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Wednesday, February 4, 2009

HISTORY MOST OF US NEVER KNEW BECAUSE OUR HISTORY TEXTBOOKS WERE MORE PROPAGANDA THAN HISTORY


MUSCLES, SNOW AND DOWN TO NEW ORLEANS....


I have spent the last several hours transferring documents and pictures from my old computer to an external hard drive. It is a personal computer and I have a MAC now, so nothing is going to be usable without my changing it from a "read only" document to another copy that I can edit. I have four mice - is that how you say the plural of mouse in relation to computers? - and the only one that would work at all with this old computer is so dysfunctional that it has to be hit repeatedly and hard to get it to respond. And having a strained muscle in my hand - I unwisely continued to do this for hours.

Just below are pictures of my backyard. Pictured is the second of many snowstorms here this season. One snowstorm a year would be enough for me to feel I had winter. Currently, I have opted to let last night's storm lie where it fell, as I must have pulled muscles in my rib cage the last time I shoveled. It may melt by Saturday and I can drive over it until then.

Pictured below is the same northwest corner of my lot as pictured just above.
I have always loved color...

Portsmouth, Aquidneck Island or otherwise the Island of Rhode Island

Now, down to New Orleans.....
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Faubourg Tremé: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans

Faubourg Tremé premiered Thursday, January 29, 2009. Check Local Listings to see when it is airing on your local PBS station.

At this link http://www.pbs.org/faubourgtreme/ is a short clip of the film. And where I found this text:

Faubourg Tremé is considered the oldest black neighborhood in America, the origin of the southern civil rights movement and the birthplace of jazz. Long before Hurricane Katrina, two native New Orleanians, one black and one white — writer Lolis Eric Elie and filmmaker Dawn Logsdon — began documenting the rich, living culture of this historic district. Miraculously, their tapes survived the disaster unscathed. The completed film, Faubourg Tremé: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans, which critics have hailed as "devastating," "charming" and "revelatory," brims with unknown historical nuggets. Who knew that in the early 1800s while most African Americans were toiling on plantations, free black people in Tremé were publishing poetry and conducting symphonies? Who knew that long before Rosa Parks, Tremé leaders organized sit-ins and protests that successfully desegregated the city's streetcars and schools? Who knew that jazz, New Orleans' greatest gift to America, was born from the embers of this first American civil rights movement? Lolis Eric Elie, a New Orleans newspaperman, takes us on a tour of the city — his city — in what evolves from a reflection on the relevance of history into a love letter to the storied New Orleans neighborhood Faubourg Tremé. Faubourg Tremé: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans, executive produced by Wynton Marsalis and Stanley Nelson, will premiere on PBS in February 2009, a timely addition to the network's Black History Month programming (check local listings).
Irving Trevigne?s Ancestors

Craftsmen on Stoop-Master Carpenter Irving Trevigne's ancestors: Paul, Henry and Peter Broyard with two laborers outside Tremé building, circa late 1880/early 1890s.

Long ago, during slavery, Faubourg Tremé was home to the largest community of free black people in the Deep South and was a hotbed of political activism. Here, black and white, free and enslaved, rich and poor cohabited, collaborated and clashed to create America's first civil rights movement and a uniquely American culture. The Tremé district was damaged when the levees broke as a result of Hurricane Katrina. Many Tremé residents are still unable to return home, and the neighborhood is once again fighting many of the same civil rights battles first launched here 150 years ago. Faubourg Tremé: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans celebrates the resiliency of this community and explores how it managed to carve out a unique and expressive culture and history that is still enriching America and the world.

Elegant Portrait of an Anonymous Free Man of Color

Elegant Portrait of an anonymous Free Man of Color, circa 1860.

To find out more about Faubourg Tremé: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans please visit http://www.tremedoc.com/...

where this text is from

Lolis Eric Elie, a New Orleans newspaperman, takes us on a tour of the city – his city – in what becomes a reflection on the relevance of history folded into a love letter to the storied New Orleans neighborhood, Faubourg Tremé. Arguably the oldest black neighborhood in America and the birthplace of jazz, Faubourg Tremé was home to the largest community of free black people in the Deep South during slavery and a hotbed of political ferment. Here black and white, free and enslaved, rich and poor cohabitated, collaborated, and clashed to create America's first Civil Rights movement and a unique American culture. Faubourg Tremé: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans is a riveting tale of heartbreak, hope, resiliency and haunting historic parallels.

While the Tremé district was damaged when the levees broke, this is not another Katrina documentary. Long before the flood, two native New Orleanians—one black, one white—writer Lolis Eric Elie and filmmaker Dawn Logsdon, began documenting the rich living culture of this historic district. Miraculously, their tapes survived the disaster unscathed. The completed film, Faubourg Tremé: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans, which critics have called "devastating", "charming", and "revelatory" is a powerful testament to why New Orleans matters, and why this most un-American of American cities must be saved.

Elie and director Dawn Logsdon make clear the city's present, up through Katrina, remains steeped in its past- one that, for New Orleans, naturally includes an emphasis on music, heightened here by Derrick Hodge's original jazz score and over a hundred years of New Orleans music. This is a film of ideas, a historical film, a personal film and a celebration of place.

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Genocide Ends

When Enough of Us

Stand Up Against It

JOIN US
1-800-GENOCIDE
www.savedarfur.org
www.genocideintervention.net

www.standnow.org

www.miafarrow.org


Write President Obama
www.whitehouse.gov
You can also call or write to the President:

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Comments to President Obama: 202-456-1111

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Monday, December 3, 2007

29 MILLION PLUS BETWEEN THE AGES OF 18 ~ 24 WILL BE ELIGIBLE TO VOTE IN '08 ~ HOW MANY WILL?

WHERE IS THAT COMPASSIONATE CHRISTIANITY OF GEORGE BUSH?
What has Bush gotten right?

I'm sure it depends on who you ask. I can't think of anything personally. But that's just me.


I hope somehow the young people get the message how powerful their voices can be in the way of votes in the 2008 election. I didn't vote in my first Presidential election. And Richard Nixon was elected. And well, most of us would consider that a mistake. Except my family.

I would like to raise the issue of hurricane Katrina and how we have not taken care of our own here, in what President Bush has dubbed "the Homeland".

REBUILDING has different meanings to different people in New Orleans.

Please vote ~ getting to know the candidate you vote for before you vote. And please, do vote.
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http://youtube.com/watch?v=yJDe_efqo6c
Plans to Demolish 4,500 Public Housing Units in New Orleans Approved
The Bush administration has given the Housing Authority of New Orleans the go ahead to demolish the city's four largest public housing complexes. The Department of Housing and Urban Development approved the demolition of the 4,500 housing units on Friday. Democratic Seantor Mary Landrieu criticized the ruling but other lawmakers have endorsed such moves. Shortly after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, Republican Congressman Richard Baker said: "We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it but God did."
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http://youtube.com/watch?v=HEiOk-_NU3g
"...WE HAVE A RESPONSIBILITY TO CLEAN UP THIS MESS...We've got a lot of work to do...and now we're going to go comfort people in THAT part of the world." President George W Bush

Vote Responsibly ~
We will have to live with our collective decision for President for a long four years
It has been a long seven years.
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http://youtube.com/watch?v=Q_JLEzeSs-Y

http://youtube.com/watch?v=-xNWz4UXO7w
BUSH VISITS NEW ORLEANS

"In 2008, over 29 million people between the ages of 18 and 24 will be eligible to vote. How many will?" www.18in08.com

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Tuesday, August 7, 2007

“WHAT'S WRONG WITH AMERICA AND WHAT WILL YOU DO TO CHANGE IT?"



Seven Candidates in 30 Seconds Spurts

Keith Olbermann of MSNBC moderated the Democratic AFL-CIO Presidential Forum in Chicago tonight.

Keith Olbermann's moderating was outstanding. Okay, so I like Keith O anyway. But he did a fantastic job! He included everyone – all candidates on the stage running for a Democratic President (Mike Gravel was missing in action). Keith bowed to the audience’s enthusiasm. We need “audience” enthusiasm. Instead of trying to restrain it – it should not only be allowed but encouraged. Let’s get juiced. Let’s say we won’t be ignored. Our ire needs to work for us, America.

I have been for Barack Obama. But I would take any of these candidates over anything else on the Republican list. The man in the audience on crutches tonight who was breaking down because he couldn't pay for his wife's health care brought tears to my eyes. I refer to him as "Mr. America".

I am so tired of the lies and the deceit from the George W Bush administration. And I am so beside myself with not being told the truth by my government. Running this country and being the symbolic leader of the world is way beyond the capacity and integrity of President Bush. (And it is our government that has made it legal for these corporations to strip Americans of their due pensions. The corporations have paid lobbyists protecting them in our government. I'm going to have to read the constitution and see where lobbyists are mentioned as a part of our country's constitutional rights based for "we the people's interests.)

I'd like to be able to hear my President speak and not cringe. I can't do that with George W Bush.

Ban corporate lobbyists.
Join the global perspective with national integrity.
Get some backbone and deal with the boring but vital issues facing us, such as education, health care for all, infrastructure, and open and accessible government that has been buried by the Bush administration.
Pay our financial debt to
China and own our own government and foreign policy by doing so.
Katrina defined George Bush's compassion or lack of it.

George doesn't "get IT".

Impeach Alberto. Impeach Bush. Impeach Cheney.

Karl Rove has got to get his due.

For me, Barack didn’t answer questions directly and that bothers me. Dennis Kucinich is a breath of fresh air to me. He says what he actually thinks without the political halo around him. I liked Joe Biden’s fire, intensity and comfortability factor. I have liked Bill Richardson in past settings especially because he spoke of the arts and their place in our American life. When is the last time we heard a President who mentioned the arts? Jackie Kennedy is the last person in the White House who elevated the position of the arts on the national radar. And Bill Richardson was the only one who spoke about the Darfur genocide tonight. And “I’m your girl” Hillary Clinton did well in tonight’s answering. I like Hillary. But I haven’t been for her as President because I feel she has baggage that could hurt the country’s successful impetus and that baggage is Bill Clinton. Sure I voted for Bill Clinton twice and I think Hillary is smart, very smart. And highly capable. I did like her answer about Katrina - that she would first put someone in charge who cared about the victims of Katrina.

John Edwards had some good moments. I just can’t remember what they were other than…he was the first to speak after the man’s question about needed help to pay for his wife’s health care after 34 years working for LTV Steel who legally filed bankruptcy -meaning he lost one-third of his pension and his health care. “Mr. America” asked “What’s wrong with America and what will you do to change it?”

Chris Dodd was there. He asked the audience to clap for the troops in Iraq. He was asked why a member of the National Guard had to buy part of her own uniform while she served in Iraq. Yeah, President Bush, why is that?

It’s time for us to own our lives. It's time for us to address issues that aren’t fun to think about, but needed to resolve and in turn take our government back. It is our government. It doesn’t belong to corporate business and corporate lobbyists and yet that is exactly who our government has been bowing to and working for. It’s time America. It’s way past time to stop being obsessed over celebrities, fake reality shows and ignoring the fact that we as a nation are deeply in debt to a country that violates human rights issues historically – China. John Edwards is the only one that brought up this fact tonight. And it is time to stop human rights abuses sanctioned by our own government.


I don’t want to be a politician, but I want those who represent me in Washington, D.C. to live up to the values of our stated creed…that all of us are equal. That all of us have rights and we demand that truth be told and truth leads our path as a nation of “We the People”.

Just a mention about the political pundits after these things: I sometimes wonder how it can be I have such a different view than these “guys” (where were the female pundits after the forum, yeah they had one just before the forum, but afterwards it was only the males talking) who talk following the “show”. None of them thought Barack fell short tonight in this setting as I did. I’m still for him and plan to vote for him when I get the opportunity, but watching these TV shows of the candidates has opened my options.

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George Bush and John Kerry Compared

An interesting show when it aired and just as interesting today:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/choice2004/view/

More related links from PBS:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/choice2004/etc/links.html


Rhode Island Democratic Website:

http://www.democrats.org/a/2007/07/rhode_island_de_1.php?comments=1

Democrat Website:

http://www.democrats.org/

MSNBC regarding the Democratic Presidential Forum moderated by Keith Olbermann:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/

Darfur Genocide – Websites that give you something to do to stop it:

www.savedarfur.org

www.dreamfordarfur.org.

www.standnow.org

www.genocideintervention.net

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