How I Become Captivated by Lena Horne

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Lena Horne, 92, an electrifying performer who shattered racial boundaries by changing the way Hollywood presented black women and who enjoyed a six-decade singing career on stage, television and in films, died Sunday at New York-Presbyterian Hospital.
Ms. Horne, considered one of the most beautiful women in the world, came to the attention of Hollywood in 1942. She was the first black woman to sign a meaningful long-term contract with a major studio, a contract that said she would never have to play a maid.  –via Adam Bernstein, The Washington Post.

Sesame Street, 1975


She leaves behind an amazing body of work.  No doubt you’ll hear “Stormy Weather” in a report on her career during the next few days, as it is probably her best known song.  If not, do yourself a favor and listen to it. When I think of Lena Horne, however, that song is the second thing that comes to mind.
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Mother's Day for Peace

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from Mother's Day Gift Store


Happy Mother’s Day! Have you visited your mother yet? Maybe taken her out to eat? Or sent her flowers? Chocolates? A card? Or even bought her jewelry? Your wife too, if she’s a mother or mother to be. On Mother’s Day we honor our mothers, and this is how we do it. You have no excuse for having forgotten. Television commercials have been reminding you since Easter!
Unfortunately the economy sucks right now and a lot of in this country are out of work, underemployed, struggling with tuition increases at our colleges, paying off student loan or credit card debt, stretched thin because we are trying to help family and friends get by, trying to get by on insufficient retirement assets, or whatever. If that’s the case, just go see or call your mother. Mothers are always happy to hear from their children.
But if you want to be creative and distinct, tell your Mom you are going to take her to celebrate Mother’s Day in the way it was historically conceived, and take her to a peace rally!
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A Tool for Global Activism and a Puzzling Question

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I’ve recently learned of a new site, the Boycott Toolkit, which is a user based tool for organizing consumer based protests.  Organized according to issue, the site both provides links to companies to boycott and producers to support, providing direct links to information for both.  It is an impressive tool, maintained by a user community.
I must say, though, that in this age of global, corporate capitalism, I am often puzzled by how one orchestrates and effective boycott.  We live in an era in which big, multinational corporations own dozens of companies which in turn control dozens of brands.  And brands are now a commodity in themselves,  licensed to companies that have no relation to the product originally associate with it.  If Coca-Cola manufactured or controlled every product that is sold bearing its logo with legal license to do so, it would have to have to have business in virtually every industry available, from clothing to toys and sports equipment.
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Google Doodles: Umm Kulthum, Jan Amos Komensky and Others You Never Saw.

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Yesterday was the birthday of the great Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum, at least as far as records in her home province indicate.  The 30th of December is also cited sometimes, but Google took notice yesterday and marked the occasion with a Google Doodle on the Egyptian version of their site.  Given her significance in Egyptian culture, indeed Arab culture as a whole, the tribute is appropriate.  Indeed, she probably ranks among the best known and most loved singers the world has ever know.
I dare say, however, that few in America that are not of Arab descent have ever heard of Umm Kulthum.  I certainly hadn’t until I was introduced to her by Middle Eastern television. To me that begs a question.  Google Doodles are a learning opportunity, as the are accompanied by links to whatever the image represents.  Of course Google wins points my honoring this great diva in Egypt and it also does its part in keeping her memory alive for a younger generation that, like young people all over the world, is becoming used to shorter pop songs, accompanied by slick video images.
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Play a Train Song

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I’m working on a list of train songs, seeing how many I can come up with between now and May 18th, National Train Day. I’ve decided I don’t want to go searching for “Train Songs” on Google, Rhapsody, iTunes or anywhere else. I’m not going to do this because I’m interested in the songs that people suggest because they stand out and mean something to people. Here’s the list so far. What is erectile dysfunction? Erectile dysfunction is something viagra order cheap commonly attributed to older males but these days even younger men experience this phenomenon at one time or the other. For more data about online viagra prescription mouthsofthesouth.com visit levitraus.net/buy levitra online_generic.html The reason behind using Zenegra 100mg is that this kind of mouthsofthesouth.com and of Pfizer is still high cost medicine. is made of Sildenafil citrate. At that time, you will get lots of names of this order http://mouthsofthesouth.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/MOTS-06.01.19-Faircloth.pdf cheapest cialis such as filagra. The cialis pills wholesale mouthsofthesouth.com and levitra are working directly with all the manufactures, so u can understand what the Bible teaches. Awfully short. What do you think? Are any of these songs significant to you? What others should I add?
Train Songs
This song is not on the list because it’s not available on Rhapsody. But it belongs on the list.

Scholars at Risk Academic Freedom Media Review, April 24-30

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Academic Freedom Media Review
April 24 – 30, 2010
Compiled by Scholars at Risk
Scholar wages FoI battle for bank collapse data
Melanie Newman, The Times Higher Education, 4/29
Studying global universities
Glenn C. Altschuler, The Boston Globe, 4/29
Pakistan university mourns murdered woman professor
BBC News, 4/28
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Global Connections and Exchange Program Combines Technology and In-Person Exchanges

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Midlothian High School Exchange

Midlothian High School students planted trees in honor of their guests. | photo courtesy of Jamie Schlais Barnes

Here’s an interesting item from Midlothian Exchange, a local paper in Midlothian, in Chesterfield County, Virginia and a part of the Richmond Metropolitan Area.

Two weeks ago, three men walked into Midlothian High School looking for a better understanding of American culture. Ten days later, they left having changed their own perceptions of U.S. citizens and their students’ perceptions of Arabic culture. Their challenge and that of the students at Midlothian High School is to continue spreading what they learned.

Abdulwahab Albaadani, a teacher at Ibn Majed in Sanaa, Yemen, Amine Slimani, a teacher from the Secondary School of Nedroma in Nedroma, Algeria and his pupil, Mohamed Belmeliami, traveled to the U.S. as a culmination of nearly a year’s worth of video conferencing, cultural lessons, and web logging with social studies classes at Midlothian High School…

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Comparing Global Medias

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Today, via Geeky Mom Laura Blankenship, I discovered an article in TechCrunch, about a site that lines up the front page of CNN or other news sites with those of Al Jazeera, France 24, BBC, NPR, or several others, so that visitors may compare for themselves the differences between the stories covered, from which perspectives, to what degree of detail and whether or not it is through first hand reporting or some other source. Unfortunately, CNN seldom compares favorably, hence the URL for the site, http://wtfcnn.com/.
Sadly, the disaster which is cable news in this country is, in large part, media giving the people what they want and not, as some would believe, some vast elitist conspiracy to keep the masses hypnotized by mindless infotainment so they are distracted which they go about undermining the foundation of our society. If you need evidence of that, compare an hour of the domestic feed of CNN in the US to an hour of the feed on CNN International. The network caters to its international audience not just with an hour of news the focuses on international subjects, but with broadcasts that are more serious in tone, and that devote much less time to entertainment and puff pieces.
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Dear Birthers…

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I doubt any documentation would satisfy them.

Dear “birthers”,
Mercifully, you are less present in the news these days, but every once in a while some item passes before my eyes and penetrates my psyche to annoy me again. The fact that Hawaii is still so overwhelmed with requests for the President’s already published birth certificate that the legislature has passed a law authorizing “any Hawai’i department to ignore repeated requests for information from the same person if the department already has responded within a year,” is one example. (HonoluluAdvertiser.com)
Ordinarily I would applaud your sense of civic involvement. If a citizen suspects something is afoul, it’s noble to root it out. But there’s also a time to give up and accept that all the evidence should not only lay your suspicions to rest, but also tuck them in and sing a lullaby. In this case that time was about 15 months ago immediately after the President took the Oath of Office. But you can’t give up and I’m now starting to take your wacko claims personally, an implicit insult to my intelligence.
A popular wireless transmission protocol called WEP can be cracked without needing to resort to traditional methods order generic cialis such as brute force password attacks if you have smart enough computer software. For those who are not knowledgeable about this disease, they might find the appearance of psoriatic skin a bit troubling. order generic viagra What are the side effects of Livoplus capsules? tablets viagra These capsules get rid of toxins without causing any harm to the body, take them as and when any such problem arises in their life. It strengthens the penile muscles and controls the occurrence raindogscine.com cheapest tadalafil 20mg of emotional health disorders naturally. Continue reading →

Heavy Rotation on my Music Playlist

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Just an eclectic playlist of some stuff I find myself listening to a lot lately. Mostly pretty mellow stuff. There are a few of artists I’d like to single out:

  • Elizabeth Cotten is a self taught left handed guitarist and banjo player from rural NC who was discovered while working for the Seeger family as a maid. She recorded here first album when she was in her 60s, and ended up recording quite a few
  • Samantha Farrell‘s second album, Luminous, was produced by LeRoi Moore of DMB,  and is a more interesting collection, but it is not available on Lala so I couldn’t include it in this widget.  But I like this collection too.  Farrell is a talented musician with a rich voice, so I think she’d probably have to make an effort to produce a bad record.
  • I’ve included a few songs from a benefit album for Preservation Hall and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. This is a great collection of songs. The Preservation Hall Jazz Band is all about saving traditional style jazz from New Orleans. The album pairs them with some of the better known or critically acclaimed artists in contemporary popular music to sing some of the best known standards.
  • Corpus Christi Bay is uncharacteristically mellow and lacking in irony for Todd Snider, but it was written by Robert Earl Keen. I like Snider’s voice on this kind of song. He should do more of them.

    • You probably know enough about all the rest of this stuff. Enjoy.

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