In bad taste: John McCain's ten worst jokes

US Elections - Times Online - WBLG: In bad taste: John McCain's ten worst jokes

To his supporters, a ribald wit with a healthy disrespect for political correctness; to his critics, a reckless foul-mouth - John McCain has often attracted attention for cracking jokes that might politely be described as “offbeat”.

Today, liberal tempers flared once again after the Republican nominee quipped that Guantanamo was “one of the nicest places in the world to live in” during a Q&A at the Aspen Institute (see the video below). So on the occasion of this latest demonstration of his legendary humour, we’ve compiled a list of McCain's ten worst “jokes”.

1. The rape joke. During his 1986
Senate campaign, he told the following joke in front of a number of
journalists: “Did you hear the one about the woman who is
attacked on the street by a gorilla, beaten senseless, raped repeatedly
and left to die? When she finally regains consciousness and tries to
speak, her doctor leans over to hear her sigh contently and to feebly
ask, 'Where is that marvelous ape?'"

2. The “Bomb Iran” song. Earlier
in his presidential campaign, McCain was asked by a participant at a
town hall meeting when the US “should send an air mail message to
Tehran”. He replied: “Do you know that old Beach Boys song,
Bomb Iran?” before proceeding to sing “Bomb bomb
bomb” to the tune of the hit Barbara-Ann

3. The one about killing Iranians. In July,
McCain was asked by reporters on the campaign trail about data showing
a ten-fold increase in US exports to Iran during Bush’s
presidency, with a particular rise in tobacco exports. “Maybe
that’s a way of killing them,” he replied, chuckling awhile
before adding: “I meant that as a joke.” Iran,
understandably, was not so amused.

4. The Chelsea Clinton joke. At a Senate
Republican fundraiser in 1998, when Chelsea was just 18, he took aim at
both her appearance and that of the then attorney-general . "Why is
Chelsea Clinton so ugly?" he asked guests. "Because her father is Janet
Reno."

5. The one about waterboarding. Despite
previously condemning primary rival Rudy Giuliani for comparing the
race to torture, McCain made a similar reference at a press conference
with Florida governor Charlie Crist in January this year. When Crist
was asked by reporters whether McCain had pressured him for his
endorsement, McCain, a torture victim himself, interjected: "It was
just waterboarding."

6. The other ones about waterboarding. About
a month later, McCain made a very similar joke reported in the New York
Times. With his presidential hopes apparently fading, a number of his
staff had deserted the campaign, only to return when McCain resurrected
his bid with a New Hampshire victory. There was, he jibed "a
short period of waterboarding to find out what they did in their
absence."

7. The Fidel joke. In February amid reports
of Castro’s failing health, McCain told a town hall in Indiana,
"I hope he has the opportunity to meet Karl Marx very soon."

8. The Alzheimers jibe. Shortly after
President Reagan had been diagnosed with the degenerative illness,
McCain made the following joke at a Republican fundraiser. “ Do
you know the best thing about having Alzheimer's?” he
asked. “You get to hide your own Easter eggs.”

9. The IED joke. When appearing on the
admittedly satirical (and liberal-leaning) programme The Daily Show
earlier this year, McCain joked that he'd brought host John Stewart an
improvised explosive device as a gift from Iraq. The jibe drew
criticism from relatives of US soldiers, over 1,700 of whom have been
killed by IEDs.

10. The one about the French. In
an interview with Fox News, McCain aimed at America’s allies in
Afghanistan. "You know," he began, "the French remind me a little bit
of an aging actress of the 1940s who is still trying to dine out on her
looks but doesn't have the face for it."

But despite his penchant for a little not-so-gentle ribbing, McCain
doesn't cope very well on the receiving end. During his 1992 Senate
campaign, a little inter-spousal teasing got out of control when, in
front of aides and three reporters, his wife Cindy playfully twirled
his hair and noted that he was thinning a little on top. His reply? "At
least I don't plaster make-up on like a trollop, you c**t."

Bernie Mac: Oct 5 1957- Aug 9 2008 gone but never forgotten

Bernie Mac is dead. Bernie died from complications of pneumonia. He will be missed by his many fans. His many prized performances include Bernie Mack in the Kings of comedy, FRIDAY, BOOTY CALL,Players Club, Charlies Angles, Def Comedy Jam and The Bernie show. We love you Bernie RIP

Guess who- part 5 of 13

The Late Bernie Mac at his best.

Tribute to Bernie Mac

RIP Bernie Mac. You'll be greatly missed by all!

Bernie Mac DEAD at 50 (NewsTV) RIP

CHICAGO (AP) — Bernie Mac, the actor and comedian who teamed up in the casino heist caper "Ocean's Eleven" and gained a prestigious Peabody Award for his sitcom "The Bernie Mac Show," died Saturday at age 50.

"Actor/comedian Bernie Mac passed away this morning from complications due to pneumonia in a Chicago area hospital," his publicist, Danica Smith, said in a statement from Los Angeles.

She said no other details were available and asked that his family's privacy be respected.

The comedian suffered from sarcoidosis, an inflammatory lung disease that produces tiny lumps of cells in the body's organs, but had said the condition went into remission in 2005. He recently was hospitalized and treated for pneumonia, which his publicist said was not related to the disease.

Recently, Mac's brand of comedy caught him flack when he was heckled during a surprise appearance at a July fundraiser for Democratic presidential candidate and fellow Chicagoan Barack Obama.

Toward the end of a 10-minute standup routine, Mac joked about menopause, sexual infidelity and promiscuity, and used occasional crude language. The performance earned him a rebuke from Obama's campaign.

But despite controversy or difficulties, in his words, Mac was always a performer.

"Wherever I am, I have to play," he said in 2002. "I have to put on a good show."

Mac worked his way to Hollywood success from an impoverished upbringing on Chicago's South Side. He began doing standup as a child, and his film career started with a small role as a club doorman in the Damon Wayans comedy "Mo' Money" in 1992. In 1996, he appeared in the Spike Lee drama "Get on the Bus."

He was one of "The Original Kings of Comedy" in the 2000 documentary of that title that brought a new generation of black standup comedy stars to a wider audience.

"The majority of his core fan base will remember that when they paid their money to see Bernie Mac ... he gave them their money's worth," Steve Harvey, one of his costars in "Original Kings," told CNN on Saturday.

Mac went on to star in the hugely popular "Ocean's Eleven" franchise with Brad Pitt and George Clooney.

His turn with Ashton Kutcher in 2005's "Guess Who" topped the box office. It was a comedy remake of the classic Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn drama "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?" — with Mac as the black dad who's shocked that his daughter is marrying a white man.

Mac also had starring roles in "Bad Santa," "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle" and "Transformers."

In the late 1990s, he had a recurring role in "Moesha," the UPN network comedy starring pop star Brandy.

The comedian drew critical and popular acclaim with his Fox television series "The Bernie Mac Show," which aired more than 100 episodes from 2001 to 2006.

The series about a man's adventures raising his sister's three children, won a Peabody Award in 2002. At the time, judges wrote they chose the sitcom for transcending "race and class while lifting viewers with laughter, compassion — and cool."

The show garnered Golden Globe and Emmy nominations for Mac.

"But television handcuffs you, man," he said in a 2001 Associated Press interview. "Now everyone telling me what I CAN'T do, what I CAN say, what I SHOULD do, and asking, `Are blacks gonna be mad at you? Are whites gonna accept you?'"

He also was nominated for a Grammy award for best comedy album in 2001 along with his "The Original Kings of Comedy" co-stars, Harvey, D.L. Hughley and Cedric The Entertainer.

In 2007, Mac told David Letterman on CBS' "Late Show" that he planned to retire soon.

"I'm going to still do my producing, my films, but I want to enjoy my life a little bit," Mac told Letterman. "I missed a lot of things, you know. I was a street performer for two years. I went into clubs in 1977."

Mac was born Bernard Jeffrey McCullough on Oct. 5, 1957, in Chicago. He grew up on the city's South Side, living with his mother and grandparents. His grandfather was the deacon of a Baptist church.

In his 2004 memoir, "Maybe You Never Cry Again," Mac wrote about having a poor childhood — eating bologna for dinner — and a strict, no-nonsense upbringing.

"I came from a place where there wasn't a lot of joy," Mac told the AP in 2001. "I decided to try to make other people laugh when there wasn't a lot of things to laugh about."

Mac's mother died of cancer when he was 16. In his book, Mac said she was a support for him and told him he would surprise everyone when he grew up.

"Woman believed in me," he wrote. "She believed in me long before I believed."

BREAKING NEWS= Bernie Mac Dies at 50

RIP brother bernie. You'll be truly missed.

Madame Gautreau Drinking A Toast

New York Times Attempts to Define and Dictate Black Politics

blackagendareport.com - New York Times Attempts to Define and Dictate Black Politics

The Sunday magazine of the nation's most influential newspaper predicts that Black politics as we know it is headed for extinction, that Barack Obama's "brand of ‘race-neutrality' shows Black politics is obsolete, and should be abandoned." Of course, that's wishful thinking from a hostile quarter, based on assumptions that all Black politics is electoral, Blacks are becoming more conservative, and a generational crisis deeply divides Black America - none of which is true. However, Blacks have been set up for a fall. "To the extent that African Americans expect more from Barack Obama than they got from Bill Clinton, they will be devastatingly disappointed."

African women risking health by bleaching skin

La Reyna's Journal: African women risking health by bleaching skin

In a sad story that shows that black women all over the world are dealing with self esteem and beauty issues women in Uganda are putting their health at risk by bleaching their skin in an attempt to be more "beautiful". This has become such a problem that the government has now banned some bleaching creams and lotions. This story features a very sad a telling quote.

Consumers of bleaching cosmetics claim that they want to enhance their beauty. One woman who declined to be named, explains, “One has to look good, by having fair, lighter skin.” Read the entire story by clicking the link below:

http://www.letstalkhonestly.com/blacknewsblackviews.html

UN Chief Calls for the End of Bias Against Gays

The Bilerico Project | UN Chief Calls for the End of Bias Against Gays

The United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, along with other international leaders, 189161-Ki-moon.jpgis calling for an end to homophobic bias and its effects on the treatment and prevention of HIV/AIDS around the world. In an address to the International AIDS Conference, Mexico City, Ki-moon said:

I call on politicians around the world to speak out against discrimination and protect the rights of people living with and affected by HIV, for schools to teach respect, for religious leaders to preach tolerance, and for the media to condemn prejudice in all its forms.

He went on to say discrimination that against men who have sex with men must end, and countries must gear up prevention programs against AIDS in this high-risk group. Margaret Chan, director general of the World Health Organization, said health officials in all nations- including the United States- need to acknowledge setbacks in a group that pioneered the earliest response to the disease.

African women risking health by bleaching skin

In a sad story that shows that black women all over the world are dealing with self esteem and beauty issues women in Uganda are putting their health at risk by bleaching their skin in an attempt to be more "beautiful". This has become such a problem that the government has now banned some bleaching creams and lotions. This story features a very sad a telling quote.

Consumers of bleaching cosmetics claim that they want to enhance their beauty. One woman who declined to be named, explains, “One has to look good, by having fair, lighter skin.” Read the entire story by clicking the link below:

http://www.letstalkhonestly.com/blacknewsblackviews.html

Iraq wants the U.S. out...

Iraqi Public Opinion on the Presence of US Troops - World Public Opinion

July 30, 2008

Testimony of Dr. Steven Kull
Director, Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA),
University of Maryland
Director, WorldPublicOpinion.org

July 23, 2008 - 2:00 PM

Before House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight

Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Bill Delahunt: And next we have Dr. Steven Kull, the director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes testified during the kickoff in the wrap-up hearing for our hearings -- our inquiry, rather, into how the United States is viewed by the rest of the world.

I don't have the time to list his various expert qualifications as a pollster, because he has just one that counts to most the me: There's nobody that we trust more to interpret polling and focus groups results for us, and today he will address and educate us on Iraqi opinion about the issues surrounding the U.S.-Iraq agreement: timetables, withdrawals, sovereignty and the presence of U.S. forces.

Thank you again, Steve, for joining us.... Dr. Kull, would you please proceed?

David Yeagley Is Back With More Twisted Elitism...is he the real face of First Nations Conservatism?

David Yeagley's BadEagle.com

White Woman Down
by David Yeagley

White women are destroying America. “White trash” women are polluting America with interracial sex of every grade, producing children with impossible identities and crippled self-esteem, and these women are doing it all in the name of charity, equality, or survival.

On FrontPageMagazine.com, I published an article on May 18, 2001 entitled “What’s Up with White Women?” It proved to be my most quoted article, beginning with authors like Pat Buchanan, Robert Spencer, and a host of bloggers. That article called attention to the fact that many American white women have lost respect and confidence in the country. I quoted the Cheyenne proverb, “A nation is never conquered until the hearts of its women are on the ground.”

Luiz Ramirez, criminal trespasser, unmarried baby-maker,
accidently killed by white teen-agers in Shenandoah, PA.
- Dr. David Yeagley:

But I didn’t take it far enough. The proclivity of white women for interracial marriage in this country is worse than most people realize. Never mind the forced images of white women with black men in the media. What’s happening in the street?

Lower income white women are making a mockery of America.

Take the recent case in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, a small coal mining town. Headlines were all about a hate crime where white teenagers accidentally killed a Mexican immigrant. “PA Teens Charged with Fatal Beating of Immigrant,” as ABC put it, July 25, 2008. The “immigrant” was, of course, an illegal Mexican, among many who have invaded the small town. The 25-year-old Mexican was with a teen-aged (white?) girl from the town, and the teen-aged boys who attacked him were white.

Saskatoon police charge man after woman's remains found

Saskatoon police charge man after woman's remains found

Police in Saskatoon have charged a man after finding the remains of a woman who has been missing for four years.Daleen Bosse was attending university in Saskatoon when she disappeared in 2004. Daleen Bosse was attending university in Saskatoon when she disappeared in 2004. (CBC)

The remains belong to Daleen Kay Bosse, a member of the Lloydminster-area Onion Lake First Nation, who was 25 when she went missing in 2004, the Saskatoon Police Service said.

At the time of her disappearance, Bosse had been living in Saskatoon with her husband and three-year-old daughter, and attending university. She was last seen leaving a Saskatoon nightclub on May 18, 2004.

Douglas R. Hales, 30, of White Fox, Sask., has been charged with first-degree murder. He's also charged with interfering with a dead body.

Hales was arrested on Saturday and appeared briefly in Saskatoon provincial court before being remanded into custody. People in the packed courtroom cried out when the Crown prosecutor said it's alleged that Bosse's body had been set on fire.

More than 'Shaft': Hayes was goldmine of influence

More than 'Shaft': Hayes was goldmine of influence - NewsCloud.com

Isaac Hayes' theme song for the 1971 movie "Shaft" not only became one of pop music's iconic songs, but also the defining work of Hayes' career. Yet the "Theme from Shaft" was just a snippet of the groundbreaking music for which Hayes - who died Sunday at age 65 - was responsible.

Two Latinos guilty in hate crime assault

Two guilty in hate crime assault - SGVTribune.com

POMONA - Two reputed gang members are facing multiple life sentences for the attempted murders of two black victims based on their race, officials said Friday.

Bobby Perez, 22, of Hacienda Heights, and Jonathan Carrion, 21, of Baldwin Park, were convicted by a Pomona Superior Court jury on Friday of two counts each of attempted premeditated murder with special gang and hate crime allegations, El Monte police Detective Ralph Batres said.

The verdicts stem from a June 16, 2007, incident in which Perez and Carrion - members of the El Monte Flores gang - joined six to seven other fellow gang members and assaulted four mentally handicapped clients of the Bridges facility on Elliott Avenue in El Monte, Batres said.

The clients were coming back from a nearby Pizza Hut when they were attacked. Two of the unidentified victims, who were black, were stabbed in the back. A third Hispanic victim was kicked and a fourth Caucasian victim was also beat, Batres said.

Witnesses told police the group of men were yelling out the El Monte Flores gang name and racial slurs during the attack.

The victims identified Perez and Carrion as the suspects who stabbed the two black victims, Batres said.

All of the victims eventually recovered from their injuries, he said.

In addition to the attempted murder verdicts, Carrion and Perez were also convicted on one count each of assault with a deadly weapon with special gang and hate crime allegations, and one count each of
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felony battery also with special gang and hate crime allegations, Batres said.

They face multiple life terms when they are sentenced on Aug. 21.

Broken Justice in Indian Country

Op-Ed Contributor - Broken Justice in Indian Country - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com

ONE in three American Indian women will be raped in their lifetimes, statistics gathered by the United States Department of Justice show. But the odds of the crimes against them ever being prosecuted are low, largely because of the complex jurisdictional rules that operate on Indian lands. Approximately 275 Indian tribes have their own court systems, but federal law forbids them to prosecute non-Indians. Cases involving non-Indian offenders must be referred to federal or state prosecutors, who often lack the time and resources to pursue them.

The situation is unfair to Indian victims of all crimes — burglary, arson, assault, etc. But the problem is greatest in the realm of sexual violence because rapes and other sexual assaults on American Indian women are overwhelmingly interracial. More than 80 percent of Indian victims identify their attacker as non-Indian. (Sexual violence against white and African-American women, in contrast, is primarily intraracial.) And American Indian women who live on tribal lands are more than twice as likely to be raped or sexually assaulted as other women in the United States, Justice Department statistics show.

May I Be Offended on Your Behalf?

May I Be Offended on Your Behalf? at Racialicious - the intersection of race and pop culture

All of us who suffer inequalities related to race hope that one day the mainstream will “get it.” We want them to get institutional bias. We want them to get the nuances between funny and offensive. We want them to get their own privilege. We want them to get our cultural differences, while also getting that we are individuals apart from cultural markers.We want them to understand these things, but there is a fine line between developing an awareness of bias and arrogantly believing that you are so enlightened that you “get” all there is to know about being a person of color. If I am honest, I want white people to “get it,” but I don’t want them thinking they “get it” better than me–a black woman who actually lives with race bias.

what would ella baker do

this person's haul: what would ella baker do

After reading I've Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition & The Mississippi Freedom Struggle and getting to know Ella Baker substantially for the first time, I decided to read the most recent and promising biography on her, Ella Baker & the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision. I wanted to find out as much as I could about the process of her life, how she got involved, and the ways in which she worked. 100 pages in, it's a great biography so far.

Issac Hayes, RIP

Rest in Peace, Issac Hayes

___________________________________________________________________

ISSAC HAYES DIES AT 65

Isaac Hayes, the pioneering singer, songwriter and musician whose relentless "Theme From Shaft" won Academy and Grammy awards, died Sunday afternoon, the Shelby County Sheriff's Office said. He was 65.

A family member found him unresponsive near a treadmill and he was pronounced dead an hour later at Baptist East Hospital in Memphis, according to the sheriff's office. The cause of death was not immediately known.

In the early 1970s, Hayes laid the groundwork for disco, for what became known as urban-contemporary music and for romantic crooners like Barry White. And he was rapping before there was rap.

His career hit another high in 1997 when he became the voice of Chef, the sensible school cook and devoted ladies man on the animated TV show "South Park."

Steve Shular, a spokesman for the sheriff's office, said authorities received a 911 call after Hayes' wife and young son and his wife's cousin returned home from the grocery store and found him collapsed in a downstairs bedroom. A sheriff's deputy administered CPR until paramedics arrived.

"The treadmill was running but he was unresponsive lying on the floor," Shular said.
The album "Hot Buttered Soul" made Hayes a star in 1969. His shaven head, gold chains and sunglasses gave him a compelling visual image.

"Hot Buttered Soul" was groundbreaking in several ways: He sang in a "cool" style unlike the usual histrionics of big-time soul singers. He prefaced the song with "raps," and the numbers ran longer than three minutes with lush arrangements.

"Jocks would play it at night," Hayes recalled in a 1999 Associated Press interview. "They could go to the bathroom, they could get a sandwich, or whatever."

Next came "Theme From Shaft," a No. 1 hit in 1971 from the film "Shaft" starring Richard Roundtree.

"That was like the shot heard round the world," Hayes said in the 1999 interview.
At the Oscar ceremony in 1972, Hayes performed the song wearing an eye-popping amount of gold and received a standing ovation. TV Guide later chose it as No. 18 in its list of television's 25 most memorable moments. He won an Academy Award for the song and was nominated for another one for the score. The song and score also won him two Grammys.

"The rappers have gone in and created a lot of hit music based upon my influence," he said. "And they'll tell you if you ask."

Hayes was elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002.

"I knew nothing about the business, or trends and things like that," he said. "I think it was a matter of timing. I didn't know what was unfolding."

A self-taught musician, he was hired in 1964 by Stax Records of Memphis as a backup pianist, working as a session musician for Otis Redding and others. He also played saxophone.

He began writing songs, establishing a songwriting partnership with David Porter, and in the 1960s they wrote such hits for Sam and Dave as "Hold On, I'm Coming" and "Soul Man."
All this led to his recording contract.

In 1972, he won another Grammy for his album "Black Moses" and earned a nickname he reluctantly embraced. Hayes composed film scores for "Tough Guys" and "Truck Turner" besides "Shaft." He also did the song "Two Cool Guys" on the "Beavis and Butt-Head Do America" movie soundtrack in 1996.

Additionally, he was the voice of Nickelodeon's "Nick at Nite" and had radio shows in New York City (1996 to 2002) and then in Memphis.

He was in several movies, including "It Could Happen to You" with Nicolas Cage, "Ninth Street" with Martin Sheen, "Reindeer Games" starring Ben Affleck and the blaxploitation parody "I'm Gonna Git You, Sucka."

In the 1999 interview, Hayes described the South Park cook as "a person that speaks his mind; he's sensitive enough to care for children; he's wise enough to not be put into the 'whack' category like everybody else in town — and he l-o-o-o-o-ves the ladies."

But Hayes angrily quit the show in 2006 after an episode mocked his Scientology religion. "There is a place in this world for satire, but there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry towards religious beliefs of others begins," he said.

Co-creator creators Matt Stone responded that Hayes "has no problem — and he's cashed plenty of checks — with our show making fun of Christians." A subsequent episode of the show seemingly killed off the Chef character.

Hayes was born in 1942 in a tin shack in Covington, Tenn., about 40 miles north of Memphis. He was raised by his maternal grandparents after his mother died and his father took off when he was 1 1/2. The family moved to Memphis when he was 6.

Hayes wanted to be a doctor, but got redirected when he won a talent contest in ninth grade by singing Nat King Cole's "Looking Back."

He held down various low-paying jobs, including shining shoes on the legendary Beale Street in Memphis. He also played gigs in rural Southern juke joints where at times he had to hit the floor because someone began shooting.

600 gather for funeral of First Nations bus slaying victim

600 gather for funeral of bus slaying victim

Family and friends gathered Saturday afternoon to bid farewell to Tim McLean, 22, who was brutally killed aboard a Greyhound bus just over a week ago near Portage la Prairie, Man.

About 600 mourners packed a church in Winnipeg for the funeral service.

His uncle, Alex McLean, told them that his nephew was "friendly, kind, sweet and caring."

The young man, a travelling carnival worker, loved making new friends on his many journeys, his uncle said.

But "he never left behind the ones he made in high school," McLean said. "His love of his friends was easy to see."

McLean also remembered his nephew's tremendous sense of humour, recalling that the last time he saw him, he was shirtless and flexing his muscles.

"That was your trademark," McLean said.

Before the service began, John Jorgensen, 19, who lived in the same Winnipeg neighbourhood as Tim McLean, remembered him as an "uplifting, positive guy."

"If you were in a bad mood, he would make you in a great mood," Jorgensen said.

McLean grew up in Winnipeg and Elie, Man., with what his obituary describes as "more family than he could shake a stick at."

Bernie Mac, RIP (1957-2008)

Bernie Mac, you'll be truly missed!

My favorite comedian Bernie Mac has died. He was only 50 years old. His jokes about family life has made him famous. He'll be missed by everyone all over the globe.
________________________________________

Comedian and actor Bernie Mac dies at 50


Comedian and actor Bernie Mac, who starred in one of U.S. TV's few black sitcoms and appeared in the "Ocean's 11" movies, died in Chicago on Saturday after a bout with pneumonia. He was 50.

Publicist Danica Smith confirmed the death in a statement but gave no further details. "We ask that his family's privacy continues to be respected," she said.

Reactions poured in from Hollywood, which was taken by surprise because two days ago, Smith said he was "responding well to treatment" and remained in "stable condition."

"The world just got a little less funny. He will be dearly missed," said George Clooney, who starred with Mac in the "Ocean's" trilogy of hit box office films.

Mac was hospitalized in Chicago on August 1, and Smith said then his illness was unrelated to a chronic tissue inflammation called sarcoidosis, which had been in remission since 2005.

The Chicago-born comedian, whose given name was Bernard Jeffrey McCullough, was best known for his TV comedy "The Bernie Mac Show," which ran for five seasons until 2006.
Along with the "Ocean's" capers, he appeared in movies such as comedy "Guess Who" and "Mr. 3000." He recently worked on a new TV show "Starting Under" and an upcoming film "Soul Men."

With his beefy frame and bulging eyes, Mac cut an imposing figure. His scathing comedic observations were inspired by his impoverished childhood in Chicago and honed by years on the stand-up circuit.

"I reflect on my childhood, my young adulthood, the disappointments of life -- the problems I brought on myself, the self-pity I went through before I became a man," he told Playboy magazine in 2003.

ONE OF THE "KINGS OF COMEDY"

Mac achieved national prominence after joining the Kings of Comedy stand-up tour in 1997 with Steve Harvey, D.L. Hughley and Cedric the Entertainer. Tapping into an under-served market of middle-class blacks, the dapper quartet sold out arenas across the country during their annual treks.

In 2000, director Spike Lee shot a hugely profitable documentary about the tour.
The following year, "The Bernie Mac Show" debuted on Fox, drawing from Mac's personal life.

He played a married stand-up comic reluctantly thrust into parenthood when he takes custody of his sister's three children after she enters rehab.

Mac's character often turned to the camera, addressing "America" with such observations as "I hate my loved ones. They make me sick" or "I love my wife, but I hate her (golf) game."

While many contemporary TV dads get cheap laughs by playing clueless, Mac portrayed a level-headed family man unafraid to exert authority. He earned two Emmy nominations for his role.

"Losing him is like losing 12 people because he absolutely filled up any room he was in. I'm gonna miss the Mac Man," said comic actor Chris Rock in a story at E! Online.

Mac was born in Chicago on October 3, 1957, and raised in a tenement. His mother died when he was 15, and his father -- whom he met only a dozen times -- three years later. He credited his grandmother for keeping him grounded.

Married for more than 30 years, Mac largely eschewed Hollywood, choosing to live in Chicago.

He is survived by his wife, a daughter and a granddaughter.
____________________________________________
Rest in peace, Bernie Mac!

Links and Tributes:

Original King Dies- CNN

Bernie Mac bio at Wikipedia

The Bernie Mac Show at IMDB

Bernie Mac Images at Yahoo!

Bernie Mac Tribute at AOL

Movies Bernie Mac Starred In:

Actor Credits

Old Dogs (2009)
Johnny Lunchbox
Soul Men (2008)
Floyd
Ocean's Thirteen (2007)
Frank Catton
Pride (2007)
Elston
Transformers (2007)
Bobby Bolivia
Guess Who (2005)
Percy Jones
Inspector Gadget's Biggest Caper Ever (2005)
Lil' Pimp (2005)
Voice of Fruit Juice
Mr. 3000 (2004)
Stan Ross
Ocean's Twelve (2004)
Frank Catton
The Robin Harris Story: We Don't Die, We Multiply (2004)
Bad Santa (2003)
Gin Slagel
Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003)
Jimmy Bosley
Head of State (2003)
Mitch Gilliam
Ocean's Eleven (2001)
Frank Catton
What's The Worst That Could Happen? (2001)
Uncle Jack Caffrey
The Original Kings of Comedy (2000)
Himself
Life (1999)
Jangle Leg
The Players Club (1998)
Dollar Bill
B.A.P.S. (1997)
Mr Johnson
Booty Call (1997)
Judge Peabody
How to Be A Player (1997)
Buster
Don't Be A Menace To South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood (1996)
Get on the Bus (1996)
Jay
Friday (1995)
Pastor Clever
The Walking Dead (1995)
Ray
Above the Rim (1994)
Flip
House Party 3 (1994)
Uncle Vester
Def Comedy Jam 2 (1993)
Who's the Man? (1993)
G-George
Mo' Money (1992)
Club Doorman
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A Full Bernie Mac Bio:

Stand-up comic and actor Bernie Mac exploded onto the screen with “The Original Kings of Comedy” (2001) after years of working comedy stages in his native Chicago. His edgy and largely autobiographical material about his background and African-American culture fell in step with a new wave of high-profile black comedians like fellow “Kings,” D.L. Hughley and Steve Harvey. And like his “Comedy Kings” co-stars, his hilariously frank material led to Mac’s own successful sitcom, “The Bernie Mac Show” (Fox, 2001-06). An increasing presence on the big screen as well, Mac’s sometimes gruff but always memorable character roles began to give way to more challenging dramatic work. With the feature film, “Pride” (2007), it was clear Mac as artist had the depth and humanity to bring to the table, and was intent on raising the bar of what audiences and critics had come to expect from run-of-the-mill stand-ups-turned-actors. At the same time, Mac was promoting “Pride,” he shocked the comedy world by announcing his retirement from stand-up, devoting himself to screen acting and producing after years of success on the comedy club circuit.

Bernie Mac was born Bernard McCullough on Oct. 5, 1957, in Chicago’s south side neighborhood. He grew up with an extended family — an environment that would provide endless material for his future career as a stand-up comic. Early on, his funny voices and vivid imagination earned him the reputation as the family clown, so under the guidance of a supportive school teacher, Mac started channeling his energy by acting in school plays in fourth grade. Before long, he was soon staging his own productions for neighborhood kids. His first lesson in the controversial nature of comedy came after he performed a dead-on impression of his grandmother for a church audience, receiving a great reception from the audience but punishment at home. When he was not entertaining the south side, the powerful young kid – he would grow to six feet three inches – was hanging out at the recreation center, boxing and playing sports; thriving under an especially encouraging group of coaches and leaders he credited for his drive to succeed. His most inspirational force, his mother, died of cancer when Mac was he was only 16 years old.
Mac took some vocational career training after high school, working as a delivery driver and furniture mover, before returning to the South Central Community center as its athletic director. After hours, he honed his comedy act on the platforms of the El train and at local parks, launching his own weekly variety show at Chicago’s Regal Theater. In 1977, he began hitting the stages on the local comedy circuit, unknowingly beginning a 30-year career as a stand-up comic. For over a decade, Mac developed his edgy style of commentary and endured the grueling lifestyle of the wannabe comic – being away from home and his new wife for nights at a time, performing for little or no money to gain exposure, and dodging the arrows of fickle late night audiences.

Finally, in 1990, Mac started seeing rewards for all of his hard work when he won the Miller Lite Comedy Search. The honor led to unimaginable opportunities, like opening for headliners Dionne Warwick, Redd Foxx and Natalie Cole. He made his feature debut as a club doorman in "Mo' Money" (1992), and guested on the HBO specials, "Rosie Perez Presents Society's Ride" (1993) and "Russell Simmons' Def Comedy Jam" (HBO 1992-97; 2006- ). In 1994, he snared a bit as the ribald Uncle Vester in “House Party 3” and also put together his own "Who Ya Wit Tour," which included a 10-piece band and the five “Mac-A-Roni Dancers.” The following year, HBO thought Mac’s in-your-face persona lent itself to late night programming, but after a month of the network taming down his material, “Midnight Mac” (1995) was cancelled. He knew he wanted to return to TV with a series of his own someday, but he turned his attention back to film work, bulking up his acting resume with appearances as a preacher in "Friday" (1995) and one of the funnier members of the ensemble cast of Spike Lee's "Get on the Bus" (1996). A recurring role in the popular UPN series "Moesha" (UPN, 1996-2001) earned him even more mainstream recognition.

The year 2000 had audiences finally asking, “Who IS this guy?” The hulking frame and bulging-eyed funnyman who had been popping up everywhere, knocked it out of the park, comedically speaking, as part of the “Kings of Comedy” tour. Starring alongside fellow African-American stand-ups Steve Harvey, Cedric the Entertainer and D.L. Hughley, the tour was captured by director Spike Lee and released as the documentary "The Original Kings Of Comedy" (2000). For the first time, millions of viewers got to see what Bernie Mac was all about – hilarious tales of self-deprecation, family life, tough love, and the etymology of his favorite curse word. The documentary was a smash, earning over $38 million at the box office, and Mac seemed closer than ever to his dream of landing his own show. He had been developing a sitcom idea based on the real life experience of raising his sister’s three children while she was in rehab. His re-telling of the tale in “Kings of Comedy” was enough to convince producers at Fox, who signed on for "The Bernie Mac Show" in 2001.

In his self-titled sitcom, Mac played the husband of a professional, childless couple who suddenly become guardians of his sister's three children. Risky and outrageously funny for Mac’s often politically incorrect ideas of child rearing, the show also incorporated a creative twist – Mac regularly breaking the fourth wall and addressing the audience directly. These pieces were a way to incorporate his material into the show, and his character’s career as a stand-up comic was also a way to incorporate real life comedians and actors into the show as guests. The show earned a Peabody Award, an Emmy for writing, and honored Mac’s acting with several Golden Globe nominations and four NAACP Image Awards. The departure of key creative personnel and Mac's burgeoning film career caused “The Bernie Mac Show” to recede into the background – to say nothing of moving the series into no less than 12 different timeslots, vexing even the most loyal viewers – and production was slowed when Mac came down with a bout of double pneumonia. The show was finally cancelled in 2006.

During the lifespan of "The Bernie Mac Show," Mac made regular appearances on the big screen, stating in interviews that he held classic films and classic values seriously; that he did not want to take part in films with gratuitous sex and violence, preferring more quality, offbeat, films. In 2001, he co-starred as one of the 11 casino robbers in "Ocean's Eleven" (2001), bringing comic relief to Steven Soderbergh's crime caper piece and the subsequent sequels, “Ocean’s Twelve” (2004) and “Ocean’s 13” (2007). He supported fellow comedian Chris Rock in the misguided flop, "Head of State," (2003) and stepped into the role of TV’s Bosley in "Charlie's Angels 2" (2003), before taking on the weirdly hilarious role of a chain-smoking, vitamin C-craving, department store detective in the cynical Christmas comedy "Bad Santa" (2003). After supporting a number of A-listers, Mac took on his first starring role with the well-received "Mr. 3000" (2004), playing an aging major leaguer whose hit record is revoked after retirement, inspiring him to return to the game to reclaim his title. He teamed with Ashton Kutcher in "Guess Who?" (2005), a broad-comedy reversal of "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?" but threw critics for a loop with his impressive turn in the drama “Pride.” In the “Rocky”-like (1976) take on swim meets, Mac revisited his past by playing a municipal worker at a recreation center that housed an inspirational sports program.

While promoting “Pride” in March of 2007, Mac appeared on “Late Night With David Letterman” (CBS, 1993- ) and announced that he would retire from doing stand-up comedy after he completed filming “The Whole Truth, Nothing But the Truth, So Help Me Mac” in the fall of that year. His announcement was met by saddened fans who had hoped to still catch him on a stage or cable special in the future. But Mac insisted he needed a “real life,” choosing instead, to focus on films and producing TV programs.

Part of the pull toward retirement was due to wanting to spend time with his family. Married to wife Rhonda McCullough since 1970, the couple had one daughter, Je’Niece, who was earning a Masters degree in mental health counseling. On his own health front, Mac suffered from a tissue inflammation disease called sarcoidosis, which thankfully did not affect his daily life. In addition to his work onscreen, Mac was also a successful author, with his tomes I Ain't Scared of You: Bernie Mac on How Life Is (2001) and the memoir Maybe You Never Cry Again (2003) to his credit.

Also Credited As:
Bernard Jeffery McCullough
Born:
October 5, 1958 in Chicago, Illinois
Job Titles:
Actor, Comedian, UPS agent, Bread delivery sales rep, Furniture mover

Family
Daughter: Je'Niece McCullough. born c. 1978; has a Masters Degree in Mental Health Counseling
Significant Others
Wife: Rhonda McCullough. married c. 1977

Education: Chicago Vocational High School, Chicago, Illinois, 1976

Milestones

1990 Won the Miller Lite Comedy Search
1992 Feature film debut, bit part in "Mo' Money"
1994 Produced and starred in the comedy act, "Who Ya Wit Tour"
1995 Appeared in a supporting role in the feature "Friday"
1995 Had one-month comedy series on HBO, "Midnight Mac"
1996 Played recurring role on the UPN comedy series "Moesha"
1996 Was in ensemble cast of Spike Lee's "Get on the Bus"
1997 Had supporting roles in "B.A.P.S" and "How to Be a Player"
2000 Was featured in Spike Lee's documentary film "The Original Kings of Comedy"
2001 Headlined own TV sitcom "The Bernie Mac Show"; earned Emmy (2002, 2003), Golden Globe (2003, 2004) and SAG (2003) nominations for Best Actor in a Comedy
2001 Acted in Steven Soderbergh's"Ocean's Eleven" a remake of the 1960 heist film
2001 Co-starred as a fence in the Martin Lawrence-Danny DeVito comedy "What's the Worst That Could Happen?"
2003 Co-starred as Chris Rock's big brother and presidential running mate in " Head of State"
2003 Played Bosley in the comedy sequel "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle"
2004 Reunited with the original cast for "Ocean's Twelve" directed by Steven Soderbergh
2004 Starred as an aging baseball star who retuns to baseball to reach his goal of 3,000 hits in "Mr. 3000"
2005 Co-starred with Ashton Kutcher in the comedy "Guess Who," loosely based on the 1967 film "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
2007 Announced retirement from standup comedy; will continue producing, and acting in films
2007 Cast in director Michael Bay's live action film "Transformers"
2007 Re-teamed with the original cast for "Ocean's 13"
Became opening act for Redd Foxx, Dionne Warwick and Natalie Cole, among others
Began appearing in nightclubs in the Chicago area
Participated in "The Kings of Comedy" tour

David Yeagley Is At It Again

David Yeagley is at it again with his racist/sexist rant.
I'm so sick and tired of Mr. David Yeagley, fake Indian, ranting about Blacks and women. Here's a sicko article on White women and Interracial relationships:

"White Woman DownA Case of Depression

'White Woman Downby David Yeagley
White women are destroying America. “White trash” women are polluting America with interracial sex of every grade, producing children with impossible identities and crippled self-esteem, and these women are doing it all in the name of charity, equality, or survival. On FrontPageMagazine.com, I published an article on May 18, 2001 entitled “What’s Up with White Women?” It proved to be my most quoted article, beginning with authors like Pat Buchanan, Robert Spencer, and a host of bloggers. That article called attention to the fact that many American white women have lost respect and confidence in the country. I quoted the Cheyenne proverb, “A nation is never conquered until the hearts of its women are on the ground.”But I didn’t take it far enough. The proclivity of white women for interracial marriage in this country is worse than most people realize. Never mind the forced images of white women with black men in the media. What’s happening in the street?Lower income white women are making a mockery of America.Take the recent case in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, a small coal mining town. Headlines were all about a hate crime where white teenagers accidentally killed a Mexican immigrant. “PA Teens Charged with Fatal Beating of Immigrant,” as ABC put it, July 25, 2008. The “immigrant” was, of course, an illegal Mexican, among many who have invaded the small town. The 25-year-old Mexican was with a teen-aged (white?) girl from the town, and the teen-aged boys who attacked him were white. Luiz Ramirez, criminal trespasser, unmarried baby-maker,accidently killed by white teen-agers in Shenandoah, PA.The six-year illegal also had what the report calls a “fiancée,” a white woman, Crystal Dillman, a native of Shenandoah. The “couple” has already had two children, and Dillman brought in a third from another relationship. This is total degradation. No marriage, just children—interracial children, with improvident social circumstances. White women like Dillman have no respect, no values, and no future. Just relation after relation. Child after child. Oh, sure, the media presents the “couple” as a fine, upstanding American family. “Father of two,” it calls the criminal Mexican trespasser. But words like “father” and “mother” do not apply to this kind of situation. That is a misapplication of words. That is a usurpation of meaning—something media has become expert at, in promoting liberal, anti-American social values. “Fiancée?” Is that supposed to legitimize the adulterous relationship and the bastard children of the depressed white girl and the foreign, criminal trespasser? Of course, the town officials are happy to make as big a national story as possible, as is the government. The FBI is now involved. (Why weren’t they involved in ridding the town of the illegal Mexicans in the first place? That’s what they’re supposed to do. It is an international crime to enter another country illegally, is it not?) The Mexican/Latino advocacy groups are of course eating it up. It is a grand opportunity for them. The media, the Mexicans, and the liberals, will all have a grand frenzied fest out of it. But the real story is about how “white trash” women can destroy a community with their aimless pregnancies. Worse, these pregnancies are all about “saving the world.”This is the “white woman savior” syndrome BadEagle.com has noted before (April 27, 2003). (In fact, I hinted at it in early 2002, on another FrontPageMagazine.com article, “What’s Up With Dark Men?”) It’s about lower class (and sometimes higher class) women using sex as a savior for dark men. Or, it could be the Freudian explanation that people naturally feel sex is “dirty,” so white skin makes it seem less dirty. Who knows?In Sioux Falls, South Dakota, I’ve seen this dynamic work in unexpected ways. There were over 50 social service agencies in downtown Sioux Falls just a year ago. Street level social workers, white women, get churches behind them, financially, and they bring over boat loads of Africans, Middle Easterners, and sometimes Asians (—though the latter is usually a little above that). Mostly males! What happens? The dark men find the “white trash” women, and start making babies right a way. Share the wealth. That is, share the welfare. These kind of white women are the ruination of American society. They are destroying it from the bottom up. What’s the solution? Mass sterilization? Why are these “white trash” women allowed to fall into this condition? Are they hopelessly craven for the dark man? Are they completely morally abandoned? The white race in imperiled, for sure. And that means everyone else. That means the whole country.'"

How disgusting and low can this idiot go! He shouldn't be get away with such nonsense.

Hatred Was the Motivation Behind Church Shooting

http://kathmanduk2.wordpress.com/2008/07/28/hatred-said-to-motivate-tennessee-shooter/

Thank you, Ann!

Planned film on Haitian Revolution "lacks white heroes"

La guayabita: Planned film on Haitian Revolution "lacks white heroes"

"US actor Danny Glover, who plans an epic next year on Haitian independence hero Toussaint-Louverture, said he slaved to raise funds for the movie because financiers complained there were no white heroes.

"Producers said 'It's a nice project, a great project... where are the white heroes?'" he told AFP during a stay in Paris this month for a seminar on film. "I couldn't get the money here, I couldn't get the money in Britain. I went to everybody. You wouldn't believe the number of producers based in Europe, and in the States, that I went to," he said. "The first question you get, is 'Is it a black film?' All of them agree, it's not going to do good in Europe, it's not going to do good in Japan."

"U.S.'s neglect in narcotics war is obvious," Dominican drug czar says

"U.S.'s neglect in narcotics war is obvious," Dominican drug czar says - DominicanToday.com

Santo Domingo.- The Executive Branch's adviser on drugs Marino Vinicio Castillo, reiterated his criticism of the U.S. for the limited assistance he said it gives the Dominican Republic in the war on drug trafficking.

He said in a comparison between the Clinton and Bush administrations on the logistical support provided to Caribbean nations to tackle drugs, “the current U.S. government’s neglect is obvious.”

As an example he said Plan Merida, in which the U.S. gives US$500 million to Mexico and Central America to fight drug cartels, organized crime and human trafficking, but donates only US$2.5 million to Dominican Republic and Haiti for the same effort.

He also criticized the country's Judiciary because they allegedly work very little in the Government's war on drug trafficking. "In this period there have been more than 39,000 drug charges filed and there’s not even one percent is being prosecuted.”

Obama's Private Prayer 'Leaked'

Obama's Private Prayer 'Leaked' - TIME

Senator Barack Obama probably thought that the prayer he penned in the solitude of his King David Hotel room in Jerusalem would remain between him and the Almighty. But an Orthodox Jewish student had other ideas.

Following Jewish tradition, Obama donned a yarmulke and went to the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site, where shortly before dawn on Thursday he stuffed his prayer into a crevice between the giant white stones, hewn more than 2,000 years ago. Traditionally such prayers — and there are more than a million each year, some arriving by fax and e-mail — are collected twice a year and buried on the Mount of Olives. It is considered taboo to read the prayers.

But after Obama and his entourage left the sacred site, an orthodox seminary student went to the Wall, fished out Obama's personal note and delivered it to Maariv newspaper, which duly printed the Senator's prayer.

"Lord, protect my family and me," Obama wrote. "Forgive me my sins and
help me guard against pride and despair. Give me the wisdom to do what
is right and just. And make me an instrument of your will."

The newspaper's decision to publish Obama's private words was "an outrage," said Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, supervisor of the Western Wall. "It damages the personal, deep part of every one of us that we keep to ourselves," the rabbi told Army Radio. "The note placed between the stones of the Western Wall are between a person and his maker. It is forbidden to read them or make use of them."

Far-right White Supremacist Steve Sailer a "source" for CNN's "Black In America"

Steve Sailer Sucks: Steve Sailer on SPLC and Media

Steve Sailer is making coverage again with the Southern Poverty Law Center and Media Matters.

SPLC: Extremist Steve Sailer is Source for CNN’s ‘Black in America’ Series

MM: McLaughlin echoes smear of Michelle Obama: "You don't think she's a black militant?"

Yeah, yeah, we know how you are trying to make this another in-your-face tactic by congratulating Steve Sailer for making media coverage. Celebrate all you want for now, but keep in mind your hateful writings and coverage of them will be permanently etched in the internet, Steve Sailer. Your digital footprints continue to mount and will only get you in more trouble in the future.

Church Gunman Brought 76 Shells and Expected to Use Them

ABC News: Church Gunman Hated Gays, Liberals

The gunman who yesterday shot up a Tennessee church that embraced gays and other liberal causes left behind a long letter fuming that he couldn't find a job and expressing a profound "hatred for the liberal movement," police said today. Jim D. Adkisson, 58, ranted that "liberals and gays" taking jobs had
prevented him from finding work. He wrote that he expected to keep
shooting parishioners until the police showed up and killed him,
Knoxville, Tenn., Police Chief Sterling Owen told a news conference.

Radyo-Inteligentaindigena-07-26-2008

Internet Archive: Details: Radyo-Inteligentaindigena-07-26-2008

Transmitting from within the occupied Aboriginal territories of North America for Radio Free First Nations, this is Radyo Inteligentaindigena for 04.09.2008

This Dispatch: The Issue of AIDS, HIV and genocide against Indigenous populations is the topic in the first of an ongoing series on Modern Indigenous genocide.

These items, Fourth World news and more on Radyo Inteligentaindigena, the podcast of the Intelligent Aboriginal news service.

Be an Intelligent Aboriginal and subscribe to our handy dandy Internet Radio Broadcast/Podcast RSS/XML feed here or you can directly download this episode's MP3 file by following this link...

-----------------------------------------

The Radyo Inteligentaindigena Internet radio broadcast is hosted by the Internet Archive -----------------------------------------

*Special thanks to the lovely people of Dance-Industries, the best copyleft music on the www and the Creative Commons licensed sounds of Jamendo, Protest Records and CC Mixter.

17 BOMB BLASTS ROCK AHMEDABAD, 29 DEAD

17 BOMB BLASTS ROCK AHMEDABAD, 29 DEAD

Ahmedabad/New Delhi: A day after India’s IT city Bangalore was hit by nine low-intensity blasts, 17 similar explosions rocked Ahmedabad on Saturday evening, killing 28 people and injuring over 100 others.

All bombs were reportedly planted on bicycles and went off within span of 70 minutes of each other - between 1830 hrs IST and 1940 hrs IST - in various parts of the city.

Most of the blasts were reported from eastern Ahmedabad, in the upper-middle-class dominated areas of Bapu Nagar, Amraiwadi, Sarangpur, Jawahar Nagar, Narol Circle, Sarkhej, Isanpur and Haksar.

South African NIA engaged in surveillance operation against ANC and its leadership

July 28, 2008 -- EARLY EDITION -- South African NIA engaged in surveillance operation against ANC and its leadership - Wayne Madsen Report

South African intelligence spies on African National Congress President Jacob Zuma, the prospective next President of South Africa.

China’s Colonizing Africa, While We Talk Charity

China’s Colonizing Africa, While We Talk Charity | Intercontinental Cry

“From Nigeria in the north, to Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Angola in the west, across Chad and Sudan in the east, and south through Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique,” writes Andrew Malone, “China has seized a vice-like grip on a continent which officials have decided is crucial to the superpower’s long-term survival.”

In fact, it would seem China’s following the same model that Britain first employed to colonize Africa; particularly that expressed by the highly respected and equally racist cousin of Charles Darwin, Sir Francis Galton, just over 130 years ago.

In an 1873 letter to The Times, Galton wrote, ‘My proposal is to make the encouragement of Chinese settlements of Africa a part of our national policy, in the belief that the Chinese immigrants would not only maintain their position, but that they would multiply and their descendants supplant the inferior Negro race.’

‘I should expect that the African seaboard, now sparsely occupied by lazy, palavering savages, might in a few years be tenanted by industrious, order-loving Chinese, living either as a semidetached dependency of China, or else in perfect freedom under their own law.’

With over 750,000 Chinese settling in Africa over the past ten years, and suggestions that anywhere up to 300 million will need to be sent in the future (to offset over-population and pollution), Malone says that Galton’s vision of a colonized Africa is now coming to pass.

Dead Black Man Was Tasered Nine Times by White Cop

Dead Black Man Was Tasered Nine Times by White Cop | PEEK | AlterNet

A 21 year old black man in Winnfield, Louisiana, named Baron "Scooter" Pikes, was tasered 9 times in 14 minutes by a white police officer in January after he was arrested and handcuffed. He died. Seems a tad excessive to me. However, here's the story of his arrest and subsequent death according to the police report by the arresting officers:

[Police Officer] Nugent spotted Pikes walking along the street and attempted to arrest him on an outstanding warrant for drug possession, according to Police Chief Johnny Ray Carpenter. Pikes took off running, but another officer cornered him outside a nearby grocery store. Pikes resisted arrest and Nugent subdued him with a shock from a Taser.

Then on the way to the police station, Carpenter told the newspaper, Pikes fell ill and told the officers he suffered from asthma and was high on crack cocaine and PCP. The officers called for an ambulance, but Pikes later died at the hospital.

So Mr. Pikes was high on PCP, crack cocaine and had a serious asthma condition? That poor man was seriously messed up if he smoked crack and took PCP with an existing asthma condition. The again, perhaps we should take a look at what the subsequent autopsy report by the Parish Coroner found:

An autopsy determined there were no drugs in Pikes' system and that he did not have asthma, according to Dr. Randolph Williams, the Winn Parish coroner.

China: Bloggers take stand against web activist’s arrest

Global Voices Advocacy » China: Bloggers take stand against web activist’s arrest

Following his apprehension last month as he was pitching in with the earthquake relief in his native Sichuan province, web activist Huang Qi was this weekend formally arrested for “illegal possession of state secrets”.

Volunteers at his well-known website 64Tianwang.com (English) have been actively posting all news coverage and details surrounding Huang’s case, but the campaign to have his charges dropped gained a lot more momentum when, following his formal arrest on Friday afternoon, three of China’s better-known social issue bloggers, all from Sichuan, Wang Yi, Ran Yunfei and Linghu Buchong*, joined up with two other intellectual-writers, Liao Yiwu and Li Yadong, to take the brave step of issuing a letter of protest. The letter has been posted not just on their own blogs, but also on the more mainstream My1510, IndyMediaCN, among many others.

A Documentary History of Anarchism in Japan

Adrienne Carey Hurley: Submit Your Proposals for a Documentary History of Anarchism in Japan!

Call for Proposal Submissions

PM Press, a new publishing venture launched by the founders of AK Press, is inviting proposals for contributions to a documentary history of anarchism in Japan (title to be determined). Proposals for English translations of previously untranslated primary source material (with introductory or explanatory essays) are especially welcome. Because this book will address anarchism in Japan and not "Japanese anarchists" per se, proposals on topics related to Filipina/o and Korean anarchists living in Japan, for example, are also welcome.

Proposals for the following types of contributions are suggested, but proposals not covered by the descriptions below will also be considered.

Rapper Nas Collects 620,127 Signatures Protesting Fox News’ Coverage of Obama

Breitbart.tv » Rapper Nas Collects 620,127 Signatures Protesting Fox News’ Coverage of Obama

"Fox poisons this country every time they air racist propaganda and try to call it news. This should outrage every American that Fox uses hateful language to talk about the person that may be the first black president."

My

Hi this is George Cook the owner of www.letstalkhonestly.com . I would like to invite you to listen to my interview with Tony Brown the host of the radio "Eyes Open with Tony Brown" which broadcast from KTTP 1110 AM in Louisiana. We talk about the Baron Pikes murder in Winnfield La. Mr. Brown broke the story about the murder of Baron Pikes on his daily morning show in La.

We discuss:

What took so long for the story of Baron Pikes January death to break.

What the US Justice Dept. is doing.

The Winnfield Police department violating it's own procedures when it comes to taser use.
Winnfield police chief Johnny Ray Carpenter.

The history of the officer that allegedly killed Baron Pikes.

The fact that Baron Pikes had no drugs in his system.

And much more about this disturbing case. You can listen to my interview by using the link below:

http://www.letstalkhonestly.com/LTHSpecialReport.html

Newfound genetic clue to HIV rate in blacks

Newfound genetic clue to HIV rate in blacks

(07-16) 09:04 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- An international team of AIDS scientists has discovered that a gene variant common in blacks protects against certain types of malaria but increases susceptibility to HIV infection by 40 percent.

Researchers, keen to find some biological clues to explain why people of African descent are bearing a disproportionate share of the world's AIDS cases, suspect this subtle genetic trait - found in 60 percent of American blacks and 90 percent of Africans - might partly explain the difference.

Ten percent of the world's population lives in sub-Saharan Africa, but that region accounts for 70 percent of the men, women and children living with HIV infection. In the United States, African Americans make up 12 percent of the population but account for half of newly diagnosed HIV infections.

"The cause of this imbalance is not necessarily driven by behavior," said Phill Wilson, founder of the Black AIDS Institute in Los Angeles. "Gay black men do not engage in riskier behavior than gay white men, for example. African people with this gene may have a higher vulnerability."

Based on their analysis, the researchers estimated that this gene variant alone may account for 11 percent of the estimated 25 million HIV infections that have occurred in sub-Saharan Africa - roughly 2.7 million cases.

The gene study was led by Dr. Sunil Ahuja, a professor of infectious diseases at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, and published Wednesday in the journal Cell Host & Microbe.

Latoya Peterson: The Agony of the Tees

The Agony of the Tees at Racialicious - the intersection of race and pop culture

A 25-year-old New York City graduate student is threatening to sue a T-Shirt designer after being assaulted for wearing one of his designs. [Ed Note - The designer of the shirt is pictured above.]

The woman bought a $69 shirt from Apollo Braun’s Manhattan boutique that bore the words, “Obama is my slave.” When she wore the shirt on Tuesday, four teenage girls accosted her - shoving her, pulling out her earphones, and spitting in her face, according to the New York edition of Metro News.

The unnamed woman is reportedly seeking solace by suing Braun - born Doron Braunshtein - for “all he’s got,” the designer claims. He, of course, is shirking any responsibility for the incident and says that the shirt reflects the views of “ordinary WASPs.”

“For a lot of people, when they see Obama, they see a slave. People think America is not ready for a black president,” the Israeli-born designer said.

Let's blame Barack Obama for everything

Wow! Have you heard the new John McCain campaign ad in which it's insinuated that the rising price of gas is somehow Senator Obama's fault? Watch the ad below:

I wish someone had told me that you can just pull something out my !@# and blame Barack Obama a long time ago. Things would have been so much easier.

Well I have made a list of other bad things in recent memory that I intend to blame Senator Obama for. Some you may relate to others you may not but feel free to add your own bad things to the list.

* Hancock ( Hey, Ghost Rider made a lot of money too, bet you ain't dying to see it again are you? )

*Windows Vista ( I would make a comment but I just got a warning message )

*That orange Mountain Dew ( That red one too, yuck! )

*Blade Trinity ( How is Blade going to be a guest star in his own movie ? )

* Reality TV ( Enough said )

* The Pontiac Aztec ( Quite possibly the ugliest vehicle ever made not to serve on a battlefield )

* Black Jelly Beans ( Why do the nasty ones gotta be black ????? )

* The New ECW ( Now ECW stands for Extremely Crappy Wrestling )

*The series ending of the Sorpranos ( WTF )

*Jar Jar Binks ( Let's not and say we did )

*The NY Knicks ( If you can't say anything nice... )

*The Washington Wizards uniforms.( I wonder how many beers the designer had while working? )

*The 4 door Mini Cooper ( blasphemy )

That's it for now but don't worry I'll think of more. See ya....

Let's not forget that our Sisters face their own struggle...with us...

Double Consciousness: NO. You Do Not Have The Right To Grab My Ass

NO. You Do Not Have The Right To Grab My Ass

I am fucking tired of walking through the streets of Oakland and being judged as racist for avoiding groups of black men*. I'm avoiding men of all races throughout the day. Every fucking time I have to walk anywhere, there's always got to be a creepy guy who gives me one of those looks that just forces me to either skip a bus stop or walk on the curb of the street next to the cars whizzing by. I have even taken out of the way detours walking to some of my destinations because I am afraid of being cornered by a man.

So I come out of work today and then I see a group of three black men, at least six feet tall, loitering in a *four foot wide* space between a building and the bus stop bench. If I walk through, I would be forced to squeeze my way through three men. So when I decide instead to make a really obvious detour in front of the bus stop, walking like a damn ballerina on the cub of the street, I hear:

"HEY. Why you walkin' all the way over there?" It was accusatory. It was me being light skinned and supposedly *afraid* of black people. It was obvious by the way he said it, and I get it a lot. I was thinking, fuck, are you kidding me?

Questions of the Month

To all writers and blog fans:

Do you think that men of Color/White women IRs are progressive? Why? Write an essay explaining what that is so.

Also, why are so few White men marrying Black women? Is there a history behind this? Abagond and Ann already wrote an essay regarding this sordid history behind Black women/White men relationships and its poisonous legacy up to this day.


Steph

No, Really: F Obama

The Try-Works » Blog Archive » No, Really: F* Obama

The Hate Motivated Murder of Carol Jenkins

R.I.P., Carol.

Hat tip from Ann. Thanks!

THE CAROL JENKINS SLAYING

Suspect dies before trial in 1968 Martinsville stabbing


On Sept. 16, 1968, a young black woman selling encyclopedias was brutally stabbed to death in the town of Martinsville.

For more than 34 years the murder of Carol Marie Jenkins remained unsolved.

But on May 8, 2002, police arrested Kenneth C. Richmond, a 70-year-old career criminal with a history of bizarre behavior and affiliation with groups such as the Ku Klux Klan.

Investigators said Richmond was implicated in the crime by his daughter, Shirley Richmond McQueen, who witnessed the slaying as a child.

State police detectives, working in a “cold crimes” squad, were led to McQueen by an anonymous letter. When questioned, they said, she finally confirmed what the letter alleged — that as a 7-year-old, she had watched from the back seat of a car as her father and another, still-unidentified man killed Jenkins.

Kenneth C. Richmond shown at left in a 1985 booking photo and at right after his arreest in 2002.
Detectives said they were convinced of McQueen’s story in part because she remembered a key detail which had never been made public — that Jenkins was wearing a yellow scarf.

McQueen, by then 40, reportedly gave Indiana State Police detectives the following account: Jenkins began to flee when she saw the two men running at her. The other man held Jenkins while Richmond grabbed a screwdriver from the front seat in their car and stabbed her, McQueen said she still recalls what her father said when he returned to the car: “She got what she deserved.” When they got home, her father gave her $7 — one dollar for each year of her life — to keep quiet about what she had seen.

Residents of Martinsville were relieved that the suspect in the case had not been a Martinsville resident. At the time of the killing, Richmond lived on a Hendricks County farm and was just passing through Martinsville on the night Carol Jenkins died. Martinsville’s racist reputation was largely based on the Jenkins slaying, though there had been other racial incidents.

But Richmond never went to trial for Jenkin’s murder. He was declared incompetent to stand trial and on Aug. 31, 2002 he died of cancer.

______________________


That hateful comment “She got what she deserved” is just a chilling as the comment uttered by the men in S.C. two years ago. The only difference is that the latter are about to face trial, while the animal back in Indiana died six years ago soon after his arrest. Not only was the animal wasn’t tried until after 2000, but the whole city of Martinsville cover up the murder, letting him get away with it. The police never tried to find the suspect at all.
This degradation of Black women, past and present, must be brought up.

Steph

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have decide to add to her comment with a timeline on Ms. Jenkins’s murder, that she too, may not be forgotten like so many murdered and destroyed black women in America.


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POLICE ARREST MAN IN BRUTAL ‘68 SLAYING

Woman accuses dad in case that marked Martinsville as racist.

Accused: Kenneth C. Richmond, who lives in an Indianapolis nursing home, is led into the Morgan County Courthouse for his initial court appearance on a murder charge. His daughter says Richmond stabbed Carol Jenkins with a screwdriver in downtown Martinsville in 1968. Mike Fender / staff photo
By Bruce C. Smith
Published: May 09, 2002
The Indianapolis Star
MARTINSVILLE, Ind. — A long-held childhood secret might have finally solved the mystery that troubled this community for almost 34 years.
Police say they found the man who killed Carol Jenkins living in an Indianapolis nursing home, implicated by a daughter who described seeing the crime as a 7-year-old from the back seat of a car.

Kenneth C. Richmond, now 70, looked frail and said nothing Wednesday afternoon as he was arrested and taken in shackles into the Morgan County Courthouse. A plea of not guilty to one count of first-degree murder was entered on his behalf. He was held without bond.

Leaders of the Morgan County city, haunted for decades by charges of racism and foot-dragging in the investigation of Jenkins’ slaying, saw vindication in Richmond’s arrest.

“I’m so glad that the guy who did this is not from Martinsville,” said Martinsville City Councilman Harold Stanger. “We’ve had kind of a bad reputation with black people. . . . I’m so glad this is over with.”

Investigators say the story began as Richmond — who was living on a Hendricks County farm, according to court documents — drove through Martinsville on the night of Sept. 16, 1968.

His daughter, Shirley Richmond McQueen, said her father and another man were drunk and filled with racial hatred.

After a silence of more than three decades, she told police she saw her father plunge a screwdriver into the 21-year-old woman’s chest and leave her to die on a rainy sidewalk.

Police said they questioned several other suspects in the years since, all of whom were eventually cleared. Recent efforts at DNA comparisons proved nothing.

But continued publicity stirred the memories and conscience of Richmond’s relatives and prompted them to write an anonymous letter to police in November 2001. It named the former factory worker and farmhand as a suspect.

Another participant in the crime hasn’t been identified.


Moment of relief: Paul Davis, Carol Jenkins’ stepfather, hugs daughter Pat Howard after a news conference announcing an arrest in the slaying. Mike Fender / staff photo
McQueen, now 40, told Indiana State Police detectives that Jenkins began to flee when she saw the two men running at her. The other man held Jenkins while Richmond grabbed a screwdriver from the front seat in their car and stabbed her, according to an affidavit.

McQueen told police she still recalls what her father said when he returned to the car: “She got what she deserved.”

As the men drove away after the killing, McQueen told police, she saw the victim fall, landing on the grass and sidewalk next to a bush.

McQueen said the woman was carrying a suitcase or box, had a scarf around her neck and wore black-frame glasses.

The details, reported by detectives in reports filed in Morgan Superior Court, match evidence from the crime scene on East Morgan Street.

But court-appointed defense attorney Steve Litz said the prosecutor’s case rests on the memories of a child, without the murder weapon or other physical evidence.

Morgan County Prosecutor Steve Sonnega agreed it would not be easy to rely on the eyewitness account of someone so young at the time.

“Obviously,” he said, “you have to build one brick at a time. Why did it take 30-odd years?

A 7-year-old had to grow up, to mature and to have the guts to come forward.”

Jenkins’ family was relieved by the arrest.

“At least I know that my daughter can rest in peace,” said Paul Davis. “I just felt like she was always saying, ‘Daddy, why couldn’t you find out who did it?’ “

Martinsville Mayor Shannon Buskirk and Indiana State Police Superintendent Melvin Carraway said the killing is now thought to have been a chance encounter between strangers — an Indianapolis-area man with a history of violence and a young woman from Rushville working in Martinsville for the day.

They said the arrest should help clear away the insinuations of racism and sloppy police work that have hung over the community for the three decades that the crime has gone unsolved.

“It was a good day for the city of Martinsville,” Buskirk said. “This has attached itself to the city, and it definitely hurt.”


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SUSPECT HAS FACED SIMILAR CHARGES BEFORE

Richmond acquitted of murder, found not guilty of attempted murder due to insanity in ’80s cases.

By Diana Penner
diana.penner@indystar.com
Published: May 09, 2002

For more than three decades, the slaying of 21-year-old Carol Jenkins was a mystery. Now the man accused of killing her is largely an enigma.

Kenneth C. Richmond, now 70, has faced charges of murder and attempted murder.

According to a court document, in 1985, Richmond was acquitted of murder in an Owen County case. In 1987, he was accused of attempted murder and found not guilty by reason of insanity in Florida. He was fixated upon castrating himself and eventually succeeded. He has had mental health and alcohol problems and was involved with the Ku Klux Klan.

Any information about Richmond comes from the court documents; so far, no one who knows him has filled in the gaps by talking about him.

On Sept. 16, 1968, Richmond is accused of being an angry drunk filled with racial hatred who happened to be motoring through Martinsville when he saw a young black woman walking down a street.

That was enough, according to the accusations, to spur Richmond to harass the young woman, spin the car around and, with the help of an unidentified male companion, plunge a screwdriver into her heart.

In the back seat of the car, witnessing the scene, was Richmond’s 7-year-old daughter, Shirley. She said that when they got home, he gave her $7 — one dollar for each year of her life — to keep quiet about what she had seen.

“He said, ‘It was our secret.’ She had not seen her father for 24 years until she visited him three months ago,” according to a court document filed as Richmond was charged.

Not much is known about Richmond and his life for the past 33 years, beyond the few details contained in the probable cause affidavit filed Wednesday. Little was revealed in it about his work history, but a brother told investigators that in September 1968 — the month of Jenkins’ slaying — Richmond worked and lived at the Cash Bottema farming operation in Hendricks County. That’s about 19 miles from Martinsville.

That document also says that from 1954 to 1979, he was married to Ruby Richmond Welch. She declined an interview with The Star but told investigators Richmond abused her and their children and would be violent when he got drunk. Once, she said, he stabbed her.

“She stated that he hated black people in the 1960s,” the affidavit says. “Furthermore, he was always fixated about castrating himself.”

He asked his wife to castrate him, telling her the act would “tame him.” In the mid-1970s, Richmond managed a partial castration; he completed the procedure in 1982.

His half sister, Linnie Shields, told investigators Richmond sent her threatening letters with razor blades in them before she testified against him in the 1985 Owen County murder case. She also declined to speak to a reporter Wednesday.

Richmond was admitted at various times for “self-mutilation and intoxication, including one incident in August 2000, where he attacked a police officer with a knife,” the court document says. There was no information about where that incident took place.

Wednesday, Monrovia attorney Steve Litz was appointed to represent Richmond. Until then, Litz said, he knew about as much about the case as anyone else who might have read newspaper accounts.

Litz said he had had about an hour to speak with his client and didn’t yet know much about his life, such as where he had worked over the years. For about the past year, Richmond has lived at a health care facility, apparently because of mental health problems, Litz said.

He has advised Richmond not to talk to anyone about the case, he said.

So far, Richmond appears to be coping, Litz said.

“I think he’s scared and concerned, which I would imagine are fairly common feelings for anybody who’s been charged with murder, much less anybody who’s 70 years old,” he said.

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VICTIM KNEW DOOR-TO-DOOR JOB CARRIED POTENTIAL DANGER


By Diana Penner
Published: May 09, 2002
The Indianapolis Star
As a teen-ager, Carol Jenkins wanted to move to Chicago and become a fashion model.

The woman’s life, and her dreams, were cut short when she was stabbed to death in Martinsville in 1968.

Instead of a life filled with glamour and beauty, Jenkins’ death became a symbol of violence and ugliness.

Racism, many believed, was the only logical motive. The 21-year-old black woman, pretty and shy, wasn’t robbed or sexually assaulted.

Investigators say racial hatred was indeed the motive. But the man accused of the crime was apparently just passing through, an interloper who solidified the Morgan County city’s reputation as a place where black people were not welcome.

Jenkins was knocking on doors in Martinsville on Sept. 16, 1968, as she and three co-workers — two white men and a 19-year-old black woman — tried to sell encyclopedias. The women were aware of the potential dangers; they had considered buying tear gas guns, according to a newspaper article days after the slaying.

The encyclopedia gig was a fill-in job for Jenkins; she worked full time at the Philco Division of Ford Motor Co., but the plant was idled by a strike.

A 1965 graduate of Rushville High School, Jenkins grew up calling her stepfather “Daddy.”

She was a toddler when Paul Davis married her mother, and she grew up with five half siblings in a close-knit family.

She was shy and polite, Davis has said.

The night she was slain, some men in a car began harassing her. She sought help at the home of Norma and Don Neal, and Norma Neal tried to help Jenkins by driving her around to find her co-workers. When they couldn’t locate them, Jenkins ended up back at the home, and the woman offered to drive Jenkins to her rendezvous spot.

But Jenkins declined, saying she had been a bother long enough.

“That sounds like her,” Davis told The New Yorker magazine in its Jan. 7 issue. “I always felt like she was a very sweet, sort of naive girl. She had a smile for everybody.

“Carol didn’t like imposing on anybody.”

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KEY CLUE LED TO ARREST IN MARTINSVILLE CASE

Carol Jenkins, known as a neat dresser, was wearing a yellow scarf when she was killed.

By Bruce C. Smith
Published: May 12, 2002
The Indianapolis Star
MARTINSVILLE, Ind. — It was Shirley Richmond McQueen’s secret that led detectives to the long-awaited arrest of a suspect in this city’s most notorious killing.

But the Indiana State Police had a secret of their own, and it was key to persuading them that they finally had found the man who stabbed Carol Marie Jenkins on a Martinsville street in September 1968.

Though she was selling encyclopedias door-to-door on a rainy night, the 21-year-old was impeccably dressed. Accounts of the crime routinely mentioned the white cotton turtleneck, olive green wool slacks and brown jacket with a mandarin collar that buttoned in front.

But the yellow scarf found around Jenkins’ neck was something never divulged by the federal, state and local authorities who investigated her death over three decades.

“She was always a neat dresser,” said Jenkins’ stepfather, Paul Davis. “And she wore a lot of scarves.”

The arrest of Kenneth C. Richmond, a 70-year-old resident of an Indianapolis nursing home, brought consolation to Davis and other relatives seeking justice for the cruelty of Jenkins’ slaying.

Martinsville leaders also hoped for vindication in Richmond’s arrest on Wednesday, saying it finally might put to an end the charges of racism and foot-dragging in the local police investigation of the killing.

But for the Indiana State Police, it showed that even the coldest of trails might lead to an arrest.

“Let’s not lose sight that this young lady was murdered 33 years ago, and her family has experienced a lot of pain in not knowing what happened to her,” Indiana State Police Superintendent Melvin Carraway said.

Two years ago, Davis had doubts that his stepdaughter’s killer would find justice. In frustration, he hired a former State Police detective working as a private detective.

About the same time, Carraway assigned the Jenkins case to veteran detectives Maurice “Bud” Allcron and Alan McElroy, part of a cold-case unit formed to renew investigations that have lost momentum.

“I read the summaries of these murders that can be lost in the files,” Carraway said, “and I think what the families must be going through.

“Sometimes I get calls from those families, asking for help. So we have to commit the resources or publicity to find the answers.”

About a year after the renewed investigation, one answer came in an anonymous letter, urging investigators toward Richmond, a career criminal with a history of bizarre behavior and affiliation with groups such as the Ku Klux Klan.

It eventually led Allcron and McElroy to Shirley McQueen, a 40-year-old woman who finally confirmed what the letter alleged — that as a 7-year-old, she had watched from the back seat of a car as her father and another, still-unidentified man killed Jenkins.

She offered key details of what she saw — including the scarf.

That made the crucial difference between McQueen’s story and all the others that Jenkins’ family and the police investigating her death had heard.

Her surviving relatives sometimes received anonymous claims of “witnesses” to the killing, or knowledge of the killers’ identity.

Detectives found one woman who had called Davis only to determine that her information was secondhand.

Another tipster told the family that the murder weapon had been dropped into a buried gasoline tank not far from where Jenkins’ body was found on East Morgan Street.

The fuel tank was excavated, and authorities found a chisel inside. Police immediately said it was not the murder weapon.

Allcron and McElroy interviewed about 150 people, painstakingly eliminating various suspects identified in calls to Davis and other relatives. By last summer, speculation had begun to center again on a former suspect now living in Florida.

Upon learning that, a woman named Connie McQueen sent the letter implicating Richmond.
In December, when detectives finally tracked down the anonymous writer, she said her former sister-in-law, Shirley McQueen, had told family members that she saw her father kill a black woman — an account that Shirley McQueen eventually confirmed.

She remembered, according to police reports, that “the lady was carrying an item that resembled a suitcase or box. She was wearing a scarf around her neck and had black framed glasses.”

Shirley McQueen told investigators that when she and her father got home that night in September 1968, he gave her $7 not to say anything about what had happened.

His admonition: “It was our secret.”