Healthy habits
Celebration aimed to help Black families live better
The Black Family Celebration sponsored by the American Heart Association attracted dozens of families to find out about health issues like heart disease, which is the No. 1 killer in Los Angeles and claims the lives of more African Americans than all cancers combined. Among the information parents need to know is that before they can start their child in school this year, the youngster must get a whooping cough vaccination and proof must be presented upon registration.
Reducing salt consumption below the currently recommended 2,300 milligrams — about 1 1/2 teaspoons— per day maybe unnecessary, according to a new report released Tuesday by the Institute of Medicine (IOM).
The news follows a decades-long push to get Americans to reduce the amount of salt in their diet because of strong links between high sodium consumption and hypertension, a known risk factor for heart disease.
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Rev. Amos Brown, pastor of the Third Baptist Church of San Francisco, and Rev. Anthony Evans, president of the National Black Church Initiative in Washington, D.C., are brothers of the cloth. Though they share a love for Christ and the Bible, they do not share the same views on same-sex marriage, an issue now before the U.S. Supreme Court.
I was among the 33.5 million people who sat riveted to their televisions, parsing every second of the State of the Union address. I was stunned to learn, through a Washington Post article by Lisa De Moraes, that viewership was less substantial for this address than last year’s 38 million, and even lower than the 48 million that watched in 2010. Are people less interested in what our president has to say? Or is there something else going on?
In any case, from my perspective this was an important and significant State of the Union address.
In this slow meander to California’s winter, with the bustle and boom of the last election season behind us, the business of governing California now takes a bolder stance. Within that context, African Americans in the California State Legislature have again achieved their highest number—nine—for the second time. This increases by one last year’s number, with two state senators (out of 40) and seven Assembly members (out of 80). They are all a part of the heavily Democratic Party-dominated status of the current state Legislature.
Congress is on fire to balance the federal budget, and they don’t care who they take as prisoners in the process. There are at least two proposals to freeze federal salaries for yet another year (they have been frozen since 2011), and to continue to demonize federal workers as do-nothing folks who don’t need raises. Meanwhile, President Barack Obama has asked for a minimal half percent a year increase, and many in the private sector are seeing wages rise. Of course, everyone is struggling with unemployment rates rising to 8.2 percent.
