocks him into that dark lonely place in his mind! 

I hope that when he closes his eyes each night, he sees that youngman’s face as he winces in pain from being shot! I want him to never forget every last nuance of expression on that child’s face as the life seeped out of his body! I hope the sound of that cheap Kel-tec pistol going off is ripping his guts apart, like a swarm of fire ants feeding on a carcass in the hot sun... every night! 

Yes, you can bet when life's consequences for murder finally does brings this killer front and center for the count, it won’t be in a boxing match meant to line Zimmerman’s pockets. When his undoing comes to pass, I hope that before it takes place, he will be caught wallowing deep in the one thing that seems to bother him most in this life... Obscurity and Insignificance!

Glenn Peppers

The Human Mind... Open all NIGHT

Television Test Pattern

“The Human Mind... Open all NIGHT!”

By Glenn Peppers                                                                Febuary 2, 2014

Well, here I am, up briefly drinking water and peeking at my social media status, and what's on television in the wee hours of the night and/early morning. Ya know, I kinda miss the old days when TV use to sign off just after midnight. It seems folks slept all night more often then they do now. If you woke up in the middle of the night, or way too early back then, it was milk and cookies, and maybe a cold drumstick for you and back to bed. 

I remember if you woke up early back in the day, you'd re-read the funnies in The Detroit News, or learned new words and thumbed through the short stories in the Readers Digest; or skimmed through the Entertainment section of The Detroit Free Press until you got sleepy. I really liked reading the local Movie Listings section in both newspapers. Remember the ones that listed all the many neighborhood movie theaters and drive Inn's around the Detroit area that showed what was playing at each theater... even giving the times the movies were showing! and believe me, there were a lot of neighborhood theaters because there was no such thing as a paid television system like cable. Of course there was no satellite television. We only had one satellite up in space back then that we shot up into orbit in 1962 (it was called Telstar. And it was not readily available for consumer use at all. Just for Network use only). There was no home video tape, no DVD's or any such thing as Blu-Ray!

Late Night Radio DJ

Retro Transistor Radio

If you woke up in the middle of the night back in the day, you listened to whatever was on the radio late at night. Which back then in the late 1960's early 1970's was mostly underground jazz on public radio, gospel, and yes there was a country radio staion or two around that played country music all night as well! I mostly listened to pop music on CKLW in Detroit and Windsor, and soul music WJLB and/or WCHB Soul Radio... right up until they switched over to their gospel music format at 2am. I'd listen to gospel as well! Rance Allen and James Cleveland songs; by which time I was on the edge of sleep, ready to fall back to sleep on the couch, or at the kitchen table. 

The average Smart Phone

Back in the day, there was no computers or internet and social media to occupy our busy overloaded minds in the wee hours. In these days and times, digital technology has herded humankind into a much different direction, hasn't it? All those pretty little colors, lights and bleeps and beeps and Angry Birds on our Smart Phones, Tablets and Laptops and Desktops now command our attention front and center... 24/7, 365 and one half days a year! 

The Seduced Mind

I guess its official, we now live in a world that is (as the saying goes) "Always Open for Business!" Technology and convenience, right at our fingertips, occupying most all our time practically at will! So tell me; does this almost hypnotic, electronic, seductive occupation of our lives and time have to include the very taking over of our minds as well? It doesn't have to! I say set your own Sigh Off Time, and stick to it! Rest well my friends! I plan on doing so! And that's my friends is the end of this Broadcast!

Glenn Peppers