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It took all day but we are back up. I also moved he rest of AALBC.com to an entirely new web server too. Man, there are a lot of moving parts to this website. But the cool thing about moving is that you get to clean things up a bit and ditch some unneeded baggage. I still have a ton of work to complete the upgrade but this was big milestone. There are of course residual problems like broken avatars from Facebook. If you notice anything else please email me or post the problem on one of the forums. Thanks Right now I have to figure out why my books ads are not displaying...

Shirley you may edit the poem by clicking the "edit" link directly underneath it. I also teach a GED class I often have students who "graduated" from high school with an IEP, which apparently is worthless. They are all very disappointed in that they did not understand that they effectively did not get a high school diploma.

I watched the season premier of Empire, a few weeks ago, during a "Empire" viewing event hosted by WNYC here in New York City. They had a panel discussion afterwards which including Fab Five Freddie and other pop culture/hip hop folks. I had fun, as the crowd reacted wildly to that drama filled first episode. I know if I was sitting in my living room, by myself, I probably would not have had as much fun. The whole show was over the top and does not take itself too seriously. It opened with Cookie (Taraji) caged in a gorilla suit. Later Chris Rock was cast as a evil gangster, which was too comical to be taken seriously. The show Empire is a complete diversion; you'll learn nothing and it has no socially redeeming value. It appears to be doing quite well for Fox TV, making them a lot of money. For some, it is a guilty pleasure, while others see absolutely nothing wrong with it and love the show. I dunno what to think, but for people who will never travel or experience any of the trappings of wealth and power, what is the harm in a one hour fun filled escape from reality? Then again, it is never just an hour. There is the social media activity Empire watchers engage in during and after the show, there are the other TV shows that folks watch religiously. The older I get the more convinced I'm am that TV and social media are a waste of our time. Don't get me wrong; TV and social media are potentially great things, I just don't think we use them in a great ways, and they are doing us more harm than good right now.

The Pope spoke at a school a few blocks from where I live. A full two days before his arrival the streets were cleared, making street parking a real problem for three days. That is about all I have to report. I had zero interest in seeing him, or hearing anything he had to say. It is interesting to me that so many people have such strong feelings for him both positive and negative. I wonder what percentage of American truly worship him? It was hard to avoid hear news account of thousands of people lined up over night just to catch a glimpse him speed by in a motorcade. I feel like it is everyone else but me who thinks it is crazy to go through so much effort to see any man (I appreciate many people believe he is divine). The same goes for all the media attention paid to Donald Trump. Again the media would have you believe that the majority of Americans want him in office, when I'd bet money it is just a small percentage of people. If the media bother to discuss candidates in terms of issues and qualifications--rather than celebrity. i doubt Donald would have any support at all. But the media will milk the Trump candidacy, and the Clinton email scandal, for all that it is worth, meanwhile the public goes along largely ignorant standing in line to see the Popemobile whiz by What a country.

Is that out 5 stars? I'll catch the show next week. Sorry to read it was not all that compelling.

Cynique I searched for instances of Condi on the cover of Essence and Ebony. When searching Ebony's site directly I got one result, a search of Essence directly returned an error). Needless to say, Beyonce was on the cover of these magazines a many times. In a broader Internet search I could not find any instances of Condi on the cover or either magazine. Cynique, I feel pretty confident in saying there is a high probability that she was never on a cover of neither magazine. While this is shameful, it is not surprising given the nature of these magazines. It we could take these magazines back 30 years I'd be willing to bet a Condi Rice would have graced a cover, or two. I posted a similar message on Facebook, and Twitter, the only reaction I got in 24 hours was this; "Rather gouge my eyes out with a fork than hear or see Condoleezza Rice for any reason whatsoever. Warmonger. Political lightweight," I'm sure the lack of reaction was due to the social media platforms showing the message to very few people, but this one negative reaction was from a man, so you may be right about men being more critical Cynique. While searching for a cover of Condi, Google presented this fake (I assume) Playboy magazine cover image, very prominently, in search results. This is what we get when we don't control anything and what little we do control is directed a making money.

Oh yeah here is a link to the Confederate flag I spotted on I-95.

People ridicule Jesus because Christians tolerate that sort of thing, but Muslims don't play that. There are different lines and people behave accordingly. I don't doubt for second that there are comedians that would love to have a field day cracking jokes about Islam, but again who would be so reckless with their health. But this is the point of my argument we have to draw lines, otherwise people would do anything. We have laws against raping children and murdering each other. For the vast majority of us, these laws are unnecessary. Most of us will go our entire lifetimes without sodomizing and infant and killing it to dispose of the body. Needless to say there are many who would do it if they knew they could get away with it legally and that no one would frown upon the behavior. In a civilized society, we have to draw lines otherwise we have mayhem. Perhaps that is the problem with America all the lines we had in place are being moved to the point of nonexistence. ------ I always enjoyed optical illusions. But this one is the most amazing one I've ever seen! All of the optical illusions I've ever encountered I could see the image both ways. I see the old lady and the young woman, I see the two people facing each other and the vase, etc. Or they were optical illusions I could explain on my own. I could explain why the two lines are not the same length, But this one is astonishing to me. None of us are color blind, but we see these images so completely differently! While all of my family see white and gold (perhaps there is a genetic component), my wife saw the image at her school and people saw different colors looking ta the same image Cynique what colors do the rest of you family see looking at the image I posted? This begs the question, what else do we see differently, and how does this inform and effect of perception of the world? I also wanna know how come I never heard of this illusion before? Is this something that has been recently discovered? I'm going to an look into it.

Cynique do you see the image I posted and Blue and Black? I think ISIS, would be OK with making SNL, they have truly entered the zeitgeist. This type of humor does have the effect of minimizing the seriousness of ISIS. It is sort of like watching Hogans Heroes, without and understanding of history (like most folks). You'd never really appreciating the fact that at least 50 million were killed during that war, as they gloss over the whole conflict depicting a prison camp as a cool hangout spot and the Nazi's as a group of bubbling, but good nurtured idiots. Why not a have humorous sitcom on the Rwandan genocide, or American slavery, who see my point? As you may know I teach a class to prepare adults to obtain their High School Equivalency. I mention the fact the the U.S. nuked Japan (twice). There were people in the class that was not aware of this!? People can find humor in pedophilia, rape, even ISIS, but does that mean we should do it? I dunno where you draw a line, but I think there should be a line somewhere, don't you?

I got to see Joan Rivers a couple of years ago at a screening of her bio-pic "My vagina is like Newark, New Jersey. Men know where it's located, but they don't want to visit." I found this joke on our interview with Lillian McEwen, she used this joke to describe the last time she had a good laugh. Joan will be missed. RIP. Don't join her too soon Cynique

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Phoebe Beasley completed a collaboration with Dr. Maya Angelou in which she created several serigraphs from poems by Langston Hughes for a limited edition book. Dr. Angelou selected the poems and titled the masterful compilation, "Sunrise is Coming After While", and then wrote the forwards on Hughes and Beasley. Phoebe Beasley is an accomplished artist who's in many important collections including Oprah Winfrey, Dr. Maya Angelou and Samuel L. and LaTanya R. Jackson to name a few. Silkscreens; 17.0" Height: 21.0". This limited edition suite of prints is number 70 of 99, individually numbered and signed by Phoebe Beasley. The portfolio contains title page, colophon and the complete series of six silk screens designed to illustrate a selection of Langston Hughes poems entitled "The Sun Is Coming after a While" published by The Limited Editions Club in 1998. The George Drexel Studio in New York printed the silk screens on Arches "88" paper. Publisher's purple cloth-covered case with inset gilt-lettered leather title label and velvet lining. Elephant folio case measures approximately 18.5" x 23". Collection of 6 works for $4,800.00 Black Art in America will consider selling individual works from collection, if interested contact info@blackartinamerica.com

Hickson please stop posting or updating so many times on the board -- this makes the board looks spammy, crowds out the other updates, when people look for new content or visit the board for the first time.

I'm at the theater now will report later :-)

Pioneer there has been a great deal of criticism of all of this garbage. Tyler Perry can't even make a Medea movie without incurring the wrath of a significant number of people include other filmmakers like Spike Lee. But this stuff will never go away because, it is very lucrative -- people LOVE it. I agree, it does say something about a nation with a love obsession with a Honey Boo Boo, the mental equivalent of junk food. Pat Buchanan's rhetoric aside, it could just mean we have way too much free time.

I hear you Pioneer regarding your preference for the ladies. That said, you can not look at someone and gauge their respective bone density -- unless your real name is Clark Kent. I've been to every state of the union and three African nations. However my observations differ dramatially from yours. The average American Black woman is much larger than the average African woman. Sure my observations, like yours, are anedoctal, but I'd be willing to bet if we researched it, we would find obesity is much more prevelant in the chocolate city of DC than it is in Nigeria. I would also be careful stereotyping Afircan women as having "...wider hips, larger butts, and denser bones". African people come in ALL shapes and sizes. But bone density and hip width are distractions from my point about obesity. The biggest contributors of which are a poor diet and lack of exercise. And I'm not convinced our embracing "thickness" is healthy --anymore than embraing being paper thin. Speaking about language we have even perverted the word "heathy" to be more or less equivalent with "fat", as in, "That is one HEALTHY sista!"

Na'Shun Teri Woods was indeed a pioneering author in her genre, but we'll have to disagree on who sparked the self-publishing wave. Harris and McMillian, like Woods addressed audiences that were under served and told stories not widely published. McMillan gave a voice to regular Black women, and did E. Lynn gave one to gay men. Both were funny and told engaging stories. It is interesting that you said Harris and McMillian's books "carried a middle class appeal". I'm sure they would both agree that their books were not targeted nor appealed only to a specific class.

Someone explained the query to me on Facebook: Hi Troy, not sure if you looked this up..but here is something she said: After years of battling her addiction to crystal meth, former child star Maia Campbell is learning it only takes two words to start mending the rifts in her family: "I'm sorry." On the November 17 episode of "Iyanla: Fix My Life," relationship expert Iyanla Vanzant supports Maia -- best known as Tiffany on the '90s sitcom "In the House" -- in apologizing to her stepfather, Ellis Gordon. "Forgive me for taking the family through so much," Maia says. "I know it hasn't been easy. It's been a rough road trying to take care of me. " Ellis is moved to tears. "Thank you for being there and thank you for making it easier," Maia says. "I knew that I didn't belong to those places because I had someone like you to pull me up and pull me out." I hate to say it, and I've seen it over and over, authors can attract more attention with tragedy than their book -- whata country!

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The photo history of Lena Horne was beautiful. She aged so gracefully Both versions of these versions were great. I'll have to listen a few more times to each to pick a favorite (not sure why I feel compelled to pick a favorite -- just the way my brain works I guess). Still hard to believe this tune is almost 90 years old. When it debuted the only way you would likely here it is was when it was performed live or if you caught it on the radio. The idea that we can call up so many different version of this song, play it on demand, share it with others, download to portable devices -- without paying for it is mind boggling. Often people draw analogies between where music has gone with digital files and where books are going with eBooks as if they were analogous. Few have really considered a world where books are shared as freely as music files are today -- even if they talk about it as if it inevitable. But that is a different conversation. Here is Frank

While looking for the video I see that Amy Winehouse did a version as well. Collectively her renditions have gotten FAR more views than Ella's. I prefer Ella's rendition much more -- it is just firing on all cylinders. I did know Jazz musicians played these melodies. Actually it was you mentioning your husband affinity for Jazz that prompted me to post Ella's song. Winehouse's version is fine but it does not move me at all. I'm literally enthralled by Ella's version. I can't explain why perhaps someone who understand the mechanics of music more can explain why. I heard a singer perform this song at the Apollo during a $10 variety show (Jazz Shrines tremendous entertainment value). It was perhaps the single best performance of anything I've seen at the Apollo. It blew away Winehouse version but not as good as Ella's. The sing is still being performed and quite relevant. But Pop music appeals to the masses and will garner the lion's share of the marketing resources. So I can't imagine Bad 25 being much more than an extended music video of one of Michael's weakest, albeit better selling, songs. I don't plan to tune in. It is interesting to think how much stuff I share that I personally don't care very much about -- or dislike even.

Jay's ownership is minuscule he is more a figurehead than a decision maker, and I don't know about Jordan's ownership percentage (but you can look it up). Even if they owned the teams 100% I doubt the problems I pointed out and many more I did not raise would change. I have one kid at Syracuse and another at William & Mary. Both schools have football teams. I attended games at both schools. $100 for a decent ticket at an SU game $20 for a great seat at a Williams & Mary game. SU's aging stadium seats almost 50K people while W&M seats just over 12K (though it does not look that big). At William & Mary the kids attend the games for free and get freebies. At SU the kids are targeted just like any other mark in the general public, expensive beers, apparel. SU's Athletic facilities rivals anyone's -- professional or otherwise. It was really after comparing and contrasting the two types of programs that I realized schools do not have to spend a boat load of money to have a enjoyable program. The goal is not to turn the students in rabid sports fanatics (read: ticket buyers). I suggest we start by drastically reducing college's expenditures on athletics. Let pro football pay for their own farm teams, stadiums without the subsidy from our universities and tax payers. I could go on actually that reminds me Check out this debate on whether college football should be banned altogether. after hearing the arguments for and against Cynique (anyone) let me know what you think: http://fora.tv/2012/05/08/Ban_College_Football "Corruption and a growing concern for head injury have put college football in the spotlight. Are football programs’ millions in profits exploitation? Or are they still a celebration of amateur sport? Does football’s inherent danger and violence have any place in institutions of higher learning? Or does it provide young men with educational opportunities they would not otherwise have?" I listen to these Intelligence Squared debates on a variety of subjects via podcast. I even attended one in person -- it is good stuff Below is a clip which summarizes some of the arguments of the full debate

I hope you last long enough to see how it end too Cynique. This is reality TV. What is most astonishing is how caught up people are for the chosen side -- it is the same frenzy you see at a football game. The "debates" are even analyzed the way a prize fight would be -- issues are irrelevant. If Barack loses (which I still think there is a very good chance he will) Black people will react as if the issue is just about race and therefore any action will be misdirected and ineffective. If things stay the same or get worse under a Romney administration. I think the entire country may be primed to do something effective to bring about real change. If Barack wins and things stay the same or get worse. Black people will remain ineffective and a Republican will be swept into office easily in 2016. If things get better under either scenario -- Great!

Y'all are bad I ain't even gonna play with poking fun a two person ( guess it is really two people huh)... I have to say until I searched for this video that I had no clue there were someone alive with two heads! TWO HEADS!?! This is astonishing! I would stop and watch this if I were channel surfing. The program seems to be done without treating them (they really are to people) like a freak show. In fact the apparent normalcy of their lives is almost bizarre. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkKWApOAG2g This seems to be the full program season 1 episode 3. Now I have zero interest in this show after watch the first few minutes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0z7OPvs4Lg

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