BlackMan Time

Archive for September, 2008

It is a source of great pride to see Jamaican athlete Usain Bolt appearing so confidently and positively on the David Letterman show, last Wednesday, September 24, 2008.

Bolt, star of last month’s Beijing Olympics where his three gold medals, two in world record times, seem a natural and he wasn’t intimidated by the auspiciousness of the surroundings either. Check it out:-

The next day Bolt, the first man to win the three Olympic events in a single games since Carl Lewis in 1984, was invited by Spanish football champion team, Real Madrid, to visit their Santiago Bernabeu Stadium to watch a game and train with the club at an undetermined date.

Too often you see greater lights appearing on high profile TV shows and freezing up; Jamaicans included. Other times some embarrass themselves (and their country) with their inarticulate, sometimes incoherent, performance.

I hope we will see much more of Bolt on other high profile programmes soon.

Bigging up himself and Jamaica, of course!

I can’t believe the Queen of England! She really knows how to work her brain!

Only recently she asked the British government for an increase of

It’s a no-brainer for me to rebel against any government introduced security procedure which requires highly powerful devices to probe my brain.

I do not care in whose or what name they do this in; whether it be terrorism, national security or some other expedient term they come up with to catch the unwitting.

From experience these devices and gadgets generally tend to only make their manufacturers and the government agencies implementing their use, rich.

They do very little to increase security. And once a government decides they will be implemented ordinary people have very little choice, apart from demonstrating. Or, in my case, considering to leave the country.

The latest such device being considered is the Mind Reading Security Scanner.

Malintentions!

The system, dubbed Malintent, is being developed by Homeland Security in the US for use at airports. It searches the body for cues that predict whether a person intends to cause any harm to fellow passengers.

It uses a series of sensors and scans to detect temperature, heart rate and respiration as passengers walk through an archway. Everyone concerned with its introduction say it will cut queues at busy airport security checkpoints as bags may not need to be screened.

This is the part that scares me: I would always prefer a manual check as the very determined always finds a way to beat machine security systems.

Spotting Terrorists

The system is apparently also designed to distinguish between a rushed, stressed and sweaty passenger and a terrorist. Oh please.

All I’m seeing here is another opportunity for some company – probably with government connections – to make a killing by offering a device that will only lull people into thinking security is being streamlined.

My sceptical mind is unable to think anything else. For that I won’t allow myself to be a part of any system that implements it.

The British government has come up with a brilliant new idea to alert you to the dangers of smoking: they want to shock you!

They aim to do this with a series of graphic pictures showing the effects of smoking. These pictures are set to appear on cigarette packs from October 1, 2008. Here is an example:-

Britain is the first European Union country to introduce these photo warnings which will replace the current warnings and extend to all cigarette packs by October 2009.

Smoking is the biggest killer in England where it causes the premature death of more than 87,000 people each year.

I’ve always loved the soundtrack of James Bond movies. In between my hardcore reggae, hip hop, R & B, classic rock and even uptempo classical tracks you will find some pretty orchestral Bond tracks.

One of my favourites is the Matt Monroe voiced “From Russia With Love”, with its lazy, laid back vocals, which gets a spin usually on a Sunday as I chill out for the afternoon. There’s something about the whole composition and vocal arrangement which captures the vibes and feelings one would have about love in as cold a climate as Russia.

Things I immediately associate with Russia then float into my mind. Without order these include the movie Doctor Zhivago, its soundtrack featuring haunting balalaika rifts; beautiful (usually blonde haired!) women, spies, Cold War, Communism, bitingly cold snowy conditions, Rasputin, Stalin, Lenin, Marx, cosmonauts, Kremlin, caviar (which I don’t eat) and austere economic and political climate.

In reality the closest I have ever been to Russia is via my boring history lessons and the interesting interactive chats I have with an attractive and intelligent Russia-based woman I’m going to call Aylo. She is neither blonde nor blue eyed and thinking of it she’s not even Russian at all: she’s part Gypsy roots of which she’s proud.

Anyway, Aylo is studying at a Uni in one of the main Russian cities and whenever “From Russia With Love” pops into my head she’s the one I think about. It seems very appropriate and fitting. Through matching the song with someone I know, albeit from the virtual world of cyberspace, I have developed this strong desire to visit Russia.

It would be good to do so and see some of Russia’s famous sites for myself close-up. Who knows, maybe I could ask Aylo to show me around!

Unless you are directly affected it’s hard to imagine how devastating the effects that bad parenting can have on the development of a child. The most typical examples would be abusive, absentee or forever-making-promises-but-never-delivering parents or a combination of all three.

Children reared under these conditions usually tend to experience relationship and/or even social integration issues later in life. Very often they are unable to form or sustain meaningful relationships, tending to make really bad choices in partners, for example.

And things don’t get any better with age either as the memories linger and the yearning for the true love of a parent can never be replaced…

A good way to break this cycle is for affected children to refocus their lives and re-visit the cause or scene of their unhappiness. Some might advocate psychoanalytic therapy but I would personally suggest finding these parents and confronting them directly with questions on why did they act like that in the past.

It may be hurtful to ask these now elderly people pointed questions. They may be embarrassed, ashamed and may even think of their children as being ungrateful but they need to know how their irresponsibility has left the affected children dysfunctional.

They should shoulder this responsibility for if they have any heart their conscience must have been bothering them too so discussion could also be their release. For this the least they can do is to apologize…

Nothing can turn the clocks back or eliminate the reality of the bad hand affected children have been dealt or what has already taken place in such situations. But, an apology could go a long way into restoring lost pride, respect, confidence and belief in this thing called life.

I know so many people who, for whatever reason, live in a particular place or space but absolutely hate it. For instance at least once a week I meet someone who tells me how much they hate living in the UK.

After listing all the things they dislike you usually end up wondering: “Why are they still here then?” These are people who are usually successful in their own way but who somehow haven’t found the kind of love for the UK they had hoped for.

Most people born outside the UK will still have strong ties with their beloved homeland and even though they live in the UK their heart is still in the place where their navel string was cut! This is called homesickness!

Those who have been able to feel totally at home in the UK do not understand this at all. They think anyone who doesn

I hate it when people make you a promise, fail to deliver then instead of taking responsibility for not having delivered try to excuse their failure on anything other than themselves! Their subsequent explanation is usually a source of enjoyment!

They will tell you how this person let them down or they were relying on another person to do a certain thing and they didn’t do it, etc. But, owning a responsibility means that you are (or should be) in control of all the elements or be monitoring them, until you deliver on your original promise.

It’s no good abdicating their responsibility to someone else who is unable to fulfil this request because apart from being certain to fail, it also highlight your impaired judgement and your weakness as a manager.

This is a business concept that also works very well in personal relationships and all other endeavours. But who is really brave enough to use it when people are too afraid of admitting when they are wrong, or have failed or is somehow less than perfect?

At times it’s not that we fail; it’s what we do after failing that counts. While some are dejected after failing, others find a way minimise the effects of failure. They maintain good communications and relations with those who accepted our original promise in good faith only to feel sleighted.

Owning responsibility can be a humbling experience. It is not a time to skulk behind excuses but a desire to act in a way that shows you are willing to assume all blame if something goes wrong and a little of the glory when it goes to plan!

I’m not so sure striving for perfection is the way forward. But then again I’m positive accepting failure is not the way either. So which route should we use in our journey through life?

Well, imagine a world in which everyone was perfect. Nothing ever goes wrong. People always say the right things, at the right time. Everyday was simply perfect. No one disagreed with one another. Well, in such a far-fetched world everything would collapse!

For starters literature, plays, fiction films and any endeavour using straightforward story telling techniques, would be terribly boring. They all strive on conflict and in the perfect world an absence of conflict probably would result in one dimensional character.

The good guy/bad guy formula of most conflict-driven creative works would not exist!

Goal!

After considering all this maybe it is good to have imperfection because it gives us a goal to reach, a motivation or even a reason to act or a call to action.

We are usually contented to do nothing if everything is alright in our lives. If we have little, are suffering or simply desire something other than what we currently have and dissatisfied with, then we will strive to get better in one way or another.

This is not a perfect world but I do know that perfection isn’t the aim of the game: it’s navigating around the imperfection (and how we do this!) which counts. But it seems we need the two to keep us in equilibrium.

The other day Mr. Youth Man was sitting on a crowded London Underground train, clutching tightly onto his laptop case and reading a newspaper. He was making his weekday journey to work and, as usual the train was packed, so it greatly annoyed him.

There were only two seats available: one directly opposite; sandwiched between a businessman in a pinstriped suit and a student-looking woman. The next seat was beside him.

When the train stopped at the next station Mr. Rock N Rolla stepped into the carriage. At first he sat in the spare seat opposite Mr. Youth Man. Then, after a few seconds he rose and chose to sit beside Mr. Youth Man, which increased Mr. Youth Man’s annoyance further.

The train moved off but Mr. Rock N Rolla had a fit of the fidgets and couldn’t keep his feet still, tapping it haphazardly on the carriage floor. Mr. Youth Man wondered what the noise was and where it was coming from. So he looked down and saw Mr. Rock N Rolla’s feet tapping on the floor. Mr. Youth Man’s look was perfectly innocent, although he tried to hide his annoyance.

Whattage!

Suddenly, Mr. Rock N Rolla looked at Mr. Youth Man in a threatening way and loudly said: “What?” It was the kind of question asked in a challenging way as if Mr. Rock N Rolla was hoping Mr. Youth Man would be foolish enough to rise to the bait.

Mr. Youth Man simply turned away from Mr. Rock N Rolla and looked the other way at the other passengers, one of whom glanced in his direction.

In a swift movement he fished the Rambo knife out of the side of his laptop case and efficiently directed the blade into Mr. Rock N Rolla’s throat, piercing the flesh and rupturing the soft bones in that area. Mr. Rock N Rolla had no time to react as the blood squirted out of his throat like a geyser.

Mr. Rock N Rolla clutched his throat, gagging for air, trying in vain to stop the blood, just as the train stopped at the next station and Mr. Youth Man neatly stepped off.

Bloody Blouse

As the train pulled out Mr. Rock N Rolla’s body slumped forward and, at last, a passenger screamed but only because her white blouse had been splashed with blood from Mr. Rock N Rolla’s neck…

Later that evening the Evening Standard carried the headline: Another Youth Crime Victim with the story detailing the spiralling statistics of the growing problem. On the radio, TV and online they debated why this is happening.

Various “experts” espoused their theories while sipping chilled wine and expensive champagne in air conditioned studios. They site sociological situations, poverty, lack of opportunities, unemployment, credit crunch, indiscipline at home and all manner of logical reasons.

But none of them actually suggest that crime also happens because some people are just out looking for trouble and when it comes they can’t handle it…