Most Americans believe God is involved in their daily lives, from parking tickets to football scores to losing those extra pounds. That’s the finding from a Canadian researcher who looked at two U.S. surveys on the subject. Scott Schieman, a professor of sociology at the University of Toronto, found that 82-percent of respondents depended on God for help making decisions. Some 71-percent said that whatever happens, good or bad, it was all part of God’s plan. About a third agreed there was no point in planning as their fate was determined by the Almighty. Schieman observed, quote, “If you believe your fate is not in your own hands, how does that affect your own well-being?”

The polls used in the report were the Baylor Religion Survey of more than 17-hundred American adults and the Work, Stress and Health Survey of 18-hundred people. The data showed an inverse relationship between education and income and belief in divine intervention. Wealthier and better-educated Americans were less likely to believe God had a hand in their day-to-day doings. The findings are published in the journal “Sociology of Religion.”

Copyright © 2010
Metro Networks Communications Inc., A Westwood One Company

VIA CNN:

Not even a full week has passed since Gabourey Sidibe attended the 82nd Annual Academy Awards as a best actress nominee and we’re already questioning whether her career is over.

Despite the accolades bestowed upon the actress in the past few months, it’s unclear if the film industry can go against the norm and cast a young woman who is not only African-American, but also larger than the Hollywood standard in a non-niche role, as the romantic lead in a major film vehicle, for example.

During Howard Stern’s Sirius satellite show on Monday morning, co-host Robin Quivers commented that Sidibe should have looked around at the Oscars and noticed that none of the other working actresses looked like her.

“What movie could she play in?” Stern questioned on his live broadcast. “You feel bad because everyone pretends that she’s part of show business, and she’s never going to be in another movie.”

The comments made on Stern’s show sparked a heated debate among moviegoers and industry observers, with some believing the shock-jock was simply saying what everyone else is thinking.

Jeffrey Wells, a columnist who’s lent his candid perspective on the industry to a variety of outlets over the years and now blogs about it on HollywoodElsewhere.com, said in an e-mail, “Gabby is a lovely person and a fine actress, but the hard fact is that she’s way, way too fat,” adding that the actress will suffer from health problems as well as limited career opportunities if she doesn’t lose weight.

“I don’t want Gabby to not work, but the only roles she’ll have a shot at playing will be down-market moms and hard-luck girls working at Wal-Mart,” Wells continued. “No casting director would choose her to play anyone in the upscale executive world … because no one in the executive world looks like her.”

Robert Ulrich of Ulrich, Dawson and Kritzer casting, acknowledged that “every role will not be open to her,” but thinks now more than ever, directors and producers are interested in seeing something different than what’s written on the page.

“We hear over and over to think outside the box. I’ve been in the industry a long time, and it’s never been as open to people being something different than now,” Ulrich said. “I work on ‘Glee,’ and those actors never would have been cast on network television a few years ago. It’s a show about diversity, and it’s a hit.”

The thing about Sidibe, casting directors said, is that aside from the irresistible charm, wit and confidence she exhibits in interviews, which certainly don’t hurt her prospects, she’s a remarkable talent. The 26-year-old, who was born in Brooklyn, New York, displayed an irrefutable amount of it in “Precious,” and her performance becomes more mind-boggling when one learns that her resume previously contained just two small parts in college plays.

“That was an incredibly difficult role,” said Rachel Tenner, a casting director for best picture nominee “A Serious Man.”

“And from what I know of Sidibe, she’s not from that world. This [character] wasn’t something she knew, and she tapped into something pretty dark.” Having already had critics rave about her dramatic ability will work in her favor, Tenner said. “I know for myself, good is good, great is great, and as a casting director, that’s what I want.”

Tenner is right that Sidibe is as far removed from the film’s lead character as one can be, a fact that has been hammered home repeatedly since the movie opened to highlight Sidibe’s acting ability.

As Sapphire, the author of the novel “Push” that “Precious” is based on, put it during an interview with CBS News’ Katie Couric last fall, it’s not like they used a girl who has a story similar to the lead character, where they could simply put her on camera and tell her to think about her mother and cry.

“This girl is a real actress,” Sapphire said. Typically, she added, “when we do have an actress that looks like her, she’s the comic character or the old woman or something, [but] we have a heavy, dark-skinned black woman as the star of the show.”

Read more here.

The Bears (25-9), the Number 1 seed, advance to the semifinal round against the winner of the Norfolk State-Hampton University game on Friday at 6 p.m.

Morgan State came out smoking from the tipoff and imposed its will on the Aggies (11-22), the Number 9 seed, who had advanced to this round after defeating Howard University in the opening round on Tuesday.

The Bears put the game away early by shooting 52 percent (18 of 34) en route to a 46-22 halftime lead. Smith and Thompson tallied 12 and 10 respectively. Thompson, who now has 21 double-doubles this season, accomplished the feat by intermission with 10 caroms.

“This is the most focused we have been all season,” said Morgan State’s Todd Bozeman, the MEAC Coach of the Year for the second straight year. “We have been trying to get this kind of complete effort all season and tonight, we finally got it. I am pleased overall, but it is just one game.”

The Bears won both games during the season against NC A&T, but in the most recent match, the Aggies rallied from an 16-point deficit to take a 10-point lead in the second half before Morgan State rallied to win. There would be no repeat of that this time. With Holmes, the MEAC Player of the Year leading the way, Morgan State embarked on a 24-12 run during the first 10 minutes and the rout was on.

“You have to take your hats off to Morgan State,” said North Carolina A&T head coach Jerry Eaves. “They were physical with us and took us out of our comfort zone. We were not able to match their physicality.”

Holmes scored 10 of his points in the second half while Thompson also contributed 10 and led the team in assists with six. Thompson was the MEAC Defensive Player of the Year. Joe Davis and DeWayne Jackson, the MEAC Rookie of the Year, each added 9.

North Carolina A&T got another fine performance from Nic Simpson, who led his team 17 points off the bench and Tavarus Alston, a second team all-MEAC selection, contributed 11 in a losing cause.

Haley, White Lead UMES to Win Over Coppin State
Winston-Salem, N.C., March 10 – Hillary Haley scored a game-high 25 points, but it was Kevin White, who proved to be the difference as he scored the last 13 points of the game to lead the University of Maryland Eastern Shore to a 64-58 win over Coppin State in the first round of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference tournament at the Joel Coliseum.

The Hawks (11-20), the Number 6 seed, will take on South Carolina State, the Number 3 seed on Thursday at 6 p.m. in the quarterfinal round.

UMES controlled the tempo through most of the game and led, 33-30 at the half, mostly on the scoring of Haley, who tallied 20 points on 7-of-9 shooting from the field.

“Hillary is a very versatile player,” said UMES head coach Frankie Allen. “He has a reputation as a scorer and he carried us offensively in the first half.”

The Eagles were able to stay close on the production of Kareem Brown and Ceslovas Kucinskas, who combined for 19 points.

Haley and White led the Hawks on an 18-11 run that opened a 10-point lead at the 8:51 mark.

Then Brown, Vince Goldsberry and Brandon Doughty helped Coppin State erase the deficit with an 8-0 run that made it 51-49 at the 5:22 mark.

“To be able to battle back is good and we did, but we did not take advantage of the opportunity when we had it,” said Coppin State head coach Ron “Fang” Mitchell. “In a one-and-done situation, you have to be able to close out. That has been our problem all season.”

That is when White took over. First he hit a three pointer to up the margin to 54-49. He then added a basket to go along with an 8-for-8 free throw shooting performance over the last 2:32 to salt the victory away.

“I thought Kevin did a great job of managing the game,” said Allen. “He found Haley in spots where he likes to score. And when they made the adjustment on Hillary, he was able to score and knocked down free-throws which was big in a game like this.”

In addition to his scoring, White recorded seven assists and grabbed nine rebounds. Haley added six rebounds to his stat line.

The Eagles were led by Brown’s 16, Kucinskas’ 11 and Goldsberry’s 10.

Delaware State Hangs On For 57-55 Win Over Bethune-Cookman
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Second-seeded Delaware State built a 17-point lead with just under 14 minutes left and hung on for a 57-55 victory over seventh-seeded Bethune-Cookman Wednesday in quarterfinal action of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference tournament at the Lawrence Joel Veteran Memorial Coliseum.

The Hornets, 17-11, advanced to Friday’s semifinals against the winner of Thursday’s matchup between sixth-seeded Maryland-Eastern Shore and South Carolina State, the third seed.

Fricsco Sandidge had 15 points, including two free throws with 09.6 seconds left that provided the margin of victory, to lead the Hornets. His free throws gave Delaware State a 57-53 cushion, but the Wildcat’s CJ Reed was fouled on the B-CU possession and made both chances from the line to get his team to within 57-55 with 08.0 seconds left.

The Wildcats fouled the Hornets’ Jay Threatt with 07.4 ticks on the clock but the Del-State sophomore missed both opportunities giving B-CU a chance to tie or win the contest with a last second shot. The Wildcats’ Stanley Elliott got to the basket but his layup attempt was just off the mark with just seconds left and the follow by Alexander Starling was waved off by the officials.

Following Sandidge in the scoring column for Del-State, which improved to 17-11, were Threatt with 14 points and Marcus Neal with 13. Sandidge led the effort on the boards with nine rebounds, while Neal pulled down five in the win.

Elliott and Starling both had 15 points for B-CU, which ended its campaign at 17-16, its first winning season in recent memory. Reed, the team’s top scorer, was held to just 11points, however, the Wildcat sophomore handed out seven assists.

In a first half that saw the two teams combine for just 11 points in the first seven minutes, Delaware State scored 12 of the last 14 points to take a 32-22 edge to the locker room. Neal had nine of his total on three 3-pointers during the run.

Delaware State started the second half with a 13-6 run to go ahead 45-28 on two free throws by Threatt with 13:44 on the second period clock. Starling converted a three-point play 11 seconds later to trigger an 18-7 Wildcat run that pulled Coach Clifford Reed’s team to with 52-46 with 6:03 left.

Sandidge got a three-point play on the other end, staking Del-State to a 55-46 advantage wit 2:43 showing, but the Wildcats would rally again, closing the gap to 57-55 on Reed’s two free throws but the comeback was thwarted at the end as Del-State survived.

Hornet head coach Greg Jackson was relieved his team got the victory, but was not happy the way his team played, especially in the second half.

“Our effort in the second half was one of the worse halves of basketball I have been associated with as a coach,” Jackson said. “Those final 13 minutes were horrible. In fact, if you played the way we did the last 13 minutes, you don’t deserve to win.”

Reed, on the other hand, praised the effort of this Wildcats, especially the second-half comeback.

“I’m really proud of the effort we gave tonight,” Reed said. “I was especially pleased with our performance in the second half when we easily could have given up after falling behind by 17 points.”

VIA CNN:

Superintendent John Covington called for the closing or consolidation of almost half of the schools in the Kansas City, Missouri, school district, and a school board voted Wednesday to approve the downsizing.

Covington calls it the “right-size” plan,” but many residents say it’s plain wrong.

A packed room of people watched the board make its historic move after weeks of debate and years of declining enrollment. Some parents voiced their anger, while some students cried.

“I have an 8-year-old and a 6-year-old that will be going to school with 12th graders. I find that very inappropriate. I don’t feel my children will be safe,” Deneicia Williams told CNN affiliate KSHB-TV.

“I feel like I have nothing, I have no high school legacy. I feel like I have nothing, nothing to go back to,” said Prince Jones, a senior, who will be part of the final graduating class at Westport High School.

Covington proposed the “Right-Size” plan arguing that the financial future of the entire school district was at stake. The plan shutters 28 of Kansas City’s 61 public schools, cuts 700 jobs and saves $50 million to help reduce a burgeoning deficit.

Some called Kansas City’s measures draconian, but school districts across America, hit hard by budget cuts, have been struggling to make ends meet.

They have had to make tough choices between closures, program cuts, bus route cancellations and layoffs of teachers and staff. Schools in at least 17 states have opted for four-day weeks.

Covington said the closures were the first phase of “right-sizing” a district where enrollments have plummeted from more than 35,000 in the 1999-2000 school year to about 17,000 in 2009-10.

“Closing schools is hard, and it is tough on the community,” Covington said recently in remarks posted on the superintendent’s Web site.

“Closing schools and making the remaining schools much stronger academically is unquestionably the right thing to do for kids,” he said. “Keeping all of the schools open with too few children in them is draining the resources we need to improve the education of all students.”

But four of the nine board members disagreed with Covington.

“I deserve the right to make a rational decision based on facts, and we were never given facts about student achievement,” Cokethea Hill, who voted against the closings, told KHSB.

Some members of the public showed up Wednesday to air their last-minute appeals.

“What I’m asking you today to do is to give our children justice,” said Ron Hunt, a community activist.

Others worried that school closures would lead to deterioration of communities and drive residents out of the district.

“The blighting of the urban core is scandalous and shameful,” said Sharon Sanders Brooks.

Covington is slated to discuss the school closings at a news conference Thursday morning.

Source

VIA THE DETROIT FREE PRESS:

Take full advantage of the trusted Winans name, a gospel dynasty and Detroit church powerhouse.

Use sophisticated-sounding investments like a “Saudi Arabian crude oil bond” to sell unsophisticated investors and churchgoers the chance of a lifetime.

Play up the idea that oil prices are skyrocketing.

Mix in some greed and a so-called guaranteed chance to double your money in 60 days.

And well, you’ve got the recipe for what investigators call another Michigan-based investment scam.

Hundreds of Detroit-area and Michigan investors lost as much as $11 million to a Ponzi scheme involving a Saudi Arabian crude oil bond scam connected to Michael Winans Jr., according to state regulators.

“Michael Winans Jr. used the family name and connections in the Detroit religious community to prey on church members,” said Jason Moon, a spokesman for the Michigan Office of Financial and Insurance Regulation.

Winans could not be reached for comment.
Regulators pass case on

State regulators say they’ve subpoenaed 50 bank accounts in trying to unwind this alleged scam that they said began in 2007 and started surfacing in 2008. They spent 14 months on the case. State regulators say they are passing their investigation to local, state and federal authorities, who could file criminal or civil cases, if necessary.

“There are few winners here outside Mr. Winans Jr.,” said Ken Ross, OFIR commissioner, in a statement.
‘No oil bond’

The Detroit Police Department has investigated the alleged scam as well.

“There was no oil bond,” said Detroit Police Inspector Maurice McClure. “Some people truly thought it was a windfall.”

He said many people were scammed through the churches — including a report of it involving a church as far away as Alaska. He said people thought it was legitimate — and a way to make money as oil prices went up. Investors later claimed that they did not make any money but instead lost it.

“One lady lost her home and she was living in a car,” McClure said.

Ameer El, 41, formerly of Detroit, said Thursday that he invested about $7,500 of his buyout money from Chrysler and lost it. He heard about the investment from a friend of a friend and attended a seminar at the New Genesis Beginnings Church in Detroit. He had faith in the Winans name — and the fact that the seminar was in a church.

“I can’t believe that somebody that calls themselves men of God,” he said. “They have used the Bible and the church to disguise their schemes. It’s not right, not right.”

Read more here.

VIA MYFOXDC:

WASHINGTON – The D.C. police union says a detective accused of unholstering his gun at a snowball fight faces a possible 10-day suspension.

The Fraternal Order of Police said Detective Michael Baylor learned about the proposed suspension Tuesday and plans to appeal. The police union is representing Baylor, who does not have an attorney.

In a report dated Feb. 4 and obtained by The Associated Press, the police department’s internal affairs bureau says Baylor acted “confrontational” as he approached a large crowd in northwest Washington in December. The review also says Baylor failed to report stopping a man he thought had thrown a snowball at the detective.

A D.C. police spokeswoman says she cannot comment on personnel matters.

Source

VIA THE WASHINGTON POST:

On Feb. 23, a select group of Washingtonians received an intriguing e-mail: “The orange arrow is pointing at you,” the subject line read.

It was an exclusive invitation to “an exclusive underground anti-restaurant,” the e-mail explained. “Because the DNA of the magical dinner is unmapped, these events will evolve, month to month, season to season, place to place & plate to plate.”

The invitation alone wasn’t enough for diners to make the cut, however. For the privilege of attending Orange Arrow’s inaugural, $125-a-head dinner, guests had to agree to abide by certain rules.

“If you can’t/won’t eat certain things, this is not for you.”

“No crybabies, whiners or buzz kills can come to our party. This isn’t reality television.”

“Don’t try to sell your ticket on Craigslist. Failure to show basic decency gets you on the blacklist.”

Reached by phone, Orange Arrow’s co-founder, a James Beard award-nominated chef, made no apologies for the invitation’s tone or defiant exclusivity. “We don’t want them in if they’re not fun or interesting,” said the chef, who requested anonymity. “This is a private club. In a restaurant, you’re a whipping post. This is a completely different thing.”

In a city best known for its see-and-be-seen culinary destinations, a new breed of underground restaurants is emerging. These supper clubs shun pomp, circumstance and plebian steak dinners in favor of more-offbeat dining experiences. Some operate as for-profit businesses. Orange Arrow plans to obtain location and liquor permits for its ambitious suppers, which will host as many as 150 select “hungry, hedonistic gypsies” at venues that range from a museum to an alleyway. Others lurk in a legal gray area, accepting “suggested donations” for the food and wine to get around requirements for business and liquor licenses. Hush, the brainchild of a former World Bank staffer, invites no more than 16 for an intimate evening of home-style Indian food and culinary storytelling. There are even traveling underground restaurants. On Feb. 20, 40 in-the-know hipsters surrounded a long table to eat garlicky shrimp (and learn to suck out the heads) at the area’s first Wok + Wine event.

Already, demand is strong. Orange Arrow sold 30 percent of its tickets within 24 hours; it requires visitors to visit http://orangearrowdc.com to list a reference in order to get past the virtual velvet rope. After just one month of taking reservations at http://hushsupperclub.wordpress.com, Hush has an e-mail list of 300 interested diners, and every meal has had a waiting list. “The demand is unbelievable,” said the host, who goes by the name Geeta and runs Hush out of her home in Northwest Washington. “I thought, you know, I’d join Twitter and send out some e-mails and maybe some people would check it out. I thought it would take six months to build interest, not 10 days.”

Unlicensed restaurants have long prospered overseas. In Hong Kong, si fang cai, or speak-easies, in private homes are considered by many to have the best food in the city. But clandestine kitchens are a more recent phenomenon in the United States. The Ghetto Gourmet, which began serving meals in the basement of an Oakland, Calif., apartment in 2004, was one of the earliest. Soon, the concept spread to big cities everywhere. In Atlanta, RogueApron threw an event in an alley between boarded-up houses. In New York, patrons of A Razor, A Shiny Knife have together learned to carve a 150-pound boar. In Washington, two professional chefs launched a short-lived underground experiment, also called Hush, in Eastern Market in 2007. But it wasn’t until this year that the trend took off in earnest.

Washington’s new underground restaurants generally divide into two categories: amateur cooks who want to offer a new kind of experience and recovering restaurateurs who want to set their own rules.

Hush falls into the first group. For between $50 and $75 per person, Geeta serves the dishes she grew up eating in her mother’s kitchen, including dhokla, steamed lentil-and-rice flour cakes, chana masala (chickpea curry) and sweet carrot halwa. It’s a way of sharing her Gujarati culture and her religion, Jainism, which prescribes a diet that bans root vegetables as well as meat and dairy products. “If you want fine dining, go to Rasika,” Geeta said, referring to the popular restaurant in Penn Quarter. “This is the comfort food I’ve been served since I was in the womb.”

The message comes through food and storytelling. At a recent dinner, Geeta told guests about when, as a young girl, she was given her first masala spice box. She encouraged the roomful of strangers to talk about what was interesting and meaningful to them. “We live in a divisive town. We could go the whole night talking about Sarah Palin,” Geeta told the group as they sipped their welcome cocktails, made with coriander-and-saffron gin. “But we are more than what we do. I want you to share things, things that maybe you didn’t think anyone would be interested in in Washington, D.C.”

Whether it was the cocktails or the encouragement, it seemed to work. After some initial nervous chatter, the group of 20- and 30-somethings ate, drank and talked about the Olympics, what they’d cooked during the recent snowstorms and meddling in-laws. Yana Kravtsova, a 33-year-old lawyer, taught software project manager Scott Forman and Rakesh Surampudi (who followed instructions and avoided saying where he worked) the Russian way to make a toast. At midnight, Forman began playing the piano. The last guests left at 1 a.m.

“It’s very refreshing,” said Kravtsova. “I like the concept. Hanging out with strangers is not a very Washington thing.”

Wok + Wine’s mission is also to bring people together. The club was founded in November 2008 by New Zealand native Peter Mandeno, 38, as a way to broaden his social network in New York. In 2009, Mandeno organized 20 events there as well as in Amsterdam, Copenhagen, London, Madrid and Washington.

Wok + Wine’s formula is simple. Interested diners sign up at http://www.woknwine.com on a first-come, first-served basis. Only 40 people are admitted. Tickets usually cost $35. Twenty-four hours before the event, guests receive an e-mail revealing the location of the party. Wok + Wine offers one kind of wine — all the easier to meet someone by filling up their glass, the theory goes — and one kind of food: jumbo shrimp stir-fried with garlic, salt, crushed red pepper flakes and cilantro in a high-powered portable gas wok.

The Washington event skewed heavily female. During the first hour, guests sipped a 2007 Quinta dos Grilos (it retails for between $10 and $12) and milled around the 6,000-square-foot apartment in Shaw. At about 8 p.m., everyone was called to the long wooden table, lined with banana leaves. Mandeno scattered the shrimp down the center, and his partner, Yrmis Barroeta, explained how to peel them and suck out the heads. In case anyone forgot, a sign was posted on the wall to remind them: Rip. Lick. Bite. Suck.

Guests muscled their way closer to the table. Conversations sparked easily as several people struggled to eat the shrimp as directed. “The structure definitely makes it easy to talk to one another,” said Sylvia Yu, an employee of the Department of Health and Human Services who had heard about Wok + Wine through a friend. “Getting your hands dirty is messy and kind of sexy. It’s fun.”

Underground restaurants run by chefs are, not surprisingly, more elaborate. The goal of Orange Arrow, the chef said, is to create a place where “people who love food want to go,” not another bricks-and-mortar restaurant that has to serve steak and salmon and make the rent. The first dinner is at the end of the month.

Another underground restaurant, operating out of the Northwest home of two former Washington chefs since June 2009, offers guests half a dozen passed hors d’oeuvres and cocktails, then a multi-course tasting menu paired with wine. On a recent evening, the appetizers included seared scallop with roasted beets, cauliflower soup with Oregon black truffle, steak with Brussels sprouts and sunchokes, roasted rockfish with corn grits and turnip greens, and black truffle ice with vanilla cake. The suggested donation: $195 per person.

The restaurant’s founders said they had tired of the relentless pace of the hospitality industry. But after time away, they missed cooking for friends and food lovers. “We missed the interaction,” the founder said. “So we found a different way of doing it.”

The restaurant has no fixed schedule. Dinners happen about twice month. The chefs set up private dinners upon request or get the word out via friends and the Internet. Guests tend to be people who love food but are tired of the restaurant scene, the founder said. In general, the restaurant serves 10 to 20 guests at each dinner.

Despite their questionable legality, underground restaurants don’t seem to be ruffling any feathers.

Rob Wilder, co-founder of ThinkFood Group, which owns seven Washington restaurants including Jaleo and Zaytinya, has attended two underground dinners with friends and says he has no qualms about any unfair advantage the hosts might have over legal restaurants like his. “If it’s five nights a week and anyone can knock on the door, give the password like a speak-easy, they’re over the line,” he said. “I don’t see a few people doing a few of these a month as competition. I think it’s part of D.C. becoming a more vibrant, fun, adventurous food community.”

A D.C. health department spokeswoman said she was unaware that such operations are taking hold here. The department requires that inspectors visit any establishment that “relinquishes possession of food directly to a consumer,” including restaurants, grocery stores, convenience stores, bakeries, delicatessens and caterers. Operators also must be located in an area zoned for commercial business, and they must obtain a business license.

But the hosts say that because they request donations and not payments, their events are no different from dinner parties where guests are asked to pitch in for the cost of the meal.

“In some ways, my intention is to be very public about my desire to spread my culture and my cuisine,” said Geeta. But she never reveals her name. Just in case.

Source

VIA THE WASHINGTON POST:

Amid a sea of brightly colored T-shirts and wave after wave of protest signs, Regina Holliday’s homemade banner still stuck out as she marched Tuesday in support of health-care reform.

Clad in a painter’s smock, Holliday, whose uninsured husband died of cancer in the summer of 2009, waved an image of him and her two sons.

“We want a foot in the door. That’s what this bill is,” Holliday, 37, said about the current health-care reform legislation.

Holliday was one of thousands of protesters who marched through downtown Washington on Tuesday to criticize the health insurance industry and attempt to draw support for the Democratic proposal to overhaul the system.

Organizers with Health Care for America Now, a coalition of labor and other liberal groups, targeted insurance company leaders attending a policy conference held by industry advocates at the Ritz-Carlton hotel at 22nd and M streets NW. Reinforcing the Obama administration’s recent criticism of increasing health premiums, the demonstrators marched to the hotel to make a mock “citizen’s arrest” of insurance executives, who were demonized on demonstration posters and over the loudspeaker.

“We’re declaring this a crime scene!” bellowed Richard Trumka, president of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, to the roar of the crowd. AFL-CIO is a federation of about 60 labor unions.

Organizers of the protest said they brought about 5,000 people from across the United States to downtown Washington. They began their march in Dupont Circle, where they heard speeches from politicians and activists.

Former Vermont governor and physician Howard Dean cheered on demonstrators earlier in the morning. “We deserve a vote. . . . This is a vote about one thing — are you for the insurance companies or for the American people?”

Other marchers joined the main group as it reached the hotel. Police had set up barriers blocking access to the entrance. As protesters chanted and beat on drums, men and women in business suits took photos on their cellphones from behind the barricades.

The protest comes as President Obama makes a final push for passage of the health-care reform package, which critics say would not control health-care costs, among other failings.

“We will continue to send the message to Congress that they need to listen to us, not the health insurance companies, and that they needed to get reform done now,” said David Elliot, communications director for USAction, a nonprofit that helped co-found the Health Care for America campaign in 2008.

Insurers say they are being vilified.

“All health plans are in the same situation in trying to deal with the steadily increasing medical costs in the delivery system, which are not sustainable,” a spokesman for Anthem Blue Cross of California said last month when the firm agreed to a request by California regulators to postpone a premium increase of 39 percent for people who buy individual policies.

Like other insurers, Anthem also said rates are going up for individual insurance policies because, in the poor economy, healthy people are dropping coverage, leaving a pool of customers who are sicker and more expensive to cover.

The administration contends that the rate increases reflect excessive profits; insurance lobbyists counter that their rates mirror underlying increases in prices charged by doctors, hospitals and drug firms.

No one was arrested during Tuesday’s demonstration, Elliot said. But there was a minor skirmish between police and protesters when some tried to gain access to a parking tunnel next to the hotel. After a small group was allowed to deliver “citizen’s arrest warrants” to America’s Health Insurance Plans, the lobbying group hosting the conference, the crowd began to disperse.

The lobby plans to spend more than $1 million on a nationwide advertising campaign this week to, as one official with the group said, “set the record straight about rising health-care costs.”

Source

VIA THE WASHINGTON POST:

A civil lawsuit alleging that a Prince George’s County police officer beat a young man outside a nightclub without provocation and then collaborated with another officer to falsely charge the man was settled Monday afternoon after attorneys for both sides delivered opening arguments in Circuit Court in Upper Marlboro.

The civil trial in the lawsuit, filed by Robert L. Scott Jr., 22, was just getting going when Scott decided to accept a $100,000 settlement offer from the county.

“I’m satisfied with the settlement because my client is happy,” said Terrell N. Roberts III, the Riverdale attorney who represented Scott. “He feels he was justly compensated for the wrong that was done to him.”

Scott was assaulted by county police Cpl. Kenneth Goodwin outside the Crossroads nightclub in Bladensburg shortly after 1 a.m. on Dec. 27, 2007, according to the lawsuit.
Scott, of the District, had gone to the nightspot with friends from high school.

Scott, who was 20 at the time, did not drink during the evening, Roberts said, adding that Scott does not drink at all.

When Scott walked to the car of a friend who was going to drive him home, the lawsuit said, Goodwin, dressed in his police uniform, ordered Scott to get into the car. Scott replied that he was waiting for his friend to open the car’s doors. The friend arrived and opened the doors, and Scott saw another friend nearby and stepped to him to shake hands before returning to the car, the lawsuit alleged.

Goodwin suddenly hit Scott in the back of the head with his metal police baton, the lawsuit alleged. Scott staggered forward and turned to see Goodwin, who pushed his face, extended the baton and swung it at Scott’s face, the lawsuit alleged.
Scott raised his left arm, which absorbed the baton blow. The force of the blow fractured a bone in Scott’s forearm, according to the lawsuit.

Goodwin and Larry Hawkins, who at the time was a Bladensburg police officer, conspired to falsely charge Scott with two counts of resisting arrest and disorderly conduct, the lawsuit said. Hawkins also persuaded Scott to decline medical attention, telling him it would prolong his detention, according to the lawsuit.

Scott was scheduled to go to trial on those charges in June 2008. County prosecutors dropped all charges when neither Goodwin nor Hawkins showed up for the trial, Roberts said.

William Chen, a private attorney contracted to represent the county in the lawsuit, said in his opening statement that the county was not liable because Goodwin was moonlighting as a security officer at the time of the incident and was not acting as a police officer.

Chen declined to comment on the settlement.

Hawkins left the Bladensburg police force in February 2008. Dan Karp, the attorney who represented Hawkins in the civil lawsuit, said Hawkins was a probationary officer at the time of the incident and that his leaving the police department had nothing to do with Scott’s allegations.

Goodwin, who joined the police force in 1992 and is assigned to the pawn unit, did not respond to a request for comment submitted through the president of the police union.

During the past decade, Roberts has won more than $9 million in jury verdicts and settlements on behalf of clients who alleged they were brutalized or otherwise mistreated by county police.

Source

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For over a decade Lamont King was known as “Lazee Lamont” on nationally syndicated morning radio, but he is far from a slacker. His cynical and irreverent on-air persona compliments his nonchalant demeanor. A self-proclaimed culture critic, Lamont has worked in several major radio markets on many different formats. He was a regular contributor on SiriusXM’s Foxxhole Radio, the channel ran by Academy Award winning actor/comedian Jamie Foxx. On stage as a stand-up comic, Lamont’s clever yet conversational style has been winning audiences over all across the country. His skill at improvising, celebrity impressions, and original characters make for a hilarious mix of thought provoking observational comedy and side-splitting act outs. Lamont has appeared on Comedy Central, SpikeTV, BET and co-starred in the move Love For Sale. He is an alumni of the National Lampoon’s Lemmings sketch comedy troupe. He has worked along-side some of the biggest names in the industry while also producing his own comedy shows in the DC area and in Hollywood, CA. Lamont was a writer for the legendary George Wallace and is currently a regular contributor to The Humor Mill Magazine. www.LamontKing.tv  www.TheInstantClassic.info www.UrbanFlavorz.com

At 6′4, Lorenzo aka ‘Victory Won,’ has a towering presence both on and off the radio. As a former music director and programming assistant for WKYS-FM 93.9 in D.C., Big ZO, as he was then known, had a keen ear for music. His ability to “pick hits” made him a particularly valuable asset to the station. He now takes on the persona of ‘Victory,’ a culture critic who is knowledgeable on many genres of music, both old and new, and is always up to date on social and political current events. A die hard realist, he also is very much in tune with the streets and keeps his finger pressed firmly on the pulse of the local and national community. When you listen to him in conversation, on a variety of topics, you will hear how ZO has the unique ability of making even the most private celebrity relax and just talk. His tenure in radio and strong relationships he has built along the way has allowed Lorenzo to become very well connected in the entertainment industry. Lorenzo is a professional voice-over actor, and also does consultant work for artists and entertainment companies.

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