The Black Informant

(LATimes.com) Los Angeles County supervisors today backed off threats to temporarily shut Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital, opting instead to give the beleaguered facility a reprieve as it prepares for a last-chance government inspection next month.

The Board of Supervisors rejected a motion to start the process of closing the facility after its top health care officials warned that such a move could trigger a stampede of departing employees that would in turn undermine efforts to pass the federal survey.

[...]

“Good prudent management and planning is to begin the process now,” Antonovich said. “We need to have acted yesterday and we didn’t. That procrastination has resulted in substandard care and we ought to be responsible by acting today.”

But after an impassioned debate, supervisors unanimously voted for a compromise. Rejecting a closure, they asked the county’s Department of Health Services to begin negotiating with other local hospitals to take King-Harbor patients should state or federal regulators force the facility to shutter. The state announced last week it had moved to revoke the hospital’s license. (more…)

Earl Ofari Hutchinson has been on local radio for the past few days talking about how by closing the hospital, many folks will not be able to get the health care they need.

WHHHHHHAAAAAAAATTT!

His concern is that the other surrounding hospitals will become flooded with folks who would normally go to King-Harbor–nevermind the years of bad service these poor souls were getting.

Related

SHUT IT DOWN!!!

If ya’ gonna march, march for fiscal responsibility

A good example of underfunding vs. squandering

Part of me really wanted to watch the BET music awards, but I…..I…..just can’t get past Mo’Nique’s voice (grrrr!). I was in the kitchen on my laptop and my wife was in the family room watching the show. She was kind to me by muting out the parts when Mo’Nique was at the mike. Eventually I found myself getting distracted as lil’ man was on his new keyboard upstairs. So I took the opportunity to teach him some basic listening techniques and basic chords (cuz’ that is all I know).

Came back downstairs and saw that my wife ordered Dreamgirls (This is about her 4th time seeing this film and this is my first–I am generally very slow seeing new films).

So did I miss anything?

I’ve been waiting for someone to upload this video.

and this one as well…

(wneg32.com) Supporters of the Georgia man in prison for having consensual oral sex with a 15-year old girl are willing to put up $1 million to secure his release.

According to Genarlow Wilson’s lawyer, the money should secure her clients release before a July 5th hearing.

At that hearing Georgia’s Attorney General plans to appeal a decision that threw out a 10 year felony prison sentence for Wilson.

“Consent to a bond presented to a judge. We have a good judge in this case who understands the law and the factors there. And Genarlow Wilson is a perfect candidate for bond,” B.J. Bernstein, Wilson’s attorney said at a press conference. (more…)

This whole case stinks the high heavens! Here is some additional info on this case:

From Wikipedia–

The conviction was based on an amateur video tape showing Wilson engaging in sex with a 17-year-old girl during a private party, and later receiving oral sex from from a 15-year-old girl. The video shows the 17-year-old girl on the bathroom floor, then later having sex with Wilson. She appeared sleepy or intoxicated during the sex act but did not ask Wilson to stop. Waking up naked and in a stupor the next morning, she claimed to have been raped. Investigating the alleged rape, police later found condoms and evidence of drinking, as well as the video camera, in the motel room used for the party.

A jury acquitted Wilson of raping the older girl, but convicted him of aggravated child molestation against the 15-year-old. The “aggravated” nature of the charge refers to fellatio (oral sex) rather than a mere “immoral or indecent act.” Had Wilson had intercourse with the 15-year-old and not received oral sex from her, he would have been subject to up to 12-month penalty (statutory rape), with no sex offender status, instead of the 10-year minimum term that the judge gave him. (Official Code of Georgia Annotated § 16-6-3 and 16-6-4)

Initial trial and plea deal

The 15 year old girl, who has remained unnamed in the press as a ‘victim of a sex offense’, has repeatedly stated that the act of oral sex was consensual, though she legally could not consent. The jury acquitted Wilson of the rape charge, but as the age of consent in Georgia is 16, they voted to convict him of aggravated child molestation for the oral sex incident, with the forewoman tearfully reading the verdict. Some jury members later complained they had not understood the verdict would result in a 10 year minimum sentence, plus one year on probation.

Wilson received the 10-year sentence following a refusal to enter into a proposed plea bargain, stating of his adamant belief that “It’s all about doing what’s right [...] And what’s right is right, and what’s wrong is wrong. And I’m just standing up for what I believe in.” His decision, as well as his continued fight to overturn his conviction also take into account that sex offenders in Georgia must register themselves and are subject to penalty laws for life, and that the law was not intended to penalize teenage partners (a fact which has since been included in updated legislation). As the law stands, Wilson would not even be able to return to his own family after an early release, as he has an 8-year-old sister and would be forbidden contact. The other young males involved (including one charged for the same oral sex acts as Wilson) accepted plea bargains with the possibility of parole; they are required to register as convicted sex offenders. Wilson had been offered, and rejected, a plea bargain for a five year sentence with the possibility of parole before the trial. After the jury had returned the guilty verdict, the prosecutor offered the same 5-year plea bargain again, and Wilson refused again. Another young man involved in the case had accepted a similar 5-year plea bargain and was paroled after two years.

And throwing him in prison for this one offense has taught him what? Don’t touch our little White girls (girl could be Black)? While I do agree that Wilson should receive some sort of penalty for doing this (she was still a minor at the time), going into the slammer (especially for 10 years) is way over the top. The state of Georgia has just created another crop of folks who lack trust in their JUSTICE system.

(singersroom.com) 50 cent, who pays $25,000 a month in child support and household expenses, might have to get a bigger check. Shaniqua Tompkins, the mother of his 10-year-old son, says the current amount is not enough.

The parents of young Marquise Jackson are wrangling over the issue in family court in this Long Island community, where 50 Cent arrived Friday in an armored SUV equipped with a satellite dish. (more…)

The sad thing is, Fitty ain’t the only one who is getting played like this.

(moscowtimes.ru) Andrei, aka B-Boy Kolyuchy, has been dancing since the mid-1980s. Back then hip-hop music and break dancing videos were accessible only to two types of people: diplomats returning from abroad and Ulitsa Arbat souvenir or currency peddlers who were in direct contact with foreign tourists.

“There were events three to four times a year back then, mostly in the Baltic states,” Andrei said. Enthusiastic Soviet teens practiced in front of lacquered wardrobes in their parents’ bedrooms and went to events that were sponsored by Pioneer organizations.

[...]

BPeople has since opened its own dancing school, and most members have day jobs: Lena is a doctor and mother of three children. Most dancers recognize that making a living on break dancing alone is not possible in Russia.

The central hangout spot was, and still is, Ulitsa Arbat.

As Pioneer organizations fizzled after perestroika, some people thought it was time to say goodbye to break dancing. “After the putsch, people got together on Arbat, had a drink in remembrance of break dancing, and buried a white glove somewhere in the neighborhood,” Lena said.

Although Lena said only about a dozen people were break dancing in Moscow and St. Petersburg in the mid-’90s, they continued to get together on the Arbat and mingled with other Old Arbat regulars. Until a local resident allowed dancers to hook up their boombox to the electrical outlet in her ground-floor apartment, one breaker would wrap his fingers with electrical tape and cut into the building’s exterior electric wires to get the music going, Lena said.

The hospitable Arbat resident was eventually featured in a 1996 break-dancing music video “Vy khoteli party? Ne vopros, nate!” (You wanted a party? No problem, here it is!) that boosted interest in the dance to a new level. Most Russian break-dancers started after they were awed by the jerky clip that featured dancers from both capitals showing off their moves to the approval of bespectacled Zora Mikhailovna. Mark of the crew AlltheMost is one of them.

“Break dancing, especially the footwork, is based on Russian folk dance,” he said, “in terms of energy and character, some of the dance’s roots are in Russia.” (more…)

I just did a quick search on YouTube for Russian breakdance videos. Yep, it’s pretty big over there. Little scared of most of what I saw, but (gulp!), its okay. Here is a half-decent sample I was able to find (I dunno, I guess the music is throwing me off).

Oh well, its your world, baby! Rock it however you wish.

Consider this as an addendum to what I wrote about yesterday (”Don’t worry, Bono got us covered“)

Press Release:

Los Angeles County Launches Unprecedented Media Campaign to Fight Sexually Transmitted Diseases

Effort Moves Beyond the Billboard to Reach African American women and Latinas, Gay and Bi-sexual Men

>And what is their way of convincing grown folks who have already made up in their minds that protection IS optional?

The campaign uses guerrilla marketing tactics such as graffiti murals, sidewalk drawings, printed drink coasters and mirror stickers in night clubs and gyms, along with traditional media such as posters and billboards.

>This press release also mentions the following:

“The rates of syphilis, gonorrhea, and chlamydia are all alarmingly high and rising in our community,” said Jonathan E. Fielding, MD, MPH, Public Health Director and County Health Officer. “Last year alone, nearly 18,000 cases of chlamydia and gonorrhea were recorded among African American and Latina women younger than 25 years of age in LA County. Gay and bi-sexual men represented at least 1,000 cases of syphilis in 2006.

[...]

Gay and bi-sexual men in LA County continue to face a serious problem with syphilis. In 2005, 85% of the recorded syphilis cases were among this group. Six out of 10 of those cases occurred among HIV-positive men. Untreated syphilis can have devastating health consequences, including impairment of the ability to walk, permanent vision loss, permanent hearing

loss, and brain damage. Public Health identifies patients with these health outcomes every year.

There are more than 30,000 cases of chlamydia and more than 5,000 cases of gonorrhea in women alone every year in LA County. African American and Latina women make up the largest number of those reported cases out of any other group. (source)

Listen, until we as a nation get enough courage to ask and deal with the “Why?” questions here (”Why are Gay and bi-sexual men continuing to face STDs?”, “Why is AIDS and other STDs a big problem within the Black community?”), all the posters, stickers, marches etc. will continue to serve as a emotional public response with very little (if any) results. Again, much of demographic are made up of the same folks who say they want the government out of their bedrooms while at the same time want the same government to serve as nurse when disease develops.

While encouraging folks who are sexually active to get regularly tested is a noble gesture, we must keep in mind that the same mindset is also being adopted by the target audience: Ignore the hard question(s) and maybe it will go away. Let’s face it, the bedroom has been in the public square for years now, so there is no room for adolescent responses to this issue.

Turtle heart and penis mixed with blood and Saki…

Deer penis…

These are just some of the interesting delectables consumed by Bizarre Foods host Andrew Zimmern. As a person who always enjoys learning about different cultures, this show is right up my alley. Either Zimmern was born with an iron stomach or his show uses a whole lot of editing.

Either way, you will certainly learn a whole lot about different cultures watching this show. Check it out!

Courtland Milloy did an interesting piece on D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty. In it he talks about how Fenty is not bowing to the pressure of having to make his appointees fully reflect the demographic of the city that he represents. I come from the school that says if I feel that a person makes the right fit in my organization (mind you, this goes beyond what is on the resume. Back in my IT days, I interviewed many people with great resumes but just did not show the potential to gel with the rest of the team) regardless of race, that person should be hired. I only wish that other mayors operated the same way as many areas with a high concentration of Black folks have been paying the price of “cultural diversity” for years. Need an example? Martin Luther King Jr. Harbor Hospital in Los Angeles.

From Milloy’s article:

“When I’m out in the community, like I was out in the Bloomingdale neighborhood last night, people don’t ask me about the race or gender of the people I appoint,” Fenty (D) told me yesterday. “Most people are telling me that they want officers walking the beat, more aggressive community policing and reductions in crime. Nine out of 10 people I meet want the schools fixed. They are not asking for one type of person for the job — the issue is getting the job done.”

[...]

Nevertheless, some of the new mayor’s moves can be downright bewildering. In a city overflowing with first-rate black lawyers, Fenty — himself a graduate of Howard law — appoints a white man and a white woman to the city’s top two legal posts — legal counsel and attorney general, the latter of whom is neither an experienced litigator or even a member of the D.C. Bar Association. Surely, I suggested to him, some of his more qualified classmates were wondering whether he’d forgotten where he came from. Howard University, after all, had once been the national center for legal action on civil rights, and the civil rights struggle is not over.

“I’m not saying that no one in the world thinks those thoughts, but maybe because I’m mayor, people will not come up and say those words to me,” Fenty said. “A lot of guys I went to Howard law school with are working on a lot of different things, and we’ve got a ton of Howard graduates in my administration, African American men in their 30s and 40s — my chief of staff among them.”

[...]

“I’m not naive,” he said. “But having grown up in the city, having seen years of a school system not working and a police department being inconsistent and the budget unbalanced, I believe that the average citizen is concerned foremost with getting the services they deserve.” (more)

First, a flashback:

(sfgate.com 3/3/07)

Bono, 46, was invited to tour the Bay Area by Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, to help raise awareness of local efforts to educate the public about the disease.

Bono stood alongside Lee, Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums and Allen Temple Pastor J. Alfred Smith to say he’ll be using his celebrity status to help people in the United States living with AIDS, particularly African Americans, who have contracted the disease at higher rates than other racial and ethnic groups.

[...]

Alameda County declared an AIDS state of emergency in 1999. Men account for most of the cases — 86 percent of the more than 6,800 people with the disease countywide — but the number of cases among women rose steadily from the 1990s through 2003, according to a 2005 AIDS epidemiology report from the Alameda County Public Health Department.

Of the AIDS cases in Alameda County from 1980 to 2005, African Americans accounted for 44 percent, more than any other ethnic or racial group.

Bono drew a parallel between poor countries in the developing world and low-income communities in the United States, saying both feature local communities without resources to address the challenge and individuals overwhelmed by poverty and lack of opportunity.

Dellums said a major problem was the high number of men carrying HIV who are being released from prisons.

“That can be traced back to the fact that we are sending men back into the community as bullets because they don’t know their status,” said Dellums. “Men are coming back HIV-positive.”

Bono, Dellums and Lee also called on black churches to play a stronger role in educating people about the disease and how to protect themselves, even though a number of theologians say some anti-AIDS approaches run counter to Scripture. (source)

Now let’s fast forward to a recent study conducted by the CDC. Here are some of its findings as it relates to Blacks:

The proportion of adults who first had sex before the age of 15 was highest for non-Hispanic black persons (28%) compared with Mexican American persons (14%) and non-Hispanic white persons (14%).

Only 6% of non-Hispanic black persons abstained from sex until age 21 years and older compared with Mexican American persons (17%) and non-Hispanic white persons (15%).

Click here for full report

___

Okay, from the top. Here are the disclaimers some folks tend to need.

# Yes, I understand that this study is based on a sample and does not represent all Black people.

# For the racially sensitive, yes I am aware that White people do have sex and can get AIDS as well

# No, I do not believe that all Black folks are sexual deviants.

Okay, let me get to the point here on this one. In all my years discussing the AIDS issue with other folks, I’ve noticed that people tend to fall in on of two categories: Folks who feel that dealing with the disparities within the health industry should be the main focus and folks who feel that dealing with the behaviors that result in things like AIDS or unwanted pregnancies should be the focus. For those of you who have followed this site for a while, it shouldn’t be a big surprise to you that I tend to go with the latter group. While I do believe that disparities DO exist within the health care industry, working to convince folks to make better decisions BEFORE becoming dependent on the health care system is much more effective in my view. Focusing too much on problems within the health care industry subtly tells our kids (and older folks as well) that they will inevitably make bad sexual choices and that big daddy government will be (and should be) right there to take care of them–for life! This perception amongst the unmarried sexually active only gets worse as we place most of the blame on the spread of AIDS on things like poverty, racism and classism. As we are able to get the number of AIDS cases to decline, THEN should we place a greater emphasis on the disparities within the health care system. While folks like Bono is trekking all over the world pushing the belief that AIDS can only be eradicated by heavy government intervention, notice that the words ‘personal responsibility’ tend to be invisible in his schpeel. Here is a little something that I wrote a little while ago on a similar topic.

“We must continue to teach the value of sexual self-control in our community. The reason why half of y’all may have turned your nose up after reading that last sentence is because too few of us are willing to demonstrate it. In a world that is constantly bombarding us with sexual imagery, throwing condoms at our children or telling them not to have sex until marriage is not enough. Virginity until marriage must become a cultural mandate (rite of passage) within our community” (source)

And here is something that I wrote on responsibility:

I have a much better plan, and it only has ONE point: “Stop pushing responsibility on society at large for your lack of sexual self-control.”

Yes, I am aware that there are people out there who unfortunately get this disease by blood transfusion, but those cases do not make up the majority. This is primarily a sexually-transmitted disease.

We are a culture that prides itself on “telling it like it is“, so to me this very notion is flat out ridiculous.

Note to the “…country’s leading African-American health experts, lawmakers and civil rights leaders”: Stop treating the community you claim to represent as a bunch of ignorant fools who don’t don’t know the meaning of the word responsibility (this was written in response to this article).

#