“This was very informative and enlightening. I never heard of Hazel Scott, but it is true that African American women have an earthiness and ability to relate to their audiences...” Tiffani
“Well, at the Wal*Mart I am affiliated with, they handled it a little different; i.e. if you left the line for more than 15 or more minutes you lost your...” Ms. Gail
“Unemployment period was one of my worst period in my life, the only thing i can screw up to all, is does not desist, don't give up. My periodwas about...” mulheres belas
“like some of the other respondents, i too want to see it just "one more time" before it leaves theatres....” zabrina
“Hey - I may have been shopping - but I was shopping for a cause - toys to end up with the Bay View community Center. (MY daughter organized a...” doll
“maybe we need to look in our own government for answers about aids?Why is it that no one really knows where it came from or do they?...” Anonymous
“I would give some validity to the assessment considering whites' easy entrance into the workforce, which translates to more of them being laid off as a result of the recession....” Shelly
“Ohio (and the Midwest in general) is definitely coming up....” Carlton
“Organizing for America is an organization that I am a part of and Steven Walker is over it in Louisiana out of New Orleans, he is also on twitter and...” Ava White
“Dean, I can't believe that you are 52 years old with the health problems that you have. I am 57 years old and have taken vitamins for over 30 years,...” Bateaux1999
Q: For people who live on a budget and are now unemployed, what can they do, other than look for a job and cut unnecessary expenses, to make it through this horrible economy?
Los Angeles, CA
A: I've been working with a few folks who are unemployed, and it's tough. It's tough to watch them struggle. It's tough having to advise them to cut out anything and everything that makes life comfortable and fun, such as eating out, watching cable or going out to catch the latest star-studded blockbuster movie.
I've consoled people when they didn't get a job that ...
Back when I was in Dubai last spring, despite my gracious hosts' fervent, consistent and unerringly gracious denials that everything was A-okay in the Middle-Eastern emirate, something smelled a little fishy. And no, it wasn't the raw sewage that had been fouling the coastline around some of its nicer resorts (this was the reason, I found out after coming home, that our itinerary kept us well away from the beach).
The very notion of the place is, at best, fantastical; at worst, suspect. A glittering metropolis in the desert, built on a foundation of sand and ...
Fans
and audiences waited eagerly this year to see the King of Pop return to
stage on his farewell tour, which was scheduled to begin earlier this
summer. When tragedy struck and news of Jackson's death hit ...
Black Friday shoppers carrying bags up Fifth Avenue in New York City.
If you were among the throngs of Americans out shopping and buying a bunch of items marked down from their original marked-up prices, then you might have missed these news items that are (arguably) interesting but have little-to-no impact on your life.
1) The FAA released the recordings from Northwest Flight 188. If you recall, the pilots of that flight were out of radio contact with air traffic controllers for more than an hour and flew 150 miles past their destination, all because of "cockpit distraction."
2) Some schools are encouraging students to use their ...
Rather than focusing on the fact that the Secret Service allowed two randoms to attend a White House dinner honoring the Prime Minister of India as part of their reality TV show pitch, I'd like to state for the record that reality TV is officially making the world a much worse place. We'll always have the crazies among us, the dysfunctionals, the narcissists; but why on earth should we give them TV shows? Not only that, why should we encourage them to pull stunts like this to get producers' attention?
Q: I have an IRA, but I am not putting anything in it, because I changed jobs. The current job does not have an IRA or anything. What can I do to still continue to save for retirement? Are there any types of IRA plans that I can get? Please help me, because my husband has a 401(k) plan, and he may be all right when he retires, but I will not be.
Macon, GA
A: Just because you can't continue contributing to a former employer's plan does not mean you can't continue to invest for retirement.
Thursday will be my second Thanksgiving without meat. Last year, I made the mistake of not informing my family before the big day that I had made the decision to give up meat and seafood (but for the time being to still eat dairy).
And, because I hadn't let everyone in on my decision, I couldn't explain to them what that really meant for food preparation.
I ended up eating salad, cranberry sauce and bread. A lot of bread.
"Oh, Tamika. I didn't know! I can scoop those neck bones out of the greens before ...
- Globally 33.4 million people are living with H.I.V.
- In 2008, 2.7 million people were newly infected with the virus and 2 million people died from AIDS-related deaths.
- The total number of people living with H.I.V. in 2008 was 20% higher than the 2000 number.
The report -- "AIDS Epidemic Update 2009" -- attributes the continued rise in the H.I.V.-positive population to high rates of new infections and to the "beneficial impact of anti-retroviral therapy."
Q: We have 15 to 25-year-old credit card debt now totaling $135,000. We are approaching retirement with five marriages between us (we have been married 20 years), but see no hope of eliminating this debt. We have closed all but one of 10 cards because we chose to opt-out rather than accept higher rates. Is bankruptcy our only choice, as we can no longer survive without the cards? Debt resolution does not seem to be a workable choice. What should we do?
New York
A: The first thing you need to do is close the remaining 10 ...
While the introduction of three new voices to talk TV--all African-American and all women--is historically significant, what is equally relevant is the relative ease with which they've been acknowledged and accepted by viewers across the demographic spectrum.
Whether it is the shoot-from-the-hip style of Mo'Nique, the bawdy comedy of Wanda Sykes (pictured below), or the girlfriend-next-door gossip of former on-air radio personality Wendy Williams, television networks now offer audiences a choice of Black female ...
As fellow blogger Sean pointed out recently, Black Friday is upon us. So-called because it's the first day of the year in which many retailers attain profitability, it's become synonymous with giant sales on everything from electronics to toys. Lately, however, it has also become infamous for the lengths people will go to get to said bargains.
Last year, at around this time, I blogged about the death of a Wal-Mart staffer in Long Island, who made the mistake of putting himself between the store's discounted merchandise and an hysterical crowd of bargain hunters who had ...
Holiday shoppers should take a careful look at store's availability of Black Friday merchandise
Look out Black Friday shoppers. There is a deal that you may not be expecting that could leave many singing the holiday blues.
CNN Money.com reports that while some retailers are luring customers into their
stores this holiday season with teaser ads for great products, these too good to pass up bargains may be virtually gone before you ever get to the store.
Ads like these usually employ subtle words such as "limited quantities" or "while supplies last."
To the casual listener, that doesn't sound so bad, right? Well, what if there are only ...
It's been impossible to ignore the hype surrounding this weekend's release of the second installment in the Twilight franchise, a story about abstinence and being a teenage vampire.
Call me curmudgeonly, but I really don't get it. I don't get the current vampire zeitgeist, and I don't get why so many people are so crazy about these Twilight books. Virtually everysinglepublicationinexistence has had an article about what this whole trend means and, after reading a lot of them, it's still not really clear.
Q: How do you determine if you are a millionaire? What items do you include in your analysis?
A: What you are asking is what's your net worth. That's how you determine if you're a millionaire.
Interestingly, most people have no idea what their net worth is or even how to figure it out. The Consumer Federation of America and the Financial Planning Association sponsored a survey a few years ago and found that only about half (49%) of adults know what personal net worth is. Even after survey participants were given the definition of personal net worth, ...
Job seekers at an employment fair in Southern Florida.
There have been Op-Eds in The New York Times saying that "blacks are the ones who are taking the brunt of the recession, with disproportionately high levels of foreclosures and unemployment."
But a recent article in the paper asserts that the recession is helping bridge the racial divide in a suburb of Atlanta. The article quotes an African American woman, Keasha Taylor, who is seeking help at the Division of Family and Children Services:
"Right now, a lot of white people are in this situation," Ms. ...
Q: I need ideas on how to develop a retirement budget. Do you have recommended Web sites people can go to and get information for developing one?
Dumfries, VA
A: One of the best retirement calculators is the Ballpark E$timate, created by the Choose to Save Program. This nonprofit aims to help people become better money managers.
The retirement calculator is an easy-to-use, two-page worksheet that helps you figure out how much you need to save to fund a comfortable retirement. You have to complete several fields of information, including about your expected Social Security benefits and assumptions ...
Bill Cotter, McSweeney's contributor and author of the book, Fever Chart, put some money on some credit cards to start a business. The business didn't take off. He ended up in debt. The story, give or take a few details, is common enough in America these days. Cotter's account of his ordeal, however, is something different.
Published in seven parts on the McSweeney's Website, Cotter's story of his situation not only details the bizarre world of debt collection and bankruptcy law, but does so in a way that makes those things far more interesting to read about ...
Q: Here's my situation (deep breath). Due to surviving domestic violence during spring 2006, I made an emotional purchase two years after bankruptcy. I leased a gas-guzzling SUV and, by September 2007, I had to give it back, because I fell behind in my payments and could no longer afford it due to the gas prices being $4 a gallon. Well, since I broke the contract, I now owe $17,000, and I'm thinking about filing bankruptcy again. I also have $46,000 in student loans I'm repaying and about $3,000 in credit card debt, along with the usual household expenses--rent, ...
Each year, the President of the United States issues a proclamation that sets aside November as National Adoption Month. In addition to the presidential proclamation, many state governors also issue proclamations, in an effort to raise awareness of the need for loving and permanent homes for children in their states.
National Adoption Month, which was originally put in place to make adoption from the foster care system an important social issue, has now become the ...
Questions abound. People want to know why former Chicago Cubs player Sammy Sosa appeared several shades lighter at the Latin Grammy Awards last week (pictured right) than he did several months ago at a People En Espanol event in May 2009 (pictured left).
What the heck happened?
His friend and former Cubs employee, Rebecca Polihronis, told the Chicago Tribune that it was a ...
Q: Would it be realistic to expect the average American to be a millionaire within his/her lifetime? And, if not, what is it we're doing wrong, and how can we correct it?
Landry Tientcheu, Madison, WI
A: You might be interested to know the world's population of high net worth individuals dropped 14.9% in 2008, according to the 13th annual World Wealth Report, released by Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management and Capgemini.
The U.S. saw its population of millionaires drop 18.5%, although it remains the single largest home to the rich, with 2.5 million, or 28.7%, of the total global ...
To understand the future of healthcare, however, is to understand the past. Where did the notion of healthcare come from? How did health insurance start? And where on earth did we go wrong?
A recent episode of Chicago Public Radio's This American Life endeavored to answer those questions and, in the process, created probably the most interesting hour about the insurance industry ...
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