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Today’s Voices - Episode 27
December 23rd, 2008 · No Comments
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For Inauguration Prayer, Obama Splits Ticket
December 19th, 2008 · 2 Comments
By: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The Rev. Rick Warren, who will give the invocation, is the most influential pastor in the United States, and a choice that has already caused problems for Obama.
Warren is a Southern Baptist who holds traditional religious beliefs and endorsed California’s Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage. But he also wants to broaden the evangelical agenda to include fighting global warming, poverty and AIDS.
The Rev. Joseph Lowery, 87, is considered the dean of the civil rights movement. For the benediction at the Jan. 20 swearing-in, he says he will pray that the “spirit of fellowship and oneness” at the inauguration endures throughout Obama’s presidency.
“He gets a lot with these choices,” said David Domke, author of “The God Strategy: How Religion Became a Political Weapon in America.”
“Here’s a guy who wants to run a progressive administration getting a substantial lift in his wings from the nation’s most popular evangelical,” Domke said. “But he balances that with Joseph Lowery, who speaks to the more liberal, social justice and African-American heritage.”
By picking Warren, Obama is sending another signal, about his willingness to upset liberals by tilting to the center. Gay rights groups are demanding that Obama rescind the invitation because of Warren’s opposition to same-sex marriage.
“By inviting Rick Warren to your inauguration, you have tarnished the view that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans have a place at your table,” Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said in a letter to the incoming president.
In a news conference Thursday, Obama said he is a “fierce advocate for equality for gay and lesbian Americans.” But he said he will build relationships with people of opposing views, and wants his inaugural to reflect that goal.
“That dialogue, I think, is part of what my campaign’s been all about: That we’re not going to agree on every single issue, but what we have to do is to be able to create an atmosphere when we — where we can disagree without being disagreeable and then focus on those things that we hold in common as Americans,” he said.
Warren praised Obama for “his courage to willingly take enormous heat from his base by inviting someone like me.”
“Hopefully, individuals passionately expressing opinions from the left and the right will recognize that both of us have shown a commitment to model civility in America,” Warren said in a statement Thursday night.
In the past several decades, inaugural prayer has most often been the job of evangelist Billy Graham, who forged relationships with every president from Dwight Eisenhower to George W. Bush. Dubbed “America’s pastor,” Graham is now 90 and off the public stage.
His son, Franklin, stepped in for his father and gave the invocation at Bush’s 2001 swearing-in. Bush’s personal pastor, the Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell, an African-American Methodist from Houston, was chosen to give the inaugural benediction twice. Caldwell supported Bush in both his presidential campaigns, then backed Obama this year.
But Obama no longer has a personal minister. He resigned his membership at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago after an uproar over incendiary parts of sermons by his longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Obama instead turned to two preachers who could set a tone for his administration.
“I’m overwhelmed. I’m very grateful. I’m humbled and honored,” Lowery said in a telephone interview. “When we worked on the Voting Rights Act in the ’60s, we hoped and felt that one day there would be an African-American president. I honestly can say I didn’t think I’d live long enough to see it.”
Lowery’s biography reads like a history of the civil rights movement.
As a young pastor in 1950s Alabama, he helped lead the Montgomery bus boycotts. With the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and others, Lowery created the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which anchored the national civil rights movement. In 1965, Lowery played a key role in the bloody, pivotal Selma-Montgomery March. He led a delegation of marchers presenting their demands to then-segregationist Alabama Gov. George Wallace.
Lowery, a Methodist, expanded his agenda in later years to fight poverty, stop violence and end apartheid. In 2006, he drew criticism — and a standing ovation — at Coretta Scott King’s funeral by condemning the Iraq war and poverty in the U.S. as Bush looked on.
Warren, 54, has become the most prominent clergyman of his generation.
His Saddleback Community Church in Orange County, Calif., has grown to more than 22,000 worshippers each week. His book, “The Purpose Driven Life” is one of the best-selling books in the world, with more than 30 million copies sold. He is mobilizing churches around the globe to fight poverty and illiteracy through his P.E.A.C.E coalition.
Last month, he joined forces with Reader’s Digest Association Inc., to launch a multimedia juggernaut based on his “Purpose Driven” writing. He and his wife, Kay, have become leading advocates for people with HIV/AIDS. On Dec. 1, World AIDS Day, the Warrens gave Bush an award for creating a multimillion-dollar U.S. fund to combat the virus.
With Warren, “Obama shows he is willing to work with a new breed of evangelical and kind of move beyond the tired figures associated with the religious right,” said Randall Balmer, a Barnard College professor of religious history and author of “God in the White House.”
In August, before the party conventions, Warren hosted Obama and Republican presidential nominee John McCain at Saddleback, quizzing them separately on issues ranging from personal failures to Supreme Court justices. Obama’s campaign had done extensive religious outreach. But he hurt his appeal to churchgoing voters when Warren asked when a baby gets human rights. Obama said it was “above his pay grade” to answer “with specificity.”
Still, Obama and Warren, who does not make political endorsements, are friendly, and the two men pray together.
“It’s nice to see a conservative evangelical pastor play such a prominent role in such an important event,” said Tom Minnery, a senior vice president at Focus on the Family, which has fiercely criticized Obama over his support for abortion rights and other issues. “I think what it does is it underscores the importance of evangelicalism in the country.”
→ 2 CommentsTags: Faith-Gospel · News · Politics
Just Stay Black and Die
December 17th, 2008 · 2 Comments
by Stephaine Iszard
As I sit and listen to my ten-year-old and eleven-year-old chatter about their “have to do” lists, I devilishly smirk as they name each one by one. My daughter whines about “having to” clean her room, put the laundry away, and maintain great grades. My son has a bit more of an extensive list. He moans and groans about “having to” clean his room put away laundry, weed the backyard, put groceries away, and maintain great grades while maintaining a gentlemanly attitude through it all. I recall when I was their age my mama only gave us one “have to” assignment. My mama said the only thing we “had to do” was “just stay black and die.”
Now, I don’t want the reader to get me wrong… my mama believed in making us work. As a matter of fact, I think child labor laws were created with my mama in mind. . We did chores before school and after school. We were southern po’ folks. We did not have much, but the little we did have my mama made sure we took care of it. My mama was a part time cleaning woman. She cleaned white folks’ houses to help supplement my poor daddy’s minute income. So, when she came home she was too tired to work in our house. That’s what we five kids at home were ‘pose to do. We all had jobs. My sister had to cook, because she was the oldest and probably the most likely not to burn our little one bedroom shack down. My brothers raked the yard and emptied the bucket that caught the dish water under the kitchen sink. I had to flush the toilet with a pot full of water. Lord help me if I would spill water on the floor. You’d swear the Hoover Dam broke!
We all had to take turns going to the store. I hated walking to the store. I hated having to greet folks on the way to the store and back. You would think that one “hey” was enough, but it was considered disrespectful if you didn’t holla every time you saw grown folks. We all had to walk to the laundry mat with the dirty clothes. I hated that chore the most. It was over a two mile jaunt. I am not speaking in lying miles, but truthful “I am too embarrassed to be walking down the street with my draws in a basket” miles.
I’ll never forget one day I temporarily lost my mind while dusting the furniture. I told my mama I did not understand why we children had to do all the chores in the house; that is what mothers “have to” do. Before I could utter another syllable, my mama introduced me to the back of her hand. It was a swift but firm greeting. My mama looked at me with her tired eyes and said to me, “The only thing I have to do is stay black and die”. As a ten-year-old, I was not quite sure what she meant by this, but I could tell by the look on her face that that was not the time to ask. I just put my daddy’s old sock back on my hand and continued to dust the furniture. I remember thinking to myself…”I can’t wait to be grown folks; then the only thing I “have to” do is stay black and die.”
Well, now I am grown folks and much has change in my life. I have two wonderful kids who sometimes jokingly refer to themselves as the “help”. Contrary to what my mama taught me, I realize that as a mother I need to do more than “just stay black and die”. I have two worker bees that need me to do so much more. I need to love, encourage, and challenge them to become what their Creator has called them to be. I want them to be responsible, to be hardworking, and above all to stay Godly and LIVE!
→ 2 CommentsTags: Commentary
Inaugural Rentals: Boom or Bust?
December 17th, 2008 · 1 Comment
The housing market may be at a standstill, but DC is experiencing a sort of rental market boom in the buildup to Barack Obama’s inauguration next month.
Will Thomas
FOX 5 Reporter
The housing market may be at a standstill, but DC is experiencing a sort of rental market boom in the buildup to Barack Obama’s inauguration next month.
Out of the 95,000 hotel rooms in the DC Metro area, only about 900 are still available. Craigslist.com boasts thousands of listings of homes and apartments for rent for the week of the inauguration.
However, many of the higher-end rentals remain unreserved and many of the region’s homeowners who hoped to cash in on the short-term rental opportunity have been very disappointed with the lack of response to online ads.
One Washingtonian who has a 7,000 square foot home in Georgetown, said he’s lowered his price from $60,000 per night to $40,000 and now to $10,000. He has not received a single offer.
Another Capitol Hill homeowner is trying to rent his rowhouse. He is asking $5,000 per night as says that is consistent with other ads on Craigslist. No one has contacted him.
A spokesperson for Destination DC, the city’s tourism office, says they are not in the business of estimating crowds but their office believes many people in the inaugural crowds will arrive and depart the same day, will stay with friends and family, or are local themselves.
→ 1 CommentTags: Misc.
New Trend: Taking Phones to the Grave
December 17th, 2008 · No Comments
Photo Credit: Bart Everson | Creative Commons License
By MIKE BRODY
MyFox National
People are so attached to their cell phones these days that they are being buried with them.
There are no actual figures that show how many people are taking their phones and other gadgets with them to the grave, but many morticians are reporting the trend is on the upswing.
“It really started happening within the last five or six years,” Frank Perman, owner and funeral director of Frank R. Perman Funeral Home, Inc. of Pittsburgh, Pa., told msnbc.com. “But I expect it to grow exponentially, especially with the price of technology getting so low. It’s not that big of a deal to bury somebody’s cell phone.”
For many people, their phone is a very personal item that represents their individuality. This could explain the requests to have it with them for all eternity.
The practice of surrounding yourself in your final resting place with things that have special meaning dates back thousands of years to the ancient Egyptians, who believed the items would be useful to them in the afterlife.
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Santa Gets Parking Ticket While Delivering Toys
December 17th, 2008 · No Comments
Photo credit: krisdecurtis | Creative Commons License
By The Associated Press
NEW YORK – Santa Claus has added a New York City traffic agent to his naughty list after she gave him a ticket while delivering gifts to children.
Chip Cafiero says he’ll fight the $115 ticket he received in Brooklyn on Black Friday when he was dressed as Santa.
The 60-year-old retired schoolteacher was riding a horse-drawn carriage and handing out toys and candy canes. An SUV carrying the toys and protecting the horse from traffic was double parked next to him.
Santa says he yelled “Ho! Ho! Ho!” to get the traffic agent’s attention because the SUV wasn’t blocking traffic. But in his words, “This grinch just went ahead and fined me.”
Local politician Martin Golden calls the parking ticket “ridiculous.”
Police won’t comment on it.
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More Than Just The Ball Drops On New Year’s Eve
December 17th, 2008 · No Comments
Photo Credit: andrewcparnell | Creative Commons License
By The Associated Press
Everyone knows about the ball that gets dropped on New Year’s Eve in Times Square. Maybe you’ve even heard about the 800-pound peach that gets dropped in Atlanta at midnight on Dec. 31.
But you may not have heard about the dropping of the sausage, or the gumbo pot, or the giant Peep, a 25-pound fiberglass replica of the famed marshmallowy candy made in Pennsylvania.
TripAdvisor.com has assembled a list of these and other quirky New Year’s Eve events to create a top 10 list of wacky things that get lowered on Dec. 31 around the country to mark the arrival of the new year.
Here’s a look at the top 10.
No. 10 - Nutty New Year’s: Raleigh, N.C. - Raleigh lowers a massive copper acorn weighing 1,250 pounds from atop the city’s civic center as part of a First Night event.
No. 9 - Hanker for a Hunk of Cheese: Plymouth, Wisc. - Plymouth lowers a great big hunk of cheese — though not an edible hunk.
No. 8 - Shell of a Party: Easton, Md. - In Easton, a giant crab is what gets lowered as part of a First Night celebration.
No. 7 - Champagne Wishes and Gumbo Pot Dreams: New Orleans - A giant gumbo pot is lowered in New Orleans to mark the New Year, along with fireworks on the Mississippi.
No. 6 - My Bologna Has a New Year’s Celebration: Lebanon, Pa. - In Lebanon, a 7 1/2-foot edible bologna made by the Weaver-Kutztown Bologna Company is lowered at midnight and then donated to area charities.
No. 5 - Sausage Fest: Elmore, Ohio - Elmore features a sausage fest, inspired by a local business,Tank’s Meats. A lit-up 18-foot sausage drops to welcome in the New Year, but there’s also a sausage toss and a sausage-eating contest.
No. 4 - Picklepalooza: Mount Olive, N.C. - Mount Olive has a pickle drop with a 3-foot-high glowing pickle plunging down the Mount Olive Pickle Company’s flagpole into a tank.
No. 3 - A Fish Story: Port Clinton, Ohio - In Port Clinton, the self-proclaimed “Walleye Capital of the World” drops a 20-foot, 600-pound fiberglass walleye fish at midnight.
No. 2 - Peep Show: Bethlehem, Pa. - The Peep show in Bethlehem, marks the third time the city has dropped the illuminated treat from a crane at midnight as part of a family-friendly First Night celebration.
No. 1 - Triple Crown: Key West, Florida - In Key West, there are three countdown celebrations: a conch shell lowered on a pole to the roof of Sloppy Joe’s Bar, the lowering of “Drag Queen Sushi” in a 6-foot-tall shoe at the Bourbon Street Pub, and the descent of a costumed pirate “wench” from a schooner in the harbor.
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Sudanese Woman Gives Birth to Quintuplets in Maryland
December 17th, 2008 · No Comments
Quintuplets, four girls and one boy, were born to a Sudanese woman at Anne Arundel Medical Center near Annapolis on December 2.
John Henrehan
FOX 5 Reporter
For the first time since 2005, quintuplets have been born in Maryland. A 37-member team of physicians and nurses rehearsed then performed the Cesarean section birth on December 2nd at Anne Arundel Medical Center near Annapolis. Four girls and one boy were born to a Sudanese woman, 28-year-old Adwai Mulual.
The quints were born about ten weeks premature. All weighed less than three pounds, but all were relatively healthy at birth, according to physicians and nurses. “All were real similar. And strong. And crying on their own,” according to Dr. Suzanne Rindfleisch, a neonatologist at the hospital. “It was great having these babies come out and hearing them cry.”
Mrs. Malual, whose husband serves in the Sudanese military, was visiting relatives in the U.S. when, four months into her pregnancy, she fell ill. After consulting with local Fetal Medicine Specialist William Sweeney, the mother entered the hospital for nine weeks of bed rest.
But Mrs. Malual insisted on walking into the delivery room. Dr. Sweeney told reporters the mother declared, “I will not be wheeled to my babies’ birth. I will walk. I’m from Sudan, and we walk in Sudan.”
Family members disclosed that the mother does not have health insurance. Hospital administrators said they do not expect to recover the costs of the multiple birth.
Administrators declined to say whether fertility drugs were used to aid the pregnancy, citing regulations protecting patient privacy.
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A Gift of great music, “Soul of the Holidays”!
December 16th, 2008 · No Comments
An incredible array of Soulful R&B and Smooth Jazz artist combine for a twist on The Holiday Classics. Angie Stone, JOE, Maysa, and Phil Perry have set a new standard for holiday urban soul. Visit: www.souloftheholidays.com for more information.
This direct-to-CD/DVD music compilation captures the “essence and soul” of classic holiday favorites that have stood the test of time. From the first funky lead-in of Spur of the Moment’s smooth jazz rendition of “Angels We Have Heard On High” to Phil Perry’s incredible vocal stylings and powerful rendition of “Away in a Manger”. Soul of the Holidays delivers the range of all that soul has to offer in a tidy package. The collaboration between Angie Stone and Mike Phillips pairs Stone’s rich vocals with Phillip’s sultry sax on “This Christmas” emerges as a highlight, along with the stirring blend of Maysa Leak’s (famed Incognito vocalist) smooth scat style with Brian Culbertson’s mastery on the keyboard for “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen (Comfort and Joy)”. Soul of the Holidays features contemporary R&B artists like Angie Stone, JOE, Plunky and Tony Rich, while paying homage to the legacy of soul music with powerhouses like Maysa, Brian Culbertson, Phil Perry, and Mike Phillips.
Musical arrangements and production was handled by Chris “Big Dog” Davis and Wayne Bruce. Chris Davis is a tour de force, having made his mark on the music industry producing for greats such as Najee, Phil Perry, Maysa and Will Downing. Wayne Bruce is a keystone member of Spur of the Moment, in addition to producing for them. With skill evident in the production he has done for Spur of the Moment and Maysa, his touch contributes to this seamless compilation of musical styles as well.
The DVD features the full-length concert special which was videotaped (high-definition) live in front of an intimate audience at The Bowie Center for Performing Arts, with Spur of the Moment backing all the artists. Other DVD bonus features include, “Behind-the-scenes” footage, on-camera testimonials with music artists discussing their most-memorable holiday moments, and Photo gallery.
The feel good nature of Soul of the Holidays extends beyond the aesthetic gratification, as proceeds from the sale of the Soul of the Holidays CD/DVD compilation will go to support WHUR-FM 96.3’s nonprofit organization, “Food2Feed”.
Available for online purchase only at: www.souloftheholidays.com.
The “Soul of the Holidays” will surely become a holiday music favorite for MANY years to come!
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A Recap of the Final Day of the National High School Hoops Festival from Wise High School in Upper Marlboro, MD
December 16th, 2008 · No Comments
By Mark Gray, Host SportsGroove Radio Program
→ No CommentsTags: Sports
