Government Bail-Out of the Economy

Bail-Out....

I never thought I would live to see another great recession which may or may not lead to another depression in the economy of the United States of America. I also thought I might not live to see person of mixed heritage, yes he is African (Kenyan) and Caucasian, become the 44th president of the U.S. of A., but it happened! The world is this very unpredictable place and who knows what can happen at any given time or place.  

What is money? The money we hold, in some of our hands..., daily is merely a note of tender that is like a weird bartering system. We barter our time in our daily lives spent at mindless jobs for these notes of tender. We then turn around and places these bills,.. in the hands of others, bill collectors and businesses we shop at,  in their possession in trade of product. The value of these bills is invested in the up or down turn of the petroleum market... which at this moment is being phased out of the majority strangle hold it has had on the world's economy since just after the industrial revolution. WOW... that all seems more like a scam everyday ... right? 

Well, right now the economy s under distress and needs our, citizens of the USA help, We need to change of the next several years, the way we operate and more importantly spend these notes of purchase/tender. Well... the senators and representatives we have elected into office are faced with an overwhelming decision to pass a 800 Billion dollar bill to invest our money back into our economy. This bill will, in a very brief summation, give us back the freedom and independence we once shared as the most revolutionary state in the free world. We haven't they passed it? Lobbyist, the fear that it might not be popular and therefore make them unelectable the next term, further push the economy into the hole, or...? The reality is that no one truly knows what will happen and one thing is for sure... that no one knows anything. I'm so surprised that experts are really not the absolute know-everything in their subject areas. At best we should really call them "know-alots-but-not-absolutely-sure-perts." 

So, lets put pressure on the people that represent us and make them pass the bill and amend the areas of that need fixing through out the process and stop making us wait for some cure all answer that might not come in time. the reality is that for every moment we wait the amount of debt that every American holds expands by like dollars. this amount most likely is beyond the amount that typically each of us earn per hour. Support your new president and help yourself, because no matter what you do... what your profession is, investments you've made, your wealth... this down turn will affect everyone. 

Please push the bill!!!!

  

 

The Dreamer

"The Dreamer"

by Jarritt Sheel 

I have a dream
The dream that only a dreamer can dream
A dream of a revolution
I dream of a revolution that tears asunder
The bonds that bind our hands and feet

These bonds have dug in and cut deep
Deep into the meat of the matter
The perpetrator takes out gun and splatters
Gray matter on wall

Of those standing up to stand against all wrong

The prepetrator

Whips and beats
Making us contort and eat 

Humble pie
Denying us life and what comes with it
HE covers mine eyes
Then trys to hide the horrors performed on us
Presenting one hand to deceive and the other one to trick
Not treat
Putting up fences
That seperate me from you.

The revolution

That was televised and has been in reruns for 30 years
That revolves, evolves, and progresses
The idea of being people
Shout, scream, pout, taut, cry
Stand up..... getting outta my chair
To
Stand up and say something, something...
Do more than dream
Lead, fight for rights, and do right
By every human.

This is more than a mere dream
I live in realistic reality
Knowing that life is but a mirror of your inner being
What we dream inside comes out
No longer is it filmed in black and white
Now... filmed in color
Giving us the full spectrum of what we are

What we can be
We can even go back and change what was written about the past and put it in
Technicolor

I dream in color most nights
Even when I think of the fights
For my rights and yours
Knowing that knowing wasn't enough
Grade school bullies still get away with murder

But now the dream is real
We take two steps forward and none back
There is no more get out of jail free card for the elite
We are all fucked...
Because a shrub smaller than a tree decided for me

But there is light at the end of the tunnel
It is faith... not in one man
The faith I have is in God 
The faith that God has given us inner beauty
Each one of us knows right from wrong
Bad from Good

So
Now it is our time to live out those dreams

Making dreams into reality
And to make reality live like it were a dream
Stand up and shout
Continue to fight for our rights
And the dream

The Politics of Hip Hop Movement: How Barck Obama's election to the highest political post on earth is the direct reflection of the music

Hip Hop:
Pronunciation:\ˈhip-ˌhäp\
Function:noun
Etymology: perhaps from 4hip + 1hop
Date: 1982
1: a subculture especially of inner-city youths who are typically devotees of rap music
2: the stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rap ; also : rap together with this music— hip–hop adjective


America is a beautiful shining beacon in the political landscape we call the World. Ever since 1776, we have been a land of opportunity and change. Rebels,... from the start and the epicenter of the greatest example of democracy ever perpetrated in the last 300 years of human existence. AMERICA.. the land of the free and the home of the brave. 305 Million people from different places around the world. Who would've thought that one day in the history of mankind... people would decided to live together in harmony. Now it ain't pretty all the tine nor is it perfect, but freedom and the ability to share with others of backgrounds different than yours... could only be described as a dream over 400 years ago. 

Like many other countries we are home to many folk music, and some of the most loved in all the world. Blue Grass, Country, Rock & Roll, Blues, Jazz, and most recently Hip-Hop. Hip-Hop is not just a genre of popular American music, but a form of folk music that speaks to the American experience. Like all folk music, there is usually a message wrapped inside every song. It matters not how deep the message is, but it matters that the speaker has the opportunity to say it. Hip-Hop , like Jazz, Funk, Rock & Roll has its own culture. 

"Culture can be defined as all the ways of life including arts, beliefs and institutions of a population that are passed down from generation to generation. Culture has been called "the way of life for an entire society."[3] As such, it includes codes of manners, dress, language, religion, rituals, games, norms of behavior such as law and morality, and systems of belief as well as the art."  

Culture is made up of 5 different elements which are; Dance, Politics, Clothing, Music, and Art. Culture and the combining of the various elements contained in American society is beautiful. America, the melting pot of culture and social norms. America, which saw the beginning of integration on a mass level and the place where all the racial intolerance's have to be destroyed. The history of this music comes from parties and social gatherings in the Bronx area of New York City. This is where the community would get together on weekends or evenings and celebrate with a dee jay who would spin hits and pop favorites. The later development would be a rap element to the hip and hop of the beat. Later the technique of the turntablist would develop into a virtuoso level and become Scratching. After almost 40 years of existence Hip-Hop has still retained some of its original sting and pop. this music still has artist that make it there point to create danceable hits and while doing that remain a tool of the people and speak out about various injustices. Even though, this is not the popular sentiment among artist there are still many that hold the torch of individuality/rebellion that was present in Hip-Hop from the very beginning. 

Hip-Hopcracy, .... is the politic commentary and movement that is part of the hip-hop culture specifically.  Political commentary about the hip hop generation and its affect on the American political system is a hot topic these days. People are starting to realize that the music and culture is something that is shared among more than African-American audiences. This is the first music to has its beginning exposed to global audiences via TV and Internet. The audience encompasses such a huge variety of racial & cultural background, and sexual preferences. Hip-Hop is everyone and has a type or brand that fits you. It is one if the only forms of music that does not need to be fused with others in order to have elements of some many other forms. The foundation of Hip-Hop is the Sample, so... you can have anything present in a track just as long as it is hot. The politics of Hip-Hop are all about the youth movement in America. Political change or unrest typically comes from the youth movement just like Hip-Hop... is a youthful culture. You can see it in the fact that most hip-hop artist are under the age of 30 years old and their fame usually fades after the age of 35. Many artist find it hard to stay new and different, but this art form is about Change and being revolutionary. It is about technological advances i.e. turntables, pro tools, sampling, beat machines, etc. 

Enter the 2008 presidential election where John McCain and Barack Obama were the republican and democratic nominees. From the beginning many knew that John McCain represented the Old Gard and Barack Obama represented, even though he is 47 years old, the state of the art and revolutionary change that must take place in America. The change that is needed for this country to survive in this new era of human existence. That is where the Hip- Hop political movement comes in.  Youth, the young, the young people of America finally took a hold of the changes that happen in America. They stood up and instead of fighting the bureaucracy that is government, they became united and used it to their advantage. This is what Hip-Hop is all about. This music, we call Hip-Hop, like all other folk musics is about telling a story of the people. This folk story finally came to a head and we finally decided out of despearation,.. to do something about. This time we all decided to... face the music and stand up and vote our conscience. 

This is the beginning of how Hip-Hop music changed the political climate of the world! Stay tuned for the next exciting episode of Hip-Hopcracy...!!!!

Freddie Hubbard, a jazz legend dies at 70

Today the world mourns the death of a great jazz musician. Freddie Hubbard, who suffered a heart attack on Nov 26, 2008, dies at age 70 in Sherman Oaks, CA. Hubbard, whose career looks like a "whose who" of jazz music, played with such jazz greats as John Coltrane, Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner, Ornette Coleman, Art Blakey to name a few. Hubbard, who had recently begun performing semi-regularly, again has had a long and storied career.

Born on April 7, 1938 in Indianapolis, IN Freddie Hubbard has been hailed as one of the seminal voices in Hard-Bop, and Post-Bop jazz styles. An extraordinary trumpet player who began his music career in the Indianapolis area studying with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra's principal trumpet player and working alongside the Montgomery brothers (Wes & Monk Montgomery). In 1958 at the age 20, he moved to New York city where he began working with jazz greats like Philly Jo Jones, Quincy Jones, Sony Rollins, J.J. Johnson, Eric Dolphy, & Slide Hampton helped polish this young man into a ferocious lion of a musician. From there Hubbard would go onto release; Open Sesame, Goin' Up, Hub Cap, Ole Coltrane, Africa Brass, Ready for Freddie.

After playing with Hank Mobley, Jimmy Heath, and going onto replace Lee Morgan in Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, Hubbard would change his style to reflect less of the Clifford Brown and Lee Morgan and more of the modern day influences in music. During the 60’s Freddie would be apart of some of the greatest jazz recordings ever; Maiden Voyage, Free Jazz, Ascension, Speak No Evil, and The Blues and the Abstract Truth. This experience during this portion of Hubbard’s career would prove important. During this time he would be bandleader on eight albums, sideman on twenty-eight albums.

The 1970’s would the era of Hubbard’s career that would gain him the most acclaim as member of the VSOP (Joe Henderson, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Tony Williams) band and his recordings with CTI records. While with CTI records Hubbard would record First Light (which garnered him a Grammy award in 1972), Straight Life, and Sky Dive. This period is when he would embrace free jazz even more and eventually venture into mixing Funk, R&B, and Jazz together in his most celebrated recording Red Clay.

The 1980’s would again prove to be an important period in Hubbard’s career. This time he would tour to no end and do a furious festival schedule with the likes of Joe Henderson, Ron Carter, teaming up and recording again with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, Elvin Jones, Woody Shaw, and Rufus Reid to name a few. This hectic schedule would lead to the health problems he would face in the early 1990’s. Abuse to his body from a number of sources would contribute to his decline in playing during this period. In 1992 he would cause a almost career ending injury to his lips and never again record at the same level or virtuosity, even though his spot in jazz history had all ready been assured through his long list of recordings.

In 2006 Hubbard would again be honored like so many other times in his life, this time by the National Endowment of the Arts with the Jazz Masters Award. Since then he would have a small number of recording dates and performances with younger jazz musicians, but would never again see glory years like earlier in his career.

On December 29, 2008, Hubbard’s hometown newspaper, the Indianapolis Star reported that Hubbard had passed away in Sherman Oaks, California from complications due to the heart attack suffered in November of this year. The music world morns a huge lost in jazz and an even larger lose in the jazz trumpet lineage. In a time in American Music history when music is no longer taught at the level it was in Hubbard’s day, we have lost a great iconic member of the music jazz family and part of the fabric of jazz music history. He will be missed

Please watch this...

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1381640171/bclid1385224672/bctid1385609639

Please watch this...

Nov. 4, 2008--

A new dawn of American leadership is at hand.

President-elect Barack Obama

We have all heard stories about those few magical transformative moments in African-American history, extraordinary ritual occasions through which the geographically and socially diverse black community—a nation within a nation, really—molds itself into one united body, determined to achieve one great social purpose and to bear witness to the process by which this grand achievement occurs.

The first time was New Year's Day in 1863, when tens of thousands of black people huddled together all over the North waiting to see if Abraham Lincoln would sign the Emancipation Proclamation. The second was the night of June 22, 1938, the storied rematch between Joe Louis and Max Schmeling, when black families and friends crowded around radios to listen and cheer as the Brown Bomber knocked out Schmeling in the first round. The third, of course, was Aug. 28, 1963, when the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. proclaimed to the world that he had a dream, in the shadow of a brooding Lincoln, peering down on the assembled throng, while those of us who couldn't be with him in Washington sat around our black-and-white television sets, bound together by King's melodious voice through our tears and with quickened-flesh.


But we have never seen anything like this. Nothing could have prepared any of us for the eruption (and, yes, that is the word) of spontaneous celebration that manifested itself in black homes, gathering places and the streets of our communities when Sen. Barack Obama was declared President-elect Obama. From Harlem to Harvard, from Maine to Hawaii—and even Alaska—from "the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire … [to] Stone Mountain of Georgia," as Dr. King put it, each of us will always remember this moment, as will our children, whom we woke up to watch history being made.

My colleagues and I laughed and shouted, whooped and hollered, hugged each other and cried. My father waited 95 years to see this day happen, and when he called as results came in, I silently thanked God for allowing him to live long enough to cast his vote for the first black man to become president. And even he still can't quite believe it!

How many of our ancestors have given their lives—how many millions of slaves toiled in the fields in endlessly thankless and mindless labor—before this generation could live to see a black person become president? "How long, Lord?" the spiritual goes; "not long!" is the resounding response. What would Frederick Douglass and W.E.B. Du Bois say if they could know what our people had at long last achieved? What would Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman say? What would Dr. King himself say? Would they say that all those lost hours of brutalizing toil and labor leading to spent, half-fulfilled lives, all those humiliations that our ancestors had to suffer through each and every day, all those slights and rebuffs and recriminations, all those rapes and murders, lynchings and assassinations, all those Jim Crow laws and protest marches, those snarling dogs and bone-breaking water hoses, all of those beatings and all of those killings, all of those black collective dreams deferred—that the unbearable pain of all of those tragedies had, in the end, been assuaged at least somewhat through Barack Obama's election? This certainly doesn't wipe that bloody slate clean. His victory is not redemption for all of this suffering; rather, it is the symbolic culmination of the black freedom struggle, the grand achievement of a great, collective dream. Would they say that surviving these horrors, hope against hope, was the price we had to pay to become truly free, to live to see—exactly 389 years after the first African slaves landed on these shores—that "great gettin' up morning" in 2008 when a black man—Barack Hussein Obama—was elected the first African-American president of the United States?

I think they would, resoundingly and with one voice proclaim, "Yes! Yes! And yes, again!" I believe they would tell us that it had been worth the price that we, collectively, have had to pay—the price of President-elect Obama's ticket.

On that first transformative day, when the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, Frederick Douglass, the greatest black orator in our history before Martin Luther King Jr., said that the day was not a day for speeches and "scarcely a day for prose." Rather, he noted, "it is a day for poetry and song, a new song." Over 3,000 people, black and white abolitionists together, waited for the news all day in Tremont Temple, a Baptist church a block from Boston Common. When a messenger burst in, after 11 p.m., and shouted, "It is coming! It is on the wires," the church went mad; Douglass recalled that "I never saw enthusiasm before. I never saw joy." And then he spontaneously led the crowd in singing "Blow Ye the Trumpet, Blow," John Brown's favorite hymn:

Blow ye the trumpet, blow!

The gladly solemn sound

Let all the nations know,

To earth's remotest bound:



The year of jubilee is come!

The year of jubilee is come!

Return, ye ransomed sinners, home.

t that moment, an entire race, one that in 1863 in the United States comprised 4.4 million souls, became a unified people, breathing with one heart, speaking with one voice, united in mind and spirit, all their aspirations concentrated into a laser beam of almost blind hope and desperate anticipation.

It is astounding to think that many of us today—myself included—can remember when it was a huge deal for a black man or woman to enter the White House through the front door, and not through the servants' entrance. Paul Cuffe, the wealthy sea captain, shipping merchant, and the earliest "Back to Africa" black colonist, will forever have the distinction of being the first black person to be invited to the White House for an audience with the president. Cuffe saw President James Madison at the White House on May 2, 1812, at precisely 11 a.m. and asked the president's intervention in recovering his famous brig Traveller, which had been impounded because officials said he had violated the embargo with Britain. Cuffe, after the Quaker fashion, called Madison "James"; "James," in turn, got Paul's brig back for him, probably because Cuffe and Madison both favored the emigration of freed slaves back to Africa. (Three years later, on Dec. 10, 1815, Cuffe used this ship to carry 38 black people from the United States to Sierra Leone.)

From Frederick Douglass, who visited Lincoln three times during his presidency (and every president thereafter until his death in 1895), to Soujourner Truth and Booker T. Washington, each prominent black visitor to the White House caused people to celebrate another "victory for the race." Blacks became frequent visitors to Franklin Roosevelt's White House; FDR even had a "Kitchen Cabinet" through which blacks could communicate the needs of their people. Because of the civil rights movement, Lyndon Johnson had a slew of black visitors, as well. During Bill Clinton's presidency, I attended a White House reception with so many black political, academic and community leaders that it occurred to me that there hadn't been as many black people in the Executive Mansion perhaps since slavery. Everyone laughed at the joke, because they knew, painfully, that it was true.

Visiting the White House is one thing; occupying the White House is quite another. And yet, African-American aspirations to the White House date back generations. The first black man put forward on a ticket as a political party's nominee for U.S. president was George Edwin Taylor, on the National Liberty Party ticket in 1904. Portions of his campaign document could have been written by Barack Obama:

"… in the light of the history of the past four years, with a Republican president in the executive chair, and both branches of Congress and a majority of the Supreme Court of the same political faith, we are confronted with the amazing fact that more than one-fifth of the race are actually disfranchised, robbed of all the rights, powers and benefits of true citizenship, we are forced to lay aside our prejudices, indeed, our personal wishes, and consult the higher demands of our manhood, the true interests of the country and our posterity, and act while we yet live, 'ere the time when it shall be too late. No other race of our strength would have quietly submitted to what we have during the past four years without a rebellion, a revolution, or an uprising."

The revolution that Taylor goes on to propose, he says, is one "not by physical force, but by the ballot," with the ultimate sign of the success being the election of the nation's first black president.


But given all of the racism to which black people were subjected following Reconstruction and throughout the first half of the 20th century, no one could actually envision a Negro becoming president—"not in our lifetimes," as our ancestors used to say. When James Earl Jones became America's first black fictional president in the 1972 film, "The Man," I remember thinking, "Imagine that!" His character, Douglass Dilman, the president pro tempore of the Senate, ascends to the presidency after the president and the speaker of the House are killed in a building collapse, and after the vice president declines the office due to advanced age and ill health. A fantasy if ever there was one, we thought. But that year, life would imitate art: Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm attempted to transform "The Man" into "The Woman," becoming the first black woman to run for president in the Democratic Party. She received 152 first-ballot votes at the Democratic National Convention. Then, in 1988, Jesse Jackson got 1,219 delegate votes at the Democratic convention, 29 percent of the total, coming in second only to the nominee, Michael Dukakis.

The award for prescience, however, goes to Jacob K. Javits, the liberal Republican senator from New York who, incredibly, just a year after the integration of Central High School in Little Rock, predicted that the first black president would be elected in the year 2000. In an essay titled "Integration from the Top Down" printed in Esquire magazine in 1958, he wrote:

"What manner of man will this be, this possible Negro Presidential candidate of 2000? Undoubtedly, he will be well-educated. He will be well-traveled and have a keen grasp of his country's role in the world and its relationships. He will be a dedicated internationalist with working comprehension of the intricacies of foreign aid, technical assistance and reciprocal trade. … Assuredly, though, despite his other characteristics, he will have developed the fortitude to withstand the vicious smear attacks that came his way as he fought to the top in government and politics … those in the vanguard may expect to be the targets for scurrilous attacks, as the hate mongers, in the last ditch efforts, spew their verbal and written poison."

In the same essay, Javits predicted both the election of a black senator and the appointment of the first black Supreme Court justice by 1968. Edward Brooke was elected to the Senate by Massachusetts voters in 1966. Thurgood Marshall was confirmed in 1967. Javits also predicted that the House of Representatives would have "between thirty and forty qualified Negroes" in the 106th Congress in 2000. In fact, there were 37 black U.S. representatives, among them 12 women.

Sen. Javits was one very keen prognosticator. When we consider the characteristics that he insisted the first black president must possess—he must be well-educated, well-traveled, have a keen grasp of his country's role in the world, be a dedicated internationalist and have a very thick skin—it is astonishing how accurately he is describing the background and character of Barack Obama.

I wish we could say that Barack Obama's election will magically reduce the numbers of teenage pregnancies or the level of drug addiction in the black community. I wish we could say that what happened last night will suddenly make black children learn to read and write as if their lives depended on it, and that their high school completion rates will become the best in the country. I wish we could say that these things are about to happen, but I doubt that they will.

But there is one thing we can proclaim today, without question: that the election of Barack Obama as president of the United States of America means that "The Ultimate Color Line," as the subtitle of Javits' Esquire essay put it, has, at long last, been crossed. It has been crossed by our very first postmodern Race Man, a man who embraces his African cultural and genetic heritage so securely that he can transcend it, becoming the candidate of choice to tens of millions of Americans who do not look like him.

How does that make me feel? Like I've always imagined my father and his friends felt back in 1938, on the day that Joe Louis knocked out Max Schmeling. But ten thousand times better than that. All I can say is "Amazing Grace! How sweet the sound."

Changes has happened.... AMERICA!!!!

Obama:

Hello, Chicago.

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

It's the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen, by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different, that their voices could be that difference.

It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled. Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of red states and blue states.


We are, and always will be, the United States of America.

It's the answer that led those who've been told for so long by so many to be cynical and fearful and doubtful about what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.

It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this date in this election at this defining moment change has come to America.

A little bit earlier this evening, I received an extraordinarily gracious call from Sen. McCain.

Sen. McCain fought long and hard in this campaign. And he's fought even longer and harder for the country that he loves. He has endured sacrifices for America that most of us cannot begin to imagine. We are better off for the service rendered by this brave and selfless leader.

I congratulate him; I congratulate Gov. Palin for all that they've achieved. And I look forward to working with them to renew this nation's promise in the months ahead.

I want to thank my partner in this journey, a man who campaigned from his heart, and spoke for the men and women he grew up with on the streets of Scranton and rode with on the train home to Delaware, the vice president-elect of the United States, Joe Biden.

And I would not be standing here tonight without the unyielding support of my best friend for the last 16 years the rock of our family, the love of my life, the nation's next first lady Michelle Obama.

Sasha and Malia I love you both more than you can imagine. And you have earned the new puppy that's coming with us to the new White House.

And while she's no longer with us, I know my grandmother's watching, along with the family that made me who I am. I miss them tonight. I know that my debt to them is beyond measure.

To my sister Maya, my sister Alma, all my other brothers and sisters, thank you so much for all the support that you've given me. I am grateful to them.

And to my campaign manager, David Plouffe, the unsung hero of this campaign, who built the best -- the best political campaign, I think, in the history of the United States of America.

To my chief strategist David Axelrod who's been a partner with me every step of the way.

To the best campaign team ever assembled in the history of politics you made this happen, and I am forever grateful for what you've sacrificed to get it done.

But above all, I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to. It belongs to you. It belongs to you.

I was never the likeliest candidate for this office. We didn't start with much money or many endorsements. Our campaign was not hatched in the halls of Washington. It began in the backyards of Des Moines and the living rooms of Concord and the front porches of Charleston. It was built by working men and women who dug into what little savings they had to give $5 and $10 and $20 to the cause.

It grew strength from the young people who rejected the myth of their generation's apathy who left their homes and their families for jobs that offered little pay and less sleep.

It drew strength from the not-so-young people who braved the bitter cold and scorching heat to knock on doors of perfect strangers, and from the millions of Americans who volunteered and organized and proved that more than two centuries later a government of the people, by the people, and for the people has not perished from the Earth.

This is your victory.

And I know you didn't do this just to win an election. And I know you didn't do it for me.

You did it because you understand the enormity of the task that lies ahead. For even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime -- two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century.

Even as we stand here tonight, we know there are brave Americans waking up in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan to risk their lives for us.

There are mothers and fathers who will lie awake after the children fall asleep and wonder how they'll make the mortgage or pay their doctors' bills or save enough for their child's college education.

There's new energy to harness, new jobs to be created, new schools to build, and threats to meet, alliances to repair.

The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even in one term. But, America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there.

I promise you, we as a people will get there.

There will be setbacks and false starts. There are many who won't agree with every decision or policy I make as president. And we know the government can't solve every problem.

But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree. And, above all, I will ask you to join in the work of remaking this nation, the only way it's been done in America for 221 years -- block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand.

What began 21 months ago in the depths of winter cannot end on this autumn night. This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were.

It can't happen without you, without a new spirit of service, a new spirit of sacrifice.

So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other.

Let us remember that, if this financial crisis taught us anything, it's that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers.

In this country, we rise or fall as one nation, as one people. Let's resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long.

Let's remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House, a party founded on the values of self-reliance and individual liberty and national unity.


Those are values that we all share. And while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress.

As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, we are not enemies but friends. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.

And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too.

And to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces, to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of the world, our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand.

To those -- to those who would tear the world down: We will defeat you. To those who seek peace and security: We support you. And to all those who have wondered if America's beacon still burns as bright: Tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity and unyielding hope.

That's the true genius of America: that America can change. Our union can be perfected. What we've already achieved gives us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for generations. But one that's on my mind tonight's about a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta. She's a lot like the millions of others who stood in line to make their voice heard in this election except for one thing: Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old.

She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn't vote for two reasons -- because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin.

And tonight, I think about all that she's seen throughout her century in America -- the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can't, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes we can.

At a time when women's voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed, she lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach for the ballot. Yes we can.

When there was despair in the dust bowl and depression across the land, she saw a nation conquer fear itself with a New Deal, new jobs, a new sense of common purpose. Yes we can.

When the bombs fell on our harbor and tyranny threatened the world, she was there to witness a generation rise to greatness and a democracy was saved. Yes we can.

She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people that "We Shall Overcome." Yes we can.

A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination.

And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change.

Yes we can.

America, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do. So tonight, let us ask ourselves -- if our children should live to see the next century; if my daughters should be so lucky to live as long as Ann Nixon Cooper, what change will they see? What progress will we have made?

This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment.

This is our time, to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth, that, out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope. And where we are met with cynicism and doubts and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can.

Thank you. God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America.

Time for Change

I apologize for not writing as frequently as I have been over the past couple years, but I shall endeavor to correct this in my immediate future. Recently i have become overwhelmed by the move to a new environment, being engaged and all the various things involved in that process, and trying to find work in the new area I love in. Fortunately I have great friends and associates that have become my lifesaver here in the Orlando area and have afforded job, and gigging opportunities since my arrival. So, I must say thank you ... sincerely for all your work on my behalf. I have an amazing support team which is comprised of God, my family, fiance, and friends. I loved to Orlando to start a new and create change in my and my future wife's life... in OUR lives together. Speaking of change...

It is time for change....
This has been echoed, shouted, written, typed, painted, tattoed, signed, and uttered millions of times this year. We are in a important political year of adjustment. This is when those 18 and older find it important to vote and pick a new leader for the country. As is.... the country has a deep desire ... for the most part... to change the course that we are currently on. I can spend a huge amount of time to let you know the candidates and what they stand for, but I all ready know that you are well aware of that and need only to go and vote your conscious. Let your conscious by your guide and please vote. Do not let another man or woman decide your fate for you. This is a democracy ... ruled by the people and it was set in place for the people. So, whether your family once was slaves or immigrants, slave owners, or the original people in this country... you should, must, and have to go vote. It is time for a change, and that won't start with the candidate, but rather with the people who put them in office.

So,... the change has to start with you!!! Pick a good leader that represents the changes or goals of the American people. Pick someone that will help lead us in the right direction for future generations and not just the immediate term. This will effect Millions upon Millions of people, and therefore is of great importance. We must all think about America... the beautiful country that represents all that people want in the world. That is just fairness... and freedom to live the way they'd like. Freedom!!! So, never allow anyone to question how much of an American you are or whether or not you deserve certain things to survive. We all deserve the same things... and these things should be guarded and protected at all cost. So, ... it's not just about searching out terrorist or enemies of the state, but more about standing up in our own country for those great rights bestowed upon us through membership in this great U... S... of A. We gotta be the people that we and everyone else in the world admire ... sometimes. The guardians.... of democracy, and this must begin within... and therefore will be witnessed without.

TIME FOR CHANGE!!!!!

Sarah Palin ... interview w/ Katie Couric

I am thoroughly amazed at the way the media has been able to besway the American public to look at the presidential candidates. It has been a seriously long time since I have trully followed the elections and considered myself a part of the election process. Now,... don't get me wrong... I've voted in the last couple of elections, but have been totally disgusted at how things are going in the american government. I am however an optimist and not a debbie downer. I believe that we can overcome all the financial obstacles we face in the coming months and years, but it will take a strong leader and a even stronger group of American citizens to come through it all in the end.

Speaking of strong leaders,... Sarah Palin is not ready to be the next president of this great nation. She may have spent a few years in the executive office of the oil giant (that point I will get back to later), Alaska , but that does not make her fit to lead this troubled country into a new era. I say that, because john McCain will be in his 80's if he wins and seeks another term. This is a startling thought to realize that sarah Palin will be in control of this great nation without a broad sense, forget experience, of the reality of the world. The next leader doesn't have to be the greatest of all time but he or she needs to be needs to have a global economic & political knowledge base. They need to be able to research and make decisions for this country based upon what is good for the people in the long run and the short term all at the same time. We face a economic down turn like this country hasn't seen in almost 100 years. If you get a chance please go check out the Sarah Palin interview with Katie Couric, that in itself is evidence enough to say "Stop the madness... let me off this bitch."

The latest interview that Plain gave was a gleaming shining beacon to all that are undecided about who to vote for. Now, I'm not a sexiest or racially prejudice in anyway. But, I must say we can not elect this dumb ass woman into office. She may be intelligent, but for Christ sake we can not elect someone whose total knowledge base about other countries is from reading books. I think that travel, or being a well traveled person is a necessary part of being the ruler/ president of the greatest country in the world. We have done the China... style of diplomacy in the last 8 years, by closing our political boards, but opening our financial ones to outsiders to make our country about business and less about the people. We have succeed in making America into a comglomerate ,... just busting at the seams to be broken up into several smaller businesses to make money. The only problem with that is we are a COUNTRY and not a BUSINESS Mr. Bush.

So, please check out this blathering idiots interview with Katie Couric, because I think you'll truly get a hillarious kick out of it. Oohhhh... and make after taht you should check out the SNL spoof of the interview. Check you later...

Family, ain't they something to say the least!

IRONY

I hate, I'm mad, upset, pissed, and totally dejected. It is not just about what our family has done to us, but more so about what we can do to change and improve our families. "I rant and rave and cause a stink, and still it remains the same." Irony is that many times this cycle of disfunction, that most of us certainly are born into 9 times out of 10, doesn't revolve around us nor is it something we can change in a day. It might be something that went wrong some many times over and over again before you were even aware of the problem. We take family as though it were something finite and concrete, a commodity that can be order over the internet or from the car dealership in certain colors with racing stripes. Family is something that you have to either deal with and make the best out of the situation, or run the other way from. Running, sometimes, will have a positive effect on the runnee, but most times ends up bringing the runnee right back to the original situation. Sometimes it takes a minute before you end up back where you started, but ultimately either you or the people that you love will have to deal with the situation. Okay, okay, okay... not really fight, but more or less put in a good attempt, a strong try to make it work. Now,.... that doesn't automatically make you the sovereign ruler of your family... passing down all the issues for you solely to deal with, but it does either make you a apart of the problem or the solution.

Solution or Problem... that's the real issue at hand. I find it is so easy to sit back omnisciently and make observation about any situation that you know history about, and family is one such situation. As you grew up out of the subservant yet humble beings that many of us started as a child, you begin to question and wonder why things are good or bad. After the initial step of analyzation most people jump right into ...not denial, but blame. I think this is strictly a human trait. I have surveyed the animal kingdom and have never seen a gazelle or elephant display such traits. Blame is a dangerous thing that everyone can and has been a part of. So, are you part of the problem or the solution? Think hard.... it is easy to point the "finger," but harder to redirect the "finger" and find the true issue that needs to be dealt with. Family is something like art, personal & delicate, but strangely it is simultaneously open & strong. It is everything you want & need and can be none of those things at the same time. It is strange thing but so familiar.

The solution, I believe, is really as simple as recognizing that people are not perfect and neither are the we. No family is great as you believe it is. Life and family are simply what you make them... work hard at it and put time.. like your life. LIFE, which can either be short and or long, fulfilling or empty, but it is will be... exactly what you put into it. So, maybe the solution to any problematic family is to take a step back look at what you can contribute, and enjoy all the great parts and work on the not so great along with everyone else that is willing to work with you. Tell me what you think.

Jarritt Sheel Graphics II

Jarritt Sheel Graphics

History of African-American Torture

Paris in December: 2007 (2)

Paris in December: 2007

Some may understand where other's fail to comprehend

Some may understand where other's fail to comprehend,

Writing, whether it is for money, cathartic purposes, academic, or artistic, is a serious endeavor. I take picking up the pen to slice a piece of reality right off of the beast and mix it on a palette along with my own personal opinion to create my written prose a daunting task everytime, and only because I never want to fake the funk on something that has helped me avoid therapy, and psychoanalysis. I mean,...don't get me wrong I got plenty of shit wrong with me, but I unlike many have searched me whole life for places and ways of venting(purposefully) and working things out therapuetically. So,....I take this a little serious. Art is that lick and if you can't understand that... I love it... is that better?

I started with the writen words about 16 years ago in the hallways of my high school. I wrote my first poem for the then .... one day far in the future Mrs. Sheel Tiffany Michelle Wilson. I can't even remember what the poem was and if I still have it. Ain't it funny how something so personal can be so casual to give away for some. Since then I have written for my college newspaper, done some great research papers, many, many open mics (poetry), short stories gallor, notebooks full of my poetry, and as of late writing music reviews and commentary. This is what I am ART.

I find it humorous that I can take refuge in so many of the ARTs. As of late I've started to get into using the medium of the photo as another way to comment of the world. I see it as telling a story with just one look. A snap shot of what reality is. This summer I took over 400 pictures of chicago festivals, friends, gatherings, and things...! The world is so beautiful, dangerous, and serene all at the same time. It is like a woman. Every woman contains all those parts within there psyche, personality, or being... whichever you want to accept. You can take a picture of someone and get right down to their soul. All it takes is a roll or two of film and the right direction to make them expose the real "them." This makes Photography a very tricky thing, treacherous thing, but also something that you can recieve such bliss and admiration from all at the same time. From just one click of the button that causes the actuation of the shutter mechanism. Viola!

Now... Hip-Hop has always been in my blood since "Beat Street", and Run DMC Addidas'. I love the culture and all things Hip-Hop, because this is the latest and maybe greatest form of American folk music. The funny thing about it is that like jazz,....which most musicians don't like to compare it too, has been turned on, and turned a death ear by the same exact people that created it. Ain't that something...? Yet it still remains one of the only ways a certain demographic of the American populus can have their feelings heard. It is the Ghetto tragedies that unfold from these words and beats, and the people in Miami, Florida all the way to Juno, Alaska that comprehend that makes it all good for me.

Last but not least.....
My music is something that has been eluding me the whole entire time that I've been on this quest for ... it! Do you know why? I've been searching in places that I would never really be. I looked in Classical, next Soul, then Commerical, Hip Hop, Gospel, and then unto Funk, and Jazz. It is funny that In all those places, singularly none of them could hold me steady, but all together messed up and mixed together is where you will find me.. ME! I'm the whole of my parts, and seperately a mess without my individual elements.

So,....
What does this mean? This means everything and nothing at all. In the words of a 70's soul song.."Everything... is goin be all right." I can overly analyze everything to be of some significance to my life and therefore .. super important, but I would be enundated with too much info. I perfer to be simple and take life as it comes. My writing, music, and photography are nothing more or less than one single thing... MY ART! I find my voice by finding me, and everytime I pick up the mic, write a page such as this one, or flash click with my camera... I'm finding exactly where, and who I am. A collection of some really great things!



Sincerely,

(Signature here)
Jarritt A. Sheel

With out you I'm a force, but with you I'm a movement....

Taste of Chicago 2007

International Players Ball

http://www.the-ugks.com/

I recently got the new U.G.K. single entitled International Players Anthem. I must say that incorporating Outkast, one of the most sought after groups, was genius. The production was a mixer of old school Pre-Motown sounds along with 1999 ATL. Something that accentuates the style of Bun B and Pimp C, while still giving Andre 3000 & Big Boi a challenge.

The main idea of the song along with the production value of the video both work together well to tell the story of a man that has picked her. Her being the only woman that has ever really peaked "his" interest and apparent love. So, much so that he has text messaged ever philly he has ever laid it down with. The story line ... isn't original, but the flow of Outkast and U.G.K. togehter make it fresh in our minds. Go check this single out if... you haven't been infected by it all ready. It is a throwback to the days when the track and the flow were both dope... "Cooler than a pair of polar bear's toe nails."

I still am a Man!!!