AN OPEN LETTER TO CLIMATE CHANGE DENIERS

The constitution acclaims “that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. As a 50-year-old African-American male, those rights were denied me the early part of my life. Although, most Americans will never feel the pain of Jim Crow but it was real. So too is climate change.

Just like back then, fighting climate change is morally, religious, and scientifically the right thing to do. Is it right to leave an inhabitable planet to next generation?  That’s like you and your older brothers playing football in house and trashing the place. Your little brother comes in and can’t believe what he’s seeing. Your parents come home and you put the blame on your little brother.  Is that morally the right thing to do?

I’m not catholic but when Pope Francis sounded the alarm about the climate, I listened. The Pope made the point that the earth is God creation, not mans and it should be treated as such. Man is trashing God creation. Whether you believe in God or not, it’s safe to say, you didn’t create the earth so why are you trashing it?  Using the earlier analogy, the house isn’t yours so why are you trashing it?  Your parents come home and they know who did it and like God, they are not happy. Is that religiously the right thing to do?

Now politicians are shaking their responsibilities by stating that they deny climate change but they are not scientist. THAT’S CRAZY! As of now, 97% of climatologist, who are scientist, and other scientist involved in climate change debate agree that there is no longer a debate. The planet is changing and it’s changing for the worse. That’s like going to the doctor and he/she prescribes you some medication but you say I’m not going to take it but I’m not a doctor. Is that scientifically the right thing to do?

We can talk about the data such as the Polar ice caps at the poles are melting resulting in less reflection of the Sun’s rays. Or the dryness out west causing uncontrollable wild fires. Or the heating of the oceans causing polar ice caps to melt causing oceans to rise. Coastal cities will be flooded and thus, inhabitable.  And does it mean anything that July was hottest month on record or is too much science.

Another argument that I will make is that climate change is causing unbearable heat. As temperatures continue to rise, people with chronic illnesses will have to stay indoors longer and run the air conditioner continuously. The levels of these harmful greenhouse gases will most certainly increase in order to save lives only to have those lives cut short because of the greenhouse effect on the atmosphere. Therefore, it’s now time to leave oil, coal, and natural gas in the ground. The world must move closer to cleaner forms of energy.  We must find ways to build on the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change because when it mandatory, the world will find cleaner ways to power life. Besides, isn’t it against God to commit suicide? Is that not what the Human race is doing?

Finally, to all you deniers out there, climate change is real. Dr. Martin Luther King said of the civil rights movement “the fierce urgency of now” and the nation responded. Well, climate change is today’s movement with a sense of urgency.

 

ARE REPUBLICANS KILLING US?

            Governors challenge Medicaid expansion, members of the U.S. House of Representatives vote against infrastructure spending, members of U.S. Senate filibuster’s a reasonable fire arms bill, tea party supporters in Congress, do not end  sequester cuts that effect all programs including those for the poor, conservatives continue to deny climate change and the list goes on and on.  What do these brazen acts have in common?  They are killing us.

            Take the Medicaid expansion as part of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act. Under the act, millions of people will now have medical care coverage, some people for the first.  But some governors are against coverage for all.  Look at the great state of Louisiana.  Thousands are uninsured but Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s continues to deny needed coverage to thousands of people. And he is not the only one. There is Christie in New Jersey, Scott in Florida and the list goes on.  So for republicans, it’s more important to deny coverage to millions than to give President Obama a victory. Republicans say ‘repeal and replace’ but they haven’t come up with the replace part but yet Americans continue to die.       

            Then, there is infrastructure spending.  Yes, it’s needed.  There are major bridges falling down like those in Minnesota and Washington State just to name two. There are sink holes in Florida and the list goes on and on.  The American Society of Civil Engineers in its 2013 Report Card gave the United States a D+ grade on its infrastructure and estimated $3.6-trillion (U.S.) in spending is needed by 2020. This amount will only increase over time.  People are dying and the republicans do nothing.     

            Now, there is the matter of gun safety. In an Aurora Colorado movie theatre, in a grade school in Connecticut, on streets of Chicago, or in a shopping mall in Arizona, there are 12.000 plus people killed by guns each year.   This is in stark contrast to death by guns in other industrial countries.  

            But because of these insane gun laws, we now have ‘stand your ground’ laws. These stand your ground laws are coupled with allowing anyone to carry a concealed weapon. This can only create more killing.  The Trayvon Martin killing in Stamford Florida shows us that these laws are trouble for all of us.  

            Thus, do republicans care that the sequester cuts are hurting ordinary people.  Do they care that people are not getting their needed cancer medication. Do they care that battered women have no other place to go but to shelters to escape the abuse. Do they care that these needed services and many more are not being provided due to sequester cuts. Do they care? No!

            Lastly, despite tons of evidence that stares republicans in the face, they continue to deny climate change. There are wildfires in the west that burn uncontrollable because there was so little snow and moisture during the winter months. Therefore, these fires have more fuel and burn more intensely.

            And we know that hurricanes get their fuel from warm waters.  We are use to hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico but as the earth warms resulting in warmer water, we will see more hurricanes in New England.  Hurricanes Irene and Sandy was just the beginning of more extreme weather on earth.

            Therefore, can you imagine more tornados in the northern states? As the air warms, it clashes with cold air from Canada to form funnel clouds or tornados.  And as the planet warms, these clashes will happen further north.  Can you imagine Tornado Alley moving north to, lets say, Iowa or Nebraska?   

            Consequently, from governors declining funds needed for healthcare coverage to representatives not providing funds to fix crumbling roads and bridges to senators voting against sensible gun safety to the tea party influencing the continued devastating sequester cuts to congressmen denying climate change and on and on. But one thing is clear, republicans are killing us.  

DENIERS GO AGAINST GOD

  
        Hurricane Sandy batters the East Coast, wildfires burn uncontrollable in Colorado, constant snow storms and flooding in the Midwest, destructive tornados in Oklahoma and in the south, devastating droughts in the southwest and list goes on and on. Is this the future that man is creating?  Does it have to be this way? Would GOD think this was okay or would he be outraged?  After all, man is destroying his creation.

          Religious people fight against gay marriage and abortion rights sighting scriptural verses that spell out that these acts are against GOD.  But at the same time, the bible states in the beginning, GOD created the heavens and the earth, Genesis1:1.   So, GOD created the earth and man is destroying his creation.  Where is the outrage? Are we worshipping the same GOD?

           I do understand it when the religious right says that the gay lifestyle and abortions go against GOD but at the same time, they can’t say those acts are against GOD while ignoring the first line in the same Bible. It plainly states GOD created the heavens and the earth.  No ambiguity, no misinterpretation, no foolishness.  Not protecting the environment goes against GOD.   

          Is there a list that enables man to determine what takes priority?  Is the environment on this list?  If it is not on the list, then why is it not?  Man continues to die in environmental tragedies throughout the world every day.

          Maybe we are committing suicide. There are fires that killed people. The polar ice caps continue to melt raising the sea levels and thus killing people.   The gulf’s waters are warmer resulting in more intense hurricanes that kill people. And because of the warmer water that now extends as far north as New England, there will be more hurricanes in New York City. And because of the warmer atmosphere, we can expect more devastating tornados in Kansas. Where is the outrage?   

          So maybe damaging the Earth is not a high priority. Christian Evangelicals and religious people fight to deny a woman’s right to choose. They fight to save gay people from internal damnation but suicide, they say nothing. A warming planet due to climate change caused by humans can kill us all.  Gay or straight, Christians or non-Christians, men or women, black, brown, yellow or white, everyone.  A warming planet will wipe out the Human Race far more that abortions rights or gay marriage will. But religious fanatics only see what is in front of them and refuse to see what humans are doing to the earth. Where is the outrage?

          Yes, women reproductive rights are now. Yes, gay people right to marry is now.  And yes, global warming and climate change should be now.  Consequently, religious people can’t see the looming catastrophe of global warming and climate change.  Did God give us humans the ability to learn and understand science?  As religious people try to stop a woman’s right to choose or a gay person’s right to get married, people are dying.  Humans are destroying God’s creation –the Earth. Therefore, do deniers of global warming and climate change go against GOD?  Yes.

THANK YOU, MR. PRESIDENT

            Be thankful for family and friends, be thankful for good health, be thankful for life but be thankful for a president? What? From the day I was born in 1966, there have been nine presidents and I could only vote for five of them.  So, which vote has been a good vote?

            My first presidential vote was during the re-election campaign of Ronald Reagan.  One can say I wasn’t very knowledgeable but as a young African-American male, I was supposed to support the Reverend Jessie Jackson but I didn’t.  I always felt I was a conservative who carried a brief case to college classes. And as a business student, I was learning how to make money. Yes, Regan did some good things such as stopping rampant inflation allowing a big boom in our economy. But he did some bad things too, such as starting an un-necessary war in Grenada and trading arms for hostages which was against the law.

            Then there was George H.W. Bush.  How could anyone really to go against his “Thousand points of Lights”. Yes, I was caught up in it but my views were changing.  Bush got America involved in yet, another war by putting 500,000 troops in the Middle East to kick Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. Although the war was short, there are long-lasting effects including the rise of Al-Qaeda and Osama bin laden.

            Then there was Bill Clinton and the 1992 National Democratic Convention in New York City in which the late but great Barbara Jordan was the Keynote speaker.  You see, in 1990, I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and at the 1992 convention, I saw someone who looked like me and she was wheeled onto the stage. She gave a dynamic keynote address which got me thinking even more about the Democratic Party. Although Bill Clinton took rights away from others with  ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ and Defense of Marriage Act, he knew those decisions were bad for America, and yes, he was playing politics. But like that famous Bob Dylan song ‘Times they are a changin’, change was in happening in America and in me. 

            Then in 2000, America elected George W Bush. I was now on the side of people; all people. President Bush got us into yet, another war that would cost nearly 4,500 men and women their lives and for what.  A young Secretary of State John Kerry in 1971 testified before the Senate Foreign Relations committee uttered these famous words “.  How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?”   Well, we can ask Bush how do you ask a man or woman to be the last person to die for a lie. America’s change and my change were now complete.

            President Bush, also, gave the American people huge budget deficits, a poor federal response to Hurricane Katrina, a justification for torture of detainees in an unjust war and in 2008, and a banking crisis that is still negatively being felt still today.

            Now let me think, is there something good that President Bush did for the American people? I’m in deep thought.  Give me some time.  I’m sure I’ll think of something.  Oh, if you are rich, you are richer.  And if you are poor, you are poorer.  If you are a soldier, you are fighting in a foreign land because of a lie. And if you dislike America, now you hate America.  Good job Mr. President!

            So because of President Bush, the American people now have President Obama, the first black president.  President Obama appointed the first Latina on the Supreme Court.  He speaks that we, the American people, is this together.  He speaks of fairness and equality. He is getting the American people out of the hole that President Bush dug for us

            President Obama often says “it’s the right thing to do”.    Then, Don’t ask, Don’t Tell and the Defense of Marriage Act went down.   He is fighting for immigration reform and gun safety among other things.  And if President Obama appoints an Asian American to a possible open seat on the Supreme Court, that will solidify that vote in the democratic column for a generation. And It would not be because of politics but because it’s the right thing to do.  
         
          Therefore, because of the horrendous policies of President Bush, he gave us the well thought-out polices of President Obama. Therefore, we have to give credit to a president who truly deserves our thanks. Thank you, Mr. President.       

IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, REALLY

            I often wonder what life would be like if I didn’t have multiple sclerosis.  Would I have been a major league shortstop player because I had speed and a strong arm? Or maybe a NBA point guard because I could handle the ball and I had an outstanding jump shot?  Or maybe a NFL quarterback because I had pinpoint accuracy.  But the military was where I wanted to go.  I was ready to go into the U.S. Air Force Officers’ Candidate School after graduation from graduate school. After all, I would only be 24 year’s old.  

            Well, now I know. I would not do any of those things because the direction of my life changed on that lonely day in August of 1990.  After going though a battery of test, it was a relatively a new device called the MRI that confirmed the diagnosis. I had multiple sclerosis. There was now a reason behind why my hand totally froze while taking a final exam in graduate school. There was now a reason why I had double vision while stressed out taking any test.  There was now a reason why I couldn’t finish any task without trying to get my eyes to focus.  I now had answers.

            Even though I had multiple sclerosis, I soldiered on.  After stints at General Electric and the now the defunct accounting firm of Arthur Andersen, I took a job at a great place, Quixote Inc.  Although, I walked to Quixote in the beginning, as time past, it was becoming more and more apparent that I could no longer embark on this endeavor. Then it happened. One summer, coworkers at Quixote were determining who would play what position on the company’s softball team. I posed and gestured like I was a great baseball player, and well, coworkers immediately determined that I would be on the team. For me, this was mistake. Running was now impossible to archive. But with some lame excuse of a hamstring injury, I ended being the head coach.

            Now, I was determined to hide my diagnosis but hiding it would be costly.  I wasn’t retaining anything new and because I did not know what I writing, my writing became suspect.  It was the summer of 2000, about ten years into my diagnosis; the cognitive impairments were becoming more and more apparent.  At the now defunct WorldCom Inc., which would be my last job, I became the butt of my boss’s jokes. He mocked me with my colleagues. I was the guy with the Masters Degree who could not complete tasks that someone with a Masters Degree should be able to complete. Maybe it was time to come clean.  So I slowly did.

            I first told a female colleague and it relived a lot of pressure.  I felt I knew what a gay person felt when they come out. I always felt like I knew what women felt about their biological clock because I had a physical clock that was ticking.  After further talks with my neurologist in Chicago, it became apparent that I could no longer handle high finance or pursue a Doctorate Degree.  My working career was over and now I was on disability.

            I thought my life could not any worse but it did. My wife of ten years divorced me. And after some time, she decided to move back to her hometown of St Louis, Missouri with my sons. But after they were in St. Louis for less than six months, my oldest son caught a nasty staph infection. It ate away bones in his neck to the point that his neck was going to collapse.  The best part, or if you can say that, is because of my disability from multiple sclerosis, I was able to move from Chicago to St Louis and be with him. In his hospital room, I told him stories of my athletic experiences that made him laugh.  He was concerned that he would no longer be able to put his chin in his chest but I simulated in my scooter, how a person would look if they walked liked that and he laughed. I told him how basketball coaches insist players always keep head up and how he was now a natural to do just that. We laughed and laughed all night and every night in that hospital room.  Maybe I put him at ease or maybe I did not but I know because of multiple sclerosis, I was the last person he would see when he went to sleep and the first he would see when he woke up. 

            The First Lady is from Chicago and her father had multiple sclerosis.  I grew up five blocks from where the first family lives in Chicago.  They overcame many obstacles to get where they are, so did me and now I hope my son will.

            Today, I no longer work or drive so money is an issue. I live alone in isolation.  My ex-wife and I are friends and that relieves stress.  She brings the boys by to see me but I have to depend on her.  I’m in St Louis and my family is in Chicago and my boys are not old enough to help me. Yeah, I can’t walk or play basketball or even attend basketball games my boys are in but I’m alive.             

            So am I bitter?  No.  Do I wish I didn’t have multiple sclerosis, you bet.  But I have accepted it and moved on.  It is what it is. I would not wish this disease on anybody though. Now, I look for breaking news on treatments and potential research. I spend my days writing in my blog or just writing. Along with my brother, I write screenplays that I hope one day, someone in Hollywood may show some interest in. But there is a positive thing associated with this dreadful disease; I was there in my son’s time of need. Can anyone really say it’s a wonderful life?  Well, I can.

GUNS

Guns don’t kill people; people kill people as the National Rifle Association would say. Yeah, people with guns kill people. Take away the guns; it would be a lot harder for people to kill people.

LAST NIGHT, AMERICA WON

LAST NIGHT  NOV. 6TH 2012. . .

The winners . . . .

Women’s reproductive rights

Marriage equality

Climate Change

Civil rights

War opponents

Social liberalism

A vision of diversity

We are in this together

. . and whatever you can add

The losers . . . . .

Bigots and Racists

Religious zealots

Non-believers about Climate Change

Birthers

War proponents  

Social Conservatism

A monolithic vision

You are on your own

. . and whatever shouldn’t happen

Last night, America won with the re-election of President Obama