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In the Moment: Confederate Relics and Racist Tropes and the Necessity of Context To History

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The past month has certainly been a tumultuous one for the United States, as civil unrest continues to boil over nationwide about police brutality and systemic racism in the justice system. Please take note that I didn't refer to the unrest as being about "the death of George Floyd," a characterization I'm seeing all too often in reports about the topic. Something that I intend to take very seriously in my writings on here is the proper contextualization of current events, and it is extremely important to understand that protests did not spill into the streets of all 50 states and multiple countries around the world because ONE police officer killed ONE man. There is a bad faith element in commentaries on this historic moment to reduce it to that, because that element has a vested interest in discrediting this movement by attempting to make a pain and rage that spans generations into an overreaction to a specific, isolated event. No, these protests are not about Geo...

A New Journey

Synesthesia is a phenomenon that has always fascinated me, from the time that I first experienced it in early childhood to the time when I learned that there was a word for it until now. Essentially, synesthesia is a sensation of experiencing sensory excitation through senses other than the one that is expected. Some people may "see" sounds, or "taste" words--one might experience an auditory stimulus on a physical level that can almost be described as pain, like the "nails on a chalkboard" phenomenon. While studies report that anywhere from one in 300 to one in 2,000 people may experience some form of synesthesia, I've known too many people who recoiled at certain sounds or gag at the word "moist" to believe the phenomenon is that uncommon, even if some people may experience it much more distinctly than others. I've tried on several occasions to keep up a blog. I'm a person who thinks a lot, and feels an innate desire to express my ...