Free Walt Disney Tickets

In return for volunteering with select organizations, you will receive a pass for a free day at Walt Disney World or Disneyland theme parks.

You can sign up for your volunteer assignment after January 1, 2010, and then you can have your day at Disney anytime of the year up until December 15, 2010 (Certain dates are not available).

Even children ages 6-17 can volunteer (must be accompanied by an adult) so the entire family can help a good cause and have a great time together, for free.

Also, don’t forget, you can still get free admission to Walt Disney World® Resort or Disneyland® Resort on your birthday until December 31, 2009! Have a blast! Thanks Cheap Today!
Complete information.

        

Bogo Free Crocs

Right now the shoes’ manufacturer, Crocs.com, is having a major sale. Buy one pair of Crocs and get the second pair free. As if that wasn’t good enough, they went on ahead and threw in free ground shipping.

Hurry, though. Supplies are dwindling as I type.

Get your Crocs, now!

        

The Cheesecake Factory is teaming up with Feeding America for The ‘Drive Out Hunger Tour. During September they’ll hold events throughout the country at local CF locations. If you bring two cans of soup for your local food bank to one of these events, and you’re one of the first 500 people to do so, you will get a free slice of cheesecake in return.

Sounds like happy tummies all around!

Get all the sweet details from the Drive Out Hunger Tour website.

        

All you need to do is download your free passes and use th

        

All you have to do is wear your favorite sports team logo, and an Original Chicken Sandwich will be yours for free, as long as it’s between the hours of 10 am and closing.

Get more info

        

Until August 16, all children under 12 can get a free meal at any participating IKEA stores.

There’s no need for accompanying adults to purchase anything, so feel free to get free meatballs, a PBJ sandwich, or even mac and cheese for your little crumb snatcher(s).

        

Some other moms and I were talking about how if parents monitored their kids’ diets more diligently, the rate of childhood cavities and obesity in the U.S. would drop drastically.

Our kids eat way too much sugar. Not only are they eating candy and drinking massive amounts of sugary sodas, they are also eating mass-produced “food” (such as breakfast cereals) that contain what should be illegal amounts of sugar.

It’s no wonder that as a nation we pay more for children’s dental and health related issues, but this can be remedied somewhat by making better choices at the grocery store.

Rule of thumb: Check the ingredients label. If refined (white) sugar (or corn syrup) is one of the first three ingredients, drop it like poison (it is).

Alternatives: Instead of buying breakfast cereals loaded with refined sugar, purchase healthy cereals such as granola. It’s sweet but contains ingredients that supply nutrients and sweetened with natural sweeteners such as honey. Look for foods that do not contain refined sugar, and drink 100% juices (natural sugar) instead of sodas.

Bottom line: Shop frugally, but always keep good health in mind. There is definitely a link between our medical and dental bills and what we put into our bodies, and it doesn’t make sense to buy cheap low quality food and go bankrupt in the dentist’s or doctor’s office.

        

According to the Stamford Advocate, the rapper was dissed by Jere Eaton, a former Yerwood Center board member and a potential presidential candidate for the NAACP’s Stamford branch, who was concerned violence would break out at the event.

She was so concerned she hopped online to gather Web site links, articles and lyrics before sending out a warning email blast to community leaders and the media demanding Jadakiss be dropped.

“Under the leadership of Dr. Robert Perry (pastor of Union Baptist Church) and other clergy in Stamford,” she wrote, “we are demanding that the Celebrity Basketball Fundraiser is canceled or ‘CLEAN’ entertainment is provided by artists with ‘CLEAN’ reputations.”

Eaton had previously made her views crystal clear by saying, “All of these artists are the worst of the worst. They’re criminals, their favorite word is the N-word, and they demean women by calling them bitches and hos.”

Deborah Sewell, the Yerwood Center’s president and CEO, canceled the fundraiser after receiving over 60 phone calls expressing concern. There was no time to schedule a replacement.

One leader who spoke out against the event was Rev. Tommie Jackson, pastor of Faith Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church.

“It doesn’t make it right if it’s said by Don Imus or black rap artists,” Jackson opined. “It is antithetical to the morals and values that we’re trying to teach and impart to the sons and daughters of the community.

“The bottom line is we believe that the Yerwood Center needs to raise money, but there are better ways of doing it than bringing in Jadakiss.”

The Stamford Advocate 

        

However, I just absolutely have to say I am soooooooo disappointed.

Simmons, the man primarily responsible for building the rap music industry, and who I’ve supported for years, has shown himself to be a real publicity whore.

Case in point, let’s examine the recent controversy still brewing around the derogatory remarks made by radio shock jock Don Imus towards the Rutgers women’s basketball team. When community leaders raised a big stink and caused Imus to get fired, Simmons came out weeks later recommending that the rap industry voluntarily remove the words bitch, ho, and ni**er from songs.

As quoted in the Hollywood Reporter: “These three words should be considered with the same objections to obscenity as extreme curse words.”

However, during an interview I conducted with him five years ago (June, 2001) he was freestyling a totally different verse.

When I asked him how he viewed rap music, he commented on the power that rappers have, but said he wasn’t interested in cleaning up rap.

“There’s not one record that I hear on the radio that I think shouldn’t be on the radio. I want to make this clear. There’s not one record that I find offensive.”

When I brought up the rampant misogyny in the rap industry and how, as a father of a then baby girl, he felt about it, he tripped over his pre-prepared responses and took a long pause, afterwhich he said:

“I feel… that [it is] for parents to govern what their kids’ understanding [is] of what’s in the world. What part of it do they want them to hear at an early age is the parent’s choice and the way they want to explain to them what they hear - if they hear it. Now if you don’t have parents [who can do that]… then it’s a hard world that you’ve fallen into… You can’t stop sexist statements.”

Check the whole interview: Pt. 1 and Pt. 2 and judge for yourself whether Simmons is using the recent controversy as a publicity vehicle for his own interests, namely the Hip-hop Summit and his new forage into Africa’s diamond mines. I can’t help to think that if he truly felt that “bitch,” “ho,” and “ni**er” were “extreme curse word” he would have done something about it decades ago when it could’ve made a real difference.

        

For real.

“A white Clemson University student attends a bash in black face [oh my] over the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend [oh my, my]. A fraternity at Johns Hopkins University invites partygoers to wear “bling bling” grills, or shiny metal caps on their teeth.”

Dumb asses are documenting their ignorance by uploading photos from these parties. Look closely and you will see white kids from the suburbs throwing up gang signs… like this one, shown above and found through a Google search.

WTF? If this chick was ever anywhere near a real Crip in…. say… Compton, she’d sh*t her pink panties… Come to think of it, so would I…

“The segment of rap music that is glamorized and popularized by the media is gangsta rap,” said Venise Berry, an African-American associate professor of journalism at the University of Iowa. “It has become an image that is normalized in our society. That to me explains clearly why they don’t see it as wrong.”

What’s really “wrong” is these people don’t realize how ass-out stupid they look.
“One student wore blackface; another white student put padding in her pants to make her rear end look bigger.”

Ok someone really needs a reality pimp-slap. And a punch… and a good stomp. Hey I’m just ranting, I’m not advocating violence…

But seriously… what’s worse? The people making fun of African American stereotypes, or the morons in the rap industry who continually market these stereotypes and pass it off as “reality.”

I say the latter.

Not that it’s ok to racially mock anyone, these college kids are really out of line, but so are the garbage lyrics and videos from these wanna be gangsta rappers, the majority of whom would crap their pink panties if they were anywhere near real life gangsters.

James Johnson, a black psychology professor at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington says: “In the civil rights movement, you didn’t have blacks who called themselves `niggers’ and who called their women `bitches’ and `whores’ and who glorified being violent and being thugs. Now these white kids are kind of confused.”

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

RIP Alice Coltrane.