Not American? Give me a break

What is wrong with people? Have we all forgotten that America is a land full of immigrants. It grew because of immigrants, and it thrives today because of immigrants. Most people have lineages that lead back to Europe, Africa, Asia, and pretty much everywhere in the world aside from Indian Americans. So why is it that a guy who came to the states as a 12 year old and who learned long distance running in the United States, and American in every sense of the world, is all of a sudden not American enough? Please don't tell me it's because the guy isn't white. Because I would hope we can leave that sort of crap out of sports. People are always trying to perform a complete revision of Americanism, but don't realize that at some point they are going to be attacking their own lineages. He is American, and has never claimed otherwise. He may have originated from elsewhere, but the wonderful thing about America is that as long as you are willing to give your all and succeed, you're more than welcome.

15 Year Old Raped While Others Watched

I don't know what the hell is going on with the world these days, but when ten or more people stand around and watch as a fifteen year old girl is raped at her High School homecoming dance, we should all wonder what else we can do to help this world move in a better direction. To say I'm disgusted would be putting it lightly. It's beyond a tragedy, It's inhuman, and I hope someone finds every single one of those who stood by and put them to jail. To be honest, I don't think I would be too sad if those who raped that young girl died a horrible terrible death.

When In Puerto Rico

Going on vacation can be a little intimidating if you’re not sure where to go. I didn’t have that kind of trouble when I recently went to San Juan in Puerto Rico. We planned ahead and knew exactly where we were going to go for our vacation. I suppose the best part will have to be the hotel we picked for our stay in San Juan.

The El San Juan Hotel and Casino has always been known as a top spot in San Juan, but I wasn’t aware of the class in the place until I went there. The minute we arrived from the San Juan airport, the man at the door, Hery, opened our taxi door and welcomed us to Puerto Rico and to the El San Juan Hotel. The people at the hotel were so kind and welcoming. We didn’t even have to drag our bags to the concierge desk. Our bags were held in a safe spot while we waited for our room to be prepared.

If you’ve ever seen the pictures on their website, you’ll be even more amazed when you see the suites they have. If you have the money, I would advise going for the suites, they are worth it, and the view of the amazing pool and ocean is just beyond words.

San Juan has a lot of elements to it which makes it the best spot in all of Puerto Rico, but you have got to take a trip to Old San Juan or Viejo San Juan as they like to call it. The stone lined streets are amazing, they look like old Europe. There are so many different things to see in Old San Juan, but you shouldn’t waste your time doing all the touristy things. San Juan has a lot of small nooks that you have to actually search for to truly enjoy.

Rush Limbaugh is brain-washing the Republicans

The Republican Party should be renamed –effective right now –as the RLP, the Rush Limbaugh party. It seems that the people in the Republican Party are going to listen to that loud mouth in their goal to see president Obama fail. Perhaps these people still don’t understand that government is more effective when there are two political parties brainstorming to find what’s best for the country.

From all the interviews and press conferences he has given, president Obama appears to want to make major changes in infrastructure and policies. These changes may not appease the Republicans, but they are not being effective members of government when they simply say no to ideas without proposing ideas of their own. If the Republicans want to play ball on the same playing field as the democrats, then they need to stop listening to people like Rush Limbaugh, and find their own leading voices in their party.

If they keep people like Limbaugh, they run the risk of being forever known as a group of grumpy old men who stunted their country’s progress because they wouldn’t let a venerable leader do his job. Rush Limbaugh is and has always been unequivocally a moron of the grandest order. With his stupid radio program, he has been able to reach a lot more people in the back woods of America, and these imbeciles –because of a lack of voice all their own –are easily convinced that what he says makes sense and that his type of politics is good for the country.

Mr. Limbaugh –herein referred to as THE IDIOT –has claimed that he wants president Obama to fail. What THE IDIOT doesn’t seem to comprehend, is that it is in his best interest to want the president to succeed. If president Obama fails in all his attempts, it will not be a sign of weakness on his part. It will show the Republican Party as a bunch of menacing aggravators who did absolutely nothing to help their country. People like THE IDIOT are likely to lose their sponsors if the economy goes any further into the ground. The people who subscribe to THE IDIOT’s ideologies need to wake up and smell the coffee. Old world mechanisms are not going to fit into the new world order. The Republican Party needs to recalibrate its mechanical arms and play ball with the president. As for THE IDIOT, let’s all hope he loses his voice.

Five Reasons why Oprah Should Open Her Own Studio

Freedom
Not everyone can own a studio, but as Tyler Perry has proved, having one’s own studio can help a filmmaker or producer. With a self-owned studio, you do not need to beg anyone for money to produce your projects. Oprah has enough fire power behind her to gather the money needed to produce the types of high quality materials Harpo Inc produces. The added freedom of green-lighting films and TV productions will put her at the top, and like Perry, will bring longevity to her productions and grow her already enormous fan base.

Financial Gain
Not that Oprah needs more money, but as the head of a studio, she would be battling it out with the already established minority. This will increase her financial gain, because with some careful choices, the films and TV series that her studio produces will bring in a lot of money. The attachment of her name to a project will bring people out, especially if it is a project that is geared towards women, who represent ninety percent of her audience.

Popularity
Oprah is probably the most popular female figure in the world. Her couch has the ability to bring both men and women to tears and she has been able to build an amazing group of supporters over the years. Her popularity will make her studio succeed, because people will have a natural curiosity towards the films she produces.

Accessibility
In order to properly gain from a public, you need to be able to provide them with something that they can connect with. The majority of studios in Hollywood don’t usually cater to minority groups. Most of the movies that come out each year are geared towards the Caucasian middle class. Oprah can nip in and fill the gap. Because of her success, she can create a perfect balance between films that are geared towards the general public and films that are geared towards minority groups of all kinds.

Image
As a black woman, Oprah must be aware of the fact that black people and other minorities are portrayed poorly in movies. Films hardly ever show the positive side of minorities. They are often stereotyped and lack depth. There are writers out there who are willing to change this image, but they don’t have a home for their projects. An Oprah studio could be the perfect place for projects that will portray positivity rather than overused stereotypes.

Notable Photo Artists

Ananké Asseff
Ms. Asseff was born in 1971 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her work has been represented in the collections of the Rio de Janeiro Museum of Modern Art (MAM), the Museum of Modern Art of Buenos Aires (MAMBA), the Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome (MACRO), the Juan B. Castagnino Fine Arts Museum, and the Caraffa Museum in Argentina. She has also been published in magazines such as BIG Magazine (Argentina), Exit Magazine (Spain) and in several catalogs and books, including Mapas Abiertos (Spain, 2003).

Marco Breuer
He has exhibited throughout the United States and Europe. His work is in a number of collections, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard, and the Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart, Germany. He is also a recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship. A monograph of his work entitled Early Recordings has been published by Aperture.

Jan Banning
He was born to Dutch East Indies parents in the Netherlands in 1954. He studied social and economic history at the University of Nijmegen, and has been working as a photojournalist since 1981. He has published seven books and received many awards, including the World Press Photo 2004 Portrait Stories Award, the Prize of Prague 2004, and the Dutch Icodo Award 2003 for Traces of War.

Claudia Angelmaier
Claudia was born in 1972 in Goppingen, Germany. Angelmaier’s exhibitions include Color and Gray, Museum der bildenden Kunste, Leipzig, and Rot, Gelb, Blau, Galerie Kleindienst, Leipzip. She has participated in numerous other exhibitions and is a recipient of the Kunstpreis der Leipziger Volkszeitung, 2007 and Alfred Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach-Stipendium, 2006.

Robert Bowen
Bowen is a teacher at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, who divides his time between making art and working on photo-design projects. His work has been featured in a variety of exhibitions, books, and other publications. An abbreviated version of his Return To Sender: Postcards from Impossible Places project was published in Cabinet Magazine. Other projects of his are included in the MoMA artist book collection, The Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry.