This has truly been one hell of a year. So much sadness and death, my heart goes out to the Hudson family for this incredible loss. I read that J. Hudson is depending on her faith in the lord to pull her through this ordeal and I believe that is all that will pull her through such a tragedy.

Words can’t express my sadness for her family or disgust for whoever would commit such an atrocious crime. For the authorities to find that little boy slumped over shot to death like that is unimaginable. I had hoped that the young man would be returned to his family, for they had seen enough tragedy on Friday alone. Please keep this family in your prayers.

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Thank you, I am glad someone realizes that this man has a sickness and has verbalized it to the world. R. Kelly will get caught again because he has a sickness and he is not being treated for it. Right now, he is the Teflon Don. He feels invincible, like he can go out and urinate on 14 year old girls and get away with it, which is just sick.

I wonder what a grown man gets out of sleeping with a young girl like that. It must be control, because it sure is not great conversation, I hope people continue to speak out against this man and keep him away from children. This was the one time I thought the system was going to lock a famous person up. But Michael Jackson and R. Kelly prove that in America if you can afford a good lawyer, you can get off on molesting little boys and girls and doing other lewd acts upon them. SICK!!!!!!

According to CNN

Art Hogan, chief market strategist for Jefferies & Co., said the magnitude of the financial industry fallout is unprecedented, and could only be compared to the Great Depression of the 1930s or the railroad bankruptcies of the 1800s.

“We’ve never witnessed this before,” said Hogan. “There’s no road map for this.”

With the collapse of Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch selling itself to Bank of America the stocks plummetted today to lows we have not seen since the aftermath of 9/11. In times like this do we really need John McCain who think the economy is fundamentally strong, someone whose ads say things are bad but his actions and words say things are ok. I feel like a commercial: JOHN MCCAIN, WE JUST CAN’T AFFORD MORE OF THE SAME!

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What a sick world we are living in?

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This sucks….. Violence only begats more violence and expensive lawsuits; in the end it’s really not worth the trouble.

LOS ANGELES - Police say they have arrested Kanye West at Los Angeles International Airport on suspicion of vandalism after an altercation with a photographer.

An airport spokesman says police also arrested West’s road manager shortly before 8 a.m. on Thursday.

Airport spokesman Marshall Lowe says early reports are that West got into an altercation with a commercial photographer and a camera valued at more than $10,000 was broken.

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The celebrity Web site TMZ.com is reporting that West smashed the camera of a photographer in the American Airlines terminal at LAX. TMZ says one of its photographers began videotaping the scene and the road manager stopped him and asked for the camera. The road manager then grabbed the video camera and threw it to the ground.

The incident happened before West and his manager, who was not identified, cleared a security screening at the airport.

Lowe says police are continuing to interview witnesses and West may be booked later this morning.

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It brings me great pleasure to applaud Brother Jeff Johnson on his new show on BET. Starting this Friday night Jeff Johnson will be hosting a news program geared discussing the news of the week, in depth coverage of the Presidential Elections while also addressing issues that are specific to the black community.

BET is often dubbed “the worst thing for black people”, Bamboozled Entertainment Television” and a host of other unflattering names. However, when shows like this are brought on the air they receive hardly any attention and viewership. Television is in the business of making money and if people are not watching news programming geared towards people of color then you can expect to not see those types of television shows on air. Support Brother Jeff Johnson as you supported Soledad O’Brien with CNN’s Black In America.

I have listen to Brother Jeff Johnson speak on numerous occasions and this is one intelligent man who has a knack for understanding issues and presenting them in a way that others can grasp them quickly as well. I look forward to this show and I applaud BET for attempting something like this. PLEASE SUPPORT!

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Now the mainstream media is announcing what we have known over here at Notes of This Native Son for quite some time. Colin Powell is set to announce his full fledged support behind Barack Obama at the Convention in Denver. Team Obama YES WE CAN!

Hopefully what this endorsement will show is that Conservatives do not believe in John McCain and his supporters will convert over to Team Obama. While watching CNN I saw a statistic that claimed that McCain has a 9 point lead with Americans feeling he would be better quipped to handle international conflict.

What I just saw from this past Russia - Georgia conflict is that McCain is a real tough talker. So tough in fact, that someone will call his bluff. Why do we feel safer with a person who seems more trigger happy, that trigger happy feeling is what has so many Americans dead in Iraq now. I would take sound judgment over a trigger happy fellow any day.

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While having brunch today in Greenwich Village the scene was sprinkled with male and female homosexuals holding hands, kissing and engaging in public affection. A friend of mine said, this would never happen in a West Indian country. Low and behold I come home and get on the internet and there is a story of a Jamaican woman who was about to be deported back to Jamaica stemming from drug charges here in the U.S.

The young lady is a lesbian and her lawyers are arguing that if she were sent back to Jamaica she would not be safe, that the woman would be tortured and possibly even killed. The article addresses the specifics as far as cases and the amount of people who are spared deprotation under the U.N. Convention Against Terror.

The issue makes us take a look at our own prejudices as I spoke about in a former post. But I think Jamaica is catching a bad rap as if the people are uncivilized bigots who wish to only cause torment to homosexuals.Time Magazine did a story on Jamaica where homosexual rights groups have called the country “the most homophobic place on earth”. In the past year Reggae artists have been slammed in the international media for their homophobic lyrics as well.

This is where the propaganda in my opinion begins. Homophobia and homophobic people have existed long before Reggae music came around. The derogatory term faggot comes from the definition of such term which is a bundle of sticks. In the 1700’s gay men were tied up like a bundle of sticks and burned for being homosexual. Violence against gays is not new and I think the Time Magazine article and The Miami Herald article both do an injustice to Jamaica and reggae music by painting them as hate mongers of homosexuals without providing context for such disdain.

Was it St. Patrick’s Day music that made mobs of men beat up on homosexual males in New York during the St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Was it Muslim spirituals that made the President of Iran condemn homosexuality and describe it as a Western disease. Was it Beethoven, Frank Sinatra or any other musical period which made doctors and scientists here in the United States classify homosexuality as a psychiatric disorder.

The problem is, rather than address a problem from a solution oriented approach; groups look to find someone or something to blame. Of course I do not believe the woman should be killed because she is a lesbian, that’s absurd. But if the issue is as big an issue as we are reading than sparing this one woman’s life will not protect the many people who live in the country living an alternative lifestyle. Accusing the reggae artists of homophobic, misoginist lyrics that incite violence is by no means changing the issue of violence amongst homosexuals. In fact it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. When you paint a people as vile and destructive they take on those characteristics. It becomes a part of their mantra because you have expressed to them that that is who they are, that they are Gay Haters. By labeling a country “the most homophobic country in the world” media outlets send a badge of honor to the cause sub-conciously and create more hostile tensions for people who are homosexual living in such countries. If the article wishes to expose these atrocities and correct the violence against homosexuals than groups have to learn how to form a common ground, how to work together rather than insult and accuse.

Blaming the music is not going to change that people are brought up in religious households where they are taught that homosexuality is wrong, immoral and a sin before God. Blasting a country, it’s government and ideologies in the international scene is not going to create peace, in fact it makes war. People become angered that they have been stereotyped and ridiculed on an international scene because of the actions of others. This does not become a solution, this breeds hate for the people the article claims it was trying to protect. By no means do I have the answer but I believe more productive measures of working together to educate and create safe havens for homosexuals would do alot more good than articles and groups looking to find someone to point the finger at. 

Check out the article, thoughts?

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These allegations have been hovering around Senator John Edwards for quite some time. I’ll admit, he had me fooled. When I heard the rumors I thought to myself, no way would this man have an extra-marital affair on his wife while she is in such a fragile state. John Edward’s wife Elizabeth has been battling cancer for some time now. His reputation is ruined but that’s not the important issue, he lied to the American Public but that’s the norm for politicians so that’s not the important issue.

The problem here is his wife has to stand by his side, standing up for someone who has embarrassed her in front of the whole world. John Edwards issued a statement saying “You cannot beat me up more than I have already beaten up myself. I have been stripped bare and will now work with everything I have to help my family and others who need my help,”. I mean even after the man has been caught red handed, he tries to moralize on the public as if he is not the ione who lied, cheated and created this trouble.

Once again I just feel sorry for the wife, she is the victim here. And the story gets even weirder. The woman with whom he cheated has a child who is said to be fathered by another married man who was a former aide to Edwards as well. These women who have these affairs with these married men, who somehow decide to have a conscience like to be the victims as well. Their not, this woman was sleeping with two married men, and having unprotected sex with both of them at that. Once again my prayers are with Elizabeth because she is the one who loses in all this. John Edwards political career was never going anywhere anyway so he’s not losing much.

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Here is the nutjob who had the internet and media outlets in a frenzy. Raymond Hunter Geisel has now been charged with the threat that he issued on Barack Obama. Geisel was heard by former classmates hurling racial epithets about Barack Obama and threatening to take his life. He was found to have an arsenal of weapons in his hotel room. He is now being held until his August 18th court date.

While many have poked fun at this situation, this is really not a laughing matter. This incident shows us that there are some in America who are not ready for Change, some who want to revert back to the Jim Crow South and call black men boys. I hope that this man’s attempt being foiled only calms the other idiots like him rather than exciting them to think that they can actually finish the job.

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