Prof. Tobe Johnson's celebration of life #Morehouse

I didn't get to watch the livestream of Prof. Tobe Johnson's memorial service which was held on campus this past Friday. So for those of you who are part of the Morehouse community and certainly those of you who may have been his students in the political science department I'm sharing this with you if you just so happened to have missed this.

Although I said enough #Cubs posts...

Sloopin has a post about the championship rally for the Cubs last Friday. An estimated 5 million came to Chicago to see the parade and the rally in downtown Chicago. The 7th largest gathering of humans in the world. A lot of people have been waiting to see the unthinkable - a Cubs world series championship.

Consider this a mental break while we wait for more states to be called in this presidential election. There has been some interesting results, I was never sure what was going to happen but the results was never what was expected.

Ward Room: Pride Parade a Who's Who in Illinois Politics

While I didn't actually go to this event on Chicago's North Side there were many who were on their way to these festivities Sunday morning on the CTA. I'm starting to view this as just another party, however, it appears to be a very crucial party. Ward Room noted the many politicians who were present for this.

One of those politicians were actually a Republican, that person being current State Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka. She was listed as a "gay icon" for some reason but she was the only Republican spotted at the parade. It's possible any other Republicans there weren't recognized well enough for it to matter. Come to think of it, when it comes to gay marriage in Illinois there were some Republican supporters it's a bit surprising that some of them didn't attend this parade or at least weren't spotted there.

Also let's not forget that there's an election coming up in 2014. So the Pride Parade was one event where an aspiring politician might want to get their name out there and hopefully gain some voters. Some of the other politicans on the list would certainly explain that such as Gov. Pat Quinn who may well go down for the count next year as his record as Governor still leaves a lot to be desired. Also a downstate politician State Sen. Mike Freirichs also attended away from his hometown of Champaign, IL who wants to run for State Treasurer.

You know I think I should keep an eye for such a post when it's time for the Bud Billiken Parade. Who might come out for a back-to-school parade that is also another party for the Black Community. Will Judy Baar Topinka bring any other Republicans with here to the Billiken in August?

#ImagineMorehouse: An on-campus forum

Well if I had still been a student at Morehouse I probably could make this event on campus. Of course there are others who have responded to this drive for the college to be a "Thought Leader". I will have to support this in spirit, even if Imar Hutchins wrote a comment in one of my Morehouse posts encouraging me to attend. If you're on FB, then you can certainly RSVP if you would like to attend.

Sooo, the Chicago GOP marched in the recent Bud Billiken Parade

Really now? The Billiken Parade is an ongoing Chicago tradition started by the Chicago Defender, a prominent Black newspaper and it's a back-to-school parade. Historically politicians have marched in this parade primarily to be seen whether Republican or Democrat.

Recently I discovered a post at the Chicago GOP's official website and they share a link to an album of nine photos. They contains scenes of the parade and then other pics are of other GOP committeemen and GOP candidates for office. In fact one pic are of children holding up nail files for Republican state treasurer Dan Rutherford.

BTW, the pic above are of two GOP committemen Adam Robinson on the right and Percy Coleman on the left.

ALSO, in future I suggest the city's GOP hire a professional photographer to take more pictures of these events also identify who's who when they upland and save the mobile phone pics for a Twitter pic or a Facebook post.

Negroes with Guns - A documentary

[VIDEO] I tweeted about being at ICE Theaters when I saw The Dark Knight Rises one night. Early next month well August 1st at their Lawndale cineplex and then August 2nd at their Chatham location they will show a documentary about Robert F. Williams entitled Negroes with Guns: Rob Williams and Black Power as part of their monthly Black World Cinema series.

While in general the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s were often portrayed as non-violent - even when they were attacked by a power structure that sought to keep the movement from succeeding - there are those activists who were at odds with the movement. It seems people like J. Edgar Hoover back then wanted to talk Williams in the same vein as Malcolm X or even Dr. King. Now I wonder how many people know who Williams is.

This ought to be something worth watching and it was also noted at the blog Concerned Citizens of Chatham.

NATO in Chicago...

This past weekend the highly anticipated NATO summit arrived in Chicago. If you've been following my Twitter feed @levois you saw a lot of retweets about a clash between police and the Black Bloc on Cermak Rd. Quite a few injuries no loss of life and Garry McCarthy our superintendent was right in the thick of the action.

Anyway aside from not paying a whole lot of attention to anything involving this summit - and inexcusable since I was a political science major - sooner or later John Schmidt at his WBEZ blog would discuss the one time Chicago was considered as a permanent home for the United Nations. It was a possibility over 60 years ago and it didn't come to pass. One case for this however:

The war had been over less than six months, and much of Europe was still devastated and poor. UN officials were frankly worried about the high cost of living in the United States. That was one area where Chicago had an advantage over other American sites.

“We impressed on these people that they can get more for their money in Chicago,” labor leader William McFetridge said. Housing, food, recreation, and education were cheaper than in any of the other cities. Foreign diplomats could live very well in the Windy City.

Adlai Stevenson, an up-and-coming Chicago lawyer, was then serving in London as deputy U.S. delegate to the UN. Stevenson wanted to get into politics. Helping make Chicago the Capital of the World would also help young Adlai’s career.

And I'm sure other cities around the nation would have a leg up on Chicago in this area. BTW, how many people think that Chicago will at some point turn into another New York City?

Anyway other posts of interest from Schmidt and they're all about the settlement from those NATO nations in my fair city:

• How the NATO peoples helped settle Chicago, Part 1
• How the NATO peoples helped settle Chicago, Part 2 
• How the NATO peoples helped settle Chicago, Part 3

Soon Chicago will play host to NATO...

And from Althouse we already see a potential conspiracy theory coming about. It seems there is an expection of trouble coming to Chicago next month when NATO comes to town. Took a quote from our local CBS affiliate:

CBS 2 News has obtained a copy of a Red Cross e-mail sent to volunteers in the Milwaukee area.

It said the NATO summit “may create unrest or another national security incident. The American Red Cross in southeastern Wisconsin has been asked to place a number of shelters on standby in the event of evacuation of Chicago.”

According to a chapter spokesperson, the evacuation plan is not theirs alone.

“Our direction has come from the City of Chicago and the Secret Service,” she said.

Officials at Chicago’s Office of Emergency Management and Communication said the directive did not come from them.

The U.S. Secret Service did not return calls for comment.

Within the past week or two there were helicopters engaging in maneuvers just in time for the NATO summit. It was unsettling to be sure but hey they got to do what they got to do to protect the summit.

Althouse is asking why the evacuation plan isn't bigger news. In talking about the Secret Service she had to bring up the prostitutes scandal. I'm sure someone is asking if they even fool with American prostitutes. My apologies to those agents who aren't involved with that activity!

She even connects it to the coming recall election in Wisconsin. Chicago residents are expected to be evacuated to Milwaukee. Thankfully there is an ID law for registered voters there.

Anyway, not sure what to make of all this!

LA Riots Then & Now

L.A. ablaze in '92. Source link

Until seeing this article Thursday via Instapundit it hadn't occured to me that we have just about reached the 20th anniversary of the rioting that took place in Los Angeles back in 1992. The unrest occured in light of the acquittal of police officers in the police brutality of Rodney King.

This piece shows the photojournalist work of Ted Soqui. He was taking shots of the rioting around LA during the event and those images are combined with shots of those sames scenes today in a much more peaceful era. It seems to those who live it race relations and relations between police and civilians are much better today. Let's hope so we should live without riots!

I have to excerpt something from this!

The California Economic Development Department had at the time painted a bleak picture of L.A.'s labor market as "experiencing one of the most severe recessions of the postwar era." Between April 1991 and April 1992, 108,000 local jobs vanished. Black and Latino communities were hard hit, with a combined 29.7 percent in poverty and more than 13 percent unemployed.

Perhaps worse, L.A. was in the throes of a vicious era of street violence, and a years-long bloodbath was unfolding in U.S. cities. Driven by armed gangbangers and violent crack and PCP dealers, the mayhem in L.A. produced 1,025 murders in 1991 and 1,092 in 1992 (there were 612 in 2011). It wasn't safe to walk in South L.A. in the afternoon - that's when armed teenagers got out of school.

The aging mayor, Tom Bradley, widely seen as tired and burned out, nevertheless worked hard with top business leaders after the riots to create Rebuild Los Angeles, a group that hoped to lure billions of dollars of corporate investment to South L.A., the worst-hit area.

Few of Rebuild L.A.'s plans came to be, but its most clear achievement was that it managed to clear away the vast, depressing rubble left by hundreds of destroyed buildings. The biggest private success story was thanks to Lakers basketball star Earvin "Magic" Johnson, who in 1995 built a movie theater complex in South L.A.

It wasn't just businesses and investors who rejected South L.A. after the riots. As L.A. Weekly reported in 1993, black families ramped up the "black flight" from L.A. that had started in the previous decade. Some 56,000 African-Americans fled L.A. between 1980 and 1990. Cal State Northridge researchers found that the exodus was driven by racial displacement - the mass movement of mostly illegal Latino immigrants into the city's affordable black neighborhoods.

After the riots, between 1992 and 2007, the city's black population dropped by 123,000, as households left for the Inland Empire, close-in suburbs and even for family hometowns in the Deep South. They were running, and being pushed: The city's Latino population grew by more than 450,000 in those years.

With that in mind while LA is a different place today than it was in 1992, it seems some of the areas hardest hit by the rioting is still stuggling.

Still this is a good read and check out the images. I hated to see the burning city, but it was interesting to see those very same sights today. Things have changes but by how much?

Went to see the Morehouse Glee Club last night

Glee Club and Morehouse Alumni sing college hymn on stage

It hits me that 2011 and 2012 marks a milestone in my own personal history with Morehouse College. In 2001, I was accepted to Morehouse for the first time and Spring 2002 marked my first semester there. Back then I was talking a good game about supporting Morehouse, however, I have yet to put my money where my mouth is.

Anyway it's been 10 years since my acceptance and my first semester there. And of course after dropping out for a year and half due to money and it took me some time to finally graduate from Morehouse. I can't believe that it's been that long already. Where has the time gone?

Last night, I saw current Men of Morehouse perform at the Harris Theater. The Morehouse Glee Club came to Chicago and performed and impressed a lot of people who never got to see the Glee Club perform. This is the first concert I've been to involving the Glee Club. They often performed at college functions such as crown forums or even baccalaureate and commencement. Sometimes they perform at events such as that for the King Memorial.

Believe it or not, I hadn't planned on going. My mother just decided this was something she wanted to do and she had tickets through her job so we went last night. It was a great performance and say what you will about them the Glee Club has talent.

Here's an example of what they perform. They performed this very song last night in fact, "Betelehemu" [VIDEO]

This has encouraged my mother to support schools like Morehouse College. She may give a donation in the future and I would also be interested as well although I've yet to find a "Morehouse Man job". Also I have other goals as a function of being a Morehouse Man that I think would be valuable but I'll save that for another post.

10 years!

I wanted to sit on this. This column from Christopher Hitchens was posted at Instapundit on Labor Day. What I will excerpt is appropriate on this day. This will be today's 9/11 and again this year my goal is to stay away from any programming that shows any footage from that day!

To me, this remains the main point about al-Qaida and its surrogates. I do not believe, by stipulating it as the main point, that I try to oversimplify matters. I feel no need to show off or to think of something novel to say. Moreover, many of the attempts to introduce "complexity" into the picture strike me as half-baked obfuscations or distractions. These range from the irredeemably paranoid and contemptible efforts[MN1] to pin responsibility for the attacks onto the Bush administration or the Jews, to the sometimes wearisome but not necessarily untrue insistence that Islamic peoples have suffered oppression. (Even when formally true, the latter must simply not be used as nonsequitur special pleading for the use of random violence by self-appointed Muslims.)

Underlying these and other attempts to change the subject there was, and still is, a perverse desire to say that the 9/11 atrocities were in some way deserved, or made historically more explicable, by the many crimes of past American foreign policy. Either that, or—to recall the contemporary comments of the "Reverends" Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson—a punishment from heaven for American sinfulness. (The two ways of thinking, one of them ostensibly "left" and the other "right," are in fact more or less identical.) That this was an assault upon our society, whatever its ostensible capitalist and militarist "targets," was again thought too obvious a point for a clever person to make. It became increasingly obvious, though, with every successive nihilistic attack on London, Madrid, Istanbul, Baghdad, and Bali. There was always some "intellectual," however, to argue in each case that the policy of Tony Blair, or George Bush, or the Spanish government, was the "root cause" of the broad-daylight slaughter of civilians. Responsibility, somehow, never lay squarely with the perpetrators.

And this is what should be upsetting. No one deserved this massacre. Even if you had grievances against this policy or that policy it doesn't justify this act of terror. Let's not lose sight of this!

I suggest you read the whole piece Hitchens latches onto a number of subjects in this column. I don't want to find myself posting more than necessary!

“Jobs Bash” Party Planned Across Street From Obama’s Chicago Birthday Bash

Uptown Update blog has been talking about this Presidential event for a month almost. The long suffering Uptown neighborhood of Chicago is celebrating because at least for a brief time the neighborhood will be the safest place on Earth. That will also mean hopefully that it'll be a safe place to hold a rally that protests the President:

Activists Plan to Counter Obama’s Re-Election Fundraiser in Chicago

WHAT:President Obama plans to celebrate his big 50th birthday this Wednesday at the historic Aragon ballroom on Chicago’s north side with additional satellite fundraisers being held around the country. But the President may be in for another unexpected surprise: A “Jobs Bash” just steps away from the upscale fete in his honor.

On Sunday’s premiere of “The Victory Sessions” with Stephen Bannon on TalkRadio 790 KABC and streamed live with Larry O’Connor, editor-in-chief of Breitbart.tv , “Tea Party Report” contributor William J. Kelly issued a call for people - conservative, independent, and tea party supporters and leaders - to come to Chicago for the President’s birthday and have a “jobs bash” of their own.

“Barack Obama is only concerned about one job and that is his own. He is in town for a birthday fundraiser after sending a debt limit deathblow to American businesses,” said Kelly.

To that end, Kelly is helping to organize the first Tea Party “Jobs Bash: 2011.” He is calling on the unemployed and the underemployed to come out and bring their resumes and business cards to “Job Bash 2011” and call on the President to own up to the high U.S. unemployment figures – currently at 9.2 %.

WHERE: The Green Mill (across from the Aragon Ballroom)
4802 North Broadway Street
Chicago, Illinois

WHEN: Wednesday, August 3, 2011 -- Jobs Bash" reception begins at 3pm.

CONTACT: Call Bill Kelly at (312) 217-4623. For details, watch www.kellytruthsquad.com

Perhaps the Uptown Update blog will have some updates on any protests against the President in addition to how the neighborhood fares on the world stage!

Via Gateway Pundit with a hat-tip to Instapundit!

Rich Miller on the recent Right Nation rally

Took place yesterday in Hoffman Estates, IL at the Sears Center. Rich Miller at The Capitol Fax offers his observations on the event (well he didn't attend) with regards to Andrew Breitbart, Glenn Beck, even state Sen. Bill Brady who spoke at the event. Brady is the GOP nominee for Governor.

'Transformers' Filming Moving to Gary, Ind.

I've seen hints of this all over downtown, even as recently as yesterday near Union Station. Got caught up in heaving traffic leaving that part of the city. I wonder if Gary could use some of this attention:

Gary's Board of Public Works and Safety agreed to let DW Studios Productions and Paramount Pictures film "Transformers 3" on property owned by Majestic Star Casino and at the publicly owned City Methodist Church at West 6th Avenue and Washington Street.

The filming will take place as early as next week but no later than Aug. 23, officials said. Al Cohn, location manager for DW Studios, said the filming dates depend on the movie's filming schedule and that of director Michael Bay.

Crews have spent weeks filming the movie in downtown Chicago, creating scenes of devastation on Michigan Avenue and Wacker Drive. According to an agreement read by Controller Celita Green, pyrotechnics and gunfire can be expected during the shoot in Gary.

DW and Paramount were also given permission to shoot a scene for "Transformers 3" in April at the former Lehigh cement plant owned by Majestic Star. Ben Clement, Gary's director of film and television, said the crew will also return to that location this month.

While the shoot in April was supposed to include a crew of 60 people, this month's shoot will include a crew of 150. Gary's public safety staff will be compensated for any time spent helping with the shoot, according to the agreement. The city also received a check for $1,550 in filming fees.

I'm sure this childhood favorite (this isn't exactly my childhood favorite so don't consider me first in line to watch) will excite many people whether or not they live in Gary or Chicago.

There is a tea party rally in Chicago today

According to Chicago Breaking News it is to be held at Daley Plaza which is bounded by Dearborn on the east, Washington to the south, and Clark to the west.

BTW, check out the comments at the Breaking News site. They are getting quite nasty towards the tea partiers!

On the day that federal tax returns are due, the tea party movement arrives in Chicago's Daley plaza at noon today with thousands expected to show up.

The National Tea Party Federation, a newly formed coalition of regional tea party groups, estimates that between 1,700 and 2,000 tax day rallies will occur today around the country. Sensitive that poor public perception could sink their movement, some rally planners have disinvited controversial speakers, beefed up security and urged participants to pack cameras and capture evidence of disrupters, according to the Associated Press.

Chicago tea party coordinator Steve Stevlic says today's rally reflects a "powerful movement of regular American. People no longer view Congress or this administration as governing with their consent or within the framework of the U.S. Constitution."

I get the sense today that people are plenty who are upset about what's going on in Washington since Obama became President. What a fitting thing to have a tea party rally right here in his adopted hometown. Of course I wonder how much support amongst Chicago residents. Well overtime I learned not to be so optimistic about that.

The tea partiers are facing opposition to them enough where they may be called racist. We saw that when that health care law breezed through Congress last month. If this is what the party in power is doing obviously there is some concern about the potency of this movement which seems to want to bring this nation back to the ideas of our founding fathers.

BTW, there may be some party crashers amongst the tea partiers today. Ann Althouse has this post up regarding ways to defeat those who seek to make fools of the tea party movement.

Chicago Football Classic history through past game programs

I've got several programs from past games. The first past game I found dates back to September 11, 1993. It's amazing that I really don't remember going to this game or what exactly happened but I have the program from it. What I choose to focus on is the politicians who extend either greetings or proclamations.

For instance then Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar (Republican) paid repsects to HBCUs Jackson State University & Tennessee State University.

In 2000, a Governor was missing. That's right George Ryan (Republican) never did a greeting or a proclamation in honor of the Chicago Football Classic. Who knows, in spite of placing a moratorium on the death penalty during his tenure or even commuting all death row sentences, it probably could have helped him way back when. Republican or Democrat this is certainly a way to reach out to an important voting block.

As always however Mayor Daley has offered his words in 1993, 2000, and especially 2009.

1993

2000

2009

Not only has he extended greetings to the participating schools in the Chicago Football Classic but he's been named honorary chairman of this event and documented also in the programs from the game in 2000 & 2009.

This first scan lists the organizers of the 2000 Chicago Football Classic. This list includes prominent black businesspeople, media, financial supporters, event coordination and special thanks to the Chicago Public Schools. And look at the end of the list with a mention of Sen. Emil Jones Jr. and John Stroger.

This is merely a letter from 2009 and it specifically names Daley and honorary chair of the 2009 Chicago Football Classic.

Now going back to an Illinois Governor offering his words regarding the Chicago Football Classic Pat Quinn (Democrat) offers his words. Knowing that this event goes back beyond twelve years I thought Pat Quinn got this one wrong although the current incarnation was probably around that long.

Finally let's check out father and son who also have served at Cook County Board President and their comments on this game from 2000 & 2009 respectively.

To note both John and Todd have actually attended HBCUs, in fact they're graduates of Xavier University in New Orleans, Louisiana.

To note well you might have seen this in the various greetings/proclamations but this game is used to promote HBCUs and generally is a way to expose them to inner city public school students. Some adults may have attended HBCUs and perhaps this may be their way of supporting them.

Either way last Saturday's game between Mississippi Valley State and Alabama State Universities was won my Mississippi Valley 10 to 3. Watching the bands play at the end was nice as well.

EDIT: I forgot to note Rod Blagojevich. I went to a game in 2005, but I never got a program and that was after maybe a four or so year break due to the reconstruction of Soldier Field. Either way I have no way of knowing of Ousted governor had at all ever wrote a proclamation/greeting in honor of this event.

First post as a Morehouse Man

Posting has been sporadic since I left Chicago Friday night for graduation weekend at Morehouse. I just retured this morning has some Soul Queen for dinner and have just attempted to deprogram from the ride to and from Atlanta and from the festivities. I still haven't gotten some of the sights and sounds from my mind. It will subside, but I'm glad it's over.

I got my degree, but I hope to be back one day. A pipe dream, perhaps I can teach as I never imagined seeing black people in academic regalia. It's something that should cause many to want to work hard and eventually get to those heights of Ph.D's. If not they'll prolly be content with going to a elite and prestigious instituion.

BTW, my graduation was noted by John Ruberry who noted that President Obama was at Notre Dame the same day of my graduation. Obama was having something of a tough time at South Bend, Indiana as there were many who took issue with his stances on abortion.

But then what John Ruberry doesn't know that Morehouse was in the running to get President Obama to speak at our commencement.It didn't happen of course and we were briefed on the fact that since Obama is President the Secret Service will take great pains to protect him going so far as to account for every person who attends graduation. Perhaps even make the atmosphere less intimate as it felt during the whole ceremony.

Instead we had as our speakers Dr. Henry Louis Gates and actress Cicely Tyson. In fact at the baccalaureate service the afternoon before I was just across the aisle from her. Tyson got back into the role of Miss Jane Pittman in her message to the 2009 graduates of Morehouse College starting with the line "people need someone to lead them".

BTW, I really like Dr. Gates' academic headgear. It almost looks like some pimp gear except not as flashy although it could be possible that pimp hats may have been based of that hat. I'm working on the assumption that academic regalia originated during the Renaissance era.

Anyway the experience has been nothing less than inspiring especially for those who didn't make academic honors. Now to the charge of "your house at your service". Can't wait!

PS, I wish I had thought to alert you that my commencement was broadcast live on the internet. You would have seen and heard my full name for the first time as it's never actually been broadcast on this blog.

ALSO, if President Obama had been able to speak at Morehouse (in fact Morehouse seen on ABC and BBC on election night) it would have only meant an uptick in donations. Well according to those faculty who were close to this matter and probably have observed what Presidential commencement speeches have caused to many universities around the nation. Dr. Robert Franklin, President of Morehouse also noted that he was the first president of Morehouse to say that the President of the United States looks like you.

My baccalaureate service was today

It's a religious ceremony that immediately precedes my actual commencement on Sunday. This is a ceremony that is described as religious in nature with symbols of Jesus all about with either a picture of his body on a cross or (something I learned in my very last semester at Morehouse) his initials in Greek. An interesting highlight was a chant by a Bhuddist. It was somewhat confusing and different and it seemed to go on forever. It wasn't like it took too long but it seemed like he was repeating himself once too often until he slowed down indicating that he was finishing, finally.

Our speaker was a pastor from Los Angeles, CA billed as a minister to the stars. Well Los Angeles is largely home to the entertainment industry, it's bound to happen and even those stars needs some spiritual guidance.

Well typically I don't often like to listen to preachers. There are various reasons for this, perhaps I just hear the preaching style so often that I'm not always impressed. Of course that doesn't mean he didn't have a good message.

Morehouse Men will make up only part of 18% of black people with degrees. This may include anyone who goes to an HBCU especially since Spelman and Clark Atlanta are in the same area. If you really break up the numbers then also of concern are those who don't graduate within 4 to 6 years. Especially tracked if you're an alumni of the Chicago Public Schools.

His point may well have been that we're a rare breed even now, especially the fact that we as black people, well nevermind being black males since we're hard to find on our nation's college campuses, are truly a rare breed. Unfortunate but surely there are many reasons for this such as little or no support from friends or family, going to bad schools that fail to prepare them for that step, or it's even financial. That is worth some academic study as well.

Our baccalaureate speaker, himself a grad from the AUC as an alumna from ITC, mentioned the plight of Africa talked up President Obama as setting the standard for leadership and humanitarianism. He sees our role as "African-Americans" to become to our "ancestral homeland" what the Jewish people are to Israel. No one disagrees with that as Africa isn't often protrayed as being in good shape. However perhaps we can do things to be sure that African nations can become participants in the 21st Century world with a free people who are able to cast a ballot without fear of retribution or perhaps even not as a slave to the former colonizers. They probably are to some extent.

Anyway it was a very nice service that I had today. Would I have gotten this on any other university? I feel like I wouldn't have, but the end is near. Finally.

You know I started this blog as a student and now where can this blog go now that I'm no longer a student here. Well I'm now a graduate, a Morehouse Man with all the prestige and priviledge thereof. It was a very long time coming, but I'm glad I'm there.

VloMo08 began yesterday

I just saw this video from Ryanne's Video Blog. She was in Florida petting cows and it's interesting because I never thought of cows as pettable. Almost like an overgrown pet although I never think of cows that way because of their general function. It doesn't need to be said.

Anyway I look forward to this month. Let's see what other video blogs are participating this month.

White Sox welcome Divine Nine to African American Greek Night

If you're a member of either Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, and Iota Phi Theta Fraternity, then this event at "The Cell" is for you. Courtesy of Teesee`s Town:

It promises to be a night of fun – networking, socializing and the thrill and excitement of major league baseball under the stars – when the White Sox welcome “The Divine Nine,” the Black Greek-letter organizations (fraternities and sororities), to U.S. Cellular Field for the first-ever African American Greek Night on Friday.

Opening pitch: 7:11 p.m. The Divine Nine is made up of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, founded in 1906 at Cornell U.; Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, founded in 1908 at Howard U.; Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, founded in 1911 at Indiana U.; Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, founded in 1911 at Howard U.; Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, founded in 1913 at Howard U.; Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, founded in 1914 at Howard U.; Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, founded in 1920 at Howard U.; Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, founded in 1922 at Butler U.; and Iota Phi Theta Fraternity, founded in 1963 at Morgan State U.

Specially priced tickets ($45, bleachers; $35.50, upper reserved) are offered to The Divine Nine members to see the Sox take on the Cleveland Indians. Prior to the game, there’ll be a pre-game party at Gate 1 from 5:30 p.m.–7 p.m. Each ticket includes unlimited drinks (beer, soda, water), a hot dog and a bag of chips–during the pre-game only! Advance sales only! Email Rozzie McHenry at rmchenry@chisox.com for more details and to place your order. Play ball!

This is interesting to note. I've discussed a little about these organizations overtime. Even noted anniversaries that they've had, especially the Alphas, AKAs, or the Deltas.