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"

The Meaning of Your Life?

One life to live ... for whom?

Living in a time and place where all around us are messages promoting hoarding and spending, it's very easy to lose track of what really satisfies you. So much so that many don't have a clue. America is increasingly getting ... fatter. Oh yeah ... there's so many reasons, right? But the main one is that fork at the end of our wrist.

Furtunately for us, a couple of people in San Francisco got together and started a microfinance startup named Kiva Microfinance is using the internet to bring normal people together to help alleviate poverty in Uganda .

There have been years when I made pretty good money, and other years when I made squat. But the primary constant element that determined the quality of my life was ... people. How did I connect with? Whom did I touch or allow myself to be touched by. In today's increasingly alienated world of violence, suspicion, and hatred, it's ... almost vital to find something worthy to integrate into my life. I can give a few bucks to some body standing on a corner looking for a handout (... a quarter that may go directly into the pockets of the beer industry...) or I can log onto Kiva and for as little as $35.00, have a positive, sustainable affect on the lives of an entire village of (industrious) people. For more on the story, visit : "Jewels In The Jungle."

Log onto the site. Have fun. Feel good about yourself. Feel good about others ....

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.

Just Gotta Have a Tractor!

It's amazing how cheap these Kuboa Tractors are. Yes, Kubota is Japanese, but they're made in Georgia and Kubota also makes most American tractors. Only the paint jobs and names are different ... they say.

I priced one in Fairfield, California and discovered that you can get a four wheel drive and a front loader and a back hoe for around $17,000!! This isn't even the smallest model.

I plan to own no more than 20 acres and farm around three. The tractor above is just rignt. Plus, all the impliments I'll ever need will add up to around no more than $25,000. When you think about how much farm tractors used to cost ... I find this amazing!

For more information, pull up the Kubota website.

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$$$$$$$

Fear of Change?

This site is talking about change. Moving away from urban madness and buying rurual land to create ... whatever. Change.

Whenever I discuss life changes with most people, fear and adventure are the first two things that pop up. Fear of change, fear of success and/or fear of failure are key ingredients that keep people stuck in addictive, abusive and maladjusted lifestyles.

"Every where I went, I took myself with me…"
This is an old cliché commonly spouted around recovery rooms. In the first stages of realizing how they've kept themselves stuck for years in unhappy circumstances, addicts of all types, alcoholics and co-dependents often realize that simply changing geographic locations is not enough to change an unsatisfied, unrealized life. Chances are, if a person was unhappy in St. Louis, he or she will be just as unhappy in San Francisco. We're talking about the life skills needed to develop happiness, contradict shame and trauma … and to intentionally engineer the quality life that says, "I'm not going to simply survive … I will flourish" ....in any enviornment I find myself in.

"If you find yourself in a bucket of shit, don't stomp around," Right?
Let's call that bucket "shame." African Americans often get a double dose of shame. Shame comes from many sources, but it's also comes from the common cultural values we get simply by being born and raised in a Judeo-Christian country. The second wave often comes from abuse, poverty, a lack of parental "good attention", and/or internalizing oppression. You don't have to live with shame. Read John Bradshaw. Join groups. Talk and "normalize" the events of your life. Stop doing the things that make you feel bad about yourself and start doing more that make you feel good. We're talking about walking completely out of the bucket and forgetting it was ever there.

It's absolutely necessary to cultivate mental and emotional habbits that make you feel good about yourself:

• Expecting good things … tell yourself that 007 is MY year!
• Expect people to like you. When you do, you radiate a charm and welcome that attracts people
• Faith! They say you cannot be a Man without faith. But faith is only effective when we believe in ourselves … that God or your Buddha Nature loves you … and in turn, you love others.
• Have and repeat a good opinion of yourself.
• Stop telling yourself the same old negative stories about your life. Look at things from different perspectives. Instead of blame and guilt, take a step back and look at what the life experience was trying to teach you.
• Take an honest inventory of yourself and rid your life of secrets. "I'm as sick as my secretes."
• Live authentically. I'm not "exceptionally proud of everything I've done in life, but 12-Steps told me that if I didn't do everything I did… good, bad and indifferent… I wouldn't be here. I'd have exploded or imploded. The proof is that you're still alive … able to make yet another "growth change."
• Joy. We don't have to get all complicated. We don't have to spend years on somebody's couch paying them for hearing our tired whining about our mothers… we just need to make a decision to move constantly towards JOY!
• Love. We all need it. Unfortunately not as much as food or air, but to really do what we come into this life to do before they throw that shovel of dirt on your face, find FIRST LOVE for yourself. We get into all that trouble when we settle for second and third choices. Decide to walk out into the sun and live YOUR life. Not your father's life, nor the people on TV, nor the folks you went to high school with …YOUR life. Decide what's best for you and if you can't live with it in the light of the noon day sun … then you're going to have to let that ball and chain go.

God rolled away the stone of Egypt's Reproach on the Children of Israel before he allowed them to go into the Promise Land. "Risk the blind leap of faith into the wounded hands of Jesus and you end up with nothing" … a charismatic speaker once said when I was in early sobriety … and I still hear the truth of it 21 years later. This is where faith comes in again… if you believe that the "stone" has been rolled away from your heart… from your life… then you can walk boldly into the "Promise Land" of your new dream life.

Feel good about yourself, your family and whatever new community you're walking towards. Get up early in the morning ..before the noise starts, and put on a good record of thoughts about yourself. Then read all you can about small farming, permaculture, intentional communities and rural Real Estate. Join us on http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/blackfarms/ and lets begin taking the next steps.

World Hunger Will Increase By 2015

The Bahamas imports over two thirds of their food but help is on the way. Micro and small farming techniques are being developed by Tuskegee Agricultural Chemists. Their goal is to funnel better small farming techniques directly to small landholders.

Professor Per Pinstrup-Anderson, from Cornell University in New York, says that improving agriculture is the key to both future national hunger and international famine.

"When you put money in the hands of farmers that money is spent on creating employment and reducing poverty elsewhere," said Pinstrup-Anderson.

"We have found in our research that for every dollar you invest in agricultural research you generate about $6 of additional income among the farmers and about $15 of additional economic growth in the society as a whole. Much of that will help poor people in those countries," he concluded. "

From BBC Online. Click for Full Story.

The world will have 100 million extra hungry people by 2015, scientists say.

I’m not sure how good their journalism is, but Prophecy Central list links to these stories:

• One in six countries facing food shortage


• Famine threatens 11 million in Horn of Africa


• 'Millions more starving' by 2015’

From Prophecy Central. Click for full story.

One of every eight American families is on
the edge…

USA Today ran the following story about homelessness and hunger in America. I've posted a few story highlights:

• "Families with children are among the fastest-growing segment of the homeless population, according to the National Coalition for the Homeless. The Conference of Mayors found that 41% of the homeless are families with children, up from 34% in 2000. The Urban Institute reports about 23% of the homeless are children.


• "Cities and shelters are also seeing the shift. In New York, the number of homeless families jumped 40% from 1999 to 2002. In Boston, the number of homeless families increased 8.3% to 2,328 in 2002 compared with 2001.
  
• "An estimated 3.5 million people are likely to experience homelessness in a given year, the Urban Institute reports. People remained homeless for an average of six months, according to the Conference of Mayors survey — a figure that increased from a year ago in all but four cities.

From USA Today. Full Story click for full story.

My question is, in light of the economic, cultural and social problems facing us in urban America, WHY ARE WE STILL SO COMMITTED BE THE LAST RATS OF THE SHIP?

How many tea leaves in the bottom of the cup does it take to see that becoming increasingly self-sufficient by producing as much of your own food, and growing it on land you own ---preferably with water on or beneath it. Please look through this and Black Farms post (and archieves) and follow the links to your survival, your freedom, and a greater quality of life.