Troy

BTW, I'm unable to find a discussion forum on Blackvisions. The site does not use https, so chrome rejects the link you shared.

Yeah I responded to the audit, but they are taking months to respond. Way to go USA! 4th generation New Yorker -- wow! Virtually everyone I know, in NY, my age has parents who came from someplace else.

Hey Jessea, your mom is a 2-time AALBC Bestselling author (for the seminal poetry anthology she edited). Thanks for highlighting her children's book. I'll add a buy link on the page and send readers to your site. It may take a little while as this is part of a much larger effort to remove Amazon buy links from the website.

@Mel Hopkins I will start posting tips for authors/writers.

Well devotion2heart I guess I'll have to remove Lipstick Alley from my list since I'm unable to verify ownership... I'll checkout the other forum. BTW you can always participate here 🙂

Del you did not use the word "moron" until just now. Your reaction to Pioneer's statement to indicated that you got the words confused. Did I miss-read something? If you say you understand the difference between the words -- something I fully expect -- I believe you. No, the bugs bunny clip did not help clarify things.

I guess I did. Email your email address troy@aalbc.com and I'll send you the address I use.

@Delano you and bugs bunny are confusing the word moron with maroon. Bugs was being funny.

@Pioneer1 I was once a house negro, but while the analogy is far from perfect, I too liken myself to that of a Maroon as well -- independent and reliant on others like myself. The house negroes are too comfortable to join me and the field negroes are too afraid. I don't blame either group as the maroon existence is risky. Man being a Black "Greek" never saved anyone from the IRS. At the end of the day these are largely social organizations. Besides I can't afford the dues -- assuming I was even accepted as a member.

I don't think so either Del. When I named the book discussion forum Thumper's Corner I never conceived of naming it anything else after that. The url of this site has "tc" built into it for that reason. I may not rename these forum unless it is some major sponsor or something 🙂 I'll email Connie periodically to check in on her. Maybe I'll make her my sole Facebook friend to keep tabs.

Yeah this fact jumped out at me too! It is not a surprise, because I saw this all the time. However, the fact that he is also a degenerate, convicted felon and it did nothing to stunt his ability to amass a great deal of wealth is a bit much... I mean the feds are auditing me -- even if they find be completely wrong we are talking about a few grand I'd owe. They have all the money in the world to go after chump change, from small businesses, but the wealthy get rewarded for their crimes. Blow up a bank and you not only get bailed out, but you get a huge bonus. This 2nd Gilded Age, we are in, is a mother!

Humm @Delano you may have shown me a feature I was unaware of, "Last Visited." I always assumed it was the last posting date. I can tell you one thing for sure, the software does not track visitors, by name, unless they have an account AND are logged in. So, Cynique can view the forums, without logging in, and all you will see is "guest." Now, I have access to ip addresses, so I could in map the IP addresses of guests to one that Cynique has previously used and get a better indication of when she last visited, but I don't have that kind of free time. Besides, if she wanted to make her presence known she would just post. @Delano you seemed to be overly concerned that @Cynique will never return. Why? Did you look at the number of posts that she actually made over a 9 years period -- winning the day 500 times! Those stats are far more interesting. That does not included the 13,874 posts she made from 2002 until 2010, when I moved the forums to AALBC from thumperscorner.com. Del, that is an average of three posts per day, everyday, for 17 years. She is 80+ years old. If she never posted another thing here in life, she did her part. I agree with @Chevdove in that fatigue -- both mental and physical played a part. Del think about what that means. She actively engaged in a substantive and often enlightening way here for the better part of 20 years! Most people her age don't even use the web -- let alone actively engage on it. Is your mom actively engaged on the web? My own mother has no clue what I do on these forums -- let alone participate in them. I know you miss her Del. I do too, but all good things come to an end and she really did her part to make these forums interesting. All of you who participate make these forums interesting (you lurkers help too). No one else has done it on the level of Cynique -- at least not yet ;-)

Yeah this was one of the famously tragic stories that gets mentioned when people talk about police violence against Black people.

@Pioneer1 Cynique also ended with the above comment. So it was not about gender, it is was about the contributions the posters made. She appreciated many of the men who posted here over the years. @ABM comes to mind but there were many others. @Delano Cynique wrote she would be checking things out from time to time. So I guess that would make you wrong 😉 Sorry would have probably sufficed, but people rarely say I'm sorry and mean it. Even when contrition is expressed the recipient often does not accept it... This is so true. @Cynique and @Thumper felt indispensable, but they were not -- no one is indispensable. As long as someone pays the bills, maintains the software and hardware, as hard as that has been for 20+ years, I'm not even indispensable. Well @Chevdove well, what did he say?

Yeah @Chevdove they ticked every box with this creature...

Whoa! Harvey Weinstein, R. Kelly: it seems like to more power you get the less likely would would need to abuse your power to satisfy you sexual predilections... I guess these guys are just sadists and use their power to increase their reach.

I agree @Pioneer1. Pioneer what is your motivation for participating here?

Hi Mea, The search engine here on the discussion forums is restricted to the forums. The search on the rest of AALBC sesrches the entire site. We actually have a great desl of information more than most sites including exclusive video, all his books reviews, etc this query on James Mcbride will show all it. Actually McBride is one of the most prominent Black writers out there. His book, The Color of Water, the story of his Jewish mother thrust him into prominence. Admittedly, his prominence is more in the white community than the Black.

Well science never says something is "absolutely true." They can have a theory that withstands a century of testing and experimentation. But the second an observation violates a theory the scientific community discards that old theory and moves on. Keep in mind that 100% of the people who smoke will not contract cancer. However we do know that 100% of the people who smoke are at a substantially increased risk of contracting cigarette caused cancer. 30% of all cancers come from smoking. 83% of lung cancers come from smoking. This is why collecting data, indeed science, is important. You would not say that because your mother smoked all her life, therefore cigarette smoking poses no risks right? We also don't know what your mom's lifestyle would have been like if she never smoked (cancer is not the only negative consequence of smoking). We also don't know the consequence her 2nd hand smoking hand on those around her... It is like man made climate change: Science does not say that it is 100% beyond an shadow of a doubt true. What they will say is that the predominance of the evidence makes highly likely. Much like astrologers and the religious, climate change deniers, are the ones who assert absolutely certainly in their beliefs.

I do too. I've been an Amazon affiliate for almost 18 years and have collected payment from them every period since that time. But here is the thing. Amazon pushes the ebooks that they publish while encouraging authors to give away ebooks for free (even though these authors paid Amazon to publisher their books) or to sell them very cheaply purportedly to build an audience. Last year Amazon halved the commission they paid affiliates for book sales dropping commission from potentially 8.5 percent to 4%! This is a dramatic decrease to go from earning 8% on a $24 book to 4% on a 99 cent ebook. Amazon also reduced the duration of their cookie and other thing that radically reduced commission affiliates can earn. Sure I still earn money from commissions but the amount of far less that it was a decade ago despite a lot more visitors. Of course if book sellers make less money so do publishers and authors As a result, I have little incentive to sell books as an Amazon affiliate. The only reason I bother with them now as that readers want to buy their book from Amazon. But as I said I need to rid myself of Amazon. Also the big publishers are not in the business of selling books directly to consumers. Though given Amazon's dominance this part of the business model may change; in much the same way as we see producers of video content, HBO, CBS, Amazon, Netflix, etc selling directly to the consumer with their streaming services. If I repost this on readingblack.com Google will give me the smackdown for posting the same content on multiple pages. I'm working with a couple of author's right now to work out a way to sell book directly from AALBC and even other platforms such that the transaction or transparent and commissions can be paid. This will allow everyone to make money. The reality is that this need have a concrete solution then I'll post on #readingblack which I have not shown any love lately.

They award doctorates in religion too, so I'm not surprised, by one being awarded in astrology. Both religion and astrology are deep subjects and require a lot of knowledge to master. But complexity does not make something true -- just complex. The second article you posted was interesting and can be summarized with the foloowing quotes Guinard's Thesis Abstract Patrice Guinard's Manifesto is a statement of 42,000 words based on his 1993 PhD thesis at the Sorbonne, about how astrology provides meaning despite being rejected by educated people, and why it deserves not to be. His central idea is that the planets resonate with our psyche leaving the results in our minds as unspecific symbols and archetypes. So astrology has nothing to do with science or religion or philosophy. It is a psychic phenomenon that has evolved with humanity and should be accepted as part of our nature. A Different Conclusion: The Manifesto is an example of how wordiness and misdirected scholarship can give a false sense of profundity. It boils down to speculations about astrology that the author says are untestable. These speculations are bolstered by frequent long asides, some insightful, some misguided, some fatally uninformed, and some even self-contradictory. Guinard's position of untestability allows him to safely attack any contrary view, which is most of them. But his claim of untestability is problematic because by definition the situation cannot then be reliably known by anyone. In fact the results of relevant empirical studies have generally contradicted his speculations. Guinard has made a bold attempt to strike a conclusive blow for astrology against science; but his "epic analysis" amounts to no more than a massive exercise in pseudoscience. Neither does Guinard offer any clear remedies for modern astrology's conceptual problems. Astrology surely deserves better than this. The Thesis abstract was worded by the guy who wrote the conclusion so it must be taken with a grain of salt. @Delano, were you aware of Guinard's work?

I think you are right about this. All too often I attended book events where men are overly represented as the authors and panelists and the attendees and event organizers are mostly women. I hope you are right about my gender not getting in the way.

I really wish I had the funding to determine the percentage of books, written by Black writers, that are sold, often exclusively, by Amazon. My conservative estimate would be at least 75%, but I would not be surprised if it were 90%. We know; By the fall of 2016, the share of online shoppers bypassing search engines and heading straight to Amazon had grown to 55 percent. Captures nearly $1 of every $2 that Americans spend online. Hosts a substantial portion of the largest websites Ships and sells products at a loss until competition is eliminated (the capital markets facilitate this, which also prevents the emergence new potentially better competition. it is Ma Bell all over again) Benefits from enormous, unnecessary, tax benefits Producers compelled to sell on Amazon resulting in lower profits, sales, and/or higher prices Will manufacture 3rd party products they sell selling well then bury the original producers products on their store Sell bootleg products The New York Times recently reported: “In Amazon’s bookstore, the unruly behavior has been widespread, aided by print-on-demand technology. Booksellers that seem to have no verifiable existence outside Amazon offer $10 books for $100 or even $1,000 on the site, raising suspicions of algorithms run wild or even money-laundering. The problem of fake reviews is so bad that the F.T.C. has already gotten involved.” Despite all of this and more people generally like Amazon. I also wish I had the time and money to explain to people Amazon's monopolies results in less profit for book sellers, publishers, and authors. Why readers see less diversity in reading material despite more books being produced than ever before and more. Nothing any individual can do alone will stop Amazon's domination In my corner of the world I am spending the time and energy to divorce myself from Amazon. It is not something I can do over night, because they are so firmly entrenched in the business of Black books -- indeed they own this business -- but I plan to do it. I have to do it. I'm also trying to help authors understand this as well, but authors are often more enamored of Amazon than the general public. Amazon poses a much larger threat the business of Black books and independent businesses than Google does.