Quote Of The Day

"Agricultural subsidies in the United States are at the heart of a deep crisis in world cotton markets. American cotton farmers are first among equals in the harvesting of subsidies, reaping windfall financial gains from government transfers. Rural communities in some of the world’s poorest countries suffer the consequences. While the US advocates free trade and open markets in developing countries, its subsidies are destroying markets for vulnerable farmers. No region is more seriously affected by unfair competition in world cotton markets than sub-Saharan Africa."

— OxFam report about the impact of U.S. cotton subsidies on Africa

Race As Factor In School Enrollment Rejected

The Supreme Court yesterday ruled that public school systems generally should not use race as the determining factor of where students can enroll, rejecting two school districts' voluntary integration plans and threatening similar efforts nationwide.

The court's 5-4 decision against schools districts in Louisville, Ky., and Seattle will limit how school systems pursue controlling the makeup of their student body but doesn't entirely ban the use of race. In both instances, white parents sued the districts after their children were denied the schools of their choice based on race.Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. argued that "the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr., Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia concurred with him.

The fifth vote — Justice Anthony M. Kennedy — made sure the Supreme Court left room for race to be used in some limited circumstances. He agreed with the majority that these two specific plans didn't meet constitutional muster but said in a separate opinion that race-conscious measures can be crafted to encourage diversity "without treating each student in different fashion solely on the basis of a systematic, individual typing by race."Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote the dissent, with the court's three other liberal justices — Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David H. Souter and John Paul Stevens — concurring.

"To invalidate the plans under review is to threaten the promise of Brown," wrote Justice Breyer, referring to Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark 1954 case that ruled segregated schools unconstitutional. "This is a decision that the court and the nation will come to regret."Ward Connerly, black conservative founder of the American Civil Rights Institute, said the ruling shows that "we're clearly moving in the direction of a color-blind government," adding that "the court is finally starting to catch up with what the American people have known for years: Race has no place in American public life."

But Ralph Neas, liberal president of People for the American Way Foundation, denounced the decision as "a terrible blow for school districts trying to overcome our nation's long legacy of segregation and take seriously the importance of diversity." He also blamed President Bush for the decision, saying that his appointment of Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito meant the court is "turning its back on the promise" made in the Brown v. Board of Education case.

"Mary J Blige "We Ride (I See The Future)"

The is from Mary's new single "Reflections (A Retrospective)" all
I can say say is keep doing your thing girl.

Remembering Haile Selassie

Ethiopundit, a moderate-conservative Ethiopian-American blogger, argues that it is politically incorrect in Ethiopian circles to discuss Emperor Haile Selassie and it has been that way for too long: "How else can anyone explain a government of millions with roots stretching back three thousand years ... simply fading away? That was the real tragedy of his reign. The country’s institutions and thoughts raced ahead of the Emperor and he did not prepare for a political future of stable government and more rapid democratization. Neither did he fight to guarantee what had been so far achieved at such cost by his people.


The young Tafari Makonnen who took the throne and embarked on the hazardous journey of modernization would surely not have made that mistake. What followed him is a seemingly endless nightmare of national turmoil and suffering that may yet reach its crescendo in ethnic politics. The traditional absolutes of God, Emperor and Country were abandoned in a fevered search, not for solutions, but for new absolutes to answer every question of existence. The hard earned optimism in the country and in the future was hijacked by the promise of salvation in a new trinity of Marx, Engels and Lenin. The high priests of the new religion did not discover the keys to heaven but did find a glib catechism that justified their own rule and any crime in the pursuit of power.



Traditional authoritarian government was far less jealous and brutal towards opposition than the actual totalitarianism represented by the subsequent occupants of the Menelik Palace."More from Ethiopundit: "While it is also impossible to argue that Haile Se[l]assie's rule was ideal - it did have the significant virtue of not being revolutionary.....If the past century, actually the past centuries, have taught us anything it is that radical re-organizations of society and mantra-derived solutions are harmful and invariably lead nowhere good. The lessons range from the palpable messianic evil of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia to the local but similiarly loathsome Afro-Socialism of Siad Barre's Somalia or Mengistu's Ethiopia and the Clerical Dictatorship that is Khomeni's legacy in Iran."

The List: Biased Journalists who wrote Democrats Checks

MSNBC did some research and found that many supposedly unbiased journalist are infact Democrats. The one below is an exchange between the reporter and MTV's presidnetial correspondent for "Choose or Loose"

MTV News, Gideon Yago, "Choose or Lose" presidential correspondent, $200 to Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark in January 2004; $500 to America Coming Together, which campaigned against President Bush, in September 2004; $250 to the Democratic National Committee in September 2004; $250 to VoteVets, which is running ads against the president's handling of the war, in March 2006, and $250 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in October 2006. He said he is no longer at MTV News.

Gideon Yago, raw:

"I don't understand. Things that I do as a private citizen?

"We're not a traditional news network in the sense of NBC or Fox or CBS.

"We're sensitive about equal time or fairness. We're non-biased.

"I mean, what the f---, man?

"I came back from doing coverage in Iraq and was very moved by what I saw. I was never told by my boss or anyone that we couldn't give to a campaign.

"I'm not a journalist now. Writing fiction.

"Ninety percent of what we did was simple identification, after 9/11: Who is Rumsfeld? Who is Colin Powell? Who is Al Qaeda?

"I try to call it as you see it.

"After my second trip to Iraq in 2004, I felt the conventional news media was not doing a good enough job of conveying the horrors and the failures of the war in Iraq.

"At 18 I was a registered Republican. At 24, I was a registered Democrat.

"I tried very hard — our job was not an indoctrination process — I tried to be as professional as possible whenever possible.

"We were a non-traditional news outlet. We were nonpartisan.

""OK, I've been rebuked. Thank you for spanking me in public.

"Do you hand in all your rights as a public citizen when you do this?

"I mean — who's your editor? I'm going to call him right now."

Click to return to the list.

"RIVERDANCE HIP HOP"

Books Reveal True Hip Hop, Chapter & Verse

Hatip Bookerising

The New York Daily News moderate-conservative columnist writes: "I have seen three new books that should be looked at by anyone interested in the degree of precise, imprecise and naive thought brought to the matter or that avoids the facts of the matter. Tayannah Lee McQuillar's 'When Rap Music Had a Conscience' is a perfect example of precision, confusion and extraordinary intellectual laziness. 'Pimps Up, Ho's Down' by T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting is much more intellectually rigorous but gets caught in academic language and feminist cliches. 'Beats, Rhymes, & Life: What We Love And Hate About Hip Hop' is an anthology edited by Kenji Jasper and Ytasha Womack that spans the gamut from extremely clear criticism and analysis to some of the looniest excuses I have ever read given for anything.

The problem with McQuillar's work is that while she is critical of the thug extremes and the prison values that mislead too many young black people, she provides a chapter, 'The Sacred Scrolls,' that is overladen with Afrocentric claptrap and shoddy propaganda presented as if it is real scholarship. Sharpley-Whiting's book does not suffer from the sort of cowardice one too often hears from black academics who genuflect to hip hop in order to stay current with the tastes of the students who provide them with whatever power they have on college campuses. Sharpley-Whiting calls them as she sees them and wisely quotes the offensive material when necessary. Her book is high level in its research and its thought, and those looking for adult ideas about the subject should look it up.

"He continues: "All in all, however, we are seeing something rising up from the ground and moving through the bling and the smoke machines to ask only that we Americans recognize what is happening to our young people and understand that part of the reason it exists is that popular culture at large has far too frequently substituted sensation, pornography and shock for the mysteries and the grandeur of human feeling. In that sense, for all of its violent minstrelsy, the worst of hip hop is just following the pack."

US to Mugabe...... End is Nigh

BULAWAYO: Zimbabwe's economic crisis, characterised by world-record inflation, should spell the downfall of President Robert Mugabe's Government, the outgoing US ambassador to Harare said yesterday.

"We are closer to seeing change in Zimbabwe today from within than at any time since independence," Christopher Dell told journalists in Zimbabwe's second city, Bulawayo. "The first cycle of post-independent history is coming to an end.

The phase defined by the liberation struggle, anti-colonialism and, sadly, by ethnic hatred and racism, I think that's coming to an end as the economy collapses around us." Mr Dell, in Bulawayo before his departure to Afghanistan, has been an outspoken critic of Mugabe, who has ruled the former British colony since independence in 1980.

The ambassador said calculations by independent economists had projected that Zimbabwe's inflation would hit 1.5 million per cent by the end of the year if thecentral bank continued printing money.

He said it was impossible for Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party to remain in power under the current "economic madness".

Zimbabwe would need external help to get back on track after the change because the country did not have sufficient capacity to kickstart the moribund economy, Mr Dell said.

He deplored the prevailing repression, saying it deprived Zimbabweans of the right to express themselves.

"The real crisis in Zimbabwe today has been generated by the fact that a handful of people have arrogated unto themselves the right to speak on behalf of everybody and they have excluded anybody who doesn't think, talk or act like them from the discussion about their own future," he said.

"That, at the most profound level, is the core of the crisis in Zimbabwe today. But I think this period is coming to an end."

Despite the crisis gripping the country, Mr Dell was cautiously optimistic that regional mediation efforts, led by South African President Thabo Mbeki, would held resolve the crisis.

He said he was hopeful about change because Zimbabweans had proved "remarkably resilient" and were likely to make a plan to survive the current dark days and continue to work towards a brighter future.

Mr Dell's comments came after the top US diplomat for Africa, Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer, expressed scepticism about the Mbeki-led efforts, saying mediation bids "have not succeeded in the past".

AFP

Thinking While Black...The Casey Lartigue Show!

The Casey Lartigue Show is a stimulating talk show that mixes irreverent humor with serious new analysis and unique perspectives. Host Casey Lartigue and co-host Eliot Morgan ask the tough questions, and give fresh, unexpected answers on the news, events, and trends of the day. If you're ready for lively political and social discussion that challenges you to think more deeply, all the way down to your funny bone, be sure to tune toThe Casey Lartigue Show! on XM 169 The Power, Saturdays (live) 8-10 a.m. EST and Sundays (encore edition) 8-10 a.m. EST.

Saturday May 12th Show :

http://www.caseylartigue.com/1_0/

Ella Fitzgerald : One note Samba (scat singing) 1969

June 22, 1969 jazz vocalist Ella Fitzgerald with accompaniment by Ed Thigpen on drums, Frank de la Rosa on bass, and Tommy Flanagan on piano.

"Rudy & the Black Vote"

Hatip to Robert over at Raggedthots. Blog

The Washington Post gives a pretty fair synopsis of Giuliani's problematic relationship with New York's African American community -- however, it took some doing to explore that relationship without mentioning Rev. Al Sharpton once.
That's not to give Sharpton undue credit, but his presence as Giuliani's, ahem, bete noire, is an historical fact.


Furthermore, author Perry Bacon overlooks that the relationship between the mayor and New York blacks began to deteriorate less than a month after Giuliani took office partly due to Sharpton's orchestrated outrage over a police confrontation outside of a Harlem mosque.This was perceived at the time as Sharpton and Co.'s initial "testing" of the mayor. Giuliani refused to take the bait and continued to keep Sharpton at arm's length. That was the right thing to do. Of course, as the article suggests, Giuliani's error was in his relations -- or lack thereof -- with other, far more moderate, black leaders.

Hamas Vs. Fatah & Afrolantica

The moderate-conservative Republican blogger opines: "Many blackfolks know the fable of Afrolantica. It was written by Derrick Bell, and tells of the mystical city of Atlantis rising from the sea. It turns out that all the inhabitants of this legendary greatest civilization on earth [w]ere black, and that when African Americans visited, all the burdens of their hearts were rolled away.

In fact, the effect of this nirvana were so profound that the very knowledge that they could go there at any time gave African Americans the inner peace they had desired for generations. This was a very powerful story because it illustrates how true hope can be more important than real gain. It's lesson certainly wasn't lost on me. When I think about the suicidal rage of Palestinians I wonder if in all of their Arab culture and history they had such a poet as Derrick Bell. Bell is by no means a leader of African America, but he has contributed to the last twitches of separate thinking, and in that regard has been inspired and insightful if pessimistic. Bell would never pick up a sword or advocate violent rebellion because he knows than in many ways his own ascent in America provided Afrolantic moments of hope for many blackfolks."He continues:




"Even with our great pessimists, African Americans could show the people of Gaza a thing or two. It is they who should be trying to understand us. Freedom and democracy can only be sustained through confidence. I am reminded once again that our Founders pledged their sacred honor in defense of liberty. It is a level of commitment some of our people have often struggled with maintaining. It certainly isn't easy. You just can't desire liberty, you must work to sustain it, in the face of tragedy and hopelessness. It is, finally, a measure of character and of leadership which sustains men of character and purpose. This is something the Palestinians lack, and the war between Hamas and Fatah demonstrate that corruption of character and purpose. I don't know how they will raise themselves from the desperation they have created. I don't see how the defeat of one side by the other can bode well for the fate of people in Gaza. But I do expect to see this cycle repeat. The Palestinians lack confidence and their Arab brothers lack confidence in them. So, I must confess, do I.





"And more commentary from Cobb: "Here in America, black critics such as myself and others in the 'sphere, are constantly criticizing aspects of black life we find abhorrent or distasteful. We stand in a long tradition of self-criticism and self-correction, and sometimes it sounds as if we can't see any good in ourselves. But the difference is that this tradition, as old as Frederick Douglass, is one generated by confidence in our own triumph. Despite the temporary inversion and celebration of degenerate rap celebrities, the African American tradition of the bully pulpit comes from true American heroes like Harriett Tubman and Booker T. Washington, James E. Just and Matthew Henson. There's a string of them whose names you know, men and women of peace and substance whose triumph inspires us all. Harold Ford, unfortunately, is talking out the side of his neck [arguing that the U.S. government should ally with and fund moderate Arab elements that appreciate freedom and democracy, and encourage more Americans to learn to speak Arabic and know more about Arab cultures and history]. Few will long note nor remember what he's saying here."

African Immigrants Find A Divide With U.S. Blacks

They range from surgeons and scholars to illiterate refugees from some of the world's worst hellholes - a dizzyingly varied stream of African immigrants to the United States. More than 1 million strong and growing, they are enlivening America's cities and altering how the nation confronts its racial identity.

"To white people, we are all black," said Wanjiru Kamau, a Kenyan-born community activist in Washington, D.C. "But as soon as you open your mouth to some African-Americans, they look at you and wonder why you are even here. Except for the skin, which is just a façade, there is very little in common between Africans and African-Americans. We need to sit down and listen to each other's story."Since 1990, the African population has more than tripled in places as far-flung as Atlanta, Seattle and Minneapolis, where Africans now constitute more than 15% of the black population. The biggest magnets are New York City and metro Washington, D.C. including its Maryland and Virginia suburbs.Census data from 2000 show 43% of Africans in USA have college degrees, higher than the adult population as a whole. Compared with African-Americans, the immigrants' average household income is higher and their jobless rate lower.

Jacqueline Copeland-Carson, a black scholar at the University of Minnesota, is optimistic that African immigrants and African-Americans will outgrow any strains, which she blames partly on stereotypes. "Some Africans view African-Americans as violent, lazy, intellectually inferior - U.S. blacks are taught that the Africans are less civilized, not as capable," she said. In D.C., as in some other cities, there has been occasional friction between recently arrived Africans and the entrenched, politically powerful black American community. Some native blacks bristled at a proposal - later withdrawn - to nickname a bustling one-block stretch of 9th Street officially as "Little Ethiopia." More broadly, civic leaders say there is some resentment among working-class blacks who view the newcomers as threats to their jobs in such fields as health care, civil service and hotel work. In an overture to the newcomers, the D.C. city government last year formed an Office of African Affairs.

This gesture ruffled some feathers - not all black American leaders felt it was needed, and some Africans say they have been disappointed by a lack of dynamism in the office's first few months of operation.Bobby Austin, a vice president at the University of the District of Columbia, has been one of a relative handful of prominent blacks in the city to delve deeply into the tensions and misunderstandings. American blacks, Mr. Austin said, do not see themselves as immigrants and often do not comprehend the Africans' desire to come here. Persistent conflict and corrupt government in much of Africa prompted more to follow later, and the surge increased in the 1990s because of the Diversity Visa Lottery, a federal program boosting immigration from countries that traditionally sent few people. The largest groups of Africans in the United States are from Nigeria, Ethiopia and Ghana, but the influx is diverse.

The refugee program, for example, is accepting people from roughly two dozen African countries each year.Some Americans, black and white, assume the Africans must share a common culture and outlook with one another, when in fact they may feel no deep bond with another ethnic group from their own country, let alone with Africans from distant corners of the continent. Immigrant leaders trying to encourage solidarity among Africans have found that task challenging.

"Lurita Doan bitch smacks Henry Waxman"

"Please Show you're support for Lurita Doan"

Henry Waxman you are messing with the wrong
women, Lurita Doan was brilliant in her testimony
before his committee yesterday. The Democrats were
gunning for her but she threw back punches never
seen on capital hill.




“I find that when an African-American is a Republican, somehow, she is treated differently by Congress.”

Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT)

Bush elected Miss Doan to became the Administrator of the U.S. General Services Administration on May 31, 2006, the first woman to hold that position, within a few short months the liberal Washington Post on January 2007, reported two controversies one saying Doan intervened in an effort to determine whether five major contractors should be suspended from doing business with the federal government after they had been accused
of making fraudulent claims."[5]



On March 26, 2007 the liberal Washington Post reported, in a front page story yet another controversy:


Witnesses have told congressional investigators that the chief of the General Services Administration and a deputy in Karl Rove's political affairs office at the White House joined in a video conference earlier this year with top GSA political appointees, who discussed ways to help Republican candidates. With GSA Administrator Lurita Alexis Doan and up to 40 regional administrators on hand, J. Scott Jennings, the White House's deputy director of political affairs, gave a PowerPoint presentation on Jan. 26 [2007] of polling data about the 2006 elections.



When Jennings concluded his presentation to the GSA political appointees, Doan allegedly asked them how they could "help 'our candidates' in the next elections," according to a March 6 letter to Doan from Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.





Waxman said in the letter that one method suggested was using 'targeted public events, such as the opening of federal facilities around the country.'....The committee is also expected to question Doan about her attempt to give a no-bid job to a friend and professional associate last summer. In addition, the committee plans to look at Waxman's charge that Doan "intervened" in a troubled technology contract with Sun Microsystems that could cost taxpayers millions more than necessary. In the Senate, Doan is facing a similar line of questioning in letters from Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa).



On May 24, 2007, the liberal Washington Post reported, "The United States Office of Special Counsel has found that General Services Administration chief Lurita Alexis Doan violated the federal Hatch Act when she allegedly asked GSA political appointees during a January briefing how they could 'help our candidates' win the next election, according to a report by the office." In their 19 page report, Special Counsel investigators wrote, "[Doan's] actions, to be certain, constitute an obvious misuse of her official authority and were made for the purpose of affecting the result of an election." The report went on, "One can imagine no greater violation of the Hatch Act than to invoke the machinery of an agency, with all its contracts and buildings, in the service of a partisan campaign to retake Congress and the Governors' mansions." Doan said she fundamentally disagrees with the findings.





My View

I watched the hearings yesterday and she is one tough cookie.
This may be another reason why they hate her she punched back
and hard. The democrats were firingshots and they were bouncing
off her like rubber bullets.I think that she is will stay the president
needs a fighter on his staff and she is one. She has been great for the
agency which she was appointed and I doubt this will be the end.
If Bush lets her go and can not see that this is a targeted attack
on this women he has reall lost it.This is a perfect case of Democrats
targeting someone using the Washington Post as its sheild.
I wonder how this supposes investigation got off foot.

How did the Post overhear such a conversation?

Who told the Post?

Maybe a Post employer a turn coat Republican (and there are a few)
overheard something while stuffing there fat face with cheese and crackers.
For a group that opposses the Patriot Act zoomingin on terrioist conversation
they have no problem with zooming in on a Republican asking a two second question.
I have no idea if she said this or not but this smells like a setup.



It does not appear that Bush is going to ask for her to resign. We shall see.


Blog support for "Lurita Doan"



Hatip from RedState blog .."General Services Administrator Lurita Doan testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee yesterday morning, finally getting her chance to face Chairman Henry Waxman (D.-Calif.) about the "allegations of misconduct" he's ginned up in the press.Doan has put together a comprehensive defense -- her opening statement totals more than 6,000 words -- and has said for weeks she welcomes the opportunity to set the record straight. Having met Doan earlier this month, I think Waxman will have his hands full this morning. This woman means business.



From Townhall

Rep. Henry Waxman’s first order of business as the new chairman of the Government Reform Committee was to add the word “oversight” to the committee’s moniker. It was his subtle way of telling the Bush Administration it could expect a steady stream of investigations into just about every imaginable aspect of its operations.







From the American Spectator blog



It is now clear that GSA Administrator Lurita Doan, about whom I have blogged several times previously, will not surrender her good name without a fight. Democratic hit-man Rep. Henry Waxman and the Washington Post news pages have teamed up with the GSA Inspector General and controversial U.S. Special Counsel Scott Bloch to trash Ms. Doan on a number of fronts, several of which have been shown to be unfair attacks already. The big one at issue now is the charge that Ms. Doan violated the Hatch Act by supposedly asking, at a White House-led, voluntary, brown-bag lunch meeting for administration political appointees in her agency, "how we can help our candidates." In a preliminary report on his investigation that was unfairly (and seemingly maliciously) leaked (Doan apparently believes the leak was by Bloch and/or his designees) to four news organizations either simultaneously or even BEFORE the preliminary report was given to Doan for her response, Bloch concludes that Doan did indeed violate the Hatch Act. But Doan will reply later today or tomorrow in a way that forcefully rebuts that preliminary conclusion.


More on this later today, but for now, consider these elements of the controversy. First, even if Doan DID say such a thing (she says she does not remember doing so and that she does not believe she did), WHAT WAS THE SIN? There is no charge that she actually directed the GSA to award contracts based on electoral considerations -- and indeed, as this meeting took place in January of this year, a full 22 months before the next federal elections, there is little possibility that any candidates could even have been identified yet, much less arranged to be helped. If this was a meeting of political appointees and Ms. Doan asked the White House person a political question unrelated to any official action on her part, WHAT IS THE HARM? There is no evidence that she pressured any of the GSA employees to take part in ANY political activity.
Second, Ms. Doan has long claimed that she was not even paying much attention at the meeting because she was spending the time handling a backlog of e-mails on her Blackberry.





The Post reported that investigators concluded that this wasn't true, because her Blackberry records do not show heavy incoming or outgoing traffic. She now notes, though, that those same records show a backlog of more than 250 e-mails in her inbox at the time, caused in part by a documented problem with the GSA's email system that the GSA technicians had been working on. Futhermore, she says that she provided the Special Counsel GSA documentation that proves that an e-mail with an attachment was sent by her during the meeting. Moreover, it was just before that meeting that Waxman's fishing expedition (on an earlier matter) had produced a big document request from Doan, and two e-mails from her personal attorney relating to just that topic had arrived just before the meeting in question. Wouldn't YOU, Dear Reader, have been distracted at the meeting if you had just received such e-mails?


As I said, I'll have more on this later. Doan's official response has not yet been completed. But while the Post articles on Doan certainly SEEM to provide compelling evidence that she committed various acts of fairly minor wrongdoing, Doan promises that those articles are misleading and that she will show that she has nothing to be ashamed of.


Considering that a couple of the earlier charges against her were demonstrably bogus, Ms. Doan deserves the benefit of the doubt until and unless her responses to the allegations have themselves been shown to be untenable. For now, fair-minded people ought to withhold judgment -- and support Ms. Doan against the underhanded procedural (leaks, etc.) tactics being used against her.

John McWhorter on Awakening Music

The moderate-liberal commentator writes: "In general, until recorded sound, if you wanted music and/or singing, you either had to do it yourself or have someone else do it. This was why pianos were once staples in living rooms and young women were encouraged to learn to warble in what used to be called a 'living room soprano.' That's all over now. Our technology gives us music of infinite variety perfectly rendered at the touch of a button. Why should we envy people waiting for some marching band to come through, or shelling out cash to hear or dance to live music for a few hours, or enduring the iffy piano playing of daughter Florence with her 'sweaty little hands,' as it was put back in the day?

This means that we moderns tend to have a more distant relationship to the mechanics of music making than our great-grandparents did. Some of us happen to be musicians — but it's no longer as precious as a skill. In 1900, Flossie's little hands, sweaty though they were, meant the difference between music in the air and dead silence. Yes, cash-strapped public schools have tended to cut music classes since the 1970s.


But in the old days people learned how to make music as much from private lessons with local teachers as from playing in ensembles in school. The main difference between then and now is that we do not need to learn to sing or play instruments. I certainly cherish my CD collection and sound system. But last Sunday's Tony Awards revealed a downside of our distant relationship with the mechanics of making music."He continues: "Clearly, the Tony evaluators thought 'Spring Awakening' merited the orchestration award simply because they liked the songs. Orchestration — oh right, the band. That sounded great. Loud, good beats. Bingo.

Best Orchestrations, right? Wrong.

They were unable to comprehend that even if they decided to decree 'Spring Awakening' as the Best Musical, and even — albeit for commercial reasons — the Best Score, of the four candidates for Best Orchestrations, the one for 'Spring Awakening' easily was least deserving of that particular award. But how would they know? Few of them have ever had to put together a combo for the school dance or have made their way through commercial orchestrations of popular songs of the day and heard how some were better than others. Few have ever had occasion to observe how a band playing a song sounded richer than just playing it on the piano. All they have to do is to press a button to hear music. For all the good that comes from the technology that allows this, it's sad that it means that Bruce Coughlin and Jonathan Tunick's artistry goes unperceived at Tony time."

The Lifelong Project

Wonderful post from NYKOLA.COM

Nine months ago today, I embarked upon a wonderful journey. Though unremarkable to most, a nine month anniversary pales in comparison to my parents' twenty-six year marriage and especially my grandparents' fifty years of matrimony. Heck, we're not even a year in but every milestone for me is pretty tremendous considering the dismal standards our society has for marriage. Don't get me wrong. We deserve no pats on the back. It's not as though I'm waiting for the moment when I can yell out "Hey, we've made it longer than Tori Spelling!" God help me if I ever use celebrity schizophrenia as my measuring rod for a successful marriage.

Throughout our engagement, Andre and I battled the evil forces called "wedding planning." If ever there were a shady racket to be found it is in the wedding industry. Only could a bridal salon get away with charging $300 for a piece of tulle by calling it a "bridal veil." During the whole arduous (but fun) process, we constantly reminded ourselves not to spend more time planning our wedding (an event) than we did planning our marriage (a lifetime). I would say we did about 60/40 and the result was an awesome wedding and thus far, an awesome marriage.

I haven't been at it long, but I can already say marriage ranks second on my list of best decisions I ever made. No doubt the single life is fantastic. If you are not married, live it up. Being unmarried has its own set of wonderful benefits and let me just say I managed to milk every last drop out of those benefits and I'm so glad I did.

By many standards, I got married young. Though at 24 (the age I was when I wed), in some countries I'd have five children and a goat by now. I am of the mind that maturity more than age should determine when a person is ready for marriage. I am also of the mind that history has proven the power a collective society has in determining exactly what the age of maturity is. In America and in many other countries, we associate the age of responsibility with the ability to drive a car, buy cigarettes, alcohol and obtain credit--not exactly good indicators of much of anything let alone maturity of an individual. One generation casts low expectations to the next, expectations are met and those expectations become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Today, we generally deem the average 21-year-old very immature.

I always knew I'd marry young. My general nature is fairly driven so a casual relationship here or there would never fly with me. If I was going to be in a relationship, it was for the long haul or not at all. The upside to that perspective was that we went into our marriage without a lot of the usual baggage. If I had to make one recommendation to all you future married-folk out there, the less baggage the better. I would do the baggage-free dance if one existed, but I think the funky chicken will suffice. If you have baggage, spend some time lightening your load before you join with another person in holy matrimony. It will make a world of difference.

I've struggled with how much of this aspect of my life I want to share online and I'm not sure I've come to a clear resolution. One thing I know for sure - we are in dire need of more clear-minded voices speaking out on the topic of marriage so if I can contribute my humble bit, I most certainly will.

So happy 9-month anniversary my dear. Here's to many many more (except in the future I would prefer to celebrate in 12-month increments, thanks).

Breaking: Anti-Syrian Lebanese MP Assassinated

Lebanese lawmaker killed in Beirut blast....Nancy Pelosi is such a master of diplomacy.

Syria's thugs in Lebanon are behind this, and will most certainly attempt to kill more anti-Syrian politicians in order to derail the Hariri investigation/tribunal that will put to rest once and for all Syria's involvement in that assassination - including Bashar's inner circle.

Barack and Black Enterprise

Great article on Obama from the blog It's My Mind

From Hermene Hartman at N'Digo. Well I have often thought of Obama as having some socialist tendencies. Perhaps if this is true this commentary will clinch it. It's something worth bringing up...

Some weeks ago, The Chicago Defender, ran an article criticizing presidential hopeful Barack Obama saying that he refused to meet with any and all Black chambers of commerce. The article claimed that he “appears to despise Black chambers of commerce.” Clearly, the Chamber of Commerce is somewhat angry that Senator Obama has not met with them or did not attend one of their functions.The story is misleading suggesting that Barack is not sensitive to Black enterprise. Nothing could be further from the truth. Jim Reynolds is a very close friend of Barack’s and he is an entrepreneur, the founder and proprietor of Loop Capital.

Early on when Barack was considering running for the Illinois Senate, Reynolds was the President of Alliance Business Leaders and Entrepreneurs (ABLE). I now hold that office.Barack used to attend ABLE meetings to hear business discussion of what the now Black entrepreneur was really up against. He was usually quiet and more observant than talkative.

He was really listening to our business challenges. He was educating himself and looking at what role legislation and/or politics could play to improve Black enterprise. He was perceptive and he wanted to be an advocate. But most importantly he wanted to understand. Solid intelligent discussions ranged from the good of affirmative action to the challenges of crossing over to mainstream business based on ability and performance. In essence, and in retrospect, valuable seeds were being planted. We collectively determined that we could cross over based on agenda, funding and marketing. We all know that race is always a factor, but we didn’t necessarily have to carry the race flag. Upon appearance, race is automatically understood.I thought this commentary was going to be anti-Obama, it wasn't but hey it's a step in the right direction for Obama.

Check this out...

When Barack ran for Senate the very first meeting was held in the Reynolds home and the initial dollars came from individuals in the ABLE group. Reverend Jesse Jackson attended and shared the wisdom of the contribution and talked about the possibility of our political horizion.A newer generation was saying Black business people should step up to the plate and support candidates rather than having the traditional Black clergy forward alone. Barack agreed and challenged us to back him. We did. We discussed business opportunities, challenges and strategies that could affect us all. Barack is well steeped, attentively listening to our business philosophies, thoughts and ideas. He heard business frustrations, opportunities, government slow pay, government rules sometimes in place but not necessarily followed. He listened. Barack still meets with the core of this group. It keeps him grounded and informed. He bounces to this group because we still speak openly and honestly. He has come back home, even at critical points in his national career, so to speak.

After he won the senate, before he took the presidential challenge, and at key points in the campaign. What is important to know is that he always listens. He listens to the civil rights past. He listens to success. He listens to failure. He incorporates it into his own intellectual configuration and he’s genuinely concerned.Before running for President, Barack met with some members of ABLE to again listen to business thoughts and he told us that he would make a decision on running for the highest office in the land during his Christmas vacation. Since then we have had conference calls to discuss business issues and the impact of decisions.Sounds good to me. I think it's about time that black business step up to the plate. As a matter of fact ABLE has been forward in the debate in Illinois over the gross receipt tax being opposed to that proposal which was battered down good in the Illinois House of Reps. It's a good thing that Sen. Obama is looking at black business.

Here's more...

At this point, who will win the 2008 election is a pundit discussion. It is too soon to predict. But at this very moment, the gentleman from Illinois, Barack Obama has a real shot at the White House. He is playing a masterful political game. Raising the money, he has crossed-over in his appeal, showing coalition politics at its best, and most importantly he has stimulated youth by getting them involved with the voting and the political process. Our youth is America’s most apathetic; it is quite major that he has excited them with a breath of fresh air. The entire country has not been so excited over a candidate since John F. Kennedy.The Black community at large is challenged by Barack’s candidacy.

The Clintons are very much apart of Black America’s civil rights landscape, and Hillary Clinton does not come as brand new. The Clintons come experienced, seasoned and proven. The Clinton presidency delivered to Black America much of what he promised. He appointed Blacks to positions based on performance and not window dressing. This is a major historical point not to be forgotten. And now political circles are whispering Gore’s name.

If he enters the race everything will change. He is a proven winner and was cheated out of the current presidential seat.Barack will be a powerful player in America’s new politic no matter what. One of his major contributions is to crossover Black businesses. That is, to have America look at Black business just as it is looking at him as a political candidate. That is, to look at performance, ability and market share rather than race. The Barack touch is to make Black enterprise a part of America’s mainstream. This will be a milestone to America’s equality, and it is as impactful as Abraham Lincoln’s emancipation proclamation and as important as President Lyndon B, Johnson signature on the Civil Rights Bill.Well I would disagree with what she says about the Clintons but crossover appeal is going to sound interesting. Let's see if Obama can make that happen.

In The Kingdom Of Crack Rap

The Literary Thug, a black moderate blogger, writes: "Probably the biggest question that needs to be asked in the wake of crack rap is the last one I asked: why has the cultural interplay between black and white men become one pathetic cuckold party? If one want to look at a prototype for the love affair between crack rappers and white teenage male America, they could look toward their parents' and grandparents' generation. Or to be more specific, the black nationalist movement and their Radical chic lapdogs. I will not engage in the common slur that black men are the most sexist men on the planet. It is impossible, however, not to see that something was lost in the black community when black militants decided to put a steel toed foot on the necks of Jews, women, gays and every black person to the right of H Rap Brown. Nor it is that difficult to see the outrages towards women that 50 cent and Ludacris espouse as part of a direct line from the even more gruesome outrages of Amiri Baraka and Eldridge Cleaver.

More than anything, it is impossible not to see a connotation between a generation of men adopting reprehensible visions of manhood and the numbers of black fathers in the home going from over 70 percent in 1964 to under 30 percent in 2004."He continues: "[The crack rapper] takes the rhetoric of black [E]nglish and creates a vocabulary for the privileged white teenager in which he makes the most vicious damage against black people seem like a day at the beach. In this vocabulary, he gives the white rap fan a sort of self reflecting mirror into black life, not enough [to] empathize with the black people that rappers are bragging about committing crimes against, but enough to trample on black people’s most vulnerable wounds and get away with it. If black music has been an artistic sanctuary from life, the crack rapper opens the church gates, burns the church down, and allows life to smack the parishioners around as they leave. This, along with numerous other things, is the reason that millions of black people want to throw Young Jeezy through a brick wall. The obscenities of crack rappers might soothe the ego of the rap fan who thinks the universe revolves around his musical genre, but don’t expect a people who have so long seen black music as Balm go a little haywire when people try and take that balm away."And more: "This anger or pain holds no quarter with the rich kids who listen to this stuff everyday in Bellingham [Washington]. These brats don’t listen to Common, Mos Def, or Talib Kweli. They listen to Joe Budden bragging about kicking a pregnant woman in the stomach. They listen to Young Jeezy and 50 [C]ent bragging about brutalizing their own people.

They, and MILLIONS, of other suburban teenagers, listened to the Ying Yang twins spew a 'catchy' little number about rape 2 years ago.....Can we suspend the idea that the wannabe that bangs 50 on his stereo somehow deserves a chair on the editorial board of the progressive? The problem with asking these questions is that if we did so, the white parents of these teens might have to take some responsibility for themselves and get their children to stop buying this garbage. In doing that, they might have to ask themselves some tough questions about the white hip hop fan’s incessant need to buy the most demoralizing images of black people and little else. And in process of asking those questions, these parents just might have to come to terms with how racist (and sexist) they and their children really are.....The only thing that the controversy over the Shock Jock has done is give millions of Americans what they love more than anything in the world, a phony oppression narrative.

White conservatives can entertain paranoid reveries of oppressive black rappers and Vachel Lindsay-esque fantasies about black pathology, while ignoring the fact that it is their children that buy their records and keep those fantasies afloat. The hip hop nation can hold on to the soggy notion that Jeezy and 50 are oppressed street poets while ignoring the pound of flesh they are taking on young black women everywhere. And every outsider looking in on all of this, or anyone who has any basic human feeling on the subject on race and gender, will continue to watch and wait for a day when this madness will someday stop."

White chicks and gangs

White chicks and gang signs: is this an epidemic or just bad taste on the part of some Anglos?

NY Times Admits to Burying JFK Terror Plot

Great question and link from the popular blog The Broken Chair,
Looks like the Times prefers to put Paris on the front cover but
not would be terrioist!

"[Weekend editor] Gottlieb told me he was mindful of a history of orange alerts that came at politically convenient times and previous terror plots that wound up amounting to less than they first seemed."


http://www.thebrokenchair.com/

Shug Avery - God Is Trying To Tell You Something

Classic scene from the movie The Color Purple one of my favorite movies where Shug Avery sangs God is trying to tell you something!

Quote Of The Day

"The old woman looks after the child to grow its teeth and the young one in turn looks after the old woman when she loses her teeth." — Akan (Ghanaian tribe) proverb

Dreamgirls "One Night Only"

This is the new Deena Jones Dreams remix video of "One Night Only" from the Paramount movie DREAMGIRLS..Love it..Love it..Love it. Not a fan of the opening but the video gets better!

Powell Would Shut Down Guantanamo Prison Camp

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said yesterday that he favors immediately closing the Guantanamo Bay military prison and moving its detainees to U.S. facilities. The prison, which now holds about 380 suspected terrorists, has tarnished the world's perception of the United States, the moderate Republican said. "If it was up to me, I would close Guantanamo. Not tomorrow, but this afternoon. And I would not let any of those people go," he said. "I would simply move them to the United States and put them into our federal legal system. The concern was, well then they'll have access to lawyers, then they'll have access to writs of habeas corpus. So what? Let them."Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said Congress and the Bush administration should work together to allow imprisonment of some of the more dangerous detainees elsewhere so the military camp at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba could be closed.

The Defense Department estimates it would take about three years to conduct 60 to 80 military commission trials, if the administration should decide to hold that many trials.Mr. Powell, who was secretary of State under President Bush, said the U.S. should do away with the military commission system in favor of federal law or the manual for courts-martial. "I would also do it because every morning, I pick up a paper and some authoritarian figure, some person somewhere, is using Guantanamo to hide their own misdeeds," Mr. Powell said. "And so essentially, we have shaken the belief that the world had in America's justice system by keeping a place like Guantanamo open and creating things like the military commission."

My Opinon- I agree with Colin that we can not hold these prisoners forever but they can not just be allowed to just walk.They should get there time in court and if found inncocent we should have a speacial operation team that watches and monitors them until they drop dead.

And Now For Some Miles

From a 1967 concert in Sweden, arguably the greatest jazz quintet ever—Miles Davis, Tony Williams, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter and Herbie Hancock—performing Footprints.

"Sharpton / Hitchens Debate - YouTube"

Author Christopher Hitchens debates the Reverend Al Sharpton on the question of whether morality can exist in the absence of God.

Quote Of The Day

"If you educate a man, you simply educate an individual.
If you educate a woman, you educate a nation."

— African proverb of Fanti tribe (Ghanaian) origin

Condi Rice: Tool of the White Man?

Umm, Kathy Condi doesn't work for "the man". In case you hadn't noticed
by now, she is "the man" in this society and does exactly what she wants to
do. This was just another long boring example of the left being racist and condescending while trying to be funny. But for the record Kathy Griffin
doesnt strike me as a particularly intelligent or funny.

"Update On Jamaat al Muslimeen Group"

Suspect in NYC airport plot surrenders

PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad - A Guyanese suspect in an alleged plot to bomb a fuel pipeline feeding New York's John F. Kennedy Airport surrendered to police Tuesday in Trinidad, a police official said. Abdel Nur turned himself in at a police station outside the Trinidadian capital of Port-of-Spain, police spokeswoman Wendy Campbell told The Associated Press.


UPDATE: FBI Report, two of the suspects arrested, Abdul Kadir & Abdel Nur, were members of Jamaat al-Muslimeen (JAM) based in Trinidad.

Implicated in the JFK terror plot Jamaat Muslimeen LEADER YASIN ABU BAKR -
below photo


Yasin Abu Bakr when he bailed out of Trinidad jail, same bodyguard with the beard seen in both photos.



UPDATE June 3rd 2:03 am: TERRORIST YASIN ABU BAKER TO GO ON TRIAL IN TRINIDAD ON JUNE 11TH 2007

The Guardian

JAMAAT al Muslimeen leader Yasin Abu Bakr is expected go on trial later this month on terrorism and sedition charges. Bakr has been charged with sedition, promoting a terrorist act and inciting others to breach the peace stemming from his November 2005 Eid sermon at his Mucurapo mosque.

Case facts:
Bakr charged with sedition and terrorism.
Trial to start with legal submissions.



What is Jamaat al Muslimeen? (from wikipedia)

Jamaat al Muslimeen is a Muslim organisation within the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago with a membership of predominantly Afro-Trinidadians. The appeal of its doctrines to the poor and displaced classes of society have seen its membership and popularity increase.

It was the organisation's leader, Imam Yasin Abu Bakr, who led members of the Jamaat in an attempted coup d'état against the elected Government of Trinidad and Tobago in July 1990[citation needed]. Over a six-day period members of the government including then-Prime Minister A.N.R. Robinson were held hostage at gun point while chaos and looting broke out in the streets of the capital Port of Spain.

A court ruling upheld an amnesty agreement obtained during the incarceration of parliament by the group. This led to the non-prosecution of its members for this crime despite the contention that the fact that guns and force were used to obtain said amnesty constituted duress. Subsequent to the attempted coup, it aligned itself publicly first with the United National Congress (in the run-up to the 1995 General Elections) and later with the People's National Movement (PNM), the party which forms the current Government of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.

Before and since those elections, however, present and past members have been connected or prosecuted for serious violent crimes. These crimes include drug and gang related killings, rape and a current spree of kidnappings for ransom of members of the local upper and middle class. The organization and its leader have the reputation of antagonism to Trinidadians of Indian origin, that many consider racist. The Jamaat's alleged crimes of kidnapping have mainly targeted Indian-Trinidadians. The organisation's leader is currently being prosecuted with conspiracy to murder several of the group's former members who had spoken out publicly against the Jamaat al Muslimeen and its practices, and who were suspected of becoming witnesses in legal proceedings against its members.

As of March 2007, three members of the Jamaat al Muslimeen have confessed to their role in the kidnapping, rape, and murder of an Indo-Trinidadian businesswoman; Vindra Naipaul-Coolman.

Currently they are under surveillance by the local National Security Agency as well as the United States Central Intelligence Agency for suspected terrorist relations with the Middle East, as are two other Muslim factions.

Quote Of The Day

"Since 1996, the amount of hip-hop I’ve bought has consistently declined, with the exception of that period in ‘98 right after Black Star came out. More funk, less hip-hop. More jazz, less hip-hop. All that to say that me and hip-hop don’t get down like that. Nevertheless, I don’t know that it’s entirely proper to try to lay the blame for the decline of Black culture at hip-hop’s feet when hip-hop itself is merely a distilled version of the combination of Black culture and the larger American culture.....That’s not to say that prolonged adolescence or any other problem should be acceptable because it’s found in other places, but the 'hip-hop did it' act is stale and tired....As I’ve said before, one of the main problems with hip-hop is that its image is far bigger than it really is. To its supporters, there is this blind faith that if it could only be properly harnessed, it could be used to revolutionize the world. For its detractors, it is a main cog in the engine that’s driving the destruction of our (Black? American?) culture. Really, it’s neither. It’s a very popular musical genre. In large part because of its popularity, it has lost its soul. The balance and diversity that made it so attractive in the first place is gone. Hip-hop is now a caricature of itself. And yeah, I agree that because of the transformation from the balanced, decent-but-not-staggering-record-sales genre that it once was to the global behemoth that it is now, the elements that seem to be most prevalent are not healthy. It stinks now. That’s why I quit it. But it’s not the source of anybody’s problems."

— Avery Tooley, moderate-conservative blogger

Black Music Month

June is Black Music Month. I can’t
think of a better way to celebrate than a video of James Brown.

Jury Indicts Jefferson In Bribery Probe

Rep. William Jefferson (D-Louisiana), was indicted today on federal charges of racketeering, soliciting bribes and money-laundering in a long-running bribery investigation into business deals he tried to broker in Africa. The moderate-liberal Democrat is accused of soliciting bribes for himself and his family, and also for bribing a Nigerian official. Almost two years ago, investigators raided Rep. Jefferson's home in Louisiana and found $90,000 in cash stuffed into a box in his freezer after videotaping him taking a $100,000 cash bribe from an FBI informant.

Among the charges listed in the indictment, said the official, are racketeering, soliciting bribes, wire fraud, money-laundering, obstruction of justice, conspiracy and violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The indictment lists 16 alleged violations of federal law that could keep Rep. Jefferson in prison for up to 235 years.Rep. Jefferson, 63, whose Louisiana district includes New Orleans, has said little about the case publicly but has maintained his innocence. He was re-elected last year despite the looming investigation.

Two of Rep. Jefferson's associates have already struck plea bargains with prosecutors and have been sentenced to prison.In May 2006, the FBI raided Rep. Jefferson's congressional office, the first such raid on a sitting congressman's Capitol office. That move sparked a constitutional debate over whether the executive branch stepped over its boundary. House leaders objected to the search saying it was an unconstitutional intrusion on the lawmaking process.

The FBI said the raid was necessary because Rep. Jefferson and his legal team had failed to respond to requests for documents.The impact of the case has stretched across continents and even roiled presidential politics in Nigeria. According to court records, Rep. Jefferson told associates that he needed cash to pay bribes to the country's vice president, Atiku Abubakar. Mr. Abubakar denied the allegations, which figured prominently in that country's presidential elections in April. Mr. Abubakar ran for the presidency and finished third.

Black Cult Groups and Al-Qaeda

The individuals who plotted to attack John F. Kennedy (JFK) Airport

where copy cat terrorist sympathizers. From what we know at least

one may have had contact with Al-Qaeda and Iran. It should be no

surprise that the Caribbean a hotbed of black supremist ideology.

While Guyana and the Caribbean are great places for vacation these

places are filled with conspiracy theories and black supremist ideology

most of which hold negative views of America.

The blog Atlasshrugged has more on the Iran connection what I

wanted to look at this from a different angle one rarely looked

at this is about the many cult groups within black culture and

how there ideas may play into Al-Qaeda's move to recruit

these already brainwashed young,distraught, black men.

Below are a few exmaples of radical Islam and Black ideity

movements and how they connect. Just imagine Arab Islamic

nationalism being replaced with a black or Pan African Islamic

Supremist view and you get what I am talking about.

Jamaat ul-Fuqra (alternatively Jamaat al-Fuqra) (Arabic: جماعة الفقراء, "Community of the Impoverished") is a terrorist organization and cult based in Pakistan and the United States. Al-Fuqra members fatally stabbed Muslim schismatic Rashad Khalifa in 1990 and assassinated Ahmadiyya leader Mozaffar Ahmad in 1983. What is so unique about this group is they are mosly made up of African American's.They also have been known to operate in the Caribbean

Great Link about there NY Operations

http://righttruth.typepad.com/right_truth/2006/06/jamaat_al_fuqra.html

Activities

Although various members have been suspected of assassinations and other acts of terror perpetrated in the 1980s and later, and some members having been charged with conspiracy to commit first degree murder and other crimes, al-Fuqra itself is not listed as a terror group by the US (it was listed as terrorist organization in the 1999 Patterns of Global Terrorism report by the U.S. State Department) or the EU. News reports have attempted to connect "shoe bomber" Richard Reid and "Washington sniper" John Allen Muhammad to al-Fuqra, but the connections were not definitive. There are also allegations that Clement Rodney Hampton-El, one of the plotters who planned to blow up various New York City bridges and tunnels, was a member of Al Fuqra.

The group has been banned in Pakistan

John Allen Muhammad

With his younger partner Lee Boyd Malvo, he carried out the 2002 Beltway sniper attacks, killing 10 people according to Wikipedia John in changed his name to Muhammad in October 2001, he was a member of the Nation of Islam for a time; friends say Muhammad helped provide security for Louis Farrakhan's "Million Man March" in 1995, but Farrakhan has publicly distanced himself and his organization from Muhammad's actions.

The Case of Sgt.Asan Akbar

On March 23 Sgt. Asan Akbar rolled a grenade into three tents of

sleeping officers of the 101st Airborne Division. He then began

shooting at his fellowsoldiers with an automatic weapon as they

fled from their tents. Two of them died and 14 others were injured.

The Flordia Cell

FBI agents arrested seven men in what is being

described as a conspiracy to attack targets in the U.S.,

including the Sears Tower. Authorities said the suspects

posed no immediate threat to South Florida.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/14882995.htm

Al-Qaeda Courts African-American Accomplices

As previously reported, al-Qaeda headman Ayman al-Zawahiri has issued a video statement in which he urges African-Americans, among others, to rise up against their country. Having examined this message, FBI analysts have determined that al-Qaeda is actively recruiting black Americans to engage in suicide attacks. Fearing that al-Qaeda may be looking to glide under a security radar long-accustomed to watch for Arabs, a new Homeland Security report stresses to law enforcement that "al-Qaida terrorists may not appear Arab" and that "non-Arab operatives could find it easier to avoid unwanted scrutiny ..." Zawahiri, in his latest diatribe, uses clearly provocative language when he calls African-Americans "house slaves" if they do not fight with al-Qaeda. It remains to be seen whether this appeal presages a strategic shift for al-Qaeda.

BLACK SUPREMIST GROUPS

The Nation of Gods and Earths

The Nation of Gods and Earths, also known as Five Percent Nation or the Five Percenters, is an offshoot of the Nation of Islam. It was founded in Harlem in the late 1960s by Clarence 13X, who proclaimed himself to be Allah (the Arabic term for God). "Five Percent" refers to the belief that they are the chosen five percent of all people who know and teach the truth. Five Percenters believe that each black man is God and therefore should take the name Allah. Like the Nation of Islam, the Five Percenters maintain that white people are devils created through a separate breeding process, known as "grafting." According to the Southern Poverty Law Center the Nation of Gods and Earths is viewed as a "violence-prone black supremacist prison gang

New Black Panthers

The New Black Panthers or New Black Panther Party (NBPP), whose formal name is the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, is a U.S.-based black power organization founded in Dallas, Texas in 1989. The NBPP attracted many breakaway members of the Nation of Islam when former Nation of Islam minister and spokesman Khalid Abdul Muhammad, infamous for his virulent anti-Semitism and racism[33], became the national chairman of the group from the late 1990s until his death in 2001. The NBPP is currently led by Malik Zulu Shabazz, who is also known for anti-Semitic propaganda, racism and extremist hate speech.[34]

United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors

The United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors was founded by Dwight York who is considered to be "one of the most successful — and least known — black supremacist leaders in America". The Nuwaubians believe in black people's superiority to white people, that whites are "devils," devoid of both heart and soul, that the color of white people is the result of leprosy and genetic inferiority, and that the ancestors of white people are the sexual partners of dogs and jackals.[35]

Among the different species of Apeman you have the black-haired Lar. This is where you get the word ‘lord,’ or master from. The Lares, plural for Lar, were recognized for their intelligence. These Lares were the head monkeys or spiritual monkeys, well known. This is where the word ‘monks’ comes from. Certain beings used the species known as the Baboon (part hyena, jackal and monkey) together with Orangutans for breeding. This resulted in your Behaymaw (called the beast of the field) type of carnivorous man called Mankind, one of the many species of Caucasians.[36][37]
White people (sometimes also referred to as “Amorites”, “Hyksos”, “Canaanites”, “Tamahu”, or “Mankind”) are said in one myth to have been originally created as a race of killers to serve blacks as a slave army.

The Caucasian has not been chosen to lead the world. They lack true emotions in their creation. We never intended them to be peaceful. They were bred to be killers, with low reproduction levels and a short life span. What you call Negroid was to live 1,000 years each and the other humans 120 years. But the warrior seed of Caucasians only 60 years. They were only created to fight other invading races, to protect the God race Negroids.

But they went insane, lost control when they were left unattended. They were never to taste blood. They did, and their true nature came out.… Because their reproduction levels were cut short, their sexual organs were made the smallest so that the female of their race will want to breed with Negroids to breed themselves out of existence after 6,000 years. It took 600 years to breed them, part man and part beast.

Nation of Yahweh

The Nation of Yahweh is a black supremacist religious group that is an offshoot of the Black Hebrew Israelites line of thought, and was founded by Yahweh ben Yahweh, meaning "God the Son of God" in Hebrew, formerly known as Hulon Mitchell Jr.

At its height, the Nation of Yahweh controlled an $8 million empire of properties, including a Miami headquarters known as the Temple of Love and temples in 22 states.[39] Followers of the Nation of Yahweh view blacks as the only "true Jews" and believe that white Jews are the spawn of Satan.

According to the Crime Library, followers of the Nation of Yahweh formed a secret group called "The Brotherhood". To become a member of The Brotherhood, applicants had to kill a "white devil" and bring Mitchell a body part - an ear, nose or finger - as proof of the kill. Several Nation of Yahweh members were convicted of conspiracy in more than a dozen anti-white murders, among them Robert Rozier, a former pro football player and member of the secret Brotherhood, who admitted the killing of seven white people.Mitchell started a private school for his followers and held sex classes for boys and men in which he showed them movies of white women having sex with animals to dissuade them from lusting after white females

Génération Kémi Séba

Génération Kémi Séba (KGS), previously known as Tribu Ka, is a militant, anti-Jewish, pan-African, and black separatist organisation in France that has been led by Stellio Capo Chichi since he created it in Paris in 2004.[1][2][3] The French government banned the organisation in July 2006 but it re-formed under a different name. Its ideology is largely derived from the Nation of Islam.

Notable black supremacists

Clarence 13X
Carol Barnes
Robert L. Brock
Louis Farrakhan
Leonard Jeffries
Kamau Kambon
Elijah Muhammad
Khalid Abdul Muhammad
Wade Nobles
Frances Cress Welsing
Dwight York
Yahweh ben Yahweh

While upstate liberal Americans were applauding
Hugo Chavez over the winter for getting a decrease
in there gas bill, the leftist dictator Chavez has
began a campaign to deny rights to his own people,
here are a few pictures that every one of the oil
benefactors should look at!












More Pictures Here

U.S. reportedly hits jihad base in Somalia

Hatip http://jihadwatch.org/

Although toppled from power in Mogadishu, the Somali jihadists are still active. One Pentagon spokesman says below: "This is a global war on terror and the U.S. remains committed to reducing terrorist capabilities when and where we find them." This is good. It needs to be done now on a much more thoroughgoing level, with attention given to the ways in which Islamic supremacism is being advanced through peaceful means.But before that can happen, there will have to be a sea change in the way Administration, State Department, and military officials view this conflict, and that does not look to be in the offing.

"Report: U.S. hits militants' Somali base," by Mohamed Olad Hassan for Associated Press

MOGADISHU, Somalia - At least one U.S. warship bombarded a remote, mountainous village in Somalia where Islamic militants had set up a base,
officials in the northern region of Puntland said Saturday. The attack from a U.S. destroyer took place late Friday, said Muse Gelle, the regional governor. The extremists had arrived Wednesday by speedboat at the port town of Bargal.

Gelle said the area is a dense thicket, making it difficult for security forces from the semiautonomous republic of Puntland to intervene on their own.

A local radio station quoted Puntland's leader, Ade Muse, as saying that his forces had battled with the extremists for hours before U.S. ships arrived and used their cannons. Muse said five of his troops were wounded, but that he had no information about casualties among the extremists.

A task force of coalition ships, called CTF-150, is permanently based in the northern Indian Ocean and patrols the Somali coast in hopes of intercepting international terrorists. U.S. destroyers are normally assigned to the task force and patrol in pairs.

CNN International, quoting a Pentagon official, also reported the U.S. warship's involvement. A Pentagon spokesman told The Associated Press he had no information about the incident."This is a global war on terror and the U.S. remains committed to reducing terrorist capabilities when and where we find them," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said.

"We recognize the importance of working closely with allies to seek out, identify, locate, capture, and if necessary, kill terrorists and those who would provide them safe haven," Whitman said. "The very nature of some of our operations, as well as the success of those operations is often predicated on our ability to work quietly with our partners and allies."

Do Black Men Marry Anymore?

On a recent forum I asked the question to some young

people about the decline in marriage in our community,

these were some of the responces.Here are two answers

that I felt were interesting!

-Roz

There are a myraid of factors to black men not marrying. We seem to have a entire generation of black men who don't understand love or marriage. If you only see that the rate of single parent homes exploded in the last 15 years it was to have an effect on the next gen.

Then you have to look at why things broke down and go beyond the last 15 years and dig into the last 30-40. Most know where I would take this so I won't waste my breath. It should be obvious.

Also on a surface level: Women to men ratio.

It is just too easy to do so much without personal consequence.Esp. when there are "other" women who would just as well fulfill every base desire of a man without having to require that he acutally act like/become a man. It gets to a point where they don't respond to true strength and love. They hardly even recognize it. It gets renamed as "attitude".

-Kenneth

I think it important that we speak out to our friends and family. We have to let the "player" B.S. go, and tell young guys why it stupid to waste their time and energy on stupidity rather than building up their lives with a family. I think that men should be men and not go around having sex with whomever we can. Then we can start building some real wealth.

Do you have an answer?

Quote Of The Day

"In Africa, because we are portrayed poor, politicians can use food as a means to get to power. In rich countries, there are many examples in history of how leaders manipulate. Making a continent to be like a laboratory helps others to sustain themselves, because they can say: 'If you think I am bad, go to Africa, it is worse.' This is externalizing Africa’s problem and while this dimension exists, I would rather shy away from it and focus on Africans themselves. I would like to meet and talk to those who think that unless they get tons and tons of aid dollars, they will not go anywhere. If we externalize Africa’s problems, we will never get them solved.

Africans will sit back and say: 'If they messed us, let them fix it.' We share a bigger part of the responsibility. If we have been messed, we allowed someone to mess us up. We should be able to say: 'We take 80 per cent of the blame and leave the rest to them.' This is a safer bargain than loading a bigger part of the responsibility on others. It is true that we were colonized and enslaved but should we invest all our resources into asking for payment from the colonizer?

Or focus firs on building ourselves, so that when we ask people to pay for what they did, they will be sure to pay it. On one hand we are begging, while on the other we are saying that they enslaved us and must therefore pay. Today, they come admitting to have enslaved us and want to build roads. If we tell them that we do not need a road but a small factory, they say, that their priority is roads. We cannot bargain. We first need to build ourselves so that we can engage them.....This is what we want – that together with America, Europe and China, we are just another customer in a shop: confident and able to choose what we want. Everybody is happy and nobody feels left out. However, with the aid approach, Africa always goes as a baby on its knees, and is told to wait. It is humiliating!"

— James Shikwati, Kenyan libertarian commentator