Puddy and I have recently started a television production company (note: not an actual company). Here's our upcoming Reality TV Pilots:

Blind Date (Lupus Edition)

Are You Smarter Than A Vietnam Veteran?

America's Next Top Actuary

Keeping Up With The Vigodas

The Littlest Rapist

Real Gun or Toy Gun: Riding with the NYPD - ("6 white kids and 6 black kids and the cops have to make a split-second decision...or else!")

America's Got AIDS

Dancing With The Un-Employably Homeless

Ernest Borgnine Is 93 And Widowed

White Collar Prison Break- (Mostly just dragging appeals process: "12 white collar criminals, 12 highly-paid teams of lawyers....who will prevail?")

The Amazing Race! - (it's just Japanese people doing math, and like, karate... [apparently this is similar to a zack galafanakis joke. apologies])

Wife Swap (For Realz tho)

The Real Alan Alda - (The legend himself competes with 10 impersonators, who's the real one???)

Stuff In Slow Motion - (bullets, fat people... you name it)

What Wouldn't A Paparrazo Do? - (show will be shelved after 3 episodes and a vicious string of child murders)

To Catch a Prostitute - (pilot didn't work as Chris Hanson just ended up fucking them and letting them go)

Idea Painfully Joked About 3 Years Ago, but Now Is Totally Happening In Front of Your Eyes - That's right. Look for this shit soon.

My two riding partners (students) were away this week, so I lucked out immensely into a 1 hour private lesson with Paulette.  It was incredible and one of the best that I have had to date.  We worked on circles set up in "mid" arena (i.e., OFF the bends) to fine tune my aids.  We also worked on my seat more, as I tend to "two point" my seat (from my English Lessons background) instead of firmly planting my seat in the Western style.  The feet came out of the stirrups and off we jogged, forcing me to sit it and comply ;-)

In the last part of the session, my instructor asked me how I was feeling and if there was anything I wanted to specifically work on (since I was the only person in the class today, we could focus on what I really wanted to).  I told her that since my bad fall last year, I cannot help but look "at the horse" instead of "looking ahead" and it is a terrible habit that I have fallen into (always wanting to know where the horse's feet were) and I wanted to break it and find a way to force myself to "look ahead".  That is all I needed to say.  Paulette then put me in a whirlwind of directions at the jog/trot - instructing me to change directions at the drop of a dime.  I was going here, there, everywhere with my lovely school horse "R.Z.".   What she did WORKED!!!  I was concentrating so hard trying to find the letters on the arena walls (for where I was supposed to go) - my aids suddenly came to me naturally (leg and rein) and my eyes were FORWARD - "looking ahead" !!!  I was now "riding" and it felt great!!!!

THANK YOU TO PAULETTE for an absolutely wonderful private session. 

There is an old Arabian Proverb that goes, "Heaven is the wind between a horse's ears" and I felt it last night.  I was in "heaven" for a moment in time.

Heather

I've really been craving CUTE!

Lately, I've really been CRAVING the sweetness of life...for me that includes "CUTE"!

For me the sweet things about life  are...children,

good chocolates, beautiful music, love, family, friends,

flowers and sweet images,poetry and art.

***************************************************************************************************

"LIL' QUIDS" (TM) original art by Bethann Shannon

COPYRIGHT 2004-2008

SPERM ART AVAILABLE FOR LICENSING & AT:

www.thesillyspermshop.etsy.com

www.cafepress.com/sillyspermshop

www.mypetsperm.com

All of Bethann Shannon's work is protected under Copyright law.

Some slogans, characters & names are protected under Trade Mark law as well.

LICENSING AVAILABLE

Did you notice?

A few months ago, the note humanitarian

George Bush Jr. - and yes, I'm being

sarcastic - visited Africa to announce

BILLIONS of dollars in AIDS drug grants

to struggling countries there.

That might have made you a little curious. 

Here's some things about AIDS, you

may not know.

http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/324.html

P.S. Please share Brasscheck TV e-mails and videos with friends and colleagues.

That's how we grow. Thanks.

View all Brasscheck video’s by clicking on the Brasscheck link on our blogroll.

Ok, ya les deje un post sobre homosexualidad, y otro sobre anorexia.

2 temas controversiales y algo de moda.

Y para mantener ese hilo de problemáticas sociales, no podía faltar un post sobre el sida.

Pero en este caso nada tiene que ver con la homosexualidad, ni el libertinaje, ni la prostitución, ni nada por el estilo. Cuando uno piensa en este problema, inmediatamente lo asocia con cualquiera de las cosas mencionadas recién. Tal vez porque sea la vía mas común de contagio, aunque no es la única; o por una falsa concepción; o tal vez, por falta de educación, o porque por lo general las campañas relacionadas a esta temática hacen mucho foco en el sexo.

Pero lo cierto es que, a esta altura ya deberíamos tener en claro que se contagia mediante la sangre, las agujas, los cortes, el sexo sin prevención, y varias cosas más. Afortunadamente, alguna de estas vías de contagio son más fáciles de controlar. Por ejemplo, mediante agujas descartables, centros de salud confiables y precavidos, guantes de látex, etc.

De todas formas, pareciera ser que el sexo es lo único que no podemos controlar, o por lo menos no podemos con nosotros mismos en ese momento. El ser humano se jacta de ser el animal superior por su capacidad de razonar. Pero, a la hora del sexo, somos totalmente irracionales, perdemos la cabeza. Tanto es así, que no somos capaces, muchas veces, de contenernos o aguantarnos un minuto, para buscar un preservativo y usarlo. Y caemos en la tan conocida frase: “total a mi no me va a pasar”.

Pero lo cierto es que si nos puede pasar, a cualquiera, a todos.

Y ese “a mi no me va a pasar” incluye, en primer lugar, los embarazos, que pareciera ser lo único que evita el preservativo; y en segundo, las ETS (enfermedades de transmisión sexual), que son muchas, y no solamente el sida. Muchas personas usan este método anticonceptivo (a mi criterio en su nombre radica la razón del error en el que siempre cae, ya que no es únicamente anticonceptivo) solo para no quedarse embarazados, y se olvidan que también evita enfermedades.

No solo es anticonceptivo, sino que también es preventivo.

Y este error, para no decir inconciencia, en el que muchas veces caemos nos lleva a las estadísticas asombrosas e inesperadas que me encontré en este spot.

La verdad es que cuando lo ví me impresione mucho, no solo por el dato increíble que da, sino porque yo, y todas mis amigas, somos mujeres heterosexuales menores de 30; y por lo tanto, formamos parte del segmento cuyo porcentaje de contagio aumenta con mayor rapidez.

Y esto lo que hace es recordarme, que el sida esta mas cerca de lo que uno se piensa. Que no somos inmunes, ni inmortales. Y que por no pensar durante dos segundos ni exigirle a nuestra pareja protección, podemos lamentarnos toda la vida. Y que, obviamente, a mi también me puede pasar.

A mí, a Uds., a mis amigas, a sus amigos… a todos.

Así que, por favor, cuídense, y cuiden al otro. Total no cuesta nada ¿que son unos pocos segundos en la vida? Por aprovechar al máximo esos preciados segundos, nos podemos perder muchos años, o incluso, toda la vida.

Y ni hablar, si perdemos nuestra pareja… por una inconciencia, o un momento de calentura.

The Family Reformation blog said:

"...the California Supreme Court...overturned what was known as Proposition 22, the California Defense of Marriage Act.

In 2000, 61% of California’s voters, approximately 4,600,000 Californians, voted for this referendum. This referendum defined marriage as “a personal relation arising out of a civil contract between a man and a woman, to which the consent of the parties capable of making that contract is necessary.” [T]his protected the biblical definition of marriage that we find in Genesis 2:24...

However, 4 Supreme Court judges, amazingly three of them republicans, voted to overturn the will of the people.

Now, I am not necessarily troubled by a court taking such an action in and of itself. We certainly know that majority rule does not mean the majority is in the right. There are times when an elder...needs to stand for what is right regardless of the cost. But in this case, where the will of the people is aligned with the Word of God, how can a small minority, just four judges, move to redefine the biblical definition of marriage?

Well, they can because they can. Four votes seem to be far more powerful than the 4,600,000. The beauty of the Constitutional balance of powers has again been ravaged by a liberal agenda.

The majority opinion, by Chief Justice Ronald M. George, declared that “any law that discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation will from this point on be constitutionally suspect in California in the same way as laws that discriminate by race or gender, making the state’s high court the first in the nation to adopt such a stringent standard.”

In essence, the court has stated that homosexuality is analogous to race and gender...

....But, homosexuality is an action, it is a choice. It is not the same thing as race or gender, which are part of our very creation. Homosexuality is a behavior - an immoral and unhealthy behavior. In fact, God calls it an abomination (Leviticus 18:22, Romans 1:27)...

[quote omitted due to space and redundance]

...We live in dangerous times of societal change. And we are on a very slippery slope. If this attack on marriage succeeds, what is next? Incest? Polygamy? Pedophilia? Bestiality? By the “logic” used to legalize homosexual marriage, it will not be long until any deviant behavior is seen as normal in the eyes of the State.

William F. Buckley, Jr. once said, “The best defense against usurpatory government is an assertive citizenry.”

It is time for the Christian specifically to get assertive. We can and should contact our legislatures and encourage them to stand for the biblical and historical definition of marriage. We should tell our lawmakers that it is wrong to officially recognize immoral, unhealthy, and changeable homosexual behavior. And we should pray – we should appeal to Heaven. Let us remember the words of 2 Chronicles 7:14:

If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land."

I responded with a more liberal view

"Separation of church and state is an important part of this country’s foundation. You are asserting that homosexuality is a choice but that is strictly a faith-based concept. Under this Constitution, your rights extend as far as they do not infringe on the rights of others.

“Pedophilia? Bestiality?” Unlike these acts, homosexuality does not victimize others who do not want it.
As for “Incest? Polygamy?” it may be seen as equally an ethics debate; however, incest and polygamy are more possible to be classed as choices, since they specifically target the other individual (as opposed to an idea, eg. being gay to everyone).

People who are gay should have rights too: It’s not just a social issue but a legal one as well. For example,

A spouse has certain abilities to act as the health care agent when their loved one is unable to speak for themselves or is dying.
The benefits of insurance givens to a surviving spouse of a decease person.

Why would you deny people these rights? Why would homosexuals choose to be something that is socially stigmatized everywhere?"

My response was reactionary, as someone with a gay friend. He came out not too long ago and, while everyone could see that he was not straight, he refused to accept it himself. He's the guy who wears Abercrombie & Fitch and Hollister shirts; he is involved in every extracurricular there is. He wants to help people and marry someone who loves him. He is not Christian but comes from a background where homosexuality is not traditionally acknowledged. He reached a point where he was severely depressed and we feared for his life. Fortunately, he began to see that being gay did not make him a terrible person, a weak person, or even remotely evil. He is the most un-evil person I know and I am just sad that he couldn't be happy with himself sooner.

People have a lot of measurements of self-worth and "rightness" in our society. Of all these things, being gay isn't something you can control. To people who state that there's no scientific proof that being gay is innate, I would say that it not being innaten does not determine it as controllable. People are shaped by their childhood and life experiences about who and what they are. Is it totally incomprehensible that maybe people might be heavily influenced early on to be homo- or heterosexual?

The blogger on Family Reformation posted with a rebuttal to my post

"A legitimate, respectable, and dignified response to ‘paperdreamer’s’ submission:

I commend you for commenting on this topic. Hopefully there may be something I can write that will assist you in seeing this same situation from a different perspective.

I feel that your pretense and argument are extremely flawed, if not honorable, nonetheless there is a fundamental problem with your position. With all due respect you are commenting on a faith-based, site and as such they are entitled to their own Constitutional rights.

Homosexuality is a choice. To this day, and to this end there is not one single shred of evidentry material that remotely suggests that homosexuality is genetic, medical, psychological, or located somewhere in the human genome..."

Believing in something is okay and perfectly natural; what I don't understand is people thinking that their way is the only way. I understand the blogger's perspective well; I know that being gay opposes evolutionary benefits. But there are a lot of things that happen to people that oppose evolution. Why do any royalty give up their throne and titles to marry commoners? Because they love someone. You could argue that homosexual relationships do not consist of "true" love, but who made you the arbiter of what love is and isn't? Love is imperfect and irrational in our minds. It validates our being and makes us better people. What is so wrong with that?

Further, for a member of the religious right to tell me that "there is not one single shred of evidentry material that remotely suggests that homosexuality is genetic, medical, psychological, or located somewhere in the human genome" is in their words, "extremely flawed" and there is "a fundamental problem with their position" because the whole of religion is scientifically unproven in every way. In most cases, religion defies scientific reason. The blogger and his/her followers would have to prove to me how they are better people than gay people like my friend, who is innocent of the scathing assumptions they have labeled upon him as "evil" and "perverse."

Gay marriage is about more than social opinion. It is a fact that marriage is legally beneficial to involved parties if they stay together.

"And please allow me to take exception—homosexuality for me is loathsome. Inasmuch as your position believes, “[my rights] are okay as long as something doesn’t infringe on them…” Homosexuality and the display thereof is definitely an infringement on my person…natural and civil rights."

This is an egotistical statement. Perceiving something as loathsome doesn't mean everyone feels the same way, nor do you have the right to project your beliefs of a concept (homosexuality) onto a people (homosexuals). You aren't the only one with rights; seeing your rights as superior to another human being's is horrid. If you think it's unnatural and wrong, you worry about yourself and don't be gay. No one is forcing you.

"Homosexuality does cause harm (death in some cases) to those who want nothing to do with it. There are far too many instances of dentists using viral infected instruments; doctors and nurses who, although wearing gloves, facial wear and protective clothing who inadvertently are punctured by viral infected needles. It would be nonsensical to believe that homosexuality does not have victims, or otherwise ‘victimize’ others."

I think these cases you're referring to are of AIDS. Maybe if gay people were allowed to be married, the gay culture wouldn't be so infused with the idea of noncommittal relationships. Moreover, it is a "fallacy", as the blogger stated, to say that AIDS is a "gay disease". That was the prejudiced stereotype when AIDS first came to light; scientists named it Gay-Related Immunodeficiency Disease. Then they realized it was a lifestyle issue of promiscuous sex and other high risk behaviours. As someone who works in a medical environment, I see disease and suffering every day. The patients' homosexuality didn't affect the doctor, it was the fact that this person had AIDS. And as with any sexual orientation, you need to be cautious with whom and how you engage in interpersonal contact. Homosexual people can be as monogamous as heterosexuals; I think it's just harder for them in a world where they are pressured within their own community culture, to be promiscuous, and from without, where no one wants them to have stable married relationships...

"Furthermore, please understand that homosexuals do have rights; perhaps more so than their straight counterparts. Consider the demands on healthcare by the number one spreading disease on Earth. Consider if you will the case of the straight photographer in New Mexico who politely declined to photograph the ‘Union Ceremony’ of a lesbian couple, stating quite openly that to do so was against her religious beliefs."

I don't believe gay people have more right than straight people. I want to tell my gay friend that he can marry the person he loves and be assured of legal protection just like any heterosexual. The number one spreading disease (you are referring to AIDS?) is occurring mostly in Africa, where it is being spread by promiscuous, unprotected sex and a lack of sterile needles. I think the issue here is high risk behaviours, not homosexuality itself.

What the photographer did was discriminatory and inherently dangerous to our free society, but what the blogger and his/her followers are doing is worse. The photographer refused the lesbian couple a photograph because they specifically asked her to be a part of their experience. By opposing the California decision to favor gay marriage, you are figuratively denouncing the union of the lesbian couple as legally invalid, not just refusing to take photographs of it. You can believe the things you believe in, but don't presume that you can obstruct someone's life and be right.

"Ever hear of Title VII—the anti discrimination laws? Well one of the couple’s to be took it upon herself to sue the photographer in civil court alleging that the photographer ‘discriminated’ against her and her partner. The New Mexico Tribunal who heard the matter ruled in favor of the couple and fined the photographer $6,000 plus court costs and attorney’s fees."

Where is this woman’s 1st Amendment right to religious freedom? The very notion that founded this country—’Inalienable rights’ those given by God—because of religious persecution…where were her rights? Where are my rights when I see public displays of affection in markets, parks, and television? Please understand that there are many perspectives in life. Cheers!

omc"

It is an unalienable right to not be actively judged by the things you are, but by the things you do or did.

PDA's are done by both heterosexual and homosexual people alike. Many gay people in less liberal areas are afraid to be affectionate openly. If you are somewhere where PDA is not appropriate, you should ask the people involved to stop. Go someplace else, or change the channel if you cannot handle it. There was a time when interracial marriage was evil. It might still look odd to you, but times have changed. Perspectives are just that -- a view from where you alone stand. To truly be able to say that you know what a perspective is, you would say that your perspective extends as far as yourself. Gay people have their own perspective and their own life.

People, religious or not, who cannot accept the differences in us all are far more dangerous than the differences alone.

So not-helping them and allowing them to starve to death is a crime against humanity?  Well, now, as a socialist I agree.  But what right do capitalists have to make such a claim?  Don't they support a system whose distribution laws allow thousands to die each year in preventable ways, tens of thousands from starvation alone.  For example: "The number 35,615 is a conservatively low number for the barbarically needless daily deaths the poorest of the poor die. If we were to add the next two leading ways the poorest of the poor die, water borne diseases and AIDS, we would be approaching a daily body count of 50,000 deaths. Yes, upwards of 50,000 people per day are needlessly dying on Earth."  (http://www.starvation.net/), in a system where the wealth of the rich in coercively protected.  If our corporations and capitalists can let the poor starve with impunity, what right do they have to complain?

Read on below and eat the fish and spit out the bones as God's Spirit speaks to you revealing truth and error.  Confrontation is good because it keeps us on our toes, makes us think more deeply, and ponder the path of our feet more purposefully.

http://www.PaulFDavis.com

Revivingnations@yahoo.com

Transcript: Rev. Wright at the National Press Club

Monday, April 28, 2008

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, former senior pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, of which Barack Obama is a member, delivered remarks to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on Monday. He then answered questions that were forwarded from press club members to a moderator.

THE REV. JEREMIAH WRIGHT JR.: Over the next few days, prominent scholars of the African-American religious tradition from several different disciplines — theologians, church historians, ethicists, professors of the Hebrew bible, homiletics, hermeneutics, and historians of religions — those scholars will join in with sociologists, political analysts, local church pastors, and denominational officials to examine the African-American religious experience and its historical, theological and political context.

The workshops, the panel discussions, and the symposium will go into much more intricate detail about this unknown phenomenon of the black church –

(LAUGHTER)
– than I have time to go into in the few moments that we have to share together.  And I would invite you to spend the next two days getting to know just a little bit about a religious tradition that is as old as and, in some instances, older than this country.

And this is a country which houses this religious tradition that we all love and a country that some of us have served.  It is a tradition that is, in some ways, like Ralph Ellison’s the “Invisible Man.”

It has been right here in our midst and on our shoulders since the 1600s, but it was, has been, and, in far too many instances, still is invisible to the dominant culture, in terms of its rich history, its incredible legacy, and its multiple meanings.

The black religious experience is a tradition that, at one point in American history, was actually called the “invisible institution,” as it was forced underground by the Black Codes.

The Black Codes prohibited the gathering of more than two black people without a white person being present to monitor the conversation, the content, and the mood of any discourse between persons of African descent in this country.

Africans did not stop worshipping because of the Black Codes. Africans did not stop gathering for inspiration and information and for encouragement and for hope in the midst of discouraging and seemingly hopeless circumstances.  They just gathered out of the eyesight and the earshot of those who defined them as less than human.

They became, in other words, invisible in and invisible to the eyes of the dominant culture.  They gathered to worship in brush arbors, sometimes called hush arbors, where the slaveholders, slave patrols, and Uncle Toms couldn’t hear nobody pray.

From the 1700s in North America, with the founding of the first legally recognized independent black congregations, through the end of the Civil War, and the passing of the 13th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution of the United States of America, the black religious experience was informed by, enriched by, expanded by, challenged by, shaped by, and influenced by the influx of Africans from the other two Americas and the Africans brought in to this country from the Caribbean, plus the Africans who were called “fresh blacks” by the slave-traders, those Africans who had not been through the seasoning process of the middle passage in the Caribbean colonies, those Africans on the sea coast islands off of Georgia and South Carolina, the Gullah — we say in English “Gullah,” those of us in the black community say “Geechee” — those people brought into the black religious experience a flavor that other seasoned Africans could not bring.

It is those various streams of the black religious experience which will be addressed in summary form over the next two days, streams which require full courses at the university and graduate- school level, and cannot be fully addressed in a two-day symposium, and streams which tragically remain invisible in a dominant culture which knows nothing about those whom Langston Hughes calls “the darker brother and sister.”

It is all of those streams that make up this multilayered and rich tapestry of the black religious experience.  And I stand before you to open up this two-day symposium with the hope that this most recent attack on the black church is not an attack on Jeremiah Wright; it is an attack on the black church.

(APPLAUSE)

As the vice president told you, that applause comes from not the working press.

(LAUGHTER)

The most recent attack on the black church, it is our hope that this just might mean that the reality of the African-American church will no longer be invisible.

Maybe now, as an honest dialogue about race in this country begins, a dialogue called for by Senator Obama and a dialogue to begin in the United Church of Christ among 5,700 congregations in just a few weeks, maybe now, as that dialogue begins, the religious tradition that has kept hope alive for people struggling to survive in countless hopeless situation, maybe that religious tradition will be understood, celebrated, and even embraced by a nation that seems not to have noticed why 11 o’clock on Sunday morning has been called the most segregated hour in America.

We have known since 1787 that it is the most segregated hour. Maybe now we can begin to understand why it is the most segregated hour.

And maybe now we can begin to take steps to move the black religious tradition from the status of invisible to the status of invaluable, not just for some black people in this country, but for all the people in this country.

Maybe this dialogue on race, an honest dialogue that does not engage in denial or superficial platitudes, maybe this dialogue on race can move the people of faith in this country from various stages of alienation and marginalization to the exciting possibility of reconciliation.

That is my hope, as I open up this two-day symposium.  And I open it as a pastor and a professor who comes from a long tradition of what I call the prophetic theology of the black church.

Now, in the 1960s, the term “liberation theology” began to gain currency with the writings and the teachings of preachers, pastors, priests, and professors from Latin America.  Their theology was done from the underside.

Their viewpoint was not from the top down or from a set of teachings which undergirded imperialism.  Their viewpoints, rather, were from the bottom up, the thoughts and understandings of God, the faith, religion and the Bible from those whose lives were ground, under, mangled and destroyed by the ruling classes or the oppressors.

Liberation theology started in and started from a different place.  It started from the vantage point of the oppressed.

In the late 1960s, when Dr. James Cone’s powerful books burst onto the scene, the term “black liberation theology” began to be used. I do not in any way disagree with Dr. Cone, nor do I in any way diminish the inimitable and incomparable contributions that he has made and that he continues to make to the field of theology.  Jim, incidentally, is a personal friend of mine.

I call our faith tradition, however, the prophetic tradition of the black church, because I take its origins back past Jim Cone, past the sermons and songs of Africans in bondage in the transatlantic slave trade.  I take it back past the problem of Western ideology and notions of white supremacy.

I take and trace the theology of the black church back to the prophets in the Hebrew Bible and to its last prophet, in my tradition, the one we call Jesus of Nazareth.

The prophetic tradition of the black church has its roots in Isaiah, the 61st chapter, where God says the prophet is to preach the gospel to the poor and to set at liberty those who are held captive. Liberating the captives also liberates who are holding them captive.

It frees the captives and it frees the captors.  It frees the oppressed and it frees the oppressors.

The prophetic theology of the black church, during the days of chattel slavery, was a theology of liberation.  It was preached to set free those who were held in bondage spiritually, psychologically, and sometimes physically.  And it was practiced to set the slaveholders free from the notion that they could define other human beings or confine a soul set free by the power of the gospel.

The prophetic theology of the black church during the days of segregation, Jim Crow, lynching, and the separate-but-equal fantasy was a theology of liberation.

It was preached to set African-Americans free from the notion of second-class citizenship, which was the law of the land.  And it was practiced to set free misguided and miseducated Americans from the notion that they were actually superior to other Americans based on the color of their skin.

The prophetic theology of the black church in our day is preached to set African-Americans and all other Americans free from the misconceived notion that different means deficient.

Being different does not mean one is deficient.  It simply means one is different, like snowflakes, like the diversity that God loves. Black music is different from European and European music.  It is not deficient; it is just different.

Black worship is different from European and European-American worship.  It is not deficient; it is just different.

Black preaching is different from European and European-American preaching.  It is not deficient; it is just different.  It is not bombastic; it is not controversial; it’s different.

(APPLAUSE)

Those of you who can’t see on C-SPAN, we had one or two working press clap along with the non-working press.

(LAUGHTER)

Black learning styles are different from European and European- American learning styles.  They are not deficient; they are just different.

This principle of “different does not mean deficient” is at the heart of the prophetic theology of the black church.  It is a theology of liberation.

The prophetic theology of the black church is not only a theology of liberation; it is also a theology of transformation, which is also rooted in Isaiah 61, the text from which Jesus preached in his inaugural message, as recorded by Luke.

When you read the entire passage from either Isaiah 61 or Luke 4 and do not try to understand the passage or the content of the passage in the context of a sound bite, what you see is God’s desire for a radical change in a social order that has gone sour.

God’s desire is for positive, meaningful and permanent change. God does not want one people seeing themselves as superior to other people.  God does not want the powerless masses, the poor, the widows, the marginalized, and those underserved by the powerful few to stay locked into sick systems which treat some in the society as being more equal than others in that same society.

God’s desire is for positive change, transformation, real change, not cosmetic change, transformation, radical change or a change that makes a permanent difference, transformation.  God’s desire is for transformation, changed lives, changed minds, changed laws, changed social orders, and changed hearts in a changed world.

This principle of transformation is at the heart of the prophetic theology of the black church.  These two foci of liberation and transformation have been at the very core of the black religious experience from the days of David Walker, Harriet Tubman, Richard Allen, Jarena Lee, Bishop Henry McNeal Turner, and Sojourner Truth, through the days of Adam Clayton Powell, Ida B. Wells, Dr. Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Barbara Jordan, Cornell West, and Fanny Lou Hamer.

These two foci of liberation and transformation have been at the very core of the United Church of Christ since its predecessor denomination, the Congregational Church of New England, came to the moral defense and paid for the legal defense of the Mende people aboard the slave ship Amistad, since the days when the United Church of Christ fought against slavery, played an active role in the underground railroad, and set up over 500 schools for the Africans who were freed from slavery in 1865.

And these two foci remain at the core of the teachings of the United Church of Christ, as it has fought against apartheid in South Africa and racism in the United States of America ever since the union which formed the United Church of Christ in 1957.

These two foci of liberation and transformation have also been at the very core and the congregation of Trinity United Church of Christ since it was founded in 1961.  And these foci have been the bedrock of our preaching and practice for the past 36 years.

Our congregation, as you heard in the introduction, took a stand against apartheid when the government of our country was supporting the racist regime of the African government in South Africa.

(APPLAUSE)

Our congregation stood in solidarity with the peasants in El Salvador and Nicaragua, while our government, through Ollie North and the Iran-Contra scandal, was supporting the Contras, who were killing the peasants and the Miskito Indians in those two countries.

Our congregation sent 35 men and women through accredited seminaries to earn their master of divinity degrees, with an additional 40 currently being enrolled in seminary, while building two senior citizen housing complexes and running two child care programs for the poor, the unemployed, the low-income parents on the south side of Chicago for the past 30 years.

Our congregation feeds over 5,000 homeless and needy families every year, while our government cuts food stamps and spends billions fighting in an unjust war in Iraq.

(APPLAUSE)

Our congregation has sent dozens of boys and girls to fight in the Vietnam War, the first Gulf War, and the present two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.  My goddaughter’s unit just arrived in Iraq this week, while those who call me unpatriotic have used their positions of privilege to avoid military service, while sending — (APPLAUSE)

– while sending over 4,000 American boys and girls of every race to die over a lie.

(APPLAUSE)

Our congregation has had an HIV-AIDS ministry for over two decades.  Our congregation has awarded over $1 million to graduating high school seniors going into college and an additional $500,000 to the United Negro College Fund, and the six HBCUs related to the United Church of Christ, while advocating for health care for the uninsured, workers’ rights for those forbidden to form unions, and fighting the unjust sentencing system which has sent black men and women to prison for longer terms for possession of crack cocaine than white men and women have to serve for the possession of powder cocaine.

Our congregation has had a prison ministry for 30 years, a drug and alcohol recovery ministry for 20 years, a full service program for senior citizens, and 22 different ministries for the youth of our church, from pre-school through high school, all proceeding from the starting point of liberation and transformation, a prophetic theology which presumes God’s desire for changed minds, changed laws, changed social orders, changed lives, changed hearts in a changed world.

The prophetic theology of the black church is a theology of liberation; it is a theology of transformation; and it is ultimately a theology of reconciliation.

The Apostle Paul said, “Be ye reconciled one to another, even as God was in Christ reconciling the world to God’s self.”

God does not desire for us, as children of God, to be at war with each other, to see each other as superior or inferior, to hate each other, abuse each other, misuse each other, define each other, or put each other down.

God wants us reconciled, one to another.  And that third principle in the prophetic theology of the black church is also and has always been at the heart of the black church experience in North America.

When Richard Allen and Absalom Jones were dragged out of St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, during the same year, 1787, when the Constitution was framed in Philadelphia, for daring to kneel at the altar next to white worshippers, they founded the Free African Society and they welcomed white members into their congregation to show that reconciliation was the goal, not retaliation.

Absalom Jones became the rector of the St. Thomas Anglican Church in 1781, and St. Thomas welcomed white Anglicans in the spirit of reconciliation.

Richard Allen became the founding pastor of the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, and the motto of the AME Church has always been, “God our father, man our brother, and Christ our redeemer.”  The word “man” included men and women of all races back in 1787 and 1792, in the spirit of reconciliation.

The black church’s role in the fight for equality and justice, from the 1700s up until 2008, has always had as its core the nonnegotiable doctrine of reconciliation, children of God repenting for past sins against each other.

Jim Wallis says America’s sin of racism has never even been confessed, much less repented for.  Repenting for past sins against each other and being reconciled to one other — Jim Wallis is white, by the way –

(LAUGHTER)

– being reconciled to one another, because of the love of God, who made all of us in God’s image.

Reconciliation, the years have taught me, is where the hardest work is found for those of us in the Christian faith, however, because it means some critical thinking and some re-examination of faulty assumptions when using the paradigm of Dr. William Augustus Jones.

Dr. Jones, in his book, God in the ghetto, argues quite accurately that one’s theology, how I see God, determines one’s anthropology, how I see humans, and one’s anthropology then determines one’s sociology, how I order my society.

Now, the implications from the outside are obvious.  If I see God as male, if I see God as white male, if I see God as superior, as God over us and not Immanuel, which means “God with us,” if I see God as mean, vengeful, authoritarian, sexist, or misogynist, then I see humans through that lens.

My theological lens shapes my anthropological lens.  And as a result, white males are superior; all others are inferior.

And I order my society where I can worship God on Sunday morning wearing a black clergy robe and kill others on Sunday evening wearing a white Klan robe.  I can have laws which favor whites over blacks in America or South Africa.  I can construct a theology of apartheid in the Africana church (ph) and a theology of white supremacy in the North American or Germanic church.

The implications from the outset are obvious, but then the complicated work is left to be done, as you dig deeper into the constructs, which tradition, habit, and hermeneutics put on your plate.

To say “I am a Christian” is not enough.  Why?  Because the Christianity of the slaveholder is not the Christianity of the slave. The God to whom the slaveholders pray as they ride on the decks of the slave ship is not the God to whom the enslaved are praying as they ride beneath the decks on that slave ship.

How we are seeing God, our theology, is not the same.  And what we both mean when we say “I am a Christian” is not the same thing. The prophetic theology of the black church has always seen and still sees all of God’s children as sisters and brothers, equals who need reconciliation, who need to be reconciled as equals in order for us to walk together into the future which God has prepared for us.

Reconciliation does not mean that blacks become whites or whites become blacks and Hispanics become Asian or that Asians become Europeans.

Reconciliation means we embrace our individual rich histories, all of them.  We retain who we are as persons of different cultures, while acknowledging that those of other cultures are not superior or inferior to us.  They are just different from us.

We root out any teaching of superiority, inferiority, hatred, or prejudice.

And we recognize for the first time in modern history in the West that the other who stands before us with a different color of skin, a different texture of hair, different music, different preaching styles, and different dance moves, that other is one of God’s children just as we are, no better, no worse, prone to error and in need of forgiveness, just as we are.

Only then will liberation, transformation, and reconciliation become realities and cease being ever elusive ideals.

Thank you for having me in your midst this morning.

(APPLAUSE)

MODERATOR:  We do want to get in our questions.  Thank you. Thank you, everybody.

I do want to repeat again, for those of you watching us on C- SPAN, that we do have a number of guests here today. And so the applause and the comments that you hear from the audience are not necessarily those of the working press, who are mostly in the balconies.

You have said that the media have taken you out of context.  Can you explain what you meant in a sermon shortly after 9/11 when you said the United States had brought the terrorist attacks on itself? Quote, “America’s chickens are coming home to roost.”

WRIGHT:  Have you heard the whole sermon?  Have you heard the whole sermon?

MODERATOR:  I heard most of it.

WRIGHT:  No, no, the whole sermon, yes or no?  No, you haven’t heard the whole sermon?  That nullifies that question.

Well, let me try to respond in a non-bombastic way.  If you heard the whole sermon, first of all, you heard that I was quoting the ambassador from Iraq.  That’s number one.

But, number two, to quote the Bible, “Be not deceived.  God is not mocked.  For whatsoever you sow, that you also shall reap.”  Jesus said, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

You cannot do terrorism on other people and expect it never to come back on you.  Those are biblical principles, not Jeremiah Wright bombastic, divisive principles.

(APPLAUSE)

MODERATOR:  Some critics have said that your sermons are unpatriotic.  How do you feel about America and about being an American?

WRIGHT:  I feel that those citizens who say that have never heard my sermons, nor do they know me.  They are unfair accusations taken from sound bites and that which is looped over and over again on certain channels.

I served six years in the military.  Does that make me patriotic? How many years did Cheney serve?

(APPLAUSE)

MODERATOR:  Please, I ask you to keep your comments and your applause to a minimum so that we can work in as many questions as possible.

Senator Obama has — shh, please.  We’re trying to ask as many questions as possible today, so if you can keep your applause to a minimum.

Senator Obama has tried to explain away some of your most contentious comments and has distanced himself from you.  It’s clear that many people in his campaign consider you a detriment.  In that context, why are you speaking out now?

WRIGHT:  On November the 5th and on January 21st, I’ll still be a pastor. As I said, this is not an attack on Jeremiah Wright.  It has nothing to do with Senator Obama.  It is an attack on the black church launched by people who know nothing about the African-American religious tradition.

And why am I speaking out now?  In our community, we have something called playing the dozens.  If you think I’m going to let you talk about my mama and her religious tradition, and my daddy and his religious tradition, and my grandma, you’ve got another thing coming.

MODERATOR:  What is your relationship with Louis Farrakhan?  Do you agree with and respect his views, including his most racially divisive views?

WRIGHT:  As I said on the Bill Moyers’ show, one of our news channels keeps playing a news clip from 20 years ago when Louis said 20 years ago that Zionism, not Judaism, was a gutter religion.

And he was talking about the same thing United Nations resolutions say, the same thing now that President Carter is being vilified for, and Bishop Tutu is being vilified for.  And everybody wants to paint me as if I’m anti-Semitic because of what Louis Farrakhan said 20 years ago.

I believe that people of all faiths have to work together in this country if we’re going to build a future for our children, whether those people are — just as Michelle and Barack don’t agree on everything, Raymond (ph) and I don’t agree on everything, Louis and I don’t agree on everything, most of you all don’t agree — you get two people in the same room, you’ve got three opinions.

So what I think about him, as I’ve said on Bill Moyers and it got edited out, how many other African-Americans or European-Americans do you know that can get one million people together on the mall?  He is one of the most important voices in the 20th and 21st century.  That’s what I think about him.

I’ve said, as I said on Bill Moyers, when Louis Farrakhan speaks, it’s like E.F. Hutton speaks, all black America listens.  Whether they agree with him or not, they listen.

Now, I am not going to put down Louis Farrakhan anymore than Mandela would put down Fidel Castro.  Do you remember that Ted Koppel show, where Ted wanted Mandela to put down Castro because Castro was our enemy?  And he said, “You don’t tell me who my enemies are.  You don’t tell me who my friends are.”

Louis Farrakhan is not my enemy.  He did not put me in chains. He did not put me in slavery. And he didn’t make me this color.

MODERATOR:  What is your motivation for characterizing Senator Obama’s response to you as, quote, “what a politician had to say”? What do you mean by that?

WRIGHT:  What I mean is what several of my white friends and several of my white, Jewish friends have written me and said to me. They’ve said, “You’re a Christian.  You understand forgiveness.  We both know that, if Senator Obama did not say what he said, he would never get elected.”

Politicians say what they say and do what they do based on electability, based on sound bites, based on polls, Huffington, whoever’s doing the polls.  Preachers say what they say because they’re pastors.  They have a different person to whom they’re accountable.

As I said, whether he gets elected or not, I’m still going to have to be answerable to God November 5th and January 21st.  That’s what I mean.  I do what pastors do.  He does what politicians do.

I am not running for office.  I am hoping to be vice president.

(LAUGHTER)

MODERATOR:  In light of your widely quoted comment damning America, do you think you owe the American people an apology?  If not, do you think that America is still damned in the eyes of God?

WRIGHT:  The governmental leaders, those — as I said to Barack Obama, my member — I am a pastor, he’s a member.  I’m not a spiritual mentor, guru.  I’m his pastor.

And I said to Barack Obama, last year, “If you get elected, November the 5th, I’m coming after you, because you’ll be representing a government whose policies grind under people.”  All right?  It’s about policy, not the American people.

And if you saw the Bill Moyers show, I was talking about — although it got edited out — you know, that’s biblical.  God doesn’t bless everything.  God condemns something — and d-e-m-n, “demn,” is where we get the word “damn.”  God damns some practices.

And there is no excuse for the things that the government, not the American people, have done. That doesn’t make me not like America or unpatriotic.

So in Jesus — when Jesus says, “Not only you brood of vipers” — now, he’s playing the dozens, because he’s talking about their mamas. To say “brood” means your mother is an asp, a-s-p.  Should we put Jesus out of the congregation?

When Jesus says, “You’ll be brought down to Hell,” that’s not — that’s bombastic, divisive speech.  Maybe we ought to take Jesus out of this Christian faith.

No.  What I said about and what I think about and what — again, until I can’t — until racism and slavery are confessed and asked for forgiveness — have we asked the Japanese to forgive us? We have never as a country, the policymakers — in fact, Clinton almost got in trouble because he almost apologized at Gorialan (ph).  We have never apologized as a country.

Britain has apologized to Africans, but this country’s leaders have refused to apologize.  So until that apology comes, I’m not going to keep stepping on your foot and asking you, “Does this hurt?  Do you forgive me for stepping on your foot?” if I’m still stepping on your foot.

Understand that?  Capiche?

MODERATOR:  Senator Obama has been in your congregation for 20 years, yet you were not invited to his announcement of his presidential candidacy in Illinois.  And in the most recent presidential debate in Pennsylvania, he said he had denounced you. Are you disappointed that Senator Obama has chosen to walk away from you?

WRIGHT:  Whoever wrote that question doesn’t read or watch the news.  He did not denounce me.  He distanced himself from some of my remarks, like most of you, never having heard the sermon.  All right?

Now, what was the rest of your question?  Because I got confused in — the person who wrote it hadn’t –

MODERATOR:  Were you disappointed that he distanced himself?

WRIGHT:  He didn’t distance himself.  He had to distance himself, because he’s a politician, from what the media was saying I had said, which was anti-American.  He said I didn’t offer any words of hope. How would he know?  He never heard the rest of the sermon.  You never heard it.

I offered words of hope.  I offered reconciliation.  I offered restoration in that sermon, but nobody heard the sermon.  They just heard this little sound bite of a sermon.

That was not the whole question.  There was something else in the first part of the question that I wanted to address.

Oh, I was not invited because that was a political event.  Let me say again:  I’m his pastor.  As a political event, who started it off? Senator Dick Durbin.  I started it off downstairs with him, his wife, and children in prayer.  That’s what pastors do.

So I started it off in prayer.  When he went out into the public, that wasn’t about prayer.  That wasn’t about pastor-member.  Pastor- member took place downstairs.  What took place upstairs was political.

So that’s how I feel about that.  He did, as I’ve said, what politicians do.  This is a political event.  He wasn’t announcing, “I’m saved, sanctified, and feel the holy ghost.”  He was announcing, “I’m running for president of the United States.”

MODERATOR:  You just mentioned that Senator Obama hadn’t heard many of your sermons.  Does that mean he’s not much of a churchgoer? Or does he doze off in the pews?

WRIGHT:  I just wanted to see — that’s your question.  That’s your question.  He goes to church about as much as you do.  What did your pastor preach on last week?  You don’t know?  OK.

MODERATOR:  In your sermon, you said the government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color.  So I ask you:  Do you honestly believe your statement and those words?

WRIGHT:  Have you read Horowitz’s book, “Emerging Viruses: AIDS and Ebola,” whoever wrote that question?  Have you read “Medical Apartheid”?  You’ve read it?

(UNKNOWN):  Do you honestly believe that (OFF-MIKE)

WRIGHT:  Oh, are you — is that one of the reporters?

MODERATOR:  No questions -

(CROSSTALK)

WRIGHT:  No questions from the floor.  I read different things. As I said to my members, if you haven’t read things, then you can’t — based on this Tuskegee experiment and based on what has happened to Africans in this country, I believe our government is capable of doing anything.

In fact, in fact, in fact, one of the — one of the responses to what Saddam Hussein had in terms of biological warfare was a non- question, because all we had to do was check the sales records.  We sold him those biological weapons that he was using against his own people.

So any time a government can put together biological warfare to kill people, and then get angry when those people use what we sold them, yes, I believe we are capable.

MODERATOR:  You have likened Israeli policies to apartheid and its treatment of Palestinians with Native Americans.  Can you explain your views on Israel?

WRIGHT:  Where did I liken them to that?  Whoever wrote the question, tell me where I likened them.

Jimmy Carter called it apartheid.  Jeremiah Wright didn’t liken anything to anything.  My position on Israel is that Israel has a right to exist, that Israelis have a right to exist, as I said, reconciled one to another.

Have you read the Link?  Do you read the Link, Americans for Middle Eastern Understanding, where Palestinians and Israelis need to sit down and talk to each other and work out a solution where their children can grow in a world together, and not be talking about killing each other, that that is not God’s will?

My position is that the Israel and the people of Israel be the people of God who are worrying about reconciliation and who are trying to do what God wants for God’s people, which is reconciliation.

MODERATOR:  In your understanding of Christianity, does God love the white racists in the same way he loves the oppressed black American?

WRIGHT:  John 3:16, Jesus said it much better than I could ever say it, “for God so loved the world.”  World is white, black, Iraqi, Darfurian, Sudanese, Zulu, Coschia (ph).  God loves all of God’s children, because all of God’s children are made in God’s image.

MODERATOR:  Can you elaborate on your comparison of the Roman soldiers who killed Jesus to the U.S. Marine Corps?  Do you still believe that is an appropriate comparison and why?

WRIGHT:  One of the things that will be covered at the symposium over the next two days is biblical history, which many of the working press are unfamiliar with.

In biblical history, there’s not one word written in the Bible between Genesis and Revelations that was not written under one of six different kinds of oppression, Egyptian oppression, Assyrian oppression, Persian oppression, Greek oppression, Roman oppression, Babylonian oppression.

The Roman oppression is the period in which Jesus is born.  And comparing imperialism that was going on in Luke, imperialism was going on when Caesar Augustus sent out a decree that the whole world should be taxed.  They weren’t in charge of the world.  It sounds like some other governments I know.

That, yes, I can compare that.  We have troops stationed all over the world, just like Rome had troops stationed all over the world, because we run the world.  That notion of imperialism is not the message of the gospel of the prince of peace, nor of God, who loves the world.

MODERATOR:  Former President Bill Clinton has been widely criticized in this campaign.  Many African-Americans think he has said things aimed at defining Senator Obama as the black candidate.  What do you think of President Clinton’s comments, particularly those before the South Carolina primary?

WRIGHT:  I don’t think anything about them.  I came here to talk about prophetic theology of the black church.  I’m not talking about candidates or their positions or their feelings or what they have to say to get elected.

MODERATOR:  Well, OK, we’ll give you a church question.  Please explain how the black church and the white church can reconcile.

WRIGHT:  Well, there are many white churches and white persons who are members of churches and clergy and denominations who have already taken great steps in terms of reconciliation.

In the underground railroad, it was the white church that played the largest role in getting Africans out of slavery.  In setting up almost all 40 of the HBCUs, it was the white church that sent missionaries into the south.

As I mentioned in my presentation, our denomination all by itself set up over 500 of those schools.  You know them today as Howard University, Fisk, LeMoyne-Owen, Tougaloo, Dillard University, Howard University.

So they’ve done — Morehouse, Morehouse.  Don’t forget Moorhouse, Spelman — that white Christians have been trying for a long time to reconcile, that for other white Christians to understand that we must be reconciled is to understand the injustice that was done to a people, as we raped the continent, brought those people here, built our country, and then defined them as less than human.

And more Christians, more of us working together, not just white Christians, but whites and blacks of every faith, ecumenically working together.

Father Flagger (ph), by the way, he might be one of the one –

(APPLAUSE)

– models out what it means to be reconciled as brothers and sisters in Christ and brothers and sisters made in the image of God.

MODERATOR:  You said there is a lack of understanding by people of other backgrounds of the African-American church.  What are some of those misunderstandings?  And how would you purport to fix them, particularly when some of your comments are found to be offensive by white churches?

WRIGHT:  Carter Godwin Woodson, about 80 years ago, wrote a book entitled “The Miseducation.”  I would try to fix it starting at the educational level in the grammar schools, as Dr. Asa Hilliard did in his infusion curriculum, starting at the grammar schools, to tell our children this story and to tell our children the true story.

That’s how I go about fixing it, because until you know the true story, then you’re reacting to my words and not to the truth.

MODERATOR:  Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the father but through me.”  Do you believe this? And do you think Islam is a way to salvation?

WRIGHT:  Jesus also said, “Other sheep have I who are not of this fold.”

(APPLAUSE)

MODERATOR:  Do you think people of other races would feel welcome at your church?

WRIGHT:  Yes.  We have members of other races in our church.  We have Hispanics.  We have Caribbean.  We have South Americans.  We have whites.

The conference minister — please understand the United Church of Christ is a predominantly white demonstration.  Again, some of you do not know United Church of Christ, just found out about liberation theology, just found out about United Church of Christ, the conference minister, Dr. Jane Fisler Hoffman, a white woman, and her husband, not only are members of the congregation, but on her last Sunday before taking the assignment as the interim conference minister of California, Southern California Conference of the United Church of Christ, a white woman stood in our pulpit and said, “I am unashamedly African.”

(APPLAUSE)

MODERATOR:  You first gained media attention, significant media attention for your sermons several weeks ago.  Why did you wait so long before giving the public your side of the sound bite story?

WRIGHT:  As I said to Bill Moyers — and he also edited this one out — because of my mother’s advice to me.  My mother’s advice was being seen all over the corporate media channels, and it’s a paraphrase of the Book of Proverbs, where it is better to be quiet and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

The media was making a fool out of itself, because it knew nothing about our tradition.  And so I decided to let them make a fool as long as they wanted to and then take the advice of Paul Laurence Dunbar, “Lies, lies, bless the lord.  Don’t you know the days are broad?”

Don’t make me come across this room.  I had to come across the room, because they start — understand, when you’re talking about my mama, once again, and talking about my faith tradition, once again, how long do you let somebody talk about your faith tradition before you speak up and say something in defense of — this is not an attack on Jeremiah Wright.

Once again, let me say it again.  This is an attack on the black church.  And I cannot as a minister of the gospel allow the significant part of our history — most African-Americans and most European-Americans, most Hispanic-Americans, half the names I called in my presentation they’ve never heard of, because they don’t know anything at all about our tradition.

And to lift up those — they would have died in vain had I just kept quiet longer and longer and longer and longer.  As I said, this is an attack on the black church.  It is not about Obama, McCain, Hillary, Bill, Chelsea.  This is about the black church.

This is about Barbara Jordan.  This is about Fanny Lou Hamer. This is about my grandmamma.

MODERATOR:  Do you think it is God’s will that Senator Obama be president?

WRIGHT:  I said I would offer myself for candidacy for vice president.  I have not offered myself for candidacy of God.  I can’t presume to know what God would want.

In my tradition, however, what everybody has been saying to me as it pertains to the candidacy is what God has for you is for you.  If God intends for Mr. Obama to the president, then no white racists, no political pundit, no speech, nothing can get in the way, because God will do what God wants to do.

MODERATOR:  OK, we are almost out of time.  But before asking the last question, we have a couple of matters to take care of.

First of all, let me remind you of our future speakers.  This afternoon, we have Dan Glickman, chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association, who is discussing trading up movies in the global marketplace.  On May 2nd, Bobby Jindal, the governor of the state of Louisiana, will discuss bold reform that works.  On May 7th, we have Glenn Tilton, CEO, United Airlines, and board member of the American transport association.

Second, I would like to present our guest with the official centennial mug and — it’s brand new.

WRIGHT:  Thank you.  Thank you.

MODERATOR:  You’re welcome.  And we’ve got one more question for you.

(APPLAUSE)

We’re going to end with a joke.  Chris Rock joked, “Of course Reverend Wright’s an angry 75-year-old black man.  All 75-year-old black men are angry.”  Is that funny?  Is that true?  Is it unfortunate?  What do you think?

WRIGHT:  I think it’s just like the media.  I’m not 75.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

MODERATOR:  I’d like to thank you all for coming today.

http://www.PaulFDavis.com

Paul F. Davis is a world-changing leadership & diversity speaker who has touched over 50 countries & 6 continents building bridges cross-culturally and empowering people throughout the earth to live their dreams!

Paul is the author of 14 books, two nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Paul has appeared on numerous internationally broadcast radio shows from Oprah & Friends to Fox News Radio to talk about conflict resolution, peacemaking, foreign policy, and diplomacy. Playboy Radio host Tiffany Granath calls Paul an "awesome" relational coach and recommends his books on love, dating, and sexuality.

Academically outstanding Davis was trained in transformative mediation & conflict resolution (Hofstra Law School); strategic negotiations (Harvard Business School & U. of Washington); advanced interrogation (Reid & Associates founders of the polygraph); and NLP & Life Coaching (NLP & Coaching Institute of California).

Paul humorously and elegantly transforms individuals and organizations.

Paul's organization Dream-Maker Inc. builds dreams, transcends limitations, & reconciles nations.

Paul worked at Ground Zero in NYC during 9/11; helped rebuild a home at the tsunami epicenter; comforted victims of genocide in Rwanda; spoke to leaders in East Timor during the war; inspired students & monks in Myanmar; promoted peace & reconciliation in Pakistan; and has been so deep into the bush of rural Africa where villagers had never before seen a white man.

Paul empowers people to love passionately and live fearlessly.

http://www.PaulFDavis.com

The International Health Division is committed to the improvement of health and healthcare delivery around the world. Serving both the public and private sectors, our efforts include health policy research and evaluation, health promotion and disease prevention, health finance, and health systems management. Our impact is felt in policies that ensure healthcare access for women, children, and individuals with special needs, in strengthening health infrastructures, and HIV/AIDS solutions.

The AIDSTAR2 TO1 Project Director will provide technical leadership and managerial oversight for the task order, and ensure timely implementation and reporting of activities. AIDSTAR sector 2 focuses on institutional capacity building of organizations providing HIV/AIDS services. A key aspect of AIDSTAR is building the organizational capacity of PEPFAR implementing partners to ensure the long term sustainability of PEPFAR achievements. This will require PEPFAR implementing partners to have adequate management systems and monitoring and evaluation of their programs.

Specific responsibilities:
• Work with USAID, partner organizations, and project staff, develop a project vision, strategy, workplans and M&E plans in a timely fashion.
• Provide overall technical leadership and guidance to the project. Working with other HIV advisors to respond to individual request for technical assistance.
• Coordinate implementation of project workplans and resources from all partner organizations.
• Maintain liaison with all partner organizations.
• Contribute to writing, reviewing, and disseminating lessons learned from the project.
• Representing the project at national and international fora.

The Project Director will liaise with other organizations in order to ensure coordination of this task order with activities being undertaken by other partners. Candidates should demonstrate skills in at least three of the following five core areas as they relate to HIV/AIDS programs:
• management systems development,
• program monitoring and coordination
• networking and linkages
• management strengthening of GFATM country-level institutions
• technical leadership and knowledge management

The ideal candidate will have:
• significant experience working with PEPFAR implementing partners including NGOs, FBOs and building alliances within civil society
• a deep understanding of institutional organizational capacity
• strong monitoring and evaluation background
• experience managing large and complex multi-partner projects

Skills Required:
• A masters' degree in public health, or a related advanced degree;
• Extensive experience implementing HIV-related programs, including working with HIV programs in developing countries;
• Experience working with PEPFAR implementing partners, including NGOs and FBOs;
• At least 10 years of experience working with public health programs in developing and transitioning countries;
• Demonstrated skills and experience managing a program of similar magnitude and complexity;
• Ability to travel overseas on short-term assignments (30 percent);
• Proven track record in working on tight deadlines;
• Written and oral proficiency in English and in French, Spanish or Portuguese; and
• Outstanding interpersonal and team building skill.

Please e-mail resume to: IntlRecruit@abtassoc.com

Above: Wednesday, January 30—A group of children in Rustenburg, South Africa tell Kristin and Oxfam America President Ray Offenheiser how HIV and AIDS affects their lives and what the village is doing to combat it.

 

Saturday, February 2—Kristin meets with Gordon Mthembu from the Treatment Action Campaign at an HIV/AIDS press conference in Johannesburg, South Africa. Mthembu spoke at the press conference about the need for more HIV testing and increased access to antiretroviral drugs.

 

Thursday, January 31—A woman at Circle of Promise cuts cloth for a sewing project. With the help of Oxfam, the organization has moved to a larger workspace with more sewing machines.

 

Thursday, January 31—Kristin checks out the jewelry, beadwork, belts, and shoes made at Circle of Promise, an organization in South Africa that teaches women the skills they need to make money and provide for their families.

On point, as usual.

I gotta say, It's funny that these cats (Terrance Dean, D.L. King, etc. ) have been trying to couch their self-promotion in some kind of larger social concern, like citing the D.L. "phenomenon" as a reason for the disproportionately high rate of AIDS among black women. The big problem with that logic, of course, is that it's very, very creaky (though it does fits in nicely with the narrative, which annoyingly always taken as a given --- see Obama's interview with the Advocate --- that black people are leaps and bounds more homophobic than other groups.)

This faux-concern about gay bogeymen in the, er, closet, is much more media-ready; it has sex and secrets, villains and victims. But you know you shouldn't always believe stuff you see on television.

Irgendwie frage ich mich, welche Linie da der Bundesgeschäftsführer eigentlich vertritt. Auch wenn er nichts wirklich falsches sagt - so bleibt er irgendwie oberflächlich (kann aber auch an der Presse liegen) und vor allem aber nur wieder aus Sicht "Nicht Getesteter / Nicht-Infizierter" , die Positiven als Zielgruppe aber irgendwie wieder nur am Rande... Ich finde den Artikel ehrlich gesagt nicht gut. Schon gar nicht den "Seitenhieb" auf "namhafte Spezialisten".

The basic vaccine problems are summarized in a table that I will adapt for use here as numbered headings.

1. Sequence diversity. HIV mutates a lot--even within an individual. I already knew that, but this sentence caught my attention:

Indeed, the amount of HIV diversity within a single infected individual can exceed the variability generated over the course of a global influenza epidemic, the latter of which results in the need for a new vaccine each year.

Any vaccine worth doing needs to protect across a broad range of strains. Given the diversity found in an individual person, that's a tall order.

2. Infection of critical immune cells. Remember those T cells that act as central command? HIV infects and kills them. In fact, there is a large slaughter of them within days after initial infection. Remember, people don't die from HIV; they die from other infections after HIV has wiped out the immune system. That's why it is called Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).

3. Immune Avoidance.

3a. Masking of neutralization epitopes. Remember my Godzilla analogy above? Well Godzilla has lots of scales protecting him, so what you really want to do is to get at his sensitive places--like his Achilles heel, to mix metaphors. The problem with HIV is that its sensitive places--particularly those that are the same among different strains--are covered very well.

3b. MHC down-regulation. Metaphorically, when cells get infected with a virus they have a special flag (the MHC protein) that they can wave around to get the attention of the killer T cells. HIV prevents cells from waving that flag.

3c. Immune escape through viral mutation. This was touched on above; just as the adaptive immune system gets revved up and starts to make some progress, the virus mutates and the adaptive immune system has to start over with the new mutants.

3d. Counter-immunoregulatory mechanisms. This is the same kind of thing as 3b above.

4. Latency. Like other retroviruses, as part of its life-cycle HIV integrates its genome into the host cell's chromosomes. In other words, HIV becomes part of the cell's DNA. Even if you could eliminate every single viral particle from the body, there would still be these cells--sleeper cells, if you will--that would eventually begin making new virus.

http://ldsscience.blogspot.com/2008/05/why-no-hiv-vaccine.html

The Red Ribbon Club at the Central Polytechnic, the awareness at this stage is much needed. To create awareness among public the Goverment of India has flagged off a train called "red ribbon express" last Dec'07 and its currently going around the country to create awareness about the malady, promote safe behavioural practises & fight the discrimination against the affected.

O telefone toca e a dona da casa atende:

-Alô!

- Sra. Silva, por favor.

- É ela. 

 - Aqui é Dr. Arruda, do Laboratório. Ontem, quando o médico enviou a biopsia do seu marido para o laboratório, uma biopsia de um outro Sr. Silva chegou também e agora não sabemos qual é do seu marido e infelizmente, os resultados são ambos ruins...

 - O que o senhor quer dizer?

 - Um dos exames deu positivo para Alzheimer e o outro deu positivo para AIDS. Nós não sabemos qual é o do seu marido.

 - Nossa! Vocês não podem repetir os exames?

 - O SUS somente paga esses exames caros uma única vez por paciente.

- Bem, o Sr. me aconselha a fazer o quê?

- O SUS aconselha que a senhora leve seu marido para algum lugar bem longe da sua casa e o deixe por lá. Se ele conseguir achar o caminho de volta, não faça mais sexo com ele...

Why is this important and why should you care?  Let me try to walk this slowly.  Most of these kids are listening to secular hip-hop music (don't think that just because it is not played in YOUR home doesn't mean your kid is not influenced by it). Church leaders see the hip-hop culture as a means of attracting the youth to church.  If the artists are living a gay lifestyle, their culture is influenced into their music.  We know that music influences culture.  If the child is influenced by the music of the artist, the child is influenced by the life & culture of the artist. 

What about the artist?  What does it actually take  to make it into the music industry? If there is really a sub-culture of gay (down-low) artists, how has this lifestyle influence the spread of HIV/AIDS?  Please read the article at www.newsweek.com/id/137380 and comment.

Here in the replete West, such as at the home of yr (justifiably) humble svt, rice is an occasional side dish, a refreshing change from a potato, or pasta, usually accompanying a steaming chunk of animal protein.

In the hungry not-West, rice is entirely it.

Rice has been distressingly newsworthy lately, as prices have been climbing.

Even before this month's very bad news (the story below, as well as the Burma cyclone of a couple of weeks ago that hit Southeast Asia's rice bowl (Burma's Irrawaddy delta) the hardest), there were shortages and unrest, sometimes violent, due to skyrocketing rice prices.

But the NYTimes makes clear, the latest threat to rice, and thus to the staple food of billions, is the lack of momentum in agricultural research.

Today's villain is called the brown plant hopper. And it could have been stopped in its tracks, had the research establishment kept its eye on the ball.

The Food Chain

World’s Poor Pay Price as Crop Research Is Cut

By KEITH BRADSHER and ANDREW MARTIN | Published: May 18, 2008

LOS BAÑOS, Philippines — The brown plant hopper, an insect no bigger than a gnat, is multiplying by the billions and chewing through rice paddies in East Asia, threatening the diets of many poor people.

Researchers at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines, the world’s main repository of information about rice, are trying to deal with problems like the rice hopper, which destroys plants, by developing stronger varieties of rice.

The damage to rice crops, occurring at a time of scarcity and high prices, could have been prevented. Researchers at the International Rice Research Institute here say that they know how to create rice varieties resistant to the insects but that budget cuts have prevented them from doing so.

Science has achieved stunning breakthroughs over the years in agriculture: crop yields increased substantially, and disease and pest resistance were bred to create ever more hardy strains. The stunning result: By the 1970s, for much of the world, with some pesky exceptions in Africa, the food supply was no longer a daily crisis.

That was then.

Agricultural research was a victim of its own success.

The trouble is that nature doesn't go down to defeat quietly, if ever. So while the scientific community rested on its laurels, or more likely, found sexier (i.e., more attractive to fund-granting organizations) programs to pursue, conditions continued to evolve.

Nothing, but nothing stands still. The globe keeps rotating, the human population continues to expand itself, as well as the once-arable land it confiscates for habitation, commerce and other purposes, until a crisis strikes.

Polio and tuberculosis were terrors for our great grandparents and grandparents. Then, due to scientific progress by the 1950s polio and TB were believed so much under control that two generations only knew them as childhood vaccinations. Complacency set in. Science went looking for new challenges; there were no lack of those: AIDS for example. Sadly, recently both dread diseases have been making a comeback.

So it is with the Green Revolution of the 1970s.

“Agriculture has been so productive and done so well, people have kind of lost sight of how fragile it really is,” said Jan E. Leach, a plant pathologist at Colorado State University who works with rice. “It’s as if we have lost track of the fact that food is linked to agriculture, which is linked to human survival.” ...

Additional factors prompted wealthy countries to shift their donations away from agriculture. For instance, advocacy groups criticized some of the environmental problems arising from intensive farming, weakening support for the Green Revolution. And urgent new priorities like the AIDS crisis in Africa captured the world’s attention.

Advocates for agriculture fought a losing battle to stop the cutbacks — nowhere more than in the World Bank, the huge institution in Washington that makes low-interest loans to poor countries for development projects.

Adjusted for inflation, the World Bank cut its agricultural lending to $2 billion in 2004 from $7.7 billion in 1980.

Meanwhile, the brown plant hopper, dealt with successfully many years ago, didn't disappear. It evolved.

But brown plant hoppers adapted swiftly, and the resistant strains started losing their effectiveness in the 1990s. An important insecticide lost its punch, too, as the hopper developed the ability to withstand up to 100 times the dose that used to kill it.

While the insect was adapting, the rice institute was being gutted.

Leading to the latest crisis.

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

World’s Poor Pay Price as Crop Research Is Cut - New York Times

And lest you think that the problem has been contained to the Philippines, source of today's story, sorry, no. China is working to battle the pest.

But the true fix is genetic, and that takes investment money and time, both once available in abundance, like rice.

Now, due to apathy, entropy and more interesting research targets, money, time and rice are in increasingly short supply.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

--MUDGE

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