Got Felony?

Want to join the military but that felony conviction
for having that small amount of cocaine is standing
in the way? Well just march on down to your local
recruiter. Seems that the armed forces are in a
pinch and Uncle Sam still needs you. I think the idea
of allowing felons join is good if they only have one
non-violent felony. This may give a person a chance
to straighten out their life. What's up?


Under pressure to meet combat needs, the Army and Marine Corps brought in significantly more recruits with felony convictions last year than in 2006, including some with manslaughter and sex-crime convictions.

Data released by a congressional committee shows the number of soldiers admitted to the Army with felony records jumped from 249 in 2006 to 511 in 2007. And the number of Marines with felonies rose from 208 to 350.

Those numbers represent a fraction of the more than 180,000 recruits brought in by the active-duty Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines during the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2007. But they highlight a trend that has raised concerns within the military and on Capitol Hill.

The bulk of the crimes involved were burglaries, other thefts, and drug offenses, but nine involved sex crimes and six involved manslaughter or vehicular homicide convictions. Several dozen Army and Marine recruits had aggravated assault or robbery convictions, including incidents involving weapons.

Both the Army and Marine Corps have been struggling to increase their numbers to meet the combat needs of a military fighting wars on two fronts. As a result, the number of recruits needing waivers for crimes or other bad conduct has grown, as has the number of those needing medical or aptitude waivers.






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Blacks Take Boston!

A Kenyan and Ethiopian won the Boston Marathon further
proving that Hitler was a long way from creating super
human white race. (Laugh) But all jokes aside, congratulations
to Robert Cheruiyot and Dire Tune!


Robert Cheruiyot won his fourth Boston Marathon today, and Dire Tune out-kicked Alevtina Biktimirova by two seconds in the closest finish in the history of the women's race.

Cheruiyot ran away from the pack to finish in a blistering 2 hours 7 minutes 46 seconds. He missed the course record he set two years ago by 32 seconds, but became the fourth four-time winner of the world's oldest annual marathon.

Cheruiyot and Tune, who finished in 2:25:25, each earned an enhanced prize of $150,000 -- the biggest in major marathon history.

Abderrahine Bouramdane was 1:18 behind Cheruiyot and Khalid El Boumlili came in third, another 1:31 back. Nicholas Arciniaga of Fountain Valley was 10th, giving the Americans a top-10 finish for the fourth straight year.





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With his third straight victory, Cheruiyot gave Kenya its 15th men's victory in 17 years. Tune was the first Ethiopian woman to win since Fatuma Roba won three straight from 1997-99.

Cheruiyot pulled away from a pack of four at the base of the Newton Hills, running the 19th mile in 4:37 to finish Heartbreak Hill 27 seconds ahead of his Moroccan pursuer. He passed defending women's champion Lidiya Grigoryeva, with the two No. 1 bibs running side-by-side, just before the 24-mile mark.

Cheruiyot remained on a record pace as he approached Kenmore Square before slowing over the last mile.

Tune and Biktimirova came into Kenmore Square side-by-side, jockeying for position. Biktimirova appeared to get an edge when Tune nearly missed one of the final turns and ran into a camera vehicle. The Ethiopian quickly composed herself and took the lead before the last turn.

Biktimirova caught her and regained the lead briefly, but Tune pulled ahead for the good in the last 100 yards on Boylston Street to beat her to the line.

Bitter Big Town Californian's Too!

Small town Pennsylvanians are not the only
ones that are bitter. Bitterness is also rampant
in large towns. Things in small town Pennsylvania
have been bad for a very long time so Obama once
again is just merely setting things straight.


The Democratic candidates for president debated forcefully Wednesday over who would prove more electable in November, with Hillary Rodham Clinton repeatedly raising questions about Barack Obama's past associations and Obama contending that her approach typified the blowtorch political style that Americans decry.

Obama, the Illinois senator, was thrown on the defensive for the first half of the nearly two-hour debate. The moderators, ABC News anchors Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, pressed him on his recent comments about "bitter" small-town Pennsylvanians; his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.; his acquaintance with a long-ago member of the Weather Underground group; and the absence of an American flag in his lapel -- though no one else on stage wore one.

Clinton criticized Obama as well. She defended those who she said were "taken aback and offended" by Obama's remarks at a recent San Francisco fundraiser that voters upset by economic downturns "get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment."

The New York senator repeatedly zeroed in on Wright and -- after Stephanopoulos opened the issue -- Obama's relationship with fellow Chicagoan William Ayers, the 1960s radical who is now an education professor at the University of Illinois. She noted that Obama and Ayers were at one point on the same philanthropic board.

"I think it is, again, an issue that people will be asking about," said Clinton, who repeatedly characterized herself as thoroughly vetted during her husband's administration.

Adopting a more-in-sorrow-than-anger mien, she added: "I know Sen. Obama's a good man, and I respect him greatly, but I think that this is an issue that certainly the Republicans will be raising. And it goes to this larger set of concerns about, you know, how we are going to run against John McCain," the unofficial GOP nominee.




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Tom's Letter

This didn't have to happen like this but it did. I
said it before and I'm saying it again, we black
folks have to stop criticizing one another because
we don't agree. Just because we now have a black
man that has a chance to go all the way to the
White House doesn't mean he has a bullet proof
vest against other black folks scrutinizing him.
Barack Obama has to be and should be looked
at from every angle possible!


"Well, you did it. This isn’t the way you wanted it to happen, but it happened anyway. Just like I knew it would," begins an open letter from veteran radio personality Tom Joyner to Tavis Smiley.

It's the latest in ongoing drama that followed Joyner's announcement Friday that Smiley will end his twice-a-week commentaries on the syndicated morning show.

When the news broke, folks speculated that he couldn't handle the backlash he's been getting from blacks over his criticism of Barack Obama. Although Smiley released a statement saying he was leaving to focus on future projects under his company, The Smiley Group, Inc., Joyner isn't buying it.

"We all know that isn’t the real reason he’s leaving the show," Joyner writes in the open letter, posted on the radio industry blog Urbansite.com. "The real reason is that he can’t take the hate he’s been getting regarding the Barack issue — hate from the black people that he loves so much. He needed to feel the love. We all do, whether it’s from our radio audience or from people we know personally. He wasn’t feeling any love, so he quit."

As previously reported, Smiley sent a letter to EUR and other media outlets stating that he did not “quit” the Tom Joyner Morning Show effective immediately.

"In July I will celebrate my 12th anniversary with the show, and as I discussed with Tom, it is my intention to take on the issues of the day in my commentary twice every week with the same energy, passion and commitment until the end of June," Smiley wrote.

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A Day In The Life

One of my most favorite sayings comes from
the Simpson's convenient store owner. "In
every life a little rain must fall." I'm sure that
Oprah expected some kind of a fallout when
she made her political stance. So I'm sure she'll
bounce back in due time. What do you have to
say?


Costas Panagopoulos, an assistant professor of political science at New York's Fordham University, suggests that Oprah Winfrey's popularity has diminished in recent months due to her public support for Barack Obama.

Writing at Politico.com, he calls into evidence an August 2007 CBS poll that found her favorable rating had dropped from 74% to 61%.

Also, 10 days after the media firestorm over Obama's tie to Rev. Jeremiah Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ, which Oprah has attended, the TV host's favorable rating had dropped further to 55% and her unfavorable ratings for the first time climbed to 1 in 3.

A December ABC/Washington Post poll of Democrats found 8% were persuaded by Winfrey's Obama endorsement, 82% said it wouldn't matter either way and 10% said her recommendation had turned them off Obama.

Panagopoulos also points to an AOL TV popularity survey of 1.35 million Americans that found 46% said the daytime TV host who "made their day" was Ellen DeGeneres while only 19% chose Winfrey. Forty-seven percent said they'd like to have dinner with Ellen, while only 14% chose Oprah.

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A Black Man's Touch!

It looks as if what the middle east really needs
is someone that both sides can trust and that
someone is Barack Obama. Check out the article
below and let us know your thoughts.


It was a celebration of Palestinian culture -- a night of music, dancing and a dash of politics. Local Arab Americans were bidding farewell to Rashid Khalidi, an internationally known scholar, critic of Israel and advocate for Palestinian rights, who was leaving town for a job in New York.

A special tribute came from Khalidi's friend and frequent dinner companion, the young state Sen. Barack Obama. Speaking to the crowd, Obama reminisced about meals prepared by Khalidi's wife, Mona, and conversations that had challenged his thinking.

His many talks with the Khalidis, Obama said, had been "consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases. . . . It's for that reason that I'm hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation -- a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid's dinner table," but around "this entire world."

Today, five years later, Obama is a U.S. senator from Illinois who expresses a firmly pro-Israel view of Middle East politics, pleasing many of the Jewish leaders and advocates for Israel whom he is courting in his presidential campaign. The dinner conversations he had envisioned with his Palestinian American friend have ended. He and Khalidi have seen each other only fleetingly in recent years.

And yet the warm embrace Obama gave to Khalidi, and words like those at the professor's going-away party, have left some Palestinian American leaders believing that Obama is more receptive to their viewpoint than he is willing to say.

Their belief is not drawn from Obama's speeches or campaign literature, but from comments that some say Obama made in private and from his association with the Palestinian American community in his hometown of Chicago, including his presence at events where anger at Israeli and U.S. Middle East policy was freely expressed.

At Khalidi's 2003 farewell party, for example, a young Palestinian American recited a poem accusing the Israeli government of terrorism in its treatment of Palestinians and sharply criticizing U.S. support of Israel. If Palestinians cannot secure their own land, she said, "then you will never see a day of peace."

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Getting Even

Looks as if a group of 3rd graders decided they
were going to get even with their teacher. After
reading the article below you'll see just how
resourceful theses youths were.


A group of children ages 8 to 10 apparently were mad at their teacher because she had scolded one of them for standing on a chair, authorities say.

That led the third-graders, as many as nine boys and girls, to plot an attack on the teacher at Center Elementary School in south Georgia.

Police Chief Tony Tanner said the students apparently planned to knock the teacher unconscious with a glass paperweight, bind her with handcuffs and duct tape and then stab her with a broken steak knife.

The scheme involved a division of roles, Tanner said. One child's job was to cover windows so no one could see outside, and another was supposed to clean up after the attack.

"We're not sure at this point in the investigation how many of the students actually knew the intent was to hurt the teacher," Tanner said.

School officials had alerted police Friday after a pupil tipped off a teacher that a girl had taken a weapon to school.

Tanner said the teacher told detectives the children weren't known as troublemakers.

"You can't dismiss it," Tanner said. "But because they are kids, they may have thought this was like a cartoon -- we do whatever and then she stands up and she's OK. That's a hard call."

The purported target teaches third-grade students with learning disabilities, including attention deficit disorder, delayed development and hyperactivity, friends and parents said.

Two of the students were arrested on juvenile charges Tuesday and a third arrest was expected. District Attorney Rick Currie said other students told investigators they didn't take the plot seriously or insisted they had decided not to participate.

"Some of the kids said, 'We thought they were just kidding,"' Currie said. "Another child was supposed to bring a toy pistol, and he told a detective he didn't bring it because he thought he would get in trouble."

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It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
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excerpts from this treasured
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