Gladys Horton 1944-2011

Gladys Horton, who died from last Wednesday, was the lead singer of Motown's famed singing group the Marvelettes on such tunes as Please, Mr. Postman and others.

A Dubious Accolade

During TNT's pregame show for tonight's New York Knicks-Miami Heat match up, comedian Tracy Morgan was asked by Charles Barkley to compare Tina Fey and Sarah Palin. With characteristic irreverence that most likely drove network executives apoplectic, Morgan proclaimed the erstwhile Republican vice presidential candidate "great masturbation material." Needless to say, after that utterance, Mr. Morgan was apparently hustled off the set, another example of the uncertainty and unpredictability of unscripted, spontaneous live TV.

Chicken Flav

News that Flavor Flav, the so-called reality TV star and rapper, has gone into the fried chicken business is hardly surprising and a fitting venture for this 21st century minstrel who unabashedly traffics in negative racial stereotypes and routinely makes a fool of himself.

Patrice Lumumba

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, Adam Hochschild writes of Lumumba's promise and United States complicity in his death:

Patrice Lumumba had only a few short months in office and we have no way of knowing what would have happened had he lived. Would he have stuck to his ideals or, like too many African independence leaders, abandoned them for the temptations of wealth and power? In any event, leading his nation to the full economic autonomy he dreamed of would have been an almost impossible task. The Western governments and corporations arrayed against him were too powerful, and the resources in his control too weak: at independence his new country had fewer than three dozen university graduates among a black population of more than 15 million, and only three of some 5,000 senior positions in the civil service were filled by Congolese.

A half-century later, we should surely look back on the death of Lumumba with shame, for we helped install the men who deposed and killed him. In the scholarly journal Intelligence and National Security, Stephen R. Weissman, a former staff director of the House Subcommittee on Africa, recently pointed out that Lumumba’s violent end foreshadowed today’s American practice of “extraordinary rendition.” The Congolese politicians who planned Lumumba’s murder checked all their major moves with their Belgian and American backers, and the local C.I.A. station chief made no objection when they told him they were going to turn Lumumba over — render him, in today’s parlance — to the breakaway government of Katanga, which, everyone knew, could be counted on to kill him.

Challenges of Celebrity

Apparently Ted Williams' heart-warming journey from homelessness to instant celebrity has hit a snag in the form of family squabbles and rumors that he has resumed drinking alcohol. Fame is often far more challenging to handle than anonymity.

Let's Get Serious

Jermaine Jackson, the Jackson now known, to borrow from the late Lou Rawls, for "being patent leatherish about the head," is stranded in Africa over an expired passport resulting from being more than $91,000 in arrears in child support payments.

Happy New Year 2011

One of the most annoying New Year's Day traditions practiced by my family is the requirement that for good luck and prosperity in the coming the first visitor on January 1st must be male. For about 40-odd years the responsibility of fulfilling this task has fallen to me. As usual, I complain vociferously to first my late maternal grandmother and now to her daughter, my aunt, that this is a dumb idea and that my presence does not portend good luck. But despite all the complaining, I dutifully follow through and carry out this little ritual. Sometimes it is best to go along to get along.