Filed under: culture, people | Tags: sen obama, senator barack obama, senator obama
Yes, today we spent three hours waiting in line to see Obama speak here at Penn State University and it was well worth the wait.
The crowd was the largest ever to gather at Penn State for anything other than football games or maybe the Arts Festival. A record setting 22,000 to hear a political speech. Ther was a mix of students and locals that gathered early and snaked through the campus from two directions – the longest lines we’ve ever seen.
He is a great speaker – honest, funny and inspiring. He does not care about being afraid to let the people hear what they not only want to hear, but need to hear. For years politicians have talked the talk that got them in the White House then nothing happened. Obama seems to really embrace change.
America needs to change. Why? Because nobody has ever really had our best interest at heart – the people, you and me. It has always been about power for them not the people.
Oops let me stop and get to the point. We didn’t get the best pictures today and yet we felt that we have had an experience. One of the coolest things about going up to see him is that our boys came too. They’d been at friend’s the night before and were tired and hungry but they warmed up to the idea and in the end seemed really glad that they’d been dragged up there. Both were happy to have seen him, been a part of that crowd and were really interested by things he’d said. All I can say is that it’s hard to impress the 14-16 year old crowd but Obama did it!
Get out and vote! People make a change be culturallycool
Filed under: culture, people | Tags: Reggae T-shirts, senator, South American T-shirts, Tropical T-shirts, Urban Cool T-shirts, World flags t-shirts
At the beginning of the school year, Bronx high school teacher Jackson Shafer says his students were beyond apathetic about politics – many couldn’t even name the Vice President.But something happened around the time of the Iowa primary – a realization that they were living in the middle of history, that change was possible and they had a role to play in making it happen.Shafer says his students started coming to school early – and even suggested an extra homework assignment inspired by Barack Obama’s “Yes We Can” speech after the New Hampshire primary.Freshman Anna Boateng performed her speech for the class, beginning: “People say that South Bronx kids will never amount to anything, but I say, ‘Yes We Can.’”
On the same day I filmed their speeches, Barack was delivering his speech about racial reconciliation in Philadelphia. The Bronx students took up the challenge to talk about race and how their generation is already breaking down old barriers.
Here’s their story:
We have two teenage sons that are both really into music. Seems they’re as tied to their iPods, Music TV and You Tube as I was to the latest singles, albums and radio when I was their age. Delivery of music has changed but not the love of music itself.As much as I like that the boys find the same interest, joy and expression in music as I did and still do, what amazes me most is when they independently get into some of my favorite stuff. Last night and again this morning before school, War’s “Why Can’t We Be Friends?” was blasting through our house.”Why Can’t We Be Friends?” was the title song of War’s sixth album originally released in 1975 (well before our boys were born or I’d even met their mom.) The song was inspired by a fight that broke out as the band was about to take the stage at a concert. It was an instant hit. With a more mellow sound than a lot of War’s previous music, it’s an anti-conflict feel-good anthem that highlights the band’s humor and catches you up in the repeating refrain. The album is a classic for War’s unique funk/soul/rock sound.The lines that caught my attention the most recently:”Sometimes I don’t speak too bright
but yet I know what I’m talking about”I mentioned before that I live in a University town and both my wife and I work at the University. You can’t find a place that puts more weight on how something is said than in this setting. We joke that we should bring a dictionary with us to our meetings so we can be sure to keep up with the huge and incomprehensible words that are slung around in an effort to impress folks with just how smart everyone is. There’s far more weight put on how something is said than what is said.
To me, those lines in War’s song are absolutely true. Some of the wisest things I’ve heard in my life come from people who speak simply without the need for huge words. I’m not advocating that we don’t have good vocabularies and the ability to communicate well just that we pay more attention to what’s being said than how it’s said.
We’re lucky that for the last five years our community has hosted an Native American Powwow every Spring. I’m part Native American Indian so the powwow is a cool experience (more about that part of my heritage later.)
I wasn’t really sure what to expect the first year we went to the powwow. I was thinking it would be a big commercial thing, sort of a show. Not at all. Instead, it felt like a really big family reunion where people from different tribes were happy to see each other and spend time together. Some of the Native American we talked to said that they get a chance to see friends from other tribes at these powwows a couple times a year so it really is like a reunion. The powwow centers around song and dance and the head drummer was a very talented musician. The dancers were great – ranging from graceful and mellow to thundering and energetic. Non-Native Americans were made welcome too. It didn’t feel like just a big party though, there was a deep spiritual undertone with dances and songs to the Creator. A lot of respect during the ceremonies mixed with a lot o fun.
After the Grand Entry and dancing were over, we wandered around to check out the art and craft vendors. My wife headed straight for the jewelry and our sons went off to try the flatbread and other traditional foods. I found the bumper sticker below. I had to have it – to me it summed up about a million words in one photograph and a caption.
We don’t usually have a lot of bumper stickers on our cars but I have to say this one sticker gets a lot of attention! It’s common to have a group of people standing around our car in parking lots, people walking on our street come halfway up our driveway to get a better look and I can’t count how many comments we’ve had. Later, I searched the web and found the same image on t-shirts and ordered a few. My advise though is to be careful where you wear the shirt! Everyone wants to come up and talk about it! That’s great but not good if you’re running late or want to blend into the crowd that day.
I think the bumper sticker, finding the t-shirts and people’s reaction to them is what first gave me the idea to start my website.
Filed under: culture
One of my all time favorite writers is Gabriel Garcia Marquez or “Gabo” as he is called. He was born in 1928 in Columbia, traveled the world and lives now in Mexico City. He was raised by his grandparents. I’ve read that he got his amazing storytelling in part from his grandmother who would tell the most wildly fantastic stories in an absolutely matter of fact way. So much so that when he was young he couldn’t always tell if what she was telling was true or not.
He’s a critically acclaimed writer and won the Noble Prize for Literature but he’s also widely popular. He has written fiction, non-fiction and short stories. I think part of his appeal is that he writes about themes that everyone can relate to. His masterpiece is One Hundred Years of Solitude but I think my favorite book is Love in the Time of Cholera. It’s based in part on the real life relationship of his mother and father.
Love in the Time of Cholera is the story of a love triangle that spans fifty years. The three main characters are entwined in an amazing story that describes every aspect of love. Gabo never defines love as just one thing but shows through the book hundreds of aspects of love – attraction, passion, lust, concern, friendship, companionship, respect, loyalty, devotion and even the desire to be together to avoid loneliness or to meet expectations. It’s an amazing story. When you read the book you recognize all of these different aspects of love in your own relationships and sometimes nearly all of them at different times in just one relationship.
Gabo is an amazing storyteller, richly imaginative who writes so clearly about universal themes that everyone can relate to.
Filed under: Uncategorized
I live in a large University town and have worked at the University’s library for nearly 22 years. One of the really great things about this community is the large population of International students and professors.
Thanksgiving usually finds our town barren of all the usual residents as students and folks head home for the holidays, but the International students have no where to go. One Thanksgiving we were home for the weekend and planned just a family dinner, and then I invited one of the Korean students who worked with me at the library to join my family for his first Thanksgiving dinner.
It was great. He loved our traditional Thanksgiving favorites and even stood and clapped when the turkey came to the table. But the best thing was his surprise of bringing some of his Korean food to add to the meal. He made paper thin vegetable pancakes with an incredible ginger dipping sauce. While he ate 2 or 3 helpings of our food, we couldn’t stop eating his pancakes. They were really good. I know it meant a lot to him to be invited and he kept raving about the turkey because he’d never had it before but we kept raving about the pancakes. All and all, one of our best Thanksgivings ever.
I came across this website recently that has tons of fantastic Asian foods.
Over the last few years the fashion trend of hip hop clothing has grown from an underground street culture into the mainstream fashion world. Urban clothes are now proudly shown at the top fashion shows in Milan, Italy, Paris and New York. Just ten years ago such blatantly flashy and urban clothes would never have seen the light of day at these shows, but now they are proudly displayed. So what is this emerging trend and which consumers are driving the growth of this fashion niche?The answer can be found in looking at the history of hip hop itself and it’s evolution into the mainstream of music and fashion culture. Hip hop went from being the music of a few skateboarders and corner lyricists to being the predominant musical culture of todays young generation. As more and more people listen to hip hop and urban music, the fashion styles and the clothing these young people were wearing started to reflect the music and artists they were listening to. While most do not remember this now, the first trend to be adopted from urban music were the Adidas shoes which were originally made popular by the hip hop legend Run DMC. After that came the bling bling jewelry and the baggy pants, followed by backward hats and large chains.The trend was further moved forward when the famous rapper LL Cool J signed on to promote the FUBU clothing line. FUBU stood for “For Us By Us” and was the first urban clothing line to hit the mainstream around the world. After FUBU came Phat Farm which was a trendy line launched by Def Jam president Russell Simmons – a hip hop mogul himself.This line was wildly successful and enjoyed the promotion and patronage of several high profile rappers. After these lines gained steam and saw success, many rappers started catching on to the idea that they could launch their own lines of gear and started to do so. Jay Z came out with Rocawear, a tremendously successful line which he eventually sold for several hundred million dollars. Other rappers followed suit, although not all were as successful. 50 Cent introduced his G Unit clothing line to much acclaim and even partnered with Reebok on a top selling shoe line.Through the years urban clothes have evolved greatly with many smaller and more unique lines springing up. There are now literally hundreds of lines of hip hop clothes as is evident at the latest Magic Fashion Show in Las Vegas.
There are many artistic trends such as t-shirts with hand painted images and drawings, lines by and for women, hats and even hip hop jewelry which imitates the bling bling styles worn by hip hop artists.Overall the hip hop styles have evolved greatly since the introduction of the first urban gear brand. They are now considered way within the mainstream of clothing and fashion and are also breaking new ground with creativity and designs. Hip hop clothing is here to stay and has now claimed a foothold in the fashion industry as a whole.
Shop online
MixUnit Knows The Dress Code
ReallyDope
I’m the first to admit that I’m not as politically active as I probably should be. I vote at every presidential election and sometimes locally; but I’m not normally glued to the TV to watch every debate or listen to every political speech. But I did tune in for Obama’s Tuesday speech this week because it was about race in America. Most politicians stay away from this subject in fear of turning away voters and I really wanted to hear for myself what he would say. It was in my opinion one of the most honest, real and brave speeches I’ve ever heard.He wasn’t afraid of tackle all the difficult aspects of why race relations can be so hard – those things that cause tension and fear between different cultures and create so many different stereotypes. And he also pointed out all the things that make us the same – concerns about our families, jobs and everyday lives. Most importantly, he made clear that none of us can deny our heritage, our background and our culture even when they have faults.If you missed the speech, listen to it and judge for yourself
Filed under: Clothing, culture, people | Tags: Reggae T-shirts, South American T-shirts, stickers, Tropical T-shirts, Urban Clothing, Urban Cool T-shirts, World flags t-shirts
Culturallycool – what does it mean?
I started a website about three years ago because I wanted to create a place where all cultures were represented and celebrated. My heritage is a mix of cultures and many of my very best friends and family come from a rich mix of backgrounds. The idea was a place that embraces all people.
When I started the site, my immediate problem was – what to call it? That’s when I coined the phrase “culturallycool.” Culturallycool means that all cultures are cool, all cultures are celebrated and all cultures are embraced. This blog is a place to share our unique experiences and perspectives. A place to celebrate what binds us all together regardless of our backgrounds and what makes us unique and interesting because of our different backgrounds.
After coming up with the “Culturallycool” as the name for the site, I decided to put t-shirts from every culture and background on the site. I’d read that most adults wear a t-shirt five days a week. Over the years, I’ve seen so many interesting t-shirt sites about music, favorite places, and everything under the sun. Most are promoting large companies like Nike and other sports wear.
My goal is to create a place where everyone is proud to let others know that they love their culture and are happy to learn about other’s cultures.
