Page 5 - Florida Sentinel 11-20-18

Editorial/Column
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No More Cheeks To Turn
arlier this week a pre-
dominately Black church in Louisville, Ken- tucky announced that it would start allowing its members to bring guns to daily services. The leaders of the church came to their de- cision after discovering that the man, a white nationalist, who gunned down two Black senior citizens inside of a Kroger Grocery Store in the same city, first attempted to enter their house of worship with a goal to inflict an even greater level of carnage. The only thing that prevented him from going through with his original plan was that the church doors were locked.
Hearing a pastor explain during an interview how he's now forced to take such dras- tic measures in order to keep his congregation safe was mind-blowing. But what made his words even more unnerving was the fact that he wasn't the first to express such radical and desperate thinking.
A few years ago, after Dylan Roof killed 9 parish- ioners inside of a church in Charleston, South Carolina, a friend told me that she and several members from her
church had already begun arming themselves because they felt something like that could happen. Roof's un- provoked attack only con- firmed that wearing shoulder holsters underneath choir robes is an unfortunate ne- cessity of the times.
Whenever tragedies occur that involve someone taking the lives of others, simply because they were born with a certain skin pig- mentation, it's hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that this kind of thing is still taking place in this era.
I mean it was just the other day that I ran across a story about the police force in Dubai training to become the first law enforcement agency in the world to utilize hover bikes that fly up to 16 ft. above ground, by 2020. And, the next morning, the ride sharing company Uber announced its plans to have fully autonomous, driver-less cars transporting customers throughout cities across the country within the next five years.
What I can't figure out is how a society, that appears to be moving rapidly forward with its technological ad-
vancements, can continue to be so socially backwards? Here we are, 46 days away from 2019, and it's practi- cally impossible to turn on a television or read a newspa- per without hearing or read- ing about Black children being pelted with bananas at sporting events, white kids giving Nazi salutes or inno- cent Black men being shot or shot at by white people who can never see them as any- thing other than threats.
To be honest, I hate to even write about topics of this nature because con- stantly expressing the trauma of being victimized becomes tiring. And I've yet to figure out how to effec- tively combat the ignorance of bigotry that seems to reju- venate itself with each pass- ing generation.
Of course, Michelle Obama says that "when they go low we should go high." But using that ap- proach means that, eventu- ally, we'll get to a point where the air is so thin we won't be able to breathe.
I can only hope that, be- fore that happens, we'll come to our senses and realize that we're capable of dishing out as much as we take. But, until that awakening occurs, I guess we have no choice but to continue taking our licks and dealing with the sore- ness later.
Reality On Ice is © by the Florida Sentinel Bul- letin Publishing Com- pany. You can contact Mr. Barr at: cbar- ronice@gmail.com.
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Mid-Term Lessons We Must Learn
o all of our readers who voted, we send a hearty
“Thank you.” But as for those of you who refused to vote, or even to register to vote, you have done our ances- tors (yours and ours) a grave disservice and have no right to complain about what the elected officials may do after they are sworn into office.
For parents who didn’t vote, you have squandered your children’s future (don’t say nobody told you so).
Sadly, for those women who voted for their new Re- publican Party (no longer the Party of Lincoln) who placed Judge Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court bench and who are about to take control of your fertility rights (the use of birth control unless you are poor, right to terminate pregnancies regardless of the reason).
Moreover, you have lost support for justice if you are ever sexually abused, harassed or assaulted and don’t re- port it for whatever reason as soon as it happens to you.
For those of you who listened to the news about who was leading in the polls, and who thought a candidate did not need your vote, we know you want to kick yourselves.
As for those of you who are barely making minimum wage, you have probably lost all chances to make a mini- mum wage of $15 per hour – the new Republicans didn’t even support the last increase for the minimum wage – thanks to business protectionism.
In case you didn’t know it, Democrats support a higher wage for the working poor.
To the voters who voted by mail, we suggest you take your ballot to an early voting site if you want to make sure your vote is counted.
If the mail is slow to be delivered and does not reach the Supervisor of Elections Office by the deadline, your vote will not count. Remember, there were instances in which ballots were found in mail trucks too late to be counted.
Furthermore, there were college students from Broward County who charged that their mail-in ballots were delivered late or never arrived, which resulted in their not being able to vote.
Finally, another lesson we should have learned is that half of all voters will vote for candidates who are “closet” or “open” racists, who will not make their income tax re- turns public, who won’t explain how they spent govern- ment funds, or answer legitimate questions by the press. Only the results of 2019 and 2020 elections will tell if we have learned our lessons well.
Until then, our only saving grace may be a Democratic House of Representatives and MAYBE, the increase in the number of women in Congress.
Computer Augmentation The Next Big Thing
magine a shot of a Dol-
phin image flying from your phone or computer in midair. It’s being brought to reality sometime soon. We will be able to perform certain tasks on our phones as Iron Man does in his lab.
You will be able to com- plete daily activities with the flick of a wrist in thin air. No need for a projector or back- board, it’s a live image work- ing on its own axis.
Facebook has already begun to take advantage of this new technology where users can use the camera on their Facebook to display 3D
like imagery to objects such as a coffee cup and bubble up surreal effects to users like steam coming off the cup or sharks swimming inside the coffee.
Apple, too, is joining the race to bring augmented real- ity to the iPhone. Apple users will be able to play games and create artwork in standalone environment, meaning no backdrop or extra equipment.
Apple wanted to launch their iOS with augmented re- ality for years, but the price was just too high for the com- pany to introduce the steam- ing new technology to its
customers.
Apple users will also be
able to improve their batting techniques and golf strokes without having to go to a base- ball field or a golf course.
AR will allow users to practice all sort of events on their phone in a virtual reality base situation. Apple has steadily improved their iPhone chip to keep up with the speed and graphics de- mand of AR.
Apple will also introduce a special glass for users to expe- rience augmented reality en- hancement with multiple screens. AR has already been used in hospitals, where sur- geons can see realistic view of the human body parts and perform complicated inci- sions.
Doctors can see internal organs inside the human body, without cutting inside the body. AR will help to cut down on human errors and life threatening mistakes.
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