BlackMan Time

Archive for July, 2008

I woke up this morning thinking: we are all addicted to drugs or to a ‘drug’ of some sort. For many people this drug is weed (marijuana, ganja), alcohol, going to the gym, sex, food (more commonly in the form of eating), religion, kissing or doing anything that we love above and beyond a regularity that would generally be considered ‘normal’.

I formulated this idea after watching a friend who don’t normally smoke suddenly ask me if I had any cigarettes to which I said no because I don’t smoke cigarettes. Then she asked if I had any alcohol but I only had red wine; which was acceptable to her.

She explained that for some reason she wanted to ‘get drunk’ or be taken outside her current reality and she needed something to help her achieve this. Normally, she said, she would just go for a run, do some crucial exercise or eat some deliciously fattening chocolate.

On reflection it made sense to me that perhaps this is a common thing among all human beings and that we all need a ‘lift’ or some kind of ‘distraction’ away from the drudge of everyday living to get us through particular periods of our lives.

Maybe some people find this ‘lift’ in religion. Others might find it in drink or some other obsession we enjoy. It’s just an idea, one that should be considered before being dismissed as frivolous or trite.

So, which

First, a warning: this piece contains medical information that includes graphic visuals of medical pre-operative and post-operative photos of women’s vagina that may be disturbing to some readers…

For years I’ve been bombarded with spam adverts trying to entice me with “Enlarge Your Penis” or “Increase Your Girth” or “Extend Your Staying Power”. But, I had never given a thought to whether women were getting similar offers too!

Imagine, for instance, women receiving spam encouraging them to: “Revitalise Your Labia” or “Enhance Your Vagina’s Appearance” or “Recapture Your Tight Fit”. These are just examples of what my imagination so please excuse the mess!

What sparks this piece is the revelation that vagina rejuvenation is currently the in-thing with an increasing number of women. The sad thing is that many people, mostly men, don’t have a clue about it.

Up until recently I was one of those who didn’t know about this practice. Then a female associate widened my eyes to the phenomenon of Labiaplasty, a surgical procedure to reduce the size of a woman’s labia. It is mainly older women, perhaps worried by the aging appearance of their private parts, who are turning to Labiaplasty surgery to enhance the appearance of their private parts.

In the same way I would never enhance my penis in any cosmetic or artificial way is the same way I imagine women felt about vagina rejuvenation operations like a Labiaplasty. But I am obviously wrong.

What’s your experience of this?

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MORE INFO

PHOTO: Courtesy of Dr. Stern. Views of the labia before and after a labiaplasty procedure.

The Tom Cruise film Minority Report depicts a world in which the authorities have developed a system for detecting future crime long before any actual event had occurred. Then they would lock away the criminal and play a video-like record of the crime they would have committed!

I sometimes feel I am already living in that world!

I know someone who has already found me guilty of something that I may doing the future despite the fact that I have never done the things she is accusing me of doing.

Fear, anxiety, insecurity and unsubstantiated advice from friends (or family) can turn your mind this way and if you have always relied on these people for guidance chances are you will probably believe them in this matter.

That only leaves the innocent feeling as if injustice has been served on him and that life is not fair at all.

Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty? Well, that doesn’t really exist in the world of the paranoid, insecure, fearful or the ultra cautious. Their zero tolerance approach to things means that matters are solved even before zero is reached.

God help the hindmost!

On Saturday, July 19, 2008 I bought some cherries from the Notting Hill branch of Marks and Spencer store. They looked fresh and delicious behind the refrigerated box lit by pleasant, cool blue lighting. The package said they were good until July 22.

The date wasn’t a problem because I planned to eat the fruit with a female friend as part of our planned Saturday night entertainment! The schedule also included ice cream, red wine, cheese and biscuits, but I digress!

Anyway, for some reason we didn’t get to eat the cherries that night. We went out instead and didn’t get back for a few days. When we did get around to eating the cherries it was July 22 itself. On opening the packet I couldn’t believe the fruit had grown furry with large clumps of hairy tentacles crawling all over them.

That was enough to put me off eating cherries for life. In fact I have not bought any cherries since then.

There’s a lesson in there somewhere…

It is natural for some people to put up a resistance to things and concepts they are not familiar with. This is what “keeping it real” means to them.

So, if they encounter something which challenges them in this manner they will initially reject it. This may be how they are socialised.

For instance, a woman who is regularly in the habit of being disappointed by men, having her heart broken on most occasions she indulges in relationships, will be wary when yet another man comes along who appears to be offering more than she’s used to getting. She may even assume that if it seems to be too good to be true, it probably is!

Rather than look at and consider this man on his merits she will have already convinced herself that he is “just like all the rest.”

The poor man doesn’t really stand a chance because regardless how much he tries to let her understand that how he is now is his regular state, she has already decided she will not be going anywhere with him.

For the man it is a hard lesson to learn but maybe he should take comfort from the possibility that maybe the woman may have other ulterior reasons or apparently rejecting him. She could already have someone but is only using the heartbreak scenario as a cover.

You never can tell with a woman these days…

Excuse that headline: it was asking for it! I mean the world’s two fastest sprinters in history arriving for their big pre-Olympic news conference in London on Friday by speedboat, what are the odds? About a million (or two!) to one, I’d say.

This was the actual scenario for Usain Bolt and Asafa Powell as they pulled up in a speed boat on the bank of North Greenwich tube station, their Jamaican flag billowing behind them, to a press crew waiting bemusedly on dry land.

Whoever thought of this idea obviously did a good job in persuading the usually low key Powell and Bolt who actually looked as if they enjoyed the stint.

I just hope they don’t have any ideas about arriving at their next gig by parachute or anything stupid or life-threatening like that!

I agree with Fox hunting, but only when the animal concerned is a huge, cable network that peddles racist coverage as news.

So I was particularly glad to don my hunting gear and support hip-hop star Nas who has joined a throng of over 620,000 people petitioning the Rupert Murdoch owned Fox Network over its coverage of Black subjects.

“Fox poisons the country with racist propaganda and tries to call it news,” said Nas, pointing at how Fox personalities called Michelle Obama, wife of US presidential hopeful Barack Obama, a “baby mama.” But Fox has also focussed its racist beam on other Black personalities too.

Black Hating?

In fact they have a distinct pattern of race-baiting and fear-mongering regularly focussing on black leaders, black institutions and ordinary black people, to appease the race-hating, racist viewers.

Among the other racist faux pas Fox News has been guilty of include:-

• Liz Trotta’s celebratory tirade agreeing with the sentiment that Barack Obama should be assassinated.
• Another presenter, Bill O’Reilly, using the phrase ‘lynching party’ for a woman.

Fox defends its policy by saying it believes in all protesters exercising their right to free speech. The question is when is free speech being used to express one’s own deliberate racist outlook?

A cow never knows the use of its tail until it’s chopped off! Or, in other words, you never realise how much you’ll miss someone or something until they/it is no longer available to you or near you.

I’ve lost count of the number of sayings I know which illustrate this theme. Absence makes the heart grow fonder is another one.

It doesn’t matter if you have been fighting viciously with someone/thing; all you know is that when they/it is away from you, you feel this great sense of emptiness in the gap they once filled.

Indeed it’s a thin line between love and hate and sometimes when they/it is away from you learn to appreciate them even more.

Maybe we should deliberately aim to be away from our loved ones/things more often if only to preserve the love we obviously have for them!

I was delighted to be asked to sit on an important government backed panel of assessors to decide the fate of some 28 media-related organisations that had submitted projects aimed at under-privileged youths.

Without getting specific projects ranged from photography, internet radio stations, film, writing, mobile phone technology and more. We, a team consisting of young people aged 15 to 19 and some external assessors, including myself, were charged to handing out nearly

I made two huge mistakes today; both involve trying to be helpful to a particular female friend.

I made mistake number one when I suggested she should visit Primark on Oxford Street as they sold good quality clothes for ‘very little money.’ You could also use the word ‘cheap’ instead of ‘very little money’. Anyway, she took me at my word and cajoled me to accompany her to the store.

That was mistake number two!

Just from the entrance you could tell this was going to be a nightmare experience. It was a huge store, packed with people and frenzied activities. The three till areas (each containing 14 cashiers) still could not keep up with demand and the queues snaked around the store around 70 or 80 people deep.

Long Line

My friend then decided she wanted to try some of the stuff she’d picked out on, so we headed for the women’s changing room, or at least one of them. The queue for that was even longer than the cashier’s till!

Undaunted, she decided to put on an oversized skirt and try on the clothes she wanted to see under it. I was reduced to being a clothes horse or bag carrier. I gained unwanted attention from other shoppers, mainly female, cooing: “Awww, isn