Pro Baller And Logo Reality Star Mike Survillion To Host Awards At BLATINO OASIS

Semi-Pro baller (ABA) and star of logo reality show "Shirts & Skins" Mike Survillion will host the 2009 Blatino Erotica Awards in Palm Springs California May 8-11 at Blatino Oasis.

Basketball Player and Rock Dog team member Demarco Majors was the host in 2008.

As the youngest player on the Rockdogs, Mike is a truly gifted basketball player with pro-ball aspirations. Robbed of the chance to play college ball, Mike is determined to prove his skills so he can get the attention of scouts, in the U.S. or abroad, focusing his sights first on the European Pro teams.

With astonishing quickness, scoring and leaping ability, and heart, Mike quickly established himself as the Rockdogs starting point guard. After graduating from Michigan State -- and with the encouragement of his teammates -- Mike made the move out to San Francisco to join the Rockdogs full-time.

Mike is now out and proud and is focused on becoming an accomplished gay athlete at the highest level of competitive sport. With the support of veteran Rockdogs who have paved the way, Mike is ready to live life without regrets.

Mike believes in the Law of Attraction: if you give out great things and positive energy, you will get that in return

Meet this sexy baller in the sexiest place on earth...Palm Springs, California during Blatino Oasis!

Maybe we can see if Mike will invite Demarco for a little one on one......

HAPPY KWANZAA

Straight Black Folks Partying In Palm Springs California

Legendary performer Eartha Kitt dead at 81

Eartha Kitt, whose "Santa, Baby" remains the sultriest Christmas song ever recorded, died Thursday on a holiday she turned into something both naughty and nice.
Kitt, a versatile multi-media performer, engaging talk show regular and longtime human rights activist, was 81 and had been suffering from colon cancer.

Her publicist, Patty Freeman, said she died in New York with her daughter, Kitt Shapiro, at her side. Her last performance, a PBS special scheduled to air in February, was taped just six weeks ago.

Born on a cotton plantation in South Carolina, Kitt was sent to New York to be raised by a woman who was called her aunt, but whom she believed to be her mother. She started her career in the 1940s with Katharine Dunham's dance company and made her Broadway debut at 18.

Kitt starred as Helen of Troy in Orson Welles' 1950 staging of Christopher (Kit) Marlowe's "Dr. Faustus" and reportedly fell into a steamy affair with Welles, who called her "the most exciting woman in the world."

"Santa, Baby" secured her public image as a sex kitten and she followed with a string of slinky pop records through the 1950s, the biggest of which was "C'est Si Bon."
She conquered another medium in the 1960s when she took over the role of the sexy Catwoman in the TV hit "Batman."

But while Kitt enthusiastically worked the sex kitten image for half a century, she was also a serious activist who pushed for everything from voting rights to HIV/AIDS awareness programs.

In 1968, she drew a torrent of criticism for condemning the Vietnam War during a stage performance attended by President Lyndon Johnson's wife, Lady Bird.
Lady Bird Johnson's widely reported distress sparked a backlash that forced Kitt to take much of her career to Europe, where she was already popular.

She stayed visible in popular culture thanks to props like a Monty Python sketch in which a delusional character believes he is Leon Trotsky and then decides he's Eartha Kitt.
In 1978, she returned to Broadway to star in "Timbuktu!," where she purred a song about a recipe whose main ingredient was cannabis.

She wrote an autobiography, "Confessions of a Sex Kitten," in 1979 and, a few years later, became a big star in dance clubs.

In recent years, Kitt was a regular on the cabaret circuit, where she spoofed the sex kitten image with a reworked version of "C'est Si Bon."

"Santa, Baby," which was later recorded by Madonna, among many other artists, was certified gold a few weeks before Kitt's death.
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Flash Back - Marvin Gaye

Joblessness, Crime, Poverty Ravage Detroit

One measure of how tough times are in the Motor City: Some of the offenders in jail don't want to be released; some who do get out promptly re-offend to head back where there's heat, health care and three meals a day.

"For the first time, I'm seeing guys make a conscious decision they'll be better off in prison than in the community, homeless and hungry," said Joseph Williams of New Creations Community Outreach, which assists ex-offenders. "In prison they've got three hots and a cot, so they commit a crime to go back in and come out when times are better."

For now, better times seem distant. Even with no hurricane or other natural disaster to blame, Detroit has - by many measures - replaced New Orleans as America's most beleaguered city.
The jobless rate has climbed past 21 percent, the embattled school district just fired its superintendent, tens of thousands of homes and stores are derelict and abandoned, the ex-mayor is in jail for a text-messaging sex scandal. Even the pro football team is a pathetic joke, within two losses of an unprecedented 0-16 season.

And overarching these and many other woes is the near-collapse of the U.S. auto industry, Detroit's vital source of jobs and status for more than a century.
"We're the Motor City," said Scott Alan Davis, who oversees community development projects in one of the worst-hit neighborhoods. "When the basis for that name collapses, that's started to scare people."

Among the worried is 81-year-old Warlena McDuell, a retired surgical technician who shares a home with her cancer-stricken daughter. On a recent weekday, she was among hundreds of Detroiters, most of them elderly, filling orange-plastic grocery carts at a food bank run by Focus: HOPE, a local nonprofit.

"It's a depression - not a recession," McDuell said, with the authority of someone who has lived through both. "It will get worse before it gets better."
Behind her in line, stocking up on canned apple juice and fruit cocktail, was Benjamin Smith, 77, who once held jobs with Uniroyal and Chrysler. Maneuvering his cart slowly, one hand gripping a cane, he was unable to muster much cheer when someone extended holiday good wishes.
"How are we going to do well?" he replied. "Everything's busted up."

Focus: HOPE's food program serves 41,000 people a month; manager Frank Kubik estimates that's only half the number of Detroiters in need of the assistance.
"It's not going to be a nice Christmas for a lot of folks," he said.

DeWayne Wells, president of Gleaners Community Food Bank of Southeastern Michigan, said demand is up by 25 percent from a year ago in the region's food banks as auto-industry layoffs multiply. "Many people are first-timers - they have no idea how to navigate the system, how to qualify for food stamps," Wells said. "Last year, some were donors - now they're clients."
The roots of Detroit's current plight go back decades. Court-ordered school busing and the 12th Street riots of 1967 accelerated an exodus of whites to the suburbs, and many middle-class blacks followed, shrinking the city's population from a peak of 1.8 million in the 1950s to half that now.

About 83 percent of the current population is African American; of cities with more than 100,000 people, only Gary, Ind., had a higher percentage in the latest census.
Detroit's crime, poverty, unemployment and school dropout rates are among the worst of any major U.S. city. The bus system is widely panned; car and home insurance rates are high. Chain grocery stores are absent, forcing many Detroiters to rely on high-priced corner stores.

Click here for complete story>>

Jerry Brown urges court to void Prop. 8

SAN FRANCISCO -- California Attorney General Jerry Brown has changed his position with respect to the state's new same-sex marriage ban and is now urging the state Supreme Court to void Proposition 8.

Brown filed a brief Friday saying the measure, which amended the California Constitution to limit marriage to a man and a woman, is itself unconstitutional because it deprives gay couples of a fundamental right.

After California voters passed Proposition 8 on Nov. 4, Brown initially said he would fight to uphold the ballot initiative in his role as attorney general, even though he personally voted against it.

He submitted his brief in one of the three legal challenges to Proposition 8 brought by same-sex marriage supporters.

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Lesbian Gang-Raped In Hate Crime

Four men beat and raped a woman and left her naked on a central Richmond street last weekend, punctuating their 45-minute attack with comments that made clear why they chose her as their victim — she is a lesbian, police said.

The crime, while equaled in violence by others in the city's recent past, differs in that it also bore the unmistakable stamp of prejudice against the victim, police said Friday.
For that reason, detectives will investigate the case as a hate crime as well as a sexual assault, and the Richmond Police Department offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to arrests and prosecution in the case.

"I've lost sleep over this. I am sickened," said police Chief Chris Magnus. "While every sexual assault is a terrible crime, this particular case is especially horrific because multiple individuals acted together in the commission of this assault, and because of the hate-crime aspect."

The victim, a 28-year-old woman who police describe as openly gay, parked her car on the 1500 block of Visalia Avenue, in the Belding Woods neighborhood, about 9:30 p.m. last Saturday.
As she walked to a residence on the block, four men approached on foot.

"One of the suspects struck the victim with a (blunt) object," Lt. Mark Gagan said. "There was very little interaction between the victim and the suspects. From that point, the physical assault turned into a sexual assault."

The rapists took the victim to a spot where they could not be seen from the street and assaulted her for some time. All four participated to varying degrees, mostly at the urging of the attacker who initially struck her, police said.

Throughout the attack the men, all strangers to the victim, made comments about her sexual orientation, police said. They also took her wallet and keys, which they used to open her car.

The men took her in her car about seven blocks, to the 1300 block of Burbeck Avenue, where they continued to rape her, both inside and outside the vehicle, police said. After about 45 minutes they kicked her out and drove away in her car, leaving her naked in the street. She reached a resident of the block who phoned police.

She was treated for her injuries at a hospital and released.
"It's rare to find four adults willing to condone behavior this extreme and violent. It's clear that some of them behaved as followers, but all of them are responsible for what happened," Gagan said. "They should know that their best chance (for leniency) would be to turn themselves in and cooperate with our investigation before we identify them and apprehend them on our own."
Officers found the victim's car elsewhere in the city Monday, and authorities are now examining evidence found in it.
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Police said the victim described the ringleader as a Latino man in his 30s, about 5 feet 6 inches tall and weighing about 180 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes. He had a mustache and his breath smelled of alcohol. He primarily spoke Spanish.

His main accomplice was a black man in his early 20s, about 5-foot-10 and 170 pounds with black hair and brown eyes, who was called "Blue" by his colleagues, police said.

Two other Latino men also participated. Both were in their late teens or early 20s, and one was called "Pato," police said.

"We are hoping that residents know who these people are," Gagan said. "People need to pick up the phone."

Reach Karl Fischer at 510-262-2728 or kfischer@bayareanewsgroup.com.
How to helpRichmond police ask anyone with information about the Dec. 13, gang-rape in the Belding Woods neighborhood to call Detective Yesenia Rogers at 510-672-1718.

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Jazz Man Dave Koz is Gay

Out, six-time Grammy nominee Dave Koz has without question earned the right to be known as the pied piper of smooth jazz. Not only has he recorded a string of chart-topping collections, played alongside the likes of Celine Dion, U2, Natalie Cole and Rod Stewart, and toured the globe non-stop for the last two decades, Koz also hosts a nationally distributed afternoon radio show as well as the syndicated Dave Koz Radio Show, which is heard on the weekends in nearly 120 markets around the country.

Add to his hit-making magic, the fact that he has also carved out time to launch his own Koz Cabernet Sauvignon, host a Dave Koz and Friends Smooth Jazz cruise and serve as Global Ambassador for the Starlight Children’s Foundation, and it’s not hard to see why at the top of my interview with this favorite son of jazz, I teasingly proclaimed him to be the ‘Oprah of smooth jazz.’

Dave Koz recently checked in with GayWired from a stop on his Dave Koz and Friends Smooth Jazz Christmas Tour and talked about everything from his thoughts about Proposition 8 and how he’ll be spending the holidays (and with whom) to the very sentimental origins of his annual holiday music juggernaut and what this self-proclaimed ‘nice Jewish boy,’ who became a Christmas favorite, wants most this holiday season.

Click here for interview>>>

Oprah Strikes Deal With HBO

NEW YORK – HBO and Oprah Winfrey's production company say they have reached an exclusive three-year deal to develop movies and miniseries.
Winfrey's company, Harpo Films, had been working with ABC for 15 years.
Kate Forte, head of Harpo Films, says she expects to make a more eclectic mix of programming than was featured on ABC, which focused on movies positive in tone. She said HBO was a better fit, although she wouldn't detail any of the material she has in mind.
It hasn't been discussed whether Winfrey would act in any of the projects.
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BRINGING SEXY BACK

LEDISI IT'S CHRISTMAS - AVAILABLE NOW

President Bush Attacked By Reporter with Shoe

broadcasters having bad year

NEW YORK—Broadcast TV's fall season is going so poorly that four out of five returning programs have a smaller audience than they had in 2007.

A top TV researcher said Wednesday that it's shaping up as a historically bad season for ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox. Only eight of the 66 returning shows have gained viewers, five of them on CBS. Five shows have no change. "Heroes," "Private Practice" and "Prison Break" are among the big losers.

The Turner Networks' research chief Jack Wakshlag said there are even darker clouds on the horizon for broadcasters. The mandatory conversion to digital TV by Feb. 17, 2009, will further cut into viewing. Current estimates are about one in 10 homes would lose TV service altogether that day if they don't buy new sets or order cable or converter boxes beforehand.

Overall TV viewing is up this year because of cable station gains, especially the news networks.

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DAY WITHOUT A GAY?

(12-08) 20:26 PST San Francisco -- Since California voters approved Proposition 8 last month and repealed the right of gay couples to marry, initiative opponents have marched, held rallies and blocked intersections.

On Wednesday, they're asked to do something different: nothing at all.
Modeled loosely after the 2006 immigrant rights demonstrations, "Day Without A Gay" is scheduled for Wednesday and billed as "a nationwide strike and economic boycott" at www.jointheimpact.com, an organizational site for supporters of same-sex marriage.
In San Francisco, the day will be marked by a 6 p.m. rally and march in the Mission District. But local organizers say they don't expect all Prop. 8 opponents to "call in gay" and instead spend the day doing volunteer work, as some proponents urge.

"I'd like to take the whole day off myself, but it's not possible," said Ryan Rudnick, a pre-school teacher who also helped organize a Nov. 15 rally outside City Hall that attracted an estimated 7,500 supporters of same-sex marriage. "That's why we wanted to hold a rally and march in the evening, to show our support."

Like many actions in the five weeks since Prop. 8's passage with 52.3 percent of the vote, "Day Without a Gay" took shape informally.

The name was coined by Sean Hetherington, a personal trainer and comedian in West Hollywood who added the idea of doing volunteer work, rather than pursuing civil disobedience or other tactics.

The web site Hetherington created for the event, www.daywithoutagay.org, also offers a list of activities for people who don't feel able to walk off their jobs.

"With the economy the way it is, this isn't a time for not showing up at work and then perhaps not having a job," said Hetherington, who will spend the day teaching joke-writing at a school in the Los Angeles area. "We want people to go in and make whatever opportunity they can."
The San Francisco event will begin with a 6 p.m. rally outside the BART station at 24th and Mission streets, followed by a march north on Valencia Street.

As for the broader call of boycotts, Prop. 8 opponents say success or failure can't be measured by numbers.

"It's organic, it's visceral, it's grass roots and net roots," said State Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, who spoke at the November rally at City Hall. "People are reacting in a very natural way to having their rights taken away by an unconstitutional proposition."

Leno's schedule Wednesday starts with a budget subcommittee on health and human service issues. "Though I'm respectful of the day," Leno said, legislative work comes first.
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My black ass will be at work.

Joe

OJ Gets At Least 15 Years

CNN's SCREAM BLOODY MURDER IS A MUST SEE

CNN's Christiane Amanpour traveled to the world's killing fields to understand the world's indifference, even as courageous voices tried to "Scream Bloody Murder." A worldwide investigation and two-hour documentary, premiering on CNN/US at 9 p.m tonight.

Ending AIDS Should Be A Priority Of World AIDS Day

By Carlos Santoscoy Published: December 01, 2008

Today is World AIDS Day. It has been observed every December 1st for twenty years, although the pandemic is in its twenty-seventh year. Students at Emory University will display 800 panels from the AIDS Memorial Quilt, former U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher will be the keynote speaker at a prayer breakfast in Atlanta, and South Africa, a country widely criticized for its AIDS policies, will mark the day with a moment of silence. But few of the press releases we reviewed actually discussed how to end AIDS.

World AIDS Day is politicians and clergy orating, while organizations and governments soul search.

But AIDS is neither; AIDS is sex and drugs, mainly the gay kind and the injectable version. It clusters around three high-risk groups: gay men, prostitutes and IV drug users.
AIDS is stigma. Because the disease first appeared in gay men, homophobia stigmatized HIV in the first place.

AIDS is political. From the onset of the disease, homophobia parallelized prevention, research and government funding efforts. Former North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms opposed funding for AIDS on the sole basis that it would help gay men.

Gay men were first to organize against the disease that was decimating their community. Gay activists demanded answers about HIV, invented safe sex, and eventually forced governments around the world to fund research and prevention programs. The knowledge of how to end AIDS was at hand – protect yourself sexually, avoid IV drug use (or use clean needles).

In some countries, stigma continues to interfere with that eradication program. In many African countries homophobia continues to drive gay men underground, where they cannot be helped by aid workers. In India, the world's largest democracy, being gay remains illegal.

The HIV drug cocktail has freed us from the death sentence of AIDS in the West, while simultaneously defanging the perceived threat by young gay men. But while the drug cocktail has reduced the amount of visible scar tissue, it has not altered the dynamics of the disease.

During the early Bush years, the administration sought to refashion AIDS as a humanitarian crisis. With a surgeon's scalpel it cut out the sex, drugs, gays, sex workers and addicts. A new policy that emphasized abstinence was devised from massaged UNAIDS figures showing an increase in AIDS among young women. Billions have been spent around the globe on ineffectual policies advocating monogamy while ignoring the three high-risk groups.

AIDS is preventable. It remains largely a gay disease, which gay men need to claim as their own, if only to help ourselves. Quilts will keep the memory of our loved ones nearby, but remembering them should come with a commitment to helping ourselves. A commitment to remaining HIV-negative is a step towards ending AIDS.

And ending AIDS is what World AIDS Day should be about.

Hillary Clinton Appointed Secretary of State

President-elect Barack Obama on Monday plans to officially announce that Democratic primary rival Hillary Rodham Clinton will be his secretary of state and name other appointees to top posts in his administration.

Obama is appearing at a morning news conference Monday in Chicago to announce Clinton's nomination as the top U.S. diplomat and say that President George W. Bush's defense secretary, Robert Gates, is staying on.

Retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones _ a former top commander of NATO and U.S. forces in Europe _ is to be Obama's national security adviser.

Democratic officials said Obama would name Washington lawyer Eric Holder as attorney general and Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano as homeland security secretary. He also planned to announce two senior foreign policy positions outside the Cabinet: campaign foreign policy adviser Susan Rice as U.N. ambassador.

The Democratic officials disclosed the plans on a condition of anonymity because they were not authorized for public release ahead of the news conference. Those names had been discussed before for those jobs, but the officials confirmed that Obama will make them official Monday in his hometown.

Obama also has settled on former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle to be his secretary of Health and Human Services and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson to be Commerce secretary, but those announcements are not yet official. Last week, he named key members of his economic team, including Timothy Geithner, president of Federal Reserve Bank of New York, as Treasury secretary.

The decisions mean Obama has half of the 15-member Cabinet assembled less than a month after the election, including the most prominent positions at State, Justice, Treasury and Defense. Obama takes office on Jan. 20.

Obama's choice of Clinton was an extraordinary gesture of good will after a year in which the two rivals competed for the Democratic nomination in a long, bitter primary battle.

They clashed repeatedly on foreign affairs. Obama criticized Clinton, a fellow U.S. senator, for her vote to authorize the Iraq war. Clinton said Obama lacked the experience to be president and she chided him for saying he would meet with leaders of nations such as Iran and Cuba without conditions.

Complete story at source>>>