EPIC RAP MESSAGE

Time for another poetry reading! This one is on 2PAC's 'Changes.' For those of you who don't get why the video on the right is a rap song let me explain. Songs are poetry put to music, rap is no exception. I don't normally listen to rap but when I do it has to have meaning and man does this have meaning! Good rap isn't about how hard you're gonna bang that girl or how high you're gonna get tonight. It's an expression of what a person feels in a way that lets them say whatever they want. So without further explanation, here's my thoughts.               PS: Before you read this you should probably watch the video or you're just gonna be bored.     The song really brings to my attention how hurt and angered this man is. His people are being discriminated against because they're black and as we all know all blacks are criminals. He's talking about how people can't get out of this stereotype 

because they're only doing what they have to to survive. The line 'my stomach hurts so I'm looking for a purse to snatch' really hit me because it's true. Crime is caused (mostly) by people who don't know any other way to live. If you haven't eaten in days and nobody will help you then you'll have to resort to illegal methods to get what you need. If your father is an addict then you probably only know that life. Sure it's illegal but we aren't stopping the root of the problem. Instead of helping the people around us we look the other way until they end up in prison and then when or if they get out they still won't know any better and the cycle continues. We have the highest incarceration rates in the world and yet we aren't showing any difference from them. He was very right in saying 'Take the evil out the people they be acting right' because it's true. But we can't do that by locking criminals up. All that does is put a bandaid on a bullet wound. I happen to love this verse:

I got love for my brother, but we can never go nowhere
unless we share with each other. We gotta start makin' changes.
Learn to see me as a brother 'stead of 2 distant strangers.
And that's how it's supposed to be.
How can the Devil take a brother if he's close to me?

The world is unforgiving. It beats down the people who live in it and it's only concerned with itself and its problems. The problem is that we've become strangers, two people from two different worlds who couldn't care less about each others lives. But what if I told you that that guy you just flipped off just lost his job. Or the lady at the cashier is a single mother trying to get by. Or maybe that jerk who treats everybody like trash was the one in his home who gets treated like trash. Suddenly you know them and feel for them. They become people too, not just faces to walk past. They become even more important when you realise that God created them and loves them and died for them. Then it becomes important to find out more about them. If we all cared about each other then when somebody needed some cash they wouldn't have to steal it. They would never have to feel worthless so they wouldn't feel the need to die. Everything changes when you start to see them as people.

So if God gave them the same gift he gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could stand in God's way?" Acts 11:17

So the question of the blog is: what did you get from this poem and what do you think of my interpretation? Let me know in a comment below!

TTFN That's tata for now!

PIG KILLING CAPITAL OF THE WORLD!

So I live in the self proclaimed barbecue capital of the world, Lexington North Carolina.
No seriously google BBQ capital of the world and you'll come up with my hometown and some place in Texas. And before a Texan (naming Pheona) starts arguing with me, Texas can have the beef capital. We do pigs here in NC and not much else so congratulations, you have the best cooked cow. (you monsters)

Now that the inevitable crap storm is addressed, let's move on.

The Lexington BBQ festival is a bigger deal than the town fair around here, they close all of mainstreet for the occasion and I know of several people who come from across the country to taste our greasy noms. But we don't just have a fair once a year to celebrate our swine slaughter, We have themed pig statues all across town that we call pigs in the city. Here's some of my favorites:

This is Miss Puffy, the peppermint pig.
She remains my favorite even though
she's no longer in front of our historical Candy Factory.

Here's her new and 'improved' version
but this one isn't covered in peppermints
so it's not as cute

Little does everyone know
but our mayor is actually a pig

Tom Swineyer reading at the local library.

Yes. This pig is a house.
Yes. It does have windows to see inside.
Yes. It does have things inside the house.

This one is out of this world!
I'm sorry...

Riding the pig to market...

There's even a Walmart pig 

                                     

Have you had enough of me pigging out? What about my meaty puns? Okay I'll stop I'm just being mean now. Anyways I don't know how to end this post out (again) so I'm just gonna cap things off with whatever BBQ meme I can find for the end. So without further adou, here's a crappy meme!

TTFN That's tata for now!

The Art of Losing

One Art 

 The art of losing isn’t hard to master;

so many things seem filled with the intent

to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster

of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:

places, and names, and where it was you meant

to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or

next-to-last, of three loved houses went.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,

some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.

I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture

I love) I shan’t have lied.  It’s evident

the art of losing’s not too hard to master

though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

~Elizabeth Bishop, 1911 - 1979 

Life, and the things in it are fleeting. No matter how hard you try you will always lose something. As someone with a terrible memory this is very true. I can never remember the names or faces of the people I know, no matter how long I've known them. My parents have in just the past month made their divorce final. And Doctors recently confirmed that I have an eye disease that will cause me to go blind in my late thirties. I have lost so many things in my life but I am happier than I have been in a while. I have learned not to grasp my life tightly in my hand, attempting to keep God from changing it, but rather to let it rest in my open palm and let Him shape my future how He wants to.

And now: A poem of a poem.

The art of losing is easy to master

Sometimes it's painless

Like losing a hat or

Sometimes it's hard

Like losing a friend

Losing your income

Or burying your dead

But sometimes we lose things 

On purpose. 

For joy.

I lost my first house

but gained a four legged boy

I lost my shame

but I've never been stronger

Mother lost a husband

But she gained two daughters

I lost my control

But I gained peace in my soul

Question of the blog: What have you lost?
This oughta be a cheery one...

TTFN! That's tata for now!

The Magic Conch Shell

Let's talk election time! Oh stop your groaning I'm not going to ask 'who's stupider, Donald Trump or Patrick Star?' I'm gonna talk about flaws in elections as a whole. First I will turn to, arguably, our most well known founding father and greatest president ever: George Washington. Why the greatest president ever? Because he had no idea How anything was supposed to be done! He was the first president of a brand new country. That's like being the first person to start a club, you have no idea what you're supposed to do. Just an idea of how you want it to turn out and let's not forget the fact that it costs BILLIONS OF DOLLARS AND HAS MILLIONS OF PEOPLE IN IT. So he is the best president because he litterally helped build the American government. Feel free to Ooo and Ahh at how amazing our founding fathers were because man do they deserve it!

I'm going to focus on one of his more poignant quotes:

“However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”

Was that too long winded for you? Me too. To simplify our fluent quote: Political parties are popular, but they also allow people with selfish intent to take advantage of our parties and get our vote. Just because you're a Republican you'll vote for a Republican. It's what we call an either-or fallacy. You are either a Democrat or a Republican but you can't be in the middle. In his finale inauguration President George Washington told us not to divide into political parties. A hundred years later what did we do? Divide ourselves. The problems with this are that we then judge our fellow Americans by their political parties instead of by who they are as a person.

The other problem I see with our voting practise is how candidates run. It may surprise some of you to know that during the first several elections the candidate didn't nominate themselves. Their colleagues did. This helped keep people for running out of personal gain. Granted it didn't work all that well but it was an attempt. The other things their friends did for their candidates is to campaign for them. They didn't do it for themselves and it was a far more modest event. Over time the voting system has become more of a competition than it should be, with candidates insulting other candidates rather than honestly telling us how they will help the people. It's become more of a fight for power than a vote on who is most suitable to lead our country.

I don't really have a good way to end this out so I'm just gonna finish with my new ending thing: Question of the blog! This is the part of the blog where you can COMMENT so I don't have to go to bed thinking nobody reads my blogs. *sobs quietly in the corner* My blogs aren't just a grade I get in class. I want this to be a conversation where I reply to your comments. I can't have a conversation if there's no feedback. <3
Question of the blog: What are your opinions on our political system?

TTFN! That's tata for now!

Tour of America

PS: Please ignore this post. Pictures are weird on blogger.

Today we will be doing going on a tour of America IN MEMES!!!

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You're still here? I was kidding.
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You seriously want me to write this insanity? *sigh* Okay here goes nothing.

If you're going to America you'll need to know what to pack.
Here is my list:

Everybody knows America for its unhealthy (and delicious) food so don't forget to bring your stomach!


Laziness is also an important cultural pastime so be sure to bring your lack of a to-do list.


As some of us are self aware we are also the leading producer of no-effort health diets


And as the third biggest country in the world you'll need your selfie stick to forever commemorate the wonders of nature.


But above all don't forget to bring our biggest export:


Now on to the trip itself. Let me tell you about the good old USA.

Whatever you do just don't come in illegally. It's not free to get into the land of the free.

Please excuse the language

We have great healthcare,


And since every redneck in the country owns a gun you're in good hands!


All of our people are highly educated,


Our government is perfect.


And we're always friendly

And don't forget our famous waving fields of grain

Which we appropriately earned.


Isn't America such an awesome place?


TTFN! That's tata for now!