Its been a long time...

Its been too long since I blogged and now I'm back. Talking about everything from politics, news, sports, and life in general. I'd like to thank any viewers and comments to this blog ill be updating it frequently. Thank You, Peace & Love Jus.B

Dr. Cornel West

The Song Of The Negro Maid (Poem)

The Song Of The Negro Maid (Poem)

I look at man in grim dismay;
He tried my virtue all to steal:
My heart is full of joy today,
No sin is on my soul I feel.

The guiling tongue of Adam's son,
Has left me free to see the light
The Master saw o'er Satan won,
In battles they did often fight.

The white man forced my head to bow,
My chastity to treat with scorn;
But I am queen of self, and now
I feel as pure as I was born.

With firm respect I love my race:
No one shall lead me thus astray,
Of kin to lose the ancient trace
That makes me what I am today.

1934

Man Know Thy Self (Marcus Garvey)

MAN KNOW THYSELF
For man to know himself is for him to feel that for him there is no human master. For him Nature is his servant, and whatsoever he wills in Nature, that shall be his reward. If he wills to be a pigmy, a serf or a slave, that shall he be. If he wills to be a real man in possession of the things common to man, then he shall be his own sovereign. When man fails to grasp his authority he sinks to the level of the lower animals, and whatsoever the real man bids him do, even as if it were of the lower animals, that much shall he do. If he says "go." He goes. If he says "come," he comes. By this command he performs the functions of life even as by a similar command the mule, the horse, the cow perform the will of their masters. For the last four hundred years the Negro has been in the position of being commanded even as the lower animals are controlled. Our race has been without a will; without a purpose of its own, for all this length of time.
Because of that we have developed few men who are able to understand the strenuousness of the age in which we live. Where can we find in this race of ours real men. Men of character, men of purpose, men of confidence, men of faith, men who really know themselves? I have come across so many weaklings who profess to be leaders, and in the test I have found them but the slaves of a nobler class. They perform the will of their masters without question. To me, a man has no master but God. Man in his authority is a sovereign lord. As for the individual man, so of the individual race. This feeling makes man so courageous, so bold, as to make it impossible for his brother to intrude upon his rights.
So few of us can understand what it takes to make a man - the man who will never say die; the man who will never give up; the man who will never depend upon others to do for him what he ought to do for himself; the man who will not blame God, who will not blame Nature, who will not blame Fate for his condition; but the man who will go out and make conditions to suit himself. Oh, how disgusting life becomes when on every hand you hear people (who bear your image, who bear your resemblance) telling you that they cannot make it, that Fate is against them, that they cannot get a chance. If 400,000,000 Negroes can only get to know thesmelves, to know that in them is a sovereign power, is an authority that is absolute, then in the next twenty-four hours we would have a new race, we would have a nation, an empire, - resurrected, not from the will of others to see us rise, - but from our own determination to rise, irrespective of what the world thinks

Driving away Dads (The system discourages poor African-American men from becoming involved parents)

My life is a tale of two boys with two very different dads.

When my first son, Trey, was born 30 years ago, I was what they now call a "baby daddy" — a young, unmarried high school dropout with a bad drug habit and a rap sheet. I never considered marrying my son's mother. In fact, I just disappeared from her life after the baby was born. As a result, Trey grew up feeling abandoned and hostile.

When my second son, Corey, came along 15 years later, I was not the same man who fathered Trey. By then, I was happily married with a college degree and a promising future. Corey is my whole life. He just finished his freshman year in college studying engineering.

I am sharing this painful, personal story so that middle-class Americans might better understand why so many poor, young, African-American men drop out of high school, father children out of wedlock and then wind up in prison. The answer: Many of them were reared, like my first son, by a single mother on public assistance and missed the essential, nurturing presence of a full-time father.

Absent fathers come with a huge cost, beyond just the emotional impact. In Steven L. Nock and Christopher J. Einolf's report, The One Hundred Billion Dollar Man, the data are striking. The federal government spent at least $99.8 billion providing assistance to father-absent families in 2006. Between 1960 and 2006, the number of children living in single-mother families went from 8 percent to 23.3 percent. Currently, 34 percent of children live without their biological father. Poverty is prevalent: 39.3 percent of single-mother families lived in poverty, but only 8.8 percent of father-present families lived in poverty. Most distressing, 80 percent of African-American children can expect to spend at least part of their childhood living apart from their fathers.

From the start, the system works against fathers by penalizing them and ultimately pushing them away. To illustrate my point, let's suppose that Greg and Kisha, two unwed, uneducated African-Americans, have just learned that Kisha is pregnant. Kisha goes to the welfare office seeking assistance during her pregnancy. Because our society wants healthy babies, Kisha gets the benefit of good prenatal care and a good nutrition program. At the same time, she's told she must provide them the name of the baby's father so the government can open a child support case against him. This means the father will be held responsible for the cost of the baby's care.

That may seem like a fair bargain for middle-class men with an education and income, but we are talking about a young man with no high school diploma and no legal way to earn enough money to meet the support payments. So Greg begins to accrue a debt he cannot pay. Unfortunately, the child support system cannot always distinguish between a deadbeat dad and a dead-broke dad.

The child support case drives a wedge between the mother and father at a time when they should be encouraged to come together to create a family around their new baby. These parents usually do not have the skills required to maintain such a relationship, particularly at a stressful time with a demanding new baby. Eventually, the mother may get angry with the father and retaliate by withholding access to the child. Consequently, the father stops visiting. When the kid grows up, he may join a gang in search of the caring relationships he did not have at home. It's highly likely that the familiar, destructive cycle will repeat itself: A fatherless child will beget yet another fatherless child.

Messrs. Nock and Einolf further state that, "There are also consequences of father absence that have implied indirect consequences for government programs. … Overall, however, children of fatherless families use mental health services at a higher rate than children of two-parent families, have more behavior problems at school, and are more likely to enter the juvenile justice system. They do less well at school, and schools may have to make additional efforts to educate them. Their higher use of drugs, alcohol, and tobacco, and their poorer physical and mental health, may cause them to use medical services more than children of two-parent families."

The situation, however, is not hopeless. Public policymakers can assist young African-American males to be better citizens and better fathers. They can provide low-income fathers with the same attention our society gives to unwed mothers. Our social welfare agencies should assist these young, unmarried men in building an enduring relationship with the mother and child, regardless of whether they get married.

In recent years, I have struggled to establish a half-decent relationship with my first son, Trey, who now works for a landscaping firm. He's a great person, but there is no way I can ever make up for neglecting him while he was growing up. My own experience and the bleak prospects of so many other young black men in Baltimore led me to create an organization 11 years ago called the Center for Urban Families, where we try to help young men, many of whom are just out of prison, become not only good employees but also better fathers and husbands.

Too many people boil the problem of fatherlessness down to the collection of child support. Simply sending debt collectors after these dead-broke dads will not solve this very complex social and economic problem. All of the child-support arrears in the country don't come close to equating to the $98 billion of costs associated with fatherless households. While the exact costs can be debated, there is no debate about the positive economic status of father-present households. In these difficult economic times, promoting responsible fatherhood may be the best and most cost-effective anti-crime, anti-poverty program yet.

The Immortal Stone Love Sound

Stone Love Over 25 Years Still the Leading Sound.

There are over 200 sound systems in Jamaica to date, but when the question is asked as to which is the champion and reigning king of them all, without hesitation the response is ‘Stone Love’. Stone Love made their entry into the dancehall business in 1972 and for the past 27 years it has been the sound systems with he most potent and magnetic force to pull crowds and ‘cork’ any dancehall.

Stone Love also signed a partnership with the world’s leading Stout, Guinness, which has already taken shape with a number of successful events including the Guinness Big Dances which are being held island-wide and the sponsorship of Mental nights on Thursdays at the Asylum.

The name Stone Love has become an international household name and it is the most sought after sound system today. Record producers, singers and Djs will do anything to hear tunes being played on the set. The dancehall massive will follow the sound to wherever end of the earth it goes to listen to the voices of their favourite entertainment idols. Stone Love is the brainchild of Winston ‘WeePow” Powell , a man that thousands of people today, hold in high esteem for his professionalism, credibility, and persistence of excellence.

During his childhood years, WeePow wanted more than anything else in the world to be the owner of his very own sound system. An ardent lover of music and growing up in Molynes Road, an area known for its regular dancehall sessions, no dance ever missed him. WeePow’s mentor, singer Hopeton Lewis, who lived in the same yard as he, took him to dances everywhere which was what the young sound-inclined lad wanted. His love for sound systems steadily developed into a lifelong fascination and he would enjoy just sitting and admiring the construction of these systems.
He always pictured himself being at the control of his own set and imagined what power it would have been packed with, while the heavy duty boxes pounded away to the likeness of a ‘corked’ session where the patrons were going wild as he selected and reeled off string-loads of dubs that would ‘mash up de place’. WeePow’s dreams started to become a reality at the age of 17 when Denton Henry, a technician who operated an electical shop in his yard, told him that he had a component set for sale. For months, WeePow worked relentlessly at his trade in order to come up with the money that he would use to buy the component set.

When he finally made the money on hand, WeePow purchased the set and this was his biggest achievement in life. he continued to add pieces of equipment such as records, amplifiers, racks, and boxes to his component set that would one day become a full scale sound system. By the late 60’s to early 70’s, WeePow along with his cousin Charlie Reid and his brother Cecil Powell and a friend Winston Rooms, set up a neat little sound system and tried their hands at playing at a few small sessions and parties.

It was 1972, the most unforgettable year for Wee Pow that marked the true birth of the sound and it was the same year that it also got its official and real gig. By this time, Wee Pow was still trying to figure out what he would name the sound and came up with ‘Sir Coxone’ but this never connected. During the period, owners of sound systems would name their sets off zodiac signs. Wee Pow was a Pisces and came up with the name ‘Pisces’ but another sound system had that name already. Because of his undying love for the sound, it clicked to Wee Pow that “Stone in Love’ would be the ideal name.

Thinking to himself , Wee Pow though that ‘Stone in Love’ sounded a bit awkward so he took out the ‘in’ and finally came up with the more ideal name that has grown to become a force to be reckoned with. Booking for the sound steadily grew as dates came from the rural parishes and uptown. During that time we were afraid to venture into the ghetto area and that was why we only used to play uptown and in the country” said Wee Pow

He was introduced to the ghetto in 1983 by SassaFras and the first dance was held in Jones Town. The dance went smoothly and without a hitch and it was after that , that Stone Love started playing frequently in the ghetto areas and became famous at Addams Lane. At first the sound only played soul music and the selectors only played ballad music. Gradually they started to venture into other aspects of music, playing a mixture of reggae, rap, pop, R&B, old hits and hardcore dancehall music.

1997, marked Stone Love’s 25th year in the business and Wee-Pow celebrated the event with a series of events held throughout the island and in major overseas markets. The events were an undeniable success as Stone Love’s fans turned out in their numbers to celebrate with their sound. Stone Love has become so popular that for the past 11 years, it has bookings every night playing in different parts of the world.

A fully operational recording studio is Wee-Pow’s newest achievements, the tsudio provides Stone Love a place for recording material for their label and for the dub-plates for the sound system

The sound has to its credit numerous awards with the greatest accomplishment of still being the indisputable Number One Sound System of the year consistently internationally and locally. Stone Love celebrated their 27th Anniversary, on December 18th, at La Roose another milestone in the rich history of this phenomenal sound system. Drawing one of the largest crowds ever, the event was a success that will see Stone Love being established in people’s minds into 2000. Stone Love also plans to add yet another aspect to the business with a lounge now under construction at Stone Love’s headquarters on Burlington Avenue.

A RetroSpecTive Look @ Bubby's IN D.U.M.B.O NYC

Bubby’s DUMBO provides the most magnificent view of the city. Nestled right on the river between the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges, there is no view that parallels it. The view from Bubby’s has been seen on countless films, television shows, and postcards throughout the world. It is “the view” of New York City. Located on 120 Hudson Street It is my opinion one of the most eye catching place I've ever been to. (Definitely A Must)