So Fresh and So Green | Madam Toussaint on Going Green, Art, Hip Hop, and Politics

Amazing! News of 2 rappers going back to school in the same week.

First up, Queensbridge emcee Nas had this to say at the Boys & Girls Clubs of America’s annual National Keystone Conference.

The reality of it is, you need to keep educating yourself, and I wish I had stayed in school.” ~Nas

He now intends to get his high school diploma and encourage others to do the same. With 19 years in the game, nine LPs, four #1 albums and the respect of most in Hip Hop for being one of the best that ever did it, Nas still wants a diploma. Hopefully his ex wife won’t try to take half of it. (more…)

I’ve been seeing posts about frogs floating around lately so I thought I’d share. I want to tell the little guy in the picture above not to jump cause apparently something’s in the water. He could jump in a male and come out a female, so to speak, according to this sciencedaily.com article “Pesticide Atrazine Can Turn Male Frogs Into Females”. And you thought you had issues finding a mate!

Some other frogs have apparently been successfully mating without being loud enough to wake up scientists in Australia for about 30 years according to treehugger.com in “Extinct Frog Rediscovered in Australia”. Truly a miracle considering how nosy scientists can be.

Speaking of mating scientist have found in a recent study at least one species of frogs mate for life. Find out why and how in “Monogamous Frogs Stay Together ‘Til One Croaks” via treehugger.com

The environment is everything that isn’t me.”
~Albert Einstein

Today is March 14th, Pi Day and the birthday of Albert Einstein, winner of The Nobel Prize in Physics 1921.

Pi Day celebrates the mathematical constant pi 3/14/2010; since 3, 1 and 4 are the first three decimal digits of pi. Pi is represented as the Greek letter π and is considered an infinite, irrational number, meaning it can go on forever without repeating.

Pi is 22 divided by 7 and some people like to actually divide that and trace pi as far as they can. For all you nerds like me out there and curious spectators piday.org have already traced pi to the one-millionth place for you. I guess you’ll have to find something else to do with the rest of your day now that that’s already been done!

You can also celebrate today by eating pie, but here at sofreshandsogreen.com you can also marinate on Einstein’s quote above. Talk of polar ice caps melting and Amazon forests being cut down can be so abstract to some. (more…)

If you’re like me you’ve seen the commercials and wondered “What is the theme song from the FX show Justified?

FX’s new drama Justified is being billed as the ultimate “modern day western” and features the song “On The Run” by Gangstagrass. Hard to get it out of your head I know.

Who are these guys anyway and where do they get off making infectious music like this? Gangstagrass is producer Rench featuring the rapper T.O.N.E-Z. Gangstagrass mashes up Hip Hop and bluegrass.

This song has been floating around for a while but the Justified trailer has generated a lot of interest in it. Download below the jump. (more…)

Hello my name is Silent Jay. I’m a fellow blogger and friend of Madam Toussaint and she’s been gracious enough to allow me to do a special guest post on her site. I have list of 5 things that we can all do not only improve the environment but I also believe will improve our communities.

Here’s the good news, none of these things require you attend a meeting, a seminar, or a forum. They’re just things we can all do everyday. (more…)

Photo Credit: AP Photo

A settlement of up to $657.5 million has been reached for the workers who helped in the rescue and cleanup after September 11th. That’s a lot of cheddar but you can’t buy good health. The workers eventually sued the city over the numerous health problems, “most commonly asthma and other respiratory illnesses”, they claimed they got working in the heart of the World Trade Center debris.

10,000 plaintiffs will be compensated according to how severe their illnesses got and their level of exposure to the contaminants at the World Trade Center site.

What about all the other people who were exposed that (more…)

Pulitzer Prize winning reporter and former New York Newsday Editor Les Payne recently had a nasty fall…and didn’t go to the doctor. He’s a man of a certain age so I was concerned. He explained some of his initial thoughts after the incident:

‘I got this;’ I muttered, faithful to race and gender.

What’s the fun of being a black man if you can’t wax stupid about your health issues?

The best advice I ever ignored as an editor came from Derrick Jackson, a vegan reporter who runs marathons.

‘We black men,’ he cautioned, ‘have got to start taking better care of ourselves.’

Sure.”

He had to have his quadriceps tendon re-tied my with a string threaded through a hole drilled in the bone. And the pain? The trauma was compared by his surgeon “to a hand grenade exploding inside the muscle and tendon.”

And he didn’t want to go to the doctor! You guys is it really that serious? (more…)

Disclaimer: This post is not intended to suggest Roberta Tubbs of The Cleveland Show has herpes. She’s a lovely young lady that’s not real.

A recent study done by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows herpes rates remain high in U.S. So high every 1 in 6 Americans between the ages of 14 and 49 have genital herpes. It is the most popular sexually transmitted disease.

Black women had the highest rate of infection with 48%.

So half of all American Black women have herpes? I can’t even wrap my head around that. This is such bad PR for us ladies. I’m inclined to believe these numbers are off. They were wrong on swine flu. (more…)