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Oh Noes, O.J.!

Double murderer O.J. Simpson is back in the news making an unwelcome return to using his parsing of words to point the blame, not at himself, but rather at others he feels unduly influence him.

It is fascinating to watch Simpson skate and dance and prevaricate his way out of a mess while he celebrates his return to the public eye.

I fear we will never be without O.J.’s influence because he knows how to take advantage of shared semiotics and the duality of semantic communication to better only his selfish ends in life and, I believe, his self-enrichment will continue to strangle us beyond his death and into our graves.

O.J. Simpson has marked us all in the eye and ear for all of eternity and we are all the worse for his wearing.

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O.J. Simpson and the Genius Criminal Mind

O.J. Simpson is back in our face again!

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A Ground Zero Grave with No Headstone

Are you burned out on 9/11? If so, is that a tremendous moral crime for which there is no remedy? How can we — as a world of nations — have so quickly become so tired and weary of an event that smothered the end of any sense of freedom we have left a mere six years ago?
The bigger crime is an ongoing inexcusable wallowing mass of death and despair at “Ground Zero” that started as this:

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Memes of Belonging

Are we required to join? Are we made to create? It is necessary for us to belong to someone other than ourselves?
What happens when we are carved from each other and caved in a culture from which there is no escape?

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Crimes of Birth: Dying Black in the Urban Core

It has always been treacherous to be Black in America — and if you’re a Black Man in America — your chances for even average survival are slimmer than your White peers.

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Gangland in Newark: Murder at Ivy Hill

Handguns are made to kill people. We know this in our bones because of murders in Far Rockaway and Fulham and Orange and now, once again, in Newark. The bloodshed in New Jersey, spewed Gangland style, killed three kids and injured another on an abandoned schoolyard in a tonier part of Newark — where this sort of thing doesn’t happen — called Ivy Hill.

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The Mark of Cain and the Mountain Meadows Massacre

As an avowed atheist — I prefer to worship art and nature — it may seem strange that I have a long list of religious friends. Of my many Mormon friends, I have discovered there are two topics that, when mentioned, will cause them to give you the stink eye and turn away from the conversation. If you press the matter, they will refer you to the LDS website for official commentary.

The first verboten topic is colloquially known as “The Mark of Cain” and it is an interesting and undeniable stain on the Mormon church where Blacks — men of African descent — were denied the priesthood because of their “mark”… their skin color.

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Salome in Antiquity: To Cure To Kill Today

We are fast moving into the world of quick curing so we may better kill and that is a strange disconnect in a society where we are required to claim our care for each other.

Like Salome in antiquity — who was rewarded for her dance with the granting of any wish from King Herod — chose a false cure for a certain death and a killing from her own curse. John the Baptist never saw his beheading coming until he appeared on a silver platter.

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Celebrity Semiotic: The Bad Parenting of Paris Hilton

As a cogent and mindful people we are faced, once again, with the inappropriate disparity between rich and famous and the poor and unknown. I call this disconnect: The Celebrity Semiotic.

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Strangers on a School Bus

A city loses its innocence in increments — not in batches. I was alarmed to learn my hometown — Lincoln, Nebraska — recently had an incremental loss of its innocence blared in headlines and broadcast in frightened feelings. The incident happened between two strangers caught in the February chill on a Lincoln Public Schools bus. The city was irrevocably changed.

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