Since I’ve never been able to get excited about the best “whatever” of the year, that traditionally dominates the mainstream media as the old year limps out to make way for a New Year, finding news and issues worth analyzing was almost as difficult as finding the cave Osama bin Laden is reportedly hiding in. However, a column in Houston’s only daily Sunday edition caught my eye, therefore I decided to analyze the writer’s perspective of a New Year.

The columnist vented his frustration over the fact that optimistic people have actually convinced themselves that a New Year is much like being born again. The cynical journalist went on to write convincingly, that people who went to sleep on Dec. 31, 2001 (with overdue bills and maxed out credit cards), without a doubt woke up on Jan. 1, 2002 with the same cash flow problem. Quite frankly, there’s no difference, whatsoever, between people that tend to celebrate Christmas as if they still believe in Santa Claus, than those who consider a New Year, a new beginning.
While I can’t argue with the writer’s logic, I will disagree that New Year’s day isn’t a perfect time to make some changes that will make the following 364 days better.

So, let’s just call special days “milestones,” since a milestone simply marks the date something special happened. With that said, allow me to regress and say that African-Americans who want to read newspapers with a Black perspective got a Christmas present. And, since Santa just happened to be available at Shirley Ann Gift Shop & Black Art Kollectibles, 6130 Wheatley (to take photos with kids), when our new racks arrived, we decided to make him a symbolic part of our gift for the African-American community.

At the same time we chose to wait until the New Year to introduce African-American News&Issues’ new racks to our (current and future) readers. In case the photo accompanying this article isn’t indeed, a thousand words as advertised, I should explain that we’ve always had our own easy to identify racks in over 5,000 locations in Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio and various other locales in the Gulf Coast area, but our new racks are something special.

They will include 100 box stands for the downtown area of the cities where you’ll find Texas’’ widest circulated newspaper with a Black perspective. The box stands certainly will be in great demand, therefore we’re prepared to respond to any location that calls 713/692-1288 and ask for a box stand forthwith. Then again, the 500 two-tier wire racks are very attractive also, the same as the 500 counter top racks that will be highly visible.

Perish the thought that the new racks will replace the old ones, because the new look is only an addition to our already numerous network of racks and boxes that make AAN&I the most accessible weekly newspaper in Texas. If you doubt that, please consider that we also hand deliver over 140,000 copies to homes located in or near predominately African-American neighborhoods.

The good news, once again, is not just our new look racks, but our renewed commitment to be African- American’s strongest, uncompromised editorial voice possible. And how are we going to do that? That’s a good question and I’m glad you asked: As you know (if you’re an enlightened reader), the California-based Verified Audit Circulation, the top free publication auditor in America, consistently validated our 350,000 weekly circulation throughout 2001, therefore the only way we can improve on those numbers is to publish more newspapers to put on those 1,100 new racks each week.

Yes, this is a New Year and AAN&I will be doing new things, to enhance our advertising vehicle; expand our distribution venues; and raise our editorial content to a higher level.