Summertime music….

Oooh, a tag.

The guidelines:

List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring summer. Post these instructions in your blog along with your seven songs. Then tag seven other people to see what they’re listening to.

This is corny and obvious, but I love it. When the radio starts playing this one (yeah, I still listen to the radio) summer is here. And remember that Will Smith? With the fade?

Will Smith and DJ Jazzy Jeff – Summertime

Apparently, there’s something about girls and guitars (and fiddles, etc.) that I really like. Checking my itunes revealed I’ve been playing the mess out of these three….

Indigo Girls – Closer to Fine

Tracy Chapman – Baby Can I Hold You

Dixie Chicks – Sin Wagon

And guys with guitars… who sing about cooking rice in the microwave and being long in the tooth…

Travis Tritt

This is just… well…

Me’Shell Ndegeocello – Dreadlocks

Men Without Hats – Safety Dance

Ah, the 80′s. Really, what better motto?

We can dance if we want to… we can leave your friends behind….cuz your friends don’t dance and if they don’t dance then they ain’t no friends of mine.

People, there are jesters and dancing chickens in this video. So awesome….

As the previous will attest, I like dance themed songs/videos. Summer in the city….taking it back real old school — this is one of my FAVORITE scenes in one of my FAVORITE movies. Come on… the twist… the frug… the freaking Watusi!!!! Please, people, control yourselves.

Yep, summer’s really all about dancing, peeps.

Okay, that was fun. Come on, everybody play…. I’m not tagging specifically – anyone who’s game – c’mon.

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Education as the Practice of Freedom

From bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom, (NY: Routledge, 1994).

To educate as the practice of freedom is a way of teaching that anyone can learn. That learning process comes easiest to those of us who teach who also believe that there is an aspect of our vocation that is sacred; who believe that our work is not merely to share information but to share in the intellectual and spiritual growth of our students. To teach in a manner that respects and cares for the souls of our students is essential if we are to provide the necessary conditions where learning can most deeply and intimately begin. (13)

When education is the practice of freedom, students are not the only ones who are asked to share, to confess. Engaged pedagogy does not seek simply to empower students. Any classroom that employs a holistic model of learning will also be a place where teachers grow, and are empowered by the process. That empowerment cannot happen if we refuse to be vulnerable while encouraging students to take risks. Professors who expect students to share confessional narratives but who are themselves unwilling to share are exercising power in a manner that could be coercive. ….When professors bring narratives of their experiences into classroom discussions it eliminates the possibility that we can function as all-knowing, silent interrogators. It is often productive if professors take the first risk, liking confessional narratives to academic discussions so as to show how experience can illuminate and enhance our understanding of academic material. But most professors must practice being vulnerable in the classroom, being wholly present in mind, body, and spirit. (21)

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June 27 – National HIV Testing Day

Today, women account for more than one quarter of all new HIV/AIDS diagnoses. Women of color are especially affected by HIV infection and AIDS. In 2004 (the most recent year for which data are available), HIV infection was

*the leading cause of death for black women (including African American women) aged 25–34 years.
*the 3rd leading cause of death for black women aged 35–44 years.
*the 4th leading cause of death for black women aged 45–54 years.
*the 4th leading cause of death for Hispanic women aged 35–44 years.

In the same year, HIV infection was the 5th leading cause of death among all women aged 35–44 years and the 6th leading cause of death among all women aged 25–34 years. The only diseases causing more deaths of women were cancer and heart disease.

Read more.

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Zimbabwe

Whether you pray, meditate, appeal to the ancestors… whatever you do, do it on behalf of the people of Zimbabwe today.

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