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Miami Herald
06-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Miami Herald
HBCU future: Will Millennials and Gen-Z step up financially?
The July 5 episode of The Carlos Brown Show brought together veteran voices in HBCU sports to tackle a critical question: How do we sustain-and grow-support for Historically Black Colleges and Universities in the years to come? Host Carlos Brown was joined by Charles Edmond ("The Voice of Alcorn State"), former Jackson State and North Carolina A&T athletic director Wheeler Brown, and longtime Alabama A&M basketball coach Vann Pettaway. Their candid discussion centered on generational giving habits, institutional transparency, and the urgency of connecting with younger audiences. Charles Edmond opened the conversation by identifying a shift in HBCU fan behavior, especially when it comes to financial contributions. "People want bang for their buck," he said. "The older folks who have deep pockets are going to give to Southern, to Alcorn, to Jackson regardless… but I think you're seeing people a little bit younger that are a little bit more diligent with their money. They want to see something for the return." Edmond cited recent success stories like raising over half a million dollars for a band appearance in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade as evidence that HBCU support is still strong-but increasingly conditional. "If you're putting your money in a black hole, you tend not to do that," he warned. "People want to see a winning product." Wheeler Brown admitted that previous generations may have dropped the ball when it came to preparing the next wave of HBCU supporters. "Somehow we have failed… in terms of ingraining it in them prior to them getting up and getting out," he said. "We might lead by example… but when do we actually sit down and have that in-depth conversation about how important giving back is?" Pettaway, speaking from his experience as a coach and mentor, stressed the importance of starting early. "You start reaching them now, and they become the ones at 50 that are still giving back," he said. "But if you gotta wait until you're 50, that's a 30-year gap in there where we're not getting money." He emphasized the need to educate current students on the value of reinvesting in the institutions that shaped them: "They have to learn to invest back into the institution that gave you your start." The panel also touched on the importance of unconditional giving-supporting HBCUs not just when a friend or relative is on the team, but as a consistent commitment. Transparency, they agreed, remains essential for trust, but so does removing stipulations on support. As HBCUs navigate a rapidly changing landscape-marked by NIL, streaming, and declining in-person attendance-the show raised a crucial question: What does HBCU support look like for the next decade and beyond? Will the traditions that built these institutions endure, or must alumni and fans adapt to meet younger generations where they are? One thing is clear: the future of HBCU support depends on how well institutions, alumni, and advocates can engage the next wave of students and alumni-not just as scholars and athletes, but as lifelong supporters. The post HBCU future: Will Millennials and Gen-Z step up financially? appeared first on HBCU Gameday. Copyright HBCU Gameday 2012-2025
New York Times
20-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Anne Burrell's Death Is Under Investigation as a Possible Drug Overdose
The New York City Police Department is investigating the death of Anne Burrell, the popular Food Network star who was found dead in her Brooklyn home on Tuesday morning, as a possible drug overdose, according to an internal document viewed by The New York Times. The document said Ms. Burrell, who was 55, had been 'discovered in the shower unconscious and unresponsive surrounded by approximately (100) assorted pills.' Emergency medical workers who responded to a 911 call pronounced her dead at the scene. A spokeswoman for the city medical examiner's office said Friday that an autopsy had been completed, but that any findings on the cause and manner of Ms. Burrell's death were still pending. Ms. Burrell was an accomplished Italian chef who began her television career as a sous-chef to the celebrity chef Mario Batali on the Food Network show 'Iron Chef America.' She was best known for hosting 'Worst Cooks in America,' which has run for 28 seasons. With her plume of platinum-blond hair, signature mismatched socks and a way of teaching that included a big helping of unvarnished truth, she became a mainstay for the network, appearing as a guest or judge on several other shows and even once riding on the network's float in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. In January, fans were surprised to see that Ms. Burrell was not hosting the new season of 'Worst Cooks.' Neither she or the network have explained the change. An indication of a possible conflict came in a Jan. 10 Instagram post when someone asked her why she wasn't on the show and Ms. Burrell answered, 'Honestly I don't know.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Look, This Show's Good. It's Essentially Moral.'
The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. In 1992, The Simpsons was one of the most beloved sitcoms on television. Critics adored it; the ratings were climbing higher and higher; the show had entered what fans would eventually come to regard as its funniest period, roughly Seasons 3 through 8. But the animated series still scared some adults. There had never been a boy on network TV as openly irreverent as Bart Simpson, who said 'hell' and 'damn' and talked back to his teacher. Mere months after the show debuted, in December 1989, schools across the United States started banning a T-shirt declaring, 'Bart Simpson 'Underachiever': And Proud of It, Man!' James Dobson, the founder of the evangelical organization Focus on the Family, weighed in on that particular piece of merch, writing that it made the 'pervasive problem of underachievement' even worse. As quaint as Bart's antics might seem now, he and The Simpsons as a whole represented youth in revolt. The moral panic was misplaced, but not unusual—part of a long national tradition of culture wars waged under the pretense of politics. But what critics of the prime-time cartoon either fundamentally misunderstood (or conveniently overlooked) was its core truths. Bart loved his parents. He went to church with them. The Simpsons sometimes struggled to make ends meet, and they didn't always get along, but they stuck together. They were a typical middle-American family—and, despite Bart's rude language, not the symbol of societal rot that culture-war targets are often imagined to be. There are numerous early-season examples of the family's underlying integrity. Marge's bowling instructor, Jacques, woos her, but she resists and dramatically reconciles with Homer, whom she'd been arguing with. Homer decides to steal cable, but eventually stops when Lisa, the show's voice of reason, convinces him it's wrong. Lisa exposes a corrupt congressman at the expense of personal glory. Homer gives up religion only to realize that his faith is important to him. Sure, there's a scene in the series premiere in which Bart gets a real tattoo—but the story ends sweetly, with the family adopting a greyhound track reject named Santa's Little Helper. 'Look, this show's good,' the Simpsons writer Jeff Martin once told me. 'It's essentially moral. It's for everybody.' In its early days, The Simpsons was everywhere: on TV, on merch, on magazine covers (back when that still moved the needle), in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. The show's ubiquity is likely what put it on the radar of George H. W. Bush's administration. In May 1990, a news story mentioned that the White House's drug czar, William Bennett, had noticed a Bart Simpson poster at a rehabilitation center. 'That's not going to help you any,' Bennett reportedly said to the residents. (He later claimed that he was kidding.) In a People interview later that year, first lady Barbara Bush called The Simpsons 'the dumbest thing I've ever seen.' In the first case, the show's producers responded with a snarky statement: 'If our drug czar thinks he can sit down and talk with a cartoon character, he must be on something.' In the second, they decided to take a kill-'em-with-kindness approach, sending the first lady a letter written in the voice of Marge, who politely defended her family. 'Ma'am, if we're the dumbest thing you ever saw,' Marge wrote, 'Washington must be a good deal different than what they teach me at the current events group at the church.' Barbara Bush sent an apologetic reply: 'Clearly,' she wrote, 'you are setting a good example for the rest of the country.' At that point, the Bush-Bart beef was dead. Then, early in his reelection campaign, the president brought it back to life. On January 27, 1992, he spoke at the National Religious Broadcasters convention. His speech wasn't terribly memorable, except for one section. 'The next value I speak of must be forever cast in stone,' Bush said. 'I speak of decency, the moral courage to say what is right and condemn what is wrong. And we need a nation closer to The Waltons than The Simpsons—an America that rejects the incivility, the tide of incivility, and the tide of intolerance.' The Waltons was a Great Depression–set drama about a good-natured blue-collar Virginia family that aired on CBS for most of the 1970s. The smash-hit show was a temporary antidote to the tumult of the time, and Bush's speechwriter Curt Smith was a big fan. He thought that The Waltons embodied a kind of propriety that appealed to Middle America. To him, The Simpsons did not. When I interviewed him in 2022, Smith told me he felt that the sarcastic animated series looked down on the heartland. 'You had two cultures at war in this country. And I say that sadly,' he said. 'The Waltons with red America and The Simpsons with blue America.' [Read: The life in The Simpsons is no longer attainable] To play up that divide, Smith added the Waltons/Simpsons comparison into Bush's address. According to Smith, his boss approved. As soon as the president said the line, it became a sound bite, which satisfied Smith. 'I felt deeply that the line was germane,' he told me. 'I thought it was true. And it would help us politically.' He turned out to be wrong about that last part. Bush's broadside pushed the creators of The Simpsons to fire back by tacking on a scene to the opening of that week's episode, a rerun. The family is gathered around the TV, which is playing footage of the president's insult. As soon as it's over, Bart perks up and says, 'Hey, we're just like the Waltons. We're praying for an end to the Depression, too.' The mainstream media also pointed out the irony of the president waxing poetic about an old TV show that took place during a terrible economy. 'Yes, ma and pa,' the syndicated columnist Ellen Goodman wrote on January 31, 1992, 'George-boy is leading us back through the haze of nostalgia to those wonderful yesteryears of the 1930s.' It was an example of how out of touch the sexagenarian incumbent was in the eyes of many voters—at least compared with his opponent, a saxophone-playing Baby Boomer. As Bush's campaign progressed, he doubled down, bringing back the Waltons/Simpsons line for his arrival speech at the Republican National Convention. In the end, Bill Clinton won fairly easily in '92—with the help of the independent Ross Perot, who yanked some votes away from Bush—taking chunks of Middle America with him. It would be a stretch to say that Bush's decision to poke at The Simpsons cost him a second term. But it did demonstrate how silly politicians can look when they try to use pop culture to score easy points with their base. People in the heartland watched the show, too—partly because the Simpsons had the same issues as millions of Americans. The second-season premiere of the show, for example, focuses on Bart's academic troubles. The anxiety he and his parents have over whether he might have to repeat the fourth grade feels real. ''Bart Gets an F' is not only funny, it's touching,' the Washington Post critic Tom Shales wrote in his review. 'You really find yourself rooting for this bratty little drawing.' When it came to family life, The Simpsons certainly felt realistic. There are episodes centering on Lisa's feeling unseen and unappreciated by her parents and turning to a substitute teacher for guidance, the stress caused by the cost of Homer's looming triple-bypass surgery, Marge's breaking down when the pressure of motherhood becomes too much to bear. But every week, they all manage to work through their problems and regroup. That basic blueprint helped The Simpsons become an institution. The show was at its core wholesome, even if the president at the time didn't acknowledge as much. [Read: The last WASP president] It wasn't the first time, and wouldn't be the last time, a politician who claimed that a pop-culture icon was threatening American values left out key information about his target. Just last month, after Bruce Springsteen criticized him onstage in England, President Donald Trump responded by going after the musician on social media. 'I see that Highly Overrated Bruce Springsteen goes to a Foreign Country to speak badly about President of the United States,' he posted on Truth Social. 'Never liked him, never liked his music, or his Radical Left Politics and, importantly, he's not a talented guy.' Springsteen has never made his music just for the 'radical' or the 'left'; he's piled up millions of fans by speaking directly about the everyday anxieties of small-town life. His music has reflected America, in other words. And even in the face of threats made by the president, the rock star hasn't backed down. He included his remarks against Trump as an intro on his new live EP, Land of Hope & Dreams—the kind of burn that The Simpsons might have come up with. Back then, it wasn't just defiance that made the counterattack so effective—the show understood itself better than the president did. *Illustration Sources: Jacobs Stock Photography Ltd / Getty; Everett Collection. Article originally published at The Atlantic
Atlantic
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Atlantic
The Moral Heart of The Simpsons
In 1992, The Simpsons was one of the most beloved sitcoms on television. Critics adored it; the ratings were climbing higher and higher; the show had entered what fans would eventually come to regard as its funniest period, roughly Seasons 3 through 8. But the animated series still scared some adults. There had never been a boy on network TV as openly irreverent as Bart Simpson, who said 'hell' and 'damn' and talked back to his teacher. Mere months after the show debuted, in December 1989, schools across the United States started banning a T-shirt declaring, 'Bart Simpson 'Underachiever': And Proud of It, Man!' James Dobson, the founder of the evangelical organization Focus on the Family, weighed in on that particular piece of merch, writing that it made the 'pervasive problem of underachievement' even worse. As quaint as Bart's antics might seem now, he and The Simpsons as a whole represented youth in revolt. The moral panic was misplaced, but not unusual—part of a long national tradition of culture wars waged under the pretense of politics. But what critics of the prime-time cartoon either fundamentally misunderstood (or conveniently overlooked) was its core truths. Bart loved his parents. He went to church with them. The Simpsons sometimes struggled to make ends meet, and they didn't always get along, but they stuck together. They were a typical middle-American family—and, despite Bart's rude language, not the symbol of societal rot that culture-war targets are often imagined to be. There are numerous early-season examples of the family's underlying integrity. Marge's bowling instructor, Jacques, woos her, but she resists and dramatically reconciles with Homer, whom she'd been arguing with. Homer decides to steal cable, but eventually stops when Lisa, the show's voice of reason, convinces him it's wrong. Lisa exposes a corrupt congressman at the expense of personal glory. Homer gives up religion only to realize that his faith is important to him. Sure, there's a scene in the series premiere in which Bart gets a real tattoo—but the story ends sweetly, with the family adopting a greyhound track reject named Santa's Little Helper. 'Look, this show's good,' the Simpsons writer Jeff Martin once told me. 'It's essentially moral. It's for everybody.' In its early days, The Simpsons was everywhere: on TV, on merch, on magazine covers (back when that still moved the needle), in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. The show's ubiquity is likely what put it on the radar of George H. W. Bush's administration. In May 1990, a news story mentioned that the White House's drug czar, William Bennett, had noticed a Bart Simpson poster at a rehabilitation center. 'That's not going to help you any,' Bennett reportedly said to the residents. (He later claimed that he was kidding.) In a People interview later that year, first lady Barbara Bush called The Simpsons 'the dumbest thing I've ever seen.' In the first case, the show's producers responded with a snarky statement: 'If our drug czar thinks he can sit down and talk with a cartoon character, he must be on something.' In the second, they decided to take a kill-'em-with-kindness approach, sending the first lady a letter written in the voice of Marge, who politely defended her family. 'Ma'am, if we're the dumbest thing you ever saw,' Marge wrote, 'Washington must be a good deal different than what they teach me at the current events group at the church.' Barbara Bush sent an apologetic reply: 'Clearly,' she wrote, 'you are setting a good example for the rest of the country.' At that point, the Bush-Bart beef was dead. Then, early in his reelection campaign, the president brought it back to life. On January 27, 1992, he spoke at the National Religious Broadcasters convention. His speech wasn't terribly memorable, except for one section. 'The next value I speak of must be forever cast in stone,' Bush said. 'I speak of decency, the moral courage to say what is right and condemn what is wrong. And we need a nation closer to The Waltons than The Simpsons —an America that rejects the incivility, the tide of incivility, and the tide of intolerance.' The Waltons was a Great Depression–set drama about a good-natured blue-collar Virginia family that aired on CBS for most of the 1970s. The smash-hit show was a temporary antidote to the tumult of the time, and Bush's speechwriter Curt Smith was a big fan. He thought that The Waltons embodied a kind of propriety that appealed to Middle America. To him, The Simpsons did not. When I interviewed him in 2022, Smith told me he felt that the sarcastic animated series looked down on the heartland. 'You had two cultures at war in this country. And I say that sadly,' he said. ' The Waltons with red America and The Simpsons with blue America.' To play up that divide, Smith added the Waltons/Simpsons comparison into Bush's address. According to Smith, his boss approved. As soon as the president said the line, it became a sound bite, which satisfied Smith. 'I felt deeply that the line was germane,' he told me. 'I thought it was true. And it would help us politically.' He turned out to be wrong about that last part. Bush's broadside pushed the creators of The Simpsons to fire back by tacking on a scene to the opening of that week's episode, a rerun. The family is gathered around the TV, which is playing footage of the president's insult. As soon as it's over, Bart perks up and says, 'Hey, we're just like the Waltons. We're praying for an end to the Depression, too.' The mainstream media also pointed out the irony of the president waxing poetic about an old TV show that took place during a terrible economy. 'Yes, ma and pa,' the syndicated columnist Ellen Goodman wrote on January 31, 1992, 'George-boy is leading us back through the haze of nostalgia to those wonderful yesteryears of the 1930s.' It was an example of how out of touch the sexagenarian incumbent was in the eyes of many voters—at least compared with his opponent, a saxophone-playing Baby Boomer. As Bush's campaign progressed, he doubled down, bringing back the Waltons/Simpsons line for his arrival speech at the Republican National Convention. In the end, Bill Clinton won fairly easily in '92—with the help of the independent Ross Perot, who yanked some votes away from Bush—taking chunks of Middle America with him. It would be a stretch to say that Bush's decision to poke at The Simpsons cost him a second term. But it did demonstrate how silly politicians can look when they try to use pop culture to score easy points with their base. People in the heartland watched the show, too—partly because the Simpsons had the same issues as millions of Americans. The second-season premiere of the show, for example, focuses on Bart's academic troubles. The anxiety he and his parents have over whether he might have to repeat the fourth grade feels real. ''Bart Gets an F' is not only funny, it's touching,' the Washington Post critic Tom Shales wrote in his review. 'You really find yourself rooting for this bratty little drawing.' When it came to family life, The Simpsons certainly felt realistic. There are episodes centering on Lisa's feeling unseen and unappreciated by her parents and turning to a substitute teacher for guidance, the stress caused by the cost of Homer's looming triple-bypass surgery, Marge's breaking down when the pressure of motherhood becomes too much to bear. But every week, they all manage to work through their problems and regroup. That basic blueprint helped The Simpsons become an institution. The show was at its core wholesome, even if the president at the time didn't acknowledge as much. It wasn't the first time, and wouldn't be the last time, a politician who claimed that a pop-culture icon was threatening American values left out key information about his target. Just last month, after Bruce Springsteen criticized him onstage in England, President Donald Trump responded by going after the musician on social media. 'I see that Highly Overrated Bruce Springsteen goes to a Foreign Country to speak badly about President of the United States,' he posted on Truth Social. 'Never liked him, never liked his music, or his Radical Left Politics and, importantly, he's not a talented guy.' Springsteen has never made his music just for the 'radical' or the 'left'; he's piled up millions of fans by speaking directly about the everyday anxieties of small-town life. His music has reflected America, in other words. And even in the face of threats made by the president, the rock star hasn't backed down. He included his remarks against Trump as an intro on his new live EP, Land of Hope & Dreams —the kind of burn that The Simpsons might have come up with. Back then, it wasn't just defiance that made the counterattack so effective—the show understood itself better than the president did.
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Al Roker Recalls His Own Experience with Prostate Cancer as He Sends Well Wishes After Joe Biden's Diagnosis
Al Roker shared his own experience with prostate cancer following former President Joe Biden's diagnosis The Today co-host sent his well wishes to Biden, writing, "You will face this latest challenge with courage, humor and grace" Biden's personal office announced on May 18 that he was diagnosed with prostate cancerAl Roker is reflecting on his own experience undergoing treatment for prostate cancer after former President Joe Biden's diagnosis was revealed. On May 18, Biden's personal office announced in a statement that the former politician, 82, was 'diagnosed with prostate cancer, characterized by a Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5) with metastasis to the bone.' "While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management,' the statement continued. 'The President and his family are reviewing treatment options with his physicians." In response to the news, Roker, 70, sent well wishes to Biden, writing on X, 'Mr. President. As I found out from my battle with prostate cancer, you are part of a group that no one wants to be part of, but knowing you, you will face this latest challenge with courage, humor and grace.' The pair have had a long-standing friendship with Roker getting a surprise call for the former President after his shoulder surgery in 2014 and talking with the politician during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in 2021. The television personality also recalled being diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2020 during the May 19 episode of Today. "When I was diagnosed, I had an 8 on the Gleason scale, but they said they had caught it early, even though it was aggressive, so I had a fairly wide range of treatment options.' According to the American Cancer Society, a prostate cancer's grade group is a measure of how likely the cancer is to grow and spread quickly. Grade group 5 means that "the cancer might or might not be growing outside the prostate and into nearby tissues. It has not spread to nearby lymph nodes or elsewhere in the body," per the Cancer Society. Roker announced his own diagnosis on Today on November 6, 2020. "It's a good news–bad news kind of thing," he said. "Good news is we caught it early. Not-great news is that it's a little aggressive, so I'm going to be taking some time off to take care of this." "We'll just wait and see, and hopefully in about two weeks I'll be back [on the show]," he added. Three days later, he underwent surgery at New York City's Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center to remove his prostate, lymph nodes and some surrounding tissue. In an exclusive essay for PEOPLE in June 2024, the weatherman recalled experiencing nerves for a six-month check-up. 'After the surgery, you've got to come back in six months to see where you are,' he wrote. 'And so as that six month date comes up, you're a little more anxious because did this take? Is everything okay? I mean, they biopsy the material they take out and feel they got all of it, but you don't know.' Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human-interest stories. 'I go and Dr. Laudone said, 'Okay, you're under 0.01, which is undetectable.' That's their standard,' he continued. Roker also shared that he was grateful for early detection as it allowed him to become a grandfather. His daughter Courtney welcomed daughter, Sky, in July 2023. "I'm so grateful I'm here to be able to see my first grandchild,' he said of Sky. 'If there's any reason to make sure you're as healthy as possible, it's that. That little girl is just everything. I mean, I love my children, but my gosh, I didn't know I would love another person this much.' Read the original article on People
