Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Morning Edition - 5/23/06

Overwhelming; Oprah’s Legends Ball
Last night I sat for one hour of the most heart-stirring television in recent history. Billionaire Oprah Winfrey planned an executed the greatest thank-you three-day event for legends in the entertainment and literary world. The affair brought some of the most famous names of our time together into one room. The experience – including a luncheon, gala ball and tent-revival-like closing ceremony – was opulent, genuine and original. Equally astounding is that these women had never been honored collectively before. Call me an emotional twit, but I could not contain the streaming tears as women I admired all my life, congregated to receive a resounding thank-you from their peers and the up-and-coming artists of our time. For those who missed this moment in television history, we’ll keep our eyes open for any mention of a DVD deal.

Set-back or Just Life?
My little back-trouble fiasco set my Body Beautiful campaign on its head. While sitting out for a week with excruciating back pain, I treated myself to every tasty treat I cheated myself out of for the past five months. The result was five nasty pounds that no one noticed, but I certainly felt. As I prepared to torture myself with mental beat-downs and physical work-overs, I realized that this is life. You can’t run your car at 90 mph all day, every day and a simple set-back cannot derail so many months of hard work. I’m back at the gym and slowly returning to the rigorous work-outs, but the most important lesson of this incident wasn’t lost. We will have moments of side-stepping and indulging, but we must return our focus on staying to our goal. The spotlight on Body Beautiful 2006 continues!

Sex in Bookstores and Bathrooms; The Making of a NJ Governor
Former New Jersey Governor, Jim McGreevey is touring with his soon-to-be-released book Confessions. The 384-page tell-some book (he keeps some facts to himself) details how McGreevey engaged in sexual encounters in bookstores and rest areas to avoid being discovered as gay. What the book doesn’t detail is whether these trysts occurred while he was still in office. McGreevey resigned as governor in 2004 amid allegations that he was having an affair with one of his former aides. McGreevey was married twice and has a young daughter. His book is due in stores later this year.

On Blast
On the Down Low On My Way to the Top; Why are stories about white men engaging in homosexual or bisexual behavior not directly associated with the HOT issue of the down low, but any mention of men of color carrying-on a separate sex life with other men immediately pegged as the down low? Is there a double-standard and a new prejudice brewing in the sordid world of cheating homosexual/bisexual men? Does the “down low” only refer to men of color who cheat with other men? Can this phenomenon be attributed to a more vocal group of women – namely women of color – and their hypersensitivity to this issue?

Keep passin’ the open windows…

3 comments:

Unknown said...

My opinion is slightly controversial in that I believe the DL phenomenon is fueled not so much by the media, but by the target audience driving the charge. I believe black women have long sought a reason or scapegoat for the troubled black partnership (male/female) issue. The decline of healthy relationships; two-parent families and the perception that successful black men will avoid black women at all costs, are all reasons why, now frustrated, black women have turned to the DL as yet another reason why they have trouble maintaining a healthy relationship with black men. Women of other cultures see the DL as an anomaly that affects a few men and don’t generalize to search for that behavior in ALL the men of their culture. Hey…it may sound crazy, but before you fire back think long and hard…your man probably already has…. LOL

Unknown said...

Tam... breathe, think about how black women can accept SOME of the responsibility for alienating the black men and let's start talking from there.... you know when it comes to black men, I'm the expert. LOL

Unknown said...

oh girls, girls!!! I've cheated with more men than are mentioned in the old and new testament, but I sincerely loved every one of my partners and would never have done anything to really hurt them. In retrospect it was stupid, but hey, you live and learn. Now, that said, the question was about the DL and I realize my comment asked black women to own-up to the issue and the repercussions. That said, let's not turn this into a completely separate issue; ie. black women as victims in relationships and unable to accept ownership for the lack of cohension in the black family...that my sistahs is another issue that can be addressed later.... Cas...stop co-signing...you love that man of yours and rumor has it..... LOL :)