Scoping the realities of black women's lives: a team examines the effects of shifting roles to adjust for race and gender.(the writing life)

With this issue, Black Issues Book Review introduces THE WRITING LIFE, a department for authors, editors, writers and others engaged in producing the written word. For this premiere, we asked Charisse Jones, a New York correspondent for USA Today and coauthor of Shifting: The Double Lives of Black Women in America (HarperCollins, September 2003, $25.95, ISBN 0-060-09054-4), to share the experience of preparing her first book, an inventive nonfiction work based on original research conducted with Kumea Shorter-Gooden, Ph.D.

From a literary standpoint, it will be my firstborn. Shifting: The Double Lives of Black Women in America speaks of the masks we black women don, the emotional ripples that we weather trying to survive in the face of relentless racism and sexism. It speaks of how we hurt, but also of how we fight back and lean on family and faith to cope, thrive and soar.

As an African American woman, I understood the concept of shifting implicitly. I had done it my entire life, as when I took care not to use slang when speaking with my white peers or when I debated whether to report the cab driver who brazenly passed me by or to snuff my rage, pushing the slight into the recesses of my mind. All the changing, ignoring, self-affirming and …

Essayist and novelist Wilfrid Sheed dies in US

BOSTON (AP) — The stepdaughter of novelist and essayist Wilfrid Sheed says the English-born American writer has died. He was 80 years old.

Stepdaughter Phoebe Alexis Ungerer says Sheed died Wednesday in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, and had long suffered from polio and more recently cancer of the mouth.

Born in London in 1930 to prominent Catholic publishers, Sheed was the author of a …

Residents' dry spell ending

Construction worker Allan Hawkins applies rubber gaskets to pipefittings as part of a construction project designed to bring waterto residents on Newhouse Branch Road. The project …

Toyota beats two million sales milestone for hybrids.

Auto Business News-4 September 2009-Toyota beats two million sales milestone for hybrids(C)2009 ENPublishing - http://www.enpublishing.co.uk

Auto Business News - 04 September 2009(c)2005 - Electronic News Publishing - http://www.enpublishing.co.uk

Japan-based automaker Toyota Motor Corporation (TYO: 7203) has reported worldwide sales of its hybrid vehicles have passed the two million unit milestone.

The automaker launched its first hybrid …

REPORTS INDICATE BRIGHTER OUTLOOK.(BUSINESS)

Byline: JEANNINE AVERSA Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- Falling costs for gasoline, clothes and cars gave shoppers a break and helped to keep overall consumer prices flat in May.

That, along with another government report Tuesday showing housing construction last month jumped by 11.6 percent, the largest increase in nearly seven years, offered a dose of good news for the unfolding economic recovery.

The recovery has been progressing at a modest pace, but improvements have been spotty. With inflation under control, Federal Reserve policy-makers will have leeway to maintain short-term interest at 40-year lows to help the rebound keep rolling, economists …

Telco TV: smaller is quicker: two southern phone companies are almost ready to deliver video.(Progressive Rural Telephone)

While telco giants grapple with the challenges of delivering TV over telephone lines on a massive scale, two relatively tiny telcos in the deep South are already racing ahead with video delivery. Within a matter of months, the Farmers Telephone Cooperative in Kingstree, S.C., and Progressive Rural Telephone in central Georgia plan to begin offering TV to subscribers-over existing copper phone lines. Farmers has 60,000 customers; Progressive has 5,500.

Meanwhile, behemoths like Verizon and SBC don't expect to be able to send video over their expensively upgraded fiber-optic lines until the end of the year or later.

What makes the little guys so nimble? Internet Protocol television (IPTV) technology, which facilitates the otherwise impossible task of sending TV over copper phone wires. IPTV works because it is more …

London subway drivers get extra Olympics pay

LONDON (AP) — British transport authorities will give subway train drivers extra cash for working erratic hours during the 2012 London Olympics.

London Underground's managing director Mike Brown said the 3,500 drivers will receive a one-time payment of 500 pounds ($790) for agreeing to have their normal schedules disrupted during the games. They will also receive overtime pay for …