Sunday Open Thread

Fred Hammond (born December 27, 1960 in Detroit, Michigan) is a gospel music singer, bass guitar player, and record producer.

The Dove and Stellar award winner has been active both as a member of the gospel performing group Commissioned, and as a solo artist (currently for Verity Records). He is a multiple Grammy-, Dove-, Stellar- award winner and nominee as a performer and a producer.

Hammond first gained recognition while playing bass guitar for the gospel group The Winans.[2] By 1985 he was one of the six original members of the group Commissioned, participating in 10 of the group’s 12 albums.

After his stint with Commissioned ended, he regained fame in the gospel community after selling millions of albums with his musical group Radical For Christ.

In 2002 Hammond returned to the group Commissioned (now with members Keith Staten, Marvin Sapp, Mitchell Jones, Karl Reid, Michael Williams, and Marcus Cole) to produce the Commissioned Reunion Live album.

About SouthernGirl2

A Native Texan who adores baby kittens, loves horses, rodeos, pomegranates, & collect Eagles. Enjoys politics, games shows, & dancing to all types of music. Loves discussing and learning about different cultures. A Phi Theta Kappa lifetime member with a passion for Social & Civil Justice.
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25 Responses to Sunday Open Thread

  1. Ametia says:

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    Breaking News Alert: ‘Civil Discourse’ institute created in wake of Tucson shooting
    February 20, 2011 10:19:15 PM
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    Former presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush will serve as honorary chairmen of a center at the University of Arizona that will focus on civility in political debate, university officials will announce Monday.

    http://link.email.washingtonpost.com/r/QJTXP3/EWIWVB/PP15OG/C1B94Z/OVWRA/1G/h

  2. Ametia says:

    Go Lenny Kravitz! NBA All Star show

  3. Ametia says:

    I hate Martin Lawrence and that “BIG MOMMA” mess he does.

  4. Ametia says:

    McCollum receives death threat over NASCAR bill
    By Andy Birkey | 02.17.11 | 3:24 pm
    Democratic U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum received a death threat on Wednesday over her amendment to a spending bill to end Pentagon funding for NASCAR, Talking Points Memo reports. McCollum’s amendment would strip $7 million that goes to NASCAR annually to advertise the U.S. Army. McCollum said in tough economic times that money should be spent on veterans.

    According to TPM, McCollum’s office called Capitol security after receiving a flier that said, “Yo, Slut Betty, Shut Your Phucking Pie Hole!” and “without exception, Marxists are enemies of the Constitution, Death To All Marxists, Foreign And Domestic!”

    McCollum’s office told TPM that most of the opposition to her amendment has come from southern states, not Minnesota.

    “We’ve heard innumerable times that the Republicans were elected to send a message from the people that we should stop spending money,” Chief of Staff Bill Harper said. “And yet the people who sent that message want us to spend $7 million for a sticker on a NASCAR.”

    During the debate over health care reform last spring, McCollum’s office received a number of death threats.

    Here’s the flier that triggered a complaint to police:

    http://minnesotaindependent.com/77870/mccollum-receives-death-threat-over-nascar-bill

    Pure HATE…

  5. Ametia says:

    chicagotribune.com
    The president’s right-hand woman
    By Christi Parsons, Tribune Washington Bureau
    11:20 AM CST, February 19, 2011
    WASHINGTON–It was all in a recent day’s work for Valerie Jarrett.

    She reassured Jewish leaders about White House strategy on Egypt, helped the First Lady sync her spring agenda with her husband’s, ushered a former Fed chairman into the Oval Office, soothed Rev. Al Sharpton’s concerns about education policy and took a stroll with President Obama across Lafayette Park to patch things up with some irritated CEOs.

    The schedule illustrates why no one else in the White House now has a range of responsibilities equal to Jarrett’s. When Obama took office she was the least seen of his four senior advisors. Now chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and chief political strategist David Axelrod have returned to Chicago, and Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has also departed. Jarrett, 54, remains, picking up new duties from each of them. Long the closest personal confidante of Barack and Michelle Obama, she is steadily becoming more visible at Obama’s side.

    The new chief of staff, Bill Daley, is the White House major domo. But when there is a staffer in the presidential limo, more often than not it is Jarrett.

    Before coming to the White House Jarrett was head of The Habitat Company, which develops and manages residential properties. The arrival of Daley, until recently an executive at JP Morgan Chase & Co., raises the question of how the two former business executives will jockey within the White House power structure.

    In an interview, Daley scoffed at the idea of a rivalry. The two knew each other from the days when she worked for Daley’s brother, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, a family that keeps copious record of services rendered.

    http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sc-dc-adv-jarrett-20110219,0,6022459,print.story

  6. Ametia says:

    Miami Gardens
    Women show off church hats

    BY LIDIA DINKOVA AND AUDRA D.S. BURCH
    ldinkova@MiamiHerald.com
    The peacock and ostrich feathers on Hallema Simmons’ hat bounced and fluttered as she greeted and laughed along with her fellow church members. She wears the brim of her brick-red-straw hat tilted slightly to the left, covering her eyes.

    “I think I had some other bird in there,” said Simmons, an English professor at Miami Dade College North Campus, as she checked her reflection in the plastic of a vending machine, adjusting the feathers. “My nickname is ‘diva’ so I have to be larger than life and be different, so people have come to expect that from me and I have to keep up my image.”

    Simmons was one of the competitors in the first “Where Did You Get That Hat?” contest held by the New Lyph auxiliary of the Universal Truth Center for Better Living, a church in Miami Gardens.

    “We wanted to do a hat fashion show honoring the ladies in the church who love to wear hats,’’ says Regine Paul, chairperson of New Lyph. “We were looking for a way to celebrate and fellowship.’’

    Simmons said she feels “regal” wearing her hat. She made it with a friend, Marcye Slutsky, for the April 2010 Kentucky Derby.

    The peacock feather encircling the hat’s crown cost $45.

    Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/02/19/2075867/women-show-off-church-hats.html#ixzz1EVmrMqWO

  7. Ametia says:

    US urges Bahrain reforms after mass protests
    (AFP) – 12 hours ago

    WASHINGTON — A top US official spoke with Bahrain’s crown prince, urging him to respect human rights and launch “meaningful” reform after mass protests, The White House said.

    US National Security Adviser Tom Donilon had a telephone conversation with Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa a day after President Barack Obama condemned a clampdown on bloody anti-regime protests.

    “Mr. Donilon reiterated the president’s condemnation of violence used against peaceful protesters, and expressed support for the steps that the crown prince has ordered taken to show restraint and initiate dialogue,” the statement said.

    In an apparently conciliatory move, police and troops earlier withdrew from Manama’s Pearl Square, the focal point of the demonstrations.

    The crown prince later ordered the security forces to stay away and asked the “crowds to leave” to start a “new phase of national action that would bring together all parties,” according to the BNA state news agency.

    The pro-Western and strategically vital Gulf kingdom has faced growing pressure to talk to the Shiite-led opposition, which demands that the government resign before talks offered by the king can begin.

    “As a long-standing partner of Bahrain, the United States believes that the stability of Bahrain depends upon respect for the universal rights of the people of Bahrain, and a process of meaningful reform that is responsive to the aspirations of all Bahrainis,” the White House added.

    During a call to King Hamad bin Issa al-Khalifa on Friday, Obama said the country’s stability “depends upon respect for the universal rights of the people of Bahrain,” according to another White House statement.

    The tiny Gulf ally, which has Sunni rulers governing over a restive Shiite majority near Shiite but non-Arab Iran, also houses the headquarters of the US Fifth Fleet.

    It is adjacent to an oil-producing province in Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia where Shiites have also complained of unfair leadership.

    On Saturday, EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton called for dialogue in Bahrain “without delay,” saying she was “deeply concerned” about the violence.

    British Foreign Secretary William Hague also denounced the “clearly unacceptable and horrifying” crackdown in Libya, urging authorities across the region to refrain from violence.

    The wave of unrest spreading across the Middle East and North Africa is testing the underpinnings of US policy, which for decades has seen Washington side with rulers who kept a lid on dissent but provided relative geopolitical stability.

    http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j43t3i8BIo6McS-sUYzLbMuKuHQA?docId=CNG.7a0509e93accafbdfd4785aad6cc3018.341&om_rid=DRaeQf&om_mid=_BNYSSWB8ZCChbY

  8. Ametia says:

  9. Ametia says:

    Economy poll: African Americans, Hispanics were hit hardest but are most optimistic
    By Michael A. Fletcher and Jon Cohen
    Washington Post Staff Writers
    Sunday, February 20, 2011; 12:03 AM

    Despite severe losses during the recession, the majority of African Americans see the economy improving and are confident that their financial prospects will improve soon.
    That optimism, shared to a lesser degree by Hispanics, stands in stark contrast to the deeper pessimism expressed by a majority of whites. In general, whites are more satisfied with their personal financial situations but also more sour about the nation’s economic prospects.

    Those are among the findings of a new Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation-Harvard University poll that probed attitudes in the wake of a downturn that more than doubled unemployment and wiped away nearly a fifth of Americans’ net worth.

    African Americans and Hispanics were more likely to be left broke, jobless and concerned that they lack the skills needed to shape their economic futures. But they also remained the most hopeful that the economy would soon right itself and allow them to prosper.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/20/AR2011022000005.html?wpisrc=nl_headline

  10. dannie22 says:

    Good morning all!

  11. Good Morning, 3 Chics, Friends & Lurkers!

    Spiritual Quote Pictures
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