This week, we’re exploring the films of Spike Lee.
1992 Malcolm X
Malcolm X is a 1992 American biographical motion picture about the African-American figure Malcolm X. Directed and co-written by Spike Lee, the film stars Denzel Washington, Angela Bassett, Albert Hall, Al Freeman, Jr., and Delroy Lindo. Lee has a small supporting role as Shorty, a character based partially on real-life acquaintance Malcolm “Shorty” Jarvis, a fellow criminal and jazz trumpeter. Black Panther Party co-founder Bobby Seale, the Rev. Al Sharpton, and future South Africa president Nelson Mandela have cameo appearances.
The film dramatizes key events in Malcolm X’s life: his criminal career, his incarceration, his conversion to Islam, his ministry as a member of the Nation of Islam and his later falling out with the organization, his marriage to Betty X, his pilgrimage to Mecca and reevaluation of his views concerning whites, and his assassination on February 21, 1965. Defining childhood incidents, including his father’s death, his mother’s mental illness, and his experiences with racism are dramatized in flashbacks.
Malcolm X’s screenplay, co-credited to Lee and Arnold Perl, is based largely on Alex Haley’s 1965 book, The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Haley collaborated with Malcolm X on the book beginning in 1963 and completed it after Malcolm X’s death.
Malcolm X was distributed by Warner Bros. and released on November 18, 1992. Denzel Washington won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. In 2010, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.
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In archival footage, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. says: “The assassination of Malcolm X was an unfortunate tragedy and reveals that there are still numerous people in our nation who have degenerated to the point of expressing dissent through murder and we haven’t learned to disagree without becoming violently disagreeable”.
In voice-over, actor and activist Ossie Davis quotes from the eulogy he gave at Malcolm X’s funeral as a montage of new and archival footage and photographs of Malcolm X is shown:
“ Here, at this final hour, in this quiet place, Harlem has come to bid farewell to one of its brightest hopes. Extinguished now, and gone from us forever … It is not in the memory of man that this beleaguered, unfortunate, but nonetheless proud community has found a braver, more gallant young champion than this Afro-American who lies before us unconquered still. I say the word again, as he would want me to: Afro-American — Afro-American Malcolm. Malcolm had stopped being Negro years ago; it had become too small, too puny, too weak a word for him. Malcolm was bigger than that. Malcolm had become an Afro-American, and he wanted so desperately that we, that all his people, would become Afro-Americans, too. There are those who still consider it their duty, as friends of the Negro people, to tell us to revile him, to flee, even from the presence of his memory, to save ourselves by writing him out of the history of our turbulent times … and we will smile … They will say that he is of hate; a a fanatic, a racist who can only bring evil to the cause for which you struggle! And we will answer and say unto them: Did you ever talk to Brother Malcolm? Did you ever touch him or have him smile at you? Did you ever really listen to him? … Was he ever himself associated with violence or any public disturbance? For if you did, you would know him. And if you knew him, you would know why we must honor him: Malcolm was our manhood, our living, black manhood! This was his meaning to his people. And, in honoring him, we honor the best in ourselves … However much we may have differed with him or with each other about him and his value as a man, let his going from us serve only to bring us together, now … Consigning these mortal remains to earth, the common mother of all, secure in the knowledge that what we place in the ground is no more now a man, but a seed which, after the winter of our discontent, will come forth again to meet us. And we will know him then for what he was, and is: a prince! Our own black shining prince who didn’t hesitate to die, because he loved us so. ”
The film ends with a scene of a black teacher in an American classroom. Behind her on the blackboard, are the words “MALCOLM X DAY”. She tells the class that it is Malcolm X’s birthday.
“Malcolm X is you – all of you – and you are Malcolm X”, she says.
In succession, some of her students stand up and shout, “I am Malcolm X!”. The scene switches to African students who mimic the American students. The film culminates with recently released anti-apartheid activist and future South African president Nelson Mandela, quoting one of Malcolm X’s speeches.
1994 Crooklyn
Crooklyn is a 1994 semi-autobiographical film co-written and directed by Spike Lee. The film takes place in Brooklyn, New York and the neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant during the summer of 1973.[1] Its primary focus is a young girl, Troy (played by Zelda Harris), and her family. Throughout the film, Troy learns life lessons through her four rowdy brothers, her loving but strict mother (Alfre Woodard), and her naive, struggling father (Delroy Lindo).
A distinctive characteristic of Crooklyn is its soundtrack, composed completely of music from the 1970s, except the hit single “Crooklyn” by the Crooklyn Dodgers, a rap crew composed of Buckshot, Masta Ace and Special Ed. A two-volume release of the soundtrack became available on CD along with the release of the film.
Similarly to School Daze, Do the Right Thing and She’s Gotta Have It, Spike Lee appears in Crooklyn. He plays a bully and drug addict named Snuffy.
Crooklyn is one of only two films directed by Spike Lee to earn a PG-13 rating in the USA, the other being 1992’s Malcolm X.
Plot
The movie opens with scenes of a racially mixed neighborhood and their various activities, like hand rhymes, double Dutch, tag, street races, and even the neighborhood children watching the teenagers of their block make out in the alleyways of their block. Nine-year-old Troy (Zelda Harris) and her older brothers Clinton (Carlton Williams), Wendell (Sharif Rashed), Nate (Chris Knowings), and her younger brother, Joseph (Tse-Mach Washington) are introduced as their father Woody (Delroy Lindo) is blowing a horn to call them in from playing to eat dinner. Their mother, Carolyn (Alfre Woodard) is introduced as well. Dinner takes place during which we find out that the Carmichaels’ next-door neighbor, “Tony Eyes” (David Patrick Kelly) seems to be somewhat of a nuisance to the family, which includes continuously singing while they are eating dinner. That night, Carolyn comes home and comedically wakes all of the children up out of their sleep because the kitchen was not cleaned. There’s some argument naturally on the part of the children to which Clinton says, “I’d rather have a father than a mother any day”.
The next day, the neighborhood junkies are introduced: Snuffy (Spike Lee) and Right Hand Man (N. Jeremi Duru), who are glue sniffers. Tommy La La (Jose Zuniga), Clinton, Nate and a couple of their neighborhood friends are sitting on the Carmichael stoop while listening to the radio and playing a baseball board game. Tommy La La takes a bottle and throws it at the door of Tony while yelling homophobic slurs. This starts an argument because Clinton says the Carmichael children always get blamed for the mess on his property. The argument ends as Vic Powell (Isaiah Washington), a war vet, comes home and greets everyone. Vic is renting the upstairs apartment from the Carmichaels. Carolyn comes out to see what is wrong, and Tony tells her that Wendell and her kids are always throwing trash into his area. Carolyn responds by telling him that he and his home are nasty. The arguments continue as the neighborhood kids jump in. Tony is still yelling and arguing when Vic comes downstairs and tells him to shut up. In anger, he punches Tony in the face and goes back into the house. Troy sneaks out and goes to the corner store to get candy. While in the store, she is intrigued by a woman (RuPaul) and one of the store owners dancing erotically in the store. As Troy leaves the store to walk back home, she sees Vic getting arrested for punching Tony.
One night, Woody and Carolyn are downstairs arguing because Woody’s music is not providing for the family and Carolyn, a schoolteacher is the sole provider. They are also arguing because Woody caused the family to have bounced checks. The argument escalates as Carolyn yells upstairs for the children to turn off the TV because it is a school night. She charges upstairs with Woody following and turns off the TV. A defiant Clinton argues with Carolyn and turns on the TV. Carolyn grabs him up for disobeying and disrespecting her and Woody grabs her and carries her out of the room. Everyone is in on the fight as Woody is dragging Carolyn down the stairs and Nate is jumping on Woody’s back. The other children have a hold of Carolyn pulling her in the opposite direction and Carolyn hurts her ankle in the struggle. Woody yells and everyone gets quiet as he expresses his need to respect for his work in the house. Carolyn kicks him out of the house. Woody comes over the next morning and brings flowers for Troy to give to Carolyn. Troy brings the flowers to Carolyn, and soon she and Woody get back together. They all decide to go on a trip to get out of the neighborhood but as they are leaving a worker from Con Ed comes by to shut off the electricity because the bill is unpaid. The trip is postponed and because of the situation, the family has to use candles for light.
A few days later, the family leaves Brooklyn to take Nate and Troy down South to stay with relatives. Troy stays with her cousin Viola (Patriece Nelson), who was adopted by Uncle Clem (Norman Matlock) and Aunt Song (Frances Foster). Troy doesn’t want to stay, but she does it to appease her mother. Troy eventually starts having fun with Viola despite a dislike of Aunt Song and her beloved dog, Queenie. On Troy’s 10th birthday, she gets a letter from Carolyn (who narrates it) telling her about the happenings in the neighborhood since the weeks she’s been away. After reading the letter, Troy decides she wants to go home. Meanwhile, Aunt Song has been looking for her lost dog, Queenie all day. At Troy’s birthday sleep-over, Queenie is located when she pops out having been accidentally closed into the fold-out couch which deeply upsets Aunt Song. When Troy returns to Brooklyn picked up from the airport by her Aunt Maxine (Joie Lee) and Uncle Brown (Vondie Curtis-Hall) she is eventually told her mother is in the hospital and is taken to see her.
Later, Woody takes Troy home and Troy decides to clean & mop the kitchen without being told. Later that evening, Woody tells the kids that their mother is sicker than she thought and must stay in the hospital for more tests. The boys cry, but Troy remains stoic. In the next scene, Troy walks through a public park with her brothers while singing a children’s gospel song she learned at her cousin’s down South. One of her brothers wonder if they might have to dress up for their mother’s funeral revealing either their mother has died or is near death. The day of the funeral Troy is approached by her Aunt Maxine (played in life by Joie Lee, the author and the grown Troy) and tries to coax her into trying the new clothes she’s brought. Troy lashes out angrily that her mother would never let her wear polyester. She announces that she is not going to the funeral when Woody calls her down. Woody explains that they’re all in pain but Carolyn would want them all together at church. At the house gathering after the funeral, Troy is withdrawn when Clinton (the character based on Spike Lee as a boy) approaches her and silently takes her hand to comfort her, showing a small sign of kindness. Joseph comes inside crying, saying that Snuffy and Right Hand Man are making fun of him because their mother was dead and they robbed him. Following her mother’s wishes to protect her younger brother, Troy goes outside with a baseball bat and hits Snuffy in the head drawing blood. Much like her mother Troy tells him to go sniff glue on his own block.
Early the next morning, Troy is restless as she dreams she’s hearing her mother’s voice shouting. She goes downstairs saying she doesn’t like it when her parents fight, but instead sees it’s her father making a racket trying to kill a rat in the kitchen. Troy not fully awake says “Mommy?” Woody tells her Mommy’s gone and that its all right to cry. Troy runs to the bathroom to throw-up and Woody consoles her. Woody says that they’ve all been wondering when she was going to break, meaning to finally show her grief. He says that even Clinton has cried. Troy concludes that its good that her mother isn’t still in a lot of pain. This scene is scored with the song “Ain’t No Sunshine When She’s Gone.”
There are scenes of the neighborhood continuing to play much like the beginning of the movie. Troy is sitting in Carolyn’s old barber’s chair with Joseph sitting in her lap while she combs his hair the way Carolyn did. Then, Carolyn is seen sitting on the stoop narrating a letter that Troy imagines is meant for her, encouraging her from beyond on how she can’t believe that she’s 10 now and how she’s proud of the way she’s growing up. Troy is coping with her mother’s absence by imagining that her mother is only away and can still write to her the way she did when Troy was down South. Her fantasy is interrupted when the neighborhood kids come to the window for Joseph. Troy tells him not to go far because dinner is almost ready. Troy surveys the neighborhood as Carolyn used to from the stoop. The end credits play over old footage of episodes of “Soul Train” with its original closing music. The score then changes to a contemporary rap song written for the film by The Crooklyn Dodgers featuring Special Ed, Buckshot and Masta Ace. The dancers of the original “Soul Train” series seem to keep time with and dance to the contemporary rap music
1995 Clockers
Clockers is a 1995 American crime drama film directed by Spike Lee. It is an adaptation of the eponymous 1992 novel by Richard Price, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Lee. The film stars Harvey Keitel, John Turturro, Delroy Lindo, and Mekhi Phifer in his debut film role. Set in New York City, Clockers tells the story of Strike (Phifer), a street-level drug dealer who becomes entangled in a murder investigation.
Plot summary
In a Brooklyn housing project, a group of “clockers” – street-level drug dealers – sell drugs for Rodney Little (Delroy Lindo), a local drug lord. Rodney tells Ronald “Strike” Dunham (Mekhi Phifer), one of his lead clockers, that another dealer, Darryl Adams (Steve White), is stealing from him and “got to be got”, implying that he wants Strike to kill Darryl. Strike then meets with his brother, Victor Dunham (Isaiah Washington) and tries to persuade Victor to kill Darryl Adams.
Rocco Klein (Harvey Keitel) and Larry Mazilli (John Turturro), homicide detectives, ride to the scene of Darryl Adams’ murder. Larry and Rocco receive a phone call from another detective who says a man has confessed at a local church that he killed Darryl. The police meet Strike’s older brother Victor at the church and take him in for questioning. In the interrogation room, Victor tells Rocco that he shot Darryl Adams in self-defense. Rocco finds holes in this story and starts looking into Victor’s background which includes two jobs, a wife, two children, no criminal record, and aspirations to move out of the projects; Rocco comes to the conclusion that Victor is covering for his younger brother.
Rocco pressures Strike but Victor sticks to his story, so Rocco convinces Rodney that Strike has confessed and informed on Rodney’s drug ring. Rocco arrests Rodney and then humiliates Strike in front of his crew. Strike gets together some money and decides to leave town, but a younger boy who admired Strike shoots Errol, Rodney’s enforcer, with Strike’s gun. Rocco lets Strike leave town.
Hey 3CP! Give Pete Sessions a call about his disrespectful comment to President Obama.
Call @PeteSessions (202) 225-2231 DC – Texans use (972) 392-0505 Dallas. He should resign immediately.
You can watch the interview video at this link:
http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2013/8/9/pete_seeger_onondaga_leader_oren_lyons_on_fracking_indigenous_struggles_and_hiroshima_bombing
Aug 9, 2013
Time to Pay the Price for Slavery
The brutality of 12 Years a Slave is a reminder that America’s debt remains unpaid and largely overlooked.
http://www.theroot.com/views/time-pay-price-slavery
The Root) — The film 12 Years a Slave is a virtuosic and unrelenting depiction of pre-Civil War American slavery as seen through the eyes of a free black man lured into human trafficking at best, and damnation at the very least. To some, it’s one superlative art form — Solomon Northup’s literary masterpiece of the same name — masterfully molded into director Steve McQueen’s most superior cinematic feat to date. Hopefully for others it’s all of the above, as well as a glaring reminder that America hasn’t levied proper reparations for the brutality it legalized and sustained for generations.
Knowing that scenes from the film were purged of their viciousness in order to meet motion picture guidelines, one can only imagine what slaves around the globe endured. The recent New York Times article “Caribbean Nations to Seek Reparations, Putting Price on Damage of Slavery” poses the oft-cited dilemma in seeking reparations: Is it possible for a nation to put a value on centuries of human desecration, mass murder, kidnapping, rape and forced servitude? And if these island nations believe historical wrongs have resulted in modern-day inequities for which reparations are due, why hasn’t America — a purported beacon of democracy and equality — offered ancestors of African-American slaves any redress?
How can a country compensate for denying an entire race its human liberties and decencies? And what should be given to the descendants of those souls who were ferried across their very own River Acheron to a life — if it can be called such — in the underworld that would make Dante’s Inferno seem like a holiday sojourn?
For centuries, black men and women could be bought and sold. Today the question remains: What’s a crushed spirit worth? And shall it be multiplied if that one lost soul then begat a generation and more of the same? Could 40 acres and a mule ever serve as proper penance for the untold millions of Africans who died during the transatlantic slave trade, their bodies left to litter the ocean floor? What does one pay another for lives shaped by an antebellum South that led 19th-century social observer Edward King to conclude in 1875 (pdf) that “as a social factor he [the negro] is intended to be as purely zero as the brute at the other end of his plowline”?
Here is what I posted on another blog this week:
.
.
The time is NOW for Whites to stop avoiding responsibility for the deeds of the past.
We, as Whites, have to acknowledge that we still as a group are benefiting materially from the heinous White practices of the past.
We, as Whites, have to make amends.
We morally must pay this debt by repairing the damage that STILL exists today that was caused by slavery, by the corrupt convict leasing system, by disenfranchisement of our fellow Black citizens, by the practices of Jim Crow, by racist practices in hiring, by stereotyping and profiling, etc. and by the embedded White structure system that still exists today.
Until Blacks and other minorities possess the same benefits and advantages that Whites enjoy, we as Whites have not accomplished the work that needs to be done. Until all of White society tosses its White privilege out….. and demands AND secures equality for all of our citizens, our work is not done.
Bravo, Yahtc!
Have you seen 12 Years a Slave? I haven’t seen it yet. I want to see it with my family.
Our society needs to make a huge number of well paying jobs available to the Black community and also see to it that local governments DO GIVE federal money earmarked for inner city schools TO those schools and not keep it for the states’ other schools.
It is also time to confess to the sins of the past, do the sentence and pay up.
I am eagerly awaiting getting to see the movie, SG2.
I keep looking at local theater schedules for it.
NC GOPer Resigns After Making Racist Comments On ‘Daily Show’.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/nc-goper-fired-for-making-racist-comments-on-daily-show-video
A Republican precinct chairman in North Carolina was asked to resign Thursday after making racially inflammatory comments during a ‘Daily Show’ interview, WRAL reported.
Buncombe GOP Chair Henry Mitchell said Don Yelton resigned for making remarks that were “offensive, uniformed and unacceptable of any member within the Republican Party.”
In an interview centered on North Carolina’s voter ID law conducted by the Daily Show’s Aasif Mandvi, Yelton criticized “lazy black people that wants the government to give them everything.”
“The bottom line is the law is not racist,” Yelton said.
“Of course the law isn’t racist, and you’re not racist,” Mandvi responded.
“Well,” Yelton paused. “I’ve been called a bigot before. Let me tell you something, you don’t look like me but I think I’ve treated you the same as anybody else. As a matter of fact, one of my best friends is black. One of my best friends.
“When I was a young man you didn’t call a black a black,” he added later. “You called him a negro.”
BREAKING
3chics……you can erase these last two. Can’t figure out why the interview with Andy Warhol does not show up.
Please and Thanks!
Did I get the right ones, Yahtc?
Sort of :) Thanks.
Now you can eliminate one of these duplicate videos, please.
Sure.
@keithboykin
Republicans Marsha Blackburn and Joe Barton spent 10 minutes questioning if ACA website was HIPPA compliant and Frank Pallone slammed them.
@rkref
Rep. Frank Pallone points out that no HIPPA-covered data is entered by enrollees so the GOP trolling about HIPPA is all crap.
@keithboykin
Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) to Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) at House ACA Hearings: “No I will not yield to this monkey court.”
http://youtu.be/QqBtRQGSWGY
Here we go again… GOP = BENGHAZI, IRS, BP OIL SPILL, SYRIA,OBAMACARE, IMPEACHMENT, OH MY!
GOP= No GOVERNING, NO JOBS, NO TAXES,NO COLOREDS, NO IMMIGRANTS, NO ABORTIONS, NO SAME-SEX MARRIAGE, NO WOMEN, NO CHILDREN, NO ELDERLY. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Pete Sessions sitting in our government with his kkk hood off disrespecting our President. GTFO!
Sessions speaks for the BULK of white men in Washington. They handle all that BLACKNESS in the Oval Office. Where’s that SWAGGER video?
Get your racist ugly a** out of our government Pete Sessions. I can’t stand to look at your racist a**.
Racist POS Pete Sessions was the one who told President Obama “I cannot even stand to look at you”.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/24/harry-reid-pete-sessions_n_4156453.html?utm_hp_ref=tw
WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told his Democratic caucus last week in a private meeting that a top House Republican said to President Barack Obama, “I cannot even stand to look at you,” according to two Democratic senators who were present, and confirmed by two Senate Democratic aides who said they independently learned of the exchange from two other senators.
The two senators were not in the meeting where the Republican reportedly made the remark, but said a top White House aide who was there told Senate Democratic leaders about it.
The revelation from the senators sheds new light on a Capitol Hill whodunit that burst into the public sphere when Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) shared the exchange on his Facebook page on Sunday. (The two senators at the private meeting requested anonymity to talk about it; neither of them are Durbin.)
I disagreed with BooMan on this article.
Barack Obama showed the way.
Barack Obama won the Presidency not once, but twice,
WITHOUT NEEDING ONE SOUTHERN STATE.
it was nice that he won the ones that he did
but he would be President BOTH TIMES
WITHOUT NEEDING ONE SOUTHERN STATE.
Barack Obama rendered the South ..
ELECTORALLY IRRELEVANT.
………………………
You Lose Virginia, You Lose the Presidency
by BooMan
Wed Oct 23rd, 2013 at 10:29:41 PM EST
If you go to 270towin.com, you can use their Electoral College calculator to play around with the results. What I want you to do is to load up the 2016 map and then try changing different states from blue to red until you find a combination of states that Romney lost that some future Republican presidential candidate might win that would be sufficient to win them the election. I’ll give you a straightforward example. If a Republican were to hold all the states that Romney won and add Florida, Virginia, Ohio, and New Hampshire, they would get exactly 270 electoral votes, the minimum required to win the presidential election.
But here is my wrinkle. Try getting to 270 for the Republicans without giving them Virginia.
There are a couple of possibilities, but they aren’t too promising. Simply replacing Virginia with Colorado and Nevada would do it, but those states’ demographics are moving rapidly out of reach for the Republicans. Maybe Colorado and Iowa would be a slightly more plausible bet. Neither of those combinations would work, however, if the Republicans could not win New Hampshire. If you take New Hampshire out of the picture, either the Republicans would have to win Colorado, Nevada, and Iowa, or they’d have to flip a big industrial state in the Midwest that hasn’t voted for a Republican since 1992.
All these scenarios presuppose that the Republicans can carry North Carolina, which John McCain could not do in 2008 and Mitt Romney barely accomplished in 2012. As I said, too, these scenarios presuppose that the Republicans can carry Florida and Ohio, which neither McCain nor Romney were able to do.
Simply put, if Virginia becomes a blue state, any GOP candidate is going to be completely behind the eight ball. And that is why it is completely mystifying that the Republicans just decided to shut down the government and destroy their image and brand in Virginia. To see the kind of damage they did to themselves, go to Real Clear Politics and look at the graph that tracks the gubernatorial polls over time. Look at what happened to the polls as soon as the shutdown started. It isn’t entirely unpredictable, but the visual is nonetheless astounding.
The government shutdown was a suicidal maneuver on the national level. When you pair it with the House Republicans’ refusal to have even a vote on immigration reform, which will cripple them in Colorado and Nevada, they have almost handed the 2016 presidential contest to the Democrats before the candidates have even announced themselves.
I truly believe that if we could sit every Republican member of Congress down and explain exactly how badly they have fucked the party on the national level, that it might actually result in the kind of moderation that no amount of cajoling and rhetoric could achieve.
YEP And that’s why THEY’RE MAD.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/10/23/boost-minority-students-study-abroad/3171991/
http://www.pahomepage.com/story/african-american-network-opens-in-monroe-county/d/story/wQnHQszQ0UCu0JwZi-TWcQ
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20131024005085/en/Picture-Book-Explores-Little-Known-Musical-Milestone-African
http://www.afro.com/sections/news/afro_briefs/story.htm?storyid=80153
http://washingtoninformer.com/news/2013/oct/23/new-jimi-hendrix-film-way/
<blockquote.Diddy Says He'll Become First African American Majority Owner Of NFL Team
http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/news/id.25934/title.diddy-says-he-ll-become-first-african-american-majority-owner-of-nfl-team
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/race/report/2013/10/24/77546/the-state-of-women-of-color-in-the-united-states-2/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/24/offensive-words-_n_4144472.html
I am sick after just listening to the first minute.
I’ll have to take a break before I can listen to any more of it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i52H2Pqa9Oc
Thank you for these Rachael Maddow reports, Ametia.
Denzel Washington was ROBBED of an OSCAR for MALCOLM X!
Denzel Washington was absolutely fantastic in that role!!
Under Bush, Republicans Vigorously Defended Health Care Reform Despite Serious Glitches
By Igor Volsky on October 24, 2013 at 8:49 am
Millions of Americans try to enroll in health care benefits during the first days of a new government health care program. They rely on indispensable government website that had been “pitched as a high-tech way” to sort through available coverage options. They’re encountering countless glitches and technical errors: the website freezes, displays incorrect plan information and sends insurers erroneous reports.
Administration officials — clearly caught off guard by the surge of technical difficulties — respond to “tens of thousands of complaints” from angry beneficiaries and promise to “fix every problem as quickly possible.”
This sounds like the familiar story of the last few days of the Obama administration’s rollout of the exchanges. But, actually, those quotes, and that scenario, are taken from the Bush administration’s efforts to implement the Medicare prescription drug benefit in 2005 and 2006.
Not only was Bush’s rollout “anything but smooth,” but administration officials had “some trouble getting the [online] tool up and running” and had to delay its debut for weeks. What’s more, computer glitches caused low-income beneficiaries to go without needed medications and sent pharmacies the wrong drug information. Before it was all resolved, Dr. Mark McClellan, Bush’s head of the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), appeared at hearings before the House Committee On Energy And Commerce, laying out the flaws in the law’s implementation and detailing how the administration would address them.
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/10/24/2828261/hearing-post/
Good Morning 3Chics,
Thanks again for the Spike Thread. Seeing that Jet cover reminds me of something I tell my daughter daily: ignorance…is not an option. Have a good day all.
Hi Tyren. Rik’s bringing it with Spike. His work is prolific.
Belle- It’s a period drama about a black woman! It’s the true story of Dido Elizabeth Belle, the illegitimate biracial daughter of an English aristocrat. And it’s directed by a black British woman.
http://youtu.be/94LgIVL-UlQ
I’m def looking forward to seeing “BELLE.”
I am so looking forward to seeing this great film!
In Case You Missed It
Video Recommendations for Postable Videos
Voter ID Laws aren’t just against minorities…..a whole lotta women (particularly White women) are about to get a wakeup call.
Here is the story of a TEXAS FEMALE JUDGE that got snagged by the new Voter ID Law
http://on.msnbc.com/1if4jxA
So why today does wannabe Gov. Wendy Davis trash talk glitches? She’s gonna need AG Holder to restore her main constituency (WF) voter eligibility. Somebody, anybody should have told her to back tf up. Oh well.
SG2, I think you’re down there. Are Black people feeling Wendy like the media is? I’ve seen her pose with the Castros but not any Black politicians. Just curious.
Wendy Davis will soon be like Bill White if she keeps this up. Let me find her on Twitter to tell her a little sumin sumin…
She BET not mess with us.
College Student Stands For Obamacare, Conservatives Lose Their Minds
The right wing just cannot stand an Obamacare success story told by a college student. They’d much rather watch Koch-fueled Generation Opportunity’s creepy web ads, I guess. So it comes to pass that the student in the ad was “outed” by NRO as being a guy majoring in computer science who managed his local Democratic party’s website.
McNaughton posted a rather lengthy comment on that post responding to commenters’ flames and false assumptions about why he made the ad and why he chose the plan he did.
That unleashed a torrent of hate. In the name of accuracy, here is my response to some of the commenters who seem to represent the usual ACA haters making the rounds.
http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/college-student-stands-obamacare-conservati?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
http://youtu.be/b_jnE3OdxNw
A few good men
10/23/13 04:00 PM
By Steve Benen
A few weeks ago, House Republicans thought they’d come up with a clever little public-relations stunt. They’d send House GOP leaders to a conference room, position them opposite empty chairs, and show how eager they are to “ready to negotiate.”
The plan backfired spectacularly. Republicans chose eight middle-aged, far-right white guys, most of whom are from the south, and lined them up next to each other. When they promoted the photo, GOP officials never stopped to notice that everyone in the room looked remarkably similar to one another.
As bipartisan, bicameral budget talks draw closer, the notoriety surrounding the p.r. stunt gone wrong has lingered in the Republican consciousness, and House Speaker actually found a woman to participate in the negotiations.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/few-good-men
Bette Midler @BetteMidler5m
All the GOP blah blah about the healthcare glitches taking too long and costing too much. 4 words 4 you: Weapons Of Mass Destruction.
I <3 BETTE! You GO, WOMAN.
Hayes Brown@HayesBrown
GOP in 2005: You guys, glitches to Medicare Part D are no biggie. Chill.
GOP in 2013: #IMPEACH
http://thkpr.gs/1ifRMKo via @igorvolsky
Good Morning, Everyone :)
Good Morning, Rikyrah & Everyone! :-)))
Good Morning, Rikyrah, Ametia, and Everyone!
I look forward to reading your Spike Lee article and watching the videos, rikyrah!
Good morning, everyone! Is it Friday, yet?
We’re getting closer to FRY-day. LOL