Manns Medium

Today, President Barack Obama launched his “My Brother’s Keeper Initiative” which is designed to bring together industry, faith-based organizations, religious groups and business owners to help create, fund and monitor programs which has been proven to help erase the enormous gap between young minority males and their white counterparts.  Some of those programs already have a proven track record and others are still in the experimental phase.  These programs would seek to open doors which has been closed and locked to minority males for years.  This was supposed to be a good thing but as luck would have it; to some it wasn’t seen as an opportunity to fix these long broken promises and times.  It was seen by some as another excuse to keep this nation as broken as it always been. Now I did expect individuals like Mr. Charles Hurt to be offended by the comments made by President Obama considering that there has been nothing that this President has done or said whic...

Some years ago I was asked about what I thought the meaning of life was and along that vain, I penned an article and a book calling it “The True Meaning of Life”.  The idea behind my definition of the true meaning of life was based on perception.  How you see things will determine where you stand.  If you see greed as good then you will defend it.  If you perceive that there is good in everybody then you will look for it. If you perceive that there is a heaven and a hell then you will stand firm on those grounds.  In the search for the true meaning of life, we tend to try and ascertain it for the sole purpose of understanding why people do some of the things that they do. We want to try and understand why people commit crimes and we have come to accept that there are sometimes outside forces that cause them to do so.  We have come to accept environmental, societal, physical and even mental excuses.  Once we find out which ones made them choose cri...

In an article titled “Clarence Thomas: Americans are more ‘sensitive’ about race than in the 1960s” written by Adam Serwer is all the proof needed of the importance of race discussions.  In it, he states how race was for him during his forming years and based on that he surmises that his childhood and maturing time is how this world should be about race.  While I can respect Mr. Thomas’ opinion about this matter, I cannot and strongly disagree with his premises. The article reports that “Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said Tuesday that Americans are more “sensitive” about race now than in the 1960s – a time when public facilities in his home state of Georgia were segregated by race, the occasional Ku Klux Klan billboard dotted the Southern landscape, and where Thomas, by his own recollection, was forced to “steer clear” of certain parts of Savannah” as were first reported by Yahoo News, and were delivered at an event at Palm Beach Atlantic University in West Palm B...

For quite some time I have been ranting and raving about when the Republican Party will finally say enough is enough and step up to stop those who see this party as an avenue to world domination.  That day seems to have come upon us. When John Boehner first made an announcement that his caucus were no longer listening to those who wish to steer them wrong, many swore that this was the end of the road for him and they may be right but let it be known it appears that John Boehner has decided that he will go out with a bang instead of a whimper.  Career politicians on both sides of the aisle have decided to retire and get out of the rat race which has become Washington but none have begun to switch parties like many leaving the Republican Party.  They join to make a difference and instead have been led to the edge of a cliff and asked to jump.  Hearing John Boehner defy the silent minority may have been that spark that they needed to say no more. Stories begin ...

When we speak about secrets it invokes certain feelings in us and not all of them the same.  For some, secrets are those little truths know by a few and sworn to follow us to our graves.  For others secrets are those little ideas, thoughts and desires shared with those closest to us attempting to find out their thoughts about them.  Not really sure if they are the things we wish to ever complete but worth thinking about and tossing around.  But to every single one of us secrets are those little things we carry around with us where ever we go and often a few of them are never shared.  The trouble with these secrets is that they never stay secret even if it takes years to expose them and they are even more likely to be discovered if these secrets are evil. What I mean by evil is any secret that is devised with bad intentions, primary example of these are crimes and yes, sins.  Take for example the most recent story of the kidnapped 5 day old baby taken f...

Scientists say that everyone dreams and if you ask around you may come to say the same thing but are these dreams also visions?  For some, this is a stupid question because for some reason or another, they believe that only a select few have the ability to see visions.  For others seeing visions are seen as things from the mind of someone suffering from hallucinations from some kind of drug or illegal substance.  So does dreaming make you a clairvoyant, or sage? Or are dreams only the re-living of past lives that your soul encountered? For me, they are one and the same.  Now I do not have any proof of this and my purpose here is to only get you to think.  I have come to believe that dreams are visions and these visions are your soul re-living past experiences helping you to prepare for some upcoming event yet to occur in your present life.  I think these visions provide you avenues and routes to deal with what’s coming next and only those few able to d...

Throughout our lives, nothing seems more important than “finishing the race”, “providing for the family”, “making ends meet”, “getting mine”, “surviving”, “grabbing that brass ring” or any other useless and misguided saying that you can think of.  This, our only main focus sometimes is so important to many that they will resort to any means to get theirs or hold on to what they have.  Even if it means taking the life of another because no one will take what they got.  This is the driving force behind our reason for living and if question some most often find it very hard to explain why.  This belief takes hold though and soon society is flooded with this idea and sensation.  Books celebrating this type of thinking fill the shelves and the air waves are amassed with television shows preaching this same idea.  Eventually it is seen so often that it becomes the way of a people and of a nation.  You find this philosophy being taught in all our schools...

Since attention was first drawn to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD, many have been scrambling to define and treat it.  What seems to be lost on those chasing this mythical beast is a plain and simple truth that when clearly understood will lead to a much better life for all concerned. Experts would have you believe that PTSD is only a condition suffered by those who are combat veterans and nothing could be farther from the truth.  To get to the truth one only has to close that hole below their nose and open the two on opposite sides of their heads.  In other words, shut up and listen.  Do not think that a piece of paper depicting your years of study or a degree gives your insight into this disorder because it does not.  What gives you insight is the memory of any event in your life that caused you to re-think your entire existence and question your reason to live on.  That people is PTSD and it affects everyone at one time or another in their live...

Lately it is getting harder and harder to understand why the actions some people take does not give them pause and still remains even more abstract after some answers to why are given.  We continue to wonder just how we lost our sense of humanity and when will it ever return.  Those questions still remain elusive and they become even more relevant after reading this story. It is a story of how far some of us have fallen from any sense of grace and civility and can be found in an article titled “Officials say two employees at a Utah school have been placed on leave during an investigation of why lunches were taken from students who owed money on food accounts”, written for the Associated Press.  In this article it is described as “a Utah school cafeteria manager and a district supervisor have been placed on paid leave while officials investigate why lunches were taken from students who owed money on food accounts, a district spokesman said Friday”.  Now the first q...