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Would Marijuana Legalization Benefit or Harm African Americans?

The California branch of the NAACP has generated a lot of controversy by coming out in favor of Proposition 19 - a ballot initiative which would legalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana in the state. The civil rights organization argues that legalization would benefit African Americans because it would end the racist practice of targeting Blacks for drug arrests and incarceration. But a group of Black ministers says legalization would harm Blacks. What is your opinion? Participate in the survey below;




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Was the Lost Claudia Schiffer "Afro" Photo Disrespectful of Black Women?

          (Taylor Media Services) A racial controversy erupted last week when a number of photos featuring supermodel Claudia Schiffer emerged showing her with an artificially darkened face and wearing an Afro wig. Critics are calling it an indefensible blackface photo shoot. The term "blackface" refers the practice from 1900 to roughly 1950 when white performers would blacken their faces and paint their lips white in a bid to make fun of Blacks.

The photos were shot by Karl Lagerfeld for a Dom Perignon ad campaign which was never released. Spokespersons for Schiffer and others involved have defended the photos saying they were intended to "represent every man's fantasy" and no negative intentions were involved. What do you think? Does the principle photograph negatively stereotype Black women or are the critics being a bit too sensitive.

          Share your views at www.blacknewsjournal.net or by leaving a brief message at 202-657-8872.

 


Seattle Police Promise Review of Tactics after Officer Punches Black Girl in Face

           White officer punches 17-year-old Black girl in the face

(Taylor Media Services) The Seattle, Washington police department moved quickly last week in promising a review of apparently racist police tactics after an officer was caught on videotape punching a 17-year-old Black girl in the face in an incident growing out of a jaywalking stop. The incident comes on the heels of an April incident in which officers were caught kicking, stomping and uttering racist language at a Hispanic robbery suspect as he lay on the ground.

          In last week's incident, Officer Ian Welsh can be clearly seen punching Angela Rosenthal in the face after she attempted to intervene in his arrest of her friend Marilyn Ellen Levias. The arrest grew out of a case of alleged jaywalking and an argument which followed.

          The Seattle police union backed the 39-year-old Walsh saying he was defending himself. But Acting Deputy Chief Nick Metz said the police department was "withholding judgment" pending a special internal investigation. Meanwhile, Walsh has been temporarily placed in the department's training unit.

Rare Photograph of Slave Children Hits the Internet

          (Taylor Media Services) One of the most popular items on the internet last week was “a haunting†150-year-old photograph of a black slave child named John sitting barefoot on a barrel wearing ragged clothes and with a facial expression which combined fear, anger and wonder. Sitting next to him is a smaller unidentified slave boy. The photo was found in the attic of a North Carolina home. It was accompanied by a document detailing the sale of John for $1,150.00.

          Art historians say the photograph is an extremely rare Civil War era photo of children who were either slaves at the time or who had been recently freed. The photo, which may have been taken in the early 1860s, was a testament to a dark part of American history, said Will Stapp, a photographic historian and founding curator of the National Portrait Gallery's photographs department at the Smithsonian Institution.

"It's a very difficult and poignant piece of American history," he said. "What you are looking at when you look at this photo are two boys who were victims of that history." New York collector Keya Morgan said he paid $30,000 for the photo album including the photo of the young boys and several family pictures and $20,000 for the sale document. Morgan said the deceased owner of the home where the photo was found was thought to be a descendant of John.


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Black News Trends & Developments

Republicans Kill Aid to the Unemployed and Deny Funds to Black Farmers

          (Taylor Media Services) It made news last week when Senate Republicans rallied to defeat an effort by President Obama and Democratic Party leaders to extend weekly unemployment benefits to millions of out-of-work Americans. The measure would have extended benefits for people who have been out of work for more than six months. However, what did not get as much media coverage was the fact the defeated legislative package also denied over a billion dollars in aid to Black farmers.

 

          The Black farmers had negotiated a deal with the Obama administration’s Agriculture Department in which African American farmers would have received well over $1 billion to compensate them for past governmental discrimination. But the agreement had to be funded by Congress. The denial of funds may now force the Black farmers to go to federal court to seek the funds via a lawsuit.

 

          Actually, a majority of senators voted 57-to-41 to both extend unemployment benefits and to provide the monies for the Black farmers. But under Senate rules, the Democrats need 60 affirmative votes in order to prevent a Republican filibuster. The death of the bill means that more than 200,000 people a week will lose their jobless benefits. The Republicans say they took their action out of concern for the nation’s growing budget deficit.

Black Unemployment Rate Declined Slightly Last Month

But the Fall Was Driven by Bad News

          (Taylor Media Services) Despite well over a trillion dollars in government stimulus, the nation’s economy refuses to climb out of its current “Great Recession.” This point was driven home last week when the Labor Department released its monthly employment report. The report showed the nation’s jobless rate actually declining from 9.7 percent in May to 9.5 percent in June.

          However, the primary reason for the decline was that a whopping 652,000 Americans became frustrated and simply gave up the search for a job. Since the Labor Department only counts you as unemployed if you are actually looking for work, the jobless figure improved mathematically even though there was no actual improvement in the economy. In fact, businesses cut 125,000 jobs last month.

          Overall, Blacks saw their unemployment rate drop from 15.5 percent in May to 15.4 percent last month. Such a drop is considered statistically insignificant. Meanwhile, unemployment for whites also fell slightly declining from 8.8 percent in May to 8.6 percent in June. The Hispanic jobless rate stayed the same standing at 12.4 percent in both May and June.

          All told, 14.6 Americans were looking for work in June and were unable to find it. Meanwhile, the nation still has 7.9 million fewer private payroll jobs today that it did when the current recession began in December 2007.

Americans Continue to Get Fatter and Blacks Are Leading the Way

           (Taylor Media Services) The latest obesity report was released last week. And it showed adult obesity rates increased in 28 of the 50 states over the past year with the most overweight state being Mississippi where 33.8 percent of the adult population is obese. The report is titled “F as in Fat: How Obesity Threatens America’s Future 2010.” It shows tremendous weight gain since 1991.

          For example, in 1991, no state had an obesity rate above 20 percent but last year 38 states had adult obesity rates above 25 percent. Racially, Blacks and Hispanics had higher obesity rates than whites in 40 states and the District of Columbia. Meanwhile, if you want to lose weight, you might want to move to Colorado. For reasons which were not fully explained, residents of Colorado were the least overweight people in the nation with an obesity rate of just 19.1 percent.

          Overall, Americans living in the South were the fattest. In fact, 10 of the 11 most obese states were in the South. The report was a joint effort of the Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Obesity tends to lead to ailments such as hypertension and diabetes.

California NAACP Comes out in Support Marijuana Legalization

          (Taylor Media Services) The California chapter of the NAACP last week threw its support behind a November ballot initiative which would legalize the recreational use of marijuana and allow state residents over 21 to grow and cultivate small plots of the drug. State NAACP head Alice Huffman issued a statement saying the civil rights organization is backing Proposition 19 to combat marijuana arrest practices which “unfairly target African Americans.”

          According to Huffman and many civil and human rights groups, law enforcement agencies unfairly target minorities, especially young Black men, for drug arrests. Indeed, the state NAACP’s endorsement of Proposition 19 was timed to coincide with last week’s release of a study from the  Drug Policy Alliance, a group seeking alternatives to the so-called drug war.

          The report entitled “Targeting Blacks for Marijuana” presented statistics showing that marijuana possession arrest rates in California were significantly high for Blacks than other groups in the state. With its endorsement, the California NAACP became the first mainstream civil rights organization to back the legalization and taxing of marijuana use.

Former Chicago Police Official Found Guilty in Case Involving Torture of Black Suspects

          Jon Burge

(Taylor Media Services) Notorious former Chicago Police Lieutenant Jon Burge now faces up to 45 years in prison after being found guilty last week of lying to a grand jury and obstruction of justice in a case growing out of his practice of torturing confessions out of Black criminal suspects. Prior to last week’s convictions, Burge victims had won millions of dollars in lawsuits and wrongful convictions from the city of Chicago.

          The 62-year-old’s perjury resulted from a 2003 civil lawsuit filed by former Death Row inmate Madison Hobley who sat in prison for years after Burge and other detectives tortured him into confessing to a murder he did not commit. Another victim Mark Clemens stood outside the federal courthouse and said of Burge, “These people stole my f------ life.” The 45-year-old Clements said in 1981 he was forced to confess to a quadruple murder by detectives, under Burge’s command, who squeezed his genitals.

          According to victims’ accounts, Burge’s favorite tortures involved squeezing the genitals or given electric shocks to the penises of Black suspects. Assistant U.S. Attorney David Weisman said Burge's courtroom denials of torture were a whisper compared to the mountains of testimony from the convicted criminals who said they were beaten, electrocuted, suffocated and had loaded guns pointed at them.

          Weisman explained, “We had corroborating evidence from doctors, lawyers and medical records.”

Illinois Charges Countrywide Discriminated against Minority Home Buyers

          (Taylor Media Services) The state of Illinois filed a lawsuit last Tuesday accusing former mortgage giant Countrywide Financial Corporation of employing discriminatory lending practices which targeted Blacks and Hispanics borrowing money to buy homes. Specifically, the lawsuit charges Countrywide was much more likely to give risky sub-prime loans to African Americans and Latinos even when their financial and credit situations were similar to whites.

          The lawsuit also alleged that a statistical analysis revealed that the company charged Latino and African-American borrowers more interest and fees on certain mortgages than whites during the 2005 to 2007 period. It was when tens of thousands of homeowners began to default on the risk sub-prime loans that the nation’s current mortgage crisis was set in motion.

BET Founder Bob Johnson Forms Partnership to Aid Economic Development in Haiti

(Taylor Media Services) Bob Johnson, founder of Black Entertainment Television and current head of The RLJ Companies – last week announced “a strategic relationship” to construct manufacturing facilities in poverty-ridden and hurricane-ravaged Haiti for the building of housing and critical infrastructure in and around the capitol city Port-Au-Prince.

          The “strategic relationship” includes Global Building Solutions, Royal Caribbean Cruises and the Haiti-based WIN Group. Johnson met with Haitian President Rene Preval and other key government official shortly before making his announcement. Since selling BET to Viacom, Johnson has built a business empire which includes real estate, hotel properties and sports franchises.

Twenty-Year Gap in Life Expectancy between Asian Women and Black Men in California

          (Taylor Media Services) In a landmark study, scientists from the Cancer Prevention Institute of California (CPIC) have discovered a startling 19.6-year gap in life expectancy between poor black men and affluent Asian women in the Golden Gate state. The results come from a first-of-its-kind, block-by-block analysis of the population of California — a project originally designed to look at cancer survival rates in the state.

          Asian American women live longer on average than any other segment of the U.S. population but the nearly 20-year gap in life expectancy between wealth Asian women and poor Black men came as a surprise to the researchers. Specifically, well-off Asian American women in California have a life expectancy of 84.9 years compared to 65.3 years for Black males living most of their lives in poverty.

          Researchers believe the California results are probably repeated in the rest of the states. More details on the study as well as tips on how to prevent cancer are available online at www.cpic.org.

Study Finds Sedentary Black Women Less Obese than Sedentary White Women

          (Taylor Media Services) Medical authorities believe that living an inactive or sedentary lifestyle is a major factor leading to increasing levels of overweight and obesity among Americans. However, a new study has found that for reasons it was unable to explain sedentary Black women are less likely to become obese than sedentary white women.

          The report results from the efforts of the ongoing Southern Community Cohort Study and involved nearly 23,000 African American women and roughly 8,000 white women living in the South where obesity tends to be more prevalent than in other regions of the country. Details of the study can be found in the August issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

          Regardless of race, however, the more inactive a woman’s lifestyle, the greater were the odds that she would become obese when compared to active women. Overall, a sedentary white woman was nearly 4.5 times more likely to become obese than an active white woman while Black inactive women were 1.5 times more likely to become obese than active Black women.

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Entertainment, People, Books & Style!

Oprah Winfrey Retakes the Number One Spot as World’s Most Powerful Entertainer

          Oprah Winfrey

(Taylor Media Services) After being pushed out of the top position last year by actress Angelina Jolie, television talk-show diva Oprah Winfrey has recaptured the honor of being dubbed “The World’s Most Powerful Celebrity.” The listing of the world’s most influential entertainers is compiled annually by the business publication Forbes.

          According to Forbes, the second most influential celebrity was another Black American female: singer Beyonce Knowles. She was followed by actor James Cameron, singer Lady Gaga and golfer Tiger Woods. Forbes estimates that Winfrey earned $315 million over the last 12 months which comes to roughly $900,000 a day. The complete list can be view online at Forbes.com .

Supermodel Naomi Campbell to Testify at Charles Taylor War Crimes Trial

Naomi Campbell

           

          (Taylor Media Services) It was announced last week that supermodel Naomi Campbell will be summoned to testify in The Hague, Netherlands at the war crimes trial of Charles Taylor – former president of the West African nation of Liberia. Taylor reportedly lavished uncut diamonds on Campbell at a reception in South African in 1997.

 

          Prosecutors are attempting to prove that Taylor traded arms for diamonds from a vicious group of rebels in the neighboring country of Sierra Leone during a 1991 to 2002 civil war. Taylor, once one of West Africa’s most powerful men, is charged with 11 counts of murder, torture, sexual slavery and the use of child soldiers growing out of his alleged support for the rebels during the civil war.

 

          Campbell’s testimony would reportedly show that Taylor possessed uncut diamonds from Sierra Leone. The Special Court also summoned American actress Mia Farrow and Campbell’s agent at the time Carole White. It was unclear as to when the summons will actually be issued.

Details Emerge of Tiger Woods’ Bizarre Divorce Settlement

          Tiger and Elin during happier times

(Taylor Media Services) If the reports from informed sources prove correct, Elin Nordegren – former wife of golfing sensation Tiger Woods – is set to receive the largest divorce settlement in history. Reports from several sources say the settlement awards Nordegren at least $750 million and sole physical custody of the couple’s two children. Apparently, all Nordegren gives up is any rights to conduct interviews or write a tell-book about Tiger’s affairs with 14 other women while the two were married.

          Some newspaper reports are also saying Tiger must keep the kids away from other women unless he marries. Woods will maintain joint legal custody of the children. Thus, it is unlikely that Elin will be able to take them permanently to her native Sweden.

Meanwhile, the New York Times is reporting that Woods was interviewed by federal officials last week in relation to the case of Dr. Anthony Galea. Last October Canadian authorities accused Galea of distributing human growth hormones and introducing an unapproved drug into interstate commerce. The Times says Woods acknowledged being treated by Galea but denied receiving any performance enhancing drugs.

Wesley Snipes Seeks New Trial on Tax Charges after Conviction of Ex-Adviser

Wesley Snipes

          (Taylor Media Services) Popular actor Wesley Snipes is seeking to appeal his convictions on tax charges and overturn a three-year sentence following the arrest of his one-time financial adviser. Kenneth Starr, a former financial to Snipes and other celebrities was arrested in May and charged with securities fraud totaling $59 million dollars.

          Starr played a major role in Snipes’ 2008 trial testifying that he had told the movie star to file tax returns and ignore the advice he was getting from an anti-tax firm. Snipes’ attorneys now want the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to stop considering a pending appeal and allow them to file a new motion to dismiss the conviction or grant the Black actor a new trial because of his financial adviser’s arrest.

          Snipes was convicted on three misdemeanor tax evasion charges but in a surprise move the judge sentenced him to three years in prison instead of the expected probation. The government says Snipes owes $2.7 million in back taxes and penalties. The actor is currently out on bail pending his appeal.

Young Son of Former Football Great Randall Cunningham Dies in Hot Tub Accident

          (Taylor Media Services) Christian Cunningham, the two-and-a-half year-old son of former NFL quarterback Randall Cunningham, died last week in an apparent hot tub accident at the Cunningham home in Las Vegas, Nevada. Abuse and neglect detectives were called to the scene but they indicated the drowning appeared to be an accident.

          Cunningham, now a pastor in Las Vegas, reportedly performed baptisms in the hot tub.

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Editor’s Commentary

Republicans Attempt to Dirty the Name of Thurgood Marshall at Kagan Hearings

Indirectly, They Try to Give Racism a Positive Spin

By R. James Taylor

          Last week the Senate Judiciary Committee began the hearings which will determine whether President Obama’s Solicitor General Elena Kagan will become the next justice on the United States Supreme Court. However, on the first day, one would have thought the hearings were about former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall – the first African American to sit on the most powerful court in the nation.

          Several Southern Republicans, led by Alabama’s Jeff Sessions, attempted to suggest that Kagan should not serve on the high court because of her association with Marshall. It appears that the conservatives detest Marshall labeling him a so-called “liberal activist judge” who did not apply a narrow interpretation of the U.S. Constitution but instead attempted to use the Constitution to bring about social change in America.

          Since as a young lawyer, Kagan served as Marshal’s clerk, the conservative senators attempted to impart Marshall’s “liberal activism” to her. Kagan held her own during the sometimes testy hearings. But that is not the point.

          The great Thurgood Marshall was indeed an “activist.” He was active in trying to end racism in this country and the second class citizenship it had imposed on the nation’s African American population. It was Marshall who led the team of Black lawyers who successfully argued the Brown v. Board of Education before the Supreme Court ending legally sanctioned public school segregation in this country. From a strictly legal perspective, Marshall probably did more than any other American to bring about an end to legal segregation and social oppression of Blacks in this country.

          But Sessions and his conservative cohorts like Jon Lyle of Arizona appeared to be suggesting that Marshall was a bad person because of his activism or because he did not interpret the Constitution in the narrow, the-past-is-best manner favored by them. Are they suggesting that as a lawyer Marshall should not have used the Constitution to fight against racism and segregation?

          And what bothered me most about the line of attack they chose against Kagan was that they did it without shame or apology. They appeared to have no problem with arguments which suggested that racism and segregation should have continued to exist rather than use the Constitution to battle evil or aid the downtrodden and those suffering under the weight of discrimination.

          Meanwhile, I was actually pleased when Kagan responded to the attack saying that if confirmed to the Supreme Court she would not be Thurgood Marshall but Elena Kagan. However, she quickly added, “I love Thurgood Marshall. He did an enormous amount for me.” Yes, Thurgood Marshall did an “enormous amount” for the nation and Black people in particular.

          When he nominated Marshall to the Supreme Court, President Lyndon Johnson said of his historic decision, “He is the right man and it’s the right time.” Johnson was right. The only people who can hate Marshall are racists, segregationists and reactionary conservatives. And after last week’s confirmation hearings, it is clear that there are some of those on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

[Robert Taylor welcomes responses to his commentaries. Share your views with him at http://blackhistoryclub.ning.com or email them to TaylorMediaprime@yahoo.com .

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Op-Ed Commentary/Opinion

Isn’t President Obama Dancing to the Tune of the Military Industrial Complex?

By William Reed

Just because nowadays people can’t call you the N-word straight to your face does not  mean that covert, institutionalized and perpetual racism doesn’t exist in 2010.  African Americans spending time discussing whether comments by General Stanley McChrystal - quoted in Rolling Stone- were disrespectful of President Obama are missing a bigger picture.  No matter how Blacks try to rationalize his actions, truth is Barack Obama’s presidency is in a system of imperialism and institutionalized racism.  No matter what names he’s called, Barack dances to the tune of an entrenched establishment order.

President Obama’s “sacking” of General McChrystal and appointment of General David Petraeus as Commander of the Afghanistan war now guarantees the advocates of war five more years in the costly campaign.  Originally he was seen as an anti-war candidate, but after taking office Obama surrounded himself with establishment figures.  Now, his war policy increasingly resembles George Bush’s.   Petraeus will probably keep the war going far beyond Obama’s intended July 2011 pullout.

Despite almost a decade of warfare and a almost a trillion dollar expenditure, the US military and its allies and client state armed forces are losing the war in Afghanistan. Outside of the central districts of a few cities and the military fortresses, the Afghan national resistance forces are in control, of territory, people and administration.  Between 2001 – 2010, the American presence has looked like a colonial occupation.  During the past 18 months of the Obama regime more soldiers were killed or wounded than in the previous eight years.

His supporters refuse to admit it, but America’s first Black President is just another stooge in “the business of America.”  The military-industrial-complex is an entrenched system of industries and agencies that design and produce arms and other military equipment.  Should the conversation of the day be about and entrenched system that allows McChrystal and crew to defame Obama, or about the control U.S. weapons contractors have over public policy? 

The military-industrial-complex: 1) exaggerates the threats faced by the US; 2) market weapons systems as answers to national security problems; and 3) uses well-cultivated relationships with Pentagon officials, Members of Congress, White House decision makers and opinion shapers in the media and think tanks to keep funds flowing. 

Instead of joining into the imperialists’ dialogue as to whether a few soldiers “dissed the President”, more attention should be given to ways to bring Obama and column of associates to a halt.  Some Blacks have moved from debates of “Whites not respecting Obama and his office” to stopping a war that is costing $3.6 billion per month.  Some lawmakers are challenging the administration's current $33 billion supplemental funding request.  Black Caucus Members such as Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) see a chance to open debate “on ending a war that costs taxpayers $100 billion a year, drains funds from jobs programs and other domestic needs and fuels the federal deficit”.

(William Reed is available for speaking engagements via BaileyGroup.org)

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The Better Life Page: Opportunities, Money, Jobs & Advice

Options Enabling a Homeowner to Keep His Home in a Complex Real Estate Market

By William J. McLee

If you are having difficulty making the payments on your mortgage or your property is upside down (current loan amount exceeds the current value of the property) keep in mind that you are not alone. It is estimated that approximately 25% of all homes across the country are upside down. When you add the fact that there will be $2.5 trillion dollars of mortgages including Interest Only Loans and Option ARM Loans that will reset over the next 36 months, the problems are just beginning.

Listed are some of the options as a homeowner in this tough real estate market:

1) Call Your Bank - If you are getting behind on payments, contact your lender first. While this may seem like the last person you want to talk to, lenders are often willing to work with you on late payments and financial difficulties.

A bank or mortgage Company could provide you with immediate relief.  But the process can be extremely frustrating and overwhelming for most consumers due to long wait times on the phone and repeated requests for the same documentation from the lenders.

2) Loan Modification - A loan modification is a process whereby any aspect of the original loan terms and/or amount have been changed to benefit the borrower in hopes of avoiding foreclosure or improve your ability to make the payments of the mortgage. Under the government program known as HAMP - Home Affordable Modification Program, most struggling homeowners should benefit and get some relief from a reduction in monthly payment, but not everyone is qualified.

3) Refinance Options

Short-Refinance - A Short Refinance, also known as a short payoff, is a transaction, where the lender agrees to accept less than the full amount owed. The borrower would refinance to a low rate FHA loan. A Short Refinance is similar to a Short Sale, but rather than selling your home, you are able to remain in your home by refinancing into a new loan with a lower principle balance and a new fixed rate that is affordable.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Refinance Options - If your loan owned by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac you can refinance up to 125% of the market value of your property. This is especially helpful to homeowners who have a high interest rate and could not refinance due to the decline of their property. Since rates are still significantly down you can still refinance a little above market rate. To see if your property is a Fannie Mae loan go to http://loanlookup.fanniemae.com/loanlookup/ and enter your address. For Freddie Mac go to http://ww3.freddimac.com/corporate/   and enter your address.

4) Short Sale - In a short sale, the bank or mortgage lender agrees to discount a loan balance because of an economic or financial hardship on the part of the borrower. The home owner sells the mortgaged property for less than the outstanding balance of the loan, and turns over the proceeds of the sale to the lender. A short sale is simply the most economical solution to a problem. Banks will incur a smaller financial loss than would result from foreclosure or continued non-payment. Borrowers are able to reduce the damage to their credit history. A short sale is typically faster and less expensive than a foreclosure.

5) Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure - A Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure is an alternative to Foreclosure in which you voluntarily work with the bank to give them the title without the bank going through foreclosure proceedings. If you consider this option it is a very good idea to consultant an attorney since the bank could go after you if there is a deficiency of what you owe vs. the amount they receive once the bank sells your property.

6) Foreclosure

Foreclosure is an option, but it will have a negative affect on your credit and will stop you from buying a home for up to 10 years. In most lenders' point of view, they think of a foreclosure as more negative to a potential borrower than bankruptcy.

William J. McLee has a MBA from the University of Minnesota and a Masters in Business Taxation from the University of Minnesota. He is a featured speaker on Real Estate, Mortgages and Tax Issues. He is available for private consultation, and can be reached at (866) 636-1322 Ext #2 or via e-mail at wmclee@consultant.com .

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Black History Today

Temple University Archaeologists Unearth Historic African American Settlement

          (Taylor Media Services) A group of students from Temple University in Philadelphia has unearthed what appears to be a significant African American historical site near a creek in Westampton Township outside of Mount Holly, New Jersey. The area was settled in the mid 1820s by a group of newly freed slaves. It was then known as Timbuctoo and included at least 18 houses, a church, roadways, several wells and a cemetery.

          Lead graduate student Chris Barton explained, “We’re looking at how this community defined itself during a period in American history where African Americans were seen as second-class citizens, and how the community viewed itself within a larger global context.” The archeologists on the project have also located grave markers for African Americans who fought in the Civil War.

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The National Black News Journal & Advocate

www.BlackNewsJournal.net

July 8, 2010

Analytical, financial, health and historical empowerment

Editor – Robert James Taylor; Operations – Chris. Taylor; Advertising/Circulation – LaRue Bonner

Correspondents: Washington, DC; Los Angeles, California; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Columbus, Ohio and Richmond, Virginia

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The Week’s Black News Trends & Developments

Murder and Mayhem Reign in Chicago

At least 60 Shot; 10 Dead in Four Violent Days

          (Taylor Media Services) Violence in American cities has become so ubiquitous that seldom do shootings and killings in one city make news in other cities. But that was not the case for Chicago a few days ago where violence – most of it gun-related – made national news headlines. A near uncivilized reign of weekend violence spilled into early last week leaving 10 people dead and at least 60 men, women and children wounded.

          The youngest victim was a 1-year-old girl who suffered a graze wound to the neck when shots were fired at a barbecue on the city Near West Side. Among the 10 dead was a man dressed in women’s clothing, two naked young men found near some railroad tracks and three young men found in and around a car. Most of the shootings did not appear to be connected and displayed little rhyme or reason except anger and a disrespect for human life.

          However, authorities believe some of the shootings may have resulted from stepped-up fighting among members of the Gangster Disciples gang. Most of those shot were young Black males under 30. But at least five of the victims were young women. City officials were at a lost to explain the upsurge in violence. But the most common factors were guns, youth and unresolved disputes.

Analysis: President Obama – a Victim of Falling Poll Numbers as Nation’s Crises Mount

 President Obama

          (Taylor Media Services) A series of recent national polls shows President Obama’s popularity falling as he attempts to address a growing number of crises. According to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey, the president’s approval rating stands at 45 percent – the lowest rating since he became president. The nation’s first African American head-of-state appears to be a victim primarily of a Great Recession economy which has not yet improved for most Americans.

          However, Obama’s popularity has also taken hits as a result of the over two-month- long oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, apparently unwinnable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and an energized conservative Tea Party Movement which is doing all it can to block the president from achieving success with his legislative agenda. Meanwhile, African Americans remain Obama’s most loyal support base. The most recent Gallop poll shows the president’s support among Blacks standing at 91 percent. However, even that is down from a high of 95 percent.

          Obama has seen a drop in support among Hispanics who had been his second most loyal support base. Several polls show a majority of the nation’s Latinos still supporting Obama but many have become frustrated and angry by his failure to pass comprehensive immigration reform legislation. Overall, the inability of the economy to improve significantly appears to be the biggest drag on the president approval rating. The NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found 62 percent of American adults dissatisfied with the direction of the economy.

Growing Indications that Nation’s School’s Are “Re-Segregating”

          (Taylor Media Services) According to a study by the Civil Rights Project at the University of California (Los Angeles), there are growing indications that the nation’s public schools are “re-segregating” over 50 years after the U.S. Supreme Court required the integration of school across racial lines in the historic 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision.

          The study, based on an analysis of 2007 data, found, for example, that 39 percent of African American students attend “intensely segregated” schools. “Intensely segregated” was defined as schools in which 90 percent or more of the students belong to one racial group. It was also discovered that 40 percent of Hispanic students attended intensely segregated schools.

          University of the District of Columbia law professor John Brittain was quoted recently as saying in response to the study, “Re-segregation is a national trend that has been building for over a decade.” Meanwhile, a key battle ground in the struggle to prevent re-segregation has become Wayne County (principle city Goldsboro) North Carolina.

          This past December, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) filed a civil rights complaint against the Wayne County Board of Education. Now, a federal investigation is under way to assess charges that the school board has maintained a segregated, high-poverty attendance area rife with educational inequities.

Housing Foreclosure Crisis Has Hit Hispanics and Blacks Much Harder than Whites

          (Taylor Media Services) The housing foreclosure crisis, which played a major role in setting off and extending the nation’s current recession, has been hitting America’s Latino and African America populations much harder than whites. According to a new study by the Center for Responsible Lending, between 2005 and 2008 roughly 8 percent of Blacks and Hispanics lost their homes to foreclosure compared to 4.5 percent of whites.

          However, when all homeowners are considered, the study found that 17 percent of Hispanic homeowners have lost their homes are are about to. This compares to 11 percent of Black homeowners and 7 percent of white home owners who have already lost their homes or are about to.

          A major reason for the disparity was that Blacks and Latinos were more likely to be given riskier, more expensive sub-prime mortgage loans. Keith Ernst, the Center’s director of research, says, “The more expensive the mortgages; they are more likely to fail.” The Center also projects that between 2009 and 2012, African American and Latino communities will lose $373 billion in declining property values.

Blacks Sharply Criticize Angelina Jolie for Getting “Cleopatra” Role in New Film

Why Does Hollywood Portray Cleopatra as White?

 Angelina Jolie

          (Taylor Media Services) African American internet message boards, blogs and magazines have been up in arms over the past couple of weeks after it was learned that Hollywood had selected another white actress to play the legendary ancient Egyptian Queen Cleopatra in a movie. Specifically, Scott Rudin has cast Academy Award winning actress Angelina Jolie as main character for his upcoming film Cleopatra: A Life.

          Many (but by no means all) historians believe the ancient African queen was either Black or of mixed race. Essence magazine perhaps best summarized the feelings of many Blacks in a recent article entitled “Another White Actress to Play Cleopatra.” In it, the writer says, “Honestly, I don’t care how full Angelina Jolie’s lips are, how many African American children she adopts or how bronzed her skin will become for the film. I believe this role should have gone to a black woman.”

          In the past Cleopatra has always been portrayed by white actresses including Claudette Colbert, Vivian Leigh and Elizabeth Taylor.

Conservative Black Man Beats Strom Thurmond’s Son for South Carolina GOP Nomination

          Black conservative Tim Scott

(Taylor Media Services) Paul Thurmond – son of deceased South Carolina arch-conservative Senator Strom Thurmond – last week lost his bid for the Republican nomination to fill an open seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Ironically, he lost to Black state Representative Tim Scott by a whopping 69 percent to 31 percent margin. Thurmond’s father had long been one of the nation’s most conservative – if not racist politicians.

          Amazingly the younger Thurmond lost the race to the Black candidate Scott who voiced even more conservative positions than Thurmond. Scott had been endorsed by members of the right-wing Tea Party including former Alaska governor and potential GOP presidential candidate Sarah Palin. One of the reason conservatives backed Scott was because of his vehement opposition to President Obama. He was especially critical of the president’s health care reforms labeling them “a step toward socialism.”

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Entertainment, People, Books & Style!

Former Football Great Lawrence Taylor Indicted in Alleged New York Rape Case

 Lawrence Taylor

          (Taylor Media Services) Lawrence Taylor – the man considered by many to be the best linebacker to ever play the game of football – now faces a major legal challenge. He was indicted last week by a suburban New York City grand jury on charges of third-degree rape and patronizing a prostitute.

          The case grows out of a May 6 arrest at a Holiday Inn in Ramapo, New York in which the 51-year-old pro football Hall of Famer was accused of paying a 16-year-old girl $300 to have sex with him. The girl says a pimp had forced her into prostitution. Taylor has denied the charges but faces up to four years in prison if convicted. His next court appearance is July 13. He help take the New York Giants to Super Bowl titles in 1987 and 1991.

Aaron McGruder of “Boondocks” Takes Critical Aim at Tyler Perry of “Meet the Browns”

          (Taylor Media Services) The producers of two of the Turner Broadcasting System’s (TBS) most popular Black-oriented hits appear headed for a nasty public conflict. Aaron McGruder of “Boondocks” on the Cartoon Network last week took critical satirical aim at Tyler Perry of TBS’ “Meet the Browns” and “House of Payne.”

          In the last episode of “The Boondocks” McGruder suggests that Perry’s television shows and movies show African Americans in a negative, stereotypical light, especially Perry’s Madea character – a gun-toting, foul-mouthed grandmother at the center of some of his most popular movies.

          McGruder then appears to take advantage of rumors that Perry is gay by including a character in his latest cartoon named Winston Jerome who is a cross-dressing cult leader seeking sex with men. Neither McGruder nor his executive producer Rodney Barnes has responded to reporters’ questions about whether the latest cartoon is an attack on Perry. Perry has also refused to respond to telephone calls from reporters.

Former NBA Star Antoine Walker Faces Prison over Gambling Debts

          (Taylor Media Services) A Nevada judge ruled recently that former NBA star player Antoine Walker must stand trial over unpaid gambling debts. Walker, who helped the Miami Heat win the NBA title in 2006, is said to owe nearly $1 million to three different Las Vegas casinos. In Las Vegas, gambling markers (money advanced) are treated like bad checkers. If convicted of signing for $1 million in markers and never repaying them, Walker could face as much as 12 years in prison.

 

          During his basketball career, Walker earned over $100 million, but he is now reported to be nearly broke.

Best-Selling Black Teen Author to Release “The Color of My Skin”

(Taylor Media Services) Best-selling African American teenage author Jerrkelia Lashaun Bazile, is set to release her new book  - The Color of My Skin, The book centers on the trials and tribulations of a Black cheerleader at a predominantly white school  but offers valuable lessons regarding determination for  high school youth.

However, the real message of the book is not to dwell on racism, institutionalized or not. The focus of the book is to elevate the victories over the struggles and obstacles she faced to become the one of the first black varsity cheerleaders at her high school. Bazile is a native od Dallas, Texas. Her first book was entitled “The Piercing that Changed My Life.

The Color of My Skin: Educating Teens and Adolescents / Credit cards accepted or send check or money order to: KeeKee's Book & More, P.O Box 1591, Rowlett, TX 75030-1591. Price: $7.95 / ISBN 978-0-9846139-0-8 / 85 pgs. / Paperback. Release date: 8/20/10

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DID YOU KNOW?

The Interesting (and sometimes astonishing) Facts Column

DID YOU KNOW that an astonishing number of Americans appear to have great difficulty going to sleep? According to MSN Money, “sales of prescription sleep aids are expected to almost double to $4.3 billion in 2010.” An estimated 70 million Americans have sleep problems. And according to the National Sleep Foundation, “only 49 percent” of Americans surveyed said they get a good night’s sleep most nights.

DID YOU KNOW that more than 40 human heads were recently (June 9) discovered on a Southwest Airlines plane on its way to Forth Worth, Texas from Little Rock, Arkansas? However, the development was not as sinister as it appeared to the airline employee who first discovered them. It seems the heads were being shipped for medical research and education.

DID YOU KNOW that if you are still smoking you might want to consider consuming large amounts of vitamin B6? A newly released study shows that people with high levels of vitamin B6 (even if they are smokers) are half as likely as others to develop lung cancer. But the American Lung Association’s chief medical officer Dr. Norman Edelman cautions a lot more research is needed before people start popping vitamin B6 supplements after each cigarette.

DID YOU KNOW that if you want to sexually attract someone to you, it might be a good idea to try lowering your voice? Psychology Professor Susan Hughes and her associates at Albright College in Reading, Pennsylvania conducted a study which showed that “both sexes used a lower-pitch voice and showed a higher level of physiological arousal when speaking to a more attractive opposite-sex target.” The study also suggested that individuals tended to manipulate their voices when speaking to different people in different situations.

DID YOU KNOW that there has been an upsurge in interracial marriages in recent years? According to a recent Pew Research Center analysis of Census Bureau data and its own telephone survey, a record 14.6 percent of all new marriages in the U.S. in 2008 involved spouses of different ethnic or racial backgrounds. The segment of the population most likely to “marry out” was Asian American women. A whopping 41 percent of them married outside their race in 2008. Second place went to Black males with 22 percent “marrying out” in 2008.

DID YOU KNOW that some men may not be able to help themselves when they cheat on their wife or girlfriend? Swedish researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm reported in June that they had found “a cheating gene.” According to the researchers men with two copies of the “allele” gene were twice as likely to engage in extra marital relationships as men with only one copy. However, the researchers said the gene explained only 28 percent of cheating behavior while 72 percent was due to other factors.

DID YOU KNOW that a growing number of medical professionals believe popular cautions against overexposure to the sun have been overdone. Indeed, there is a growing body of evidence that most Americans are Vitamin D (the sunshine vitamin) deficient and the deficiency is contributing to a host of ailments including 16 different types of cancer. A 2009 study in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that 70 percent of whites, 90 percent of Hispanics and 97 percent of blacks are Vitamin D deficient primarily because they fail to get adequate levels of sunshine.

DID YOU KNOW that this week’s favorite quote comes from 15th century Italian philosopher and political scientist Niccolo Machiavelli? -  “Entrepreneurs are simply those who understand there is little difference between obstacle and opportunity and are able to turn both to their advantage.”

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Editor’s Commentary

President Obama Was Correct to Fire General McChrystal

But Why Do We Continue an Unwinnable War?

By Robert James Taylor

          Sometimes (perhaps often) there are developments in the news which generate a lot of heat and controversy. But upon close inspection, you will frequently discover that resolution of the superficial controversy (the headline grabber) has virtually nothing to do with the underlying, fundamental which is actually driving the controversy.

          Such was the case last week when President Obama decided to fire General Stanley McChrystal – top commander of America’s military operation in Afghanistan. McChrystal had demonstrated clear disrespect and insubordination for Obama and his top aides in an interview he gave to Rolling Stone magazine. He suggested that he and other top military leaders intimidated Obama; that Obama’s national security adviser James Jones was a “clown,” and that Vice President Joe Biden was stupid or un-American for opposing an expansion of the Afghanistan war.

          However, the controversy surrounding McChrystal’s comments and his firing obfuscate the more fundamental issue: Is America actually fighting an unwinnable war in a country which is of no major international consequence. The general’s “disappointment” and anger with the president result primarily from a difference of opinion about how the war is to be prosecuted. Vice President Biden wants America to gradually phase out its war in Afghanistan while Secretary of State Hillary Clinton supported McChrystal’s call for more troops and a expanded military effort.

          President Obama fell somewhere in the middle of those two options by adding less than half the troops McChrystal had requested and by setting a July 2011 deadline to start withdrawing troops from the country..

          Regardless, the core issue is that America and its allies are stuck in a quagmire in Afghanistan. With all their sophisticated weapons and over 90,000 troops, they are not winning the war and it has just about everyone frustrated and doing a lot of second-guessing.

          For the average American citizen, the situation is Afghanistan prompts the following questions: What are we doing there and how long are we prepared to do it? Already, it is the longest war in American history having gone on longer than World War II and the war in Vietnam. When will we learn that it is nearly impossible to defeat an ideologically or religiously motivated group of guerrilla fighters in “their” own country? Did not Vietnam teach us anything?

          Can we win in Afghanistan? Possibly! But it would take a 30-year military occupation, trillions of tax dollars and the loss of tens of thousands of lives. And if we “won” in Afghanistan, what would we have? But let us not fantasize. The Taliban and their supporters in Afghanistan are religious extremists who deeply believe in their cause and are willing to fight and die to drive foreigners from their country.

          They are not going anywhere. They can win without winning. All they have to do is keep us from winning. Both Obama and McChrystal fail to get this fundamental point. There is no-win in Afghanistan. An argument over how to pursue the war is futile. The president can fire all the generals he desires but we are staring at another Vietnam – a no-win war against a lesser but determined opponent who will never leave their country, especially when they know that if they just wear us down we will leave.

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Op-Ed Commentary/Opinion

If Americans, Especially Blacks, Got More Sunshine Diseases Could Be Prevented

Dr. Frank Lipman - Integrative Physician

(First posted in the Huffington Post)

For the last 30 years or so, doctors (dermatologists in particular), health officials, beauty experts and many product companies have been demonizing the sun. They've told us to avoid it because without sunscreen, exposure to the sun's rays will damage skin and cause cancer. But this oversimplification distorts the facts. In the past few years, numerous studies have shown that optimizing your vitamin D levels may actually help prevent as many as 16 different types of cancer including pancreatic, lung, breast, ovarian, prostate and colon cancers. And the best way to optimize Vitamin D levels is through safe, smart and limited sunscreen-free exposure to the sun.

For hundreds of thousands of years, man has lived with the sun: Our ancestors were outdoors far more often than indoors. We developed a dependence on sunshine for health and life, so the idea that sunlight is dangerous does not make sense. How could we have evolved and survived as a species, if we were that vulnerable to something humans have been constantly exposed to for their entire existence? Is it possible that our bodies are made in such a way that the sun is really a lethal enemy? Not in my opinion. Like all living things, we need sunshine, and it feels good for a reason. Much as plants harness the sun's rays through photosynthesis, our bodies use sunlight to help the skin produce the vitamin D it needs to build bones, quell inflammation, bolster the immune system and protect against cancer (including skin cancer).

Why demonize the sun?

Western medicine has made a practice of telling us to abstain from things that are bad for us in extreme quantities, when in fact those same thingsfat, salt and sunshine for exampleare very good for us when consumed wisely and in moderation. In the case of sunshine, our UV paranoia is contributing to a silent epidemic: Vitamin D deficiency. It's silent because most people don't know they are deficient. And it's deadly, because this deficiency can lead to cancer and a multitude of other diseases. But we've been brainwashed into believing that even small amounts of sunshine will harm us, and told to slather on sunscreen, which blocks vitamin D production and exacerbates the Vitamin D deficiency induced by our modern, indoor lives.

Studies show that as many as three out of four Americans suffer from Vitamin D deficiency. A study published in 2009 in the Archives of Internal Medicine (a leading scientific journal, found that 70 percent of Caucasians, 90 percent of Hispanics and 97 percent of African Americans in the US have insufficient blood levels of vitamin D. Indeed, it's thought to be the most common medical condition in the world, affecting over one billion people and we now have research showing just how essential vitamin D is to health.

And now the experts are concerned that we're passing an epidemic of vitamin D deficiency down to a new generation. Studies have shown that vitamin D deficiency may imprint on an infant for the rest of his/her life. Infants that are vitamin D deficient at birth can remain vitamin D deficient for the first several months after birth, which may put them at risk of developing many chronic diseases much later in life.

What is Vitamin D and how much do you need?

Although called a vitamin, it is not. Vitamin D is in a class by itself, behaving more like a hormone. It is made in the skin, gets into your bloodstream and then goes into the liver and the kidney where it becomes activated as a key steroid hormone called Calcitriol. It then goes to the intestines, bones and other tissues, effecting metabolic pathways and the expression of myriad genes. Vitamin D's active form can interact with almost every cell in the body directly or indirectly, targeting up to two thousand genes, or about six percent of the human genome. It is necessary for numerous cellular functions, and when the body does not have what it needs to function optimally, it follows that we experience a decline in health and put ourselves at risk of disease. We now know that almost every cell and tissue in our body has vitamin D receptors, which raises the question: Why would those receptors be there if they weren't meant to have an effect?

Our vitamin D needs vary with age, body weight, percent of body fat, latitude, skin coloration, season of the year, use of sun block, individual reactions to sun exposure, and our overall health. As a general rule, older people need more vitamin D than younger people, large people need more that small people, fat people need more than skinny people, northern people need more than southern people, dark-skinned people need more than fair skinned people, winter people need more than summer people, sun-phobes need more than sun worshipers, and ill people may need more than well people.

The best way to determine whether or not you are deficient is to have your vitamin D blood levels measured and replenish accordingly.

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Op-Ed Commentary/Opinion

Is there an Effort to Divide the African Nation of Sudan? – The Exodus

By William Reed

Once again, Western countries are succeeding in cutting another African country down to size.  Sudan, a country in northeastern Africa, is the largest country in Africa and in the Arab World, and the tenth largest in the world by area. Sudan is rich with abundant resources represented in vast areas of land and varying climates.   Sudan was made special with fertile agricultural lands, large amounts of fresh water, and a variety in animal resources.   But, the crown jewel of Sudan’s current economy is oil production.  And, that’s the base of the Sudan story.

Sudan produces 500,000 barrels of oil per day and has reserves estimated at six billion barrels.  But that may go away.  With just months until the referendum to determine whether the South remains part of a united Sudan, coupled with the conflict in Darfur , the country remains volatile and its future uncertain.  The future of North and South Sudan is rooted in implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) which requires the January 2011 referendum.  For American advocates, it’s important to ensure a smooth referendum process and beyond.  For the political movements in Sudan it’s important to keep a hand on the tiller.  Under the National Congress Party (NCP) and Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) coalition government, Sudan’s economy is currently the 5th largest in Africa and one of the fastest growing in the world.  The per capita Gross National Product (GNP) in 2009 was $2,300.  Sudan has 42 million people and a labor force of 12 million.  But, the booming economy and vast array of products exported may soon experience drastic changes.

About 70 percent of oil pumped in Sudan comes from the South.  Separation of Sudan will deny the North billions of dollars in revenue from the South’s vast oilfields. Currently the North and the South split proceeds from crude in accordance with CPA requirements.  In what is likely Sudan’s last unified government ahead of January’s secession referendum, President Omar al-Bashir appointed Southerner Lual Acuek Deng to a new cabinet post with an “Oil Minister” portfolio.    American political activists still see Sudan in terms of the decades of civil war between the mostly Muslim North and the South, which follows Traditional and Christian beliefs.

Sudan’s ruling political parties are the National Congress Party (NCP) and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM).  In the April races for the National Assembly the NCP won 73% of seats, while the SPLM won 22%.  The NCP is headed by Omar al-Bashir and follows ideologies such as Islamism, Arabism, nationalism and conservatism.  However, Western human rights groups and governments claim it attempts to create a totalitarian state through extreme Islamic and dictatorial practices.  The SPLM is a predominantly Christian rebel movement turned political party.  The SPLM has been the US favorite in the fight.  Based in Southern Sudan, SPLM fought against the Sudanese government from 1983 to 2005.  Since signing the CPA in 2005, the SPLM has had representatives in the North’s government, as well as the Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS).  Salva Kiir is First Vice President of Sudan and the SPLM Chairman.

Beyond politics, opportunities abound in the vast lands that make up Sudan.  For example, Juba, the capital of the South, has just three paved roads.  The region's lack of infrastructure is an opportunity for investors and donors from banking to agriculture to construction and telecommunications.  While much of Southern Sudan's development is likely to be undertaken by local companies and individuals, the U.S. government provides important encouragement and opportunities for American companies and donors to contribute to help build Southern Sudan.

(William Reed is available for speaking engagements via BaileyGroup.org)

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The Better Life Page: Opportunities, Money, Jobs & Advice

Cancer Research Center Launches Online Smoking Cessation Study

(Taylor Media Services) Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has announced that it is launching a new online study to help people quit smoking. The study, called WebQuit, is enrolling adult smokers nationwide. Participation is free to eligible individuals. The goal of WebQuit is to improve the effectiveness of online smoking-cessation programs. Study director Jonathan Bricker, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist who specializes in smoking-cessation research, says that online smoking-cessation programs are improving but still have a very long way to go.

Involvement in the study will entail completing online questionnaires, including several follow-up surveys. Eligible participants must be at least 18 and not currently participating in other smoking-cessation programs, among other requirements. To enroll in the WebQuit study or for more information, please visit www.webquit.com

Five Ways to Be Successful in Business or any Endeavor

By Wayne Kiltz

A home business is possible; just use the five steps below.

#1 - Passion - Passion is what drives you, and will shine through all your communications with people. Passion keeps you keeping on when all others have given up. You don't just like selling African crafts. You have a fire-in-the-belly passion. You love these pieces of Art, whether it's a hand-stitched garment or a hand-made drum, so much that your love translates into every sale.

If you don't have passion for what you sell or the business, don't start selling. Without passion you will give up on your home business and craft too soon. You may even learn to hate this job and be unhappy. And THAT will show in your work.

#2 - Quality - If you want your home business in it for the long haul, reputation is so important. A hand-made item from Africa will command better prices than any machine-made products made in a factory using cheap materials. Nothing beats QUALITY.

#3 - Uniqueness - You are a unique individual and what or how you sell should have a little touch of your personality. Tell your customers why you like a particular item, or customize it in your own way.

This is much easier with the personal care products; you can easily add your favorite fragrance to a lotion, soap, or incense, and then call it your own! You can wear your favorite African garments and when people ask you about them when you're out and about (and people WILL ask) you can always tell them about your home business. People can't find hand-made African products elsewhere, so you may be their only way to enjoy these great African products.

#4 - Targeting - Research thoroughly until you identify and understand your target market. This is the hardest step but once you know your customers, you will save yourself a lot of time and grief.

Millions of people search ebay and you can look there to see if your items sell. Just don't get discouraged if you don't see it there. Lots of items sell well offline but not online. And bargain hunters are everywhere on ebay. You may not get a fair price for your item. Use ebay as a marketing research tool. It's great for testing the waters and sometimes you actually get a great price for your item.

Search out that target market at every opportunity. Your local community probably has more opportunities than you could ever imagine for your home business. Targeting makes selling so much easier.  Go to your local salons to sell personal care products, put up a flier in your local grocery or whole foods store, have a home party and invite your friends. Eventually you will figure out who is most interested in your products and who to target.

#5 - Persistence - Be relentless. If you do the first four steps, persistence will pay off. Always keep moving forward. Learn more about your products than anyone else (passion really keeps you going here) and keep searching for those targeted customers.

Be strong through rejections. Learn from them, adjust, and make steady progress. This is why passion is the first step for your home business to succeed. If your passion wanes, your persistence will, too. Without persistence, starting a home business will be a very short term endeavor.

Wayne Kiltz is the founder and owner of Africa Imports. You can find over 100 other articles on African art, culture, and fashion at http://www.africaimports.com To see more African Business visit http://africaimports.com/startupkit.asp

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July 1, 2010

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The Week’s Black News Trends & Developments

President Obama Seeking to Change Nation’s Courts with Minorities and Women

But Republicans Are Delaying His Efforts

          President Obama

(Taylor Media Services) President Obama came into office with a pledge to counter President Bush’s attempt to load the nation’s federal court with conservative judges. Obama clearly indicated that he would seek to appoint more minorities and women to the federal bench. And thus far the president has been living up to his word.

          Indeed, University of Massachusetts political science professor Sheldon Goldman has labeled the president’s efforts “extraordinary.” A new report show Obama has nominated 73 candidates to the federal bench. Of that number, half have been women, 25 percent have been African Americans, 11 percent Asian Americans and 10 percent Hispanics. But Republican senators have been using just about every delaying tactic in the book to slow down the confirmation of the president’s nominees.

          Indeed, the judicial activist group Alliance for Justice says the first year of Obama’s administration has witnessed the smallest number of federal judges nominated and confirmed since 1953 – President Dwight Eisenhower’s first year in office. More and more of President Obama’s nominees are expected to be confirmed but currently the Republicans are largely succeeding in their obstructionist efforts.

Seattle Police Promise Review of Tactics after Officer Punches Black Girl in Face

           White officer punches 17-year-old Black girl in the face

(Taylor Media Services) The Seattle, Washington police department moved quickly last week in promising a review of apparently racist police tactics after an officer was caught on videotape punching a 17-year-old Black girl in the face in an incident growing out of a jaywalking stop. The incident comes on the heels of an April incident in which officers were caught kicking, stomping and uttering racist language at a Hispanic robbery suspect as he lay on the ground.

          In last week’s incident, Officer Ian Welsh can be clearly seen punching Angela Rosenthal in the face after she attempted to intervene in his arrest of her friend Marilyn Ellen Levias. The arrest grew out of a case of alleged jaywalking and an argument which followed.

          The Seattle police union backed the 39-year-old Walsh saying he was defending himself. But Acting Deputy Chief Nick Metz said the police department was “withholding judgment” pending a special internal investigation. Meanwhile, Walsh has been temporarily placed in the department’s training unit.

Conservative Congressman Accuses President Obama of Favoring Blacks over Whites

          (Taylor Media Services) Conservative Iowa Republican Congressman Steve King last week kicked off a national furor by asserting that President Obama favors Black Americans over white Americans. King’s exact words on the G. Gordon Liddy syndicated radio show were “The president has a default mechanism in him that breaks down the side of race – on the side that favors the black person.”

          Congressman Steve King

In support of his allegation, the outspoken right winger charged that the president sided with Black Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates during a controversy with a white Cambridge, Massachusetts police officer when the officer accused Gates of attempting to break into his own house in a predominantly white neighborhood. King was also critical of Black U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder charging that in a recent speech Holder suggested by whites were “cowards” when it came to issues of race.

          Ironically, some civil rights leaders and members of the Congressional Black Caucus have been accusing Obama of not doing enough to help African Americans citing the ongoing high unemployment rate among Blacks.

Five New Orleans Officers Indicted in Hurricane Katrina Killing of Innocent Black Man

          (Taylor Media Services) A federal grand jury last week indicted three current and two former New Orleans police officers in the death of a Black man they shot and allowed to bleed to death during the 2005 turmoil which existed in the city following Hurricane Katrina. For years the New Orleans Police Department attempted to cover up the death of Henry Glover. But an article by investigative reporter A.C. Thompson prompted a federal investigation.

          Officer David Warren was charged with shooting Glover in the chest with an assault rifle. Two other officers were accused of burning Glover’s body and then assaulting a man who attempted to help Glover after he had been shot. Currently, there are seven other federal investigations into the actions of New Orleans police officers during the Hurricane Katrina period.

          A.C. Thompson appeared on Democracy Now earlier this year and described what he learned about the killing of Glover:

"And on September 2nd, 2005, somebody, we believe probably a New Orleans police officer, shot him a single time in the chest. He was rescued by a Good Samaritan who drove him, ironically, to a place where police were camped out, thinking that the police could help him, give him medical aid, and save his life. But according to three different witnesses that I’ve interviewed, the police didn’t offer any assistance. What they instead did was they let Henry Glover bleed to death in the backseat of the car, and they physically assaulted the men that he was with, including the Good Samaritan."

Rare Photograph of Slave Children Hits the Internet

          (Taylor Media Services) One of the most popular items on the internet last week was “a haunting” 150-year-old photograph of a black slave child named John sitting barefoot on a barrel wearing ragged clothes and with a facial expression which combined fear, anger and wonder. Sitting next to him is a smaller unidentified slave boy. The photo was found in the attic of a North Carolina home. It was accompanied by a document detailing the sale of John for $1,150.00.

          Art historians say the photograph is an extremely rare Civil War era photo of children who were either slaves at the time or who had been recently freed. The photo, which may have been taken in the early 1860s, was a testament to a dark part of American history, said Will Stapp, a photographic historian and founding curator of the National Portrait Gallery's photographs department at the Smithsonian Institution.

"It's a very difficult and poignant piece of American history," he said. "What you are looking at when you look at this photo are two boys who were victims of that history." New York collector Keya Morgan said he paid $30,000 for the photo album including the photo of the young boys and several family pictures and $20,000 for the sale document. Morgan said the deceased owner of the home where the photo was found was thought to be a descendant of John.


Congressional Committee to Investigate Pfizer for Alleged Targeting of Blacks

          (Taylor Media Services) The chief investigative committee of the U.S. House of Representatives announced last week that it will be looking into pharmaceutical giant Pfizer’s alleged targeting of African American transplant patients for off-label use of the controversial drug Rapamune. The investigation was prompted by Congressional Black Caucus member Edophus Towns of New York who said Pfizer placed Black patients at risk and compared the Rapamune controversy to the infamous Tuskegee syphilis experiment.

          Pfizer’s targeting of Blacks with the drug came to light last month when the details of a lawsuit filed against the company were unsealed. Pfizer allegedly targeted transplant centers used primarily by African Americans. The lawsuit and Congressman Towns charge that the lives of Black patients “were placed at serious risk for life threatening ailments.” Meanwhile, Pfizer counters that it did not target Blacks because the controversial drug was used in “a broad range of patients.”

          Towns is chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The Tuskegee syphilis experiment was a fraudulent government sponsored program which ran from 1932 to `1972 in which a group of poor Southern Black men were led to believe they were being treated for syphilis when actually the men were not being treated at all because the doctors were secretly measuring the long term effects of syphilis on the human body.

Black Baptist Group Donates $500,000 to Aid Rebuilding Effort in Haiti

          (Taylor Media Services) The Africa American Baptist Mission Collaboration (AABMC) has donated $500,000 to the Atlanta-based Habitat for Humanity International to help Haitians rebuild their homes in the devastating earthquake which hit the nation last January. The contribution is the largest single donation to Habitat for Humanity – a humanitarian organization founded by former President Jimmy Carter.

          Haitian government officials estimate that the earthquake killed 230,000, injured 300,000 and left over one million homeless. AABMC is composed of the National Baptist Convention, USA; National Baptist Convention of American; National Missionary Baptist Convention of America and the Progressive National Baptist Convention. More African Americans are Baptists than any other religious denomination. For more information on AABMC, contact Dr. David Emmanuel Goatley regarding the group effort at (202) 543-3200 or degoatley@aol.com.

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Entertainment, People, Books & Style!

Homerun King Barry Bonds Wins Major Legal Victory; Case against Him Could Be Dropped

          (Taylor Media Services) Baseball’s “homerun king” Barry Bonds won a major legal victory last week. California’s 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that key evidence government prosecutors had planned to use against Bonds could not be presented in court. The prosecutors had wanted to introduce positive urine samples and other key evidence which the government said would prove that Bonds lied when he told a grand jury he did not knowingly use steroids.

          Barry Bonds

Bonds is set to go on trial for lying to a grand jury about his alleged use of steroids which are banned by Major League Baseball. But the federal court upheld a lower court ruling which asserted that since the urine samples had been collected by Bonds’ personal trainer Greg Anderson, the evidence could not be used in court unless Anderson testified as to its authenticity.

          But Anderson has long maintained that he would go to jail rather than testify against Bonds. The court held that without Anderson’s testimony the urine samples would be inadmissible hearsay evidence. Prosecutors now have four options: they can ask for an 11-judge panel to rehear the case; appeal to the United States Supreme Court; continue to trial with weaker, less-convincing evidence or drop the case.

          Bonds trial had been set to begin in March of last year but had been delayed as attorneys awaited the circuit court’s ruling on the controversial evidence.

Tiger Woods’ Relationship with Other Women May Have Produced at Least One Child

          29-year-old former porno star Devon James says Tiger Woods is father of her child

(Taylor Media Services) Golfing sensation Tiger Woods’ scandalous sexual relationships with women other than his wife became a bit more scandalous last week. Porno movie star Devon James issued a claim that her nine year old son Austin T. James was fathered by Woods. James thus became the second of Woods’ at least 14 mistresses to claim that the golfer had fathered her child.

          The first was Theresa Rogers who said this past December that she had Woods’ baby in 2004 but had negotiated a multimillion-dollar settlement not to publicly reveal the name of the child’s father. Meanwhile, James has never had a DNA test to prove that Woods is the father but a spokesperson issued a statement saying, in part, “she knows he is the father of her son because he is the only African American man she dated at that time.”

          Woods has had nothing to say about the various claims but James’ mother suggested in an interview last week that her daughter could be lying.

O.J. Simpson Seeks Freedom Arguing Discrimination in His Trial

          O.J. Simpson

(Taylor Media Services) Lawyers for one-time football great O.J. Simpson argued “discrimination” last week as they appealed his 2008 robbery and kidnapping conviction before a Nevada court. Simpson’s lead attorney Yale Galanter charged that the prosecution discriminated by excluding the only two African Americans in the jury pool. However, the prosecutors argued that the two Blacks were excluded because their appeared reluctant to send Simpson to jail.  

          Galanter also argued that the trial judge Jackie Glass displayed prejudice against Simpson and his co-defendants. He charged that Glass had not been impartial and “tried to portray a biased picture to change the perception of the jury against the defendants.”

          Simpson had been found not guilty during a sensational trial in which he was accused of killing his ex-wife Nicole and her friends Mark Goodman. Many Americans, especially whites, felt Simpson got away with murder in that 1995 case. Meanwhile, it remains unclear as to when the Nevada court will render a decision in the latest case.

Halle Berry Reportedly Will Grace the Cover of Vogue’s All-Important September Issue

          Halle Berry

(Taylor Media Services) Highly informed sources were reporting last week that Black superstar Halle Berry will appear on the cover of Vogue magazine’s trend-setting September issue. The September edition of the monthly fashion and style publication is generally viewed as the most important issue of the year. If the reports are true, this will be the first time a Black woman has appeared on the September Vogue cover since supermodel Naomi Campbell made her appearance in 1989.

          Sources inside the magazine said they were “95% sure” that Berry will be on the September cover. Vogue made history in 1974 when it became the first major American style and advice magazine to place a Black woman on its cover. That honor went to African American model and now businesswoman Beverly Johnson.

Radio One Gets $400 Million Loan and Moves to Increase Stake in TV One

          (Taylor Media Services) Radio One Inc., the nation’s largest owner of Black-oriented radio stations, last week secured a $400 million loan and immediately moved to refinance all its outstanding debt and increase its stake in TV One, LLC. The loan concists of a $50 million revolving credit and a $350 million term loan.

 

          Radio One had been in financial trouble but when news of the loan hit Wall Street, the company’s shares rose by 4 cents to $2.77 per cent. Affiliates of Germany’s giant Deutsche Bank will provide the revolving loan. Radio One was founded by Black businesswoman Cathy Hughes and is currently managed by her son. Radio One already owns 37 percent of TV One and will now pay $82 million to increase its stake by another 19 percent.


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Editor’s Commentary

In Understanding, If Not Defense, of Helen Thomas’ Comments Regarding Israel

By Robert James Taylor

          Recently, everyone from the White House to the White House Correspondents Association denounced veteran journalist Helen Thomas because she committed the unpardonable sin of suggesting that Israel had no right to the lands it occupies in the Middle East and that the lands should be returned to the Palestinians. Thomas’s exact words were that Israelis “should get the hell out of Palestine” and that the Jews there should return to Germany or Poland.

          Thomas was wrong to suggest that the European Jews should remove themselves from the Middle East. It is too late in the day to challenge Israel’s “right to exist.” Driven in part by sorrow for the atrocities the Nazis committed against the Jews during World War II, the United Nations created the state of Israel as a Jewish haven in 1948. It was an attempt to atone for the fact that much of the world stood by doing nothing as Adolph Hitler slaughtered million of Jews.

          Nevertheless, the fact cannot be disregarded (although many try) that Israel was established on land which rightfully belonged to the Palestinian people. The land was literally stolen from the Palestinians and given to the Jews. Then in subsequent wars, especially the 1967 war, Israel seized and occupied even more Palestinian and Arab lands in complete violation of international law.

          However, in order to maintain its grip on those lands, Israel had to suppress and oppress the Palestinian people. It did this with the aid, support and connivance of Western nations led by the United States.

          Thus, the core problem in the Middle East is not Arab hatred of Jews or Palestinian terrorism as the pro-Zionist U.S. media loves to suggest. Those two issues are results of the core problem which is Israel’s ongoing occupation of Palestinian land and the fact that the occupation requires the never-ending suppression of the Palestinian people. Israel’s current blockade of Gaza and near-starvation strategy towards Gaza’s 1.4 million Palestinian residents is simply the latest example of Israel’s policy or occupation and suppression.

          Helen Thomas’ “inappropriate” comments helped to give public light to the above referenced core problem. It was a much needed light because as a rule American media and politicians give the American public an almost completely biased picture of the Middle East conflict. The Palestinians are portrayed as the “bad guys” when in fact they are the aggrieved and most brutalized party.

          Throughout her over 50-year career, Thomas has stood virtually alone as just about the only prominent White House correspondent who would even dare to raise the truth about Israel and the core issues which keep the Middle East conflict aflame. For this, we all must thank her.

[Robert Taylor welcomes responses to his commentaries. Share your views with him at http://blackhistoryclub.ning.com or email them to TaylorMediaprime@yahoo.com .

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Op-Ed Commentary/Opinion

How A Black Man Helped Create the Current Mess in the Middle East!

By William Reed

Were he alive today, a number of people would be throwing shoes at Dr. Ralph H. Bunche.  Most African Americans know little of the role Dr. Bunche played in today’s Mille-East debacles.  Ralph Bunche, not Barack Obama, was the first African American awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace.  But, among African Americans that know of Bunche many are critics that saying he was “a useful idiot” that enabled Western Powers’ plans to establish the State of Israel.

 

Bunche was given the 1950 Peace Prize for “successful mediation of a series of armistice agreements involving Egypt , Jordan , Lebanon and Syria” that brought about the ability to make Israel a nation.  Bunche thought he was making a peace that has never come.  The deal Bunche made created a situation that has left 4 million Palestinian refugees spread across the Middle East.

 

Willing tool as he was, Bunche believed that “no problem of human relations is ever insoluble”.  But, results count and Bunche foolishly thought he was setting the course for “two states living side-by-side”.  Bunche never foresaw the wantonness with which the Jewish State would evict the Arabs and expropriate their lands.  Sixty years after the fact, the Palestinians are landless and Bunche's dream of a peaceful Middle East wanes.  Mainstream Blacks celebrate Bunche, but African-Americans like Malcolm X, in the 1960s, criticized Ralph Bunche’s role saying: “the agreements started a process that created millions of Palestinian refugees and Jewish taking of Palestinian property as their ‘historical homeland’”.

 

Will the African American population ever experience an epiphany and figure out the injustices occurring in the settlement activities on Palestinians’ land?   Few African American leaders have challenged these patterns.  Before he was beaten into submission, Rev. Andrew Young gave an effort to righting the wrong.  After serving with Martin Luther King, Young was elected to Congress in 1972.  In 1977, President Jimmy Carter appointed Young the first African-American Ambassador to the United Nations.   During his brief and stormy career at the UN Young emerged as a leading spokesman for relations with African and Third World nations.  A storm of protest from Israeli and American Jewish leaders following Young's violation of the US’s prohibition against meeting with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), forced his resignation in 1979.

Since Young little is being done in aiding the people Bunche though he was helping: “people whose normal place of residence was Palestine, who lost their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict".   In obedience to tradition, our first Black President continues America’s past treatment of Palestinian people.  Members of the Congressional Black Caucus have a “go along to get along” posture of compliance on the issue and regularly vote Israel $3 billion in aid each year.

Thousands of Black American preachers and pundits have had sponsored trips to the “Holy Land.”  They comprise a cadre that sees no evil in the ongoing treatment of the Palestinians.  Many Blacks fear expressing dissent when issues about Israel are raised.  If you don't agree that Israel is a moral exemplar and light to the world, "the only democracy in the Middle East" that is just attending reasonably to its security needs against a world that is (for no good reason) hostile to it, you can be hounded, harassed, intimidated, discredited, denied tenure or fired. 

A movement like that the one that combated apartheid in South Africa , is needed to increase awareness of the depth of Israel 's practices toward Palestinians.  Surely Bunche would “call a spade a spade and endorse a global movement advocating on behalf of equity for the Palestinian people.  Former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney was forced from her seat for being evenhanded on Middle East issues.

Israel’s right to exist does not confer a right to abuse and oppress the Palestine population.  It's time to respect the right of Palestine to exist as much as we insist that the Palestinian peoples respect Israel's right to exist.  When Palestinians can go home maybe then, Ralph Bunche will rest in peace.

(William Reed is available via the Lakeland, Florida-based BaileyGroup.org)

Op-Ed Commentary/Opinion

Historian Van Gosse Says Black Republicans Have a Problem with History

Source: Huffington Post (6-14-10)

[Van Gosse is a historian and author specializing in American political development, the African-American struggle for citizenship and American society in the Cold War era and since. He is author of Where the Boys Are: Cuba, Cold War America, and the Making of a New Left, The Movements of the New Left 1950-1975, and the forthcoming We Are Americans: Black Politics and the Origins of Black Power in Antebellum America.]

The Republican Party is trumpeting its unprecedented number of African-American congressional candidates -- 32 in all. But serious political analysts know that it's going to take a lot more than long-shot candidates in Democratic districts, or the occasional election of a black representative from a white district like J. C. Watts in Oklahoma or Gary Franks in Connecticut, to convince black Americans that the G.O.P gives a damn.

There's a reason black voters will almost always vote for a white Democrat over a black Republican, and the term "black Republican" itself is an oxymoron. Most commentators understandably treat a figure like RNC Chair Michael Steele as, at best, a curiosity. After all, why would any self-respecting African-American participate in a party that has so many leaders flaunting on their lapels Confederate flags while celebrating "Confederate History Month"?

Steele's cohort can claim a legacy of African-American Republicanism stretching back to the party's 1854 founding and earlier. As the Party of Lincoln, the G.O.P was founded to oppose slavery, so naturally there were Republicans of color back in the 19th century. But black Republicanism lasted deep into the 20th century, just as the all-white, openly racist southern Democratic Party did; Alabama Democrats kept their official ballot emblem as "the Party of White Supremacy" into the late 1960s.

In the North, black Republicans remained a useful bloc of urban voters, offsetting Democrats' strength among European immigrants. In Cleveland, Chicago, Boston and even Memphis, they built enduring local machines, and Chicago's proved powerful enough to send black Republican Oscar DePriest to Congress in 1928. Black men in states like Mississippi and Georgia retained power in the remnants of the southern Republican Party as delegates to presidential conventions, with seats on the National Committee into the 1950s.

A majority of blacks switched to Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936, but until 1964 Republicans fought to get them back, pointing out that segregationist Democrats blocked civil rights legislation in Congress. It's difficult to imagine now, but small-government conservatives in the 1940s and 1950s had no trouble embracing civil rights as part of old-fashioned Republicanism. But in 1961 Barry Goldwater's "movement conservatives" decided to "go hunting where the ducks are" and embrace the White South. Instead of stalwart civil rights leaders like Senators Jacob Javits, Charles Mathias and Ed Brooke, the black Massachusetts Republican elected in 1966, the G.O.P was taken over by ex-Democratic segregationists like Jesse Helms, Strom Thurmond and Trent Lott.

America has always had a "white man's party." For most of our history it was the Democrats, whose big tent extended to Catholic immigrants like my Irish great-great-grandfather. The enduring political fact of the last half-century is how Republicans, beginning with Nixon's 1968 "Southern Strategy," stole the mantle of the White Party.

Despite gestures like making Colin Powell Secretary of State, the Republicans are a party hostile to black interests. A large percentage of their base refuses to accept that President Obama is a U.S. citizen, a delusional and undeniably racist stance. Periodically, principled conservatives like Jack Kemp in the 1990s, or party chairman Ken Mehlman in 2005-2006, try to make amends, but these efforts are all stillborn. Until the G.O.P returns to its roots as the party insisting on the absolute equality of all human beings, for which it fought a bloody civil war, Michael Steele knows he is a man without a party, or rather, his party died a long time ago.

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The Better Life Page: Opportunities, Money, Jobs & Advice

Cancer Research Center Launches Online Smoking Cessation Study

(Taylor Media Services) Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has announced that it is launching a new online study to help people quit smoking. The study, called WebQuit, is enrolling adult smokers nationwide. Participation is free to eligible individuals. The goal of WebQuit is to improve the effectiveness of online smoking-cessation programs. Study director Jonathan Bricker, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist who specializes in smoking-cessation research, says that online smoking-cessation programs are improving but still have a very long way to go.

Involvement in the study will entail completing online questionnaires, including several follow-up surveys. Eligible participants must be at least 18 and not currently participating in other smoking-cessation programs, among other requirements. To enroll in the WebQuit study or for more information, please visit www.webquit.com

Nation Get Its First Online Directory of African American Baby Names

(Taylor Media Services) BlackBabyNames.org recently launched as the first ever online directory that exclusively lists names for African and African American boys and girls. Nearly 200,000 babies are born everyday, and of that number at least 25,000 are Black. The new website helps expecting parents find and choose the right names, but it also helps them to preserve the legacy of their ancestors.

Created by the National Registry of Black Baby Names, the site lists nearly 5,000 popular and distinct names, and beside each name is its very own unique meaning. The names vary in origin, pronunciation, and style. Some are African, Chinese, French, English, and even Czech. For more details interested persons can visit: www.BlackBabyNames.org

Help Your Father Avoid the Top Five Health Risks for Men

Chicago, IL -- BlackDoctor.org, the leading health destination for African Americans, has created a list of the top five health threats to men. Keep this go-to guide handy so you and your dad have all the tools you need to live longer, healthier and happier lives.

No. 1 - Heart Disease
Heart disease is the leading health threat for men. Take charge by making healthier lifestyle choices:
* Eat a healthy diet rich in vegetables, fruits, whole grains, fiber and fish. Cut back on foods high in saturated fat and sodium.
* Work with you doctor to help lower high cholesterol, high blood pressure and stress.
* Improve your lifestyle habits by maintaining a healthy weight and engaging in regular physical activity. And don't smoke!

No. 2 - Cancer
To prevent cancer, reread the bullets above and heed the ones below:
* Consult your doctor for regular cancer screenings. Blacks need to be screened at least 10 years earlier than whites for most types of cancer, including prostate and colon cancer.
* As with heart disease prevention, eat a healthy, fiber-rich diet, exercise regularly and don't smoke.
* Reduce exposure to potential cancer-causing substances (carcinogens), such as radon, asbestos, radiation and air pollution.

No. 3 - Injuries
The leading cause of fatal accidents among men is motor vehicle crashes, according to the CDC. To reduce your risk of a deadly crash:
* Wear your seat belt and follow the regulated speed limit.
* Don't drive under the influence of alcohol or any other substances.
* Don't drive while sleepy. Always take breaks if you need them.

No. 4 - Stroke
You can't control some stroke risk factors, such as family history, age and race. But you can control other contributing factors:
* If you have high cholesterol, high blood pressure or diabetes, follow your doctor's treatment recommendations.
* Limit the amount of saturated fat and cholesterol in your diet. Avoid trans fat entirely.
* Maintain a healthy weight and include physical activity in your daily routine. And we just can't say it enough: don't smoke!

No. 5 - COPD
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a group of chronic lung conditions, including