Quick Weekend Notes

• First, our condolences to the family and friends of Rep. Tom Lantos, who was a holocaust survivor who escaped the Nazis twice as a teenager, and was the only survivor to serve in Congress - he was 80.

• There were two high school shooting in Memphis over the last week, the most recent one happened today, when a 17-year-old student shot a 19-year-old senior twice over an argument. The suspect shot the victim in gym class, the victim is in critical condition. The other shooting happened at a different school last Monday, Feb. 4 - when a student shot another student in the leg - no critical injuries were reported. Both students were detained and will more than likely be charged.
• Without getting into too much detail, Yahoo! Inc. respectfully rejected Microsoft's $44.6 billion bid to take over the company, deeming in inadequate. Word is that Yahoo! is in talks with AOL about a possible merger.

• Another lawsuit is coming out of former B2K member Raz-B's team. First, he was supposed to press charges on his prime producer/manager Chris Stokes for raping him and others - the suit was dropped a day later...nope, that's not shady at all. But this time, Raz-B's lawyers are out for blood against the team of boxing great Floyd Mayweather. According to Raz-B's lawyers, the security team of Mayweather beat Raz-B's brother, Ricky Romance, to a bloody pulp outside of a Grand Rapids, MI hotel - where Mayweather was holding his weekend extravaganza "The Mayweather Experience." Let's see if they fold if/when an athlete puts the pressure on them.

• To keep it on boxing, two big time welterweight prospects were in action this past weekend. Paul "The Punisher" Williams, who was coming off of a win against highly touted contender, Antonio Margarito, was in action against contender Carlos "Indio" Quintana, who is coming off of a loss to one of the tops in the division, Miguel Cotto. Paul Williams is a 6'1 welterweight - which means that at 6'1 - he fights at 147 pounds - he would easily be the favorite in any welterweight fight with exception only to one with either Floyd Mayweather or Miguel Cotto - but the hype was put to a stop as Quintana pulled off the upset, by winning an Unanimous Decision over the former WBO champ. The defense of Paul Williams (33-1, 24 KOs) wasn't there and both he and Quintana (25-1, 19 KOs) were sluggish, but the southpaw Quintana won the fight on straight lefts over the right arm of fellow southpaw Paul Williams. The scorecards read 115-113 (twice) and 116-113. Paul needs a rematch ASAP to prove that it was just an off night, and then he needs to move up in weight, it just looks very awkward to have a 6'1 athlete weigh 147 pounds in today's day. In the co-feature, undefeated prospect Andre Berto forced Michael Trabant to quit on his stool after six rounds of punishment, Berto moves to 21-0, 18 KOs, Trabant falls to 43-3-1, 19 KOs. Mega fights are in the future for Berto, I want to see him fight one more "average" boxer than move up to face Zab Judah.
• Lastly, big-ups to allhiphop.com, which is where I found this next clip, of some reporters at Fox in Houston tried to sucker Bun-B of the legendary UGK into demeaning hip-hop culture, but Bun-B proves he's too smart for it, and addresses the issue of him back on the road without partner, Pimp C - R.I.P.

Grammy Notes

I'm not going to write too much about the Grammy's...yet, probably won't ever (I'm not too big of a fan - the way they approach urban culture is unprofessional and some events last night proved just that), nonetheless, it seemed to be quite the night. But there are a bunch of other happenings, especially in sports and politics. First and foremost, big ups to the homie Kanye for shutting down the Grammy orchestra for trying to rush him off stage. I know that it wasn't my imagination - they definitely gave him less time than other winners who made their acceptance speeches. And it just so happened that the only two winners that got the orchestra played over their speeches were Black and quite amazing at what they do. More importantly, they both resisted and did their thing! (What up Herbie Hancock!) << style="font-weight: bold;">This clip isn't the entire acceptance speech, but it definitely wasn't a long one: Easily the best performance of the night: In other Grammy news, (by the way, I think it should be noticed that when I spell the word "grammy" with a lowercase "g" apparently, it's a misspelled word, but when I spell it with a capital "G" it's correct...smh) Amy Crackhouse, I mean Winehouse performed via satellite - she actually did a good job, despite her apparent unawareness of where the camera was filming from and the twitches and steady grabs at her crotch. She won 5 "Grammies" including record of the year and songwriter of the year - the category in which my lovely future wife who doesn't know I exist, Corinne Bailey Rae got robbed. Amy's Acceptance However, some of the best, if not unusual, news happened on the red carpet - and I'm not talking about horrid dresses worn by Cher or about how great Beyonce, Alicia Keys, Rihanna, and Corinne Bailey Rae looked, I'm talking about Nas' political statement...I don't know how I feel about his shirt, but I understand what he is trying to say. Two things to peep in this clip: Kelis and how scared and nervous the reporter is, she's getting a raise: Also, just to cap off a great weekend for Sen. Barack Obama - the Presidential hopeful won a Grammy! for Best Spoken Word Album for "The Audacity of Hope..." It's now or never.... Until then... Maybe next year, wifey.