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When Hugh Hefner’s name is mentioned the very first thing that comes to mind for most people is Playboy (the magazine and the bunnies). That white bunny logo placed against an all black background has provoked the social consciousness of America since the 1950s.
To some, Hugh Hefner has made this country a better place by dragging our sexual consciousness in to the future kicking and screaming, yet to others he is little more than a charlatan.
To some he’s thought of as the prehistoric forerunner to the P. Diddy school of overindulgence and bling. He’s been accused of being a pornographer, the king of all chauvinist pigs and even the reason for the marginalization of morality in this country.
But, like most people, there are other sides of the story. Playboy and the player lifestyle that Hugh Hefner was supposedly living were simply for show. The man was far, far deeper than that.
Sure, he loved and still loves the ladies (lots and lots of ‘em, we might add, thanks to Viagra), but he doesn’t get half the credit he deserves, and gets most of the darts for what he does not.
“There are probably a lot of people today enjoying freedoms who have no idea Hugh Hefner was the pioneer who got all the arrows. He fought for it on every level, everybody, and if you think it’s just about sex, then you’re looking through the keyhole, and you’re not seeing the whole picture” — Bill Maher, comedian/talk show host
81-year-old Hugh Hefner is also a man with many causes, one of which was his support of the civil rights movement and, surprisingly, the women’s rights movement as well. He was even an early proponent for the legalization of marijuana. Academy Award winning director Bridgette Berman tried to capture all of his many sides and the 2 hour running time of “Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel” are barely enough to contain his larger than life persona. Berman was kind enough to forward us a copy and, we have to say, it’s very interesting, no, fascinating stuff to say the least.
For those that are too young to remember, and for those that may have forgotten, Hugh Hefner was against all of the social norms of the day. He was not only against the prudish sexual nature of the day, but he was against racism and for the women’s suffrage movement. All of this while being targeted by the Catholic church, the religious right and the FBI. An incredible man to say the least. “Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel” also features commentary from some of his harshest critics and that makes the film that much more interesting. How many biographers will add the naysayers commentary?
Brilliant as far as we’re concerned!
“Playboy magazine and that whole mind set, that whole philosophy, that whole attitude of no restraint whatsoever, moral, spiritually any other way, has contributed more than any other single ingredient, to the breaking of the moral compass,” says Christian activist and singer Pat Boone.
“There was no situation as to whether Hef would allow it,” said Berman of including dissenting views in the documentary. “He truly believes in freedom of speech, first amendment. With that comes yay and nay. You can see that it’s a labor of love and a lot of work went in to it. It was important for me that this not be a Valentine to Mr. Hefner. Even though I am a friend of his, the friend retreated to the back and I became a filmmaker, first and foremost.”
The film is honest and includes many of Hugh Hefner’s staunchest enemies, but it includes some surprising friends as well.
“Many people in the festival screenings have said they came under protest,” said Berman. “They didn’t really want to see a film about Hugh Hefner and were kind of dragged there. They said they were astonished about the things that they learned; his activism in civil rights, his friendship with Martin Luther King Jr. and Rev. Jesse Jackson. Jim Brown and he have had a long, outstanding friendship.”
Some may have also forgotten that Martin Luther King Jr’s last article was published in Playboy and was edited by Coretta Scott King. History bears witness to, and the film reminds of, the fact that Hugh Hefner has gone to great lengths to do what he saw was right. In the 1960s the Playboy Clubs in Miami and New Orleans would not allow African American patrons in, so Hefner used his money to buy the clubs back at a considerable loss so black patrons could be allowed in. In the late 1960s his late night variety show “Playboy After Dark” featured mixed race musical acts and audience members when America was still soaked in bigotry and hate. Also, Hugh Hefner was instrumental in pushing jazz to the mainstream with his Playboy Jazz Festival. Because of Hefner, a lot of black people got to feed their families and that’s not even the half of it.
Montana Fishburne’s hopes of resuming a speaking relationship with her famous father has apparently run into a brick wall.
The “actress” tells TMZ that she called her father on Monday and spoke to him for the first time since her porn aspirations were revealed.
According to Montana, her dad said, “I’m not going to speak with you ’till you turn your life around.”
It was leaked last month that the 19-year-old Fishburne is starring in a video for Vivid Entertainment, best known for distributing celeb-driven sex tapes by Kim Kardashian and Kendra Wilkinson.
But unlike those tapes, which were presented as private home videos leaked to the public, Fishburne’s turn as an adult film star is a more scripted affair. This inspired another complaint from the elder Fishburne when he spoke to his daughter.
“You used your last name,” he said, according to Montana. “No one uses their real name in porn.”
Before she spoke to her father, Fishburne was optimistic that he would eventually view her new career as a positive.
“I feel pretty confident that I can work things out with him,” she told TMZ on Aug. 3. “I think he wants to support me in everything I do, and though he sees this now as a negative, I believe in time he will view it as a positive.”
SIDEBAR – I understand she is young, and it’s all about me attitude. What I can not understand, is when did she stop loving herself, and her Father.
Charles Barkley wants Lebron James to know that he isn’t through puttin’ his foot up his (James’s) butt.
On Wednesday the renown TNT analyst and former NBA All-Star weighed in on a recent Twitter statement by LeBron James.
Barkley, said he hopes James remembers his critical comments and called a couple of James’ more significant actions this summer “punk” moves.
“I heard about LeBron’s little tweet that he’s remembering everybody who said anything bad about him,” Barkley said Thursday on ESPN Radio 103.3 FM in Dallas/Fort Worth. “And he said ‘everybody.’ Well, I want him to make sure that he puts my name on that (list).
“I thought that his little one-hour special was a punk move. I thought them dancing around on the stage was a punk move, and I thought he should’ve stayed in Cleveland. Him joining Dwyane Wade’s team was very disappointing to me.”
Barkley spoke on “Galloway and Company,” hosted by Randy Galloway, Ian Fitzsimmons and Matt Mosley. He also took the time to light into Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade and their antics at the Miami Arena when the three were introduced.
“Them jumping around on stage like punks, that wasn’t cool to me.”
Stedman Graham was born on March 6, 1951 in Whitesboro, NJ, a community founded in 1901 by a group of prominent African-Americans which included Booker T. Washington and Paul Laurence Dunbar.
Stedman attended Middle Township High School where the 6’6? phenom starred on the varsity basketball team.
After earning a Bachelor’s degree in Social Work from Hardin-Simmons University, he played professionally in Europe for a few years before returning to the U.S. to work on his Master’s in Education from Ball State.
An enduring, high-profile relationship with Oprah Winfrey has perhaps overshadowed the long list of business and charitable accomplishments accumulated over the course of Mr. Graham’s impressive career as Chairman and CEO of S. Graham & Associates, a management and marketing consulting firm specializing in the corporate and educational fields.
A prolific writer, he is also the author of ten books, two of which became NY Times bestsellers. And he has taught at several colleges, including a course on leadership at the University of Illinois and one on strategic management at Northwestern.
Most importantly, Mr. Graham has exhibited a lifelong commitment to community via Athletes Against Drugs (AAD), a non-profit organization he founded in 1985 which remains dedicated to developing leadership in underserved youth through scholarships and education. Recently, Stedman talked to me about his work with AAD and other projects.
The devil’s in the details. Not only do states have different statutes of limitations for different debts, but two states may treat the same debts differently. A credit card debt might be considered an open-ended account in one state and a written contract in another. The only way to know for sure is to check your state laws or consult an attorney.
You can inadvertently restart the clock. Generally, the statute of limitations starts ticking from the “date of last activity” on the accounts, said Los Angeles bankruptcy attorney Scott Bovitz. (If the account is still listed in your credit reports, the date of last activity should be noted there.) On a credit card debt, that could be the last payment you made or the last purchase you charged. But in some states, making a payment on an old debt, agreeing to an extended repayment plan or even acknowledging that the debt is yours can extend the statute of limitations or restart the clock.
A creditor may still sue you after the statute of limitations has run out. Suing or threatening to sue you after the statute of limitations has run out violates the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. To prevent the creditor from winning a judgment against you, you’ll need to show up in court and point out that the statute has expired.
The creditor may try to pick a better venue. If you sign a credit contract and move to a state with different limits, the creditor may try to sue you in the state that has the longer statute. If that’s not the state in which you now live, you should protest, because generally the state where you reside is the one whose statutes should apply.
Debts can still exist even if the creditor can’t sue. Some people erroneously believe that debts are erased after the statute of limitations has run out. Although the creditor’s ability to sue you has been curtailed, it can still try other methods to persuade you to pay, including calls and letters. The debt can also be sold to another collector that can renew efforts to get you to pay. A legitimate debt is truly gone only when it’s paid or erased in bankruptcy court.
Collectors can’t legally restart the seven-year clock by “re-aging” the debt (giving it a new delinquency date) or by selling it to another agency. The Federal Trade Commission shut down one large collection agency, Capital Acquisitions and Management, after charging the company repeatedly had re-aged debts in its attempts to collect.
Media Matters is reporting that former Department of Agriculture official Shirley Sherrod said she has been receiving threatening calls and e-mail since a misleading video clip of her posted by Andrew Breitbart went viral.
“I am getting hate calls and e-mails at this point,” Sherrod said in an interview today with the liberal blog. “I got one call last night at my house at 12:30 a.m. that said, ‘you lost your job, good for you’ and ‘b****’ There are people out there who will believe that I am a racist person, even though the story is getting out there.”
“I got crank calls right away. Someone sent me an e-mail and link and said, ‘shame on you’ and other stuff. I was sitting in a meeting, and I was really upset,” she said. “I texted back that they were so wrong and that they need to know the message, and they got it wrong.”
Sherrod was fired by the Department of Agriculture and denounced by the NAACP over the video clip which appears to show her suggesting that she does not provide her “full force” in aiding white farmers. But a full video posted Tuesday night by an embarrassed NAACP clearly shows that Sherrod’s comments were taken out of context and edited to make it seem she was saying something she wasn’t.
Sherrod blamed Breitbart and Fox News for pushing the story that ended in her firing.
“The news media should tell it like it is and not the way they want it to be,” she said. “I think it is race. You think we have come a long way in terms of race relations in this country, but we keep going backwards.”
The degree to which a culture is evolved is demonstrated by the degree to which it labels a being or an action……”shameful” or “guilty”.
Music Great Harvey Fuqua passed away this week. The 80-year old Fuqua was the force behind The Moonglows in the 50’s, and he was an early mentor to one of the group’s young members, Marvin Gaye. In addition to Marvin Gaye, Fuqua was known for his work with Tammi Terrell, The Spinners, Johnny Bristol, New Birth, Etta James, Sylvester and The Weather Girls, to name a few. Fuqua had been ill, and succumbed to a heart attack. Fuqua’s nephew is famed Director Antoine Fuqua. Antoine is married to Actress Lela Rochon, and he made headlines himself this week with his I.R.S. tax troubles. Antoine Fuqua is currently working on a movie about Legendary Rapper Tupac Shakur. He’s best known for his work on the movie Training Day featuring Denzel Washington’s Oscar winning performance.
GEOGRAPHY OF A WOMAN
Between 18 and 22, a woman is like Africa . Half discovered, half wild,
fertile, and naturally beautiful!
Between 23 and 30, a woman is like Europe . Well developed and open to
trade, especially for someone of real value.
Between 31 and 35, a woman is like Spain , very hot, relaxed and convinced
of her own beauty.
Between 36 and 40, a woman is like Greece , gently aging but still a warm
and desirable place to visit.
Between 41 and 50, a woman is like Great Britain , with a glorious and
all-conquering past.
Between 51 and 60, a woman is like Israel , has been through war, doesn’t
make the same mistakes twice, takes care of business.
Between 61 and 70, a woman is like Canada , self-preserving, but open to
meeting new people.
After 70, she becomes Tibet . Wildly beautiful, with a mysterious past
and the wisdom of the ages. An adventurous spirit and a thirst for
spiritual knowledge.
THE GEOGRAPHY OF A MAN
Between 1 and 80+, a man is like Iran , ruled by nuts.
A federal appeals court ruled Monday that California’s ban on gay marriage will remain in place indefinitely as judges consider whether it is constitutional.
The decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturns the order of judge Vaughn Walker last week that would have permitted same-sex couples to marry as soon as this week.
The three-judge panel that issued the decision said the 9th Circuit will expedite the challenge to California’s voter-aproved ban on gay marriage, though the case will not be heard in court until December.
Earlier in the month, U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker ruled that the ban, known as Proposition 8, amounts to unconstitutional discrimination. Just last week, Walker ordered it to be lifted on Wednesday, Aug. 18.
Opponents of same-sex unions responded harshly to Walker’s decision, saying it reflected his judicial activism.
“When a lower judge makes an unprecedented ruling that totally overturns existing Supreme Court precedent, the normal thing for that judge to do is to stay his decision, and let the higher courts decide, in an orderly fashion that respects the rule of law, if he’s right or if he’s way off-base,” said Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage.
The appeals court decision is a further setback for gay rights advocates, many of whom were planning wedding ceremonies for 5 o’clock on Wednesday, when same-sex marriages would have resumed for the first time since November 2008, when voters approved Proposition 8.