Hi everyone! The one and only Lady Mel is here to give you the latest in my awesome world. Lets get down to business!
@iHeartChina- LadyMel, I know this is old news, but did you vote in the 2010 midterm elections and which party did you vote 4?
China, would you be pissed if I did not vote this year? Ya, I was filming an commercial for my new shoe line in Hong Kong that day. It was not worth the effort or time really. When I am confident about the economy, and the direction of this country, then I will.
@PrinceAndrew482 - Gerard Butler's birthday is today. U attending his many b-day parties?
I will be attending a couple tonight in LA. Gerard is a good friend of mine. We met months before his "Law Abriding Citizen" film came out. Just friends. Never dated him. Not his female toddy. But he is a nice piece of ass though. ;]
@Kicca_Dane- What is wrong with Kanye West? The "Today Show" appearance ftl.
I honestly do not know. Mommy issues? Egotistical Douchebag Syndrome ? He is just a waste of time for me. Next.
Before I leave for the week, I want to thank Randomista for presenting me with this: the IDGAF Blog Award. I want everyone to check out here blog. She is amazing. IDGAF, if you don't know by now means, "I Don't Give a F$$$." And what the negativity around me at times, I don't give a F$$$$ about them. It's all about me. Picture of the Week personified. Have a nice weekend everyone!
From 8:00pm to 4:00am this morning, I was busy watching the CNN, FOX, MSNBC, and CNBC coverage of the 2010 U.S midterms elections. My views challenged, swaying back and forth like a loose track because I kept whipping my hair like Willow Smith! I personally think that there are some lessons that can be learned from the politics that everyone can learn from, including President Obama.
1. If the government wants to recreate jobs, stop corporations from shipping them overseas first.
2. Bipartisanship is the Democrats and Republicans new friend! Don't forgot it.Republicans, you have knocked down Democratic incumbents and have taken the House of Representatives. If you don't want to be called "The Party of No", start working with the Democrats. You did not sway independents and Reagan Democrats for nothing. You got the votes, now listen to the American people.
3. The government has to regain the trust of the Americans who did not vote in yesterday's elections because this future shift in power includes every American people when creating new laws and policies. Some people have been so fed up with the partisan bickering on Washington for so long that they have lost faith in the "democratic" process. (Note: I personally don't think the U.S is not a true democracy yet. We are slowly getting there, but we have not reach our true potential.) If Washington does not want this country to get into a second Great Depression or does not want the Democrat or Republican party to lose party members in 2012, now is the time to have everyone aboard.
4. The people have spoken, but will the two political parties listen to the average Joe or continue to rally with special interest groups and lobbyists?
5. The American people will now need to keep the government on its toes. Read and research. They must know what really is going on on the local level, the state level, and the national level. If they want their voices heard like in this past elections, you have to continue challenging your elective officials. Don't just sit back and wait for the government to fix Medicaid or the educational system. Action, not inaction.
What are your thoughts on the election results? What do you think about the current U.S political system?
Hi everyone! I know you all missed me.
Ok, so everyone has been buzzing about Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg's 100 million donation to the City of Newark. If you have not noticed, I currently live in Newark. I was born and raise in Newark and I am very excited that there are billionaire entrepreneurs out there that are willing to donate their money to the less fortunate. Perhaps Zuckerburg can integrate his social media interface into getting these students to learn and think big. Newark public schools need it, especially in this recession.
However, I fear that Mayor Cory Booker and his administration are going to mishandle that money and use it for their own purposes. So Mark Zuckerberg, if you are out there, make damn sure you have a thorough business plan to implement that money into the Newark public school system the right way. Newark is known for its political corruption. Newark is possibly the only city in the state of New Jersey that does not have a mall. Malls create jobs. They may not create high paying jobs, but given that 43.6 million are living below the poverty line in this country alone, something is better than nothing, and I think even with the new Prudential Arena, more needs to be done. We have the land, we just have stubborn, greedy individuals in power that have used the politics of fear to blind the public of reality for the last forty years. I do not understand why Oprah Winfrey does not see the truth either.
Onto other news, I finally got an interview with Apple Retail. Saturday morning! 10:00am. Upper West Side store! Very excited. I have come a long way to not be nervous. I know what I have to do. Wish me good luck and everyone have a lovely weekend!
Oooo I forgot, this is the picture of the week. I am a fallen soul, an awesome soul, full of passion and dreams.
What do you think about this Facebook announcement? What do you know about Newark politics? What will you do this weekend?
Before I talk about my main topic, I would like to promote a good online friend of mine, Ron Calonje. He helped me promote my Alice in Twitterland article for the 2010 Talent Buzz Contest and I want to turn the favor by promoting his two Oakland rock bands, Dial 911 and Shinoco. If you are into indie rock and alternative rock music, these are bands for you. Sign up on those websites, listen to the songs, and help spread the word!
Anyway, let's get back to the program.
I am very excited for two particular TV shows this summer. The first one that I will discuss first is Aaron McGruder's The Boondocks. Many people do not like the show because of its excessive use of the n-word, violence, and its stereotypical portrayal of African-American urban culture. But if you were smart enough, you can pass the superficial imagery and get the real messages McGruder tries to convey in his show such as race, racism, and political/social satire. I personally take some meaningful philosophies from the cartoon, although I sometimes do not agree with him. Everyone has their own opinion about race, including myself.
I also want to learn what McGruder thinks of the Tiger Woods sex scandal, the health care and financial reform debates, Wall Street's involvement with the economic recession, the GOP, and the Tea Party movement. I know he will address and attack some of these issues creatively and constructively. So, if you love political engagement, amazing martial-arts fights, Japanese anime, and leetness, watch the final season starting May 2, 2010 at 11:30pm on Cartoon Network. The trailer itself is so mind-bottling that McGruder will leave TV programming with a bang!
Happy April Fool's Day! What a perfect day to spill some unnecessary gossip. You Know It's April Fool's Day When You Hear....
1. Justin Bieber is still a trending topic....
2. Congress changes the reform bill, making health care universal ro all American citizens. Hooray!
3. Erykah Badu makes another nude video.
4. Jesse James's mistresses get a spread in Vanity Fair Magazine.
5. Being a douchebag and prankster is perfectly legal and praised for.
6. Kate Gosselin wins the "Dancing With the Stars" competition.
7. Simon Cowell makes out with Ryan Seacrest, just to tick Ricki Martin off.
8. Your iPad arrives at your doorstep, and magically opens from inside a vanilla envelope right before your very eyes.
9. Starbucks goes bankrupt, leaving millions of hopeless, yet educated New York hipsters out on the streets.
10. NBC, CBS, and ABC finally fire all the late-night TV hosts except Craig Ferguson, so he can take over the world.
In a more idealistic world, leadership is not all about the efforts and determination of one person to move mountains. It is also about teamwork and negotiation. As I was watching the health care reform debate on Twitter and on TV, I do not think there is no such thing as compromise in Washington.
Congress passed the new health care reform bill and I am glad that in this day of age, some solution was made to give millions of uninsured Americans more insurance options. But with little compromise between both the Democratic and Republican parties and even within the two parties at some extent at the end, the transparency of the bill was left ambiguous to the American people.
I discussed this issue further with members of the #journchat session on Twitter last night and I am still bothered. For 14 months, all I heard on TV was the bickering back and forth about what will and what will not be covered under this new #hcr bill. What I did not get was a transparent understanding of the rules and consequences of passing this bill. Why did not YouTube or another social media network collaborate with a news cable network to inform the American public more about the advantages and disadvantages of this bill? Everyone is using social media tool these days to communicate with one another, so it seems fitting.
You know why? Politics. Politics disillusioned us. My AP English teacher always said to my senior class, "Politics is another word for conflict". The conflict of opposing ideologies and stubbornness disillusioned us from what truly matters in this country and that is our health and well-being. Health care should be a right, not a privilege. Compromise between the two political parties should be a right, not a privilege.
I do not understand why the many women and men that we have voted into office to represent us do not understand this. You can not always have what you want. I wish there was a way to just simply erase their prejudices away, but I cannot.
What are your thoughts on this bill? What do you think about bipartisanship and compromise on Capitol Hill?
should not condemn these souls.
Every online website and cable news network from Time Magazine to CNBC has shared their own lists of the best and worst celebrity scandals or ideas of the last decade. And now I am going to give you my rundown of the lessons that I have learned since the year 2000. I still cannot believe it has been ten years already since the start of the twenty-first century. I am getting old.
1. Don't Fuck With The Terrorists: I apologize for using the f word, but I had to. With 9/11, this recent attempted Christmas bombing of a commercial airplane heading to Detroit, and the Fort Hood massacre still lingers in the hearts and minds of the American public, I do not want to be in the way of their plans for mass destruction and terrorism. And I am not only talking about Islamic fundamentalists.
I am talking about the seemingly liberal media, government agencies, and other American institutions that continues to undermine the potential and progression of the American people. Not all media people are terrorists. I love NYMag.com, Huffington Post, and other online blogs and websites. But I know when to draw a line between the facts and sensationalism. So do not screw with the terrorists. Learn to overcome their campaigns of fear the best way you can. The politics of fear is the most destructive weapon of all. I've learned to not take every breaking news with a grain of salt. Take control your life or they will.
2. Douchebags Rule the World: If you have not read my wicked Halloween tale yet, I strongly recommend you read it. Douchebags rule the world basically. Jon Gosselin thinks he is a living, breathing male god who is now rumored to have lied about a home invasion only to get publicity. He is a douchebag because he has not grown up to support his eight children. A douchebag would not allow his children to be on television in the first place.
A doucebag could be the nice neighbor, your ex, your psychopathic brother or even you. Stars like Kanye West, Richard Heenes, the White House Crashers, Dave Letterman, Charlie Sheen, and Tiger Woods are just the high-profile ones. The list goes on and on. You can take a douche bag out of Hollywood but you cannot take Hollywood out of the douche bag. The last of the most intelligent people on Earth should reclaim the planet from these people or by December 21, 2012, the world might come to an end. So when you write your New Years Resolutions people, please promise me to either convert the douche bags in your life to reasonable human beings or ignore them altogether.
3. Technology Has Redeemed Itself from the Dark Ages: With the highly-anticipated Google Nexus and the Apple Tablet coming out next year, I am glad that I do not have to use floppy disks and CDs anymore. I am glad that 2010 will bring us closer to the science fiction days of our childhood pasts. I am glad that we are a step closer to artificial intelligence and Star Wars technology. Did anyone notice that in one of my Tech Diva 2010 Prediction post, I predicted that Apple will come up with a new invention before I even knew that Apple was going to premiere the "Apple Tablet" sometime next month to the public. Haha, I'm good. So, Facebook and YouTube are in. Goodbye 20th century garbage. 21st century technology is our future.
4. Celebrity Deaths Are Overrated: This decade will forever be known as the decade of the Greats. Michael Jackson, Brittany Murphy, Heath Ledger and Anna Nicole Smith all die due to reported drug overdoses and/or long histories of drug addiction. I still remember the day when I heard about MJ's untimely death. I just did not believe it because it's Michael Jackson we are talking about. The Michael Jackson. But there should be a line between at least a few days news coverage to about a year's worth of untrue stories, fabricated truths, and millions of dollars of unnecessary publicity. Talk about the missing children of this world. I do not want to watch six months worth of the reasons why or maybe why Anne Nicole Smith died. There are other important things that matter to me. End of story.
So before you browse a newspaper or a popular search engine for information, activate your common sense and take yourself on a wild goose chase.
2009 was a very big year for pretty much anything from scandals, the inauguration of this country's first African-American president to the death of the King of Pop and the recently deceased Hollywood actress Brittany Murphy. So as I was planning on Christmas content for this blog, I decided what an unique way to celebrate the holidays and close a year of mayhem by remixing "The Twelve Days of Christmas" my way. It goes a little something like this:
Nothing like this.
Like the rest of this country.
(Guitar plays faster)
And shook hands with President Obama.
They crashed the White House, no small feat.
Creating all this unnecessary drama.
Exposed our lack of national intelligence
Last night, I was one of those eagered Americans to watch President Obama speak in front of over 4,000 extremely talented West Point undergraduates on CNN. His announcement of positioning 30,000 more American troops into Afghanistan puzzled me. During his presidential campaign last year, he promised to bring the troops home as soon as he was elected into office. Now that he is our president, I guess President Obama has matured and now comprehends that the issue at hand was not as transparent as he thought.
I personally feel that as an American, the victims and the heroes, who risked their own lives to save others during the 9/11 terrorist attacks, should not be forgotten. I am a fighter but a person of peace. If war is one of the only ways to stop the 9/11 masterminds from attacking the United States, so let it be. However, I feel that under President Bush's leadership, we have been deluded from the real war in Afghanistan. Eight years later, we are now thinking about the real war, not Iraq. Although, I think President Obama has changed his foreign policy on the war on terrorism, I am still optimistic that he will successfully bring our troops back home within the next eighteen months.
What do you think about his deliberated decision? If you were president, what would have you done differently?
Oh my god. I know everyone knows about the two deadly shootings at Fort Hood and in Florida this past week. My condolences goes to the victims' and alleged killers' families. With the war and the high unemployment rate in this country, the stress is very overwhelming. Remember the LAC Review I had written earlier last week? Does anyone see that the plot of that movie, which was a man exposing the fallacies of the American justice system, taken literally in the real world context? We just had two apparently American "law abiding citizens" commit acts of murders and bloodshed on our nation's soil. Their motives are still unclear to the rest of us, but what I do see a pattern.
We have actual people that are releasing their frustrations and depression into dangerous ways as they are influenced by social factors such as family issues, joblessness, separation of religion and state, discrimination, and the Iraqi and Afghan/Iraqi wars. I am surprised that something that I had thought was possible actually happened right before our very eyes. Maybe Hollywood movies are worth watching these days. Just a rule of thumb.
Anyway, I want to leave you this Friday with something special and inspirational in these times of need and desperation. I found this video from the Huffington Post. The video surfaced around April on YouTube, but I haven't heard about it until yesterday morning. I shed a tear watching it. It totally changed my line of thinking.
I said earlier in October that when I talk about politics on my blog, I try to be as open-minded as possible. So, leave your political and religious views aside as you watch this video. WWII veteran Phillip Spooner spoke at a gay rights testimonial for Maine's Marriage Equality Bill. Mr. Spooner fought for this country at a time when racism and Antisemitism not only ran rampant in the United States, but across the world. He, like millions of U.S military veterans and soldiers are the true patriots. Mr. Spooner is a proud Republican but supports gay marriage. Yes, a Republican who supports the ideology that gay people can get marry with the same benefits as married heterosexual couples. Isn't it a breath of fresh air? It surely is and I have never been better.I am not going to ruin the whole video for my readers, but I will say is that Mr. Snooper, despite how many players (I won't say names) within the Republican party have defined themselves, believes that all people are created equal.
Mr. Snooper, I salute you on your outstanding courage and understanding that when fighting for your nation on a global scale, we should care about the character of each solider in combat, not his or her sexual orientation, gender, race, religion, or creed. You are a treasure and a shining light for those who are hopeful and optimistic of a better America. In a previous post, I said that one of my pet peeves is hypocrisy and for discriminated soldiers to risk their lives for a nation where people judged them by their gender identities or cultural backgrounds is highly pathetic in my opinion. So my message to this country is cut the bullcrap and start loving one another. Listen to his story below.
1. The United States just elected its first black president. If you haven't noticed this even if you are not an American, remember that there wasn't a black president until 2008. There were 42 white presidents before him.
2. Wow, we just elected our first black president. Hooray! Racism is so over! We are free at last! If you follow this philosophy, where have you been these past 500 years?! Many political figures are spreading anti-Obama hate all across the country. This post-November election world is bombarded with people who do not think that Obama is an American citizen because his father was Kenyan and that he is spreading his socialist ideology to every facet of our society, including our children. Let just say the 2008 presidential elections brought the racists out of the closet.
3. There is always this misconception that France, Great Britain, and other European nations are more racially-tolerated because slavery ended in those countries way before slavery ended in the United States in 1865. But is there is a black or non-white British prime minister? No. I admire French culture, especially its intellectualism. Famous African-Americans in the late nineteenth century such as W.E.B DuBois left the U.S to France because France was more accepting of racial minorities than the land of the free. Fast forward to 2009. Paris has a strong, present North-African immigrant population. Algeria was a former French colony. Yet, they live in the poorest Parisian neighborhoods around. Secondly, France has more strict immigrant and assimilation laws than the United States. So, I am not surprised if these people are having a harder time being accepted into modern French society because they also discriminated based on their ethnical backgrounds.5. There were NO women of color in this French Vogue issue.
6. Fashion has a long history of not accepting models who do not go by the industry's standard beauty qualifications.
7. Did I forget anything?
Although, French fashion is art, I think it is best to be fresh and creative in other ways. Unless, magazine publications want drama and controversy added to their resumes. Maybe, just maybe, the editors and photographers were not thinking about blackface in the context of the colonialist history. Maybe there were challenging our traditional notions of "race" and "racism". But, people have to be more careful and considerate of the current state of race politics in the United States and in other countries. The United States is not the only country with this problem. Trust me.
I named my Blogger username after this new emerging pop diva. Lady Gaga. She has taken the world by storm and here are the reasons why I admire her:
2. She is now a gay activist. Now, I do not want to start a whole "Holy Bible, gay marriage" blog post because I understand that many people do not share my opinions on gay marriage and I do not want to create a partisan, one-dimensional online platform. But, I would say that is that I admire someone who values human rights for every person on this earth and values that people should fight for those rights regardless of race (I detest that word but that is another story), sexual orientation, religion, political affiliation, and gender. If all people were treated with dignity and respect, this world would be in a much better place in the long run. Watch Lady Gaga speak in front thousands of gay activists at Sunday's National Equality March in Washington D.C. I do not think she did this for the publicity. She participated in the NYC gay community years before she went mainstream.
3. I love her music. It's pop music at its prime. But some of her songs especially her smash hit, Papparazzi discusses the recuperations of fame and fortune in a time when people value it more than their own lives. It's pop music with actual meaning to it. Her music gets you in the mood for dancing around your room without the care of the world, but her music comes straight from her heart. Issues of bisexuality, love, and fame came up in her debut album, The Fame.
4. She is not afraid to be herself. Critics say she overdoes it with her fashion picks on the red carpet (did you see her multiple outfits at this year's VMAs?!?!) , but is that relevant? Her role models are Andy Warhol, Prince, and Micheal Jackson, so she's in good company. Although, I like her feistiness and her power to resist the traditional social modes of femininity, she will inevitably become another social label. People will try to define her persona without knowing the real her and it is quite unfortunate. She does not care about the critics and that is why I like that about her.I think she will overcome that hurtle, you know. Let the critics say whatever they have to say about her and she will just ignore them. Hate and envy comes with the territory with being an entertainer in this industry. But I think bad criticism should not deny someone from pursuing his/her dreams. You only have one life to live, you know.
I voted my first time in the 2008 November presidential elections. I voted for you and I could never be happier. But, when I found out that you won the Nobel Peace Prize yesterday afternoon, I was a bit puzzled. You have done a tremendous job on changing America's global image overseas, but now is the time to act on your principles and promises from your presidential campaign. Be more aggressive on passing health care, gay rights, and Iraq/Afghanistan measures. No more gregarious talk. We need action.
I salute you for your diplomacy and maturity as a president. I have not seen that in years, but now is the time for change. You promised change. I want it. So, with your prestigious prize and your big speech to the Human Rights Campaign tonight in Washington, D.C, please promise the changes that this country needs to survive in this recession. For all Americans; Democrats, Republicans, Liberals, Independents, Communists, Libertarians, Socialists, non-believers, pessimists, optimists, rich, poor, alike. I believe in you.
Sincerely,
Lady Mel
