Wiki: Esperanza Spalding (born October 18, 1984 in Portland, Oregon[1]) is an American multi-instrumentalist best known as a jazz bassist and singer, who draws upon many genres in her own compositions. Spalding grew up in the King neighborhood of Portland, Oregon,[2] a neighborhood she describes as “ghetto” and “pretty scary”.[3] Her mother, who raised her and her brother as a single parent, was an independent, industrious woman.[4]
Spalding is of African-American, Welsh and Spanish descent,[5] and describes this as a diverse ethnic heritage that includes “Welsh, Hispanic, and Native American roots in addition to the unidentified roots from Africa”.[3] Her black roots come from her father: “My mom is Welsh, Hispanic, and Native American, and my father is black.”[6] Her Hispanic roots trace through her mother, a native of Southern California, who indirectly educated Spalding in Spanish by hiring a Cuban nanny.[7] Spalding notes that these influences, along with many other factors in her life, have come together to shape her into who she is.[7] She also has an interest in other cultures, including Brazil,[8] and respects the artistry inherent in language, commenting specifically, “With Portuguese songs the phrasing of the melody is intrinsically linked with the language, and it’s beautiful”.[9]
Her mother shares Spalding’s interest in music, having nearly become a touring singer herself.[4][10] But while Spalding cites her mother as a powerful influence who encouraged her musical expansion, she attributes her inspiration for pursuing a life in music to watching classical cellist Yo Yo Ma perform on an episode of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood when she was four.[4]
Happy Monday, Everybody! Enjoy you week.
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Congratulations, Esperanza, on winning a GRAMMY for BEST NEW ARTIST!
2/07/2011
In Brief: Breaking a Sarah Palin Fast:
A couple of weeks ago, on January 19, prior to Dana Milbank’s call for a Month With No Palin, the Rude Pundit had declared on the magical Facebook machine that he would take a breather from wasting the precious moments of his short life on this dying earth talking about the former governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin. He didn’t swear that he’d do a month. He said “at least a week.” He’s lasted far longer. And what rushing moose broke the beaver dam of inattention?
This: “I have a journalism degree, that is what I studied. I understand that this cornerstone of our democracy is a free press, is sound journalism. I want to help them build back their reputation and allow Americans to be able to trust what it is that they are reporting.”
And this: “I’m not real enthused about what it is that is being done on a national level from DC in regards to understanding all the situation there in Egypt and in these areas that are so volatile right now, because obviously it’s not just Egypt but the other countries too where we are seeing uprisings.”
And this: “[N]ow the information needs to be gathered and understood as to who it will be that fills now the void in the government. Is it going to be the Muslim Brotherhood? We should not stand for that, or with that or by that. Any radical Islamists, no, that is not who we should be supporting and standing by.”
Those are all from an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, a venue so friendly to Palin that it makes Fox “news” look like Cardinal Richelieu’s men on an iron maiden bender. She had shut the fuck up for a little while (except for a bizarro Facebook rant on how much she hated Obama’s State of the Union address). But now she’s weaving sentences that are so incomprehensible that you wonder if there’s a race of extraterrestrials she’s actually speaking to. Or maybe it’s just the solemn call of the loon. Or teabagspeak. Either way, she has as much business talking about Egypt as a deranged rat has.
She and Glenn Beck are teetering on the brink of oblivion. They are hanging by their thumbs above a black hole that will suck them away, into irrelevance. And who are we not to give them a nudge? In fact, who are we not to stomp on their fingers until they are screaming into the void and disappearing from our public consciousness for good (or until they show up on Celebrity Rehab Fat Club for Attention Whores or something).
http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/
The Media is propping up this ignorant bitch. No black woman could ever get away with bs like that. She would have been laughed off the stage a long time ago. And no way on God’s green earth could an unwed, uneducated teen mom named ” LaKisha” be paid a $30,000 speaking fee on abstinence. Are you kidding me?
Lakeisha and her mama would never have been on stage. This is the affirmative action we black women talk about. Incompetence, ignorance abound in the media, schools, and work place, and it is not just blacks, but whites who get the FREE PASS, because of their whiteness.
Ever notice when all HELL is breaking lose in the world, i.e. Tucson, Egypt, the Sno’ Ho’ gets in front of a camera and spouts a mouth full of INCOMPREHENSABLE word salad. She can’t stand not being in the spotlight, no matter how dumb and ignorant she is, she has to get in front of a camera to make it about her.
MEANWHILE, the trailer trash supporters are still jobless, while the teabagging elite are laughing all the way to the bank.
If the media would stop focusing on this bitch, she wouldn’t have a got damn camera to spout off. They know she’s dumb as a bag of rocks but yet reports on this moron’s every word.
From Field Negro
Monday, February 07, 2011
Arianna goes black and Desmond’s fear of an aging quarterback.
Nancy Grace and company won’t do it, so I am going to start this post by making you all aware of little Octavius Powell, the 11 year old who has been missing from his Miami (Florida) home since last Friday. He was last seen wearing a red polo shirt and khaki pants. I am keeping my fingers crossed that this little guy will be found, and that he will return to his family as healthy as he was when he left. (h/t to Pamela for hipping me to this story)
Inside baseball time: I hear that HuffPo is planning to have a black section for us Negroes. (It’s called “Global Black” but I am guessing it will be primarily for Negroes in A-merry-ca.) Nothing attracts more ad. revenue like your very own Negro section. Gotta have a place for those Chrysler 300 and McDonald’s commercials. HuffPo will join NBC (The Grio), The Washington Post (The Root), AOL (BlackVoices) on the corporate black bandwagon. Good luck with that Arianna, but you should have checked with me before you picked your partner.
“But I really wanted to bring the real news, the story telling-to really bring back the voice of the black community on some relevant news and views.”
You mean kind of like you did with BET?!
Anyway, some folks are already jumping ship. Maybe Arianna should have checked with a lot more folks.
Sticking with the media, I am going to have to rip my man Desmond Howard a little bit. Yo Desmond, what’s up with you letting Phil Simms threaten you and then tweeting about it like a big baby to your fans? “Phil Simms just threatened 2 hit me b/c I said his son was 1 of the worst QB’s in the SEC” . First of all, Phil, your son does suck! So you might want to get over it. And, as someone said recently, you are in the business of criticizing other people’s sons every damn Sunday, so your kid is fair game. BTW, since we are on the subject: your other son sucks , too. Still, this doesn’t excuse Desmond Howard’s wimpy behavior. He should have told you what I just wrote and let the chips fall where they may.
Finally, I thought I had seen it all from you Negroes, but this one takes the cake. I swear, some of you Negroes need Jesus.
I’m out. http://field-negro.blogspot.com/
HuffPo will join NBC (The Grio), The Washington Post (The Root), AOL (BlackVoices)
Huh?
LOL
I love Esperanza’s fro!!!!
The ‘fro, the music, the lady is RIGHTEOUS.
Obama Besting Palin In Deeply Republican Tennessee: Poll
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/07/poll-obama-beating-palin-tennessee_n_819588.html#comments
WASHINGTON — A poll released Monday provides more evidence that Republicans would hamper their chances in the 2012 presidential election were they to choose Sarah Palin as their nominee.
The survey, conducted by Vanderbilt University’s Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, concluded that President Barack Obama would beat Palin in Tennessee in a hypothetical campaign matchup, despite the president’s approval rating of just 44 percent in the state.
Forty-two percent of respondents said they’d vote for Obama, while 37 percent said they’d pick the former Alaska governor, the Tennessean reported on Monday. This, in a state that hasn’t gone for a Democratic presidential candidate since Bill Clinton in 1996 — even though the party’s nominee in 2000, former Vice President Al Gore, called Tennessee his home.
The Vanderbilt numbers are hardly concrete. Palin is not yet a candidate, and a lot can happen in nearly two years, especially with the unemployment rate widely expected to remain above 9 percent this year and above 8 percent at the end of 2012.
But the poll findings still represent a telling data point as Republican voters survey the field of prospective candidates. Late last month, the progressive-leaning survey firm Public Policy Polling found that, were Palin on the ballot, Texas would become a swing state, with 47 percent of Texan respondents saying they’d vote for the 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee while 46 percent said they’d back Obama.
Run Sarah Run!
LMAO Nothing to see here, folks; move along!
Pelosi: O’Reilly question to Obama on hate ‘completely inappropriate’
By Michael O’Brien – 02/07/11 10:37 AM ET
It was “completely inappropriate” for Fox News anchor Bill O’Reilly to ask President Obama about the people who “hate” him, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Monday.
Pelosi said O’Reilly’s question, during an interview before Sunday’s Super Bowl, made her wince upon hearing it again on Monday.
Just seeing it again … I thought was a completely inappropriate question, of course beautifully handled by the president,” Pelosi told host Gayle King on the Oprah Radio network.
“To hear this used in the presence of the president of the United States — I think we all have to recognize that while we disagree with people, and may think that they are wrong,” the word “hate” should never be used, Pelosi said.
O’Reilly’s question has been one of the most replayed on Monday.
“Does it disturb you that so many people hate you?” O’Reilly asked Obama.
“The people who dislike you don’t know you,” Obama responded. “The folks who hate you don’t know you; what they hate is whatever funhouse mirror image of you is out there.”
The interview was a coup for the Fox host and his network, which has sparred sometimes with the Obama administration and earned public enmity from the president at times during the last two years.
Obama’s interview, broadcast on Fox, was his third straight year of doing a pre-Super Bowl interview. He sat for an interview with CBS last year, and NBC the year before that.
Pelosi said it was her preference that the word “hate” never be used in a political context.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/142437-pelosi-oreillys-question-to-obama-on-hate-completely-inappropriate?tmpl=component&print=1&page=
Bill O’Reilly is a racist mofo who don’t have an ounce of respect for the black President or black people in general. He would never have asked George Bush or any other President such an inappropriate question. I’ll be glad when this hateful sob meets his maker.
Breaking:
Jane Harman Resigning From Congress
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/07/jane-harman-resigning-fro_n_819536.html#comments
Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) is expected to announce on Tuesday that she will resign from her post in congress to serve as president and CEO of the Woodrow Wilson Center, NBC News reports.
NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reports:
Harman will succeed the current leader, former Rep. Lee Hamilton, who has led the bipartisan think tank for 12 years.Politico’s Mike Allen wrote in a tweet on Monday morning, “Wilson Center Board will make final decision on Jane Harman as new president tomorrow but she notified House of talks.”
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2011/02/palin-inc.html
Real American Sarah Palin is trying to trademark her name:
Politicians seldom trademark their name but they might do so to prevent others from using it, for example, to sell shoddy, unapproved merchandise or “official” candidate memorabilia. A search for other political figures such as President Barack Obama and potential 2012 GOP presidential candidates Mike Huckabee, Tim Pawlenty and Mitt Romney do not show any pending trademark applications. It is a rarity, say trademark attorneys, for political figures to file such forms.
The Palins are facing a long road in the effort to trademark their names. “Generally one can trademark one’s name,” said Jeffrey S. Kravitz, a Los Angeles-based intellectual property attorney. “But, it is not easy.”
It becomes even more difficult when you forget to sign the application:
It seems like signing your name is not something you would forget when your name is what you’re trying to trademark, but she’s a busy woman.
The application also says that the mark’s “first use in commerce” was on January 1, 1996. That’s the year she was elected to be mayor of Wasilla, and it seems a little odd to call the start of a political career (especially as a small-town mayor) a “first use in commerce,” but this is Sarah Palin we’re talking about.
This is actually the second Palin registration effort – the first one, in September of last year, was filed by Bristol. She, too, says she provides “motivational speaking services,” but hers are “in the field of life choices.” (More specifically, choices that might lead to becoming an unwed teenage mother right when your mom is running for office.)
Bristol didn’t sign, either.
Neither of them signed their name? Oh gawd!
LOL The STOOPID BURNS…
Good morning all!!
Good Morning, Dannie!
Morning, Dannie!
Nancy Reagan’s Secret Service Agent Shoots Self In Hip
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/06/nancy-reagan-_n_819255.html
(AP) – A Secret Service agent assigned to protect Nancy Reagan is recovering after accidentally shooting himself in the hip at a sheriff’s department shooting range.
Ventura County sheriff’s spokesman Capt. Mike Aranda says the gun went off as the agent was putting it back in its holster Friday at the range in Camarillo. The agent was hospitalized with a non-life-threatening injury to his hip. His name was not released.
Nobody else was injured.
The Ventura County Star reports the agent was assigned to the Reagan Protective Division of the Secret Service, which handles security for the former first lady.
Aranda says the Secret Service is handling the investigation of the incident.
No words….yet
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Breaking News Alert: AOL to buy Huffington Post for $315 million
February 7, 2011 12:53:09 AM
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AOL says it’s buying highly trafficked news Web site Huffington Post for $315 million in a deal that will put co-founder Ariana Huffington in charge of all AOL content.
http://link.email.washingtonpost.com/r/HXJVEI/KEJ2J4/ZOC947/4SXG1E/J8LI0/4O/h
What? Arianna’s always about the dollar.
Monday Graphics – Valentines Day Graphics
Good Morning, Everybody! Happy MUN-dane.
Thanks for the coffee, SG2!