Tuesday, December 30, 2008

3 Million Africans to Receive Native Language Bible for 1st Time

(Hmmm. I'm not sure how I feel about this. Christianity still being pushed this way.... by whom? Who's interpretation are they translating? Hopefully they will get more literate so that they can question what is being pushed onto them and explore. )


3 Million Africans to Receive Native Language Bible for 1st Time

http://www.christianpost.com/article/20081228/3-million-africans-to-receive-native-language-bible-for-1st-time.htm

Monday, December 29, 2008

Russian Professor Predicts End of U.S.

As if Things Weren't Bad Enough, Russian Professor Predicts End of U.S.

In Moscow, Igor Panarin's Forecasts Are All the Rage; America 'Disintegrates' in 2010


MOSCOW -- For a decade, Russian academic Igor Panarin has been predicting the U.S. will fall apart in 2010. For most of that time, he admits, few took his argument -- that an economic and moral collapse will trigger a civil war and the eventual breakup of the U.S. -- very seriously. Now he's found an eager audience: Russian state media.

[Prof. Panarin]

Igor Panarin

In recent weeks, he's been interviewed as much as twice a day about his predictions. "It's a record," says Prof. Panarin. "But I think the attention is going to grow even stronger."

Prof. Panarin, 50 years old, is not a fringe figure. A former KGB analyst, he is dean of the Russian Foreign Ministry's academy for future diplomats. He is invited to Kremlin receptions, lectures students, publishes books, and appears in the media as an expert on U.S.-Russia relations.

But it's his bleak forecast for the U.S. that is music to the ears of the Kremlin, which in recent years has blamed Washington for everything from instability in the Middle East to the global financial crisis. Mr. Panarin's views also fit neatly with the Kremlin's narrative that Russia is returning to its rightful place on the world stage after the weakness of the 1990s, when many feared that the country would go economically and politically bankrupt and break into separate territories.

A polite and cheerful man with a buzz cut, Mr. Panarin insists he does not dislike Americans. But he warns that the outlook for them is dire.

"There's a 55-45% chance right now that disintegration will occur," he says. "One could rejoice in that process," he adds, poker-faced. "But if we're talking reasonably, it's not the best scenario -- for Russia." Though Russia would become more powerful on the global stage, he says, its economy would suffer because it currently depends heavily on the dollar and on trade with the U.S.

Mr. Panarin posits, in brief, that mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation will trigger a civil war next fall and the collapse of the dollar. Around the end of June 2010, or early July, he says, the U.S. will break into six pieces -- with Alaska reverting to Russian control.

In addition to increasing coverage in state media, which are tightly controlled by the Kremlin, Mr. Panarin's ideas are now being widely discussed among local experts. He presented his theory at a recent roundtable discussion at the Foreign Ministry. The country's top international relations school has hosted him as a keynote speaker. During an appearance on the state TV channel Rossiya, the station cut between his comments and TV footage of lines at soup kitchens and crowds of homeless people in the U.S. The professor has also been featured on the Kremlin's English-language propaganda channel, Russia Today.

Mr. Panarin's apocalyptic vision "reflects a very pronounced degree of anti-Americanism in Russia today," says Vladimir Pozner, a prominent TV journalist in Russia. "It's much stronger than it was in the Soviet Union."

Mr. Pozner and other Russian commentators and experts on the U.S. dismiss Mr. Panarin's predictions. "Crazy ideas are not usually discussed by serious people," says Sergei Rogov, director of the government-run Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies, who thinks Mr. Panarin's theories don't hold water.

Mr. Panarin's résumé includes many years in the Soviet KGB, an experience shared by other top Russian officials. His office, in downtown Moscow, shows his national pride, with pennants on the wall bearing the emblem of the FSB, the KGB's successor agency. It is also full of statuettes of eagles; a double-headed eagle was the symbol of czarist Russia.

The professor says he began his career in the KGB in 1976. In post-Soviet Russia, he got a doctorate in political science, studied U.S. economics, and worked for FAPSI, then the Russian equivalent of the U.S. National Security Agency. He says he did strategy forecasts for then-President Boris Yeltsin, adding that the details are "classified."

In September 1998, he attended a conference in Linz, Austria, devoted to information warfare, the use of data to get an edge over a rival. It was there, in front of 400 fellow delegates, that he first presented his theory about the collapse of the U.S. in 2010.

"When I pushed the button on my computer and the map of the United States disintegrated, hundreds of people cried out in surprise," he remembers. He says most in the audience were skeptical. "They didn't believe me."

At the end of the presentation, he says many delegates asked him to autograph copies of the map showing a dismembered U.S.

He based the forecast on classified data supplied to him by FAPSI analysts, he says. He predicts that economic, financial and demographic trends will provoke a political and social crisis in the U.S. When the going gets tough, he says, wealthier states will withhold funds from the federal government and effectively secede from the union. Social unrest up to and including a civil war will follow. The U.S. will then split along ethnic lines, and foreign powers will move in.

California will form the nucleus of what he calls "The Californian Republic," and will be part of China or under Chinese influence. Texas will be the heart of "The Texas Republic," a cluster of states that will go to Mexico or fall under Mexican influence. Washington, D.C., and New York will be part of an "Atlantic America" that may join the European Union. Canada will grab a group of Northern states Prof. Panarin calls "The Central North American Republic." Hawaii, he suggests, will be a protectorate of Japan or China, and Alaska will be subsumed into Russia.

"It would be reasonable for Russia to lay claim to Alaska; it was part of the Russian Empire for a long time." A framed satellite image of the Bering Strait that separates Alaska from Russia like a thread hangs from his office wall. "It's not there for no reason," he says with a sly grin.

Interest in his forecast revived this fall when he published an article in Izvestia, one of Russia's biggest national dailies. In it, he reiterated his theory, called U.S. foreign debt "a pyramid scheme," and predicted China and Russia would usurp Washington's role as a global financial regulator.

Americans hope President-elect Barack Obama "can work miracles," he wrote. "But when spring comes, it will be clear that there are no miracles."

The article prompted a question about the White House's reaction to Prof. Panarin's forecast at a December news conference. "I'll have to decline to comment," spokeswoman Dana Perino said amid much laughter.

For Prof. Panarin, Ms. Perino's response was significant. "The way the answer was phrased was an indication that my views are being listened to very carefully," he says.

The professor says he's convinced that people are taking his theory more seriously. People like him have forecast similar cataclysms before, he says, and been right. He cites French political scientist Emmanuel Todd. Mr. Todd is famous for having rightly forecast the demise of the Soviet Union -- 15 years beforehand. "When he forecast the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1976, people laughed at him," says Prof. Panarin.

[Igor Panarin]

Write to Andrew Osborn at andrew.osborn@wsj.com

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123051100709638419.html

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Pedophiles in the Civil Right struggle to have Sex with Kids

(Somebody help me understand where these monsters come from? Can we ship them to some far away island where they can sexually abuse each other? They're out of control... and can't deal with adult situations so they prey on kids.)


Pedophiles in the Civil Right struggle to have Sex with Kids


On the Web, Pedophiles Extend Their Reach

0
John Kuntz/The Plain Dealer via Associated Press

Phillip J. Distasio, who has been charged with raping two boys, has argued on the Web in favor of legalizing sex with children.

At first blush, the two conversations — taking place almost simultaneously in different corners of the Internet — might have seemed unremarkable, even humdrum.

In April, with summer fast approaching, both groups of online friends chatted about jobs at children's camps. Did anyone, one man asked, know of girls' camps willing to hire adult males as counselors? Meanwhile, elsewhere in cyberspace, the second group celebrated the news that one of their own had been offered a job leading a boys' cabin at a sleep-away camp.

But participants in the conversation did not focus on the work. "Hope you see some naked boys in your cabin," a man calling himself PPC responded. "And good luck while restraining yourself from doing anything."

The two groups were made up of self-proclaimed pedophiles — one attracted to under-age girls, the other to boys. Their dialogue runs at all hours in an array of chat rooms, bulletin boards and Web sites set up for adults attracted to children.

But it is no longer just chatter in the ether. What started online almost two decades ago as a means of swapping child pornography has transformed in recent years into a more complex and diversified community that uses the virtual world to advance its interests in the real one.

Today, pedophiles go online to seek tips for getting near children — at camps, through foster care, at community gatherings and at countless other events. They swap stories about day-to-day encounters with minors. And they make use of technology to help take their arguments to others, like sharing online a printable booklet to be distributed to children that extols the benefits of sex with adults.

The community's online infrastructure is surprisingly elaborate. There are Internet radio stations run by and for pedophiles; a putative charity that raised money to send Eastern European children to a camp where they were apparently visited by pedophiles; and an online jewelry company that markets pendants proclaiming the wearer as being sexually attracted to children, allowing anyone in the know to recognize them.

These were the findings of a four-month effort by The New York Times to learn about the pedophiles' online world by delving into their Internet communications. In recent months, new concerns have emerged about whether the ubiquitous nature of broadband technology, instant message communications and digital imagery is presenting new and poorly understood risks to children. Already, there have been many Congressional hearings on the topic, as well as efforts to write comprehensive legislation to address the issue.

But most of those efforts have focused on examining particular instances of harm to children. There have been few, if any, recent attempts to examine the pedophiles themselves, based on their own words to one another, to gain a better recognition of the nature of potential problems.

Last week, that world attracted new attention after reports that John M. Karr, who was arrested last Wednesday as a suspect in the 1996 murder of JonBenet Ramsey, apparently used Internet discussion sites intensively in efforts to communicate with children, sometimes about sex. In e-mail messages to a journalism professor that investigators believe were written by Mr. Karr, statements about children seemed to echo the online dialogue among pedophiles.

"Sometimes little girls are closer to me than with their parents or any other person in their lives,'' the e-mail messages say. "I can only say that I can relate very well to children and the way they think and feel.''

The recent conversations among pedophiles that were examined by The Times took place in virtual rooms in Internet Relay Chat, a text-based system allowing for real-time communications; on message boards on Usenet, which has postings by topic; and on Web sites catering to pedophiles.

In this online community, pedophiles view themselves as the vanguard of a nascent movement seeking legalization of child pornography and the loosening of age-of-consent laws. They portray themselves as battling for children's rights to engage in sex with adults, a fight they liken to the civil rights movement. And while their effort has brought little success, they celebrated online in May when a small group of men in the Netherlands formed a pedophile political party, and they rejoiced again last month when a Dutch court upheld the party's right to exist.

Friday, December 26, 2008

Time to Reboot America

(Amen! It is the saddest thing, that in the US, greed trumped quality, innovation and pride in improving our future living.)


Time to Reboot America

Published: December 23, 2008
I had a bad day last Friday, but it was an all-too-typical day for America.

It actually started well, on Kau Sai Chau, an island off Hong Kong, where I stood on a rocky hilltop overlooking the South China Sea and talked to my wife back in Maryland, static-free, using a friend's Chinese cellphone. A few hours later, I took off from Hong Kong's ultramodern airport after riding out there from downtown on a sleek high-speed train — with wireless connectivity that was so good I was able to surf the Web the whole way on my laptop.

Landing at Kennedy Airport from Hong Kong was, as I've argued before, like going from the Jetsons to the Flintstones. The ugly, low-ceilinged arrival hall was cramped, and using a luggage cart cost $3. (Couldn't we at least supply foreign visitors with a free luggage cart, like other major airports in the world?) As I looked around at this dingy room, it reminded of somewhere I had been before. Then I remembered: It was the luggage hall in the old Hong Kong Kai Tak Airport. It closed in 1998.

The next day I went to Penn Station, where the escalators down to the tracks are so narrow that they seem to have been designed before suitcases were invented. The disgusting track-side platforms apparently have not been cleaned since World War II. I took the Acela, America's sorry excuse for a bullet train, from New York to Washington. Along the way, I tried to use my cellphone to conduct an interview and my conversation was interrupted by three dropped calls within one 15-minute span.

All I could think to myself was: If we're so smart, why are other people living so much better than us? What has become of our infrastructure, which is so crucial to productivity? Back home, I was greeted by the news that General Motors was being bailed out — that's the G.M. that Fortune magazine just noted "lost more than $72 billion in the past four years, and yet you can count on one hand the number of executives who have been reassigned or lost their job."

My fellow Americans, we can't continue in this mode of "Dumb as we wanna be." We've indulged ourselves for too long with tax cuts that we can't afford, bailouts of auto companies that have become giant wealth-destruction machines, energy prices that do not encourage investment in 21st-century renewable power systems or efficient cars, public schools with no national standards to prevent illiterates from graduating and immigration policies that have our colleges educating the world's best scientists and engineers and then, when these foreigners graduate, instead of stapling green cards to their diplomas, we order them to go home and start companies to compete against ours.

To top it off, we've fallen into a trend of diverting and rewarding the best of our collective I.Q. to people doing financial engineering rather than real engineering. These rocket scientists and engineers were designing complex financial instruments to make money out of money — rather than designing cars, phones, computers, teaching tools, Internet programs and medical equipment that could improve the lives and productivity of millions.

For all these reasons, our present crisis is not just a financial meltdown crying out for a cash injection. We are in much deeper trouble. In fact, we as a country have become General Motors — as a result of our national drift. Look in the mirror: G.M. is us.

That's why we don't just need a bailout. We need a reboot. We need a build out. We need a buildup. We need a national makeover. That is why the next few months are among the most important in U.S. history. Because of the financial crisis, Barack Obama has the bipartisan support to spend $1 trillion in stimulus. But we must make certain that every bailout dollar, which we're borrowing from our kids' future, is spent wisely.

It has to go into training teachers, educating scientists and engineers, paying for research and building the most productivity-enhancing infrastructure — without building white elephants. Generally, I'd like to see fewer government dollars shoveled out and more creative tax incentives to stimulate the private sector to catalyze new industries and new markets. If we allow this money to be spent on pork, it will be the end of us.

America still has the right stuff to thrive. We still have the most creative, diverse, innovative culture and open society — in a world where the ability to imagine and generate new ideas with speed and to implement them through global collaboration is the most important competitive advantage. China may have great airports, but last week it went back to censoring The New York Times and other Western news sites. Censorship restricts your people's imaginations. That's really, really dumb. And that's why for all our missteps, the 21st century is still up for grabs.

John Kennedy led us on a journey to discover the moon. Obama needs to lead us on a journey to rediscover, rebuild and reinvent our own backyard.

Merry Christmas!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/24/opinion/24friedman.html?_r=2

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

The 10 Best Black Books of 2008

By Kam Williams
Special to the AFRO


1. Hope on a Tightrope: Words & Wisdom
By Cornel West

Hope on a Tightrope earns the No. 1 spot at the dawn of the new political era of Barack Obama. Why? Because in spite of the uncritical euphoria surrounding Obama’s historic accomplishment, Dr. West has the guts to call attention to the pressing plight of the least of his brethren even before the President-elect has had a chance to take office.
Plus, the iconoclastic author, in urging the incoming administration to address the concerns of the poor and underprivileged, cleverly invokes “the fierce urgency of now,” the same phrase coined by Dr. Martin Luther King and appropriated by Obama as his campaign theme. Props to professor West for such a passionate reminder that the struggle for equality couldn’t possibly end automatically with the ascension of a Black man to the nation’s highest office.


2. Faith under Fire: A Memoir
By LaJoyce Brookshire

Everybody is aware of the devastating toll the escalating AIDS rate has been taking on the Black community. For this reason, inner city schools all over the country ought to consider adding this memoir to their curriculum as a precautionary measure. The book revolves around author LaJoyce Brookshire’s relationship with a duplicitous brother on the down low, who callously put his monogamous wife’s life at risk.

Only well into their marriage did a bell go off in her head, but by then he already had full-blown AIDS and she was left in shock by the carousing, carelessness and sexual preferences of a partner she incorrectly assumed to be a straight, faithful spouse. Not exactly anybody’s idea of a fairy tale romance, but a wake-up call to sisters who can’t be too careful, given the rampant spread of AIDS by convicts, intravenous drug users and brothers simply too afraid to admit they’re gay or bisexual.


3. Standing Tall: A Memoir of Tragedy and Triumph
By C. Vivian Stringer

When Don Imus referred to the young women on the Rutgers University Basketball Team as “nappy headed-hos” a year ago, it deeply affected their coach Vivian Stringer, who “couldn’t shake the feeling that I had fallen down in my responsibility to protect these girls.” What almost nobody knew is that Vivian was recovering from breast cancer at the time Imus’ indefensible remarks thrust her into the national limelight and that her mother suffered a stroke right in the middle of the controversy.

So, Stringer never let on that she was going through chemo and caring for her seriously ill mom while handling the crisis with the utmost poise and dignity. Poignantly written without a whit of bitterness, {Standing Tall} is as moving a memoir as I ever remember reading. The tears started flowing from the first page and didn’t stop till I finished the book.


4. Black Pain: It Just Looks Like We’re Not Hurting
By Terrie M. Williams

Social Worker Terrie Williams is most persuasive here, making the argument that life is hard in the ‘hood, that people are suffering from depression as a consequence and that the time has arrived to remove the stigma in the community still attached to seeking out psychological help. A convincing call for African Americans to trade in their self-defeating stoicism for some long-overdue mental health treatment.


5. Don't Blame It on Rio
By Jewel Woods and Karen Hunter

Did you know that Brazil has become the favorite vacation destination of a rapidly increasing number of professional African-American males? Are Black women even necessary any longer? Perhaps not, according to Jewel Woods and Pulitzer Prize-winner Karen Hunter, co-authors of this eye-opening expose’ which blows the cover off the clandestine sex trade currently flourishing in Rio.

The city is apparently a popular port of call with bourgie brothers from the U.S. due to the easy availability of local women who don’t have the attitude or emotional baggage they generally find attached to sisters back home. A rather revealing look at a disturbing cultural trend.


6. Be a Father to Your Child
By April R. Silver

How do African-American males feel about fatherhood nowadays? Here’s a hint: Between 70 percent and 85 percent of Black kids are now being raised by single moms. The popular notion is that misogynistic “gangsta’” rap might have formed men generally unwilling to shoulder their fair share of the burden when it comes to parenting.

But before you jump to conclusions, you might want to read this collection of empowering essays by Black men of the hip-hop generation who have not abandoned their children. For this uplifting tome, which includes contributions by rapper Talib Kweli, writer Bakari Kitwana and filmmaker Byron Hunt, offers a heartening mix of poetry, prose and pictures designed to reassure skeptics about the prospects of the Black family.


7. The Naked Truth: Young Beautiful and (HIV) Positive
By Marvelyn Brown

This bittersweet biography chronicles the author’s evolution from being diagnosed HIV positive to feeling desperate, frightened and abandoned to blossoming into a fearless AIDS activist. Now 24, this brave young lady deserves considerable credit for going public and thus putting a face on a still generally hidden and denied disease at a time when African Americans account for the majority of new infections in the United States.


8. The Race Card: How Bluffing About Bias Makes Race Relations Worse
By Richard Thompson Ford

Was it fair for Michael Jackson to turn himself White only to reclaim his Blackness when he wanted to sue his record company? According to Richard Thompson Ford, many well-off African Americans are more than willing to make inappropriate accusations of prejudice for purely selfish reasons.

The author concludes that such opportunists who resort to the tactic of playing the race card “are the enemies of truth, social harmony, and social justice.” His solution? “For all decent and honest people” to join in condemning any such perpetrators. Certainly, food for thought in what has recently been dubbed “post-racial” America.


9. Letters to a Young Sister: Define Your Destiny
By Hill Harper

Actor Hill Harper received nothing but positive feedback a couple of years ago upon the release of {Letters to a Young Brother,} his inspirational how-to book for African-American males. Its uplifting message emphasized the value of a good education over the accumulation of material possessions while also stressing the importance of being the architect of your own life.

So, it is only fitting that he would choose to write a companion text for Black females with the help such luminaries as Michelle Obama, Angela Bassett, Ruby Dee, Nikki Giovanni and Sanaa Lathan. This invaluable tome addresses a litany of concerns occupying the inquiring minds of impressionable girls still in their formative years. Overall, an uplifting collection of sage insights aimed at instilling self-confidence, self-respect and self-reliance.


10. Sweet Release: The Last Step to Black Freedom
By Dr. James Davison Jr.

Is it detrimental for African Americans to continue to think of their struggle for advancement as a collective as opposed to a solitary enterprise? This is the controversial contention put forward by Dr. Davison, a psychologist in private practice in California. He believes that those Black folks still viewing reality through a pre-civil rights era prism are only standing in the way of their own freedom.

According to the author, the key rests in African Americans breaking the psychological bonds to their racial past by asserting their individuality, a step which he claims “has little to do with racism, prejudice, or discrimination.” A bitter pill to swallow, but so shockingly confrontational that its prescription for Black sanity is a must read, despite the doctor’s apparent right-wing political allegiances.


Honorable Mention:

All About the Beat: Why Hip-Hop Can’t Save Black America
By John McWhorter

Barack Obama: Making History
Edited by Tanya Ishikawa

The Chronicles of a Gentleman (The Untold Truth)
By Leroy Sanders

Company I 366th Infantry
By Harold E. Russell Jr.

How to Build a Million Dollar Business
By Richelle Shaw

Life as a Single Mom
By Stephanie M. Clark

Life Is a Game
By Jim Copeland

My True Soul: Exploited, Apprehended & Broken Within
By Shawna M. Harrison

Why Black People Can't Lose Weight
By Makeisha Lee

Why African-Americans Can't Get Ahead
By Gwen Richardson

25 Things That Really Matter in Life:
A Comprehensive Guide to Making Your Life Better

By Gary A. Johnson


Worst Black Book of 2008:

A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited about Obama and Why He Can’t Win
By Shelby Steele

The title says it all. Black conservative Shelby Steele took a calculated risk in publishing a book predicting Obama wouldn’t win. Oops. A bigger blunder than the {Chicago Tribune’s} “Dewey Elected’ headline prematurely announcing the demise of Harry Truman in 1948. Probably already out-of-print.

Monday, December 22, 2008

Hairdressers want chance to style first lady

Hairdressers want chance to style first lady

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hair salon owner Barry Fletcher sent Michelle Obama a 17-minute DVD about himself. Hairdresser Keith Harley uploaded his resume to President-elect Barack Obama's Web site. And salon owner Nicole Cober-Blake plans to get her name in by sending a welcome basket with bath gels, hair products and a robe.

There are plenty of unanswered questions buzzing around the Obamas' impending arrival, but one has hairdressers on the edge of their styling chairs: Who will be chosen to do Michelle Obama's hair?

Rather than venture out for hair appointments, the first lady typically invites beauticians to the White House. Some of the region's black salon owners hope their experience with African-American hair could give them an edge over those who coifed the likes of Laura Bush or Hillary Clinton.

Fletcher, the 52-year-old owner of The Hair Palace Salon in Mitchellville, Md., cites his experience in international hairstyling challenges and working with actress Halle Berry and singer Mya, a D.C. native.

"I'm going to be doing her hair!" Fletcher said, if he has anything to say about it. "This would pretty much validate all of my hard work and effort to get to a level where I could handle a powerful queen like the first lady."

Not that it's all glamour for the stylist. Bernard Portelli, who briefly styled Hillary Clinton's bob back in 1993, recalled working in a simple room in the White House with a shampoo basin, two chairs and plenty of outlets for blow dryers and flat irons. He's not necessarily eager to go back.

"You have all kind of last-minute phone calls, which is extremely hard for someone who has a large clientele in a salon to drop everything and go," said 57-year-old Portelli, who owns Georgetown's Okyo Salon.

Still, if Obama's hairstyles dazzle the public, having her as a client would be a public relations coup for any salon. Nuri Yurt of Georgetown's Toka Salon attracted attention after he began styling Laura Bush's hair in 2005. Earlier this year, Vogue magazine called him one of the country's best colorists for brunettes.

"It's permanent advertising, if you will, for the salon," Portelli said.

From the stylists' perspective, Obama doesn't need much help — they describe her hair as classic in style, healthy and free-spirited.

For election night, Michael "Rahni" Flowers of Van Cleef Hair Studio in Chicago — Obama's stylist since she was 18 — did her hair. And for the Democratic National Convention, Obama turned to Chicago-native Johnny Wright of Frederic Fekkai's Los Angeles salon.

If an out-of-towner gets the assignment, it would disappoint locals like Cober-Blake, lawyer-turned-owner of D.C.'s Soul Day Spa and Salon. The 37-year-old said she's excited about the possibility of having Obama experience the services at Soul, where she said they "treat everyone like a Michelle Obama."

Harley, of Keith Harley Hair & Scalp Clinic in Arlington, Va., submitted his resume a month ago.

"It would be the highlight of my career," said 39-year-old Harley, who styles such high-profile Washington women as Debra Lee, chief executive of Black Entertainment Television. "It would be an honor."

And like her fashion, Obama's hairstyles probably will be scrutinized, as has happened with other first ladies.

"The thing about being the first lady, you're only as fashionable as your last picture," said Dennis Roche, 58, of D.C.'s Roche Salon, which has African-American-hair experts he said could style Obama. "This is kind of risky because of the fact that we all have bad hair days."

Leslie Warren, of Washington, left, has her hair done by Barry Fletcher, owner of The Hair Palace, at the salon in Mitchellville, Md. on Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2008. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo)

Hairdressers Want Chance to Style First Lady

How To Have Sex In A Car

Couple in a car - Credit: iStockPhoto.com

How To Have Sex In A Car

Getting off in your car is not as easy as it may sound. For those of you who have ever attempted it, you might have noticed the typical difficulties: avoiding hard objects like seats, steering wheels, dashboards, and gear sticks, and getting into a comfortable enough position to actually finish the job at hand.

Success partly depends on the type of car you have, so you will need to adjust the following suggestions on how to have sex in a car to apply to your own vehicle. These guidelines generally apply to a medium-size, four-door sedan.

Here are some tips to make your ride a little easier.

positions and activities

There are several positions that make sex in a car easier and more fun. When you're trying to figure out how to have sex in a car, consider these maneuvers and locations:

The back seat

This can be woman-on-top or man-on-top, with the bottom participant lying on the back seat or the guy sitting. It works better if you pull the front seats as far forward as you can, to give you more room.

The front passenger seat

Push the seat as far back as it will go and take a seat. Your partner can ride you facing you or facing the windscreen with her hands on the dash for support.

The outside of the car

The hood of the car is a wonderful platform for all kinds of activities: You can go down on her while she rests her legs on your shoulders, her bottom on the edge of the car or you can enter her from front or behind while she leans her body on the hood -- and you get fresh air at the same time.

While driving

Your girl can easily get your appendage in her mouth while you drive -- slowly and carefully, for both of you. Avoid bumps or potholes and keep your eye on the road at all times, and if you feel like you are losing it, pull over immediately. A blow job is not worth damaging your car or losing the use of your legs or worse, your girlfriend's or someone else’s life.

Safety

There are many ways to get into a pickle while you try to have sex in a car: You, your partner’s and Joe Public’s physical safety are of paramount importance, simply because while you are so distracted you can’t keep your eye on other things. The key here is getting sorted before you start. So, park somewhere where you won’t roll off a cliff or get clipped by other vehicles, pull on the hand brake firmly and do your seat adjustments before you start.

Law

Most places in the world prohibit public displays of indecency, which is exactly what you are proposing to do when you try to figure out how to have sex in a car. You can be arrested, you can be fined, and you can be very, very embarrassed. However, in some countries, you can and will be arrested and sent to prison to serve a sentence for being so disrespectful.

Keep these tips in mind when you're figuring out how to have sex in a car...

things to keep in mind

Keep handy some tissues or a roll of toilet paper for cleaning up, possibly a small pillow for extra comforts, water or a drink to refresh, and condoms. Avoid candles, as they are a fire hazard.

Cleanliness

You need to make sure you car is clean. Crumpled snotty tissues, takeout containers with old food in them, or McDonald’s cups leaking old flat Coke are not hot, and will detract from your efforts to have sex in a car. Crumbs and sand/dirt on the back seat will be itchy and uncomfortable, so vacuum! Do a quick clean up before your date. Condoms can also help to prevent sticky messes in the car. Without a lecture on safe sex, in a very practical sense they keep you, your girl and your car clean.

Location

Choose your spot reasonably carefully. Keep in mind that any adults or children that may be about don’t need to see you having sex in your car. If exhibitionism is your thing, choose an area that will suit you, i.e., an alleyway in the red light district. Otherwise, choose a quiet spot with some nice scenery, perhaps a nearby waterway, beach or park. If you don’t have a lot of pretty options or gas, an empty parking lot will do the trick. Try to avoid cliche locations where everyone else goes.

Imagination is a virtue: use it.

rev it up

Sex in a car is not always great, but with a little thought and planning, you can use this exciting and interesting location within a location to make a little nasty love. Be careful, use your common sense and show respect to the rest of the world, but have plenty of fun. Get a little more inventive once you get the hang of the above positions and enjoy.


http://www.askmen.com/dating/love_tip_400/413_love_tip.html

How To Have Sex In A Car

Couple in a car - Credit: iStockPhoto.com

How To Have Sex In A Car

Getting off in your car is not as easy as it may sound. For those of you who have ever attempted it, you might have noticed the typical difficulties: avoiding hard objects like seats, steering wheels, dashboards, and gear sticks, and getting into a comfortable enough position to actually finish the job at hand.

Success partly depends on the type of car you have, so you will need to adjust the following suggestions on how to have sex in a car to apply to your own vehicle. These guidelines generally apply to a medium-size, four-door sedan.

Here are some tips to make your ride a little easier.

positions and activities

There are several positions that make sex in a car easier and more fun. When you're trying to figure out how to have sex in a car, consider these maneuvers and locations:

The back seat

This can be woman-on-top or man-on-top, with the bottom participant lying on the back seat or the guy sitting. It works better if you pull the front seats as far forward as you can, to give you more room.

The front passenger seat

Push the seat as far back as it will go and take a seat. Your partner can ride you facing you or facing the windscreen with her hands on the dash for support.

The outside of the car

The hood of the car is a wonderful platform for all kinds of activities: You can go down on her while she rests her legs on your shoulders, her bottom on the edge of the car or you can enter her from front or behind while she leans her body on the hood -- and you get fresh air at the same time.

While driving

Your girl can easily get your appendage in her mouth while you drive -- slowly and carefully, for both of you. Avoid bumps or potholes and keep your eye on the road at all times, and if you feel like you are losing it, pull over immediately. A blow job is not worth damaging your car or losing the use of your legs or worse, your girlfriend's or someone else’s life.

Safety

There are many ways to get into a pickle while you try to have sex in a car: You, your partner’s and Joe Public’s physical safety are of paramount importance, simply because while you are so distracted you can’t keep your eye on other things. The key here is getting sorted before you start. So, park somewhere where you won’t roll off a cliff or get clipped by other vehicles, pull on the hand brake firmly and do your seat adjustments before you start.

Law

Most places in the world prohibit public displays of indecency, which is exactly what you are proposing to do when you try to figure out how to have sex in a car. You can be arrested, you can be fined, and you can be very, very embarrassed. However, in some countries, you can and will be arrested and sent to prison to serve a sentence for being so disrespectful.

Keep these tips in mind when you're figuring out how to have sex in a car...

things to keep in mind

Keep handy some tissues or a roll of toilet paper for cleaning up, possibly a small pillow for extra comforts, water or a drink to refresh, and condoms. Avoid candles, as they are a fire hazard.

Cleanliness

You need to make sure you car is clean. Crumpled snotty tissues, takeout containers with old food in them, or McDonald’s cups leaking old flat Coke are not hot, and will detract from your efforts to have sex in a car. Crumbs and sand/dirt on the back seat will be itchy and uncomfortable, so vacuum! Do a quick clean up before your date. Condoms can also help to prevent sticky messes in the car. Without a lecture on safe sex, in a very practical sense they keep you, your girl and your car clean.

Location

Choose your spot reasonably carefully. Keep in mind that any adults or children that may be about don’t need to see you having sex in your car. If exhibitionism is your thing, choose an area that will suit you, i.e., an alleyway in the red light district. Otherwise, choose a quiet spot with some nice scenery, perhaps a nearby waterway, beach or park. If you don’t have a lot of pretty options or gas, an empty parking lot will do the trick. Try to avoid cliche locations where everyone else goes.

Imagination is a virtue: use it.

rev it up

Sex in a car is not always great, but with a little thought and planning, you can use this exciting and interesting location within a location to make a little nasty love. Be careful, use your common sense and show respect to the rest of the world, but have plenty of fun. Get a little more inventive once you get the hang of the above positions and enjoy.


http://www.askmen.com/dating/love_tip_400/413_love_tip.html

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Studies Look at Health Benefits of Male Circumcision in Black Men

Studies Look at Health Benefits of Male Circumcision in Black Men

Kaiser Health Disparities Report: A Weekly Look At Race, Ethnicity And Health


Science & Medicine | Studies Look at Health Benefits of Male Circumcision in Black, African Men
[Dec 18, 2008]

HIV risk appears to be lower among U.S. black men who have been circumcised and are considered at high risk of contracting the virus than among black men who have not been circumcised, according to a study published on Wednesday in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, Reuters reports. Two other studies in the journal also examine the benefits of male circumcision to prevent the spread of disease and infection.

For one of the studies, CDC researcher Lee Warner and colleagues looked at black men living in Baltimore and found that 10% of those who were at high risk of HIV and were circumcised had the virus, compared with 22% of those who were not circumcised. According to the report, "Circumcision was associated with substantially reduced HIV risk in patients with known HIV exposure, suggesting that results of other studies demonstrating reduced HIV risk for circumcision among heterosexual men likely can be generalized to the U.S. context."

Ronald Gray of Johns Hopkins University and colleagues in an editorial accompanying the study noted that in the U.S., circumcision is less common among blacks and Hispanics. However, blacks and Hispanics are the most at-risk of groups for contracting the virus. "Thus, circumcision may afford an additional means of protection from HIV in these at-risk minorities," they wrote.

The American Academy of Pediatrics does not recommend routine circumcision for infants, and as a result, Medicaid does not cover the procedure, according to the editorial. The editorial adds that "this is particularly disadvantageous for poorer African-American and Hispanic boys who, as adults, may face high HIV exposure risk" (Fox, Reuters Health, 12/17).

Online The study is available online. The editorial also is available online.

4 Generations at Church

4 Generations at Church

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Unknown "Structures" Tugging at Universe

Unknown "Structures" Tugging at Universe, Study Says

November 5, 2008

Something may be out there. Way out there.

On the outskirts of creation, unknown, unseen "structures" are tugging on our universe like cosmic magnets, a controversial new study says.

dark flow galaxy cluster image

Enlarge Photo

Everything in the known universe is said to be racing toward the massive clumps of matter at more than 2 million miles (3.2 million kilometers) an hour—a movement the researchers have dubbed dark flow.

The presence of the extra-universal matter suggests that our universe is part of something bigger—a multiverse—and that whatever is out there is very different from the universe we know, according to study leader Alexander Kashlinsky, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.

The theory could rewrite the laws of physics. Current models say the known, or visible, universe—which extends as far as light could have traveled since the big bang—is essentially the same as the rest of space-time (the three dimensions of space plus time).

Picturing Dark Flow

Dark flow was named in a nod to dark energy and dark matter—two other unexplained astrophysical phenomena.

The newfound flow cannot be explained by, and is not directly related to, the expansion of the universe, though the researchers believe the two types of movement are happening at the same time.

In an attempt to simplify the mind-bending concept, Kashlinsky says to picture yourself floating in the middle of a vast ocean. As far as the eye can see, the ocean is smooth and the same in every direction, just as most astronomers believe the universe is. You would think that beyond the horizon, therefore, nothing is different.

"But then you discover a faint but coherent flow in your ocean," Kashlinsky said. "You would deduce that the entire cosmos is not exactly like what you can see within your own horizon."

There must be an out-of-sight mountain river or ravine pushing or pulling the water. Or in the cosmological case, Kashlinsky speculates that "this motion is caused by structures well beyond the current cosmological horizon, which is more than 14 billion light-years away."

The study team didn't set out to explode physics as we know it.

They simply wanted to confirm the longstanding notion that the farther away galaxies are, the slower their motion should appear.

That movement is detectable in data from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), which NASA says "reveals conditions as they existed in the early universe by measuring the properties of the cosmic microwave background radiation over the full sky"—radiation thought to have been released about 380,000 years after the birth of the universe.

Hot gas in galaxy clusters warms the microwave background radiation, and "a very tiny component of this temperature fluctuation also contains in itself information about cluster velocity," Kashlinsky said.

If a cluster were moving faster or slower than the universe's background radiation, you'd expect to see the background heated slightly in that region of the universe—the result of a sort of electron-scattering "friction" between the cluster's hot gas and particles in the background radiation.

Because these fluctuations are so faint, the team studied more than 700 galaxy clusters.

The researchers had expected to find that, the farther away clusters are, the slower they appear to be moving.

Instead, Kashlinsky said, "We found a great surprise."

The clusters were all moving at the same speed—nearly 2 million miles (3.2 million kilometers) an hour —and in a single direction.

Though this dark flow was detected only in galaxy clusters, it should apply to every structure in the known universe, Kashlinsky said.

Explaining the Unexplainable

To explain the unexplainable flow, the team turned to the longstanding theory that rapid inflation just after the big bang had pushed chunks of matter beyond the known universe.

The extra-universal matter's extreme mass means it "could still pull—tug on—the matter in our universe, causing this flow of galaxies across our observable horizon," said Kashlinsky, whose team's study appeared in the October 20 issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

"Strong Doubts"

Not everyone is ready to rewrite physics just yet.

Astrophysicist Hume Feldman of the University of Kansas has detected a similar, but weaker, flow.

He said the Kashlinsky team's study is "very interesting, very intriguing, [but] a lot more work needs to be done.

"It's suggestive that something's going on, but what exactly is going on? It basically tells us to investigate," he said.

David Spergel, an astrophysicist at Princeton University, echoed the sentiment.

"Until these results are reanalyzed by another group, I have strong doubts about the validity of the conclusions of this paper," he wrote in an email.

He added that, if the result does hold up, "it would have an important implication for our understanding of cosmology."

Study leader Kashlinsky agrees many questions remain unanswered. For starters: What exactly are these things that are apparently tugging our universe?

"They could be anything. As bizarre as you could imagine—some warped space-time," Kashlinsky said.

"Or maybe something dull."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/11/081105-dark-flow.html

TOP TEN ARCHAEOLOGY FINDS: Most Read of 2008

TOP TEN ARCHAEOLOGY FINDS: Most Read of 2008

National Geographic News
December 19, 2008

Lost cities, baffling pyramids, and ancient graveyards are just some of the mysteries covered in National Geographic News's most viewed archaeology stories of 2008.

Top ten stories picture 10. Inca Skull Surgeons Were "Highly Skilled"
Dangerous skull surgery was commonly and successfully performed among the Inca, likely as a treatment for head injuries suffered during combat, a May study found.

Top ten stories picture 9. Ancient "Lost City" Discovered in Peru?
Stone ruins discovered in Peru this past January could be the ancient "lost city" of Paititi, according to claims that sparked serious but cautious responses from experts.

Top ten stories picture 8. New Pyramid Found in Egypt: 4,300-Year-Old Queen's Tomb
Long buried by deep sands, the once five-story-tall pyramid is a testament to a pharaoh's reverence for his mother, experts said in November.

Top ten stories picture 7. Alexander the Great's "Crown," Shield Discovered?
An ancient Greek tomb once thought to have been that of Alexander's father is more recent than thought and may contain treasures belonging to Alexander himself, experts said in April.

Top ten stories picture 6. Mystery Pyramid Built by Newfound Ancient Culture?
The Huapalcalco pyramid in central Mexico may be the work of a previously unknown culture of ancient people, the Huajomulco, archaeologists said in December.

Top ten stories picture 5. Rare Egyptian "Warrior" Tomb Found
Feathered arrows lying near a well-preserved coffin suggest that the mummy inside, when alive, may have been a mercenary for an Egyptian king, experts said in February.

Top ten stories picture 4. Stonehenge Was Cemetery First and Foremost
From the start 5,000 years ago, the site was a burial ground—perhaps for prehistoric rulers—and it remained so for centuries, a May study said. ALSO SEE: related photos and maps.

Top ten stories picture 3. Maya May Have Caused Civilization-Ending Climate Change
A satellite program designed to improve environmental policies in Central America found evidence of ancient, self-induced climate change—offering lessons on how to combat today's warming.

Top ten stories picture 2. Great Pyramid Mystery to Be Solved by Hidden Room?
A sealed space in Egypt's Great Pyramid may help solve a centuries-old mystery: How did the ancient Egyptians move two million 2.5-ton blocks to build the ancient wonder?

Top ten stories picture 1. Portal to Maya Underworld Found in Mexico?
An underground labyrinth filled with stone temples and pyramids, found in August, likely relates to Maya myths of the afterlife, archaeologists said.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/12/081219-top-ten-archaeology.html

Friday, December 19, 2008

13 Food Gifts NOT to Give

13 Food Gifts NOT to Give

Considering an edible holiday present? Before you hit the mall, check out this list of food gifts it's best to avoid.
By Elaine Magee, MPH, RD
WebMD Weight Loss Clinic - Expert Column

We've all gotten them at one time or another: gifts of food that were disappointing or misguided, even comical. Sometimes it isn't the gift itself that doesn't work so much as the match between the gift and the recipient.

For example, I was the goofball who, with all the best of intentions, gave a Starbucks gift card to a music teacher at my daughter's school. It didn't occur to me that he might be a Mormon (see No. 7 in the list below).

Here's another example: I was once given dark chocolate as a gift, when anyone who knows me well knows that I prefer milk chocolate. (The giver in this instance happened to be my mother.)

So, with some personal experience and some tongue-in-cheek reflections on gifts from Christmases past, here is my list of 13 food gifts NOT to give:

  1. Don't give sugar-free candies or chocolates to someone with IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) or other intestinal issues. The sugar replacement often used in these products is maltitol, which is only partially digested and absorbed. The part that isn't digested tends to ferment in the intestinal tract and attract water. To someone with diarrhea-predominant IBS, having a few pieces of these sugar-free goodies can cause some "intestinal issues". (As someone who has IBS, I can speak from sad experience.) We'll leave it at that.
  2. Pay attention that you don't give tea with special properties to someone whom it might offend. The Republic of Tea, for example, makes "Get Lost" tea, described as "herb tea for weight control"; "Get it Going" tea (for regularity); and "Get Gorgeous" tea (for clear skin).
  3. Be sure you don't give alcohol to someone who doesn't (or shouldn't) drink. Even if someone has consumed alcohol in the past, they may now be avoiding it for a number of possible reasons.
  4. Don't give those tins of stale popcorn to pretty much anyone. If it isn't fresh, it isn't worth the calories.
  5. Don't give fruitcake as a food gift, because all the fruitcake jokes known to man are bound to ensue moments after it is unwrapped.
  6. Don't give a gift assortment of dark chocolates to someone who is passionate about milk chocolate (or vice versa). The same goes for giving cream-filled chocolates to someone who is wild about nuts and chews.
  7. Don't give alcohol or anything with caffeine to a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. These items are not in line with their beliefs.
  8. If you don't know the gift recipient all that well, avoid holiday processed meat gift packs (from gourmet catalogue companies) or other foods containing meat, in case your giftee is a vegetarian.
  9. Don't give food gifts that include chocolate, peppermint or spearmint, garlic and onions, coffee, caffeinated tea, citrus, tomato products, or chili peppers, to someone who suffers from acid reflux.
  10. Don't give any food containing pork or pork products, or that combines dairy with meat products, to someone who keeps kosher or observes Muslim dietary laws.
  11. Don't give peanut brittle, caramel apples, or candy canes to people with braces. According to H. Dixon Taylor, DDS, an orthodontist in Concord, Calif., these are the three worst food gifts for someone with orthodontics. (And about 20% of Taylor's clients happen to be grown-ups.)
  12. To that friend of yours who is working hard to lose extra pounds, don't give a gift card to The Cheesecake Factory.
  13. Don't give chocolate-covered insects to people who might be "bugged" by it. I'm serious -- this actually happened to an acquaintance's mom, and she was definitely not amused!
http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/13-food-gifts-not-to-give?ecd=wnl_wct_121908

Katrina's Hidden Race War

Katrina's Hidden Race War

By A.C. Thompson

A.C. Thompson's reporting on New Orleans was directed and underwritten by the Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute. ProPublica provided additional support, as did the Center for Investigative Reporting and New America Media.


A vigilante shot Donnell Herrington twice shortly after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans. CHANDRA MCCORMICK AND KEITH CALHOUN

CHANDRA MCCORMICK AND KEITH CALHOUN
A vigilante shot Donnell Herrington twice shortly after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans.

he way Donnell Herrington tells it, there was no warning. One second he was trudging through the heat. The next he was lying prostrate on the pavement, his life spilling out of a hole in his throat, his body racked with pain, his vision blurred and distorted.

It was September 1, 2005, some three days after Hurricane Katrina crashed into New Orleans, and somebody had just blasted Herrington, who is African-American, with a shotgun. "I just hit the ground. I didn't even know what happened," recalls Herrington, a burly 32-year-old with a soft drawl.

The sudden eruption of gunfire horrified Herrington's companions--his cousin Marcel Alexander, then 17, and friend Chris Collins, then 18, who are also black. "I looked at Donnell and he had this big old hole in his neck," Alexander recalls. "I tried to help him up, and they started shooting again." Herrington says he was staggering to his feet when a second shotgun blast struck him from behind; the spray of lead pellets also caught Collins and Alexander. The buckshot peppered Alexander's back, arm and buttocks.

Herrington shouted at the other men to run and turned to face his attackers: three armed white males. Herrington says he hadn't even seen the men or their weapons before the shooting began. As Alexander and Collins fled, Herrington ran in the opposite direction, his hand pressed to the bleeding wound on his throat. Behind him, he says, the gunmen yelled, "Get him! Get that nigger!"

The attack occurred in Algiers Point. The Point, as locals call it, is a neighborhood within a neighborhood, a small cluster of ornate, immaculately maintained 150-year-old houses within the larger Algiers district. A nationally recognized historic area, Algiers Point is largely white, while the rest of Algiers is predominantly black. It's a "white enclave" whose residents have "a kind of siege mentality," says Tulane University historian Lance Hill, noting that some white New Orleanians "think of themselves as an oppressed minority."

A wide street lined with towering trees, Opelousas Avenue marks the dividing line between Algiers Point and greater Algiers, and the difference in wealth between the two areas is immediately noticeable. "On one side of Opelousas it's 'hood, on the other side it's suburbs," says one local. "The two sides are totally opposite, like muddy and clean."

Algiers Point has always been somewhat isolated: it's perched on the west bank of the Mississippi River, linked to the core of the city only by a ferry line and twin gray steel bridges. When the hurricane descended on Louisiana, Algiers Point got off relatively easy. While wide swaths of New Orleans were deluged, the levees ringing Algiers Point withstood the Mississippi's surging currents, preventing flooding; most homes and businesses in the area survived intact. As word spread that the area was dry, desperate people began heading toward the west bank, some walking over bridges, others traveling by boat. The National Guard soon designated the Algiers Point ferry landing an official evacuation site. Rescuers from the Coast Guard and other agencies brought flood victims to the ferry terminal, where soldiers loaded them onto buses headed for Texas.

Facing an influx of refugees, the residents of Algiers Point could have pulled together food, water and medical supplies for the flood victims. Instead, a group of white residents, convinced that crime would arrive with the human exodus, sought to seal off the area, blocking the roads in and out of the neighborhood by dragging lumber and downed trees into the streets. They stockpiled handguns, assault rifles, shotguns and at least one Uzi and began patrolling the streets in pickup trucks and SUVs. The newly formed militia, a loose band of about fifteen to thirty residents, most of them men, all of them white, was looking for thieves, outlaws or, as one member put it, anyone who simply "didn't belong."

The existence of this little army isn't a secret--in 2005 a few newspaper reporters wrote up the group's activities in glowing terms in articles that showed up on an array of pro-gun blogs; one Cox News story called it "the ultimate neighborhood watch." Herrington, for his part, recounted his ordeal in Spike Lee's documentary When the Levees Broke. But until now no one has ever seriously scrutinized what happened in Algiers Point during those days, and nobody has asked the obvious questions. Were the gunmen, as they claim, just trying to fend off looters? Or does Herrington's experience point to a different, far uglier truth?

Over the course of an eighteen-month investigation, I tracked down figures on all sides of the gunfire, speaking with the shooters of Algiers Point, gunshot survivors and those who witnessed the bloodshed. I interviewed police officers, forensic pathologists, firefighters, historians, medical doctors and private citizens, and studied more than 800 autopsies and piles of state death records. What emerged was a disturbing picture of New Orleans in the days after the storm, when the city fractured along racial fault lines as its government collapsed.

Herrington, Collins and Alexander's experience fits into a broader pattern of violence in which, evidence indicates, at least eleven people were shot. In each case the targets were African-American men, while the shooters, it appears, were all white.

The new information should reframe our understanding of the catastrophe. Immediately after the storm, the media portrayed African-Americans as looters and thugs--Mayor Ray Nagin, for example, told Oprah Winfrey that "hundreds of gang members" were marauding through the Superdome. Now it's clear that some of the most serious crimes committed during that time were the work of gun-toting white males.

So far, their crimes have gone unpunished. No one was ever arrested for shooting Herrington, Alexander and Collins--in fact, there was never an investigation. I found this story repeated over and over during my days in New Orleans. As a reporter who has spent more than a decade covering crime, I was startled to meet so many people with so much detailed information about potentially serious offenses, none of whom had ever been interviewed by police detectives.

Hill, who runs Tulane's Southern Institute for Education and Research and closely follows the city's racial dynamics, isn't surprised the Algiers Point gunmen have eluded arrest. Because of the widespread notion that blacks engaged in looting and thuggery as the disaster unfolded, Hill believes, many white New Orleanians approved of the vigilante activity that occurred in places like Algiers Point. "By and large, I think the white mentality is that these people are exempt--that even if they committed these crimes, they're really exempt from any kind of legal repercussion," Hill tells me. "It's sad to say, but I think that if any of these cases went to trial, and none of them have, I can't see a white person being convicted of any kind of crime against an African-American during that period."

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090105/thompson?rel=hp_picks

Teething medicine poisoned with antifreeze

Teething medicine poisoned with antifreeze



LAGOS, Nigeria, Dec. 18 (UPI) -- Teething medicine poisoned with an antifreeze ingredient is believed to have killed at least 34 Nigerian children, government health regulators said.

Nigeria's National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control said it seized more than 5,000 batches of the alleged contaminated My Pikin Teething Mixture.

The agency said it also arrested a sales representative of Barewa Pharmaceuticals Ltd. of Lagos, Nigeria, the drug's manufacturer, after shutting down the drugmaker.

The agency also shut down Tranxell Ltd., which the agency said supplied chemicals to Barewa.

Barewa and Tranxell officials could not immediately be reached for comment, CNN reported.

The Nigerian regulatory agency said tests showed 90 percent of the teething mixture contained the chemical diethylene glycol, a sweet-tasting poisonous substance normally used in engine coolant. It can be also found in some hydraulic fluids and brake fluids.

The poison triggered kidney failure in the children, ranging in age from 4 months to 3 years, the agency said.

Health officials said the number of deaths could be higher than 34 because many parents in Africa's most populous country have no access to basic healthcare.

The agency has received some 100 doses of an antidote from England, it said.

While the teething mixture was made in Nigeria, the agency claimed most counterfeit drugs come from India and China, CNN reported.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/12/18/Teething_medicine_poisoned_with_antifreeze/UPI-36271229613576/