Oh, Lady O! I love it when you tackle topics and issues that people as a whole does not want any affiliation with. I remember vividly when she invited Klan members and other white supremacy organizations to her show, as if that would make their racist viewpoints against blacks any different, especially when our beloved host was as black as they came. Making that decision was a very bold one on her end,  not to mention that her new career at A.M. Chicago could have been in jeopardy. Most importantly, Oprah’s life was very much at stake although I never read anywhere that she discussed it.

In 2004, my very best friend and I had the pleasure of being invited to Oprah’s Life Class. The topic was about single fathers and I’m guessing Oprah’s upcoming documentary may touch on this a bit. The only difference now is that racism has reared its ugly head once and all. For those of us who believed that social media and the frivolous use of cell phones has been the demise of our young black youth, can now really appreciate the young person being at the right place at the right time when recording the brutal mistreatment of George Floyd, leading to his death by a police officer, someone who is supposed to “Serve and Protect”.

Oprah’s latest documentary “Where Do We Go From Here?” questioning what black Americans are supposed to do now or what should they expect from our elected officials. I’m not a black man, Oprah, but a black woman who has two autistic sons. The only answer I can give is that I have to keep on keeping on. I constantly tell my oldest son (he’s 27, mild-mannered, never been to jail, sold drugs or used drugs) that in spite of his light-skin that there are places here in America where he is still considered a “nigger” and that he will racially profiled at some point in his life.

It’s a horrible feeling when your black son or daughter are not home and you suddenly hear gunshots and the siren from an ambulance. You pray that it’s not your child; it’s a sad state of affairs that we as black people will never experience a peaceful lifestyle. It hurts a great deal that a black child had to sing that all he wants to do is live. This child should be thinking about graduating high school and going to college, but instead they’re mind is on whether they are going to make it back home to their families.

Oprah’s upcoming documentary interviewing 100 black fathers will include Tyler Perry, Courtney B. Vance, and other beloved fathers we know, will be shown Tuesday, June 30, 2020 at 9 p,m. on OWN. Please check your local listing.

Abby Hempy has recently launched the Grassroots Motorsports $2000 Challenge Team BMW Art Car-Inspired Engineering Project to Benefit Local Dance Studio in Houghton, Michigan.

Entering Hempy’s home, one would immediately notice all the paintings, notes Hempy. One on every wall. “Art, in all forms, is important to me,” says Hempy. Her “escape” from studying at school for hours every day feels like a full-time job, she says. The way she breaks up the monotony is often by painting. Hempy shares that she will “dig out acrylic tubes, select brushes, and brainstorm before a white canvas” as she lets the stress stream down the brush bristles onto blank fabric. Without really thinking, says Hempy, she just does it.

A rare person, Abby Hempy is a left-brain, mechanically-inclined thinker. Her love for cars is as strong as her love for dancing. Studying Mechanical Engineering at Michigan Technological University, Abby is a second-year master’s student who spends her evening at the Superior School of Dance, participating in the 47 North Bellydance Troupe!

At the same time, she is doing research on torque converters for Ford Motor Co. During her “free time,” she explores the Keweenaw, paints, welds, dances and sews! So far, her motorsports history includes the Gambler 500, demolition derbies and dirt-track races. Her biggest challenge though is coming up and will include completing a car for the Grassroots Motorsports $2000 Challenge. In only four months, she is raising $2,020 and travel expenses so that she may compete

Grassroots Motorsports (GRM) magazine started the competition in the year 2000 and has increased the budget by $1 a year. A BMW, says Abby, was a choice of the ‘best automobile available” if she wanted to be successful. So, she registered her 1998 528i BMW for the GRM $2000 race. Her vehicle choice also included a little nostalgia for a 1984 533i she drove in high school, as well as creating artwork. In 1975, BMW commissioned a project to encourage work-renowned artists to use a race car to compete in the 24 Hours of Le Mans as a canvas.

The most recent art car was in 2017, designed by Cao Fei. Other designs included work from such artists as Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Jenny Holzer, Frank Stella and David Hockney. Abby’s team-name Onofrio Pollock Racing, is inspired by Rochester, MN local mixed-media artist Judy Onofrio, and famous painter Jackson Pollock.

Abby’s white BMW will be a means for her to express her artwork. Still under wraps, the BMW is rumored to have hints of mosaic and copper as a nod to Copper country in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

The GRE $2000 Challenge will take place in Gainesville, FL this year, October 23-24. The BMW will compete in an autocross and drag race. A judging portion will take place, discussing alterations, budget and appearance. Abby will get to the event by driving the BMW itself, stopping along the way to visit sponsors and supporters to display the artwork.

Abby wants to raise $3,500 for the program, $2,020 for the car, and money for travel expenses, gas and tools. A small budget-it would seem-for anyone involved in car racing, it seems like a lot to a struggling college student! Any money left over will go to the Superior School of Dance in MI, to help fund graduating dancers pursuing their education. Abby’s aim is to not only support their career, but also to teach them the creative side of engineering.

Assisting Abby to run the team are key advisors who will serve as mentors. Those experts include driver Sarah Montgomery, the Shift Up Now Ambassador, tire engineer Ashley Gliss from Michelin North America, and Dean Case, motorsports consultant and part of the SAE Industrial Lecture Program.

Other members of the crew include her chosen driver Tucker Alsup of Advanced Power Systems Laboratory, and two former Baja students John Bloom and Jonathon Lindforts. In addition to the ‘experts,’ there are volunteers and mechanical engineering graduate students.

If you’re interested in learning more and witnessing the building of the car, go to the Onofrio Pollock Racing Facebook page. If you’re so motivated to donate to the cause, go to Venmo. You can also email the team at [email protected]. One can make a contribution of $50 and get a t-shirt and space for a hand-painted sponsor name on the car! Contributors of $200 or more receive the resume-book of team members and company sticker.

According to an article in the Washington Post, Americans spend $35 billion yearly on supplements. (This includes vitamins, minerals, and herbal products.) We consistently receive information on how taking a particular supplement will improve our health. The advertising and marketing that comes to our attention can seduce us with promises of wonderful results.

This blog is not to encourage or discourage anyone from taking supplements. I take vitamins. My doctor recommended that I take calcium and vitamin D. I wanted to write this blog to encourage you as an individual to consider if you are taking the right supplements and not wasting your time and money or risking your health taking something you should not take.

Some supplements contain ingredients that have a powerful impact on the body. This could make them hazardous to your health. If you take supplements, read the labels to make sure you are aware of all the ingredients included in the product.

Most healthcare professionals believe we should get our vitamins and minerals from a balanced diet; however, some people may need to take supplements to reach the recommended amount of nutrients they need for their bodies. If you are a certain age, vegan, have dietary restrictions, or you have a medical condition that stops your body from absorbing certain nutrients, you may need to take supplements. Supplements should not be used as a substitute for eating a healthy diet. If you take supplements they should be used as the title suggests-a supplement. Avoid taking large doses of any supplement.

Before taking any supplement talk to your doctor. Discuss any possible side effects and interactions with any medications you take.

For part one of the arrival of T.S. Eliot in my Imaginary Writers’ Room, click here. With the affectionate thanks of the author to W.G. for helping to consider the committee and to A.W. for his Michelangelo comment on part one.

“Who is it?” said Daphne du Maurier.

“Oh, do not ask ‘Who is it?’ Let him in to make his visit,” I blurted out.

T.S. Eliot blushed. “You remember ‘Prufrock,'” he told me as he walked past Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and came into the Imaginary Writers’ Room in my mind. “But a visit?”

“Just being poetic,” I said quickly. “You may stay as long as you like. I want more poetry around here,” I said.

Conan Doyle fidgeted. “But Margaret, your detective story… your essays!” he said.

“I’m no giving them up, Mr. Chairman — Arthur,” I said, smiling with what I hoped looked like determination. “But the poets remind me about using words consciously, lovingly even.”

With that glint in Robert Burns’ eye, I saw Arthur’s logic in having a separate side of the table for ladies. Agatha Christie glared at Burns better than I could.

“Have I not shown you the value of precision with words?” said Arthur.

“Yes, of course you have,” I said. “Come at once if convenient,” I began.

“If inconvenient, come all the same,” Arthur and Agatha finished the famous message along with me — and, I was surprised to note, so did T.S. Eliot.

“You know that story, too!” I said to Eliot. “Until lately, I thought it was just ‘The Final Problem’ that you liked.”

Arthur sighed. “Do we need to go over this waterfall again, Margaret?”

I tried to smile — it was fresher than asking about well-trodden ground — but ‘The Final Problem” and its waterfall have always struck me as powerfully sad stuff. “Arthur,” I said helplessly, “I think we do if Tom’s going to stay. And I want him to stay.”

“You don’t want me to come and go from the room?” said Eliot.

“No, it’s the writers’ room, after all,” I told him. “If you’re going to come and go, talking of Michelangelo –“

Ah, good, I had him smiling with another reference to “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”

“The Imaginary Artists’ Room is over by my other ear,” I said. “I’m not sure Michelangelo is there very much. I mostly just let the Impressionists hang out. After all, it’s so close to the French area of my memory.”

“Ah, I’ll stay here then,” said Tom. “It seems a congenial spot for those of us who love words.”

“Margaret has seen to that,” said Daphne, “from the very first sentences that invited us all in.”

“You and your first sentences,” I said affectionately. “Why, if I could get back that one I was drafting last night –“

Agatha Christie patted my arm and said “Now, Margaret, don’t get Daphne going about ‘last night’ sentences again.” Her face fell. “Last night and again. Oh dear.”

“Oh, this is going to be fun,” said Eliot. “I should make a lot of new memories here for Margaret.”

“It’s not exactly my choice — you just all make yourself so much a part of my mind that I want you to have a special space here, in my imagination,” I said, pointedly looking all around the room. “But yes, music has been important for teaching me more about Tom’s poetry.”

“Oh, not the cats,” said T.S. Eliot.

“Yes, ‘Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats,'” I said.

“You’ve read it?” said Eliot.

“I own it,” I said. “Of course, cat-loving friends in my life made sure of that. But how could you leave Grizabella out of things?”

The committee members nodded to each other. They can hear what goes on in the music room — and between my ears generally.

“I was attracted to ‘Prufrock’ and ‘The Waste Land’ as a sad teenager,” I began.

“Now, Margaret, don’t be redundant,” said Arthur gently.

“As a teenager,” I continued, “I’d have loved to find ‘Rhapsody on a Windy Night,’ but I just found it before you got here,” I told Eliot.

“You did?” he said, a little uncomfortable.

“Oh, everything’s being saved now, whether the author likes it or not,” I told him.

“I thought the rhapsody wouldn’t fit with the poems about the cats,” he said. “But someone else made sure it did.”

“And turned it into ‘Memory,’ ” I said.

“At least it distracted you from the thievery,” said Arthur in a growly voice.

“What thievery, Arthur?” I said

“Borrowed one of my better phrases, from before I killed off… him,” he replied.

“The Napoleon of Crime,” I said, right along with T.S. Eliot and Agatha Christie.

“That Macavity of yours — the name even sounds similar to Moriarty,” said Arthur. I suspected that his offended pose was just that, a pose.

“He was meant to, Mr. Chairman,” said Eliot. “In tribute.”

“Tribute? To Moriarty?” Arthur started to rise from his chair.

“To you, right, Tom?” I said.

“Right, Margaret,” said T.S. Eliot. “Why, I wrote an essay about him — and you, Sir Arthur — in 1929.”

” ‘Sherlock Holmes and His Times,’ “ I said. “Oh, I had fun finding that one.”

Arthur gave me a suspicious smile. “His times, not mine?” he said.

“You must admit they were different,” I said quickly.

“Well, settle in, Mr. Eliot, and we’ll have a long talk,” said Arthur.

Robert Burns slid his chair over and Louis Stevenson abandoned the sofa for once, settling in on the men’s side of the table.

Oh, this was going to be the source of a great new memory. A new day had begun.

Margaret Serious has a page on Facebook.

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Barron’s: you’re really going to continue to deify Elon Musk, who effectively deemed coronavirus a political distraction and defied/sued Alameda County shelter-in-place orders to stay open and re-open the Tesla factory? Workers tested positive shortly after re-opening, and others who spoke out against the unsafe conditions and stayed home to stay safe were subsequently fired. He lied about producing ventilators, instead delivered sleep apnea breathing machines, and claimed credit for saving the world. He falsely claimed children are “basically immune” to covid and proclaimed that new cases would be “close to zero” by the end of April “based on current trends.” He continued to question and ignore science, despite continually calling on everyone else to consider his pseudoscience. 

And that’s just a hint of his “leadership” during coronavirus. Tesla factories are known to have higher than industrial-average injury rates due to unsafe conditions, and a whistleblower was fired. And the time he and his fanboy army doxxed a Tesla critic, by calling his employer? Remember the time he called a British rescue diver (for the Thai kids stuck in a cave) a “pedo guy” amidst one of his hundreds of Twitter spats? And recall half of his defamation defense was basically, “who among us hasn’t called someone a pedo guy?” 

And let’s not forget the one incident that Barron’s readers might care about: that time he tweeted he was taking Tesla private at $420/share, declaring, “Funding secured.” He lost his chairmanship of Tesla over it and caught a light slap on the wrist from the SEC. Meanwhile he continues to mislead investors by providing outrageously impossible goal and milestone dates, which he has virtually never achieved (Tesla’s financial position, readiness of vehicle/SpaceX launches/production rates, synergies with Solar City, etc.). At one point he basically said, “I’ve never been on time for any of my deliveries, why would you expect us to start now?” Because that’s how the rest of the responsible investment/adult community behaves, Elon. 

And though it was an amazing accomplishment, it’s important to note that the SpaceX launch allowed Elon Musk to claim credit for the leadership and hard work of female President and COO of SpaceX, Gwynne Shotwell. You know he wasn’t really running the ship because he was busy calling the Alameda County health orders fascist, visiting with Joe Rogan, and (theoretically) being a father to a new baby. Moreover, the launch and the ongoing privately-funded space race merely represent the megalomaniac desires of billionaires’ to occupy everything and live forever. 

This man is the worst kind of leader and is effectively a mini version of Donald Trump. He is narcissist who will do whatever it takes, including risking the lives of others, to get what he wants. If Musk’s pandemic leadership is lauded in any way, we are really in trouble for November. 

Summer days and summer music, funny  how memory works sometimes.

There was a song in my head, or a fragment of a song–sweet summer days, sweet summer days–but I could not remember the rest of the song or who had done it.

Yes, there  is a song “Sweet Summer Days”  and it’s a very good song,  but it’s not the song I was thinking of.

However, thanks to the internet, I was able to find the one  that was playing in my head again and I’m so happy to share it with you.  Here are the actual lyrics—

Hot Fun in the Summertime
Sly & The Family Stone
All: End of the spring and here she comes back
Hi Hi Hi Hi there
Them summer days, those summer days
That’s when I had most of my fun, back
High high high high there
Them summer days, those summer days
Rose: I “cloud nine” when I want to
Freddie: Out of school, yeah
Larry: County fair in the country sun
Sly: And everything, it’s true, ooh yeah
All: Hot fun in the summertime x 4
All: First of the fall and then she goes back
Bye bye bye bye there
Them summer days,…

Source: LyricFind

And here’s Sly & the Family Stone singing that song from 1969–“Hot Fun in the Summertime” –Enjoy!

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