Jacqueline "Jackie" Donahue (1974?-2005)

May the Peace and Blessings of God be upon her.

Do it. Do it now.

Go buy One.Be.Lo's album S.O.N.O.G.R.A.M.

Why?

Why?

Why is One.Be.Lo so disgutingly ill?

Why?

Why did I just call him "disgustingly ill?" I thought you'd never ask.

I'm not even finished listening to his album yet, but from the first five tracks I knew that this is a must have. I had to post about it.

First: A fairly complex rhyme scheme with a rhythmic flow that speeds up or slows down depending on the nature of the song.

Second: The lyrics deliver a double-shot of intelligence gently topped with chill.

Third: Beats are reminescent of the '90s a la A Tribe Called Quest, Urban Thermo Dynamics, De La Soul- but sound fresher than the bills in Jay-Z's wallet.

Throw all that together plus cuts from classic movies such as The Last Dragon (who's the master?!?!?), and I'm Gonna Get You Sucka, and you have one of the first albums of 2005 that might not leave your rotation for a long, long while.

Pursuit of Justice?

France is apparently pushing for Sudanese war crimes cases to be handled by the new International Criminal Court.

Who is standing in the way: the United States of America

What is so wrong with the International Criminal Court?

Why does our government oppose it?

So that Americans "won't be charged in politically motivated schemes?"

Maybe I'm just don't have enough information on the topic, but that sounds like "we don't want to be held accountable to anyone" to me.

As an American citizen, I'm really sick of my country always trying to be supreme- numero uno.
What ever happened to "love thy brother as thyself"?

To anyone who thinks I'm being unpatriotic: God, truth, and justice comes before politics of power. As a descendent of slaves, who were the economic backbone of the United States, I believe it is my duty and obligation to ensure that the unalienable rights endowed by the Creator of all is administered to all, even in the face of my government's misjudgement.

Bueller

Anyone? Anyone?

Mayflower Compact

Did ya'll hear about the Mayflower Compact? Check it out:

http://www.themayflowercompact.org/compact_full.pdf

The organization responsible is The Mayflower Compact Coalition. Their website is

http://www.themayflowercompact.org/

Granted the document basically paraphrases the GOP platform, but here is a simply stated set of goals and principles. You know what they're about, you know where they stand.

We must proactively mold leaders for the future and say to the younger generations "look, this is what needs to be done." Or at the very least, "this is where we have come from, this is where we are, here are the tools to take us where you think we need to go."

I am dissapointed that the last State of the Black Union produced no actual Contract with Black America of any kind. Can someone please tell me what was accomplished? What is the fruit of the sixth annual such meeting?

I have a link to this picture in an earlier post, but since I just learned how to upload photos I figured I'd give it to ya straight.

Thought of the Day...

I'm tired of statistics comparing Blacks and Whites for purposes of illustrating issues in the Black community. I'm not saying they aren't valid and don't have their place, but the United States does not consist solely of Blacks and Whites. Blacks aren't even second in terms of population anymore, we're third. I think that constantly comparing Blacks to Whites subconsciously feeds into White supremacy, because it assumes that "White" is the norm.

For example, (using fabricated statistics) if Blacks have a 50% high school graduation rate compared to Whites having 70%, the implied idea is that Blacks have to catch up to Whites- White, of course, as the standard. However, if we look at Blacks having a 50% high school graduation rate, Latinos 49%, Asians 75%, Whites 70%, Native Americans 55%, etc. we get a spectrum. If we focus on any particular group we should not compare it to another group to determine our goals, we should look to 100%.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that due to our miseducation, we as Blacks in America look at White/Western society as the standard to measure ourselves by, and if we continue to do that we will always be "behind." We we still be the slave seeking to have what the master has.

We need to create an economic base to fuel our own candidates. I LOVE me some Howard Dean, but no benevolent White man is going to be able to address our needs as effectively as someone from our communities, be it upper- middle- or lower-class, urbran or rural, slave descendent or recent immigrant. As long as we don't fund our own candidates, we won't truly have any candidates advancing our best interests.

Mic Check Part Two

Testing, Testing

Cash Rules Everything Around Me

C.R.E.A.M. get the money

Dolla Dolla Bill Ya'll

Testing

Mic Check, Testing Testing

One Two, One Two

Testing, Testing

Is this thing on?

Pardon me as I get the hang of posting pictures to the blog

Four Kings

JTC: Now in Syndication

Guest what children? Join the Cipher is now in syndication. Can you say syndication? I knew you could.

So I'm still learning about all this blog stuff, and I got the site an RSS feed through Feedburner and Feed Shark so now you can get Join the Cipher direct to you! If you have a Yahoo! account you can add Join The Cipher to your My Yahoo! front page.

Big ups to Aaron, Hashim, and the rest of the Hip Hop Bloggers for putting me on.

United States of Bizarro World

Okay, will someone please explain this to me...

President Bush & the Gang said Iraq needed to be invaded because Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and either could use them himself or sell them to someone else, thus endangering the lives of American citizens. Bush even went so far as to demand that Saddam Hussein leave his country and disarm or face "shock & awe."

So, almost two years to day of the Iraq invasion, North Korea (part of the "Axis of Evil" along with Count Chocula, Frankenberry, and Iran) claims that in addtion to the nuclear weapons they already had, they now have MORE nuclear weapons- for the purposes of deterring a U.S. invasion.

Now Condaleeza Rice is talking about sanctions for North Korea.

Sanctions?

How does our government justify the invasion of a sovereign nation which has led to the killing of thousands of innocents and over 1,500 U.S. troops on the basis of protecting citizens from weapons of mass destruction that were never found?

And yet here is North Korea who is boasting to the world of their nuclear arsenal.

Let's Review Bush Administration Logic:

Iraq (Pre-Invasion)
Weapons of Mass Destruction + Brutal dictator + Threat to the region = SHOCK & AWE

Korea
Weapons of Mass Destruction + Brutal dictator + Threat to the region = Sanctions (possibly, but only if talks fail)

Do I think we should invade North Korea? NO! But we shouldn't have invaded Iraq either.

What we have here is a WEAK and INCONSISTENT foreign policy.

Iran appears to be working on becoming a nuclear power as well. Funny how cats was all for the Iraq invasion because they thought it would show other countries that they would be "dealt with" if they didn't listen. Talkin' like "yeah, now the world sees that the U.S. means business!"

Indeed the world does. But the other side of the coin is that other countries aren't going to cower under American threats, and if you wanna talk big game you betta walk big game. Iran's leader said he's ready to put on the battle fatigues and fight to the death himself.

Son, I am telling you...Persia is not Iraq. Our military is stretched as it is. We want no parts of World War III.

Not to give "aid" or "comfort" to the "enemies" or anything like that, but that's pretty gangsta that Iran's leader is ready to get down and dirty himself.

Would our President do that?

African American Youths are Rejecting Army, Military Says (STLtoday)

speaks for itself...

Bush to Recommend Wolfowitz for World Bank (Yahoo! News)

there goes the neighborhood...

Gentlemen, Start Your Engines

It appears the Kweisi Mfume, former President of the NAACP, will be running for the United States Senate in 2006 for the state of Maryland. I don't have any more info other than what's in Yahoo! News but I'm most definitely on top of this one...

Big Ups to Bill Gates

Check out this excerpt from a speech by Bill Gates on the state of U.S. high schools...


Everything Melinda and I do through our foundation is designed to advance equity. Around the world, we believe we can do the most by investing in health – especially in the poorest countries.
Here in America, we believe we can do the most to promote equity through education.

A few years ago, when Melinda and I really began to explore opportunities in philanthropy, we heard very compelling stories and statistics about how financial barriers kept minority students from taking their talents to college and making the most of their lives.

That led to one of the largest projects of our foundation. We created the Gates Millennium Scholars program to ensure that talent and energy meet with opportunity for thousands of promising minority students who want to go to college.

Many of our Scholars come from tough backgrounds, and they could bring you to tears with their hopeful plans for the future. They reinforced our belief that higher education is the best possible path for promoting equality and improving lives here in America.

Yet – the more we looked at the data, the more we came to see that there is more than one barrier to college. There’s the barrier of being able to pay for college; and there’s the barrier of being prepared for it.

When we looked at the millions of students that our high schools are not preparing for higher education – and we looked at the damaging impact that has on their lives – we came to a painful conclusion:

America’s high schools are obsolete.

By obsolete, I don’t just mean that our high schools are broken, flawed, and under-funded – though a case could be made for every one of those points.

By obsolete, I mean that our high schools – even when they’re working exactly as designed – cannot teach our kids what they need to know today.

Training the workforce of tomorrow with the high schools of today is like trying to teach kids about today’s computers on a 50-year-old mainframe. It’s the wrong tool for the times.

Our high schools were designed fifty years ago to meet the needs of another age. Until we design them to meet the needs of the 21st century, we will keep limiting – even ruining – the lives of millions of Americans every year.

Today, only one-third of our students graduate from high school ready for college, work, and citizenship.

The other two-thirds, most of them low-income and minority students, are tracked into courses that won’t ever get them ready for college or prepare them for a family-wage job – no matter how well the students learn or the teachers teach.

This isn’t an accident or a flaw in the system; it is the system.

In district after district, wealthy white kids are taught Algebra II while low-income minority kids are taught to balance a check book!

The first group goes on to college and careers; the second group will struggle to make a living wage.

Let’s be clear. Thanks to dedicated teachers and principals around the country, the best-educated kids in the United States are the best-educated kids in the world. We should be proud of that. But only a fraction of our kids are getting the best education.

Once we realize that we are keeping low-income and minority kids out of rigorous courses, there can be only two arguments for keeping it that way – either we think they can’t learn, or we think they’re not worth teaching. The first argument is factually wrong; the second is morally wrong.

Everyone who understands the importance of education; everyone who believes in equal opportunity; everyone who has been elected to uphold the obligations of public office should be ashamed that we are breaking our promise of a free education for millions of students.

For the sake of our young people and everyone who will depend on them – we must stop rationing education in America.

I’m not here to pose as an education expert. I head a corporation and a foundation. One I get paid for – the other one costs me. But both jobs give me a perspective on education in America, and both perspectives leave me appalled.

When I compare our high schools to what I see when I’m traveling abroad, I am terrified for our workforce of tomorrow. In math and science, our 4th graders are among the top students in the world. By 8th grade, they’re in the middle of the pack.

By 12th grade, U.S. students are scoring near the bottom of all industrialized nations.

We have one of the highest high school dropout rates in the industrialized world. Many who graduate do not go onto college. And many who do go on to college are not well-prepared – and end up dropping out. That is one reason why the U.S. college dropout rate is also one of the highest in the industrialized world. The poor performance of our high schools in preparing students for college is a major reason why the United States has now dropped from first to fifth in the percentage of young adults with a college degree.

The percentage of a population with a college degree is important, but so are sheer numbers. In 2001, India graduated almost a million more students from college than the United States did. China graduates twice as many students with bachelor’s degrees as the U.S., and they have six times as many graduates majoring in engineering.

In the international competition to have the biggest and best supply of knowledge workers, America is falling behind.

That is the heart of the economic argument for better high schools. It essentially says: “We’d better do something about these kids not getting an education, because it’s hurting us.” But there’s also a moral argument for better high schools, and it says: “We’d better do something about these kids not getting an education, because it’s hurting them.”

Today, most jobs that allow you to support a family require some postsecondary education. This could mean a four-year college, a community college, or technical school. Unfortunately, only half of all students who enter high school ever enroll in a postsecondary institution.

That means that half of all students starting high school today are unlikely to get a job that allows them to support a family.

Students who graduate from high school, but never go on to college, will earn – on average – about twenty-five thousand dollars a year. For a family of five, that’s close to the poverty line. But if you're Hispanic, you earn less. If you’re black, you earn even less – about 14 percent less than a white high school graduate.

Those who drop out have it even worse. Only 40 percent have jobs. They are nearly four times more likely to be arrested than their friends who stayed in high school. They are far more likely to have children in their teens. One in four turn to welfare or other kinds of government assistance.

Everyone agrees this is tragic. But these are our high schools that keep letting these kids fall through the cracks, and we act as if it can’t be helped.

It can be helped. We designed these high schools; we can redesign them.

But first we have to understand that today’s high schools are not the cause of the problem; they are the result. The key problem is political will. Elected officials have not yet done away with the idea underlying the old design. The idea behind the old design was that you could train an adequate workforce by sending only a third of your kids to college – and that the other kids either couldn’t do college work or didn’t need to. The idea behind the new design is that all students can do rigorous work, and – for their sake and ours – they have to.

Fortunately, there is mounting evidence that the new design works.

The Kansas City, Kansas public school district, where 79 percent of students are minorities and 74 percent live below the poverty line, was struggling with high dropout rates and low test scores when it adopted the school-reform model called First Things First in 1996. This included setting high academic standards for all students, reducing teacher-student ratios, and giving teachers and administrators the responsibility to improve student performance and the resources they needed to do it. The district’s graduation rate has climbed more than 30 percentage points.

These are the kind of results you can get when you design high schools to prepare every student for college.

At the Met School in Providence, Rhode Island, 70 percent of the students are black or Hispanic. More than 60 percent live below the poverty line. Nearly 40 percent come from families where English is a second language. As part of its special mission, the Met enrolls only students who have dropped out in the past or were in danger of dropping out. Yet, even with this student body, the Met now has the lowest dropout rate and the highest college placement rate of any high school in the state.

These are the kind of results you can get when you design a high school to prepare every student for college.

Two years ago, I visited High Tech High in San Diego. It was conceived in 1998 by a group of San Diego business leaders who became alarmed by the city's shortage of talented high-tech workers. Thirty-five percent of High Tech High students are black or Hispanic. All of them study courses like computer animation and biotechnology in the school's state-of-the-art labs. High Tech High’s scores on statewide academic tests are 15 percent higher than the rest of the district; their SAT scores are an average of 139 points higher.

These are the kind of results you can get when you design a high school to prepare every student for college.

These are not isolated examples. These are schools built on principles that can be applied anywhere – the new three R’s, the basic building blocks of better high schools:

The first R is Rigor – making sure all students are given a challenging curriculum that prepares them for college or work;

The second R is Relevance – making sure kids have courses and projects that clearly relate to their lives and their goals;

The third R is Relationships – making sure kids have a number of adults who know them, look out for them, and push them to achieve.

The three R’s are almost always easier to promote in smaller high schools. The smaller size gives teachers and staff the chance to create an environment where students achieve at a higher level and rarely fall through the cracks. Students in smaller schools are more motivated, have higher attendance rates, feel safer, and graduate and attend college in higher numbers.

Yet every governor knows that the success of one school is not an answer to this crisis. You have to be able to make systems of schools work for all students. For this, we believe we need stable and effective governance. We need equitable school choice. We need performance-oriented employment agreements. And we need the capacity to intervene in low-performing schools.

Our foundation has invested nearly one billion dollars so far to help redesign the American high school. We are supporting more than fifteen hundred high schools – about half are totally new, and the other half are existing schools that have been redesigned. Four hundred fifty of these schools, both new and redesigned, are already open and operating. Chicago plans to open 100 new schools. New York City is opening 200. Exciting redesign work is under way in Oakland, Milwaukee, Cleveland, and Boston.

This kind of change is never easy. But I believe there are three steps that governors and CEOs can take that will help build momentum for change in our schools.

Number 1. Declare that all students can and should graduate from high school ready for college, work, and citizenship. How would you respond to a ninth grader’s mother who said: “My son is bright. He wants to learn. How come they won’t let him take Algebra?” What would you say? I ask the governors and business leaders here to become the top advocates in your states for the belief that every child should take courses that prepare him for college – because every child can succeed, and every child deserves the chance. The states that have committed to getting all students ready for college have made good progress – but every state must make the same commitment.

Number 2. Publish the data that measures our progress toward that goal. The focus on measuring success in the past few years has been important – it has helped us realize the extent of the problem. But we need to know more: What percentage of students are dropping out? What percentage are graduating? What percentage are going on to college? And we need this data broken down by race and income. The idea of tracking low-income and minority kids into dead-end courses is so offensive to our sense of equal opportunity that the only way the practice can survive, is if we hide it. That’s why we need to expose it. If we are forced to confront this injustice, I believe we will end it.

Number 3. Turn around failing schools and open new ones. If we believe all kids can learn – and the evidence proves they can –then when the students don’t learn, the school must change. Every state needs a strong intervention strategy to improve struggling schools. This needs to include special teams of experts who are given the power and resources to turn things around.

If we can focus on these three steps – high standards for all; public data on our progress; turning around failing schools – we will go a long way toward ensuring that all students have a chance to make the most of their lives.

Our philanthropy is driven by the belief that every human being has equal worth. We are constantly asking ourselves where a dollar of funding and an hour of effort can make the biggest impact for equality. We look for strategic entry points – where the inequality is the greatest, has the worst consequences, and offers the best chance for improvement. We have decided that high schools are a crucial intervention point for equality because that’s where children’s paths diverge – some go on to lives of accomplishment and privilege; others to lives of frustration, joblessness, and jail.

When I visited High Tech High in San Diego a few years ago, one young student told me that High Tech High was the first school he’d ever gone to where being smart was cool. His neighborhood friends gave him a hard time about that, and he said he wasn’t sure he was going to stay. But then he showed me the work he was doing on a special project involving a submarine. This kid was really bright. It was an incredible experience talking to him – because his life really did hang in the balance.

And without teachers who knew him, pushed him, and cared about him, he wouldn’t have had a chance.

Think of the difference it will make in his life if he takes that talent to college. Now multiply that by millions. That’s what’s at stake here.

If we keep the system as it is, millions of children will never get a chance to fulfill their promise because of their zip code, their skin color, or the income of their parents.

That is offensive to our values, and it’s an insult to who we are.

Every kid can graduate ready for college. Every kid should have the chance.

Let’s redesign our schools to make it happen.

Thank you very much.

State of the Black Union

Yo I'm watching part of the State of the Black Union on C-Span.org, and I gots ta talk about it. I admit I came to it with a biased view because I'm a bit tired of watching the veteran Black leadership pontificate about the ills of the Black community. Everybody claps and hoots and hollers and then the next day it's like nothing happened.

This time was different.

Well, sort of.

There was a lot of pontification, but there was also some real substance. Minister Farrakhan got open on everyone. EVERYONE. It was like he didn't care what anyone thought. He told the preachers and reverends to stop entertaining the people with religion, and start teaching them. He was like "we need to come up with a covenant between us and the people TODAY." One of the illest parts was when he told everyone to vow to never sell out their people. My favorite part, however, was when he said "to hell with the Democrats!!"

That's what I'm talkin' about.

Oh yeah, and he also suggested that they turn the cameras off, get the scholars and theologians and intellectuals, etc. etc. into a room and put forth a 10 year plan.

That's what I'm talkin' about.

What dissapointed me about the segment was that young folks weren't really represented on stage (the entire thing was an entire day affair).

Anywayz, it was worth it to see Minister Farrakhan get open. Now to check out the next segment...

Guess Who's Back

Word is that Will Smith is coming out with a new album. Now, some of you may have heard his new track "Switch." Unfortunately, it's not very good, and I hope it doesn't make the new album.

However, I heard a track of Will Smith spittin' a freestyle verse talking about his new album, and it was honestly the hottest thing I've ever heard come out of his mouth (and I am a DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince fan). For real though, the verse was tight and it sounds like Big Will might be bringing the heat on this one.

So will the the real Will Smith please stand up? Forget about "Switch"- it's not so much the lyrics as it is the beat. The beat is horrible. I don't know exactly how to describe it.

Anyway, Will Smith has the potential to drop a hot album that will redeem him in the hip hop community (c'mon, you know you liked "Parents Just Don't Understand").

He also has the potential to drop an album to make people wonder why he came back.

Either way, I'm excited to see what happens.

50 Drops Game From G-Unit; Shots Fired At Radio Station

No more thugs. Seriously though. Are people trying to act hard or just act stupid? There is a limit to which I can only blame such ignorance on the mis-education of the Negro.

Hip hop isn't about Black folk killing each other, and I'm REALLY tired of hip hop music and culture being co-opted by this thug mentality where brothas gotta pull triggers to settle issues. I grew up in Harlem so I know the reality of what's going on in the streets, in our neighborhoods, in our families. But there comes a point where you have to stand up and demand more, demand better. It's just an excuse to say that one is a product of their environment and therefore is not responsible for their actions.

I know that our ancestors didn't endure hell on Earth for hundreds of years only for us to engage in systematic self-destruction.

Real men don't need to bus' guns to prove themselves.

My brothas and sistas, we need to demand better, expect better not only from ourselves but from the world around us.

Is anyone else feelin' me on this one? We need to hear your voices.