Tag Archives: God

mashup Monday &some News

08/29/2011 Nativegrl77

just another rant …

Today is the 6th Anniversary of Katrina ….

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“The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. But education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society. The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no morals.”

Martin Luther King, Jr., The Purpose of Education

Sunday, 8/28/2011 a dedication for the new MLK JR memorial statue with President Obama giving a keynote speech as well as some others was to have taken place but this last week was one that the east coast will never forget. On Tuesday 23 August, the east coast experienced a 6.0 earthquake, which shook up the entire coast for a few days with Governors requesting help from the government, particularly FEMA and on Friday, Hurricane Irene, fresh from beating down on Puerto Rico, the Caribbean and Florida barreled her way up the East Coast causing massive floods and several deaths. Though if you were listening, Rep.eric cantor was so bold to say that all monies requested must or will be offset with spending cuts, which sounded as if he himself would be the decider as to which states would get help. It was definitely offensive let alone just one of many signs of how he and his group would govern if given the chance. Fortunately, President Obama performed as a President should and all those who need government help; even those Teapublicans as well as Ron Paul’s State who still rails against FEMA and government in general.

In contrast … On June 14, 2010, I found out that Glenn Beck announced that he was holding a rally on 8/28/2010, which is the day most if not all Americans remember the MLK JR “I have a dream” speech. I had to make an effort; to plead a call to action… many folks who listened to Bill Press heard this announcement and they were offended as well. It would be nice if a peaceful counter rally on that same day to honor and recognize MLK JR’s I have a dream speech. The idea of beck holding a rally on that day is just wrong, it is offensive, and it just seems like it is a moment beck has decided to exploit. Glenn beck must be upset about the fact that a Black man gave a speech so admired all over the world and at a spot as sacred as it is does not deserve to be used by him. To invite or have speakers such as Sarah Palin or Marcus luttrell who seems to be against immigrants in general; to top this very offensive thing off Jo dee messina will be there; a performer some of us use to respect, who knew the music, is nowhere related to the political leaning of this performer. If you go to beck’s website the event, slated as a non-political, non-partisan event advocating restoring honor, which given what we all know about him is definitely a conflict of word use. I believe we all have the right to freedom of speech and rally it just seems like a sham, an exploitation and a platform for the extreme right disguised as a charity event for our service people -he says to honor our heroes, our heritage and our future… by making a tax-deductible donations. I still wonder how much really went to charity, how much did Sarah Palin, jo dee messina, marcus luttrell get out of this and how much did beck really make. This year beck took his clown show to Israel and while dozens protested his small group of like minded folks on 8/25/2011, fortunately he kept quiet on 8/28/2011.

an article from Media Matters might offer some real truth about Beck’s trip to restore courage in Jerusalem below

Beck Wildly Inflates Attendance At His Israel Rally

August 25, 2011 3:35 pm ET by Mike Burns

Yesterday, former Fox News host Glenn Beck held his much-hyped and highly controversial “Restoring Courage” rally at the foot of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Today, he whined about the skimpy coverage of the event by the media. (Hint: If a pillar of fire had appeared or if the Zechariah prophecy had been fulfilled as Beck had predicted might happen, there might have been more coverage.)

Since no prophecies appear to have been fulfilled, Beck began inflating the numbers of attendees at his rally. According to a blog post from yesterday by Yahoo’s Joe Pompeo, Beck’s spokesman said that 4,700 people attended the rally. (1,700 attendees at the spot where Beck was speaking and an additional 3,000 at a remote location where Beck’s event was broadcast live.) But by the time Beck went on the air today, Beck was suggesting that “five to seven” thousand people showed up at the remote location. He was immediately corrected by one of his aides who said there were “5,000 seats set up, and at last count, we had about 8,000 people that showed up, standing room only.” Beck then said there were “10,000 people just in these two locations alone.”

And lo and behold, in the space of one day, event attendees grew from 4,700 by Beck’s own spokesman‘s reported count, to five to seven thousand, to 10,000.

Listen:

http://cloudfront.mediamatters.org/static/flash/pl55.swf

Of course, this wouldn’t be the first time Beck has grossly exaggerated attendance figures for his rallies. In the wake of his 8-28 “Restoring Honor” rally, Beck said he heard that the crowd had been “between 300,000 and 500,000.” But according to an outside firm hired by CBS News, the only independent and semi-official estimate of the crowd was 87,000. Beck has also made the absurd claim that the 9-12 protests that he created and hyped were the “largest march on Washington [D.C.] ever,” and said that a “really conservative” crowd estimate for that march was “500,000.” Later, his estimated number for the 9-12 crowd grew to 750,000 or a million. In fact, one unofficial D.C. fire department estimate placed the number between 60,000 and 75,000 participants.

Maybe miracles do happen at Beck’s events: The crowd size doubles (or sometimes grows by a factor of ten) without any explanation.

Others News

Chocolate lowers heart, stroke risk

EXCLUSIVE: Lady Gaga Took Male Alter-Ego to the Limit By Using Male Restrooms

Luxury, horror lurk in Gadhafi family compound

Obama to Tap Krueger as Top Economist

Even Iran, Syria’s best friend, urges Assad to ease crackdown

Seeing Irene as Harbinger of a Change in Climate

Associated Press

States Brace for Record Floods

Road to the White House

GOP Candidates Continue Campaigning

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Obama for America

08/25/2011 Nativegrl77

Have you had a chance to check out the other 2012 gear in our campaign store?

http://store.barackobama.com

We have T-shirts, coffee tumblers, buttons, water bottles, and more — plenty of ways to show your support as you help grow this campaign.

If you know people who might want a bumper sticker, too, feel free to spread the word. Just send them this link:

http://my.barackobama.com/bumper-sticker-inv

Thanks for your support,

Obama for America

~ my 2cents ..., ~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

whiney Wednesday & some News

08/03/2011 Nativegrl77

The featured photo is from an article or event by the NMAAHC.

The Faces of My People
Margaret Burroughs (b. 1917)
Woodcut on paper

it’s just another rant …

About six days ago, an article popped up about slavery and while the topic is definitely, a sensitive one I do like to read what has happened because of the word itself has a history of pain misery and sadness. I have been hearing a lot about human trafficking, which is what I expected until I read the entire headline and went from interested to pretty pissed off in a matter of seconds. I don’t know about you but we don’t use the word slavery or slaves lightly where I come from.

According to wiki, yes wiki. I use them because i need the writer to read the formal use of the word in all its ugliness… Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property and are forced to work.^[1] Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase, or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation. Conditions that can be considered slavery include debt bondage, indentured servitude, serfdom, domestic servants kept in captivity, adoption in which children are effectively forced to work as slaves, child soldiers, and forced marriage.^[2]

Slavery predates written records, has existed in many cultures.^[3] The number of slaves today is higher than at any point in history,^[4] remaining as high as 12 million^[5] to 27 million,^[6][7][8] though this is probably the smallest proportion of the world’s population in history.^[9] Most are debt slaves, largely in South Asia, who are under debt bondage incurred by lenders, sometimes even for generations.^[10] Human trafficking is primarily for prostituting women and children into sex industries.^[11]

I responded to “the article” because many of us have ancestors who have experienced the institution of slavery in its formal definition and while the headline probably grabbed the attention of many I say shame on you for using the word so loosely so disrespectfully or remorse. There is absolutely no acceptable way of using the word “slave” when defining inmates of a prison. I will repeat wiki but it will be in my words because words matter and not only do they matter they have impact especially when the word is very specific to a person or group of people. The use of the word “slave” has a long awful history behind it and if i have tell you what it meant back in 1800’s then you need to do more research or stop writing about or using the word to gain more readers. I ask the writer, were these prisoners” “slaves” as you call them taken from their countries, homes, raped, branded just because, compromised or that families were split because the owner ordered a human being “slave” to be sold. I just do not believe or accept your article calling or using prisoners to do stoop work free can be considered slaves. I cannot begin to tell the writer just how disappointing it is to read such a nonchalant use of the word let alone the definition of the word which was taken way out context or a gimmick to gain readers not to mention a lack of true journalism forget about professionalism. I have to ask the writer, maybe ask the people who are nice enough to read this blog how anyone could in with good conscious acquaint slave labour to that of labour from prisoners. So, by all accounts prisoners are called prisoners because they commit a crime of some sort then tried and convicted for said crime and taken to jail or “prison” because they were bad to someone or something. I guess you might dispute this but the fact is people of colour were victims of slavery in the 1800’s and what ensued after being imprisoned was through no fault of people considered chattel or 3/5 of a person. That is undeniable fact not fiction and the way in which the writer used the term “slavery” is disrespectful to the people who lived it. Today, we have a more modern equivalent r of “slavery” … human trafficking.

The info below is from wiki is about the new modern lives of slavery …

There are more slaves today than at any point in history,^[4] remaining as high as 12 million^[5] to 27 million,^[6][7][8] even though slavery is now outlawed in all countries.^[7][133] Several estimates of the number of slaves in the world have been provided. According to a broad definition of slavery used by Kevin Bales of Free the Slaves (FTS), an advocacy group linked with Anti-Slavery International, there were 27 million people in slavery in 1999, spread all over the world.^[134] In 2005, the International Labour Organization provided an estimate of 12.3 million forced labourers in the world,.^[135] Thanks to the ILO Special Action Programme to Combat Forced Labour (SAP-FL), the work of the ILO has been spearheaded in this field since early 2002. The Programme has successfully raised global awareness and understanding of modern forced labour; assisted governments to develop and implement new laws, policies and action plans; developed and disseminated guidance and training materials on key aspects of forced labour and human trafficking; implemented innovative programmes which combine policy development, capacity building of law enforcement and labour market institutions, and targeted, field-based projects of direct support for both prevention of forced labour and identification and rehabilitation of its victims. Siddharth Kara has also provided an estimate of 28.4 million slaves at the end of 2006 divided into the following three categories: bonded labour/debt bondage (18.1 million), forced labour (7.6 million), and trafficked slaves (2.7 million).^[136] Kara provides a dynamic model to calculate the number of slaves in the world each year, with an estimated 29.2 million at the end of 2009.

Words Matter … I cannot stress how important it is to do research before using red button topics, words, phrases, or photos and suffice it to say the use of slavery for this story is just wrong.

Slavery is a crime but it is one against humanity …shame on you

Other News …

Tropical Storm Emily on path toward Haiti

Business Insider