"the iraqi people owe the american people a huge debt of gratitude"

"grateful" dog eating body--falujah
Us GI torturing "grateful" iraqi prisoner
"grateful" parent-dead "terrorists"--Us raid--iraq

"grateful" depleted uranium baby --iraq


"I am proud of the efforts we did. We liberated that country from a tyrant. I think the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude, and I believe most Iraqis express that. I mean, the people understand that we’ve endured great sacrifice to help them. That’s the problem here in America. They wonder whether or not there is a gratitude level that’s significant enough in Iraq. "--george w. bush on 60 minutes
more "grateful" iraqis and dead "terrorists"

destroyed home --"grateful" iraqis


Baghdad morgue took 16,000 bodies in 2006
Reuters

"grateful" iraqis --baghdad morgue

Sunday, January 14, 2007; 10:04 AM

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The Baghdad morgue took in about 16,000 unidentified bodies last year, the bulk of them victims of death squads and other sectarian violence, a source at the morgue told Reuters on Sunday.

About 1,350 bodies were received in December, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the Iraqi government has banned officials from releasing data on casualty rates. As throughout the year, between 80 and 85 percent of these were victims of violence.

The morgue data -- for Baghdad only -- suggest that a figure of 12,320 civilian deaths in "terrorist violence" in 2006, given two weeks ago by Interior Ministry sources, does not include all the victims of the bloodletting in Iraq. The Interior Ministry statistics exclude violent deaths classed as "criminal."

Since the morgue statistics also do not take account of the many deaths outside Baghdad, nor indeed of all violent deaths in the capital, the total death toll is certainly higher.

A Health Ministry official told the Washington Post last week that nearly 23,000 civilians and police were killed in the year, according to Health Ministry data. A deputy minister said he could not confirm the figures.

The Interior Ministry said 1,231 policemen were killed.

The United Nations has added Health Ministry data for the country as a whole to Baghdad morgue figures to come up with figures showing 3,700 civilians were killed in October alone -- or about 120 people a day.

The Iraqi government has called that an exaggeration but given no comparable official figures of its own. No U.N. data are yet available for the period since October.

While the total death toll remains disputed, no officials challenge the indications given by various sets of data that killings have increased markedly in the past year, notably since the destruction of a major Shi'ite shrine in February.

The Interior Ministry figures showed three and a half times more civilian deaths in December than in January.

No data were available for November, but in October the morgue took in about 1,600 bodies, down from a peak of 1,815 in July.
© 2007 Reuters

Disease alert after sewage system collapses
Report, IRIN, 15 January 2007


A street in Baghdad flooded with sewage water. (IRIN)

BAGHDAD -- Residents of Iraq's capital, Baghdad, are at risk of contracting a range of waterborne diseases as the city's sewage system has collapsed after four days of heavy rain, the country's health ministry said on Monday.

For nearly a week now, 45-year-old teacher Jassim Abdullah has been forced to buy bottled water for his family's daily use at an expense that his meagre income barely covers.

"We can't use tap water for drinking or cooking. It's all sewage. That is why I have put aside 100,000 Iraqi dinars [about US $75] to buy water for cooking and washing," said Abdullah, a father of five girls, from Baghdad's poor neighbourhood of Hurriyah.

Dr Abdul-Rahman Adil Ali of the Baghdad Health Directorate warned of the dire consequences of a non-operational sewage system.

"As the sewage system has collapsed, all residents are threatened with gastroenteritis, typhoid fever, cholera, diarrhoea and hepatitis. In some of Baghdad's poor neighbourhoods, people drink water which is mixed with sewage," Ali said.

Iraq's Young Blood
Iraq's Lost Children
Christian Caryl, Newsweek

A 2006 study by Iraqi psychiatrists, sponsored in part by the World Health Organization, found that 30 percent of the 1,090 children surveyed at schools in Mosul were suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder. In Baghdad, 47 percent of those surveyed reported "exposure to a major traumatic event," and 14 percent suffered from symptoms of PTSD. These can include anxiety, depression and nightmares—all of which are particularly damaging to young minds. "Some children wake up in the middle of the night and can't go back to sleep, [worried about] how they're going to school in the morning," says Nail Subhi, who works with an American aid group called Generation Iraq Organization. "Is there going to be someone in the street waiting to kill or kidnap them?" In a February 2006 study published by the Association of Psychologists of Iraq, 92 percent of the kids surveyed showed signs of learning impediments.




...Since September, millions of other kids have had to abandon their education for other reasons. Simply getting to class has become an unacceptable risk for many; schoolchildren in Baghdad can run into a half-dozen or more checkpoints—of the estimated 1,000 in the city—each morning. Lawyer Abu Mohammed Abid Tuayess is a father of three. "I deliver my daughter to school every day," he says. "I've seen kidnappings happen right in front of my eyes when I've been dropping her off." At the beginning of this academic year, schools in two provinces were forced to close by sectarian violence. Hundreds of teachers have been killed, while school buildings have been hit by mortars or shredded by fire fights. Last March Fatima Abdul Melik, 11, was boarding her schoolbus in Baghdad when a dark brown car, filled with masked men, screeched to a halt before her. Then came the loud popping sounds of gunfire. The children, screaming, piled out the open door to confront the bloody corpse of Abu Ali, their once beloved bus driver. After that, Fatima says, she abandoned school for a time: "Even now I start shaking when I hear gunfire."

"hundreds of teachers have been killed"

The Ministry of Education estimates that only 30 percent of the 3.5 million Iraqi elementary-age kids are attending school now, down from 75 percent last year. Given those conditions, "the current situation is crucial for education in 2006-07," says Husam Sabri, a leading UNICEF official in Iraq. While the vast majority of schools remain open and the government has instituted a relocation program for families who want to move their kids to safer areas, millions of children are receiving a sporadic education at best. Sabri worries that entire grades could end up being forced to repeat the year, possibly crippling an already overburdened school system. Um Firas, a supervisor at a Baghdad school, says that teachers are increasingly finding it impossible to teach under such conditions, while children are less inclined to learn. "I assure you that even the students who pass their grade have received not even half of the education they should," she says.

GIs search--"grateful" iraqis
"grateful" iraqi-waiting to express "gratitude"

 

chasing al qaeda into africa --new front in the war on terror --or more neo-con bull spit ?

the promised land ?

in the previous posting we mentioned old  israeli foreign policy documents  proposing a strategy of neutralizing the other nations of the region by balkanizing the middle east --covertly promoting ethnic strife and old rivalries in order to assist the breaking up existing political entities into a patchwork of chiefdoms ,  fifedoms and ineffective little  states and territories . 

the idea is to turn back the clock on the region
by resurrecting and intensifying old ethnic and reglious strifes  until
conflict 'erupts'-- whether spontaneously or "otherwise engineered" and the region  then predictibly descends into internecine warfare  , slaughter and
chaos .

naturally,  the perpetrators of this chaos would meticulously preserve their own national unity in order to gain the most benefit from the surrounding  area's weakness .

the proponents  of  "greater israel " see  weakening the other nations 
in the region
 as a key to advancing their agenda . 

  the agenda of  the " greater israel " group goes back to the fathers of the modern state .
 
they and their faction believe that the god of ancient israel  promised that all of the land between the "two rivers" would be theirs . 

the two rivers in question are the nile and the euphrates
 and the land  claimed by these expansionist zionists as "theirs" includes huge chunks of egypt ,  lebanon , jordan , iraq  syria and saudi arabia .

"In his Complete Diaries, Vol. II. p. 711, Theodore Herzl, the founder of Zionism, says that the area of the Jewish State stretches: "From the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates."

Rabbi Fischmann, member of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, declared in his testimony to the U.N. Special Committee of Enquiry on 9 July 1947: "The Promised Land extends from the River of Egypt up to the Euphrates, it includes parts of Syria and Lebanon."

NOTE: Sometimes the term Nile to the Euphrates is used, whereas the Brook of Egypt may be another lesser waterway about 100 miles East of the Nile. Either way, it adds up to the confiscation of a huge amount of Arab territory."

http://www.alfredlilienthal.com/greaterisrael.htm



now observers of the africa scene might say --so what ? they've been balkanizing africa for years .

the Us and the europeans have been destabilizing african governments for decades now --well , "decades" ,  if you don't count as a long range  destabilization plan  , the 300 years of internecine conflicts and wars among the blacks of west africa .

these conflicts were  fought  to gain captives to sell to europeans for firearms and rum.

these black on black conflicts led to the centuries of destabilization  western africa faced  AFTER an invasion  by the sultan of morroco and european mercenaries ,  whose soldiers'  firearms toppled the federal government of west africa --the songhai empire --an area in africa larger than western europe.

the result of songhai's fall was three centuries of regional chaos as the songhai empire fractured and balkanized  --setting off a major crisis as each smaller west african state was forced to capture and sell other africans to obtain from the europeans the new weapon that had revolutioned warfare--firearms .

after the fall of songhai --by firearms -- the need for firearms in west africa grew beyond critical .

africans traded other africans from other groups for firearms  in order  to secure their own little group from being marched off into slavery --as  the faculty of the university of sankore and the artisans of timbuktoo  were marched off into slavery in the arab world when the songhai empire/federal government of west africa was destroyed .


 the balkanization and destabilization of west africa  was directly fueled and accelerated by the atlantic slave trade and the unending european drive and obsession to obtain field hands to work the sugar , rice , indigo , tobacco and later cotton plantations on lands newly conquered from the genocided indians of the western hemisphere .

africans needed firearms and often asked that europeans accept something other than humans in trade for them , but for centuries , europeans steadfastly demanded payment in slaves .

african war captives gained from africans raiding other groups of africans was the source of these slaves sent to the western hemisphere as field hands.

ok , we digress here-- but do we really ?

by falsely  linking iraq to al qaeda and the 9-11 attacks  that the bush administration ALLOWED to take place , the Us invaded iraq , 
and toppled the government there .

bloggers like "riverbend " the iraqi 
author of the  blog "baghdad burning" 
questioned why
the Us mass media quietly ignored that  about 35 of the 55 "most wanted" faces  
on that iraqi deck of cards Us soldiers were carrying --were shites.

( http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com  "Girl Blog from Iraq... let's talk war, politics and occupation." baghdad burning )

she and other iraqis state that the sectarian differences between sunni and shia  were NEVER as sharp as they are now and about 60% of saddam's army officers and baath party officials were shia . 

she and other observers have wondered , especially after the execution  of saddam , if the current sectarian strife ,
 has not been stirred up to civil war by those seeking to destroy the nation that WAS iraq .

when investigating a crime , we must ask  the proverbial "who benefits?"

who benefits from the bloody chaos and destruction  that now is the middle east ?

who benefits from spreading this 'battlefield' into east africa ?

for myself , i've already done the math , you arrive at your own conclusions .

meanwhile , as i was listening to a talk radio program yesterday , the topic was the 
the "war" in somalia . 


one talking-head expert on al qaeda tried to advance the neo-con position that the defeated somali islamist militia --who had lost to a combined Us trained and supplied ethiopian and somali force , were al qaeda--seeking to re-establish the "caliphate" of the old arab empire .

*note from sekou --the caliphate ,has it's  beginning back in the 7th century when islam was carried  by the sword ,
by the arabs  , out from arabia  , across north africa ,  into spain on the western flank 
and through iraq and iran ( then known as babylon and persia ) and all the way to india on the eastern flank .
this expansion , made the arabs  from the 7th century on -- who had just recently  been  raised from backwardness 
by the late prophet muhammad and  united under him by the ideology of islam -- 
 into a world power  -- in strategic control of the geo-political crossroads of the ancient world's global economy .

the neo-con talking head on the radio program--the al qaeda terrorism expert ,  alluded to "captured documents" supposedly from 
"al qaeda"
mentioning establishing  the somali branch of the old  "caliphate" , and  then cited the delivery of  40 tons of sophisticated weapons that al qaeda "supposedly " 
had flown into somalia as proof of them operating there .
 al qaeda is supposedly using somalia as a base , planning to intensify their efforts in east africa ,thus  
 justifying the recent Us attacks in the region as well as a greater Us role on the continent .

the terrorism "expert" , as if to nail down his case , stated first ,  that  it had been verified beyond doubt that ex kgb agent viktor bount was flying in tons of sophisticated weapons--including anti-tank weapons --for al qaeda  in somalia  .

and secondly ,  that the Us , 
to avoid over-extention of its already strained armed forces ,
needed to continue its strategy  of fighting al qaeda  in africa by using proxy armies .

 
the other guest "expert" -- a university professor on african affairs --disagreed with the terrorism expert's assertion that  the defeated islamist militia in somalia was al qaeda --in fact he said that these somalis were not  of the wahhabist sect as bin laden , but were instead sufi muslims , 
and the somalis historically have demonstrated   a homegrown nationalistic outlook 
that staunchly put somali nationalism 
ahead of any grand ideas of being absorbed into any new islamic global caliphate .

he also criticized Us policy for viewing africans as pawns in a game and consistently FAILING  to take into consideration the vital needs of the populace when creating and adopting policy towards africa .

i had to admit that the professor made good sense and discredited the position of the  neo-con terrorism/ al qaeda expert .

but where the professor fell down , in my opinion was in NOT  jumping 
on that 'viktor bount' remark  with both feet . 

bount is former kgb , and has his footprints all over ethnic conflicts , literally all over the  african continent  as a weapons and diamond smuggler --but bount is based in the united arab emirates in dubai--
the same dubai , united arab emirates whom daddy bush and bill clinton were lobbying for
in a bid   to buy the contracts to be administrators of 6 major  Us ports .
viktor bount is connected to israeli / russian mafia , and republican lobbyist  jack abramoff  .

viktor bount flew arms and opium for the talliban AND the northern alliance in afghanistan .

 --and viktor bount has been awarded from Us taxpayers monies , subcontracts   in iraq for halliburton -brown , kellog & root .

so if  bount is working for al qaeda--why does condie and the bush administration have a long standing 
 "hands off --stand down "  order when it comes to killing or 
apprehending viktor bount ?
so who is fooling who ?

"A top official of the Ethiopian opposition to Ethiopian dictator Meles Zenawi, a favorite of the Pentagon Christian fundamentalists, stated that there were never any "Al Qaeda" forces in Somalia and that the attack on that nation was a way for the Bush administration to militarily support Meles, whose army invaded Somalia a few weeks ago.



Christian soldiers marching against non-existent "Al Qaeda" in hapless Somalia.


This morning, the Bush administration admitted that no "Al Qaeda" suspects had been killed in US attacks on Somalia. However, Ethiopian opposition sources claim "thousands" of Somali civilians, including children, have been killed in the U.S. military campaign."  --from wayne madsen report

bush issues a 'my bad' on iraq and announces the soon to be 'surge'

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Current mood: cynical
Category: News and Politics


this "surge" appears to be targeting for destruction muktada al sadr's militia .
notice how the americans allowed the iraqi government to use al sadr's people to hang sadam and today in the papers the same iraqi government says sadr's militia must surrender or it will be destroyed . interesting seeing the game being played --one side played off against another and then having fufilled its purpose , discarded .

iraq war was lost a long time ago . bush knows it --the surge is not enough to really change the facts on the ground --he's buying time for something else up his sleeve to unfold .

in fact the neo-cons / israeli likudniks have botched this war so badly and broken iraq so far beyond repair that i get the feeling that it may be in part on purpose .

there was an israeli foreign policy paper from a while back that advocated that
the best way deal with the middle east was to fractionate and balkanize the region by supporting and using kurdish nationalism
as a destabilizing factor in turkey , syria , iraq and iran --which is today's case .

also mentioned was using strife between sunni and shia in iraq and among christians and muslims in lebanon to promote civil wars there .

it advocated the use of muslim fundamentalism to promote civil war especially between the palestinians.
as quiet as it is kept the Us backed and used the "international muslim brotherhood" movement in various countries in which it existed , to destabilize the countries --or keep them weak.

the muslim brotherhood assassinated anwar sadat --up until last summer --the only leader in the middle east to successfully prosecute war against israel .

it is also common knowledge that israel put up the original seed money for the creation of hamas as a counterweight to arafat , fatah and the palestinian authority --it is israel and the Us now promoting civil war among the palestinians .

in northern iraq the kurds are allied with israel . israeli special forces train the kurdish
pesh merga militias . israeli mossad are ALL fluent in arabic as well as other ethnic languages in the region and are trained to blend into the cultures of their 'enemies' to operate behind their lines .

mossad operates with almost free hand in 'kurdistan' and
are conducting missions into iran for the purpose of identifying iranian nuclear sites for the air and ground strikes israel is planning .

these are strikes which do NOT rule out the use of low yield mini-nuke bunker buster bombs supplied to israel by the Us to destroy the iranian nuclear energy program .

on the Us side , john negroponte was brought into iraq as Us ambassador after Us governor of iraq , paul bremer was recalled home after fulfilling his mission of successfully changing iraq's laws to undo the baath party's nationalization of iraq's oil --allowing foreign companies the right to buy up and own iraq's oil fields --under the guise of "free markets" .

negroponte takes over as Us ambassador to iraq .before his director of national intelligence stint
and now i believe his new job as undersecretary of state
, negroponte went to yale in early 1960s with porter goss and dubya bush's uncle .

negroponte is doubtless cia and has used his career as diplomat to run covert ops
directly out of the Us state department overseas offices.

as Us ambassador to honduras for reagan , negroponte not only oversaw the turning of that country into
THE major resupply base and staging grounds for the covert , illegal contra terrorist war on nicaragua , --Us military aid went from 5 million to about 100 million while negroponte was ambassador to honduras--but negroponte also orchestrated and
ran cover for activities of the death squads unleashed in honduras and el salvador .

particularly odious was the infamous battalion 316 trained , armed and directed by cia that disappeared hundreds if not thousands of opponents of the Us puppet regime in honduras .


"Honduras was not Negroponte's first introduction to US covert operations and mass killing. He began his climb up the national security establishment ladder as a political affairs officer at the US Embassy in Saigon from 1964 to 1968, a position that often serves as a cover for CIA operatives.

From 1969 to 1971, he was an aide to Henry Kissinger in the Paris negotiations with the Hanoi government, reportedly criticizing Kissinger for making too many concessions to the Vietnamese. From 1971 to 1973, he oversaw operations in Vietnam for the National Security Council, then headed by Kissinger. Thus, for nine years he played a direct role in prosecuting a US war that killed millions of Vietnamese.
"


"...Negroponte will unquestionably play a pivotal role in the elaboration and execution of US policy in Iraq. He brings to his job no direct experience in the Middle East, and, while he reportedly speaks five languages, they do not include Arabic.

The experience he does have, however, prepares him for directing the suppression of the growing Iraqi resistance to US occupation. He has an intimate familiarity with mass killing, covert operations and death squads. Negroponte's "experience and skill" lie not in spreading "freedom and peace," as Bush piously declared, but rather in organizing bloody repression—from Vietnam to Central America and elsewhere." --The Negroponte nomination: a warning to the people of Iraq by Bill Van Auken
21 April 2004


as i understand it , negroponte is also jewish which makes it unusual for him to be brought in as ambassador to an arab and very pro-palestinian country . jay gardner not withstanding

it is under negroponte's tenure that the growing anti-american insurgency in iraq takes on a new color as the sectarian violence greatly expands between sunni and shia .

death squads wearing the police uniforms of the iraqi ministery of the interior begin detaining , kidnapping , torturing and executing people --now it's up to about 100 bodies turning up a day in baghdad alone.

with hundreds of iraqi scientists and college professors having been assassinated by the death squads the intelligensia of iraq is being murdered off .

at one time in the 'not long ago' , iraq's education system was praised by the Un as a model for the rest of the developing world .

now , doctors and professors are fleeing the country by the hundreds and the medical care system and educational system --two of the most highly lauded accomplishments of the baathist regimes are in danger of collapse .

the shia and sunnis engage in a bloody war against each other while the kurds proclaim a free kurdistan in which kurdish is the official language , the flag of kurdistan flies
and negotiations with norwegian oil companies go on to develop untapped oil fields in what was once northern iraq .

iraq , once on the verge of being a regional ecomomic and military power -- a modern , wealthy highly educated secular arab nation , has been reduced to a broken and bloody mess spiraling downward into chaos .

lebanon , despite hezbollah's surprising tenacity , is left a devastated mess with it once modern infrastructure smart-bombed into twisted rubble in an air power campaign that HAD to have taken months of secret work in advance to plan out and prepare with logistics and supply .

which leaves iran - rich with oil , highly educated and modern , but under threats of sanctions and further trade embargo for attempting to build what the international atomic energy agency inspections have described as a 'civilian' nuclear energy program .

take iran apart , neutralize its potential as regional economic military and political power and there is no threat remaining in the region . the middle east and of course its ocean of oil --is for all intents and purposes subdued for western interests .

from the geo-strategic position offered by control of the middle east , to the north east , the oil and vast amounts of natural gas of central asia are a hop skip and jump --as are also the mineral resources of an already fractionalized and balkanized africa to the south and west .

uncommon sense and the secrets of brayan loabe --brayan and niambi --marshall plan pt. 1

by d sekou (javascript : alert the e-mail address and profile information for the individual posting this message is not available ) on saturday , july 27 2002


"what's this you're describing man , black liberation , amway style ?" the image and voice of a laughing , beautiful , young niambi at age 27 , her perfect teeth glimmering like pearls , filled brayan's mind as memories began wandering past .

"well maybe you could say it that way " , he recalled , slightly irritated , but having to laugh at her analogy .

"the idea is to quietly build a network of entreprenuers , each independent and capable through various and deliberately diverse endeavours , of amassing personal fortunes in the one to ten million dollar range " , loabe had explained .

"each of them , in return for the necessary training , handholding , motivating and coaching that the network would have to steadily provide , would agree to make a one time donation of 1/10 of their fortune " , he continued , carried forward by obvious , but still tentative enthusiasm .

"and of course , this ten percent goes right into your pocket ...nice hustle mr. coach " , niambi frowned , her disappointment unable to restrain her sarcasm .

"NO" , brayan almost angrily but patiently reassured , "i'd never touch a penny of it . it would be set up so that NO ONE could . it all goes into a corporation specifically created for one purpose and one purpose only ... to fund sustainable redevelopment of africa and the diaspora ...a black generated , self directed , self sustaining marshall plan on automatic pilot , operating for africa and the rest of the black world ."

"oh " , the young woman apologetically replied , "marshall plan? you mean like the supreme court brother ...umm...thurgood marshall ?" niambi trying to appear supportive once again , sheepishly asked .

"um... not quite " , answered brayan as he thumbed through contents of the open briefcase on the large wooden library table . he found a xeroxed copy of a document that was part of his research and with revived enthusiasm , handed it to niambi .

in the dry and air-conditioned chill of that saturday morning , her usually bored and distracted ten year old son , sat intently with colored pencils and newsprint pad , sketching imaginary super-heroes at the other end of the table .

opposite the preoccupied boy, in the almost deserted university library , his mother , an overworked single parent , desperately struggling to finish her bachelor's degree , curiously read aloud from the paper loabe had presented her .

the marshall plan
as the war torn nations of europe faced famine and economic crisis in the wake of world war two , the united satate proposed to rebuild the continent in the interest of political stability and a healthy world economy . on june 5, 1947 , in a commencement address at harvard university , secretary of state george c. marshall first called for american assistance in restoring the economic infrastructure of europe . western europe responded favorably ,and the truman administration proposed legislation . the resulting economic cooperation act of 1948 restored european agricultural and industrial productivity . credited with preventing famine and political chaos , the plan later earned general marshall a nobel peace prize

"it's an interesting idea " , niambi also tentative , now offered , "so how much did it end up costing , and how much do you think your plan will cost ?"

encouraged by her thoughtfulness , brayan silently , almost forgave her for being enrolled in college and still unaware of what the marshall plan was , and the role it had played in modern history .

"about 50 billion dollars " , he answered , "but the Us got much more in restored business partners and new customers after the european nations were rebuilt . "

"how much do you think africa will need ?" she inquired with a hint of caution still evident in her voice .

"the information that i've seen says that the asian tiger economies as of the year 2000 had already invested two trillion dollars in building modern infrastructure ."

eying her carefully , he paused partly for effect and partly from a 'parental" reluctance to subject his 'child' to outer criticism .

"ideally , i would give a rough estimate of at least half that amount to really get us on track , and start to put our global house in order " , was loabe's answer .

"A TRILLION DOLLARS! " the woman's words echoed with surprise and anger from the expensive shelves filled with books and periodicals .

"fool are you crazy !" she blurted out , "nigger , you can't raise no trillion dollars !" she stared angrily and incredulously at loabe before realizing what she had said .

"um... i'm sorry ...brayan " , she gloomily repented after a pause , her inward suspicions about this man finally confirmed . "but that's an impossible amount " . she looked around apologetically to see if anyone had overheard her shameful faux pas .

down at the far end of the table , her son continued on as if totally absorbed with his drawing , out of a sense of loyalty and protection , as if pretending never to have heard his mother slip .

during most of these saturday morning study sessions that he had quickly grown to despise , but grudgingly learned to tolerate for his mother's sake , ra usually behaved as if unaware of the presence of the two adults ...his mother and , "that crazy old man " , as ra preferred to think of brayan ...a man that the young boy was sure was only interested in hitting on ra's pretty mom .

"he don't want us " , the boy thought , angry over the dejection he was strangely feeling .

"and she sure can do better than HIM ", he figured in his child's way , without ever really wanting to 'lose' any of his mother's attentions to loabe , or any other man .

"he old . look at them corny clothes . he carry that dumb-lookin briefcase insteada bookbag . and look at them shoes ! the man wear LOAFERS ! why he bothering with my mom for anyway ? he prolly got a wife an kids AN a dum girlfrien somewhere. ...AHHHh! i wish we could just go already . i wanna go outside an play . i hate this !"

"brayan " , a 'reformed' niambi started again in a voice slightly stronger than a whisper . "you're a nice man . a bright man . and i don't think of you as insincere , but BE for real ! there is no way on god's green earth you can even dream of raising THAT kind of money . tell me what exactly what was in your pipe when you dreamed up that dream ?"


she laughed weakly , transparently , hoping that an attempt at humor would cut through the tension now hovering thickly over the table between them .

she hoped also , to peel away the aching embarrassment that her own unfortunate remark in front of her child had left in her .

she hoped to restore the amiable tone that up until her miscue , her budding friendship with loabe had always exhibited .

"why do you want to do THIS ? and why do you think that you HAVE to ? i mean , IF it were possible , and i'm not agreeing that it is , do you think you'll get a PRIZE ?" she offered , shaking very very softly , barely noticibly , her own two luscious natural prizes visible above the concealment provided as she sat at the heavy , thick table .

in her confusion and embarrassment , she unconsciously sought to return the conversation to more familiar ground , where more sure of her footing , she could operate with greater confidence.

ten year old ra , still pretending to be focused elsewhere , noisily flipped the incomplete drawing on the newsprint art pad and began a new sketch on the following page .

brayan , disappointed by resistance , yet also stubbornly prepared for it , instinctively wet his lips and began his explanation .

oprah's south african girl's academy and comments on african-american youth

over at "zaneland" blog, they had a bit of controversy about oprah's recent announcement concerning her building a $40 million dollar academy for the education of economically disadvantaged girls with leadership potential in south africa .

readers' comments were divided pro and con --more concern towards oprah's comments about african -american kids not valuing education than readers' comments about her "helping kids over there when there are kid's over here needing her help ."

as deskRat has said many times , all of the children of the african diaspora , should feel that we have the duty to help each other regardless of which side of the ocean we
are on .

other groups help one another --the Us --through the marshall plan --helped rebuild a devastated europe after the second world war.

it was common sense on the part of the european diaspora of america to help rebuild their european homeland .

just as also , it is common sense for the african diaspora --the "children of africa" as deskRat fondly calls us-- to develop our own "marshall plan" for africa and the diaspora to rebuild and repair the devastation done to us these past five hundred years of internecine warfare , slavery , colonialism -- chaos and decline that we have seen .

when i saw an article at the turn of this milennium saying that the asian 'tiger' economies had already spent 2 trillion dollars worth on building modern economic infrastructure to secure their place in present and in the future , i speculated that the children of africa would have to spend about one trillion dollars in order to jumpstart the economy of africa and the diaspora .

--i speculated that we needed a sort of marshall plan for africa and the children of the african diaspora .

if a trillion dollars seems an impossible amount to some , we need not mention that statistics tell us that african-americans already spend $650 billion to 1 trillion dollars each year . the funds to economically jumpstart africa and the diaspora are already available --just the will and fiscally responsible logistics are needed .

we are reminded of the words of theodore hertzle --the father of modern zionism and the father of the modern state of israel , speaking about the year 1900 --"if you build it -- then it is no legend !"


so i applaud oprah's efforts , though , i would probably do things a little differently .

as far as her comments on african american kids , here are hers and then mine follow .

Monday January 1, 07:13 PM
New York, Jan 1 (ANI): Talk show queen Oprah Winfrey has hit out at people who have criticised her decision to build a 40 million dollar school complex in South Africa, saying that unlike kids in America, children in the African nation yearn to learn.

In an interview with Newsweek, Winfrey revealed that she had been "frustrated" by the way American inner-circle kids did not appreciate the value of a free education, and thought the money would be better spent on kids who had a burning desire to learn, but did not have the means.

"I became so frustrated with visiting inner-city schools that I just stopped going. The sense that you need to learn just isn't there," the New York Daily News quoted her, as telling the publication.

"If you ask the kids what they want or need, they will say an iPod or some sneakers. In South Africa, they don't ask for money or toys. They ask for uniforms so they can go to school," she added.

Oprah's said that though she understood that many Americans feel as if she's going "overboard" in funding the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa, those are feelings she can live with.

"I understand that many ...feel that I'm going overboard, and that's fine. This is what I want to do".

The talk show queen, who has given millions of dollars over the years to educate impoverished kids in the US through the Oprah Winfrey Scholars program, has handpicked 152 girls out of 3,500 applicants to attend the school.

All the girls, Winfrey says, have that "it" factor that will help them make a difference in the future.

"I wanted to take girls with that 'it' quality and give them an opportunity to make a difference in the world," Oprah said.

ok , when i do my little part to help africa and the diaspora , i will see HOW MANY schools $40 million will build rather than building one state of the art school .

also , i would determine what "it" is and clone "it" for the rest of the diaspora .

helping 150 girls already blessed with "it" is cool , but they are probably the type who would be successful no matter what --what about the rest of us mere mortals ?

--oprah knows enough about psychology to know that --"it" , is now clonable --don't leave nobody out--africa and the african diaspora suffer too much from various forms of "elitism" as it is .

that being said --

oprah is only one person . what will the rest of the "children of africa" on both sides of the atlantic do to save the children of africa ?

it is no accident that on both sides of the atlantic , that those of african descent are in the terrible conditions in which you find us .

i've volunteered for years , tutoring our kids --and it is the little kids from africa --especially war refugees from liberia , sierra leone , cote d'ivoire ,or nigeria , even our western hemispheric kids from haiti and jamaica that in comparison , ALWAYS have more respect for adults and more desire for learning than our african -american kids .

i have seen our african-american kids literally walk on top of a brand new $55 science textbook that another kid dropped on the floor and just left there.

the kid that walked on the book won't even bother to look down to see what he or she has just stepped on .

i will save my criticisms of the africans from the homeland for another post , but OUR kids are fucked up little individuals , who as oprah said , in general DO NOT value education .

yesterday at the after school program , i gave a mock quiz that i call "our daily math quiz" .

they know to expect it everyday they show up --but still , only three out of 15 in my group--they are grouped by age --
have any clue as what to do when doing simple multiplication problems .

simple problems we took from the SAME textbook they use in school .

i checked with their teachers so i know that they have been working on multiplication
for the past month --so this is nothing new to them --THEY JUST DON'T CARE .

when i first noticed their difficulties , i did a diagnostic review to determine where the difficulty lies --to find what , in their skills base , is missing .

it was the same thing in just about each kid --they don't know their times tables.

the first instance i ever witnessed of something like this , i could not believe it , because i was under the impression that times tables
are mastered , beginning back in third grade --ALL OVER THE WESTERN WORLD-- but when i checked with their teachers , they confirmed it .

you have to fight our kids to memorize times tables --when the SAME kids
can repeat from memory , word for word
every lyric to every popular hip-hop song out there .

so we tried flash cards , we tried multiplication games--games that they get mad at , catch an attitude , and refuse to play anymore when they don't remember the multiplication facts --we tried those cuisinaire blocks and 'manipulatives' , these kids DON'T want to learn it. they will not practice the times tables on their own --and practice is the root to mastery .

it's more fun to CONSTANTLY pick at and make fun of other kids for not knowing the same math facts that they don't know--a case of the ignorant , calling the ignorant "ignorant" .

it's more important to interrupt the tutoring by yelling out examples of pure ignorance like :

"so and so need some deodorant --an some new sneakers , an some roach spray for his house too."

which then provokes "so an so" to yell out something equally ignorant like :


" well at least my mom ain't smoking crack !"

and then it continues :

" bitch , who mom be at the park suckin dicks for crack money ?"

"that's why yo bald head mom so dirt-black , bitch ! "

" you can't beat me tho , can you ? "

"pussy , i kick yo fuckin ass right now ! "

"do it then , bitch ! "

and then it takes the next fifteen minutes to stop the fighting , stop the arguments , stop the insults flying back and forth , stop the laughter
and equally rude remarks from the rest of of the 'audience' .

we get back to work until the next interruption --which predictibly occurs within FIVE minutes --i've seen it too many times for it to be anything otherwise --they will look around them , realize that everybody is quietly working , learning , making progress--and they will call out something like --"it's too quiet in here !" and get that little devil --self destructive -- look on their faces --AND THE SAME SHIT WILL START ALL OVER AGAIN --it is as predictible as nightfall .

i agree with cosby , i agree with oprah --our kids do not value learning . our kids have no manners . our kids behavior is a disgrace. getting a group of our kids to cooperate is like herding a group of spoiled-brat divas.
herding cats is nothing compared to getting our kids to work as a group.

i've said it many many times before-
parents need to turn off the tv , turn off the hip-hop , turn off the computer games , turn off the internet --AND ONLY LET YOUR KIDS VIEW AND HEAR ON THESE-- INSTANT ROADWAYS INTO THEIR BRAINS-- , ONLY WHAT YOU WANT THEM TO SEE AND HEAR--ONLY THE THINGS YOU WANT IMPRESSED INTO THEIR YOUNG BRAINS .
only let your kids watch and see what YOU know is good for them .

and no child under age three should be viewing electronic screens anyway because their young developing brains get hooked on the stimulation from the constant movement on the screen and it becomes like a drug their brain chemistry craves .

when that same electronic-screen addicted toddler goes to school --school and learning from doing things like-- reading books just seem too slow and too boring for these tv/ video-game babies.

bored by books and innundated with thug-madness , they end up as uninspired , interested only in 'bling-bling' know-nothing individuals .

well dressed barbarians who think farts and making jokes about who farted , are more important than what's in a book .

to be honest , we are raising young people who , "act like savages" , as one teacher remarked .