Welcome to the weekend, Everyone. Hope you’re enjoying this week’s music. Today’s featured Girl Group, The Crystals.
HE KISSED ME
HE’S A REBEL
Da Do Run Run
-
-
Black Girls Rock!
Flickr Photos
-
Potus Takes Oath of Office
Flotus & Daughters at Great Wall of China
My Brothers Keeper
-
-
-
-
-
AFRO PUFFS
Most Adorable Shoe Stealer
Six Little Babies
Fatherhood
-
-
Even though 3Chics Politico is written and curated by three women: Ametia, Rikyrah, and SouthernGirl2, I must nominate this as one of the most engaging blogs I've found. Devoted to politics and culture, these three shine a light on contemporary life with humor and spirit.
-
3Chics Action Alert
Lets Make It Happen
3 Chics Trio
-
REALITY Blog Award
Recent Comments
Top Posts
Guard The Change
Vote 4 Democrats
-
-
-
Go to the polls
President Barack Obama
First Lady Michelle Obama
Obama Love
Your Vote Matters
President Obama & Bo
The Obama Family
-
-
-
-
Presidential hug
-
Well, I didn’t win the Power Ball. I’m not rich. Boo Hoo!
MAY/JUNE 2013
“No to Profit”
Fighting Privatization in Chile Lili Loofbourow
Everyone in Chile can recite the following facts: adjusted for income, Chile has the most expensive higher education in the world. Per student, the country spends less than any other, and the student spends more.
These facts were once a point of pride.
During the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, education, previously considered a public good, was commodified and repackaged as a private investment yielding purely private gains. But since student protests began in 2006, Chileans have been trying to get their education back.
…………………..
But the plan backfired. Instead, three tiers developed: the private schools for which the student paid full price; the subsidized private schools, which generally required that the student pay a small fee to supplement the government subsidy; and the public schools. Wealthy and middle-class students fled public schools in favor of private or subsidized private schools. Poorer students, for whom the vouchers were primarily intended, were much less likely to attend the subsidized private schools. Some couldn’t get to schools across town, some couldn’t afford the supplementary fee, and some students or their families simply didn’t understand or act on the opportunity. Swamped with applications, many subsidized schools started “creaming off” and accepting only the highest-achieving students—those who were easiest and cheapest to teach and who most likely could afford to pay. Government funding that had previously gone to public schools was diverted to subsidized private schools, leaving public schools with shrinking budgets to educate the country’s most vulnerable and disadvantaged students.
Not surprisingly, the students attending public school fared worse than their peers. Their scores on standardized tests went down, but so did the quality of instruction across the board. Chile has the most expensive education in the world, yet the World Economic Forum (WEF) ranked primary education there 119th out of 144 countries. The higher education system ranks 91st and math and science education rank 117th.
This educational model doesn’t just fail low-income students. It also magnifies class difference, since the voucher system intensifies social segregation. Upper and middle-class families not only pay to separate their children from poorer students, but the families of poor students have been known to spend shocking proportions of their income on expensive private schools to ensure that their children will study with the elite. Instead of pedagogical excellence, status becomes the criterion by which well-informed consumers choose their children’s schools. In conversational Chilean, to be “bien educado,” or well educated, is to be well bred, to have good table manners, avoid controversial subjects, and perform one’s class. These are the relevant tools for success. This is the education that matters.
http://www.bostonreview.net/BR38.3/lili_loofbourow_chile_education_privatization.php
Black pastor stirs controversy ahead of Obama’s Morehouse commencement speech
by theGrio | May 18, 2013 at 4:40 PM
President Obama will deliver the commencement speech at Morehouse College — the storied predominantly black men’s college an alma mater of Dr. Martin Luther King — on Sunday. But he won’t find a total respite from controversy.
As Allison Samuels writes in the Daily Beast, Obama’s speech is already being upstaged by controversial comments about the president by a prominent black pastor from Philadelphia. Samuels writes:
While Sunday will mark the first time an African-American president will deliver the commencement college address to a graduating class of all male African-Americans, one alumni of Morehouse felt compelled to pen an scathing editorial about the president for to those “too’ taken in by the symbolic meaning of it all. Writing in the Philadelphia Tribune earlier in April, Pastor Kevin Johnson from Philadelphia didn’t hold anything back in a piece entitled, “A President for Everyone, Except for Black People.” The op-ed compared the number of African Americans who hold senior positions in Obama’s cabinet with earlier administrations and found the result unacceptable. Two of the cabinet’s four African Americans and both of its Hispanic members from Obama’s first term have announced they are leaving. Only one of the two Asian Americans who served during the first Obama term remains.
Demographic strategist Donna Brazile said that with his inflammatory comments, Johnson was playing a familiar role for community activists and pastors. She added that White House office numbers don’t always tell the entire story.
“This president has done a great deal in choosing and appointing a diverse group in the White House and on the Supreme Court,” said Brazile. “But civil rights activists and pastors such as Johnson will always want more and that’s their role and that’s fine. The next president will be expected to do even more than President Obama has. But let’s not forget what Attorney General Eric Holder is going through and what a lot of minorities are forced to go through when the are tapped for positions. It can be brutal the scrunity and many turned that opportunity down. So it’s not always what it seems.”
Still Johnson’s sharp words made much sharper by the fact that the pastor was also scheduled to speak at a Morehouse baccalaureate event just the day before Obama momentous speech for the graduates. Johnson’s tersely written piece quickly threatened to derail the historic weekend for many Morehouse alumni and African-Americans thrilled to welcome the first African American President in a year that commemorates the 150th year of the Emancipation Proclamation, Morehouse’s 100th anniversary, and the 50th anniversary of Dr. King’s “I Have A Dream’’ speech.
http://thegrio.com/2013/05/18/black-pastors-stirs-controversy-ahead-of-obamas-morehouse-commencement-speech/
Glenn Beck’s latest, ugly attack: NAACP ‘a joke’, tea partiers like ‘white lynching victims’
by theGrio | May 18, 2013 at 5:35 PM
Right wing talker Glenn Beck is at it again…
The former Fox News host, who runs his own multimedia company and hosts a popular conservative talk radio show, has in the past accused President Barack Obama of being a racist who “hates white people” and “the white culture,” and vowed to “reclaim the civil rights movement” on behalf of the overwhelmingly white Tea Party movement. Now, Beck is going after another of his favorite targets: the NAACP.
Responding to comments by NAACP Chairman Emeritus Julian Bond, who on MSNBC and in statements to theGrio, blasted Republicans for hypocrisy in attacking the IRS for reviewing tea party groups who sought tax exempt status from the IRS, but who had no such objections to the tax agency auditing the NAACP under George W. Bush. The NAACP faced a two-year IRS probe, launched, the agency said, because of statements by Bond that were critical of Bush and the Iraq war. And starting in December of 2000, Republican lawmakers in Washington wrote then then IRS commissioner, demanding that the NAACP be stripped of its tax exempt status over criticism by Bond and others of the Bush v. Gore Supreme Court decision that decided the presidential election in Bush’s favor.
Bush told MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts recently that he thinks it was “entirely legitimate to look at the tea party” groups who were seeking special tax status under the IRS’ 501(c)4 code.
“I mean, here are a group of people who are admittedly racist, who are overtly political, who tried as best they can to harm President [Barack] Obama in every way they can,” Bond said during the broadcast last Tuesday. “They are the Taliban wing of American politics and we all ought to be a little worried about them.”
And Bond summed up his views on what he calls the hypocrisy of the right in comments to theGrio, saying: “Black people audited — no big deal. Overwhelmingly white and racist Tea Party audited? Super outrage!”
In response, Beck unleashed a tirade against the NAACP during his radio show on Saturday, urging his listeners to “dismiss” the NAACP and adding:
…they are a joke, and an affront to everything that Martin Luther King and anybody who ever… Booker T. Washington, Frederick Douglass, you are an affront to their memory.
Beck had some choice words for the Obama White House too, claiming their “revenge, vengeance and spite” were akin to police brutality against blacks, and he went on to detail who he believed were the real targets of lynchings and racist persecution during King’s day, and asserted that neither Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. nor any of the other historic figures would have “had anything to do” with the NAACP today.
http://thegrio.com/2013/05/18/glenn-becks-latest-ugly-attack-on-the-naacp/#.UZf4h0RoDgc.twitter
First lady to high school grads: Live your dreams
MLK JR. ACADEMY MAGNET HIGH SCHOOL
By ERIK SCHELZIG
The Associated Press
NASHVILLE, Tenn. —
First lady Michelle Obama has some advice for some Tennessee high school graduates: Strike your own path in college and life and work to overcome inevitable failures with determination and grit.
Mrs. Obama spoke for 22 minutes to the graduates of Martin Luther King Jr. Academic Magnet High School on Saturday in her only high school commencement address this year. The ceremony took place in the gymnasium of nearby Tennessee State University.
The first lady told the 170 graduates that she spent too much of her own time in college focusing on academic achievements. While her success in college and law school led to a high-profile job, she said, she ended up leaving to focus on public service.
“My message to all of you today is this: Do not waste a minute living someone else’s dream,” she said. “It takes a lot of real work to discover what brings you joy … and you won’t find what you love simply by checking boxes or padding your GPA.”
http://www.wsoctv.com/news/ap/education/first-lady-to-high-school-grads-live-your-dreams/nXwSJ/
Longshot Oxbow, ridden by Gary Stevens, won the 138th running of the Preakness Stakes today. The winner led from wire-to-wire at Pimlico Race Course in Maryland.
Race favorite Orb came in fourth, dashing hopes for a Triple Crown. The horse was ridden by Joel Rosario, who guided the 3-year-old to victory in the Kentucky Derby two weeks ago.
Itsmyluckyday came in 2nd and Mylute was 3rd
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
……………………………..
Guest Post From A U.S. Marine About Barack Obama’s Shocking And Disgusting Use Of An Umbrella
by Rebecca Schoenkopf
……………….
Nonetheless, we called our older brother, Eric Steinberg, to ask if there could possibly be anything to the nonsense M. Joseph Sheppard and the entire Internet was vomiting all over the place, before it could get on our shoes.
He started yelling. A lot. “I GUARANTEE YOU!” he yelled, “IF THE COMMANDER IN CHIEF GIVES YOU A LAWFUL ORDER YOU FOLLOW THE MOTHERFUCKING LAWFUL ORDER. IF THE COMMANDER IN CHIEF WANTS AN UMBRELLA YOU BETTER BELIEVE A WHOLE FUCKING GRIP OF JARHEARDS ARE GONNA BE HIGH-STEPPING TO BRING HIM A MOTHERFUCKING UMBRELLA!”
And then he warmed up. “IN FACT! THE REAL FUCKING SCANDAL IS THAT THE CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF WASN’T THE ONE HOLDING IT. ‘YOU! CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS! HOLD MY MOTHERFUCKING UMBRELLA!’”
Then he decided to calm down, and write his words, with a lot of violent ideation that would get him banned five times over for disregarding the Rules for Commenting Radicals. Do not try this at home (or in the comments).
http://wonkette.com/516692/guest-post-from-a-u-s-marine-about-barack-obamas-shocking-and-disgusting-use-of-an-umbrella
*HOLLERING*
Obama Takes on the Hell of American Day Care New regulations could help keep kids safe
BY JONATHAN COHN
Childcare in the U.S. is frequently mediocre, sometimes awful, and very occasionally deadly. If you read my recent article, “The Hell of American Day Care,” then you know all about this—and you have some sense of why such conditions prevail. Among the reasons: States have primary responsibility for childcare. And many states do a lousy job.
But the federal government isn’t powerless to fix the problem. Through the Child Care and Development Fund, it provides most of the money that states use to subsidize childcare for low-income parents. That subsidy gives officials in Washington some leverage: They can insist that any state or any provider using federal funds live up to federal standards.
Officials haven’t really used the leverage before: The last time the Department of Health and Human Services issued safety and quality regulations for childcare was 1998, shortly after legislation created the Fund. Those standards were minimal, creating the loose regulatory environment in which so many shoddy child care providers can operate.
But change may be coming, thanks to the Obama Administration. On Thursday, HHS officials announced that they were formally proposing a new, stricter set of regulations on childcare. Some of the regulations would establish a national baseline of quality standards—like making sure every caregiver has CPR training and gets a full background check, using fingerprints. Other regulations would require states to collect and post more information about childcare providers on the internet, so that parents can determine for themselves which ones are likely to take the best care of their kids.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/113233/child-care-quality-new-standards-obama-administration#
Keeping Kosher in Nigeria, a Tiny but Fervent Minority
‘Re-emerging: The Jews of Nigeria,’ a Documentary
Are the Ibo people of Nigeria a lost tribe of Israel? A longstanding tradition among the Ibo says they are, and points to similarities in Ibo and Jewish cultures: a prescribed day of rest, circumcision (male, that is), the prohibition of pork. And now some Ibo have embraced Judaism, considering it the religion of their ancestors.
http://movies.nytimes.com/2013/05/17/movies/re-emerging-the-jews-of-nigeria-a-documentary.html?src=recg
A Black Nurse, a German Soldier and an Unlikely WWII Romance
By ALEXIS CLARK
The nurse and the soldier may never have met – and eventually married – had it not been for the American government’s mistreatment of black women during World War II.
Elinor Elizabeth Powell was an African-American military nurse. Frederick Albert was a German prisoner of war. Their paths crossed in Arizona in 1944. It was a time when the Army was resisting enlisting black nurses and the relatively small number allowed entry tended to be assigned to the least desirable duties.
“They decided they were going to use African-Americans but in very small numbers and in segregated locations,” said Charissa Threat, a history professor at Northeastern University who teaches race and gender studies.
Ms. Powell was born in 1921 in Milton, Mass., and in, 1944, after completing basic training at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., she was sent, as some other black nurses were, to tend to German prisoners of war in Florence, Ariz.
“I know the story of how they met,” said Chris Albert, 59, the youngest son of Elinor and Frederick Albert. “It was in the officers’ mess hall, and my father was working in the kitchen. He kind of boldly made his way straight for my mother and said: ‘You should know my name. I’m the man who’s going to marry you.’”
Frederick Karl Albert was born in 1925 in Oppeln, Germany. “He volunteered for the paratroops to impress his father, who served in WWI,” Mr. Albert said. “His father was an engineer and not really interested in his children. My dad ended up getting captured in Italy.”
He joined many other German prisoners who were detained in camps across the United States. With millions of American men away in combat or basic training, P.O.W.’s became a solution to the labor shortage. Under the Geneva Convention, enlisted prisoners of war could work for the detaining power, said Matthias Reiss, a professor at the University of Exeter, in England, who has researched the history of German P.O.W.’s. “So the idea was, bring them over to America and let them do the unskilled work.”
In the camp in Arizona, Frederick Albert worked in the kitchen, where he prepared special meals for Elinor. A romance between the two blossomed but not without consequences. “My dad was severely beaten by a group of officers when they found out about my mom,” Mr. Albert said, referring to American soldiers.
At Camp Florence, as well as other camps, the environment for black nurses could be particularly humiliating. The nurses were forced to eat in separate dining halls, apart from white officers on the base.
“My mother mentioned that she was in a bar or some place that had food or drink and they refused to serve her,” said Stephen Albert, 66, Elinor and Frederick’s oldest son.
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/15/a-black-nurse-a-german-soldier-and-an-unlikely-wwii-romance/?src=recg
Seeking Justice for Black Farmers in Loan Bias Case
Published: May 16, 2013
“Federal Spigot Flows as Farmers Claim Bias” (front page, April 26) degraded black farmers’ legal victory against racism in federal farm lending, calling it a “magnet for fraud.”
The article tarnished our long fight against racist Agriculture Department lending practices by implying that it was some sort of scam.
Black farmers are dignified, industrious, independent and proud. I am a fourth-generation farmer, and like my peers I have worked hard to pay off mortgages and find resources to keep farming. We work for what we get, and we want nothing more than our due. We deserve the same level of fairness in the press as we fought to get from our government. I have heard from many black farmers who despise being characterized as frauds.
It is hurtful to wage a long, difficult fight for a worthy cause, then have the successful outcome sliced and diced by a publication you have trusted and admired.
I have been advocating for justice for black farmers for the past 30 years. I went to Congress and successfully campaigned for three bills. The statute of limitations on our group’s claims was lifted by Congress in 1998. In 2008 Congress passed a bill allowing the claims of late filers to be heard. Then in 2010 Congress approved $1.25 billion in payments to compensate the black farmers.
The struggle seems never to be over for black people. We won in court. We won in Congress. Now that we have prevailed, playing by all the rules, the game is suddenly flawed.
This article was a slap in the face for those black farmers still waiting for fairness and the thousands more who died waiting for justice.
JOHN W. BOYD Jr.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/17/opinion/seeking-justice-for-black-farmers-in-loan-bias-case.html?src=recg
A Black Mound of Canadian Oil Waste Is Rising Over Detroit
Assumption Park gives residents of this city lovely views of the Ambassador Bridge and the Detroit skyline. Lately they’ve been treated to another sight: a three-story pile of petroleum coke covering an entire city block on the other side of the Detroit River.
Detroit’s ever-growing black mountain is the unloved, unwanted and long overlooked byproduct of Canada’s oil sands boom.
And no one knows quite what to do about it, except Koch Carbon, which owns it.
The company is controlled by Charles and David Koch, wealthy industrialists who back a number of conservative and libertarian causes including activist groups that challenge the science behind climate change. The company sells the high-sulfur, high-carbon waste, usually overseas, where it is burned as fuel.
The coke comes from a refinery alongside the river owned by Marathon Petroleum, which has been there since 1930. But it began refining exports from the Canadian oil sands — and producing the waste that is sold to Koch — only in November.
“What is really, really disturbing to me is how some companies treat the city of Detroit as a dumping ground,” said Rashida Tlaib, the Michigan state representative for that part of Detroit. “Nobody knew this was going to happen.” Almost 56 percent of Canada’s oil production is from the petroleum-soaked oil sands of northern Alberta, more than 2,000 miles north.
An initial refining process known as coking, which releases the oil from the tarlike bitumen in the oil sands, also leaves the petroleum coke, of which Canada has 79.8 million tons stockpiled. Some is dumped in open-pit oil sands mines and tailing ponds in Alberta. Much is just piled up there.
Detroit’s pile will not be the only one. Canada’s efforts to sell more products derived from oil sands to the United States, which include transporting it through the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, have pulled more coking south to American refineries, creating more waste product here.
Marathon Petroleum’s plant in Detroit processes 28,000 barrels a day of the oil sands bitumen.
Residents on both sides of the Detroit River are concerned that the coke mountain is both an environmental threat and an eyesore.
“Here’s a little bit of Alberta,” said Brian Masse, one of Windsor’s Parliament members. “For those that thought they were immune from the oil sands and the consequences of them, we’re now seeing up front and center that we’re not.”
Mr. Masse wants the International Joint Commission, the bilateral agency that governs the Great Lakes, to investigate the pile. Michigan’s state environmental regulatory agency has submitted a formal request to Detroit Bulk Storage, the company holding the material for Koch Carbon, to change its storage methods. Michigan politicians and environmental groups have also joined cause with Windsor residents. Paul Baltzer, a spokesman for Koch’s parent company, Koch Companies Public Sector, did not respond to questions about its storage or the ultimate destination of the petroleum coke.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/18/business/energy-environment/mountain-of-petroleum-coke-from-oil-sands-rises-in-detroit.html?smid=tw-share&_r=3&
This is some filthy fuckery, right here.
Rikyrah, how is your uncle? Sending prayers your way.
they’re still monitoring him in the hospital
My thoughts and prayers are with your family, Rikyrah.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTnwmf2Sqlo&feature=player_embedded
The white boys are calling out their Bretheren.
GOP OBSTRUCTIONISM = TREASON
Father, son to graduate Morehouse College together
by Blayne Alexander, NBC Atlanta | May 17, 2013 at 11:44 AM
This weekend will be a busy one for Dorian Joyner, Sr. Sunday morning, he will watch his oldest son graduate from Morehouse College
Joyner will have a front row seat for commencement. After all, he will be a fellow graduate himself.
Joyner started his Morehouse journey back in 1984, but never finished. Three years ago, he decided it was time to come back. By then his son, Dorian Joyner, Jr. was already a freshman.
When the younger Joyner heard his father was coming back to Morehouse, he admits, it was a shock at first.
“I said, ‘oh, you’re coming back to visit some of your friends?'” he remembered. “And [Dorian Senior] said ‘no, I’m coming back to be a student.’ I said – can you repeat that?”
While most kids come to college to get away from their parents, Dorian Junior says he never felt like he was under his father’s thumb.
“We used to have a support system. Sometimes he would come to my room to ask about a problem or a class or a professor to take,” he said.
Daddy Dorian, who allows his son to call him by his first name on campus, said the two have their own friends and schedules, so their paths rarely intersect.
But after three years of learning from and pushing each other, the two have a bond that goes deeper that father and son.
“We’re Morehouse brothers,” the two said proudly.
Dorian Senior plans to pursue a law degree and eventually become a judge. His son has applied for the Peace Corps and hopes to spend two years traveling before attending film school.
http://www.11alive.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=292578&__hstc=223762052.baa17147a8a89703008267e20b68f852.1363736132211.1368748862022.1368900153087.13&__hssc=223762052.1.1368900153087
Rachel Maddow Takes ABC To The Woodshed
All these networks, tv and cable are full-o-shit. Good for airing ABC’s DECEITFUL lies. None of these folks are TRUST-WORTHY.
Rachel calling out ABC is fine, but she’d better turn to her colleauges, especially*Chris Matthews* for their HIARONFIRE nonsense too. They’re all seeing drops in their RATINGS.
24 Reasons Tiana Is The Most Underrated Disney Princess
Brains, beauty, independence, and humility — no other Disney Princess comes close to The Princess and the Frog’s Tiana.
posted on May 17, 2013 at 6:34pm EDT
http://www.buzzfeed.com/louispeitzman/reasons-tiana-is-the-most-underrated-disney-princess
FUNNIEST REASON….
21. She even passes her work ethic off to her lazy-ass prince.
WOW; just wow; the old lazy-ass black-dude thingy, huh. Number 21 should really make all the little black girls and boys feel good about themselves. Who wrote this shit?
Ametia,
I loved Naveen, but he was just trying to skate on being a Prince until he met Tiana. He thought ‘work’ was for suckers, but Tiana taught him well.
26 Reasons To Give Your Life Over To The Glory That Is Idris Elba
He is perfection in human form, basically. posted on May 17, 2013 at 11:46am EDT
http://www.buzzfeed.com/hnigatu/reasons-to-give-your-life-over-to-the-glory-that-is-idris
http://youtu.be/5guMumPFBag
@jkfecke
This week started with Three! Huge! Scandals! It ends with #umbrellagate. Well played, Mr. President. Well played.
Tee hee hee
Good Morning, Everyone :)
Good Morning, Rikyrah & Everyone! :-)
Morning! Happy Saturday!