Troy

The scientific community should be concerned. One person should not control all of the media we have access to--unless of course that person is me

I was sitting in an auto body repair shop yesterday, and noticed a few issues of National Geographic and read through an article on climate change. The article was brilliantly done, completely engaging with graphs, images, diagrams--so very informative, and completely accessible. National Geographic really explained a lot of the issues dealing with global warming and the resulting impact on the planet, issues that get muddled by the mainstream media. After reading the article I decided to subscribe, especially after looking at two other issues of the magazine that were just as brilliantly done. I also decided to try to ignore what politicians and mainstream media, have to say about this issue. They really make things unnecessarily confusing. One reason is that the media give WAY much attention to man made climate change deniers; which gives folks the false impression that the issue is up for debate, or a matter of opinion. Learn more at http://www.nationalgeographic.com/climate-change/special-issue/ NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 2015 (online at ngm.com, and on print newsstands Oct. 27, 2015) Cool it: The Climate Issue is a special, single-topic issue on the subject of climate change. The science is clear: Our planet is warming. Weather patterns are shifting. Ice caps are melting and sea levels are rising. And it affects all of us. Now more than ever, everyone needs to understand this critical subject.

I think to "get" Twitter you have to be the type of person whose smartphone is always on their person--if not in their hand. Every second of idle time, and even time when they should be focused on something more important, is consumed by scrolling through tweets. I think it is a complete waste of our collective intellect, because it gives the user the false impression that they are being informed, are taking part in activism and engaging in a meaningful way with others.

Marlon James' novel A Brief History of Seven Killings wins the 2015 Man Booker Prize!

A Perfect Gift! Go inside the mind of a master storyteller through his own words and art. Order now The Graphomaniac's Primer: A Semi-Surrealist Memoir is a chronicle about my journey on the page through drawings, thoughts and memories. I've always loved the blank page: from my first drawings to my first, lined, explorations of letters when I was small. Here I combine it all in the only way I know how to express that form, the memoir. -Walter Mosley This limited edition of 500 copies was printed by BCP Digital Printing and is only available from Black Classic Press. Once it is sold out, later editions will be priced higher. Order your collector's copy now!

Yeah I doubt Iyanla would post here too, perhaps for the same reasons many others don't post here. I wouldn't be surprised if Oprah has Iyanla hemmed up contractually such that she can post on another website. Imagine if an Iyanla did post here. That relatively trivial action on would provide great benefit for the website. But those things usually don't happen. I can't complain, because SmileyBooks, an imprint of Hay House, the publisher of Trust, is an advertiser. My understanding is that Iyanla's people made the request to promote the book here, on AALBC.com. I've also seen Iyanla do things for indie booksellers that she simply does not have to do. My opinion of her went way up when she did a presentation for Community Book Center in New Orleans. "Celebrity" authors are typically not very supportive of indie booksellers--Iyanla is an exception. You see The Community Book Center, a Black owned book store based in New Orleans used to be the official bookseller at the Essence Music Festival, in fact they pitched the idea and started the book pavillion for Essence Music Festival. A few years ago Essence dropped this book store in favor of another independent book store, which is not Black owned. I thought a magazine dedicated to black women would support a store owned by a Black woman, but then I considered the fact that Essence is not Black owned, so I had to cause to be surprised. Anywho, Iyanla took time off from her Essence commitments and went out her way to support the small Black owned store (shown in video clip below). None of the other celebrity authors did that. The media does not cover this side of us. We just get the nonsense.

Is this rap any good, why or why not?

Well we know you don't become as wealthy as Orpah without caring a whole lot about making money. I'm sure Oprah brought Iyanla back because it was in her financial interest to do so. I followed up with all the women (all the comments, positive or negative, came from women), and there was nothing specific that Iyanla did, it was just general dislike. Regarding my knowledge of books; it is inversely proportional to the effort required to keep this business afloat. I've been thinking more about my motivation for running this site recently. It actually is more about celebrating Black culture; books are a channel for me to do that. So books are important from that perspective--perhaps the best thing we have at our disposal of doing this.

I can't honestly say that I remember Debi Thomas, the Olympic Figure Skater I don't watch Iyanla's show one anything on OWN for that matter. Nothing against Oprah or Iyanla, I appreciate I'm not the the target audience and that is fine. Besides the idea of using people's personal failings as fodder for entertainment is not very entertaining to me, but journalists started this long ago. At any rate OWN pumped out a bunch of 90 second video clips of Iyanla and Debbie. I looked at a couple and I can see what people mean regarding Iyanla treatment of Debi, but even if I saw the entire show it would be impossible to judge the entire effective of Iyanla help Debbie. Nonetheless, I'm sure the show was entertaining and given the talk on social media a lot of people were engaged enough to talk about the show. Which was the whole point of the program anyway, right? Score one for OWN. Now that I think about it. I would be willing to bet that OWN pushed out all of these 90 clips to prevent people from easily concluding that Iyanla was ineffective in the case, and to crowd out negative opinions from other YouTubers. I noticed this video created by, Carol Mitchell, an author profiled on AALBC.com This video is 30 minutes long and got over 24K video in less than 6 weeks--far more successful than anything I ever posted:

Welcome to the 2016 Harlem Book Fair. As you know, the Harlem Book Fair is a year-round enterprise. QBR The Black Book Review (www.QBR.com) is where you promote your work throughout the year. The HBF is where you find new readers and readers find you. They work, hand-in-hand, to place your book in readers hands. We are now accepting suggestions for presenting authors and panelist, readers, workshops and 2016 Wheatley Book Award nominations. Please forward your author suggestions to mrod@qbr.com or click here for a Wheatley Book Award nomination form. In 2015, HBF, in partnership with the NAACP Kansas City, Kansas and El Centro, a community-based social service organization, expanded its reach into Kansas City, Kansas. We continued to build audiences in White Plains, NY through our Westchester Children's Book Festival in partnership with the White Plains Public Library, the City of White Plains, and the White Plains Youth Bureau. In February, the Harlem Book Fair will lauch a national reading/book awareness initiative that will lead, powerfully, into the 2016 Harlem Book Fair. You can be part of that initiative that will celebrate the power of your work in books. As the number of books we, as a writing community, bring to press and as our number of readers of expands, we, the HBF organizers, will always manage our growth to ensure a positive and memorable book fair experience. Remember the morning rain last year! It wreaked havoc on our morning set up time! And still, HBF 2015 proved itself one of our most successful in recent years. 2016 will be more successful. We have re-designed the layout of the festival to give exhibitors the choice of high-level visibility or low-level entry cost - truly something for everyone. Please click on this link to access the 2016 Harlem Book Fair Exhibitor Application. Read it carefully and call us if you have any questions. This is the start of a new growth of the HBF and we want you to come and tell us your stories. Always proud of what you do...Thank you for trusting QBR and the Harlem Book Fair to deliver your work to our readers. See you in July! ABOUT QBR THE BLACK BOOK REVIEW and THE HARLEM BOOK FAIR Founded as the public program of QBR The Black Book Review (www.QBR.com) and now in its 18th year, the Harlem Book Fair, the nations’ largest and most respected African American book festival, is partnered by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture the New York Public Library, the Harlem Hospital, the Harlem YMCA; and televised nationally by C-Span's BookTV. Attended by over 20,000 readers and viewed by millions on C-Span, the Harlem Book Fair is the nation’s flagship African American literary event. Please contact QBR (914.231.6778) to promote your book or event to 40,000 QBR and Harlem Book Fair opt-in readers.

Shirley I don't really use LinkedIn, if you sent me a request to connect it is buried under thousands of others. I hope you do not take my failure to connect with you personally Rahm Emanuel is part of the problem. He will not fix the problem. I think you are treating him as if he where like you or I, a caring human being. Hi Tevin, thanks for contributing. Create an account to that I don't have to approve your posts manually. Chris with that definition of "family" I completely agree with you. The fact of the matter is that we are indeed all connected. Without even getting into all the metaphysical stuff, every person alive today has a common ancestor. We are all literally kin.

Yesterday I sent an email to my subscribers promoting Iyanla Vanzant's latest book. Iyanla was the first bestselling authors on AALBC.com. She is one of 2 or 3 authors who has been bestselling author on AALBC.com in both 998 and 2015. I've seen her in action a few times and she strikes me as down to earth, regular--despite her fame. After I send an email I just get feedback from folks, usually thanking me for the information. Below is a message, typical of one I usually receive, in reaction to the Iyanla mailing: “I knew nothing about it. And I love Iyanla! I have at least three of her books.” Here a two message on the other side of the spectrum. Now I do not recall ever getting a negative message in reaction to a specific author. Here are two message I received regarding Iyanla: “Please don't send me anything pertaining to this woman.” “Thank you, Troy. But I'm going to pass this up.” Again, people do not complain about authors I highlight in my eNewsletter. Now I don't expect people to like all the authors I cover, but people generally don't share their complains with me (though I wish they would). Shoot, I don't even like all the authors I promote--but I know others will. I image most people get this which may explain why I don't normally get complaints about the individual authors I cover. So if people went out their way to complain about Iyanla they must have really strong feeling about her. Anyone got any ideas?

Since Facebook has become "pay to play" for business pages, meaning you have to pay to have your posts seen. I've been reviewing my use of the platform including abandoning it altogether. One experiment I've been trying lately is to post messages about my website activity on my personal page, rather than my fanpage. I only have about 4,800 friends, less than 1/4 of the number of fans I have on my business page, but I'm finding that posts on my personal Facebook page are getting more engagement than the posts entered on the Facebook page for my business (AALBC.com). In fact, over the last couple of weeks I've been posting on the personal page, then sharing on the business page. I used to do it the other way around. Sometime early next year, after I collect more data, I'll see if this increased engagement has resulted in an increase in traffic to my website--which is the only reason I use Facebook. This might be a worthwhile thing to try--even if you don't have many friends. One downside is that you could risk losing the friends you have on Facebook by boring them to death with posts promoting your website/blog/business. This is a risk I'm more than willing to take, as Facebook is not how I engage my friends. I'm ole school, I'll visit, pick up a phone, or send a email or card.

“As long as we continue to wrap ourselves within the confines of our own selfishness, the cycle will repeat itself to extinction. Efforts must be made to educate young black minds, instead of feeding them to the Minotaur.” Absolutely! But, even if the best minds know what to do; they are crippled by an inability to execute. I had ideas on how I wanted my children to be raised, or even live my own life but then reality hit and I'm constantly improvising. The American culture pretty much undermines anything good we want to do. We know if is good to save money, but the culture is constantly screaming at you to consume. We know which food are best, but junk food is pushed to our children nonstop. Everybody knows smoking is lethal, but kids are the biggest Tobacco's biggest targets. Guys know it is not good to try to have sex with every women you meet, but sex is everywhere... What specifically can be done to educate young Black minds? The burden can't be just families, because those benefits only accrue to those families who do the right thing.

As part of the website upgrade, I'm greatly expanding the information on Book Clubs. In fact, I would like AALBC.com to be thought of as the "Book Club of Book Clubs" or maybe the "Book Club for Book Clubs." I'll sort the tag line out later, the most important thing is what is being added to the web. I have about 650 book clubs on AALBC.com. You can find a book club near you here: http://aalbc.org/bookclubs/ I plan to add the reading lists of as many book clubs as possible. I just added Go On Girl! Book Club's reading list: http://aalbc.it/goongirl2016 Also, all commissions earned from sales of books on the Go On Girl! Book Club's reading list will be donated to charity. Book Club information will be aggregated to provide value all readers. In fact, if you go to a book page (every book, on the new website, has its own page), it will tell you how many Book Club's have selected the book for their reading list. Check out the page for Barbara Ransby's book, Eslanda: The Large and Unconventional Life of Mrs. Paul Robeson. There is a lot of potential here. No one is adequately reporting on, or addressing the needs of Book Clubs. Besides libraries, the few remaining book sellers, no other entity advocates for Black authors and books better than Book Clubs. Book Clubs help drive the demand for quality literature that tells our stories. The culture needs their support. _____ *Note: the AALBC.com development site is http://aalbc.org. When the site is launched next year, AALBC.org will become the new AALBC.com.

Yeah I have to believe they are part of the larger Bridge organization. I read the book years ago, so I don't remember. My first exposure to the game of Bridge was on television sitcoms, it was a game white women, played while their husbands were at work. I've never seen anyone play the game and I have no idea what the rules are, though I seem to recall someone telling me it being similar to bid whist. I grew up playing spades. I'm not even sure when I learned to play. The game is so very simple, almost on the level of playing "I Declare War." The real fun comes from the trash talking. It is also a game anyone can pick up, you can play it inebriated, and it does not require too much concentration. I played spades for the first time in a long time and we had a ball. It sounds like Bridge requires a lot more thought than Spades, maybe not on the order of Chess, but certainly more than Spades. Spades, an interesting name for the game considering who plays it

On its face I would be wary because these "we'll display your books" are usually scams. I just did a quick query on the company (which I never heard of), and they appear to be the old www.publishamerica.com which has tons of complains from writers. I would ignore the email.

Shirley the information about schools really needs to be much more widely known. The the old days Ebony may have done an expose on these issues. I'm aware of far too many kids who are put in "special ed" because of a teacher's poor classroom management skills. As you said this is essentially a permanent placement, which impacts the students life options in the long run. When I was in grade school the students were grouped by ability, tracked. From grade 1 through 8, I was in class the with the same students. I was always tracked in the top class. The top class always got the best teachers. Once you were in the top class you generally stayed in it. Those in the bottom, usually stayed in the bottom. The boys (it was always boys), who misbehaved were put in a class in the basement separate from the other students until the aged out, dropped out, or imprisoned. The students in the top class were allowed to take the test for the specialized high schools. These were the schools which prepared you for college. At the time there were also vocational high schools which prepared you for pretty much any vocational career you could imagine. Today those vocational schools are gone, and all schools are supposed to prepare students for college. This change has been a colossal failure for students... I think part of the anger students feel is they see no options for themselves, no realistic way out. The deck is stacked against them, and they understand this, but feel powerless to do anything about it. They should be angry, but like the rabid racist, and Trump supporters, their anger is misdirected.

Sure Trump appeals to the Joe 6-pack, gun-advocate, blue-collar, super-patriots crowd too. I lump them into the downtrodden category as well. The kind of guy who works a labor intensive, boring, or dangerous, dead-end job and comes home, pops open a six pack and watches the game. This guy is no better off than the woman trapped in government subsidized housing, who gets off from a job standing on her feet all day, behind a register perhaps, too tired to do anything with the kids, and watches Housewives of Atlanta. He kills animals for fun (hunts) and she goes to Church. Both are releases, but people need more. I also don't mean to imply that Trump only appeals to the downtrodden. He also appeals to the super rich, and the wannabe super rich. Do you think anyone else would be more pro-business than Trump? It seems increasingly likely Trump will win the nomination, but the GOP may not back him. Supposedly he signed a pledge not to run against the GOP on a third party ticket. We will see what happens. If I were a billionaire, the last thing I would want to be is POTUS. Seriously, who wants the aggravation and a lifetime of secret service? You are may be right in that Trump is not motivated by money. But what, then, is his motivation? Do you buy into his rhetoric that he wants to make "America great again." What does that mean anyway? Does he mean when Black were still enslaved, or under the rule of Jim Crow? When was America any "greater" or worse than it is now? Don't sleep on those speaking fees, as a sitting President Trump will get paid more ways that you can imagine. He could be president for free if he wanted.

@Cynique, my cousin self-published this book a couple of years ago. I was updating her profile and this book made me think of you, for what I hope are obvious reasons. My cousin has a Ph.D. in computational linguistics, and has published several book since she retired.

Cynique, generally I'm rushing when I post here. The last post, with those egregious typos, which I obviously missed yesterday, jumped off the screen at me, as I'm sure they did to anyone else reading them. I might have a mental deficiency--I have to work really hard to edit my own material immediately after writing it. I re-read that last post (at least I thought I did) Shirley, that poem does a good job of presenting a young man, like Earl's, thoughts. The generational frustration, the embarrassment, etc. What made this young man so angry? What did he expect? This makes me think about my mother's generation; most of her peers did not finish primary school. Her own father never learned to read or write, but he owned a farm. It does not seems like it is illiteracy alone that is the problem for boys like Earl. I have also taught a class full of troubled youth and the best readers were the biggest pains in the butt. What made it so frustrating was the those students were wasting my time and their own--but something was clearly bothering them, or they would have had their high school diploma and been doing the things that other smart people do. So being a good reader, or even very smart, is not sufficient to get kids out of the trouble and avoid the anger Earl experienced. Of course my stories are all anecdotal, viewed from my own lense, so may not have anything to do with the broader picture. But still, the frustration at one's inability to read on grade level to shooting another person in the back does not seem like a logical or even reasonable progression. What do you think?

Shirley I OFTEN have to edit something I'd previously posted. Sometimes I reread something I wrote and wonder what in the world possessed me to hit the enter key. It is not like I did not check what I wrote, it is just that my mistakes are invisible to me right after write something. A day later they are as plain as day. I made the corrections, you requested, above.

Before Trump ran for office white people were predicting the rise of someone like Trump. The conditions are similar to the ones in which Hitler rose to power. I completely "get" Trump's appeal. Part of the problem is that the media desperate for viewers are simply reporting, often misreporting, everything he has to say. This has only helped Donald. Trump is voicing the concerns of the downtrodden white, Christian majority. Something that was a seemingly politically incorrect thing for a conventional politician to do, but serves Donald in spades. As misdirected (blaming Mexican for job loses for example) as it may be in some instances, we ignore or dismiss this demographic at our peril. Donald Trump is definitely no idiot, egotistical with a touch of sociopathy, perhaps--but definitely no idiot. I don't even think Donald is an actual racist. Reducing him to these simple characteristics allows us to underestimate him and his power. The only color Donald sees is GREEN. The way things are going he will be seeing a lot more green in the future. The Chicago mayor should be facing jail time.

@Shirley Gale, I'm sharing the backstory to the poem below. I think it will help readers appreciate it. “My first student, Earl Joseph, III, approximately two years ago, shot a man in the back after stealing cars. Earl was only 15 years old. When he was my student, he presented himself as this beautiful young man who possessed a gentle kindness and a smile that could light up the night's sky. I would have never dreamed in a million years that he would have shot someone. Now here is the kicker, Earl was reading on a 3rd to 5th grade level. He hardly ever came to school and when he did, the last thing on his mind was reading, writing, and listening to anything that any of his teachers, of course except me, had to say. Honestly, I am fortunate enough to understand this population of kids as my brothers and I were them. Anyway, I was not aware of Earl's activities until it was too late and my poor baby was locked up in adult population where he was of course raped and tormented by guys much older. Please know that I am in no way excusing his actions. He was wrong--deadly wrong! But he had been wronged as well. He was wronged from birth by all of us--his negligent parents, Louisiana's piss poor educational system, his poor excuse for a community, and our out-of-sight, out-of-mind society at large. Earl took the life of someone's husband, father, brother, etc. But, the fact remains that I am devastated to know that this child, will be locked up for the rest of his natural life with absolutely no chance of patrol. Rehabilitation you say. Please don't mention that non-existent word to me. Louisiana ain't no joke, but their version of rehabilitation certainly is!!!! Long story short, as I always do when I am in despair, I wrote poetic verse to these events. I would very much like to share what I have written. However, I have some very strong words which could be viewed as offensive for this particular platform. Troy, I would like for you to preview first and advise. This piece has graphic content, but it is oh, so powerful. I would love to hear what CDBurns thinks about this particular free verse. I greatly respect his knowledge in this area.”—Shirley G. Perry-Church

HI @Shirley Gale if would be much better if you initiated the post so that you poem stands alone. Also make sure you are logged in; I was forced, due to the spammers, to stop guest posts from appearing without me approving them first. To initiate a new post simply go to the Poetree and click the "start new topic" button on the upper right hand side of the page. If you are logged in, clicking this link will start a new topic too: http://aalbc.com/tc/forum/6-the-poetree/?do=add I have not read your poem yet, I have to read it later when I can think about it. Which means I'll most likely print it and read it off-line, they way I would a long form article. Thanks again for sharing it. Once you post it I'll share it on social media too.