Tuesday Open Thread | Blaxploitation Movies Week

Today’s films are a trio put together by Bill Cosby and Sidney Poitier: Uptown Saturday Night, Let’s Do It Again, and A Piece of the Action.

bill cosby and sidney poitier

Uptown Saturday Night

uptown saturday night poster

Uptown Saturday Night is a 1974 comedy film written by Richard Wesley, and directed by Sir Sidney Poitier, who also stars in this film, along with Bill Cosby and Harry Belafonte. Cosby and Poitier teamed up again for Let’s Do It Again (1975) and A Piece of the Action (1977). Although their characters have different names in each film, the three films are considered to be a trilogy. It opened to positive reviews and helped Poitier get into other films as star and director.

Synopsis

Steve Jackson (Sir Sidney Poitier), a blue-collar worker at a steel mill, has just begun a two-weeks-long vacation. He is convinced by his friend Wardell Franklin (Bill Cosby) to go to a party that Saturday night at Madam Zenobia’s, an uptown nightclub.

While the two are at the party, the club is robbed. The masked bandits force the patrons to strip to their underwear, then steal their money and jewellery, including Steve’s wallet.

The following day, Steve is at home and reading his newspaper when he learns he has won the lottery. However, he realizes that the lottery ticket was in the wallet that was stolen from him, and Steve and Wardell spend the remainder of the film tracking down his wallet by consulting with crooked politicians, fake detectives, con-artists, and underworld crime bosses. As the ad for the film states: “They get funny when you mess with their money”

Let’s Do It Again

lets do it again poster

Let’s Do It Again is a 1975 film starring Sir Sidney Poitier, Bill Cosby and Jimmie Walker plus an all star black cast. The film, directed by Poitier, is about blue-collar workers who decide to rig a boxing match to raise money for their fraternal lodge. The song of the same name by The Staple Singers was featured as the opening and ending theme of the movie, and as a result, the two have become commonly associated with each other.

This was the second film pairing of Poitier and Cosby following Uptown Saturday Night, and followed by A Piece of the Action (1977). Although their characters have different names in each film, the three Poitier-Cosby pictures are considered to be a trilogy. Of the three, Let’s Do It Again has been the most successful both critically and commercially. Calvin Lockhart and Lee Chamberlin also appeared in Uptown Saturday Night.

Plot

Set in Atlanta, it follows Clyde Williams (Poitier) and Billy Foster (Cosby) as a pair of blue-collar workers who are trying to raise funds for the Brothers and Sisters of Shaka. They decide to rig a boxing match in New Orleans. They use hypnotism to convince underdog boxer Bootney Farnsworth (Jimmie Walker) that he is a highly skilled prize fighter. He fights and defeats the champion, 40th Street Black (Rodolphus Lee Hayden). Williams and Foster clean up after betting Farnsworth. The pair return home, and all is fine until the gangsters who lost money betting on the other guy figure out the scam and come to Atlanta, to get the pair to do it again…or be killed.

Unable to enter Farnsworth’s training room to dehypnotize him, which in turn would cause him to lose the fight, Williams and Foster decide to bet on the match being a draw, and place bets with both gangster groups. They then enter 40th Street Black’s training room and successfully hypnotize him. Both fighters end up simultaneously knocking each other out, and Williams and Foster are able to collect their bets before the gangsters discover what happened.

A Piece of the Action

a piece of the action poster

A Piece of the Action is a 1977 comedy crime film starring Sir Sidney Poitier and Bill Cosby. Poitier also directed the film. This was the third film pairing of Poitier and Cosby following Uptown Saturday Night and Let’s Do It Again, and Poitier’s last acting role for more than 10 years, as he focused his attentions on just directing. The film also stars James Earl Jones.

Plot synopsis

Dave Anderson (Cosby) and Manny Durrell (Poitier) are two high-class sneak thieves who have never been caught. Joshua Burke (Jones) is a retired detective who has enough evidence on the both of them to put them behind bars. Instead, he offers to maintain his silence if the crooks will go straight and do work at a youth center for delinquents. At first, the crooks are reluctant and unwilling (and so are the kids). As time goes by they gain the trust and admiration of the kids and they start to enjoy the job. All goes well until someone out of the past tells them they have to do one last heist…or else…

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49 Responses to Tuesday Open Thread | Blaxploitation Movies Week

  1. rikyrah says:

    Barack Obama Is Not A Man Of The Gut
    By Charles P. Pierce at 2:04PM

    The Gut, to put it plainly, is an idiot. The Gut is given too much respect by the people who talk about our politics, and it’s given far too much respect by the people who actually act in them. In our politics, The Gut is the unholy stepchild of all that Richard Neustadt guff about how the worst thing that a president can do is nothing, and of all the New Frontier bluster that came out of that basic principle in Washington and ended up in some rice paddies in Southeast Asia. Every time we celebrate a president who does things from The Gut, we get in some terrible trouble. The last guy celebrated how close to The Gut he actually operated, and we all know where that ended up.

    The Gut also is a perversion of the notion of an activist president. Active does not mean reflexive. Being an activist does not imply thoughtlessness. Thinking is an activity. Considering all the possibilities can be an extraordinarily active business. (In fact, Neustadt, and through him, John F. Kennedy, had a positive mania for “options.” They thought that deciding among several courses of action was the proper function of leadership.) The Gut is the opposite of that. The Gut feels the right course of action in a situation — “He tried to kill my dad!” “With us or against us!” — and then acts on it. The Gut resists options and the active process of deciding among them. Barack Obama is not a man of The Gut, and it is driving official Washington crazy. This is a good thing, because resisting The Gut is what the Constitution is all about, especially in its war powers, which this president is conspicuously contemplative about exercising, at least in every context except launching drones.

    It is a comforting — and comfortable — fiction to believe that the president’s decision to throw at least part of the decision to make war in Syria into the lap of the Congress is also a deft political move that will, in effect, exploit the “gap” between the hawkish wing of the Republican party and the isolationist wing thereof. I happen to believe that much of the congressional resistance to what the president wants will come because this particular president wants it. I also happen to believe that if the vote goes sour for him in the House, and the president lets the missiles fly anyway, you will see many motions for his impeachment set aloft simultaneously. I don’t know what it will take to get the country’s punditocracy to realize the simple truth that even crazoid vandals believe what they say, and will do what they say they will do.

    However, there is a very real political gap here. Unfortunately, it is not one that the president can fully exploit, because to do so would be perceived as “weakening” the office of the presidency, and nobody can either be elected president or act as president on a platform of reducing the powers of the office. (Which is why Rand Paul is going to bob and weave on this question like a man pursued by bees.) Over the past sixty years, by a variety of strategies and through the simple cowardice of the national legislature, the war powers of the nation have leached into the executive branch, never to return. This is a secret to approximately nobody. (In 1999, while I was working on a profile for this magazine, John McCain admitted quite frankly to me that this was the case.) This has been going on long enough for people to perceive this to be the constitutional status quo.

    Hence, when the president announced that he was bringing Congress in on the decision to make war in Syria, a very loud howl arose from the Gut crowd that obeying even that most minimal of constitutional niceties — and I say “niceties” because the Constitution requires that the power to make war in all cases resides in the Congress — weakened not only his office, but also the country itself, as though the United States had lost some kind of military advantage because its president is less free to act than Bashar al-Assad.

    But much of the howling had more to do with the fact that the capital had been all riled up to make some war, and then the president took a walk on the lawn with his chief of staff and decided that he would consult with the Congress. This is of a piece with his entire presidency, another example of his stubborn — and endlessly futile — belief that there is an opposition with whom he can bargain in anything resembling good faith. It just so happens that, in this instance, seeking congressional approval also conforms more closely to the Constitution than would his simply launching Tomahawks into Syria on his own. The capital responded in many cases as though the president had abdicated his fundamental responsibilities rather than fulfilled them, which he did, at least in part, and in a perfect demonstration of his conception of the office. The Gut is left behind in the green room, shouting its impotence at John McCain. Meanwhile, policy, or something like it, gets made.

    http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/gut-decisions-in-politics-091013?src=soc_twtr

  2. rikyrah says:

    House GOP Pushes New Gambit To Defund Obamacare
    Sahil Kapur- September 10, 2013, 10:13 AM

    House Republican leaders are proposing a plan in a conference meeting Tuesday to force a symbolic Senate vote on defunding Obamacare but will stop short of shutting down the federal government if the Senate vote fails, as expected.

    The proposal, sketched out to TPM by a GOP leadership aide, is designed to give conservatives the vote they seek on defunding the health care law without risking a confrontation that could result in a government shutdown when money runs out on Sept. 30.

    Here’s how it would work. First, the House would pass a continuing resolution to continue funding the government at sequester levels, coupled with an amendment to defund Obamacare. When the package is sent to the Senate, it would be required to vote on the defunding measure first. If the Senate votes it down, and then passes the CR with Obamacare funding, it goes straight to President Barack Obama’s desk.

    No confrontation. No attempt to force Democrats to back down. No need to go back to the House for a vote on a clean continuing resolution. But conservatives get a vote.

    The strategy falls far short of what conservative advocates have demanded, which is to refuse to fund the government, even if it forces a shutdown, unless Democrats surrender and agree to defund Obamacare. Indeed, the initial conservative reaction was not positive.

    “When members were at home over recess, did they hear their constituents ask for legislative tricks or principled leadership?” said Chris Chocola, the president of Club For Growth. “Trying to fool Republicans into voting to fund Obamacare is even worse than offering a bill that deliberately funds it. I hope this proposal is nothing more than a bad joke and is quickly discarded. Republicans should simply do what they say they are for by passing a Continuing Resolution that doesn’t fund Obamacare.”

    Senate Democratic leaders weren’t impressed with the strategy either.

    “We’ll believe they can get that through when we see it,” said a Democratic leadership aide. “Making us vote on it is totally meh, the big question is whether they can sell this hocus pocus to their own guys.”

    http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/09/house-gop-pushes-new-gambit-to-defund-obamacare.php?ref=fpb

  3. rikyrah says:

    jennifer bendery @jbendery 2m
    Asked Reid about Putin now saying US has to vow no strikes before chem wpn checks can happen: “I’m not really dealing with Putin today.”

  4. rikyrah says:

    McConnell sticks his finger in the wind, makes up his mind
    By Steve Benen
    Tue Sep 10, 2013 11:04 AM EDT

    In August, as Senate Republicans argued among themselves over budget strategies, their ostensible leader, Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell (R), stayed on the sidelines. Worried that bold stands might hurt his re-election chances, the Senate Minority Leader was too afraid to take a stand.

    In September, as GOP lawmakers have argued among themselves over U.S. policy in Syria, McConnell has again been afraid to lead. Yesterday, the Minority Leader didn’t even want to be on the Senate floor for fear he might have to take a position on the issue of the day.

    This morning, after carefully waiting for his pollsters to tell him what to say /pondering the issue for three weeks, McConnell spoke up.

    http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/09/10/20421827-mcconnell-sticks-his-finger-in-the-wind-makes-up-his-mind?lite

  5. rikyrah says:

    ‘The level of hypocrisy is what amazes me’
    By Steve Benen
    Tue Sep 10, 2013 2:15 PM EDT.

    I’m curious if anyone has even bothered to push back against arguments like these.

    “What has fascinated me more than anything is this,” said Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Steve Israel (D-N.Y.). “Does anyone truly believe that if Mitt Romney had been elected president and had asked House Republicans for exactly what President Obama is asking, that House Republicans would oppose it to the extent that they’re opposed to what President Obama wants? The level of hypocrisy is what amazes me.”

    “Let’s not be fooled. I don’t know of any credible analyst who believes that if Mitt Romney had been elected president and produced this same exact resolution that you would see the whip counts in the Republican caucus that you see today,” he added.

    Are Republicans seriously prepared to deny this? Is Mitch McConnell?

    I suppose this is about the point at which some will suggest Democrats are equally guilty of playing politics with foreign policy and national security, but recent evidence points in the exact opposite direction.

    For much of the Bush/Cheney era, Democrats were, often to the chagrin of their base, willing to be constructive partners with Republicans — large numbers of Democratic lawmakers voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq in large numbers; they backed the PATRIOT Act; and they approved a revised FISA law. Democrats could have simply said they opposed Bush/Cheney, and voted accordingly, but they took the notion of a “loyal opposition” seriously.

    Likewise, if Democrats were reflexive partisans on questions like these, we’d also see Dem lawmakers lining up in droves to endorse President Obama’s proposed intervention in Syria. Except, that’s not happening, either.

    http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/09/10/20423919-the-level-of-hypocrisy-is-what-amazes-me?lite

  6. rikyrah says:

    Russian proposal allows Dems to stop the bleeding

    By Greg Sargent, Published: September 10 at 12:08 pm

    The Associated Press is reporting that President Obama has agreed to United Nations discussions on the Russian proposal for international oversight on Syria’s chemical weapons as a way to avert American strikes.

    This scrambles the ongoing situation in any number of ways.

    For one thing, it may make Republican lawmakers even less likely to support Obama’s request for authorization for strikes. A GOP aide tells Robert Costa that the Russian proposal could lead to a “swarm” of No’s today and tomorrow from GOP Senators. As Costa explains it, the Russian proposal may mean strikes are less likely, which gives Republicans more of an incentive to come out against them to stick it to Obama, and then support a diplomatic solution later.

    (Meanwhile, Mitch McConnell today came out against Obama’s proposal, a startling outcome, given that he has spent the last five years opposing pretty much everything Obama has proposed. Also, as Steve Benen points out, McConnell’s positioning may well be motivated by his own political weakness.)

    On the Democratic side, the impact is less clear. Aides suggest it could make some Dems marginally more inclined to support strikes, on the theory that a more credible threat of force later could make a diplomatic solution more likely. “With news that the White House is open to working with the UN, I think this is in furtherance of passing whatever the final resolution is,” one Dem leadership aide tells me.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/09/10/russian-proposal-allows-dems-to-stop-the-bleeding/

  7. rikyrah says:

    The Morning Plum: If we avoid war, American people won’t care about process that got us there

    By Greg Sargent, Published: September 10 at 9:14 am

    President Obama, in an interview with CNN, has now signaled openness to the Russian proposal to place Syria’s chemical weapons under international control. He called it a “positive development,” adding: “We’re going to run this to ground, to see if we can arrive at something that is enforceable and serious.”

    I don’t know how seriously to take this, but the relief among Hill Dems is palpable. And it seems likely the Obama administration would like to find any way out it can at this point. Because clearly, the American people have said No to war, and Congress — for once — very well may reflect the American people’s wishes.

    The polling this morning is absolutely brutal. A new New York Times/CBS poll finds that 61 percent oppose strikes on Syria; 69 percent say Obama should not go forward if Congress says No; 79 percent say the administration hasn’t explained its goals clearly; and only 33 percent approve of his handling of the Syria crisis.

    Meanwhile, a new NBC/WSJ poll finds that 58 percent want their member of Congress to vote against strikes; only 44 percent support military action; and only 28 percent approve of Obama’s handling of the situation.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/09/10/the-morning-plum-if-we-avoid-war-american-people-wont-care-about-process-that-got-us-there/

  8. rikyrah says:

    Mayoral campaign celeb Dante de Blasio is just a student to his friends

    Dante de Blasio, the famous face of his father Bill de Blasio’s mayoral campaign, is just a normal student to his classmates in Brooklyn Technical High School.

    By Tanay Warerkar , Rachel Monahan AND Jennifer
    Fermino / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
    Published: Monday, September 9, 2013, 11:36 PM

    Updated: Tuesday, September 10, 2013, 1:53 PM

    To most of New York, he’s the smiling teen whose towering afro and small-screen charm catapulted his father’s mayoral campaign into first place.

    But to many of his classmates at Brooklyn Tech High School, he’s just that tall kid from AP History.

    Dante de Blasio went back to school Monday after a summer in which he starred in memorable campaign ads for his dad, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, who quietly dropped him off for the start of classes.

    Fellow students seemed to take Dante’s status in stride.

    “They were cool about it,” Dante said at a campaign event after school with his father.

    Aaliyah Sherman said she is taking an AP American History class with Dante this year.

    “He isn’t treated like a celebrity at the school,” she said. “He is just a guy who happens to be the son of a politician running for the mayor’s office, so people know his father is running for mayor.”

    Shane Gohrman, a 15-year-old sophomore, agreed.

    “I’ve heard about him of course. There is a lot of talk about him being a mayoral candidate’s son,” he said. “But he seems like a normal guy.”

    Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/election/dante-de-blasio-classmates-ignore-local-celeb-status-article-1.1450517#ixzz2eW47G6RI

  9. Ametia says:

    Oh so now Putin wanna start swangin his dick?

    Russian President Vladimir Putin says the United States and its allies should “pledge to renounce the use of force” as world powers work to deal with the Syrian chemical weapons issue.

    “It is difficult to make any country — Syria or any other country in the world — to unilaterally disarm if there is military action against it under consideration,” he told Russian TV today.

  10. rikyrah says:

    hilarious comments:

    Miranda

    Sitting back reading the media on twitter and its absolutely hysterical. They are so effed up over all this! Their talking points destroyed, they are outright lying and conjuring up the strangest hypotheticals to try and save face. They’re running into each other trying to come up with SOMETHING…but its all crashing.

    ……………………….

    Kennymack1971 > Miranda
    Oh they are PISSED. They thought this was going to be the moment they finally got that Uppity Negro in the WH only to discover their asses just got checkmated…again. Meep Meep Muhfukkas.

  11. rikyrah says:

    —-☺@NerdyWonka
    *Cough* You mean his proposal. MT @AP: AP source says Obama agrees to UN discussion on Russia’s proposal for Syria’s chemical weapons.

    – —-☺ ‏@NerdyWonka
    He’s trolling, trolling, trolling. RT @kasie: GOP Leader Mitch McConnell announces his opposition to president’s Syria plan.

    — – ☺@ReignOfApril
    Wait. Wait. Wait. They’re talking about impeaching you again? Over #Syria?? pic.twitter.com/TxzojWKHv2
    Retweeted by Nerdy Wonka
    View photo — —– -LOL — –:>)

    – – -☺@AngryBlackLady
    Don’t worry about giving Obama credit in Syria. Black folks are used to Russian bear-riding homophobes taking credit for our work. #wait
    Retweeted by Nerdy Wonka — – — FIERCE!! —

  12. rikyrah says:

    Virginia Dem strategist backs Cuccinelli over McAuliffe

    By Cameron Joseph – 09/10/13 09:26 AM ET

    Longtime Virginia Democratic strategist Dave “Mudcat” Saunders is backing Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) over former Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe (D) in his state’s gubernatorial race

    Saunders, a former top advisor for Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), former Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) and John Edwards’s presidential campaign, rips McAuliffe as a “corporatist” and says he can’t back his party’s nominee.

    “I can’t support a corporatist. I just can’t. This guy is not my kind of Democrat,” Saunders tells the Richmond Times-Dispatch. “I just can’t sit here anymore and watch this coin-operated government continue. Wouldn’t I be a hypocrite if I came to Richmond last year and jumped on Eric Cantor for it and then came back and supported Terry McAuliffe?”

    Saunders also worked for Cantor’s opponent last election cycle.

    Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/governor-races/321271-virginia-dem-strategist-backs-cuccinelli-over-mcauliffe#ixzz2eVmuz570
    Follow us: @thehill on Twitter | TheHill on Facebook

  13. Ametia says:

    French President Francois Hollande, British Prime Minister and U.S. President Barack Obama agreed today to work together to explore seriously a Russian proposal to put Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile under international control, according to a White House official.

    The talks will begin in earnest at the United Nations and will include a discussion on a potential U.N. Security Council resolution.

  14. rikyrah says:

    Commentary: The Legacy of Trayvon Martin Hangs Over New York’s Mayoral Election

    Candidate Bill de Blasio’s focus on racial profiling has catapulted him to the front of the primaries.

    By Keith Boykin

    Posted: 09/09/2013 02:18 PM EDT

    If Bill de Blasio wins this week’s Democratic primary for New York City mayor, he can thank a Black teenage boy for his victory. No, I’m not referring to his biracial son, Dante, whose TV campaign commercial introduced voters to de Blasio’s interracial family and Dante’s huge afro.

    Instead, I’m talking about Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old unarmed Florida boy who was shot and killed last year by George Zimmerman. After all, it was the Martin case, and the Zimmerman verdict that followed, that prepared New Yorkers for Dante de Blasio’s subtle but powerful message against racial profiling.

    All summer long, the momentum against racial profiling in New York has been building. It started with outrage after the Zimmerman acquittal on July 14. It continued when a federal judge ruled against the city’s stop-and-frisk tactics on Aug. 12. And it came to a dramatic head when the city council overrode Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s veto of a police oversight bill on Aug. 22.

    During this time, de Blasio’s anti-Bloomberg, anti-stop-and-frisk message moved him in the polls from a second-tier candidate to the clear frontrunner. The week after the Zimmerman verdict, de Blasio was in fourth place with 15 percent of the vote. Today he’s in first place with 39 percent of the vote, almost enough to meet the 40 percent threshold to avoid a runoff election.

    While the New York Times, New York Daily News and New York Post have all endorsed establishment candidate Christine Quinn for mayor, the public has been sending a decidedly different message. Some see Quinn’s campaign as a fourth term for Mayor Bloomberg after she helped him amend the city charter on term limits to allow the mayor to run for a third term. And because Quinn had long failed to take a strong position on stop and frisk, she has come across as a typical, cautious politician afraid to stand up against a powerful mayor.

    When the city council debated police oversight legislation last October, Quinn refused to be pinned down on her position. “I support the idea of ongoing reform,” she said, but she quickly added, “I have not yet taken a position on these four specific bills.” Now, a year later, after watching de Blasio’s late summer campaign surge, Quinn is finally denouncing stop and frisk. It may be too little, too late.

    http://www.bet.com/news/national/2013/09/09/commentary-the-legacy-of-trayvon-martin-hangs-over-new-york-s-mayoral-election.html

  15. rikyrah says:

    NYC mayor primary day: Candidates make mad dash as black vote is up for grabs

    by Donovan X. Ramsey | September 10, 2013 at 9:17 AM

    In days leading up to the Tuesday’s primary election, Democratic candidates in the hotly contested New York City mayor’s race made their final push to persuade voters and get out the vote.

    A shift in polling from last week shows the public is still undecided. Public Advocate Bill de Blasio is leading among likely Democratic voters with 39 percent of support, according the latest Quinnipiac University poll – not enough to avoid a runoff and a four-point drop from where he was a week prior. Former Comptroller Bill Thompson made gains over the week, going from 20 to 25 percent and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn rounds out third with 18 percent.

    Former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner is in fourth place with 6 percent, followed by Comptroller John Liu with 4 percent.

    “It looks as if Public Advocate Bill de Blasio couldn’t hold that 43 percent in a week when he was in the spotlight and he got walloped by everybody. His support by black voters slipped just enough to make a runoff possible. But he’s ever so close,” said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

    Black voters are expected to comprise nearly 30 percent of the primary electorate in the race for New York City mayor. With 15 percent of black voters still undecided and 18 percent of respondents saying there is still a “good chance” they’ll change their mind before Tuesday, the candidates hit the trail hard to shore up support.

    This pic cracks me up because Mrs. DeBlasio is looking at him like.. ” I can’t believe he might actually pull this off”…LOL
    de-blasio-votes

    http://thegrio.com/2013/09/10/nyc-mayor-primary-day-candidates-make-mad-dash-as-black-vote-is-up-for-grabs/

  16. Race and the Fashion Industry

  17. ____________

  18. Gwen Ifil co-anchors landmark PBS newscast

    http://on.thegrio.com/17UXLOC

  19. rikyrah says:

    Bob Cesca:

    “For the last couple of weeks, President Obama has been running a
    two-tiered strategy: on one hand, scaring the holy bejeezus out of Assad
    and Putin, while simultaneously offering enough time for Assad regime
    to save face as it contemplate how to wiggle out of this mess.

    • Ametia says:

      …and meanwhile the MSM, EMOPROGS, HOUSE NEGROES, AND RWNJ-TEABAGGER, KNUCKLE-DRAGGERS are twisting themselves into PRETZELS, trying to undermind and second guess POTUS.

  20. rikyrah says:

    International Students: Separate but Profitable
    A boom in foreign undergrads is shoring up the finances of America’s flagship universities, but at a price.

    By Paul Stephens

    When Luodan Li told his parents he wanted to go to college in the United States, his mother teased him, saying he was just running away from the gaokao, China’s high-stakes, famously anxiety-inducing national entrance exam for domestic universities.

    Luodan, who is from Shanghai, relented and did well enough on his exams to be placed at East China Normal University, a nationally renowned research institution in his hometown. But Luodan was disappointed that “all the emphasis was just on getting in,” and it wasn’t long before his parents changed their mind. “They saw all their friends’ children were going to America,” Luodan said, “and they thought that I was falling behind.”

    Now that he had his chance, Luodan realized that he didn’t know where to start with the complex process of applying to an American college, so he contacted an agency in Shanghai, one of thousands across the country that have made an industry of helping wealthy Chinese students apply to American colleges. For anywhere from $5,000 to $15,000, the agency takes care of every detail of the application process, from assisting students in writing their essays to providing letters of recommendation. The agency gave Luodan a list of schools based on rankings from the U.S. News & World Report and told him to choose six. Luodan’s parents paid the agency, half up front and half a few months later when he got his acceptance letter from Purdue University.

    In the fall of 2010, when Luodan got to Purdue, in West Lafayette, Indiana, he was part of an enormous wave of new Chinese undergraduates arriving on campus. In the past five years, the number of Chinese undergrads at Purdue has grown from just 127 to 2,755, mirroring a similar trend at colleges and universities across the U.S.

    Since 2006, the total number of international students at U.S. colleges and universities has ballooned by roughly 200,000—growing to more than 764,000 in less than six years, according to data collected by the Institute of International Education and the Department of State. The biggest single group of new international students is from China, which now sends more students than any other country to the U.S. In a trend that is expected to continue, China has increased the number of students it sends to the U.S. by 20 percent every year since 2008, reaching 194,029 last fall.

    These new Chinese students have enrolled at American institutions large and small, public and private, with the greatest numbers going to the public, flagship campuses of state universities like the University of California, Los Angeles, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Washington, or the Big Ten. Big state schools, like Purdue, already had sizable international student populations, but they have increased their undergraduate Chinese student enrollment dramatically, doubling or even quadrupling their total international enrollments in just a few years.

    While administrators promote the diversity and global perspectives these new students bring to campus, it’s clear that such high-minded goals are not the only motivation for enrolling large numbers of foreign students. With state spending on higher education declining sharply over the last five years—it’s down an average of 28 percent nationwide—out-of-state and international students who pay full tuition (and sometimes even additional tuition) have kept these institutions in the black. As state assemblies have cut back, the people of China have picked up the tab.

    http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/september_october_2013/features/international_students_separat046454.php

  21. TyrenM says:

    Good Morning 3Chics,
    They can get on with this jockin Putin when PBO put the bug out there for Syria LAST YEAR to give up chemical weapons. Uggh.
    These were my 1st (non- Disney) childhood movies that I remember.

    While we’re on “Blaxploitation Movies,” I wish President Obama would just once tell Chuck Todd: Next time you hear grown folks talking shut the fuck up. You hear me?

    Have a good day.

    • Good morning, Tyren!

      Chuck Todd never disappoints to make an ass out of himself. You can always count on him to ask the Potus some idiotic dumb question.

    • Ametia says:

      Good Morning, Tryen. LOL Folks can’t handle all that all up in that WHITE HOUSE. PBO’s got them tired in KNOTS. I love it! All PBO has to do is stand at the podium and look out at that sea of white-faced stupidity.

      They can miss me with all that “weakness” bullshit. It is they who are WEAK.

  22. rikyrah says:

    Phillygirl1441 @Phillygirl1441

    The media is speechless. They wanted a war so badly. They will spin this resolution in Syria as Potus being weak. We won’t believe the spin.

    7:13 AM – 10 Sep 2013

  23. rikyrah says:

    another great comment by JojoRaze about DeBlasio and Bloomberg:

    JojoRaze

    Bloomberg is mad because here’s a white man with a black wife and two black children, who lives in Brooklyn, in a plain house- trust, that house is so nondescript it’s not funny, who said from the beginning that stop-and-frisk was gonna make his innocent black son a target, so he wasn’t down for it. and then, Bloomy had to admit that if he had a child targeted, he’d be upset too. DeBlasio exposed his hypocrisy by just living his life, and Bloomy lashed out because he couldn’t say anything intelligent against a white dude saying stop-and-frisk puts a white man’s black child in danger that DeBlasio is scared for his son in Bloomberg’s NYC. Because Bloomberg knows that if Dante was walking down the street with his Afro minding his own business in Park Slope, which is is neighborhood, and no one knew he was the public advocates son, he’d be thrown up on a wall and police car if he wasn’t adequately obsequious to the police.

  24. rikyrah says:

    Excellent comments by JoJoRaze and nathkatun about the Russia/Syria situation and POTUS:

    JojoRaze

    I’ve been personally upping the prayer for PBO since this Syria situation popped off. I’ve been slacking since the reelection, since hey, he won, but the devil is busy so I was really praying for PBO to use wisdom in this situation and I am glad to see it bear fruit in that Putin basically told Assad PBO ain’t no joke so he better give over those weapons or both their money was gonna be messed with.
    In any event, I get the feeling, especially the fact that Netanyahu stayed super-quiet, that PBO low key cussed out the G20 leaders so bad for caping for Assad and Putin on the Security Council that Hollande and Cameron started slow-clapping like at the end of that movie ‘Lucas’, and Angela Merkel looked over at Putin and told him he and PBO need to have a talk ALONE because her name is Bennett and she ain’t in it. And all the other leaders save PBO and Putin left the room and PBO told Vladimir that it ain’t the first or second time you’ve disrespected me, and you are working my last, good nerve. And if you don’t talk to your two bit mistress in Syria, I will risk the impeachment and personally target Assad for death, which will mess with your money.

    …………………………….

    nathkatun7 > JojoRaze

    You know JojoRaze, for Putin to pressure Assad to surrender his chemical weapons, Putin must have been convinced that President Obama was deadly serious about his intent to take them out and probably take Assad out in the process. Putin is not a fool. Yes Russia is a military power, but it cannot match the military power of the United States. Both Assad and Putin know this. That is why, in my opinion, they caved and offered to surrender Syria’s supposedly non existent chemical weapons. regrettably, the U.S. media hates President Obama so much that they have feverishly been spinning this as a win for Putin. Yet no one in the media has yet been able to articulate a credible explanation as to why this is a win for Putin (who never once acknowledged that Syria had, or used, chemical weapons) when it’s President Obama who was aggressively insisting on destroying Syria’s chemical weapons to make sure that they would NEVER be used again to inflict horror on innocent people. His forceful stand on this issue led us to this development. However, don’t count on the folks in the MSM, who, because they are white, think they are way smarter than President Obama, to give him any credit.

    At 67, I never Imagined I would be around to witness the U.S. media promote the false meme that the President of Russia, and the current Syrian dictator, who is alleged to have gassed his own people, were more believable than the duly elected President of the United States; the U.S. Secretary of State (a highly decorated veteran), and the U.S. Secretary of Defense
    (another highly decorated veteran).

    • Ametia says:

      Some of the WHITE FOLKS have lost their damned MINDS, since Nvoember 4, 2008. We are baring witness to the foolishness.

      Let’s see, Putin, Assad-PRESIDENT OBAMA?

      White fear+ I’ll take Putin-Assad for $1000 Alex!

  25. rikyrah says:

    Syria says it accepted Russian weapons proposal
    Sep. 10 7:46 AM EDT

    MOSCOW (AP) — Syria said Tuesday it has accepted Russia’s proposal to place its chemical weapons under international control for subsequent
    dismantling.

    Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem said Tuesday after meeting
    with Russian parliament speaker that his government quickly “agreed to
    the Russian initiative.”

    Al-Moallem added that Syria did so to “uproot U.S. aggression.”

    http://bigstory.ap.org/article/russia-readies-plan-syrian-chemical-weapons

  26. rikyrah says:

    Good Morning, Everyone :)

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