Heavy Mentalist

How many of y’all remember this?

This animated sequence, “Pinball Number Count” made it’s debut on Sesame Street in 1976. Produced in 1972 by Imagination, Inc. for the Children’s Television Workshop, with vocals provided by the one and only Pointer Sisters, this funky 12-count cartoon was played at least once during every Sesame Street episode for years after its debut.

I found this on Youtube this morning and it brought back so many memories. Enjoy!

Love this song. And this group. This song is…so beautiful. One of the better new tunes I’ve heard lately.

This single was released by a little known group called Brother D With Collective Effort.

While the song’s track — which utilizes Cheryl Lynn’s “To Be Real” — is nothing spectacular, the fact that it is one of the earliest examples of a “conscious” rap record makes it something special.

With lyrics like “You dippy dippy dive, so-socialize, but how we gonna make the black nation rise?”, “the Ku Klux Klan is on the loose, training their kids in machine gun use” and “my people, people, can’t you see what’s really going on? Unemployment’s high, the housing’s bad and the schools are teaching wrong,” Brother D With Collective Effort were ahead of their time, but the group faded into obscurity after this one blacknificent single.

It is also one of the earliest examples of a rap record, period. When this was released, it was one of thirty-two rap records in existence.

Originally released in 1980 on Clappers Records, it was re-released in 1985 on the now defunct 4th & Broadway label.

With the recent recall due to possible salmonella contamination leaving egg-lovers in a scramble, I’m sure many are now wondering where to find non-tainted eggs.

Luckily, there are still some small, local farms left all over the country that will be more than happy to have your business.

fresh eggs in a basket - photo from HomeSweetFarm

And the good news is, farm-raised eggs are healthier for you then eggs gleaned from corporate owned mega-farms, where chickens are penned up on top of each other in deplorable conditions — conditions that led to the national salmonella outbreak we now have on our hands.

Most small farm raised eggs however, are laid by hens that are allowed to roam and graze freely, hence the phrase “free-range” chickens.

According to tests done by Mother Earth News comparing farm-raised eggs to commercially raised eggs, the farm-raised eggs contain:

You hear it all the time: American blacks hate white people, because we have the right to.

After all they enslaved us, beat us, raped us, dehumanized us, etc. for hundreds of years, so the hate is justified and there’s not a damn thing any white person can do about it!

And so it goes…

enslaved Africans picking cotton

Over a 100 years after the official end of American slavery, most black Americans are still so attached to the subject, it’s as if we “own” the very concept of being enslaved — like we’re the only race of people who’ve ever been bought and sold.

It’s even to the point that, when most African-Americans even think of the word “slave”, we automatically picture a black person in our minds, as if black person = slave.

But I think perhaps its time for black people to get over it. Yes, I said it. Get.Over.It.

Not forget about slavery, but just not concentrate on it so much as something that only happens to black people.  Continue reading...