Sorry, but these questions are just so one tracked.

Meanwhile, to answer it (in the hopes of quelling any future inspiration to ask why big tobacco does what it does).

Answer: Profit. Simple as. If tobacco weren't a domesticated, and controlled substance, it wouldn't be allowed, like marijuana isn't. If it weren't already a dug in and profitable industry, it wouldn't be let to exist... and if there weren't smokers who are this close to mounting their own civil rights movement, because its SUCH a violation of their rights that the price of cigs is flying like everything else and that other people are expressing their unwillingness to be secondhanded to death in public... then there'd be more public outrage about the fact there's an industry who litterally sells addictive cancer sticks.

But it is, it is and they are (respectively), and if you wanna do somethin worthwhile about it, go..blow up a Newport factory at 4am..or... assasinate Joe Kamel. But please, no more obvious questiions!

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Wile E. Coyote is one of the characters from an old sub series of bugs bunny cartoons. He's a self proclaimed and partially bona fide genius who's life's goal seems to be to catch and eat a beighboring road runner, who's cunning and ..maybe superior instinct have kept him alive, up to present.

I'm not sure if the metaphor was completely intended by the cartoonist but Wile has spent years and all his genius and ingenuity, meeting some near successes that were cut short by what seemed to be random and unfair interventions and circumstances.. but mostly epic failure at this single pursuit, which by now has probably become a goal of principal, more than the actual wanting to catch and eat the bird, for him.

This so reminds me of my own pursuit of different things and remembering these particular cartoons does kind of illustrate my story so far.

I have yet to catch the bird. I keep getting hit by random delivery trucks that weren't there when the scene started but still I persist the next day, as if the previous hasn't happened, with little more than that bird and how to get to it on mind.

That being said, I think there's a little bit of Wile. E. Coyote in all of us.

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It does say that we've come along way since 1942.

It does not say that racism in America is no more.

It does say that just maybe everybody's children really can grow up and be anything.

It does not say this is a sign of the times, nor the shape of things to come.

It does say that there's people with enough common sense that even a black man wins, if he's the best for the job.

It does not say that everyone welcomes the change he represents nor the shift in paradigm with open arms.

Let's talk about my personal thoughts: I never thought I'd see the day. I am genuinely impressed with America, not because they elected a black guy at all, but because one rose to victory without it having to be despite or because of what he is. For those who don't understand, every achievement like this is so celebrated because it is exactly this type of barrier that is surpassed. The news of this triumph then trickles down and distributes hope and prspect of opportunity where there was none.

This is one of those things that you have to be.. not only black.. but probably 50+ to appreciate the full scale of the change.. because only then have you experienced a good sample of what we used to be... and 10 or under to be in the garden of opportunity that this represents for your future. It's little black kids who are witnessing and being taught the significance.

This means the most to those two groups. I'm 20 something, and it prompts me to do better than I have been doing at the life I lead. I have no intention of becoming the first black anything, least of which a president, but his development and ascension.. give me a kind of a formula for success to follow, however loosely.

There are at least a dozen other men I know who watched it and said to themselves.. Yes we can, too.

One thing I don't understand is.. how some people think we're so especially screwed because of him, and I don't want to say it's because they see he's black but.. what other reason could it be when we've had much more socialistic (in their active policy) presidents and many of them were preserved in history as greats. (FDR, Roosevelt just to name a couple). My feeling is their anti-Barack because its the cool thing to be, but he hasn't done anythng but get his justice league and their plan together.. so no one knows anything accept that he means business with whatever he's going to do.  There's not one single indication that we're so epicly screwed.. unless you count the fact we were screwed way before this election started. Starting just after the last one. So, whatever.

This doesn't mean I'm going to stop my plans or anything, but it does make me feel that much better (or at least it would if I didn't get the overwhelming sense that this just pushed every hate group in the country up in arms) about the American story.

It finally feels like something I can relate to.

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Liquidate the federal budget and put it in the hands of every man woman and child in the country.

Success trickles up, not down, and I think we've been shown this time and time again. A nation's economy depends very much on the attainability of luxuries, affordability of extranneous but practical goods, and above all, it depends on fools and their money soon parting.

What happens when you give a person lots of money? All the stuff they couldn't afford suddenly is affordable and thus back in their realm of consideration for buying. What happens when you give fools lots of money? All the stuff they could never buy or afford to maintain, is suddenly in the buyzone. What happens after they buy it is largely a personal problem.. but if you want houses, cars, those dumbass big trucks and SUVs and all sorts of other luxury shit this coutnry insists on producing to start selling again, in the context of corporate desire and preoccupation with profit.. and the fact every measure of our economic health seems based off their profit, then the money has to go into the hands of people (which is why some people are clueless that there's a problem until wallstreet starts crashing).

It's doing nothing but looking pretty in the bank accounts of corporate executives (who are all being paid too damn much, especially the fuckups among them).

SO.. there you go. Give money to, or at least stop taking so damn much of it from, the ones who spend it and drive this economy.

Case in point.. What happened when Bush gave that joke of a stimulus check to everyone, a while back? Most of us knew where it was going, before we ever got it. To some bill, most likely. To those on top of their bills.. it went to a new XBox or something nifty like that. Point being, it got spent. It was just too small of a joke to really register on therichter scale. So imagine what happens if.. we got say.. an extra.. 2...3..or 10,000? Buying sprees, investing, lots of splurging, cash down payments on new homes, more paid mortgages (stopping the foreclosure flood on a dime, for those smart enough to use it to keep their homes ) lots more travelling, much more paying off of outstanding debts, etc. (Egads, I just touched on every industry currently suffering because no one has any money. Go figure).

Stuff getting bought.. debts getting paid... new investment getting made (in new things that'll replace the out dated engines of our economy).. Who'd've though?. All because you gave it to those most likely to spend it on either a need or desire, and not too likely to sit on it and keep it out of circulation, given the world that most people live in.. which is one of bills, mortgages rent payments, credit card debts.. and material things that they want, all of which destinations to which our money is deligated, on a daily basis. There is no stockpiling money, for more people. People buy what they want and pay what they have to, when they have to, when they're able.

 Isn't that the point?

Second thing I would do: A broad sweep mandate on the implementation technological innovations. That's right. I would MAKE these asshole companies rise to the challenge of technical revolution and start back making green cars and other things for which the technology for transition currently exists, but hasn't been industrialized for sake of profit mongering in the dying age of gasoline . Hell, that'd be a great stipulation to add to this current bailout plan.

We all know its socialist to tell companies what to do or whatever, but so the hell what? (Yea, get a life if that's gonna be your comment. I am kind of a socialist, or at least I recognize that people run the ship, so people's who you have to bend over backward for, not capitalist pigs running Titanic companies). Evidentially they don't do what's in the interests of anyone or anything but their pocketbook if you dont step in, kick their ass and direct traffic a little.. particularly when they're asking you for money, concievably to help them continue being overpaid, nonindustrious fuckups for a while longer.

I would make such mandates, because right now.. this country needs to invest in its much neglected (and expertly invisible) lower totem pole. The grunts, otherwise known as working class citizens, who've been taxed to shit and deprived of jobs despite being loyal buyers and workers for ...ever. This is the only chance we have of recovering, unless of course we want to start a war. Mind you, everyone negates that the reason wars are economically stimulating is because wartime is a time of constant demand and innovation.. although stimulating the pockets of citizens to create a domestic demand is less likely to leave you stagnated and wondering what the point of the last 5 years was.

That means any money I authorize or allow congress to authorize  to be injected into industry has to be persuant to mutating industry BACK into the job rich, productive.. and INTO globally competitive corporations comprising an economy made in recognition of the current state of things, like everyone else is making much more progess at trying to do (That's right.. the Germans have pwned us for years, in innovation, the Japanese in economical pragmatism.. but its solely our "we're the best and that's all to it" attitude that's kept us set in our ways, and now we know the truth. That's a lie that we tell ourselves, but its something nobody but us believes. So time to evolve, or go extinct).

It will NOT be given so that they can last a little longer meanwhile still paying hundreds of millions to the top and still firing people and still making inferior and illogical products that aren't selling.

If I were president, the banking indistry would die.. or at least the big bears who are soffocating currently, would, and then they'd be rebuilt, because its their own fucking fault why they got in dire straits and it doesn't do much permanent damage for them to be replaced by newer smarter banks who aren't run by as big of morons.

I guarantee you, I'd be the most hated president in U.S. History (thusly robbing George W. Bush of that legacy).. which reminds me.. I'd ban FOX from cable television. I don't think I'd hear too much of an uproar about that..  but, anyway, I'd be remembered 100 years later as the "you'll thank me later" president, when everyones working, able to go and work and live anywhere in the world because they have the means and people allover the world buy our products competitively.

None of this would probably happen because the president the following day would likely repeal and undo everything I just did, but still.
  
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Noooooooo absolutely not.

But I do have trust issues, though. That is.. trust used to come easily to me.. because I had no concept of betrayal. Someone then walked me through it.

I more or less thank them for that, but at the same time.. one of the things I liked most while in a relationship was.. the ability I had to be cool and trusting... in a completely unconditional way. Nobody's gonna deal with you too long if you're the jealous or naggy type, right?

Well picture someone who's cool with all your guy friends and to whom you have to work hard to fuck up.. and ..you have me, circa 2 years ago. .

That being said, it's been long enough that just maybe I'm able to practice that bit, again. For a long time I've felt like that was an important part of my habit I wanted back.

Now, for the question at hand... well first of all, I've experienced what a committed relationship (or at least what being committed to one) can do.. and what things you find in the process.. so I'm not the least bit afraid of it.

Lots of people are, because they believe they lose some essential part of their freedom, which I guess is true... you lose your ability to sleep and date around. Maybe I don't understand it because I've never been a casual dater or a..casual night capper.. but in any case, I think those people think that commitment binds them to.. something that will compromise their free spirit or something.

Ideally, it shouldn't; that is.. if your partner knows you need space, food and time alone ..or anything from that to random sprints across the country, just to say you did it.. or that you have a passion that you pursue for your own fullfillment.. then it's not something they'll deny you.

Even if it is forsaking freedoms, you're still trading other freedoms and rights for the ones you feel you will lose.
For example.. it's nice to have a home.. nice to have a card playing partner.. someone you can do anything with, tell anything to and share everything among. These are things you don't have, in a romantic capacity anyway, when you're casual.

All I can say is, it's nice to have something like a sure thing. To this day I'd trade anything I have to have it .

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I wouldn't put an age on it, so much as a stage of development.

I can only particularly speak for men, and perhaps only myself, since we seem to have the most issues with commitment, and I know better about why we do.

I still wouldn't put an age on it, because I would be doing just fine had I married at 19-20, like I came close to.

If you have passed the stage where everything with enough curves can attract you strongly, and tempt you to do the wrong things, or things not well thought out.. you might be ready. If you have not passed this up, its very likely you'll end up messing up, and over something really stupid that wont be worth it.

If you have passed the stage where it is a chore to do for others, and you openly recognize the reward of doing and caring for someone else, then maybe you are ready. If you have not, then it's going to be a long, resentful existance, being bound to that duty for the rest of your life, even if it is with someone you like.

If you have passed or never entered that stage of adulthood where.. you want to or get something out of playing the field.. sleeping around and what not... then maybe you are ready. If you're not done being a whore.. then you can't settle, nuff said. If you are passing that stage, then it's going to be gradual as an adjustment. Were I your wife, I'd sleep with one eye open for a number of years because old habits die hard, and the divorce rate in this country is proof of that .

If you know what you want, or at least have some idea what's most important to you in the world, particularly when it comes to what your heart wants.. you might be ready. If you don't know what you want, whats important to you or don't have a clue what your heart wants or if it isn't at least some part the person you're looking to commit to.. then you have no business being married to them.

If you have a stomach and a easy tolerence for sacrifice, and are mentally prepared to do and give what you have to for sake of what you understand is a greater happiness.. that is.. if you know that it's not giving anything up or sacrificing at all but trading one way of life for another.. then maybe you're ready. If you don't then everything you have to give up or stray from is going to hurt, and hurt leads to resentment, which will break you up in the end.

I don't think these realizations and developments come at a really young age, too often, but then I happen to know that people grow at different rates and experience different things and that lands some people's priorities in the right way to be ready for things like marriage.

I don't think fiscal readiness matters so much because, until there are kids involved, there aren't so many financial complications.

To me, it's more.. where you are inside.. and how sure you are of matters of the heart.. and not so much about age..  because there's people like me, who were born (into adulthood) ready, if only for the right person.. and then there's people who.. are ..stray dogs and alley cats.. 30-40+ and still not even adults mentally.. let alone marriage material.

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It.. renders me unable to talk to them while retaining any dignity, and without arriving at helpful conclusion so it ends up not being worth it.

I can't go to friends.. because they come to me, on account of most of them believe I'm wiser. I do, from time to time, on small things I think they know something about. For the most part, I have to be the rock else my people panick for themselves. I can be in need, but only sparingly, it seems.

I don't have a.. stable significant other, although if Ray counts, I guess I do get regular brain frying sessions from talking with her. I don't ask for advice, perse, but we have alot of.. discussions and she's a very smart person to crosstalk with.

One or both of us gets something out of it whenever we talk.

But no.. for the most part.. I like to appear as an unbreakable impregnable, never lost individual. People at large only know I'm not when I've hit critical mass and break down. You only know that happens when I've dissapeared from view, a while. Soooo I don't go to anyone, usually.

In a way.. I don't trust anyone to be allowed to see me sweat, despair or be lost. No living human, besides myself anyway. Why? I don't feel like I have enough in common or am recepted or remotely understood by anyone other than me.. considering I'm my own fulltime mechanic .

And I just don't trust other people knowing when I hurt or am lost. From where I sit, people only use vulnerabilities to hurt you somehow, so it's best they aren't aware of any.

Also from where I sit, I have a hard time defending the boundaries of my will so I've often thought it best not to engage in any talks that put them in jeopardy.

So.. what do I do when I'm needing advice or lost in general? I go into a remote location, physically and spiritually.. and I figure it out with myself.. because I can often find answers if I look deep enough into what I already know.... or failing that.. if it's something I truthfully don't know or have an idea about... I defer the question to God.. in the.. unique way that I subsribe.

I'm not at all religious.. and not a believer in a divine God, but I can vouch for there being some type of spiritual presence abound. I don't know much more than I've been able to form a connection with it.. and get answers (and no, it doesn't talk back so much as it.. replies with ideas or grants me direction to the answer I seek out). This connection always produces a straight forward answer, or a pathway to one. It's the very means by which I got the suggestion that led me to declare a state of war. That's served me well, in many ways.

I don't expect anyone to understand or believe that, but other than myself, that's the only source I trust .

It hasn't gotten me quite where I want to be, but it's saved me from myself and from many undesirable circunstances, so far.  

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What can I say about it? I voted for him, first off, so I'm glad. It's a step in the right direction. A much needed one.

We have made two significant achievements (and for those who don't care about the black perspective.. scroll down.I'll tell you when you can look). First, an African-American has made it into the highest office in the nation, without having to be someone he isn't, and without having to perform despite what he is, nor answer to that as if it's an issue to him. He's the first one. I can only imagine what it's like to be any 50+ black person, right now.. experiencing this.

(ok, now look.)

Second. It's legal. (Well, in some states). 420 (not that I observe it) will never be the same.

(now scroll..)

For my own people.... this (the first thing...) is an.. achievement that, for those who can understand it, goes beyond anything I could say I ever thought was possible.

(ok, look again). I want to talk, though, about where we (everyone in America) go, from here.. because as I went out today; day after a beautiful president (scroll...), and the first black president ever, is elected.. I don't see the change taking.(Now look.)

What I mean is. I don't like what I've seen, today.

 I see bumstung conservatives ...bitching about how they can't believe this much of America is this dumb. It's not that we're dumb.. its that we live here and have been living here.. for the last decade..watching the entire country crumble.. quite visibly for many of us. Quality of life has gone in a seemingly inverse relationship to how hard people try to adapt and survive. We've had enough failed policy for this millenium. So.. it's time for change and that's what was voted for, in overwhelming majority.

We took it in the bum in 2000, and 2004. It's simply your turn, but I shudder to imagine how anything he can do in the next 8 years can really hurt more than the last 8.

People.. it's time to get with the program and press on. It's time to get productive and get tactical. You haven't listened to the messages of either man if you are not, at this moment, getting spiritually prepared to ride the tide and lay the bricks of getting this country in order.

Also another thing I notice, (scroll... waay down) among my own (black) people, is that.. though we just had this..significant achievement in our history, which is as much American history as that... it hasn't changed the way people carry themselves, on the street. Today I saw young men, still camping the corners (which is funny because I never saw that any other day). I saw them still with unkempt afros and dooky braids. Still talking lazily and about nothing much.. and I found myself a little dissapointed.

I said to myself, as he was declared winner, this isn't a just because moment. This is a moment where.. the things I got told as a black kid.. that I can do anything if I worked at it.. and then things like "this is a white man's world" were.. put to the test of reality. This is where a new validation occurs. A validation that, not only was the first statement true, but.. it could be done.

A black man becomes president.. something we always joked about and wrote songs of longing about.. and it finally happens. I still can't believe it. But what I can't believe even more is that we have yet to adopt a covenant of progress, citing what we've just been shown is possible. (keep scrolling... I didn't say stop..)Why don't more of my people, men in particular.. take it as a cue to wake up today, and for the rest of our days.. and rise to the new precident that's been set. Why don't we set a new standard for ourselves.. now that we see that.. we haven't been fed hopeful bullshit.. and that we can be and do anything, officially?

(ok, now stop). Maybe I'm expecting too much, on day 1.. but my dissapointment from today's sights remains.

And then, of course, there's all the (scroll, if you think neonazi skinheads are a mythical beast who don't really exist, otherwise proceed) hate groups and hateful people... people who didn't vote for him solely because he's black.. and.. people for whom this is the final straw in their tolerence. There's groups who've pledged to increase lynchings and such, over the next year. I doubt it'll happen but the threat's been made. I wouldn't be surprised if that same element spawned more race riots and perhaps worse.

Needless to say.. none of this is the way I had hopes America would be going on about things, today. I honestly hoped people would ..charge into tommorow.. today. I hoped to see my own kind, making subtle changes, talking about what this means for us and walking a little taller because of it. I had hoped to see people..taking the Barack Obama challenge.. which is to prepare to make the changes needed in our lives, while he makes the changes we asked for, to our country's government and operation.

I hold deep and secret fears about this country's immediate future.. none of them pertaining to him, so far, but to how we've thus far not uped the ante.. and how some of us are dealing with it and pledging to react in rebellion to it.

Maybe it's just too soon to be measuring the acidity of the water and calling it a stillborn sea, you think?

I have faith in those in my country. I have faith in the presence of good.. and in the prevalance and accesibility of the greater angels in all men (and women.

I just haven't seen it, today. I've seen too much of the contrary, though I still believe.

We were still there on Kentucky when my brother in law first came into our lives annd when my first niece was in conception. I grew apart from most of the friends I grew up with, living there. I only recently got in contact with an elementary school buddy I had.. but nobody else, really.

I would go down to Harper and Children's hospital fairly often... on account of I was some kinda fierce epileptic so.. you know.. not only would I find myself waking up in a gourney..practically every other week.. but my mom and I would be downtown on the Woodward strip, which was pretty much in the path, fairly often.

The central area of the strip, where the downtoan mall and that huge picture of Barry Sanders on a building side is visible.. used to have this nice underground mall and one of the best restaurants in the whole city, before the whole thing closed down and got boarded up. Someone decided to paint a huge mural over the boards.. and I think that's still there, to this day.

My mom had.. started nursing school at that time, too.. and, like I said, my sisters had dates that they were getting into, so.. lots of time for just me, at home .

Well, not entirely. I did have a buncha home town friends and ..you know. sort of a lady friend who I talked about some time ago. But like I also said, 13ish.. all the moving began and all the growing apart started.

We didn't have much, at the time, but I didn't know what poor was, for a number of years.. so when I finally did learn what it was.. and that we had been.. so so poor.. I just kinda gasped at the proposition and that little realization.

I went my first few months at the science academy, while we were living there. A whole new batch of people I didn't like, and a handful I did, lol.

I wouldn't say that any of this stuff is.. attached to Detroit. Just what's happened in the 13-14 years I lived there.
I've been to... maybe 4 or 5 other states and a number of cities therein so I've seen what it's like elsewhere.. and alot of it does seem just.. better than I ever remember Detroit being.

I've watched this city sorta... die a pretty indignant death, over the years, instead of becoming really great, like most of the other places I've been to. It's kind of a shame. I wouldn't say I'm even attached to it, on account of.. I'm not nearly local enough for that. My heart and mind are always elsewhere, lightyears away. But it would still be nice to have Detroit go back, at least, to the way it was when I was growing up.

It was kind of like the way Chicago is now, just to give you an idea.

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People are pretty lazy (even ones who do vote) at getting informed on an issue or about a person running for a position in public service.. and so they either don't participate.. or vote lazily.. in some ill-informed or ignorance driven manner.
  
And then there's people who don't care, even though they should. These people don't think it affects them immediately enough that they should sacrifice any energy to get involved. They never think so until it does.

Then there's the kind who are ..wrapped up in the idea that it doesn't make a difference if they vote.. or that all policy and politicians are the same.. or have the idea that they're vote doesn't make a particular difference. History proves all 3 sentiments wrong, but you won't convince some people to take a look at that.

I vote because I do think it can make a difference. I vote because even if it doesn't, not-so-distant ancestors and people fought, died and sacrificed livelihoods fightings outside the country and fighting a heavily prejudiced establishment inside the country so that my particular group of people have a right to vote.

I'm a firm believer in the idea that if you don't stand for something, then you stand for nothing. I choose to stand for something, in that way. I do think, though, that the above truth.. and that understanding is something that's begun to wake up the majority of people, though.

So thank goodness for that.

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