Saturday Open Thread

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

ICYMI,

The New Black Panther Trailer Dropped this week.

https://twitter.com/NerdyWonka/status/919961200045170689

 

 

BWA HA HA HA HA AH HA

Thanks to Liza for the hat tip about this article:

Black Superheroes Matter: Why a ‘Black Panther’ Movie Is Revolutionary
By Tre Johnson
3 hours ago

Excerpt:

Literally from the jump, director Ryan Coogler and Co. make it clear that we will be watching a black superhero fully in control and completely occupying the center-stage spotlight. Watch Boseman’s Black Panther in Captain America: Civil War, and you’ll see a charismatic character who fills a void in the conflicted do-gooder group. Watch the new trailer, however – the one that dropped yesterday for his stand-alone film that hits theaters February 16th – and you’ll see someone with the arrogance of Shaft, the coolness of Obama and the hot-headed impulsiveness of Kanye West. This T’Challa is accessible, awe-inspiring and perhaps most importantly, human. “I think the question that I’m trying to ask and answer in Black Panther is, ‘What does truly mean to be African?’” the filmmaker recently told Rolling Stone. “The MCU has set itself in the real world as much as possible – so what does it mean for T’Challa to move around as this black man in a movie reality that tries to be a real world?”

… Coogler has set out to do something with the modern black superhero that all previous iterations have fallen short of doing: making it respectable, imaginative and powerful. The Afro-punk aesthetic, the unapologetic black swagger, the miniscule appearances from non-black characters – it’s an important resetting of a standard of what’s possible around creating a mythology for a black superhero. The trailers point to a new direction for depicting not only black superheroes, but also how we imagine our heroes. He’s not being played for laughs. He’s not a sidekick or born out of dire circumstances. His story, one of an ingrained birthright, legacy and royalty is a stark difference for how we tend to treat most black superheroes – and black superhero movies.

As a child in school, I rarely reached for the black or brown Crayola crayons in my superhero coloring books; I have a lifetime’s worth of Halloweens where I weighed how often I could or should dress as the white superheroes. I couldn’t find ones that looked like me both outside of and underneath the mask. An entire generation of children will now know that a black superhero, society, imagination and power can exist right alongside Peter Parker, Steve Rogers and Bruce Wayne. An entire generation of children will not know what it feels like to not see themselves reflected back on costume racks, coloring books or movie screens. We’re at a pivotal time where these characters and stories are coming not out of permission or obligation, but necessity.
It has been someone’s time before again and again and again. But next spring will belong to Wakanda much like the summer belonged to Wonder Woman. We’ve been waiting to see ourselves onscreen, flying through the air and running across buildings and dodging laserblasts from bearded colonialists our entire lives. The future is Ryan Coogler, Chadwick Boseman, T’Challa, Black Panther. The future is here on February 16th.

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

33 Responses to Saturday Open Thread

  1. rikyrah says:

    Congratulations to the Houston Astros!😄😄😄
    On their way to the World Series!⚾⚾🎆🎉

  2. yahtzeebutterfly says:

    Live now:
    To help Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico:
    “Responding to a catastrophic hurricane season, One America Appeal is a private effort coordinated by five fmr presidents to help our fellow Americans recover.”
    https://www.pscp.tv/AmericaAppeal/1yNxaVoVdNVKj

  3. rikyrah says:

    DeVos rescinds 72 guidance documents outlining rights for disabled students
    October 21 at 12:12 PM

    The Education Department has rescinded 72 policy documents that outline the rights of students with disabilities as part of the Trump administration’s effort to eliminate regulations it deems superfluous.

    The Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services wrote in a newsletter Friday that it had “a total of 72 guidance documents that have been rescinded due to being outdated, unnecessary, or ineffective — 63 from the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) and 9 from the Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA).” The documents, which fleshed out students’ rights under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and the Rehabilitation Act, were rescinded Oct. 2.

    A spokeswoman for Education Secretary Betsy DeVos did not respond to requests for comment.

    Advocates for students with disabilities were still reviewing the changes to determine their impact. Lindsay E. Jones, the chief policy and advocacy officer for the National Center for Learning Disabilities, said she was particularly concerned to see guidance documents outlining how schools could use federal money for special education removed.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2017/10/21/devos-rescinds-72-guidance-documents-outlining-rights-for-disabled-students/?hpid=hp_hp-more-top-stories_ed-devos-1255pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.adcfa6aa2e79

  4. rikyrah says:

    Leaked Memo Reveals White House Wish List

    And they hope to halve federal funding for Title X, the grant program that provides family planning and prevention services to the poor, and divert the money into programs to promote “fertility awareness” methods of birth control—popular among socially conservative contraception foes—which fail annually for a quarter of couples….

    Each of the document’s repeated references to fertility awareness,
    including as a preferred remedy for teenage pregnancy, can be found in subsections that identify DPC staffers Katy Talento and Alexandra Campau as points of contact for OMB officials. Talento, a former adviser to Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), attracted the attention of the health news service STAT earlier this year, after Trump selected her to help shape the administration’s health policy, for expressing “strong rhetoric against birth control and abortion.”

    In a January 2015 article for the right wing website The Federalist,
    Talento suggested that “chemical birth control” is “causing miscarriages of already-conceived children,” and, “breaking your uterus for good.”

    Fertility awareness methods—including the so-called “rhythm
    method”—are birth control alternatives popular among social
    conservatives, who advance dubious claims that prescription
    contraception is abortifacient. These methods, by which women seek to avoid pregnancy by tracking ovulation, are “about 76% effective,” meaning “24 out of 100 couples who use FAMS will have a pregnancy each year,” according to Planned Parenthood.

  5. yahtzeebutterfly says:

    http://news.drgator.ufl.edu/files/2017/04/Celebration-of-Diversity-Week_JSJ_8JJ0787.jpg
    “Dr. Lofton talks with fellow alumni at the UF College of Medicine’s Celebration of Diversity.”
    http://news.drgator.ufl.edu/2017/09/22/sparking-discussion-and-reflection/

  6. Jay and them won. 40-0

    We’re eating at Luby’s now and then to Lake Conroe.

  7. We’re in Montgomery Tex watching Jay play football. They’re winning 28-0! Whoo Hoo!

  8. yahtzeebutterfly says:

    “Love Not Hate” signs were all around the University of Florida campus on Thursday in order to counter a speech by a White Supremacist.

    http://www.trbimg.com/img-59ea1fb9/turbine/fl-op-viewpoint-uf-richard-spencer-hate-speech-20171020

    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DMgV-K4U8AAyCS1.jpg

  9. yahtzeebutterfly says:

    Born on this day, October 21, in 1844 Charles Remond Douglas, the son of Frederick Douglas, served in the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment during the Civil War.

    https://images.findagrave.com/photos/2015/33/142165707_1423025811.jpg

    From Wikipedia:

    From 1867 to 1869, Douglass served as one of the first African-American clerks in the Freedmen’s Bureau when he and his family moved to Washington, DC.. This was followed up with his work in the Treasury Department from 1869 to 1875. He served as a clerk to the Santo Domingo Commission in 1871, then returned to the Caribbean when United States President Ulysses S. Grant appointed him consul to Puerto Plata, Santo Domingo. In 1875 Douglass became a clerk in the U.S. consulate in Santo Domingo, where he remained until 1879 when he returned to the United States after his wife’s death. He then moved to Corona, New York and entered the West India commissions business. In 1882 Douglass began working as an examiner for the Pension Bureau in Washington, DC. After 53 years in government service, he retired in August 1920.

    Douglass served as secretary and treasurer for the District of Columbia schools after he was appointed a trustee in 1872. While working in the district he actively employed the first African-American teachers in the county’s schools and assured they received equal pay.

    After his father purchased the “New National Era” in 1870, Douglass became a correspondent for the paper. He became a real estate developer and developed a 26-acre tract with 1400 feet of beach front summer resort in Maryland in 1892 that became known as Highland Beach.

    http://www.douglashistory.co.uk/history/image_folder/People/Charles_Remond_Douglass.jpg

    Excerpt from article at this link:
    https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=142222132

    Mr. Douglass … had served in the civil war in the 54th Massachusetts Infantry and 5th Massachusetts Cavalry. He was born in Lynn, Mass., and came to this city in 1867, where he resided continuously since that time…

    He was a member of the Grand Army of the Republic and of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

    One of the most interesting events in his career occurred in 1859, when he served John Brown as mail messenger. At that time Brown was living at the home of Frederick Douglass, his father, in Rochester, N. Y.

  10. yahtzeebutterfly says:

    Excerpt from article linked below:

    “Three supporters of white nationalist Richard Spencer were arrested Thursday in connection with an incident in which a shot was fired.

    “William Henry Fears, 30; Colton Gene Fears, 28; and Tyler Eugene Tenbrink, 28; were charged with attempted homicide and held in the Alachua County jail. Tenbrink was also charged with being a felon in possession of a weapon.

    “At 5:20 p.m. Thursday, a silver Jeep with William Fears and Colton Fears, who are brothers, and Tenbrink pulled up to a bus stop at 3315 SW Archer Road, where a small group of people were sitting. The men began cheering Adolf Hitler and chanting.

    “One person hit the vehicle’s rear window with a baton, and the car sped away before abruptly stopping.

    “Tenbrink got out of the car with a handgun. William Fears and Colton Fears yelled, ‘I’m going to f—ing kill you,’ and ‘Shoot them.’

    “Tenbrink fired one shot toward the crowd. The shot missed and struck the building that was behind the people.

    “The Fears brothers and Tenbrink fled eastbound in the vehicle. One of the victims noted the vehicle’s tag number, and Alachua County Sheriff’s Office deputies found the men driving north on Interstate 75 around 9 p.m. Law enforcement officers stopped the Jeep near the 405 mile marker. Tenbrink told law enforcement he fired the shot.”

    http://www.gainesville.com/news/20171020/three-charged-in-shooting-after-spencer-talk
    (There is much more info in the article that you may wish to read at the link.)

  11. rikyrah says:

    Good Morning Everyone 😐😐😐

Leave a Reply