You Think What

On Sunday evening, February 25th 2013 in Hollywood, California at the annual American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the 85th time they are convening, actors, movie stars, technicians of very craft will be present to see who receives the coveted Oscar for outstanding achievement in various categories of the motion picture industry.

The following video created by Nelson Carvajal shows 84 Best Picture winners… (more…)

With this entry we are providing our readers with a kind of info-edu-tainment special. It’s Black History Month and Oscar season.

The following video interview conducted by reporters from the Washington Post web site The Fold  features two-time Academy Award winner Russell Williams…who is also Distinguished-Artist-in-Residence at the American University in Washington, D.C. (more…)

Late night teevee talk show host, Jimmy Fallon donned a pink “mom” style sweater, a brunette  wig and performed a dance collaborated with First Lady of the United States Michelle Obama to promote her famous “Let’s Move” campaign. This is the drive to get our nation’s children physically fit. The video demonstration is called “Evolution of Mom Dancing”.

Parental units are encouraged to join their children in becoming more physically active. Dancing is  an easy and fun activity. (more…)

US Senator from Massachusetts Elizabeth Warren is the junior most senior member of the  Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. *When John Kerry gave up his seat as Massachusetts’ senior senator to become Secretary of State, newly elected Warren became the senior senator from Massachusetts; this is her first term in the Senate and in that regard she is junior.*
At her very first hearing sponsored by he  Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, the senator posed the following question to the regulators present to provide testimony about how they regulate banking companies in the US:

“When was the last time you took a Wall Street bank to trial? ”

None of the persons called to testify were able to provide an answer to the question.

“We do not have to bring people to trial,” Thomas Curry, head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, assured Warren, declaring that his agency had secured a large number of “consent orders,” or settlements.

“I appreciate that you say you don’t have to bring them to trial. My question is, when did you bring them to trial?” she responded.

“We have not had to do it as a practical matter to achieve our supervisory goals,” Curry offered.

Warren turned to Elisse Walter, chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, who said the agency weighs how much it can extract from a bank without taking it to court against the cost of going to trial.

“I appreciate that. That’s what everybody does,” said Warren, a former Harvard law professor. “Can you identify the last time when you took the Wall Street banks to trial?”

“I will have to get back to you with specific information,” Walter said as the audience tittered.

(more…)

We have received news of at least one judge in Florida who is handling the adjudication of cases involving banks and home owners with the use of common sense  as well as the law.

In the matter of Dimitri Jansen, a local schoolteacher whose former home in North Port is in foreclosure a circuit court judge found one of the largest banks in the country in contempt of court on Friday over a foreclosure case that has dragged through the system for several years.

Attorneys who represent the Sarasota educator say the contempt order against Minneapolis-based U.S. Bank, is “unprecedented.”

Jansen says his mother’s name was mistakenly added to the mortgage he obtained in 2006, that the bank has ignored requests to remove her name from the foreclosure documents and thus wrecked her credit history, and that the bank held up a pending short sale.

Another Sarasota judge, apparently frustrated with U.S. Bank, had ordered the bank’s president to be present in court on Friday. The bank instead sent a senior representative. (more…)

How fortuitous…following a memorial service commemorating what would have been the eighteenth birthday of the murdered unarmed black Florida teen, Trayvon Martin, a Florida judge today denied a motion by the confessed shooter to delay his June trial for a murder which took place  one year ago this month…February 2012.

Seminole County Circuit Court Judge Debra Nelson, who lives in the city of Sanford where the fatal shooting took place, denied a motion by Zimmerman’s lawyer, Mark O’Mara, for a continuance in the racially charged trial.
This means the trial is to go forward as scheduled on Monday, June 10, 2013. (more…)

The following poem was created in remembrance of the unarmed Florida teen fatally shot one year ago this month.
Today, February 5, 2013, would have been his eighteenth birthday…may he forever rest in peace as we continue to pray for justice in this case.

My tears still flow, I wonder why,
it had to be, that I should die?
He followed me, I ran away,
What did I do? What did I say?
(more…)

The following video presents myriad facts about the oceans covering more than 70 percent of our planet.
Without the ocean life on earth would be an impossibility. The ocean makes life on the planet possible.

The  oceans are in desperate need of our human help. Most people are unaware of the myriad benefits the ocean provides us, nor how much we are connected and dependent on it.  80 percent of all the life on earth is  found in the oceans. (more…)

When Joe Carolan was a kid growing up he recognized and honored his inner thrill seeker by  going to see where the local firefighters in his small town were going when he heard the alarm. He says he wanted to be a stuntman; instead he became a volunteer firefighter, a veteran with 21 years experience and now an inventor of Quick-Finders…a reflective device that when properly installed transmits a signal in the event of a fire emergency. Many times a firefighter’s vision is obscured by smoke when attempting to rescue persons inside bedrooms. Lives may be saved.

Experts tell us 85% of fire deaths occur in the home with more than 50% of those deaths during sleeping hours. (more…)

Here’s some interesting video footage taken last month during a manta ray night dive off the Kona coast of Hawaii. The video shows a bottlenose dolphin, tied up in fishing line, “asking” a human diver for help.

The dolphin swam into the lighted areas where scuba dive instructors, among them Keller Laros, noticed fishing line was restricting the dolphin’s movement. (more…)