Q Sues Michael Jackson Estate

Quincy Jones ‘ musical direction took Michael Jackson from being a star to being an international superstar, Had there been no Q – the production quality of Jackson’s three biggest albums would have been different, and arguably less stellar.

So this one is a bit of a shocker.

Quincy Jones sues Michael Jackson’s estate

Quincy Jones sued Michael Jackson’s estate on Friday claiming he is owed millions in royalties and production fees on some of the superstar’s greatest hits.

Jones’ lawsuit seeks at least $10 million from the singer’s estate and Sony Music Entertainment, claiming the entities improperly re-edited songs to deprive him of royalties and production fees. The music has been used in the film “This Is It” and a pair of Cirque du Soleil shows based on the King of Pop’s songs, the lawsuit states.

Jones also claims that he should have received a producer’s credit on the music in “This Is It.” His lawsuit seeks an accounting of the estate’s profits from the works so that Jones can determine how much he is owed.

The producer worked with Jackson on three of his most popular solo albums, “Off the Wall,” ”Thriller” and “Bad.”

Jackson’s estate wrote in a statement that it was saddened by Jones’ lawsuit. “To the best of its knowledge, Mr. Jones has been appropriately compensated over approximately 35 years for his work with Michael,” the statement said.

An after-hours message left at Sony Music’s New York offices was not immediately returned.

Jackson’s hits “Billie Jean,” ”Thriller” and “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” are among the songs Jones claims were re-edited to deprive him of royalties and his producer’s fee. Jones’ lawsuit states the producer’s contracts called for him to have the first opportunity to re-edit or alter the songs, in part to protect his reputation.

 

 

Shopping While Black…Again!

What it is beginning to look like is the high end store section in NYC has been the victim of some heavy duty professional shoplifters. Whether because of budget concerns or stupidity, the Security Chief there went out on the cheap and hired George Zimmerman Security…

Resulting in a solution more expensive than having someone stand at the door to hand out free bags to the shoplifters.

 

Macy’s Also Gets Slapped With Racial Discrimination Lawsuit By Black Shopper

Barneys isn’t the only store being accused of racial discrimination. Now, Macy’s has been slapped with a lawsuit implicating the luxury store of racial profiling.

The New York Post reports that actor Robert Brown, who’s most known for his starring role opposite Sean Connery in the film “Finding Forrester,” has filled a civil suit for an unspecified sum against the luxury retail store and the New York Police Department, citing that he was unlawfully searched by undercover police officers on June 8, 2013.

The 29 year old, who is black, was stopped after making a purchase at the Sunglass Hut store located inside Macy’s flagship location in New York’s Herald Square.

According to the Manhattan Supreme Court suit, Brown presented his ID to the cops but “was told that his identification was false and that he could not afford to make such an expensive purchase.” The Brooklyn resident says he was then arrested and detained by cops for over an hour before finally being released without any charges.

This isn’t the first time Macy’s has dealt with a racial discrimination lawsuit. In 2005,the company paid New York state $600,000 to settle a complaint that its New York department stores were racially profiling shoppers and unlawful handcuffing them while they were being detained on suspicion of shoplifting.

 

Korean Tobacco Company Accused of Racist Ads

American WWII Poster

This one a brouhaha between a Korean Tobacco Company and the Africa Tobacco Producers Council.

Not a good job of winning friends and influencing. Obviously the Korean company didn’t “get” how the imagery might be insulting…

Nice to know Americans aren’t the only idiots out there.

One has to wonder though – if this company’s Marcom department all got their degrees from one of the private conservative colleges in the US. I mean – most real colleges talk about things like diversity and cultural sensitivity as part of Marketing 101, which are verboten topics in the conservative universe. And is one of the reasons conservatives constantly make complete asses of themselves when talking to anyone except over 60 year old white men. Ergo, if I want to market a product to any audience which includes Japanese…

I really don’t want to use the racist imagery common in the US during WWII

The part of this which is disappointing is that this sort of thing has been the subject of criticism of Asian Marketing before in China and Malaysia

 

 

Korean Tobacco Company Pulls ‘Racist’ Monkey Ads For ‘This Africa’ Cigarettes

Following cries of racism, South Korea’s largest tobacco company is pulling an advertisement for its new “This Africa” cigarettes.

The KT&G ads featuring a monkey dressed as a human were launched a month ago to promote the brand’s new “This Africa” cigarettes, according to the Agence France-Presse. The ads to promote cigarettes dried and roasted in “traditional” African style showed monkeys dressed as humans, tagged with the slogan “Africa is coming!”

Zambian Mirriam Simasiku, an African woman living in Seoul, told the Korea Times she found the ads extremely offensive.

“According to those images, Africans are just a bunch of uneducated monkeys,” she told the publication. “We as Africans are still a minority against a multitude of pure Koreans with no law to protect us. By the way, it is named This Africa, which is inappropriate since no one thought of making any connection.”

 

History Repeats Itself In Florida’s Juvenile System

Wrote about the vicious Florida Juvenile System of past years a few months ago where Juveniles were abused and killed.

Seem that things haven’t gotten a whole bunch better. When Republicans “privatize” government…

This is what really goes on.

PRISONERS OF PROFIT: Florida’s Lax Oversight Enables Systemic Abuse At Private Youth Prisons

Youth Services International confronted a potentially expensive situation. It was early 2004, only three months into the private prison company’s $9.5 million contract to run Thompson Academy, a juvenile prison in Florida, and already the facility had become a scene of documented violence and neglect.

One guard had fractured an inmate’s elbow after the boy refused instructions to throw away a cup, according to incident reports. Another guard had slammed a boy’s head into the floor after an argument. The prison was infested with ants and cockroaches,toilets were frequently clogged and children reported finding bugsin their meager portions of food.

“From day one, it was hell,” said Jerry Blanton, a former monitor with the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice, who was then tasked with inspecting Thompson Academy.

Conditions appeared so foul and perilous that he told his supervisors that he “emphatically recommended that the facility be closed,”according to a memo about the discussions.

What happened next speaks to how Youth Services International has managed to forge a lucrative business running private juvenile prisons in Florida and 15 other states even amid mounting evidence of abuse. The company used connections with state officials to complain that Blanton was intimidating staff. Less than a week later, the state removed him as monitor of the facility. Two months after that, he was fired.

Thompson remained open, and Youth Services International retained its contract to operate it. In the nine years since, the company has won an additional eight contracts in Florida, bringing 4,100 more youths through its facilities, according to state records. All the while, complaints of abuse and neglect have remained constant.

Florida leads the nation in placing state prisons in the hands of private, profit-making companies. In recent years, the state has privatized the entirety of its $183 million juvenile commitment system — the nation’s third-largest, trailing only California and Texas. Florida not only relies on private contractors to self-report escapes and incidents of violence and abuse, but the state’s Department of Juvenile Justice routinely awards contracts to private prison operators without scrutinizing their records, a Huffington Post investigation has found.

“We thought DJJ was going to be our biggest ally,” said Gordon Weekes, the chief juvenile public defender in Broward County, who has for years complained to the state about conditions inside two YSI prisons there. “They turned out to be the ally of the corporations, and the ally of the system.”

Florida’s permissive oversight has allowed Youth Services International to essentially game the system since entering the state more than a decade ago. Despite contractual requirements that the company report serious incidents at its facilities, YSI routinely fails to document problems, sanitizes those reports it does submit and pressures inmates to withhold evidence of mistreatment, according to interviews with 14 former YSI employees.

“The state is not doing enough,” said Wanda Williams, a former staffer at YSI’s Palm Beach Juvenile Correctional Facility, who quit in 2010 after growing disgusted with the violence and squalid conditions she saw inside the prison. “Because if they were, that place should have been shut down by now.”

Executives at YSI declined requests for interviews made over the last four months. In an emailed response to questions, Senior Vice President Jesse Williams said the company’s juvenile prisons are some of the best in Florida. He added that the state’s Department of Juvenile Justice rigorously inspects the facilities.

“The DJJ has a very meticulous monitoring system,” he said. “There are numerous announced and unannounced visits to each facility to check for quality assurance and contract compliance, and we do very well in our reviews.”

Williams denied that the company fails to report serious incidents to the state. “Our policy is to report everything,” he said. “In fact, we communicate to our employees that if there are any doubts about whether it is a reportable incident to go ahead and notify DJJ.”

Senior officials at the Department of Juvenile Justice declined interview requests. The agency refused to discuss specific details of HuffPost’s findings, though a spokeswoman issued a statement asserting the department is committed to ensuring that youth in its system “remain safe and are given every opportunity to thrive.” She said contract oversight is one of the agency’s top priorities.

“With 100 percent of the agency’s residential services provided through contractors, the contract selection and renewal process is paramount to our success,” said the spokeswoman, Meghan Speakes Collins, in an email.

Since 2011, when Republican Gov. Rick Scott took office in Florida, the department has “revamped” its review of contractors, she added, by engaging in deeper statistical analysis of trends such as high staff turnover and the number of altercations between staff and youth.

YSI is a subsidiary of a bigger company operating a number of facilities in  predominately Red States. From another investigation of their facilities in Texas –

Kirkham goes on to write, quote, “In 2001, an 18-year-old committed to a Texas boot camp operated by one of Slattery’s previous companies, Correctional Services Corp., came down with pneumonia and pleaded to see a doctor as he struggled to breathe. Guards accused the teen of faking it and forced him to do pushups in his own vomit, according to Texas law enforcement reports. After nine days of medical neglect, he died.

That same year, auditors in Maryland found that staff at one of Slattery’s juvenile facilities coaxed inmates to fight on Saturday mornings as a way to settle disputes from earlier in the week. In recent years, the company has failed to report riots, assaults and claims of sexual abuse at its juvenile prisons in Florida, according to a review of state records and accounts from former employees and inmates.

Nearly 40 percent of the nation’s juvenile delinquents are today committed to private facilities, according to the most recent federal data from 2011, up from about 33 percent twelve years earlier.

Over the past two decades, more than 40,000 boys and girls in 16 states have gone through one of Slattery’s prisons, boot camps or detention centers, according to a Huffington Post analysis of juvenile facility data.

Out of more than 300 institutions surveyed, a YSI detention center in Georgia had the highest rate of youth alleging sexual assaults in the country, according to a recent report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

A YSI facility in Palm Beach County had the highest rate of reported sexual assaults out of 36 facilities reviewed in Florida, the Bureau of Justice Statistics report found….

 

 

Shopping While Black…

In New York no less… The kid had a debit card no less, which he had to punch in the correct code to use, and a drivers license  – with his picture on it confirming his identity. Kind of hard to fake that. Worse, any cop could have pulled up an ID picture on his PC/Radio to confirm that the license was valid and had not been tampered with on the spot.

This one was sheer stupidity, racism, and harassment.

 

Black College Student Arrested For Buying A Designer Belt, Barneys & NYPD Slapped With Lawsuit 

Barneys New York and the New York Police Department have been slapped with a lawsuit by Trayon Christian, a college student from Queens, who was arrested at the luxury department store in April.

“His only crime was being a young black man,” Michael Palillo, Christian’s attorney, told The New York Post.

The Post reports that the 19-year-old was at the store buying a $350 Salvatore Ferragamo belt, but following the purchase, he was stopped by undercover officers that were allegedly called on by a Barneys sales clerk who believed the transaction was fraudulent.

The lawsuit, which was filed Tuesday in Manhattan Supreme Court, states that the NYC College of Technology freshman was asked by the cops: “how a young black man such as himself could afford to purchase such an expensive belt?” He was then handcuffed and taken to a local precinct.

Despite showing the officers the receipt for the belt, his ID and the debit card used, “Christian was told that his identification was false and that he could not afford to make such an expensive purchase,” Palillo said.

Christian, who saved up money for the pricey accessory from his part-time job at college, said he returned the belt and never plans to shop at the Madison Avenue store again. His story comes just days after another instance of racial discrimination was reported in Baltimore when a black woman was allegedly fired from Hooters for having blonde highlights.

Barneys has not commented on the matter and Christian’s lawsuit against the store and the NYPD is for unspecified damages.

Head over to The Post to read more.

 

Texas Republican Judge Quits Tea/Republican Party “of Bigots”

Hope to see a lot more of this happening around the country…

Texas Republican Judge Switches Party, Denouncing GOP as Party of Bigots and Hate-Mongers

 

A Republican Judge from San Antonio, Texas, has announced he is quitting the GOP and will seek re-election as a Democrat, saying that he can no longer be part of political party whose identity is based on hate, bigotry and destroying people’s lives.

Bexar County Judge Carlo R. Key made his announcement in a YouTube campaign video, where the image shifts between the judge sitting at his bench and screenshots of Republicans—from Sen. Teed Cruz to state politicians—boosting their agenda or career by harming others.

Key’s words speak for themselves. Here’s a transcript, where he ends by urging others who share his moderate temperament and respectful demeanor to join him.

I have tried to live a life of principles. These principles have been shaped by mi familia, my community and my country. In fact, it is my dedication to these principles which has lead me to the law in the first place and has guided me to becoming a judge. These values are simple. I believe that justice demands fairness. It demands careful and intelligent probing of evidence. And above all else, justice can only be served without prejudice toward race, color, creed or whom you choose to love.

These principles have served as the bedrock upon which my rulings have been made. They are also my driving force. That is why I can no longer be a member of the Republican Party. For too long, the Republican Party has been at war with itself. Rational Republican beliefs have given way to character assassination. Pragmatism and principle have been overtaken by pettiness and bigotry. Make no mistake. I have not left the Republican Party. It left me.

I cannot tolerate a political party that demeans Texans based on their sexual orientation, the color of their skin or their ecomonic status. I will not be a member of a party in which hate speech elevates candidates for higher office rather than disqualifying them. I cannot place my name on the ballot for a political party that is proud to destroy the lives of 100s of 1000s of federal workers over the vain attempt to repeal a law that will provide health care to millions of people throughout our country.

That is why I am announcing that I am now running for re-election as a Democratic candidate for County Court of Law 11 in the 2014 elections. My principles have led me to the Democratic Party. I can only hope that more people of principle will follow me. If you believe these values are your values, then I respectfully ask you to join me and let’s work together to keep dignity, fairness and respect for rule of law in our county courts.   

Texas Democrats welcomed the judge’s decision but said they were not surprised by it.

“I’m not surprised,” said Matt Angle, director of the Lone Star Project. “Republican state leaders in Texas have moved so far out of the mainstream. They have become so divisive that fair-minded Texans are turning away. Judge Key is a prominent and respected public official, so his actions appropriately draw attention, but every day I hear from people who formerly supported Republican candidates, but now won’t do it.”

 

GeorgiaTeen Breaks World Back Handspring Record

As the Dad of a former gymnast, this is incredible!

Georgia Teen, Mikayla Clark, Breaks Guinness World Record For Most Consecutive Back Handsprings

A 16-year-old high school cheerleader has broken a Guinness World Record that is, quite frankly, flipping amazing!

Mikayla Clark, of Westlake High School in Atlanta, performed 44 consecutive back handsprings at her school’s homecoming game, beating out the previous record of 36. She started training for the big moment at the beginning of the football season.

“I was looking at world records and I just happened to see the most consecutive back handsprings,” she said in an interview with Fox Atlanta. “I clicked on the link and I was like, ‘Oh, she did 36, I think I can beat that.'”

The feat only took about 34 seconds, and as Clark performed, cheers from her teammates and her coach grew louder and louder as she approached the previous record number of flips and then passed it significantly.

“Most people can say, ‘Well, I won state, I did this.’ Now I can say I’m a world record holder,'” said the record breaking teen.

Although her official certificate hasn’t even come in the mail yet, she has already set a new goal for herself.

“My senior year, I’m going to flip field goal to field goal and try to break my record.”

 

Bro Love – The KKK’s Glowing Endorsement of the Tea Party

Seems the White Nationalist set is quite taken with their new (Koch Brothers) subsidiary – the Tea Party…

But first let’s get in some buckdancing by the Tea Party’s favorite Lawn Jockey – Alan West…

Is The Tea Party Racist? Ask Some Actual, Out-Of-The Closet Racists

Tea Party and Republican leaders have been quick to condemn Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) for his recent comparison of the tea party and the Ku Klux Klan. But avowed racists involved in the white nationalist movement might beg to agree with the Florida Democrat.

The KKK, for its part, isn’t sure whether the hood fits. “The tea party is a very widespread organization and there’s many tea party groups in the country, so I don’t know if they are necessarily even in agreement with each other,” pastor Thomas Robb, national director of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, told HuffPost. “Likewise, The Klan, people use the phrase Klan who are not associated with us … that I would be 100 percent opposed to.”

“It’s hard to come up with a name of a group and say well how do they compare with another group,” he added. “That’s like asking First Baptist Church in Dallas whether they agree with the Methodist church in Birmingham, or even a Baptist church in Birmingham. So it’s very difficult to say how we compare with the tea party.”

But the conversation continues beyond even the Klan itself, and insight into how openly racist people view the tea party can be gleaned from a long-running debate among white supremacists at the website Stormfront.org.

Stormfront — whose motto is “White Pride World Wide” — is among the most popular white nationalist (WN, in the community’s lexicon) gathering spots online, and discussion of the tea party is a regular part of the chatter. One thread, started in 2011 and still active recently, debates just how racist the tea party is. In the evil, upside-down world of white supremacy, the label of racist is meant as a compliment and, to many Stormfront posters, the tea party earns high marks.

The thread can be read here, but the debate breaks down into roughly two camps, one arguing that the tea party is a dead end for white nationalists and the other side arguing that many in the tea party already have racist attitudes and present an opportunity for white nationalists to ply their message. The only area of agreement seemed to be that the tea party loses its way in its strong support of Israel, which the neo-Nazi Stormfront crowd does not appreciate.

Grayson has stood by his comparison. “If the hood fits, wear it,” he said. “The Tea Party has engaged in relentless racist attacks against our African-American President. For example, when the President visited my home of Orlando, Tea Party protesters shouted ‘Kenyan Go Home.’ Other examples include Tea Party chants of ‘Bye Bye, Blackbird,’ and Tea Party posters saying ‘Obama’s Plan: White Slavery,’ ‘Imam Obama Wants to Ban Pork’ and ‘The Zoo Has An African Lion, and the White House Has a Lyin’ African.'”

Many of the racists participating in the Stormfront discussion say they themselves are either tea party members or have attended multiple tea party meetings. But, to be sure, the tea party has quite literally millions of supporters and many, many of those people are not remotely racist, as the racists on Stormfront readily lament. And even the examples of racist language and signage at tea party rallies pales in comparison to the domestic terrorism carried out by the KKK — cross-burning, beatings, lynchings, bombings, murder.

Yet, the Stormfront conversations show that the perception of the tea party as having a racist element is not merely held by Grayson or Rev. Al Sharpton, but is a view shared by the kind of people who would know. The comments below are copied from Stormfront and were made by people the site lists as having been longstanding members who have posted hundreds, and in most cases thousands, of times on the site, making it unlikely that they are liberal plants trying to make the tea party look bad. Quite the opposite: Many of the Neo Nazis below rushed to the tea party’s defense when other white nationalists accused its members of being insufficiently racist.

Stormfront poster SSVicious argued that tea partiers should not be written off because many are knee-jerk racist toward darker-skinned people, but are not sophisticated enough in their racial analysis to be sufficiently anti-Semitic. It’s a start, SSVicious said.

“They are realistic about certain things…i.e. that blacks are more prone to be criminals, less intelligent, etc…..But if you bring up Israel… oh my, you might as well be a Muslim extremist (the thing that Tea Partiers hate the most),” said SSVicious, with the ellipses in the original. “A lot of them are those kinds of people we like and dislike at the same time… They know racial differences that are in their face, yet they aren’t smart enough or haven’t had the chance yet to connect the dots that lead to a certain group of people (the Jews).”

Culturalist put it more succinctly. “They care about race but may not be sympathetic to the neo Nazi, Jew hater side of WN,” the poster said.

In 2011, when Grayson called the tea party “callous, bigoted tools,” a Stormfronter expressed surprise. “What the *beep*?? This is coming from the same guy who grilled Ben Bernanke,” said Sieben Elf, referring to Grayson’s viral demolition of the Federal Reserve chairman, who runs an organization many white nationalists believe is controlled by a Jewish cabal.

“Grayson’s Der Jude,” Sieben Elf wrote in a follow-up post by way of explanation. “Funny, he doesn’t look Jewish.”

In response to one Stormfronter lamenting that the tea party is not sufficiently racist, a poster who goes by the handle “true believer” argues: “Well if you eliminated everyone who didn’t fit perfectly into your ideal candidate you would be so marginalized that you couldn’t get anyone in. I mean we all lost our calling by time and place when we weren’t in the Fatherland in 1938,” true believer wrote, referring to Nazi Germany. “Perhaps you would just let the commie Democrats continue to run the show under there leader the alien commie Muslim Obama. Lighten up here to get success you have to make small steps at first. Let’s see if we can all just get along with our natural allies here. May Adolf be with you.”

Another poster, Mike212311 noted that the “Taxed Enough Already movement may not be wholly WN, however there is plenty of racial awareness out there. That’s where it begins; with awareness.”

Many others suggested working closely with a local tea party chapter, and shared stories of doing so themselves. “I’ve joined so far three local Tea Party Groups locally and have been encouraging all my employees and friends and relatives to do the same. We have been very successful,” one said. ‘[F]rankly it’s been working like a charm for well over two years. These people have money, time and a hell of a lot of local influence and most aren’t afraid to use it-all they need is a little encouragement, direction and leadership.”

Strelnikov bragged, “got about half the people to applaude my attack on legal immigration this week. Our t-party is middle class. These people don’t look rich. After the meeting they practically swarmed my table to pick up free ‘Take Back America!!!’ bumper stickers. I’m getting other stuff in their hands too. Our meetings appear to be 100% white in a county that is 65% white.”

For BloddRaven, the question of whether racists were involved with the tea party was a silly one.

“What a ridicules thread,” the poster observed. “Saying Tea partyiers aren’t WNists is like saying Ron Paul supports aren’t WNists. While it’s true not all are, it’s also true many are.”

 

Another One Bites the Dust!

North Carolina GOP Official Who Called Blacks ‘Lazy’ In Daily Show Voter ID Interview Resigns

A Republican precinct official in North Carolina resigned from his position Thursday, after The Daily Show aired a segment on the state’s voter ID lawin which he criticized “lazy black people that wants the government to give them everything.”

Don Yelton stepped down from his position in the Buncombe County Republican Party, Buncombe GOP Chairman Henry Mitchell told WRAL.

“When I was a young man you didn’t call a black a black,” Yelton said during the interview. “You called him a negro.”

In a press release, the Buncombe GOP — which has the slogan “Moving forward without forgetting our past” on its website — called Yelton’s comments “offensive, uniformed, and unacceptable of any member within the Republican Party.”

“Let me make it very clear, Mr. Yelton’s comments do not reflect the belief or feelings of Buncombe republicans, nor do they mirror any core principle that our party is founded upon,” Mitchell stated. “This mentality will not be supported or propagated within our party.”

Yelton “did not seek the approval of any party official before accepting the interview request,” officials said.

 

Fox News AKA Faux News Fake Commenters

Sometimes on blog you get folks commenting who spew the Party line so exactly you have to wonder if they aren’t shills…

Turns out Faux News operatives have been behind some of that with a cadre of fake posters!

Fox News PR Used Fake Accounts To Push Back At Negative Commenters

Here’s an interesting bit of Fox News skullduggery from David Folkenflik’s new bookon Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, courtesy of Media Matters:

In a chapter focusing on how Fox utilized its notoriously ruthless public relations department in the mid-to-late 00’s, Folkenflik reports that Fox’s PR staffers would “post pro-Fox rants” in the comments sections of “negative and even neutral” blog posts written about the network. According to Folkenflik, the staffers used various tactics to cover their tracks, including setting up wireless broadband connections that “could not be traced back” to the network.From the book itself:

Fox PR staffers were expected to counter not just negative and even neutral blog postings but the anti-Fox comments beneath them. One former staffer recalled using twenty different aliases to post pro-Fox rants. Another had one hundred. Several employees had to acquire a cell phone thumb drive to provide a wireless broadband connection that could not be traced back to a Fox News or News Corp account.Folkenflik’s book has already roiled News Corp with its account of Wall Street Journal staffers who found their attempts to report on the company’s phone hacking scandal met with roadblock after roadblock. (The company denied the account.)

 

What Some Stars sound Like without Auto-Tune

One of the biggest frauds perpetrated on the listening public is Auto-tune and Voice-Over used in live concerts to make the artist sound a good as the studio. This video presents the actual sound track from the microphone during a Britney Spears performance. Judge the girls chops for yourself…

Now, no one has ever accused Britney of having a voice…Rapidly declining good looks and nice gams… But not pipes.

The ugly truth is virtually no one can maintain the breath control and pitch required to sing like Ella Fitzgerald while doing an aerobics routine. Meaning all of these high energy dance performances passing for concerts are conducted using voice over. Meaning if you are paying $200 to see some of these performers – that is exactly all you are getting. What you see on the stage is an attractive woman dancing in her underwear. What you hear was recorded in a studio -perhaps years ago – perhaps, but not necessarily by the artist who is dancing (Milli Vanilli ring a bell, anyone?).

Which leaves the question… Et Tu Beyonce?

 

Most Popular Girl Names By Year

It would be interesting to see what the most popular black baby names were in the same period… Somehow I don’t think it would be Ashley or emily.

Keisha?

The most popular baby girl names in the United States are flashes in the pan—each one appearing on the map briefly, before being swept out by an up-and-comer.

The map was built in Adobe Illustrator by Deadspin‘s Reuben Fischer-Baum using data from the Social Security Administration. “Color palette,” Fischer-Baum wrote to me over email, “has to be credited to Stephen Few, from his excellent data viz book Show Me The Numbers.” Earlier drafts gave each name a unique color, he says, but in the end “it was a lot cleaner and more interesting to limit the palette to just the most popular name for any given year, and put the rest in grayscale so you could see how the different ‘eras’ of top names progressed.”

Over at Jezebel, Fischer-Baum describes the picture that emerges:

Baby naming generally follows a consistent cycle: A name springs up in some region of the U.S.—”Ashley” in the South, “Emily” in the Northeast—sweeps over the country, and falls out of favor nearly as quickly. The big exception to these baby booms and busts is “Jennifer”, which absolutely dominates America for a decade-and-a-half. If you’re named Jennifer and you were born between 1970 and 1984, don’t worry! I’m sure you have a totally cool, unique middle name.

 

Mother Antonia

Having been a part of several disaster recovery efforts and worked in Third world countries, one of the things you learn is to identify the “real deal” from the poseurs…

The incredible story of Mary Clarke, who became Sister Antonia…

Mother Antonia, 86, brought comfort to inmates of a notorious Mexican prison

Mary Clarke grew up in the luxury of Beverly Hills, where movie stars, such as William Powell, Hedy Lamarr and Dinah Shore, were among her neighbors. She spent weekends at a roomy beach house overlooking the Pacific and once had closets filled with mink coats and ball gowns.

She was married two times, raised seven children and managed her father’s office-supply business after his death. In the midst of this busy life, she devoted more and more time to charity, which she considered a crucial part of her Catholic faith.

In 1965, she accompanied a priest on a mission to deliver medicine and other supplies to Tijuana, Mexico. After several other stops, they ended up at the gate of one of the country’s most notorious prisons, a state penitentiary called La Mesa. The warden invited them inside to drop off their donations at the infirmary.

She began to visit the prison more often, attending to the needs of the inmates, guards and police, and the transformation of Mary Clarke Brenner had begun. In 1977, when most of her children were grown, she moved to La Mesa.

Although she had no formal religious training, she sewed her own nun’s habit and slept in a bunk in the women’s wing of the prison. She later lived for years in a 10-by-10-foot cell, with the walls painted pink.

She made it her vocation to attend to the needs of some of the most destitute and dangerous people in Mexico. She brought them medicine, bedding, clothing and food. She invited doctors and dentists from California to provide medical care. She worked with Mexican officials to improve conditions in La Mesa and other prisons.

When she walked through the halls, prisoners kissed her hand, and she kissed theirs. Notorious criminals confessed to her and pledged to change their lives.

In Tijuana and throughout all of Mexico, she was known as “Madre Antonia” — Mother Antonia.

She received the blessings of a Mexican bishop of the Catholic Church, was greeted by Pope John Paul II and was commended by Mexican President Vicente Fox. She went on to found a religious order for older women seeking to help the poor.

Mother Antonia went on to live in the prison for more than 30 years, improving the lives of thousands of prisoners, guards and their families. Mother Antonia was the subject of a 2005 book by Washington Post journalists Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan, “The Prison Angel,” and a later documentary film.

After years of weakening health, she died Oct. 17 at the Tijuana headquarters of the religious order she founded, Sisters of the Eleventh Hour of St. John Eudes. She was 86.

She had heart ailments and myasthenia gravis, a neuromuscular disorder. A daughter, Carol Brenner, confirmed the death.

“Something happened to me when I saw men behind bars,” Mother Antonia told the Los Angeles Times in 1982. “When it was cold, I wondered if the men were warm; when it was raining, if they had shelter . . . You know, when I returned to the prison to live, I felt as if I’d come home.”

 

Grambling University Football Players Strike Cancels Game

Not sure of the details here – but this is an expensive one for Grambling and Jackson State. They fired Doug WIlliams? Geez!

The team is 0-7 this year, after a 48-0 loss to Alcorn State last week. The team had a 1-11 record in 2012.

Former Coach Doug Williams and Team Mates.

Grambling Football Players Refuse To Travel To Jackson State After Practice Boycott

A Jackson State spokesman has announced that Saturday’s game against Grambling has been canceled.

JSU spokesman Wesley Peterson told The Associated Press Friday that Grambling officials contacted Jackson State to inform the university of the decision.

Disgruntled Grambling players had refused to travel to Mississippi for the game. Grambling spokesman Will Sutton had said earlier in a text to the AP that there would be “no forfeit” and that Grambling officials were trying to determine the next step to take.

Apparently, nothing could be worked out so that the game could be played.

Southwestern Athletic Conference Commissioner Duer Sharp had said before the decision was made not to play that if Grambling does not show for Saturday’s game, it will be forced to forfeit and the school will be fined.

“It’s very disappointing,” Sharp said. “But without knowing all the facts it’s hard for me to make a judgment.”

Friday’s apparent player boycott was the latest in three days of upheaval for Grambling’s proud program. Several media outlets have reported that players did not attend practice on Wednesday and Thursday because of issues with program and school leadership.

Grambling (0-7) has changed coaches twice in about two months. Doug Williams was fired two games into the season and replaced by George Ragsdale, who was reassigned Thursday and replaced by Dennis “Dirt” Winston.

The game is Jackson State’s homecoming and could hurt the school financially. The Grambling-Jackson State matchup usually draws very well — an announced crowd of more than 21,000 attended the game in Jackson in 2011.

 

Right Wing Racism in France…Again.

The right wing is pretty much the same anywhere in the world… Racist.

Non different here…Than there.

These folks would b right at home in our Tea Party. Of other note, Ms. Taubire has also been in the forefront of introducing legislation for marriage equality for Gays.

Justice Minister Christine Taubira

Christiane Taubira, French Justice Minister, Compared To Monkey By Far Right Politician Anne Leclere

France’s far-right National Front on Friday dropped a candidate for municipal elections due in March after she compared the country’s black justice minister to a monkey.

The anti-immigration eurosceptic party led by Marine Le Pen is desperately seeking a makeover to broaden its voter appeal and dispel its xenophobic image.

The National Front recently won a key by-election and is tipped to be the leading French party in European elections also due next year, according to a new poll.

Anne-Sophie Leclere, the FN candidate for Rethel in the northeastern Ardennes region provoked a storm by comparing Justice Minister Christiane Taubira to a monkey on French television.

She has also owned up to a photo-montage showing Taubira, who is from French Guiana, alongside a baby monkey which was posted on her Facebook page.

The caption underneath the baby monkey said “At 18 months,” while the one under Taubira’s photograph read “Now”.

The 33-year-old mother-of-three told France 2’s Envoye Special (Special Correspondent) programme she would prefer to see Taubira “in a tree swinging from the branches rather than in government.”