So, one day you look down and see your feet in shoes you don't recognize. Maybe you like them, maybe you don't. This is where life begins. Welcome to WSATA, where the Goddess returns.
I learned via Cynthia Coleman on Twitter of a second grader's suicide attempt at Blackshear Elementary School in Houston, Texas, because he was bullied at school.
His mom said she asked administrators and teachers for help after two boys bullied her son starting in September, but no one listened.
Yamshannta Robertson said, "I don't want this to happen to any other parent cause I thought I lost my child."
On Wednesday, she said two boys pulled down her son's pants and he was embarrassed.
That's when his mother said her son jumped from a window two and a half floors up. (Story at KPRC with video.)
According to the mother, the administration did not call for an ambulance, but the child appeared to not be injured, and less than 20 minutes after the suicide attempt, the school had the child sign a promise not to commit suicide. The boy has dyslexia. The district says it has an anti-bullying policy in place.
This is a crazy story, but to give it context, I'm listing links to two other stories about children killing themselves after being bullied.
I was talking in an email thread about the recent study about weight loss and exercise that says women, especially older women, should exercise 60 minutes per day, seven days per week, to maintain their weight without dieting. Depressing. And I said I remembered the 2008 study that said obese women had to exercise 55 minutes per day at least 5 times per week and restrict calories to lose weight.
In 1972 or 1973, my mother, who was 45/46 back then lost 70 pounds on the old Weight Watchers Diet. One of the selling points of the diet is that you could lose weight without exercise.
Yes, I think we should exercise. Exercise is good for you, but I couldn't help but think that this notion that you can't lose weight unless you exercise is faulty. My mother was in her mid 40s and 70 pounds overweight. She was obese, but she lost weight without exercise. And she was not the only middle-aged, obese woman losing lots of weight on the old Weight Watcher's Diet in the 70s. So, either humans have changed or something else in the world has changed.
I suggested in the email thread that maybe humans are changing. Thread participants reminded me that it's more likely that the problem is the food we consume today has changed, not humans.
Naturally, our increasing consumption of high fructose corn syrup came up in the email discussion, and someone sent this link, "Dishing on High Fructose Corn Syrup."
Yes, we've been hearing about the evils of HCFS for years now, and have you noticed that the Corn Refiners Association is fighting back on all the bad publicity? See SweetSurprise.com, and no, I don't believe the industry's rebuttal. Furthermore, I hate the commercial its produced with the dueling moms.
Later, weight-loss blogger Deb Roby sent a note saying she thinks our weight problem today has more to do with what we eat than it does exercise. Therefore, I shared what I recalled of the old Weight Watcher's Diet.
Yeah. I still remember the old Weight Watchers diet, more or less.
3 pieces of fruit per day (teens and men could have more) No more than 2 servings of starch (teens and men could have more) 16 oz. of skim milk (24 oz for teens) 4 oz. of meat, fish or poultry at lunch 6 oz. of meat, fish or poultry a dinner (that part may have been teens, can't remember if adult women ate 4 oz again or 5 oz or 6 oz.) No more than 4 eggs per week, which had to be calculated into a meal as part of your protein No more than 4 ounces of cheese per week, which had to be calculated into a meal as part of your protein No more than 3 tsp. of fat per day At least 2 cups of raw veggies About 1 cup cooked veggies No sugar, period. Protein had to include Fish 5 times per week and lean beef 4 X per week No frying of anything: Grill, bake, broil or poach unlimited coffee, tea, or diet soda (My mom drank a lot of diet soda and still lost weight. So did I.)
While you could eat out sometimes on the plan, the crux was either you or someone at your house preparing and measuring your food for you.
I know they changed this diet later, which I've been told was actually the old New York State weight loss diet.
I included the note that my mother and I drank a lot of diet soda because I know some recent studies indicate that diet soda may contribute to weight gain, and I lost weight on the old WW diet as well. I was 13 then and had always been the fat kid. That was the first time and possibly the only time I lost a substantial amount of weight due to effort and not illness.
So, I decided to look up the old diet online and found that someone had posted the full 1972 Weight Watcher's Diet that I remember under "The Way It Was... (1972 Weight Watchers Program)." Actually, I think it may have been Dottie from Dottie's Weight Loss Zone who posted it. She lost 95.5 pounds on the Weight Watchers point system which came later.
Since it's copyrighted by Weight Watchers, I decided not to post the actual text here, and just give the link instead.
We gave a white Louisiana sheriff hell in 2006 for saying in anger how he planned to profile black people with dreadlocks following murders in Slidell, La. But what are we saying to the black mayor of Baton Rouge, Kip Holden? He's said proudly that he condoned the Baton Rouge Police Department's violent, discriminatory crackdown on Hurricane Katrina survivors in his city?
Troopers described Baton Rouge officers as being loud and rude to African-Americans but polite to whites. It quotes one as saying Baton Rouge officers referred to black people as "animals" that needed to be beaten down. Troopers also reported that officers said they were ordered to make life rough for New Orleans evacuees so they would leave town, the newspaper said. (Times Picayune)
Look at how Mayor Kip Holden, the black guy, responded to the report's recent publication.
"I was not going to let Baton Rouge be overrun by some people from New Orleans who were hell-bent on committing crimes," Mayor Holden said. "If there's a blame to be placed on aggressive enforcement, blame it on me." (Times Picayune editorial)
Yeah. We tried to rip a hole in Jack Strain, the sheriff of St. Tammany Parish, when he made his comments about dreadlocks in 2006. The nation was determined to tell him that what he said and the potential harassment he seemed to condone was wrong, and we called him a racist. After the brutal Slidell murders, he said:
I don't get into calling people names and all of that fact. But if you're going to walk the streets of Saint Tammany Parish with dreadlocks and chee wee hairstyles, then you can expect to be getting a visit from a sheriff's deputy. (Jack Strain 2006)
He also said his deputies would stop poor people on the street from New Orleans, who he assumed came from the projects, and if they didn't have jobs, then they needed to get out of his parish.
I had a lot to say back then about Strain. While I understood his frustration over the horrific murders that a child had witnessed, I still said we should not tolerate that kind of broad profiling nor that kind of disrespectful rhetoric from a public official about any group of the population.
Honestly, I think Jack Strain probably thought about what he said. He most likely wishes he had behaved differently, especially in front of a news crew, and also after residents made it clear to him that Slidell had multiple law-abiding black tax payers who wore dreadlocks and hair twists. I'll also say that Strain was equally angry when KKK activity reared its head in his parish, but less frustrated possibly because they caught the killers.
I'm not saying Strain no longer has any racial bias. I'm just saying he probably contemplated how his bias needed to be put in check. People who read my work know that I think most white people haven't really examined white privilege or don't acknowledge it and therefore probably hold onto either conscious or subconscious racist ideas in their heads. It's not something that mysteriously vanishes. It's something humans have to work on.
And now we've got the mayor of Baton Rouge, this black guy one-upping Jack Strain. This black mayor unleashed a southern Gestapo-like force on other black people. Racism unrestrained worked through his city's police department, and he's smiling for the cameras, happy to claim it.
In records obtained by The Advocate, troopers from New Mexico and Michigan detailed how Baton Rouge officers routinely harassed black people, performed illegal searches and used unnecessary violence. They said Baton Rouge officers were loud and rude to African-American people but polite to white people. A local officer is quoted referring to black people as "animals" that "needed to be beaten down."
There was more than hateful words. A trooper said that, as a thank-you for his help, Baton Rouge officers offered to let him beat down a prisoner. "I was told that I could go ahead and beat someone down," Michigan State Trooper Jeffrey Werda was quoted in The Advocate. Another Baton Rouge officer allegedly hit a man in the head and "took him to the ground in a head lock," even though "at no time did (the man) pose a threat or mouth off at the officers," the trooper said. (Read more)
The editorial in the Times Picayune surmises the mayor, the Baton Rouge police chief, and other Baton Rouge officials were overcome with a post-Katrina hysteria. I suppose they have exhibited a certain kind of madness, but if Field Negro and Rippa, two vocal male black bloggers wrote about the Baton Rouge mayor, they would probably call Kip a slave catcher. Perhaps so would the bloggers at Jack and Jill Politics.
I'm just shaking my head. Mr. Mayor, law enforcement from another state came forward to blow the whistle on your police department and you think you deserve a pat on the back or are your comments your version of taking responsibility? Sounds more like you're making excuses to me, trying to convince others you were somehow justified because your'e a "law and order mayor."
Oh, people, what are we going to do about Kip Holden? How should we handle his hysterical behind?
A friend passed on Howard Kurtz's opinion piece in the Washington Post, "Media's health-care exhaustion," noting that research data from David Frum's staff suggested that the Tea Party people don't understand taxes. It's worth a read to see how confused the Tea Party crowd appears to be this subject that it's taken to its bosom, and also to digest what Health Care Reform may mean to the Obama presidency. In addition, Kurtz gives an intelligent assessment of how the media handled the Health Care Reform story.
However, it was the following quote from a conservative writer that caught my attention for other reasons.
From the right, Kathryn Jean Lopez in National Review:
"Congratulations, Democrats. Beginning now, you own the health-care system in America. Every hiccup. Every complaint. Every long line. All yours." (from Kurtz's WaPo column)
The pessimism of the statement, its pettiness, stood out to me. And so I'm asking Lopez to be more positive about the nation's future.
Dear Ms. Lopez:
You are correct that Democrats will be blamed for every flaw in the new health care system. My question is will you and others on the right also give them kudos when due?
If what you say is correct, then it is equally true that Republicans may not lay claim to any successes from the new system. Beginning now, the Democrats own the health-care system in America. Every joyful tear. Every smile. Every life saved. All theirs.
Jay Martin, self-described Hip Hop funny man, also tweeted a call to kill President Obama: "You should be assassinated @BarackObama," he wrote, and said he'd do it himself.
Soloman "Solly" Forell, the conservative who has drawn attention to himself by tweeting that President Barack Obama should be assassinated describes himself as an "authentic African-American." His say-so is no proof of anything, but the fact is that some black conservatives strongly identify with white Republicans even to the point of exhibiting all the signs of internalized racism.
However, in this age of online liars, is Solly Forell who and what he says he is? We won't know until the Secret Service or the FBI releases his photo and other data, perhaps. ... In the meantime, we do know that Jay Martin, a young black man on Twitter, also tweeted assassination threats against Obama.
Questions about the health care bill and how it impacts you? Read this NYT article.
No Republicans voted for the Health Care Reform bill that passed tonight in the House of Representatives, and neither did 34 Democrats vote for the bill. The final vote was 219 voting yes to 212 voting no. More drama, the Republicans are trying to get the bill sent back to committee for a review of abortion funding, in effect killing the bill.
Democrats are worried about holding their members together on a GOP motion that could kill the healthcare bill.
Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) said House leaders are specifically concerned about a Republican motion to recommit that would contain only language on abortion that Stupak originally had wanted to include in the Senate bill.
The concern is based on the fear of GOP attack ads painting Democrats who vote against a motion to recommit that includes Stupak’s favored language on abortion as “flip-floppers” on the issue. (The Hill)
The Democrats need 216 No votes to stop the bill from going back to committee.
The evening also had a breach of decorum, sources report, that some Republican member of congress yelled "Baby killer!" while Stupak was speaking.
Health Care Reform Coverage in Two Minutes: Do You Agree or Disagree with CNN's Wrap-up? The video was posted before Health Care Reform bill passed in the House tonight.
CNN posted this two-minute summary of news on the upcoming Health Care Reform vote. Do you get anything from it?
On Saturday, March 20, the African-American Books Examiner interviewed novelist and social media maven Ananda Leeke. She is the author of two books, and Love's Troubadours - Karma: Book One (2007) and That Which Awakens Me: A Creative Woman's Poetic Memoir of Self-Discovery (2009). Leeke is currently working on another book, "Sisterhood, the Blog: Soundbytes from the 21st Century Women's Online Revolution," which has its own website. Listen to the podcast or read a partial summary at the African-American Books Examiner.
" ... let's not let a few isolated incidents get in the way of the fact that millions of Americans are scared to death, and millions of Americans want no part of this growing size of government." -- House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio
Well at least he didn't claim as some conservatives did on Twitter that there was no proof it ever happened.
Yesterday on Twitter, I tried to stay away from the storm over the slurs yelled during yesterday's conservative protest as much as I could because, let's face it, if you let yourself get worked up every time a conservative says something blatantly racist or homophobic/hetero-supremacist or plainly insane, you'll stay in a funk. So, I wrote a poem instead under "The Poetry ObamaCare Writes." One person called it "Zen on today's ugliness."
The ruckus stemmed from the health care reform battle and the news that conservative protesters yelled racial slurs at members of congress, called one leader a faggot, and apparently spat on another. On Twitter, @QueenofSpain stayed in the fray, debating a certain young conservative who calls herself Christian and yet can never bring herself to admit blatant racism when it reveals its head among Republicans and conservatives. She won't even concede Rush Limbaugh, for instance, makes racially-charged statements.
I think her defense of yesterday's racist and homophobic harassment was that she needs proof. You know what that's about. They claim they can only believe something true if Fox News says it's true, or that they must see it with their own eyes and hear it with their own ears, but since they've shown they don't know a racial slur when it comes from one of their own mouths, what do they say when they do see and hear them? Either they say it was not a racial slur or that the person who said it was an Obama plant. You know the drill.
Three Democratic African-American lawmakers - including civil rights leader Rep. John Lewis of Georgia - said demonstrators against the health care bill yelled racist epithets at them as they walked past. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri said a protester spit at him. Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, an openly gay Democrat, said protesters yelled anti-gay comments at him.
House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, called the incidents "reprehensible" but said on NBC's Meet the Press "let's not let a few isolated incidents get in the way of the fact that millions of Americans are scared to death, and millions of Americans want no part of this growing size of government."
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, appearing on NBC, said, "I think the tone of the this entire debate has been denigrated, has been brought down, frankly, by the rhetoric on government takeover, socialism, things that are not accurate."
As said in the CNN report, the talk took place on NBC's Meet the Press.
I agree that not all Republicans would shout racist, homophobic slurs and spit on representatives nor condone the behavior. However, I also think that if they would stand up to people like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck and stop kowtowing to the part of their base that loves the Limbaugh-Beck type rhetoric, then those Republican "denunciations" would sound more sincere.
Thank God for the Internet! I had Super Bowl 44 on my DVR and sometimes, when I needed a pick me up, I'd go back and watch scenes, especially Tracy Porter's interception. But my DVR box broke and had to be replaced. So, I lost my Saints Parade and the game itself until I can buy them I guess. In the meantime, this YouTube video works wonders.
I was on my way to a pleasant first day of spring, and then I saw a right winger going on about ObamaCare. I had a post ready to go, fired up to burn a bitch or two over the craftiness of code-switching satanic verses, rightspeak implying curses on one man, making dirty even policies that could save a child or mother or father or some soul they should call brother but don't.
I inhaled, clutching this venomous word in my throat. It is the first day of spring, I will not be goaded into wading through the murky swamp. I will exhale, breathe out flowers, not stings.
It is the first day of spring and I will pretend the world is good.
It pays to visit bloggers who talk about African-American authors or books in general, which is why the African-American Books Examiner tries to do a regular round-up of blogs with posts about black authors or books by black authors. Here's what she came across this week. This week's round up includes a blogger's walk with Walter Mosley, speculative fiction author Steven Barnes's take on the French fake torture game show, a run by Raw Sistaz and more. Read at the African-American Books Examiner.
I've already covered this topic at BlogHer.com under "Texas Thrashes History," but still wanted to share Stephen Colbert's humor on the Texas State School Board attempts to rewrite history and social studies. At the end he interviews Eric Foner, a history professor from Columbia University who wrote Give Me Liberty, an American history textbook.
Remember those Northwest pilots of Flight 188 who flew past their destination in October and nobody heard from them for more than an hour? Well, they did not fall asleep as some folks supposed.
The two pilots "became distracted by a conversation" about the airline's new work schedule system and by laptop computers they were using in violation of company policy and did not communicate with air traffic control for about 1 hour and 17 minutes while they cruised past their Minneapolis, Minnesota, destination at 37,000 feet, the NTSB said. (CNN)
This proves that laptops really do create some kind of time vortex or black hole. You get on one, do a little web surfing, talk to a few friends, and the next thing you know, you're missing an hour, sometimes a day.
The entire senior class at Chicago's only public all-male, all-African-American high school has been accepted to four-year colleges. At last count, the 107 seniors had earned spots at 72 schools across the nation.
Another blogger passed this along and I'm glad she did. Don't we need some good news? And that it's from Chicago, the same city that last year had me weeping about the number of young people shooting each other, makes this news doubly fantastic. Not saying the problem is solved there anymore than it's solved here in New Orleans, but I'll take my ray of hope where I can get it.
I was in bed and a bit under the weather and the subject of building my writing platform online and the future of blogging in general was was on my mind so much that Billy Preston's old song from the 70s, "Will It Go Round in Circles" popped into my head. However, it did not come with Billy's words. (The rest of my babbling on this topic is below the poem or faux lyrics.)
Will It Go 'Round in Cycles? By Nordette N. Adams, with appropriate props to Billy Preston
I've got a blog, I ain't got no catchy theme. I'm gonna share it with my friends. I've got a blog, I ain't got no catchy theme. I'm gonna share it with my friends.
Will it get hits in cycles? Will it get big like Dooce all way up high? Will it get hits in cycles? Will it trend up like a Twitter Bird and fly?
I've got a Twitter account but few followers. Talk to myself most of the time. I've got a Twitter account but few followers. Talk to myself most of the time.
Will followers come in cycles? Will they rise high with no spammers in the pile? Will followers come in cycles? Will they rise high with no spammers in the pile?
I've got a page set up on Facebook. I've got friends that don't even know my name. I've got a page set up on Facebook. I've got friends that don't even know my name.
Will they say hi in cycles? Will they say hi like a politician guy? Will they say hi in cycles? Will they say hi like a politiican guy?
Will I get hits in cycles? Will I get big like a Field-Negro up high? Will I get hits in cycles? Will my platform grow or will it die?
Will I get hits in cycles? Will I connect like Carleen Brice and fly? Will I get hits in cycles? Will my platform grow or will it die?
Will I get hits in cycles? Will I crack the code like a Baratunde guy? Will I get hits in cycles? Will my platform grow or will it die?
And yes, I've been saying this stuff for a while, but I am making progress. I finished one novel and am now writing the second one. Anyway, it's not just potential book authors who are feeling the pressure to build, grow, and brand themselves online. You could throw a virtual rock in nearly any direction in cyberspace and in a millisecond hit someone telling you how to grow followers or get more hits.
People want to be seen and sell themselves so much that you can now barcode yourself on Facebook. No, I did not make that up.
BTW, did anyone notice Field Negro's new store? I think Field Negro's web presence grew organically. He was just talking and being himself, not plotting in a corner about Web domination. He was blogging long before everybody and her grandmother's kittens had a blog.
I am feeling the need more strongly than ever to pull away from the Web and focus only on my fiction writing and other writing projects, and stop letting myself get sucked into commenting on controversial topics. However, with all the people saying you have to build a writing platform online, meaning blogs and social media with lots of followers to prove people read you, with the people saying that you may not be able to sell even a fiction book without a big band of followers, and knowing that when you post less often and don't comment on other folks' stuff, your own web presence shrinks, I need to figure out how to create some balance between the need to withdraw from the Web and keeping an online presence.
Then I wonder what does building a platform mean for me anyway because my current presence online has little to do with what my book is about. Should I stop talking to the people I know and only talk to people writing fiction, go make new friends? Should I make this blog only about my writing life? And what happens if I move this blog and lose followers? Maybe it's this pressure that has me feeling under the weather. And how much of my quandary is related to how much this all reminds me not of marketing but of high-school popularity races? I was never an "it" girl, why should it be different online? Now "Nothing from Nothing" is in my head.
I'm addicted to The Good Wife on CBS, which I'm watching right now, and I love the kick-ass character Eli Gold, played by Alan Cumming. It's a given that I also love the main character, Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies), and if I were reincarnated, I'd be the character Kalinda (Archie Panjabi).
In the video below, Eli tells Becca, Queen Bitch in Training, to stop tweeting (on Twitter as Upriser7) details of Alicia's life with her husband Peter, who is played by Chris Noth of Law and Order and Sex in the City fame.
I had to post this. I'm supposed to be taking it easy, avoiding politics and race discussions, but the Texas education insanity drew me out. With this crazy Onion video, I'm trying to get back to chilling out. I love the black guy in this playing the newspaper loon representative.
O.K., at BlogHer.com, that's not the title of the post. It's really that my post "Texas Thrashes History: Will We Need Honest History Month Now?" has been updated and syndicated at BlogHer.com. Seriously, not enough people are paying attention to this story. They think it's about Texas, but as another blogger said on this matter, as Texas goes, so goes the nation. The Texas State Board of Education has removed Thomas Jefferson from its social studies curriculum and replaced him with St. Thomas Aquinas, William Blackstone, and John Calvin. Religious conservatives want to abolish separation of church and state. You should be concerned. Read more.
The people who keep asking "Is Black History Month still necessary?" may have to concede, thanks to Texas, that months acknowledging the contributions of specific groups may be more necessary than ever now and in the future. In fact, thanks to Texas, we may have to start something called "Honest History Month," 30 days of untwisted education. Yes, this post is about the Texas State Board of Education opting for social studies and history books that stress a conservative world view and how that move will affect your child's education and possibly America's political future.
If you've missed the story, here's a lead from the New York Times:
After three days of turbulent meetings, the Texas Board of Education on Friday approved a social studies curriculum that will put a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks, stressing the superiority of American capitalism, questioning the Founding Fathers’ commitment to a purely secular government and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light.
That last part about "questioning the Founding Fathers' commitment to a purely secular government," should disturb you because it's referring to a belief that there's no such thing as separation of church and state.
There's a teaching among Christians, Dominion Theology, that says America is a Christian nation and therefore its laws may impose Christian moral standards on citizens. Say good-bye Civil Rights. Christian moral standards have been used in the past to promote segregation, that black people are cursed by God and deserve to be treated as such (justification for the slave trade), and that the head of woman is man (justification for a Patriarchy). So, condition a generation of children to think that there's no such thing as the separation of church and state and see where that road takes you.
I tossed Black History Month into this discussion because studying why we have BHM and how it came to be offers a lesson in how distorting history can swing opinion about certain groups and influence political decisions. Like so many issues in America, race is a factor in this Texas story as well. More from NYT:
Efforts by Hispanic board members to include more Latino figures as role models for the state’s large Hispanic population were consistently defeated, prompting one member, Mary Helen Berlanga, to storm out of a meeting late Thursday night, saying, “They can just pretend this is a white America and Hispanics don’t exist.”
“They are going overboard, they are not experts, they are not historians,” she said. “They are rewriting history, not only of Texas but of the United States and the world.”
Right now we're in Women's History Month, another spotlight on a marginalized group. If you downplay feminism and promote the likes of a Phyllis Schafly more to fill the void, what are you really doing?
So, Texas is doing something even more insidious than marginalizing a minority or oppressed group, which could be construed as an oversight. The Texas decision is a move to change the political landscape beginning with your child. Before you say, "Oh, well, I don't live in Texas so that doesn't concern me," please consider the following: Texas is so big that its textbook purchases can influence the history books used by other school systems in America, according to CNN and also Gabriel Winant writing at Salon.com. Winant's opinion piece tells why he thinks Texas's decision is dangerous.
While Texas just voted for what they're calling a "more balanced" history, conservative claims that America has been corrupted by liberal spin in education is not new. In July 2008, Leslie Madsen Brooks, who also blogs at The Clutter Museum, published at BlogHer.com, "Are Liberal Professors Brainwashing Our Youth?" She said "no" and called the notion alarmist.
I think that these Republican and conservative Texans, with a completely different view from Madsen, believe they're doing just that, sounding the alarm against liberal tyranny. I suspect they see themselves as the Paul Reveres of the day.
But let the rest of us wake up, people! Pay attention. These Texas conservatives are employing the strategy of cooking the frog slowly. Should you object, I'm sure Texans who support this curriculum change have a ready answer for you: "States' Rights!"
The bright side of this is, per CNN and NYT, that digital publishing makes it possible for states that don't want to go the way of Texas to design their own textbooks. So, what does that mean? Will we be a nation of dueling histories? Is there no room for an objective telling of actual events?
Udated, 7:44 CST: I decided to add this ABC video that I received in email from a fellow blogger. The video is a profile of Dr. Don McElroy, the Republican who is excercising his power to influence what your children think. He's a dentist and self-described fundamentalist Christian who believes this world must be restored to biblical principals. Watch.
I've been toying with writing a piece on Women's History Month and finding your place as woman through self-history. This poem fits that theme in some ways. It's a little reflection from 2006 on how knowing history and heritage impacts us.
CBS Money Watch did a story, "What Not to Buy at Wal-Mart." By no means was the network saying "Don't shop at Wal-Mart" because it also ran a story called, "What to Buy at Wal-Mart." It's the "what not to buy piece," however, that interests readers who care about strengthening their local economies.
The bottom line is that buying books from your local, independently-owned bookstores helps lesser known authors as well as your city's economic future, which is why I have provided a list of locally-owned bookstores in New Orleans at the New Orleans Literature Examiner.
"Telephone," the video discussed and posted below, has salty language, violence, a lesbian kiss, and half-naked women dancing in dominatrix costumes. If any of that bothers you reader, please do not press play.
But if you're a light-hearted soul or a fan of Lady Gaga and Beyoncé who sees the humor in this kind of creative pop culture expression, then watch. The video is sort of a Thelma and Louise, Chicago "Cell Block Tango," let's go to the Gaga penitentiary and call Beyoncé mash-up.
This is what Touré, a book author who goes by the handle ToureX on Twitter said ... Please read more at the African-American Books Examiner.
If a man to whom you are attracted and who seems to be attracted to you told you that years ago he considered having sex with other men in order to make ends meet, but he also said he was not gay, would you doubt him? I confess that this happened to me in my dating days, and I decided a relationship with this person might be too complicated because he was not joking.
I could be wrong, but I felt he was letting me know that he may either be bisexual or at least had some internal conflict going on about his sexual identity. He also said in passing once that women he's rejected accuse him of being gay.
I know women like that, those who assume that because a man doesn't want them, he must be gay. However, since I've got some body image baggage, I'd be more likely to think the man wanted a skinnier woman or a better looking woman or a dumber woman or a smarter woman or somebody who cares more not that he wanted another man.
The man I'm talking about also was no spring chicken trying to be cool or impress me, and so, I contemplated what he was actually revealing about himself. What was he really saying? By that time, how could I ask him directly, "Yo! Are you gay?" If I had he would have told me I was like those other women, most likely, even though he had not rejected me.
Perhaps there's some person out there who's studied sexual identity who would tell me I am wrong, that a straight man might consider prostituting himself to gay men if he were desperate for money, but I'm more inclined to believe a heterosexual would have a natural aversion to participating in same-sex sexual relations the same way many gay people talk about how hard it was for them to have sex with people of the opposite sex before coming out of the closet.
I mean, if you really need money to eat, McDonald's is always hiring and there are soup kitchens. Why would a person with skills consider being a same-sex prostitute rather than do something else to get cash?
By the way, when I say "gay" I mean homosexual not bisexual. Some people speak like they are one in the same but they are not.
To me, if you are an adult and comfortable with having sexual relations with someone of the same sex, you are probably not heterosexual. You are most likely either homosexual or bisexual.
I say "if you are an adult" because sometimes younger people go on exploratory missions or try to be popular and prove they're down for anything, especially girls. However, that is far more about self-esteem and self-knowledge than it is about sex.
Once you're an adult you should know better and avoid sexapades that have more to do with how other people see you rather than how you see yourself. But I know the journey to self-acceptance is longer for some people than it is for others, case in point, Meredith Baxter Birney. Coming to terms with being homosexual or bisexual or even asexual, with being anything that is not undeniably heterosexual, is more difficult than simply falling in line with the rest of the heterosexuals. This world favors straight not queer, especially this American world.
In addition, you may have noticed that America is far more accepting of two-women hopping into bed with each other than it is of two men. For years many porn movies aimed at arousing men featured girl-on-girl action. Watching two women make out is often listed as one of the top male fantasies. And consider that as we've into gay rights on television and in movies, seeing two-women kissing on primetime television or in a film was far more common than seeing two men kissing. Not saying no one showed two men kissing, but that two-women kissing was more likely scenario.
I acknowledge that implying men are in a gay relationship in a drama or comedy has been going on for many more years. Implying it, however, is very different from in-your-face Broke Back Mountain love on the big screen. The taboo for men to have even a casual sexual encounter with another man is stronger. Even the "I was drunk" reason is rarely accepted as the honest truth.
So, saying that, it's back to the question from the beginning of the post. Would you think the man in the question was heterosexual because he said so, or would you think that maybe you were getting involved with a man who'd be on the down low/living in the closet? By making such a statement, is the man revealing that he's comfortable with his manhood or is he dropping a hint that he may not be what you think he is?
I used to write on the topic of men on the down low sometimes back when it was a hotter topic. See these old articles:
As you can see, that last link will take you to something about novelist Terry McMillan, whose book How Stella Got Her Grove Back was based on her meeting her husband in Jamaica. Not too long ago I listened to an interview with Jimi Izrael conducted by an older woman at Psychjourney. Hearing the interview, I started wondering about the guy I mentioned in the question again because Izrael and the interviewer laughed at Terry McMillan, saying she went to Jamaica and picked up a man like a souvenir. They implied that she should have known something was amiss, that her lover turned husband was gay. Do you agree? Can you always tell?
Speaking with The Root, film director Spike Lee says he thinks Mitch Landrieu can do a better job as Mayor of New Orleans than did outgoing mayor Ray C. Nagin. Anyone who read my post, "Mitch Landrieu's Win is Not About Black vs. White," knows I agree with Lee on his statement, as well as I agree that Mitch will need a lot of help.
TR: You said earlier that the people’s feet were coming closer to the ground, but how do you feel about the task of the incoming government?
Lee: I know Mitch [Landrieu, mayor-elect] a little bit. I think he can do better than what Nagin has done. But he’s going to need a whole lot of help. He’s the mayor, but you have a governor who doesn’t look favorably on New Orleans. The federal money has to go to the state first, and the state then disburses it. Just because Mitch is mayor doesn’t mean presto change-o [snaps fingers] overnight. But it will be a welcome change for the people here, and I think that was reflected in the way the voting went. (Spike Lee's interview with The Root)
So, I think Lee understands more about the city than some other out-of-towners who only see black versus white. Seeking justice is not about sticking with the black guy or brown guy, something made clearer by Lee's reference to Gov. Bobby Jindal.
In the interview he also talked about his upcoming documentary, an update to When the Levees Broke. The follow-up documentary, which will air on HBO on the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, is called If God is Willing and The Creek Don’t Rise. I laughed when I read the title because I just said something very similar to my son yesterday regarding concerns about the future and flooding.
For you writers out there with the great novels gathering dust in your nightstand drawer, whip out and dust off for Narrative Library Book Award. If you haven't yet finished your masterpiece, perhaps you should now. This contest has no deadline. ... Please read more at the African-American Books Examiner.
I hesitate to update and add this second full video of Michael's performance of "This Woman's Work" by Maxwell on American Idol last night because I suspect it may be pulled from YouTube later due to copyright issues, but this video, unlike the one below it, has all the judges responses. Randy tells Michael that he's going to call Maxwell and say Michael's knocking on the door.
Please take a look at the other videos here as well, especially the dance routine from Season Five of So You Think You Can Dance. I suppose this post has become as much about Michael Lynche wowing the judges as it is about the beauty of the song.
Tonight on American Idol, Michael Lynche peformed the classic "This Woman's Work," the Maxwell version. I've posted Maxwell below as well as the performance by the song's original artist, Kate Bush.
With Lynche's performance tonight, for the first time one of the guys wowed me on this season of Idol. It's a beautiful and difficult song. And yes, Kara Dioguardi cried. Simon Cowell comforted her.
Somebody on Twitter, attempting to be snarky I think, asked "What the hell was that Michael Lynche sang?" She may have been taking her own Twitter life in her hands. Maxwell's fans are dedicated. I mean deh.dee.cate.ed.
There's just something about that song that gets to people, not just the words but also the musical notes. When Ade Obayomi and Melissa Sandvig danced to it on So You Think You Can Dance a few seasons back, people were crying. Of course, they cried also because Tyce D'Orio, the choreographer of the piece, set the story up for the dance as about a husband standing by his wife who had breast cancer.
D'Orio called the piece a tribute to breast cancer fighters, and Mia Michaels cried for very personal reasons. I think all the judges wept. Apparently the piece was also performed by two different dancers in the UK's version of SYTYCD. Coincidentally, Ellen DeGeneres is a guest judge on this particular episode of SYTYCD. She said it was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen.
While the dance routine's storyline is breast cancer-related, the song is more often associated with women bearing children and wives dying.
Last night on American Idol when the women performed, Crystal Bowersox was the top performer for me. She's probably my favorite for this season. She sang Tracy Chapman's "Give Me One Reason."
I love CNN, but this Bullsh*t piece from The Onion made me laugh until I cried. MSNBC may do this too, but I've seen stuff almost exactly like this on CNN.
I haven't posted anything from MoveOn.org in while, but this video that proves Mr. Conspiracy Theory himself Glenn Beck is after me made me laugh a lot. At debated whether or not to open that email too because spammers are always sending direct messages on twitter with the message, "Is this you?" and I never follow the link.
Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh should go on a long cruise together, perhaps relax at a mental health facility where they can get the treatment they so deseprately need.
This sounded crazy to me. At first I thought it was from The Onion, but Sam Stein reports at the Huffington Post that Sarah Palin has jumped the Canadian Border before to get health care. More Palin hypocrisy?
Stein pulls his information from the Globe and Mail. I had to go read it for myself, but to make it clear, it sounds as though skipping over to Canada for health care is something the former governor did in her youth, perhaps when she was under her parents' charge.
The vocal opponent of health-care reform in the U.S. steered largely clear of the topic except to reveal a tidbit about her life growing up not far from Whitehorse.
“We used to hustle over the border for health care we received in Canada,” she said. “And I think now, isn't that ironic?” (Globe and Mail)
The Globe and Mail also had this information:
A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll suggested that only 37 per cent of Americans had a favourable impression of Ms. Palin; of those who identified themselves as conservatives, fewer than half said she was qualified to serve as president.
I can't wait until 2011 when she runs for the presidency and tells us her visit to Canada proves she has foreign affairs experience the same way seeing Russia from her house does. Oh, wait! She's already claimed that.
The photo of Palin shows her with cheat notes on her hand. The irony there is that the camera caught her palm cheat sheet during her speech to a Tea Party group in which she made fun of President Barack Obama using a teleprompter. Defending herself later, she said God also wrote on his hand.
I think she wants to be seen as smart, and so she tried to avoid referring to index cards like normal people. Perhaps she wants to keep alive the rumor that she's brainy with a great memory. And yet, she forgot that if you hold your hands out, people can see your palms.
I heard about this yesterday on Twitter, that conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh says that if universal health care passes in America, he'll move to Costa Rica.
The irony of his comment, as Gawker notes, is that Costa Rica has government-run health care, but as Gawker points out, it also has a cocaine industry.
The U.K. Guardian is running a poll asking, "Should Rush Limbaugh leave the country if the healthcare bill is passed?" The answer choices are:
Yes. Another good reason to pass healthcare.
No. What's Costa Rica ever done to the US?
Apparently even people across the pond are aware of Rush's bad reputation. However, the poll is at Comment is Free America.
When I took it, choice number one had 85.3% of the votes. Take the poll here.
At the actual U.K. Guardian website, Richard Adams writes "What has Costa Rica done to deserve this? It's the second most beautiful country on earth, after all." And then he quotes a commenter from CIF America who said:
This does not make sense at all: Costa Rica has the best socialized medical safety net of all central American countries, if not Latin American countries. Infinitely much better then the US system. In addition there is the government run "extra" medical insurance for people who want to be treated faster in private hospitals and clinic. (Read more)
Adams also says Costa Rica's president is a woman who wants to clean up the environment.
What's scary about all this is that so many Americans think Limbaugh actually knows what he's talking about on any topic at all. They ask his advice and follow it as well, something made clear during the presidential campaign. Under "Operation Chaos," he told his listeners in Ohio to go and switch their party affiliation from Republican to Democratic so they could swing the Democratic Primary in that state toward Hillary Clinton.
He didn't say that because he respects Hillary but because he thought all the confusion he might create would make it easier for a Republican to win the presidency. He likes to flex his muscle to move the conservative base around like puppets, and then claims he's not a leader of the RNC as he yanks its official leaders' chains. Michael Steele, the figurehead, fears him, and so does Sarah Palin. Any time a conservative leader offends Limbaugh and he takes notice, an apology follows.
I have said often that Rush Limbaugh has a mental disorder. People think his egomania is an act, but I think he is actually has Narcissistic Personality Disorder and an extra dose of genuine mania.
Had to update this post with the following Stephen Colbert clip.
I was talking to PopArt Diva on Twitter, who's getting ready for St. Patrick's Day with Emerald Isle Martinis. On March 17, kiss her, she's Irish, and I mean Irish for real.
Anyway, talking to her I remembered this song that surfaced during the presidential campaign, "There's No One As Irish as Barack Obama!"
With the critics President Barack Obama faces from all sides, I wonder do the Irish still claim this POTUS?
Another well-known black man with Irish roots is Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr., who has done a lot of work on tracing the roots of famous African-Americans and now some famous white Americans. His Irish ancestry came up again on today on The Oprah Show.
Ironically, Gates and James, Crowley, the white officer who arrested Gates last year at his own home in Cambridge and who is also of Irish descent turn out to be related.
"He and I descend from the same Irish ancestor," Dr. Gates says. "Eight percent of the men in Ireland have our identical DNA, and we all descend from King Niall of the Nine Hostages. It was good to be the king—the guy slept with everybody in the kingdom." Regis Philbin also shares the same ancestor, a bloodline that dates back to 450 A.D. (Oprah.com)
Gates also said that Crowley came to him of his own accord and gave Gates the handcuffs Crowley used to arrest him. Gates has donated the handcuffs to the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture, which is also the destination of one of Michael Jackson's hats.
I watched House tonight on Fox. It's one of my favorite shows. Tonight in the episode "Private Lives," Dr. Gregory House took on a blogger's strange illness, and his team members discussed the Internet and privacy.
The character Dr. Chris Taub (Peter Jacobson) said that privacy is a relatively new concept, and added that people used to live in small villages where it was impossible to keep secrets. Later he said that a lack of privacy has its benefits, such as the the individual has a community with which to share problems and get support. He also asserted that people left to themselves tend to make stupid decisions.
Naturally, I researched what he said. It's a thing I do sometimes, check the truth behind assertions made in fictional television programs. For instance, I've written several pieces on the truth behind Lie to Me.
Plus, a light went off in my brain. What he said sounded correct, and the opinion represented in his lines is indeed based on fact. For instance, the Puritans considered it a civic duty to spy on one's neighbors. According to the privacy timeline at Scientific American, "In many towns people (were) forbidden to live alone." You may view the timeline here.
Privacy and whether we can maintain it in our Internet/social media culture is a topic constantly rehashed. For example, Melissa Ford writing at BlogHer.com posted last week, "Please Rob Me and How the Internet Affects Privacy." Her post discusses in part how some home insurance premiums may increase because personal information is available to strangers on places like Twitter and Facebook.
You can watch full episodes of House at Fox and also follow the show on Twitter. It's probably smart for TV dramas and comedies to do shows featuring bloggers or blogging sometimes because some blogger somewhere will talk about it.
The photo in this post comes from Kasa.com with the caption, "House and the team take on the case of Frankie (guest star Laura Prepon, R), an avid blogger who solicits the advice of her followers as she updates them on her condition from her hospital bed."
With all the talk of the movie Precious having ruled the NAACP Image Awards and speculation about how cast members Gabourey Sidibe and Mo'nique as well as director Lee Daniels may fare at tomorrow night's Academy Awards, one would think there would be more interviews with Sapphire. She wrote Push, the book on which the movie is based.
The African-American Books Examiner, however, has found only two relatively recent interviews with the poet and novelist. One is posted at St. Louis Today and ends with a bang, Sapphire's choice words for fellow poet Ishmael Reed who is not too fond of Precious, the movie, and the other from ... Please continue reading at the African-American Books Examiner.
