Okay, the first part of this post is somewhat wonky, but I promise you that you’ll get my requisite BET jabs at the end of the post. Okay, so it’s coming, but I had to give you background first before you can get your payoff.
Y’all know I a big advocate of Black bloggers, even those I don’t agree with. I think at this stage of the development of new media, we rise, fall, sink and swim, together. Well, yesterday I did some blog-related travel and made a pit stop at an excellent conference put on by the folks at Target Market News. Mr. Smikle doesn’t like bloggers or social networks very much, he said we’re “anarchy”, but he threw a heck of a conference. Not because of the free beverages and hot cider in the lobby, but because of the people he is able to get in the room.
I sat next to Jacque Reid and an executive from Hewlett Packard. I had a blast at the back of the room. I only managed to heckle one presenter who said that Black-oriented websites have STATIC content? He cited for his reference BET.com and BlackAmericaWeb. I was of course indignant because y’all will put out an ABP, text messages, carrier pigeons and all other of tracking devices to find me if I don’t update after a few days. If certain “guilty pleasures” aren’t updated within 48 hours I send off an email to see if they are still alive.
Anyway, these folks in the room don’t understand social media. They don’t get it. Those that do get it can’t create it, they only can imitate it. So I was in a room of people who want to either sell the eyeballs of the readers you draw to your site or buy the eyeballs of your readers by placing the ads on your site. You need the eyeball purchasers, the eyeball sellers can be eliminated with computer code.
Remember when we needed travel agents to book a cruise? Its the same concept. The agencies and ad networks are making their money in the same way that travel agents made their money back in the day. The airlines didn’t necessarily want to deal with you directly ( too burdensome and costly) so if you wanted access to that airline ticket or that cruise, you had to go through them. There is still a market for travel agents to plan complicated group travel and special events, but the the market for merely processing a transaction between two parties is dominated by people who figured out some computer code to do that for us.
The money is being made by the people who place themselves in between your readers and the advertisers. The work they are doing matching advertisers with eyeballs could be easily replaced by some computer code. So in effect they are creating inefficiency in the marketplace by skimming a profit for doing something a bot could do. Before we get to the point, I did have to throw in this unsolicited tidbit.I gleaned from the room full of BET (“THE GREAT SATAN) executives yesterday . . .
1 MILLION DOLLARS IN REPARATIONS FOR BLACK WOMEN
For all you Black women who have been ticked off by the DAMAGE you think the GREAT SATAN has done to us and the Black community in general, you will be happy to know that one of the litle birdies at the conference who was in a position to KNOW told me offhand that WAOD cost BET 1 million dollars last year with out peaceful and docile discussion of THAT SHOW we had to defund. Stop Funding Foolishness!
I think my little birdie was actually low balling the amount. If you view our efforts directed at THAT SHOW in isolation, maybe it was 1 million dollars, but what about the advertisers that were ticked off at BET for being so reckless with their brand? What about the subsequent protests now that we proved THE GREAT SATAN wasn’t invincible? What about the Parents Television Council and Industry Ears releasing a report of THE GREAT SATAN’s content on its afternoon programming. Remember Proctor & Gamble putting up that 1-800 line. You think they were happy to have to do that? The world’s largest advertiser having to babysit a television network? Why do y’all think Rap City is gone? coincidence? I think not. So just consider that purported 1 Million dollars reparations for all of the harm inflicted on Black women and girls over the years. but back on topic.
BET’S SMOKE AND MIRRORS -Plans to Turn Black Bloggers into Sharecroppers
So BET is trying to grow their online ad network. As with all things, they weren’t a market leader and are now playing catchup. In case you haven’t figured it out THE GREAT SATAN’s ability to make money is based on fooling large advertisers. By creating an illusion. For example BET loves to boast 84 million subscribers. They don’t tell you that they have those 84 million subscribers because they are part of the basic cable package. If people had to choose to invite BET into their homes… most people would not other than their awards shows, they don’t have any noteworthy “original” programming.
They also create the illusion that BET is destination viewing for Black people, well VH1 torpedoed that when they started launching the trilogy of tawdriness ( Flavor of Love, I Love New York, Charmed School). That’s why BET had to scramble last year and start producing “original” programming.
The only added value BET’s advertising network has to offer to an advertiser like Ford, GM, P& G, Yum Brands, etc is SCALE. That’s a new word I learned yesterday.. SCALE. SCALE SCALE SCALE. Its all about SCALE… unless its not.
Well to hear the BET executive tell it ( He was LOUD, ARROGANT and WRONG by the way… what eles is new) But to hear the BET adnetwork executive tell it, it is impossible for ‘the little guy” to make it without playing by BET’s rules. What a bunch of gibberish and tomfoolery.
The only barrier to SCALE is a couple of lines of computer code. That’s it. A few lines of computer code allows any of us to display the ads of anybody we want to on our websites. You may not have millions of page hits a month, but I can put your hundreds of hits with my ten thousands of hits with the thousands of hits of other Black blogger in a bundle an voila… we have scale. SCALE is called a WIDGET, and embed, a gadget.
All we have to do is hook up with someone who knows the ad game and how to sale and we could created out own networks made up of high quality, frequently updated sites with PASSIONATE and Addicted… I mean LOYAL readers( I mean like seriously, y’all visit my blog more than I do). That means allowing advertisers to develop “meaningful and engaging relationships” (another new cliche from yesterday) with audiences with OUR readers instead of the blood sucking sociopaths at BET. Plus, we would get to keep a higher percentage of the ad revenue and charge advertisers a lower rate because we wouldn’t have BET’s overhead. Meaning, the advertisers wouldn’t be paying for BET to send dozens of executives to conferences where they spout complete and total nonsense in front of a room of people who don’t know enought to call them on their crap.
It’s not really all that hard. Okay its “challenging” to set up, but it can be done. It must be done before THE GREAT SATAN is allowed to infect the Black blogosphere with its plague of multimedia crack cocaine the way that it had infected broadcast television. WE are in the position of power because BET has to feast on our blood in order to survive online. They can’t create. They can’t innovate. They can’t create “meaningful and engaging relationships”, so they are going to let Black bloggers do it, pay us peanuts and then live out their champagne wishes and caviar dreams on our backs while lying to advertisers about what BET is able to deliver. BET can’t deliver the mail. No seriously, when has there ever been a TELEVISION NETWORK that can’t deliver a single, solitary scripted show… not even a frigging cartoon. They can’t create their own juice, they have to attach themselves to the arteries of others like vampires.
They are a television network that was built on music videos created by others. Any “original” programming they have been able to produce, of late, has been a naked imitation of the work of other people. What BET does is appropriate the work of other people, bundle that work and sale the eyeballs of the people who want to look at that work. That’s what they did with music videos, we can’t let them do that to Black blogs.
Individually we may not have SCALE, but working together, as we do everyday when we link to each other, promote each other’s causes, provide information to each other, embed our widgets in our blogs, we are creating SCALE. The people in the room didn’t know that because they have NO CLUE about social media and the people they are looking to for advice don’t understand social media either. They are setting up business models that look identical to the failures of the past.
I didn’t bother to point this out during THE GREAT SATAN’S outburst at the conference because it is rare that you get to see such an excessive display of hubris in public. Its quite entertaining to watch someone so arrogant, so loud and SO WRONG. It was like watching a rhetorical magic show. The BET exec was blowing smoke and flashing mirrors, but anybody that knows anything thing about creating a BRAND NEW online community from scratch ( as opposed to propping your website up with your radio show or your television network), a little bit of something about writing code, and a relationship with someone who knows the ad game can pull this off . Heck, we had probably 2 million page clicks a month at kicking it at Blogging While Brown last year. *cough* hint *cough*
The moral of the story is, BET, Interactive One etc., aren’t doing anything Black bloggers couldn’t do on their own. The only piece missing is someone to sell directly to large advertisers and someone to write the code to pull this off. It ain’t that hard…otherwise the intellectually and morally-challenged sociopaths at BET couldn’t even attempt it.
Barry Cooper an old school cyberpreneur from back in the day(he created Blackvoices.com.. Show of hands to those who remember Netnoir!!!) was on a panel and he recited the quote, “A rising tide lifts all boats”. Well BET it trying to make sure it’s boat is the Queen Mary II while Black bloggers are rising standing on five shoots of bamboo tied together by palm fronds.
It would not take much to drive a rhetorical wooden stake through the heart of this Black blogging vampire.It would be my personal TREAT to keep BET for turning this TRICK Happy Halloween y’all!!!
For those of you who don’t celebrate Halloween because you believe it is the work of the Devil, Happy Harvest Festival! (The kids don’t care as long as they get to dress up and eat candy!)
I am holding my mule y’all on the whole Jennifer Hudson situation out of outright compassion. I can’t bring myself to pile on before Jennifer’s family is buried in the ground. I could write about twenty posts about Michelle Balfour, the Mama of the main “person” of interest and Julia Hudson, Jennifer Hudson’s sister and mother of little seven year old Julian Hudson.
Look at MIchelle Balfour on Nancy Grace.
If you will recall, Michelle Balfour came out while Julian was still missing to say her son didn’t do this. COMPLAIN about having to leave work early and to declare that she didn’t raise “no murderer.” Well let’s see, her precious son was already CONVICTED of attempted murder and drug possession. William Balfour’s father apparently is serving 30 years on murder charges and William’s brother is serving drug dealing charges. So CLEARLY Michelle you are in no position to judge the criminal proclivities of the men you procreate with and give birth to. So be quiet. Your son, even if he is innocent was clearly trifling and maybe if you had been a better parent you wouldn’t have chosen a murder as your mate and produced two criminals.
Julia, It’s time for your Wilderness Journey… Get the HECK off of MYSPACE!!!
Julia, please for the love of God, I understand wanting to connect with people online, that is laudable, but you need to cut the cord and DEAL WITH THE REAL WORD!!! Stop using Myspace to vent and put your profile on PRIVATE. You can still interact with all of your “friends” online. Y’all don’t even go look at the Myspace page because if she hasn’t changed the content of the page, it is going to give about half of y’all instant aneurysms.
I GUESS IT’S TIME TO UPDATE THIS WHEN I STARTED MY MYSPACE ALL OF THE ABOVE WAS TRUE, NOW BECAUSE I CHOSE TO DO WHAT WAS NATURAL TO ME AND LOVE SOMEONE, IT COST ME MY BEAUTIFUL FAMILY MY WONDERFUL BEAUTIFUL LOVING SUPPORTING MOTHER DARNELL, MY TRUE BLUE BABY BROTHER JASON , I LOVE U BIG BABY … AND LAST BUT NEVER NOT LEAST MY ONLY SON JULIAN , MY INNOCENT BABY ONE THAT WAS SHELTERED FROM ALL THE EVIL IN THE WORLD BECAUSE WE LOVED HIM SO MUCH Julia Hudson on Myspace
In case none of your relatives will tell you, its INAPPROPRIATE! It was inappropriate before this tragedy and only moreso now. I will not comment on the content of the Myspace page because I mean the Lord is really working on me in this case.
To be blunt. I like Jennifer Hudson. Always have. All the way back to American Idol. Loved her in Dream Girls and watch it just to see her sing “And I am Telling You.” Ran to the theater to see it. If Julia was NOT Jennifer Hudson’s sister, I already would have been to the right and to the left, but reading that “LOVE” is responsible for this horror just makes my blood boil. But I am going to hold my mule! Hold my mule!!!
It is with great sorrow (NOT REALLY) that we hand out a What About Our Daughters Wagging Finger of Shame Award this week. I know it has been a while, but when I saw this on ABC News I had to get up and come straight to the computer:
An embattled Massachusetts state senator appeared in a federal courtroom today charged with taking $23,500 in bribes, including cash that she stuffed into her bra during a meeting at a tony Boston restaurant that was secretly videotaped by an undercover FBI agent, federal prosecutors said.
Democratic state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson faces 40 years in prison after federal prosecutors outlined accusations that she accepted the bribes over an 18-month period in a money-for-legislative influence sting operation, prosecutors said. ABC News
We don’t judge her guilt or innocence. We will remain silent over how cheaply she appears to have sold her soul ($1000?). We will not wag our fingers because she had $6,000 cash in her purse instead of in frozen food packages in her freezer.
We hand out the wagging finger of shame because she didn’t have to use that particular method of stashing money in her bra. It was only ten $100 bills, she could have neatly folded them and placed them discretely within her bra just below the shoulder strap without anybody knowing. She clearly was not raised in the south. Undignified!!!
I hate it when Black politicians trade their souls for a two piece and a biscuit. You can bet your bottom dollar Ted Stevens wasn’t settling for $1000. You can’t even get a White politician to answer the phone behind $1000. Sure whatever you needed to bribe a politician to get cost more than $1000? A whopping $23,000? Ridiculous. Luckily, she was defeated in the Democratic primary, but just barely.
The following is a guest post by René Syler, co-chair for Susan G. Komen for the Cure’s Circle of Promise campaign. She wanted to reach out to What About Our Daughter to remind you that October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
By René Syler
Every Sunday night, the dawning of a new week, my daughter and I have a ritual we go through. It was one I did with my mother and she did with her mom before that. It’s one that is played out in just about every African American household (more here). It is the hair thing! You know what I am talking about..the washing, pressing (my mom did for me) and braiding of the hair in preparation for the week ahead. As a black woman, speaking to other black women, I don’t need to explain the importance of the hair ritual. We all know it and live it, even if we don’t quite love it.
But what’s interesting to me about the hair ritual, is it give Casey and I a quiet time alone (between me telling her to sit still and stop pulling away from me) to talk about all manner of things.. school, boys (what little bit I can squeeze out of her) and heavy stuff, like breast cancer and why it is important to talk care of ourselves.
The strength of a community is built on the incredible resilience of its mothers, wives, sisters, aunts and grandmothers. They are seemingly invincible figures that we depend on for care and comfort. However, most of these women rarely spend as much time taking care of their own health.
There are two sides to this. If we want to ensure that our families are well cared for and healthy, we have to start by first taking care of ourselves. We make excuses about not having enough time or we tell ourselves that we’ll always be healthy. The truth is, some illnesses are just random and it can happen to you. Take breast cancer for example.
As a proud mother of a beautiful daughter and courageous son, my passion to fight against breast cancer is personal and unique. As a co-survivor, I helped my mother and father as they both battled with breast cancer. Having shared that intense struggle with them, I have an overwhelming motivation to fight for my son and daughter, your sons and daughters to not have to experience the same struggles because of breast cancer.
Although I was not diagnosed with breast cancer there was an increased likelihood of a diagnosis. After numerous false alarms, a diagnosis of a pre-cancerous condition as well as my family history, I made a difficult decision to undergo a bilateral prophylactic mastectomy, the removal of both breasts, to help reduce my personal risk for the disease. Today, I am healthy and enjoying my family without fear or worry for my future and theirs. I was proactive with my health. The risks are what prompted me to take action. I love my life and those people in it. I want to be here, to watch my children grow up and graduate, to help heal their first heartache and to watch them bring home people I will generally find unacceptable (I hope not!). In short, the people in my life need me in THEIR lives. That is why I made a decision to put my health first – my life first.
Today, I’m a co-chair for Susan G. Komen for the Cure’s Circle of Promise campaign, which was designed to help empower African Americans to make a promise to reclaim their health and become ambassadors in their communities. I’ve made a commitment to help other women understand the impact of breast cancer and offer my own experience in love, encouragement and sisterhood.
That’s why October, which is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, is a good time to think about how we value ourselves – how we value our health. This is not something we can take for granted. Despite being less likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer, African Americans are twice as likely to die from the disease when compared to white women. So what can you do now?
Here are three things you can start today to make a difference in your life and the lives of others:
Take care of yourself and practice breast self awareness. Tell your doctor about changes immediately. Early detection is the key to survival!
Tell seven friends to join you in signing up with Circle of Promise and form your circles today!
As busy women we have to realize the importance of maintaining our health. We worry and stress about so many things. My book, Good Enough Mother, talks about doing your best and not worrying about being perfect all the time. But first, we need to understand taking care of our families means taking care of ourselves, those are intimately connected. You must take the time. You must know your family history. You can practice breast self awareness in the shower or lying down right before bedtime. You don’t have to be an expert, but you must be familiar with your own body.
We all need to ensure that our personal commitments reach far and wide – that they help to strengthen African American women everywhere. Tell your girlfriends. Tell them to tell their girlfriends and sign up for Circle of Promise.
We can all do our part to rewrite the story on African Americans and breast cancer!
After all, if I am not here, who will do my daughter’s hair? If you are gone, who will do YOUR daughter’s hair?
Rene Syler first fought against breast cancer while supporting both her mother and father who are both breast cancer survivors. In 2007, after being a longtime volunteer with the Susan G. Komen for the Cure, she became a Komen for the Cure Ambassador, and Circle of Promise Co-Chair. In addition to being a wife, mother, business woman and tireless breast cancer activist, Syler is the author of “Good Enough Mother,” published in March 2007. To learn more about Rene Syler, visit www.goodenoughmother.com.
During the hearing, Kilpatrick reacted to criticism of his actions by sometimes turning around to look at the courtroom’s middle seating section, where wife Carlita Kilpatrick, father Bernard Kilpatrick, sister Ayanna Kilpatrick and a couple dozen allies offered friendly looks and mostly quiet words of encouragement.
But supporters grew increasingly angry as the hearing progressed, as they listened to the judge and prosecutors highlight Kilpatrick’s criminal actions. Kilpatrick’s body language also evolved, as he folded his arms in a defiant pose and began to frown.
Afterward, when a seething Bernard Kilpatrick was asked what he felt while he watched his son led into custody, he replied: “The anguish of thousands of black fathers for years who watched their sons being railroaded into jail.”
Railroaded? Your son created a paper trail of his infidelity and then lied about it. Under oath… Did we mention his son is an attorney? Didn’t he have five lawyers? Didn’t he lie? Isn’t Detroit run by Black folks? Who runs that railroad?
Kim Worthy is not through with him yet. She is continuing to investigate him related to come travel issues and the death of Tamera Greene and as I predicted, it looks like the Feds are not far behind.
Though she confirmed that she is working with the police on the investigation, when asked whether she was working with the FBI, she said only: “We are doing it in conjunction with law enforcement.”FREEP
Since CNN wants to be branded as the network of PIMPS and human traffickers, I helped them out by doing a mashup of DL Hughley’s first episode of the television travesty that is Dl Hughley Makes the News. Diversity doesn’t mean scraping the bottom of the barrel to just throw random Black folks up on TV. If CNN is the most trusted source in news, what does it mean that right out of the box, they throw Black pimps up for all the world to gawk at. Stereotypical much? What? Was Shirley Q Liquor not available? When people tell you who they are, believe them.
Now imagine if only I had that new Mac Book Pro I have been wanting. I could do so much more Final Cut Studio .
I think it was the worst show that I have seen in a long while. TV Newser
What happens when CNN hires a man with a well documented history of animus towards Black women? Well, right out of the box, he takes his Black woman hatred, degradation and misogyny to a world wide audience. Using the financial crisis to introduce the world to the hilarity that is human sex trafficking by bringing on a Pimp ( Human Sex Trafficker) named Freddie Mack to discuss the mortgage meltdown.
Yes, you just heard someone say “Shut cho mouth b*tches!” on CNN.- You better watch this clip before CNN yanks it down. They aren’t showing it on CNN.com… I wonder why? Y’all will especially enjoy the part where Freddie Mack blames the mortgage meltdown on his sister “Fannie Mae” and he says “Or as I like to call her Fannie Mae or Fannie May Not, depending on how much money you got.” Oh yes, he said this on CNN. Oh y’all sohuld split your sides with laughter when Freddie Mack talks about his business being “Financing Hoes.” Uh huh on CNN. Y’all. C.N.N. Why aren’t the women of CNN raising hell? Where is NOW? Oh yeah… the audience assumes that Freddie Mack’s “Hoes” are Black women… no problems.. keep laughing.
CNN is using DL Hughley as a straw man to carry out their their dirty work. He immunizes them from criticism and that is what they were counting on. The fact that the Black silent majority would give them a pass, because we are supposed to accept whatever garbage gets spewed at us as long as the one spewing the garbage has some melanin. CNN ain’t slick. I tried to tell CNN what Hughley was all about in my post CNN Gives New Show to Black-Woman-Hating Comic DL Hughley.
I weep for the employees of CNN. I weep for them in sorrow that DL Hughley has been foisted upon them. I weep for its foreign correspondents who have dodged IEDs, bullets, bombs, coups, and cholera, to only have their service to CNN disrespected by being forced to answer questions from a complete and total Buffoon- a modern day minstrel. A man too illiterate to read a teleprompter and properly pronounce your names and your locations. I weep for you CNN employees who were passed over so a man with few talents, a string of television failures, and did I mention an inability to read was given a one hour show on a international cable news outlet.
Folks, there is something called the “soft bigotry of low expectations.” On Saturday night the world got a wonderful demonstration of this bigotry when CNN debuted DL Hughley Makes the News. If you will recall, this blog has chronicled Hughley for well over a year after he made the following comments in the aftermath of Don Imus calling a group of College educated Black women “Nappy headed hoes.”
Now many may say “Isn’t putting up video of his horrific show on your blog helping to promote his wretchedly inferior comedic talent?” Not so my friends. My putting up video of his show demonstrates my confidence that no matter how much CNN promotes this show, DL Hughley’s inability to read and pronounce the names of places like Mumbai, India will doom this show as all of his other television shows have been promptly canceled.
SO here is the first segment called “DL Around the World” somewhere CNN’s foreign correspondents must be wondering how far they have fallen to have to endure being interviewed by someone who can’t even pronounce their names and locations correctly. You have to feel for the Russian Correspondent who has to endure Hughley’s idiot question about the world series. Or when he asked the China correspondent “If McCain ran against Obama in China who would win?” Of how about “Who Would Make a Better Astronaut, McCain or Obama” :
I felt so bad for these correspondents. All their education and experience and risking their lives as foreign correspondents only to be subjected to the insulting experience of being interviewed by a man who cannot read. It’s like they botoxed his corneas- look at his eyes. Dead eyes. The one bright spot was Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson and Hughley managed to sully that experience by asking Dr. Tyson if he “got some” from girls while talking about an apocalyptic impact from an asteroid. NO I did not make that up.
CNN finally gives a show to an African American, and they don’t go and find a journalist ( I know those are hard to find), the don’t go find a political analyst or an academic, they go get a COMIC. A comic that thinks Black women are “the ugliest [women] he has ever seen in his life.” His first show has been panned by those who watched it. It has been declared one of the WORST shows many have seen in a while.
We are not surprised. This man’s maliciousness and anti-Black woman animus cannot be disguised as humor. He is a mean spirited profane little troll and all the studio lights and makeup in the world cannot not disguise that CNN. I am not surprised that CNN dug into the bottom of the barrel to give a platform to minstrelty. CNN is Bearish on Black people. Remember when they used that Soledad O’Brien documentary Black in America to put a bunch of pathology on display and try to pass that off as telling OUR story? Remember when CNN put up a headline on their website declaring Black women to be “An Endangered Species”? Remember when CNN declared AIDS to be a “Black” disease?
For the record, to the reporters who like to quote this blog without so much as an email or phone call, please don’t say I am “protesting” DL Hughley and CNN. I don’t “protest” or “boycott” — that’s Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. Now MY READERS have been known to do those things… . If my readers happen to take note of the advertisers that purchased the ads that run at the beginning of the CNN embedded videos of Hughley’s shows, track down their contact information, and loudly protest their financial support of DL Hughley’s platform, then I can take no responsibility for that. They are on their own. I can’t be responsible for any rogue readers who track down the contact information for Proctor and Gamble and ask them why their PUR water brand is helping to subsidize the online video of a show that thinks pimps and calling women hoes and b*tches are funny.
No, I have no desire to cause any type of controversy that might prolong the length of this clearly doomed show. I don’t care WHAT HIS PUBLICIST TELLS YOU. This blog is not mounting a protest! Tell his publicist that they will have to find some other way to make this Titanic of a television show viable. You shall get no help from me!
My only hope is that the CNN employees forced to appear on this debacle will revolt and demand their basic human dignity back from their bosses. I pity that DL Hughley has been thrust upon them by the bigotry of their superiors. To pull a page out of D.L’s Playbook… I’m BLACK and I think he is horrible. So there!
Once last question, would CNN let John Stewart, Stephen Colbert, or Don Imus come on their station and do a skit calling women b*tches and hoes? Do y’all get how insidious it is that they use this Black man to carry out his anti-woman agenda? IF HE WAS WHITE ( Yeah I said it).. IF. HE. WAS. WHITE, it would not be tolerated on CNN. It is because he is Black that the b*tches and the hoes Freddie Mack is referring to are assumed to be BLACK women that DL and CNN are going to get a ride.
To those who claim I am being bourgeoisie. Oh excuse me BOO-Zhee, for criticizing Hughley. I am not alone.
I’m not trying to be a hater, but this is a union that I don’t see continuing for very long. D.L. isn’t breaking the news, it seems the news is broken.
And if Time Warner/CNN really wants to do a better job competing with Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, why not choose a comedian who is actually funny?
Precious I know it is selfish of me, but I hope you aren’t with your Grandma right now. I hope you”re hiding because you are scared and may be too traumatized to talk. Or maybe you are hurt and can’t move. Or maybe some bad people have you and are trying to make up their minds what to do.
I have a nephew who is about your age. He has a smile just like yours. You remind me of him. I am so sorry that the dysfunction of the adults around you may have touched your young life. Wherever you are, whether you are with your grandma and uncle or still with us here on Earth, I hope that the loving arms of God hold you and give you the peace you richly deserve.
Jennifer Hudson is offering a $100,000 reward for the return of her nephew Julian King. I still believe in miracles. More video after the jump. Continue reading →
Maya Rudolph returned to Saturday Night Live to impersonate Michelle Obama. She and the guy that’s been doing the Barack Obama imitation sang a rendition of “Solid as Barack” to the tune of “Solid as a Rock.” Video after the jump Continue reading →
Literally as the police chief was drafting a response to our concerns, Tekenya Wooten was found.
The Durham Police Department has been actively trying to locate Tekenya Wooten since she was last reported missing from the group home where she resides. It is clear that she left on her own accord. The investigation of this runaway is continuing with any and all leads being fully followed. We have enlisted the help of our community partners in an effort to locate Ms. Wooten, to include the Bus System and Mall/Shopping Centers security. Available information and photograph has been forwarded to all media outlets in the area. Although this case does not meet the criteria for an Amber Alert (http://www.amberalert.gov/guidelines.htm), the Durham Police Department is very concerned about her welfare.
Due to Juvenile privacy laws I am limited in the information that I can release but I can say that:
· Since September, 2008 the Durham Police Department has investigated three separate incidents of Ms. Wooten walking away from this same group home.
· The circumstances surrounding her pregnancy has been addressed in the jurisdiction that the incident occurred.
· Ms. Wooten’s information has been entered in NCIC, each time that she has been reported missing.
All runaways place themselves in harm’s way and as such the Durham Police Department puts every effort forward to locate them and return them to their residences.
During this writing, I have been informed that moments ago Tekenya Wooten has been located and taken into custody by a Durham Police Officer on Patrol who recognized her as she walked down the street.
Thank you for your interest and concern in this matter.
Jose L. Lopez, Sr.
Chief of Police
Durham Police Department
505 W. Chapel Hill Street
Durham, North Carolina 27701
Office: 919-560-4322
.
. If my readers happen to take note of the advertisers that purchased the ads that run at the beginning of the CNN embedded videos of Hughley’s shows, track down their contact information, and loudly protest their financial support of DL Hughley’s platform, then I can take no responsibility for that. They are on their own. I can’t be responsible for any rogue readers who track down the contact information for Proctor and Gamble and ask them why their PUR water brand is helping to subsidize the online video of a show that thinks pimps and calling women hoes and b*tches are funny.
