A place where procrastination is not frowned upon.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
It's not news if they say it's not news
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Are You F-ing Kidding Me?! This is a Story About the Gas Shortage in Atlanta
I called my sister yesterday to tell her gas in Atlanta was over $4. "That's more then here!" she exclaimed, saying that gas in Palo Alto, California, where she lives, was roughly $3.60. Right now Atlanta’s gas prices are over the national average but that’s not the least of our worries. To quote Atlanta Chevron station manager, Mohammed Hussain, “We Ain’t Got No Gas Here!" And it certainly feels that way as you drive pass station after station with plastic bags over the gas nozzle of every single pump. Every day for the pass two weeks gas shortages in Atlanta have been the big story. Luckily for me there is a free shuttle service I use to get to work so while the stories in the news about hunting for gas seemed awful with the hour long waits, the fist fights that break out and angry drivers blaring there horns, I wasn’t really affected by it. The last time I had to get gas was right before Hurricane Ike hit land earlier this month. I filled my 23 gallon, gas guzzling truck at $3.55. Later that day, the price had gone up to $4.00 and the lines at the pump where 4 and 5 cars deep.
But this isn’t really my story here. My story is that last night I finally felt the pain and it was awful! I figured I’ll try to get gas late at night where I figured the lines would be shorter. Boy was I soooooooo wrong! And I say “sooooooooooo” wrong because it was THAT bad! The lines were no longer 5/6 car deep, the line went out the parking lot and down the street about three blocks and we were stopping and going so frequently that I don’t think we were moving at all-if that makes sense. I was with my friend that night and we sat in line for an hour. I went from, “Wow, this is crazy,” to kicking my shoes off and propping my feet on the dash board to rolling down my window to see if I could catch a glimpse of the gas station to finally yelling out the window every time a car tried to cut the line. We finally moved in sight of the gas station only to determine that it looked like we would be in line for another hour or two because the line didn’t go right into the station but looped around first before you could make it inside. My nerves started to get the best of me after not moving an inch in 15 minute period. As we moved toward an intersection, a car in front of us refused to move. “Look man, I know we aren’t supposed to block intersections but in a time like this, get the hell on!” I yelled. Not budging, my friend starts honking the horn and baring up on the small car. “Push that car into the intersection”, I said encouragingly. I knew I sounded crazy but somehow crazy seemed appropriate in this situation. We saw cars trying to circumvent the line by cutting through a nearby plaza which made us even more furious. “That’s so not fair!" I exclaimed. “That’s so rude if they are really cutting the line like that.” I think I was hoping they just realized they were in the wrong line and were trying to get pass this ridiculously long line to the gas station. I knew my wishful thinking was futile. Another car tries to edge in front of us from the intersection. “Hey, man,” I said with my window rolled down. “You can’t just be trying to cut the line like that, we all are sitting here trying to get gas. You just can’t do that.”
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Palin's Daughter to Marry 'Baby Daddy'
Friday, August 29, 2008
Our Next President of the United States of America!
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Biden For Change?
So Joe Biden it is. Barack Obama had planned on announcing to the people via text message of his selection for VP but CNN beat him to the punch forcing him to move his announcement up. The network announced just after midnight on Saturday that Joe Biden was indeed on the ticket. Obama followed shortly after with the official word. I'm not surprised at all by Obama's choice for VP, but wouldn't it have been something if he had selected another minority instead of the" same ole old white guy" with more "experience" to balance himself out with his critics? Maybe I'm asking for too much you say? Will Biden help increase Obama's narrow lead over McCain? We can only wait and see.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Michelle Obama on Ebony
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Awesome Men, Where Are They?
Monday, July 28, 2008
Celebrity Journalists at Unity Conference
ReynaLinares at NABJ party with CNN anchor Don Lemon.
ReynaLinares with the "Haaardest working man in radio" Tom Joyner.
Jimi Izrael, Writer and Blogger, The Root.com
Rowland Martin, political pundit and ReynaLinares at NABJ party.
Maria Hinojosa, Senior Correspondent, "NOW" on PBS, Jose Antonio Vargas, Reporter, The Washington Post.
Michelle Norris, PBS All Things Considered.
Tom Joyner, Radio Host, The Tom Joyner Morning Show.
Tom Joyner, Radio Host, Eric Deeggans, St. Petersburg Times, Michel Martin, NPR "Tell Me More"
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Darkness Everybody Darkness!
blackberry. Please send me your comments, let's get the conversation rolling. Stay tuned!
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Soledad O'Brien is the Joint.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
It's hard being a blogger...
It's hard being a blogger and holding a real job that is. I've tried to sneak a few moments at work(my 9-5) to come up with topics for new posts or to read comments but it's always tricky because after 10 minutes my guilty conscience forces me back to my real work. After all I am getting paid to fight terrorism (that's what I do in my real job). I'll blog on my terrorism fighting job later. I'm still trying to figure out how to go about it without having George Bush and his administration down my back. Ooops, I think just mentioning terrorism, Bush and fighting may have red flagged by blog...oh well not that the Patriot Act doesn't allow "them" to do what "they" want anyway. It's late and I'm really just posting to say that I'm serious about this blog and even if it doesn't look like it now my blog is going to be something great...I'm getting there...please continue to support. Remember you don't have to agree with me just please be aware of what's going on in your world!
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Watch Venus Williams Tonight on Larry King Live
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Lest We Forgot, David Horsey.
Horsey, states his purpose for drawing the cartoon clearly, “For all you irony challenged literalists who were upset by The New Yorkers Obama as a Muslim cover, here’s one for you.”
I don’t know about you but I’m no “irony challenged literalist” in fact, Horsey understands my uproar over The New Yorker cartoon quite well. See, back in March Horsey apologized for offending the Jewish community when he originally drew a cartoon depicting two prodigal sons. The first prodigal son’s father accepts his long lost son back while the yarmulke skullcap wearing Jewish father says “Tough luck kid, life is unfair.”
Seattle Post-Intelligencer editorial cartoonist David Horsey found himself in an uncomfortable situation when one of his cartoons unintentionally offended many of the Jewish faith. The cartoon which ran last Thursday depicts two prodigal sons. The first, representing investment firms returning to a receptive father willing to bail him out and a second an individual home owner who lost his house with a “risky loan” and receives a cold shoulder. The point of contention was that the father was originally drawn wearing a yarmulke - “is a thin, slightly-rounded skullcap traditionally worn at all times by Orthodox Jewish men.” Many felt that identifying the father as Jewish continued the stereotype that Jews are money handlers.
Horsey responds to Jewish community with this:
“I am mortified to learn that a number of people in the Jewish community around the United States read into a recent cartoon a meaning I never intended. While there have been times that folks with an axe to grind have purposely misread my work, in this case I can fully appreciate the cause of concern. It was a complete failure on my part to comprehend how the mix of symbols in my cartoon could summon up historical libels against Jews This seemed to help clarify my intent, but I also realized that one little detail in my cartoon — the yarmulke — had clearly identified the characters as Jews, not as mere ancient residents of the Middle East. It was a dumb, thoughtless, unnecessary addition that was easily remedied.”
Ummm, flip flopper or anti-semimtist? Take your pick. Read entire article here. David Horsey apologizes for misinterpretation of his cartoon
Monday, July 14, 2008
Lampooning or Endorsing Stereotypes...Where is the Line?
Ok, I get it. The hype over the Obamas, that is. At first I was distracted by the fact that there is actually a presidential race going on here; gas prices rose again over the weekend to $4.19, we are still at war, soldiers are still dying, and our deficit is getting bigger. But now I get it. Sometimes it takes me a little longer to come up from under my “bubble” of Chai lattes, bookstores and great-paying jobs, where you don’t have to do a whole lot but talk about how you could do a whole lot. Ahem, ok…
By now most of you have seen, or at least heard about, the so called “satirical cartoon” of the Obamas on the cover of The New Yorker. If you haven’t, the image is of a turban-wearing Obama standing in what looks like a room in the White House, with his wife, Michelle, wearing a gun around her neck, militia attire and rocking an Angela Davis hairdo, while fist jabbing her husband as the American flag burns in the background.
Shocking? It’s called satire, according to editor of The New Yorker, David Remnick, who said the purpose was to make fun of the media-spread rumors intended to derail the Obama Campaign.
"The intent of the cover is to satirize the vicious and racist attacks and rumors and misconceptions about the Obamas that have been floating around in the blogosphere and are reflected in public opinion polls," Remnick says. "What we set out to do was to throw all these images together, which are all over the top and to shine a kind of harsh light on them, to satirize them."
Umm, does that include the propaganda endorsed by The New Yorker with this cover?
I get satire. I do. But this does not scream satire to me. Satire is the use of irony to make fun of or show how silly or stupid something can be. In order for this cover to work as satire, I’m going to need David Remnick to write me a caption underneath it or include the media somewhere in the picture, unless the medium in The New Yorker, then well, I get it. I get that The New Yorker in partaking in the latest trend we’ve been seeing in making fun of or picking on the Obamas because it’s good for business. Fox News (aka mindless entertainment) has figured that out with its “Obama’s Baby Mama” reference about Michelle to coining the “terrorist fist jab” Michelle gave her husband. Everyone is talking about The New Yorker. The powers that be knew the cover was going to create a buzz and they knew they could use the excuse that its satire to justify publishing it. They don’t care that the cover is tasteless, perpetuates stereotypes, fails the satire test, not that it would lessen the numerous incendiary stereotypes represented here; it’s partly about selling magazines, but mostly it’s about keeping you away from the truth that the predominately White hierarchal structure is not ready to hand over powers to someone who looks like Barack by belittling and making a mockery of a legitimate candidate. Here you have a qualified, educated; charismatic, good-moral person who wants to lead this country out of this economic, political and social insanity and America still can't get past the fact that he's black. Obama is unequivocally a threat to the white status quo.
The possibility of having a generation grow up in the most powerful country in the world where a black man is in power...if that's not a threat to the white supremacy ideology, I don’t know what is. How is a white child supposed to believe that blacks are good for nothing when his president is black? How are people supposed to believe what they see on TV about blacks if their president is nothing like that? How is a black child supposed to want his first choice of profession when he/she grows up to be an athlete when the chances of him/her becoming a doctor or lawyer are much greater if there is a black president as his/her role model? How are little black kids supposed to drop out of school at a higher rate than whites, engage in risky behaviors, be arrested for crimes they don’t commit if the first family is wholesome and educated?
This man and his family undermine every stereotype perpetuated by the white supremacy ideology about the black race.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Speaking of Journalism...
Saturday, July 12, 2008
I Never Met a Stranger...
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Bottles of Water
However, in all my fury of high gas prices in this slowing economy I realize that I am in a position where many are not. I do not struggle to pay any of my bills. I don’t worry where my next meal is going to come from, or how I will get to work or put food on the table for my kids, take them to school, etc. I’m a single, educated woman with no dependents. I mark 1 on my W4 because I am only responsible for myself. My inner circle of female friends are young, educated, unmarried, childless and with at least two college degrees. Whether at work or on my own time, I am usually surrounded by people like me.
On July 3rd, before the Independence Day holiday, federal employees as well as government contractors were award 59 minutes of leave time to get a head start on their weekend celebrations. These types of benefits are often made around the holidays and can at times increase to additional time off at the discrepancy of the powers that be.
On my way home that afternoon, I stopped at a red light at a large intersection. To my right stood a woman and her two kids; a boy and a girl. The woman was standing near a cooler filled with bottles of water and holding a sign that read, “Please Help a Needy Family.” The children, I’d say both were definitely under 12 years-of-age, were running up to cars gripping bottles of water in their hands. I rolled down my window and the little girl holds two bottles and says, “Would you like some water?” I asked how much. “They are one dollar each,” she said matter-of-factly. I scrambled for a dollar in my purse and quickly took the bottle as the light changed to green. As I pulled off, I caught the eye on the little boy and smiled, amazed that he and the little girl seemed to be in good spirits. I thought about this family the rest of the way home. I was used to seeing homeless men on the corners of intersections begging for food or money, but never a woman and her kids. This disturbed me and I became angry at myself for taking the girl’s bottle of water when I could have just given her the dollar. I thought about how I could have given her more than a dollar as I had at least 50 dollars on me. I wondered how they ended up out there. What were the events that lead to the mother’s decision to take her two kids out to a busy intersection and hold up a sign for help while the kids ran up to cars with their bottles. Did the kids make the sign? What were they thinking when they wrote the words, “Please Help a Needy Family”? What struck me the most was that this family looked like a normal family, despite their current situation. The mother appeared to be wearing what looked like a nurse’s uniform which made me think she at least had a job. The kids were adequately dressed and looked in good spirits despite their current situation as well.
A recent Kaiser Health Tracking poll revealed as the economy continues to decline, more Americans are facing serious financial challenges such as paying for gas, out-of-pocket spending for healthcare, paying off debt, buying food and finding a well-paying job. Most Americans are in some way scaling back on spending in this economy. For some it’s a matter of deciding not to splurge on clothing, the latest electronics or a trip to the beach. For others, it’s a more drastic decision like not going to the doctor because your family needs food to eat or not paying the electricity bill because you need the money to pay for the high price of gas to get to work on Monday. For some its deciding to put away pride and ask for help. These tradeoffs are becoming more frequent, more creative and unfortunately even more necessary.