A children’s book for all ages.  I struggle to stay present and will buy the book. Check out this description from the publisher:

What Does It Mean to be Present? is a sweet little book by Rana DiOrio (and illustrated by Eliza Wheeler) packed with a powerful message that is as appropriate for adults as it is for kids – pay attention in the present moment. Period. Simple, right? Simple, yes, but not so easy. Talking while driving, surfing while watching TV, pretending to listen while waiting to talk, planning what’s next before we have experienced now. In a culture that applauds multi-tasking and abhors stillness, we are constantly learning how to avoid truly being with ourselves and, in turn, teaching our children the same. Without even knowing it, we are disconnected – from others, our environment and, most importantly, ourselves.

This is why I love/get frustrated with the media business. We were looking forward to finishing our web series and distributing it through TubeMogul. So finally, we’re almost there. Look up TubeMogul and behold …  TubeMogul has moved on.

“By April of last year, the company began downplaying its early distribution business, instead becoming a full-fledged media buying tech and services firm, i.e., a DSP.

Big brands are usually drawn to broadcast networks’ sites Hulu and YouTube, but that hasn’t been much of an issue for TubeMogul. Currently, 50-some brands are running campaigns via TubeMogul a week, including the likes of Toyota, Microsoft, Range Rover, Kia, Allstate and Clorox. Rotblat claims that traditional brands — half the Fortune 500 — are drawn to TubeMogul because of the precise targeting it offers, from site selection to demographics and even data-driven segmenting.”

Love it/hate it.

1.  The ramifications of Citizens United

2.  The implications of the charter school movement and school choice.

3.  The failure to prepare our children for emerging opportunities in STEM

4.  Food deserts

5.  Wealth wipeout related to the mortgage crisis

6.  Collapse of middle class employment

7.  The consequences of a Greek default (along with Spain, etc.)

8.  The possibilities represented by Iceland rewriting its constitution

9.  Occupy Wall Street movement

10. Nursing homes are enrolling increasing numbers of African Americans who are not benefiting from health and social service initiatives being pursued in other communities

11. Emergence of Latino as the majority-minority

12. Global business opportunities

13.  Lavender Revolution

14.  The prospects for the newest African nation, South Sudan

15.  The ongoing dilemma of Haiti

I’d like to hear quite a bit less about

1.  Blue Ivy

2.  BWE

3.  President Obama crooning

4.  FLOTUS’s wardrobe

5.  The latest Republican racist insult/smear

6.  Bishop T.D. Jakes

7.   Tyler Perry

8.  Bishop Eddie Long

9.  Lisa Raye

10. Hip hop

Gabriel Aubry through no fault of his own spent some time in foster care. Probably some damage there but it’s equally likely that his experience made him more committed to being a good parent.

After her parents divorced, Halle Berry was estranged from her dad. Probably some damage there but it’s equally like that that experience increased her commitment to being a good mother.

Recent and previous allegations against Mr. Aubry suggest he has a temper. Fair enough. More troubling are the reports that he has called her mom and nanny, ni**ers.

For people of color in interracial relationships, this has to be an ultimate fear. While most couples wind up saying things that hurt each other, racial epithets are particularly thorny. They threaten to hurtle us back to a blood-soaked, vile history. If our partners can’t or refuse to understand the depth of the hurt, the relationship will probably deteriorate. And the profoundly negative impact on children is horrible to contemplate in a world where children of color continue to struggle.

Love me, lover but with respect.

  Red Tails

I had the pleasure of knowing some Tuskegee Airmen. They weren’t just men of achievement. They were funny, smart, flawed — all over the map. As others have noted, this film manages to make them boring.

Three things did this film in.

Excess nobility.

At one time, dignity and nobility were important steps forward for African American film characters.  The demeaning roles blacks  played before the breakthrough roles of the 1950s needed to go — despite the wit that brilliant performers like Hattie McDaniel used to undermine stereotypes. One terrific example: Donald Bogle has a picture of Hattie McDaniel and points out the supposed “mammy’s” exquisite manicure.

However,  since the late 1950s pop culture has celebrated the antihero (Drive, Pulp Fiction). That makes the noble character seems increasingly less relatable and less human.

Poor storytelling

With no wives or sweethearts waiting for the characters at home, an ambiguous mission, no definitive action sequence and unbelievably boring speechifying from Terrence Howard, Red Tails‘ characters seem completely marginal, and devoid of context.  There is very little for an audience to hook into.

Culture divide

Same crap different day. It’s the age old, creating believable, three dimensional characters. It’s obviously more of a challenge when we’re writing across race, age or gender but to say that it can’t be done is a cop out.

But props for the effort nonetheless.  Who’s the audience for this film? The audiences of MI: Ghost Protocol or the Tyler Perry machine? If George Lucas thinks that it will appeal to the Star Wars and Indiana Jones fan base, he and his team are in for some disappointments.

The Glory problem, the Sidney Poitier box.

The Dragon personality The Dragon is a creature of myth and legend. A symbol of good fortune and sign of intense power, the Oriental Dragon is regarded as a divine beast – the reverse of the malicious monster that Westerners felt necessary to find and slay. In Eastern philosophy, the Dragon is said to be a deliverer of good fortune and a master of authority. Therefore, those people born in Dragon years are to be honored and respected.

Years of the Dragon

Fifth in the cycle, Dragon Years follow the Rabbit and recur every twelfth year. The Chinese New Year does not fall on a specific date, so it is essential to check the calendar to find the exact date on which each Dragon Year actually begins

1904 * 1916 * 1928 * 1940 * 1952 * 1964 * 1976 * 1988 * 2000

THE SIGN OF THE DRAGON

The key to the Dragon personality is that Dragons are the free spirits of the Zodiac. Conformation is a Dragon’s curse. Rules and regulations are made for other people. Restrictions blow out the creative spark that is ready to flame into life. Dragons must be free and uninhibited. The Dragon is a beautiful creature, colorful and flamboyant. An extroverted bundle of energy, gifted and utterly irrepressible, everything Dragons do is on a grand scale – big ideas, ornate gestures, extreme ambitions. However, this behavior is natural and isn’t meant for show. Because they are confident, fearless in the face of challenge, they are almost inevitably successful. Dragons usually make it to the top. However, Dragon people be aware of their natures. Too much enthusiasm can leave them tired and unfulfilled. Even though they are willing to aid when necessary, their pride can often impede them from accepting the same kind of help from others. Dragons’ generous personalities give them the ability to attract friends, but they can be rather solitary people at heart. A Dragon’s self-sufficiency can mean that he or she has no need for close bonds with other people.

DRAGON FACTS:

People born in the Year of the Dragon share certain characteristics. The Dragon sign is an abbreviated way of characterizing that individual’s personality. Following are features associated with the sign of the Dragon.

Fifth in order, Chinese name-LONG, sign of luck
Hour-7am-8:59 a.m. Month-April
Western Counterpart-Aries

CHARACTERISTICS

• Innovative
• Enterprising
• Flexible
• Self-assured
• Brave
• Passionate
• Conceited
• Tactless
• Scrutinizing
• Unanticipated
• Quick-tempered

Sadly, African Americans have a tougher road getting publicity from the media when they go missing. Here’s a potential solution: http://www.blackandmissinginc.com/cdad/index.cfm.

Support it thoughtfully and as always carefully.

As Martin Luther King day comes to a close, let’s take a moment to reflect on all that has been accomplished and the intractable complexity of the problems that remain.

The low hanging fruit — discrimination in housing, employment, and public accommodations — has been addressed (but not solved completely).  What remains is the struggle for hearts and minds. If you think that the Israelites were stubborn, look at the post racial debate.

Dr. King would want you to know that we will need grace for this phase because we are all implicated:

Find out how many slaves are working for you

http://slaveryfootprint.org/

See how much hidden bias lurks in your heart

https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo

How much do you really impact the environment?

http://www.myfootprint.org/

Aaaah, the warm silence of conviction running, walking and strolling rampant.

No, I haven’t read the book. I decided against it when I heard the NPR interview with Ms. Kantor. If one of Ms. Kantor’s keener insights is that African American and white staffers for Michelle Obama had different opinions about whether she should appear on the cover of Vogue, then I think this is a read I can safely pass up.

The unending contempt hoisted upon the First Lady (http://www.michelleobamawatch.com/) and more importantly, the fact that she and the President have endured enormous pushback including an unusually large number of resistance including death threats (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/5967942/Barack-Obama-faces-30-death-threats-a-day-stretching-US-Secret-Service.html) makes me very skeptical of reviews like David Remnick’s in the New Yorker.  Here’s a quote from his description of White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs’ conflict with Senior White House Advisor Valerie Jarrett.

“It was Jarrett’s tone, calm to the point of condescension, that finally undid Gibbs,” Kantor writes. He seemed so “frustrated one colleague thought he was going to cry.”

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2012/01/16/120116crbo_books_remnick#ixzz1jZq2xGwx

I don’t know a woman, person of color or any kind of “other” who hasn’t had emotions or thoughts attributed to them that bear no resemblance to reality. At all. This is the kind of thing that makes me want to talk with Jodi Kantor’s African American colleagues at the Times. I have a good hunch about what I might hear.

Getting back to the review and by implication, the book, if Jarrett’s calm angered a volatile Gibbs, I don’t think his anger is really her issue or her fault.  And these things happen within a broader context. Has everyone forgotten the contempt that Robert Gibbs displayed to this Black female reporter?

I object when Remnick indirectly critiques the gossipy undertone of the book citing the challenges of discussing a happy marriage but validating the Obama’s self pity and “occasional sanctimonies.” And why doesn’t Remnick get why discussing race is poisonous for Pres. Obama and other Blacks of his generation?

But they soft-pedal such discomforts. Obama, too, has learned to speak in clichés and orotund deflection about what it’s like to be a black President, governing from a house built largely by slaves. As one of his close friends tells Kantor, “The first black president doesn’t want to give any insight into being the first black president.”

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2012/01/16/120116crbo_books_remnick#ixzz1jZvMiSFE

I will use Ms. Obama’s words to sum this up:

“I just try to be me. … There will always be people who don’t like me.”  But, she says, “Who can tell me how I feel?”

Or, I would add, think, believe, etc.

I look forward to the history written by the successors of Drs. Angela Davis, Manning Marable and John Hope Franklin.