I'm quite single, and occaisionally I mingle
But aside from all the rest, she sparks my interest
No, ma'am, I don't know you
Just offering the common respect I feel I owe you
Also, some conversation, companionship, common-ground and common-sense
There's no such thing as coincidence in, me finding you here
And I really hate screaming in your ear, so some other time, OK?
I wait every day..
Hello, This is Carlito from a couple of days ago, you sound tired
Forgive me if I've called you too late
But what better time to relate mind-state?  Where could I begin?
Hasn't anyone ever told you you got beautiful skin?
You're more than welcome, what do you desire within?
I just, wanna be, there's no need to put titles on you and me
Those are limitations, living and learning are our only obligations
Equality, honesty, independence, intelligence, emotion and devotion
Humbly seeking to hear God when he's speaking
At one time, my mind, just, couldn't conceive
A woman had to dress a certain way to believe
But, in the same breath, allow me to say
That, if you believed young lady, you wouldn't dress that way
And I, was attracted to your class, I couldn't see all yo' ass
And, I was very content, and you deserved every complement
Now, remember our indifferences make us the same
You gotta have some game, or, many of you
won't even be able to take care of yourself, uh
And Love, when I look at you, I see my reflection
So I offer my love, affection and protection
Shawty, you dead fine, but the bottom-line is
You're still my sister

I came across this contract at BlackStarProject.org… I usually don’t like things like this but I this seems like it could be a good tool. Thoughts?
To Reduce High School Dropouts, Share this Contract with Elementary School Students!

By dropping out of school I acknowledge that:

1.  I will be less likely to find good jobs that pay well, bad jobs that don’t pay well, or maybe any jobs.

2.  I will not be able to afford many things that I will see others acquiring.

3.  I will be more likely to get caught up in criminal activity and illegal behaviors.

4.  I will be more likely to become involved with drugs and excessively involved with alcohol.

5.  I will be more likely to spend time in jail or prison.

6.  I will be less likely to have a good, stable marriage or relationship.

7.  I will not have many choices about where to live.  My low economic status will require that I live in undesirable locations

8.  I will be considerably less able to properly care for and educate my children.

9.  My children will be more likely to follow in my footsteps and drop out of high school, creating multiple generations of despair and poverty.

10.  Most of my friends and associates will also be high school dropouts.

11.  I will be more likely not to vote or to lose my voting rights.

12.  In short, although I will not, technically lose my rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; in reality I will lose these rights by losing the ability to exercise them.

The Choice Is Yours:

I understand that by dropping out of school, I am voluntarily giving away my rights, privileges and opportunities.  I also understand that by doing so, the quality of my life and the lives of my loved ones will be dramatically decreased.

_________________________                      ________

signature                                                                   date

or

I will not drop out of school.  Instead I will do whatever it takes to graduate from high school and pursue higher education and/or other viable trades or professions that will help me control the quality of my life and my family’s life.  I have the ability to accomplish this goal, and I fully intend to take advantage of it.

___________________________________________

signature                                                                   date

Stay in School!

Atlanta resident Kathryn Johnston’s death has finally been exposed to be a case of police coverup in clear example of the insanity of the war on drugs.
Documents Reveal: Cops Planted Pot on 92-Year Old Woman They Killed in Botched Drug Raid
By Rhonda Cook 

According to federal documents released this week, these are the events that led to Kathryn Johnston’s death and the steps the officers took to cover their tracks.

Three narcotics agents were trolling the streets near the Bluffs in northwest Atlanta, a known market for drugs, midday on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.

Eventually they set their sights on some apartments on Lanier Street, usually fertile when narcotics agents are looking for arrests and seizures.

Gregg Junnier and another narcotics officer went inside the apartments around 2 p.m. while Jason Smith checked the woods. Smith found dozens of bags of marijuana — in baggies that were clear, blue or various other colors and packaged to sell. With no one connected to the pot, Smith stashed the bags in the trunk of the patrol car. A use was found for Smith’s stash 90 minutes later: A phone tip led the three officers to a man in a “gold-colored jacket” who might be dealing. The man, identified as X in the documents but known as Fabian Sheats, spotted the cops and put something in his mouth. They found no drugs on Sheats, but came up with a use for the pot they found earlier.

They wanted information or they would arrest Sheats for dealing.

While Junnier called for a drug-sniffing dog, Smith planted some bags under a rock, which the K-9 unit found.

But if Sheats gave them something, he could walk.

Sheats pointed out 933 Neal St., the home of 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston. That, he claimed, is where he spotted a kilogram of cocaine when he was there to buy crack from a man named “Sam.”

They needed someone to go inside, but Sheats would not do for their purposes because he was not a certified confidential informant.

For the rest of the story, click here. 

A New Stance Toward Havana
By Julia E. Sweig
“The issue is not how to change US policy toward Cuba. The issue is how to change the Cuban regime,” Havana-born US Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez said not once, not twice, but throughout a recent speech titled “Cuba After Fidel.” The secretary’s disciplined effort to stay “on message” was likely a response to the emerging pressure on Washington to abandon its policy of perpetual hostility and assume a new approach toward Havana–given new political realities in both capitals.

In Washington and Havana, two striking events may have laid the groundwork for real political drama this year: After almost fifty years of supreme rule, a gravely ill Fidel Castro transferred “provisional” power to his brother Raul last July, and after twelve years of being out of power, the Democratic Party resumed control of Congress last November.

In Cuba, eight months of stability and business-as-usual have passed since the announcement of Castro’s illness, reported to be diverticulitis. Castro’s health has improved, and he is slowly re-entering public life, but he appears not to have resumed his previous around-the-clock work schedule, nor his notorious micromanagement of major and minor affairs of state. Yet the regime has not collapsed–as so many officials, analysts and exiles wishfully believed it would–exposing the utter failure of the US policy of regime change. In Washington, Democrats who want a more enlightened posture toward Havana have assumed control of key Congressional committees. Precisely because it is now an open secret that Washington’s half-century don’t talk/don’t trade/don’t travel policy toward Cuba has gone nowhere, the new US Congress has the opportunity to lay the foundation for an overhaul of America’s Cuba policy that a centrist of either party could pursue once in the White House in 2009.

If the Administration were not so embroiled in Iraq, Castro’s dire illness might have provoked a collective cry of “Ding-dong, the witch is dead,” but the unanticipated shifting of the guard in Cuba and subsequent stability there has caught Washington unawares. With the exception of Secretary Gutierrez’s muscular speech, the Administration’s silence on the issue has been deafening, and telling. Caleb McCarry, the Administration’s “transition coordinator” for Cuba, has been keeping a notably low profile. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Tom Shannon has spent his time recently with a number of senior Administration officials and the President himself trying to recover lost ground with the countries in Latin America that really count, such as Brazil and Mexico.

To be sure, a few lonely voices still carry the torch: Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte testified in his last hearing as intelligence czar in January that despite official Cuba’s efforts at an orderly transfer of power, the United States does not want to see a “soft landing” in Cuba. And Cuban-American members of Congress in both parties–but especially House Republicans Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Lincoln Díaz-Balart and his brother Mario Díaz-Balart–remain unreconstructed but increasingly isolated defenders of overthrowing the Cuban regime. Together with some White House allies, they are willing to risk, and perhaps even welcome, the consequences of a crash landing, on the gamble that the violence and chaos that would ensue would create a post-Castro, post-socialist, post-revolutionary vacuum into which they and their increasingly divided constituents could step.

For the rest of the story, click here.