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Woodie Assaf was born on March 15, 1917 in McComb. He was a weatherman. Assaf started working for WLBT television in Jackson on December 20, 1953, the first day it went on the air and worked there until he retired in 2001.
In the beginning he did a variety of jobs at the station, including recording commercials, selling advertising, and reporting news, sports and weather. Eventually he became the “weather man,” giving weather reports on the station. He was not a meteorologist and qualified all his weather reports with the line “The weatherman says…”.
At the time of his retirement, he had the second longest tenure as a weatherman at the same station in U.S. broadcasting history. Only Dick Goddard surpassed Assaf at 55 years, with the last 50 at WJW in Cleveland.
Assaf was a fixture in fundraising and community activities. He annually hosted the Easter Seals Telethon. In 1969 he hosted a benefit starring Bob Hope that raised over $2.5 million for victims of Hurricane Camille. He emceed numerous beauty pageants and special events throughout the state. In 1996 he carried the Olympic torch, representing WLBT-TV.
In 1999, a Clarion-Ledger readers’ poll voted him Mississippi’s most popular TV personality of the millennium.
Assaf died of natural causes at Riggs Manor Retirement Center in Raymond on November 13, 2009.
Tonea Stewart was born on February 3, 1947 in Greenwood. She is an actress and university professor.
Her original intention was to become a doctor, and she studied biology at Jackson State. However, after acting in a school production, Stewart changed her major to theater.
Stewart’s first performance on screen was in TV movie Nightmare in Badham County (1976). She appeared as Mrs. Walker in film Mississippi Burning (1988). From 1991 to 1993, Stewart played Aunt Etta Kibby on In the Heat of the Night. Stewart acted in the feature films Body Snatchers, Livin’ Large, Mississippi Damned and Girls Trip.
She has made guest appearances on television series Matlock, Walker, Texas Ranger, ER and Touched by an Angel. She played Gwen Hailey, the wife of Samuel L. Jackson’s character, in A Time to Kill (1996). Stewart received an NAACP Image Award nomination for her work in this film. In Come Sunday (2018), she portrayed the mother of Pentecostal bishop Carlton Pearson.
The majority of Stewart’s work has been in television films. She acted in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Don’t Look Back: The Story of Leroy ‘Satchel’ Paige (portraying the mother of Satchel Paige) and The Rosa Parks Story, where she appeared as Johnnie Carr. In 1994, Stewart appeared in the TV movies One Christmas as Evangeline and A Passion for Justice: The Hazel Brannon Smith Story as Henrietta. She portrayed Memaw, the grandmother of Halle Downing, in the Oprah Winfrey Network movie First Christmas.
While she was acting, she was also teaching.
Stewart began teaching in 1971, educating high school students. At Jackson State, she taught speech. By 1983, Stewart was assistant professor for the dramatics and speech departments at Jackson State.
Starting in 1990, she was a professor at the College of Visual and Performing Arts for Alabama State, also chairing the theater department. Stewart eventually became dean before retiring in 2019 after 48 years in education. One of her students was Stephen Boss.
In 2020, Stewart was appointed by Alabama governor Kay Ivey to represent the fifth district of the Alabama State Board of Education.
In MEMORY of LEE THOMPSON YOUNG – (February 1, 1984 – August 19, 2013)
Career years: 1998 – his death Born Lee Thompson Young, American actor who began his career as a teenager, playing the titular character on the Disney Channel television series The Famous Jett Jackson (1998–2001). As an adult, major roles included playing Chris Comer in the movie Friday Night Lights (2004) and Boston police detective Barry Frost on the TNT police drama series Rizzoli & Isles (2010–14).
Early life – Young was born in Columbia, South Carolina, the son of Velma Elaine (née Love) and Tommy Scott Young. He was in the second grade when his parents’ marriage ended, and he went to live with his mother. At age ten, he portrayed Martin Luther King Jr. in a play called A Night of Stars and Dreams by Dwight Woods at the Phillis Wheatley Repertory Theater of Greenville, South Carolina. It was then that Young decided he wanted to become an actor.
Career – Young moved to New York City in June 1996, but it was not until the next year that he auditioned for the part of Jett Jackson in The Famous Jett Jackson. He filmed the pilot and found out in June 1998 that the Disney Channel had picked up the show; it would go on to become a Disney Channel Original Movie in June 2001. Young also starred in Johnny Tsunami (1999), another Disney Channel Original Movie, as Sam Sterling. Although the movie was successful, he did not reprise the role in the sequel, Johnny Kapahala: Back on Board (2007).
After the cancellation of The Famous Jett Jackson, Young had guest spots in the CBS series The Guardian. He also had a part in the movie Friday Night Lights (2004), portraying Chris Comer, and a part in the Jamie Foxx movie Redemption: The Stan Tookie Williams Story (2004). Lee appeared on UPN’s TV drama series South Beach, and he portrayed Victor Stone (known in DC Comics as Cyborg) in a fifth-season episode of the television series Smallville, in 2006; he reprised the character in the Season Six episode “Justice” (airdate January 18, 2007), and in the Season Nine finale “Salvation” (airdate May 14, 2010).
Young appeared in the feature film Akeelah and the Bee (2006), playing Akeelah’s brother Devon. He played National Guard rookie Delmar in The Hills Have Eyes 2 (2007). In 2009, Young played a cocky surgical intern in the hit comedy show Scrubs. It is revealed that his character had been overweight during childhood. The character becomes involved in a romance with one of the medical interns.
Young played the role of Al Gough, an FBI agent, in the ABC television drama FlashForward. He was written off the show in episode 7, when his character committed suicide to prevent the death of an innocent civilian.
He made an appearance on the Fox drama The Good Guys as the brother and business partner of an arms dealer. His last acting role was playing Barry Frost, partner of Jane Rizzoli (Angie Harmon) on the TNT drama Rizzoli & Isles.
Personal life – Young graduated with honors from the University of Southern California, where he majored in cinematic arts and was a member of the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity. Young enjoyed writing and wrote the screenplay for the 2007 short film Mano.
Death – On August 19, 2013, Young failed to show up to film an episode of Rizzoli & Isles. Police were called to do a wellbeing check on him at his Los Angeles apartment, where he was found dead. His manager stated that the actor died by suicide. Police confirmed the cause of death as a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Young had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, for which he had been taking medication, and had been suffering from depression before his death.
After funeral services at Inglewood Park Cemetery, Young was interred at Lakeview Memorial Garden, York, South Carolina. A memorial service was held on the Paramount Studios lot.
Young’s family launched the Lee Thompson Young Foundation in an effort to help remove the stigma surrounding mental illness.
Deborah Ann Morgan (born September 20, 1956) is an American film and television actress.
She played the role of Angie Baxter–Hubbard on the ABC soap opera All My Children, a role she originally played from January 1982 to July 1990, for which she was the first African-American to win the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 1989.
Her portrayal of Angie struck a chord with many Black viewers across America.
Angie and her love interest, Jesse Hubbard (Darnell Williams), became the first African-American “supercouple” on the daytime serials.
In 1989, Morgan won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series (which she shares with Santa Barbara actress Nancy Lee Grahn).
She and Williams also co-hosted a music video show titled New York Hot Tracks in the mid-1980s.
After leaving All My Children, Morgan played the role of Chantal Marshall on the NBC soap opera, Generations (replacing actress Sharon Brown) and remained with the show until it ended.
She then reprised her role as Angie Hubbard on ABC’s Loving in 1993.
In 1995, she brought the same character to The City (a retooled version of Loving), making Morgan one of the few performers to portray the same character on three different soap operas.
From 1997 to 1998, she also played Dr. Ellen Burgess on Port Charles.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Morgan became a de facto symbol for the possibilities for black women as all of her soap opera roles involved her playing a successful doctor.
She is also known for her role as the Seer in the fourth and fifth seasons of Charmed.
In film, she received critical acclaim for her performance as Mozelle Batiste-Delacroix in Eve’s Bayou (1997) for which she won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female.
From 2014 to 2021, she played a recurring role as Estelle Green in the starz crime drama series Power and its spinoff Power Book II: Ghost, and, from 2021 to 2022, co-starred in the Fox drama series Our Kind of People.
Morgan was born in Dunn, North Carolina.
The family relocated to the Bronx when Morgan was still a child.
Morgan graduated from Aquinas High School.
Morgan’s earliest film role was in the movie Monkey Hustle in 1976.
She played the role of Vi. Morgan’s earliest recurring role was on What’s Happening!! from 1976 to 1977 as Diane Harris, and also appeared on Good Times.
In 1979, she received critical acclaim for her portrayal of Alex Haley’s great-aunt Elizabeth Harvey on the 1979 miniseries Roots: The Next Generations, and her guest-starring role as Curtis Jackson’s ex-girlfriend on The White Shadow.
FILM:
Morgan garnered much acclaim from movie critics for her portrayal of clairvoyant Mozelle Batiste Delacroix in director Kasi Lemmons’ drama film Eve’s Bayou (1997).
For her portrayal, she won a Chicago Film Critics Association Award and an Independent Spirit Award and was nominated for an Image Award.
She later left soap operas and began her film career with roles in She’s All That (1999), The Hurricane (1999), Love & Basketball (2000), Woman Thou Art Loosed (2004), Coach Carter (2005), Relative Strangers (2006), and Color of the Cross (2006).
On television, she had roles in The Practice, Strong Medicine, Boston Public, Providence, and Soul Food.
In 1984, she played Ruth Solomon Owens on the television film The Jesse Owens Story.
Morgan returned to All My Children in January 2008; 10 years after leaving daytime television.
In May 2009 and 2011, she was nominated for the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series.
In November 2013, after All My Children was cancelled, Morgan was cast in Starz drama series, Power, opposite Omari Hardwick and Naturi Naughton.
In 2015, she co-starred alongside Richard Lawson and Vivica A. Fox in two TV One holiday movies: Royal Family Thanksgiving and Royal Family Christmas.
Morgan later played Toni Braxton’s mother in the Lifetime biopic Toni Braxton: Unbreak My Heart.
In 2017, Morgan appeared in the Marvel miniseries The Defenders playing Delores.
The following year, she had a recurring role in the BET drama series The Quad. In 2019, she appeared in the Netflix film Sextuplets starring Marlon Wayans.
She starred with Kelly Rowland in the Lifetime movie Merry Liddle Christmas and its sequels.
In 2021, she was cast in the Lee Daniels prime time soap opera, Our Kind of People opposite Yaya DaCosta.
MUSIC VIDEO APPEARANCES
▪Cameo – “Attack Me with Your Love” (1985), “Single Life” (1985)
Debbi Morgan plays Keyshia Cole’s mom in Keyshia Cole: This is My Story (Premieres on Lifetime June 24, 2023).
🤎 DEBBI MORGAN’S CUTE DIMPLES… Debbi Morgan shared a photo of her dad on Instagram. “My dad at thirteen…any resemblance…Lol!”
Your perspective is shaped unconsciously from your past life experiences, how you were raised, your values and beliefs and messages you received from important people in your life.
You can put your worries into perspective when you realize how many people in the world are so much worse off than you.
Perspective shapes our thoughts, emotions, and actions and can greatly impact our overall wellbeing.
By learning to shift our perspective, we can gain new insights and find creative solutions to life’s challenges.
Eyes closed, what do you feel?
Perspective helps us to understand situations from other positions, to consider other beliefs, experiences and view points.
This gives us a better understanding and greater empathy. It reduces bias, judgement, and reduces conflict.
Embracing different perspectives also gives people opportunities to counteract their biases.
It exposes individuals to new information that can challenge their preconceived opinions and notions.
This can help them recognize their biases and reconsider their current ways of thinking about groups of people and ideas.
A change in perspective allows for a more well-rounded viewpoint in almost any situation and will possibly give you a completely different way of seeing something.
A new perspective on something can broaden your frame of mind and give you new ways of seeing the bigger picture.
“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.“
But King’s dream of equal treatment for all was cut short and indefinitely deferred with his assassination in 1968.
The country’s political and cultural failure(s) to provide for the common welfare of all citizens could scarcely have been more expected, or less ambiguous.
Today, as we reflect on Dr. King’s life and work, we’re taking heed of the call to leadership he made so many years ago.
In this moment, we still need “leaders in love with justice…in love with humanity,” who can devote their immense talent and passion to the greatest problems of our time.
Powerful leaders have been answering King’s call to leadership for many years, and the issues we face are broad and systemic.
But we’re calling for young people—of all races, from all backgrounds and walks of life—to step up and join the fight for educational equity and excellence.
Despite the hard work of many, our nation faces the grave injustice of educational inequity.
We face a grave injustice when 1 in 4 black students attend a high school where graduating is not the norm, compared with 1 in 20 white students.
The fight to provide an excellent education for all children does just that.
It uplifts humanity, and we should encourage as many future leaders from all backgrounds in our great nation to respond to the charge to lead.
Today, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, is a moment to consider how we make the world a better place.
What we know is that wherever you work, whatever you do, fighting to ensure all young people have the chance to grow into those leaders, is critical to uplifting humanity.
Together, alongside so many others, we’re trying to build a world that Dr. King would be proud of.
We’re not there yet, but we’re getting closer each day and we won’t give up the fight.
Inspiration is the feeling of being mentally stimulated to manifest what we want to create.
Spiritual Inspiration is something we need at times to help us search for meaning and purpose.
Our life’s inspiration can come from a book, a mentor, our family, a celebrity, author – literally anyone!
Being inspired can give us the ideas and desire we need to: solve complex problems, develop something new and exciting.
A person who motivates or inspires us can be called a mentor, role model, motivator, inspiration, or influencer, depending on the context and the nature of their impact on us.
Inspiration is a factor that can move mountains and change the direction of our entire live.
It creates an energy and enthusiasm which is hard to extinguish and which can keep us going through the most difficult and challenging times in order to reach our goal.
God gives us inspiration through HIS Grace (which is God’s own life communicated to us through His Sacraments) and His Teaching, which He established and guaranteed until the end of the world.
The Word of God is a living thing full of power so it is about much more than inspiration.
Let the possibilities inspire us more than the obstacles discourage us.
One day a farmer’s donkey fell into a well. The animal cried loudly for hours, while the farmer tried to find something to do to get him out.
Finally, the farmer decided that the donkey was old and the well was already dry and needed to be covered anyway; that it really wasn’t worth pulling the donkey out of the well..
He invited all his neighbors to come help him. They each grabbed a shovel and began to throw dirt into the well.
The donkey realized what was happening and cried horribly loud. Then, to everyone’s surprise, he quieted down after a few shovelfuls of dirt.
The farmer finally looked down into the well and was amazed at what he saw… with each shovelful of dirt, the donkey was doing something incredible: It was shaking off the dirt and stepping on top of the dirt.
Very soon everyone saw surprised how the donkey reached the mouth of the well, went over the edge and trotted out…
Life is going to throw dirt at you, all kinds of dirt… the trick to getting out of the hole is to shake it off and use it to step up. Each of our problems is a step up. We can get out of the deepest holes if we don’t give up…
Use the land they throw you to get ahead!!!
Remember the 5 rules to be happy:
Free your heart from hate.
Free your Mind of distractions.
Simplify your life.
Give more and expect less.
Love more and… shake the dirt, because in this life you have to be a solution, not the problem!
What does it take to really commit to our promises and follow through in spite of the difficulties that arise along the way?
Fulfilling promises to ourself demonstrates that we have a strong sense of integrity and a commitment to our values.
Unfortunately many of us value other people’s commitments and time more than our own, and the result is more stress, we’re unhappy, a feeling of unease, and not being true to ourself.
I’ve been on this journey of self-commitment since my divorce in 2012. I realized that I kept repeating the cycle of choosing the wrong man as a life partner.
I’ve learned that keeping commitments to myself means getting my mindset right, repeating what works, and learning more about myself so I can focus on what I need.
I realized that in the past, I was with a person for his potential in the hope that he would do better if I just hang in there a little while longer.
That was a bad decision – insane really. I had to look deep within and break that cycle.
To this day, I feel stuck between “I wanna love someone” and I know for now “I’m better off single”.
Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.
Y’all, we made it to the end of 2023, thank God!!!
Simply aiming to spread love and treat others with respect and kindness in your daily life can create that ripple effect of positivity with everyone you come in contact with.
What not everyone realizes is that these acts can impact the giver in meaningful ways, too.
People don’t even have to be sad or suffering to spread our love and happiness to them.
We could use a little more kindness, love, and light in our lives … and this world.
Let us always meet each other with a smile, for our smile is the beginning of love.
I Wish You A Prosperous Year Filled With Personal Fulfillment And Professional Success And Spiritual Enlightenment
Christmas is a time of spiritual reflection on the important foundations of the Christian faith.
It’s also a celebration. It’s when Christians celebrate God’s love for the world through the birth of the Christ child: Jesus.
To give up one’s very self — to think only of others — how to bring the greatest happiness to others — that is the true meaning of Christmas.
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. ~John 3:16-17
Christmas can be a season of great joy.
It is a time of God showing His great love for us.
It can be a time of healing and renewed strength.
Sure, enjoy the season but remember to rejoice as well!
After all, the true meaning of Christmas is the celebration of God’s ultimate gift: the birth of Jesus, the Christ child.
O’Bryan McCoy Burnette II, known by his stage name O’Bryan (born December 5, 1961), is an American musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, and multi-instrumentalist.
O’Bryan Burnette was one of the more popular pop/soul singers of the mid-80s and landed a handful of hits under the moniker “O’Bryan” during his recording career.
A North Carolina native, O’Bryan moved to California as a young man and sang in Santa Ana’s Second Baptist Church choir.
It was there that he was introduced to Philadelphia International musician and producer Ron “Have Mercy” Kersey.
While the O’Bryan’s work with a group Kersey was putting together never materialized, the connection did result in an introduction to Soul Train host Don Cornelius, who in turn connected O’Bryan with Capitol Records, where he was signed.
Cornelius and O’Bryan remained close, ultimately resulting in O’Bryan recording the theme song for Soul Train, the hit single “Soul Train’s A Comin’.” It was one of many hits that O’Bryan would have over the next decade.
It was Cornelius who took O’Bryan to Capitol Records and secured his first recording contract.
Four albums followed, along with charting singles “Gigolo” in ’82, as well as the cover of Stevie Wonder’s “You & I” and funk-driven declaration, “I’m Freaky,” in ’83.
I didn’t have to bring it back to him—but I knew he wouldn’t be able to check out a book that day at school without it.
So, I hopped in the car, and delivered it to him.
Yes, I know he needs to learn about responsibilities and yes, I won’t always be there to help.
But I am now.
“Thanks, Mom,” he beamed when he saw me after school.
I didn’t have to vacuum my 15-year-old’s bedroom, she’s old enough to do it on her own. But I did it anyway. Because her days are filled with homework and sports and extracurricular activities, and this gave her more time to just be a kid.
“You vacuumed my room! Thank you!” she told me.
I didn’t have to watch a movie with my 13-year-old. It was already late. We were both exhausted from a week full of activities. But watching movies used to be our thing and life has been so busy lately, we simply haven’t had the time.
So that night when she asked me, I made time.
She didn’t tell me thank you, she didn’t have to. Her long goodnight hug said it all.
My dad didn’t have to start my car on those cold mornings before school, but he did it anyway. Even when I was grumpy. Even when I didn’t tell him thank you. Because he knew a warm car gave me a good start to my day. And I knew, a warm car also meant, “I love you.”
25 years later, when I start my cold car, I think of Dad and remember that love.
Friends, the holiday season is here. And I know sometimes we get caught up in all of it. We want to buy the fancy gifts to tell our loved ones how much they mean to us or we feel guilty if we can’t buy much at all.
But I promise—the best gifts are found in those small moments. That’s the stuff they will always remember.❤
Credit: Leslie Means
PS: I shared this one earlier in the year—but needed the reminder today. I keep having this “do my kids have enough gifts” thought (they do) and had to remind myself of my own words!
To perform an act of kindness because of one’s altruistic generosity or goodwill, without personal or ulterior motivations or bragging rights or recognition; is performing it out of the kindness of your heart.
If you’re kindhearted, you’re a considerate and empathetic person.
When someone loses their home in a fire, their kindhearted neighbors will pitch in to help them.
Kindhearted is almost a synonym of kind, but it implies an even deeper layer of sympathy and compassion.
Actually, you’re showing genuine compassion, empathy, and an eagerness to see others succeed.
Think of kindness as a mirror that reflects the state of your inner being.
Just as a mirror reflects your physical appearance, kindness reflects the state of your heart and mind.
Helping others can also benefit our own mental health and wellbeing.
For example, it can reduce stress as well as improve mood, self-esteem and happiness.
There are so many ways to help others as part of our everyday lives.
Good deeds needn’t take much time or cost any money.
A man lost his son and couldn’t bare the thought of living without him.
He was suffering and couldn’t believe his son was gone. He cried and cried every day and night, missing his son, wishing things were different.
He couldn’t sleep and hadn’t slept in a long time. One night an old medicine man came to him in a dream and told him “Enough!!!”
That’s enough crying!!! The dad told him, I cannot stop, I am never going to see him again!
The old medicine man said, “Do you want to see him again?” The dad says, “yes of course” the old medicine man takes him to the entrance of happy hunting ground where he sees many little beautiful children, so happy and innocent, carrying eagle feathers into the happy hunting grounds, smiling and laughing and just so beautiful.
The dad asks, “where is my son? Who are these kids?” The old medicine man said, “these are the children that are called home early, they are innocent and loved, and they go right through to the happy hunting grounds, so happy.”
The dad says, “and my son? Where is he? Why isn’t he with these children?”
The old medicine man said, “come this way” and guided him to the side of entrance. A small boy with a beautiful smile was standing there watching all the children enter the happy hunting grounds.
He was standing there within reach of an eagle’s feather. His dad grabbed him and hugged him, and the boy kissed his dads’ cheeks and told him he missed him.
The dad said, “why don’t you have an eagles feather like the other kids? Why are you waiting here at the entrance?”
The boy said, “I keep trying to get the eagle feather Daddy, but your tears pull it out of reach. I see you are so sad, and I am tied to that feeling so I wait here until you’re ok.”
The dad burst out crying for the last time, he told his son, “Get that eagle feather and go, I will be ok, and I know you will be too.”
Don’t cry too long for that loved one you lost, whether it’s your sibling, son, daughter, husband, wife, mother, or father!!!
Let them rest in peace, don’t torment your life, because they won’t come back, have faith that you will be together again, and that the Creator makes us a beautiful home with all our loved ones when we leave this world.
Three Generations – Alfredo Rodriguez (1954, American).
For couples so eager to call it quits after the infatuation wears off, to throw in the towel on your relationship because everything isn’t ‘perfect’… here is some food for thought.
Lifelong commitment is not what most people think it is. It’s not waking up every morning to make breakfast and eat together.
It’s not cuddling in bed until both of you fall asleep. It’s not a clean home, filled with laughter and love making every day.
It’s someone who steals all the covers, and snores, it’s slammed doors and a few harsh words at times. It’s stubbornly disagreeing and giving each other the silent treatment until your hearts heal, and then offering forgiveness.
It’s coming home to the same person every day that you know loves and cares about you in spite of, and because of, who you are. It’s laughing about the one time you accidentally did something stupid.
It’s about dirty laundry and unmade beds. It’s about helping each other with the hard work of life.
It’s about swallowing the nagging words instead of saying them out loud. It’s about eating the easiest meal you can make and sitting down together at a late hour because you both had a crazy day.
It’s when you have an emotional breakdown and your love lays down with you and holds you, and tells you everything is going to be okay. And you believe them.
It’s about still loving someone even though sometimes they make you absolutely insane.
Loving someone isn’t always easy, sometimes it’s hard. But it is amazing and comforting and one of the best things you will ever experience!!!
The biggest lesson the seasons can teach us is the nature of impermanence, that things are constantly changing.
You can experience numerous seasons over your lifetime – multiple springs, summers, autumns and winters.
Each season can give you cues to honor your intuitive nature, she says.
Every seasonal shift and change in weather acts like a shock to the system, disrupting the typical chemical balance of our skin and causing dryness and sometimes severe acne.
Seasons have an enormous influence on vegetation and plant growth.
Winter typically has cold weather, little daylight, and limited plant growth.
In spring, plants sprout, tree leaves unfurl, and flowers blossom.
Summer is the warmest time of the year and has the most daylight, so plants grow quickly.
In autumn, temperatures drop, trees’ leaves start to change to vibrant colors, and many trees lose their leaves.
Wylie Hughes Draper Jr. (May 5, 1969 – December 20, 1993) was a dancer and actor and is best known for his portrayal of older Michael Jackson in The Jacksons: An American Dream.
Draper was born in West Virginia. He seemed destined for stardom from the very start, at the age of ten Wylie’s brother Desmond would throw parties at a local skating rink where Wylie would dance like Michael Jackson often becoming the main attraction at the party!
Even as a child many people noted the strong resemblance between Wylie and Michael Jackson, but as Wylie grew his focus from the arts shifted and as a teen he became a football player at Northside high school, but he changed his focus again back to the arts his Sophomore year, his drama teacher recalls him as a “Consummate student” and said he “Would teach forever if I had a class full of Wylies”.
After graduating Wylie attended Point Park College to hone his craft even more, during summers he worked as lead dancer at Disney World and lead entertainer on Norwegian cruise lines.
Around this time Wylie auditioned and won the role as adult Michael Jackson in the television film ‘The Jacksons an American dream'(1992).
A local hairstylist has recalled Wylie as being extremely calm and humble about his audition for the role of Michael Jackson, as he styled Wylie’s hair to look more like Michael Jackson’s he remembers the young man sitting in the chair listening to comedy tapes laughing!
He had a small role in another television film “The disappearance of Christina”, was a dancer in Michael Jackson’s video “Remember the time” and another dancer in the cable show “The Red Shoe Diaries”, which aired after his death.
Sadly, Draper passed away one year later after appearing in ‘The Jacksons an American Dream’ film.
Around 1993 Wylie was diagnosed as having a rare form of Leukemia, he would later pass away on December 20, 1993 in Los Angeles, California, at the age of 24.
His family formed ‘The Wylie Draper Foundation’ in 1994.
The WDF has been supporting young aspiring artists through an annual memorial scholarship.
The movie was directed by Tim Story and will star Richard Roundtree as Shaft number one, Samuel L.Jackson as Shaft number two, and Jessie Usher as Shaft number three — the latest black private detective in the family.
The Shaft franchise consists of five action-crime feature films and seven television films, centered on a family of African-American police detectives all sharing the name John Shaft.
Richard Roundtree, the trailblazing actor who starred as the ultra-smooth private detective in several “Shaft” films beginning in the early 1970s, has died.
The film stars Samuel L. Jackson, Jessie T. Usher, Regina Hall, and Richard Roundtree.
It is the fifth film in the Shaft series, a direct sequel to the 2000 film with the same title and was also Roundtree’s final portrayal of the original eponymous character John Shaft Sr. before his death in 2023.
Traditionally, long hair was always a symbol of masculinity.
All of history’s great warriors had long hair, from the Greeks (who wrote odes to their heroes’ hair) to the Nordic, from the American Indians (famous for their long shiny hair) to the Japanese.
And the longer and beautiful the hair was, the more manly the warrior was considered.
Vikings flaunted their braids and samurai wore their long hair as a symbol of their honor (they cut their braid when they lose honor).
When a warrior was captured, his mane was cut to humiliate him, to take away his beauty.
That custom resumed in what is today military service.
There when new soldiers begin their training the first thing they do is cut their hair to undermine their self-esteem, make them submissive and make them see who’s boss.
The Romans were the ones who “invented” short hair so to speak, between the 1st and 5th centuries AD.
In battles they believed this gave them defensive advantages, since their opponents couldn’t grab them by the hair.
This also helped them to recognize each other in the battlefield.
Short hair on men is a relatively new “invention” that has nothing to do with aesthetics.
But today we often see men being humiliated, sometimes called “gay” for wearing long hair, not knowing that short hair is actually the “anti-masculine” and is a repressive social imposition, while long hair symbolizes freedom.
For his portrayal of private detective John Shaft in the 1971 film Shaft, and its four sequels, released between 1972 and 2019.
For his performance in the original film, Roundtree was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actor in 1972.
The cause of his death was pancreatic cancer.
Roundtree began his professional career around 1963.
Roundtree began modeling in the Ebony Fashion Fair after being scouted by Eunice W. Johnson.
After his modeling success with the Fashion Fair, Roundtree began modeling for such products as Johnson Products’ Duke hair grease.
In 1967, Roundtree joined the Negro Ensemble Company. His first role while a part of the company was portraying boxing legend Jack Johnson in the company’s production of The Great White Hope.
Roundtree was a leading man in early 1970s blaxploitation films, his best-known role being detective John Shaft in the action movie, Shaft (1971) and its sequels, Shaft’s Big Score! (1972) and Shaft in Africa (1973).
Roundtree also appeared opposite Laurence Olivier and Ben Gazzara in Inchon (1981).
On television, he played the slave Sam Bennett in the 1977 television series Roots and Dr. Daniel Reubens on Generations from 1989 to 1991.
For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. “And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.
The Book of Revelation
Revelation is an apocalyptic prophecy with an epistolary introduction addressed to seven churches in the Roman province of Asia, in what is now western Turkey.
The seven cities where churches were located are close together, and the Island of Patmos is near the western coast of Turkey.
In its broad meaning, revelation is divine guidance or inspiration.
It is the communication of truth and knowledge from God to His children on earth, suited to their language and understanding.
It simply means to uncover something not yet known.
The Book of Revelations in the New Testament lists the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse as conquest, war, famine and death.
The earth belongs to the Lord. And so does everything in it. The world belongs to him. And so do all those who live in it … Psalms 24:1
The signs of the times in our day are events that were prophesied to take place in the latter days before the Second Coming of Christ.
How Do You Feel God’s Presence?
God’s presence can be felt in different ways. If you’ve ever been in a group of people who are praying, sometimes it feels like there is a large, comforting, presence in the room, other than that of the people you are with.
Some people may see visions or hear God’s voice.
Others may not see or hear anything — but experience feelings of peace and joy that are beyond words.
It may be through a providential encounter with a friend or stranger.
You may experience the presence of God through a song or Scripture the Spirit brings to mind.
Have you ever caught yourself thinking “I just need ____(fill in the blank) and then my life will be so much better“?
If so, you definitely aren’t alone—but the hard truth is if you don’t know how to be happy with what you have, then it’s unlikely that anything you can buy will make you any happier.
Of course, you need the basics like food, shelter, etc.
Odds are that buying a new sweater or another dinnerware set isn’t going to bring you much long-term joy.
Instead, buying stuff you don’t really need will only lead to less money and more stress overall.
There are usually some common threads—feelings of insecurity, a struggle with comparisons, and deeply held beliefs about success—but ultimately, you need to understand what makes YOU tick.
You will find yourself in a place where you are more confident and reliable once you start focusing on the things that makes you unique and valuable.
Increased knowledge helps with decision-making skills. It will boost your interpersonal skills too.
Social media affects behavior negatively by depriving kids of important social cues they would usually learn through in-person communication.
This can cause them to be more callous, anxious, and insecure.
People become unhappy with their current circumstances, leading to problems with self-esteem and depression.
Social media use has also been associated with cyber bullying and cyber abuse by anonymous users online, which leads to problems of self-esteem, privacy ,etc.
It is often common for people to compare themselves to others, both in person and online.
This does not mean that you can’t reduce this tendency.
For some people, existing self-esteem difficulties may interact with the effects of social media usage and lead to more comparisons to other people.
Social media and other media can influence the decisions that pre-teens and teenagers and some adults make about their health and lifestyle.
For example, media messages and content can make it look ‘normal’, cool or grown-up to eat junk food, smoke, vape, drink alcohol and take other drugs.
Most of what you see and entertain on social media is fake. It’s all about the “likes”, “followers”, and “money”.
A society that values life does not intentionally kill people.
Capital punishment is a disturbing case of homicide that has been approved by our government.
Practically supporting murder in order to enforce a solution to the problems being faced by society.
Governments round the world constantly try to validate capital punishment by stating the so called advantages of capital punishment provides to the people.
What they think are the advantages of death penalty would provide to the people.
Capital punishment is an inadequate solution to dealing with a criminal and it should be removed from our justice system.
Capital punishment is supposed to be an instrument of upholding law and order.
If a person committed a atrocious crime, then they don’t deserve a free pass to die.
The color of a defendant and victim’s skin plays a crucial and unacceptable role in deciding who receives the death penalty in America.
The death penalty carries the inherent risk of executing an innocent person.
Jesus was teaching (John 8:7) that only a perfect being—only God—should have power over death and life.
John Harold Johnson (January 19, 1918 – August 8, 2005) Founder of Ebony and Jet Magazine
Was an American businessman and publisher. He was the founder of the Johnson Publishing Company. In 1982, he became the first African American to appear on the Forbes 400.
Johnson was born in rural Arkansas City, Arkansas, the grandson of slaves. When he was eight years old, his father died in a sawmill accident and Johnson was raised by his mother and stepfather.
He attended an overcrowded and segregated elementary school. Such was his love of learning, he repeated the eighth grade rather than discontinue his education, as there was no public high school for African Americans in his community.
After a visit with his mother to the Chicago World’s Fair, they decided that opportunities in the North were more plentiful than in the South.
Facing poverty on every side in Arkansas during the Great Depression, the family moved to Chicago, Illinois, in 1933 to try to find work and for Johnson to continue his education.
Johnson entered all-black DuSable High School while his mother and stepfather scoured the city for jobs during the day. He looked for work after school and during the summer as well, but without success. His mother was not even able to find any domestic work, which was generally available when all else failed.
To support themselves, the family applied for welfare, which they received for two years until Johnson’s stepfather was finally able to obtain a position with the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and Johnson himself secured a job with the National Youth Administration (NYA).
Johnson endured much teasing and taunting at his high school for his ragged clothes and country ways, as he encountered something he never knew existed: middle-class blacks. At DuSable High School his classmates included Nat King Cole, Redd Foxx and future entrepreneur William Abernathy.
This only fueled his already formidable determination to “make something of himself”. Johnson’s high-school career was distinguished by the leadership qualities he demonstrated as student council president and as editor of the school newspaper and class yearbook. He attended high school during the day and studied self-improvement books at night.
After he graduated in 1936, he was offered a tuition scholarship to the University of Chicago, but he thought he would have to decline it, because he could not figure out a way to pay for expenses other than tuition. Because of his achievements in high school, Johnson was invited to speak at a dinner held by the Urban League.
When Harry Pace, president of the Supreme Life Insurance Company, heard Johnson’s speech, he was so impressed with the young man that he offered Johnson a job so that he would be able to use the scholarship.
Johnson began as an office boy at Supreme Life and within two years had become Pace’s assistant. His duties included preparing a monthly digest of newspaper articles.
Johnson began to wonder if other people in the community might not enjoy the same type of service. He conceived of a publication patterned after Reader’s Digest. His work at Supreme Life also gave him the opportunity to see the day-to-day operations of a business owned by an African American and fostered his dream of starting a business of his own.
Although Negro Digest/Black World achieved some success and at its height had a circulation of more than 100,000, it was dwarfed by Johnson’s subsequent publication, Ebony, which was so popular that its initial run of 25,000 copies easily sold out.
The articles in Ebony, which were designed to look like those in Life or Look magazines, emphasized the achievements of successful African Americans. Photo essays about current events and articles about race relations were also included in the magazine.
Initially focused on the rich and famous in the African-American community, Johnson expanded the reporting to include issues such as “the white problem in America”, African-American militancy, crimes by African Americans against African Americans, civil rights legislation, freedom rides and marches, and other aspects of segregation and discrimination.
Professional historians were recruited for the magazine’s staff so that the contributions of African Americans to the history of the United States could be adequately documented. African-American models were used in the magazine’s advertisements and a conscious effort was made to portray positive aspects of African-American life and culture.
Everything in the magazine was addressed to the African-American consumer. Johnson maintained that Ebony′s success was due to the positive image of African Americans that it offered.
In 1951, Johnson launched Tan (a “true confessions”-type magazine). In 1951, Jet, a weekly news digest, began. Later publications included African American Stars and Ebony Jr., a children’s magazine.
Although all of the magazines achieved a measure of success, none was able to compete with Ebony, which in its 40th year of publication had a circulation of 2,300,000 and was the primary reason that Johnson was considered one of the 400 richest individuals in the United States.
Johnson expanded his business interests to areas other than his magazines. He became chairperson and chief executive officer of the Supreme Life Insurance Company.
He developed a line of cosmetics, purchased three radio stations, started a book publishing company, and a television production company, and served on the board of directors of several major businesses, including the Greyhound Corporation.
Eva Clayton – On taking her seat in the United States House of Representatives following a special election in 1992, Clayton became the first African American to represent North Carolina in the House since George Henry White was elected to his second and last term in 1898.
She was re-elected and served for five terms. In 2003, Clayton was appointed Assistant Director-General of the United Nations’s Food and Agriculture Organization.
Eva McPherson was born in Savannah, Georgia to Thomas McPherson, an insurance agent, and Josephine Martin, a teacher.
Clayton graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in biology from Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1955.
In 1956, she married Theaoseus Clayton, also a graduate of Johnson C. Smith University.
Eva and Theaoseus Clayton both pursued graduate degrees at North Carolina Central University following their marriage.
Eva graduated with a Master of Science degree from in Durham, North Carolina in 1962.
The Claytons moved to Warrenton, North Carolina, where Theaoseus established himself as a lawyer.
Eva attended law school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Clayton worked on the Soul City community development project in Warren County, North Carolina.
In 1977, she was appointed Assistant Secretary for Community Development for the North Carolina State Department of Natural Resources and Community Development and served from 1977 to 1981.
From 1982 to 1992, Clayton served as an elected member and chair of the Warren County Board of Commissioners.
In 1992, she was elected from the 1st congressional district in North Carolina to the United States House of Representatives as a Democrat; at the same time, she won a special election to finish the remaining months in 1992 of the term of Congressman Walter B. Jones Sr.
North Carolina had amended its constitution in 1899 to disfranchise Blacks, as did most southern states from 1890-1908, and no Black candidates were elected to Congress in the succeeding 92 years.
When Representative Walter Jones Sr., announced his retirement in 1992, Clayton entered the Democratic primary to fill his seat.
Recently reapportioned by the state legislature, the congressional district was one of two in North Carolina that had a black majority In 1992.
Clayton and Mel Watt became the first African Americans to win election to the House from North Carolina since 1898 (as Clayton won a special election, she took office before Watt).
Watt’s 12th congressional district was one of two minority majority districts developed in the 1990s, in order to give the substantial minority of African Americans in the state the ability to elect candidates of their choice, in compliance with the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Clayton gained national attention as president of her Democratic freshman class in Congress.
During her ten years of distinguished service as a United States Congresswoman, Clayton served on the House Agriculture Committee and as the ranking member of the United States Department of Agriculture’s Operations Oversight, Nutrition, and Forestry Subcommmittees.
She also served on the House Budget and Small Business Committees.
She was actively engaged in the legislative development of the Department of Agriculture’s Operation policy.
She was a conferee on the 2002 Farm Bill and is recognized by national organizations, including the National Journal publications, for providing essential leadership by garnering support for nutritional programs and the civil rights and support for African American farmers in the final version of the Farm Bill.
She provided additional leadership by serving as the bipartisan co-chair of the Rural Caucus and as the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation.
She is the recipient of eight honorary doctorate degrees and an active member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.
Clayton is an Elder at Cotton Memorial Presbyterian Church in Henderson, North Carolina.
She serves on several boards that address hunger, agriculture and state policy issues, including the United States Alliance to End Hunger, the Global Food Banking Network, and the Center for Environmental Farming Systems.
In November 2022, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper awarded Clayton the 2022 North Carolina Award, the highest civilian honor given by the state.
God created the entire universe, and He holds the power over it all.
The power that God wants to work in us is so far beyond anything we could accomplish on our own.
The Peace that transcends all understanding does not come from having everything work out exactly as we want it.
The peace that transcends all understanding comes from knowing that no matter what life throws at us, we can still have joy when we know that our victory lies in Jesus Christ and not in our circumstances.
Omnipotence refers to God’s all-powerful character.
To say that God is omnipotent is to recognize that there is nothing outside of His ability to accomplish and no one who can exercise power over Him.
The Bible teaches that God’s sovereignty is an essential aspect of who He is, that He has supreme authority and absolute power over all things.
And yes He is very much active, despite our perplexity.
Scripture says, God works “all things according to the counsel of His will” (Ephesians 1:11).
A church visitor asked the pastor, “Can I request prayer?”
“Sure, what do you want prayer for?”
“My cousin died last week. Pray that God will guide him in the afterlife.”
The pastor asked, “Suppose you’re taking an exam. Should you pray before the exam or after?”
“Obviously, before the exam.”
“Right. When you pray after the exam, it’s like you’re asking God to change the grades. That is not possible because God is faithful. He cannot deceive the result.
Similarly, when we die, the exam is over. We can no longer change our destiny. Hebrews 9:27 says that we die once and then face judgment. That means no second chance.
I’m sorry for your relative. He can no longer be prayed for.
That is why people need to understand the Gospel while they are still alive.
They had to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior before it was all over.”
Sinners who believe they can be saved after death will get the greatest shock of their lives.
Teach the truth because that’s the only thing that can set people free. (John 8:32)
Lady G Adventures 