Richard Smallwood (born 30 November 1948 in Atlanta, Georgia) is an American Gospel music artist who formed The Richard Smallwood Singers in 1977 in Washington, DC.
Richard graduated cum laude from Howard University with degrees in both vocal performance and piano, in addition to graduate work in the field of ethnomusicology. Smallwood was a member of The Celestials, the first gospel group on Howard University’s campus. That group was the first gospel act to appear at Switzerland’s Montreux Jazz Festival. Richard was also a founding member of Howard’s first gospel choir.
Racism, Romney And The Mormon Church
April 3, 2012
By Michael Patrickson
Recently Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney had a chance to address concerns about his Mormon faith and concerns about a racist doctrine the church abandoned when Romney was a 31-year-old man.
By dodging the question about his Mormon faith and race, Romney failed to address legitimate concerns voters may have; concerns about Romney’s biography, and Romney’s position on race relations.
At a Town Hall meeting in Green Bay, Wisconsin, a voter confronted Romney about controversial and racist teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, teachings the church officially abandoned in 1978.
The voter made a clumsy attempt to quote a passage from Mormon scripture – a verse from the Pearl of Great Price, a standard Mormon work, that clearly states that dark-skinned people are inferior to whites. Romney quickly cut the voter off. The following is a transcript of that exchange:
Voter: OK. Well, um, In the Mormon book, it says there were a blackness came upon all children of Canaan and..
Romney: [Talking over him] I’m sorry, we’re just not going to have a discussion about religion in my view, but I can—if you have a question, I can answer your question.
Voter: I guess my question is, do you believe it is a sin for a white man to marry and procreate with a black woman?
Romney: No. Next question.
Romney, a lifelong member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, served as a Mormon missionary in France as a young man. In addition, Romney was appointed a counselor in his stake in 1977 when he was only 30 years old, a very high position in the church for someone so young.
In 1978, giving into considerable outside pressures, the Mormon church officially abandoned their racist doctrine, a doctrine that explicitly taught that black-skinned people are inferior to whites. This means that Romney apparently lived in accord with the racist teachings of his church for the first 30 years of his life. This is something voters have a right to be curious about, and something Romney needs to explain.
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/04/03/racism-romney-and-the-mormon-church/
SHONDA RHIMES ADOPTS A GIRL!
Wednesday, Apr 04 , 2012 8:16:am by Sarie
Grey’s Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes adopted a baby girl named Emerson Pearl in February 2012. The screenwriter told Us Weekly, “I’ve been writing adoption into story lines on my shows and only a few people close to me knew about my plans. I think the response was ‘oh my goodness’ from a lot of people.”
Rhimes has gotten a lot of time to bond with her newest bundle of joy. As Shonda explains, “Emerson is incredibly mellow. We’re just doing a lot of bonding right now. This is a happy time — I feel so lucky.”
Little Emerson Pearl joins Rhimes’ daughter Harper, whom she adopted in 2002.
http://www.blackcelebkids.com/2012/04/04/shonda-rhimes-adopts-a-girl/
good grief..
the gene pool of the Van Peebles family is ridiculously strong.
Melvin looks like he spit out Mario who looks like he spit out Mandela.
………………………………………………..
MANDELA VAN PEEBLES TALKS ABOUT HIS NEW FILM, HIS FAMILY AND MORE
Friday, Apr 06 , 2012 8:35:am by Aisha
Mandela Van Peebles is the star of his father’s new film, “We the Party,” opening in theaters today. The 17-year-old budding teen actor recently chatted with next Movie.com about the new film, his famous father Mario Van Peebles, and more. Check out some of the interview highlights below:
On the movie poster you strike a Michael Jackson pose on your toes. There are a lot of new dances featured in “We the Party,“ like the Dougie. Can you do them all?
I do not dance often. It’s true there’s a lot of dancing [in the film]. I could do the Dougie, but I don’t dance anymore, ’cause gangsters don’t dance.
What about the scenes acting opposite your father?
We’re pretty close. It’s coming out of love. He loves me and he wants the best for me, so if he’s saying, “Look, you really should work on this scene. You don’t know your lines well enough,” I try my best to work on it. If I have a booger in my nose, he’s going to tell me. At the same time, it’s kind of a symbiotic relationship. If he’s trying to make the movie young and fresh, I try and help him out as far as what teens would say, how to ad-lib the lines and stuff like that.
Whose career in Hollywood would you most like to have?
Will Smith is an amazing guy. I would say he has had a very cool career, it seems. He’s able to make his own movies. He put his son in it. It kind of mirrors [the working relationship I have with] my dad.
Why does everyone in your family’s first name begin with M? (Melvin, Mario, Megan, Max, Maya, Makaylo, Morgana, Marley)
Our initials are MVP.
http://www.blackcelebkids.com/2012/04/06/mandela-van-peebles-talks-about-his-new-film-his-family-and-more/
Click on the link to see the beautiful little Black girl she adopted.
……………………………………….
MARISKA HARGITAY: ‘ADOPTION WAS A BUMPY RIDE’
Thursday, Apr 05 , 2012 10:28:am
Mariska Hargitay and husband Peter Hermann gained much attention last year after adopting two children within six months time. Although the couple were delighted to adopt, Mariska and Peter were not happy about the process. In an exclusive interview with Good Housekeeping, Mariska opened up about the adoption process saying, “I’m not gonna lie. There were wrenching moments. I say to everybody, Adoption is not for the faint of heart.”
Hargitay reflected back on a time when she and Peter adopted a newborn. After naming her and two days of parenting, the baby’s biological mother decided to resume guardianship. Mariska and Peter were heartbroken. The actress states, “The long and short of it: the birth mother changed her mind. It was nothing short of devastating. But … this is what I’ve come to understand about life: It was probably the greatest, happiest ending. I mean, it was so painful for us, but it was deeply joyful and deeply right for her.”
Although she describes the adoption process as a “bumpy ride,” Hargitay says it was “worth the fight.” Mariska and Peter are the proud parents to children Amaya Josephine, 13 months old, and sons Nicholas,9 months, and August, 5½.
http://www.blackcelebkids.com/2012/04/05/mariska-hargitay-adoption-was-a-bumpy-ride/
April 07, 2012
The Romney campaign, in 149 words
Dana Milbank has mapped Exotic RomneyWorld, featuring bizarro speechifying, in one handy, column-length tourist guide, which I thought would be even handier in one printable, indeed memorizable, paragraph — a little something you could, perhaps in rap form, hurl verbatim into the witless face of the next pseudoconservative coworker or beer-belching in-law who defies you to name anything that Mitt Romney is lying about.
Everything that follows has been gainsaid by fact checkers.
Ready? OK. Take a breath. Here we go:
President Obama, exclaims Gov. Romney, has orchestrated the “weakest economic recovery since the Great Depression” and conjured an “unaccountable panel with the power to prevent Medicare from providing certain treatments” and he “didn’t even mention the deficit or debt” in his SOTU address and he has “failed to even pass a budget” and he “never worked in the private sector” and he “gave” GM and Chrysler “to the UAW” and he has “added regulations at a staggering rate” and conducted “a government takeover of health care” and he’s ending “Medicare as we know it” and he’s “the only president to ever cut $500 billion from Medicare” and he’s squandering “about $100 billion a year” on Obamacare and he’s gutted our Navy to WWI levels and he’s been “apologizing for America abroad” — and Lord have mercy “we’re only inches away,” because of President Barack Obama, “from no longer being a free economy.”
Now, in Romney’s defense, if he were to take away the Obama-villainizing lies, he wouldn’t have much of a campaign left. What would he talk about? I’m quite serious. Romney could vaguely promote the Ryan/House budgets as English/Irish/European-style roadmaps to fiscal discipline and national character-building austerity; but the monstrously Medicare-voucherizing and poor-bashing specifics of those budgets would horrify centrist voters. So that’s out. Or, Romney could talk up his Pentagon buildup of Reaganesque proportions; but that would only flag his intention to blow even bigger holes in the federal budget. So that’s out. Or, Romney could blather about “getting” the wickedly terrorist “bad guys”; but that’s already been done, or is being done, by Obama. So that’s out. Or, Romney could market a more expensive, more bloodletting war in Afghanistan; but such inspired militarism is intensely opposed by six out of every five Americans, and the opposition is still growing. So that, too, is out.
What does that leave? You got it — or rather, Romney’s got it: not much. A few phantasmagoric references to the pseudoconservative buncombe of cutting yet more taxes and slashing even more regulations — let’s see, that consumes eight or nine seconds — and then 15 minutes of soaring, utterly fact-free Obama-vilification. See above. It’s all Romney’s got.
http://pmcarpenter.blogs.com/p_m_carpenters_commentary/2012/04/the-romney-campaign-in-149-words.html
This is why the President has a hard time.
What part of BEING ON MESSAGE don’t these worthless Dems understand?
………………………
Key Dem: ‘Wrong’ To Say GOP Waging A War On Women
Sahil Kapur April 8, 2012, 11:05 AM 5953
Democrats didn’t have their message straight on Sunday.
In separate segments on CNN’s State of the Union, two top Democrats differed on whether Republicans are waging a “war on women,” a central line of attack that Democrats have reaped big political gains for amid the GOP’s recent push to limit access to contraception.
DNC chair and Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, pressed on whether it’s fair to accuse Republicans of waging a war on women, didn’t concede an inch.
“The focus of the Republican Party on turning back the clock for women really is something that’s unacceptable and shows how callous and insensitive they are towards women’s priorities,” she said.
Since 2011, Republicans have pushed various bills that would restrict access to abortion and women’s health services. The DNC chairwoman cited those efforts as well as the GOP’s opposition to legislation establishing equal pay for women as evidence that the party’s policies are antithetical to women’s interests.
Later on the same show, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO), the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus and an influential African-American voice, strongly pushed back on his own party’s line of attack.
When Clever, a United Methodist pastor, lit into the GOP’s claim that President Obama is anti-religion, social conservative Ralph Reed retorted, “Congressman, is it similarly wrong, then, for Democrats to say that the Republican Party is engaged in a war on women? Is that wrong?”
“Yes, that is wrong. And I’ve never said it, not one time,” Cleaver responded. “I condemn it. If it’s a Democrat, if it’s my cousin, it’s wrong.”
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/04/key-dem-wrong-to-say-gop-waging-a-war-on-women.php?ref=fpb
Idiot ass clown!
Secret Service agents watch over U.S. President Barack Obama (3rd L) as he walks from the White House to an Easter church service with his wife Michelle (3rd R) and their daughters Sasha (2nd L) and Malia (2nd R) in Washington April 8, 2012.
U.S. President Barack Obama’s motorcade sits on the driveway next to where the South Lawn of the White House is being prepared for the upcoming Easter Egg Roll.
Working As Intended, Folks
By Zandar April 8th, 2012
This Easter Sunday, the NY Times has this Jason DeParle story on red states shredding welfare safety nets and the people who keep falling through them.
Faced with flat federal financing and rising need, Arizona is one of 16 states that have cut their welfare caseloads further since the start of the recession — in its case, by half. Even as it turned away the needy, Arizona spent most of its federal welfare dollars on other programs, using permissive rules to plug state budget gaps.
The poor people who were dropped from cash assistance here, mostly single mothers, talk with surprising openness about the desperate, and sometimes illegal, ways they make ends meet. They have sold food stamps, sold blood, skipped meals, shoplifted, doubled up with friends, scavenged trash bins for bottles and cans and returned to relationships with violent partners — all with children in tow.
Esmeralda Murillo, a 21-year-old mother of two, lost her welfare check, landed in a shelter and then returned to a boyfriend whose violent temper had driven her away. “You don’t know who to turn to,” she said.
Maria Thomas, 29, with four daughters, helps friends sell piles of brand-name clothes, taking pains not to ask if they are stolen. “I don’t know where they come from,” she said. “I’m just helping get rid of them.”
To keep her lights on, Rosa Pena, 24, sold the groceries she bought with food stamps and then kept her children fed with school lunches and help from neighbors. Her post-welfare credo is widely shared: “I’ll do what I have to do.”
And as any conservative can tell you, this is working 100% as intended. If those on welfare turn to crime, then it’s clearly permissible to cut welfare even further to stop coddling these criminals, and then of course pass those savings through tax cuts on to the Almighty Job Creators, who will then certainly create more jobs and uplift these broken souls back into society. Any time now, those jobs will be just pouring out. Yep.
Of course without that vital last part, it becomes and endless conveyor belt to transfer wealth to the wealthy and drive the poor into other states (preferably blue ones) where they become somebody else’s problem. Meanwhile, red states like Arizona get to claim they’ve cut welfare rolls and that the rest of America needs to follow their success.
Meanwhile, the expensive private prison conglomerates designed to incarcerate the increasingly desperate among us costing taxpayers far more per person than the welfare did in the first place is beside the point, that money’s well spent because we’re tough on crime. Certainly the GOP is licking their chops at the latest iteration of the House GOP budget, turning safety net programs into block grants they can raid for even more tax cuts and wealth transfer. And if the GOP gets control, guess what’s happening to these programs in the future?
Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, the top House Republican on budget issues, calls the current welfare program “an unprecedented success.” Mitt Romney, who leads the race for the Republican presidential nomination, has said he would place similar restrictions on “all these federal programs.” One of his rivals, Rick Santorum, calls the welfare law a source of spiritual rejuvenation.
“It didn’t just cut the rolls, but it saved lives,” Mr. Santorum said, giving the poor “something dependency doesn’t give: hope.”
As in “hope God chose you to be rich, because otherwise you’re screwed.” Happy Easter Hunger Games from the GOP. Don’t worry, when you die, your suffering will be rewarded in the next life. Oh wait, it won’t because you were poor and wasted your life so you obviously sinned, so it’s okay if we kick your face in a few more times.
Like I said, working as intended.
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2012/04/08/working-as-intended-folks/
Getting Called Ugly By a Frog
By Charles P. Pierce
at 7:45PM
In case you haven’t noticed, if you’re a Republican politician, you can pretty much call the president of the United States anything you want. But some examples are just too damn remarkable to let pass without comment.
In a tweet sent Saturday morning, Grassley said he wasn’t “outraged” by the president’s statement because he believes the American people “r not stupid as this x prof of con law.”
This is funny because, one paragraph later, it is reported that,
Grassley is known for his colorful (and at times indecipherable) Twitter feed.. the senator typically tweets in shorthand.
And in fluent moron. Apparently, at the 110-character mark, the senator gets the bends.
This is also funny because, you see, if there’s one thing that Chuck Grassley is noted for, it is that he is the most spectacular box of rocks, the most bulging bag of hammers, in the history of the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body. If brains were atom bombs, he couldn’t blow his nose. If his IQ was one point lower, they’d have to water him. As the great Dan Jenkins once put it in another context, if the man had a brain, he’d be out in the yard playing with it.
Don’t take it from me. Ask anyone.”Stupid” is not a word for this fella to be tossing around idly, even if he did spell it out fully.
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/Glass_Houses_And_Stones#ixzz1rSenqy1I
The Company You Keep
By Charles P. Pierce
at 8:00PM
The pit crew handling the Romneybot 2.0 is not doing a good job keeping strangers away from the mechanism. They keep sneaking into the garage and having their pictures taken with it in embarrassing poses, and then posting them so everyone can have a good laugh. Security has broken down entirely.
For example, defrocked racist legislative goon Russell (No Goddamn Relation) Pearce down in Arizona pointed out that his views on illegal immigration are not too far distant from the latest ones produced by the Romneybot. This caused people to notice that one of the Romneybot’s handlers on this issue is someone best described as “Russell Pearce without The Turner Diaries.”
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R), who has played an instrumental role in authorizing illegal immigration laws in Arizona, Alabama and elsewhere, has served as a Romney adviser since the beginning of this year.
And, also, Scott Walker, the goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to run their midwest subsidiary formerly known as the state of Wisconsin, in a move that is absolutely not in any way part of any Republican “war on women” signed a bill repealing Wisconsin’s pay-equity act, thereby guaranteeing that another few hundred thousand Wisconsinites would like to boot him down State Street in Madison. He did this on Thursday, apparently with a pen that didn’t make any sound because, as all his friends always say, Scotty has the courage to make the tough decisions. The Romneybot itself said just the other day that Walker was a “hero” and a “man of courage.”
You simply can’t be handing out garage passes like M&M’s. You wind up with all kinds of riff-raff tinkering with the machine.
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/Willard_Has_New_Friends#ixzz1rSeEgHzQ
Garbage In, Garbage Out
By Charles P. Pierce
at 10:45PM
The National Review has fired John Derbyshire for violating company policy regarding admitting what American conservatism has been all about since 1964. This has forced Rich Lowry to fake it.
We never would have published it, but the main reason that people noticed it is that it is by a National Review writer. Derb is effectively using our name to get more oxygen for views with which we’d never associate ourselves otherwise.
Without “views” like Derbyshire’s, and without the money ol’ Bill Buckley got for being a star on public television, National Review would have been out of business five years before Lowry was born.
“The fiend who set off the bomb does not have the sympathy of the white population in the South; in fact, he set back the cause of the white people there so dramatically as to raise the question whether in fact the explosion was the act of a provocateur – of a Communist, or of a crazed Negro. Some circumstantial evidence lends a hint of plausibility to that notion, especially the ten-minute fuse (surely a white man walking away form the church basement ten minutes earlier would have been noticed?). And let it be said that the convulsions that go on, and are bound to continue, have resulted from revolutionary assaults on the status quo, and a contempt for the law, which are traceable to the Supreme Court’s manifest contempt for the settled traditions of Constitutional practice.”
— National Review, October 1, 1963
Nice try, Sparklepants.
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/Crocodile_tears_will_drown_us#ixzz1rSdjkpWp
Obama reflects on Easter message
By JOSEPH WILLIAMS | 4/7/12 7:00 AM EDT
In his weekly address broadcast to the nation Saturday, President Barack Obama set aside political partisanship to reflect on the Easter holiday and the ancient religious story of Christ’s resurrection, as an inspirational message for all Americans regardless of religious beliefs.
“For millions of Americans, this weekend is a time to celebrate redemption at God’s hand,” Obama said. Although Easter “holds special meaning” for him and other Christians, Obama said, “all of us, no matter how or whether we believe, can identify with elements of [Jesus’s] story. The triumph of hope over despair. Of faith over doubt.”
The national address was part of a series of events this week underscoring the president’s Christian faith.
Obama gave a brief speech at the National Easter Prayer Breakfast on Monday, telling the audience that he finds hope in the story of Jesus and his resurrection. “Like us, Jesus knew doubt,” he said. “Like us, Jesus knew fear.”
On Friday, the president began the holiday weekend with a traditional Seder dinner at the White House for staff, family and friends. Though church isn’t listed on Obama’s official Sunday schedule, the president and his family have attended Easter services each year since taking office; last year, they worshiped at Shiloh Baptist Church in downtown Washington.
And on Monday, the first family will host the annual Easter Egg Roll on the north lawn of the White House grounds. Thousands of youngsters and their families are expected to attend.
In his Saturday address, Obama said millions of Jews, their loved ones and Christian friends broke bread the day before to “retell the story of the Exodus.” And, despite busy and hectic schedules, “many of us took a few quiet moments to try and fathom the tremendous sacrifice Jesus made for all of us,” the president said.
Though the Christian holy days date back eons, Obama said, “they connect us to our past and give us strength as we face the future. And they remind us of the common thread of humanity that connects us all.”
On Sunday, “my family will join Christians around the world as we thank God for the all-important gift of grace through the resurrection of His son, and experience the wonder of Easter morning,” Obama said.
“Tomorrow, we will celebrate the resurrection of a savior who died so that we might live. And throughout these sacred days, we recommit ourselves to following His example,” he continued. “We rededicate our time on Earth to selflessness, and to loving our neighbors. We remind ourselves that no matter who we are, or how much we achieve, we each stand humbled before an almighty God.”
Those beliefs, Obama added, “help unite Americans of all faiths and backgrounds. They shape our values and guide our work. They put our lives in perspective.”
To Christians “celebrating the Resurrection with us, Michelle and I want to wish you a blessed and Happy Easter,” the president said. “And to all Americans, I hope you have a weekend filled with joy and reflection, focused on the things that matter most. God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0412/74923.html#ixzz1rScIiQmy
John 3:16
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Amen!
Thank you, Jesus! Thank You!
BREAKING: Legendary CBS ’60 Minutes’ correspondent Mike Wallace dead at 93, CBS says.
National Review Fires John Derbyshire, Writer Who Penned Racist Screed. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/07/national-review-fires-john-derbyshire_n_1410273.html
Oklahoma murders: Police hold two in Tulsa.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-17651621
Doyle Tucker @emancipator9:
@wolfblitzercnn Not arresting Zimmerman has sent a terrible message. Possible copycat shootings already taking place in North Tulsa,OK
Happy Easter Everyone!
Happy Easter, Dannie!
Have a blessed day with family & friends.
Happy Easter dannie and Everyone :)
Dear Sweet Jesus! Hear this prayer. My soul is grieved for Trayvon Martin as if he’s my own child. I pray for his parents & that justice be done!
In Jesus Name!
AMEN!
AMEN
Praise God!
But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.
Isaiah 53:5
Good Morning, 3Chics! Happy Easter!