Gregory Lawton, Jr Brother of House of Payne’s Denyce Lawton was Brutally Murdered at his Doorstep

Mar 26, 2011 – LOCAL PG COUNTY RESIDENT GUN DOWNED IN NEIGHBORHOOD FOR BEING A GOOD SAMARITAN AND STRIVING TO MAKE HIS COMMUNITY SAFE FOR HIS CHILDREN

Greg Lawton, Jr a Father, Son & Brother was Brutally Murdered at his Doorstep

Temple Hills, MD – March 25, 2011 – On Thursday, March 24, 2011 Gregory Lawton, Jr. 31 known as Lil G, was brutally gunned down in his neighborhood by a known drug dealer for being a good Samaritan while fighting to make the community safe for his children.  Gregory brother of Actress Denyce Lawton (Tyler Perry’s “House of Payne”) was murdered for doing the right thing for his community.  A security guard and loving father of three (3) young children, Gregory was NOT a criminal or thug.  He was employed as a Corporal Officer at The Washington National Harbor and recently a sergeant at The Boulevard at the Cap Center in Largo, MD.  Gregory was a young man on an amazing path in working with Prince George’s County to stop the drug trafficking and miscellaneous criminal behavior in his community beginning with his personal apartment complex in a plight to keep it safe for his children and others to safely live and play.  Gregory was known throughout the Prince George County and Washington, DC area by many friends as well as strangers that you could talk to, seek guidance and give them alternatives to crime and jail time.  Gregory’s murder was premeditated and there were people involved that assisted in the massacre that need to be brought to justice. “My family and I would like to say THANK YOU for the overwhelming amount of prayers, messages, phone calls and visits.  Greg aka Lil G to all of his friends was loved far beyond the reach of his immediate family.  The abundant and massive amount of messages posted on his Facebook page makes us even prouder to call him a son, brother, father and friend.  We are in immense pain for our loss of an amazing irreplaceable human being and to know he was loved the way he was/is reassuring GOD had a plan for him far bigger than he wanted to be,” says sister Denyce Lawton.

Gregory’s Facebook page has an overwhelming response of heart wrenching messages and sentiments from individuals he touched and knew during his short lived life.  He is survived by his three (3) children, two (2) sisters, younger brother, mother and father.

Gregory will be laid to rest Thursday, March 31, 2011 and flowers can be arranged to be sent to the funeral home.  The Gregory Lawton, Jr Fund will be set up at a local bank for donations to be made in honor of supporting the children he tragically left behind.

Gregory Lawton, Jr Funeral Arrangements:

Thursday | March 31, 2011
Viewing 10:00am – 11:30am | Funeral 11:30pm
Lee Funeral Home
6633 Old Alexandria Ferry Rd
Clinton, MD  20735

If anyone has any information on Gregory’s murder and the whereabouts of the people involved please contact the Prince George’s County Police Department.

via Gregory Lawton, Jr a Father, Son & Brother was Brutally Murdered at his Doorstep.

Chris Brown Mans Up On BET: I Apologize For My ‘GMA’ Outburst — See Video!

Chris Brown is disappointed in himself for going on a rampage after his Good Morning America interview with Robin Roberts. But he stills says the incident that ended with a cooler smashing a window at GMA’s Times Square building was not all his fault.

“I want to apologize to anybody who was startled in the office, or anybody who was offended or really looked, and [was] disappointed at my actions,” Chris said in a rambling commentary as a music track played behind him on BET’s 106 & Park on March 23. “Because I’m disappointed in the way I acted.”

Chris reminded his fans that no one was hurt in his rampage, which included him storming in the street after ripping off his shirt. “Yes, I got very emotional,” he said. “And I apologize for acting like that.”

via Chris Brown Mans Up On BET: I Apologize For My ‘GMA’ Outburst — See Video! « Hollywood Life.

NeNe Leakes Spending Time With Enemy Star Jones’ Ex-Husband

It’s no secret that former ‘View’ host Star Jones and ‘Real Housewives of Atlanta’ cast member NeNe Leakes have little love for each other, but now NeNe has stooped to a new low by hanging out with Star’s ex-husband, Al Reynolds.

“Star thinks it’s pathetic that these two has-beens have teamed up together,” a friend of Star’s tells me. “NeNe knows how much pain and hurt that man caused Star. For NeNe to suddenly befriend him tells you exactly what sort of woman she really is.”
Star learned from the mistake of inviting the public into the most intimate area of her private life when she filed for divorce in 2008, vowing not to discuss what really caused the end of her marriage from the banker seven years her junior. At the time, Star issued a statement, reading, “I have committed myself to handling this situation with dignity and grace and look forward to emerging from this period as a stronger and wiser woman.”

Now the thought of a reality star with as big a mouth as NeNe knowing Star’s private business is killing her.

“Al will do anything to get back into the press, including hanging out with reality stars,” a friend of Star’s tells me. “But to be getting close and personal with a woman who has publicly stated she wouldn’t spit on your ex-wife if she was on fire is just desperate.”

As far as Star is concerned, these two are the perfect match for each other.

How Elizabeth Taylor redefined celebrity

By Rajini Vaidyanathan

BBC News, Washington

Elizabeth Taylor won two Oscars but many people remember her as much for her eight tumultuous marriages, ill health and addictions, all lived out in a way more public than any Hollywood star had done before.

Her life read like a script for many of today’s Hollywood celebrities – she was a child star whose life was played out in the media, someone who was hounded by the paparazzi, had high profile relationships, and even battled drug addiction.

Elizabeth Taylor, who has died aged 79, in many ways defined the notion of modern day celebrity, someone whose life off-screen, as well as on, captivated millions.

“She was one of the first to really make her personal life as important as her professional life in terms of her stardom,” says William Mann, a biographer of Taylor.

One of the main reasons was that her personal life had a gripping narrative of its own. Marrying eight times, twice to the same man, Elizabeth Taylor first went down the aisle at the age of 18. By the time she was 26 she was already a widow.

Elizabeth Taylor’s husbands

• 1950-1: Conrad “Nicky” Hilton. Hotel heir, Taylor divorced him because of his drinking
• 1952-7: Michael Wilding. Actor 19 years her senior, the couple had two sons before divorcing
• 1957-8: Michael Todd. Film producer, his death in a plane crash left Taylor a widow. They had one daughter together
• 1959-64: Eddie Fisher. Singer and Todd’s best friend, he divorced his wife to marry Taylor. But their marriage, in turn, ended in divorce
• 1964-74 and 1975-6: Richard Burton. An actor, he and Taylor had a turbulent relationship
• 1976-82: John Warner. US Republican senator, their marriage ended in divorce
• 1991-6: Larry Fortensky. A construction worker, the pair married at Michael Jackson’s Neverland ranch. But they divorced five years later

Continue reading the main story 

Nick Cannon Stamps Out Hunger

Nation’s Largest Single-Day Food Drive to Benefit Feeding America Food Banks and Other Hunger Relief Organizations Nationwide on May 14

Now in its 19th year, Stamp Out Hunger has become the nation’s largest single-day food drive.  In 2010, letter carriers collected a record-setting total of 77.1 million pounds of food donations along their postal routes. This pushed the 18-year total to more than one billion pounds of food.

As a hunger relief advocate and the newest member of Feeding America’s Entertainment Council, Nick Cannon is supporting the letter carriers by appearing in radio and print public service announcements.  Both promote the campaign and urge Americans to help their neighbors in need by donating a sturdy bag containing non-perishable foods – such as canned soup, canned vegetables, pasta, rice or cereal – next to their mailbox prior to the time of regular mail delivery on Saturday, May 14th.

Cannon also is appearing in a television public service announcement which will be available to view on the drive’s YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/StampOutHunger2011) as well as its Facebook fan page (www.facebook.com/StampOutHunger).

“My family turned to food pantries for assistance from time to time when I was growing up, so I know first-hand how important this food drive is,” said Cannon. “With more than 50 million Americans living at risk of hunger, please join me and millions of other generous Americans on Saturday, May 14 by placing a non-perishable food donation next to your mailbox to help the National Association of Letter Carriers Stamp Out Hunger.”

Again this year, Campbell will donate one pound of food (up to one million pounds) to the Feeding America food bank network for every person who joins the Stamp Out Hunger Cause on Facebook.  Americans can trigger a donation by visiting www.facebook.com/StampOutHunger.  Also supporting the drive as national partners are the U.S. Postal Service, the National Rural Letter Carriers Association, Valpak, the AFL-CIO, United Way Worldwide and Uncle Bob’s Self Storage.

For more information about the Stamp Out Hunger food drive in the 50 states, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam and the District of Columbia, ask a letter carrier, contact a local post office, or visit www.helpstampouthunger.com, www.facebook.com/StampOutHunger, or www.twitter.com/StampOutHunger.

RIP Elizabeth Taylor

Screen legend Elizabeth Taylor, the violet-eyed film goddess whose sultry screen life was often upstaged by her stormy personal life, died Wednesday at age 79.

She died of congestive heart failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where she had been hospitalized for about six weeks. Taylor had extraordinary grace, fame and wealth, and won three Oscars, including a special one for her humanitarian work. But she was tortured by ill health, failed romances and personal tragedy.

This post was brought to you by your favorite girl on the mic,

Whitney

@infamouswc

Chris Brown Smashes Window on Good Morning America.

Its official. Chris Brown has lost his mind.

Chris Brown went on a rampage on the set of “Good Morning America” after being asked about the criminal case against him involving ex-girlfriend Rihanna.

ABC News reported that Brown smashed a window at the studio after ABC News anchor Robin Roberts asked him about the criminal case.

This post was brought to you by your favorite girl on the mic,

Whitney

@infamouswc

Are boys being favored in the college selection process?

Over the past 40 years, women have gone from the minority to the majority on U.S. college campuses, where they outnumber men by approx 60-40. Barriers that kept women from college have been swept away, and scholarly focus has shifted to the barriers facing men, who are more likely to drop out of school and more apt to go into the military, manual-labor jobs or prison.

“It’s always going to be an issue because there are not enough men in the pipeline,” said Gil Villanueva, dean of admission at the University of Richmond, a liberal arts school with a higher number of female applicants. This phenomena is known as the tipping point.

Evidence suggests that some schools are favoring men by admitting them at higher rates than women to try to preserve a male-female balance on campus. Conventional admissions-office wisdom dictates that colleges dominated by either sex are less appealing to applicants in general.

The tipping point is not a figment of some dean’s imagination. Rebecca Guterman, a senior at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, knows she might have a more difficult time gaining admission to some colleges because she is female. She wouldn’t want to attend a school dominated by high-achieving women like herself.

“I don’t know the exact percentage, for me, where it would be too much,” she said. “But I think if a school were, like, 80 percent female, that’s pushing it, because that’s just too many girls.”

The federal commission approved a civil rights investigation in September 2010. Commissioners  approved a slate of 12 to 18 schools for study. Commission spokeswoman Lenore Ostrowsky said all of the colleges are nonprofit, non-seminary, four-year institutions that have more than 1,000 students, are at least moderately selective and are within 100 miles of Washington, an area chosen for its proximity to the commission.

Private undergraduate colleges may legally discriminate by sex, a protection that allows single-sex institutions to endure. Public colleges may not. If a state-supported school were found to be setting a higher standard for women, “that would be illegal,” Ostrowsky said.

Civil rights investigators will request a range of data from each of the chosen schools to determine the academic merits of male and female applicants who were admitted, wait-listed or rejected, as well as the kind and amount of aid offered to applicants. The investigation might lead to a public briefing with witness testimony, or it could end less dramatically with only a written report. If schools cooperate, the work could be finished in six months.

According to higher-education leaders, investigators will be hard-pressed to find a college, public or private, that is intentionally favoring one sex over the other. Most of the region’s selective colleges practice “holistic” admissions, a process that considers each applicant as an individual, and as a whole, rather than as a sum of grades, test scores and demographic traits, in the quest to build a diverse class.

via Sex bias probe in colleges’ selections

Alexandra Wallace, Student In Anti-Asian Rant, Says She’ll Leave UCLA

Alexandra Wallace, Student In Anti-Asian Rant, Says She’ll Leave UCLA

LOS ANGELES — A student who posted an Internet video of her tirade against the Asian population at the University of California, Los Angeles, said Friday night that she is leaving the school, despite the university’s decision not to discipline her.

In a statement to the Daily Bruin campus newspaper, Alexandra Wallace said she has chosen to no longer attend classes at UCLA because of what she called “the harassment of my family, the publishing of my personal information, death threats and being ostracized from an entire community” in the wake of the three-minute video.

“In an attempt to produce a humorous YouTube video, I have offended the UCLA community and the entire Asian culture,” Wallace said in the statement, her second apology of the week. “Especially in the wake of the ongoing disaster in Japan, I would do anything to take back my insensitive words. I could write apology letters all day and night, but I know they wouldn’t erase the video from your memory, nor would they act to reverse my inappropriate action.”

Earlier Friday, university officials said they would not discipline Wallace because her video was an exercise of free speech, not hate speech, and it didn’t violate the student code of conduct.

UCLA’s vice chancellor for student affairs, Janina Montero, said in a statement that campus officials were “appalled and offended by the sentiments expressed in the video,” but it did not seek to harm or threaten a specific person or group.

In the video, Wallace said her complaints aren’t directed at any individual and people shouldn’t take offense, but “the problem is these hordes of Asian people that UCLA accepts into our school every single year.”

She says the numbers would be fine if Asian students would “use American manners” and goes on to complain about Asians frequently talking on their mobile phones while she tries to study. At one point she mocks them with gibberish.

Wallace suggests in the video that people calling to check on the fate of Japan’s tsunami victims go outside so they won’t freak people out if they get bad news.

Wallace took down the rant shortly after posting it Sunday, but it had already gone viral and sparked a strong reaction at UCLA, where at least 37 percent of the school’s 26,000 undergraduates are Asian, 32 percent are white, 16 percent are Hispanic and 4 percent are black.

SEE  Video Rant

 

Charlie Sheen may return to ‘Two And A Half Men’

Two weeks after Charlie Sheen was fired from the 2 and a Half Men he may get his job back on the biggest sitcom on television. Sheen makes $2 million an episode.

“Sources close to Charlie Sheen tell NBC News, CBS has offered him his job back. Discussions ongoing. Not a done deal,” Rossen said via Twitter.

Hollywoodlife.com also reports that discussions are ongoing. A show insider told the site, “The rumors are true — CBS wants Charlie back. They saw how popular his tour has become, how it has been selling out, and when word spread that he started talking to Fox about a late-night show, some decision-makers got a little antsy.”

There’s an 80% chance that Sheen returns, the source told the site.

If this is all true, it’s a huge turnaround for the network and Sheen, who have been at war over the last month. Sheen ripped series creator Chuck Lorre in a series of radio and television interviews, and sued for $100 million following his firing and the show’s decision to shut down for the rest of the season.