Archive for June, 2009

By: Chris Chase
Without Adam Vinateri, the New England Patriots wouldn’t have won three Super Bowl titles. Without Tom Brady(notes), Adam Vinatieri(notes) wouldn’t have been in a position to give the Patriots those titles. Without Bill Belichick, Tom Brady’s quarterbacking wouldn’t have set-up Adam Vinateri to hit the kicks to win those titles. And without Robert Kraft, Bill Belichick wouldn’t have been in New England to help both Brady and Vinateiri win those titles. And without Michael Jackson (yes, that Michael Jackson), Bob Kraft wouldn’t have bought the New England Patriots and the dynasty that was may never have been.

As Forbes described in a 2005 article, Michael Jackon’s 1984 Victory tour was directly responsible for Kraft purchasing Foxboro Stadium in 1988, a transaction that eventually led to him being able to buy the team in 1994.

In 1988 Kraft and a partner put up $25 million to buy the Foxboro stadium from the Sullivan family, besting a $16 million offer from the Pats’ owner, Kiam. (Kraft would buy out his 50-50 partner for a small premium five years later.) [Former Patriots owner, and current Foxboro Stadium owner] Charles Sullivan had used the stadium as collateral to fund [Michael Jackson's] Victory Tour back in 1984. Overleveraged, Sullivan went bankrupt and was forced to sell the arena. To this day Kraft’s collection of photos and mementos includes a poster from the ill-fated tour. Read the rest of this entry »

The death of Michael Jackson Thursday sent the internet a surge of traffic that caused crashes and slowdowns in what one website is calling a major “wake-up call” for internet infrastructure.

Here is a roundup of links related to the slowdown:

DataCenterKnowledge: Chart shows that “web creaks as Jackson fans mourn” — web site response time grows, availability down

TechCrunch: TMZ, which broke the story, crashed on its scoop boom; Perez Hilton also reportedly down

TMZ: “major web sites bombed by a tidal wave of traffic”

TechCrunch: Twitter disables search to accommodate surge

CNet: Google confirms “difficulty,” ABC News drops to 11% availability

Merc: Facebook: status updates surged

Source

This is very sad day for me , my niece, and I am sure for billions of people on the planet. A few hours ago I was taking a nap and my niece calls me hysterically crying. I thought someone in my family passed, I kept telling her to calm down and tell me what was wrong and she blurted out , “It’s Michael, Michael Jackson is dead!!!” . My niece isn’t someone who cries easily she is 30 years old (2 years younger than me ) and normally has emotions in check, but this was a huge blow. As you can imagine, this is gonna be very traumatic for the BILLIONS of fans of this legendary man. For all those haters who made his life hell, I am sure your happy right now. For the rest of us who loved and admired him, just play his music, watch is videos, and keep him in your hearts every time you dance….

Story & Photos From MSNBC.com

Michael Jackson has died at age 50 after being rushed to UCLA Medical Center, NBC News has confirmed.

Los Angeles Fire Department Capt. Steve Ruda told the L.A. Times that Jackson was not breathing when paramedics arrived at his home and CPR was performed.

TMZ.com reported that he may have suffered cardiac arrest.

Jackson had been due to start a series of comeback concerts in London on July 13 running until March 2010. The singer, whose hits included “Thriller” and “Billie Jean,” had been rehearsing in the Los Angeles area for the past two months.

The shows for the 50 London concerts sold out within minutes of going on sale in March.

His lifetime record sales tally is believed to be around 750 million, which, added to the 13 Grammy Awards he received, makes him one of the most successful entertainers of all time.

He lived as a virtual recluse since his acquittal in 2005 on charges of child molestation.

There were concerns about Jackson’s health in recent years but the promoters of the London shows, AEG Live, said in March that Jackson had passed a 4-1/2 hour physical examination with independent doctors.

A life in music

Jackson was born on August 29, 1958, in Gary, Indiana, the seventh of nine children. Five Jackson boys — Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon and Michael — first performed together at a talent show when Michael was 6.

 

Singing with the kids

  
 
They walked off with first prize and went on to become a best-selling band, The Jackson Five, and then The Jackson 5.

Jackson made his first solo album in 1972, and released “Thriller” in 1982, which became a smash hit that yielded seven top-10 singles. The album sold 21 million copies in the United States and at least 27 million worldwide.

The next year, he unveiled his signature “moonwalk” dance move while performing “Billie Jean” during an NBC special.

In 1994, Jackson married Elvis Presley’s only child, Lisa Marie, but the marriage ended in divorce in 1996. Jackson married Debbie Rowe the same year and had two children, before splitting in 1999. The couple never lived together.

Jackson has three children named Prince Michael I, Paris Michael and Prince Michael II, known for his brief public appearance when his father held him over the railing of a hotel balcony, causing widespread criticism.

Here are some videos..R.I.P.

Jackson 5 Home Videos On SOul Train

Michael Jackson Master Dancer

Who Is It

Who Is It – Michael Jackson

Rock with you

Rock With You – Michael Jackson

One of my faves, “Stranger In Moscow”

Stranger In Moscow – Michael Jackson

Like I always say..Only in New York….

Scary NY welcome for French tourists: police chase

Ester-Ethy Mamane, left, and her mother Claudie Mamane speak to reporters during a during a news conference Wednesday, June 24, 2009 in New York. The French tourists got a harrowing start to their New York visit: a wild police chase.

NEW YORK – Five French tourists got a harrowing start to their New York visit: a wild police chase.

As they looked for a ride at the Air France terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Tuesday morning, the visitors were lured to a van that was not licensed to provide taxi service, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey spokesman John Kelly said.

Plainclothes police recognized the man who enticed the tourists, Ian McFarland, as a repeat offender previously arrested for corralling passengers into unlicensed cars. A Port Authority officer reached inside the van to try and grab the keys, but the driver, Khaalif Preacher, sped off with the tourists inside, knocking the officer to the ground, Kelly said.

Port Authority police sped after the van, which snaked through residential streets and traveled about seven miles through two boroughs before it crashed through a gate at a U.S. Postal Service facility in the East New York section of Brooklyn.

The tourists said they screamed and prayed during the chase.

“I was scared,” Paris resident Esther-Ethy Mamane, 26, said Wednesday at a news conference. Mamane and her mother, Claudie, traveled to New York to attend a religious seminar. She said she tried to keep the other passengers inside the van calm during the chaos.

Preacher and McFarland jumped out while the van was still moving. Mamane said there was smoke and the rear doors wouldn’t open from the inside, so she jumped out the front as the van rolled and ran around to open the doors. Mamane’s mother tried to jump from the van, fell and the vehicle rolled over her arm. She was treated at a hospital and released. Mamane and the other passengers, a woman and her parents, were not injured.

Meanwhile, police chased the two suspects on foot and arrested them. They were awaiting arraignment Wednesday on charges of second-degree assault, second-degree assault on an officer, reckless endangerment, resisting arrest and unlawful solicitation of ground transportation services, the Queens district attorney’s office said. It wasn’t clear whether they had attorneys.

Claudie and Esther-Ethy Mamane were given a bag full of New York City goodies, including tickets to the Broadway show “Chicago,” passes to the Museum of Modern Art and transit fare cards at a news conference Wednesday. The other tourists decided not to attend.

The women, who spoke little English, said they were grateful to the Port Authority officers who never let the van out of their sight, and they are looking forward to a good trip in New York.

“We are happy to be here; we love New York and New Yorkers,” Claudie Mamane said through a French translator. “We never lost faith. And at any time we never thought it would end badly for us.”

Eva Longoria and Kerry Washington in a L'Oreal advertisement

L’Oréal, the French cosmetics giant, whose advertising campaigns proclaim “because you’re worth it”, was found guilty of racial discrimination for considering black, Arab and Asian women unworthy of selling its shampoo.

France’s highest court was told that the group had sought an all-white team of sales staff to promote Fructis Style, a haircare product made by Garnier, L’Oréal’s beauty division.

The word went out that Garnier’s hostesses should be BBR — “bleu, blanc, rouge” — the colours of the French flag. The expression is widely recognised in the French recruitment world as a code for white French people born to white French parents, a court was told, in effect excluding the four million or so members of ethnic minorities in France. Read the rest of this entry »

This story makes me want to cry..bravo girl!  From The Los Angeles Times – Khadijah Williams stepped into chemistry class and instantly tuned out the commotion.

She walked past students laughing, gossiping, napping and combing one another’s hair. Past a cellphone blaring rap songs. And past a substitute teacher sitting in a near-daze.Quietly, the 18-year-old settled into an empty table, flipped open her physics book and focused. Nothing mattered now except homework.

“No wonder you’re going to Harvard,” a girl teased her.

Around here, Khadijah is known as “Harvard girl,” the “smart girl” and the girl with the contagious smile who landed at Jefferson High School only 18 months ago.What students don’t know is that she is also a homeless girl.

As long as she can remember, Khadijah has floated from shelters to motels to armories along the West Coast with her mother. She has attended 12 schools in 12 years; lived out of garbage bags among pimps, prostitutes and drug dealers. Every morning, she upheld her dignity, making sure she didn’t smell or look disheveled.

On the streets, she learned how to hunt for their next meal, plot the next bus route and help choose a secure place to sleep — survival skills she applied with passion to her education.

Only a few mentors and Harvard officials know her background. She never wanted other students to know her secret — not until her plane left for the East Coast hours after her Friday evening graduation.

“I was so proud of being smart I never wanted people to say, ‘You got the easy way out because you’re homeless,’ ” she said. “I never saw it as an excuse.”

A drive to succeed

“I have felt the anger at having to catch up in school . . . being bullied because they knew I was poor, different, and read too much,” she wrote in her college essays. “I knew that if I wanted to become a smart, successful scholar, I should talk to other smart people.”

Khadijah was in third grade when she first realized the power of test scores, placing in the 99th percentile on a state exam. Her teachers marked the 9-year-old as gifted, a special category that Khadijah, even at that early age, vowed to keep.

“I still remember that exact number,” Khadijah said. “It meant only 0.01 students tested better than I did.”

In the years that followed, her mother, Chantwuan Williams, pulled her out of school eight more times. When shelters closed, money ran out or her mother didn’t feel safe, they packed what little they carried and boarded buses to find housing in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Ventura, San Diego, San Bernardino and Orange County, staying for months, at most, in one place.

She finished only half of fourth grade, half of fifth and skipped sixth. Seventh grade was split between Los Angeles and San Diego. Eighth grade consisted of two weeks in San Bernardino.

At every stop, Khadijah pushed to keep herself in each school’s gifted program. She read nutrition charts, newspapers and four to five books a month, anything to transport her mind away from the chaos and the sour smell.

At school, she was the outsider. At the shelter, she was often bullied. “You ain’t college-bound,” the pimps barked. “You live in skid row!”

In 10th grade, Khadijah realized that if she wanted to succeed, she couldn’t do it alone. She began to reach out to organizations and mentors: the Upward Bound Program, Higher Edge L.A., Experience Berkeley and South Central Scholars; teachers, counselors and college alumni networks. They helped her enroll in summer community college classes, gave her access to computers and scholarship applications and taught her about networking.

When she enrolled in the fall of her junior year at Jefferson High School, she was determined to stay put, regardless of where her mother moved. Graduation was not far off and she needed strong college letters of recommendation from teachers who were familiar with her work. Read the rest of the story fom the latimes.com

CINCINNATI – The push for racial equality is far from over, in sports and in everyday life, former President Bill Clinton told a crowd at Major League Baseball’s Beacon Awards on Saturday, part of its Civil Rights Game.

Clinton, who as president took part in MLB’s ceremony retiring Jackie Robinson’s No. 42 uniform number in 1997, spoke at a luncheon honoring Hall of Famer Hank Aaron, Muhammad Ali and entertainer Bill Cosby for the trio’s contributions to civil rights and charitable works.

The former president told a crowd of about 1,400 at the Duke Energy Convention Center that despite such racial progress as the election of Barack Obama as president, problems remain that disproportionately hit minorities. Clinton cited unemployment, the mortgage crisis, high cost of college, and access to health care among continuing issues.

“A lot of people might be tempted to believe that the struggle — which both produced these three giants of sports and comedy and gave them the power to help so many others — that struggle for racial equality is over,” Clinton said.

“But I really came here to say if you want to honor Hank Aaron and Muhammad Ali and Bill Cosby, you must first recognize that this struggle is nowhere near over,” he said.

The luncheon was among events leading to Saturday night’s first regular-season Civil Rights Game, between the Chicago White Sox and Cincinnati Reds.

Ali, whose long battle with Parkinson’s disease has limited his physical activity, remained seated as fellow former boxing champion Sugar Ray Leonard presented him his award. Ali looked it over as his wife, Lonnie, spoke on his behalf.

Cosby had the crowd roaring during his acceptance speech, and urged the audience to make sure new generations know what Ali, Aaron and others had to overcome to be successful, and that there is more to be overcome.

“This is not a time to rest,” Cosby said. Read the rest of this entry »

A medical researcher in Jacksonville, Florida has developed a new stitching technique that could possibly transform surgical procedures around the world. Perhaps the most fascinating detail is the researcher is a 14-year-old high school freshman.

Tony Hansberry II has created a new way to sew up hysterectomy patients in efforts to reduce the risks of post surgical complications and simplify the delicate procedure for less experienced surgeons, reports Jacksonville News. So far, the young man has only performed the surgery on dummies but has managed to fascinate the medical community enough to peak the interests of seasoned surgeons. On April 24 Hansberry presented his findings in the University of Florida’s medical auditorium packed with board-certified physicians, with established practices older than Hansberry, eager to see what medical phenomenon awaits. Read the rest of this entry »

 I’d never thought I’d say this but it’s sad to see Usher and Tameka break up so quickly. I kinda feel sorry for her..the whole world hated her for being that “older” woman who snatched Usher away, but it seems like Usher is turning out to be a real douche bag.

Now we are hearing that these two have been seperated for a year?

Usher seems very immature at this moment, you can’t just play husband and daddy, you have to really make an effort, and unless Tameka is a complete nutcase, 2 years of marriage (especially with two small kids) is NOT long enough to say you tried to make it work.

It seems easy to make her look like the bad guy.

I guess the truth will come out soon. Read the rest of this entry »

Chris Brown will face a Los Angeles-area judge on Monday, June 22. That’s when the singer will reportedly learn if a judge will dismiss or proceed with his case that includes felony assault and making criminal threats charges.

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