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  • Politics Is Like Hiring A Hitman
    by Scott Woods inPolitical on2020-08-13

    For me, politics is like hiring a hitman. I have values and things I care about. I care enough about them to at least bother voting for 5 minutes every year for one issue or another. And because I care at least that much, I vote for people who align with the ability to realize the things I care about.

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  • Punching Above Our Weight
    by Roger Madison Jr. inPolitical on2020-07-24

    I believe our vote is the punctuation of our voice. Without that resounding exclamation mark, I believe our voices are just incoherent noise.

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  • BLACK PROGRESS AMIDST SOCIAL CHAOS
    by Roger Madison Jr. inPolitical on2020-06-16

    Recent events have raised the profile of historical injustice and inequities here in the USA. The entire world has taken note of the fact that BLACK LIVES MATTER.   We invite all of our friends to engage in actions that result in the greatest movement for change in our history. It is imperative that we take advantage of this opportunity to affect a positive change by ACTING IN OUR SELF-INTERESTS.

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  • Living in a Black No-Man's Land
    by Roger Madison Jr. inOur Community on2019-10-28

    There are many narratives that define the Black experience in America in this 2nd decade of the 21st century. Our striving over the centuries of our sojourn in this nation is a tapestry of every human experience -- oppression, enslavement, forced assimilation, dehumanization, exclusion, segregation, isolation, struggle, perseverance, achievement, excellence, celebration, mourning, despair, progress, setbacks, lynching, assassination, genocide, terror, self-hatred, low esteem, pride,...

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  • Fighting Racism
    by Scott Woods inOur Community on2018-10-25

    I had a boss who was racist. Not an outright bigot, of course; her toolbox was more subtle than most. We bumped heads a lot over inconsequential things. She frequently couldn’t keep my name out her mouth. Lot of gaslighting. You know…2018 style. I tried a lot of ways to combat or navigate her issues. None of them worked, and that’s saying a lot because I’m really good at fighting racism. But at the end of the day – every day – she was my boss, I had to deal with her, and that was that. Finally I...

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Workout without feeling like it!

Exercising was a mortal enemy of mine; I hated it and I'm pretty sure it hated me because it caused me so much pain and anguish every time I tried to make it a part of my life. Not only was the actual act exhausting, but everything leading up to it was so inconvenient and each step just gave me an excuse not to take the next. For instance, I had to purchase workout clothes and shoes; then before I went to work out, I had to undress then get re-dressed in these clothes, then I had to bundle up (in the winter), find boots, gloves, hats, coats, etc. then warm up the car and drive to the gym; the preparation alone made me want to quit! Even in the summertime, thinking about all of the steps and then possibly getting to the gym and my machine was taken, also psyched me out. I had to figure out a way to a healthier, slim body without all the drama!

The first thing I did was decided to try to do some working out in my apartment. My daughter and I decided to do some aerobics, but we lived on the third floor and I was always worried about the tenants below us complaining, so we would do it once or twice a week, mostly on the weekend, for only a few minutes. This was actually pretty fun, but wasn't enough. I still needed to figure out a way to get enough exercise to put a dent in the amount of weight I wanted to lose. The next solution, which worked best for me was to literally exercise all day here are some ways I did this.

  • Every morning after peeing, I would do twenty leg lifts.
  • While I brushed my teeth, I did squats
  • Each time I went to the restroom during the day, even in the stall at work, I would do 20 additional squats and leg lifts. (you have to get the larger handicap stall for this)
  • If I were cooking, I would put the food on the stove; do a few sit ups on the kitchen floor, get up and continue cooking. A few times doing this while cooking a meal adds up!
  • Whenever I went home, I had to walk up three flights of stairs, this alone was decent exercise, but every once in a while, I would just go back down and do it again, nothing to strenuous, but it did make a difference when I added it to my other spurts of exercise during the day.
  • When walking from room to room, I would sometimes do lunges
  • I am not going to tell you that I would lay my driver seat back a bit and did sitting crunches while driving, because it's not safe, but if I did do it for a 5-10 minute trip to the grocery store, I bet it would help my abs tremendously.

 There are so many other exercises you can do while going through your day. This worked best for me because it took out all the preparation; I didn't change my clothes, I didn't even think about it as working out, I did the tasks, in whatever I was wearing and kept the day moving, and it really worked!