Cardyn Brooks's Blog, page 38

B.A.M. (Bad At Math)

poster and image copyright 2011 by Cardyn Brooks


Confession: Every time someone argues that raising the minimum wage will destroy the economy it makes me wonder if they're mathematically challenged. A 70% retail consumer-driven economy requires a population of gainfully employed laborers in the workplace who purchase goods and services in the marketplace. In legitimate supply and demand capitalism, living wages for the masses support and expand the economy from the bottom up.

BATAF: Siphoning resources away from the masses stabilizes the country's finances.

Snow Days Are For Readers

Photo copyright 2013 by Cardyn Brooks
All rights reserved


Confession: Reading a book while sitting snuggled into a cozy chair in front of a roaring fire in the fireplace makes blizzards and power outages unexpected gifts.

BATAF: Physical books are obsolete.

Gobble, Gobble--The Aftermath

Image from wallsave.com



Confession: While my family and friends eat themselves into food comas, binge watch football, and shop themselves into debt by doorbusters specials, I'm compulsively reading when not taking advantage of a certain online retailer's Cyber Monday 30% off incentive to purchase many of the books on my long TBR list.

BATAF: More consumption generates more satisfaction.

What Every Blerdy Student Learns Eventually

Image from graduationsource.com


An Education
copyright 1988, 2012 by Cardyn Brooks
All rights reserved



A babe crawls around enormous space. A monotonous drone whispers in the background.
She explores, mesmerized by patterns as they reveal themselves.
Her expanding vision fills the space, once-infinite space that transforms
Into a room within an institution with walls constructed of projection screens.



Formal education begins. Pivotal assessments are made."GIFTED" is branded on her. Time passes. The room shrinks.
Her isolation increases as the screens surround her in coils of rapidly decreasing radii.
Jumbled words flash to the screens as their rate of shrinkage accelerates.



Meanwhile, that monotonous whisper hisses louder.It hisses louder, until it undulates into a thunderous peal that echoes the
Manic velocity of the projected words:   smart,
Special,   talented,  nice, shy,aloof,uppity Oreo.
Zebra.UncleTom.WHITE WANNA-BE.FRAUD!



The shrunken walls of the room now fit as tightly as a too small body bag,Squeezing her from textured crown to brown toes. She flexes.
Every muscle strains, fighting to loosen the restraint of the
Parasitic cocoon. The unyielding screens; their projections bruise and tear her flesh.
Battle brings her to her knees. Rage clogs her throat. Exhaustion clouds her vision.



The indistinguishable source of a jumbled chant slides.Closer. The girl wiggles and rolls; screams and jerks
Crying out for help as she fights. Just as she considers
Succumbing, she's able to poke her head from its suffocating confinement.



Before she takes a liberating breath, she feels the projection screens tightening.Tightening around her neck, strangling her.
She gasps and coughs, struggling to breathe despite the tightening noose.
Tears of frustration and anger and despair fill her eyes.
Suddenly, she sees people gathered around her, talking at her as she dies:



“She’s not like most of them. She’s a good one; I almost forget she’s black."
 
“Why are you friends with Them? Have you forgotten slavery?”
 
“Of course everyone’s equal, but we don’t have to mix with them.”
 
“You think you’re White—talkin’ proper, livin’ among Them... but you’re just as black.As black as all the rest of us. Don’t think They ever forget that.”



She lies on the floor in a graceless heap, praying for silence; an escape. Neither come. Instead, the body bag peels itself from her flesh in an upward rush
Away from her feet toward her face, where it affixes itself as an ever-changing mask.



Everyone’s greeting differs: “Hello, Token/Suspect/Victim/Mooch/Scapegoat/Sellout/Drudge/Video Vixen/Nag/Other”



So she reads. She reads because books don’t accuse her in the hall, ridicule her on the Playground, or undermine her in the classroom. She reads even though the power in the Words was not intended for her and the images on the pages do not resemble her. Books fuel the dreams that become her goals.



She excels because it’s what her family expects.Achieving keeps her too preoccupied to think about the mask.
The mask that stifles, smothers, and is unbearably confining.
She suppresses her rage and guilt, which perpetually seethe with the threat of eruption.



Throughout her studies, failure is expected. Success is dismissed as a fluke.



She learns what is considered blackAnd what is considered white.

Does Reading Romance Novels Make Me a Bad Feminist?

Image from cafepress.com


Confession: It doesn't matter if reading romance novels is politically incorrect for a feminist (who's actually a humanist). What other solitary pastime offers totally risk-free sex (to readers, not characters), travel, humor, adventure, intrigue, social commentary and a guaranteed happily ever after whether the main characters are paragons or annoying idiots? Romance novels celebrate love in all its incarnations from sublime to catastrophic.

BATAF: Feminists (and female humanists) hate men.

Odd Man Out

Image from sportsillustrated.cnn.com



Confession: Hearing the free usage of ethnic slurs combined with despicable threats and abhorrent remarks about black and brown women from an immature professional athlete wasn't a surprise. The archaic, primitive definition of manliness being broadcast by otherwise sophisticated sports pundits was.

BATAF: Real men resolve conflicts with their fists.

The Future Is Here

Image from dw.de



Confession: This child's courage challenges me to reconsider my priorities.

BATAF: Being virtuous protects people from injustice.

This Is the Future

Image from dw.de



Confession: This child's courage challenges me to reconsider my priorities.

BATAF: Being virtuous protects people from injustice.

Poison Pills

Original image from tabtote.com

Confession: Billionaires like the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson baffle me with their conscientiously mean-spirited behavior. How does preventing other people from accessing basic human and civil rights; the protections, privileges, and rights of U.S. citizenship; stable paths to upward mobility improve their quality of life? What makes billionaires like Richard Branson and Bill & Melinda Gates embrace The Golden Rule at a cellular level?

BATAF: In a 70% retail consumer-driven economy, the wealthiest 1/10 of 1% can flourish indefinitely while the masses deteriorate.

Consider the Source

Image from istockphoto.com by Alan Crosthwaite copyright 2007


Confession: During each U.S. congressional showdown it feels as if we the people, the masses are simply collateral damage in the wake of the warring parties' legislative destruction. The politicians who refer most often to the U.S. Constitution act in ways that undermine its intent to avoid tyranny, oligarchy, and plutocracy. Today's 21st-century United States doesn't feel like a democracy.

BATAF: Politicians will ultimately make the wisest decisions because doing so is in their own best interests.