Writin' Forty

  It hit me just a short time ago that a lot of this…whatever we are in right now is about power. It’s a common thread that just continues to pop up. Wielding a gun is placing a lot of power in your hand. Let me tell you what I think being a gun advocate should mean. Let me first state that I personally do not care if you own a gun. Literally couldn’t care less. Now, being a gun advocate to me should mean you own a weapon (or 2, or 12) and you could fire each one with precision, which means you train at least semi regularly with the weapons you own. It means that you have them secured where just no one can get them. It means anyone in the house within a reasonable age should be trained on the weapons you own. Wait, I’m not done. It should mean that you would want that same standard for anyone who owns a gun. Why am I rambling about this? Unfortunately there have been many shootings that have occurred in the United States and nearly every one follows  the same script: shooting happens a

  It’s about a week out before an important presidential election, possibly the most important one of my lifetime. Advertisements are abound to include nearly every social media outlet prompting you to vote. Text messages from call banks asking have you voted and sometimes even who you are voting for. Even President Obama has an ad out asking people to have a plan to vote (then execute said plan). That is an excellent idea and one I’m not here to debate.   The question I have is :  what is my plan for dealing with people who vote d for or plan to vote for Donald Trump? I’ve been thinking about this, really, since the man was put into office. At that time I was the person who would be on social media, primarily Facebook, trying to tactfully tell people that nothing good could come from voting for this guy. How morally deficient he is. How his words and even more important, actions, have encouraged white supremacists to be more forward and demonstrative with their actions. How he absolut

I never wanted to pay attention to politics and I want you to know that is as true of a statement as I ever said. As a black American, I would say I went along as I got along as much as any other person for most of my life, even if starting my career as a black officer in the Air Force made me a minority of a minority. I was aware there were racial things, issues,  events . But I stayed away from politics. I remember when I was in college and eligible to vote for the first time, in Air Force ROTC it was talked about how military was supposed to vote Republican. I remember an e-mail going through ROTC channels about how the Clintons were connected  to dozens of murders. This was somewhere circa 1996-1998.  I remember maybe 10 years later in one of the best assignments I was a part of in the Air Force that people, if you had a set of ideas they didn’t like, would call you derisively a “liberal”. This made you defensive about not wanting to be one. I remember not liking that and I also re

  I made the decision to go back to  jiujitsu  as soon as the school opened back up in early June. Let’s talk some background: Jiujitsu  wise, right after the tournament I went to and won my match it felt like certain lights were starting to turn on and that I was making my leap, as it were, towards really getting it. Man, is it a cool feeling to have. COVID hit and…ugh. Training stopped. The promise I made to myself is that I would not fall out of shape, even if I wasn’t able to go and train like I wanted to. So, the day I stopped training was the first day I popped in the  Beachbody  T25 workouts. I did those for 11 weeks straight. Shaun T kicked my butt. The result being I gained a little muscle, kept in cardio shape, and hit the ground running once training started up again for me. My  jiujitsu  game was more of a mental one for those 11 weeks than anything. Couldn’t train, but was very happy with how I kept myself in shape to be able to get right back into things once they started