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Exclusive: The Evasive Poetry of Barack Obama: What Should We Expect in Denver?
This week, Senator Barack Obama will officially accept the Democratic nomination at his convention in Denver. Not content with addressing the crowd in the usual basketball arena - where the rest of the convention will take place - The One has moved his speech, in particular, to the much larger nearby football stadium.
His acceptance speech will be the first ever for an African-American. It will also fall on the 45-year anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” proclamation. To say this will be the biggest media glitz-show unlike we have ever seen is still a wild understatement.
In jest, one blogger even posted a quiz to his readers, seeing if they could discern quotes from Sen. Obama’s Berlin speech with the utopian lyrics of Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie’s 1985 famine-relief “We are the World” mega-hit.
Full article http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.977/pub_detail.asp
Michelle Obama sets a very high bar for Cindy McCain
For some, particularly non-American viewers, that final touch may have been just a tad too perfect. But through the glitz and the Michael Jackson stage emerged a serious undertone that will be repeated endlessly throughout the week: Barack Obama comes from working class roots and he empathises with blue-collar America. Whether in his selection of working class Joe Biden as his running mate or in the centrist Democratic line-up of speakers throughout the week, the Obama campaign is signalling that it understands which demographic deficit it most urgently needs to eliminate.
http://en.afrik.com/article14348.html
Kenny Chesney and Corona Team Up
Celebrities have consistently scored big endorsement deals, but Michael Jackson's arrangement with Pepsi in the early 1980s lifted the practice to an unprecedented level of income potential. Alabama, Garth Brooks, Brooks & Dunn, Tim McGraw, Brad Paisley, Randy Travis and Shania Twain are among the many Country artists who have worked out similarly lucrative arrangements with tour sponsors.
For more on this story http://www.losangeleschronicle.com/articles/72269
14 reasons we won't soon forget the summer '08
Some kids are heading back to school this week. Others get a reprieve until after next weekend's Labor Day festivities. The fleeting spontaneity of summer — it's a quick 14 weeks from Memorial Day to Labor Day — gives way to the return of life's more ordinary pace. Woe is us.
So how will we remember the summer that was? Good question. We're here to help.
12. A boomer awakening
If baby boomers needed a shock to the system, it comes this month with the 50th birthdays of Madonna (last weekend) and Michael Jackson (next weekend). The two icons of the '80s hit the big 5-0 along with the likes of Prince, Kevin Bacon and Sharon Stone.
Full article http://www.postcrescent.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080824/APC04/808240375/1003/APC01
Freeze-frame — and other issues with fashion woes
In my world, I must find a reason for everything. Nothing is too insignificant to ask myself why — and not rest until I get the answer. Take that black leather motorcycle jacket hanging in my downstairs closet. What prompted me to buy it in the first place? Did I just want to look macho?
It reminds me of the one that a young Marlon Brando wore in the 1953 outlaw biker film "The Wild One." And look what happened to him. He ended up a 300-pound recluse, hanging out with Michael Jackson at Neverland Ranch and wearing muumuus on his Tahiti estate in the South Pacific.
Then why did I buy that leather jacket 20 years ago when I was 50 and should have known better? And would I wear it today in an age when the macho man is going out of fashion? Did I ever think that wearing it would give me a tough-guy image? Or make people think that I owned a Harley-Davidson motorcycle or even knew how to ride one? I have never desired to look macho. All my life, I've been a sissy and proud of it.
I tried the jacket on the other day and could barely zip it closed over my gut. Kind of like my Army uniform after spending several decades bunched up in a duffle bag in the cellar while I slowly gained 50 pounds. I look ridiculous in leather anyway, like I'm trying to be what I definitely am not. And it was a very snug fit, but isn't that the way you're supposed to wear a leather jacket?
I remember it was very expensive when I purchased it in Washington, D.C. I think that I wore it a total of three times before I retired it. It was hard and stiff and I had trouble moving my arms in it, and it smelled like a wet shoe. Maybe if I did have that motorcycle I could have pulled it off, but with a Honda Accord? The jacket definitely had attitude, but I wasn't sure what kind.
What got into me in the first place to buy what was an expensive luxury? Then I remembered some of my other clothing follies over the years. The bellbottom trousers. The neckties as wide as a cereal box. The Hawaiian shirts. The white dress pants. The Bermuda shorts tuxedo. I just looked stupid in all that misguided fashion.
While I'm on the subject of looking stupid, I'm very unhappy with my head shot on Facebook and the Leader Web page on the Internet. I had to put something in place of the question mark where a head shot should go, but I had no picture of me to upload that I liked. I've never taken a good picture. Witness the one that's run with this column.
So in desperation, I used a program on my Mac called Image Capture or something where all I had to do was sit in front of my computer, hold still, smile, and click "take photo." I did, repeatedly, and all the results are terrible. But I used the least objectionable one anyway.
I gave up. I just don't care anymore. But of course I do. Maybe I should have worn my leather jacket for the shot. Or a muumuu.
http://www.newsleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080826/OPINION02/808260304
Afghans risk lives for U.S. visas
FORWARD OPERATING BASE SALERNO, Afghanistan. The children scattered across the rocky desert as they chased a partially deflated soccer ball.
"Madam, his name is Michael Jackson," said Ahmed, the eldest in the group. He pointed to a little boy behind him who was pretending to moonwalk on the hardened soil beneath his tattered sandals.
"Madam, cookies," said another boy, referring to the small bags of Famous Amos cookies that U.S. soldiers had thrown over a barbed-wire-topped chain-link fence.
Many of the children's parents work at U.S. Forward Operating Base Salerno. It is the largest U.S. base in the Khost, an eastern province along the treacherous Afghanistan-Pakistan border, and an area plagued by lack of food and a growing Taliban insurgency.
Afghan workers wait for an escort to leave Forward Operating Base Salerno at the end of a day's work. Hundreds of villagers near the base work there daily despite the danger of cooperating with the U.S.-led coalition. (Mary F. Calvert/The Washington Times)
Despite the danger of cooperating with the U.S.-led coalition, hundreds of local villagers enter the base daily to work in light construction, ditch digging and cleaning. Those with higher education often are contracted by the U.S. military to work as translators.
Many of these Afghans are motivated not only by money, but by the hope of emigrating to the US.
For most, however, these expectations are likely to be dashed, creating additional frustrations and disappointment within a population already wavering in its support for the Kabul government and vulnerable to the blandishments of the Taliban, assorted warlords and drug dealers.
In 2005, only 50 visas were issued to Iraqi and Afghan translators and interpreters combined, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the agency that oversees the process.
The number increased to 500 visas per fiscal year for 2006 through 2008. Applicants had to work with the Defense Department or State Department to qualify.
However, after Oct. 1, those numbers will be drastically reduced for Afghans. Legislation will cap visas for translators at 50 annually.
http://www.washtimes.com/news/2008/aug/26/afghans-risk-lives-for-us-to-earn-visas/
LL Cool J: The Ever Evolving Career Of The G.O.A.T.
BallerStatus.com: You were many firsts for Def Jam. "I Need A Beat" was the first release for Def Jam. Radio was the first album released off of Def Jam. You essentially helped build the label. Do you feel like you were overlooked for that CEO position?
LL Cool J: You know I'm glad you asked me that. Do you think that Madonna wants to work at Warner Brothers? Do you think that Bruce Springsteen wants to work at CBS? Do you think that Michael Jackson wants to work at Epic? Or Prince wanted to work over at his label? So why would LL Cool J want to work at Def Jam? What is this premium that people place on the idea of an artist having a job at a company? Why isn't me being an artist enough? Why do I need to have a job here? What does that prove that I'm cool? Or that I'm smart?
BallerStatus.com: It doesn't really prove anything.
LL Cool J: That's what I'm saying. So the idea of overlooked, are you kidding me? I mean when people say that LL was overlooked for a job, that's like saying I started as an intern here (laughs). Like I've been getting promotions every year and when the CEO job came up, I was overlooked. Are you kidding me? What do I want to work here for? Russell didn't even work here. He started it with me (laughs). He worked here two years ... I think people have to get their minds right about all of that stuff. What Jay-Z wants to do is Jay-Z. He obviously had dreams as a kid of being a rapper/businessman and that's what he wanted to do. LL Cool J wanted to be a rapper. That doesn't mean that LL didn't make money. That doesn't mean that I didn't buy real estate. That doesn't mean that I can't buy a cheeseburger tonight. It just means that's not what I wanted to do. I didn't want to wear a suit and tie. I never dreamed of wearing a suit and tie and going to work.
BallerStatus.com: You're a rapper and that's your job.
LL Cool J: That's my job. My job is to do LL. Like, I'm doing my job. My job is to make albums and movies and music, that is my job. Why would I want to do anything else?
Entire interview http://www.ballerstatus.com/article/features/2008/08/5345/
2003 - It was announced the Michael Jackson would open his Neverland Ranch to people for a "one in a lifetime" event for $5,000. The invited guests would get a tour of the grounds and eat two meals on September 13.
Exclusive: The Evasive Poetry of Barack Obama: What Should We Expect in Denver?
This week, Senator Barack Obama will officially accept the Democratic nomination at his convention in Denver. Not content with addressing the crowd in the usual basketball arena - where the rest of the convention will take place - The One has moved his speech, in particular, to the much larger nearby football stadium.
His acceptance speech will be the first ever for an African-American. It will also fall on the 45-year anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” proclamation. To say this will be the biggest media glitz-show unlike we have ever seen is still a wild understatement.
In jest, one blogger even posted a quiz to his readers, seeing if they could discern quotes from Sen. Obama’s Berlin speech with the utopian lyrics of Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie’s 1985 famine-relief “We are the World” mega-hit.
Full article http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.977/pub_detail.asp
Michelle Obama sets a very high bar for Cindy McCain
For some, particularly non-American viewers, that final touch may have been just a tad too perfect. But through the glitz and the Michael Jackson stage emerged a serious undertone that will be repeated endlessly throughout the week: Barack Obama comes from working class roots and he empathises with blue-collar America. Whether in his selection of working class Joe Biden as his running mate or in the centrist Democratic line-up of speakers throughout the week, the Obama campaign is signalling that it understands which demographic deficit it most urgently needs to eliminate.
http://en.afrik.com/article14348.html
Kenny Chesney and Corona Team Up
Celebrities have consistently scored big endorsement deals, but Michael Jackson's arrangement with Pepsi in the early 1980s lifted the practice to an unprecedented level of income potential. Alabama, Garth Brooks, Brooks & Dunn, Tim McGraw, Brad Paisley, Randy Travis and Shania Twain are among the many Country artists who have worked out similarly lucrative arrangements with tour sponsors.
For more on this story http://www.losangeleschronicle.com/articles/72269
14 reasons we won't soon forget the summer '08
Some kids are heading back to school this week. Others get a reprieve until after next weekend's Labor Day festivities. The fleeting spontaneity of summer — it's a quick 14 weeks from Memorial Day to Labor Day — gives way to the return of life's more ordinary pace. Woe is us.
So how will we remember the summer that was? Good question. We're here to help.
12. A boomer awakening
If baby boomers needed a shock to the system, it comes this month with the 50th birthdays of Madonna (last weekend) and Michael Jackson (next weekend). The two icons of the '80s hit the big 5-0 along with the likes of Prince, Kevin Bacon and Sharon Stone.
Full article http://www.postcrescent.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080824/APC04/808240375/1003/APC01
Freeze-frame — and other issues with fashion woes
In my world, I must find a reason for everything. Nothing is too insignificant to ask myself why — and not rest until I get the answer. Take that black leather motorcycle jacket hanging in my downstairs closet. What prompted me to buy it in the first place? Did I just want to look macho?
It reminds me of the one that a young Marlon Brando wore in the 1953 outlaw biker film "The Wild One." And look what happened to him. He ended up a 300-pound recluse, hanging out with Michael Jackson at Neverland Ranch and wearing muumuus on his Tahiti estate in the South Pacific.
Then why did I buy that leather jacket 20 years ago when I was 50 and should have known better? And would I wear it today in an age when the macho man is going out of fashion? Did I ever think that wearing it would give me a tough-guy image? Or make people think that I owned a Harley-Davidson motorcycle or even knew how to ride one? I have never desired to look macho. All my life, I've been a sissy and proud of it.
I tried the jacket on the other day and could barely zip it closed over my gut. Kind of like my Army uniform after spending several decades bunched up in a duffle bag in the cellar while I slowly gained 50 pounds. I look ridiculous in leather anyway, like I'm trying to be what I definitely am not. And it was a very snug fit, but isn't that the way you're supposed to wear a leather jacket?
I remember it was very expensive when I purchased it in Washington, D.C. I think that I wore it a total of three times before I retired it. It was hard and stiff and I had trouble moving my arms in it, and it smelled like a wet shoe. Maybe if I did have that motorcycle I could have pulled it off, but with a Honda Accord? The jacket definitely had attitude, but I wasn't sure what kind.
What got into me in the first place to buy what was an expensive luxury? Then I remembered some of my other clothing follies over the years. The bellbottom trousers. The neckties as wide as a cereal box. The Hawaiian shirts. The white dress pants. The Bermuda shorts tuxedo. I just looked stupid in all that misguided fashion.
While I'm on the subject of looking stupid, I'm very unhappy with my head shot on Facebook and the Leader Web page on the Internet. I had to put something in place of the question mark where a head shot should go, but I had no picture of me to upload that I liked. I've never taken a good picture. Witness the one that's run with this column.
So in desperation, I used a program on my Mac called Image Capture or something where all I had to do was sit in front of my computer, hold still, smile, and click "take photo." I did, repeatedly, and all the results are terrible. But I used the least objectionable one anyway.
I gave up. I just don't care anymore. But of course I do. Maybe I should have worn my leather jacket for the shot. Or a muumuu.
http://www.newsleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080826/OPINION02/808260304
Afghans risk lives for U.S. visas
FORWARD OPERATING BASE SALERNO, Afghanistan. The children scattered across the rocky desert as they chased a partially deflated soccer ball.
"Madam, his name is Michael Jackson," said Ahmed, the eldest in the group. He pointed to a little boy behind him who was pretending to moonwalk on the hardened soil beneath his tattered sandals.
"Madam, cookies," said another boy, referring to the small bags of Famous Amos cookies that U.S. soldiers had thrown over a barbed-wire-topped chain-link fence.
Many of the children's parents work at U.S. Forward Operating Base Salerno. It is the largest U.S. base in the Khost, an eastern province along the treacherous Afghanistan-Pakistan border, and an area plagued by lack of food and a growing Taliban insurgency.
Afghan workers wait for an escort to leave Forward Operating Base Salerno at the end of a day's work. Hundreds of villagers near the base work there daily despite the danger of cooperating with the U.S.-led coalition. (Mary F. Calvert/The Washington Times)
Despite the danger of cooperating with the U.S.-led coalition, hundreds of local villagers enter the base daily to work in light construction, ditch digging and cleaning. Those with higher education often are contracted by the U.S. military to work as translators.
Many of these Afghans are motivated not only by money, but by the hope of emigrating to the US.
For most, however, these expectations are likely to be dashed, creating additional frustrations and disappointment within a population already wavering in its support for the Kabul government and vulnerable to the blandishments of the Taliban, assorted warlords and drug dealers.
In 2005, only 50 visas were issued to Iraqi and Afghan translators and interpreters combined, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the agency that oversees the process.
The number increased to 500 visas per fiscal year for 2006 through 2008. Applicants had to work with the Defense Department or State Department to qualify.
However, after Oct. 1, those numbers will be drastically reduced for Afghans. Legislation will cap visas for translators at 50 annually.
http://www.washtimes.com/news/2008/aug/26/afghans-risk-lives-for-us-to-earn-visas/
LL Cool J: The Ever Evolving Career Of The G.O.A.T.
BallerStatus.com: You were many firsts for Def Jam. "I Need A Beat" was the first release for Def Jam. Radio was the first album released off of Def Jam. You essentially helped build the label. Do you feel like you were overlooked for that CEO position?
LL Cool J: You know I'm glad you asked me that. Do you think that Madonna wants to work at Warner Brothers? Do you think that Bruce Springsteen wants to work at CBS? Do you think that Michael Jackson wants to work at Epic? Or Prince wanted to work over at his label? So why would LL Cool J want to work at Def Jam? What is this premium that people place on the idea of an artist having a job at a company? Why isn't me being an artist enough? Why do I need to have a job here? What does that prove that I'm cool? Or that I'm smart?
BallerStatus.com: It doesn't really prove anything.
LL Cool J: That's what I'm saying. So the idea of overlooked, are you kidding me? I mean when people say that LL was overlooked for a job, that's like saying I started as an intern here (laughs). Like I've been getting promotions every year and when the CEO job came up, I was overlooked. Are you kidding me? What do I want to work here for? Russell didn't even work here. He started it with me (laughs). He worked here two years ... I think people have to get their minds right about all of that stuff. What Jay-Z wants to do is Jay-Z. He obviously had dreams as a kid of being a rapper/businessman and that's what he wanted to do. LL Cool J wanted to be a rapper. That doesn't mean that LL didn't make money. That doesn't mean that I didn't buy real estate. That doesn't mean that I can't buy a cheeseburger tonight. It just means that's not what I wanted to do. I didn't want to wear a suit and tie. I never dreamed of wearing a suit and tie and going to work.
BallerStatus.com: You're a rapper and that's your job.
LL Cool J: That's my job. My job is to do LL. Like, I'm doing my job. My job is to make albums and movies and music, that is my job. Why would I want to do anything else?
Entire interview http://www.ballerstatus.com/article/features/2008/08/5345/
Today in Michael Jackson History
1972 - The Jackson 5 single "Lookin' Through The Windows" hit #16 in the U.S.
2003 - It was announced the Michael Jackson would open his Neverland Ranch to people for a "one in a lifetime" event for $5,000. The invited guests would get a tour of the grounds and eat two meals on September 13.
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