Big Sole Blog (BSB)

O.K. This is the kid, Brian Bradley, who was on The X Factor USA Thursday night rapping his song "Stop Looking at My Mom!" or to be more accurate "my momz." Apparently he had an "official video" already on YouTube with more than 80,000 hits. It was posted in October 2010 and it's cute, showing other kids protecting their moms from lusting eyes. You can buy the mp3 at Amazon.com.The video below is

It seems that on Australia's X Factor show, the judges perform the way the judges perform on NBC's The Voice in America. But that's not likely to happen on America's version of The X Factor given that the show's judges here includes two men who are more producers than performers, Simon Cowell and L.A. Reid. I will be shocked if we get to see all four judges (if any) perform here in the states,

Here is a poem that I wrote in 2006, but I decided to record and translate it to video over this weekend. It uses royalty free music from Incompetech.com. The piece playing behind the spoken word vocal is Acralate, a selection with African influences."Stuck in a Blackbird's Groove" is a blues poem about one level of unrequited love.

I'm on Oprah's mailing list. There. I've confessed. I keep an eye on Oprah. Anyway, today, the subject line of one of her emails intrigued me: "Fat that makes you thin." So, I opened it. I think I was hoping to discover some new oil that tasted like butter but worked in the body like fiber. I can dream, can't I? Instead, at Oprah.com, I found this tidbit:Fat to Make You ThinAfter Johns Hopkins

I first wrote about the Troy Davis case in 2009 when the "I Am Troy Davis" campaign was relatively young. Unfortunately for Troy, his family, and his supporters, America is hearing his name today because, as CNN reports, he has been denied clemency. The decision of the Georgia Board of Pardons and Parole means that Troy will be executed tomorrow.Davis was convicted of the 1989 killing of Savannah

This video, "Planking in Motion - New Orleans," had me laughing out loud. I think it may be funnier to me because I live here and the people's reactions and characters caught on film feel so familiar.

As I said on Twitter yesterday, "I was in New Jersey when [the] towers came down. I've written about it before. I don't know if I want to again just b/c of [this] 10 year anniversary." I grappled with whether or not to write anything about September 11 a decade later because it took me until 2004, a whole three years after September 11, 2001, to write anything at all about what I felt on that

I've already written about Slavery: The Game here at this blog, and I updated and posted on the topic at BlogHer.com as well. Now there's a twist that leads us to the promotional video's creators.After contemplating speculation that the game was a hoax, possible protest, or some kind of publicity stunt, I have learned that the video on YouTube and the associated website are part of a promotion

The video embedded in this post is from Democracy NOW! and is about a documentary co-produced by actor Danny Glover. As described on its YouTube page:(the documentary and the clip feature "rare archival footage of Angela Davis, Huey P. Newton, Stokely. The Democracy NOW! episode and was) broadcast from Park City, Utah, home of the Sundance Film Festival, the nation's largest festival for

The Reflection in Our New Backyard Pond By Nordette N. Adams 'Twas the season of hurricanes, when all through the land, creatures called "Whodats" scurried and ran to Home Depot, to Lowe's, to Sam's and to Rouses for candles and canned goods and fixin's for houses. They tuned in TVs to local news stations, dreading the word, "evacuation." They counted their children and grandparents, too, and

The following piece has been cross-posted and also updated at BlogHer.com.I am puzzled today and a tad distraught. Through a friend's Facebook post, I learned of a website for a supposed video game that may be real but is more than likely, ostensibly, bogus. It's called "Slavery the Game." While its website requires that you enter an age to verify you're old enough to see the horror behind the

Tropical Storm Lee is in the Gulf trying to start some mess. It's expected to dump possibly more than 15 inches of rain on Southeastern Louisiana and some parishes are are under voluntary evacuation. In the midst of our varying states of emergency, city officials have posted this list of flood-prone areas and streets in New Orleans. Very helpful. H/T to a Facebook friend who posted the list and

Yes, I, too, heard about J.C. Penney's sale of the disturbing T-shirt for little girls with the slogan, "I'm too pretty to do homework, so my brother has to do it for me." At BlogHer.com, Shannon L.C. Cate wrote about the controversy expressing the same concern that women and some men all over the Internet voiced as soon as news of the T-shirt broke. The department store has since pulled the