Austin Chumlee Russell Ring Bearer

Austin Chumlee Russell Ring Bearer, Pawn Stars’ fan favorite Austin “Chumlee” Russell often plays the role of clown on the set of the hugely popular History Channel reality series. With the upcoming nuptials of Rick Harrison and fiancée Deanna Burdick, however, he’ll take on a more serious role as the couple’s ring bearer.

Harrison revealed wedding details to People Magazine recently, including the posh Ritz Carlton Laguna Beach location of his July 21 wedding fete. Most interestingly, Chumlee will serve as ring bearer. “I can’t make that up,” says Harrison.

Although most know the loveable Chumlee as a jokester at the World Famous Gold & Silver Pawn Shop in Las Vegas, Rick Harrison has known the loveable prankster since he was a child. As a long-time friend of Harrison’s son Corey, Chumlee has been a part of Harrison’s life for many years, with the History Channel describing a father/son relationship between the two.

Since the days of Victorian England, ring bearers have been relied upon to safely deliver the wedding bands to the alter, symbolizing the new bond between the bride and groom. And while most choose a young boy for this role, Harrison’s choice of Chumlee signifies just how close the two are, and how trusted a friend he is to the couple.

In addition to Chumlee’s inclusion in the ceremony, Harrison also told People Magazine that History Channel star Danny Koker will become an ordained minister in order to perform the wedding ceremony.

John Slaughter tribe Tattoo denver

John Slaughter tribe Tattoo denver, Chris “Birdman” Andersen, one would suggest, earned his wings — but, truth is, he bought them. A dude named John Slaughter, a local tattoo artist whom Andersen trusts like one of his Nuggets teammates, is responsible for the flame-colored wings under Birdman’s biceps, arguably the coolest tattoos on a team coated with them.

Slaughter inks “his heart and his soul” into each tattoo, Andersen said, as if the process were a spiritual ritual. In a way, it is. Slaughter is spellbound by tribes; his shop in Denver is filled with artifacts from Alaska to Peru to Indonesia. And annually, the white man drives seven hours to the South Dakota land of the Lakota Sioux, who historically tattooed themselves for entrance into the afterlife.

On the reservation, Slaughter immerses himself in their four-day Sundance ceremony of praying, dancing, meditating, fasting and body-piercing.
Slaughter understands the link of tribes and tattoos. Sure enough, his shop is called Tribe Tattoo.

“Tattoos, for thousands of years, have been associated with tribes of people,” the 37-year-old Slaughter said. “And throughout the NBA, we are the most-tattooed team. It says that they’re pretty self-expressive.

“It’s almost like every single tattoo is a stage or a level in life that you’ve accomplished or gotten through — and where you’re headed next.”

Slaughter’s favorite team is headed to the Western Conference finals, for the first time since 1985. The Nuggets got there by embodying what is tattooed on their bodies.

“I think tattoos are a little bit from a culture of warriors,” said Nuggets coach George Karl, who has considered but not taken the plunge of getting tattoos that match what his adult daughter and son wear. “I’m not comparing basketball players to warriors, but there’s nature of competition that’s always been compared to warriors. And I like symbolism.”

Henry John Heinz III

Henry John Heinz III, Henry John Heinz (October 11, 1844 – May 14, 1919) was an American businessman who founded the H. J. Heinz Company. Heinz was one of eight children born to John Henry Heinz and Anna Margaretha Heinz. Both parents had emigrated from Kallstadt, Germany and settled in the Birmingham section of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-today known as the South Side.

When Henry was six, the family moved several miles up the Allegheny River to the little town of Sharpsburg. There, at age six, young Henry (called Harry by his family) started helping his mother tend a small backyard garden behind the family home. At age eight Henry was canvassing the neighborhood with a basket under each arm selling vegetables from the family garden door to door. By age nine he was growing, grinding, bottling and selling his own brand of horseradish sauce, based on his mother’s recipe. At ten he was given a ¾-acre (3,000 m²) garden of his own and had graduated to a wheelbarrow to deliver his vegetables. At twelve he was working 3½ acres (14,000 m²) of garden using a horse and cart for his three-times-a-week deliveries to grocery stores in Pittsburgh. At seventeen he was grossing $2,400 a year-a handsome sum for the times.

Heinz attended public schools and then Duff’s Business College. After graduating from college, he started employment with his father’s brick manufacturing business, eventually becoming a partner in the firm. During this time he continued growing and selling fresh produce.

Rod Blagojevich Scandal

Rod Blagojevich Scandal, Lawyers didn’t invent the insanity defense for guys like Rod Blagojevich, but it may soon come in handy. As recently as last month, the leather-jacket-wearing Illinois governor imagined himself as a potential candidate for President in 2016. Meantime, he said, he wouldn’t mind getting a Cabinet post, an ambassadorship or even a high-paying corporate gig. Driving these fantasies was his statutory power to name a replacement for former Senator Barack Obama — a power that to Blagojevich seemed like money in the bank. “I’ve got this thing, and it’s f______ golden,” he told an aide a day after the November elections on a home phone that was tapped by the FBI. “I’m just not giving it up for f______ nothing.”

Blagojevich, 52, was either delusional, stupid or some combination of both. The feds had been on his case for years, and he knew it. Early on the morning of Dec. 9, federal Marshals woke him up with a predawn phone call, then arrived at his front door and handcuffed him shortly thereafter. By the afternoon, he stood in a Chicago courtroom looking like a common criminal, his feathered hair out of place, his executive wardrobe replaced with a black-and-blue Nike tracksuit. He faces the prospect of 30 years in prison on charges of conspiring to commit mail and wire fraud and soliciting bribes. (Read TIME’s top 10 political lines of 2008.)

His alleged crimes were as outrageous as his inflated sense of self, the sort of behavior we expect of Hollywood villains, not Midwestern governors. He was accused not just with conspiring to solicit bribes but with conspiring to solicit bribes from the next President of the United States. He was accused not merely with planning extortion but with trying to force the Tribune Co. to fire editorial writers in exchange for a tax break worth about $100 million. According to authorities, he even threatened to revoke millions in funding for a Chicago children’s hospital if its CEO did not pay his campaign a $50,000 tribute. The full buffet of alleged graft was laid out in a 76-page federal complaint that described the sort of corruption superheroes battle in comic books.

And as is often the case in graphic novels, there was no time for the hero to lose. U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald began wiretapping the governor in mid-October and by mid-November could hear that Obama’s old seat was being auctioned to the highest bidder. Fitzgerald feared that the longer Blagojevich remained as governor, the more likely he would name someone to replace Obama in exchange for a bribe. “Sunlight is the best disinfectant, as Justice Brandeis said,” explained Robert Litt, who served in the Justice Department under Bill Clinton. “By bringing this all out into the open, Fitzgerald is making the assumption that nobody would dare cut a deal with Blagojevich now, and he himself will be deterred from making one. And if he is stripped of his power to make the appointment, all the better.”

The Blagojevich scandal will prove to be a distraction for Obama, a Chicago pol made good who was hoping to put old-fashioned Chicago politics in his rearview mirror. The criminal complaint produced no evidence that Obama or his aides have done anything wrong. Blagojevich was, in fact, recorded complaining that Obama’s people were “not willing to give me anything except appreciation.” Obama himself maintains that he never talked to Blagojevich about the Senate seat, and during the recent campaign, the two men kept their distance from each other.

But the President-elect’s political universe overlaps uncomfortably with the Illinois governor’s seamy world of swagger, cussing and kickbacks. Obama’s new chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, once boasted that he and Obama had worked closely with Blagojevich on his 2002 election, which was billed as a reformist campaign — a claim that Obama aides deny and Emanuel has since retracted as “wrong.” As recently as 2006, Obama told a reporter he had concerns about allegations of corruption involving state Democrats, though he added that he would be “happy” to work to support the governor’s re-election bid.

Pat Brown California Governor

Pat Brown California Governor, Edmund G. “Pat” Brown
1959 – 1967
Significant Facts
Born:April 21, 1905 in San Francisco, California
Died: February 16, 1996 in Beverly Hills, California
Married:Bernice Layne on October 30, 1930 in Reno, Nevada
Political Party: Democrat

Biography
As a boy growing up in San Francisco, Brown earned his own money by delivering two newspapers-the Call and the Chronicle. After graduating from high school, Brown studied law at the San Francisco College of Law, where he graduated first in his class. While he was in law school, he worked for Milton Schmitt, a blind attorney. After he graduated from law school, Brown continued to work for Mr. Schmitt and upon Schmitt’s death, Brown took over the practice.

On January 8, 1944, Brown was sworn into office as San Francisco’s District Attorney, a post he held until 1950 when he became the state’s Attorney General. He served two terms as California’s Attorney General.

In 1958, Brown was elected Governor, winning by more than 1 million votes. Four years later, Brown defeated Richard Nixon to serve a second term as Governor. While in office, Brown achieved a statewide water plan and improvements in higher education. Brown also ended the practice of cross-filing for political candidates, and backed the use of computers in state government. His most controversial move was when he granted a 60-day reprieve to Caryl Chessman, who was convicted of rape and kidnapping with bodily harm (and eventually executed).

Governor Brown died as a result of a heart attack. He was 90 years old.