ATLANTA — This weekend will be a busy one for Dorian Joyner, Sr. Sunday morning, he will watch his oldest son graduate from Morehouse College. Joyner will have a front row seat for commencement. After all, he will be a fellow graduate himself.
Joyner started his Morehouse journey back in 1984, but never finished. Three years ago, he decided it was time to come back. By then his son, Dorian Joyner, Jr. was already a freshman. When the younger Joyner heard his father was coming back to Morehouse, he admits, it was a shock at first.
“I said, ‘oh, you’re coming back to visit some of your friends?’” he remembered. “And [Dorian Senior] said ‘no, I’m coming back to be a student.’ I said – can you repeat that?” While most kids come to college to get away from their parents, Dorian Junior says he never felt like he was under his father’s thumb.
“We used to have a support system. Sometimes he would come to my room to ask about a problem or a class or a professor to take,” he said. Daddy Dorian, who allows his son to call him by his first name on campus, said the two have their own friends and schedules, so their paths rarely intersect. But after three years of learning from and pushing each other, the two have a bond that goes deeper that father and son.
article by Blayne Alexander via thegrio.com
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Diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder when he was 2, Cash’an has problems communicating and socializing. He talks very little, he doesn’t play with other kids and he fixates on certain things, Clark said.
Enter the Charmin bear – the cuddly cartoon logo featured prominently on packages of Charmin toilet paper and in the company’s commercials. While so many aspects of life make Cash’an withdraw into his own world, something about that bear speaks to the little boy. Even his family has a hard time explaining it.
“Autistic children are very particular, very precise in the details that they take in,” Clark, who lives in Manchester, Conn., told TODAY Moms.
“It’s got to be something about that bear that is just staying with him and I honestly don’t know what that precise detail is. I can’t ask him because he can’t verbalize it for me.”
She still remembers the moment when she realized Cash’an was fascinated by the logo. They were at Target one day when he was 4 and he suddenly bolted away from her and ran to the bathroom tissue section. “This little kid is looking at this big aisle full of toilet paper rolls with a bear, and he started putting all these packages in my cart that I did not want. And then he climbed in the cart and he looked at them,” Clark said.
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The third time’s the charm for Candice Glover on “American Idol.” The 23-year-old vocalist from St. Helena Island, S.C., won the Fox TV singing competition after auditioning a trio of times and making it to the finals this year. Glover looked stunned when “Idol” host Ryan Seacrest announced she bested soulful 22-year-old country singer Kree Harrison from Woodville, Texas.
Glover said backstage after winning she learned to “Have fun, live in the moment and be confident.” “Because in previous years I wasn’t, so that’s definitely the key if you want to audition for the show or have a career,” she said. After her crowning, an emotional Glover sobbed her way through her new single “I Am Beautiful.”
Grammy- and Oscar-winning former “Idol” finalist Jennifer Hudson returned for Thursday’s finale for a show-stopping duet with Glover on Natalie Cole’s “Inseparable” (see above).
Glover’s win marks the first time a female and a nonwhite singer has won the competition since Jordin Sparks dominated the sixth season in 2007. The previous five winners — Phillip Phillips, Scotty McCreery, Lee DeWyze, Kris Allen and David Cook — were all Caucasian guitar players, known to “Idol” fans as WGWGs, or white guys with guitars.
The lack of a female champion for the past five years was mocked in a finale bit featuring the female finalists, in cahoots with Sparks, jokingly sabotaging this season’s five male contestants. “The good news is ‘Idol’ leftovers have been doing really well on ‘The Voice,'” Sparks teased.
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Born to Joe and Katherine Jackson on May 16, 1966, Janet Damita Jo Jackson is the youngest of nine children of the musically legendary Jackson family. Although she started her career in entertainment primarily as a television actress (Good Times, Diff’rent Strokes, Fame), it was Jackson’s music, produced by Minneapolis duo Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, that catapulted her to international fame and stardom. Though Control was her third solo album, it was the first one to go multi-platinum and kick-started a career that has spanned decades and generated over 100 million record sales worldwide. To celebrate Janet and her musical legacy, above is one of her early, iconic dance videos – “Pleasure Principle.” Enjoy!
article by Lori Lakin Hutcherson
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ENews reports Oprah Winfrey is offering the first glimpse of her farm in Maui (see video above), which is now yielding healthy produce she gives to the needy. All signs point to Winfrey intending for her farm to eventually supply an organic foods business with partner and fitness expert Bob Greene. Additionally, Winfrey and Greene are holding a contest to bring one lucky viewer/reader and their guest on a tour of the farm. Details on how to enter can be found at Oprah.com.
article by Lori Lakin Hutcherson and Lesa Lakin
Floyd Mayweather Jr. tops Sports Illustrated’s list of highest-earning American athletes for the second consecutive year, according to Sports Illustrated. The welterweight boxer is projected to make a minimum of $90 million this year, but could potentially earn as much as $128 million. The list, entitled “The Fortunate 50,” combines salary, endorsements, and winnings to determine an athlete’s yearly earnings. This year four out of the top five athletes on the list are African-American.
Number two on the list, LeBron James, is set to make roughly $56.5 million in 2013, and NFL quarterback Drew Brees is ranked at number three, with anticipated earnings of $47.8 million. Rounding out the top five are Los Angeles Laker Kobe Bryant, taking home an estimated $46.8 million, and professional golfer Tiger Woods, earning about $40.8 million.
Chicago Bulls guard Derrick Rose broke into the top 10 this year for the first time. Despite sitting out the 2012-2013 NBA season, Rose lands at No. 7 on the list. With several major endorsement deals, including Adidas and Powerade, Rose is expected to make $33 million this year. Click here to view the whole Sport’s Illustrated “Fortunate 50″ list.
article by Carrie Healey via thegrio.com
Jean-Michel Basquiat’s painting titled “Dustheads” sold for $48.8 million yesterday at Christie’s at a sale of postwar and contemporary art in New York, setting a new auction record for Basquiat. His “Untitled,” a painting of a black fisherman, held the previous record when it sold for $26.4 million last November. Also breaking world auction prices for artists were works by Roy Lichtenstein and Jackson Pollock.
Lichtenstein’s “Woman with Flowered Hat” fetched $56 million. A classic example of pop art, the 1963 painting is based on Pablo Picasso’s portrait of his lover Dora Maar. An important drip painting by Pollock, “Number 19,” realized a record $58.3 million. Christie’s says Wednesday’s auction brought in $495 million, the highest total at any art auction.
article via nbcnewyork.com
The huge gift from the two who have been music business partners in the past will be used to create the Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy for Arts, Technology and the Business of Innovation.
The academy will provide a special four-year program for undergraduates whose interests span several fields from marketing to computer science to visual design and other arts. It will include one-on-one faculty mentoring with professors from programs around the university and interaction with entertainment industry luminaries.
Chuck Muncie, a tall, talented NFL running back, died of a heart attack on Monday. He was 60. Muncie played nine years in the NFL with the New Orleans Saints and San Diego Chargers and was a three-time Pro Bowl selection. At 6-3, 227 pounds, he was a versatile back who could chew up yards with his long stride and was an effective receiver out of the backfield.
With his talent, height and trademark glasses—he was one of the first players to use glasses or goggles—Chuck Muncie always stood out on the field.
He went over the 1,000-yard mark twice—with the Saints in 1979 and the Chargers in 1981, as part of the explosive Air Coryell attack. He also led the NFL with 19 rushing touchdowns in ’81 and rushed for 124 yards and a touchdown in the Chargers’ epic 41-38 overtime victory over the Dolphins in the divisional playoffs that season.
The third overall pick in the 1976 draft by the Saints, he rushed for 6,702 yards and 71 touchdowns in 110 career games.
Muncie played in only one game in 1984, when he was suspended after testing positive for cocaine. He later was reinstated and traded to the Vikings in 1985, but he never played in another regular-season game.
Muncie was arrested in 1989 and sentenced to 18 months in prison for selling cocaine. He eventually turned his life around and worked with children and people who battled drug addiction. He also mentored athletes at Cal, his alma mater.
article via aol.sportingnews.com