Opening shot takes your breath away. Hannity and breasts! Great and funny editing!

Rev. Irene Monroe

The Church of God in Christ (COGIC) is the largest African American and largest Pentecostal church in the United States.

And as the largest denominational black church in the country it is also the loudest in rebuking homosexuality.

With many of the gospel music industry mega-stars from COGIC, the church’s charismatic worship style shouts to a black gay male queer gospel aesthetic every Sunday. And the church is conflicted with itself.

Unfortuantely, these black gay male mega-stars are always forced to go back into the closet denouncing publicly their sexual orientation at the church’s annual convocation.

Case in point: Speaking at the COGIC’s 102nd Holy Convocation International Youth Department Worship Service on November 7 held at the Memphis Cook Convention Center, Pastor Donnie McClurkin, the poster boy for African American ex-gay ministries, was one of them.

“God did not call you to such perversions. Your only hope is Jesus Christ.  Were it not for this Jesus I would be a homosexual today. This God is a deliverer,” McClurkin told his audience.

McClurkin attributed his homosexuality to being raped twice as a child, first at age eight at his brother’s funeral by his uncle, and then at age thirteen by his cousin, his uncle’s son.

Confusing same-gender sexual violence as homosexuality, McClurkin misinterpreted the molestation as the reason for his gay sexual orientation. McClurkin  “testi-lies” that his cure was done by a deliverance from God and a restoration of his manhood by becoming the biological father of a child

In his book “Eternal Victim, Eternal Victor,” McClurkin writes, “”The abnormal use of my sexuality continued until I came to realize that I was broken and that homosexuality was not God’s intention…for my masculinity.”

At the Convocation McClurkin espoused his ex-gay rhetoric by castigating former gospel industry worker Tonéx (Anthony Charles Williams II) who unapologetically stated that he  “didn’t struggle with his sexual attraction to men.”

A talented singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, rapper, dancer, producer, and preacher, Tonéx has won six Stellar Awards, a GMA Award, and received a Grammy nomination for Best Soul Gospel Album for his 2004 gold album “Out The Box.”

Known for his outlandish multi-colored hairstyles and flamboyant garbs with feather boas, fur coats,Tonéx’s image caused consternation in the black gospel and contemporary Christian music communities.

“It wasn’t me trying to make a statement; I’ve always been different,” he told George Varga of the San Diego Union-Tribune. “And it really worked. Out of church, people are always asking me what my tattoos mean.”

According to McClurkin black males, like Tonéx, are gay because of sexual molestation, an absentee father, or they didn’t have strong male images around them. Tonéx is the son of the revered late, Dr. Anthony Williams, Senior Pastor and District Elder in the Truth Apostolic Community Church in suburban Spring Valley.

In an open letter to the Convocation, Bishop Yvette Flunder, an out lesbian who is  a third generation preacher with roots in the Church of God in Christ, licensed in the COGIC, and is now the Presiding Bishop of The Fellowship and Senior Pastor, City of Refuge United Church of Christ, wrote the following:

“I watched a clip of Pastor Donnie McClurkin at the COGIC Convocation Nov11, 2009 where he used the words perversion and vampirism in reference to feminine young men and ‘evil’ butch young ladies. He suggested that the church had failed them and not been active enough in helping these young people find deliverance. He ranted against gospel artist and pastor Tonéx with regard to Tonéx’s recent affirmation of his own same gender orientation.”

Pastor Donnie knows like I know that Tonéx is more the ‘rule’ than the exception to the rule. What makes Tonéx unique is not that he is a Gay gospel music artist and Pastor but that he told the truth about his sexuality, while not claiming to be delivered,” Gay males continue to find ways of being supported in the COGIC.

For example, “blaquebigayministers” is a Yahoo gay ministers group, boasting 787 members since July 2000 and was founded by COGIC Elder Ronald Kimbrew.  Kimbrew served as the Arkansas 1st Jurisdiction as the Assistant Secretary of the Pastors & Elders Council of COGIC from December 1996 to March 19, 2005 and his now the Public Relations Director at Greater Trinity, a COGIC congregation in Arkansas.

The “blaquebigayministers” website states the following:

“WELCOME. This fellowship is for support and encouragement especially of black Christian ministers and friends who are “family” (bi or same-gender loving) and need a place of refuge. Enjoy the “fellowship.”

Kimbrew organized meetings of  bisexual and   same-gender loving COGIC ministers for most of the national meetings like Memphis Holy Convocation that McClurkin  now denounces but use to take part in.

A reported following the Convocation asked “Is COGIC going to be silent while an organized culture of homosexual ministers and bishops populate its pulpits?

And the answer is yes.

COGIC shouts to a black gay male queer gospel aesthetic every Sunday and no one knows it better than McClurkin himself.

COGIC was formed in 1897 by a group of disfellowshipped Baptists. I wonder if the guys were disfellowshipped because they were gay.

By Denis Campbell

3rd in my series on Economic Development and Politics in Wales made more critical by this week’s growing ‘silly season food fight’ over the Labour Leadership election.

It’s been anything but a quiet week in Lake Woebegone, (apologies to npr, Garrison Keillor, and most in Wales unfamiliar with the reference).

After my Sunday’s BBC The Politics Show Wales appearance came a firestorm of criticism on Monday when I further suggested on this page that the Welsh Labour Party leadership race and perhaps Welsh politics in general, were guilty of subtle (and not-so) institutional sexism.

The good folk at WalesHome.org were quick to jump saying I was picking unfairly on one of their writers. Then a comment of mine on Cambria Politico’s blog led to a strange cellphone call made from outside the Synedd building from a representative of one of the three party candidates. The off-the-record conversation brought back memories of 1972 and Watergate’s ‘Deep Throat.’ While neither threatened nor told to “follow the money” it was a trifle un-nerving to think this race could create a threat against Cambria Magazine and its editorial team. (Disclosure: I have contributed to their magazine as well as The Western Mail in the past, indeed the 1st article in this series ran in their previous issue.)

Then came yesterday’s Western Mail article from Aled Blake where UWIC’s Professor Robert Huggins challenged Wales’ business fitness in growing technological world. It was here many of my economic development and political complaints came full circle.

Simply, if the Assembly spent half the time invested on this leadership campaign working on real economic issues, using their fiduciary and legislative oversight responsibility to question expenses and reign in the profligate International Business Wales (IBW) travel spending spree at taxpayer expense and simplified the recently completed 16-month long and very expensive All Wales Convention initiative just to re-state the obvious, perhaps Professor Huggins words could be dismissed.

But when you have an economy and job market where 70% of all workers are in the public sector and they live off the sweat and toil of the remaining 30%, the businesses in this recession trying to grow the economy, therein lies the apathetic rub. When the government continues to grow as revenues shrink, from where will relief come?

When a 3-year, £3 million pound contract awarded last Spring to public relations firm Hill and Knowlton and four other firms in Japan, Hong Kong, Sydney, Mumbai and Seoul was brought to my attention, I threw up my hands in disgust. The firms were engaged by International Business Wales (IBW) to “act as a marketing consultant for IBW, promoting a positive awareness of Wales through a marketing programme likely to include (my emphasis) advertising, website maintenance, direct mail, hospitality, and exhibition and event management.”

So is it a case of more good money flying (quite literally in this case) out after bad as explained in the 2nd segment of this series? And the question still sits unanswered.

Why are we spending so many limited precious resources in an area of the world where there already exists a wealth of innovation, technological jobs, skilled engineers, university graduates and cheap labour?

Yet Wales will still spend £1-1.5 million pounds of taxpayer funds in that region over the next 12-18 months to do exactly what?

And then we have the much ballyhooed debate on devolution and more powers for the Welsh Assembly. Even forgiving £1.5 million pounds spent on a 134-page report saying Wales should have more legislative law-making powers, questions exist for all parties:

• how do you propose to find ways to pay to sustain your lifestyle?
• What with no central bank, infrastructure, natural resources (beyond world demonised coal and limited water) do we have to sell?
• Why would we not be bankrupt in a month with the current government talent running the show if freed from the oppressive Westminster teat?
• Will a devolved Wales print Welsh Dragon dubloons?

As Professor Huggins said in The Western Mail: “Wales has formed a vicious, rather than virtuous circle where living standards and competitiveness are continually moving on a downward curve. The country lacks innovative ideas to address the problem, which is proving a barrier to growth when coupled with the lack of investment in knowledge.”

Ireland did not grow by closing its borders and discouraging investment. It did not move slowly and take 7-business days to respond to a constituent e-mail. Ireland did not grow by following archaic and slow processes of shifting paper and mindless debate. They grew by taking a “what will it take for us to succeed” attitude and worked together with business… at the speed of business. That is an integral part of the missing innovation of which Professor Huggins spoke.

Innovation requires swiftness, street smarts and skills. Where do they come into play and where can Wales get them is the real issue? When will we cease with purely political appointments and find seasoned, talented executives to lead economic development and they in turn be given the authority to clean house and make their operations lean, mean and productive? Until then, we can expect more of the same, regardless of who wins the Labour leadership fight and/or the next general election.

All of Wales cannot afford to wait for either eventuality.

by Robert Reich

President Obama says he wants to “rebalance” the economic relationship between China and the U.S. as part of his plan to restart the American jobs machine. “We cannot go back,” he said in September, “to an era where the Chinese . . . just are selling everything to us, we’re taking out a bunch of credit-card debt or home equity loans, but we’re not selling anything to them.” He hopes that hundreds of millions of Chinese consumers will make up for the inability of American consumers to return to debt-binge spending.

This is wishful thinking. True, the Chinese market is huge and growing fast. By 2009, China was second only to the U.S. in computer sales, with a larger proportion of first-time buyers. It already had more cell-phone users. And excluding SUVs, last year Chinese consumers bought as many cars as Americans (as recently as 2006, Americans bought twice as many).

Even as the U.S. government was bailing out General Motors and Chrysler, the two firms’ sales in China were soaring; GM’s sales there are almost 50% higher this year than last. Proctor & Gamble is so well-established in China that many Chinese think its products (such as green-tea-flavored Crest toothpaste) are Chinese brands. If the Chinese economy continues to grow at or near its current rate and the benefits of that growth trickle down to 1.3 billion Chinese consumers, the country would become the largest shopping bazaar in the history of the world. They’ll be driving over a billion cars and will be the world’s biggest purchasers of household electronics, clothing, appliances and almost everything else produced on the planet.

So this will mean millions of American export jobs, right? No.

In fact China is heading in the opposite direction of “rebalancing.” Its productive capacity keeps soaring, but Chinese consumers are taking home a shrinking proportion of the total economy. Last year, personal consumption in China amounted to only 35% of the Chinese economy; 10 years ago consumption was almost 50%. Capital investment, by contrast, rose to 44% from 35% over the decade.

China’s capital spending is on the way to exceeding that of the U.S., but its consumer spending is barely a sixth as large. Chinese companies are plowing their rising profits back into more productive capacity—additional factories, more equipment, new technologies. China’s massive $600 billion stimulus package has been directed at further enlarging China’s productive capacity rather than consumption. So where will this productive capacity go if not to Chinese consumers? Net exports to other nations, especially the U.S. and Europe.

Many explanations have been offered for the parsimony of Chinese consumers. Social safety-nets are still inadequate, so Chinese families have to cover the costs of health care, education and retirement. Young Chinese men outnumber young Chinese women by a wide margin, so households with sons have to accumulate and save enough assets to compete in the marriage market. Chinese society is aging quickly because the government has kept a tight lid on population growth for three decades, with the result that households are supporting lots of elderly dependents.

But the larger explanation for Chinese frugality is that the nation is oriented to production, not consumption. China wants to become the world’s preeminent producer nation. It also wants to take the lead in the production of advanced technologies. The U.S. would like to retain the lead, but our economy is oriented to consumption rather than production.

Deep down inside the cerebral cortex of our national consciousness we assume that the basic purpose of an economy is to provide more opportunities to consume. We grudgingly support government efforts to rebuild our infrastructure. We want our companies to invest in new equipment and technologies but also want them to pay generous dividends. We approve of government investments in basic research and development, but mainly for the purpose of making the nation more secure through advanced military technologies. (We regard spillovers to the private sector as incidental.)

China’s industrial and technological policy is unapologetically direct. It especially wants America’s know-how, and the best way to capture knowhow is to get it firsthand. So China continues to condition many sales by U.S. and foreign companies on production in China—often in joint ventures with Chinese companies.

American firms are now helping China build a “smart” infrastructure, tackle pollution with clean technologies, develop a new generation of photovoltaics and wind turbines, find new applications for nanotechologies, and build commercial jets and jet engines. GM recently announced it was planning to make a new subcompact in China designed and developed primarily by the Pan-Asia Technical Automotive Center, a joint venture between GM and SAIC Motor in Shanghai. General Electric is producing wind turbine components in China. Earlier this month, Massachusetts-based Evergreen Solar announced it will be moving its solar panel production to China.

The Chinese government also wants to create more jobs in China, and it will continue to rely on exports. Each year, tens of millions of poor Chinese pour into large cities from the countryside in pursuit of better-paying work. If they don’t find it, China risks riots and other upheaval. Massive disorder is one of the greatest risks facing China’s governing elite. That elite would much rather create export jobs, even at the cost of subsidizing foreign buyers, than allow the yuan to rise and thereby risk job shortages at home.

To this extent, China’s export policy is really a social policy, designed to maintain order. Despite the Obama administration’s entreaties, China will continue to peg the yuan to the dollar—when the dollar drops, selling yuan in the foreign-exchange market and adding to its pile of foreign assets in order to maintain the yuan’s fixed relation to the dollar. This is costly to China, of course, but for the purposes of industrial and social policy, China figures the cost is worth it.

The dirty little secret on both sides of the Pacific is that both America and China are capable of producing far more than their own consumers are capable of buying. In the U.S., the root of the problem is a growing share of total income going to the richest Americans, leaving the middle class with relatively less purchasing power unless they go deep into debt. Inequality is also widening in China, but the problem there is a declining share of the fruits of economic growth going to average Chinese and an increasing share going to capital investment.

Both societies are threatened by the disconnect between production and consumption. In China, the threat is civil unrest. In the U.S., it’s a prolonged jobs and earnings recession that, when combined with widening inequality, could create political backlash.

Republished with the permission of The Robert Reich Blog

8 million children in the US have no insurance and many will die.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgm7gGG77iU

The question is does anyone care what he thinks?

Why, if the book is already in the bargain bin, is she getting so much energy and air time.

By Denis Campbell

Examples of sportsmanship in sport are hard to find. Football players dive, rugby players assault in the scrum pile and other forms of aggression occur at all levels to try and eke out an advantage and ‘win.’

Examples though in leadership, ethics, training and moulding the character of young men and women into a team are harder to find. When character fails, you may win games but you lose both the moral high ground and the very reason for having athletics in an educational setting.

Sadly, your basketball programme was lacking last week and it reflects poorly on you and the University.

Armistice Day 2009 was a day of remembering those who gave the ultimate sacrifice. On that afternoon 2 basketball games were played on your campus. As well as writing and providing political commentary for the BBC, Western Mail, The Guardian and others, I’ve spent a small part of the last 20-years as an NBA and NCAA statistician as well as high school and club league referee in the USA, NL and UK.

Basketball remains a childhood passion to this 52-year old ‘kid.’ In younger days I’d watch Bill Russell and John Havilcek battle Wilt Chamberlain and Oscar Robertson on the parquet floor of the Boston Garden. Today it also provides me, as a stroke survivor, with a source of fitness and pride of being one of two faceless officials for each game who attempt to maintain order and ensure the smooth flow of the game.

99% of the time it is an enjoyable experience for all (well maybe not the losing team) but everyone realises it is a game, gives their all in the spirit of fair play, everyone makes mistakes (including we officials) and games end in a spirit of sportsmanship and ‘well dones’ all around.

In those 20-years I’ve worked scorer’s tables as members of the USA Dream Team competed at a level I see in my dreams. Having had the honour of working the stats table at the 1990 All-Star game, 20 of the 24 players on both teams would become both Hall of Fame inductees and household names. Bird, Magic, Michael were all one would need to hear anywhere around the globe to know them and this great game.

We can probably agree that despite training and playing hard, not one member of your current squad could play NCAA Division III ball, let alone achieve the high standard of NBA play. Basketball in the UK has nowhere near the following or skills ability of rugby or football and, if they had that level of talent, they would already be there.

So my question sir is: why does your coach think every play of the game is: for the National Championship, NCAA title or NBA Finals trophy? That would be the only explanation for his behaviour during what became a 53-point drubbing at the hands of the Bristol squad they faced that day.

Every coach of every sport ‘works the refs’ to defend his/her players and obtain a perceived advantage on calls. I have no problem with that. It’s part of the game.

What is not part of the game is:

• allowing your players to play for most of the four quarters out-of-control, arms, legs, elbows flying on every drive with attempts at retaliation that, if successful, would have resulted in injury, ejection or both (despite multiple warnings);
• sitting on your hands as referees alone try to break up a dust-up between players (every time there is pushing and shoving on the court coaches are expected to jump in and assist us in separating the teams and restoring order);
• spending the entire 3rd quarter yelling “foul!”, “foul!”, “foul!” every time you disagree. (Now as the referee I should have ejected him from the game, however, the only reason he was allowed to remain in the game was my observation and fear that he was the only ‘adult’ on the bench. With his players already out of control, ejecting him would have ensured a player brawl) and
• after one of his players had been warned repeatedly by both officials during the 1st half for an illegal ball handling manoeuvre, it was then called each time it occurred during the second half ending with this player and the screaming coach being whistled by me for a technical foul when:

-that player kicked the ball in anger against the arena wall and
-the coach screamed again at officials with 3 second left on the clock, down 50+ points and
-the coach pulled his team off the court for the game ending in-bounds play and stormed off to the locker room without exchanging handshakes with the other team or game officials.

My question to you sir is how can any leader maintain control of the team and the game if unable to 1st control himself? Too, there were several young children in the small crowd (my own 3 were there) as well as several students.

The display was an embarrassment to the University, the opposing team, all game officials and, indeed, the game itself.

I know what plays I missed in this game. Not one of them had an impact on the result. I also know that in five years as a player of organised ball, I was called for exactly one technical foul in my career (I was 17) and was made to apologise immediately afterwards to the referee (there was only one back then) for my language/behaviour because:

a. my coach insisted

b. it was the right thing to do and

c. he benched me for the next game as punishment for losing my cool.

His attitude was “if you are not in control of yourself between these lines, you have no business being out there wearing that uniform!” And it did not matter who you were, if you were out of control, you were benched for as long as he felt it took for you to regain composure/learnt he lesson.

I drove 60-miles with three excited kids wanting to see what their Daddy does during a game. We spent a half hour of the return ride patiently talking about “why that man was yelling all the time at you? For £20 spent on a McDonalds dinner later that evening, it is not for money or the aggravation. I’m there for the love of the game.

Your coach should be there for the same reason and realise the important role and example he has to set in these young men’s lives beyond skill drills and plays. So you and your coach, whose name I neither know nor care to, can use this to learn or ignore and blame everyone else for this 53-point loss.

My conscience is clear that none of our calls created that deficit. There are two players on that team with some talent (they wear bib nos. 15 and 11) and could be taught the skills to excel if they were also taught they alone are responsible for their actions, need to remain in control and indeed are part of a team.

So Professor Halton, this is a teaching moment. Sport is part of life. It is never life or death.

All best.

Sunday, 15 November The Politics Show Wales was where the issue of sexism in the Labour Leadership election ending on 26 November was 1st raised. (FF to 3:00 for interview).

Can we find a cell for Hannity and Liz to co-occupy? What system of justice would they choose? Let’s just kill em all without a trial?