Did Anybody Notice Kanye’s comeback?

On the Sunday BET Awards the first performer was Kanye West. In light of the Chris Brown performance very few people have commented on the return of West. West has kept a low profile since he snatched the microphone from Taylor Swift at last year’s MTV awards. Swift is country/pop music royalty and she is also a minor which made the West’s move even more egregious. He apologized and basically went MIA for a while but is America ready for his comeback? You can access the size of the mistake by the aftermath, and if what you did can now be used to describe a situation you committed a whopper. During the Oscars we witnessed two co-winners vying for the microphone to make an acceptance speech and the middle-aged woman won the tussle. The next day that incident was described as a “Kanye Moment.” That says it all. Kanye committed a whopper, but in the society we live in everyone apologizes and moves on. We have politicians that call the president a liar, we have politicians that call an opponent a ‘raghead’, we have politicians that use public funds to finance trysts with call girls and they all apologized and life went on. So Kanye welcome back. America might be ready to accept your apology.

Fox News interviews Conservative Kid who Should have been seen and not heard

This morning I watched Fox News Gretchen Carlson interview 11 year old conservative Sam Besserman. This child alleges that there is a liberal bias in the California school system. He said that he has been discriminated against because of his conservative beliefs. I found it interesting that this grown woman was conducting this interview of a child without a parent present. Fox News has a conservative agenda and it is there goal to spread it but this one sided interview did not further their cause. She said that Besserman had noticed this liberal bias when he was in pre-school. I found this hard to believe since in pre-school they ask you to bring in an extra set of clothing for your children because they are still prone to accidents. So I hardly think a pre-school kid is worried about political issues. As the interview progressed Besserman called his teacher a racist and offered no tangible evidence to back up the claim. Besserman circulated a petition to try and get the teacher removed from the classroom. When asked what grade he received he said an “F” and that explained the kid’s hostility. It was not liberal bias that fueled this young gun it was pure anger, and Fox News gave him the megaphone to air this nonsense.

http://video.foxnews.com/v/4264775/conservative-kid-tries-to-survive-california-school?playlist_id=87937

Did Senator Robert Byrd Serve Too Long?

Yesterday Senator Robert Byrd died at the age of 92. He had been a senator for over 50 years. He served long enough to change his political philosophies. He was a former member of the KKK who in his latter years supported a black man for the presidency, but did he serve too long? Yes. No one debates his legacy of service, but no one should serve a lifetime in Congress. This is the problem with Congress. People simply stay too long. They become entrenched and they forget about the needs of the people they serve and begin to think of their own needs. Byrd did do great things for his state. He even referred to himself as “Big Daddy” because he did bring the ‘bacon’ back to West Virginia.   There will never be another one like him. It is impossible to put together a machine like Byrd’s in this era, and that’s a good thing. We need term limits and whereas Byrd will go down in history we need to do something to ensure that this history does not repeat itself.

Thurgood Marshall Demonized During Kagan Hearings

One would think that the late Supreme Justice Thurgood Marshall was a monster if you listened to the Elena Kagan hearings yesterday. His name came up more than her’s as the GOP Senators sought to prove Kagan has activist tendencies just like her mentor. They did there usual layering approach. Say something good about him but hammer home the fact that he had a liberal agenda, but so what? The Roberts court has a conservative agenda and at this point they have the numbers to carry out their conservative agenda. I am sure there will be more Marshall bashing, but ultimately Kagan will be confirmed and Thurgood Marshall will still be the first black justice and we will continue to be proud of his liberal legacy.

Reporters Openly Mock Sarah Palin, but who was it?

This is another case of open mic disease. The reporters covering Sarah Palin’s speech were obviously unaware that their conversation could be heard.  If you have read my posts you know I am no fan of Sarah Palin, but I am a fan of professionalism and this was not.  The reporters were there to do a job. They should have just done it and saved their snarky comments for their friends. I have included the text below from the LA Times: “The yet-to-be-identified (and perhaps soon-to-be-fired) reporters were located in the “media overflow” room at Cal State Stanislaus, a California college where Palin was speaking on Friday. Immediately after her speech concluded, the insults began in rapid-fire succession, with each reporter seeming to try to outdo each other. “Oh my God, I feel like I just got off a roller coaster, going round and round, and up and down,” one reporter said to laughter. “You know when you’ve got to write a report as a college student and you just try to jam as many quotes in as possible from as many random things as you can? That’s what I got,” one said. “She didn’t finish her statement,” a reporter cried. “Did she make a statement, because I didn’t catch that either,” was the response. “You guys gotta tell me how you’re going to make a story out of that,” another said. The finishing touch? “Now I know that dumbness doesn’t just come in sound bites,” a smug reporter opined.”

Anti-Gay preacher Tom Brock “outed” but was it journalistically ethical?

A Minneapolis preacher Tom Brock railed against homosexuality in his sermons. He was attending a 12 step program that helps people deal with same sex attraction.  His involvement in the program was revealed by a local gay magazine.  The pastor was on leave from his church, Hope Lutheran. Lavender Magazine sent a reporter to sign up to be a part of the group, and monitor Brock’s involvement. They did not reveal anything Brock said during the sessions. When the story broke many in the gay and lesbian community applauded the outing of a hypocrite, but many are questioning the ethics of the reporting. “Many Lavender Web site commentators applauded the story. But among the critics was an unidentified advertiser who wrote she would pull her ads, because “12 step programs, regardless of what is at issue or who attends, are sacred.” National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association board member Michael R. Triplett blogged that the ethics of the reporting were “suspect.” Stephen Rocheford, the president of Lavender said it is not the policy of the magazine to out anyone. However there is one exception according to Rocheford and that is if a “public figure who makes public pronouncements against the gay community and is in fact a homosexual,” he said, noting that this was the only time he had invoked that exception.” Rocheford does not recognize Courage as a legitimate 12-step program. Rocheford said, “I don’t consider it a legitimate 12-step group. Those are there to help people with addictions and since when is homosexuality an addiction?” Is this real investigative journalism or is this a violation of privacy? Tell me what you think?

*New York Times

Chris Brown Dances Tribute to MJ on the BET Awards

Chris Brown has always attributed his love of music to Michael Johnson.  Jackson was an exceptional dancer and so is Brown, but last year on the heels of the Rihanna beating Brown was not allowed to appear on the BET awards. Well tonight a year after the scandal Brown was allowed to dance in memory of the King of Pop. Brown showed us why people pay to see him dance and he was overcome by emotion when he danced to Jackson’s song Man in the Mirror. Brown’s behavior can neither be excused or ignored. He battered his girlfriend and he has been punished by the law and the court of public opinion, but he is a young man who did a bad thing, but that does not negate his worth. Hopefully this has been a year of discovery for him and tonight his career came full circle. His career started from a love of MJ and tonight his career might have been rekindled by the music of MJ.

Are our Kids too Fat or are we making them crazy?

Today at church I heard an average size little girl call herself “fat”. She was not even slightly overweight but she perceived herself as fat. Her Sunday School teacher walked over to her and said you are not fat and you are beautiful. As I walked away I wondered whether we are driving our kids crazy? Why would this girl think she was fat? She thinks this because we have told her so if not in word in deed. If you have ever watched any of the programs geared toward teens you will find girls being defined by their weight by their friends and their enemies. ABC Family has a new show coming on called HUGE which is about obese teens at a weight loss camp. In the promos the main character refuses to hate herself because she is fat. So is this what we want to promote self-hatred? Yes, this country has a childhood obesity problem, but everyone is not obese and with the right motivation those that are can become healthy, but how much stress are we putting on our children? Are we encouraging our children to try to lose weight quickly or are we trying to promote healthy eating habits?   I definitely don’t have the answers. My own daughter has asked me to buy her Slim-Fast. Which I won’t, but I know that I can’t just dismiss her concerns. I know she is not fat but everything around her celebrates the Size 0. As a parent I want to fight childhood obesity, but there has got to be a happy medium between Size 0 and obese, and I will keep looking for it.

Boycott the Real Housewives of DC-Air Date August 5th Bravo TV

This is a repost of a post published in March of this year at the time Bravo had not announced the final lineup for this cycle of the Housewives. It is now official the gate-crashing Salahis will be showcased. Their bad behavior bordered on the criminal. I will not reward their antics by watching and I hope others will follow. White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers lost her job over this debacle. Pass the word.

Bravo TV has made alot of money off the Real Housewives franchise, and I have enjoyed watching the antics of the ladies from New York, New Jersey and most of all Atlanta, but I will not be watching the ladies of DC. I find it very disturbing that the White House gate crashing Salahis will be featured in this series. The Salahis breached security and had unauthorized contact with the President of the United States and footage from their escapade will be included in the series. The Salahis have been dismissed as mere social climbers, but would the response to the breech have been as casual if this had been George W. Bush? I don’t know, but I do know they got their wish a featured slot on the wanna be express, and I  find nothing comical or charming about what they did, and I will not be watching this show and hope the majority follows suit.

Blogging: The Disrespected Medium

by Gail J. (“as i see it”) and Joni R. (“politics from the eyes of an ebony mom”)

  

Comedian Rodney Dangerfield made a living telling us how he got “No Respect.” In today’s media, “no respect” could be any blogger’s mantra. 

 If you listened to countless celebrities, journalists, and random haters, you would think that bloggers are pathetic souls with no lives, no homes, no dreams, and, most importantly, no talent. Let them tell it, we live in dank hovels…that is those of us who don’t live in our parents’ basements. We are nerdy, dorky, dweeby, fat, skinny, pale, dark, pimply, dirty, unloved creatures not equipped to function in real society or live among real people. We are the absolute height of uncool because all the cool kids hang out at Twitter and Facebook. These same celebrities certainly don’t mind when our *little* blogs mention them, thus keeping interest going in their brands. And unsurprisingly, these same journalists don’t mind when we link to their articles and help drive up their numbers. Don’t get us wrong: we know that not all blogs are created equal…where there’s good there is most definitely bad. All we’re saying is don’t continually dismiss us bloggers when everyone in the media is adjusting to L.W.I.: Life With the Internet.  

With over 200,000 views of our combined blogs, we’d like to say that we respectfully disagree with blog detractors. We blog because we have important ideas, experiences, and insights to share and, clearly, our readers agree. And might we add that these ideas, experiences, and insights are OFTEN overlooked in more traditonal outlets. In the current media environment, newspapers and magazines are folding at alarming rates because reporting is now primarily done via cable news programs and online sites. The blog is the one place left where a talented writer can make a name for herself and share her work with the world at large. In closing, we thank WordPress for giving us this phenomenal medium. In their own way, these blogs have helped us maintain our sanity in truly trying times. We also thank every reader who’s taken the time to read our posts and/or comment. Even if you didn’t agree with what we said, we hope we gave you a different perspective. Finally, we close with a message to the haters in the ever-colorful words of comedian Katt Williams: [If you] don’t have nobody to hate on, feel free to hate on me!