(Akiit.com) Been so hot around here lately I haven’t had to time to enjoy the outdoors… Not nice sweating like a dog instantly after stepping outside… Anyway I need to find my ugg boots as I heading to the mountains this weekend… Shall do alittle climbing along side trail walking… Wish the wife would join but she is busy with family… I see the Bengals have signed Terrell Owens so this shall be an interesting season… He and Chad are characters to say the least…

Written By CTA

(Akiit.com) The the Lord said to him, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions (Bible Genesis 15: 13-14).”

With the recent release of the Nation of Islam’s new book, “The Secret Relationship between Blacks and Jews, volume 2,” there has been a renewed effort among Jewish organizations, right wing conservatives and Blacks who have not yet read the book, to once again condemn the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan.

In order to deflect attention from its central thesis, and to avoid a much needed and straightforward dialogue on race relations, those attacking Minister Farrakhan, by means of straw man argument, seem more interested in avoiding exposure than they are with examining historical facts. Citing Jewish scholars, historical records and other non anti-Semitic sources, the book exposes myths, names individuals and identifies institutions that took part in the economic oppression of Blacks in the Jim Crow South.

Releasing this scholarly work to demonstrate and prove that Black economic development has been consistently undermined since the Emancipation Proclamation, it appears that for fear of moral or legal obligations, the anger and defensiveness coming from Jewish organizations, and their conservative allies, is based more upon a sense of denial than upon any genuine claims of anti-Semitism or so-called reverse racism.

Establishing the basis of legitimate grievance, “The Secret Relationship between Blacks and Jews, volume 2” is intended to spur discussion and to lay the perimeters for a proper dialogue regarding many decades of economic exploitation. While Blacks had absolutely nothing to do with Jewish suffering, either in Europe or in America, it is indeed unfortunate that those victimized by their European brethren would now minimize the significance of their own documented roles in the historical suffering of Black people.

There is an anecdote that says when an adversary runs out of an intelligent argument, he will resort to name calling. Under a long and blistering campaign of unjust charges and personal attacks, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan has never returned evil for evil. His stance on principle has been consistently resolute and uncompromising and, regardless of whom or what, he has always spoken truth to power when others feared to stand up and speak for themselves.

Today, in order to break the mold of an economically unjust relationship, and to honestly address the current impasse between Blacks and Jews, there must be willingness among Jewish advocacy and interest groups to acknowledge an historical wrong. Regarding Black leadership, there must also be the courage to stand on actual facts, and without fear of material loss or censure, to lay out the case for repairing the damage 400 years of slavery and undeserved suffering has caused.

In order to enable and empower an economy worthy of 40 million Black people, it is important to know what was in order to decipher and correct what is and what could be. For that to happen, it is first necessary to realize the significance of the nearly one trillion dollars Black consumers spend annually, and how this wealth could be leveraged beyond civil rights concerns and requests for corporate philanthropy.
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(Akiit.com) If you understand just one thing about the uniting of Dwyane Wade, LeBron James and Chris Bosh in Miami, know that it’s not something you are going to see every summer, not by a long shot.

Hope you enjoyed all of the suspense of “The Decision,” the hour-long prime-time show concocted by James’ management and ESPN, in which the title-less, seven-year vet announced that he has decided to take his talents to South Beach, because there isn’t going to be anything remotely close to this any time soon.

For starters, look for the NBA owners to lock out the players next summer after the expiration of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, and in all likelihood expect a long and protracted delay to the upcoming season.

Say what you want to about the appalling, petulant behavior of Cleveland owner Dan Gilbert after he directed his inexcusable vitriol at James after he opted to earn his money income-tax free in South Florida — what good, tax-hating Republican wouldn’t have made the same decision?

But if you think the owners won’t be twice as gangster as they go after things like guaranteed contracts and reduced payouts even to superstars, well, you just don’t understand the engine that drives the NBA.

Carmelo Anthony will be the most coveted free agent next summer, but after that there is a precipitous falloff in talent. Injury prone Yao Ming has to show that he’s healthy after sitting out all of last season, and Jamal Crawford and Tony Parker, well, you get the picture.

This is why Chris Paul’s wanting to cut ties in New Orleans despite having two years left on his contract will be the hottest story to follow in the off-season.

At Anthony’s recent wedding, Paul reportedly joked about the possibility of joining Anthony and new Knick Amar’e Stoudemire in New York to form another Big Three to battle Miami over the coming years. Along with New York, it has been reported that Paul would be interested in playing for Dallas, Orlando and the Los Angeles Lakers because he does not feel New Orleans is committed to building a championship team.

Paul should do everything in his power to make this happen, especially if it means winding up in Los Angeles or Orlando. Paul, taken with the fourth overall pick in 2005, has been an exemplary citizen in the Big Easy. But unlike James, he can’t be portrayed as a native son turning his back on his hometown which, in reality, is a huge croc anyway.

Paul doesn’t have any true ties to New Orleans. James, from Akron, was vilified for leaving his “hometown” of Cleveland. But really, only a true sucker buys into this way of thinking. How many successful people have left their hometown and gone on to achieve magnanimously in other places? The same will happen for James, a hall-of-famer even if he never plays another game in the NBA.

James gave Cleveland every opportunity to build a team around him and the Cavs went out and put together teams that were built for the regular season but unable to give James the support he needed to win the Eastern Conference.

Paul, arguably the best point guard in the league, no doubt feels the same way. He envisions himself perhaps dishing off to Kobe Bryant on the break or feeding Dwight Howard perfectly in the post. And playing alongside Anthony and Stoudemire in NYC wouldn’t be a bad thing, either.
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(Akiit.com) I’m ready for Black Friday, as I need to pick up a few new items… Have some birthdays coming up and this is a nice way to save some money… Will do most of my shopping online at Buy.com… I do need to clean up this pc as it’s been running slowly lately… Hard to surf the net or even download songs… Well let me call up my buddy… Would like to play some golf today… 18 holes that is…

Written By CTA

(Akiit.com) Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack was direct, forceful and blunt when he said that the USDA does not tolerate racial discrimination. This was Vilsack’s widely circulated public explanation for firing Shirley Sherrod. There are two problems with this. One, the world now knows that Sherrod did not do or say anything to merit being branded a bigot and sacked. Vilsack and President Obama subsequently apologized to Sherrod and offered her her job back.

The second problem is more troubling. Vilsack should have been talking about the shameful and disgraceful treatment of black farmers by his agency, and the equally shameful and disgraceful treatment of the farmers by Congress. The day after Vilsack issued his lofty pronouncement about zero tolerance for racial discrimination, Gary Grant, President of the 20,000 member Black Farmer & Agriculturalists Association, flatly called Vilsack’s statement “a complete lie.” He had good reason. During the past quarter century, tens of thousands of black farmers have lost their land, homes, and livestock, due to the blatant refusal by the USDA to make or guarantee loans to them.

The farmers have filed individual and class lawsuits, staged sit-ins, held protests marches and rallies challenging the naked discriminatory lending practices of the USDA. Shirley Sherrod was one of them. She and her husband and a cooperative of black farmers were refused loans and their farms were foreclosed on in 1985. They filed a suit. It took more than two decades of legal wrangling but finally Sherrod and her husband and the other farmers won their suit and were awarded damages $13 million in damages.

The USDA has revamped its operations, has an active civil rights division, and says it carefully scrutinizes its lending program to prevent bias. This doesn’t mean that the USDA has totally righted its past racial wrongs. In a statement, the black farmer’s association notes that the USDA has not punished any of its agents or officials that encouraged or turned a blind eye to discriminatory lending. A decade ago the USDA shelled out $2.3 billion to the farmers to settle the discrimination suits. But that didn’t end the injustice. Thousands of black farmers that lost their land did not get a nickel. They were excluded from the settlement through bureaucratic bungling, technicalities, and challenges by Bush Justice Department officials.

A decade later, with the approval of President Obama, Vilsack, agreed to a second settlement of $1.25 billion. This again didn’t end the injustice. Congress had to approve release of the funds. It set a deadline of March 31 for approval. The deadline came and went. Congress went on spring vacation without approving the money. It set another deadline of May 31 for approval. That date also came and went with no action.

GOP conservatives and the right-wing talking heads then went to work. They railed that the settlement was a deficit buster, was unjustified, and a political giveaway by the Obama administration to appease black Democrats. The presumption being that all the black farmers are Democrats and dutiful Obama voters.
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