Troy

Sooo are you saying Woodie Allen is a not a degenerate and that Mia Farrow is more nuts than Woodie? I have not been following their story, just hearing incomplete sensational pieces here and there. It would be a shame if Woodie is a complete victim of Mia and the press.

All I was trying to do was find a better photo of John Ridley to use on the site (could not find a publicity still) but I did manage to find tons of articles describing the alleged feud between Steven McQueen and John Ridley. Google makes me sick...

Big Up to John Ridley for his win. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qvEDKvu3M0

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 3, 2014 Contact: Clarence V. Reynolds 718-804-8881 / creynolds@mec.cuny.edu Maeshay K. Lewis 718-804-8882 / mlewis@mec.cuny.ed Nobel Prize-Winning Poet Derek Walcott Featured in an Historical Literary Presentation at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, New York National: About Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott, The New York Times Book Review commented: “No poet rivals Mr. Walcott in humor, emotional depth, lavish inventiveness in language… His poetry makes us realize that history, all of it, belongs to us.” On Friday, March 28, 2014, The Center for Black Literature at Medgar Evers College, CUNY, presents a special literary event featuring Nobel Prize-winning writer Derek Walcott. For this historic program, poet and playwright Derek Walcott will be joined by the Trinidad-born poet Mervyn Taylor and St. Lucian poet and producer Adrian Augier to participate in a program titled “The Search for Self in Caribbean Literature: Past, Present, and Future.” The conversation will focus on Walcott’s writing life and explore the themes of identity, memory, belonging and spirituality in his work and in Caribbean literature. The program will take place at 6:30 p.m., on the campus of Medgar Evers College, 1650 Bedford Ave., in Brooklyn, N.Y., 11225. Caribbean literature covers diverse regions and writers from the Caribbean write from different geographical, cultural, linguistic, and political spaces. Walcott, Augier, and Taylor will explore and discuss the complexity of Caribbean literature and raise questions related to how Walcott’s poems and plays represent themes such as the conflict and impact of colonialism, an embracing of his African heritage, and an exploration of the divided self. The conversation will be followed by a question-and-answer period with the attendees. There is a $10 donation for this program, which is a project of the National Black Writers Conference and sponsored by the Center for Black Literature, the Caribbean Research Center and the Caribbean Cultural Theatre Inc. Walcott is the poet and playwright of more than 20 books, including the recently published “The Poetry of Derek Walcott,” by Farrar, Straus and Giroux; “Omeros,” a collection of poems (1998); and the play “Dream on Monkey Mountain and Other Plays” (1971). Walcott, who was born in St. Lucia, won the 1992 Nobel Prize in Literature. He is also the recipient of many awards, including the MacArthur Foundation award, the Queen’s Medal for Poetry in 1988, the T.S. Eliot Prize in 2011, and Montale Prize in 2012; and he is an honorary member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Walcott has praised the poetry of Taylor and stated, “The sense of search, of the avoidance of flash … keeps him separate and unique.” There is a new generation of students, writers, and a segment of the general public who have not had an opportunity to meet and hear a Nobel Laureate talk about literature; additionally there are many who may not have heard about or know Derek Walcott. “A goal of this special literary program is to expose an intergenerational audience who are lovers of literature and the arts to the work of an extraordinary writer whose writing has had an impacted on world literature,” said Brenda Greene, chair of the English department at Medgar Evers College and executive director of the Center for Black Literature. “This will be an historical moment for the general public, students, and the Brooklyn community, home to one of the largest Caribbean populations in New York City, and for the larger community of writers and emerging literary professionals.” During the program, the audience will hear a lively conversation and be able to engage in a dialogue with Walcott, Taylor, and Augier. The major goals of the Center for Black Literature and National Black Writers Conference are to expose the general public and a younger and emerging generation of writers to writers whose work represents the rich and complex tradition of literature from many parts of the African Diaspora, to provide the public with opportunities to hear writers talk about their work and their craft and to expand the public’s knowledge about the range of texts created by Black writers. This program, “A Conversation with Derek Walcott,” is supported by a grant from the New York Council for the Humanities. For more information and details, call the Center for Black Literature at 718-804-8883 or visit online at www.centerforblackliterature.org. The Center for Black Literature, “Celebrating 10 Years of Honoring the Literature of People of the African Diaspora.” For more information about CBL and the Center’s events and programs, please visit us online at: www.centerforblackliterature.org. Search “Center for Black Literature” on Facebook.com. Phone: 718-804-8883; E-mail: writers@mec.cuny.edu. ###

Susan Crawford on Why U.S. Internet Access is Slow, Costly, and Unfair from BillMoyers.com Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the New Gilded Age by Susan Crawford Paperback: 368 pages Publisher: Yale University Press; Reprint edition (February 25, 2014) Ten years ago, the United States stood at the forefront of the Internet revolution. With some of the fastest speeds and lowest prices in the world for high-speed Internet access, the nation was poised to be the global leader in the new knowledge-based economy. Today that global competitive advantage has all but vanished because of a series of government decisions and resulting monopolies that have allowed dozens of countries, including Japan and South Korea, to pass us in both speed and price of broadband. This steady slide backward not only deprives consumers of vital services needed in a competitive employment and business market - it also threatens the economic future of America. This important book by leading telecommunications policy expert Susan Crawford explores why Americans are now paying much more but getting much less when it comes to high-speed Internet access. Using the 2011 merger between Comcast and NBC Universal as a lens, Crawford examines how we have created the biggest monopoly since the breakup of Standard Oil a century ago. In the clearest terms, this book explores how telecommunications monopolies have affected the daily lives of consumers and America's global economic standing.

I have to admit the selfie is pretty cute. But I definitely was not one of the 3 million plus saps twitterers who retweeted it. I'm not feeding into the free publicity for Twitter -- please. I HAVE to believe money exchanged hands for the publicity stunt. I know pedophiles can't help themselves but my God I had to idea Woodie (pardon the pun) was still molesting children. I saw him walking down the street once he looks nuts!

Vintage Cynique! Here is Kam's, slightly more PC recap: 2014 Oscar Recap By Kam Williams 12 Years a Slave Lands Best Picture Yours Truly Scores 100% on Oscar Picks 12 Years a Slave walked away with big prize, Best Picture at the 86th Annual Academy Awards on Sunday. The historical drama was directed by Steve McQueen and also netted accolades in the Supporting Actress (Lupita Nyong’o) and Adapted Screenplay (John Ridley) categories. Dallas Buyers Club also won a trio of Oscars, although Gravity landed the most overall, at seven. The event was hosted by Ellen DeGeneres, who did a phenomenal job of loosening up the crowd with bits ranging from ordering pizzas for the audience to taking a group selfie with some of the celebs in attendance. Her good-natured brand of humor was not only hilarious but seemed tailor-made for the occasion. The acceptance speeches were uniformly gracious, with both Lupita Nyong’o and Jared Leto’s proving to be particularly moving. Perhaps the only one with a glaring faux pas was Cate Blanchett, who inexplicably went out of her way to thank Woody Allen at a time when he’s being shunned by polite society because of his daughter Dylan’s recent allegations that he’d molested her as a child. As far as this critic’s Oscar handicapping, faithful readers who relied on my predictions in their office pools were richly rewarded since all 21 of my picks were correct. ###

Here are two other books I recommend: :

Here are two other books I recommend: :

True Cynique. But Google, Facebook, etc is actively making things worse solely for profit and I'm watching it happen right before my eyes. I just learned about this book the day I made the post. It really was refreshing to read that others have made the same observations and have though deeply about it. Black people, from my experience don't get it. I was at a presentation, given by recently and actually brought up some of the negative aspects of social media. I was disappointed because I expected a bit more consciousness from an audience presumably made up of Black people striving for Black enterprises. But the conversation was exclusively dedicated to supporting and using the tools of "white enterprises." These is a conference coming up called Bloggers Week where I hope this will be a topic of discussion (We are looking to host a panel) Blogger Week™ 2014 is a multicultural festival of bloggers, journalists and social media mavens hosted by Black Bloggers Connect. Coming April 28th - May 3rd, Blogger Week™ features four days of online festivities and two days of in-person events including: Twitter parties, Google Hangouts, workshops, panels, and networking events. Blogger Week™ in-person events will be hosted in Washington, DC and surrounding areas.

Black Wall Street in Tulsa OK emerged because we had NO CHOICE. Today Black people of means strive to integration and approval of Rich (mostly white Americans). We move into the neighborhoods, attend their school, and work at their jobs. Poorer Black people (poor people of all colors), languish in ghettos, under educated over incarcerated. Middle class Black folks really just fighting to maintain and helping their kids do better than they are doing and are primarily focused on their particular situation. None of this is a recipe for "unity" within the Black community. Maybe what we need is a little old fashioned segregation to get our act together.

Well Kam got them ALL right this year! I was gonna use his picks to enter a contest or two but never got around to it.

The Q & A matches my experience completely. This is what I find most maddening about the changes taking place on the Internet over the last few years. For the Black community the impact is MUCH more profound and adverse (like everything else in the US). The most pathetic thing of all is that we, as Black people seem to be completely of aware of all of this.

The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You (Penguin Press HC, May 12, 2011) by Eli Pariser (Author) Hardcover: 304 pages Author Q&A with Eli Pariser Q: What is a “Filter Bubble”? A: We’re used to thinking of the Internet like an enormous library, with services like Google providing a universal map. But that’s no longer really the case. Sites from Google and Facebook to Yahoo News and the New York Times are now increasingly personalized – based on your web history, they filter information to show you the stuff they think you want to see. That can be very different from what everyone else sees – or from what we need to see. Your filter bubble is this unique, personal universe of information created just for you by this array of personalizing filters. It’s invisible and it’s becoming more and more difficult to escape. Q: I like the idea that websites might show me information relevant to my interests—it can be overwhelming how much information is available I already only watch TV shows and listen to radio programs that are known to have my same political leaning. What’s so bad about this? A: It’s true: We’ve always selected information sources that accord with our own views. But one of the creepy things about the filter bubble is that we’re not really doing the selecting. When you turn on Fox News or MSNBC, you have a sense of what their editorial sensibility is: Fox isn’t going to show many stories that portray Obama in a good light, and MSNBC isn’t going to the ones that portray him badly. Personalized filters are a different story: You don’t know who they think you are or on what basis they’re showing you what they’re showing. And as a result, you don’t really have any sense of what’s getting edited out – or, in fact, that things are being edited out at all. Q: How does money fit into this picture? A: The rush to build the filter bubble is absolutely driven by commercial interests. It’s becoming clearer and clearer that if you want to have lots of people use your website, you need to provide them with personally relevant information, and if you want to make the most money on ads, you need to provide them with relevant ads. This has triggered a personal information gold rush, in which the major companies – Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo, and the like – are competing to create the most comprehensive portrait of each of us to drive personalized products. There’s also a whole “behavior market” opening up in which every action you take online – every mouse click, every form entry – can be sold as a commodity. Q: What is the Internet hiding from me? A: As Google engineer Jonathan McPhie explained to me, it’s different for every person – and in fact, even Google doesn’t totally know how it plays out on an individual level. At an aggregate level, they can see that people are clicking more. But they can’t predict how each individual’s information environment is altered. In general, the things that are most likely to get edited out are the things you’re least likely to click on. Sometimes, this can be a real service – if you never read articles about sports, why should a newspaper put a football story on your front page? But apply the same logic to, say, stories about foreign policy, and a problem starts to emerge. Some things, like homelessness or genocide, aren’t highly clickable but are highly important. Q: Which companies or Websites are personalizing like this? A: In one form or another, nearly every major website on the Internet is flirting with personalization. But the one that surprises people most is Google. If you and I Google the same thing at the same time, we may get very different results. Google tracks hundreds of “signals” about each of us – what kind of computer we’re on, what we’ve searched for in the past, even how long it takes us to decide what to click on – and uses it to customize our results. When the result is that our favorite pizza parlor shows up first when we Google pizza, it’s useful. But when the result is that we only see the information that is aligned with our religious or social or political beliefs, it’s difficult to maintain perspective. Q: Are any sites being transparent about their personalization? A: Some sites do better than others. Amazon, for example, is often quite transparent about the personalization it does: “We’re showing you Brave New World because you bought 1984.” But it’s one thing to personalize products and another to personalize whole information flows, like Google and Facebook are doing. And very few users of those services are even marginally aware that this kind of filtering is at work. Q: Does this issue of personalization impact my privacy or jeopardize my identity at all? A: Research psychologists have known for a while that the media you consume shapes your identity. So when the media you consume is also shaped by your identity, you can slip into a weird feedback loop. A lot of people see a simple version of this on Facebook: You idly click on an old classmate, Facebook reads that as a friendship, and pretty soon you’re seeing every one of John or Sue’s posts. Gone awry, personalization can create compulsive media – media targeted to appeal to your personal psychological weak spots. You can find yourself eating the equivalent of information junk food instead of having a more balanced information diet. Q: You make it clear that while most Websites’ user agreements say they won’t share our personal information, they also maintain the right to change the rules at any time. Do you foresee sites changing those rules to profit from our online personas? A: They already have. Facebook, for example, is notorious for its bait-and-switch tactics when it comes to privacy. For a long time, what you “Liked” on Facebook was private, and the site promised to keep it that way. Then, overnight, they made that information public to the world, in order to make it easier for their advertisers to target specific subgroups. There’s an irony in the fact that while Rolex needs to get Tom Cruise’s permission to put his face on a billboard, it doesn’t need to get my permission to advertise my endorsement to my friends on Facebook. We need laws that give people more rights in their personal data. Q: Is there any way to avoid this personalization? What if I’m not logged into a site? A: Even if you’re not logged into Google, for example, an engineer told me there are 57 signals that the site uses to figure out who you are: whether you’re on a Mac or PC or iPad, where you’re located when you’re Googling, etc. And in the near future, it’ll be possible to “fingerprint” unique devices, so that sites can tell which individual computer you’re using. That’s why erasing your browser cookies is at best a partial solution—it only partially limits the information available to personalizers. What we really need is for the companies that power the filter bubble to take responsibility for the immense power they now have – the power to determine what we see and don’t see, what we know and don’t know. We need them to make sure we continue to have access to public discourse and a view of the common good. A world based solely on things we “Like” is a very incomplete world. I’m optimistic that they can. It’s worth remembering that newspapers weren’t always informed by a sense of journalistic ethics. They existed for centuries without it. It was only when critics like Walter Lippman began to point out how important they were that the newspapers began to change. And while journalistic ethics aren’t perfect, because of them we have been better informed over the last century. We need algorithmic ethics to guide us through the next. Q: What are the business leaders at Google and Facebook and Yahoo saying about their responsibilities? A: To be honest, they’re frustratingly coy. They tend to frame the trend in the passive tense: Google’s Eric Schmidt recently said “It will be very hard for people to watch or consume something that has not in some sense been tailored for them,” rather than “Google is making it very hard…” Mark Zuckerberg perfectly summed up the tension in personalization when he said “A squirrel dying in your front yard may be more relevant to your interests right now than people dying in Africa.” But he refuses to engage with what that means at a societal level – especially for the people in Africa. Q: Your background is as a political organizer for the liberal Website MoveOn.org. How does that experience inform your book? A: I’ve always believed the Internet could connect us all together and help create a better, more democratic world. That’s what excited me about MoveOn – here we were, connecting people directly with each other and with political leaders to create change. But that more democratic society has yet to emerge, and I think it’s partly because while the Internet is very good at helping groups of people with like interests band together (like MoveOn), it’s not so hot at introducing people to different people and ideas. Democracy requires discourse and personalization is making that more and more elusive. And that worries me, because we really need the Internet to live up to that connective promise. We need it to help us solve global problems like climate change, terrorism, or natural resource management which by their nature require massive coordination, and great wisdom and ingenuity. These problems can’t be solved by a person or two – they require whole societies to participate. And that just won’t happen if we’re all isolated in a web of one.

Yes updating their websites is one thing, but getting readers to engage them there is quite another. There is this sister, Jessica Mitchell, that runs a website called Black Bloggers Connect, essentially it is social platform that allows blogger to network with each other. These are the types of sites I will begin to post my content on and engage other folks. Chris would you mind posting the links to the other articles on the Blog post. I will share your comments--Thanks

I've clarified my position on Facebook and social media in general in a Blog post yesterday and have updated my Facebook page to include the banner: http://www.facebook.com/aalbcfanpage

Interestingly this fight for independent websites is similar to the fight Black owned independent Bookstores waged a decade ago. Sadly, I was not perceived by many book stores as a strong advocate because, as a web-based bookseller I was perceived as part of the problem. That was a shame because I have always actively advocated for and supporting independent black owned bookstores with money, book donations, time and energy. I have never received or sought anything in return. The funny thing about this battle is that unless you actually operate a website, as a business, you wouldn't have a clue what is going on online. But even if folks are made aware few will really care enough to lift a finger. I mean if we can't me moved to do anything about crappy public schools, our food supply, climate change, why would anyone lift a finger to support the handful of independent websites that are left? I have to admit though I have received quite a bit of support from all sorts of folks who ponied up money to pay for the monthly eNewsletter subscription, some paying $100 or more! It is a reminder that there is still an audience out there for the information I'm trying to share. I know every contribution I made to others last year was felt, something was given up or sacrificed. Every $1 matters and is appreciated. I've been spending a lot of time on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Youtube, Pinterest, Linkedin, Foursquare* (in order of benefit). Facebook is far and away the most effective Twitter is a distant 2nd. The rest I could stop using completely and feel no impact. In any event starting to day I'm no longer engaging people on social media. I will share links to this site (remotely) and others. But will only communicate with people on websites--not social media The worst case scenario is that I get no support and my website's traffic goes way down without engaging others on social media. The best case scenario is that I get a critical mass of other website owners to work on ways to bolster each other enabling us to read readers free of the effect of social media or search. The mostly likely scenario is that I free up a lot of time and keep the traffic I have, but am able improve the site because I'll be spending more time here than on Facebook. Peace, Troy

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Yes, the US epitomizes hypocrisy by passing judgment on the rest of the world after exterminating the native population and enslaving Africans for hundreds of years. No nation on Earth has the temerity, resources or power to judge the US for its crimes, past or present. Don't look to the American population either, those in power are quite happy and the victims, most of us, are too ignorant or don't have the stomach to do anything about it. We'll just go back to our overpriced smart phones, talk about the latest reality TV program and ignore everything that is happening around us.

Hey Chris, glad to see you exploring the website. Jason's book was not just optioned it is now a TV Series -- I believe it may be on now. His book only had one Black character which is played by Omar Epps on the the series. Chris is you wife can read and workout at the same time -- I suspect she need to up the intensity a bit Hen81, I typically forget to mention the reduction in the number, and the quality, of Black book event is a big issue too. I've been trying to help promote these as well: http://aalbc.com/events/ As far as Black choices for entertainment goes It all points back to literacy. As reading rates decline so to do does the scope and depth of what we read. Our ability to understand and navigate the world is adversely impacted as well.

I have not seen Dallas Buyers Club I try to check that film out next. I still think Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom should have been in the mix. If was my personal favorite film of 2013 -- even edging out Star Trek ;-)

The Envelope Please: Who Will Win, Who Deserves to Win, Who Was Snubbed by Kam Williams 12 Years a Slave is benefiting from the most Best Picture buzz as we approach Oscar night, although this is shaping up as one of those rare years when the award for Best Director will probably go to a different film, Gravity. Look for 12 Years to net only a trio of statuettes overall, with Gravity likely landing seven. 12 Years a Slave is the sort of elaborate historical drama the voters just love to recognize, as reflected in such past picks as The King’s Speech, Gladiator, Shakespeare in Love, Titanic, The English Patient, Schindler’s List, Driving Miss Daisy, The Last Emperor, Amadeus and Out of Africa, to name a few. And since the Anglophilic Academy ostensibly is impressed by English accents, it will also help that 12 Years is a British production. Besides forecasting the winners, I also suggest which nominees in each category is actually the most deserving. Furthermore, because some great performances are invariably overlooked by the Academy entirely, I also point out some who should’ve at least been nominated. The 86th Academy Awards will air live on ABC this Sunday, March 2nd at 8:30 PM ET/5:30 PM PT, and will be hosted by Ellen DeGeneres. Best Picture Will Win: 12 Years a Slave Deserves to Win: 12 Years a Slave Overlooked: Lee Daniels’ The Butler Best Director Will Win: Alphonso Cuaron (Gravity) Deserves to Win: Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave) Overlooked: Lee Daniels (The Butler) Best Actor Will Win: Matthew McConaughey (Dallas Buyers Club) Deserves to Win: Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave) Overlooked: Forest Whitaker (The Butler) Best Actress Will Win: Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine) Deserves to Win: Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine) Overlooked: Sharni Vinson (You’re Next) Best Supporting Actor Will Win: Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club) Deserves to Win: Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club) Overlooked: Harrison Ford (42) Best Supporting Actress Will Win: Lupita Nyong’o (12 Years a Slave) Deserves to Win: Lupita Nyong’o (12 Years a Slave) Overlooked: Maria Bello (Prisoners) Best Original Screenplay: Will Win: Spike Jonze (Her) Deserves to Win: David O. Russell and Eric Warren Singer (American Hustle) Overlooked: Aaron Guzikowski (Prisoners) Best Adapted Screenplay: Will Win: John Ridley (12 Years a Slave) Deserves to Win: John Ridley (12 Years a Slave) Overlooked: Danny Strong (The Butler) Predictions for Secondary Categories Animated Feature: Frozen Foreign Language Film: The Great Beauty (Italy) Documentary Feature: 20 Feet from Stardom Cinematography: Gravity Costume Design: The Great Gatsby Production Design: The Great Gatsby Film Editing: Gravity Makeup and Hairstyling: Dallas Buyers Club Original Score: Gravity Best Song: Let It Go (Frozen) Sound Editing: Gravity Sound Mixing: Gravity Visual Effects: Gravity See a list of nominees

Interesting that you should mention Amari Cynique. He is another conscious writer and one of the people I work with to try to elevate all of us. Again, I don't believe our reading community is too small to support at least one full service Black owned independent bookstore in each city that has a large Black population and at least a few websites dedicated to promoting Black authors. But given the current situation Cynique, you may be right. However, looking around I doubt going to the gym is a significant distraction keep us from reading

Chris there are Black writers writing as well as Dan Brown, certainly was well as EL James... I don't think expanding our range is the issue. I think WE, Black people, have to stop looking to white institutions for validation. These corporate entities have demonstrated, time and time again that they do not care about us. Indeed, they don't even care about other white people. If we constantly look to others, Amazon, social media, whatever to change things to our benefit we will continue to be very disappointed.