Monday, August 09, 2010

W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Radio: Weds. 8/11/2010 @ 9pm c/ 10pm e**My Perspective: Tha Artivist Speaks...

 Celebrating 3 Years Strong & Still Got It Going On

August 2010 Theme: Prospects For Freedom...

Air Date: Weds. August 11, 2010


Time: 9 PM C/10 PM E/7 PM P

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topic: My Perspective: Tha Artivist Speaks...

Featured & Honorable Guest...

R2C2H2 Tha Artivist 

SO WHO'S R2C2H2 AND WHAT'S AN ARTIVIST???


My name is Ronald Cortez Herd II a.k.a. R2C2H2 a.k.a. 'The Artivist'…My job as an ARTIVIST (ARTIST + ACTIVIST) is to actively promote understanding, love and appreciation for the creative arts as well as for creative people...I use my art in particular to break down all types of walls and barriers that people put up either to justify their hatred, prejudice and indifference or because of their ignorance and naivete towards certain issues and topics concerning people, history and culture(s)...One of my main objectives in my profession is to teach the world how to love not just tolerate Black people and other beautiful beings and things!!! If I reach just one hue-man being than my entire existence in all its meaning will be TOTALLY JUSTIFIED!!! 

My art is one created through the use and motivation of three of my main passions: my love of art, my love of music and my love of history in particular African and African American History. I love to tell stories through the use of symbols. I think four of my biggest influences, Jacob Lawrence, El Greco, Miles Davis and Paul Gaugin, have taught and convinced me that interesting stories can be told in a visually expressive and highly original individual style without the use of the written word. These artists among the countless others that I admire like Picasso, Charles White, Van Gogh, William H. Johnson, Romare Bearden, Lois Jones, Archibald Motley, George Hunt, Jean Michel Basquiat to musicians John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Run DMC, Louis Armstrong, Robert Johnson, Howling Wolf, Billie Holiday, Robert Johnson, Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington and 2pac remind me through their prolific outputs that research is one of the most important ingredients in forming your own artistic voice. Before I create a series of related artworks I dive deeply into the subject(s) of my choice through the use of books, movies (documentaries), music and discussions with people who are connected to the subject(s). These tasks take me countless hours to perform, but I honestly feel that me taking the time to collect and analyze the information have made me a better artist as well as a better human being. In this way I feel artists are like synthesizers, taking in all foreign information and materials mixing it with the artists’ experiences and knowledge and then compressing it into a product made in the artists’ likeness or image based on the artists’ own ideas and philosophies. All great art to me seems to be those works that have substance and tell unwritten as well as written stories that are to be retold and reinterpreted for years to come. Hopefully my dedication to my art will continue to lead me in this direction.
Tha Artivist

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W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Radio***Listen To The Inspiring 2009 BDPA Workshop Lecture Known As 'The Revolution Won't Be Televised, But Will Be Blogged, Podcasted, & Broadcasted Online' By R2C2H2 Tha Artivist Now:

Read The Article By R2C2H2 Tha Artivist...'The Revolution Won’t Be Televised But It Will Be Blogged, Podcasted & Broadcasted Online':


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Posted by tha artivist at 1:02 AM 0 comments

Funding For Black Farmers, Indians Stalls Again


Funding For Black Farmers, Indians Stalls Again

By BEN EVANS (AP) – 8/16/2010

WASHINGTON — Despite broad support, legislation to finalize $4.6 billion in settlements with black farmers and American Indians stalled in the Senate again Thursday amid partisan bickering.

Lawmakers from both parties say they support resolving the long-standing claims of discrimination and mistreatment by federal agencies. But the funding has been caught up for months in a fight over spending and deficits, with Republicans and Democrats arguing over how to pay for them.

Republicans have repeatedly blocked Democratic proposals and did so again Thursday. This time, Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., argued that the settlement in the Indian case needs work and made a counter offer that would change parts of it.

An exasperated Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., responded that it's not Congress' role to renegotiate the case, which has been in court for 14 years and which the Obama administration is under a court-ordered deadline to resolve.

"My colleague from Wyoming, I think, wishes he were one of the negotiators," Dorgan said. "Nobody in Congress was a negotiator ... the question is whether we will meet our responsibility."

In the Indian case, at least 300,000 Native Americans claim they were swindled out of royalties overseen by the Interior Department since 1887 for things like oil, gas, grazing and timber. They would share a $3.4 billion settlement in a class-action lawsuit originally filed in 1996 by Elouise Cobell, a member of the Blackfeet Tribe from Browning, Mont.

For the black farmers, it is the second round of funding from a class-action lawsuit originally settled in 1999 over allegations of widespread discrimination by local Agriculture Department offices in awarding loans and other aid. It is known as the Pigford case, named after Timothy Pigford, a black farmer from North Carolina who was an original plaintiff.

The government already has paid out more than $1 billion to about 16,000 farmers, with most getting payments of about $50,000. The new money is intended for people - some estimates say 70,000 or 80,000 - who were denied earlier payments because they missed deadlines for filing. The amount of money each would get depends on how many claims are successfully filed.

Passing the funding for the two cases would fulfill a campaign promise by President Barack Obama to resolve long-festering complaints.

John Boyd, head of the National Black Farmers Association, said both parties share the blame of leaving the work undone before the Senate adjourned for it's month-long August recess.

"It's just partisan division, one party against another," he said. "It's an embarrassment for the American people that they can't get a bill passed that everybody supports."

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

See More On W.E. A.L.L. B.E. :
Posted by tha artivist at 1:01 AM 0 comments

New Orleans 2010

AP
2010-02-09
 People wave from a float during a Super Bowl-championship celebration parade in New Orleans, Tuesday, Feb. 9, 2010. The Saints defeated the Indianapolis Colts 31-17 in Super Bowl XLIV on Sunday for the first championship in the NFL football franchise's history.

New Orleans 2010
From The Ramparts
Junious Ricardo Stanton

I just returned from New Orleans Louisiana the city that will soon mark the fifth anniversary of the devastating the impact of Hurricane Katrina and the failings of city, state and federal policy makers to adequately prepare for a major storm like Katrina. We all are familiar with the pictures the corporate media showed over and over of the mostly black people stranded in the city which revealed the stark poverty and class divisions within this country and the callousness of the federal government under George W Bu$h. We heard so much about the lower Ninth Ward and the devastation it suffered but the fact of the matter is the whole city was devastated by Katrina. 

My wife and I went to New Orleans to attend her sorority’s national convention and to visit her relatives in New Orleans and other parts of the state. I got a chance to see some of the devastation the storm wrought on the area. The Gray Line Tour Company offers what they call the New Orleans Rebirth and the Katrina City Tours in addition to their regular tours and Steamboat cruises. In addition to driving to Jeanerette and New Iberia to see where my late mother-in-law grew up I also took the Katrina/City Tour. These trips were very informative. I saw the signs for the Katrina Tour when we first arrived downtown looking for our hotel, I thought to myself, “These people will find a way to make money on anything.” But I was drawn to it and I was glad I took the tour.

The two and a half hour sight seeing tour started in the French Quarter and spread out from there throughout the whole city. The bus driver/tour guide was very knowledgeable about the city, its layout, the chronology of the hurricane, its impact on city and why eighty per cent of New Orleans was flooded. The corporate media focused so much on the people trapped in the Superdome and the convention center and showed the lower Ninth Ward flooding, I thought they were the only areas that were innundated. Not so. Eighty per cent of New Orleans was flooded. New Orleans is a city surrounded by water and most of the town actually is below sea level which exacerbated the situation when the municipal pumps failed, the canals overflowed and the levy system’s underpinnings were compromised. Every neighborhood except for the French Quarter which due to its location near the Mississippi River and the silt build up the river brings sits on higher ground was impacted on some level. Some neighborhoods only got a few inches or so of water, others got a few feet and others were completely flooded. Five years after the initial impact of Katrina, there are still hundreds if not thousands of boarded up and abandoned houses with the first responder, National Guard and police markings still on them. According to the tour guide there are over one hundred thousand people who have not returned to New Orleans.

My wife’s cousin lives near the Seventeenth Street Canal which overflowed swamping the whole neighborhood with water. Her home is one of the few houses in that neighborhood that have been restored almost five years later! Getting the house cleaned out, gutted and restored was a major challenge. Fortunately for her she had adequate insurance coverage. Many didn’t, hence so many dilapidated and ruined buildings. Her son lives with her because his home is still not livable, he showed us where the waterline was in the home, I’d say it was at least a good six feet on the inside of the living room. Fortunately they heeded the mayor’s advice and evacuated the city before the storm hit. Even so they got caught in a massive traffic jam trying to get out of the city. It took them almost twelve hours to get to where they were headed, a trip that normally takes about three and a half to four hours. They first went to Lake Charles Louisiana to stay with relatives. They stayed there for a short time then they went to Texas then to Baton Rouge Louisiana where they stayed for two years. They just returned to New Orleans about two years ago. They are doing okay, he’s working, his wife takes care of his mother who just turned ninety in June.

I saw so much devastation in their neighborhood and just riding around the city in the rental car was mind boggling. I took my own tour and saw areas where whole streets are still blocked off and debris is scattered all over. But there are areas that are bouncing back nicely. I saw a lot of people who seemed they were in a daze, some trying to make by panhandling downtown and others making the best of a horrific situation.
The Katrina/City Tour went into the Ninth Ward but the bus is not allowed to travel up and down the side streets so we just stayed on the main drag. We saw Lake Ponchartrain looking so placid and scenic now. We saw million dollar homes in an affluent section that were destroyed, still boarded up or the empty lots where they used to stand. New Orleans has a large city park, the bust driver informed the group Philadelphia has the largest municipal park in the nation a fact I already knew. It was an extremely interesting tour. I am glad I took it. It gave me a much broader perspective on the devastation of Katrina and on the power and resiliency of the human spirit.

New Orleans was very appreciative of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. for coming their way. The sorority donated thousands of dollars to local organizations every day during the convention, they did public service projects while they were in New Orleans and they definitely stimulated the local economy. The various neighborhoods still have a lot of destruction and are in need of massive rebuilding. New Orleans has a long way to go to be restored and made whole physically as well as psychologically. I guess that’s why the town went nuts when the Saints won the Super Bowl. There are a lot of lessons to be learned from the Katrina experience for this country; too many to list here now. We need to keep the people of New Orleans in our prayers and be as supportive of them as possible.

-30-

W.E. A.L.L. B.E. News & Radio Special~Never Forget: Hurricane Katrina Three Years Later...
Posted by tha artivist at 12:57 AM 1 comments

Obama Gives The View’s Best Interview EVER

Video: Pres. Obama On The Economy, Afghan War Support

Obama Gives The View’s Best Interview EVER
8/5/2010
Barack Obama spent an hour with the ladies of “The View” last week, much to the chagrin of many stuffy old media types who felt that the office would be “diminished” by the president spending time with a bunch of female talking heads. The results of the interview itself were not shocking. President Obama was his typical affable – if not a little stiff – self. He answered questions with grace, sincerity and, when he could, humor. The truly shocking part of the of interview was that the depth and variety of questions were so much better than much of what we’ve heard from the mainstream press throughout much of the year.

One of the largest challenges that anyone has observed that has faced President Obama is the fact that he seems to be criticized no matter what he does. No matter what he is selling, or for how much or how long, the press – both the right and the moderate left – seem to want to take a pound of flesh from him every time he is on the air. To be fair, his record of failures, mistakes or even out-and-out lies is not insignificant.

Guantanamo Bay is still up and running unabated. The Afghan­istan War is continuing with no end of slowdown in troop deaths in sight. He’s maintained just about all of George Bush’s Orwellian security measures from wire-tapping to secret prisons, and let’s not forget about Shirley Sherrod. But these are things that most people with any degree of political sophistication should have expected. There was no way that Obama was going to give away all of the extra-constitutional toys that Bush had left him under the presidential Christmas tree, and we will be committed to wars and occupations in the Middle East for at least another decade.

However, these are not the issues that the president is often criticized about. These are not the issues that drive much of the nightly news coverage, even though they represent clear examples of him either breaking campaign promises or at least failing to go through with them in any meaningful way. Instead Obama gets press criticism for the very things that he’s actually accomplished, even though they might not have gone as far as many on the left in particular would have liked.

When you consider the president has been in office for about 18 months he has done much of what he said he would do. He passed a stimulus package that has saved millions of jobs, if not created new ones (that’s subject to debate). He passed a healthcare bill (that still empowers insurance companies but at least covers more people). He passed Wallstreet and Financial reform (which didn’t actually change who’s in power but gives the government greater leeway to sue them). And lastly, he took over and revamped the auto-industry (which by all accounts has done BETTER and has been more profitable since).

Not a bad legislative resume for only 18 months in office, something that I think objective supporters and adversaries of the president would have to admit off the record.

Ironically, while the talking-head press continues to cut through the minutia of these grander bills, the oft-maligned ladies of “The View” managed to ask the president simple pressing questions that actually matter to most Americans.

They asked him what he thought was best about his job. They asked him what mistakes he had made, why his polls numbers were still low and what he planned to do to fix the 9.7 percent unemployment rate. Aren’t these the kinds of questions that regular people want to hear answers to? Personally I find it infinitely more informative to hear the president explain how and why he promoted the stimulus package than see the umpteenth video of a screaming Tea Party member on Fox, MSNBC or CNN.

Both “The View” and the president were rewarded for their creative experiment. The show got 6.6 million viewers, the highest ratings ever for a daytime talk show and probably the highest ratings Obama has received for anything in months. The hope is that perhaps seeing the success of this format he will do more in the future.

While ‘journalists’ may have decried the format he chose, every once in awhile it’s good to hear a president just answer questions from regular people, and get to give full responses. The mainstream cable networks shouldn’t be so possessive of their presidential interviews. What are they afraid of? That the regular public might prefer straight answers to constant interpretations? Perish the thought.




(Dr. Jason Johnson is an associate professor of political science and communications at Hiram College in Ohio, where he teaches courses in campaigns and elections, pop culture, and the politics of sports. He can be reached at johnsonja@hiram.edu.)

More Jason Johnson On W.E. A.L.L. B.E.:
Posted by tha artivist at 12:48 AM 0 comments

Former World Karate/Kickboxing Champ 'Dropkicks' Herenton After Defeat...

'

Dear Dr. Herenton:
In 1991 I worked hard to get you into office; in 2010 I worked the hardest to keep you out of office. In my life the worst that I have ever been treated is the way you allowed your best friend Michael Gray to unjustly and unethically abuse my family and my workers. My kind Ethiopian wife who cooked greens, served food and who knocked on doors for you in your 2007 reelection Mayoral campaign when you visited our home; my wife cried tears and she lost faith in America when she asked me; “how could Dr. Herenton treat us so mean.” Dr. Herenton our family suffered while you and Michael Gray had it made making over 100,000.00 guaranteed salaries having lunch everyday at the Piccadilly Restaurant while my lights was cut off at my store and I was struggling, I never asked you for a favor, I just wanted the abuse to stop and be treated fair. You allowed this man to abuse me who has been nothing but a friend and loyal supporter. 

Doc in 1992 when you were building your new home, the greatest honor that I could have had was serving you by putting carpet in your new home. Doc you gave the work to White people and never considered helping us who worked so hard for you. In 2008 when I talked to you over the phone and I had just did work for our mutual friend Cliff Dates I told you that we Black people were hurting and just give us a chance. Dr. Herenton you used Kiser Flooring the Jewish company to carpet your entire subdivision while never allowing us Black people a fair chance. Dr. Herenton the 2010 Disparity study was clear; the City of Memphis discriminated against Black Businesses. Unlike Maynard Jackson in Atlanta Dr. Herenton you neglected us Black businesses and you never fought for us. 

Dr. Herenton I begged you to help our people and would you please use your position to help our family in Africa. Dr. Herenton I begged you to simply visit your family in Africa and please give them the joy of seeing one of their own who had reached success. Dr. Herenton it broke my heart that you made Africa a joke. Congressman Cohen has been the best and he joined the “African Partnership and Economic Growth Caucus” and he visited 4 African countries. This March of 2010 he arranged for me to meet with Ambassadors of Ghana, Ethiopia and Kenya. The ideas that I begged you to consider this White and Jewish Congressman agreed. Dr. Herenton while you laughed at the African Tuxedo that I designed for you, the White House accepted. 

Dr. Herenton I do not believe that you would be the best to serve Black people. On July 10, 2010 when we met at the Orange Mound Community Center and you said; “I was still your brother.” Dr. Herenton you are still my brother and I love you and I have a message for you. Dr. Herenton please visit your family in Africa, I think that you are a Massai. I know that if you visit Kenya they will have a parade for you and they will cry tears because you came home and you did not forget them. When you see the love that they will give you, you will realize that you lost something in Memphis or perhaps you never had it. Dr. Herenton you lost or perhaps you do not have a pure heart. Black people revolted against you and you lost the hearts of people. I was your friend and you allowed me to be abused by your best friend I thought that you had lost a true sense of humanity and I thought that you were a fake as your action demonstrated by never assisting us Black businesses. In 2011 I plan to take a group to Kenya we are brothers, I read where you will go to a beach; my brother Mombassa, Kenya has the best beach in the world. Lets work together.. Amp


About Anthony "Amp" Elmore
The prestigious Memphis Magazine one listed Anthony “Amp” Elmore as one of the most 100 influential Memphians. Many know Anthony as the 5 time World Karate/Kickboxing Champion who is the first to bring E.S.P.N. Cable television to Memphis. Anthony has been known nationally and internationally. Anthony wrote, produced, directed and starred in a nationally distributed film “Iron Thunder.”

Anthony grew up the carpeting business working with his later father William Frank Elmore Sr. who held the distinction of installing carpeting in the first Holiday Inn hotel in Memphis. Anthony worked with his father and as a youth he open his own installation business and landed a contract doing work for retail giant Sears.

In 1982 Anthony became a World champion Kickboxer and at that time he got out of the carpeting business. In 1992 Anthony re-entered the carpeting business and opened his store at the current location at 3045 Southern Avenue in Memphis, Tennessee. Anthony' s company has installed carpet and flooring in some of the finest homes, businesses and offices in Memphis and in the Memphis area.

Recently Anthony expanded the business to Elmore Carpets and African Imports. The company not only engage in flooring but the company also now does decorating that include furniture and draperies. In the Summer of 2006 Anthony married Ethiopian Bogalech Akerberegn Elmore.



Posted by tha artivist at 12:09 AM 0 comments

Monday, August 02, 2010

Tired In Private But Feisty Onstage, Ousted USDA Official Shirley Sherrod Vows To Educate President Obama And Sue Andrew Breitbart

Tired In Private But Feisty Onstage, Ousted USDA Official Shirley Sherrod Vows To Educate President Obama And Sue Andrew Breitbart

The Feed
7/29/2010
SAN DIEGO -- Five minutes before stepping onto a national stage, yet again, to defend her honor and remind us all that the civil rights struggle continues into the 21st Century, Shirley Sherrod let out a small sigh and reminded no one in particular of an important point:

She didn’t ask for this.

But now that she’s survived a conservative blogger’s use of edited video to try turning her words of racial conciliation into a racist screed, the ousted Agriculture Department official was ready to bring a strong message to the National Association of Black Journalists convention Thursday.

Know your history. Or you’ll be doomed to repeat it.

"We have to do a better job of helping those individuals who get those jobs in the media, education and the presidency…understand their history," said Sherrod, who left little doubt she was talking about President Barack Obama, criticizing America's first black president for being too quick to try appeasing opponents of civil rights groups.

"Those of us who were in the civil rights struggle for 50 years or so, we tried too much to shield that burden and pain from younger people," she said. "That’s why I invited (President Obama) to Georgia…He needs a little lesson."

She also brought a serious message to Andrew Breitbart, who posted selectively edited video July 19 showing Sherrod admitting in a speech she initially hesitated to help a white farmer save his home in a previous job -- sparking a deluge of condemnation before the full video surfaced, showing her message was the opposite.

Alg_sherrod_breitbart-split Sherrod now stands ready to sue Breibart over the impact of the clip, which led Agriculture Department officials to demand her resignation before she could present her side of the issue.

Despite occasionally seeming a bit overwhelmed by the attention, Sherrod was at turns fierce and conciliatory while speaking during a hastily convened public session, scheduled before the official start of the NABJ’s 35th annual conference.

As a longtime NABJ member – I served as president of the Tampa Bay area chapter for more than eight years – I was asked to deliver the first question among a panel of three journalists who questioned Sherrod, including CNN’s Don Lemon and MSNBC’s Maria Sciavocampo.

During the session, parts of which were scheduled to be broadcast on CNN and Fox News Channel, Sherrod said she hadn’t yet spent time reading over the new job offered to her by the Department of Agriculture. (one concern, she noted, was that the document is labeled "draft").

She does wonder, even now, if it would have made a difference for her if the Department of Agriculture had a more diverse staff who might have questioned the attempt to demonize her and the NAACP chapter which heard her speech.

Her voice steady and pointed, Sherrod described how a teacher was afraid to drive her to the hospital 45 years ago after a white man shot and killed her father, fearful of the repercussions. She saw that fear again, she said, when her supervisor demanded she resign last week out of concern that Fox News Channel pundit Glenn Beck was going to highlight Breitbart’s video.

"I don’t go looking for (fights over racism), but if it’s there, I need to recognize it," she said. "And I knew it was racism when it happened to me; nobody needed to tell me that."

In that spirit, the longtime civil rights activist and NAACP member firmly disagreed with President Obama, who said on ABC’s daytime talk show The View that the media’s speedy news cycle helped spark her problem. "It wasn’t all media, it was Fox," she said, brushing aside the news channel’s statements that it didn’t report substantially on the scandal until after she had resigned.

"I don’t know all that Fox was doing behind the scenes to get the effect they were looking for, which was to get me to resign," she said. "I started receiving hate mail right away…They had to know what they were doing."

And though she’s been gracious about accepting apologies delivered by everyone from Vilsack to Fox News Channel pundit Bill O’Reilly, there’s one person whose apology she’s decided she doesn’t need.

Breitbart, who NABJ officials said originally agreed to appear at the event then declined when it was obvious Sherrod would be there in person, need not bother with a mea culpa to her.

"Whatever he says now, he had to know he was targeting me, whether or not he was targeting the NAACP," she said. "He hasn’t apologized…(and) I don’t want it at this point."

About This Blog

The Feed is a blog on TV, media and modern life by St. Petersburg Times TV/media critic Eric Deggans. Possibly the most critical guy at the Times, he has served as music, media and TV critic at various times over 10 years.
E-mail Eric Deggans: deggans@sptimes.com
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Posted by tha artivist at 8:47 PM 0 comments

What Do You Lack? Probably Vitamin D

What Do You Lack? Probably Vitamin D
By JANE E. BRODY
July 26, 2010

Vitamin D promises to be the most talked-about and written-about supplement of the decade. While studies continue to refine optimal blood levels and recommended dietary amounts, the fact remains that a huge part of the population — from robust newborns to the frail elderly, and many others in between — are deficient in this essential nutrient.

If the findings of existing clinical trials hold up in future research, the potential consequences of this deficiency are likely to go far beyond inadequate bone development and excessive bone loss that can result in falls and fractures. Every tissue in the body, including the brain, heart, muscles and immune system, has receptors for vitamin D, meaning that this nutrient is needed at proper levels for these tissues to function well.

Studies indicate that the effects of a vitamin D deficiency include an elevated risk of developing (and dying from) cancers of the colon, breast and prostate; high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease; osteoarthritis; and immune-system abnormalities that can result in infections and autoimmune disorders like multiple sclerosis, Type 1 diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis.

Most people in the modern world have lifestyles that prevent them from acquiring the levels of vitamin D that evolution intended us to have. The sun’s ultraviolet-B rays absorbed through the skin are the body’s main source of this nutrient. Early humans evolved near the equator, where sun exposure is intense year round, and minimally clothed people spent most of the day outdoors.

“As a species, we do not get as much sun exposure as we used to, and dietary sources of vitamin D are minimal,” Dr. Edward Giovannucci, nutrition researcher at the Harvard School of Public Health, wrote in The Archives of Internal Medicine. Previtamin D forms in sun-exposed skin, and 10 to 15 percent of the previtamin is immediately converted to vitamin D, the form found in supplements. Vitamin D, in turn, is changed in the liver to 25-hydroxyvitamin D, the main circulating form. Finally, the kidneys convert 25-hydroxyvitamin D into the nutrient’s biologically active form, 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D, also known as vitamin D hormone.

A person’s vitamin D level is measured in the blood as 25-hydroxyvitamin D, considered the best indicator of sufficiency. A recent study showed that maximum bone density is achieved when the blood serum level of 25-hydroxyvitamin D reaches 40 nanograms per milliliter or more.

“Throughout most of human evolution,” Dr. Giovannucci wrote, “when the vitamin D system was developing, the ‘natural’ level of 25-hydroxyvitamin D was probably around 50 nanograms per milliliter or higher. In modern societies, few people attain such high levels.”

A Common Deficiency

Although more foods today are supplemented with vitamin D, experts say it is rarely possible to consume adequate amounts through foods. The main dietary sources are wild-caught oily fish (salmon, mackerel, bluefish, and canned tuna) and fortified milk and baby formula, cereal and orange juice.

People in colder regions form their year’s supply of natural vitamin D in summer, when ultraviolet-B rays are most direct. But the less sun exposure, the darker a person’s skin and the more sunscreen used, the less previtamin D is formed and the lower the serum levels of the vitamin. People who are sun-phobic, babies who are exclusively breast-fed, the elderly and those living in nursing homes are particularly at risk of a serious vitamin D deficiency.

Dr. Michael Holick of Boston University, a leading expert on vitamin D and author of “The Vitamin D Solution” (Hudson Street Press, 2010), said in an interview, “We want everyone to be above 30 nanograms per milliliter, but currently in the United States, Caucasians average 18 to 22 nanograms and African-Americans average 13 to 15 nanograms.” African-American women are 10 times as likely to have levels at or below 15 nanograms as white women, the third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey found.

Such low levels could account for the high incidence of several chronic diseases in this country, Dr. Holick maintains. For example, he said, in the Northeast, where sun exposure is reduced and vitamin D levels consequently are lower, cancer rates are higher than in the South. Likewise, rates of high blood pressure, heart disease, and prostate cancer are higher among dark-skinned Americans than among whites.

The rising incidence of Type 1 diabetes may be due, in part, to the current practice of protecting the young from sun exposure. When newborn infants in Finland were given 2,000 international units a day, Type 1 diabetes fell by 88 percent, Dr. Holick said.

The current recommended intake of vitamin D, established by the Institute of Medicine, is 200 I.U. a day from birth to age 50 (including pregnant women); 400 for adults aged 50 to 70; and 600 for those older than 70. While a revision upward of these amounts is in the works, most experts expect it will err on the low side. Dr. Holick, among others, recommends a daily supplement of 1,000 to 2,000 units for all sun-deprived individuals, pregnant and lactating women, and adults older than 50. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that breast-fed infants receive a daily supplement of 400 units until they are weaned and consuming a quart or more each day of fortified milk or formula.

Given appropriate sun exposure in summer, it is possible to meet the body’s yearlong need for vitamin D. But so many factors influence the rate of vitamin D formation in skin that it is difficult to establish a universal public health recommendation. Asked for a general recommendation, Dr. Holick suggests going outside in summer unprotected by sunscreen (except for the face, which should always be protected) wearing minimal clothing from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. two or three times a week for 5 to 10 minutes.

Slathering skin with sunscreen with an SPF of 30 will reduce exposure to ultraviolet-B rays by 95 to 98 percent. But if you make enough vitamin D in your skin in summer, it can meet the body’s needs for the rest of the year, Dr. Holick said.

Can You Get Too Much?

If acquired naturally through skin, the body’s supply of vitamin D has a built-in cutoff. When enough is made, further exposure to sunlight will destroy any excess. Not so when the source is an ingested supplement, which goes directly to the liver.

Symptoms of vitamin D toxicity include nausea, vomiting, poor appetite, constipation, weakness and weight loss, as well as dangerous amounts of calcium that can result in kidney stones, confusion and abnormal heart rhythms.

But both Dr. Giovannucci and Dr. Holick say it is very hard to reach such toxic levels. Healthy adults have taken 10,000 I.U. a day for six months or longer with no adverse effects. People with a serious vitamin D deficiency are often prescribed weekly doses of 50,000 units until the problem is corrected. To minimize the risk of any long-term toxicity, these experts recommend that adults take a daily supplement of 1,000 to 2,000 units.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: July 29, 2010

The Personal Health column on Tuesday, about the deficiency of vitamin D in much of the population, referred imprecisely to the publisher of a book by Dr. Michael Holick of Boston University, who said low levels of the vitamin could be contributing to high rates of some chronic diseases. While Penguin did not publish Dr. Holick’s book, “The Vitamin D Solution,” it owns the imprint that did, Hudson Street Press.
Posted by tha artivist at 8:12 PM 0 comments

Shirley Sherrod: Anatomy Of A Smear Campaign

Shirley Sherrod: Anatomy Of A Smear Campaign
By George E. Curry
NNPA Columnist
Aug 2, 2010
It began with an Internet posting at 11:18 a.m. on Monday, July 19. Right-wing blogger Andrew Breitbart uploaded a heavily-edited video of a speech Shirley Sherrod gave to an NAACP dinner in Douglas, Ga. It was posted under the headline “Video Proof: The NAACP Awards Racism” on BigGovernment.com, one of Breitbart’s sites.

The slanted editing made it appear as though Sherrod was boasting about discriminating against a White farmer when, in fact, her point was that people of all races should move beyond their personal biases.

A blow-by-blow reconstruction of events was developed by examining news accounts, doing some original reporting and reading a detailed report by Media Matters, the news monitoring group.

At 12:13 p.m., conservative blogger Jim Holt posted Breitbart’s 2-minute video on his site. He said, “The former civil rights group known as the NAACP does not just invite anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan and radical America-hating Marxist Jeremiah Wright to speak at their events…They also invite government officials who hate whitey, too.”

Slightly more than two hours after the original posting (at approximately 1:40 p.m.), the Fox Nation Website posted the heavily-edited Sherrod tape with the title, “Caught on Tape: Obama Official Discriminates Against a White Farmer.”

Around 4:28 p.m., the Drudge Report linked to New York City’s CBS affiliate’s story based on the  Breitbart tape under the headline, “SHOCK: Video Suggests Racism At NAACP Event.”

At 8:50 p.m. Fox host Bill O’Reilly declared, “That is simply unacceptable. And Ms. Sherrod must resign immediately.” A few minutes later, at (9:04 p.m)., Sean Hanity told his Fox viewers that Sherrod had resigned.

“Secretary Vilsack did exactly the right thing,” Hanity said. “I mean I often disagree with the administration. But firing her after that kind of viciously racist attitude was exactly the right thing to do.”

NAACP President Benjamin Jealous  tweeted at 9:10 p.m., “Racism is about abuse of power. Sherrod had it at USDA. She abused a white farmer because of his race…” The Twitter post has since been deleted.

Jealous’ tweet was similar to an NAACP press release sent out by Chris Fleming, one of his publicists, at 11:55 p.m.

In the statement, Jealous said: “Racism is about the abuse of power. Sherrod had it in her position at USDA. According to her remarks, she mistreated a white farmer in need of assistance because of his race. We are appalled by her actions, just as we are with abuses of power against farmers of color and female farmers. Her actions were shameful...”

That statement was later removed from the NAACP’s site.

CNN also did Sherrod a disservice. At 10:39 p.m., Joe Johns, an African-American, reported that Sherrod had “resigned after a YouTube video surfaced showing her describing to an NAACP audience how she withheld help to a white farmer.”

The Sherrod controversy continued to rage the following day.

BigGovernment.com, the site that carried the controversial video, reposted Ben Jealous’ NAACP statement on its site. The hosts of Fox and Friends and MSNBC’s Morning Joe were highly critical of Sherrod. Stretching his already outstretched imagination, Joe Scarborough said, “…I think its relevance relates back to the New Black Panthers tapes that have been out there.”

The story line turned as Sherrod began telling her own story. In a CNN interview that began at 6:53 a.m., Sherrod told John Roberts, co-host of American Morning, that her comments had been distorted. “…For some reason, the stuff that Fox and the Tea Party does is scaring the administration,” she said. “I told them to get the whole tape and look at how I tell people we have to get beyond race and start working together.”

Glenn Beck wasn’t moving beyond race. At 9:52 a.m., he said on his radio show, “Excuse me, have we transformed into 1956, only the other way around?”

At 11:06 a.m., in an interview on CNN Newsroom, Sherrod told of being called a couple of times by Cheryl Cook, the deputy secretary of agriculture, while she was driving from Albany, Ga., her home town, to Athens. “She said, ‘Well, Shirley, they want you to pull over to the side of the road and do it [resign] because you’re going to be on Glenn Beck tonight.’”

At 11:20 a.m., Eloise Spooner, the White farmer mentioned in the Sherrod video, told CNN that Sherrod was a “friend” who “helped us save our farm.”

At 12:10 p.m., Rush Limbaugh praised Breitbart for doing what he called great work. He said the NAACP  “is as racist an organization as there has been and is in this country.”

During a hour-long discussion on Rick’s List, the Spooners told host Rick Sanchez that those trying to smear Sherrod, “Don’t know what they’re talking about.”

At 6:10 p.m., the NAACP issued a new statement saying it had been “snookered” by Fox News and Andrew Breitbart.  At 7:45 pm, the civil rights group released the full video of the speech, which had been given 24 years earlier, long before Sherrod was employed by the Department of Agriculture. When the tape proved that Sherrod’s speech was as she had described it, the Department of Agriculture offered to re-hire her.

Some conservatives remain unrepentant.

Breitbart asked CNN’s John King, “You’re going off of [Sherrod’s] word that the farmer’s wife is the farmer’s wife. What type of extra reporting have you done on this?” He also tried to spin his action by saying the tape was about the NAACP’s purported racism, not Shirley Sherrod.

Glenn Beck stated – incorrectly – that Fox did not report on the controversy until after Sherrod had resigned. He questioned whether the incident was part of a White House conspiracy to discredit Fox News.

Limbaugh parroted Beck, saying, “The White House is afraid of Fox News. For all I know, the White House orchestrated this whole thing.”
Even when caught in an orchestrated lie, some conservatives fail to acknowledge the truth.


(George E. Curry, former editor-in-chief of Emerge magazine and the NNPA News Service, is a keynote speaker, moderator, and media coach. He can be reached through his Web site, www.georgecurry.com. You can also follow him at www.twitter.com/currygeorge.)

Hear Bro. George Curry On W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Radio:
2010 State Of The Black Union
“It Ain’t About Tavis, It’s About Us, & It's About Time!”
Posted by tha artivist at 7:28 PM 0 comments

W.E. A.L.L. B.E. TV: Lorenzen Wright Tribute

 Sunrise (11/4/1975) - Sunset (7/19/2010)

W.E. A.L.L. B.E. TV: Lorenzen Wright Tribute

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lnxi1_wySDE

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Tha Artivist Salutes The Positive Legacy Of Lorenzen Wright, R.I.P.,a true Memphis Hometown Hero...

 More Lorenzen Wright On W.E. A.L.L. B.E. :
http://weallbe.blogspot.com/search?q=lorenzen+wright
Posted by tha artivist at 5:59 PM 0 comments

W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Radio: Weds. 8/4/2010 @ 9pm c/ 10pm e**A People's History: A Conversation With Bro. Roland Sheppard

 Celebrating 3 Years Strong & Still Got It Going On

August 2010 Theme: Prospects For Freedom...

Air Date: Weds. August 4, 2010


Time: 9 PM C/10 PM E/7 PM P

Call-in Number: 646-652-4593

Show:

topic: A People's History: A Conversation With Bro. Roland Sheppard

Featured & Honorable Guest...

Bro. Roland Sheppard

 A lifelong social activist & socialist who is one of the last people living to have witnessed the assassination of Malcolm X at the Audubon Ballroom:

My name is Roland Sheppard, I am a retired Business Representative of Painters Local #4 in San Francisco. I have been a life long social activist and socialist. Prior to my being elected as a union official in 1994, I worked for 31 years as a house painter.

I was in the words of Robert Tressell, a Ragged Trousered Philanthropist, a phrase that Tressell used, in his book, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist, to explain the exploitation of workers, under capitalism, who willingly sell their labor and donate the surplus value, which their labor produces, to the boss.

I have led a unique life. I am one, of the few people remaining, who was at the Audubon Ballroom when Malcolm X was assassinated.

House painting was my vocation, but working for a better world has been my lifelong avocation. I became especially interested in the environment when I was diagnosed with cancer due to my work environment as a painter.

I learned how to write essays, when I first got a computer, in 1998.  Using the Internet and my word processor, I was able to put together all the medical legal arguments on my breakthrough workers’ compensation case in California, proving that my work environment, as a painter, had caused my cancer. During the course of the five-year struggle, I won a $300,000 settlement of my court case and, incidentally, I learned how to write.

In my retirement, I am writing about my life experiences as a socialist, as a participant in the Black Liberation Movement, the Union Movement, and almost all social movements.

My, essays are based upon my involvement in the struggle for workers democracy and freedom for all humanity. It is my hope that these essays, which I regularly update, when I discover more facts, will help future generations of Freedom Fighters.

http://web.mac.com/rolandgarret/Site/Roland_Sheppards_Web_Page.html

Check Out Bro. Roland's debut on W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Radio: 
"Malcolm X: Man. Myth. Legacy."
 

***

W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Needs Your Support...Give To Grow The Movement!
http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2010/03/we-all-be-needs-your-supportgive-to.html



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Want More???
Want To Hear More Tha Artivist Presents…W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Radio??? Click On The Following Link:

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As Always Please Spread The Good News!!!

W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Needs Your Support...Give To Grow The Movement!
http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2010/03/we-all-be-needs-your-supportgive-to.html


See Also...




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