You Want to Do What With $58 Million???

Commentary by Aunt B

And the Headline reads...
Government to condemn land for Flight 93 memorial


PITTSBURGH — The government will begin taking land from seven property owners so that the Flight 93 memorial can be built in time for the 10th anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks, the National Park Service said.

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Commentary by Aunt B...

We did it to the Native Americans and you'd think by now we'd have matured enough not to do it again. Now, the Government is going to take land for a memorial for Flight 93.

I imagine if I owned land and the Government was trying to hand me a song and dance, you know less than the value for my land, I'd be pissed and would stall too. Yes, I'd probably hold out, calling their bluff...but it has backfired, I do believe.

They will now take the land they want, unless I'm not catching on to the exact thinking and reasoning in this whole affair. And it's deplorable, sad and out and out outrageous.

In the first place, I will allow you to call me an asshole but I could never ever condone and sign my name to spending and I quote;

The seven property owners own about 500 acres still needed for what will ultimately be a $58 million, 2,200-acre permanent memorial and national park at the crash site near Shanksville, about 60 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.


Yea, call me an asshole, whatever but I could never spend that kind of money knowing that, in this economy when you have people living in tent cities, barely making it with that little bit of food stamps, having to send your kids to school to get the free breakfast and lunch, seniors barely able to make it and I could go on till the flippin cows came home, how in the hell can you justify spending $58 million dollars on a memorial? I have a heart but damn, it is insanity at it's finest. Please explain it to me?

I read the news every morning. At least, at the very least, once a week, I read of someone who has killed his family and then himself because he's lost his job and about to lose his home. I read of another drug bust of some young kid and...

MTV, I hold you in contempt, oh yes I do. You've lied to our youth and you've single handedly caused the down fall of thousands of young men, especially young black men.

"OMG Babz, what in the hell did you just say???"

This is my blog and I will say what I damn well please and hopefully speak the truth. And And And don't f*n tell me I don't know what I'm talking about. Let me tell you, I lived for several years in Garfield and East Liberty, right in the ghetto's of Pittsburgh. If that's not enough for you, I also lived in "Crack Hill," and "The Bottom" in Fredericksburg, Virginia, again, for years. Not enough? I lived around and scored my drugs in the ghetto's in 5 States. I have an educated opinion and have been in the trenches.

It's hard for anyone to get a job, not to mention young uneducated black men who already have one strike against them because of their color. They are brought up with the mindset that because they are black they'll have no chance in hell to make it in this world. But look at Obama, would ya please?

They spend a good portion of the day watching MTV and they see all the Brothers with their Bling, their fast cars and their faster women. And they begin to believe that it is the definition of a successful black man, a for real Gangsta. No, you ain't shit if you don't have it; It being the clothes, the shoes, the jewelry to say the least.

MTV's shows like "Cribs" are good on one hand as they show what you can have if you can achieve, usually as a Rapper. But video's set the standard. They are the catalyst, especially the ones that show life in the hood and how it's supposed to be.

So how does a young black man get all that stuff when he can't even get a job? He sells drugs, that's what. And the examples that are set are of living a "Thug Life", especially from video's where Gangsta Rap are concerned. And it's living a lie.

If you think I'm wrong, allow me to remind you that there are more black men in Prison for drug sales than just about anything else. If it's not for drug sales, it's for what I fondly call, "Crimes to Sustain."

Are you wondering what I'm talking about when I say "Crimes to Sustain"? It is a crime that is done to get what you have and I don't, what you have that I want to sell and sustain me or my lifestyle.

Go ahead, ask a black man why he's in prison and it's usually because he wanted a certain lifestyle he couldn't get any other way...or so he thought and was taught. There's absolutely nothing wrong with having a desire to dress nicely and I believe you should dress for success. But dirty deeds will never be rewarded. Crime does pay but only for a minute. Why doesn't MTV teach that?

Why don't the video's show how it looks as they make you spread your cheeks and cough? Why don't the video's show how fucked up it feels to have to stand naked in a group when they do a Shakedown in Prison? And you ain't going to get to wear your bling in there when you become just another inmate who believed the hype, the lies and alibi's.


The Answer; An Incentive to Excel

$58 million dollars is a lot of money and so much good could be done with it. In memory of those that have died, those that were heroic that day, why not set up scholarships and grants that just might give someone, specifically minorities, a whole life of help. It's like the old adage, "Give a man a fish and he eats well for a day. Teach him to fish and he eats well all of his days," or something like that?

Yes, that's a whole lotta love that could be spread, $58 million. For those that face life heroically every day living in the ghetto's all across America, why not give them incentive to excel. I don't mean little $1000 scholarships, I mean send them to school; College, Universities, Vocational, all expenses paid.

Blacks across America are doing and behaving, going to prison for and paying the price of and for a mindset of little to no choices. The funny thing is that this could be changed with this incentive to excel. But it must start at home, in school and when the child is young. He's got to have a plausible dream, an attainable goal.

If a parent knows that they have a golden carrot, an opportunity afforded their children, they just might teach them that they have a chance. Right now misery and pain, seem to be passed down generation to generation. It's predisposition, a precursor for disaster, over and over. This could be changed...

Knowledge is power. The implication of it all, the proposition of it in it's entirety is endless. For a parent to be able to teach and tell their children that if he/she works very hard at getting good grades and staying in school, that they will have an amount of money set aside for them, specifically $58 million dollars, it will make a difference.

Do you even realize the difference this would/could make? Might you even surmise what a difference even half of that allocated money could do to really help? Let me just put it into perspective for you; Your crime rate will go down, the prison system will not be as over loaded as it is, your world as well as theirs will be a better place.

If I can see this, why can't they?