since getting back from miami, i have been trying to temper how much exposure i have to MJ coverage. i have checked on a few friends who were connected in some way but i have tried to keep mum. i did have on cnn and msnbc the past couple of days. but its draining, emotional and starting to get a bit tedious. i just saw dr. sanjay gupta stick a microphone in some doctor’s face up in woodstock ny who toured with MJ in 1997 and then proceeded to eviscerate his career over the past 13 years.
i knew one of my friends was going to internalize a lot of what was going on (as well as her having a life outside of this). i suggested she watch a bit of the clean house finale of the messiest home in the country. i know its mental pablum but sometimes, you want something that’s going to go down easy. unfortunately the two hour show was about a lady who looked a lot like last year’s messiest home in the country homeowner right down to the snarky attitude. these people seem to be hurting about something completely unrelated to the process and inevitably they lash out at the show for pointing out some of their human foibles (in plain speak, telling them they are buying too much sh*t and live like farm animals).
but at least its not a replay of the dress rehearsal at the staple center. nor does it have anything to do with the custody of the children.
I think Niecy Nash is one of the funniest actresses working today. Here is an interview she did in NYC with a kat who is kinda corny but hey, its FOX. And he aint Lisa Rayam
there are some things i don’t understand. one of which is health care in the united states. i don’t understand why if we can pay for the best military in the world, K-12 free educational system, the largest penal system in the world, nation infrastructure, etc., from our taxes, why can’t we have universal health coverage? i think that private health insurance could co-exist with it. but i really don’t care. many of those businesses were never set up to look out for the best interests of their patients/customers, but their shareholders.
i believe medical treatment should not be something that some have and others don’t. or that some have better than others. i mean we give medical coverage to people in the military, senior citizens, members of congress, people who are incarcerated. why should anyone have to worry about having to pay for getting sick or whatever?
when i hear politicians speak about helping people without health insurance pay for it (as opposed to supplying it), i keep thinking, many of these folks who are uninsured are unemployed. and may have other day to day needs which have to be covered. buying something that isn’t an immediate need might not be feasible. and some may have preexisting conditions that an insurance company may not want to cover.
i don’t have many answers or know if there are any ultimate solutions, but i am hoping that now is a time where we can all think about what we want and how to move the discussion forward.
ontem eu tenho terminado minhas lições portuguesas
that may or may not be correct as i don’t know the gender of “lições.” its best to err on the side of the masculine in portuguese (which of course i am not doing in this case).
what i said was yesterday i completed my portugese lessons (beginner’s class). i want to take portuguese 2 in the fall and hopefully go to Brasil after that.
i did learn a few things in the class. one of which is that we started with 17 students i believe. we ended with 7. most of the remaining were not native english speaking. portuguese was their third or fourth language. some were from europe, the rest from latin america. it was only myself and 2 other americans in the class. the only sista bailed a couple of weeks ago. i have come to the conclusion that the reason other nationalities learn as many languages is simple. they SHOW UP. there was a curiousity that was strong even if we didn’t understand everything the teacher was trying to teach us.
President Obama held a town hall meeting in Wisconsin yesterday. he mentioned that we are not no 1 in education in the world as we once were. i can see why. on a whole we are getting fatter, lazier and less interested in the rest of the world. when newt gingrich (aka “chuckie ” from the child’s play movies) can say he is NOT a world citizen, he goes against what his hero Ronald Reagan said as well as Obama. and that can lead to xenophobic racist hate groups that want to do harm to people not like them. the world is full of people not like them and many of them have guns and religious beliefs as strong as their own.
but if rational people can communicate and share ideas, and not stir up hate and anger, we can appreciate the beauty in our differences. and that is why i am trying to falo portugues.
one of the things i did a while back and had to stop was taking portuguese lessons. in LA i had a teacher who traveled to your home and taught privately the berlitz method. but for some reason we ended shortly after it got going. it was either lack of time or money or both. i really don’t remember. fast forward to now. i have been taking portuguese here in atlanta at emory university.
ordinarily i wouldn’t blog about something like this but for some reason minha professora carla suggested i write about this. on here. i think its because of a discussion we had in class last night. i didn’t understand why in our workbook there were 2 different verbs for “to be” and one of the verbs translated out into these ridiculous back stories (i.e. john is fat but used to be skinny and jenny craig didn’t work etc-all by saying “john is fat”).
some of my friends asked why i would study portuguese. when i let them figure out the answer for themselves, they say, “Oh…Brazil.” and when CUBA opens up and isn’t a hassle to travel to, I will be at some extension course somewhere studying espanhol.
My buddy Edward posted on Facebook a link to some Senegalese kids doing a dance called Sabar. I wanted to share a related video of another dance being done at a gathering in Senegal called Jola
earlier today i was supposed to have a meeting with a singer. we were planning to put a few things on the grill and play some music for each other. unfortunately it didn’t happen as we had planned. they were bringing some seafood and i had some salads, wings, desert and beverages ready.
once the wings were coming off the grill and the family wasn’t coming, i wondered what was going to happen with this food. i had overnight house guests who were coming through after they attended the play with jasmine guy but they were going to eat over at a relative’s home.
out of the blue a neighbor (who is a bartender btw) called and stopped by with two friends. the house guests (one of whom was celebrating a birthday) showed up as well and we all had a great time. no food was wasted, caparinhas (i had some cachaca we needed to liberate) and vodka drinks were made (the house guests brought over some lime from the relatives home) and the vegan coconut birthday cake i got from southern sweets was great!
when we let life happen, sometimes we open up the door for nice surprises to come in (if we keep the vibrations positive). there is an affirmation i have read and used over the years, “this or something better.”