Thursday Open Thread | Nature Week: Dolphins

Posted on April 7, 2016 by SouthernGirl2

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Nature week is dedicated to Rikyrah’s co/worker/friend in Chicago who passed away. A lover of nature. This week is for you and your mentor, boo.

About SouthernGirl2

A Native Texan who adores baby kittens, loves horses, rodeos, pomegranates, & collect Eagles. Enjoys politics, games shows, & dancing to all types of music. Loves discussing and learning about different cultures. A Phi Theta Kappa lifetime member with a passion for Social & Civil Justice.
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72 Responses to Thursday Open Thread | Nature Week: Dolphins

  3. SouthernGirl2 says:
    April 7, 2016 at 8:20 pm

    Now that Hillary has the black votes from AA in the south…Bill Clinton can now tell blk ppl what he thinks of them

    Reply
  4. rikyrah says:
    April 7, 2016 at 7:23 pm

    SG2,

    Thank you so much for this week.

    We are going to have a memorial for her at work tomorrow. I helped with the book we were putting together on her. A lot of the morning texts that she sent me. It’s still hard to go over to the side of the office where she worked.

    Thanks so much for what you’ve done this week.

    Reply
  5. rikyrah says:
    April 7, 2016 at 7:21 pm

    what did Clinton do now?

    do I even want to know?

    Reply
  6. Liza says:
    April 7, 2016 at 7:08 pm

    Where @BillClinton basically defends his horrific crime bill and the use of the Super-Predator term. Complete Messhttps://t.co/LetbsqyV8e— Shaun King (@ShaunKing) April 7, 2016

    //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Reply
  7. SouthernGirl2 says:
    April 7, 2016 at 7:07 pm

    Just call black people..ni**as, Bill Clinton. Get it off your chest. You know damn well you want to, mofo!

    Reply
  8. SouthernGirl2 says:
    April 7, 2016 at 6:55 pm

    I didn’t think I could despise Bill Clinton anymore….. until today. Racist sob to the 10th power!

    Reply
  12. rikyrah says:
    April 7, 2016 at 2:03 pm

    The Price on Our Heads: New GapKids Ad Sparks Racially Charged Controversy
    This Gap ad is what happens when black faces appear but no black voices are at the table.

    BY: KIRSTEN WEST SAVALI
    Posted: April 3 2016 9:33 AM

    ………….

    It was with these thoughts in mind that I saw the Ellen DeGeneres-fronted GapKids x ED ad featuring Ava, 8; Lucy, 8; Fanny, 12; and Angelina, 12, known collectively as Le Petit Cirque, “the only all-kid humanitarian cirque company in the world.” The image of these girls, three white and one black, was socialized with the tweet “Meet the kids who are proving that girls can do anything”—preferably in Gap cotton.

    While all of the girls are adorable, and indeed, all of them should grow up to be and do anything, it becomes problematic when the black child is positioned to be a white child’s prop. And this isn’t the first time a similarly dehumanizing editorial choice was made. In 2014, online magazine Buro 247 published a story about Dasha Zhukova, the editor-in-chief of Garage magazine. Its feature image was of Zhukova sitting regally in a mannequin chair in the form of a half-naked black woman.

    http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2016/04/gapkids_ad_sparks_racially_charged_controversy.html

    Reply
  16. rikyrah says:
    April 7, 2016 at 1:58 pm

    From Luvvie:

    Because BLACK GIRLS ROCK! 2016 Was Dope: My Recap

    Awesomely Luvvie — April 6, 2016 1 9

    This is the world we live in. It spends far too much time and effort demeaning Black girls, even inadvertently. We are constantly told that we’re not enough or worth protecting or celebrating. This is why BLACK GIRLS ROCK, created by Beverly Bond, is doing priceless work.

    People get all butthurt about us celebrating ourselves. I wrote about that earlier this year too. The hateration in Black girls’ dancery is so real outchea, yo. So this show is one that I do not miss watching every year.

    Every broadcast of Black Girls Rock has me feeling full and proud to see women who are standing in their purpose and being bold without constraints. The quotables are plenty and the entire thing is one long highlight.

    Tracee Ellis Ross was back as host for the 2016 Black Girls Rock! show, and she kicked it off in a red catsuit. She did a tribute to a bunch of musicians, including a piece to her mom, Diana Ross. She threw on a wig and glided across the stage and I howled. Tracee is super underrated as a comedian. The lady is hilarious. She also rocked a hat in tribute to Queen Latifah, doing U-N-I-T-Y. She got in Formation for Beyonce too.

    Reply
  17. rikyrah says:
    April 7, 2016 at 1:55 pm

    uh huh
    uh huh

    Trump would be awful for the GOP. But Dems think Ted Cruz would be a disaster, too.
    By Greg Sargent
    April 6 at 3:31 PM

    Barely moments after Ted Cruz won his big victory in Wisconsin last night, he immediately pivoted towards the general election, declaring that Hillary Clinton should quake in fear of the increasingly likely prospect that she will be facing him, not Donald Trump, in November. Meanwhile, there’s a good case to be made that Cruz could prevail as the GOP nominee, if a contested convention takes place.

    Dems seem to think it might actually happen. Today the pro-Clinton Super PAC Priorities USA Action began running a new digital ad that targets Cruz along with Trump, featuring footage of the Texas Senator declaring that Roe v. Wade is not settled law and calling for the prosecution of Planned Parenthood.

    In an interview with me, Geoff Garin, the pollster for Priorities USA, indicated that his group and Democrats were preparing for the possibility of facing Cruz as diligently as they have been preparing to face Trump — and that in some ways, Cruz might be every bit as ripe a target for Democrats as Trump would be.

    “Cruz would be the most extreme right wing nominee in modern American history,” Garin told me. “He is deeply out of sync with a large majority of voters on social issues. His role in shutting down the government is anathema to most Americans. If Republicans nominate Cruz, they concede any claim to the center whatsoever.”

    Garin cited Cruz’s opposition to Roe v. Wade and his desire to prosecute Planned Parenthood over the sting videos (Trump has actually defended the group’s role in providing health services to women) as well as Cruz’s vow to continue fighting to reverse the Supreme Court’s ruling of a constitutional right to gay marriage.

    “The fact that he wants to defund and prosecute Planned Parenthood puts him at odds with voters in a general election and with women voters in particular,” Garin said. “His desire to roll back the clock on marriage equality will be a deal breaker with a generation of voters.”

    Reply
  21. eliihass says:
    April 7, 2016 at 1:42 pm

    Some day, Bill O’Reilly’s descendants will pull out this picture as proof that their forebear was too best pals with the Obamas…and super close too…

    http://www.whca.net/2013dinner/2013oreilly.jpg

    As will Arianna Huffington’s…

    http://www.whca.net/2013dinner/2013huff660.jpg

    Reply
  22. eliihass says:
    April 7, 2016 at 1:21 pm

    This Kristina Schake woman is so transparently fake and smarmy — and such an obviously slimy and dishonest person…

    I can’t imagine how FLOTUS tolerated her fake a**s for a whole year and some, before she unceremoniously left after she and Jennifer Palmieri overplayed their hand trying to pull their underhanded stunt…

    Look at them fam…we are getting to witness first hand, the very same folks that insinuated themselves into various areas of the Obama administration and did plenty of stealth and outright undermining, and a lot of underhanded stuff… Funny how they all now work for Hillary…natural fit..

    Reply
    • rikyrah says:
      April 7, 2016 at 1:42 pm

      who is she?

      Reply
      • eliihass says:
        April 7, 2016 at 1:47 pm

        She’s now Hillary’s deputy Communications director…The one that worked for FLOTUS and left after she was found colluding with Jennifer Palmieri who was former ineffective White House Communications Director, now Hillary’s Communications director…

        She was on CNN a while ago lying through her teeth ..

        Reply
  26. eliihass says:
    April 7, 2016 at 12:18 pm

    Brian Fallon is despicable…and a flat out liar…Now we understand better why things are the way they are…

    This despicable liar before he became Hillary’s spokesman, was A.G Holder’s press secretary and the spokesperson for the Justice Dept…Before then he worked for Chuck Schumer…

    It all makes sense now..

    And if anyone was wondering why the Washington Post has been acting as the war room for Hillary, and how Jonathan Capehart is all suddenly bold and assertive in his defense of one political candidate…effusive about Hillary and isn’t afraid he might lose his job for being all vocal about his support of Hillary…think Jeff Besos…he now owns the Washington Post…

    Reply
  27. rikyrah says:
    April 7, 2016 at 11:59 am

    Obama admin scores another win by putting ‘customers first’
    04/07/16 08:40 AM—UPDATED 04/07/16 11:32 AM
    By Steve Benen
    It may not seem like a sexy political issue, and no one has ever accused anyone of using new fiduciary rules for click-bait, but the Obama administration made a pretty interesting move yesterday that consumers will like – and Wall Street will not. The New York Times reported:
    The rules governing how financial professionals handle the trillions of dollars they invest on behalf of Americans saving for retirement are about to get a lot tougher.

    The Labor Department, after years of battling Wall Street and the insurance industry, issued new regulations on Wednesday that will require financial advisers and brokers handling individual retirement and 401(k) accounts to act in the best interests of their clients.
    The Times added the administration’s new policy sets off “one of the biggest upheavals in the financial services industry in decades.”

    Labor Secretary Thomas Perez told the paper, “The marketing material that I see from many firms is, ‘We put our customers first.’ This is no longer a marketing slogan. It’s the law.”

    http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/obama-admin-scores-another-win-putting-customers-first

    Reply
  28. eliihass says:
    April 7, 2016 at 11:58 am

    LOL…

    https://twitter.com/LdeRothschild/status/718074277187174400

    Great to see some folks pushing back at fake Lynn de Rothschild ..Can’t even believe the woman has the nerve to think she could be slick…Best for her to keep up with her spiteful, racist, entitled tantrums than to try to do ‘the Hillary’ …the blatantly disingenuous faux-support and faux-defense of the President they both hate and resent, but expediently embrace to exploit his coalition of voters to help her win..

    Reply
  30. rikyrah says:
    April 7, 2016 at 11:40 am

    Republicans see ‘Obamacare’ everywhere, on everything
    04/07/16 11:20 AM—UPDATED 04/07/16 11:26 AM
    By Steve Benen

    We talked earlier about the Obama administration’s new consumer safeguard, protecting investors planning for their retirement. Naturally, the financial industry isn’t pleased, and congressional Republicans are eager to scrap the regulation.

    But note the specifics of the Republican talking points. NPR reported yesterday:
    Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan sides with the brokers, tweeting last week that the final rule would become “Obamacare for financial planning.” He promised to push congressional action to hold up the rule, which will not be fully implemented until January 2018.
    Oh, for goodness sake. Are we stuck in the “Obamacare for _______” framework again? Evidently, yes, and conservative media is only too pleased to go along. (The Daily Caller, on cue, is also complaining about “Obamacare for retirement planning.”)

    To the extent that policy details matter, let’s note that the new financial-industry safeguards bear no resemblance whatsoever to the Affordable Care Act. I suspect that Republicans and their allies know that, but (a) they’re reluctant to fight on Wall Street’s behalf too openly; and (b) for lazy communications directors, simply throwing an “Obamacare” label on everything is vastly easier than thinking.

    http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/republicans-see-obamacare-everywhere-everything

    Reply
  31. eliihass says:
    April 7, 2016 at 11:38 am

    LOL…

    Hillary throws the bomb, and now she’s the victim…and it’s ‘sexism’ because ..woman..

    GTFOH Joan Walsh, Claire Mccaskill and the whole lot of you…

    And don’t even get me started on the patronizing crap they intersperse their smears with…

    ‘…How dare evil, no-good, unqualified Bernie be so hateful and sexist against poor, harmless, super-qualified, innocent victim Hillary…who was minding her own business, busy doing charity work when evil Bernie attacked her out of nowhere…’

    ‘…Bernie is so evil and sexist and a bully…bullying the most qualified candidate in American history…no, world history…horrible…and only because Bernie is jealous and doomed and unqualified…I hope Bernie supporters know how much we love them and we need to unify now so that we can crown Hillary…sorry, make sure that the republicans don’t get in – God forbid…terrible people … as unqualified and as evil as Bernie who isn’t a Democrat by the way…But we need Bernie supporters to know that we love them and that we need to make sure a Democrat not Bernie who is a socialist – ugh…succeeds President Obama who we now love and invoke every chance we get…never mind that we greatly loathed and resented him and never spoke up all these years in support of his policy efforts ..the same policies we now insist only Hillary can ‘protect’….and never mind that those of us elected congresspeople never really did our jobs and were all MIA when he needed help getting things done…but now he’s greaaat…’

    Reply
  34. eliihass says:
    April 7, 2016 at 10:50 am

    The effort to smear and take down Bernie Sanders has shifted into top gear and Hillary and her flunkies including those in the media, are crazy if they think we don’t see them and aren’t onto their shenanigans..

    I can’t repeat this enough…

    I. WILL. NEVER. VOTE. FOR. HILLARY. NEVER.

    And if she thinks that her dirty tricks will expedite Bernie’s departure from the race, and clear the way for her, she has another think coming..

    There happens to be another woman running for the White House as a 3rd party candidate…I will sooner cast my vote for that woman before I ever vote for Hillary…President Obama’s legacy and the country will be just fine…

    This despicable, dirty, strong-arming, desperate politics of the Clintons and their minions, designed around and aimed entirely at advancing the Clintons political and financial interests, will have to be thwarted once and for all…

    And shame on the Democratic party for attempting to use us and our party to advance the political ambitions of one undeserving woman and her even more undeserving husband…

    Reply
  36. rikyrah says:
    April 7, 2016 at 9:59 am

    good luck with that – nominate someone who could only win his home state

    Yet another poll suggests Kasich is Republicans’ best hope in November

    A poll released Wednesday shows Bernie Sanders trailing Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania by six points, while both Democratic candidates lag behind Ohio Gov. John Kasich in a hypothetical fall match-up in the Keystone State.

    The poll, released by Quinnipiac University, also shows Republican frontrunner Donald Trump leading Ted Cruz, 39%-30%. Kasich trails in third at 24%, but is the only Republican candidate who beat Clinton or Sanders in a head-to-head matchup in the key swing state, pollsters noted.

    In a statement on the poll, Assistant Director Tim Malloy noted that no candidate has won the presidency since 1960 without winning two out of the three swing states of Pennsylvania, Florida and Ohio.

    “Kasich is ahead of Clinton and Sanders in his home state (of Ohio), and now we see how strong he is next door, if he can jump over Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz,” Malloy said.

    A March poll by Monmouth University showed Kasich as the only Republican beating Clinton in a hypothetical November matchup. Another Quinnipiac poll the day prior found Kasich edging out Sanders in a head-to-head, too.

    Reply
  37. rikyrah says:
    April 7, 2016 at 8:54 am

    Boko Haram’s Largest School Kidnapping Has Gone Unnoticed
    Three hundred children are missing, but the Nigerian government remains silent.
    04/01/2016 11:58 am ET

    Boko Haram militants kidnapped some 400 women and schoolchildren in a remote Nigerian town over a year ago, and the world barely noticed.

    Unlike the kidnapping of some 200 schoolgirls from Chibok a year earlier, there was no international outcry, no hashtags, no rallies and no U.S. drones scouring the Nigerian forest after the Islamic extremist group’s abductions in Damasak, in the northeastern Nigerian state of Borno.

    Human Rights Watch released a harrowing new investigation into the abductions this week. At least 300 elementary school children are among those still missing, the international nonprofit organization said.

    Boko Haram seized control of Damasak in November 2014 and held it for several months, locking the town’s women and children in a primary school and shooting any residents who tried to escape. Troops from the neighboring countries of Chad and Niger discovered hundreds of strewn dead bodies when they recaptured the town in March 2015. But Boko Haram had already fled with hundreds of women and children that they had captured, relatives told Reuters. “[Boko Haram] said, ‘They are slaves so we’re taking them because they belong to us,’” Souleymane Ali, a trader in Damasak whose wife and three daughters were kidnapped, told the news agency. Yet Nigeria’s government denied the kidnapping had taken place.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/boko-haram-damasak-girls-kidnapped_us_56fd9b7de4b0daf53aef4c39

    Reply
  38. rikyrah says:
    April 7, 2016 at 8:29 am

    I love this video too:

    HOW “BRAIDS,” LUPITA NYONG’O’S VOGUE SHORT, CAPTURES PEAK BLACK WOMAN AWESOMENESS

    Shamira Ibrahim, 4/6/16

    …………….

    Beyond all reason, however, the other day I moseyed my way onto Mark Zuckerberg’s social media cesspool. Fortunately for me, I was rewarded for my adventures in the form of a fantastic two-year-old original short film with Lupita N’yongo from Vogue.

    Called “Braids,” the Austin Peters-directed spot was peak Black woman excellence. You’d be hard-pressed to find a Black woman who doesn’t identify with having a long-term relationship with her hair, and Lupita and her friends manage to capture a multitude of ways that hair can be a defining moment of a Black woman’s life.

    https://youtu.be/5a4sXrlE5_A

    Reply
  39. rikyrah says:
    April 7, 2016 at 8:25 am

    I love this site.

    WHITE PRIVILEGE SEEMS LIKE AN ABSTRACT CONCEPT, UNTIL YOU REMEMBER IT KILLS BLACK PEOPLE

    Damon Young, 4/5/16
    ……………………………

    At this point, you might be wondering how this connects to race, racism, and White privilege. Well, although White privilege is often dismissed as an abstract and academic term with no basis in reality, it doesn’t exist without the perpetual cultural, social, political, and legal reinforcement that White people’s feelings, thoughts, desires, and opinions matter more than the feelings, thoughts, desires, and opinions of non-White people. (Black people, specifically.) This phenomenon also affects how physical pain and discomfort are assessed and treated. White pain is just taken more seriously than Black pain; a fact proven in numerous studies, including this one:

    From The Washington Post:

    African Americans are routinely under-treated for their pain compared with whites, according to research. A study released Monday sheds some disturbing light on why that might be the case.

    Researchers at the University of Virginia quizzed white medical students and residents to see how many believed inaccurate and at times “fantastical” differences about the two races — for example, that blacks have less sensitive nerve endings than whites or that black people’s blood coagulates more quickly. They found that fully half thought at least one of the false statements presented was possibly, probably or definitely true.

    Moreover, those who held false beliefs often rated black patients’ pain as lower than that of white patients and made less appropriate recommendations about how they should be treated.

    Do I know, with a 100% certainty, that my mom’s lung cancer could and should have been found earlier? No. And do I know, with a 100% certainty, that if my mom happened to be White, her pain would have been treated earlier as a dire and life-threatening concern instead of an annoyance some yoga and a carb-free diet would stem? No, I do not. But I do know that if her race affected her treatment and, ultimately, shortened her life, she wouldn’t have been the first and won’t be the last Black person that happens to.

    And that is not an abstraction.

    Reply
  41. rikyrah says:
    April 7, 2016 at 8:18 am

    UH HUH
    UH HUH

    How White Georgia Republicans Are Derailing an African-American Candidate
    Without the protections of the Voting Rights Act, local elections are a free-for-all.
    BY SPENCER WOODMAN
    April 5, 2016
    Gerald Greene, a white Republican from Georgia, has represented the heavily rural, majority-black District 151 in the state House of Representatives for the past three decades. Because, according to Democrats, 151 is the state’s only minority-dominated district represented by a Republican, the Democratic Party had been eyeing it as a promising pick-up for the next election—a win, Democratic leaders say, that would signify a significant correction to years of the county’s black Democrats lacking legislative representation. In early March, the party finalized the candidacy of James Williams, a retired police officer from Albany, to run what Democratic strategists believed could be a winning challenge to Greene.

    Yet on March 26, Williams went from campaigning against Greene to struggling to preserve his right to run in the election at all. That day, Williams says he received a call from the office of Brian Kemp, Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State, informing him that Greene had challenged his residency—and thus his eligibility to run in the district. Greene’s petition against Williams’s candidacy had found a receptive audience among the state’s top Republicans, who decided that, on closer inspection, Williams did not in fact reside in District 151. Suddenly, the majority-black district appeared to have no Democratic candidate residing within its lines, and the Williams campaign against Greene entered a realm of deep uncertainty.

    “It was astonishing that I was being challenged after having voted in District 151 for approximately 18 years,” Williams told me. “I never thought something like this could happen in Georgia.”

    This development has infuriated state Democrats, who have previously accused Kemp of deploying tactics to suppress the state’s Democratic-leaning minority vote. Democrats contend that, on March 7, using Kemp’s own residency data, the party qualified Williams to run in District 151. Yet sometime around March 18, the party alleges, the boundary lines of District 151 quietly changed in Kemp’s database, edging Williams just outside of the district. Kemp’s office on Tuesday essentially confirmed this account. An emailed statement from Georgia Secretary of State spokeswoman Candice Broce said that during redistricting, “Dougherty County elections officials incorrectly designated Mr. Williams as living in House District 151. When alerted to their error, county officials corrected their mistake.” Williams, the statement noted, apparently lives in House District 154. “Our office sent the challenge to the Office of State Administrative Hearings as we do with any challenge we receive, and a hearing is scheduled for April 13.”

    Reply
  49. rikyrah says:
    April 7, 2016 at 8:11 am

    This is why people say with confidence to the Media – YOU BUILT TRUMP.

    Because, we know it.

    https://twitter.com/existentialfish/status/717715546477883392?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

    Reply
  58. Ametia says:
    April 7, 2016 at 7:37 am

    Good Morning, Everyone. Loving this week’s nature and animal posts!!

    Reply
  59. rikyrah says:
    April 7, 2016 at 7:37 am

    Good Morning, Everyone :)

    Reply

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