DETROIT (WJBK) -- "Very troubled past. I'll leave it at that. Very troubled, but given the fact they're juveniles we're going to be asking that they be waived to be tried on these charges as adults," explained Detroit Police Chief Ralph Godbee.
Two boys just 15 years old are accused of an attempted carjacking at Balfour and Waveny on Detroit's east side. A 25-year-old man was driving his friend and her two children to the store in his Grand Prix about 9:30 Sunday night when one of the suspects allegedly ran in front of the car and the other reportedly opened fire.
"I just heard three shots. It [sounded] to me like it might have been a shotgun because it was so loud," Michael Robinson told us.
Police say it was an AK-47. A bullet grazed the side of the driver's head, but in the back seat six-year-old Shawn Marzette was hit more than once, including a shot to his abdomen. The driver raced around the corner and the mother ran into a store for assistance. They called 911.
However, a Good Samaritan heard the mother's cries for help and didn't wait, instead rushing the child to St. John Hospital. He's in critical condition in the pediatric ICU.
Police say the two 15-year-old suspects are responsible for five robberies and carjackings that started at 7:00 a.m. Sunday and ended when they carjacked a White Monte Carlo at 12:15 Monday morning. Police tracked it down, arrested them and confiscated their weapons, including that AK-47.
We tried to talk to the family of one of the suspects, but no one would come to the door. Both 15-year-old boys have had significant prior contact with police and could now find themselves facing very serious consequences.
"There are some individuals in this community who feel like they're winning and they're going to take over, but we want to be very clear that this community is resolved to make sure that this type of thing stops," Godbee said.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Murdered 9-Month-Old Detroiter Delric Miller Laid to Rest
Murdered 9-Month-Old Detroiter Delric Miller Laid to Rest: MyFoxDETROIT.com
DETROIT (WJBK) -- A tiny white casket so small it almost doesn't seem real was carried out of the O. H. Pye Funeral Home on Monday in Detroit with nine-month-old Delric Miller inside.
Hundreds of people came to pay their respects to the family. The baby died a week ago in a hail of bullets fired at his home from an AK-47.
"We just had to pay our respects, and just hopeful Detroit violence ... settles down because this is a real tragedy," said the victim's cousin, Annais Brown.
Among the mourners were Detroit Police Chief Ralph Godbee, who said someone in the crowd at the funeral could have information police need to solve the case.
"There are some individuals in this community who feel like they're winning and they're going to take over, but we want to be very clear that this community is resolved to make sure that this type of thing stops," Godbee told us.
In the funeral program and during the emotional service, Delric was remembered for the joy he brought to others during his short life.
As the community mourns and grieves and talks about stopping the violence, the person responsible for Delric's death is still out on the streets. There have been no arrests yet in the baby's murder.
"What makes this system work is a community that is involved and that is willing to turn over murderers to the police department," Godbee said.
Members of Detroit 300, who have helped try to track down the killer, were also at the funeral.
Chrysler workers from Sterling Heights Assembly collected $650 in donations, which FOX 2 turned over to the funeral home.
Police believe Delric's shooting may be gang related and may have stemmed from an argument at a baby shower.
u have 2 dicipline ur kids closly or else
14-Year-Old Detroit Boy Shoots Mom While She Sleeps: Reports
A 14-year-old boy allegedly shot his mother to death while she was sleeping and her fiancé and 5-year-old daughter slept in the next room in a house on Detroit's east side Monday night.
Tamiko Robinson, 36, died after allegedly being shot by her son several times at close range, according to Fox 2. The station reports the boy is in custody after allegedly attempting to flee in his mother's car.
The boy's uncle and Robinson's brother, Leshaun Roberts, told the Detroit Free Press Robinson was sleeping in the living room and her fiancé was asleep in an adjacent room with the couple's five-year-old daughter. According to FOX 2, the fiancé's name is Chiko Lewis.
The Free Press reports the 14-year-old used a gun owned by Lewis in the shooting. As for motive, Roberts told the paper the boy's mother earlier had refused to let him hang out with his friends.
Detroit Police Chief Ralph L. Godbee Jr. and Mayor Dave Bing held a press conference Monday afternoon to address Robinson's shooting and other recent gun violence involving minors, including the early Monday morning shooting of a 6-year-old boy in an attempted carjacking. The boy is still in critical condition. Police say the two suspects in custody for the child's shooting are also teenage boys.
Bing asked Detroiters not to stand idly by while children become victims of crime. But at the same time, he demanded parents take more responsibility for their children's actions.
"You can't expect the police to be in every home, on every corner, responding to things that we as parents and adults ought to be responsible for," he said. "Let's let these young people know that we care about them but at the same time, we aren't not going to allow them to create havoc. You have to start discipline ... when they come out of the womb."
Three children have been shot in Detroit in the past month. Two have died from their wounds, one a 9-month-old infant, the other a 12-year-old girl.
A Detroit Police Department spokesman declined to comment further on the shootings Monday afternoon.
A 14-year-old boy allegedly shot his mother to death while she was sleeping and her fiancé and 5-year-old daughter slept in the next room in a house on Detroit's east side Monday night.
Tamiko Robinson, 36, died after allegedly being shot by her son several times at close range, according to Fox 2. The station reports the boy is in custody after allegedly attempting to flee in his mother's car.
The boy's uncle and Robinson's brother, Leshaun Roberts, told the Detroit Free Press Robinson was sleeping in the living room and her fiancé was asleep in an adjacent room with the couple's five-year-old daughter. According to FOX 2, the fiancé's name is Chiko Lewis.
The Free Press reports the 14-year-old used a gun owned by Lewis in the shooting. As for motive, Roberts told the paper the boy's mother earlier had refused to let him hang out with his friends.
Detroit Police Chief Ralph L. Godbee Jr. and Mayor Dave Bing held a press conference Monday afternoon to address Robinson's shooting and other recent gun violence involving minors, including the early Monday morning shooting of a 6-year-old boy in an attempted carjacking. The boy is still in critical condition. Police say the two suspects in custody for the child's shooting are also teenage boys.
Bing asked Detroiters not to stand idly by while children become victims of crime. But at the same time, he demanded parents take more responsibility for their children's actions.
"You can't expect the police to be in every home, on every corner, responding to things that we as parents and adults ought to be responsible for," he said. "Let's let these young people know that we care about them but at the same time, we aren't not going to allow them to create havoc. You have to start discipline ... when they come out of the womb."
Three children have been shot in Detroit in the past month. Two have died from their wounds, one a 9-month-old infant, the other a 12-year-old girl.
A Detroit Police Department spokesman declined to comment further on the shootings Monday afternoon.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Did The Whighams Funeral Home Sell Photo’s Of Whitney Houston In Casket?
[well the photo didnt leak itself funny though the family didnt want the so called fans in there and the tapping was a closed casket 2 them then a week later she put on public display fo everybody 2 c wht was seen in private ?????????????????? wht does that make no kind of sense houston family ????????????]]
An insider is claiming that the Whigham Funeral Home sold the National Enquirer the photo of a dead Whitney Houston in an open casket. Don’t believe me.. Ask Rickey Minor.
Here’s what was revealed to me:
“Jacky, I was negotiating a deal with someone over at the Whighams Funeral Home for a picture of a dead Whitney Houston.
My contact at the funeral home stopped taking my calls. Then yesterday I’m at the supermarket and I saw Whitney Houston in a casket on the Enquirer. I said to myself ‘I guess the Enquirer paid them more than I was offering’ .
The family thinks someone who attended the private viewing sold the photos, but they would never guess it was the Newark funeral home itself. That photo was worth well into six figures.
Is Cissy Houston pissed because the press is exploiting her deceased daughter’s picture? Of course she is. Don’t believe me.. Ask Cece Winans.
photo credit: The Enquirer & Whigham’s Funeral Home
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
possessed
DISTURBING & TRAGIC"
Leana Lauck and Jennifer Ragland -- also known as Jennifer Chapman -- were staying at a LaQuinta Inn in Oklahoma City with Lauck's 3-year-old son. They were also feening for meth.
They hooked up with two dealers. What they apparently didn't have was money. And since neither Lauck nor Ragland possessed the visual appeal to trade sex for dope, they offered up the 3-year-old boy instead.
To say the men savagely raped him is an understatement. The boy ended up with a torn rectum.
He was also hung from the ceiling with a dog collar. And in a move we can only assume was to get rid of DNA, the men forced him to drink bleach, then splashed it in his face.
When they were done, they returned the child to the two women. Instead of taking him to a hospital --they got high all night.
When he was finally admitted to the hospital, he was suffering from bleach poisoning, and burning in the throat, face and eyes. He was also bruised and had a head injury and his rectum was torn.
Both women have been arrested. It's unknown if police have any leads on the two men.
Leana Lauck and Jennifer Ragland -- also known as Jennifer Chapman -- were staying at a LaQuinta Inn in Oklahoma City with Lauck's 3-year-old son. They were also feening for meth.
They hooked up with two dealers. What they apparently didn't have was money. And since neither Lauck nor Ragland possessed the visual appeal to trade sex for dope, they offered up the 3-year-old boy instead.
To say the men savagely raped him is an understatement. The boy ended up with a torn rectum.
He was also hung from the ceiling with a dog collar. And in a move we can only assume was to get rid of DNA, the men forced him to drink bleach, then splashed it in his face.
When they were done, they returned the child to the two women. Instead of taking him to a hospital --they got high all night.
When he was finally admitted to the hospital, he was suffering from bleach poisoning, and burning in the throat, face and eyes. He was also bruised and had a head injury and his rectum was torn.
Both women have been arrested. It's unknown if police have any leads on the two men.
r u kidding well i can believe it though
François Hallé was riding on the sofa, which had been placed on top of a sled and tied to the back of a van, when the driver lost control and forced him into the opposite lane.
A 21-year-old man has been accused of dangerous driving, causing death, fleeing the scene of an accident and criminal negligence causing death.
Alex Labbé was formally arraigned in court in Saint-Joseph-de-Beauce, Quebec, on Monday.
Labbé was allegedly driving the van along a road in Saint-Benjamin, south of Quebec City, when the couch he was towing swerved into oncoming traffic, it was reported on CBC News.
Hallé, who died later in hospital, is believed to be the first person to be killed in the craze.
Police said Labbé was arrested at his home in Saint-Georges after apparently fleeing the scene.
Yan Laflamme, a friend of both men, told CBC News that Labbé panicked when he saw the body of his friend on the ground.
‘It’s not like he fled because he didn’t want people to know it was him,’ Laflamme added.
The stunt, known as ‘couch-surfing’, is popular online with more and more people posting videos showing them being dragged behind a vehicle at high speeds.
Laflamme and his friends took up the dangerous hobby after viewing it on the internet.
He said: ‘It’s the kind of thing that when you see it, you want to try it … we definitely like doing it; we do it often; we have a good time.
Tragic – Nine-Month-Old Baby Brutally Murdered During Gang Related Drive-By Shooting
Neighbors said two “cold-blooded killers” stood in the middle of the street and riddling the front and side of the house with 37 bullets.
They say the men then calmly got in a gray van and drove away at a “normal speed.”
Nine-month-old Delric Miller IV was tragically killed in the hail of gunfire.
Detroit Police Chief Ralph Godbee said as many as 10 people may have been inside the house at the time of the shooting, including more children.
Godbee said during a press conference yesterday: “It’s actually amazing – an act of God – that more people in that house were not killed,”
He then openly expressed outrage at both the people responsible, and the mentality of those who might be able to help police with their inquiries, but stay silent.
Godbee said: “I have confidence that someone in the community will step up and close this case sooner than it would have otherwise.”
Mother MICROWAVED Her 7-Week-Old Daughter For TWO MINUTES
As well as the murder accusation against Ka Yang, 30, from California, Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Eugene Balanon also found enough evidence to support a special allegation that she tortured her daughter, Mirabelle.
Prosecutors ruled out the death penalty, but Yang faces life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted of the murder of her child.
The mother-of-four has been held since June after investigators determined her baby died of ‘extensive thermal injuries’ after being placed in a microwave on March 17.
A pathologist testified during Tuesday’s hearing that the radiation from the microwave essentially cooked the child’s stomach and small intestine.
Yang’s defense attorney, Linda Parisi said that it was due to her client’s history of seizures - which she has been suffering from for more than six years - that made her put her own baby in the microwave.
She will argue during the murder trial that Yang was in the middle of a seizure and did not know what she was doing.
At the time, Yang claimed she ‘had a seizure and did not know what happened after that’.
When they happen, she ‘sees white light and then trees before hand’, according to her family.
Deputy District Attorney Chris Ore suggested there was no seizure when Yang inserted Mirabelle Thao-Lo into the microwave, and points at the string of lies she told police after her daughter’s death.
One of the things she told detectives was that she dropped her baby on a space heater when she had a seizure.
During the three-hour hearing, during which the judge refused Parisi’s request to dismiss the special circumstance allegation that Yang tortured the girl, a forensic pathologist testified the baby suffered burns to more than 60 per cent of her body.
Dr Gregory Reiber said the most serious burn appeared to be a radiation burn that penetrated her internal organs and ‘cooked through’ to her stomach and small intestine. He said they were consistent with microwave exposure.
He said the baby would have suffered from severe pain throughout the exposure.
The prosecution allege she placed the child in the microwave because she was being irritable and fussy and holding her back from her work.
A trial date has not yet been set.
Yang, 30, was married at the time of her arrest and has at least two older children. She worked for a local architectural firm.
Prosecutors ruled out the death penalty, but Yang faces life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted of the murder of her child.
The mother-of-four has been held since June after investigators determined her baby died of ‘extensive thermal injuries’ after being placed in a microwave on March 17.
A pathologist testified during Tuesday’s hearing that the radiation from the microwave essentially cooked the child’s stomach and small intestine.
Yang’s defense attorney, Linda Parisi said that it was due to her client’s history of seizures - which she has been suffering from for more than six years - that made her put her own baby in the microwave.
She will argue during the murder trial that Yang was in the middle of a seizure and did not know what she was doing.
At the time, Yang claimed she ‘had a seizure and did not know what happened after that’.
When they happen, she ‘sees white light and then trees before hand’, according to her family.
Deputy District Attorney Chris Ore suggested there was no seizure when Yang inserted Mirabelle Thao-Lo into the microwave, and points at the string of lies she told police after her daughter’s death.
One of the things she told detectives was that she dropped her baby on a space heater when she had a seizure.
During the three-hour hearing, during which the judge refused Parisi’s request to dismiss the special circumstance allegation that Yang tortured the girl, a forensic pathologist testified the baby suffered burns to more than 60 per cent of her body.
Dr Gregory Reiber said the most serious burn appeared to be a radiation burn that penetrated her internal organs and ‘cooked through’ to her stomach and small intestine. He said they were consistent with microwave exposure.
He said the baby would have suffered from severe pain throughout the exposure.
The prosecution allege she placed the child in the microwave because she was being irritable and fussy and holding her back from her work.
A trial date has not yet been set.
Yang, 30, was married at the time of her arrest and has at least two older children. She worked for a local architectural firm.
Suspect Usher Acts Like A Little In Hollyweird Restaurant And Tells Waiters Not To Speak To Him
Usher reportedly acted like a top class diva earlier last weekend when he visited a restaurant in Hollywood:
The ‘Climax’ singer rolled up to the Cleo restaurant in the Redbury Hotel with an entourage of about 10 people, but he wasn’t in the mood to be friendly with the people who would be serving the large group.
A source told NY Post’s Page Six that Usher kept his sunglasses on all night – even throughout the dinner – so that he wouldn’t have to make contact with the wait staff.
“Apparently the staff was not allowed to speak to him directly. All interaction had to happen through one of his staffers,” the source told the publication.
Oh, oh, oh-oh, oh-oh, oh my God… Do you believe Usher would be such a diva?
The ‘Climax’ singer rolled up to the Cleo restaurant in the Redbury Hotel with an entourage of about 10 people, but he wasn’t in the mood to be friendly with the people who would be serving the large group.
A source told NY Post’s Page Six that Usher kept his sunglasses on all night – even throughout the dinner – so that he wouldn’t have to make contact with the wait staff.
“Apparently the staff was not allowed to speak to him directly. All interaction had to happen through one of his staffers,” the source told the publication.
Oh, oh, oh-oh, oh-oh, oh my God… Do you believe Usher would be such a diva?
res News Comedy Interviews Movies TV Web Originals Music Sports Business Arts & Culture More » The Winans Brothers Talk About the Shortcomings of Whitney Houston’s Funeral Service
thats not what it looks like 2 some people its not just God is a God of luv he is also a God of wrath also if u die and u r lost point blank
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Florida School Bus Driver Arrested After Showing Porn to Students
A school bus driver in Florida is now facing felony charges after police say he showed pornographic images on his cell phone to a group of middle school students.
An investigation into the incident was launched after school administrators at the Mowat Middle School in Panana City, Florida called police with allegations that 37-year-old Marcus Howard had showed “pornographic material” on his cell phone to several teens over the past several weeks.
Three students later confirmed with investigators that they did, in fact, view a number of obscene images on Howard’s phone.
When Howard was interviewed by police, he denied having any pornographic material on his cell phone. However cops found photos and videos that contained “nudity and sex acts” after Howard allowed them to search the device, according to the police report.
Howard then admitted to looking at the X-rated images while driving, which he agreed was wrong. But he said he didn’t allow the kids to see it intentionally, though he “could not say if any of them may have accidentally seen any of the material,” the police report stated.
Howard was charged with four counts of showing obscene material to a minor and is now free on bond. He has also been suspended without pay, and will most likely be fired.
An investigation into the incident was launched after school administrators at the Mowat Middle School in Panana City, Florida called police with allegations that 37-year-old Marcus Howard had showed “pornographic material” on his cell phone to several teens over the past several weeks.
Three students later confirmed with investigators that they did, in fact, view a number of obscene images on Howard’s phone.
When Howard was interviewed by police, he denied having any pornographic material on his cell phone. However cops found photos and videos that contained “nudity and sex acts” after Howard allowed them to search the device, according to the police report.
Howard then admitted to looking at the X-rated images while driving, which he agreed was wrong. But he said he didn’t allow the kids to see it intentionally, though he “could not say if any of them may have accidentally seen any of the material,” the police report stated.
Howard was charged with four counts of showing obscene material to a minor and is now free on bond. He has also been suspended without pay, and will most likely be fired.
READ THIS ON ATS NOW I HAVE A UPDATE 2 THIS NOW IAM WONDERING
I have two friends who both work for FEMA here in Illinois. I periodically touch base with them to see what's going on in the state and in the nation. These guys have worked all over from 9/11 to Katrina to Joplin tornadoes this past year. Both of these guys I have know for about 9 years now and have always been on the up and up with me.
In past meetings they've always said that if they deemed it necessary, no matter what, they would care enough to tell their closest friends and family if something was coming down the pipe.
Well, yesterday I stopped by to chat for a bit while out and about. I seriously don't want to give too many clues to whom they may be. There are things I could mention that if the right person where to pick up on this, they would be found without a doubt. In any case, we were standing in the kitchen shooting the bull and I asked them " don't you guys get enough of each other at work that you hang out when your home too..?" They told me they were leaving tonight for "some time" down to the Illinois-Missouri-Tennessee area. I asked them what was going on and was told that if what happens that they think is going to happen, it's going to be a big quagmire. They said that they've been training for many months on the fault zone of New Madrid and that it could happen sooner than later.
I got this big lump in my throat. "So a big earthquake possibly?" He said if this thing "breaks loose" like they've predicted, it will bring massive casualties to big cities in the midwest including Chicago, St. Louis, Memphis, Louisville, etc. Natural gas pipelines will rupture causing uncontrolled fires along with several nuke plants taking massive damage as well. They said that the massive chaos could be enough to declare a Marshal Law situation. Many communications will be down so the panic of not knowing whats going on will cause widespread looting and disorder. The power grid will certainly be affected as well.
This is my first thread, so please folks, what do you think about this?? I trust these guys 110% because they're very good friends and they're family men. They really don't even like the government that they work for.
I left there very frightened and tense. I have no reason to believe ever that they would make this up. They're straight up people, they just work for the wrong side.
Does anyone think there is any validity to the subject besides myself? Any threads lately backing what they're claiming??
Please, go easy on me, I'm not a fear mongerer, just a father and a husband who cares about his family and the people that surrou
UPDATE 2 ABOVE ARTICLE
Missouri earthquake shakes nine states
Updated 38m ago Comments ST. LOUIS (AP) – Just days after the 200th anniversary
of a series of massive earthquakes in southeast Missouri, residents woke up
Tuesday to a rumbling reminder that they live in one of the continent's most
active seismic areas.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the epicenter of a magnitude-4.0 earthquake at
3:58 a.m. was located near the town of East Prairie, Mo., roughly midway between
St. Louis and Memphis. Several people in five states — Missouri, Illinois,
Arkansas, Kentucky and Tennessee — felt the quake, along with scattered people
in four others, as far away as North Carolina and Georgia, according to
responses to the U.S. Geological Survey website.
Only minor damage was reported, such as items falling from shelves, broken
windows, minor cracks in walls and sidewalks, said Amy Vaughan, a geophysicist
for the Geological Survey office in Golden, Colo. No injuries were reported.
East Prairie City Administrator Lonnie Thurmond said the quake lasted perhaps
seven seconds.
"It seemed like everybody I've talked to, it woke 'em up," Thurmond said.
The earthquakes on Dec. 16, 1811, and Jan. 23 and Feb. 7, 1812, were among the
strongest ever in the U.S., their magnitudes estimated to have ranged from 7.7
to 8.1. Shockwaves spread as far as New York and the force of the temblors
reportedly rang church bells in Boston. The Mississippi River reversed flow for
a time.
Those quakes, like the one on Tuesday, occurred in the New Madrid Seismic Zone,
a 150-mile stretch between Memphis and St. Louis that crosses parts of Arkansas,
Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri and Tennessee.
Most of the earthquakes that frequently hit the zone are so small that virtually
no one feels them. Even a magnitude-4.0 quake is rare, occurring in the New
Madrid zone on average about once a year, said Bob Herrmann, a Saint Louis
University geophysicist.
"It's been a while since we had a good shaker in the New Madrid region,"
Herrmann said. "It is a reminder that earthquakes occur and we cannot ignore
them."
Expert opinion varies on the likelihood of another big Midwestern quake along
the New Madrid fault, though many communities in the region have taken
precautions by retrofitting bridges and other structures.
Earthquake drills are also becoming more common. On Feb. 7, nearly 150,000
Missourians and hundreds of schools in the state participated in a drill known
as the "Great Central U.S. ShakeOut."
Experts suggest that the likelihood of a magnitude 6 or greater quake occurring
along the New Madrid fault within a half century is somewhere between 28% and
46%.
"Unfortunately, we cannot predict earthquakes," Herrmann said. "We can look at
historical trends and say one should exercise some caution and prudence."
In past meetings they've always said that if they deemed it necessary, no matter what, they would care enough to tell their closest friends and family if something was coming down the pipe.
Well, yesterday I stopped by to chat for a bit while out and about. I seriously don't want to give too many clues to whom they may be. There are things I could mention that if the right person where to pick up on this, they would be found without a doubt. In any case, we were standing in the kitchen shooting the bull and I asked them " don't you guys get enough of each other at work that you hang out when your home too..?" They told me they were leaving tonight for "some time" down to the Illinois-Missouri-Tennessee area. I asked them what was going on and was told that if what happens that they think is going to happen, it's going to be a big quagmire. They said that they've been training for many months on the fault zone of New Madrid and that it could happen sooner than later.
I got this big lump in my throat. "So a big earthquake possibly?" He said if this thing "breaks loose" like they've predicted, it will bring massive casualties to big cities in the midwest including Chicago, St. Louis, Memphis, Louisville, etc. Natural gas pipelines will rupture causing uncontrolled fires along with several nuke plants taking massive damage as well. They said that the massive chaos could be enough to declare a Marshal Law situation. Many communications will be down so the panic of not knowing whats going on will cause widespread looting and disorder. The power grid will certainly be affected as well.
This is my first thread, so please folks, what do you think about this?? I trust these guys 110% because they're very good friends and they're family men. They really don't even like the government that they work for.
I left there very frightened and tense. I have no reason to believe ever that they would make this up. They're straight up people, they just work for the wrong side.
Does anyone think there is any validity to the subject besides myself? Any threads lately backing what they're claiming??
Please, go easy on me, I'm not a fear mongerer, just a father and a husband who cares about his family and the people that surrou
UPDATE 2 ABOVE ARTICLE
Missouri earthquake shakes nine states
Updated 38m ago Comments ST. LOUIS (AP) – Just days after the 200th anniversary
of a series of massive earthquakes in southeast Missouri, residents woke up
Tuesday to a rumbling reminder that they live in one of the continent's most
active seismic areas.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the epicenter of a magnitude-4.0 earthquake at
3:58 a.m. was located near the town of East Prairie, Mo., roughly midway between
St. Louis and Memphis. Several people in five states — Missouri, Illinois,
Arkansas, Kentucky and Tennessee — felt the quake, along with scattered people
in four others, as far away as North Carolina and Georgia, according to
responses to the U.S. Geological Survey website.
Only minor damage was reported, such as items falling from shelves, broken
windows, minor cracks in walls and sidewalks, said Amy Vaughan, a geophysicist
for the Geological Survey office in Golden, Colo. No injuries were reported.
East Prairie City Administrator Lonnie Thurmond said the quake lasted perhaps
seven seconds.
"It seemed like everybody I've talked to, it woke 'em up," Thurmond said.
The earthquakes on Dec. 16, 1811, and Jan. 23 and Feb. 7, 1812, were among the
strongest ever in the U.S., their magnitudes estimated to have ranged from 7.7
to 8.1. Shockwaves spread as far as New York and the force of the temblors
reportedly rang church bells in Boston. The Mississippi River reversed flow for
a time.
Those quakes, like the one on Tuesday, occurred in the New Madrid Seismic Zone,
a 150-mile stretch between Memphis and St. Louis that crosses parts of Arkansas,
Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri and Tennessee.
Most of the earthquakes that frequently hit the zone are so small that virtually
no one feels them. Even a magnitude-4.0 quake is rare, occurring in the New
Madrid zone on average about once a year, said Bob Herrmann, a Saint Louis
University geophysicist.
"It's been a while since we had a good shaker in the New Madrid region,"
Herrmann said. "It is a reminder that earthquakes occur and we cannot ignore
them."
Expert opinion varies on the likelihood of another big Midwestern quake along
the New Madrid fault, though many communities in the region have taken
precautions by retrofitting bridges and other structures.
Earthquake drills are also becoming more common. On Feb. 7, nearly 150,000
Missourians and hundreds of schools in the state participated in a drill known
as the "Great Central U.S. ShakeOut."
Experts suggest that the likelihood of a magnitude 6 or greater quake occurring
along the New Madrid fault within a half century is somewhere between 28% and
46%.
"Unfortunately, we cannot predict earthquakes," Herrmann said. "We can look at
historical trends and say one should exercise some caution and prudence."
ok people now this is going 2 farrrrrrr
NOW THEY CRIED ABOUT RAP MUSIC IN THE CHURCH BUILDING SO CALLED GOSPEL RAP BUT HERE IS THE THING WHITNEY DIDNT RAP SE WAS A SINGER SO WE X OUT SO CALLED GOSPEL RAP AND JUST BRINGING IN SERCULAR MUSIC AS IS AND TLKING BOUT A GOSPEL FROM HOUSTON C ITS NOT ABOUT THAT ITS MANS EVIL HEART AND MIND THAT DO THESE THINGS IT WASNT THE GOSPEL RAP THAT MADE EM DO IT
hard truth people dont listen /BLACK GAY MALE ESCORT" (AIDS, METH & DEPRESSION)
Duane is a black gay male, aged 30, who currently lives in Brooklyn, NY. He was raised in Manhattan, as an only child, by a single mother, who sadly passed away 6 years ago. Duane has only met his father once when he was a kid and has no idea where he is today. Duane was diagnosed with AIDS(hopefully you know that there is a difference between an AIDS diagnosis and being HIV positive), when he found out he was positive in September 2010. He currently has a host of health complications and is a shadow of his former self – an extremely attractive black man.
Storm: Let’s take it from when you started escorting. You said on the phone you started escorting when you lost your job, about a year after your mom passed away. Do you think the series of events had anything to do with your decision to become an escort or was it something you had always considered doing?
Duane: Nah, I never really thought about hustling or escorting until I lost my job, but I always heard I would make a good escort or porn star, so maybe it was at the back of my mind. I lost my job because when my moms passed, I kinda lost focus – turning up late or calling in. I was drinking and smoking a lot of weed every day you know, work just wasn’t the place I wanted to be. My moms was the only family I had, so I guess it hit me real bad. I think the fact that she was gone made it easier to start escorting, like I had nothing to lose.
Nobody could say to me. I really started(hustling) to save my apartment, when the little I had saved up ran out. I had a decent job for years and a nice apartment, so I wanted to keep it I was very close to being evicted in the middle of winter in NYC – not a good look. I did what I felt I had to do without dealing with the structure of work and all that BS. I decided to place an ad in one of the free gay mags and that was that, my phone started ringing, I was lucky to hook-up with a few wealthy clients who wanted something on the regular.
They needed the double-digits between and I needed the cash, you know. I worked 6 nights a week for the first 2 months – saved my crib and had enough vodka and weed to keep me happy. I could sleep most days and drink smoke and sex most nights. I got to know the regulars, you know I did overnights and – more money.
Storm: Some would say you had a good thing going. So when did things turn south? You mentioned on the phone that you started having bareback sex and taking harder drugs, which you believe was the beginning of the end for you, to use your own words. How did that all come about? How long had you been escorting before you started offering bareback services and were you doing the drugs with clients, or on your own, in order to cope with the fact that your were prostituting? Or maybe a bit of both?
Duane: (laughs), you said you weren’t gonna be too easy on me, guess you weren’t lying. It’s that word “prostituting”, you sound like my therapist. Yeah, I’m just coming to terms with that word, ok, yeah I was a male prostitute. That just sounds wrong, you know (laughs again) from high-paying job to hustling. My bad, let me get back on track. Yeah, everything was cool for almost 2 years. I had good regular clients, even went on a few trips and stuff. Did lots of overnights and didn’t have to work 6 nights any more.
I mean 5 hours a week was like $1000, if I did 1 overnight a week, that was an extra $600 – $1000. So on lazy weeks I could pull in 2k easy, most weeks I made about 3k. I had always said no to bareback with clients, but then one of them offered me $600 for 1 hour, I had started taking a lil coke every now and then to escape. I was high at the time, so I was like hell yeah – plus he was fine as . I think it was easier because the first raw client was a sexy- black man on the Upper East side.
I saw him at least once a week for 6 months b4 the raw sex started, so we were cool. Once I crossed that line, it was easier to say yes to the white clients and I always charged them more than the black clients anyway, coz that was more like work, I’m normally attracted to black men. It was like easier money and I was only dealing with high-end clients at this time, so I deceived myself that it was cool. Plus, I was topping them, so it wasn’t that risky – that’s what I told myself. Then one of my white clients, who had more money than sense offered me a ridiculous amount of money to have sex all night with him on crystal meth.
He wanted us to both do the meth. Now, remember at this point I had only done weed and a bump(coke) every now and then. I said no the first couple of times, then one night I was like WTF let me try this . Yo, we had sex for hours, that was bananas. I went home around 8am still horny and got on A4A to find a hook-up, I was tweaking like crazy and banged dude who came through raw for like an hour. That’s how it all started, then the client started inviting his buddies over and we would have orgies and stuff and I would leave with a pocket full of cash. By about the third month I was really hooked on that stuff doing it all the time with different clients, I even introduced some of them to it, other had already been doing it, so now we could PNP.
Yo, I became a sex maniac and I always wanted it raw, I was having sex with so many dudes, apart from clients, I lost count. I got into all that “piggy” sex with white clients, then I’d go home horny and craving black sex. I don’t know how many holes in NYC I flooded and I got to take out all my anger and aggression on the clients. I didn’t realize how much pent up anger I had, it was very easy to beat those who wanted to be beaten and treated like dirt. Also meth makes your booty go crazy, so after a while I needed to be flooded too. I went from a regular escort to a full-time bareback escort. In about 2.5 years I think I used a condom 2 or 3 times. I started going to the bathhouses too just anywhere i could get sex. I wanted only 2 things meth and sex.
By that point, the money was just a bonus, a way to get more meth. I looked like after about 1 year on meth, not as bad as I looked in September, but bad enough that it really was easier to do bareback clients on meth – they didn’t care what I looked like they just wanted for hours. I stopped paying rent and was facing eviction again, but at that point I didn’t care. Dude who introduced me to meth offered me a room in his crib. I think he felt a lil bad, plus he could always get his back blown out whenever he wanted it. Besides I was out having sex most of the time anyway, so it wasn’t like I needed a home, you know.
Storm: How ironic, you started escorting to save your apartment and ended up a homeless bareback hooker after 2.5 years on crystal meth. At any time during all that drug fueled crazy sex, did you ever think about HIV and other STDs, or the fact that you were possibly endangering your life and the lives of others? Did you get regular check ups? Was HIV ever discussed with clients or booty-calls – considering the fact that you were a reckless bareback escort, sex maniac and a junkie?
Duane: Just say it like it is why don’t you!(laughs) I like you man, you ain’t sugar-coating that’s what I need. Nah, in the crystal meth world I don’t think HIV is mentioned much, I think it’s like an unspoken assumption, you know. Most meth heads are probably positive, many staring using meth to cope with being positive, I know that now. At the time, I really didn’t want to know, denial is a you know. Outside of the meth bareback/PNP clients, I was mainly having raw sex with black men, when I was “off the clock."
Now when was the last time a black gay man asked you about status, before getting busy? We don’t do that often – you a straight shooter, you should know. Most black men ain’t having no serious discussion about HIV, when their is all hard. Plus, 70% of the time, I was topping and I am extremely “blessed”. Put in front of most men and how many do you think are gonna ask about HIV. I also convinced myself tops couldn’t get HIV, so I only went to the clinic for other STDs, you know stuff that antibiotics can get rid off.. Yeah I know I have read your article about that , that’s why I hit you up.
I know I wasn’t a top all the time, but I had been calling myself that for years. Plus I was high you know. I’m not making excuses, I’m just telling you how my mind was working at the time. I know what I did was wrong. When I was diagnosed with AIDS last year, for the first two months I was severely depressed, I still am, part of it was because I had to deal with the fact that I had probably infected more men than I can even remember. Especially black men, you know I love black men and I’ve probably ruined so many lives flooding all those holes and stuff. Now, I look back it’s crazy to think I hadn’t been tested in 5 years.
Storm: I have to stop you right there, let’s look at that for a moment. You say you love black men, is that a recent thing? I say that because I don’t see how you can love black men, or anyone, when you don’t love yourself. Have you learned to love yourself now and so realize the error of your ways? I don’t think you are entirely to blame for infecting anyone, it takes two, but I am glad you are owning your role in the possible infection of tons of black men. That is, if we are to assume that all your clients were already positive – if not, you probably infected some white men too. I believe when it comes to sex and the decision to bareback, both parties have to take responsibility. Was being diagnosed with AIDS the turning point? Tell us more about that, you said your CD4 count was 4 when you were diagnosed, that means your immune system was totally depleted.
Duane: You are right, I didn’t love myself at all. I realize now that I had been depressed for a very long time, even before my moms passed. I was self-medicating with weed and alcohol for years. It just intensified when she died. I had a lot of anger inside me coming up, I was really mad at my pops for abandoning me, but I directed that anger to myself. When I got diagnosed with AIDS, I had been sick for weeks, probably 2 months, but being high all the time, you are so numb you don’t really know what it real, you know. I had a cough and couldn’t breathe right, then it got worse and worse.
First I just thought it was from the meth, you know all that smoking. Well, that was part of it, by the time I collapsed outside 86th street subway, I had pneumonia, my chest and lungs were seriously infected, I had neurosyphilis and all kinds of other infections. I am lucky to be alive today, even though I still have AIDS, it saved my life. I was in hospital for 1 month, so it was like forced detox and rehab. Then I started an out-patients program, as well as therapy twice a week, now once a week. I take a lot of meds because I had a host of Opportunistic Infections and you also gotta take stuff to prevent you from getting stuff, when your immune system is severely compromised. I know I still look terrible, but you should have seen me then. I have actually put on 20lbs since September.
Storm: Yeah, you look nothing like the picture you showed me from 6 years ago. That must be hard for someone who was so into their physical appearance and actually made a living selling their body. How do you cope with that, what is your life like today and do you look forward to the future?
Duane: To be honest with you, I don’t cope too well. I am indoors most of the time, apart from visits to the clinic, therapist, my program and NA meetings(which I don’t go to as often as I should, coz I’m still quite weak). I just started some new anti-depressants, so hopefully they will be better than the last ones I was on. I hadn’t left my apartment for 3 days before meeting with you. I mean I’m glad to be alive, but I don’t see much hope for the future right now.
My depression got worse after the AIDS diagnosis and after years of drug abuse some depression is normal anyway, then you add in all the extra stuff. My life really revolves around doctors, outpatients, specialists and therapist visits. I’m conscious of how I look, my skin is still messed up from the meth and AIDS and meds, just a mess.
I struggle a lot with side effects from all the different medications I am on, which really sucks, but I am grateful that the meds are there. I don’t have any friends, I lost my old friends when I became hooked on meth, 1 or 2 have reached out to me within the last week or so, but I don’t even know if I’m ready. So much I have to explain – maybe I’ll just have them read your blog. I feel like I am alive but I ain’t living.
Storm: What have you learned from the last 5 or 6 year?
Duane: I just want people, black gay men in particular, to understand the importance of loving yourself and loving yourself enough to do something about depression or any other mental problems. It is easy to look at my story as a story of escorting and drug addiction, which it is, but one thing I have learned from therapy is that my anger, self-hatred and depression are more to blame for all this, than crystal meth.
If I didn’t have those problems, I would probably never have become an addict. Keeping stuff in and self-medicating only works short-term. We as black men have to learn to love self first. Place less importance on sex and partying and more on yourself. The rate of HIV and AIDS among black gay men and MSM is so high – the reason for that is because we don’t really love ourselves.
We need to learn to talk about stuff like HIV – I am lucky I am still here, barely, but here. It could be anyone out there next. I was 6ft 4 and 190lbs of solid muscles, even when I got down to 150lbs all people saw was what was between my legs. HIV comes in all sizes and shapes, I have been them all – big and strong and now weak and skinny. Love yourself enough to make wiser choices.
pan-re
mixed up news
Whitney Houston's family has sold footage of her star-studded funeral to media outlets across the world to raise funds for the tragic singer's daughter. Also: Pieces of Whitney Houston's clothing have already been announced as going up for auction barely two days after the singer's funeral. Items that will apparently go under the hammer at an auction running between March 31st and April 1st include the singer's floor-length black dress, a vest she wore in the film 'Bodyguard' and a pair of faux-pearl earrings. And: Whitney Houston fans were turned away from the late superstar's final resting place in New Jersey after cemetery officials became concerned about the large crowds.
Dick Anthony Williams (August 9, 1938-February 15, 2012) was an actor. Williams is known for his starring performances on Broadway in "The Poison Tree," "What the Wine-Sellers Buy," and "Black Picture Show." He is also remembered for playing the character of Pretty Tony in "The Mack," which starred Max Julien and Richard Pryor.
Williams won the 1974 Drama Desk Award for his performance in "What the Wine-Sellers Buy," for which he was also nominated for a Tony Award, and was nominated in 1975 for both a Tony and a Drama Desk Award for his performance in "Black Picture Show." He also has an extensive resume as an actor in films and on television.
Williams married Gloria Edwards, an actress, who died in 1988, and had two children with her.
Dick Anthony Williams died from an undisclosed illness on Feb. 15, 2012.
Williams won the 1974 Drama Desk Award for his performance in "What the Wine-Sellers Buy," for which he was also nominated for a Tony Award, and was nominated in 1975 for both a Tony and a Drama Desk Award for his performance in "Black Picture Show." He also has an extensive resume as an actor in films and on television.
Williams married Gloria Edwards, an actress, who died in 1988, and had two children with her.
Dick Anthony Williams died from an undisclosed illness on Feb. 15, 2012.
dont do it chris
“Playin’ with my money, is like playin’ with my emotions…”
Chris Tucker has dug himself into even a deeper hole. He owes Uncle Sam $12 milli in back taxes:
Tucker was already delinquent on paying fedreal taxes to the tune of $11,571,909.26. That total accumulated from the years of 2001-2002 and 2004-2006.
As soon as he wrapped his head around that number, the state of Georgia filed a tax lien against the Rush Hour actor for $592,594.82. This tax lien stems from Tucker not paying taxes in 2007. The combined total of Chris Tucker’s tax liens comes out to about $12,164,504.08.
It’s a good thing Chris Tucker started doing movies again because if he doesn’t pay up soon, his new mansion will be an 8×10 jail cell. How many times do celebrities have to mess with the government until they realize the government doesn’t play about their money?
Chris Tucker has dug himself into even a deeper hole. He owes Uncle Sam $12 milli in back taxes:
Tucker was already delinquent on paying fedreal taxes to the tune of $11,571,909.26. That total accumulated from the years of 2001-2002 and 2004-2006.
As soon as he wrapped his head around that number, the state of Georgia filed a tax lien against the Rush Hour actor for $592,594.82. This tax lien stems from Tucker not paying taxes in 2007. The combined total of Chris Tucker’s tax liens comes out to about $12,164,504.08.
It’s a good thing Chris Tucker started doing movies again because if he doesn’t pay up soon, his new mansion will be an 8×10 jail cell. How many times do celebrities have to mess with the government until they realize the government doesn’t play about their money?
35-Year-Old Sex Offender Commits Suicide After Kidnapping And Murking 19-Year-Old Ex-Girlfriend And Her Baby
This is so sad.
The bodies of a 19-year-old Cleveland woman, her former boyfriend and her year-old daughter were found in a small garage behind a vacant tavern early today.
The gruesome discovery was made about 12 hours after police issued an Amber Alert at 2:30 p.m. Saturday seeking the public’s help to find 19-year-old Latasha Jackson and Chaniya Wynn.
They were fatally shot, then their abductor, 35-year-old Thomas Lorde, of East 65th Street, shot himself in the head in the garage on East 71st Street at Union Avenue, Sgt. Sammy Morris said.
According to the police report, Jackson, pushing her daughter in a stroller, was walking south on East 72nd Street with her 14-year-old brother about 11:45 a.m. Saturday. They had just left a convenience store on Union, when Lorde walked up and pulled out a handgun. He waved it at the boy, told him to “get to walking” and took control of the stroller.
The boy ran to his Salem Avenue home and told their mother what had happened and she called police. Officers searched the area but didn’t find anything until about 2:50 a.m. today, when they were checking vacant buildings and found the bodies in the small two-car garage behind the closed Rendezvous Club on Union Avenue at East 71st Street.
About eight hours later, someone sprayed a message on the garage door: “Rest in Peace Latasha & Chaniya. We love u. 2012.”
A neighborhood resident walked up to the garage Sunday and said, “Lord have mercy. What’s this world coming to?”
A candlelight vigil will be held there at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, community activist Khalid Samad said.
Chaniya’s father, a 28-year-old East Cleveland man, told police that Lorde had threatened to kill the child and kidnap Jackson. He and Jackson’s mother did not return a reporter’s calls.
Officers found a 9 mm bullet in Lorde’s car.
Police said Latasha had been trying to end her two-month relationship with Lorde, who was a registered sexual offender in New York. He was convicted in 1996 of raping a 14-year-old girl at knifepoint.
How and why does a violent predator like this man ever get released from jail??? He had no business being on the streets. R.I.P. Chaniya and Latasha
Pump… Pump-Pump It Up!: $5.00 Gas Prices In Cali Have People Held Up!
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Saturday, February 18, 2012
FEMA Friends Will Be Gone "For Some Time
I have two friends who both work for FEMA here in Illinois. I periodically touch base with them to see what's going on in the state and in the nation. These guys have worked all over from 9/11 to Katrina to Joplin tornadoes this past year. Both of these guys I have know for about 9 years now and have always been on the up and up with me.
In past meetings they've always said that if they deemed it necessary, no matter what, they would care enough to tell their closest friends and family if something was coming down the pipe.
Well, yesterday I stopped by to chat for a bit while out and about. I seriously don't want to give too many clues to whom they may be. There are things I could mention that if the right person where to pick up on this, they would be found without a doubt. In any case, we were standing in the kitchen shooting the bull and I asked them " don't you guys get enough of each other at work that you hang out when your home too..?" They told me they were leaving tonight for "some time" down to the Illinois-Missouri-Tennessee area. I asked them what was going on and was told that if what happens that they think is going to happen, it's going to be a big quagmire. They said that they've been training for many months on the fault zone of New Madrid and that it could happen sooner than later.
I got this big lump in my throat. "So a big earthquake possibly?" He said if this thing "breaks loose" like they've predicted, it will bring massive casualties to big cities in the midwest including Chicago, St. Louis, Memphis, Louisville, etc. Natural gas pipelines will rupture causing uncontrolled fires along with several nuke plants taking massive damage as well. They said that the massive chaos could be enough to declare a Marshal Law situation. Many communications will be down so the panic of not knowing whats going on will cause widespread looting and disorder. The power grid will certainly be affected as well.
This is my first thread, so please folks, what do you think about this?? I trust these guys 110% because they're very good friends and they're family men. They really don't even like the government that they work for.
I left there very frightened and tense. I have no reason to believe ever that they would make this up. They're straight up people, they just work for the wrong side.
Does anyone think there is any validity to the subject besides myself? Any threads lately backing what they're claiming??
Please, go easy on me, I'm not a fear mongerer, just a father and a husband who cares about his family and the people that surround me.
In past meetings they've always said that if they deemed it necessary, no matter what, they would care enough to tell their closest friends and family if something was coming down the pipe.
Well, yesterday I stopped by to chat for a bit while out and about. I seriously don't want to give too many clues to whom they may be. There are things I could mention that if the right person where to pick up on this, they would be found without a doubt. In any case, we were standing in the kitchen shooting the bull and I asked them " don't you guys get enough of each other at work that you hang out when your home too..?" They told me they were leaving tonight for "some time" down to the Illinois-Missouri-Tennessee area. I asked them what was going on and was told that if what happens that they think is going to happen, it's going to be a big quagmire. They said that they've been training for many months on the fault zone of New Madrid and that it could happen sooner than later.
I got this big lump in my throat. "So a big earthquake possibly?" He said if this thing "breaks loose" like they've predicted, it will bring massive casualties to big cities in the midwest including Chicago, St. Louis, Memphis, Louisville, etc. Natural gas pipelines will rupture causing uncontrolled fires along with several nuke plants taking massive damage as well. They said that the massive chaos could be enough to declare a Marshal Law situation. Many communications will be down so the panic of not knowing whats going on will cause widespread looting and disorder. The power grid will certainly be affected as well.
This is my first thread, so please folks, what do you think about this?? I trust these guys 110% because they're very good friends and they're family men. They really don't even like the government that they work for.
I left there very frightened and tense. I have no reason to believe ever that they would make this up. They're straight up people, they just work for the wrong side.
Does anyone think there is any validity to the subject besides myself? Any threads lately backing what they're claiming??
Please, go easy on me, I'm not a fear mongerer, just a father and a husband who cares about his family and the people that surround me.
Friday, February 17, 2012
BeBe and CeCe Winans Haven’t Been Completely Honest With You…
I first heard these shocking allegations from a high school friend who joined a gospel choir. While singing around North America with his choir he met BeBe Winans and guess what–My high school homey was disappointed. Know why? Because BeBe Winans made a pass at my heterosexual high school friend, who later told me that’s why he dropped out of his church choir.
I’ve know about CeCe and BeBe Winans sexuality for years, but apparently the public was not aware.
Here’s what a reliable source told me about CeCe Winans:
“CeCe had been messing around with Whitney Houston for at least 2 decades. CeCe is bi-sexual and so was Whitney. I respect Donnie McClurkin at least he admitted about his gay past.
CeCe has been with untold amounts of women. It’s not a secret to the people working close to them. CeCe is like Dionne Warwick, they both struggling with their sexuality.
The hypocrisy is that they profit off of churches that despise their very own lifestyles.”
Is there homosexuality happening in Gospel music? Of course there is, and next time you see Freddie Jackson, ask him.
babyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy nawwwwwwwwwwww
Industry insiders know all too well about Whitney Houston’s party habits – including her love for the same sex. Don’t believe me? Ask CeCe Winans.
During her heyday, Whitney Houston had many same sex flings – Kelly McGillis can confirm just that. Now, Whitney’s infidelity (behind Bobby Brown’s back) are slowly beginning to surface – especially her romantic relationship with longtime girlfriend, Robyn Crawford. Don’t believe me? Ask Cheryl Anne Norton.
With all that said, the answer looming in the minds of many people wondering why Houston’s funeral services will be private, lies right before them. Sources say Houston’s camp would not like the people who are attending the funeral to be judged by the press and public.
I think that they should all come out of the closet including Whitney Houston’s cousin Dionne Warwick. Don’t believe me.. Ask Regina Brown.
bru peter bru peter
Below is a communication between a longtime music industry professional the gay rights advocate Peter Tetchell. Peter has recently been making headlines regarding his claims that Whitney Houston spiraled away with drugs and alcohol to “numb the pain of never being able to be openly gay”.
I am publishing these letters because there is a lot of information contained within that will shed light where the public very seldom gets to see.
This was a private communication that was never meant to be made public…
Peter,
The issue was not whether Whitney was a lesbian or not. Trust, I knew the issues in Whitney’s life as I am an integral part of Atlanta’s music industry. I knew about Robyn prior to the tabloids exploiting the story. I also knew of Whitney’s drug use long before she met Bobby. The acceleration of drug usage cannot be attributed to Whitney’s hiding her gay relationship. That is what happens as you continuously use and abuse drugs.
Whitney enjoyed drugs before she was popular and as her popularity gained momentum so did her intake of illegal drugs. Whitney should never have drank alcohol after rehab or consumed barbiturates or opiates. Those are off limits to drug addicts. But that is what happens when you are the leader of the pack. Whitney has now gone off the cliff and her entourage no longer has a meal ticket and Bobbi Christina no longer has a mom.
Although I admire your courage, conviction and pride, I feel sir that you could have waited before divulging this information and theories to the public. No, homosexuality is not nasty or something to be ashamed of if that is your choice. However, I was raised to love a woman and that is not perverted either.
I wish you all the best in your future endeavors Peter. I pray that through our correspondence we will continue to fight for the rights of everyone. I still believe this Whitney/Robyn issue could be left untouched until the actual cause of death has been revealed. At this point, it seems you are seeking your own glory instead of mourning the loss of a talented and beloved artist.
REJOICE!!!!
Here is the respoce sent by Peter:
On Feb 15, 2012, at 10:14 AM, Peter Tatchell wrote:
Hi Abe,
Thanks for your email. I hear and appreciate your point of view. However….
Judging from your comments, you seem to think it is shameful for someone to be lesbian or bisexual. Otherwise, why would you object to me mentioning Whitney’s love for another woman? There is nothing bad about lesbian love. A same-sex relationship is not a dirty, sordid thing that should be kept hidden.
I told the truth. Telling the truth does not besmirch Whitney’s memory. It honours the most important, loving relationship in her life (which most other people seem keen to ignore or deny).
I met Whitney and her partner. I know the truth. I shocks me that people want to write out of her life the relationship that made Whitney truly happy.
I am not willing to be party to the cover up. Homophobia almost certainly contributed to Whitney’s demise and death. We need to acknowledge that, to spur society to reject this damaging prejudice. I don’t want to read about any more Whitney’s being pressured into marriages to deflect suspicions about their same-sex relationships. I don’t want to hear about any more Whitney’s being driven to drink and drugs because of their inability to accept and express their love for a person of the same-sex.
Whatever others say about me, I know my motives for speaking out are honourable and decent. I accept that you may disagree.
I hope this clarifies and reassures.
Best wishes, Peter
I am publishing these letters because there is a lot of information contained within that will shed light where the public very seldom gets to see.
This was a private communication that was never meant to be made public…
Peter,
The issue was not whether Whitney was a lesbian or not. Trust, I knew the issues in Whitney’s life as I am an integral part of Atlanta’s music industry. I knew about Robyn prior to the tabloids exploiting the story. I also knew of Whitney’s drug use long before she met Bobby. The acceleration of drug usage cannot be attributed to Whitney’s hiding her gay relationship. That is what happens as you continuously use and abuse drugs.
Whitney enjoyed drugs before she was popular and as her popularity gained momentum so did her intake of illegal drugs. Whitney should never have drank alcohol after rehab or consumed barbiturates or opiates. Those are off limits to drug addicts. But that is what happens when you are the leader of the pack. Whitney has now gone off the cliff and her entourage no longer has a meal ticket and Bobbi Christina no longer has a mom.
Although I admire your courage, conviction and pride, I feel sir that you could have waited before divulging this information and theories to the public. No, homosexuality is not nasty or something to be ashamed of if that is your choice. However, I was raised to love a woman and that is not perverted either.
I wish you all the best in your future endeavors Peter. I pray that through our correspondence we will continue to fight for the rights of everyone. I still believe this Whitney/Robyn issue could be left untouched until the actual cause of death has been revealed. At this point, it seems you are seeking your own glory instead of mourning the loss of a talented and beloved artist.
REJOICE!!!!
Here is the respoce sent by Peter:
On Feb 15, 2012, at 10:14 AM, Peter Tatchell wrote:
Hi Abe,
Thanks for your email. I hear and appreciate your point of view. However….
Judging from your comments, you seem to think it is shameful for someone to be lesbian or bisexual. Otherwise, why would you object to me mentioning Whitney’s love for another woman? There is nothing bad about lesbian love. A same-sex relationship is not a dirty, sordid thing that should be kept hidden.
I told the truth. Telling the truth does not besmirch Whitney’s memory. It honours the most important, loving relationship in her life (which most other people seem keen to ignore or deny).
I met Whitney and her partner. I know the truth. I shocks me that people want to write out of her life the relationship that made Whitney truly happy.
I am not willing to be party to the cover up. Homophobia almost certainly contributed to Whitney’s demise and death. We need to acknowledge that, to spur society to reject this damaging prejudice. I don’t want to read about any more Whitney’s being pressured into marriages to deflect suspicions about their same-sex relationships. I don’t want to hear about any more Whitney’s being driven to drink and drugs because of their inability to accept and express their love for a person of the same-sex.
Whatever others say about me, I know my motives for speaking out are honourable and decent. I accept that you may disagree.
I hope this clarifies and reassures.
Best wishes, Peter
Former Sex Worker Can’t Find New Job Since Being Fired From Teaching Gig After Writing About Slangin’ That Thang On Craigslist
There’s a reason some folks grow old on the pole… Cuz you can’t exactly climb off of it and start teaching kids without people being up in arms.
Melissa Petro has spent much of her young life writing about the plight of sex workers: The stigma and shame, their treatment as victims or villains. Now Petro has been trampled by the forces she was trying to fight. After writing about her own experience as a sex worker, Petro was forced to resign from her teaching post. With two master’s degrees, five years’ experience in nonprofit work and three years as a teacher, as well as a litany of published writings, Petro is skipping meals. No one will give her a job.
In a Salon feature, Petro details the catastrophic fallout from a Huffington Post op-ed she wrote back in the fall of 2010. She was criticizing Craigslist’s censorship of its “er*t*c services” section, and because she had made a point of battling the shame of sex work, she confessed that for a handful of months she had sold her own services on the site.
The media swarmed. She was the “H**ker Teacher” on a New York Post cover, and “a reason to end tenure.” She was a “disgrace,” and in the words of a blogger for women’s site, The Frisky, Petro was “disgusting” for her “media-savvy plan to get publicity for her upcoming memoir.”
Petro began stripping when she was 19, on her semester abroad in Mexico. From a working class home, and the first of her family to attend college, Petro had a string of grueling low-wage jobs. She entered the sex industry for the same reason as hundreds of thousands of American women: the money.
She says that she has never considered herself a victim, though. In her HuffPost column, Petro calls herself one of the “free thinking, entrepreneurial human beings with choices and responsibilities” who sold sex through Craigslist. Ultimately, she found her experiences “physically demanding, emotionally taxing and spiritually bankrupting,” and quit trading sex for money on her 27th birthday.
After receiving a Master of Fine Arts in creative nonfiction, she was selected for the highly competitive New York City Teaching Fellow program, which brings “high-quality, dedicated individuals” to struggling classrooms. Petro had been teaching art and creative writing at an elementary school in the Bronx for three years, when she became the H**ker Teacher.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg called for her removal from the classroom, and she was removed, immediately. Petro was soon formally charged with conduct unbecoming a professional. She was fired from her two after-school jobs, and the Department of Education threatened that if she didn’t agree to resign, it would contest her unemployment. Petro left the job that she says she loved.
Petro wishes her story could have raised issues like the legality of prostitution and the constitutionality of her speech. Instead, she describes herself as being treated as a monster, vanquished, now left to hand out resumes, and scrounge desperately for cash — the same bleak circumstances that lead so many women to sex work in the first place.
“I was being idealistic,” she writes about that HuffPost op-ed. “I was being provocative. I was naive. I picked a fight that I thought I could win — and I was wrong.”
SMH. Sounds like somebody tried to have her cake and eat it too. Sex work might go both ways but the same can’t be said for teachers who want to keep their jobs.
Melissa you might want to get crackin’ on that book, or go work as a consultant on “Secret Diary Of A Call Girl” or something, cuz you look like if you miss any more meals you might disappear
Melissa Petro has spent much of her young life writing about the plight of sex workers: The stigma and shame, their treatment as victims or villains. Now Petro has been trampled by the forces she was trying to fight. After writing about her own experience as a sex worker, Petro was forced to resign from her teaching post. With two master’s degrees, five years’ experience in nonprofit work and three years as a teacher, as well as a litany of published writings, Petro is skipping meals. No one will give her a job.
In a Salon feature, Petro details the catastrophic fallout from a Huffington Post op-ed she wrote back in the fall of 2010. She was criticizing Craigslist’s censorship of its “er*t*c services” section, and because she had made a point of battling the shame of sex work, she confessed that for a handful of months she had sold her own services on the site.
The media swarmed. She was the “H**ker Teacher” on a New York Post cover, and “a reason to end tenure.” She was a “disgrace,” and in the words of a blogger for women’s site, The Frisky, Petro was “disgusting” for her “media-savvy plan to get publicity for her upcoming memoir.”
Petro began stripping when she was 19, on her semester abroad in Mexico. From a working class home, and the first of her family to attend college, Petro had a string of grueling low-wage jobs. She entered the sex industry for the same reason as hundreds of thousands of American women: the money.
She says that she has never considered herself a victim, though. In her HuffPost column, Petro calls herself one of the “free thinking, entrepreneurial human beings with choices and responsibilities” who sold sex through Craigslist. Ultimately, she found her experiences “physically demanding, emotionally taxing and spiritually bankrupting,” and quit trading sex for money on her 27th birthday.
After receiving a Master of Fine Arts in creative nonfiction, she was selected for the highly competitive New York City Teaching Fellow program, which brings “high-quality, dedicated individuals” to struggling classrooms. Petro had been teaching art and creative writing at an elementary school in the Bronx for three years, when she became the H**ker Teacher.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg called for her removal from the classroom, and she was removed, immediately. Petro was soon formally charged with conduct unbecoming a professional. She was fired from her two after-school jobs, and the Department of Education threatened that if she didn’t agree to resign, it would contest her unemployment. Petro left the job that she says she loved.
Petro wishes her story could have raised issues like the legality of prostitution and the constitutionality of her speech. Instead, she describes herself as being treated as a monster, vanquished, now left to hand out resumes, and scrounge desperately for cash — the same bleak circumstances that lead so many women to sex work in the first place.
“I was being idealistic,” she writes about that HuffPost op-ed. “I was being provocative. I was naive. I picked a fight that I thought I could win — and I was wrong.”
SMH. Sounds like somebody tried to have her cake and eat it too. Sex work might go both ways but the same can’t be said for teachers who want to keep their jobs.
Melissa you might want to get crackin’ on that book, or go work as a consultant on “Secret Diary Of A Call Girl” or something, cuz you look like if you miss any more meals you might disappear
Philly Man Shoots And Kills Neighbor In Argument Over Dog Poo
TYRIRK HARRIS and his girlfriend were well-known on their bustling Tacony block as lousy neighbors.
They hogged parking spaces. They took their time in silencing their frequently tripped car alarms. They let their two dogs run outside unleashed, biting and barking at passers-by and leaving piles of poo polka-dotting neighbors’ yards.
The couple’s hot temper was even more notorious.
Harris, 27, ended an argument over a snowy parking space last winter by placing his hand on his holstered gun, neighbors said. His girlfriend once posted a sign on her car, parked curbside, warning passers-by that she would shoot anyone who messed with it, neighbors said.
But Franklin Manuel Santana was new to the block. He, his wife and their newborn daughter moved from Miami to their first-floor apartment on Torresdale Avenue near Magee just a month ago.
So when Santana knocked on Harris’ door late Tuesday afternoon to talk about the poo problem, he went unarmed – and unsuspecting.
Frances Fogarty, walking to the ShopRite to get T-bone steaks for Valentine’s Day dinner, witnessed what happened next.
“Frank was calm, polite,” Fogarty, 45, said yesterday. “He said: ‘I’m just asking you, please keep your dog off my lawn. If I have to come back here, there’s gonna be a problem.’
“Tyrirk said, ‘Oh, is that a threat?’ And then Tyrirk just pulled out the gun and shot him in the face. Then he stood over him and let out all the rest of the rounds, maybe nine or 10 more.”
Fogarty’s boyfriend had tackled her to the sidewalk out of the potential path of any stray bullets. But Fogarty couldn’t keep her eyes off the gunman. As Santana sagged lifeless, Harris stalked around the porch for a few seconds.
“He looked around to see if anybody saw him, and then he went back upstairs. That’s what I call cold,” Fogarty said. Paramedics declared Santana, who would have turned 48 on Saturday, dead at 4:25 p.m. Harris, charged with murder and gun offenses, faces a preliminary hearing Feb. 29.
In a city with countless tales of murder of questionable motive, Santana’s slaying stunned even lifelong residents and seasoned cops.
“He lost his life over taking pride in his lawn. A little girl is going to grow up without her daddy over this,” said neighbor Jessica Hill, who sat with Santana’s wife, Raquel, yesterday as she waited for her husband’s relatives to arrive from his native Yonkers, N.Y.
Raquel sobbed as she tried to make sense of something so senseless.
“You got to be careful. You can’t just speak to anybody anymore,” Raquel said, as 6-week-old Roxxanne slept in a carseat in the family’s cozy living room. “[Santana] had no weapons on him. [Harris] had no reason to shoot eight times.” But Harris’ history suggests he had a temper that was tough to tame.
Harris had a concealed-carry permit, but it was revoked last January, police said, declining to specify the reason.
His dogs – a Chihuahua and a German shepherd – were a constant bother to neighbors.
“They used to just have the Chihuahua,” said Jovetta Streets, who lives in the first-floor apartment under Harris. “But then they got another dog earlier this year, so then it was double-poop on everyone’s lawns.”
Yesterday, most lawns on either side of Harris’ apartment were studded with dog deposits.
Raquel said that she and her husband moved to Philadelphia “for a better life.” Santana worked in construction remodeling homes and had hoped to start a business with a friend here. That didn’t work out, but the couple decided to stay, and he was lining up other remodeling jobs, she said.
When Raquel heard the gun blasts Tuesday, she ran outside and spotted her husband collapsed near Harris’ porch. She sprinted to help but realized within seconds that his wounds were fatal. She called 9-1-1 on the cellphone she fished from her dead husband’s pocket.
When officers arrived and led Harris from his apartment in handcuffs, Raquel called out to him, as she crouched beside her husband’s body.
” ‘I can’t believe you did this! I can’t believe you did this to me and my family!’ ” she said she told him. “He just looked at me and didn’t say anything at all.”
We hope they put that trigger happy son of a on an express train to hell. SMH. That precious baby should not have to grow up without a father.
We should be able to knock on our neighbors doors without dying.
by boss-
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Discerning Authentic Ministry
EX Times editor: Tetaun Moffett
I know this is unpopular and folks are afraid to say it. Anytime a celebrity is in your sphere of influence and you can’t impact their life with the Gospel?! Listen, the same Gospel that saved you from drugs, homosexuality, sin, destruction and death. They (celebrities) flow through your circuit of ministry, your “connected,” and their life ends in tragedy and you didn’t make a difference in their life. but a hug, name in lights, paid performances and accolades! Then I question your agenda. They are on records with you. They attend your services and give large offerings and all you have to show for it is a photo op, a movie cameo and a reserved seat? God forbid! You preach and teach to millions and you can’t influence one? Something is wrong with the filter! Impact the world people! It’s not by just what you do, but how you live. Can you image how many lives could have been saved if saints who had access would have stayed on the mission? It’s mandatory to stay awake! Souls are at risk from the least to the famous! (Matthew 28:18-20) God’s heart hurts for souls that are lost, is yours?
I know this is unpopular and folks are afraid to say it. Anytime a celebrity is in your sphere of influence and you can’t impact their life with the Gospel?! Listen, the same Gospel that saved you from drugs, homosexuality, sin, destruction and death. They (celebrities) flow through your circuit of ministry, your “connected,” and their life ends in tragedy and you didn’t make a difference in their life. but a hug, name in lights, paid performances and accolades! Then I question your agenda. They are on records with you. They attend your services and give large offerings and all you have to show for it is a photo op, a movie cameo and a reserved seat? God forbid! You preach and teach to millions and you can’t influence one? Something is wrong with the filter! Impact the world people! It’s not by just what you do, but how you live. Can you image how many lives could have been saved if saints who had access would have stayed on the mission? It’s mandatory to stay awake! Souls are at risk from the least to the famous! (Matthew 28:18-20) God’s heart hurts for souls that are lost, is yours?
Female Teacher, 25, Had Sex With Student, 17, Multiple Times After Becoming Facebook Friends
Rachel Farrell, 25, is alleged to have carried out an extended affair with an 11th grade pupil she was teaching reading to at Bangor Area High School in Pennsylvania.
She has since resigned and has now been charged with three counts of corrupting a minor.
The case is the latest to concern a female teacher who has been jailed for, or accused of, having sex with a student.
Police believe Farrell also had sexual relationships with up to three other 17-year-old students, Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli said yesterday.
She faces further charges should these teenagers decide to testify against her.
Mr Morganelli said: ‘This particular case was the case we could bring. This may be it.
‘It may be that we just don’t bring other cases for reasons of lack of cooperation from the alleged victims.
‘Farrell forfeited her career. [Sleeping with an underage student] is just not right, it’s wrong and it constitutes a crime under our crimes code.’
Farrell taught at Bangor Area High School under her maiden name, Rachel Warner, but has been on administrative leave since December when the allegations first emerged.
Mr Morganelli said she admitted to both police and her employers that she had slept with two 17-year-old students.
She married in June 2010 and is accused of conducting an affair with the student between August of that year and January 2011.
Police said the teenager, now 18, admitted having sex with Farrell at ‘numerous times at many different locations’ such as secluded parking spots.
Their relationship is said to have begun after the pair began talking on Facebook and through text messages.
Bangor Area High School superintendent Patricia Mulroy said the district confronted Farrell as soon it found out about the accusations against her and that the matter was turned over to county prosecutors.
Farrell, of Palmer Township, is free on $5,000 bail. She has cooperated with police, but the investigation is ongoing, Mr Morganelli said.
The age of consent in Pennsylvania is 18 for the corruption of minors.
Bangor Area High School is no stranger to controversy. A biology teacher fatally overdosed on heroin in 2009, while a male teacher’s aide was jailed after admitting drug possession charges and of supplying drugs to students, one of whom went on to kill himself.
In 2010, a nude photo of a female teacher’s aide was circulated on students’ mobile phones.
Female teachers having sex with their students has dominated the headlines in recent weeks.
Just yesterday, a mother-of-two was found guilty of having sex with a 15-year-old boy she taught tap dancing. Kimberly Sauto, 34, from North Ridgeville, Ohio, had denied having sex with the teenager in the back of her car in August 2011.
On Monday, it emerged that a high school teacher has been accused of having ‘intimate sexual relationships’ with two of her students, kissing a third on the lips and exchanging inappropriate texts and emails with a third. Joanne Léger-Legault, from Ottawa, Canada, was stripped of her teaching permit and fired by the city’s public school board over the allegations.
During last week alone, a Reno teacher who had sex with a student and oral sex with six others was jailed; a teacher in New York was sacked after she allegedly performed sexual acts with two pupils and gave them drugs and alcohol; Lousiana teacher was charged with having sex with one of her former pupils and sending him sexually explicit text messages; and an Arizona band teacher was sentenced to 15 years in prison for having a sexual relationship with a 13-year-old student.
Father Comes Home To Find His Wife Tried To Drown His Two Daughters, 5 And 1, In BATHTUB
A one-year-old girl died and her five-year-old sister remains in critical condition after their mother allegedly tried to drown them in a baby bath in their Los Angeles home.
Police suspect that Lorna Valle, the mother of the two girls, ‘snapped’ when she decided to try to drown her daughters Marian, 5, and Lindsay, 1.
Valle was stopped by her husband who returned to their south Los Angeles home from the grocery store around 7.30am Wednesday morning after going to pick up juice and milk for his daughters.
When the father arrived in the house, neighbours heard screams of ‘My babies! My babies!’ and police were called.
Both girls were not breathing and unconscious when police arrived and found them in the bathroom of the family’s converted garage. They were taken to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, and Marian remains there in extremely critical condition.
Witnesses said that ‘the little one’ was ‘in really bad shape’ and almost purple when police arrived.
The mother was arrested Wednesday evening on suspicion of murder and attempted murder. She remains in custody on $1.5million bail.
‘We believe she is responsible for what happened to these two children,’ said Los Angeles police commander Andy Smith.
The family emigrated from Guatamala to California about 10 years ago, and neighbours said that they were hard working and friendly.
Now questions are being raised about Lorna Valle’s mental state, and some say that she had appeared depressed in recent weeks.
‘A neighbour said she told her that if anything happens to her, she would leave the girls to the father or to them,’ said Dina Ceballos.
‘She was asking for psychological help and she didn’t receive it. It’s a sad story. It’s a sad ending. She needs help.
Ms Ceballos was nearby at the time of the incident and heard the father scream ‘If I didn’t get out, my girls would still be alive! Why didn’t she kill herself instead of trying to kill my girls?’
Others also suspected mental issues, like neighbour Jennifer Houston who told The Los Angeles Times that the mother seemed ‘like she was disturbed’.
The name of the father has not been released, by another neighbour had good things to say about him.
‘He’s quiet. He’s the one who seems more adept,’ said Judy McCann.
‘He’s the one who had all his marbles.
‘She stays in the house. She never comes out.’
Because the police department found the scene so traumatic, the first responders from the police and fire departments are being offered counselling services to help them cope with what they saw.
‘This is a tragic and horrific incident. Something no one likes to see,’ said deputy police chief Pat Gannon.
Bouncer Raped And Murdered PREGNANT 17-Year-Old Girl
Carl Whant, 27, told a jury his cousin Ryan Mayes — Nikitta’s boyfriend — invited him into their bedroom. He said: “He was having sex with Nikitta. They were naked.”
“Ryan asked if I wanted to have a go. I took all my clothes off and we had sex. Ryan left the room. Nikitta seemed willing.”
Whant claimed it was not the first time he had sex with a girlfriend of Ryan, 17. He said: “We did everything together.”
Eight-months-pregnant Nikitta, 19, was stabbed to death, her unborn baby girl killed and her flat in Newport, South Wales, torched. Whant’s DNA was found on her body.
He denies murder, child destruction, rape and arson. The trial continues at Newport Crown Court.
“Ryan asked if I wanted to have a go. I took all my clothes off and we had sex. Ryan left the room. Nikitta seemed willing.”
Whant claimed it was not the first time he had sex with a girlfriend of Ryan, 17. He said: “We did everything together.”
Eight-months-pregnant Nikitta, 19, was stabbed to death, her unborn baby girl killed and her flat in Newport, South Wales, torched. Whant’s DNA was found on her body.
He denies murder, child destruction, rape and arson. The trial continues at Newport Crown Court.
Famous American Interior Designer Was STABBED TO DEATH In Bangkok Luxury Hotel Room
Wendy Albano, from Florida, who is known to have decorated Derek Jeter’s $20 million Manhattan home, was found stabbed to death by a maid on Monday morning.
The U.S. Embassy in Thailand broke the news to Ms Albano’s family earlier this week.
Police believe the 52-year-old was murdered by her Indian boyfriend, who she was seen checking into the hotel with on February 9.
According to News 13, the pair met through business and were working on a fashion import project together.
But they are also believed to have been dating each other since meeting through work.
He is 26-years-old.
The socialite checked into the Fraser Suites Sukhumvit on February 9 and was last seen on the hotel’s surveillance camera on Sunday evening with the Indian man.
Police say he has since fled the country and is still at large.
Detectives said surveillance video caught the suspect leaving Albano’s room with luggage an hour after he entered.
Police believe the couple got into an argument and he killed her.
No one else was captured entering or leaving her room until the maid discovered the body the next morning.
She was choked and stabbed multiple times in the chest. Immigration said he left the country three hours after he was captured leaving her hotel room.
Her friends have said she may have had the intention of breaking up with the Indian man.
Ms Albano’s family said she first met him when she did some business with him in India.
One of the designer’s daughter told the Tampa Bay Times: ‘I loved my mother dearly. Obviously, we’re just trying to work through this the best we can.’
Twice married and divorced, Ms Albano leaves behind two daughters Jenny and Lauren. Her interior design business Wendy Albano Interiors was used by many high-profile celebrities.
Friends say Albano was ‘talented and had an ‘artistic flair’. She had been in the interior design business for 20 years.
Close friend Maxine Stull told the Tampa Bay Times she was considering moving in with her friend. she has known her since college.
She said the last time they spoke, it was on the phone shortly before she left for Thailand.
Ms Stull recalls how happy her friend was and chatting about the man she was dating.
‘She was always so positive,’ she said. ‘What happened, that’s the kind of thing that didn’t happen in her world.’
Another friend Denise Brown told Fox: ‘She was the type of person that would give her love to anybody. She was a loving mother and a fantastic soul.’
well u dont say in case u missed it this is him thats saying that about sis whitney
According to gay activist Peter Tatchell, Whitney Houston was a secret lesbian and binged on the drugs and alcohol that killed her because she was torn over living a lie.
Rumours have been circulating for 30 years that the singer had had a secret relationship with her ex-assistant, but her friends have now publicly spoken about her sexuality following her death.
Gay rights activist Peter Tatchell even said her marriage to Bobby Brown was a smokescreen.
‘It’s important to tell the truth about this aspect of her life,’ he told the Daily Star.
Whitney was happiest and at her peak in the 1980s when she was with her female partner.
‘They were so loved up and joyful together. Perhaps her inability to accept and express her same-sex love contributed to her substance abuse and decline.’
He added: ‘She was pressured into the Bobby Brown marriage. It was a disaster. Her life started going downhill soon afterwards.’
The British-based campaigner did not name the woman but other sources have said it was Robyn Crawford.
The pair had know each other since Whitney was 16 and Robyn dropped out of Monmouth College to work for the singer.
Just hours after her death, she wrote a Valentine’s Day-themed tribute to Whitney hours after she died, which was published in a U.S. magazine.
It said: ‘I first met Whitney when I was 16 and knew right away she was special.
‘Whitney was modelling and had peachy-coloured skin and didn’t look like anyone I’d ever met in New Jersey.
‘I can’t believe that I’m never going to hug her or hear her laughter again.’
The claims have also been backed up by Whitney’s sister-in-law and her ex-bodyguard Kevin Ammons.
Even her former husband Bobby has hinted their marriage was a cover-up for her desire for women.
Bobby’s sister Tina Brown said: ‘I saw her with a woman a couple of times.’
And Bobby, 43, wrote in his biography that the marriage was was ‘doomed from the very beginning. I think we got married for all the wrong reasons. Now, I realize Whitney had a different agenda than I did when we got married.
‘I believe her agenda was to clean up her image, while mine was to be loved and have children. The media was accusing her of having a bisexual relationship with her assistant, Robin [sic] Crawford. Since she was the American Sweetheart and all, that didn’t go too well with her image.
‘In Whitney’s situation, the only solution was to get married and have kids. That would kill all speculation, whether it was true or not.’
Her bodyguard wrote in his book about the star that Robyn slapped Whitney when she saw her flirting with men and was furious when she vowed to marry Brown.
And he claimed Whitney paid off ex-publicist Regina Brown to keep quiet about her affair with Robyn.
Whitney spoke out about the rumours in 2000, saying: ‘I am a mother, not a lesbian. I am not gay.’
mm bring ur praise or bring ur seduction mm i dont know
comments
I pray for the body of Christ as a whole, but it still does not take away from the many artists, pastors and teachers who, for the sake of FAME and FORTUNE compromise the message of Christ. Yes, I want you, me, these women and anyone else to get OURSELVES right with the Lord. The times are too critical to try to mimic this dying world.
well he sure has done hes part thats for sure though
When will the drama end?
According to Radaronline reports:
Music mogul Clive Davis will not be paying for Whitney Houston’s funeral which will take place in Newark, New Jersey on Saturday, RadarOnline.com is exclusively reporting.
The news comes as a surprise, as Davis was paying the majority of Houston’s bills before the pop singer tragically died at age 48 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel last Saturday.
Davis has faced scrutiny from Houston’s family and Chaka Khan, amongst others, for proceeding with the pre-Grammy party at the hotel last Saturday, while Houston’s body was still in the bathroom upstairs in her room.
Houston passed away on Saturday afternoon after she was found unconscious and unresponsive in her bathtub at the iconic hotel. The award winning singer was declared dead by paramedics at 3:55 p.m. PST.
“Yes, Clive was paying the majority of Whitney’s bills before she died. He was even paying for her room at the Beverly Hilton Hotel; she was out of money. She didn’t have anything left,” a source close to the situation tells RadarOnline.com. “Clive won’t be paying for any part of Whitney’s funeral though. Whitney’s family will be responsible for all the costs.”
“Whitney’s fortune is gone,” a source said at the time. “Music industry heavy hitters are supporting her and her label is fronting her cash against her next album, but no one knows when that will be released. She might be homeless if not for people saving her. She is broke as a joke. She called someone to ask for $100.”
The funeral for Houston will be a private invitation only event, and Clive Davis will be there, along with Houston’s ex-husband Bobby Brown.
Whitney and Clive always had a close relationship and he played a huge role in her life. Do you think Clive should be helping with the funeral costs or he’s already done enough?
According to Radaronline reports:
Music mogul Clive Davis will not be paying for Whitney Houston’s funeral which will take place in Newark, New Jersey on Saturday, RadarOnline.com is exclusively reporting.
The news comes as a surprise, as Davis was paying the majority of Houston’s bills before the pop singer tragically died at age 48 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel last Saturday.
Davis has faced scrutiny from Houston’s family and Chaka Khan, amongst others, for proceeding with the pre-Grammy party at the hotel last Saturday, while Houston’s body was still in the bathroom upstairs in her room.
Houston passed away on Saturday afternoon after she was found unconscious and unresponsive in her bathtub at the iconic hotel. The award winning singer was declared dead by paramedics at 3:55 p.m. PST.
“Yes, Clive was paying the majority of Whitney’s bills before she died. He was even paying for her room at the Beverly Hilton Hotel; she was out of money. She didn’t have anything left,” a source close to the situation tells RadarOnline.com. “Clive won’t be paying for any part of Whitney’s funeral though. Whitney’s family will be responsible for all the costs.”
“Whitney’s fortune is gone,” a source said at the time. “Music industry heavy hitters are supporting her and her label is fronting her cash against her next album, but no one knows when that will be released. She might be homeless if not for people saving her. She is broke as a joke. She called someone to ask for $100.”
The funeral for Houston will be a private invitation only event, and Clive Davis will be there, along with Houston’s ex-husband Bobby Brown.
Whitney and Clive always had a close relationship and he played a huge role in her life. Do you think Clive should be helping with the funeral costs or he’s already done enough?
Whitney Houston’s Family To Bobby Brown: “Get Yo’ Own Money, These Racks Are Bobbi Kristina’s!!”
by tmz
And the ugliness continues…
According to TMZ reports:
Bobby Brown is about to make a money grab by leeching onto his daughter, the sole heir to Whitney Houston’s fortune — at least that’s what Whitney’s mom and other family members believe.
Family sources tell TMZ … Cissy Houston is aggressively trying to block Bobby from getting close to 18-year-old Bobbi Kristina, fearing it’s just a ploy to line his pockets.
The family is convinced … Bobby is broke, and he’s making a play for his daughter’s affection to latch on to what could be an estate worth around $20 million, and that figure could double by the end of this year.
As TMZ first reported … Bobby tried to visit his daughter earlier this week, but the family shut him down.
We’re told friends of the Houston family have already contacted Bobby and warned him he is persona non grata at Whitney’s funeral and in Bobbi Kristina’s life.
There’s a lot of bad blood between Whitney’s family and Bobby Brown, because they believe he was the driving negative force in her life that led her down the substance abuse path. They also believe he’s largely responsible for Bobbi Kristina’s drug and alcohol struggles.
As for Bobby Brown … people in his camp tell TMZ, he’s well aware of the family’s animosity toward him and wants to bury the hatchet for the sake of his daughter.
We were always under the impression that Bobby loved his daughter very much, is the family out of pocket trying to keep him away or do you think they have a valid point?
And the ugliness continues…
According to TMZ reports:
Bobby Brown is about to make a money grab by leeching onto his daughter, the sole heir to Whitney Houston’s fortune — at least that’s what Whitney’s mom and other family members believe.
Family sources tell TMZ … Cissy Houston is aggressively trying to block Bobby from getting close to 18-year-old Bobbi Kristina, fearing it’s just a ploy to line his pockets.
The family is convinced … Bobby is broke, and he’s making a play for his daughter’s affection to latch on to what could be an estate worth around $20 million, and that figure could double by the end of this year.
As TMZ first reported … Bobby tried to visit his daughter earlier this week, but the family shut him down.
We’re told friends of the Houston family have already contacted Bobby and warned him he is persona non grata at Whitney’s funeral and in Bobbi Kristina’s life.
There’s a lot of bad blood between Whitney’s family and Bobby Brown, because they believe he was the driving negative force in her life that led her down the substance abuse path. They also believe he’s largely responsible for Bobbi Kristina’s drug and alcohol struggles.
As for Bobby Brown … people in his camp tell TMZ, he’s well aware of the family’s animosity toward him and wants to bury the hatchet for the sake of his daughter.
We were always under the impression that Bobby loved his daughter very much, is the family out of pocket trying to keep him away or do you think they have a valid point?
Va. Beach bishop dies in pulpit after fiery sermon
Los Angeles, CA — The fiery preacher with a booming voice delivered a final message from the pulpit Sunday morning.
“You shall live and not die,” Bishop Barnett K. Thoroughgood shouted in his signature baritone, exhorting his congregation of more than 2,000 members to squeeze as much as they can from their lives before going to meet their maker.
Thoroughgood, 62, wiped sweat from his forehead as he finished the sermon at New Jerusalem Church of God in Christ, sat down on stage, and collapsed in his seat.
Teary-eyed church members embraced and prayed together as paramedics were called to the church on Bishop Thoroughgood Avenue, but they couldn’t revive him, according to members who were present.
“He died doing what he loved,” church member Mable Beckett said Monday, still in shock a day after watching her pastor of 30-plus years take his final breath. “He lived the life he was called to, right up until the end.”
Word of the preacher’s dramatic end spread quickly through the Seatack community where Thoroughgood began his public ministry some 42 years earlier.
News of his passing reached people across the world by Sunday evening. Rapper Timothy Mosley, better known as Timbaland – a longtime church member
whose mother was at the service – wrote to his 315,000 Twitter followers: “rest in peace to my pastor, a true angel, Bishop Barnett K Thoroughgood.”
Thousands of people, including musician Justin Bieber, reposted the message, while others linked to a blog entry that detailed the circumstances of Thoroughgood’s death. Recording artists Pharrell Williams, a Virginia Beach native, and Missy Elliott, who grew up in Portsmouth, also called Throroughgood their pastor and contributed to the Pentecostal church he led.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)