Ellen DeGeneres A Living Legend

     Often times comedians forget that they don't have to insert curse words after every other joke in order to be funny, many stand up comics are all about the shock factor and the poking fun on everyone and everything as dirty as possible, which we find to be very unfortunate. There is one light among the darkness though, one comic that stands above others, that does not rely on curse words or vulgarities in order to be funny but relies on wit and delivers material that we all love, this person is no other then Ellen DeGeneres.

    There is something about Ellen, something different that allows her to stand apart from everyone else while succeeding and being loved by everyone, it's unfathomable how even people that do not watch her show know of her and think she is awesome, that is no easy feat to accomplish. Be it within a movie, a tv show, and for the last few years hosting her own talk show, men and women come together to watch Ellen, loving everything that she is about and all that she does.

    In fact even among the "tough guy" act where anything you do is considered girly, watching Ellen is an accepted thing, this is not a general rule but something we have come to find out as of late that surprised us. Ellen's brilliance and swagger demand our attention and respect, she is not only super talented but is incredibly nice. The nice thing here is important, here is a woman who could by all means be a little mean, but decided to just be awesome 24/7, that is something to be commended.

    Her stand up is a work of art, if you have not seen any of her work you should definitely drop your plans for tonight and go watch it, it'll be sure to make you cry of laughter. It's astounding how she doesn't need to rely on the shock factor, or vulgar jokes in order to be funny, we know we've said that a few times but think about every stand up comedian's bit as of late, now think about all the latest funniest movies, do any of them not contain vulgarity and cursing? The answer is simple, they all do, all of them, thus when Ellen comes around and gives us something funny that can be appreciated by everyone, it truly is a feat that should be recognized and praised by all.   

       Another huge deal with Ellen is her continued strive to better the world, we're talking a fight against racism, bullying, prejudice, cancer, and equal rights for all. Ellen has been a voice behind many movements, some of those would not exist without her backing, and some would not have been noticed without her support, this is a woman deserving of our respect. She is constantly trying to make the world a better place for all, and this is something that she does for the world and not for fame, many celebrities do all these things for fame, but Ellen would do them even if she was not famous and thus deserves our love.

     Ellen has recently released a book last year that many loved, if fact there are many people that don't read at all that picked up that book, read it from cover to cover, and loved every second of it. It was pure wit, a book consisting of musings, random thoughts and experiments, "Seriously...I'm Kidding" was a solid comedic read and one we would recommend to all. If you drive and love audio books the book is available in audio format as well and read by Ellen herself, which can make any bad drive a good one.

     Recently JCP had this brilliant idea to have Ellen do some commercials for them, what a brilliant idea that was, a masterful move by JCP. The commercials all have Ellen observing something about the present and wondering "has it always been this way?" and traveling backwards through time to poke fun at stores that do not have all the benefits JCP does, though it is done tastefully and witty, allowing the commercial to not be a knock on the competition as much as it is raising awareness of how awesome JCP can be to the public, a rather brilliant move.

    There is much more we could say about Ellen, we could go on and on, but alas this post must come to an end. We recommend you check out her show and her book, both are funny and tasteful, something hard to find these days.

     We hope this week has been going well for you, and may it finish gloriously,

Love from your humble blogger,

What Can I Do?

     This is the question that most have asked after being challenged to change the world. When we are faced with the cruel circumstances surrounding this world and someone calls out to us for help, one can't help but ask oneself "What can I do? I'm just one person!", and thus we block out the calls for help, we block out the issues that are taking place around us, and we go on living our day to day lives. This applies to many different issues, but with keeping with the theme for this week, fighting racism, we've come up with a five step process, where anyone can make a difference. This process applies to a large quantity of issues, and is a way by which you can go out there today and make a difference.

  Open

     As the old Buddhist monks have said "if you're cup is full how can you learn? You must first empty your cup in order to be able to attain wisdom". In this same way we must look into ourselves and realize that we have biases, we have preconceived notions about the world around us, about how people behave, and about what we know about a certain culture. The first step to fighting prejudice is to realize that you in some level are prejudice, everyone is initially, and that before you can go out there making a difference you must first open yourself to the world and attempt to get rid of these notions and prejudices within yourself. Before you go out there to impact the world you must empty yourself of your prejudices, this is the first step.

    Learn

     After you have purged yourself of your prejudices you will be ready to begin to re-educate yourself on those things you previously had a preconceived notion about. This applies to all nationalities, for all people have need to learn about their surrounding nations without the veil of prejudice. So take your time to actually make some friends within a different culture, learn about their culture from them, and defeat your own prejudices that you grew up with. At the same time see how hard it is to be that person, understand the social hardships that person faces, and in understanding you will grow to see the world within a new light. This new light will be able to guide you into the next step, and this experience will help you grow and mature into a person that brings about change, this is the second step.

   Watch

    Now that you are no longer approaching a particular people group with the eyes of prejudice, learning about them, befriending them, now comes a time of understanding what they go through. This is the time you open your eyes to the world, open your eyes to all the issues going around the world and come to an understanding of  how this particular group has been slighted. This is the time where your eyes will be opened to the truth, the truth that prejudice is running rampant within our nation, that this prejudice does not have one face but many faces, meaning that the dream is not to have two people groups accept one another but to have all people groups accept one another. This will be the time where your eyes will be able to perceive the truth for the first time, and for the first time you will get that sick feeling at the pit of your stomach, that same feeling one gets when one witnesses a great injustice. This is the third step.

   Speak

    Once your eyes have been opened to the truth there is no way to close them again, once you have experienced evil there is no forgetting the matter, thus this is the time where you speak out against it. This could be a simple reprimand of someone being prejudice, this could be stopping a group of people from telling racist jokes, or boycotting a TV show for the harm it does to a particular culture, this could be joining a protest union or supporting one, there are many things one can to that make a difference in the long run. The protest point is important, not everyone can go out there and give up everything to join a cause, but on the other hand everyone can donate to a cause in order to help the fight. Of course one must always be wise about donating money, finding a good charity is essential, not all movements are faithful with the donations received, this is a great evil to be discussed at another time. The fourth step is to speak out against those that are prejudice, by speaking you are making a difference.

  Teach

     After you have gone through this whole process and have reached a level of understanding you are now bound to teach what you have learned. What is the point to learning how to be a better human being if you do not share that knowledge with anyone else? There is a huge need for education, for re-education, and without this focus on education a movement will die. This is a simple truth, any idea that is not taught to the next generation will eventually grow obsolete and die, hence the importance of teaching what you know, may it be to your kids, your friends, your parents, a classroom, an audience and so forth. This current generation for the most part was taught well about the evils of racism and prejudice, and thus we must continue to teach future generations about the evils surrounding those words. This is the fifth step, teaching others in order to raise awareness.

     In hope for a better tomorrow we pray that this week's posts have impacted you in some way, be it an encouragement or reenforcing a calling, whichever we hope that we can all band together and fight to bring about a better world, one free of prejudice and racism. Everyone can do something, every little bit counts.

   We hope you have a great weekend, rest well and be safe,

Love from your humble blogger,

Reflection, Action and Honor

    What does it mean to honor someone? What must one do to truly demonstrate that they honor a great figure, or a movement? These are questions generally glossed by, generally ignored for some reason, and thus the case is made that many times when people think that they are living a life of honor towards a person or cause they are actually not. It is not their fault though, in a sense they are responsible on some primary level but when one is never taught how one should honor another he/she should not be held responsible for not knowing how to go about doing so. We've broken down what it means to honor, and hope that this might be helpful to some and encourage others to live a life of honor.

  Reflection

     We celebrated Dr. King this past Monday, within this celebration we remember all that he did, his struggles, his speeches, his fights, and his death. We pause from all that we do and reflect on who the man was, thinking about his flaws, his strengthens, and learning from them. Reflecting on something while honoring it means that you not only gloss over information about a figure, no, you truly meditate on a person, on his/her life, on their accomplishments, and learn from them. In doing so you honor their life, you honor their memory and hard-work. Reflection becomes a tool of honor only when you reflect on the past in order to improve yourself, only when you sit down and think "what would this person want me to learn from them?", this is what it means to meditate and honor a past life.

    Reflection can take place many different ways, one could simply buy a biography of the person you wish to honor and learn about that person's life, one could watch a video, read a magazine, study a history book and so on as well. The mediums that we have available to us now-a-days are many, thus there is little to no excuse as to why we should not know who these revolutionary men and women were. To truly honor someone is to know who they are and were, meaning, knowing who they were as a person and knowing what they are to the people today, knowing both who the 'man' or 'woman' was, in order to better understand what the 'movement' or 'cause' of today means.

  Action

    The first part of honor is simple, reflection, most people accomplish this task easily, though true honor does not end there, true honor has action accompanying it. Action is a simple term that carries a heavy meaning with it, to honor someone through action one must understand what actions would be considered honorable toward that person or cause, meaning, one must meditate on it first prior to acting on it. The previous paragraph might seem like a repetition of the previous few but the repetition is warranted, it is due to that fact that we have many who seek to honor another without understanding what that person thought or believed, this usually only brings trouble and unavoidably becomes a clink in the armor of the movement. Thus we implore you, prior to seeking to honor someone, please take the time to understand who that person was first.

     Action does not mean drop everything and fight for the cause, action does mean living for the cause, meaning, devoting your life to the cause. Some of us cannot drop everything and join a protest movement right now, in fact if we all did so society would not be able to function, this is not the only meaning of action. Action can also mean just upholding a cause, standing up against racism, fighting against inequality, with your words, with actions, with reprimanding people, with just taking a stand. The world is not changed by the big things, though they help, it is the application of those big things in the small ways a society functions that brings change. In short, by taking a stand and being the difference you become part of what is truly going to change the world, thus truly living a life of honor.

   We challenge you to not only celebrate and reflect on Dr. King's life, but to also take action and raise awareness to racism and prejudice, the small things are the things that impact the world the most sometimes, so never think that a small action by you will go unnoticed, no action ever goes unnoticed, this is a simple rule, all actions bring about change, be it good or bad, thus we urge you to live a life of honor, seeking to bring about a better tomorrow for the generations to come. Reflect on what was, in order to bring about a new and better now, this is what it means to honor.

Also if you have not heard of the "SOPA Act" please follow this LINK and get acquainted with it. This is a cause that is happening now that we must all fight to prevent. Google has done a great job summarizing everything and providing you with good links, sign the petition at least, every little bit helps. For those that are unaware SOPA is a bill attempting to censor the internet, so please follow the LINK and sign the petition against it.


We hope you all have a good rest of the week, remember to smile more and be kind to those around you.

 Love from your humble blogger,

Honoring A Man Of Peace

     We celebrate Martin Luther King Jr today by taking a day off work, school and other activities in order to not only celebrate the life of one of the most significant figures in the last century but to also meditate on the dream he had and to raise awareness to how we have progressed and how much more we have to go as well. Dr. King lived a life of sacrifice, sacrifice to the cause, sacrifice to a dream, a goal, that one day we could do away with racism and prejudice, that one day we might be able to come together and treat one another with respect and honor, that one day we might put our differences aside and love one another equally. Dr. King's life was a life well lived, one we should honor and respect, one we should remember and exalt, here was a man that was not scared to follow a dream and because of his passion he inspired a nation to dream with him.

   Dr. King was not the only one leading the movement but he was one of the big figures that aided us and inspired us to see what we had not previously seen, here was a man who woke up America to a better reality, to a new ideal, and thus Dr. King is a man that should be respected and remembered at all times within history. At the same time, we hope that you might remember all the other great leaders of his time and times after him and before him, for he did not accomplish anything alone, it took people rising up and heeding the call, thus as we honor Dr. King, let us also honor some of the other great leaders that were about this day, pushing the dream forward.

    We have come a long way in 44 years, the world has changed to the better, prejudice and racism have both decreased significantly, though the barbarism of racism is still alive today and should be acknowledged, we are still living in a day where racism is being defeated even to the point of our generation being disgusted by the sight of racism. This is a huge breakthrough, the fact that our generation in seeing racism within a TV show, or on the streets, on a movie screen, becomes instantly angry, gagging in disgust by the act of treating another human being as an inferior, this is a huge deal. This is what it means to evolve, for the next generation to look upon racism and instantly understand how horrible and wretched it is, that gives us hope that the future might hold a world where racism is non-existent and all men are created equal.  

     A new movie has recently come out which clearly demonstrates this point, the point that all who have seen this movie despise the wives within this flick, the movie is so powerful it brought many of us to tears, myself included, a movie that showed us what was the case, in order for us to better understand and appreciate what is today, The Help. This movie impacted us, it opened our eyes to how far we have come, it showed us how ingrained the evils of racism have become to us and it gave us a hope that the future might hold a world without racism and prejudice. This is a must see movie, though we warn you that it is a powerful movie, you must be rather dense if you are not moved even a little by this movie, what it shows us is what was happening on the other side while Dr. King was preaching, we become invested emotionally with those that are being impacted by King's words and get a better understanding of what it must have felt like, thus the source of the power of this movie, hope.

     We here at So Danca want to remind everyone that though Dr. King's ministry was successful and now we are living at an age that racism has begun to die out, that racism still exists, and that prejudice is something that has still plagued our nation, thus we wish to raise awareness to this evil in hopes that we can all come together to fight injustice, and bring about a better tomorrow for our children and grand-children. Let us come together and continue dreaming, a dream of equality, a dream where prejudice and racism are things of the past, things looked at in disgust, let us come together and bring about a better world, one we are proud of, one where we can hope freely, and dream intensely, while loving continually everyone as we love ourselves.

    We hope you have a great Dr. King day, and that you may come and dream with us for a better tomorrow, one we can be proud of, one where Dr. King's message has come true to its fullest meaning, let us dream together.

Love from your humble blogger,