The Black Informant

Now why would they want to leave “paradise”?

(brazzilmag.com) A rumor that the Cuban athletes participating in the Pan American Games in Brazil were planning a spectacular mass defection, apparently, was the reason behind the sudden and unexpected departure of the Cuban delegation from Brazil. They returned home leaving behind at least a medal to receive and without taking part in the closing ceremonies.

According to the Brazilian press, Raul Castro, Cuba’s acting president, was the one who ordered the immediate return of the athletes to Havana. About 200 athletes and coaches were taken from the Pan-American Village to the International Airport Tom Jobim in Rio in six buses and two trucks.

Asked by reporters why they were leaving a few of the athletes who were talking said that the early departure had been decided even before they left Cuba. At Infraero, the Brazilian air authority, an official informed that the plane they used had been chartered and initial plans were for the aircraft to leave Sunday night, July 29.

Rodolfo Terez, a Cuban coach, seemed irritated when asked why the whole delegation was leaving Brazil before the end of the games. His answer: “Part of the delegation goes today and the rest tomorrow. Nothing happened and if you ask me this again I will not answer.”

The Cubans, on Saturday, won a bronze in the men’s tournament, but the Cuban team left the Maracanãzinho way before the medals were given. With the sudden departure there will be no participant of Cuba in the traditional marathon that happens today. Norbert Gutierrez was the athlete supposed to represent that country.

There were four known cases of Cuban defectors during the game. The first case occurred even before the opening ceremonies. Handball player Rafael Capote, 19, abandoned his colleagues July 11, taking a taxi to São Paulo, where he met a fellow Cuban who had defected earlier. Capote, who has since disappeared, said that he was going to ask for political asylum in Brazil.

Artistic gymnastics coach Lázaro Lamelas Ramírez was the second one to defect. Then it was the time for boxers Guillermo Rigondeaux and Erislandy Santoya to also abandon their colleagues. Rigondeaux and Santoya. went to Germany, where they have signed a five-year contract with a TV sports channel.

(source)

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“Meet the Faith” on money: Follow-up

Sorry for the delay with this post .

In an effort to not sound like a broken record on the issue of how Blacks spend money and what should be done, I am just going to provide links to old posts that addresses this issue further than I care to at this time.

Are they taking over or did we give them the keys?: This talks about how the Black community has virtually given up the economic authority it once had in the Black beauty industry.

“Pump it up, Pump it up”…and right of our community: This post talks about the free advertising the hip-hop community has been giving to corporations for years.

Something I stumbled upon while on the net: In this post I highlighted an article that addressed the topic of media usage amongst Blacks. I will give you an excerpt here:

(mediavillage.com) According to the new Emotional Connections Study conducted among 4,000 adults by Jack Myers Media Business Report, African Americans watch significantly more television on average than other ethnic groups; have more television channels on their primary TV sets; own more television sets in the home; watch more Pay TV; spend more time on the Internet; spend more time listening to radio; and are slightly more likely to own a digital video recorder but significantly less likely to skip through commercials and are more likely to stop and view selected commercials.

So again I pose the question “Why should companies feel compelled to pump more money into Black ad shops when we, ABOVE ALL OTHER ETHNIC GROUPS tend to watch commercials as well as outspend other races when it comes to depreciatable products?” If anything, more should be done to bring other ethnic groups to our level of spending and ad-watching.

Increasingly Affluent African American Market Set to Reach $981 Billion by 2010

The buying power of black America (detailed)

In closing, “Meet the Faith” is one of the few shows on BET I think is really good all around. Host Ian Smith does a really good job addressing current issues as it relates to the Black community without having to sound like a thug or have the word “cousin” in front of his name. I just hope that the same Black folks who wasted no time criticizing the network for what it didn’t like would get behind the programing that is good. Otherwise, let’s not kid ourselves about wanting a Black television network that better represents the community.

P.S. I almost forgot about Oprah (she was the main highlight of the show). Her response to all the criticism regarding her decision to build a school in South Africa as opposed to America: “To hell with your criticism!”

Deal with it!

Reopening the history of one local Black newspaper

(bizjournals.com) A $476,000 grant will allow one of the nation’s oldest newspapers for African-American readers to open its 115-year-old archives to the public and create an internship focused on handling and processing historical materials.

The archives of the Afro-American Newspapers, a Baltimore-based weekly paper, contains the work of notable black writers and journalists, including Langston Hughes, William Worthy and J. Saunder Redding.

The paper will use the grant, awarded Monday by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, to create searchable guides of its collections and materials. (more…)

Vietnam comes to Houston

(chron.com) Over the last decade, Vu and her husband, Duong Phuc, Radio Saigon Houston KREH 900 AM co-owners, have taken a strong foothold in the Houston Vietnamese media market with programming that mixes talk shows with news and music. The station’s presence is also credited with helping spur Vietnamese migration from the West Coast to the Houston area.

The station’s growth with the Vietnamese-language radio format also illustrates a thriving and expanding Vietnamese community in Houston with an appetite for programs in their native language. Their staff has grown from five to 35 part-time or full-time employees, plus more than 80 contributing hosts.

“This is just the beginning,” Vu said. “At first, we thought the language will die down with the older generation, but our success has proven that wrong.”

Although California has long been considered the Vietnamese epicenter in the U.S., over the past few years Houston’s comparably cheap real estate, cost of living and investment opportunities have lured West Coasters.

Word about Houston’s attractive market has spread in part due to the connection made by Radio Saigon Houston’s simulcast news program that airs in Orange County, Calif., San Jose, Houston and the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Vu said. Californians — and anyone who can access the radio station via the Internet — can get a dose of Houston from the daily programs.

Radio Saigon Houston has helped spread the rags to riches stories of some of Houston’s most successful Vietnamese entrepreneurs, said Danny Nguyen, co-founder and president of the Vietnamese American Houston Chamber of Commerce.

“I have a lot of inquiries from people in California. There’s a lot more opportunities in terms of investment and development” in Houston, said Nguyen, a commercial real estate developer and investor. (more…)

Demographics of Houston:

(Wikipedia)

“Houston is a diverse and international city, in part because of its many academic institutions and strong biomedical, energy, manufacturing and aerospace industries. According to the U.S. Census 2000, the racial makeup of the city was 49.27 percent White, 25.31 percent Black or African American, 0.44 percent Native American, 5.31 percent Asian, 0.06 percent Pacific Islander, 16.46 percent from other races, and 3.15 percent from two or more races. Thirty-seven percent of the population was Hispanic or Latino of any race.

The Hispanic population in Houston is increasing as more immigrants (illegal or otherwise) from Latin American countries look for work in the area. The city has the third-largest Hispanic population in the United States. It is estimated that about 400,000 immigrants reside in the Houston area illegally. This influx of immigrants is partially responsible for Houston having a population younger than the national average.”

Don’t forget the western migration

Heading West Was Part of Black History, Too

Commentary by Furman University President David E. Shi

History obscures as much as it reveals. The American West has long been viewed as a land of opportunity and freedom, but people rarely associate the settlement of the Great Plains with black history. Yet when federal efforts to “reconstruct” the South after the Civil War collapsed in the face of Klan violence and widespread racial oppression, African Americans in large numbers headed west, crossed the Mississippi River, and formed over 30 independent farm communities in Kansas.

Most of the settlers came from Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. Some 6,000 southern blacks arrived in Kansas in 1879 alone, and more than 20,000 came the following year. A few walked the whole way. They were called Exodusters because of their “exodus” out of the South in search of a promised land free of racism and poverty, like the Israelites who fled ancient Egypt. As one of the Exodusters explained, they came in search of “better homes, larger opportunities, and kindlier treatment.”

One of the leading promoters of black migration to the West was Benjamin “Pap” Singleton. Born a slave in Tennessee in 1809, he escaped and settled in Detroit, where he operated a boardinghouse that became a refuge for other runaway slaves. After the Civil War he returned to Tennessee, convinced that God was calling him to rescue his black brethren.

[…]

By 1890, some 520,000 African Americans lived west of the Mississippi River. Although most remained impoverished, they generally fared better economically than they would have in the South. About three-quarters of the Exoduster families in Kansas came to own their own farms and homes. “When I landed on the soil,” former Louisiana slave John Lewis remembered, “I looked on the ground and I says this is free ground. Then I looked on the heavens, and I says them is free and beautiful heavens. Then I looked within my heart, and I says to myself: I wonder why I never was free before?” (more…)

Related

Benjamin “Pap” Singleton (PBS)

Yep, you had to see this one coming

From the commercials, it looked like Soul Plane 2. I kept saying to myself during Hot Ghetto Mess “Man, it looks like folks picked the wrong thing to protest against.” Anyway, here is blacktalentnews.com’s take on the movie “Who’s Your Caddy?”

America wasn’t laughing this weekend. “Who’s Your Caddy?” the much anticipated first film from Our Stories Films (a partnership between BET founder Bob Johnson and the Weinstein Bros. and run by Tracey Edmonds to produce urban family comedies that tell ‘our’ stories) opened this weekend with an estimated $2.9 million, averaging only $2,846 from 1,019 screens. No one should be surprised that in addition to the poor box office showing, the film’s insultingly stereotypical content and creative team (a white writer/director) have come under fire.

The film is about a superstar rap mogul, C-Note (Big Boi), who runs into fierce opposition when he tries to join the super stuffy Carolina Pines Golf and Polo Club. Undeterred, C-Note gets the brilliant idea to buy the land adjacent to the golf club’s 17th hole, which he cleverly leverages to gain membership. C-Note’s crew wreaks havoc as they bring their larger-than-life style to the club. As the club’s hoighty-toighty leadership desperately tries to revoke C-Note’s membership, our hero realizes that his family’s honor – and secret record-breaking golf history – is at stake. As he takes on the fight of his life, C-Note pulls out all of the stops to bring down the club’s backwards establishment and welcome them to the 21st century.

Full of crass racial stereotypes including crude, lewd and wantonly irresponsible black characters, fart jokes, midget jokes and never-ending slapstick humor, if this demeaning movie had been made by mainstream Hollywood, it would be courting charges of racism. Moreover, many are questioning the choice to launch the new studio with a project written and directed by a white man (Don Michael Paul).

During an interview at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel last week, I asked Edmonds why hire a white writer/director for the first film out of Our Stories Films if the point is to tell ‘our’ stories. She…more

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Government with a heart (but little brain)

(nytimes.com) In February, the New York City Council attracted national attention when it approved a symbolic resolution banning the use of the racial slur called the N-word.

Now, a new proposal is before the Council, this one to adopt a “symbolic moratorium” on the use of the words “bitch” and “ho,” on the grounds that both words are insulting, hateful and degrading to women.

The one-line resolution is preceded by 11 “whereas” clauses explaining the intent of the legislation.

The resolution states that “words, when misused, can lay foundations to legitimize the illegitimate and codify the unthinkable, including, for example, the concept that it is acceptable to refer to women as animals or, worse, that women are these words used to describe them.” It also traces the etymological origins of the two epithets.

The resolution also refers to a much-publicized statement in April by Benjamin Chavis and Russell Simmons, the founders of the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, who called for the broadcasting and recording industries to end the use of the two slurs, as well as the N-word.

Councilwoman Darlene Mealy, a Brooklyn Democrat, introduced the new resolution. She has gotten 22 co-sponsors to sign on. (more…)

What is it with Democrats and all of these symbolic resolutions?

Consider giving the gift of life

RICHMOND, Va., July 30 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — In observance of National Minority Donor Awareness Day, Donate Life America calls attention to the 49,000 minority individuals that account for 51 percent of the
United States transplant waiting list. There are nearly 100,000 people of all ages, races, and religions in desperate need of life-saving organ transplants that may not come in time. Hundreds of thousands more are in
need of tissue transplants to restore their health, mobility, and sight. To save these lives, the public is encouraged to visit http://www.donatelife.net and determine the steps necessary to become
registered donors in their state.

At the top of the list of minorities in need of organ transplants are African Americans followed by Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans, Pacific Islanders and people of Multiracial decent. African Americans alone account
for 27 percent of people on the national waiting list and 35 percent of those waiting for kidneys.

Though only 20 percent of the U.S. population and 23 percent of donors are minorities, they make up 51 percent of the national transplant waiting list. The high percentage is due to the fact that many of the conditions leading to the need for a transplant, such as diabetes and hypertension, occur with greater frequency among these populations.

National Minority Donor Awareness Day is observed every August 1 to increase awareness of organ donation among African American, Hispanic/Latino, Asian, Alaskan Native, Pacific Islander and Native American populations. The event also recognizes minority donors and their families. (source)

Are moderates losing space in the Democratic “big tent”?

(usnews.com) As moderate Democrats assembled over a long weekend at the Democratic Leadership Council’s “National Conversation” in Nashville, eight familiar faces were missing—those of all of the party’s presidential contenders.

The closest thing to a candidate was a spouse. Former President Bill Clinton appeared before the group of more than 300 moderate lawmakers and other supporters Monday, but his wife was nowhere to be found even though she spoke at last year’s event and is chair of the group’s American Dream Initiative.

The candidates’ snubbing of the centrist Democratic nonprofit group seemed bound to yield speculation that the 2008 front-runners and the Democratic Party in general are moving decidedly to the left and that the DLC’s influence might be waning. While not attending the National Conversation, many of the candidates—including Hillary Clinton—are slated to appear this coming weekend in Chicago at the YearlyKos conference, hosted by a slew of liberal bloggers.

A handful of candidates also attended the progressive “Take Back America” conference in June, where candidates Barack Obama, Dennis Kucinich, and others roused the progressive and antiwar crowd with equally progressive and antiwar messages. Clinton, who had been booed at the same event the year before for her Iraq war vote, was more warmly received, reflecting a perception that she’s moving to the left in addressing the war.

While it’s hard to deny that candidates are rousing the liberal base, Marc Dunkelman, who runs the blog on the DLC-sponsored Ideas Primary website, writes that this is history merely repeating itself and doesn’t spell death for the DLC. Pandering to more liberal or conservative primary voters and then moving to the center is the way presidential politics are played, he says. After a nominee is selected in the primaries, he (or she) then moves to the center. Dunkelman reminds readers that Al Gore and John Kerry were no-shows at DLC National Conversations in 1999 and 2003, respectively, but both worked hard to gain the DLC’s support after winning the party’s nomination. (more…)

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Leon Loni Love

When you don’t know, its gotta be racism

Newswise — The cause of low birth weights among African-American women has more to do with racism than with race, according to a report by an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

In a report published in the July issue of the American Journal of Public Health, Richard David says the quest for a “pre-term birth gene” that is now underway will be of no value in explaining low birth weights.

David is the report’s lead writer and co-author with James Collins Jr., professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University. David is affiliated with John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital and Collins with Children’s Memorial Hospital.

They compared birth weights of three groups of women: African American, whites and Africans who had moved to Illinois. Most African-American women are of 70 to 75 percent African descent.

“If there were such a thing as a (pre-term birth) gene, you would expect the African women to have the lowest birth weights,” David said. “But the African and white women were virtually identical,” with significantly higher birth weights than the African-American women, he said.

The researchers did a similar analysis of births to black Caribbean women immigrants to the United States and found they gave birth to infants hundreds of grams heavier than the babies of U.S.-born black women.

For black women, “something about growing up in America seems to be bad for your baby’s birth weight,” David said.

[…]

They asked the mothers if they had ever been treated unfairly because of their race when looking for a job, in an educational setting or in other situations.

Those who felt discriminated against had a twofold increase in low birth weights. And for those who experienced discrimination in three “domains,” the increase was nearly threefold. (more…)

We tend to give White folks a lot more credit and a lot more benefit of the doubt than they deserve.

I think that we can all agree that discrimination, while it does exist does have a very open-ended definition from person to person. For example, I have known many folks who felt “discriminated against” simply because someone looked at them funny or perhaps said something with an attitude. In fact, everybody discriminates from time to time when you get right down to it. Again, I am not playing discrimination down, I am just pointing out a everyday occurrence that happens to all of us in some way, shape or form that seemingly Black folks (in this case, Black women) are too weak to deal with in this day and age. In fact, we are so weak that the cell structure within the bodies of our women will deteriorate to the point where they are unable to produce healthy babies. Never mind addressing things like diet or exercise. Never mind doing a study on the drama single mothers are faced with and its effects when dealing with a man who walks out leaving her with both roles of mother and father to fulfill. Meanwhile both White women and women from Africa/Caribbean live stress free lives and have never had to deal with discrimination or stress.

Another study that portrays Blacks as a bunch of helpless weaklings.

Who will groom these young boys into men? (07/30/07)

Are you ready for the dynamic trio? These African American boys come as a package, all three, or none. They need a two-parent family that is able to commit to keeping them together and providing consistent love, nurturing, and structure for their continued growth and development.

Hollice enjoys his status as the oldest and tries to be a leader for his brothers. This young man loves to talk and nothing pleases him more than having an attentive audience. He is playful and interacts with his brothers. He likes to be outside riding his bike, playing baseball or football, or spending quiet time reading. He needs encouragement to improve both his writing and reading skills. He likes to be in the kitchen helping with food preparations and he likes to eat whatever has been prepared.

Zsavaris likes school and is doing well in his reading skills. He is a leader and is well liked by his schoolmates. Adults describe this young man as being very honest but also stubborn at times. He can be easily redirected when frustrated. He, like his brothers, enjoys being outside running and playing.

Zsavontese is the typical youngest sibling. He thrives on attention and looks to his older brothers for direction. He enjoys outdoor activities and is learning to skate. He also likes to play with his Play station and an educational game called “Leapfrog>” family trips and attending church regularly with his foster family are positive activities for him. Zsavontese is doing well in school, and his teacher describes him as quiet and shy. because he has not learned how to take ownership for his behaviors, he sometimes has to be in “time out” as a part of the redirection for his behaviors.

Zsavontese is a healthy African American male who thrives on attention. He enjoys outdoor activities and is learning to skate. He also likes to play with his Play station and an educational game called “Leapfrog>” family trips and attending church regularly with his foster family are positive activities for him. Zsavontese is doing well in school, and his teacher describes him as quiet and shy. because he has not learned how to take ownership for his behaviors, he sometimes has to be in “time out” as a part of the redirection for his behaviors. Zsavontese came into care as the youngest of three boys, and maintaining contact with his brothers will be important to him. He will benefit from being placed in a two-parent family that is able to provide consistent love, nurturing, and structure for his continued growth and development. (more info)

Another one of our babies is missing (07/30/07)

KIA BROWN
Case Type: Missing
DOB: May 25, 1990
Sex: Female
Missing Date: Jul 1, 2007
Race: Black
Age Now: 17
Height: 5′8″ (173 cm)
Missing City: HOPEWELL
Weight: 135 lbs (61 kg)
Missing State : VA
Hair Color: Black
Missing Country: United States
Eye Color: Brown
Case Number: USVAVA07-506
Circumstances: Kia was last seen on July 1, 2007 between 1300 nad 1500 hours wearing a white t-shirt, blue jeans and red/white/blue shoes. She may be in the local area or she may be in Petersburg, Virginia.

ANYONE HAVING INFORMATION SHOULD CONTACT
Virginia Missing Children’s Clearinghouse
1-800-822-4453
Hopewell Police Department Officer Irons (804) 541-2222

Keep that mess out of yo’ mouth

(earthtimes.or) SANFORD, Fla., July 28 A 7-year-old Florida boy accidentally swallowed his “grill — a decorative mental mouthpiece popular in the hip-hop culture, it was reported Saturday.

Bobby Tedesco’s mother, Dawn, bought the grill for him at a flea market in Sanford, Orlando TV station WKMG reported Saturday.

When it fell off his teeth and began choking him, his mother tried to clear his throat. He swallowed it and was rushed to the emergency room. Now, doctors say there is only one way for the grill to exit. (more…)

“Read, young man!”

Anthony Asadullah Samad writes:

In a materialistic world, what is the most valuable thing you can give your young boys? Nope, it’s not money — they’ll spend it on rims and shoes. Nope, it’s not “bling” — they’ll only create a false illusion of wealth that, in the end, they’ll pawn. Nope, not video games — it only makes them fat and lazy (but they’ll have strong thumbs). How about a book? Yes, a book.

It’s time to recognize our children are [being] significantly disadvantaged in their desire to get immediate information. Reading magazines and Wikipedia is not the same as reading books. We are in a new literary renaissance period. When a new Harry Potter book can sell eight million books in 24 hours (or 15,000 books a minute), you have to ask yourself, what’s going on?

They used to say that if you want to hide something from black people, put it in a book. I can tell you, having moderated panels on both coasts (the Harlem Book Fair and the first Leimert Park Book Festival) in the past month, that, for the most part, a lot of black people are reading. It’s what they’re reading (fiction, romance, erotica) that might be of concern, but at least some are reading. The African-American market is the “growth market” for the book industry. There is an exception. Young black boys.

Several national surveys have stated that black boys (ages 13-24) are not reading books. An amazing 54% of young boys under 15 years of age (more than half of school aged boys) have never read a book. Most of them drop out of school because they’re made to read books. Literary is a crisis in the black community, even though some suggest we’re in the midst of a new “black literary renaissance.” 70% of black boys/men (high school and college) 21 and under, claim to have read at least one book in their lives, but most can’t recall the title. Most of them have read newspapers (mostly sport pages, and magazines), but don’t know the pleasure of reading a book. Their leisure (and study) time is spent watching “channel zero” (television) playing video games or on-line.

How do we rationalize, as a race and a culture, not exposing our children to literature? I believe that for every video game a child has, they should have two books. (more…)

The changing face of Mississippi

(hattiesburgamerican.com) Hispanic-owned restaurants and bars in Mississippi increased roughly from 44 in 1997 to 101 in 2002, said Lee Wentela, chief of the Economic Census Branch. Sales at those firms went from $8.6 million to $32.4 million – a 277 percent increase – in the same period. Nationally, Hispanic-owned establishments grew 38 percent.

The $32.4 million is about 15 percent of the $213 million in reported earnings for Hispanic-owned businesses in Mississippi in 2002, the latest figures available.

Nationwide, Hispanic business have become the largest minority business community with nearly 1.6 million firms pumping $221.9 billion into the U.S. economy, the SBA reported. In Mississippi, there are 1,327 Hispanic-owned businesses compared to 25,004 African-American-owned firms earning $1.3 billion, the 2002 Survey of Business Owners showed.

[…]

Soletai Castro, 24, a MIRA receptionist who is a native of Mexico, said her parents own the Jerusalem Cafe, a Mediterranean eatery in Jackson’s Fondren neighborhood, and El Torero in Flowood. Both opened within the last five years.

She recalls only two or three Mexican restaurants when she moved to the area six years ago, and says there is now new competition. El Torero caters to a more American palate, she said. “American people don’t eat really spicy food.” (more…)

I was shocked to hear from my mom that her home town in South Carolina had received a huge influx of Mexicans over the past few years. I guess I was shocked because growing up, that town was as Black as Black gets for the most part. It’s going to be interesting seeing the change in that town whenever I make the time to visit.

Man overboard

Last week I received a call from a very good friend of mine. After we caught up on life and family he told me about a young man that both he and I helped mentor some years back. He proceeded to tell me that this young man (who has only been married for a few years to a very beautiful wife) has been contemplating divorce. In fact, his wife had been thinking about the same thing about a year ago according to word my friend just received recently.

Pete (not his real name) was a very good kid, had pretty good grades and was a Christian. Our paths first crossed in the youth organization that I was part of at that time and we had been somewhat close for some years at that point. I use the word “somewhat” because besides all of his good qualities he was a very prideful young man that knew how to play the ‘good guy’ role pretty well (even though I could see right through it). It was this very pride that hindered him from dealing with some of the serious issues he had in his life at that time. Pride and laziness also kept this young man from finishing a promising tenure in college (he was not finished when I last talked to him as a a few years ago).

We eventually both ended up in Atlanta where we also attended the same church. During this time I got married and about a 4 or so years into my marriage I heard that he was getting married to a young lady that I had also known for a while (not as long as Pete). The church that we were part of at that time was a very young and trendy church mostly filled with folks either still in college or just getting out. Pete was a grown man now, so he really did not need the advice of a mentor (or anyone else for that matter) when it came to his decision to get married. Personally, my friend and I knew that he was not ready for the step but since our church at that time was into matching folks up, he had very little sound counseling.

The wedding was cute with plenty of music and dancing. But the whole time I was there I felt uneasy about the whole thing because I knew that both Pete and his new bride were not ready for such an important step. Since their wedding, that have given birth to one child.

The way my friend first heard about their some of their marital problems was by way of Pete’s wife who pulled him to the side at church and told him that she really needed someone to talk with Pete because he had been pulling away from her emotionally and it appeared that he was regressing back to some of his past bad habits. She also asked my friend to give me a call as well to see what I could do. My friend asked if others in the church had stepped to the plate to help Pete. She responded by saying that everyone else was too busy.

Eventually I am going to contact Pete–not to bash him and tell him that he is a screw up, but to remind him that he has a friend here on the West coast that loves him and has been praying for him. As for his marriage, I think we can get through this if he is willing to hear and apply some sound advice.

Take the life jacket, brah! Cause you need it.

Oprah on “Meet the Faith”

My mom called us this morning to tell us to check it out. I will not go into all the details of this show until tomorrow. But f.y.i. the real highlight of the show were the three guests who talked about the topic of “Blacks and money”. Nothing new (especially to readers of this site), but it can’t be talked about enough.

I think it comes on later this evening on BET, so check your guide.

Celebrity Christianity

J. Lee Grady writes:

Just when I thought we charismatics had finally taken enough abuse from the egomaniac ministers in our midst, I’ve learned that some of our leaders are taking things to a new extreme. We’ve moved beyond the red carpets, limousines and entourages of the 1990s. A new strain of the celebrity virus is spreading in large segments of the church.

One friend of mine in Texas recently inquired to see if a prominent preacher could speak at her conference. The minister’s assistant faxed back a list of requirements that had to be met in order to book a speaking engagement. The demands included:

* a five-figure honorarium
* a $10,000 gasoline deposit for the private plane
* a manicurist and hairstylist for the speaker
* a suite in a five-star hotel
* a luxury car from the airport to the hotel (2004 model or newer)
* room-temperature Perrier

This really makes me wonder how the apostle Paul, Timothy or Priscilla managed ministering to so many people in Ephesus, Corinth and Thessalonica. How did they survive without a manicurist if they broke a nail while laying hands on the sick?

[…]

What has become of the American church? What is this sickness spreading in the body of Christ? I don’t know whom to blame more for it: The narcissistic minister who craves the attention, or the spiritually naive crowds who place these arrogant people on their shaky pedestals. All I know is that God is grieved by all of this shameful carnality. (source)

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A reason why the world hates us

We are making them dance to “Thriller”.

Filipino Inmates Do “Thriller”

Shame on us!

lol!