Month: June 2013

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Domestic Policies Education New Jersey News Politics teacher evaluation

The Lesson We Never Learn

After 29 years in the classroom, and with a pretty savvy political sense, if I may be so bold, I consider myself a keen observer of most things educational, but this story about Philadelphia’s schools made me shiver with anger from the first paragraph:

Andrew Jackson School too agitated to eat breakfast on Friday, an aide alerted the school counselor, who engaged him in an art project in her office. When he was still overwrought at 11, a secretary called the boy’s family, and soon a monitor at the front door buzzed in an older brother to take him home. 

Under a draconian budget passed by the Philadelphia School District last month, none of these supporting players — aide, counselor, secretary, security monitor — will remain at the school by September, nor will there be money for books, paper, a nurse or the school’s locally celebrated rock band. 

I know that this kind of mindless budget cutting has been going on for years and real reformers, as opposed to the self-styled ones on the right, have been warning us that children are in real danger, but somehow this story caught me. Or maybe it just represents the last straw on my particular camel’s back. Whatever. I have now officially had enough. If that’s the way that Philadelphia’s families are going to be treated, then we need an educational Tahrir/Taksim/self-immolating fruit-seller moment in this country. It’s that bad now, and it’s going to get worse.

Across the river, here in New Jersey, next fall is shaping up to be one of the worst for education since, well, four years ago when Chris Christie promised to destroy collective bargaining, and then made good on it, among other things. All of the polls point to a reelection win for the governor with a slight possibility that his coattails could enable the GOP to take over the state legislature. With a majority, even if it’s just the Senate, they can reshape the State Supreme Court, and with both houses they can further erode worker’s rights, eliminate seniority, impose radical cuts to public schools and stop funding for programs, like those in Philadelphia, that save lives, literally and figuratively.

What might save the state is a current challenge to the October U.S. Senate primary, forcing it to be held on the same day as the gubernatorial election. That would bring out more pro-education voters. Opponents of the separate election say they’ve found a clause that specifically addresses the issue. Let’s see if the State Supreme Court agrees.

And then, of course, there’s the new teacher evaluation system that’s set to go into effect statewide come the fall. Imagine a program that uses bad data in a manner that it wasn’t meant to be used, then include horse-trading politicians who have little idea what the legislation says, and put a Commissioner of Education in charge of the system who has little regard for anything other than his political standing and whether the State Board of Education supports him. Oh, wait…no need to imagine. New Jersey’s got it!

I’m all for teacher accountability, but this system was created by non-educators as a means of punishing state workers and unions, and making it easier to fire effective teachers who cost too much. If it was about education, then private and charter school teachers would be included in it. But they’re not, and that’s all you need to know about the intentions of its authors.

So enjoy your summer everyone. Let’s hope the shore businesses make lots of money and rejuvenate the towns and people who lost the most. Let’s hope that students and teachers find exciting ways to add to their knowledge, or to just forget about formal learning for a while and smell some flowers. In the fall, a new storm will be brewing, but it won’t be anything like Sandy. It will just be a lot of hot air.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives and on Twitter @rigrundfest

Categories
Health

CNN Anchor Underwent Double Mastectomy To Avoid Cancer

Zoraida Sambolin, the CNN host of Early Start, underwent a double mastectomy last month as a preventative measure. The host updated fans and well wishers via Skype, telling everyone that “things are going well.”

‘It’s been a pretty tough process,’ she told CNN. ‘But my prognosis is good now. What they found in my left breast was breast cancer stage one, grade one invasive, but the good news is my lymph nodes are free and clear, so I’m good.

‘My right breast actually ended up having Lobular Carcinoma two, and was headed in the same direction as my left breast, so I made a good decision, and now everything has been taken care of.’

Last month, Ms Sambolin revealed she was undergoing the same procedure as Angelina Jolie while discussing the Hollywood star on her show.

The host was diagnosed with breast cancer in her left breast, and underwent the double mastectomy on June 4th.

Categories
Politics

President Obama’s Approval Ratings Fall 8 Points

Credit for the nose dive in the president’s approval ratings goes to the Republican propaganda machine. I know they must be proud.

President Obama’s approval rating has plummeted eight points over the past month, as the White House continues to deal with a slew of controversies, according to a new poll released Monday.

Obama’s approval rating fell to 45% from 53%, his lowest rating in more than a year, a new CNN/ ORC International survey showed.

“It is clear that revelations about NSA surveillance programs have damaged Obama’s standing with the public, although older controversies like the IRS matter may have begun to take their toll as well,” CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said in a statement.

The poll, conducted last Tuesday through Thursday, also suggests that more than half of the public no longer trusts the President.

Only 49% of the public believes Obama is honest, the poll showed. In addition, 54% of those polled disapprove of the job Obama is doing as President — an increase of nine points from May.

The new ratings come just weeks after it was revealed that the National Security Administration has been monitoring cell-phone and Internet usage data to help prevent terror attacks.

Categories
Arizona Politics Voter registration

Supreme Court Rejects Arizona’s Voter Suppression Law

In a 7-2 decision announced Monday morning, the Supreme Court of the United States has rejected the state of Arizona’s efforts to add a proof of citizenship requirement to voter registration forms.

The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (a/k/a “The Motor Voter Law”) requires States to “accept and use” a uniform federal form to register voters for federal elections, and the Court now holds that states cannot graft additional requirements onto that form, which only requires that voters affirm that they are citizens.

Justice Scalia—yes, him—wrote the decision of the court, a majority consisting of everyone other than Justices Thomas and Alito. It relies on the Elections Clause of the Constitution (Art. I, §4, cl. 1), which provides that while states have preliminary control over federal elections, Congress can supersede the states’ choices:

The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the places of chusing Senators.

And, basically, the Court holds that when the NVRA says the states must “accept and use” the federal form, it must accept and use them as sufficient to register voters:

When Congress legislates with respect to the “Times, Places and Manner” of holding congressional elections, it necessarily displaces some element of a pre-existing legal regime erected by the States. Because the power the Elections Clause confers is none other than the power to preempt, the reasonable assumption is that the statutory text accurately communicates the scope of Congress’s preemptive intent. Moreover, the federalism concerns underlying the presumption in the Supremacy Clause context are somewhat weaker here. Unlike the States’ “historic police powers,” the States’ role in regulating congressional elections—while weighty and worthy of respect—has always existed subject to the express qualification that it “terminates according to federal law.” In sum, there is no compelling reason not to read Elections Clause legislation simply to mean what it says.

We conclude that the fairest reading of the statute is that a state-imposed requirement of evidence of citizenship not required by the Federal Form is “inconsistent with” the NVRA’s mandate that States “accept and use” the Federal Form. If this reading prevails, the Elections Clause requires that Arizona’s rule give way.

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Featured Videos

Man Lullabyes Puppies to Sleep

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Education

When Whites Attend HBCUs, Is That Progress?

Alyssa Paddock poses with friends at Howard University. (Courtesy of Alyssa Paddock)

Racial integration has long been a symbol of American progress, but Stephen Crockett Jr. wonders at the Washington Post whether white students attending predominantly black educational institutions will be remembered as a step forward or an odd joke.

In the last few weeks, two white women have come out about their experiences as Howard University students; the first, Alyssa Paddock. in an essay published in The Washington Post; the second, Jillian Parker, in a music video about her love for a black football player called “Mr. Football.”

Both the essay and video brought the public to their virtual soapboxes, a.k.a. Facebook and Twitter, to voice either their support or displeasure. Some commenters argued that Howard is hollowed ground, and that the presence of white students feels like an infringement on cultural space. Others shrugged it all off as a natural next step to a completely desegregated America.

Which brings me to a set of questions: is the white student presence on these campuses a racial move forward, or is it all a joke or a conversational topic to be raised over brunch years from now? Will the stories of being a white student at a majority-Black college be sandwiched between summers in the Hamptons and post-grad backpacking through Europe? Is attending an HBCU for white students the equivalent of spending a summer in Ghana? Is a white person who sets out, decides, applies and then attends an all-black-university the equivalent of a Darwinesque social experiment? And, does practicing a minority get anyone closer to understanding the daily struggle of being a minority? Let’s face it; the white student who would even consider attending an HBCU is not the student who is need of a strong dose of black cultural awareness because they already have it.

 

h/t – theroot

 

Categories
Entertainment Music Television

Paris Jackson’s Suicide Attempt Comes Just Days After Her Finding Out What?!

Paris Jackson‘s suicide attempt has given us all a scare, and left us full of questions that are slowly being answered.

We already know that the daughter of MJ was bullied in school, leading to her depression, but apparently some news about her brother Prince could have also contributed to it.

According to The Sun, Paris reportedly found out days before her attempted suicide that Prince was not her “full” brother, and that they have different fathers.

The source told the site:

“Paris has always wanted to believe Michael was her dad, but was aware that wasn’t really the case.”

“She was convinced her and Prince were full siblings. She always idolized him.”

“Hearing she wasn’t started a downward spiral.”

 

More details on Paris

Read more: http://globalgrind.com/entertainment/paris-jacksons-suicide-attempt-finding-out-different-father-prince-details#ixzz2WQvMj1rc

Categories
News

Facebook Allows Mastectomy Photos, Not Nudity

Facebook has clarified its mastectomy photo policy after petitions from The Scar Project and Change.org/David Jay.

Facebook announced today that it will allow photos of mastectomy scars after a New York woman posted a petition that garnered 20,000 signatures on Change.org.

“We have long allowed mastectomy photos to be shared on Facebook, as well as educational and scientific photos of the human body and photos of women breastfeeding,” Facebook said in a prepared statement. “We only review or remove photos after they have been reported to us by people who see the images in their News Feeds or otherwise discover them. On occasion, we may remove a photo showing mastectomy scarring either by mistake, as our teams review millions of pieces of content daily, or because a photo has violated our terms for other reasons. As a reminder, our terms stipulate that we generally do not allow nudity, with some exceptions as laid out above and here, consistent with other platforms that have many young users.”

Facebook’s new written policy was hailed by cancer survivors who were outraged that women were not able to share their photos to support others with the disease.

The new policy was established after Facebook had conversations with Scorchy Barrington, a woman struggling with stage IV breast cancer, and photographer David Jay, founder of the SCAR Project.

h/t – abcnews

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News

Zimmerman’s Dad: Blacks Are the Racists

In his new e-book, Robert Zimmerman Sr. blames black leaders for fanning racial flames. 

George Zimmerman at the fifth day of jury selection for his trial (pool/Getty Images)

(The Root) — With his son on trial for murder in the death of Florida teen Trayvon Martin, the father of George Zimmerman has published an e-book criticizing the case and calling some African-American leaders who called for his son’s arrest racists. Robert Zimmerman Sr.’s book, Florida v. Zimmerman: Uncovering the Malicious Prosecution of My Son, George, was released on Friday at Amazon.com for $3.99.

Zimmerman writes at length about his background and his family’s multiracial identity, seemingly to counter accusations that his son, a 29-year-old neighborhood-watch volunteer, was racially motivated to shoot the unarmed black 17-year-old last year. Zimmerman is white, and his wife is Hispanic.

h/t – theroot

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Health Healthcare

Symptoms of Migraines

 

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Health Healthcare

Woman Burned by Facial Warns of Spa Dangers

Daphne Carroll went a medspa to buy makeup but said she couldn’t refuse the free consultation for a laser facial. Little did she know that impulsive decision would change her life.

The consultation, which included a free laser treatment for a spider vein in her cheek, convinced Carroll to go for the full facial. But the 42-year-old said she awoke the next morning with second-degree burns to her face.

It was “the most horrible experience of my life,” said Carroll, who five years later still suffers from facial pain and twitching. She said she has seen 13 specialists, including a neurologist, dermatologist and even a plastic surgeon, all of whom agree that the damage is permanent.

 

h/t – abcnews

Categories
Food And Recipes

Father’s Day Fish BBQ

Happy Father’s Day!

And if your Dad is anything like mine was, the last thing he wants to do on his special day is to sleep-in, be served breakfast in bed, recieve gifts of love and be relieved of all household and childrearing responsibilities for the day. As opposed to my Mother, who expected all that, and deservedly so.
My Dad’s idea of a great Father’s Day? He’d be left undisturbed as he puttered around all day in the basement, the garage, and the back and front yards of our home to fix-up, breakdown, search for, find, lose again, analyze, build, paint, hammer and generally tinker around with all the myriad projects he simultaneously had going on in all these locations (he was Gemini, June 10th).
Dad would culminate Father’s Day with a delicious BBQ cookout in the back yard for the family. Before we’d know it, the smell of grilled food would come wafting through the house and we’d know it was that time!
His favorite things to grill were porgies and red snapper with a splash of beer. Here’s the recipe:
Ingredients:
2 lbs red snapper or porgies
4 limes, juiced
2 tbsp rub
2 tbsp vegetable oil
3 tbsp garlic powder
3 tbsp onion powder
1 tbsp black pepper
2 tbsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup of your favorite beer (Dad used Miller beer)
Preparation:
1. Ensure fish is clean, in a bowl, rub fish with lime juice.
2. Mix rub with oil and beer and rub over fish. As they say on the islands “You mus’ put he down overnight” which means it’s best if you marinate your fish overnight in the refrigerator. Alternatively, marinate for at least one hour.
3. Wrap fish in foil and grill over hot coals on the bbq for about 30 minutes, turning occasionally.
Weather not permitting, (although my Dad would just put up a pup tent and continued BBQ-ing while we watched patiently from the kitchen bay window) as an alternativel, preheat the oven to 190°C / 375°F / and roast the fish for approximately 45 minutes.
4. Enjoy with cool potatoe salad, fresh green salad, red beans and rice and corn on the cob.


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