Today's stupid question.. what is the dumbest or most non-sensical thing you can blame Racial Tensions on. and you have to back up your statements!

For me.. it's Sesame Street..

Let me explain...

The Chicken, The Egg, The Forest, and the Trees

Well, you see, it goes a little something like this. I have a habit of solving (or at least trying to solve) one Universal Mystery(tm) a week. Usually before breakfast. One of the more recent solvings is actually one I'm rather pleased with myself for.

Which came first, the Chicken or the Egg? Quite the paradox. It's been used for years to represent the kind of question that cannot be answered. It's like the "Can God make a rock so big He cannot lift it?" question. Granted, I plan on working on that one after a big bowl of Wheaties and OJ. But I digress. I have pondered the Chicken/Egg dilemma for a while. I honestly thought I would figure out this one while I was drunk/stoned/tripping/whatever, but nope. There I was, sitting in my bed re-reading the tattered copy of the Principia Discordia which has been a constant travelling companion for years now. The answer hit me like the metaphorical Ton of Bricks, which was a lot less intrusive than a real Ton of Bricks would have been. Anyway, the answer is....

Say it with me now, Kiddies...

THE EGG!

Now, leaving aside the humorous image of a happily sleeping chicken and an egg smoking a cigarette looking all frustrated and muttering "Well, I guess we answered THAT question", you might want an explanation of how I came about this realization. Well, It comes less from the answer than from the question. I'll explain...no, that will take too long. i'll sum up.

Reptiles have existed on the Big Blue Marble for quite the long time. And as birds evolved from reptiles, it is relatively safe to postulate that reptiles existed before the chicken, which is...well, a bird. Now, reptiles lay eggs. And thus eggs were around before the chicken.

And if you still have your blinders on and buy into the 'Skydaddy' myth.. On Day 5: He calls into existence sea creatures filling the seas and every winged bird according to its kind filling the heavens. Fish lay eggs, so do winged birds. But the visual of the Heavens being filled with penguins, which would promptly rain from the sky due to that pesky Gravity.. it IS kind of amusing.

The trick comes in in the fact that if you look at the question carefully, it never says the "Chicken Egg", just the "Egg". If the question was "Which came first, the Chicken or the Chicken Egg?", well, we'd have to take this document out and shoot it like a myopic rabid doggie. But thankfully, the question simply asks "Which came first? The Chicken or the Egg?" By looking at the question for what it is, and more importantly, what it isn't it becomes childs play to solve. The Chicken/Egg question actually demonstrates the dangers of assumption and societal conditioning better than it demonstrates a paradox.

We've all heard the question many times. In school, on TV, etc... And we've almost all been conditioned to see a Chicken Egg when the question is asked. When you first read the header of this page, did you see a chicken egg? I'll lay odds most of you did. And that is one way THEY* can control you. We become conditioned to see something at a trigger. We see TV news casts, Police shows, and Movies, which show maybe 2 black men worth talking to, and the rest as gun-toting 'gangstas', crackheads, or petty thieves. Now, how it works is, you're bombarded with these images. Then, when Miss Whitelady sees a black man, the programming kicks in, and they get scared, they roll up their car windows, clutch their purses a little tighter, etc. Now, I'm not saying that everyone does this. Anyone who truly thinks doesn't. But...How can I put this gently..most people don't think. The Sheep of Humanity are programmed to have racial tension, and hence they do. THEY count on it. It makes them money. Example. You live in a racially mixed area (I was born and bred in downtown Detroit), you want to be rich.. you open up a Home Security business. And then you comment on how youe home will be 'safe' if you could just keep out the 'undesirables' which is slang for blacks, hispanics, or whatever group is a 'minority'. Hooray for blind prejudice.

Remember that the next time you see a stereotype on the TV. There is a reason they call it a Boob Tube. It isn't because it makes you dumb. Which it does. Have no doubts about that. It's because it functions as a teat to which we suckle for knowledge. It's the electronic babysitter, it's how we wind down, it's how we find out who died and why courtesy of the nightly news. Who reads the newspaper anymore with the possible exception of the funnies anymore? Especially among the young. It's a lost art, much like diecast construction. It works so well as a control device because we grew up with it. We watched Sesame Street. Now, before I hear you all give me crap for dissing Kermit, I have no issue with Henson, the Muppets, and Sesame Street. I honestly believe that they are trying to do a good thing. But the unplanned effect that the Media Giants have capitalized on is that as kids, it made us TRUST the television. Sesame Street wouldn't lie to us. And with Kid Logic, is Sesame Street wouldn't lie to us, and Sesame Street was on TV, then TV wouldn't lie to us.

A truism is "You are prohibited form believing anything you read", but as we are now part of the New Milennium and Y2Kallisti+6, maybe we need to append that to "don't believe anythihg you see on TV". Think about it. The Gas Price fiasco that we are currently undergoing depending on the week. I'm not saying this is what is happening, but what if there is actually no real reason for the prices to be going up save the Bush wants more of our money to fuel his pet war. We hear the prices are going up on the news, and we accept it, especially they blame OPEC. It sounds somewhat farfetched at first, but if you look close, you see how ridiculously easy it would to be to do. Especially if OPEC was involved and possibly sharing in the money. And if Ted Koppel says it's happening, we reflexively believe it. But remember, you read this. Hence you cannot believe it. But you read that you can't believe what you read. Confused yet? Good. You're getting the point.

Well, enough ranting for today.

Jester

* When I refer to THEY, insert whatever group you feel has been controlling the Humanity of Destiny to date. The Illuminati, the Masons, Al-Queda for Kids, The American Medical Association, Microsoft, etc...Because, remember..You're not like the other people, here, in the Trailer Park....