“You’re Making Me High” - Toni Braxton. You know, Toni still looks good.

I (rich) post this one on the main page because Thicke deserves a nod with this new one.  He’s still putting out some good grooves. He channels a 70’s type groove with strings and all that you can bob your head to. Rihanna’s not in the song but she’s in the photo.

And on a totally unrelated note, Congratulations to Morehouse College Class of 2008 and its Valedictorian.

“Limiting the designation of marriage to a union ‘between a man and a woman’ is unconstitutional and must be stricken from the statute,” California Chief Justice Ron George said in the written opinion.”

TheStateOf . . . Marriage. My question is this: can a woman marry two men at the same time? How can polygamy be illegal but gay marriage legal? Can I marry my dog, or a rock in my backyard? What is the limit?

This post is dedicated to Denmark Vesey.

“As the saying goes, the rich just get richer.

“50 Cent, the man who made a reported $200 million from his deal with Vitamin Water, is now said to be in negotiations with the Rupert Murdoch founded News Corp for a reported $300 million.

“According to ThisIs50.com, the deal would go into effect in 2009, in which News Corp would take a large stake in all aspects of the 50 Cent brand — including music, books, concerts, and his G-Unit label.

Rupert says, “Let’s find us a big buff negro to do our work for us…”

“The deal would help launch the company’s MySpace Records, as 50 and his G-Unit roster would move under the label’s umbrella.

TheStateOf . . . 50. Now, we can FINALLY put to bed any comments about 50 being a so-called “revolutionary.” 50 has now cut a deal with the most notorious brainwasher in all the world. 50 Cent has always been operating on the same page as the Big Media: produce apolitical music full of sexual nothings and fantasy violence. The coon has come full circle.

We’re the most captive nation of slaves that ever came along.  The moral timidity of the average American is quite noticeable.  Everybody’s afraid to be thought in any way different from everyone else.

Gore Vidal

“Barack Obama’s face is throwing me into an existential tailspin. I’m talking about those red, cream and blue art posters all over town. If you don’t know what I mean, take one look around a Trader Joe’s parking lot, paying special attention to the rear windows of Priuses or bio-diesel vehicles, and I guarantee that you’ll see one of these things on proud and ultra-hip display.

“The Obama poster has spread Fairey’s fame, but is the image good for the candidate? Like the photograph-turned-icon of Che Guevara — which graces the T-shirts of countless hipsters who barely know who the guy is — Fairey’s Obama poster is rooted in the graphic style of agitprop. There’s an unequivocal sense of idol worship about the image, a half-artsy, half-creepy genuflection that suggests the subject is (a) a Third World dictator whose rule is enmeshed in a seductive cult of personality; (b) a controversial American figure who’s been assassinated; or (c) one of those people from a Warhol silk-screen that you don’t recognize but assume to be important in an abstruse way.”

TheStateOf . . . Barack. “What shall I say of His speech? Perhaps something about His person lent power to His words and swayed those who heard Him. For He was comely, and the sheen of the day was upon His countenance.” - Kahlil Gibran, Jesus The Son Of Man, “Assaph Called The Orator of Tyre.”

“Shukura Sentwali is going home — to Ghana, West Africa.

“Sentwali, a Wichitan and longtime community activist, said she’s moving to Africa next year because two Ghanaian chiefs are offering free land to descendants of slaves.

“The gesture means to atone for Ghana’s participation in the African slave trade, but the land holds deeper meaning for Sentwali because it provides her a way to fulfill a lifelong mission to improve life for black people.

TheStateOf . . . Africa. A move back to Africa is definitely in the hopper for Ike & Sean’s Mama and me (J). At least a temporary move. I’d almost feel like my life was incomplete if I didn’t. Would you live in Africa?

If you have ever traveled to Hawaii, then perhaps you have come across the term “Haole,” a derogatory term used by native Hawaiians to describe white people. The word haole means “without breath, wind or spirit”; a colorless absence of spirit and feeling; an inability to appreciate beauty and dignity.

In native Hawaiian culture, hugging and embracing are critically important to the formation of lasting bonds. Upon greeting another, Hawaiians traditionally hugged each other tightly, taking deep breaths into the nose so that the other person could feel the rising and falling of the chest and the other person’s breath against their face. White people were called “haoles” because their hugs were brief, fake and breathless (without breath).

Intense intimacy is the most fearful of human experiences and love is primarily the absence of the fear of intimacy. If you think about the people you’ve been most intimate with in your life, whether family member or spouse, it is likely that your most intimate interactions involved feeling the rising of their breaths inside their chests or the feeling of their breath against your face. For parents and children, as well as lovers, this manner of forming bonds is critically important to emotional growth. As has been pointed out in nearly every great Scripture, the connection between our mind, body and soul (the “nervous system”) is made through the breath.

Carolina boy John Edwards will endorse Barrack Obama tonight in Michigan.

Mr. Obama’s campaign is hoping it will be taken as the start of a partywide coalescence around Mr. Obama as the Democratic nominee.

The endorsement ended months of speculation over Mr. Edwards’s preference in the Democratic nominating contest, during which he mostly stayed silent and close to home in Chapel Hill with his wife, Elizabeth.

The State Of . . . Election ‘08. What in the world took him so long. Anyone could have told you months ago he was not likely to endorse Clinton (the face of the establishment). I (rich) heard that Johnny boy though Barry was a little arrogant and kinda blew their first meeting after Edwards dropped out. Oh, if I had a dollar every time somebody thought I was arrogant. Or for every time I heard someone say any of my brothers (Morehouse or not) who have good self esteem called arrogant.

From Daoud Kuttab (far right)

What Palestinians want is for Israel to admit its historic and moral role in creating the refugee problem and its moral responsibility to them. Such an admission by a courageous Israeli leader would satisfy, and neutralize, many Palestinians who hold their keys and demand the literal right of return. As part of a bilateral agreement, surely Israel would allow divided Palestinian families to reunite with relatives who stayed in what became Israel after 1948.

These or similar suggestions cannot be implemented alone. They must be part of a comprehensive agreement that includes real Israeli withdrawal and the creation of a sovereign, viable Palestinian state with territorial contiguity within the 1967 borders.

The State Of . . . Peace in the Middle East. The path to resolution is the admission of wrongs by Israel and Palestine. Palestine, unfairly, has too often been the target in western media as the side opposing peace. This perception has to end.

The Naqba is what Palestinians call the catastrophe that befell them in 1948.