reggienewton.com | blog

lift every voice and sing. . .

2008-11-05T00:37:00.000-06:00

Lift every voice and sing,
'Til earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on 'til victory is won.

Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chast'ning rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
'Til now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has by Thy might
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand,
True to our God,
True to our native land.

a change is gonna come

2008-11-05T00:00:00.001-06:00

a time for song

2008-11-04T23:05:00.000-06:00

W.E.B. Du Bois from The Souls of Black Folk published in 1903.

An excerpt from "The Sorrow Songs"

Your country? How came it yours? Before the Pilgrims landed we were here. Here we have brought our three gifts and mingled them with yours: a gift of story and song—soft, stirring melody in an ill-harmonized and unmelodious land; the gift of sweat and brawn to beat back the wilderness, conquer the soil, and lay the foundations of this vast economic empire two hundred years earlier than your weak hands could have done it; the third, a gift of the Spirit.

Around us the history of the land has centred for thrice a hundred years; out of the nation’s heart we have called all that was best to throttle and subdue all that was worst; fire and blood, prayer and sacrifice, have billowed over this people, and they have found peace only in the altars of the God of Right. Nor has our gift of the Spirit been merely passive.

Actively we have woven ourselves with the very warp and woof of this nation,—we fought their battles, shared their sorrow, mingled our blood with theirs, and generation after generation have pleaded with a headstrong, careless people to despise not Justice, Mercy, and Truth, lest the nation be smitten with a curse. Our song, our toil, our cheer, and warning have been given to this nation in blood-brotherhood. Are not these gifts worth the giving? Is not this work and striving? Would America have been America without her Negro people?

Even so is the hope that sang in the songs of my fathers well sung. If somewhere in this whirl and chaos of things there dwells Eternal Good, pitiful yet masterful, then anon in His good time America shall rend the Veil and the prisoned shall go free. Free, free as the sunshine trickling down the morning into these high windows of mine, free as yonder fresh young voices welling up to me from the caverns of brick and mortar below—swelling with song, instinct with life, tremulous treble and darkening bass. My children, my little children, are singing to the sunshine. . .

seven years ago. . .

2008-09-11T20:57:00.000-05:00

tuesday a.m. quarterback

2008-09-09T11:53:00.002-05:00

unless you're a viking fan -- and i do know some -- how can you not be happy for aaron rodgers getting a win last night? the wife should be in a good mood this week.

keep tuned on this blog as the newton/finch family tracks the weeks that all 3 of our teams: redskins, packers, and wildcats post Ws. you'd be surprised (or maybe not) at how rare it is to pull that particular trifecta.

football is back

2008-09-08T18:15:00.003-05:00

and all is right with the world -- of course the world would be a lot better with an opening day win. not impressed AT ALL with new coach, zorn's play book, play calling, and definitely not time management. still its back. two fantasy leagues and lots of smack talking. life is good.

the experience debate & palin

2008-09-03T15:53:00.001-05:00

some wise words from michael kinsley:

The whole "experience" debate is silly. Under our system of government, there is only one job that gives you both executive and foreign-policy experience, and that's the one McCain and Obama are running for. Nevertheless, it's a hardy perennial: If your opponent is a governor, you accuse him or her of lacking foreign-policy experience. If he or she is a member of Congress, you say this person has never run anything. And if, by any chance, your opponent has done both, you say that he or she is a "professional politician." When Republicans aren't complaining about someone's lack of experience, they are calling for term limits.

the weekend thus far

2008-08-03T06:43:00.002-05:00

what can you say about a weekend with beautiful weather, the cubs winning and two of my favorite redskins inducted into the hall of fame. good times. i'm so happy for art monk & darrell green -- nice guys finish first.

the pine tar game - 25 years ago today

2008-07-24T22:02:00.004-05:00

i remember watching this game as a kid, i'll never forget that image of brett charging out of that dugout. unaware of baseball history? read all about it.

still here. . .

2008-07-08T12:56:00.004-05:00

long time no update. still here life pretty crazy right now. a quick rundown to come in the next couple of days. for those of you with the password there has been an update to zoe's section.

shocking news

2008-06-13T15:19:00.003-05:00

full friday mode

2008-06-13T13:40:00.000-05:00

h/t to craig parshall.

history

2008-06-03T22:36:00.000-05:00

you know you lost right?

2008-06-03T21:30:00.002-05:00

ugh. that was the most ungracious speech yet. how about the party instead of your own ambition? how about criticizing mccain instead of made up math about your "18 million" votes? a person waking up from a year long coma watching that speech would assume she had won the nomination and was about to offer him the vp spot. boo!!

time for her to go. . .

2008-06-03T15:47:00.001-05:00

RIP BO

2008-06-02T19:19:00.002-05:00

the bo diddley beat influenced some of my favorite songs:

Elvis Presley ("His Latest Flame"); Bruce Springsteen ("She's The One"); U2 ("Desire"); The Smiths ("How Soon Is Now?"); George Michael ("Faith"); Guns N' Roses ("Mr. Brownstone"); The Pretenders ("Cuban Slide"); The Police ("Deathwish"); Rolling Stones ("Not Fade Away" )

and many more. rock on.

zoe update

2008-05-29T00:03:00.005-05:00

just a quick update of zoe @ 3 months. for those friends and family with the password check out lots of updates on her section of my site.
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Now playing: The Impressions - Keep On Pushing (Single Version)
via FoxyTunes

obama gives me props

2008-05-28T22:40:00.001-05:00

“There’s no doubt that Reggie is cooler than I am” - Barack Obama

okay, okay, so he's talking about a different reggie. but its still kinda cool. read this article from the nytimes. interesting stuff for us political junkies, the role of the candidate's "body man".

fourth-western!

2008-05-27T09:51:00.003-05:00

my alma mater making me proud. four years in a row national champs in women's lacrosse. congrats ladycats. maybe someday little zoe will join your ranks.

75,000

2008-05-19T14:24:00.005-05:00

if you're a republican strategist, scenes like this have gotta just make you think like chief brody in jaws:

"we're gonna need a bigger boat!"

full story here

best week ever. . .

2008-05-16T22:23:00.004-05:00

my life has been running crazy like crystal meth addict on a 100 mph treadmill. not a lot of time to post these days with work and the little person. but have to take time out to recognize one of the best weeks ever courtesy of "the internets".

first baseball. the baby bears aka the cubs are in first place with the best record in baseball. mad props. but the baseball play i'm still talking about with my co-workers is "manny being manny". i mean of course manny ramirez of the boston red sox. you will never see a play like this ever again.

the scene - camden yards in baltimore. the orioles kevin millar smacks are sure fire line drive over manny's head. he races it down to the warning track, and makes an incredible over the shoulder grab. his momentum allows him to him run up the outfield wall -- where he reaches up and high fives a red sox fan in the stands then turns around and fires a bullet to hit the cutoff man to double off aubrey huff on first base. unbelievable. i could watch this clip all day.

second clip. this week someone unearthed a clip of faux news blowhard bill o'reilly venting at a producer back on his inside edition days. hilarious. but even better are the remixes. this is my personal favorite. brilliant!

"you're like a baboon but less clever!"

but the clip that makes this the best week ever surprisingly comes from chris matthews and hardball. now i've long ago written off this show as part of the crossfire ilk that jon stewart accurately accused of "hurting america". but man on man, this just might make clip of the year.

the setup: george bush gives a speech to the israeli knesset which makes a thinly veiled comparison btw barack obama stated foreign policy, to talk to our enemies, and neville chamberlain's appeasement to adolf hitler. the president was rightly slammed for this allusion and comparison by joe biden, harry reid, nancy peolsi, and even hillary clinton.

enter right wing talk radio host kevin james -- a fool that doesn't know history but clearly has scanned the talking points sheet; i.e. keep repeating "appeasement = obama no matter what!!" with a simple question chris matthews exposes him and the rest of those ditto-head hacks for what they are: ignorant.

for those that haven't attended law school this is kinda what the socratic method looks like when a professor exposes one of your classmates that hasn't properly briefed a case.

"better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt"

full friday mode

2008-04-18T12:42:00.003-05:00

the travesty that is our national media was on full display this week. when the highest levels of the administration have been involved in discussion about torture, when there is an ongoing war that is costing billions of dollars, a housing crisis, a credit crunch, inflation, high gas prices, and failing schools we're subjected to 90-minutes on flag lapel pins and "gotcha" associations with 60's radicals.

i've been saying over these last eight years, if you're not mad its because you're not paying attention with the state of journalism as it is its become harder to pay attention to any news that matters.

tom shales on debate

basketball & conversations on race

2008-04-08T12:40:00.004-05:00

congrats to the jayhawks for their big win last night. in my pool results i was in last place in one and first place in another. a basic break even for the diaper money. sweat it, yahoo has this cool thing where you can collect "trophies" for tourney/fantasy sports victories. dig my avatar baby!

good article on the memphis tigers here about the perception of their image and the larger perception of african-american athletes. in the wake of the controversial debate over lebron james on the cover of cosmo and barack obama's speech about the need for honest conversations about race, this article is a great read. here's a sample:

According to the National Center for Health Statistics, nearly 70 percent of African-American children are born out of wedlock. That does not necessarily mean that the fathers play no role in the children's lives, but often they wind up not doing so. According to the Memphis men's basketball media guide, four of the Tigers' six most prominent players (Antonio Anderson, Joey Dorsey, Derrick Rose and Shawn Taggart) have one parent, and it is a female.
Certainly this is not any of these players' faults. Nor is it the media's. However, how much more comfortable is it for a writer to sit down next to a complete stranger and ask him, for example, if he ever sat onstage while his uncle sang "Good Vibrations" than it is to approach another and ask, "I see you have three brothers. Are all of them from the same father?"
And when the player is black and the writer is white, as is so often the case, how tense might that moment be?

the money quote: "For, if Tyler Hansbrough and Kevin Love (who, make no mistake, never courted this attention themselves) are All-Americans, then Derrick Rose and Joey Dorsey are the American dream." rest of the article here.

finally nymag.com has a good q& a with a person that's no stranger to conversations on race, filmmaker spike lee. he reflects on making "do the right thing" with the wisdom and perspective of time and its a good quick read. damn has it really been almost twenty years since that movie came out? i'm old.

2008-04-04T00:04:00.012-05:00

MLK (1929-1968)

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Nina Simone - Why (The King of Love is Dead)
U2 - Pride (In the Name of Love)
U2 - MLK

2008-04-03T21:35:00.004-05:00