This movie may have Academy Award potential next year. Robert Redford headlines an all-star cast that also includes Shia LeBeouf, Sam Elliott, Julie Christie, Terence Howard, Susan Sarandon, Chris Cooper, Stanley Tucci, Nick Nolte, and Anna Kendrick in this thriller about a former Weather Underground activist who goes on the run after a journalist discovers his identity. No release date in the United States yet but keep a look out for it.
Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren and Mary Louise-Parker return in Red 2. The wildly successful movie about retired assassins also adds Anthony Hopkins and Catherine Zeta-Jones to the adventure. Reds 2 is coming to theaters on July 19, 2013.
We live in a Beyoncé world. Face it, she’s the most all-around performer out today. With her newest track, Beyoncé gives us a gritty tune and commands all her competitors to Bow Down. I must admit this is a slight departure from her previous hip-hop influenced tracks. It’s much more vibrant, non-formulaic, and direct. Queen Bey gets gangsta and I for one love it.
By Kim Peterson
What if U.S. workers were paid more as the nation’s productivity increased? If we had adopted that policy decades ago, the minimum wage would now be about $22 an hour, said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) last week. Warren was speaking at a hearing held by the Senate’s Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. You can see the video here.Warren was talking to Arindrajit Dube, a University of Massachusetts Amherst professor who has studied the issue of minimum wage. “With a minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, what happened to the other $14.75?” she asked Dube. “It sure didn’t go to the worker.”The $22 minimum wage Warren referred to came from a 2012 study from the Center for Economic and Policy Research. It said that the minimum wage would have hit $21.72 an hour last year if it had been tied to the increases seen in worker productivity since 1968. Even if the minimum wage got only one-fourth the pickup as the rate of productivity, it would now be $12.25 an hour instead of $7.25.Some of the news media took this to mean that Warren is calling for a minimum-wage increase to $22 an hour. That doesn’t appear to be the case. She seems to be merely pointing out that the minimum wage has grown more slowly than other facets of the economy.Warren is taking some hits on Twitter for her comments. One user describes her as “compelling,” saying she is “asking the right questions regarding minimum wage.”
by Richard E. Lapchick
Editor’s note: This story is revised from the print edition.
Of all the racial and gender report cards produced by The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida, the most discouraging was the first Associated Press Sports Editors report card in 2006. Unfortunately, that sentiment is still applicable today.
It is discouraging because the percentages of people of color and women in the top-level positions in sports media remain dismally low. The hiring practices of ESPN appear to be the only factor that is bringing up the percentages.
In the report that’s due to be released this week, the grade for racial hiring practices for APSE newspapers and websites last year remained a C+, the same as in 2010. The F grade issued for gender hiring practices remained constant as well. The combined grade for 2012 was a D+.
The following (top chart) shows the percentages of white employees in key positions in 2010 and 2012:
The following (bottom chart) shows the percentages of men in key positions in 2010 and 2012:
Some improvements are evident. Nonetheless,
if you look like me, you have a great chance for upward mobility in the sports departments of newspapers and dot-coms in the United States and Canada. If you are a woman or person of color, even in 2013, your chances are extremely limited.
In each of the reports in 2006, 2008, 2010 and now, ESPN’s statistics for sports editors and columnists raised the numbers. Without their key hirings, the statistics would be even worse than they were in 2006.
In the new report card, of the 12 people of color who are sports editors at “Circulation A” media outlets (the largest newspapers and dot-coms, with a circulation of 175,000 or more), four work for ESPN, which employed two of the six African-American sports editors and two of the four Latino sports editors. If ESPN’s people of color were removed, the percentage of sports editors in the “A” organizations who are people of color would drop from 15 percent to 11 percent.
Of the 11 women who are sports editors at this circulation level, six work for ESPN. If the ESPN sports editors who are women were removed, then the percentage of female sports editors at this level would drop from 14 percent to 8 percent.
Sports media continues to lag behind the leagues it covers when it comes to diversity hiring.
Of the 52 men of color who are columnists at this circulation level, 37 work for ESPN, which employed 28 of the 40 African-American male columnists, three of the six Latino columnists, and all six Asian columnists. If ESPN’s male columnists who are people of color were removed, the percentage of columnists of color at this level would drop from 20 percent to 7 percent.
Of the 35 women who are columnists at this circulation level, 23 worked for ESPN. If the ESPN columnists were removed, the percentage of female columnists at this level would drop from 13 percent to 5 percent.
When we did the study in 2006, Jemele Hill, then a columnist at the Orlando Sentinel, was the only African-American woman columnist in America. Seven years later, Hill is at ESPN, and Shannon Owens, the woman who replaced her at the Sentinel, is the only other female columnist of color.
We have a long way to go before women and people of color are fairly represented in our major newspapers and dot-coms. As we wait for that day to come, I have to wonder how many great stories we’ve missed covering, how many we might have covered better and how many we would have had a completely different take on were things different. In the meantime, I give credit to the APSE, which is the only organization that has ever asked us to hold its feet to the fire by publishing a racial and gender report card on it.
Garry D. Howard, editor-in-chief at Sporting News (which is owned by SBJ parent American City Business Journals), and John Cherwa, an editor at the Los Angeles Times and who served as the adviser for this study, were instrumental in getting the report cards on the sports media started. I asked them where we are now.
“I have seen the future today in Greg Lee of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Lisa Bell of The Buffalo News and Larry Graham of the San Diego Union-Tribune, and I am elated over their ascension to the top spot at their respective sports news organizations,” Howard said. “This gives me hope that upper management will continue to see fit to include people of color in the process to compete for the top jobs in their departments, not just sports editor, but columnist and managing editor as well. We’ve come a long way, but there are still many miles to go.”
Said Cherwa: “Our business is going through seismic changes, and it’s interesting to see how that relates to our diversity efforts. And the answer is that those efforts continue to make incremental progress; less than we would hope for, but still headed in the right direction.”
My primary recommendation to the APSE remains that it adopt a rule, similar to the Rooney Rule in the NFL, that would call for a diverse pool of candidates for each opening of these key positions. I would call it the Ralph Wiley Rule after the late writer. That may be the push that is imperative.
By Jamilah King, Monday, March 18 2013
It’s a Thursday night and East Flatbush is fuming. New York City police officers are stationed at every corner for miles along Church Ave., which is this Brooklyn neighborhood’s main thoroughfare. Traffic clogs the street and two B35 buses crawl alongside weary evening commuters. Red and blue lights pierce the nighttime air. “They’re here because they killed that boy,” one black woman says to another in a West Indian accent. “I just hope all these kids stay safe.”That boy was Kimani Gray, a 16-year-old who was shot and killed in the neighborhood last weekend, and the kids to whom the woman refers are his friends—and their friends, family, and many strangers—who showed up for four nights last week to protest his killing. Wednesday night made national headlines, because police officers clashed violently with vigil goers. Forty six people were arrested, and photos from the night look more like Birmingham than Brooklyn; swarms of officers pin screaming black men on the ground, or against the hood of a cop car.So on this night there’s the anticipation of violence, but no signs of it. Instead, what’s most visible is the sheer force of the NYPD. In addition to standing in groups of four at every corner, they’re on the tops of buildin
via Dispatch From Brooklyn: Fraying Patience With NYPD’s Protection – COLORLINES.
By Gil Aegerter Staff Writer, NBC News
An attempt to illegally obtain absentee ballots in Florida last year is the first known case in the U.S. of a cyber attack against an online election system, according to computer scientists and lawyers working to safeguard voting security.The case involved more than 2,500 “phantom requests” for absentee ballots, apparently sent to the Miami-Dade County elections website using a computer program, according to a grand jury report on problems in the Aug. 14 primary election. It is not clear whether the bogus requests were an attempt to influence a specific race, test the system or simply interfere with the voting. Because of the enormous number of requests – and the fact that most were sent from a small number of computer IP addresses in Ireland, England, India and other overseas locations – software used by the county flagged them and elections workers rejected them.
Read more Cyberattack on Florida election is first known case in US, experts say – Open Channel.
2013-03-19 Vatican Radio
Homily of the Holy Father at the Inauguration of his Papal Ministry 19 March 2013:
Dear Brothers and Sisters, I thank the Lord that I can celebrate this Holy Mass for the inauguration of my Petrine ministry on the solemnity of Saint Joseph, the spouse of the Virgin Mary and the patron of the universal Church. It is a significant coincidence, and it is also the name-day of my venerable predecessor: we are close to him with our prayers, full of affection and gratitude. I offer a warm greeting to my brother cardinals and bishops, the priests, deacons, men and women religious, and all the lay faithful. I thank the representatives of the other Churches and ecclesial Communities, as well as the representatives of the Jewish community and the other religious communities, for their presence. My cordial greetings go to the Heads of State and Government, the members of the official Delegations from many countries throughout the world, and the Diplomatic Corps. In the Gospel we heard that “Joseph did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took Mary as his wife” (Mt 1:24). These words already point to the mission which God entrusts to Joseph: he is to be the custos, the protector. The protector of whom? Of Mary and Jesus; but this protection is then extended to the Church, as Blessed John
via Pope: Homily for inaugural Mass of Petrine Ministry [full text].
I like the classics. Who doesn’t? Hopefully, these will jog some memories or maybe you will make some new ones. All of these are available on iTunes or at Amazon. Enjoy!
soulbrotherspeaks.com 