Put your brain to work

22nd February 2016   ·   0 Comments

By Edmund Lewis
Editor

Almost two months into the New Year, how are you coming along with those resolutions for 2016? Are you still eating healthier meals? Are you reading more books than you did by this time last year? What about exercise… are you getting out there and making it happen?

If the answer to any of these questions is no, you’re not alone.

Each of us could stand to do a little better in terms of how we go about our daily lives. I’ve found that the key for me is finding things that are good for me and good to me like eating more spinach-based salads with things like fresh pineapple and cranberries, sipping a relaxing cup of lemon tea while reading a good book, and buying more of the kinds of fresh vegetables and healthy foods like oatmeal that I enjoyed as a kid.

And exercising my brain muscle with reading material and documentaries that go beyond my usual interests as well as asking questions about the world around me.

Every day we should take our brains out for a spin with questions about the way human beings relate to one another and why things are the way they are. In that spirit, let’s get it started:

• Why and how is it that the people who find more creative ways to get out of paying income and property taxes always seem to get the most in government services in terms of street improvements, beautification projects and police protection?

• How many of our esteemed elected officials in local government and the state legislature would be willing to take pay cuts to balance the city and state budgets?

• Can anyone name an area of public service where privatization has benefitted working-class or poor people?

• How many years will it take for state officials to figure out how many games former Louisiana Gov. Piyush Jindal played with Louisiana’s budget?

• How many elders and ailing residents might be alive today if Gov. Jindal had not blocked Medicaid expansion in Louisiana?

• Who thinks that what is happening with the water system in Flint, Michigan can’t and isn’t happening in New Orleans?

• Why are those who are upset about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of private email to carry out her public duties not equally upset about Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice doing the exact same thing?

• Why is it wrong for President Barack Obama to nominate a replacement for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia but nobody had a problem with former President Ronald Reagan nominating Justice Anthony Kennedy to the highest court in the land?

• What do you think would happen in America if Hillary Clinton is elected president and nominates Barack Obama to take Scalia’s place on the U.S. Supreme Court as some have suggested?

• Who still thinks that stakes aren’t sky-high in this year’s upcoming presidential and congressional elections?

• How much heat can former Supreme Court Justice Sandra O’Connor expect to take from conservatives and Tea Party members after voicing her support for President Obama’s right to nominate a replacement for Justice Antonin Scalia before his second term ends?

• Why do any of us assume that any unsolved murder of a Black man, woman or child in New Orleans is yet another case of Black-on-Black violence?

• What are you doing to remember and honor those upon whose shoulders you stand during Black History Month and beyond?

• When was the last time you sat down with an elder from your church, neighborhood or family and asked him or her about some of the things they’ve experienced over the course of their life?

• Did you manage to find time to watch the PBS documentary on the history of the Black Panthers, and if you did, have you reached out to PBS to show your support for its programming and future documentaries about the history of African people?

• What are you doing to learn more about efforts by the New Orleans Branch of the NAACP to organize voters bloc by bloc and the goals and initiatives of One Million Conscious Black Voters & Contributors?

• How many people in New Orleans would be willing to use the money they typically spend during the Lenten Season between Mardi Gras and Easter to support an organization working to promote justice, economic fairness, prison reform and equal protection under the law?

• How would you like to have you for a friend?

This article originally published in the February 22, 2016 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.