Supreme Court Revisits Renewing Voting Rights Act

The last time the Supreme Court revisited the Voting Rights Act and renewed it was in 2006. Now in 2013, they are reviewing at it again. A lot of individuals and states are complaining that we should not need the Voting Rights Act in 2013. What this Act initially did in 1965, passed by former president Lyndon Johnson, was to rid of barriers Southern states especially would create to prevent Blacks form voting. Even after black men could vote by 1870, via the 15th Amendment, Southern states weren't having it so they created barriers such as poll taxes and literacy tests. These were forms of blatant discrimination, that helpless, powerless blacks could do nothing about, so the Voting Rights Act abolished these discriminatory barriers. The Act also provided and still provides that any time a state wants to change regulations surrounding the way they conduct voting, they must first consult with the federal government.
If the Supreme Court does not renew this, the outcome may not look very good for minorities, Democrats and maybe even women. If the Voting Rights Act is allowed to expire or is lawed no longer relevant, individual states can shorten the time period for early voting, which Democrats usually take advantage of and they may also require photo id to be shown at the polls.
What do you think? Should the Supreme Court renew the Voting Rights Act, or let it expire? Do you believe that states will/will not go back to instilling discriminatory barriers in any kind of way such as shortening the early voting period and enforcing photo ids to be shown?
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57570996/voting-rights-act-faces-supreme-court-challenge/

Emmett Till: Lil Wayne Makes Terrible Rap Reference, Family Responds by Letter

Am I shocked to hear this? No...but it's quite disheartening. So Lil Wayne made a degrading reference in one of his rap lyrics to Emmett Till saying, "Beat that p---- up like Emmett Till."Emmettt Till's family wrote a powerful open letter in response to this lyric, but before I get into the letter let me just share the significance of Emmett Till's story for those who do not know. At the innocent age of 14, Emmett from Chicago was visiting some family in Mississippi. (Mississippi was known for it's extreme racism and ranked among one of the Southern States during the Jim Crow Era with one of the highest rates of hangings of black folk.)
Emmett was accused of whistling/flirting with a white woman. At night two white men came to his home, dragged him to a barn and beat him till his death and until he was unidentifiable. They gouged out one of his eyes, shot him in the head and disposed of his body in the Tallahatchie River. The salt in the river caused his face and body great swelling. When his body was found, it was returned to his mother in Chicago. She demanded a public funeral and for his casket to remain open so people would witness would had been done to this poor, young man.
Pictures of his disfigured face were posted in many newspapers and magazines, and it noted as a pivotal point in the fight for Civil Rights!
So here we are in 2013, with pea brain, knuckle head rappers, making nonchalant references and even worse sexual innuendoes in reference to a most tragic, grieving moment for blacks in America suppressed by Jim Crow and the Ku Klux Klan. They took the lyric from the original song, but here's some of what Emmett Till's family had to say in their open letter...
"...not only are you destroying the preservation and legacy of Emmett Till’s memory and name, but the impact of his murder in black history along with degradation of women.
It is critical that we stay true to urgency of the hour… our youth! Your “celebrity” thrusts you into the spotlight affording you the opportunity to embrace your role as a black man, father, friend, and artist that has the ability to reach international audiences. Are you bothered in the least by the staggering statistics of the extinction of our children?" --Huffington Post
They ask is he bothered, the unfortunate answer is no....because I believe he's part of the Illuminati and that evil entity has no regard for being respectful and considerate. It's all about the money, fame and brainwashing minds. You may believe that this entity is make believe and that it's ideologies are too extreme to possibly be real, but whether he is or he isn't, as well as other modern day rappers...what kinds of messages are they promoting? One thing's for sure...most of their messages aren't positive.

Overachievers, The Motivation to Succeed

"People with high achievement motivation have a strong desire to master tasks, and they experience great satisfaction when they achieve success.

Psychologists believe that people with high achievement motivation tend to set challenging, but realistic goals for themselves and they are willing to take risks to achieve those goals.

They experience intense satisfaction from success, but are not discouraged by failure if they feel they have tried their best." Bedford/St. Martin's Exercise Central for AP Style

Interesting Facts About Juries in Capitol Crime Cases

WOW, OK...so I am doing English grammatical exercises on Exercise Central for AP Style and I'm trying to figure out where to place commas in each sentence only to realize that this grammatical exercise is actually teaching me about the process of selecting a jury. It says that when a case is taking place, dealing with a capital crime, the judge and lawyers can screen out potential jurors who are opposed to the death penalty. I kind of knew this because I remember my grandmother telling me that when you are called to jury duty, they ask you a series of questions. They generally don't like if you are particularly biased about anything such as religion, death penalty etc. They may prefer to select a non-opinionated, non-religious person, because I guess to them this means that the trail will be more fair?!
So the exercise goes on to say that minorities and women are two groups who are generally more in opposition to the death penalty and are therefore inevitably excluded from being on the jury...and they look up and their jury "contains a disproportionate amount of white men." Isn't that something? So much for trying to prevent bias...LOL
The Supreme Court has deemed that it is of course illegal to discriminate against jurors on the basis of race, but THEY CAN death-quality their jurors, which means they can choose to exclude people who are against the death penalty which inevitably "eliminates many of people of color from the jury pool." "However, some legal experts are concerned that death-qualifying a jury, can lead to wrongfully convictions, which in turn means the execution of innocent people."And haven't we seen this many of time in our legal system? Hhhmmm. There's my legal lesson for the day...yeah, grammatical and legal lessons all wrapped into one!

Another Birthday, Turning 20

I've been getting a little taste of what it means to be in the public eye...When you're personal information is visible to anyone who has a computer and a Google search engine (lol, If you have a computer you have this anyway) it's automatically up for scrutiny...not that I didn't understand that in the beginning, but I am seeing it now more than I have ever before. But I will say that though it's not always to be desired, I appreciate constructive criticism because it helps me to become better...however, how one person may perceive something, another person may perceive a totally different way, so then what do you do? lol Well, I say use your best judgement. Considering that I am only a sophomore in college, I will likely see this even more before I graduate. The other day when out to eat with family, a group of teenagers recognized me from tv...lol. CRAZY! My birthday is February 17th and I'm turning 20...I promise you that every birthday after my 17th, I stopped getting excited. I truly miss the excitement of knowing that your family's going to treat you extra nice that day and you know at the end of the day you'll be greeted with a delicious cake that bares your name in addition to tons of wonderful new gifts.
Two of my motivations are giving back but also trying to climb up out of poverty/struggle...tell me how does that work, lol. If I can do this before I graduate I will truly be "The Master of my fate and the captain of my soul!" No matter how vague or distant it may seem, America still allows us a gleam of hope that we can make it in this world, and make it big. My concern is not the fame, but yes, I'd like to be able to be independent and take care of my family, but then again, who doesn't want this?
Anyways, I'm taking everything one step at a time. Praying that the Lord leads me every step of the way. I've been trying to improve my health and get in shape (not that i'm unhealthy but there's always room for improvement right?). Still drinking veggie juices and going to Zumba, I've lost a few inches, but nothing drastic yet...it's only been a month or so, so I just need to be more patient. There are a lot of fundraisers I'm having to prepare for this year, on top of 18 credits, in addition to extra curriculars so you could say my schedule is jam packed, but I'm nevertheless grateful.
Enough of my blabbering  just giving an update.
Happy... birthday....to...me?

My Detox Plan, Join Me?

Well...I wasn't going to tell anybody, but I had to tell you! So, this was not a part of my "New Year's Resolutions" or anything but recently I looked at the things I was buying at the grocery store and realized that my eating habits have not been all the healthy lately. I wanted to change my eating habits to more healthier choices, but I don't want to "diet" because 1) I would feel deprived and 2) it would slow my metabolism down. Coincidentally, I watched this documentary via Netflix the other day called Hungry for Change. It covered everything from bad eating habits, to the danger of dieting, to healthy habits. I learned that juicing vegetables and fruits allows for us to consume more than we would normally consume to give our body's the proper nutrients, so we are not starving all the time. If we eat the right things we can be satisfied for a longer period of time, on less food. Also the documentary talked about excellent foods to help detox/cleanse the body such as green and raw vegetables, cilantro, spinach, cucumbers, nuts, omega 3 oils, etc.
 I knew I was going grocery shopping today so I said hey let's buy more green vegetables and fruits! I bought cilantro, cucumbers, spinach salad, nut and cranberry mix and made a nice salad with rasberry vinaigrette dressing! I also purchased some lemon, green tea, salmon, veggie/fruit juices, pre-cooked baked chicken and some other miscellaneous items. This is honestly, the healthiest grocery trip I've ever made and I plan to make it a habit. The salad was phenomenal and I'm planning on video documenting a taking pictures of my journey. Because I want a flatter, tighter stomach I am combining this with concise exercises such as squatting, towel knee lifts, leg lifts. Now I'm not promising some miracle, because I don't know how this is all going to go down, but I'm going to dedicate myself for the next 10 days and hopefully reach 25. I welcome you to do some research and join me. Maybe you are already a health guru and you already know these things and do them regularly, but unfortunately every household does not practice these habits regularly and some people, like me, have to train themselves to be disciplined. I'm really excited. They say it clears your skin, your breathe, and gives a glow to your skin. Sounds almost too good to be true, only time will tell :) Cheers with veggie juice!

Cornel West Believe's Presidential Oath on MLK Bible is Inappropriate

Cornel West is a very outspoken individual and activist. Nothing is wrong with being outspoken, but sometimes West's defensiveness can come off as "haterism." He believes that President Obama swearing oath with his hand on Martin Luther Kings Bible is offensive and inappropriate. I don't know if I agree with this, though I see his point. Do you believe that President Obama putting his hand on MLK's bible to oath into office, "tames MLK's prophetic fire?" as Cornel West says. Here's the video.

Catch Me If You Can, What You Didn't Know About the Real Man

I have just experienced ten total brain-freezes without having consumed anything cold! Yes, it's that serious...do you recall watching the 2002 Steven Spielberg movie, Catch Me If You Can, featuring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks? I'm sure you knew this was based on a true story due to the timeline facts that appeared on the screen at the end of the movie...but I'm quite sure there are some things you probably didn't know about the real man himself.
His name is Frank Abagnale (picture to the right). He is now 64, living in Charleston, South Carolina with his wife and has three children (sons). All before the age of 21, this man created at least 8 false identities, and between the ages of 16 and 18 perpetrated as a Pan Am pilot, flying over 1,000,000 miles and to 26 countries! I don't think we can be mad at this guy because, though he committed some of the biggest frauds in history, he is a complete genius and did this all while still a teenager!

Isn't that a crazy thing to say...but perhaps I can make some sense of why we might cheer for him. After the Vietnam War, Americans' faith and trust in the U.S. government became completely diluted (as we protested the war and almost 60,000 of our young American men died) and this is where we began to see anti-establishment hero movies arise, such as the movie Bullet and Paul Newman's Hombre. Which means that we loved to see independent heroes taking on the bad guys because the federal and government institutions cannot be trusted...we still see a lot of these anti-establishment movies now. Catch Me If You Can, can arguably be one of those movies (aside from the fact that we also adore Leonardo DiCaprio so much)...so perhaps Americans still have sympathy for the underdog and hero who goes against authority (yeah...that's some of my American History in Film Class kicking in)! I digress.
In addition to pretending to be a pilot, Mr. Abagnale pretended to be a teacher of sociology by forging a Columbia University degree, a doctor for 11 whole months, and a Harvard-graduate attorney. Abagnale of course forged tons of checks and embezzled millions of dollars! He was so intelligent that he did not forge the checks but created them from scratch, including their routing numbers. When the U.S. finally caught up with him (in France), he was sentenced to only 12 years in the U.S. and ended up only serving less than five. The FBI recruited him to work with them to help find other check-forging frauds. In 1971, Abagnale even managed to escape the Federal Detention Center in Atlanta, GA by pretending to be from the Federal Prison Bureau. He eventually founded Abagnale and Associates, which is a fraud consultant firm that advises companies on fraud issues. He teaches at the FBI Academy. Recently in November 2012, he testified before the US Senate about the vulnerability of senior citizens to fraud.
This is only a portion of this man's crazily adventurous and nearly impossible life. One can only marvel at his intelligence. I am in no way condoning this type of behavior, but can only imagine what myself or one could do with a mind like that! I encourage you to read into his story, and/or purchase the book Catch Me If You Can. He has made several media appearances and even appeared in the movie as a French Police officer arresting himself--Leonardo DiCaprio! Brain-freeze! A musical came out of the same name of the movie and book, which received four Tony Awards nominations, and additional awards.
Sources: Salinger, Lawrence. Encyclopedia of White-collar and Corporate Crime. A-I, Vol I., pg 418
Abagnale, Frank. The Art of Steal (2001)