Intuit’s Vibe

Phenomenal Woman

By Maya Angelou

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies,

I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size

But when I start to tell them,

They think I’m telling lies.

I say,

It’s in the reach of my arms,

The span of my hips,

The stride of my step,

The curl of my lips.

I’m a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman

That’s me.

I walk into a room

Just as cool as you please,

And to a man,

The fellows stand or

Fall down on their knees.

Then they swarm around me,

A hive of honey bees.

I say,

It’s the fire in my eyes,

And the flash of my teeth,

The swing in my waist,

And the joy in my feet.

I’m a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman

That’s me.

Men themselves have wondered

What they see in me.

They try so much

But they can’t touch

My inner mystery.

When I try to show them

They say they still can’t see.

I say,

It’s in the arch of my back,

The sun of my smile,

The ride of my breasts,

The grace of my style.

I’m a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman

That’s me.

Blah! Blah!

Fuzzy Figures!

On Friday, January 7, 2005, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) at released its monthly employment situation report. The unemployment rate for December 2004 remained unchanged from its relatively low rate of 5.4%, which was posted for November. In fact, this figure was extremely popular for all of 2004. Check the numbers! 5.4% is the unemployment rate posted by BLS for most months of the year. Some folks simply call statistics produced by the government to reflect “good news” or a “strong economy” fuzzy figures. Others call them BULL!

In the real world, so many families are struggling just to make ends meet. The spate of “good” news on the economy comes as somewhat of a shock. Too many adult members of poor and middle class families are out of work or working part-time because no full-time jobs are available. More than at any other time in the past decade, more people have simply quit looking for those non-existent jobs that the Bush administration says it is creating.

With all its “good” employment news, the Bush regime has still lost more jobs than it has created. News that it plans to revise the employment data, a move that could wipe out its job creation deficit, comes as no surprise! Creative accounting and fictitious numbers are hallmarks of a government that cares little about realities on the ground. Blah on fuzzy figures! Nobody is fooled!

Hood Notes

Fibroids: Menace or Malign

By John Burl Smith

A menace is a possible threat or annoyance, whereas a malign is an injurious invasion with malevolent intent. For women, fibroids constitute such a quandary in determining treatment. Whether called uterine fibroids, leiomyoma, leiomyomata, myoma and fibromyoma, they are the most common tumors of the female genital tract.

Fibroids are noncancerous (benign) growths that develop in the muscular wall of the uterus. Most fibroids are not accompanied by symptoms. Depending on location, size and number, fibroids can cause heavy, prolonged menstrual periods and unusual bleeding, sometimes clots. This often leads to anemia. Pelvic discomfort from weight of fibroids pressing on nearby structures, such as the bowels or bladder, can cause constipation, bloating and urges to urinate. Fibroids pressing on nerves serving the pelvis and legs can cause pain in the back, legs or during sex.

Exact causes of fibroids are unclear. Researchers link them to a genetic predisposition and a subsequent development of susceptibility to hormonal stimulation. Fibroid tumors may start when women are in their 20s; most women do not begin to have symptoms until their late 30s or 40s. Fibroids tend to grow as a woman ages, then shrink due to low estrogen after menopause. Very small uterine fibroids usually cause no problems. Roughly 20 ‑ 40 percent of women age 35 and older have uterine fibroids of a significant size. Black women are at a higher risk, as many as 50 percent have fibroids of a significant size.

Maligns, adenomyosis or ovarian cysts may be mistaken for fibroids. Adenomyosis infiltrates and enlarges the lining of the uterus wall. Viewed with ultrasound, it appears as a diffuse thickening of the wall and can rarely be removed without taking out the uterus. Fibroids are seen as round areas with discrete borders. Differentiating between these conditions is very important in planning treatment.

Fibroids in 10 to 20 percent of women with significant symptoms require treatment. In most cases, doctors recommend hysterectomy, the second most common major surgery among women in the US. (The most common is Cesarean section.) Annually, more than 600,000 hysterectomies are performed. One third of women in the US have had a hysterectomy by age 60. In deciding whether fibroids are a menace or malign, it is important to read peer‑reviewed studies published medical journals and ask questions. (Sources: , and )

Bit of History

Dorothy Boulding Ferebee (1899-1980)

Dorothy Boulding, the daughter of Florence Ruffin and Benjamin Boulding, was born on January 15, 1899 in Norfolk, Virginia. Boulding grew up in Massachusetts, where she graduated from English High School with the highest academic honor in her class of more than three hundred.

            After graduating from Simmons College in Boston, Boulding attended Tufts University School of Medicine and graduate cum laude in 1924. In 1928, she married Claude Thurston Ferebee, a dentist and medical educator at Howard University.
            From 1934-1941, she served as Medical Director of the Mississippi Health Project, a rural health initiative sponsored by Alpha Kappa Alpha, the nation’s oldest black sorority. After moving to Washington D.C., Dr. Ferebee directed Howard University’s health services.
            Dr. Ferebee served as a member of the executive board of UNICEF and the White House’s Children and Youth Council.   In 1951, she went to Germany as part of a U.S. Department of Labor effort to investigate native women’s health problems. After President John F. Kennedy selected her to join the Council for Food for Peace, Dr. Ferebee spent five-months touring Africa. Dr. Ferebee served as a delegate to an international conference on women of African descent, representing nineteen countries in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East.

Black anti-abortion groups have criticized Dr. Ferebee, who saw birth control as a means for poor black women and families to improve their economic condition. These groups believe Planned Parenthood’s founder Margaret Sanger used Dr. Ferebee and other members of the black elite to advance the “Negro Project.” Created in 1939, the eugenics project sought to restrict – some believe exterminate – the black population under the pretense of "better health" and "family planning."

In 1967, Dr. Ferebee addressed the World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland. She resigned from Howard University in 1968, but continued giving lectures on preventative medicine at Tufts. Dr. Ferebee died September 14, 1980 from congestive heart failure in Washington, D.C. at the age of 81. (Sources: and http://www.blackgenocide.org/who.html)

Fibroids: A Treatment Epidemic

By John Burl Smith

Since only a small portion, 10-20 percent, of women with uterine fibroids requires treatment removal of the uterus is not the answer to eliminating fibroids to improve the quality of life for many women. Hysterectomy and other radical procedures are presented, like cosmetic surgery, to eliminate this benign condition in most women. A near epidemic, numerous procedures promoted to treat fibroids are marketed. One treatment option most doctors will not recommend is natural or holistic methods.

Dr. Allan Warshowsky, M.D., author of Healing Fibroids‑A Doctor's Guide to a Natural Cure, believes the problem with fibroids lies with stressful messages sent to the pituitary gland via the hypothalamus through the autonomic nervous system. When we respond to fear, anger, resentment or low self‑esteem, negative emotions dominate our mind, giving them control of our bodies. When we feel loved and express caring, sharing and high self‑esteem, positive emotions dominate our mind and control our bodies. Positive or negative, during high emotional states the body responds the same. It increases perspiration, adrenal production, heart and pulse rate, while decreasing digestive activity. One's mental state determines whether the neurotoxins produced in the brain correspond to negative or positive emotions, activating the body's General Alert Syndrome (GAS), triggering flight or fright.

The exact causes of fibroid development are unclear, but researchers have linked them to both a genetic predisposition and a heighten susceptibility to hormone stimulation. Women with a genetic predisposition for developing fibroids may aggravate these factors with negative emotional responses that enhance growth of fibroids. Influenced by a number of hormones, a mind‑set dominated by fear, worry, anxiety or anger can over activate the GAS and create a hormonal imbalance. This is how strong emotion can interfere with balanced hormone production. Living in a chronic state of fear, internalizing anger and nursing pain lock the mind into a constant state of anxiety; the body produces an overabundance of excitatory hormones, setting women up for uterine fibroids.

Information about holistic treatments, such as acupuncture, Reiki healing, meditation, massage therapy and chakra balancing, which addresses negative mind‑sets and hormonal imbalance is provided at .

News You Use

Uterine Fibroids: The Silent Epidemic

Natural Awakenings Magazine, Jodine's Corner, Heal from Depression.com, author-consultant Sandy Rodgers and Healing Happens Consulting will present a one‑day seminar on managing and eliminating uterine fibroids Saturday, January 22, 2005 from 12 Noon to 5 PM. The venue is located in the Georgia State University Student Center 33 Gilmer Street, Atlanta, Georgia. Panel participants and presenters will discuss three modalities of treatment ‑‑ traditional, alternative, and holistic, which help women conserve and repair their reproductive and sexual organs.

Moderated by Angela Harrington-Rice, host of A Woman’s Place, this one-day seminar provides an excellent opportunity for women to share with husbands, friends, partners or lovers their health concerns about uterine fibroids. Whether you are currently dealing with the condition, unaware of it, or simply need to learn more about uterine fibroids, plan to attend this seminar. Admissions include a buffet-style meal catered by Soul Vegetarian Restaurant. For registration information, call 770-472‑0505 or uterinefreedom@yahoo.com.

Disgruntled feels: Programmed! In the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq, US citizens were programmed to fear Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. Working in tandem, the US media in bed with the government led us to believe mushroom clouds and more 9-11 attacks were imminent. Recent revelations that black talking head Armstrong Williams was paid nearly a quarter of a million tax dollars to deliver favorable messages about the “No Child Left Behind” education program should not shock anyone. The government pays all manner of US media to deliver its propaganda packaged as “headline news.” Just as the public was programmed to fear Saddam’s non-existent WMDs, it is now being programmed to believe Social Security is in imminent danger and must be fixed in a predetermined manner. The government is paying media, young and black people to spread its “Social Security is terminally ill” propaganda. This time-tested strategy is working. Bombarded in print, television and radio, Bush administration talking points on Social Security is in trouble are saturating the airwaves. The public will be programmed to accept an immediate need to change Social Security!

Disgruntled wants to know: Last week, a blurb announced Time-Warner purchased a controlling interest in ESSENCE, the premiere black woman’s magazine. Plugging its new asset, CNN ran a “news” clip on ESSENCE’s campaign to candidly address the music industry’s depiction of black women. This issue focuses on the abuse heaped on black women by hip hop artists. In addition to insider and consumer commentary, the magazine is conducting a survey on music listeners’ response to lyrics denigrating black women. By a wide margin, respondents “cringe” on hearing the sexually explicit negative characterizations. This candid review is long overdue. Coming on the heels of the Time-Warner buyout, one wonders is this genuine concern about the degradation of black women or a bit of sensationalism to hype the new ownership?

Disgruntled says: When it comes to expressions of empathy and sympathy for victims, there is this disconnect worth mentioning. There has been an outpouring of emotions and contributions to assist the tsunami victims. And, that is a good thing. Yet, in sheer number of deaths and destruction, Iraqis are equally victimized, but there is neither an outpouring of sympathy nor global effort to end this situation.

Atlanta Vibe

Broken Laces: European Tour Wrap Up

I spent Christmas in a downtown Amsterdam apartment cooperative surrounded by artists and environmentalists. At the dinner table warmly lit by a Menorah, the quests included a female jazz saxophonist from the US, four Russian Argentinean tango dancers, a Moroccan-Algerian pop singer, a gay Dutch modern dance couple, an Italian jazz pianist and me. The multilingual multi-layered conversation reflected and melted into the delicious aromas, peppery jazz and scenic view of the city. This and a million other moments made my Europe on a shoestring tour so unimaginably phenomenal.

A life changing experience, the words to sum it up in a brief column escape me. However, I will say, this tour, which started out as a voyage solely to promote my art, quickly became a stark lesson in survival. Immediately confronted by the effects of a declining dollar, I realized there is an underground scene everywhere. Most folks survive on the love of their art and little to no money. Most often, it is the artist that gets the short end of the stick.

What I found is that every place has its own magic, its own unique beauty. And, at the root, we are all hurling through space and time just trying to figure out who we are and why we are here. We may have different skin colors or speak a different language, but we are all breathing the same air and feel the same rain and sunshine.

Walking through the Albert Cuyd Market, it became apparent that most people live paycheck to paycheck, struggling with poverty, war, oppression, addiction, disillusionment, heartache, politics and toiling over seeds planted in strange soil. I suppose that is the beauty of the human condition -- how we continue to seek the creator within, so we can appreciate the creator in everything. We continue to laugh and love because and in spite of ourselves.

Asked, if I would do it again, I responded– absolutely! But, I will definitely be better prepared, because I have already done it. I was shown so much love! Thanks to all the families and friends that embraced and supported my journey. A special thanks to all the beautiful women who opened their homes and hearts to me. Also, much thanks to The DISH and it’s readers. Without you, my tour on a shoestring would not have been possible.

Mailbox: E-Mails, Faxes & Telephone Calls

Email The prospect of 100 million Americans each having $1,000 of their Social Security contributions to invest every year has investment professionals salivating at the potential financial bonanza. About $100 billion a year would be freed up for stocks, bonds and other investments under a tentative plan President Bush has floated to fix the Social Security retirement system by creating private investment accounts. The fees paid to brokers and money managers could run into the billions.

Email Eli Lilly knew Prozac had a 1200% higher suicide rate. More than Vioxx, Bextra or Celebrex, the truth is starting to come out about antidepressant drugs like Prozac. Big Pharma is using the same stonewalling tactics and denials used by Big Tobacco to cover-up the dangers of its products and protect its profits.

Email A pregnant Tennessee woman who enrolled in federally funded research in hopes of saving her unborn son from getting AIDS died last year when doctors continued to give her an experimental drug regimen despite signs of liver failure. Family members of Joyce Ann Hafford say the 33-year-old HIV-positive woman died without ever holding her newborn boy. They also said they never were told the National Institutes of Health concluded the drug therapy likely caused her death.

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