Hardy L. Brown

A 19 year old young lady decided she would throw herself a party in celebration of her being accepted into college. Now that is a thing worth celebrating and doing it with close friend is the way to go. However, in her exuberance she decided to hold the party at a vacant house in the neighborhood and post the party on MySpace.com. That is where she went beyond the realm of critical thinking and her brain went into outer space. Now any of us who know anything about the internet know that when you stick something on it, it is like a gift to the world community... and there's always the possibility of that gift being abused.

On the night of the event over 120 people she did not know showed up to celebrate with her.  So what happened at the party? An 18 year old male, Deaundre Richmond was killed by gun shot and four others were injured. The police were summoned and during their investigation, at the time were not able to determine if the homeowners knew about the party.

There must be something in the water in Rancho Cucamonga because not long ago another party was advertised over MySpace in the community that ended with a shootout at the upscale Victory Gardens Mall. Once again this type of internet invitation drew partygoers to a party that the host did not expect.

One of the reasons many parents do not have house parties today like we used to is because of unruly guests inviting themselves. When these types of shootings occur the end result is that there are fewer and fewer events where our young people can develop social skills. It is at social events that boy meet girl, learn to ask for a dance, learn to dance, learn what to wear at social events, what to serve for hors'douvres and the list goes on of things we learn. Have you served on committees with someone who does not know or understand how to entertain people? They don't know when to serve the guest. They don't know when to dance or if you should dance. They ask, what should we serve? What types of drinks? You have some people who would suggest you have a bar at religious events. They don't have a clue as how to act or what to do. So it seems like a good idea to have an event at the time but who and how should we advertise for attendees. One thing is for certain, don't use the open invitational internet of MySpace to get your guest. If you do you might wind up with some undesirables. 

Your Electronic Machine Voting Can Be High Jacked By Outside Hackers

This past Friday I was on a conference call with Debra Bowen, Secretary of State for California. The media conference call was on the topic of the electronic voting machine report. At the core of the report is the fact that hackers had no trouble hacking into the electronic machines and highjacking the votes. And of course one of the questions was can outsiders take over the votes and alter them to get their desired results in any election and the answer was yes. It was one of the statements made by Kathy Rogers, an officer for Diebold Election Systems who participated in the report, who wrote "in the street or laboratory the electronic system can be attacked successfully."

I had a flashback to a few years ago when electronic voting was introduced and my wife, Cheryl had the same concern; how do I know if my vote was counted? How do I know if it voted for the person I wanted to vote for? If there was a re-count needed how will that be conducted? Where is my receipt showing that I voted? Cheryl asked the staffer at the polls that day. And of course this was flying in the aftermath of those hanging chads in Florida where it took the Supreme Court to decide the election while violating the civil rights of many Blacks in those disputed counties.

Well now we have in the State of California an electronic voting machines that could be high jacked by outside forces and votes given or taken from a candidate; all this with elections fast approaching in November and the presidential primary in February. According to some reports, on Monday several county registrars of voter officials were upset because this report put the credibility of elections in question.

I don't know if the problem can be resolved to everyone's satisfaction before election time but something must be done. The Black community has always had questions of irregularities after elections. We have had to count the bubbles in a bar of soap. We have had to recite the state constitution. We have had to pay poll taxes. We have been shot at and killed. We have been put off farms. We have been questioned by police on our way to vote, all with the aim of denying our right to have our votes counted. Now, once again, we find ourselves facing a possible electronic highjacking of our vote. The question seems to be coming up again, what is a Black man living in America to do just to get his vote counted and counted right?

I, for one, will seek the assistance of the local NAACP Chapters to convene meetings with the local election to get some understanding about our electronic voting machines. This way proper information can be shared with our community.

Innocent Until Found Guilty

I recently read an article by Tim Bueler on the subject of the "Epidemic of pro athlete scandals: The trickle- down effect to our children" Tim was quoting Dr. Gregg Steinberg, a sports psychologist and human performance specialist. He is correct that their actions do have a trickle down effect but to include Barry Bonds' allegation of unproven steroid use into the mix is totally wrong. He included Bonds and NBA Referee Tim Donaghy, who has recently been accused of fixing NBA basketball games, in with professional bike racer Alexander Vinokourov, who was thrown out of the Tour De France for positive drug test, not alleged but proven by an independent drug test. Another racer Dane Michael Rasmussen was kicked out for lying about his training whereabouts in June - It is a violation to lie to the organization about where you train and Michael was caught in a lie. 

Now I understand what Bueler is saying about the impact on our children, and with all these unproven allegation thrown into the mix, it appears that doing what you want and then trying to get away with it in our society has become an epidemic. We have movie stars being arrested and going to jail, proven fact. We have corporate executive stealing pensions from employees and then lying to federal authorities, proven fact. We have oil companies gouging the public with high gas prices. We have congressional members resigning because of teenage sex scandals, proven fact. We have priests in the Catholic Church paying billions to avoid going to court, public fact. We are at war in Iraq because of lies, proven fact.

Now, to me one cannot place all the blame at the foot of the sports community when, in fact, it is just a microcosm of the larger society it exist in. Then to include allegation of wrong doing with proven violators is inappropriate. Now I know society wants to target Barry Bonds because he does not "skin and grin" with the media who want to distract him from his job and then talk about him if he fails, (I will offer my opinion about the media and its treatment on Bonds at a later date), but doesn't he deserve the same innocent until proven guilty opportunity that we all do.

In Bueler's article he asks "How can we raise an adjusted society, full of integrity and mores, when our children see such degradation from sports stars? What kind of lessons are these sports ‘role models' sending to our children?" I say the same lessons our society is sending to the sports community.