Troy

Come to New York City Pioneer and you'll see homeless people of all stripes. I'm sure you see a bunch of homeless homos (I could not pass up the alleratration) in San Francisco too. Homosexual as a demographic seen to do better financially, but if you consider two white men living togther without children, what do you expect. Pioneer, I'm not gay but (pardon the pun) as far as youe comment "Also it's funny to me how a so-called "gay" man can maintain an erection for and have sex with a woman for 8 years without her having a clue." I hear you but since you are not gay I would be careful about applying your sensibilities, as a non-gay, to the things they do. There are striaght men who have sex with men for money, who don't consider themselves gay. Men in prison have sex with men and don't consider themsleves gay because they are not on the recieving end... I don't think who you have sex with, is what makes you gay. There are plenty of gay people and straight people who don't have sex.

"One Baltimore store owner once told me he refuses to sell books other than Street Lit" Nah'Sun, the Baltimore bookstore owner is behaving in a completely rationale manner, essentially echoing my point. While I'm lamentaing the difficutly of promoting literary fiction he has simply decided to not bother. I get that. It is the same decision many store owners and websites have adopted. The literary titles appeal to a smaller demographic. The titles often require more effort to hand sell to those not familiar with the author or intimidated by the prose. Plus, and I'm talking about myself here, as an indy website owner, literary authors/publishers provide no incentives to sell these books. The ad buys are few. When we review their work (a BIG expense) favorably, our reviews are not blurbed, I could go on. It seems the literary authors and the publishers take the Black Independent booksellers for granted, instead focusing, perhaps, on a broader (read: white) audience. Alice Walker http://aalbc.com/authors/alice.htm has three books coming out this year when I first started AALBC.com every indy website would haved mention this, today our folks might not even know about it. There are 60 to 70% fewer indy bookstores now, than there were when I started, and those that remain are mostly struggling or focused on the urban titles, so our communities will have less opportuniy to learn about this type of book. The same goes for the Black book websites -- just visit a few and see how many are promoting Alice latest books? I put up information about Alice Walker on my homepage, in an unsold ad slot, The urban authors who purchased advertising are SUBSIZING Alice Walker! It is easier for a website to do this, much harder for a physcial bookstore. Don't blame the book stores.

HB, since preachers are simply men I presume that cheat for the same reasons regular men cheat. Marriage is about a lot more than sex. No rational person gets married simply for the sexual intercourse. Obviously, sex from a spouse is not enough to prevent some people from straying nor is enough to keep a marriage together. I would argue that sex is not even a solid foundation for a good marriage -- but it's a good place to start

Three new books coming out this year plus a documentary film about her life premiered late last year

LOL! Fascinating observation Cynique! The agent was using a techique to engage Malcom that he was trained to use. Don't think for a split second that encounter was not thought out in advance. The screen writer probably has access to the same techniques used by the FBI, and used it with Agent Smith in the Matrix. Helps one appreciate the Matrix even more.

The secretly recorded conversation between Malcom X and the FBI is just fascinating. I can't believe 20 years have passed since the air date of this program and I'm just now seeing it for the first time. Gil Noble's Like It Is program was terrific. Is their anything like it on TV today. One of the reasons Youtube remains one of the best things about the internet. Lets hope it is not completely corrupted by Google's relentless pursuit of ever increasing revenue.

That was interesting Cynique. I'm sure all of the money, material benefits and comfort celebrity some of the Panther leadership enjoyed changed things in many ways for the entire Panther organization. I'm cynical enough to believe the celebrities embracing the movement was probably deliberate tactic employed to destablize the organization. But I have no evidence of this. People can be setup in many ways. Remember how the police set up the former Mayor of DC (his name escapes me now), they got an attractive woman with some crack to seduce my man and get the city's beloved Mayor on camera doing something stupid. The Panthers are no more immune to these things than you or I. Though some of are more easily manipulated than others -- those folks you just have to kill. That said, I know a couple of ex-Panthers who to this day remain some of the most conscious people I know. Paul Coates of Black Cl;assic Press immediately comes to mind. Jamal Joseph is another.

Humm I recall Keyes was not in this debate but I had no idea all of this took place. Needless to say this helps explain why the Republican have less than zero juice with Black folks. But again given our numbers they don;t need us. Given their behavior (Ben Carson aside), they don't really care either.

I don't know y'all many of the Panthers who ended up in Jail, like Jamal, ended up there because of the work with the Panthers, not because they were criminals. Also the work of the informants helped make the arrests possible. The informants, at least in Jamals case were not "turned" they were infilrators you helped instigate criminal behavior and cause dessention in the ranks. Fred Hampton was murder, plain and simple. That was criminal. Also the Panthers were the object of a baised media (I hope we all understand, this by now). I'd encourage you all to talk to people like Jamal, Bobby Seale, Shakur, and others directly. Get the information first hand, otherwise you are being lied to.

Plus they always seems to get a Brothers to don a dress at some point. Even action hero Wesley Snipes has worn a dress in a film, we don't even have to discuss the explopit of Tracy Morgan and Shawn Wayans. I know it is my New York City sensibility, but why do we care about Jason Collins sexuality?! Is being gay still news? I remeber when Sheryl Swopes "came out", after being married to a man, according to Wikipedia she is engaged to a man now now. Again why someones sex life is news is lost on me?! I read, on Facebook (the worlds news source) it is hard to avoid reading this crap, that Jason Collins dated a women for years. The woman claimed he had no idea Jason was gay. Again who cares, really... As a culture was are so stupid.

This is old news from an article by Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg on thw WSJ.com from August of last year "Kobo's agreement with the American Booksellers Association, the independents' trade group, is effective in October. The deal replaces one between the ABA and Google Inc., GOOG +0.67% which has said it would end an effort to sell e-books through independent booksellers in January 2013, declaring the program had failed to gain traction." The article goes on to say; "Independent booksellers, for their part, will be able to offer their customers e-books outside of the dominant digital booksellers, Amazon.com Inc.'s (AMZN +1.60%) Kindle store; Barnes & Noble Inc's (BKS -0.28%) Nook store and Apple Inc's (AAPL +2.86%) iBook store. Each of those companies sell their own devices on which e-books can be read." The main problem with Kobo (owned by Rakuten), it that they are not price competive (specially for shipping) and few people are aware of the eBook platform. The problem with the independent is that the Kobo derived websites all look the same and many offer no custom cotent -- it is just a store front for Kobo pushing the titles Kobo pushes. So advertisers give Kobo money to promote books and the independent websites loose not only sales (because of higher prices), they loose their indepedence because of the control exerted by Kobo. Rakuten, based in Japan is one of the world larget internet companies. They own buy.com, Linkshare.com (an affiliate program manager I use to resell books from Barnes & Noble), most of Pinterest, and too much more to mention.

Pioneer! But as crazy as it sounds mainstream media does reinforce that quality in Brothers, along with dancing and athletics.

In major urban centers this is the case today. In the film they said the real unemployment rate for Detroit is 50%. That has been the case for Black folks in Harlem since I started paying attention. The problem is masked in Harlem because the community does not have a voice and their are enough wealthy people crowding out the needs of the majority of the people. Pioneer that is the problem with our base we have to be appealed to on an emotional level -- this despite extreme intelligence (as you suggested). I posted an interview of Ben Carson recently I got into a long debate with the Brother (who I greatly respect) from ChickenBones. I posted the interview thinking it would be an example of a professionally successful Brother but was criticized for praising Ben. At the time I was unaware of his politics. I heard him speak since then and yes he is rather soft spoken, but I don't judge someone's political effectiveness or leadership potential based upon the timbre of their voice. But you may be right charismatic preachers, all style, little substance, seem to exert great power over the masses...

I have 20 coupons, for $100 of free advertising with Google Ad Words. You need to spend $25 to get the $100. Some of you may know I've been on a rant lately about Google's impact on the world wide web -- both good and bad. Please do not take this as an blanket endorsement of Google, for it is not. What it is, is $100 in free advertising.. If you ever wanted to experiment with placing online advertisements using with Google's AdWords here is your chance. You are only risking $25 (less than the price of AALBC.com's least expensive ad) to learn a few things and maybe even help generate extra business by attracting more visitors to your website. If you are interested, I also offer consulting services to help you set up your advertising. If you want to use one of these coupons just email me at troy@aalbc.com and I'll send you the coupon code -- just don't let the $100 go to waste by not using the coupon after I send you the code. You may also call my office directly at 347-692-2522 to obtain the code

Read the entire ranking here Sorry to make you follow another link.

La Casa Azul Bookstore is a bookstore just a few block from my home. The bookstore is less than a year old and is triving. The store owner says she has hosted 200 hundred events in just under a year. This video is pretty interesting as several authors give us their take on the state of independent Black owned book stores. A couple of then recommended their favorite stores perhaps some of you all can visit them.

Jamal Joseph was a Black Panther. He spoke to a group of us at SIster's Uptown Bookstore in Harlem yesterday. The most fascinating thing to me was how a Brother Jamal trusted as a mentor, a father figured, turned out to be a police informant.

"...an era where our perceptions are more readily shaped by our engagement with media than our interactions with people." 'nuff said! I like this new guy :-)

Alchemist, welcome to the boards. I'm with you 100% but would you elaborate on your next to last sentence, "I think that speaks directly to the fact we do not have a very thoughtful citizenry." Are you saying that Americans don't participate in the process to make it work effectively, are evil and take advantage of the process or something else?

Nah'Sun, it would help if literary fiction were promoted and marketed. 90% (conservatively) of my ad revenue comes from non-literary work. So when an Oprah embraces a book or a novel wins a white man's award, it becomes the book people know about. Of course platforms perportedly interested in sharing information about books focus on the award winning titles and what Oprah has picked -- because that is easy and cheap to do. Site's like my own can no longer afford to subsidize the promotion of literary fiction as I once did. Of course I still do it, but it comes at a price (time energy and money). But in my effort to provide some semblance of balance I have to incurr this expense. Lately it feels like a loosing battle :-( So if literary ficion dies it has no one to blame but itself.

They supported George Bush, Sarah Palin,.. anything is possible. The person in the seat does not really matter I thought the Obama presidency taught us that. You all should watch the documentary Detropia

Classic Cynqiue. It is hard to image all Rivers is 80. I saw her a couple of years ago I think I even posted a photo here she is a trip. If you have not seen the documentary film of her life I would recommend it.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: CONTACT: Erik Burton profilepr@gmail.com 770-294-8475 Tyler Perry Scribe Acquires Film And TV Rights to Children’s Book ATLANTA- Former Tyler Perry’s House of Payne Head Writer, Brian Egeston recently acquired the worldwide TV and film rights to Acoustic Rooster and His Barnyard Band (Sleeping Bear Press). The NAACP Image Award nominated book was written by Kwame Alexander and illustrated by Tim Bowers. “I’ve followed Kwame’s work for more than a decade as a poet, playwright, novelist and now as a children’s author,” said Egeston. “When I heard the rights to his book were available, I jumped on it.” The book’s main character, Acoustic Rooster, hopes to win the Barnyard Talent Show, but first he needs a band. Turned away by other barnyard musicians such as, Mules Davis, Ella Finchgerald and Thelonius Monkey, he starts his own jazz band with Duck Ellington, Bee Holiday, and Poncho Ernesto Cruz. “Kwame and I both are avid jazz fans and we have five-year olds in our respective homes, so we both live with our own focus group.” Alexander is a two-time NAACP Image Award nominee and has authored fourteen books. “Kwame is always globetrotting with various programs encouraging kids to read and adults to write. This guy is passionate about the written word which was a major selling point for me,” Egeston added. Egeston worked as a staff writer for Tyler Perry’s House of Payne in 2009 and then for Tyler Perry’s Meet The Browns. The following season he was promoted to Head Writer for House of Payne where he remained until the final season. Egeston is currently Head Writer for The Rickey Smiley TV Show. “I’ll implement some of the things I learned working at Tyler Perry Studios, which is to work hard, work efficiently and then work even harder,” noted Egeston. Egeston will development the book into an animated series through his production company, Stuttering Rabbit Productions. He, along with Alexander, will co-write the pilot. The deal, for an undisclosed amount, was negotiated by Shannon K. Nash of Nash Management Group. Alexander is represented by Deborah K. Warren of East West Literary Agency. Egeston is represented by Zac Simmons of The Kaplan Stahler Agency. ###

...perhaps that is the nature of good filmmaking. OK maybe I'm a hypercrite for (albiet with the private parts on full blast). And maybe I'm a hypercrite for not being overly concerned about Brothers who go to Rio for Sexcapades. And maybe I still a little racist despite by calls for the iradication of the concept, but the premise o this film kinda irks me. You can read Kam's review here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4ZFB8qwWa4

I may be projecting but that is part of the human condition, that and the fact that I actually do think less of closed minded people. Also if we know anything about people it IS what they do. It is what people think is much more difficult to devine. But soon there were be machines capable of reading out thoughts before we are consciously aware of them ourselves. Ok so you are not a fanatic about this topic. What about your children? Are you fanatical about them? Would you do anything to protect them, including giving your life? Would you make great personal sacrifice to ensure their comfort and well being -- beyond what you would do for a stranger or even a friend?