A seven-meter sculpture commemorating the 1968 Mexico City Olympics Black power protest by Tommie Smith and John Carlos will be unveiled at San Jose State University in California Monday, The Associated Press reports.

The pair, who had been teammates at the then-San Jose State College, was scheduled to be present at Monday's ceremony along with second-place Australian Peter Norman.

Smith, who had won the 200 meters gold medal in world record time, and Carlos, who placed third, bowed their heads and raised one black-gloved hand each in the Black power salute on the victory podium while "The Star-Spangled Banner" was played.

Smith told Reuters that he raised his right fist to represent Black power, while Carlos's left fist represented unity in Black America. A black scarf around Smith's neck stood for Black pride and their black socks with no shoes represented Black poverty in the United States.

They bowed their heads, saying they believed the words of freedom in the U.S. anthem represented White Americans only and wore a badge representing the Olympic Project for Human Rights.

Silver medalist Norman told Reuters that he knew about the plan.

"They involved me in the conversation," he said. "It wasn't a secret huddle, they were letting me know.

"I said to John: 'You got another of those badges?' 'If I get one will you wear it?' he asked. 'I sure would,' I replied."

The International Olympic Committee was outraged, threatening to expel the U.S. team if Smith and Carlos were not sent home.

The U.S. Olympic Committee complied and the duo was sent home. On their return to the United States they were treated as outcasts and struggled to earn a living. Both their marriages broke up and Carlos's wife committed suicide.

"We were under tremendous economic stress," Carlos told Reuters. "I took any job I could find. We had four children and some nights I would have to chop up our furniture and make a fire in the middle of the room."

Smith eventually found a job as a track coach and Carlos was hired by the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee to help promote the 1984 Games.

"I don't feel embraced," said Carlos. "I feel like a survivor. I was almost like we were on a deserted island. But we survived."

Norman said he is proud to have been associated with the protest. "It's a life-changing experience that is still held up, not just as a moment in sport but as a moment in American history," he said.

It is about 9:30 now so I need to finish this last one quick. Company is expected at 10:00 pm. Yes, I am just a little ashamed to say...a booty call. A friend with benefits...he is the one I call. Tonight is movie night! He brings the dvd's. I am expected to be in some of Victoria's secret things. Well, got to go. 9:30 now. Got to get in the tub and drink lots of water to wash those many martini's out of my system. I do not want to fall asleep as soon as he gets here.

TTFN!

Grammy award winner Luther Vandross, whose deep, lush voice on such hits as "Here and Now" and "Any Love" sold more than 25 million albums while providing the romantic backdrop for millions of couples worldwide, died Friday. He was 54.

Vandross died at John F. Kennedy Medical Center in Edison, N.J., said hospital spokesman Rob Cavanaugh. He did not release the cause of death but said in a statement that Vandross "never really recovered from" a stroke two years ago.

Since the stroke in his Manhattan home on April 16, 2003, the R&B crooner stopped making public appearances - but amazingly managed to continue his recording career. In 2004, he captured four Grammys as a sentimental favorite, including best song for the bittersweet "Dance With My Father."

Vandross, who was still in a wheelchair at the time, delivered a videotaped thank you.

"Remember, when I say goodbye it's never for long," said a weak-looking Vandross. "Because" - he broke into his familiar hit - "I believe in the power of love."

Vandross also battled weight problems for years while suffering from diabetes and hypertension.

He was arguably the most celebrated R&B balladeer of his generation. He made women swoon with his silky yet forceful tenor, which he often revved up like a motor engine before reaching his beautiful crescendos.

Jeff O'Conner, Vandross' publicist, called his death "a huge loss in the R&B industry. He was a close friend of mine and right now it's shocking."

O'Conner said he received condolence calls Friday from music luminaries such as Aretha Franklin, Patti LaBelle, Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones.

Vandross was a four-time Grammy winner in the best male R&B performance category, taking home the trophy in 1990 for the single "Here and Now," in 1991 for his album "Power of Love," in 1996 for the track "Your Secret Love" and a last time for "Dance With My Father."

The album, with its single of the same name, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard charts while Vandross remained hospitalized from his stroke. It was the first time a Vandross album had topped the charts in its first week of release.

In 2005, he was nominated for a Soul Train Music Award for a duet with Beyonce on "The Closer I Get To You."

Vandross' sound was so unusual few tried to copy it; even fewer could.

"I'm proud of that - it's one of the things that I'm most proud of," he told The Associated Press in a 2001 interview. "I was never compared to anyone in terms of sound."

Vandross' style harkened back to a more genteel era of crooning. While many of his contemporaries and successors belted out tunes that were sexually charged and explicit, Vandross preferred soft pillow talk and songs that spoke to heartfelt emotions.

"I'm more into poetry and metaphor, and I would much rather imply something rather than to blatantly state it," he said. "You blatantly state stuff sometimes when you can't think of a a poetic way to say it."

A career in music seemed predestined for the New York native; both his parents were singers, and his sister, Patricia, was part of a 1950s group called the Crests.

But he happily toiled in the musical background for years before he would have his first hit. He wrote songs for projects as varied as a David Bowie album ("Fascination") and the Broadway musical "The Wiz" ("Everybody Rejoice (Brand New Day)"), sang backup for acts such as Donna Summer and Barbra Streisand, and even became a leading commercial jingle singer.

Vandross credited singer Roberta Flack for prodding him to move into the spotlight after listening to one of his future hits, "Never Too Much."

"She started crying," he recalled. "She said, `No, you're getting too comfortable (in the background). ... I'm going to introduce you to some people and get your career started.'"

Vandross' first big hit came as the lead vocalist for the group Change, with their 1980 hit, "The Glow of Love." That led to a recording contract with Epic Records, and in 1981, he made his solo recording debut with the disc "Never Too Much." The album, which contained his aching rendition of "A House is Not a Home," became an instant classic.

Over the years, Vandross would emerge as the leading romantic singer of his generation, racking up one platinum album after another and charting several R&B hits, such as "Superstar," "Give Me The Reason" and "Love Won't Let Me Wait."

Yet, while Vandross was a household name in the black community, he was frustrated by his failure to become a mainstream pop star. Indeed, it took Vandross until 1990 to score his first top 10 hit - the wedding staple "Here & Now."

"I just wanted more success. I didn't want to suddenly start wearing blond wigs to appeal to anyone," he told the AP.

"This is the same voice that sang Pepsi-Cola, Coca-Cola, NBC 'proud as a peacock,' ... America, the world, has heard the voice, so there's no reason that that music shouldn't have gone the complete distance, I mean, to number one."

Another frustration for Vandross was his lifelong battle with obesity. Health problems ran in his family, and Vandross struggled for years to control his waistline. When he first became a star, he was a hefty size; a few years later, he was almost skinny. His weight fluctuated so much that rumors swirled that he had more serious health problems than the hypertension and diabetes caused by his large frame.

Vandross' two sisters and a brother died before him. The lifelong bachelor never had any children, but doted on his nieces and nephews. The entertainer said his busy lifestyle made marriage difficult; besides, it wasn't what he wanted.

This past weekend I had some friends come in from out of town and I went to their hotel to pick them up. I was approching the lobby and saw a hispanic woman sitting on the lobby couch, a white woman at the desk and a black woman workind behind the desk. I walked in and the white woman was talking to the black woman. Here is the exchange:

"Oh God! Oh God! My only boy!" Mrs. Mamie Bradley wailed as five men lifted a soiled paper wrapped bundle from a huge, brown wooden mid-Victorian box at the Illinois Central Station in Chicago Friday and put it into a waiting hearse." This was the opening paragraph in the front-page story in the Chicago Defender on September 1, 1955. The body was interred at A.A. Ranier Funeral Parlor on the South Side for four long days. The coffin was intentionally left open, a decision made by Mamie Till who was determined that the world should see that was done to her son. It was a decision that had a profound effect, not only on the many thousands who viewed the mangled corpse, but on the civil rights movement in America as well.

I was watching the news on tv today and saw where Emmett Till will be exhumed to perform more tests to determine if others were involved in his murder.

Federal authorities exhumed the body of Emmett Till from a private gravesite in suburban Chicago today, 50 years after his murder helped spur the civil rights movement by demonstrating to the nation the horrors of racial hatred. A short prayer service was held for Emmett before his body, still entombed in a metal casket within a concrete vault, was loaded onto a flatbed truck to be taken for its first autopsy.

Emmett was a 14 year-old Chicago boy when he left his mother behind in 1955 to visit relatives in Tallahatchie County on the Mississippi Delta. Apparently not familiar enough with southern racial codes, the teenager struck up a conversation and possibly whistled at a 21 year-old white female shopkeeper in Money, Miss. Emmett was soon dragged out of his uncle's house at gunpoint, beaten savagely, shot by a riverbank and dumped in the water, his body weighed down by a cotton gin fan knotted to his neck with barbed wire.

In exhuming Emmett's body, authorities are seeking to confirm his identity and look for anything that might, even at this late date, serve as a clue in determining whether anyone else was involved in the murder. Two white men who were tried and acquitted -- and later admitted guilt in a magazine article -- are now dead.

An autopsy was never performed after the murder and one of the defense's arguments at the time was that there was no proof the boy was, in fact, dead.

After reconnecting with her after all these years she is totally wild. Totally. She is obsessed with sex and may even be a nymphomiac. She dates a minimum of 5 men at once and has no problem at all talking about them and her sex life. Sitting next to her has been an eye opening experience. I do not ask. It all just pours forth from her. I really think she is living a little dangerously. She says she has safe sex. I hope so for her sake and the sake of all her partners. She has all the men scheduled so that they do not get mixed up and she does not get anyone mixed up. They all believe that they are the only one she is dating.

She is a beautiful girl as well. She is half black and 1/2 puerto rican and is very exotic looking so all kinds of men are after her. I recall last week she was telling me she had to work late at the office and she was pissed off as it was interfering with her "fuck time." Excuse the language. She uses that word phrase in about every other sentence. It is all about her "fuck time." She has teen kids and she cannot wait for them to get old enought to get out of her house as they also interfere with her "fuck time." That was a stunner to me! But she is as serious as a heart atttack. She says that all the time.

She was telling me about her weekend escapades and she almost got caught. She had a man that she has just slept with leaving out the back door and a new one coming in the front door. she said she overbooked herself in error. That is too close for comfort for me. Shoot! That could have ended up like that R. Kelly song about the man hiding in the closet with his baretta as he has just been cheating on his wife with another woman. Her husband comes home and he is stuck in the closet just hoping he does not have to use his gun, when his cell phone goes off. Now those songs are totally whack! Especially part II: her husband sleeping with a man. But I digress, let me get back to this girl.

Orgasmic Walking. What the hell is that?It is something she has invented and perfected. She literally walks around saying that she can have an orgasm just by walking in a certain way. She says that she has to squeeze her kegels rhythmically as she walks and she can have an orgasm anytime and anywhere and noone knows about it except her. She says she does this also while sitting and it has the same effect. So if she is at work and smiling to herself, she is having an orgasm. Crazy! Makes me thing I might be missing out on some "f" time myself! I have come to the conclusion she is a sex addict. Has to be the way she is.

Now there is truth to kegel excersizes increasing sexual pleasure. Here is some info on it.

Kegels for Better Sexual Health

Info found at My Pleasure

Ladies, did you know you could perform an internal vaginal exercise that will strengthen the walls of your vagina, making childbirth easier, incontinence more unlikely and orgasms much stronger? If you've had a baby, your doctor probably told you all about these exercises, called Kegels. The rest of you, listen up.

A Practical Application Developed in 1946 by Dr. Arnold Kegel (pronounced, "kay-gill"), a Los Angeles obstetrician and gynecologist, Kegels are the rhythmic clenching and unclenching of the pubococcygeal (PC) muscles. Also known as the "pelvic floor," this internal sling of muscles, stretching from your pubic bone to your tailbone, also encircles the urinary opening, the anus, the perineum and the vaginal opening, controlling much of the activity in your lower half.

Originally touted to older women as a remedy for incontinence, Kegels were soon recommended to pregnant women as a way to regain vaginal muscle tone after childbirth. It wasn't long before other women began to perform Kegels for sensual reasons: the same muscle that controls your bladder and internal genitals also affects your pleasure centers.

A Very Good Thing Having stronger vaginal walls means better control over your orgasms and a tighter "grip" during intercourse. Some Kegel fans have claimed they experienced stronger, longer orgasms, increased G-Spot sensitivity, the ability to have multiple orgasms and increased sexual awareness. Increased blood flow to the genitals, an effect of practicing Kegels, increases your sensitivity to stimulation, which, in turn, can cause an increase in sexual arousal, more sensation during intercourse and deeper sexual satisfaction.

The best thing about Kegels is that you can do them anywhere, any time, and no one will know -- while sitting in a Boardroom, teaching a biology class or playing tennis, you can practice your Kegels, with no one the wiser. In fact, I'll bet those of you reading who know how to do Kegels are doing them right now, aren't you?

Easy as Pie Begin by locating your PC muscle. The next time you urinate, see if you can stop and start the flow of urine without moving your legs or squeezing the nerves in your buttocks. Feel a flexing and tightening beneath your bladder? The apparatus that allows you to perform this move is your PC muscle. If you don't know what I'm talking about, don't worry. Try again the next time you pee. You'll eventually find it.

Once you've found your PC muscles, you're ready to start practicing Kegels. Follow these steps:

1. Contract your PC muscles.

2. Hold for a count of five.

3. Relax your PC muscle.

4. Repeat 10 times.

That's all there is to it.

Practice Makes Perfect For Kegels to have a real and lasting effect, you'll need to practice them regularly, between eight and ten times per day. That may sound like a lot, but remember that you can perform Kegels just about anywhere, anytime and in almost any position. Your muscles may feel a little tired at first, but if you keep it up, your muscles will get stronger, allowing you to "up the reps" or try some advanced variations.

The Fancy Stuff Once you've mastered the basic Kegels movement, vary your practice with these "advanced" techniques:

* Slow Kegels: Tighten your PC muscles and hold for a slow count of three. Relax and repeat 10 times.

* Quick Kegels: Tighten and relax the PC muscles as rapidly as you can for about 10 seconds.

* Big Moves: Using your abdominal and PC muscles, tighten the entire pelvic floor, then push out or bear down. Repeat five times.

* Fluttering: Quickly tighten and release your PC muscle in a fluttering movement for ten seconds. Relax for ten seconds and repeat.

To notice a difference, you'll need to perform these exercises every day. Within a few months, you should notice a change in your ability to move and flex your PC muscles.

Kegel Power Tools Tone your vaginal muscles even faster with the use of tools that take the guess-work out of the equation. These tools will help you locate your PC muscles and encourage an even more effective workout:

* Rolling Beads & Balls: Playing with insertable spheres has never been as fun as it is once you've been practicing Kegels. Slip in a couple of Ben Wa balls or a beaded string, and gently roll them around, using your newly strengthened PC muscle.

* Lifting Weights: Use a weighted vaginal egg or a weighted barbell to give your PC muscles a good, hard workout. At the end, you can relax with a nice, powerful orgasm.

You might also try practicing Kegels when you masturbate with other kinds of toys, including external stimulators. The more you explore, the better acquainted you'll become with your body and its capabilities.

If you have a male sex partner, the next time you have intercourse, surprise him by gently squeezing his penis... from within! Rhythmic squeezing and relaxing will not only feel wonderful on his penis, but also increase sensation in and around your vagina.

As you practice Kegels, keep in mind that results will vary. Even if you practice every day for a year, there's no guarantee that you'll have earth-shaking multiple orgasms. You will, however, improve your general and sexual health and experience increased sexual awareness.

Shrimp and Bacon Sandwiches

www.thecheesecakefactory.com

Golden Sweet Potatoes

Sweet potatoes and cookbooks

www.goldensweetpotatoes.com

(866) 512-9285

Henry's Tacos

11401 Moorpark St.

North Hollywood, CA 91602

(818) 769-0343

Hickory House Ribs

www.hickoryhouseribs.com

(800) 621-RIBS

Neiman Marcus

Shocolate chip cookies

www.neimanmarcus.com

(800) 756-5784

Roscoe's House of Chicken n Waffles

Shicken and waffles

5006 W. Pico Blvd.

Los Angeles, CA 90019

(323) 934-4405

Serendipity 3

Frrrozen Hot Chocolate

www.serendipity3.com

Teuscher Chocolates of Switzerland

Chocolate champagne truffles

www.teuscherchicago.com

900 N. Michigan Ave.

Chicago, IL 60611

(888) 387-2437

Trattoria Mollie

Mollie's meatballs

www.tmollie.com

1250 Coast Village Rd.

Montecito, CA 93108

Veuve Clicquot

La Grande Dame Rosé

www.veuve-clicquot.com

Warmdaddy's

Catfish, collard greens and sweet potatoes

www.warmdaddys.com

INGREDIENTS

* 20 whole black peppercorns

* 2 bay leaves

* 2 whole cloves

* 1/2 lemon

* 3 pounds medium chicken tenders

* 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons spicy brown mustard

* 1/2 cup honey

* 1 1/4 teaspoons curry powder

* 3/4 teaspoons lemon pepper

* 1/8 teaspoons salt

* Butter for spreading

* 1 loaf challah or other rich egg bread, cut into 12 thick slices

* 1/2 cup shredded carrots

* 1/2 cup slivered almonds

* 2 medium tomatoes, chopped

* 1 bag (about 5 ounces) mesclun salad greens

* Red grapes and assorted berries for garnish

In a large saucepan over high heat, add peppercorns, bay leaves, cloves, lemon and 14 cups water; cover and bring to a boil. Add chicken and cook, uncovered and stirring occasionally, 7 to 10 minutes, or until cooked through; drain. Once cool, quarter each tender crosswise.

In a large bowl, combine mustard, honey, curry powder, lemon pepper and salt; stir in chicken. Cover and refrigerate at least 30 minutes, or up to 1 day.

Butter both sides of bread slices. In a heated nonstick skillet over medium-high flame, cook bread in batches 3 to 5 minutes or until browned, turning once.

Combine carrots and almonds with chicken mixture. Divide chicken curry among 6 bread slices. Top with tomatoes, mesclun and remaining bread slices. Serve with fruit

"I pledge allegiance to the flag"--

They dragged him naked

Through the muddy streets,

A feeble-minded black boy!

And the charge? Supposed assault

Upon an aged woman!

"Of the United States of America"--

One mile they dragged him

Like a sack of meal,

A rope around his neck,

A bloody ear

Left dangling by the patriotic hand

Of Nordic youth! (A boy of seventeen!)

"And to the Republic for which it stands"--

And then they hanged his body to a tree,

Below the window of the county judge

Whose pleadings for that battered human flesh

Were stifled by the brutish, raucous howls

Of men, and boys, and women with their babes,

Brought out to see the bloody spectacle

Of murder in the style of '33!

(Three thousand strong, they were!)

"One Nation, Indivisible"--

To make the tale complete

They built a fire--

What matters that the stuff they burned

Was flesh--and bone--and hair--

And reeking gasoline!

"With Liberty--and Justice"--

They cut the rope in bits

And passed them out,

For souvenirs, among the men and boys!

The teeth no doubt, on golden chains

Will hang

About the favored necks of sweethearts, wives,

And daughters, mothers, sisters, babies, too!

"For ALL!"

Written by Esther Popel (1896-1958)

o'eo roll

my sagas

THE HARRINGTON SAGA

HARRINGTON
HARRINGTON AND CHRISTMAS
HARRINGTON AND GRAD SCHOOL

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