Where Have You Gone, Joe the Citizen?

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
Published: August 8, 2009


WASHINGTON — As a freshman Democrat, Representative Frank Kratovil Jr. figured he would spend the August recess reconnecting with the folks back home. Perhaps he should have known this would be easier said than done when an opponent of health care reform hanged him in effigy outside his district office on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.
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Dawn Majors/St. Louis Post-Dispatch, via Associated Press

HEARD In Mehlville, Mo., last week.
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Beyond Beltway, Health Debate Turns Hostile (August 8, 2009)

Undaunted, Mr. Kratovil tried last week to hold “Congress on Your Corner” sessions intended, he said, to help voters with “casework matters” — Social Security benefits and the like. On Tuesday, 200 angry conservatives confronted him over health care in an elementary school cafeteria. On Thursday, liberals struck back: President Obama’s political organization sent a mass e-mailing urging supporters to turn out for a Kratovil event at a library, to “make sure your support for health insurance reform is seen and heard.”

Mr. Kratovil’s experience was part of a phenomenon that swept the country last week, with increasingly ugly scenes of partisan screaming matches, scuffles, threats and even arrests. The traditional town hall meeting, a staple of Congressional constituent relations, had been hijacked, overrun by sophisticated social-networking campaigns — those on the right protesting so loudly as to shut down public discourse and those on the left springing into action to shut down the shutdowns.

The result was a series of made-for-YouTube moments, with video clips played endlessly on the Internet and cable television, the logical extreme, perhaps, of an era when Joe the Plumber is really named Sam. Along the way, another kind of Joe — Joe Six-Pack, the average Joe — seemed to disappear, pushed into the background by crowds bearing scripted talking points and signs.

“We’re living in the era of the viral town meeting,” said Ross Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University who once worked as a Senate aide. “I remember back in the ’70s getting identically worded telegrams in the thousands. What’s happened now is the technology of protest has metastasized, and it threatens to overwhelm the relationship between members of Congress and their constituents.”

Citizen gatherings, of course, are as old as the republic itself, but as a form of constituent relations town hall meetings are relatively new. In the 19th century, lawmakers spent more time at home, mingling with voters at block parties, barbecues and parades. Organized complaints came in the form of petitions; by the 1950s, there were mass letter-writing campaigns. In recent decades, with lawmakers shuttling between Washington and their districts, squeezing constituent meetings into weekends and short breaks, town halls emerged as a convenient one-stop-shopping for lawmakers to hear citizens’ concerns. Presidents used them too; in 1978, Jimmy Carter tried to sell voters on the Panama Canal treaty by phoning town hall meetings.

Now, though, the complaining constituent is not always who he seems to be. In Wisconsin last week, Representative Steve Kagen, a Democrat, was challenged on health care by a woman who declared herself politically unaffiliated; the local television station later discovered that she was a former Republican Party official who had worked for Mr. Kagen’s opponent in his Congressional race.

Nor can members of Congress be certain that their questioners are truly constituents. Representative Jan Schakowsky, an Illinois Democrat, said that given the current uproar over health care, someone suggested she check addresses at her town hall meetings.

“I’m not going to get into that,” she said. “It creates a real sour atmosphere at the door.”

And lawmakers are learning the hard way to watch their tongues. At one of his constituent sessions last week, Representative Todd Akin, a Missouri Republican who opposes President Obama’s health plan, remarked that some of his colleagues “almost got lynched” at their town halls. His sympathetic audience laughed and clapped; Mr. Akin replied, “I assume you’re not approving lynchings,” and made a choking gesture. The clip quickly turned up on YouTube, and now the chagrined congressman faces accusations that he was making lynch-mob jokes about Democrats.

“I was recognizing the atmosphere as opposed to condoning it,” he said in an interview on Friday. Given the “aggressive atmosphere,” he said, he is turning to the telephone conference as a way to take questions from constituents. “We’re adjusting our format to the situation,” he said.

In some respects, last week’s town halls — fueled on the right by antitax groups backed partly by industry, and on the left by unions — are the logical outgrowth of decades of American political activism. Community organizing is nothing new; President Obama made an early career of it. The civil rights movement, the antiwar movement, the anti-abortion movement, the rise of the religious right — all grew out of grassroots campaigns conducted by methodical organizers.

Accusations of phony grassroots campaigns — “Astroturf,” in Washington argot — also are not new. When Richard Viguerie, the conservative strategist, pioneered the use of direct mail to raise money in the 1970s, he quickly came under attack for creating “the impression of a mass uprising when there were organizers behind it,” said Julian Zelizer, a historian at Princeton University.

But last week’s “town brawls,” as the news media dubbed them, do seem to represent a shift. Instead of each side’s holding rallies and protests, the activism seemed directed personally at lawmakers, with the aim of overwhelming them. Mr. Kratovil, the Maryland Democrat, opposes the health care legislation moving through the House. But he was unable to get his point across, he said. “They simply want to yell when you talk.”

Some might call it democracy in action, but there is a risk. If the pattern continues, lawmakers could grow suspicious, refusing to believe that their encounters with voters are genuine.

“When a politician can’t tell what’s grassroots and what’s Astro, that’s dangerous,” Mr. Zelizer said. “In the long term, that could undermine the potential of grassroots mobilizers to change things. At a certain point, it’s crying wolf. No one is going to believe it’s real.”

Then again, just because someone has been recruited to an event does not mean his sentiments are not real. Dr. William Crowley, a retired neurologist in Austin, Tex., who participates in antitax “Tea Party Patriot” protests, turned out to see his local Democratic congressman, Representative Lloyd Doggett, after being tipped off by a fellow activist. The meeting turned ugly — Mr. Doggett left early and protesters blocked his car — but Dr. Crowley insisted he was nobody’s tool.

“Sean Hannity didn’t tell me to go; Glenn Beck didn’t tell me to go; Rush didn’t tell me to go” he said, referring to the conservative commentators.

And what of the Average Joe, who might want to talk to his elected representative about the kind of mundane matters that do not inspire protesters to yell and scream and get arrested? Mr. Kratovil, the Maryland Democrat, said he feared that such voters would no longer turn out for public meetings. He is making plans to hold office hours to meet them quietly, one on one.

“I think everybody across the country is trying to figure out how to deal with this,” he said last week, “and we’re not there yet.”

Why Men Cheat-The cheating Truth.......Day 1

In a new study conducted by marriage counselor M. Gary Neuman, it's estimated that one in 2.7 men will cheat—and most of their wives will never know about it.

Gary documented these findings—and many others—in a groundbreaking new book. To write The Truth About Cheating, Gary surveyed hundreds of faithful and cheating husbands to uncover the real reason some men stray.

Gary says his work as a marriage counselor inspired him to write this book. "For over 20 years, [I've been] living along with women, counseling, seeing the devastation and how overwhelming it is when they are cheated on and what it subsequently does to the children and the family," he says. "You want to help children of divorce? I said, 'Well, let's get really down and dirty and find out what we can do to save marriages and make them better.'"

Although Gary discusses how wives of cheaters can factor into affairs, he says he wrote the book to empower women. "It's not about blaming the wife. It can't be. I mean, cheating is ridiculous. It's wrong. And you can't justify it," Gary says. "My book is about one thing. It's really about empowering women. If I can give you knowledge that says that I could have proof that if you do certain things, you can lead your relationship to a better place, that will be much better for you as well because it's not just about stopping tragedy. It's about building a much more mutually beneficial relationship."

Why do African-American women have more pregnancy problems?

17 U-M departments, centers to collaborate on 3-year research project to understand and improve racial disparities in pregnancy outcomes

ANN ARBOR, Mich - Black women are three times more likely than white women to die during pregnancy, and twice as many black babies as white babies die in infancy. Yet researchers know little about why pregnancy and infant health differ by race, despite massive efforts to address this persistent problem. Now, researchers at the University of Michigan will examine the issue from an interdisciplinary perspective to help solve this problem. More than a dozen widely varied U-M schools and centers will be involved in the effort, from public health and medicine, to business and engineering.

"The whole issue of health care disparities is mostly unsolved. While there has been tremendous effort and a lot of money spent to address the problem, in my opinion almost nothing has been accomplished with all that investment. Individual niche programs are a Band-Aid that doesn't solve the problem," says Scott Ransom, D.O., MBA, MPH, director of the U-M Program for Healthcare Improvement and Leadership Development and scientific director of the U-M's Griffith Leadership Center.

"I believe the answer will require an interdisciplinary solution. That's what's unique about our effort. Business, information and engineering haven't looked at this issue at all, while social work, nursing, medicine and public health haven't looked at it together," says Ransom, an associate professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the U-M Medical School and of Health Management and Policy at the School of Public Health.

Ransom is principal investigator on this new three-year initiative, which received a $1.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health as part of its Roadmap for Medical Research, a series of far-reaching initiatives designed to transform the nation's medical research capabilities and speed the movement of research discoveries from the laboratory bench to the bedside.

While compliance with traditional prenatal care among black women has improved in recent years, it still lags behind white women: 75 percent of black women seek prenatal care vs. 89 percent of white women. The discrepancy continues after the baby is born too: 58 percent of white infants get all recommended well-child care, compared to 35 percent of black infants.

Further, previous studies have shown traditional medically oriented prenatal care has minimal impact on improving pregnancy outcomes. The new project will look at whether more comprehensive and coordinated prenatal care strategies may improve pregnancy outcomes.

U-M researchers will tackle the issue of racial disparities from three perspectives: leaders, health care providers and patients.

Researchers have not typically looked at how the perspectives or principles of leaders at hospitals, government agencies and prenatal clinics can influence health care disparities. Government and private organizations have provided money to fund prenatal programs, but these have made little difference in the overall problem. In this new study, an interdisciplinary group of U-M researchers, led by Lynn Wooten, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the U-M Stephen M. Ross School of Business, will look at how leadership affects access to and improvements in prenatal care, as well as the leader's role in managing the racial gap in birth outcomes.

Providers, including obstetricians, nurses, midwives and social workers, come into contact with pregnant patients regularly. Are these providers injecting personal bias or stereotypes onto their patients that ultimately affect care?

Are their interactions with patients impacting whether the patient accepts the treatment recommendations? A project led by Ransom will evaluate and make recommendations on how providers can improve care and interact with all races and ethnicities. The team will evaluate possible augmented prenatal care strategies that coordinate traditional prenatal care with education, social services, technology and other approaches.

Patients also contribute to racial disparities in care through cultural attitudes toward health care, as well as socioeconomic status, family situations, education and transportation issues.

This area, led by Briggett Ford, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the U-M School of Social Work, will evaluate the patient's role in health care disparities and look at how better coordinated and augmented prenatal care programs address possible social and environmental factors.

"When we think of 'multidisciplinary' in medicine, we usually mean two medical departments collaborating. With the resources and the longstanding collaborative spirit at the University of Michigan, we can truly make this effort interdisciplinary," Ransom says. "We've brought together people who have widely different perspectives to add focus to the issue of health disparities. These are people who have tackled other huge issues in the past and can bring a unique perspective to a question that the medical field alone has not been able to answer."

The U-M areas involved in the project are the Institute for Research on Women and Gender, the Program for Healthcare Improvement and Leadership Development, the Medical School, the School of Public Health, the Griffith Leadership Center, the Institute for Social Research, the Center for Research on Ethnicity, Culture and Health, the Institute for Social Research, the School of Nursing, the Center for Health Disparities, the Center for Health Promotion, the School of Social Work, the Stephen M. Ross School of Business, the School of Information, the College of Engineering, the Research Center on Poverty, Risk and Mental Health, and the departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Health Management and Policy, and Psychology.

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Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
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Nuclear disarmament calls renewed

HIROSHIMA, Japan (AP) — Hiroshima's mayor urged global leaders on Thursday to back President Obama's call to abolish nuclear weapons as Japan marked the 64th anniversary of the world's first atomic bomb attack.

In April, Obama said that the United States — the only nation that has deployed atomic bombs in combat — has a "moral responsibility" to act and declared his goal to rid the world of the weapons.

At a solemn ceremony to commemorate the victims of the Aug. 6, 1945, attack, Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba welcomed that commitment.

"We refer to ourselves, the great global majority, as the 'Obamajority,' and we call on the rest of the world to join forces with us to eliminate all nuclear weapons by 2020," Akiba said. The bombed-out dome of the building preserved as the Hiroshima Peace Memorial loomed in the background, and hundreds of white doves were released into the air as he finished speaking.

"Together, we can abolish nuclear weapons. Yes, we can," he said.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Barack Obama | Japan | World War II | Hiroshima | Taro Aso

About 50,000 people attended the ceremony, including officials and visitors from countries around the world, though the United States did not have an official representative at the ceremony.

Hiroshima was instantly flattened and an estimated 140,000 people were killed or died within months when the American B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped its deadly payload in the waning days of World War II.

Three days after that attack on Hiroshima, the U.S. dropped a plutonium bomb on the city of Nagasaki, killing about 80,000 people. Japan surrendered on Aug. 15, ending World War II. A total of about 260,000 victims of the attack are officially recognized by the government, including those that have died of related injuries or sickness in the decades since.

Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso also spoke at Thursday's ceremony, saying he hoped the world would follow Tokyo's efforts to limit nuclear proliferation.

"Japan will continue to uphold its three non-nuclear principles and lead the international community toward the abolishment of nuclear weapons and lasting peace," he said.

The three principles state that Japan will not make, own or harbor nuclear weapons.

Later in the day, Aso signed an agreement with a group of atomic bomb survivors who had been seeking recognition and expanded health benefits from the government.

The government gives those people certified as survivors free medical service. But it also provides a monthly allowance of 137,000 yen to those determined by the health ministry to be suffering from illnesses caused by the attacks.

Thursday's deal will give that allowance to an additional 306 people who had been fighting in court for the past six years to have their illnesses recognized after the government rejected their petitions.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura said the government wanted to settle the suits once and for all. "The plaintiffs were getting old and their illnesses have worsened," he said.

Sunao Tsuboi, a leader of Nihon Hidankyo, a nationwide organization for atomic bomb survivors, welcomed the deal, saying the plaintiffs "finally felt relieved."

The anniversary passed during a period of heightened tensions in the region, just months after North Korea conducted an underground nuclear test blast in May.

A similar ceremony will be held in Nagasaki on Sunday.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

World’s wealthiest Black billionaires By William Reed

Collectively Black Americans are the richest blacks in the world. But, only two Black Americans can claim a nine-figure. Times are changing and Black Africans are making more money than African -Americans and have made it onto Forbes’ list of the world’s wealthiest billionaires.
At the top of Forbes’ list, Warren Buffett’s $62 billion ranks him as the world’s richest man. Of the world’s 1125 wealthiest individuals, Mexico’s Carlos Slim Helu ranks second with $60 billion. Despite being worth $58 billion, $2 billion more than last year, Microsoft’s Bill Gates is now just the world’s third-richest person.

Ethiopian-born Mohammed Al Amoudi is the richest black person in the world with a total net worth of $9 billion. Al Amoudi is ranked 97th on the Forbes list and followed by billionaire blacks such as Nigeria’s Aliko Dangote ($ 3.3 billion), American Oprah Winfrey ($2.5 billion), London-based Sudanese Mohamed "Mo" Ibrahim ($2.5 billion) and South African Patrice Motsepe ($2.4 billion). BET founder Robert Johnson’s divorce dropped him to just a $1 billion fortune.
Al Amoudi made his fortune in construction and real estate before betting on Swedish and Moroccan oil refineries. His Svenska Petroleum conducts oil exploration from the Nordic shelf to the Ivory Coast. He is the largest private investor in Ethiopia, putting money into such diverse assets as a hotel, gold mines and a food processing plant.
At the age of 21, Aliko Dangote became a stock trader off a loan from his uncle. After he built his company, The Dangote Group, into a conglomerate with interests in sugar, flour milling, cement and salt processing, he struck gold when his sugar production company was listed on the Nigerian stock exchange last year. The Dangote Group dominates the sugar market in Nigeria and is the country’s largest industrial group. Dangote is ranked the 334th richest man in the world.
Oprah Winfrey is 215th on Forbes’ 2008 list. The queen of American media’s show will run through the 2010-11 season. She launched The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1986. It is now aired in 110 countries and draws 30 million U.S. viewers a week in the U.S. Oprah owns Harpo Studios and property in Hawaii, Illinois and Santa Barbara. She gives to needy women, children and families via Oprah’s Angel Network and her personal charity, The Oprah Winfrey Foundation.
Sudanese-born Mohamed "Mo" Ibrahim ranks 462 on Forbes’ 2008 list. A communications entrepreneur, Ibrahim founded Celtel, a mobile phone company that now serves 15 African countries. Sold it in 2005 for $3.4 billion; pocketed $1.4 billion. The London resident now spends his time on philanthropy and investing in Africa. Created Mo Ibrahim Foundation to award monetary prize to former African heads of state that have shown exemplary leadership in such areas as promoting political freedom; awarded first $5 million prize in October.
Johannesburg mining magnate Patrice Motsepe is South Africa’s first black billionaire. Born in the sprawling black township of Soweto and then trained as a lawyer, Motsepe has grown in business and dubbed the "prince of mines" by many because of the vast fortune he has amassed through his company African Rainbow Minerals (ARM). Motsepe bought low-producing gold mine shafts in 1994 and turned them profitable by using a lean, and mean, management style. Now, not only is he the executive chairman of ARM, but he also holds a 42 percent stake in the company.
The Robert Johnson everybody knows, is now only the 1062nd richest person in the world. Founder of Black Entertainment Television, Johnson became America’s first black billionaire in 2001 by selling BET to Viacom for $3 billion. His ex-wife, Sheila, took a big chunk the following year in a divorce settlement. Johnson is rebuilding his fortune with hotel investments and now owns interest in 100 hotels. He is the first person of color to hold a controlling interest in an American professional sports team: basketball’s Charlotte Bobcats. Other investments: recording studios (Three Keys Music), restaurants (Posh). Johnson has pledged $3 million to jump-start a $30 million investment fund for Liberia.

OTA BENGA: The man who was put on display in the zoo!

One of the most fascinating stories about the effects of evolution on human relations is the story of Ota Benga, a pygmy who was put on display in a zoo as an example of an evolutionarily inferior race. The incident clearly reveals the racism of evolutionary theory and the extent to which the theory gripped the hearts and minds of scientists.
The man who was put on display in a zoo was brought from the Belgian Congo in 1904 by noted African explorer Samuel Verner. The man, a pygmy named Ota Benga (or 'Bi', which meant 'friend' in his language), was soon 'presented by Verner to the Bronx Zoo director, William Hornaday. (1)

The pygmy was born in 1881 in Africa. When put in the zoo, he was 150 centimetres (4 feet 11 inches) tall, about 23 years old, and weighed a mere 47 kilos (103 pounds). Often referred to as a boy, he had been actually married twice—his first wife had been kidnapped by a hostile tribe, and his second had died from a poisonous snake bite. (2)
He was first displayed at the 1904 St Louis World's Fair, and was exhibited with other pygmies as 'emblematic savages' along with other 'strange people' in the anthropology wing. This first stop in America was influenced by what some have called 'Darwinism, Barnumism, and racism.' (3)
Ota Benga later ended up at the Bronx Zoo, where he was put on display in the monkey house. Although zoo director Hornaday insisted he was merely offering an 'intriguing exhibit' for the public's edification, he 'apparently saw no difference between a wild beast and the little Black man; for the first time in any American zoo, a human being was displayed in a cage. Benga was given cage-mates to keep him company in his captivity—a parrot and an Orangutan named Dohong'.(4)
Persuaded by Darwin's Theory
The factors motivating Verner to bring Ota Benga to the United States were complex, but he was evidently much influenced by the theory of Charles Darwin—which led to the division of humankind into contrived races. (5)
A contemporary account stated that Benga was 'not much taller than the orangoutan [sic] ... their heads are much alike, and both grin in the same way when pleased'. (6)
Benga had come over from Africa with a 'fine young chimpanzee', which Mr Verner also deposited 'in the ape collection at the Primates House'. (7) Hornaday's enthusiasm for his new exhibit was reflected in an article he wrote for the zoological society's bulletin, which began as follows:
'On September 9, a genuine African Pygmy, belonging to the sub-race commonly miscalled "the dwarfs,". . . Ota Benga is a well-developed little man, with a good head, bright eyes and a pleasing countenance. He is not hairy, and is not covered by the "downy fell" described by some explorers…. He is happiest when at work, making something with his hands.' (8)
He then tells about how he obtained him from Verner, who 'was specially interested in the Pygmies, having recently returned to their homes on the Kasai River the half dozen men and women of that race who were brought to this country by him for exhibition in the Department of Anthropology at the St Louis [World's Fair] Exposition.' (9)
It was widely believed at this time, even by eminent scientists, that blacks were evolutionarily inferior to Caucasians, but caging one in a zoo produced much publicity. (10) In Bridges' words:
'The Pygmy worked—or played—with the animals in a cage, naturally, and the spectacle of a black man in a cage gave a Times reporter the springboard for a story that worked up a storm of protest among Negro ministers in the city. Their indignation was made known to Mayor George B. McClellan, but he refused to take action. (11)
Some whites also became concerned about the 'caged Negro'. According to one author, part of the concern was because the 'men of the cloth feared…that the Benga exhibition might be used to prove the Darwinian theory of evolution'. (12) The objections were often vague, as in the words of The New York Times of September 9, 1906:
Pygmies Rated Low on 'Human Scale'
'The exhibition was that of a human being in a monkey cage. The human being happened to be a Bushman, one of a race that scientists do not rate high in the human scale, but to the average nonscientific person in the crowd of sightseers there was something about the display that was unpleasant.... It is probably a good thing that Benga doesn't think very deeply. If he did it isn't likely that he was very proud of himself when he woke in the morning and found himself under the same roof with the orangoutangs [sic] and monkeys, for that is where he really is.'
Although a variety of opinions, existed about the incident, it created many protests and the threat of legal action. So the zoo director finally acquiesced, and 'allowed the pygmy out of his cage'.(13) Once let out, Ota Benga spent most of his days walking around the zoo grounds in a white suit, often with huge crowds following him, and returned to the monkey house only to sleep at night.
Being treated as a curiosity, mocked and made fun of by the visitors, eventually caused Benga to 'hate being mobbed by curious tourists and mean children'.(14) Zoo director Hornaday, in a letter to Verrier, revealed the problems that the situation had caused:
'Of course we have not exhibited him (Benga) in the cage since the trouble began. Since dictating the above, we have had a great time with Ota Benga. He procured a carving knife from the feeding room of the Monkey House, and went around the Park flourishing it in a most alarming manner, and for a longtime refused to give it up. Eventually it was taken away from him.
'Shortly after that he went to the soda fountain near the Bird House, to get some soda, and because he was refused the soda he got into a great rage…. This led to a great fracas. He fought like a tiger, and it took three men to get him back to the monkey house. He has struck a number of visitors, and has "raised Cain" generally.'
Fired Arrows at Obnoxious Gawkers
The pygmy later made a little bow and some arrows and began shooting at zoo visitors whom he found particularly obnoxious. 'After he wounded a few gawkers, he had to leave the Zoological Park for good.' (15) The New York Times of September 18, 1906, described the problem:
'There were 40,000 visitors to the park on Sunday. Nearly every man, woman and child of this crowd made for the monkey house to see the star attraction in the park ? the wild man from Africa. They chased him about the grounds all day, howling, jeering, and yelling. Some of them poked him in the ribs, others tripped him up, all laughed at him.' (16)
Although Hornaday claimed he was 'merely offering an interesting exhibit and that Benga was happy...', The Encyclopedia of Evolution notes that this statement 'could not be confirmed' as there was no record of Benga's feelings.(17)
Ota Benga unfortunately left no written record of his thoughts about the affair. Thus the only side of the story we have is in Verner's voluminous records, the newspaper accounts, and the writings of Hornaday.
We are not lacking information about the incident—many articles survive on the case, and a 281-page book entitled The Pygmy in the Zoo was recently published about Ota's zoo experience by Phillip Verner Bradford, Verner's grandson.
'Freak' Label Leads to Suicide
After Ota Benga left the zoo, he was able to find sympathetic care at a succession of institutions and with several sympathetic individuals. But he was never able to shed his 'freak' label. Employed in a tobacco factory in Lynchburg, Virginia, Ota Benga grew increasingly depressed, hostile, irrational, and forlorn. Concluding that he would never be able to return to his native land, in 1916 Benga committed suicide by shooting himself with a borrowed pistol.
The story of his suicide was published by Hornaday in a 1916 Zoological Bulletin. Even at this late date, Hornaday's evolution-inspired racist feelings clearly showed through. He even stated that 'the young negro was brought to Lynchburg about six years ago, by some kindly disposed person, and was placed in the Virginia Theological Seminary and College here, where for several years he labored to demonstrate to his benefactors that he did not possess the power of learning; and some two or three years ago he quit the school and went to work as a laborer' (emphasis mine). (18)
Hornaday then recounts that, after leaving college, Ota lived at a 'colored home' near the school, earning his livelihood by working as a laborer in a tobacco factory. In Hornaday's words, the suicide was committed because 'the burden became so heavy that the young Negro secured a revolver belonging to the woman with whom he lived, went to the cow stable and there sent a bullet through his heart, ending his life.'
The story of Ota Benga is one of the many tragic fruits of evolutionism. But it is one which contains a lesson in helping us to realize the importance of the Christian teaching that all men are brothers, all descendants of Adam and Eve. If all Christians had stood up for creation at the outset of the Ota Benga incident, this horror story of evolutionary racism might have been averted.

Black is Beautiful… Depending on Your Complexion???

Light Skin vs. Dark Skin. Some blacks feel that they are better than other blacks because of the complexion of their skins.

This is a problem that has been going on for years and years in the black community. The lighter you are, you’re considered beautiful, smart and classy. The darker you are, you’re considered ugly and viril. What do you think?

What Men Don't Want Women to Know

One of the surest ways to spark a heated debate around here is to bring up the validity of marriage. Outrageous alimony and child support rulings aside, when I saw what this one guy had to say about the difference between being the wife vs the wifey, I saw the makings of good thread...

A WIFE...• never has to compete with other women because she is the only woman her man is seeing, "talking to", and interested in. She knows this from his actions. Not just his words.• The wife knows her mans family and friends. She usually has her mans parents or guardians blessings. Along with his friends. If her lifelong partner's friends and family dont approve of her chances are she isnt going to be his wife.• A man treats his wife with the utmost respect. Never cheats on her, or lies to her, or treat her like a jumpoff, a "main" or his "wifey".• The wife usually sees a side of her partner that no one else sees. She knows her man inside and out. His darkest thoughts, secrets, etc. There are no mysteries. No cloudy areas. Everything is in the open.• The wife is the woman who a man chooses to spend the rest of his life with. She gets the marriage proposal, the ring, and everything that man has to offer her for a lifetime.A "WIFEY"...• Is the woman who a man spends all of his time with. Usually been with for a long time. Maybe even live with. But isnt married or engaged. Ever thought why? Keep reading...• Men know whether he is going to marry a woman in the early stages of the relationship. It takes us men no time to see if a woman is going to be around for a while...or a lifetime.• The "wifey" also has met SOME of his family, and SOME of his friends. Sometimes the "wifey" may receive the mans family and friends blessings, but its usually over ruled by him...in the end.• The "wifey" is equivalent to the "main". Meaning the one who he likes or cares about the most out of the women he deals with. The "wifey" is rarely the only one. Just in HER mind she is. But she dont know the TRUTH. Men are NEVER 100% faithful to a "wifey".Heres why...• The "wifey" is the woman who he may spend years with. In his heart he knows he wont marry her though. He'll keep her around until the woman who he feels in his heart he WILL marry comes into his vision, then its curtains for the "wifey". A man is going to be faithful or dedicated to the "wifey" for so long before he starts roaming. He will eventually break up with the "wifey" and go be with the woman who he will make his WIFE. So ladies...please stop bragging about how your his "wifey", all that means is your his TEMPORARY wife until the PERMANENT wife comes along. Then its back to the drawing board for you. Don't be stupid. If you dont have a ring on your finger then your just his girlfriend. "Wifey" is a very low standard to claim.

CEOs Rate Obama

CEOs Rate Obama's Performance
by Joseph Weber, Christopher Palmeri, and the BusinessWeek staffMonday, August 3, 2009
provided by
To some top executives, President Barack Obama is "rapidly socializing the United States." Others see his initiatives on everything from healthcare reform to the saving of GM as crucial for sparing the U.S. from even deeper economic trouble. We quizzed numerous leaders of small, medium, and large companies on how they think the President has done in his first six months in office. Some give him a failing grade; others, top marks. Read on to see what these business leaders think of the CEO-in-chief.

More from BusinessWeek.com: • Obama: What Business Thinks • Obama Tells BW He's Not Antibusiness • Summers on Obama's New Financial Regulations
Angela F. Braly
CEO, WellPoint, the nation's biggest health insurerEmployers are struggling to provide health benefits while remaining competitive in the global economy and many Americans worry an illness will devastate their financial security. Both are already bearing the brunt of an existing cost shift to private insurers from Medicare and Medicaid. Unfortunately, many in Congress are proposing to shift the burden even further by expanding government-run health care. As Medicare shows us, a government-run health plan would not address the underlying issues of cost and quality. Case in point: Medicare is predicted to be bankrupt by 2017.The President is doing the right thing by bringing in leaders from hospitals, physicians, nurses, employers, advocacy groups, and private insurers, among others. Only by working together will we be able to develop a sustainable solution for America's health care system.
Michael S. Dell
Founder and CEO, DellThere are some aspects of what is in the economic recovery act around broadband, healthcare, and IT spending that we think are good things. We're concerned, like many, that one word that seems to be missing from a lot of discussions is "competitiveness." How do all of these things make America more competitive? It's a word that should be used more in Washington.
Prakash Singh/AFP/Getty Images
Mohamed El-Erian
CEO and co-chief investment officer of PimcoThe most interesting thing is the mess he inherited and the extent he has to pursue two different agendas—there's the agenda he came in with and the agenda to stabilize a rapidly imploding US economy. The big gamble is that he has tried to pursue both simultaneously. That's going to define his first term. So far the evidence is mixed. On one side he has been able to stabilize the financial center and institute major structural reforms. And he still maintains enormous popularity with the American people.On the negative side, the jobs picture is worse than anticipated, and unemployment itself is becoming a big policy challenge. It's going from being a lagging indicator to being a leading indicator. The major issue people are going to second guess in the next six months is his decision to pursue both agendas. Was that the right one or should have he done it sequentially?He inherited a real mess, not just a mess, but one that requires him to make difficult decisions. I voted for Obama, and I'm a supporter. I've been impressed by how bold he has been on the political front, and how quickly he came up the learning curve in terms of the trade-offs involved. You see it very explicitly: Three weeks ago, for example, he talked about yes, fiscal stimulus was important and it avoided bigger problems—yet there are also longer-term fiscal sustainability challenges. The notion that we get is that he understands what the issues are and he's making active choices as opposed to reactive choices.
Robert Greifeld
CEO, Nasdaq OMXWhat I like is the fact that the President recognizes that we have a number of pressing issues and is endeavoring to attack or approach these issues with hopefully innovative solutions. The counterpoint to that is that you do grow concerned that they might try to do too much too soon or to overreach in a particular area and run the risk of rendering all efforts either neutered or ineffectual.He's exceeded my expectations with respect to the managerial ability to craft and attempt to execute a wide-ranging agenda. I would have assumed that the natural realities of the office and what's required to move legislation would have narrowed the agenda.Within the leadership of the business community, there is concern and I would say that the attitude is not so much wait-and-see, but wary. They're wary with respect to trade policy. They're wary with respect to tax policy and obviously are also concerned with the burden of health-care costs. There's a fair amount of trepidation in the business community and what the Administration policies might mean to their success in the future. In terms of the concern in the business community, I think, it is greater today than it was back in November.On the stimulus package: I don't believe the stimulus has had a noticeable impact on the economy as of yet. I think it is somewhat misguided to be calling for additional stimulus. We need to get the stimulus that was approved into the economy, flowing through our different activities.
Jeffrey Katzenberg
CEO, Dreamworks Animation SKG(Katzenberg was an early Obama supporter and is still very much in the President's corner.)I don't think that any President in modern history has had to face a deeper or more difficult or more complicated set of issues from the first moment he set foot in the White House, and I think he has done an exceptional job of methodically working his way through that horrendous set of problems. He had to make a lot of decisions, and some of them will be wrong, but many, many of them will turn out right.On tax hikes: Unfortunately, that's not been a level playing field and there has been an unhealthy concentration of wealth in this country. Those days are over.
Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP/Getty Images
Jeffrey B. Kindler
CEO, PfizerObama's health-care reform is making more progress than a lot of people would have predicted. We're on the verge of a bill coming out of the House that's clearly going to happen. Right now there's some challenges in the Senate because of the potentially significant differences between the two committees there. The biggest challenge is this issue around the public plan. The other is how do we pay for it? Those are big issues. How they're going to get resolved within the time frame people have in mind, I'm not an expert on that. On any given day you'll hear harmony or disharmony. But yeah, I do sense a considerable amount of progress.I do think that we have to accept the reality that the vast majority of the people in this country get their insurance from employers and if we create a system that provides an incentive for employers to not provide their employees with insurance, then under certain scenarios huge numbers of people under public option would move out of the employer system into the public system. That would not be a good outcome because it would impose a tremendous financial burden on the taxpayers.
W. James McNerney Jr.
CEO, BoeingA level playing field for American companies and workers in international markets is more important than ever. I see clear evidence that the Administration understands the issue and its importance to U.S. economic health.
Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images
Duncan L. Niederauer
CEO of NYSE Euronext, operator of the New York Stock ExchangeThe sense of optimism that is continuously communicated by the Administration is not only important, but necessary. The expectations for him generally speaking were so incredibly high when he took office. He's done a reasonably good job of living up to those. I have seen a number of instances where President Obama really is doing what we all hoped he would by reaching out to the stakeholders, decisionmakers, potential influencers, and people who have expertise in various arenas. I know a number of people, including myself, who have been invited to the White House for various discussions. A lot of leaders wouldn't do that. The President's communications skills are very strong, as you would have expected. But he and the Administration have taken on so much, they're multitasking beyond expectations. I do like the reaching-out approach. It will serve him very well as we tackle all these rather meaty issues.
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Visit the Career CenterOn tax policy: A place where I do not think they struck the right chord was on the tax proposal involving overseas earnings of multinational corporations headquartered in the U.S. The overwhelming view from that constituent group is that if that proposal were to go through, it would at best require a lot of U.S.-headquartered companies to eliminate jobs to reduce costs to make up for the increased tax burden. More challengingly for the United States, it would encourage a lot of these companies to contemplate being incorporated elsewhere and potentially moving jobs out of this country and moving headquarters and operations abroad. I hope the Administration listens to the feedback and reconsiders their position.On regulation: We all know we need some regulatory reform here and to bring the opaque markets out of the shadows and into the light. But there's a real danger, in our view, that there ends up being excessive regulation that stifles creation of new business and new jobs.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Charles R. Schwab
Founder and Chairman, Charles Schwab, the San Francisco-based discount brokerageWe've got to restore business confidence. We've restored the individual's confidence. The banking system seems to be doing okay. What we haven't done is restore the confidence of the people who create the jobs. There are six million businesses with more than one employee. What would it take to get each one to hire one more? If I had a magic wand, I'd create some kind of incentive. The biggest uncertainty is: Where are taxes going to go? The quicker you bring certainty, the quicker you restore confidence.
Donald J. Trump
Brad Barket/Getty Images
CEO, the Trump OrganizationI would hire him. He's handled the tremendous mess he walked into very well. He still has a daunting task ahead of him but he appears to be equal to the challenge. He has kept his eye on both national and international issues and his visits to foreign countries have shown him to be warmly received, which is certainly a change from the last Administration. I believe he should pay more attention to OPEC and what's going on there, but overall I believe he's done a very good job.

Niger: Secretary-General Urges Restraint Ahead of Referendum

New York — Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today urged the people of Niger to refrain from violence and exercise the utmost restraint, days before they vote on a controversial referendum to change the national constitution to allow the current President to run for a third term in office.

Mr. Ban "reiterates his support for an inclusive process to resolve the current crisis peacefully and in conformity with the country's democratic values," according to a statement issued by his spokesperson.
On Tuesday Niger is staging a referendum that could endorse a constitutional amendment on presidential term limits and allow incumbent Mamadou Tandja to run for a third consecutive term.
Mr. Ban said he was concerned that the referendum was taking place, "despite sharp differences among the country's political stakeholders," and he urged all sides in the impoverished West African country to show restraint.
"The United Nations stands ready to support initiatives that would help resolve the current situation in a peaceful and sustainable manner," he added.