Tuesday – 06 March 2012
After a less-than-stellar start to the week, let’s see what today has to offer.
I apparently woke up on the wrong side of the bed planet yesterday. Of course, saying “woke up” implies that I really slept Sunday night, which I did… though sporadically. By the time I got to work, I could tell that I was in a poor mood. With that in mind, I tried to avoid too much interaction with coworkers — I didn’t want to inadvertently take off someone’s head for no good reason. It seemed to work.
I left early, as the girls had their six-month check-up yesterday afternoon. The doctor had nothing but good things to say about their progress/development. (That was good to hear.) Then the immunization shots – and the screaming – came. (That was not good to hear.) When we got them home, we put the girls down for naps. They woke up in good moods. Thankfully. After some play time, baths and bottles, the girls went to bed for the evening. SaraRules! and I watched some TV and unwound.
Monday – 27 February 2012
It’s a grey day with the threat of a fairly major snow storm on the horizon. At least there’s coffee…
…and, unless my basic math skills are failing me, the girls slept through the night for the FOURTH NIGHT IN A ROW!
This past weekend, while very good, was also very busy. Saturday, I judged Dr. Volt’s Comic Connection’s second “Infinity Gauntlet” HeroClix tournament… which I left in the middle of to attend a surprise birthday lunch for lj user=”nox_aeternus”. It was held at Bohemian Brewery, a place I had not been in many, many rains. Good food, good company, and yes, good beer. Then, I dashed back to Dr. Volt’s to finish up the tourney. (Thanks to SaraRules! for watching the girls and allowing me some “time off for good behavior.”) I returned home to find SaraRules! and lj user=”suzie_lightning” hanging out with the girls.
Sunday, after the girls were fed and dressed, we headed to Millcreek Cafe and Eggworks for breakfast. While there, we saw Christy, one of our former Pin-up Girl Espresso baristas. Back at home, it was time for a little pre-Spring cleaning and housework. This included (but was not limited to) some child-proofing and installing a couple of wine racks in the kitchen. Later in the day, SaraRules!’ parents came over for dinner. Since we’ve been having pretty decent weather, I fired up the grill and did hamburgers, while the girls and their granddad watched Fantasia 2000:
Diana (l), Steve and Vanessa
After dinner, the in-laws helped get the girls prepped for bed. By the end of the evening, though, all SaraRules! and I wanted to do was plop down on the couch and veg. And we did. (And watched Resident Evil, to boot!)
Chew on This: Food for Thought – Black History Month
Today’s profile is: Roger Arliner Young (1899 – November 9, 1964) was a scientist of zoology, biology, and marine biology.
Born in Clifton Forge, Virginia in 1899, Young soon moved with her family to Burgettstown, Pennsylvania. The family was poor and much time and resources were expended in the care of her disabled mother.In 1916, Young enrolled at Howard University in Washington, D.C. to study music. She did not take her first science course until 1921. Though her grades were poor at the beginning of her college career, some of her teachers saw promise in her. One of these was Ernest Everett Just, a prominent black biologist and head of the Zoology department at Howard. He started mentoring her, and Young graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 1923. In 1924 Young began studying for her master’s degree at the University of Chicago. While at Chicago, she was asked to join Sigma XI, a scientific research society, which was an unusual honor for a master’s student. She also began to publish her research, and in 1924 her first article, “On the excretory apparatus in Paramecium” was published in the journal Science, making her the first African American woman to research and professionally publish in this field. Young received her master’s degree in 1926.
Just invited Young to work with him during the summers at the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts, starting in 1927. Young assisted him with research on the fertilization process in marine organisms. She also worked on the processes of hydration and dehydration in living cells. Her expertise grew, and Just called her a “real genius in zoology.”
Early in 1929, Young stood in for Just as head of the Howard zoology department while Just worked on a grant project in Europe. In the fall of that year, Young returned to Chicago to start a Ph.D. under the direction of Frank Lillie, the embryologist who had been Just’s mentor at Woods Hole. But she failed her qualifying exams in January 1930. She had given little indication of stress, but the failure to qualify was devastating. She was broke and still had to care for her mother. She left and told no one her whereabouts. Lillie, deeply concerned, wrote the president of Howard about her mental condition. She eventually returned to Howard to teach and continued working at Woods Hole in the summers.
In June 1937, she went to the University of Pennsylvania, studying with Lewis Victor Heilbrunn(another scientist she met at the Marine Biological Laboratory) and graduated with her doctorate in 1940.After obtaining her doctorate, Young became an assistant professor at the North Carolina College for Negroes (later North Carolina Central University). She later held teaching positions in Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana.
Young contributed a great deal of work to science. She studied the effects of direct and indirect radiation on sea urchin eggs, on the structures that control the salt concentration in paramecium, as well as hydration and dehydration of living cells. She published four papers between 1935 and 1938 and also wrote several books.
Young was never married. In the 1950s her mental health began to deteriorate and she was hospitalized. Roger Arliner Young died on November 9, 1964 in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Thursday – 23 February 2012
Another No Bad News Thursday is upon us. Something that makes this day just a little bit better: The girls slept through the night again!
Vanessa (l) and Diana, in new headbands… rocking out with their Sophies and some tissue paper
This more than made up for the atrocious nights’ sleep that I had. More unpleasant dreams and great case of heartburn. YAY!
SaraRules! had another Justice League meeting last night, so her father came over to dote over his granddaughters help me get the girls fed and to bed. And, to be honest, dote a bit. He and the girls played a bit. They took pictures. They told stories about the war. (Okay, that was just to make sure that you were really paying attention.) Then it was dinner (carrots) time and before too long… time for bed and a story.
SaraRules!, on her way home from saving the world, stopped and got me Chinese food take-out. As it was a bit late for Pasta & Movie Date Night, we opted to finish off the first half of this season’s The Walking Dead. Wow. Some things wound up the way I expected, while I didn’t see a couple of things coming. (Yay for avoiding spoilers for the past two months!)
Chew on This: Food for Thought – Black History Month
Today’s profile is: Madam C.J. Walker, an African-American businesswoman, entrepreneur and philanthropist.
Madam C.J. Walker (December 23, 1867 – May 25, 1919) was born Sarah Breedlove in Delta, Louisiana to Owen and Minerva Breedlove. She was one of six children. Her parents and elder siblings were slaves on Madison Parish plantation owned by Robert W. Burney . She was the first child in her family born into freedom after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed.
Orphaned at the age of seven, Madam C. J. Walker moved in with her older sister, and brother-in-law, Willie Powell. At the age of 14, she married Moses McWilliams to escape Powell’s abuse. Three years later her daughter, Lelia McWilliams (A’Lelia Walker) was born. When Sarah was 20, her husband died. Shortly afterward she moved to St. Louis where three of her brothers lived. Her second marriage to John Davis ended in 1903.
Driven by her own struggles with hair loss during 1890s, Madam C. J. Walker began experimenting with different hair care treatments and products. In 1905 she invented a method for straightening African-Americans’ “kinky” hair: her method involved her own formula for a pomade, much brushing, and the use of heated combs. Encouraged by her success, she moved to Denver, Colorado, where she married Charles J. Walker. She promoted her method and products by traveling about the country giving lecture-demonstrations. Soon Sarah, now known as “Madam C. J. Walker,” was selling her products throughout the United States. While her daughter Lelia (later known as A’Lelia Walker) ran a mail order business from Denver, Madam Walker and her husband traveled throughout the southern and eastern states. They settled in Pittsburgh in 1908 and opened Lelia College to train “hair culturists.” In 1910 Walker moved to Indianapolis, Indiana where she established her headquarters and built a factory.
She began to teach and train other black women in order to help them build their own businesses. She also gave other lectures on political, economic and social issues at conventions sponsored by powerful black institutions. After the East St. Louis Race Riot, she joined leaders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in their efforts to support legislation to make lynching a federal crime. In 1918 at the biennial convention of the National Association Of Colored Woman (NACW) she was acknowledged for making the largest contribution to save the Anacostia (Washington, DC) house of abolitionist Frederick Douglass. She continued to donate money throughout her career to the NAACP, the YMCA, and to black schools, organizations, individuals, orphanages, and retirement homes.
In 1917, she moved to her Irvington-on-Hudson, New York estate, Villa Lewaro, which had been designed by Vertner Tandy, the first licensed black architect in New York State and a founding member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. Madam C.J. Walker died at Villa Lewaro on Sunday, May 25, 1919 from complications of hypertension. She was 51.
At the time of her death, Madam C. J. Walker was sole owner of her business, which was valued at more than $1 million. Her personal fortune was around $600,000 to $700,000. She left one-third of her estate went to her daughter—who herself became well known as a supporter of the Harlem Renaissance—the remainder to various philanthropies.
Wednesday – 22 February 2012
Odin’s Day is upon us once more. This also means that: The work week is half done and new comics are released today. Win-Win.
Last night, SaraRules! cousin, Sarah – and her son, Miles – were in town on their way to Denver.
As I recall, we haven’t seen them since last August, when they were here for Logan and Swiz’ wedding. They stopped in for a bit to visit and meet the girls.
After they left, and the girls were down for bed, SaraRules! suggested Five Guys burgers for dinner. Who was I to argue?! She also stopped at The Sweet Tooth Fairy to pick up cupcakes for dessert. We also cleared another episode of The Walking Dead off the DVR over dinner.
Chew on This: Food for Thought – Black History Month
Today’s person of note is Gustavus Vassa, a prominent African involved in the British movement towards the abolition of the slave trade.
According to his own account, Gustavus Vassa (born Olaudah Equiano) was born in an area called “Igbo” in what is now Nigeria, in 1745. (At the turn of the 21st century, newly discovered documents suggesting that Equiano may have been born in North America raised questions, still unresolved, about whether his accounts of Africa and the Middle Passage are based on memory, reading, or a combination of the two.) He lived with five brothers and a sister; he was the youngest son with one younger sister. At the age of eleven, he and his sister were kidnapped. At this time he endured the Middle Passage to the New World, where he was forced to work as a slave.
When their parents were out, Equiano and his sister were kidnapped by two men and a woman, African kinsmen, and sold to native slaveholders. After changing hands several times, Equiano found himself on the coast, in the hands of European slave traders. He was transported with 244 other enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to Barbados in the West Indies, from where he and a few others were soon transferred to the British colony of Virginia. Soon after arrival, he was bought by Michael Pascal, a lieutenant in the Royal Navy. He decided to give him a more understandable name, a Latinised form of the name Gustavus Vassa, a Swedish noble who had become Gustav I of Sweden, king in the 16th century.
Pascal sold Equiano to Captain James Doran of the “Charming Sally” at Gravesend, where he was transported to Montserrat, in the Caribbean Leeward Islands. He was sold on to Robert King, a Quaker merchant from Philadelphia who traded in the Caribbean. King set Equiano to work on his shipping routes and in his stores. In 1765, King promised that for forty pounds, the price he had paid, Equiano could buy his freedom. King taught him to read and write more fluently, guided him along the path of religion, and allowed Equiano to engage in profitable trading on his own as well as on his master’s behalf. He enabled Equiano to earn his freedom, which he achieved by his early twenties.
King urged Equiano to stay on as a business partner, but Equiano found it dangerous and limiting to remain in the British colonies as a freedman. For instance, while loading a ship in Georgia, he was almost kidnapped back into slavery. He was released after proving his education. Equiano returned to Britain where, after Somersett’s Case of 1772, men believed they were free of the risk of enslavement.
In 1789, he published his autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa the African, which had a strong abolitionist message. Equiano is often regarded as the originator of the slave narrative because of his firsthand literary testimony against the slave trade. Equiano wrote in his narrative that slaves working inside the slaveholders’ homes in Virginia were treated cruelly. They suffered punishments such as an “iron muzzle” (scold’s bridle), used around the mouths to keep house slaves quiet, leaving them barely able to speak or eat. Equiano conveyed the fear and amazement he experienced in his new environment. In fact, Equiano was so shocked by this culture that he tried washing his face in an attempt to change its color. Despite the controversy regarding his birth, The Interesting Narrative remains an essential work both for its picture of 18th-century Africa as a model of social harmony defiled by Western greed and for its eloquent argument against the barbarous slave trade.
In 1792, Equiano married Susanna Cullen; they had two daughters.
Although Equiano’s death is recorded in London, 1797, the location of his burial is unsubstantiated.
Quote of the Day
Today’s quote comes from my friend, Ashley:
Today is Ash Wednesday, the day we commemorate the battle between the Evil Dead and the common man. Remember to celebrate this, the grooviest of holidays, in the traditional manner: the viewing of Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness.
Monday – 20 February 2012
It’s a new work week. Yay (or something to that effect).
I am, however, rather excited as the girls – for the second time in three days – slept through the night!
Vanessa (l), Sara, and Diana
That’s right, seven-and-a-half hours of sleep. (If only I didn’t have such disconcerting dreams last night…)
The rest of the weekend was good, as well. Saturday afternoon, I judged a tournament for Dr. Volt’s Comic Connection. Saturday evening, I attended Utah Symphony‘s performance of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto N0. 2 and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4 with Melissa Sanders. It was a fantastic concert.
Sunday was a relaxing day, spent mostly at home. We did venture out for a bit to Black Water Coffee Company and Fashion Place Mall… where the girls went on a shopping spree. Seriously. They cleaned up. (Okay, okay… it helped that Carter’s was having a pretty big sale. Still…) Later in the day, we headed up to SaraRules!’ parents for dinner before heading home for little girls’ bedtime. And, we wound up the evening with The Walking Dead and with me playing a little Modern Warfare 3.
And today is Presidents Day.
Chew on This: Food for Thought – Black History Month
After taking the weekend off from blogging, let’s get back into the swing of things with an all-music selection of notables:
Questlove (also known as ?uestlove), is an American drummer, DJ, music journalist and record producer. Ahmir Khalib Thompson (January 20, 1971) Thompson was born in Philadelphia. His father was Lee Andrews of Lee Andrews & the Hearts, one of the great 50s doo-wop groups. Ahmir, who started drumming at the age of 2, often accompanied his parents on tour. By the age of 8, he was well-versed in life on the road, learning how to “cut gels, place mics, place lights. Then I became the sound guy and tech guy. One night the drummer didn’t make it, and then I was [my father’s] drummer.”
Thompson’s first gig came at the age of 13, during a performance at Radio City Music Hall. “My parents didn’t trust babysitters back in the early 70s,” Thompson told Mother Jones magazine in 2011. “So I had to play bongos on stage with them ’cause ‘No stranger’s gonna watch my son in Muncie, Indiana!’” That same year, Thompson was named the musical director for his father’s group, and he became determined to establish his own career in music.
Questlove’s parents then enrolled him at the Philadelphia High School for the Creative and Performing Arts. By the time he graduated, he had founded a band called The Square Roots (later dropping the word “square”) with his friend Tariq Trotter (Black Thought). After high school, Thompson was offered a spot at the prestigious Juilliard School in New York, but the young musician couldn’t afford the tuition. Instead, Thompson devoted himself to making his unique style of music. The Roots’ roster was soon completed, with Questlove on percussion, Tariq Trotter and Malik B on vocals, Josh Abrams (Rubber Band) on bass (who was replaced by Leonard Hubbard in 1994), and Scott Storch on keyboards.
Questlove currently performs with The Roots on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, occasionally performing solos titled ‘re-mixing the clips’ where he draws on his production and DJ abilities to dub video clips, cue audio samples in rhythm, and play drum breaks simultaneously.
Thompson, not one to rest on the heels of his success, has also been involved in a dizzying array of side projects. He appeared as a drummer for the instrumental jazz album, The Philadelphia Experiment in 2001, and in 2002 he released the compilation ?uestlove Presents: Babies Making Babies. He has also served as an executive producer for artists such as D’Angelo and Common; has written film scores; and drummed for artists like Christina Aguilera, Fiona Apple and Joss Stone.
Otis Redding (September 9, 1941 – December 10, 1967) was an American soul singer-songwriter, record producer, arranger, and talent scout.
Otis Ray Redding, Jr. (September 9, 1941 – December 10, 1967) was born in the small town of Dawson, Georgia to gospel singer Otis Redding, Sr., and housekeeper Fannie Redding. At an early age, he sang in the Vineville Baptist Church choir and learned guitar and piano. From the age of 10, he took drum and singing lessons. Later, at Ballard-Hudson High School, he sang in a school band. Every Sunday he earned $6 (USD) by performing songs for Macon radio station WIBB. His passion was singing and often cited Little Richard and Sam Cooke as major influences.
At age fifteen, he abandoned school to help his family financially. His father had contracted tuberculosis and was often hospitalized, leaving his mother as the primary financial provider for the family, while Redding worked as a well digger, gas station attendant and guest musician in the following years. His breakthrough came when he played Little Richard’s “Heebie Jeebies”, winning a $5 contest fifteen weeks in a row, until being banned.Redding was soon hired by Little Richard’s band The Upsetters.
Redding joined Johnny Jenkins’s Pinetoppers, a local Georgia band, and also served as the group’s driver. When the group traveled to Memphis, Tennessee, to record at the famed Stax studios, Redding sang two songs of his own at the end of the session. One of the two, “These Arms of Mine” (1962), launched his career, attracting both a record label executive (Jim Stewart) and a manager (Phil Walden) who passionately believed in his talent.Redding’s open-throated singing became the measure of the decade’s great soul artists. Unabashedly emotional, he sang with overwhelming power and irresistible sincerity. “Otis wore his heart on his sleeve,” said Jerry Wexler, whose Atlantic label handled Stax’s distribution, thus bringing Redding to a national market. Redding’s influence extended beyond his gritty vocals. As a composer, especially with his frequent partner Steve Cropper, he introduced a new sort of rhythm-and-blues line—lean, clean, and steely strong. He arranged his songs as he wrote them, singing horn and rhythm parts to the musicians and, in general, sculpting his total sound. That sound, the Stax signature, would resonate for decades to come.
Redding developed polyps on his larynx, which he tried to treat with tea and lemon or honey. He was hospitalized in September 1967 at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York to undergo surgery. In the winter of 1967, he again recorded at Stax. One new song was (Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay, written by Cropper and Redding. Redding was inspired by the Beatles album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and tried to create a similar sound, against the label’s wishes, and his wife was dissatisfied with its atypical melody. Redding wanted to change his musical style to avoid boring his audience. The Stax crew were similarly dissatisfied; Stewart thought that it was not R&B, while bassist Donald “Duck” Dunn thought its sound would damage Stax’s reputation. However, Redding thought it was the best song he ever wrote and would top the charts. Redding died just three days later, when his chartered plane crashed into Lake Monona, Wisconsin. Redding was entombed at his ranch in Round Oak, about 20 miles (32 km) north of Macon. Jerry Wexler delivered the eulogy. Redding was survived by his wife and three children.
Tupac Shakur (June 16, 1971 – September 13, 1996), was an American rapper and actor.
Tupac Amaru Shakur was born on the East Harlem section of Manhattan in New York City. He was named after Túpac Amaru II, a Peruvian revolutionary who led an indigenous uprising against Spain and was subsequently executed. His mother, Afeni Shakur, and his father, Billy Garland, were active members of the Black Panther Party in New York in the late 1960s and early 1970s; he was born just one month after his mother’s acquittal on more than 150 charges of “Conspiracy against the United States government and New York landmarks” in the New York Panther 21 court case.
At the age of twelve, Shakur enrolled in Harlem’s 127th Street Repertory Ensemble and was cast as the Travis Younger character in the play A Raisin in the Sun, which was performed at the Apollo Theater. In 1986, the family relocated to Baltimore, Maryland. After completing his second year at Paul Laurence Dunbar High School he transferred to the Baltimore School for the Arts, where he studied acting, poetry, jazz, and ballet. As a teenager, Shakur attended the Baltimore School for the Arts, where he took acting and dance classes, including ballet. While living in Baltimore, he discovered rap and began performing as MC New York.
In June 1988, Shakur and his family moved to Marin City, California. He began attending the poetry classes of Leila Steinberg in 1989. That same year, Steinberg organized a concert with a former group of Shakur’s, Strictly Dope; the concert led to him being signed with Atron Gregory who set him up as a roadie and backup dancer with the young rap group Digital Underground in 1990.
In 1991, Shakur emerged as a solo artist – using the name 2Pac – with his debut album 2Pacalypse Now. The track “Brenda’s Got a Baby” reached as high as number three on the Billboard Hot Rap Singles chart. His second album Strictly 4 My N. I. G. G. A. Z. crossed over to the pop charts, with singles “I Get Around” and “Keep Ya Head Up.” The album went platinum, selling more than a million copies. Around this time, Shakur also appeared in several films, including Poetic Justice (1993) opposite Janet Jackson.
Tupac became quite a sensation, earning praise for his musical and acting talent as well as condemnation for his explicit, violent lyrics. Many of his songs told of fights, gangs, and sex. He appeared to be living up to his aggressive gangster rap persona with several arrests for violent offenses in the 1990s. In 1994, he spent several days in jail for assaulting director Allen Hughes and was later convicted of sexual assault in another case.
Shakur himself fell victim to violence, getting shot five times in the lobby of a recording studio during a mugging. On the night of November 30, 1994, the day before the verdict in his sexual abuse trial was to be announced, Shakur was shot five times and robbed after entering the lobby of Quad Recording Studios in Manhattan by two armed men in army fatigues. He would later accuse Sean Combs, Andre Harrell, and Biggie Smalls—whom he saw after the shooting—of setting him up. According to the doctors at Bellevue Hospital, where he was admitted immediately following the incident, Shakur had received five bullet wounds; twice in the head, twice in the groin and once through the arm and thigh. He checked out of the hospital, against doctor’s orders, three hours after surgery. In the day that followed, Shakur entered the courthouse in a wheelchair and was found guilty of three counts of molestation, but innocent of six others, including sodomy. On February 6, 1995, he was sentenced to one-and-a-half to four-and-a-half years in prison on a sexual assault charge.
After serving eight months in prison, Shakur returned to music with the album All Eyez on Me. He was reportedly released after Death Row Records CEO Marion “Suge” Knight paid a bond of more than $1 million as part of Shakur’s parole. In his latest project, Shakur as the defiant street thug was back in full force on this recording. The song “California Love” featured a guest appearance by famed rapper-producer Dr. Dre and made a strong showing on the pop charts. Besides his hit album, he tackled several film roles.
On a trip to Las Vegas to attend a boxing match, Shakur was shot while riding in a car driven by Knight on September 7, 1996. He died six days later on September 13 from his injuries. His killer has never been caught. Since his death, numerous albums of his work have been released, selling millions of copies.
Tina Turner is an American singer and actress whose career has spanned more than 50 years
Tina Turner (born Anna Mae Bullock; November 26, 1939) was born in Nutbush, Tennessee, the daughter of Zelma Bullock, a factory worker, and Floyd Richard Bullock, a Baptist deacon, farm overseer, and factory worker. Zelma Bullock later relocated to St. Louis, Missouri. Floyd Bullock moved to Detroit and later settled in California. Anna Mae and her sister relocated to Brownsville where they were raised by their grandmother. She performed on several talent shows as a child and sang at her church choir. She later moved to St. Louis and, following her graduation from high school in 1958, took work as a nurse aide at Barnes-Jewish Hospital.
In between the time Anna Bullock had moved to St. Louis, she was enthralled by the city’s thriving nightclub scene and her sister often took her to several of the clubs, much to their mother’s chagrin. Anna was introduced to Ike Turner and his Kings of Rhythm band after her sister took her to Club Manhattan where Alline served as a barmaid. Anna pursued Ike Turner for months asking him to let her sing with his band. When she was seventeen, she sang during a band intermission to a B. B. King song which impressed Turner. Eventually Turner allowed her to join the band as a background vocalist. Turner gave Bullock her first stage name, “Little Ann,” during this time and included her in his record, “Box Top”, which was a local hit in St. Louis.
In November 1959, when a male vocalist failed to show up for a recording session, Anna was told to give a guide vocal to the song. Ike Turner then sent the song to New York where he met with Sue Records president Juggy Murray and played the song to him. Upon hearing it, Murray insisted Turner keep Anna’s vocals on the song, giving Turner a $25,000 advance, convinced the song would be a hit single. In response to this, Turner decided to form a duo around him and Bullock. In the process, he changed her stage name to “Tina Turner.” The two achieved considerable success as a rhythm-and-blues vocal duo and became known for their electrifying stage and television performances. However, after years of abuse, the marriage and professional partnership was officially dissolved in 1976.
After a slow start, Turner’s solo career took off with a remake of Al Green’s Let’s Stay Together in 1983. Her much anticipated solo album, Private Dancer, won four Grammy Awards and sold well over 20 million copies worldwide. Subsequent albums include Break Every Rule (1986), Tina Live in Europe (1988, Grammy for Female Rock Vocal Performance) and Foreign Affair, which included the hit single “(Simply) The Best.” In the 1990s, she released Wildest Dreams and Twenty Four Seven.Turner also launched an acting career, appearing in the films Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdrome starring Mel Gibson and The Last Action Hero with Arnold Schwarzenegger. She has also made several recordings for soundtracks, including “We Don’t Need Another Hero,” “Goldeneye,” and “He Lives In You” for The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride.
In 1993, Turner’s best-selling 1986 autobiography I, Tina was made into the motion picture What’s Love Got to Do with It? starring Angela Bassett. Her soundtrack for the movie went double platinum in the U.S.
Though she is now semi-retired, Turner does make rare appearances and recordings. She returned to the stage in 2008 to embark on her “Tina!: 50th Anniversary Tour.” It became one of the highest-selling ticketed shows of 2008 and 2009.
Stray Toasters
Spotlight: Princeless
I picked up the first couple of issues of this title. It’s a great spin on the “princess needs rescuing” trope. I highly recommend it.
Thursday – 16 February 2012
It’s not only NBN Thursday, but it’s also “Technical Friday.”
Last night, SaraRules! and I had Pasta & Movie Date Night. We co-cooked dinner (grilled chicken and broccoli over spaghetti, with alfredo sauce) and watched Source Code. I enojyed it… for the most part. In fact, I think the thing that I disliked the most was that the blu-ray disc started skipping in the middle of Chapter 11, making us miss roughly five minutes of the film.
*shakes fist*
Aside from that, it was a good movie. It remined me of Seven Days, with a hint of Groundhog Day.
Chew on This: Food for Thought – Black History Month
Today’s person of note is: P.B.S. Pinchback, the first non-white and first person of African American descent to become governor of a U.S. state.
Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback (May 10, 1837 – December 21, 1921) was born in Macon, Georgia, to Eliza Stewart, a former slave, and William Pinchback, her former master, who were living together as husband and wife. Pinchback was brought up in relatively affluent surroundings. He was raised as white and his parents sent him north to Cincinnati, Ohio, to attend school. In 1848, however, Pinchback’s father died. William Pinchback’s relatives disinherited his mulatto wife and children and claimed his property in Mississippi. Fearful that the northern Pinchbacks might also try to claim her five children as slaves, Pinchback’s mother fled with them to Cincinnati.
In 1860 Pinchback married Nina Hawthorne of Memphis, Tennessee. The Civil War began the following year, and Pinchback decided to fight on the side of the Union. In 1862 he furtively made his way into New Orleans, which had just been captured by the Union Army. He raised several companies for the Union’s all black 1st Louisiana Native Guards Regiment. Commissioned a captain, he was one of the Union Army’s few commissioned officers of African American ancestry. He became Company Commander of Company A, 2nd Louisiana Regiment Native Guard Infantry (later reformed as the 74th US Colored Infantry Regiment). Passed over twice for promotion and tired of the prejudice he encountered from white officers, Pinchback resigned his commission in 1863.
At the war’s end, he and his wife moved to Alabama, to test their freedom as full citizens. Racial tensions there during Reconstruction were reaching shocking levels of violence, however, he brought his family back to New Orleans and became active in the Republican Party, participating in Reconstruction state conventions. In 1868, he organized the Fourth Ward Republican Club in New Orleans. That same year, he was elected as a State Senator, where he became senate president pro tempore of a Legislature that included 42 representatives of African American descent (half of the chamber, and seven of 36 seats in the Senate). In 1871 he became acting lieutenant governor upon the death of Oscar Dunn, the first elected African-American lieutenant governor of a U.S. state.
In 1872, the incumbent Republican governor, Henry Clay Warmoth, suffered impeachment charges near the end of his term. State law required that Warmoth step aside until convicted or cleared of the charges. Pinchback, as lieutenant governor, succeeded as governor on December 9 and served for 35 days until the end of Warmoth’s term. Warmoth was not convicted and the charges were eventually dropped.
In 1872 Pinchback was elected to Congress, but his Democratic opponent contested the election and won the seat. A year later he was elected to the U.S. Senate, but he was again refused the seat amid charges and countercharges of fraud and election irregularities—although some observers said it was the colour of his skin that counted against him. He was appointed to his last office in 1882 as surveyor of customs in New Orleans.
At the age of 50 he decided to take up a new profession and entered Straight College, New Orleans, to study law; he was subsequently admitted to the bar. Disillusioned with the outcome of Reconstruction and the return to power of the traditional white hierarchy, he moved to Washington, D.C., where he remained active in politics.
Pinchback died in Washington in 1921 and is interred in Metairie Cemetery in New Orleans. His service as governor helped him to be interred there although the cemetery was segregated and reserved for whites.
Wednesday – 15 February 2012
Midweek. New comics day. Pasta & Movie Date Night.
Last night, SaraRules! presented me with awesome Valentine’s Day gifts:
Chocolate-covered strawberries
RubySnap cookies
A wedding album that she created.
She also cooked a great dinner AND made chocolate souffles.
Yeah, it was like that.
The album was, quite simply, fantastic. She pulled together a bunch of great photos from the wedding and reception, set the backgrounds, laid the whole album out and ordered the book. (She even has copyright credits.) And, it was a complete surprise. Total win.
Last night was also a bath night for the girls. Diana, while not totally in to bathtime last night, was fairly good-natured about the whole thing. Vanessa…? She LOVES bathtime. How can we tell? Well, let’s just say that SaraRules! has taken to calling her “Splash-O-Matic 5000.” With very good reason. By the time I finished bathing her, I was soaked. Absolutely drenched. But, she had a ball – and she got clean – so it was worth it.
Groove. Boogie. Sway.
I don’t think that I really need to say anything about this other than “Here it is.”
Chew on This: Food for Thought – Black History Month
Today’s person of note is Odetta, an American singer, actress, guitarist, songwriter, and a human rights activist.
Odetta Holmes (December 31, 1930 – December 2, 2008) was born in Birmingham, Alabama. Odetta’s father, Reuben Holmes, died in 1937, when Odetta was only 7 years old. That same year she and her mother, Flora Sanders, moved across the country to Los Angeles.
Although Odetta loved singing, she never considered whether she had any particular vocal talent until one of her grammar school teachers heard her voice. The teacher insisted to Odetta’s mother that she sign her up for classical training. She had operatic training from the age of 13. After several years of voice coaching, she landed a spot in a prestigious signing group called the Madrigal Singers. When Odetta graduated from Belmont High School in Los Angeles, she continued on to Los Angeles City College to study music. She later insisted, however, that her real education came from outside the classroom. “School taught me how to count and taught me how to put a sentence together,” she acknowledged. “But as far as the human spirit goes, I learned through folk music.” And as far as her musical development went, Odetta said her formal training was “a nice exercise, but it had nothing to do with my life.”
Her first professional experience was in musical theater in 1944, as an ensemble member for four years with the Hollywood Turnabout Puppet Theatre. In 1950, after graduating from college with a degree in music, Odetta landed a role in the chorus of a traveling production of Finian’s Rainbow. She fell in love with folk music when, after a show in San Francisco, she went to a Bohemian coffee shop and experienced a late-night folk music session. “That night I heard hours and hours of songs that really touched where I live,” she said. “I borrowed a guitar and learned three chords, and started to sing at parties.” Later that year, she left the theater company and took a job singing at a San Francisco folk club. In 1953, she moved to New York City and soon became a fixture at Manhattan’s famed Blue Angel nightclub. “As I did those songs, I could work on my hate and fury without being antisocial,” she said.
She made her name by playing around the United States: at the Blue Angel nightclub (New York City), the hungry i (San Francisco), and Tin Angel (San Francisco), where she and Larry Mohr recorded Odetta and Larry in 1954, for Fantasy Records. A solo career followed, with Odetta Sings Ballads and Blues (1956) and At the Gate of Horn (1957). Odetta Sings Folk Songs was one of 1963’s best-selling folk albums. In 1959 she appeared on Tonight With Belafonte a nationally televised special. Odetta sang Water Boy and a duet with Belafonte of There’s a Hole in My Bucket.
The 1960s, however, were Odetta’s most prolific years. During that decade, she lent her powerful voice to the cause of black equality—so often so that her music has frequently been called “the soundtrack of the civil rights movement.” She performed at political rallies, demonstrations and benefits. In 1961, Martin Luther King, Jr. anointed her “The Queen of American folk music”. Many Americans remember her performance at the 1963 civil rights movement’s march to Washington where she sang “O Freedom.” She considered her involvement in the Civil Rights movement as being “one of the privates in a very big army.”
In her later years, after the popularity of folk music had declined, Odetta made it her mission to share its potency with a new generation of youth. “The folk repertoire is our inheritance. Don’t have to like it, but we need to hear it,” she said. “I love getting to schools and telling kids there’s something else out there. It’s from their forebears, and it’s an alternative to what they hear on the radio. As long as I am performing, I will be pointing out that heritage that is ours.”
On September 29, 1999, President Bill Clinton presented Odetta with the National Endowment for the Arts’ National Medal of Arts. In 2004, Odetta was honored at the Kennedy Center with the “Visionary Award.” In 2005, the Library of Congress honored her with its “Living Legend Award”.
On December 2, 2008, Odetta died from heart disease in New York City.
Friday – 10 February 2012
It’s my working Friday. As usual, it’s the “quiet” day in the office.
Last night, Melissa came over to help me square the girls away for the night, while SaraRules! attended a Justice League function. The girls were fine… until right before bedtime, when Diana decided she’d had “enough.” She was tired and thus whiny/crying. Amusingly, when it was time for sweet potatoes, she would cry, then eat a spoonful, wait a moment then… whimper/almost cry (or, her new favorite: grunt) before taking another spoonful. Not-so-miraculously, all problems were solved when she got her bottle. And, the girls were awake, post-feeding, just long enough for a bedtime story from Auntie M: Pajama Time! After the girls were down – which didn’t take long at all – Melissa ran over to Greek City Grill to get us dinner.
Chew on This: Food for Thought – Black History Month
You’re getting another two-for-one today:
Jamaica Kincaid, is a Caribbean novelist, gardener, and gardening writer.
Jamaica Kincaid was born on May 25, 1949, as Elaine Cynthia Potter Richardson in the city of St. John’s on the island of Antigua in the nation of Antigua and Barbuda. She immigrated to the United States at 16 and later became a U.S. citizen. Changing her name (1973), she became a New Yorkerstaff writer in 1976, working there until 1996.Kincaid first became known for her lush tales of Caribbean life—in her first short-story collection, At the Bottom of the River (1983), and in Annie John(1985), a semiautobiographical series of related stories that explore the complexity of mother-daughter connections. Her later fiction continues the style and themes of these works. Dark and personal, they often feature clear-eyed yet lyrical portraits of everyday reality in the post-colonial West Indies.Her novels are loosely autobiographical, though Kincaid has warned against interpreting their autobiographical elements too literally: “Everything I say is true, and everything I say is not true. You couldn’t admit any of it to a court of law. It would not be good evidence.” Her work often prioritizes “impressions and feelings over plot development” and often features conflict with both a strong maternal figure and colonial and neocolonial influences.
Her novels include Lucy (1990), The Autobiography of My Mother (1996), and Mr. Potter (2002). Kincaid has also written nonfiction, notably A Small Place (1988), a long and angry essay on Antigua, and My Brother (1997), an incantatory memoir of her brother’s death from AIDS. An enthusiastic and knowledgeable gardener, she is also the author of many essays on the subject and of My Garden (Book)(1999).
She lives with her family in North Bennington, Vermont, during the summers and teaches at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California, during the academic year.
Eartha Kitt was an American singer, actress, and cabaret star.
Eartha Mae Kitt (January 17, 1927 – December 25, 2008) was bornon a cotton plantation in North, a small town in Orangeburg County near Columbia, South Carolina. Kitt’s mother was of Cherokee and African-American descent and her father of German or Dutch descent.Kitt was raised by Anna Mae Riley, a woman whom she believed to be her mother. Upon Riley’s death, she was sent to live in New York City with Mamie Kitt, who she learned was her biological mother. She had no knowledge of her father, except that his surname was Kitt and that he was supposedly a son of the owner of the farm where she had been born.
At 16 she joined Katherine Dunham‘s dance troupe, touring the United States, Mexico, South America, and Europe. When the Dunham company returned to the United States, the multilingual Kitt – she spoke four languages and sang in seven – stayed in Paris, where she won immediate popularity as a nightclub singer.
In 1950, Orson Welles gave Kitt her first starring role, as Helen of Troy in his staging of Dr. Faustus. A few years later, she was cast in the revue New Faces of 1952, introducing “Monotonous” and “Bal, Petit Bal”, two songs with which she is still identified. Throughout the rest of the 1950s and early 1960s, Kitt recorded; worked in film, television, and nightclubs; and returned to the Broadway stage. In 1964, Kitt helped open the Circle Star Theater in San Carlos, California. In the late 1960s, the television series Batmanfeatured her as Catwoman after Julie Newmar left the role.
After she publicly criticized the Vietnam War at a 1968 White House luncheon in the presence of the first lady, Lady Bird (Claudia) Johnson, Kitt’s career went into a severe decline; in the 1970s it began to recover after news surfaced that she had been subjected to U.S. Secret Service surveillance. She returned to New York in a triumphant turn in the Broadway spectacle Timbuktu! (a version of the perennial Kismetset in Africa) in 1978.n 1984, she returned to the music charts with a disco song, Where Is My Man, the first certified gold record of her career. “Where Is My Man” reached the Top 40 on the UK Singles Chart, where it peaked at #36; The song also made the Top 10 on the US Billboard dance chart, where it reached #7. Kitt found new audiences in nightclubs across the UK and the US, including a whole new generation of gay male fans, and she responded by frequently giving benefit performances in support of HIV/AIDS organizations.
In 1991, Eartha returned to the screen. In the late 1990s, she appeared as the Wicked Witch of the West in the North American national touring company of The Wizard of Oz. In 2000, Kitt again returned to Broadway. Beginning in late 2000, she starred as the Fairy Godmother in the US national tour of Cinderella alongside Deborah Gibson and then Jamie-Lynn Sigler. One of her more unusual roles was as Kaa the python in a 1994 BBC Radio adaptation of The Jungle Book. Kitt lent her distinctive voice to the role of Yzma in Disney’s The Emperor’s New Groove, for which she won her first Annie Award, and returned to the role in the straight-to-video sequel Kronk’s New Groove and the spin-off TV series The Emperor’s New School, for which she won two Emmy Awards and two more Annie Awards (both in 2007–08) for Voice Acting in an Animated Television Production.
Kitt was the spokesperson for MAC Cosmetics’ Smoke Signals collection in August 2007. She re-recorded Smoke Gets In Your Eyes for the occasion, was showcased on the MAC website, and the song was played at all MAC locations carrying the collection for the month.
Kitt became a vocal advocate for homosexual rights and publicly supported same-sex marriage, which she believed to be a civil right. She had been quoted as saying, “I support it [gay marriage] because we’re asking for the same thing. If I have a partner and something happens to me, I want that partner to enjoy the benefits of what we have reaped together. It’s a civil-rights thing, isn’t it?”
Kitt died from colon cancer on Christmas Day 2008 at her Weston, Connecticut, home.
Information courtesy of Biography.com, FactMonster.com, and Wikipedia.
Monday – 06 February 2012
Not only is today the start of a new work week, but – more importantly – it’s my niece, Grace’s, birthday:
This past weekend has been good. It has included, but not been limited to:
Hanging out with the twins.
Diana (l) and Vanessa
Playing HeroClix: Star Trek Tactics with the guys.
Judging a tournament for Dr. Volt’s Comic Connection.
Tracking down (after THREE attempts!) and watching Contagion.
Taking the girls to their third train show!
Watching the Super Bowl.
Chew on This: Food for Thought – Black History Month It’s catch-up time for our Black History Month items:
Paul Laurence Dunbar (June 27, 1872 – February 9, 1906) was a poet, novelist, and playwright of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, born in Dayton, Ohio.
Both of Dunbar’s parents were former slaves; his father escaped to freedom in Canada and then returned to the U.S. to fight in the Civil War. The young Dunbar was the only black student in his Dayton high school, where he was both the editor of the school newspaper and class president, as well as the president of the school literary society. Also of note: He was a classmate of aviation pioneer Orville Wright.Dunbar wrote a dozen books of poetry, four books of short stories, five novels, and a play. He also wrote lyrics for In Dahomey – the first musical written and performed entirely by African-Americans to appear on Broadway in 1903; the musical comedy successfully toured England and America over a period of four years – one of the more successful theatrical productions of its time.[12] His essays and poems were published widely in the leading journals of the day. His work appeared in Harper’s Weekly, the Saturday Evening Post, the Denver Post, Current Literature and a number of other publications. During his life, considerable emphasis was laid on the fact that Dunbar was of pure black descent.
Dunbar became the first African-American poet to earn nation-wide distinction and acceptance. The New York Times called him “a true singer of the people — white or black.” Much of Dunbar’s work was authored in conventional English, while some was rendered in African-American dialect. Dunbar remained always suspicious that there was something demeaning about the marketability of dialect poems. One interviewer reported that Dunbar told him, “I am tired, so tired of dialect”, though he is also quoted as saying, “my natural speech is dialect” and “my love is for the Negro pieces”.
In 1900, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis and his doctors recommended drinking whisky to alleviate his symptoms. He moved to Colorado with his wife on the advice of his doctors. Dunbar and his wife separated in 1902, but they never divorced. Depression and declining health drove him to a dependence on alcohol, which further damaged his health. He moved back to Dayton to be with his mother in 1904. Dunbar died from tuberculosis on February 9, 1906, at age thirty-three.
Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974), composer, pianist, and big band leader, was born in Washington, D.C.
Ellington grew up in a secure middle-class family in Washington, D.C. Daisy, his mother, surrounded her son with dignified women to reinforce his manners and teach him to live elegantly. Ellington’s childhood friends noticed that “his casual, offhand manner, his easy grace, and his dapper dress gave him the bearing of a young nobleman”, and began calling him “Duke.”His family encouraged his interests in the fine arts, and he began studying piano at age seven, but his first piano lessons came appeared not to have had that much lasting effect upon him. As Duke’s piano lessons faded into the past, Duke began to show a flare for the artistic. Duke attended Armstrong Manual Training School to study commercial art instead of going to an academics-oriented school.
Duke began to seek out and listen to ragtime pianists in Washington and, during the summers, in Philadelphia or Atlantic City, where he and his mother vacationed. While vacationing in Asbury Park, Duke heard of a hot pianist named Harvey Brooks. At the end of his vacation, Duke sought Harvey out in Philadelphia where Harvey showed Duke some pianistic tricks and shortcuts. Duke later recounted that, “When I got home I had a real yearning to play. I hadn’t been able to get off the ground before, but after hearing him I said to myself, ‘Man you’re going to have to do it.’” Thus the music career of Duke Ellington was born. Duke was taken under the wings of Oliver “Doc” Perry and Louis Brown, who taught Duke how to read music and helped improve his overall piano playing skills. Duke found piano playing jobs at clubs and cafes throughout the Washington area. Three months shy of graduation, Duke dropped out of school and began his professional music career.
Ellington made his first professional appearance as a jazz pianist in 1916. By 1918 he had formed a band, and after appearances in nightclubs in Harlem he became one of the most famous figures in American jazz. Ellington first played in New York City in 1923. Later that year he moved there and, in Broadway nightclubs, led a sextet that grew in time into a 10-piece ensemble. Extended residencies at the Cotton Club in Harlem (1927–32, 1937–38) stimulated Ellington to enlarge his band to 14 musicians and to expand his compositional scope. He selected his musicians for their expressive individuality, and several members of his ensemble were themselves important jazz artists. Ellington’s orchestra, playing his own and Billy Strayhorn’s compositions and arrangements, achieved a fine unity of style and made many innovations in the jazz idiom.
He wrote nearly two thousand compositions before his death in 1974 – among his best-known short works are “Mood Indigo,” “Solitude,” and “Sophisticated Lady.” He also wrote jazz works of complex orchestration and ambitious scope for concert presentation, notably Creole Rhapsody (1932), Black, Brown and Beige (1943), Liberian Suite (1947), Harlem (1951), and Night Creatures (1955), and composed religious music, including three sacred concerts (1965, 1968, and 1973). Ellington made many tours of Europe, appeared in numerous jazz festivals and several films, and made hundreds of recordings. In 1969 he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Ellington died of lung cancer and pneumonia on May 24, 1974, a month after his 75th birthday
James Leonard Farmer, Jr. (January 12, 1920 – July 9, 1999) was a civil rights activist and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement.
Farmer was a child prodigy; at the age of 14, he enrolled at Wiley College, where he was the captain of the debate team. While there, a professor of English, Melvin Tolson, became his mentor. Farmer earned a Bachelor of Science at Wiley College in 1938, and a Bachelor of Divinity from Howard University School of Religion in 1941. Inspired by Howard Thurman, a professor of theology at Howard University, Farmer became interested in Gandhi-style pacifism. During the 1950s, Farmer served as national secretary of the Student League for Industrial Democracy (SLID), the youth branch of the socialist League for Industrial Democracy. SLID later became Students for a Democratic Society. Farmer talked to A. J. Muste, the executive director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation(FOR), about an idea to combat racial inequality. Muste found the idea promising but wanted to see it in writing. Farmer spent months writing the memorandum making sure it was perfect. A. J. Muste wrote him back asking him about money to fund it and how they would get members. Finally, Farmer was asked to propose his idea in front of the FOR National Council. In the end, FOR chose not to sponsor the group, but gave Farmer permission to start the group in Chicago. When Farmer got back to Chicago, the group began setting up the organization. The name decided upon was CORE, the Committee of Racial Equality. The name was changed about a year later to the Congress of Racial Equality.In 1961 Farmer, who was working for the NAACP, was reelected as the national director of CORE, at a time when the civil rights movement was gaining power. Despite the Irene Morgan Supreme Court decision and the Boynton decision, interstate buses were still segregated. Gordon Carey proposed the idea of a second Journey of Reconciliation. Farmer jumped at the idea. This time, however, the group planned to journey through the Deep South. Farmer coined a new name for the trip: the Freedom Ride. The plan was for a mixed race and gender group to test segregation on interstate buses. The group would spend time in Washington D.C. for intensive training. They would embark on May 4, 1961 half by Greyhound and half by Trailways. They would go through Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and finish in New Orleans on May 17. For overnight stops there were planned rallies and support from the black community. There were usually talks at local churches or colleges.
Growing disenchanted with emerging militancy and black nationalist sentiments in CORE, Farmer resigned as director in 1966. He took a teaching position at Lincoln University, a historically black college (HBCU), and continued to lecture. In 1968 Farmer ran for U.S. Congress as a Liberal Party candidate backed by the Republican Party, but lost to Shirley Chisholm. His defeat was not total; in 1969 the newly elected President Richard Nixon offered him the position of Assistant Secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (now Health and Human Services). The next year, frustrated by the Washington bureaucracy, Farmer resigned from the position.
Farmer retired from politics in 1971 but remained active, lecturing and serving on various boards and committees. In 1975 he co-founded Fund for an Open Society. Its vision is a nation in which people live in stably integrated communities, where political and civic power is shared by people of different races and ethnicities. He led this organization until 1999. From 1984 through 1998, Farmer taught at Mary Washington College (now The University of Mary Washington) in Fredericksburg, Virginia, where a bust of him now stands on campus and the multicultural center is named after him. They also named a program after him that encouraged minority students to enroll and enter college. It is the James Farmer Scholars program.
In 1998 President Bill Clinton awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Farmer died in 1999 in Fredericksburg, Virginia of complications from diabetes.
Grambling State Universityis a historically black, public, coeducational university, located in Grambling, Louisiana, United States.
Grambling State University opened on November 1, 1901 as the Colored Industrial and Agricultural School. It was founded by the North Louisiana Colored Agriculture Relief Association, organized in 1896 by a group of African-American farmers who wanted to organize and operate a school for African Americans in their region of the state.
In response to the Association’s request for assistance, Tuskegee Institute’s Booker T. Washington sent Charles P. Adams to help the group organize an industrial school. Adams became its founding president.
In 1905, the school moved to its present location and was renamed the North Louisiana Agricultural and Industrial School. By 1928, after becoming a state junior college and being renamed the Louisiana Negro Normal and Industrial Institute, the school began to award two-year professional certificates and diplomas. In 1936, and the curriculum emphasis shifted to rural teacher education; students were able to receive professional teaching certificates after completing a third academic year. The first baccalaureate degree was awarded in 1944, in elementary education.
In 1946, the school became Grambling College, named after P.G. Grambling, the white sawmill owner who had donated the parcel of land where the school was constructed. In addition to elementary educators, Grambling prepared secondary teachers and added curricula in sciences, liberal arts and business, transforming the college from a single purpose institution of teacher education into a multipurpose college. In 1949, the college earned its first accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS).
In 1974, the addition of graduate programs in early childhood and elementary education gave the school a new status and a new name – Grambling State University. The university expanded and prospered between 1977 and 2000. Several new academic programs were incorporated and new facilities were added to the 384-acre campus, including a business and computer science building, school of nursing, student services building, stadium, stadium support facility and an intramural sports center.
Friday – 03 February 2012
It’s my 9/80 day off with the girls.
Diana (l) and Vanessa
I’m trying to decide what we should do. There’s an offer on the table for a short road – and hobby shop – trip that’s sounding more and more appealing. On the other hand, we’re already planning to hit the World’s Greatest Hobby train show on Sunday, so I’m (somewhat) less inclined to buy something today.
Chew on This: Food for Thought – Black History Month
Today’s person of note is: Don Cornelius
Donald Cortez “Don” Cornelius (September 27, 1936 – February 1, 2012) was an American television show host and producer who was best known as the creator of the nationally syndicated dance/music franchise Soul Train, which he hosted from 1971 to 1993.
Originally a journalist inspired by the civil rights movement, Cornelius recognized that in the late 1960s there was no television venue in the United States for soul music, and introduced many African-American musicians to a larger audience as a result of their appearances on Soul Train, a program that was both influential among African-Americans and popular with a wider audience. As writer, producer, and host of Soul Train, Cornelius was instrumental in offering wider exposure to black musicians such as James Brown, Aretha Franklin, and Michael Jackson, as well as creating opportunities for talented dancers that would presage subsequent television dance programs. Cornelius said “We had a show that kids gravitated to,” and Spike Lee described the program as an “urban music time capsule.”
By way of NPR’s Dan Charnas:
The significance of Don Cornelius to American culture — and to the American culture business — is told nowhere more eloquently than in one brief exchange between Cornelius and singer James Brown, a story that Cornelius himself recalls in VH-1’s excellent 2010 documentary Soul Train: The Hippest Trip in America.
It was the Godfather of Soul’s first appearance on Cornelius’ then-nascent syndicated TV show — designed to do for soul music and black audiences what American Bandstand had long done for pop music and mainstream audiences. Brown marveled at the professionalism of the production, the flawlessness of its execution.
He turned to Cornelius and asked, “Who’s backing you on this, man?”
“It’s just me, James,” Cornelius answered.
Brown, nonplused, acted as if Cornelius didn’t understand the question. He asked it two more times, and Cornelius answered twice again: “It’s just me, James.”
That the man who wrote the song “Say It Loud — I’m Black and I’m Proud” and who recorded the soundtrack to the Black Power movement could scarcely comprehend that a black man like Cornelius both owned and helmed this kind of enterprise without white patronage is a testament to the magnitude and the improbability of Cornelius’ achievements.
Don Cornelius proved a truism about America and race that so few people, even today, understand: Black culture, expressed in undiluted form and unapologetically, will by virtue become accepted by the American mainstream. It’s something that future rap moguls like Russell Simmons and Jay-Z understood instinctively. So it’s a tragic irony that Soul Train‘s decline came with the dawn of the hip-hop era. Last year, the set and memorabilia of Soul Trainlanded at the Smithsonian’s Museum of African-American History and Culture.
In the early-morning hours of February 1, 2012, officers responded to a report of a shooting and found Cornelius with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. He was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead by the Los Angeles County Assistant Chief Coroner. According to former Soul Train host, Shemar Moore, Cornelius may have been suffering from early onset of dementia or Alzheimer’s disease and his health had been on the decline.
Tuesday – 31 January 2012
It’s the end of the month. More specifically, it’s the last Tuesday of the month. That must mean it’s time for Guys’ Night Out. Amen. The only thing that could – and did – make the day better was starting the morning with cuddles from Diana and Vanessa, as well as a kiss and a hug from SaraRules! Quadruple win.
I would also like to thank Ms. Galadriel for coming over (again) last night to help put the twins to bed while SaraRules! was at a Justice League meeting. There was no wailing, moaning or gnashing of teeth. And the twins were fine, too.
My subconscious has been drawing from my memories of 70’s and 80’s TV shows. This has become especially apparent over the past few nights’ dreams. A few nights ago, Nicholas Hammond (probably most “known” for playing Peter Parker in CBS’ prime-time, live-action The AmazingSpider-Man) made an appearance. And last night, I had a dream sequence that was like a scene from the old Lynda Carter Wonder Woman. (Although the costume was a little wrong.) It was a little odd, but amusing, nevertheless.
What Is It About Mormons?
Having lived in The Land Behind the Zion Curtain for more than a decade, my answer is: “There’s nothing ‘about’ them.” I have made a number of good friends who are LDS and they are just as human – for better and/or worse – as anyone else.
It’s fairly common knowledge that I’m a fan of Fringe. As such, I’ve come to like Lance Reddick‘s Agent Broyles/Colonel Broyles character(s) over the past few seasons. But, I think that both of them could learn a few things from his Toys R Me character.
And yet another reason to like him: He’s from Baltimore.
Tuesday – 24 January 2012
For a day that started off grey with low clouds, it sure is sunny and bright out there. Of course, that’s a marked improvement over yesterday evening’s snow, so I’ll not complain.
Yesterday morning:
This morning:
Last night, came over. The original plan was for her to help me get the girls to bed while SaraRules! attended a Junior League meeting… but the meeting got rescheduled. So, she just came over and hung out with us, instead. She also tried to teach Diana to do The Time Warp, but it didn’t go so well. (I attribute it to the fact that the twins can’t stand yet, let alone dance.) But, I applaud her effort.
And, here’s a shot of the girls from this past weekend:
Like last year, I took the day off of work and volunteered at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore. And it was good. After that, I stopped at RubySnap and picked up a few cookies before stopping in to say “Hi” to SaraRules! at work and making a couple more stops before heading home. Yes, one of those stops was The Train Shoppe. No, I didn’t get anything. (Besides, I just ordered a new switching engine online a couple of days ago.)
The girls have been a little under the weather. According to the pediatrician, they don’t have colds, but a “respiratory illness” that has the earmarks of a cold, minus the runny noses. All I know is that they’re congested and a little irritable. Hopefully, they’ll be over it soon-ish.
Wednesday – 11 January 2012
Midweek. My day started with pre-work cuddles from both of the girls. AND there shall be new comics today. AND tonight is “Pasta and Movie Night.” I’d say that this is a Wednesday full of “Win.”
Last night was another baby bath night around the homestead. It was also a 180° change from Monday night’s pre-bedtime experience. The girls, while tired, were little troopers through their baths and bedtime preparations. We’ve also stopped double-swaddling the girls and just going with the single-blanket swaddle… and (so far) it hasn’t bitten us in the ass.
After the girls went to bed – and after we ate dinner – I decided to unwind by spending a little time playing DC Universe Online. After a fairly brief patch/update, I was back in Gotham City.
I finished out a mission that I started… probably back in November. I thought about doing the final mission in that arc, but realized that I was already up a bit later than I had planned to be. So, I called it a night.
