Origins of Love From Youtube

From Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Texas to Release 226 Juvenile Inmates

The Texas Criminal Justice system is without a doubt broken and in need of a total revamp. 226 juveniles are to be released because of fault on the part of the justice system. This is horrendous, unacceptable, and needs to be addressed.

I had no idea that Nell Carter was bisexual.

"In Our Struggle, people did not die for the vote, but to vote for the people who serve our interests." Elaine Brown endorsing Mayor Jason West

There Is Nothing Better Than Watching Grace Jones on YouTube

Singing "Libertango."

Give Me The Night

George Benson

Whenever dark has fallen
you know the spirit of the party
starts to come alive.
Until the day is dawning
you can throw out all your blues
and hit the city lights.
'Cause there's music in the air
and lots of loving everywhere
so gimme the night. Gimme the night.

You need the evening action,
a place to dine, a glass of wine,
a little late romance.
It's a chain reaction.
You'll see the people of the world
coming out to dance.
'Cause there's music in the air
and lots of loving everywhere
so gimme the night. Gimme the night.

So come on out tonight
and we'll lead the others
on a ride through paradise.
And if you feel all right
then we can be lovers 'cause I see that
starlight look in your eyes.
Don't you know we can fly?
Just gimme the night. Gimme the night.

And if we stay together,
we'll feel the rhythm of the evening
taking us up high.
Never mind the weather.
We'll be dancing in the street
until the morning light.
'Cause there's music in the air
and lots of loving everywhere.
So gimme the night. Gimme the night...

Killing Me Softly

Roberta Flack

Strumming my pain with his fingers,
Singing my life with his words,
Killing me softly with his song,
Killing me softly with his song,
Telling my whole life with his words,
Killing me softly with his song ...

I heard he sang a good song, I heard he had a style.
And so I came to see him to listen for a while.
And there he was this young boy, a stranger to my eyes.

Strumming my pain with his fingers,
Singing my life with his words,
Killing me softly with his song,
Killing me softly with his song,
Telling my whole life with his words,
Killing me softly with his song ...

I felt all flushed with fever, embarrassed by the crowd,
I felt he found my letters and read each one out loud.
I prayed that he would finish but he just kept right on ...

Strumming my pain with his fingers,
Singing my life with his words,
Killing me softly with his song,
Killing me softly with his song,
Telling my whole life with his words,
Killing me softly with his song ...

He sang as if he knew me in all my dark despair.
And then he looked right through me as if I wasn't there.
But he just came to singing, singing clear and strong.

Strumming my pain with his fingers,
Singing my life with his words,
Killing me softly with his song,
Killing me softly with his song,
Telling my whole life with his words,
Killing me softly with his song ...

He was strumming, oh, he was singing my song.
Killing me softly with his song,
Killing me softly with his song,
Telling my whole life with his words,
Killing me softly with his song ...
With his song ...

NYPD Spied on Alicia Keyes, RNC Protesters

They have a video story on CNN's webpage concerning the NYPD surveillance and COINTELPRO-type activities against Alicia Keyes, Jay Z, and others who were present at the protests at the Republican National Convention in 2004. The ACLU filed suit to have those records released and they are now open to the public.

Clergy Arrested in Indianapolis For Civil Disobedience

Six clergy were arrested today for protesting poverty wages paid to janitors in an office downtown. Above is the link to the story.

Todays Thoughts

I was recently talking with someone about the Documentary Grey Gardens which I first saw when I was about ten;I watched some absolutely crazy stuff when I was a child. I found myself thinking about Peach Park as well...what a fabulous place that is.

The Best Line

" I want my Porgy Money!"

Sandra Bernhard on Nina Simone!

Sad Tidings-Yolanda King, dead at 51

What a devastating thing that Yolanda King has died so soon after her mother. I was quite taken aback when I heard it on the radio this morning.

This biography of Angela Davis contains a great interview done with her on Spartacus.net on the merging of class and race struggle in the Civil Rights/Black Power movements.

The New York TImes had two interesting articles on Sarkozy today. One tries to reassure everyone that Sarkozy's election in France won't swing France radically to the right. That is my hope, but I'm still holding my stomach. The second addressed his Hungarian ancestry. Quite interesting stuff.

Interview with Betty DeRamus

I am quite thrilled and delighted that my cousin, the Pulitzer Prize nominated journalist Betty DeRamus, agreed to let me interview her. Here is what transpired:

1. Where did you grow up?

I was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, but grew up in Detroit.

2. What inspired you to become a journalist?

Since I've devoured books all my life, I suppose it was inevitable that I would want to be like the authors whom I read. I began writing short stories when I was seven or eight years old, primarily because it gave me a way to work out (on paper) some of the tensions in my family. In the best of all possible worlds, I would have gone abroad after college and tried to write novels. However, my father died when I was 22 and my mother needed help. So I became a working author---a journalist.

3. What values and beliefs do you carry from your upbringing into your work?

As a reporter, I simply did whatever stories I was assigned. Once I became an editorial writer and, later, a columnist, I could express my own beliefs and values. I have always had a deep and abiding concern for the welfare of children and for underdogs in general. After I was an adult, I discovered that the person I'd always called my mother was actually my stepmother. I was my father's child "love child" by a woman who was not his wife. This had a profound effect on the way I view family. I never tried to find my biological mother because I thought it was more important to embrace my "real" mother, the one who raised me. Since I have no siblings (that I know of), I've created a family of friends over the years.

4. What has been the most rewarding thing about being a writer?

As a journalist, I've been an eyewitness to history many times. I toured refugee camps in Central Africa 10 years before genocide in Rwanda made the news. I was outside Victor Verster prison when Nelson Mandela walked out and I followed him around the U.S. later that year. A few years ago, someone told me about a black youngster who was collecting pencils for a school in the Gambia. He was 12 years old. He had visited a school in Gambia and noticed that the students had only one pencil and were passed it from hand to hand. I wrote three columns about his quest and asked my readers to send him a pencil. He and his teacher wound up more with more than 150,000 pencils and other school supplies and free airfare back to the Gambia. At the airport, officials became suspicious, thinking he and his teacher were running some kind of scam and would be selling the pencils. She showed them my articles and they decided to let him in. In my entire career, I've never written a more rewarding series of stories than this one. His name, by the way, is also Brandon and he's now in college.

5. You just recently published a book. How often do you branch out into genres other than journalism?

I plan to spend the rest of my life writing books, especially books that shine a spotlight on the neglected or forgotten history of Africans in America. I'm now writing my second one. I'm no longer a full-time journalist, just an occasional free-lancer.

6. Is there anything left you'd like to accomplish in your life's work?

You always have to keep a fresh dream in your back pocket. I've accomplished a lot but I'm just beginning to pursue my original dream of writing books. It's tough, but nothing worth doing is easy.


Betty DeRamus is the author of Forbidden Fruit: Love Stories from the Underground Railroad, true stories about slave couples who took extraordinary steps to stay together

Dare to dream

Learning to Give

I am saving this essay by Isabel Allende for myself. It is something to treasure.