Cobb

Trudy Schuett

Trudy Schuett is fighting the good fight. Check it.

For the month of October, Domestic Violence Awareness month, I've been tracking news stories on domestic violence and encouraging my readers to contact their local media to correct some of the many factual errors that keep getting recycled. Each of the stories appearing at the DesertLight Journal represents at least one e-mail either correcting an error or thanking the reporter for their balanced coverage.

It is my stance that current programs, which are rooted in feminist anti-marriage, anti-family ideals have failed miserably in serving their communities and have in fact, impeded progress in finding solutions to this problem. Even though these kinds of programs have been in place for 30 years, they still only promote divorce as the single solution and have made no effort to seek other options. In addition, in most cases they still refuse to recognize or help either male victims or female abusers. Websites for these organizations are often more concerned with placing blame and providing divorce assistance than anything else.

I believe that I've had some impact -- pieces that appeared in the Arizona Republic early in the month reflected only the feminist side of the story, but a more-recent article was more objective. My local paper, the Yuma Daily Sun, which has mainly ignored my efforts in the past will be providing a link to my site as a resource in an upcoming article on domestic violence. I've also noticed a general trend away from the simple repeat of bogus statistics in the media as the month wore on.

Checke it out.

Angela Winters

Angela Winters' new blog Politopics takes a centrist position and covers, well.. political topics. Check it out.

Raymond Cobb Bowen

There are a lot of reasons that I am proud of my family, but I've got to admit, it sounds like a whole new level when other people are saying nice things. He has now been included into the HistoryMakers site. We continue to be proud of this man, who just turned The Big 70! Like Pops, Unk defies his age. I don't know where they got that picture because most of the time, he's looking dead at you and you know it. In fact, I really don't like that picture and I'm going to replace it as soon as I find a better one.

Scientist turned college administrator Raymond Cobb Bowen was born September 19, 1934 in New Haven, Connecticut. Growing up in the Elm Haven public housing projects, Bowen's parents, Raymond Curtis Bowen and Lucille Cobb Bowen, were frustrated in their attempts to gain a higher education and wanted more for their son. He attended Baldwin and Winchester elementary schools and graduated from James Hillhouse High School in 1952. He earned a B.A. in zoology in 1956 from the University of Connecticut, an M.S. in biology from the University of New Mexico in 1962 and a Ph.D. from the University of Connecticut in parasitology and biochemistry in 1966. From 1956 to 1959, Bowen served in the United States Army.

What the HistoryMakers folks probably don't know but I'll tell you, is that Unk is a tremendously competitive man. He studied martial arts and has a pretty sharp mind for real estate. He is a no-nonsense kind of guy with a that classic Bowen laugh, but is the last guy you want to cross. I still have yet to study enough at the feet of this master of administration and bureacratic politics but I assure you that in a manner of speaking, Putin has got nothing on Unk. Look at those dates and those positions and you suddenly understand how much he was a pioneer and the highest ranking black anything a lot of people ever saw. He can wheel and deal like nobody's business, which made him loved and feared from what I could tell at my distance. Unk's quite a prankster too. I like that very much about him.

Like most leaders, Unk can read people like a book. I'm glad he's been patient with me and I know that he's helped me break through the Gordian Knots of life, whereas if I only had Pops' influence, I'd be contemplating forever. Unk is one of three or four people in the universe who may be able to barbecue better than I, and I can't wait to get out to the next reunion on the East Coast next summer. Wait 'til you see what his kids are up to.

Sylvester James Gates, Jr.

Pops hipped me to SJ Gates who is apparently keeping it right.

Sylvester James Gates, John S. Toll Professor of Physics at the University of Maryland, College Park, told a radio audience of African American children and their families that they should strive to find the playfulness in science and math, and to understand the role of physics in everything from cell phones to space travel.

"What I would like most for your audience to understand is that (science) belongs to them," said Gates during an interview on a radio program called Delta SEE Connection. "You see for me, all of the mathematics I know, and all of the physics that I understand and the equations that I deal with — for me this is like a basketball and a court. When I go out and do science, I am having fun. I'm doing the thing that's truest to being me. And as an African American I am not separated from this. This is so much a part of me that it's like my listening to music; it is like watching Michael Jordan play or watching Venus or Serena…"

To produce Delta SEE Connection, a weekly radio program, AAAS has joined forces with the nation's largest African American sorority, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., and the Delta Research and Educational Foundation (DREF).

Entire Article

Real Black Republicans

This is tiring, but I'm going to post it anyway. I will say that in about 12 months I'm going to stop being a black Republican and just become a Republican. I've got about a year's more BS to deal with as a Sophomore and then I'm going to graduate early. I still have yet to make any T-shirts, but that's coming too.

My boy Joe Phillips is doing fine. It's nice to see him mentioned. Meanwhile, lazy editors of presumptuous publications mischaracterize what's real about black Republicans. I'm starting to see why Thomas Sowell spends so much ink. It really is a fight over who owns the race. But as I said, I'm not long for this game. I say that as a [Black] computer scientist. Watch my race disappear and then show up stunningly.

Meanwhile to the text:

The percentage of black Republican national convention delegates grew from
10 percent in 2000 to 17 percent in 2004, he said. Black Republicans hold
office in 22 or 23 states across the country, Watts said.

The former college football star called on the party activists in the room
to support black Republican candidates financially and to spread the
message themselves of how the Republican Party better matches blacks'
values. Bush-Cheney campaign staffers and celebrities, such as former
"Cosby Show" actor and Republican Joe Phillips, are overwhelmed by
invitations to speak, Watts said.

"We don't have enough time to cover the requests that we have," Watts
said. "I am appreciative of all the efforts that all of you make."

I'll be getting in touch with these guys in California in due time. Meanwhile here's the full text of the article reprinted without permission for discusssion and review.

Booker Rising

Booker Rising is an excellent compendium of facts and statistics about African Americans. Edited by Shamara Riley of Crispus, a member in good standing with the Conservative Brotherhood, it aggregates moderate and conservative African American opinion from within the blogosphere and print journalism. If you haven't checked it out lately, do yourself a favor and hop to it.

Keeping It Right

I'm adding a new category to my blog today in order to do something that I've been meaning to do for a while, which is to introduce and keep track of outstanding individuals and groups that smack me in the face as being Old School and/or Conservative Blacks and/or Black Republicans. This serves two primary purposes. One of them is to satisfy my packrat proclivities and organize something which I have failed to organize so far. The side effect of that will be to allow everyone else easy access to the same pile. And the other is equally self-serving which is to create a mountain of examples which deflect the ever increasingly tiresome questions about how/why and to what extent am I 'being' all that I claim to be. Ask them too.

Today I spotlight Tavares Forby, the young man who runs the newly hatched Blackpundit.com. He says:

I have very few black friends that I can talk mathematics, physics, politics, or other abstract subjects with. These are very powerful subjects that change the world. One night I went to go see the second Matrix at a theatre near UCSD. I got there about 40 minutes early because it was the first night it came out. During that 40 minutes before the move, I looked around the theatre and all I saw was a lot of Asian and White college kids with there text books open, using their TI-89, or had their laptop open doing some type of school work. I was amazed (besides the fact I was the only black there). And I thought to myself, how come I never see this in the black community? How can we get African Americans to shift some of their interest into something outside of their own? Maybe making these other interests look cool or a focus on changing the views of our younger African American generation can make a difference. Whatever the answer is, we need to get back in the race!

We're with you Tavares and we've got your back and I am pledging my support of the Keeping It Right network to insure that our folks are hooked up properly. At the very least, I can start placing some people in all the tech jobs people keep throwing at me over at my other site, Cubegeek.