Big Sole Blog (BSB)

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy Miranda Lambert's emotional performance of "The House That Built Me" got to me, too. The country singer and wife of Blake Shelton, sang the song at Wednesday night's benefit on NBC, Healing in the Heartland, for victims of that massive tornado that slammed Moore, Oklahoma, earlier this month. Tornado destruction or not

Oriental Turtle Dove (Streptopelia orientalis) by NikhilSource "Dead Birds Sigh A Prayer"* by Nordette N. Adams I have been told, "Do not post poems on the Internet!" See, the serious poet embeds her words only at the base of ivory towers where an usher pushes a diamond-crusted elevator button, calling offerings to the spire of the poet gods. "A poem is a sacrifice," I have been

Through his Rebuild the Dream organization, environmental activist Van Jones seems to be playing the prophet Nathan to President Obama's David on matters of climate change. Jones says in the video above that if President Obama continues to support the Keystone XL Pipeline, then the president should rename it "The Obama Tar Sands Pipeline." Clearly Jones is disappointed in President Obama

In a recent interview with his close friend Oprah Winfrey, Tyler Perry compared Langston Hughes's negative criticism of Zora Neale Hurston's work to Spike Lee's negative criticism of Perry's work.  I think Perry could use a better example when it comes to contemporary black writers downing his movies, plays, and television shows. (The timing of Perry's interview with Oprah coincides with the

No Game of Thrones tonight, folks. This parody of the HBO series by Jimmy Fallon (Late Night with Jimmy Fallon) nearly makes up for it with a great laugh. The comic production is called Game of Desks, and the show went all out to mimic the GoT, even the opening is very similar and so funny. Looks like they had a lot of fun making this. The verbal argument over the iron desk near the

Front page of the New Orleans Times Picayune, Mother's Day 2013, featuring mothers who've lost children to gun violence. On Mother's Day morning, I found the Sunday edition of the New Orleans Times Picayune on my lawn. The picture here shows that day's front page. The headline of the feature story on the left reads, "Mothers talk about losing a child to violence." For many readers this is

This post supplements a longer post at BlogHer.com. I received an email on Monday (May 13) from BlogHer's News and Politics Editor Grace Hwang Lynch looking for people willing to write about the Mother's Day shooting. When I saw it, I was annoyed. No. I was angry in a way I couldn't understand. I figured that people not from here thought the incident was another "mass shooting story" like

Too hilarious to miss is the video above of Saturday Night Live character Stefon's marriage to Anderson Cooper. The skit marked the last time we'll see Bill Hader regularly doing his Stefon report on Weekend Update with Seth Myers. Saturday, May 18, was Hader's last show as a cast member. Below is a 2011 clip from the David Letterman show in which Hader talks about how he came up with the

In the video above, CNN's Jake Tapper interviews Shonda Rhimes, the creator of ABC's hit show Scandal and the long-running Grey's Anatomy. Rhimes talks about what drew her to Judy Smith's life. Smith is the real woman whose work as a crisis manager inspired Scandal. Rhimes also discusses with Tapper that the show is the first show in 40 years to feature a black woman as the lead character.

Look at this picture. Does that look like a small child running alone from the shooter? So young, so small, and already he's had to learn to escape a bullet. The man in the photo aims at the scattering crowd attending the New Orleans Mother's Day Second Line Parade. Police are currently searching for the suspect, allegedly Akein Scott. But did you notice that small child? Yesterday, I didn't

Apropos posting given yesterday's shooting at the Mothers' Day second line parade in New Orleans. From the film's website. New Orleans, Louisiana is the murder capital of the United States. For the last decade, statistics have shown murder rates four to six times higher than the national average. Eighty percent of the victims are black males, mostly in their teenage years. This is the city's

All I can say is watch Candice Glover, listen to her sing "Somewhere" from West Side Story. I'm going to iTunes for my copy. Here are a few other renditions of this song. First and possibly most well-known is Barbra Streisand's performance, followed by Aretha Franklin's soulful jazz version, which far fewer people have heard. More recent is Josh Grobin and Charlotte Church's duet (the song was

Sinkholes fascinate and terrify me. They have for years, long before I heard about the story of the man whose bedroom was sucked into one in Florida in February. So, when I see a story about sinkholes on the news or online, I have to watch or read, and lately, if the report is about sinkholes in general, like the video posted above, I wait to see whether the reporter covers the mess we've got

I don't know what overtook me today, but for the first time in maybe 30 years, I heard Aretha Franklin's "All the King's Horses," which I've posted above, and started crying. My first thought is that I needed to cry because I've been holding so much in over the last year (family deaths, health concerns, a variety of fears). Once in my life I was known for crying often--sobbing because