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

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

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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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

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?

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

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."