Joplin Tornado Experience--a matter of minutes

Small red car losts its windows in storm.

Traveling south on Highway 71heading toward Joplin, Mo., Sunday afternoon, we saw a small, black sports car with police siren's gaining ground behind us.

"Are you speeding?"

"No, I've been at the limit for a long time now."

"The car up ahead was not speeding either."

Five minutes later, a gold pick-up or SUV truck, marked as a Cass County Sheriff's Department vehicle, went speeding past.

We strained to see ahead. Just beyond the curve of the road, we saw the two vehicles.

"It must be an accident up a head." It began raining.

By the time we traveled the few miles, the police vehicles had disappeared. As we crossed Civil War Road exit, my nephew asked why there was so much debris strewn along the highway.

White car is battered from storm.

"The storms, tornadoes have been coming through here," his Dad answered.

Then the traffic stopped in both lanes. We saw more debris. Driver's were straining to see why the road was blocked. We looked over and saw the black, unmarked police car at the side of the road. He was directing traffic.

We followed the traffic off the closed interstate, exiting Highway 66 and stopped at Casey's in Duquesne. Slowly, cars and vans with windows blown out, peeling metal and shocked passengers began pulling up to the gas pumps.

We had just missed becoming victims in Joplin's tornado. The storm hit at 6 p.m. We left Kansas City a little after 4 p.m., heading home to Texas. We would have been at the intersection of Interstate 44 and Highway 71 near 6 p.m., if we had not stopped to place flowers on my parent's grave site.
We got directions,checked the GPS and returned to the road.

"Turn on the radio."

The town was leveled -- the schools, the churches, homes, apartments,  the regional hospital, and even the Walmart were damaged. We followed Highway 66 out of town, on the edge of all the destruction. Street and traffic lights were out. People were walking down the road, trying to determine the damage.

"Hi, I am calling to see if anyone knows if my office building is Okay," the radio caller said.

"Where is your office?."

" It is at ...with the Methodist Church and..."

"No. The church was destroyed, the store was detroyed. Your office would be destroyed. Everything there is leveled."

"Do you know if  school is going to open tomorrow in areas where the tornado did not hit?

"No, at this point, the schools are closed. The high school was destroyed."

It was eerie. Passing through someone else's disaster. We listened to the callers seeking the whereabouts of loved ones, others asking where they should go to help. The disc jockies, who had checked on their families before heading to work, were doing there best to remain calm and informative.

Lightening lit up the sky. Streets were covered with broken limbs. Rain kept falling.

They did not know how many people had died yet. We listened for more than 2 hours, as we traveled an alternative route toward Highway 69 to Oklahoma.

I turned it off, Opting for a CD of Kem, over the unknown and the miracle of timing.

The Red Cross needs your help to help the victim's of this disasters and others -- Mississippi and Alabama tornadoes, Louisiana flooding, Texas Wildfires and Japanese Earthquakes.

Baby Boomers and African Americans are the Newest Entreprenuers

Two reports released this week offer some encouragement to African Americans and Baby Boomers who are struggling to find income in these recessionary times. Layoffs and the loss of income from 401K and other retirement plans that were Wall Street-dependant seemed to hit the Boomers especially hard with 39 percent of men and 18 percent of women aged 51 to 60 less likely to get hired each month than younger job seekers.

The unemployment rate for African Americans 25-54 years old was 13.2 percent at the end of 2009. The national unemployment rate was close to 10 percent.

On Monday, Forbes Magazine said Baby Boomers between 55 and 64 were the fastest growing group of entrepreneurs. On Tuesday, the U.S. Census 2007 Economic Survey said African American Businesses grew by 60.5 percent nationally between 2002 and 2007 or triple the national average.

While the ages do not completely overlap, there is some crossover that indicates Boomer African Americans have stepped away from the job market to do their “own thing.”

“Some people are calling entrepreneurship the ‘new mid-life crisis’ for the 76 million-strong demographic once thought to be over the hill. Partially due to the economy, but also due to longer, healthier lives and changes in job tenure, 62 percent of working Boomers are now expected to stay in the labor force, with real power and influence, for at least nine more years, to 2020,” Forbes said.

The article was based on a report by the Kauffman Foundation Survey of nearly 5,000 companies that began in 2004. Nearly two-thirds of the founders are now between the ages of 35 and 54. Additionally, Kauffman research has revealed that the average age of the founders of technology companies in the United States is a surprisingly high 39 – with twice as many over age 50 as under age 25.

Marc Morial, president and chief executive officer of the National Urban League, called it a “legitimate hustle,” and a testament to the perseverance of African Americans who find ways to thrive, even in difficult times.

Many entrepreneurs are still working full-time jobs and use the income from the business as a supplement, he said.

The big disappointment to the CensusCensus numbers wasn’t in the increase or even the overall total receipts of $137 billion. Unfortunately, 87 percent of the new African American businesses have receipts of less than $50,000 a year, compared to 65 percent of all U.S. firms; 93 percent had receipts of less than $100,000, While 75 percent of all U.S. firms fell into that category.

During the online and audio news conference Tuesday, Morial, Thomas L. Mesenbourg, Deputy Director and Chief Operating Officer of the U.S. Census Bureau, and Ivonne Cunarro, chief, Knowledge Management Unit of the Minority Business Development Agency, said several factors may affect Black business’s ability to earn income.

Morial called it the three C’s – capital, connections and contracts. “It goes to capital and goes to the fact that people do business with people in their network, and people get contracts from the people in their networks,” he said.

Cities, chambers of commerce, minority advocacy organizations, among others, will need to review the data and find ways to help Black businesses grow.

For us local folks:
The number of black-owned businesses in the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, Texas, metropolitan statistical area increased to 56,309 in 2007 from 27,514 in 2002, a 104.7 percent increase, the U.S. Census Bureau announced today. Over the same period, receipts generated by these businesses increased 37.5 percent to $3.0 billion.
Industries in the metro area with the largest number of black-owned businesses included repair, maintenance, personal and laundry services (11,453 businesses); administrative and support and waste management and remediation services (7,677 businesses); and health care and social assistance (7,183 businesses).

The Big Payback

Wow....My son is really showing his motherly love lately. For Valentine's Day he upgraded my cellphone and has agreed to pay for the service.

When I returned from New York, where I spent two weeks handling my deceased cousin's affair, my house looked like it was vacant. Weeds had sprouted throughout, trash was caught in bushes and these pesky door-to-door people had left flyers, cards and notes.

I asked, Why didn't you do something about this?

Well, he did. He called this morning and sent over a new yard crew to clean up this mess, he hung my outdoor art on the wall, sprayed for bugs and fertilized the front and back.

What a great payback....speaking of which, at what point is payback no longer expected? How long do you do for someone because they "once upon a lifetime" helped you out or made sacrifices?

I tell my lovely son that he doesn't "owe" me anything. Out of consideration and love, he should want to do things for me. It was my job, because I chose to be a parent, to take care of his needs as a child.

Too frequently, we, me, you, us, them, get caught up in manipulation because of this so-called unending debt. Listen, just like I've been telling bill collectors who are trying to collect funds from 20 years ago,  there is a time limit. At some point, you should let go of old debts and obligations.

Do for people because you want to, not because you must.

A new sign with my name

Made with My Cool Signs.Net


This is my new sign using flickr.com...way cool. What do you think?

The Nerve --Another Piece on Obama

By Donna E. Scott

When I first read Obamas defense to his black critics I thought, “The nerve of this guy!” He started talking about all the support he did have and somehow the questioner’s figures were not correct. He noted more blacks in Hollywood support him than those who do not. He talked about how he was improving the lives of teachers. In fact, it sounded like a rehash of Reagan's rising tide lifts all boats. Then he threw in that campaign mantra of all blacks, “he just can’t be the president of blacks he has to be the president of all people.


It seems Obama’s calculations do not add up. Consider his comment about spending millions to help save teachers jobs. Who are these teachers anyway? In point of fact, 86 % of the teachers in America are white. The average teacher is white, middle class and female. Only 2% of teachers are black males, the average student is nontraditional, 1 in 3 to be exact. It is postulated that by 2025 this figure will be 1 in 2 students. So, if 86% of the teacher workforce is white, how is that helping the black community exactly? Do tell. As a former teacher I would love to know.

He also said some of those millions were spent helping firefighters and police keep their jobs. I wonder has Obama read Poor Mans’ Lotto: Memoirs of a Black Firefighter. How many black firefighters are there in America anyway? Again who did this money really go to?

Since when does having a lot of folks in Hollywood support you mean anything? So, because the majority is not against you that means you are on the right track? Really? I think Obama is doing some fuzzy math.

Let’s take a further walk down memory lane:

In February 2009, he had the opportunity to attend the Durban Review Conference representing America. This conference that meets every 7 years addresses global racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance. One of the things these nations throughout the world had voted on was declaring that the transatlantic slave trade was a holocaust. What did POTUS do, the first black president? Why he refused to go unless that language was retooled to America’s and Israel’s liking. The DRC retooled the language and he still did not go. Rewind, press Play. The first black president of the US , the son of an African, refused to go to a conference despite his campaign promise to sit down and talk with folks who differ with him. That would include ones concerned about the Israeli/ Palestinian conflict and those who finally say the transatlantic slave trade was a holocaust. When the US was a no show the DRC put the language back in and voted the slave trade to be a holocaust.

It has always been the minority who has stood up to special interests. Consider the brave Toussaint L’ Overture who brilliantly overthrew Napoleon Bonaparte’s Army that began the dismantling of the transatlantic slave trade.

In 2004, while the majority ignored the plight of Haitians, folks like John Conyers and Maxine Waters were in the minority when Aristide was illegally kidnapped with the help of America. They used their muscle to get an innocent man some relief. But POTUS is not Aristide, who was a president that identified with the plight of his people, all 8 million of them.

Let’s not forget Obama named Bill Clinton as a special envoy to Haiti . But you hear nothing of Obama talking about reversing the US over-involvement Haiti .’ Wonder why? These are all black folks being taken to the cleaners. Aristide made the mistake of telling his people whom he represented where the reserves were, the oil, the granite, the gold the diamonds. So he had to go. Hidalgo Mining, Matraco and Colorado Mining and other US companies are in the process of taking advantage of Haiti’s oil reserves, and deep water ports to store America’s crude oil, now that the troublemaker Aristide is gone.

When I see a photo of POTUS surrounded by little black kids, and I see his policies that like Reagan will continue their impoverishment, I cringe. The point is not helping blacks but, helping the have not’s and we know who that is. It is helping those who are incarcerated in America ’s lucrative prison industrial complex. It is helping those who are infected with MDRTB (multidrug resistant TB) because their loved ones are incarcerated then released into the general population because their country does not want to pay for the more effective second line drugs that will cure MDRTB.

Sadly the black critics need to get in line with the white critics, the progressives who are discovering Obama has neither the heart nor the nerve or “noive” as the cowardly lion called it, to stand up to special interests.
Randall Robinson noted in his heartfelt book Quitting America , that “to get elected in America a black man has to prove he will be tough on blacks. Obama is doing this in spades. I give him a A+.

Critics, here is a word to the wise. In 2007 Obama plotted to sell out his former pastor. Only a few people know this. If nothing else, Obama is a shrewd and masterful politician. It might not sound like it, but I deeply want him to succeed, but not because he is black. I want him to succeed because he sold out a man who cared for him, nurtured him and made time for him. If he succeeds then that means his former pastor’s suffering will not have been in vain. Indeed, Obama was plotting on how to win, like Jacob the supplanter, while his former pastor went behind the scenes to homophobic black pastors in South Carolina to convince them that Obama “really was black enough” and the real deal. He was plotting while the pastor was convincing others who did not know Obama from Adam to vote for him. This was before IOWA . In fact in 2004, this pastor wrote a stellar article about him saying, “if America could see what I see, all of God’s creation represented in this one family, they would have hope.” Of course POTUS then went on the claim his former pastor was stuck in the 60’s. But hey, at least Obama is consistent.

To be fair, I believe Obama plotted to sell his former pastor out because he did not know he could win at the time. So he joined the ranks of Abraham, Jacob, Adam and others who decided to help God out. And though the majority did not know what they had done, God knew.
Mr. President, please do not pretend to be offended when Conyers et. al hold your arugula eating feet to the fire. You need to be president of all people and that includes blacks. I am not judging, I am just saying.
Donna Scott,  the author of "The Hired Hand: A Case of Clergy Abuse," can be reached at escott9614@att.net.

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Single mothers and Father's Day

Father’s Day never gets the attention of Mother’s Day.

There are probably dozens of reasons, including the fact that women out live men, more women are single parents, and possibly mother’s make a bigger stink out of getting their due.

I know in my circle, Father’s Day gets short shrift because children raised by single mothers have no need to celebrate. The day is a mixture of pain and bad memories.

On the most reason Father’s Day, I found myself in an impromptu gathering discussing fatherhood with two other women who raised boys by themselves. The two middle-aged women are my neighbors who dropped in to “celebrate” the day.

Our job technically is done. All of our children are over 18 years old. The overriding, yet unasked question, was “Did we do the job well?

We acknowledged the lack of fathers and solid, quality, male role models. As the divorce rate reached 50 percent of all marriages in the 1990s, too many men stepped away from their roles. An estimated 9.8 million women are raising children younger than 18, triple the 3.4 million in 1970. Source: America’s Families and Living Arrangements: 2008<http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/families_households/013378.html>

For three hours we talked about what we, as women, could not offer our sons as they grew. We took them to church, to ball and boxing practice and we had THE talk. We taught morals, the value of an honest day’s hard work and kindness.

“Have they interacted with enough mature men to understand manhood?”

They pop-off at a moment’s notice. We talked about the anger boiling just beneath the ‘Yes, Ma’am and No, Ma’am.” These appropriate southern answers come with a sneer and a level of impatience unseen in previous generations.

“I pay a lawn service to mow the yard…He used to cut the grass, trim the hedges and rake the yard.”

There is a level of resentment intertwined with entitlement. Sure, young adults of all stripes in today’s America tend to be overly self-involved. “But can a brother do a mother a favor?”
“Would it have made a difference if I had remarried?” No, they couldn’t tolerate another man in the house.

“Why are they angry? And depressed?? They have this rage. My youngest put holes in my wall.
“I know what you mean!”

We three women were raised with our fathers – imperfect men who stayed around until they died.

We want what all parents are looking for at the end of 24-25 years --self-sufficient, young men who will be prime marriage material. We’re praying that they will be better fathers than the men who sired them.

For all the men who are great fathers and fantastic husbands, “Happy Father’s Day!”
-30-

Michael Jackson, the man and the music

Upon hearing the news of Michael Jackson’s death on Thursday, the song “ABC, 123” kept playing in my head.

Gone are the controversies over Michael Jackson’s nose job, skin color and allegations of sexual improprieties. I am dancing in the living room in front of my parent’s black and white television. The Jackson Five are on the “Ed Sullivan Show” and for the first time, I see a child that looks like me, swirling and singing with his brothers. The bushy hair, thick nose and the cocoa-cream colored skin are warm and familiar.

Like many late Baby-Boomers, Michael and I both are ensconced in middle age. I celebrated my 50th birthday recently, complete with an American Association of Retired Person’s card arriving in the mail. My family threw a ‘surprise’ birthday party and for the occasion I wore symbolic pieces – the silver necklace that belonged to mother, the cocktail ring my aunt wore and the top and jacket purchased by a sister. It was a day of remembering and part of reminiscing is the music.

Michael Jackson and the Jackson Five sang the melodies that underscored my childhood and teenage years. In the 1960s, his pre-pubescent voice was the innocence of my child hood --imagined kisses, heart-covered notebooks and dreams of romance.

His parent’s public response to dating mirrored my own circumstances. Church friends fell out with parents over the privilege of seeing Michael Jackson in person. Is a rock and roll concert the place for saved teens?

I moved on to college, marriage and parenthood. Michael was my one and only celebrity crush. Periodically, I heard the tabloid news and wondered how we could have moved on to such different places in our life.

Michael was a one-of-kind personality. His outstanding ability to entertain will be missed.“A-B-C, it’s easy as 1-2-3…”