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To smoke or not to smoke

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  “What works for you may not work for me, so let me find my own way to figure it out.” Dr. BLR   One of the pleasures I get from teaching students is talking to them and providing them with the best advice I can, based on my six-plus decades of living. Over the years, I’ve noticed a trend happening as more students come through the doors of my classroom. A lot of my current and former students have admitted to smoking weed, even after I have apprised them of their Fifth Amendment right to self-incrimination. Of course, I am joking, as I have been retired from law enforcement for the past 15 years. Yet, they feel comfortable sharing this fact with me. I then ask them why. I didn’t know what to expect from their individual responses, but they all seem to think that smoking weed helps with their anxiety. Not to seem insensitive, given my generation’s experiences growing up, I find that many young people today have poor coping skills and find solace in lighting up. I don’t b...
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Dethroning “King” Lebron James

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  “The art of fakeness has led many individuals to reveal their true character later.” Dr. BLR   As a kid, I never really looked up to athletes as role models. I enjoyed watching them play whatever sport, but that was the extent of it. Fast-forward several decades, and there have been generations of young people who place athletes on a pedestal. I cannot blame them, given the proliferation of social media platforms such as Instagram and X, podcasts, and the numerous sports programs on cable television. This, unfortunately, is the world we live in today. Athletes’ lifestyles are often admired for what their salaries have enabled them and their families to achieve. The big homes, luxury cars, and lavish vacations are often captured in the media. How could you not look up to them? Well, if you look beyond the surface and examine who they are, what they represent, and how they invest their money, you may think twice before hanging up a life-size poster of them on your childre...
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The Bad Bunny Effect

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  “Media conglomerates deliberately saturate news outlets with hued lickspittles who bend the knee to capitalism and abandon their respective communities.” Dr. BLR   The world was recently introduced to a phenomenal Latin artist, Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio, better known as Bad Bunny. After receiving a Grammy for Album of the Year and performing at the Super Bowl halftime show, Bad Bunny is widely discussed. His music is being translated into English, and his politics are being placed center stage.  After the controversy surrounding his halftime performance, many overt and covert racists spoke out against his decision to sing his songs in Spanish. I must admit, while I liked the music, I had no idea he made subtle political and cultural references throughout. It was only after I went to Instagram and saw influencers explain everything that I was overwhelmed by their perspectives, because I had not kept abreast of Puerto Rico’s internal issues. I didn’t know that a...
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I am missing too

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  "Justice is color and status-coordinated." Dr. BLR   There is not a day that goes by without someone being reported missing to the police. The reasons for the disappearances vary, but the goal is always to ensure that the missing are returned home to their loved ones. Normally, the job of finding the missing is handled by local or state police agencies, unless the person is high-profile.  Over the past week, the news airwaves have been inundated with cyclical coverage of Nancy Guthrie. Who is Nancy Guthrie? You may ask. She is the mother of “Today” show co-host Savannah Guthrie, a very popular media personality who has been on the airwaves for many years. I have watched her on a few occasions and have nothing good or bad to say about her. She was just on television.  On the day her mother was reported missing, I thought about the many Facebook posts I had seen over the years about missing children and adults from New Jersey. I silently hoped they’d be returned home...
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Colin Kaepernick was right!

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  “The day a police officer considers themselves only 'Blue' is when they've become lost.” Dr. BLR   A wise person knows that if they aren’t well-versed in something, they should remain quiet. In a world of social media, a person in the limelight should step back and enjoy the spoils of their profession because it won’t be worth it if they can’t handle the backlash, or, as young people call it, the “smoke.” In 2016, Colin Kaepernick, then a prominent NFL player, made a calculated decision to kneel during the national anthem to express his concern about police violence in minority communities. His actions reverberated throughout the NFL and the mainstream media, and even President Trump chimed in. As a result, Kaepernick was blackballed from the NFL. This was an injustice to someone who was simply trying to bring attention to police brutality and inequality in the United States.  You would think that Kaepernick would have a slew of NFL players come out in support of him, p...
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The Grammys forgot Palestine

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  “Stand with humanity against apartheid and collective punishment.” Dr. BLR   In past essays, I have written about news cycles and how quickly they move, causing us to forget what happened in the previous cycle. Last week, the world was treated to another example of influential people gathering to celebrate one another through music at the Grammy Awards. For the record, I haven’t watched many episodes over the years because I’m not really into mainstream music. However, this year I watched because of Kendrick Lamar, the rapper who shook up last year’s Super Bowl halftime show. His song, “Not Like Us,” still rings in my head, and I have often yelled, “I see dead people,” followed by screaming, “Mustard,” in the hallways of Saint Peter’s University during my lunch hour. I have no idea what the students or other professors think of my weird actions; I’m just expressing my feelings at the moment. Lamar was nominated in a few categories this year, and there was also a new art...
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Who are You/We?

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  “Parents never truly die; they continue to live on within their children.” Dr. BLR     Sometimes I wish I could live in a bubble and profess ignorance of what is going on in the world around me, but that’s not who I am or have ever been. I have empathy for those people I don’t know, and thinking about them makes me wonder why more people don’t feel similarly.  In recent months, numerous events have dominated the news cycle, including Israelis killing Palestinians, Sudan’s civil war, gang violence in Haiti, Russians killing Ukrainians, ICE terrorizing undocumented immigrants, and, of course, the public release of the Epstein files. The one common thread across all of these situations is us, the Americans.  I could never speak for everyone, but when I look in the mirror, I ask myself who are we as a society and how did we get here. It seems we’ve reached a point where nothing else matters but ourselves. The desensitization took place over many years and has infe...
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