Need Some Motivation?

From The Huffington Post -

These Amazing People Over 50 Bust Every Aging Stereotype You Can Think Of

By: Damon Scheleur and Shelley Emling
Posted: 04/29/2015 11:11 am EDT Updated: 04/29/2015 11:59 am EDT

Sophia Loren once said, “There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.” To prove that age is just a number, here are some amazing people over 50 having crazy fun and accomplishing incredible feats.

They are pilots, pole dancers, runners, tango enthusiasts and world champions. One of them, Jack Nicklaus, scored a hole-in-one at the 2015 Masters Tournament at age 75. Mark Jordan, 54, set a record this year for the most pull-ups in a 24-hour period. The winning number? 4,321. Phyllis Sues, 92, still does a headstand every day. "I intend to be, and probably will be, standing on my head, doing pushups and leg splits, as long as the sun comes up! That's my plan," she said.

So check out some of the incredible images below -- and be inspired.

Sun Fengqin

                               ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images

Sun Fengqin, 60, practices pole dancing in Nanjing, China. The retired grandmother started pole dancing in 2012, and has since become an Internet celebrity in China.


Phyllis Sues

                                                Courtesy Phyllis Sues

At 92, Phyllis Sues does yoga, headstands and still loves to dance the tango. She also loves swinging on the trapeze and jumping out of planes.


Charles Eugster

           

At 95, Charles Eugster obliterated the 95-and-over world indoor record for 200 meters at a British Masters Athletics meet in London in early 2015.


Georgina Harwood

                               Esa Alexander/Sunday Times/Gallo Images/Getty Images

Georgina Harwood may be 100, but she enjoyed skydiving in March 2015 in Cape Town, South Africa. It was the third time that the great-grandmother has gone skydiving; she did her first jump at 92.


Diana Nyad

                               Andy Newman/Florida Keys News Bureau/AP

In 2013, Diana Nyad, age 64, became the first swimmer to cross the Florida Straits without the security of a shark cage.


Tao Porchon-Lynch

                                                D Dipasupil/Getty Images

At 96, Tao Porchon-Lynch is the world's oldest known living yoga teacher , as recognized by the Guinness World Records in 2012.


Jack Nicklaus

                               David Cannon/Getty Images

Jack Nicklaus, 75, celebrated a hole-in-one at the 2015 Masters Tournament at the Augusta National Golf Club.


Seniors At The Henley Wood Retirement Village In England

                                    Ian Cann/MRC Photo

Seniors living in Henley Wood Retirement Village in Milton Keynes, England, aged 64 to 93, dressed up as their favorite movie characters in early 2015 for a charity calendar. To purchase the calendar, go here.


Seniors At Prom

                                                Justin Fox Burks/Rhodes College

Proving that you are never too old to cut a rug, members of the J.K. Lewis Senior Center and students from Rhodes College, both in Memphis, held a shared "prom" earlier this year, where everyone got dressed up to the nines and danced the night away.


Nola Ochs

                               Charlie Riedel/AP

At age 95, Nola Ochs became the world's oldest college graduate when she graduated from Fort Hays State University in Kansas in May 2007.


Seniors Recreate Music Video

            

Singer Alex Boye decided to infuse "Uptown Funk" with a serious dose of old-school cool, and enlisted the help of a few seniors with some totally impressive dance moves.


Yuichiro Miura

                               Prakash Mathema/AFP/Getty Images

Japanese adventurer Yuichiro Miura became the oldest person to scale Mount Everest when he climbed the world's highest mountain in 2013, at age 80.


Minoru Saito

                                                 JIJI Press/AFP/Getty Images

Now 81, Japanese sailor Minoru Saito became the world's oldest sailor completing a solo around-the-world tour without stopping at any port, in 2005.


Mark Jordan

                               GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS

At 54, Texas native Mark Jordan set a Guinness World Record in 2015 for the most pull-ups in a 24-hour period. The winning number? 4,321.


John Glenn

                                NASA/AP

Now 93, John Glenn became the oldest man to fly in space when he served as a specialist aboard the space shuttle Discovery in 1998.


Peter Weber Jr.

                                Randy Pench/Sacramento Bee/TNS/Getty Images

Peter Weber Jr., a 95-year-old northern California man, is the world's oldest active pilot. Weber was 95 when he flew three looping circles around an airfield near Sacramento.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/29/senior-photo-series-aging-stereotype_n_7154008.html

Another Day, Another Death

From Salon - 

Black America’s Baltimore schism: Why the Freddie Gray tragedy demands serious soul-searching 

Divisions are now showing within the Black community between those demanding respectability and those who reject it 

BRITTNEY COOPER  Follow

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TOPICS: BALTIMORE PROTESTS, RACISM, POLICE BRUTALITY, POLICE VIOLENCE, RESPECTABILITY POLITICS, NEWS, POLITICS NEWS

A demonstrator confronts police near Camden Yards, Baltimore April 25, 2015.  (Credit: Reuters/Sait Serkan Gurbuz)

Baltimore has erupted. Its citizens have taken to the streets to rebel against an undue and all-too-common show of excessive force against citizens by the police. Most recently, the Baltimore Police applied such force when arresting 25-year-old Freddie Gray that they severed his spinal cord. Arrested apparently for making eye contact with the police — essentially for daring to look while Black — Gray was denied medical care. He ended up in a coma and died seven days after being arrested.

On Monday, despite calls for a peaceful day out of respect for Freddie’s burial, protesters took to the streets, smashing stores, burning buildings, and taking property from a mall, a CVS, and a check casher. These acts of justifiable rage and rebellion whipped the media and government officials into a frenzy, calling for the “thugs” and “criminals” of Baltimore to be arrested and locked up. A procession of respectable-sounding Black folks got on television, the Rev. Jamal Harrison Bryant the most visible among them, calling for peace and an end to the violence.

I watched on the news as people smashed the windows of the check casher. And I couldn’t muster even the faintest anger or outrage toward them. The presence of these check-cashing businesses is one of the key physical features of Black and poor neighborhoods that you rarely see in affluent neighborhoods — places where poor people, in the absence of bank accounts, are forced to pay exorbitant fees just to access the money they have fairly earned. These kinds of businesses prey on our most vulnerable citizens, and do so under the guise of offering a needed service. That the residents chose that business to smash suggests that at least some of them recognize the ways in which such companies extract the meager resources of local residents. Others may simply have thought there was money on the premises.

But the idea that all citizens who rebel against an unjust system must have righteous intentions in order for their actions to be worthy of respect is simply ludicrous. The oppressed are not a monolith.  They don’t move or think with one mind. They don’t all react to injustice in the same way. Nor should they.

The right of the people to revolt in response to unjust conditions is a founding principle of this Republic. But another founding principle of this republic is that Black people are not fully human. Therefore they are not legitimately “the people,” not a part of the “demos” in democracy. Thus revolution and rebellion remain the province and property of America’s white citizens. All other comers are illegitimate.

The Baltimore rebellion arises at a singular moment in history, as three Black women have been tasked with restoring law and order: The first is Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, who gave a statement on Monday condemning the “thugs” doing violence in the city. The second is Gen. Linda Singh, an officer with the Maryland National Guard, who appeared in military fatigues, in a show of state force and authority. And finally, there is Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who was being sworn in at the exact same moment that the protests erupted in Baltimore.

What does it mean that three Black women have an unprecedented amount of municipal, national and military power to put down a rebellion? I must admit I am conflicted. When you grow up as a Black girl overachiever in this country, you are taught that the levels of power and prestige that these three women have are the very kinds of power and access that our ancestors fought and died for us to even have the possibility of experiencing. Simply on the basis of Black exceptionalism, I am supposed to be magnificently proud of these three women – of the kind of possibility they represent.

Not one of these women stands in the place of power she stands in without having battled for it: Take, for example, the GOP’s now-legendary obstruction of Lynch’s nomination. In a similar vein, climbing through the military ranks and landing a position of substantial authority, as Singh has done, is notoriously difficult for any woman. Just look to the sexist comments Rawlings-Blake has faced on social media in recent days for a sign of what a woman in authority faces on a regular basis.

But our ancestors did not fight for us to get access to these spaces just so that we could act like white supremacists in Blackface. They wanted us there so we could do the work of justice. So while my Black feminist, Black woman, Black girl overachiever self wants to stand and champion these women and their presences as a triumph of American democracy, I cannot.

Their presence proves that American empire, in its most democratic iteration, is no respecter of persons. Any person willing to do the state’s bidding can have a role to play. Lynch’s first statement as attorney general begins: “I condemn the senseless acts of violence by some individuals in Baltimore that have resulted in harm to law enforcement officers, destruction of property and a shattering of the peace in the city of Baltimore.”

I recognize that this is the kind of thing those appointed to enforce law and order must say. But it is rooted in a fundamental kind of dishonesty. For respectable citizens, a shattering of the peace sounds like broken windows and burning businesses. But I would submit that the shattering of the peace for Baltimore’s poor and disenfranchised residents sounds much quieter — it sounds like the snapping of Freddie Gray’s neck, and the crushing of his voice box so no one could hear his screams, in the back of a van driven by those sworn to protect him.

To narrate the story in any other way is to propagate a pathological level of deception about who the real criminals and the real victims are. To continue to condemn as senseless acts of violence things that actually make perfect damn sense is only to further this pathology. If the police are the criminals then what sense does it make to tell ordinary citizens to sit at home, quietly observing law-and-order? What sense does it make to ask those citizens to keep faith with a system that would sooner snap their necks for committing virtually no crime rather than give them due process? And for an attorney general who has watched lawmakers skirt right up to the edge of the law in order to prevent her from obtaining her position, what sense does it make to be a law-enforcement sympathizer?

What sense does any of it make?

For any person who has ever been angry enough to throw a glass against a wall, or destroy one’s personal property out of sheer frustration and injustice, the anger of citizens who are daily subjected to indignities, violations of personal space, and limited opportunity makes perfect sense.

Baltimore is a city with a Black mayor and a large Black middle class. These folks have worked hard and been rewarded well by the system. In this moment, class schisms among Black people become apparent, as respectable middle-class Black citizens plead for an end to violence, and hope against hope that they won’t be mistaken for their lower-class brethren. Baltimore teaches us that Black bodies can propagate anti-black state violence.

It’s the very kind of internecine struggle that won’t help any of us get free. I am a middle-class Black person, but I have seen cops harass my family members. I have seen predatory lending practices devastate those I love. I see multigenerational poverty nipping at the heels of relatives who have not been as fortunate on the path as me. And I am angry about it. Believing in the myth of my own exceptionalism helped me to make a way out of a working-class existence. But it didn’t help anybody else. Because exceptionalism by its very nature is not meant to have mass impact.

As we watch Baltimore burn, Black folks will have to do some serious soul-searching about where our solidarities will lie. Are they going to lie in our allegiance to our comfortable middle-class existences and deep desires for success in a fundamentally effed-up system, or are they going to reside with those still struggling to make it?

If we are going to push America to stop sanctioning the killings of our people, then we will have to decide to throw our lot in with the people, to recognize that no matter how fancy we look on the outside, in the right circumstance, all of us are just one police encounter away from the grave.

Freddie Gray’s death, though tragic, is instructive. If you want to kill a thing, snap its neck. It might take us a while to snap the back of white supremacy, but it is past time for us to handcuff it, put it in a van without a seatbelt and take it for a “rough ride.” When we all emerge, hopefully, at the very least, white supremacy will be on life support.

http://www.salon.com/2015/04/29/black_americas_baltimore_schism_why_the_freddie_gray_tragedy_demands_serious_soul_searching/?source=newsletter

Jet Blue Super Sale!

Flights as low as $29 one-way!

Sale ends at midnight on Wednesday.

Check it out.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jetblue-is-offering-29-flights-in-epic-two-day-flash-sale_5540d8cce4b040fe5c6f08cf

A Rant Worth Reading!

I couldn't love this guy any more.

http://www.salon.com/2015/04/28/so_exactly_what_kind_of_violence_dont_you_like_actor_jesse_williams_baltimore_rant/

Wolf Blitzer interviews Deray McKesson about violence in Baltimore

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/29/wolf-blitzer-baltimore-protests_n_7168964.html

Righteous Rage

The riots in Baltimore are violent and destructive.  God knows I don't condone the burning, looting and other calamitous acts, but this city, like too many other places in America, has blood on its hands in the way it has treated her citizens, her people.

This video clip speaks volumes to the frustration felt by the folks in the city.

http://www.msnbc.com/the-ed-show/watch/baltimore-resident--enough-is-enough-436036675727

The Baltimore Sun highlighted some of the egregious acts last fall in an article entitled "Undue Force."

The city has paid about $5.7 million since 2011 over lawsuits claiming that police officers brazenly beat up alleged suspects. One hidden cost: The perception that officers are violent can poison the relationship between residents and police.

http://data.baltimoresun.com/news/police-settlements/?mod=e2this&utm_source=This+nightly&utm_campaign=767aced92a-8pm_4_27_154_27_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4b29b52ce6-767aced92a-194575529

Native son, Ta-Nehisi Coates from The Atlantic, has a powerful article about what is happening in his hometown.  It's quoted below.

When nonviolence is preached as an attempt to evade the repercussions of political brutality, it betrays itself. When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time out, it exposes itself as a ruse. When nonviolence is preached by the representatives of the state, while the state doles out heaps of violence to its citizens, it reveals itself to be a con.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/nonviolence-as-compliance/391640/

Good Dog!

This dog could teach this trick to some guys I know!

http://www.usatoday.com/videos/news/have-you-seen/video/2015/04/27/26364729/

Dr. Funk Himself

I will never forget seeing Parliament / P-Funk / Funkadelic in concert in the 70's when I was in college.

What a freak show that was!

Scores of guys on stage in all manner of get up, the most outrageous of which was the guy who wore only a diaper.

The mastermind behind this psychedelic funk movement was George Clinton, who is now 73 years old!

73!!!

Where does the time go?

Rolling Stone features him in the article below.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/george-clinton-doctor-atomic-20150427

Also, check out this video.  Unfortunately, it does not feature that typical wild dress.

I Love This Monkey!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxlLxMAaK3E

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/26/monkey-drop-kick_n_7148994.html

Sobering

This New York Times article features a mother mourning the loss of her 32 year old son, who for years had drifted, in spite of a degree from Dartmouth.

A quote -

Examinations of the brain of Patrick Risha, 32, at the University of Pittsburgh and Boston University revealed chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E., the degenerative disease caused by repeated blows to the head that has been found in the brains of dozens of former football players. C.T.E. has been linked to depression, impulsive actions and short-term memory loss, among other symptoms.

As much as I love football, it's not worth this pain and suffering.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/27/sports/football/patrick-risha-a-son-of-football-calls-his-mother.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column

A Brave Man

I just watched the Diane Sawyer interview with Bruce Jenner, where he discusses, for the first time, that he is transgender and is transitioning to a woman.

For him to go on national television and make this declaration took a mountain of cojones.

But, for him to live a lie for 65 years must have been a mountain of pain, too.

At least now he's free to be himself/herself.

He's fortunate, and I think he recognizes that, that he has a platform from which to speak.

The kid in your neighborhood who is experiencing the same kind of thing, chances are, is not so lucky.

Here's hoping we come to a place in this world where it's OK to be who you are, whatever that is, and whatever it looks like, without fear or retribution.

Nepal - Before & After

Nepal’s Landmarks, Before and After the Earthquake

The earthquake that struck Nepal on April 25 flattened sections of Katmandu’s historic center.APRIL 25, 2015 RELATED ARTICLE

Dharahara Tower

This nine-story structure was built in 1832 on orders from the queen. It was made of bricks about a foot and a half thick, and had recently been reopened to the public. Sightseers could ascend a narrow spiral staircase to a viewing platform around 200 feet above the city.

July 15, 2013

Bal Krishna Thapa Chhetri - July 15, 2013

April 25, 2015

Narendra Shrestha/European Pressphoto Agency

Maju Deval

This temple, built in 1690, is a Unesco World Heritage Site in Durbar Square.

July 2014

Anna Nadgrodkiewicz/sandstoneandamber.com - July 2014

April 25, 2015

Narendra Shrestha/European Pressphoto Agency

I did not see the first monument, but I took a picture of the second one.  

It's below, taken from another side.

Degrees of Chaos

When I first arrived in the UAE, I thought things were chaotic:

Folks bum rushing counters;

People rarely waiting in lines to be served;

And . . .

The most frustrating of all - no addresses.

However, since I've traveled to many points far and wide, I've discovered there are degrees of chaos.

I've been to places with few paved streets, where addresses would be a luxury.

So, each time I return home (to the UAE) from my travels, I'm always grateful to be coming back to an orderly, efficiently run country.

What used to bother me, doesn't phase me anymore.

It's all relative.

I've thought about this a lot since my last trip to Nepal, where the infrastructure, on it's best days, was sorely lacking.

It saddens me beyond measure to see the reports of the death and destruction from the earthquake yesterday, but seeing the precarious way many of the buildings were standing, it comes as no surprise many of them crumbled.

My heart aches for the Nepalese people.

But . . .

I'm also eternally grateful for the systems we have in place in America (that many people complain about - checks and balances making sure that buildings are built to code, for example) that helps to keep us safe.  Believe me when I say I have a much greater appreciation for this than I ever had when I was in the US and took all of this for granted.

So, let's all say a prayer for those hurting, and a prayer of thanksgiving for all of the things we have to be grateful for.

3 Strikes and You're In: San Quentin Baseball

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/24/san-quentin-baseball_n_7137280.html

The Backwards Brain Bicycle - Smarter Every Day 133

H/T Forrest

The Little Machine That Could

From The Huffington Post - 

This Pint-Sized Washing Machine Is Perfect For Small Spaces -- And Great For The Planet

For people who don't have the space for a washer and dryer, or for those who lack access to private laundry facilities, one tiny machine is stepping up in a big way.

Meet the Drumi, a sustainable, miniature washing machine on the way from household design company Yirego. It's basically like a salad spinner for your clothes.

The Drumi is foot-powered, and can clean about three days' worth of personal undergarments and shirts in about 5 minutes. It uses approximately 2 gallons of water per load and only a little soap, which according to Yirego is 80 percent less water and detergent than what's required by regular washing machines.

With 40 percent of the Drumi made from recyclable materials, there isn't a washing machine quite like it on the market. Watch how it works:





This machine was designed for people who usually go to laundromats, and should come in handy for who live in a compact urban homes or can't afford a traditional washer and dryer. Though it isn't intended to entirely eliminate laundromat outings or the use of a regular washing machine, it can replace frequent trips and multiple loads and help reduce a user's carbon footprint.

Yirego told The Huffington Post that the Drumi will retail for a promotional price of $129 until April 23, after which it will retail for $169. The product will officially hit the market this summer, but the company is currently accepting pre-orders from Canadian and US residents. Happy pedaling!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/21/drumi-washing-machine_n_7100020.html

No Strippers Please!

From Salon & The Wall Street Journal - 

China Says Please Stop Hiring Funeral Strippers 

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A screenshot of the saucy funeral in Hebei that attracted attention earlier this year.

 

Weibo

In China, friends and family of the deceased may have to do without a special form of funereal entertainment: strippers.

According to a statement from the Ministry of Culture on Thursday, the government plans to work closely with the police to eliminate such performances, which are held with the goal of drawing more mourners.

Pictures of a funeral in the city of Handan in northern Hebei province last month showed a dancer removing her bra as assembled parents and children watched. They were widely circulated online, prompting much opprobrium. In its Thursday statement, the Ministry of Culture cited “obscene” performances in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu, as well as in Handan, and pledged to crack down on such lascivious last rites.

In the Handan incident earlier this year, the ministry said, six performers had arrived to offer an erotic dance at the funeral of an elderly resident. Investigators were dispatched and the performance was found to have violated public security regulations, with the person responsible for the performing troupe in question detained administratively for 15 days and fined 70,000 yuan (about $11,300), the statement said. The government condemned such performances for corrupting the social atmosphere.

The government has been trying to fight the country’s funereal stripper scourge for some time now. In 2006, the state-run broadcaster China Central Television’s leading investigative news show Jiaodian Fangtan aired an exposé on the practice of scantily clad women making appearances at memorial services in Donghai in eastern China’s Jiangsu province.

The point of inviting strippers, some of whom performed with snakes, was to attract large crowds to the deceased’s funeral – seen as a harbinger of good fortune in the afterlife. “It’s to give them face,” one villager explained. “Otherwise no one would come.

CCTV found about a dozen funeral performance troupes offering such services in every village in the county, putting on as many as 20 shows a month at a rate of 2,000 yuan ($322) a pop.

“This has severely polluted the local cultural life,” CCTV intoned at the time, marveling at the sight of one women gyrating out of her clothes mere steps from a photo of the deceased. “These troupes only care about money. As for whether it’s legal, or proper, or what effect it has on local customs, they don’t think much about it.”

The mainland isn’t alone in its preference for the practice: similar ensemble performances are also popular in Taiwan – as National Geographic documented in 2012, with stilettoed, short-skirted women dancing graveside. The practice there dates back decades.

– Te-Ping Chen and Josh Chin

http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2015/04/23/chinese-government-says-please-stop-hiring-funeral-strippers/

A Shoe That Grows With the Child

From Upworthy - 

He met dozens of kids who didn't have shoes. So he invented 5 pairs in 1.

 Curator: Franchesca Ramsey

It's not every day that you run into an invention so genius it makes you say, "Why the heck didn't I think of that?" Well meet the shoe that's set to help millions of barefoot children worldwide by growing with them. 

Shoes are hard to come by for too many children living in developing countries.

When most people think of children in poverty, hunger is usually the first thing that comes to mind. But for many children in the developing world, even the most basic clothing items can be hard to come by. While working in Nairobi, Kenya, inventor Kenton Lee was struck by how many young children were barefoot, their feet covered in scrapes and sores. But sores aren't the only consequences of going barefoot. 

And while some kids go without shoes, others wear shoes that are too small.

Lee saw them wearing makeshift foot coverings from scraps of cardboard. But what struck him was how many kids had repurposed old shoes that were too small by cutting them open to fit as their feet grew. 

And while these repurposed shoes are no doubt creative, they're only marginally better than going barefoot. But seeing how these shoes had been transformed to fit growing feet highlighted yet another obvious but unavoidable problem. When kids grow out of their donated shoes, they're just going to need another pair. This is when the lightbulb went off for Lee. What if there was a shoe that could adjust and expand for growing feet? Enter "The Shoe That Grows."

Lee invented a shoe that can be adjusted up to five times and lasts for five years.

After a successful crowdfunding campaign in 2011, Lee and his team at Because International were able to produce 2,000 shoes and provide them free of cost to kids in need in Nairobi. In April 2015, Because International started another campaign to raise funds for the next round of production, in hopes of getting 5,000 more shoes out to kids around the world. Take a look at the video below to learn more about this amazing company's journey and how you can help. 

Because International is in the final stretch of their crowdfunding campaign to produce 5,000 of these incredible growing shoes for children in need. You can donate to their cause at www.crowdrise.com/TheShoe.

Magic Afro Puffs

From The Root - 

7-Year-Old Creates Afro-Puff Superhero Comic Book and Wins Big

Natalie McGriff took her creation, The Adventures of Moxie Girl, a comic book about a black girl whose curly hair has magical powers, to a crowdfunding festival and walked away with more than $16,000.

BY: STEPHEN A. CROCKETT JR.

Posted: April 22 2015 9:06 AM

 

Natalie McGriff, 7, stands next to an image of her comic book, The Adventures of Moxie Girl, which won over $16,000 at One Spark, a crowdfunding festival in Jacksonville, Fla.   WBLS SCREENSHOT

The odds were stacked against Moxie Girl, but she had already saved the Jacksonville Public Libraries from a wild group of hungry monsters, so beating out 530 entries to win more than $16,000 for her creator would be easy, right?

Well, that's what happened after 7-year-old Natalie McGriff took her creation, The Adventures of Moxie Girl—a comic book about a black girl who hates her hair until she uses a magical shampoo that turns her curls into superfighting Afro puffs—to One Spark, a huge crowdfunding festival in Jacksonville, Fla. One Spark attendees pay an entrance fee and then vote on how the money should be dispersed.

According to the New Pittsburgh Courier, Moxie Girl was created after Natalie's mother noticed her daughter having hair-esteem issues.  

"I decided to help Natalie write this book because she was having self-esteem issues regarding her hair and she hated to read," Angie Nixon said in a statement viewed by the Courier. "She now realizes how powerful and awesome her hair is and that in order for her to write a cool book, she needs to read more books and learn different words."

In the end, the hero prevailed and Moxie Girledged out the competition, beating the closest competitor by a mere three votes.

Good wins again.