Four actors from the Walnut Street Theatre came to perform an anti-bullying play for middle school students at GAMP on Oct. 3. Students sat in their seats in the auditorium and at times could be seen laughing and talking among themselves about what took place on stage. While the play entertained the students for about an hour, it was the message that Principal Jack Carr hoped his students took away from the performance.

“It was imperative for us to get the message about bullying out to our students,” Carr said. “It’s an issue that is going on a lot in today’s society. There are a lot of kids who have been tormented in their middle and high school years because of bullying. Susan Goodman has a program for anti-bullying and we’re going to bring that to our school. Hopefully, other middle school students will be able to see that program in our theater in October and November of this year.”

Walnut Street Theatre coming to perform for the students is the latest event that GAMP was a part of. For years, the school has given its students experiences in both music and theater.

GAMP’s concert choir has performed nationally. Notable performances in the past have included singing for President Bill Clinton and Governor Ed Rendell. The choir performed with Peter Nero and Philly Pops and has appeared regularly at the Kimmel Center and other professional venues, with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Concerto Soloists, and Singing City Community Choir. In theater, the school has done productions in “Rent,” “Hairspray” and the “Sound of Music.”

“This year, our students have sung at that the Liberty Medal award ceremony at the National Constitution Center,” he said. “That ceremony honored boxing legend Muhammad Ali. We have a wonderful association with various artists, the Mann music center and the Kimmel Center. We also work with a number of outside agencies.”

Carr believes that through the music and theater programs at GAMP, his students will grow musically and personally.

“The experience the students receive at GAMP is endless,” he said. “My students work hard in everything that they do and it’s rewarding to see them achieve. Through music and theater they have learned how to cooperate with one another as well as other organizations, how to problem solve, and how to enhance their productivity. For many of our students, music is the catalyst for their learning while they’re here, but they have gone on and succeeded in other fields outside of the arts. Our goal has always been to prepare them for the collegiate experience.”

NEW YORK — Former President Bill Clinton said Tuesday that the success of the alternative energy movement is hampered by a lack of financing. His comments came as world leaders attending the Clinton Global Initiative expressed fears about rising seas at his annual philanthropic conference.

The year 2013 dawns on an American mediascape still dominated by television and radio stations that comprise “cash cows” for their owners, making mo’ money and even mo’ money.

For most Americans — if they didn’t hear it on the radio or see it on TV they don’t believe it.

This dynamic includes Black America who even discount reports in the Black Press, giving those reports in their Black media a lower “believability” factor than reports in so-called mainstream media (a/k/a: white media).

Historically, few African Americans have participated as members in this “cash cow” club of broadcast station ownership.

Blacks didn’t own a radio station until 1949 (Atlanta) and a television station until 1975 (Detroit) — decades after the broadcast industry was dominated by multistation-owned nationwide networks fed by an advertising industry that remains hostile to placements on Black-owned properties.

A November 2012 report from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on broadcast station ownership included a sad and dangerous statistic: African Americans own less than one percent of all radio and television stations in the United States.

Where whites own over 9,600 broadcast stations across America, Blacks own a paltry 231 stations according to that FCC report.

This FCC report also paints a glum picture of broadcast ownership by all non-white groups and women. Asians, for example, own 187 broadcast properties and women, the largest population group in America, own 6.8 percent of this nation’s broadcast stations.

This FCC report didn’t reference this but a 1996 law approved during the Bill Clinton presidency killed minority owned radio — condemning it to a slow death by removing FCC rules on the number of stations one corporation could own.

Freed from FCC rules, big corporate/networks started buying up minority-owned broadcast properties, thus lessening diversity in terms of employment and viewpoint expression.

The paucity of Black employment and viewpoints was a problem before then-President Clinton made this issue worse with backing the broadcast ownership rule change.

A putrid example of the “Black-get-back” dynamic operative in the broadcast world is the cable television station founded by Clinton’s vice president, Al Gore.

The lineup during the launch/post-launch phase of Gore’s network resembled a sea of salt on a table long rattled by voices citing the need to include a few flakes of pepper — if for nothing else than fidelity to the First Amendment mandate of viewpoint diversity for that “informed” supposedly underpinning democracy.

If you think that media ownership is no big deal as long as you can get your weather, traffic, some headlines news and favored songs/shows, remember the fact that what people hear and see usually becomes what they believe.

Take the Fox News channel, for example — the preeminent purveyors of malicious right-wing partisanship (a/k/a propaganda) and utter misinformation.

A survey released last November by researchers at New Jersey’s Fairleigh Dickinson University documented that people who only watch Fox News* are less informed about facts than all other news consumers. (*Fox 24/7 cable channel, not the local Fox stations in cities like Philadelphia.)

The damaging impact of Fox News is the point of this column – not necessarily its daily savaging of President Barack Obama (and his family), its service as the GOP’s Ministry of Fudged Facts or its spewing misinformation like having its viewers believe that ex-Iraq leader Saddam Hussein worked with (his bitter enemy) Osama bin Laden to attack America on 9/11/01.

The most damaging impact from Fox News on democracy and diversity in America is not the misinformation oozed through TV screens but the unseen manipulations of the major players within the body of Fox’s top corporate structure.

The media scandal with the largest worldwide sweep last year involved Fox founder billionaire Rupert Murdoch.

Murdoch and is News Corp (which owns Fox in the U.S.) got spanked hard in Britain for criminal misconduct involving corrupting complicit British politicians and police in an episode based around hacking into the telephone voicemails of private citizens.

The phone-hacking scandal which had bubbled in Britain for years erupted exponentially about two years ago with revelations of invasion of the voicemail of 13-year-old murder victim Milly Dowler.

America’s PBS broadcast an insightful/engaging “Frontline” documentary on the Murdoch scandal(s) in March 2012 — still available on the “Frontline” website.

That spanking in Britain included the arrests of top News Corp. officials and one ex-News Corp. newspaper executive who had become the press spokesman for British Prime Minister David Cameron.

And that spanking included hauling ultra-powerful Rupert Murdoch and one of his sons, James, before a Parliament investigating committee where the Murdochs made asses of themselves through amateurishly-and/or-arrogantly misleading testimony.

The May 2012 report from that a British Parliament committee declared Rupert Murdoch “not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international corporation.”

That report blasted Murdoch for “willful blindness” to the misdeeds of his underlings whom he kept close under his thumb until he disavowed knowledge of their misdeeds to evade accountability.

Given the criminality explicit in the British Murdoch scandal and 24/7 Fox News savaging of Obama, why would the Obama administration consider relaxing ownership rules again to permit Murdoch to buy the top newspapers in Chicago and Los Angeles?

Such a rule change would further erode diversity in employment and viewpoints.

Linn Washington Jr. is a graduate of the Yale Law Journalism Fellowship Program.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. —In a Democratic National Convention that featured memorable speeches by first lady Michelle Obama and former President Bill Clinton, the nation’s first African-American president, Barack Obama, spoke to the American people Thursday night about his first-term accomplishments, and urged voters to elect him to a second term on November 6.

The threat of rain, thunder and lightning during an outdoor speech was the reason the Democratic National Committee and the Obama for America campaign decided to move the speech from the 73,000-seat Bank of America stadium into the smaller 20,000-seat Time Warner Cable Arena, where the first two days of events were held.

Obama for America campaign spokesman Tom Reynolds told the Tribune an estimated 65,000 people from all around the nation were expected to see Obama speak at Bank of America stadium, and another 19,000 people had standby tickets.

In an effort to please the thousands of potential voters who were disappointed they could not see Obama speak in person in Charlotte, the president participated in a conference call Thursday before his speech to thank supporters. Obama supporters around the nation, including thousands in Charlotte who had tickets, saw the speech at watch parties or in their hotel rooms.

Pennsylvania Democratic Chairman Jim Burn said Pennsylvania’s electoral votes are key to Obama’s chances of winning the election. He said in order to win, the state party must continue to stress the president’s record over the past three and a half years of job creation (including 29 straight months of national job growth) and saving the country from the possible worst fiscal collapse since the Great Depression.

“African-American voters are as important to Pennsylvania turnout and the success of President Obama as any of our bases,” Burn said. “Sure he (Obama) has a lot of work to do. Every campaign is like a snowflake — there are no two identical campaigns. Most Pennsylvanians, and most Americans, have already made up their minds about who they’re voting for. It’s all about the ground game now, and all about voter turnout. There is nothing in this Republican ticket that is conducive to African-American voters voting for it.”

The delegates to the convention from Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware are leaving Charlotte fired up about the final weeks of this year’s campaign and ready to go do everything possible to re-elect President Obama and homegrown Vice President Joe Biden, a Delaware senator and Pennsylvania native. Biden also gave a speech accepting his vice-presidential nomination right before the president’s speech.

Actress Sheryl Lee Ralph, the wife of Philadelphia State Sen. Vincent Hughes, attended the convention with her husband. She says she cannot fathom that any African-American would vote for Romney over Obama.

“Don’t look at me with your Black self and ask, ‘Why should I support the brother?,’” Ralph said. “Stop that foolishness about sitting this thing out. If you’re confused about who to vote for, vote for Barack Obama. What are you going to do? Give your vote to Mitt Romney by voting for nobody? That is madness.”

“Brothers and sisters in the beauty shops and the barber shops know when the okie doke is being played on them,” Sen. Hughes added. “ They know what’s up. We just have to act now like we got some sense and send the message out. When the president says ‘Do you have my back?, we need to stand up and say “yea brother, we’ve got you back and we’re going to stand with you and we’re not going to stand for this foolishness.’”

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, who delivered a speech yesterday, said a Romney administration would be a disaster for the nation.

“To Mitt Romney, education is a luxury,” Nutter said in prepared remarks. “ As governor of Massachusetts, he vetoed universal pre-K. In his first year, K-12 schools saw drastic cuts that lead to teacher layoffs. He failed his students. Whose values do you want in the Oval Office? I know who Philly wants, who Pennsylvania wants, and who you want — President Barack Obama.”

Philadelphia City Councilwoman Marian Tasco, a delegate to this year’s convention, said now that the Democratic and Republican conventions are over, it is a two-month sprint to Election Day to convince Pennsylvanians and Philadelphians to vote for Obama and Biden.

“I think the public will understand that he (Obama) needs the next four years to complete his agenda,” Tasco said. “From day one, the Republicans made up their minds they weren’t going to do anything to help the president succeed. They don’t want him, and it is personal. I just have to say it — I just think it is outright racism.”

Political conventions are supposed to be the place where candidates shore up the base while reaching out over the airwaves to appeal to the independents and the fence sitters.

But for any politically active potential voter paying even cursory attention for the past two weeks, I don’t see how there can be many undecideds left in the country.

Last week’s Republican National Convention in Tampa was a full-on Obama hate fest, with enough snark and ridicule to last several administrations. If there’s one thing you took from that weeklong spectacle, it’s that those folks really, really dislike the president on a gut level. They hate him, they hate his wife, and they hate everything he’s done since taking office.

Not that there isn’t room for criticism in Obama’s policies, because there is. You can certainly differ with the man’s agenda, or take issue with his methods, without despising him personally or disrespecting the office.

You didn’t see much of that last week, though. The GOP reaction to President Obama is a visceral one — an anger that comes from deep within, and probably has little to do with the man’s policies.

That anger, though, was not reserved for the president alone. Women, gays, immigrants, and ethnic minorities got a taste of what life would be like under a Romney presidency, if only through the fact that so few minorities were visible at the convention.

Contrast that with the diversity on display at the Democratic National convention this week in Charlotte, and the subtle coding of GOP rhetoric becomes clearer. Not only was there a plethora of strong women, Black and brown skinned speakers and delegates, and a significant gay contingent, those groups were encouraged to stand proudly out front.

It’s as if convention organizers had conspired to show America just how progressive, or regressive, their parties can be. Several Republicans noticed, too, and some took to social media to express their derision. One GOP pundit tweeted a sneeringly offensive comment about the podium in Charlotte looking like a scene from the play, “The Vagina Monologues,” because of the number of women represented.

There were other nasty tweets and blog posts, seething about the Democrats’ ability to draw strength from their diversity, as though it really doesn’t matter if everyday Americans see a political party that looks like them.

Note to Republicans: it matters.

America is getting less and less white every year, and most experts estimate that white folks could find themselves a statistical minority in a few short years. If they lose this election, the GOP fade into irrelevance as the good old boys network slowly dies off, leaving the party without its traditional base of rich old white men.

The Democrats, for their part, went out of their way to show up the Republicans, and did so in grand fashion. San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, fairly unknown prior to this week, wowed the crowd with his personal story of the immigrant experience, and in doing so blew the GOP’s favorite Hispanic Marco Rubio out of the water.

First lady Michelle Obama reminded Americans why they like her husband, and why she loves him. Her affection for her spouse was evident, and even GOP talking heads had to admit that she has transformed herself into quite a political force in her own right.

Even Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown law student who was called nasty names by the right for her principled stance on contraceptives, made mincemeat of her former detractors in a well-received speech that belied her status as a political amateur.

But if anyone stole the show from the president, even for one night, it was former president Bill Clinton. Looking strong and fit, Ol’ Bubba recreated his magic spell for the better part of an hour, whipping the crowd into a frenzy with his trademark combination of masterful delivery and boyish charm. Clinton laid out the case for Obama’s reelection while throwing left hooks at Romney and Paul Ryan that couldn’t miss.

Following Clinton’s brilliant oratory, President Obama took the stage briefly to walk Clinton off. The crowd went completely nuts. The two alpha male rock stars embraced warmly and strode offstage while the audience whooped, cried and blubbered as if they’d seen a holy vision.  

Sure, I’m biased, but I’m not a ride-or-die zealot. I see the flaws and blemishes in the Democrat way of governing, but I’ve decided I’ll go with the folks who mean well, rather than folks who are just plain mean.

Because if you’re still undecided at this stage, those are your two choices.

Daryl Gale is the Philadelphia Tribune's city editor.

Boxing great Muhammad Ali, known for his unabashed self-confidence inside and outside the ring as well as his outspokenness on social and humanitarian causes, is the recipient of the 2012 Liberty Medal.

There’s a lot being said this week about last Friday’s sudden resignation of PHA Administrative Receiver / Executive Director Michael Kelly. The circumstances surrounding his departure are as old as time itself. A married man has a consensual affair, and trouble inevitably follows.

When I spoke to Kelly on Friday afternoon, he insisted he was stepping down for “family reasons” — one of the oldest partial truths in the political playbook. He admitted, though, that there was more to the story, and that a vital piece of information would probably be revealed after the weekend.

About 10 minutes after I got off the phone with Kelly, Tribune Managing Editor Irv Randolph came into my office, closed the door, and sat down. I told him exactly what Kelly had told me.

“What does your nose tell you?” he asked, newsman’s code for any public statement that doesn’t pass the smell test. We media types, as you may imagine, are lied to quite often. Often enough that most news people have highly sensitive, built-in lie detectors — and mine, like Irv’s, was sending off alarm bells.

But you don’t need to be a walking lie detector to see through this one. Here’s a big, fat clue: any time any politician or political appointee holds a press conference to say he’s stepping down because of “family reasons” — it’s because his wife is about to perform elective surgery on him with a pair of kitchen shears. It’s not exactly a lie, but it’s nowhere close to the whole truth.

Sure, the dutiful wife might be standing right there beside him at the press conference, her face frozen in a tight, joyless smile; but inside she’s planning his torturously long, exceedingly painful road back to redemption — if indeed he ever makes it that far.

In my previous dealings with Kelly, he struck me as a highly intelligent, competent manager with great ideas and the enthusiasm to get things done. That’s still my opinion of the man. He took an agency that some said was broken beyond repair, and he set about repairing it. I haven’t heard anyone this week say Kelly was anything less than a top-flight administrator — albeit one with obvious personal failings.

From Bill Clinton to Tiger Woods to John Edwards, and going clear back to King David, the list of mighty men brought low is endless — and almost always for the same reason.

So what is it? What accounts for the adult male’s seeming inability to resist temptation? Poor impulse control? Some irresistible animal instinct?

If I knew the answer to that, I’d make a fortune on the talk show circuit.

I just know that Michael Kelly isn’t the first, and won’t be the last.

And that’s a shame, because it immediately puts him in the same loathsome category as his sleazy, serial groping predecessor, which is a bit unfair. Carl Greene was a man of wild appetites and outrageous behavior. Kelly simply fell into the oldest trick bag in history: thinking you’ll get away with it, and everything will be fine as long as the wife doesn’t find out.

And while we’re on that subject, here’s another inconvenient truth for you: The wife always finds out. Maybe not right away, but she always finds out. Always. (Wives have built-in lie detectors too.)

In the end, nobody wins.

Talented managers are forced to resign, leaving the taxpayers with who-knows-who as a replacement; families are unnecessarily humiliated; and leadership is forced to scramble to find someone willing and able to take on a difficult task while their every move is monitored for public consumption.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not absolving Michael Kelly, or Tiger Woods, or Bill Clinton of blame or personal responsibility here. They had choices, and knew the consequences, but chose poorly anyway. That’s life.

I’m just saying that the entire sordid spectacle of shame and stupidity played simply for public titillation has gotten old. As long as there have been marriages, there have been people who step out on their spouses, the vast majority of whom never make the news.

It’s one thing if the offender has stained their oath of office, or misused taxpayer funds, or has in some other way violated the public trust. But if the only aggrieved party is the person’s family, I’d just as soon leave they leave the private life at home.

Which is where, in my opinion, Kelly and all the other men like him should face their judgment: at home, at the hands of their wives. And let the punishment fit the crime.

Daryl Gale is the Philadelphia Tribune's city editor.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Democrats beckoned Americans to return Barack Obama to the White House despite the agonizingly slow economic recovery as they opened their national convention, casting the president as someone who understands the struggles of ordinary Americans while depicting Republican rival Mitt Romney as privileged and out-of-touch.

This is a very troubling article to write. Because it is about how sinister Black Americans can agree with white Americans about how they can rip off the people of African nations for quick money. It is ugly but somebody has to call it out. Since I am the one who first noticed it, I guess it is my Christian duty to call it out. The Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) is meant to enhance trade activity and business development between entrepreneurs in Africa and the United States. It allows business transactions between firms in the certified nations of Sub-Saharan Africa and the United States to ship products from those African nations into the United States free of tariffs.

In the beginning, it was a beautiful roadmap for enhanced business activity and wealth building. I was happy to see it enacted but was curious as to why two white congressmen, the very conservative Philip Crane of Illinois and very liberal Jim McDermott of Washington, got together and crafted the bill. If this is a bill about African nations’ economic progress shouldn’t some members of the Congressional Black Caucus be involved? That was the first hint.

The bill passed with much support from Black activists. However, President Bill Clinton never got around to signing it. Eventually, President George W. Bush willingly signed the bill, and trade enhancement with the Motherland was established. This made sense as Bush would do more for Africa’s advancement than any other American president in history. We were all overjoyed. I remember sitting next to basketball great Hakeem Olajuwon at the White House signing, he was so happy that his motherland Nigeria would participate in this new trade agreement. We were all excited. But as the saying goes: “The wolves are of another mind.”

Enter the Textile Lobby. They would hire a Black lobbyist with the assignment of working on a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. The assignment would be to craft an amendment that would open the doors for very cheap China cotton to be included in AGOA. China cotton is the cheapest cotton in the world as prisoners process it (slavery). Somehow, a CBC member agreed to it and the Third Country Fabric Exemption was amended to AGOA. Believe it or not, this allowed China to ship its cotton to African nations, make apparel and then ship it to America duty free under AGOA. This dirt cheap cotton quickly knocked our African cotton farmers and textile mills right out of business. It had a devastating impact on the agribusiness of African nations. Instead of being an enhancer of African commerce, AGOA became a cancer.

I saw it for myself. I was in Nairobi, Kenya, and the Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Industry took me to a new textile mill. Before going, the Kenyan Cotton Farmers Association met me in the lobby of my hotel and protested the fact that the United States had set up cheap China cotton to destroy their industry. They had been cut out and were going out of business. I went to the facility that was extremely high tech. There were dozens of women making clothing for $50 per month. The facility was managed by a citizen of India. When we observed the inventory it was ceiling high with bales of cotton that was marked “Product of China.” This is what enraged the Kenyan cotton farmers. They were being cut out of AGOA via the Third Country Fabric Extension Amendment — placed by Black lobbyists and a Black congressperson. On the site were representatives of Walmart, Target and JC Penney’s to approve the production. I became sick at the sight. I quipped to the guide “Who owns this, Kabaki?” Kabaki is the president of Kenya. He replied, “How did you know? It is in his sister’s name.”

The damage spreads beyond Kenya. Lesotho, Nigeria, Tanzania and many other nations in Africa have had their textile industries destroyed by this sinister amendment. The amendment was due to expire in 2009, and I pressed to ensure the expiration. The textile industry was waiting for the NBCC and successfully prevented us from letting the expiration take affect. They extended it for another three years. It is set to expire in September 2012. This time we will do our “homework” and create a groundswell of opposition to this sinister act. We can’t let the textile industry pimp Africa and cannot let hired flunkies do their bidding. AGOA is a good act but we must keep it pure. Africa is the fastest growing economy among all the continents and we must ensure that our Motherland gets the maximum result from its efforts. Woe to those who try to get over at the expense of our Motherland!

Mr. Alford is the co-founder and president/CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce, Inc®. Website: www.nationalbcc.org. Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

WASHINGTON — An economic calamity looming, President Barack Obama on Friday signaled willingness to compromise with Republicans, declaring he was not "wedded to every detail" of his tax-and-spending approach to prevent deep and widespread pain in the new year. But he insisted his re-election gave him a mandate to raise taxes on wealthier Americans.