RAYS OF SUNSHINE.

To be or not to be? To create or to destroy? To understand or to dismiss? These are the questions that I think of when I think of artistic freedom and cultural competency. The events worldwide this past week say much about how sophisticated world politics has become as well as the snowball effect of technology and media on human behavior. I am talking about the Parisian killings at "Charlie Hebdo" last Wednesday, January 7th, and the struggle between freedom of expression and maintaining human decency. Here is Vox Media's in-depth coverage of the whole situation on a timeline:  http://www.vox.com/2015/1/7/7507849/charlie-hebdo-attack-terrorists-paris-shooting  From @BBCNews When we were kids, we were taught simple life lessons like "Say what you mean, and mean what you say because the people who mind don't matter, and the people who matter don't mind," and "If you have nothing nice to say, it's best to say nothing at all." This ...

Oftentimes, by virtue of being an internet-junkie, I pick up sayings and isms and things without really realizing where they originated. My brain is like Nicholas Allen's from Andrew Clements' brilliant book Frindle , I make up neologisms because they are fun, and use them often because I love and value cultural soupage of verbage. (See? Can't help it!)  So here are a few of my favorite more recent etymological anomalies  that I tend to drop every other word. #SariNOTsorry ;)  #LOWKEY I say this a lot. It's intended usage, according to urbandictionary, is to indicate that something is meant to be kept quiet or secret, or on the down-low .  Whate'er, I use it as a like or um or when I'm tryna talk quieter, but fail miserably.  #swaggher (& by extension,  #swoopswoop)   this has a very clear origin story. I re-watched the video above with new friends in chicago, and realized that the term "swaggher" and "swoopswoop" had the...