Hey Film Lovers, check this out: Voted #1 by Atlantic Publications, The Wire as This Week's Single Best Moment from Any Current Trailer This is what they had to say:
The Dear White People trailer is 90 percent hilarious and
biting. But there are two aspects – one line, one moment – that feel
more emotionally resonant than the scenes around them. Both involve Mad Men's Teyonah
Parris in a blonde wig. The first is a line she delivers at what
appears to be a party: "They pay millions of dollars on their lips,
their tans, Jay Z tickets, because they want to be like us." Later in
the trailer, as she leaves that same party, Parris' upset character
tears her blonde wig off. It's an affecting combo, even if we don't
quite know what the surrounding narrative is yet.
Though
the teaser trailer appeared on our list last week, the full trailer,
released this week, is far more exciting. The performances all look
pretty perfect, the lines are killer ("a bougie Lisa Bonet wannabe" is
our current favorite), and overall, this looks like it'll live up to the
Sundance hype. Oct. 17 has never seemed farther away.
After reading this post, click the link to hear her voice and the NPR interview with Ms. Coachman, who's story is included in theNational Visionary Leadership Project.I encourage you to explore their website.
lovu~
Kendke
Alice Coachman of the United States, after winning the high jump at Wembley Stadium during the 1948 London Olympics.
Alice
Coachman, who became the first black woman to win an Olympic gold medal
when she captured the high jump for the United States at the 1948
London Games, died on Monday in Albany, Ga. She was 90.
Her
daughter, Evelyn Jones, said she had been treated at a nursing home for
a stroke in recent months and went into cardiac arrest after being
transferred to a hospital on Monday with breathing difficulties.
Coachman
(who was later known as Alice Coachman Davis) received her medal from
King George VI. She was invited aboard a British Royal yacht, she was
congratulated by President Harry S. Truman at the White House, and Count
Basie gave a party for her. She was lauded in a motorcade that wound
its way through Georgia from Atlanta to her hometown, Albany.
But
she had returned to a segregated South. Blacks and whites were seated
separately in the Albany city auditorium when she was honored there. The
mayor sat on the stage with her but would not shake her hand, and she
had to leave by a side door.
Coachman in 2012.Credit
Damon WinterThe New York Times
“You
had to run up and down the red roads and the dirt roads,” Coachman told
The Kansas City Star. “You went out there in the fields, where there
was a lot of grass and no track. No nothing.”
At
a time when there were few high-profile black athletes beyond Jackie
Robinson and Joe Louis, Coachman became a pioneer. She led the way for
female African-American Olympic track stars like Wilma Rudolph, Evelyn
Ashford, Florence Griffith Joyner and Jackie Joyner-Kersee.
“I
made a difference among the blacks, being one of the leaders,” she told
The New York Times in 1996. “If I had gone to the Games and failed,
there wouldn’t be anyone to follow in my footsteps. It encouraged the
rest of the women to work harder and fight harder.”
Alice
Marie Coachman, one of 10 children, was born in Albany on Nov. 9, 1923,
to Fred and Evelyn Coachman. She ran track and played baseball and
softball with the boys when she was young, but her father, a plasterer,
was angered by her refusal to be ladylike and sometimes whipped her for
pursuing athletics.
She
saw little prospect of an athletic career and thought of becoming a
musician or a dancer, having been enthralled by the saxophonist Coleman
Hawkins and by Shirley Temple. But she was encouraged by a fifth-grade
teacher and an aunt to continue in sports, and she came to the attention
of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama while competing for her high
school track and field team in Albany.
Coachman
moved to Tuskegee and competed for the institute’s high school and
college teams and later for Albany State College (now Albany State
University). She captured the Amateur Athletic Union high jump
championship 10 consecutive times, from 1939 to 1948, and the union’s
50-meter outdoor title from 1943 to 1947. She also won national
championships in the 100-meter dash and the 4x100-meter relay.
But
Coachman had to wait until 1948 to compete in the Olympics; the 1940
and 1944 Games were canceled because of World War II. On a rainy
afternoon at Wembley Stadium in London in August 1948, she vied for gold
in the high jump with Dorothy Tyler of Britain. They both cleared 5
feet 6 1/8 inches, but Coachman won because she did it on her first try.
Micheline Ostermeyer of France was third.
Coachman, the only American woman to win gold in track and field at the London Games, remembered the moment long afterward.
“I
saw it on the board, ‘A. Coachman, U.S.A., Number One,’ ” she told NPR.
“I went on, stood up there, and they started playing the national
anthem. It was wonderful to hear.”
Coachman’s
track and field career ended with the 1948 Olympics, when she was 24.
She raised a family, became an elementary and high school teacher, and
created the Alice Coachman Track and Field Foundation to aid young
athletes and former competitors in financial need.
She
is survived by her daughter and a son, Richmond, from her first
marriage, to N. F. Davis, which ended in divorce; a sister, Dicena
Rambo; one grandchild; and two great-grandchildren. Her second husband,
Frank Davis, died about five years ago, her daughter said.
Coachman was inducted into the United States Olympic Hall of Fame and the National Track and Field Hall of Fame. There is an Alice Coachman Elementary School in Albany.
Coachman faded from public view after the 1948 Olympics, but her pride remained undiminished.
“Go
anyplace and people will tell you Wilma Rudolph was the first black
woman to win a medal — it’s not true,” she said in an interview with The
Birmingham News in 1997, referring to Rudolph’s three gold medals in
the sprints at the Rome Olympics. “She came on the scene 12 years later.
But she was on television.”
The mission of the National Visionary Leadership Project (NVLP) is to
develop the next generation of leaders by recording, preserving and
sharing the stories of extraordinary African American elders – Visionaries -- who transcended barriers, shaped American history and influenced the world.
Co-founded in 2001 by Camille O. Cosby, Ed.D. (wife of comedian/producer/activist Bill Cosby) and Renee Poussaint (wife of Dr. Alvin Poussaint, Harvard University professor of psychiatry)
NVLP is an innovative educational nonprofit that conducts videotaped
oral history interviews with accomplished African American elders.
We
then share these historic first person accounts through our educational
and outreach programs, lesson plans, website and other media. The result
is an amazing collection of conversations that show how these elders
achieved significant triumphs, overcame personal and historic struggles,
and created breakthroughs that paved the way for us all. With
interviews conducted by NVLP's co-founders, board members and college
fellows, NVLP’s unprecedented archive, which is permanently preserved at
the Library of Congress, transforms and creates tomorrow’s leaders,
while passing on the richness of the African American heritage and
traditions of social change.
What We Believe
We believe that African American history, culture and tradition have shaped America’s history and society.
We believe elders and youth are natural resources of each
community and their intergenerational connection can create positive
social change for all.
We believe in nurturing confident young leaders who are inspired to create a better world for themselves and others.
We believe all people should exist in a society that affirms
their human dignity, respects their contributions and nurtures their
full potential.
Warren and Chris Ford in their soybean field.Rosha Nix, Photographer
Warren Ford wakes up at 4 a.m. Not long after, he arrives at the
fields filled with peas, members of his family in tow. They pick and
weed until 2 p.m. When everyone else heads home, Ford gets on his
tractor and works on his soybean fields until the sun sets.
He’s 26 years old and it’s his farm, his land, his dream.
“I don’t know why I love it, but I do. I just love it,” says Ford as
he heads back home from the Clanton, Alabama, field at about 8 p.m on a
recent weekday.
“I plan to do row cropping for the rest of my life. I’m going to retire here.”
Ford, who started the 200-acre farm (aptly named Ford Farms) in 2013, is part of a group of new farmers in the United States.
According to the most recent U.S. Agricultural Census, there are 2.1
million farmers in the country, and about 25 percent — 522,056 — are new
farmers, people who have been on their land less than 10 years. About
half of those newbies started within the past five years.
The Ag Census is taken every five years, and asks farmers about their
crops, their income, Internet use and their use of alternative power,
like solar panels.
Although fewer Americans are farming nowadays, more newbies are
likely to be women or minorities than in previous years. The increase
was particularly high among Hispanics (21 percent).
It’s hard to get started, but once you get started, you don’t give up.
Warren Ford
Some of the new farmers came to agriculture through family land.
Others say they started farming out of love for being outside and
tilling the soil. Others were laid off during the recession and turned
to farming out of a belief that it would be a more stable source of
income, only to learn that, in fact, farming can be a very risky
business.
Ford, who is African-American, always wanted to be a farmer. His
uncle was a farmer, and he remembers working alongside his cousin’s on
the uncle’s farm. But no one else in his family worked on a farm, and
when his uncle died, so did the practice.
“Really, I had to start from ground zero,” says Ford. “I just went
around and talked to people about leasing land and telling them what I
was planning on doing.”
Ford and his fiance, Rosha Nix, started with a microloan of $35,000
through the Department of Agriculture. Then they worked with a program
at Tuskegee University that helps new farmers find ways to sell their
crops, peas, soybeans and collard greens. This year they produced their
first crop, and they’ve already sold 1,000 bushels of peas to Wal-Mart.
“It’s hard to get started, but once you get started, you don’t give up,” says Ford.
Pakou Hang, executive director of the Hmong American Farmers
Association, says she has seen a lot of people go into farming, starting
in 2008, shortly after the recession hit.
She points to the example of one man in his early 50s who worked in a
factory. When he was laid off, he tried other jobs but was told he was
too slow. So he started farming a couple years ago and now sells carrots
to the Minneapolis Public School system.
“They came [to the U.S.] 20 years ago, and then they lost their jobs
and fell back on farming,” says Hang. “Farming is what they had back in
Laos, and they wanted to stay here for their children and they see
farming as a stable industry.”
Qiana Thornton
Not all new farmers are thinking big. Some
just want to feed themselves and their families. Qiana Thornton is an
African-American woman who works on a one-acre plot in Pembroke, a
rural, impoverished area south of Chicago. She was an
aerospace-engineering major at Tuskegee University, but dropped out and
returned home. She worked a series of administrative jobs, but none of
them really satisfied. Then she heard about an apprentice farmer program
and signed up.
Thornton bought the Pembroke land in August 2013, and started farming full-time this winter.
“There’s actually a lot in common with aerospace engineering,”
Thornton says. “There’s a lot of problem solving with both, and there’s a
lot of science in farming.
“You think it’s just growing the food, but you have to be
mechanically inclined, and aerospace has a lot of mechanical engineering
involved."
"2012
was our first year, and that was the year of the drought.
We thought,
‘Well, we started off as hard as we can,’
and in 2013 we had to try
again.
So now we’re in our third year
and we’re really going gung ho."
Amy Randazzo
When she started the apprentice program, Thornton says, she had a
romantic view of life on a farm. The outdoors. The slower pace. The
rural environment. Then she hit the reality of having to support herself
on just the land. Thornton, a vegetarian, says she is dedicated to
planting food that is not genetically modified, and it’s been a steep
learning curve.
Her goal for In the Cut, the name of her farm, is to feed not only
herself but her parents and brothers and, ultimately, others as well.
“I’m learning on the job,” she says. “I’m still determined to do it
and I’m happy to do it, but the reality will be in the numbers.”
One of the points in the Ag Census is that most new farmers (63 percent) don’t consider agriculture their primary occupation.
Four years ago,Amy Randazzo, 44, couldn’t tell a drip irrigation
system from a hoop house when she and her husband purchased her
grandparents’ horse farm, Grani’s Acres, in Fairbury, Illinois. She had a
master’s in accounting and had spent most of her adulthood working in a
cubicle.
When they bought the land, they had no intention of farming it. Then she lost her job.
“My husband and I were talking about jobs I could do, and I have the
right personality and makeup to be my own boss, and I liked that I could
get out of a cube and be in charge of my own destiny,” says Randazzo,
who is white.
She talked to a local farmer who’d helped develop a farm consortium,
working with eight small farms to purchase supplies and market their
collective output. Randazzo hoped to do the same, but then she
discovered her destiny was actually in Mother Nature’s control.
“2012 was our first year, and that was the year of the drought. We
thought, ‘Well, we started off as hard as we can,’ and in 2013 we had to
try again,” she says. “So now we’re in our third year and we’re really
going gung ho.”
This year, they only planted 2.5 acres, and most of the land went to
potatoes — 2,000 pounds of potatoes. Other farmers said she was
crazy. But potatoes sell, she says, and they are low maintenance.
Randazzo and her husband tried chickens, but lost almost all of them
when a neighbor’s dogs attacked. They're going to try again in August.
Randazzo’s brother lives on the farm, which is chemical free, and
does much of the work during the week. She lives about 40 minutes away
from the land, and has found part-time work at an accounting firm and
her husband is a full-time computer programmer. She heads up to the farm
every weekend, works at the farmer’s market nearby and weeds, plants
and does whatever is needed.
“Our eldest son really got hooked on farming, and he’s actually
working on an internship on a very large farm right now through
Thanksgiving,” she says. “So he’ll be the company expert and he’ll be
more of the brains and I’ll be more of the brawn.”
Randazzo hopes to move to the farm full-time in six years, when her youngest graduates from high school.
What advice would she give to other would-be “green” farmers?
“Honestly, I’d say just do it. Don’t try to plan it; just go with your gut,” she says.
If you are really upset or sorry about something, you might lament it. Many of the oldest and most lasting poems in human history have been laments (pronounced 'lah-mint'). There are examples of lament in the Hebrew and Christian Holy texts, as well as classical and Hellenistic Greek and Islamic songs. It is a global phenomenon, both ancient and continuously created form of human expression, which includes and spans the Hindu Vedas to the Blues and Jazz genres of music, created by the African descended people of America.
A lament or lamentation is a passionate expression of grief, often in music, poetry, or song form. The grief is most often born of regret, or mourning. In a lament, one gives expression to one's feelings and emotions by expressing complaints, discontent, displeasure, or unhappiness. Included in the definitions are that it's a loud cry or repeated cries of pain or rage or sorrow.
In her book, "Lyrics of Lament: From Tragedy to Transformation", Dr. Nancy C. Lee states, "If we ask what songs or lyrics today might fit the “lament” genres, a good signal is whether or not they contain a description of distress".I offer two contemporary examples for your listening pleasure. I find these great examples of the angst and trials our young people feel today. Both Chris Brown and Janelle Monae are unique, dynamic and outstanding artists that have great authentic talent.
Some may wonder how I could post Chris Brown's video because of the language. If you saw the 2014 BET Award Show last week, then you know why I'm sharing this. It has been years since I've been moved by a performer like I was while watching him sing, 'Loyal'. The camera panned the audience of stars, catching John Legend and Pharrell watching Brown perform. EVERYBODY was up, and totally entranced with his performance. He was thrilling. It was on the level of watching Michael Jackson's artistry.
It was only clouded by the fact that Brown had just been released from a jail sentence, and the lyrics were mostly blocked out being too profane for television. Still I haven't seen an artist connect with his music, body and soul like I saw that evening. I don't even watch BET, but I've watched the Award Show 3 times now, to catch his performance (It's about 45 minutes into the show). Ithen went to youTube, to hear the actual song, which I'm sharing with you.
Being able to hear the lyrics that'd been left out on TV, got me thinking deeper about the song, it's message and Chris Brown's journey. And one morning out of my meditation came the words, "It's a lament". A very legitimate creativeart form.
My first reference point is that I'm an animal. First and foremost. As an existential life, before I'm a human being, I'm a member of, and grateful to be, related to all within the animal kingdom. Animals~ and all of Nature~are my teachers, not human beings. For animals are among the most successful creatures on the planet.
You might say that my thinking is the reverse of the writer of the piece below. I want to be as smart as an animal, for I believe that if I can live true to the examples of theintelligence I witness throughout the animal kingdom, that that would bea good starting point for me as a human being.
However you see it, enjoy the listing and the photos! lovu, Kendke
10 Animals Who Are Almost as Smart as Humans
While we pride ourselves in being the most intelligent species, some
animals aren't far beyond. With abilities such as reasoning, social
status, and problem solving these animals make a name for themselves as
being smartypants.
Chimpanzees
Humans
and Chimpanzees are not too far apart. We share 98% of our genomes
with these hairy primates, so of course they would have 98% of our
intelligence. Chimps make and use tools, solve complex problems, hunt
in organized groups, and engage in acts of humor or violence. Chimps
can also show altruism, empathy, and self-awareness.
And if you've been reading the blog for a while, you know I love Bonobos, our other close cousins.
Bottlenose Dolphins
Not
only do these dolphins have one of the biggest animal brains, but they
are also known to be one of the smartest species. Bottlenose dolphins
have advanced communication skills. They speak through a language of
whistles and clicks, and can even call each other by name.
Pigs
Forget
the mud, pigs are actually very smart and clean creatures. Research
has shown that a pig has the intellectual capacity of a 3-year-old. In a
1990 study, pigs were trained to move a video game cursor with their
snout to distinguish scribbled lines they have seen before verses
scribbled lines they were seeing for the first time. They learned this
task as quickly as chimpanzees.
Parrots
While
their renowned ability to talk may be merely mimicry, parrots have an
amazing memory. They also possess reasoning abilities that allow them
to solve basic math and relativity problems. Their knowledge goes
beyond associating the sounds of words with a meaning; parrots can
generalize groups of objects, just like humans.
Dogs
Although
intelligence level varies across breeds, dogs in general learn new
skills quickly. Dogs can understand up to 250 words, the same as a
toddler. The smartest breeds include the Border Collie, German
Shepherd, Poodle, and Golden Retriever. But, it is their emotional
intelligence that makes them man’s best friend.
Octopuses
Octopuses
are known as one of the smartest invertebrates. They have highly
evolved emotions, intelligence, and even individual responsibility. What
makes octopuses unique in their intellectual abilities is that the
majority of their neurons are in their arms, not their brain, unlike
humans and most animals.
Squirrels
Don’t
underestimate squirrels just because they are small. They have very
great, but very focused intelligence on one thing: gathering food. They
have an insane ability to remember where they stored food. They are
also very fast learners and can adapt to changes in their environment
quickly.
Cows
When
it comes to animal intelligence, you probably didn’t think cows would
make the list. But believe it or not, cows are very emotionally evolved
creatures. Studies have shown that they have best friends and they
become depressed when they are separated from their BFF. Cows also
develop social hierarchies and can hold grudges.
Rats
While
they might creep some people out, rats are smarter than you think.
They have great long-term memory, can adapt to changes quickly, and can
solve complex problems. They can understand causal relationships, A
causes B, like humans and our close primate relatives.
Raccoons
While
we might think raccoon are menaces for getting into our trash, we have
to give them props for being so resourceful. Raccoons are able to form
social relationship and use tools to solve complex problems, like
breaking into a trashcan, or worse, a house.
And a little more to keep you smiling~ SOME PHOTOS
NEED NO CAPTIONS...
A quick history and perspective of the current developments in the Middle East. The author is an Egyptian-Belgian journalist based in Jerusalem.
Kendke
The Caliphate Fantasy
The jihadist insurgent group ISIS,
or as it now prefers to be called, the Islamic State, appears well on
the road to achieving its stated goal: the restoration of the caliphate.
The concept, which refers to an Islamic state presided over by a leader
with both political and religious authority, dates from the various
Muslim empires that followed the time of the Prophet Muhammad. From the
seventh century onward, the caliph was, literally, his “successor.”
The
problem with this new caliphate, which, an ISIS spokesman claimed on
Sunday, had been established under Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, an Islamist
militant leader since the early days of the American occupation of Iraq,
is that it is ahistorical, to say the least.
The
Abbasid caliphate, for example, which ruled from 750 to 1258, was an
impressively dynamic and diverse empire. Centered in Baghdad, just down
the road from where ISIS is occupying large areas of Iraq, the Abbasid
caliphate was centuries ahead of Mr. Baghdadi’s backward-looking
cohorts.
Abbasid society during its heyday thrived on multiculturalism,
science, innovation, learning and culture — in sharp contrast to ISIS’
violent puritanism. The irreverent court poet of the legendary Caliph
Harun al-Rashid (circa 763-809), Abu Nuwas, not only penned odes to
wine, but also wrote erotic gay verse that would make a modern imam
blush.
Centered
on the Bayt al-Hikma, Baghdad’s “House of Wisdom,” the Abbasid
caliphate produced notable advances in the sciences and mathematics. The
modern scientific method itself was invented in Baghdad by Ibn
al-Haytham, who has been called “the first true scientist.”
With
such a proliferation of intellectuals, Islam itself did not escape
skeptical scrutiny. The rationalist Syrian scholar Abu’l Ala Al-Ma’arri
was an 11th-century precursor of Richard Dawkins in his scathing
assessments of religion. “Do not suppose the statements of the prophets
to be true,” he thundered. “The sacred books are only such a set of idle
tales as any age could have and indeed did actually produce.”
It
is this tolerance of free thought, not to mention the supposed
decadence of the caliph’s court, that causes Islamist radicals to hark
back to an earlier era, that of Muhammad and his first “successors.” But
even these early Rashidun (“rightly guided”) caliphs bear little
resemblance to jihadist mythology.
Muhammad, the most “rightly guided”
of all, composed a strikingly secular document in the Constitution of
Medina. It stipulated that Muslims, Jews, Christians and even pagans had
equal political and cultural rights — a far cry from ISIS’ punitive
attitude toward even fellow Sunnis who do not practice its brand of
Islam, let alone Shiites, Christians or other minorities.
How did this ideological fallacy of the Islamist caliphate come about?
In
the late 19th century, Arab nationalists were great admirers of Western
societies and urged fellow Muslims, in the words of the Egyptian
reformer Rifa’a al-Tahtawi, to “understand what the modern world is.”
Many not only admired Europe and America but also believed Western
pledges to back their independence from the Ottoman Empire.
The
first reality check came when Britain and France carved up the Middle
East following World War I. Disappointed by the old powers, Arab
intellectuals still held out hope that the United States, which had not
yet entered Middle Eastern politics in earnest, would live up to its
image as a liberator.
But
after World War II, America filled the void left by France and Britain
by emulating its imperial predecessors. It avoided direct rule but
propped up a string of unpopular autocrats. This resulted in an abiding
distrust of Western democratic rhetoric.
Then
there was the domestic factor. The failure of revolutionary pan-Arabism
to deliver its utopian vision of renaissance, unity and freedom led to a
disillusionment with secular politics. At the same time, the corruption
and subservience to the West of the conservative, oil-rich monarchs
turned many Arabs against the traditional deferential model of Islam.
Out
of this multilayered failure, which often included the brutal
suppression of both secular oppositionists and moderate Islamists,
emerged a nihilistic fundamentalism, which claimed that contemporary
Arab society had returned to the pre-Islamic “Jahiliyyah” (an “age of
ignorance”). The only way to correct this was to declare jihad not only
against foreign “unbelievers,” but also against Arab society itself in
order to create a pure Islamic state — one that has only ever existed in
the imaginations of modern Islamic extremists.
These Islamists
misdiagnose the weakness and underdevelopment of contemporary Arab
society as stemming from its deviation from “pure” Islamic morality, as
if the proper length of a beard and praying five times a day were a
substitute for science and education, or could counterbalance global
inequalities.
The
wholesale destruction of Iraq’s political, social and economic
infrastructure triggered by the American-led invasion created a power
vacuum for these “takfiri” groups — first Al Qaeda and then the more
radical ISIS — to fill. Despite the latter’s recent battlefield success,
however, there is little support for the jihadists or appetite for
their harsh strictures among the local populations, a fact reflected by
the 500,000 terrified citizens who fled Mosul.
Even
in the more moderate model espoused by the Muslim Brotherhood, the
Islamist dream of transnational theocratic rule appeals to a dwindling
number of Arabs. Only last week, Moroccan women showed their contempt
for the conservative prime minister, Abdelilah Benkirane, by converging
on Parliament armed with frying pans after he’d argued that women should
stay in the home.
Rather than a caliphate presided over by arbitrarily appointed caliphs, subjected to a rigid interpretation of Shariah law,
millions of Arabs strive simply for peace, stability, dignity,
prosperity and democracy. Three turbulent years after the Arab
revolutions, people still entertain the modest dream of one day having
their fair share of “bread, freedom, social justice,” as the Tahrir
Square slogan put it.
Khaled Diab is an Egyptian-Belgian journalist based in Jerusalem.
