Quote of the Day/Week- Aretha Franklin

Today, in honor of Black History Month, we quote the Queen of Soul, who is Aretha Franklin, 69, who has been battling serious health problems as of late.

Franklin is perhaps best-known for her catchy r&b number one smash hit "Respect"
(1967). In recent years, she has performed at the 2009 Presidential Inaguration for Barack Obama.

Franklin was also the god-mother to the recently deceased pop singer Whitney Houston, who was found in a Los Angeles hotel room on Feb. 11. Houston was 48. To our knowledge, no conclusive report on her cause of death has been released to the media.

Here is the quote from Franklin:

"Don't say Aretha is making a comeback because I've never been gone."

SIDEBAR: We want to wish one of our favorite Olympic and college gymnasts Yvonne Tousek a happy 32nd birthday. Tousek competed for Canada in both the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

As a college gymnast at UCLA, Tousek earned the NCAA bars titles in 2001. Her Bruins teams won three of the school's six NCAA team titles in women's gymnastics.

Over the weekend, UCLA tied Oregon State with a 196.775 at Oregon State that also included the California Bears, which finished last in the three teams meet.

UCLA got strong results in the all-around competition from Elyse Hopfner-Hibbs, who finished third with a 39.375, and from Vanessa Zamarripa, arguably the hardest college gymnast's name to spell (we think we got it right, hopefully) who finished fourth overall with a 39.325.

The Bruins host Arizona State on Sunday.

Quote of the Week- William Shatner

Admitedly, us Americans tend to overlook our neighbors to the north. In fact, my last entry dedicated to a Canadian may have been when I wished former UCLA gymnast and Canadian Olympian Yvonne Tousek a happy 30th birthday (on our other blog) last year.

But, this month, I am quoting all sorts of famous Canadians. And, perhaps no Canadian is as famous as William Shatner, who turned 80 earlier this year. He is, of course, known for playing Captain Kirk on "Star Trek" on tv in the '60s, and again with a series of films starting in 1979.

Recently, Shatner stunned the world by releasing a music album with his covers of songs like "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen. Having heard a snipet of the song on NPR, I can vouch that listening to the Oak Ridge Boys' song "Elvira" on an AM country radio station in Kentucky might be slightly less painful.

So, here is our quote from Shatner:

"How do I so healthy and boyishly handsome? It's simple. I drink the blood of young runaways."

SIDEBAR: Our good friend and fellow blogger Chris Knight took on Shatner in a spoof of "Priceline" commercials with the help of Addy Miller, who is the little zombie girl in AMC's "The Walking Dead." And, Shatner himself actually tweeted about the matter!

A similar thing occured several months ago when Harry Shearer, the voice of Principal Skinner on "The Simpsons," tweeted that my friend Jason Garnett was showing Shearer's documentary film about the Hurrican Katrina fiasco "The Big Uneasy" at the Shadowbox Microcinema in Roanoke, Va. That film is now out on dvd.

SIDEBAR TWO: Much focus has been on the futile marriage between Armenian-American model/celebrity/reality tv show star Kim Kardashian and Kris Humpries of the New Jersey Nets. For those who have been hanging out in Buddhist monastaries in Bhutan, the marriage ended after a mere 72 days on Monday. A Twitter site for the Nets actually asked fans if Kardashian should give her gifts back?

But, a more interesting thing appears to be happening in the Kardashian family's ethnic homeland. Of course, it is perhaps fittingly ironic that I am mentioning this, since I am a Turkish-American, but the NPR show "The World" ran an amazing story on Tuesday by reporter Shanti Shahrigian about an effort to educate Armenian school children about the game of chess.

As it turns out, even though Armenia has a population of circa three million people, the country has some 30 chess grandmasters. Teacher Grigor Martikian is running the elementary school program, and so far it appears to be quite succesful.

I more or less quit playing chess after losing to an eight-year-old girl who was the reigning Virginia state champ in her age group, an incident which occured some ten years ago. That girl is probably old enough to vote now!