The Black Informant

Marvin Winans is by far my favorite male gospel artist. In fact, as I type this, I am playing some Winans music from back in the day. Anyway, here is a video clip I was able to find on YouTube.

Enjoy!

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(washingtonpost.com) “Jesse Jackson and Prince George’s County Executive Jack B. Johnson yesterday announced a plan to use the county as a laboratory” for addressing the problems plaguing young African American men.

Under the agreement, county officials and Jackson’s RainbowPUSH Coalition will create a task force of educators, parents, lawyers, business leaders and elected officials to address such problems as the high rates of illiteracy, teen fatherhood, crime, imprisonment, unemployment, poverty and high school dropouts.

The solutions developed here — with the resources and leadership of a well-educated, black middle class — could be exported across the country much as Selma and Montgomery, Ala., were used as staging grounds for civil rights fights in the 1960s, Jackson said.

“The problem of young black males in this country is a national crisis,” Jackson said. “We will convene a group consisting of leadership and parents to work on a focused initiative to break the cycle affecting these youths.” (more…)

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From the website of The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

“There were numerous organizations and associations formed by African Americans in Harlem. The purpose of many of these clubs was social; however, these organizations also served as networking and support systems for doctors, lawyers, actors, politicians and businessmen and women in the community. Often they would have group portraits taken with the club’s banner and insignia.

This photograph is of the Wall Street Boys Association. Research has not yet uncovered the purpose of this organization. However, the banner indicates some relationship to the financial industry.” (more…)

While there is much “high-fiv’n” going on regarding the passage of the latest war-funding bill that sets a timetable for troop pullout, the truth is like all past bills, many Democrats (like all other bills considered) still were not convinced about this latest proposal. The only way they were able to get agreement had nothing to do with the war, but the promise of funding for pet projects. Here are some of them included in the bill:

- Spinach: Provides $25 million for payments to spinach producers that were unable to market spinach crops as a result of the FDA Public Health Advisory issued on September 14, 2006.

– Shrimp: Provides $120 million to the shrimp industry for expenses related to the consequences of Hurricane Katrina.

– Peanut Storage Subsidies: Provides $74 million to extend peanut storage payments through 2007. The Peanut Subsidy Storage program, which is set to expire this year, pays farmers for the storage, handling, and other costs for peanuts voluntarily placed in the marketing loan program.

– Aquaculture Operations: Provides $5 million for payments to “aquaculture operations and other persons in the U.S. engaged in the business of breeding, rearing, or transporting live fish” (such as shellfish, oysters and clams) to cover economic losses incurred as a result of an emergency order issued by the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service on October 24, 2006.

– NASA: Provides $35 million to NASA, under the “exploration capabilities” account, for “expenses related to the consequences of Hurricane Katrina.”

– HUD Indian Housing: Provides $80 million in tenant-based rental assistance for public and Indian housing under HUD.

(source)

(nytimes.com) With an average class size of nine, the tiny Sea Isle City school district on the Jersey Shore is spending $33,805 for each of its 90 students this school year, or nearly three times the statewide average of $12,098 a student, according to figures released this morning by the New Jersey Department of Education.

By contrast, some 140 miles up the coast, the Guttenberg school district in Hudson County is spending an average of $7,426 for each of its 900-plus students, having eliminated most extra-curricular activities because of budget problems.

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At the upper end of the spending range are small, affluent school districts, like Sea Isle or Avalon, a neighboring shore town in Cape May County that spends $29,982 for each student, or the Alpine school district in Bergen County, which spends $21,534.

Many of the state’s Abbott districts also spend far more than the state average. Asbury Park schools, for instance, are spending $19,102 for each student this year, according to the survey, and the Newark schools $17,974 per student.

The bottom end of the range includes the Woodlynne schools in Camden, which will spend $7,660 for each student.

In many school districts, administrators said, the rising cost of teacher salaries and benefits pushed up operating costs even as they sought to reduce spending on other budget items. (more…)

Some may ask “Why do you spend so much time highlighting funding problems in the public school system?” The answer to that is quite simple. The promise of better education is probably one of the greatest hooks that the Democratic party has with the Black community. You will rarely (if at all) hear of anyone in that party talk about fiscal responsibly when it comes to public schools. Why? Because the Democratic party is joined at the hip with powerful teacher lobby groups like the NEA. While they preach to the nation that education is a civil right (which it isn’t), they have proven to be spineless when it comes to confronting the bureaucracy that is sucking the life out of these institutions while many of them send their own kids to private school. Watch the next time when one of these politicians will stand in front of a Black audience declaring how our schools need more money how the crowd goes completely wild with “Amens”. Notice how they will completely avoid mentioning issues such as this article—issues that mainly take place in Democratic-controlled districts.

This is just one issue where either party needs to earn our vote.

(ArkansasBusiness.com) “The percentage of blacks in managerial and professional jobs in Little Rock grew from 13.7 percent in 1980 to 26.8 percent in 2000 – 1.6 percent higher than the national average, according to the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s fourth annual Racial Attitudes Survey.

The survey is part of a continuing project to measure the attitudes of white and black residents in Pulaski County about race relations. The study had 1,666 white and black respondents.” (more…)

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Val of Babalu Blog posted this on his site yesterday. I thought it was pretty interesting so I am going to post portions of it here.

Here are the goals that stuck out to me:

(From “The Naked Communist,” by Cleon Skousen)

1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.

3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.

4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.

6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.

7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.

11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)

12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.

13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.

15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.

16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers’ associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

18. Gain control of all student newspapers.

19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.

20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.

21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to “eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms.”

23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. “Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art.”

24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them “censorship” and a violation of free speech and free press.

25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.

26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as “normal, natural, healthy.”

27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with “social” religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a “religious crutch.”

28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of “separation of church and state.”

29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis. Read more »

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — National pregnancy center groups are continuing to reach out to black communities in an effort to combat the presence of abortion facilities and reduce the alarming rates of abortions on African-American women.

Despite strong Christian upbringings in many black communities across the nation, black women account for 13 percent of the American population but 37 percent of all abortions.

The abortions rate appear to be correlated with the manner in which Planned Parenthood has expanded into black communities over the years by providing low-cost reproductive and other medical services.

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Lillie Epps, director of Care Net’s Urban Initiative, says her group is also working to reach out to minority communities for both new center locations as well as volunteer support. But, she told the Times it’s been difficult to overcome some of the stereotypes that have been built up about the pro-life community.

“When you go to African-American communities … you’ll find they don’t trust pro-life people,” Epps explained. “When they hear ‘pro-life,’ the first thing they think is ‘white Republican.’”

Epps said she hopes to open new centers in Detroit, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Orlando, Florida that will serve minority areas. (more…)

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Haitians living abroad propped up the economy of their impoverished Caribbean homeland by sending more than $1.65 billion in cash to relatives last year, according to a report from the Inter-American Development Bank.

That sum represented twice Haiti’s national budget and 30 per cent of its gross domestic product, said Jean Geneus, Haiti’s minister in charge of Haitians living abroad.

“Remittances are the most important economic factor in Haiti today,” said Donald Terry, the manager of the IDB’s Multilateral Investment Fund. (more…)

(tuscaloosanews.com) “Doctors receive money typically in return for delivering lectures about drugs to other doctors. Some of the doctors receiving the most money sit on committees that prepare guidelines instructing doctors nationwide about when to use medicines. Dr. Collins, who received more money than anyone else in the state, is among a limited number whose payments financed research.

In dozens of interviews, most doctors said that these payments had no effect on their care of patients.

Dr. Collins said his sole focus was the health and well-being of patients. “Just because I might do consulting work doesn’t mean I don’t press the agenda of the public health,” he said.

Ken Johnson, senior vice president of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said interactions between drug companies and doctors were beneficial. “In the end, patients are well-served when technically trained pharmaceutical research company representatives work with health care professionals to make sure medicines are used properly,” he said.

There is nothing illegal about doctors’ accepting money for marketing talks, and professional organizations have largely ignored the issue.

But research shows that doctors who have close relationships with drug makers tend to prescribe more, newer and pricier drugs — whether or not they are in the best interests of patients.” (more…)

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