Search results for: “quotemedia/f”
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Civil Servant Chic
Two years ago, I sat with college sophomores at Princeton University to discuss their professional futures. My pitch was for public service, federal government service to be exact. I was leading the university’s Scholars in the Nation’s Service Initiative, and I faced a youthful, academically accomplished group with hearts that embraced the ideals of service…
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Obama's Special Guests
“Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions—who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.” —President Barack…
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Pragmatism and the Presidency
Henry Louis Gates Jr. and John Stauffer in today’s NYT: “UNTIL a martyred John F. Kennedy replaced him, Abraham Lincoln was one of the two white men whose image most frequently graced even the most modest black home, second in popularity only to Jesus. Perhaps none of his heirs in the Oval Office has been…
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The First Supper
Back when President-elect Barack Obama was still slugging it out for the Democratic nomination, I took to the kitchen to soothe my frazzled nerves. (Cooking relaxes me.) What I came up with was a Hawaiian and African inspired savory supper that I called Barack pie. On the eve of the most important inauguration of our…
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B.I.G.ger Than The Movie
If I got to choose a coast I got to choose the East I live out there, so don’t go there But that don’t mean a nigga can’t rest in the West… Cali got gunplay, models on the runway… —The Notorious B.I.G., “Going Back to Cali” Watching Notorious is like time traveling to back to…
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Gwen Ifill’s ‘The Breakthrough’
From the book The Breakthrough by Gwen Ifill. © 2009 by Gwen Ifill. Posted by arrangement with Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc.. chapter three baRack obaMa If you were to get a handbook on what’s the path to the presidency, I don’t think that the handbook would start by saying, “Be an African American…
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Are We Catholics Yet?
One seemed to have his destiny written for him at birth; the other methodically wrote his own. One had a cloistered upbringing that revolved around close family and powerful friends; the other lived an itinerant childhood and was a global student of life. One constantly questioned his place in the world; the other determinedly sought…
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The New Black-Catholic Alliance
One of the fascinating demographic tidbits of the 2008 presidential election results shows that President-elect Barack Obama won a startling 54 percent of the Catholic vote—more Catholic votes than any other Democratic presidential candidate since John F. Kennedy (who garnered around 80 percent). To understand how a pro-choice, African-American candidate generated more support from American…
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Mama Voted So There'd Be Days Like This
A week from today, Barack Obama will take the oath of office as the 44th president of the United States, but I remain in awe of the election results of Nov. 4. I hadn’t seen its outcome coming, but maybe I should have, based on the events of one Friday in October nearly 50 years…
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Blago’s Blues
A few weeks ago I received a phone call from two semi-drunken friends who were at a bar on the East Coast. They demanded I write about the idiot formerly known as Gov. Rod Blagojevich. I promised to do so, but deep down I probably wanted the whole shameful situation to go away. As an…