best friend: Whitney Houston

Showing posts with label Whitney Houston. Show all posts

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Whitney Houston's Cause Of Death

By Susan Duclos

A quick break from politics as word of the official cause of death of Whitney Houston who was found dead in a bathtub at the Beverly Hilton in LA, on February 11, 2012.

The Los Angeles County coroner's office has determined that Whitney Houston's official cause of death is: "drowning and effects of atherosclerotic heart disease and cocaine use, and has been ruled an accident.

More at USA Today. and Baltimore Sun.

Whitney Houston - Didn't We Almost Have It All (1987)

Thursday, February 23, 2012

National Enquirer Publishes Private Picture Of Whitney Houston In Casket

By Susan Duclos

The National Enquirer published a picture of the the late Whitney Houston in her casket, supposedly obtained from the private viewing of Houston, which the family attended prior to the televised funeral service.

The controversial decision to publish the photo has other outlets, bloggers and opinion writers asking if the National Enquirer crossed a line and went too far.

The photo of the Enquirer cover is now all over the Internet, some publishing it with the Houston's image blurred, others with just the headline from the National Enquirer which read "Whitney: The Last Photo!," and others publishing the cover as is.

The instant knee jerk reaction for many is to criticize the Enquirer for publishing the photo, but objectively, that publication has always been about attention grabbing headlines, pictures, and stories. Their goal is to sell the publication to as many people as possible.

While criticism is fine and everyone is entitled to their opinion, they got exactly what they wanted, attention, everyone talking about them and even more searching for the photo. Google Trends, right now (and it is updated constantly so the numbers and terms will change) has as number three in "hot searches" the term "national inquirer, " and number six is just "enquirer" and number eight is "national enquirer whitney houston".

CBS News reports that the this type of thing is nothing new for the Enquirer, in 1977 they published a photo of Elvis in his casket and did the same after John Lennon's death.

The Examiner reports, "Houston's family decided to have a private viewing of her body the Friday before her televised funeral service. However, it appears as though someone inside the funeral home took a photo of Whitney and sold it to the National Enquirer, the mag then publishing it on the front cover of their latest issue, causing quite the controversy."

While the Enquirer did exactly what it is has always done, being accused of new lows on a regular basis, the people searching madly enough for the photo/story to make three of the top ten searches are the whole reason they do what they do, but the person who sold the picture to the Enquirer, that is where trust was broken.

Someone took that photo and sold it, someone that attended the private viewing, someone that was trusted.

Perhaps that is where the outrage should be focused.

.

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Kevin Costner's Emotional Speech In Full At Whitney Houston's Funeral

By Susan Duclos

One of the more touching eulogies given at Whitney Houston's funeral was given by Houston's co-star in the popular movie hit "The Bodyguard," where he shared stories and memories of Whitney Houston.

Video below

Friday, February 17, 2012

Whitney Houston's Funeral Is Saturday, Several Outlets Covering It Live

By Susan Duclos

Whitney Houston's funeral will be held at the New Hope Baptist on Saturday, February 18, at 12 noon EST, but the Newark police director is asking fans to stay home and watch the service on television.

CNN is reporting that the services are expected to be made available for television and web streaming from the New Jersey church where she grew up.

Washington Post is reporting that Aretha Franklin and Stevie Wonder will perform at the funeral and Houston’s “Bodyguard” co-star Kevin Costner, ex-husband Bobby Brown and Oprah Winfrey are expected to attend, as are Tyler Perry, Rickey Minor, Alicia Keys and Dionne Warwick. Many more are expected to fill the 1,500 invitation only seats.

The eulogy is to be given by Gospel singer and pastor Marvin L. Winans.

More from CNN:

Asked why no public memorial service was planned, Winans told CNN's Anderson Cooper on Wednesday night the family didn't "want to have a parade."
"I don't think knowing Cissy (Houston's mother) and the Houston family ... it was a matter of public or private as it was this is my daughter, this is my sister, this is my mother, this is my friend and we want to do this with dignity."
The family's thinking, Winans told "AC360," is "we loved her when she was Nippy (a nickname) in New Jersey. The world loves her because of her voice. But if Nippy could not sing, the Houston family would love her."
Although the family is not commenting on Houston's burial location, her death certificate filed Wednesday in Los Angeles lists it as Fairview Cemetery in Westfield, New Jersey.

Washington Times provides a list of several cable television networks and one prominent radio station that plans to cover it live.

Black Entertainment Television (BET) will begin coverage at 11:30 a.m. EST, The Homegoing of Whitney Houston. On-air correspondents April Woodard and Lola Oguinake will provide commentary.

Bounce TV, a newly launched cable network targeting an African-American audience, will carry the funeral live in its entirety, uninterrupted and commercial free starting at 12 noon EST.

The all music cable network Fuse will offer live coverage of the funeral as part of its 24-hour music tribute to Houston beginning at 6 a.m. EST Saturday.

CNN will bring together Piers Morgan, Soledad O'Brien and Don Lemon to anchor CNN and CNN International's live global coverage of the funeral special, Whitney Houston: Life, Death Music, beginning at 11 a.m. EST. CNN Digital will also live stream the funeral on the web and via mobile at www.cnn.com/live from 11:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. EST.

Fox News Channel will stream the funeral live via its website online, The cable network will air portions of the service live between 11.30 a.m. and 2 p.m. EST as part of its regular news programming with anchors Uma Pemmaraju and Rick Folbaum.

New York’s powerhouse soul and R&B radio station WKRS/98.7 KISS FM will broadcast live from the New Hope Baptist Church, beginning at 12 noon EST.

RIP Whitney

Related:

Whitney Houston Dies At 48: RIP Video Tributes, Music Videos Of Greatest Hits

Monday, February 13, 2012

OBL, Whitney, and the rise of American Theocracy.

Oh my! It seems my girl Whitney had quite a few admirers all over the world.

"Terror mastermind Osama bin Laden is so obsessed with singer Whitney Houston he thought about killing her husband, Bobby Brown, it was claimed last night.

"The suggestion is made by Sudanese poet and novelist Kola Boof, who claims she was bin Laden's sex slave for four months 10 years ago.

In her autobiography, Diary of a Lost Girl, she writes: "He told me Whitney Houston was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen."

Boof, 37, who claims bin Laden raped her and held her prisoner in a Moroccan hotel, says he could not stop talking about the songbird, even though he disapproved of music.

"Osama kept coming back to Whitney Houston," she says in the book, excerpted in the magazine Harpers' Bazaar. "He asked if I knew her personally when I lived in America. I told him I didn't.

"He said that he had a paramount desire for Whitney Houston, and although he claimed music was evil he spoke of someday spending vast amounts of money to go to America and try to arrange a meeting with the superstar.

"It didn't seem impossible to me. He said he wanted to give Whitney Houston a mansion that he owned in a suburb of Khartoum.

"He explained to me that to possess Whitney he would be willing to break his colour rule and make her one of his wives.

"Whitney Houston's name was the one that would be mention constantly.

"How beautiful she was, what a nice smile she has, how truly Islamic she is but is just brainwashed by American culture and by her husband Bobby Brown, whom Osama talked about having killed, as if it were normal to have women's husbands killed." [Source] (h/t to Susan)

Damn, OBL had more love for Whitney that some of the racist mofos in this country. (And people wonder why I despise FOX and everything they represent so much.)

Anyway, tonight I want to blog about the "occupy woman's vagina" folks who have hijacked this contraception debate. Because we all know that blocking a woman's right to reproductive services is the republican thing to do.

President Obama, much to my displeasure, compromised with the Catholic Church in this debate. I hate to break it to him, but if he thought that the folks who are trying to score cheap political brownie points from this would back off, he would be wrong. And the Catholic Church certainly isn't giving any ground. (Why should they? It's not like we are talking about pedophile priests or anything.)

"It's still clear that President Obama does not understand this isn't about cost--it's about who controls the religious views of faith-based institutions," Blunt said in a released statement. "President Obama believes that he should have that control. Our constitution states otherwise."

And who should have the control over a woman's body? If a------ fill in your religion other than Catholic--- woman chooses to work for a Catholic hospital or university and wants to buy birth control pills for whatever, are you telling me that she shouldn't be allowed because she works for a Catholic institution? (One that most likely gets some kind of public funding.) What about individual freedoms in this country? If a non Seventh Day Adventist man works for Andrews University and wants to buy a bucket of chicken in Berrien Springs, Michigan on a Saturday night, are you telling me that he shouldn't be allowed to because Adventist don't believe in eating meat? And if the poor guy gets a heart attack because of his love for the Colonel's cooking, are you saying that the Seventh Day Adventist health plan shouldn't have to pay for his hospital visit to clear out his arteries? Should an employer who is Jehovah's Witness be allowed to deny blod transfusions to one of his or her employees? Of course not. We all know a stretch when we see one.

The hierarchy of the Catholic Church and their political soul-mates are trying to pull a fast one on the American people. This is not about religious freedom, it's about religious tyranny. Do you honestly believe that if men had to give birth to children we would even be having this debate?

I love what Wendy Kaminer wrote in The Atlantic:

"What accounts for the rhetorical excesses of the Catholic Church and its advocates on the campaign trail and in the media? They reflect some genuine outrage, no doubt. But, in part, the rhetoric is an organizing tool (which may succeed in wresting new concessions from the administration). And in part, it reflects larger rhetorical trends: We inhabit a culture of hyperbole, especially during election years. Every argument is a gunfight (to which someone mistakenly brings a knife), every gunfight is a war, and every war a potential apocalypse.

Still, while the fate of American civilization doesn't depend on this debate about the obligations of church-affiliated institutions to abide by secular law, the stakes are relatively high. As government workers are laid off and government programs shrink, the public role of private, tax-exempt non-profits expands. The stronger their right to dispense public funds and deliver public services according to sectarian religious dictates, the weaker our rights to a non-sectarian public sphere. It's a zero-sum game." [Source]

I disagree with her about one thing: the outrage expressed by church officials might be genuine, but the outrage expressed by the poli-tricksters rallying around this issue are as phony as a W's cowboy persona.

Sunday, February 12, 2012

"Coming Apart"

I still can't get over my girl Whitney going out like that. I tried writing about it this morning and posted it with another publication. I didn't feel like hearing it from my resident racist trolls who like to hang in the fields, so if you want to read it you will have to go over there. (From the bad to worse department; her daughter was just rushed to the hospital.)

So anyway, this is Black History Month, and we are indeed living in an interesting time in our nation's history. In a lot of ways, we are even more segregated now than we were during the darkest days of Jim Crow. (h/t to Daniel for that article)
The rights of women are being trampled on by a few powerful people in Washington, and white scholars are openly wondering how the white working class and white bourgeoisie can unite as they were back in the days when they were clearly the the ruling class.

I guess, for Charles Murray (yes, the "Bell Curve" guy) and others like him, white power is slipping away at an alarming rate.

But all is not lost. I wonderful woman from the majority population sent me an e-mail after reading the story I posted about that basketball team from Pistolvania. It's a letter she penned to that school official who sat by and laughed while this incident was taking place. She has given me permission to share it:

"Dear Sir,

I read with interest of your failure to intervene in the recent "banana suit" incident at the basketball game.

I'm sure you meant well, and thought this was an innocuous form of trash talk from high spirited young people.

Allow me to tell you something about myself.
I am a 60 year old white woman who was born and raised in the deep South, where I still live.

During the civil rights era of the 1960s, my parents never marched or shouted, but they supported equal rights with their own quiet dignity.
Our church in Georgia split because some in the congregation voted to bar the doors to the church if black people attempted to worship with them.
My parents voted against this, and spoke up in church about what a profound ignorance of Christ was being evinced there.

After that, the KKK weekly newspaper published by J.B. Stoner (who killed the 4 little girls in Birmingham)

appeared regularly in our driveway. It was thrown there at night by someone who wanted to convince my parents of the error of their ways.
A regular feature of this paper was caricatures of ape-like black people holding bananas. It had photos of Africans with terrible diseases,
and claimed this was their normal appearance. It had pseudo-science claiming that Africans were not wholly human, but were descended from
matings between humans and monkeys. My parents didn't just throw these papers away---they burned them, but I still remember the images,
the ignorance and the hatred displayed there.

When I read of the taunting at the Brentwood ball game, I was reminded of the KKK newspaper and I was disgusted and angry at you,
the teenagers, and the entire Brentwood administration. I have since calmed down, and reminded myself that you people didn't grow up where and how I did,
so you don't know any better. However, it is now time for you to correct your embarrassing ignorance and your breach of good manners.
You and the student body need to apologize, sincerely, to the opposing team, and take measures that such a disgusting display never happens again.
Brentwood is a school? Educate yourselves!!!

Sincerely,

Dena..... "

Thank you Dena. Unfortunately, I am afraid that your wonderful letter will not do much good. But we can hope.

Whitney Houston Dies At 48: RIP Video Tributes, Music Videos Of Greatest Hits

By Susan Duclos

Pop diva Whitney Houston, 48 years old, died yesterday. Her body was found and at the Beverly Hilton in LA, where it remained after medics performed CPR unsuccessfully, while her death was investigated. There were no signs of foul play.

Cause of death is unknown. Death will be determined by the L.A. Co. Coroner's Office.

The night before she died Whitney Houston performed in Los Angeles with Kelly Price, singing Jesus Loves Me, video below.

Browsing through YouTube, I found some tributes put together by obvious Whitney Houston fans, videos below. After the tributes are some of Whitney Houston's original Top 10 Hits' music videos.

Whitney Houston (RIP TRIBUTE) 1963-2012 (Greatest Love Of All)