0 We Can Do ANYTHING!

Two African American women from Spelman College were the 2010 winners of the AT&T Big Mobile Challenge last October.

It is not often that African American women see positive images of themselves in popular media. More often they are engaged in street brawls with each other, half naked in some music video or pregnant in line at the Welfare Office. If one only paid attention to these kinds of images, then it would be difficult to imagine that there are those who are high achievers bent on sitting at the big desk with the boys.

Enter Jonecia Keels and Jazmine Miller, Computer Engineering students at Spelman College.

They created an app called HBCU Buddy that allows the user to research HBCUs and their surrounding areas. Learn more about it from the link above.

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0 The Game Recap: Episode 403

"The Confession Episode"

Well well... episode two, season 4 and we're still tumbling down the rabbit hole. I guess the writers were finding their feet, tryin' to get us to feel something but there was too much focus on Mel and Malik. Not much for the other guys. Absolutely no Jason or Kelly. :-( Oh well, here goes!

Malik, spiraling down without his mom or TeeTee. Sigh. Really?! The only thing a black man out of control does watch BORING strippers and sip cocktails off his assistant? Yeah. Tasha calls and threatens him with an assistant she's chosen, so he goes into high gear to find his own coz He got this!
Jazz's husband (coz I can't remember his name, like ever!) and Jazz help him find ditzy fuzz head. Hurrah!

I know she ain't that fine that you overlook her ability to do the most simple tasks, but maybe it's just me. Ah well, TeeTee to the rescue (see his cape flying)!!!

Ditzy McFuzzhead is obviously paying attention (roll eyes). In an attempt to free himself from what he percieves as Malik's continued claim on him and his time, TeeTee returns the money he was loaned WITH interest (I need relatives like TeeTee!!).

BUT....

Oh Snap! Money drove man Malik mad! Where is Jason? Coz I know with his broke mentality, he'd be pickin' up that money like it was harvest time in Kansas!

We left the crazy boy alone to follow the crazy girl. What is up with Mel? She's sitting in Kelly's recently vacated seat at the top of the Sunbeams. I'm not sure if I addressed this before, but WHAT?! O_o I remember the dorky girl who strolled into their first meeting not wanting to be a part of some dog and pony show and now she's this?! Did she steal Kelly's soul? Is that why Kelly is such a hollow character this season? Gee!

Mel promptly and decidedly chooses to place Jazz exactly where she sees her, at the bottom of the cesspool serving refreshments at a charity event the Sunbeams plan to host. In between then and the event, she asks Derwin why Jazz was so desirable. As usual he places his big ol' foot squarely in his mouth by saying it was her exotic big ass and big boobs. Cue Mel's best Tasha impression of "Oh no you didn't!"

While we wait for the event, let's check back in on Malik. Has he decided to take to the pole himself? Did he talk to TeeTee yet?

You wish! He's frisking (or making fathers) toddlers! My rolex is gone! Oh yeah?! biff! boff! blam! It doesn't quite dissolve into physical action. Just dwindles off into "get outta my house" (I don't wanna know the truth ~ remember that 5 star song?). Well ol' rolex was hidin' in a bra! Whose?!

HERS! Blah blah blah, I hate you, you hate me, can't nobody trust nobody up in here. So blah? Yeah! And what?! Storm off. End scene. Yes, really, nothing to see here!

Meanwhile, Jazz is ruining Mel's party. Forget the stupid cucumber sandwiches. Pickles and sunflower seeds for errbody!

Mel, flustered, leaves Jazz to finish setting up. In walks Derwin who, desiring to avoid a potential lawsuit comes face to face with the ass he has already... um... dealt with. Wait. Remember that whole big ass comment from before?! Was this it? I'm still rubbin' my eyes.

Well, okay, we know this isn't going to end well...

Oh Derwin, Derwin, Derwin...

Mel's party starts. Boring! The girls are bored with her preachermony too!

And with the meticulously added sass that is expected of underprivileged teens...

You only have your iPad coz you married a football player! The day will come when the kind of girls depicted in this scene will be distant memories, do not despair!

The girls, who obviously spend too much time in front of the TV watching music videos (they still do that?) recognize Jazz from her vixen days, but she gets the big snub from Mel.

It doesn't last long since everyone (no I mean EVERYONE literally) loves sunflower seeds and pickles, they soon surround Jazz and then later plague her for her autograph while Mel stands aside steaming into her wine glass.

Maybe she should have replaced the wine glass with a pickle.

Hey Jazz! Thanks for stealing my thunder!
What?! You're boring!
Well you slept with all the Sabers.
Oh yeah? Well I still slept with someone, and so did you and you're a skank too!
Oh yeah?! (splashes wine in Jazz's face)
fight ensues

NOT!

Okay, if we're going with the whole stereotype thingy, where the eff is the fight? The sunbeams are too Housewives of Atlanta! Malik with the strippers? All the baby daddies and so on... ah well. I guess it is just a reflection of the culture.

ANYWAY, Jazz tells Mel off and sashays off into the other room. Tasha tells Mel that Jazz was right and she needs to stop judging her!

So next on the agenda, a contrite Mel (the girl we fell in love with in the first place) asks Jazz to help show them some of her vixen moves to spice up the bedroom.

Y'all want me to show you the Tee sunami (someone please tell me that was on purpose)? Coz your man is going to be all over you!
I guess TV husbands are different, mine just burst into peals of laughter... :-(
Mel, tried it!

Jazz called it a riptide. I'd say it was more of a ripple.

So where is Malik? Still sulking by the pool? Did he pick himself up and apologize to TeeTee or get a new assistant? Or did he invite Jazz's husband (what the hell is his name?!) back to the house to watch more strippers? (How many strippers can one watch?)

I know the picture is dark, but I swear to you that is Malik getting tazed by a cop who thinks he is drunk and disorderly.

The episode ends with Malik on the ground moaning and groaning, an unfortunate reminder of the troubles our brothers have endured at the hands of police (although he shouldn't have shoved the popo, just knocked him out with a right hook).

The episode was okay. A little closer to boring because the focus was on only two characters. One spiraling out of control with every single cliche that could ever be used on a black man, and the other still transmogrifying (blame Calvin & Hobbes) into the Housewife of Atlanta from Hell.

I hope they pick up the pace next week!

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0 Disparity in Outcome for African American Women with Breast Cancer

Studies conducted at the UC Davis Cancer Center in Sacramento have concluded that African American Women have worse survivor rates than white and hispanic counterparts inspite of surgical procedures or radiation therapy.

Steve Martinez, an assistant professor of surgery, found that African American women were less likely to receive radiation, but even with the few who did, their survival rate was actually worse than white patients whose disease had progressed to the same stage. Is it possible that there is an actual biological difference that causes them not to benefit from post surgical radiation therapy?

The factors that determined access to radiation therapy were not explored, but African Americans were 24% less likely to receive it than their white counterparts. Martinez's research is still ongoing, exploring the factors that influence access to radiation therapy and other biological differences so that each group receives treatment honed to their needs producing the best outcome.

University of California - Davis - Health System. "Disparities persist in outcomes for African-American women with advanced breast cancer." ScienceDaily 6 April 2010. 16 January 2011

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0 Cigarette Smoking & Arthritis

In the December 2010 issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism (published by Wiley Blackwell on behalf of American College of Rheumatology), cigarette smoking increases the risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis.

Rhuematoid (roo-ma-toyd) arthritis or RA is a chronic inflammatory disease that affects the lining of joints and causes pain and swelling. Of the 1.3 million Americans diagnosed with RA 75% were women. Studies done earlier have suggested a link between cigarette smoking and RA. In the African American community 26% of the men and 17% if the women who are 18 years and older smoke.

Ted Mikuls (MD, MSPH) of the University of Nebraska Medical Center says, "The aim of our study was to bridge the knowledge gap by determining whether smoking contributes to RA risk in African Americans and define the extent to which this association is affected by genetic risk."

The results of the study show that heavy smokers accounted for 54% of RA patients.

"We found a two-fold increase in RA risk among African Americans who were heavy smokers, and this risk increased to more than four-fold in the presence of SE alleles," commented Dr. Mikuls. "Our results suggest that roughly one in six new cases of RA occurring in African Americans could be prevented through smoking cessation or by limiting cumulative smoking exposure to less than 10 pack-years."

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0 The Game Recap: Episode 401

"Parachutes"

It is impossible to express with meager words what excitement rose in me when I heard that BET picked up The Game! Like the other 7.7 million viewers I cancelled all my appointments for the night (including a long standing date with a friend) cleared the house of humans and pets, popped some corn and sat in front of the TV to find out where the story was going to go next.

Now that Mel and Derwin were married would they finally settle down into the lives they dreamt they'd live? Would she be working tirelessly in some office downtown San Diego? What about Jason and Kelly? I smelled the whiff of reconciliation and want their dysfunction back! Rick (left hand gesture) Fox (right hand gesture) and the vivacious straight talkin' Tasha we all wish was our bosom buddy... What about Malik and his very slow journey to enlightenment, literally being dragged there by his light-years-ahead Tee-Tee? We felt  their vulnerability for three seasons and ached when they did, laughed with or at them and cuddled our significant others when we saw how they appreciated one another.

So picture me all gussied up, waiting for the moment... and shrieking (ever so silently, there is a no noise clause in my lease) when the show came on with "TWO YEARS LATER"...

We're started off with Derwin, who by some miraculous means has surpassed Malik's fame and become the Sabers most famous player. He's workin' the cameras and we missed all the hard work it took to get him to this point. He's confident, self assured and still dorky - which passes as cool two years later (roll eyes but lovin' it).
Tasha is in the middle of it all, his sassy manager, still getting confused about where her loyalties lie. Derwin's baby-momma (eewwww) drops off lil' AJ at the Ebony photo shoot and a glamorous Melanie who seems very friendly greets the happy threesome. Tasha reminds her that she WON, till that mental dance thingy Mel does makes her crash right back to ZERO!

Now it's Jason's turn. The a$$hole is on a sports show and Kelly, who suddenly and violently returns to her trashy roots, is doing everything in her power to remind him that she's an up and coming reality star (an ode to the Housewives franchise no doubt), which is really disappointing to see. I liked Kelly. I like Jason too.

We're introduced to Tasha's new love, a significantly younger basketball player and we're diggin' the vibe! He did open his towel to show Tasha something, something which if the cameraman was doing his job, we would have enjoyed too. :-)

Mel, paranoid as ever (will the girl ever give the thing a rest?!) determines that now is the time to test little AJ and find out whether he is Derwin's or not. Did this question not come up before? Once she gets the results she agonizes over telling Derwin that she tested AJ (which in my book is not something that bad - what is worse is not knowing the truth!).

Because Tasha and Kelly are still fighting, Mel's crisis gets knocked out from top issue to non issue. Let's move along too. Yawn.

A much skinnier Malik (where is our teddy bear!) is still rolling around between legs that are way too easy to open. Except now he's schtupping the boss' wife! We're informed that he isn't quite all that anymore and he'd be sorer about it, but when you've had your ____ tickled, it is kinda hard to be mad at someone.

A short visit to TeeTee's Chicken wing bus reveals three things. Malik is more careless (what is with trolling around with the boss' slutty wife in broad daylight!), TeeTee has a chicken bus and a girlfriend, some of Malik's attitude is intact (thank you Jesus!). TeeTee reminds him he isn't his assistant anymore and he needs to hire one.

It doesn't really matter to Malik coz guess who comes to the rescue when the bathroom broke under the strain of a little bathroom sex, which is a reminder to check the strength of the counter before you engage. Later when Malik does Malik and demands that TeeTee abandon his date and take him home, TeeTee stands his ground, but Malik plans the perfect revenge!

Oooops! Who thought she was so flaky? Who thought the boss' wife would have been okay with a threesome? She doesn't seem the type. Hurt for TeeTee, bored with the rest. Let's move on.

The Pitts, in the throes of the nasty aftermath of a divorce fraught with bad feelings... I wonder if that is what destroyed Kelly's sense of style and threw her back into the 80s (Madonna wants her clothes back!). And what's with the new BrittBrat? I guess she nailed the sullen part coz boy oh boy OH BOY! The bitchiness is at an all time high, Kelly taunting him with all the spending she has done and is planning to do while Jason asks her to keep him out of her trashy show. He shows up to brunch with her tacky group of fair weather friends, eye candy on his arm and demolishes her outing. Awwww (insert pretty pout here).

The episode ends with Mel talking to a friend who did the DNA test. It was botched. AJ is Derwin's son. Y'all didn't see that one coming, did ya? Yawn. Why oh why did they reduce the high achieving neurotic and dorky protagonist too a played out character from Housewives of Atlanta?

Full of cliches and tired plots portrayed in every black movie/show/newspaper article, this episode did not do it for me. I miss the characters. Maybe there was too much to cram in on single episode - I honestly don't think it was that important to fast forward 2 years, but we'll wait and see what episode 2 has for us.

Until next Wednesday, I bid you a fond adieu!

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0 Spotlight: Tracy Reese

Tracy Reese (Photo from obviousmag.com)

African American women love clothes. It cannot be denied. At a gathering of black women beautiful clothes come out of the closet and are donned to present polished and beautiful silhouettes.

Michelle Obama, lauded as one of the most stylish First Wives, has become something of a fashion icon (even though the praise really should fall to her stylist if she has one. If not, well, good for her!).

In exploring fashion, certain names come easily to mind: Valentino, Vera Wang, Dolce&Gabbana, Sean John, Rocca Wear. It would seem that familiarity with design houses led by African American designers are less well known.

Hopefully this introduction is one that you will cherish. Here is Tracy Reese. The design of her clothes is clearly very feminine and creative. Her creativity was nurtured by her parents, and although she had previously thought her path lay towards Architecture and Interior design, one internship changed her life forever.

Her clothes have been described as unabashedly girly and are created for the every day woman.

Tracy Reese Website.

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0 The Art of Being Sexy

Have you every typed "sexy black woman" into the Google search engine? I did! This is what I got.

From this search it would seem that in order for a black woman (and all other women) to be considered sexy, she would have to be clad in next to nothing.

The images that flash at us from the television screen scream a message to us; we MUST be sexy even when we are doing the most mundane activities. Products are peddled to us that claim they will increase our sex appeal if we use/wear/buy them.

We are not the only ones being given this message as the recent YouTube video of the Old Spice Guy has shown, however, it is most forcefully applied to us. We dress to enhance our bodies, put coloring on our faces to show off our features and purchase clothing designed to expose body parts that were previously thought of as private parts.

Why do we desire "sex appeal"? Are we hard wired to react positively to the urges that drive the reproduction of our species? Is it possible to be considered sexy, when we are fully and tastefully dressed?

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0 Puff-Daddy-Sean-Puffy-Diddy-Dirty Money....More like P. Diva

I have spent the last 16 years being aggravated by Puff-Daddy-Sean-Puffy-Diddy-Dirty Money's face. I have to admit, he doesn't have to do anything to get on my last nerve. I can't explain it, does he lack charisma, is he just a fake human being or is he annoying cause I just don't like his music? But wait...I do like some of his songs, well that is, I like some of the songs he did in collaboration with others. So maybe I do dislike him and it is that simple. (Taking a sip of my Haterade) I respect his cut-throat business man (the rap impresario) persona but it seems to not deter me from being able to stand him.

That being said, his new song Coming Home, with his newly formed group Diddy-Dirty Money, is completely lost on me. But then again, he has that affect on me. What do you think of the song?

Is it just me or is Diddy-Daddy starting to look like Big Boi from Outkast? You tell me!

Over and Out!

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0 Technology: eReaders

Unless you have been living under a rock for the past two years you have heard of eReaders. The nifty electronic devices that were introduced in 2007, starting with the Kindle, translate eBooks into readable portable formats.

The raging argument on the internet has been whether this new format of reading books will destroy the publishing industry as we understand it. It is safe to say that the publishing moguls will modify their advertising strategies, if indeed readers get turned on to eBooks and eReaders.

A popular ad in magazines claims that eReaders cannot kill magazines because instant coffee did not kill regular coffee. In the same vein one could argue that cell phones did not kill home phone lines even though more households have cell phones than they do phone lines.

No matter what the case is, it will be interesting to think what the people in 2035 think about eReaders. 

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