I’m going to be away from this spot, “It Is What It Is“, for a few days. I won’t have full access to a PC or laptop.
I still have the capacity to keep an eye on what happens in the blogosphere while I’m away.
I’m not able to just disconnect, particularly with what is going on in our world at this time.
There are so many problems, issues, conflicts, injustices, bigotry, destruction, killing, wars ….. We need to stay informed and educated about “happenings“.
I will leave you today with a message.
As noted above, we won’t find peace until we extend our circle of compassion to all living things, as Mr. Sweitzer noted.
‘Tis the season …
We are all in this together. Be kind to on another.
I am a citizen of the world
and my home is my abode:
Rivers, lakes and valleys
are my sources of life;
Trees, birds and mountains
are my pride!
I am a citizen of the world
and my home is my abode:
Seas, fishes and oceans
are my sources of hope;
Shorelines, rocks and beaches
are my cliches!
I am a citizen of the world
and my peace is your company:
My children, relatives and friends
are my sources of strength;
Their love, care and tender touch
are my tabernacles.
I am a citizen of mankind
and the whole world is my abode.
I’ve followed this family since their early days in Miami.
I know their story and how Gloria came to be the main singer of Miami Sound Machine. The band became a huge hit in the Latin community. Then Gloria “crossed over” into the American mainstream music scene.
It was all then about Gloria.
I remember their hits, I have all the CD and concert videos. I couldn’t forget the harrowing time of the bus crash, her fractured back, her rescue, her recovery, her rehab and her comeback … that blue dress singing “Coming Out of the Dark”.
And the rest is history!
In their personal lives, they had Nayib and finally a daughter, Emily. Her name honors her dad Emilio.
I’ve seen Emily dab here and there in music. She has it in her genes, her internal makeup and her talent has grown.
She has released an awesome video with an absolutely on target message.
If you ask Gloria Estefan, it feels like yesterday when her daughter Emily was a baby backstage at her sold-out concerts. Fast-forward to today and the 21-year-old college sophomore is totally grown up and ready to rock out on her own.
“I always think about it as a double-edge sword,” Emily shared on Today’s show when asked about following the same career as her mom. “I don’t even understand that saying because doesn’t a sword have one edge?”
She continued, “But the reality is they’re amazing golden footsteps to follow in so my biggest fear now is just being able to do the past justice.”
“I know that must people I know believe in me for my talent and for what I stand for but there’s always a doubt in my mind because there is no way of knowing when you are a descendant of the Conga Queen.”
As her parents focus on their Broadway musical appropriately titled “On Your Feet,” Emily is ready to prove she herself can turn the beat around. And yes, she’ll do it while wearing mama’s clothes.
“When I want to go shopping, I just go to the warehouse and grab her clothes,” Emily admitted while wearing Gloria’s retro pants and T-shirt. As they like to say, like mother, like daughter.
Singer Emily Estefan, the Miami Beach daughter of Gloria and Emilio, on Thursday released a music video in which she expresses her point of view to a ‘sterile and ominous’ world: F#ck To Be.
F#ck To Be prominently focuses on male and female gender roles and stereotypes.
On November 3, Emily Estefan released her brand new video F#ck To Be. The concept behind the video shows Emily discovering and noticing a world that it is not what she expected instead it is very sterile and ominous.
“There are two POVs in the video, it is either what I see or what the mirror sees. It is me against the mirror. The mirror being expectations that I carry of myself, or what people expect me to be. I’m combatting the mirror, “ says Estefan.
F#ck to Be will be the first single from her forthcoming full length CD, Take Whatever You Want. Emily wrote, recorded, produced and performed her full album at Fairy Light Studios (her own studio in her college apartment in Boston, MA).
“Many people think I am saying “F” everything or everything sucks, but that is not true. I go in and out of these very different looks in the video that I don’t necessarily like for myself, but that doesn’t mean that I frown upon them, it just means that it is not me” said Estefan.
I am a 22 year old illustrator specializing in photorealistic colored pencil and graphite drawings.
You can check out my drawing videos on YouTube!
Hello!
My name is Heather Rooney.
I am an illustrator specializing in photorealistic colored pencil and graphite drawings.
Since finding my passion for portrait and figure drawing in high school, I have developed a technique focusing on high attention to detail. I draw my inspiration from a broad range of cultural figures, such as sport athletes, media personalities and entertainment professionals.
With each illustration requiring many hours of work, ranging from 30 hours to 100+ hours, I share my process through time-lapse videos on my YouTube channel, which has generated over 60 million views from a global audience.
I received my B.A. in Studio Art at Emmanuel College, in the vibrant city of Boston, Massachusetts. I am now pursuing a career in illustration.
Starbucks unveiled its new holiday design – a red cup with the green Starbucks logo – and sparked significant controversy due to its lack of Christmas symbols like reindeer and snowflakes.
Starbucks defended the blank holiday design as welcoming of people’s different stories.
She’s been the favorite to win since the first week of the competition , and now Bindi Irwin is the official dancing queen of “Dancing With the Stars.”
“Oh, my God! We won!” she exclaimed Tuesday night after beating out her biggest dance-floor rival, Nick Carter.
“IOTD” is image of the day, a concept I came up with. I teach visual meditative therapy – or in easy terms – a mini mental holiday. For some people it is very difficult for them to get their image right. I post an image a day for people to use in their mini mental vacay. Some are serious, some are silly, and some are just beautiful!”
Watch Adele, Jimmy Fallon, Roots Sing ‘Hello’ With Classroom Instruments
Tonight Show’ supergroup perform chart-topping ballad with melodica, tambourine, toy xylophone, kazoos
By Ryan Reed
Adele’s “Hello,” a chart-topping ballad from her record-breaking new LP, 25, is already one of her most intimate singles. But the singer achieves a new level of intimacy with this Tonight Show rendition of the poignant track, backed by Jimmy Fallon and the Roots on classroom instruments.
Crammed into a small space, the supergroup fleshes out Adele’s croon with melodica, tambourine, wood block, toy xylophone, bongos, a banana shaker and kazoos.
Joining in on the silliness, the singer fakes a cell phone call, channeling the long-distance melancholy of the lyrics.
Once we have taken out the trash, we often forget that it all has to go somewhere. But not many of us know exactly where it goes, nor do we usually think about it.
The Life Cycle of Garbage shows what happens to your trash once it leaves your home, to give you an idea of where it ends up and how much of it there really is.
The Life Cycle of Garbage begins in your home
Your kitchen trash can fills up …
So you take the garbage bag out to your curbside trash container …
And the garbage man comes to empty it …
What happens to all your trash once the garbage man takes it away?
Typically it goes to a Transfer Station …
A transfer station is where local trash is taken and dumped before it is transferred to its final destination. The final destination could be:
A Landfill …
where the waste is buried and left to decompose, a process which takes hundreds of years even for biodegradable materials …
An Incinerator …
where the garbage is burned and turns into ash and heat, sometimes used to generate energy (called waste-to-energy) …
Or a Recycling Center …
where it will be transferred to a manufacturing plant so these materials can be used to make new products!
Or In the Ocean …
If waste is not correctly managed, it can end up harming the environment and polluting our air and water.
Illegally dumped trash and litter can end up:
Littering our Communities …
This is why it is so important that we put our trash into the proper containers and recycle as much as we can. Garbage does not simply disappear once it leaves our homes, it all ends up somewhere and has an impact on every single person in some way.
Small actions can have a huge impact.
“As it appears in … full read/full credit/more pictures”
This Thanksgiving, No Place for Refugees at the American Table
Posted on Nov 18, 2015 By Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan
In the wake of the horrific attacks in Paris on Nov. 13, there has been a crushing backlash against refugees from the wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. As Americans prepare for one of the most popular national holidays, Thanksgiving, which commemorates the support and nourishment provided by the indigenous people to English refugees seeking a better life free from religious persecution, a wave of xenophobia is sweeping the country.
In the U.S. Congress, no less than six separate bills have been put forward to block any federal funding to resettle refugees from Syria or Iraq and to empower states to deny entry into their “territory.”
Imagine if all of a sudden we had 50 “statelets” creating their own border checkpoints, stopping all travelers, looking for anyone suspicious, i.e., any and all Syrians.
So far, 31 state governors have essentially demanded this.
Republican Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback issued an executive order forbidding any agency of state government from cooperating in any way with Syrian refugee support efforts. House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have called for a pause in the Syrian refugee program, with the support of Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer.
(all so called Chrstians)
It has been almost 400 years since that first, fateful Thanksgiving feast in Massachusetts.
Xenophobic policies like those threatening to shut out refugees from these wars, if allowed to stand, should serve as a shameful centerpiece at every Thanksgiving table this year.
At least 81 transgender people were murdered worldwide this year — and those are just the victims whose deaths were reported.
BY SUNNIVIE BRYDUM
NOVEMBER 20 2015
Today marks the 16th annual Transgender Day of Rememberance, after the first event was organized by Gwendolyn Ann Smith in Allston, Mass., to memorialize Rita Hester — a trans woman of color killed in 1998.
Every year since, growing numbers of trans people and advocates worldwide take a moment to pause and remember the countless lives lost around the globe to transphobic violence.
The somber occasion serves as a memorial event in which trans people and allies can mourn their dead, celebrate the lives they lived and as a popular hashtag in the wake of unabated anti-trans violence proclaims, #SayHerName.
~~GRAPHICS SOURCE~~
Facebook Timeline
Google Images
Human Rights Campaign
The Advocate Magazine
~~GALLERY~~
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As the names listed in the graphics demonstrate, certain nations — the United States and Brazil — have particularly acute problems with fatal transphobic violence. The number of trans women killed this year in the U.S., for instance, is nearly double that of the total killed last year.
But it’s also worth noting that in many countries around the world, no formal system exists to report the deaths of trans people, and repressive societies combined with oppressive policing worldwide often give trans people good cause to be wary of law-enforcement officials.
So while we mourn those whose names are listed below, take a moment to memorialize those whose names we will never know — because they, too, had lives, and loves, and passions that were extinguished because of hate.
It Is What It Is 