(Akiit.com) In an interview on NBC’s Today Show two weeks after he was sworn in President Obama was blunt. He said that if he didn’t deliver he’d be “a one term proposition.” Put this in the category of what did he know and when did he know it. The it is that he was under the white hot glare of the public to deliver the goods, or be quickly dumped in the presidential has been bin. Polls back up this hard political reality about Obama. A mid August Washington Post-ABC News survey found that his approval ratings continue to plunge. Part of that can be chalked up to inevitability.

New presidents always ride into office on the crest of both voter hopes and euphoria about the prospect of change and disgust at and voter fatigue with the former seat warmer in the White House. And new presidents just as quickly see their approval ratings dip or freefall. It’s easy to see why. They try to do too much to soon, promise not to do political business in the old ways, try to make too drastic legislative changes, or quickly reverse the bad old policies of their predecessor. It’s the fabled man on the white horse coming to the rescue. This is, of course, just that fable. Real politics and an impatient public knock that storybook notion for a loop.

In Obama’s case, he gambled that his presidency would be a crowning success if he could beat back the fine tuned, well-oiled, and well-endowed health care industry juggernaut and get health care reform, that’s real health care reform, through Congress and into law. Only one president has been able to do and that was Lyndon Johnson. He arm twisted, browbeat, and out smarted Congress and the health care industry to get Medicare. Johnson had won a landslide election victory in 1964, had fine tuned, hard nosed political skills, had the reform spirit of the civil rights movement and a solid Democratic party behind him. And he had the well spring of public sympathy after JFK’s murder. Obama is not LBJ, politically. And he has neither the times or Johnson’s massive mandate for change going for him.

Above everything else, the voters put Obama in the White House to make the economy right, reign in the Wall Street greed merchants, save jobs and homes, and get the credit pipeline to businesses open. That hasn’t happened. Instead they’ve gotten a raucous, and contentious health care reform fight that’s given a badly fractured and reeling, GOP, the butt of scorn and jokes, something that it never dreamed in its wildest dreams in mid November could happen. That’s the weapon to get back in the political hunt. If anyone had dared say a month ago that the percent of voters who blame Obama for making a mess of health care reform was in striking distance of the number of voters who blame the GOP for the mess, they’d have been measured for a straightjacket. A mid-August Pew Research survey found just that.
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(Akiit.com) What would a town hall on race look like? I do not mean the aesthetics – the color of the carpet or where panelists would sit, but the guts of it – the substance. I am pondering the question because I was recently asked to help organize and participate in a series of such discussions across the country and for the life of me I can’t understand what the purpose would be.

I am not one that believes Americans do not talk about race or that we are cowards when it comes to the issue. Indeed Americans chatter about race all the time. After football, analyzing the issue of race seems to be our national pastime. I suppose it’s to be expected as the issue of race and racial equality is woven into the fabric of our country. But we have a very particular and stubborn framework within which we discuss the issue – race equals virtue.

For instance, the President’s recent Supreme Court nomination was more about race than it was jurisprudence – Justice Sotomayor’s race, her views on race and, once seated on the court, whether members of her ethnic group will now favor one political party over the other.

Republican Party leaders are staying up late at night trying to figure out how to attract more voters of a particular race. We can’t even discuss healthcare without it first passing through the racial sieve. The president has introduced the specter of “discrimination” to sell his plan to nationalize healthcare and new left intellectuals are now claiming that socialism is new code for the N-word. (Just so we are clear: socialism is code for socialism. The attempt to link opposition to policies perceived to be socialist (and in many instances they are in fact) to the scourge of racial hatred is despicable racial exploitation for the purposes of political gain. But I digress.)

I am told perhaps once a week by some angry Black or new liberal white reader that Black people are unwanted in America and that my respect for the founding principles (and opposition to the Democratic Party) is evidence of my racial self hatred.

No, we are not fearful of race; what we are is reluctant to move our discussions of race beyond the narrow confines of Black grievance and white guilt. Therefore the image I have of a town hall on race is an evening filled with Black appeals to historic injuries, Whites telling Black folk to stop whining and, what is more likely, many like myself hanging their heads in quiet resignation that no amount of national self-flagellating and no amount of time will ever absolve this nation of her original sin, and that indeed the sins of the father are visited upon each succeeding generation. If the goal is to move us beyond race – to prod us towards the virgin light of a post racial America — I fear such a town hall would be rather unproductive.
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(Akiit.com) Remember when you were a child and the “grown-ups” were having a conversation, and you knew they were talking about something that would affect you, but you didn’t understand enough to know exactly what they were talking about? Well, for many of us, that’s what the debate over Healthcare reform is like.

In the continuing spirit of empowering folks with information to make good decisions about their health, here is a glossary of some of the more common terms you are hearing being thrown around:

Co-ops - Private, nonprofit health organizations set up by some states to compete with private health insurers.

COBRA - Temporary continuation of health coverage at group rates available to certain former employees, retirees, spouses, and dependent children when coverage is lost due to a qualifying event, such as loss of employment. Generally, COBRA participants pay the entire premium themselves.

Coordination of benefits (COB) - A person can have more than one kind of insurance coverage, say one plan from their employer and one from their spouse’s employer. In that case, the two health plans work together to coordinate which one pays first, and how much. This process is called coordination of benefits.

Deductible - A fixed, annual dollar amount that a member pays for medical services before the insurance company begins paying for covered medical services.

Diagnostic Tests - Tests and procedures ordered by a physician to determine if the patient has a certain condition or disease based upon specific signs or symptoms demonstrated by the patient. Such diagnostic tools include but are not limited to radiology, ultrasound, nuclear medicine, laboratory, pathology services or tests.

Emergency Care - Those health care services that are provided in an emergency facility or setting after the onset of an illness or medical condition that manifests itself by symptoms of sufficient severity that without immediate medical attention could be reasonably expected by the prudent lay person, who possesses an average knowledge of health and medicine, to result in: a) placing the Member’s physical and or mental health in serious jeopardy; b) serious impairment to bodily functions; or serious dysfunction of any bodily organ or part.

Employer-based health care - Refers to health plans that are offered at the workplace for employees.

Experimental treatment - A type of treatment that is still under medical study. Many health-care plans will not pay the costs of experimental treatments.

Formulary - List of prescription medications covered by a health plan.

Generic Drug - A drug which is the pharmaceutical equivalent to one or more brand name drugs. Such generic drugs have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration as meeting the same standards of safety, purity, strength, dosage form, and effectiveness as the brand drug.

Government-run plan - A government-run health plan, also known as a public or single-payer plan, is modeled after Medicare, which provides individuals health care through the federal government, rather than from a private insurance company

Health maintenance organization (HMO) - A type of health plan that requires subscribers to receive all medical care from network providers, usually under the direction of a primary care physician (PCP)

Home Health Care - Health services other than Custodial Care, rendered by a home health agency to an individual in his or her residence. Such services are provided to disabled, sick or convalescent individuals who do not need inpatient care, but who do need nursing services or therapy, medical supplies and special outpatient services. It is important to read your Contract to determine which services are Covered Services.

Hospice - A facility or service that provides care for the terminally ill patient and which provides support to the family. The care, primarily for pain control and symptom relief, can be provided in the home or in an inpatient setting.

Individual mandate - In the context of health care reform, a much-discussed idea is an individual mandate, which would require all Americans to have health insurance coverage. In turn, everyone would be guaranteed coverage, regardless of age or preexisting conditions.

Inpatient - An individual who is receiving care for 24 hours or more as a registered bed patient in a Hospital or other facility, where a room and board charge is made.
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(Akiit.com) I posed this question on a social networking site recently. The aftermath was like watching people running from a burning building as if their hair were on fire. Most of the responses were of the “good luck with that” variety, as if the next move was to wait for a last minute pardon from the governor before the firing squad commenced to carry out the sentence.

The reason for some of my own hesitation in weighing in on a subject like this is obvious. Just as the black women come in a variety of hues and hair types, they also are a mix of skinny and voluptuous - the thin and the thick - not so easily or quickly defined.

Nor can the dating or marrying preferences of African-American men be easily placed into a nice neat box. Poll a brother on the street and he might be just as likely to prefer a slim sister as one with, as they say, some junk in her trunk.

Still, there’s no question that the average African-American woman is likely to adopt India.Arie’s credo that she just “ain’t built like a supermodel.” And if the biggest part of sexiness is self-confidence, then the black woman’s allure to the black man needs no explanation. The black woman exudes self-assuredness.

Since her arrival here from Africa centuries ago, the black woman has been comfortable in her skin, content to live her life large, usually more literally than figuratively. In many cases, because the African-American woman bore the responsibility - often alone - for keeping her family intact, she had little time to take care of herself.

Even if that lifestyle wasn’t - or nowadays, isn’t - a choice, we’re nonetheless seeing the effects in higher reported incidents of obesity and related complications, including diabetes and heart disease, within the black community. This week’s news that the American Heart Association added sugar, along with salt and cholesterol, to the list of things to watch out for will not go over well in many black kitchens.
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(Akiit.com) Over at youtube, and watching a few vids… Yes I would like to become a part-time barber… Always nice to be able to make some money on the side… Been cutting friends and family hair for years… Yes I’m pretty good at it… Anyway, I better search for that Samsung tv my wife wants me to get for her birthday… That’s a must as I do love that woman… Well brother is calling me, so I shall log off…

Written By CTA