Monday, April 11, 2016
Sunday, April 10, 2016
Sugar Divides the Races
An excerpt from The Charlotte Observer -
Why does sugar in cornbread divide races in the South?
If you stop by La’Wan’s Soul Food Restaurant in south Charlotte for collards and macaroni & cheese, there’s something important on your plate.
It’s a small cornbread muffin. Soft and tender, almost cake-like, with a bit of chewiness to the crust and a flavor that’s just a little sweet.
Now drive over to Lupie’s Cafe on Monroe Road and you’ll get a big square of cornbread, 3 inches across, white with a yellow tinge. Firm, almost coarse, with a crisp top.
Sweet? Not a bit. It’s defiantly not sweet.
La’Wan’s corn muffin and Lupie’s cornbread are humble things. But they represent something deeper: The dividing line between black Southerners and white ones. As examples of one of the defining staples of Southern food, they also are a marker of food history that speaks volumes about origins and identity, about family and what we hold dear.
It also raises a question: So many Southern food traditions are shared by both races. Most Southerners, black and white, revere fried chicken, pursue pork barbecue and exalt their grandmothers’ garden vegetables. So why is there such a fundamental difference between two styles of one basic bread?
Culinary historians have debated this one for years: Did the descendants of slave cooks who were exposed to British baking styles come to value cornbread that was lighter and softer? Did the children of farm-based white Southerners get used to unsweetened cornbread that tasted more emphatically like corn? Whatever caused it, the line is drawn.
Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/living/food-drink/article68763427.html#storylink=cpy
Why does sugar in cornbread divide races in the South?
If you stop by La’Wan’s Soul Food Restaurant in south Charlotte for collards and macaroni & cheese, there’s something important on your plate.
It’s a small cornbread muffin. Soft and tender, almost cake-like, with a bit of chewiness to the crust and a flavor that’s just a little sweet.
Now drive over to Lupie’s Cafe on Monroe Road and you’ll get a big square of cornbread, 3 inches across, white with a yellow tinge. Firm, almost coarse, with a crisp top.
Sweet? Not a bit. It’s defiantly not sweet.
La’Wan’s corn muffin and Lupie’s cornbread are humble things. But they represent something deeper: The dividing line between black Southerners and white ones. As examples of one of the defining staples of Southern food, they also are a marker of food history that speaks volumes about origins and identity, about family and what we hold dear.
It also raises a question: So many Southern food traditions are shared by both races. Most Southerners, black and white, revere fried chicken, pursue pork barbecue and exalt their grandmothers’ garden vegetables. So why is there such a fundamental difference between two styles of one basic bread?
Culinary historians have debated this one for years: Did the descendants of slave cooks who were exposed to British baking styles come to value cornbread that was lighter and softer? Did the children of farm-based white Southerners get used to unsweetened cornbread that tasted more emphatically like corn? Whatever caused it, the line is drawn.
Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/living/food-drink/article68763427.html#storylink=cpy
Saturday, April 9, 2016
Friday, April 8, 2016
This Shirt Cost $460!
An excerpt from The New York Times -
Luka Sabbat, the 18-Year-Old Fashion Influencer
Advertisers envy his social media skills. Tom Ford provided him with a
prom suit. “He’s the cool kid at the party we all want to be,” an admirer says.
Who is Luka? The question, which also happens to be his Twitter handle (@whoisluka), is unlikely to go unanswered for long. Among his roughly 184,000 Instagram and 64,000 Twitter followers, the 18-year-old New Yorker has already established himself as the coolest teenager on the Internet.
That is what Complex magazine termed him last year soon after he appeared out of nowhere — or, anyway, from that singular cohort of New Yorkers who line up on any given Thursday outside Supreme — to become a social media phenomenon.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/08/fashion/mens-style/luka-sabbat-fashion-influencer.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
Thursday, April 7, 2016
Love Therapy for Priests
An excerpt from Vox -
I’ve spent 30 years counseling priests who fall in love. Here’s what I learned.
How priests find themselves falling in love
It is true that some priests "fall in love" the way most of us think about that: They meet someone to whom they are drawn; they get to know them; they get physical; they get sexual.
In the normal (i.e., noncelibate) world, this is usually a happy series of events. In the celibate world, it may be happy but constrained — by the watchful eyes of parishioners and superiors, by public expectation, by personal feelings of guilt, by the lack of a clear path toward commitment.
If this experience leads to a decision to leave the priesthood and marry, as it often does, there is no psychological problem. It is simply a life choice: a difficult one, to be sure, but not unlike decisions incumbent upon all of us.
More common is the case of Father D., a successful priest and administrator who finally revealed ongoing involvements with two women that lasted for more than a decade. The push to disclose came when he told Woman No. 1 about Woman No. 2. He was shocked at her (understandably) angry reaction.
That shock enabled him to tell the story of how he got involved, what was going on with him at the time, and how he allowed it to persist even as his career was blossoming and exposure became more threatening. This allowed Father D. to develop a more realistic approach to whatever intimacy needs he had while remaining within the bounds of a celibate priesthood if he so chose.
This is more typical of what is seen in treatment centers: men who yield to their passions but are unable or unwilling to leave the priesthood they love and on which they depend. Up to the moment it becomes known, it is a balancing act between the priesthood and a relationship, or series of relationships, which they come to believe they cannot live without. Is there love involved? Sometimes. But mostly it's a matter of juggling two incompatible things.
http://www.vox.com/2016/4/7/11325336/priests-love-therapy
Confessions of an Airport Thief
http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/07/us/airport-theft-investigation/index.html
Not Just Because I'm One
From Lifehack -
10 Reasons to Respect Our Elders
They have lived longer than us
Well this we know, obviously. But when we truly stop to think about it and walk just a little way in their shoes, it commands respect. Life is hard! Have patience and consideration for the time they have spent on this earth.
They might know more than you think
If you haven’t already found things to talk to your grandparents, or your neighbour about, ask them questions. Respect the worlds they lived through, the parts of history they survived. They have a lifetime of knowledge.
They have experienced different things than us
The world was a different place ‘back in the day’. Evolution is happening fast, and we all know that different kinds of experience means different kinds of wisdom. Compare your differences, consult them, consider them. You might learn something you never could have learned from your own world.
They see the world in a different way
Through the experiences of their own lives and through the time they have spent on this earth, they will see the world from their own perspective. They might assign themselves differently to the way they walk and talk and dress. Take note. It might just broaden your horizons.
They have walked a mile in your shoes
The advantage anybody older than yourself has, is that they have lived at the age that you have before. Although every situation is different, they do know what it is like to be where you are, or at least, at the age you are at. Unfortunately you cannot say the same about them, so have respect and listen to what they have to say.
They are more travel weary
Who knows what countries they have trailed though, what mountains they have climbed to get where they are! They might be tired – offer them a seat!
They have experience we can only dream of
The world is a different place now. The world they lived in will also never exist again as it once did. We will never know what it was like then, before things changed and became now. We can only dream of what it was like to dance in the disco era, or experience war. They lived it. Show respect for the history they have survived.
They will have stories that can benefit us
Everybody has a story to tell. Everyone. These are the stories of our lives, the tales of us. Don’t just roll your eyes when your grandma or grandpa tells you ‘again’ about the good old days … relish in a story that might influence your own.
They are still learning from us too
As we are alive, we are all still learning. They might be older, but they are learning too. Have patience.
They are our family
Your grandparents choices in life resulted in YOU! Be grateful. Look after each other. Love is the answer.
“R.E.S.PE.C.T” – Aretha Franklin, mother and grandmother.
http://www.lifehack.org/382748/10-reasons-respect-our-elders?mtype=daily_newsletter&mid=20160407_customized&uid=789627&email=fayesharpe%40gmail.com&action=click&ref=mail
This Would Drive Me Batty!
From Atlas Obscura -
The Asymmetrical Charm of Crooked
Houses
They're like regular buildings, but with a twist.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-asymmetrical-charm-of-crooked-houses?utm_source=
Atlas+Obscura&utm_campaign=506aaf645c-Newsletter_4_7_20164_6_2016&utm_medium
=email&utm_term=0_62ba9246c0-506aaf645c-59905913&ct=
t(Newsletter_4_7_20164_6_2016)&mc_cid=
506aaf645c&mc_eid=866176a63f
This is Living!
The distinguished African-American gentleman featured in these two promos below is a friend and former colleague. He is, hands down, one of the classiest people I've had the pleasure of knowing.
May I introduce to some and reacquaint to others, Mr. Louis Morton.
May I introduce to some and reacquaint to others, Mr. Louis Morton.
Wednesday, April 6, 2016
Black Girls Rock Indeed
From The New York Times -
Long Island High School Student Sweeps All Eight Ivies
 | |
| Augusta Uwamanzu-Nna is the daughter of Nigerian immigrants. |
As a Long Island high school student checked her phone for the results of her college admissions applications, she was overcome by disbelief.
One by one, each relayed the same news: Harvard. Yes. Dartmouth. Yes. Princeton. Yes. The University of Pennsylvania. Yes. Cornell, Yale, Columbia, Brown: yes, yes, yes, yes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/07/nyregion/long-island-high-school-students-sweeps-ivy-league-universities.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=Trending®ion=CColumn&_r=0
Watch This!
Although I don't necessarily agree that the Chris Darden character was the highlight of this series, it was nonetheless one of the best shows I've ever seen.
If you haven't seen it, do yourself a favor and watch it.
I know.
I know.
You're thinking, you watched it live while it was happening twenty plus years ago. I was too, but what the writers have done is take you behind the scene to see all of the planning and strategizing that went into every decision, and how those decisions played out on live TV on a national stage.
It is a riveting drama.
~~~~~~~~~~
An excerpt from Slate -
And yet now that the final episode of the Ryan Murphy–helmed saga has aired, The People v. O.J. stands to become one of the most fascinating, powerful, and illuminating depictions of the black American experience TV has ever seen. The series re-examines and dramatizes the now-legendary divide between blacks and whites on the subject of O.J.’s innocence, as well as Johnnie Cochran's indictment of the Los Angeles Police Department as a cabal of racists. But more specifically and most importantly, the show serves as a smart, hard-hitting deconstruction of what it’s like to be “the only one,” the sole person of color in a room of mostly privileged white people and under the most extreme of circumstances.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2016/04/06/sterling_k_brown_as_chris_darden_is_the_best_part_of_the_people_v_o_j_video.html?sid=554654ea10defb39638b510d&wpsrc=newsletter_tis
If you haven't seen it, do yourself a favor and watch it.
I know.
I know.
You're thinking, you watched it live while it was happening twenty plus years ago. I was too, but what the writers have done is take you behind the scene to see all of the planning and strategizing that went into every decision, and how those decisions played out on live TV on a national stage.
It is a riveting drama.
~~~~~~~~~~
An excerpt from Slate -
What Made The People v. O.J. Simpson Trailblazing? Sterling K. Brown’s Chris Darden.
And yet now that the final episode of the Ryan Murphy–helmed saga has aired, The People v. O.J. stands to become one of the most fascinating, powerful, and illuminating depictions of the black American experience TV has ever seen. The series re-examines and dramatizes the now-legendary divide between blacks and whites on the subject of O.J.’s innocence, as well as Johnnie Cochran's indictment of the Los Angeles Police Department as a cabal of racists. But more specifically and most importantly, the show serves as a smart, hard-hitting deconstruction of what it’s like to be “the only one,” the sole person of color in a room of mostly privileged white people and under the most extreme of circumstances.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2016/04/06/sterling_k_brown_as_chris_darden_is_the_best_part_of_the_people_v_o_j_video.html?sid=554654ea10defb39638b510d&wpsrc=newsletter_tis
The Panama Papers, Explained With Piggy Banks
http://www.vox.com/2016/4/4/11361780/the-panama-papers-cartoon
Tuesday, April 5, 2016
A Panther Review
An excerpt from Vox -
Black Panther by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Brian Stelfreeze is brilliant, political, and human
The new Black Panther comic book series, written by Ta-Nehisi Coates and drawn by Brian Stelfreeze, is the most anticipated comic debut of the past decade. And let's get one thing squared away up front: It's excellent.
Coates and Stelfreeze have created a pocket in the ever-expanding Marvel comic universe that's daring and wondrous, but also organic and natural — a place and a comic that feels crucial and important to the company's legacy.
~~~~~~~~~~
Ultimately, Stelfreeze and Coates have woven a story that Black Panther deserves, and one that pushes his and Wakanda's preestablished narrative into brave new territory. This is a story about a man of his people, and unlike many Black Panther stories of the past, it does justice to and makes us care about those he's pledged to serve and protect. It's a brilliant start to one of Marvel's most promising new series, and like the hero whose story it tells, it's poised to defy its already grand expectations.
http://www.vox.com/2016/4/5/11362636/black-panther-tanehisi-coates-review
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