Peter Berg, the creator of the "Friday Night Lights" television series and movie, has sent Mitt Romney a scathing letter demanding the Republican candidate cease use of the show's "Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can't Lose" slogan.

In the letter, which was obtained exclusively by The Hollywood Reporter, Berg writes that "the only relevant comparison I see between your campaign and 'Friday Night Lights' is in the character of Buddy Garrity -- who turned his back on American car manufacturers selling imported cars from Japan."

In noting that the "politics and campaign" of the Romney ticket "are clearly not aligned with the themes we portrayed in our series," Berg echoed a similar rebuke aimed at Paul Ryan by Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine. In August, Morello wrote an op-ed denouncing Ryan, who he cited as "the embodiment of the machine our music rages against."

Mitt Romney has been using the "Friday Night Lights" slogan in speeches. Ann Romney has also made use of the inspirational motto, which figures prominently in the series. The Huffington Post has reached out to Romney's campaign and will update this post if we receive comment.

While Berg -- who came up with the phrase -- is quick to rebuke the Romneys, the author of the book the series and movie are based on recently endorsed the candidate in an column posted by The Daily Beast. Buzz Bissinger wrote that Barack Obama's poor debate performance and what Bissinger sees as Romney's emerging, moderate platform led him to make that decision.

In a follow-up piece, Bissinger says he has been vilified by the "liberal media" and his own friends, some of whom he believes he'll never feel the same about.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/12/peter-berg-romney-friday-night-lights-plagiarism_n_1962093.html

DETROIT (WWJ) – It will likely be life behind bars for aDetroit man found guilty of first degree murder and child abuse in the death of his 2-year old daughter.

Prosecutors said 32-year-old D’Andre Lane fatally beat Bianca Jones after she wet herself.

WWJ Newsradio 950′s Florence Walton reported Lane appeared as if he was going to faint when the jury forewoman read the verdict Friday.

Bianca went missing in December. Her body has never been found, but police said a cadaver dog detected evidence in a closet at Lane’s home.

Lane’s attorney told jurors that Bianca was abducted, but Wayne County prosecutors said Lane faked a carjacking in an elaborate story to cover up his child’s murder.

Throughout the trial, prosecutors painted Lane as an abusive father who was obsessed with potty training his children. Prosecutors alleged Lane beat Bianca to death, covered her body with a blanket and put her in her car seat. They said he then drover Bianca’s siblings to school before dumping her body.

Assistant Wayne County Prosecutor Qiana Lillard briefly addressed reporters outside the courthouse Friday.

“Nothing’s gonna bring her back. We just respect the jury’s decision and we’re glad they did the right thing,” Lillard said.

Friday was the second day of deliberations following a nearly month-long trial.

WWJ Legal Analyst Charlie Langton said the outcome was surprising to some. “This was a typical case of circumstantial evidence,” said Langton. “There was no direct evidence that Lane did anything to his daughter. In fact, there was no body, which makes this case very unusual.”

Lane had proclaimed his innocence in an in-studio interview with WWJ a little less than a year ago. “I did not have anything to do with my daughter’s disappearance — flat out, period,” Lane said.

Sentencing is schedule for Nov. 16.

 http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2012/10/12/verdict-in-case-of-detroit-dad-in-murder-of-2-year-old-girl/

(The Root) -- One of the most memorable lines from last week's presidential debate wasn't about universal health care or even big government -- it was about Big Bird.

When Republican candidate Mitt Romney summarily attacked PBS, the political punch lines, of course, practically wrote themselves -- from plays on Wall Street and Sesame Street to Big Bird being broke.

But given the frosty educational climate in the U.S., with affirmative action being called into question by the Supreme Court and renewed debates about funding for early-childhood education, Romney's hard-line stance on PBS is more than problematic, especially as it relates to African-American children.

According to PBS, the network's children's programming attracts a higher proportion of viewers from Hispanic, African-American and low-income households compared with their actual representation in the population. Basically, Romney grossly underestimated how many of those 47 percenters would have Big Bird's back.

New York Times op-ed columnist Charles Blow was one such supporter.

"Let me make it simple for you, Mr. Romney. I'm down with Big Bird. You pick on him, you answer to me," he wrote. "We were poor. My mother couldn't afford day care, and I didn't go to preschool. My great-uncle took care of me all day. I could watch one hour of television: PBS."

So here's what happened. Last Wednesday, when moderator Jim Lehrer asked how each candidate would tackle "the deficit problem in this country," Romney responded: "I'm going to stop the subsidy to PBS. I'm going to stop other things. I like PBS. I love Big Bird. I actually like you, too. But I'm not going to -- I'm not going to keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for it."

And the tiny blue birds tweeting all over the Internet went wild. Big Bird trended for days following the debate. The Twitter account "BigBirdRomney" has gathered more than 10,000 followers in less than one week.

The Obama campaign even seized the moment this week with a satirical political ad starring the "big yellow menace to our economy."

"Mitt Romney knows it's not Wall Street you have to worry about," intones the narrator. "It's Sesame Street."

But once all the clever Internet memes -- photos of Big Bird down on his luck after getting "fired" -- get buried on your Facebook timelines under the next day's news, the fact remains that Big Bird and his buddies bookmark a turning point in many African-American adults' childhood memories.

When I conducted an impromptu survey of my friends' fondest memories, I was surprised at how many of those watershed moments shed light on who they became as adults.

Kellee, a professional actress and singer, recalled the Pointer Sisters' counting anthem, "The Pinball Countdown," which aired on Sesame Street in the late '70s. "I sing that song all the time, and it makes me feel happy." In minute-long segments, it taught children to count from one to 12. "No matter what I'm doing, I have to say '11, 12' in a goofy deep voice."

My friend Jamyla, the "mixtress" behind the natural skin-care line Oyin Handmade, remembered the science-loving teens of "The Bloodhound Gang," crime-solving segments featured on the program 3-2-1 Contact, which aired from 1980 to 1988.

"It was like an Encyclopedia Brown book come to life," said Jamyla of the gang. "These cool teenagers solving mysteries with science and smartness. It was a welcoming and affirming representation of my personal world because Vikki [played by Nan Lynn Nelson] looked like a younger version of my auntie."

Personally I count not appearing as a miniature book critic on Reading Rainbow as one of the major failures of my childhood. The third-longest running show on PBS, Reading Rainbow, with its black host and multicultural guests, made me believe I could actually "fly twice as high" as my dreams would go.

And longtime host LeVar Burton hasn't stopped. The Reading Rainbow iPad app is the No. 1 free educational application, according to iTunes.

It's no secret that a generation of us grew up with PBS as our personal tutor and pocket Jiminy Cricket. The channel taught us how to count and how to be kind, with few commercial breaks in between. And it continues to make headlines for celebrating diversity, from the first HIV-positive Muppet, South Africa's Kami, to the "I Love My Hair" song aimed at curly-haired little brown girls.

As the campaign for president rolls on, making the requisite pit stops on Main Street and even Wall Street, bulldozing over Sesame Street is more than just a double-take moment.

"You have to scratch your head when the president spends the last week talking about saving Big Bird," Romney said Tuesday in Iowa.

Instead of scratching his head, Romney should put a thinking cap on it and figure out how to tackle the deficit while leaving alone the tiny 0.012 percent slice of the federal budget allotted to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Or perhaps that's what a lack of PBS does -- shrinks the imagination.

  http://www.theroot.com/views/romney-pbs-more-big-bird-meme?page=0,0

Jeff Gaglio (pictured), a Detroit paramedic, says he is being punished for giving a cold man blanket, Fox 2 News reports.

As ridiculous as it sounds, the department is bringing him up on charges of giving away department-owned property without permission–even though the blankets were donated to the EMS!

The incredible story began two weeks ago when an old man with a physical disability was burned out of his home. The man was in his underwear when Gaglio brought him out of the house. The poor guy was obviously cold and shaking.

Doing the right thing, Gaglio gave the man the donated blanket. But, on Tuesday, he said he received a notification letter saying he is being brought up on EMS-departmental charges.

“I’m being punished,” Gaglio said. “I’m being punished for giving a man a blanket, something that would seem like a common, every day courtesy. Something that any man or woman would do in the City of Detroit, give a freezing man a blanket. I’m being punished for it.”

When the president of the group who donated the blankets to the EMS heard of Gaglio’s case, he seemed dumbfounded. Matt Cahillane, president of Firefighter Support Services, doesn’t mind that the people for whom they were intended actually get to keep them.

“I think that’s what they’re for,” Cahillane said.

When Fox 2 reached the chief of EMS, Jerald James, he had this to say: “We can’t have an employee who feels that they have a right to give away state property, be it donated, be it a blanket, be it a tire off a vehicle, without getting prior approval from somebody or notifying the proper authority. This is what he did.”

Though Gaglio finds the chief’s explanation pointless.

“These are the important issues. Donated blankets are the important issue, not the broken-down ambulances, not the bad response time, not the people dying that can’t get an ambulance, not the closing of EMS units in the city, blankets,” Gaglio told Fox 2.

http://newsone.com/2058221/jeff-gaglio-detroit-paramedic-punished-for-giving-cold-man-blanket/

Vice President Joe Biden went into last night’s debate with a heavy burden to revive the hopes and passion of the Democratic base, who were becoming dispirited after a listless performance by President Barack Obama at last week’s debate and the media onslaught and polls that followed.

His mission was to aggressively expose the Romney/Ryan platform as full of falsehoods, and get out a series of key talking points: the “47 percent,” the saving of General Motors, the refusal of congressional Republicans to work with President Obama, and their slavish devotion to an extreme ideology on taxes, abortion, and Grover Norquist. Biden managed to get those points out, in one instance, during a single answer. Asked by the moderator, veteran ABC reporter Martha Raddatz, what the Obama administration would do to get unemployment under 6 percent, and when, the vice president reeled off an exhaustive (and exhausting) bill of particulars:

… I don’t know how long it will take. We can and we will get it under 6 percent. Let’s look at — let’s take a look at the facts. Let’s look at where we were when we came to office. The economy was in free fall. We had — the great recession hit; 9 million people lost their job; $1.7 — $1.6 trillion in wealth lost in equity in your homes, in retirement accounts for the middle class.

We knew we had to act for the middle class. We immediately went out and rescued General Motors. We went ahead and made sure that we cut taxes for the middle class. And in addition to that, when that — when that occurred, what did Romney do? Romney said, “No, let Detroit go bankrupt.” We moved in and helped people refinance their homes. Governor Romney said, “No, let foreclosures hit the bottom.”

But it shouldn’t be surprising for a guy who says 47 percent of the American people are unwilling to take responsibility for their own lives. My friend recently in a speech in Washington said “30 percent of the American people are takers.”

These people are my mom and dad — the people I grew up with, my neighbors. They pay more effective tax than Governor Romney pays in his federal income tax. They are elderly people who in fact are living off of Social Security. They are veterans and people fighting in Afghanistan right now who are, quote, “not paying any tax.”

I’ve had it up to here with this notion that 47 percent — it’s about time they take some responsibility here. And instead of signing pledges to Grover Norquist not to ask the wealthiest among us to contribute to bring back the middle class, they should be signing a pledge saying to the middle class we’re going to level the playing field; we’re going to give you a fair shot again; we are going to not repeat the mistakes we made in the past by having a different set of rules for Wall Street and Main Street, making sure that we continue to hemorrhage these tax cuts for the super wealthy.

And with that, he became an instant hero of the Democratic base.

Biden used his age and experience to his advantage, making the youthful-looking 42-year-old congressman appear much younger, and far from the star who once threatened to overshadow Mitt Romney. When Biden repeatedly referred to the prime minister of Israel as “Bibi,” and flaunted his foreign policy acumen, it stood in stark contrast to Ryan’s faltering knowledge of Afghanistan.

The vice president was dismissive of his young opponent, turning the term “my friend” into the prelude to an insult. He constantly brought the focus back to Ryan’s record in Congress. (Raddatz apparently ignored an apparent request from the Romney campaign that Ryan be addressed as “Mr. Ryan” rather than “congressman,” which one can only assume is due to Congress’ abysmal approval ratings.) He brought up the “47 percent” remarks made by Romney at a private fundraiser in May, no fewer than five times, and literally laughed when Ryan attempted to make a case for Romney’s tax plan, or the ticket’s plans for Medicare. And Ryan was forced to own both the Medicare voucher plan, and his desire to partially privatize Social Security.

Republicans are crying foul on Biden’s derisive laughter and interruptions, accusing Biden of being “disrespectful” to his opponent. There’s a case to be made that Biden was over the top during the first 30 minutes of the debate — though the base, again, loved it. But more importantly, those who last week (including much of the media) praised Romney’s constant interruptions and diminution of the moderator, PBS’ Jim Lehrer, are in an awkward place criticizing Biden for doing the same to Ryan. It’s also hard to imagine an Obama surrogate explaining Ryan’s debate performance as caused by his being “lazy,” as Romney surrogate John Sununu described Obama after last week’s presidential debate, with nary a walk-back from the campaign.

During a particularly pointed riff, Biden looked into the camera and asked the television audience to “trust your instincts” on whether Americans should trust Medicare to the party that passed it, or to the party that wants to privatize it, along with Social Security. And Biden decimated Ryan’s argument on taxes, in part because Ryan refused to provide specifics on how his and Romney’s tax cuts for the wealthy would be paid for, and in part by the deployment of a classic Biden closing line:

BIDEN: Now, there’s not enough — the reason why the AEI study, the American Enterprise Institute study, the Tax Policy Center study, the reason they all say it’s going — taxes go up on the middle class, the only way you can find $5 trillion in loopholes is cut the mortgage deduction for middle-class people, cut the health care deduction, middle-class people, take away their ability to get a tax break to send their kids to college. That’s why they arrive at it.

RADDATZ: Is he wrong about that?

RYAN: He is wrong about that. They’re…

BIDEN: How’s that?

RYAN: You can — you can cut tax rates by 20 percent and still preserve these important preferences for middle-class taxpayers…

BIDEN: Not mathematically possible.

RYAN: It is mathematically possible. It’s been done before. It’s precisely what we’re proposing.

BIDEN: It has never been done before.

RYAN: It’s been done a couple of times, actually.

BIDEN: It has never been done before.

RYAN: Jack Kennedy lowered tax rates, increased growth. Ronald Reagan…

BIDEN: Oh, now you’re Jack Kennedy?

Far from being Kennedyesque, Ryan at times during the debate seemed like an earnest young college student who dutifully memorized his lessons for oral exams, only to find out he would be debating his teacher. When Biden reminded him of the two letters the congressman had mailed the vice president asking for stimulus funds so that jobs could be created in his Wisconsin district, all Ryan could do was grimace — and drink a lot of water. A lot of water.

BIDEN: … And I love my friend here. I — I’m not allowed to show letters but go on our website, he sent me two letters saying, “By the way, can you send me some stimulus money for companies here in the state of Wisconsin?” We sent millions of dollars. You know…

(CROSSTALK)

RADDATZ: You did ask for stimulus money, correct?

BIDEN: Sure he did. By the way…

RYAN: On two occasions we — we — we advocated for constituents who were applying for grants. That’s what we do. We do that for all constituents who are…

(CROSSTALK) BIDEN: I love that. I love that. This was such a bad program and he writes me a letter saying — writes the Department of Energy a letter saying, “The reason we need this stimulus, it will create growth and jobs.” His words. And now he’s sitting here looking at me.

Democrats — many of whom were cringing at the possibility that he might drop a classic gaffe during the debate — were looking at Biden too, and it’s fair to say they liked what they saw. Biden accomplished his mission of firing up the base during the debate, and he won handily on the points most Americans are voting on: taxes, the future of Medicare and Social Security, who will control a woman’s healthcare decisions, and whether the stimulus created jobs. Ryan didn’t implode, and it’s fair to say the section on the attacks on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, as well as his personal accounting of his faith were strong moments for the Republican contender, but he clearly lost the debate.

And Biden, who has always been a strong, and underrated, debater, did something else: he burnished his own brand as, next to Bill Clinton, the strongest spokesman for Democratic populism among the Obama surrogates.

Now, the onus is on President Obama to build on Biden’s big night when it’s his turn at bat next Tuesday at Suffolk University.

UPDATE: the Obama campaign is already out with a video highlighting what it calls Ryan’s “thirsting for answers” on important issues in the campaign.

http://thegrio.com/2012/10/12/biden-boosts-the-base/1/

Detroit—Mayor Dave Bing announced Friday that the City of plans to rehire 26 laid-off firefighters with a $5.6 million FEMA grant.

The grant, awarded through Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) will cover two years of salaries and benefits for firefighters who were laid off on Aug. 10, 2012.

“I am extremely pleased to accept a second SAFER grant on behalf of the City and the people of Detroit,” Bing said in a statement. “Public safety is and absolutely must be our top priority. The SAFER program makes Detroiters safer, and it doesn’t get any better than that.”

The $5.6 million comes as a second grant after FEMA awarded Detroit the largest grant SAFER’s history: $22.5 million for salaries and benefits that prevented 108 firefighters from being laid off over the summer.

The federal grant funds for firefighters were awarded after a grant request written by Detroit Fire Department staff members, in collaboration with grant writers funded by the Detroit Public Safety Foundation.
 

Kilpatrick on Trial: Charity Fund Misuse Dominates Testimony

The federal corruption trail involving former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was only in session three days this week due to holiday recess, but there was no shortage of action in the courtroom.

All week, evidence surfaced through invoices, checks and testimony that Kilpatrick’s youth and voter education nonprofit paid for hundreds of thousands in personal spending including campaign expenditures, yoga lessons, lavish trips, and counter spy gear.

In case you missed it, here’s a roundup (with links) of what happened this week.

Tuesday Oct. 9. Day 11:

Five witnesses testified against Kilpatrick in the misuse funds from his charity, the Kilpatrick civic fund. The former mayor created the Kilpatrick Civic Fund as a non-profit to help benefit youth and voter education.

Three of the witnesses were PR and research affiliates who said Kilpatrick paid them to work on his image in a mayoral campaign with checks directly from the civic fund.

The other two witnesses were Carol Pazcewicz special agent for the EPA who collected text messages between defendants and Brian Lang, employee at a Spy Operations store who said he sold Kilpatrick $1397 in counter-spy gear and received a check from the civic fund as payment.

Read more about Tuesday’s proceedings here:

Wednesday, Oct. 10 Day 12

The government called four witnesses called to the stand Wednesday including two yoga instructors, IRS agent Ron Sauer and former Kilpatrick press secretary Matt Allen.

Testimony showed the Kilpatrick used civic fund donations to fund personal yoga classes, family vacations and relative’s college tuition fees.

Agent Sauer outlined how these uses for nonprofit funds were illegal.

 Allen said that the mayor “didn’t like it” when he suggested Kilpatrick introduce the donors the former mayor claimed he had met with on vacation to the media to clear allegations.

Defense lawyer James Thomas said there were legitimate purposes for the expenses outlined in the testimony. He argued that Kilpatrick's sons already had graduated from preschool when the Civic Fund sent in $5,000 to the school he attended. Thomas said the $5,000 to the preschool was a donation supporting the civic fund’s mission to improve the lives of Detroit youths and educate voters.

Read more about Wednesday’s proceedings HERE: http://www.freep.com/article/20121011/NEWS0102/310110162/Testimony-shows-Kilpatrick-nonprofit-used-for-yoga-lessons-weekend-getaways

Thursday Oct. 11 Day 13:

The government called April Edgar who was Kilpatrick's scheduler, to testify. Edgar is also the half-sister of Christine Beatty, who was Kilpatrick's chief of staff and mistress

Evidence showed that Edgar signed two checks totaling $110,000 to Maiyen Consulting LLC, Beatty's company, in March of 2008 and 2 checks totaling $50,000 to Bernard Kilpatrick's Maestro Associates in 2008.

Edgar told jurors that money from the Kilpatrick Civic Fund that was meant for children and voter education paid for a summer camp for Kilpatrick’s children, a family water park trip, and rent and moving expenses after Kilpatrick resigned and moved to Texas.

Kilpatrick’s attorney Jim Thomas said summer camp is an educational event and was legitimate use of the money.

 Read more HERE: http://www.freep.com/article/20121011/NEWS0102/121011058/sister-of-former-kilpatrick-mistress-nonprofit-fund-expenses

When African-American baby boomers wax nostalgic about a time when “black movies were good,” they most likely have 1972′s Lady Sings the Blues in mind.

The heavily fictionalized Billie Holiday biopic introduced Diana Ross as a legitimate actress, turned Billy Dee Williams into an international sex symbol (he was dubbed the “black Clark Gable”) and showed that legendary comedian Richard Pryor had real dramatic range as an actor.

Forty years after its initial release, Lady Sings the Blues is fondly remembered as one of the bright lights from a brief golden age of black cinema but few fans may recall or recognize what an enormous risk the project was.

In the early 70s, with Motown at its peak of cultural influence, founder Berry Gordy decided he wanted to get into the movie business. This was an era where there was no real black power base in the industry and while Gordy was highly respected as a music mogul, he was risking his brand on a gamble — a vehicle to launch the film career of R&B diva Diana Ross.

Ross had just exited the iconic Supremes girl group and had begun her solo career in earnest. But her mentor (and on-and-off lover) Gordy had aspirations of making his label’s biggest act a movie star.

Paramount Pictures got behind the project, which was loosely based on Billie Holiday’s 1956 autobiography. But many critics and fans of the late jazz legend decried the casting of Ross — who didn’t resemble Holiday physically or vocally.

“My first reaction when I learned that Diana Ross had been cast to play Billie Holiday was a quick and simple one: I didn’t think she could do it,” wrote Roger Ebert in his 1972 review of the film.

Conscious of the iconic shoes she was filling, Ross imbued the role with her own spirit and opted for a vocal homage to Holiday instead of outright mimicry.

“One of the things that I didn’t want to do is try to copy Billie Holiday. I didn’t want to try to copy her sound. I didn’t try to imitate it in any way,” said Ross in an interview for the collector’s DVD edition of the film. “I just lived with the music for almost a year before we actually recorded the music.”

The production went anything but smoothly. According to the principles involved, director Sidney J. Furie frequently clashed with the controlling Gordy, quitting the project more than once during filming.

“[Furie] was working with so many elements, he had a brand new actress there and he had Berry Gordy, who thought he knew the best way that Diana should do things,” said the film’s co-writer, Suzanne de Passe, in a DVD interview.

After a poor screen test in which he botched his lines, Billy Dee Williams nearly missed out on the role that made him a household name — Billie Holiday’s love interest Louis McKay. If Gordy hadn’t intervened, Williams never would have uttered his classic, “Do you want my arm to fall off?” line to Diana Ross.

When the project began to have cost overruns and there was a disastrous rough cut screening in New York, Paramount was going to pull the plug, so Gordy bought the film back from the distributor.

“Ultimately…he wrote a check for an amount of money that they had in the movie already and they got to keep distribution and other things and he got certain rights for that and then proceeded to put in the rest of the money to go finish the film,” said de Passe. “Certainly, had they put out the version that he took to New York that time, it would not have earned money.”

Once the film saw the light of day, there was some griping about its historical accuracy (which continues to this day), but Ross had put to bed any doubts about her ability as a dramatic actress.

“Diana Ross, a tall, skinny goblin of a girl, intensely likable, always in motion, seemed an irrational choice for the sultry, still Billie Holiday, yet she’s a beautiful bonfire,” wrote legendary film critic Pauline Kael in a largely positive review.

Though less generous towards the film as a whole, the New York Times‘ Vincent Camby raved about Ross. “She’s an actress of exceptional beauty and wit, who is very much involved in trying to make a bad movie work,” he wrote.

Black audiences flocked to the movie and music fans couldn’t get enough of the highly-acclaimed soundtrack — which topped the Billboard charts and eventually sold 2 million copies.

Williams and Ross arguably became Hollywood’s first truly bankable black romantic big screen duo, on par with the likes of Bogie and Bacall and Tracy and Hepburn.

“The chemistry that the two of you had on screen was like something we had never seen before. Was that real for you?” Oprah Winfrey asked Williams during a special edition of her talk show that commemorated the 35th anniversary of the film’s release.

“Oh, absolutely,” Williams said, adding that his most cherished memory of working with Ross was “her mouth.”

Williams was accessible as a sex symbol in a way that his predecessors, like Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte, could never be. He and Ross would be paired again in the campy romantic film Mahogany, which was another hit at the box office.

For Richard Pryor fans, the film was something of a revelation. Already a breakout star in the world of stand up comedy, he had yet to make a major splash in films. Pryor would become a box office juggernaut in a few years with his smash pairings alongside Gene Wilder (Silver Streak and Stir Crazy), but his heartbreaking performance as the drug addled “Piano Man” in Lady Sings the Blues conveyed a depth that unfortunately went unexploited in later films — with the notable exception of Paul Schrader’s criminally underrated 1978 film Blue Collar.

The specially designed Bob Mackie costumes created a sensation of their own. Stylish black women started sporting Ross’s signature gardenia in their hair and the movie reaffirmed the pop star’s place in the fashion world as a trendsetting idol.

The costumes, music, set decoration, screenplay and, most importantly, Diana Ross, were all nominated for Academy Awards.

The Oscars that year were historic for African-Americans. For the first time ever (and the last time until 2004) multiple black actors were nominated for lead roles. Diana Ross was up against Cicely Tyson for best actress in another triumphant black-themed 1972 film Sounder. And the late Paul Winfield competed against the likes of Marlon Brando for his lead role in that same picture.

Although Tyson, Winfield and Ross all went home empty-handed that night, there was every reason to believe black movies were on an upswing. Yet, for the most part, blaxploitation films largely dominated the marketplace for the rest of the decade.

Sadly, Motown’s investment in the movies was short lived. Their brief Hollywood run provided cult classics like Mahogany, The Wiz and The Last Dragon — but none of these films matched the commercial and critical success of Lady Sings the Blues. After receiving scathing reviews for her performance in The Wiz, Ross dropped out of the film business altogether.

“The work of it—the acting part, using your imagination—that was good,” Ross later said about making movies. “But the waiting and the sitting? I found that, really, I wanted to be with my kids and not sitting in a trailer somewhere.”

As for Lady Sings the Blues, its legacy remains mixed in some audiences’ eyes. More modern reviews of the film have not been kind.

“Lady Sings The Blues incongruously transforms Holiday’s messy, bisexual, masochistic romantic history into a glossy romance about a troubled, needy woman-child and the endlessly patient dreamboat who could slow but never entirely halt her march toward self-destruction,” wrote Nathan Rabin of The Onion AV Club.

Meanwhile, the current controversy surrounding the purported casting of the fair-skinned Zoe Saldana as the late dark-skinned songstress Nina Simone has drawn comparisons to initial outcry over Ross’s casting as Holiday.

Still, after forty years, while the movie is somewhat dated, it does provide us with a glamorous time capsule.

Lady Sings the Blues captures Motown at its pinnacle and showcases a caliber of stars rarely seen in black film. The music and story still have the power to make audiences swoon and cry.

http://thegrio.com/2012/10/12/lady-sings-the-blues-40-years-later-motowns-1st-foray-into-film-remembered/2/#s:lady-sings-the-blues-16x9

DETROIT (WWJ) - Jurors have reached a verdict in the murder trial of a Detroit dad accused of beating his 2-year old daughter to death for wetting herself.

They were expected to announce the verdict at around 12:30 p.m. Friday.

Just about two hours into deliberations on Thursday, jurors asked to see scripts of testimony taken from witness before D’Andre Lane, 32, was charged with first degree murder and child abuse in the death of Bianca Jones.

They also asked to see the stick prosecutors said was used to discipline the child.

Bianca went missing in December. Her body has never been found, but police said a cadaver dog detected evidence in a closet at Lane’s home.

Lane’s attorney told jurors that Bianca was abducted, but Wayne County prosecutors said Lane faked a carjacking in an elaborate story to cover up his child’s murder.

Throughout the trial, prosecutors painted Lane as an abusive father was obsessed with potty training his children. Prosecutors alleged Lane beat Bianca to death, covered her body with a blanket and put her in her car seat. They said he then drover Bianca’s siblings to school before dumping her body.

Friday was the second day of deliberations following a nearly month-long trial.

http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2012/10/12/verdict-in-case-of-detroit-dad-in-murder-of-2-year-old-girl/

DETROIT (WWJ) Tigers ace Justin Verlander Tweeted at 8:30 a.m. Friday he still hadn’t been to sleep after his team’s decisive victory over Oakland Thursday night.

Then it was on to new things.

As hundreds of fans used social media to congratulate him, Verlander Tweeted a picture of the Tigers’ plane landing at Detroit Metro Airport.

Reporters were there as the players were bused off a commercial plane that was parked away from the gates. Tired-looking players emerged, saying they were looking forward to the next challenge.

Tigers great Al Kaline was one of the few who still wanted to talk.

“We’re looking goodnow, we’re gelling at the right time,” Kaline said. “Justin Verlander, who is the very best pitcher in all of baseball right now, he just carried us, put everybody on his back and carried us right through the game.”

Relief pitcher Joaquin Benoit also spoke, saying it was a good flight back and he was happy to be home. “It’s unbelieveable, we couldn’t describe the feeling, as soon as you clinch, the celebration is the best feeling ever.”

Benoit added he didn’t care who the teams takes on next, he’s just glad the Tigers are moving on.

http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2012/10/12/tigers-land-back-in-detroit-after-alcs-win/