Categories
Entertainment Politics

Michelle Obama: Still The Belle Of The Ball!

Okaaaaay…Red is good too! She was absolutely radiant!

The color red is a warm and positive color associated with our most physical needs and our will to survive. It exudes a strong and powerful energy.

Red is energizing and passionate. It excites the emotions and motivates us to take action.

It signifies a pioneering spirit and leadership qualities, promoting ambition and determination. empower-yourself-with-color-psychology.com

The FLOTUS wears…red! Designed by Jason Wu
Categories
Barack Obama Entertainment

I Was There-Presidential Inauguration 2013

Brief hi-lights from my trip to Washington DC to be a part of the 2nd Inauguration of President Obama! The most monumental (and exhausting!), historically noteworthy day in my life!

God Bless & Keep The President of The United States, Barack Hussein Obama!

Monumental and historic! Scratch this one off the bucket list!
Categories
Technology

Coming To A Store Near You – The Samsung Galaxy S4

The iPhone killer is at it again with another device that could be the final nail in Apple’s coffin. Rumors that Samsung, the company responsible for the very successful and much loved Galaxy S3, is getting ready to debut the Galaxy S4 is the new buzz in the techie world.

Remarks attributed to JK Shin, Samsung’s head of mobile communications, recently confirmed an MWC debut for the Galaxy Note 8.0, though the top exec was less specific about the arrival of the Galaxy S4.

In the report, published by Korean publication News1, Shin said that the firm’s next flagship handset was in the off, but refused to be drawn on an exact release date.

The Samsung Galaxy S4 has been frequently tipped with a launch at Mobile World Congress, though Shin’s ambiguity has been interpreted by some as evidence that the annual Barcelona mobile showcase can be taken off the watch list.

Categories
Michelle Obama Politics

The First Couple’s First Dance Of The Inaugural Celebrations

President Obama stood in the first of his two inauguration events tonight and introduced his better half. In his introduction, the President repeated something he had said earlier in the day, that “some may dispute the quality of the president, but nobody disputes the quality of our First Lady.”

The crowd went wild. Then the President introduced the First Lady, who walked on stage looking stunning in a Jason Wu dress.

Singing Al Green’s Let’s Stay Together was Jennifer Hudson.

Categories
Politics

The Second Term Begins

Barack Hussein Obama took the oath of office for the fourth time today, and then let the country know what it voted for and what it could look forward to in a second Obama administration. The speech hit all the right notes. The implementation, though, will take longer than the four years remaining in Obama’s term.

His calls for marriage equality and for legislation on climate change, while preserving entitlements, is a clarion call for progressives and proof that the country has turned a corner and moved away from the stultifying conservatism of the last 30 years. The United States will not be looking to become more religious, nor will it be demonizing gays and lesbians or attempting to make reproductive choices a matter of whimsy for the government instead of a collective decision made by people and their doctors. We will be paying attention to the world, but not trying to run it according to a naïve ideology that says we can bring our form of democracy to everyone. And for the first time in our history we will have a health care system where all citizens not only can have care, but must have care because it’s the right thing to do.

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan would never make a speech like this, and thank heaven they won’t have the opportunity to do so. They would take us backwards. We are now moving forwards.

Obama called out the conservatives by fighting back against labeling people who use government services as “takers,” a word the GOP used to little effect in the 2012 campaign. We need programs to help the poor and to try to educate every child. We need programs to make sure that the elderly get care when their resources have dwindled or disappeared. We need adjustments to the tax code and to close the dreaded loopholes in the code, and to use the revenue from those actions to strengthen the United States, not to reward the wealthy or corporations with more tax cuts or advantages.

During Obama’s first term, the right was fond of saying that the great liberal realignment never occurred and that the only reason Obama was elected was because of the recession or the weakness of the Republican candidates. The Tea Party revolt of 2010 was supposedly the end of the “mistake.”

Wrong.

What 2008 uncovered was cemented in 2012. The country’s experiment with smaller government, massive income and resource inequality and a sense that large corporations and institutions were going to swamp the middle class is over. Yes, big money does support Democrats and Republicans alike, but that will be remedied, as will all the issues that the GOP ignored for decades. We will have climate legislation, more revenue, marriage equality and immigration reform. It will take more than four years to accomplish these. The pace will ebb and flow. But they will be done.

And it all starts with today.

Register your comments at www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives and on Twitter @rigrundfest

Categories
Climate change Politics

Climate Change At Center Stage In Obama’s Inaugural Address

WASHINGTON — President Obama made addressing climate change the most prominent policy vow of his second Inaugural Address, setting in motion what Democrats say will be a deliberately paced but aggressive campaign built around the use of his executive powers to sidestep Congressional opposition.

“We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that failure to do so would betray our children and future generations,” Mr. Obama said on Monday at the start of eight sentences on the subject, more than he devoted to any other specific area. “Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms.”

The central place he gave to the subject seemed to answer the question of whether he considered it a realistic second-term priority. He devoted scant attention to it in the campaign and has delivered a mixed message about its importance since the election.

Categories
Technology

Keep Track of Friends at Busy Locations

Whether at a trade show, convention, or even an amusement park, finding far-flung friends and colleagues can be a challenge. Sharon Vaknin shares some tips for tracking people in a crowd.

Categories
Technology

Get Started with Facebook Graph Search

Graph Search is an entirely new way to explore people, places, photos, and interests. Sharon Vaknin shows you how to navigate the new feature — and maybe even land a date.

Categories
Technology

Tech Toys for the Entrepeneur


Okay, so you have a main computer, an all-in-one printer, a monitor, a power supply, and a shredder. What else do you need? That’s right: coffee. This office-ready brewer (call Tassimo Pro for prices), which uses cartridges called T-Discs to make the coffee, holds about a gallon of water. Flavors range from light to dark roasts, and you can also make lattes, specialty drinks, tea, and hot cocoa. Yum.

See more here.

Categories
Mitt Romney Politics

Best Tweet Of The Obama Inauguration So Far

And I was wondering what Romney was doing, until I saw this tweet.

 

Now that’s right. 🙂

Categories
Entertainment

The Lady Wore…Green?

Don’t ask me why, but I think the FLOTUS  just might wear something green to the Inaugural Ball tomorrow evening. Certainly the youthful, playfulness of her new ‘do’ suggests that she’s ready to relax and unwind after what must have been the most stressful period of her life: virtually putting her whole  heart and soul into the successful re-election of her husband as the 44th President of the United  States of America. Whew!  Green relieves tension and eases fatigue, because its a color related to nature:

The color green is the color of balance and harmony. From a color psychology perspective, it is the great balancer of the heart and the emotions, creating equilibrium between the head and the heart.
 
From a meaning of colors perspective, green is also the color of growth, the color of spring, of renewal and rebirth. It renews and restores depleted energy. It is the sanctuary away from the stresses of modern living, restoring us back to a sense of well being. This is why there is so much of this relaxing color on the earth, and why we need to keep it that way.
 
Green is an emotionally positive color, giving us the ability to love and nurture ourselves and others unconditionally. ~ empower-yourself-with-color-psychology.com
Collection Designed by Zuhair Murad
Categories
Domestic Policies Martin Luther King Jr THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

THE AMERICAN MOVEMENT

1 / 65

I Have a Dream

~Martin Luther King
I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves, who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.”
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so we have come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must ever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.
The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.
And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecutions and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends. And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right down in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith that I will go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day. And this will be the day, this will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning, “My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring!” And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.
And so let freedom ring — from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.
Let freedom ring — from the mighty mountains of New York.
Let freedom ring — from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.
Let freedom ring — from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.
Let freedom ring — from the curvaceous slopes of California.
But not only that.
Let freedom ring — from Stone Mountain of Georgia.
Let freedom ring — from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.
Let freedom ring — from every hill and molehill of Mississippi, from every mountainside, let freedom ring!
And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual,
“Free at last, free at last.
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.”
Exit mobile version