What I am Reading Now

I have to say that we here in Cincinnati have one of the best public library systems in the area (aside from my former employer Kenton County Public Library of course).

I have always had a problem reading a traditional book without falling asleep or something and because of this; I took up listening to books on tape of CD's ever since I left college. So imagine my surprise when I happened upon the new choices that our library system has to enjoy our favorite read.

I have heard so much about "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" series that I had to dive in to this book head first. And I was even more excited when I had the option of either downloading the book to my Samsung Tablet OR using one of their new PlayAway devices.

The PlayAway device is essentially a portable book that you can plug your headphones into and listen away. The only thing that you have to do is to provide the ear buds and a AAA battery (it was my luck that there was already a battery in the device when I picked mine up last week).

I have to say that it's an awesome way to read a book! I am already on the fourth chapter of the 1st series and the plan is to have it completed this weekend...while getting all of my other errands done around the city.

Despite the fact that MidPoint Music Festival has been holding my top spot of "things to do" this weekend, I am kind of glad that it's a little crummy outside right now. Great time to curl up with a great book and take a long nap....that is before MidPoint starts up again tonight :)

Being A Triple Threat

Published on Associated Content on Feb 6, 2011 - Read article here

Generations have been generalized for the past few decades. There were the Baby-Boomers of the 1950's and the hippie generation of the 1970's; more recently, generation has been given a much simpler moniker, Gen-X and Gen-Y. Have we really gotten so lazy as Americans that we have to shorten the names in which we label things down to simply a letter? But I digress.

Harkin back to the olden days when the founding fathers of the United States of America were dutiful enough to bring into existence the Declaration of Independence, stating its emphatic separation from the evil English and their outlandish ways; declaring its vow to forge forward as a land where all citizens would be able to enjoy the fruits of their own labors, giving all who settle here in the United States the ability to live freely, enjoy liberty and pursue happiness without any equivocation. What if they were just as lazy as we are today, The Declaration of Independence would be nothing more than a few sentences saying "You are free to do as you want; just as long as you don't hurt no one else."

In some ways, brevity, for the sake of being quick is not always the best thing to have; which is why I am calling for the return of elongated titles. Being simply called Black is not cutting it anymore. The term African-American, though had taken awhile to become en-vouge, should stand for something again. Calling a gay person a fag or homo seems to be such a shortened term...don't insult members of the aforementioned by degrading their name. At least don't insult yourself by seeming dim-whitted or slow, if you really want to degrade them by showing how smart you are, you would call them "homosexuals" or better yet "a member of the GLBT community (for those who had to ride the short bus in grade school back in the 1970's and 1980's GLBT means Gay/Lesbian/Bi-Sexual/Transgendered).

Today I call for the term "triple threat" to have a brand new meaning. Our society has come to know a person with this term to be talented in acting, singing and dancing or a dynamo in three different sports. Not this inference. I call for the term to be used to describe, African American homosexual youth.

For many different reason's American youth have been ostracized and sometimes misunderstood or generations, mostly for their in-experience and dimwittedness, but also for their fervor. A recent example could be found in the way in which American youth rejected the lifestyles of their parents during the 1960's and 1970's.

Another term that should be elongated is the term Black to describe African American. African Americans have gone through a litany of horrifying trails through out American history. And we have gone through too much to be relegated to just a one word description. Not to discriminate, gays and lesbians need not to be left out of the mix either. Why should they just be called gay. Homosexual men should be called gay and their female counterpart are respectively deemed as lesbians.

Gay and lesbian issues, which have held an underlying presence in American culture for decades, have been recently pushed to the forefront due to debate on legislation pertaining to giving same sex couples the right to be married in the eyes of the Federal Government and about gay and lesbian soldiers being able to serve openly in the US Armed Forces. Though this segment of the population is less discernable than the previous two, their rights or no less important.

Never Too Far Away...

I know that I have said this in the past, but it has been soooooo long since I have written on this thing. I am surprised that most of you have not been checking the obits to check to see if a handsome Black gay guy was found lying in the gutters of Over-the-Rhine. No that was not me, but over the past I have been hard at work and you will see a resurgence of the Cincinnati NAMjA in the months to come.

One of the things which has been taking most of my time is re revamping of my personal consulting business, BookMark Online. Not only have I redesigned the website, but I managed to know out the first quarterly email newsletter. You gotta love MailChimp!

Due to all this hard work, both at my daytime job and my moon-lighting gig, I will be taking a little siesta in about a week or two. Not sure where I am going or how I will get there, but I will be taking 7 days to catch up on my writing. More on that to come. And I suspect there will be a few good blog posts to come out of that little adventure.

In running with the fashion of living downtown, I have usurped driving my car to work and opted to taking public transportation. Not only does it give me more time in the morning to catch up on my ZZZZ’s as I ride in to work, but at times it becomes my mobile office….and everyone loves to have a mobile office don’t they?

Not only have my transportation habits changed, but a 24hr gym has opend a few blocks away…my dreams have come true! No more driving 5 miles to the gym out in the suburbs or trying to beat the be-withching hour of the YMCA.

Needless to say the world of Downtown Cincinnati is changing and I plan to be a larger part of that change!