Investigation
Hawaii 2022 Travel Report Part II
May 4, 2022
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Posted in Cover Story, Education, Environment, Exclusives, Food, Human Interest, Inspirational, Interview, Investigation, Lifestyle, Nature, Travel, Videos | 
Tags: culture, Destinations, Food, Hawaii, Hawaii 2022, Travel | 
No Comments »
History: What Ancient Roman Parties Were Really Like (Video)
March 17, 2020
Have you seen that ‘Caligula’ movie? Google it and see how wild a party orgy can get! Man, did the ancient Romans know how to party! But wait. It turns out that the parties, though indeed ‘all that’… They were not all sex-on-sexy-sex time. Oh well. Yay, history.
Contrary to popular belief, Rome was not all crazy sex parties. In fact, ancient Roman parties were pretty tame by today’s standards. Most of the time, it consisted of noble families getting together, eating elaborate food dishes, and talking about everything from politics to the weather. These parties were beacons of status and networking opportunities, which is why they became a cornerstone in everyday Roman life. Partying in Rome was common, but racy Ancient Roman escapades weren’t popping off on the daily.
– Weird History
Hmm. That Bacchanalia sounds like Freaknik in Atlanta back in the day (ha)!
Posted in Education, Film, History, Investigation, Series, Videos | Tags: Ancient Romans, Ancient Rome, Roman Parties, Weird History, What Roman Parties Were Really Like | No Comments »
Three Pro Football Players On Holding The Number 1 Spot: The Struggle Of The Black Quarterback (Video)
January 27, 2020
Good coverage and perspectives offered by The Undefeated in this piece. Maybe y’all remember (maybe not) Doug Williams coming from getting beat up with the [orange, really orange] Tampa Bay Bucs for YEARS in the League… to taking the Washington Redskins to the Super Bowl AND winning (with a bum leg) in one year… AND retiring and taking over for one of college football’s greatest coaches EVER, Eddie Robinson, at Grambling University… now that’s a “QuarterBlack” (published in 1990, link to Amazon here) story. Barely talked about.
And the struggle continues. But first, a bit more history… Don’t let them forget, we’ve always had Black QB’s that were the ‘ish!
The first wave of successful Black quarterbacks gave this entire generation of stars the role models they needed – but few know the actual struggles that these legends had to overcome behind the scenes. In conversations with The Undefeated’s senior NFL writer Jason Reid, these legends discuss their journey and how they each played a unique part of the evolution: Warren Moon going from undrafted to the Hall of Fame, Randall Cunningham being able to embrace his athletic style and Donovan McNabb on the 1999 draft class that saw three players drafted in top 10.
– THE UNDEFEATED
Posted in Activism, History, Interview, Investigation, Sports, Videos | Tags: Donovan McNabb, Football, Jason Reid, National Football League, NFL, Pro Football, Professional Football, Randall Cunningham, The evolution of Black quarterbacks, The Year Of The Black QB, The Year Of The Black Quarter Back, Three legendary QBs discuss their journey, Warren Moon | No Comments »
Technology: How A.I. Is Making it Easier to Kill You (Video)
December 23, 2019
You know, if we invent the instrument(s) of our own destruction, it will be really hard for who or whatever is left to generate ‘pity’ for our species. Because it isn’t like we could not see it coming. Wow!
A tank that drives itself. A drone that picks its own targets. A machine gun with facial recognition software. Sounds like science fiction? A.I. fueled weapons are already here.
– The New York Times
Great (and very scary) perspectives shared, including showing how human history has held to a consistent theme with respect to the way we try to wage war ‘better.’
‘The Marion Stokes Project’ Looks At A Woman Who Recorded 30 Years Of How We Looked In American Media (Trailer)
October 14, 2019
Interesting. If the press, or media, provides a ‘first draft of history,’ what can we say about this lady… who recording EVERYTHING media?
For over 30 years, Marion Stokes obsessively and privately recorded American television news twenty-four hours a day. A civil rights-era radical who became fabulously wealthy and reclusive later in life, her obsession started with the Iranian Hostage Crisis in 1979—at the dawn of the twenty-four hour news cycle. It ended on December 14, 2012 as the Sandy Hook massacre played on television while Marion passed away. In between, Marion filled 70,000 VHS tapes, capturing revolutions, wars, triumphs, catastrophes, bloopers, talk shows and commercials that show us how television shaped the world of today and in the process tell us who we were.
A mystery in the form of a time capsule, RECORDER delves into the strange life of a woman for whom home taping was a form of activism to protect the truth (the public didn’t know it, but the networks had been disposing their archives for decades into the trashcan of history) and though her visionary and maddening project nearly tore her family apart, her extraordinary legacy is priceless.
Remember Jeremy Suarez? Whatever Happened To That Dude? (Video)
October 7, 2019
Ever wonder what happened to the guy that played ‘Jordan’ on ‘The Bernie Mac Show’… maybe not until just now. That’s okay. Lean in and listen up.
In this episode of ‘Unforgotten,’ we remember child actor Jeremy Suarez, who most famously became known as Jordan on ‘The Bernie Mac Show.’
– Comedy Hype
Posted in Celebrity, Investigation, Series, Videos | Tags: Comedy Hype, Jeremy Suarez, Jordan From The Bernie Mac Show, Unforgotten | No Comments »
The Real Story Behind Why Aaron McGruder Left “The Boondocks” (Video)
September 2, 2019
Real talk… Aaron McGruder leaving the Cartoon Network series “The Boondocks” left the show to die a slow painful death. But whyyyyy though? Here’s why.
Good content on the matter; going all the way back to the roots of “The Boondocks” in comic strip form.
Posted in Animation, Comedy, Comics, Investigation, Series, Television, Videos | Tags: Aaron McGruder, Comedy Hype, Why Aaron McGruder Left The Boondocks | No Comments »
Technology: The Future Is Automated… But Will There Be A Place For Humans In It? (Documentary)
May 8, 2019
That headline. That is as much the question as ‘To be or not to be?’ Robots ARE replacing jobs. FACT! But what about yours? Every job is pretty much at risk according to AJ+.
Robots are already changing jobs as an endless array of robots enter our everyday lives. From trucking to service work to high-end jobs like doctors and lawyers, this documentary explores how robotics and artificial intelligence are changing the workplace.
AJ+’s documentary series on automation explores how advancements in artificial intelligence, robotics, machine learning and automated vehicles will affect jobs, cities and inequality. From trucking to radiology, new technology is already changing white collar and blue collar occupations, reshaping cities and concentrating wealth in the hands of the few. Robots are taking over the world as companies like Tesla, Amazon, Uber and Google are using robots to automate.
– AJ+
Posted in Business, Film, Investigation, Technology, Videos | Tags: AI, AJ+, AJ+ Docs, Artificial Intelligence, Automation, Every Job Is At Risk, Pt. 1, robotics, Robots, Robots And AI, Robots And AI: The Future Is Automated And Every Job Is At Risk, The Future Is Automated, The Future Is Automated And Every Job Is At Risk | No Comments »
Food: The ‘Impossible Whopper’ Is Coming To Burger King. But How Does It Taste? (Video)
April 10, 2019
Ohhhh! That’s what they meant by an Impossible Whopper. It is very possible that I will cop a couple when they come to the Atlanta market for my own taste test. I love the Whopper. And I’ve had some decent veggie burgers. This is set to be better than both!
Burger King has become the largest restaurant chain to embrace plant-based meat. See what Impossible Foods had to do to win over the King.
No April Fools’ joke: This Whopper is meat-free, and you’d never know. I ate Burger King’s Impossible Whopper, made of plant meat.
– CNET
– @ojones1
Wodaabe: The People Of The Taboo (Documentary)
April 10, 2019
Okay, so your favorite rappers might tell you how pretty they are and/or how they ‘keep it moving’… But bet your next check and someone else’s that they have NOTHING on these beautiful nomads. Fascinatingly different culture than what most of us experience in the States (or even in our travels)!
Watch and learn all about the Wodaabe in this documentary.
Posted in Investigation, Relationships, Travel, Videos | Tags: Elders and Ancestors, Odisseia Tribal Os Wodaabe, Sahel, The People Of The Taboo, Wodaabe | No Comments »
The Story Of Why ‘Martin’ Ended (Video)
April 1, 2019
These Comedy Hype videos we have been coming across are more about the funny than being funny in and of themselves. This one especially. ‘Martin’ is one of the funniest shows to ever have been on TV. Whyyyyy did that good thing have to come to such a lackluster end? Watch.
– @ojones1
Posted in Comedy, History, Investigation, Relationships, Series, Television, Videos | Tags: Comedy Hype, Here's why, True Story, Why It Ended, Why MARTIN Ended | No Comments »
Watch This Clip On A “Labor Camp” In Belle Glade, Florida, In 1960 (Mini-Documentary)
March 18, 2019
My Dad saw a similar story on TV in the mid-1980s and it prompted him to go looking for his older brother. They’d only been in sparse contact with each other, but Dad knew Uncle DeWitt was in Florida working on a farm similar to their sharecropping days. It turns out that Uncle DeWitt was caught up at a place like this.
Check out this footage of these kids and their mother at a “labor camp” in Belle Glade, FL in 1960. Gotta see it to believe it.
– UNSTRIPPED VOICE
We got him out of there. But places like that even existing in the 20th century. Makes me feel a way. Watch and you’ll likely feel it, too.
– @ojones1
Posted in Activism, Cover Story, History, Interview, Investigation, News, Television, Videos | Tags: Belle Glade, florida, indentured servitude, labor camp, migrant farmers, Modern Day Slavery, Okeechobee, Quasi-Slavery | No Comments »
“Horror Noire” Explores How Black People Love Horror Movies, But Don’t Always Get Love Shown In Return (Trailer)
February 14, 2019
Yeah. Why do they do us like that? Why do we have to die so fast, at least in the older horror movies? We ain’t tripping…
(Really. That’s Becky-With-The-Good-Hair who always trips and falls when running from monsters & killers. She oughta die ASAP, right? Haaaa!)
Based on the acclaimed book of the same name by Dr. Robin R. Means Coleman, HORROR NOIRE takes a critical look at a century of genre films that by turns utilized, caricatured, exploited, sidelined, and embraced both Black filmmakers and Black audiences.
Featuring interviews with Ernest Dickerson (Bones), Rusty Cundieff (Tales from the Hood), Jordan Peele (Us), Tina Mabry (Mississippi Damned), Tony Todd (Candyman), Paula Jai Parker (Tales from the Hood), Tananarive Due (My Soul to Keep), and Dr. Robin R. Means Coleman.
– Shudder
– @ojones1
Posted in Film, History, Interview, Investigation, Trailer, Videos | Tags: A Shudder Original, Dr. Robin R. Means Coleman, Horror Noire, Robin R. Means Coleman, Shudder | No Comments »
What Are Full-Time Rideshare Drivers Making Yearly? (Video)
February 14, 2019
This New Yorker makes up to $540 a day driving for Uber, Juno and Lyft from CNBC.
Knowing folks who drive for companies like Uber and Lyft (like we all do at this point), does anybody know if the fares are really fattening pockets out here in these streets though?
Watch and learn.
Posted in Business, Human Interest, Investigation, News, Videos | Tags: Al Castillo, CNBC, earnings, grinding, Hustling, income, Juno, Kathleen Elkins, Lyft, Make It, NEW YORK CITY, Rideshare, Rideshare Drivers, Uber | No Comments »
Gangsters In Paradise (Documentary)
February 8, 2019
My dad was God… at least to me…and since I could not fight God, I’d fight everybody else.
Damn. That is the definition of f’d up AND a damn near perfect description of the condition that sets a gangster on his path in life. Wow. Another in-depth hard-hitting VICE doc, covering content you just won’t get anywhere else.
In Gangsters in Paradise – Deportees of Tonga, VICE embeds with four Tongan nationals who have been sent back to the tiny island nation where they were born after serving prison time in New Zealand and the United States. Former gang members, they often struggle to reconnect with the culture, the language, and the people.
– VICE
Interesting when you realize that Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson is half Tongan and half Black. He could have been all f’d up in the game. He still probably would feel some pain watching this. As should we all.
Posted in Film, Investigation, Travel, Videos | Tags: former gang members, gang culture, Gangs, Gangsters in Paradise, The Deportees of Tonga, Tonga, VICE | No Comments »
The ‘Blaxit’ Movement: Young Black Conservatives Believe President Trump Can Make America Great For Them (Video)
January 28, 2019
Yeeeesh!
Okay, get past that feeling because this is actually worth watching; at least to get another point of view you might not have considered. It’s like what Killer Mike was saying on his Netflix show (“Trigger Warning”): You need to actually engage people with views that differ from your own.
In October of 2018, hundreds of young conservatives of color met up in Washington, DC, for the first ever Young Black Leadership Summit: a four-day conference that featured speeches from conservative actress Stacey Dash and firebrand Candace Owens, a trip to the White House to hear Trump speak, and a rare chance for young, black Republicans to get together and network IRL.
VICE’s Lee Adams went to the summit to talk firsthand with young, Black conservatives about what drew them to the Republican party, along with what kind of backlash they’ve faced from the black community for going public with their political views. To find out more about the movement, he also tagged along with Antonia Okafor—an outspoken Second Amendment activist—on a hunting trip in northwestern Iowa with Steve King, a House Rep who’s been widely criticized for his racist comments. Lastly, he met up with Shekinah Geist, a Black Republican and budding social media influencer, and sat in on a conversation between her and a group of peers from the local Black student union who challenged her on her support for President Trump.
– VICE
All this said and shown… this is NOT an endorsement of the GOP or President Trump or the views shared. But it IS an earnest sharing of different point of view (the VICE video and this blog post on it).
Posted in Activism, Cover Story, Investigation, News, Politics, Videos | Tags: Antonia Okafor, black republican, Blaxit, Candace Owens, Lee Adams, MINORITY REPORTS, Racism, Second Amendment Activist, Second Amendment Rights, Shekinah Geist, Stacey Dash, Steve King, The Young Black Conservatives of Trump’s America, Trump Campaign, VICE, Young Black Leadership Summit | No Comments »
Latinos Converting To Islam (Documentary)
January 25, 2019
What so-called religions that promise ‘salvation’ can truly forget is the SAVING. What the dude says in here about why he converted to Islam, how it truly SAVED him… He was not speaking of a ‘magical’ event or a sudden ‘newness’ feeling (set to orchestral music or something). Rather, he was speaking of Islam SAVING his life in an UNDERSTANDABLE way that brought joy to his soul and meaning to his life. ‘Survival mode’ to a ‘revival’ by way of the Quran.
Latinos are one of the fastest growing groups within Islam in America. VICE’s Lee Adams travels to Houston Texas, the home of America’s first Islam in Spanish center, to investigate what’s behind this phenomenon and how America’s current political climate might be related.
Another great VICE documentary.
Posted in Cover Story, Faith, Human Interest, Investigation, Politics, Videos | Tags: Convert, David Lopez, Diversity, Ethnicity, Islam, Islam In Spanish, Islam In Spanish Center, Jaime Fletcher, Jaime Mujahid Fletcher, Latino, Lee Adams, MINORITY REPORTS, Mujahid, Muslim, Muslim Ban, Racism, Raul Sanchez, Religion, RELIGIOUS CONVERSION, Trump Campaign, VICE, Why So Many Latinos Are Converting to Islam | No Comments »
Federal Workers Speak On How it Feels to Be Shut Down (Video)
January 17, 2019
Backs up against the wall, employed but not gainfully, this clip is representative of the employees and contractors NOT getting paid while President Trump and Congress are at a standstill over the Wall.
Okay. Actually, most everyone else in the situation (other Repubs and Dems in the Senate) are in agreement… at least to the extent we could reopen the government coffers and get these folks paychecks flowing again in the short-term. Now. It. Is. Just. Trump. President Trump. Alone. Standing on his Wall (um… slats… um, whatever)!
All the while. These people’s lives are in limbo. VICE reports (in the short above).
– @ojones1
The Rise of Asian Rap Culture (Documentary)
January 11, 2019
Wow. Asians dropping that n-word… Uncomfortable. But VICE goes in, and embeds and lets the subjects do them, so we can learn. So, let’s push through to the end and get the insights. Then we can make a better-informed decision as to whether we rock with what Asian rappers are saying, or not; all, or in part.
A growing number of Asian artists have burst onto the Hip-Hop scene over the past few years, thanks, in large part, to 88rising—a multimedia company that specializes in signing and amplifying Asian talent.
Founder Sean Miyashiro has helped artists like Joji, Higher Brothers, and Rich Brian (formerly known as Rich Chigga) build massive followings and net millions of views on YouTube, where the rappers upload a steady stream of music videos. But even as their popularity skyrockets, some in the Hip-Hop community take issue with their lyrics—raising questions about the line between self-expression and cultural appropriation.
For this episode of ‘MINORITY REPORTS,’ VICE’s Lee Adams met up with Miyashiro and a handful of high-profile Asian rappers—including $tupid Young, an Asian Crip unaffiliated with 88rising—to hear why they got into Hip-Hop, and what challenges they’ve faced while creating space for themselves as Hip-Hop’s newest minorities.
He also sat down with Ebro Darden—a Hot 97 morning host and Apple Music’s global editorial head of Hip-Hop and R&B—to hear his take on the cultural movement, exploring what separates contributing to Hip-Hop culture from misappropriating it.
– VICE
– @ojones1
Posted in Film, Hip-Hop, Investigation, Series, Videos | Tags: $tupid Young, 88rising, Asian Rap, Asian Rap Culture, Ebro, Ebro Darden, Higher Brothers, Joji, Lee Adams, MINORITY REPORTS, Rap Culture, Rich Brian, Rich Chigga, Sean Miyashiro, Stupid Young, The Rise of Asian Rap Culture | No Comments »
Inside Europe’s First Sex Doll Brothel (Documentary)
January 1, 2019
VICE goes to Spain to see if rubber tits are really the future of sex… Yeah, because why not start this year’s Nooner posts like this? Wowwwww! They really go there.
Are sex dolls the future of prostitution? Joel Golby heads to Barcelona to visit the centre of this strange battleground for the future of sexual politics.
– VICE
– @ojones1
Posted in Business, Film, Investigation, Relationships, Series, Travel, Videos | Tags: Barcelona, Europe’s First Sex Doll Brothel, Joel Golby, LOVE INDUSTRIES, prostitution, sexual politics, Spain, VICE | No Comments »
