Jan 19 2008
I think that we (as Americans) do not understand fully how the world is trying to catch and surpass us. It really hit home for me in grad school because it wasn’t black v white, East v. West, North v. South…it was really American born v. Foreigner. I have a masters in a technical degree (as you can see from my poor writing skills) but it was about a 35/65 (US/Non-US) split there.
This video clip really captures how the world is changing around us…
Jan 14 2008
All I can say is if I found some dude naked in my closet my first impulse would be to give him a “knuckle” sandwich too. I’m just saying…
Glen Rice, a former three-time NBA All-Star and member of the 1999-2000 champion Los Angeles Lakers, was arrested on Friday and charged with felony battery after he beat a man who was hiding in his estranged wife’s closet.
Rice had apparently gone to the home of Christina Rice and found Alberto Perez hiding in a closet. The 6-foot-8 Rice then punched Perez several times before the he could flee. Perez then notified Miami police.
The former first-rounder surrendered to police and was released after posting $5,000 bond.
Rice finished his 15-year career as the NBA’s fourth all-time leader in three pointers made with 1,559.
Jan 02 2008
I found this article earlier today and thought it would be interesting to share. Personally, I have always felt that doctors treated me differently. For some reason female doctors have been much more thorough…well, scratch that…it seems that younger doctors were. Every doctor I have been to that was older seemed like they had the attitude that if you aren’t bleeding and about to die then you are alright. But, that can all be coincidence and the simple fact that every doctor is different. Some of you may have the exact opposite experience.
But, this article is interesting because they looked at 150,000 different ER cases and found on average that blacks are given less pain pills than whites. Now, this can be a result of attitude. Maybe black men and women don’t show their pain as easily as others so doctors don’t think it is necessary. Sounds a little far fetched but raw data is what it is…
CHICAGO (AP) — Emergency room doctors are prescribing strong narcotics more often to patients who complain of pain, but minorities are less likely to get them than whites, a new study finds. Even for the severe pain of kidney stones, minorities were prescribed narcotics such as oxycodone and morphine less frequently than whites.
The analysis of more than 150,000 emergency room visits over 13 years found differences in prescribing by race and ethnicity in both urban and rural hospitals, in all U.S. regions and for every type of pain.
“The gaps between whites and nonwhites have not appeared to close at all,” said study co-author Dr. Mark Pletcher of the University of California, San Francisco.
The study appears in Wednesday’s Journal of the American Medical Association. Prescribing narcotics for pain in emergency rooms rose during the study, from 23 percent of those complaining of pain in 1993 to 37 percent in 2005.
The increase coincided with changing attitudes among doctors who now regard pain management as a key to healing. Doctors in accredited hospitals must ask patients about pain, just as they monitor vital signs such as temperature and pulse.
Even with the increase, the racial gap endured. Linda Simoni-Wastila of the University of Maryland, Baltimore, School of Pharmacy said the race gap finding may reveal some doctors’ suspicions that minority patients could be drug abusers lying about pain to get narcotics.
The irony, she said, is that blacks are the least likely group to abuse prescription drugs. Hispanics are becoming as likely as whites to abuse prescription opioids and stimulants, according to her research. She was not involved in the current study.
The study’s authors said doctors may be less likely to see signs of painkiller abuse in white patients, or they may be undertreating pain in minority patients.
Patient behavior may play a role, Pletcher said. Minority patients “may be less likely to keep complaining about their pain or feel they deserve good pain control,” he said.
Stricter protocols for prescribing narcotics may help close the gap.
A New York hospital recently studied its emergency patients and found no racial disparity in narcotics prescribed for broken bones. Montefiore Medical Center aggressively treats pain and is developing protocols for painkillers that dictate initial dosages and times to check with patients to see if they need more pain medicine, said Dr. David Esses, emergency department associate director at Montefiore.
Such standards may eliminate racial disparities, Esses said.
In the study, opioid narcotics were prescribed in 31 percent of the pain-related visits involving whites, 28 percent for Asians, 24 percent for Hispanics and 23 percent for blacks.
Dec 30 2007
Sometimes when your young and dumb you make bad decisions…especially sexually. But, when your young, dumb, and working as a coach at a high school you can’t make those same silly mistakes.
At my old high school one of the football/track coaches messed around with a senior and got her pregnant. Then, he and his girlfriend paid for the girl to have an abortion. I don’t know what to say except for “It’s a wrap”…if it is all true. I’m going to reserve judgment until everything comes out and after he goes to trial but when you are working with students you can’t let it get to this level. Even if the girl (highschooler) was throwing herself at him, and 1 day away from 18, you still can’t go there.
A former Las Vegas High School track coach impregnated one of his team members and then helped her get an abortion, Las Vegas police allege….
Craig worked as a substitute teacher for the Clark County School District from May 2003 to May 2007. He also was a track coach at Las Vegas High School from February to May 2006. His arrest report said that he was an assistant track coach for boys and girls at the school.
Police have recovered hundreds of pages of electronic correspondence between Craig and the then-17-year-old senior from a computer that the girl used. They subpoenaed Craig’s MSN hotmail subscriber information. Some of the messages indicated that Craig feared discovery and knew that the relationship could have criminal consequences, police said.
In one message, Craig talked about the possibility of facing jail time and losing his job, police said.
In another message, sent to the teen on May 26, 2006, Craig wrote, “You forget although track is over your still in school … which means if I get caught at your house … that is MY ASS,” according to his arrest report.
He then told the girl that he was willing to meet her at night because it was less risky, the report said. He also reminded her to keep their relationship on the “DL,” down low, the police report said.
The former Las Vegas High student told police that she and Craig first had sex in March 2006 in her parents’ home, according to Craig’s arrest report. Medical records obtained by police through an Oct. 15 grand jury subpoena showed the victim had an abortion on June 22, 2006…..
When police talked to the former student, she said Craig and Riddle accompanied her to an abortion clinic.
She said that “Deanna paid approximately $500 cash for the abortion and obtained the paperwork from the clinic,” Detective Paul Slaninka wrote in the police report.
Police interviewed Riddle in May.
“I asked Deanna if she drove (the teen) and Kenneth Craig to an abortion clinic and Deanna stated that she drove her to a doctor’s office and was unaware if it was an abortion clinic,” Slaninka wrote in the report.
“She also stated that she gave Kenneth Craig money on numerous occasions and is unaware if he used those monies to pay for an abortion.”
Electronic correspondence between Craig and the track team member make several references to her pregnancy and the abortion, according to the arrest report. Craig urged the student to save money because “we still have to go to the clinic in a couple of weeks,” according to the police report.
Like I said…if this is all true, it is a wrap for him and they will probably give him as much time as allowed by law. Paying for the abortion is just icing on the cake to make this just a train wreck.
Dec 01 2007
The young Mississippi college student has been found dead in North Jackson, Miss. Stanley Cole, her ex-boyfriend who had recently been reported as abusive to her, lead police to the body. She went missing on Nov. 14 and the body was found Nov. 29th. Jackson State University Alumni Association has set up a way to support her family if anyone is interested. They have a paypal link where you can donate to the fund set up in her name.
I just don’t understand what goes through the mind of some men. It is so cowardly to hit a women, especially if you ’supposedly’ love her, but then to take it to this level. Over that past 5 years it seems like there has been more and more cases where an ex or a husband kills his wife. When I first read about the story I had a feeling it was going to be her ex because in the article it said he had just hit her about a month ago and then she had a new boyfriend. I would like to see the stats on the number of women murdered by a partner…is it just that we have so many news outlets to cover these cases (24 hr. media and internet even though the coverage for this is just a drop in the bucket compared to a Natalie Halloway) or are people just crazier then ever? Hopefully it is the prior. ..
Nov 28 2007
While everyone has heard about Stacey Peterson and the search for her another young women has been missing for two weeks, with little media coverage. Latasha Norman, a 20 year old Jackson State University student, has not been seen on campus and her family do not have any knowledge of her location. Her car was found on campus but there are no suspects and no arrests have been made.
Like most of these cases there is an ex-boyfriend who has been abusive. He allegedly hit her a month ago but she has a new boyfriend now. Both of them are not suspects…yet. Hopefully this story will start getting more national attention.
Nov 28 2007
Yesterday, NFL free-safety, Sean Taylor, passed from the massive blood loss to a major artery stemming from a gun shot to the leg. The body has two major arteries in each leg around the groin area. If one of those arteries were severed or punctured (like a gun shot wound would do) you can lose all of your blood within 5 minutes. It is a shame that this happened to him. He was a father, a very young man, and an outstanding player.
Jason Whitlock, a Kansas City journalist, is a contributor for foxsports and espn. He wrote an article that is just on point dealing with what just happened. The Black KKK, as he calls it, is just the ignorance of the black on black violence that black men are inflicting upon themselves. I usually don’t post an entire article but I feel this is a must read…
There’s a reason I call them the Black KKK. The pain, the fear and the destruction are all the same.
Someone who loved Sean Taylor is crying right now. The life they knew has been destroyed, an 18-month-old baby lost her father, and, if you’re a black man living in America, you’ve been reminded once again that your life is in constant jeopardy of violent death.
The Black KKK claimed another victim, a high-profile professional football player with a checkered past this time.
No, we don’t know for certain the circumstances surrounding Taylor’s death. I could very well be proven wrong for engaging in this sort of aggressive speculation. But it’s no different than if you saw a fat man fall to the ground clutching his chest. You’d assume a heart attack, and you’d know, no matter the cause, the man needed to lose weight.
Well, when shots are fired and a black man hits the pavement, there’s every statistical reason to believe another black man pulled the trigger. That’s not some negative, unfair stereotype. It’s a reality we’ve been living with, tolerating and rationalizing for far too long.
When the traditional, white KKK lynched, terrorized and intimidated black folks at a slower rate than its modern-day dark-skinned replacement, at least we had the good sense to be outraged and in no mood to contemplate rationalizations or be fooled by distractions.
Our new millennium strategy is to pray the Black KKK goes away or ignores us. How’s that working?
About as well as the attempt to shift attention away from this uniquely African-American crisis by focusing on an alleged injustice the white media allegedly perpetrated against Sean Taylor.
Within hours of his death, there was a story circulating that members of the black press were complaining that news outlets were disrespecting Taylor’s victimhood by reporting on his troubled past
No disrespect to Taylor, but he controlled the way he would be remembered by the way he lived. His immature, undisciplined behavior with his employer, his run-ins with law enforcement, which included allegedly threatening a man with a loaded gun, and the fact a vehicle he owned was once sprayed with bullets are all pertinent details when you’ve been murdered.
Marcellus Wiley, a former NFL player, made the radio circuit Wednesday, singing the tune that athletes are targets. That was his explanation for the murders of Taylor and Broncos cornerback Darrent Williams and the armed robberies of NBA players Antoine Walker and Eddy Curry.
Really?
Let’s cut through the bull(manure) and deal with reality. Black men are targets of black men. Period. Go check the coroner’s office and talk with a police detective. These bullets aren’t checking W-2s.
Rather than whine about white folks’ insensitivity or reserve a special place of sorrow for rich athletes, we’d be better served mustering the kind of outrage and courage it took in the 1950s and 1960s to stop the white KKK from hanging black men from trees.
But we don’t want to deal with ourselves. We take great joy in prescribing medicine to cure the hate in other people’s hearts. Meanwhile, our self-hatred, on full display for the world to see, remains untreated, undiagnosed and unrepentant.
Our self-hatred has been set to music and reinforced by a pervasive culture that promotes a crab-in-barrel mentality.
You’re damn straight I blame hip hop for playing a role in the genocide of American black men. When your leading causes of death and dysfunction are murder, ignorance and incarceration, there’s no reason to give a free pass to a culture that celebrates murder, ignorance and incarceration.
Of course there are other catalysts, but until we recapture the minds of black youth, convince them that it’s not OK to “super man dat ho” and end any and every dispute by “cocking on your bitch,” nothing will change.
Does a Soulja Boy want an education?
HBO did a fascinating documentary on Little Rock Central High School, the Arkansas school that required the National Guard so that nine black kids could attend in the 1950s. Fifty years later, the school is one of the nation’s best in terms of funding and educational opportunities. It’s 60 percent black and located in a poor black community.
Watch the documentary and ask yourself why nine poor kids in the ’50s risked their lives to get a good education and a thousand poor black kids today ignore the opportunity that is served to them on a platter.
Blame drugs, blame Ronald Reagan, blame George Bush, blame it on the rain or whatever. There’s only one group of people who can change the rotten, anti-education, pro-violence culture our kids have adopted. We have to do it.
According to reports, Sean Taylor had difficulty breaking free from the unsavory characters he associated with during his youth.
The “keepin’ it real” mantra of hip hop is in direct defiance to evolution. There’s always someone ready to tell you you’re selling out if you move away from the immature and dangerous activities you used to do, you’re selling out if you speak proper English, embrace education, dress like a grown man, do anything mainstream
The Black KKK is enforcing the same crippling standards as its parent organization. It wants to keep black men in their place — uneducated, outside the mainstream and six feet deep.
In all likelihood, the Black Klan and its mentality buried Sean Taylor, and any black man or boy reading this could be next.
Nov 28 2007
I get all my news from the ‘net. My wife will ask me about some story that was just on the national news and I’m always saying “Already heard about it” or “That was new 2 days ago”. So, I figure I would start a new segment in my blog…‘What I’m Following Today (WIFT)’. I’ll put some quick hitters from stories that I have found in the morning, or last couple of days, and the link.
Florida Gold?
I purchased an empty lot, multi-family zoned, in Florida when I used to live there and just missed selling it 2 times (went to escrow once and almost closed once). The property tax is killing me though and it is too high for the property. Hopefully with the declining prices my tax bill will drop too…
The 361 largest U.S. cities will experience a combined loss of $166 billion in economic growth, led by $10.4 billion in the New York-Northern New Jersey area, according to the study. Los Angeles is projected to slow by $8.3 billion, followed by $4 billion each in Dallas and Washington and $3.9 billion in Chicago….
Property values in Florida are projected to decline by $79.7 billion next year, lowering property-tax receipts by $589 million and sales taxes by another $148 million. New York’s property-tax revenue may decline by $686 million.
Why Oprah Wont Help Obama
I don’t know if I agree with this one. I think that Obama having Oprah (especially at campaign stops in South Carolina) will help him.
Winfrey’s endorsement — and her announcement that she will appear with Obama at campaign events in Iowa, South Carolina, and New Hampshire on December 8 and 9 — helps bring the following four things to Obama: campaign cash, celebrity, excitement and big crowds.
The four things that Obama has on his own in great abundance — without Winfrey’s help — are campaign cash, celebrity, excitement and big crowds.
It’s Time for a College Football Playoff
Think about a 16 team playoff and some of the matchups. Kansas/Hawaii, USC/Oklahoma, BC/LSU…and think about the second round…you could have LSU @ West Virginia. This would be better than the NFL playoffs.
Nov 23 2007
I have recently found out that the Nintendo Wii console is not an easy thing to buy. If you go on Ebay the going price for a new Wii (sports pack) is in the mid $400 range. There are a few used ones out there (Amazon and Ebay) but they are in the mid to high $300’s. All the local, major chains (Best Buy, Circuit City, Walmart, etc.), where the purchase price should be $250, would be easy but of course EVERYONE is out of stock. Then, I go to shopping.com and any online store with a Wii has it at a minimum of $530. That is just crazy.
I fell like Ahab…”Hast thou seen the White Whale Wii”. I cannot find one of these bad boys anywhere, to save my life. What is funny though is that my son, who I’m trying to buy this for, doesn’t even really want this. He insists that a PSP would be better but a 7 year old who has lost a gameboy, 6 of 12 gameboy games, and 2 backpacks just isn’t a good candidate for a $200 handheld.
This search may be me just reliving my child hood again. I remember one Christmas that I wanted the Power Glove. That glove was a piece of trash but I had to have it. So maybe if I find one I should just turn around and sell it for $150 more than I paid for it like everyone else on EBAY? Anyway, I plan to sit out front of Circuit City Sunday morning and try to get a voucher. They usually get in about 10 a week and on Sunday they give out vouchers (first come, first served) an hour before they open. Anyone with one is guaranteed a Wii.
Nov 07 2007
A commentor in the original thread posted an interesting rebutal of the research conducted by a University of Arizona professor on the role Haiti played in the spread of HIV. This has been an interesting topic to read about. I never knew that the CDC labeled Haitians (and Haiti) as high risk for HIV and how it effected the Haitian economy by carrying a stigma of being linked to aids.
October 30, 2007
Empire State Medical Association Denounces Incomplete Research Claims made by Dr. Gilbert and Dr. Worobey on “HIV Coming from Haiti”Empire State Medical Association Denounces Incomplete Research Claims made by Dr. Gilbert and Dr. Worobey on “HIV Coming from Haiti” (www.nyesma.org) The Empire State Medical Association is highly concerned about the claims by Michael Worobey that “AIDS virus invaded the United States in about 1969 from Haiti, carried most likely by a single infected immigrant who set the stage for it to sweep the world in a tragic epidemic”. We reject the comments that “researchers think an unknown single infected Haitian immigrant arrived in a large city like Miami or New York, and the virus circulated for years — first in the U.S. population and then to other nations.” Gilbert and Worobey, analyzed samples from only five of these Haitian immigrants dating from 1982 and 1983. They also looked at genetic data from 117 more early AIDS patients from around the world. This genetic analysis allowed them to calibrate the molecular clock of the strain of HIV that has spread most widely, and calculated when it arrived first in Haiti from Africa and then in the United States. The researchers virtually ruled out the possibility that HIV had come directly to the United States from Africa, setting a 99.8 percent probability that Haiti was the steppingstone. For Haiti, the history of HIV/AIDS represents stigma, discrimination, and racism. In 1982, scientists at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) incorrectly inferred that Haitians were at increased for acquiring HIV as a racial group (1). HIV/AIDS therefore became known as the “4H Disease”, affecting homosexuals, heroin addicts, hemophiliacs, and Haitians.
