Friday, February 27, 2009

First Lady Michelle Obama


Also, Kudos to our brilliant First Lady, Michelle Obama!

Kudos to the Obama Administration On Their Policy Towards Marijuana

Read about it in the title article.

What Can I Do For You?

Labelle

People want true things
Or nothing at all
People want sincerity
And nothing more
People need happiness as land needs rain
We need rain we need light we need love
Yes you'll find it so hard
To live without love love love
Love love love
Love love love
Whoa just say yeah (oh yeah)
Yeah yeah yeah yeah

People want to live (uh huh)
Not merely exist
People want to enjoy
Not suffer and fear no no no
People need understanding
Not tensions or confusion no no
Oh I wonder should the people who present us this solution talk about love love love
Love love love
Love love love
Oh yeah
Just say yeah (oh yeah)
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
Say yeah
Ooh yeah

We need power
We need power
Log on to kill this message.
We need peace
Peace
Peace
Peace

I think we'll all agree
I think we'll all agree
That's not fighting (fighting)
That's not fighting
Because this ain't war
This ain't war
This ain't war
This ain't war
I know it's not too late to love love love
Love love love
Love love love
Love love love
Love love love

What can I do for you
What can you do for me
What can I do for you
What can you do for me
What can I do for you
What can you do for me
What can I do for you
What can you do for me
What can I do for you
What can you do for me
What can I do for you
What can you do for me
What can I do for you
What can you do for me
What can I do for you
What can you do for me
What can I do for you
What can you do for me
What can I do for you
What can you do for me
What can I do for you
What can you do for me
What can I do for you
What can you do for me
What can I do for you
What can you do for me
What can I do for you
What can you do for me
What can I do for you
I have been like a baby, unsure of my steps and the ground beneath me. I must realize that the ground under me is paved in pantenes of gold.

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Stevie Wonder Honored With The Gershwin Prize

I knew Barack Obama was going to be our next president when Stevie Wonder composed and sang a song about him. Whenever Stevie Wonder has commenced to sing a song for anything, it happens-he sang for the King Holiday--Reagan signed it, he sang for Barack- he is now president. Yea!

The Evil That Lives In Alabama-Reducing Food Tax

Do you know the Alabama Legislature doesn't want to pass a bill that would eliminate sales tax on food that would reduce poverty and help the poor because they are afraid it will hurt rich white people? These people need to go to hell...really... Somebody needs to set them straight.

Letter From John Legend To The New York Post

Dear Editor:



I'm trying to understand what possible motivation you may have had for publishing that vile cartoon depicting the shooting of the chimpanzee that went crazy. I guess you thought it would be funny to suggest that whomever was responsible for writing the Economic Recovery legislation must have the intelligence and judgment of a deranged, violent chimpanzee, and should be shot to protect the larger community. Really?



Did it occur to you that this suggestion would imply a connection between President Barack Obama and the deranged chimpanzee? Did it occur to you that our president has been receiving death threats since early in his candidacy? Did it occur to you that blacks have historically been compared to various apes as a way of racist insult and mockery? Did you intend to invoke these painful themes when you printed the cartoon?



If that's not what you intended, then it was stupid and willfully ignorant of you not to connect these easily connectable dots. If it is what you intended, then you obviously wanted to be grossly provocative, racist and offensive to the sensibilities of most reasonable Americans. Either way, you should not have printed this cartoon, and the fact that you did is truly reprehensible. I can't imagine what possible justification you have for this. I've read your lame statement in response to the outrage you provoked. Shame on you for dodging the real issue and then using the letter as an opportunity to attack the Rev. Sharpton. This is not about Sharpton. It's about the cartoon being blatantly racist and offensive.



I believe in freedom of speech, and you have every right to print what you want. But freedom of speech still comes with responsibilities and consequences. You are responsible for printing this cartoon, and I hope you experience some real consequences for it. I'm personally boycotting your paper and won't do any interviews with any of your reporters, and I encourage all of my colleagues in the entertainment business to do so as well. I implore your advertisers to seriously reconsider their business relationships with you as well.



You should print an apology in your paper acknowledging that this cartoon was ignorant, offensive and racist and should not have been printed.



I'm well aware of our country's history of racism and violence, but I truly believe we are better than this filth. As we attempt to rise above our difficult past and look toward a better future, we don't need the New York Post to resurrect the images of Jim Crow to deride the new administration and put black folks in our place. Please feel free to criticize and honestly evaluate our new president, but do so without the incendiary images and rhetoric.



Sincerely,



John Legend

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Letter to His Former Master by Jourdan Anderson

Jourdan Anderson
Annotation Jourdon Anderson, an ex- Tennessee slave, declines his former master's invitation to return as a laborer on his plantation.
Year 1865
Text Dayton, Ohio, August 7, 1865
To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee

Sir: I got your letter and was glad to find you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Col. Martin's to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again and see Miss mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville hospital, but one of the neighbors told me Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.

I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here; I get $25 a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy (the folks here call her Mrs. Anderson), and the children, Milly, Jane and Grundy, go to school and are learning well; the teacher says grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday- School, and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated; sometimes we overhear others saying, "The colored people were slaves" down in Tennessee. The children feel hurt when they hear such remarks, but I tell them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Col. Anderson. Many darkies would have been proud, as I used to was, to call you master. Now, if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.

As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free- papers in 1864 from the Provost- Marshal- General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you are sincerely disposed to treat us justly and kindly- - and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for thirty- two years and Mandy twenty years. At $25 a month for me, and $2 a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to $11,680. Add to this the interest for the time our wages has been kept back and deduct what you paid for our clothing and three doctor's visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams Express, in care of V. Winters, esq, Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night, but in Tennessee there was never any pay day for the Negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire.

In answering this letter please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up and both good- looking girls. You know how it was with Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve and die if it comes to that than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters. You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood, the great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous habits. <>P.S. -- Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.

From your old servant,

Jourdon Anderson

Source: Cincinnati Commercial, reprinted in New York Tribune, August 22, 1865.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Oscars-Early Wins

Hooray Penelope!

New Season of Bill Maher

When Maxine Waters says that we are on the verge of collapse, I am so on the edge of my seat listening.