Message from the President

And, from the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

Very Important Information

Chris, over at Chris' Rants and Raves has posted an article that put into words the attitude in America that may IMO doom us to never becoming the nation we should be. It's sad but true. Reading the words may help us who are disturbed by the last two years, at least see it all clearly. Woosh away the smoke and try as the the president seems to be able to do, remain optomistic.

A True Champion

Secretariat, a champion like no other. He was not only a beautiful red chestnut stallion with his distinctive white star and blaze and three white boots, but he was the greatest ever born. The new movie about this wonderful and amazing athlete brought back the love that America had for the young colt who won the Triple Crown in 1973. That's three long distance races in five weeks. It's a feat almost impossible for any horse.
Secretariat not only won all three races but set records still not touched by any other horse.



His owner Mrs. Penny Tweedy said her colt's eyes were so expressive she knew he understood her words and that he was a big ham who loved racing, posing for pictures, and cheers from the crowd. In most of his races Secretariat kept everyone on edge by hanging back in last place then he'd fly past the other contenders. But, he could also position himself as a front runner and not run out of steam, as in the race below. He just left them all in the dust. Literally in the dust.
This is the last leg of his Triple Crown Championship, the Belmont Stakes. Watch it all, he is unbelivable.



The new movie that tells the story of Secretariat and the woman who owned him, is a triumph in sport and spirit. I loved it.

Living Proof

There is nothing like living proof. My friend Alexandra Billings is proof to all gay and Transgender kids that death is not the answer. Alex writes of her teenage inner torture and turmoil experienced when you know you are different, coupled with her teenage world screaming and demonstrating that that difference means you are not worthy to be treated like other humans. Alex has been through it all and she has survived it all. It is all worth it. Hang in there. You'll find love and support. And, like Alex, you'll have many many friends thanking the Lord that you didn't die.
I love you Alex.

?Questions for Church Goers??

There have been several teen suicides in the news lately. These deaths are high profile news because of the particularly hateful and public circumstances. But these suicides happen everyday. The suicide rate among gay, lesbian, bi, and Transgendered (GLBT) teens is alarmingly high. We all need to work not only to stop the bullying, attacking, and humiliating, but to give our kids a place to turn other than death.

There is now a renewed call to action to let these kids know they are loved and supported regardless of those who taunt them and make them feel flawed and worthless. But, the taunting and making these kids feel unworthy of life is not limited to their classmates. Our society has to take responsibility for the hatred, ignorance and lack of support that leads these kids to such despair that they consider death as their only way out.
What part do you think the church plays in this tragic issue?


20 questions to church goers
(Please feel free to answer in email, on my blog or facebook, some or all, individually or all together or just for yourself. But, PLEASE consider these questions.

1. Could your church be an environment that could contribute to the suicide of a GLBT teen? (This question is revisited after you have answered the others.)

2. What message to these children comes from your church's pulpit, and congregation?

3. Young people are already struggling with growing up issues, how sensitive or insensitive is your church to gay and Transgender teens?

4. What kind of support does your church offer them.

5. Does it only condemn?

6. Does it tell them they are not loved by God?

7. Does your church tell them they displease God because of the way they are?

8. Does your church insist or infer that there is something wrong with them?

9. Does your church tell these children they must change to please God or that God made them and loves them the way they are?

10. Even if your church believes children "choose" to be gay or Transgender, how sensitive to the child's feelings is your church?

11. Does your church tell these children that their feelings are false? Sinful? Wicked?

12. Are GLBT people embarrassed and humiliated and condemned in sermons at your church?

13. Does your church support these children when it is obvious they will not change?

14. Does your church have people that can talk to them without judgement?

15. Does your church allow or encourage counseling that would help the child accept him/herself the way they are?

16. When parents turn away from these kids, does your church offer support to the young people?

17. Does your church standby supportive parents of GLBT children?

18. Have you ever given thought to your church's effect on GLBT children and teens?

19. Whenever an attacked, humiliated, embarrassed, internally tortured gay teen commits suicide, we cry out that it would have gotten better, they could have talked to someone! Does your church present God as a safe haven or another source of condemnation for that child?

20. Now that you have answered these questions, could your church be an environment that could contribute to the suicide of a GLBT teen?

To Teens from Dave Navarro

Alexandra Billings posted this open letter to teens from Dave Navarro on her blog. She is living proof of Navarro's vital words.
Dave Navarro is not only my guitar hero anymore.


"Ok everybody, here is the deal. I cannot imagine what it’s like growing up in a close minded environment and being gay, bi or tans-gender. I don’t think any of us who aren’t can possibly imagine. The strength and character it must take to stay true to yourself in such an unforgiving microcosm are qualities that a major portion of the world lacks… Sad, but true. It’s just how it is at the moment. However, it’s that very strength and character that gives the world hope for a new way of thinking and acceptance in the future and when one of our children gives in and gives up, it is not only a tragedy but a victory for those who fear diversity. DO NOT LET THEM WIN! I know how overwhelming the feelings can get and how small the reality can feel, but the bottom line is that this is but a drop in the bucket in terms of the magnitude of life. You can get through this. High school is full of plenty of bullies and fear based hate, as is the world. With any group of people comes a percentage of people who just don’t get it and probably will never get it. That’s OK. We all deal with this to an extent. The truth is that in High School, you are kind of stuck in the group you are a part of until graduation, but trust me… You can pick and choose who you associate with and there are plenty of like-minded people in the world that are understanding, accepting and loving. Sometimes, we just have to stick it out to meet them. The hard cold reality is that once you have chosen suicide, that’s it. No going back. Sure, there is a public outcry and MAYBE the bullies feel remorse for a while, but it all dies down, life goes on, the bullies let the memory fade and get on with their lives. They learn to laugh, love, reach their goals and in many cases go on to have a full and productive life. Who loses? You do! Your family! Your friends! Other teens who need support in this area! Oh yeah… We all Lose! Now the world has one less mind that is open and different and unique and sensitive. Instead, we inherit the bullies, the fear, the set back… Our world has one less soul to help it evolve with a new level of clarity. Personally, I have seen a lot of darkness and tragedy that has felt insurmountable. The murder of my mother, my battle with drug addiction, the loss of friends and family. Utter depression and despair. Of course the thought of suicide has crossed my mind a time or two. Let me share this. THANK GOD I never took that action. The friends I have made, the experiences I have had, the laughter I have shared would have all been missed. In hindsight, some of my darkest moments now seem so small and insignificant that I am amazed I gave them so much power at the time. I am even able to laugh about it now. When I think back to the times I have considered ending it all I end up saying to myself, “What was I thinking?” To those of you contemplating such a course, please do us a favor. Seek counseling first. Find a network of people who have gone through what you are going through. Help others in even more turmoil than you. I am certain that you can find peace. As you know, our society and political climate is SO divided right now. We need your voice. The world at large needs your sheer existence in order to come to terms with itself and where we are going as a planet and species."

De Rossi, Degeneres, Delightful

Portia de Rossi has officially taken wife Ellen DeGeneres' last name. A Los Angeles Superior Court commissioner granted De Rossi's request to take the last name of her partner during a closed hearing Thursday. The television star will now legally be known as Portia Lee James DeGeneres.

The couple was married in August 2008 during the five-month window in which gay marriage was legal in California. The 37-year-old Australian-born actress asked for the name change last month. Delovely!

DADT?

Can you spot the gay soldier?

(Thanks AnneMarie Kneebone)

New Yorkers are Remarkable People

As usual about that time in the morning, I was talking to my mother on the phone when we both stopped in disbelief at what was happening on TV. At first we all thought it a terrible air accident. When the second plane seemingly tried to fly between the two towers and crashed into the second tower, we screamed "why would a pilot try to do that!" Still in our safe American cocoon, it never occurred to us that it could possibly be deliberate. Then the Pentagon and Pittsburgh and reports of hijacked planes made it clear that our safe little world was under attack.
I'll never ever forget my mom's voice when the first tower fell. "Oh Jackie..Oh Jackie."
Monica called me from work, which is very rare because she can't usually call from the classroom. She said she was taking the streets home instead of the Ike expressway because the sight and closeness to the Sears Tower scared her now. I couldn't wait for her to get home safe where I could see her.

My 26 year old nephew, Nolen, called me in tears. He was 26 and I had never heard him cry as an adult. He wanted to do something. He said he had to do something. He got busy and we designed a tee shirt and he put up a website with all profits going to the Red Cross. 911 Rescue Team U.S.A. was on the shirt. Buying and wearing the shirt makes us all a part of the rescue team. It was sanctioned by the Red Cross and given an official charitable number for the contributions. Nolen's effort was noted in an article in a Chicago newspaper. I still wear mine on the anniversary every year. It still helps to feel and know that I was part of the rescue team. I thank Nolen for helping so many people, do something. It helped. He is a remarkable man.



New Yorkers are remarkable people. We all felt vulnerable, scared and every other emotion possible during that tragic time. But New Yorkers took that hit in their hearts and their guts and in their everyday. They had to smell and taste and feel and live the grit that was September 11, 2001.
All I can say is, New Yorkers are remarkable people. I love you New York City.

Go Ahead, Burn That Holy Book!

This weekend on the anniversary of the September 11 tragedy, Rev. Terry Jones, pastor of the Dove World Outreach Center, an evangelical church in Gainesville, Fla., said that he and his 30 member congregation will build a bonfire and burn the holy book of the Muslim faith.
Muslims believe the Qur’an revealed to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel, to be the verbal book of divine guidance and direction for mankind. That is what Muslims believe.
But the passinate Rev. Jones knows that he must disrespect and destroy that horrid, evil book that is the bases of the religion that drove those Muslim men to fly planes into our buildings.

"It's something that we feel we need to do," Jones said. "It's a message that we feel we need to send."

Rev. Jones is determined. But, based on his criteria Jones needs to add the bible to that fire and throw in a few copies of the Torah too. Murdering nutjobs are an equal religious background employer. From your everyday garden variety serial killer to well planned air attacks, to socially upheld astrocities like slavery, Rev. Jones should be saying that all the holy books need to be smoked.

Based on the Jones point of view there certainly shouldn't be any African American Christians. Christians were slave hunters, traders, owners, and passages from the Bible were used to justify it. America's Christian society upheld slavery and Jim Crow laws. The KKK was a populated by Christians and used Christian symbols. American Indians should join us Black folk for a daily Bible burning, don't ya think Rev. Jones?

Rev. Jones admits he's never read the Qur'an. (There should be a law: read before burning.) So, he obviously does not know that the Qur'an has many common elements with the Bible and the Jewish Torah because they all are determined to come from the same divine source. He does not know that Muslims recognize the old testament prophets and the Gospel as divinely revealed. So burn away Rev. Jones. You will be burning stories of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, David, Job, Jonah, Moses, John the Baptist, Jesus and many more from Christian and Jewish sacred books.

Rev. Jones is a lot of things. The Rev. Jones is a pastor in the Christian faith. He is an extremist. And, he is a user. He's using 9-11, fear of Muslims, Christians, the Bible and the Qur'an, for his own self aggrandizing, showboating, hypocritical agenda.

Prop 8 Overturned!! Human Rights Victory!

Federal Judge Vaughn Walker handed down a thorough and carefully detailed ruling yesterday that determined that denial of civil rights under Prop 8 is unconstitutional. Actually, the human and civil rights afforded every American citizen under the U. S. Constituion should never be subject to a popular vote. This ruling is worth taking the time to read. It carefully addreses every argument put forth by the pro ban defence and explains why they are irrational and erroneous.

Excerpts from the landmark decision.
"Proposition 8 places the force of law behind stigmas against gays and lesbians."

"The sexual orientation of an individual does not determine whether that individual can be a good parent."

"The exclusion (of same-sex couples from marriage) exists as an artifact of a time when the genders were seen as having different roles in society and in marriage. That time has passed."

"Domestic partnerships exist solely to differentiate same-sex unions from marriage."

"Proposition 8 harms the state's interest in equality."

"The evidence at trial regarding the campaign to pass Proposition 8 uncloaks the most likely explanation for its passage: a desire to advance the belief that opposite-sex couples are morally superior to same-sex couples."

"Moral disapproval alone is an improper basis on which to deny rights to gay men and lesbians."

-- To read the judge's full decision on Prop. 8, go here.

For couples like me and Monica who have been together 31 years or our friends Alexandra and Chrisanne who have shared 35 years or for our pals Eugene and Gordon who are celebrating 37 years of sharing life together in spite of all obstacles, this ruling has no effect on our love and commitment. It does certainly effect our legal rights as American citizens and publicly validates our God given rights as human beings.

Happy July 4th!!

There is nothing like stepping outside and getting a whiff of barbeque scented air garnished with a hint of gunpowder. Ummmmmm Ummmmmm that's America!!

As always the Hyde Park July Fourth Parade here in Chicago will step off about 11am with bikes and trikes and horses and just folks waving and having fun with neighbors. Get tired of standing and watching, just step off the curb and get in the parade.
Here's some pictures from the parade a couple years ago. Check out my nephews in their USA mobile.


Horses on 53rd Street on the Fourth!




Me and Moni and NJ are ready.



Getting the stroller ready to march in USA colors.


All red white and blued up, time to roll out!






Tris just wanted to know, are we there yet?

Burge, Guilty At Last.

Lt. Jon Burge, a decorated former Chicago police lieutenant accused of suffocating, shocking and beating confessions out of scores of suspects was convicted Monday of federal perjury and obstruction of justice charges for lying about the torture.
He will remain free on bond until his Nov. 5 sentencing, when he faces up to 45 years in prison.

For decades, dozens of suspects - almost all of them black men - claimed Burge and his officers tortured them into confessing to crimes ranging from armed robbery to murder.

Burge was charged with lying about the alleged torture in a lawsuit filed by former death row inmate Madison Hobley, who was sentenced to death for a 1987 fire that killed seven people, including his wife and son, and pardoned by Ryan.

Hobley claimed detectives put a plastic typewriter cover over his head to make it impossible for him to breathe. Burge denied knowing anything about the "bagging," or taking part in it. The indictment against Burge never said Hobley was tortured, but that Burge lied with respect to participating in or knowing of any torture under his watch.

Burge testified in his own defense at the four-week trial, denying he ever physically abused suspects or witnessed any other officers doing so. Prosecutors presented testimony from five men who said Burge and officers under his command held plastic bags over their heads, shocked them with electric current and put loaded guns in their mouths during the 1970s and 1980s to elicit confessions.

The testimony of those men echoed what others have long said: Black men suspected of crimes didn't leave interrogation rooms at Chicago's Area 2 police station until they told detectives what they wanted to hear.

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said it was sad that it took until 2010 for it to be proven in a courtroom that torture once occurred in Chicago police stations. More than 100 victims have said the torture started in the 1970s and persisted until the 1990s at police stations on the city's South and West sides.

Former Illinois Gov. George Ryan released four condemned men from death row in 2003 after Ryan said Burge had extracted confessions from them using torture. The four later reached a $20 million settlement with the city.

Burge was fired from the police department in 1993 over the alleged mistreatment of a suspect, but he never was criminally charged in that case or any other, leading to widespread outrage in Chicago's black neighborhoods. The community anger intensified when Burge moved to Florida on his police pension and his alleged victims remained in prison. It wasn't immediately clear how Monday's verdict would affect the pension.

Burge never deserved a pension. He should have been in jail decades ago. It was common knowledge that Burge was a abusive, torturer. So, he got to enjoy most of his life free but hopefully he will spend the rest in prison where he sent so many innocent men.

Happy Juneteenth!

Our children and all Americans need to understand that the ancestors of Americans of African descent were not free but slaves during the nation's first Independence Day celebration, on July 4, 1776, the "4th of July". It wasn't until 89 years later, during the nation's first Juneteenth Independence Day Celebration, on June 19, 1865, the "19th of June", in Galveston, TX, that the last group of slaves in America learned of their freedom over two and a half years following the enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation by President Abraham Lincoln.

Here is the July 5th 1852 speech by Frederick Douglas.
This speech "What to the American Slave is your 4th of July? is read at many officially observed Juneteenth celebrations in 36 states.

As we all know the speeches that commemorate the July 4th holiday, we should all take in these words as well. To most they may words of times long gone. But to me, I still see effects of this time every single day.

Fellow citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here today? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? And am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?

Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. For who is there so cold that a nation's sympathy could not warm him? Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Who so stolid and selfish that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nation's jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? I am not that man. In a case like that the dumb might eloquently speak and the "lame man leap as an hart."

But such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. Am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me.

This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me by asking me to speak today? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn that it is dangerous to copy the example of nation whose crimes, towering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrevocable ruin! I can today take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people.

"By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yea! We wept when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there, they that carried us away captive, required of us a song; and they who wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.

How can we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth."

Fellow citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! Whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, today, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorry this day, "may my right hand cleave to the roof of my mouth!" To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world.

My subject, then, fellow citizens, is American slavery. I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slave's point of view. Standing there identified with the American bondsman, making his wrongs mine. I do not hesitate to declare with all my soul that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this Fourth of July! Whether we turn to the declarations of the past or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.

Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the Constitution and the Bible which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery-the great sin and shame of America! "I will not equivocate, I will not excuse"; I will use the severest language I can command; and yet not one word shall escape me that any man, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, shall not confess to be right and just....

For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. Is it not as astonishing that, while we are plowing, planting, and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, and secretaries, having among us lawyers doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators, and teachers; and that, while we are engaged in all manner of enterprises common to other men, digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hillside, living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives, and children, and above all, confessing and worshiping the Christian's God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave, we are called upon to prove that we are men!...

What, am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, is wrong? No! I will not. I have better employment for my time and strength than such arguments would imply....

What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgiving, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States at this very hour.

Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.

Doink-Doink

We all know that sound. The deadbolt notes played before the opening Law and Order vignette where they discover the body. We hear it between acts.
Doink-Doink.

The last Law and Order aired last night to little fanfare other than a final doink- doink.

Last night's episode ended the series and its 20th season. ‘Law & Order’ is tied with ‘Gunsmoke‘ as the longest-running TV drama. Over 400 episodes, that means you could watch a L&O ep everyday for a year with no repeats. I was surprised NBC cancelled L&O giving up the chance to break the tie with Gunsmoke. Creator/producer Dick Wolf is reportedly interested in going to TNT for the tie breaking season. The spinoff series, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, has already left NBC to produce new eps at TNT. Law and Order: Special Victims Unit is still going strong on NBC.

S. Epatha Merkerson is an actor's actor. She is one of the greats. Talk about making an impression, S. Epatha Merkerson did a dramatic gut wrenching guest starring role on L&O's first season. In season 3, she appeared as a different character, Lt. Anita Van Buren, and the rest is...you know. And it really is because Merkerson's Lt. Van Buren is the longest running black female character in TV history. We've seen her strong leadership, her soft side, her private life with husband and sons and private battles like with breast cancer this season. We've seen her put on the NYPD blue jacket and go on raids and hit perps upside their heads. But she does her best work, like all the L&O detectives and attorneys, in the interrogation room.



The L&O interrogation room is where the actors really got to exercise their acting muscles. This small room with only a table and chairs and a two way mirror is where we watch the innocent grieve and beg, the guilty maneuver and lie, soul searching, family secrets told, the strong fall apart and the weak conjure up some backbone. The detectives often do their thing and leave to watch through the mirror as the perps or witnesses squirm, pace and react.

I remember the detectives all taking a turn questioning a belligerent, hard core teen thug ranting about how he wasn't gonna tell nothing. He wanted to talk to "the man." Lt. Van Buren, after grabbing him up and giving him his options to no avail, gets quiet and simply tells him that "in this house, I am the man." Without any more words, she conveys through her demeanor, authority, strength and just enough compassion to jog him in the direction of trusting her. You could see him physically change. His eyes, body posture and even his relationship to the table and chair and to the Lt. actually change. L&O is good for these scenes. This police drama was not all about car chases and shoot outs. It was about human misbehavior and how the legal system deals with it. It's about characters, both the criminals and the law and the order teams.

L&O has a Alfred Hitchockian nature. When everything points to an obvious suspect, it's almost never him or her. Plot twists and shocking and surprise endings are always in the L&O mix and it may just circle back to the original suspect. Happy endings are not promised and the good guys don't always win. You never know until you see -Created by Dick Wolf- fade in on the black screen. Doink-Doink



First season- Law Chris Noth and George Dzundza. Order Micheal Moriarty and Richard Brooks.


Broadway song and dance man, Jerry Orbach as wise-cracking Detective Lennie Brisco.


Order: Jill Hennessy as Claire Kincaid and Sam Waterson as Jack McCoy.




Steven Hill as DA Adam Schiff came to the show in season 9 joining Angie Harmon who came on as DA Abbie Carmichael in S8. Season 3 added S. Epatha Merkerson as Lt. Van Buren, S5 added Benjamin Bratt as Det. Rey Curtis. In the center is Jerry Orbach (Det. Lenny Brisco) and Sam Waterston (DA Jack McCoy)


Rent star, Jesse L. Martin joined Jerry Orbach in solving crimes in season 9. Two song and dance guys now representing the Law.
S. Epatha Merkerson said she loved singing Broadway tunes with Jerry and Jesse.



Diane Weist as DA Nora Lewin joined the show in 2000 and Fred Thompson, (prior to his real life presidential bid) helped with the Order in 2002.



The court room where the district attorneys worked in the second half of the show.

In 2004 native New Yorker, Jerry Orbach died. Law&Order was never the same without Lennie Brisco. NYC policemen loved Jerry Orbach and the lights on Broadway were dimmed in his honor.

Actor Dennis Farina came on to partner with Jesse L. Martin (Det. Ed Green)


Season 19 and 20 brought in Jeremy Sisto as Det. Cyrus Lupo and Anthony Anderson as Det. Kevin Bernard.

S. Epatha Merkerson had decided this was to be her last season even before the show was cancelled. Lt. Van Buren, fought cancer and finacial struggles due to medical bills in this last season. How will she go out? Will the fade to Dick Wolf leave us forever in a cliffhanger? Will there be a Law and Order movie? Doink-Doink!

Missing the series most will be New York City actors. There were plenty of famous guest stars on this show but for the NYC actor, they had to get their L&O creds. Appearing on L&O was considered a rite of passage for actors in New York City.

We won't get to miss it too much as the reruns are on practically 24/7 and now there are 20 years worth. So, the familiar Mike Post guitar riffs and the doink-doink will never be far away.


Celebrating 20 years brought together old and new cast members.

Lena Horne

Back in the day, whenever a Black person appeared on TV, black folks called each other to make sure nobody missed it.
"Black folks on TV!"
This was especially true whenever Lena Horne was on perhaps a show like Ed Sullivan or Dean Martin, the phone wires burned up!
"You got Lena on!"

Lena Horne, the beautiful actress/jazz singer who broke color barriers in Hollywood and fought for civil rights during a seven-decade career that took her from being a $25 a week dancer at the Cotton Club in Harlem to Hollywood and the Broadway stage, has died. She was 92.

Horne became one of the highest-paid black entertainers in America by 1943. She was one of the last survivors of the era of popular music that produced Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan.

Lena Mary Calhoun Horne was born on June 30, 1917, into a professional middle-class family in Brooklyn, New York. Her paternal grandmother, Cora, was a community leader and a feminist, and she had her 14-month-old granddaughter Lena appear on the cover of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s October 1919 “Branch Bulletin.” At age 16 Lena Horne got a job dancing at the Cotton Club.



In 1941, Horne signed a seven-year movie contract with MGM that made her the only black woman with a long-term studio deal. She appeared in a dozen films over the next decade, mostly in singing roles that could be excised when the films were shown in white theaters in the U.S. South.

“They didn’t make me into a maid, but they didn’t make me anything else, either,” she later wrote. “I became a butterfly pinned to a column, singing away in Movieland.”

To MGM, Lena Horne was a double edged sword of racial difficulty. She had Caucasian enough looks to be accepted by white audiences but too dark-skinned to be considered for a starring role in segregated America. OK, but, she was nonetheless seen as too light and beautiful to play a maid.
The ridiculousness of racism was never made clearer than this stupid "dilemma." Nevertheless, she was a trailblazer.



“She opened so many doors as the first beautiful black woman in movies,” actress Leslie Uggams told Jet magazine in 2007. “Black women were only allowed to play maids in the movies, and all of a sudden, the black community had this goddess.”

She had major roles in all black productions “Cabin in the Sky” and “Stormy Weather” in 1943. In other films such as “Panama Hattie” (1942) and “Swing Fever” (1943) she was used primarily in musical numbers.





Horne acted on her convictions about racial equality. During a World War II show for U.S. troops in Kansas, she walked off the stage because German prisoners of war were seated in front of black soldiers.

Because of her friendship with Paul Robeson, the black actor and activist, she was blacklisted from film, television, radio and recording in 1950. The blacklist did not effect cabaret. She prospered as a nightclub entertainer, appearing with Count Basie, Tony Bennett and Harry Belafonte and by 1956 returned to the movies as the blacklist was lifted.

In 1957, Lena Horne appeared at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria hotel and starred in the Broadway musical “Jamaica” in 1957 to 1959.





During the 1960s, Horne appeared at rallies for civil rights throughout the South. In 1963, she marched on Washington with Martin Luther King.

“Whatever petitions I’ve signed or benefits I’ve played I’ve not done because I had any broad or deep political program I was pushing,” Horne wrote in her autobiography. “I had just learned from my father and from my grandmother not to take any nonsense from anybody."

In 1971 and 1972, she suffered the deaths of her husband, her father and her son, Teddy, in a period of 12 months and briefly retreated from public life.

“She was finally devastated,” Horne’s daughter, Gail Lumet Buckley, wrote in a book on her family. “She retired to Santa Barbara, California, to plant cacti.”

After emerging from that crisis, she began to enjoy performing more.



“It took 1960s politics and 1970s personal grief for her to have the courage to present herself to an audience,” Buckley wrote.



She played Glenda the Good Witch in “The Wiz” (1978), directed by Sidney Lumet, Gail Buckley’s former husband. Her “Lena: The Lady and Her Music” played to sold-out crowds on Broadway for 333 performances in 1981 and 1982 and won a special Tony Award and two Grammys. Newsweek said of her performance: “Lena Horne is a revelation -- of astonishing power and complexity.”

Horne continued to record through the 1990s, releasing her last studio recording, “Soul,” in 1999. Her last major public appearance was in 1999 at an all-star salute, “Lena: The Legacy,” at Avery Fisher Hall in New York’s Lincoln Center.

Beautiful, sexy, sultry, sassy and outspoken, Lena Horne. Thank you and R.I.P.

Dixie Carter

Actress Dixie Carter has died at age 70. Dixie was best known for her role as Julia Sugarbaker on a show that had one of the best ensemble casts in TV sitcom history, Designing Women. Dixie Carter played the outspoken Julia to the max with great Southern charm and moxie. She was beautiful, sassy, intellectual, chic, brave, cultured and fearless.

Here are a few gems of Julia Sugarbaker's wit and wisdom.
Dixie Carter was a great actress and Julia Sugarbaker will forever speak to that.


Julia has dinner plans with Jimmy Carter and Charlene ruined it. They didn't call Julia "the Terminator" for nothing.


In the same episode after the jury Julia is on is sequestered thanks to Charlene, Julia lays down her law to the jury.


Julia defendes her sister. The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia!


Designing Women took on many social issues. Julia lets a customer know how she feels about her bigotry towards a young man with AIDS.



Designing Women cast, Delta Burke, Annie Potts, Dixie Carter, Jean Smart and Meshack Taylor.



Dixie Carter and her husband actor Hal Holbrook