Sunday Open Thread

Posted on May 29, 2016 by rikyrah

I hope that you are enjoying this weekend with family and friends.

 

This entry was posted in Gospel, Music, Open Thread, Politics and tagged , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

45 Responses to Sunday Open Thread

  6. rikyrah says:
    May 29, 2016 at 6:55 pm

    you know this makes me happy :)

    Black people and water sports – YES!!

    https://twitter.com/NBCSports/status/736999392469647360?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

    Reply
  14. Ametia says:
    May 29, 2016 at 2:10 pm

    Remember this one, ladies?

    Reply
  18. rikyrah says:
    May 29, 2016 at 1:27 pm

    Pete Souza: photographing the real Barack Obama

    …This is just one in a stream of vividly human and often funny photographs – released not just through White House press office, but on Flickr and Instagram – in which Souza has documented moments of the Obama administration that will never be forgotten. These photographs are precious historical documents. Critics from left and right blame the two-term presidency of this evidently intelligent and decent man for everything from the failure to close Guantánamo Bay (he’s still trying) to a continuing economic malaise that has fuelled what is shaping up to be the most extremist presidential election since 1860. Yet Souza’s photographs tell a different story – and the one that matters. Obama accomplished the impossible and made the White House an African American home for eight years…

    …In a moving monochrome image, Souza showed three-year-old Clark Reynolds looking up in awe as Obama touches him on the cheek. The photograph is taken from child height and brilliantly captures a child’s-eye view of the president. We only see Obama’s hand caressing Clark’s face. Unlike the ones in all paintings and photographs of all previous presidents, it is not a white hand. How can anyone say that means nothing? Young Clark Reynolds evidently thinks it means something, and so does Souza, whose photography has perhaps become more lyrical, more poignant over Obama’s final year in office…

    …In these pictures, he always seems both happy and modest in his office: a photograph of him fist-bumping a cleaner in a government building quietly captures his sense of the larger realities of inequality that will go on beyond his eight-year presidency.

    Reports on Souza’s photographs tend to repeat over and over again that they show how “cool” this president is, but that word means nothing. These images tell the true story of a presidency that words have failed. After all the hate, anger, birther theories, leftist critiques, rightist critiques, and even the liberal white awe of a “cool” black dude vanishes into the babble of the past, Souza’s photographs will tell the story of a leader who was calm under fire, unfazed by office, unquenchably human, and who showed the way for all the kids who passed through his Oval Office, and millions more, to be good people, good Americans, and good citizens of the world. Will we miss the man in these pictures? Hell, yes.

    Reply
    • eliihass says:
      May 29, 2016 at 5:51 pm

      Good old Rachel Maddow’s ‘Uncle Pat’…

      And yet everyone wants to pretend that Trump is some anomaly…an aberration in our politics…a sudden, new, unusual, unacceptable, unwelcome presence and voice in our politics and our society…

      Pat Buchanan was practically cheered on and kept alive for years by both MSNBC and CNN – and precisely by so many of the same folks now suddenly so fake outraged and aghast and tsk, tsking about Trump and his ‘rhetoric’…

      Reply
      • rikyrah says:
        May 29, 2016 at 6:13 pm

        there is no difference in POLICY between them and Trump. I will keep on saying this. They only objected that he wouldn’t use dogwhistles.

        THAT.IS.IT.

        Reply
        • eliihass says:
          May 29, 2016 at 6:28 pm

          Yup..

          No difference in their humanity – or lack thereof…their ideology…their various perspectives on things generally…

          Which is why the whole concept of Trump as something so unusual and ‘scary’…especially as suddenly now insisted by the very same proponents and cheerleaders of even worse Trump-like rhetoric and mindsets…is rather quite amusing to me..

          Reply
  20. rikyrah says:
    May 29, 2016 at 1:22 pm

    DA PHUQ??!?!?

    Marco Rubio on Donald Trump’s White Nationalist Support: ‘It is What it Is’
    9:40 am, May 29th, 2016

    Florida Senator and former Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio granted a hot exclusive interview to CNN’s Jake Tapper, revealing on Sunday morning’s State of the Union that he would be releasing his delegates to the Republican convention, casting his tepid support for Donald Trump as a lesser evil than voting for Hillary Clinton, and reflecting on his own failed campaign. Tapper repeatedly pressed Rubio on some of the more disturbing aspects of Trump’s candidacy, including the vocal support he has garnered, and at times reciprocated, from white supremacists.

    Rubio expressed the sort of displeasure you’d expect from someone who sat through the season two premier of Wayward Pines, but in the end, took a tautological view of Trump’s white nationalist backers:

    “It is what it is”

    Reply
      • eliihass says:
        May 29, 2016 at 9:24 pm

        “…They’ll hear the story of Sojourner Truth who didn’t allow those indignities to destroy her spirit, who fought for her own freedom, and then used her powers, young people — then she used her power to help others…”

        – First Lady Michelle Obama. April 28, 2009

        Wonder if she knew just what she was up against herself…

        Perhaps she did…

        ..Or not..

        I’m sure she knew she’d be up against an opposition so dug in and set in their racist disaffection .. But did she imagine the outright, full on hate that would persist and drag out for years – and only get worse and not better as time passed – and for no reason…?

        I don’t believe she fore-saw the disrespect, undermining, envy, hate, underhandedness that would come from those who were supposed to be on her side…even those within her own husband’s staff and circle… The cursing her out, the hit pieces that strangely went unanswered…the attempts to diminish and mostly erase her from a journey she was very integral to – and sacrificed the most for… Sure, there was to be of course a sort of coming to terms at first in Washington with having not just a black First Lady …but a black First Lady who chose not to whitewash herself to be more ‘acceptable’ and to make others more ‘comfortable’ with her based entirely on the superficial… A black First Lady who was respectful and warm and embracing, but who didn’t kiss butt, suck up, beg to be accepted by self-proclaimed society movers and shakers and king makers…A self-respecting First Lady who refused to be anyone else but herself …A black First Lady who wouldn’t speak Valley girl…or cower and do baby voices, play damsel in distress, be cloying and saccharine sweet to make herself more ‘endearing’ and approved of by those otherwise threatened by a perfectly lovely, brilliant, fully grown, confident black woman who’s authentically but not calculatingly sweet, doesn’t play games – and especially won’t be stomped and peed on and willingly play along fake-happy…A woman who simply won’t suffer fools..

        She’d studied at Princeton and Harvard – 7 years of her young and impressionable life…she was malleable and could have very easily mimicked those who were held up as the standard…society’s idea of what looks, sounds and is unchallenged as the best ..the ultimate…at the most upper-crust of upper-crust institutions of higher learning…yet from the pictures we see from those early years in college and even on her wedding day, she was still very much herself…she didn’t even put relaxer in her hair…she wore her hair natural – And even as she went on to work at the predominantly white, blue chip top Law Firm…she knew and understood exactly how the game was played – and what she needed to do to be more ‘acceptable’ and if she really wanted to ingratiate herself with the powers that be…she could easily morph into whatever she wanted to morph into at any time…but she chose to be and remain her authentic and incredibly wonderful, perfectly lovely, beautiful and richly and deeply inspiring self..

        I don’t think she expected that some would attempt to ingratiate themselves with, and insinuate themselves into her husband’s life only to try to wreak havoc … I’m sure she expected the instances of women having crushes on her husband – many a powerful men get that …they suddenly become even more attractive than they really are …power or the perception and prospect of it does that…and she’d already shared her thoughts about it when singing ‘Obama girl’ showed up on the campaign trail in 2008 …she probably didn’t think that some would even begin to try to recast her…deciding that they wanted a more ‘suitable’ arm candy for their idol – her now larger than life husband…they wanted arm candy that would be small enough in stature, brains, intellect, ability, so as not to ‘overshadow’ or ‘outshine’ him…arm candy that would be wide-eyed and perpetually in awe and grateful to be in the presence of greatness…until of course just as with Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, familiarity breeds not just contempt, but disgust – and a huge settlement slice of the $$ is quickly paid out to make up for time wasted and hero disappointing, underwhelming and boring in the end – à la Ralph Waldo Emerson…

        Did she ever think that some of those acquainted with her – or those acting under the guise of ‘support’ and ‘work’ for and around her husband would begin to actively and brazenly intrude upon her life, her marriage, her family…try to hijack her man…and not only interfere, but try to take over…trying to elbow her out…with some even audaciously actively auditioning for her part…others studying up on her husband and her …trying to outdo her by out-perfecting her at being her…her ways, things about her that he loves…repackaging her unassuming but brilliant thoughts and unpretentiously wise, smart and meaningful, straight to the heart words as expressed in speeches and interviews…her unconscious gestures, gleaned from readily available footage…heck, they even went looking to become besties with her favorite designers and others she’d developed good relationships with..his, their favorite pastimes, routines – aspects of their biography…all suddenly becoming the auditioners’ too…

        However scary and weird all this may be, I’m not quite sure she ever, ever envisaged a situation where her biological womanhood would be called into question…where her children, the children she carried in her womb, gave life to, suffered and still suffers for… and has given and continues to sacrifice everything and give her all to nurture, raise and protect…would not only be dissociated from her – by those who say she never gave birth to them, and those including so-called inner circle folk and ‘supporters’ who want to elevate her daughters over and above her as the wife, equal and First Lady to the man…and those who want to credit everyone else – grandma, the President, etc. – but her for her daughters…Or that she would be so disrespected and disregarded that folk would brazenly pitch the concept of son as important to her husband – knowing fully well that they are done having children…

        The maneuvering, the dog eat dog-ness of it all…everyone trying to get their moment in the sun…trying to stake their claim on her husband, the historic presidency, the legacy…*their* legacy…even though more and more she seems to be – when she’s not completely and entirely blacked-out (pun intended!) …mostly cast as a teeny, teeny part – a blip in this huge thing of greatness that she according to them had nothing to do with – except maybe have and raise the 2 beautiful daughters that help complete the picture of greatness…but even that is now up in the air and even being debated…Somehow as time has gone by, the story – their story – has ever so slowly been revised, and we see and hear less and less of her except now very, very occasionally in cameos as ‘good mom’ – a spot she also now has to share with grandma…We are now been told that all of this would have happened anyway without her…that she is dispensable and easily replaceable..

        As strong and as self-reliant and self-sufficient as she is, I’m sure that somewhere at the back of her mind she always believed the idea that a shared experience and an understanding of the pain of that shared experience of disrespect, diminishing and dehumanization of black women in a lonely and isolating society, meant that black women would always understand what she’s up against, what she’s going through, what they are trying to do to her…and that they’d stand with and for her, rally not just behind and for her – but for the idea of what she ultimately represents – and as she beautifully, authentically and proudly does so in the best way it could ever be done…that they would always have her back – that they not only wouldn’t let them disrespect her, that they especially wouldn’t let them erase her…I think she always believed that if and when it ever really came down to it, that at the very minimum, black women would be there standing with her…but instead, they have not only been mostly MIA as she’s been maligned and disrespected and dehumanized over the years, but some have even become some of the very worst offenders…the worst perpetrators of the abuse, gossip, back-stabbing, jealousy, underhandedness, disrespect…and the attempts to disregard, diminish and erase her…

        I know my family, friends and I have marveled and scratched our heads at how on one hand, just how effusively defensive and protective many black women are of her husband, our President – and yet, curiously, not of his black wife – the woman herself…the black woman…the first black First Lady who’s stayed unapologetically loyal, given her all – not just to her husband, but to her race…and for that reason is a prime target and actually needs all the defending and protecting…the wife who abhors politics and never wanted or asked to be in the spotlight and who naturally, will never ever get the unconditional support and benefit of doubt that being black, a darker skinned black woman – and not even one from some big time black family …and not having the ‘privilege’ of having at least one non-black – preferably white parent – no matter how lowly or trailer trashy that makes you all better and superior…offers in this society…

        I hope she never allows these indignities destroy her spirit…and I hope she soars, and that her power and greatness only continues to astound as she continues to move mountains as the secret whisperer and inspirer and booster – and as the young native American girl said, the protector – of the forgotten, the voiceless and those overlooked and disregarded by this society..

        Reply
  29. SouthernGirl2 says:
    May 29, 2016 at 11:18 am

    Jesus Christ! I can’t believe my eyes.

    Brazos River over its banks FM331 North of FM529

    https://www.facebook.com/monica.bang.79/videos/vb.1428836607/10209534078375354/?type=2&theater

    Reply
  30. rikyrah says:
    May 29, 2016 at 5:34 am

    Good Morning 😆,Everyone 😃

    Reply

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