Sweet Dreams

This week I am joined by jazz/gospel recording artist Joyce Spencer. A native of South Louisiana, Joyce Spencer’s musical influence came early and often because her grandfather (Freeman Fontenot) was a musician and one of the originators of zydeco music. Most of the family gatherings included music and song and the strong influence of blues, jazz, R&B, gospel, and the charismatic flavor of south Louisiana were all elements of her musical development.
Joyce grew up in a small town with limited resources to study music; however, it did not discourage her passion for music and playing in the Basile Middle/High School Band.

She started playing clarinet in middle school, but grew very fond of the tenor saxophone in the 12th grade. Joyce later played the alto sax and flute in college, where she majored in instrumental music education and studied both classical and jazz at McNeese State University.

She also sang in the McNeese Acapella and the Catholic Student Center church choir. Due to family responsibilities, she laid the instruments down for about 20 years; however, Joyce reignited her passion for music when she began singing and playing her alto and tenor saxophones and flute in churches, and eventually added the soprano sax. That led to other opportunities to play in solo acts, combos, and jazz/gospel bands that performed in several venues, and finally recording her first CD in 2010, with all of her original work. Posted by The Professor at 11:08 PM 0 comments

Facebook:  Are those people really your friends?

Facebook is a social network service and website launched in February 2004 that is operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc.  As of July 2010 Facebook has more than 500 million active users, Users may create a personal profile, add other users as friends and exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update their profile.

Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommates and fellow computer science students Saverin, Moskovitz and Hughes. The website's membership was initially limited by the founders to Harvard students, but was expanded to other colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford University. It gradually added support for students at various other universities before opening to high school students, and, finally, to anyone aged 13 and over. [source]

I bring this up because for many weeks, I have been talking about all the people that I have “confirmed” that was a friend on facebook. And, out of the 336 friends, I didn’t have 5 of the people to support my debut for my internet talk radio; or visit any of my blogs; And now that I have been on for several weeks, of the hunderds of visits, I have had more people in the UK (the United Kingdom) come out and support the events than I have had my “friends” on face book. So when I heard Late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel say he believes Facebook is cheapening the meaning of friendship…. I was like Halleluiah

Kimmel used Wednesday's episode of his Jimmy Kimmel Live show to declare November 17, 2010 National UnFriend Day [NUD] -- a new holiday he hopes will inspire Facebook users to unfriend the social networking contacts that aren't real friends. So my questions is simply this,  Is Jimmy Kimmel right? Should we look more closely to the people we call friends?  Post your  comments, let me know your thoughts.  Posted by The Professor at 11:08 PM 0 comments

Another one bites the dust:  Anti-Facebook Pastor Cedric Miller Offers to Resign

(CBS/AP)  Facebook leads to infidelity, a New Jersey pastor has claimed. To prove his sincere belief in Facebook's evils, the pastor has even offered to step down over revelations of a past affair that involved a four-way sexual relationship with his minister wife, a male church assistant and the assistant's wife.  Pastor Cedric Miller, 48, gave his I-will-step-down sermon just days after the Asbury Park Press reported on Miller's 2003 testimony that his wife had an extramarital affair with a male church assistant. Miller also said he was present at many of those meetings and sometimes the assistant's wife was there.

"We had crossed the line many times...between the four of us," the pastor testified at the time. "It was just, I mean there was touching, there was...it was crazy, it was as wrong as wrong could get. Yes."
Rev. Miller called the paper's printing of the testimony, "old news," but admitted that his behavior at the time was "foolish." "For any pain that my past mistakes has caused you, I again ask for your forgiveness," the pastor said.

Miller, with his wife by his side, asked any church leaders who supported him to join them, and an estimated 100 parishioners walked on the stage. He offered to step down as senior minister if church leaders found him unfit to serve. Miller said church elders will render a vote of "confidence" or "no confidence" in his ability to lead during a meeting Tuesday. "Should the elders and leaders now deem me unfit for duty, I love the church enough to step down immediately," he said. 

The pastor continued to call on church leaders to delete their Facebook accounts, claiming the social network site could lead to infidelity.  Posted by The Professor at 11:08 PM 0 comments

Read the complete story here.


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