Happy Saturday, Everyone. Here are a few of my favorites movie soundtracks. Enjoy!
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Black Girls Rock!
Flickr Photos
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Potus Takes Oath of Office
Flotus & Daughters at Great Wall of China
My Brothers Keeper
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AFRO PUFFS
Most Adorable Shoe Stealer
Six Little Babies
Fatherhood
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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.
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3Chics Action Alert
Lets Make It Happen
3 Chics Trio
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REALITY Blog Award
Recent Comments
Top Posts
Guard The Change
Vote 4 Democrats
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Go to the polls
President Barack Obama
First Lady Michelle Obama
Obama Love
Your Vote Matters
President Obama & Bo
The Obama Family
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Presidential hug
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“Thanksgiving and Hanukkah converge — it’s Thanksgivukkah”
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/11/23/3774690/thanksgiving-and-hanukkah-converge.html
After days of intense negotiation in Geneva, Iran and diplomats from six nations, including Secretary of State John F. Kerry, have reached a deal on Iran’s nuclear program, according to a European Union negotiator.
Read more at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/kerry-in-geneva-raising-hopes-for-historic-nuclear-deal-with-iran/2013/11/23/53e7bfe6-5430-11e3-9fe0-fd2ca728e67c_story.html
Lucy McBath (Jordan Davis’ mother) has begun a new petition:
REPEAL STAND YOUR GROUND LAWS ACROSS AMERICA
It is time for the 80 million mothers of America to stand our ground and demand the repeal of all Stand Your Ground Laws in more than 20 states across America. Collectively, we can use our votes and our voices to change policies and laws that will help keep American children out of the line of fire. We call on all governors in affected states to work to repeal this needless and dangerous law.
Why is this important?
Stand Your Ground laws do not promote healthy conflict resolution. Too often they foster an “attack” response or even worse, vigilante “justice”. And because easy access to guns and concealed carry laws make lethal weapons immediately available to most anyone – including the untrained and irresponsible – that attack response becomes deadly.
A recent Texas A&M study analyzed 20 states with Stand Your Ground laws, including Florida, and found that the laws do not deter violent crime. In fact, there is a clear increase in homicides in those states, resulting in hundreds more shooting deaths nationwide each year. Stand Your Ground laws also disproportionately affect communities of color. According to an Urban Institute study, when white shooters kill black victims, 34 percent of the resulting homicides are deemed justifiable, while only 3 percent of deaths are ruled justifiable when the shooter is black and the victim is white.
It is time to repeal Stand Your Ground laws.
Protect our Children
Lucy McBath, spokesperson for Moms Demand Action and mother of Jordan Davis, a 17-year-old who was shot and killed in Florida last year by a man who will likely use Stand Your Ground laws as his defense at trial next year, said, “Kill first, explain later is not justice – I know this first-hand. Children and adults who may simply be in the wrong place at the wrong time are now more likely to die at the hands of the armed and angry. This is unacceptable. Shooting to kill then asking questions later is not acceptable in any community, ever.”
Help us protect our children today by signing this petition.
Thank you,
Lucia McBath and Shannon Watts
Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America
Lucia McBath is a national spokesperson for Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America and Shannon Watts is the founder.
You can find the petition at this link:
http://bit.ly/H2HdhX
Cancer survivor: Obamacare got me covered
By Lori Greenstein Bremner
updated 2:06 PM EST, Thu November 21, 2013
Editor’s note: Lori Greenstein Bremner is a cancer survivor, a single mother and a self-employed real estate agent in Sonoma, California, who struggled to obtain and afford health insurance for more than three decades after her diagnosis. She is on the volunteer board of directors of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network.
(CNN) — As a 36-year cancer survivor, I am watching with great interest as the debate rages over whether the Affordable Care Act strengthens the individual insurance market, as the law’s supporters contend, or dismantles it, as critics say. Having been repeatedly denied health coverage I needed and wanted to buy because of my pre-existing condition, I know that provisions of the law can dramatically improve the quality and cost of insurance for people shopping for coverage on their own.
I was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia as a college student. After nearly five years of aggressive chemotherapy, immunotherapy, bone marrow harvests and more, I was cancer-free. My cancer has never returned, but since then I have waged a battle of a different kind — a three-decade struggle to obtain quality, affordable coverage.
I spent a few years on my parents’ health plan as a student — long before the new law guaranteed that parents’ policies can cover their children through age 26. Later I joined my husband’s work-based plan.
Lori Greenstein Bremner
Lori Greenstein Bremner
It wasn’t until he got laid off and our COBRA coverage expired that I discovered how difficult it would be to buy a health plan on my own. I shopped around, but as soon as I revealed my pre-existing condition, I was denied coverage — no further questions asked. My appeals were unsuccessful, and insurers wouldn’t even sell me a plan at some sky-high price. I went to California’s high-risk pool for uninsured people with pre-existing conditions, but the option to pay $1,800 a month for flimsy coverage that would have left my three young children uninsured was not really an option at all.
After months of searching, I found an expensive plan with limited benefits through a professional association, and ever since I have paid to be a member of the organization just so I can maintain coverage. For 15 years my sons and I have struggled to afford the plan’s annual deductibles of up to $3,000 per person and monthly premiums that have risen about 30% each year.
Every couple of years I reduced our coverage and gave up our trusted providers to avoid yet another premium increase, until we reached the plan’s minimum coverage level. Now a single mom with three sons to put through college, I’ve had to make some very tough choices.
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I visited California’s marketplace, CoveredCA.com, on October 1 — the day it went live. At first I encountered technical problems, as so many others have, that were caused in part by the large number of people trying to find coverage. But I knew I had until December 15 to enroll for coverage to begin January 1. Recently I tried again and enrolled in my chosen plan in about 15 minutes.
In January, for the first time since my diagnosis 36 years ago, I will have an individual health plan that offers quality coverage for me and my family. I will save $628 every month on premiums. Best of all — I wasn’t even asked if I’ve ever had cancer.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/21/opinion/bremner-obamacare-coverage/index.html?hpt=op_t1
https://twitter.com/NerdyWonka/status/404071494277267456/photo/1
She is sooooooo pretty!
https://twitter.com/NerdyWonka/status/404069477404250113/photo/1
For those who are fans…tonight is the Dr. Who Anniversary…check it out on BBC America.
Michelle Obama a ‘feminist nightmare’? Please.
11/23/13 12:30 PM
By Melissa Harris-Perry
When Lyndon B. Johnson became president, he brought with him a new first lady. Lady Bird Johnson’s passion was beautification. It was dismissed by some as a silly project, just planting daffodils by the side of the road.
But it was more.
Lady Bird was one of the first environmentalists, one with access to the legislative resources of the powerful Johnson White House. She gathered experts and brought the issue of conservation to the nation’s attention. Her work led to the passage of 50 bills protecting national parks and removing billboards and junkyards from the highways. Her work was more than just wildflowers.
I was reminded of the inability of some commentators to see the real work of first ladies this week when I read a piece in POLITICO Magazine, calling first lady Michelle Obama a “feminist nightmare.” And that’s why my letter this week is to the Washington reporter who wrote that story, Michelle Cottle.
Dear Michelle Cottle,
Are you serious?
You–or your handful of “feminist” sources–claim that first lady Obama is not a feminist because she says her most important job is being “mom-in-chief” to her two daughters.
In a week when right-wing hatred of the president forced a nuclear change in the very rules of the Senate, your advice to the first lady is to come roaring out of the White House battling for reproductive rights?
You wring your hands about first lady Obama’s quote “safely and soothingly domestic” issues. You quote a feminist who “marvels that someone of the first lady’s ‘capacities and education has done so little of substance.‘ “
Given how simplistic your piece is, let me make this very simple: you are wrong.
You’re wrong to write off the first lady’s priorities as fluff. She is fighting childhood obesity, one of the biggest public health crises of our time. And she’s not out there just flexing her biceps and mom-dancing with Jimmy Fallon–her Let’s Move campaign has helped thousands of child care programs offer healthier food and more exercise. And for the first time in years the CDC says there’s a significant decline in obesity in pre-schoolers.
The first lady is not playing it safe with this work. She has drawn plenty of right-wing criticism. No, Ms. Cottle, not everyone loves a vegetable garden.
You also dismiss the first lady’s new effort to get more low-income students into higher education by saying it’s not “exactly climbing out on a political limb.” But a college degree has everything to do with economic mobility and who gets to be in the middle class, and right now only about a third of students in the poorest families go to college. And only about a tenth graduate.
The president has been ridiculed as an elitist for suggesting that more people go to college. So if you think there’s no political risk, maybe you haven’t been paying attention. Also, you misunderstand the place Michelle Obama occupies as the first African-American first lady. You seem to think she is steering clear of the “Angry Black Woman” stereotype.
But when she calls herself mom-in-chief, she is rejecting a different stereotype–the role of Mammy. She is saying that her daughters–her vulnerable, brilliant, beautiful black daughters–are the most important thing to her. The first lady is saying, “You, Miss Ann, will have to clean your own house, because I will be caring for my own.” Instead of agreeing that the public sphere is more imporant than Sasha and Malia, she buried Mammy and embraced being a mom on her own terms.
So that can be your feminist nightmare, but it is my black motherhood dream.
And on a strategic note, Miss Cottle: before we enter the 2016 election cycle and the feminists come asking black women for our support for your candidate, you might want to read up a bit on black women and our feminism. I can send you a syllabus!
Sincerely,
Melissa
http://www.msnbc.com/melissa-harris-perry/michelle-obama-no-ones-feminist-nightmare
Good Morning, Everyone! :-)
I have been enjoying your movie soundtracks, Ametia! Thank you!
YVW, Yahtc. Glad you’re enjoying the music. Whew; it’s cold as a well digger’s arse today!
There is a white dusting on the ground, here.
Wishing all of you a GREAT weekend!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=pY2VEPC0eW0
“Soundies: Black Music from the 1940s”
Uploaded by The Riverbends Channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=T9cZF2dOZPM
Charlie Parker & Lester Young – Embraceable You
“Hey Soul Sister by Chidi Okoye and Train – Fine Art ”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=4CTk7dHrviA
“Drum and Dance Part 1 by Chidi Okoye Paintings & Sculptures”
I’m so loving this dance off between a young Piston fan & the Usher. It’s epic! When I posted it yesterday it had 2300 or so views. Today it has 437, 336 views.
***dancing***
Wow, that many views!
This is such a GREAT video!
http://www.chicagodefender.com/index.php/news/focus/27959-power-moves-black-women-fastest-growing-entrepreneurs-in-the-u-s
“The Presidents’ RoundTable 30th Anniversary Gala Scholarship Awards Program”
November 22, 2013
http://www.afro.com/sections/news/afro_briefs/story.htm?storyid=80503
http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2013/11/07/243783500/meet-the-entrepreneur-who-wants-to-change-silicon-valley
Excerpt:
http://www.blackengineer.com/artman/publish/article_1658.shtml
http://insightnews.com/business/11470-professor-impacts-black-entrepreneurs-outside-of-the-classroom
http://citypaper.net/article.php?Black-entrepreneur-says-he-s-told-he-doesn-t-look-black-enough-for-minority-certification-16692
Great links, Yathc. Thank you.
“Black World” by David Nelson*
*Note: In the original publication the words of this poem are artistically place across the page.
http://youtu.be/xIZ2c09Ejy8
Good Morning, Everyone :)
Good Morning, Rikyrah, Yahtc & everyone! Happy Saturday!
MAYA ANGELOU – STILL I RISE
“BLACKNESS AND FREEDOM” by David Nelson*
*Note: In the original publication the words of this poem are artistically place across the page.
http://sandiegofreepress.org/2013/11/how-privatizers-are-killing-our-schools/
Candace Allen – The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/19/john-f-kennedy-assassination-racial-equality-jfk
“Africa: Imagining Ourselves – What Does It Mean to Be Part of the African Diaspora?”
BY JEAN-PHILIPPE DEDIEU, 21 NOVEMBER 2013
http://allafrica.com/stories/201311221137.html
Marian Wright Edelman | 11/20/2013
http://washingtoninformer.com/news/2013/nov/20/marian-wright-edelman-we-need-immigration-reform-n/
http://www.theeagle.com/news/texas/article_f41319de-4e09-11e3-a288-001a4bcf887a.html
http://thegrio.com/2013/11/22/harry-belafonte-jfk-knew-little-about-black-struggles/#53623273
http://www.boston.com/news/local/connecticut/2013/11/23/pride-follows-harp-election-new-haven-mayor/NfzqpWznO0rXmLEPosKz5L/story.html
http://www.kpbs.org/news/2013/nov/22/san-diego-students-preserve-history-first-african-/
The morning is nigh
My hopes are high
For world rebirth
“ONE”
by Nathan Chan