‘A Social TKO’ & the proper way to fight Life back

(Kelvin Cowans, aka Six-Four, is an author/writer and Memphis-area mentor. He spoke recently to about 20 male youths at Southwest Prep Academy, where he was invited by Don Thomas, director of the Mentor Program.)

Definition of technical knockout: the termination of a boxing match when a boxer is unable or is declared by the referee to be unable (as because of injuries) to continue the fight – called also TKO. Source: Merriam Webster

The Talk

Eat your fresh fruits & veggies and take the bite out of cancer

CHEF TIMOTHY: I recently had a sobering encounter with a widow whose 40-year-old husband had died from prostate cancer. It was more proof telling me something that I already knew: cancer is a health hazard that continues to wreak havoc in our society.

I am honoring this grief-stricken widow's wish to remain anonymous. Her name is not important. The circumstances, however, are because they just might help someone avoid dying prematurely.

The widow was feeling the weight of a painful uncertainty. She wondered whether her late husband still would be alive if he had taken his health more seriously.

Spike Lee slams the Jason Collins hate machine

NBA veteran Jason Collins on Monday revealed he is gay, making him the first U.S. professional athlete to do so while actively playing.

"I didn't set out to be the first openly gay athlete playing in a major American team sport. But since I am, I'm happy to start the conversation.

Chris Broussard: ‘Jason Collins in open rebellion to God’

Speaking on ESPN's "Outside The Lines," Chris Broussard declared that Jason Collins, the 34-year-old NBA center who came out as gay, is in "open rebellion to God" for living an openly homosexual "lifestyle," reports Think Progress.

As previously reported by NewsOne, Collins becomes the first pro-athlete of any sports organization to come out as gay – something that apparently upset Broussard so much he had to gay-bash him for the world to see:

"Personally, I don't believe that you can live an openly homosexual lifestyle or an openly, like premarital sex between heterosexuals. If you're openly living that type of lifestyle, then the Bible says you know them by their fruits. It says that, you know, that's a sin. If you're openly living in unrepentant sin, whatever it may be, not just homosexuality, whatever it maybe, I believe that's walking in open rebellion to God and to Jesus Christ. So I would not characterize that person as a Christian because I don't think the bible would characterize them as a Christian."

Is President Obama evolving on marijuana?

On Wednesday the Obama administration unveiled a new strategy for its drug policy. The location of the rollout was noteworthy. It took place at Johns Hopkins University, located in Baltimore, a city so ravaged by the effects of drugs that it served as the backdrop to the hit television show "The Wire," which chronicled the impact of drug crime on a community.

But also noteworthy is the Obama administration's new softer tone, particularly on the issue of marijuana. It appears that the administration may finally be ready to put the so-called drug war to bed and replace it with a much more commonsense drug policy focused on rehabilitation, not incarceration.

Was integration a good thing for black people? Probably not

Last month I took a visit to Atlanta and once again stopped by the birth home of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

I reached back into the life of Dr. King to understand what made him great, and what we must do to continue the extraordinary work that he and his colleagues began so many years ago. As I sat on his porch, I closed my eyes and imagined his mother carrying him to the front door. I wondered how many Sundays the family sat on that same porch after dinner, and how many days Dr. King spent wondering if it might be possible for him to fulfill his dreams and personal ambitions.

Treat Chicago gangs as terrorists

You know things in Chicago are bad when 70 murders in the first quarter can be seen as a good thing. But context is everything: Last year at this time there had been more than 120 murders, so I guess we should thank God for small favors.

It seems inconceivable that the city President Barack Obama calls home is also the city where his family may be least safe. Just this Monday a 15-year-old boy was found shot dead in a backyard only four blocks from the president's house.

What's responsible for the bloodshed? Gang violence, as usual. Police estimate that of the 532 murders in 2012 – nearly 1.5 a day – about 80 percent were gang related. And yet, despite that rather staggering statistic, the national outcry is muted at best – nothing, to say the least, like the kind we saw last week in Boston. What is it about the word "gang" that brings out the apathy in us? Would we view Chicago differently if we called the perpetrators something else?

Black leaders have sold out

Once again the black community has been shown how irrelevant they have become in the U.S. Most of the blame can be laid at the feet of the media-appointed black leadership for selling out their people. And we've gotten nothing in return. At least Judas Iscariot had sense enough to get 30 pieces of silver when he sold out Jesus Christ.

Isn't it amazing that with all the debate swirling around the issue of amnesty for the illegals in the U.S., no one on either side of the debate has engaged with the black community? Blacks will be hurt the most by giving amnesty to these 11 million illegals and yet there has not been one town hall meeting with the black community to discuss how this issue will negatively impact the black community's high unemployment rate.

Drink water, you dummy

We're all thirsty and we don't even know it.

But an Estonian start-up called Jomi Interactive aims to solve this problem.

Although they're only in a developmental stage right now (Read: Give us your money!), the company managed to turn more than a few heads online (last) week when prototypes of their new products were featured on TechCrunch and several other websites.

The product is a Jomi band (or sleeve). You attach it around your water bottle and it monitors your fluid intake, reminding you, with sounds and LED indicators, that, perhaps, its time to drink more water.

Stress relief? Eat healthy and smile more

CHEF TIMOTHY: Have you ever been jarred awake by a migraine that keeps pounding in your head like you've been scrapping with the young Mike Tyson?

If this has happened to you, your arms might've felt extremely sore and your body might've felt like it was badly bruised by the pounding. So what happened overnight? How can a person go to sleep comfortably and wake up miserable?

What causes the body to react to different demands and pressure situations? That bruising feeling could be stress, which is "the body's physical, mental or chemical reaction when we get excited or confused or when we otherwise feel unsafe or threatened."

It can happen anywhere!

September 11, 2001, was the day everything changed, then April 15, 2013, serves as another reminder of that change, of our frailties and of a new reality in which "it can't happen here" has been replaced by "it can happen anywhere."

When initial reports came out of Boston about two explosions occurring near the finish line of the 116th marathon – a marathon that began with 26 seconds of silence in honor of the 26 victims of the Newtown massacre – we held our collective breaths and hoped it was a freak infrastructure accident.

Or compromised electrical wiring.

Jackie Robinson: ‘Too bad he’s the wrong color’

You could say "42," the film about the life of Brooklyn Dodgers great Jackie Robinson, is a gripping baseball tale, and your assessment would be correct – but woefully incomplete.

"42" is not just a baseball story. It's a compelling history lesson as well. It tells the story of not just baseball, but of a central facet of 20th Century American life – the suffocating reach of racism – in the decades before the 1960s.

It conveys the grievous wrong African Americans endured and signals what it cost them, and America as a whole. And it indicates how the barrier of racism was cracked by blacks and whites who worked – many over the course of decades – to destroy it.