In Step With The Instapundit

The first blog that I look at after I get the morning sports scores from ESPN is the Instapundit. This blog is one of the ten most highly trafficked blogs in the world, and it is easy to see why. Unlike myself, who like to ramble on and on about a topic that I really like, Glenn Reynolds (who is a law professor) gets right to the point. His writing style is a good one for the web, which emphasizes short and quick blurbs about the major issues of the day. I can usually get through his blog in about 15 minutes at a time. I usually refer back to it at least five times a day. But, I did not realize until the other day was that his wife Dr. Helen Smith blogs as well. But, she blogs about current events from a psychological perspective. It is hard to say which one I like the most, but they both have made me laugh as well as point me into the direction of the top issues of the day when I don't have time to consult the Washington Post for example. I can use their sites as a benchmark or summary of the issues and then use this information to search the other news-orientated sites for more coverage. It works rather well.

I don't know if there are any husband and wife teams that are prominent bloggers, but it sure looks like they both enjoy what they are doing immensely.

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Racial Discrimination Court Case Reviewed

The Supreme Court will order the 11th District Court of Appeals to reconsider its ruling that unwarranted racial ephitets were not a valid reason to sue a company, in this case Tyson Foods for racial discrimination. The two plaintiffs in the suit are long-time African-American employees who were denied a promotion from a white manager who had less experience (2 years) and basically treated the rest of the employees with content as well. The white manager called both employees "boy" alledgedly. I don't know what you have to do to prove racial discrimination in the workplace, but at the very least the white managercould have created a hostile environment with this comments. Hostile in the sense that it would leave the employees feeling as though that their manager's attitudes could lead to further problems such as diminished promotions and career opportunities, and limited upward mobility.

I have experienced discrimination first hand myself. At a previous job, I gave a training class on computer concepts to several co-workers and two managers. Afterwards, a white co-worker overheard the managers saying that "This N....... doesn't know what he is talking about". I was angry of course, but I had little recourse. If I confronted the manager what evidence could I present? I eventually decided to leave the company to find a more encouraging environment elsewhere.

Have you ever experienced this kind of problem up close? How did you handle it? What would you advise another co-worker to do if he felt discriminated against?

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Fluffy Resumes

I came across this item that sheds new light on resume-padding. Resume padding seems to be a commonplace practice. It simply is an act of embellishing dates and details of jobs to present a potential job candidate in the best possible light. Some industry experts believe that up to 40% of today's job applicants fluff their resumes in response to career pressure. People do it, even though that today's technology makes it easier to check references than ever before. There have been high-profile examples of this phenomenon:

• David Edmonson resigned as Radio Shack's chief executive when it was found that he had misrepresented his academic record.
• George Deutsch, a presidential appointee to NASA who claimed to have graduated from Texas A&M University, but had not.
• George O'Leary was forced to resign as the football coach at Notre Dame in 2001 when he falsely claimed that he received a master's degree at NYU. The ironic part is that he found another job as a football coach.

I don't know what causes people to do this, but I suppose that people may be afraid in these tough economic times that they would not be able to obtain a job unless their credentials are the highest. I figure that this must be the case, but why risk your integrity doing so? Or does integrity go out the window in the name of the almighty dollar?

In the case of the CEO of Radio Shack he caused a big problem in shareholder trust and loyalty by emblellishing his record. I do not see what you really gain by it.

As a matter of fact, there is a website that actually talks about the culture of cheating here.

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Information Junkie Meme of the Week

This week is the start of a weekly meme designed to stimulate your creative juices-

A new study published in the Archives of Internal Medicene suggests that being optimistic about life boosts overall physical health and lowers the risk of death from all causes.

1. Think about and name the top five things that you feel good about.

2. After naming the choices in question #1 tell me which are the most important in your every day life.

3. What are the distractions in your life that need to be eliminated in your life to have a more positive mindset?

To help others, kindly link to this post and write any observations in the comments section.

If you want your thoughts to be kept private, please e-mail me at btatumjr@gmail.com

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Watering Down Gifted and Talented Programs

I read today on both LaShawn Barber and Dr. Helen's blogs that there is an effort in Montgomery County Md. to attract more minority representation in gifted and talented elementary school programs by "dumbing" down the entrance requirements into these programs.

Some examples mentioned in the article were:

• Doing away with the "gifted and talented" label.
• Adding expanded honors programs at middle schools.
• Using "observational" testing instead of formal testing methods to identify worthy students.

School officals hope to attract a more diverse student population by doing so. This is questionable at best. It just leaves the definition of just what is a "gifted" program up to the politicians and educators who attempt to influence the direction of education in this country without really addressing the real issues surrounding their approach.

I have one suggestion to these people, the way that you can so this is by raising the standards for all students and make sure that they adhere to them. My daughter attends third grade just five minutes from our house in Philadelphia.In this school, all students from K-8 are required to pass not only the basic requirements of reading, writing, and math but also two foreign languages (French and Spanish). It is made clear to the parents that their child will not pass to the next grade until they have passed each class with I believe an 82 average or higher as well as passing scores on their standardized tests. To reinforce this, they are required to do homework every night, read 100 books by the end of the school year, and attend mandatory test preperation help before mandatory state assessment exams. In the summertime to reinforce the skills just learned and to prepare for the next grade, a summer packet of work is given. So in essense, the children have a lot to concentrate on during the school year, which is year-around. For this rigorous program (based on the International Baccaluareate ciriculum not commonly found in many American schools), parent participation is a must. The school informs you week by week what is expected from your child and if you chose to ignore it, it is the repsonsibility of the parent. There is a lottery and an interview process to get into the school, and they do not put up with any discipline problems primarily because the waiting list to get into the school is so high.

The higher expectations have resulted in higher test scores than on average in the city of Philadelphia.

From Pittsburgh Live:

Many advocates, for example, like charter schools because they believe
traditional schools are unresponsive to parents. Parents carry more clout at
charter schools because many were founded by parents.
But June Brown, founder and chief administrative officer of the
Laboratory Schools in Philadelphia, said parents are the main obstacle to
charter schools' success. Brown said parents routinely threaten to ask
the school district to shut down her school if she doesn't relax its
academic standards, homework requirements or dress code.
Brown stands her ground — her school was the best in the Trib study — but many charter school administrators cave in to parents, she said.
"The parents are the biggest challenge in this business.
They side with the children to the extent they chip away at the standards a
piece at a time," Brown said. But discipline at her school remains as firm
as it was in the school's past. The imposing stone building once served as a
Catholic school and convent. Now about 300 students in pale-blue and khaki
uniforms march to class in silence on polished wooden floors.

The school focuses on French and Spanish from kindergarten through the eighth grade. It was also recognized as a Blue Ribbon school from the Department of Education last year. Some of the graduates of the school have on to private and prep schools which is usually a ticket to an Ivy League education. I want to see that my child continues to go to this school because it does challenge her, and she is very excited about learning new things.

Technorati Tag: education

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MC Hammer Blog

MC Hammer has just started blogging here. You can't touch this!!

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Black History Month - Top Black Leaders

I just read, with interest the results of a AP poll that asked a slelect number of African-Americans to gauge who is the most important leader in the African-American community today. The results of the poll were quite interesting:

1. Jesse Jackson - 15%
2. Condoleeza Rice - 11%
3. Colon Powell - 8%
4. Barack Obama - 6%
5. Louis Farrakhan - 4%
6. Oprah Winfrey - 3%
7. Martin Luther King - 3% (deceased)
8. Al Sharpton - 2%

When you look at these results, you can not help but to come to a few quick assumptions:

• No one even came close to 25% of the vote
• There is still a wide range of opinion of who is really leading the black community today, in the absense of almost 40 years of a powerful, and forceful leader like Martin Luther King.
• There is really no one person that represents the African-American community at large.
• People chose personalities that they recognize on a daily basis.

The bigger question that I would ask would be whether the people that I just mentioned are actually "leading". My definition of a leader is someone through the depth and breath of their convictions has the courage to challenge the status quo and the mindset of the people that really want to follow you. I think all of these people lead in different ways. However, the one that I really think that tried his best to lead was Colon Powell. He tried to at least get President Bush to rethink his war strategy before he got muted by the rest of the administration. For his efforts, he resigned. He handled being ignored by Bush with grace. He always leaves a positive impression with me. It does not really matter if he is Republican or not.

I think that the real leaders of any community are the people who you do not see on television or hear on the radio. These are the fathers and mothers who help their children with their homework. The school crossing guards that watch out for your children as they are walking to school. The teachers that struggle to teach inner-city children who come fromn difficult circumstances and are paid very little for their efforts. There are the oridnary people who rely on the word of God to lead them, not a social program. I think that when you look around you there are leaders everywhere. You don't have to strain to find them. They may be sitting next to them on the bus going to work or eating in Duncan Donuts!

Technorati Tag: Black History Month, Current Events, News

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Affluent beggars’ an opportunity to examine ourselves

A local pastor in Ashland, Oregon suggests that we should all examine our motives when we criticize the affluent beggars that gained national publicity in his own city for feeding their family through panhandling. He suggests that we middle-class people may not be as better off than Jason Pancoast and Elizabeth Johnson as we think.

Technorati tag: news , Current Events, social issues

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Black History Month 2006 - More Population Facts

The projected single-race black population of the United States is projected to be 61.4 million on July 1, 2050. On that date, according to the projection, African Americans would constitute 15 percent of the nation’s total population.

Technorati Tag: Black History

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Black History Month 2006 - Population Facts

The Census Bureau reported in 2004 that the estimated population of black residents was 39.2 million, including those of more than one race. They cuurently make up 13.4 percent of the total U.S. population.

Technorati tag: Black History

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Black History Month -The tumult that shaped a hero

This item in the Christian Science monitor is a review of the final chapter in Taylor Branch's three part account of the rise of Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement. This book, which I am planning to buy soon, is a detailed account of King's final years as the head of the civil rights movement. It outlines just how difficult a task it was to define and create a movement, which I feel was the most significant event in American history. This is a must read. If you get the book before I do, tell me what I should focus on.

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ABC News: Black History Month: Does It Fuel Racism?

In this item from ABC News, the question is asked whether Black History month fuels racism or not. I think what it really does is to continue the debate on whether it is relevant or not to today's youth. I observe many youths in my neighborhood that know more of the history of hip-hop that the history of the Civil Rights movement. I think that it is a result of a de-emphasis of the past, which a lot of people still do not understnd why people made a tremendous amount of sacrifies ans struggles for the next generation. I don't have a real answer for this, do you?

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The Affluent Beggar Responds

Tonight, as I normally do at least once a day is to check my user stats and check for any comments to respond to. I was surprised to find that Jason Pancoast who was one of the subjects of my post on the problems that "affluent" beggars cause in ordinary communities like mine actually commented back to me. This is amazing to me, because as a beginning blogger I did not anticipate hearing from the subject of my post. Obviously the attention that he is getting for his panhandling has struck a nerve with him, as his comments here suggest:

pLEASE HOW DARE YOU suggest that my family and I are criminals. We commandeer resources from the public at large by conveying a coherent comprehensive message concerning our plight. We in no way break any LAW.You owe an apology to my beloved and our children.Honor be thy butter.

I am not sure if he has tried to contact any other members of the print and news media, but as a blogger who is sitting up at home with a ceiling that I have to fix, and a burned out light in my bathroom, I would like to offer some clarification and encouragement to Jason and his family.

The intent of my post was to just let you know Jason that I was not trying to pass judgment on what you are doing. I just want to make you aware that the average working person who is mindful of the struggles that they face in keeping their job and providing food, clothing, and shelter for his family may not react well to you. One of of the comments that was on my post called you a criminal and a thief for taking advantage of people daily who do not really know what your situation. I am merely concerned that your children are growing up in a situation that is unstable. Children, no matter how spoiled rotten they are, tend to function and develop a little better when they know that their emotional and physical needs are being taken care of. When they get older, you will have to explain to them that they had to live on the streets because Mommy and Daddy could not sustain a working class income no matter how hard they tried. But, how will they know how to handle adversity if you don't teach them or if you are not able to find someone to teach them?

Jason, I just want you and your family to go get the help that you need so that your children can grow up in a happy, healthy, and stable environment. They deserve it. And most importantly, the divine power of God can help you deal with the hurt and pain in your life if you trust that he can help.

For all of you that are reading this post what would you suggest that they to to help themselves? Don't think that you could never be in this position. The ups and downs of life could put you in a situation even worse than this. If you were in this situation, how would you respond?

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