The New 12-Week Routine

It's 11.30am,
and I'm exhausted.
Exhausted from my earlier workout,
exhausted from feeling unwell,
exhausted from looking after the baby,
from thinking about finding a job and income for my family,
from all the horrible things that are happening around the world,
especially to Muslims.

And no,
I most certainly do not feel the need to condemn so-called
extremists I've never met before in my life.
I abhor murder and violence against innocents.
But to ask to me condemn acts by specific people simply because they claim to belong
to my religion?
Fuck you and those like you.

Hey, if I claim to rape puppies in the name of your mother's crusty anus,
does that make her responsible, you dumb fuck?

Anyway,
I need to get a thought of my head before it disappears.

Discrimination.
Unless you've been living under a rock,
you've probably heard the following:
Blacks and other minorities in White-majority countries experience discrimination in every aspect of their lives; education, work, etc. (for Singapore, it's the Singaporean Chinese who do the discrimination).

The second most well-known (probably) type: Women are discriminated against by men.

And of course there are Whites and men who cry foul and claim THEY are the ones experiencing discrimination.

Now I'm generalizing, of course.
There's a wide spectrum of opinions on those two things,
but you couldn't guess it judging by the shit news that keeps coming to the forefront.

It's not black and white.
People can be great. People can be shitty.
There are those who will take advantage of a situation when the opportunity presents itself,
whether or not it's ethical (another motherfucking debatable issue which I won't get into here).

It is entirely possible that in some Black-majority neighbourhoods,
Whites get discriminated against.
And don't even get me started on the divorce custody cases when it comes to discrimination against men.

Marketers have known this for quite sometime now.
You may be targeting females aged between 25-40,
but your advertising needs to target the sub-groups within that group.
The women who are working professionals,
the ones who are fitness enthusiasts,
the ones who have a crazy obsession with kittens, etc.

It's not black and white.
There are sub-groups, and sub-groups of sub-groups.

Now don't get me wrong.
White on Black (or Chinese on Non-Chinese) discrimination is a serious issue and needs to be tackled.
But the approach must be localized.
If you misidentify the problem in an area,
how can you possibly provide the solution?

If you're targeting White-on-Black discrimination
in a Black-majority area where Whites get the shaft,
then you're only going to generate more resentment.

Also, it's fucking stupid.

All victims deserve our help.
Man, woman, child, Black, White, etc.
Be a fucking human being.

Man, despite my not being as articulate
as I'd like to be,
I'm glad I got that out of my skull.

Anyway, today is the first day of my 12-week transformation process.
By the end of this process,
I hope to be lean, with a bigger chest, arms and shoulders.
No more cutting corners.

I feel like shit,
and I know there'll be a ton of obstacles along the way.

But this mountain will be fucking scaled.

Day 1: Completed.


Well enough of that.

Charlie

It's Friday afternoon,
but the temperature is unusually, and pleasantly cool.
I'd say 25 degrees, if not slightly lower.

The baby's on the couch,
hopefully about to sleep.

And soon,
lunch will be ready.
So I don't have much time.

There was a shooting a few days ago in Paris,
of employees of a magazine that published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad S.A.W.

People from 'around the world' were shocked and mourned their deaths.
By the way, when it comes to the mainstream media,
it appears 'around the world' does not include those living in villages and towns that are being ravaged by Western and Western-backed forces.
Nope.
Those are the 'un-people', don't you know?

The shooting did make me sad.
And as much as I disliked those who (in my opinion)
created and spread libel about someone they either know very little about,
or just don't give a damn about,
they did not deserve that.

They deserved criticism,
or even to be ignored.

But murder?
No.

On an article about this on the Intercept,
I came across a comment from someone named 'Glenn' (not Glenn Greenwald),
which mirrored my own thoughts:

"Modern wars kill 90% civilians and 10% soldiers.

Normal war has become terrorism.

I am outraged every day at the number of civilians targeted for killing. I am usually a somewhat isolated exception to the indifference to these murders of civilians and wonder why most people are so indifferent to the state war crime of killing civilians.

I am not an exception in my outrage on this exceptional day. Today I have company.

However, I expect most people to go back once again to their normal state of indifference once these “exceptionally worthy” victims are superseded by the more usual “unworthy” victims.

You know, the normalcy of war."

Already a few cartoonists have decided to express solidarity with the magazine

by publishing cartoons that remind me of the anti-semitic propaganda pieces the Nazis loved to use.

Almost as if these tragic deaths are cause for celebration for them:

Something that enables them to openly declare their bigotry,

or express it more brazenly.

All while hiding behind the cloak of 'solidarity', 'freedom of expression', and 'justified' anger.

The murderers should be brought o justice.

But were the victims protectors of the much-vaunted 'Freedom of Expression'?

Of course not.

Here's a nice little tidbit about them: They'd actually refused to publish cartoons of Jesus.

Why is that?

Can you imagine the drop in revenue and the condemnation they'd receive?

Nothing admirable about satirizing a community 

that's already facing a lot of discrimination in France. 

Real courage means satirizing the powerful, the oppressors, not the oppressed. 

I'd write more, 

but once again Windows 7 has slowed down to a crawl

and reminded me why I'm switching to a Mac. 

Well enough of that.