Wednesday – Friday: Office Hours marathon of online question and answer sessions on Twitter
To participate, anyone can ask a question on Twitter with the hashtag #WHChat, and administration officials respond to questions in real-time via Twitter.  Follow the Q&A through the @WHLive Twitter account.  If you miss the live session, the full Q&A will be posted on WhiteHouse.gov to cross-post and Storify.com/WhiteHouse.

1/25: Answering general questions about the speech

All-day: Josh Earnest, White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary

1pm: Mark Zuckerman, White House Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council

3pm: Dan Pfeiffer

1/26: Constituency focused sessions

10am: Veterans

• Matt Flavin, White House Director of Veterans and Wounded Warrior Policy

11am : LGBT

• Miriam Vogel, White House Senior Policy Advisor and Gautam Raghavan, Assoc. Director for Public Engagement

Noon : Women

• Racquel Russell,  Special Assistant to the President for Mobility and Opportunity Policy and Avra Siegel, White House Deputy Executive Director for the Council on Women and Girls

1pm: Seniors

• Jeanne Lambrew, Deputy Assistant to the President for Health Policy and Nick Papas, Assistant Press Secretary

2pm: Latinos

• Felicia Escobar, White House Senior Policy Advisor and Julie Rodriguez, White House Associate Director of Public Engagement, and Luis Miranda, White House Director of Hispanic Media

3pm: Native Americans

• Kimberlee Teehee, Senior Policy Advisor for Native American Affairs

4pm: Small Business owners

• Christine Koronides, Senior Advisor for Economic Policy, National Economic Council

5pm: African Americans

• Danielle Gray, Deputy Assistant to the President for Economic Policy

6pm: Asian American Pacific Islanders

• Chris Lu, Assistant to the President and Cabinet Secretary

1/26: Specific Issue focused sessions

10am: Rural Issues

• Doug McKalip, Senior Policy Advisor for Rural Affairs

11am: Foreign Policy

• Ben Rhodes, Deputy NSA for Strategic Communications and Speechwriting

Noon: Education

• Roberto Rodriguez, Special Assistant to the President for Education Policy

1pm: Health

• Jeanne Lambrew, Deputy Asst. to the President for Health Policy and Nick Papas, Asst. Press Secretary

2pm: Energy

• Heather Zichal, Deputy Asst. to the President for Energy and Climate Change and Dan Utech, Deputy Director for Energy Policy

3pm: Consumer Protections

• Brian Deese, Deputy Director National Economic Council

4pm: The Economy

• Jason Furman, Principal Deputy Director National Economic Council

5pm: Job Opportunities

• Portia Wu, Senior Policy Advisor for Mobility & Opportunity Policy

6pm: Urban Issues

• Racquel Russell,  Special Assistant to the President for Mobility and Opportunity Policy

Monday, 1/30: Your State of the Union Interview with President Obama
In the first, completely virtual interview from the White House, President Obama will answer questions that have been submitted by Americans from across the country via YouTube. The virtual event with the President will happen through  Google+ Hangout, a live multi-person video chat.  Your readers can submit questions now through the 28 ^th at youtube.com/whitehouse.

 

This is what I love about this administration. They aren’t afraid of trying new things to keep voters involved. On July 6th at 2pm ET, the White House (@whitehouse), will be hosting the first ever Twitter Town Hall.

This is the opportunity for Twitter users to tweet President Obama questions regarding jobs and the economy. To submit your questions you must have a Twitter account and  use hashtag #AskObama so they can track your question. On the 6th, President Obama will answer select questions in a live event moderated by Jack Dorsey, Twitter co-founder and Executive Chairman.

If you’d like to try your luck in being a part of the live audience, you can submit your information to register online. For recent updates follow @townhall.

And for those who hate on the President no matter what he does, lets please be respectful during the event.

 

But despite the lack of posts, I still get a decent amount of hits and readers are still leaving comments on some of my older posts. I’m not the most prolific writer and I don’t consider myself to be well-versed in a lot of the stuff I blog about. But there’s something about this blogging thing that keeps sucking me back into it. I’ve grown to love the black blogger community and it has allowed me to meet some amazing people. There are a lot of people out there with some strong opinions about society and the world as they see it. Those are the people who I like to showcase and support.

I’m making some changes to the blog and what I blog about. I love the current theme and focus of theotalks, but I want to remove the restraints and give myself the opportunity to be all over the place. The new theme of the site is “Random thoughts about everything and nothing”. While it may be a little vague, that’s how I want to run the site from now on.  My current theme of focusing on the black community is great, but there are so many other great bloggers out there consistently doing it. It takes time to put those posts together and right now, I’m at a different place in life.

So from here on out, expect the unexpected. As I feel moved, I’ll post about whatever is on my heart at the moment. I’ll also be showcasing some of my favorite bloggers and will work to get some of the guest writers back (you know who you are) to help a brotha out.

I haven’t decided if I’m going to start the podcast back up, but I might try my hand at video blogging. Only time will tell. Thanks to everyone who supports and reads this blog. It definitely keeps me motivated to stay at it.

God Bless.

Theo

 

I first saw a tweet by @AroundHarlem (twitter.com/AroundHarlem) and thought it may have been someone else because I hadn’t seen it on the news yet. But just like the Michael Jackson passing, the news started reporting after it moved through the Internet. It’s amazing how fast news travels today, which is why we have to be careful to decipher between rumor and fact. But most of the people I follow are good at making sure the right information is posted. It wasn’t until I noticed an update in Wikipedia that I decided to post on his passing. I’m sure if you start googling it now, you’ll find a lot out there.

I remember when Steve came to the Houston Oilers. I was exited because we REALLY needed a quarterback, but they wouldn’t let him play. I was upset about it, but the Oilers left for Tennessee and I had to get over it. Along with Warren Moon, I consider him to be one of my favorite quarterbacks and pray the best for those survived by him. It’s sad to hear this kind of news, but it reminds us how precious life really is.

 

Faces of Our Children is a Non Profit Organization formed to educate the general public on issues concerning Sickle Cell Anemia and other diseases. The mission of Faces of Our Children, Inc. is dedicated to raising awareness, support and funding for the fight against sickle cell disease worldwide in cooperation with the Howard University Center for Sickle Cell Disease through the development and delivery of educational programs and materials via the internet and mass media at work sites and schools and through community-based organizations that will help effectuate progressive public policy and increase both government and corporate funding in order to significantly improve the lives of families with sickle cell disease and ultimately eliminate this deadly disease that afflicts not only people of color but people from India, Greece, Italy, the Middle East, South and Central American and the Caribbean.

For more information you can follow StandUpStickOut at twitter.com/StandUpStickOut.