I came across this rare gem over head Shadow and Act:

a documentary from 1981 about   It's a documentary on Stevie Wonder's preparation for his USA tour and his appearance at a Washington Rally to celebrate the birthday of Martin Luther King.

There is some dispute as to the name of the flick, which originally aired on BBC, but it may be called Stevie Wonder's Innervisions.

Check out the full doc below:

Whoohoo!!!!

Today was a snow day.  After a trying winter of weekly (sometimes every other day-ish) snowstorms and still having to go to work, we finally got enough to warrant the city declaring a state of emergency.  And you know what that means: no work! Whoohoo!!!!

It all started yesterday morning when the predicted wintry mix of snow, sleet and rain dumped about a 1/2 foot of snow on Philadelphia before turning over to freezing rain.  Thank God I didn't go with my original plan, which was to chillax and wait to dig out after the second storm that had been forecasted for that evening.  Because this morning there was almost 15 inches of snow waiting for me.  So after I dug out my front steps and walkway, I decided to take my dog Coltrane for a walk around the neighborhood to see how everyone else was faring. Oh and I brought my camera along because there is nothing prettier than a snowstorm (frustration aside of course). 

Check out my photos from Snowmageddon 2011:

Before I begin, let me first issue a disclaimer:  This post is not about condemning those with processed hair or trying to convert the weave-friendly to embrace natural hairstyles.  To the contrary, this post is about those, who are already undergoing the transition and is now wondering WTF have done?

Just like the lady below:

Could you wear the same dress for an entire year? Sheena Matheiken did. Once a bored and unfulfilled advertising exec, Matheiken wanted to shake things up in her life from her life as a corporate robot while also sending a message about the need for more ethical fashion and social responsibility at the center of our consumer culture.  So in May 2009, Matheiken started the Uniform Project (get it?), in which she pledged to wear the same simple black dress every single day for one year - no exceptions.

Well, she did cheat a little bit by dressing up her "uniform" with other items in her closet as well as accessories that, she said were either vintage, handmade, reused or donated.But still, that's pretty amazing act. 

According to the Project's website:

"Almost immediately, Sheena and the U.P were hit with a deluge of media attention. The project was featured in major publications ranging from the New York Times, The Guardian, CNN, BBC, Times London, LA Times, MSNBC, NPR, PBS, Vogue, Elle, Glamour, Marie Claire to hundreds of fashion, culture and design blogs, as well as TV shows around the world. "

Matheiken's fashion challenge also helped to raised over $100,000 in donations for the Akanksha Foundation, a non-profit organization providing education to children living in Indian slums.

While the year of repeating the same gear is up, the Uniform Project is still moving forward, inviting women from all across the country (possibly the world) to recycle and reuse a single black dress - at least for a month - all in the name of charity.

I must say that this is a pretty damn cool and fun way to show your philanthropic side. Although I don't know if I am creatively inclined enough to find 28, 30 and 31 ways - let alone 365 new ways - to reinvent a single garment.  Frumpy hat-tip to you ladies.

Below is just a small sample of Matheiken's super-fly fashion sense:

...just fucking retarded?

From Rolling Out:

"Reggae artist Vybz Kartel hates himself, but it's not his fault. The dancehall musician lightened his skin and has experienced a backlash from fans who are appalled by his physical changes. In a recent interview, Kartel linked blacks who lighten their skin to white people who tan.

"This is my new image," Kartel said in the interview. "You can expect the unexpected. I feel comfortable with black people lightening their skin. They want a different look. It's tantamount to white people getting a sun tan."

Um yeah. I think that this definitely qualifies  for the fucking retarded category. Your thoughts?

On Good Friday in 1963, 53 blacks, led by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., marched into downtown Birmingham to protest the existing segregation laws. All were unjustly arrested. As a result of the arrest, local white clergymen compose an open letter, called A Call for Unity, which appealed to the black population to stop their demonstrations.

In response, King drafted a document of his own, called The Negro is Your Brother (also known as the Letter from Birmingham Jail),which not only asserted that nonviolent direct action was needed but very necessary in the face of unjust laws.

On January 15th 2010 - the birthdate of the late King Jr. - members of the Askia Coalition Against Police Brutality (ACAPB) held The People's Tribunal, which sought to hold public officials and the police responsible for unlawful practices and offenses committed by law enforcement officers against the citizens of Philadelphia.

Read more and listen to audio clips after the jump:

I hate networking events.

I mean, I really, really hate networking events.

I know, I know, you're not suppose to hate networking - after all, there is a possibility that one of the connections made at one of these events could lead to a job or something.  Nevertheless, I find many of these so-called mixers to be pretentious, demoralizing and just an all around drag.  

It's not that I'm bad at meeting new people, I just hate the phoniness of these events. The endless exchange of business cards from out of work project manager, aspiring politicians and consultants, none of which are remotely interested in who you are but rather who what company employs you. The women standing around, posing in high stiletto heels, huge purses and overly-beat faces, falsely grinning while sizing up the competition.  The men, equally overdressed in tailored suits and spit-shined loafers, cradling a glass of cheap Merlot while cruising the room for chicks, hoping for a little bit more than career opportunity. A guest note speaker, which is always the CEO or higher up executive of some riveting, breakthrough company, boorishly speaking on the virtues of why we should be attending more pretentious networking events.

The whole thing just reeks of self-aggrandizing, ego-boosting. And If it wasn't for the free food and wine, I probably wouldn't never-ever go to any of these events.

And that's exactly what I had in mind earlier this week, when I saw the Root.com's open invitation for the Young, Fabulous and Female event here in Philly - an excuse for free food and liquor.  After all, the event, which was held at the African American Museum of Philadelphia, was billed as an "evening of conversation and cocktails," which sought to provide us Young and Fabulous females with "thought-provoking conversation focused on the career and life challenges facing young black women."  That's usually code talk for everyone get overly-dressed up and engage in frivolous banter while doing everything in their power to be seen.  

Eye roll.

What's with the dead birds falling out of the sky and the fish, and other sea creatures, washing ashore in masses? Probably not the destruction of epic proportions as folks have been wondering.

As pointed out by Associated Press, mass animal deaths occur regularly. However, we the public just haven't noticed until now.

From JCOnline:

"In the past eight months, the USGS has logged 95 mass wildlife die-offs in North America and that's probably a dramatic undercount, White said. The list includes 900 some turkey vultures that seemed to drown and starve in the Florida Keys, 4,300 ducks killed by parasites in Minnesota, 1,500 salamanders done in by a virus in Idaho, 2,000 bats that died of rabies in Texas, and the still mysterious death of 2,750 sea birds in California."

But that hasn't soothe the paranoid minds of many, who have speculated that these incidences are all connected and are the result of various doomsday prophecies including: the apocalypse, the Mayan Calendar 2012 theory, HAARP, the acceleration of global warming, the magnetic pole drifting, so forth and so on...

I really can't blame folks as some in the media have enjoyed playing fast and loose with the doomsday references.  Remember, the whole H1N1 flu stuff from last year? Sometimes it's about the hype, which helps to generate profits, rather than the facts, which are often boring and not newsworthy.

And how can we forget Y2K? There was a shit load of money to be made off of folks fearing that the world was ending when the bells tolled January 1, 2000. Sometimes, I think they set this stuff up to condition folks to seek out death - like cults and stuff - of course, that could be the conspiracy theorist in me.

Not saying that we shouldn't worry about birds falling from the sky or fish washing up on shorelines. The reality is that there are very real environmental concerns happening all around us, just ask the honey bees  - if you can find any.  However, if we only pay attention to these environmental concerns when birds start flying out of the sky, than the odds are we are already too late.

And as a friend of mines once said: "to get to the the truth of a situation, look at what happened a month or two before and a month or two after." Ten bucks that the media will be hyping up similar doomsday scenarios all year long, which only means that NYE '11 party prices will be through the roof.

Who knew that writing a piece about white folks' love for dogs and obsession with seeing Mike Vick suffer for eternity, would be this controversial? 

Anyways, here is a response to those folks, who have bothered to send hate mail via this blog:

If you don't know, now you know...