Linda's Refrigerator Door

"America's High Tech "Invisible Man"By Tyrone D. TabornYou

You may not have heard of Dr. Mark Dean. And you aren't alone. But almost everything in your life has been affected by his work.See, Dr. Mark Dean is a Ph.D. from Stanford University. He is in the National Hall of Inventors. He has more than 30 patents pending. He is a vice president with IBM. Oh, yeah. And he is also the architect of the modern-day personal computer. Dr. Dean holds three of the original nine patents on the computer that all PCs are based upon. And, Dr. Mark Dean is an African American.
So how is it that we can celebrate the 20th anniversary of the IBM personal computer without reading or hearing a single word about him? Given all of the pressure mass media are under about negative portrayals of African Americans on television and in print, you would think it would be a slam dunk to highlight someone like Dr. Dean.Somehow, though, we have managed to miss the shot. History is cruel when it comes to telling the stories of African Americans. Dr. Dean isn't the first Black inventor to be overlooked Consider John Stanard, inventor of the refrigerator, George Sampson, creator of the clothes dryer, Alexander Miles and his elevator, Lewis Latimer and the electric lamp. All of these inventors share two things:One, they changed the landscape of our society; and, two, society relegated them to the footnotes of history. Hopefully, Dr. Mark Dean won't go away as quietly as they did. He certainly shouldn't. Dr. Dean helped start a Digital Revolution that created people like Microsoft's Bill Gates and Dell Computer's Michael Dell. Millions of jobs in information technology can be traced back directly to Dr. Dean.More important, stories like Dr. Mark Dean's should serve as inspiration for African-American children. Already victims of the "Digital Divide" and failing school systems, young, Black kids might embrace technology with more enthusiasm if they knew someone like Dr. Dean already was leading the way.Although technically Dr. Dean can't be credited with creating the computer -- that is left to Alan Turing, a pioneering 20th-century English mathematician, widely considered to be the father of modern computer science -- Dr. Dean rightly deserves to take a bow for the machine we use today. The computer really wasn't practical for home or small business use until he came along, leading a team that developed the interior architecture (ISA systems bus) that enables multiple devices, such as modems and printers, to be connected to personal computers.In other words, because of Dr. Dean, the PC became a part of our daily lives. For most of us, changing the face of society would have been enough. But not for Dr. Dean. Still in his early forties, he has a lot of inventing left in him.He recently made history again by leading the design team responsible for creating the first 1-gigahertz processor chip.. It's just another huge step in making computers faster and smaller. As the world congratulates itself for the new Digital Age brought on by the personal computer, we need to guarantee that the African-American story is part of the hoopla surrounding the most stunning technological advance the world has ever seen. We cannot afford to let Dr. Mark Dean become a footnote in history. He is well worth his own history book.


PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO EVERY BLACK PERSON YOU KNOW

posted by Urban Crop Circle Project @ 9:13 PM 0 comments

Black Gold

No news about Andre this week. Instead I'm excited about another young black male athlete. The Shani Davis story has not been given the attention in the mainstream media that it deserves. See the article below. He races again today against one of his "teammates." Chad Hedrick didn't have much good to say about Shani's win. I hope Shani kick's the living ____ outta of him (Chad Hedrick)! *










---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SHANI DAVIS

MAKES HISTORY AT WINTER OLYMPICS: First black athlete to win individual gold ruffles feathers en route to victory.

*So what's the real story behind the first African American Olympic speedskating gold medalist Shani Davis, his devoted mother and their collective cold shoulder toward U.S. Speedskating? After the 23-year-old repped Chicago's South Side Saturday (Feb. 18) by winning the 1,000-meter speedskating event and entered record books as the first black athlete to claim an individual gold medal in Winter Olympic history - Davis showed little initial emotion after it became apparent he had won the event, and followed it up with an awkwardly-cold interview to NBC's Melissa Stark. Why all the drama? In a nutshell, Davis and his mother, Cherie, have issues with U.S. Speedskating dating back to his early years with the team. Cherie believes the organization did things to sabotage the success of her only child because of his skin color. The organization vehemently denies her allegations. As a result of their long-running feud with U.S. Speedskating, Davis doesn't train with the national program, and frequently voices his opinion about a lack of marketing opportunities. He is also more than happy to let his mother voice her opinion of the organization - which she does willingly and often. Davis has always had to battle haters who joked about his love of the sport. As folks in his neighborhood worshipped the Bears, the White Sox and Michael Jordan's Bulls, Davis was into Bonnie Blair, and proudly wore a sweatshirt bearing the face of speedskating's most famous female champion. Needless to say, he was teased quite a bit. The sport's uniform, a tight-fitting body suit, didn't help matters - and neither did the sport's domination by Caucasians. Davis said he would tell his childhood naysayers, "Maybe I can be the Michael Jordan of speedskating." On the flipside, Davis said he received constant ill-will from white folks who didn't think too much of him competing in the sport. He says hate-filled messages were sent to his personal Web site - "people saying they hoped I would fall, break my leg, using the n-word," he said. As for his current Olympics run, much drama has been made over Davis' decision not to compete in the team pursuit competition, and instead focus all of his energy on winning the individual races - such as Saturday's 1000-meter and tomorrow's 1500 meter race (Feb. 21). Davis' choice to forgo the team sport has some critics denouncing the move as selfish. Former speedskating champion Eric Heiden said Davis was "not being a team player." There is also a nasty rivalry going on with U.S. teammate Chad Hedrick, whose time Davis clobbered Saturday en route to the gold medal. Hedrick has criticized Davis' decision to forgo the team pursuit because it took away a great source of speed. The team was eventually knocked out by Italy in the quarterfinals. According to reports, Hedrick believed the team would've won with Davis in the lineup. The loss left Hedrick short of his goal to go after Heiden's record of five gold medals at Lake Placid. Throughout his time at the Olympics, Hedrick has been bombarded with questions about his rivalry with Davis. After Davis' win on Saturday, reporters asked Hedrick if he was at least happy for the guy. "Shani skated fast today," Hedrick said. "That's about all I have to say about that." Davis will face Hedrick Tuesday night in the 1500 meter race, an event Davis dominated until Hedrick snatched away a world record. Sporting a Chicago White Sox cap following Saturday's victory, a reporter asked Davis if he will specifically go after Hedrick's record during the race. "I'm not trying to beat Chad. I'm trying to beat everyone," he replied. Davis' breaking of racial barriers in the sport was downplayed when asked about it by reporters after Saturday's performance. "It's a breakthrough," Davis said, "but it's what people make of it." He did, however, take note of the hard work that led to his place atop the medal stand. "If you put your mind to it and you believe it, you can achieve it," he said. "You cannot give up - even if the road is a tough road."

posted by Urban Crop Circle Project @ 2:12 PM 0 comments

Run DRE

Andre ran the 200 in 22.25 seconds last Friday at Boston University. Althoughhe is not pleased with his time, it was the fastest he's run the 200 indoors sofar. He placed 19th out of a field of over 80 runners which I don't think isbad at all especially for a Freshman. He is most pleased with his time in the4x400. He ran his 400 in 48.2 seconds! Again, this is the fastest he has everrun the 400. It is even faster than his state championship time last June andthat was an outdoor race.Linda

posted by Urban Crop Circle Project @ 10:33 AM 0 comments

All hail Joe

Hey U. My husband Joe lost two more pounds since his last weigh in.
Now two pounds isn't very much by most standards,
but it shows that despite setbacks on the program
he still made progress. I am proud of him.
He keeps plugging away
and even though I tell him I'm proud,
it feels good to tell you and others too.
He is an inspiration and a tremendous support
for me, and lots of young/new writers, and his friends,
and his co-workers
and his family and even to people he doesn't like all the time.
I am grateful he's in my life.
c

Let me tell you why this is important
Joe was once a big furniture moving, hard working furry sweaty teddy bear of a beautiful man
he's still big and furry and teddy bear like and still one of the most beautiful people alive.
But Joe became a corporate professional and his weigh became a massive problem. and all who love him we're deathly afraid. Joe went on a modified starvation diet, that is as risky as it can be benefical. He's not some twisted metrosexual or vain little girl starving them selves for vanity, this is life and death and sacrifice And even with his own body feeding on itself the weight doesn't come off fast, It's been a long slow painful process that sometimes makes me have to avoid my best friend.

We need to hear more of this
please continue
God bless

posted by Urban Crop Circle Project @ 7:37 AM 0 comments

posted by Urban Crop Circle Project @ 7:13 PM 0 comments