Woman charged with killing daughter with hammer, shovel

ROSELLE PARK, New Jersey (AP) — Police charged a woman Monday with fatally bludgeoning her 14-year-old daughter with a hammer and shovel as the girl slept.

Lynn Giovanni, 45, was charged with murder and was being held at a psychiatric hospital on $250,000 bail. Authorities would not comment on a possible motive.
Several hours after Sunday’s slaying, the mother tried to kill herself by crashing her car into a guardrail along a highway in a nearby town, authorities said. She sustained only minor injuries.
State police investigating the accident questioned Giovanni, who told them “of a possible homicide,” said Union County Prosecutor Theodore Romankow.
Police then broke into the house where Giovanni had been staying with her mother and daughter, and found the bloodied body of Nicole Giovanni.
The girl was a freshman at Roselle Catholic High School, where administrators described her as popular and an accomplished indoor track runner. Grief counselors were called to the school Monday.
An arraignment was tentatively set for Wednesday.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/02/08/girl.killed.ap/index.html

I pray for people who need psychiatric help like Lynn Gionvanni. No one in their right mind would beat their child to death. I truly believe that… I pray that if people see that their close friend or family member is physically and/or mentally suffering that they help counsel that person or help seek counseling for that person. Don’t just shake it off and say everything is okay. There must have been at LEAST ONE person that knew that something just was not right about Lynn Giovanni. I wonder what that person did or rather did not do…

Rest in peace young Nicole

And…

Don’t you hate it when people ask you, “Guess What?” Chances are that you will never be able to guess WHAT? Right? So just tell me what it is… If you ask me “guess what?” I’ll look at you crazy and say, “no.” I don’t have time to guess. JT will make me stand there for SEVERAL minutes and have me guessing WHAT. That makes me frustrated to say the least.

So guess what? LOL.

I found about a year and a half of my journal entries for missnexus.com!! Found? Yes… found. When I was upgrading to Movable Type in December 2003 from b2, I backed up the entries as import.txt and used a script to convert from b2 to MT. While backing up some files over the weekend, I came across import.txt and a folder. After blowing the dust off of it, I opened the file and there was an entry from June 2002… I scrolled down and there were more and more entries. I was overwhelmed.

After recovering these entries, I would have only lost entries from December 2003 through (roughly) February 2004. When I found out that I was pregnant in January 2004, the entries were far and few between. I am so excited and I can’t wait to upload the entries into Wordpress. So if and when you see old entries popping up… that is what the deal is.

…Well not really but I’m taking a break.

Also known widely as the Fire Bird, the phoenix is a profound symbol of life and rebirth. It has a life cycle of 500 to 600 years and after that amount of time, it sets itself on fire and dies in the flames. Then, after three days, it rises again from the ashes. It is a completely benign creature who lives in dew. It is said that the phoenix has a beautiful melodious song which grows ever more mournful as its life comes to an end. It is also a symbol of the sun and immortality.
What mythical beast best represents you?Take the quiz!

As I suspected, Super Bowl Sunday was nothing to be excited over. I really wanted the Philadelphia Eagles to win, only because I can’t stand the New England Patriots. Damn the New England area for their Super Bowl AND World Series victories. So what Patriots… I don’t care that you have won three out of four Super Bowls and you’re a dynasty now. And Paul McCartney… no one cares that your wardrobe didn’t malfunction. I rather hear and see Janet Jackson over you any day. And speaking of Janet Jackson, let us get over the incident that took place last year folks. Old news, old news. We know she did it on purpose, she just didn’t realize the repercussions.

Back on subject. I was really disappointed with the halftime show and the Super Bowl ads. The opening acts before the game were ten times better than dear old Paul. I didn’t even know who that old country man was, but I found myself stomping to the music as he jammed on his violin. LOL I don’t even like country music. And later during halftime, I snoozed away as Paul McCartney sang ‘Hey Jude’ and whatever oldie he dug up (feel free to visit his site for a recap). I feel this is the first year in a while that the ads were more dull than the game itself. The FCC really put it on em last year huh? I did enjoy the Bud Light commercial with the skydiving and the FedEx commercial with Burt Reynolds. The writers of these two commercials understand the concept of entertainment AND selling the product. Take a look at the USA Today 17th Annual Ad Meter.

Wow, I am really sad to hear this news…

http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/Movies/02/04/obit.davis.ap/index.html

Ossie Davis was such a profound actor who contributed a great deal to the Black community. I think I was most down about him dying away from his wife, Ruby Dee, whom he was married to over fifty years.

You will be missed Mr. Davis.

On a lighter note, I couldn’t have been more disappointed by a boxing fight. Cory Spinks versus Zab Judah II. I guess we were set up for failure, having such a big event in St. Louis. World Series. No hockey. Rams choke. Now this. One person told me that they think it was a setup so there would be a third bout between the two. Whatever… I’m just mad that Judah, coming from a LOWER weight class basically made Spinks look like a chump in his own home town. Am I bitter? Yeah maybe. We watched the bout on Showtime and the only thing more disappointing than the loss itself was that the camera crew didn’t show any of the stars in the audience. I WAS most definitely looking forward to seeing Denzel Washington!! …Oh and I was curious as to what Beyonce and Jay Z were wearing LOL.

Had I not been able to spend time with JT and the twins and eat the lovely Imo’s pizza double the hamburger I would have demanded my money back, but wait I didn’t pay for anything. But mark this event down in the category of reasons to move away from St. Louis. I’m serious.

First of all… A little Black History for you.

On this day…

1839 Spark Plug Patent
Inventor Edmond Berger patented the spark plug.

1862 District of Columbia abolishes slavery
District of Columbia abolishes slavery

1897 A.L. Cralle patents Ice Cream Mold
Cralle, A. L.

Ice-Cream Mold
Feb. 02, 1897
Patent No.576,395

1897 Ice Cream Scooper Invented
Alfred L. Cralle invented the ice cram
scooper, patent #576,395

1912 Quartet Singer Herbert Mills born
Herbert Mills, of the original Mills Brothers Quartet, was born in Piqua, Ohio. The highly successful quartet was known for its smooth harmony.

Source: http://www.blackfacts.com/”

Happy Black History Month

To kick off Black History Month, let us start off with a quiz that I found at: http://www.indystar.com/articles/4/218931-6664-047.html

Multiple choice

1. Which amendment to the Constitution guaranteed Black people (and all citizens) equal protection under the law?

a) The 15th.
b) The 26th.
c) The 14th.

2. Black people, women and people ages 18 to 21 have all been kept from voting at some point in the history of the United States. In what order were these groups given the right to vote?

a) Black men, then women, then people 18 to 21.
b) People 18 to 21, then Black men, then women.
c) Women, then Black men, then people 18 to 21.

3. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the first secretary-general from sub-Saharan Africa, is from what country:

a) Ghana.
b) South Africa.
c) Nigeria.

4. What landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision struck down the idea of “separate but equal” schools for Black people and whites?

a) Plessy v. Ferguson.
b) Brown v. The Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas.
c) University of California v. Bakke.

5.The holiday Juneteenth commemorates the day in 1865 when:

a) Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, thus freeing slaves.
b) Word reached Texas that Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
c) Lincoln declared war with the South over the issue of slavery.

6. Negro League pitcher Satchel Paige played with which famous band leader:

a) Benny Goodman.
b) Duke Ellington.
c) Louis Armstrong.

True or false

7. In the “Tuskegee Experiment,” the United States monitored 399 Black men with syphilis for 40 years to see what would happen to them — even though the men were never told they had syphilis and a cure for the disease was discovered decades before the experiment ended.

8. The holiday Kwanzaa was created by Black activist and scholar Maulana Karenga in 1966.