Yakkers Corner: Bill Duke Continues His Efforts in “Edutainment” re HIV/Aids
November 30th, 2009

With a wide range of credits to his name in almost every film discipline, including directing, producing, acting and writing, Bill Duke has founded Duke Media, formerly Yagya Productions, which has been in existence for approximately twenty years. For three years, Mr. Duke served as the Time Warner Endowed Chair in the Department of Radio Television and Film at Howard University in Washington, DC. He was then appointed to the National Endowment of the Humanities by former president Bill Clinton. Mr. Duke has also been appointed to the California State Film Commission Board by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Mr. Duke now serves on the Board of Trustees at the American Film Institute.

His education/entertainment package includes a new film Faces of HIV, as well as Cover, and an album populated by Dionne Warwick, Patti LaBelle, Maya Angelou… he would like to spread this information contained in the package around the world to show in depth how HIV Aids is ravaging the black communities in the United States.  He also supports the education of youth “Educating Young Minds”

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Give thanks no matter what.

Thanksgiving 2009 – is there anything worth giving thanks for?  In today’s world we can be blinded by the godawful trials and tribulations affecting people all over the world, so blinded that we can be overcome with woes and worries and doubts and fears.

However, if we could take a breath and look for something for which we could be grateful, then the world would not seem so bleak and devastating even though the sky seems to be falling.

When we change the way we look at things; the things we look at change – Wayne Dyer’s gentle exhortation is effective no matter what situation we are facing…

Find something to be grateful for and give thanks, no matter what. AND LAUGH….

Muriella’s Corner salutes the troops and their families and thanks them for their efforts in securing peace.

Enjoy the beautiful faces in the video sharing gratitude and appreciation from around the world
Source: The Certain Way

Click here for images which help in visualizing peace and security on the African continent.

Some quotes on thanks and gratitude

Wilbur D. Nesbit
Forever on Thanksgiving Day; The heart will find the pathway home.

Anonymous
Thank you, dear God
For all You have given me,
For all You have taken away from me,
For all You have left me.

Cicero
Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.

Charron
He who receives a good turn should never forget it; he who does one should never remember it.

Meister Eckhart
If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, ‘thank you,’ that would suffice.

Galatians 6:9
Do not get tired of doing what is good. Don’t get discouraged and give up, for we will reap a harvest of blessing at the appropriate time.

Albert Barnes
We can always find something to be thankful for, and there may be reasons why we ought to be thankful for even those dispensations which appear dark and frowning.

Anonymous
May your stuffing be tasty
May your turkey plump,
May your potatoes and gravy
Have nary a lump.
May your yams be delicious
And your pies take the prize,
And may your Thanksgiving dinner
Stay off your thighs!

Hunter S. Thompson
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

Ronald Knox
A good sermon should be like a woman’s skirt: short enough to rouse the interest, but long enough to cover the essentials.

Barbara Stanwyck
Egotism – usually just a case of mistaken non-entity.

Friedrich Nietzsche
Fear is the mother of morality.

Abraham Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation
The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies

To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe had enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American People.

I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.

Scriptural References to Thanksgiving

JOEL 2:21-27
In every culture the harvest season is a time of
thanksgiving.  Such celebrations occurred in ancient Israel as this excerpt
from one of their minor prophets shows.  The images of plenty pour out on
the page, line after line.  What is more, this abundant harvest came after
years of privation.

The significant element of this celebration comes to the fore in the phrase
“rejoice in the Lord your God.”  Providential grace, not human effort alone,
yields the abundant harvest.

PSALM 126
This brief psalm exults in the return of the exiles
from Babylon.  The dream of two generations had come true.  The psalmist
likens the experience to a harvest when the watercourses in the parched
desert of the Negeb were flowing from plentiful rainfall.  It could have
been included among the Songs of Ascent to remind Israelites of who gave
them whatever prosperity they might enjoy.
1 TIMOTHY 2:1-7
The two Letters to Timothy probably date from about
120-140 AD.  A church leader, using Paul’s name, wrote to guide a younger
pastor (or several pastors) in his (their) ministry.  Among other counsel,
he warned about a serious heresy.  Here he gave instructions about how and
for whom to pray.  Most surprising is the inclusion of the king (i.e. the
Roman emperor) and government officials.  The philosophy behind the
Canadian Constitution reflects this very contemporary prayer in the words,
“peace, order and good government.”
MATTHEW 6:25-33
This well-known passage from the Sermon on the Mount
declared that the secret to God’s ample provision for human need are trust
and obedience to God’s righteous rule.  Our response to God’s plentiful
grace, not anxious manipulation of economic and financial systems, will
bring about the universal prosperity God wants all of us to enjoy.

For more read Muriella’s Corner Newsletter Thanksgiving Issue 2008

JOIN MORINGA PARTNERS – www.moringa.groupsite.com – leave a comment with your email and you will be sent an invitation to become a member of this exclusive site with information on Moringa, the Miracle Tree

Muriella’s Corner has been actively involved in blogging about drinking water…This seeming obsession is a result of almost 30 years working the international development in helping communities in developing countries have access to the liberating and health effects of a clean drinking water supply. A search on Muriella’s Corner blogs for water will reveal many entries on the condition of water in the United States.

The observation was made that in development countries, emphasis in the dialogue on water is availability, accessibility, quantity, much less on quality; however in the developed world emphasis is much more on quality, a conversation that is becoming more and more pronounced as we become aware of what really constitutes bottled water and what goes into the ground thus affecting the water we drink.

The chemicals ubiquitously available in our drinking water can lead to water-related diseases which ultimately affect our health, viz the most recent article in the New York Times on Toxic WatersMore than 23 million of us are walking toxic sieves, full of ingested chemicals from our food and our water and our air…Being aware of the impact of chemicals on our lives is extremely important as our health depends on this. The more aware of these, the more one takes action on asssuring the ingestion of non-chemicalized water, food and the breathing of fresher air (in the home as that is the only environment we can totally control), health care issues can be addressed working with a better prepared population who would know where to take its acvitist energies.

The Times article highlights vividly some experiences of some people living in areas where coal sludge/slurry might be leaking into the ground water. Here in her own words is Jennifer from West Virginia talking about why she no longer drinks water from the tap…”In fact, her entire family tries to avoid any contact with the water. Her youngest son has scabs on his arms, legs and chest where the bathwater — polluted with lead, nickel and other heavy metals — caused painful rashes. Many of his brother’s teeth were capped to replace enamel that was eaten away.

See the chemicalization of the American Breakfast and the effects of cosmetics in our water supply

KNOW WHAT’S IN YOUR WATER!!! Click here and find out the quality of water in your zip code

Water Polluters Near You
Across the nation, the system that Congress created to protect the nation’s waters under the Clean Water Act of 1972 today often fails to prevent pollution. The New York Times has compiled data on more than 200,000 facilities that have permits to discharge pollutants and collected responses from states regarding compliance. Information about facilities contained in this database comes from two sources: the Environmental Protection Agency and the California State Water Resources Control Board. The database does not contain information submitted by the states. READ MORE HERE…

In the news recently, the dialogue (or is it a monologue) continues re cell phones and radiation, cause and effect.
There are now over 270 million cell phones nationwide in the USA, not counting the world, emitting non-ionizing radiation (less than radiation in X-Rays. Big question is, do low doses add up? and if they do are they already causing harm, especially to young brains as so many of our children and youth are addicted to the cell phone.

As with all other ills, any addictive behaviour can be detrimental to our health and that of our families. When will we know, or rather be told what is going on with the use of cell phones and of any consequential harm to public health.

Check out the websites below
Dr Ben Kim
Muriella’s Corner
Muriella’s Corner Blogs
Environmental Working Group

Michael Jackson is the most recent celebrity to have succumbed to Sudden Departure Syndrome. Click here to find out more about this and what you can do about it.

Breaking Heart News

…some restaurants are stopping its sale, one bottle at a time…

The Washington Post reported yesterday that some restaurants are no longer selling bottled water. New York’s Del Posto does not allow sharing/selling bottled Perrier or San Pellegrino.  The compelling argument relates to the absurdity of moving water all over the world, as well as costs involved in transportation and packaging, not to mention the environmental debris that results, such that beverage companies like Coca Cola, Pepsi, Nestle etc., are seeing their sales drop while negative consumer and environmental movements gain the upper hand.

Morevoer, water scarcity is raising fears that prices could increase down the road. “Water is the new oil,” said Steve Dixon, who manages the Global Beverage Fund at Arnhold & S. Bleichroeder, repeating what has become a mantra as climate change and population growth tax water supplies.

Statistics show that about 33% of the world’s people live in water-stressed/water-scarce areas; the percentage likely to rise as the years pass.  Thus issues of sustainability will become more challenging as more and more water will need to be harvested to meet the demand…if it rises.

Water is still cheap, but that is changing.”It is currently not a very big cost. The issue is where it will it go in the future,” said Andy Wales, head of sustainable development for brewer SABMiller, which used 94.5 billion liters of water in its latest fiscal year. That works out to 4.5 liters for every liter of beer it made.

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Water scarcity and its relationship to the Millennium Development Goals

One of the targets (3) is to halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation.  The steps being taken now at the individual level could go  a long way towards meeting this goal.

GOAL 7:
ENSURE ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY

• MDG Monitor for Goal 7
• Fact Sheet for Goal 7

Target 1:
Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes and reverse the loss of environmental resources

• Immediate action is needed to contain rising greenhouse gas emissions
• Success in limiting ozone-depleting substances is also helping to mitigate climate change

Target 2:
Reduce biodiversity loss, achieving, by 2010, a significant reduction in the rate of loss

• Marine areas and land conservation need greater attention
• Deforestation slows and more forests are designated for biodiversity conservation
• The number of species threatened with extinction is rising rapidly
• Fish stocks require improved fisheries management to reduce depletion

Target 3:
Halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation

• Almost half of the world’s population face a scarcity of water
• More people are using improved sanitation facilities, but meeting the target will require a redoubling of efforts
• In developing regions, nearly one in four uses no form of sanitation
• Though access to improved drinking water has expanded, nearly one billion people do without
• Women shoulder the largest burden in collecting water

Target 4:
By 2020, to have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers

• Simple, low-cost interventions could significantly improve the lives of many slum dwellers

“If you would be happy for a lifetime, grow Chrysanthemums.” (a Chinese philosopher)

We have updated the information provided earlier Mums for Malaria and added the nutrition component through the production of Moringa to the production of Chrysanthemums to provide nutrition and a source of income to enfeebled populations in malaria-stricken areas.

Mums and Moringa for Malaria Movement – chrysanthemums provide the herbicide repellent to keep away mosquitos; moringa provides the nutritional supplementation necessary for those ill with the disease. In malaria-producing communities, we will be growing chrysanthemums and moringa and partnering with pyrethrum producing companies for distribution, training and ecommerce at local levels – using locally produced herbicide as mosquito repellent to complement treated bednets, as well as essential oils from the chrysanthemum and moringa to support local people make some money while protecting the environment, helping eradicate the scourge of malaria and helping improve nutritional status of young children at the same time.

for more on Moringa visit Moringa Partners

Fabulous quotes for Mom, mother, ma, mama, mommy…

source: quotes dot com

Read Muriella’s Corner Newsletter here with good sentiments for Mom

I remember my mother’s prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life. ~Abraham Lincoln

Some mothers are kissing mothers and some are scolding mothers, but it is love just the same, and most mothers kiss and scold together. ~Pearl S. Buck

The real religion of the world comes from women much more than from men – from mothers most of all, who carry the key of our souls in their bosoms. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes

The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness. ~Honoré de Balzac

All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his. ~Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, 1895

He is a poor son whose sonship does not make him desire to serve all men’s mothers. ~Harry Emerson Fosdick

Thou art thy mother’s glass, and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime.
~William Shakespeare

An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy. ~Spanish Proverb

She never quite leaves her children at home, even when she doesn’t take them along. ~Margaret Culkin Banning

When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts. A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child. ~Sophia Loren, Women and Beauty

If evolution really works, how come mothers only have two hands? ~Milton Berle

Motherhood is priced
Of God, at price no man may dare
To lessen or misunderstand.
~Helen Hunt Jackson

Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own. ~Aristotle

Women are aristocrats, and it is always the mother who makes us feel that we belong to the better sort. ~John Lancaster Spalding

Motherhood has a very humanizing effect. Everything gets reduced to essentials. ~Meryl Streep

The sweetest sounds to mortals given
Are heard in Mother, Home, and Heaven.
~William Goldsmith Brown

What are Raphael’s Madonnas but the shadow of a mother’s love, fixed in permanent outline forever? ~Thomas Wentworth Higginson

My mom is a neverending song in my heart of comfort, happiness, and being. I may sometimes forget the words but I always remember the tune. ~Graycie Harmon

The formative period for building character for eternity is in the nursery. The mother is queen of that realm and sways a scepter more potent than that of kings or priests. ~Author Unknown

Mother love is the fuel that enables a normal human being to do the impossible. ~Marion C. Garretty, quoted in A Little Spoonful of Chicken Soup for the Mother’s Soul

I love my mother as the trees love water and sunshine – she helps me grow, prosper, and reach great heights. ~Adabella Radici

[A] mother is one to whom you hurry when you are troubled. ~Emily Dickinson

A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine desert us; when trouble thickens around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts. ~Washington Irving

Any mother could perform the jobs of several air traffic controllers with ease. ~Lisa Alther

A mother’s arms are made of tenderness and children sleep soundly in them. ~Victor Hugo

Now, as always, the most automated appliance in a household is the mother. ~Beverly Jones

That best academy, a mother’s knee. ~James Russell Lowell

The only mothers it is safe to forget on Mother’s Day are the good ones. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic’s Notebook, 1960

Hundreds of dewdrops to greet the dawn,
Hundreds of bees in the purple clover,
Hundreds of butterflies on the lawn,
But only one mother the wide world over.
~George Cooper

A mother’s happiness is like a beacon, lighting up the future but reflected also on the past in the guise of fond memories. ~Honoré de Balzac

A father may turn his back on his child, brothers and sisters may become inveterate enemies, husbands may desert their wives, wives their husbands. But a mother’s love endures through all. ~Washington Irving

My mother is a poem
I’ll never be able to write,
though everything I write
is a poem to my mother.
~Sharon Doubiago

Grown don’t mean nothing to a mother. A child is a child. They get bigger, older, but grown? What’s that suppose to mean? In my heart it don’t mean a thing. ~Toni Morrison, Beloved, 1987

With what price we pay for the glory of motherhood. ~Isadora Duncan

One good mother is worth a hundred schoolmasters. ~George Herbert

Mother’s love is peace. It need not be acquired, it need not be deserved. ~Erich Fromm

Who ran to help me when I fell,
And would some pretty story tell,
Or kiss the place to make it well?
My mother.
~Ann Taylor

Mother – that was the bank where we deposited all our hurts and worries. ~T. DeWitt Talmage

The precursor of the mirror is the mother’s face. ~D.W. Winnicott, Playing and Reality, 1971

Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children. ~William Makepeace Thackeray

A daughter is a mother’s gender partner, her closest ally in the family confederacy, an extension of her self. And mothers are their daughters’ role model, their biological and emotional road map, the arbiter of all their relationships. ~Victoria Secunda

Mother’s love grows by giving. ~Charles Lamb

I miss thee, my Mother! Thy image is still
The deepest impressed on my heart.
~Eliza Cook

The tie which links mother and child is of such pure and immaculate strength as to be never violated. ~Washington Irving

I cannot forget my mother. [S]he is my bridge. When I needed to get across, she steadied herself long enough for me to run across safely. ~Renita Weems

A little girl, asked where her home was, replied, “where mother is.” ~Keith L. Brooks

Youth fades; love droops; the leaves of friendship fall; A mother’s secret hope outlives them all. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes

Most of all the other beautiful things in life come by twos and threes, by dozens and hundreds. Plenty of roses, stars, sunsets, rainbows, brothers and sisters, aunts and cousins, comrades and friends – but only one mother in the whole world. ~Kate Douglas Wiggin

If I was damned of body and soul,
I know whose prayers would make me whole,
Mother o’ mine, O mother o’mine.
~Rudyard Kipling

Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world a mother’s love is not. ~James Joyce

My mother had a slender, small body, but a large heart – a heart so large that everybody’s joys found welcome in it, and hospitable accommodation. ~Mark Twain

It’s not easy being a mother. If it were easy, fathers would do it. ~From the television show The Golden Girls

The mother’s heart is the child’s school-room. ~Henry Ward Beecher

Women know
The way to rear up children (to be just)
They know a simple, merry, tender knack
Of tying sashes, fitting baby shoes,
And stringing pretty words that make no sense,
And kissing full sense into empty words.
~Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The desolation and terror of, for the first time, realizing that the mother can lose you, or you her, and your own abysmal loneliness and helplessness without her. ~Francis Thompson

My mom is literally a part of me. You can’t say that about many people except relatives, and organ donors. ~Carrie Latet

Every beetle is a gazelle in the eyes of its mother. ~Moorish Proverb

All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel Mother. ~Abraham Lincoln

No painter’s brush, nor poet’s pen
In justice to her fame
Has ever reached half high enough
To write a mother’s name.
~Author Unknown

Women who miscalculate are called mothers. ~Abigail Van Buren

A man’s work is from sun to sun, but a mother’s work is never done. ~Author Unknown

One of the very few reasons I had any respect for my mother when I was thirteen was because she would reach into the sink with her bare hands – bare hands – and pick up that lethal gunk and drop it into the garbage. To top that, I saw her reach into the wet garbage bag and fish around in there looking for a lost teaspoon. Bare hands – a kind of mad courage. ~Robert Fulghum

One lamp – thy mother’s love – amid the stars
Shall lift its pure flame changeless, and before
The throne of God, burn through eternity -
Holy – as it was lit and lent thee here.
~Nathaniel Parker Willis

No one in the world can take the place of your mother. Right or wrong, from her viewpoint you are always right. She may scold you for little things, but never for the big ones. ~Harry Truman

God could not be everywhere, so he created mothers. ~Jewish Proverb

A man loves his sweetheart the most, his wife the best, but his mother the longest. ~Irish Proverb

Imagine a country that is malaria prone, but that begins to work toward the elimination of breeding grounds for mosquitoes, to establishing joint ventures with herbicide producing companies that produce pyrethrum, to growing chrysanthemums for beautifying the environment and extracting the herbicide, to treating clothes as well as bednets with the natural herbicide for sale in the countries…imagine what a world that would be – a world that creates other types of buzz, than the buzz of the female mosquito searching for food.
The Rockefeller Foundation began using pyrethrum sprays experimentally in India to great
success and this method of malaria control was recognised as enormously valuable. The use
of pyrethrum was then expanded to Assam by Dr. D. K. Viswanathan, the well known Indian malariologist in 1942.

Bednets are extremely important, but they are not sustainable as regards the local communities.  But, combined with a chrysanthemum planting movement, they would be…as the locals would be able to create and design their own clothing treated with the herbicide as well as their own bednets…

For every effort there has to be some thought to the sustainability of the effort, to what happens when the source dries up. Let us look back and learn, create a Mums for Malaria Movement to eliminate both poverty and malaria…what a concept!!

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See comment below on Pyrethrum manufactured in the United States -