The Voice has crowned Brynn Cartelli its fourteenth-season champion
Brynn, a 15-year-old from Longmeadow, MA, competed on Kelly Clarkson’s team all season long and was declared champion of Season 14 of The Voice during Tuesday night’s live finale broadcast on NBC.
Not only was Brynn the youngest person in the competition this season, but she also made history by becoming the youngest The Voice finalist ever. (Brynn was only 14-years-old at the time of her Blind Audition).
Brynn had several solid performances over this week’s two-night finale event, but the poised artist’s catchy original song “Walk My Way” – written by Julia Michaels – probably pushed her over the edge when it came to home viewer voting.
“I am so lucky … I am literally just a cheerleader. Coaching this girl is a joke,” Kelly told Brynn during Monday night’s Top 4 performance show.
“Everything you have seen this girl do was her idea … It’s insane and I’m just so proud of you, not only because you’re the youngest ever to make it this far but because of the fact you are doing what you love and you do it so well and so effortlessly. It’s so captivating and inspiring to watch.”
Kelly will have some bragging rights on the show going forward, as she won her very first season serving as a coach on The Voice.
She’s learning the tactics some people (men and women) will take in order to rationalize disregarding your message.
They’ll criticize your hair – because valuable women should have beautiful hair. They’ll talk about your sexuality – because anytime they don’t like your message, your sexuality is fair game. They’ll talk about your clothes – because valuable women dress a certain way.
And anything bad that happens to women is the result of the clothing they choose. They’ll criticize you because you don’t wear makeup because women, valuable worthy women, wear lipstick.
They’ll deride your tears – because women are so emotional. Never mind the fact that, had the strongest among them gone through what you have, they would cry too. They’ll talk about the patch on your jacket – as if it’s relevant – because they can’t comprehend that a flag belongs, not to a country, but to the people.
They’ll talk about how you should’ve been nicer to the unpopular kid – because, as always, it’s your responsibility to prevent violence against you. Men aren’t expected to behave but women are expected to soothe them and not provoke them. You must behave a certain way and, if you don’t, you deserve to suffer violence or even death.
When you ask for, demand, safety and protection, they’ll tell you that you don’t deserve it.
(They’ll tell you that the real threat to you is texting and driving and that you should just give up your cell phone. As if you wouldn’t gladly give up that and more to change what happened to you and your friends. The real threat is shoot-em-up video games. The real threat is violent movies and television shows like The Walking Dead. Seriously??)
They’ll criticize you if you show strength and they’ll criticize you if you show weakness. If you’re proud, they’ll say you’re arrogant. If you’re vulnerable, they’ll mock you. They’ll show contempt for your intelligence, the fact that you’re well spoken. When you stand up and speak as a woman, they’ll call you a child. When you cry, they’ll tell you to grow up.
Nothing you do or say or become will ever be enough for them. But that’s alright. Keep speaking up and out.
Keep standing true to yourself – wear what you like, love who you love.
Shout, cry, laugh.
Because you, baby girl, are already MORE THAN ENOUGH.
And there are millions of us, who are so proud of you.
HamilDrop: Ben Platt & Lin Manuel Miranda Mashup “Found Tonight”
FOR THE KIDS
Found Tonight with Lin Manuel Miranda and Ben Platt and all of Troupe 10036
I’m an ardent fan.
Lin-Manuel Miranda is an amazing talent.
His Puerto Rican roots make it even more significant for me.
He has shown immense interest in social causes.
Benjamin Schiff Platt (born September 24, 1993) is an American actor and singer known for originating the role of the title character in the Broadway musical Dear Evan Hansen, a performance for which he has won numerous awards.
Here you have two amazing talents joined for a common cause for the future of the children of this nation.
A song dedicated to the ‘March for our Lives’ movement.
This is for students and young leaders everywhere.
#EnoughIsEnough #NeverAgain
#Theatre #Hamilton #Broadway #Theatreis
Theatreisdead Facebook Page
March 19, 2018 by Jenny Singer
The heart-stopping anthem released on Monday, March 19, by Lin Manuel Miranda and Ben Platt to celebrate the “March For Our Lives” gun violence prevention actions this weekend needs no introduction, only some background.
The three-minute song, “Found Tonight,” mashes up Miranda’s “Story Of Tonight” from his smash musical “Hamilton” and the song “You Will Be Found,” from Platt’s star turn in “Dear Evan Hansen,” by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul.
This means the song draws from one story about teenage revolutionaries, and another about teens triumphing over despair.
The song begins with a rewritten line from “Hamilton” – instead of “we may not live to sing our glory,”
Platt sings, “we may not yet have reached our glory.”
All the proceeds from downloads of the song go to “March For Our Lives,” a gun violence prevention demonstration that will take place on March 24 in Washington DC.
Platt’s extraordinary gift for vulnerability and vocal sublimity are on display here, as is Miranda’s once-in-a-generation passion.
Ever since Valentine’s Day 2018, the day the Parkland, Florida mass shooting happened, this phrase has become ingrained in my mind.
These teenagers are taking over this sad American reality.
Like Emma, there are plenty others. There are those we know already by name who have been thrust into adulthood too soon. They have taken their role as serious as the reality is.
They are claiming their future as they should.
Here’s one of the many examples seen on March 24, 2018 …
Emma González honored the Parkland shooting victims at the March for Our Lives with six minutes of silence, the amount of time it took for the shooter to kill 17 people.
WOULD NEVER …
~~Emma Gonzalez’s POWERFUL March For Our Lives Speech~~
~~Published on Mar 24, 201 ~~
Emma González’s powerful six minutes of silence speech at the Washington DC March For Our Lives rally
Shooting Survivors Write and Perform Song
Survivors of the Stoneman Douglas High school shooting perform “Shine,” a song the school’s drama club wrote in the wake of the shooting.
The more I find out about these kids, the more impressed I am.
Multiply that by such a number and imagine how many amazing kids are out there in harm’s way.
Never thought of it this way.
The adults have dropped the ball.
It will be up to their generation to get this done correctly.
🎶 You may have brought the dark 🎶
🎶 but together we will shine the light 🎶
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students give a moving performance of the song “Shine,” written by survivors Sawyer Garrity and Andrea Peña, at the end of CNN’s town hall.
February 21, 2018
(11:30 PM0
Stoneman Douglas Drama Club performs “Shine” – a song they wrote this week
Tonight’s town hall closed with a moving performance by Stoneman Douglas High School’s Drama Club.
During the performance, the students urged the crowd to reach out to Congress. “Be the voice for those who don’t have one,” a student performer said.
They performed “Shine,” a song they wrote this week to honor their friends following the shooting.
Parkland shooting survivors talk gun control and conspiracies on The Ellen DeGeneres Show
~DAVID CANFIELD~
February 23, 2018
Three survivors of the mass shooting last Wednesday, February 14, at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, joined Ellen DeGeneres on Friday. February 23, to continue spreading their advocacy of stricter gun laws.
DeGeneres was joined by Emma González, Cameron Kasky and Jaclyn Corin, all of whom have made major public appearances over the past week, to discuss the conversation that the Parkland tragedy (wherein 17 people were killed) has sparked and what’s being done to keep it going and to turn it into real policy change. “You all are amazing,” the host said to them at the beginning of the segment.
The students touched on a variety of topics, including their widely-watched CNN Town Hall on Wednesday evening in which, among other highlights, Kasky confronted Senator Marco Rubio and asked him directly whether he’d continue accepting money from the National Rifle Association.
As DeGeneres continued to praise the students’ efforts, González clarified that it was her school that gave her the tools to make sense of and respond to the tragedy.
“We are thankful to have been in a school that educated us almost perfectly to handle this situation,” she said.
Kasky added that he’s felt some guilt for what it took to spur him to activism.
“I wish I had been able to be a part of this before I had to feel it at home,” he said. “I almost feel guilty … It took us feeling that anguish for us to get involved, but we’re here now. But we just have to keep going and realize that we’re here to fight the good fight.”
He later quipped, in regard to the conspiracy theorists accusing students like González and Kasky of being paid actors on behalf of anti-gun efforts, “If you’ve seen me act in school productions, you know I’m not somebody who deserves any money for acting.”
~Stoneman Douglas Activists Discuss the School Shooting with Ellen~
~Published on Feb 23, 2018~
Emma González, Cameron Kasky, and Jaclyn Corin talked with Ellen about their experience during the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, and their activism in the days following the horrific event.
~Parkland Student Activists Talk Gun Control~
~Published on Feb 23, 2018~
Emma González, Cameron Kasky, and Jaclyn Corin, survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, sat down with Ellen to talk about the gun control regulation they’re hoping to bring about with their movement.
~Parkland Shooting Survivors on the ‘March for Our Lives’~
~~Published on Feb 23, 2018~~
Emma González, Cameron Kasky, and Jaclyn Corin survived the recent shooting at their high school in Parkland, Florida, and now they’re organizing the March for Our Lives, an event in which people from all over the country will take to the streets to demand that their lives and safety become a priority.
In the midst of a terrible mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, young voices are loudly raising to decry the lack of action from GOP politicians, including the ‘so-called president’, who are beholden to the NRA in view of the political campaign donations.
They have been bought and paid by the NRA.
This has to change.
It seems the generation coming up will not accept this!
Florida school shooting survivor SLAMS Drumpf and Republicans for doing NOTHING to stop mass shootings
🔥 🔥 🔥 EVERY WORD of this is FIRE 🔥 🔥 🔥
“They say that tougher gun laws do not decrease gun violence. We call BS!
They say a good guy with a gun stops a bad guy with a gun. We call BS!
They say guns are just tools like knives and are as dangerous as cars. We call BS!”
Thanks to Emma González for giving this AMAZING speech.
By MATTHEW DESSEM
February 17, 2018
Emma González, a senior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School who survived Wednesday’s mass shooting, gave a blistering speech at an anti-gun rally on Saturday about the politicians complicit in the murder of her classmates. It was yet another reminder that the teenagers and children who grew up in the shadow of school shootings (and the 150,000 who survived one) are more practical – and less tolerant of empty rhetoric – than the adults who are supposed to protect them.
González had no use for crocodile tears from Drumpf, who was in Florida on Friday, February 16, to offer his condolences (and, reportedly, to drop by a Studio 54 theme party at Mar-a-Lago):
If the president wants to come up to me and tell me to my face that it was a terrible tragedy, and how it should never have happened, and maintain telling us how nothing is going to be done about it, I’m going to happily ask him how much money
he received from the National Rifle Association.
But hey, you want to know something?
It doesn’t matter, because I already know: $30 million.
To every politician who is taking donations from the NRA, shame on you!
In February of 2017, one year ago, Drumpf repealed an Obama-era regulation that would have made it easier to block the sale of firearms to people with certain mental illnesses.
I don’t need to be a psychologist to know that repealing that regulation was a really dumb idea. Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa was the sole sponsor of this bill to stop the FBI from performing background checks on people adjudicated to be mentally ill, and now he’s stating for the record, “Well, it’s a shame that the FBI isn’t doing background checks on these mentally ill people.” Well, duh: You took that opportunity away last year! The people in government who we voted into power are lying to us. And us kids seem to be the only ones who notice and are prepared to call BS.
Fans of Disney’s Descendants have been patiently awaiting the sequel (Descendants 2) since the first film’s release in 2015.
The film is due for release on 21 July 2017 on 5 different networks, and fans of the series cannot wait.
To further promote the film, the cast performed a medley of ‘Ways To Be Wicked’ and, hit song from the first film ‘Rotten To The Core’, on this week’s Dancing With The Stars. Dove Cameron who plays Mal, Sofia Carson who plays Evie, Cameron Boyce who plays Carlos, and Booboo Stewart who plays Jay, all took part in the performance.
The performance recreates moments from the official music video and is full of energy from start to finish. It also has a fantastic dance break half way through and the judges even get up and have a dance.
This is a note which I wrote for my brother when I returned home from his burial
My only brother — Jose Tomás Rexach-Rivera
My brother (Jose, Pepo II, Pepito) was born on July 6, 1937. I was born on July 1, 1950. The 13 year difference is obvious but it doesn’t mean that it was the intention of Hortensia & Pepo I (our parents) to have only the two of us. As a matter of fact they were quite busy – Catholic??? …. or the desire to have a big family, like my Dad’s???
Mami had seven pregnancies – 3 after Pepito, one of which produced another son called Jaime Luis. He lived only one day after his birth. Then I came along, the only girl. Luisito was born after me – on July 24, 1951. He lived only 1 year. My Mom found him in his crib – gone with the angels that watched over him.
Hence, only Pepito & I were the offspring of Hortensia & Pepo I.
As a kid, I remember getting into his stuff and, of course, getting in trouble. I also remember riding in Papi’s car arguing about which radio station to listen to – I think he wanted to listen to the American teenage music of the time while I wanted music in Spanish – that I could understand.
How can a teenager really argue with a kid, or vice versa ….?
As the years went by, mostly because of the age difference, each of us went our own merry ways. Pepito – the handsome lady-killer, awesome piano player – went to Mayaguez to study the family trade – engineering/construction. I still was young and stayed at home with my parents.
Eventually, my brother got married in 1964 – I was a bridesmaid – golden dress – (I have a bracelet charm to prove it!!). I grew up and went to study at the Catholic University of Puerto Rico.
Our lives continued in different directions.
There were the usual weekend visits to our parents. He came with his family, I came for the weekend from the West Coast of the Island. I think that that was the major extent of our interactions as adults.
Don’t get me wrong, we were in touch but both belonged to different generations. There were just different interests, wants and needs.
It wasn’t really until Mami and Papi moved to Mayaguez to be near me so that I could help Papi take care of Mami that our adult lives intersected again. I think that at this time, we started getting closer – he visited me when he came to see our parents, had dinners together in Boqueron, watched tv, etc. Vista Bahia Restaurant was a favorite.
We started getting closer as adults. He would stay in the Vista Verde house, which I think he really liked. It was there, in the family room, that he told me that his kidneys were failing. I remember and can visualize the day very clearly …
His kidneys deteriorated and eventually he needed dialysis – a killer treatment for those who go through it. He came out of these treatments drained, complications set in … But, a fighter he was. He never gave up. His faith kept him going.
When I traveled to Puerto Rico after Christmas ’09, I learned many things about my brother that I didn’t know. At the funeral home, people came up to me to tell he was their mentor, he was the best at his job, there was no one like him. He was faithfully religious, read his Bible regularly and lead a life that was ruled, it seems, by the Golden Rule –> Do unto others as they would do unto you.
At the cemetery, Joe, his minister, José, his son (Pepo III), his son Carlos and a Catholic Deacon said beautiful words about him and how he should be remembered and celebrated. At the burial site, friends mentioned funny things that he said and did. His dry humor was always present, his serious face was remembered – he seemed to have a hard shell but inside he was a softie – like our Dad, I think.
I felt like an outsider looking in – into the life of a person that I didn’t know well.
Before he was a husband, father, an engineer and a member of his Church group, he was a son and a brother. The same blood runs through our veins.
It seems as if he lived in two worlds – two worlds connected by his mere existence. That’s the beauty of him – seems that he fit well in both worlds. It was a progression from one to the other.
Looking back, I wish we would have been closer but nothing can be done about that now. The best I can do isl cherish the memories of our growing up and sharing what we shared.
Dear Brother
GO IN PEACE, REST IN PEACE
Know that I will miss you.
I will miss knowing that you are but a phone call away.
In the arms of an Angel fly away from here
From this dark, cold hotel room, and the endlessness that you fear
You are pulled from the wreckage of your silent reverie
You’re in the arms of an Angel; may you find some comfort here
~~February 23, 2018~~ 
Kasky added that he’s felt some guilt for what it took to spur him to activism.
It Is What It Is 