Big Sole Blog (BSB)

I just learned through a friend on Facebook that The Famous Jett Jackson actor Lee Thompson Young is dead at age 29. According reports from TMZ and hard news organizations such as ABC and the Chicago Tribune, Jackson committed suicide. He died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Young didn't show up for work today, say sources. His landlord discovered his body after someone on staff with

FOX 8 WVUE New Orleans News, Weather, Sports I don't know that I've ever seen anything before like this emotionally gripping encounter on the video above. In it, former New Orleans police officer Josh Colclough, 29, meets with the mother and family of Wendell Allen, the 20-year-old, unarmed young man Colclough shot and killed while executing a narcotics warrant last March. Shortly after the

I've seen this study before, the one where researchers use puppets to determine whether babies as young as three months old have a sense of morality. CBS's 60 Minutes recently ran an update on this baby research, and here's the video. The research indicates that babies prefer those who help others, that they dislike mean people and want mean people, as well as those unlike themselves, to be

President Obama spoke at the White House today about the Trayvon Martin case saying that 35 years ago, he could have been Trayvon. He said what he had to say diplomatically, making this salient point: . . . [W]hen you think about why, in the African- American community at least, there's a lot of pain around what happened here, I think it's important to recognize that the African- American

Noticing the number of people visiting this blog via search engines seeking information on the Baby Antonio West case, I knew some new information must have been released. When I looked the case up, I learned that gun shot residue (GSR) found on the father's clothes has become a minor issue. More than likely the residue transferred to Luis Santiago's clothes when he met with the child's mother

The UK Telegraph reports, "Publishers have been left red-faced after discovering that they rejected the latest novel by J. K. Rowling, one of the world’s best-selling writers." Apparently, the Harry Potter author has written a crime novel under the penname Robert Galbraith, but despite her book, The Cuckoo's Calling, receiving good reviews while Rowling remained in anonymous, the novel hasn't

As everyone who is not in a coma or asleep right now probably knows, the verdict is in in the George Zimmerman trial. The Florida jury of six women found Zimmerman not guilty. Zimmerman shot and killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin last year but claimed self-defense. Martin was unarmed. All I have to say to this news as an African-American mother of a young black male is from now on, we "Remember

I have been very quiet at this blog on the George Zimmerman trial because it feels more like the defense has been prosecuting Trayvon Martin than defending George Zimmerman. It's been painful to hear and watch, especially for those of us who have black sons and perceive that what's being said is "all young black men are dangerous criminals." Nevertheless, I had to share this picture which I

Reading a post about Savannah's history at Examiner.com, I discovered a link to a video in which Paula Deen, appearing on the finale of NBC's Who Do You Think You Are? last year, discovered that her great-great-grandfather, John Batts, owned 35 slaves. Deen had denied for years, she says, that her family ever had anything to do with slavery; however, she did not seem particularly shocked

After reading both the soft-soaping of what Paula Deen's alleged to have said and done in the workplace and the outbursts of people angry at her and after noticing that often her supporters and her detractors did not bother to read the actual complaint against Deen that Lisa T. Jackson, a white female, filed with the court, I've finally had enough. I must say something. I mean, I suspect even

Slowly at this blog, I am working toward writing more about books, fiction, poetry, and writing in general. In other words, I am attempting to focus Whose Shoes Are These Anyway on a particular pair of shoes, that of creative writer and devoted reader. For reasons only a psychoanalyst would understand, I have avoided doing this in the past. Lorrie Moore A feature at the New Yorker today

I did not watch the CNN report on the n-word versus cracker. I'm too old to waste my time with fruitless discussions; however, this clip from that show with LeVar Burton, Wynton Marsalis, Don Lemon, and Tim Wise came to my attention, and I thought it was worth posting. In the clip Burton tells how he, as a black man, behaves when stopped in his car by police officers. Then Don Lemon talks about

If what HBO's True Blood revealed in season previews following last night's premiere of Season 6 is the true story's course, then black vampire Tara Thorton (Rutina Wesley) is in for another run of victimization. The preview indicated that humans will be torturing vampires in order to learn how to kill them efficiently in the vampire war. All ready there's some double-crossing going on, too.

Look at this picture, part of several released by the New Orleans Police Department on May 13. Is that a small child running alone from the shooter? So young, so small, and already he's had to learn to escape a bullet. The man is aiming a gun into a crowd attending a New Orleans Mother's Day Second Line Parade. He and his partner wounded 19 people. Another person was injured when she fell.

The Baby Bachelor, the reality TV series spoof from Jimmy Kimmel Live, made me smile, laugh, and say "awww." Here are Episodes 1, 2 & 3. -- Updated June 14, with episode #4. Episode 1 Episode 2 Episode 3 Episode 4 Kimmel says that his brother Jonathan came up with the show, which features Kimmel's nephew Wesley, age 3, as the Baby Bachelor and little girls ages two & three. For

Generally, I only care for Bonnie Raitt's version of "I Can't Make You Love Me," and I sort of have a blind spot when it comes to men singing this song. I never believe them when they sing it. But I do believe and love Tank's version. If you watched So You Think You Can Dance last night, the Vegas auditions, then you heard this song twice. I think dancers get to cheat a bit when they use

Latest Update, August 16: Negligible alcohol and no drugs found in Terrilynn Monette's system, says coroner's toxicology report. Read at WWLTV site. Formerly missing Terrilynn Monette On Monday, I wrote about the Terrilynn Monette case and how I felt about it as a New Orleans resident and mother of an adult daughter. I spent some of that post obsessing over my belief that criminal justice

Latest Update, August 16: Negligible alcohol and no drugs found in Terrilynn Monette's system, says coroner's toxicology report. Read at WWLTV site. Monette's car with her body was found in Bayou St. John. Mourners have left flowers in her memory. NOLA.com Terrilynn Monette's death may have been ruled a drowning with no foul play, but what I remember most about

Zora Neale Hurston, renowned African-American author, folklorist, and anthropologist, really knew how to put a spin on her life. I suspect her philosophy was never reveal vulnerability. It's public knowledge that Zora died in poverty and was buried in an unmarked grave. (The beautiful Alice Walker went in search of her grave in the 70s and put a symbolic marker in the general area of Zora's

FLOTUS visits Harper High, April 2013 (Nancy Stone-Pool/Getty)  So, what was Michelle Obama talking about when that GetEqual heckler interrupted her? When I first read about First Lady Michelle Obama's confrontation with Ellen Sturtz of the gay rights group GetEqual, I laughed. The first lady was keeping it real. Sturtz clearly did not know who she was messing with, I thought. It's no secret

"Ain't No Way" is one of my favorite Aretha Franklin songs. In fact, years ago I had a post up at an old blog about the Queen of Soul and that song. I am one of those people who would be hard on anyone singing it, so when I say Sasha Allen sang that song amazingly on this week's episode of The Voice, I mean it. "Ain't No Way" came out when I was eight years old. My mother and aunts were

I would like to write more on this, but I don't have time today.

In this video, A.P. Tureaud Jr. (son of the famous Civil Rights attorney) and Louisiana historian Alfred E. Lemmon discuss the musical history of Louisiana's free people of color. Their information is pretty accurate. For instance, it's true that prior to the cultural Americanization of Louisiana and before the Civil War, Louisiana neighborhoods were not as segregated as they became later.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy In the video above, MSNBC's Professor Melissa Harris-Perry talks about how female sexual desire has been treated throughout history in our male-dominated culture. Pointing to a New York Times Magazine article "Unexcited" about Lybrido, a new pill awaiting FDA approval that's supposed to "stoke sexual desire in women,"

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy Miranda Lambert's emotional performance of "The House That Built Me" got to me, too. The country singer and wife of Blake Shelton, sang the song at Wednesday night's benefit on NBC, Healing in the Heartland, for victims of that massive tornado that slammed Moore, Oklahoma, earlier this month. Tornado destruction or not

Oriental Turtle Dove (Streptopelia orientalis) by NikhilSource "Dead Birds Sigh A Prayer"* by Nordette N. Adams I have been told, "Do not post poems on the Internet!" See, the serious poet embeds her words only at the base of ivory towers where an usher pushes a diamond-crusted elevator button, calling offerings to the spire of the poet gods. "A poem is a sacrifice," I have been

Through his Rebuild the Dream organization, environmental activist Van Jones seems to be playing the prophet Nathan to President Obama's David on matters of climate change. Jones says in the video above that if President Obama continues to support the Keystone XL Pipeline, then the president should rename it "The Obama Tar Sands Pipeline." Clearly Jones is disappointed in President Obama

In a recent interview with his close friend Oprah Winfrey, Tyler Perry compared Langston Hughes's negative criticism of Zora Neale Hurston's work to Spike Lee's negative criticism of Perry's work.  I think Perry could use a better example when it comes to contemporary black writers downing his movies, plays, and television shows. (The timing of Perry's interview with Oprah coincides with the

No Game of Thrones tonight, folks. This parody of the HBO series by Jimmy Fallon (Late Night with Jimmy Fallon) nearly makes up for it with a great laugh. The comic production is called Game of Desks, and the show went all out to mimic the GoT, even the opening is very similar and so funny. Looks like they had a lot of fun making this. The verbal argument over the iron desk near the

Front page of the New Orleans Times Picayune, Mother's Day 2013, featuring mothers who've lost children to gun violence. On Mother's Day morning, I found the Sunday edition of the New Orleans Times Picayune on my lawn. The picture here shows that day's front page. The headline of the feature story on the left reads, "Mothers talk about losing a child to violence." For many readers this is

This post supplements a longer post at BlogHer.com. I received an email on Monday (May 13) from BlogHer's News and Politics Editor Grace Hwang Lynch looking for people willing to write about the Mother's Day shooting. When I saw it, I was annoyed. No. I was angry in a way I couldn't understand. I figured that people not from here thought the incident was another "mass shooting story" like

Too hilarious to miss is the video above of Saturday Night Live character Stefon's marriage to Anderson Cooper. The skit marked the last time we'll see Bill Hader regularly doing his Stefon report on Weekend Update with Seth Myers. Saturday, May 18, was Hader's last show as a cast member. Below is a 2011 clip from the David Letterman show in which Hader talks about how he came up with the

In the video above, CNN's Jake Tapper interviews Shonda Rhimes, the creator of ABC's hit show Scandal and the long-running Grey's Anatomy. Rhimes talks about what drew her to Judy Smith's life. Smith is the real woman whose work as a crisis manager inspired Scandal. Rhimes also discusses with Tapper that the show is the first show in 40 years to feature a black woman as the lead character.

Look at this picture. Does that look like a small child running alone from the shooter? So young, so small, and already he's had to learn to escape a bullet. The man in the photo aims at the scattering crowd attending the New Orleans Mother's Day Second Line Parade. Police are currently searching for the suspect, allegedly Akein Scott. But did you notice that small child? Yesterday, I didn't

Apropos posting given yesterday's shooting at the Mothers' Day second line parade in New Orleans. From the film's website. New Orleans, Louisiana is the murder capital of the United States. For the last decade, statistics have shown murder rates four to six times higher than the national average. Eighty percent of the victims are black males, mostly in their teenage years. This is the city's

All I can say is watch Candice Glover, listen to her sing "Somewhere" from West Side Story. I'm going to iTunes for my copy. Here are a few other renditions of this song. First and possibly most well-known is Barbra Streisand's performance, followed by Aretha Franklin's soulful jazz version, which far fewer people have heard. More recent is Josh Grobin and Charlotte Church's duet (the song was

Sinkholes fascinate and terrify me. They have for years, long before I heard about the story of the man whose bedroom was sucked into one in Florida in February. So, when I see a story about sinkholes on the news or online, I have to watch or read, and lately, if the report is about sinkholes in general, like the video posted above, I wait to see whether the reporter covers the mess we've got

I don't know what overtook me today, but for the first time in maybe 30 years, I heard Aretha Franklin's "All the King's Horses," which I've posted above, and started crying. My first thought is that I needed to cry because I've been holding so much in over the last year (family deaths, health concerns, a variety of fears). Once in my life I was known for crying often--sobbing because

Coach Shakira matched Sasha Allen ("At Last") with Shawna P. ("Maybe I'm Amazed"), and I think Shakira was sincere presenting that knock-out-round match-up. Sasha won, rightfully so, but Shawna was a fierce competitor. At least Shakira tried to offer a real battle. Coach Adam Levine, on the other hand, played the audience a bit, pitting Orlando Dixon ("All My Life") against the

I was glad to come across this film about Count Basie. Here is the info on it:Filmmaker Gary Keys' heartfelt tribute to Count Basie and his Orchestra. - Jazz great William "Count" Basie comes back to life in this rich documentary, which traces the history of the pianist, composer, and bandleader over several decades. Filmmaker Gary Keys juxtaposes a roundtable discussion among old cats from

State Laureate of Louisiana, Julie Kane April is gone and with it National Poetry Month. For some, that thirty days of appreciation of the ancient art may be the only time they think about poets and verse or consider how much poetry adds to our lives. Sadly, too, for others, the only time they will hear a poem outside of school may be when someone dies or moves on in some other way.

Birmingham police arrested Martin Luther King Jr. on 12 April 1963, and he penned his famous "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" while imprisoned, slipping it as a crumpled wad of paper to his friend Clarence Jones. Jones did not know what it was until later. On its 50th anniversary, rather than comment on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," I'm commemorating its

I don't know what to say. Police report that two people have died and others have had limbs blown off. CNN.

I am on an Ella Fitzgerald and Count Basie kick right now with frequent turns back to Nancy Wilson. Here's Ella singing "Make Me Rainbows" with the Count Basie Orchestra. There's something about listening to this music that makes me feel my parents, now both deceased, are still very near. Also, a love for this kind of music is one of the things my brother and I shared. He died last year. I

I've said before that Candice Glover is too good for American Idol. I mean that I'd buy her CD right now, especially if she has tracks on it like her rendition of the Cure's "Lovesong." She slayed that song tonight on Ido, seeming to draw on Adele's version of the song but throwing in some Jill Scott flavor. Whatever or whomever Candice drew on tonight, she conjured magic, or as Keith Urban,

The story of Brian Banks moved me and many others last year when we heard that he had been released from prison after serving five years on bogus rape charges and then five years on probation. The young woman who falsely accused him of kidnapping and raping her when they were in high school tried to friend in on Facebook after he had moved on with his life. With the help of private detective, he

Phenomenal movie critic Roger Ebert passed away today. I knew he had cancer and had been suffering with the disease for years and that he was older than I am, so perhaps I should have perceived that he may pass away soon. Yet even when I saw in my news feed yesterday a headline saying that his cancer had returned, I did not expect only two days later to hear of his death. Why would I expect to

I'm having an attack of "Am I the Same Girl" fixation tonight, listening to its different versions again. This fit comes around every eight or nine years, I'm starting to think, and I have loved almost every version of this song, including its incarnations as the instrumental "Soulful Strut" by Young Holt Limited in 1968-69 (according to Wikipedia session musicians actually were the ones playing

This month the Barman's Fund of New Orleans will give a boost to the city's only street paper, the New Orleans Street Exchange. According to the newspaper's newsletter, "the Barman’s Fund is a motley assortment of bartenders who pledge all earnings from one shift a month for charitable organizations." The N.O. Street Exchange is a street newspaper benefiting the city's homeless community and

One look at this video showing how officers of the New Orleans Police Department killed a likely suicidal man and you may doubt the competence of the NOPD. One look and you may understand why Mayor Landrieu should not be allowed to let the city escape its consent decree with the Department of Justice in place to reform the city's police department. The video below shows a listless 39-year-old

In the video above, a cute little girl follows the dance moves of one of NOLA's Calypso Tumblers who perform across the street from Jackson Square in the French Quarter.

Apparently the police in Brunswick, Georgia, believe they have a very strong case against De'Marquise Elkins, the alleged shooter in the death of Baby Antonio, and the recently identified 15-year-old, Dominique Lang. The pair will be charged as adults, reports U.S. News on NBC. Furthermore, Elkins has lost his alibi. His mother and aunt have been arrested for lying to the police: Karima Aisha

Read the latest on this case at this blog at this link.UPDATES, March 2013: Evidence is mounting against the boys, Elkins and the now-identified 15-year-old Dominique Lang. While Sherry West's story seems off (perhaps due to her alleged mental illnesses), it's starting to look as though she's telling the truth. A gun's been recovered. Read more here. Today, someone left a link in comments on my

Updates: Read updates under the Baby Antonio label.In the CNN video posted below, Sherry West, the mother of 13-month-old Baby Antonio, who was shot in the face in Brunswick, Georgia, last week, tells how her first son, Shaun Glassey, also died a violent death. Glassey was stabbed to death with a steak knife in New Jersey in 2008 when he was 18 years old. However, he was not an innocent victim,

Updates at this label: Baby AntonioWhat a horrific story, "Baby Shot Dead in Stroller"! On the video later in this post, you will see Sherry West, the mother of a 13-month old boy in Brunswick, Georgia, who was shot in the face and died instantly. West says that Baby Antonio was shot by two young black males (ages 14 and 17). Sadly, it's possible that it happened just as the mother said it did,

All right now. Candice Glover rocked out on the Beatle's classic "Come Together." This young woman could cut a record now. She's got tremendous talent and poise. If you'd like background on that song, here's a link to the Wikipedia entry. Angie Miller also performed exceptionally well tonight singing "Yesterday," and I like her new hair style, shape.

I may have misheard Mariah Carey on American Idol tonight when she was critiquing Amber Holcomb, but I thought Mariah said that she was not familiar with the Beatles's classic "She's Leaving Home." I know the Fab Four's version and I love it, but I also love jazz singer Al Jarreau's version, which I've posted below. I first heard "She's Leaving Home" when I bought The Beatles' album Sgt.

SNL's at it again poking at us down here in New Orleans, Louisiana, with Maine Justice, where the whole world is flipped. This time with Justin Timberlake. I knew that they must have broadcasted another installation of this craziness last night when my old post about Maine Justice with Jamie Foxx got more than 200 hits in an hour sometime after midnight Central Standard Time. Whatever I said the

With all this talk of the Vatican's papal conclave choosing another Pope in the wake of Pope Benedict XVI's departure, along with the rumors of why he retired, the song "Pope" (1993) by Prince (His Royal Purpleness), keeps running through my head. The song is included on his album, "The Hits/the B Sides," a compilation of his early hits. In particular, I recall the song's chorus, which follows

First the classic Nancy Wilson version, beautifully articulated. Next, the sensuous Al Jarreau, also beautifully articulated. I love both versions, and I also think Jarreau is a Nancy Wilson fan because his version comes from his album Tenderness on which he sings another song previously recorded by Wilson, "Go Away, Little Boy/Girl." As Wilson points out in the first video, Buddy

Marvin Gaye's song "Just to Keep You Satisfied" is one of the best tunes ever written about the break-up of a marriage. It's believable that these people were at one point in a loving relationship, and it also conveys the pain of leaving while knowing that leaving is all you can do. I have a friend who tells me that people who were really in love still love each other on some level even when

In the video above, CNN's Anderson Cooper interviews Milwaukee Police Chief Edward A. Flynn about the chief's heated exchange with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) at a hearing on an assault weapons ban. During the hearing, Flynn, in full dress uniform, rightfully asked Graham to stop talking over him and to let him speak. Graham had been interrupting Flynn to deliver NRA talking points in an

On Facebook, a friend of mine shared this article at Cracked.com headlined "4 Things Politicians Will Never Understand About Poor People." In plain language (with occasional cussing) John Cheese debunks the common myths politicians perpetuate about people living in poverty, such as they don't work and that they only want handouts. His post also reveals some of the offensive rhetoric some

We don't want no sequestration. We don't want no harmful goals. Close the chasm 'tween rich and poor. Leaders leave our net alone. Hey! Leaders! Leave that net alone! All in all it's just another trick. We're appalled. All in all you're just another brick in the wall. These lines play off Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall." © 2013 Nordette Adams

I saw this photo of President Obama in a Huffington Post slide show of best political pictures. It's captioned as:A light shines behind President Barack Obama as he speaks during a campaign event at Bayliss Park, Monday, Aug. 13, 2012, in Council Bluffs, Iowa, during a three day campaign bus tour through Iowa. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)Knowing that the president has been promoting solar energy,

The video above shows Senator and former presidential candidate John McCain in a pickle again, having to defend President Obama to the fringier folks of the Republican base. The first clip is from a 2008 neeting when a McCain supporter says then-candidate Obama is an Arab. The second clip comes from footage of a McCain Town Hall meeting in Phoenix, Arizona, held this year, 2013.First a

" type="audio/mpeg" /> " Amber Holcomb's rendition of "My Funny Valentine" reminded me how much I love the song, and despite already having multiple copies of the classic by different artists, I went in search of other versions. As a result, I discovered bassist John B. Williams's cut of "You'll See/My Funny Valentine" with the incomparable Nancy Wilson on vocals. You'll find the track

So cute and funny! Jimmy Fallon in drag with the FLOTUS in "The Evolution Of Mom Dancing." A friend shared it on Facebook, and I needed this healthy laugh.

Amber Holcomb - Vegas Singoff - American Idol 12 by IdolxMuzic I would buy Amber Holcomb's rendition of "My Funny Valentine" right this minute if it were for sale. The young Texan performed the jazz classic on tonight's sudden death round of American Idol, proving that she deserves to be on the show and in the music business. I enjoyed Kree Harrison and singer/songwriter Angela Miller as well.

Some students in a physics class in Chelyabinsk, Russia, thought war had broken out when this week's blasts from a meteor broke windows at their school. If such a cosmic event had happened here in the American South, I think our Fundamentalist Christians would have thought not war but the end of the world. Read more at CNN where a "witness says flash shone 'like 10 suns,' felt shock wave pass

This is Snow Ball, a 1.5 year old Samoyed. I saw him for adoption at the St. Tammany Humane Society Shelter in Covington, LA, on February 15, 2013, when I took my Lab in for a check-up.

Endymion's Pontchartrain Beach float is soooo long that it couldn't make a corner turn. The Krewe of Endymion debuted its massive Pontchartrain Beach float at its 2013 parade, three days before Mardi Gras. The float has multiple cars, is 375 feet long, and holds at least 230 riders, and it pays tribute to a local amusement park that closed in 1983. The cars represent different attractions and

This video was filmed yesterday in the New Orleans French Quarter. We were caught in small second line parade and 49ers fans assumed I was a Ravens fan, but it was an all good Super Bowl 47 weekend experience.Unfortunately I have to drive back down there tonight around 10:30 when the party will be insane. I anticipates official and unofficial roadblocks. I got a taste of that earlier today when

I could not get the idea out of my head that one of Tyler Perry's lines in Alex Cross was a tip of the hat to Oprah Winfrey's portrayal of Sofia in The Color Purple. When Tyler Perry says, "I will meet him at the gates of hell before I let him take another person from me that I love," does the line ring any bells?

I did not plan to be in the French Quarter on Super Bowl weekend, but I'm glad that I was forced down there.

Yes, I'm tired of this story, too, about Beyonce lip-syncing the "Star-Spangled Banner" at President Obama's second inauguration ceremony, but since the superstar's in my city, New Orleans, for Super Bowl XLVII, and since she handled the controversy so well, I think it's fitting to post this video. In the video above from her press conference today at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center,

My cousin. L.C. of Texas (pre-Katrina of New Orleans), shared this funny story on Facebook about a true experience she had in Target. I think her story comments on a technological divide between generations: The strangest thing happened to me this evening. . . . I went to Target to purchase a stationery set and had trouble finding any. So, I asked this twenty-something year-old for assistance.

I do not to mean to imply that there's any great competition between Carole King's version of her hit "So Far Away" and soul singer Jerry "Iceman" Butler's version. After all, Carole wrote the song, but back in the 1970s I owned both versions and often played them back to back, probably giving the edge to Carole because Jerry's version sounds overly dramatic later in the song (not Jerry's singing

I attended a women's group meeting today where I learned that human trafficking of young girls plagues New Orleans because the city is a major port and tourism destination. I may have heard this before, but this is the first time the news really hit me as "of course this horrible fact must be true," and that realization rattled me. So, I came home and researched the

Richard Blanco, inaugural poet, delivered a beautiful poem for President Barack Obama's inauguration on January 21, 2013. The poem is entitled "One Day. " On Twitter I described the poem as "beautiful, lyrical, expansive, inclusive." I saw others tweet about its strong imagery. The poet discussed earlier with the BBC capturing the U.S.A. in verse. He told the interviewer that writing a poem

On Friday, January 18, Judy Smith talked to CNN about two media crises troubling the lives of two very different sports celebrities: Lance Armstrong's doping scandal and Manti Te'o's bizarre case of the fantasy girlfriend. As I've written before, Smith is the real-life crisis manager on whom Shonda Rhimes based ABC's hit show Scandal, which stars Kerry Washington as Olivia Pope (the character

I am still contemplating the capacity to love unconditionally. Here is my poem, not meant for literary magazines, but for all people in struggle for peaceful human co-existence: "The Real Thing About It." It is a meditation.

Giraffes' mating ritual commences at Disney World's Animal Kingdom Lodge, but doesn't get far.

BAD WRITING from Morris Hill Pictures on Vimeo. This movie, directed by Vernon Lott, is streaming for free on Vimeo the entire month of January, and it has a Facebook page, www.facebook.com/badwritingmovie. H/T to Paul Constant. The documentary features interviews with well-known nonfiction and fiction writers and poets, including David Sedaris, Margaret Atwood, Nick Flynn, Steve Almond, and