BlacKosity Magazine

Shani Davis looks for a place to sit, then decides to just plop down on the lobby floor of the Pettit National Ice Center, where he can get in some stretching while he’s talking.

There’s a lot to talk about. He’s a father now, which has given his life new perspective. He’s settled those contentious issues with U.S.Speedskating, looking more like a team player than outcast. He’s thrown off the burden of being a racial pioneer, preferring to be judged by the quality of his times rather than the color of his skin.

More than anything, he’s looking forward to a drama-free Olympics.

“There shouldn’t be a rivalry that tears apart the team,” Davis told The Associated Press during a lengthy interview Tuesday evening. “If it’s negative, it’s not good. I feel like in Torino it was really negative, and it shouldn’t have been that way.”

He’s referring, of course, to his much-publicized feud with fellow American Chad Hedrick, two shining stars of the 2006 Olympics whose animosity toward each other became as much a part of the story as their medal haul. Davis has no regrets about the way he acted, and he’ll never be buddies with Hedrick, but he said their problems “got swept under the rug.”

Maybe that’s because Hedrick faded away after the Olympics, struggling to recapture the form that helped him win a medal of every color. Davis, on the other hand, soared even higher after capturing gold and silver in Italy.

He’s won world championships. He’s set world records (at the moment, he’s got the fastest times ever in both the 1,000 and 1,500 meters). He’s likely to be one of the biggest U.S. stars in Vancouver and, before he’s done, could go down as one of this country’s greatest Winter Olympians.

“I hope they do talk about me some day in the same context they talk about Eric Heiden,” the 27-year-old Davis said. “That would be pretty cool.”

He’ll take his first big step toward the 2010 Olympics during the U.S. trials on the outskirts of Milwaukee, where qualifying for the World Cup season is a prerequisite for earning a spot on the team. The meet opens Wednesday night and runs through Sunday.

Kip Carpenter, a 2002 Olympic medalist who’s now Davis’ part-time coach, said he’s skating as well as ever after overcoming equipment problems during summer training.

“His tempo times in practice are amazing,” Carpenter said. “He’ll come up to me sometimes and say, ‘Are you sugar-cubing that? Are you being honest with me?’ Yeah, I’m being honest. He’s skating really fast. He’s feeling really good about his skating, and I think he’s a lot more relaxed this time around.”

Indeed, Davis does seem more at peace. A lot of that has to do with fatherhood. He’s now got a nearly 2-year-old son, Ayize, a Zulu word that means “let it come.” While a busy schedule keeps dad from spending as much time with his child as he would like, that hasn’t lessened the impact.

“It makes you realize that you’re no longer a kid,” Davis said. “You can’t be a selfish person. It’s not so much about me anymore. It’s about him. It’s an awakening more than anything.”

Davis already has opened plenty of eyes himself. Born and raised on Chicago’s South Side, he grew up to become the Tiger Woods of the speedskating rink, an African-American who rose to the top of a predominantly white sport. Along the way, he endured plenty of ridicule and sneers from both races — which only fueled his desire to prove everyone wrong.

He did just that at the 2006 Olympics, where Davis became the first black athlete to win an individual gold medal at a Winter Games.

These days, Davis said, “I think I’ve grown past the whole thing about being separated by color, thinking I’m doing this because I’m going to be the first black or first African-American. I’m beyond that now. I think I’m more just trying to be the best American I can be. More than ever, I’m united with my country.”

Along those lines, he settled scores that caused a bitter rift with the U.S. governing body, which were based on funding disputes and his belief that some in the sport didn’t want to see too much diversity.

While Davis still isn’t an official member of the national program — oddly, there’s not a biography or any pictures of him in the U.S. Speedskating media guide — he said the relationship is vastly improved over where it was leading up to the 2006 Olympics.

“I don’t have any problems whatsoever with U.S. Speedskating,” he insisted. “We all just want to get the best results possible. There’s a lot of people within U.S. Speedskating I have a lot of respect for. Most of that other stuff was with people who are no longer within U.S. Speedskating.”

He still finds it more lucrative financially to skate unattached. Besides, he’s achieved some of his best results working on his own. While he trains with Carpenter’s team at the Pettit rink, Davis decides on his training program, mixing and matching from various coaching philosophies and relaying heavily on what feels right to him. He logs every workout in a journal, allowing him to accurately gauge just how much progress he’s really making.

“I don’t know for sure, but sometimes it seems like he comes to the rink and says, ‘Hmmm, I think this is what I’ll do today,’” Carpenter said. “It seems like not a lot of planning or thought has gone into it. But if you step back and take a look at it, everything is strategically planned.”

The plan for 2010? Enjoy the Olympics.

“When you win a gold medal, you want everything associated with that gold medal to feel good,” Carpenter said. “You don’t want any negative associations with it, because it makes it less. It makes that victory a little less. My hope for him, and I assume his hope as well, is that nothing tarnishes the experience if he does it again.”

Cheered by President Barack Obama, House Democrats rolled out landmark legislation Thursday to extend health care to tens of millions who lack coverage, impose sweeping new restrictions on the insurance industry and create a government-run option to compete with private insurers.

But even as party leaders pointed toward a vote next week, there were fresh questions that went to the heart of their ambitious drive to remake the nation’s health care system.

Congressional budget experts predicted the controversial government insurance option would probably cost consumers somewhat more than private coverage. At the same time, rank-and-file conservative Democrats sought additional information about the bill’s overall impact on federal health care spending.

There was no official estimate on the total cost of the legislation, which ran to 1,990 pages. The Congressional Budget Office said the cost of additional coverage alone was slightly more than $1 trillion over a decade. But that omitted other items, including billions for disease prevention programs.

Yet another $230 billion or more in higher fees for doctors treating Medicare patients, included in an earlier version of the bill, was stripped out and will be voted on separately.

The measure “covers 96 percent of all Americans, and it puts affordable coverage in reach for millions of uninsured and underinsured families, lowering health care costs for all of us,” boasted Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., at a ceremony attended by dozens of Democratic lawmakers. She spoke on the steps of the Capitol, not far from where Obama issued his inaugural summons for Congress to act more than nine months ago.

Pelosi said the legislation would reduce federal deficits over the next decade by $104 billion, and congressional budget experts said it would probably reduce them even further over the following 10 years.

While saying they expected a vote next week, Democratic leaders were careful not to claim they had yet rounded up enough votes to pass the legislation. Still, the day’s events capped months of struggle and marked a major advance in their drive — and Obama’s — to accomplish an overhaul of the health care system that has eluded presidents for a half-century.

Across the Capitol, the Democratic-controlled Senate is expected to begin debate within two weeks on a bill crafted by Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. It, too, envisions a government-run insurance option, although states could opt out, unlike in the bill the House will vote on. That portion of the Senate version appears likely to be weakened even further, as moderates press for a standby system that would not go into effect until it was clear individual states were experiencing a lack of competition among private companies.

Obama called the House legislation “another critical milestone in the effort to reform our health care system.”

Republican reaction was as swift as it was negative. “It will raise the cost of Americans’ health insurance premiums; it will kill jobs with tax hikes and new mandates, and it will cut seniors’ Medicare benefits,” said the party’s leader in the House, Rep. John Boehner of Ohio. He carried a copy of the 1,990-page measure into a news conference to underscore his claim it represented a government takeover of the health care system.

Republicans have already signaled their determination to make the health care debate a key issue in next year’s congressional elections, when all 435 House seats will be on the ballot.

But their ability to block passage in the current House is nonexistent as long as Pelosi and her leadership can forge a consensus among the Democratic rank and file. The party holds 256 seats in the House, where 218 makes a majority.

Broad in scope, the House Democrats’ bill attempts to build on the current system of employer-provided health care. It would require big companies to cover their employees and include federal subsidies to help small companies provide insurance for theirs, as well. Most individuals would be required to carry insurance, and much of the money in the legislation is dedicated to subsidies for those at lower incomes to help them afford coverage.

For those at even lower incomes, the bill provides for an expansion of Medicaid, the state-federal health program for the poor. Adults up to 150 percent of the poverty level — individuals making up to $16,245 and a family of four up to $33,075 — would be covered, a provision estimated to add 15 million to Medicaid.

One of the bill’s major features is a new national insurance market, in which private companies could sell policies that meet federally mandated benefit levels, the government would offer competing coverage and consumers could shop for the policy that best met their needs.

In a bow to moderates, Democrats decided doctors, hospitals and other providers would be allowed to negotiate rates with the Health and Human Services Department for services provided in the government insurance option.

Liberals had favored a system in which fees would be dictated by the government, an approach that would have been less costly than what was settled on, and also would have moved closer to a purely government-run health care system than some Democrats favor.

The Congressional Budget Office said the result would be fees comparable to those doctors receive from private insurers. But for consumers, government-backed plans “would typically have premiums that are somewhat higher than the average premiums for private plans” sold in competition. As a result, it said enrollment would be only about 6 million.

Conservative Democrats known as Blue Dogs reacted to the overall CBO analysis by asking whether the bill would reduce the long-term rate of growth in federal spending. They noted the agency had said last summer that an earlier version would fail to do so, and they said they wanted updated answers “in order to make an informed decision.”

Thursday’s bill includes an array of new restrictions on the private insurance industry, in addition to forcing insurers to compete with the federal government for business.

Firms would be banned from denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions and limited in their ability to charge higher premiums on the basis of age.

They would be required to spend 85 percent of their income from premiums on coverage, effectively limiting their ability to advertise or pay bonuses. Additionally, the industry would be stripped of immunity from antitrust regulations covering price fixing, bid rigging and market allocation. And in a late addition to the bill, 30-year-old restrictions on the Federal Trade Commission’s ability to look into the insurance industry would be erased.

In response, the industry’s top lobbyist, Karen Ignagni, issued a statement containing a somewhat milder version of criticism than recently unleashed against the Senate’s version of the legislation. “We are concerned” the House bill will violate assurances that individuals would be able to keep their insurance if they like it, she said. She said it would be responsible for “increasing health care costs for families and employers across the country and significantly disrupting the quality coverage on which millions of Americans rely today.”

Ignagni added that the presence of a government-run insurance plan “would bankrupt hospitals, dismantle employer coverage, exacerbate cost-shifting from Medicare and Medicaid and ultimately increase the federal deficit.”

While Democrats touted new benefits for seniors, the bill relies on more than $400 billion in cuts from projected Medicare spending over the next decade. Much of the money would come from the part of the program in which private companies offer coverage to seniors.

The bill’s other major new source of revenue is from a proposed income tax surcharge of 5.4 percent on wealthy earners, individuals making at least $500,000 a year and couples $1 million or more.

The legislation includes other taxes, such as a 2.5 percent excise tax on the makers of medical devices, expected to raise $20 billion over a decade.

Source: By DAVID ESPO (AP) Associated Press writers Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Julie Hirschfeld Davis, Andrew Taylor and Erica Werner contributed to this story.

After more than 14 hours of discussion, the heirs of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.. reached a settlement late last Monday that will keep the family from a public jury trial.

Martin Luther King III, Bernice King and Dexter King had aired their grievances in open court for more than a year. The siblings began negotiations Monday morning as the threat loomed of a civil trial that was expected to reveal personal and financial details about King Inc.

Dexter King’s brother and sister sued him in July 2008, accusing him of acting improperly as head of the their father’s estate, which the three of them control as a private corporation. In the lawsuit, they claimed he shut them out of decisions involving King Inc. and refused to hold a shareholders meeting since 2004. The three have been largely estranged for months as Martin Luther King III and Bernice King said their brother continued to make decisions on behalf of King Inc. without their input or knowledge.

Monday’s agreement signals the end of a legal feud among the siblings and could clear the way for private relations to thaw.

According to the settlement agreement, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Ural D. Glanville has declared the siblings “deadlocked” as shareholders and will appoint a temporary custodian who will run King Inc. and work with them to determine the future of the corporation. The temporary custodian is also meant to add credibility to the troubled estate and allow the siblings a chance to focus on healing their personal relationships.

All three siblings said they looked forward to mending the rifts of recent months and that significant progress had been made with Monday’s resolution.

“It was a tiring day, but I would say a very triumphant day,” Dexter King said after the hearing. “This allows us to begin the healing process. I’m looking forward to the future. The most important thing is that we can advance the legacy of our parents.”

Dexter King, who is recovering from a car accident that left his leg badly injured, walked on crutches during the day and left the courthouse in a wheelchair without his siblings. Still, Martin Luther King III and Bernice King called the settlement a positive one.

“We have always loved one another,” said the elder King brother. “After all, we are all we have.”

Bernice King said reconciliation with Dexter King would be a process.

“Love compels you to take a higher road,” she said. “We love our brother and the legacy of our parents. At the end of the day, we’re still a family.”

Both parties must submit three names of proposed custodians within 14 days of the settlement. Under the terms of the agreement, the candidates “must be qualified to manage a business but must also be sensitive to the nature of the legacy to be managed.”

The court must interview at least one choice from both sides, and will name the custodian within 30 days of receiving the proposed list of candidates. Once approved, the custodian will report regularly to the court on King Inc.’s progress.

The Real Housewives of Atlanta reunion aired last night on Bravo. Though all the ladies brought interesting topics to the table, Kandi’s part was the most heartbreaking. She spoke about her late ex-fiance, Ashley ”A.J” Jewel and the last time they spoke. She held herself together very well and is looking good. Kandi was very open to talk about such a sensitive and emotional topic.

Kandi talked to A.J just hours before the big fight with the manager of the club he was trying to buy into. She went on to say that the reason of the death is not clear as of yet. It is being said that his death has nothing to do with the altercation, but with his health problems that may have flared during the fight. No official reason has been stated.

 Keep your head up, girl! Our hearts go out to you.

YEAH!!!!!!! Angie Stone has an album titled The Art of Love and War & it is being featured as an Amazon Daily Deal this week. You can download the entire album for only $1.99 on Amazon MP3! I love Angie, Lets download this cause you already know it is full of truth & soul! Check out the track list:

Tracklist:

1. Take Everything In

2. Baby

3. Here We Go Again

4. Make It Last

5. Sometimes

6. Go Back To Your Life

7. Half A Chance

8. These Are The Reasons

9. My People

10. Sit Down

11. Play Wit It

12. Pop Pop

13. Wait For Me

14. Happy Being Me

Investigators say as many as 20 people…were involved in or stood and watched the gang rape of a 15-year-old girl outside a California high school homecoming dance Saturday night. Police posted a $20,000 reward Tuesday for anyone who comes to them with information that helps arrest and convict those involved in what authorities describe as a 2½-hour assault on the Richmond High School campus in suburban San Francisco.

Two teenage suspects have been jailed, but more arrests, as many as 20 total, are expected, according to a police detective. “We will be making arrests continually as we develop probable cause,” said Richmond Police Lt. Mark Gagan. “With this number of people implicated in the incident we’re going to be making arrests on an ongoing basis.” As many as 10 people were involved in the assault in a dimly lighted back alley at the school, while another 10 people watched without calling 911 to report it, police said. A 1999 California law makes it illegal not to report a witnessed crime against a child, but the law applies only to children 14 and under.

“We do not have the ability to arrest people who witnessed the crime and did nothing,” Gagan said. “The law can be very rigid. We don’t have the authority to make an arrest.” Charles Ramsey, a member of the Richmond school board, said the school district bears some responsibility for the attack. School administrators and police apparently weren’t watching the area as they should have, Ramsey said. The school said it would hold a safety meeting for parents and students Wednesday evening to address the assault. The victim was found unconscious under a bench shortly before midnight Saturday, after police received a call from someone in the area who had overheard people at the assault scene “reminiscing about the incident,” Richmond Police Lt. Mark Gagan said.

The girl was flown by helicopter to a hospital where she was admitted in critical condition. She was in stable condition Tuesday, police said. Investigators canvassed the community with fliers, which included the reward offer, hoping to identify more suspects Tuesday.

“There is one individual in custody who has made some spontaneous statements that have led me to believe that he is culpable for what happened,” Richmond police Lt. Johan Simon said. Nineteen-year-old Manuel Ortega, described as a former student at the school, was arrested soon after he fled the scene and will face charges of rape, robbery and kidnapping, police said. A 15-year-old was later arrested and charged with one count of felony sexual assault. A third teenager was being interviewed, Gagan said. “Based on witness statements and suspect statements, and also physical evidence, we know that she was raped by at least four suspects committing multiple sex acts,” Gagan said. “As people announced over time that this was going on, more people came to see, and some actually participated,” Gagan said.

The attack occurred on school grounds as the annual homecoming dance was under way inside the school Saturday night, authorities said.

Think About IT:  Everyone that did nothing and witnessed this assault should be held accountable in some way.