the machine is us/ing us

I still have a hard time explaining the concept of Web 2.0 to folks. Which is why I really dig this video by Dr. Michael Wesch of Kansas State University’s Digital Ethnography project.

Take a look:

cheers,

k

the lena baker story – limited screening this weekend

BUY MOVIE TIX | BUY THE BOOK

I heard about this movie during last year’s Atlanta Film Festival. But unfortunately, I heard about it too late to get a ticket to the sold-out premiere. Fortunately – for me and for you – there’s a second chance to catch the film this weekend.

Hope and Redemption: The Lena Baker Story is a film that was inspired by the book, The Lena Baker Story written by Dr. Lela Bond Phillips. Both works cover the real-life account of the complex relationship between a black woman with a sordid past and a white man with an abusive personality in Jim Crow era Georgia. The black woman is Lena Baker, the only woman to have been sent to the electric chair in Georgia.

The film – which was written, produced, and directed by Ralph Wilcox – is set and shot on location in southwest Georgia, and stars Tichina Arnold (Everybody Hates Chris) as Lena Baker, and Peter Coyote as her employer/abuser and the man she is accused of murdering.

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WMDs – yes virginia, they do exist

I had lunch with a friend a while back, and at the end of our meal we both lamented returning to our respective okiyas.

Me to friend: “You know, I really wish I was at the point where I wasn’t doing any work, but just telling others what to do. I mean, what’s the point of having a Manager title if you still have to do all the work yourself?”

Friend to me: “Yeah, plus at my gig when you’re a manager, you get a Blackberry. You can tell who all the managers are, because they have their Blackberries.”

Scrrreeeech. Pump the brakes.

Nah. Uh-uh. Though I sometimes covet all the perqs that come along with being in ‘upper management’, that Blackberry thing is where I draw the line. If I never get assigned a Blackberry for my entire career, it’d be too soon. By some miracle, I’ve avoided having to carry one of those detestable devices so far, and I’d be willing to sacrifice as many farm animals as needed to the gods of all things electronic to keep the trend going until the day after forever.

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chickens aren’t eagles

Look, brother farmer. I believe that eagle laid a couple of eggs. Go get those eggs of hers, bring them down, and put them under one of your setting hens. Then, when the eggs hatch, those little eaglets won’t know who they are. They will think they are chickens, so they won’t fight back and bite you. They won’t claw you. They will be peaceful and calm because they won’t know who they are.

 - from, “The Eagle Story”

Of all the fantastical things that people often wish they could do, why is it that so many people wish that they could fly? It occurs to me, that maybe most haven’t considered that flying is something of a solo activity.

A bird cannot fly if it’s carrying another bird along with it. Even when mother birds teach their young to fly, they don’t pick them up and take to the air with them. They wait until the chicks are old enough, and then they kick them out of the nest.

If there’s one thing that I’m sure of, it’s that I – and everyone else – was born with wings (not literally, of course). But despite that knowledge, I’ve often been frustrated at my failed attempts to fly as far or as high as my vision allowed me to see. Upon reflecting on some of the times when my flight was cut short, I realized why. Too often it was because I was trying to carry someone along with me who hadn’t yet gotten the hang of their own wings or learned to fly for themselves. They’d see me swoop by and yell out from their perch, “Hey, that’s cool. I wanna do that too! Can you teach me?” And in my well-intentioned naivete, I’d cry out, “Sure  thing. Just hop on my back and I’ll show you how I do it!” But soon after they’d hopped on, we’d both begin to descend rapidly, tumbling and flailing helplessly against the sky, until one of us had to separate from the other so we both wouldn’t end up hurtling to the ground below.

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what men aren’t telling women

Cruising the web today and came across the following insightful essay on Zena’s site that she reposted from the July issue of O, the Oprah Magazine. The essay was written by Chris Abani - an award-winning author / poet from Nigeria.

It’s probably one of the more thoughtful, revealing and well-phrased ‘confessions’ about how men think and view themselves in the context of a relationship…which is why I thought I’d share it with you.
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