Vision Circle

The Media: 01/04/2006

I go to bed last night and the news is reporting that one miner is dead with the fate of the others unknown.

I wake up and I hear that all miners except for one is dead. Then I hear a woman saying that orginally, they were all lived except for one and that they found out the truth hours later. This woman is now saying she's going to sue someone.

WTF?!?!?!?!??!?!

Your "loved one" has just been confirmed to have been killed in a mine accident and the first thing you think of is to sue someone?

Then I get home and my wife is livid because it's being reported that they were all in church praying when an "outsider" came in and said they were all alive except for one person. The people in the church start cheering. Then the pastor of the church asks people to pray for the family of the dead person, and very few people came up to pray for that family. The, later....

Right now I'm doing something dangerous, and that's writing when I don't have all of the facts. That's the blame being put on the media by the standard media critics, but I have to say if a rumor that the people are alive is going around, it's not a surprise that the media will report it, especially in this age of media competition. But they should have tried to fact check.

The media screwed up.

In the Baltimore area, a columnist for The Baltimore Sun resigned because "he had used sentences and paragraphs from other newspapers in some of his columns without attribution."

So another white newspaper person resigns because of suspect reporting/sourcing. What does this say about white newspaper writers?

I guess affirmative action is to blame.

Men of Quality Initiative

More coverage of positive things African-American males do

What happened to the media when 425 young black men from local middle and high schools . . . assembled at the University of Louisville on March 16 for the Men of Quality Initiative's 9th Annual Lifestyle Choices Forum? There were no reporters asking these young men: What is your role in closing the achievement gap? Why is this forum important to you? What did you hear that made you begin to look at things differently from how you have before? How important is this forum to you as a young black man? All these questions were asked at the forum.

No media were there to observe the nine workshops that covered issues concerning health, careers, college life, media influences, money management and investing -- all of which are pertinent issues to these young men. These workshops were presented by volunteers from the business and nonprofit sectors, students, educators and administrators from U of L and Jefferson County Public Schools, all of whom showed they have a personal commitment and investment in the future of these young men.

Notre Dame - Revisited

Well, now that it's over, we can look back and revel at Troy Smith leading OSU to 617 yards and a 34-20 blowout win over Notre Dame. The Irish and their new coach will face many of the same questions they faced after Ty Willingham's first year. Why did the opposition have so many big plays? Are we as good as our record suggests? Nine wins, two opponents with winning records. Undressed in a bowl game. 10 year contract with a coach who won't be returning to the NFL anytime soon. #5 recruiting class for 2006. Oh well. Sometimes mediocre, overrated media darlings get exactly what they deserve.

Teaching Black Teens To Be Men

Teaching black teens to be men
Men of Quality promotes leadership, provides support
By Wayne Tompkins
[email protected]
The Courier-Journal

About 20 African-American teenagers at the Brown School in Louisville sat transfixed as a group of successful black men challenged them to cast aside stereotypes and take a more positive view of themselves and their futures.

The men had too many negative examples themselves when they were young. Now the members of Men of Quality visit Jefferson County schools to help develop youths' leadership and social skills, as well as their self-esteem.

The school visits, which started 10 years ago, don't end after one day. The adult volunteers are available to the students around the clock.

The youths, many of whom are being raised in homes without fathers, may look to the men for help during crises or simply for someone to talk about the turmoil of adolescence.

"Growing up in the West End, we had the same challenges that you have now," Kevin Wigginton, a former college football player now with the American Red Cross, told the students. "I have friends who are not around anymore for various reasons. Some are in jail -- or in the grave."

About 300 Jefferson County middle school and high school students are involved in the program, which has 14 chapters in the district. Organizers hopes to expand the program throughout the system and start chapters in other school districts.

Black Self Help Info Updates

Since I had some long time to myself, I decided to change the look and feel of Black Self Help Info website. I was going to try a new theme, plus put the organizations/websites into categories and have each category selectable.

Well, first I decided to do the "easy" thing and update the theme. It turns out I did something wrong and totally messed up the configuration.

Say it after me ladies and gentlemen: backups are a good thing.

Since I had backups of the information, and since I would have had to uninstall the content management system and install reinstall, I decided to try out a new one. So, I did and I like the look of it right now. So, it's now open to the public.

The "new and improved" Black Self Help Info website: http://blackselfhelp.info/postnuke/html/index.php

It's still being adjusted, but I think it's close to being ready.

Throw Away The Keys

Someone in the area knows the thugs who did this.

Someone in the area should be telling on those criminals who did this.

But, it appears, people are not telling the police.

There needs to be a round up.

One Reason Why NCLB Stinks

This is one of the reasons why I think the No Child Left Behind act is bad policy:

The majority of Maryland's fourth-graders are either reading whizzes or they are stumbling miserably. It all depends on who is doing the testing.

If it's the federal government, only 32 percent of Maryland's fourth-graders are proficient at reading. But if state educators are accurate, 81 percent of fourth-graders have met a passing standard.

A renewed debate over testing erupted across the country after the release of a new round of national assessments in reading and math that showed enormous gaps between the national tests and the state tests required under the No Child Left Behind Act.

Some educators say states might be setting standards that are too low, in essence dumbing-down their tests to meet a federal requirement that says 100 percent of schoolchildren should be able to pass the exams by 2014.

Monday Night Football

Monday Night Football leaving the "over the air" channels and going to ESPN is the death of an era.

Sad.

Hatin' On Kwanzaa

This is to the people who write "anti-Kwanzaa" screeds this time of year.

• Kwanzaa is a made up holiday.

  1. Yes, it's made up. Karenga has said that from day one.

  2. Other "made up" celebrations include Mardi Gras, Mother's Day, Valentines Day, and St. Patrick's Day.

• Kwanzaa is not an African celebration.

  Karenga never said it was an African celebration. He said he took parts of different African cultures and created a "harvest festival" like celebration.

• Christians shouldn't celebrate it.

  OH, do you really want to go here?

  1. The birth of Christ, Our Savior, did not likely happen on the 25th of December. It was "created" to overtake the pagen rituals that occured during the time.

  2. How many Christians celebrate Christmas singing about Santa Claus and Rudoloph?

  
  

• It's a separatist event.

  1. I've been to one Kwanzaa celebration. I attended in Philly and Karenga was a speaker. At this point, I'll mention that there were a fair number of whites in attendence, and it wasn't just news reporters.

  2. Many people come from different parts of the country to celebrate Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Did you know that there are actually 2 separate Mardi Gras parades happening at the same time? One done by whites, the other by Blacks? Did you know that until 2004, I think, they never even "greeted" each other?

• Most American Blacks have never even been to Africa

  1. Most American whites have never been to Ireland but does that stop them from celebrating St. Patrick's Day?

  2. Most Americans, period, have never left the country.

• Kwanzaa replaces Christmas.

  No, it doesn't. Some "Black churches" even celebrate both.

Take the Kwanzaa hating and step. Ya'll are just spouting nonsense.

For the record: I don't celebrate it. I'm just sick of the silliness the haters go through on trying to shut it down.

The Depths of Black Boogie Man Thinking?

I really don't like what I am about to do, but this is another moment, to me, where something must be said.


Again, off of this post, in the comment section:

But the question I really have for anyone is this:

Muslims in this country are recruiting blacks to come on board their religion of peace train faster than any other ethnic group. We have people like Mumia, Farrahkan, Muhhammed Ali, etc who have all climbed aboard the peace train in what they believe is a retaliation to whitey. Muslims play on black’s notion’s that whitey enslaved me and puts me down. What I find ironic is that Muslims were about 50% responsible for fueuling the TransAltantic Slave trade - Slaves breed in Western Africa were marched to the ports in the Sudan were they were traded for rum, tobacco and cotton. The Muslims were the ones who put Farrahkan’s ancestors on the boats that went to not only the US, but Cuba and South America. On top of that the Muslims were responsible for the death of over 128 African Slaves in their lands during the height of the Africa Slave Trade. The majority of these Africans who died were young girls and women sold as sex slaves throughout the middle east.

So why do blacks so hate America, but join the ranks of a Religion that did more damage (and is still doing damage today) to their ancestors and country than the US ever did.

Cowgirl

I'm sorry, but this is the sort of race baiting, making the Black Boogie Man garbage that I cannot let stand.

My response:

The supposition is wrong.

If Blacks hated America as you so assume, Blacks wouldn’t “disproportionately” join the armed services.

If Blacks hated America, those who did join the service and/or those who have clearances, would have a higer rate of espionage than can account for the general population of those who hold clearances.

The NOI Muslims make up 0.1%, that’s 1/10th of 1% of Black Americans. Black Americans, overwhelmingly, are Christian. The next largest group of Black Muslims are no more than 1% of the Black population.

So, you just created a boogy man of about 1.1% of the Black population.

So tell me why your comments should not be considered race baiting.