Jack & Jill Politics

Cynthia McKinney returns to Gaza and 3rd time's the charm. They get the humanitarian aid through!!

http://actsoffaithinloveandlife.blogspot.com/20...

Go Cynthia!

I see there are several entertainment reviews, so i'll contribute too. I saw two films that the critics generally slammed, but I found them rather entertaining (after having had a few drinks).

Now Playing on Starz...Never Back Down with Sean Faris & Djimon Honsou
This film is the Karate Kid for the next generation with youtube included. I gave it a 15-minute test (if boring, I'd turn it off within 15 minutes) and it passed.

Now Playing on Showtime...Feast of Love with Morgan Freeman & Greg Kinnear
LoL, this film has a little bit of everything for everybody, but provides it with an intellectual edge. If you're into cheap laughs ala Madea or quick thrills ala Transformers, then this film is NOT for you.

I actually saw Feast of Love in the movie theater - I enjoyed it.

have to look for Never Back Down.

Never Back Down was good?

Huh.

I'll give it a look then. Thanks!

Yeah, i actually enjoyed it.

By all means, give it a 15-minute test and see what you think. if you think it's crap, call me out on it.

You got my attention with the Karate Kid reference, since unlike so many other martial arts movies, they actually had (some semblance of) a plot.

In return for your recommendation, I thought the movie Peaceful Warrior was very good.

Thanks, I'll check it out.

Just finished watching Never Back Down - good movie. Thanks for the rec.

Your welcome windswept...you're in sacramento? A brotha would like 2 holla at u.

Yep, near Carmichael.

rhoenix (at) gmail (dot) com is my email - hit me up.

Texas May Bar Students from Learning About Cesar Chavez, Thurgood Marshall

by Tula Connell, Jul 16, 2009



César Chávez and Thurgood Marshall: Outlaws in Texas?

United Farmworkers founder César Chávez is an unfitting role model for students, and former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall is not an appropriate historical figure. So say “expert reviewers” in their report to the Texas State Board of Education, which recommends removing the two U.S. leaders from the social studies curriculum taught to its 4.7 million public school students.

The ranting of these extremists has the potential to turn into mass censorship—Texas is such a mega-purchaser of textbooks that the state’s required curricula drives the content of textbooks produced nationwide.

The Texas Freedom Network, which monitors actions by religious reactionaries on the state’s school board, points out that two of the “expert reviewers” are unqualified to be on the panel and were appointed mainly because of their background as religious ideologues.

David Barton, founder of the conservative Christian advocacy group WallBuilders, and the Rev. Peter Marshall, an evangelical minister from Massachusetts who runs Peter Marshall Ministries, were appointed to the state school board in March.


The Texas Freedom Network describes Barton and Marshall this way:

Barton, former vice chairman of the Texas Republican Party, is a self-styled “historian” without any formal training in the field. He argues that separation of church and state is a “myth” and that the nation’s laws should be based on Scripture. He says, for example, that the Bible forbids taxes on income and capital gains. Yet even such groups as Texas Baptists Committed and the Baptist Joint Committee have sharply criticized Barton’s interpretations of the Constitution and history.

The Peter Marshall Ministries website includes Marshall’s commentaries sharply attacking Muslims, characterizing the Obama administration as “wicked,” and calling on Christian parents to reject public education for their children.

Chávez, of course, devoted his life to organizing migrant farmworkers, among the most exploited and voiceless of any workforce. Marshall, the grandson of a slave, in 1967 became the first African American Supreme Court justice and was instrumental in shaping the landmark 1954 school desegregation case, Brown v. Board of Education.

As an editorial in Go San Angelo puts it:

This struggle has less to do with the quality of education than it does with religion and social values. The [state school board] has become a battleground in the endless and tiresome culture wars. Texas has witnessed one fight after another over matters like language arts standards, public school Bible classes, the adoption of mathematics textbooks, trying to dilute the treatment of evolution in the state’s biology classes.

Clearly, the Texans opposed to teaching students about Chávez and Marshall think those who stand up for the rights of workers and people of color are a threat. Because for those wielding the power, they are.

http://blog.aflcio.org/2009/07/16/texas-may-bar...

Haven't you heard, WHITE MEN made America; there's NO need for all that rich, intense, and culturally intelligent history of POC!

Obviously they subscribe to the Pat Buchanan defintion of US history. They wonder why they can't pass ACT's and SAT's

One has to wonder. How can this happen in a majority-minority state?

The POWER of the minority vs. the POWERLESS majority.

I'm watching Pres Obama's African journey on CNN right now. They have shown the inside of the slave castle. It is pretty good thus far.

Stay tuned for the black on black slavery from Haiti, immediately following.

The Hunt for Red October was good movie with a kickass score.

Great score. Hubby and I watched "Crimson Tide" with Denzel and Gene Hackman last weekend, for like the 6th time.

I never tire of seeing Denzel. For me, it's his best role to date.

Tom Clancy used to live in my home town Calvert County, MD.

Hey Spirit,

Thanks for the reco on Song yet Sung, it's definitely on my list.

While Clancy was most certainly a Reagan-lover, I have to admit that I enjoyed Sum of All Fears, Cardinal of the Kremlin, and Patriot Games.

You liked Denzel better in Crimson than in X? Wow___. It's sad that Denzel had to play a nicca-full-out in Training Day for the Academy to recognize his talent.

Clancy was...well...

but, good entertainment is good entertainment, and his books translated well to the screen.

As with most films, the books are always better than the films. The same is true for Clancy.

LOL! Clancy may have been a Regan-lover, but that doesn't stop me from enjoying reading his good works.

Yes, I loved Denzel in X, but I preferred his role as Ron Hunter, Executive Officer in CT.

He was strong, commanding, intelligent, and didn't have to go "nicca-full out."

I've been watching episodes of "Frank's Place" today. I forgot how much I loved this series.

I'm up to episode #5 titled 'Frank Joins the Club" where Frank's invited to OKOP club and gets the "paper bag" test. Only the guy who invites him want him to join the club to break the cycle of the bag test, to let in their first darker skinned black member.

Frank tells him he's the first black in his college class et,al., and now these black folks want him to be the first BLACK at an all black club. Thanks, but no thanks.

Just a wonderful series.

this episode is the reason why I'd buy the entire series. because, it was so on point.

Did you get the info on ordering all 22 episodes on DVD?

I saw it, but didn't take it down

thanks

Another mystery murder that's sure to have a twisted ending:

Motivational speaker found stabbed to death

NEW YORK - Motivational speaker Jeff Locker phoned his wife at their suburban home Wednesday night, telling her he had a flat tire and he'd be a little late. When he didn't return, she called police.

Locker was found hours later, bound and stabbed to death in his car near a city housing project in a possible botched robbery.

Now, police are trying to determine what he was doing in the area so they can track his killer.
Locker, who offered workshops on dealing with workplace issues and had recent financial troubles, told his wife that two people helped him with the flat on his midsize station wagon and that he was going to drop them off before returning home, possibly from New Jersey, police said. But it didn't appear the car, a 2007 Dodge Magnum, had a flat tire when it was discovered in East Harlem near the Wagner Houses, a 22-building complex with about 5,000 residents.

Investigators also were looking to talk to witnesses who told reporters that they saw Locker at a nearby deli buying condoms and bottled water around 3 a.m. Thursday and that they had seen the car there before.
Full Story:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31972851/?GT1=43001

Sounds like a trick that went terribly wrong.

MSNBC has another one of their crime specials.

MSNBC IS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qF0o-W5uu8o

The President, the Congress and any other commentator have gotten on my last nerve about the deficit(s). None of these clowns is prepared to acknowledge the fact that Credit Default swaps as long as they are written by US financial institutions represent a dollar call on the US taxpayer creating a defict larger than the gross national product of the country $15 trillion in 2006.
This is why: "European banks including Societe Generale SA and BNP Paribas SA hold almost $200 billion in guarantees sold by New York-based AIG allowing the lenders to reduce the capital required for loss reserves. The firms may keep the contracts to hedge against declining assets rather than canceling them as AIG said it expects the banks to do, according to David Havens, managing director at investment bank Hexagon Securities LLC.

“For counterparties to voluntarily terminate those contracts makes no sense,” Havens said in an interview. “There’s no question that asset values have soured on a global basis. WITH THE FAITH AND CREDIT OF THE U.S. GOVERNMENT BACKING THOSE GUARANTEES, WHY WOULD THEY GIVE THAT UP." (my italics)

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109...

Yeah, I'm wondering when Congress is going to pull the plug on the credit default "insurance policies", myself.

Personally, I don't buy into the galactic calamity of an AIG collapse.

I (Heart) Maxine Waters...inspite of her Hillary-love in the primaries.

Insurance is regulated by the states, so it would be up to the states to pull the plug.

Credit default swaps were authorized under the Commodities Reform act of 2000 w/ legislation added by Sen Phil Gramm in the middle of the night. They are totally unregulated under this legislation.

I blogged about this but I wanted to drop this off... from the SCOTUS blog

In the first ruling of its kind, a federal judge on Friday barred the federal government from using any statements made by a Guantanamo Bay detainee since he was captured in Afghanistan more than six years ago, finding that all of them were “a product of torture.” U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle did so two days after the Obama Administration notified her that it would not oppose the efforts by lawyers for Mohammed Jawad to block the use of any of those statements as a basis for keeping him in captivity.

Major David Frakt is Jawad's attorney. Rachel Maddow had him on her show at least twice, and I posted the video. Also Major Frakt took part in a symposium on the detainees at Washburn Univerisity Law - that's here.

Jawad, who was born in an Afghan refugee camp in Pakistan, was believed to be no older than 14, and maybe as young as 12, when he was arrested in Kabul, Afghanistan, in December 2002 by Afghan police. They accused him of throwing a hand grenade that injured two U.S. soldiers and their Afghan interpreter. He later gave a confession that his lawyers — and, more recently, a military judge at Guantanamo — have found to be unreliable.

Huvelle, however, went ahead with a hearing on Thursday, where she sharply criticized the government’s past actions and refused any further delay in the case. She put her oral ruling into written form on Friday. In the order, she said the trial on Jawad’s challenge to his detention will go ahead on Aug. 5.

“Permitting the government to take additional time,” the order said, “would be contrary to the Supreme Court’s directive [in Boumediene v. Bush in 2008] that ‘the costs of delay can no longer be borne by those who are held in custody.’ “

It's a 104; we're going to float the river.

The JAG Corp has been unsung heroes and heroines. Within the M$M there is little mention their efforts to savage the remains of what gw refers to as "just a goddam piece of paper". Their efforts to me were successful because of the B___ admin efforts to control them. Remember this? "Bush administration is pushing to take control of the promotions of military lawyers, escalating a conflict over the independence of uniformed attorneys who have repeatedly raised objections to the White House's policies toward prisoners in the war on terrorism."

And they VOLUNTEERED. A call was issued for attorneys with specific trial/law experience and/or areas of expertise.

A couple of things. My granddaughter picked out this book at the library today. 'Nappy Hair'. Carolina Herron.

I picked up a copy of pat Buchanan's book to run through tonight - 'state of emergency:the third world invasion and conquest of America.' I'm hoping Pat will be kicked off the MSNBC train. He's a fucking white supremacist - simple as that.

And finally, we came home this afternoon and found one of my cats, asleep, wrapped up in one of my bras. ??? Has THAT even happened to anyone? (Although I did find him when he was probably 4-5 weeks old; he was tiny, tiny. Any time I moved he was wherever I was. Still is even tho he's 2-1/2.)

My granddaughter picked out this book at the library today. 'Nappy Hair'. Carolina Herron.

I love this book; it should really be set to music.

He's a cross-dresser? Who knows what he's wearing when you aren't there. LOL

LMAO..... No shit.....

the cat gets into the underwear drawer?

This one I think was probably somewhere in the vicinity of the hamper, hanging on the side or something. And yeah, this cat can open shit. My dresser has three drawers and he'll get on the top and wiggle his little paw in between the drawer and the ..... uh, 'frame?' wood. I have pictures of him sleeping in the top drawer.

This is the cat that eats yogurt, watermelon, and mushrooms. He doesn't eat human food, per se - like whatever I'm eating chicken or something. Oh yeah, and french toast, and caramel - like when eating Granny Smith apples.

Here - here's a pic of what he looks like. Someone dumped him, rikyrah, and we found he is actually a specific breed. No stud fees, though. As soon as he was 6 months he went straight to the veterinarian's office for, ya know, snipping those little kitty woo-woos ....

http://www.catfacts.org/egyptian-mau-cat-facts.htm

Ah, cats. You gotta love'em. That's a good lokking cat.

I had a tabby cat named "Phantom."

When I would prepare to take a shower, he'd jump on the bathroom sink and wait for me to run water. After the sink was full, he'd climb in and sit in the water until I got out of the shower.

I laid out a towel for him on the floor and he's roll around on the towel until he was dry enough. It was wild, but he loved taking a bath.

Animals are Soul too!

I think cats are strange and wonderful. How else do you explain the connection between you & Phantom so you 'figured out' the sink, the towel, and showering?

I connect with this cat. I'd take him everywhere I go if I could - if he wasn't such a fraidy-cat. Here's a look at Khaos

Eugene Robinson: Black America's New Reality (convo with President Obama):

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ar...


President Obama's speech Thursday marking the 100th anniversary of the NAACP's founding was widely reported as a "tough love" message directed at black America. "I've noticed that when I talk about personal responsibility in the African American community, that gets highlighted," Obama said in an interview Friday. "But then the whole other half of the speech, where I talked about government's responsibility . . . that somehow doesn't make news."

Fair enough, but he misses the point. The real news wasn't in the content but the visuals: the nation's leading black civil rights organization being addressed by the nation's first black president. Obama could have read nursery rhymes and the event still would have been noteworthy.

In his six months in office, Obama has taken few occasions to confront the issue of race head-on. This moment was inescapable. But his words about the deficits that still plague black America were delivered to a room full of NAACP convention delegates who are, by and large, highly educated and comfortably affluent -- men and women who already have high expectations for their children and know how to hold their elected officials accountable. Missing was the too-large segment of the black community that has been left behind.

"Don't underestimate the degree to which a speech like the one I gave yesterday gets magnified throughout the African American community," Obama told me in the Oval Office, where a bust of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. surveys the room in silent admonition. "Folks on Friday go in and get their hair cut, they're getting ready for the weekend, they're sitting in the barber's chair, and somebody said, 'Did you see what Obama said yesterday?' It sparks a conversation. . . . And part of what my goal is here is to make sure that I'm giving a lot of folks permission to talk about things that maybe they've talked about around the kitchen table but don't get fully aired in public."

A century ago, when the NAACP was founded, black America was under siege -- lynchings were common, race riots had rocked major cities and Jim Crow segregation was being codified throughout the South. Today, all of that is fast-receding history. Some critics have wondered whether there is still a role for an organization like the NAACP. Obama says there is -- not just in advocacy but also in local-level efforts to mentor children and improve underperforming schools.

Obama embodies two trends that have made the African American community increasingly diverse. He is the son of a Kenyan immigrant -- at a time when highly educated people from Africa and the Caribbean are coming to this country in record numbers. And he is biracial -- the product of a kind of relationship that long was illegal in many states.

"I think that I would add a third element . . . which is a generational shift," Obama said. "If we haven't already reached this point, we're getting close to reaching it, where there are going to be more African Americans in this country who never experienced anything remotely close to Jim Crow than those who lived under Jim Crow. That, obviously, changes perspectives."

One impact of these changes, I believe, has been to make it all but impossible to identify a single "black agenda" or see a clear path toward future progress, the way the NAACP's founders saw the way forward. But we have to accept this new reality, because I can't argue with Obama when he says that black America's growing diversity is "all for the good."

"One of the ways that I think that the civil rights movement . . . weakened itself was by enforcing a single way of being black -- being authentically black. And, as a consequence, there were a whole bunch of young black people -- and I fell prey to this for a time when I was a teenager -- who thought that if you were really 'down' you had to be a certain way. And oftentimes that was anti-something. You defined yourself by being against things as opposed to what you were for. And I think now young people realize, you know what, being African American can mean a whole range of things. There's a whole bunch of possibilities out there for how you want to live your life, what values you want to express, who you choose to interact with."

No one could argue against possibility. But there was a time when no one had to ask what the NAACP was supposed to do -- when black Americans, living with the common constraints of overt discrimination, had an obvious and urgent common purpose.

Said Obama: "I do think it is important for the African American community, in its diversity, to stay true to one core aspect of the African American experience, which is we know what it's like to be on the outside.

"If we ever lose that, then I think we're in trouble. Then I think we've lost our way."

"we're getting close to reaching it, where there are going to be more African Americans in this country who never experienced anything remotely close to Jim Crow than those who lived under Jim Crow. That, obviously, changes perspectives."

This generational shift has a profound and significant impact on the AA community.The thing that was the glue for the majority of AA's was the "separatebutequal"doctrine/ indignities The legal discrimination impacted ALL independent of income and thus was the UNITED bond for Civil Rights.. A entire generation not experiencing that shifts the focus to poverty. Overcoming poverty however necessitates values and ambitons. Instead, in all too many cases, the AA community has chosen to develop a sub-culture that glorifies the ignorance of impoverishment and embraces drugs and crime, in too many instances.

How the NAACP shifts it's focus to address these problems is key. Obama has started the dialogue that too many folks want to ignore, and that is the return to values for the young folk born after the 80s.This is the generation that was suppose to reap the gains of affirmative action from their parents, but far too many have been incarcerated and fatherless, and those twin variables have 'ghettoized' the AA community.

Obama has no choice but to focus on the impact of those variables, if we as a community are going to move forward.

Brother Robinson:

I'm gonna have to challenge the credibility of your assertion that PBO rarely takes on the issues of race "head-on". While that may be accurate, YOU sir, take less of an opportunity to address the issue. You've had a couple of years to place a metaphorical fist in the proverbial mouth of one Patrick Buchanan. You have not done so. And until you do, you ought not pontificate (too loudly) on PBO's arm's-length posture on the subject.

I Agree, RonnieB. Eugene's stuttering and hesitation on confronting Pat Buchanan's race-baiting idiocy, and the idiots on Morning Joe, particulary Joey Scar is shameful.

His pen is mightier than his mouth.

As much as I agree with everyone about Eugene, the truth is he doesn't need to be the BLACK guy that gets fired for being right cause the white folks won't take on PAT for the EXACT same reason, they are KEEPING their jobs!!

Why Eugene got to stand up to Pat anymore than they do? Why does he have to stick his neck out when they REFUSE to corral one of their own.

I would rather have Eugene with his 'weak' commentary than not to have him at home. He still makes points, albeit not as strongly as we would like...but if you NOTE even his tepid overtures are NOT followed up or conjoined by the rest of the white cable heads on MSNBC.

So, I can't HATE on Eugene for that. Would I like to see him do more? You bet. But it ain't gonna happen. Eugene did not get where he is by being a trailblazer, so it is foolish to think that he will be the one carrying the torch now.

I disagree with the notion that the visuals of him being there are more important than what he said.

Bill Maher, showing his ass again, comparing America's condition to Michael Jackson:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/18/bill-m...

Straight up, fuck Bill Maher. I'm done with this self-righteous assmunch.

Bill has been showing his whiteness lately.

What I found ironic is that while Bill was whining about why people cared MJ died, he started to get his panties in a bunch when he thought one of the panelists was dissing the Beatles.

Ain't that sumthin'? If anyone talks shit about Elvis or the Beatles, white folks lose their minds.

Oh, but they have no problems talkin' shit about MJ.

Yeah that was messed up. Bill's just upset that when he dies, the world will collectively yawn.

Terrific pictures of Michael Jackson in the July "People" magazine. From the achingly adorable little boy on the cover, with a tiny mole on his left cheek...to the slender young man with acne..tragically long before the advent of isotretinoin.

I was on another site that was almost gleefully celebrating his death and it saddened me. It was mostly young white people that weren't fans and didn't understand the impact of his death. And it occured to me that Michael didn't seem to have many issues until he crossed over.

You know it is the pictures of Michael as a little boy that breaks my heart the most. I know that he would go on to be a really big star but I fell that it is in childhood when he lost himself.

To paraphrase something Katherine said...she just wanted her boys to lead "A good Christian life" and "Be happy."

It seems to me those two things are at odds with each other.

I don't think so.

What exactly do you mean by that? Please explain.

Specifically speaking, no one fully agrees on exactly what "a good Christian life" constitutes. But for Jehovah's Witnesses...it means certain things...and it would be impossible for a Jehovah's Witness to be happy if they didn't want to do those things.

Generally speaking...it is impossible to be happy when your actions, beliefs and feelings are being directed by others. It is antithetical to life itself.... There is a reason why you are separate from me.

Tim Graham, in a July 17 NewsBusters post, is offended that a Washington Post article referred to the NAACP as the "nation's oldest civil rights organization." Why?

Graham: NRA Is A Civil Rights Group Like the NAACP

Because "the National Rifle Association was founded in 1871":

This is only true if "civil rights group" can only be used as an honorific synonym for "black interest group." If the election of Obama ends one era of the "civil rights" struggle, can reporters stop using the "civil rights" tag just for black groups? 

In fact, the "civil rights" component of the the NRA, the NRA Civil Rights Defense Fund, was founded in 1978. Graham offers no evidence that the purpose of the NRA in 1871 was to serve as a "civil rights organization."

Graham goes on to complain that the media doesn't label the NAACP as liberal, even though he failed to label the NRA as conservative.

---

Gee, you learn something new everyday. Today, the NRA is a civil rights org and early this week, gay is the new black. Who knows, we made be documented as being post-racial after all.

these clowns need to stop.

Interesting article about the internment of Buffalo Soldiers in NM.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/200907...

Thanks for the post.

Three BIG Healtcare LIES

1. Government is less efficient.

This perennial lie always rested on hot air. Careful studies have shown that private health insurers have administrative costs between 10% and 17% (see sources 1 and 2). Medicare, the “inefficient” government bureaucracy, keeps its administrative costs around 4% to 5%. Government is about three times more efficient.

Simple logic explains why. Health insurers do the same thing over and over again. They review claims for diagnosis and treatment (and sometimes even prevention!) of a limited number of human ailments. When you do the same thing over and over, you get better at it, and you can do it cheaper, the larger you are. You enjoy what economists call “economies of scale.”

Government health insurance is cheaper because it’s bigger. It spreads out the cost of administrators and their computer hardware and software over a larger number of patients. It has more power to negotiate with drug companies and other providers for low rates. It therefore has enormous cost advantages over our atomized private health-insurance industry, whose chief goal is to enrich private owners by maximizing the number of separate firms with separate policies.

Don’t take my word for it. Take the private insurance industry’s. Now that its lies have been exposed for what they are, there is a serious chance that government might create its own insurance policy—just one!—to compete with private industry’s myriad policies of many flavors.

So what does private industry do? Does it laugh and scoff at the prospect of competing with this inefficient weakling? Does it mimic its hero Dubya and say “Bring it on!”?

Not hardly. It lobbies against any competition by government as if its life depended on avoiding that competition, which it does. The so-called “conservatives” who for decades derided the competitiveness and efficiency of government are now deathly afraid to compete with it. Watch what they do, not what they say.

2. Government will put a bureaucrat between you and your doctor.

For health care to have any cost control whatsoever, someone has to review your and your doctors’ decisions to see if they make sense. Giving you a triple bypass just because you have an occasional chest twinge and know a surgeon who will do one for you on any pretext is not the way to keep us Boomers from breaking the bank. Nor, as recent comparative studies show, is it the way to insure the best health-care outcomes....snip

3. Government insurance will reduce consumer choice.

This lie is a bit of razzle-dazzle, playing on our over-the-top consumer culture. As anyone who’s ever had to rely on one knows, health insurance is not like a restaurant meal, automobile, or home-entertainment system. It’s not something you buy for its flavor, color, appearance, attractiveness or aura of power and status. It’s insurance. snip




http://jaydiatribe.blogspot.com/2009/04/three-b...

We all need to send Courtney some money so he can look up who those colleagues are that are opposing health reform...galvanize him!

"When I listen to the hysterical descriptions of what is in this legislation, I would remind many members to look at themselves in the mirror. Because what they are presently entitled to as members of Congress is exactly what this legislation is proposing to create for all Americans."


http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/health-care/h...

FACT-CHECKER IN CHIEF.... President Obama had a few interesting things to say about health care reform in his weekly multi-media address today, his fifth in the last seven weeks to emphasize the importance of reforming the system.

The president noted, for example, the importance of "seizing this opportunity," and ignoring "the same special interests and their agents in Congress" who make "the same old arguments, and use the same scare tactics that have stopped reform before because they profit from this relentless escalation in health care costs." Obama did not, however, reference the pre-recess August deadline, which now appears practically impossible.

But it was more important to see the president play the role of fact-checker. He noted that Americans are bound to hear a lot of talk and see a lot of ads attacking reform, and realized that some "might begin to wonder whether there's a grain of truth to what they're saying." So, Obama highlighted some of the more common talking points, only to knock them down.

"First, the same folks who controlled the White House and Congress for the past eight years as we ran up record deficits will argue -- believe it or not -- that health reform will lead to record deficits," he said. "That's simply not true. Our proposals cut hundreds of billions of dollars in unnecessary spending and unwarranted giveaways to insurance companies in Medicare and Medicaid. They change incentives so providers will give patients the best care, not just the most expensive care, which will mean big savings over time. And we have urged Congress to include a proposal for a standing commission of doctors and medical experts to oversee cost-saving measures. [...]

"Those who oppose reform will also tell you that under our plan, you won't get to choose your doctor -- that some bureaucrat will choose for you. That's also not true. Michelle and I don't want anyone telling us who our family's doctor should be -- and no one should decide that for you either. Under our proposals, if you like your doctor, you keep your doctor. If you like your current insurance, you keep that insurance. Period, end of story.

"Finally, opponents of health reform warn that this is all some big plot for socialized medicine or government-run health care with long lines and rationed care. That's not true either. I don't believe that government can or should run health care. But I also don't think insurance companies should have free reign to do as they please. That's why any plan I sign must include an insurance exchange: a one-stop shopping marketplace where you can compare the benefits, cost and track records of a variety of plans - including a public option to increase competition and keep insurance companies honest - and choose what's best for your family."

Now, that last point is of particular interest, because it might be new. The president said reform has to include an insurance exchange, which shouldn't face too much resistance on the Hill. But he also said the exchange should feature a public option.





http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/indiv...

anyone want to play Six Degrees of Don Cheadle? I think he's our journeyman character actor.

I'll go first.

Sean Connery

This was easier than I thought.

Sean Connery was in Entrapment with Catherine Zeta Jones.
Catherine Zeta Jones was in Traffic with Don Cheadle.


Ok, how about Barbara Streisand?

ok, Streisand.

Barbara Streisand was in The Way We Were with Robert Redford.
Robert Redford was in Lions for Lambs with Tom Cruise.
Tom Cruise was in Mission Impossible II with Thandie Newton.
Thandie Newton was in Crash with Don Cheadle.



Any takers for George C. Scott?

George C. Scott was in Malice with Alec Baldwin.
Alec Baldwin was in The Departed with Mark Wahlberg.
Mark Wahlberg was in Three Kings with George Clooney.
George Clooney was in Oceans 11,12,13 with Don Cheadle.

Can you get him to Lena Horne?

ok
Lena Horne was in The Wiz with Diana Ross.
Diana Ross was in Mahogany with Billy Dee Williams
Billy Dee Williams was in The Empire Strikes Back with Harrison Ford.
Harrison Ford was in Regarding Henry with Annette Bening.
Annette Bening was in The Siege with Denzel Washington.
Denzel Washington was in Devil in a Blue Dress with Don Cheadle.

Dang...ok....Lindsey Lohan!

Lindsay Lohan was in the Parent Trap with Dennis Quaid.
Dennis Quaid was in Traffic with Don Cheadle.

Damn...that wasn't even a darn challenge for you! I forgot about Traffic....ok....let's see.....

Zsa Zsa Gabor!

Zsa Zsa Gabor was in Drop Dead Darling with Tony Curtis.
Tony Curtis was in The Mirror Crack'd with Angela Landsbury.
Angela Landsbury was in Nanny McPhee with Colin Firth.
Colin Firth was in Mamma Mia with Pierce Brosnan.
Pierce Brosnan was in After the Sunset with Don Cheadle.

Susan Sarandon?

Susan Sarandon was Stepmom with Julia Roberts.
Julia Roberts was in Oceans 11 with Don Cheadle.

Dang, you're good! :))

Susan Sarandon was also in Bull Durham with Tim Robbin, Tim Robbins was in
Mission to Mars with Don Cheadle.

DAMMIT!!! OK I'll stump you yet:

Dolly Parton

Miranda, I got that one, but I had to use Google and IMDB, so I don't know if it counts.

I forgot she was in Steel Magnolias so I know you got that one!! I need to refine my selection criteria...I need to find some obscure person that's only been in some small independent flick or something! LOL

What about ReeseWitherspoon?

Uh..I forgot she was in that one, too. LOL.

I'm impressed.

Me too.:))

I found the link to the replay of President Obama speaking at the PNC Bank Arts Center in support of Gov. Jon Corzine.

http://www.app.com/article/99999999/NEWS/399990...

In search of western eyes: looking at why focusing on the black/white binary when it comes to race is damaging and encourages the perpetuation of racism.

Hi womanist...

liked your post. However, I think white women do darken their skins with self tanners...and curl their hair with perms.

Now it seems that many white men consider Asian beauty desirable. Perhaps Asian women just want somewhere to place their eye shadow :)...and maybe they like the deep mysteriousness of the heavy-lidded eye. I can appreciate the beauty of a deeply set eye...but also think the almond shaped eye of an Asian woman is beautiful. Black women have all those features..being that our genetics are mixed. My part Asian brother has a slanted eye and epicathic fold..or Mogoloid fold...and I consider his eyes mysterious and beautiful. I have a slight hint of it myself..and I am black.

We're just buying body parts when we change ourselves, IMO. We're consciously doing what our genes do(as technology permits)..when our biology switches on and off certain features and capabilities. Who knew that the human body of a black skinned man could turn itself white? ..as in the case of people with vitilago and albino's. Albino's have no pigment..so they are whiter than even a "white" person, who has some pigment! Kinda makes me wonder what race and colour is all about...and whether race is merely a set of beliefs, and the state of mind those beliefs engender..rather than the colour of skin.

'whether race is merely a set of beliefs, and the state of mind those beliefs engender..rather than the colour of skin."

You are absolutely correct. Race is a sociologic construct. Not biologic, there is not enough genetic variance with the human species for their to be races. There is only one race the human race.

Race/racism and with all the stereotypes it denotes is what the viewer seeks to impose on you. i.e. in the eye of the beholder

I don't see tanning as an attempt to be black and curling ones hair is not an attempt to make it kinky like black hair.

Ah...but WHY don't you see it as that when white women do it, but say that black women want to be white when they change themselves?

I mean, the texture and look of relaxed hair is not EXACTLY like the texture of genetically straight/white hair...it seems that black women have created an entirely new hair texture by using chemicals..it's not like black hair or white hair, it's entirely new! I've also seen women in the Caribbean use lightening creams in an attempt to even out skin discolourations from acne scarring and sun damage..they weren't trying to be white ... What these women admired was the apparent eveneness of low pigmented skin. What they ended up with was black skin that looked reddened...nothing at all like a white person's skin.

White women are not trying to make their hair kinky...because from a tactile standpoint..kinky doesn't feel good and is hard to control. White women are trying to get wavy hair because wavy looks and feels good.
So, why not allow black women the same leeway in their choice to smooth out the kinks in their hair?

I know that everything I'm saying here sounds like racial blasphemy..lol..but think about it.

Yep...white folks have curly perms.

Who says kinky does not look good or feel good? That is the natural texture of our hair and it is very beautiful. The reason black women started straightening their hair was to attempt to take on a Eurocentric feature because we were taught to hate our natural selves. When white women are perming their hair they are seeking to get curls which naturally appear with them. It has nothing whatsoever to do with emulating Blackness.

Whiteness does not covet Blackness it never has.

The fact very few people attempt to MAKE their hair kinky suggests that it doesn't generally feel good...if kinky hair was naturally soft, manageable and tacitly appealing, I think more people would want it. The fact most hair products are geared toward softening and smoothing hair suggests that those qualities are what women want...regardless of race.

I think the problem is in associating kinky hair with blackness and our being, rather than seeing it as genetic expression...like round eyes, or a large nose..etc. Would you define yourself by a large nose? When I write "kinky" you see it as "black". If I say kinky hair is generally hard to control, you see as as "black is inferior".

Even women with kinky hair use products to soften it. They're a gazillion products for kinky hair these days...if it's "natural" state was so desirable..then why use products to change it in any way? Why not leave your hair the way it is when you exit your mother's womb?

Funny you should say that..I got hit on by a white guy in the supermarket checkout line the other day..seems like he liked my blackness just fine. I - on the other hand - did not covet his massive height. You may say, this man wouldn't want to BE black... And I would respond by saying that I wouldn't want to BE white. Not because there's anything intrinsically wrong with whiteness, but because I like who I am.

What I'm getting at here...is that this line of thinking is not based on fact. In addition, I can't see how it is beneficial for black women to burden themselves with restrictions that other women are not burdened with. There's no up-side to any of this.

Black women need to know that they are loved..straight or kinky hair.

"When white women are perming their hair they are seeking to get curls which naturally appear with them"

Well, the same would be true for AA's who have naturally 'straight' hair like Valerie Jarrett and Desiree Rogers. There are lots of Scandinavians who do not have natural curls and they get curly perms.

" It has nothing whatsoever to do with emulating Blackness."

Why, not? Who do you think they are emulating...where do you think those curls originated? Not on the Asian continent, nor European continent...curls come straight out of Africa!

If we are emulating whiteness when we seek to straighten our hair texture than they are emulating blackness when they seek to curly their hair texture.

"Whiteness does not covet Blackness it never has."

O yes, they do. They spend hours tanning, curling and lifting weights for glutes.

White women adore curly full head of hair black babies! They love their skin tone...and many of them marry black men for that very reason...they want brown babies.

Not pasty white baldheaded ones.

"Whiteness does not covet Blackness it never has"

I completely disagree with this statement.

Me too, jelana. There would be NO CULTURE in America without BLACKNESS.

Everything from music, dance, and art, our lips, hips, our rich hues and skin tones has been CO-OPTED by white people!!!!!!!!!!!!

So a 9 year old girl gets raped and subsequently impregnated with twins by her stepfather. The girl's parents take her to get an abortion. The Catholic Church "autoamtically" ex-communicates the family (no word on the stepfather). And the Pope stands by it. See, this crap is why I have a problem with organized religion. But if the church is going to be like that, the family is better off without it. I'm sure a 9 year old carrying twins to term that are a product of a RAPE won't leave any serious emotional/psychological scars. . . right. . .

Article 1

Article 2

From Article 1:

In truth, abortions and unwanted pregnancies are a sad constant in Brazil. Although abortion is illegal, an estimated 1 million women each year have one. The poor are forced into clandestine clinics or take medication, while the better-off are treated by qualified physicians at well-appointed surgeries known to anyone with money and overlooked by colluding authorities.

That secrecy has a price. More than 200,000 women each year are treated in public hospitals for complications arising from illegal abortions, according to Health Ministry figures. Those who don't have the courage or the money to be treated take the pregnancy to term. Although the fertility rate has fallen considerably in Brazil (from 6.1 children in 1960 to about 2 today), 1 in 3 pregnancies is unwanted, according to Dr. Jefferson Drezett, head of the Hospital Perola Byington, Latin America's largest women's health clinic. Meanwhile, 1 in 7 Brazilian women between the ages of 15 and 19 is a mother, and the average age at which women have their first child has fallen to 21, from 22.4 in 1996, according to a government-funded study.

And this is what the "pro-lifers" want here apparently.

And this is what the "pro-lifers" want here apparently.

Just a digression on your last line. I don't disagree with you.

I wouldn't use the word 'apparently' because I have absolutely NO doubt this is what they want. I've grown up with these people - as in childhood growing up - and what they want, they want to return us to that place.

They want to return us to that place - to the past. Not people. Women.

since Steve Mcnair saga is still burning up the message boards and many questions have not been answered (at least thats what the blacks folks that read my column tell me), here's a story that was run last week that gives a different angle to mcnair. I wrote this after seeing how racists words were thrown around under the disguise of Christianity. This does not anyway ignore the any circumstances surrounding this case.
http://genmaspeaks.blogspot.com/2009/07/gentle-...

While it's a nice blog, I STILL don't feel any sympathy for his death because of the circumstances. I think it's one of those situations where the people who knew him before his death have no problem separating his death from the good he did in life. My first time hearing of him as anything other than just another football player was his death and the way he died. I understand and respect the fact that there are a lot of people broken up by his death and mourning the loss, I'm just not one of them.

I don't particularly care what people do in their sex lives, and I don't think McNair was a hypocrite like our republican "friends" who are having affairs constantly, but I can't really get past the fact that had he been spending all of that time he was spending with his eventual killer with his wife and family, he'd still be alive today. When you take vows, you are making a promise to someone else, and I think you should keep that promise. If that relationship is no longer fulfilling you, get a divorce. Had the girl just been his "girlfriend" as opposed to his "mistress" then I'd have some sympathy for him.

And NO, my feelings don't mean I think EITHER of them DESERVED to die, but that's what ended up happening in this case.

I am subdued..rendered virtually speechless by the irony of it. In death, McNair has made an ironic statement that his life could not. In most cases the distraught young woman would have gone after the wife and children, thinking that getting rid of them would secure the man's affections. Consider that McNair exposed his family to this threat..as he toyed with, and used a vulnerable young girl.

McNair flirted with death..but death consummated...

Muzikal203,
Thank you for responding. I guess I approached this story from the perspective that he did do much good, a whole lot, that is rare in our community of Nashville. I was personally impacted through my sons and family who survived the aftermaths of Katrina. I can't turn that off because of the circumstances surrounding his death. I do have sympathy and compassion for his sons who did not ask for any of this.

Thanks for dropping in on my blog, come back.

Exactly my point. You knew him on a different level and as such are not going to define him by the way he died. The only thing I really knew about him before everyone started talking about how "awesome" he was, was HOW he died.

It's kind of like with Michael Jackson. Yes, he had some strange habits, but I loved him for his music which basically provided a soundtrack for my life. I can hear any MJ song and remember where I was the first time I heard it or saw the video. So when he died, I was really upset about it. But there are some people out there who only know him as far as the cases that were brought against him and what they saw in the media, so when he died, they didn't get what the big deal was, whereas I actually shed a few tears over it (which is a big deal, because I usually don't cry when people I know PERSONALLY die, much less a celebrity I've never even seen in person).

So I don't begrudge you your grief, I can even empathize with you, I just don't feel the same way :o)

Same Old Song
By John Amato Saturday Jul 18, 2009 9:00am

You can always count on the Ben Nelsons in Congress to try and destroy any chance we have of health-care reform. He and his five buds sent a letter to President Obama and are asking for a delay in crafting health-care legislation.

What's up with all these gangs and letters?

A bipartisan group of centrist and conservative senators sent a letter to the Democratic and Republican leaders on Friday urging delay in consideration of health care reform.

The letter, obtained by the Huffington Post, was drafted by Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and is also signed by Democratic Sens. Mary Landrieu (La.) and Ron Wyden (Ore.). Independent Joe Lieberman (Conn.), who caucuses with Democrats, signed on, as did Maine Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins -- moderates heavily courted by President Obama.

The organized effort to slow down the process is a blow to the reform effort. Obama has pushed hard for a final vote before the August recess, arguing that delaying until September could slow momentum and risk missing a historic opportunity.

It's the same old song being played over and over again by these creeps. And it's the same old tired song we heard back in 1994

Greg Sargent:

If today’s demand by “centrist” Dem Senators that we slow health care reform sounds familiar, that’s because it is: Almost exactly the same thing happened in 1994, courtesy of then-centrist-Senator Bob Kerrey versus Hillarycare.

This is one of the major reasons why our health-care system has remained in shambles for decades. They use the same tactics over and over again because they work. Corporate shills and elitist views trump the hurt that the American family is feeling. President Obama needs to stop issuing orders about deficits and actually get in there and tell these people what he wants.

It's infuriating that suddenly "deficits" are more important than actual reform. Obama is planting the seeds to their own demise by talking up the deficit like it's the Holy Grail. That's just what the teabaggers and conservatives want to focus on in 2010. If you asked most people in America how a large federal deficit hurts them specifically, they couldn't tell you, but just "know that it's bad."

Continue reading »

http://crooksandliars.com/

Congress is not "concern" about deficits caused by the defense bill. Earmarks Fill Up Defense Spending Bill: Even as politicians decry pork barrel politics and complain of wasteful federal spending, both Democrats and Republicans have requested to insert billions of dollars in earmarks into a defense spending bill for companies that gave them millions in campaign contributions.

---

Defense Secretary Robert Gates is jeering Congress for wanting to spend millions of dollars on more fighter jets than he says the U.S. actually needs.

Gates scolds Congress over funding for fighter jet

Gates made the F-22 funding battle in Washington the focus of a wry and sometimes stinging speech Thursday night to the Economic Club of Chicago.

He chided Congress for accusing the Obama administration of cutting spending on the F-22s - even when the budget's $534 billion bottom line is an increase from last year.

Gates said the Pentagon's budget might be more than what the rest of the world, combined, spends on defense. He noted, "Only in Washington, D.C., would that be considered gutting defense."

A key House Democrat predicts that the F-22 funding increases will survive a veto threat.

---

Did you know that more than a quarter of senators and congressmen (151) have invested at least $196 million of their own money in companies doing business with the Department of Defense (DoD) that profit from the death and destruction around the world?.

Surgeon General Pick's Stance on Abortion May Clash With Church's

By Cheryl W. Thompson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 18, 2009

Regina M. Benjamin grew up in the Roman Catholic Church and attended a Catholic elementary school in her home town of Daphne, Ala., nestled along the Gulf Coast. Benjamin, President Obama's pick to be surgeon general, attends Mass regularly and has received an award from Pope Benedict XVI and another inspired by Mother Teresa.

But the Alabama country doctor also backs Obama's position on reproductive health issues, a position that potentially could put her at odds with the Catholic Church.

"Like him, she believes that this is an issue where it is important to try and seek common ground and come together to try and reduce the number of unintended pregnancies," White House spokesman Reid Cherlin said. "As a physician, she is deeply committed to the philosophy of putting her patients' needs first when it comes to providing care."

The White House declined to say whether Benjamin supports a woman's right to an abortion, but sources close to her selection say she does. Benjamin did not return a call to her clinic seeking comment. Rebecca Adelman, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said that Benjamin is prohibited from speaking publicly until she is confirmed.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ar...

In this sagging economy where churches are having a hard time filling the pews, I hope the Church goes after a qualified black woman. It'll show just how out of touch they are, and won't exactly make young people want to practise Catholicism.

JULY 18, 2009 U.S. Weighs Special Team of Terrorism Interrogators
By SIOBHAN GORMAN

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration is considering overhauling the way terror suspects are interrogated by creating a small team of professionals drawn from across the government, according to people familiar with a proposal that will be submitted to the White House.

The new unit, comprising members of spy services and law-enforcement agencies, would be used for so-called high-value detainees, they said. In a switch from Bush-era efforts, it wouldn't be run by the Central Intelligence Agency, though who might be in charge isn't specified.

One of the team's tasks would likely be to devise a new set of interrogation methods, according to one person familiar with the proposal. Those techniques could be drawn from sources ranging from scientific studies to the psychology behind television ads

The new interrogation team, if adopted, would represent the Obama administration's effort to sweep away a contentious counterterrorism issue that has dogged the CIA and Justice Department since a U.S. network of secret prisons was revealed in 2005. The team would reduce the CIA's controversial role in interrogations, but the agency remains at odds with Congress. On Friday, the House intelligence committee launched a probe into whether the agency broke the law by withholding information from the panel about a secret plan examining al Qaeda hit teams as well as other matters.

CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said the agency will "work closely with the committee on this review."

There could, however, be some similarities with the approach taken by the Bush administration. The team's efforts, for example, would focus more on gathering intelligence than on assembling evidence suitable for use in a criminal trial.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124787391051060...

"The interrogation unit would include perhaps two dozen people who would research, master and conduct noncoercive interrogations of detainees. The team would be drawn from those with relevant experience, probably from agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, CIA and Pentagon"

Our intelligence community "Federal Bureau of Investigation, CIA and Pentagon" is outsourced (a contractor workforce). For me, therein lies the problem. We have Xe (formerly known as Blackwater) violating the Army Field Manual, Human Rights, Geneva Convention Codes and they appear to be legally untouchable.

Black Philadelphia police sue over message board, say it's racist

(CNN) -- A group of black Philadelphia police officers filed a federal lawsuit Thursday against their department, alleging an online forum geared toward city police is "infested with racist, white supremacist and anti-African-American content."
The suit alleges white officers post on and moderate the privately operated site, Domelights.com, both on and off the job.

Domelights' users "often joke about the racially offensive commentary on the site ... or will mention them in front of black police officers," thus creating "a racially hostile work environment," according to lawyers for the all-black Guardian Civic League, the lead plaintiff in the suit.

A look at the site's forums Friday for racist comments found several possibilities.

Reads one: "In urban areas, it seems [African-Americans] living on welfare in paid for housing is ingrained in their culture as well as fighting. ... Kids, along with adults can't speak proper English or spell at a 3rd grade level, but they can sing among "theyselves" the lyrics to a rap song."

Said another Domelights user of an African-American woman: "She is a classic example of that exact non tax paying, no car insurance driving, bad weave wearing, all the whitey's are racist black women."
The site's tagline is "the voice of the good guys."

Full Story:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/07/17/police.raci...

Two recent studies indicate that the genetics of race influences the survivability of some cancers. The Journal of the National Cancer Institute, revealed that patients suffering from cancers afflicting both men and women, such as myeloma, lung and colon cancers, had no difference in death rates, regardless of ethnicity,when given the same treatments

Scientific American: Should Racial Profiling Play a Role in Cancer Prognosis?

The group also found racial differences in prostate cancer mortality rates. The average five-year survival rate for men diagnosed with stage IV prostate cancer (cancer that has spread to the lymph nodes) is 30.6 percent.

The study results suggest that under certain conditions black men have a 21 percent higher risk of dying from stage IV prostate cancer than white men.

In a second study, Idan Menashe and his colleagues at the NCI analyzed data from 244,786 women diagnosed with breast cancer between 1990 and 2003. Approximately 23 percent of all breast cancers fall into the so-called estrogen receptor negative category, which has a poor prognosis. Menashe's group found that a larger percentage of black women (29.6 percent compared with 17.3 percent of white women) had this variety of breast cancer and consequently higher mortality rates. Both studies suggest that biological differences exist between races that may affect cancer outcomes.

Otis Brawley, the chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society, acknowledges that some racial profiling may be beneficial but believes that in the long run, concentrating efforts on understanding racial differences is likely to hold medical advances back.

He mentions Bidil, the first (and only) drug ever approved based solely on race, as an example. The drug to treat heart failure was authorized for use only by black men but could also have been used by the small percentage of white men who had the same genetic impairment that leads to cardiovascular damage. But because of financial reasons, the drug's maker at the time chose to market it to black men and tested it only on them.

---

My rant. So, for years, the MSM, pols, and the deathcare industry, used the same "blame the victim" script claiming that the AA community's health problems and high mortality rates were just socio-economical.  

I simply do not understand why a statement like "Were racial disparities absent from our health care, the deaths of more than 880,000 African Americans would have been averted from 1991 to 2000, according to a recent analysis of mortality data." is not a cause for alarm or a call for action from AA orgs during this healthcare reform debate. Especially, as you will see below how healthcare tax dollars are being spent.

Healthcare discrimination is a 21st Century civil rights issue.

The New England Journal of Medicine writes reports, year after year, about minority healthcare delivery disparities that covers a span of more than 20 years.  The area of healthcare is where we can clearly see evidence of the "separate and unequal" philosophy still at work. Blacks are diagnosed less and die more. Black organizations have been vocal about environmental racism and cancer bands in AA communities.

Another point that is not addressed, no health care for prisoners pose a danger to the larger AA community and society because jails and prisons have become incubators of unchecked diseases like MSRA, HIV, Tuberculosis and Hepatitis which former prisoners are carrying back to AA communities throughout the country.

The alleged outmoded NAACP spoke up about the lack of policy to address the health care disaster of the AA community within a revolving door of the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC). They pointed to the Center for Disease Control's (CDC) unwillingness to track prisoners returning to the AA community with diseases contracted while in prisons or jails.  The NAACP and other groups worked for years to get legislation (Public Law 108-79--Sept. 4, 2003; Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003) passed to create a civil right to NOT BE RAPED while in prison. Julian Bond is also petitioning to have prisoners tested for HIV/AIDS

There should be no surprise for any reasonable person as to why the AA female's HIV/AIDS rates are so high.

While the health care system is typically characterized as a largely private-sector system, it may come as a surprise that more than 60 percent of the $2 trillion annual U.S. health care bill is paid through taxes (according to a 2002 analysis published in Health Affairs by Harvard Medical School associate professors Steffie Woolhandler and David Himmelstein.)

YOUR tax dollars already pay for at least $1.2 trillion in annual U.S. health care expenses.

YOUR tax dollars pay for

- Medicare and Medicaid, 

- the Veterans Administration

- the Indian Health Service.

- health coverage for federal, state, and municipal government employees and their families

- many employees of private companies working on government contracts. 

Less visible but no less important, the tax deduction for

- ;employer-paid health insurance, along with other health care-related tax deductions, 

- also represents a form of government spending on health care. 

I will end my rant for now and it is not because there is not more that can be addressed. For instance, I would like to discuss with the great minds collected here at JJP the so called "designer medicine for blacks" in the Scientific American article above . It seems to me, there is need to ask the question, why are we using taxpayer's money for medical research that use the white male as the medical model?

'It seems to me, there is need to ask the question, why are we using taxpayer's money for medical research that use the white male as the medical model?"

The short and sweet answer to this is because black folks will not volunteer to be guinea pigs for medical research. Most know about the Tuskeegee experiment where black males were deliberately not treated for syphilis. Those that don't simply have good reason to decline based on simply being black in America.

While the Tuskeegee experiement was an evil and abominable act, there has to be someone in the black community to lead the charge in advocating equality in research models. TRUST is a big issue and it is CRITICAL that it is restored. Our lives depend on it.

Agreed. Have seen this article? (Dec 2005) Study Debunks That Blacks Are Wary of Medical Research

And, whether we volunteer or not, the AA community are still subjects of “research” like, an AA doctor who claims that NY children in state custody were used in HIV/AIDS experiments and a B___ admin panel that gave the green light to use prisoners for medical testing, for the greater good. As an aside, are you aware of the Factor 8: The Arkansas Prison Blood Scandal?

Yes, I am aware of the AP blood scandal.

I read about that case on the BBC website. IIRC, the BBC aired a documentary about it.

Another case: The University of Chicago wanted to use black teenage girls as guinea pigs for a new vaccine to treat the HPV virus, Michelle Obama put a stop to it:

She also interceded to alter the hospital's research agenda. When the human papillomavirus vaccine, which can prevent cervical cancer, became available, researchers proposed approaching local school principals about enlisting black teenage girls as research subjects.

Obama stopped that. The prospect of white doctors performing a trial with black teenage girls summoned the specter of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment of the mid-20th century, when white doctors let hundreds of black men go untreated to study the disease.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/18/world/america...


Here's the link to the BBC article on the NY Experiment: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/this_worl...

Thanks for the additional info about the Chicago "research" and link for the NY story.

It seems big pharma is seeking a larger target group, they are using teen girls in commercials on teevee to promote Gardasil.

Here's the other link: IOM Panel Recommends Using Prison Inmates as Guinea Pigs in Drug Trials_NYT

I am aware of the Prison blood scandal. Canadians contracted HIV from those tainted blood products.

Here is a summary Arkansas Prison Blood Scandal.

There several stories told with different focuses (Clinton, doctors, blood for drugs, tainted blood, lawsuits, etc.) and even a movie about the scandal, I have yet to learn about the scandal from the prisoner's vantage point.

morphus, I see you read the post from a few days ago.

You are not ranting. I too found this statement alarming:

"Were racial disparities absent from our health care, the deaths of more than 880,000 African Americans would have been averted from 1991 to 2000, according to a recent analysis of mortality data."

When I first read it, I thought, this is societal racial GENOCIDE.

It really isn't a surprise that targeted models for research have been white males and females too, so naturally they would reap the benefits of a successful drug studies.

"Healthcare discrimination is a 21st Century civil rights issue."

Yes it is, and that is why we must demand to know where and how our tax dollars are benefiting blacks. We must fight for public option. We must DEMAND our slice of the pie.

Yes, I read it. That statement never loses it punch whenever I read it.

It is literally a KILLER.

Obama going to Martha's Vineyard in August
updated 12:07 a.m. EDT, Sat July 18, 2009

From Ed Henry
CNN

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The first family is heading to Massachusetts next month for some rest and relaxation.

White House aides said President Obama, first lady Michelle Obama and daughters Sasha and Malia will spend the final week of August together in Martha's Vineyard, a favored vacation spot for then-President Bill Clinton and his family in the '90s.

The aides confirmed on Friday what had been rumored for months but had been kept under wraps for security and other reasons, including the fact that vacation plans are very sensitive in the middle of a painful recession.

Aides have privately held open the possibility that Michelle Obama and the girls may arrive at the vacation spot a few days earlier while the president works on a variety of issues, including his push for health reform.

Hey hey hey Fat Albert Bebe's Kid's coming to Oak Bluff1

In a perverse way, an article in a recent edition of New York magazine suggesting the African American community on Martha's Vineyard was segregationist, elitist and even perhaps racist, was testament to black achievement.

African American Community Blasts Magazine Article

After all, the young African American author of the article, who goes by the single name Touré, was airing very much the same criticisms that are more usually leveled at the white establishment. Absent a black elite, he could not have done it.

Whether such criticisms are valid is another matter. And the overwhelming view of a large number of Island residents, seasonal and year-round, black and white, is that the piece, published June 21 under the headline Black and White on Martha’s Vineyard, was desperately unfair and wrong.

Thus Abigail McGrath, of Oak Bluffs, drafted a letter of response to the magazine and circulated it among her Island friends for their signatures.

It was quite a letter.

“My family has lived on the Vineyard for seven generations and I don’t recognize MY Vineyard in the article, Black and White on the Vineyard, written by Mr. Touré,” she began, then went on to condemn its “appalling inaccuracies which misrepresent the Island in a divisive way.”

---

When I read this article, I thought, oh noes, the Obamas are unknowingly heading into the AAs firestorm in Martha's Vineyard, who, according to the New York Magazine article, are segregationist and elitist, in the good way.

See, according to the New York magazine, uncle pat is not the only one with segregationist and elitist ideas.

I see denial ain't just a river in Egypt.

Since Toure's article and our own...ahem..debate about this issue, it seems that some of the OKOP folks doth protest too much, acting as if the criticism is unfounded or only applies to a small few or that the critics are jealous (which, ironically, proves that there is black elitism amongst the OKOP crowd and they are perpetuating it). Maybe it's just me, but reading the rebuttals to Toure's article, it seems like they were more concerned that folks may think they're racist against whites, than classist against blacks.

The comment of the moment on JJP (which has been used in the original Martha Vineyard's discussion, Michael Jackson discussion, and other topics in the last three weeks or so) applies to this rebuttal article.

A hit dog will holler.

we've done our 10 rounds on this article..LOL

Sorry, didn't see it.

Geez.... i didn't think that it was even possible. I mean, tables were flying, chairs, books - rants and screams, cheers & boos.... they were regular 'knock-down-drag-out rounds.

Wow! Guess I need to get my popcorn and then do a search.

Tracking Michelle Obama's slave roots
By Joe Johns and Justine Redman
CNN's AC 360

GEORGETOWN, South Carolina (CNN) -- In many places across the South you can walk in the footsteps of slaves, and if you understand the history, it is not a happy journey. The same is true at Friendfield Plantation outside Georgetown, South Carolina.

It's not exactly "Gone With the Wind," but what makes this overgrown 3,300 acres of marsh and pine trees stand out is this: The family of first lady Michelle Obama believes her great-great grandfather was held as a slave here and labored in the mosquito-infested rice fields.

It makes Friendfield Plantation a symbol of something more than servitude. It's the symbol of something that's never happened before, one important segment of an American family's journey from the humiliation of slavery to the very top of the nation's ruling class.

CNN recently was the first television network allowed to visit the plantation and shoot video. It's not a museum. It's just private land, still with shadows of its past.

Friendfield's most distinctive historical feature, perhaps, is the dirt road known as Slave Street. Stroll across the plantation with CNN's Joe Johns »

Six white-washed little shacks are all that remain of the slave quarters, even though rows of these houses once stood on the property. About 350 slaves lived here during the 19th century.

The houses are nothing special -- no plumbing, of course. The wooden walls are paper thin in places. It would have been hot and humid in summer, and most certainly cold in winter, although the shacks had fireplaces.

They would have been crowded: probably one or two families living in a space smaller than a modern-day garage.

The White House is some 472 miles from Georgetown, South Carolina. But long before Michelle Obama was born, her great-great grandfather, Jim Robinson, likely toiled in the fields here six days a week, from sunup to sundown.

The place he probably called home was a little white shack smaller than -- by comparison -- a Secret Service security shed on the grounds of the executive mansion at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

All told, hundreds of people lived like this, on this one plantation alone.

"Anywhere between 200 to 500 at different times," said Ed Carter, the property manager. "The older the plantation got, they kept adding on more cabins. [Some] cabins are 1847.

"There was some on the other street that were about probably 1820s. And when they added on, got a bit more wealthy, they just kept adding on more slaves, more cabins."

The shacks probably weren't much refuge from the vicious clouds of mosquitoes, chiggers and other pests that still impinge on a person's every move on the plantation. Then, consider the dangers of the alligators and snakes.

There was also the oppressive heat and humidity of South Carolina. And on the day CNN visited, the skies opened up in a violent rainstorm.

Add up all of these factors and you begin to get a picture of what life probably was, and was not, for the slaves on Friendfield Plantation. Workers on the rice plantation -- and Friendfield was one of the largest in these parts -- faced all these elements, plus the threat of disease, including malaria and yellow fever. And unlike the CNN crew, the slaves were not free to leave.

Even in death, the slaves stayed. Three cemeteries are on the Friendfield grounds. The one slave cemetery CNN visited had mostly unmarked graves, but Jim Robinson -- who was born into slavery and died a free man -- is believed to be buried there somewhere.

The cemetery clearly has been segregated from the rest of the property. Slave cemeteries were typically situated on land unsuitable for any other use.


Surrounded by trees, it might have been a beautiful place. Now, it is hard to tell that you are standing in a cemetery -- except for half a dozen grave markers, some made of wood, bearing no names.

All that's known about Jim Robinson's life comes from the few remaining records that mention him. Slaves weren't documented as individuals in the census, nor in life and death certificates. They were property, not people.

But Michelle Obama's great-great grandfather was a teenager when slavery was abolished, so as a free man, he started to leave a paper trail.

The 1880 census shows he was born about 1850, in South Carolina, and that his parents were born in South Carolina as well. He married a woman named Louiser, and in 1880 they already had three children, two boys and a girl, ages 1, 2, and 3.

The son that would become Michelle Obama's great grandfather was not born yet. The census lists Jim's occupation as a farmer, and Louiser's as "keeping house."

They are both recorded as unable to read or write. It's good fortune to uncover even this much information; the original handwritten census got wet, the ink ran and it is nearly illegible. Proof of life, nearly washed away.

There are a lot of unknowns concerning Michelle Obama's ancestry -- how many generations of slaves there were, or what route they took to this hemisphere.

The Obama election campaign commissioned a study of Michelle's genealogy by the research group Lowcountry Africana, but they couldn't make the link back to Africa. As with so many African-Americans' family histories, the paper trail runs dry.

"I don't think that that sort of information is available for anyone from Friendfield Plantation at this point," historian Tori Carrier, of Lowcountry Africana, said. "Very, very few, if any, of the Friendfield records actually survived except in public records: wills and estate inventories. ...

"There's not a real Friendfield Plantation records set, or plantation journals that have been preserved ... and there's certainly not a shred of documentary evidence right now which would even suggest to us what the African origins would be," Carrier said.

In an interview with The Washington Post last year, Michelle Obama talked about learning her family's past and understanding the history of slavery.

"A lot of times these stories get buried, because sometimes the pain of them makes it hard to want to remember," she said told the Post for an October story. "You've got to be able to acknowledge and understand the past and move on from it. You have to understand it, and I think a lot of us just don't have an opportunity to understand it -- but it's there."

Back in Georgetown, South Carolina, Margretta Knox remembers attending the Bethel AME church with the first lady's grandparents -- Jim Robinson's grandson and his wife -- when she was a girl. The couple spent many of their years in Chicago, but returned back South after they retired.

"My father knew that Fraser Robinson's father sold newspapers," she recalled. "He made his kids read them. Mr. Robinson was very, very smart, he could recite poetry. ... Their grandfather could recite poetry and that kind of thing. ... Her grandfather and her grandmother, they were both very smart people."

But the family ties to the old plantation just got lost. "We let our parents die before we really thought about asking them questions," Knox said.

"We didn't think about it until much later, and then it was too late. They were already gone. So there was no history after that. ...


"Because we live here, we don't think about it. It's just like, you've been around it all of your life, it doesn't cross your mind. You're just living for today."

In that same way, it probably never crossed Jim Robinson's mind, as a slave in a white-washed cabin, that one day his great-great granddaughter would be living in a white house so very, very different from his own.


http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/07/16/michelle.o...

This is on CNN right now.

Great story. The one gem I took from this piece is ASK questions of your parents, grandparents and other relatives NOW, why they are alive, and document.

Second
Record it on tape, digital, film, make copies and cross reference for posterity.

Yes, and use archival mateirals.