Job Loss Leads to Family Tragedy

A man apparently despondent about losing his job killed his wife and five children before turning the gun on himself. In one upstairs bedroom, the bodies of twin 2-year-old boys were found beside their dead mother. In another bedroom, 5-year-old twin girls and their 8-year-old sister lay next to their lifeless father.

The bodies of five children and two adults -- the children's mother and father -- were found Tuesday in a home in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Wilmington. Ervin Lupoe apparently called 911 and contacted a television station by fax before committing suicide, authorities said.

A suicide note found at the scene "indicated a business dispute" between Lupoe and Kaiser Permanente West Los Angeles Medical Center. In the faxed note to KABC, the man said he was despondent over an employment situation, police said.

Kaiser Permanente said Lupoe and his wife, Ana, were both former employees of the medical center. Both had been terminated, with Lupoe's termination coming last week.

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plez sez: this story brought tears to my eyes. the loss of hope and the loss of life is tragic.

there is something terribly wrong with our society when our lives are so identified by how many zeros are on our w-2 forms or what kind of car is parked in the driveway or who is sending your paycheck. thousands more people are looking at job losses in the coming weeks and months... it pains me to think how many hundreds of unemployed people are looking at ending their life due to a job loss.

i believe before we'll fix this economy, something must be done to repair our country's fragile psyche.

~ ~ Citations ~ ~

Read the AJC.com article about the Lupoe family tragedy.

Read the MSNBC article about the job loss tragedy.

Read the CNN.com article about Lupoe family tragedy.

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Barack Obama en Español

Politico.com reports that a Spanish-language blog (La Opinion) in Los Angeles has Barack Obama's first ad directed to the Latino community... en español!

Barack Obama Courts the Latino Vote in California

La Opinion blog entry

Obama busca conectar con los latinos, en español

Este comercial de Barack Obama, donde este habla completamente en español va a salir al aire en los próximos días. Es la primera vez que Obama graba un comercial en español y según parece, el objetivo es dar una imagen más cercana a los latinos que todavía puedan tener un déficit de entusiasmo por su candidatura y estimularlos a votar. Tanto Obama como su contrincante republicano John McCain han usado comerciales en español, pero siempre con un locutor, no con ellos mismos hablando el idioma, aunque sea como en este caso, una repetición fonética.

En todo caso, la pronunciación no está nada mal. Peor era la de Bush, y eso que el sí machuca el idioma un poco.

Read the La Opinion blog entry here (in Spanish).

Read the Politico.com article about Obama's first ad in Spanish here (in English).


plez sez: i took three years of high school Spanish, i was even the President of my school's Spanish Honor Society! but those classes and lessons (taught by Ms. Brown... or Señora Moreno, as we would call her) are a distant memory in plezWorld.

i have no idea what Obama says in the ad and i can pick out a few words here and there in the La Opinion article... but he's got my vote!

BET's Baldwin Hills - Season Two

The DVR in plezWorld has been recording episodes of Season Two of BET's Baldwin Hills since the premier, this weekend provided an opportunity to get caught up with the action.

Several cast members from Season One have returned for Season Two: Ashley (daughter of actress Vanessa Bell Calloway), Moriah (son of former UCLA and NBA great Marques Johnson), Gerren (tall and gorgeous model-in-training who dated Moriah in Season One), Sal (budding rap artist), and Staci (hard working and determined girl with a rough upbringing).

There are new cast members to round out the drama: Lor'Rena (drama queen extraordinaire who appears intent on stealing Moriah's heart from the first episode), Aunjel (Lor'Rena's sister and partner in crime), Johnathan (best friend of Moriah with plans on attending UCLA to play football), Justin (member of a songwriting group, he's a deep and spiritual young man), and Seiko (very pretty girl who appears to have eyes for Justin).

Baldwin Hills is very similar in nature to MTV programs like Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County and The Hills, except it features African American teenagers of upper-middle class families. Like all kids their age, they divide their time between attending school, playing sports, shopping at high-end outlets, and driving expensive cars. And of course, there is the drama when you combine attractive teenage girls with teenage boys.

Check out the drama on Tuesdays at 10 p.m. (ET/PT) on BET.

plez sez: i am probably 30 years removed from the demographic that BET has targeted with Baldwin Hills, so i guess the show falls into the category of "guilty pleasures" for plezWorld. the main storyline for season two (after first 5 episodes) seems to revolve around the unrequited romance that began in season one between Gerren and Moriah, and the determination on the part of new cast member, Lor'rena to steal Moriah's heart. complicating matters is the addition of Moriah's seldom seen "main squeeze" who appears to be a few years older than him.

i like Baldwin Hills for two main reasons: (1) it shows successful Black families in a positive light with clean cut and well-behaved teenage children, and (2) it incorporates parental involvement into the storyline. so far, the parents of Sal (well, his uncle), Staci, Moriah, Gerren, Johnathan, and Ashley have been shown providing guidance and advice to their children. and it appears that most of the kids are on a track to attend college when they get out of high school (with Staci already in college).

this show could very easily have fallen victim to the appeal of thuglife and fast vulnerable women, and it has thankfully not gone there! to be honest, there is very little programming on BET that is worth watching... on second thought, i can't think of anything else to watch on BET except, Baldwin Hills!

Recognition of Same-Sex Unions in New York

Gov. David Paterson of New York has directed all state agencies to begin to revise their policies and regulations to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions, like Massachusetts, California and Canada. The New York Times reports that in a directive issued on May 14, the governor’s legal counsel instructed the agencies that gay couples married elsewhere “should be afforded the same recognition as any other legally performed union.”

The revisions are most likely to involve as many as 1,300 statutes and regulations in New York governing everything from joint filing of income tax returns to transferring fishing licenses between spouses. This appears to be the first step in the legalization of same-sex unions in the state of New York. Currently, Massachusetts and California are the only states that have legalized gay marriage, while New Jersey and Vermont allow civil unions. Forty-one states have laws limiting marriage to a union between a man and a woman.

Read the entire New York Times article on same-sex unions here.


plez sez: i sincerely believe that everyone should be treated equally under the law. without benefit of a binding contract, gay couples do not have the same benefits as married couples (taxes, estates, insurance, etc.) in most states.

plezWorld was raised in a strict baptist household, went to church every sunday. to my way of thinking, marriage is a construct of religion. marriage was created to foster the stability of a household and build the continuity of a community. marriage was created for the purpose of procreation (i.e. having and raising children according to the norms of the community).

gay marriage doesn't seem to fit the construct that benefits the continuity of the norms of the community. my daughter has a school chum who had two mommies. those two mommies broke up and each has a new partner. now my daughter's friend has four mommies! parent-teacher conferences must be a real bee-yotch! i'm afraid that doesn't fit well with any social norm that comes to mind.

i think there is a simple solution to this conundrum: reserve marriage to a ceremony that is performed in a church and allow the state to sanction a civil union that can be recognized as a contract between two people for legal reasons. this way, the church can maintain the sanctity of marriage and the state can provide equal rights to those who religious beliefs don't fit into the constructs of a marriage (between a man and a woman). currently, you have to fulfill a number of requirements before you can get a state issued license to get married. why not make a slight change to that license to include any civil union between two people and then reserve the church sanctioned marriage to those who would rather preserve the religious recognition of their union?

my solution probably opens up another "can of worms" that hasn't even been considered, but i will leave that up to the reader to ferret out and set me straight!

Clinton Invokes RFK Assassination

While meeting with the editorial board of the Sioux City Argus Leader (South Dakota) on Friday, Hillary Clinton was asked why she hasn't dropped out of the race; mathematically, she cannot secure enough pledged delegates to win the Democratic nomination. She said that the nomination process is a long one and who knows what will happen between now and Democratic National Convention in Denver.

Clinton's reply follows:

“People have been trying to push me out of this ever since Iowa... my husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don’t understand it."

As would be expected, her comments set off a barrage of criticism in response to her invoking Robert Kennedy's assassination in 1968, and within hours, she expressed regrets at a campaign stop:

“The Kennedys have been much on my mind the last days because of Senator Kennedy. And I regret that if my referencing that moment of trauma for our entire nation and particularly for the Kennedy family was in any way offensive.”

Read the New York Times article on Clinton's assassination gaffe here.

Clinton assassination comment and regrets:

plez sez: hmmmm... i guess she isn't holding out for an invitation to be Barack Obama's veep... sounds to me, like she's betting on an assassin's bullet to secure her the nomination!

is it me OR is hillary clinton out of her freakin' mind?!? two weeks from today marks the 40th anniversary of bobby kennedy's assassination by a bullet fired by sirhan sirhan! although, there has been little publicity about death threats, it is obvious that Obama has been the recipient of credible threats since he announced his candidacy; he's had around the clock secret service protection for close to a year! i don't like to bring up such a grim prospect, but this blog published a post that white supremacist groups have been organizing to prevent Obama from ever taking the oath of office.

how can hillary be so crass? so unfeeling? so politically incorrect?!? when backed into a corner, she will say ANYTHING... and i mean ANYTHING to justify her claim to the white house!

and when she realizes how off base her comments were, she can't even muster the fortitude to properly apologize. she doesn't apologize to the kennedy family (she only expresses regret for her offensive remarks). she doesn't apologize to Barack Obama and his family for the implication that she's pinning her hopes of being the democratic nominee while dancing on Obama's grave prior the democratic national convention! if it was good enough for hubert humphrey in 1968, it's good enough for hillary clinton in 2008.

assassination of national figures is the ugliest of american history: lincoln, mckinley, harrison, kennedy, martin luther king, jr., robert kennedy, etc. a Black man is poised to ascend to the highest office in the land and hillary clinton doesn't want to get out of the race because the specter of him getting gunned down before the convention is too great!

some have decided to give her the benefit of the doubt... that could not be what she was thinking when she brought up kennedy's assassination. plezWorld is not so easily dissuaded and asks, if she wasn't implying that there is a good chance that Obama will get assassinated, what was she implying? and why did she bring it up?

keith olbermann commentary on hillary clinton - 10:42

some have called for Obama to offer the veep office to billary. how many weeks would it take for the clintons to plot his assassination? maybe i've watched too many seasons of "24", but something tells me that the clintons couldn't stomach being Obama's second banana for 8 years! something tells me that they couldn't stomach being his second banana more than a couple of weeks!