YES WE DID!

I'm speechless.

In Case You Missed It.

A very special thank you to Sharon Dumas Pugh, founder of Full and Fabulous for all of the work she's doing with full figured girls in Detroit and around the country. If you're interested in learning more about Full & Fabulous or better yet, starting a chapter in your town, please visit the website: www.fullnfabulous.com

Also, thank you to Dr. Monica L. Baskin of The University of Alabama at Birmingham for sharing her expertise. Like Sharon, she's dedicated a good portion of her professional career to helping African American and low income families break the cycle of obesity and disease. Remember, this is more than just a cosmetic issue, obesity is a serious health problem facing our entire society.

For more information on how you can help your family stay fit and health, check out these websites:

Mayo Clinic

Health Corps

Kids Health

Feel free to add other resources in the comments section.

A FEW THINGS THAT CAUGHT MY ATTENTION

1. The Secret Life of Bees came in third this weekend, earning $11 million dollars at the box office. If you haven't already, I highly recommend you see this movie. Like Sex and the City, this is a perfect movie to catch with a group of your closest girlfriends. I guarantee you'll walk away with a fresh sense of purpose and feeling empowered to take on the world, I did.


2. Colin Powell's endorsement of Barak Obama. Too bad the simple minded among us are assuming this is a race issue. I'm curious to see if Powell's announcement will influence the highly coveted independent voters.


3. The Yoga in Schools debate. In case you haven't heard, I have committed a large portion of my life to yoga, learning it, writing about it, and teaching it. Now that the parents at an upstate New York public school have agreed that yoga (as long as it's not called yoga...ok whatever!) can be taught in schools, I hope other schools around the country follow their lead. Give me a good yoga practice over a couple of Ritalin any day.


4. A Kanye West/Boy George colabo. That's the news in the U.K. I'm still waiting for confirmation from my label contacts, I'm crossing my fingers. *side note* not crazy about the 40 naked women at the album release party Kanye, you can do better.



I'm busy working on this week's Cocoa Mode so I'll be back later with more.
Later....

Watch Out!!

Donna Brazile keeps it real for The New Yorker (watch here)

Authors Te-Nehisi Coates and John McWhorter go head to head on Hip Hop, culture and politics. My kind of discussion. Thanks Anovelista.

This link was sent to me by a co-worker. It's meant to be a funny look into the mind of a Black man who constantly finds himself dealing with racism. It got me to thinking, what if the man was about 20 years old and dressed in jeans and a jersey, would you react any differently than the woman in the video? (BTW, this video contains profanity so you may want to turn your speakers down or wait until you get home to watch.)

It won't be the first time...

...Sarah Palin has lost to a history making African American.
By now we all know GOP Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin is a former beauty queen but did you know she came in second place behind Alaska's first African-American Miss American candidate Maryline Blackburn? The Washington Post ran an interesting article on Maryline's (an Obama supporter) experience with Palin. (read more)

In Case You Missed It...

Hip Hop and Politics? Who would've imagined the Hip Hop Generation would become so influential in the political process. For the last couple of weeks I've talked to people on both sides about how this election season has inspired young voters to get involved.

On the Democratic side: Rev. Lennox Yearwood, founder of The Hip Hop Caucus. Listen Here

On the Republican side: Mr Lenny McAllister, member of the North Carolina Republican Party Executive Committee. Listen Here

Ooo, I want one of those....

Y'know the kind of man that lacks a particular variant of gene that influences brain activity and makes them more likely to be devoted and loyal husbands! Seriously. A recent study conducted in Stockholm has found a link between a mans genes and his aptitude for monogamy. According to the study men with with two copies of the allele gene are more likely to divorce or never get married at all. I guess it's no surprise that women who are married to men with a surplus of these pesky little allele genes are likely to say their husbands are distant and unavailable as opposed to the lucky women who snagged an allele free man, who say their husbands are emotionally close and available. This opened a debate about whether tests should be made available to the public to determine if a potential mate is suitable marriage material. (Umm, YEAH!) One one side, scientist are saying while the discovery is remarkable, there are other factors that enter into the equation, like culture, a man's upbringing, family background etc. Others agree, but believe that knowing if a man is part of the 40% who have 2 or more allele genes will help couples overcome his biologically weak link. Click here to read more about the findings.

So Cocoas, what do you think? Do we need to start setting up allele screening facilities across the country?

We'll talk more about this, Palin's pregnant daughter, and the RNC on Cocoa Mode in the Eagles Nest, tomorrow at 8:00am ET on XM Channel 169.

Later...

P.S. Have you checked out Cocoa Om online? What are you waiting for?