Edwin Hawkins (born 18 August 1943, Oakland, California) is a Grammy Award-winning American gospel and R&B musician, pianist, choir master, composer and arranger. He is one of the originators of the urban contemporary gospel sound. He (and the Edwin Hawkins Singers) are best known for his arrangement of “Oh Happy Day” (1968–69), which was included on the Songs of the Century list. The Edwin Hawkins Singers made a second foray into the charts a year later, backing folk singer Melanie on “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)“.
At the age of seven Hawkins was already the keyboardist to accompany the family’s gospel choir. Together with Betty Watson, he was the co-founder of the Northern California State Youth Choir of the Church of God in Christ, which included almost 50 members.[1] This ensemble recorded its first album Let Us Go Into the House of the Lord at the Ephesian Church of God in Christ in Berkeley, California, hoping to sell 500 copies. “Oh Happy Day” was just one of the eight songs on the album.
OMG! OMG! OMG!
President Obama got Bin Laden! OMG!
The TV Watch
Passion Versus Pageantry in Royal Wedding Reports
By ALESSANDRA STANLEY
Published: April 29, 2011
The kiss was really not much more than a peck.
Prince William’s balcony clinch with his bride, Kate Middleton, was so quick and perfunctory that the CBS anchor Katie Couric missed it and asked for an instant replay. And another. “I hate to be ungrateful,” Ms. Couric said on Friday morning. “But is that it?”
The “Today” show on NBC, which had rather crassly plastered a kiss countdown clock on the screen, was just as let down and replayed the royal smooch in gauzy slow motion. CNN’s Piers Morgan, who had predicted that it would “go down in history as one of the great kisses,” had to eat crow when the disappointed crowds outside Buckingham Palace demanded a do-over. He had to eat crow again after he assured his co-hosts that Prince William would do no such thing.
“You don’t understand the royals,” he said loftily, moments before the groom bent down for a second, but still far from ardent, try. The BBC, on the other hand, was perfectly satisfied.
And more than anything else, those clashing kiss expectations are what separated British and American coverage of the royal wedding. On BBC America, which carried the live BBC feed, the anchor Huw Edwards emphasized tradition and continuity. American television craves change. The embrace on the balcony was supposed to be passionate and juicy, a video confirmation of the narrative built into almost all the American coverage, namely that this royal union is a do-over for the one between Prince Charles and Diana Spencer in 1981 that was presented as a gossamer fairy tale and turned out to be a horror story.
This time, according to almost every anchor and commentator, it’s a real love match. But the first public embrace, which looked, as the Tudor historian David Starkey put it on CBS, like “an old married couple’s kiss” didn’t fit the image. For one thing, it wasn’t any more smoldering than the brief kiss Prince Charles gave his bride 30 years ago.
Barbara Walters on ABC supplied a better spin. “But you know they talk to each other, they laugh together, you feel the emotion between them,” she said. “And looking back at Princess Diana and Prince Charles, you did not feel that.”
ABC’s coverage evoked other royal memories. The network put Diane Sawyer and Barbara Walters side by side in what looked like an anchor-booth version of the old Princess Diana and Camilla Parker-Bowles standoff. These two ABC stars co-anchored the event with the clashing sensibilities of two women sharing the same man, or, in this case, rival super anchors sharing the same stage.
The British public has softened on Ms. Parker-Bowles, Prince Charles’s former mistress, who is now the Duchess of Cornwall and his second wife. On ABC the body language seemed stiffer.
“It is so great to spend this morning with you,” Ms. Sawyer gushed to Ms. Walters.
“Glad we’re doing it together,” Ms. Walters said, more brusquely, before shifting to a solo. “This is the third royal wedding that I have covered, but I think this is the happiest.”
The BBC didn’t presume to look into the hearts of the royal couple. Mostly, Mr. Edwards and his colleagues provided historical background in the sotto voce of commentators at a golf tournament. They didn’t get very excited about the bridal gown or the hats, though the eminent historian Simon Schama did have thoughts on the wedding décor.
“Those trees in the abbey are of course an echo of gothic vaulting,” Mr. Schama said, noting that they brought to Westminster Abbey “a fresh note of dazzling springtime.” (Mr. Schama as a wedding commentator is a bit like William F. Buckley covering the red carpet on Oscar night.)
Americans tended to look past the pageantry, tradition and protocol for signs of the newlyweds’ true love — and other differences between this wedding and the other one. On Fox News, Joan Lunden said she was struck by “watching William come in with his brother, casually walking over to the crowd and kissing people, saying hello.” Ms. Lunden, who covered Princess Diana’s wedding for ABC News, added: “You had none of that in 1981 with Charles as he came in. It was much more formal.” And a lot of the commentary was less formal, as well, even after the royals began entering Westminster Abbey. Ms. Couric described the Middletons’ relationship with Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip as “something out of ‘Meet the Fockers.’ ”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/30/arts/television/in-royal-wedding-television-coverage-british-and-americans-differ-tv-watch.html?ref=style
Michele Bachmann Cites ‘Obama’s Teleprompter’ When Asked About Revolutionary War Gaffe (VIDEO)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/01/michele-bachmann-obama-teleprompter_n_856055.html
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) addressed a gaffe that landed her in the headlines several months ago during an appearance on this weekend’s edition of “Fox News Sunday.”
Back in March, Bachmann told a group of local New Hampshire Republicans, “You’re the state where the shot was heard around the world in Lexington and Concord.” However, the first shots of the Revolutionary War were fired in Massachusetts, not the Granite State.
On Sunday morning, Bachmann suggested that the misstep didn’t result from a lack of geographic or historical knowledge, but rather her use of a teleprompter while she was speaking.
“After that, I promised I would never again use President Obama’s teleprompter,” she said. “And I intend to keep that promise.”
The AP reported at the time Bachmann made the comments in question:
Though Bachmann probably wasn’t the first to confuse Concord, N.H., with Concord, Mass., her mistake was striking given her roots in the tea party movement, which takes its name from the dumping of tea into Boston Harbor by angry American colonists in December 1773, 16 months before the Battle of Lexington Green.
“I made a mistake; I should’ve said Massachusetts rather than New Hampshire,” Bachmann said amid scrutiny on the heels of making the remarks. “We all know that there’s a double standard in the media.”
Oh, so it’s the President fault? Stoopid ass woman.
Punishing Father Pfleger, protecting Cardinal Law
CAROL MARIN cmarin@suntimes.com
May 1, 2011 2:20AM
The Rev. Michael Pfleger is in big trouble. And there is a madness and sadness to it all.
Last week, Chicago Cardinal Francis George publicly suspended Pfleger for what amounts to insubordination. Pfleger is being punished for pushing back against the cardinal’s control and authority as George tries to move him out of St. Sabina parish on the South Side. And reassign him elsewhere.
Although pastors are often moved from parish to parish in 12-year cycles, there have always been some exceptions.
Moreover, if you consider the astounding level of special treatment the Catholic Church has conferred on certain members of its hierarchy, the Pfleger “problem” pales in comparison.
One of the most egregious examples is Cardinal Bernard Law.
Law, a close colleague and friend of George, is an indelible symbol of the calamity and internal corruption of the pedophile crisis.
As the head of the Boston diocese until 2002, Law protected clerical sex offenders, failed to protect innocent victims and willfully obstructed justice.
He resigned and ran to Rome, where two Holy Fathers, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, provided him with a lovely life.
Law will be in attendance with George and the rest of the College of Cardinals for the beatification of Pope John Paul II in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday.
Meanwhile Pfleger, who has had no scandal attached to his name, gets suspended.
For what? Working tirelessly for 30 years in the Auburn-Gresham community? Building a vibrant parish, school and residence for the elderly? Creating a business climate that caused Walgreens to come in and anchor a commercial corridor that once was dominated by shuttered storefronts and heroin markets?
Pfleger’s presence has been transformative.
The Catholic Church has a strict standard by which to judge miracles and believes the soon-to-be-saint John Paul II performed them.
African Americans on Chicago’s South Side would be quick to argue that what Pfleger has done to fight violence, guns and the exploitation of the young by tobacco and alcohol distributors looks pretty darn miraculous to them.
Pfleger, 61, has officiated at more than a dozen funerals of children and adults caught in the crossfire.
The body count includes his own foster son, Jarvis Franklin, who was hit by a stray bullet in 1998. And Officer Michael R. Bailey, who was gunned down last July after finishing a shift guarding Mayor Daley’s house.
If only Cardinal George had shown up at one of those sorrowful services. And stood with Pfleger before the St. Sabina congregation as a shepherd come to comfort a grieving flock.
The saga of Cardinal George and Father Pfleger is a series of squandered opportunities.
Mike Pfleger, however vexing and controversial he has been, has been a faithful servant. Monsignor Ken Velo, who has known Pfleger since junior high school, calls him “a great priest and the face of the church to the black community.”
Transferring or punishing Pfleger serves only one purpose: to prove that even when a bishop is dead wrong, he still demands to be obeyed.
I keep asking myself how in heaven’s name a church that can accommodate an outlaw like Bernie Law can’t do the same for Mike Pfleger.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/marin/5092582-452/punishing-father-pfleger-protecting-cardinal-law.html
GROOVIN ON A SUNDAY AFTERNOON
Nice!
Gov. Jerry Brown undergoes surgery to remove cancerous growth on his nose
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/california-politics/2011/04/gov-jerry-brown-undergoes-surgery-to-remove-cancerous-growth.html
Gov. Jerry Brown had a cancerous growth removed from the right side of his nose in an outpatient procedure Friday in Oakland, according to a statement released Saturday by the governor’s office.
After the procedure to remove basal carcinoma cells and some reconstructive surgery, Brown was released to return home. Basal cell carcinoma is one of the most common forms of skin cancer, can be caused by sun exposure and is very treatable.
Brown’s office said the procedure was conducted under a local anesthetic at a doctor’s office in Oakland. The procedure is called Mohs surgery, in which physicians remove microscopic layers of skin and examine them under a microscope to see if there are cancerous cells. If they are present, additional layers are removed and viewed until there is no more evidence of cancer.
While Brown continues to work on gubernatorial duties, the statement said, he will not appear in public until his stitches are removed. An aide said stitches would be removed starting Friday.
That decision forced the cancellation of Brown’s planned Sunday speech to the state Democratic Party convention in Sacramento. Democratic Party officials said the program would otherwise continue as planned.
On April 21, Brown was spotted with a small bandage on his nose at a budget town hall in Santa Clarita. His wife, Anne, told the Sacramento Bee that he “got a little thing taken off” for testing but that it was not cancer.
Pfleger’s suspension robs his parishioners
By Robert McClory Apr 29, 2011 12:18PM
Cardinal Francis George’s suspension of the Rev. Michael Pfleger from ministry Wednesday is about as ham-handed and wrong-headed a decision as one can make.
What is the point of enforcing a rule that will essentially deprive Chicago’s South Side of one of its most important resources?
During his nearly 30 years at St. Sabina, Pfleger has become embedded in that part of the black community that is most affected by joblessness, poverty, gang action, drug sales and the murder of children. He has become embedded in such a way that he must respond to calls from a wide swath of people who believe they have a claim on him. And in that process, he can no longer be considered the exclusive property of the Roman Catholic archdiocese.
This kind of ministry expansion does not happen often and is indeed rare in any organization or institution. But when it does happen, it should be a call for rejoicing, especially by Catholics in this case. He is serving as an emissary of the Catholic Church, yet serving a far wider range in the community.
The people of St. Sabina understand this. Catholics from other parishes understand this. Protestants, nonbelievers, non-church-goers understand this. So why doesn’t George understand it?
Pfleger will be called often, sometimes two or three times in a week, by a parent he does not know and who will tell him about the shooting of her son or daughter. Invariably, he will be on the phone with her for an hour or two, listening through the tears, expressing his compassion as a pastor and as the father of a foster son who was similarly and senselessly struck down. If asked, he will go to the funeral home and offer words of faith to a gathering of grievers who are not from his church but who know him as a rock they can lean on in the hardest of times. If the family wishes, the Sabina parish staff will print free of charge posters offering a reward for information leading to the prosecution of the guilty. It’s all part of a church deeply committed to the safety of children.
This is not to say that other ministers, clergy and laypeople are not active in the black South Side community. They are, and there’s plenty of work to be done. But Pfleger, this white, blue-eyed clergyman who looks much younger than 61, has a style and charisma that transcends the usual boundaries folks like to set up between them and us. He has acquired the stature of wise elder in this territory not by talk or looks but by action. His stature and that of his church also have been enhanced by the respect for Pfleger in the civil rights community in Atlanta, Washington, D.C., and New Orleans. To these carriers of the legacy of the Martin Luther King Jr., Pfleger is a powerful representative of what Catholicism with a small “c” can achieve.
That helps explain the instant response when George announced some weeks ago that it was time for Pfleger to step down and take over the presidency of a Catholic high school. At a news conference a day later, South Side Protestant leaders pleaded with George not to remove Pfleger. “He has stood with our community, and we are pastors and community leaders are standing with him today,” one pastor said.
It also helps explain the sentiments of 14 Catholic pastors working in the black community who signed a letter to George after his announcement.
“People in our parishes see in Fr. Mike a Catholic priest who has been most faithful to the struggle for human dignity and the social teachings of the church,” they wrote. “What happens at Sabina will have clear impact on black Catholic parishes in the Archdiocese of Chicago.” If the kind of broad ministry that has occurred at Sabina “were to disappear because of a poorly handed transition,” they added, “we could find ourselves standing among the barren pews of St. Sabina, sadly saying, ‘We had to do it. It’s the rule.’ ”
St. Sabina parishioners vow that this will not happen. God willing, this blessed ministry will go on. The haunting question is why George feels compelled to put Pfleger and the black population of Chicago through so much pain with his quibbling over the meaning of words and his insistence that even the thought of leaving the Catholic Church renders one a non-Catholic. Hopefully, George, after presenting a letter to Pfleger and flying off to Rome, will ponder anew this situation as he participates in the extravagant honorifics surrounding the deceased pope, John Paul II.
Robert McClory is author of Radical Disciple: Father Pfleger, St. Sabina Church, and the Fight for Social Justice.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/5069773-452/pflegers-suspension-robs-his-parishioners.html
This is a damn shame.
Tavis Smiley gave the commentary on CBS Sunday Morning-8:30-9:30am this morning, about the birth certificate and PBO, quoting Cornel West.
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Breaking News Alert: Space shuttle Endeavour will not launch Monday
May 1, 2011 9:46:07 AM
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NASA said Sunday that it will not launch space shuttle Endeavour on Monday.
The original launch, scheduled for Friday, had to be scrubbed when part of a power system for the shuttle’s hydraulics malfunctioned.
No new date has been set for Endeavour’s final mission. It is the second-to-last for the shuttle program and will be led by Mark Kelly, husband of wounded Ariz. Rep. Gabriel Giffords.
http://link.email.washingtonpost.com/r/5O5UA2/WL6XDY/HQS013/8PD86G/P7CFY/9A/h
For more information, visit washingtonpost.com
Inspiration for today…
Good Morning, SG2, and Everyone! :-)
Good morning all!!