Insurance companies have welcomed the introduction of new electronic motor insurance certificates which will allow drivers to have instant access to their documents wherever they are.The Department for Transport has announced that the insurance industry can now issue electronic car insurance certificates to their customers via email, meaning they will arrive instantly and can be held on home computers.
The insurance comparison site www.Insurancewide.com believes the move is a sensible one and will be particularly useful for newly insured drivers who often wait several days or weeks for their paper documents to arrive.Chief executive James Harrison said drivers who do not keep a copy of their insurance certificate in their car risk unnecessary fines and even vehicle confiscation if they are stopped by the police, who are cracking down on uninsured drivers."The arrival of electronic motor insurance certificates will allow drivers to have access to their motor insurance documents almost immediately and will reduce the risk of drivers being wrongly perceived as uninsured," he remarked.According to road safety minister Jim Fitzpatrick the new technology will save car insurance companies between £5 million and £10 million a year.
News Release 7th March 2008 West Yorkshire Police Charge ‘Crash for Cash’ Fraudsters
Tuesday 4th March - West Yorkshire Police have charged 3 individuals in the ongoing inquiry into ‘crash for cash’ scams in conjunction with the Insurance Fraud Bureau (IFB). Investigators from the (IFB) have worked closely with Keighley Police over the last ten months on Operation Pelican, investigating alleged false motor accident claims involving hundreds of thousands of pounds.
During the inquiry twenty two people have been arrested. A thirty seven year old male from the Keighley area has been charged with conspiracy to defraud insurance companies, conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and the intimidation of witnesses. A thirty-six year old female from the Keighley area has been charged with conspiracy to defraud insurance companies. A fifty-seven year old male from the Huddersfield area of West Yorkshire, a self-employed vehicle examiner, has been charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and conspiracy to defraud insurance companies. All 3 individuals charged are to appear at Bingley Magistrates Court on March 13th. A further sixteen people have received police cautions for minor fraud offences and 3 individuals have been eliminated from inquiries.
Detective Inspector John Mountain, West Yorkshire Police comments: “Innocent policy holders are paying for this kind of crime. Fraud increases the average premium by 5% or around £40. We will continue to work closely with the Insurance Fraud Bureau and take a robust stance in targeting and disrupting the criminal gangs preying on innocent motorists and the insurance industry.”
John Beadle, Chairman of the IFB said: “The insurance industry is no longer an easy touch for these organised fraudsters. We will continue to work closely with West Yorkshire Police and are delighted with the results achieved to date via this ongoing inquiry. We know these criminal gangs affect honest motorists in a number of different ways and are ruthless. Through our partnership approach with the Police we will continue to find, expose and pursue those criminals involved in organised insurance fraud.”
The IFB runs a free and confidential helpline which members of the public are urged to call if they have any information on staged motor accidents or other types of insurance fraud. The number is 0800 328 2550. -ends-
Notes to Editors: ‘Cash for crash’ scams involve offenders staging or contriving collisions between themselves or inducing innocent motorists into having collisions with the purpose of making a claim on the innocent motorist’s insurer, often including several accounts of fictitious injuries from members of the criminal gang. For each successful scam, the criminals can net in excess of £30,000.
The IFB was launched in July 2006, to clamp down on organised, cross-industry insurance fraud in order to protect honest policyholders. Fraud costs the insurance industry over £1.6 billion a year and adds 5% to premiums. Criminal gangs organising complex scams are earning up to £4 million a week from organised insurance fraud and frequently use the proceeds to fund other forms of criminality.
Via the IFB, the insurance industry is working collaboratively to detect and expose these criminal gangs; 97% of the UK’s personal lines insurers are participants in the IFB service. The Bureau analyses the details of insurance policies and claims records of all insurer members to identify suspicious activity. It then leads or co-ordinates investigations with the effected insurers and police to expose fraudsters and bring them to justice, recovering fraudulent monies paid out and seeking criminal prosecution.
For further information visit http://www.insurancefraudbureau.org/ For further media enquiries about the IFB please contact: Anne Staunton / Nicky Godfrey Peak Marketing and Communication Services 0845 056 0534 anne.staunton@peak-marketing.co.uk / nicky.godfrey@peak-marketing.co.uk For further information regarding Operation Pelican at West Yorkshire Police, please contact West Yorkshire Police Press Office 01924 292 045.
The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 largely comes into force on 6 April 2008, creating new offences that affect a whole range of businesses and corporate entities.
New law targets corporate killing - BBC News
A new law has come into force which is intended to make it easier to prosecute companies accused of causing death because of negligence.
Under the new offence of corporate manslaughter, employers may face large fines if it is proved they failed to take proper safety precautions.
The old law was criticised for making it too hard to bring prosecutions.
Proof is no longer needed that a single senior official was to blame, only that senior management played a role.
'Improved justice'
Under the new UK-wide legislation companies may face higher fines of up to 10% of turnover, or more in the most serious cases.
And for the first time the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act will make government bodies liable for prosecution by lifting their Crown immunity.
Justice minister Maria Eagle said: "From Sunday the law ensures improved justice for victims of corporate failures.
The new Act will not save the life of a single construction worker
Alan Ritchie, Ucatt
"We are sending out a very powerful deterrent message to those organisations which do not take their health and safety responsibilities seriously."
Critics of the new law, which comes into force more than 10 years after Labour promised the legislation, say it does not go far enough.
Tony Woodley, joint general secretary of trade union Unite, said: "Individual directors or senior managers will still not be held responsible for health and safety failures that result in the death of either their employees or members of the public."
THE FACTS BEHIND THE LAW In 2006/07, 241 people died at work In 2007, 77 construction workers died on the job More than 450 people have died in major disasters over the past 20 years The highest UK health and safety payout was £15m The fine was levied against gas transporter Transco after an explosion in 1999 killed four members of the same family Under the new law, firms may be fined from 2.5% to 10% of their turnover Firms may also be made to take out adverts in newspapers publicising their guilt
Construction industry union Ucatt was even more damning, describing the law as "the dampest of damp squibs".
Ucatt general secretary Alan Ritchie said: "Only by creating the possibility that directors will go to jail will there be a change of culture in the construction industry.
"The new Act will not save the life of a single construction worker," he said, adding that in 2007, 77 construction workers were killed at work.
Similar measures to those in the new legislation were first proposed in 1997 by then Home Secretary Jack Straw in the wake of the Southall rail crash which killed seven people.
But there has been public outrage at the repeated collapse of prosecutions over disasters such as the Southall crash.
Legal experts warn the implementation of the new law will not be straightforward.
Julian Acratopulo of law firm Clifford Chance said employers would face uncertainty when the law was first put into practice.
Clarification needed
He said: "The growing pains of this new piece of legislation will be particularly acute, given that a conviction could occur in circumstances most of us would regard as a terrible but unfortunate accident."
One area that still needs clarification is how to proportion responsibility between middle and senior management.
The Sentencing Advisory Panel has also suggested that major national companies who are found guilty should be forced to publicly name and shame themselves in media adverts
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. The beauty of nonviolence is that in its own way and in its own time it seeks to break the chain reaction of evil."
by Ashish, http://www.411mania.com/politics/columns/68588
Could money woes force Clinton out? With all the talk we've heard for the past few months about convention floor showdowns, backroom deals, superdelegates tearing the party apart, etc. comes word from Newsweek that Hillary Clinton may have only raised $7 million in primary funds in March. How can that be when she claimed to have raised $20 million? Simple. Her rich donors are maxed out for the primary (people can only donate up to $2300 for the primary) and she got them to donate towards her general election campaign so she could inflate the total sum and hope people didn't notice that most of the money can only be used in a general election, a place she is unlikely to even get to.
She did the exact same thing in February to try and stop talk of her being finished. Remember how she shouted from the rooftops that she raised $34.5 million and how it was a record month for her? Turns out only $11.7 million of that could be used in the primary, according to Newsweek. The rest will only become available to her if she gets to the general election. But she needs the money now. The reason nobody noticed this is that candidates aren't required to disclose how much they raise in primary funds and how much in general election funds until 20 days after the month ends. So when she did report the full picture, that only a third of her February total could be used in her battle with Obama, the media didn't take notice. I won't even get into the fact that Clinton closed February with $8.7 million in debt. For comparison, Obama raised $55.5 million in February, $54 million of that can be used in the primary. How can he do this? Because he has over a million small donors (and growing daily) and basically none of them are even close to being maxed out, which means he can keep going back to them for more money.
The Newsweek story also exposes that Clinton, despite plugging her website everywhere and trying to get small donations recently in the same way Obama has been doing, has been unsuccessful and is relying on her usual assortment of wealthy donors who can't give her more primary money but gave her enough money for the general election to delay talk of her campaign running out of money for a few extra days. It doesn't make a difference to these wealthy Clinton donors because she will eventually have to give them all that money back if she doesn't get to the general election. Why does this matter? Fundraising is CRUCIAL in the general election and it's another reason why you'll see superdelegates continue to side with Obama. The old ways of raising money, relying on the extremely wealthy and putting together high-dollar dinners with the rich and famous, is a thing of the past now.
If Clinton only raised $7 million in primary funds in March, a month where she won the Texas and Ohio primaries and Barack Obama got saddled with the negative Rev. Wright story, it may indicate that this race won't end in fireworks and excitement, it'll end in a whimper as Clinton runs out of money.
The $7 million figure could be true because right now, Clinton is letting Obama outspend her 5-to-1 in Pennsylvania even as polls show her lead collapsing in the state. If she had $20 million to spend, she would put it all in PA, as it is a do or die state for her. Instead, what we're likely seeing is her put in everything she has, but that everything is far less than what she wants people to think she has. This is how campaigns usually end. The frontrunner begins to rack up huge financial advantages after cementing himself as the likely winner and it gets to a point where money results in too many advantages for said frontrunner for the other candidate to ever stop the bleeding. And eventually their campaign dies. If this money advantage persists, it'll catch up with Clinton sooner rather than later, if not in PA, then in North Carolina and Indiana on May 6th. A loss in any of those three states will sink her.
If the Newsweek story is true, her only remaining option would be to donate massive amounts of her personal fortune to go on competing in a race that she is almost sure to lose. Her tax returns were released yesterday and showed that her and Bill have amassed over a $100 million since 2000, mostly from books they have written and Bill's speaking gigs. They will need at least another $30-$40 million over the next three months to even think about continuing in a legitimate fight against Obama, because in those same three months, he will likely raise near or over $100 million and already has a huge financial advantage going in. Clinton cannot be outspent 3-to-1 and 4-to-1 in every remaining state and think she stands a chance. She knows that.
Her bluff, reporting her March fundraising total to include general election funds which she will likely never be able to use (and will have to return), is something she had to do because had she come out and reported, say, a $10 million month, it would have completely demoralized her supporters in PA, NC, and IN, and would have accelerated the media's talk of her being finished (even more so than what the media is already talking about, which is that she has almost no chance to win). And I think she realizes that that demoralization has already started. Looking at her huge drop in PA polls, there seems to be a mix of Obama's advantage in ads and some of Clinton's softer supporters starting to lose faith and tell pollsters they just don't plan to vote, not because they don't support Clinton, but because it may no longer be worth the trouble to go vote for her. Again, this is how campaigns usually end.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "We the people, in order to form a more perfect union."
Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America's improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.
The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.
Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution - a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.
And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part - through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.
This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign - to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together - unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction - towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren.
This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.
I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton's Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I've gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world's poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners - an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.
It's a story that hasn't made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts - that out of many, we are truly one.
Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.
This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either "too black" or "not black enough." We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.
And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.
On one end of the spectrum, we've heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it's based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we've heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.
I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely - just as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.
But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren't simply controversial. They weren't simply a religious leader's effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country - a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.
As such, Reverend Wright's comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems - two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.
Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way
But the truth is, that isn't all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God's work here on Earth - by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.
In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:
"People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend's voice up into the rafters....And in that single note - hope! - I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion's den, Ezekiel's field of dry bones. Those stories - of survival, and freedom, and hope - became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn't need to feel shame about...memories that all people might study and cherish - and with which we could start to rebuild."
That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety - the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity's services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.
And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.
I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.
These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.
Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.
But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America - to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.
The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked through - a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.
Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, "The past isn't dead and buried. In fact, it isn't even past." We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.
Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven't fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today's black and white students.
Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments - meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today's urban and rural communities.
A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one's family, contributed to the erosion of black families - a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods - parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement - all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.
This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What's remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.
But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn't make it - those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations - those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician's own failings.
And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright's sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.
In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience - as far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.
Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren't always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.
Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze - a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns - this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.
This is where we are right now. It's a racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy - particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.
But I have asserted a firm conviction - a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people - that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.
For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances - for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives - by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.
Ironically, this quintessentially American - and yes, conservative - notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright's sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.
The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country - a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen - is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope - the audacity to hope - for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.
In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds - by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.
In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world's great religions demand - that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother's keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.
For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle - as we did in the OJ trial - or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.
We can do that.
But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.
That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, "Not this time." This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can't learn; that those kids who don't look like us are somebody else's problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.
This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don't have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.
This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job; it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.
This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should've been authorized and never should've been waged, and we want to talk about how we'll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.
I would not be running for President if I didn't believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation - the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.
There is one story in particularly that I'd like to leave you with today - a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King's birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.
There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.
And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.
She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.
She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.
Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother's problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn't. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.
Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley."
"I'm here because of Ashley." By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.
But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.
Read more HuffPost coverage and reaction to Obama's speech
Barack Obama won three more states in the latest battles for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.
Clean sweep for Obama The Illinois senator triumphed by wide margins in Washington, Louisiana and Nebraska - but he is still behind the delegate tally of his main rival Hillary Clinton.
His winning margins were substantial, ranging from roughly two-thirds of the vote in Washington and Nebraska.
In early results from Louisiana, he was gaining 53% of the vote, compared with 39% for the former first lady. He also took nearly 90% in the Virgin Islands.
This is a true story about a third generation barber in a small community in the Mid-west. The shop had been handed down from his grandfather and developed not just a hair salon but more of a community center where the farmers and families would come in not only to get their hair done, but enjoy the coffee and donut bar and spend time with their neighbors sharing the news of their farms and families. This shop had grown to include 10 stylists who cut all the men's hair and all the women's hair in the community.
The owner's son came home from graduate school over spring break, to find his father depressed and reclusive. Finally getting his father to share what the problem was, the father confided that there was a new, national chain that had been moving across the country, bringing in cheap hair salons into all of the different communities and driving everyone out of business. And so, even though the community had loved all of the work that he had done, the perms and the haircuts and the styles over the years, right down the street opened up this new shop. It offered six dollar haircuts. Person after person had left to go to the new low cost shop.
The father told his son, "There is absolutely NO way I can compete with $6.00 haircuts. So much of my clientele has now gone to the new shop that I have no choice but to close our shop. After three generations, we are going bankrupt. I can't pay the stylists or the overhead anymore," he despondently said with his hands covering his face so his son would not see the tears rolling out of his eyes. The son said, "You know, this last semester I took a "science of success" program that was offered for extra credit in my marketing class. One thing I learned was something that Einstein said. He said that "The significant problems we face can never be solved at the level of thinking of the problem." So, Dad, we have to find another way to think about this. We've got to find another way to see this. Another one of the strategies I learned may help us."
So the son left the room and brought back a notebook and a pen. He told the Dad about "Masterminding", a strategy introduced in the 1930's by Napoleon Hill who had been commissioned by Andrew Carnegie to study the patterns of extremely successful people.
"Here's what we do. We let ourselves think of any idea that comes to mind and we write it down. No editing. We get a flow of ideas for 15-20 minutes and try to get as many as possible. No idea is off limits. Let's go." The father said, "Well, the only idea I've got is..close the shop!" The son said, "Well, you're right that IS an idea." He wrote it down. Then the son said, "Ok, let's keep going." Before long the son and the father started getting a flow of ideas and writing down every one of them, even every crazy thing that came to mind. When they finished, one of the ideas absolutely jumped off the page and they looked at each other in astonishment and said, "This just might work!" The son left the next day to go back to college.
The father implemented the idea. Within 6 weeks, not only had his drop in clientele completely returned, but the number of customers was now 11% higher than ever in the history of the shop. Do you know what the idea was that turned sure failure into a new course of increasing success? The idea was, "Place a BIG sign on top of the shop that read,
"WE FIX SIX DOLLAR HAIRCUTS!!"
This story has meant a great deal to me particularly when I am tempted to think that the problem is "out there" in the land of circumstances. Any time I think the problem is "out there", THAT THOUGHT is the problem. As Einstein said, "The significant problems we face can not be solved at the level of the problem." Learning to think in a new way brings Freedom and Power.
By Mary Manin Morrissey.
Mary Morrissey is a minister, teacher and author. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Education, a Master's Degree in Counseling Psychology and a Doctorate of Humane Letters. Take a look at her latest collaboration with Bob Proctor here: http://www.insightoftheday.com/a.asp?bpap&1336&isp http://www.insightoftheday.com/a.asp?bpap&1336&isp
Well, heres to making history! The american sports writer Red Smith wrote " Dying is no big deal, the least of us will manage that. Livings the trick." Hear! Hear!
Beffiting it is to end the year on a sober note, of the world I find myself fortunate to live in, asides from all the negativity surrounding us, and who best to write so effectively except Bob...no no not the Marley but the Dylan in his 1963 release of 'Blowing in the wind', a select few refer to his music as prophetic and he owes that to lyrics like the below that continue to stand the test of time, the song has been given a fresh lease of life by the inimitable Katie Melua ( 9 million bicycles) who features very highly on my best artists at the moment, enjoy or should I say commiserate? and do get the track if you can or contact me if you cant....
Blowing in the wind:
How many roads must a man walk down Before you call him a man? Yes, 'n' how many seas must a white dove sail Before she sleeps in the sand? Yes, 'n' how many times must the cannon balls fly Before they're forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind, The answer is blowin' in the wind.
How many times must a man look up Before he can see the sky? Yes, 'n' how many ears must one man have Before he can hear people cry? Yes, 'n' how many deaths will it take till he knows That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind, The answer is blowin' in the wind.
How many years can a mountain exist Before it's washed to the sea? Yes, 'n' how many years can some people exist Before they're allowed to be free? Yes, 'n' how many times can a man turn his head, Pretending he just doesn't see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind, The answer is blowin' in the wind.
According to legend, a young man while roaming the desert came across a spring of delicious crystal-clear water. The water was so sweet he filled his leather canteen so he could bring some back to a tribal elder who had been his teacher. After a four-day journey he presented the water to the old man who took a deep drink, smiled warmly and thanked his student lavishly for the sweet water. The young man returned to his village with a happy heart.Later, the teacher let another student taste the water. He spat it out, saying it was awful. It apparently had become stale because of the old leather container. The student challenged his teacher: "Master, the water was foul. Why did you pretend to like it?"The teacher replied, "You only tasted the water. I tasted the gift. The water was simply the container for an act of loving-kindness and nothing could be sweeter. Heartfelt gifts deserve the return gift of gratitude."
I think we understand this lesson best when we receive innocent gifts of love from young children. Whether it's a ceramic tray or a macaroni bracelet, the natural and proper response is appreciation and expressed thankfulness because we love the idea within the gift.
Gratitude doesn't always come naturally. Unfortunately, most children and many adults value only the thing given rather than the feeling embodied in it. We should remind ourselves and teach our children about the beauty and purity of feelings and expressions of gratitude. After all, gifts from the heart are really gifts of the heart.
'Let us pray to whatever God we worship, remembering as my dad taught me throughout my childhood, that Christ was not a Christian, Mohammed was not a Mohammedan, Buddha was not a Buddhist and Krishna was not a Hindu'
Gotham Chopra's foreword in Deepak Chopra's THE DEEPER WOUND.
South Africa occupies the top ten African universities but our best university is number 398 on the world rankings! I have been looking for University of Malawi's rank, its supposedly 64th in Africa but considering the world rankings below on Africas top universities, I would have to guess the world ranking is not so pleasing at present, in time I guess then...
TheInternetLab Ranking of 30 Top African Universities (Rank University Country World Rank)
Yea, You that you are in all places are in Everything as well, in all that I do, I pray you hearken to my prayer for I am no more than Dust, but a Mist that emerges from the Earth with little merit to share; You have given me a Soul, and laws to govern it; according to the Eternal Law that you first set forth to govern Man, ordering our ways; making me mindful of your Glory in all my ways; and while I cannot know you fully because of my limited understanding, but also my ignorance, still I can revere you. You who are All can be perfect; Your revelation brings happiness; without anger, Oh Divine and only, Oh God the very grand Creator, if you wish, allow that these manifest secrets be revealed, your single Gift, not for my gratification, but for your Glory.
