Free College for Black males???

This information is too important to post only once. Please, if you know any black males who dream of going to college but see no way of being able to afford the cost, 13 Black Colleges and Universities are working with Clemson University to send them to school absolutely FREE.

The text below is reprinted directly from the "Calll me MISTER" website. Click and view all the links on the left side to view the program in greater detail. The goal of the program is to increase the number of black male teachers in under-served and rural communities. There was a time when I would have even balked at going into places like the Mississippi Delta to teach ... but these days, being able to live and work (earning a decent salary) at a very esteemable position in a rural area is pure GAME. I repeat over and over that owning a home with a few acres on it within a 45 minute radius of a city or college town is the number one choice. (If you don't know, read past posts to learn why.) But before I digress, read about the program below. Each link takes you to a different site.)

"The mission of the Call Me MISTER (acronym for Mentors Instructing Students Toward Effective Role Models) National Initiative is to increase the pool of available teachers from a broader more diverse background particularly among the State's lowest performing elementary schools. Student participants are largely selected from among under-served, socio-economically disadvantaged and educationally at-risk communities.

The Call Me MISTER program is contributing to the talent pool of excellent teachers by identifying and supporting students like Mr. Mark Joseph (shown here), who are literally "touching the future" by teaching children. Mark's teaching degree was made possible through the Call Me MISTER program.

The project provides:

• Tuition assistance through Loan Forgiveness programs for admitted students pursuing approved programs of study in teacher education at participating colleges.
• An academic support system to help assure their success.
• A cohort system for social and cultural support.

“Call Me MISTER” was developed by some of our State’s visionary educational leaders who sincerely believe we can build a better tomorrow by getting you involved today.

Maintained by MISTER@clemson.edu
Copyright ©2009 Call Me MISTER, 203 Holtzendorff, Clemson, S.C. 29634, (800)640-2657"

Ways To Make Money

There are many ways to make a living ... and with increasing numbers of Baby Boomers dropping out of the workforce daily, things look great for younger generations (as well as still able-bodied boomers who aren't ready to quit yet.)

I'm an 18-Wheeler Semi truck driver ... but I can actually make as much money as you can driving a simple F350 pickup truck. Yep. They're called "Hotshots"and no, you don't need a Class A License to make truck driver's pay. Just a reliable pickup with enough pulling power to pull a small flatbed and you're in business.

Of course, if you want to deliver freight to all 48 states, you'll need stickers for the states you drive in along with increased insurance. But where there's a will, you can bet you can find a way. Bad credit? No problem, just start talking to the people who are in business to give you a loan and they will direct you to the folks who'll help you clean it up.

Criminal record? No problem. You'll be your own boss for one, and two ... almost every county in every state has a "Clean Slate" program that will expunge your record faster than you could have ever dreamed.

Benefits to this method of trucking?

1. You're your own boss and you control your time off
2. You have far less mechanic bills
3. When you reach a city, you don't have that HUGE tractor to manuver
4. The entry cost is a fraction of buying your own semi tractor-trailer
5. You can live anywhere, you don't have to starve, and you're your own man ... or woman (yes ... there ARE a lot of women in trucking.)
6. You can buy a trailer for 3 grand or less

Oklahoma: The Grass is Greener

It's a slightly overcast, warm, good Sunday. I'm still in Tulsa, Oklahoma. After a lifetime in California, I'm shocked to find the place being so very Kool.. I see that what I really need is the opportunity to make some good friends, page-up at a good church, and be in an environment where I can afford to buy a home (and some land attached to it), meet a good woman of beauty and heart, and prosper.

They all here in Oklahoma. I most likely won't live here forever, but it's just a kick in the behind that I remained so stuck in California for so many years. Cali ain't the be-all, end-all by no means. It's "over-done" with too many rats in the cage—plus, people everywhere know what time it is. Yeah, there are some Neanderthals here, but by far, there are more people who will smile back and say "hello". Kool. (And there's sooo much green, fertile land to buy a farm on here in the Midwestern "Heartland.")

This morning I flagged down a sister in a car and asked here where a black church was. She pointed out the directions and told me it started at 11:00am. About an hour later, I started walking down that green bordered country road to church. Right away it started raining. A few feet up the road some old sisters in a hooptie say me walking and asked me if I was going to church. I said yeah, and they told me to hop in. Turned out the directions were slightly wrong and I might not have found it had it not rained and had they not been there at that particular moment. Church was good.

There are a lot of ways to be wealthy ... and I regret that I've felt the pull of being a loner for so many years. It's kept me struggling spiritually and economically far longer than it should have. (As in, "It's who you know, that counts." That's including God!) Perhaps worse than that, being a loner and believing in the "American" lie of "being independent" from others has also malnourished the manhood I've always wanted to actualize. Yes, a man does need to stand on his own two feet, provide for himself, his family, and then to do charitable acts of goodness and kindness for others... but in order to do that, he has to come through the gauntlet of relationships with others. It is through the spiritual, physical, economical, and moral challenges and difficulties with others that my adolescent edges are scraped off, and my masculine heart is forged.

Again, I voice my concern about the economic racism that is so strong in California and many other urban centers across the country. I see sooo many opportunities in "off the chart" places like Oklahoma for anyone with a business sense. Google is coming to Tulsa. I suspect that Oklahoma City holds more prospects than Tulsa. But you’d better do your homework and get some skills BEFORE you move to slower and/or more rural parts of the country. (They have plenty of "haves" and "have-nots" here already. You want to capitalized on all the gentrifications you’ve lived through in places that are now over-crowed and over developed.) Bring that experience with you.

I'm waiting on my trainer-truck, and then I'll be heading out. When I see other places of "good prospect", I'll send you a shout about them. Until then, God bless you my friends.

Alternative Building: Papercrete

Okay, so you've got your eye on a piece of property that has a 3 bdrm/1.5 bath house on it, 17 acres of land, a barn, an all season creek (fresh water is going to be increasingly more important), and is divided between 5 acres of cleared pasture/farmland and the rest in timber that you can mill or sell.

We've already learned that one of the best small farm practices is to use no more than three acres for crops and flowers. So what else can you do with all that land?

How about greatly increasing the equity of your "empire" by adding another structure to it? Building Green and "Alternative" allows you to creative wonderful, mortgage-free buildings at pennies to what traditional buildings cost. The building can be wood burning Sauna cordwood building or a Strawbale "Adobe" home that keeps you warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer while decreasing your dependence on both energy and energy companies.

The latest ... and the building style that has recently caught my eye is Papercrete .... a substance that creates lightweight "concrete-ish" mix or "adobe-ish" blocks to build with.

Like cordwood homes, you don't have to be a builder to build a house. There are books and videos at your local public library. You can begin your search by clicking on the links and by googling some keywords like: alternative building, papercrete, cordwood building, strawbale houses, and building with cob.

Farm or Go to College FREE?

• Okay, so not everyone wants to move to the country.
  
  
• And not all black folks seem to be eager to move "down south.
  
  
• And younger people may have so many other dreams than ... to become a farmer.

One of the most exciting new opportunities I've heard of ... in my life! ... is a current program that is sending young black males to college F-R-E-E !!

Black male college grads are in such short supply that they are now sending us to college free. (That's too sad to laugh at.) But it's true... there are about 13 black universities and other colleges who'll pay for your college. Here's the info:

For information about the Call Me MISTER program, please contact us through one of these methods:

Email:

MISTER@clemson.edu

Telephone:

Call toll-free : 1-800-640-2657

Mail:
Call Me MISTER

203 Holtzendorff

Clemson University

Clemson, SC 29634

New Money For New Farmers

This is a unique and wonderful window of time. At 53, I've seen "windows" cycle through before. Some were Bardos ... transition points ... that led to good eras and some were bad ... like the bardos that led to disco (smile) and The Eighties ... that wonderful time when black people old enough to work got clowned BAD. (Some who seniors I talked to said the 80s were worse than The Great Depression. "At least everyone was poor during the Depression. In the 80s, it was like we wasn't nothing at all.")

Well ... we need to learn Big Time from it.

Right now the Department of Agriculture is actually recognizing that only 1% of the American population farms. The average age of the American farmer is 60. So, suddenly they are planning to recruit new young farmers.

1. Department of Agriculture Highlights Young New Jersey Farmers
   
   
2. American Farm Bureau story on Farm Policy Changes & Child Bearing Age Farmers
   
   
3. Financial Security For New Agriculture: MUST READ!!!
   
   
4. Department of Ag Helps New Farmers Get Started$$$$$$$

8 Cheapest Places In America To Live

This blog isn't written for everyone ... and certainly not for every black person. Many African Americans who I've recently talked to state that they are concerned about "being separated" by some outside force (e.g. "da government") or some other unknown agency in some unknown conspiracy. But regardless to what their opinion is about moving away from California (or another urban area) and moving to the rural South or Midwest, almost all voice an uneasy concern about the future.

China is poised to become the Number 1 world's economy. When that happens, many of the countries, foreign corporations and non-Americans with money invested in this country that hold negative feelings about our politics are going to pull their money out. Should that happen, our economy is going to be rocked ... and we all know who will feel it the worst.

Even if that scenario doesn’t happen, according to many of Wall Streets best economic prognosticators (I'll allow you to goggle it this time ... I've previously posted an article on this or on http://blackfarms.wordpress.com/ ), we will still most likely experience a number "deep" recessions. Again, we all know who gets hit the hardest during "recessions."

It is to those people who either haven't been able to acquire the kind of Real Estate and land they dream of and need that this blog speaks to. You may be a young adult with a family you'd like to raise in a more wholesome place, or perhaps someone near retirement--or someone who simply sees that as the greater urban stresses (the economy, crime, adult illiteracy, drug addiction and moral decay) continues to worsen, it's best to get out of the way and head for higher ground (with fresh water if possible). In that spirit, Black Solutions is re-posting a link to a story that ran today on www.msn.com

8 Cheapest Places To Live

Small Farming for Profit and Stewardship

North Carolina farmer Alex Hitt and his wife Betsy have worked their 26 acre farm in Graham, N.C. into an environmental gem and profit center. "Over the years, Hitt has reduced acreage and labor by improving their soil with cover crops, concentrating on high-value crops that grow well in the area. What he has not reduced is profit, thanks to direct marketing through the Caroboro Farmers Market and Weaver Street Market, a cooperative grocery store in the area.

"Each acre returns a minimum of $20,000 annually, while four high-tunnel greenhouses (that shelter young or delicate crops) bring in $1,000 per crop. The Hitts embrace their small scale, growing 80 varieties of 23 vegetables along with 164 varieties of cut flowers on just three acres. Alex and Betsy were winners of the 2006 Patrick Madden Award for Sustainable Agriculture from Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program." (~Reprinted from "Small American Farm" magazine, January 2007 issue.)

Alex and Betsy Hitt will deliver the keynote address at this year's Future Harvest Alliance Conference in Hagerstown, Maryland, January 12-13, 2007. Learn more about this and other Future Harvest-CASA information on their website at: http:/www.futureharvestcasa.org/, or email to: fhacasa@verizon.net.

So Much Land To Be Free In

During the Great Depression, many people fled the drought-stricken region that stretched from Nebraska to the Texas panhandle. The struggles of those who stayed are the subject of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Timothy Egan who follows a half-dozen families and their communities through the dust storms that terrorized America's High Plains during the Depression, going from sod huts to new framed houses to basements with the windows sealed by damp sheets in a futile effort to keep the dust out.

One of the most powerful and thought provoking aspects of "The Worst Hard Time" is the fact that the Midwest has never recovered from the Dust Bowl exodus. Even to this day, farmers in the Midwest going bust. "All across the Grain Belt stand abandoned homesteads, symbols of untold stories of failure, flight from the land, and even suicide." They leave behing land, farm homes, barns, etc...

Perhaps to entice urban-weary Brits, even the BBC did a story on Mid West Farmers Going Bust. But the Reverse Black Migration Movement is not about trying to become prosperous farmers as much as it is getting out of the way of the insanity and ever increasing cultural doom that life in Urban America is for us. Therefore, land with a farm house and out buildings, electricty, and water already on it is a huge gift just waiting for us. I dream of small Intential Communities of like minded black people with vision seeing this opportunity and sizing it.

A common Buddhist quote is: "Everything Changes." Sadly, what is true for the "American Farmer," may be a good thing for black people seeking to join the "Back To The Land" movement. (Click here for Wikipedia’s write up.)

A Few Black Stats

A few stats...

• 65% of black children grow up without a father
  
  
• 1 out of every 32 Americans are either in prison, on probation or on parole
  
  
• Black women are three times more likely to be sent to prison than white women
  
  
• The Number One killer of young black men age 25 and under is AIDS
  
  

Wanna See What You're Missing?

Some black people will look glance at this blog and agree with its premise immediately. Others will need more convincing. So take a quick look at your room, studio apartment, or home in the hood, and then look at what you can have for shockingly cheap when you move out of the chaos and into nature.

United Country.com Just type in a state you're curious about or perhaps the home state of "your peoples"... and be prepared for shock and awe....

Ranch & Country.com Don't stop there. The web is full of possibilities. On the day I pulled up this page, they were featuring a "rustic cabin" in Colorado for $148,900.

The links above are simply the tip of the iceberg. Here's a scenic little country home ... national forest on 3 sides, a spring-fed pond, sheds and a barn on 36 acres for only $149,000!

Creating Successful Black Culture

"Like iron shapens iron, men
shapen men."

When I think about what it will take to once and for all, set down in stone, who we are as a people, one of the main things that comes to mind is the fact that we'll have to revise our image of what a man is.

You can say what you will about white America, but two things we do know that has helped their culture rise and create strength greater than most others, and they are:

• THEY STICK TOGETHER ... right or wrong ... regardless of what is SAID, in the final analysis, the Republicans and the Democrats are on the same page when it comes to White Supremacy and controlling wealth and the means to power. They can argue fuss and fight about all the rest, and will even love and marry you ... but when it comes down to "you" and "them" .... "them" sticks together!
  
  
• Men who know how to be MEN, teach other men. They can make all the John Wayne "rugged individualistic" movies they want ... but when they view that movie and when you view that movie, you can bet there's a different message being sent. For them, the message is what it takes to rule. For non-whites, the warped message someone gets translated into: "I don't need no-body telling me nothing! "I'M AN INDIVIDUAL!!"
  

We will need to do many of the same things that successful cultures do. That means, we will
need to use all parts of our society. At no time will we expect a large portion of black America to join one group of thinking that is striving in one general direction, but I do believe that if successful, those who do, will have a huge, major impact on all the rest.

In short, we will need to use men willing to work and learn integrity ... regardless if they are totally heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual ..... urban-sexual ... et al. The main thing is that they learn what to do with that most sacred part of their body, and to mature their emotions to the extent they can create love, safety and long term continuity in homes and in the New Black Village.

We will talk more about the extremely complex issue of sexuality later. Right now I'd like to end by telling you about a little motif of words that ran along the walls of an up-scale ice cream parlor in Portland, Oregon. The words were:

"If Michelangelo had been straight, he'd have painted the Sistine Chapel flat white."