From the Now This YouTube web page:
The Donald Trump administration is reportedly planning a policy that will define a person’s gender by their genitalia at birth. Transgender people and allies nationwide are speaking out against this anti LGBTQ policy. 1.4 million transgender people are standing up and declaring that they will not be erased. The hashtag #WontBeErased has become a rallying cry for the transgender community.
In his acceptance speech for BAFTA’s Charlie Chaplin Excellence in Comedy Award, Jim Carrey reminded the audience that Chaplin’s comedy included pointed social commentary that took on the American right-wing of his day. He went on to draw parallels to current events, saying that “we are fighting those same evils today” and dedicating the award to Chaplin and contemporary heroes, including Christopher Steele, Christine Blasey Ford and Colin Kaepernick. [h/t to Shelly P.] [Read more…]
From the Now This YouTube page:
Women, young people, and people of color are making history in the 2018 midterm elections. The 2018 midterm elections are just around the corner and we’re celebrating all of the history makers this political cycle. There are 262 women on the ballot for Congress. Young people are running for office and stepping up like never before. People of color and LGBTQ people are shattering barriers. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, Andrew Gillum, Stacey Abrams, and Christine Hallquist are just some of the history makers.
R.I.P. Ntozake Shange, (October 18, 1948 – October 27, 2018). StarTribune writer Rohan Preston notes that Shange’s “For Colored Girls”—an empowering series of interwoven poems on love and loss, joy and pain—introduced choreopoem into the dictionary. The poems were gathered into a show that opened off-Broadway in 1975, and on Broadway in 1976, and has been produced consistently ever since. Shange, 70, had suffered multiple strokes in recent years, but she had been on the mend lately, creating new work, giving readings and being feted for her work. She died in her sleep Saturday morning in an assisted living facility in Bowie, Md., where she lived. [Read more…]
A HuffPo post alerted us to this bemusing video by Tilda Swinton and Sandro Kopp. It features her spaniels cavorting seaside to “Rompo i Lacci”—music from Handel’s “Flavio”. With a bit of editing magic (some slow motion, mirroring, time reversal, …) we have a new spirited interpretation of this 1723 masterpiece. [h/t to AGD] [Read more…]
From the Democracy Now! YouTube page:
A shocking new investigation by immigrant rights groups reveals how corporations like Amazon, Palantir and Microsoft are profiting from and expediting Trump’s incarceration and deportation operations. Some 10 percent of the Department of Homeland Security’s $44 billion budget is dedicated to data management. The report was published as new documents obtained by the Project on Government Oversight show Amazon is pushing Immigration and Customs Enforcement to start using its controversial facial recognition technology that could identify immigrants in real time by scanning faces in a video feed. We speak with Jacinta González, organizer with Mijente, a national political hub for Latinx organizing. The group partnered with the Immigrant Defense Project and the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild on the new report titled “Who’s Behind ICE? The Tech and Data Companies Fueling Deportations.”
In this week’s Full Frontal Samantha Bee considers the issue of what’s scary, suggests some likely candidates, and identifies some non-contenders. [Read more…]
From the MTVDecode web page:
Is your school’s dress code sexist? While showing up to school naked might be everyone’s worst nightmare, being shamed and punished for wearing a skirt that is slightly too short or spaghetti straps that are little too thin is a real problem students (and female students in particular) face everyday.
From the New York Times YouTube web page:
In this satirical infomercial, the comedian and actress Niecy Nash plays the inventor of a new hotline, 1-844-WYT-FEAR. The video advertises a phone service for white people to call when they can’t cope with black people living their lives near them. It’s a real phone number we created so that fearful whites can call it for advice, about their racism.
[h/t to Annie L.] [Read more…]
I’m guessing that if you’re reading the San Diego Free Press, you’re politically engaged enough that you have committed to vote this November. If I’m mistaken, or if you have friends that may be waffling or still undecided on whether or not to vote, here are some voter excuse-busters from our last president, Barack Obama, delivered with his signature low-key sense of humor.
And of course, to vote, you must be registered. To check your registration status go here. If you are not already registered, the deadline to register in order to vote on November 6th is today (Monday, 10/22) at midnight. The place to do that online is here. [Live links inside] [Read more…]
What was the inspiration for this title? Was it a time-traveler? a psychic? a distant relative? random chance? a play on the word trumpet? For whatever reason Cuban musician Anselmo Sacasas chose this title, he laid down a mean mambo back in 1955 with this as its name, and with our current POTUS it somehow even rings true. [Read more…]
Canned Heat is more widely known for its hits “Going Up the Country” and “On the Road Again”, but here’s a lesser known one of their numbers from 1972 after Nixon was re-elected and features a theme that has been repeated all too often. One of the verses includes the lament “When votin’ time came, most people didn’t turn out at all”. Let’s not repeat that mistake. Make sure that you are registered to vote, then pledge to turn out to vote this year, even though it’s not a presidential election. Representation in Congress is just as important as who’s in the White House. [Read more…]
