AfroCentric News Portal

CONGO; THE RAPE OF WOMEN AS A WEAPON OF WAR

2011-05-12T07:17:00.000-07:00

Shocking! 48 Women Raped Every Hour In Congo, 1,152 Per Day

Women in Congo
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CONGO– An estimated 1,152 women are raped every day, or 48 per hour, in Congo according to a study to appear in the American Journal of Public Health.

In one particularly war-ravaged part of the country, 67 out of every 1,000 women have been raped at least once. By comparison, the annual rate in the US is 0.5 per 1,000.

“The message is important and clear: Rape in (Congo) has metastasized amid a climate of impunity, and has emerged as one of the great human crises of our time,” says the director of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative.

Study authors relied on figures from a government health survey and pooled data from across the country to conclude that 29 Congolese women out of every 1,000 were raped.

Congo has been called the worst place on earth to be a woman, and it is tragically living up to its reputation. The Hague to declare rape a weapon of war. During 15 years of war, hundreds of thousands of women and girls have been raped and tortured in the Congo.

Rising Rape In Congo Unveils U.N’s Weakness
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Four armed men barged into Anna Mburano’s hut, slapped the children and threw them down. They flipped Mrs. Mburano on her back, she said, and raped her, repeatedly.

It did not matter that dozens of United Nations peacekeepers were based just up the road. Or that Mrs. Mburano is around 80 years old.

“Grandsons!” she yelled. “Get off me!”
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The mineral coltan mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is used in the production of cell phones, laptop computers and digital cameras, but has also been cited as fueling conflicts in the Congo that have killed an estimated 5.4 million people since 1998.

“Somehow we’ve been desensitized to Black Africa,”. “We see it as their fault because we don’t see our part in it.”

“A million people in displaced camps. Can you even imagine that?”

“When you go through an event like that, you say, ‘What is my life worth?’” “Certainly not to gain material things.”

“I believe we are all one. We’re all connected,”. “If somebody is suffering in the Congo and I have everything that I need — people are only happy when they share.

STORY REF: NEWS ONE

A HUGH POSITIVE FOR OUR COMMANDER AND CHIEF OBAMA

2011-05-03T05:33:00.000-07:00

So many New Yorkers were murdered on September 11, there is a sigh of relief in the air. Many people all over the world were overjoyed!

I have witnessed Obama constantly having to prove himself over and over again.

It also really is "the single most important success the United States has had in its war against al Qaeda."

Hats off to our nation President Barack Obama! His descision helped
America looks strong again: Bin Laden's death "matters because the U.S. put a marker down,"

“He looks stronger than he has on any other issue.” A Democratic Insider echoed that this is a “huge positive for him as commander in chief: the more details come out the better he and his national security team look.” Another Democratic Insider noted: “One of the main criticisms [of Obama] is that when it comes to foreign policy, he is not strong enough and is an apologist to the world—this puts those arguments to bed.”

"Imagine the effort to go through Osama's laptop."

===========================

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that 25% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president.

With the successful military strike, Insiders in both parties felt that Obama has been able to quell doubts about his conduct of foreign policy and burnished his leadership image. “For once the President has shown he can lead and get results,” said one Republican Insider.

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Thirty-seven percent (37%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -12 (see trends).

Americans today are celebrating the news that Osama bin Laden is dead. The update on the president’s Job Approval ratings is based upon interviews completed before that news was released.

President Obama’s ratings have remained remarkably steady over the past 18 months through a whole series of major news events.

S. Africa Groups Call for Economic Shift

2010-10-03T05:21:00.000-07:00

September 16, 2010

African and Caribbean Influential South African political groups are demanding a leftward shift in the country's market-friendly policies — including nationalizing mines — which they say have left too many citizens jobless and poor.

In the lead-up to a policy review next week, the country's largest trade union group has called for a radical change in policy. The youth wing of the governing African National Congress is calling for mines to be nationalized. Mining of gold, platinum and coal is a pillar of South Africa's economy.

The South African Communist Party has called for a state-owned mining company, but not the complete nationalization supported by the ANC Youth League.

The ANC and its allies will meet next week in Durban for a trial run for building a platform for the next general elections in 2014. Business groups will be watching closely.

The party has won every election since the first multiracial vote in 1994 but relies on support from the trade union bloc and from the communist party. The ANC's youth wing is known for getting voters to the polls.

Analysts say the ruling party will feel pressure to bow to supporters' demands before the 2014 election.

The union bloc and the communist party — whose members sit on key ANC leadership bodies and in the ANC Cabinet — helped engineer the ascendance of President Jacob Zuma in acrimonious 2007 party elections.

Economist Zamikhaya Maseti said he expects "a radical ANC government to emerge after the party 2012 conference and beyond" because of pressure from the left. Others, though, expect the general free market trends to hold.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions asked for more state intervention in currency rates and redistribution of income. It also proposed the formation of a state bank.

The union bloc says Zuma isn't fulfilling pledges to create decent jobs — in the face of unemployment of at least 24 percent — and share the country's wealth equitably. It says the Zuma administration is too wedded to market-friendly policies.

"We are headed in the direction of a full-blown predator state, in which a powerful, corrupt and demagogic elite of political hyenas increasingly controls the state," the bloc, known as Cosatu, said in a statement. "The ANC-led government should focus on redistribution of income and power in favor of the working class."

Cosatu's general secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi, who recently led 1.3 million public service workers on a debilitating three-week wage strike, has hinted at a possible withdrawal of Cosatu's support for the ANC at the polls.

But political analyst Adam Habib, based at the University of Johannesburg, said he thinks the tensions ahead of Monday's conference are "mere skirmishes and not serious battles" between those who want to retain market policies and socialists.

He added that he thinks it unlikely that mines will be nationalized.

"The youth league doesn't have the power it thinks it has," he said.

Source: The Associated Press.

Thornton: Tells 911 Of Racist Work Place

2010-08-06T08:04:00.000-07:00

Omar Thornton, 34, The emergency call confirmed suggestions from his relatives and girlfriend that he believed he was avenging racist treatment in the workplace.

"You probably want to know the reason why I shot this place up," he said, his voice steady. "This place is a racist place. They're treating me bad over here. And treat all other black employees bad over here, too. So I took it to my own hands and handled the problem. I wish I could have got more of the people."

Connecticut State Police released the audio of the four-minute emergency call on Thursday, the day company and union officials rebutted suggestions that the company had ignored Thornton's complaints of racism.

Is Hartford Distributors Racist?

According to Thornton; these people were racist from day one!
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Hartford Distributors president Ross Hollander said there was no record to support claims of "racial insensitivity" made through the company's anti-harassment policy, the union grievance process or state and federal agencies.

'Ugly allegations'

"Nonetheless, these ugly allegations have been raised and the company will cooperate with any investigation," Hollander said.

Sankofa*

In my opinion, The Black Community should boycott Budweiser Brewery, as well as the union leader, for ignoring his complaint about racism at his place of work.

The Black communities should stop buying their products, as a show of unity.

Many of us don't realize how stressful it is, to be the only Black in a company, surrounded by racist vibes, at the work place. Racism can be felted, and seen by the actions of those who want it to be known.

The idea that Thornton's motive may not have been retaliation for losing his job has not sat well with many of the people who knew the victims.

This is obscured, We all could plainly see, a frustrated hard working "Black Man", trying to cope with the racist attitudes, he had to deal with, day to day.

When the report first broke, they were saying they asked him to resign, later they say he was fired. In my view we have to weigh in and sift out the truth for ourselves.

When I first heard of him shooting his union representative, I thought, why? But later understood, he ignored Thornton's complaints, now he was there for the termination. I could just imagine what was going on in his head.

Although, seeing this tragedy, we feel for the families, but had not Thornton's complaint been ignored, maybe this tragedy wouldn't have took place.

Thornton's ex-girlfriend, Jessica Anne Brocuglio, told The Associated Press on Thursday that he had a history of racial problems with co-workers at other jobs and believed he was denied pay raises because of his race.

She said he told her: "I'm sick of having to quit jobs and get another job because they can't accept me."

Thornton's girlfriend of the past eight years, Kristi Hannah, said he showed her cell phone photos of racist graffiti in the bathroom at the beer company and overheard managers using a racial epithet in reference to him. Police said they recovered the phone and forensics experts would examine it.

Thornton complained about nooses being hung in the bathroom at work. High level managers doing the deed. Although, they are saying they have minorities working for them, I feel they would be afraid to admit any wrong doing, in fear of retribution.

BOTTOM LINE............

We really need to deal with the issue of Racism in the US.

Wyclef Jean Runs For President Of Haiti

2010-08-06T05:38:00.000-07:00

Wyclef Jean Hip-hop star Wyclef Jean is running for president of his native Haiti after officially filing election papers confirming his candidacy on Thursday.

The Fugees rapper ended weeks of speculation when he jetted into the country on Thursday morning and headed straight to the electoral council office in the capital Port-Au-Prince to lodge the documents, according to the AFP.

Jean, who had earlier stepped down as head of his Yele Haiti charity, was accompanied by his wife Marie Claudinette and their adopted daughter, Angelina.

The star revealed his race for presidency was driven by "the people of Haiti", who are still dealing with the aftermath of January's devastating earthquake - and he's hoping to tackle issues including education and infrastructure if he's elected.

But Jean admits the rebuilding of the impoverished Caribbean nation "is going to take 25 to 30 years."

He tells the Wall Street Journal, "I always say that Wyclef Jean is not running for the presidency of Haiti, I'm being drafted by the people of Haiti.

"My whole life since I was a kid, the country has had political turmoil. The reason why is that there's never been one person who can unite all parties and get them to work together.

"I think there are issues we can start tackling - the education, the literacy problem, the job creation problem, the agricultural component. The idea that if everything is being imported how do we get our export back.

"These are some of the things that I feel we can start tackling. And when I say job creation, the infrastructure, the reconstruction of Haiti, should not only (involve) international contractors, but there should be local Haitian contractors too."

Jean is expected to join revered newsman Larry King on his CNN show tonight to give his first official interview as a candidate in the Haitian presidential elections.

7 MILLION SETTLEMENT AWARED IN SEAN BELL'S CASE

2010-07-28T08:44:00.000-07:00

Closing a key chapter in one of the most controversial police shootings in recent memory, New York City agreed on Tuesday to pay more than $7 million to settle a federal lawsuit filed by the family and two friends of Sean Bell, a 23-year-old black man who was fatally shot by the police in 2006 on what would have been his wedding day.

The decision by the city came after two days of intense negotiations in Federal District Court in Brooklyn. The children whom Mr. Bell had with his fiancée, Nicole Paultre Bell, will receive $3.25 million, and two friends of Mr. Bell’s who were injured in the episode will also receive payments, with Joseph Guzman getting $3 million, and Trent Benefield $900,000.

The lawsuit, filed in 2007, accused the police of wrongful death, negligence, assault and civil rights violations. But it had repeatedly stalled as the state and federal governments and city police officials investigated the shooting.

The case, whose settlement ranks among the biggest in recent years involving the city’s police, set off a raw debate over the use of deadly force and prompted the city to change some of its policing procedures. Those include alcohol testing for officers in any shooting in which someone is injured, as well as improved firearms training.

On Nov. 25, 2006, five police officers — three of whom were black and two white — fired 50 shots into the Nissan Altima that Mr. Bell was driving outside a strip club in Queens. The car struck a detective in the leg and hit a police van just before the officers began firing.

None of the three men in the car had guns, although the officers apparently believed at least one did.

Three of the officers were acquitted of manslaughter and reckless endangerment charges in State Supreme Court in Queens in 2008. The other two officers who opened fire did not face criminal charges.

Federal prosecutors declined in February to file civil rights charges against the officers, citing insufficient evidence.

Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, said the department could now proceed with its administrative case against the eight officers with some involvement in the episode. Mr. Browne had no comment on the settlement.

At the federal courthouse in Downtown Brooklyn, Ms. Bell, 26, emerged from a courtroom looking weary after two days of negotiations, arm in arm with Mr. Bell’s mother, Valerie. Ms. Bell said the settlement was fair but not a victory. “No amount of money can provide closure, no amount of money can make up for the pain,” she said. “We’ll just try to learn how to live with it and move on.”

The money will go to her two children with Mr. Bell, Jada, 7, and Jordyn, 4; she will not receive a share because she was not married to Mr. Bell (she took his name legally after his death). Ms. Bell promised to keep pushing for the passage of police reforms intended to prevent a similar episode.

Standing beside her, Mr. Guzman, 34, said he was sure that something similar would happen again. “I don’t think a black or Hispanic man’s life means much in this city,” he said.

Mr. Guzman had walked out of the courtroom with a noticeable limp. “My injuries are my injuries,” he said. “I’ve got a metal rod in my leg. I’ve got four bullets still in me. I’ve got one pushing out my back right now.”

Mr. Benefield, 26, was not present, but he is expected to join Ms. Bell and Mr. Guzman at a news conference Wednesday at the Brooklyn offices of one of their lawyers, Sanford A. Rubenstein. “It’s a fair and reasonable settlement,” Mr. Rubenstein said.

Michael A. Cardozo, the city’s corporation counsel, said: “The Sean Bell shooting highlighted the complexities our dedicated officers must face each day. The city regrets the loss of life in this tragic case, and we share our deepest condolences with the Bell family. The city is also settling claims with Mr. Guzman and Mr. Benefield. We hope that all parties can find some measure of closure by this settlement.”

But Michael J. Palladino, the president of the Detectives Endowment Association, criticized the settlement as “laughable.”

Albert W. O’Leary, a spokesman for the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, declined to comment on the settlement. The five officers who fired the shots and were named in the lawsuit will not have to contribute to the settlement.

The five officers who opened fire — Detectives Gescard F. Isnora, Michael Oliver, Marc Cooper and Paul Headley and Officer Michael Carey — were part of a unit investigating the strip club. All are on modified assignment, with no gun and no shield, Mr. Browne said. Officer Headley is on military leave.

Lt. Gary Napoli, the supervising officer that night, is also on modified assignment, Mr. Browne said, facing internal charges of failing to supervise the operation. Two other officers, Detective Robert Knapp and Sgt. Hugh McNeil of the Crime Scene Unit, were also internally charged, the detective with failing to thoroughly process the crime scene, and the sergeant with failing to ensure that thorough processing was done, Mr. Browne said.

The settlement was among the largest in recent years involving the police. In 2004, the family of Amadou Diallo agreed to a $3 million settlement after Mr. Diallo, an unarmed immigrant from West Africa, died in a hail of 41 police bullets in the Bronx. In 2001, Abner Louima, a Haitian immigrant who was tortured with a broken broomstick in a Brooklyn police station in 1997, was awarded a total of $8.75 million in a settlement with the city and the police union.

Source: NY Times

================

New York City will pay over $7 million to settle a civil suit levied by the family of Sean Bell.

Bell was slain the night before his wedding in 2006 by New York City police. A judge finalized the settlement yesterday in Brooklyn Federal Court, which also outlined the terms of the deal.

Sean Bell's estate will receive $3.25 million. Also, Joseph Guzman, a friend of Bell that was wounded too, will get $3 million. Trent Benefield, another friend wounded in the hail of police bullets will get $900,000.

Police shot more than 50 bullets at Bell and his friends when the men were out celebrating after his bachelor party. The police were both plainclothes and uniformed.

"The Sean Bell shooting highlighted the complexities our dedicated officers must face each day." Michael Cardozo, the city’s corporation counsel. "The city regrets the loss of life in this tragic case, and we share our deepest condolences with the Bell family."

"We hope that all the parties can find some measure of closure by this settlement," he concluded.

N. Iowa Billboard Unfairly Links OBAMA to Hitler

2010-07-16T05:47:00.000-07:00

An Iowa Tea Party group recently caused an uproar by creating a billboard that compares President Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. What is even more interesting is that other members of the Tea Party are condemning the ad as well.

The ad shows pictures of Obama, Hitler and Lenin with the label, "Democrat Socialism," "National Socialism," and "Marxist Socialism." Below the pictures are the words, "Radical leaders prey on the fearful & naive."

The group's co-founder says that the billboard is simply meant to be a message against socialism, but some of the members of the Tea Party openly disagreed with the tone and nature of the message:

The North Iowa Tea Party began displaying the billboard in downtown Mason City last week. The sign shows large photographs of Obama, Nazi leader Hitler and communist leader Lenin beneath the labels "Democrat Socialism," "National Socialism," and "Marxist Socialism."

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Let's be "Perfectly Clear" the billboard comparing President Obama to Adolf Hitler is wrong. Linking Obama to Hitler, the leader of Nazi Germany who oversaw the killing of 6 million Jews and whose invasions of neighboring countries led to World War II. is madness! While Obama simply changed the health care system. Can we really compare the two?

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The ugly head of racism is such a subtle social disease, that we are not usually aware when it impacts our choices.

The outrage that America has shown toward its first "Black President" is no different from the anger that an angry white mob showed toward the "uppity negro" who said, "Hello," to a white woman 70 years ago.

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Even in those situations, people went out of their way to distinguish the "good blacks" from the bad ones. Being "good" effectively meant that you knew your place,

Has America forgotten that President Obama inherited this mess of an economy, and the problems of this nation? It will take more time then he has been given to ATTEMPT to solve this Nations issues.

Although, the Tea Party commited this childish act, at least a few members disagreed with this tactic of sending a message of hate.

That's just a waste of money, time, resources and it's not going to further our cause," said Shelby Blakely, a leaders of the Tea Party Patriots, a national group. "It's not going to help our cause. It's going to make people think that the tea party is full of a bunch of right-wing fringe people, and that's not true."

Seem like Bush would have been a better candidate for the poster than Obama hands down, but we all know it's the racist game of politcal gain taking place.

The N. Iowa Tea Party members who participated in this foul plot, should suffer some ramifications for their actions, because it's basically slanderous,"

Bottom line..............

Sankofa*

Black Leaders to Move Against Conservative Attempt to Distort King Dream

2010-07-15T06:40:00.000-07:00

National Correspondent

NEW YORK - Black Civil Rights leaders are furious that they will not be able to organize a march to commemorate the 47th anniversary of the historic March on Washington and Dr. Martin Luther King's famed “I Have A Dream” speech at the location where it happened this year because infamous right wing Fox News personality and radio host Glenn Beck already booked the Lincoln Memorial on Aug. 28th to hold his own rally.

“We're going to get together because we are not going to let Glenn Beck own the symbolism of Aug. 28th, 2010,”

National Urban League President and CEO Marc Morial said during a National Newspaper Publishers Association breakfast at NNPA’s 70th Anniversary Celebration at the Sheraton Hotel and Towers on Friday. “Someone said to me, ‘Maybe we shouldn't challenge him. Maybe we should just let him have it.

“I was like,’ Brother, where have you been? Where is your courage? Where is your sense of outrage?” We need to collaborate and bring together all people of good will, not just Black people, on Aug. 28 to send a message that Glenn Beck's vision of America is not our vision of America.

As both a solution and response to what the leaders perceive as an attack on the legacy of King, NAACP President Ben Jealous announced at the conference that a national march for jobs and justice will be held on October 2 instead.

“A group of White males wealthier than their peers called the Tea Party has risen up in the land,'' said Jealous. ''They say that they want to take the country back. And take it back they surely will. They will take it back to 1963 if we let them.”

Last week, the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, or AFL-CIO, the country's largest federation of labor unions, announced that they were going to endorse a march for jobs that Jealous will be co-leading in Washington on Oct. 2. Other national civil rights leaders and organizations are also endorsing the Oct. jobs march as a follow up to an Aug. 28 protest of Beck.

''We will be fighting Glenn Beck on Aug. 28th and we will be using that to leverage the second march,” Jealous said. “That march has to happen. Our people are dying right now, literally, from lack of access to jobs.”
The Rev. Al Sharpton of the National Action Network, who also spoke at the NNPA Convention, said Beck will distort King’s Legacy and his message.

“On the anniversary of the March on Washington, Glenn Beck is going to talk about the dream of Martin Luther King and how he was with them – not us. So, we’ve been traveling all over this country because there is no way in the world that I am going to allow him to have more people there than us. I hope every Black person in the country will help us to challenge this. Everybody’s got to be in Washington. We can’t let them high jack Dr. King’s dream.”

Morial called Beck's right wing conservative vision “intolerant”.

“His vision is of an America of the past,” Morial said. “Our vision is of an America that understands its past but is of the future. Too many times we have become spectators. Some people thought that since Mr. Obama became president that they could go back to their couch to sit down and watch. Look at what have we witnessed - the resurgent voice of extremism. The 14th amendment has been incorrectly interpreted. They are talking in code talking about that we have to save our country. This is our country too.”

Morial added, ''One of the things that is so curious to me is the way that groups on the right have been very, very observant and have begun to utilize the tactics of the civil rights movement- marching, organizing in churches, things that we're the backbone of civil rights advocacy in the 1950s and 1960s. Others have begun to use those techniques and use those tactics. It would be a mistake if we would treat it and didn't recognize that the people in our communities and people across the nation who believe as we do that the future of this nation has to be inclusive in a multi-racial fashion so that African-Americans are involved in the major things that take place in this country.''

Upon the 70th anniversary of NNPA and the upcoming 100th anniversary of the NUL, Morial also spoke about the need to craft a new Black agenda in a “time of great contradictions”, referencing the 2000 presidential election that was decided by a 5-4 Supreme Court vote in favor of George W. Bush, the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Hurricane Katrina, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the recent economic recession that was one of the worst in U.S. history and very recently, the unprecedented oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. But he then countered with the historicity of this decade with the ascension of Black men as the president of the United States, as the head of the Department of Justice, and as Black chief executives of some the country's most powerful corporations such as Merrill Lynch, Xerox and American Express.

''Along the continuum of history, no one would have suggested or predicted that any of the above would occur in just a ten year period,'' Morial said. ''These are times when the history books are being written and re-
written. In 1999, Black America had a 7.2 percent unemployment rate, the lowest rate in the 50 years since kind of data have been recorded. And now, ten years plus later, our unemployment rate is twice as high and the real rate is even higher. Against this backdrop of difficult and tough times, that we have also witnessed, African-Americans achieve the highest places in American life. These are the times that you and I, as community and civic leaders, are bound to address the challenges.''

He rallied for a new period of Black activism. He coined it “intelligent activism”, which he described as changing the conversation by “not raising hollow, holy” hell but, rather, making a pointed case with common sense facts and arguments.

“We have to be driven by our objective,” Morial said. “Dr. King, Thurmond Marshall and all of the great leaders of the 1960s had an objective, which was to end segregation in American life. And they achieved that objective as a matter of law. Our objective needs to be to end disparities in American life to achieve economic parity in the 21st century.”

Morial said that African-Americans, because of their size, are a force to be reckoned with. There are an estimated 40 million Black people that account for $800 billion dollars in spending in the U.S, according to Morial. There are also ten thousand Black elected officials in various local, state and national offices.

“We are a community that has assets and power as much as we want to organize it and use it,” Morial said. “I want us to think of ourselves as a community of assets that brings something to the economic table of America, not as a community of deficits and problems, so that we are not coming looking with a handout. We are looking as an investor in the American dream.”

Blacks Still Support Obama: Jobs Is High Concern

2010-07-15T06:17:00.000-07:00

Black voters, like those who lined up in the District to cast ballots for Obama in 2008, may be less enthusiastic about midterm elections. Many are concerned about persistently high unemployment.
(Marvin Joseph/the Washington Post)
======================================================

Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, July 11, 2010

KANSAS CITY, MO. -- Curtis Adams, who owns Curtis A's barbershop here and who is also the establishment's senior political analyst, is a close observer of President Obama. This is something of a full-time job itself at Curtis A's, a gathering place in a black neighborhood five miles from downtown. All day every day, men (and occasionally women) come for a trim and wind up lingering to argue about jobs and the oil spill and the war in Iraq.

But mostly jobs. "If Obama was in this chair right here, I would tell him to give me a job. That's what I would ask for," said customer E.J. Jones one recent afternoon. Jones has worked off and on since he was let go from an Army ammunition plant in 2008.

The recession was especially rough on Kansas City's black community, where unemployment is 15 percent, nearly three times the rate for whites. Adams pointed to the empty chairs in his shop. He's down 75 customers a week. Of Obama, he said: "That man has a hell of a workload, and Bush left a hell of a mess. I like what he's doing. But I can't feel it."

Despite his frustration with the slow pace of the recovery, Adams, who has portraits of the first family on the walls of his shop, doesn't think Obama bears the blame for his troubles. And neither do most black Americans. Just the opposite:

===================================================
Polls show that 90 percent of African Americans believe Obama is doing a good job, far higher than the president's overall 46 percent approval rating. Obama's popularity has dropped among nearly every segment of the population -- old, young, Republican, Democrat, white, Latino.

Yet blacks still overwhelmingly support him, even though they are among those who have lost the most since he was elected.

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"We understand the difficulty of being a black man in his position, because of our close proximity to race and how it affects our lives, so we are willing to give him the benefit of the doubt,"

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SOURCE: WASHINGTON POST

18th-Century Ship Found at WTC Site

2010-07-15T05:38:00.000-07:00
Sankofa*

Could this ship be a slave ship?

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By DAVID W. DUNLAP

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
Archaeologists examined the remains of a wooden ship found at the World Trade Center site.

In the middle of tomorrow, a great ribbed ghost has emerged from a distant yesterday.

On Tuesday morning, workers excavating the site of the underground vehicle security center for the future World Trade Center hit a row of sturdy, upright wood timbers, regularly spaced, sticking out of a briny gray muck flecked with oyster shells.

Obviously, these were more than just remnants of the wooden cribbing used in the late 18th and early 19th centuries to extend the shoreline of Manhattan Island ever farther into the Hudson River. (Lower Manhattan real estate was a precious commodity even then.)

“They were so perfectly contoured that they were clearly part of a ship,” said A. Michael Pappalardo, an archaeologist with the firm AKRF, which is working for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to document historical material uncovered during construction.

By Wednesday, the outlines made it plain: a 30-foot length of a wood-hulled vessel had been discovered about 20 to 30 feet below street level on the World Trade Center site, the first such large-scale archaeological find along the Manhattan waterfront since 1982, when an 18th-century cargo ship came to light at 175 Water Street.

The area under excavation, between Liberty and Cedar Streets, had not been dug out for the original trade center. The vessel, presumably dating from the mid- to late 1700s, was evidently undisturbed more than 200 years.

News of the find spread quickly. Archaeologists and officials hurried to the site, not only because of the magnitude of the discovery but because construction work could not be interrupted and because the timber, no longer safe in its cocoon of ooze, began deteriorating as soon as it was exposed to air.

For that reason, Doug Mackey, the chief regional archaeologist for the New York State Historic Preservation Office, was grateful for the rainfall. “If the sun had been out,” he said, “the wood would already have started to fall apart.”

As other archaeologists scrambled with tape measures over what appeared to be the floor planks of the ship’s lowermost deck, Mr. Mackey said, “We’re trying to record it as quickly as possible and do the analysis later.” All around the skeletal hull, excavation for the security center proceeded, changing the muddy terrain every few minutes.

Romantics may conjure the picture of an elegant schooner passing in sight of the spire of Trinity Church. Professional archaeologists are much more reserved.

They were even careful not to say for certain whether they were looking at the prow or the stern of the vessel, though the fanlike array of beams seemed to suggest that the aft (rear) portion of the ship was exposed. Mr. Pappalardo said the whole vessel may have been two or three times longer than the portion found.

Perhaps the most puzzling and intriguing find was a semicircular metal collar, several feet across, apparently supported on a brick base, built into the hull. Perhaps it was some sort of an oven or steam contraption.

About the farthest Mr. Mackey and Mr. Pappalardo would go in conjecture was to say that the sawed-off beams seemed to indicate that the hull had deliberately been truncated, most likely to be used as landfill material.

A 1797 map shows that the excavation site is close to where Lindsey’s Wharf and Lake’s Wharf once projected into the Hudson. So, no matter how many mysteries now surround the vessel, it may turn out that the ghost even has a name.

Source:
NYTIMES CITY ROOM

African American Historical Site Excavated in New Jersey

2010-07-04T07:05:00.000-07:00
African American historical site excavated in New Jersey
By Stephan Salisbury

Inquirer Culture Writer

Near the terminus of a dead-end road, on a bulb like hill in the midst of a grassy meadow, a group of Temple University archaeology students and volunteers is excavating what may be one of the most important African American historical sites in New Jersey.

It's called Timbuctoo - a once-thriving enclave probably founded by free African Americans and escaped slaves in the 1820s, now abandoned, if not forgotten, for more than half a century.

An entire village lies beneath the grassy hill near Rancocas Creek in Westampton Township outside Mount Holly - at least 18 houses, remains of a church, two roadways, an alley, a number of privies and wells, possibly schools, and large parts of a cemetery, where 13 graves of African American troops from the Civil War are marked by headstones - but where six times as many may lie in unmarked graves.

No African American site of this magnitude has been excavated in the region, and very few have been uncovered nationwide, according to archaeologists.

"This is the first time we're seeing such a site being excavated," said David Orr, the Temple professor and historical archaeologist overseeing the project. "The unique quality of this is that it's very large. It has no problems, perfect preservation of its core - that's also impressive. As an archaeological site, in my experience, I have never seen anything like this - only because nobody has excavated one."

The site of the Timbuctoo project covers four or five acres. Westampton Township has acquired much of it from private owners, allowing the dig to proceed unimpeded. Work started at the beginning of June and ends Saturday, but will resume next year.

Standing near the crest of the open field, next to the red brick foundation of the first house unearthed, Orr held up a corroded cast-iron buffalo that had been pulled from the ground. Christopher Barton, a doctoral student who serves as site manager, displayed a small, heavily corroded toy gun and a wheel - all early 20th-century relics. He held up a small brown Vicks VapoRub bottle, a blue Vaseline jar, a clear Listerine bottle - all dating from the first half of the last century.

Barton said that some visitors have questioned the relevance of 20th-century artifacts to an archaeological dig. "They say, 'Oh, that's not old enough,' " he said.

"That's not the point. What we're trying to do is recreate the life, recreate the stories of what these people had. This is true not only with the pre-Civil War context but also with the Jim Crow period. We're trying to discover what these people were doing and how they were living."

In fact, the presence of 20th-century life on the site increases its importance, said Orr.

"We have the opportunity here to see a total African American community over time," he said. "How it was like here in the 1830s. How it was like here in the 1870s. How it was like at the turn of the century and during Jim Crow. How it was like in the '20s and '30s, all the way to World War II. This is very exciting stuff."

Beyond that, he pointed out, descendants of Timbuctoo families are still in the area.

Mary Weston, 74, lives down the road on a piece of land that has been in her family since 1829, when her great-great-great-grandfather purchased the lot for $35.

Weston has volunteered to help at the site throughout the dig, washing, cleaning, bagging the countless artifacts drawn from the ground - ceramic shards, leather shoes, buckles, metal wheels, bottles, glassware - all the detritus of everyday life.

She was born in the area, but her family moved to Philadelphia with everyone else, she said, when city industry revved up at the onset of World War II. She returned as an adult and is deeply moved by the excavation.

"It brings a sense of connection that nothing else could bring," Weston said this week. "These wonderful artifacts being unearthed prove we did exist here very, very early. We did live here. Just the connection with the ancestors from the early 1800s brings a rush of joy."

In addition to the extensive excavation yet to come, much traditional historical work is also necessary. The origins of Timbuctoo are somewhat obscure. There is an oral tradition, for instance, that suggests the town was buttressed by the area's thriving Quaker community at the turn of the 18th century. A Quaker brickworks once stood nearby, which could have been an important source of work and building materials, said Orr.

Burton said the town stood directly on an Underground Railroad route, and there is no question that escaped slaves lived in Timbuctoo. Slave catchers worked the area too, and in 1860, residents took up arms to defend Harry Simmons, a runaway sought by southern bounty hunters. In what was known locally as the Battle of Pine Swamp, residents protected Simmons and drove off the slave catchers.

The prospect of such an attack was no doubt a source of anxiety, said Burton, and may have been one reason the village was laid out in an almost circular fashion, with small houses surrounding a large open area.

Such a layout would enable residents of each house to see what was happening around every other house.

"The point is, we don't know what these houses looked like until we dig a hole and look at them," said Orr. "We don't know who built them and how. Was this [settlement] predesigned? Did it come from African Americans? Quakers? We don't know. There are no images. None. That's why archaeology is so important with African American communities."

Weston looked up from wiping dirt off a bone button.

"It's awesome for me," she said. "I went to school in Philadelphia and the school did tell us something of ourselves as a people, but not very much. So for this to happen and for all these things to be unraveled and explored makes me have a greater sense of connection with who I am."

The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Court Rules NYPD Must Turn Over Racial Data On Police Shootings

2010-06-27T05:56:00.000-07:00
Sankofa*

Although I am pleased about the board taking a look into this data, can we rely that this data is accurate? And what will be the result of such information.
============

A state appeals court on Tuesday upheld a lower court decision ordering the New York Police Department to turn over years of data identifying the race of suspects shot at by the police.

The New York Civil Liberties Union began trying to collect the data after the Sean Bell shooting in Jamaica, Queens, in 2006. After the group filed a lawsuit, the police turned over data on the race of suspects shot by the police from 1997 through 2008, but not that of suspects whom the police fired at but missed.

In December, Justice Joan A. Madden of State Supreme Court in Manhattan ruled in favor of the civil liberties group. The department appealed. The police argued that the shooting reports, because they could potentially be used in disciplinary proceedings against the police officers, amounted to personnel records, which are exempt from disclosure under the state’s Freedom of Information Law. But on Tuesday, a five-member appeals panel upheld the earlier decision.

The panel said that because the Police Department had turned over one category of data to the group, the police had “waived their right” to claim exemptions from releasing the additional data.

“Even were we to find that there was no waiver,” the panel wrote, “the record nonetheless demonstrates that the reports can be redacted to adequately protect their confidential nature.”

City officials said they were disappointed in the ruling.

“The Police Department has for as long as anyone can remember provided publicly, to the media, the race of individuals shot by police within hours of each shooting incident,” Deputy Commissioner Paul J. Browne, the department’s chief spokesman, said in a statement. “This decision requires the police to provide the race of individuals that the police fired at but missed; data which we have not always recorded.”

In its lawsuit, the group presented testimony from a former police chief who said former Police Commissioner Howard Safir ordered the department to stop including the race of those killed by officers in police shooting statistics. The testimony did not say why Mr. Safir made the decision, but the change followed the public outcry over race and the department’s use of force following the 1999 death of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed West African immigrant who was killed in the Bronx in a hail of bullets fired by police.

“Ever since the Diallo shooting, the department has hidden from public view the race of shooting targets,” Christopher T. Dunn, the associate legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. “Today’s decision assures that that information will be public, which we believe is important in assessing the role of race in police shootings.”

Here are som examples of headlines of unjust police shootings.
===============================================

Minorities in New York and across the country, though, have the right to know whether their police are up to the job.

Before there was Sean Bell, there was Patrick Dorismond a security guard shot to death by undercover New York police in 2000 under questionable circumstances.

Before Dorismond, there was Amadou Diallo (pictured below), an unarmed West African immigrant who was killed by Bronx police in 1999 under questionable circumstances.

- Judge Acquits Detectives in 50-Shot Killing of Bell
By MICHAEL WILSON

Three detectives were found not guilty in the 2006 shooting of Sean Bell, who died on his wedding day in a hail of police bullets.

April 26, 2008

- 3 Detectives Are Indicted in 50-Shot Killing in Queens
By AL BAKER

Two of the detectives were charged with second-degree manslaughter and a third with the lesser charge of reckless endangerment.

March 17, 2007

- 50 Bullets, One Dead, and Many Questions
By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM and AL BAKER

There was no early mention of a fourth man, and some officers said they did not remember firing, according to a report.

December 11, 2006

- Police Kill Man After a Queens Bachelor Party
By ROBERT D. McFADDEN

Hours before he was to be married, a man leaving his bachelor party at a strip club was shot and killed in a hail of police bullets.

November 26, 2006

- Police Kill Man After a Queens Bachelor Party
By ROBERT D. McFADDEN

Hours before he was to be married, a man leaving his bachelor party at a strip club was shot and killed in a hail of police bullets.

November 26, 2006

- When Police Put Their Own on Trial
By CHRISTINE HAUSER

A wood-paneled room on the fourth floor of One Police Plaza is where the New York City police punish or exonerate their own.

May 29, 2008

- Eleanor Bumpurs (August 22, 1918 - October 29, 1984) was an African-American woman who was shot dead by police officers called to assist her city-ordered eviction from her apartment in the Bronx on October 29, 1984. The New York City Housing Authority was evicting her because she was four months behind in her rent of $96.85 per month.

In requesting NYPD assistance, housing authority workers told police that Bumpurs was emotionally disturbed, had threatened to throw boiling lye, and was using a knife to resist eviction. When Bumpurs refused to open the door, police broke in. In the struggle to subdue her, one officer shot Bumpurs twice with a 12-gauge shotgun.

Two supervisors in the city's Social Services administration were later demoted for failing to seek an emergency rent grant for Bumpurs and for not getting her proper psychiatric aid.

Trial of officer Sullivan

Sullivan waived his right to a jury trial, choosing a bench trial before a judge only. The trial opened on January 12, 1987, over two years after Bumpurs' death. The trial hinged on whether Sullivan had used excessive force, especially in firing twice at Bumpurs. His fellow officers testified that Bumpurs was still not immobilized after the first blast hit her hand, and therefore still posed a threat to the police. In addition, two doctors testified that Bumpurs could have still made stabbing motions even after her hand had been injured by the first shotgun blast.

Verdict

On February 26, 1987 Judge Fred W. Eggert acquitted Sullivan on the charges of manslaughter. On August 4, 1987 federal prosecutors declined to investigate the Bumpurs case. Rudy Giuliani who was the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan at the time, stated that he had found "nothing indicating that the case was not tried fully, fairly and competently", and that there was no "proof of a specific intent to inflict excessive and unjustified force."

==========================

MAY 19th MALCOLM X REMEMBERED

2010-05-19T05:52:00.000-07:00
Sankofa........
=======

I strongly believe it is important to remember our "Great Warriors for Justice and Equality". Brother "Malcolm fit's the Bill".

Malcolm legacy is one that doesn't get much air time, radio time etc...

So I feel that we should grasp on to their day of birth , their legacy,their sacrifices put forth to bring about a change for people of African ancestry.

Em-Hotep*
========

MALCOLM X Champion for Justice

=====

'He taught us how to think'

“In the minds of his people, he has been brought back to life.”

El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X) was assassinated 44 years ago, on Feb. 21, 1965, because of his attempt to internationalize the African American struggle for self-determination.

Complicated legacy
====================================

Malcolm X was one of the most charismatic and feared figures in the civil rights movement, a former convict who changed his name from Malcolm Little, and propelled the Nation of Islam from a 500-member sect in 1952 into a political and religious organization with 30,000 members by 1963.
=================================

On December 1, 1963, when he was asked for a comment about the assassination of President Kennedy, Malcolm X said that it was a case of "chickens coming home to roost". He added that "chickens coming home to roost never did make me sad; they've always made me glad."

The New York Times wrote, "in further criticism of Mr. Kennedy, the Muslim leader cited the murders of Patrice Lumumba, Congo leader, of Medgar Evers, civil rights leader, and of the Negro girls bombed earlier this year in a Birmingham church. These, he said, were instances of other 'chickens coming home to roost'."

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Pilgrimage to Mecca

===============

On April 13, 1964, Malcolm X departed JFK Airport in New York for Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. His status as an authentic Muslim was questioned by Saudi authorities because of his United States passport and his inability to speak Arabic. Since only confessing Muslims are allowed into Mecca, he was separated from his group for about 20 hours.

According to his autobiography, Malcolm X saw a telephone and remembered the book The Eternal Message of Muhammad by Abdul Rahman Hassan Azzam, which had been presented to him with his visa approval. He called Azzam's son, who arranged for his release. At the younger Azzam's home, he met Azzam Pasha, who gave Malcolm his suite at the Jeddah Palace Hotel. The next morning, Muhammad Faisal, the son of Prince Faisal, visited and informed Malcolm X that he was to be a state guest. The deputy chief of protocol accompanied Malcolm X to the Hajj Court, where he was allowed to make his pilgrimage.

On April 19, Malcolm X completed the Hajj, making the seven circuits around the Kaaba, drinking from the Zamzam Well and running between the hills of Safah and Marwah seven times.[119] Malcolm X said the trip allowed him to see Muslims of different races interacting as equals. He came to believe that Islam could be the means by which racial problems could be overcome.[120]

======
Africa
======

Malcolm X visited Africa on three separate occasions, once in 1959 and twice in 1964During his visits, he met officials, gave interviews to newspapers, and spoke on television and radio in Egypt, Ethiopia, Tanganyika (now Tanzania), Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea, Sudan, Senegal, Liberia, Algeria, and Morocco.Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, and Ahmed Ben Bella of Algeria invited Malcolm X to serve in their governments.

In 1959, Malcolm X traveled to Egypt (then known as the United Arab Republic), Sudan, Nigeria, and Ghana to arrange a tour for Elijah Muhammad. The first of the two trips Malcolm X made to Africa in 1964 lasted from April 13 until May 21, before and after his Hajj. On May 8, following his speech at the University of Ibadan, Malcolm X was made an honorary member of the Nigerian Muslim Students' Association. During this reception the students bestowed upon him the name "Omowale", which means "the son who has come home" in the Yoruba language. Malcolm X wrote in his autobiography that he "had never received a more treasured honor."

On July 9, 1964, Malcolm X returned to Africa.[127] On July 17, he was welcomed to the second meeting of the Organization of African Unity in Cairo as a representative of the Organization of Afro-American Unity. By the time he returned to the United States on November 24, 1964, Malcolm had met with every prominent African leader and established an international connection between Africans on the continent and those in the diaspora.

=================

When Malcolm visited Africa in 1964, he visited Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. It was during that trip that he met with Kenyan President Jomo Kenyatta, Ugandan President Dr. Milton Obote, and President Julius K. Nyerere and Muhammad Babu of Tanzania. Babu, Malcolm and Leroi Jones (now Amiri Baraka) held a meeting during this period in New York City. Malcolm talked about meeting President Kenyatta. Malcolm, however, was also aware of Kenya’s Oginga Odinga.

photo, taken June 1, 1963, reads: “Nairobi, Kenya – Waving his ‘wisk’ the newly-elected Premier of Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta (R, foreground), greeted throngs of cheering citizens as he rode through the streets of Nairobi. Accompanying Kenyatta are Tom Mboya (L), Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs; A. Oginga Odinga, Minister for Home Affairs; and James S. Gichuru, Minister for Finance. The motorcade was part of the National Holiday celebrations which marked the start of internal self-government for the African nation.”

==================
France and the United Kingdom
==================

On November 23, 1964, on his way home from Africa, Malcolm X stopped in Paris, where he spoke at the Salle de la Mutualité.A week later, on November 30, Malcolm X flew to the United Kingdom, where he participated in a debate at the Oxford Union on December 3. The topic of the debate was "Extremism in the Defense of Liberty is No Vice; Moderation in the Pursuit of Justice is No Virtue", and Malcolm X argued the affirmative. Interest in the debate was so high that it was televised nationally by the BBC.

On February 5, 1965, Malcolm X went to Europe again. On February 8, he spoke in London, before the first meeting of the Council of African Organizations. Malcolm X tried to go to France on February 9 but he was refused entry. On February 12, he visited Smethwick, near Birmingham, which had become a byword for racial division after the 1964 general election, when the Conservative Party won the parliamentary seat after rumors that their candidate's supporters had used the slogan "If you want a nigger for your neighbour, vote Labour."

=====================
“Malcolm didn’t build buildings or pass legislation,” said the activist Sharpton. “He taught us how to think. And when he changed our minds, we could build buildings and we could pass legislation.”

The Manhattan theater where Malcolm X was assassinated held a commemoration on Monday, the 40th anniversary of the civil rights leader’s death.

The Audubon Ballroom, where the activist was gunned down Feb. 21, 1965, is being turned into a history center that will re-examine his legacy by cataloging his life and work and showing how he championed human rights, his family said.

Aiyana Jones, 7-Year-Old Shot And Killed By Detroit Police

2010-05-18T05:04:00.000-07:00
SPIRIT OF SANKOFA...........

=================================================
As I viewed the report on this precious baby girl. I heard something that was even more disturbing then Aiyana being murdered in cold blood.

This is when they brought Aiyana's life-less body out of the house they carried like she was not human at all, but like a dead animal!

This Clearly sets off bells and whistles and it also shows, the lack of concern for what DPD did in cold blood, then tried to cover it up.

=================================================

Aiyana Jones Was Sleeping According To Family

DETROIT - A family in Detroit mourns the loss of a seven-year-old girl accidentally shot and killed by police during a raid. The death of Aiyanna Jones is making national headlines, and there are currently many questions. How could something like this happen? What went on inside an east side Detroit home early Sunday morning?

Relatives of Aiyanna met with attorney Geoffrey Fieger on Monday and re-created the scene for his investigators. The girl was sleeping on a couch around 12:30 a.m. on Sunday, May 16 when officers with the Detroit Police Special Response Team threw a flash grenade through the window and an officer went inside, allegedly scuffled with her grandmother and then his gun went off. Aiyanna was hit in the neck.

Police were there looking for 34-year-old Chauncey Owens, suspected but not yet charged in the shooting death of 17-year-old Jerean Blake on Friday. Owens is the fiancee of Aiyanna's aunt, Lakrystal Sanders. He was arrested in the upstairs flat.

Assistant Chief Ralph Godbee says Detroit Police are handing their investigation over to Michigan State Police.

"We need an independent eye so, that from a community confidence standpoint, whatever findings are turned over to the prosecutor the community can have confidence that this was an independent investigation," he said.

Godbee says a thorough review of police tactics and procedures is underway.

The television show "The First 48" on A&E had been on scene with homicide investigators at Friday's shooting. "The First 48" videographers were also at the scene at the east side Detroit home. Detroit Police have given "The First 48" access to their investigations for several seasons. There is no financial component to the deal, and Detroit Police say their videographers did not go inside the flat and had no impact on their operation.

"'The First 48,' they were there. We're in the process of acquiring the footage so we can assess it, but we don't have that concern at this time," Godbee said.

The Coalition Against Police Brutality demonstrated outside an event where Attorney General Eric Holder was speaking, hoping to get the attention of the federal government.

"We want him to hear us. We want him to hear the pain of the people. We want him to hear about the young girl that was killed," said Ron Scott with the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality.

We understand the officer involved in this shooting is a 14 year veteran and has been on the Special Response Team for about six or seven years. He was involved in a police shooting one other time. It involved a barricaded gunman. That person fired at police and they returned fire. He was cleared of any wrongdoing in that case.

Meanwhile, Aiyanna's family has decided to take legal action against the Detroit Police Department. Their attorney, Geoffrey Fieger, says he has seen video of the raid and it goes against what police say happened Sunday morning.

This is what police say happened between the officer and the girl's grandmother: "Exactly what happened next is a matter still under investigation, but it appears the officer and the woman had some level of physical contact," said Godbee.

"That statement is a complete and utter falsehood," said Fieger.

The attorney is armed with at least two lawsuits that will be unveiled Tuesday and says he saw video tape from an unnamed source that shows a flash-bang grenade-type device was thrown into a window.

"And then within milliseconds of throwing that, firing a shot from outside the home while the Special Response Team was on the porch," Fieger said.

The bullet that killed Aiyanna, Fieger says, was fired before officers entered the home according to the video he saw. His case says there is a cover up by the Detroit Police Department.

Fieger also says the tape shows Aiyanna's body being removed by officers quickly.

"You see her being carried out by one officer, and it's not like she's a human being. She's out of that house faster than you would have expected," said Fieger.

Detroit Police late Monday said if Fieger does have video evidence, he should pass it along to the Michigan State Police for their investigation. Meanwhile, he is asking the department to tell what happened and leave the grandmother out of it.

"I would like the disclosure of how and why police officers came together in an attempt to blame a grandmother, who had nothing to do with anything for the death of a little girl," Fieger said.

So, there will be two lawsuits, one state and one federal, coming from Fieger's office against the police department. There will also be a lawsuit from the grandmother for being arrested on that night.

The family will be at Fieger's Southfield office Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. where they will be holding a news conference with their lawyer talking about Aiyanna and her untimely death.

But Fieger said the video shows an officer lobbing the grenade and then shooting into the home from the porch.

"There is no question about what happened because it's in the videotape," Fieger said. "It's not an accident. It's not a mistake. There was no altercation."

"Aiyana Jones was shot from outside on the porch. The videotape shows clearly the officer throwing through the window a stun grenade-type explosive and then within milliseconds of throwing that, firing a shot from outside the home," he said.

A woman brings balloons and flowers to a memorial at the house where a 7-year-old girl was shot and killed by police in Detroit, Monday, May 17, 2010. State police will take over the investigation of the fatal shooting of 7-year-old Aiyana Jones by a Detroit police officer during a weekend raid at the girl's home, a prosecutor said Monday. Aiyana was asleep on the living room sofa in her family's apartment when Detroit police, searching for a homicide suspect, burst in and an officer's gun went off, fatally striking the girl in the neck, family members said.

RIP HOPEFULLY JUSTICE WILL BE DONE!

Report:
MyFox Detroit News

Singer, Actress, Civil Rights Activist Lena Horne dies at 92

2010-05-10T04:38:00.000-07:00

Lena Horne appeared in “Jamaica,” a musical that ran on Broadway from 1957 to 1959.

============

Singer, actress, dancer and civil rights activist Lena Horne

Lena Horne, who was the first black performer to be signed to a long-term contract by a major Hollywood studio and who went on to achieve international fame as a singer, died on Sunday night at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York. She was 92 and lived in Manhattan.

Her death was announced by her son-in-law, Kevin Buckley.

Ms. Horne and Cab Calloway in “Stormy Weather.” The title song became one of her signatures.

Ms. Horne was stuffed into one “all-star" musical after another -- “Thousands Cheer" (1943), “Broadway Rhythm" (1944), “Two Girls and a Sailor" (1944), “Ziegfeld Follies" (1946), “Words and Music" (1948) -- to sing a song or two that could easily be snipped from the movie when it played in the South, where the idea of an African-American performer in anything but a subservient role in a movie with an otherwise all-white cast was unthinkable

Even before she came to Hollywood, Brooks Atkinson, the drama critic for The New York Times, noticed Ms. Horne in “Lew Leslie’s Blackbirds of 1939,” a Broadway revue that ran for nine performances. “A radiantly beautiful sepia girl,” he wrote, “who will be a winner when she has proper direction

She had proper direction in two all-black movie musicals, both made in 1943. Lent to 20th Century Fox for “Stormy Weather,” one of those show business musicals with almost no plot but lots of singing and dancing, Ms. Horne did both triumphantly, ending with the sultry, aching sadness of the title number, which would become one of her signature songs. In MGM’s “Cabin in the Sky,” the first film directed by Vincente Minnelli, she was the brazen, sexy handmaiden of the Devil. (One number she shot for that film, “Ain’t It the Truth,” which she sang while taking a bubble bath, was deleted before the film was released — not for racial reasons, as her stand-alone performances in other MGM musicals sometimes were, but because it was considered too risqué.)

In 1945 the critic and screenwriter Frank Nugent wrote in Liberty magazine that Ms. Horne was “the nation’s top Negro entertainer.” In addition to her MGM salary of $1,000 a week, she was earning $1,500 for every radio appearance and $6,500 a week when she played nightclubs. She was also popular with servicemen, white and black, during World War II, appearing more than a dozen times on the Army radio program “Command Performance.”

“The whole thing that made me a star was the war,” Ms. Horne said in the 1990 interview. “Of course the black guys couldn’t put Betty Grable’s picture in their footlockers. But they could put mine.”

==================================

Touring Army camps for the U.S.O., Ms. Horne was outspoken in her criticism of the way black soldiers were treated. “So the U.S.O. got mad,” she recalled. “And they said, ‘You’re not going to be allowed to go anyplace anymore under our auspices.’ So from then on I was labeled a bad little Red girl.”
==================================

By the 1960s, Horne was one of the most visible celebrities in the civil rights movement, once throwing a lamp at a customer who made a racial slur in a Beverly Hills restaurant and in 1963 joining 250,000 others in the March on Washington when Martin Luther King Jr. gave his 'I Have a Dream' speech. Horne also spoke at a rally that same year with another civil rights leader, Medgar Evers, just days before his assassination.

==================================

Ms. Horne later claimed that for this and other reasons, including her friendship with leftists like Paul Robeson and W.E.B. DuBois, she was blacklisted and “unable to do films or television for the next seven years” after her tenure with MGM ended in 1950.

This was not quite true: as Mr. Gavin has documented, she appeared frequently on “Your Show of Shows” and other television shows in the 1950s, and in fact “found more acceptance” on television “than almost any other black performer.” And Mr. Gavin and others have suggested that there were other factors in addition to politics or race involved in her lack of film work

Although absent from the screen, she found success in nightclubs and on records. “Lena Horne at the Waldorf-Astoria,” recorded during a well-received eight-week run in 1957, reached the Top 10 and became the best-selling album by a female singer in RCA Victor’s history.

In the early 1960s Ms. Horne, always outspoken on the subject of civil rights, became increasingly active, participating in numerous marches and protests.

In 1969, she returned briefly to films, playing the love interest of a white actor, Richard Widmark, in “Death of a Gunfighter.”

Widowed in 1971, Horne moved to New York City and continued her stage and concert work, and even did the occasional movie role, including that of Diana Ross's fairy godmother in the 1978 'The Wiz.'

Horne's other roles included 'I Dood It,' a Red Skelton comedy, 'Thousands Cheer' and 'Swing Fever,' all in 1943; 'Broadway Rhythm' in 1944; and 'Ziegfeld Follies' in 1946.

RIP SISTER LENA HORNE**

Malcolm X killer freed after 44 years

2010-05-02T07:52:00.000-07:00
Sankofa's opinion.........

It seems strange to me after a 45 years span that authorities handling this case, only has one suspect. There were a combination of forces at work here.

Is it because it was Malcolm why there wasn't a thorough investigation of all possibilities? Whether or not who is implicated?

We all know this is wishful thinking.... In a land that claims "freedom of speech" why was he assasinated in cold blood? We should all remember our Ebony Prince, and what He stood for.

=========

There's outrage among some African-Americans, they said, that he being released. Would he be set free, if he had killed an iconic white leader?

Malcolm X is best known as the fiery leader of the Nation of Islam who denounced whites as "blue-eyed devils." But at the end of his life, Malcolm X changed his views toward whites and discarded the Nation of Islam's ideology in favor of orthodox Islam. In doing so, he feared for his own life from within the Nation.

Malcolm X remains a symbol of inspiration for black men, in particular, who are moved by his transformation from a street hustler to a man the late African-American actor Ossie Davis eulogized as "Our Own Black Shining Prince."

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(CNN) -- Thomas Hagan, the only man who admitted his role in the 1965 assassination of iconic black leader Malcolm X, was paroled Tuesday.

Hagan was freed a day earlier than planned because his paperwork was processed more quickly than anticipated, according to the New York State Department of Correctional Services.

Hagan, 69, walked out of the minimum-security Lincoln Correctional Facility at 11 a.m. The facility is located at the intersection of West 110th Street and Malcolm X Boulevard.

Hagan had been in a full-time work-release program since March 1992 that allowed him to live at home with his family in Brooklyn five days a week while reporting to the prison just two days.

Last month, Hagan pleaded his case for freedom: To return to his family, to become a substance abuse counselor and to make his mark on what time he has left in this world.

He was dressed in prison greens as he addressed the parole board. He had been before that body 14 other times since 1984. Each time, he was rejected.

Hagan was no ordinary prisoner. He is the only man to have confessed in the killing of Malcolm X, who was gunned down while giving a speech in New York's Audubon Ballroom in 1965.

"I have deep regrets about my participation in that," he told the parole board on March 3, according to a transcript. "I don't think it should ever have happened."

Hagan had been sentenced to 20 years to life imprisonment after being found guilty at trial with two others in 1966. The other two men were released in the 1980s and have long denied involvement in the killing.

To win his release, Hagan was required to seek, obtain and maintain a job, support his children and abide by a curfew. He must continue to meet those conditions while free. He told the parole board he's worked the same job for the past seven years. He told the New York Post in 2008 he was working at a fast-food restaurant.

The ballroom where he was killed has now been converted into The Malcolm X & Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center. Board Chairman Zead Ramadan said the center doesn't have a position on Hagan's release.

"I personally find it strange that for a couple decades any person convicted in the assassination of such an iconic figure would be allowed such leniency," Ramadan said.

"It's really a struggle for Muslims to contemplate this issue, because our faith and our religion is full of examples where we have to exert mercy," he added. "The Malcolm X story has not ended. His populuarity has grown in death. ... Only God knows why this was allowed to happen."

The center is preparing for a special service next month to celebrate what would have been Malcolm X's 85th birthday. Would the center welcome Hagan if he asked to attend?

"We'd cross that bridge if he called us," Ramadan said, "Think about that: How far-fetched is it that he could meet one of the daughters of Malcolm X? And what's going to happen then? Mercy, fury, anger, emotions -- who knows?"

Killed in front of his family
======================

Malcolm X was 39 when he was gunned down in 1965.
==========================

On February 21, 1965, Malcolm X took to the stage of the Audubon Ballroom, a site often used for civic meetings. His wife, Betty Shabazz, and four children were in the crowd.

Malcolm X was 39 when he was gunned down in 1965."I heard several shots in succession," his wife later told a Manhattan grand jury. "I got on the floor, and I pushed my children under the seat and protected them with my body."

Gunshots continued to ring out, she said. Her husband's body was riddled with bullets. The native of Omaha, Nebraska, was 39.

"Minister Malcolm was slaughtered like a dog in front of his family," A. Peter Bailey, one of Malcolm X's closest aides, told The New York Times on the 40th anniversary of the killing.

The assassination came after a public feud between Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam's founder, Elijah Muhammad. Malcolm X had accused Muhammad of infidelity and left the Nation in March 1964.

"For the next 11 months, there was a pattern of harassment, vilification and even on occasion literally pursuit in the streets of Malcolm by people associated with the Nation," said Claude Andrew Clegg III, author of a biography on Elijah Muhammad called An Original Man.

"Malcolm felt that if Elijah Muhammad snapped his fingers, then he could stop the escalation of the violent tone around the split of the two men. And I think there's some truth to that."

Over the years, the killing of Malcolm X has been the subject of much debate, with conspiracy theories involving the Nation of Islam and others. The Nation of Islam has repeatedly denied any involvement in Malcolm X's assassination.

On a deadly mission
===============

Hagan, then known by the name Talmadge X Hayer, was in his early 20s and a radical member of the Nation of Islam the day he entered the ballroom armed and ready to kill. His allegiance was to the Nation's founder, and he was outraged Malcolm X had broken from its ranks.

After the shooting, Hagan tried to flee the scene but he was shot in the leg. He was beaten by the crowd before being arrested outside.

Thomas Hagan is pictured here in a mugshot from 2008.Last month, he told the parole board he felt the urge to kill Malcolm X because of his inflammatory comments about the Nation's founder.

"It stemmed from a break off and confusion in the leadership," Hagan said. "Malcolm X broke with the Nation of Islam, separated from the Nation of Islam, and in doing so there was controversy as to some of the statements he was making about the leader."

====================================================
He added, "History has revealed a lot of what Malcolm X was saying was true."
====================================================

Two other men, Muhammad Abdul Aziz and Kahlil Islam, were also found guilty of murder in 1966 and received 20 years to life. Both proclaimed their innocence. Hagan, who eventually admitted his part in the murder, testified at trial and subsequent parole hearings that both men were innocent. Aziz was paroled in 1985; Islam was freed in 1987.

At last month's parole hearing, Hagan again maintained that Aziz and Islam were not the other assassins. He said it was two other men who helped plot, plan and participate in the killing.

Did they receive orders from the Nation to carry out the killing?

"I can't say that anyone in the Nation of Islam gave us the idea or instructed us to do it. We did this ourselves for the most part, yes," Hagan told the parole board.

Hagan said he received a master's degree in sociology while incarcerated and that helped him deal with his actions from 45 years ago.

"I understand a lot better the dynamics of movements and what can happen inside movements and conflicts that can come up, but I have deep regrets about my participation in that."

He added, "Unfortunately, I didn't have an in-depth understanding of what was really going on myself to let myself be involved in anything like that. ... I can't really describe my remiss and my remorse for my actions -- basically a very young man, a very uneducated man. "

He is still a Muslim but no longer a member of the Nation of Islam. He volunteers at a mosque to help young men. He told the parole board he hopes to become a qualified substance abuse counselor.

His primary mission is to help his four children, ages 21, 17, 14 and 10. He has two other grown children.

"My focus is to maintain my family and to try to make things a little better for them. It's upward mobility, and to encourage my children to complete their education because it's a must."

(CNN)

==============================

Malcolm X's legacy ignored 45 years after his murder

==============================

Malcolm X speaks to television news men at Duffy Square, New York, Feb. 13, 1963.

====================

Apparently, Malcolm X does not exist. At least that's what you might think while visiting the Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee. During our rally for the Heather Ellis case, the young woman who faced 15 years in prison after cutting line at a Wal-Mart, I took a tour of the museum. After completing the hour-long tour, I realized that they'd forgotten something. Even though the museum had hundreds of pictures of other events representing the civil rights struggle in America, I saw only one picture of Malcolm X.

=============
This incredibly disappointing display at the Civil Rights Museum is a reflection of how Malcolm's legacy has been treated like the neglected step-child of the African-American struggle for freedom and equality. Malcolm fought for civil rights just as diligently as Dr. King. He was just as impactful as Dr. King. He gave his life like Dr. King. But for some reason, most of us don't remember Malcolm's birthday. We've never considered having a holiday to commemorate his contribution. He is rarely discussed in the same sentence with Dr. King. We just ignore him and this has got to change.
=============

It's easy to understand why mainstream America has been conditioned not to appreciate the legacy of Malcolm X. They dislike Malcolm for the same reasons that the British dislike George Washington. Malcolm wasn't an apologist and challenged black folks to respect themselves, which was in direct contrast to a strategy of constrained and oppressive integration.

Our goal was to get a seat at the table, even if we were given the scraps, and some are wondering if we are better off because of it. Malcolm kept a crystal ball in his mind which told him that a distorted, imbalanced marriage between blacks and whites would lead to terrible inner city schools, huge imbalances of wealth and unemployment and a lack of willingness by politicians to acknowledge serious concerns within the African-American community. Hence, you have the year 2010.

MALCOLM X DISCUSS JOBS & VOTER EDUCATION
=============================

While the social, economic and political relationships of blacks and whites have presented quite a few gains for African-Americans, they don't work when there is still a fundamental disrespect for black people themselves. Malcolm was not necessarily against these kinds of ties, but he might agree that this union should only take place when there is definitive proof of mutual respect.

Rather than embracing concepts such as ownership and institution-building, African-Americans have positioned themselves as an occupied state which leaves itself vulnerable to distorted economic and political condition. Many of us understand that the dreams of neither Malcolm nor Martin have been fully realized.

It's time for us to evolve our thinking. If we continue to use the same models, we will continue to get the same results. Martin Luther King was an undeniably great man, but to some extent, mainstream media has chosen him as an African-American hero.

In the same way Lil Wayne has been promoted extensively by non-black music executives, Martin Luther King is tossed at us like the latest Jay-Z song or those Democratic nominees that none of us have ever heard about. We've never been given the opportunity to choose our own iconic figures. Instead, we are taught that Dr. King fought the entire struggle for civil rights all by himself.

========================================================
We must make a collective effort to raise Malcolm from the dead to give him the appreciation he deserves. We can first start by learning Malcolm's birthday, which is May 19, 1925 and the date of his assassination, Febuary 21, 1965. We can also study his life, and his contribution to the country in which we live today.
========================================================

Malcolm gave black people pride and courage, which are just as valuable as eating at the same lunch counter at whites. He encouraged an honest recollection on our experience as slaves, which is far better than being taught that slavery should be forgotten. He helped us understand that black history is a living, breathing phenomenon, determining how we name ourselves, what we eat and what we think. In many ways, Malcolm gave black America a new beginning.

Malcolm, Martin and thousands of others fought to get us where we are today, and we know that. It's time to talk differently about our history. So, as we go to one MLK dinner after another, we must make a point to stop and give respect to Malcolm.

Source: THE GRIO

Trail Blazer Dorothy Height, 'Civil Rights Pioneer', dies at 98

2010-04-20T16:57:00.000-07:00

Leading Civil Rights Pioneer Dorothy Height, of the 1960s, died Tuesday at age 98, Howard University Hospita. Height, who had been chair and president emerita of the National Council of Negro Women, worked in the 1960s alongside civil rights pioneers, including the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., future U.S. Rep. John Lewis and A. Philip Randolph. She was on the platform when King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech at the 1963 March on Washington.

"And even in the final weeks of her life -- a time when anyone else would have enjoyed their well-earned rest, Dr. Height continued her fight to make our nation a more open and inclusive place for people of every race, gender, background and faith."

One of Height's sayings was, "If the time is not ripe, we have to ripen the time." She liked to quote 19th century abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who said that the three effective ways to fight for justice are to "agitate, agitate, agitate."

President Obama called her a hero and the "godmother" of the movement, noting she "served as the only woman at the highest level of the civil rights movement -- witnessing every march and milestone along the way."

Height's years of service span from Roosevelt to the Obama administration, the council said in a statement announcing her death and listing the highlights of her career.

Height was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994 by President Clinton and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2004. She was among a handful of key African-American leaders to meet with Obama at the White House recently for a summit on race and the economy.

As a teenager, Height marched in New York's Times Square shouting, "Stop the lynching." In the 1950s and 1960s, she was the leading woman helping the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other leading activists orchestrate the civil rights movement.

Her name is synonymous with the National Council of Negro Women, a group she led from 1957 to 1988, when she became the group's chair and president emerita. She was also a key figure in the YWCA beginning in the 1930s.

Height was born in Richmond, Virginia, and grew up in Rankin, Pennsylvania. Her civil rights work began in 1933 when she became a leader of the United Christian Youth Movement of North America. Among the issues she tackled were fighting to stop lynchings and working to desegregate the armed forces.

In 1937, while she was working at the Harlem YWCA, Height met famed educator Mary McLeod Bethune, the founder of the National Council of Negro Women, and first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who had come to speak at a meeting of Bethune's organization. Height eventually rose to leadership roles in both the council and the YWCA.

She experienced discrimination and wrote in her memoir about being turned down for admittance to Barnard College in New York.

"Although I had been accepted, they could not admit me," she wrote in "Open Wide the Freedom Gates."

"It took me a while to realize that their decision was a racial matter: Barnard had a quota of two Negro students per year, and two others had already taken the spots."

At its 1980 commencement ceremonies, Barnard awarded Height its highest honor, the Barnard Medal of Distinction.

Under Height's leadership, the National Council of Negro Women dealt with the "unmet needs of women and their families by combating hunger and establishing decent housing and home ownership programs through the federal government for low-income families."

The organization spearheaded voter registration drives and started "Wednesdays in Mississippi" in which female interracial groups helped at Freedom Schools, institutions meant to empower African-Americans and address inequalities in how the races were educated.

"She was truly a pioneer, and she must be remembered as one of those brave and courageous souls that never gave up, never gave in," Lewis said. "She was a feminist and a major spokesperson for the rights of women long before there was a women's movement."

Dorothy Height "blazed many trails and opened many doors," Rep. Barbara Lee says

Thank you for all your time and undying efforts, they will never be forgotten.

Your life has been a true example for all of us to follow.

RIP GREAT TRAILBLAZER

Texas Set To Whitewash Black History From Textbooks

2010-04-17T06:14:00.000-07:00

Texas Set To Whitewash Black History From Textbooks
By News One March 18, 2010

From TheLoop21.com:

The Texas Board of Education has made a series of history revising moves to its curriculum, altering how the Civil Rights Movement is taught among a host of other things. These new changes include some very overt attempts to give white men credit for championing civil rights while ignoring the minorities who fought and died for those rights. These changes will be in place for the next decade.

Why you should care? Even if you and your kids live nowhere near the Lone Star State, Texas, as one of the biggest states in the union, has a huge amount of influence when it comes to shaping history books nationwide. Textbook manufacturers essentially shape their books around the needs and recommendations of their largest clients. In this case, there is no client larger than the state of Texas — other than California. New York is the third largest state in the union and therefore also has significant sway when it comes to influencing textbooks.

Haiti Post-Quake

2010-04-17T05:47:00.001-07:00

By Stephen Lendman
March 29, 2010

Two and half months post-quake, the major media mostly ignore Haiti, the calamitous conditions on the ground, and the growing desperation of millions forced to largely endure on their own - out of sight, mind, the concern of world leaders, and UN, USAID and other aid organizations diverting most of the $700 million + donated to contractors and profiteering NGOs.

A March 11 New York Times editorial titled, "Haiti, Two Months Later," tried to have it both ways, citing relief effort failures, yet praising the US, UN, foreign countries, and aid organizations for:

"dispatch(ing) tents, tarps, food, water, medicine and doctors as they should. They have done a lot of good, particularly the United States, which rushed supplies, a troop force....and a hospital ship. Many lives were saved."

Unmentioned was the thousands of US combat troops obstructing aid, getting none to the most impoverished neighborhoods, and amounts to emergency shelters have been woefully inadequate, making calamitous conditions worse.

A March 25 Times editorial titled, "Haiti's Misery," in fact, admitted it, stating:

"The emergency in Haiti isn't over. It's getting worse, as the outside world's attention fades away....(Yet) Misery rages like a fever in the hundreds of camps sheltering hundreds of thousands of....people left homeless....The dreaded rains have swamped tents and ragged stick-and-tarp huts. They have turned walkways into mud lakes (exacerbating the problem of) cooking food, washing clothes, staying clean and avoiding disease."

It's the plight of around 1.3 million with no shelter, proper sanitation, clean water, enough food, or medical care. On March 4, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention raised concerns about a potential deadly malaria outbreak, besides numerous other diseases now spreading. On March 5, Partners in Health (PIH) called conditions on the ground "shameful....shocking, inhumane and rapidly deteriorating."

Daily they worsen, placing millions of Haitians in grave peril of calamitous depravation, deadly diseases, greater pain and suffering, and potential mass deaths because imperial plans for Haiti are to plunder it for profit and control, not help desperately needy people, many of whom will suffer, then die.

Haiti is open for business. What was no longer exists. Reconstruction will be profit-driven, replacing former neighborhoods with gentrified ones, corporate ventures, and other upscale projects - poor Haitians being dispossessed, exploited, neglected, abandoned, and oppressed if they resist, especially if they interfere with planned plundering of Haiti's oil and other resources.

On March 24, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton visited Port-au-Prince with Rene Preval, feigned concern, and participated in staged refugee camp photo-ops. Haitians reacted angrily, especially at Bush for ousting President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004, exiling him to South Africa, and preventing his return, now more than ever when he's needed.

Protestors outside the national palace burned tires and an American flag, shouting: "Return Aristide! Down with Preval! Down with Bush! The Miami Herald described the Champ de Mars refugee camp visit saying:

"Quake survivors screamed at the three leaders, shouting details of the losses they suffered....Others took a moment to criticize their own president's leadership. 'President Preval has never come to see us before,' screamed Myrlande Saint-Louis, who lives in the Place Mosolee camp the presidents visited. 'Now because Bush is here he comes. Now he wants to see us!' "

The trip served two purposes:

-- to increase interest for a March 31 New York international investment conference expected to approve an $11.5 billion package to solidify corporate control of the country, and

-- for Preval to resolve land issues obstructing quake survivor relocations from areas wanted for commercial redevelopment, so Haitians have to go, willingly or by force.

Haitians are on their own, women and children most vulnerable, according to Amnesty International (AI). A March 25 report said:

"Sexual violence is widely present in the camps where some of Haiti's most vulnerable live. It was already a major concern (pre-quake) but the situation in which displaced people are living exposes women and girls to even greater risks."

Most victims AI interviewed were minors. "One eight-year-old girl was raped when alone in her tent at night. (A) 15-year-old was raped when she went out of the camp to urinate....There are no shelters in the country where victims of sexual violence can be protected and have access to services."

From March 4 - 25, AI assessed conditions in quake struck areas, in particular, human rights abuses affecting women and children. It reported mass displacement, makeshift camps on "every plot of empty land, public or private, and in every space, square and football pitch." Even a golf course and secondary roads were used.

Within the camps, security is non-existant, except for scattered ad hoc efforts, leaving women and girls most vulnerable as well as everyone to theft or assaults that might cost them their lives.

AI visited camps with no emergency shelter, food, sanitation, water or medical care, saying:

"Living conditions in these camps are dire and the majority of inhabitants are deeply frustrated with the Haitian authorities and international agencies" showing no concern for their condition.

The Latin American Solidarity Coalition's (LASC) Assessment on the Ground Pre-Quake

LASC (lasolidarity.org) "is an association of national and local US-based grassroots Latin American and Caribbean solidarity groups (for) a truly progressive Latin America solidarity movement....in support of the people of Latin America struggling for justice and a better future for their countries free of economic, military and cultural imperialism."

From December 28, 2009 - January 7, 2010 (five days before the quake), its 11-member delegation visited Haiti to investigate UN Blue Helmet (MINUSTAH) human rights abuses. On returning, it published a report titled, "Haiti: An Oppressed State," its highlights reviewed below.

LASC met with over 70 individuals and organization representatives in Port-au-Prince and two of its most impoverished neighborhoods, Cite Soleil and Bel Air. It also spent two days in Jacmel visiting sustainable development projects.

Testimonies from MINUSTAH-inflicted violence victims were gotten, including people whose family members were murdered. Virtually everyone:

-- demanded Aristide's return;

-- called MINUSTAH a repressive, criminal force;

-- said international aid hasn't reached the poor, but instead has been diverted to predatory NGOs, prison building, or stolen by corrupt politicians; and

-- believed economic development is exploitive, not providing a living wage, or benefitting poor Haitians productively.

The story is long, painful and familiar. "For over 200 years (and 300 before that), the US, France, and Western Europe (actively) ble(d) and exploit(ed) Haitians and prevent(ed) the only nation born of a slave revolt from becoming successful." It endured "military invasions, economic embargoes, gunboat blockades, trade barriers, diplomatic quarantines, subsidized armed subversions, US-armed black dictators, and finally, two US-supported coups against" its only beloved leader since liberation, twice democratically elected overwhelmingly, now exiled, and kept from returning.

African Community Rally In Support of Dr. Adelaide Sandford

2010-04-11T09:22:00.000-07:00

Afrikan community rally in support of Dr. Adelaide Sanford
==========================================================

Community protest at the 52nd precinct in the Bronx, on Sunday March 28th.
Led by CEMOTAP the Afrikan community rallied in support of Dr. Adelaide Sanford, whose son David Sanford, dean of the Banneker Academy in Brooklyn, was assaulted by Bronx police. The community demanded that all charges against Dean Sanford be dropped and the the police be charged instead.

NEWS RELEASE: Son and Grandson of Vice Chancellor Emerita, Adelaide Sanford Brutalized by the Police

When David Sanford, Dean at Benjamin Banneker High School in Brooklyn, accompanied the school basketball team to Lehman College in the Bronx,on March 14 to a playoff game, he had no idea that he would end up being beaten handcuffed, arrested and jailed in the 52nd precinct, located at 3016 Webster Ave, Bronx, NY. His crime was attempting to get his students safely to the bus to return back to Brooklyn. “Following the end of the game students from the winning team, Bedford Academy were taunting my students. Apparently the school safety officers became overly excited and began pushing everyone out of the area. The incident did not require such harsh action” Sanford said.

Dean Sanford, the son of Dr. Adelaide Sanford, Vice Chancellor Emerita of the New York State Board of Regents, was punched in the face by an irate cop as he attempted to safe guard his students. Said Sanford, "I asked the cop did you punch me, and he said "you damn right I did" The next thing that I knew I was slammed to the ground, beaten and kneed as several cops piled on top of me. I was unable to breathe and asked that they get off of me. I was then thrown into the back of the police car and driven to the 52 pct." he continued. Sanford's son who accompanied the group also sustained an injury to his face.

Sandford said that the efforts by the principal and the students fell on deaf ears as they attempted to convince the police that he, Sanford, was trying to bring the excitement level under control. In spite of never having had any brush with the law throughout his life, Sanford indicated that he was more concerned with the safety of his students than for himself.

Many of the students were traumatized by the incident. Sanford indicated that "my son was supposed to return to his university in Buffalo, New York, later that night, but could not do so for several days because he was so upset.

Sanford who was charged with disorderly conduct. explained “I was fearful for my life. I know what often happens to Black men who are arrested in a precinct, many end up dead.” Friends and supporters will visit the 52nd pct. located at 3016 Webster Ave Bronx, N. Y. on Sunday, March 28th at 3:P.M. The community is urged to join with them. "It is apparent that this kind of police behavior is common in the Bronx," said Betty Dopson, CEMOTAP co-chair, “after hearing Dean Sanford’s story , If there was disorderly conduct, it was on the part of the police."

Mother Hale "Amazing Grace"

2010-04-01T08:48:00.001-07:00

Clara 'Mother' Hale's amazing grace:

She founded Hale House to care for babies born into addiction
======================================================

Davis/News'Mother' Hale and her children. 'Before I knew it, every pregnant addict in Harlem knew about the crazy lady who would give her baby a home,' she said. Related ArticlesHarlem Assemblyman Adam Clayton Powell IV on trial for DWIHigh school notification deadline passes without decisionVoice of the People for March 26, 2010Canada: Charter schools' hypocritical enemiesRangel likens conservative foes of health care to racist foes of civil rightsLouis: Moskowitz foes offer much ado about nothing
Clara Hale, by her own admission, couldn't much carry a tune. But that didn't keep her from singing night after night to the babies she walked up and down the hallways of her Harlem brownstone, cradling them in her frail arms as they shook and cried from the cravings in their veins for drugs.

"Amazing grace, how sweet the sound …"

"Sometimes my singing is so bad, I can see them starting to laugh, and I just look at them and I tell them, 'All right, I can't sing, but I'm gonna keep on singing,' " the white-haired woman called Mother Hale would tell visitors to her Hale House.

Clara Hale, who had toiled anonymously for years, taking in children nobody wanted, would keep on singing even after praise from President Ronald Reagan earned her national acclaim in 1985, at age 79. Even after the dual scourges of crack and AIDS left hundreds more tiny souls on her doorstep. Even after City Hall tried to put her out of the business of saving lives barely begun.

No one and nothing would keep Mother Hale from her mission.

"I love children and I love caring for them," she would say. "That is what the good Lord meant me to do."

Left widowed at 27 with three children, she had cleaned houses by day and Loews theaters by night until, frustrated by the lack of good day-care facilities, she started taking the children of other domestics into her walkup apartment on W. 146th St. She had a way with the little ones. "The kids must have liked it, because once they got there, they didn't want to go home," Mother Hale would recall.

She eventually began welcoming foster children into her home for $2 a week. In 1968, at age 63, having reared the last of 40 foster kids, she called it quits and decided to kick back and enjoy retirement.

That all changed one day a year later, when her daughter Lorraine encountered a heroin addict on a park bench, a 2-month-old slipping out of her nodding mother's arms.

"I said what I always say: 'Take it to mother,'" Lorraine Hale remembered.

When the junkie arrived at her door, Clara Hale was dubious. After all, she hadn't raised her daughter to consort with drug addicts. She went inside to call Lorraine to verify the woman's story. When she returned, the woman was gone and the baby was on the doorstep.

Two months later, 22 drug-addicted infants were packed into her five-room apartment. Mother Hale didn't know how to say no.

"Before I knew it, every pregnant addict in Harlem knew about the crazy lady who would give her baby a home," she said.

She didn't know much about drugs, but she knew children, and she knew the value of tough love. There were rules: No fixes - not even aspirin - no matter how much a baby cried. Mothers would have to go into rehab and would be required to visit their children once a week. Ninety per cent of the time, she was able to reunite a cleaned-up child with a cleaned-up mom.

Mystery Of The Sphinx Solved

2010-03-14T19:07:00.000-07:00

Beaneath the Right ear of the Sphinx the Medu Neters spell out: "One God" is represented by a One stroke (meaning One) and a flag or an Axe (meaning God) inside of a square can be found, many do not know of this info but you can see for yrself by the picture I provided below. We must EXAMINE things for ourselves , and not always rely on the media to explain the obvious thats right before our eyes, more info will be added later on to this mystery as time moves onward. HOTEP.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_hieroglyphs
— nṯr, meaning "god"; the character in fact represents a temple flag (standard);

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/8d/Sphinx_side_view.jpg/800px-Sphinx_side_view.jpg

April 4th Martin L. King Jr. Assassination

2009-04-16T14:25:00.000-07:00
AfroCentric Black History News Portal writes.....

I find it very easy for some of us in the Black community, to forget precious dates and events. It really aches my soul when great men like Martin especially, around his assassination...hardly a whispered. We really need to get a stronger hold on self and keep in rememberance our own people that have sacrificed their lives, so that We All could reap the benefits of their labor.
Every April 4th, should always be reverened by our community. Even more important than July 4th, or any other holiday.
Let's try to do better than we have.
Thank you Martin for your sacrifice.
----------

THE MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR., ASSASSINATION

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., leader of the American Civil Rights Movement, was assassinated on 4 April 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee while lending support to a sanitation workers' strike. He was shot by James Earl Ray at approximately 7:05 P.M. Ray's bullet struck King as he was standing on his balcony at the Lorraine Motel; King died approximately one hour later. Although no television cameras were in the vicinity at the time of the assassination, television coverage of the event quickly followed.

News reports of King's wounding appeared first, but reporters remained consistent with the traditional news format, making early reports of the shooting seem both impersonal and inaccurate. The assassination took place at the same time as the evening news, and several anchormen received the information during their live broadcasts and because details of the shooting were not yet clear, inaccurate information was offered in several cases. Julian Barber of WTTG in Washington, D.C., for example, mistakenly reported that King had been shot while in his car. Following this presentation of incorrect details, Barber then proceeded to introduce the station's weatherman. The rest of the newscast followed a standard format with only minor interruptions providing information about King's condition.

Similarly, Kondrashov recalls that Walter Cronkite had almost finished delivering his report on The CBS Evening News when he received word of King's wounding. Visibly shaken, he announced the shooting. Moments after the announcement, however, the news program faded into commercial advertising. With little information available, the networks continued with their regularly scheduled programming and only later interrupted the programs with their station logos. At that point an anonymous voice announced that King was dead.

Having received word of King's death, all three networks interrupted programming with news programs. Awaiting President Lyndon Johnson's statement, all three featured anchormen discussing King's life and his contributions to the Civil Rights Movement. The networks then broadcast President Johnson's statement in which he called for Americans to "reject the blind violence" which had killed the "apostle of nonviolence." In addition, the networks also covered Hubert Humphries' response, and presented footage of King's prophetic speech from 3 April in which he acknowledged the precarious stage of his life. Although the networks had reporters positioned in Memphis, there were no television reporters on the scene because an official curfew had been imposed on the city in an attempt to prevent violence.

According to McKnight, the immediacy of the television coverage prompted riots in over 60 American cities including Chicago, Denver, and Baltimore. Television coverage of King's death and the riots which it sparked continued for the next five days. King's life was featured on morning shows (e.g., NBC's The Today Show), evening news programs, and special programs. The riots themselves commanded extensive television coverage (e.g., CBS' News Nite special on the Riots). Carter suggests that the riots following King's assassination represent a significant shift from previous riotous activities, from responses dealing primarily with local issues to the national focus emerging in the wake of the King riots. National television coverage of the circumstances surrounding the King assassination may have contributed to this shift.

The assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is a significant moment in the history of the Civil Rights Movement as well as in the history of the United States. In death, as in life, Dr. King influenced millions of Americans. From the first reports of his shooting to the coverage of his funeral services on 9 April at the Ebenezer Church on the Morehouse College Campus, television closely followed his struggle. Even after his death, news coverage of King's legacy continued when, on 11 April President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Bill.

-Vidula Bal

FURTHER READING

Carter, G.L. "In the Narrows of the 1960's U.S. Black Rioting." Journal of Conflict Resolution (Ann Arbor, Michigan), 1986.

Kondrashov, S. and translated by Keith Hammond. The Life and Death of Martin Luther King. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1981.

Lewis, D.L. King: A Biography . Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1970; 2nd edition 1978.

McKnight, G.D. "The 1968 Memphis Sanitation Strike and the FBI: A Case Study in Urban Surveillance." South Atlantic Quarterly (Durham, North Carolina), 1984.

Somalia piracy connected to toxic dumping, illegal fishing

2009-04-15T06:24:00.000-07:00
While CNN, FOX, Times and other corporate media sources have fixated on one-dimensional reporting of the "Somalia Piracy" story, some diligent reporters and outlets have reported the broader picture. The following article and attached video offers that broader picture.

In this image provided by the U.S. Navy, Somali pirates holding the merchant vessel, MV Faina, stand on the deck of the ship after the U.S. Navy's request to check on the health and welfare of the ships crew on October 19, at sea in the Gulf of Aden off the coast of Hoybyo, Somalia. Photo: Jason Zalasky/U.S. Navy via Getty Images UNITED NATIONS - The head of the UN's body charged with combating piracy has advocated establishing a UN force to fight the piracy problem off Somalia's coast—but the problem may be more complex than simple banditry on the high seas.

According to the UN secretary-general's spokesman's office, Secretary-General of the International Maritime Bureau Efthimios Mitropoulos said the Gulf of Aden, the gateway to the vital Suez Canal, and the eastern coast of Somalia rank as the world's top piracy hot spots. The Gulf of Aden accounted for a third of all attacks on ships in the first nine months of 2008, said Mr. Mitropoulos. Thousands of cargo ships and tankers pass through on their way to Mombasa port in Kenya or destinations in southern Africa.

While the hijackings have been described as the work of criminals, officials admit the problem of waste dumped off the coast of Somalia may be a reason why ships have been commandeered.

In September, a Ukrainian freighter with Russian tanks on board, anti-aircraft guns and heavy weaponry was seized by Somali pirates and ransom negotiations are ongoing.

A spokesman for the pirates, who reportedly use the autonomous region of Puntland as their base, told Al Jazeera some of the ransom money will be used to help clean up waters off the Somali coast ravaged by years of toxic waste dumping. The ransom demand is a means of “reacting to the toxic waste that has been continually dumped on the shores of our country for nearly 20 years,” the spokesman said.

Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN special envoy for Somalia, said the world body had “reliable information” that European and Asian companies are responsible for the dumping. The United Nations has also been told that some Somali pirates claim to act as “coast guards,” protecting their country's waters, he added.

“This is not something new, the accusation that toxic dumping is happening off the shores of Somalia, it is amazing though that it is now coming out,” said Sadia Aden, president of the Somalia Diaspora Network. “Opinions are mixed on the pirates. Some of the people are saying the pirates are defending our territory,” Ms. Aden told The Final Call .

A political solution in Somalia would solve the piracy problem, said Ms. Aden. “We need elections. We need a central government,” she argued.

Somalia has not had a central government since 1991 when late President Mohamed Siad Barre was ousted.

Analysts said the chaotic state of the Transitional Federal Government has meant no binding trade measures are in affect and Somalia has not signed the Basel Convention or the Bamako Convention, which ban the import of hazardous waste to African nations.

“While I know the subject of this interview is waste dumping in Somalia, I must say that toxic dumping is an issue all over West and East Africa,” said Nii Akuetteh, executive director of Africa Action, a member of the Scholars' Council at Trans Africa Forum and founder of the Democracy and Conflict Research Institute in Accra, Ghana.

“The Somali toxic waste dumping issue is of great concern to me because it spills over to other African nations,” Mr. Akuetteh said. “Did you know that when the Islamic Courts Union was in charge of Somalia, piracy had come to a virtual halt? But thanks to the Bush administration and Ethiopia after the ouster of the ICU in 2006, the phenomenon returned,” said Mr. Akuetteh.

In early October, the UN Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1838 (2008) which determined “that the incidents of piracy and armed robbery against vessels in the territorial waters of Somalia and the high seas off the coast of Somalia exacerbate the situation in Somalia which continues to constitute a threat against international peace and security.”

“The UN must monitor more closely the toxic waste issue; and there doesn't seem to be any mention of that in Resolution 1838,” observed Professor Abdi Ismail Samatar, of the geography and global studies department at the University of Minnesota, in a Final Call interview.

While the media is covering piracy, there needs to be coverage of the plundering of Somali resources by rich companies and rich governments, said Prof. Samatar. “They are destroying the coral reefs—breeding grounds for the fisheries—destroying the livelihoods of Somalis, taking the food out of the mouths of the poor.”

According to Ms. Aden there are 3.5 million Somalis facing starvation. East African waters, particularly off Somalia, have huge numbers of commercial fish, including the prized yellow-fin tuna. Observers say the Somali coastline once sustained hundreds of thousands of people as a source of food and livelihoods.

Related links:

Somalia: a clear case of ‘blood oil’ in Africa (FCN, 02-05-2007)

Reconnecting the international struggles of Black people (FCN, 07-26-2006)

The Oil Factor In Somalia (LA Times, 01-18-1993)

Somalia piracy and the untold story

Report spurs new call to investigate Bush

Black Panther Robert H. King Tell's His Story.

2009-04-10T07:12:00.000-07:00
King, 66, will speak Friday at The Sanctuary for Independent Media in Troy in support of his book, "From the Bottom of the Heap: The Autobiography of Black Panther Robert Hillary King" (PM Press, 224 pages, $24.95).

Robert Hillary King spent nearly three decades in solitary confinement at the notorious Angola state prison in Louisiana. As a member of the Black Panther Party, he and two party members became nationally known as the Angola 3 political prisoners who spent decades in solitary confinement for, they contend, organizing prisoners to improve conditions.
After becoming a Black Panther in prison and organizing inmates, according to the book's dust jacket, "prison authorities beat him, starved him and gave him life without parole after framing him for a second crime. He was thrown into solitary confinement, where he remained in a 6-by-9-foot cell for 29 years as one of the Angola 3. In 2001, the state grudgingly acknowledged his innocence and set him free."
Born poor in Louisiana and abandoned by both parents, King was stealing and fighting on the street by the time he was 11 and serving time in reform school at 15. In and out of local and state prison, he ended up at Angola in 1971 for a robbery he claims he did not commit. There, he says, he was framed for the stabbing death of another inmate.
"Solitary confinement is terrifying, especially if you are innocent of the charges that put you there," King writes. "My soul still cries from all that I witnessed and endured. ... So let's call prisons exactly what they are: an extension of slavery."
King recently spoke to the Times Union by phone from his home in Austin.
Q: You write that while in solitary you were allowed out of your cell one hour per day to shower and, sometimes, to go outside into the yard. How did you maintain your sanity?
A: When people ask me that, I tell them, laughing: 'I didn't tell you I wasn't crazy.' It's kind of hard to get dipped in waste and not come up stinking.
But I go on to say that I was in prison; prison wasn't in me. I kind of insulated myself against prison. My political awareness shielded me. Becoming politically aware in the early '70s, I saw America as being one big prison. All they'd done was take me from minimum custody and put me in maximum security.
But there is some luxury to going insane. I can understand that. Very few things I'm afraid of, but I was scared to go crazy, because I was scared of what they would do to me. I saw them do horrible things to people who, quote, lose their mind or regress into insanity. They were given medications, hosed down with 40-pound, 50-pound pressure hoses. ... And it wasn't just the administration. Inmates took part in the victimization of their own fellow prisoners. You see a lot of things. I couldn't describe all the things.
Q: Who are the Angola 3?
A: Herman Wallace, Albert Woodfox and myself became collectively known as the Angola 3 after spending decades in solitary confinement. Herman and Albert, both members of the Black Panther Party, were placed there for a crime they allegedly committed, participating in the death of a correction officer back in 1972. It's since come out that Herman and Albert were framed.
When our story got out in the public, I was subsequently released in 2001 when the courts overturned my conviction of participating in the death of an inmate. Herman and Albert are still in prison. (After 36 years in solitary, reportedly the longest of any inmates ever in the U.S., they were transferred last year to maximum security. When the correction officer was killed, Wallace and Woodfox were serving 50-year sentences, Wallace for bank robbery, Woodfox for armed robbery.) We have a strong legal case, but the state seems to be hanging on for dear life. Albert's case is in the federal courts, and Herman's is in the state Supreme Court. We have a civil suit as well.
Q: Are you consumed by anger and bitterness?
A: I don't know how anybody can go through what I went through and not be bitter, angry and a little crazy. But I can compartmentalize these things that took place in my life. I can dissect them and make an assessment of them.
Prison gave me a focus. The focus is to do my best to make sure that nobody else undergoes the type of thing that I underwent.
Q: What are you doing these days? How are you making a living?
A: When I got released from Angola, I got $10 from the state. That's all. I went on a few speaking engagements. I was putting out the word for the Angola 3. In some cases, people gave me a little money for doing it. I couldn't get a job, because when I got out, I was nearly 60 years old. And I had a record.
I got into making candy, something I learned in prison King's Freelines, my twist on "pralines". That's how I'm able to sustain myself. And I have the book. I have spoken at colleges. Sometimes I've received compensation for that. But it's never much. By no stretch of the imagination am I rich. But I'm not homeless.
Q: What's the message you'd like readers to take from your book?
A: In the final analysis, America may be heaven for some. But in heaven, there's some people catching hell. I just happened to be of that segment that caught hell. There's still people catching hell.
But I guess the main message is one of benevolence. I think we have much more in common than we have differences. I guess that's the final message.

-------------
Pt 1/15 Dr.Clarke vs. Mary Lefkowitz-The Black Athena Debate

THE MIS-EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO

The education of any people should begin with the people themselves....

The Honorable Robert F. Williams: "
A History of The Republic of New Afrika
42 LAWS OF MA'AT!

Afrikan- Centered Cultural Development and Education

FORMAL METHODS, FORMATIVE AND SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENTS

Front for the Liberation of the New Afrikan Nation

Afrikan centered Mythology, Religion / Spirituality and Neuromelanin in Education

Imhotep Virtual Medical School and It's Physician Tutors' Profile: In Pursuit of Academic Excellence

The Great Debate 4 (Is Hip Hop Good for Black folks) From the Pin of TRUTH Minister Paul Scott

The Spook Who Sat by the Door and A RBG Street Scholar Break Down

History of the The Black Power Movement, f. RBGz New

Who Is Dr. Mutulu Shakur?: A Lifelong Activist in the New Afrikan (Black) Independence Movement

Why Black History Month 24 / 7/ 365? To Combat Negroization:
Carter G. Woodson

Health Reform is Crucial- write a letter while congress is in recess.

2009-04-09T05:06:00.000-07:00
Spirit of Sankofa writes.........

Health care reform is one of the important issues on the table. Congress is on break, and "We The People" should use this opportunity to make our voices heard. It is far time for us as a whole not continue to rely on congress and lobbiest to speak for the people. Let us join by writing the editors of your local news papers, in order to let them know we need a resolution and we need it quick.
Let's do what we can..
---------------

Congress is at home for a two-week break. When they get back to DC, health care will be on top of the agenda.
Write a letter to the editor of your paper today.
As you read this, Congress is at home for two weeks of recess. And what your member of Congress hears from you is crucial to the direction of the health reform debate on Capitol Hill.
Make sure Representative Towns hears from you during the congressional recess.

Take a few minutes today to write a letter to the editor of your local paper. To help you get started, I've included a few tips and talking points.

In March, five Republican senators reached out to President Obama and pledged to work with him to pursue bipartisan reform. It's an encouraging sign that we can finally end the partisan fighting and pass meaningful health care reform this year.

But the mood in Washington can turn on a dime. It's crucial that Congress knows that health care reform is not just the Obama administration's priority -- it's the American people's priority.

While members of Congress are at home for the April recess, they need to see and hear "health reform" everywhere they go -- from the supermarket to their morning breakfast table. And if there's one thing we know your lawmaker has on the breakfast table, it's the local morning paper.
The truth is what Representative Towns hears from constituents is far more powerful than anything a talking head or interest group could ever say or do. In just the few minutes it takes to write a letter, you can be more influential than the most connected D.C. lobbyists.
Writing a letter to the editor is simple --

start your letter now -- and make sure Representative Towns hears from you during April recess.

Thank you for being a part of this crucial effort to bring access to affordable, quality care to all Americans. We couldn't do this without you.

Health Day: Networking May Aid Blacks Who Need KidneyTransplant

2009-03-28T05:02:00.001-07:00
Sankofa writes.......

In the focus of "Health Day" Blacks need to be a little more aware of heath issue's. Also, information that can alleviate the stress of not knowing what they dealing with and where to find help.
I can remember watching the news one evening where this older man children went on one of the sites, posted there about needing a matching kidney. Do you know what? This man received it from someone that frequent the site. Truly amazing, after a number of years his family searched and decided to try the net.
This is a good venue to a much more knowledge where to receive one.
It would be a beautiful thing if we would try to focus more on the health issues that affect us personally.

em-Hotep*
-------------

Networking May Aid Blacks Who Need Kidney Transplant

Survey finds that active role by patients doubled their odds of success

(HealthDay News) -- Social and medical networking can improve the chances that blacks who have kidney failure will acquire a new kidney, a survey has found.

"Research overwhelmingly indicates that African-Americans are less likely to successfully get kidney transplants, even allowing for differences in socioeconomic and insurance status and patient preference," Teri Browne, of the University of South Carolina, said in a National Kidney Foundation news release.

The survey, by Browne and colleagues, found that more than 90 percent of the 228 blacks with kidney failure who were surveyed wanted a transplant and had insurance that would pay for the procedure. But those who gathered information from dialysis teams and social networks were nearly twice as likely to get an appointment at a transplant center, which improves the likelihood of their being placed on the transplant list.
Networking with others that have been through it already can give you more info and experience their exprience shed more light.

The study was to be presented at the Kidney Foundation's spring clinical meetings, in Nashville, Tenn.

"In regards to kidney transplant, an effective social network is made up of people who have had a kidney transplant themselves or know of someone who did," Browne said. "That way, they have information about how to get one. We know that getting a transplant is not an easy process and requires much follow-up on the patient's part and may be confusing."

Browne said that because rules from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services stipulate that dialysis centers must have interdisciplinary teams in place for every patient, "social workers and other team members can incorporate relevant interventions to help patients remove barriers to getting a kidney transplant."

More information

The U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases has more about kidney transplant .

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Health Day: Networking May Aid Blacks Who Need KidneyTransplant

2009-03-28T05:02:00.000-07:00
Sankofa writes.......

In the focus of "Health Day" Blacks need to be a little more aware of heath issue's. Also, information that can alleviate the strss of not knowing what they dealing with and where to find help.
I can remember watching the news one evening where this older man children went on on of the sites posted there were in bneed of a matching kidney. Do you know what? This man received from someone that frequent the site. Truly amazing after a number of years his family searched and decided to try the net.
This is a good venue to a much more knowledge where to receive one.
It would be a beautiful thing if we would try to focus more on the health issues that affect us personally.

em-Hotep*
-------------

Networking May Aid Blacks Who Need Kidney Transplant

Survey finds that active role by patients doubled their odds of success

(HealthDay News) -- Social and medical networking can improve the chances that blacks who have kidney failure will acquire a new kidney, a survey has found.

"Research overwhelmingly indicates that African-Americans are less likely to successfully get kidney transplants, even allowing for differences in socioeconomic and insurance status and patient preference," Teri Browne, of the University of South Carolina, said in a National Kidney Foundation news release.

The survey, by Browne and colleagues, found that more than 90 percent of the 228 blacks with kidney failure who were surveyed wanted a transplant and had insurance that would pay for the procedure. But those who gathered information from dialysis teams and social networks were nearly twice as likely to get an appointment at a transplant center, which improves the likelihood of their being placed on the transplant list.
Networking with others that have been through it already can give you more info and experience their exprience shed more light.

The study was to be presented at the Kidney Foundation's spring clinical meetings, in Nashville, Tenn.

"In regards to kidney transplant, an effective social network is made up of people who have had a kidney transplant themselves or know of someone who did," Browne said. "That way, they have information about how to get one. We know that getting a transplant is not an easy process and requires much follow-up on the patient's part and may be confusing."

Browne said that because rules from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services stipulate that dialysis centers must have interdisciplinary teams in place for every patient, "social workers and other team members can incorporate relevant interventions to help patients remove barriers to getting a kidney transplant."

More information

The U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases has more about kidney transplant .

Related News

Diets That Promote Health
Keeping Your Brain Fit
Good Parents, Bad Results
America's Best Hospitals

Health News From HealthDay

Third of EMS Stethoscopes Carry MRSA Virus
How Much Should Women Drink? It Depends on Who You Ask
Baby's Sleep Position May Not Affect Severity of Head Flattening
Scientists Capture HIV Transfer Among T-Cells on Video
Microsurgery May Cut Swelling After Breast Cancer Treatment
More Headlines From HealthDay

Featured Video

Birth Control Methods

Learn about condoms, diaphragms, and other barrier methods of birth control.

Taking a Skin Self-Exam

A step-by-step demonstration of how to look for the warning signs of cancer.

What Is Diabetes?

Diabetes, if unchecked, can lead to very serious conditions such as kidney problems, blindness, and amputations.

Cancer Treatments

There is a wide range of treatments to help you fight your cancer.

Understanding Chemotherapy

Learn why chemotherapy often plays a large part in cancer treatment.

Healthy Eating

From grilling recipes to making the right choice at the grocery store

advertisement

Health Features from U.S. News

ADHD Drugs Don't Help Children Long Term

Fitness Buzz: Caffeine, Beef, and More

Health Buzz: Hot Tea and Throat Cancer, and Other Health News

Why Women Should Favor Circumcision: To Prevent HPV Infection

New iPhone App Could Monitor Glucose Levels Remotely

Health Buzz: American Medical Association Sues WellPoint and Other Health News

advertisement

Our panel of experts weighs in on your health concerns. Ask one of our experts a question here .
Read more Health Advice

Pioneering Historian John Hope Franklin dies at 94

2009-03-26T08:19:00.000-07:00
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — John Hope Franklin, a towering scholar and pioneer of African-American studies who wrote the seminal text on the black experience in the U.S. and worked on the landmark Supreme Court case that outlawed public school segregation, died Wednesday. He was 94.

David Jarmul, a spokesman at Duke University, where Franklin taught for a decade and was professor emeritus of history, said he died of congestive heart failure at the school's hospital in Durham.

Born and raised in an all-black community in Oklahoma where he was often subjected to humiliating racism, Franklin was later instrumental in bringing down the legal and historical validations of such a world.

As an author, his book "From Slavery to Freedom" was a landmark integration of black history into American history that remains relevant more than 60 years after being published. As a scholar, his research helped Thurgood Marshall and his team at the NAACP win Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 case that barred the doctrine of "separate but equal" in the nation's public schools.

"It was evident how much the lawyers appreciated what the historians could offer," Franklin later wrote. "For me, and I suspect the same was true for the others, it was exhilarating."

Franklin himself broke numerous color barriers. He was the first black department chair at a predominantly white institution, Brooklyn College; the first black professor to hold an endowed chair at Duke; and the first black president of the American Historical Association.

He often regarded his country like an exasperated relative, frustrated by racism's stubborn power, yet refusing to give up. "I want to be out there on the firing line, helping, directing or doing something to try to make this a better world, a better place to live," Franklin told The Associated Press in 2005.

In November, after Barack Obama broke the ultimate racial barrier in American politics, Franklin called his ascension to the White House "one of the most historic moments, if not the most historic moment, in the history of this country."

"Because of the life John Hope Franklin lived, the public service he rendered, and the scholarship that was the mark of his distinguished career, we all have a richer understanding of who we are as Americans and our journey as a people," Obama said in a statement. "Dr. Franklin will be deeply missed, but his legacy is one that will surely endure."

Obama's achievement fit with Franklin's mission as a historian, to document how blacks lived and served alongside whites from the nation's birth. Black patriots fought at Lexington and Concord, Franklin pointed out in "From Slavery to Freedom," published in 1947. They crossed the Delaware with Washington and explored with Lewis and Clark.

The book sold more than 3.5 million copies and remains required reading in college classrooms. It was based on research Franklin conducted in libraries and archives that didn't allow him to eat lunch or use the bathroom because he was black.

"He was working in a profession that more or less banned him at the outset and ended up its leading practitioner," said Tim Tyson, a history professor at Duke. "And yet, he always managed to keep his grace and his sense of humor."

Late in life, Franklin received more than 130 honorary degrees and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's Spingarn Award. In 1993, President Bill Clinton honored Franklin with the Charles Frankel Prize, recognizing scholarly contributions that give "eloquence and meaning ... to our ideas, hopes and dreams as American citizens."

Clinton awarded Franklin the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian prize, two years later, and gave him the role for which he was perhaps best known outside academia, as chairman of Clinton's Initiative on Race. It was a job of which Franklin said, "I am not sure this is an honor. It may be a burden."

As he aged, Franklin spent more time in the greenhouse behind his home, where he nursed orchids, than in libraries. He fell in love with the flowers because "they're full of challenges, mystery" — the same reasons he fell in love with history.

In June, Franklin had a small role in the movie based on the book "Blood Done Signed My Name," about the public slaying of black man in Oxford in 1970. Tyson, the book's author, said at the time he wanted Franklin in the movie "because of his dignity and his shining intelligence."

Franklin attended historically black Fisk University, where he met Aurelia Whittington, who would be his wife, editor, helpmate and rock for 58 years, until her death in 1999. He planned to follow his father into law, but the lively lectures of a white professor, Ted Currier, convinced him history was his field. Currier borrowed $500 to send Franklin to Harvard University for graduate studies.

Franklin's doctoral thesis was on free blacks in antebellum North Carolina. His wife spent part of their honeymoon in Washington, D.C., at the Census Bureau, helping him finish. The resulting work, "The Free Negro in North Carolina, 1790-1860," earned Franklin his doctorate and, in 1943, became his first published book. Four years later, he took a job at Howard University. It was the same year "From Slavery to Freedom" was published.

Some of his greatest moments of triumph were marred by bigotry.

His joy at being offered the chair of the Brooklyn College history department in 1956 was tempered by his difficulty getting a loan to buy a house in a "white" neighborhood.

When he was to receive the freedom medal, Franklin hosted a party for some friends at Washington's Cosmos Club, of which he had long been a member. A white woman walked up to him, handed him a slip of paper and demanded that he get her coat. He politely told the woman that any of the uniformed attendants, "and they were all in uniform," would be happy to assist her.

Franklin was born Jan. 2, 1915, in the all-black town of Rentiesville, Okla., where his parents moved in the mistaken belief that separation from whites would mean a better life for their young family. But his father's law office was burned in the race riots in Tulsa, Okla., in 1921, along with the rest of the black section of town.

His mother, Mollie, a teacher, began taking him to school with her when he was 3. He could read and write by 5; by 6, he first became aware of the "racial divide separating me from white America."

Franklin, his mother and sister Anne were ejected from a train when his mother refused the conductor's orders to move to the overcrowded "Negro" coach. As they trudged through the woods back to Rentiesville, young John Hope began to cry.

His mother pulled him aside and told him, "There was not a white person on that train or anywhere else who was any better than I was. She admonished me not to waste my energy by fretting but to save it in order to prove that I was as good as any of them."

On the Net:

Duke University's John Hope Franklin Web site: http://www.duke.edu/johnhopefranklin

America loses its pre-eminent black historian Brisbane Times - 2 hours ago
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Washington Post - 10 hours ago

In this July 1997 file photo, Duke University historian and African-American scholar John Hope Franklin talks to the press following his speech to a joint session of the legislature in Raleigh, N.C. Franklin died Wednesday, March 25, 2009, at the age of 94. (AP Photo/Karen Tam)

R.I.P. Brother historian John Hope Franklin

Obama lobbies at Capitol-Democrat's on budget

2009-03-25T16:19:00.000-07:00
Spirit of Sankofa writes........
Obama is one Hard Working President! However, he doesn't get half the credit that he deserves! Obama has inherited thisTrillion dollar budget, and the republicans nick pick and critique everything. They want him to turn water into wine within a (100 days) in office. "Unbelievable" Guess what? It's their fault the country is in the state it's in right now.
He made it clear, that he realizes everyone will not agree with everything. However, if we could put away childish ways...and seek what's important to the fabric of this country, then we can begin to move forward in the right direction.
Cheers, to President elect Obama for handling the curved ball thrown to him last night. I applaud his response on the "race" question. He let that reporter and the world know, He has been much to busy to focus at this time on "race" when people are loosing their jobs etc... I stand with him now is now is not the time.
Keep your head up Mr. President your doing awesome for such a short time in office!
Remember, keep your. Head up, many are pulling for you.
May you and your family be blessed!
Spirit of Sankofa*
-------------
Obama goes to Capitol to lobby Democrats on budget

WASHINGTON (CNN)

President Obama huddled with Senate Democrats on Capitol Hill Wednesday as the White House fought to save major domestic priorities in its record $3.6 trillion budget from the congressional budget ax.
Key budget votes are expected in the Senate and House later this week.
Obama's visit to the Hill came shortly after Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-North Dakota, trimmed the president's proposal in response to congressional projections showing larger-than-expected budget deficits over the next several years.
Obama has pledged to cut the deficit in half within five years.
"We had a very comfortable meeting with President Obama," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada. "He made us all feel content and inspired by where we need to go."
Reid said he is confident the full Senate will pass Conrad's version of the budget next week.
Conrad said he had preserved the president's major initiatives in education, energy and health-care reform in the wake of "new realities" on finances without sacrificing the administration's deficit reduction goals.

Multiple senators said the Democrats' meeting with Obama was cordial, and that the president said he understood that the budget process would require compromise on all sides.
Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden and Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu said the most pointed questions Obama got were about how he can undertake large initiatives in energy and health care reform during difficult economic times.

Obama repeated an argument he has made in recent weeks, saying that smarter investments in core priorities now will ultimately help control costs later. The president said initiatives such as health reform and economic reform are linked, according to Wyden.
"He reiterated what he said before," Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh told reporters. Namely, that "he never had [any] expectation that the budget would be rubber stamped ... and he fully expected members of the Senate to come forward with their ideas about how to improve the process."
Conrad and other centrist Democratic senators, whose support is critical to passing the legislation, had raised concerns about the long-term impact of the president's spending plan on the federal deficit.

In a letter to the Senate Budget Committee dated Tuesday, 12 of the 16 members of the centrist Senate Democratic coalition, which calls itself "the moderate Dems Working Group," expressed concerns about the direction of the president's $3.6 trillion budget.
The lawmakers noted the Congressional Budget Office's projection of a cumulative deficit over the next 10 years of $9.3 trillion, "roughly $2.3 trillion higher than the president's budget had assumed."
While acknowledging the economic and fiscal distress the Obama administration has inherited, the 12 moderates said the deficit projections "are not acceptable."
The senators who signed the letter were: Bayh, Landrieu, Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware, Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Sen. Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Sen. Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Sen. Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida and Sen. Mark Begich of Alaska. Sen. Joe Lieberman, formerly a Democrat and now an independent from Connecticut, also signed the letter.
Publicly, the administration has tried to minimize differences between Obama's budget proposal and changes sought by congressional Democrats.
The "House and Senate budget committees are taking up resolutions that are fully in line with the president's key priorities for the budget," White House Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag said in a conference call Wednesday morning.

"There have been some changes made ... but they are 98 percent the same as the budget the president sent up in February."
Obama, in a news conference on Tuesday, defended his budget, saying the plan he proposed is "inseparable" from the overall strategy for economic recovery.
Obama brushed off those skeptical of the scope of his investments, saying, "We haven't seen an alternative budget out of them."

Republicans, who blasted the Obama budget proposal because it "spends too much, taxes too much and borrows too much," according to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, have also criticized Conrad's proposal because some of the items Conrad stripped from the spending blueprint might have to be funded anyway.

For example, Conrad's budget strikes Obama's proposal to set aside $250 billion in case more money is needed for the financial sector rescue, an aide said.
Conrad's budget also curtails Obama's fix of the costly alternative minimum tax and doesn't account for increased payments for doctors who care for Medicare recipients, said Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, the top Republican on the Budget Committee.

"You can get these presidential numbers down by using a lot of gimmicks that the president didn't use. That would be a mistake. Let's be honest with the Americans," Gregg said Tuesday.
"It's certainly not a gimmick," Conrad responded Tuesday. "We faced up to changes."

Questions pour in for Obama's online town meeting.

2009-03-25T15:49:00.000-07:00
(CNN)

During the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt reassured anxious Americans through his famous fireside chats over the radio.

Now, in the 21st century, President Obama has found his own fireside equivalent, launching an online town hall meeting Thursday where he will answer citizens' questions about the troubled economy and his efforts to fix it.

"We're going to try something a little different. We are going to take advantage of the Internet to bring all of you to the White House to talk about the economy," he says in an introductory video on the site.

As of late Wednesday afternoon, more than 30,000 people had submitted more than 32,000 questions on the official administration Web site, WhiteHouse.gov.
Americans may submit questions, and vote on others' queries, until 9:30 a.m. ET Thursday. Obama has promised to answer the most popular questions through a live video stream on WhiteHouse.gov. beginning Thursday at 11:30 a.m. ET.

The site had recorded more than 1 million votes as of late Wednesday afternoon.

The White House's Web site asks people to agree to post "only questions related to the economy (including topics essential to long-term economic growth, such as education, fiscal responsibility, green jobs and energy, health care reform, and home ownership)."
A quick review of questions revealed deep concerns among Americans trying to make ends meet.
"What is the government doing to make higher education more affordable for lower and middle class families?" asked James of Bloomington, Indiana, who described himself as a full-time student who also works full time, "only to break even at the end of the month."

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The 'three-fifth clause' in the Constitution

2009-03-16T13:14:00.000-07:00
1783-1799: The Miracle of Democracy

1783-1865: UNITED STATES. The U.S. Constitution is approved. Amongst other things, this fabulous instrument of freedom carries a provision preventing Congress from banning the importation of slaves. But, most significantly, the authors of the Constitution were very careful to ensure that it validated slavery by means of a so-called "positive" law embedded in Article 4, Section 2: "No person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up; on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due." In plain English, there was no escape for slaves in the land of the free and the U.S. Constitution made damned sure of it.

In a magical inversion of reality, U.S. histories repeatedly refer to assemblies, governors and presidents as being elected by “popular” vote. In truth, however, in the United States, popular votes are strictly verboten. Blacks in the new “democracy” are items of property who cannot vote or hold office. Indentured whites, are simply slaves of another name and another color and who can not vote or hold office. Indians, upon whose stolen land the new nation stands, and who were described in the racist Declaration of Independence as “merciless Indian savages”, cannot vote or hold office. In most states in this brave new homeland of “religious freedom”, Catholics and Jews cannot vote or hold office. Women, regardless of race, creed, color or religion, are chattels who cannot vote or hold office. White men, even those most sacred of all God's creatures; white, Protestant, non-indentured men, cannot vote or hold office unless they meet a further qualification for membership in the ruling class; they must be very, very rich.
Although it varied from state to state, the property qualification which opened the doors to participation in the new demockracy was as much as $4000, an astronomical sum in the eighteenth century, equal to millions of dollars today.
The right to vote and hold office and all political and economic power in the new demockracy was, of course, held by a tiny handful of what would later come to be known as fascists, a small fraction of one percent of the population, the ultra-wealthy, white, male, Protestant, slave-owning, land speculating, terrorist, thoroughly unscrupulous elite; a self-appointed aristocracy of hypocrisy which looked down in open contempt upon most of their fellow human beings including ordinary Americans of all races.

Depend upon it, sir, it is dangerous to open so fruitful a source of controversy and altercation, as would be opened by attempting to alter the qualifications of voters. There will be no end of it. New claims will arise. Women will demand a vote. Lads from twelve to twenty one will think their rights not enough attended to, and every man, who has not a farthing, will demand an equal voice with any other in all acts of state. It tends to confound and destroy all distinctions, and prostrate all ranks, to one common level. John Adams.
Imagine that, equality in the land of the free! Can't be havin' none of that.
Those who refused to swear allegiance to the newly installed dictatorship of the ultra-wealthy were denied virtually all civil liberties, were jailed, murdered or forced into exile and their property stolen.
The “three-fifths” clause of the Constitution counted each slave owned as three-fifths of a person for the sake of apportionment of electoral districts although the slaves themselves were not, of course, allowed to vote. The effect was to give slave-owners a hugely disproportionate share of political power amongst the tiny minority of Americans who had any at all. The slave-owners had about a third more seats in Congress and a third more electoral votes than they would otherwise have had.
The desire to keep control of the country in the hands of the slave-owners also stood behind the creation of the Electoral College. Votes in the Electoral College, which “elects” the president, neatly sidestepping direct election, were apportioned using the same three-fifths rule. Thanks to the three-fifths clause, slave-owners dominated the government of the United States until 1865. For most of the period, slave-owners occupied the presidency, the chairmanship of the House Ways and Means Committee and the Speaker’s chair. During the same period, eighteen of thirty one justices of the Supreme Court, that great protector of human rights and dignity, were slave-owners.
The much propagandized first president, George Washington, was an elitist snob who considered ordinary Americans no better than cattle. He called the white citizens of the new country over which he lorded “the grazing multitude”. Washington was a slave owner and a land speculator.
The great freedom lover owned about two hundred and fifty slaves, dressed them in rags, auctioned off their children for yet more cash, of which he could never, apparently, acquire enough, and had them viciously whipped for “disobedience”. Among Washington’s many business "enterprises" was the construction of a canal through the Great Dismal Swamp in the Carolinas. The canal was hand-dug by slaves through steaming, mosquito-infested swamp. The slaves were worked to death in appalling conditions so that Washington, already the wealthiest man in the United States, could grow even richer.
Aside from his desire to maintain slavery, Washington, as a leading land speculator, was particularly anxious to gain control of the government because the British had signed a treaty with the Cherokee Nation and other Indian nations which prevented him stealing their ancestral land for profit. As President, Washington, in his fervor to steal the maximum possible amount of Indian land, was also a mass murderer of considerable accomplishment; the country's leading early practitioner of the ethnic cleansing of native Americans. According to Washington, native Americans were "wolves and beasts" who deserved nothing from the whites but "total ruin."
The second president, John Adams, had no higher opinion of ordinary white Americans than Washington. They were, he said, the “common herd” and had “no idea of learning, eloquence and genius” and were “locked within vulgar, rustic imaginations”.
1780: UNITED STATES. Captain Daniel Shays, a veteran of the Revolutionary War, fought at Saratoga, Bunker Hill and Lexington and was wounded in action. A poor farmer, he, like thousands of others, was not paid by the ruling class which had forced colonists by threat and violence into the Revolutionary armies. He returned to his hometown of Pelham, Massachusetts, where he, like many others, was promptly imprisoned for unpaid taxes by the new regime.
Although he had had to fight for “democracy” and was assessed taxes he could not afford to pay, Shays was not permitted to vote or hold office in new demockracy. To Shays and the vast majority of people in the new United States, the slave-owners’ propaganda slogan, “no taxation without representation” was simply a sick joke of the wealthy hypocrites who now completely controlled the country.
Revolutionary “hero” Sam Adams, staunch hypocrite and liar, safely installed as one of the ruling class sitting in the Massachusetts State Council, achieved new but unsurprising heights of hypocrisy when he proposed to hang Shays and anyone else resorting to civil disobedience in an attempt to bring genuine democracy and liberty or even something as simple as "no taxation without representation" to the United States.
The Massachusetts Riot Act of 1786 ordered the killing of any rebellious farmer and instituted a property seizure law. Rebellious farmers were to "forfeit all their lands, goods and chattels to the Commonwealth." Massachussetts also suspended habeas corpus meaning that citizens could be imprisoned indefinitely by the ruling junta without charge or trial. Freedom of speech in Massachussetts was banned if it was "to the prejudice of the government." The chief sponsor of all this fascist oppression? None other than the great freedom fighter Sam Adams. Vermont went down the same road, enacting The Riot Act which authorized county sheriffs to shoot rebellious farmers on sight
Petitions were made to the regime for an honest monetary system, lower taxes and a fair judicial system. The petitions were ignored and, in desperation, groups of farmers occupied the courthouses in Northampton, Worcester, Concord, Taunton and Great Barrington, Massachusetts in an attempt to stop the ongoing jailing of those who could not afford to pay the taxes assessed by the regime.
The Supreme Judicial Court, sitting in Springfield, indicted eleven leaders of the uprising for “sedition”. Upon his release from jail, Shays lead a ragtag army of fifteen hundred ex-soldiers, wearing the uniform of the Revolutionary army which had betrayed them, to occupy the Courthouse. Later, Shays lead two thousand farmers in an assault on the Federal Arsenal in Springfield.
Shays’ Rebellion, the real American revolution for liberty and equality (for white people at least), for no taxation without representation and for some semblance of democracy, was ruthlessly crushed by overwhelming military force, leaving the United States firmly in the hands of the slave-owning ruling class. Shays and thirteen others were condemned to death for “treason” against the elitist dictatorship. Ultimately, twelve of the fourteen were pardoned by the newly-installed governor of Massachusetts. Two were executed. Shays, one of the few true heroes of the era, died in poverty.
1782: UNITED STATES. A raiding party of one hundred and fifty Pennsylvania militiamen under Lieutenant Colonel David Williamson rounds up a group of Munsee Indians near Gnadenhutten, Ohio. Even though the Indians are unarmed non-combatants who have converted to Christianity, they are falsely accused of taking part in raids into Pennsylvania. In true democratic fashion, the militiamen vote to slaughter the Indians anyway and inform the Munsee of their fate.
The Munsees spend the night praying and singing hymns. The following morning, they are slaughtered as they kneel, praying, their skulls crushed with mallets. Twenty eight men, twenty nine women and thirty nine children are murdered and then scalped by the forces of freedom. The corpses are then heaped into nearby Christian mission buildings and the entire town burned to the ground. Other towns nearby are burned as well. Two Munsee boys, one of whom had been scalped, survived to tell of the massacre. Slave-owner and land speculator General George Washington's reaction to the massacre was not to punish the murderers but to order that no American soldier allow himself to be taken alive by Indians for fear of retribution for the massacre.
1783-present: UNITED STATES. The new regime immediately allows the land speculators who had been instrumental in the planning and execution of the Revolution to seize Indian land, abrogating treaties and carrying out a relentless program of genocide and ethnic cleansing against native Americans which will last for more than a century. Millions of American Indians are killed outright or die as a result of deliberately-induced disease and starvation. Virtually all Indian land, consisting of the vast majority of the land west of the Mississippi River, is stolen. Of course, this will all be presented to Americans of later generations as valiant pioneers taming the wilderness.

A British visitor to America, 1784
1789-1797: UNITED STATES. Slave-owner, land speculator, ethnic cleanser and mass murder cover-up-artist George Washington becomes the first President of the United States, an office to which he was “elected”, unanimously, by his fellow land speculators and slave-owners in the Electoral College, dispensing with even the merest pretence of democracy.
A great proponent of liberty, Washington takes eight of his slaves to the executive mansion in Philadelphia. Pennsylvania had outlawed slavery but Washington, a straight shootin' guy as we all know, got around the law by declaring that he was a Virginia resident only temporarily staying in what was then the capitol.

Once he gets his slaves settled in, Washington gets down to work, spending eighty percent of the budget of the new nation on ethnic cleansing; exterminating native Americans and stealing their land, something very dear to his own heart and bank account.
1791-1794: UNITED STATES. The new U.S. government, with an unelected president and voting for other offices restricted to wealthy, white, Protestant males, continues to explore the limits of hypocrisy by broadening its policy of taxation without representation. The federal government imposes a new tax on distilled spirits. Naturally, the rate is fifty percent higher on small farms than on large commercial producers. Because they often lacked any way of getting their grain to market, distilling liquor, thereby making a compact, easily transported commodity, was, for many small farmers, the only way of making any money at all from their crop.
Bitterly opposing such taxation without representation, farmers harass tax collectors and stage sometimes violent protests in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina and Georgia in the so-called Whiskey Rebellion. As in the case of Shay's Rebellion, the fine new "democratic" government of the United States uses overwhelming violence to suppress dissent by American citizens and to enforce the policy of taxation without representation. Slave-owner and ethnic cleanser cum unelected President George Washington invokes martial law and assembles a force of 13,000 troops, about the same size as the entire American army in the Revolutionary War. He personally leads the troops against the citizens of the United States in order to enforce obedience to his regime's dictates and its policy of taxation without representation.
Ultimately, twenty residents of the new demockracy are arrested and imprisoned. One dies in captivity. Two are convicted of treason and sentenced to death by hanging.
1793: UNITED STATES. Congress passes the Fugitive Slave Act which mandates the return of escaped slaves to their "owners" from anywhere in the U.S. Blacks fleeing slavery no longer just have to get to a state which has abandoned slavery but have to escape completely from the "land of the free” to British territory in Canada or elsewhere in order to find freedom.
1798: DOMINICAN REPUBLIC. U.S. Marines invade the Dominican Republic and seize a French vessel in the city of Puerto Plata.
1798: UNITED STATES. Just seven years after the ratification of the Bill of Rights, the First Amendment to the Constitution goes right down the toilet when the Sedition Act of 1798 makes it a crime to, gasp, criticize the government. Can't be havin' none of that in the world's greatest demockracy, can we now bubba?
There were numerous indictments, prosecutions and convictions under the act, the best known of which was the prison sentence given to Congressman Matthew Lyon of Vermont. Taking the first Amendment a bit too literally for the tastes of the ruling class, Lyon had a few harsh words for President John Adams saying that Adams is "swallowed up in a coNewer Post
1620: Lie Number One, The Pilgrims
1763-1783: Lie Number Two, The American Revolution
1783-1799: Lie Number Three, The Miracle of Democracy
1800-1849: Thirty Five Invasions And A Genocide
1850-1859: Invasions, Racism, Slavery and Ethnic Cleansing
1860-1864: The Civil War, But First, Let's Kill Some Indians And Get Rid of the Jews
1865-1869: The Final Solution To The Indian Problem And The Invasions Keep On Coming
1870-1884: More Invasions, More Racism, More Ethnic Cleansing. Happy 100th Birthday America.
1885-1894: The U.S. Steals Hawaii, Four Thousand Lynchings, Shooting Workers in the Streets and Planning For a Splendid Little War
1895-1899: The Spanish-American War, A Sordid Little War
1900-1904: The Philippines, A Full Dress Rehearsal For Iraq
1905-1909: Treacherous Muslims and Ze Quest For Ze Master Race
1910-1912: Invasions, Apartheid, Lynchings, Censorship And The Quest For The Master Race But No Conspiracies
1913-1914: Destroying Democracy in Mexico and the Federal Reserve Scam
1915-1916: Dangerous Singers, Lynching Jews and Blacks Speaking French!
1917-1918: Now The Great War's A Good Thing, Fascism In America, SettingThe Stage For Old Adolf Plus The Miracle Of Free Speech
1919-1920: A Summer Of Blood, Lynching Will Brown And J. Edna Hoover Takes The Stage
1921-1922: Setting Up The Hitler Project, Giving Away The Nation's Oil, Mass Murdering Black Americans And Poisoning All Americans
1923-1924: Destroying Rosewood, Racial Purity In Virginia And Prescott Bush And The Boys Get Old Adolf Started
1925-1926: Legislated Ignorance, Dupont's Supermen, Hoover In Drag And Murdering Nicaraguans
1927-1928: Sterilizing Americans, Slaughtering Miners, Making Your Boyfriend FBI Assistant Director, Invading China And Dive Bombing Nicaraguans
1929-1930: The Crash of '29--A Federal Reserve Production, Racist Pseudoscience, Murdering Workers (Again) And The Dulles Brothers Help Old Adolf
1931-1932: Admiring Mussolini, The Depression Ain't So Bad For Some, Murdering U.S. Veterans And Killing Puerto Ricans And Black People For Science
1933-1934: The Dust Bowl, Gangsters In Pinstripe Suits, Pimping For Hitler, The Merchants of Death And An All-American Coup
1935-1936: Arming The Nazis, Gangsters For Capitalism, Hanging Out With Hitler, Blackmailing Hoover And Truth, Justice Or The American Way
1937-1938: Lebensborn U.S.A., Murdering Workers (Again), Murdering Puerto Ricans (Again), Arming Adolf (Again) And Outlawing The Killer Weed
1939-1940: War's Just Good Business, Shortselling Czech Stock, Torturing Veterans' Kids, Crushing Dissent And The Hitler Project Boys Hedge Their Bets
1941-1942: Lobotomizing Rosemary, Shock And Awe, Playing Both Sides Of The War And Concentration Camps In The Land Of The Free
1943-1944: GM Builds Jet Engines For The Nazis, Apartheid In The Workplace, Beating Up Hispanics And The Hitler Project, Plan B
1945: At Nuremberg, Kissinger Joins The Boys, Experiment In Hiroshima, Installing Fascists And It's Not A War Crime When We Do It

You'll be amazed how often the same family names keep popping up. Or maybe not.

This is what is called, in the history biz, a revisionist history. American history, at least as far as the general public knows it, is in desperate need of revision, bringing what is taught and what is said about America's past more in line with the truth.
Making the World Safe For Hypocrisy is a chronology of the largely suppressed history of the United States. It is the history that good upstanding Americans are not supposed to know.
Almost everything you read here is based on publicly available information and most historians know all about it. And yet they remain strangely silent, allowing the fantasyland, propagandized version of American history and the fatuous pseudo-patriotic nonsense spewed by politicians and the mass media to stand unchallenged.

A nation
which does not know
what it was yesterday,
does not know
what it is today.

Woodrow Wilson

He who controls the present,
controls the past.
He who controls the past,
controls the future.

George Orwell

The essence of propaganda
consists of winning people
over to an idea
so sincerely, so vitally,
that in the end
they succumb to it utterly
and can never escape from it.

Joseph Goebbels

America has been something
of a divided personality,
tragically divided
against herself.
On the one hand
we have proudly professed
the great principles
of democracy,
but on the other hand
we have sadly practiced
the very opposite
of these principles.

Martin Luther King

None are more
hopelessly enslaved
than those
who falsely believe
that they are free.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

ANTI-AMERICAN?

Whenever anyone dares to point out the painfully obvious fact that the U.S. and its leaders have for two hundred years consistently acted in a fashion diametrically opposed to the values which America claims to represent, that person is instantly accused of being anti-American.

Do you consider yourself anti-american?
If believing in free speech and real democracy is anti-American, If believing that a government should not lie endlessly is anti-American, then I guess I am. If believing that a government should not spy on its own citizens is anti-American, then I guess I am. If believing that a government should not kidnap, torture and murder is anti-American, then I guess I am. If believing that a government shouldn't slaughter millions of innocent people simply to further enrich the same old handful of psychopathic bastards and their offspring is anti-American, then I guess I am.

RESOURCES ON THE WEB

911 Truth: A very good place to begin thinking about the Bush regime's unlikely conspiracy theory of 9-11.
AdBusters: A spunky Canadian anti-consumerist magazine with a lot of interesting news and comment you won't find in the mainstream media.
Alex Jones' Prison Planet: Lots of coverage of events past and present.
Amnesty International.
Common Dreams: The news CNN and Fox don't want you to know.
Conspiracy Planet: Amazing how often the simple truth is labelled a "conspiracy theory".
CorpWatch: The dark underside of corporate America.
Exulanten: An exhaustively researched look at how anti-German hatred was manufactured by the CPI during World War One.
Global Research: Excellent and detailed background and commentary on the American Empire.
Indy Media: An excellent resource of the news the mainstream media studiously avoid.
John Pilger is an intrepid Australian journalist. Read his stuff.
KryssTal, The Acts of the Democracies: An appalling record of genocide and war crimes carried out by the "democracies".
Mostly Water: A slightly differenent compendium of news and comment.
National Security Archive at George Washington University: A repository of declassified U.S. government documents. Imagine what they are still hiding from us.
Project Censored: Decades of documented censorship and suppression of truth in the American corporate mass media.
Robert Fisk: One of the most intrepid journalists in the world. What you're not supposed to know about Israel, Iraq and much more.
The Memory Hole: A treasure trove of official documents.
Third World Traveler: A huge resource on what the U.S. really does in the developing world.
Without Sanctuary: A heartbreaking collection of photogaphs of lynchings. Real U.S. history.
World Socialist Website: Never mind socialism, more truth than you'll ever find in the corporate mass media.

NEEDLES OF TRUTH IN THE HAYSTACK OF LIES

1984, George Orwell: Old George was bang on with the techniques used by the rulers. "America" couldn't exist without doublethink.
A People's History of the United States, Howard Zinn: More history you're not supposed to know.
American Holocaust, David Stannard: The genocide of the American Indians.
Body of Secrets, James Bamford: The National Security Agency spies on all Americans all the time.
Deadly Deceits, Ralph McGehee: A insider's look at one of the world's leading terrorist organizations, the CIA.
Freeing The World To Death, William Blum: Essays on the American Empire.
Full Spectrum Dominance, Rahul Mahajan: The U.S. in Iraq and beyond.
Hidden Agenda, Ramsey Clark et al: The destuction of Yugoslavia by the U.S. and NATO.
House of Bush, House of Saud, Craig Unger: The Bushes have had their snouts up the Saudi pursehole for half a century.
IBM and the Holocaust, Edwin Black: the Nazis and America's most powerful corporations in cahoots.
Imperial Brain Trust, Laurence Shoup and William Minter: The Rockefellers' Council on Foreign Relations.
Killing Hope, William Blum: A saddening record of America's use of overwhelming violence to crush democracy and hope around the world.
Lies My Teacher Told Me, James Loewen: American children are taught the lies from day one.
Propaganda, Edward Bernays: The textbook of manipulation of the public by Woodrow Wilson's propaganda maven.
Rogue State, William Blum: All other rogue states pale into insignificance when compared with the U.S.
Terrorizing the Neighbourhood, Noam Chomsky: What America really does to its neighbors.

The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover, Anthony Summers: America's leading law enforcment officer was a lifelong crook. Quelle surprise.
The Splendid Blond Beast, Christopher Simpson: Nazi war criminals rescued by the U.S. and hired by the U.S. government and military.
Warriors of Disinformation, Alvin Snyder. On disinformation by someone who should know, the former director of the U.S. Information Agency.
Western State Terrorism, Alexander George Editor: The title says it all.

Origins of the word 'Lynch'

2009-03-16T12:52:00.000-07:00

1776-82: THIRTEEN COLONIES.

Virginia planter Charles Lynch puts his name into the language when he creates a kangaroo court for the persecution of Loyalists and their forced conversion to the “patriot” cause by torture and terror. Lynch and his vigilantes kidnap Loyalists, subject them to fake trials and then immediately carry out “sentence” which might include up to thirty nine lashes, property seizure and hanging by the thumbs from the walnut tree on Lynch’s property, giving rise to the term “lynching”. Lynch also coerced pledges of allegiance to the rebel cause and forced conscription into the rebel forces. Lynch also facilitated the theft of property belonging to his victims.

In the interests of fairness and justice, in 1782, the General Assembly of Virginia passed a special act naming Lynch and three of his fellow vigilantes, retroactively providing them with immunity for their crimes.

Courts refuses to expand minority voting rights

2009-03-09T16:04:00.000-07:00
March 9, 2009

Court refuses to expand minority voting rights
The Supreme Court has ruled that electoral districts must have a majority of African-Americans or other minorities to be protected by a provision of the Voting Rights Act.

The decision could make it harder for southern Democrats to draw friendly boundaries after the 2010 Census.

The justices on Monday declined to expand protections of the landmark civil rights law to take in electoral districts where the minority population is less than 50 percent of the total, but strong enough to effectively determine the outcome of elections.

In 2007, the North Carolina Supreme Court struck down a state legislative district in which blacks made up only about 39 percent of the voting age population. The court said the Voting Rights Act applies only to districts with a numerical majority of minority voters.

AP

Supreme Court considers challenge to Voting Rights Act

- Are You Riled Up? …
Anonymous on For Blacks in France Obama’s…

Unfair Justice -The two faces of the law

2009-03-08T08:13:00.000-07:00
The Spirit of Sankofa writes...........

I have often wondered, why is that a Black Man or the not so well to do gets arrested, (jump a tunstile in NY) immediately they receive a free go to jail card. Where rich individuals, well to do get arrested they get to enjoy the comforts of home (Penthouse).
Someone expressed- well Madoff hasn't been proven guilty. Neither has the soul that jumped the turnstile.
Another case the Equador immigrant that was murdered alledgely by two black men, charged with a hate crime are receivng a unfair call. Let's be clear if you do the crime you should do the time. But when the district attorney says they should get a sentence of 78 years, I Must Raise My Voice!

Hate-Crimes?
Lets discuss All the Crimes of Hate committed in our time, against people of color. that goes without even a slap on the rist! Unfair for the wheels of Justice that is suppose to represent itself for truth. Exposied the Reality, the scales of Justice are Not leveled when it comes to Afrcan Americans.

Let us take a look back as far as the Civil Rights Movement.
For the symtoms remain -Whatever is within the Heart flows the issues of life.
Part of the problem is- most Blacks earn less, learn less.

Marcus Garvey had an influence in the millions. This made J. Edgar Hoover uneasy. Why did it make him uneasy? Whenever a Black Man had any influence, the goverment saw it as power. According to James Foran, The CRM was under attack by Hoover. The FBI. testified against King and admitted they were persuing him with obessive behavior. The board investigating the FBI asked why, and asked did King comment any crimes of violence to warrant him to be persued and wire tapped. The answer was a resounding NO! They had a hand in the murder of Malcolm, and so on.
Black Culture as a whole was put on notice and spied upon as if it were terrioriist needing to be disected and put on file for more intensive investigation.
Othello a FBI informat spoke about the role he played in the conspiracy and down fall of the fabric of African Culture. He expressed, Black magazines, music. entertainers, athletics Black wrters etc....were placed in an intensive study, using the information such as Blacks behavior patterns, to seek out weaknesses, to use against those that we respect and would listen to. These types of agents didn't stop there, but they ran many studies on African tribalism etc.. They paid this particlar black informnt $800 a week and back in the 70's this salary was very good especially a man of color. He was responsible by his own admission -he burned down Watts. These people also took part in setting people up and writing letters and signing false signatures.
I believe what's most important to the Black community is to understand we need a wake-up call. The point is as I am concern, learn and seeked out as much about yourself, your ancient history. And know..... A people without the knowledge of their ancient history, is like a tree without roots
Marcus Garvey

Hotep - Know Thyself

Ancient statue discovered near Egypt pyramid

2009-03-04T05:02:00.000-08:00
This is a fantastic discovery, think about it. Not an excavation but found by maintenanace workers? Awesome.
Check the story out.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29368122/
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Ancient statue discovered near Egyptian pyramid

February 24, 2009 ·

A 1.5 meter (5 feet) high 4,000-year-old quartz statue has been discovered buried just 40 centimetres (16 inches) below the surface of the sand in the northern part of the pyramid of pharaoh Menkaure (2551-2523 BC). Amazingly, the lifesize statue was not found during an archaeological excavation, but by maintenance workers cleaning an area stepped on by thousands of tourists every day.

The sculpture depicts an unidentified person wearing a medium-length wig, sitting on a chair with his right arm stretched on his knee and holding an unidentified object in his fist, in the style of the Old Kingdom, though it’s difficult at the moment to pinpoint the exact dynasty, because the statue has no visible inscriptions.
The pyramid of Menkaure is the smallest of the three Pyramids of Giza.
Pyramids, Plans and Perimeters!
Reflections in the Nile
Talking Pyramids
Royal tomb discovered in Saqqara

Amenhotep III statue rises again in Luxor
Archaeologists rediscover lost Egyptian tomb

Africa afterlife akhenaten Alexander the Great Alexandria Amarna ancient egyptian religion antiquities theft Archaeology Aswan book british museum Brooklyn Museum cairo Christianity economy Egypt environment hatshepsut islam karnak Luxor Metropolitan Museum of Art Middle East Modern Egypt mummies mummy museum Nefertiti Nile Nubia Old Kingdom osiris outsourcing ramses Saqqara Sinai Peninsula theft antiquities tourism tutankhamen Tutankhamun Valley of the Kings women Zahi Hawass

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Are Black Reporters caught in a Catch-22?

2009-03-02T13:16:00.000-08:00
Spirit of Sankofa writes........
I myself find reporting news from the Black community a task in itself. However,those brothers and sisters who are dedicated to get the news to us are stressed.They feel like their backs are against the wall. Most of our news is indeed compromised. In the perpective Black News Reporters articles are edited to fit the needs of their paper.This practice is disabling, Omitting pertinent information,and preventing the full story from reaching the masses. They also, feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. For the reporters themself don't want to be stereo-type as the only one's capable of covering news in the Black communities. One part of the Catch 22 is,would'nt they better serve the community by covering these type of stories? Do you feel someone other than a african american could be just as fair and straight to the point of reporting all the truth?
What do you think?
Below Black Reporters Sound off. _______

Black Broadcasters Sound Off On Covering Black Community

Mar 01, 2009

Unfair, unbalanced and the overabundance of negative reporting about the black community has often been a complaint among many. There is concern that not only does such reporting paint an inaccurate portrait of a particular ethnic group, but it also sets a dangerous pattern.
Images shown by the media play a role in influencing attitudes toward blacks. Many in the community believe that the over-use of negative images has resulted in a lack of confidence when it comes to entrusting outsiders to tell the black community’s story.
So the question becomes: Are black journalists the only ones capable of accurately and fairly reporting on the black community? Or is the black reporter caught in a Catch-22, stuck between getting it right for his or community and being professionally pigeon holed? If they cover only the black community, they run the danger of becoming known as a reporter who can only cover black stories. If they cover only the mainstream stories, they’d be entrusting someone else to tell the black community’s story.
Should their loyalties be to their media outlets or to their communities? There are lots of questions and just as many answers. Many find themselves walking a tightrope.
To get a clearer picture of just what black broadcasters are faced with on a daily basis, the L.A. Watts Times went straight to the source, asking local black broadcasters these questions:
As an insider, what is your perspective on how the media covers the black community? Have you attempted to contribute toward covering the black community?
BEVERLY WHITE (NBC4 anchor/reporter) — “I can only speak for the electronic media, which I believe adequately covers the black community but can do much more. The industry should employ more black people (in front of and behind the camera) and encourage diversity in sourcing and in story selection.
The responsibility to cover our community without fear or favor must never rest solely with black reporters. I pitch ideas and handle all manner of assignments. My non-black counterparts should do the same. Anyone who knows my work knows I try to cover the black community every way I can — with contacts who enhance my storytelling beyond race and sports, or entertainment and crime. I keep an eye out for distinct voices from mudslides to market issues, violence to Valentine’s Day. I strive to include people who look like me because it deepens my reporting and often helps defy stereotypes, one sound bite at a time. I see that as my mission as an African American journalist.”
TONY COX (NPR “News and Notes” host) — “How the media covers the black community depends on which media you’re referring to. The mainstream press doesn’t cover the black community at all. It looks for stories of general interest, and if those happen to involve black folks in particular, then chances are you’ll see something written or broadcast.
And even that depends on what market your outlet is in and how large the black audience is. The black press covers the black community all the time. They just don’t have the resources to cover it as effectively as is sometimes warranted. And because the black press has to compete for advertising dollars, like all media, their story selection is often dictated by what sells and will generate the most revenue. That’s when even the black press becomes more selective about what it does and doesn’t cover. In the end, the black community suffers either way.”
CHRIS SCHAUBLE (NBC4 anchor) — “The media does a poor and shallow job of covering the African American community (myself included). However, it’s due mostly to a lack of resources that all newsrooms face, as opposed to a willful disregard. As TV newsrooms shift to the concept of photojournalists (reporters carrying their own cameras while also presenting the story), there will be more of us beating the street. I think there will be more room for the individual newsperson to influence coverage ... more stories, yes the positive ones, will get told.
I find that while I cannot always influence news coverage, I can make sure the African American community knows it has my support. I emcee countless events within the black community and only say no when it conflicts with another engagement (or when my wife tells me to slow it down).”
MARC BROWN (ABC7 anchor) — “Having grown up in Los Angeles, I have watched the evolution of the news media’s coverage of the African American community. It used to be fairly one-dimensional and primarily negative. It no longer is. I feel very good about how ABC7, in particular, covers the black community. We try to cover African Americans, as we do every other community in Los Angeles, with fairness, sensitivity and across a broad spectrum.
We’re able to do it because we have a very diverse staff both in front of and behind the camera. Some of the stories I’ve covered over the last few months include the Eso Won Bookstore and its struggle to survive, an African American funeral director in South L.A. who handles victims of gang violence, and the inauguration of Barack Obama. These stories, while of special significance to African Americans, I believe are important to everyone.”
BOBBY HOWE (KTYM radio – public affairs director) — “Black press should give equal time to the good done by blacks and less to the not-so-good… I am on air 10-15 times a week, and I present the ‘Other Side of War’ and ‘Conversations with the Community.’ There is always the good, the bad and the ugly. I make sure I talk to the good being done in our community, but if I must report on the ugly, I make sure I have some solutions to the bad news.”

Wilbert Tatum 76 Activist Publisher dies

2009-02-27T17:52:00.000-08:00
Spirit of Sankofa expresses.....

Much honor and respect to a great and courageous brother..
A deep brother that stood against police brutality, redling and other manifastations of discrimination. One of Harlems FINEST.
Our thoughts and our prayers go up for his wife and family. We should all strive to remember the sacrifices made for the community as a whole.
For brothers like him shown us the way.

We are so glad he passed this way.

Wilbert Tatum, 76, Activist Publisher, Dies

By DENNIS HEVESI

Published: February 27, 2009

Wilbert A. Tatum, the often provocative former publisher and editor of The New York Amsterdam News, whose name became almost synonymous with that of the oldest and best-known of the city's black newspapers, died Thursday while on vacation with his wife in Dubrovnik, Croatia. He was 76 and lived in Manhattan.

The cause was multiple organ failure, said Mr. Tatum's daughter, Elinor Ruth Tatum, who took over as publisher and editor of the weekly paper in 1998. Ms. Tatum said her father was diabetic, but added that the specific cause had not yet been determined.

The Amsterdam, as it is often called, was founded 100 years ago. Mr. Tatum bought it in 1971 with a group of prominent investors that included Percy E. Sutton, the former Manhattan borough president, and H. Carl McCall, the former New York State comptroller. Mr. Tatum assumed control of the paper in 1983; he bought out the last investor in 1996 and remained chairman of the board until his death.

With editorial offices in a fourth-floor walk-up on Frederick Douglass Boulevard between 125th and 126th Streets in Harlem, The Amsterdam News primarily covered what it called "a small town in a metropolis." It reported on Harlem's galas and local residents' achievements, weddings and deaths. But it also focused, particularly under Mr. Tatum, on issues of police brutality, redlining and other manifestations of discrimination. Although the paper's circulation fell significantly during Mr. Tatum's tenure - it was 58,907 in 1977 and 25,962 in 2000 - its imprimatur was always coveted by many politicians.

As Mr. Tatum clacked out editorial after editorial on his typewriter (he barely made the switch to computers), The Amsterdam was both cheered and vilified. Critics accused Mr. Tatum of fanning the flames of racial tension and of sometimes taking an anti-Semitic stance.

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Boycott N.Y. Post and affiliated Fox News

2009-02-20T07:03:00.000-08:00
Spirit of Sankofa expresses.......
It was outrageuos that this happened ..let alone during Black History Monrh. This type of thing has gone.the distance. NY Post Fox News its parent affiliate has always had a certain sway of racism for people of color. I believe its time to boycott and not support any company that published this type of childest garbage. We have the power to shut it down. Much respect to Al Sharpton and Charles Barron for staying on the tront lines in NYC. Many want to discredit your good works. Just Keep It Pushing.

New York Post Racist Cartoon Slanders President Obama-Boycott the Post

City Wide Emergency Protest Demonstration
Thursday, February 19, 2008 at 12 Noon
New York Post Offices
1211 Avenue of the Americas (between 47th & 48th Sts)
New York, NY
The New York Post maligned President Barak Obama in an overly racist cartoon depicting two police officers, one is pointing a smoking gun at a large chimpanzee, lying on the ground clearly shot dead. The caption reads "They'll have to find someone else to write the stimulus bill."
The cartoon in Wednesday's (2/18/09) edition on the infamous "Page Six," is a crass distortion of a recent horrific incident in which a 200 pound pet chimpanzee mauls a woman and police shoot and kill him.
NYC Councilman Charles Barron has called for A City Wide Emergency Protest Demonstration. The protest will be held on Thursday, February 19, 2009 at 12 noon in front of the New York Post main offices at 1211 Avenue of the Americas (between 47th and 48th Streets) New York, NY.
"The clearly racist tone is outrageous," said Colette Pean of the Women of Obama. "We are in support of Councilman Barron and we must let the New York Post know this will not be tolerated by the people in this city."
Invited speakers joining Councilman Barron include Reverend Al Sharpton of the National Action Network, NYC, State Senator Bill Perkins, State Assemblywoman Inez Barron, Viola Plummer of the Women for Obama, Monica Moorehead of the International Action Center, and representatives of the Committee to Eliminate Media Offensive To African People (CEMOTAP),20December 12th Movement, NAACP-Jamaica Queens, Harriet Tubman, Black Men's Movement, and many others.
__________________________ ____
Women For Obama
c/o Sistas Place
456 Nostrand Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11216
Phone (718) 398-1766
Fax (718) 623-1855
Here's a special note from Harlem rap star Priest...
Ok so I don't know if you heard about this but this is a cartoon that they placed on Page Six of the New York Post. The back story to this cartoon is that there was a wild chimpanzee that attacked an older lady and as a result of this, had to be shot and killed by police the other night. This is the cartoon that ran in the post the next day.
Needless to say, it is not only racially insensitive, it is indicative of how the NY post has historically maintained an position of constantly printing articles that are demeaning to people of color.
With that said I am calling on all people who find this cartoon offensive to boycott the NY Post. Do not purchase it, do not read it and encourage others to do the same. If you must read the New York Post then do so only to make a list of the companies that advertise in the New York Post and let them know that you will no longer be supporting them if they continue to advertise in the New York Post.
I am specifically calling on all Hip Hop websites, blogs and radio programs to address this issue with the same fervor with which they address the "Rick Ross vs 50 Cent" beef or whatever incessant nonsense it is that they spew under the guise of giving you "Hip Hop News" . I watched Curtis Silvia of the "Guardian Angels" sit on NY1 News tonight and say that he thought there was nothing wrong with the cartoon since rappers say worse things when they are making fun of each other. Let's show them that we can address issues more serious than the "Chris Brown - Rhianna" situation. If the Hip Hop media cannot take a position on this then they need to be held accountable as well.
It is sad that during a such historic time in our nation that we as African Americans are still having to fight these kinds of battles on a DAILY basis. If we are truly to affect change then that begins with us being the change that we want to see. To make a long story short, its time for us to let our voices be heard in regards to this issue. Its time that we boycott this newspaper and let them know in a language that they will understand. The language of economics.
DO NOT BUY THE NY POST NEWSPAPER!!!
Priest

At a date in time where Obhama has had numerous threats on his life and police have been trigger happy shooting or tasing to death Black men from coast to coast-what was this about? Time to boycott everything owned by Fox-from the NY Post to American Idol

Obama warns of need for stimulus urgency*

2009-02-05T11:03:00.000-08:00
Obama warns of need for stimulus bill right away

Print 13 mins ago
Featured Topics: Barack Obama Presidential Transition Play Video CNBC – An Overexposed Economy
Slideshow: Economic Stimulus Plan Play Video Video: Tapper on Obama's Executive Salary Cap ABC News Play Video Video: Obama: 'time for action is now' AP AP – President Barack Obama speaks at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, Thursday, Feb. 5, 2009. … WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama says the time for talk on an economic recovery package is over and "the time for action is now."

Speaking at the Energy Department, Obama made a fresh plea for the stimulus plan that the Senate is debating. He cited the latest bad economic news of jobless claims as another reason for quick action.

He said: "The time for talk is over, the time for action is now."

Republicans and some Democrats have expressed reservations about the growing price tag of the package — more than $900 billion. Senate Democratic leaders hope to have a bill completed by Friday.

Senate moderates from both political parties worked to cut up to $100 billion from economic stimulus legislation and clear the way for the bill's passage as Obama urged lawmakers to "rise to the moment."

Senate Democratic leaders said they hoped for passage of the legislation by Friday, and prospects appeared to hinge on agreement to a series of changes that would trim the size of a bill costing well over $920 billion.

Senate centrists met privately, and emerged saying they had made progress toward an accord.

"The president made a strong case for a proposal that would be in the neighborhood of $800 billion," said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who met with Obama at the White House on Wednesday.

Earlier today, Obama warned that failure to pass an economic recovery package could plunge the nation into an even longer, perhaps irreversible recession, as senators searched for compromises to whittle down the enormous bill.

Obama painted a bleak picture if lawmakers do nothing.

In an op-ed piece in The Washington Post, the president argued that each day without his stimulus package, Americans lose more jobs, savings and homes. His message came as congressional leaders struggle to control the huge stimulus bill that's been growing larger by the day in the Senate. The addition of a new tax break for homebuyers Wednesday evening sent the price tag well past $900 billion.

"This recession might linger for years. Our economy will lose 5 million more jobs. Unemployment will approach double digits. Our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse," Obama wrote in the newspaper piece.

He rejected the argument that more tax cuts are needed in the plan and that piecemeal measures would be sufficient. His latest plea came on the same day the economy dealt with another dose of bad news: A big jump in jobless claims and another round of weak retail sales.

Initial jobless claims rose to 626,000, a 26-year high, the Labor Department said. And the number of claims by people continuing to apply for unemployment benefits reached a new record of nearly 4.8 million.

The housing tax break was the most notable attempt to date to add help for the crippled industry and gave Republicans a victory as they work to remake the legislation more to their liking.

"It is time to fix housing first," Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., said Wednesday night as the Senate agreed without controversy to add the new tax break to the stimulus measure, at an estimated cost of nearly $19 billion.

Three swing-vote senators met with Obama at the White House on Wednesday to discuss possible cutbacks, but they declined to discuss details of their talks. Obama has made the legislation a cornerstone of his recovery plan.

For their part, Senate Republicans signaled they would persist in their efforts to reduce spending in the measure, to add tax cuts and reduce the cost of mortgages for millions of homeowners.

Officials figures were unavailable, but it appeared that the measure carried a price tag of more than $920 billion, making it bigger than the financial industry bailout that passed last year and as large as any measure in memory.

Despite bipartisan concerns about the cost, Republicans failed in a series of attempts on Wednesday to cut back the bill's size.

The most sweeping proposal, advanced by Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., would have eliminated all the spending and replaced it with a series of tax cuts. It was defeated 61-36.

Democrats also upheld a so-called Buy American provision that requires projects financed by the measure to be built with domestically produced iron and steel.

But with Obama voicing concern about the provision, the requirement was changed to specify that U.S. international trade agreements not to be violated.

Additionally, Democrats turned back an attempt to strip out a provision that Obama has said was essential. It would provide a tax cut of up to $1,000 for working couples, including those who do not make enough to pay income taxes.

Isakson said the new tax break for homebuyers was intended to help revive the housing industry, which has virtually collapsed in the wake of a credit crisis that began last fall.

The proposal would allow a tax credit of 10 percent of the value of new or existing residences, up to a $15,000 limit. Current law provides for a $7,500 tax break but only for first-time homebuyers.

The provision was the second tax cut approved in as many days targeted to individual industries. On Tuesday, the Senate voted to give a break to consumers who buy new cars.

The House approved its own version of the bill last week.

Apollo Celebrating it's 75th: Has a great history*

2009-02-05T10:32:00.000-08:00
January 27, 2009...11:19 p01
Apollo’s 75th Anniversary Kick-off it 75th!!

THE RESURGENCE OF THE 125TH STREET STRIP HAS BEEN
PEGGED TO THE RE-OPENING OF THE APOLLO THEATER -- A
HARLEM INSTITUTION THAT CAME TO SYMBOLIZE THE HEYDAY
OF JAZZ AND RELATED AFRICAN AMERICAN ART FORMS FROM
THE MID-1920S THROUGH THE 1950S.

PERCY SUTTON IS THE BIG CITY POLITICIAN, MEDIA MOGUL
AND CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST WHO BOUGHT THE SHUTTERED
APOLLO IN 1980 AND REFURBISHED IT IN THE OLD STYLE.
ACCORDING TO HIM, THE APOLLO'S INITIAL POPULARITY
AMONG BLACKS WAS DUE TO THE RACISM OF NEW YORK'S
ENTERTAINMENT WORLD DURING THE 1930S AND 40S.

"THE APOLLO THEATER HAS A GREAT HISTORY.
HISTORICALLY, IT WAS THE RESULT OF DISCRIMINATION. IT
WAS, TOGETHER WITH THEATERS IN SEVEN OTHER CITIES,
THE PLACE WHERE BLACK ENTERTAINERS COULD GO AND HONE
THEIR TALENTS AND WHERE BLACK PEOPLE COULD COME.
BLACKS COULDN'T GO INTO WHITE THEATERS. THEY HAD TO
GO INTO BLACK THEATERS. ** BLACK PERFORMERS COULDN'T
GO INTO WHITE THEATERS. THEY HAD TO GO IN BLACK
THEATERS."

ALL THE BLACK JAZZ GREATS, FROM BILLIE HOLIDAY TO
LOUIS ARMSTRONG, AND FROM DUKE ELLINGTON AND COUNT
BASIE TO THE GREAT LIONEL HAMPTON REGULARLY "PLAYED
THE APOLLO" AND CONTRIBUTED TO ITS FAME.

"IT WAS SO POWERFUL. IT WAS LIKE A BOMBSHELL! IT WAS
SO POWERFUL, THE WHOLE WORLD KNEW ABOUT IT... IT WAS
JUST SOMETHING THAT HAD TO HAPPEN. GOD WANTED IT
THAT WAY!"

THAT'S LIONEL HAMPTON HIMSELF. THE LEGENDARY "SWING
ERA" MUSICIAN WHO FIRST MADE THE VIBRAPHONE FAMOUS AS
A JAZZ INSTRUMENT IS NOW 89 YEARS OLD. STILL, HE
EASILY RECALLS WHEN THE APOLLO THEATER WAS GROUND
ZERO FOR HARLEM AND HARLEM WAS "GROUND ZERO" FOR
JAZZ.

"... WE HAD TO DO TEN SHOWS A DAY. BOY, I'M TELLING
YOU PEOPLE LINING UP AROUND SEVENTH AVENUE ONE WAY,
AROUND EIGHTH AVENUE THE OTHER [WAY]. AND THE CROWD
WOULD MEET ON 126TH STREET BEHIND THE APOLLO THEATER
AT THE BACK DOOR. THE CROWD WAS SO TREMENDOUS! IT WAS
JUST JOY ALL THE WAY."

THESE DAYS, IT IS RAP AND HIP-HOP, NOT JAZZ THAT
YOU HEAR ON THE STREET AND IN THE CONCERT HALLS OF
HARLEM. RAP AND HIP-HOP MUSIC LIKE THIS ARE CERTAINLY
THE MAINSTAY FEATURES OF ANOTHER VENERABLE APOLLO
TRADITION: "AMATEUR NIGHT" CONTESTS.

EVERY WEDNESDAY AT SEVEN SHARP, UNKNOWN LOCALS -- AND
THE OCCASIONAL FOREIGNER -- TAKE TO THE STAGE TO TRY
TO PLEASE THE FAMOUSLY TOUGH CROWD, HOPING FOR A
BREAK. *** MS. GRACE BLAKE OF THE APOLLO THEATER
FOUNDATION, SAYS THAT THE PERFORMERS LOVE TO STRUT
THEIR STUFF BEFORE THEIR PEERS.

"THEY ALL THINK THEY ARE GOING TO BE THE NEXT STAR OF
TOMORROW. LIKE MICHAEL JACKSON, HE PLAYED THE APOLLO
AT ONE TIME. AND LUTHER VAN DROSS. HE WAS BOOED OFF
OF HERE ABOUT FOUR OR FIVE TIMES. SO THERE IS HOPE.
THERE ARE KIDS FROM GERMANY AND JAPAN AND ALL OVER
THE WORLD WHO FEEL THAT IF THEY CAN MAKE IT ON THE
APOLLO STAGE, THEY CAN MAKE IT ANYWHERE. "

DURING AMATEUR NIGHT, THE AUDIENCE IS THE JUDGE, AND
CONTESTANTS ARE RANKED ACCORDING TO THE APPLAUSE AT
THE END OF THE SHOW. UNLIKE THE ETIQUETTE AT THE MORE
STAID VENUES DOWNTOWN, THE MOSTLY TEENAGE APOLLO
AUDIENCE IS ENCOURAGED TO CHEER OR BOO AS LOUD AS IT
LIKES. STILL, MS. BLAKE SAYS SHE SOMETIMES FEELS FOR
THE HOPEFULS WHO COME ONSTAGE TO SING ONLY TO BE
SUMMARILY USHERED OFF IN A PANDEMONIUM OF LIGHTS AND
SOUND BY THE APOLLO'S RESIDENT CLOWN, C-P -- FOR
"CROWD-PLEASER" -- LACEY.

"BECAUSE IT'S TOUGH! YOU COME AND YOU PREPARE AND YOU
PREPARE AND AFTER ABOUT THE THIRD NOTE IT'S
'ZOOOMMMM!' HERE COMES THE C-P LACEY TO TAKE YOU OFF
THE STAGE. C-P LACEY HE'S THE EXECUTIONER."

FOR AUDIENCE MEMBERS LIKE MERLINE AND HER PALS FROM
QUEENS, THE CLOWN IN THE MUTLI-COLORED WIG IS AN
ESSENTIAL PART OF THE DRAMA. BUT THERE ARE OTHER
REASONS FOR GOING TOO.

"Q: WHY'D YOU COME HERE TONIGHT? A: TO SEE AMATEURS.
Q: WHAT'S THE DRAW? A: BOOING PEOPLE. AND TO SEE WHO
GOT TALENT... GIVES PEOPLE A CHANCE TO START A
CAREER. Q: DID YOU EVER BOO ANYONE THAT EVERYONE ELSE
LIKED OR VICE VERSA? A: YEAH. YEAH YEAH. YEAH!"

NOT EVERYONE LOSES OF COURSE. ON THIS WEDNESDAY,
AMATEUR NIGHT FIRST PRIZE WENT TO A TEENAGE GIRL IN
RADIANT WHITE WHO SANG A SOULFUL SONG THAT PLEASED
THE CROWD. PERHAPS SHE WILL WIN THE SEMI-FINALS AND
GO ON TO FAME AS NINA SIMONE, ELLA FITZGERALD, GLADYS
KNIGHT, THE INK SPOTS AND NUMEROUS OTHER AMATEUR
NIGHT WINNERS HAVE DONE BEFORE HER.

BUT WINNING IS NOT THE MAIN POINT FOR BILLY MITCHELL,
AN ENTERTAINER WHO DOES DOUBLE DUTY GIVING TOURS TO
THE MANY VISITORS WHO COME TO THE THEATER HOPING FOR
A PIECE OF HARLEM HISTORY. FOR HIM, THE APOLLO'S
ILLUSTRIOUS PAST IS JUST AS IMPORTANT AS THIS YEAR'S
AMATEURS -- OR NEXT YEAR'S SUPERSTARS.

"... THERE IS A LOT OF TIMES AFTER THE CONCERTS, I
WILL GO INTO THE THEATER, THERE IS NO ONE HERE AND I
WILL SIT THERE AND I CLOSE MY EYES AND TAKE IN THE SPIRITS
OF ALL OUR ANCESTORS WHO HAVE PERFORMED HERE. ** I FEEL
THEIR PRESENCE. SOME PEOPLE MIGHT SAY 'BILLY! WHAT
ARE YOU DOING IN HERE?' BUT I AM TAKING IT IN. WHEN
YOU HAVE A LOVE FOR A PLACE.... THERE IS NO OTHER
PLACE I WANT TO WORK EXCEPT FOR THE APOLLO THEATER. I
REALLY, REALLY LOVE IT HERE."

SPECIAL EDITION: 75th ANNIVERSARY AMATEUR NIGHT BIRTH DAY PARTY

To kick off its 75th Anniversary Season, the world famous Apollo Theater will present a special anniversary edition of its popular signature show, Apollo Amateur Night, on Wednesday January 28, 2009 at 7:30pm. In a salute to the community who has kept the Theater going for the last 75 years, tickets will be only $7.50 for the first 750 people who purchase tickets for the January 28 performance. Considering this Amateur Night, “the official birthday party” for the iconic Theater, producers have pulled out all the stops for this show. Hosted by KISS-FM Morning Show personality Talent, the evening will include a very special performance from Harlem native and super producer/rapper Ron Browz performing his monster hit “Pop Champagne” and his latest single “Jumpin’ Out the Window.” There will also be a cake and cupcakes, (provided by Harlem bakery Make My Cake), prizes, giveaways, a very unique rendition of Happy Birthday, and a chance for people to write messages to the Apollo. Tickets are available at The Apollo Theater Box Office- (212) 531-5305, 253 West 125th Street. Ticketmaster at (212) 307-7171 or www.ticketmaster.com/venue/6 .

About Amateur Night
From its notoriously tough audience to the magic of the Tree of Hope, the Apollo Amateur Night story is the stuff that legends are made of–literally. Amateur Night has been the launching pad for countless world-class artists across generations and genres, including Stevie Wonder, The Jackson Five and Lauryn Hill. Long before Ted Mack and the Amateur Hour and American Idol, the Apollo’s Amateur Night was, and continues to be, a primary source for discovering new talent and spotlighting up-and-coming artists, all hoping that the hallowed stage and the approval of the infamous audience will launch their careers in the entertainment world.

Since introducing the first Amateur Night contests in 1934, the Apollo Theater has played a major role in the emergence of innovative musical genres including jazz, swing, bebop, R&B, gospel, blues, soul and hip-hop. Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday, Sammy Davis, Jr., James Brown, Bill Cosby, Gladys Knight, Luther Vandross, D’Angelo, and countless others began their road to stardom on the Apollo’s stage. Based on its cultural significance and architecture, the Apollo Theater received state and city landmark designation in 1983 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

About the Apollo Theater
Celebrating its 75th Anniversary Season in 2009-10, the Apollo Theater is one of Harlem’s, New York City’s, and America’s most iconic and enduring cultural institutions. The Apollo was one of the first theaters in New York—and the country—to integrate, welcoming traditionally African-American, Hispanic, and local immigrant populations, and headlining uniquely talented entertainers who found it difficult to gain entrance to other venues of similar size and resources. For that reason, the Apollo has been a pioneer in presenting the cultural contributions of black and Latino communities and has played a central role in the development of American music into the 21st century.

The Apollo Theater Foundation, Inc., was established as a nonprofit, charitable organization in 1991 and is dedicated to the preservation and development of the Apollo Theater. The Foundation brought stability to the Theater’s operations and focused its efforts on reinvigorating the Apollo legend. Recently, the Apollo has roughly tripled its operating budget, full-time staff, annual audience, and weekly programs. In January 2008 the Apollo announced a series of initiatives leading up to its 75th Anniversary Season in 2009-10, including an archive of historic documents, photographs, audio and video recordings, artifacts, and other memorabilia and ephemera as part of its ongoing mission of preserving and making available its legacy.

The Apollo’s mission is to honor the influence and advance the contributions of African-American artists and advance emerging creative voices across cultures and artistic media through the Apollo experience of world-class live performances and educational programs. The Apollo reigns as one of New York City’s premiere uptown attractions and is the cultural anchor of the current reinvigoration of the 125th Street corridor.

For more information, visit www.apollotheater.org.

http://harlemworldblog.wordpress.com/2009/01/27/apollo%E2%80%99s-75th-anniversary-kick-off/

Independence of Haiti*

2009-02-02T09:34:00.000-08:00
January 1
Haitian Flag*

On this date in 1804, Haiti emerged as the first independent Black-led republic in the modern world. At the conclusion of the Haitian Revolution, was one of the most successful slave rebellions in history. Having shed the burden of slavery and French colonial rule, the revolutionaries of Haiti (formerly Saint-Domingue) inspired people of African descent around the world, particularly those who remained in slavery. Many White Haitians fled to the United States. Thirteen years earlier, in 1791, the revolution was initiated in a ceremony presided over by Boukman, a houngan and Edaise, a manbo (two priest), of Haiti’s African-derived Voodoo religion. According to Haitian legend, during the ceremony Boukman spoke of the will to be free. “Hidden god in a cloud is there, watching us. He sees all the Whites do … [and] our god that is so good orders vengeance; he will assist us. Throw away the thoughts of the white god who thirsts for our tears; listen to the freedom that speaks from our hearts.” Western historians have shortchanged Haiti and its importance to the history of the Americas because of the way it came into existence. The Haitian Revolution is seldom remembered or taught at United States universities. Haitian historians, on the other hand, often suppressed elements that were not in accord with the country’s pro-Western privileged in their attempt to achieve respectability in Europe and North America. Both positions have had a lasting impact in how Haiti is viewed in modern times. Reference:The World Book Encyclopedia. Copyright 1996, World Book, Inc. ISBN 0-7166-0096-X

Black Mayor step down over racism*

2009-01-28T08:26:00.000-08:00
Charles Tyson, two-term mayor of South Harrison Twp.
S. Harrison mayor steps down over racism
By Jan Hefler
Inquirer Staff Writer:

Charles Tyson has decided not to serve a third term as mayor of South Harrison Township, saying he and his family have endured death threats and racist vandalism since he became the town's first black mayor two years ago.
At a township reorganization meeting on Monday, the 66-year-old Tyson declined a nomination to continue serving as mayor but agreed to be deputy mayor. The five committee members in the Gloucester County community fill the leadership positions each year from within their ranks.
Tyson said he stepped aside "because of the threats and the personal attacks, and the fact that I don't want to put my family, my wife, and my wife's family through this."
"It's time. I'll continue to serve the residents, but not as mayor," he said.
Soon after Tyson, a retired computer technician, was elected mayor in this rural community of 2,700, he said he received a dozen phone calls and several e-mails warning he was being watched and labeling him a dead man, using a racist epithet.
No arrests were made, and investigators said the caller or callers in 2007 used untraceable disposable phones. His tires were also slashed and his lawn sign was defaced with "KKK."
Last month, a member of a neo-Nazi organization from Virginia was indicted on charges he made several threatening calls last year to Tyson and other African Americans. Tyson, a lifelong resident and a grandfather, said he had never experienced racism in the town before he held the top job.
"It's not that the whole town is racist. It's just that a certain group of people in the town were trying to get to me," Tyson said.
In recent months, the town has been embarrassed by nasty political fights and racial tensions that spilled into meetings attended by nearly 100 people. Charges and counter-charges have been filed in municipal court against several officials and a police officer.
In two separate incidents, Tyson has accused Patrolman Nicholas Barbetta and newly elected Committeeman Bob Diaz, the lone Republican on the committee, of harassing him.
Diaz and Barbetta have denied the charges.
At Monday's meeting, the committee elected Robert Campbell as mayor and Tyson as deputy mayor. Campbell, who is white, last month expressed concerns about racism in the town and said that he and other officials were committed to stopping it.
Some residents said he was wrong. They said the real problem in the town is political, not racial, and that Campbell was playing the race card to advance an agenda and deflect criticism.
"Everything that's gone wrong has been racially motivated?" Michelle McCall asked at a Dec. 10 meeting after Campbell said many of the recent controversies have racial overtones.
McCall, the wife of former Mayor Jim McCall, said the accusation was unfounded. "You have a lot of people very upset," she said.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20090107_S__Harrison_mayor_steps_down_over_racism.html?imageId=14030749

Distraught Father Kills Wife, 5 Kids*

2009-01-28T08:20:00.000-08:00
AfroCentric News Portal writes:
This is one of the saddest story I've had to read about this year.....
Republicans want to take time on debate issues , than to heal this economy. This brother felted the need to kill his family.....we are in a state of Urgency.

Distraught Father Kills Wife, 5 Kids, SelfBy THOMAS WATKINS,APposted: 56 MINUTES AGOcomments: 1601filed under: Crime News, National News Print Share

LOS ANGELES (Jan. 28) - In one upstairs bedroom, the bodies of twin 2-year-old boys were found beside their dead mother. In another bedroom, 5-year-old twin girls and their 8-year-old sister lay next to their lifeless father.Officers discovered the horrific scene after rushing to a home in Wilmington, prompted by the father's distraught letter faxed to a TV station describing a "tragic story" and a call to authorities.A Family Tragedy AP4 photos A man apparently distraught because he and his wife had lost their jobs killed his spouse and five young children before committing suicide in the family's suburban Los Angeles home Tuesday. Police said Ervin Lupoe, pictured above with his family, even faxed a letter to a local television station in which he explained "why we are dead
Proxy say a father, distraught over losing his job, killed his wife, their five young children and himself in a Southern California town. The victims included 5-year-old twin girls, 2-year-old twin boys and an 8-year-old. The man faxed a note to a local television station about his intentions, and the station called the police, but officers were too late. Here, neighbors react to the news.'
Police believe Ervin Lupoe, 40, killed his five children and his wife before turning the gun on himself. Both adults were recently fired from their hospital jobs."Why leave our children in someone else's hands?" Lupoe wrote in his letter faxed to KABC-TV. The station posted the letter on its Web site with some parts redacted.The station called police after receiving the fax, and a police dispatch center also received a phone call from a man who stated, "I just returned home and my whole family's been shot." Police are unsure who the male caller was, but they suspect it was the father.Officers rushed to the home in Wilmington, a small community between the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, about 8:30 a.m. Tuesday and found the bodies.All the victims were shot in the head, some multiple times, coroner's Assistant Chief Ed Winter said. The killings may have occurred between Monday evening and early Tuesday, based on neighbors' accounts of firecracker sounds, he said.Although the fax — addressed to "whom it may concern" and explaining "why we are dead" — asserted that the wife, Ana Lupoe, planned the killings of the whole family, police Lt. John Romero said Ervin Lupoe was the suspect. A revolver was found next to his body.It was the fifth mass death of a Southern California family by murder or suicide in a year. Police urged those facing tough economic times to get help rather than resort to violence.

Obama pitches his plan to reverse economic slide

2009-01-24T11:24:00.000-08:00
Featured Topics:
Barack Obama
Presidential Transition
Play Video AP – Obama outlines stimulus plan in address
Slideshow: President Barack Obama
Play Video Video: Stimulating the stimulus Reuters
Play Video Barack Obama Video: Welcome Home FOX News
AP – In this Jan. 23, 2009 file photo, President Barack Obama speaks to reporters during a meeting about the …
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama took to the airwaves Saturday to promote his economic aid plan in what's-it-mean-to-me terms: thousands of better schools, lower electricity bills, health coverage for millions who lose insurance.
It was the latest appeal from the new president for a massive spending bill designed to inject almost $1 trillion into the economy and fulfill campaign pledges. As lawmakers consider an $825 billion plan and Obama woos them with an eye toward a second economic package, he used his first radio and Internet address from the White House to update the public about his goals.
"Our economy could fall $1 trillion short of its full capacity, which translates into more than $12,000 in lost income for a family of four. And we could lose a generation of potential, as more young Americans are forced to forgo college dreams or the chance to train for the jobs of the future," Obama said in a five-minute address.
"In short, if we do not act boldly and swiftly, a bad situation could become dramatically worse."
Obama aides have refused to rule out that the administration would seek a second economic recovery plan — even before Congress approves the first — to patch an ailing economy. Some are considering a sequel to assuage members of their own Democratic Party who fret that too little of the money is going toward public works projects that would employ their constituents.
"Look, let's get one done, and start seeing that impact on the economy before I get into hypotheticals about what we might do later on in the year," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Friday.
Along with the speech, Obama's economic team released a report designed to outline tangible benefits of the plan and shore up support. Aides said they wanted people to understand exactly what they could expect if Congress supported the proposed legislation.
The United States lost 2.6 million jobs last year, the most in any single year since World War II. Manufacturing is at a 28-year low and even Obama's economists say unemployment could top 10 percent before the recession ends. One in 10 homeowners is at risk of foreclosure and the dollar continues its slide in value.
That harsh reality has dominated Obama's first days in office that brought his top economic advisers to the White House on their first Saturday in power to talk about the proposed stimulus package and the federal budget.
A day earlier, he invited Democratic and Republican leaders to the White House to hear their ideas on the economy. At that visit, he did not share the details he released Saturday.
"We presented President Obama with our ideas to jump start the economy through fast-acting tax relief — not slow-moving government spending programs," House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said in the weekly GOP address. "We let families, entrepreneurs, small businesses, and the self-employed keep more of what they earn to encourage investment and create millions of new private-sector jobs."
Boehner said the Republicans would cut taxes for every taxpayer, dropping even the lowest income tax rates. "That's up to an extra $3,200 per family every year — money that can be saved, spent or invested in any way you see fit," Boehner said. He also proposed a tax credit for home purchases, an end of taxation of unemployment benefits and tax incentives for small businesses to invest in new equipment and hire new employees.
"We cannot borrow and spend our way back to prosperity," Boehner said.
Obama also plans to travel to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to meet with Republican leaders, his latest move to bring along his rival party to pass an economic package that has GOP support.
Many of the goals in the speech and report were familiar from Obama's two-year campaign, such as shifting to electronic medical records and investing in preventive health care. Other parts added specifics.
Obama's recovery package aims to:
_double within three years the amount of energy that could be produced from renewable resources. That is an ambitious goal, given the 30 years it took to reach current levels. Advisers say that could power 6 million households.
_upgrade 10,000 schools and improve learning for about 5 million students.
_save $2 billion a year by making federal buildings energy efficient.
_triple the number of undergraduate and graduate fellowships in science.
_tighten security at 90 major ports.
The plan would spend at least 75 percent of the total cost — or more than $600 billion — within the first 18 months, either through bricks-and-shovels projects favored by Democrats or tax cuts that Republicans have pushed.
There is heavy emphasis on public works projects, which have lagged as state budgets contracted. Governors have lobbied Obama to help them patch holes in their budgets, drained by sinking tax revenues and increased need for public assistance such as Medicaid and children's health insurance. Obama's plan would increase the federal portion of those programs so no state would have to cut any of the 20 million children whose eligibility is now at risk.
Obama's plan would also provide health care coverage for 8.5 million people who lose their insurance when they either lose or shift jobs.
"It's a plan that will save or create 3 to 4 million jobs over the next few years" and recognizes "there are millions of Americans trying to find work even as, all around the country, there's so much work to be done," he said.
But Obama cautioned again against expecting instant results: "No one policy or program will solve the challenges we face right now, nor will this crisis recede in a short period of time."
___
On the Net:
Obama video: http://www.whitehouse.gov
Obama economics report: http://www.whitehouse.gov/assets/Documents/recover y_plan_metrics _report.pdf

First Black President... John Hanson In 1781

2009-01-21T12:02:00.000-08:00

First Black President, John Hanson 3rd President of the United States in Congress Assembled email: info@PresidentJohnHanson.com

I am Alex'ander Wilson founder of The Investigations Unit (PH: 1-813-398-2790). Chat Live With Alexander
Congrats to our new President-Elect Barack H. Obama the first biracial African-American to reach this status under the United States Constitution. We should all be proud of his/our accomplishment. For those unwilling to accept his achievement please do the following...- Return the reduction in your taxes during his term.- Refuse the funds to send your children to college every six months.- Protest the return of troops from Iraq.- Demand higher premiums on your health care.- Invite Osama Bin Laden to your home. For those of you that are gracious for this turn of events and welcome his leadership... Pray for his safety, leadership quality, wisdom, knowledge and understanding. Although there are those that do not believe what is before them and available to them on the Library of Congress website and would have you believe that John Hanson was a Swedish gentleman. The Library of Congress will inform you otherwise. He Was a Moor. You may visit his portrait, letters to General Washington (prior to George Washington becoming a U.S. President) and letters to the French on http://www.loc.gov/.In life we have options to believe, disbelieve or investigate. I've personally chose the latter thereof, in regards to John Hanson. Throughout my quest for political awareness that far surpasses the limited knowledge to which the media and government agencies afford me, I've found astonishing information. My source for these discoveries begin with the Library of Congress (http://www.loc.gov/). We've been conditioned to believe the presidents of the United States of America began with George Washington, right? Well, here are a few queries for you..
1) Who made Washington President?
2) Who promoted General Washington into political office?
3) What was the governing authority prior to the U.S. Constitution?
4) What type of unifying government was in place during the revolutionary war?
All these queries will be resolved within the confines of these pages. But first allow me to address the obvious... The Moor. This black gentleman is actually John Hanson of Maryland, the portrait was painted of him in honor of his newly appointed office as President of the United States of America under the Articles of Confederation (not the United States Constitution). Furthermore, the photo was taken directly from the Library of Congress website at loc.gov. Contray to poplular belief there were three governments here within the United States.
First: Continential Congress
Second: Articles of Confederation
Third: United States Constitution John Hanson can be found on the rear of your two dollar bill and he also had several famous quotes such as: 1) "No doubt" 2) "Already my knowledge of your Character leads me to anticipate infinite satisfaction." 3) "Any intelligence worth communicating, which first reaches me, shall be related with unreserved freedom, candor & punctuality." 4) "May Heaven still continue to smile on our efforts! "Disbelievers: Geneology experts indicate regardless of the pictures depicted both John Hansons were related. The John Hanson depicted at the bottom of this page is the son of the proud parents listed just above this text, flush left. A Swedish father and Moloto mother.Our Rivals: There are those that would like to believe that the first president was a caucasian John Hanson. Could we be in error regarding the first president? Unlikely. Since both were related one a Moor and the other having a caucasian father and caucasian/black mother, John Hanson was still a black minority. The heated discussion between http://www.presidentjohnhanson.com/ and http://www.johnhanson.net/ is very interesting to say the least. Will the other side yeild to the knowledge of John Hanson? Will the other side produce geneological proof that John Hanson was Swedish? Unlikely. Why place the picture of a black man on our two dollar bill if the black gentleman never existed? Why is it that over 95% of researchers agree that John Hanson was black?
If you are interested in additional government coverups please click here. Accomplishments: Visit http://www.biography.com/. ________________________________________________________________________________________________Additional Research Conducted By Dr. Romeo L. Taylor Sr., P.M., D.D., B.B.A.
John Hanson,'The Moor'--First President of theUS
Cover-up--VS--Common Sense
I knew the article about John Hanson, 'The Moor' would be challenged. During the days of enslavement, there were over 30 strong black families in the north. They all had white and black slaves.
"The Hanson family had a habit of repeating names. This John Hanson had a grandfather, an uncle, a nephew and two sons also named John."
This John Hanson was the most powerful and clever politician at that time.
Most websites state, 'John Hanson's great-grandfather died at Lutzen beside the Great King Gustavus Aldolphus I, of Sweden. Researching the history of Sweden, there is no mention of a John Hanson with King Gustavus Aldolphus I.
When you think of Swedish people with their blond hair and blue eyes, you think they are pure blooded Caucaians. This is not true, they have omitted the truth from their history. Gustavus Adolphus IV was a mulatto (see pages 92-93) and called himself a 'Moor'. John Baptiste Bernadottle, a 'colored man' ascended to the throne of Sweden after Gustavus IV as King Charles XIV in 1818.
Cover Up
1. They called John Hanson "the hidden man."
2. His family was one the richest and most powerful families at that time.
3. The State of Maryland wanted to build a memorial to him, but they cannot find his body.

Common Sense
1. Why was he called "the hidden man", a man of such power and whose family was involved with politics?
2. Once again, why can't they find his body or is it a part of a cover-up?
3. Looking at the list of signers of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution of the United States, you will not see a Hanson listed as a signer. Should we believe that a family as infulential as the Hansons would not be named as a signer oneither of those documents? See www.marshallhall.org/hanson.html .
4. The Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776. In 1781, John Hanson became the President of the United States, five years after the signing.
My question is who is the black man on the back of the $2.00 bill which is a picture of the signing of the Declaration of Independence? There is a black person in the picture. Someone from the Hanson family was reported as a signer. However, no Hanson is listed among the reported signers. Could this be the Black Hanson? Something is not adding up right.
"Exposed" is dedicated to exposing the truth. If we find facts that disprove what we have previously written, it is our obligation to make corrections. On page 66, we show a picture and we ask the question, "Is this John Hanson?" It has been proven to use that it is not a picture of John Hanson, President of the United States. This is a picture of John Hanson, Senator of Liberia, West Africa.
After the discovery of a Black Man being the first President of the United States, the reporter in his haste to put a picture with the name, used the wrong picture. He was unaware that the process used to make that picture was not invented until the mid 1800's and it had a name of John Hanson, Senator of Liberia on the back.

YES: John Hanson was the 1st Black President. YES: John Hanson was A Moor, AKA Black.YES: John Hanson is located on the back of the $2 Bill. YES: John Hanson paid troops coming out of the Revolutionary War.YES: John Hanson was related to Senator John Hanson. YES: John Hanson as a Moor was exempt from slavery.YES: John Hanson is a debatable subject, in itself. YES: John Hanson is an American Hero. No: John Hanson was not caucasian. No: John Hanson was not John Hancock.No: John Hanson was not a rebel. No: John Hanson was not a slave.No: John Hanson was not simply Swedish. No: John Hanson was not a myth.___________________________________________________________________________________________MOOR MEN WERE EXEMPT FROM SLAVERY... BUT EXACTLY HOW MANY SLAVES WERE THERE?Population of the Original Thirteen Colonies, selected years by type

Obama administration jobs info and more

2009-01-10T09:06:00.000-08:00
Obama administration jobs info and more

www.change.gov
-Record your interest in a career and a non-career job in the Obama administration and the federal government.
-The transition team will respond by asking you to fill out a full application form, and after January 20th 2009, they will start contacting and interviewing people for the jobs.
-The Obama-Biden transition team has about 8,000 to 10,000 jobs to fill.
-Share your ideas on the change you want to see happen in the USA and the world.

www.gpoaccess.gov/plumbook/
-Look at the description and salary levels of the White House and Federal government jobs. The plum book (plum/burgundy colored book) costs about $38.00 but you can read it on line at the above site.

http://directory.presidentialtransition.gov
2008-2009 Presidential Transition Resources

Tel: 202-540-3000 Obama-Biden Transition Project tel.#
Tel: 866-675-2008 Obama campaign and transition tel.#

www.pic2009.org Presidential Inauguration Committee
-Volunteer to work at the inaugural events from now to January 20th or thereafter.
-Get updates and info on inauguration events, parade, itinerary, calendar, schedules etc.

info@barackobama.com
-General information. Members of the Obama team actually e-mail or call you back with answers to your questions or response to your comments..

www.barackobama.com
-campaign site, issues, resources

Address: Obama for America, New Media, 233 N Michigan Avenue, Suite 1100,
Chicago, IL 60601

White House, Senate and House of Representatives internship positions TBA

Good luck!
Yes we can!

Paule-Sylvie Yonké
The Whole world for OBAMA
The Global African experience
News, Events, People, History, Business, Arts and Culture

Reid says Burris might ultimately get Senate seat

2009-01-07T10:10:00.000-08:00
WASHINGTON – Changing course, Senate Democrats emerged from a meeting with Senate appointee Roland Burris on Wednesday and set forth the legal steps under which they're willing to welcome him into the Senate in President-elect Barack Obama's vacated spot.
Praising the former state attorney general, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the Senate is awaiting a court ruling in a case that tests whether the signature of the Illinois secretary of state is needed for Burris to take the seat. He suggested that would be a step toward seating Burris.
"We don't have a problem with him as an individual," Reid said at a news conference in which he dramatically softened his party's opposition to seating any appointee of embattled Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Federal prosecutors arrested the governor last month and accused him of trying to sell Obama's Senate seat.
Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, who also met with Burris, said he hoped the legal matters would be resolved "so we can fill all the vacancies and have a full complement of the Senate."
Like Reid, Obama has opposed the seating of any Blagojevich appointee. But shortly before the Reid-Durbin news conference, Obama told reporters Burris' case "is a Senate matter."
"But I know Roland Burris," Obama added. "He's from my home state. I think he's a fine public servant."
The pleasantries were a far cry from the he-can't-be-seated rhetoric that came from the Senate Democratic caucus a week ago when the governor shocked the party and nominated Burris, who would be the Senate's only black member now that Obama has departed.
The softening comes after black lawmakers lobbied for his seating and the chairwoman of the Senate Rules Committee said he should be allowed to join the Senate. Another political element in the equation: Obama is trying to focus Congress on his nearly trillion-dollar economic recover plan and may not welcome the distraction of a Burris showdown.
Neither Durbin nor Reid guaranteed Burris would be seated but the majority leader said there almost certainly would be a full Senate vote on it.

WASHINGTON – Changing course, Senate Democrats emerged from a meeting with Senate appointee Roland Burris on Wednesday and set forth the legal steps under which they're willing to welcome him into the Senate in President-elect Barack Obama's vacated spot.
Praising the former state attorney general, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the Senate is awaiting a court ruling in a case that tests whether the signature of the Illinois secretary of state is needed for Burris to take the seat. He suggested that would be a step toward seating Burris.
"We don't have a problem with him as an individual," Reid said at a news conference in which he dramatically softened his party's opposition to seating any appointee of embattled Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Federal prosecutors arrested the governor last month and accused him of trying to sell Obama's Senate seat.
Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, who also met with Burris, said he hoped the legal matters would be resolved "so we can fill all the vacancies and have a full complement of the Senate."
Like Reid, Obama has opposed the seating of any Blagojevich appointee. But shortly before the Reid-Durbin news conference, Obama told reporters Burris' case "is a Senate matter."
"But I know Roland Burris," Obama added. "He's from my home state. I think he's a fine public servant."
The pleasantries were a far cry from the he-can't-be-seated rhetoric that came from the Senate Democratic caucus a week ago when the governor shocked the party and nominated Burris, who would be the Senate's only black member now that Obama has departed.
The softening comes after black lawmakers lobbied for his seating and the chairwoman of the Senate Rules Committee said he should be allowed to join the Senate. Another political element in the equation: Obama is trying to focus Congress on his nearly trillion-dollar economic recover plan and may not welcome the distraction of a Burris showdown.
Neither Durbin nor Reid guaranteed Burris would be seated but the majority leader said there almost certainly would be a full Senate vote on it.

Health Care Urgency: A matter of Importance.

2009-01-06T08:55:00.000-08:00
It's not every day the next president of the United States asks YOU for advice. But that's what's going on right now. President-elect Obama has sent his pick for Secretary of Health and Human Services, Sen. Tom Daschle, on a mission to find out how Americans feel about health care reform. They want your input. Will you take them up on it? Tell the incoming Obama administration why we cannot wait to fix health care -- and we'll share your responses with Sen. Daschle and Obama's transition team. The economic crisis is forcing the incoming administration to put some of Obama's campaign priorities on the backburner. We cannot let this happen to health care reform. Obama's transition team needs to hear from you that fixing health care is a crucial part to addressing millions of Americans' economic hardships. It's personal feedback from people like you that can help turn something like health care reform from a campaign platform to a political reality.

Share your thoughts on health care with the incoming administration -- and make sure health care stays at the top of President-elect Obama's agenda. After you take action, please forward this message along to your friends and family. The more voices we bring to the table, the more likely both parties will work together to get this done.

What are your priorities?
During the presidential campaign, President-elect Obama told us that he would work across the aisle to provide access to quality, affordable health care to every American. Even better, more than two-thirds of Congress promised to do the same.
But a lot will be on their plates after they take office in January – and many are wondering why health care should be among the top priorities.

Death of a legend: Catwoman, Eartha Kitt dies at age 81

2008-12-26T12:59:00.000-08:00

Orson Welles said it best. He called original sex-kitten Eartha Kitt "the most exciting woman in the world." The legendary jazz singer — known best today for her inimitable "Santa Baby" and her iconic Catwoman character on TV's "Batman" — died Christmas Day at age 81. She had colon cancer.
Eartha delighted fans for more than sixty years as a singer, dancer and actress. She won two Emmys, and was nominated for two Grammys and a number of Tonys. But her career was not without controversy. As the Associated Press reports, Eartha was outspoken about politics, making headlines in the Sixties when she told Lady Bird Johnson at a White House luncheon:
You send the best of this country off to be shot and maimed. They rebel in the street. They don't want to go to school because they're going to be snatched off from their mothers to be shot in Vietnam."
After that she was hounded by the FBI and CIA, so she performed mostly overseas for a few years. Later she told Essence magazine:
The thing that hurts, that became anger, was when I realized that if you tell the truth — in a country that says you're entitled to tell the truth — you get your face slapped and you get put out of work."
Eartha Kitt was an amazing woman. She was beautiful, smart, talented and compassionate. On stage she was outrageously sexy, but privately she was said to be very shy. She blamed her reticence on being unwanted and unloved as a mixed-race child in the South. The AP says she called herself "that little urchin cotton-picker from the South, Eartha Mae."
Our world is a little less purrfect without her.
Here's Eartha Kitt in 1963, doing a version of "C'est Si Bon" that will knock your socks off:

Click HERE to watch a YouTube playlist of Eartha Kitt videos.

R.I.P. Eartha Kitt******

Stimulus plan could shape course of Barack Obama's presidency

2008-12-22T11:12:00.000-08:00
By Peter Nicholas December 18, 2008

Clients learn computer skills and look for jobs last month at a Riverside job center. Republicans say job creation should be a focus of a stimulus bill.
Democrats want to have a bill ready and waiting for him. But with Republicans seeking more time for public hearings and to purge special-interest projects, his plans for bipartisanship will be tested.
By Peter Nicholas December 18, 2008
Reporting from Washington -- President-elect Barack Obama's call for speedy adoption of a massive spending plan to "jolt" the economy will prove an early test of two major promises: that he will work in a bipartisan style with a skeptical Republican Party, and that he will purge the federal budget of wasteful projects.Even conservative Republicans on Capitol Hill predict that, in the end, a substantial stimulus package will pass. Job losses and a deepening recession demand a quick infusion of money, they say.

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Obama introduces more economic appointees
But Republicans in the Senate, even with their ranks diminished, still possess leverage to tailor a package that fits certain specifications. They want public hearings on the stimulus, even if it thwarts Democratic ambitions to present the bill to Obama for his signature when he is sworn in to office Jan. 20. And they insist that the bill be scrubbed of projects that, in their view, are aimed more at appeasing interest groups than creating jobs.When the new Congress convenes on Jan. 6, Senate Democrats will still lack the 60-vote majority needed to stave off GOP delay tactics -- a reality that gives Republicans some confidence that they can win concessions.Obama has identified the stimulus package as an urgent priority. His economic advisors are considering a package of no less than $600 billion and potentially as much as $1 trillion over two years, according to the transition office.
The fate of the bill could shape the course of Obama's presidency. If it works, it could help lift the economy out of recession, giving him the space to enact his ambitious energy, education and healthcare plans.Behind him is a formidable array of interest groups eager to see a major national spending program unleashed. Business groups and organized labor, mayors and governors -- all will be pressing lawmakers to pass Obama's spending plan.For her part, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has touted a $600-billion plan that would include the middle-class tax cut Obama laid out during the campaign.New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, a Democrat, said in an interview Wednesday that he wanted to see Obama sign the bill on the day he is sworn in. In talks with his congressional delegation, Corzine said, he learned that the "goal is to have something on the president's desk on Inauguration Day."Republicans are watching to see whether Obama will ignore them in his zeal to achieve the first victory of his presidency. Were that to happen, they caution, it could perpetuate political divisions and set a sour tone for the next four years. Republicans and conservative interest groups also want Obama to resist pressures to lard the bill with needless projects."I'm concerned that politics and pet projects will end up being as much or more of a significant consideration than what I think should be the acid test, which is what will have the most stimulus and the quickest impact," said Sen. David Vitter (R-La.). He added: "We can try to use our position of slightly more than 40 votes to shape legislation."Obama's methods may prove a revealing window into his governing style. Pushing for legislation by Inauguration Day would allow for just two weeks of public debate on a bill that could cost as much as the entire Iraq war.Republicans would like to see the timetable slowed and more debate encouraged -- which they argue would also be in keeping with the transparent and inclusive style Obama embraced as a candidate for president.Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), said: "There has to be transparency for a bill that big. If it gets to be $800 billion to $900 billion, it's bigger than any single bill in the history of the country. It's going to take some work and need some oversight, and nobody's really talking about that right now."Demanding that the bill be passed by Inauguration Day, he said, "is a pretty big ask."Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), said: "If their first action right out of the gate is to pass a massive government spending bill without Republican input and with few, if any, Republican votes, that will certainly be contrary to the spirit that the president-elect campaigned on."Though no stimulus bill has yet been drafted, Republicans are wary of some of the proposals put forward by groups that are talking to Obama's transition team. They cite a report by the U.S. Conference of Mayors listing myriad projects cast as vehicles to create jobs and boost the economy. Those include a dog park in Hercules, Calif.; a bike path in San Diego; and a $1.5-million push to curb prostitution in Dayton, Ohio."My fear is it will be a tool for all kinds of pet spending projects, for wasteful pork barrel projects and redistribution of wealth," said Pat Toomey, president of Club for Growth, which promotes fiscal conservatism.Toomey said the group may run ads opposing the stimulus package.Grover Norquist, a Washington anti-tax activist who has been at the hub of conservative policymaking in the Bush years, said the package should be posted on the Internet for a minimum of 10 days so that Americans have a chance to inspect it and look for dubious projects.Obama can count on an outside alliance that includes the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Assn. of Manufacturers, and such Republican governors as Arnold Schwarzenegger of California.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-obama-stimulus18-2008dec18,0,1385571.story

Lisa Jackson in line to be first black EPA chief

2008-12-17T10:54:00.000-08:00
In this Jan. 18, 2006, file photo New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Lisa Jackson speaks at a news conference in Trenton, N.J. Jackson was recently named as New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine's chief of staff. Democratic officials say President-elect Barack Obama intends to nominate former New Jersey Environmental Protection Commissioner Lisa Jackson for environmental protection agency administrator. (AP Photo/Mike Derer, File)

WASHINGTON—Lisa Jackson is in line to become the first African-American to lead the Environmental Protection Agency.
President-elect Barack Obama intends to announce Jackson as EPA administrator in the coming weeks, barring unforeseen circumstances that derail his plans, according to Democratic officials close to the transition.
Jackson, a Princeton University-educated chemical engineer, would take the helm at the agency at a time of record-low morale and when it is still grappling with how to respond to a 2007 Supreme Court decision that said it could regulate the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.
During the Bush administration, the White House has at times overruled the advice of the EPA's scientific advisers and the agency's staff on issues ranging from air pollution to global warming.
Supporters say Jackson, 46, has the experience to steer the agency down a new path.
She spent 16 years at the EPA in Washington and in New York before being hired at the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection in 2002, an agency that has been riddled by budget cuts and personnel shortages. Jackson was named the head of the department in 2006 by Gov. Jon Corzine, overseeing environmental regulation in a state plagued by pollution problems and home to the most hazardous waste sites in the country. She left earlier this month to take a job as Corzine's chief of staff.
In her short tenure, Jackson has worked to pass mandatory reductions in greenhouse gases, to reform the state's cleanup of contaminated sites and to establish a scientific advisory board to review agency decisions.
"In New Jersey, you're working on contaminated sites, you're working on open space, endangered species, clean water. New Jersey is the laboratory for environmental protection. Whatever bad happens in the environment, it happens in New Jersey first. It is a good proving ground," said Jeff Tittel, executive director of the New Jersey Chapter of the Sierra Club.
Another New Jersey woman, former Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, headed the EPA for 2 1/2 years during President George W. Bush's first term.
Whitman, a moderate Republican, found herself occasionally at odds with the Bush White House over environmental issues and became a lightning rod for the administration's critics.
Jackson also has her detractors.
A small but vocal contingent of environmental advocacy groups came out against Jackson last week, asking President-elect Barack Obama to drop her as a candidate.
In a letter to the transition team, the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a group that represents environmentally-minded state and federal employees, said it was "distressed" that Jackson was under consideration.
The group said that while Jackson had "a compelling biography" -- she grew up in New Orleans' gritty Lower Ninth Ward -- her record at the Department of Environmental Protection did not warrant a promotion. As evidence, they cited an EPA inspector general report that found that New Jersey failed to use its authority to expedite cleanups at seven hazardous waste sites. The state also has been criticized by federal wildlife officials for failing to adopt standards for pesticides and other toxic chemicals that protect wildlife and for delays in meeting its greenhouse gas emissions targets.
DEP officials, in response to those allegations, said Jackson inherited many of the problems, and that in the case of global warming the state was getting back on track.
Other environmental groups who support her nomination but criticize some of her actions say that in those cases she was overruled by the governor.
"She is the best possible choice that President Obama could make," said Dena Mottola Jaborska, executive director of Environment New Jersey. "She has had a lot of situations where protections needed for the environment were politically difficult, and sometimes she didn't prevail and sometimes she did prevail."
Calls to Jackson were not returned Wednesday. Corzine's office declined comment.

Governor Paterson, Have You Lost Your Moral Compass?

2008-12-17T10:34:00.000-08:00

The obscenity continues in America. The economy is destroyed -- short-term and long-term -- by incompetents and greedy people. But, it's regular people who had nothing to do with this disaster who take the hit. And now we have the governor of New York blessing the disaster by taking aim at workers and letting the rich of the hook.
The "liberal Democratic" governor in New York produces a budget that hits the poor and the middle-class but does not ask for higher taxes on the richest one percent of the population -- the people who have made off with hundreds of billions of dollars in the past decade. Instead, the state is proposing to cut pensions:
Gov. David A. Paterson on Tuesday proposed a steep rollback of some of the generous pension benefits that have been an alluring feature of government work for decades, initiating a contentious reckoning with public employee unions.
The governor is proposing to reduce benefits for newly hired state and municipal workers, including those in New York City, by placing them in a new pension category. The New York City portion of the plan was developed by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.
"We've made too many promises and asked for too few sacrifices," the governor said during an address to the Legislature. "We're going to have to change our culture as we know it."
The pension proposal was part of an austerity budget unveiled by Mr. Paterson.
With all due respect, Governor, have you lost your mind and your moral compass? You think that working 20 or 25 or 30 years in a job as a cop or a firefighter is not making a sacrifice? How many times have politicians rushed, to get the maximum p.r. value for their own careers, to the site of a fire or a shooting, where a cop or firefighter has died, and spouted the words "the ultimate sacrifice"... but now you are saying these people, when they survive the day-to-day grind and threats on the job, that they don't get to have a decent pension so they can live out the rest of their lives in some semblance of dignity and respect?
And exactly where in your moral frame of reference can you point to regular workers and say they have not sacrificed enough, compared to the people who you refuse to ask to sacrifice -- the richest one percent in our state?
We could wipe out the budget deficit -- or, certainly trim it down to something trivial -- by raising taxes on the very wealthy and going back to a more progressive taxation system that we had in the 1970s. You know this: if the state replaced the existing rate structure (consisting of 5 brackets with rates ranging from 4.0 to 6.85%) with one consisting of 14 brackets with rates ranging from 2.0 to 15.0%, we could bring in $6-7 billion more, and perhaps as high as $11 billion.
Under this plan, 95 percent of the state's taxpayers -- 95 percent of the people -- would receive a tax cut. Like the proposals championed by President-elect Barack Obama, a more progressive taxation system would be easing the burden on the people who are the most at risk in our economically troubled times. The top one percent of taxpayers -- whose average income is $2.685 million -- would see their taxes go up about 5.4 percent. The four percent below that top one percent -- those people whose average income is $326,000 -- would have their taxes rise 1.4 percent. In fact, the top five percent would have their dues burden slightly reduced because higher state taxes would lower their federal obligations.
Everyone else would realize a reduction in their taxes.
You want to talk about sacrifice? Over the past 30 years, workers have sweated their asses off, becoming more productive, laboring harder than ever. Their wages have not kept pace with that productivity -- if it had, the MINIMUM WAGE would be over $19-an-hour. The geniuses running our economy -- Robert Rubin et al. -- somehow didn't learn something basic in economics: if you want people to have money to spend (and since consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of our economic activity), you have to give them money in their pockets.
Well, they didn't get the wage increases. They sacrificed -- so that CEOs (who presumably donate to your election campaigns) could pocket tens of millions of dollars in pay, stock options and PENSIONS. Because of that wage robbery -- that is the only word that fits when you look at the taking of the sweat of the brow with no fair return -- people had to borrow the American Dream. Not own it. Borrow it--either by using credit cards or draining equity from their homes. That is gone.
And you say workers haven't sacrificed?
I've heard this demand calling for "sacrifice" and an end to "generous wages" before. The pundits, Republicans and economic wizards are demanding that auto workers give up "generous" pensions to save the auto industry. Of course, none of the people demanding that sacrifice have actually worked in an auto plant -- if they did they wouldn't be able to wave around their arms in such indignation at the "generous" wages and pensions because their arms would hurt too much, their shoulders would probably be disable or their tendons would ache so badly from the years and years of factory work. So much for meritocracy in America -- the people who fail continue to have jobs and get paid, while the people who had no say in the failure have to pay for it. Ain't America great?
And how, exactly, Governor, after you have cut peoples' pensions, do you think people will be able to spend money to prop up the economy once they retire? The debt-driven Ponzi scheme is over. So, Governor, are we going to replace decent pensions with coupons for Wal-Mart because that's basically the only place people will be able to shop -- and work.
Let's look at the Alice-in-Wonderland, Orwellian framing of this challenge: we have a shortfall in the budget because we've destroyed a progressive tax system, in the state and across the nation, and let an elite enrich themselves -- the same elite that has incompetently run the economy so that for three decades real wages have declined while workers pay for scandal after scandal (the savings and loan crisis, the Internet bubble, the housing bubble and on and on...).
And you ask for no sacrifice from the elite and demand all the sacrifice from those people who had no hand in the economic crisis we face?
Governor, have you lost your moral compass?

AIDS AWARENESS & AFRICAN AMERICANS

2008-12-02T12:10:00.000-08:00
AfroCentric New's Portal ---Time Capsule reports......................

I am proud to say that preventive measures have steped up , that many in the African American community are being tested more regualarly for the Aid's virus.

'In The Continuum'

"I think as African-Americans, one of the reasons we're opposed to ending the silence is because we're already a stigmatized group of people," says actress Nikkole Salter. Salter (left), plays opposite Danai Gurira in 'In The Continuum,' the story of two black women dealing with the issue of HIV and AIDS in Zimbabwe and South Central Los Angeles.
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Malcolm X once remarked that when white America has a cold, blacks have pneumonia. His metaphor for illness rings especially true as it relates to the current AIDS crisis in the black community, one increasingly dire for black women. The stats are grim: black women in America accounted for 68 percent of all new HIV infections in 2004 -- the overwhelming majority through unprotected heterosexual sex. Young black women (aged 13 to 24) accounted for 68 percent of all new infections in that age group. AIDS remains the leading cause of death for black women ages 25 to 34.Our sisters in Africa are being touched as well. Last year, 3.2 million Africans were infected with HIV. Sub-Saharan or "black" Africa, though only 10 percent of the world's population, makes up 60 percent of people living with AIDS; an estimated 4.6 percent of young women ages 15-24 are infected, compared to only 1.7 percent of men. AIDS has robbed some nine million African children of their mothers Reuters reported earlier this week.More than statistics, though, this is us. Mothers, daughters, sisters, lovers, wives, doctors, teachers, preachers, actors, writers … and the beat goes on. Being that women in both the African and the African-American community tend to be caregivers, when a woman tests HIV positive or dies from AIDS, the whole community is adversely affected.And still we rise: As women the world over become more active in the fight against HIV and the stigma of HIV, demand that women take part in clinical trials, and take more responsibility for their health and well being, the tides will turn. In June, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported a six percent drop in infection rates among Black women between the years of 2000 and 2003."The exciting thing I see, not only in Nigeria, but across the African continent," says Nigerian HIV-positive activist Rolake Odetoyinbo, "is the women are taking leadership where HIV and AIDS is concerned. The most vocal, and the strongest activists and advocates right now are women."The following are profiles of six black women who war against the scourge of HIV and AIDS. Whether in America or on the continent of Africa, they use their skills and gifts to affect a positive change. They are Type A personalities.The Artists:Nikkole Salter & Danai Gurira, New York, NYActresses of 'In The Continuum'The first play to present HIV and AIDS from the perspective of African and African American women, 'In the Continuum' is so strong that its Pulitzer buzz is palpable. Thoughtful actors Danai Gurira, and Nikkole Salter, who met as graduate students at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, merged their final project into a two-woman play that juxtaposes the very specific lives of two black women -- one from Africa, the other from America -- and their searing trauma as they struggle with a sudden HIV-diagnosis. Gurira, who plays a plethora of characters from the Southern African country of Zimbabwe (where she grew up) and Salter, allowing a sophisticated nuance to working class black women, give subtle, funny and heartbreaking performances. "I consider myself a storyteller with purpose," says Salter. "I try to use my craft to reveal some kind of insight to things that are important to me and my community whether that's AIDS or dating." 'In the Continuum' will show at the Harare International Festival of the Arts in Harare, Zimbabwe April 26-30 and tour nationally through the fall.

Dr. Cheryl Smith, MD

"I think it's important that we protect ourselves because we generally are the protectors of everyone else in the family."
HIV/AIDS at North General
The Advocate:Dr. Cheryl Smith, MD, Harlem, NYChair, Department HIV/AIDS, North General HospitalDr. Cheryl Smith, 42, services about 750 community residents and oversees a staff of 33. Not only providing medical care, Smith's Harlem-based department runs support groups for HIV positive clients with information on the latest medication and clinical trials, as well as an interventional group for women called The Sister Project. "There really is not a lot of information out there specifically looking at HIV in women," says Smith, noting that only two large clinical trials have been conducted for women thus far. The good news is Smith estimates that by June, there will be the simplest medication regimen available yet -- one pill, once a day -- and that in two years, microbicides will be on the market, impacting the rates of HIV transmission here and in developing countries. "Microbicides are going to be gels that you use prior to sex," Dr. Smith explains. "We wouldn't tell women not to use condoms, but, say, her husband doesn't want to use condoms, she can still protect herself."

Former Zulu queen Desiree Rogers named White House social secretary

2008-11-26T12:33:00.000-08:00
by Jonathan Tilove, The Times-Picayune
Tuesday November 25, 2008, 7:35 AM
Jennifer Zdon, The Times-PicayuneDesiree Rogers, daughter of late City Councilman Roy Glapion, was named White House social secretary Monday.
WASHINGTON -- Desiree Rogers, a former New Orleans Zulu queen and daughter of the late city councilman Roy Glapion Jr., was named incoming White House social secretary on Monday by President-elect Barack Obama.
In a statement Monday announcing the Rogers' appointment, Obama and wife Michelle highlighted Rogers' qualifications as one of Chicago's most high-powered executives, a former head of the Illinois Lottery, former president of the Chicago utility, Peoples Energy, and most recently president of social networking for Allstate Financial.
What the statement didn't mention is that Rogers, 49, is a native New Orleanian who twice was queen of the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club, a krewe dating back to 1916. She was queen of Zulu in 1988, and in 2000 reprised the reign in honor of her father, who died about two and a half months earlier.
Glapion, a former director of sports for the New Orleans public schools and member of the New Orleans City Council from 1994 until his death in 1999, was instrumental in leading the Zulu krewe from a dwindling band of fewer than 100 black men in the early 1970s to a robust, financially healthy and racially integrated krewe. Over the course of many years, Glapion served variously as finance chairman, president and chairman of the Zulu board.
Rogers is a pillar of the Chicago business and social scene -- a friend to Barack and Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey and Valerie Jarrett, the Obama confidante from Chicago who is co-chairing the transition effort and will serve as a senior adviser to the president in the new administration.
Rogers' new job will require all her business and social skills. Her office will be responsible for every ceremony and event that occurs at the White House, from state dinners on down. On Nov. 14, she threw a birthday party for Jarrett attended by the president-elect.
Rogers is a regular on lists of the most powerful African-American female executives in America.
Much of her work in her new job will be hand-in-glove with Michelle Obama, a friend of long standing from the same social circle in Chicago.
Rogers' former husband, John Rogers, is chairman and CEO of Ariel Capital Management in Chicago, the nation's first African-American-owned money management company. John Rogers is very close to the Obamas and a major fundraiser for Obama's Senate and presidential campaigns. He played basketball with Michelle's brother Craig Robinson, at Princeton, and played basketball with Sen. Obama on Election Day. He is co-chairman of the inaugural committee.
The Rogers have a daughter, Victoria, who is a student at Yale University.
Desiree Rogers received her undergraduate degree at Wellesley College and her MBA from Harvard University.
In a 2004 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Rogers said the best advice she ever received from her parents is that "nothing is ever impossible."
Her mother, Joyce, now retired, ran day-care centers and was also active in Carnival. She is known as a great cook and entertainer. Rogers' brother, Roy A. Glapion, an engineer, is senior vice president of Professional Service Industries Inc., and is active in New Orleans civic affairs. Both her brother and mother live in New Orleans.
According to an interview last year with the HistoryMakers, an African-American oral history project, Rogers' favorite color is black, her favorite food is chicken and her favorite saying is "laissez les bon temps rouler."
Jonathan Tilove can be reached at jtilove@timespicayune.com or 202.383.7827.
Read other articles, columns and blogs about Roger's appointment:

http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2008/11/former_zulu_queen_picked_for_w.html

History & Archaeology: The Lasting Impact of a Civil Rights Icon's Murder

2008-11-26T12:28:00.000-08:00
One of three civil rights workers murdered in Mississippi in 1964 was James Chaney. His younger brother, Ben, would never be the same
By Hank Klibanoff
Smithsonian magazine, December 2008

By Hank Klibanoff
Smithsonian magazine, December 2008

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In the 44 days that his brother and two other young civil rights workers were missing in Neshoba County, Mississippi, 12-year-old Ben Chaney was quiet and withdrawn. He kept his mother constantly in sight as she obsessively cleaned their house, weeping all the while.
Bill Eppridge, a Life magazine photographer, arrived in Neshoba County shortly after the bodies of James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman were pulled from the muck of an earthen dam on August 4, 1964. Inside the Chaney home in nearby Meridian, Eppridge felt that Ben was overwhelmed, "not knowing where he was or where he should have been," he recalls. "That draws you to somebody, because you wonder what is going on there."
On August 7, Eppridge watched as the Chaney family left to bury their eldest son. As they awaited a driver, Fannie Lee Chaney and her husband, Ben Sr., sat in the front seat of a sedan; their daughters, Barbara, Janice and Julia, sat in the back with Ben, who hunched forward so he'd fit.
Eppridge took three frames. As he did so, he could see Ben's bewilderment harden into a cold stare directed right at the lens. "There were a dozen questions in that look," Eppridge says. "As they left, he looked at me and said, three times, 'I'm gonna kill 'em, I'm gonna kill 'em, I'm gonna kill 'em.' "
The frames went unpublished that year in Life; most news photographs of the event showed a sobbing Ben Chaney Jr. inside the church. The one on this page is included in "Road to Freedom," a photography exhibit organized by Atlanta's High Museum and on view through March 9 at the Smithsonian's S. Dillon Ripley Center in Washington, D.C., presented by the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Chaney, now 56, cannot recall what he told Eppridge in 1964, but he remembers being livid that his mother had to suffer and that his father's generation had not risen up years before so that his brother's generation wouldn't have had to. "I know I was angry," he says.
Ben had lost his idol. Nine years older, James Earl Chaney—J.E., Ben called him—had bought Ben his first football uniform and taken him for haircuts. He had taken Ben along as he organized prospective black voters in the days leading to Freedom Summer. Ben, who had been taken into custody himself for demonstrating for civil rights, recalls J.E. walking down the jailhouse corridor to secure his release, calling, "Where's my brother? "
"He treated me," Ben says, "like I was a hero."
After the funeral, a series of threats drove the Chaneys from Mississippi. With help from the Schwerners, Goodmans and others, they moved to New York City. Ben enrolled in a private, majority-white school and adjusted to life in the North. But by 1969 he was restless. In Harlem, he says, he was elated to see black people running their own businesses and determining their own fates. He joined the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army.
In May 1970, two months shy of 18, Chaney and two other young men drove to Florida with a vague plan to buy guns. Soon, five people, including one of their number, were dead in Florida and South Carolina.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Indelible-Images-Moment-of-Reckoning-200812.html#

Family of Sean Bell Meets with Federal Prosecutors

2008-11-19T11:18:00.000-08:00
WPIX News
Family of Sean Bell Meets with Federal Prosecutors

Glenn Thomson reporting
November 18, 2008
BROOKLYN, NY - Family members of Sean Bell had their first ever meeting with federal prosecutors Tuesday. The meeting came almost two years after Bell died in a hail of 50 bullets outside the Queens nightclub Kalua, when undercover cops fired at Bell and his group, assuming they were armed. The officers who killed the unarmed father, set to get married the next day, were later cleared of state criminal charges.
"Justice was never served in this case," said family attorney Michael Hardy. "We still want justice for Sean."
The family has been pushing for the Justice department to bring civil rights charges against the officers. After their first meeting with federal prosecutors, the family now believes that it is possible.
In a statement, Rev. Al Sharpton said he believes today's meeting is "a sign that the federal government has begun to seriously look into the egregious denial of the civil rights of Sean Bell, Joseph Guzman, and Trent Benefield."
Bell's family echoed the thoughts of Sharpton, saying this meeting is a step towards justice.
"Sean had a life ahead of him," fiancee Nicole Paultre Bell told reporters. "This has given us hope."
Administrative charges are still pending on the three detectives and one other shooter not charged in the case. Officials said they are awaiting a decision by federal authorities before pursuing any or all charges.

Region mourns death of Miriam Makeba

2008-11-12T11:41:00.000-08:00

published: Wednesday November 12, 2008

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC):

The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) on Monday expressed shock at the passing of South African singer Miriam Makeba, who reportedly suffered a heart attack and died after performing at an anti-Mafia concert in Italy on Sunday. She was 76.

Speaking with the Caribbean Media Corporation via telephone from Antigua, CARICOM Chairman Baldwin Spencer described Makeba as a "towering figure in the fight against apartheid.

"Not only the music world, but the black diaspora and (all) peoples of goodwill would certainly mourn at her passing," Spencer said, adding that "she has certainly made a significant contribution to the efforts of her country and indeed the world".

Obama Pledges to Confront Economic Crisis 'Head On'

2008-11-07T12:38:00.000-08:00
Barack Obama pledged Friday to "confront this economic crisis head on" as soon as he is sworn in as the country's 44th president.

But the president-elect also warned of a tough road ahead during his first press conference since Election Day, held in Chicago just minutes after meeting with a team of top economic advisers.

"It is not going to be quick. It is not going to be easy for us to dig ourselves out of the hole that we are in," Obama said. "But America is a strong and resilient country, and I know we will succeed."

Obama stressed the need to extend unemployment benefits, stimulate job growth and reduce the number of foreclosures, and he pressed for Congress to pass a new stimulus package "sooner rather than later."

"If it does not get done in a lame duck session, it will be the first thing I get done as president of the United States," Obama said.

He also deferred to President Bush, saying "we only have one president at a time." He said he appreciated Bush's commitment to ensuring a smooth transition and said he was "grateful" Bush invited him and his wife, Michelle Obama, to the White House on Monday.

Obama spoke after he and Vice President-elect Joe Biden convened a meeting of the transition economic advisory board, a high-powered group of business, academic and government leaders. They included Lawrence Summers, who some have mentioned as a candidate for Treasury secretary, a post he held in the Clinton administration; Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, whose state has been hit hard by losses in the auto industry; Google CEO Eric Schmidt; and former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker.

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Rahm Emanuel, who will be Obama's White House chief of staff, also participated in the meeting.
Other participants in the meeting included executives from Xerox Corp., Time Warner Inc.; and the Hyatt hotel company. Investor Warren Buffett was calling in by telephone.

More evidence of a recession came Friday when the government reported that the unemployment rate had jumped from 6.1 percent in September to 6.5 percent in October.

Obama has been meeting privately with his transition team, receiving congratulatory phone calls from U.S. allies and intelligence briefings, and making decisions about who will help run his government.

One person frequently mentioned for a Cabinet post, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, will not be available until 2011, say officials close to him. Rendell has two years left of his term, and Lt. Gov. Catherine Baker Knoll, a Democrat, is ailing. Next in line to be governor is the Republican president pro tempore the state Senate.

Rather than take the chance that the GOP would gain control of the governor's office, Rendell has signaled he will stay put for the time being.

On Friday morning, Obama and his wife, Michelle, attended a parent-teacher conference at the University of Chicago Lab School where their daughters, Malia and Sasha, are students. The couple planned to visit the White House on Monday at President Bush's invitation.

Obama planned to stay home through the weekend, with a blackout on news announcements so he and his staff can rest after the grueling campaign and the rush of Tuesday night's victory. He is planning a family getaway to Hawaii in December before they move to the White House, and to honor his grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, who died Sunday at her home there.

Obama, who bested Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, has made it clear he will rely heavily on veterans of her husband's eight-year administration, the only Democratic presidency in the past 28 years.

Obama also is certain to bring to the White House a cadre of longtime aides like senior adviser David Axelrod and press secretary Robert Gibbs. Both have worked closely with Obama since he ran for the Senate in 2004.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/11/07/obama-meets-team-economic-experts/

Obama turns to building a presidency*

2008-11-05T12:30:00.000-08:00

WASHINGTON – His storied election behind him and weighty problems in his face, Barack Obama turned Wednesday to the task of building an administration in times of crisis as Americans and the world absorbed his history-shattering achievement as the first black leader ascending to the presidency.
Obama enjoyed an everyman day-after in his hometown of Chicago on Wednesday after an electric night of celebration, anchored by his victory rally of 125,000 in Chicago and joyful outpourings of his supporters across the country. The president-elect saw his two young daughters off to school, a simple pleasure he's missed during nearly two years of virtually nonstop travel, then had a gym workout.
Pressing business came at him fast, with just 76 days until his inauguration as the 44th president.
The nation's top intelligence officials planned to give him top-secret daily briefings starting Thursday, sharing with him the most critical overnight intelligence as well as other information he has not been allowed to see as a senator or candidate. And Obama planned to give the first of his daily briefings to the media on Thursday as he moves quickly to begin assembling a White House staff and selecting Cabinet nominees.
Obama was asking Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel, former political and policy adviser to President Clinton, to be his White House chief of staff, Democratic officials said. John Podesta, who served as Clinton's chief of staff, was expected to join Obama Senate aide Pete Rouse and campaign adviser Valerie Jarrett in leading the transition team.
President Bush pledged "complete cooperation" in the transition and called Obama's victory a "triumph of the American story."
Naming the staggering list of problems he inherits in his decisive defeat of Republican John McCain — two wars and "the worst financial crisis in a century," among them — Obama sought to restrain the soaring expectations of his supporters late Tuesday night even as he stoked them with impassioned calls for national unity and partisan healing.
"We may not get there in one year or even in one term," he said. "But, America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you, we as a people will get there."
Helping him to get there will be a strengthened Democratic majority in both houses of Congress. When Obama becomes the president on Jan. 20, with Delaware Sen. Joe Biden as his vice president, Democrats will control both the White House and Congress for the first time since 1994.
A tide of international goodwill came Obama's way on Wednesday morning, even as developments made clear how heavy a weight will soon be on his shoulders.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev issued a congratulatory telegram saying there is "solid positive potential" for the election to improve strained relations between Washington and Moscow, if Obama engages in constructive dialogue.
Yet he appeared to be deliberately provocative hours after the election with sharp criticism of the U.S. and his announcement that Russia will deploy missiles near NATO member Poland in response to U.S. missile defense plans.
In Afghanistan, where villagers said the U.S. bombed a wedding party and killed 37 people, President Hamid Karzai said: "This is my first demand of the new president of the United States — to put an end to civilian casualties."
Young and charismatic but with little experience on the national level or as an executive, Obama easily defeated McCain, smashing records and remaking history along the way.
Ending an improbable journey that started for Obama a long 21 months ago, he drew a record-breaking $700 million to his campaign account alone. The first African-American destined to sit in the Oval Office, he also was the first Democrat to receive more than 50 percent of the popular vote since Jimmy Carter in 1976. He is the first senator elected to the White House since John F. Kennedy in 1960.
And Obama scored an Electoral College landslide that redrew America's political dynamics. He won states that reliably voted Republican in presidential elections, such as Indiana and Virginia, which hadn't supported a Democratic candidate in 44 years. Ohio and Florida, key to President Bush's twin victories, also went for Obama, as did Pennsylvania, which McCain had deemed crucial for his election hopes.
With most U.S. precincts tallied, the popular vote was 52.3 percent for Obama and 46.4 percent for McCain. But the count in the Electoral College was much more lopsided — 349 to 147 in Obama's favor as of early Wednesday, with three states still to be decided. Those were North Carolina, Georgia and Missouri.
The nation awakened to the new reality at daybreak, a short night after millions witnessed Obama's election — an event so rare it could not be called a once-in-a-century happening. Prominent black leaders wept unabashedly in public, rejoicing in the elevation of one of their own, at long last.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who had made two White House bids himself, said on ABC's "Good Morning America" that the tears streaming down his face upon Obama's victory were about his father and grandmother and "those who paved the fights. And then that Barack's so majestic."
Rep. John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat and leading player in the civil rights movement with Jackson, said on NBC's "Today" show: "He's going to call on us, I believe, to sacrifice. We all must give up something."
Speaking from Hong Kong, retired Gen. Colin Powell, the black Republican whose endorsement of Obama symbolized the candidate's bipartisan reach and bolstered him against charges of inexperience, called the senator's victory "a very very historic occasion." But he also predicted that Obama would be "a president for all America."
On Capitol Hill, Democrats ousted incumbent GOP Sens. Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina and John Sununu of New Hampshire and captured seats held by retiring Republican senators in Virginia, New Mexico and Colorado. Still, the GOP blocked a complete rout, holding the Kentucky seat of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and a Mississippi seat once held by Trent Lott.
The Associated Press prematurely declared incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman the winner in a race against Democratic former comedian Al Franken that by state law is subject to a recount based on the 571-vote margin. The party also held onto a Mississippi seat once held by Trent Lott.
In the House, with fewer than a dozen races still undecided, Democrats captured Republican-held seats in the Northeast, South and West and were on a path to pick up as many as 20 seats.
"It is not a mandate for a party or ideology but a mandate for change," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.
After the longest and costliest campaign in U.S. history, Obama was propelled to victory by voters dismayed by eight years of Bush's presidency and deeply anxious about rising unemployment and home foreclosures and a battered stock market that has erased trillions of dollars of savings for Americans.
Six in 10 voters picked the economy as the most important issue facing the nation in an Associated Press exit poll. None of the other top issues — energy, Iraq, terrorism and health care — was selected by more than one in 10. Obama has promised to cut taxes for most Americans, get the United States out of Iraq and expand health care, including mandatory coverage for children.
McCain conceded defeat shortly after 11 p.m. EST, telling supporters outside the Arizona Biltmore Hotel, "The American people have spoken, and they have spoken clearly."
"This is an historic election, and I recognize the special significance it has for African-Americans and the special pride that must be theirs tonight," McCain said. "These are difficult times for our country. And I pledge to him tonight to do all in my power to help him lead us through the many challenges we face."
The son of a Kenyan father and a white mother from Kansas, the 47-year-old Obama has had a startlingly rapid rise, from lawyer and community organizer to state legislator and U.S. senator, now not even four years into his first term.
Almost six in 10 women supported Obama nationwide, while men leaned his way by a narrow margin, according to interviews with voters. Just over half of whites supported McCain, giving him a slim advantage in a group that Bush carried overwhelmingly in 2004.
The results of the AP survey were based on a preliminary partial sample of nearly 10,000 voters in Election Day polls and in telephone interviews over the past week for early voters.
In terms of turnout, America voted in record numbers. It looks like 136.6 million Americans will have voted for president this election, based on 88 percent of the country's precincts tallied and projections for absentee ballots, said Michael McDonald of George Mason University. Using his methods, that would give 2008 a 64.1 percent turnout rate, the highest since 65.7 percent in 1908, he said.
(This version CORRECTS SUBS 5th graf to correct spelling of Emanuel. AP Video.)

OBAMA ---THE CHANGE WE NEED* ROCK THE VOTE*

2008-10-31T13:11:00.000-07:00

*********************************************************************

In Their Own Words
America, this is our moment. This is our time. Our time to turn the page on the policies of the past. Our time to bring new energy and new ideas to the challenges we face. Our time to offer a new direction for this country that we love.
-- from his June 3, 2008, speech declaring his win as Democratic candidate

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/candidates/barack.obama.html

Video Highlights
Obama courts working women
Obama on off-shore drilling
'The system's broken'
Obama hits McCain on energy
Obama video wins Emmy
Obama: Hillary as his adviser
Oprah hits three states for Obama
Obama: Inhaling was the point
Obama on SNL
Transcripts and Speeches
Obama's Father's Day speech
Obama claims Democratic victory
Obama addresses pro-Israel AIPAC
'Just another George Bush'
Obama: McCain 'out of touch'
Obama discusses the economy
Obama: 'We closed the gap'
Obama speaks on race
Obama fires up Virginia
Obama speech: 'Yes, we can change'
Speech on the 'American Dream'
Speech about Iraq
Middle class tax fairness
Obama in South Carolina: We're doing it
Obama on education policy
Obama on the campaign trail

Police ask FBI to help find Jennifer Hudson nephew

2008-10-25T12:28:00.000-07:00
Kyle Peterson, Reuters
Published: Saturday, October 25, 2008
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Chicago police on Saturday asked the FBI to help find the missing seven-year-old nephew of Academy Award-winning actress Jennifer Hudson whose mother and brother were found shot to death a day earlier.

Julian King has been missing since Friday when Hudson's mother, Darnell Donerson, 57, and brother Jason Hudson, 29, were found dead in Donerson's south side Chicago home.

Chicago police spokesman Daniel O'Brien said the FBI had been asked to assist in the search, which could cross state lines. He said, however, that there was no evidence that King had been taken out of Illinois.

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Actress and singer Jennifer Hudson performs at the Wal-Mart Shareholders Meeting in Fayetteville, Arkansas June 6, 2008. REUTERS/Jessica Rinaldi

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Font:****O'Brien declined to confirm various media reports that police had taken William Balfour into custody as a suspect in the double homicide investigation. Balfour, 27, reportedly had a relationship with Hudson's sister and is the father of King.

The Illinois Department of Corrections Web site lists Balfour as having been convicted of attempted murder, car theft and vehicular hijacking. He was released from prison in 2006.

O'Brien said more than one person had been questioned but that no one had been charged with a crime. He did not release any names. On Friday, police spokeswoman Monique Bond said of the murders: "It appears to be domestic related."

Hudson gained fame in 2005 as a contestant on No. 1-rated U.S. television talent show "American Idol." She was one of 12 finalists in the third season but was voted off.

Still, her booming voice and popularity kept her touring in live shows and eventually she earned the role as Effie White in the 2006 film version of stage musical "Dreamgirls."

The role of soulful singer White, who is kicked out of an all-girl 1960s singing group, earned Hudson the Oscar for best supporting actress and made her an instant star in Hollywood.

Since then Hudson has appeared in the movie version of "Sex and the City," and is currently in "The Secret Life of Bees."

Media reports said Hudson was in Florida when she was told of the shootings and was headed back to Chicago.

(Additional reporting by Michael Conlon, editing by Vicki Allen)

GOP clerk passes around Obama 'black Hitler' claim

2008-10-25T12:24:00.000-07:00
1 day ago

FRANKLIN, Ind. (AP) — A Republican county clerk distributed to two employees an Internet blog posting referring to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama as a "young, black Adolf Hitler."

Johnson County Clerk Jill Jackson said Friday that she had apologized to the employees. One had complained to police.

The employees, who had voted for Obama in the Democratic primary, discovered the printouts at their desks after returning from Labor Day weekend, sheriff's Deputy Doug Cox said in a police report made public this week. A surveillance video showed Jackson placing an item on one worker's desk, he said.

Jackson told The Associated Press that she was merely passing along an item that already was circulating in the office.

"There was no motive, no intent," she said. "I never intended to offend anyone."

The unsigned item does not mention Obama by name but refers to events in his life that make clear Obama is the target.

"The U.S. citizens are just not ready to give up their country to this young, black 'Adolf Hitler' with a smile, poor direction and absolutely no experience!" it said.

Doug Lechner, Republican Party county chairman, said the incident was unacceptable and taints Jackson's ability to appear unbiased in administering this year's election.

Indiana is a swing state in this presidential election, its 11 electoral votes seen as important to Obama and to his Republican rival, John McCain. Johnson County is heavily Republican.

Another 11th-hour stay for U.S. death row inmate Troy Davis

2008-10-25T12:19:00.000-07:00
Another 11th-hour stay for US death row inmate Troy Davis
1 day ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Troy Davis, a black American who has spent 17 years on death row for the murder of a white policeman, was Friday granted a stay of execution, three days before he was due to be put to death, court documents showed.

"Upon our thorough review of the record, we conclude that Davis has met the burden for a provisional stay of execution," said the decision taken by three judges sitting on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in the southern state of Georgia, a copy of which was sent to AFP.

Davis, 40, was scheduled to die Monday at 7 pm (2300 GMT) by lethal injection for the 1989 killing of 27-year-old white policeman Mark Allan MacPhail in Savannah, Georgia.

He has repeatedly claimed he did not kill McPhail and seven out of nine witnesses who gave evidence at his trial in 1991 have recanted or changed their testimony, which was the backbone of the prosecution's case in the absence of a murder weapon, fingerprints and DNA.

Other witnesses have since identified another man as the shooter -- a state's witness who testified against Davis.

The appeals court on Friday gave Davis' lawyers 15 days to file documents with the court, supporting defense claims that Davis is being wrongfully held in prison.

The court will then have 10 days to decide if the case of the long-time deathrow inmate should go back before a lower court, which could order a new trial.

Friday's stay of execution "means there will be more litigation, but not necessarily a new trial," which Davis, his lawyers and supporters have been pressing for, Sara Totonchi head of Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, told AFP.

The stay announced Friday was the third for Davis, who was originally sentenced to die in July last year, only to be granted a last-minute stay of execution then by the Georgia Board of Pardons and Parole.

Last month, the same parole board denied Davis clemency, putting him back on the path to execution.

Then, with less than two hours to go before he was due to die on September 23, the US Supreme Court granted him his second stay of execution.

"I can't imagine the emotional roller coaster Troy Davis is going through," Sara, who is also head of Davis' support committee, told AFP Friday.

Davis' case has triggered an international outcry as well as support rallies and petitions in Georgia.

A petition signed by 140,000 people was delivered to the Georgia parole board on Friday, hours before the stay of execution was announced.

The French presidency of the European Union, whose 27 member states oppose the use of capital punishment anywhere in the world, appealed Wednesday for Davis's death sentence to be commuted.

Former US president Jimmy Carter, Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu of South Africa and Pope Benedict XVI have also spoken out against the execution.

Rights group Amnesty International hailed the decision to grant Davis yet another stay of execution, but slammed the US judicial system for overlooking issues that could prove the inmate's innocence.

"Until this point, the compelling issues in this case have been virtually ignored, leaving Georgia vulnerable to the possibility of killing an innocent man," Amnesty International USA said in a statement.

Last month, Amnesty accused the state of Georgia of "trying to ram through" Davis' execution.

A pardon from the state would spare Davis' life.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5imGyDsBZJujx6JmkwUiBc7DPhJ0Q

WHO slams global health care, calls for universal coverage

2008-10-14T08:49:00.000-07:00
(CNN) -- In a Nairobi slum, more than one in four children under 5 will die, but in a wealthier part of the Kenyan capital, the mortality rate is one in almost 67, according to a World Health Organization report released Tuesday.

A woman lies next to her sick child at a medical center in Sheshemene, Ethiopia, in July.

The World Health Report 2008 aims to spotlight disparities in health care across the globe, and as the Nairobi example illustrates, the differences exist not only between the First and Third Worlds -- they can occur just across town.

WHO roundly criticizes the organization, finance and delivery of health care and calls advances in the field "deeply and unacceptably unequal, with many disadvantaged populations increasingly lagging behind or even losing ground."

The report says that a citizen of a wealthy nation can live up to 40 years longer than someone in a poor country, and of the 136 million women who will give birth this year, about 58 million (43 percent) will receive no medical assistance during childbirth or the postpartum period.

UNICEF Executive Director Ann Veneman said the sharp inequities in the cost and access to health care often speak to larger societal ills.

"High maternal, infant and under-five mortality often indicates lack of access to basic services such as clean water and sanitation, immunizations and proper nutrition," she said in a statement.

WHO Director-General Margaret Chan insists the dilemma is not just a matter of haves versus have-nots.

"A world that is greatly out of balance in matters of health is neither stable nor secure," she said in a statement from Almaty, Kazakhstan, where the report was released.

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The difference in annual government expenditures on health care is more canyon than gap, according to the report. While the wealthiest nations dole out as much as $6,000 per person each year, some countries are unable or unwilling to spend more than $20 per person.

However, while calling for wide-ranging reforms in the delivery of primary health care, the report notes that it isn't always a matter of government expenditures.

Tajikistan and Sierra Leone both spend less than $100 per person on health care. But while the health-adjusted life expectancy in Sierra Leone is under 30 years of age, Tajikistan's is almost 70 -- a figure comparable to the United States, which spends more than $2,500 a person on health care.

"When countries at the same level of economic development are compared, those where health care is organized around the tenets of primary health care produce a higher level of health for the same investment," the report says.

WHO defines primary health care as being "universally accessible to individuals and families in the community by means acceptable to them, through their full participation and at a cost that the community and country can afford."

The organization's report -- titled "Primary Health Care -- Now More Than Ever" -- calls for a move toward universal coverage to reverse a trend over the last 30 years in which disparities in the levels of health care have actually widened.

Universal coverage, the report says, would lower the risks of disease outbreaks for everyone, not just the impoverished.

Currently, the most common means of paying for health care is out of pocket, which WHO says is the "most inequitable method for financing health care services." The report says more than 100 million people fall into poverty in a given year because of health care bills.

Another problem, the report says, is that doctors tend not to focus on prevention.

"Rather than improving their response capacity and anticipating new challenges, health systems seem to be drifting from one short-term priority to another, increasingly fragmented and without a clear sense of direction," according to the report.

But the report also handed out accolades, most notably to Iran and Cuba.

WHO applauded the Islamic Republic's 17,000 "health houses," which serve about 1,500 people each. The report credited the centers with boosting Iranians' life expectancy from 63 to 71 years between 1990 and 2006.

And in Cuba, the nation's "polyclinics" have yielded one of the longest life expectancies (78 years) of any developing country, the report says.

The report called for all sectors of society to help determine how health care is allocated, and it singled out the United States for spending just 0.1 percent of its health budget on health systems research -- the kind of research that policymakers use to decide how money is spent.

The report also points to the pharmaceutical industry's impact on health care in the United States, where the average expenditure on prescription drugs in 2005 was $1,141 per person -- twice the average in Canada, Germany and Britain, and 10 times the average in Mexico.

To combat the problems facing global health care, WHO says in its report that nations must improve coverage and delivery, as well as policy and leadership. It acknowledges that primary health care isn't cheap, but asserts that the "investment provides better value for money than its alternatives."

"The legitimacy of health authorities increasingly depends on how well they assume responsibility to develop and reform the health sector according to what people value -- in terms of health and of what is expected of health systems in society," the report says.

All About Health Care Policy • World Health Organization • UNICEF

Sharpton Leans Against Mayor’s Term Limit Plan

2008-10-09T13:41:00.000-07:00
October 8, 2008, 9:12 am

By Jonathan P. Hicks
The Rev. Al Sharpton has been largely silent about the prospect of extending term limits by a vote of the City Council. But Mr. Sharpton said Wednesday morning that he was leaning against the legislation proposed by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg that would allow the mayor and city officials to run for a third term.

In an interview, Mr. Sharpton said he had not made a final decision and that he found compelling arguments for and against extending term limits. However, he said: “I’m leaning toward those who advocate in favor of making changes in the law through a referendum. But I haven’t come to any final determination yet.”

Mr. Sharpton is apparently moving toward supporting a measure proposed by City Council members Bill de Blasio and Letitia James. The two legislators, both Brooklyn Democrats, have planned to introduce legislation calling for a citywide referendum on extending term limits, to be held in the spring.

“There are some legitimate problems with the arguments of each side,” Mr. Sharpton said. “On the one hand, there are voting rights issues with changing something that the voters have agreed to twice. On the other hand, you have people arguing that term limits themselves deny voters choice. I’m between and betwixt.”

Mr. Sharpton has had a cordial relationship with Mr. Bloomberg. And he is also extremely close with Gov. David A. Paterson, who has spoken favorably about Mr. Bloomberg’s proposal. And politicians close to Mr. Sharpton said he was not eager to offend either official.

Nonetheless, officials close to him and others within his National Action Network said that Mr. Sharpton was particularly troubled by the prospect of reversing a term limits law enacted and upheld in two citywide referendums.

When asked whether there were political considerations regarding his decision-making process, Mr. Sharpton said: “This is one of those difficult decisions based on what one believes.”

By taking a position against a Council vote to extend term limits, Mr. Sharpton would add a prominent name to the opposition to the mayor’s proposal. And that comes at a time when the Bloomberg administration is attempting to portray support for the mayor’s plan as extending beyond the wealthy of the city’s business community who have championed a third term for the mayor.

In fact, a group of a dozen or so black ministers, in a letter to the Council on Tuesday, voiced their support for the extension of term limits. The most prominent was the Rev. A. R. Bernard Sr., the pastor of the huge Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn, who endorsed Mr. Bloomberg in 2001 and 2005 and served on his mayoral transition team after his election.

Over the weekend, Mr. Sharpton held a forum at which the topic of term limits was front and center. At the forum, United States Representative Anthony D. Weiner and City Comptroller William C. Thompson Jr., both mayoral candidates, made clear their opposition to extending term limits by a vote of the Council.

City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn was also invited, but she decided not to attend, her spokesman said, because she did not want to cloud the term limits issue.

Over the weekend, Mr. Sharpton said his group had not yet determined what position to take regarding term limits.

Sharpton convicted in NYC police-shooting protests

2008-10-09T13:38:00.000-07:00
1 day ago

NEW YORK (AP) — A New York judge has convicted the Rev. Al Sharpton of disorderly conduct during protests over a police shooting and sentenced him to time served.

Criminal Court Judge Larry Stephen issued the verdict Wednesday against Sharpton and seven other activists. Sharpton has already served 5 1/2 hours in jail.

About 250 protesters were arrested in May for blocking bridges, tunnels and intersections in response to the police killing of Sean Bell on his wedding day.

Most of the cases were dismissed, but Sharpton and his co-defendants had insisted on a trial.

Sharpton testified Monday that the protests were peaceful, saying: "We wanted to stop violence, not cause violence."

Voting Rights and Suppressing the Vote

2008-10-09T13:21:00.000-07:00
U.S. Politics -
Wednesday, 08 October 2008

Stephen Spoonamore is a registered Republican, leading cybersecurity expert, and a whistleblower. In early September he gave an explosive deposition on the means and methods by which the 2004 presidential election in Ohio was stolen, and identified specific individuals with first hand knowledge of who carried out these thefts.

Black Agenda Report here reprints his deposition, along with links to an extensive interview Spoonamore gave to questioners at Velvet Revolution in which he details how electronic voting machines not only can be hacked, but appear to have been designed to be hacked.

In this interview with Velvet Revolution back in 2006,cybersecurity expert Stephen Spoonamore details his objections to electronic voting, and explains howDiebold voting machines such as those used in Ohio and a number of other states, can be hacked.

The text of his deposition can be found below the videos.

Stephen Spoonamore interview part 1
In this segment, Spoonamore details his own qualifications, and his interest in electronic voting systems.

Stephen Spoonamore interview part 2
Among other things, Spoonamore explains the several ways that a Diebold voting machine can be hacked from a remote location.

Stephen Spoonamore interview part 3
In this segment, Spoonamore continues explaining how the chain of custody of voting results can be easily hacked, and how electronic voting systems are capable of subtracting as well as adding votes.

Stephen Spoonamore interview part 4
Spoonamore reviews the "Georgia patch" which was used to flip the 2002 US Senate election in Georgia.

Stephen Spoonamore interview part 5
In this segment, Spoonamore emphasizes the importance of clean elections in a democracy.

Stephen Spoonamore interview part 6
"There is no electronic system in the world that cannot be hacked... Diebold is lying."

Stephen Spoonamore interview part 7
"Diebold machines are brilliantly designed to steal elections..."

Stephen Spoonamore interview part 8
"People do not want to believe that Americans would steal elections..."

http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=825&Itemid=1

Gwen Ifill and Corporate Conformity

2008-10-09T13:13:00.000-07:00
A better word for her job would be hostess, not journalist.
Share your thoughts....what is her job and who profits from her questions?....

Wednesday, 08 October 2008

The Public Broadcasting newsperson's new book should have been no concern to Republicans, and is bound to get good reviews from white corporate media.

Click the flash player below to hear this Black Agenda Radio commentary

Gwen Ifill and Corporate Conformity
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
"Gwen Ifill is around to assure her white colleagues that there are Black people who agree with them."

Public Broadcasting Black news personality Gwen Ifill caught a bunch of flak from the Right when she was tapped to moderate the Sarah Palin-Joe Biden vice-presidential debate. The Republicans excel at psychological warfare; they knew that by questioning Ifill's objectivity - by suggesting she harbors a pro-Democratic bias - they could cause her to give their not-too-bright would-be VP, Palin, a free ride.

It worked. Whatever they paid Ifill was too much. If a moderator can't even request that a candidate respond to questions, what good is she? But then, I've long questioned Gwen Ifill's usefulness to the service of truth in general, and Black people's interests in particular. The Republicans threw Ifill off her game by charging that she has a monetary interest in a Democratic victory in November, when her book, titled Breakthough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama, hits the stores. By that standard, journalists who write books about politicians would be disqualified from doing news stories about, or moderating interviews with, politicians. The whole notion would be silly, except for the fact that it turned Ifill into a useless lump on the screen.

Ifill's book should get good reviews, since her line on race is also shared by much of white corporate media. Ifill focuses on Barack Obama, Colin Powell, Newark Mayor Cory Booker, Alabama Congressman Artur Davis, and Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick. These are the "breakthrough" politicians whose success proves that Blacks are well on the way to achieving racial equality, according to Ifill. That view is also widely held at the places like the New York Times and among most corporate broadcasters outside of FOX News, so Ifill fits right in. Corporate media reporters seem to share the same list of the "good" Black "leaders" who speak their language and don't upset white folks, unlike the Reverends Al and Jesse and those poor souls who are still supposedly "trapped" in the Sixties. Gwen Ifill is around to assure her white colleagues that there are Black people who agree with them. For this, she is trusted, and rewarded.

"Washington Week is a celebration of shared world views."

White favor is that special something that Ifill shares with the six Black politicians featured in her book. All are decidedly to the Right of the Black political spectrum - which should logically disqualify them from being considered as "Black leaders." But they are Ifill's soul mates, floating, like her, on a carpet of white media approval which, in the twisted logic of the post-Civil Rights era, is the equivalent of Black success. In truth, these politicians' primary usefulness is to provide an amen corner for rich white people's critiques of Black people.

Every Friday evening, Gwen Ifill hosts a little get-together of corporate media buddies, called Washington Week. It is a celebration of shared world views: Time magazine concurs with the New York Times, which agrees with the Washington Post, which is pleased to share the same opinion as Newsweek, and so forth. At the center of the table is Ms. Ifill, who agrees with them all. She is the hostess of perfect corporate conformity - which is her personal and professional "breakthrough." Gwen Ifill has a lesson for young Black people: Don't fight The Power.

For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford.

******************************************************************

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...
written by beverly , October 08, 2008

Race is a profitable thing. Profitable financially wise as there seems no end to the books turned out and media time spent on the subject. Profitable figuratively (or maybe financially, also) as it serves as a diversion from discussion of and action upon other issues such as the real reasons for nonstop war and economic malaise.

While Ms. Ifill and her ilk gab incessantly about and make money off the race debate, Rome, er, the U.S. burns. No wonder Wall Street and Washington can get over on the public 24/7. Deregulation Babylon, giant sucking sound of job outsourcing, healthcare mess, cost of living outpacing wages, environmental meltdown â€“ all this and more going down but what fills print space and air waves? O.J. and the race question. Obama and the race question. Imus and the race question. Yes, race is an issue but it is not the only matter and it is being used by media and others to avoid tackling the hotter infernos on the domestic and foreign front.

The right need not have fretted over Ifill being debate moderator. As a card-carrying member of the mainstream media steno pool, there was no way Ifill would perform anything resembling actual journalism. Her public broadcasting cred means nothing as that medium also carries the water for the corporment (corporation govt).

hostess not journalist
written by ea , October 09, 2008

http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=820&Itemid=1

Political Debate of the Presidential V.P.'s

2008-10-03T12:05:00.000-07:00
In debate, a general mistake?
Email|Link|Comments (4) Posted by Jason Tuohey October 3, 2008 11:01 AM
If you tuned in to the vice presidential debate last night expecting a gaffe-fest, you probably came away disappointed.

But some liberal bloggers today are drawing attention to an apparent Sarah Palin flub, where she referred to General David McKiernan, Commander for NATO International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, as "General McClellan."

"Well, first, McClellan did not say definitively the surge principles would not work in Afghanistan. Certainly, accounting for different conditions in that different country and conditions are certainly different. We have NATO allies helping us for one and even the geographic differences are huge but the counterinsurgency principles could work in Afghanistan. McClellan didn't say anything opposite of that. The counterinsurgency strategy going into Afghanistan, clearing, holding, rebuilding, the civil society and the infrastructure can work in Afghanistan. And those leaders who are over there, who have also been advising George Bush on this have not said anything different but that."

General George B. McClellan served as commander of the Union army during the Civil War, from Nov. 1861 - March 1862.

For the debate transcript, click here.

Women to rule Rwanda parliament

2008-09-22T10:35:00.001-07:00
Rwanda already holds the world record for highest proportion of female MPs

Rwanda will be the first country where women will outnumber men in parliament, preliminary election results show.

Women have taken 44 out of 80 seats so far and the number could rise if three seats reserved for the disabled and youth representatives go to females.

Rwanda, whose post-genocide constitution ensures a 30% quota for female MPs, already held the record for the most women in parliament.

The ruling party coalition won 78% of seats in Monday's vote.

Indirect elections for women's quota seats took place on Tuesday and votes for two youth representatives and a disabled quota seat are taking place on Wednesday and Thursday.

It is the second parliamentary elections since the genocide of 1994 when some 800,000 minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered by Hutu militias in just 100 days.

slaughtered by Hutu militias in just 100 days.

80-SEAT PARLIAMENT
Elected seats: 53
* RPF: 42 seats, 78.76% of the vote
* Social Democratic Party: 7 seats, 13.12% of the vote
* Liberal Party: 4 seats, 7.5% of the vote
Quota seats: 27 (women 24, youth 2, disabled 1)

Women total: 44 seats, 55% of parliament
Preliminary results Rwanda National Electoral Commission

President Paul Kagame was instrumental in establishing the Tutsi-led 's Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) - the rebel force which took power and ended the genocide.

The BBC's Geoffrey Mutagoma in the capital, Kigali, says the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party have conceded defeat.

In the outgoing parliament, 48.8% of MPs were women - the world's highest rate. It is now set to be at least 55%.

Women who stood in seats reserved for female candidates were not allowed to represent a party.

"The problems of women are understood much better, much better by women themselves," voter Anne Kayitesi told the BBC's Focus on Africa.

"You see men, especially in our culture, men used to think that women are there to be in the house, cook food, look after the children... but the real problems of a family are known by a woman and when they do it, they help a country to get much better."

The World wants Obama as president: poll

2008-09-22T10:27:00.000-07:00

Posted Tue Sep 9, 2008 10:50pm AEST

US Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama may be struggling to nudge ahead of his Republican rival in polls at home, but people across the world want him in the White House, a BBC poll said.

All 22 countries covered in the poll would prefer to see Senator Obama elected US president ahead of Republican John McCain.

In 17 of the 22 nations, people expect relations between the US and the rest of the world to improve if Senator Obama wins.

More than 22,000 people were questioned by pollster GlobeScan in countries ranging from Australia to India and across Africa, Europe and South America.

The margin in favour of Senator Obama ranged from 9 per cent in India to 82 per cent in Kenya, while an average of 49 per cent across the 22 countries preferred Senator Obama compared with 12 per cent preferring Senator McCain. Some four in 10 did not take a view.

"Large numbers of people around the world clearly like what Barack Obama represents," GlobeScan chairman Doug Miller said.

"Given how negative America's international image is at present, it is quite striking that only one in five think a McCain presidency would improve on the Bush administration's relations with the world."

In the United States, three polls taken since the Republican party convention ended on Thursday (local time) show Senator McCain with a lead of 1 to 4 percentage points - within the margin of error - and two others show the two neck-and-neck.

The countries most optimistic that an Obama presidency would improve relations were America's NATO allies, including Australia (62 per cent).

A similar BBC/Globescan poll conducted ahead of the 2004 U.S presidential election found that, of 35 countries polled, 30 would have preferred to see Democratic nominee John Kerry, rather than the incumbent George Bush, who was elected.

A total of 23,531 people in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, Lebanon, Mexico, Nigeria, Panama, the Philippines, Poland, Russia, Singapore, Turkey, the UAE, Britain and the United States were interviewed face-to-face or by telephone in July and August 2008 for the poll.

Black police 'are spied on' claim

2008-09-22T10:15:00.000-07:00

September 22, 2008 -
Senior members of the Met's Black Police Association (BPA) say they are concerned they are being spied on by fellow officers.
Senior members of the Met's Black Police Association (BPA) say they are concerned they are being spied on by fellow officers, the BBC has learnt.

Some are so worried that they are taking counter-surveillance measures, such as having rooms "swept" for bugs.

It is the latest twist in a bitter dispute between the Met and its prominent ethnic minority staff.

A source said the BPA was fighting against attempts by the Met to "crush any challenge" to its authority.

BBC correspondent Barnie Choudhury said the revelation the BPA suspected conversations were being monitored "shows the level of mistrust of the Metropolitan Police by some black and Asian officers."

An unnamed BPA source told the BBC: "There is a constant battle and it's the systematic failure within the organisation. It's an attempt to crush any challenge, any dissent, by black and Asian officers."

Unnecessary comment is not helpful and we have taken the view that less said in public is better

Metropolitan Police spokesman

Civil war within the Met Police

The revelations follow the suspension last week of the president of the National Black Police Association, Commander Ali Dizaei, on allegations of misconduct.

BBC News has been told some prominent members of the Met BPA are now holding secret meetings in undisclosed locations. They have also bought pay-as-you go phones to prevent conversations being tapped and are having their offices swept daily for electronic bugs.

They say it is because of fears following a two-year investigation into Dr Dizaei, the current President of the National Black Police Association.

Surveillance

In 1999 Dr Dizaei was put under surveillance in an investigation codenamed Operation Helios. He was eventually cleared of any wrongdoing in 2003.

Earlier this week, the Met BPA chairman, Alfred John, said: "Dr Dizaei has been the victim of what we believe to be the culmination of a sustained witch hunt."

The Met has responded by re-issuing a previous statement, which said: "We have seen a number of comments over recent weeks from Mr John and we do not recognise his description of what is happening in the Metropolitan Police Service and Metropolitan Police Authority.

"Unnecessary comment is not helpful and we have taken the view that less said in public is better."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7628044.stm