Health Department Accepting Walk-In Clients For National HIV Testing Day

The Grand Rapids Times
6-20-2008

Grand Rapids, MI — In an effort to encourage Kent County residents to get tested and know their HIV status, the Kent County Health Department’s Personal Health Services clinic will welcome walk-in clients all day on Friday, June 27.

Testing is anonymous or confidential, and free. Conventional blood tests, which provide results in 10 days, and rapid tests, which require a finger poke and yield results in 30 minutes, are available.

Typically, clients must make an appointment for an HIV test, but extra staff will be on hand on June 27 because it is National HIV Testing Day. The Centers for Disease Control and that 180,000 to 280,000 people nationwide are HIV-positive but are unaware of their status. HIV counseling and testing enables people with HIV to take steps to protect their own health and that of their partners, and helps people who test negative get the information they need to stay uninfected.

Personal Health Services is located at 700 Fuller Ave. NE in Grand Rapids. Hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday and 1 to 7 p.m. Thursday. For more information or to make an appointment, call (616) 632-7171.

Brown Hutchinson Ministries to Ordain Two Ministers

In Father's Day Message: Obama Calls For Greater Paternal Responsibility In The Black Community

The Grand Rapids Times
6-20-2008

By Hazel Trice Edney
NNPA Editor-in-Chief

Washington (NNPA) – Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama, in a Father’s Day message at Chicago’s Apostolic Church of God, exhorted Black fathers to be more responsible in raising their children.

He based his exhortation on Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, according to Matthew 7:24-25, in which Jesus said, “Whoever hears these words of mine, and does them, shall be likened to a wise man who built his house upon a rock: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded upon a rock.”

In prepared remarks for the Sunday morning message, applauded by the congregation and its pastor, the Rev. Byron Brazier, Obama zeroed in on familiar territory. He was abandoned by his own father when he was just a toddler.

“Of all the rocks upon which we build our lives, we are reminded today that family is the most important. And we are called to recognize and honor how critical every father is to that foundation. They are teachers and coaches.

They are mentors and role models. They are examples of success and the men who constantly push us toward it,” he said. “But if we are honest with ourselves, we’ll admit that what too many fathers also are is missing – missing from too many lives and too many homes. They have abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men. And the foundations of our families are weaker because of it.”

Then, he got more specific, citing U. S. Census Bureau statistics and other research on Black fathers.
“You and I know how true this is in the African-American community. We know that more than half of all Black children live in single-parent households, a number that has doubled – doubled – since we were children.

We know the statistics – that children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime; nine times more likely to drop out of schools and 20 times more likely to end up in prison. They are more likely to have behavioral problems, or run away from home, or become teenage parents themselves. And the foundations of our community are weaker because of it.”

Obama not only pointed to the tragedy of fatherlessness in the Black community, but the tragedy of crime that sociologists say is a result of it.

“How many times in the last year has this city lost a child at the hands of another child?” he quizzed. “How many times have our hearts stopped in the middle of the night with the sound of a gunshot or a siren? How many teenagers have we seen hanging around on street corners when they should be sitting in a classroom?

How many are sitting in prison when they should be working, or at least looking for a job? How many in this generation are we willing to lose to poverty or violence or addiction? How many?”

He alluded to the fact that the police, the criminal justice system and lawmakers are often blamed for lawlessness. But he point right back at the community.

“Yes, we need more cops on the street. Yes, we need fewer guns in the hands of people who shouldn’t have them. Yes, we need more money for our schools, and more outstanding teachers in the classroom, and more after school programs for our children. Yes, we need more jobs and more job training and more opportunity in our communities. But we also need families to raise our children.

We need fathers to realize that responsibility does not end at conception. We need them to realize that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child – it’s the courage to raise one.”
He pointed to himself as an example.

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Laura Bush Defends Michelle Obama

By Eric Mayes
Special to the NNPA from the Philadelphia Tribune

Philadelphia (NNPA) - It's not all partisan mudslinging in the presidential race as first lady Laura Bush expressed her support for Michelle Obama, wife of the presumed Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.

Michelle Obama has come under fire by Republicans for a statement she made in February at a campaign stop in Wisconsin.

She told the audience there that for the first time in her adult life, she was proud of the United States.
Laura Bush said mistakes are common during the pressure of a campaign.

“I think she probably meant ‘I’m more proud,’ you know, is what she really meant. You have to be very careful in what you say. Everything you say is looked at and in many cases, misconstrued,” Bush said in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

Michelle Obama later clarified the remark, saying she had always been proud of her country. No response by her was reported at Tribune press time.

Laura Bush also said that she admired the “grit and strength” that Hillary Rodham Clinton demonstrated in the hard-fought campaign for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, but said she would want to see a Republican woman as president.

Bush flew to Slovenia last Sunday after making an unannounced trip to Afghanistan — her third as first lady —to rally international aid for the war-weary Afghans. U.S. President George W. Bush left Washington on Monday for Slovenia for his final U.S.-European Union Summit. He and his wife are also traveling to Germany, Italy, France, England and Northern Ireland.

In her interview, Bush said she has been paying close attention to the campaign for the November election. Clinton suspended her bid for the Democratic nomination and robustly threw her support behind Obama over the weekend after a long nominating contest for the party.

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