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Beyonce donated $125K to a design team who believe their baby incubator can potentially save thousands of lives. Get more deets on the design inside and watch Shonda Rhimes encourage the class of 2014 to live their dreams (and accept the trade-offs) inside....
Proving she's a diva who cares, Beyonce donated $125,000 to Embrace Innovations, an organization founded by Jane Chen (second from the right) that designed and distributes an infant warmer, a low-cost alternative to the incubator. The announcement was made at last week's anniversary party for Gucci’s Chime for Change and after Jane's TEDWomen 2013 talk.
Bey's donation will fund pilot testing of the device (shaped like a tiny sleeping bag) in Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania and Uganda, and could save the lives of 1,900 underweight babies.
Thanks Bey!
In case you missed it..........
Pastor Rudy Rasmus of St. John's United Methodist Church in Houston, defended his most famous parishioner to The Grio. When asked if Beyonce's music contradicts the purity of Christianity, here's what he said:
"I've answered that question many times and the answer is still the same. Beyoncé is a consummate entertainer, and an entertainer entertains. Is the entertainer's entertainment an expression of that person's life and reality? I don't know. But I know when Arnold Schwarzenegger straps on a 30 caliber cannon and blows planes out of the sky, nobody asks the question, 'Arnold why are you walking around for those 90 minutes in that suit with that 30 caliber cannon? What kind of person are you?' I don't think I've heard that question. But at the end of the day, Arnold Schwarzenegger is an entertainer.
He added, "The world would void an extreme talent if we silenced her or censored her."
Well said. Sounds like the Pastor just gave the congregation permission to be sexy. Carry on....
In other news...
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Famed Emmy-winning producer Shonda Rhimes, who graduated from Dartmouth in 1991, addressed the university's graduating class of 2014 recently. And she shockingly told the graduates that they should give up on "having it all" because it doesn't exist. When you think about it....she's probably right. There's always a trade off. But maybe we can have it all...just not all at the same time.
She also had a few things to saw about Facebook activists.....CHANGE requires MORE than a cute hashtag. Get up off your butt and do something. #catchit.
The creator of hits "Scandal" and "Grey's Anatomy" also had other pearls of wisdom. Here are the highlights:
Stop Dreaming Already
"Dreams are lovely. But they are just dreams. Fleeting, ephemeral, pretty. But dreams do not come true just because you dream them. It's hard work that makes things happen. It's hard work that creates change."
...And Start Doing
"You want to be a writer? A writer is someone who writes every day, so start writing. You don't have a job? Get one. Any job. Don't sit at home waiting for the magical opportunity. Who are you? Prince William? No. Get a job. Go to work. Do something until you can do something else."
Don't Let Hashtags Replace Activism
"A hashtag does not make you Dr. King. A hashtag does not change anything. It's a hashtag. It's you, sitting on your butt, typing on your computer and then going back to binge-watching your favorite show. I do it all the time. For me, it's Game of Thrones. Volunteer some hours. Focus on something outside yourself. Devote a slice of your energies towards making the world suck less every week.”
Forget About "Having It All" Because Perfection is Impossible
"If I am accepting a prestigious award, I am missing my baby's first swim lesson. If I am at my daughter's debut in her school musical, I am missing Sandra Oh's last scene ever being filmed at Grey's Anatomy. If I am succeeding at one, I am inevitably failing at the other. That is the tradeoff. That is the Faustian bargain one makes with the devil that comes with being a powerful working woman who is also a powerful mother. You never feel a hundred percent OK; you never get your sea legs; you are always a little nauseous. Something is always lost."
Stop Trying to Be Someone Else, and Focus On Being Yourself
"You know what I wanted to be? I wanted to be Nobel Prize Winning Author Toni Morrison. That was my dream. [...] Guess what? I couldn’t be Nobel Prize winning author Toni Morrison. Because Toni Morrison already had that job and she wasn’t interested in giving it up. [...] [Eventually I figured out that] I could dream about being Toni Morrison. Or I could do. At film school, I discovered an entirely new way of telling stories. A way that suited me. A way that brought me joy. A way that flipped this switch in my brain and changed the way I saw the world. Years later, I had dinner with Toni Morrison. All she wanted to talk about was Grey's Anatomy. That never would have happened if I hadn’t stopped dreaming of becoming her and gotten busy becoming myself."
Count Your Blessings
"Yes, it is hard out there. But hard is relative. I come from a middle-class family, my parents are academics, I was born after the civil rights movement, I was a toddler during the women's movement, I live in the United States of America, all of which means I'm allowed to own my freedom, my rights, my voice, and my uterus; and I went to Dartmouth and I earned an Ivy League degree. The lint in my navel that accumulated while I gazed at it as I suffered from feeling lost about how hard it was to not feel special after graduation ... that navel lint was embarrassed for me. Elsewhere in the world, girls are harmed simply because they want to get an education. Slavery still exists. Children still die from malnutrition. ... So yes, tomorrow may suck for you—as it did for me. But as you stare at the lint in your navel, have some perspective. We are incredibly lucky. We have been given a gift."
Watch the speech here:
Photos via Dartmouth's Instagram/Music World Entertainment
