Dogon Village News Alerts

Wow! Tonight a federal judge ruled that the Army Corps of Engineers mismanaged the maintenance of the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet which was directly responsible for flood damage of homes in St. Bernard Parish and the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. The decision could result in the government paying billions in damages. Read the full story here.

Criminals are getting sicker by the minute so I’m not surprised by some of the crazy, vicious activities perpetrated by heartless crooks; but the story about Shaniya Davis, the missing Fayetteville 5-year-old, sends chills though my body. This is one of the most shocking and tragic stories I’ve ever seen. Shaniya’s body was found in the woods in North Carolina and now her mother has been charged with child prostitution. How sick is that?

Body of child 'sold as prostitute by mother' found By Tom Leonard
The mother of a five-year-old girl has been charged with prostituting her daughter as police on Monday discovered the child's body hidden in woodland in North Carolina.

Shaniya Davis had not been seen since last Tuesday when a security camera recorded a man carrying her into a hotel room in Sanford, 40 miles from her home at a trailer park in Fayetteville.

Acting on a tip-off, 250 police officers and volunteers scoured a wooded area off a local main road, discovering the girl's body seven miles from the hotel.

Her mother, Antoinette Davis, 25, has been charged with human trafficking, child abuse involving prostitution and filing a false police report after she declared the little girl missing last week. Read the full story here.

After spending Saturday witnessing the critical need for our hard working men need to get tested for health issues, I woke up to the devastating news that a wonderful associate, Laurence Gaines, passed away. Laurence was the executive producer of The Bev Smith Show. I knew Laurence had been sick but thought that he was on the road to recovery. My thoughts and prayers go out to his biological family and his family at American Urban Radio Networks. Laurence was a wonderful producer and person, he will be missed.

From Bev Smith (BWO www.radiofacts.com)…

It is with the deepest sorrow that I inform you that my friend and my executive producer Laurence Gaines has passed away after a long battle with his health. We thought he beat it because he returned to work but God had other plans for Laurence. For those of you who knew him well, you know that he is in heaven trying to get me that interview that I asked for with God (smile). Tonight at 8pm EST, The Bev Smith Show will dedicate time to remember Laurence Gaines and the impact he made on the show. If you would like to be a part of that show to share your memories, please call the studio at 1-888-331-1210 starting at 8PM EST. Memorial arrangements are incomplete at this time. Pray for his family and The Bev Smith Show family.

Listen to The Bev Smith Show online at
www.waok.com/

I'm just getting back from Los Angeles where I assisted my associate and owner of jazzmyne PR, Makeda, in coordinating media for the Black Barbershop Health Outreach Program (BBHOP). Led by Dr. Bill Releford, the BBHOP provides free diabetes and blood pressure screening in Barbershops across the country. The program’s goal is to address healthcare disparities and cardiovascular disease in African American men. Dr. Releford decided that innovative outreach to black men is critical because they are disproportionately affected by diabetes and hypertension more than any other ethnic group.

The day started out at the The New Millenium Sports Beauty & Barber Salon on Crenshaw in the Leimert Park area. In addition to volunteer doctors on hand for a discussion and to perform screenings, a number of celebrities stopped by to encourage men to get screened. There was a two-hour panel discussion broadcast live by KJLH addressing health issues impacting African American men.

I was shocked to witness the amount of men coming in off the street in need of a free screening. There were men with and without health insurance that had not been screened. Click here for a video news story of the event.

After spending the morning at the New Millenium Barbershop, the doctors and celebrities went on a bus tour to visit some of the 100 barbershops performing health screenings.

The experience on Saturday certainly made me recognize the critical need for our hard working black men to get screened for life or death health issues.

Looking at the numbers – Mary Norwood 45%, Kasim Reed 37% and Lisa Borders 14% - it is safe to assume that Kasim Reed has a pretty good chance of replacing Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin. Based on her performance in several debates, I have to wonder about Norwood’s intellectual capacity. She doesn’t come off as the brightest bulb in the fixture. Anyway, if Reed gets a little over 80% of Borders/others votes and maintains his count, it’s game time.

I hope he’s prepared to spend some money right to cross the finish line. Norwood did a great job with her commercials. Even though I was bothered by the fact that the commercials seemed like negative attacks against the Franklin administration, Norwood came off as a likeable candidate concerned about the issues confronting. She should never have participated in a debate. It was like Sarah Palin’s interview with Katie Couric. She also messed up with the last ad denouncing Republicans. What was up with that? She made it sound like Republicans have some kind of contagious disease. That was a bad move.

If Norwood runs some positive ads, keeps hugging people, and doesn’t open her mouth she has a better chance of winning on Dec. 1. Of course, if I were Kasim Reed I would publicly ask for a debate.

Norwood and Reed in runoff Dec. 1 by Eric Stirgus, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Atlanta has one more month and one more election to go before it chooses the city's next mayor: Councilwoman Mary Norwood and former state Sen. Kasim Reed will face each other in a runoff Dec. 1.

With 100 percent of the vote counted, Norwood led the race with 45 percent. She maintained a comfortable margin throughout the vote counting Tuesday night but was unable to muster the 50 percent required to put the race away. Reed finished a strong second, with 37 percent, and City Council President Lisa Borders faded to a distant third with 14 percent in the eight-way race.

"I will hit the ground running," a smiling Norwood vowed late Tuesday night, addressing a buoyant crowd at the Varsity, the unusual site of her election-night gathering. "I feel wonderful. We are 10 points ahead. I think that's a great place for anyone to be." (Norwood wound up seven points ahead, although she was 10 points up when she made that statement.)

Reed emerged to greet supporters at the Hyatt Regency at 11:15 p.m., saying that Norwood had run her best race, and that the trajectory of his campaign showed that he was on the road to be the next mayor. Read the full story at ajc.com (Staff writers Ernie Suggs and Steve Visser contributed to this report)

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You have to admit this does not look good, there should be equal opportunity ethics investigations. But, I hope in 2010 the House ethics committee can't do anything to the lawmakers if the are innocent....

Racial disparity: All active ethics probes focus on black lawmakers

The House ethics committee is currently investigating seven African-American lawmakers — more than 15 percent of the total in the House. And an eighth black member, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.), would be under investigation if the Justice Department hadn’t asked the committee to stand down.

Not a single white lawmaker is currently the subject of a full-scale ethics committee probe.

The ethics committee declined to respond to questions about the racial disparity, and members of the Congressional Black Caucus are wary of talking about it on the record. But privately, some black members are outraged — and see in the numbers a worrisome trend in the actions of ethics watchdogs on and off Capitol Hill. Read the full story here

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