Then, Sage declared, "Barack Obama is going around saying that he is a black man, when he is actually bi-racial, like me." Sage should not have gone there. Barack knows who he is, and where he comes from. He has never denied his black Kenyan father , nor his white Kansas mother. After living in places around the wold , he settled in about the "blackest" community in America - Chicago's southside. After dating women all colors, he married a truly black woman - Michelle Robinson. He has a black family. Barack Obama chooses to be a black man.
Back to Sage: Once you declare yourself "bi-racial", most people tend to wonder, "Okay, so what races are you?" Let me put it this way: I am a dark-skinned African-American man. My paternal great-grandfather was white. My maternal great-grandfather was full-blooded Native American. (The rest of me, for the most part, hails from western Africa.) That, I suppose, makes me "tri-racial". Should I declare myself that? Not unless I want to sound foolish. Chances are, many of us are tri-racial, and then some. Nonetheless, most of us declare a race: Hispanic, Black, Native American, Asian, etc., because that is the community we most identify with.
Funny how a bi-racial person can claim to be anything he/she wants to be, except "white."
Robert O'Brien, American Global Strategies co-founder, and former Trump administration national security advisor, appeared on C-Span on August 5th and said, "It is hard to compete when people are stealing from you." As he rattled off China's litany of abuses, such a pained expression came over his face, I began to wonder if he would burst into tears. "There are slaves," he said, "picking cotton in China today - Uighura - and we are buying their product." Do you really want to go there, O'Brien?
Throughout history, none has stolen more than the U.S., starting with the theft of free people in Africa and converting them into slaves for America. We stole great swaths of land from Native American tribes, and drove them - their women and children - out onto the barren prairie where they died by the thousands from exposure and starvation. We stole, took, and cheated Mexico out of lands that today comprise the states of Texas, California, Arizona, and New Mexico. We could not have cared less about "fair competition."
China is competing. They did not kidnap Buick, and force it to perform in China. Buick went there of their own accord, as did many other U.S. manufacturers whose bottom lines thrived amid China's burgeoning middle class. Neither does China force Americans to sell their farmland. Those farmers gladly part with that land for Chinese cash.
And, speaking of "intellectual property": The U.S. pulled off the greatest such theft in history with "Operation Paperclip" in 1945. There, U.S. agents secretly spirited 150 Nazi scientists away from Germany, among them Wernher von Braun, the greatest rocket scientist ever. His rocket design and mathematical calculations put America on the moon in 1969 and then brought us safely back to Earth. It remains humankind's greatest achievement.
In a perfect world, nations would willingly share technology to ensure immediacy - that people worldwide simultaneously benefit from humanity's genius. That world is yet light-years away. Hence, countries like China, the U.S., and every other living nation must spy, steal, reverse engineer, and pull out every stop to learn what others know to advance their own societies.
Heck, there was a time when men stole fire because they did not know how to make it themselves. I say: Knowledge by whatever means necessary. Why not?
There is nothing wrong with Texas' Governor Abbott putting barriers on the Rio Grande to prevent immigrants from illegally crossing over into America. If you want to come in, there are rules and designated pathways to follow. America should make it as difficult as possible for anyone to enter, otherwise.
If someone wants to enter your yard, you insist that they enter through the gate. If they want to enter your home, they cannot climb through the window. They must enter through the front door.
A child may call his father or mother "hero," but we will not call them "heroes." We are more likely to call them "good parents." Nature equips women to be good mothers, and men to be good fathers. Not all men and women live up to that ideal, but that does not mean that those who do are thus extraordinary, and thereby, heroic.
Likewise, policemen are not heroes because they intercede to protect a public citizen from harm. It is his job. That is what he is paid to do. Same thing for teachers. They are not by definition heroic. They are paid to teach. If you do not pay them, most of them, probably, will not teach; neither will officers police, nor firemen fight fires. That does not mean they will not risk their lives to save your child from a burning building. I suppose a number of men and women would do that. And, if they do, they will be heroic, mainly because it is a split-second decision, and no external force - like payment for services - compel them to act. They are driven only by a sense of humanity. There is heroism. It is far less common than we want to believe. Yet, it exists as potential energy within each of us.
There is a teacher in us, and a fireman, and a policeman, and a soldier. That person may never be called upon, or he/she may rise up out of us in the next instant. Such is the hero in us all. It has nothing to do with a uniform. It has everything to do with our sense of humanity when humanity needs us most.
Stop whining. A. I. is here to stay. Either become more creative to start writing better scripts, or find different jobs, the kind that are not so directly challenged by A. I.
What are Hollywood writers doing to distinguish themselves, anyway? I hear another "Mission Impossible" movie is out - one expected to be a blockbuster. Why? "Mission Impossible", like most sequalized movies are made for A. I. intervention. Like all done movies, once done, "Mission Impossible" is pure content. A. I. feeds off of content. Feed it a movie, and watch it spit out sequels like ninety-going-north. That is all Hollywood asks nowadays. Most of the movie-going public is non-discerning, anyway. Say, "John Wick" or "Indiana Jones," and they automatically think they are in for a treat, (even though Hollywood and its writers had barely broken a sweat.)
A. I. is not the problem. what is needed in Hollywood is writers with the balls to stand in the breach, a la John Henry, and take on the false god... a writer comme moi.
If A. I. can write a better movie, then any writer sitting on his pen should get out of the way. Personally, I do not believe A. I. can write a poem better than I can. And, like John Henry, I would put my soul on the live to prove it.
Any of you picket-sign-carrying softies ready to put your soul into your work? Do it, and I doubt A. I. anywhere can touch you.
