“I can't imagine the devastation and suffering the people of Haiti are going through. Of course we have to help, and the world needs to step up too. I read...” Maggie
“Hola Tamika, I've spent many hours meditating on the rocks at Isla Negra. In fact my documentary on Neruda just received a grant from Latino Public Broadcasting, so hopefully it...” Mark Eisner
“Government takeover of the health care system is the worse thing that can happen. Remember the story of how the government incorrectly gave out $98 million to government contractors? Look...” Bo Oliver
“Jeremy, "time has told" that Susan Boyle's 15 minutes are clearly not up and will not be for some time. Best of luck to you and that your 15 minutes...” Elisabeth
“Tiger should have come out and faced it like a man....” beau
Marshall will be Tavis' guest this Wednesday to discuss his new film, Valentine's Day, which stars a bevy of Hollywood bigshots, including Julia Roberts, Jamie Foxx, Ashton Kutcher and Jessicas Alba and Biel. The movie looks like standard romantic comedy fare, a story about love conquering all, etc, the kind of ...
The film Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire was one of the breakout successes of 2009, taking home multiple awards at Sundance and Cannes and receiving six Oscar nominations, including Best Picture.
The film, which you already probably know is about an illiterate, obese black teenager who has been the victim of incest, was backed strongly by Oprah as having the potential to open viewers' eyes to the plight of underprivileged kids among us. "None of us who sees the movie can now walk through the world and allow the Preciouses of the world to be ...
Coretta Scott King leads a march in Memphis, TN five days after her husband, Martin Luther King Jr., was killed.
Now that we are a few days into Black History Month, there has been some discussion (see here and here) about the relevance or irrelevance of the month-long celebration.
What do you think?
Is it still necessary to designate an entire month to celebrate Black History? Does the election of Barack Obama as president somehow mean that Americans have learned the lessons about African American contributions to this country?
And is Black History Month still relevant? Why or why not?
Please share your thoughts and opinions below, and they may ...
Legendary punk-rock pioneer Patti Smith will be Tavis' guest this coming Friday to discuss her new memoir, Just Kids, which chronicles her relationship with her friend and collaborator, photographer Robert Mapplethorpe.
Smith arrived in New York city from a small town in Southern New Jersey in 1967, and landed squarely in one of the richest artistic environments of the 20th century. One of the first people she met in the city was Robert Mapplethorpe. The two quickly became very close, and their relationship would endure through both artists' rise to fame, until Mapplethorpe's untimely death ...
What is the one issue that you hope President Obama addresses Wednesday night?
Share your thoughts with us here, and come back after the speech to let us know what you thought of the address.
And if you still have more to say, YouTube has come up with a way to submit follow-up questions to the president at http://www.youtube.com/citizentube.
Haiti,
unfortunately, is no different from the others. Tragedy strikes and the media
arrives in full occupying force. It's the story of the moment. Everyone cares.
The information and images take up temporary residence in our collective
conscience. Our hearts go out. But, invariably, so do the lights. The bulbs
stop flashing. The cameras stop rolling. Heads stop talking. Then what?
Do we look the other way, as usual, and ...
The humanitarian response to the disaster in Haiti, which has seen 150,000 buried so far, is truly staggering. It reaffirms my faith in humanity to see the world pulling together to help the impoverished nation recover and rebuild from this catastrophe, with many millions donated to charities working on the island.
Throughout this historic effort to help the people of Haiti, with all of these millions flowing into the country, I can't help but wonder where it all will go. Food, medical supplies, clothing and shelter will account for a lot of it, but once such necessities are ...
You might as well call me a "looter" now. Let's just get it out of the way.
Because I know that If I ever survive a natural disaster, have no place to escape to and find myself hungry, injured, traumatized from the loss of loved ones and without every possession I ever owned, including my city, I will go into a store and take food. I will also take candles, matches, batteries, a flashlight, blankets, first aid supplies and a pair of shoes.
And if I have a baby, add diapers, formula and baby aspirin to ...
This post is from Reese's travels to Somalia. The East African nation has been devastated by factional fighting that has lasted for two decades and has been without a functioning central government since 1991. About 1.5 million of Somalia's people are internally displaced.
BY JOHNATHAN REESE
The sun burned my skin through my t-shirt and the ocean wind was relentless. The beautiful white sands were thrown with each gust to batter me inside the bombed-out building that we called home.
Fans of Hillary Clinton are in for a treat next week, as Tavis kicks off his Tavis Smiley Reports series with an interview with the Secretary of State and former First Lady. Even if you didn't vote for Hillary in the 2008 election, there's going to be something for everyone as the two discuss U.S. foreign policy under the Obama administration.
The special interview will air on January 27 but, until then, you can check out this cool promo video and find advance clips from the interview here.
Harry Belafonte returns to the show this week, for what is sure to be an engaging discussion of music, politics and world affairs.
Belafonte, apart from being one of the most successful African American pop stars of all time, has long been an outspoken activist and was an important figure in the civil rights movement.
His music, of course, is legendary. Here's a clip of a very young, and very cool Belafonte singing with Nat King Cole (and doubling on the drums!)
Airport security is serious business, given the threat of domestic and
international terrorism around the globe. So why are there so many questionable occurrences still taking place in our airports?
TheNew York Times wrote a report outlining how an eight-year-old boy with a name similar to an individual on the U.S. no-fly-list is getting searched thoroughly at airport screening checks. Keep in mind that this is an eight-year-old kid and not a terrorist mastermind. Does this story sound a bit odd to you?
1) The White House: If you would like to support the urgent humanitarian effort in
Haiti, visit www.whitehouse.gov/haitiearthquake,where you can learn more
about how to contribute. Americans trying to locate family members in Haiti are encouraged to contact the State Department at 1-888-407-4747.
2) American Red Cross: To help, you can make an unrestricted donation ...
Call me crazy, but these days, everyone's got something to hide; or in this case, something to come clean about. On Monday, it was baseball's Mark McGwire.
The latest issue of Vanity Fair has a story on "America's Tweethearts," i.e., women who are popular on the social networking site Twitter. As far as I'm concerned, it might as well be called "Hot Women on Twitter" or "Twitter: A Place for People to Pay Even More Attention to the Inane Musings of Leggy Blondes than They Already Do Via MTV."
The article puts Twitter forward as yet another way in which people can self-promote in a world increasingly obsessed with self-promotion and celebrity (whatever that word means these days--it's increasingly unclear).
With the 2010 World Cup just months away, the eyes of the world are increasingly on South Africa, the continent's wealthiest country, which will soon play host to half-a-million soccer fans.
The Obama White House also released a report recently citing several deficiencies on the part of U.S. intelligence communities. Upon reading the report, many would like to know, given the amount of information we had, why didn't officials connect the dots?
The U.S. intelligence community is supposed to have some of the best technology and some of the brightest individuals ...
Earlier this month, a report was released by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics which stated the startling fact that more than 12% of young people in detention centers are sexually assaulted. The report goes on to indicate that a staggering 80% of those who were abused said detention center staff were the attackers.
We should all be outraged at this level of behavior. Seriously people, at what point did we stop rehabilitating and start abusing children?
It's been almost two years since the series finale of The Wire, David Simon's groundbreaking HBO drama about urban decay in Baltimore. Often called the best show on television while it was on (President Obama has said it was his favorite show), and still attracting fans via DVD, The Wire stands as a remarkable achievement in television, one that will not easily be matched.
Now, Simon is poised to return to HBO with a new series called Treme (tre-MAY), and this time his subject is New Orleans. Little is known about Treme, apart from ...
Leave it to The New York Times, ever the interpreters of any Northeastern zeitgeist, to turn their critical eye to the last big meme of 2009.
As I blogged about recently,Jersey Shore is an MTV reality show starring a cast of absolutely appalling examples of humanity. It has drawn fire from an Italian American anti-defamation league, criticism from many cultured sorts and the rabid, car accident-like attention of the MTV-watching world.
This week, NYT weighs in, offering its two cents on the matter. Writer Neil Genzlinger, a Times entertainment critic and ...
It's worth watching the new reality show Jersey Shore, but only briefly, and only if you're not already depressed about the condition of humanity. The MTV program, which follows a group of fake-tan-sporting 20-somethings during a summer at New Jersey's infamous party zone, is a sobering reminder of just how ignorant, self-obsessed and awful people can be. It's also quite delicious.
Anyhow, UNICO, an organization responsible for policing the image of Italian Americans in popular culture (they came out vociferously against The Sopranos a few years back) has set its sights on Snooki, ...
In terms of air travel, the outgoing decade will forever be remembered as the time when everything got much, much worse in the name of public safety. Certainly no one enjoyed airport screening before, but we all accepted walking through the metal detector as something necessary to keep anyone from hijacking the plane and flying it to some landlocked dictatorship, 1970s style. What's that? You need to wand my belt buckle and the rivets on my jeans? Please, feel free. As long as it keeps Alan Rickman and his ilk off the plane.
This slideshow is about appreciating the beauty in life. That's it. And that's enough.
During my visit to Chile, I traveled an hour outside of Santiago to the Maipo Canyon of the Andes Mountains. I went horseback riding in the foothills and took in views of the Maipo River.
On a recent trip to Chile, I visited Isla Negra and rediscovered the late poet, Nobel laureate and diplomat, Pablo Neruda. Neruda's oceanfront home in Isla Negra is one of three that he owned -- the others are in Santiago and Valparaiso. Neruda is buried at Isla Negra alongside the remains of his third wife, Matilde Urrutia.
And if you're not familiar with Neruda's work, the Chilean poet wrote moving words like this:
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This post was first published at www.masonsays.com.
This post is from Reese's travels to Somalia. The East African nation has been devastated by factional fighting that has lasted for two decades and has been without a functioning central government since 1991. About 1.5 million of Somalia's people are internally displaced.
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