Ten-year-old Malia Obama and 7-year-old Sasha Obama joined their parents in shaking hands and dishing out holiday wishes to hundreds who had lined up for hours at the food bank. The family handed out wrapped chickens to the needy at St. Columbanus Catholc Church, where boxes of potatoes, oranges, fresh bread, peanut butter, canned goods, oatmeal, spaghetti and coffee also were passed around.

The president-elect, dressed in a leather jacket, black scarf and khakis, called out "Happy Thanksgiving" and invited everyone to be casual: "You can call me Barack."

The father of two explained that he wants his girls "to learn the importance of how fortunate they are, and to make sure they're giving back."

As children from the church school came down to the auditorium, Obama climbed up on the stage to screams and cheers. "I just wanted to come by and wish everybody a happy Thanksgiving," he said, fielding questions from some. One wanted to know what it's like to be followed around all the time. Obama spoke of a certain loss of privacy.

""I gotta admit, sometimes it's kinda strange,'' the 47-year-old former junior senator from Illinois said. "You just want to go take a walk or go out and ride your bike or something, and you always have someone with you... So you don't have a lot of privacy and that's one of the things you have to sacrifice in order to run for president."

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Paula Gilovich, a member of the brain trust behind the Social Justice High School's Pride Campus, said members of the group decided to withdraw its application after the school's new mission statement shifted from being about gay students to a more generic "haven where students can feel safe and valued for who they are."

"There were various communities that put a great deal of pressure on the proposal and on the design team and on the city and on the Chicago Public Schools to change it," Gilovich said.

Gay rights activists supporting the school's focus on gay and lesbian students blasted both the team pushing the plan and school officials for giving in to public and political pressure and scuttling the plan.

"I feel the political pressure that has been placed on the design team from the mayor's office on down to shelve it, to scuttle it, to remove it from consideration is an outrage and a disgrace," said Roger Fraser, a retired teacher and gay activist.

Since it was first introduced, the plan has garnered national attention. It was widely supported in several public hearings, but Mayor Richard Daley said the school, which had been designed for gay students but would accept all students, should not segregate.

Gilovich vowed to return next year with a revamped proposal.

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But just before the Nov. 4 election, a black friend told me his theory: The attitude toward homosexuality and gay marriage won't change dramatically in the African American community until someone comes out of the closet and makes it more socially acceptable.

I suspected this had to be wrong, so I began racking my brain to come up with such a person.

Well, there's . . .

Hmmmmmm.

Outside of RuPaul, I was stumped. Rumors and speculation throw a couple of names on the table, but no one of the stature of John, Geffen or Ellen DeGeneres is front and center.

Does that mean there are no prominent African Americans who happen to be gay?

"I think in the black community we have a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy, where everybody knows there are gay folks, but if it's not said, it's easier," said state Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, who along with dozens of other legislators, opposed Proposition 8 and is now supporting legal challenges to the measure.

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Barack Obama’s campaign victory was epic-making in America and across the Muslim world. On November 4, as soon as the election was called for Barack Obama, I began to receive congratulatory emails from friends in the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia, and Europe. Some had stayed up through the night to hear the final results. 

Of course, I wasn’t surprised at the global interest and support, which had been evident on recent visits to Europe, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Wherever I spoke, regardless of the topic, someone in the audience would ask me a question about Obama and his prospects. Privately, it was the topic of conversation. So what will all this mean?

In the Muslim world, as in Europe and much of the world, Obama is welcomed as an internationalist president. His Kenyan father, early schooling in Indonesia, race and name symbolize for many a unique internationalist presidential profile, one that contrasts sharply with his predecessor. Indeed, he is seen as the antithesis of George W. Bush—internationally informed, experienced, aware and sensitive, a measured and articulate statesman—not, as Bush is often regarded, as a swaggering Texas cowboy.

Obama’s foreign policy will be expected to be all the things that many in the Muslim world saw as lacking in the Bush administration, which was viewed as neo-colonial, unilateral, arrogant, militant and interventionist. Therefore, an Obama administration will be expected to be multilateral, favor diplomacy first over military threats and intervention, and avoid what many believe was a neo-colonialist American foreign policy whose verbal commitment to democracy promotion and human rights was hypocritical. Obama’s administration cannot, like Bush’s, fail to walk the way it talks.

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The United States will soon have a President who has a profound understanding and respect for Islam gained from having been immersed in "the real Indonesia" of the kampong during his first two years in Indonesia and from his later exposure to the tolerance and pluralistic attitudes at SD Besuki Mentang in Jakarta.

In The Audacity of Hope, the future President of the United States recalls that "our family was not well off in those early years; the Indonesian Army did not pay its lieutenants much. ...without the money to go to the international school that most expatriate children attended, I went to local Indonesian schools and ran the streets with the children of farmers, servants, tailors, and clerks."

Obama writes that he "remembered those years as a joyous time, full of adventure and mystery -- days of chasing down chickens and running from water buffalo, nights of shadow puppets and ghost stories and street vendors (kaki lima) bringing delectable sweets to our door." When his Indonesian stepfather left the military and obtained a job in the oil sector the young Obama was fortunate to attend SD Besuki Mentang, where he studied alongside Muslim, Christian, and Hindu students.

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Al-Zawahiri said in his message that Obama was the "direct opposite of honorable black Americans" like late Malcolm X. He warned Obama that the US could face the same failures as the Soviet Union in Afghanistan if he acts on his promises to send more troops to the war-ravaged country.

The Muslim leaders also stated that al-Zawahiri used racist language by unfavorably comparing Obama to late Malcolm X. They called the comments "an insult" from people who have "historically been disconnected from the African-American community generally and Muslim African-Americans in particular."

"We find it insulting when anyone speaks for our community instead of giving us the dignity and the honor of speaking for ourselves," the Muslim leaders said in a statement read during a news conference at the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial, Educational and Cultural Center.

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"We come from a time when rap used to agitate the mainstream, now it represents the mainstream"
Ice T

[B]lack masculinity [is] defined mainly by an urban aesthetic, a nihilistic attitude, and an aggressive posturing…developed largely as a result of the commodification of hip-hop culture, and the ubiquity of rap music and the ‘videomercials’ that sell it. More specifically, it is the result of the popularity of the urban ‘gangsta’...”

-- Matthew Henry

The bad man motif figures prominently in Black American folk culture as a symbol of resistance to racism and white oppression. From Stagolee to Shine this subversive figure has been part of the cultural rituals and symbols of Black American of resistance. At the turn of 20th century these bad men were known to play blues or jazz music and wear zoot suits.

Novelist Ralph Ellison aptly depicted such a figure in his Harlem character Rinehart in his famous novel Invisible Man. Perhaps the most notorious bad men in athletics were the black heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson and the Negro League baseball phenomena, Satchel Paige who insisted on playing by their own rules.

In the modern world the dark, abiding, “BAAD” bad blues/jazz presence of Johnson and Paige has been supplanted by the likes of the 1990s Dennis Rodman and Latrell Sprewell, and Terrell Owens, Latrell Sprewell, Allen Iverson, Randy Moss, of this century. Perhaps the “baddest” man of them all is Barry Bonds, currently facing an indictment for alleged perjury.

Indeed, the image is re-conjured in the board rooms of music executives and played out in professional sports, spawning new and improved bad man in the world of music and sports. Unfortunately the cool guise or cool posing central to hip-hop’s core is seized upon and shaped by media, professional sports leagues, and leading sports apparel companies to construct the negative stereotype of bad black men. Sports and other popular media, as well as the marketing companies that feed them, attribute these qualities to narcissism, questionable values, poor sportsmanship, as well as a propensity for crime and violence. This is how 21st century Black men masculinity struts across television screens and popular culture. The basic ideological infrastructure continues to position non-whites via art, literature, cinema, music, and sport culture.

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The Global Trends 2005 report, released by the director of national intelligence yesterday, says that while the US will remain the most powerful country in 2025, the rise of emerging powers and regional blocs will constrain its ability to "call the shots" across the world.

The National Intelligence Council analysis concluded the US would be ever more constricted by scientific advances in other countries, the expansion of irregular warfare by state and non-state actors, the proliferation of long-range precision weapons and the growing frequency of cyber warfare. "The multiplicity of influential actors and distrust of vast power means less room for the US to call the shots without the support of strong partnerships."

The report said the international system prevailing since the second world war would be "unrecognisable by 2025 owing to the rise of emerging powers, a globalising economy, a historic transfer of relative wealth and economic power from west to east, and the growing influence of non-state actors".

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Dr. Terry most recently served as the Senior Director for Emergency and International Services for the National Capital Area of the Red Cross and previously as the Executive Director of the District of Columbia Office of the Red Cross. Dr. Terry is a licensed clinical professional counselor and certified alcoholism and drug addiction counselor. Dr. Terry supervised mental health services and care for first responders after the September 11th attacks at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

"His track record of helping organizations have big impact is unparalleled," said Kevin Shipman a long time activist and District of Columbia government health official. "His commitment to harm reduction and past work in addiction counseling will be a great asset to the organization."

Regarding his future role, Dr. Terry stated, "The District of Columbia has the highest HIV/AIDS rate in the country. Over 20 percent of these cases come directly from injection drug use. PreventionWorks is uniquely poised to partner with government and other community organizations to positively impact this modern epidemic. Knowing that I have such a strong team of committed staff, volunteers, and community partners will ensure our long term success."

Dr. Terry has lectured extensively at the University of the District of Columbia, Howard University and the University of Maryland. He has worked with many local nonprofit organizations over his career including the Martin Pollak Project, Sasha Bruce Youthwork, Thomas O'Farrell YouthCenter and the Koba Institute.

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - A Dutch court convicted two men Wednesday for attempting to infect 14 victims with HIV in a bizarre sex case.

The Groningen District Court found the two guilty of severe assault for injecting semiconscious men with HIV-infected blood at sex parties between January 2006 and May 2007.

Peter M., 49, who was also convicted of rape, was sentenced to nine years in prison and Hans J., 39, received a five-year sentence. Under Dutch privacy laws, the surnames of convicted criminals are not released.

Prosecutors said they would appeal for higher sentences.

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