Saturday, October 30, 2010

Matthews asks: Why overlook Obama's accomplishments?


Let me finish tonight with President Obama and what he's done.

I say the following because no one else, including the president, has.

It is the hard structure of reality that in the current cacophony so often is overlooked.

This president came into office facing the worst economic outlook since the 1930s. He took action, bold action, the action prescribed by the best economic minds - following the best thinking there is in economics "since" the 1930s.

First, even before taking office, he backed up his predecessor in preventing a major collapse of the financial industry. Everyone involved said it "had" to be done to avoid catastrophe - the destruction of our country's financial spine.

Second, he took the action - again boldly - to powerfully offset the white-knuckle drop in consumer spending and business investment. If he hadn't, no one - including his worst critics - would have any idea what would have befallen us. We can argue about the name it was given - the stimulus bill - but the creation of this great boost in economic demand for goods and services as critical break on what was widely seen as an economic free-fall.

It's easy to stand on the sidelines voting against everything, rooting against everything, and deride that bold action for the simple reason that nobody will ever remember if you had a seriously, reliably better alternative.

Third, the president achieved what so many presidents from FDR on have said needed to be done: end this humiliating dependency of tens of millions of Americans on the emergency room as their only way of getting medical attention. He said our society had a responsibility to look out for its members' health, that individuals should be required to do what they can personally to provide for their care. For the first time in our country's history we are no longer the hold-out in the modern world against broadly-available, accessible health insurance.

It is no time for political high-fiving, for bragging. We know that. The economy is down and people are hurting. But I wonder who's good it does for the president and those who wish him well to overlook the simple, bold, impressive, gutsy facts of what he's got done only now approaching two years in office.

Someone needs to say it.



Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy



Friday, September 17, 2010

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Monday, August 23, 2010

FAUX News funds 'Ground Zero Mosque'

exerciseforeign Posted 1:40 PM 08/16/10 , , ,

Amid the howls of outrage over the proposed Islamic community center and mosque near Ground Zero, some political pundits on Fox News, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch's media conglomerate News Corp. (NWS), have been particularly vocal in their opposition to the project.

Last Thursday, popular Fox News host Sean Hannity said the proposed center's leader, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, a U.S. citizen who has spent 25 years working to improve relations between the Muslim world and the U.S., wants to "shred our Constitution" and install "Sharia law as the law of the land in America." Sharia is a body of law derived from the Koran and Islamic teachings.

In fact, in his book What's Right With Islam, Rauf writes that "many Muslims regard the form of government that the American founders established a little over two centuries ago as the form of governance that best expresses Islam's original values and principles." (Page 81.) He has never publicly advocated "shredding" the U.S. Constitution or replacing it with Sharia law.

A Major Backer From the Muslim World

The stridency with which Fox News personalities attack the downtown Islamic center -- red meat for the millions who tune in each night -- is an example of the often uneasy relationship and occasionally diverging interests between many of News Corp.'s properties, in this case Fox News and its parent corporation.


Prince Alwaleed bin TalalFor example, News Corp.'s second-largest shareholder, after the Murdoch family, is Prince Alwaleed bin Talal (pictured at left, and above right), the nephew of Saudi Arabian King Abdullah, and one of the world's richest men.

Through his Kingdom Holding Co., Alwaleed owns about 7% of News Corp., or about $3 billion of the media giant. He also owns 6% of Citigroup -- to which he was introduced by the Carlyle Group -- or about $10 billion of the giant bank. He's a part-owner of the famed Plaza Hotel in New York and has invested in many other prominent companies. (At one point he invested in AOL (AOL), the parent company of DailyFinance.)

Earlier this year, News Corp. invested $70 million for a 9% stake in Alwaleed's Middle Eastern media and entertainment company, Rotana, which "owns the Arab world's largest record label and about 40% of the region's movies -- most of which are Egyptian -- and operates 11 free-to-air television channels, two of which are through a partnership with News Corp.," according to Reuters. (Rotana broadcasts Fox movies and TV shows throughout the Middle East.) News Corp. has an option to double its stake in Rotana for another $70 million within 18 months.

"We Look Forward to Working Together"

Alwaleed has announced his intention to take Rotana public within the next two years, a move that could earn News Corp. a handsome return. In News Corp.'s 2010 annual report recently filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Alwaleed is referred to only as, "A significant stockholder of the Company, who owns approximately 7% of the Company's Class B Common Stock." (Page 44.)

A News Corp. spokesman in New York declined to discuss the company's investment into Rotana and referred inquires to a colleague in London, who declined to comment. Attempts to reach Prince Alwaleed or a representative of his conglomerate, Riyadh-based Kingdom Holding Co., for comment, were not immediately returned.

But presumed News Corp. heir James Murdoch has publicly touted the company's investment in Rotana. James Murdoch, who's the chairman and CEO of News Corp.'s European and Asian operation, has said: "A stake in Rotana expands our presence in a region with a young and growing population, where [economic] growth is set to outstrip that of more developed economies in the years ahead. Rotana is a leading player in the Middle East, and we look forward to working together."

As usual with Murdoch, money trumps ideology. "News Corp. is a big company, and Murdoch makes decisions based on money and business," says Robert Thompson, a professor of TV and popular culture at Syracuse University. "This isn't a conspiracy of the right or the left. It's a conspiracy of money."

The Warren Buffett of Saudi Arabia

Routinely listed as one of the top 10 or 20 richest men in the world, Alwaleed has long cultivated deep personal and financial ties with the U.S., especially among powerful business and government officials. Just consider that in 2002, he donated $500,000 to help fund the George Herbert Walker Bush Scholarship at Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass. Above all, Alwaleed is a businessman and a philanthropist, not an ideologue. He has been very generous to Islamic charities and other humanitarian efforts. Alwaleed is such an influential figure that he's been referred to as the Warren Buffett of Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia, which is ruled by Alwaleed's uncle King Abdullah, is, of course, an authoritarian petro-monarchy that actually is governed by Sharia law and is known as one of the top global sponsors of terrorism. A spokesperson for the Saudi embassy in Washington says that while Alwaleed is part of the royal family, he isn't a member of the government, but rather a private citizen.

Imam Feisal Abdul RaufAlwaleed, like Iman Rauf (pictured at right), professes a desire to build bridges of peace and understanding between the Islamic world and the West. One man is a multibillionaire, with far-flung investments around the world, and the other is a religious cleric, whose congregation happens to be in downtown Manhattan.

Many Fox News pundits seem to have a big problem with the idea that a foreign government or entity with ties to terrorism could help sponsor a mosque in lower Manhattan -- a legitimate concern. But as viewers listen to Fox News pundits rail against Rauf -- and question his center's funding -- they should keep in mind that Fox News is part of a company, News Corp., that has extensive business ties with the Muslim world.

It's just part of running a multinational media giant in today's global, interconnected economy, where alliances and business relationships are more nuanced than the black and white -- good and evil -- viewpoint that many Fox News pundits espouse.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Lesbian teen wins $35K in prom case

Mississippi school pays damages to lesbian teen over prom dispute.

By the CNN Wire Staff
July 20, 2010 1:14 p.m. EDT

















(CNN) -- A school district in Mississippi has agreed to pay a recent high school graduate $35,000 in damages and adopt a policy prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation, according to a statement released Tuesday by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The settlement comes after the ACLU sued the school district in Fulton, Mississippi, on behalf of Constance McMillen, a lesbian teen who was told by Itawamba Agricultural High School officials she and her girlfriend would be ejected if they attended the school-sponsored prom.

The agreement, which was filed Tuesday, ends the lawsuit.

"I'm so glad this is all over. I won't ever get my prom back, but it's worth it if it changes things at my school," McMillen said in a statement released Tuesday.

The prom, originally scheduled for April 2, was eventually canceled by school board officials who previously said they reached their decision based on "the education, safety and well-being of [its] students."

Officials at McMillen's former high school are not commenting at this time, and a call to the north Mississippi school district seeking comment Tuesday wasn't immediately returned.

According to the ACLU statement, McMillen "suffered humiliation and harassment after parents, students and school officials executed a cruel plan to put on a decoy prom for her while the rest of her classmates were at a private prom 30 miles away."

McMillen believes the alternative prom she was sent to was a sham because only a handful of people attended. "A lot of people were talking about how it was a joke just set up for me," she previously said.

In March, a federal judge ruled that McMillen's First Amendment rights were violated when her school district refused to let her attend her prom in a tux with a girl.

That was good news, said her attorney, Christine Sun, senior counsel with the ACLU's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender project. It set a precedent and helped broadcast an important statement, which was made stronger by virtue of where it came from, she said.

"We're in a conservative area of the country, where people tend to think we can do what we like," said Sun, who lives in New York but has traveled multiple times to Mississippi on McMillen's behalf. "This case sends a strong message that that's not going to fly anymore."

In 2004, the national gay rights group GLSEN -- the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network -- issued a report that said of all 50 states, Mississippi had the most hostile environment for gay youths.

"We hope this judgment sends a message to schools that they cannot get away with discriminating against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students," said Bear Atwood, interim legal director at the ACLU of Mississippi.

Since McMillen's name made national headlines, the lesbian teen advocate has served as the grand marshal for New York's Gay Pride Parade, she received a $30,000 college scholarship from an anonymous donor, and a Facebook page called "Let Constance Take Her Girlfriend to Prom!" had attracted nearly 410,000 fans as of Tuesday.

"It means a lot to me," McMillen said. "The amount of support helps me to continue with the fight."




Friday, June 25, 2010

6-Year-Old Northeast Ohio Girl on 'No Fly' List

WESTLAKE, Ohio - Alyssa Thomas, 6, is a little girl who is already under the spotlight of the federal government. Her family recently discovered that Alyssa is on the "no fly" list maintained by U.S. Homeland Security.

"We were, like, puzzled," said Dr. Santhosh Thomas. "I'm like, well, she's kinda six-years-old and this is not something that should be typical."

Dr. Thomas and his wife were made aware of the listing during a recent trip from Cleveland to Minneapolis. The ticket agent at the Continental counter at Hopkins Airport notified the family. "They said, well, she's on the list. We're like, okay, what's the story? What do we have to do to get off the list? This isn't exactly the list we want to be on," said Dr. Thomas.

The Federal Bureau of Investigations in Cleveland will confirm that a list exists, but for national security reasons, no one will discuss who is on the list or why.

The Thomas family was allowed to make their trip but they were told to contact Homeland Security to clear-up the matter. Alyssa just received a letter from the government, notifying the six-year-old that nothing will be changed and they won't confirm nor deny any information they have about her or someone else with the same name.

"She's been flying since she was two-months old, so that has not been an issue," said Alyssa's dad. "In fact, we had traveled to Mexico in February and there were no issues at that time."

According to the Transportation Security Administration, Alyssa never had any problems before because the Secure Flight Program just began in June for all domestic flights. A spokesperson will only say, "the watch lists are an important layer of security to prevent individuals with known or suspected ties to terrorism from flying."

Right now, Alyssa has other priorities. "My Barbies, my magic mirror and jumping on my bed!" But her name will likely stay on the list and as for the next time she flies, the FBI says they'll rely on the common sense of the security agents.

"She may have threatened her sister, but I don't think that constitutes Homeland Security triggers," said Dr. Thomas.

The Thomas family can still fly, but the check-in process will likely take much longer. They plan on making another appeal to U.S. Homeland Security.

See the video (click here)



.

Friday, June 18, 2010

White Rice May Raise Type-2 Diabetes Risk





















By Kelly L. Jackson June 17, 2010 4:11 pm

Rice Lovers pay attention! A new study has taken a closer look at what our selections of rice means for our risk of diabetes. A group of researchers from the Harvard School of Public Heath evaluated three groups of participants and came back with some interesting results. They discovered that eating five or more servings of white rice per week increased a person’s risk for type 2 diabetes, the most common type of diabetes. They also found that replacing just one-third of a daily serving of brown rice would lower their risk. Additionally, including more whole grains such as wheat and barley would also reduce their risk.

Whole grain and whole wheat food products have become commonplace in most American supermarkets and restaurants, giving consumers healthier options with foods like pasta, flour and bread.

According to the American Diabetes Association (ADA), having diabetes affects more than just patients’ blood sugar levels, it also often results in various eye, foot and skin complications, and increases the risk of high blood pressure and heart disease.

The results reported in most cases, eating more brown than white rice was not based on ethnicity and more so on a health-conscious diet and life choices, but noted that participants who ate the most white rice were typically not of European origin and were more likely to have a family history that included diabetes.

The ADA reports that type 2 diabetes is more common in older adults as well as in African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders.

The team of researchers explained that the superiority of brown rice is due to its high fibervitamins and minerals and the fact that it typically doesn’t cause a spike in blood sugar. Fiber is a significant fighter against the onset of diabetes because it slows the rush of sugar to the bloodstream. content,

Key potential influencers such as age, weight, smoking status, alcohol intake, family history of diabetes and other dietary habits were taken into consideration but, findings still held true.

Whole grains, rather than refined carbohydrates like white rice, should be the recommended primary source of carbohydrates for the U.S. population.

The most recent available data from the ADA reports that 23.6 million children and adults in the United States — that’s 7.8 percent of the entire population — have some form of diabetes. And 5.7 million people are living undiagnosed.


Click Here



Monday, June 14, 2010

Water Buffalo Head Traps Man In Recliner!

(NewsCore) - A Florida man was rescued from his recliner early Friday after a mounted animal head hanging on his wall fell into his lap and pinned him down, The South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported.

The falling object was a stuffed water buffalo head and it trapped the man as he slept in his recliner, Becky Herrin, spokeswoman for the Monroe County Sheriff's Office said.

The man couldn't move but managed to reach his cell phone and call police.

"All the male caller could do is yell his address and tell them he was 'crushed,'" Herrin said in a statement.

The man was treated at a local hospital and released.


15-Year-Old Brutally Beaten By Indianapolis Police
























INDIANAPOLIS — The city’s police chief called Thursday for the firing of a white officer who he said repeatedly struck a 15-year-old biracial boy in the face during an arrest after the teen had been subdued by other officers.

Chief Paul Ciesielski said Officer Jerry Piland needlessly struck Brandon Johnson several times during the May 16 arrest near the boy’s home. Johnson was left with gaping wounds on his swollen face and a black eye.




“It was a difficult decision, but I know it was the right decision to terminate his employment because that certainly serves as an example that we have a zero-tolerance policy,” Ciesielski said at a news conference.

Ciesielski’s recommendation will go to the Civilian Police Merit Board, which ultimately will decide whether to fire Piland.

The teen’s family and black community leaders have called for a federal investigation into whether Johnson’s civil rights were violated. Piland, 36, and the other three officers directly involved in the arrest are white, while Johnson’s mother is black and his father is white.

“I’m grateful to have one bad cop off the streets, but there was a lot of wrongdoing here that day,” Johnson’s mother, Chantay Chandler, said at a news conference Thursday at the family’s home. Family representatives called on the department to fire the four officers directly involved in the arrest, but not a fifth officer who stood on the periphery.

“One token firing is not enough,” said the family’s attorney, Stephen Wagner.

Ciesielski said one of the other officers, Stacy Lettinga, received a reprimand for wrongfully arresting another youth at the scene, and that the three others had been exonerated. None of the five had any prior record of excessive force, and Piland has received several commendations.

Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi said last week that he was investigating the matter and had not decided whether to bring charges against any of the officers. He said he decided not to charge Johnson because it wasn’t in the best interests of the teen or the community.

Sunday, June 06, 2010

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Saturday, May 22, 2010

Woman Loses Breast After Spider Bite.

A woman undergoes a mastectomy after she was bitten by a brown recluse spider. WTF?
She was bitten Easter Sunday and did not think anything of it. Next she was in a 14 day coma. Can this happen to you? For the full video Click Here.




Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Feces and body fluids detected on new clothes bought in stores

Wow! This one is bad. I can not say it any better than the article. This may stay in the back of your mind for the rest of your life. LOL. Sorry this just has to be done. Here are some statements from the article:

"On this black and tan blouse we found representation of respiratory secretions, skin flora, and some fecal flora,"

Another jacket contained similar secretions, especially in the armpit and "buttocks" area, he said. One blouse even contained vaginal organisms and yeast in addition to fecal bacteria.

"Some garments were grossly contaminated with many organisms ... indicating that either many people tried it on or ... someone tried it on with heavy contamination,"

"A lot of people just come home and if it has a tag attached, they think it's brand new and they wear it. You really never know where it's been."

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Saturday, May 15, 2010

Boo Boos in the Bedroom Are More Common Than You Think

Don't Let Your Romantic Evening Land You in the ER

Monday, May 10, 2010

TODDLER WORKS THE POLE LIKE A PRO



Having a pole in the basement is usually the sign of a good girlfriend, but when your little one starts swinging from the rafters like LisaRaye in 'The Players Club,' there's a problem. It's not even like this little girl's mistaken the pole for monkey bars 'cause she's clearly shaking her moneymaker Pampers like a pro. This makes the R. Kelly sex tape look like a Disney flick.


Lena Horne dies at 92; singer and civil rights activist who broke barriers


Lena Horne, the silky-voiced singing legend who shattered Hollywood stereotypes of African Americans on screen in the 1940s as a symbol of glamour whose signature song was "Stormy Weather," died Sunday in New York City. She was 92

Horne died at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, a spokeswoman said. No cause of death was given.

Beginning as a 16-year-old chorus girl at the fabled Cotton Club in Harlem in 1933, Horne launched a more than six-decade career that spanned films, radio, television, recording, nightclubs, concert halls and Broadway.

As a singer, Horne had a voice that jazz critic Don Heckman described in a 1997 profile in The Times as "smooth, almost caressing, with its warm timbre and seductive drawl — honey and bourbon with a teasing trace of lemon."


She was, Heckman wrote, "one of the legendary divas of popular music" — a singer who "belonged in the pantheon of great female artists that includes Ethel Waters, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Carmen McRae."

Horne, 80 at the time and cutting a new album, took a different view.

"Oh, please," she said. "I'm really not Miss Pretentious. I'm just a survivor. Just being myself."

When Horne first began dancing in the chorus at the Cotton Club — three shows a night, seven nights a week for $25 a week — she did so to help out her financially troubled family during the Depression.

By the time she arrived in Hollywood for a nightclub job in 1941, she had been a vocalist for the Noble Sissle and Charlie Barnet orchestras, had done some recording and was a cabaret sensation at the prestigious Cafe Society Downtown club in New York's Greenwich Village.

She created a similar response, performing at the Little Troc, a small club on the Sunset Strip, where, according to one news account, "she has knocked the movie population bowlegged and is up to her ears in offers."

Signed by MGM to a seven-year contract in an era when no other blacks were under long-term contracts at the major movie studios, Horne went on to become one of the best-known African American performers in the country.

With her copper-toned skin, strong cheekbones and dazzling smile, she was a breakthrough on the silver screen — "Hollywood's first black beauty, sex symbol, singing star," as Vogue magazine described her decades later.

"I was unique in that I was a kind of black that white people could accept," Horne once said. "I was their daydream. I had the worst kind of acceptance because it was never for how great I was or what I contributed. It was because of the way I looked."

Refusing to play maids and other stereotypical roles offered to black actors at the time, Horne appeared in a nonspeaking role as a singer in her first MGM movie, "Panama Hattie," a 1942 comedy musical starring Red Skelton and Ann Sothern.

That set the tone for most of her screen appearances in the '40s, a time in which she appeared in more than a dozen movies, including "I Dood It," "Swing Fever," "Broadway Rhythm" and "Ziegfeld Follies."

In most of them, she had only cameos as a singer, who was typically clad in a glamorous evening gown and singing while leaning against a pillar. It became her on-screen trademark.

"They didn't make me into a maid, but they didn't make me into anything else either," she wrote in "Lena," her 1965 autobiography. "I became a butterfly pinned to a column singing away in Movieland."

Horne's musical numbers usually were shot independent of the films' narratives, making them easy to be deleted when screened in the Jim Crow South.

Two exceptions were the all-black musicals in which she was one of the stars: "Cabin in the Sky" and "Stormy Weather," both released in 1943.

Her memorable rendition of Ted Koehler and Harold Arlen's "Stormy Weather" in the movie became a hit recording for Horne, as well as becoming her signature song.

A World War II pinup girl, the glamorous Horne in 1944 became the first African American to appear on the cover of a movie magazine, Motion Picture.

"Anybody who was not madly in love with Lena Horne should report to his undertaker immediately and turn himself in," actor and friend Ossie Davis said on "Lena Horne: In Her Own Voice," a 1996 installment of PBS' "American Masters" biography series.

"In the history of American popular entertainment, no woman had ever looked like Lena Horne. Nor had any other black woman had looks considered as 'safe' and non-threatening," Donald Bogle wrote in his book "Brown Sugar: Over One Hundred Years of America's Black Female Superstars."

"The Horne demeanor — distant and aloof — suggested that she was a woman off somewhere in a world of her own …. who appeared as if all her life she had been placed on a pedestal and everything had come easily to her. That was the way she appeared to be.... The reality was another matter."


She was born Lena Mary Calhoun Horne on June 30, 1917, in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Her family lived in the home of her father's middle-class parents. Horne's grandmother was active in the Urban League, the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People and the women's suffrage movement.

Horne's father left his wife and daughter when Horne was 3. And her mother, unhappy living with her strong-willed mother-in-law, soon moved out to pursue an acting career with a Harlem-based black stock company.

That left young Lena in the care of her grandparents until she joined her mother on the road in the South a few years later.

Horne was living in Harlem with her mother and her out-of-work stepfather when she left school at 16 and joined the chorus at the Cotton Club in 1933.

While continuing to work at the club, she made her Broadway debut in 1934 with a small role in "Dance With Your Gods," an all-black drama that ran for only nine performances.

Leaving the Cotton Club in 1935, she became a featured singer in the all-black Noble Sissle Society Orchestra but quit two years later to marry Louis Jones, a Pittsburgh friend of her father's who was about nine years her senior.

At 19, she settled into domestic life in Pittsburgh and gave birth to her two children, Gail and Teddy. But she and her husband separated in 1940 and were divorced in 1944.

Although Horne gave up show business when she married Jones, money problems during the marriage prompted her to accept the co-starring role in "The Duke Is Tops," a low-budget, 1938 African American movie musical shot in 10 days.

She also appeared in "Lew Leslie's Blackbirds of 1939," a Broadway revue that had only nine performances.

Moving back to New York after her marriage broke up, Horne was hired as a vocalist for the Barnet orchestra, becoming one of the first black performers to sing with a major white band, with whom she had a hit record, "Good for Nothing Joe,"

After leaving the Barnet band in 1941, Horne began an extended engagement at Cafe Society Downtown, where she first met and became friends with singer-actor and political activist Paul Robeson.

While under contract to MGM in the '40s, Horne met Lennie Hayton, a white staff composer and arranger at the studio who became her second husband.

Fearing public reaction when they married in Paris in 1947, they did not announce their marriage until three years later.

Horne later said she initially became involved with Hayton because she thought he could be useful to her career.

"He could get me into places no black manager could," she told the New York Times in 1981. "It was wrong of me, but as a black woman, I knew what I had against me." But, she said, "because he was a nice man and because he was in my corner, I began to love him."

But being married to a white man, whom she once said "taught me everything I know musically," took a toll — from her impatience with black critics who questioned the marriage to her sometimes using her husband as a "whipping boy" and making him "pay for everything the whites had done to us."

Horne's last film for MGM — a singing cameo in the musical "Duchess of Idaho," starring Esther Williams and Van Johnson — was released in 1950, the same year she triumphantly appeared at the London Palladium.

Primarily due to her friendship with Robeson and her involvement with the Council for African Affairs and the Hollywood Independent Citizens Committee to the Arts, Science and Professions, both of which were named as Communist fronts, Horne found herself blacklisted and unable to appear on radio and television in the early '50s.

But the cabaret business remained untouched by the blacklist, and she focused on her critically acclaimed nightclub/cabaret act.


Her "Lena Horne at the Waldorf Astoria" became RCA Victor's biggest-selling album by a female vocalist in 1957.

"Lena, for most of us, defined the art of nightclub performing," the late cabaret singer Bobby Short told USA Today in 1997. "You can't discount her great beauty, but behind all of that is a great deal of talent and the ability to transmit the composer's intent to the audience."

Horne, who was able to resume appearing on television in 1956, also starred in the hit Broadway musical "Jamaica," which ran from 1957 to '59 and earned her a Tony Award nomination.

Unable to stay in many of the hotels she performed in because she was black, Horne developed what she later described as "a toughness, a way of isolating" herself from the audience as a performer.

"There was no cuteness or coyness about her," comedian Alan King said of Horne on "Lena Horne: In Her Own Voice." "Lena came out there and stuck it right in their face — boom! She was radiantly and subtly brazen, saying to herself, You want to take me to bed, but you won't let me come in the front door.'"

Throughout her early career, Horne experienced the injustices suffered by African Americans at the time.

While touring with the USO during World War II, she was expected to entertain the white soldiers before appearing before African American troops

A day after performing for white soldiers in a large auditorium at Ft. Riley, Kan., she returned to entertain black troops in the black mess hall.

But when she discovered that the whites seated in the front rows were German prisoners of war, she became furious. Marching off the platform, she turned her back on the POWs and sang to the black soldiers in the back of the hall.

Horne's long-suppressed anger over the treatment of blacks in white society erupted in 1960 when she overheard a drunk white man at the Luau restaurant in Beverly Hills refer to her using a racial epithet.

Jumping up, she threw an ashtray, a table lamp and several glasses at him, cutting the man's forehead.

When reports of her outburst appeared in newspapers across the country, Horne was surprised at the positive response, mostly from African Americans.

"Phone calls and telegrams came in from all over," she told the Christian Science Monitor in 1984. "It was the first time it struck me that black people related to each other in bigger ways than I realized."

In the early '60s, Horne became more active in the civil rights movement, participating in a meeting with prominent blacks in 1963 with then-Atty. Gen. Robert F. Kennedy in the wake of violence in Birmingham, Ala., and singing at civil rights rallies.

In the early '70s, Horne faced three personal tragedies within an 18-month period: In 1970, the same year her father died, her son died of kidney disease; and Hayton died of a heart attack in 1971.

Horne later said she "stayed in the house grieving" until Alan King "bullied" her out of her depression, and she returned to singing and recording.

She also toured with Tony Bennett, as well as doing 37 performances on Broadway of "Tony & Lena Sing" in 1974. And she played Glinda, the Good Witch in "The Wiz," the 1978 movie musical directed by Sidney Lumet, her then-son-in-law.

Then, in 1981, she made a triumphant return to Broadway in the hit "Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music."

Horne, then 63, went on to win the Drama Desk Award and a special Tony Award for her autobiographical show that ran on Broadway for more than a year and led to a Grammy Award-winning soundtrack album and a cross-country tour of the show before going to London.

Her rendition of "Stormy Weather" was, naturally, a show-stopper.

She actually sang the song twice, first as she had in the movie when she was in her 20s and, she said in an interview, she couldn't sing it "worth a toot."

Then, at the end of the show, she electrified her audience by singing it again from the perspective of a woman in her 60s, who had experienced a lifetime of love and misery.

As Horne said in the documentary "Lena Horne: In Her Own Voice": "My life has been about surviving. Along the way I also became an artist. It's been an interesting journey. One in which music became first my refuge and then my salvation."

Horne was a Kennedy Center Honors recipient in 1984, and she received a lifetime achievement award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences in 1998.

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Tuesday, January 05, 2010

Forget-Me-Not Panties

What has the world come to? These are panties equipped with a hidden GPS and thermal sensor. It is a way to spy on your girlfriend or daughter. These panties can give you her location, and even her temperature and heart rate, and she will never even know it's there! I guess the thought is if her body temperature and heart rate rises she is up to no good. Who would buy these but and better yet do some of you have them on now? I can see some crazy guy bursting into the local gym looking for a fight and find his girlfriend harmlessly working out on the treadmill. I guess you can use the GPS to determine that she is at the gym and the rising body temperature and heart rate would be normal. But wait, there are guys there, she may be cheating still. Where is my gun. LOL. Ok this is crazy but in the United States these type of people can marry and some can not.

Get a pair here http://www.forgetmenotpanties.com/




Monday, January 04, 2010

What is followe.rs?


Finally, The First REAL Automated System For Pulling Boat-Loads of Cash From Twitter on Auto-Pilot!