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My Favorite Restaurant in Paris

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POUILLY FUISSE from your Paris Restaurant ANYONE?

The first time I went to Paris, I was terribly disappointed!  Not in the tourist attractions, the Eiffel Tower was great, the Louvre was amazing, and the Cathedrale Notre Dame was Fantastic.  Not in the people, although I had heard that the French could be rude to Americans, I was there with my daughter on one of our many Father/Daughter Trips to  Europe.  My daughter had an undergraduate degree in French and spent a year there to study.  And even though, in most cases, I had no idea what they were talking about, everyone loved to talk to her and engage her in conversation. As a result everyone there treated us amazingly well.  However, I could not find a good place to eat!

First of all, I had this romantic view that I had to go to one of those sidewalk cafes to have a meal.  So I was really looking forward to that.  We tried several of those, but boy was I disappointed.  First of all, the tables were so close together, you were almost sitting in the lap of your neighbor.  Additionally, American restaurants had already gotten to the point that they disallowed smoking.  Not so in Paris.  I came out of those feeling like I had a cigarette myself!

Next, we tried a fairly expensive sit down restaurant.  The ambiance was OK, but the food made me physically sick.  To my daughters dismay, I made her stop at McDonald’s on the way back to the hotel. Can’t remember the last time a bit of American tradition tasted so good.

So I went back home with a bad taste in my mouth, so to speak.

The second time we went to Paris, we came in on a European train.  We were both a bit hungry when we arrived so we looked for a place to eat in the train station.  On the second floor of the train station, overlooking the first, we found a restaurant called Le Train Bleu.  The first thing you notice once inside the restaurant is the unbelievable artwork on the ceiling.  It looks like something you would expect to find at the Louvre!  The service was impeccable.  Although they surely enjoyed speaking to my daughter in French, they actually tried to work with me and my very limited high school French!  Additionally, they brought out a bottle of my very favorite French wine, Louis Jadot Pouilly Fuisse.  Everything from the meal, to the wine and then dessert was totally perfect!

So needless to say, every time I go to Paris now, I always make time for a stop at Le Train Bleu!

Have a look above at some pictures of my favorite Paris Restaurant!

 

 

The Power of Now in Relationships

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ARE RELATIONSHIPS DOOMED

 

In the Power of Now, one of the most powerful Spiritual books of our time, Eckhart Tolle writes that we need to live in the present, and that dwelling in the past, or the future for that matter,  creates all kind of problems and issues for us all especially in our Relationships.

But of all the powerful things found in the book, there was one paragraph in his chapter on Enlightened Relationships that stood out above all for me.  He said:

 

“Unless and until you access the consciousness frequency of presence, all relationships, and particularly intimate relationships, are deeply flawed and ultimately dysfunctional.“

 

Tolle goes on to write, “they (relationships) might seem perfect for a while, such as when you first are in love, but invariably, that apparent perfection gets disrupted as arguments, conflicts, dissatisfaction, and emotional and even physical violence occur with increasing frequency. It seems that most love relationships become love/hate relationships before long.  Love can then turn into savage attack, feelings of hostility, or complete withdrawal of affection at the flick of a switch.”

WOW, “This is considered normal”!

Tolle says most couples go back and forth between these two polarities of love and hate, giving the individuals both pleasure and pain.  Many times the couple becomes addicted to these cycles.  Over time, the balance between these two polarities is lost and the negative, more destructive cycles occur with increasing frequency and intensity, until eventually, the relationship finally collapses!

Now here is the scary part!  You might assume that if you could just eliminate the negative, destructive part of the cycles, the relationship should be able to blossom.  Yet Tolle says that is not possible!  They are mutually interdependent.  In other words, even the positive falling in love part is a piece of the dysfunction because that is what leads to the jealousy, addiction, and other negativity.  You can’t have one without the other.  The otherwise positive experience of falling in love often turns to neediness, clinginess and eventually, total dysfunction!

Now the question becomes; Is there a way out of this endless loop of positive and negative aspects of relationships that could lead to something other than dysfunction or total collapse of the relationship?  Tolle says yes. He says you must change the relationship from an addictive relationship to an enlightened one.  You’ll have to read the chapter on relationships in the book to get the full essence of his answer, but basically, you have to remain in the present moment.  When you are not present, your thoughts or mind-stream is usually dominated by the past. This is where we have a tendency to blow up or exaggerate past mistakes and misdeeds of our partner, or at the very least, we relive the past in our minds over and over, so that the pain of the original misdeed haunts us again and again.  Tolle says ” As humans have become increasingly identified with their mind/thoughts, most relationships are not rooted in Being (Presence) and so turn into an unending sources of pain.

He goes on to say, “Millions are now living alone or as single parents, unable to establish an intimate relationship, or unwilling to repeat the insane drama of past relationships. Others go from one relationship to another, from one pleasure/pain cycle to another, in search of the elusive goal of fulfillment through the union with the opposite energy polarity.  Still others compromise and continue to be together in a dysfunctional relationships in which negativity prevails, for the sake of the children or security, through force of habit, fear of being alone, or even through the unconscious addition to the excitement of emotional drama and pain”.

However, if you can simply stop and remain present at the time that you start to feel some of that negativity, or an urge to argue, be jealous or defensive, that Presence can create a gap in the mind-stream from which true love can emerge. Tolle says true love is a state of being, deep within each of us, not dependent on some other body, or some external form.  It is realization of oneness and has no need for reciprocity.  It allows you to look beyond form and separation and feel the oneness of all. So if you can use this Presence in your relationship to overcome the  dysfunction, you may be able to find true love there.

This book is truly genius. Be sure to Read It!

 

 

Hispanic Population Statistics

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THE HISPANIC POPULATION 

  2010 CENSUS

The 2010 Census, the last official reporting of the US Population, recorded 50,477,594 Hispanic Americans.  That is against a total US Population of 308,745,538, so Hispanics accounted for 16.3% of the US Population.  So for the first time, with the 2010 Census, Hispanics became the largest Minority Group in the US.

The 50+million number is up from 35,305,818 from the 2000 Census.  That is a 43% increase.  Back in 2000, there were 36,419,434 Black Americans (alone or in combination), barely edging Hispanic Americans for the Minority Population title in 2000.

Although 2010 is the latest official Census, the Census Bureau does a Race/Background Population estimate each year.  The latest estimate is from 2014 and showed a Hispanic Population increase to 55,387,539 – an increase of 4,909,975 or an impressive 9.73% increase in just 5 years.

Hispanics not a Race?

Most Americans probably think of Hispanics as a race.  However, the Census providers go to great pains to separate race from Hispanic origin.  The Census form mandates that race and Hispanic Origin are two separate  and distinct concepts and uses two different questions to collect data on the Census Form.  The first question is to determine if you are of Hispanic or Non Hispanic Origin.  The Hispanic origin question also determines the nature of your Hispanic background – Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, or some other Spanish origin. Once found, the person can self- identify the race to which he/she belongs.

Other things you may find interesting on the Hispanic Population:

  1.  More than half of the total population growth in the US between the 2000 Census and the 2010 Census was due to the increase in the Hispanic population.  The Hispanic population increased 15.2 million people over that period vs. only 27 million in the total population.
  2. Of that 15.2 million increase, Mexican Americans accounted for 11.2 million or nearly 75% of it.
  3. Over half of the Hispanic population in the US resides in just three states – California, Texas, and Florida!
  4. The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico has a population of 3,808.610 and is 98% Hispanic
  5. The Hispanic population predominately self identified as either “white” or “some other race”.  (Evidently, this caused much confusion on the Census form.  The form only allowed you to self -identify your race as: a) White, b) Black or Afro-American, c) American Indian or Alaska Native, d) Asian,  e) Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander and finally, f) Some other Race.  Many Hispanics wrote in their race as their National origin or ethnicity, ie., Latino, Mexican, Puerto Rican, etc., so these were all lumped into the “Some other Race” Category).

Hispanic Population by State

Top 10 States for Hispanic Population 2010 Census

        STATE           HISP. POP   HISP% POP

  1. California      14,013,719      37.6%
  2. Texas               9,460,921      37.6%
  3. Florida            4,223,806      22.5%
  4. New York       3,416,922       17.6%
  5. Illinois            2,027,578       15.8%
  6. Arizona           1,895,149       29.6%
  7. New Jersey    1,555,144        17.7%
  8. Colorado        1,038,687       20.7%
  9. New Mexico     953,403       46.3%
  10. Georgia             853,689         8.8%

Hispanic Population by National Origin – 2010 Census

       ORIGIN               POP.               POP%

  1. Mexican            31,798,258       63.0%
  2. Puerto Rican      4,623,716         9.2%
  3. Cent. America    3,998,280        7.9%
  4. South American 2,769,434        5.5%
  5. Cuban                   1,785,547        3.5%
  6. Dominican           1,414,703        2.8%
  7. Spaniard                 635,253        1.3%
  8. All other               3,452,403      6.8%

 

Top 10 Cities Hispanic Population 2010 Census

         CITY                HISP. POP.

  1. New York       2,336,076
  2. Los Angeles   1,838,822
  3. Houston            919,668
  4. San Antonio     838,952
  5. Chicago             778,862
  6. Phoenix            589,877
  7. El Paso              523,721
  8. Dallas                507,309
  9. San Diego         376,020
  10. San Jose            313,636

For more information or more detailed information on the Hispanic population, go here!http://www.census.gov/2010census/data/

 

For more information, review this History of Hispanic Population in the US!

Black Population Statistics

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THE BLACK POPULATION 

  

The last official count of our US Population was in the 2010 Census.  According to the 2010 Census, there were 42,020,743 Black/Afro-Americans out of a total population of 308,745,538.  That means that Afro-Americans made up 13.6% of the US Population when the Census was taken.

The US Census Bureau also does Yearly Population estimates.  The latest one available is from 2014.  According to those estimates, the Black/Afro-American Population has increased to 45,672,250 of a total US Population of 318,857,056 or 14.3% of the current population.

2010 CENSUS – Self Identification

Now there are several things you should consider when reviewing these figures:

  1. The Census is based on self-identification, so the individual decides what race he/she is!
  2. For the first time in the Census of 2000, Individuals were able to self- identify with more than one race.  Since America has always unofficially gone with the “One Drop” philosophy, or that one drop of African-American blood makes you African-American, the numbers above include those who describe themselves as Afro-American alone and those who self describe themselves as Afro-American in combinations.
  3. The Census form provided 5 potential selections for race: a.)White, b.) Black or Afro-American, c.) American Indian of Alaska Native, d.)Asian, e.) Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, and f.) Some other race.  FYI, for purposes of the census, Hispanic is not considered a race; it is viewed more as a heritage or national origin, such as Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, etc.
  4.  The Census Bureau also defined as black anyone that selected or marked his form as Negro, as being from African Nations such as Kenya or Nigeria, or Afro-Caribbean entries such as Haitian or Jamaican.
  5. In the 2010 Census, 38,929,319 individuals reported as black alone.  Another 3,091,424 reported as black in combination.

According to a report on Population from the Census bureau, the total American population grew 9.7% from 2000 -2010.  During that same period, the Afro-American population grew 12%

The 2010 Census also concluded that the majority of blacks (55%) lived in the south.  The south, for census purposes includes Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, DC, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, NC, SC, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia.  Total Black Population in the south is 23,105,082 or 20.2% of the total south Population.

Black Population Rankings by Region

      REGION             BLACK POP.           %BLACK                         <a >

  1. South                      23,105,082             (20.2%)
  2. Midwest                   7,594,486              (11.3%)
  3. Northeast                7,187,488              (13.0%
  4. West                         4,133,687               (5.7%)

 

Black Population Rankings by State

According to the Census, The Top 10 States for Afro-Americans contain 60% of the total Black Population. Those states (including the black population and percentage of blacks in that state) are as follows:

           STATE              BLACK POP.    %BLACK

  1.  New York               3,334,550              (17.2%)
  2.  Florida                    3,200,663             (17.0%)
  3.  Texas                       3,168,469             (12.6%)
  4.  Georgia                   3,054,098            (31.5%)
  5.  California               2,683,914             (7.2%)
  6.  North Carolina      2,151,456              (22.6%)
  7.  Illinois                     1,974,113              (15.4%)
  8.  Maryland                1,783,889             (30.9%)
  9.  Virginia                   1,653,563             (20.7%)
  10.  Ohio                         1,541,771              (13.4%)

Other States with a high percentage of African-Americans would be:

       STATE                   %BLACK

  1. Mississippi        37.6%
  2. Louisiana           32.8%
  3. South Carolina  28.8%
  4. Alabama             26.8%
  5. Delaware            22.9%

A noteworthy statistic on the states would be those that increased their percentage of African-Americans the most between the 2000 and 2010 Census.  They were:

     Black Population Percentage Increase

  1.  Maine                      127.8%
  2.  South Dakota         119.9%
  3.  Vermont                  108.0%
  4.  North Dakota         106.4%
  5.  Idaho                          96.1%
  6.  Arizona                       71.7%

Obviously, these states had so few blacks to begin, it was easy for them to increase their percentages, but interesting nonetheless!

Another interesting point – of the 6 states that have a greater than 25% black population, 5 of them have voted Republican in at least 7 of the last 9 presidential elections. (Maryland being the only state that bucked that trend).  So much for political power or being able to forge coalitions to gain some political power!!!!!!  At least on the state level!

Also, I always assumed that the District of Columbia was at least 90% Black.  However, according to the census, DC is only 52% African-American!

Black Population by City

The top 10 cities for black population is as follows:

          CITY              BLACK POP.

  1.  New York        2,228,145
  2.  Chicago                913,009
  3.  Philadelphia        686,870
  4.  Detroit                  601,988
  5.  Houston               514,217
  6.  Memphis              414,928
  7.  Baltimore             403,998
  8.  Los Angeles          402,448
  9.  Washington DC   314,352
  10.  Dallas                    308,087

Cities with the largest percentage of Black Population

         CITY              %BLACK POPULATION

  1. Detroit MI                 84.3%
  2. Jackson MS               80.1%
  3. Miami Gardens FL   77.9%
  4. Birmingham AL        74.0%
  5. Baltimore MD           65.1%
  6. Memphis TN             64.1%
  7. New Orleans LA       61.2%
  8. Flint MI                      59.5%
  9. Montgomery AL       57.4%
  10. Savannah GA            56.7%

I hope this post provides some perspective for you on the population of Afro-Americans here in the US.  If you would like to a closer look at the data for yourself, click here!

This book may also be of interest to those of you interested in how prison affects our population

Black Men and Prostate Cancer

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HOW ONE MAN HAD TO DEAL WITH PROSTATE CANCER

 

You may be wondering, what does this guy know about Prostate Cancer?  Is he a Doctor?  Does he have some type of degree in medicine?  Well the answer to both of those question would be no!   However, if had asked me if I had prostate cancer and have I had prostate cancer treatment, sadly, the answer to those two questions would be yes!

There is nothing I can say or describe, or write about how it feels when you first hear the doctor say; ‘Sir, we have your biopsy results back, and You have Cancer!”  They are devastating words filled with dread, misunderstanding and fear.  Somewhere  in the back of your mind, there is a glimmer of hope that says you can beat it.  Later, I was to learn that Prostate cancer has one of the best cancer survival rates.  However, when you first hear that term “cancer” – your life changes forever!

This comes from the Prostate Cancer Foundation from 2012, the latest year that data is available:

“Of the more than 242,000 American men who will be diagnosed with prostate cancer and the 28,000 who will die as a result of it this year, a disproportionate number of African-American men will be represented in each group. The disparity is eye-opening: African-American men are nearly 1.6 times more likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer than Caucasian men and 2.4 times more likely to die from the disease.”  See Full Article here:

That is not a pretty picture for African-American men.  So I wanted to share my experience with this process in hopes of helping those of you who may be facing prostate questions in your life now. The technology to treat Prostate Cancer is changing and upgrading quickly.  So I don’t claim to know the best treatment.  Nor can I tell you what  you should do if you find yourself in this same position.  But what I want to do here is to take you through my journey from detection through life after treatment, so that you will at least have an idea of what to expect!

Beginning in April, I will post three articles on my prostate treatment journey:

1. The Buildup

This could also be called the Detection/preliminaries.  I’ll take you from my first PSA test that showed that there might be a problem, all the way through the biopsy, which was far and away the worst part of the ordeal for me!

 

2.  The Treatment

Here I’ll take you through the process I used  to choose the right treatment, Then we’ll discuss the surgery I included in my treatment to implant seeds in the Prostate.  Finally, I’ll cover the countless Radiation Treatments that were included !

 

3.  The Aftermath

The last article will focus on Life after treatment – the good and the bad and how I have handled it.

This is a must read for all Afro-American men.  I hope you will join me and pass along your comments!

 

See Below a book by Patrick Walsh on Surviving Prostate Cancer.  Walsh is well-known for his work on nerve sparing surgery that revolutionized Prostate surgery.  Although I am not the biggest proponent of surgery for prostate removal, the book covers all aspects of prostate treatment, so pick it up if you would like more information!

Conversations with God – Book One

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DOES GOD TALK TO YOU!

 

Conversations with God was one of those life changing reads for me.  At first glance, the premise of the book might seem impractical.  Here is a guy that had lost his job, lost his family and friends, had major health issues from an automobile accident, and he is telling us that he got so frustrated and fed up with his life that he sat down and wrote a scathing letter to God about his problems.  After finishing the last angry question to God about his terrible life, out of nowhere, in his mind came a question:

“Do you really want an answer to these questions or are you just venting? ”  And from that one question grew  3+ books worth of Conversations with God!

Even as I write this, it sounds pretty incredible or weird, especially for someone like me that prides himself in being a fairly intelligent, logical thinking human being — yet I was intrigued.

Do you ever think about why we take the words of the Bible as being sacred and true?  Why do we automatically accept that Moses and the other writers of the books of the Bible had direct access to God?  Weren’t these words really coming to them in their minds also?   What about the prophets?  How do we know that their words came direct from God, or were they just making them up??  The early Catholic Church looked at all the old sacred writings and it was the church that decided which would go into the Bible and which did not – How do we know that they had a direct access to God to make that choice?  Doesn’t that take a bit of a leap of faith?

At any rate, I decided to read on.  Even the author challenges God about these same things.  How could he know that the ideas and concepts in the book are not just made up or figments of his own imagination.  God’s answer was to take the ideas and concepts  and apply them to your life.  If they work for you, what does it matter how you got to them?

Some of the concepts that I found worked for me are as follows:

1. Feelings are the language of the Soul!  If you want to know what’s true for you about something, look to how you are feeling about it!

2.  God is the observer – not the creator.  It is not God’s function to create or un-create the conditions and circumstances of your life.  You create them through the Power God has given you through your thoughts.  Thoughts are creative!  And God stands to assist you in the Power he has given you!

This is of great importance for minorities.  Could the thoughts we have about our situation be the main reason it is so difficult to pull ourselves out of it?  Can we change our conditions by changing our thoughts and attitudes toward our lives?

3.  There are two base emotions or energies:

a.  Fear is the energy that contracts closes down, draws in, runs hides, hoards, harms.

b.  Love is the energy which expands, opens up, sends out,, stays, shares, heals.

Are you making your decisions out of Love or Fear! Every action taken by human beings is based in love or fear.

4.  God’s purpose in creating human beings is to know himself as God.  There is no way for him to do that except through us (Humans).  We are made of the same stuff as God (spirit) with all the same properties and abilities.  (Isn’t that what Jesus said?)

5.  Upon entering the physical universe, you relinquish your remembrance of yourself (as spirit).  Your job on earth is not to learn but to re-member who you are.  (Could that be why we look for answers to spiritual questions as we grow older).

6.  Pain from an outer situation results from the judgement you have made about it.  Remove the judgement and you remove the pain!

7.  Hell is not a place that God sends you.  “Yet there is an experience of the soul that is so unhappy, so incomplete, so less that whole, so separated from God’s greatest joy, that to our soul, it would feel like hell.”

8.  “All that is required is to know this.  For you are the creator of your reality, and life can show up in no other way for you than in the way in which you think it will.  You think it into being,  This is the first step in creation.  God the father is thought,  Your thought is the parent which gives birth to all things.

This is a very powerful book with very powerful concepts. I would encourage all who are so inclined and think about spiritual things and ideas to read it!

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http://amzn.to/1p7omZT

Cruise to Alaska

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I wanted to share some of the pictures of my cruise to Alaska with all of you.  We made stops in Juneau, Alaska,  Ketchikan, Alaska, Skagway, Alaska, and Victoria, Canada.  Alaska has some of the most beautiful Scenery you will ever want to see.

 

Enjoy!