The majority of the country will receive English–only materials. Households in areas with high concentrations of Spanish-speaking residents may receive a bilingual (English/Spanish) form. Any personal data you provide is protected under federal law.

Please take the time to fill out the Census and mail it back because the information affects the numbers of seats your state occupies in the U.S. House of Representatives. People from many walks of life use census data to advocate for causes, rescue disaster victims, prevent diseases, research markets, locate pools of skilled workers and more. It also helps to determine how more than $400 billion dollars of federal funding each year is spent on infrastructure and services like:

• Hospitals
• Job training centers
• Schools
• Senior centers
• Bridges, tunnels and other-public works projects
• Emergency services

Don’t take this lightly. For more information regarding the Census and how it affects all Americans, check out the Census blog at http://blogs.census.gov/2010census.

If you are in need of a job, the U.S. Census Bureau is recruiting temporary, part-time census takers right in your own community. These short-term jobs offer good pay, flexible hours, paid training, and reimbursement for authorized work-related expenses, such as mileage incurred while conducting census work. For more information on the job opportunities they offer, visit http://2010.census.gov/2010censusjobs.

The Black History Hero for this week  is Ursula M. Burns. She is the first African-American woman CEO to head a S&P 100 company and the first woman to succeed another woman as head of a S&P 100 company.

Ursula M. Burns is chief executive officer of Xerox Corporation.

Burns joined Xerox in 1980 as a mechanical engineering summer intern and later assumed roles in product development and planning. From 1992 through 2000, Burns led several business teams including the office color and fax business and office network printing business. In 2000, she was named senior vice president, Corporate Strategic Services, heading up manufacturing and supply chain operations. She then took on the broader role of leading Xerox’s global research as well as product development, marketing and delivery. In April 2007, Burns was named president of Xerox, expanding her leadership to also include the company’s IT organization, corporate strategy, human resources, corporate marketing and global accounts. At that time, she was also elected a member of the company’s Board of Directors. Burns was named chief executive officer in July 2009.

Burns earned a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from Polytechnic Institute of NYU and a master of science degree in mechanical engineering from Columbia University. She serves on professional and community boards, including American Express Corp., CASA – (The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse) at Columbia University, FIRST – (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), National Academy Foundation, MIT, the U.S. Olympic Committee and the University of Rochester. Burns was also named by President Barack Obama to help lead the White House national program on STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) in November 2009.

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Today is the day the new rules for banks issuing credit cards to consumers take affect. Since the initial signing of the bill I’ve had the interest rate for two cards jump to 29.99% and a business card canceled because I didn’t use it enough. It doesn’t matter how good your credit score is anymore, which proves that no matter what their commercial says, your welfare is the last thing on their minds.

I’m no personal finance coach, so I thought I’d share an article I read by personal finance columnist Michelle Singletary regarding some of the loopholes in the credit card law. There’s also a fact sheet about the Credit Card Act on the White House Website. The best thing to do and my personal goal is to pay off all the credit cards. But if you’re not in a position to do it, know the law so they won’t take advantage of you.

Source: http://twitpic.com/13yxsb

On my way home from work, I was listening to talk radio and was truly disgusted by the people who called in with the “it may not have been the right thing to do, but I understand” attitude. How can these people attempt to justify Joseph Stack’s actions? Why is it that the democracy we hold so true and dear all of a sudden not good enough? Why are people so upset and moved to react violently because they feel their voice isn’t being heard? When have our voice ever been heard! Joseph Stack plain and simple committed an act of domestic terrorism. I don’t care how upset you are with your current situation or “the system”, there’s no reason to attempt a mass murder of innocent people.

People have been reading a lot into the manifesto he wrote and many are attempting to use a bad situation to prove a point about our political system. Stack is not the first person to have issues with the IRS and he definitely isn’t the only one going through hard times. He’s not the first to work hard to achieve a dream and have it taken away from you. He’s not the first to feel taken advantage of and hopeless. Nothing Stack wrote in his manifesto was new and I’m sure there have been others who’ve felt the same way. But they dealt with it, as most continue to do today.

What he did IS NOT bringing attention to a greater issue that needs to be addressed. The issues he had were far greater than his frustration and mistrust of the government. For those who would like to read the Stack manifesto, is can be found here.

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But even if that weren’t the case, having a month to focus on heart disease is extremely important because it is the leading cause of death in the United States. All of us know one or more people who’s lives have been affected by heart disease and if not taken seriously it could kill you. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put together a nice site, full of information for you to learn more about the dangers of heart disease.

While dangerous, heart disease is something that can be controlled if caught early enough. Knowing your family health history and living a healthy lifestyle are just some of the things you can do to prevent it. I’ve provided some links below for you to learn more on what you need to do to become heart healthy.

American Heart Association National Website
Go Red For Women
The Heart Truth Campaign
Men and Heart Disease
Heart Disease and Black People

The Red Cross also has a text message option and so far has raised over $4 million in mobile donations. To donate to the Red Cross via your mobile phone, text the word “Haiti” to the number 90999. A donation of $10.oo will be charged to your mobile phone bill.

Local Dallas radio host Tom Joyner said in this morning’s show that he and his team have plans to fly to Port-au-Prince to set up an internet cafe for Haitian citizens to contact family in America. In a post at blackamericaweb.com, they list some other things we can do to help out.

I shouldn’t be surprised at the global response to help a country in need, but I would like to end this post with a message from the Villager titled “Haiti Earthquake: Will America Care Next Week?”. Haiti has always been a country in need and I hope America will not forget them or others who need a helping hand.

Everyone is making a big deal about Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s comment and I can understand why. If it had been a Republican, a committee would have been formed to investigate and Senate member would have been embarrassed out of their position. The committee would have given the report and findings to President Obama and he would have thrown them in the trash. I’m sure this isn’t the first (or last) time he’s a heard a comment like this.

What Harry said was wrong and insensitive, but how many people have thought the same thing? When Obama announced his decision to run for president, I remember thinking to myself, “now this brotha has a shot”. Let’s be honest, if he were dark-skinned and well spoken, he would have been “one of those uppity negros” and probably wouldn’t have been accepted by such a large, diverse demographic as Obama was (it was either him or Harold Ford Jr.)

While sad, the discussion over dark vs. light skin is nothing new in the black community. Growing up, light-skinned was in and the Al B. Sure brotha’s were on top of the world and I remember at times being envious of them with their “light skin” and “good hair”. It’s an issue that has plagued many dark-skinned people of color (whether they want to admit it or not) and I really believe that’s why I’m not surprised by Harry’s comment. You have to ask yourself, if everything except skin color were equal, would a darker-skinned person have a had a chance running against Obama?

President Obama knows the game. This isn’t the first time he’s been talked about and he knows he needs Reid to get his agenda through Congress. But the difference now, is that Reid is Obama’s personal bia bia and will get do what he needs to do to get back in the good graces of the black Democrats.  These people are politicians and they will do what they need to do to get their personal agendas passed. I’m no fan of fake public apologies and Reid meant exactly what he said. What bothers me are all the complaints from people who have probably said the same thing and didn’t get caught.

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It’s hard to believe it’s already 2010. But we’re here and there are still new things in store for this blog. When I started blogging, the main goal was to share information and hopefully open up dialogue on issues that affect the black community. I think I did that in some way this year, but it wasn’t to the extent that I’d done in previous years.

The goal for this year is to continue on the track of keeping the site informative. I plan on opening it up to others who are interested in sharing their point of view with the readers of this site. There are some talented, well-written people out there and I want to showcase them and get some real discussions going.

Late in the year, when I got swamped with projects for work, I fell off the blogging scene for a couple of weeks. Blogging can be a daunting task and coming up with things to write about can be time consuming (especially when it isn’t one of my strengths). So this year, I’m going to solicit your help. If you or someone you know are interested in blogging, but don’t want to manage their own site, email me at info @ theotalks.net. I’m always in need of someone to write and it usually turns out to be a win-win situation for both parties.

This year, I also want to focus more on minority small businesses. In these turbulent economic times, a lot of people are turning to owning their own business. I think that’s great, so I decided to start a list of some of my favorite small businesses. I’ll be highlighting small business owners throughout the year, so contact me if you’re interested in participating.

Finally, here are some websites that you need to keep an eye on for 2010. I’ll be blogging a lot about them and hope to be visible on most of them as time permits. Check them out when you get the chance:

• Liberate Magazine
• Tech Relations Firm
• Dallas South News
• Barter My Biz

Have a Happy New Year and God Bless!