Foreground vs Background Emphasis

"Gangster rappers are not what they seem. They do not represent "black culture" any more than the Mafia represents Italian-Americans."

For Young Black Men, Rap's Lure is False
by Stanley Crouch


(...the problem being one of visible alternatives to the life-styles of the 'krunked and famous'. if we are not providing realistic options to the seductive images, words and advocations that are being forgrounded in the multi-media environment...)

yo magazine

yadit magazine

stealth magazine

rapsheet magazine

the source magazine

WAKE UP!

JAPANESE LANGUAGE
Phrase of the Day

Me ga sameru. Wake up.

me =eye; sameru =to wake up, to awake

how to read in college

"The first thing you should know about reading in college is that it bears little or no resemblance to the sort of reading you do for pleasure, or for your own edification."

Staying Afloat: Some Scattered Suggestions on Reading in College
by timothy burke,swarthmore college

(...why do people hightlight the hell out of their text-books. i find i know less about the material when i paint transparent marker all over the page. to retain any text material i literally have to transcribe the info into a notebook and then condense those notes into conceptual paraphrase. of course, i'm left-handed in the brain...jim)

jenpalmer71
he's halfway home :)

Need advice :(

I hope a few of you can offer me a little advice. First of all, my boyfriend Derek was in for a violent crime that he committed when he was 17. He was tried as an adult and he served four years. He just got released to a halfway house 3 weeks ago. I only knew him for a few months before he went away and since we are from different states, no one in my family has ever met him, except my mom and she loves him. My family always knew about him but I never quite told them what he did...I wanted them to meet him first so they wouldn't judge him too harshly. Well, my sister (who knew what he was in for) decided to tell my whole family on Memorial Day and they are SO MAD AT ME. My aunt was crying telling me that I'm ruining my life and that he'll hurt me. I know that he never would and it doesn't scare me at all. I have a 7 year old daughter and I would never put her in harms way. I just rented a house in PA so he can get out of the halfway house and we have somewhere to be together. Half of my family says that they won't talk to me anymore if I go through with it. I love this guy to death and we're going to be together regardless but what I want to know is this....am I wrong? Should I put my family or my heart first? Derek told me that if he's going to come in between me and my family then he'll walk away from me because he can't stand to see that happen. Any advice would be greatly appreciated......

(...what advice would you give to jenpalmer71...)

Communications

In my thirty plus years of teaching both high school students and adults in a non-profit setting, I have stressed communications.
Apparently it doesn't matter how much education you have or how much money you make. We have a failure to communicate. The following survey was done by Bates Communications.
* Only one-half of those surveyed said they admire their boss's public speaking skills.
* Forty-nine percent say their boss is average or weak when communicating at a human level.
* Only 50 percent said their boss listens well to comments and suggestions.

tiny fish/big ocean

Your success is determined by the decisions you make, your reaction to adversity and what consumes your thoughts.
Do you know what keeps you from enjoying success in your job or personal relationships?
Are you unsatisfied with the direction of your life?
Want a meaningful next job?

(..i always see stuff like this and i wonder where did i go wrong in life and marvel at the people who know all the right strategies and who keep moving up the chain of success. now i'm depressed. i'm going to eat a box of chocolates...)
.....try WORKPLACE BLUES

Mr. Jim,

After meeting with the Job Fair Committee this morning, we decided that to cancel the Beaver County Employment and Community Resource Fair this Thursday due to a lack of employer participation. I am sorry if this causes any inconveniences for you.

In response to the unwillingness of local employers to participate in the fair, we feel that a better, more productive route to take is that of producing a catalog of employers and human service agencies who help ex-offenders. This catalog will be given to the inmates upon their release. Could we add Bidwell's name to this list? Let me know your thoughts on this, and please respond and let me know that you received the notice of the cancellation. Thank you.

David
Aliquippa Alliance for Unity and Development

REPLY:

Mr.David:

Thanks for the notice. I appreciate your frustration. I’m currently working with a group of people who are attempting to bring aid and assistance to those of us who are in prison. The general public is less than enthusiastic in response to post-incarceration issues. But as the tidal wave of people from the ‘war on drugs/crime’ hits our communities we are going to regret not spending the time and money on transition programs and job re-training for the (hundred-thousand +) men and women currently in PA county, state and federal correction facilities. Feel free to add Bidwell Training Center to your catalogue also consider opening a dialogue: www.prisontalk.com

Please consider posting to a web log that we're working on http://www.plan2planet.blogspot.com/

jim

saddle-sore in asheville

this post comes to us from Miss K. our Asheville NC member. hopefully we can get a caravan of riders to bike from Pgh to Asheville.

http://cgi.citizen-times.com/cgi-bin/story/news/55355

Maybe you, your wife, or some members Team Bidwell members might be interested in the protest. We have guest accommodations ready. It should be a great weekend.

Politics at Pa. churches now routine
The Bush campaign's e-mails seeking volunteers from state congregations drew criticism, but such efforts are not new.
By Carrie Budoff, Jim Remsen and Thomas Fitzgerald

Inquirer Staff Writers

WELCOME HOME: THE PROPOSED PRISON RE-ENTRY PROGRAM

 

"President Bush's $300 million proposal to help ex-offenders reconnect with society has shut up his regular critics who say it is an effort long overdue."

 

(...Last year, the DOJ split $104 million between 49 states to provide for re-entry programs, but there were very few community programs eligible to receive the proceeds of these grants...)

 

WEATHER OR NOT

(...get it while it's hot...)

 

NEIGHBOR, CAN YOU SPARE A DIME?

Here are the five communities in Allegheny County, other than Pittsburgh, with the biggest deficits in 2002:

Shaler: $3.7 million

Wilkinsburg: $4 million

McKeesport: $6.7 million

Ross: $7.4 million

Mount Lebanon: $9.6 million

 

(...misery doth love company...)

 

JUNE CALENDAR OF EVENTS

 

(...find out what you're going to be missing...)

 

 

THE PEOPLE'S DAILY ONLINE COMMUNITY

 

(...one billion people can't be wrong...)

 

Black Job Loss Déjà Vu
Betsy Leondar-Wright, Dollars and Sense
Think the typical job-loser in today's economy is a white guy whose computer-programming job has been outsourced to India? Think again.

(...last hired?...)

 

From Russia with Love

Pravda is the Russian word for ....? 

 

 

spoken/ heard

Cosby's Demons
Erin Aubry Kaplan, LA Weekly
When Bill Cosby chastised blacks for racism, he revealed his own demons, and ours.

our daily bread

 

 

"...people who cannot suffer can never grow up, can never discover who they are. That man who is forced each day to snatch his manhood, his identity out of the fire of human cruelty that rages to destroy it knows, if he survives his effort, and even if he does not survive it, something about himself and human life that no school on earth-and, indeed, no church- can teach. He achieves his own authority, and that is unshakable. This is because, in order to save his life, he is forced to look beneath appearances, to take nothing for granted, to hear the meaning behind the words...If one is continually surviving the worst that life can bring, one eventually ceases to be controlled by a fear of what life can bring."

        -James Baldwin

Propaganda is a systematic propagation of a doctrine, ideology, or idea of value to the speaker. I think the key word in that definition is "systematic." Merely stating an ideology or doctrine does not constitute propaganda. The ideology or doctrine must be spread through a system of communication events with the long-term goal of getting the audience to adopt a new way of thinking.

The term is often used pejoratively to describe attempts to move public opinion in a way, or to a position, that the critic doesn't like. One person's propaganda is another's cogent discourse. We should, however, put a finer point on the definition. We may evaluate a messages as propaganda when we detect that the speaker is trying to deceive more than to persuade (understanding that this, too, is a judgment call)..

just read

DOMESTICAT WEBLOG

I thought that four months in the gym had gone a long way toward conquering my fear, my embarrassment, my (dare I say it?) loathing of my appearance, but that wasn't the case as I...

http://www.domesticat.net/

miss k. undercover 

new edition

miss k. has graciously accepted the invitation to become a member of this group blog.
i want to thank her and everyone else for their support.

from the winter of my disconnect 

singing for my supper

i'm always curious as to why groups of people 'tour' the facility in which i work. i get the curious sensation of people wanting to walk in the footsteps of that thing which has proven to be successful, durable in time. as if some element of fortune is an ambient quality of the atmosphere within these walls.
we are a destination for pilgrimage, a must 'see' vision of the social service 'promise-land' that will reveal its secret to the wayfaring stranger.

more...just read

Anya Kamenetz finds that 18- to 34-year-olds haven't formed a real constituency and don't see their shared interests across lines of class, education level, and ethnicity.

GENERATION DEBT: A SLEEPING CLASS

read'em & weep

...guess I should have lern't to jot and tittle a little better! 

The National Association of Colleges and Employers' (NACE) Winter 2004 Salary Survey.  Here's what NACE's top ten jobs for grads pull in the first year on the job:

just read!

Pace for the Position
by Dan Seidman
Monster Contributing Writer

Remember your last sales job interview? Robert was a recruiter for five years when he finally got the chance to run his own office. He quickly found out that hiring good sales employees was no easy task. Here's his story: