Hip-Hop Inaugural Events Start TONIGHT (1/14/09)…Ludicras Co-Hosting “Urban Ball”

~~By InsightAnalytical-GRL

Hey, guess what’s starting today??  The first of a week-long series of HIP-HOP Inaugural events!

I happened to get onto this when I visited The Black Agenda Report, saw a graphic and clicked on it.

As it turns out, there are at least TWO hip-hop groups running events.  Tonight, January 14, the “Hip-Hop Caucus…Politics for a New Generation” holds its “kick-off” party.

By Saturday (January 17), the schedule begins to rev up as the Congressional Black Caucus gets involved in a “roundtable” discussion of hip-hop and politics; that evening, Mary J. Blige is featured in a nighttime event.

Hip Hop & Politics Roundtable

Return soon more information, or sign up here for Inauguration updates.  The Source Mind Squad, Chuck D, Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Jr. and Members of the Congressional Black Caucus
Time: 1pm-4pm

Venue: TBD

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Then on the 19th there’s an event to honor MLK  being held in partnership with the Presidential Inaugural Committee….

Mon. Jan 19th

National Day of Service in Honor of Dr. King

In partnership with the Presidential Inaugural Committee the Hip Hop Caucus will organize community service efforts nationally and in Washington, DC.
Return soon more information, or sign up here for Inauguration updates.

There’s also a pricey “scholars” party being held during the week titled “Dreams from My Father” after Obama’s bio mostly made-up life story:

Sun. Jan 18th

“Dreams from My Father” American Scholars Inaugural Ball @ The “5 Diamond” Four Seasons Hotel in Georgetown

Hosted By the National Intellectual Property Institute, the Hip Hop Caucus, Dave & Ray Ent., with The Source Magazine Time: 8pm – 2am Cost: Doctorate Level – $550 ($1000 for Couples) | Graduate Level – $350 ($600 for Couples) | Bachelor Level – Student Discounts Available (visit www.americanscholarsball.org) Venue Address: 2800 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington, DC 20007

Then there’s THIS action being held by another Hip-Hop organization: the Hip-Hop Inaugural Ball.

The event has big name sponsors, Heineken and Hip-Hop Summit Action Network. HSAN’s mission statement:

Mission Statement:

Founded in 2001, the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network (HSAN) is dedicated to harnessing the cultural relevance of Hip-Hop music to serve as a catalyst for education advocacy and other societal concerns fundamental to the empowerment of youth. HSAN is a non-profit, non-partisan national coalition of Hip-Hop artists, entertainment industry leaders, education advocates, civil rights proponents, and youth leaders united in the belief that Hip-Hop is an enormously influential agent for social change which must be responsibly and proactively utilized to fight the war on poverty and injustice.

(“Social change”–like we’ve seen in Ludacris’ enlightened view of women??)

This event has big ticket prices, too…The “cheap” seats at $250 are sold out, but tickets at $500, $1000 General) , and $2500 (VIP) are still available!!!  ( I guess the VIPs get to drink more…)

CELEBRATING THE INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA…

(If you can’t see it, the banner reads: ” And the Hip-Hop Community for Inspiring the Transformation of America“)

Now, you might be wondering if Ludacris will be showing up! Oh, yeah, he’ll be in D.C.  Back in December the plans were set to have 2 American Music Inaugural Balls: one will be hosted by Dionne Warwicke (the one for the older crowd) and the other will feature our FAVORITE hip-hopper Ludacris along with OutKast’s Big Boi. From MTV:

On January 20, D.C.’s Marriott Wardman Park Hotel will hold two American Music events. Luda and Big Boi will co-host the Urban Ball, which is reportedly slated to include appearances from David Banner, Bobby Valentino, Lil Jon, T-Pain, Cedric the Entertainer, the Cheetah Girls, Fantasia and Monica. A number of former NBA players will also reportedly be on hand, including Jalen Rose, Kenny Smith and Alonzo Mourning. Tickets for the ball will run you $350. Spokespeople for Luda and Big Boi could not be reached for comment at press time.

The lineup for the Legends Ball, co-hosted by Dionne Warwick and Yolanda Adams, is slated to feature appearances by Chaka Khan, George Clinton, Kirk Franklin, Harold Melvin & Blue Notes, the Temptations with Dennis Edwards, Isaiah Washington and Reggie Miller. Tickets for this event will cost $450.

Here are our guys!!

Big Boi (L) and Ludacris (R)

MTV will be hosting its own ball…

One thing is for sure: MTV will be hosting its own “Be the Change Inaugural Ball,” co-hosted by ServiceNation, to celebrate the massive youth-voter turnout in this year’s presidential election.

I’m getting chills all over, aren’t you?  Somehow, I’m getting the feeling that all this is ONE aspect of the Obama-JFK “connection” made by Caroline Kennedy that is not quite on a par with what Jackie-O would have signed on for.  Ain’t no Pablo Casals in sight…

And what about all those poorer Obama supporters who can’t cough up all the money and/or don’t have “black tie”?  Well, there will be plenty of bars  open, of course. Although the original plan to let bars stay open for extended hours has been scaled back by one hour, there’s a lot of apprehension  about law enforcement personnel being stretched too thin.    You have to wonder if we’re going to see the scary stuff we saw on election night in Philly(see video of Election Night in Philly here).

From the Washington Post:

Inaugural ‘Last Call’ Moved Up

David Nakamura

Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 17, 2008; Page B01

D.C. bars and nightclubs will be allowed to serve alcohol until 4 a.m., not 5 a.m., during inauguration week after the D.C. Council voted last night to modestly scale back the emergency legislation it approved two weeks ago.

Under the revised rules, nightlife establishments will still be allowed to remain open for food service round-the-clock from Jan. 17 to 21.

(SNIP)

Terry Lynch, executive director of the Downtown Cluster of Congregations, an ecumenical association, said his members strongly oppose allowing nightlife establishments to stay open later than normal.

Pointing to recent violence in Adams Morgan, Lynch said: “It just doesn’t make sense, given the situation we’re currently facing. There is a lack adequate police currently, and add to that the overwhelming nature of duties they’re going to face during the inaugural.”

If anything happens in the street on January 20, I doubt you’ll see it.  The “news” organizations are already drunk on Obama and won’t be paying attention to anything that might spoil THEIR ratings party…

Martinis with Michelle–A Times (UK) Writer Jumps the Shark as Palin Helps Block a Senate Super-Majority

~~By InsightAnalytical-GRL

A couple of days ago I happened to spot the post over at PUMA P.A.C. entitled “Worth Repeating” which offers an encore presentation of an odious ode to Hillary “Nutcracker” Clinton.  Fast forward to mid-November and CNN’s obsession with the fashion f*ckups of First ladies  and how Michelle Obama is supposed to be our hope for a First Lady who really knows how to do it RIGHT.

Little did I know that there was something lurking in the archives of The Times (UK) that I had somehow missed in the first days following the election. It was published on November 5th, beating CNN to the punch–of course, I wasn’t thinking correctly in the aftermath of the depressing election and was not really looking for things to make me want to feel even sicker.  And this DOES make me want to vomit as reality has set in and the crap is so completely over-the-top that it makes Lewis Black seem discrete…

November 5, 2008

Michelle Obama: a new type of First Lady

Sarah Vine

That rather sad, muffled noise you hear behind the whoops and cheers of Democrat America is not the sound of defeated neocons mourning the passing of trickle-down economics; it is the sound of sobbing in the Élysée Palace. For Carla Bruni, reigning queen of First Ladies, the game is finally up. Cindy McCain would have been a push-over; even Sarah Palin she could have coped with, sexy specs or otherwise. But in Michelle Obama, Ms Bruni has truly met her match. This is a First Lady like none before.

In truth, from the moment Michelle Obama stepped on to that podium at the Democrat convention what seems like, ooh, about three million years ago, we all secretly knew which way this race was going. Sure, he had big, sticky-out ears; sure, all those luvvies made that embarrassing YouTube song about him; but if Michelle thought that he was OK — if she chose him — then he just had to be a good man.

Everything about this woman speaks to the modern, post-feminist woman: she is manifestly clever, independently minded, attractive in a normal, accessible way (and not in a scary, plastic-fantastic Cindy way). Her demeanour is a reassuring mixture of sassy and self-deprecating; her easy, confident dress sense neither too sexy nor too self-conscious. Most of all, however, she appears to be the personification of sanity, a woman who, while clearly supportive of her husband’s quest for world domination, is nevertheless not afraid to point out when he is danger of drinking too much of his own Kool-Aid.

(SNIP a brief discussion of two types of First Ladies, with Jackie Kennedy being the only style-queen among the bunch)

What makes Michelle unique is the way she so skilfully unites all three: supportive, independent and a fashion icon. Sarah Palin blew £90,000 on her campaign wardrobe but let’s face it, it is that blue shift dress that we all remember.

In the last American election, the big question was this: who would you most want to share a beer with? In this one, it was more like: who would you like to share a Martini with? The answer of course being Michelle. (Barack could maybe make himself useful by popping out for some crisps.) Michelle is not only invigoratingly intelligent, proud of her urbanity, but also unafraid of showing her abilities. She is certainly the only wife of a presidential candidate I can remember who, instead of playing herself down, played up the general uselessness of her husband in matters domestic — and in doing so not only held her ground intellectually but also reached out to all those women who, while devoted to their spouses, also find them slightly useless in matters of sock-tidying.

Perhaps the most exciting thing about Michelle however is what having a woman lawyer like her in the White House means. For it is not often one can go to sleep safe in the knowledge that there is an educated, intelligent, sensible female voice being heard in the corridors of power.

At the 2004 Democrat Convention in Boston, when the unknown Barack Obama stepped up to the plate to deliver the keynote speech, she famously said to him: “Don’t screw it up, buddy.” One cannot help hoping those words were repeated last night.

Well. The writer fell for the Sarah Palin clothes smear and doesn’t seem to remember that Hillary Clinton is a lawyer who lived in the White House. She trashes Cindy McCain and weeps for Carla Bruni.  And I don’t remember that blue shift dress at all, but I sure do recall the “black widow” number from election night.  As for wanting to share a Martini with Michelle…frankly, I don’t drink, but I may start any minute to help numb myself from 4/8 more years of this spew!

So who the hell IS Sarah Vine, anyway? Well, according to her publisher, Penguin Books, she

was born in Wales and raised in Italy. As a child she had a great capacity for reading comics, gossiping and trying on her mother’s shoes, all of which have stood her in excellent stead. She writes for the Times and is married with two children.

Stellar credentials, I guess for this sort of nonsense. She must have a least one daughter, because she’s created a website based on her co-authored book, “The Great Big Glorious Book for Girls.”  There’s a certain Victorian quaintness to this tome.  And is Vine confused as she refers to Michelle Obama as the epitome of the “modern, post-feminist woman”?  I don’t know, it’s seems real weird to me, a pre-post modern feminist.

Let me give you an example from the book. The site includes activity sheets for things like “making pom poms” and “palm reading,” to name a few.

But tucked away in the preview page for “The Great Outdoors” are instructions for falling out of a tree.  But before you get to that information, a girl will have to wade through this:

Falling
Learn to walk before you run; learn to fall before you climb. Knowing how
to fall properly is an art. Done well it is exciting, it looks great, can be very funny – and besides, crutches are such a bore.

Start by perfecting the stage faint, itself an invaluable accomplishment and a
useful exit strategy for all manner of uncomfortable situations (non-completion
of maths homework, getting out of PE, wanting the morning off school). Practise
it on a lawn or in a room with a thick carpet.

Bend your ankles, bend your knees and let yourself go floppy, collapsing
vertically at first, until you start to topple. The trick is to be very loose, very
relaxed, and not to stick out a hand or try to catch yourself; you are supposed to
be unconscious. The aim is to hit the ground from the ground up, so that the bits
nearest the floor land first, softening the impact. A crumple is really what you’re
looking for – first your calf, then your thigh, then your waist, then your shoulder.
For added drama, and to dissipate the impact, you may wish to add a half roll.
Land with your eyes shut (or if you’re feeling really confident, rolled back in
your head). Resist the temptation to open one eye to check the reaction.

I have no words…

Meanwhile, in the much-despised real world of Sarah Palin, the “polarizing bimbo” created by the media, we find that she was down in Georgia on Monday drawing large crowds as she campaigned for Saxby Chambliss in the Georgia Senate run-off election (which Chambliss has won and which blocks a Democratic “super-majority). Apparently, there are some GOP operatives who don’t see her as the “kiss of death” politically and it seems a lot of real people didn’t see it that way either:

Several Republicans have campaigned for Chambliss, including one-time presidential candidates Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney. McCain campaigned in the state last month, but only Palin was tapped for election eve and four Georgia stops, reflecting her star status. Tommy Byler, 22, of Savannah marveled at the size of the crowd Palin drew compared to other top-tier Republicans who have campaigned for Chambliss.

“I went to see Mitt Romney a week ago, and I think there were only about 100 people there,” said Byler, who wore a T-shirt emblazoned with Palin’s face and the words “Sarah Palin Is My Homegirl.”

So, while Michelle Obama practices being “supportive, independent, and a fashion icon,” Sarah keeps soldiering on.  Ah, but can Palin do a stage faint???

A Look at a Chicago-Style Fundraiser for Obama–“Hoes” on the Agenda (UPDATE 1X–AP Picks Up Story & It Is Being Picked Up EVERYWHERE!)

On my blogroll (which seems to be floating to the bottom of the page the last couple of days), you’ll see a link to Lynn Sweet’s blog at the Sun-Times about Chicago politics. Her current entry about last night’s fundraiser is something to read and wonder about.

It’s not inspiring. I’ve always thought Obama himself has very little class and with people like this around him, you can see where he’s picked up some of his attitude.

At Chicago fund-raiser for Obama, a cussing Bernie Mac jokes about “hoes.”

Around 600 people heard Bernie Mac launch into his bit about how Obama would have to watch the Chris Rock movie “Head of State” so that Obama would know “what they’re going to do to you.”

Then he riffed:

He went on to riff about hope and offering himself up as a running mate “and they don’t want me because I cuss.”

Which he did.

“Being a president is tough cause you’re not just running the county. You got to run your family too,” he said. “Having a black first lady is different. You’re still going have to do the dishes and the laundry and all that…you got to pick up the kids. You didn’t pick up the kids? I just came from Korea, talking about nuclear weapons. You were on Airforce One and you couldn’t stop to pick up the kids?”
Mac said he is a Democrat “born and raised” but added that “I’m a Republican at tax time.” He mimicked a mock warning from an imagined staffer: “Don’t kill the message.”

He then talked about his wife who he’s been married to for 35 years, and how she just went through menopause.

“I can’t take it,” he said. “My house is so doggone cold all the time.”

He promised to help Obama and that he would be there “like the Jackson Five” and ended his irreverent riff with a joke involving the women in the families and living with two “hoes”

Mac was heckled in protest, but tried to smooth the way for Obama.

“Calm down,” Mac said, before introducing Obama, “not just a friend of mine but a friend of you all.”

Obama appeared…and notice how he admonishes Mac, but then, in the classic Obama way, apparently softens his criticism:

Obama came on, thanking, among others, “my great friend, one of the kings of comedy, Bernie Mac.”
He then gave an abbreviated stump speech with a quick run-down of his platform, briefly touching most policy areas and using his usual language and jokes before poking fun at Mac toward the end of his 20 minute speech.

“Everybody is concerned about whether the Democratic Party will be unified in time,” he said. “We don’t have an option but to make sure that we are united and make sure that we succeed…we can’t afford to be divided by race. We can’t afford to be divided by religion, or by region or class. Or by gender,” he said, pausing for effect. “That means, by the way, Bernie you got to clean up your act. This is a family affair… I’m just messing with you,” he said.

The Obama campaign quickly issued a statement:

Obama spokesman Jen Psaki issued a disclaimer on top of the pool report by Louis Roug containing some wild and tasteless riffs from comic Bernie Mac, who was listed on the invitation as a “special guest” at the Obama fund-raiser in the Hyatt. Let’s see if Mac’s crack about “hoes” causes some headaches for Obama, who spent the last few days courting the female vote.

” Senator Obama told Bernie Mac that he doesn’t condone these statements and believes what was said was inappropriate,” Psaki said. Obama told the comic “you got to clean up your act.” Did he mean it? Or was he just messing with Mac.

Doesn’t all this bring you back to the days of Camelot and Jackie Kennedy’s White House affairs featuring the likes of Pablo Casals and all those other lovely, cultural events??

UPDATE

Link to AP story….

I did a search and it is being picked up EVERYWHERE in the mainstream media, including overseas in The Guardian! Let’s see what they say on the TeeVee….