Dr. Aryn Bush and "A Woman's NationTakes on Alzheimers"

March 15, 2010

Lakeland, Fla.

          Dr. Aryn Bush

"Dr. Aryn Bush of the University of South Florida Polytechnic has been elected to the Alzheimer's Association - Florida Gulf Coast Chapter Board of Directors.

"I am truly honored to be elected," says Bush, a cognitive aging specialist and visiting instructor at USF Polytechnic.  "Individuals with mild cognitive impairment and dementia have influenced my life profoundly both professionally and personally. I have strong hope this new role will provide another avenue through which their voices may be heard.  

Within the 17 counties that comprise the Florida Gulf Coast Chapter, an estimated 189,032 people live with Alzheimer's disease. Nationally, one in every 57 people of all ages has Alzheimer's disease. In Florida it is one in every 38 people. In the areas the Florida Gulf Coast Chapter serves it is 1 in every 30, and in two of the Chapter's counties 1 in every 19 people has Alzheimer's disease."

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Send a check to: Alzheimer's Association
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Washington, DC 20090-6011

http://alz-news.org/

Email: info@alz.org
Phone: 800.272.3900
Alzheimer's Association
Public Policy Division
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Washington, DC 20005-6105

Obama has Been Lacking at Community Organizing and Mobilizing His Base

During the 2008 Democratic primaries and the General Election campaigns, the Obama people told us that community organizing was of maximal importance and that their Administration would rely community organizing and mobilization principles just as much as it did during the campaign.

That hasn't happened.  Rather than rally the public and his campaign base in support of public option health care, Obama capitulated to the Republicans, the insurance industry and the Chamber of Commerce, without ever really trying to mobilize his troops.

Obama might have correctly calculated that even with the support of those who worked for his election, it would be impossible to pass insurance reform that offered an alternative to insurance companies.  I don't know what was going on in the Administration's calculus, but I know that the troops most interested in Public Option health care were never called back into the streets to canvass their neighbors about it.

When Obama and the Congress were debating whether to extend tax cuts for the rich as well as estate tax cuts for the rich, and then compensate for the lost income by gutting Government programs intended for the poor, such as home heating aid and programmed increases in pay for Federal workers, Obama never used his e-mail list to mobilize his supporters against those tax cuts, benefits cuts and salary cuts.

Instead, he has been supine, behaving as if only the Democrats in Congress could help him to fight tax cuts for the rich.  It does not seem ever to have occurred to him to contact his mailing list and ask for specific help, like money for an ad campaign against those tax cuts.

In fact, I have received far more e-mails from Color of Change over the last two years than I have received from the Obama Administration.  To judge by Obama's failure to even try to mobilize his base (probably resulting in the massive losses in Congress in the 2010 election), Obama only real reason for his organizing efforts is to assure his own reelection.  This is neither we were promised would be our role after the 2008 General Election nor is it a logical or legitimate way to maintain a well-oiled campaign operation.

America doesn't change for the better simply by putting better candidates in office.  America changes in response to social pressure and public insistence.  We on the Left have been cheated out of two years of Administration and associated-organization's community-organizing efforts.  They just want us for our votes in 2012.

It's worth noting, however, that the T-Party disagrees, perhaps only for the purposes of fundraising.   They said in an e-mail today,

We can't afford to lose this fight - and let Gov. Walker (Wisconsin) down.  Barack Obama's "Organizing for America" is putting everything they've got into their efforts to win this fight in Wisconsin [over whether state workers will be able allowed to can unionize  tonot, and we must respond by giving it everything we've got!

Maybe President Obama really is collaborating and organizing, at least in this case.

I regret to have to say so, but I still feel used.  In many ways, I feel disappointed, even as I recognize the victories of Obama in the Leadbetter case; in open gay participation in the military; in cutting out the middleman bankers from the student loan process . . .  Obama has not made efforts to enlist the public generally in actions to move his agenda forward.  He has engaged only discrete parts of the electorate to fight for discrete changes in Government behavior, like building upon the influence of gays and supporters to win gay participating in the military.

I hope that now that Obama is organizing for 2012, he will organize around specific issues rather than merely asking voters to show up on Election Day. 

T-Party Apologizes for Incessant $$$ Solicitations

The T-Party seems to be admitting that the battle in Wisconsin might be lost.  They have been sending daily e-mails begging for money for ad buys, but many participants are chafing at the number of e-mails rather than sending more money.  Here's what they said in a letter to members today.

As the Executive Director of The Campaign to Defeat Barack Obama, I am writing to tell let you know that I am very sorry for the heavy volume of emails we have sent the past few days.  We even sent an email with the word "loses" spelled incorrectly.  (We wrote "losses" - which was not the correct word we were seeking to use).

I apologize for the inconvenience I know this heavy rate of emails can be - but I want you to understand what we're up against right now in Wisconsin.

We have only a few days to act to ensure that fiscal sanity wins, and ensure that Barack Obama, the labor union bosses, Michael Moore and Jesse Jackson lose.

Apparently, they believe that stripping unionized worker rights will help them to defeat Barack Obama. 

They also believe that taking away the right to vote from college students will help to defeat Obama.  Here's what Speaker of the New Hampshire House O'Brien had to say about students' voting rights, as reported in the WaPost:

Average taxpayers in college towns, he said, are having their votes "diluted or entirely canceled by those of a huge, largely monolithic demographic group . . . composed of people with a dearth of experience and a plethora of the easy self-confidence that only ignorance and inexperience can produce." 

Their "youthful idealism," he added, "is focused on remaking the world, with themselves in charge, of course, rather than with the mundane humdrum of local government."

So the purpose of the Republican pushes to limit voting opportunities and kill unions is all part of an organized strategy to remove voters from the roles or deny them votes on Election Day 2012, by changing and tightening the rules regarding the votes of people who would be most likely to vote for Obama.  If they are successful in this effort, they might defeat Obama by keeping his voters out of the voting booths.

Was Star Black MS High School Football Player Billy Joe Johnson Murdered By a Sheriff's Deputy Because Johnson's Girlfriend Had White Skin?

African American Pundit (AAP) asks how and why a seventeen year-old  star high school football player Billy Joe Johnson died on the road, shot with a shotgun, in the presence of a George County, Mississippi sheriff's deputy?  The police say Billy Joe Johnson had tried to break into the house of his white girlfriend (he had the admiration of girls of every skin color), but the police also say that Billy Joe Johnson died in a typical traffic stop, after he ran a red light.

The police say that the sheriff's deputy went o radio from his car when all of a sudden Billy Joe shot himself in the mouth with a shot gun, and the shotgun was found laying on top of him.  I wish the late Johnny Cochran were alive, such was his ability to show the absurdity of police testimony before a jury.  But, Johnny Cochran has gone on to greener pastures, leaving his his legacy for the rest of us to emulate.  'If the story doesn't fit, it must be bullshit.'

So which of the police's two stories is true, if any of them is true.  Did he die because his white girlfriend called the police after he allegedly tried to break into her house?  Did he die because he ran a red light in a typical traffic stop?  Or did he die because he was the most famous and renowned member of his community, beloved by all except those who viscerally hate Black men, and particularly Black men who "usurp" white men's "rights" by dating white women?

This case shows the poverty of the word "racism".   If the sheriff's deputy was responsible in some way, was it because he was envious, jealous, color-aroused to envy, jealousy and fury by Johnson's bi-chromatic relationships, or did he die because white policemen believe that all Black males deserve to be in prison or dead?  Did Billy Joe die because he didn't bow and scrape in the face of the sheriff's deputy?

It seems to me that the white girlfriend whose home was allegedly the target of a break-in attempt by Johnson that night is a valuable witness in this case.  Did she call the police?  Was she afraid of her boyfriend?  Or is this alleged detail just another piece of propaganda invented by the George County, MS Sheriff's Department in a bold attempt to legitimize the execution of a star football player who had not even allegedly committed a capital or criminal offense, and where it is not even alleged that he threatened an officer?

Don't the police ALWAYS come forward with some unrelated and alleged act of wrongdoing in a young Black man's history in an attempt to demonstrate that police probably made the right decision when they decided to execute a Black man during a traffic stop?

This case stinks like rat that died in a hidden corner of the House of America.

There is so much that we don't know.  That's why we call on Attorney General Eric Holder to visit the family in Mississippi and comfort them in the knowledge that the Justice Department is doing everything possible to find and disseminate the facts in this case.  If President Obama can meet on the White House lawn with a police officer whose feelings have been hurt, then certainly Attorney General Eric Holder can meet in Mississippi with the grieving and anguished family of the late Billy Joe Johnson,  promising them as much action is legally warranted after a full investigation.

It cannot and must not be a capital crime for a Black teenager to be a star football player and to date women regardless of their skin color.  And Black young men must not die at random at the hands of sheriffs' deputies in the States of Mississippi in the year 2011.

I call on Attorney General Eric Holder to personally meet with the family, and to order the questioning of the sheriff's deputy and the white girlfriend, and gather others evidence as the facts warrant, before deciding what action is appropriate to vindicate the right to be alive, even if you are a star high school Black football player with a white girlfriend in Mississippi.

Ms. Recy Taylor: A Fight for Justice First Started by Rosa Parks

This is a very compelling guest post by African American Pundit.

As the story of Recy Taylor gets told through the Internet by The Root, Field Negro, and other African American and progressive bloggers, so does the need to fight for justice.  Across the nation, African Americans, infact, all Americans are reading and learning about the horror experienced by Recy Taylor.

Recy Taylor at 90, standing tall and still waiting for justice.

As Reported by The Root, Cynthia Gordy, “Sept. 3, 1944: It's a damp evening in the Alabama black belt, nearly midnight, but services at Rock Hill Holiness Church in the small town of Abbeville have just let out.

Painting of Rock Hill Holiness Church

Source: at the dark end of the street.com

Recy Taylor, a 24-year-old sharecropper, sets out along the town's fertile peanut plantations, accompanied for the walk home by two other worshippers from the African-American congregation. Moments later, a green Chevrolet rolls by -- and their routine journey takes a horrifying turn.

Wielding knives and guns, seven white men get out of the car, according to Taylor and witnesses from a state investigation of the case.

One shoves Taylor in the backseat; the rest squeeze in after her and ride off. Her panicked friends run to tell the sheriff. After parking in a deserted grove of pecan trees, the men order the young wife and mother out at gunpoint, shouting at her to undress. Six of them rape Taylor that night. Once finished, they drive her back to the road, ordering her out again before roaring off into the darkness.

Days after the brutal attack, Taylor's story traveled through word of mouth, catching the attention of a Montgomery NAACP activist named Rosa Parks. A seasoned anti-rape crusader, who focused on the sexual assaults of black women that were commonplace in the segregated South, Parks would eventually help bring the case international notice. Despite her efforts, however, in Jim Crow-era Alabama, Taylor's assailants were never punished.” More HERE

Fast forward to today, days after The Root’s report on the brutal attack, Taylor's story still travels, this time not only by word of mouth, but also through the internet, through black bloggers, and then through word of mouth, catching the attention of thousands of bloggers and readers throughout the U.S. and around the world.

Today it’s not only the Montgomery NAACP activist named Rosa Parks who would eventually help bring the case international notice, today it is the internet and blogs New Black Woman, Marians Blog, Black Femme blog, Black Buzz, New Black Man, Damn Theory in of 2010, African American News and Commentary and many other Black and progressive blogs.

Family supports Recy Taylor from a distance.

Enter Tracey, who resides in New York state with her mother (Mrs M), who at one time lived in… yes you guessed it, Abbeville, Alabama.  

Tracey, in an inclusive Interview with African American Pundit shares more information on this continuing story of Recy Taylor: A Symbol of Jim Crow's Forgotten Horror

AAP: So Tracey, What is your involvement in the Recy Taylor Story?

Tracey :  Well Pundit, I first read about the Recy Taylor story on The Root and The Field Negro.

After talking with my mom and family I decided to write the Field Negro asking how I could help make this story come to life throughout the afrosphere/afrospear and blogosphere. I guess you and he talked about it, and that’s how I’m here now talking with you.

AAP: So walk us through what happened when you read the story:

Tracey:  “As I was reading the story I thought hmm… Alabama.  Then I read Abbeville, Alabama; wait a minute, Abbeville, that were my mom is from, it’s a very small town and literally, everyone knows everybody, so I said,  let me call my mom (Mrs M) and ask her if she was familiar with Ms. Taylor and her story.”

AAP: So what happened?

Tracey: “Well Pundit, I lot of things were going through my head at the time.  First off, I knew I had to be careful with questions that I asked my mom, I have always been sensitive about that, because I know her experiences back in Alabama during that time could bring back good memories, but also horrible memories of Jim Crow...”  So, at first I asked my mom if she heard about this gang rape that took place in the forties in Abbeville, Alabama. 

My mom asked the woman's name…  Then there was silence… and after a 15 or 20 seconds she said that is my Uncle Virgil's daughter.  At that point, I thought to myself… wow that makes her my cousin… Well, to say I was stunned would be an understatement.  I then went on to ask her many questions about the incident and the more my mom talked, I just could not believe what was happening.”

AAP: So Your Mom and dad were in the movement?

Tracey: “My mom and dad grew up in Alabama and were active participants in what we now call "The Civil Rights Movement"; sometimes I believe people think of it as some glorious movement, but instead these were people who were sick and very tired of the treatment they were receiving and decided to take part in civil disobedience.  I was always reluctant to ask my mom or my dad about their experiences in Alabama, due to what bad memories my questions would dredge up.  And here I was asking about an incident that happened in her hometown and I found out about it on a national blog.  I was talking to another younger cousin of mine and we cannot believe that we both had learned about Ms. Recy's this way.”

The rapist may have been a Federal workers son and his friends 

AAP: So what more do you know, or can share at this time?

Tracey:  “My mom shared with me that when this happened she was a girl, she learned about what happened from hearing "the old folks" talk.  Allegedly one of the participants was my mom's and Ms. Recy's mailman son and his friends.  Everyone knew who did it, but the sheriff wouldn't arrest anyone.  My mom also said she was left on the side of the road like trash after they were done.  My mom's sister, my Aunt X, (she still lives in Abbeville, Alabama so I will use X for now) told her that in 1991, Ms. Recy's brother tried to get the authorities to investigate the case, but he refused saying that those involved were dead.  Not true.”

AAP: Is your mom available for an interview?

Tracey:  Yes she and my Aunt are available to assist in any way they can to bring this chapter of Ms. Recy Taylor into the open and provide closure for her as she sees fit. Since Ms. Recy only wants an apology from the state of Alabama; I support her in that request. It would be wonderful if the Governor would ensure that would happen. It's the very least he could do.

AAP: Thank You Tracey. I look forward to further discussing this situation with you, your mom, and your aunt in the upcoming days.

Sidebar:  Tracey, her mother Mrs. M, and Aunt X, all family to Recy Taylor, are eager to continue the Fight for Justice in support of Recy Taylor. These strong Black women want justice to be served in Abbeville, (Henry County) Alabama. They have all gone from disbelief, anger, shock to a place in which they want to right a wrong.

As The Root reports, “It's unclear what legal options the family has today, but because Alabama has no statute of limitations on rape, McGuire posts that Taylor's case could potentially be reopened if the assailants are still alive. "There may be a possibility that they could sue the county or sheriff's department for obstruction of justice, given the cover-up," she said. "A creative attorney could certainly find a way." Tracey agrees with her Cousin Recy Taylor who recently said in The Root, "It was a long time ago," she says finally. "But I still think something should have been done about it."

This is part 1 of a 3 part interview. Part 2, Recy Taylor A Fight for Justice on Monday… Here on this blog.

Bloggers, please repost or link to this post. Let's get the word out that Recy Taylor deserves true justice.

Cross posted on MYDD, African American Pundit's BlogtTalkRadio Blog, Francis Holland Blog,  Democratic Afrosphere, TheLoop21 and Now Public

Noose Found in Locker of Black Man Suing NYFD for Discrimination

The Root says a New York Fire Department electrician found a three foot noose hanging in front of his locker after he and other electricians alleged discrimination in provision of overtime and promotions within the Department. 

Gregory Seabrook, an FDNY communications electrician for nearly 20 years, found the noose Thursday at the FDNY facility at 87 Union St. in Brooklyn, his lawyers said yesterday.

It appears that there still is some extreme color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior within the NYFD.  I says "extreme" because hanging a noose in an office is an offense that could lead to dismissal.  Only a person with  extreme color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior would risk losing his job and public standing by hanging a noose in front of a co-worker's locker.

Joan Rivers Calls First Lady "Blackie O.", but is Rivers a Racist?

Joan Rivers showing failed plastic surgery around her mouth and nose.

It is an obviously color-aroused statement (she specifically references the color "black")
and it obviously takes an antagonistic stand with respect to Black people in general.

The Root says Joan Rivers called the First Lady "Blackie O".  Is it "racism" when Joan Rivers goes on the Howard Stern radio show and calls Michelle Obama "Blackie O."?

"We used to have Jackie O," and "now we have Blackie O!" Joan Rivers proclaimed on the Howard Stern radio show today in her commentary about first lady Michelle Obama's style. Rivers said she was going to tell the joke onstage, but held back because she knew it could offend African Americans. But it didn't take much urging from Stern for her to share it on the radio.

While others argue endlessly about that question, I'm going ask a few very different questions:  For example, 'Was Joan Rivers' comment color-aroused?  Did she perceive the color of Michelle Obama's skin and then did that skin color-cue prompt Rivers to make a skin-color aroused insult?  It's obvious that Joan Rivers only made the "joke" and the joke could only have meaning because Michelle Obama's skin is brown.  The joke was color-aroused.

As far as the emotions that aroused and follow the"joke," we really don't know whether they include humor/mirth, anger, envy, and/or some combination of these and other feelings.  What makes one child want to hurt another?

If Rivers or Stern laughed or smiled, I think we can at least identify skin color-aroused mirth and mordant and lacerating humor there.  The humor is not in the eyes of the beholder, but rather in what Rivers experiences as she says things like this, and what all those who laugh and thinks it's funny are feeling, as well as those who feel what they perceive to be Rivers' e.g. anger, bitterness and envy.

As far as the ideation in Joan Rivers' mind, I don't think I need to understand that to realize that Rivers engaged in color-aroused antagonist speech, even at the obvious risk that all Black people who hear of her joke will feel hurt and angry at Rivers while she encourages the public to color-aroused speech, emotions, hate and color-aroused behavior.  I think this gives us some insight into Rivers' mind. How many people is she willing to alienate at one time by her color-aroused behavior? 

Ultimately, I simply don't need to know whether Joan Rivers is "racist" or whether her "joke" is racist.  Her "joke" is an obviously color-aroused statement (she specifically referenced the color "black") and it obviously takes an antagonistic stand with respect to Black people in general.  Joan Rivers committed an act of color-aroused antagonism.

So, is Joan River a "racist" because she has made one color-aroused comment while speaking over the radio to potentially hundreds and thousands of people.  Can you tell whether a book is "racist" by opening it randomly and reading one page?  Can this one statement demonstrate that Rivers believes that there are multiple races within the human species and she is, therefore, a "racist"? 

That approach assumes that a book is not "racist" until and unless a color-aroused antagonist statement is found within it.  It gives the book and the author the benefit of the doubt, even though most Black people do not and cannot give white people the benefit of the doubt.  Does the book have to be "racist" through and through to oppose it's distribution, e.g. to children in school districts, or do we have enough information when we simply demonstrate an instance of color-aroused antagonism within the text?  Should the "Blackie O" statement be republished in a school district simply because it is the only such statement that has been found to date?

Leaving aside the structured analysis of color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior for a moment, it seems to me that comparing Michelle Obama to Jackie Onassis is a compliment, even if the compliment was intended as lacerating color-aroused insult.  The effect of the joke is to state the obvious.  We've come from being a nation in which Black people couldn't vote we have become a nation in which a Black person becomes President of the Unites states and his Black wife becomes First Lady.  It seems that Rivers may fear and resent that fact (or feel some other complex set of emotions), but she announces the power and reality of change even as she decries it.
  
Rivers' willingness and/or determination to insult as many Black people as possible at once, while also seeking to arouse color-aroused mirth and anger in her audience, demonstrates that Rivers is prone to public acts of color-aroused antagonist behavior.  That is enough for me to know.  Any person who is prone to public color-aroused antagonist speech ought not hold a position in our government and, to the degree that their speech occurs in public, it is appropriate to take such lawful steps as necessary to assure that the public color-aroused antagonist speech does not occur again.  It is appropriate to demonstrate to her and to others that  making public color-aroused antagonist statements may cause her to lose whatever employment puts her in the public eye.

So now you know:   I don't care if Joan Rivers is a "racist"; it is enough for me to know that she has proved herself to be prone to public color-aroused antagonism and she has proved that she seeks to arouse color-aroused mirth and perhaps anger and resentment among both the Blacks and the whites in her audience.  That makes her dangerous whether she is a "racist" or not.