MICHELLE'S FIRST BOYFRIEND

First Lady Michelle Obama’s First Boyfriend Speaks Out A man named David Upchurch is now telling media sources about his stint as First Lady Michelle Obama’s first boyfriend.

The then 18-year-old Mrs. Obama was escorted by him to her Whitney Young High School prom in Chicago .

They grew up together, were neighbors in the Chi, and David now lives in Colorado Springs , CO . He says the reason they broke up is because he didn’t have his life together and he was “a screw up”. He says: “I always knew Michelle was special and would make a difference in the world.”



I guess the First Lady wasn’t taking any ish even back then. Seven years later she met a law student named Barack Obama. And the rest is history. Love it.

THE FIRST PUP

The First Puppy Makes a Big Splash Bo, the Portuguese Water Dog, Is All Over the Web Before His Official Debut

By Manuel Roig-Franzia Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, April 12, 2009; Page A01

Who let the dog out?
That's the Washington mystery du jour.
The identity of the first puppy -- the one that the Washington press corps has been yelping about for months, the one President Obama has seemed to delight in dropping hints about -- leaked out yesterday.

This despite White House efforts to delay the news until the big debut planned for Tuesday afternoon. The little guy is a 6-month-old Portuguese water dog given to the Obama girls as a gift by that Portuguese water dog-lovin' senator himself, Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts.



The girls named it Bo -- and let it be noted that you learned that here first. Malia and Sasha chose the name, because their cousins have a cat named Bo and because first lady Michelle Obama's father was nicknamed Diddley, a source said. (Get it? Bo . . . Diddley?) Bo's a handsome little guy. Well suited for formal occasions at the White House, he's got tuxedo-black fur, with a white chest, white paws and a rakish white goatee Clearly, the identity of the dog was information too big to contain.

This is not Bo, but it is a picture of what he will look like as he age. Beautiful!


Must Love Dogs
The whole country is in love with "Bo", the Obama family's new dog। And why not? Americans are so hungry for good news, we'll take it in furry form. And besides, dogs make the world a better place.
The best thing about dogs is that dogs love you back। A dog loves unconditionally. Dogs know that of faith, hope and love, the greatest of these is love. (Though I will say that dogs are also very good at hope. My dogs hope continually for treats and w-a-l-k-s; right now I have three dogs looking at me expectantly, hoping that when I finish typing this we will go outside. And maybe have a treat too.)

Who doesn't love a news story about a puppy? I know if I click on a story about Bo, it's not going to be about what to do about Afghanistan. I know that its not going to be a story that will break my heart once again because another teenager has died from gun violence here in Chicago. I know it won't be a story about the failed state of Somalia and pirates (pirates!) threatening ships and passengers.
I'm tired of worrying about our world। There just doesn't seem to be much of anything in the news that isn't downright alarming, from more giant chunks of ice falling off of the poles to more people losing their jobs. Even the wonderful news last week about marriage equality for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people from several states made me worry when the next attack on their equal rights would come.

No wonder I want to read about Bo। No wonder other people want to read about Bo. He has no reactionary legislative agenda. He just makes us smile, this puppy with the curly hair and the big white paws. I think the whole country has emotional fatigue, and if we're emotionally fatigued by all these crises, imagine how President Obama feels.

I looked at the picture of Bo happily running down the hallway alongside President Obama, looking up and plainly enjoying this cool chase game. The President was smiling, looking down at Bo.I hoped the President was having fun too. I hoped playing with the puppy gave him a little relief from stress. Dogs are good for that. I believe dogs are a gift of grace. Welcome, Bo.

BROTHER TO BROTHER...

You go boy! He is sooo….. cool. According to one commenter, "This is the most powerful photo in the series. Remember British royal custom, and both U.S. and British security procedure dictate that they are not supposed to talk, touch, or shake hands, but the two brothers couldn't resist the historic moment. The black royal cop never imagined in his wildest dream that he would usher a Black American president into the British corridors of power!"

Thank you Deena Bailey

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Mad About Michelle

Subject to Debate

By Katha Pollitt

This article appeared in the April 20, 2009 edition of The Nation.

April 2, 2009

Someday we'll get beyond obsessing about
first ladies--and by "we" I mean the sort of journalists who use "we" to mean "the vast majority of Americans" when it is usually just themselves and their friends. Meanwhile, Michelle Obama is getting more bouquets from the media than any woman in public life since Mother Teresa. Her clothes, her looks, her height (six feet!), her curves, her delightful combination of warmth, simplicity, charm, dignity, humor and smarts. Gone are the days when National Review put her on the cover as "Mrs. Grievance," when Maureen Dowd wondered aloud if Michelle's wifely jokes about Barack's foibles were "emasculating" and when Christopher Hitchens wrote in Slate that her undergraduate thesis, "Princeton Educated Blacks and the Black Community," was not "written in any known language" and used it to tie her to Louis Farrakhan, a pair of African dictators and the Holocaust. Remember how Obama supporters fumed about that New Yorker cover cartoon of Barack as an Al Qaeda terrorist and Michelle as a rifle-toting Black Panther? People wouldn't get that it was satire! Seems pretty silly now, doesn't it? Yesterday's fist-bumping radical is today's mom in chief.

Well, not quite. After all, Michelle Obama is still black, although only wingnuts and black people mention it--most whites are much too polite. And she's a woman, too, which always makes for trouble. So while half the country swoons over her Vogue cover and her community service in schools and homeless shelters, there are those who feel just a little bit threatened. There are her bare arms, for example--they have muscles! "In the taxi," Dowd confided in a recent column, "when I asked David Brooks about her amazing arms, he indicated it was time for her to cover up. 'She's made her point,' he said. 'Now she should put away Thunder and Lightning.'" Brooks didn't like "the V-neck sleeveless, eggplant dress" she wore to Barack's address to Congress, either. A supersmart black woman who's also fashionable and fit--terrifying.

And then there's this developing story line--call it the Goldilocks and the Three Bears syndrome. Hillary Clinton was too ambitious; Laura Bush (who?) was too retro; but Michelle has the woman thing just right. As David Samuels writes in New York magazine:

There are clear limits to Michelle's ambition. She went to excellent schools, got decent grades, stayed away from too much intellectual heavy lifting, and held a series of practical, modestly salaried jobs while accommodating her husband's wilder dreams and raising two lovely daughters. In this, she is a more practical role model for young women than Hillary Clinton, blending her calculations about family and career with an expectation of normal personal happiness.

Would you like some manly condescension with that factual misinformation, ladies? By all means, avoid "too much intellectual heavy lifting"! If Samuels regards $273,618--Michelle Obama's salary in her last year as head of community affairs for the University of Chicago Hospitals--as modest, he must be the richest magazine journalist in the world. Michelle Obama, who made almost twice as much as her husband the senator, earned more than 99 percent of the population, and 98 percent of men. Moreover, she did so while raising two small children, often without her husband, who was off legislating in Springfield and Washington. That Samuels, like a 1950s home ec teacher, advises "young women" to keep their ambitions "practical" if they want to be happy shows just how disturbing Hillary Clinton--or rather the nightmare fantasy of Hillary Clinton--has been to certain male psyches. Because what if women wanted to be the ones with the wild dreams? What if they wanted men to be the enablers and nurturers? That would be awful.

Just after the election Rebecca Traister wrote a terrific piece in Salon lamenting the "momification" of Michelle Obama. Probably it was inevitable: "In part because of the legacy left her by Hillary and her detractors," Traister observed, "powerful couples must now tread as far as possible from the 'two for one' talk, lest the female half get smacked with a nutcracker." Besides, there was that Angry Black Woman image to banish. It might have been politically necessary, and for all I know Michelle Obama is having the time of her life--unlike most professional women who take (let's hope) eight years off, she doesn't have to worry about the cost to her career. Some days I think just being a highly visible admirable black woman is a social cause all by itself, given how little of that side of black life most white Americans see. Still, there's something depressing about the joy and relief with which the high-end media have greeted Michelle's makeover from accomplished professional and outspoken social critic to new-traditionalist homebody. They're not only not ready for Hillary Clinton, they're apparently not even ready for Eleanor Roosevelt.

In the American Prospect, Dana Goldstein recently argued that being first lady should be treated like the job it is and awarded a salary. Michelle is "a public face of the Obama administration," working behind the scenes to rally support for her husband's programs--and she endures a schedule of ceremonial duties and photo ops that would put most women on Prozac and that are not optional. She can't decide to skip dinner with the Democratic chairmen of Congressional committees and watch TV with the girls instead. If first ladies were paid--Goldstein suggests that the money could come from lowering the president's $400,000 salary--we might respect them more.

Meanwhile, we should be counting ourselves lucky that 
Michelle Obama is working for free and let her wear whatever she wants.

Katha Pollitt's writing has appeared in many publications, including The New Yorker, The London Review of Books, the Washington Post and the New York Times.

BLACK IS IN!

The most powerful politician in the world is Black.

The head of the Republican National Committee is Black.

The best known media mogul on earth is Black.


The greatest golfer in the world is Black.
The top female tennis players in the world are Black.


The highest grossing actor worldwide is Black.




The brightest Astrophysicist under the sun is Black.




The Superbowl winning Head Coach is Black





The most successful brain surgeon in the world is Black!



The fastest human on the planet is Black.





The most winning race car driver is Black!



Michael Jackson must be kicking himself.

Commentary: My crush on Michelle Obama

      Commentary: My crush on Michelle Obama 
Editor's note: Jack Cafferty is the author of a new book, "Now or Never: Getting Down to the Business of Saving Our American Dream," to be published in March. He provides commentary on CNN's "The Situation Room" daily from 4 to 7 p.m. ET. You can also visit Jack's Cafferty File blog. 

Jack Cafferty says Michelle Obama understands that the White House is the "people's house."
NEW YORK (CNN) -- I think I am developing a crush on America's first lady. Michelle Obama is more compelling than her husband. He's good, but she's utterly fascinating. Mrs. Obama has blown away the stale air in a White House musty from eight years of the Bushes. It's like the sun came out and a fresh spring breeze began wafting through the open windows. It's the people's house, and Michelle Obama totally gets it. So much so that she has taken to inviting people in from the streets to see her home.. Nice touch -- one completely lacking in her recent predecessors.
Watch her when she visits a local school and you see the warmth and affection she instantly triggers in people. Kids are pretty much totally honest with very good BS-detectors. If they sense you're a phony, forget it. But around the first lady, they want to hug her and laugh with her and tell her stories.
You can see the same qualities these kids recognize in her daughters. She is the consummate mother as evidenced by the poised, polite smiling children she and her husband are raising. I have four daughters, and trust me -- they don't turn out like the Obama children without devoted parents.
New to the Washington neighborhood, Michelle Obama has taken it upon herself to go around and introduce herself to the people in the various agencies of government. When's the last time a first lady did that? I don't ever remember it before. And during her visits she listens rather than lectures. And people respond to her.
She was raised on the south side of Chicago by blue-collar parents. She went to Princeton University, and Harvard Law School. But in many ways she's still a kid from the south side of Chicago, and that's what makes her special. She knows exactly who she is.
The Obamas bring a humanity and humility to their tasks which sets them far apart from the run-of-the mill phonies who populate Washington. It's exactly what the doctor ordered for this wounded nation.
Michelle Obama's unassuming, but dead-on, sense of style has the fashion press gushing all over itself.
Her arms are becoming the stuff of legend. Who appears sleeveless on the cover of Vogue, let alone in front of a joint session of Congress while her husband delivers one of the most important speeches of his life? And the reviews were rave.
Cindi Leive, the editor of Glamour magazine gushed, "Oh my god! The first lady has bare arms in Congress in February at night!" If she keeps it up, Seventh Avenue will soon stop making women's clothes with sleeves.
Ok, I admit it. When it comes to the first lady, I'm smitten..
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Jack Cafferty.

A DEMONSTRATION OF WHAT IS COMING!

This video is a demo -- from Pattie Maes' lab at MIT, spearheaded by Pranav Mistry -- was the buzz of TED.

It's a wearable device with a projector that paves the way for profound interaction with our environment. Imagine "Minority Report" and then some.


Pranav Mistry is a PhD student in the Fluid Interfaces Group at MIT's Media Lab. Before his studies at MIT, he worked with Microsoft as a UX researcher. Mistry is passionate about integrating the digital informational experience with our real-world interactions.

Some previous projects from Mistry's work at MIT includes intelligent sticky notes, Quickies, that can be searched and can send reminders; a pen that draws in 3D; and TaPuMa, a tangible public map that can act as Google of physical world. His research interests also include Gestural and Tangible Interaction, Ubiquitous Computing, AI, Machine Vision, Collective Intelligence and Robotics.






Check out this Web Site:

http://www.pranavmistry.com/

MICHELLE ROBINSON OBAMA'S BIOGRAPHY

Born on January 17, 1964, Michelle Robinson was raised in a one-bedroom apartment on Chicago's South Shore.

Of note is that she shared a "bedroom" with her brother, but it wasn't much of a bedroom. It was actually the living room with a divider down the middle. Michelle's father died in 1990 two years before she married Barack, but her mother is still alive and living in the same one-bedroom apartment, protected by a burglar-proof wrought-iron door and secured windows.

After high school Michelle Robinson majored in sociology at Princeton University, graduating with cum laude honors in 1985. From there she attended Harvard where she earned her law degree in 1988, one year ahead of her husband-to-be, Barack, whom she hadn't met yet but attended the same law school.

* MICHELLE AND BARACK MEET

After graduating from Harvard, Michelle accepted a position at a downtown Chicago law firm. In 1989 she was asked to mentor a summer associate from Harvard name Barack Obama. According to reports, Barack didn't have much interest in corporate law, but did have a lot of interest in Michelle.

Apparently Michelle Robinson initially brushed off advances from Barack because they were working at same firm...and he was an intern and she higher up the law firm's food chain as an associate. But love prevailed and they were married on October 18, 1992.

Interestingly Barack and Michelle waited almost seven years before having children. Their first daughter name Malia Ann Obama was born in 1999 with Natasha (often called "sasha") following two years later in 2001.

When asked about what made her fall in love with him she replied "for the same reason many other people respect him; his connection with people."

Even though her husband is the center of attention, Michelle has zero concerns about fidelity in their marriage. She told Ebony magazine in March 2006, "I never worry about things I can't affect, and with fidelity . . . that is between Barack and me, and if somebody can come between us, we didn't have much to begin with."

* MICHELLE'S ROBINSON OBAMA'S CAREER

Michelle's impressive resume includes: Former Associate Dean at the University of Chicago a member of six boards of directors including the prestigious Chicago Council on Global Affairs, the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools and Tree House Foods; Vice President, Community and External Affairs at the University of Chicago Hospitals. In this position she was responsible for all programs and initiatives that involve the relationships between the hospitals and the community as well as management of the hospitals' business diversity program.

* MICHELLE OBAMA'S INFLUENCES ON BARACK'S POLITICAL CAREER

Michelle's professional relationships were helpful when her husband in 2004, then a state senator, ran for the United States Senate, where he faced a primary dominated by some of the Democratic Party's most
powerful political families.

In this 2004 race, Obama had the support of influential black business leaders, some of whom had closer ties to his wife than they did to him. According to Newsweek, a former boss of Michelle Obama's, a powerful black woman Valerie Jarrett, chair of the Chicago Stock Exchange, served as finance chair of Barack Obama's U.S. Senate campaign.

* MICHELLE OBAMA: THE MOM & WIFE

After Barack was elected to the U.S. Senate, Barack and Michelle choose
to keep their children in Chicago, where Michelle continued her career
as well. "We made a good decision to stay in Chicago so that has kept
our family stable," Michelle Obama told the Chicago Tribune. Every
Sunday the family attends services at the Trinity United Church of
Christ.

According to reports, Michelle has mastered being a mother, career
woman and the wife of a politician. When Newsweek magazine trailed her in 2004, the reporter could not help but notice a to-do list for her two daughters Malia and Natasha that included time for "play." She is in bed most nights by 9:30 and rises each morning at 4:30 to run on a treadmill.

This level of discipline and organization helps her manage
her public and private pressures with poise. In New Yorker magazine
Michelle noted that the life of a political wife is "hard and that's why Barack is such a grateful man."But there's more to it. "Barack didn't pledge riches" Michelle explains to Newsweek. "Only a life that would be interesting. On that promise he's delivered."

SLOW DANCE

 


This poem was written by a terminally ill young girl in a New York Hospital. It was sent by her medical doctor.

SLOW DANCE

Have you ever watched kids
On a merry-go-round?
Or listened to the rain
Slapping on the ground?

Ever followed a butterfly's erratic flight?
Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?
You better slow down.
Don't dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won't last.

Do you run through each day on the fly?
When you ask How are you?
Do you hear the reply?

When the day is done
Do you lie in your bed
With the next hundred chores
Running through your head?

You'd better slow down
Don't dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won't last.

Ever told your child,we'll do it tomorrow?
And in your haste, not see his sorrow?
Ever lost touch, let a good friendship die
Cause you never had time To call and say, 'Hi'

You'd better slow down.
Don't dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won't last.

When you run so fast to get somewhere
You miss half the fun of getting there
When you worry and hurry through your day,
It is like an unopened gift....Thrown away.

Life is not a race.
Do take it slower
Hear the music
Before the song is over.

     Michelle Obama Adjusts To D.C.

  

           First Lady Visits DC High School

First Lady Michelle Obama Reflects on Talking 'Like a White Girl'

Michelle Obama Tells D.C. Students That Stereotypes Get in the Way

By DAVID WRIGHT

March 20, 2009

First lady Michelle Obama visited one of the poorest neighborhoods in the nation's capital Thursday, hoping her example would help encourage struggling, young high school students.

It's the latest attempt by the first lady to use her bully pulpit to talk candidly with Americans, and she's sparking some compelling conversations.

Obama's remarks came as part of a career day she organized for Washington, D.C.-area students, featuring 20 other high-profile women who fanned out across the city to connect with kids. For her part, the first lady acknowledged that her childhood included struggles with language and racial identity.

And when one student asked her, "How did you get to where you are now?" she credited, in part, her command of the language.

"I remember there were kids around my  Chicago  neighborhood who would say, 'Ooh, you talk funny. You talk like a white girl.' I heard that growing up my whole life. I was like, 'I don't even know what that means but I am still getting my A.'"

Even now, Americans listen intently not just to what the Obamas say but how they say it: words, accents, even gestures.

"For many folks, Michelle Obama and Barack Obama, to a lesser extent, don't sound like as what they think of stereotypical black," said Mark Anthony Neal, a professor of African-American studies at Duke University in Durham, N.C. "And just like there might be whites invested in those stereotypes, there are obviously African-Americans invested in those also."

 

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
The Notorious AIG - Outrage
comedycentral.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Important Things w/ Demetri Martin Political Humor

"The New WhiteFace Of Crime"

The Daily Show's Larry Wilmore on "the new white face of crime":

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
The New White Face of Crime
comedycentral.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Important Things w/ Demetri Martin Political Humor

MR. PRESIDENT ENJOYING A BASKETBALL GAME!

Mr. President takes time out to enjoy a basketball game ; the America way to pass time! Enjoying a little of the activities and a beer! Hey, this is a real man!

New York Post Cartoon

  For Those Still Incensed About the New York Post Cartoon

  The National Black Agenda Online E-newsletter, 

Tuesday, March 10, 2009
  www.NationalBlackAgendaOnline.com


  ACTION PLAN

Let's show our outrage by BOYCOTTING 
their newspaper and advertisers.

Companies that have web advertising on the NY Post:

Sprint
Kraft macaroni & cheese
Lexus
E entertainment 
Harrah's Las Vegas

Please bombard their telephones and emails in protest to their 

audacity to print such racist commentary.

To log a complaint and to ask for the firing of cartoonist email:

webeditor@nypost.com
letters@newyorkpost.com

or call:

1-212-930-8000 - Press 8
1-212-930-8100

Other Links:

Join NAACP in Asking for Firing of Cartoonist
Call to Action by Al Sharpton
Newark Group BOYCOTT New York Post
Let Your Voice Be Heard - Color of Change
New York Post Caves In - Issues Apology
New York Post Applogizes for Chimp Cartoon
John Legend Open Letter to the New York Post
New York Cartoon Appears to Link Obama to Dead Chimp
New York Post Cartoon of Dead Chimpanzee Stirs Outrage

Morgan Freeman

In an interview with Mike Wallace.., Morgan Freeman give his thoughts on Black History Month!

Even Me



The Love Medley



The Washington Performing Arts Society's Children of the Gospel Choir

RON'S WORLD SUNDAY MUSIC
http://camron46sundaymusic.blogspot.com/

CHANGE HAS COME!

STRAIGHTEN UP AND FLY RIGHT...
WEAR A BELT AND BUCKLE IT TIGHT!



POSTED BY KITTY

Black and White Twins

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 1:06 pm
Black and White Twins

WONDERS WILL NEVER END...
GOD IS STILL THE AUTHOR OF WONDERS!!!

Pictured: Proud parents show off their million-to-one black and white twins Welcoming new twins into the world is always a momentous event. But when brothers Ryan and Leo arrived they had an extra surprise for their parents - they were born with different colored skin. For one twin to be black and one to be white is so rare that it is thought by medical experts to be a one in a million occurrence. Proud parents: Florence Addo-Gerth and Stephan Gerth with their newborn twins Ryan (right) and Leo (left) Proud parents Florence Addo-Gerth and Stephan Gerth are over-joyed by the new additions to their family, which includes 18-year-old brother Randy. Mother Florence, 35, hails from Ghana , west Africa while father Stephan is German. Stephan, 40, said that although the couple were surprised by the children different colorings the most important thing was that the babies were healthy. Big yawn: Ryan (left) and Leo enjoy a nap, oblivious to the sensation their births have caused The infants caused a sensation at the Sana Hospital in Lichtenberg , Germany , where they were born on Friday last week, with guests crowding around to greet the new arrivals. And it is not only their skin colors that are different - the twins are already revealing opposing personalities. Light-skinned Ryan is described as a 'spirited' baby, while laid back brother Leo is a lot calmer. Senior doctor Birgit Weber, who helped deliver the tots by cesarean section, said that in 20 years of practice this was the first time she had seen differently colored twins.

POSTED BY KITTY

Never Forget

Here she is.., Ms USS New York - Made from the World Trade Center!

Sent: Wed, 11 Mar 2009 9:04 pm

USS New York
It was built with 24 tons of scrap steel from the

World Trade Center.

It is the fifth in a new class of warship - designed for missions that include special operations against terrorists. It will carry a crew of 360 sailors and 700 combat-ready Marines to be delivered ashore by helicopters and assault craft.

Steel from the World Trade Center was melted down in a foundry in Amite, LA to cast the ship's bow section. When it was poured into the molds on Sept 9, 2003, 'those big rough steelworkers treated it with total reverence,' recalled Navy Capt. Kevin Wensing, who was there. 'It was a spiritual moment f or everybody there.'

Junior Chavers, foundry operations manager, said that when the trade center steel first arrived, he touched it with his hand and the 'hair on my neck stood up.' 'It had a big meaning to it for all of us,' he said. 'They knocked us down. They can't keep us down. We're going to be back.'
The ship's motto? 'Never Forget'


POSTED BY KITTY