Former Memphis Grizzlies’ player Lorenzen Wright has been reported missing by his family after disappearing last Sunday. The 13 year former NBA player was last seen in Memphis before he was to board a flight out of town, according to his sister.
Wright played college ball at the University of Memphis and was the No. 7 pick in the 1996 NBA draft by the Los Angeles Clippers. During his 13 years in the NBA, Lorenzen played five with his hometown Memphis Grizzlies, before finishing his career with a brief stint with the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2008-09.
According to WREG TV in Memphis, the authorities do not suspect foul play. Nevertheless, his family is extremely worried. Despite earning $55 million over his NBA career, Wright has had financial difficulties, and his house was foreclosed upon last May. Lorenzen Wright has a reputation for involving himself in charitable work in the communities where he played.
Lorenzen’s mother recorded the plea above. If you have seen him or know how to contact him, have him to call home and please email a copy of this Blog to all appearing in your address book. You can also feel free to retweet this Blog and distribute it on Facebook.
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Singer Al Jarreau is being reported as being in a “critical” condition on this Friday in a French hospital. Health officials said the sensational jazz vocalist was rushed to the hospital after falling ill just before he was due to go on stage.
Jarreau, 70, who has won seven Grammy awards, was about to begin a festival concert late Thursday in the southern Alpine town of Barcelonette when he began experiencing an unduly rapid heart beat.
Initially he was treated on the spot for a couple of hours but was later flown by helicopter to a hospital intensive care unit in nearby Gap where he was admitted with respiratory problems, the hospital said in a statement.
“Doctors are concerned about his condition,” it said. “He is being given appropriate treatment and they hope to see an improvement in the coming hours.”
According to Maurice Marchetti, deputy head of the hospital Mr. Jarreau is still conscious but slightly drowsy because of the medication and the breathing apparatus.
Jarreau’s French trip was part of a tour scheduled to take him to Germany, Austria and Azerbaijan, and he was due to give concerts in the United States and Japan in the coming months, according to his website.
The Milwaukee-born singer’s lengthy career has encompassed many musical styles. Utilizing his voice like a musical instrument, he has won Grammy Awards in the genres of jazz, pop, and rhythm and blues and released more than 20 albums between 1975 and 2009.
Jarreau’s affable ever-smiling personality and range of musical styles have made him popular with a wide audience all around the world.
As a teenager he started singing in Milwaukee bars.
After a degree in social sciences from the University of Iowa, he headed west, where he soon teamed up with the Brazilian guitarist Julio Martinez, and started playing in a club in Sausalito, near San Francisco.
Jarreau made his big breakthrough in Los Angeles in 1975, when he was invited to perform at the Hollywood Troubadour Club. His debut album, “We Got By” came in the same year; it was to prove an international hit.
In 1977 he went on a world tour and released his third disc, “Look to the Rainbow”.
By 1981 Jarreau had become a household name, and his album “Breakin’ Away” with its hit song “We’re in this love together” made it into the US top ten, winning him two Grammys, for jazz and pop vocals.
His music had by then evolved towards pop, including the improvisational singing style known as scat.
The 1990s saw more hit albums: “Heaven and Earth” in 1992, which added R and B to the list of his Grammy awards, and then “Tenderness” in 1994.
Al has toured and performed with numerous musicians, including Joe Sample, Kathleen Battle, Miles Davis, David Sanborn, Rick Braun and George Benson. Jarreau also performed the role of the Teen Angel in a 1996 Broadway production of Grease. On March 6, 2001 he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame which is located at 7083 Hollywood Boulevard on the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and La Brea Avenue.
Jarreau has been married twice. His first marriage, to Phyllis Hall, lasted from 1964–68. His second wife was model Susan Player whom he married in 1977. Jarreau and Player have one adult son together, Ryan.
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Since her firing by Agriculture Secretary on Monday for allegedly being a racist, Shirley Sherrod has emerged as a Civil Rights leader.
On March 27, 2010 Sherrod gave a speech at the Douglas County Georgia NAACP Freedom Banquet. In that speech, Sherrod revealed a personal story of not wanting to give her full assistance to a white farmer who was attempting to show that he was far superior than she. After a lazy white lawyer failed to help him, she realized that it wasn’t a matter of race but it was a matter of poverty. As a result she worked extra hard to help him save his farm.
Unbeknownst to her, a conservative blogger by the name of Andrew Breitbart posted an edited clip on his BigGovernment.com website inaccurately depicting Sherrod as a racist giving a racist speech to an NAACP audience.
Breibart’s action came on the heels of the NAACP condemning the Tea Party Movement for condoning racism.
The media without checking out the full video ran with it. Bill O’ Reilly one of the Usual Suspects also known as the Fox News Network called for her to be fired. Interestingly, the NAACP National Office who had access to the entire video condemned her without reviewing the video in its’ entirety, and Roland Mighty Mouth Martin who is constantly slamming Fox for it’s bias reporting ran with it without checking it out.
CNN was the only news organization to actually take the time and find the truth. Martin who has gone as far as dogging the Fox News network on twitter for not covering Dorothy height’s funeral is a contributor for CNN. On Rick’s List the Mouth showed contempt towards Mrs. Sherrod as he admitted that he had not seen the tape and as far as he was concern, it did not matter what the rest of the tape said. Mighty Mouth with on to brand Mrs. Sherrod a racist.
Lastly the Obama administration who had taken the time to talk to the BP executives at the White House to get an understanding on the Gulf Oil fiasco, failed the due diligence test on Mrs. Sherrods situation.
On July 19, 2010, the National Organization for the Advancement of Colored People (“NAACP) became stuck on stupid. The national media excluding CNN but including Mighty Mouth ran afoul of the without malice doctrine, and Due Process, the corner stone of our democracy, stalled on the National Mall between the Department of Agriculture and the West Wing of the White House as they blindly defamed a front line warrior of the civil rights movement and a defender of poor farmers regardless of race.
Mrs. Shirley Sherrod
The three blind mice collided in mid air crashing and burning after the truth revealed that Mrs. Sherrod’s speech was one not of redemption as the media now calls it, but a story of a black woman who has always lived from her heart, taking the high road despite all that has happened to her through racism. Like many others who are similarly situated she has had weak moments, but the good always prevailed in the end.
Wearing the scars of her father’s murder by an unindicted white man, Mrs. Shirley Sherrod has risen from the ashes as the Rosa Parks of the 21st century.
Just like James F. Blake, the Montgomery bus driver who ordered Rosa Parks to give up her seat to a white passenger and had her arrested when she refused, Andrew Breitbart picked the wrong sister to mess with.
Apologies are flowing out of the NACP’s national office, the Department of Agriculture, and the White House including President Obama who made a call to Mrs. Sherrod today 7/22/2010.
Mighty Mouth continues to call Mrs. Sherrod to apologize and invite her on the Tom Joyner Morning Show. Sounds more like an attempt to boost Joyner’s ratings than a sincere apology.
A new job offer from the Department of Agriculture has also surfaced. Mrs. Sherrod is carefully thinking it over as she should. Mrs. Sherrod might be better off representing the poor outside of the Government. If , however she feels the need to go back to the Obama administration, she might hold out as a special envoy to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Shirley Sherrod, you are my shero!
Take a look above at her speech in it’s entirety.
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Vernon Baker, who was the only living black veteran awarded the Medal of Honor for valor in World War II. Lt. Baker who received it some 52 years after he wiped out four German machine-gun nests on a hilltop in northern Italy, died Tuesday at his home near St. Maries, Idaho. He was 90.
According to Ron Hodge, owner of the Hodge Funeral Home in St. Maries , the cause resulted from complications of brain cancer.
Vernon Baker during WWII
Not displaying any bitterness, “I was a soldier and I had a job to do,” Mr. Baker said after receiving the Medal of Honor from President Bill Clinton in a White House ceremony on Jan. 13, 1997. The Medal of Honor is the nation’s highest award for bravery.
In the segregated armed forces of World War II, black soldiers were usually confined to jobs in manual labor or supply units. It was thought that blacks were incapable of fighting. After pressure, the Army allowed blacks to go into combat. However, it rarely accorded them the recognition we deserved. Of the 433 Medals of Honor awarded by all branches of the military during the war, not a single one went to any of the 1.2 million blacks in the service.
In the early 1990s, responding to requests from black veterans and a white former captain who had commanded black troops in combat, the Army asked Shaw University, a historically black college in Raleigh, N.C., to investigate why no blacks had received the Medal of Honor during World War II. The inquiry found no documents proving that blacks had been discriminated against in decisions to award the medal, but concluded that a climate of racism had prevented recognition of heroic deeds.
Military historians gave the Army the names of 10 black servicemen who they believed should have been considered for the Medal of Honor. Then an Army board, looking at their files with all references to race deleted, decided that seven of these men deserved to be cited for bravery “above and beyond the call of duty.”
Four of the men — Lt. John R. Fox of Cincinnati; Pfc. Willy F. James Jr. of Kansas City, Mo.; Staff Sgt. Ruben Rivers of Oklahoma City; and Pvt. George Watson of Birmingham, Ala. — had been killed in action. Two others — Staff Sgt. Edward A. Carter Jr. of Los Angeles and Lt. Charles L. Thomas of Detroit, who retired as a major — had died in the decades after the war. Those six received the medal posthumously at the White House ceremony in 1997.
Vernon Baker Receiving The Medal Of Honor From President Clinton
Mr. Baker, the lone survivor among the seven, was greeted with a standing ovation as he entered the East Room to the strains of “God Bless America” played by the Marine Corps Band.
As Mr. Clinton placed the Medal of Honor around his neck, Mr. Baker stared into space, a tear rolling down his left cheek. “I was thinking about what was going on up on the hill that day,” he said later.
That day was April 5, 1945. Lieutenant Baker, a small man — 5 feet 5 inches and 140 pounds — was leading 25 black infantrymen through a maze of German bunkers and machine gun nests near Viareggio, Italy, a coastal town north of Pisa. About 5 a.m., they reached the south side of a ravine, 250 yards from Castle Aghinolfi, a German stronghold they hoped to capture.
Lieutenant Baker observed a telescope pointing out of a slit. Crawling under the opening, he emptied the clip of his M-1 rifle, killing two German soldiers inside the position. Then he came upon a well-camouflaged machine-gun nest whose two-man crew was eating breakfast. He shot and killed both soldiers.
After Capt. John F. Runyon, his company commander, who was white, joined the group, a German soldier hurled a grenade that hit Captain Runyon in his helmet but failed to explode. Lieutenant Baker shot the German twice as he tried to flee. He then blasted open the concealed entrance of another dugout with a hand grenade, shot one German soldier who emerged, tossed another grenade into the dugout and entered it, firing his machine gun and killing two more Germans.
Enemy machine-gun and mortar fire began to inflict heavy casualties among the platoon. Lieutenant Baker’s company commander had gone back for reinforcements, but they never arrived, so the remnants of the platoon had to withdraw. Lieutenant Baker, supported by covering fire from one of his soldiers, destroyed two machine-gun positions to allow the evacuation. Seventeen of the men in the platoon had been killed by time the firefight ended.
The next night, Lieutenant Baker voluntarily led a battalion advance through enemy minefields and heavy fire.
Vernon Baker With His Medal Of Honor
Lieutenant Baker received the Distinguished Service Cross, the Army’s second-highest award for bravery. Asked a half-century later whether he had ever given up hope of being awarded the Medal of Honor, he seemed surprised. “I never thought about getting it,” he said.
Freddie Stowers, a black veteran of World War I nominated for the medal in 1918, finally received it posthumously from President George Bush in 1991.
Vernon Joseph Baker was born on Dec. 17, 1919, in Cheyenne, Wyo., the son of a carpenter. After his parents died in an automobile accident when he was 4, he and two older sisters moved in with their grandparents, who also lived in Cheyenne.
The youngster developed a penchant for trouble, so he was sent to Boys Town in Omaha at age 10. He stayed there for three years, then earned a high school diploma while living with an aunt in Iowa.
He joined the Army in June 1941 and was sent to Camp Wolters, Tex., for basic training — his first trip to the Deep South. When he boarded a bus to the camp after stepping off the train, the driver shouted a racial epithet and told him to “get to the back of the bus where you belong,” he recalled years later in an interview with The Spokesman-Review of Spokane, Wash.
When he began to show leadership potential, he was sent to Officer Candidate School, graduating as a second lieutenant in 1942. He went to Italy in 1944 with the 92nd Infantry Division’s 370th Regiment, which was composed of black enlisted men and black junior officers but had white officers in senior positions.
In October 1944, Lieutenant Baker was shot in the arm by a German soldier, and when he awoke from surgery he noticed that he was in a segregated hospital ward.
After the war, he remained in Italy for three years, then returned to the United States and re-enlisted. He stayed in the Army until 1968, then worked for the Red Cross at Fort Ord, Calif., counseling needy military families. After his first wife, Fern, died in 1986, he retired and moved to a rural section of Idaho to pursue his love of hunting.
Mr. Baker’s survivors include his second wife, Heidy; three children from his first marriage; a stepdaughter; and a stepgrandson.
Asked at the awards ceremony how he had felt about serving in a segregated unit, Mr. Baker replied: “I was an angry young man. We were all angry. But we had a job to do, and we did it. My personal thoughts were that I knew things would get better, and I’m glad to say that I’m here to see it.”
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For months NBA fans had been speculating and waiting to see where the most famous NBA free agent would play next season. Lebron James was wooed by New York, New Jersey, Chicago, The Los Angeles Clippers, Miami and of course his then present team, the Cleveland Cavaliers.
James, 25, the National Basketball Association’s reigning two-time Most Valuable Player, played his first seven years in the NBA with the Cavaliers, helping the team to five playoffs and the best regular-season record in 2009-10
LeBron entertained the hometown pitch which lasted more than an hour from Cleveland Cavaliers general manager Chris Grant. Grant was accompanied by new coach Byron Scott, owner Dan Gilbert and assistant general manager Lance Blanks.
According to the Associated Press , the Cavaliers was in a position to offer $30 million more than the other contending teams on a maximum-length contract.
“We’ve done some amazing things the last five years,” Grant said after the meeting. “We won a lot of games and went deep into the playoffs, but we’re not satisfied with anything we’re doing. We intend to make improvements and upgrade our roster.”
Last Thursday night on ESPN, James revealed that he would be moving south joining the Miami Heat.
James’ revelation created joy and celebration in Miami and disappointment elsewhere. There was however degrees of disappointment. In Cleveland, the revelation led to James’ Jersey being burned. The Jersey also dropped in price.
The Cleveland disappointment did not stop there. Cleveland Cavalier majority owner, Dan Gilbert posted the following letter to deliver a title before James wins one:
Dear Cleveland, All Of Northeast Ohio and Cleveland Cavaliers Supporters Wherever You May Be Tonight;
As you now know, our former hero, who grew up in the very region that he deserted this evening, is no longer a Cleveland Cavalier.
This was announced with a several day, narcissistic, self-promotional build-up culminating with a national TV special of his “decision” unlike anything ever “witnessed” in the history of sports and probably the history of entertainment.
Clearly, this is bitterly disappointing to all of us.
The good news is that the ownership team and the rest of the hard-working, loyal, and driven staff over here at your hometown Cavaliers have not betrayed you nor NEVER will betray you.
There is so much more to tell you about the events of the recent past and our more than exciting future. Over the next several days and weeks, we will be communicating much of that to you.
You simply don’t deserve this kind of cowardly betrayal.
You have given so much and deserve so much more.
In the meantime, I want to make one statement to you tonight:
“I PERSONALLY GUARANTEE THAT THE CLEVELAND CAVALIERS WILL WIN AN NBA CHAMPIONSHIP BEFORE THE SELF-TITLED FORMER ‘KING’ WINS ONE”
You can take it to the bank.
If you thought we were motivated before tonight to bring the hardware to Cleveland, I can tell you that this shameful display of selfishness and betrayal by one of our very own has shifted our “motivation” to previously unknown and previously never experienced levels.
Some people think they should go to heaven but NOT have to die to get there.
Sorry, but that’s simply not how it works.
This shocking act of disloyalty from our home grown “chosen one” sends the exact opposite lesson of what we would want our children to learn. And “who” we would want them to grow-up to become.
But the good news is that this heartless and callous action can only serve as the antidote to the so-called “curse” on Cleveland, Ohio.
The self-declared former “King” will be taking the “curse” with him down south. And until he does “right” by Cleveland and Ohio, James (and the town where he plays) will unfortunately own this dreaded spell and bad karma.
Just watch.
Sleep well, Cleveland.
Tomorrow is a new and much brighter day….
I PROMISE you that our energy, focus, capital, knowledge and experience will be directed at one thing and one thing only:
DELIVERING YOU the championship you have long deserved and is long overdue….
Dan Gilbert
Majority Owner
Cleveland Cavaliers
Gilbert later told The Associated Press he believes James quit during a handful of Cavaliers playoff games. “He has gotten a free pass,” Gilbert told the AP in a phone interview late Thursday night. “People have covered up for [James] for way too long. Tonight we saw who he really is.”
NBA commissioner David Stern has fined Dan Gilbert $100,000.00 for the critical comments. Whether this fine is enough is important, but the label of cowardly is more important and the focus of this Blog.
Cowardly? It exist in abundance in this soap opera, but LeBron James is not the culprit.
I think it is safe to say that had James announced that he would remain with Cleveland, the ESPN announcement which benefited the Boys and Girls Club would not have been characterized as narcissistic and self-promotional. Mr. Gilbert might have penned a letter, but you can bet the farm it would not have resembled the one appearing above.
Gilbert’s unfortunate comments which contradicted his General Manager also drew fire from the Reverend Jesse Jackson. In addressing the comments, Jackson (who has had his own issues with outragious statements being made on open microphones at the Fox News Channel) stated that Dan Gilbert sees LeBron James as a “runaway slave” and that the owner’s comments after the free-agent forward decided to join the Miami Heat put the player in danger.
Stating that Gilbert’s comments were “mean, arrogant and presumptuous,” Jackson went on to say that “he (Gilbert) speaks as an owner of LeBron and not the owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers,” the Reverend said in a release from his Chicago-based civil rights group, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. “His feelings of betrayal personify a slave master mentality. He sees LeBron as a runaway slave. This is an owner employee relationship — between business partners — and LeBron honored his contract.”
In essence, Gilbert had a desire to exercise dominion and control or ownership over James, which might be perceived as a form of slavery. Although James was being paid extremely well, Gilbert’s letter gives a perception that he owned James.
Apparently there exist some 1,400 former Quicken Loan mortgage loan officers who agree with Reverend Jackson’s assessment of Mr. Gilbert possessing a slave mentality.
The Livonia, Michigan-based Quicken faces four lawsuits on behalf of some 1,400 former mortgage loan officers alleging the company misclassified them as exempt employees to avoid overtime pay under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.
Quicken Loans, originally Rock Financial Corporation, was founded in 1985 by Dan Gilbert along with his younger brother, film producer Gary Gilbert, their childhood friend Lindsay Gross, and Ron Berman. Rock Financial soon became one of the largest independent mortgage companies in the country. In May 1998, Gilbert took Rock Financial public, launching a successful IPO underwritten by Bear Stearns and Prudential Securities.
In December 1999, Intuit Inc. (makers of QuickBooks, TurboTax, and Quicken) purchased Rock Financial for a sum of $532M. The company was renamed Quicken Loans. In June 2002, Gilbert led a small group of private investors in purchasing the Quicken Loans subsidiary back from Intuit for just $64M.
Employees in the lawsuits allege they were instructed to work more than 55 hours a week without overtime, sometimes putting in 70- to 80-hour weeks while supervisors monitored them from an elevated platform in the same room or by listening in on sales calls to ensure they followed protocol. One could picture this as the overseer standing over the slaves who in this case are not being paid for any work in access of 55 hours.
The litigation has stalled in murky waters as a result of two opposing advisory opinions from the U.S. Department of Labor. The first advisory opinion issued in 2006 favored Quicken’s argument that the former employees are exempt administrative employees, and as as such are not entitled to over time pay. The second advisory opinion issued recently found that mortgage loan officers primarily serves in a sales capacity and do not qualify as exempt administrative employees.
While the Federal Judge presiding over the case cites the change in administration (From Bush to Obama) as a possible reason for the change in the opinion, the plaintiffs attorney contends something that may be a little more plausible and worth exploring through an evidentiary hearing.
Quicken co-counsel Robert Davis, a partner at Mayer Brown who works from New York and Washington is also an attorney for the Washington-based Mortgage Bankers Association. Davis allegedly obtained the original 2006 Labor Department advisory opinion in response to a query from said association. Attorneys for the employees strongly contends that Davis actually used that role to obtain a ruling that has the propensity to undercut the over worked former Quicken employees.
The 2006 Department of Labor advisory letter was issued with caveats that the opinions were based solely on the facts presented and also that Davis had represented that the opinion was not sought by a party in pending litigation. Instead of pointing the finger to a change in administration, the facts proffered by Mr. Davis in obtaining that advisory opinion might need to be explored in a hearing before the court under oath.
Plaintiffs attorney Nichols Kaster, later notified the department that Davis was involved in the Quicken case and asked it to review the circumstances behind the 2006 advisory,letter. The Labor Department officials then withdrew that finding and issued the new one.
The case is headed for mediation at the end of this month in Detroit, Gilbert’s home court.
Speaking of home court, the Cavaliers play their home games in a building called Quicken Loans Arena. I say building because Dan Gilbert, owner of Quicken Loans and the Cavaliers, doesn’t own Quicken Arena.
The Q, as it is known, is owned by the Gateway Economic Development Corp., a non-profit organization set up to operate the arena on behalf of the taxpaying citizens of Cleveland and Cuyahoga county Ohio.
Most of the cost of the sports facility has been borne by the taxpayers of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County. However, because of a sweetheart lease, the owners of the team have full use of the arena, even when the Cavaliers are not playing. Therefore, every other event and its profits goes to Dan Gilbert and his partners and not the taxpayers.
So since the Q draws some two million customers at some 200 events, a lot of money that should go to the taxpaying owners goes to the sports franchise owner which includes brother Gary, and of course the singer Usher. One might wonder if LeBron’s previous signing helped Gilbert obtain that sweet heart deal.
In the final analysis, Gilbert had seven years to build a championship team around LeBron James. He had seven years to make improvements and upgrade the roster. Bringing in Shaq at the twilight of his fantastic career doesn’t count. That move equates to classifying employees who qualify for overtime as being exempt from overtime pay to justify not paying the overtime.
In the seven years, James lifted the Cavaliers up on his shoulders and as Grant said, accomplished some amazing things like winning a lot of games and emerging deep into the playoffs. In those same seven years, Mr. Gilbert enriched himself at the expense of the Cleveland taxpayers.
Yes, Mr. Gilbert, Cleveland taxpayers have given so much and deserve so much more than the cowardly betrayal of their representatives who gave a sweet heart deal to a rich bratty majority TEAM owner.
It’s the same ole schickardy, just a different butt hole named Dan Gilbert.
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