I just found out I was mentioned as a WordPress-using blog consultant in WordPress For Dummies, by Lisa Sabin-Wilson and Matt Mullenweg.
Lisa and I go way back. I started out on Blogger.com in November 2003. I soon realized I needed my own domain and a new look. I searched for a blog designer, found Lisa at E. Webscapes, and learned she also hosted blogs (see Blogs-About).
The WordPress blog platform was fairly new at the time, and Lisa specialized in setting up WordPress blogs. Movable Type was the hottest platform, but I said, “Sure, why not? I’ll go with WP.”
Since then, Lisa’s created two designs for me (and I’m in desperate need of a new one for 2008), and she’s still hosting LBC. And I have no complaints. I highly recommend the very patient and generous Lisa’s design and hosting services. Since I first contacted her, she’s blown up. And still cool. Check out her blog, Just A Girl In The World.
Thanks for the mention, Lisa, and I look forward to reading your book. 
by La Shawn on January 22, 2008
in Reviews
I freed thousands of slaves. I could have freed thousands more, if they had known they were slaves. – Harriet Tubman
The physical chains of American slavery may be broken, but the mental chains are still there. That’s the message of filmmaker Janks Morton’s 84-minute documentary, What Black Men Think.
Stereotypes and myths perpetuated by the government, the media, and so-called black leadership about black men fuel an “undeclared civil war” between black men and women, according to Morton. The film features man-on-the-street interviews, interspersed with commentary from conservative and moderate black writers like Shelby Steele, actor Joseph C. Phillips, Jesse L. Peterson, John McWhorter, Armstrong Williams, FOX News analyst Juan Williams, former Maryland lieutenant governor Michael Steele, Mychal Massie, and Earl Ofari Hutchinson.
Morton was inspired to make the documentary after hearing an alarming and well-known statistic. While watching a C-SPAN debate between Juan Williams and professor and author Michael Eric Dyson, he heard Williams say that 70 percent of black babies were born out of wedlock. Morton said he didn’t believe him until he looked it up.
Continue reading What Black Men Think.
by La Shawn on January 21, 2008
in Faith
The latest issue of The Jerusalem Connection, edited by my former pastor Dr. James Hutchens, is a special issue called “The Black/Israel Nexus.” The man on the cover is Bishop Harry Jackson, who pastors a church in Southern Maryland.
My article, “Blessing Israel: Black Christians and Jews,” appears on page 2. You may download a PDF copy of the issue at the web site.
Update: Darnell “Independent Conservative” McGavock, quoted in the article, responds.
Raised in Washington, D.C., country music-loving actor Jon Bernthal went to Russia to study acting and ended up playing professional baseball. He’s no longer playing ball, but his acting career is on the upswing. In the independent film Day Zero (read the review), Bernthal plays a street-wise cab driver named James Dixon who, along with two friends (played by Elijah Wood and Chris Klein), receives a draft notice and has 30 days to report for duty. The story follows the trio as they struggle with political and personal convictions, fear, and leaving behind loved ones.
I asked Bernthal about his character, his patriotism, and his upcoming projects
Read the rest.
Last Friday, head of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Michael Chertoff (whom I gave the evil eye in a CNN green room) announced the final regulations of the REAL ID Act.
Among other things, states have until May 2008 to comply with the law to keep residents’ current IDs valid for air travel (intent to comply is OK at this point), or seek waivers. Final implementation will be delayed until 2017.
Signed into law in 2005, the REAL ID Act was a response to the September 11 terrorist attacks, or more specifically, to the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations that the federal government set standards for identification cards. REAL ID requires states to comply with these standards if they wish to continue receiving federal dollars.
Perhaps the most distinguishing feature of REAL ID (and my favorite) is the requirement that people seeking a driver’s license prove they’re in the country legally. States must verify that these proof-of-status documents and social security numbers are legitimate. And DMVs will be required to take license photos at the beginning of the process instead of at the end. Why? If the person ends up not getting a license because they don’t have the necessary documents, their photos will be on file. The idea is to link up state databases, so if such people attempt to get a license in another state, a record of their failed attempts will show up. Additionally, the new IDs supposedly will be tamper-proof.
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Ever since I published a post titled Black Women/White Men, I’ve gotten lots of hits for searches on “black women white men,” “white men and black women,” “black women dating white men,” “white men who like black women,” “white men attracted to black women,” “white men marry black women,” and variations on the theme, including this gem: “lashawn barber interracial dating.”
While I do reveal some personal things at LBC, I’ve never and probably won’t ever blog about…well, the blog you’re looking for is Black Female Interracial Marriage. It’s loaded with interesting stuff and lots of links. Check it out.
Update (1/17): Well, well, well. Apparently, this post and my penchant for reviewing books has resulted in an e-mail about a book titled, The White Man’s Guide To Dating Black Women.
Friday, January 11: Blogger Stacy Harp is having a contest to give away an Archaeological Study Bible. Check it out.
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I don’t know how to tag this post. Lunacy? Comedy? Faith? Judiciary? A group of Christian parents in South Iron School District near St. Louis, Missouri, sued to stop the Gideons from distributing Bibles in classrooms. Why would Christians want to get in bed with the ACLU? Yuck.
According to an ACLU lawyer, the parents “believe religious beliefs should be taught in the home, not school.”
Once upon a homogenous time in America, that statement would have been utter nonsense. In a town where everyone was “Christian,” whether or not they actually were saved or even attended church, Christianity was more than a faith. It was a way of life. (On a grander scale, it’s the foundation of Western Civilization.) While parents understood it was their job to raise their children in the faith and teach them good morals and values, these morals and values were reiterated in the classroom.
Imagine this scenario: a child is boasting in class about his A+ paper and making fun of a classmate who received a C+, and the teacher gently reminds him of the pastor’s sermon on humility the previous Sunday. I’m sure this has happened countless times in various ways in the history of public schools in small towns across America. I should know. I grew up in one of those towns.
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Enough Is Enough!
If I hear about one more state assembly issuing an apology for slavery, I just might throw up all over my blue and white striped lounging pants and cool blue hoodie I bought myself for Christmas.
Long-time readers are keenly aware of what I think about so-called slavery apologies.
An apology for slavery would make sense under this scenario, and under no other: former slavemasters and those complicit in the government at the time apologizing directly to the former slaves for keeping them in bondage.
Other than that, keep your stinkin’ apology and get on with real business. Here’s what you can apologize for, Mr. Government: for taxing the heck out of me, followed up with the concrete action of lowering my taxes and allowing me to keep more of the money I earn.
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by La Shawn on January 8, 2008
in Reviews
The setting is New York City. The time is the near future. Fourteen hundred people have been killed in a terrorist attack in Los Angeles, similar to the one in New York on September 11, 2001. The war on terror intensifies, and the U.S. reinstates the draft.
You get a draft notice. You have 30 days to report for duty. What would you do?
Read the rest.
Originally published on December 28 - bumped and updated
Tuesday, January 8: Last month, Warner Music Group, one of the four major record labels, offered Amazon’s digital music download store a 2.9 million-track, DRM-free catalog of music, which left Sony BMG as the DRM hold out. EMI and Universal ditched DRM awhile back.
“[I]t’s only a matter of time before Sony does, too,” I wrote.
Last week, Sony announced it would offer some DRM-free tracks. Freeing the music is good, of course, but…Despite Move to MP3s, DRM Will Haunt Record Labels. I’ve got at least a few hundred tracks in the WMA format and locked down with DRM. Converting them to MP3s reduces sound quality. Unless someone creates a program that allows high quality conversion, those tracks with “haunt” me, and I’m forever chained to two digital music players if I want to listen (with high quality sound) to all the music I own. Woe is me (or is it I?). 
Only in a country where citizens to have so much leisure time is this considered a problem.
In other news, online music service Napster will begin selling digital music in the universal MP3 format (as opposed to non-universal WMA).
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Wednesday, June 25, 2008: Today, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that imposing the death penalty for child rape violates the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
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Tuesday, January 8: Mark La Roi says: “Quick, clean and over is what they would want, right? Guillotine!”
That’s better than choking on gas or feeling electricity or poison running through your body, isn’t it? The guillotine is quick, clean, and painless, yes?
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Last June, I wrote a column for Townhall titled, Death to Child Rapists.
A Louisiana man brutally raped his wife’s eight-year-old daughter. Louisiana allows for consideration of the death penalty in rape cases involving a child under 12. The man was found guilty and sentenced to death. He appealed to Louisiana’s highest court, which upheld the sentence.
He appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Earlier today, the Supreme Court decided to hear the case. Louisiana is one of five states that allows the death penalty in child rape cases. South Carolina, the state of my birth, is another.
You know what decision I’m hoping for. More later…
Update (1/7): States got rid of the gas chamber because some cried, “That’s cruel!” Then more got rid of the electric chair because that, too, was “cruel.” (Although one can choose the chair, the chamber, or the gallows in some states.)
Now, some folks have issues with lethal injection, a modern and humane-if-you-ask-me way to execute murderers and rapers of children. What do they want? To fall peacefully asleep in a candle-lit room while lying on a bed of sweet-smelling roses? If I were running things, the only “choice” the condemned would have is the electric chair.
Related posts:
Update: “Renowned” and hot, eh? According to blogger Dave Lucas, I’m tied in 8th place with some Japanese chick on his 10 Hottest Blogging Babes To Watch in 2008 list.
Dave writes: “Talk about a ‘180′ - renowned A-lister LaShawn Barber went from politics to music in a bold move to take her blog where she wanted it to go. The result is delightful.”
I’m glad somebody digs my music-digital-tech-stuff blogging. Cheers, Dave. A link from LBC won’t bring you the kind of traffic it used to (those were the days!), but accept it as a token of my appreciation.
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Long-time readers know that short posts just aren’t my thing. I can’t do it. I’m neither pithy nor truncated nor brief. In fact, I have to force myself to wrap things up. Depending on who (whom?) you ask, it’s a good thing or a bad thing. Either way, Happy Thursday!
Digital Madness
Thom Yorke, lead singer for Radiohead, the British band that offered its latest album, In Rainbows, to fans in a pay-what-you-want gimmick last October, complained on BBC radio that artists don’t make money from digital downloads. Dig the irony! (Hat tip: Ars Technica)
Eighty percent of people, he claimed, still buy “physical releases” (don’t know where he got that figure) and that it’s important for the band to put out a physical version of the album. To do otherwise would have been “madness.” Not sure about the 80 percent figure, but I agree that some people want to possess hard copies. They may not own nor have the desire to own MP3 players, or they can’t live without liner notes and album art. Whatever the reason, there’s still a (dwindling?) market for physical albums.
Yorke said this about releasing In Rainbows online:
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Thirty-five years ago today, the U.S. Supreme Court legalized 
I seem to have lost my voice somewhere. While I search for it, check out a few of my favorite music/digital tech blogs: 