To Be Black And Angry

The Mayor Of New Orleans a black man has declared
that the city is back after a success Mardi Gras two
years after Katrina. However blacks are still struggling
to survive. The question now is should blacks be angry
about their situation? Read the commentary below and
then offer yours.


"WE HAD AN incredible Mardi Gras season," said C. Ray Nagin, the mayor of New Orleans, at a news conference Monday. In the city's second celebration since Hurricane Katrina, he said, hotels and restaurants were full and the parades were well attended. His message was clear: New Orleans is back.To me, however, his enthusiasm feels premature. Almost a year and a half after the flood left much of the city in a state of destitution that feels increasingly permanent, I wonder how much more of this we should take. By "we," I am referring to the national black body politic, and by "this," I mean the survival mentality of black New Orleanians, who have displayed an extraordinary but distressing forbearance.

Coping with tragedy that is often caused by racism is necessary, of course, and practically a way of life for African Americans. But this way of life needs to change. Black people need to stay on the offensive by staying mad when appropriate. And few moments in the last decade have been as appropriate as the aftermath of the catastrophic flood caused by broken levees in New Orleans.We had it right at first — the public indignation over being called citizen "refugees," the vocal disgust with lackadaisical and bureaucratic responses to Katrina by all levels of government, the unguarded Kanye West moment.

But the righteous anger was short-lived. The big discussion leading up to Mardi Gras was not about New Orleans' still-bleak and uncertain landscape but whether the hotels around the flood-spared French Quarter would be filled. The fact that they were seemed to settle the question about whether New Orleans was coming back. That whole neighborhoods much larger than the Quarter face a predicament far more grave than hotel occupancy rates seems to have escaped everyone's notice.Part of the problem is the breathless pace of news coverage and ever-shorter story cycles. But part is the unwillingness, or the inability, of blacks to keep the pressure up.

The reasons include a lack of leadership, a surplus of crises and fear of being cast as victims — or, worse yet, as angry black folk. America is leery of angry black folk. (The exception is when the anger is pre-approved or contained by performance, as in hip-hop or sports.) The impossible task for blacks these days is to get mad and get broader support, something that hasn't happened since the '60s. In 21st century America, empathy seems to be reserved for the heroic and the stoic, those who give all and ask for nothing.

Perseverance is what the nation seems to most admire in black folk, if it admires anything: the poetic but passive stuff celebrated in spirituals, blues songs and church hymns. In New Orleans, that has translated into admiration for the man who rescued his neighbor from a rooftop or for the family determined to return and rebuild, government help or no.





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Get your copy of the award winning King:
"From Atlanta to the Mountain top.
"It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
tells the story of the Civil Rights
movementand the life of its
Drum Major for Peace,
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
To learn moreand hear
excerpts from this treasured
program, click here:
http://www.kingprogram.net/

The Mayor Of New Orleans a black man has declared
that the city is back after a success Mardi Gras two
years after Katrina. However blacks are still struggling
to survive. The question now is should blacks be angry
about their situation? Read the commentary below and
then offer yours.


"WE HAD AN incredible Mardi Gras season," said C. Ray Nagin, the mayor of New Orleans, at a news conference Monday. In the city's second celebration since Hurricane Katrina, he said, hotels and restaurants were full and the parades were well attended. His message was clear: New Orleans is back.To me, however, his enthusiasm feels premature. Almost a year and a half after the flood left much of the city in a state of destitution that feels increasingly permanent, I wonder how much more of this we should take. By "we," I am referring to the national black body politic, and by "this," I mean the survival mentality of black New Orleanians, who have displayed an extraordinary but distressing forbearance.

Coping with tragedy that is often caused by racism is necessary, of course, and practically a way of life for African Americans. But this way of life needs to change. Black people need to stay on the offensive by staying mad when appropriate. And few moments in the last decade have been as appropriate as the aftermath of the catastrophic flood caused by broken levees in New Orleans.We had it right at first — the public indignation over being called citizen "refugees," the vocal disgust with lackadaisical and bureaucratic responses to Katrina by all levels of government, the unguarded Kanye West moment.

But the righteous anger was short-lived. The big discussion leading up to Mardi Gras was not about New Orleans' still-bleak and uncertain landscape but whether the hotels around the flood-spared French Quarter would be filled. The fact that they were seemed to settle the question about whether New Orleans was coming back. That whole neighborhoods much larger than the Quarter face a predicament far more grave than hotel occupancy rates seems to have escaped everyone's notice.Part of the problem is the breathless pace of news coverage and ever-shorter story cycles. But part is the unwillingness, or the inability, of blacks to keep the pressure up.

The reasons include a lack of leadership, a surplus of crises and fear of being cast as victims — or, worse yet, as angry black folk. America is leery of angry black folk. (The exception is when the anger is pre-approved or contained by performance, as in hip-hop or sports.) The impossible task for blacks these days is to get mad and get broader support, something that hasn't happened since the '60s. In 21st century America, empathy seems to be reserved for the heroic and the stoic, those who give all and ask for nothing.

Perseverance is what the nation seems to most admire in black folk, if it admires anything: the poetic but passive stuff celebrated in spirituals, blues songs and church hymns. In New Orleans, that has translated into admiration for the man who rescued his neighbor from a rooftop or for the family determined to return and rebuild, government help or no.





This Article Continues Here:






Get your copy of the award winning King:
"From Atlanta to the Mountain top.
"It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
tells the story of the Civil Rights
movementand the life of its
Drum Major for Peace,
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
To learn moreand hear
excerpts from this treasured
program, click here:
http://www.kingprogram.net/

The mayor of New Orleans has Here:






Get your copy of the award winning King:
"From Atlanta to the Mountain top.
"It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
tells the story of the Civil Rights
movementand the life of its
Drum Major for Peace,
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
To learn moreand hear
excerpts from this treasured
program, click here:
http://www.kingprogram.net/

Klan Is Moving From Black To....

It looks as if members of the Klu Klux Klan are taking
the sheets off the bed. The group it seems has now
found a new purpose to spread it's hate and it ain't with
black folks. So just who are the intended targets? I'll
let you read on and discover the answer yourself. Then
ring in and let me know your thoughts.



RECENT NEWS headlines announce a revival of the Ku Klux Klan. The Christian Science Monitor warns that the KKK "appears to be on the rise again after years of irrelevance." The Associated Press reports that white supremacists are "significantly more active" and are "focused on stirring anti-immigrant sentiment," particularly against Mexicans and other Latinos.

The stimulus for these stories is a 13-page report from the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish organization that has long fought all forms of bigotry. The ADL says the Klan "experienced a resurgence in 2006," with "a noticeable spike in activity by Klan chapters across the country." All told, the ADL estimates that there could be as many as 5,000 members and associates of the KKK spread across the country.

So is it time to be worried? Is the ADL correct in warning of a dangerous resurgence of the dreaded and widely hated organization that committed so many acts of terror against African Americans during Reconstruction and the civil rights era?
It's not so clear. The ADL document identifies several Klan groups as especially active in 2005-06. One is the Brotherhood of Klans, based in Henderson, Tenn., which sponsored a number of public events during that period — but whose leader, Dale Fox, died of a heart attack in November.

Another is the World Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, based in Sharpsburg, Md., which mustered a turnout of only about 30 Klansmen at the Civil War battlefield near Gettysburg, Pa., in September. World Knights leader Gordon Young "used the event to denounce multiracial marriage and immigration," the ADL reports. Two months later, however, the World Knights unexpectedly disbanded, and in January, Young was arrested on multiple felony charges of sexual abuse of a minor. He remains in jail on $350,000 bond and faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted.

Even the ADL acknowledges that "many individual Klan groups themselves typically do not last long before fragmenting or falling apart," and it admits that nationwide the KKK is "extremely fragmented" with "little" financial support.
Yet the report seems determined to make things sound as bad as possible. For instance, it highlights the Empire Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, a group formed in 2005 whose website claims it has "realms" in 20 states reaching from Massachusetts to California.

The ADL's emphasis on the Empire Knights failed to impress Florida's St. Petersburg Times, the major newspaper closest to the Knights' U.S. headquarters. "The Anti-Defamation League says there is a Homosassa branch of the Ku Klux Klan and that it is helping lead a national Klan resurgence," a Times story began. "This came as news to the Citrus County sheriff's office," the paper said. Sheriff's investigators there "have seen no activity recently" by the Homosassa Klan, the paper reported.





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Get your copy of the award winning King:
"From Atlanta to the Mountain top.
"It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that tells
the story of the Civil Rights movement
and the life of its Drum Major for Peace,
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.To learn more
and hear excerpts from this treasured
program, click here:
http://www.kingprogram.net/ reported.

Say It Ain"t So Joe!

Can you imagine what it must feel like if when you as a
civil rights activist finds out that your slave ancestors
where owned by ancestors of a prominent southern
segregationist senator. At first shock then anger but
in the end you'd probably have one good laugh. Read
on, the article will probably make your day.


The Rev. Al Sharpton said Sunday it was the "most shocking" news of his life when the civil rights leader learned he was a descendant of a slave owned by relatives of Strom Thurmond, the late senator who once led the segregationist South."I couldn't describe the emotions that I've had over the last two or three days thinking about this," he said at a news conference. "Everything from anger and outrage to reflection, and to some pride and glory."

Sharpton found out about the connection to Thurmond last week after the New York Daily News obtained his approval to work with genealogists to trace his ancestry.Researchers from Ancestry .com traced Sharpton's roots using a database with access to 5 billion records including birth and death certificates, slave narratives, census and bank records, and United States Colored Troops documents. They discovered that Sharpton's great-grandfather Coleman Sharpton was a slave owned by Julia Thurmond, whose grandfather was Strom Thurmond's great-great-grandfather.

"I know there's no such thing as a boring family tree," said the chief family historian for Ancestry.com, Megan Smolenyak, who presented the findings to Sharpton on Thursday. "I knew we would find something, but I certainly didn't anticipate this."The information also showed his great-grandfather had been freed. Smolenyak said Sharpton was subdued and stunned when she told him about his family history.

"It's one thing to know or suspect perhaps your ancestors were slaves," she said, "but it makes it much more real when you hear names and find out how they were related to you."In a phone interview Sunday, Sharpton said he had one "awkward" encounter with the South Carolina Republican, in 1991 on a visit to Washington, D.C., in which the two barely spoke.




This Article Continues Here:






Get your copy of the award winning King:
"From Atlanta to the Mountain top.
"It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that tells
the story of the Civil Rights movement
and the life of its Drum Major for Peace,
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.To learn more
and hear excerpts from this treasured
program, click here:
http://www.kingprogram.net/

Say It Ain"t So Joe!

Can you imagine what it must feel like if when you as a
civil rights activist finds out that your slave ancestors
where owned by ancestors of a prominent southern
segregationist senator. At first shock then anger but
in the end you'd probably have one good laugh. Read
on, the article will probably make your day.


The Rev. Al Sharpton said Sunday it was the "most shocking" news of his life when the civil rights leader learned he was a descendant of a slave owned by relatives of Strom Thurmond, the late senator who once led the segregationist South."I couldn't describe the emotions that I've had over the last two or three days thinking about this," he said at a news conference. "Everything from anger and outrage to reflection, and to some pride and glory."

Sharpton found out about the connection to Thurmond last week after the New York Daily News obtained his approval to work with genealogists to trace his ancestry.Researchers from Ancestry .com traced Sharpton's roots using a database with access to 5 billion records including birth and death certificates, slave narratives, census and bank records, and United States Colored Troops documents. They discovered that Sharpton's great-grandfather Coleman Sharpton was a slave owned by Julia Thurmond, whose grandfather was Strom Thurmond's great-great-grandfather.

"I know there's no such thing as a boring family tree," said the chief family historian for Ancestry.com, Megan Smolenyak, who presented the findings to Sharpton on Thursday. "I knew we would find something, but I certainly didn't anticipate this."The information also showed his great-grandfather had been freed. Smolenyak said Sharpton was subdued and stunned when she told him about his family history.

"It's one thing to know or suspect perhaps your ancestors were slaves," she said, "but it makes it much more real when you hear names and find out how they were related to you."In a phone interview Sunday, Sharpton said he had one "awkward" encounter with the South Carolina Republican, in 1991 on a visit to Washington, D.C., in which the two barely spoke.




This Article Continues Here:






Get your copy of the award winning King:
"From Atlanta to the Mountain top.
"It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that tells
the story of the Civil Rights movement
and the life of its Drum Major for Peace,
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.To learn more
and hear excerpts from this treasured
program, click here:
http://www.kingprogram.net/

We Remember-50 Years Later

An icon of the Civil Right Movement will be observed this year.
So for those of y'all that were around and may have forgotten
the details and those who were twinkles in your parents eyes
lets take a stroll back in time when things were quite different
for non-whites.


On Sept. 23, 1957, nine black high school students were greeted by an angry mob of more than 1,000 Little Rock residents protesting the integration of Little Rock Central High School. Before long, police had to escort the students to safety . This fall, Little Rock will celebrate the 50th anniversary of that pivotal moment. We asked Eddie Gonzalez, a senior program director for the National Park Foundation, to give us the lowdown on the anniversary.

WHEN: Sept. 23, with events leading up to the anniversary throughout the year.

THE BACK STORY: For nearly five decades, Little Rock Central High School has been an icon of the civil rights movement.
In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. Over the next few years, schools across the country developed plans for integration; for Little Rock, high schools were to integrate by September 1957. But a few weeks before school was to begin, the governor ordered the Arkansas National Guard to prohibit

African American students from entering Central High.
The governor's orders were overturned by a federal judge, but public opinion was still strongly against integration. With the arrival of the first day of school, Central High became a part of history.

THE SCHOOL: In addition to being part of the National Park Service, Central High (above) is a fully operating high school with more than 2,300 students. If you visit today, you'll see that the school looks much as it did 50 years ago. Across the street, the Park Service has turned a Mobil gas station into an interim visitor center; it offers ranger-led programs, interpretive displays and publications, exhibits and programs.





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Get your copy of the award winning King:
"From Atlanta to the Mountain top.
"It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that tells
the story of the Civil Rights movement
and the life of its Drum Major for Peace,
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.To learn more
and hear excerpts from this treasured
program,click here:
http://www.kingprogram.net/
Posted by iloveeur at 11:20

Schools Must Protect Gay Students

This article caught my eye and after reading it
I found it sad that in the 21st century we still
allow this sort of treatment to people that are
only trying to defend themselves and in doing
so still receive added persecution. Check out
the article and send me your thoughts.


Students who are bullied by other students because of their sexual orientation are protected by New Jersey’s antidiscrimination law, and school districts must take reasonable steps to stop such harassment, the state’s Supreme Court unanimously ruled yesterday.

“Students in the classroom are entitled to no less protection from the unlawful discrimination and harassment than their adult counterparts in the workplace,” according to the opinion, written by Chief Justice James R. Zazzali.
In the case in question, known as L. W. v. the Board of Education of the Toms River Regional Schools, an anonymous student said that he was taunted with antihomosexual epithets from the time he was in fourth grade until he was in high school and that he was physically attacked twice in high school. Because of the harassment, he contends, he eventually had to change schools.

District policy called for offending students to be punished after a third offense, although they could be punished for being late to class by one minute on the first offense.
In 1999, L. W.’s mother filed a complaint against the district with the state’s Division on Civil Rights, and various appeals ensued. The opinion issued yesterday found that districts must take actions “reasonably calculated to end the harassment.”

Under the ruling, such actions will have to be determined case by case, considering how quickly school officials respond to harassment, its frequency and severity, and the maturity of the children involved.
“We’re pleased with the decision we got today,” said Thomas E. Monahan, a lawyer for the Toms River school board, “because it establishes a standard for student-on-student harassment that takes into account the age of the students and the circumstances of the harassment.”




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Get your copy of the award winning King:
"From Atlanta to the Mountain top.
"It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
tells the story of the Civil Rights
movement and the life of its
Drum Major for Peace,
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
To learn more and hear
excerpts from this treasured
program,click here:
http://www.kingprogram.net/

We Live Here Too!

The shoe seems to be slipping from one foot to another
in Israel. Arabs that have settled in the country now
want more say in how things are done and more control
over their communities. With 1.4 million Arab citizens
internal struggles are sure to come. How will the Jews
deal with this civil rights agenda?


A broadly representative elite of Israel's Arab minority has rejected the idea of Israel as a Jewish state and demanded a partnership in governing the country to ensure that Arab citizens get equal treatment and more control over their communities.
In a manifesto that is stirring anger and soul-searching among Jews, Arab leaders have declared that Israel's 1.4 million Arab citizens are an indigenous group with collective rights, not just individual rights. The document argues that Arabs are entitled to share power in a binational state and block policies that discriminate against them.

Arab citizens, who make up about one-fifth of Israel's population, have always felt alienated by the Star of David on Israel's flag and a national anthem that expresses the Jewish yearning for a return to Zion. They have long protested the disproportionate Jewish share of budget resources, public services and land.
Until now, though, only small groups of Arab intellectuals had dared to advocate collective equality or the abolition of Jewish national symbols.

"The Future Vision of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel" is the first such sweeping demand by Israel's Arab mainstream. The manifesto was drafted by 40 academics and activists under the sponsorship of the Committee of Arab Mayors in Israel and has been endorsed by an unprecedented range of Arab community leaders.
As such, it has set off alarms.

As Jewish leaders learned of the document, which was issued in December but not widely circulated until last month, they seized on it as evidence of a growing militancy by a minority that, by and large, openly sympathized with Hezbollah guerrillas fighting Israel in last summer's war in Lebanon.
The document does not address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But critics argue that adoption of its proposal to redefine Israel as a binational state would undermine Jewish support for a separate Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, a solution to which Israel's government is formally committed.

Commentators on the right have denounced the manifesto as the work of an internal enemy that threatens Israel's identity as a haven for Jewish self-determination. On the left, Jews who have advocated equal treatment of Arabs within a Jewish state say they feel disheartened.
"Is this the beginning of a new demand for the establishment of a state within a state?" Hagai Meirom, treasurer of the Jewish Agency for Israel, asked at a public forum last month. "Is it still possible to mend the Arab minority's feelings of belonging?"

The document's sponsors say most of the criticism misses the point.
Shawki Khatib, head of the 64-member Arab mayors group, said the manifesto was not an ultimatum but an effort to catalog Jewish discrimination against Arabs and provoke debate over how Israel's two largest communities should live together.




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Get your copy of the award winning King:
"From Atlanta to the Mountain top.
"It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
tells the story of the Civil Rights
movement and the life of its
Drum Major for Peace,
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
To learn more and hear
excerpts from this treasured
program,click here:
http://www.kingprogram.net/

Judge Kicks Governor To The Curb

Now that a judge has once more thrown a monkeywrench
into Governor Schwarzenegger's plan to ship California's
prison problem out of state whats he and the legislature
going to do now? Their only answer is sentncing reform
and they'd better do that real soon. Time is running out.
Check out the article below and ring in your thoughts.


A Superior Court judge Tuesday tossed out Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's short-term strategy for coping with the overcrowding crisis in California's prisons, saying the transfer of inmates to other states was illegal. The ruling by Judge Gail D. Ohanesian, who acknowledged a climate of "extreme peril" in the prisons, comes as the state is under federal order to ease jampacked conditions by June or face a possible cap on new admissions.

Ohanesian said that Schwarzenegger improperly declared an emergency in the prisons and that contracts sending convicts to private prisons in Tennessee and Arizona are invalid. Two labor unions that represent correctional officers and other prison employees had sued the governor and corrections officials to block the transfers, saying Schwarzenegger's use of the Emergency Services Act was illegal. The judge delayed enforcement of her order for 10 days, giving the state time to appeal.In a statement, Schwarzenegger said the transfers were "imperative to relieve the pressure on our overburdened prison system," which is packed to nearly twice its intended capacity.

The governor also called the judge's ruling "a threat to public safety.""Our prison system is in desperate need of repair, and the transferring of inmates out of state is a prudent alternative to the risk of court-ordered early release of felons," the governor said.Corrections officials said they would be out of room for new inmates by the end of the year, raising the prospect that California's counties — 20 of which have court-imposed population caps on their jails — will have nowhere to send convicted felons.

The transfer program, launched in November, was Schwarzenegger's effort to buy time. He has asked lawmakers to review California's sentencing and parole laws, and wants to spend $10.9 billion to add 78,000 jail and prison beds. But his plans face an uncertain fate in the Legislature, and many elements would require years to carry out.So far, the state has transferred at least 360 inmates, all volunteers, to lockups in Arizona and Tennessee, but corrections officials' goal is to move 5,000. They recently expanded the program to include mandatory transfers, because so few inmates were willing to go.


This Article Continues Here:





Get your copy of the award winning King:
"From Atlanta to the Mountain top.
"It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
tells the story of the Civil Rights
movement and the life of its
Drum Major for Peace,
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
To learn more and hear
excerpts from this treasured
program,click here:
http://www.kingprogram.net/

Judge Kicks Governor To The Curb

Now that a judge has once more thrown a monkeywrench
into Governor Schwarzenegger's plan to ship California's
prison problem out of state whats he and the legislature
going to do now? Their only answer is sentncing reform
and they'd better do that real soon. Time is running out.
Check out the article below and ring in your thoughts.


SACRAMENTO — A Superior Court judge Tuesday tossed out Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's short-term strategy for coping with the overcrowding crisis in California's prisons, saying the transfer of inmates to other states was illegal. The ruling by Judge Gail D. Ohanesian, who acknowledged a climate of "extreme peril" in the prisons, comes as the state is under federal order to ease jampacked conditions by June or face a possible cap on new admissions.

Ohanesian said that Schwarzenegger improperly declared an emergency in the prisons and that contracts sending convicts to private prisons in Tennessee and Arizona are invalid. Two labor unions that represent correctional officers and other prison employees had sued the governor and corrections officials to block the transfers, saying Schwarzenegger's use of the Emergency Services Act was illegal. The judge delayed enforcement of her order for 10 days, giving the state time to appeal.In a statement, Schwarzenegger said the transfers were "imperative to relieve the pressure on our overburdened prison system," which is packed to nearly twice its intended capacity.

The governor also called the judge's ruling "a threat to public safety.""Our prison system is in desperate need of repair, and the transferring of inmates out of state is a prudent alternative to the risk of court-ordered early release of felons," the governor said.Corrections officials said they would be out of room for new inmates by the end of the year, raising the prospect that California's counties — 20 of which have court-imposed population caps on their jails — will have nowhere to send convicted felons.

The transfer program, launched in November, was Schwarzenegger's effort to buy time. He has asked lawmakers to review California's sentencing and parole laws, and wants to spend $10.9 billion to add 78,000 jail and prison beds. But his plans face an uncertain fate in the Legislature, and many elements would require years to carry out.So far, the state has transferred at least 360 inmates, all volunteers, to lockups in Arizona and Tennessee, but corrections officials' goal is to move 5,000. They recently expanded the program to include mandatory transfers, because so few inmates were willing to go.


This Article Continues Here:





Get your copy of the award winning King:
"From Atlanta to the Mountain top.
"It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
tells the story of the Civil Rights
movement and the life of its
Drum Major for Peace,
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
To learn more and hear
excerpts from this treasured
program,click here:
http://www.kingprogram.net/

Are We Just A Little Too Paranoid?

Since 911 a lot has changed in the good ole U.S. of A.
For instance let one of our so-called super intelligence
agencies say that a terrorist group is going to down
an American airliner using marshmellows. Watch
and see the FAA bans carrying marshmellows on any
flight having any stop or flying over this country.

Right after 911 the FAA banned so many items from
carry on luggage that you may as well as just not
carried on any luggage at all. I recently had a friend
that was told by Homeland Security that she no
longer existed when she went to get a replacement
social security card. She is still trying to prove to
Homeland that she does exist. Anyway read the article
I stumbled across and shoot me your thoughts.


Upon discovering that Weeki Wachee Springs, his Florida roadside water park, had been included on the Department of Homeland Security's list of over 80,000 potential terrorist targets, its marketing and promotion manager, John Athanason, turned reflective. "I can't imagine bin Laden trying to blow up the mermaids," he mused, "but with terrorists, who knows what they're thinking. I don't want to think like a terrorist, but what if the terrorists try to poison the water at Weeki Wachee Springs?"

Whatever his imaginings, however, he went on to report that his enterprise had quickly and creatively risen to the occasion - or seized the opportunity. They were working to get a chunk of the counterterrorism funds allocated to the region by the well-endowed, anxiety-provoking, ever-watchful Department of Homeland Security.

Which is the greater threat: terrorism, or our reaction against it? The Weeki Wachee experience illustrates the problem. A threat that is real but likely to prove to be of limited scope has been massively, perhaps even fancifully, inflated to produce widespread and unjustified anxiety. This process has then led to wasteful, even self-parodic expenditures and policy overreactions, ones that not only very often do more harm and cost more money than anything the terrorists have accomplished, but play into their hands.

The way terrorism anxiety has come to envelop the nation is also illustrated by a casual exchange on television's 60 Minutes. In an interview, filmmaker-provocateur Michael Moore happened to remark, "The chances of any of us dying in a terrorist incident is very, very, very small," and his interviewer, Bob Simon, promptly admonished, "But no one sees the world like that." Remarkably, both statements are true - the first only a bit more so than the second. It is the thesis of this book that our reaction against terrorism has caused more harm than the threat warrants - not just to civil liberties, not just to the economy, but even to human lives.

And our reaction has often helped the terrorists more than it has hurt them. It is the reactive consequences stemming from Simon's perspective - or from what journalist Mark Bowden has characterized as "housewives in Iowa ... watching TV afraid that al-Qaeda's going to charge in their front door" - that generate one of the chief problems presented by terrorism.




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Get your copy of the award winning King:
"From Atlanta to the Mountain top.
"It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
tells the story of the Civil Rights
movement and the life of its
Drum Major for Peace,
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
To learn more and hear
excerpts from this treasured
program,click here:
http://www.kingprogram.net/

It's Called Civil Unions!

To me if two people want to spend the rest of
their lives together thats fine by me. My mom
always said "whom ever I decided to marry
was alright with her cause she didn't have to
live with them." From a legal point of view
civil unions make all the sense in the world.
Check out the article below and shoot me
your opinion.

Diane Marini used to joke that she was always the bridesmaid and never the bride because, as a lesbian, she thought it was unlikely New Jersey would ever approve same-sex marriage. Still, she and longtime partner Marilyn Maneely campaigned for gay marriage. They were among seven couples who sued the state in 2002 demanding the right to marry. While their suit didn't lead to a gay marriage law, it has led to New Jersey becoming the third state to offer civil unions to same-sex couples.

The civil unions law took effect early Monday and some same-sex couples planned ceremonies later in the day. For couples who are not already in civil unions from other states, however, there is a 72-hour waiting period after applying for a license _ just like with marriages. A few town halls around the state opened at 12:01 a.m. Monday so couples could file their applications.

At least a few hundred of the state's estimated 20,000 gay couples _ those who have civil unions or marriages from other states or nations that allow them _ were automatically considered to be in civil unions in New Jersey at 12:01 a.m. Monday.
The ceremonies are bittersweet for Marini, because Maneely died of Lou Gehrig's disease in 2005, more than a year before the case was decided.

"I'm thrilled to have been part of the whole movement to show people who didn't know what marriage meant, why it was important," said Marini, who plans to attend one couple's ceremony next weekend and probably several more in the next few months





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Get your copy of the award winning King:
"From Atlanta to the Mountain top.
"It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
tells the story of the Civil Rights
movement and the life of its
Drum Major for Peace,
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
To learn more and hear
excerpts from this treasured
program,click here:
http://www.kingprogram.net/

At Least It's A Start!

Recently I heard one Mexican call another Mexican the "n" word.
Well, I guess the "n" word just went mainline. I remembered
many years ago looking up the word in a Webster dictionary.
The meaning then was "a lazy person." I decided today to
look up the word again, after all it had been more than forty
years since I'd did so the first time.

Going back to good ole Webster, the "n" word was not in there.
Closest thing to it was the word niggard and it means "a stingy
person." So then I went to The New Oxford American Dictionary.
Bang! There it was but wait a minute there was a different
explantion and much different from the one I found all those years
ago. The explanation in the Oxford was: "n. offensive a
contemptuous term for a black or dark skinned person."

Then it went on to explain the use of the word
being used by black people in reference to other black people in
a jocular manner. Now the fact that the Webster dictionary no
longer even listed the word well that's a story for another day.
Anyway let me know your thoughts on this bold resolution
by New York County. Check out the article below.




N.Y. COUNTY WANTS TO OBLITERATE N-WORD: Westchester County declares “symbolic” war on racial slur.

*A resolution declaring the “symbolic elimination” of the N-word passed the legislature in Westchester County New York Monday on grounds that its use “remains damaging, divisive and derogatory.”

African American legislator Clinton Young, who drafted the resolution, said in an interview: “I hear it just too much in my community and in other communities throughout America. No matter who uses it or how they use it, it’s demeaning.”
“If people knew the origin of the word, I believe they would stop using it,” he added.




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Get your copy of the award winning King:
"From Atlanta to the Mountain top.
"It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
tells the story of the Civil Rights
movement and the life of its
Drum Major for Peace,
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
To learn more and hear
excerpts from this treasured
program,click here:
http://www.kingprogram.net/

Uncle, Can You Spare A Dime!

Now there are 10 billion good reasons to get out of
Iraq. While the administration sits back and figures
out what domestic cuts to make in the budget (and
all of them are sure to effect the poor) his cornies
are having a party and getting filth rich at the same
time. Why is this allowed and permitted to happen?
The thing to is is that it's going to get a lot worse or
better (depending on what side your on) before it's
over. Read about it.



About $10 billion has been squandered by the U.S. government on Iraq reconstruction aid because of contractor overcharges and unsupported expenses, and federal investigators warned Thursday that significantly more taxpayer money was at risk.

The three top auditors overseeing work in Iraq told a House panel that their review of $57 billion in Iraq contracts found that Defense and State officials condoned or allowed repeated work delays, bloated expenses and payments for shoddy work or work never done.

More than one in six dollars charged by U.S. contractors was questionable or unsupported, they said, nearly triple the amount of waste the Government Accountability Office estimated last fall.




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Get your copy of the award winning King:
"From Atlanta to the Mountain top.
"It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
tells the story of the Civil Rights
movement and the life of its
Drum Major for Peace,
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
To learn more and hear
excerpts from this treasured
program,click here:
http://www.kingprogram.net/

Has Black History Month Gone Commercial?

Why not. If there's a reason to celebrate something in
this country somebody's figured out a way to turn a
buck off of it. As Don King would say, "Only In America!
Is this a good or bad thing. Let's hear your opinion.


Come February, the now-familiar observance seems to inspire ever more _ and ever more random _ celebrations.
The players are both big and small. Multinational corporations mount billboard campaigns, while community centers hold fashion shows and tourist spots highlight their connection to black history. But does saturation equal success?

While the concept of Black History Month has been widely embraced in pop culture, it means some of the nation's most bitter history also is getting watered down into cliches or irrelevance. Some events have no historical tie-in at all _ they're merely topics of interest to African-Americans. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, black history is used as a kind of commercial brand, which can feel off-key.

"It has become very mainstream," said Sheri Parks, a professor of American Studies at the University of Maryland. "I do think it's been diluted. Some of this seems like an excuse to put things on sale."

At Drexel University in Philadelphia, February events range from panel discussions about affirmative action and self-segregation on campus to a black art sale and an African American Down-Home Soul Food Dinner.
In Maryland's Prince George's County, there's Black History Magic, African Jewelry Making and a Black History Cheerleading Show.

A new-age center in Oakland, Calif., offered Mindful Drumming for Opening Minds and Healing Hearts and the University of Cincinnati's United Black Student Association has planned an event about online privacy titled "Has Facebook gone too far?"
Is this black history?

Though well-intentioned, the events are probably not what historian Carter G. Woodson had in mind when he created Negro History Week in 1926. He taught for decades that blacks must know their past before they could envision a brighter future.
By 1976, his organization, now called the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, had turned the week into Black History Month.

"The resistance was tremendous all over the country," said Maurice Thornton, a historian at the State University of New York at Albany. "There was a countervailing group who were doing their best to erase black history from the general public."





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Get your copy of the award winning King:
"From Atlanta to the Mountain top.
"It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
tells the story of the Civil Rights
movement and the life of its
Drum Major for Peace,
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
To learn more and hear
excerpts from this treasured
program,click here:
http://www.kingprogram.net/

County Cleans Up Dog Act

Police dogs were once widely used in the south during the
early civil rights movement. Recently however these dogs
were used on people for petty and non-violent crimes.
Only federal intervention brought a solution to the problem.
The end results are told in the article below. Why is it that
so many law enforcement agencies have to have the feds
intervene in order to rectify a situation they themselves
should correct?



The Prince George's County police canine unit, which in recent years operated under a Justice Department consent decree because of allegations of excessive force and lack of accountability, has improved to the point that the oversight is no longer necessary, a federal judge in Maryland has ruled.

U.S. District Judge Roger W. Titus on Monday granted a motion filed jointly by the Justice Department, the county and the police department to end the federal oversight that began in 2004, Prince George's officials said.

'The Prince George's County police canine unit, which in recent years operated under a Justice Department consent decree because of allegations of excessive force and lack of accountability, has improved to the point that the oversight is no longer necessary, a federal judge in Maryland has ruled.', The judge's order means the department has succeeded in reforming the canine unit by dramatically reducing the number of bites inflicted by police dogs, beefing up supervision of canine teams, instituting reviews of biting incidents and improving documentation of such encounters, county officials said.

"Something must be working, because I haven't heard any complaints about dogs biting," Titus said in court Monday.
The oversight will formally end March 11.

A separate agreement between county officials and the Justice Department, which was negotiated to end a Justice investigation into allegations of excessive force by county police, is still operative. The department is in substantial compliance with the terms of that agreement, which calls for broad reforms regarding use of force, training and other issues, said Sharon Taylor, a spokeswoman for the police department.

The end of the canine consent decree "is absolutely good news. This department has worked really hard to get to this place," said Police Chief Melvin C. High. "I am very proud of the members of our canine unit and the efforts they have made."
County resident Redmond Barnes, a member of a group that advocates for police accountability, said he hopes the positive changes in the canine unit signal the beginning of broader police reforms.

"Federal intervention seems to be having an impact, and we can only hope it will have a greater impact," said Barnes, a member of the People's Coalition for Police Accountability.
On a practical level, the end of the consent decree means police officials will no longer undergo periodic Justice Department reviews and will no longer be required to file detailed reports to Justice officials.

However, the canine unit reforms will continue, Taylor said.
The county police department has 11 canine teams, each consisting of a police dog and its officer handler. The unit includes Labrador retrievers as well as Belgian Malinois canines, which resemble German shepherds but are slightly smaller. Both sniff out bombs and drugs; the Belgian Malinois dogs also chase suspects.



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Get your copy of the award winning King:
"From Atlanta to the Mountain top.
"It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
tells the story of the Civil Rights
movement and the life of its
Drum Major for Peace,
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
To learn more and hear
excerpts from this treasured
program,click here:
http://www.kingprogram.net/

Brother-Brother

Only in Hollywood would a script like this play out. Two brothers
supposedly fighting for the same causes but at the same time trying
to prove to Mr. Gilmore that there can be only one star on the stage
of black activism in LA. Neither one in my opinion paid any attention
in school during history class. To be divided on the issues is one
thing but to be divided by ego that sad indeed. Check out the article
below and please let me know your thoughts.



After making the rounds of news reporters, the garrulous black man stepped before a phalanx of television cameras lining the sidewalk outside the courthouse in Long Beach."Everybody ready?" he asked, hands clasped, as if in prayer. "I'm Najee Ali. N-A-J-E-E. A-L-I. Director of Project Islamic Hope." Then he launched a blistering tirade, lambasting not only the black teenage defendants in the recently concluded Halloween hate-crime beating case but their parents and self-appointed advisor, fellow civil rights activist Eddie Jones.

Jones' "grandstanding [is] embarrassing the black community," Ali said. "He has no following in the black community." An hour later, Jones took his turn behind the bank of microphones. With a backdrop of a bright, hand-painted poster promoting "fairness, justice and equality," he called the hate-crime trial "the biggest case of the century" and assured reporters that "civil rights leaders … are working as a unit." What about Ali's personal barbs? "It's not about I, it's not about me, it's about we," Jones repeated as the cameras rolled.

Privately, though, Jones was fuming. Ali, he said, had tried to take over his "peace march" in the violence-plagued Harbor Gateway area the month before. Now he was horning in again."He never sat through one day of the trial," Jones complained, out of earshot of the microphones. Ali's appearance as the hate-crime case wound down last month was "straight insecurity and straight jealousy." Long Beach was the latest stage for Ali and Jones, who seem to turn up whenever issues of race or violence converge with reporters and television cameras.

When racial fights rocked Los Angeles schools, when a Mexican postage stamp was deemed insulting to blacks, when a Latino gang in Harbor Gateway was blamed for a black teenager's death, Jones and Ali were there to convey their outrage with sound bites tailor-made for TV. Their views don't always mesh, but their tactics are the same — staging protest marches and news conferences and, if they are able, controlling media access to victims and subjects of controversy. Their climb from relative obscurity to being described as "black leaders" reflects an era of grass-roots activism that relies more on media savvy than intellect or moral stature.

"We have a colossal leadership void here in the black community," said author and commentator Earl Ofari Hutchinson, another of the new breed of black activists. "When there's a vacuum, something must fill it…. When you don't have the traditional activists — the gatekeepers — that opens the field up for independents of a newer type; perhaps even opportunists."



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Get your copy of the award winning King:
"From Atlanta to the Mountain top.
"It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
tells the story of the Civil Rights
movement and the life of its
Drum Major for Peace,
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
To learn more and hear
excerpts from this treasured
program,click here:
http://www.kingprogram.net/

Wait A Minute...It's Like This!

Patient dumping is a local issue but I'm sure it happend
in your area as well. In Los Angeles ordinances have been
past to combat this problem however there are those
hospitals that still use the practice. The article below is
the latest incident of that. I f it is happening in your are
let us know about it.



Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, accused by authorities in at least two incidents of dumping homeless patients, said Friday that its own preliminary investigation into why a hospital-hired van left a paraplegic man on a skid row street this week found that the actions were not in keeping with hospital policy.The hospital offered its own account of how the patient ended up on skid row Thursday, but the Los Angeles Police Department and a homeless-shelter official disputed key portions of the explanation.

Meanwhile, the city attorney's office said it is expanding its ongoing investigation of the hospital, which has previously been accused of dumping homeless patients, to include the Thursday incident, which was met Friday with widespread disgust and outrage from civic leaders. "This is obviously shameless," said City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo, whose office criminally charged Kaiser hospitals three months ago in a similar dumping case. "We were thinking the hospitals in this city had gotten the message," he added.

"They continue to flout the law."The hospital said it had no explanation for why the van driver allegedly ignored the cries of onlookers to help the 41-year-old man and instead proceeded to apply makeup and perfume before driving off, leaving the man in a gutter. The hospital, which has hired the crisis firm Sitrick and Co. to help it through a storm of criticism, said the van driver worked for Empire Enterprise Inc., a company contracted by the hospital.





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Get your copy of the award winning King:
"From Atlanta to the Mountain top.
"It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
tells the story of the Civil Rights
movement and the life of its
Drum Major for Peace,
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
To learn more and hear
excerpts from this treasured
program,click here:
http://www.kingprogram.net/

The Gate Is Opened After Twenty Years.

A women lied and a man spent twenty years in prison as a result.
On Friday the same judge that sentenced Timothy Atkins set
him free. It is some what frightening to wonder how many more
Timothy Atkins sit in prisons under the same circumstances.
Check out the article below.




A lifelong heavy drug user, frequently homeless or in jail, Denise Powell was a hard person to track down.Researchers for the California Innocence Project spent months searching for Powell — who was only in intermittent contact with her own family. Their goal was to finally document on the record what Powell had been openly admitting for years:

Her testimony implicating Timothy Atkins for murder was false.When researcher Wendy Koen finally found Powell in early 2005, in rehab after a recent arrest, she confessed without hesitation."She was ready to talk. She'd been wanting to talk for years," Koen said. "She said, 'I was young and stupid. I didn't know it would come to this. I lied.' "Thus began the final step in Atkins' 20-year campaign to prove his innocence.

On Friday morning, Atkins, now 39, walked out of Los Angeles County Jail and into the arms of his family, free for the first time since his teens."It's over. I made it," he said, as weeping, whooping relatives lined up to embrace him. "I don't think the realization hit me until late last night."In light of Powell's recanted testimony, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Michael A. Tynan overturned Atkins' conviction Thursday and ordered his immediate release.

Tynan was the trial judge in 1987 when Atkins was convicted of second-degree murder and two counts of robbery and sentenced to 32 years in prison.In his ruling freeing Atkins, Tynan recalled that Powell's testimony was "the key to the conviction in this case…. The state has no interest in upholding a conviction obtained by false testimony."On Friday, Atkins still looked a little shellshocked as he was swarmed by dozens of ecstatic family members and the beaming legal team from the California Innocence Project, part of the California Western School of Law in San Diego.

"This is the pinnacle of our existence," said project director Justin Brooks. "This is the whole goal: freeing the innocent."Back at his cousin Tanya Franklin's house in South Los Angeles, Atkins dispensed hugs and fielded congratulatory phone calls. After decades of incarceration, he spent most of his time outside on the front lawn.Franklin asked, "You want to come inside?""No," he answered, "I want air."Atkins' conviction stemmed from a New Year's Day 1985 carjacking attempt in which flower shop owner Vincente Gonzales was killed.



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Get your copy of the award winning King:
"From Atlanta to the Mountain top.
"It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
tells the story of the Civil Rights
movement and the life of its
Drum Major for Peace,
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
To learn more and hear
excerpts from this treasured
program,click here:
http://www.kingprogram.net/

New Orleans Monkeywrench

The responsibility of immigration is and should always be handled
by the federal government. You can't have one state having it's
policy on immigration while another state has something different.
The current administration is attempting to shift the responsibility
back on states by cutting funds. This is a vain attempt of this
administration to get out of a stinky situation smelling like a rose.
New Orleans has come up with other plans on the issue.



NEW ORLEANS — Lawyers and civil rights advocates are claiming a victory after the New Orleans Police Department issued a directive Tuesday prohibiting officers from arresting people they suspect are in the country illegally after a traffic stop.

A Louisiana statute makes it a felony for "alien students" and "nonresident aliens" to drive a vehicle without documentation proving that they are in the United States legally. The law was an attempt to prevent potential terrorists from obtaining driver's licenses or using the highways to commit crimes. But advocates say it has been used primarily to stop and detain Latinos, many of whom have come to the city since Hurricane Katrina, seeking work.

"Effective immediately all members of the department are prohibited from arresting anyone for violation of [the statute]," stated a directive signed this week by Police Supt. Warren J. Riley. "Federal law preempts state law." Attorneys for the drivers who were charged and other legal experts said that a state law regulating the conduct of noncitizens is invalid if it regulates immigration, which is the domain of the federal government. Riley ordered the new regulation to be read at roll call for at least 14 days.

New Orleans attorney Louis W. Irvin commended the directive, but said the statute was still being enforced in several Louisiana parishes outside New Orleans. "What we are trying to do is get this in federal court … to get some kind of federal ruling on the constitutionality of it," said Irvin, who with law partner Oscar Araujo is handling two cases related to the statute in neighboring parishes.



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Get your copy of the award winning King:
"From Atlanta to the Mountain top.
"It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
tells the story of the Civil Rights
movement and the life of its
Drum Major for Peace,
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
To learn moreand hear
excerpts from this treasured
program,click here:
http://www.kingprogram.net/

What Taser,What Pepper Spray?

A knock-down, drag-out fight by one individual vs LAPD is not
supposed to last for fifteen minutes. With all the non-lethal
weapons at their disposal the fight shouldn't have lasted fifteen
seconds. It did and now a man is dead. Could this have been
avoided? Read the article below and let me know what you think.





The captain at the Los Angeles police division where a 31-year-old man died in custody over the weekend said Wednesday that the dead man and officers engaged in a "knock-down, drag-out fight." "This was not pretty," said Capt. William Fierro. "However, it was necessary."

The altercation between officers and Mauricio Cornejo lasted more than 15 minutes, as police chased, wrestled with and eventually corralled the man outside the Ramona Gardens housing project in Boyle Heights. Fierro said that a preliminary coroner's report found that Mauricio Cornejo had not suffered any blunt-force trauma to the head, although his body had "superficial wounds."

The cause of death was still pending, he said. Police held a news conference after days of intensifying questions about Cornejo's death, which occurred about 45 minutes after officers pulled him over for a broken taillight at Ramona Gardens. It came after internal investigators briefed Police Chief William J. Bratton on their initial probe.



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Get your copy of the award winning King:
"From Atlanta to the Mountain top.
"It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
tells the story of the Civil Rights
movement and the life of its
Drum Major for Peace,
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
To learn moreand hear
excerpts from this treasured
program,click here:
http://www.kingprogram.net/

What's A Few Displaced Negroes?

Well to me that seems to be the attitude that the powers to be
in Washington are courting when it comes to the low-income
victims of Hurricaine Katrina. This situation of affordable housing
for people of little means is on the verge of becoming a major issue
in this country. Miami and Los Angeles are also battling housing
issues for their low income and homeless.



WASHINGTON — In the 17 months since Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, Sharon Jasper has shuffled from place to place, including a cot at the Superdome and temporary housing in Houston. On Tuesday, she and nine other displaced residents of New Orleans' public housing projects came to Capitol Hill to tell their stories, as the House Committee on Financial Services examined the loss of affordable housing because of the storm.

"As a New Orleans resident, a mother and a grandmother, I am looking out for the families that need shelter and a place to live," Jasper said before the hearing at a news conference sponsored by the Advancement Project, a Washington-based civil rights group that filed suit in June against federal and local housing agencies. "Why not bring us back home?"

The lawsuit charges that by failing to repair and reopen undamaged or minimally damaged public housing, the agencies are discriminating against low-income African American residents. The St. Bernard complex, where Jasper lived, suffered minor flooding and some mold damage from the storm. But the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Housing Authority of New Orleans plan to demolish it and similar complexes to build mixed-income apartments.

More than 4,000 mostly black families who lived in public housing have been unable to return to New Orleans because of the demolition plan, according to the lawsuit's supporters.Julie M. Andrews, another displaced resident, told the House panel of her concerns about racial and economic disparity in the redevelopment of New Orleans. "At this time, the rich are getting richer, and the poor are being further oppressed by the vicious plot to eliminate the low-income people of New Orleans, most of who are people of color," she said. "It is an abomination to attempt to replace one race of people with another for the sake of economic gain."



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Get your copy of the award winning King:
"From Atlanta to the Mountain top.
"It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
tells the story of the Civil Rights
movement and the life of its
Drum Major for Peace,
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
To learn moreand hear
excerpts from this treasured
program,
click here:http://www.kingprogram.net/

Freedom Of Speech?

After reading the story below it struck me as odd that
the Justice Department would waste so much time effort
and the tax payers hard earned dollars on a case that they
more than likely knew they could never win. So why did
they pursue it so long? Their are probably a number of
reasons none of which I'd find acceptable. My theory is
if your an immigrant then your not afforded certain rights
under the constitution. Check out the article.



I HAD NEVER imagined that it could happen, that I could be arrested for merely speaking my mind in the United States. Nor would I have dreamed that 20 of the best years of my life would burn in a legal battle over the 1st Amendment rights of immigrants.

But it did happen. I was 19 years old when I immigrated to the United States in the mid-'70s. Fresh from high school, I was eagerly anticipating the promises of the "American dream." After growing up under military occupation in Palestine, I was hoping for a new a way of life. Of all the American freedoms I looked forward to, the most cherished to me was that of freedom of speech.

In college, I chose to study magazine journalism, and bit by bit, I delearned the reticence instilled in me during years of occupation and learned to express what was in my mind and heart. Before long, I had an opinion on almost every public issue imaginable — from U.S. involvement in Central America to gay and lesbian issues, from violence in public schools to the death penalty and race relations.

I longed, however, to express myself on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. This was personal. I believed that distortions were deeply hurting the Palestinians. And I believed in the American proposition that to be a good citizen is to be positively engaged in public debate and political discourse.

But instead of being rewarded, my family and I were severely punished for this belief.

In January 1987, more than a dozen federal agents, supported by three carloads of local police and a helicopter hovering above my front door in Long Beach, arrested me at gunpoint in an early morning raid. My wife had gone to work. I was taking care of my 3-year-old son, Ibrahim, when the agents barged into my home. As they pushed me into the police car, I was shocked to see that they had left my frantic child behind all alone. Elsewhere, as I was soon to learn, six of my friends were similarly arrested (and another person was picked up a week later), all of them, like me, charged under the McCarran Act with advocating "worldwide communism." It was baffling.

I felt the same insecurity and fear I felt as a child when confronted by Israeli occupation soldiers at checkpoints. But this was the West Coast, not the West Bank; Southern California, not South Africa.

Federal officials accused me of supporting terrorism, not because I committed violence or even because I planned to (they continually acknowledged that I did not), but simply because our opinions and political activities (such as writing for newspapers, marching in demonstrations and raising money for hospitals) were not popular in Washington.

No prosecutor ever filed criminal charges against us, but the government tried to deport us anyway, supposedly for being members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, an accusation that we have repeatedly denied.

As the years passed, every court that examined the evidence ruled in our favor. Both the district and appellate courts concluded that the government had singled us out purely because of our pro-Palestinian beliefs. However, the government stubbornly persisted.

For 20 years, the Justice Department tried every tactic up its sleeve to get the courts to deport us. It persuaded Congress to change laws, charging us retroactively under immigration laws enacted since 1987, including the anti-terrorism provisions of the Patriot Act. It failed. It could not produce a shred of evidence of any wrongdoing on our part, simply because we had never done anything against the law.




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Get your copy of the award winning King:
"From Atlanta to the Mountain top.
"It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that tells
the story of the Civil Rights movement
and the life of its Drum Major for Peace,
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.To learn more
and hear excerpts from this treasured program,
click here:http://www.kingprogram.net/

Virginia Apologizes!

Virginia's apology will hopefully start a trend that I hope will one
day lead to reparation. Check out the article below and feel free
to comment.


RICHMOND, VA. — The House of Delegates unanimously approved a resolution Friday expressing "profound regret" for Virginia's role in the slave trade, a significant act of contrition by a body that used to start its day with a salute to the state's Confederate heritage.The resolution, one of several being considered as part of the yearlong celebration of the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown, marks the furthest any state has gone in publicly offering remorse for the enslavement of millions of Africans and Caribbean Islanders during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.

The resolution also condemns the "egregious wrongs" that European settlers inflicted on Native Americans."The General Assembly hereby expresses its profound regret for the commonwealth's role in sanctioning the immoral institution of human slavery, in the historic wrongs visited upon native peoples, and in all other forms of discrimination and injustice that have been rooted in racial and cultural bias and misunderstanding," the resolution states.

The resolution was sponsored by Democratic Delegate A. Donald McEachin, whose great-grandfather was born a slave. Although he initially wanted an outright apology, McEachin said the final version of the House resolution "doesn't sugarcoat the matter either."McEachin said it marked an important step in the state's effort to move beyond its history of stormy race relations, which included government sanctioned resistance to integration during the 1950s."There is some pain at first, but there is a beautiful product at the end," McEachin said of his colleagues' decision to embrace the resolution. "Virginia had nothing to do with the end of slavery. It had everything do with the beginning of slavery."


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Get your copy of the award winning King:
"From Atlanta to the Mountain top.
"It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that tells
the story of the Civil Rights movement
and the life of its Drum Major for Peace,
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.To learn more
and hear excerpts from this treasured
program, click here:http://www.kingprogram.net/

Who Left Out The Dirty Laundry?

If I gave a party and wanted to keep my dirty laundry out of view
of my guest then I should make sure that my that my house is kept
in order. It seems to me that a city that is hosting an event such as
the Super Bowl should have especially addressed it's issues before
hand so that it's guest would not have to be exposed to the dirty
laundry. A simple solution to this would be for the NFL to adopt
a tougher screening policy for cities that bid for hosting of this
yearly event. Check out the article below.



There may be "One Game, One Dream," as Super Bowl XLI banners fluttering throughout the city proclaim. But advocates of the poor and homeless want the world to know there are two Miamis. As tens of thousands descend on this spruced-up city for the country's biggest sports party Sunday, the down and out are pointing beyond the sleek facade of high-rises, hip clubs and beachfront condos. In a weeklong protest to draw attention to the city's underside, homeless activists are putting a spotlight on the corruption and neglect they say permeates Miami and deprives the working class of a dignified existence.

Laurie Dowdell, 43, spends her days at "The Wall," a billboard on the site of the razed Scott-Carver public housing complex where she and 850 other families were evicted three years ago. They were promised new homes, but nothing has been built. The billboard lists the names of the displaced, including Dowdell, in an effort to shame the county into finding them a place to live."They said they were going to tear down this place and rebuild — give us a better place," said Dowdell, whose two daughters live with a cousin in Atlanta while she cleans houses and does odd jobs in Miami, where she can make more money.

A few blocks east, at another desolate corner of the crime-ridden Liberty City neighborhood, homeless people have erected a shantytown on a lot designated a decade ago for an affordable-housing project that never broke ground."The county is intentionally depleting the stock of low-income housing because that artificially props up rents in the private market," said Max Rameau, an opponent of gentrification who is leading the protest. Since Monday, residents of the shantytown, called Umoja, or "unity" in Swahili, have held guerrilla art parties, a Gentrification Teach-In and a Tour of Shame to showcase the sides of Miami that they say the Super Bowl promoters are trying to hide.

About 20 out-of-town reporters boarded a bus in fashionable South Beach on Wednesday for the Miami Workers Center "reality tour."They visited the shantytown, watched homeless people clash with police as they tried to put up a camp in Overtown, and met residents of the Blue Lakes Mobile Home Park, who say their electricity has been shut off by the property owner to drive them off the prime urban land. On Thursday, Rameau and other activists broke into an unoccupied public housing unit in Overtown, symbolically seizing it for a homeless man living at Umoja. Police arrived 30 minutes later and arrested the demonstrators.

A few hours later, the Glitz and Glam Granny Cheer Squad, homeless women from the Scott-Carver complex, rolled up on a flatbed truck to an NFL media event to wave pompoms and cheer for new public housing. They shouted encouragement to neighborhood youths on hand for a football clinic at a sports and education complex that the NFL built for Miami after the 1995 Super Bowl. More than one-third of Miami-Dade County's 835,000 households are supported by workers earning the minimum wage, $5.15 an hour, or less.The Miami-Dade Homeless Trust calculates that someone earning the minimum wage can afford $268 a month in rent. Because of a dearth of affordable or low-income housing, even dilapidated 1950s-era studio apartments in Liberty City are rented for $600 a month, according to census data compiled by the Miami Coalition for the Homeless.

"The prices are so high we can't afford to live here," said Mary Alice Wadley, gesturing toward crumbling two-story rentals still standing amid the razed public lots. Officials of the Super Bowl host committee say the protest is trying to deflate the city's party mood. They say it is inappropriate because the event is expected to generate $350 million in local spending, including NFL-mandated contracts with small minority-owned businesses.

They also note that Super Bowl visitors aren't responsible for Miami's social services problems."There's a lot of publicity that comes with hosting the Super Bowl, and obviously we want that to be as positive as possible," said Maria Scott, spokeswoman for the South Florida Super Bowl XLI Host Committee, a private group. "But there are always going to be people who want to share their opinion."Although the Super Bowl may benefit Miami's poor and middle class with its weekend crush of food sales, valet parking, taxi rides, hotel stays and limousine rentals, it is a legitimate opportunity to raise concerns about the city's housing crisis, said Ben Burton, executive director of the privately funded Miami Coalition for the Homeless.



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Land Of The Free?

While reading the article below it struck me as being funny how
advocates say that by hiking fees poor immigrants won't be able
to realize their dreams. Well here's what I say to that. America
doesn't need any more poor folks. We have enough here
attempting to make their dreams come true. Read
the story below and send me your take on this issue.


Cost of U.S. citizenship likely to rise.

U.S. immigration authorities Wednesday proposed hefty fee hikes for citizenship and permanent residency applications, pledging to use the revenue to help shorten processing time and improve service. But the proposal, which would hike citizenship application fees from $330 to $595, drew immediate criticism that it would put citizenship out of reach for many poor immigrants. The plan also would increase overall fees for green cards, work permits and other benefits an average of 66%.

Some immigrant advocates say that the fee increases build a "new wall" that will make citizenship more difficult to attain. Immigration officials this month plan to field-test a new citizenship exam they say will be more meaningful, but immigrant advocates fear could be more difficult. Officials also are discussing a plan to require online application filing, which advocates say will hurt those without computer access."All of these policy changes really create another barrier for people who want to go through this process and realize their dreams," said Mark Yoshida, an attorney with the Asian Pacific American Legal Center in Los Angeles.

But Emilio T. Gonzalez, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, dismissed such criticism Wednesday, saying previous fee hikes had not reduced the number of applicants. He said the Government Accountability Office in 2004 recommended a comprehensive fee study after concluding that current charges were insufficient to efficiently process the annual workload of 6 million immigration applications and petitions. Gonzalez added that higher fees would help the agency reduce processing time by 20% — from seven to five months for citizenship applications. Shorter processing time is critical to national security, he said, because it enables authorities to quickly identify any possible public safety threats. "At the end of the day, it's all about security," he said at a Washington, D.C., news conference audiocast nationwide. "

The new fee structure gives us a better agency. The new citizenship test gives us a better citizen. These are improvements. We don't consider these handicaps." The proposed fee increases can be imposed without legislative action and are expected to take effect in June, after officials wade through feedback received during a 60-day public comment period, which begins today. Gonzalez said his agency faced a $1-billion shortfall for the next two fiscal years and was legally required to raise its own revenue to balance its books.

In 2002, Congress gave it a five-year special appropriation of $460 million to eliminate a backlog that peaked at 3.8 million cases and to meet a presidential mandate to process applications within six months. The backlog has been largely eliminated and funding has expired, Gonzalez said, adding that he had no intention of asking Congress for more money. Immigrant advocates, however, are urging the immigration chief to reconsider his stand, and have already begun to approach Congress for help.

The fee hikes would particularly hit Mexicans and Central Americans, three-fourths of whom earn less than $25,000 a year, according to William A. Ramos of the Los Angeles-based National Assn. of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund. Latinos make up half of the 8 million legal permanent residents in the United States who could be eligible to apply for citizenship, he said."While we believe folks should pay a reasonable fee, it shouldn't be to the point where it's insurmountable," said Ramos, who directs the organization's Washington office.



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Get your copy of the award winning King:
"From Atlanta to the Mountain top.
"It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that tells
the story of the Civil Rights movement
and the life of itsDrum Major for Peace,
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.To learn more
and hear excerpts from this treasured
program,click here:http://www.kingprogram.net/