(Akiit.com) You don’t hear much about the nation’s “war on drugs” these days. It’s a has-been, a glamorless geezer, a holdover from bygone days. Its glitz has been stolen by the “war on terror,” which gets the news media hype and campaign trail rhetoric. Railing against recreational drug use and demanding that offenders be locked away is so ’90s.

But the drug war proceeds, mostly away from news cameras and photo ops, still chewing up federal and state resources and casting criminal sanctions over entire neighborhoods. Some four or so decades into an intensive effort to stamp out recreational drug use, billions of dollars have been spent; thousands of criminals, many of them foreigners, have been enriched; and hundreds of thousands of Americans have been imprisoned. And the use of illegal substances continues unabated.

With the nation poised on the brink of a new political era, isn’t it time to abandon the wrongheaded war on drugs? Isn’t it time to admit that this second Prohibition has been as big a failure as the last — the one aimed at alcohol?
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(Akiit.com) Without stage experience, pageant parents, or crown fever, Eunice Cofie, 27, of Tallahassee, succeeded earlier this year in winning the title of Miss Black Florida USA.

“A friend came to me and told me that I should really consider being a part of it, but I simply blew it off. I thought it was great for her, especially hearing that the possibility of traveling to Gambia was an option, but I really was not interested at the time.”

Two months after that conversation, Cofie reconsidered.

“When I read the mission statement, I was drawn to it. The mission of the Miss Black USA organization is all about empowering young women. That being one of my life’s missions, I decided to get involved,” she said.

Cofie, who became Miss Black Florida USA 2008 in July, is using her platform to promote the prevention of childhood obesity through Project H.E.A.L.T.H. (Health, Education and Life Transforming Habits), a private study and afterschool program.

“I’m currently working on the pilot study,” she said. “Once I started reading more about it and seeing how much it is affecting both children and adults, I knew I had to continue and do all that I could to bring awareness to the masses.”
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(Akiit.com) Lobbying clout increases with Democratic majority…

Introductions, appropriations, earmarks, hearings, testimonies, markups-these are all terms with which any experienced lobbyist in Washington, D.C., is familiar. But successful federal lobbying-the practice of seeking to influence the behavior of elected officials-isn’t based on familiarity with or involvement in the process. As with most other fields, lobbying success rests largely on networking: creating, building, maintaining, and even borrowing a network of influential individuals and leaders. In other words, it’s all about who you know.

For African Americans on Capitol Hill, the networking community recently expanded. The 2006 elections brought about a Democratic majority in the Congress, and openings in Congressional committee and subcommittee leadership seats were filled by ranking African Americans. Several black leaders now hold powerful positions: Congressional Black Caucus founder and former CBC chair Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), and Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), just to name a few.

In response to these open ears, a crop of hungry and talented black lobbyists have sprung up, ranging from consultants and in-house lobbyists to entrepreneurs. Stephanie Jones, executive director of the National Urban League Institute and a lobbyist on the organization’s behalf, says firms often employ lawyers who lobby on behalf of various clients, or who represent them on the hill. Other lobbyists, such as Jones, work from within organizations, sometimes as government relations employees.

This emerging crop is succeeding at placing their clients’ issues in front of the right people. Take political commentator and lobbyist Paul Brathwaite. He works for the Podesta Group, a government relations and public affairs firm in Washington, D.C., with one of the highest lobbying revenues in 2006, according to the Washington Post. Brathwaite joined Podesta in January 2007 after serving the CBC as executive director. Despite his short time with the firm, Brathwaite repeatedly has been named a rising star by Washington insiders.
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(Akiit.com) Susan L. Taylor, the longtime editor and driving force behind Essence, the magazine aimed at black women, is leaving the publication after 37 years to devote more time to an organization she founded to help troubled children.

Ms. Taylor, 61, joined Essence in 1970, the year it was first published, as a freelance fashion and beauty editor after founding her own company, Nequai Cosmetics. She became editor in chief in 1981, a post she held until 2000, when she was promoted to publications director.

She has most recently been the magazine’s editorial director and author of its In the Spirit column, which dispenses inspirational words about things like finance and prayer.

Although Essence, which is owned by the Time Inc. division of Time Warner, did not make an official announcement, Ms. Taylor chose to send out word of the change via e-mail.

“I am taking a break in South Africa and will have little access to e-mail,” she wrote in an automated out-of-office message this month. “When I come back to the states in mid-January, I will be leaving Essence to do what at this juncture in my life has become a larger work for me — building the National Cares Mentoring Movement, which I founded as Essence Cares and today is my deepest passion.”

Essence Cares encourages black adults to serve as mentors for at-risk young people. According to the program’s Web site, “Essence Cares is a call to action for every able black adult to take under wing a vulnerable young person, which costs nothing.”

While Ms. Taylor rose to the top of the magazine world — in 1999 she became the first black woman to receive the Henry Johnson Fisher Award from the Magazine Publishers of America, one of the industry’s top honors — she used her position to highlight civic causes. As an advocate for children and improving education, she once calling failing schools “the pipelines to prison.”
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