Archive for » June, 2010 «
Bottom line, for me: Smith was cocky as hell on Letterman, but he was also interesting. For eight minutes, he displayed the confidence to be non-ingratiating and, in the process, he seized your attention. He was brash; he acted like a Hollywood kid who truly had a mind of his own. Perish the thought!
Yet in the online universe of Jaden Hatred, that Letterman appearance played as one thing and one thing only: privilege. And that, on the surface, is what the whole ragging-on-Jaden-Smith phenomenon is really all about — the desire to tear down a child who enjoys the perks of celebrity royalty, even though he didn’t earn them. And now he’s getting a movie career handed to him! You can almost taste the class resentment, the jealousy of folks who only wish, deep down, that they’d gotten such an opportunity themselves and now want to scrawl their rage on Jaden Smith’s image like Perez Hilton going crazy with his Magic Marker.
Still, what’s most striking, and perhaps revealing, about this particular outpouring of toxic anger is that Jaden’s famous father, Will Smith, isn’t just another big movie star — he’s one of the most likable movie stars you could ever imagine. You’d think that the general feeling about him, the nearly universal good will, would extend to giving the benefit of the doubt to his son. I know that when I watched Jaden Smith in The Karate Kid, the echoes of his father in everything from his cool, appraising glare to the nimble speed of his responses is something I enjoyed — like, say, hearing that raspy echo of Bob Dylan in Jakob Dylan’s voice back in the “One Headlight” days. It’s not as if this sort of situation happens every day; what would be so wrong with giving the son (or daughter) of fame a break and simply enjoying it?
It’s hard to shake the feeling, though, that too many people are trying to turn Jaden Smith from what he is, which is an insolently charismatic and hard-working young actor, into a focal point of ill will over issues of class, fame, money, and — yes, I’m going to say it — race. For let’s be honest: Doesn’t all the grousing about how Smith is “arrogant,” etc., carry a special, ugly tinge of rancor? Doesn’t the complaint that he’s too big for his britches come painfully close to saying that he doesn’t know his place?
Thank you Gleiberman for your reponse greatly appreciated.
“I’ve always said that Afghanistan would be the tougher fight,” General Petraeus said at the time.
Now the burden falls to him, at perhaps the decisive moment in President Obama’s campaign to reverse the deteriorating situation on the ground here and regain the momentum in this nine-year-old war. In many ways, General Petraeus is being summoned to Afghanistan at a moment similar to the one he faced three years ago in Iraq, when the situation seemed hopeless to a growing number of Americans and their elected representatives as well.
But there is a crucial difference: In Iraq, General Petraeus was called in to reverse a failed strategy put in place by previous commanders. In Afghanistan, General Petraeus was instrumental in developing and executing the strategy in partnership with Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal
General Petraeus, 57, brings an extraordinary set of skills to his new job: a Boy Scout’s charm, penetrating intelligence and a ferocious will to succeed. At ease with the press and the public, and an adept negotiator, General Petraeus will probably distinguish himself from his predecessor with the political skills that carried him through the most difficult months of the counteroffensive in Iraq known as the surge.
BRUSSELS – Police raided the home and office of the recently retired archbishop of Belgium on Thursday, carrying off documents and a personal computer as part of an investigation into the sexual abuse of children by Roman Catholic priests, officials said.
Police and prosecutors would not say whether former Archbishop Godfried Danneels was suspected of abuse himself or simply had records pertaining to allegations against another person.
The raids followed recent statements to police “that are related to the sexual abuse of children within the church,” said Jean-Marc Meilleur, a spokesman for the Brussels prosecutor’s office.
Police took documents but did not question Danneels at his home in the city of Mechlin, just north of Brussels, said Hans Geybels, the spokesman for the former archbishop.
“They did take away his computer,” he said.
Geybels added that Danneels was fully cooperating.
“The cardinal believes justice must run its normal course. He has nothing against that,” he said
Danneels was a leading liberal voice in Europe’s church before he retired in January.
But he returned to the limelight when, on April 26, Belgium’s longest-serving bishop, Roger Vangheluwe, resigned after admitting to having sexually abused a young boy during the time when Danneels was archbishop.
Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn has picked Seattle Interim Police Chief John Diaz as the city’s permanent police chief.
McGinn officially announced Diaz’s appointment Thursday morning. McGinn admitted if he had made this decision six months ago, he may not have picked Diaz. But his civic conversations during the search process and his experience working with Diaz for six months had changed his mind.
“In every interaction I’ve had with Chief Diaz, my opinion of him has gone up,” said McGinn. “He’s a man of great integrity, a hard worker and devoted to the police department and this city.”
The final candidates for Seattle Police Chief were Diaz and East Palo Alto, Calif., Chief Ron Davis. A third finalist, Sacramento Police Chief Rick Braziel, withdrew.
Deputy Chief John Diaz became Interim Chief of Police on May 8, 2009, after then Chief Gil Kerlikowske was named Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy for the Obama Administration.
Diaz has overseen the department in a tumultuous year that included an officer being killed on Halloween night and two highly publicized incidents that were caught on video. One involved a Latino man being kicked by officers, in the other a teen was punched by an officer.
Venus Williams competes during first round at Wimbledon, June 21, 2010
Serena Williams made lightening quick work of her opponent at Wimbledon this morning, while her sister Venus – who caused yet another stir with her outfit – cruised through her opening match on Monday to advance to the tournament’s second round.
Serena took just 21 minutes to eliminate Michelle Larcher de Brito 6-0, 6-4, delivering 15 aces in the process. Venus, who ditched her controversial flesh-colored shorts for a pair of white ones, disposed of Paraguay’s Rossana De Los Rios 6-3, 6-2 while dressed in a frilly layered dress inspired by Tina Turner
As if a concert by funk bassist extraordinaire Larry Graham wasn’t enough of an experience, music icon Prince surprised everyone at B.B. King’s Blues Club in NYC Wednesday night by taking the stage out of nowhere and jamming with Graham (original bassist of Sly & the Family Stone) and Graham Central Station.
Check it out folks it’s on youtube.
*Guess what co-host of “The View” all but guaranteed a plum spot in Kathy Griffin’s next standup act?
The very liberal star of Bravo’s “Life on the D-List” appeared on the show Tuesday to promote her reality series, and things went exactly as expected with the comedian’s frequent subject, uber-conservative Elisabeth Hasselbeck.
Whoopi Goldberg is away for two weeks filming Tyler Perry’s “For Colored Girls” in Atlanta, and Barbara Walters is off for the summer to recuperate from heart surgery. That left Joy Behar, Sherri Shepherd and Hasselbeck to deal with Griffin, whose past visits to the show have all ended up in her comedy act – including an appearance the day after her good friend and former “View” co-host Rosie O’Donnell got into the infamous split-screen showdown with Hasselbeck.
After giving Griffin the cold shoulder for most of the interview, Elisabeth said toward the end: “You’ve said things about people here that are a) untrue and b) not so funny, so do you ever feel weird like coming here and sitting here and promoting things when you’ve said some stuff?”
“Actually, this moment is what I live for, so bring it,” Kathy grinned. “This is how I write my act.” [Watch exchange below.]
In a 2008 interview with The Windy City Times, Griffin said, “Elizabeth Hasselbeck has snowed American audiences into not knowing that she is a f***ing ‘Survivor’ reject. I am sorry — I am going to listen to the political beliefs of someone who wore wacky scarves on Survivor?”
A “furious” President Obama has ordered his top U.S. commander in Afghanistan to Washington to explain the derogatory comments he made about the administration in an upcoming Rolling Stone interview.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal blasted Obama and his colleagues in the article, which paints the commander as a lone wolf on the outs with many important figures in the Obama administration and unable to persuade even some of his own soldiers that his strategy can win the war.
The interview describes McChrystal, 55, as “disappointed” in his first Oval Office meeting with Obama. The article says that although McChrystal voted for Obama, the two failed to connect from the start.
Obama appointed McChrystal to lead the Afghan effort in May 2009. Last fall, though, Obama called McChrystal on the carpet for speaking too bluntly about his desire for more troops.
“I found that time painful,” McChrystal said in the article, on newsstands Friday. “I was selling an unsellable position.”
McChrystal, who publicly apologized Tuesday for using “poor judgment” in the interview, has been ordered to attend the monthly White House meeting on Afghanistan and Pakistan in person Wednesday rather than over a secure video teleconference, according to officials quoted by the Associated Press.
He’ll be expected to explain his comments to Obama and top Pentagon officials, the officials said.
NBC White House correspondent Savannah Guthrie reported this morning that Obama was “furious” over the remarks[see 2nd video below], while the network’s chief Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski said senior administration and Pentagon officials were “scurrying around the hallway trying to figure out how to respond” when news of the article broke last night.
Obama has the authority to fire McChrystal. His predecessor, Gen. David McKiernan, was sacked on grounds that the military needed “new thinking and new approaches” in Afghanistan.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen has told McChrystal of his “deep disappointment” over the article, a spokesman said.
Rolling Stone’s executive editor was on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” today and offered plenty of details about the explosive issue, which hits newsstands Friday
Dating Expert Claims Black Churches Keep African American Women Single and Lonely
Dating Expert Claims Black Churches Keep African American Women Single and Lonely
*Dating expert, advice columnist and author Deborrah Cooper blasts traditional Black churches and charges that they are the root cause for the high numbers of single Black women in the U.S.
With all the media coverage (CNN, Nightline, NY Times, ABC) of the “plight” of the single black woman, and the blaming of Black women for being single, this author felt it past time to examine other reasons which could be important contributors to this sad statistic:
Black women have an inordinate amount of faith in both Black men and Black churches. My position is that such blind and unwavering faith in either is misplaced.
It is my belief that the Black church, structured around traditional gender roles which makes women submissive to and inferior to men, greatly limits females.
Single Black women sitting in church every Sunday are being subtly brainwashed, soothed and placated into waiting without demand for what they want to magically come to them. Who is doing this to Black women? The male standing at the front of the Church in the role of spiritual leader, that’s who!
This is the true reason that there are so many single, never married Black women in the United States – Black churches. Black women should abandon Black churches and focus more on themselves, their needs and those of their children than those of Black men or a religion which Black men use to castigate and control an entire race of women.
Single Black Females in Church
Black females have long been considered the backbone of the Black community and the cornerstone of their families and churches. But what is the real price Black women have paid to wear this crown of fool’s gold?
An examination of any congregation of the average Black church shows that single Black females fill the pews. Results of a recent study “African Americans and Religion” by the PEW Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life found that “African Americans are markedly more religious on a variety of measures than the U.S. population as a whole.”
Almost 90% of Black Americans express “absolutely certain belief in God” compared to just over 70% of the total U.S. population. Two other important statistics gleaned from this survey: (1) 80% of Black Americans report that religion is “very important” in their lives as compared to 57% of the general U.S. population; and (2) 55% of Black Americans report that they “interpret scripture literally” as compared to 32% of the general U.S. population.
The PEW study also reported that “Men are significantly more likely than women to claim no religious affiliation. Nearly one-in-five men say they have no formal religious affiliation, compared with roughly 13% of women.”
The survey shows a distinct correlation between religion and social attitudes amongst African Americans. “African Americans who are more religiously observant (as defined by frequency of worship service attendance and the importance of religion in their lives), are more likely to oppose abortion and homosexuality, and more likely to report higher levels of conservative ideology.”
What Do The PEW Study Results Mean For Single Black Women?
They mean that:
· Following the tenets of organized religion is not going to get you anywhere because men are generally not religious.
· Going to church is not getting you the husband you seek.
· Going to church is not making you more attractive and interesting to men.
· Going to church is not where you are going to find eligible bachelors to date.
· Going to church is not going to teach you to be fiscally responsible, investment savvy, or empower you to achieve greatness as a woman.
· Going to church is not going to broaden your horizons, make you more tolerant and accepting of all God’s children, nor is it going to encourage you to be free of the chains of patriarchy and oppression of your feminine energy.
Going to church makes you a sheep, blindly following the mandates of a small group of men you have placed in your life in a position of power. Going to church makes you malleable and predictable, and narrows your thinking and thus limits your options.
Going to church for single Black women is a waste of time.
There ARE Single Men in Church, However…
Read the rest of this article at SurvivingDating.com.
This month begins a new eclipse season. We will have two eclipses very soon, a lunar eclipse on June 26 in Capricorn (full moon) and the other will arrive as a solar eclipse in Cancer (new moon) on July 11.
If you haven’t read my June 2010 forecast on Astrology Zone that I have prepared for you, please do, for the first eclipse that is arriving this month might turn out to be quite intense for the world. If you are within a certain mathematical range, you might feel the eclipse in a more personal way.
Eclipses aren’t like any other phenomenon in astrology. They strike quickly and in unusual ways. Often the catalyst to change is triggered by an outside event that has nothing to do with you or anything you did, but that will come in and change certain elements in your life anyway. I feel it’s the universe’s way to keep us on our toes and flexible. Also, eclipses look for broken or outdated situations to sweep away to help you make room for the new. Some eclipses are shocking or jarring and others are harbingers of good news.
The coming June 26 eclipse will have an especially strong impact because Uranus will be in sharp angle to the full moon eclipse and Sun. Also, Saturn will oppose Uranus and Jupiter, while Pluto will conjoin the full moon and argue with the other planets. All will square off at 90 degrees to each other, or stare at one another at 180 degrees, forming a cross pattern in the sky – this is considered stressful.
We have not seen such an extreme eclipse in years. Actually, astrologers have gone back 500 years and we have not been able to find anything like the one that is due June 26. Let me reiterate that not everyone will feel the events of June 26, and that is an important point. Please check my June report to see if you might feel some changes. I always feel it is best to know something may come up, so that I can have a flexible schedule to respond to any event that I might have to decide upon.
Events that come up as a result of an eclipse have more weight than events brought on by a normal new or full moon. In fact, an eclipse is like a turbo-new or full moon – it packs much more energy and punch and feels like three rolled into one. An eclipse may even bring on an event that seems “fated.” Eclipses always bring unexpected changes of direction.
The eclipse does not have to fall in your sign to affect you, but it would have to be within a ten-degree range of a natal planet in your chart. In this case you would need a natal planet within ten degrees of 5 degrees of a cardinal sign: Aries, Libra, Cancer, or Capricorn. I can’t see your chart from here, so it’s just wise to wait and see. With Uranus so prominent, what comes up will be completely unexpected anyway, coming out of left field, but I can narrow things down for you.
Eclipses in the same family of signs tend to be connected like pearls on a necklace. It is as though the universe realizes that we can’t handle too much big news all at once, so it is divided up into pieces. We are given news of something that is changing or needs to be changed, but further information does not come until the next eclipse, at which time we are ready to move forward.
For this reason, think back to what occurred on December 31 and just after January 15 for clues, for those were the last times we had eclipses in this family of signs.
Eclipses shine the bright light of truth on the part of your life that is touched by the eclipse. Most of the time, eclipses act as brilliant illuminators, revealing a condition that you were unaware existed. They can also act as catalysts to a major life decision. Also under an eclipse, you may finally understand the true character of a person near you.
With all eclipses, something ends and something else begins. During an eclipse period, you may feel like you are walking across a bridge to a new place of the mind and heart, but with no ability to turn back to where you started. Said another way, the door of part of your old life will slam shut and lock tightly behind you as you walk over the threshold. You won’t be able to go back to your old life after the eclipse, but upon reflection, you might not want to anymore. You have grown, and now you are ready to face the future with all the surprises and gifts the universe will have ready for you. Armed with the necessary facts, you will now understand a mystery that was never clear to you before. The universe wants us to embrace all that is new, not go back to the old tried and true.
In about six months, we will have another set of eclipses coming on December 21, a total lunar eclipse (full moon) in late degrees of Gemini and on January 4, 2011, a solar eclipse (new moon) in Capricorn. The December 21 eclipse will begin to usher in a new series of eclipses in Gemini-Sagittarius, just as the old series of Cancer-Capricorn, begun last summer on June 7, 2009, begins to wind down and officially end on July 1, 2011. Often when a new family of signs starts up, an old family of signs ends.
Thank you Susan for the update.