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Monday Open Thread

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Happy Monday, Everyone! This week 3 Chics is featuring some of the stellar performances and tributes to the 2015 Kennedy Center Honorees.

Today, it’s MS.Carole King

ARETHA FRANKLIN

Janelle Monae

Sara Bareilles



Friday Open Thread : Essence Mitchell recognized for perfect attendance from kindergarten through high school

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essence mitchell 5CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. — A Virginia teen has been able to achieve an incredible feat very few students can achieve; now her high school is recognizing her for it.

Midlothian High School has recognized Essence Mitchell, a senior at the school, for perfect attendance throughout her entire academic career.

That’s right; Essence has never missed a day of school since Kindergarten.

“It’s very important to me; my mom has made it a routine for me to go to school every day, and, in not doing so, it would just feel different,” Essence said in the December edition of the Midlo Scoop newspaper.

Essence mom, Tawanna Mitchell said she recently realized the impressive feat while talking with one of Essence’s teachers about a college recommendation letter.

“That’s when it clicked; she’s never missed a day of school,” Mitchell said.

essence mitchell 4 essence mitchell essence mitchell 1 essence mitchell 3

She said she used to keep track of her attendance in elementary school, but lost sight of it through middle and high school. “It just happened that way,” she said.

“Her dad and I encouraged her to be all that she can be in all her endeavors,” Mitchell said.

“I think I’m most proud of Essence because she not just willing to just do great things for herself, but she wants to do well and give back to others,” Mitchell said.

The 17-year-old’s community service includes feeding the homeless with a local church and donating her clothes to less fortunate children.

In school, Essence was inducted into the National Society of High School Scholars in August for overall academic achievement. She is the Vice President of the Hand and Hand club, which mentors kids at Evergreen Elementary. She is also in the Service Learning program and assists teachers and students in the classroom at J.B. Watkins Elementary School.


Sunday Open Thread | Praise and Worship

President Obama Speaks at the Islamic Society of Baltimore

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President Obama makes his first visit to a mosque in America.

Updated with full video!


Sunday Open Thread | Praise and Worship

Sunday Open Thread | Praise & Worship

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Eddie James 3Eddie James, born in Phoenix, AZ, accepted Christ as his personal Lord and Savior at the age of 8. He entered into music ministry at the tender age of 9 and it is for this reason that Eddie recognizes the gifts of God inside of young people. God has placed a burden inside of Eddie James, to minister to those who are hurting and lost, with an extraordinary emphasis on youth and young adults. As a result of his efforts, God has established Eddie James as a leader of music and ministry in the nation and around the world.

Higher with The Phoenix Mass Choir was Eddie James his first recorded national album. Higher debuted at number 10 and went to number 3 on the national charts. Since then he has recorded ten other projects that have impacted our nation and our world. His group ColourBlind, a culturally diverse group of five young men, released an album called, The David Story. This album contains twelve chapters of the book of Psalms put to music. They also recorded a soundtrack to their musical production called, Break the Walls. Break the Walls is a musical production designed for high school and college youth that deals with the issues of drugs, violence, pre-marital sex, racism, and dysfunctional families. Eddie James along with ColourBlind has reached over 200,000 youth in America with this musical drama presentation. Through this message of hope, countless numbers of lives have been changed.


Gayle King’s Live CBS Interview with President Obama & First Lady Michelle Obama

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Posting just because!

30FAE69C00000578-3436400-image-a-3_1454886925343President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama spoke to CBS’s Gayle King on Sunday in their first-ever live interview together

President and Mrs. Obama on last Super Bowl in White House

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The couple discussed their big Super Bowl party plans, their time at the White House and what they’re looking forward to in life post-presidency

President and Mrs. Obama play POTUS/FLOTUS game

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King pulled out a touching photo of the Obamas at their first inauguration in January 2009 and asked what they were both thinking at the time of the photo

President Obama on sending Malia to college, memorable visitors

President Obama’s Super Bowl 50 pick revealed


ICYMI: Our FLOTUS Was Never Playing With You About Our Children’s Health

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I don’t like Tiger Beat on the Potomac, but once in a blue moon, they actually do some reporting.

This story is about the origins of Let’s Move.

Our FLOTUS was always serious.
Our FLOTUS was never playing with you.

Reading this just made me love our FLOTUS even more.

 

FLOTUS at Let Girls Learn-7

The great FLOTUS food fight
For the first time, the inside story of how Michelle Obama changed American nutrition.

By Helena Bottemiller Evich and Darren Samuelsohn
03/17/16 04:56 AM EDT

Miriam Nelson got the call while she was rock climbing in Canada: It was the White House assistant chef, of all people, summoning her to a closed-door meeting with the new first lady of the United States. It was 2009, Nelson was one of the nation’s top experts on nutrition and exercise, a Tufts University professor at the time, and she wasn’t the only one: a half-dozen more got the same surprise invitation.

The Obamas had been in the White House for six months, and Michelle had begun to signal that she might use her bully pulpit to encourage healthy eating. She had already filmed some typical first lady TV spots on Oprah and Sesame Street. But what Nelson found when she arrived at the White House didn’t look like a team built for feel-good PR. It was stacked with Washington power: the first lady’s staff from the East Wing, the president’s people from the West Wing, and top officials from the Centers for Disease Control and the departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services. Obama’s Domestic Policy Council Director, Melody Barnes, was there; so was the first lady’s top policy adviser, Jocelyn Frye. Presiding over the meeting was Michelle Obama herself, in a trademark sleeveless dress, and holding a notebook.

With Democrats holding control of Congress, Nelson and the others realized, the East Wing was formulating a big policy push that would use all available levers of the federal government to improve how Americans eat. They wanted a new law to make school lunches healthier; they saw ways to deploy federal stimulus dollars on new cooking equipment in public school cafeterias and to use government financing to get grocery stores into poor communities where fresh food wasn’t readily available. They wanted to overhaul the federal nutrition label so it confronted shoppers more directly with calorie counts. Even the more symbolic side of American food policy was coming under the microscope: A reboot of the decades-old “food pyramid” that told families how to balance a meal.

“You really got the sense that this is something that she was likely to take on,” recalled Nelson, who was asked for advice on nutrition and exercise programs that worked. “It was very exciting.”

In the six-plus years since that meeting, Michelle Obama’s sophisticated and strategic campaign has transformed the American food landscape in ways considerably deeper than the public appreciates, even now. While the average American might have been watching Michelle’s push-up competition against Ellen DeGeneres or her “mom dancing” with Jimmy Fallon, or even her ‘Turnip for what’ viral Vine, the first lady and her team were notching a remarkable series of changes in American nutrition policy. Crafting their approach with an eye to the successes and failures of initiatives launched by previous first ladies, and acutely aware of the risk of nanny-state blowback, Obama and her staff shrewdly calibrated her role as the campaign’s public face and, at times, its behind-the-scenes lobbyist.

Read the entire story at the link.



Sunday Open Thread | Praise & Worship

PRINCE |Open Thread

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CgmHUFUW0AATnXB

Have at it Family….

Sheila E., Prince Protege….

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Sunday Open Thread | Praise & Worship

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Eddie James 3Eddie James, born in Phoenix, AZ, accepted Christ as his personal Lord and Savior at the age of 8. He entered into music ministry at the tender age of 9 and it is for this reason that Eddie recognizes the gifts of God inside of young people. God has placed a burden inside of Eddie James, to minister to those who are hurting and lost, with an extraordinary emphasis on youth and young adults. As a result of his efforts, God has established Eddie James as a leader of music and ministry in the nation and around the world.

Higher with The Phoenix Mass Choir was Eddie James his first recorded national album. Higher debuted at number 10 and went to number 3 on the national charts. Since then he has recorded ten other projects that have impacted our nation and our world. His group ColourBlind, a culturally diverse group of five young men, released an album called, The David Story. This album contains twelve chapters of the book of Psalms put to music. They also recorded a soundtrack to their musical production called, Break the Walls. Break the Walls is a musical production designed for high school and college youth that deals with the issues of drugs, violence, pre-marital sex, racism, and dysfunctional families. Eddie James along with ColourBlind has reached over 200,000 youth in America with this musical drama presentation. Through this message of hope, countless numbers of lives have been changed.


Friday Open Thread

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TGIF Everyone!

Carla Hayden, first female and African-American Librarian of Congress, confirmed by Senate

WASHINGTON — The Senate has confirmed the longtime head of Baltimore’s library system to be the next Librarian of Congress. She is the first woman and the first African-American to hold the position.

The vote was 74-18 for Carla Hayden on Wednesday. President Barack Obama had nominated Hayden to be the 14th Librarian of Congress in the institution’s 214-year history. He called her milestones on gender and race “long overdue.”

Obama signed a law last year establishing a 10-year term for the Librarian of Congress with an option for reappointment. The position was previously considered a lifetime appointment.

The previous Librarian of Congress, James Billington, was criticized for not keeping up with advances in technology. Billington was appointed by President Ronald Reagan and served for 28 years before stepping down last year.

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Photo courtesy Library of Congress

Wiki: Dr. Hayden is a graduate of Roosevelt University and received her master’s and doctorate degrees in Library Science from the University of Chicago Graduate Library School.[7] She taught as an Assistant Professor of Library Science at the University of Pittsburgh before returning to Chicago to begin her professional career as a children’s librarian at Chicago Public Library. She was appointed second-in-command at Chicago Public Library in 1991.[8] In 1993, she was appointed to the position of Director at Enoch Pratt Free Library.[8] She was honored as the national Librarian of the Year by Library Journal in 1995,[9] becoming the first African American to receive the prestigious award.[10] Dr. Hayden has twice given the Jean E. Coleman Library Outreach Lecture.[11]

As ALA President in 2003–2004, Dr. Hayden was vocal in her public opposition to the Patriot Act, leading a battle for the protections of library users’ privacy. She especially objected to the special permissions contained in Section 215 of that law, which gave the Justice Department and the FBI the power to access library user records.[14] Hayden often sparred publicly with then-U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft over the language of the law. Ashcroft often ridiculed the library community, and stated that the ALA had been “misled into opposing provisions of the act that make it easier for FBI agents to fish through library records”.[14] Hayden’s response was immediate, stating that the ALA was “deeply concerned that the Attorney General would be so openly contemptuous” (to the library community), while also pointing out that librarians had been monitored and been under FBI surveillance as far back as the McCarthy Era. Hayden asserted that Ashcroft should release information as to the number of libraries that had been visited under the provisions of Section 215.[14]

Along with her objections of the Patriot Act, Dr. Hayden has done much in her career in outreach programs. As ALA President she wrote:” At a time when our public is challenged on multiple fronts, we need to recommit ourselves to the ideal of providing equal access to everyone, anywhere, anytime, and in any format. . . . By finally embracing equity of access we will be affirming our core values, recognizing realities, and assuring our future.[15]
One program she is notable for is for the outreach program she began at the Pratt Library. This outreach program included “an after school center for Baltimore teens offering homework assistance and college and career counseling.” Because of this, Dr. Hayden received Library Journal’s Librarian of the Year Award.[16]
In January 2010, President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate Dr. Hayden as a member of the National Museum and Library Services Board and National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities.

On February 24, 2016, President Obama announced his intent to nominate Dr. Hayden as the next Librarian of Congress. In a press release from the White House,[17] President Obama stated:

Michelle and I have known Dr. Carla Hayden for a long time, since her days working at the Chicago Public Library, and I am proud to nominate her to lead our nation’s oldest federal institution as our 14th Librarian of Congress. Dr. Hayden has devoted her career to modernizing libraries so that everyone can participate in today’s digital culture. She has the proven experience, dedication, and deep knowledge of our nation’s libraries to serve our country well and that’s why I look forward to working with her in the months ahead. If confirmed, Dr. Hayden would be the first woman and the first African American to hold the position – both of which are long overdue.
Hayden was subsequently confirmed by a 74-18 vote in the United States Senate on July 13, 2016.[6]
Fortune magazine ranked Dr. Hayden among the World’s 50 greatest leaders in 2016.[18]


Friday Open Thread | Black Women Making Olympic History

Sunday Open Thread | Praise & Worship

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Eddie James 3Eddie James, born in Phoenix, AZ, accepted Christ as his personal Lord and Savior at the age of 8. He entered into music ministry at the tender age of 9 and it is for this reason that Eddie recognizes the gifts of God inside of young people. God has placed a burden inside of Eddie James, to minister to those who are hurting and lost, with an extraordinary emphasis on youth and young adults. As a result of his efforts, God has established Eddie James as a leader of music and ministry in the nation and around the world.

Higher with The Phoenix Mass Choir was Eddie James his first recorded national album. Higher debuted at number 10 and went to number 3 on the national charts. Since then he has recorded ten other projects that have impacted our nation and our world. His group ColourBlind, a culturally diverse group of five young men, released an album called, The David Story. This album contains twelve chapters of the book of Psalms put to music. They also recorded a soundtrack to their musical production called, Break the Walls. Break the Walls is a musical production designed for high school and college youth that deals with the issues of drugs, violence, pre-marital sex, racism, and dysfunctional families. Eddie James along with ColourBlind has reached over 200,000 youth in America with this musical drama presentation. Through this message of hope, countless numbers of lives have been changed.


The ‘Human Computer’ Behind the Moon Landing Was a Black Woman

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In an age of racism and sexism, Katherine Johnson broke both barriers at NASA.

She calculated the trajectory of man’s first trip to the moon, and was such an accurate mathematician that John Glenn asked her to double-check NASA’s computers. To top it off, she did it all as a black woman in the 1950s and ’60s, when women at NASA were not even invited to meetings.

And you’ve probably never heard of her.

Meet Katherine Johnson, the African-American woman who earned the nickname “the human computer” at NASA during its space race golden age.

An upcoming movie called Hidden Figures will celebrate her life and those of her black female colleagues, all of whom did important work against unbelievable odds but whose stories have gone largely unknown. The movie, set to come out in January 2017, will feature Taraji P. Henson as Johnson and music by Pharrell Williams.

In interviews, Johnson, now 97, remembers how her brilliant calculations—which she did largely by hand—forced NASA to accept her.

“I just happened to be working with guys,” she said, “and when they had briefings I asked permission to go. They said, ‘The girls don’t usually go.’ I said, ‘Is there a law?’ And they said, ‘No.’ So then my boss said, ‘Let her go.’”

So she went. And, with her help, NASA went to the moon.



Tuesday Open Thread | Black Women In Medicine

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Source: Coming to theaters in New York (August 26 through September 1) and Los Angeles (September 2 through 8) is “Black Women in Medicine,” the first documentary to explore the history, contemporary issues and future possibilities of African American women physicians through the diverse voices of young medical students, practicing physicians, and elder trailblazers—like former U.S. Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders—on what it means to be a Black female doctor in America.


Tuesday Open Thread: It’s All Related

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The election of THAT MAN to be President is in direct correlation to the Obama Presidency, and also the culture that grew during those years.

I have long said that those who wanted “to make America great again” longed for the delusional world of Mad Men: where they could pretend that they were big fish in a big pond, when the actuality is, they were fish in a pond where 90% of everyone else was shoved into sardine cans. They weren’t competing against everyone else. And, they could pretend that they were so qualified, when the truth is, so many who were qualified were not let into the field.

Two movies coming out this month show this. The first shows the story of women who were hidden to this country. Whose brains and talents were used by this country to win the slave race and put a man on the moon. The movie and the book it’s based upon is called Hidden Figures. I consider myself a very educated woman, and the face that I knew about Bletchley Park years before I knew about these brilliant women upsets me. I just started reading the book, and I think you should get a copy for yourself.

 

When we learned about the space race in school, all the faces were White, and 9 out of 10 were male. Yet that is not the accurate picture of all who helped win the Space Race.

Check out the movie Hidden Figures when it comes to a theater near you.

 


Sunday Praise & Worship | Sounds of Blackness

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Sounds of Blackness is a Grammy Award-winning vocal and instrumental ensemble from Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota who perform music from several genres music including gospel, R&B, soul, and jazz. The group scored several hits on the Billboard R&B chart and Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart in the 1990s. One of the group’s current members is Cynthia Johnson, who rose to fame with Lipps, Inc.

The group was founded in 1969 by Russell Knighton at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, and the group was called the Macalester College Black Voices. It was in 1971 when current director Gary Hines took leadership over the ensemble, and the group name was officially changed to Sounds of Blackness (SOB).

The group had acquired local celebrity status throughout the years though never signed with a record company because of various reasons including the fact that many companies were not comfortable with the group’s name. Some companies even suggested to Hines that the group’s name be changed to “The Sounds of Music.”[citation needed]


Saturday Open Thread

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Enjoy your weekend with family and friends.

ICYMI

Topping this off with some Coltrane & Miles.


Thursday Open Thread | Doesn’t Take A Lot of Money to Become an Inspiration

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Why Aesha Ash is Wandering Around Inner City Rochester In A Tutu

Growing up in inner city Rochester, NY, Aesha Ash was just one of the neighborhood kids. She’d imagine people driving by, judging her by her black skin.

“They’d never know that I was dreaming of becoming a professional ballet dancer. No one would think, Some day she’s going to make it into New York City Ballet,” says Ash.

After an inspiring career at NYCB, Béjart’s Ballet Lausanne and LINES, the January 2006 Dance Magazine cover star—one of our 25 to Watch that year—is no longer performing. But she’s determined to use her dance background to change the stereotypes and misconceptions that people—including black people—have about women of color. “I want to show it’s okay to embrace our softer side, and let the world know we’re multidimensional,” says Ash.

In 2011, she launched the Swan Dreams Project to inspire kids in the community she grew up in. The original idea was to post images of herself in a tutu all over Rochester. “I remember growing up and in the bodega you’d see images of girls in bikinis on motorbikes,” says Ash. “I wanted to replace those with photos that show women of color in a different light.”

She knew the power imagery can have: She still remembers what it felt like as a student at the School of American Ballet to see a photo of black ballet dancer Andrea Long. “That image was everything on days when I was feeling disenchanted. I’d see that picture of her, and know that the struggles I was going through, she went through them, too.”

Ash soon realized she didn’t have the budget to fund her original plan (“I never realized how expensive a bus stop advertisement is!”). But she’s made the images available through an online store, and often simply gives away prints at her own expense to schools and students in need of some inspiration.

Any proceeds she makes from the sales go directly to other organizations that are working to expand ballet in diverse communities. One large donation even led to a pointe shoe fund at dancer Robyn Gardenhire’s City Ballet of Los Angeles school—and it helped one dancer who had quit ballet because of the expense come back to class.

Now a mother of two in San Jose, CA, Ash will also start teaching a free after-school ballet class at her daughter’s public school next month. “I recently taught at Girls Inc. in Oakland, and one of the little black girls said, ‘Are you the ballet teacher?’ She just stood there, staring at me with her mouth open, like a unicorn had just walked into the room,” Ash says. “You never know the impact you can have just by being a presence.”

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