Echoes of Tuskegee in Suit by Guatamalans Against U.S.

 

Anytime you see the phrase “medical experiments” high up in a story, you can rest assured the story’s going to contain some sort of ghastly allegation.

And indeed that’s what we have here, with a post from the BLT blog on a lawsuit filed by seven Guatemala citizens on Monday against U.S. health officials. The allegation: That as part of medical tests carried out in the 1940s, U.S. doctors infected hundreds of Guatamalans with syphilis. Click here for the AP story.

Click here for the complaint. According to the BLT blog:

The class action stems from a 2009 study by Susan Reverby, a Wellesley College professor who found evidence that the U.S. government signed off on nonconsensual experiments on Guatemalan prisoners, orphans and patients in a mental hospital between 1946 and 1948. President Obama issued an official apology following the release of Reverby’s study.

The complaint . . . broadens the scope of the allegations. The plaintiffs accuse U.S. officials of carrying out experiments and infecting Guatemalans with syphilis through the early 1970s.

Piper Hendricks, one of the Conrad & Scherer attorneys handling the case, said that given parallels with the experiments in Tuskegee, Ala., in which hundreds of African American men with syphilis were left untreated as U.S. doctors studied the effects of the disease from the 1930s through the 1970s, “there is no clear-cut timeline for what happened in Guatemala.”

Hendricks said she expects the class to grow as word spreads; the complaint notes that there were at least 700 test subjects and that thousands of people could have been affected.

A message left by the LB with a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services was not immediately returned.

Echoes of Tuskegee in Suit by Guatamalans Against U.S.
Ashby Jones
Tue, 15 Mar 2011 16:29:27 GMT

FLAVOR00-NONE-0000-0000-000000000000 0.000000 ;

Spring Fever?

"Fever-lurk, Neither play nor work," warns one old fable. In Old French, fever-lurden or fever-lurgan meant a fit of idleness.

With the vernal equinox occurring on March 20, perhaps it is time for a spring tonic of cleansing greens to purge your winter-dulled system of its steady diet of winter squashes, potatoes, and cabbage.

If the dandelions are not up yet, consider the early cresses, high in iron, or some sheep sorrel or lamb's quarters. Many herbalists make teas of the roots and aerial parts of the burdock plant.

Like dandelions, most of these spring tonic greens are high in vitamins and minerals.

See more on creating spring tonics!

Posted via email from blackcotton's posterous

O’Reilly Demands Liberals Condemn Death Threats Against Wisconsin Republicans. So Will He Condemn Death Threats Against Obama, Liberals And Others On Fox Nation?

 

Bill O’Reilly took to the airwaves last week and gravely reported on death threats received by Republican state senators in Wisconsin. He said “the situation is symptomatic of the bitter nationwide war going on between Republican cost cutters and Democratic pro-union forces. There are hard feelings on both sides… But death threats and the destruction of property have to be prosecuted.” Funny, though, he only seemed to find threats against Republicans. We’d like to suggest he take a stroll around Fox Nation which is a regular hang out for those who like to talk about killing President Obama, liberals, Muslims and more.

O’Reilly contended that the “left wing press” is partly at fault for “whipp(ing) up its crowd into a fury… We have ways in our system to deal with unjust laws… but this violence stuff? Troubling. And should be condemned by all loyal Americans. We’ll see if the left-wing press does that. I doubt it.”

Nice way to suggest that left-wingers are not loyal Americans, McCarthy - I mean O’Reilly. But if you believe it is so important for the media to avoid whipping up crowds into a fury and to condemn talk of violence, then I know you will want to have a word with Fox Nation editor Jesse Watters about the discussions of violence we find rampant there.

In fact, if you want to avoid looking like a complete hypocrite, you will immediately condemn Fox Nation in your next Talking Points.

But I doubt you will.

Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com

Tweet

Petitions by Change.org|Start a Petition »

O’Reilly Demands Liberals Condemn Death Threats Against Wisconsin Republicans. So Will He Condemn Death Threats Against Obama, Liberals And Others On Fox Nation?
Ellen
Tue, 15 Mar 2011 00:17:58 GMT

"Anonymous" Hackers Release Bank of America Emails

"Anonymous" Hackers Release Bank of America Emails, Allegedly Showing "Corruption and Fraud"

Anonymous, the WikiLeaks-supporting hacker-activist group, has released a batch of emails leaked by a former Bank of America employee who alleges that a division of the bank was trying to hide damning information on foreclosures. In the lead-up to the leak, Anonymous noted that the documents reveal "corruption and fraud" at the bank -- the biggest in the country in terms of assets.

A Bank of America spokesperson provided a statement to Reuters confirming that the documents were stolen by a former employee of Balboa Insurance, which was acquired by the bank in 2008, but denying that the documents prove any wrongdoing on the bank's part. "We are confident that his extravagant assertions are untrue," the spokesperson said.    Read more 

By Lauren Kelley | AlterNet 
Posted on Monday, March 14, 2011 @ 07:34 AM

Harlem's National Black Theater Scammed by Investors, Report Says

Harlem's National Black Theater Scammed by Investors, Report Says Updated 6 hrs ago

March 13, 2011 1:07pm   Updated March 14, 2011 6:12am

The longstanding theater is in foreclosure after two investors allegedly used funds for other business ventures.

 

By Gabriela Resto-Montero

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

MANHATTAN — Two investors who were supposed to oversee renovations of the National Black Theater in Harlem instead used the money for their own businesses, leaving the theater in foreclosure, the New York Post reported.

Richelieu Dennis and Nyema Tubman reportedly used a $6.5 million loan intended for an overhaul of the theater at 2031 Fifth Avenue for their own soap and lotion business, Nubian Heritage, the Post reported.

As a result, property taxes on the theater went unpaid and the bank lender began foreclosure proceedings against the 43-year-old institution.

"Our eight-year relationship with Nubian began with such promise, but quickly became an enormous drain on our financial resources," said Michael Lythcott and Sade Lythcott, the children of National Black Theater founder Barbara Ann Teer, in a statement.

"This group continually took advantage of our commitment to African American entrepreneurship and our advocacy on behalf of our friends," they said.

Teer founded the theater in 1968 as a venue for black artists, and brought Dennis and Tubman in as investors in 2002 when the venue was in danger of closing, the Post reported.

Dennis and Tubman started selling their lotions and soap on the street in the 1990s and received loans from the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone to open a storefront and expand on the Internet, the paper reported.

The businessmen used the theater building as collateral for a $6.5 million loan in 2006 and the bank foreclosed on the property after Dennis and Tubman stopped paying the previous loans, according to the Post.

A spokesman for the partners said they played no part in the theater's financial woes and that the foreclosure was due to its own  mismanagement.

By Gabriela Resto-Montero, DNAinfo.com
Follow Gabriela on Twitter @GabrielaDNAinfo

Read more: http://www.dnainfo.com/20110313/harlem/harlems-national-black-theater-danger-of-going-bust-after-investor-scam-says-report#ixzz1GaeZXVVz

What Harlem Is and Was

By KAIAMA L. GLOVER

Published: March 11, 2011

About midway through Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts’s slim, enchanting volume we are introduced to rather an odd figure, L. S. Alexander Gumby, proprietor of the Gumby Book Studio and motive force behind a 1920s Harlem-based literary salon. The studio and salon both evolved, Rhodes-Pitts explains, out of Gumby’s singular passion for scrapbooking — his “impulse to compile, collect and curate the detritus of his reality.” Gumby’s efforts ultimately produced an apartment’s worth of materials about the so-called black experience, culminating, we are told, in a “brilliant and strange production.” These words well describe Rhodes-Pitts own achievement in “Harlem Is Nowhere.” Her happily disparate text blends the historical and the personal, the exceptional and the ordinary, adroitly communicating the multiplicity of Harlem itself.

Enlarge This Image

Chester Higgins Jr.

HARLEM: A Century in Images
256 pp. Skira Rizzoli/Studio Museum Harlem. $55.

Richard Avedon, Dawoud Bey, Helen Levitt, Gordon Parks and Weegee are among more than 50 photographers represented in this chronicle of Harlem as a crossroads of art, culture and politics. Pictured, “The New Moon Bar” (1977), by Chester Higgins Jr. More Photos »

HARLEM IS NOWHERE

A Journey to the Mecca of Black America

By Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts

296 pp. Little, Brown & Company. $24.99.

Multimedia

Slide Show

‘Harlem: A Century in Images’

Related

• Excerpt: ‘Harlem Is Nowhere’(January 26, 2011)

• Books of The Times: ‘Harlem Is Nowhere’ by Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts (January 26, 2011)

Like Gumby, Rhodes-Pitts is a transplant to Harlem (in her case, from Texas, via Harvard), and like him she found herself compelled to document her own and others’ experiences there. Like Gumby, Rhodes-Pitts is clearly very much enthralled by “something too vast to be contained on paper” and so has chosen the at once arbitrary and exhaustive medium of collage. Her scrapbook of a chronicle communicates the impossibility of the very task it seems to have set for itself: to figure out Harlem, in some measure, to truly understand the parameters of its symbolic value to (black) America. Sensing, however, the wrongheadedness implicit in any attempt at defining Harlem, Rhodes-Pitts works instead at revising received ideas. “I did not understand how this place existed as both haven and ghetto,” she writes. “It seemed . . . a great paradox. It also revealed something damning about the history I had learned — a flattened version of events where a place is allowed to be only one thing or the other.”

“Harlem Is Nowhere,” Rhodes-Pitts’s first book, is in large part the product of the countless hours she spent poring over photographs and news clippings in the bowels of the New York Public Library’s Harlem-based research center, or “Mr. Schomburg’s labyrinth,” as she so aptly calls it. Rhodes-Pitts — and in this, unlike Alexander Gumby — does not favor “the most exceptional and the most beautiful.” She makes us privy to obscure interviews, photographs, advertisements and even obituaries. While Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin, Marcus Garvey, W. E. B. Du Bois, Adam Clayton Powell Jr. and many other widely celebrated personages make an appearance, Rhodes-Pitts is at least as engaged by Harlem’s lesser-known players, like the proto-feminist Victoria Earle Matthews, the African nationalist Carlos A. Cooks and the fashionista-cum-wax-­museum-owner Raven Chanticleer — those whose names have not been “immortalized by way of a street sign.”

Rhodes-Pitts also took the time to go outside and meet her neighbors. From her verbal jousts with “the Chief,” a frustratingly single-minded holdover from black power days, to her exchanges with a homeless person and fellow writer, Sister Doris Littlejohn, to her encounters with “the Messenger,”an elusive Harlem celebrity known for the inspirational chalk messages he leaves on the sidewalks flanking Lenox Avenue, Rhodes-Pitts’s dealings with the people she befriends are gentle yet without condescension. She introduces us to one eccentric and fascinating individual after the next, allowing us a taste of the “unexpected intimacy” that comes from entering someone’s parlor or standing on his street corner. At the same time, she is very careful to reject “the position of tour guide or interpreter.” She respects her interlocutors’ right to opacity while affirming the importance of their stories.

For Rhodes-Pitts, these stories provide vital points of access to the Harlem she is hoping to find. Rhodes-Pitts brings the library into the street, not only looking to history to explain the present, but also and equally relying on contemporary reality to tell Harlem’s past. “Outside the archive,” she admits, “I compared the buildings and the faces I saw in the street to the buildings and faces in the photographs.” The photographs of boarded up buildings and unremarkable intersections she retrieves from the archive, the vacant lots and undeveloped foundations of buildings she takes the time to photograph in her own wanderings — these become charged with the politics of place. The costs of both isolation and gentrification become evident. “Later I understood that these empty fields were indeed the setting of a history, the loathsome history of neglect and destruction stretching back to the beginning of black settlement in Harlem,” she tells us. “This is the evidence of an unnatural history — it was not always this way, it came to be that way for a reason.”

Readers looking for a more straightforward, comprehensive account of the neighborhood might pick up Jonathan Gill’s new book, HARLEM: The Four Hundred Year History From Dutch Village to Capital of Black America (Grove, $29.95).Rhodes-Pitts instead provides tangentially related points of entry and departure from which to put together a narrative. She makes much of what she does not remember and leads she has chosen not to pursue. After piecing together scattered bits of information about the life of one of the more outlandish characters she has researched, she is offered the means to contact — to meet even — two of his relatives. But “I decided that I had enough information,” she rationalizes. “I might have discovered more of the official story, but it seemed like a trespass. I had not been invited beyond the gate.”

Rhodes-Pitts’s ostensible discretion can feel like a cop-out — a failure of courage, or lack of moxie, even. She is perhaps more comfortable in the library or at 10 or so paces from a deserted building than she is in the private lives of the Harlemites among whom she lives and works. In this reticence, “Harlem Is Nowhere” reveals more than a little bit about Rhodes-Pitts herself. The respectfulness that keeps Rhodes-Pitts standing outside gates or at the edge of conversations has much to do with her uncertainty about belonging to this place and her ambivalence about what it means to be at home. At the very beginning of the book, she acknowledges “the impermanent status of my residence here,” and she returns sporadically but consistently to this question of community. In the second chapter she confesses: “I was not known by anyone; they could not verify my background. I was unable, therefore, to truly lay claim to this place where I’d landed. My relationship to it was, for some time, like the effect of a picturesque landscape that hangs as a backdrop in a portrait studio.” By Chapter 5 her position has shifted markedly: “A stranger stops to ask if I require directions. I have lingered too long before stepping into an intersection, or I look uncertain as to where I am headed. . . . I shake my head no, insisting I am not lost, or even very far from home.”

The final scene of “Harlem Is Nowhere” describes Rhodes-Pitts’s experience of a minor police injustice. Caught in the crowd at the tail end of the African-­American Day parade, she is strong-armed by a bullying cop and forced to move with the crowd, away from the direction of her own apartment. Once out of his sight and reach she turns back, “determined to make my way home.” This “is not a metaphor,” Rhodes-Pitts makes sure to put on record. But that is, of course, nonsense. This final, literal moment of fighting to get back to her home in Harlem is most certainly a metaphor for the homecoming journeys of all those for whom Harlem was and is the only place to be. Rhodes-Pitts’s Harlem is a place worth fighting for. It is a place more endangered than dangerous — a “blank, disavowed” place bursting with the best stories never told. It is anything and everything but nowhere.

Kaiama L. Glover teaches Francophone literature at Barnard College. She is the author of “Haiti Unbound: A Spiralist Challenge to the Postcolonial Canon,” which was published this month.

A version of this review appeared in print on Mar

New York Bodegas Are Still 'A Dying Breed'

New York Bodegas Are Still 'A Dying Breed'

According to a new CPEX Retail Report and many East Village bodega owners, New York's beloved bodegas are slowly being priced out of the city. This has been happening for years now, but it shows no signs of slowing down. Former "bodega havens" like the East Village, the Bowery, and Bedford Ave. have been hit the hardest. "Bodegas are a dying breed," said Lisa Kaplan, Chief of Staff for City Councilwoman Rosie Mendez. "The fact that chains and pharmacies are carrying products that bodegas used to sell is adding to the pressure." The report comes on the heels of last year's NYC Hispanic Business Survey report that 53 percent of Hispanic-owned bodegas are at risk of closing. As Gothamist points out, who will care for all the cute bodega kitties running around the stores like animals and touching the rows of Red Bull? (Or where will hipsters take post-party photos in strangely-lit grocery aisles? And where will underage NYU students buy black-market Sparks?) Anyway you cut it, this is tragic. [Local/NYT via Gothamist]

Read more posts by Mike Vilensky

Filed Under: neighborhood blues, bodegas, east village, retail

Sixth Annual "Ghost Bike" Memorial Ride This Sunday

Sixth Annual "Ghost Bike" Memorial Ride This Sunday

The Sixth Annual Memorial Bike Ride, taking participants across the city to commemorate and honor bikers who died this year, will take place this Sunday. Five groups of bike riders and walkers will travel past the "ghost bikes," which are painted white bikes with small plaques placed around the boroughs as detailed reminders of bike fatalities. [ more › ]

"Fox & Friends" Show More Love For Rep. Peter King

 

The American author, Sinclair Lewis, once said that "when fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross." The fabric of the ribbon which ties this flag is interwoven with racism, nativism, and now, Islamophobia. Given that the happy morning chat show, "Fox & Friends," is all about patriotism and the awesomeness of a persecuted Christianity, it comes as no surprise that "Fox & Friends" is championing the upcoming "Radicalization of Muslim Americans" hearing sponsored by NY, GOP Congressional Rep. Peter King. King, who hates Muslim "terrorists" but had no problem with the Catholic IRA to which he contributed money through "Irish Northern Aid" and of which he was a vocal supporter. In his desire to scapegoat American Muslims (in the manner that his Irish ancestors were when they came to NY), King, who says there are too many mosques in America, channels Joe McCarthy who scapegoated hardworking Americans in his desire to root out a non-existent red menace. Like McCarthy, King is a Catholic who promotes conservative Catholic causes and is embraced by the conservative Catholic hierarchy. He also has a friend in Fox News which, in the past, has given him a platform for his Islamophobic remarks such as his 2004 comment, on the Hannity show, that American Muslims aren't cooperating with law enforcement. Flash forward to 2011 and a GOP controlled House where King will be conducting his hearing on the same meme. It's fitting that his name is King as he's getting the royal treatment - as opposed to Yesterday's MSNBC interview where Pullitzer Prize winning Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson was able to provide some counterpoint. Not so for the happy Christian patriots on "Fox & Friends" who never saw a Crusade (whoops Jihad) that they didn't wrap themselves around!

Monday, "Fox & Friends" had two segments on the King hearing, In the first, Kilmeade was irritated. He said that the hearings "have a lot of people beside themselves." Doocy said that King "had a good point, if people are being radicalized in mosques in the United States, why not find out about it?" While footage of a NY City interfaith protest was shown, Doocy only alluded to the Muslims who attended. Carlson worked in the meme about how "nobody told the truth" about the Fort Hood shooting. She said she didn't understand "why there would be a backlash." She worked in the "persecuted Christian thing when she said that "a lot of Christians feel that they've been marginalized in the last couple of years." (And the network that promotes them vilifies Muslims). Kilmeade provided stats on "home grown terror." and "you don't think this is worthy of a spotlight." Doocy mentioned how one mosque didn't call the police about a jihadist. After showing video of Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough, telling a group of Muslims that they are "part of the solution." Gretch suggest that King and McDonough were on the same page. Kilmeade shouted that if Eric Holder is worried, "don't ya think we can talk about it."

Later, King went through his standard talking points with the three amigos. He said his hearing will show "how dangerous" American Muslim radicalization is. He talked about his "witnesses" who will show that this is a "real threat." He said that he wasn't getting into "political correctness." Good Christian Steve Doocy asked if there was an organization behind the criticism of King and on cue, King said, CAIR. (When, in fact, the criticism is coming from diverse secular and religious groups.) Gretchen Carlson laughed when King said that the media quotes CAIR as if they're the Knights of Columbus B'nai Brith, or the Masons." Gretch had a big smile as King *misrepresented CAIR by saying that it was an unindicted co-conspirator in a major terrorist plot. He said the wants "to end" CAIR's position representing American Muslims. The agitprop chyron: "Digging into Extremism Muslim Leaders to Speak at Hearing Thursday." He said he wants Muslim leaders to "push aside CAIR." Agitprop chyron "Cracking Down on Radicals, NY Congressman to Tackle Homegrown Terrorism"

Former Miss America and extraordinary Christian, Gretchen Carlson just couldn't get it into her pretty, blonde head that "not everyone" is "behind" King cuz "people were after 9-11" but yet, "it's become political this time around." (Thank You Fox News). Gretch was very animated when she accused the Obama administration of trying to get out "in front" of King. Video of Denis McDonough, was shown in which he spoke against "demonization" of communities. When asked to respond King, said, that McDonough also noted that Al-Quaeda is recruiting Muslim Americans. He didn't mention that McDonough praised Muslims for helping to fight extremism. He then restated what Gretch had earlier said - that McDonough is saying what King is saying. Good Christian Brian Kilmeade said "but you take all the fire." King then spoke of his main witnesses, Zuhdi Jasser (no bias there) and the fathers of two young men who were radicalized. He didn't mention that the radicalization took place outside the US.

Comment: Brilliant propaganda. King's points set up and validated in the first segment and further validated, during King's appearance, in the second. In decrying the opposition to King, no mention was made of the diverse opposition to him. Rather, the onus of King's "persecution" was made out to be CAIR. Nice messaging. You certainly didn't hear commentary, from Rabbi Marc Schneier, president of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding and a vice president of the World Jewish Congress, that King's hearings are "un-American" and we know that the gang on "Fox & Friends" are true, American patriots.

*Re - "Unindicted co-conspirator - "A federal appeals court removed the label for all parties and sealed the list on October 20, 2010, ruling the designation was the result of "simply an untested allegation of the Government, made in anticipation of a possible evidentiary dispute that never came to pass."

Petitions by Change.org|Start a Petition »

type="text/javascript">

Tweet

Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com

"Fox & Friends" Show More Love For Rep. Peter King
Priscilla
Wed, 09 Mar 2011 11:50:07 GMT

Salmonella Scare Sparks Skippy Peanut Butter Recall

Salmonella Scare Sparks Skippy Peanut Butter Recall Updated 2 hrs ago

March 7, 2011 8:00am

Salmonella found in some batches of Skippy Peanut Butter have resulted in a partial recall in New York and New Jersey.

 

The affected products are packaged in a 16.3 oz plastic jar and have UPCs 048001006812 and 048001006782. (peanutbutter.com)

MANHATTAN — Bacteria found in some batches of Skippy Peanut Butter has sparked a 16-state recall, including New York and New Jersey.

Skippy Reduced Fat Creamy Peanut Butter Spread and Skippy Reduced Fat Super Chunk Peanut Butter Spread brands have been recalled because they may be contaminated with Salmonella. The bacteria can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, elderly people or individuals with weakened immune systems.

The affected products are packaged in a 16.3 oz plastic jar and have UPCs 048001006812 and 048001006782, which can be found on the side of the jar's label, below the bar code.

They also include 'best-if-used-by-dates' MAY1612LR1, MAY1712LR1, MAY1812LR1, MAY1912LR1, MAY2012LR1 and MAY2112LR1.

The limited recall is being conducted by the Food and Drug Administration. No other Skippy products are affected by the recall.

By Jim Scott, DNAinfo.com
Follow Jim on Twitter @DNA_Jim

Read more: http://www.dnainfo.com/20110307/manhattan/salmonella-scare-sparks-skippy-peanut-butter-recall#ixzz1FvOYZ200

Over five thousand years ago

FLAVOR00-NONE-0000-0000-000000000000 0.000000 ;

Over five thousand years ago, Moses said to the children of Israel, "Pick up  your shovels, mount your asses and camels, and I will lead you to the  Promised Land. 

Nearly 75 years ago, (when Welfare was introduced) Roosevelt said, "Lay down  your shovels, sit on your asses, and light up a Camel, this is the Promised  Land."

 Today, the government has stolen your shovel, taxed your asses, raised the price of Camels and mortgaged the Promised Land to China!  

 I was so depressed last night thinking about my retirement, the economy, the wars, lost jobs, etc . . . I called a Suicide Hotline. I had to press 1 for English.  

 I was  then connected to a call center in Pakistan.   I told them I was suicidal.  

 They got really excited and asked if I could drive a truck......

Posted via email from blackcotton's posterous

Bev Smith refuses to bow down to Jewish pressure

FinalCall.com News

National News
Bev Smith refuses to bow down to Jewish pressure
By Ashahed M. Muhammad -Asst. Editor-
Updated Mar 5, 2011 - 2:47:01 PM

(FinalCall.com) - Recently, several articles have appeared in the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle criticizing the decision by radio host Bev Smith andAmerican Urban Radio Networks for inviting Minister Louis Farrakhan to a March 11th Town Hall Meeting in Pittsburgh, PA. to discuss issues affecting the Black community.

In writings appearing in the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle over the past two weeks, its Executive Editor Lee Chottiner, Jeffrey Finkelstein, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh and David Ainsman, chairman of the Community and Public Affairs Council of the Federation, were all critical of Ms. Smith and Pittsburgh's Black leadership for inviting leaders to discuss Black issues that had not been pre-approved by the Jewish community.

If they thought their veiled threats would undermine support for the event, their efforts have backfired. It is being reported by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that there are no more tickets available to the event and, according to a spokesperson for the August Wilson Center, the nearly 500-seat auditorium will be filled with an overflow room set up in order to accommodate even more people interested in solutions to the problems plaguing Pittsburgh's Black community.

On March 4, Bev Smith, who is spearheading the town hall meeting themed “The Disappearing Black Community” wrote an open letter responding to Jewish pressure for inviting Minister Farrakhan to the March 11th gathering.

The text of the letter is as follows:

---

SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT --COMMENTS FROM BEV SMITH REGARDING THE MARCH 11TH TOWN HALL MEETING FEATURING THE HONORABLE MINISTER LOUIS FARRAKHAN -AN OPEN LETTER TO THE JEWISH CHRONICLE.

(This is in response to the Jewish Chronicles recent article entitled, "Purpose of town hall defeated with Farrakhan appearance")

For years I've talked openly about having a series of town hall meetings aimed at the African American community across the country. The goal is to reunite the African American community, create an interest in volunteering inside the African American community and strengthen the African American family both biological and communal.

Last November 12h at the beautiful August Wilson Center, that dream was realized with the first in a four part series of conversation's entitled "The Disappearing Black Community, and How Can We Get it Back."

At that meeting, an illustrious panel headlined by outspoken civil rights activist, and comedian Dick Gregory, looked at the problems in the African American community and outlined how we got to where we are today.

On March 11th, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, we will go inside the black community, to look at our responsibilities for some of those social problems, like an increasingly escalating high school dropout rate coupled with a high teenage pregnancy rate.

To undertake this challenging responsibility I've invited leaders and experts in the fields of community development, and political achievement. I asked the founder of the Million Man March, The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, along withAssistant Minority Leader in the U.S. House of Representatives Congressman James Clyburn (D-SC), and Melanie Campbell, President and CEO of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participationto participate in this event.

All agree that this conversation about our community is long overdue and they are excited to be a part of the discussion and would like to helpfind solutions to the problems plaguing our community. Simply, the discussion is aimed at Black People only.

This is why I was somewhat perplexed and later outraged at the suggestion from the Jewish Chronicle that our efforts to talk to people we feel are relevant to our community, is an offense against the Jewish community.

For years I have enjoyed a relationship with the Jewish community and cannot understand why a community who has suffered discrimination as my community has would suggest that we should not have the ability to meet and discuss with anyone we want to regarding the black community.

This town hall meeting, is not about the Jewish community, Egypt, the current problems in Afghanistan or anything else, except, its sole purpose is to discuss the state of the black community in 2011.

I resent those outside forces that are trying to highjack this town hall meeting by making their concerns the center of our discussion. This is not a meeting to discuss anti-Semitism. Their suggestion for us to not have Minister Farrakhan at the table for this important discussion,reminds me of what white slave owners use to do to their black slaves, and that is to tell the slaves how to meet, what to talk about and who to talk to.

I am offended by those outside forces contacting me to suggest I cancel my guest, notably, the Honorable Minister Farrakhan because of issues they may have with him.

At no time during the planning of the first town hall meeting did the Jewish Chronicle or any other Christian organization contact me to talk about the importance of these meetings within our community.

I am willing to sit dowm with members of the Jewish Chronicle, the Christian Association of Southwestern Pennsylvania or any other group interested in making our community better and I welcome the opportunity to do so after the town hall meeting on March 11th.

Again I am setting the record straight, Minister Farrakhan is coming to town along with some of our other distinguished guests to focus solely on how we can rebuild and unite the African American community.

I feel strongly that no one can dictate to the African American community who they can have as a guest around my black family table. -The Bev Smith Show. 

Sincerely, 
Bev Smith -Syndicated Talk Show Host, The Queen of Late Night Talk, 
American Urban Radio Networks

Read more online @ http://www.bevsmithtalks.com/

FCN is a distributor (and not a publisher) of content supplied by third parties. Original content supplied by FCN and FinalCall.com News is Copyright 2009 FCN Publishing, FinalCall.com. Content supplied by third parties are the property of their respective owners.

INSIDE STORIES AND REVIEWS

Rare Anti-Slavery Booklet Acquired By University Of Virginia

 

RICHMOND, Va. — The University of Virginia has acquired a rare first edition of an 1829 anti-slavery manifesto that was considered a rallying cry for black Americans and a major threat to Southern leaders, who worked vigorously to ban it.

Also read: President’s Day: Meet The 5 Other Black Presidents In U.S. History

The copy of abolitionist David Walker’s “Appeal in Four Articles; Together With a Preamble to the Coloured Citizens of the World, But in Particular, and Very Expressly to Those of the United States of America” is one of seven known to still exist. The pamphlet is on display at U.Va.’s Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library.

A private endowment for U.Va.’s special collections recently acquired it from a New Jersey rare-book dealer for $95,000, university officials said Thursday.

“Scholars have rightly termed the Appeal a declaration of independence for black Americans and linked it to the long tradition of political dissent and pamphleteering, as well as to the beginnings of American abolitionism,” said Deborah McDowell, director of U.Va.’s Carter G. Woodson Institute for African-American and African Studies.

In the 76-page, 8 1/2-inch-by-5-inch pamphlet, Walker urged slaves to rise up against their owners, and argued for the abolition of slavery on moral and Christian theological grounds.

“It really was the very first document in the United States to call for the immediate, uncompensated abolition of slavery,” said Harry L. Watson, director of the University of North Carolina’s Center for the Study of the American South.

A free black man’s direct incitement to slave revolt was “highly explosive and highly illegal,” Watson said.

“Now, I ask you, had you not rather be killed than to be a slave to a tyrant, who takes the life of your mother, wife, and dear little children?” Walker wrote. “Look upon your mother, wife and children, and answer God Almighty; and believe this, that it is no more harm for you to kill a man, who is trying to kill you, than it is for you to take a drink of water when thirsty; in fact, the man who will stand still and let another murder him, is worse than an infidel, and, if he has common sense, ought not to be pitied.”

Walker was born in Wilmington, N.C., to a slave father and a free mother. He moved to Boston during the 1820s and ran a secondhand clothing store patronized by free black sailors. It’s believed that the “Appeal” was sewn into their garments’ linings and smuggled into the South, Watson said.

“They’d stop at ports such as Richmond, Petersburg, Charleston, and Wilmington,” Watson said. “Then they’d slip out into the black community and locate people who knew how to read and slip them this pamphlet. Of course, the pamphlets were discovered, and there was widespread panic in state governments.”

The tract’s circulation alarmed slaveowners and Southern politicians, and cash rewards were offered for Walker’s death. The pamphlet was a major factor behind the passage of legislation aimed at controlling slaves and free blacks, including laws penalizing anyone who taught black people how to read as well as banning the distribution of anti-slavery writings.

“Appeal in Four Articles” also singled out the third president and Declaration of Independence author Thomas Jefferson, who died three years before the pamphlet’s initial publication. Walker criticized Jefferson’s assertion that black people were inferior to whites, and said that such statements posed a threat to true American democracy.

“I say that unless we refute Mr. Jefferson’s arguments respecting us, we will only establish them,” Walker wrote.

Walker published two subsequent editions of the “Appeal in Four Articles,” but died suddenly in 1830. Some thought he was a victim of poisoning, but other scholars say he succumbed to tuberculosis.

Many of the pamphlet’s ideas endured, and its themes were carried forward by abolitionists and 20th-century civil-rights leaders alike.

Rare Anti-Slavery Booklet Acquired By University Of Virginia
Associated Press
Thu, 03 Mar 2011 22:29:20 GMT

Diet Soda Addiction? How To Get Off The Can

Diet Soda Addiction? How To Get Off The Can

First thing every morning, Ellen Talles starts her day by draining a supersize Styrofoam cup filled with Diet Coke and crushed ice. The 61-year-old from Boca Raton, Fla., drinks another Diet Coke in the car on the way to work and keeps a glass nearby "at all times" at her job as a salesclerk. By the end of the day she has put away about 2 liters.

"I just love it," she says. "I crave it, need it. My food tastes better with it."

Read More...
More on Personal Health

 

For Your Information: E.Coli Found On 50 Percent Of All Shopping Carts Surveyed

For Your Information: E.Coli Found On 50 Percent Of All Shopping Carts Surveyed

We all know how hard it is out here nowadays, and with many people not having health insurance this is something that you may want to take heed to.

Every day, parents blithely drop their toddlers into the baskets of shopping carts, never giving a moment's thought to who might have had their hands on the handle last. Preliminary results from a new study show that may be a mistake.

Researchers from the University of Arizona swabbed shopping cart handles in four states looking for bacterial contamination. Of the 85 carts examined, 72 percent turned out to have a marker for fecal bacteria.

The researchers took a closer look at the samples from 36 carts and discovered Escherichia coli, more commonly known as E. coli, on 50 percent of them - along with a host of other types of bacteria.

"That's more than you find in a supermarket's restroom," said Charles Gerba, the lead researcher on the study and a professor of microbiology at the University of Arizona. "That's because they use disinfecting cleaners in the restrooms. Nobody routinely cleans and disinfects shopping carts."

The study's results may explain earlier research that found that kids who rode in shopping carts were more likely than others to develop infections caused by bacteria such as salmonella and campylobacter, Gerba said.

Shopping cart handles aren't the only thing you need to worry about when you go to the local supermarket, Gerba added. In other research, he's found that reusable shopping bags that aren't regularly washed turn into bacterial swamps. "It's like wearing the same underwear every day," Gerba said.

Keep some hand sanitizer, a small pack of wet wipes (anti-bacterial), and whatever else you need to keep you and your children safe and healthy.

Source

Ellen Holly

 

In 1968, Ellen Holly became the first African-American actress to integrate a daytime television soap.

In 1968, Ellen Holly became the first African-American actress to integrate a daytime television soap.
 
Appearing on ABC’s “One Life to Live,” Holly wasn’t given the role of a black woman, but as a woman who passed for white, claiming to be Italian-American. Holly had been discovered by Agnes Nixon, the soap’s creator, after writing an article about the experience of being a light-skinned black woman for the New York Times in 1968.
 
Holly’s role as Carla Benari would make headlines when the script called for a kiss with Dr. Jim Craig, her African-American co-star. When the two kissed on screen, the switchboards at ABC networks lit up, wild with fans who thought a white woman was kissing a black man on screen.
 
The fact that Holly's character, Carla, was actually an African-American woman named Clara Grey posing as an Italian woman was revealed when black actress Sadie Grey, played by Lillian Hayman, was identified as her mother. Sadie would eventually convince her daughter to embrace her heritage and tell the truth about her color.
 
An accomplished writer as well as actress, Holly wrote much of the storyline for her character on “One Life to Live.” She is one of the few black writers in the soap opera genre. She later wrote a book, “One Life: The Autobiography of an African-American Actress” and would hold the role of Clara Grey from 1968 to 1981, and again from 1983 to 1985.

Bedbug City

Published on Chain Store Age (http://www.chainstoreage.com)

Home > Bedbug City: How savvy retailers can squash lawsuits over these prolific pests

---

Bedbug City: How savvy retailers can squash lawsuits over these prolific pests

By jmosscrop

Created 02/28/2011 - 9:31am

By Scott W. Bermack, Scott.Bermack@leclairryan.com

Bedbugs overtook New York City last summer, striking fear into the hearts of many retailers. Indeed, bedbug complaints increased by 40% in the past three years and by some estimates about 800,000 New Yorkers were affected in 2010. Retail stores, TV stations, movie theaters and schools all reported sightings. Even former president Bill Clinton battled an outbreak in his Harlem office. Now the lawsuit parade has started. Claimants are seeking millions of dollars in restitution for the likes of itchiness, blotchiness, depression, anxiety and other supposedly bedbug-related ills. Others claim that bedbug exposure forced them to throw out their clothing, mattresses and even furniture. Plaintiffs’ lawyers are circling, a feeding frenzy is underway -- and now your store is involved. What to do?

Once you become aware that someone has spotted a bedbug in your store (or intends to make a questionable claim to have done so), the initial task is to manage the potential for a public relations crisis. This involves careful planning and a cohesive strategy: From the c-suite to the boots on the ground, all hands should be aware of the company’s plans to either mitigate exposure or demonstrate the frivolous nature of the claim. This message should be consistent, informed and credible.

Fortunately, retailers are generally much better equipped to defend against bedbug claims than landlords or hoteliers. Shoppers rarely leave a store with visible bites. For retailers, in fact, a key PR message is encoded in the very name of the pest itself. Since bedbugs can only feed while their human host is relatively motionless, actual beds tend to be their favorite dining rooms. Sleeping humans are their preferred meal, not on-the-go shoppers toting bags from Saks Fifth Avenue or the Apple store. And precisely because bedbugs are frequent travelers that can be found all over the city, plaintiffs in these cases typically have great difficulty in proving the actual location of their alleged exposure. Likewise, the physical symptoms associated with bedbug bites are amorphous and could have any number of other causes. Retailers take heart: Bedbug claims are beatable.

Nonetheless, these hurdles haven’t stopped customers from blaming stores for their alleged bedbug woes. Often, a shopper whose home is overrun will claim that the entire infestation originated from a single visit to a particular store. The media has fed this beast: The rise in bedbug sightings and complaints filed with the city has been widely reported. (In a recent Google News search, nearly 800 stories mentioning the term “bedbug” hit the web in a 24-hour period.)

This kind of media exposure brings out the litigiously inclined. But this is where retailers can strike back with their own legal jujitsu, using the content of those news stories to their advantage. Recent headlines have labeled New York “Bedbug City” and have documented the dramatic spread of the pests. A bedbug could potentially hop a ride on a claimant nearly anywhere -- not just in the store cited in the complaint. Likewise, news stories frequently explain that bedbugs are opportunistic hitchhikers. Reporters love to describe the way these pests can crawl from one person to the next. “Even sitting next to someone on the subway carries bedbug risks,” they intone. And, of course, bedbugs can stay dormant for many months between feedings, which means a building could be infested, even without obvious signs of activity.

Thus, it is quite difficult to establish that a home infestation resulted from a visit to a particular store. In Bedbug City, incidental contact with potentially bedbug-laden people and places is a fact of life. In our view, most claimants likely will be unable to document their every move in the weeks prior to the alleged infestation. Without such documentation, determining the origin of the exposure frequently requires utter speculation.
 
Retailers can also arm themselves with science. Bedbugs are prolific in their reproduction, but it takes several weeks for their eggs to actually hatch. Unaware of this, the typical plaintiff tries to link the timing of the bedbug exposure to a recent shopping trip. Therefore, claims that the plaintiff “instantly” saw bugs or began to itch “right away” generally will help to establish the defense that the bedbugs could not have come from the purchase in question. Unless the product was already teeming with bugs when removed from the bag (and if it was, wouldn’t someone have noticed?), it likely would take many weeks for a colony to take root in the claimant’s residence.

The causes of action that can stem from a bedbug in a retail setting would include breach of the warranty of merchantability and negligence. A viable defense should focus upon the fact that, legally, the presence of a bedbug would not render an item of clothing or a blanket un-saleable. This is because the item would still be sufficient to carry out its primary purpose. Simply putting it in the dryer for 20 minutes or brushing off a visible bug should make it usable. Therefore, the item arguably never violated any implied warranty.
 
With regard to the negligence claim, to be entitled to damages the claimant would need to establish that the store was on notice of a bedbug problem and failed to adequately remediate it. Otherwise, negligence will be difficult to prove. And if the retailer was indeed negligent -- well, that’s a case that should likely be settled.

Recognizing the potential for adverse media coverage as well as the desire to keep the customer base happy, it is reasonable for retailers to make nominal offers to resolve certain claims. However, when faced with a greedy customer or an overzealous plaintiff’s lawyer, the store should rest comfortably in the knowledge that there are numerous substantive defenses to these often-baseless claims.

A bedbug’s bite, in other words, can be worse than a plaintiff’s bark.

Scott W. Bermack is a partner in LeClairRyan’s New York office and co-leader of the national law firm’s Retail Industry Team. He routinely defends self-insured retailers and other companies, as well as insurance companies, in complex, high-stakes litigation. He can be reached at Scott.Bermack@leclairryan.com.

---

Source URL: http://www.chainstoreage.com/article/bedbug-city-how-savvy-retailers-can-squash-lawsuits-over-these-prolific-pests

Links:
[1] mailto:Scott.Bermack@leclairryan.com

Washington Heights Mourns Beloved Fried Chicken Joint

Washington Heights Mourns Beloved Fried Chicken Joint

February 28, 2011

WaHi residents voiced their dismay after a neighborhood fried chicken restaurant closed down without warning.

By Carla Zanoni

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

WASHINGTON HEIGHTS — In New York City, restaurants come and restaurants go.

But when a beloved neighborhood haunt that has been serving up delectable dishes for after school and late night cravings for years serves its last meal, a neighborhood mourns.

And so it was when New Caporal Fried Chicken and Shrimp at 3772 Broadway, between 156th and 157th streets, shuttered its doors with little warning on Friday.

Twitter users from Washington Heights spent the weekend lamenting the end of Caporal, the place called an “uptown landmark” by Inwood native and writer Claudio Cabrera last year.

“Ode to The Caporal Chicken spot in Washington Heights,” tweeted Rammer. “The 157th subway train stop will never smell the same.”

“Did Caporal Chicken in The Heights close??? // Yup. #rip Caporal. Another legend of #theheights leaves us,” wrote Twitter user kupiart.

Caporal’s fried food was a thing of legend and culinary exaltation: crispy, tender and more importantly, cheap.

The restaurant's snack box, featuring three pieces of fried chicken and enough French fries to feed a small family, cost less than $5.

Describing the chicken snack box, one admirer wrote on Yelp, "If you could contain all the good in the world (Puppies, Rainbows, Leprechauns, Unicorns, Baby Jesus, Gold, Hugs, etc...) it would be boxed up, placed in a brown bag, and handed back to you as a New Caporal Snack Box. True Story."

Although most were sad to see the loss of another Upper Manhattan classic, some were able to find the silver lining.

“The passing of caporal fried chicken hurts,” tweeted ergface, “but on the bright side it may extend some lifetimes out here in #WaHI.”

By Carla Zanoni, DNAinfo.com
Follow Carla on Twitter @carlazanoni

Read more: http://www.dnainfo.com/20110228/washington-heights-inwood/washington-heights-eulogizes-beloved-fried-chicken-joint?utm_content=chiefcharley472%40gmail.com&utm_source=VerticalResponse&utm_medium=Email&utm_term=Washington%20Heights%20Mourns%20Beloved%20Fried%20Chicken%20Joint&utm_campaign=Teacher%20Layoff%20List%20Threatens%20Schoolscontent#ixzz1FIJ43Sa9