Black Solutions

New Ag Blog

2009-08-08T13:30:00.000-07:00

Well, now that I'm off that truck, I've begun working on a blog devoted just to agriculture. "WHAT'S a BROTHA FrOm Berkeley doing blogging about FARMS?"

Urban Farming
I don't care if it's raising a garden in your backyard, or developing a small "farm" inside the city limits with the intention of providing your neighborhood with fresh vegetables, fruit and meat ... the time to plant is NOW!

Check out the amazing opportunities posted on my newest blog. Everything from the 200 Agriculture related career fields that are currently going wanting for college educated people to fill them ... to stories about a 70 year old Detroit man who makes a living shooting Raccoons and selling the meat and skins to his protein starved neighbors.

Check it all out on: greenfred

Green Jobs

2009-05-01T16:49:00.000-07:00

The Recovery Act President Obama's number one priority upon entering the White House, The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, was signed into law on February 17th. The act is intended to revitalize the U.S. economy, and includes crucial investments in transportation, infrastructure, education, and energy. 

The Recovery Act totals $787 billion, including billions that can be used to green the economy, create green jobs, and build green pathways out of poverty. 

$6 billion in has been allocated to the Weatherization Assistance Program, which will go to weatherize homes to make them leak less energy.
The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grants means that every city, county, state and tribe in the country will receive some portion of over $3 billion to spend on projects that reduce energy use or conserve resources.

$500 Million for Green Jobs Training will be allocated through competitive grants for green jobs training. Both advanced skills training and pathways out of poverty programs are eligible for grants.

Green Jobs Training Grants The federal recovery package allocated $500 million to be given out in competitive grants for green job training programs across the county. There will be grants available for advanced
skills training and for pathways out of poverty programs.

A Green-Collar Job Strengthens Urban and Rural Communities. Essentially, the new green economy will be more "hammer and nails" than high tech. Still, to get all that cheap energy being produced in Texas up to an icy home in upstate Maine, the entire United States power grid is going to have to be updated. That's a LOT of jobs. All kinds of jobs. Be well Space Travelers.

CHange

2009-05-01T14:55:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted for a while. I'm undergoing a major change. The truck driving was interesting ... but it's time to start a real life again. I saw enough of the country and went "gaw-gaw" over enough farms to KNOW I want to live on one.

Personally, I'm putting my hopes on updating my marketing skills. New Media Marketing ... Going to take a minute, but running away from life ... just ain't no life at all.

I will be developing some new "Green" blogs shortly. Stay tune. Share your thoughts. Find someone to love. Meditate. Pray. Enjoy the journey. Peace.

Hypocrisy In The Hood

2009-01-17T19:49:00.000-08:00

Interesting. We arguably in what may be called the middle phase of a Black Civil War. This ... "Civil War between the "Thug Kulture" and those who identify with the more positive aspects of the Black Community are, and have been at odds for a long time now.

Naturally, this is only one front of a larger "war" ... a spiritual war we're all deeply embroiled in regardless if we know it or now. (SEE: "Materialism, addictions, criminality, domestic abuse, racism, sexism, pornography ... et al...)

You might say it's the old story of man's inhumanity to man. Since the early 80's, we've been slowly seduced out of our collective humanity. Driving that truck, I witnessed people from Rock Hill, South Carolina to Portland, Oregon ... depressed and hardened towards each other. Last Christmas was the meanest I've ever seen.

Now, the Obama Inauguration is at hand. Many of the people who will be clapping and pounding themselves on the back will be "folks" who love to refer to themselves and others as, "Niggas."

It's been a long, dark night ... a Holocaust of killing each other ... of terrorizing black neighborhoods by the very black men and women who should have been defending and building it up. "I gotta get my bling on."

It's going to be interesting to watch. Obama wasn't elected by black people, but he is a Standard Bearer for people of every hue and strata. The forces of darkness are going to come quick, fast and in a hurry to divide and conquer the Liberal Left. There will be confusion. But in all the things I hope for ... paramount in my mind, is the death of Thug Kulture and the transformation of da Nigga.

I'll be out of touch for a while. Peace. Be aware of the larger war we're all in. In other words space travelers ... "Be ye as wise as the serpent, and as humble as the dove."

Dick Gregory

2008-12-20T13:29:00.000-08:00

Dick Gregory may be the only person on the planet right now who I can listen to talk about the current state of racism and oppression in America. It's just too late to discuss being a victim or to pay too much attention to the illusionary, "Oppressor."

If every human being is a spiritual being having a human experience, then being a "victim" ... or a "perpetrator" are merely roles we either choose to play or "attach" to and have difficulty letting go of. (This is only background babble because by now, most folks know this already... at least intellectually, if not emotionally.)

Dick Gregory has worn many hats. Among them being, social activist, comedian, writer, and entrepreneur, grandfather, and spiritual adviser ... but the thread that weaves them all together is that he is a healer. A "social counselor" that tells both the emperor and the field hand that they have no clothes ... that they've forgotten who they are ... and like the father, chides them to the point of awareness that yes, they can and must ... do better.

Please play the video below. Like Dr. Phil, John Bradshaw, and Jesus Christ, I too agree that the burden of unnecessary guilt and shame lie at the heart of America’s ills. I hope you’ll "YouTube" all his videos. He speaks to the healing heart of us all ... black, white, yellow, brown, red … male, female ... et al ...

Black Renaissance on Pine Street

2008-12-06T19:46:00.000-08:00

So I'm eating breakfast at this cafe on Adeline in Berkeley. The guy at the table next to me has just finished a bowl of something ... some kind of greenish cooked cereal or some sort of Split Pea soup. A short stack with home fries follows. (Hmmm ... interesting. Either this guy is from some Eastern European country or he's just a very hungry fellow who knows how to eat.)

So I strikes up a conversation. Turns out the couple are far-left Berkeley types. Not many left these days. I tell him a bit about me, and then he pauses, and tells me about this brother down in the Lower Bottom (a.k.a. "West Oakland") who is creating this whole movement around black art, music and writing.

It takes me a week, but I find the scrap of paper deep in my pocket, and read, "Marcel Diallo's" name on it, along with the words, "blackdotcafe magazine".

Google then name in, and BaM! There's all these stories and links about a new urban revival of da creative arts in an area once labeled Oakland's Buttermilk Bottom. West Oakland. Once home to Pullman Car Porters, Southern Pacific and Sante Fe trains, Chinese Cleaners, and a strip of African American bars and night clubs linked to the infamous "Chitlin Circuit" that ran under the South's Cotton Curtain, up to Harlem, across the Midwest, and even out to Northern and Southern California.

So, here's this Marcel Diallo sitting next to actor Don Cheadle. (Ya gotta click on some of these links and read this stuff..) They're talking about how developer Rick Holliday came up with the idea of renovating the dead heart of West Oakland's 7th & Pine Street area. The surprising part of all this to me is that this has been going on for some time ... and like the West Oakland Farmer's Market, far too few people know about it.

I'm sooOOOOoo glad to read about all of Diallo's work ... even though it's a bit too urban for me. But it's important ... because like the cliché says ... "the artist, the poets, and the musicians create the consciousness of the race."

We've had 30 years of Korporate State control of the music. Started in the 70s actually ... when they took the stage out and this thing called, "Disco" suddenly appeared. All that great, REAL, music ... gone. The Great Communicator (Ronald Regan) came in and university scholarships began disappearing. A tragic thing called, "Homelessness" appeared in both America's cities and its rural areas. Drugs began pouring in from "no where" and high school drop-outs were suddenly getting all the contracts that people like Aretha Franklin, O.C. Smith, and James Brown once had. The Giants of Rhythm and Blues suddenly couldn't BUY a job ... but high school drop-outs like "Too Short" and "Snoop Dog" couldn't find pockets deep enough to hold all the money that was thrown at them.

Like Aristotle once said: "You write the laws, but let me write the songs because the youth will act out the songs."

It's been a long, dark, night upon the land folks. We need visionaries of every hue at the table ... writing, sculpting, painting a path to a New Renaissance that will stop the killing, free some souls, and fill some hearts, minds ... and stomachs.

An Argument For Black Spiritual Marriage

2008-11-30T18:36:00.000-08:00

The state of relationships in America is bad enough, but in Black America, it's a train wreak. The Congressional Black Caucus produced statements that alluded to the numbers of African-American divorces being on par with the general population (about 50 per cent divorce rate) ... but the alarming co-statistic was that only about 75 per cent of blacks are even getting married in the first place. So, what's keeping so many black folks single?

While the stressors may be many, "the cure" seems to be all point back to issues of ethics, morality, and spirituality. In his book, "Blessings Of The Flesh, Sins Of The Spirit," esteemed theologian Matthew Fox correlates the Seven Major Chakras of the East with the Seven Deadly Sins of the West. Old news for spiritual seekers, right? Yes and no.

Lust simply isn't sufficient to carry an adult, mature relationship very far. Yet, within Black American cultures, the over-emphasis on sex and sexuality continues to be an over-value commodity. People still think sex alone will bring them happiness. While sex is an important piece to the human experience, determining what to do with that most sacred parts of our anatomies is best mapped out by centuries of spiritual exploration. (Notice my continued reference to the word, "Spiritual" rather than the word, "Religious.")

In their paper, "An Exploration of Factors Related to the Decline in Black Marriages," W. E. Harris, Jr. and Kelly D. Bradley assert:

When Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech, married couples headed more than 70% of all black families. In 2002, the number had declined to 48% (Kinnon, 2003). One of the factors influencing the decline in Black marriage rates has been the rising rate of incarceration among Black men at all educational levels over the past 30 years (Kiecolt & Fossett).

It's odd, but when most people begin having in their relationships with others, they often first seek out the help of a therapist or a psychologist. But all of modern psychology sits on top of old world theology that it doesn't want to recognize. So why look to a watered-down set of instructions rather than seek out an experience in all it's fullness, it's majesty and its "AWE"?

The answers to that question are many. From, it's easier to take drugs to attempt to simulate a spiritual experience, to the willful decision to not be disappointed by one of the mainstream religions all too many have lost faith in. But spirituality involves our personal spirit along with whatever cosmology one finds faith in ... from Yoga, to Buddhist Mediation, to Greek Orthodox Meditation, Catholic Comptemplative Prayer, and on to religious metaphysical practices like the Jewish mysticism of the Kabbalah. Spiritual teacher Deepak Chopra enjoys using phrases like:

"We are literally made of start dust. Carbon. The process of photosynthesis nurtures us--is a part of us. We are essentially the eyes of The Universe in co-creation with God."

This is similar to fingerprints at the tip of each person's hand. We all have them, but each is different. Religion helps teach us the beginning practices that lead to spiritual experiences. But to be a Spiritual Warrior, one has to be willing to relinquish fear, and to relax in faith, surrendering every pre-conceived idea of what God the Spirit is. That can means work. But the work that we were born for. This fellow Space Travelers, is a of the journey too good to miss. May I leave you with this?

Anything you put in front of God, will either eat you—or you'll eventually lose it.

Meaning? In this alienated, pornographic age, we essentially have to even learn how to physically love our wives and husbands. To make an alter out of the body of another means creating yet one more "false god" in our life. One more demon.

Opening to spirituality means opening to a higher, deeper, richer experience in life than people who cling to crutches like alcohol, drugs, porn, and the delusions of power will ever achieve. We really are "spiritual beings have a human experience." Life is really amazing.

May you sincerely, be happy.

Post-Obama: Still Addicted to Negativity?

2008-11-20T16:17:00.000-08:00

I left the room after hearing his first press conference, and breath an unconscious sigh of relief. For the first time in 30 years, I did not feel like my government was persecuting me. ("Phweeeph"!)

So it's been a little over a month, and there is still a lightness in the air. The California Bay Area hasn't felt this good since the 70's. Yet, already, the bloggers, writers, and media reporters are re-hitching up their little wagons to stars of hatred, fear and resentment.

It's like half the population is addicted to being the victim. Literally ... addicted. In his book, "People of The Lie," Dr. M. Scott Peck speaks to the fundamentals of "Evil."

I guess I'm alarmed at how quickly people can go from elation, hope, and joy ... to returning to the slop of their "Lazy Thinking" ... blaming others instead of getting to work on creating the society ... the culture ... and the individual lives we most want to experience.

It's been easy to point fingers at all the many sources of evil that has came at us these past 30 years. OK ... longer ... but there's been breaks... and it's during these "breaks" that the greatest change can occur. The 60s was a wonderful break. That decade gave us Dr. Martin Luther King, an end to institutionalized Jim Crow, and privileges like the right to vote. And now, as President-elect Obama prepares to enter the White House, we all stand, at a threshold of another unique time in history where great change can happen ... if we only become aware of how the trauma of racism has become a habit in our thinking.

"Since they must deny their own badness, they must perceive others as bad. They project their own evil onto the world. The evil attack others instead of facing their own failures. Spiritual growth requires the acknowledgment of one's own need to grow. If we cannot make that acknowledgment, we have no option except to attempt to eradicate the evidence of our imperfection. Strangely enough, evil people are often destructive because they are attempting to destroy evil. The problem is that they misplace the locus of the evil. Instead of destroying others they should be destroying the sickness within themselves."

I suppose what I'm challenging everyone ... blacks, whites, Latinos, Asians, et al ... is to begin ... quickly... to think about what each of us as individuals can bring to the table to make this a better place to live. Stop looking at the faults of others for a minute, and begin thinking about what they need. More, what do I need to be fully happy, healthy, joyous and free ... and what am I doing to stop that from becoming reality in my life? That is the work and the great opportunity of this moment.

Here are some quotes by Dr. Peck ... food for thought...

Books by Dr. M. Scott Peck

"The 100 best places to raise a family" Huh??

2008-11-18T19:16:00.000-08:00

I just read the latest atrocious list put out by MSN's "Best Places To Live." The subtitle reads:

"Find out which American cities are the best, worst for you and your brood"

"Television executives seized the idea long ago: American families value where they plant their roots. The Cosbys had Brooklyn. The Cunninghams, Milwaukee. The Simpsons, Springfield. But fathers face reality when they're not in prime time. They want to raise their children somewhere safe, where they can attend good schools with favorable student-teacher ratios, above-average test scores and respectable budgets. Plenty of museums, parks and pediatricians also contribute to a good quality of life, whereas multihour commutes, expensive houses and divorcing friends and neighbors do not. Best Life editors used these categories and data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the National Center for Education Statistics, the FBI, the American Association of Museums, the National Center for Health Statistics and the American Bar Association to evaluate 257 cities. Here are the best — and worst — places to raise a family."

Well ... I they may have input some data into somebody's laptop over lunch, but they certainly didn't take race or class into the equation.

5. San Diego, California
Yes, San Diego is a lovely place, IF you have the cash to live in one of it's better neighborhoods.

7. Minneapolis, Minnesota
Has anyone BEEN to Minneapolis lately? Another over-crowded city with all the problems of any large urban center ... and it's COLD. But my biggest gripe with this choice is ... well ... it's Minnesota. Both Minnesota and Wisconsin have cultures that drip with passive-aggression. They are the hands-down worst "lookie-loo" drivers in the country. They love to take their boredom and anger with them when they leave the house.

10. Santa Rosa, California
Gangs, drugs and classism.

11. Wichita, Kansas
One of the best jokes on the list. How did they miss all the crack/meth and alcohol abuse in Wichita??

12. Los Angeles, California
I cannot figure this one out. L.A. is Porn Nation's Headquarters. Gangs, crime and random violence ... THIS is a greater place to raise a child than (Number 50) Fairfield, California?? Hmmm ... I guess it would be if you had several million dollars in the bank...

If any of you have any better suggestions about good places to raise working and middle class black children, PLEASE send in YOUR list.

Hip-Hop Going Green??

2008-10-13T21:46:00.000-07:00

Al Gore's, "Inconvenient Truth" turned Hip-Hop artist Jennifer Johns Green.

"My fears for bringing life into this world prior to seeing this film were based more in the violence in urban streets of America - I had no real understanding of where we were and how far we had to go to get to a safe space again with the environment. I began to think about Katrina and the Tsunami and why there had been snow in the Bay Area....it sent me spinning..."

As the shadow of the Green Movement inches closer, the wisdom of Van Jones echos like a freight train approaching from a canyon. " In Jones thinking, if only white middle and upper income people buy into reducing green house gasses and leave out the vast majority of lower income people of color around the world, then all the hoopla and business strategies just won't work.

Jennifer Johns has teemed with a long list of others on an 8 week tour to raise awareness and get the word out that, "there are no disposable people and this is not a disposable planet."

The Sustainable Living Roadshow Johns will be a part of will tour across the nation, reaching out to all parts of society. "All of us come from different backgrounds and will focus on different ways we are BEING THE CHANGE."

I invite you to look at the "Green For All" website and familiarize yourself with as much of it that you can. Change is the only constant ... and here at the beginning of the worst economic melt-down since 1929, opportunities for sustainable living and Green Career opportunities hang like ripe fruit waiting to be plucked.

What Constitutes, “Home”?

2008-10-05T15:46:00.000-07:00

I heard an interview on New Dimensions this morning about the concept of "home." Writer John Lane lives and teaches in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Prior to meeting and marrying his current wife, his life was spent in between a series of basement apartments and his pickup truck. Not finding home until his late 40’s prompted this college professor to look deeper at:

• The "time and space" of places we attempt to make "home" in
• Persistent issues disruptive to creating sustainability
• Why understanding the history and topography of our home place is important
• How to explore your own home place
• Why it is important to learn the dreams and deeds of the ancestors of a home place
• How a community turned tragedy into a blessing
• What it took to build a sustainable house

Below are links to his websites. Read about how a small group of people got together, and created a literary community where there was none ... and in the process, found home.

1.) http://www.ugapress.org/082033040X.html

2.) http://www.kudzutelegraph.com

Quick Poll on Palin Qualifications

2008-10-05T14:54:00.000-07:00

PBS has an online poll posted asking if Sarah Palin is qualified. Apparently the right wing knew about this in advance and are flooding the voting with YES votes.

The poll will be reported on PBS and picked up by mainstream media.

It can influence undecided voters in swing states.

Please do two things -- takes 20 seconds.

1) Click on link and vote yourself. Here's the link:
http://www.pbs.org/now/polls/poll-435.html

2) Then send this to every single Obama-Biden voter you know, and urge them to vote and pass it on.

The last thing we need is PBS saying their viewers think Sarah Palin is qualified.

Green Movement Reaches For The Rainbow

2008-09-05T14:19:00.000-07:00

Overwhelmingly White, the Green Movement is Reaching For The Rainbow.

(Reposted from, "The Seattle Times, Published on Monday, March 10, 2008, by Paula Bock.)

"What's a nice black guy like me doing in a movement like this?" Van Jones strides the stage at the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center, a charismatic lawyer who grew up in rural Tennessee, graduated from Yale Law, and founded the Ella Baker Center for jobs and justice in Oakland, California.

Tall, 39, his pate shaved, he cuts a striking silhouette in a black turtleneck and blazer, but it's his daring message that electrifies the crowd. He's in Seattle to talk about "The Unbearable Whiteness of Green" and how the environmental movement needs to include people of color and the poor if there's any hope of slowing global warming.

All 250 seats quickly fill: Boomers wearing fleece, techies fiddling with gadgets, eco-chic in ethnic garb.

On an ordinary Wednesday night on an ever-warming planet, this is clearly Seattle's coolest spot, and for a predominantly white city, the crowd is remarkably racially diverse.

"The Prius people, the polar-bear crowd are great," Jones says. "We're not mad at them. We like them! At the same time, if the only people who can participate are the kind who can afford to put solar panels on their second home, the green movement is going to be too small to fix the problem. If we want to beat global warming, there's no way to do it without helping a lot of poor people. If you design a solution that does not do that, it's a solution that's too timid."

In Jones' eyes, the first wave of environmentalism, led by Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir, focused on preserving the nation's natural beauty in parks. The second wave, led by Rachel Carson of "Silent Spring," concentrated on federal regulation of toxics. The third wave, he says, is about investment. Initially, that meant individual consumer choice: hybrid cars, organic food, energy-efficient light bulbs. Now, it's evolved into major public spending and community-wide action.

Jones' grand vision? Think New Deal and civil-rights movement combined with a clean-green industrial revolution. The nation needs to train masses of "green-collar" workers to conduct energy audits, weatherize and retrofit buildings, install solar panels and maintain hybrid vehicles, wind farms and bio-fuel factories. The icing? Wiring buildings and installing solar panels can't be outsourced.

"Brother," Jones says, "put down that hand gun and pick up this caulk gun."

(Click on title link to read the entire article.)

First Day Back

2008-09-05T13:56:00.000-07:00

Okay ... I've been talking about quitting for some time now, right? So I took a short load up to Dallas after I dropped in Laredo, Texas last week. Thought about it for a few days ... and on Wednesday, I gave Arrow back the keys, cleaned out the truck ... and on Thursday ... I caught a plane back to the California, Bay Area. Got here last night.

Yes, California is no longer California. Yes ... people are driving themselves (and others) CRAZY from competing with each other over NOTHING. Mindless competition-with no prize! Quality of life continues to nose dive... but it's where I grew up and it seems it’s the best place for me to prepare for Phase II of my plan to move to a small farm in the country.

Logistics was a major issue. When you drive a semi … that truck is your life. It’s your home. It's where you have much of your stuff stored. It’s your place of work. It's what's keeping you eating. So, I was glad when several things just "fell into place" (with the help of God, of course).

Two friends had a bedroom ready for me. So I had a clean house, use of the kitchen and one of his cars when needed. (I gave my sister my old Honda before I left. I want to buy a used truck or van before I leave and head south with it.)

A recruiter already promised me a job as soon as I bring in a copy of my DMV (it's clean).

So the problems of shelter, employment and transportation in an area where those three are often difficult to obtain where solved enough for me to resign from my OTR trucking job.

So I arrived, called up one of my "Bible Go-To" partners ... and he tells me to slow down, take a week off. Needing exercise, I started walking down University Avenue feeling so good about not having to drive today .. no chains to throw ... no heavy tarps to wrestle with ... no straps and binders ...

I see this brother walking towards me that looks vaguely familiar ... we start talking ... and guess what? As of this moment ... in the hard to live-in, over-crowded Bay Area ... the place where 15 months ago, I had leave and travel to Oklahoma just to get a job just 15 ...yeah ... suddenly on the first morning back, I have:

1. A new job I start on Monday (The brother owns a Body Shop in Alameda)
2. A good wage driving ... and going home every night
3. I have a new apartment he's throwing in FREE above the shop
4. AND I have a "new" van that he had the court take from a customer who wouldn't pay ... for only $500.00!!!

I can now take some of those free classes I'll need later, along with the Horticulture classes. Then to South Carolina where I’m already making contacts in agriculture, small farming, and funding.

Peace and blessings to all.

Urban Farming?

2008-06-08T18:25:00.000-07:00

Food prices soar ... and will continue. Even if you have a tiny backyard, you now have a defense against supermarket bankruptcy. 'Yall going to eventually learn the truth in what I'm saying. As a truck driver, I travel from New York City to Crystal Springs, Mississippi, and the signs are everywhere ... GET YOU SOME LAND.

I don't care if it's that vacant lot next door, or 100 acres in the country, buy something as soon as you can! The most recent word is that housing prices will continue to deflate as foreclosures increase. Then, about two years from now, prices are going to rise again.

Right now, Real Estate Speculators are doing with farm and country land what they did to home prices in urban and suburban areas all over the country. DO SOMETHING.

A friend of mine just sent me a link to a site called, "Little Homestead In The City." Have a look. It's chocked full of ideas about how to live self-sufficiently while living in the city.

Small Farming for Profit and Stewardship

2007-11-21T18:07:00.000-08:00

This post is being "re-posted" because the link to my older post appears to be broken ... and perhaps no other post sums up the direction of this blog quite as well. Here are two people who decided to do whatever they needed to do so they could do what they WANT to do. That means stepping out of the box, defining what their dream life would look like, what is essential for them, and then partnering to get it done.

North Carolina farmer Alex Hitt and his wife Betsy have worked their 26 acre farm in Graham, N.C. into an environmental gem and profit center. "Over the years, Hitt has reduced acreage and labor by improving their soil with cover crops, concentrating on high-value crops that grow well in the area. What he has not reduced is profit, thanks to direct marketing through the Caroboro Farmers Market and Weaver Street Market, a cooperative grocery store in the area.

"Each acre returns a minimum of $20,000 annually, while four high-tunnel greenhouses (that shelter young or delicate crops) bring in $1,000 per crop. The Hitts embrace their small scale, growing 80 varieties of 23 vegetables along with 164 varieties of cut flowers on just three acres. Alex and Betsy were winners of the 2006 Patrick Madden Award for Sustainable Agriculture from Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program." (~Reprinted from "Small American Farm" magazine, January 2007 issue.)

Alex and Betsy Hitt will deliver the keynote address at this year's Future Harvest Alliance Conference in Hagerstown, Maryland, January 12-13, 2007. Learn more about this and other Future Harvest-CASA information on their website at: http:/www.futureharvestcasa.org/, or email to: fhacasa@verizon.net.

In rural areas where the average income is between $13,000 and $18,000 annually, the Hitts are making $64,000 (!!) by doing their market research and making money in ways that people raised in urban areas might seem unorthodox. Yet, who wouldn't relish spending a day selling products they've grown and produced on their own land? It isn't hard to make organic Cheese ... and you can use milk from the little, gentle cow I mention on: www.blackfarms.wordpress.com

Hustle ... Legal, right?

2007-10-23T20:44:00.000-07:00

I was standing in line at a Newark, New Jersey coffee shop waiting to buy a donut. The guy next to me spoke very broken English. Said he was from Poland. Been here five years. Yet he had the newest cell phones and dressed like he had cash. Turns out he buys used cars at auctions, fixes them up, and then sells them. Makes a damn good living. No bosses to please. No HR Department to get turned down by. Just cash.

Being from the SF/Oakland Bay Area, I suffered economically when I was younger simply because I lacked ideas. "Everything Changes". If you're up today, you'll be down tomorrow. So a brother needs both a 21st Century skill set AND an 18th set of skills.

It's simply being a man. If you're smart enough to move out of the California Bay Area and purchase a home, then ... why shell out much needed cash to pay some joker who lives around the corner to check out your pad and halfway fix the holes in your dry wall? Learn how to do it yourself... it's all much easier than you think.

There are increasing numbers of places like SF City College's Evans Street Campus that teaches courses like:

Auto Body Repair
Home Building (from the ground up)
Auto Mechanics
Class A Truck Driving
HazMat
Motorcycle (two stroke) engine repair
Blue Print Reading

FOR FREE! Did you get that playa (I never figured out why so many people think they want to be players when life ain't NO game. Trust me.)

Besides, if you don't live in San Francisco or San Mateo Counties, how much game does it take to ask someone to use theirs ... or to simply tell the people you're homeless? (Happens every day playa.)

See, the idea is not to do these kind of gigs forever... the idea is to gain a currently needed skill and make enough money to buy some CHEAP property (with acreage) and then get onto doing the kinds of creative activities you really want to do. Remember the link I always preach ... rural real estate ... LAND in the country?

www.unitedcountry.com

Ways To Make Money

2007-10-23T20:22:00.000-07:00

There are many ways to make a living ... and with increasing numbers of Baby Boomers dropping out of the workforce daily, things look great for younger generations (as well as still able-bodied boomers who aren't ready to quit yet.)

I'm an 18-Wheeler Semi truck driver ... but I can actually make as much money as you can driving a simple F350 pickup truck. Yep. They're called "Hotshots"and no, you don't need a Class A License to make truck driver's pay. Just a reliable pickup with enough pulling power to pull a small flatbed and you're in business.

Of course, if you want to deliver freight to all 48 states, you'll need stickers for the states you drive in along with increased insurance. But where there's a will, you can bet you can find a way. Bad credit? No problem, just start talking to the people who are in business to give you a loan and they will direct you to the folks who'll help you clean it up.

Criminal record? No problem. You'll be your own boss for one, and two ... almost every county in every state has a "Clean Slate" program that will expunge your record faster than you could have ever dreamed.

Benefits to this method of trucking?

1. You're your own boss and you control your time off
2. You have far less mechanic bills
3. When you reach a city, you don't have that HUGE tractor to manuver
4. The entry cost is a fraction of buying your own semi tractor-trailer
5. You can live anywhere, you don't have to starve, and you're your own man ... or woman (yes ... there ARE a lot of women in trucking.)
6. You can buy a trailer for 3 grand or less

Shanty Towns In Oakland??

2007-09-04T09:23:00.000-07:00

"The only constant is change ... when you resist it, change happens anyway, pulling you along kicking and screaming."

The place looks worse every time I return to Oakland. Economic racism looms large here. In an area where blacks experienced leaps in their personal incomes during and after World War II, it is now very clear that the black dollar has been written off in California as well as in many other states.

I parked my semi near the Oakland Coliseum and walked over the bridge to take BART. Hearing voices I looked down and was shocked to see a SHANTY TOWN here in Oakland!

The time when the plan was to: "Get a good education, and get a good (government) job is OVER!" Through. Ka-Put. Time for a new plan peoples. In other words... you can change, die, or wish you were dead.

It's been said that when God closes one door, He opens at least one more. Folks, we are faced with the same old Existential Dilemma that Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Camus, wrote enough books to fill up vaults about. In short, we are FORCED to be free.

China and India are now the world's number one and two largest economies. What do they have us looking at on television? Paris Hilton. In California the public health system is already overwhelmed and the parole system is hanging on by a tread. The recent Sub Prime Housing debacle threatens to ignite the global recession that has been rumored for the past ten years. And what is the black community's response? To demand Reparations.

Wake up folks! Everybody is trying to bring a covered dish to the table and all we're looking for is a free meal?? THIS from the son's and daughters whose ancestors walked out of Africa and peopled the world?? Oh Noooo ... we can do far better.

But the news is actually good for those who can see the signs, take faith in God, and walk towards a far more promising future. Land is cheap and plentiful in the Midwest and South. (Well ... many have already woke up and moved to the south so it's getting crowded in someplace already.)

I strongly feel that it's better to learn trades than are immune to recession than it is to get an English Degree. If your first dream is to become a doctor, nurse or teacher and you have the means to do so, then by all means, DO. Rural areas NEED those skills. The key is ... get some of this cheap land while it's still cheap.

In Oklahoma where my trucking company is based out of, I can buy 20 acres with an old house on it, a barn and water on or near it for under $100,000 dollars. In some cases, around $56, 000. The quality of life is far higher there and you can grow your own organic food without worries about the increase in genetically modified crops.

Wake up folks ... it's time to go. It's also time to relearn how to love each other .. and ourselves. Nothing teaches that like self-determination. The only Klan you have to worry about these days are those thugs living next door. Me? I'm buying land in areas where blacks are (many are very integrated), and building large fences protected by very large dogs.

Oklahoma: The Grass is Greener

2007-07-01T14:05:00.000-07:00

It's a slightly overcast, warm, good Sunday. I'm still in Tulsa, Oklahoma. After a lifetime in California, I'm shocked to find the place being so very Kool.. I see that what I really need is the opportunity to make some good friends, page-up at a good church, and be in an environment where I can afford to buy a home (and some land attached to it), meet a good woman of beauty and heart, and prosper.

They all here in Oklahoma. I most likely won't live here forever, but it's just a kick in the behind that I remained so stuck in California for so many years. Cali ain't the be-all, end-all by no means. It's "over-done" with too many rats in the cage—plus, people everywhere know what time it is. Yeah, there are some Neanderthals here, but by far, there are more people who will smile back and say "hello". Kool. (And there's sooo much green, fertile land to buy a farm on here in the Midwestern "Heartland.")

This morning I flagged down a sister in a car and asked here where a black church was. She pointed out the directions and told me it started at 11:00am. About an hour later, I started walking down that green bordered country road to church. Right away it started raining. A few feet up the road some old sisters in a hooptie say me walking and asked me if I was going to church. I said yeah, and they told me to hop in. Turned out the directions were slightly wrong and I might not have found it had it not rained and had they not been there at that particular moment. Church was good.

There are a lot of ways to be wealthy ... and I regret that I've felt the pull of being a loner for so many years. It's kept me struggling spiritually and economically far longer than it should have. (As in, "It's who you know, that counts." That's including God!) Perhaps worse than that, being a loner and believing in the "American" lie of "being independent" from others has also malnourished the manhood I've always wanted to actualize. Yes, a man does need to stand on his own two feet, provide for himself, his family, and then to do charitable acts of goodness and kindness for others... but in order to do that, he has to come through the gauntlet of relationships with others. It is through the spiritual, physical, economical, and moral challenges and difficulties with others that my adolescent edges are scraped off, and my masculine heart is forged.

Again, I voice my concern about the economic racism that is so strong in California and many other urban centers across the country. I see sooo many opportunities in "off the chart" places like Oklahoma for anyone with a business sense. Google is coming to Tulsa. I suspect that Oklahoma City holds more prospects than Tulsa. But you’d better do your homework and get some skills BEFORE you move to slower and/or more rural parts of the country. (They have plenty of "haves" and "have-nots" here already. You want to capitalized on all the gentrifications you’ve lived through in places that are now over-crowed and over developed.) Bring that experience with you.

I'm waiting on my trainer-truck, and then I'll be heading out. When I see other places of "good prospect", I'll send you a shout about them. Until then, God bless you my friends.

How Bad Do You Want It?

2007-07-01T12:44:00.000-07:00

DATELINE: Tulsa, Oklahoma - July 1, 2007: Well, all those Mardi Gras parade floats filled with drunk black men dressed up as Indians, decrying their, "Indian Blood," wasn't a case of insanity after all. In my search to find a place to buy a small farm and create a livelihood in rural America has brought me here to Oklahoma, a place rich in Native American … and black history.

Oklahoma was part of the Indian Territories and has a rich history that is intertwined with African American history and African-Native American history.

There are physical monuments (towns, buildings and structures) built by blacks that remain today. The Buffalo soldiers also had a very significant role in settling this area. The area near Ft. Sill near Lawton, Oklahoma, was where the first black Civil War Union Soldiers distinguished themselves in what has been known as, The Gettysburg of The West.

More significant is the history if black Seminal Indians who came up from Florida with the aboriginal Florida Seminoles. There were actually three branches of Native Americans relevant to African American History:

1.) White acculturated Indians (the Creek, Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and others. For example, the Creek changed their names to Scottish surnames, took blacks as slaves, and changed their names too..)
http://www.african-nativeamerican.com/resour.htm

2.) Aboriginals like the Seminoles who were never concurred and who never adapted to "the white mans ways"

3.) African-Indians and Seminole Freemen. Many Africans who ran away from white slavery and escaped into Spanish controlled Florida, were adopted by Seminoles. Blacks who were their off-spring were never slaves and proved unsuitable for Andrew Jackson’s campaign to force them to become slaves. http://www.african-nativeamerican.com/
So it is here that I find myself now, seeking to start my next leg in re-creating my life, and discovering that Oklahoma is a far more fertile ground than California for anyone who has developed transferable skills. There are plenty of opportunities here for people who want to start their own small business. There are a lot of good people here. The land is green for those who want to farm and prepare themselves for the "Global Recession" that is certainly heading our way. (And we KNOW who is historically hurt worst by "recessions." I wish I'd left California earlier.)

African and Seminole towns in the Indian Territories
http://www.african-nativeamerican.com/6-towns.htm

The Meaning of Your Life?

2007-05-01T15:44:00.000-07:00

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

2007-04-17T15:06:00.000-07:00

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.

Farm or Go to College FREE?

2007-04-03T16:54:00.000-07:00

Okay, so not everyone wants to move to the country.
And not all black folks seem to be eager to move "down south.
And younger people may have so many other dreams than ... to become a farmer.

One of the most exciting new opportunities I've heard of ... in my life! ... is a current program that is sending young black males to college F-R-E-E !!

Black male college grads are in such short supply that they are now sending us to college free. (That's too sad to laugh at.) But it's true... there are about 13 black universities and other colleges who'll pay for your college. Here's the info:

For information about the Call Me MISTER program, please contact us through one of these methods:

Email:

MISTER@clemson.edu

Telephone:

Call toll-free : 1-800-640-2657

Mail:
Call Me MISTER

203 Holtzendorff

Clemson University

Clemson, SC 29634

Moving In Christ

2007-03-22T10:09:00.000-07:00

I've reached a point where to continue posting info without including comments about the religious experience I've been going through that brought all this about ... is casing me to pause. I wanted to keep "church and state" separate. But I see now, it won't be easy because God pervades all ... and the devil is very active these days.

Let it suffice to say right now that all the difficulties I've been through in my life has been a result of my forgetting a relationship with God. When we do, God often removes His hand of Grace from us and allows those who love darkness (both human and spirit) to attack us. This has been soooo weird .... but this is a mild description of what happened to me.

But I can now go with confidence ....anywhere ... urban or rural, because I'm aware of the utter necessity of "moving in God's Will" ... not mine~and not man's nor woman's. The new "real" blog will have to have a separate page to document the spiritual calling we who are feeling the call to self-sufficenciy and healthier living through Green farming.