A record-breaking 46.5 million Americans use food stamps

Suspicions are arousing as reports stating a record-breaking 46 million Americans are using food stamps were re-released before and after the broadcasting of the highly anticipated Democratic National Convention — which had a strong first night filled with passion and inspiration. The data, which can be found on the United States Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service’s website, was released earlier this year. Reputable business source, Bloomberg reported the data earlier in August on its website; however, CNBC reported the data on Tuesday – before the DNC — and New York Post reported the data on Wednesday – after the DNC.

The actual number of citizens using food stamps is unclear among the three aforementioned sources. Bloomberg is reporting the number of Americans who are using food stamps to be 46.497 million from May 2012. CNBC is reporting the number of Americans who are using food stamps to be 46.37 million as of June 2012, and New York Post is reporting the number of Americans who are using food stamps to be 46.7 million — with no indication of the month the data reflects. The question is: If this information was already reported in August, why is it being re-reported this week?

This isn’t the first time people have suspected that the conservative media is attempting to destroy enthusiasm for the DNC and President Obama. This week, news of former President Bill Clinton’s insensitive remarks made in 2008 to Ted Kennedy about President Obama surfaced in the media. Reports allege Clinton told Kennedy:  “A few years ago, this guy would have been carrying our bags.” Clinton and President Obama are said to have clashed after President Obama won the bid for Democratic presidential nominee over Clinton’s wife, but it’s interesting that the statement made four years ago is just now acquiring attention this week.

Do you believe conservatives are using the media to attempt to harm President Obama’s credibility during the DNC?

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Photography by NHOPHOTOS.com

A young black male in the Hip Hop business recently committed suicide (see articles about Chris Lighty) — just as Don Cornelius, Found of Soul Train, did — and despite their fame and/or money. This should remind us that people in all socioeconomic situations can feel lonely in a crowd. Many who are popular often do not know who they can reach out to. Imagine what those who view themselves as just regular people may experience, including feeling isolated and without support when depressed.

People who commit suicide, for the most part, have been depressed for some time before they act on their feelings of despair and give up. Depression is often a primary precursor for many who, due to suffering internally and feeling hopeless and alone, feel if there is no other option available but to take their own life. Anyone can become affected by depression, and it does not reflect being weak — it simply means we are human and may sometimes need support and help to get through certain challenges in life.

There is no perfect life, regardless of how image-makers want to portray celebrities and others in the public eye. Average people should avoid comparing their lives to celebrities. Having fame and fortune does not mean never feeling sad — in fact, despite the many blessings from being financially well-off, money also can be accompanied by additional problems. And, even when people have enough financial or other resources, they still make mistakes at some point, since no one is perfect. Some consequences are hard to take and some mistakes are harder to overcome than others. The result is that people can at times feel depressed about life in general.

With the economy being difficult, many people are struggling in some ways. Many hardworking men and women should not feel overly-ashamed. The economy and other things may be out of their control. Life is an ongoing journey that involves learning, and how we handle resources — whether they are scarce or abundant — presents an ongoing important lesson, since changes in resources are likely to occur over a person’s lifetime.

We can be actively supportive of decent black men and let them know that seeking an ear from caring friends and family and/or professional counseling is ok. We need to help encourage decent black men to hang in there. Their positive presence in our lives makes a far greater difference than the relatively few men who are always harmful, types who kill others routinely, even shoot randomly in a neighborhood and do not care about the ongoing harm to children, families and communities.

Of course, both men and women need to be careful who we choose to share inner-most feelings with because talking too much to those stuck-on-stupid, the extremely selfish/self-centered who lack compassion, can leave anyone feeling worse.

When people are experiencing hard times, we may not be able to help rescue them through a financial contribution — but we can be there for them in other positive ways. The human touch/kindness can help someone who is depressed to remember the good within himself or herself. We can help remind them of their worth and value. They may be hardest on themselves and need to be reminded that others care. They may need to hear what we appreciate abou them.

Sometimes holding on when one wants to give up can happen when another person steps in and makes a difference through simple and genuine caring. Time can help give people mental room to consider all their options, rather than feel trapped in situations. Maybe they will be able to cut back on some expenses, or beging engaging in growing vegetables for their household, etc. They might find solutions they’d never considered before and later view their struggles as a positive turning point in their lives, and find they are glad to still be living. Sometimes things happen for reasons far beyond what we can understand at the time.

Empathy, compassion and practical caring can make a difference. People cannot read others’ minds – so let us be willing to verbally show kindness and offer hands-on support to another when they make us aware. Those in need of support and those being supportive people can be uplifted by spiritual blessings and Pay-it-Forward. We ourselves never know when we will benefit form the kindness of others.  Feel free to pass this information on to help someone know they are not alone. 

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Learning How to Dance in the Rain: Why people live in New Orleans Despite the Hurricane By Dr. Andre Perry

By Dr. Andre Perry

The recovery phase of Gulf Coast hurricanes means more than cleaning up debris caused by intense winds and torrential downpours. Recovery also means addressing insistent questions of “why do you choose to live in New Orleans?” While askers obviously have not thought deeply about this question, I do think it’s philosophical in nature. So, I offer a philosophical response with special considerations for lukewarm transplants, newbies and temporary residents who have not embraced the idea of being New Orleanian.

Living is less a question of where than how. I make a plot in New Orleans because living with storms is a way of being that I trust leads to peace. Being New Orleanian means actively deciding to live with the inevitable. I’ve reached this conclusion because the psychological concept of denial never worked well for me (or for anyone else for that matter). When one accepts the idea that storms are inevitable, a more operative and important question I wish skeptics would ask is “how do you prepare?”

Whether it’s hurricanes, divorce, getting fired or death, storms leave with much less fan fare than their anticipated arrivals. Life is horribly anticlimactic. Most storms come and go like Isaac. Yes, there are days-long power outages, but you struggle through it. Troubled times are eventually replaced by joyful ones.

Living with the good and the bad is about acceptance. It’s about learning how to ride out a storm. The day before Isaac’s landfall, my friend in D.C. asked, “Why don’t you evacuate?” I replied, “If another storm comes next week and the week after, do you leave again and again?” The social and fiscal costs are clearly impractical. Likewise with the storms in our lives, do we pack up and leave every there’s trouble?

Certainly, there are events when no amount of personal preparation will do. Evacuation is often necessary. However while it was the anniversary of the U.S.’s worst natural disaster, Isaac was not Katrina. We shouldn’t equate all hurricanes to Katrina, whose devastation should have been avoided. Her disaster revealed our policy and social inadequacies. Bad education, housing and levee systems hurt us more than the storm itself.

In the hours before Hurricane Isaac’s landfall, I didn’t ask myself “why am I here” because my city and family were better prepared. In fact, my day of preparation ended with a nighttime hurricane party. After a day of securing yard stuff, filling gas tanks, and completing other practical chores, my wife and I went to Irvin Mayfield’s I-Club. You know it’s a hurricane party when Soledad O’Brien, Anderson Cooper and Dee Dee Bridgewater are watching the band take shots a day before landfall.

But that’s what we do in New Orleans. We’ve learned how to accept and prepare for the inevitable challenges of life. One of my favorite sayings is, “Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass; It’s about learning how to dance in the rain.” That’s what it means to be New Orleanian. So when asked, why do you live in New Orleans, you can pass along my thesis and share that learning to live with the inevitable is a lot more fun than denying it exists.

Andre Perry (@andreperrynola) is Director for Educational Initiatives at Loyola University New Orleans and author of The Garden Path: The Miseducation of a City

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Rapes and Sexual Assaults of U.S. Inmates Have Reached Epidemic Proportions

Last month the Bureau of Justice Statistics confirmed that rapes and sexual assault of U.S. prison inmates have reached epidemic proportions. The data states that nearly one in 10 prisoners report having been raped or sexually assaulted by other inmates, staff, or both.

In 2003, Congress created a separate report by the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission, which challenges to take the issue seriously, as it has ruined many lives. Take the gruesome story told by a former prison inmate named Bryson Martel Spruce, who contracted HIV as a result of the attacks.

Martel’s story provides a stomach-turning revelation of rape in prison. ”While I was in an Arkansas state prison, I was raped by at least 27 different inmates over a nine-month period,” he said. ”I don’t have to tell you that it was the worst nine months of my life.” Before he died in 2010, he insisted that the government does something to prevent the gruesome attacks on other prisoners. ”Standards are needed to protect people like me,” he said.

Air Force veteran, Tom Cahill spent one night in a San Antonio jail that ruined his life forever after being beaten and gang-raped by inmates. ”I’ve been hospitalized more times than I can count. For the past two decades, I’ve received a non-service connected security pension from the (Department of Veterans Affairs) at the cost of about $200,000 in connection with the only major trauma I’ve ever suffered, the rape,” he told the commission of the Justice Department.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics report, more than one-third of gay and bisexual male inmates said that they were victimized by another inmate. By comparison, only 3.5% of straight male inmates reported being sexually assaulted by other inmates. Bisexual female inmates also were targeted for sexual assaults more than their fellow inmates. Bryan Stevenson, executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), a private, non-profit organization, attributes the vulnerability of prisoners to sexual assaults back to three pieces of legislation passed during the Clinton administration:

1. The Prison Litigation and Reform Act: Made it more difficult for prisoners to sue for abuse of power or dangerous treatment.

2. The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act: Essentially guaranteed that inmates who have suffered wrongful convictions will have a tougher time challenging them.

3. Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996: Better known as welfare reform, virtually ensured higher recividism rates.

“All of that, I think, would have been shocking even to a Republican legislator in the 1960s or early 1970s,” Stevenson said. The commission’s new prison rape elimination standards, granted by the Justice Department, requires adequate prison staffing, sexual abuse prevention training for staff, creating more ways for inmates to report sexual abuse privately, no cross-gender searches of female inmates by male staff, publishing sexual abuse statistics annually and audits every three years. State prisons that don’t comply will lose federal funding.

The EJI filed a complaint against the Alabama Department of Corrections that is now under investigation by the Justice Department. EJI alleges that inmates of the Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women in Wetumpka, Ala., have suffered “widespread sexual abuse” by male guards, including acts of sexual violence that have culminated in pregnancies. ”When the government takes away someone’s freedom, it takes on the responsibility of keeping that person safe,” Stevenson said.

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Music Icon Stevie Wonder Interviewed With The Guardian

Legendary soul singer/songwriter Stevie Wonder may have just stirred the pot of controversy. The 62-year-old music icon revealed his thoughts about Frank Ocean, homosexuality, gun violence, and being ‘disadvantaged’ in a recent interview with The Guardian. When the topic of Frank Ocean was discussed, Wonder expressed praise for the artist, even saying he sang the hook to “No Church In The Wild” for Ocean when they met backstage at an event; however, when asked if he would be surprised to see an openly gay artist in 2012 have succes in the soul genre of music, the legend strayed from answering the question directly and said some gay people are confused. “I think honestly, some people who think they’re gay, they’re confused. People can misconstrue closeness for love. People can feel connected, they bond. I’m not saying all [gay people are confused]. Some people have a desire to be with the same sex. But that’s them.” Reviews of Ocean’s 2012 album, Channel Orange, drew comparisons with Wonder’s music at its most expansive.

Aside from discussing Ocean and homosexuality, Wonder revealed that he wants to get involved in more philanthropic endeavors. One issue that presses him is gun violence. ”I’m concerned about how accessible guns are,” he said. When asked if he was referring to the Colorado shooting, he replied  ”No, I’m talking about in the hood. That [Colorado] was also very sad, but this is an occurrence almost every week in various cities. But no politician wants to confront it. The right to bear arms? What about the right to live?”

When asked if he feels he was at a “disadvantage” for being born black and blind, he said: “Do you know, it’s funny, but I never thought of being blind as a disadvantage, and I never thought of being black as a disadvantage. I am what I am. I love me! And I don’t mean that egotistically – I love that God has allowed me to take whatever it was that I had and to make something out of it.”

Wonder currently serves as the Messenger of Peace for the United Nations.

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Reputable HBCU Morris Brown College Faces Foreclosure

An auction of assets is set for Morris Brown College on September 4. Officials said the college is facing the foreclosure action after investors called $13 million worth of bonds tied to the college. The institution is one of the oldest historically black colleges in the nation. Its current enrollment has dropped to 50 students. In it’s history, the university had over 3,000 students.

Former Atlanta City Councilman and Morris Brown graduate Derrick Boazman called the development “heartbreaking.” Benjamin Harrison, a spokesman for the 6th District of African Methodist Episcopal Church, the force overseeing the school, said officials will talk about reorganizing and restructuring. The school is planning a prayer vigil Saturday.

As an alum of the Atlanta University Center (AUC)- Clark Atlanta University specifically- it is devastating to watch a university that held a respectable reputation throughout the AUC and the world, crumble to mismanagement of finances and egos. I hope for the sake of my colleagues who passionately love their alma mater and planned to see their children carry on the legacy of matriculating there  that the college will find its way back to the love, innovation, and inspiration that they once cultivated.

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Texas Judge Tom Head Claims President Obama Will Start A Civil War

An elected official, Judge Tom Head, took to a local Fox News station in Lubbock, Texas, to warn his fellow residents of the civil war that an Obama reelection will cause. Head claims his city will need to increase the property tax by 1.7 cents to help the city’s law enforcement be prepared for a full-scale uprising if President Obama wins this year’s presidential election.

“He’s going to try to hand over the sovereignty of the United States to the U.N., and what is going to happen when that happens?” Head asked. “I’m thinking the worst. Civil unrest, civil disobedience, civil war maybe. And we’re not just talking a few riots here and demonstrations, we’re talking Lexington, Concord, take up arms and get rid of the guy.”

Head continued to elaborate on how he plans to take action against the hypothetical situation, “Now what’s going to happen if we do that, if the public decides to do that? He’s going to send in U.N. troops. I don’t want ‘em in Lubbock County. OK. So I’m going to stand in front of their armored personnel carrier and say, ‘You’re not coming in here,’” the judge said. “And the sheriff, I’ve already asked him, I said, ‘You gonna back me?’ He said, ‘Yeah, I’ll back you.’ Well, I don’t want a bunch of rookies back there. I want trained, equipped, seasoned veteran officers to back me.”

We’re hoping the folks in Lubbock, Texas, are smart enough to know that Head’s forecast of  ’civil unrest’ from an Obama reelection are completely false. Anything signed by the president as part of a U.N. Convention “can only be implemented through domestic legislation enacted by Congress or state legislatures, in a manner and time-frame determined by our own legislative process,” according to AmnestyUSA.org. Also, broader U.N. provisions can’t supersede laws passed by Congress, and only serve as guiding principles for signatories to consider.

It seems as if the folks down in Texas are losing faith in this year’s GOP presidential ballot.

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Beyonce Knowles Teamed Up With the United Nations And Dozens of Global Aid Groups For World Humanitarian Day

As the world celebrated World Humanitarian Day (a day that encourages people to perform a good deed) on Sunday, Beyoncé offered a challenge to people around the world: Perform a good deed and share it online. “Do one thing for another human being. Nothing is too small,” the singer said on the 2012 World Humanitarian Campaign Message video . “It begins with each of us. Make your mark and say ‘I was here,‘” she continued, “One day. One message. One billion people taking action for each other.”

Thanks to her encouragement, more than 1 billion people (1,029,763,492 to be exact) across the world logged onto their social media accounts and other platforms to share a good deed they’d performed. ”This could arguably be the largest mobilization of good intention in Web history, an amazing coming together of celebrity, brands and NGOs,” Andrew Essex–chief executive of Droga5, which helped organize the event–told news reporters.  “Think of it as ‘We Are the World’ for the social media generation.”

Earlier this month Beyoncé and Jay-Z were highly criticized by legendary icon, Harry Belafonte, for their lack of philanthropy. Perhaps Beyonce’s assistance in encouraging more than 1 billion people to share a good deed they’d performed will quiet her philanthropy critics.

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ESPN Commentator Skip Bayless Brings Up Race In Sports

ESPN commentator Skip Bayless, of “First Take” on Monday, may have opened a can of worms on the conversation of race and sports. Bayless, who is known for being highly critical of Lebron James, stated “I’m going to throw it out there. You also have the black-white dynamic and the majority of Redskins fans are white. And it’s just human nature, if you’re white to root for the white guy,” Bayless said. “It just happens in sports. Just like the black community will root for the black quarterback.” 

The statement was made during a conversation about Robert Griffin III. Griffin is in a precarious position in Washington due to the presence of rookie, QB Kirk Cousins, a white athlete. In an effort to prove that the Redskins erred in drafting Cousins, who is white, because it puts unnecessary pressure on Griffin III, who is black, to flourish quickly, Bayless cited race as factor in determining fan opinion. Bayless diluted any potential of being labeled as a racist by saying, “Im for the black guy. I’m just saying, I don’t like the dynamic for RG3. It could stunt his growth in the NFL.”

What do you think about Bayless’ comments?

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Lebron James Speaks During His One-Year Celebration For His “Wheels For Education” Foundation

During the one year celebration of his “Wheels for Education” foundation in Akron, Ohio, on Sunday afternoon, NBA Champion/MVP and Olympic Gold Medalist, Lebron James, was booed and referred to as a “traitor”. The event, which had over 3,800 attendees, featured James, his mother, and Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic.

As Plusquellic began to recognize James for his success and for his foundation, the malfunctioning microphone started to cut in and out, enabling insults from people to be heard loud and clear across the field. As staff for the function scrambled to find another microphone, James posed to take pictures with fans and eventually exited the stage.

Despite being insulted, James kept a positive demeanor and spoke about his need to give back to the community. ”I was one of these kids,” he said. “It means everything to me to be able to give back. I have a passion for it. I love seeing kids smile, and for them to have someone who can lead them. For me to be in this position and being able to help and give back, means a lot.” The program aims to help young, inner-city children succeed in school. In the past the foundation has donated computers for students to use in class and in after school programs.

Before leaving the ceremony, each student signed a promissory letter that stated they will stay in school, do their homework, and study- among other things. After signing the promissory letter, each student was given a bike.

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