MeMe Survey

I lifted this survey from my friend Alexandra who got it from her friend Kathy. Kathy has the cutest 7 year old named Cole. He is quite an accomplished kid and actually has his own blog. I have no idea about blog ethics yet so I hope it's OK to steal stuff. I'll just use common sense until I know better. Alex has the best web log on the internet. It does what I love most, entertains, makes me think and changes me. That is greatness.

1. What time did you get up this morning?
5am

2. Diamonds or pearls?
Diamonds

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema?
Chronicles of Narnia, loved it.

4. What's your favorite TV show?
Right now, Two and 1/2 Men, fantastic comedy writing and characters. Drama, Judging Amy.

5. What did you have for breakfast this morning?
Cheerios with fruit cocktail.

6. What's your favorite cuisine?
Comfort food, baked chicken and macaroni and cheese.

7. What foods do you dislike?
Raspberry except in lemonade and vinaigrette dressing, butterscotch anything, okra, most legumes and thick white sauces.

8. What is your favorite chip flavor?
Fritos and Cheetos

9. What's your favorite CD at the moment?
The Best of Joe Cocker

10. What kind of car do you drive?
A Teal Toyota Corolla

11. Favorite sandwich?
Roast beef or BLT with an egg

12. What characteristics do you despise?
Intolerance

13. What is your favorite type of clothing?
Jeans

14. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation.Where?
Africa or Europe

15. What color is your bathroom?
White with blue and lavender accessories

16. Favorite brand of clothing?
New

17. Where would you retire to?
I love Chicago but maybe Atlanta

18. Favorite time of the day?
Breakfast time. Monica and I have wonderful talks over breakfast. The wee hours of the morn is when I'm most creative, I love that time too.

19. What was your most memorable birthday?
My birthday is always Thanksgiving time, so lots of memorable ones.


20. Where were you born?
Chicago IL

21. Favorite sport to watch?
Basketball, football, figure skating. But, I love to jump on the bandwagon of any winning Chicago team. I have no shame.

22. Who do you least expect to send this back to you?
What?

23. Person you expect to send it back first?
Huh?

24. What fabric detergent do you use?
Era

25. Were you named after anyone?
My mom's best friend. My mom's best friend would have a fucking Q in her name.

26. Do you wish on stars?
Yep

27. When did you last cry?
OK last three times, listening to Nan Mason sing, watching Transgeneration, watching my 7 year old nephew's school program. Those always get me.

28. Do you like your handwriting?
Yes, now I do. It's so strange, it used to be hideous and now its quite nice?

29. If you were another person, would YOU be friends with you?
Yes, I am a terrific friend. Personally, I am a nice person, funny, caring, creative and sweet. I can be totally trusted. I mean with your pets, your keys, your kid, your car, your wallet, your secrets, your love. I do not say love easily, but if I do you can bet I mean it and will not knowingly misuse or abuse it and I will always be honest and supportive. You need me, I'm there. OK, I can also be bossy, self righteous, annoying, silly to the point of warped, stubborn and obnoxious. But the good outweighs the bad, I think.

30. Are you a daredevil?
No don't think so, but I can be fearless to the point of dangerous especially in scary situations.

31. Do looks matter?
Sometimes

32. How do you release anger?
With Monica I talk it out, sometimes loudly but we get it out. I don't think we can stand being angry more than a couple hours. With others, it depends.

34. What were your favorite toys as a child?
Zorro sword with a piece of chalk in the tip, a bow and arrow, Annie Oakley outfit complete with six shooters, Deluxe chemistry set, big walking doll, and anything musical. I hated Barbie.

35. What class in High School was totally useless?
That's easy, home economics.

37 Favorite movies?
raisin in the Sun, Wuthering Heights, Valley of Decision, The Lodger, Philadelphia Story, Holiday, J C Superstar, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Jezebel, Desert Hearts, Sayonara


38. What are your nicknames?
My two year old nephew calls me Guckie.

39. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off?
Yes

40. Do you think that you are strong?
I try to be.

41. What's your favorite ice cream flavor?
Spumoni

42. What are your favorite colors?
Earth tone tans and reds

43. What is your least favorite thing about yourself?
I worry too much about those I love.


44. Who do you miss the most?
My auntie who is deceased. My nephew Nolen when he is out of town.

45. Do you want everyone you sent this to, to send it back to you?
Ummm whatever.

46 What color pants are you wearing?
Grey sweats

47. Last thing you ate?
Spaghetti, no sauce just Parmesan cheese and a salad.

48. Favorite song?
OMG! Don't know.

49. If you were a CRAYON what color would you be?
Teal. Am I blue or am I green? Am I blueish green or greenish blue?

50. Last person you talked to on the phone?
My mom

51. What is the first thing you notice about the opposite sex?
Attitude

52. Favorite drink?
Cherry coke

53. Do you wear contacts?
Glasses since I was 7 years old. Hate those m&^%$#&!

54. Favorite day of the year?
Last day of the school year. We go to Red lobster, it's a tradition.

55. Endings happy or sad?
Sad. Wait, no happy. Wait....

56. Winter/summer?
Summer, no contest.

57. Hugs OR Kisses?
Both, please.

58. What is Your Favorite Dessert?
Sweet potato or Apple pie or Spumoni ice cream

59. What Book(s) are you reading?
Aunties by Tamara Traeder and Julienne Bennett

60. What is on your mouse pad?
Xena Warrior Princess, coming out of the water soaking wet

61. What Did You Watch Last night on TV?
Last few minutes of American Idol

62. Favorite Smells?
Bacon, cookies baking, Obsession, on other people, and a clean sweet baby's hair

63. Stones or Beatles?
Stones

64. What's the furthest you've been from home?
Hawaii

Dick Button

When did Dick Button become so negative? Sheesh! He almost drove me nuts doing the technical commentary for the ice skaters this Olympics. “I’m sorry but I have to tell you that she looks lethargic and out of shape.” OMG! I’ve never noticed him to be this way before.

I thought about it and I wonder if he is frustrated with the new scoring system.
I know I am. It takes all the fun and the art out of Olympic figure skating and ice dancing. The new rules have upped the technical athletic aspects to a level where the skaters seem to be a nervous wreck. It seems every movement is now counted as points or points loss. There is hardly room for creative expression, although they are still judged for it. I hope the Olympic committee will rethink this before 2010. Ice dancing and figure skating is more than triple whatzis and double toe whozis. They are artistic performances that are supposed to have an aesthetic quality, enjoyable to watch. Too much tech and it will become tedious for the skaters and boring for the audience. Tech and art, there should be a balance.

CURLING ANYONE?

This sport is so cool and funny. I remember when I first saw it many years ago, Americans were laughing and now we’ve won an Olympic medal.
This is the ice sport that is a cross between lets see, bowling, shuffle board and pool.

OK, one person takes this round heavy thing with a handle called a stone and carefully shoves it toward the bulls eye hoping to knock away any of the opponents stones in the way. The stone won’t travel far or fast or go exactly where you want it to go unless two other team members make the ice slick by literally, frantically sweeping the path in front of it. This looks funny but it works. Curling is tediously slow and is all strategic precision. In other words, it is boring as hell. And yet, I watched about a half hour of the gold medal game between Sweden and Switzerland. I don’t know who won that match but during the match for the bronze between Great Britain and USA, I guess the boredom made someone snap because a streaker ran out onto the ice with a rubber chicken and did a dance. No kidding.

I hadn’t seen curling since they stopped using the straw brooms. Now curlers use something more like a swifer. They have gotten so modern.

This sport may look goofy as heck but it’s in the Olympics and it makes you want to get naked and dance with a chicken.

So congrats to the USA for their bronze medal in curling. Yayyy!

SHANI

Ok by now we all know Shani Davis is the first Black person to win individual winter gold. Well done, Shani. It was a long time coming and a hard road for you.
So now it is being said by his team mate Chad and others that he was only out for himself because he wouldn’t skate the team pursuit. That he set himself apart from the team because he wouldn’t wear the Qwest patch on his uniform and that he was rude to NBC. His mom is overbearing and they are both oversensitive. Well, yes four times. So what.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the Olympics especially for the team spirit and comradery of the athletes. I don’t like this bickering especially involving the only Black athlete on our own team. It is unfortunate.

NBC played up Chad Hedricks hot pursuit of Eric Heiden’s five gold medal record and wasn’t very happy that the team medal was taken out of play. They fueled the fires of that “feud” all week, I guess hoping Shani would give in and skate for the team. Somehow I don’t see Chad’s mighty quest for the team medal to be a selfless one. He was far too caught up in his own chase for the gold hype. “I didn’t come here to win bronze”. Oh Chad, I hate that. Everyone on that oval has worked hard and want to win. There are three medals and none of them have your name on them until you win them, Chad. Go for the gold, of course, but to win any of the three is an honor.

Shani along with all the skaters, signed a letter of intent before the games. He honored the races he signed to skate. Also,to skate the team pursuit right before his main event would have assured him a loss. Chad knows he would not have done that either. There is nothing selfish about it.
Qwest, the team sponsor did not support Shani. He was offered and got his support from Dutch Bank. He wore their logo. To do anything less would have been dishonorable. Yet Shani lost some funding and training by the US Speed Skating Association and went to Calgary, Canada to train. But, come on Shani give up your chance for an individual medal for the team. Was that the stars and stripes Chad was constantly waving in the camera? No. It was his Nike gear.

Shani honey, you are the only Black athlete in your sport. Boohoohoo, quit your belly aching it’s 2006 after all man. Well folks who think that way should have gone to Shani’s website before the games. There were plenty of people telling him in very interesting language to break a leg. But they weren’t wishing him good luck.

The stories of snubs and overt racism Cherie Davis tells make me sick. The constant vigilance she had to have to make sure her son was treated fairly and with dignity may have gotten to her when it continues even at the 2006 Olympics. I remember her stories. They are remarkably like those told by Debi Thomas’ mom, Venus and Serena’s dad and Tiger’s dad. And neither Debi, the Williams sisters or Tiger were the only Blacks in their sports.
So Cherie is a bit over protective. I guess it’s just habit.

I wish Shani had handled it all better. I do. He earned a gold, broke a barrier and got a little piece of history for himself. So Shani, just let Chad keep talking.

America AWARE and Media AWARE

I am very passionate about America and freedom. I’ve spent a lot of my time working on those two projects and I don’t like the direction it is going in right now. Some things are getting better and worst simultaneously which makes it confusing, misleading and sneaky.

I’ve noticed subtle changes and tiny erosions of our freedom that people complain about and then get used to. Sneaky little annoyances that may or may not arouse our suspicions, but nothing overt enough to clue us in that something huge is happening, something sinister that we should be acting on.

I got a very nervous uneasy feeling when Bill Mahr’s Politically Incorrect was abruptly cancelled on ABC. I had the same feeling only stronger when Phil Donahue was dropped from MSNBC right before the Iraq attack. OK now, that’s a network and a cable station. Scary. That’s not the way free speech America is supposed to work. I know I am not the only one who felt the little prickles of fear from this and yet Americans let it go with a sort of shrug of their shoulders.

I love TV! God bless cable! But I hear folks constantly complaining about 200 channels and nothing on. More cable stations but less variety. The same movie on three times back to back or three nights in a row. Why? Because so many stations are in competition only with themselves. And strange things happening in radioland too. Ever try to call a radio station and no one was there? Why? Because so many stations are unmanned, run by computers often from far away cities. Prickle, prickle, prickle.
In 1996 ( sadly on Bill Clinton’s watch) the Federal Communication Commission relaxed the Media Ownership and Consolidation Broadcast Ownership rules.
This scared me really bad. The new regs allowed ownership of more stations and more in one market area.
Conglomerates like Viacom, Disney, AOL Time Warner, and Clear Channel got busy gobbling up stations like Pac Man flying around the maze. When the smoke cleared there were about five ginormous concerns that owned 75% of radio and TV media. Viacom and Clear Channel together controlled 42% of the radio stations and 45% of listeners. Clear Channel grew from 40 stations to 1240.

The results of this 1996 FCC action put democracy at risk.
It limits localism. We all like for our hometown radio and TV stations to have our local flavor and express our community concerns and interests and opinions. But after the when the large and small independent stations become part of a conglomerate network, the local small town Illinois DJ could be broadcasting from somewhere like Atlanta. There is a true story of a town, after a train accident, frantically trying to get emergency info out through the local radio station, but there were no human beings there. Ouch!
It limits media diversity. Women and people of color already owned less than five percent of broadcast media outlets. GLBT and ethnic radio percentages are even less. These stations may change hands, not go away because there is the almighty profit to be had. But, the content will now be filtered through the profit monsters.
IT GETS WORSE. The 1996 assault was not enough for the FCC. In June
2003 it passed again more rules that allow media conglomerates to own a newspaper and multiple television stations, radio stations and cable stations all
in one market. The 3-2 vote instituted

“the most sweeping and destructive rollback of consumer protection rules in the history of American broadcasting”.

This is from FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein who voted against the new regulations.

Imagine a city or region with only one newspaper, two radio stations and one local TV station. Now they can all be owned by one company. So now all their news and slants on everything come from one place. Independent voices will be shut out.
Independent radio or TV station owners will all but disappear because there is no way to compete with the likes of a Viacom or Time Warner. A conglomerate with an agenda, political or otherwise, has the ear of millions across the nation.
Good news! Yayy Americans! Although many people were not aware of the latest or the first FCC attack, Americans did not shrug their shoulders this time. There were protests, letter writing and e-mail campaigns and public hearings.
Then a Philadelphia federal appeals court blocked the new rules while it considered a challenge to them brought by a group of small radio station owners. Yayy Congress! In September 2003 the Senate in a bi-partisan 55-40 vote overturned the FCC rules on broadcast media ownership. In July 2003 the House of Representatives approved a spending bill with blocking the new FCC rules. It was done this way because the Senate did not have the votes to overturn a promised Bush veto. So we are left with the 1996 damage which is considerable but we dodged the 2003 bullet which would have been devastating.

What in the hell was the FCC thinking?? How could they think this is good for the country? I cannot understand their contention that consolidations of stations would inspire more choice. The chairman of the FCC was Michael Powell, yep, Colin’s boy. What’s up with the Powell guys? Certainly intelligent gentlemen, but something is a bit twisted there.
Did Mike see a tremendous profitability thing for his cronies? Does he just enjoy the art of the Power Play? Are they going for mind control of the American population? Scary.

Imagine dwindling hundreds of independent stations, a free marketplace of ideas, down to five. Five slants, spins, worldviews sweeping entire areas of this nation.
Keep your eyes on the shiny object. Are we getting sleepy?

Sneak Attack AWARE

The reason I wanted to do this Awareness thing is because there are things that affect us that we don’t know the origin of. Most are little and meaningless, you know. FYI stuff, but some are creepy little tricks pulled on us by the powers that be. For example, remember when the self serve gas pumps first started? The self serve pumps were cheaper than the full serve, that was the incentive. Jake does not have to freeze his patootie off to pump your gas but you save some money. OK fine. But now self serve and full serve (when you can find one) is the same price. I’m freezin’ and pumpin’, Jake’s inside talking on the phone and those damn numbers are flying by. WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN? I swear I didn’t notice.

Here Goes!

AWARE 1. On ones guard, vigilant. 2. Knowing or realizing, conscious, informed.
Webster's New World Dictionary

AWARE is the newsletter part of this blog.
For now my plans are to have Aware posts at least once a month, but more often will be the issues that are closest to my heart.
HIV/Aids Aware, America Aware, Lesbian, Transgendered, Gay, Bi Aware Women Aware, Black Aware and Fun Aware.

Also look out for; Theater, Music, Books, Film, Science, Technology, Government, Social Issues, Religion, Politics, Health, and the Environment. Whew!

Aware is not trying to school you; I just don't want anything to sneak by you or creep up on you. Of course, it's all what I think you should know. Please remember that I know best.

The thought of having a public journal scares me. The thought of someone actually reading Things according to me is what scares me to death. I am very opinionated, emotional and always think I know what I'm talking about. I never intend to offend, but I guess I am concerned that I will. I think it will be cathartic and fun for me and eventually when I get it together, interesting for whoever else reads it. I can already see that Aware and Things might get a bit blurred sometimes. So what, just read it. Oh and I am quite bossy too.
Now folks, I will try for correct spelling, grammar and structure, but these are not big priorities to me. So that's it.
Jackie