Posts

Showing posts from December, 2008

TONIGHT ON THE TERRORDOME: Geoffrey Canada on Saving American Children through Education

Image
FM 88.5 Edmonton www.cjsr.com worldwide 6 PM Mountain time While it’s widely understood that without education, most young people cannot hope to enjoy a future of health, productivity and civic engagement, the United States continues to deny millions of its children the quality of education it lavishes on others. Whatever the official reasons are for such disparity which effectively dooms millions to a shorter, more painful, and more economically deprived life, two things are clear. The students hurt by such policies are disproportionately poor, and disproportionately of Afrikan, indigenous and Latin-indigenous descent. But while many are content to blame the elites for creating and maintaining this factory of inequality and despair, some have sworn to change that system. Born in 1952, Geoffrey Canada is an educational crusader and founder of the Harlem Children’s Zone . Himself a child of the South Bronx, Canada learned early in life that doom awaited those who were unprepared for t

I don't care if this one's a photo-op. This is what photo-ops SHOULD do... set a positive example.

Image
Director Ernest Dickerson sent me the following pictures and text of the Obamas on American Thanksgiving . Could these be cons idering shameless photo-opping? Yeah, I guess. But then, so could any good deed if photographed. I'd argue that wealthy, powerful people have a duty to be photographed doing good deeds, in order to s et an example (with great power there must...). Yes, of course, food banks are not revolutionary (although the Black Panther Party had "Survival Programmes Pending the Revolution" including Free Breakfast for Children) , and we must end the cause of hunger, rather than dealing e xclusively with hunger as a effect. But hungry people can't survive on political theory. Hungry people need food today. Of course we need to monitor in detail how the Obama White House will address the cause of pov erty--namely, economic exploitation by the rich of everyone else, especially the poor. I'd expect his White House, backed as it was by the super-wealthy,

Dr. Runoko Rashidi on the National Geographic Deception

Image
Dr. Rashidi wri tes the following: "A milestone was seemingly achieved this February of 2008 when National Geographic Magazine did a front cover story entitled 'The Black Phara ohs: Conquerors of Ancient Egypt'. "It was a milestone in the sense that this was the first t ime ever that National Geographic Magazine had admitted that there wer e ever any Black Pharaohs in Egypt at all. I refer to it as 'seemingly' in that the article title is misleading and the context of the story is deceptive to say the least. "1. The title says 'The Black Pharaohs' as if to imply that the re were White Pharaohs or a Pharaoh other than an Egyptian. Egyptians, during the time of 'Pharaohs,' were Black people. Black not in the sense of all of them being the literal color, but of the many shades of people as experienced here in America amongst African-Americans or the many shade s of people in Ethiopia. "Now, there were diff erent non -Egyptian conqu

TONIGHT: A tribute to Odetta

Image
Join me on FM88.5 (Edmonton) and www.cjsr.com (worldwide) tonight at 8 until 10 pm Mountain time for a tribute to the late, great Odetta . How sad, as 2008 closes out, that we've lost two giants of folk and social justice music... Odetta and Zenzi Miriam Makeba. We'll also hear from: Ethiopia's Gigi Morocco's Mariem Hassan Cameroon's Manu Dibango Nigeria's King Sunny Ade Algeria's Nediha Gaouria, Mara + Jalal and Ahlam Somali-Canada's K’Naan and Li-One Democratic Republic of Congo's Zap Mama Mali's Ali Farka Touré Afrikamerica's Jeru the Damaja, Chuck D., DJ Spooky, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Common, Erykah Badu, Eddie Holman and Archie Shepp

Venezuela Launches Sale of "Bolivarian" Computers

Image
June 12th 2007, by Chris Carlson Venezuelanalysis.com The Bolivarian computer, model VIT C2660 "Mérida, June 12, 2007 ( venezuelanalysis.com )— The Venezuelan government of President Hugo Chavez announced the launch of their "Bolivarian Computers" last week, consisting of four different models produced in Venezuela with Chinese technology. "The new computers will run the open-source Linux operating system and will first be used inside the government "missions" and state companies and institutions but eventually are expected to be sold across Venezuela and Latin America. "Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez presented the new machines to the public last week at an event in the state of Falcon as he donated them to a school there. The new computers are produced by the joint venture VIT (Venezuela de Industria Tecnológica), which is owned by the Chinese company Lang Chao and the Venezuelan Ministry of Light Industry and Commerce...." Yeah, it's a