Troy

"The combined market capitalization of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google is now equivalent to the GDP of India. How did these four companies come to infiltrate our lives so completely? In a spectacular rant, Scott Galloway shares insights and eye-opening stats about their dominance and motivation -- and what happens when a society prizes shareholder value over everything else." I Think Scott does a really good job of presenting data in a way that connection on a emotional level.

Brenner still looks pretty good in the video. Maybe if they cut to a video of him wasting away on a lung machine in the hospital, followed by a shot of him in the morgue or his tombstone it would have had more of an impact. In any case, the best solution would be to make cancer sticks things illegal, and throw the execs in jail. It is absolutely criminal big tobacco can kill so many people in THIS country and nobody wants to do anything about it...

Ok that is why I don't recall Franklin's broken chair. I don't remember this cartoon, but it is the Thanksgiving, not the Xmas special.

Hmmm, I did not mention a relationship between size and sexual prowess Zero curiosity huh; I guess you consider ignorance on that particular subject bliss

Yes I did. But I primarily used graphs, charts, and forms of data to try to convince other why they should too This approach makes people's eyes glaze over at best. Data does not persuade lay people. They need to "feel" why it matters to them. If the argument does not resonate on an emotional level it will not work with most people. It is like telling people that cigarettes kill more than 500K people a year and 1/10 of these people die from 2nd hand smoke. This is a staggering figure, but we still allow these things to be sold. Now studies have shown showing one diseased lung or someone cleaning out their tracheotomy hole is much more likely to convince someone to stop smoking and preventing more from ever starting.

Hi Janeice, thanks for sharing information about your event. I also appreciate you formating it in such a way to facilitate me adding it to my database" https://aalbc.com/events/index.php?st=Michigan#African-American+Family+Book+Expo I also added your book store to our bookstore database: https://aalbc.com/bookstores/store.php?store_name=Detroit+Book+City

A Charlie Brown Xmas was my favorite holiday cartoon it was neck-in-neck next with the How the Grinch Stole Xmas. I watched it every year when it came on TV up until my kids were young. Eventually I purchased the VHS, but once I was able to which it anytime I wanted the allure of watching it during Xmas wore off. I have not seen it in years. Funny I don;t remeber Franklin and the broken lawn chair. I aso enjoyed the music. I actually brought the sheet music to "Linus and Lucy" and an expensive electronic keyboard to learn how to play it. I never got around to actually learning how to play it.... Don't tell me Ezra Jack Keats sexually abused some woman. What kind of flack did he receive and for what?

Come on Del, you mean to tell me you never took a quick peek just to see how you compare

Del was a good idea: Fun with Dick and Jane A Snowy Day World Book Encyclopedia Dr. Seuss Books (all) Charles Shultz Peanuts (all) Encyclopedia Brown (all) Alice in Wonderland Cane Beloved Who Owns the Future I know it looks like a crazy list; only 3 of the authors are Black and I've only added 4 of the books to this site. All of these books (and more) have stuck with me for one reason or another. #1 was the first book I remember reading. #2 was the first book I ever saw with a Black boy in it and I recall being surprised by the that--and I was really very young at the time.

Yeah Ram seems like a very interesting fellow. I saw not familiar with his work until I stumbled across the VOX video I posted above. His interaction with the Pope was interesting and one of the reasons I'm rethinking how I communicate with people, about why Amazon or Facebook are bad.

Yes @Pioneer1 Google is the moral police, if you are part of their ad network. But unlike the police who will bring you in front of a judge (usually) for due process, Google are judge, jury, and executioner. In this particular case, I did not mean for you to change your post. I was just making light of the situation, and thumbing my nose at Google by using the word myself. Which is dangerous because Google could easily put me out of business in a heartbeat (for real). @Delano, a locker room is exactly where you want a massive package so you can show who the dominant male is...I guess you wouldn't know anything about that

Wait, @Pioneer1 did you just throw a gratuitous "bigger penis" in there just for kicks? What environment would a big penis not come in handy? (oh God, I know the nasty-gram from Google is on it way now... we used the word "penis" on a page with their ads,... hey did anyone hear that? That was my search engine ranking hitting the floor).

Exactly. I thought what Martin did to Umar was foul. I've seen him treat others the same way. I when I have a second I'll dig up that video. I seem to recall Martin was working off hearsay and could not provide anything evidence to justify sullying Johnson's reputation. Now I'm not saying Johnson is above reproach, he probably is not, but it was just the way he handled it was funky...

Well I would agree Caucasian is a better term than white, because it speaks to geography. Well I do not know the answer for the gentleman and I've removed his book from the list, but he is perfectly appropriate for the site given his work. Truth be told, I can't look at Danzy's hair and see that it is permed. She looks like your garden variety Caucasian woman to me. But I'm a guy and defer to our elder from the great state of Illinois. Danzy's book is on the list because she recognizes her Blackness. The "race" thing sure is a messy business...

Based upon what you wrote; you are going to use the temperature data from 1895 - 2017 to see if the temperature has gotten warmer in central park. Beyond that you have to tell me.

@David Covin, I appreciate that, but when I sell books "directly" I take the orders and have them dropped shipped by Ingram. I don't have the resources to manage sales like that, besides I don't like doing it (been there, done that). I rather deal with a distributor. Now if Blue Nile would fulfill orders I send that would work for me. For example, if you look at the buy links for Just Us Books or Black Classic Press the buy links go directly to the publishers and they fulfill the order. Right now I just give readers the option to buy direct from publisher and authors. Right now it is not setup to generate commission, but that would not be too difficult. Another alternative is Mahoganybooks. They fulfilled the orders for our old Power List bestsellers. I'm SURE the would stock a handful of Blue Nile titles. I would then change the buy links for your titles to route to Mahoganybooks who would be happy to ship the order. They also have a physical store and are setup to pay commissions too. How does that sound. Shall I arrange for this to be setup as an initial experiment? But two significant problem remain; Getting people to buy from someplace other than Amazon. Now if I remove the Amazon option, maybe some readers will use the publisher/MahoganyBooks links--especially if I explain why the Amazon links were removed. Perhaps the #ReadBlackBooks (I gotta get the hash tag right) campaign will pick up and gain some traction. Using one bookseller does not scale. Mahogany Books has limited resources too--this solution will not scale very well. Other options would be using POD, Ingram, or spreading the books around to different business wiling to stock and ship orders. I bet Desmond Reid (Dare Books) would be willing to help. He has a large bookstore--it even has a loading dock. I'll reach out to Mahogany and float some ideas by Desmond.

No, because in some locations the temperature may be lower. For example, Atlanta GA got snow last week, which is unusual. That does not mean the planet is not warming. Again this was explained in the documentation you provided it was in the FAQ section is memory serves. You should review the website it can provide better answer than I.

@David Covin, I'm going to join in an #readingblackout effort I described earlier. I'm still trying to understand who is involved and how I can help promote it. But te idea of buying and reading Black for a year struck me. Plus it is as you and Mel described a proactive campaign. With enough support we can made it such that any reader with internet access will HAVE to be aware of the effort. I'll begin to share information about that effort here as well as reacting out to the booksellers. A few days ago I created a printable display of the Black-owned bookstore in my database, I'm encouraging people to the share information. They can copy and paste it and they don't even have to attribute AALBC.com as the source--I just want the information to get out there. I'll create a widget tomorrow which will allow anyone to share the list of Black-owned bookstore on their website as well. I'm planning to drop my Amazon links, striking the URL and linking to a page where I explain why the link was removed. I can sell the books myself link to other booksellers. I know I'm gonna take a hit, but I hope to lead buy example too. If anyone has other ideas please post them here I'll aggregate what I have and share with my mailing list. I like this approach

Del the website you shared earlier went into some detail about the methodology and complexity of making of how the determination is made (I assumed you looked at the website). The difficulty of simply collecting temperature over time is fascinating. I'm completely lost understaning to why you would think it is simply a matter collecting temperature data from a single location.

I agree Mel. Let me look into the alerting feature--I missed seeing David's message myself. I guess the next steps is figuring out how to address the issues David raised. For example: What are the real challenges of getting books into the hands of readers? I think platforms like AALBC.com, Mahoganybooks.com and others are a start, but we need a way to scale from selling hundreds of books a month to millions of books a month. Also, is it a given that Amazon doing a great job at addressing the issues @David Covin raised? If so, what is Amazon being compared to?

@Pioneer1, I just read an article in the New York Times which describes the medical profession considering stopping the use of race. The problem is people are being misdiagnosed, and mistreated because of race. Dr. are bending over backwards to not diagnose white people with sickle cell because they think it is a Black disease. They cite more examples. Now this a real good reason to stop using race and relegate it to slang more appropriate for the the street corner. "Science has revealed how arbitrary racial categories are. Perhaps medicine will abandon them, too." The New York Times, December 08, 2017 - By MOISES VELASQUEZ-MANOFF - Opinion

For a wide variety of reasons, I've some to see the wisdom of your statement @David Covin. I guess the most significant reason is that we really have no choice. The time and effort required to launch a boycott against Amazon could be would be better used for our own businesses. Thanks. I'm going to quote you in the newsletter the email today.

@Delano, you do understand that you can not show that the planet's is warming based upon the temperatures in Central Park, right?

Del who said Feynman was not smart? The man is about as smart as they come. Feynman was used because it was government investigation a 3rd party is used in these situations. Man do you now anything about the investigation? That was rhetorical question your statements make the answer obvious. Yes Del, they still launched despite knowing the risk. Which is my point. Feynman did not uncover the flawed o-rings or even NASA's poor management; this was all know the Rodgers commission made this public knowledge.

Sorry for the delayed response @David Covin, though I hope anyone would feel free to chime in. All three issues, Selling Books Online, In Bookstores, and Hand Sales are really the same issue. Independent booksellers have been selling books on the web almost as soon as it became possible--even before Amazon. Of course we have always run our own stores and have sold books any way they could be sold, from street corners to salons. The real question is can we get more reades to buy more of their books from Black-owned independent online and Brick and Mortar stores instead of from Amazon? Someone on Youtube (a "Booktuber") has kicked of an year long effort, for 2018, called the #blackout. Basically the idea is to only read Black literature for a year and to buy those books from Black-owned stores (assuming the book is not borrowed from a friend or the library). Maybe a proactive campaign to exclusively the read our literature and patronize our booksellers rather than boycotting Amazon is the way to approach this. If we focus on what we need to do to satisfy the three points you raised an active boycott would be unnecessary because we'd be doing our own thing independent of Amazon. @Mel Hopkins, this actually brings to mind the "follow the reader" idea, what do you think? Just an FYI,. Dr. David Covin is an AALBC.com bestselling author who has written several books. He has also published award winning authors with his publishing company, Blue NIle Press, and is the founder of the Sacramento Black Book Festival. He is also one of the reasons AALBC.com has lasted 20 years.