Judge Sentenced to 28 Years For Selling Black Teens to Prisons AFRICANGLOBE – Disgraced Pennsylvania judge Mark Ciavarella Jr has been sentenced to 28 years in prison for conspiring with private prisons to sentence juvenile offenders to maximum sentences for bribes and kickbacks which totaled millions of dollars. He was also ordered to pay $1.2 million in restitution. In the private prison industry the more time an inmate spends in a facility, the more of a profit is reaped from the state. Ciavearella was a figurehead in a conspiracy in the state of Pennsylvania which saw thousands of young Black men and women unjustly punished and penalized in the name of corporate profit. According to allgov.com Ciavearella’s cases from 2003 – 2008 were reviewed by a special investigative panel and later by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and it was found that upwards of 5,000 young men and women were denied their constitutional rights, and therefore all of their convictions were dismissed and were summarily released. During his sentencing Ciavarella was defiant, claiming he had broken no laws and claimed the money he received was a legitimate ‘finder’s fee.’ Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Zubrod said comments such as these were typical of Ciavarella, according to the local reporting of citizensvoice.com: "I think that’s his way of doing things. Never retreat. Always go on the attack. Always blame somebody else. Always get them to back off. He tried it with the judge. It didn’t work." New Drug With Flesh Eating Bacteria Effect Is In Circulation By: Krystle Crossman Some drug addicts will try anything to get a high these days. There is a new drug that is circulating in the US that is called Krokodil. It is dangerous, potent, and rots your body from the inside out. It looks much like a flesh-eating bacterial disease. Two sisters in Chicago are telling their chilling story about the effects of the drug and warning others not to try it. Reports of this new drug appearing in the US began just a few weeks ago. The two sisters, Amber and Angela Neitzel, say that it starts out looking like a small cigarette burn. Then it turns purple. A few days later it gets bigger and turns into a blister. There have only been five cases that have been diagnosed thus far. The Neitzel sisters thought that they were injecting heroin, which they were addicted to. Angela ended up getting gangrene. It was so severe that she had to go in for emergency surgery and narrowly avoided losing both of her legs. One doctor says that skin grafts are required and people end up losing limbs and sometimes their lives. Other doctors have said that it is not necessarily the Krokodil that is causing these infections. It is too new to really understand all of the effects. They said that they have seen these types of infections with regular intravenous drug users. They share dirty needles and end up getting horrible infections in their blood stream as a result. A spokesperson for the Chicago Field Division of the DEA has said that they are investigating the drug but have not confirmed that it has made an appearance in Illinois. (Source: www.healthyblackwoman.com) How Food Banking Works Each year billions of pounds of food go to waste, while at the same time over 850 million people do not have enough to eat. Food banking systems capture surplus food and deliver it to the people who need it most, and engage all sectors of society (governments, business, and civil society) in the process. Food banks acquire donated food, much of which would otherwise be wasted, from farms, manufacturers, distributors, retail stores, consumers, and other sources, and make it available to those in need through a network of community agencies. These agencies include school feeding programs, food pantries, soup kitchens, AIDS and TB hospices, substance abuse clinics, after-school programs, and other nonprofit programs that provide food to the hungry. Food Bank Leadership Institute Every year, participants from all over the world gather at the Food Bank Leadership Institute (FBLI). Together with GFN staff, food and grocery industry representatives, and experts on global food security, participants focus on their common commitment to reducing hunger and food waste in their local communities through the advancement of food banking. The Food Bank Leadership Institute is a vital part of achieving GFN’s mission to alleviate world hunger. While we have food bank development projects underway in numerous countries, we are unable to respond to every opportunity that presents itself. By carefully selecting and training credible, capable and committed representatives from countries where food banking presents a viable solution, we enhance our ability to promote food banking around the world. Over the past seven years, the Institute has hosted 211 individuals from 49 countries. . . find out more>> What does organized religion say about feeding the needy? One man's journey and effort to document and remind. John Arnold runs the food bank in Grand Rapids, Michigan. This is a section of his presentation at the 2008 H-E-B/GFN Food Bank Leadership Institute. Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy From Black Voices: Character’s like Kerry Washington’s Olivia Pope on ”Scandal”, and Nicole Beharie’sLt. Abbie Mills on “Sleepy Hollow” are a breath of fresh air for many black women, according to a recent study. It’s not often that you see images of black women in the media that deviate from the stereotypical archetypes like the ones identified in a recent study by Essence magazine. Essence surveyed 1,200 women about the images of black women in media and found that respondents felt the images were “overwhelmingly negative,” falling typically into categories including: “Gold Diggers, Modern Jezebels, Baby Mamas, Uneducated Sisters, Ratchet Women, Angry Black Women, Mean Black Girls, Unhealthy Black Women, and Black Barbies.” Black women ages 18-29 in particular reported seeing more negative images, with 89 percent of respondents saying they regularly see baby mamas in media and 87 percent reported seeing gold digger images, while just 41 percent reported seeing images of “real beauties.” “What we’re trying to say in the study is that, if there were balance, if we saw more diversity, and it was more multi-dimensional there would be a truer picture of who we really are,” explained Essence magazine Editor-in-Chief, Vanessa K. Bush, in an interview with Melissa Harris-Perry on MSNBC. “You would see our complete humanity. What we’re seeing now is just a scratch of the surface.” But perhaps most disturbing was not just young women’s awareness of those images, but the study’s finding that the women were “also more likely to find them compelling.” And in a world where some of the highest rated reality shows include Oxygen’s “Bad Girls Club” and VH1’s “Basketball Wives,” this discovery sadly isn’t too surprising. Read more at BlackVoices.com This weekend America witnessed a limited crash in the computer systems that manage electronic benefit transfers across the country. Within hours of the crash panicked food stamp recipients who were left with no way to feed their families rushed grocery store shelves to obtain everything they could while the system was down. The outage lasted less than a day, but it proved what many already knew, that America had become a nation so dependent on government subsidies that any glitch in the system could lead to total pandemonium. But if you thought that isolated incident was bad, imagine what could happen next month. We say next month because the USDA, which oversees the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), has just issued an order to SNAP agency directors calling for their respective States to implement an emergency contingency program because of government funding issues. In a letter obtained by the Crossroads Urban Center food pantry, the USDA is directing state agencies to, “delay their November issuance files and delay transmission to State Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) vendors until further notice.” What this means is that should Congress fail to increase the debt ceiling this week, come November there will literally be millions of people in the United States who will have exactly zero dollars transferred to their EBT cards. What will happen to the nearly 50 million people who depend on these benefits to survive? Think this past weekend and multiply it across the entirety of the United States of America. In the State of Utah the immediate effect of the USDA’s contingency plan will be a freeze in benefits for 100,000 people. Richard Phillips, a homeless man who depends on the government’s monthly distributions, warned what would happen next: It’s going to cause problems… because then you’re going to come to find out that you’re going to have people starting to steal and do what they have to do to survive. (Source of info: www.thedailysheeple.com) Here is the USDA letter in full:
Inside the free-spending world of Floyd Mayweather: Prizefighter reveals he has $123MILLION in his checking account and flies his bodyguards on their own private jet
Ahead of his $41.5 million fight on September 14, undefeated boxing champ Floyd Mayweather has lifted the lid on his manic and extravagant lifestyle. The 36-year-old, widely considered pound for pound the best fighter in the world today, is nicknamed ‘Money’ and judging from the photos he regularly posts on his social media accounts it isn’t hard to guess why. Mayweather is constantly being photographed showing off bundles of dollar bills and he isn’t shy about spending it either. The boxer likes to pay cash for most things and typically one of his entourage carries round a Nike duffel containing Ziploc bags filled with thick wads of $100 bills His extravagance is such that he insists on wearing his sneakers just once before he leaves them in hotel rooms. He also only wears his boxer shorts one time before they too are thrown away. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk ‘Kids Without God’: Atheist Activists Launch Shocking Web Site to Convert Kids & Teens Into Non-Believers The atheist activist community in America has taken an increasingly-active role in trying to convince citizens with doubts about their faith to fully evolve into non-believers and to “come out,” publicly proclaiming their anti-theism. Think of it as a form of secular evangelism. Already, non-believers have attempted to reach clergy who are in doubt through The Clergy Project. Additionally, there’s a humanist church service each week in Tulsa, Oklahoma (and these are only two examples). Now, in addition to reaching adults, atheist activists have their eyes set on converting kids and teens. The American Humanist Association (AHA), a group that seeks to create “a progressive society where being good without gods” is widely accepted, has launched a new outreach web site called KidsWithoutGod.com. According to a press release put out by the organization, the project’s key intention is to attract “humanist, atheist and other non-traditionally religious kids” so that they can find information that is not colored by “supernaturalism.” “Whether they already made up their minds to reject supernatural explanations, or are just questioning, it’s time to make available an online resource that’s built just for kids without God,” explained Roy Speckhardt, executive director of the AHA. Speckhardt goes on in the news release to explain that children being reached by KidsWithoutGod.com might be from a variety of families. Their parents, perhaps, are “traditionally religious.” Or, as the humanist leader notes, the children may be “from families like that of President Barack Obama, whose mother was a secular humanist.” Speckhardt claims that the site is a friendly community for children who may not be ready or willing to ask an adult about non-belief. Among the educational topics that the web site touts, according to the release, are: religion in public schools, science, sexuality and discrimination, among others. One video on the children’s portal shows scientist Bill Nye describing evolution, for example. Considering that both children and teens are being reached through the project, there are two separate web portals designed for these two groups (each is accessible through KidsWithoutGod.com). “With the plethora of websites geared toward teaching kids about Christianity, Judaism, or Islam, we’re pleased to add humanism to the discussion,” Speckhardt continued. “Kids should know there’s another way to learn about morals and values — it doesn’t need to come from traditional religion.” The World Anti-Doping Agency is launching a substantial audit of Jamaica's drug testing agency following reports that Jamaica's testing all but disappeared before the 2012 Olympics. The Associated Press reports that WADA's probe indicates a serious breakdown of the Jamaican agency's testing from January 2012 until the July games. "There was a period of — and forgive me if I don't have the number of months right — but maybe five to six months during the beginning part of 2012 where there was no effective operation," WADA Director General David Howman said in an interview, according to the Huffington Post. "No testing. There might have been one or two, but there was no testing. So we were worried about it, obviously." The former executive director of Jamaica's Anti-Doping Commission (JADCO), Renee Anne Shirley, initially raised the allegations in the Caribbean's oldest newspaper. Current JADCO chairman addressed Shirley's claims: "Ms. Shirley has done this country and herself a great deal of harm by saying things that are not totally in keeping with the truth." However, Jamaicans did not enter the Olympic games entirely untested. The IAAF, track and field's governing body, says they tested Jamaican athletes regularly and Bolt was tested more than 12 times last year. Usain Bolt has never failed a drug test. WADA plans to send a team to Jamaica to further investigate the alleged testing breakdown at the end of this year or in early 2014. At the London games, Jamaica won 8 of 12 individual sprint medals, and Usain Bolt became the first man to win both the 100- and 200-meter races at consecutive games. (Source of info: www.outsideonline.com) On the first day of his “All Def Digital” YouTube page, mogul Russell Simmons managed to anger nearly everyone with a video parodying abolitionist hero Harriet Tubman with a “sex tape.” The video, titled “Harriet Tubman Sex Tape,” revisits the story of Tubman’s efforts to rescue hundreds of slaves by parodying her as having used her sexuality to outsmart slaveowners and obtain freedom for the enslaved. The video shows Tubman engaging in aggressive sex acts with a white plantation owner. “The implication is that the only way Ms. Tubman was able to free so many Black people was for her to sleep with their White plantation owners,” laments NewsOne. “This our only chance to getting freedoms,” the actress playing Harriet Tubman says when asked by her male counterpart whether their plans will actually work. The enslaved black man then hides in the closet and waits for the plantation owner to enter the room and proceed to have sex with Tubman. The slave films the bizarre proceedings, which is shown in a parodical way to the audience. Following intercourse, Tubman tells the slaveowner that she has “leverage” and will expose his “Negro-loving ways” using the video her friend just shot. “I am not sure why anyone would think this would be funny, nor can I comprehend how any Black actor would agree to participate in such coonery,” NewsOne wrote in scathing criticism. “Perhaps the intellectual depth of their humor amounts to nothing more than the antebellum humor with which house Negros would have entertained their slave masters. What is clear is their astonishing disregard — and ignorance — of their history.” Simmons promoted the video in a now-deleted tweet declaring it “the funniest thing I’ve ever seen”: But eventually the outcry became too much, leading to the NAACP asking Simmons to remove the video. He complied and issued an apology: In the whole history of Def Comedy Jam, I’ve never taken down a controversial comedian. When my buddies from the NAACP called and asked me to take down the Harriet Tubman video from the All Def Digital YouTube channel and apologize, I agreed. I’m a very liberal person with thick skin. My first impression of the Harriet Tubman piece was that it was about what one of actors said in the video, that 162 years later, there’s still tremendous injustice. And with Harriet Tubman outwitting the slave master? I thought it was politically correct. Silly me. I can now understand why so many people are upset. I have taken down the video. Lastly, I would never condone violence against women in any form, and for all of those I offended, I am sincerely sorry. The Def Jam co-founder may have removed the video from his website, but we have a copy. Click LINK to Watch the (VERY NSFW) video: |