I’ve been contemplating this story for a while now and I’m still in shock. The story proceeds as follows:

A certain Mr. Pedro Jones was baby-sitting for his girlfriend and noted the child was acting a bit too girly for his liking. Taking matters into his own hands, he strikes the child. The child goes into cardiac arrest and dies. He was “trying to make him act like a boy instead of a girl.”

Now this is the whole point I’ve been trying to make with this blog…what constitutes acting like a boy or acting manly? Why are we so caught up in this false sense of bravado anyway? Why can’t a man be a man without all of these additional labels applied? Granted, there must be some definition or characteristics (i.e. men who leave progeny all over the place would more fit the boy category and not the man in my opinion) but I am really talking about the subtle hints that society at large whisper to us. “Men walk with a lean” or “Men drink Alcohol – preferably beer” or maybe “Men should want to ‘score’ as much as possible.” I’m sure if the question, what does it mean to be a man were posed to 20 different men, we would probably get 30 different answers. To be honest, I’m not so sure myself. But to beat a child to death for not being born with your ideal definition of being a man -without even having a chance to mature – is nowhere near close to my definition of what it means to be a man.

What are your thoughts?

[Yahoo News]

As many of you know, I took a road trip with some family and went down south to visit my sister and niece. Had an awesome time, and the road tends to put you in a cranky, but sometimes contemplative mood. 15 hours will do that to you! But there was one experience that kinda stuck with me.

We stopped by a Wendy’s for some fries and a frosty. The lady at the window handed us the food, then quietly and tactfully asked us to pray for her. She said coolly, “I’m going to be evicted tomorrow, please pray”.  She then handed us the 3 dollars or so in change, and we were on our way. That made such an impression on me for a few reasons.

First, that this woman was asking everyone to pray for her. No doubt, she was praying for herself, but she was certain that the more prayers were made on her behalf, the better off she would be. I don’t pretend to know enough to say whether or not that’s true, but it had its effect on me. It was almost just like the woman with her two mites except in modern days. This lady working the cash register knew where her support came from. Her faith was so strikingly out of place.

Secondly, what would I do if I were in her position. I’m young, and have a decent job and family that I can call on for support. What if I were in her position. What is my faith made of? If tested like she was, would I be asking for prayers, never thinking for one moment that whispering to a God I cannot see will bring exactly what I need when I need it? I’m a Christian, but sometimes I wonder if I’m worthy of the name. Needless to say, I spent a few hours pondering the experience silently in a crowded car.

At the end of the night, when the sun was coming up, I got the distinct impression that she would be ok. If you ask what “ok” means, I can’t answer that. But I think she will be ok just the same.

Every now and then its a good thing to reflect on things. One’s life, achievements, disappointments, goals, successes. Some folks are pretty happy about the ratio of achievements to time spent, while others begin the new year with resolutions to be more efficient with the time they have. Today is that day for me, and it also happens to be Martin Luther King Day.

I sit in my “Captain’s Chair”, you know-the chair every guy has that marks him as the ruler of the house-and I contemplate the small amount of information I can recall about this great man’s life. I recall seeing somewhere that they might make a movie. Hope its a good one I remark to myself. But honestly, would I know if it were a good one or a bad one? This is the point where I have to be honest with myself. Like the Christian who follows Christ, but doesn’t really know where Jesus was born and has to sing a Christmas Carrol to get the clues, or who isn’t too knowledgeable of the details except for the whole death on the cross thing.  I begin to think about all the stuff I don’t know about the man, Martin Luther King jr. I wonder what it would have been like living in his day. Would I have taken part in any of those demonstrations? Would I have known him? Would I be too busy trying to make ends meet for my family? What am I doing now? How do I measure up to this man? What have I done with my talents and with my time? These are the tough questions. They make you want to do more, to be more. What it must have taken to do those things. To march knowing good and well people straight-up hate you and would like to do you bodily harm. To do so knowing the dangers involved for family and friends you care about deeply. What a sense of conviction.

I wonder if the stuff he was made out of is present in this world we live in today. Everyone has this sense of entitlement, thinking they deserve this and that. But the level of humility this guy had is just baffling to me. To be non-violent about it and to patiently wait while in a prison cell. Wait for things to get better, believing that your position was correct.  What faith in God this man had. I can barely wait in line at McDonald’s without getting a little antsy and short with the cashier!

What would happen if I applied myself? I wonder what my potential is and could be. What if I were efficient with my time? Martin Luther King jr. was the youngest person to win the Nobel Peace Price in the time he lived. What an amazing feat.

I sit and contemplate these things wondering if there will be another person like him. I wonder if more of us responded to our own callings, what things would be like. Or rather just me, what if  ’I’ make a move? How would I change my own life or the lives of my family and friends? What dent could I make on this world?

Was sent an article from the NYDailyNews.com about adult apps that feature Asian Women. Not having an iPhone myself, I can’t really say that I’ve played around with some of the applications mentioned in the article, however, the author makes a good point that a lot of men miss.

I’m not going to go into the usual humdrum of how men treat women as sexual objects as their are extensive articles on that subject. I just think its really interesting how we as a society are are taking our sexism to new levels with technology!

We are at the point were we snack on information like Doritos. Stick with me I’m going somewhere.  Our appetite for bite sized packets of information that we can digest in a few minutes or less is beginning to grow, while our attention spans are waning. I am beginning to think this is having an effect on how we perceive information. For example, the title “Asian Boobs” would reek of sexism as well as racism in a society that took a longer time to process information. However, in this society where I can read 5 newspapers on my cell phone in the 45 minute commute to work, I don’t really have time to process the information as good or bad. It just exists. I either like it or I don’t. That is a real title for an iPhone App by the way,  and its got the writer of this article really mad. Can’t say that I blame her. I wished she were a little more broad in her topic, and I felt it was a little too one-sided, (so I shouldn’t date Asians cause that shows I have Asian Fever?)  but a good read none-the-less.

Now to my male readers – it would seem that we should be more enlightened than our great-grandparents and even our parents in matters of racism and sexism, but are we living up to the hype? Because such apps are accepted as normal and because they take up so little of our time, do we gloss over glaring forms of prejudice simply because it doesn’t take up more than 5 minutes of our day? Coming back to the Doritos analogy, can “snack apps” and or “snack pieces of information” be detrimental to our 21st Century enlightenment if we aren’t careful in much the same way as junk food can be to our health without moderation?

Something really great about this picture

Men, take your butt to church sometimes!

The End