Category Archives: Education

January 6, 2011 · 8:06 am

Aisle Not: Why One Woman Quit Grocery Stores for a Year | TakePart – Inspiration to Action

I would love to be able to get to this point…

I hate the professional Food Industry almost as much as the Pharmaceutical Industry….

Both have greatly contributed to the unhealthy, over-weight lifestyle so many Americans now lead…

If you haven’t seen “Food, Inc”, buy it or put it on your NetFlix list today.  It’s a real eye-opener.

One year ago, Carla Crownover kissed grocery stores goodbye.

She had just seen Food, Inc., Participant Media’s documentary on the seedy underbelly of the food industry, and she wanted nothing to do with the conventional food system that feeds the majority of Americans.

She pledged to abstain from grocery stores for 365 days and to go on a quest to find out where all the food she eats comes from. The end result? “I’ve learned a lot,” she told readers on her blog, Austin Urban Gardens.

TakePart caught up with Crownover recently, fresh after her one-year mark, to learn more about what it’s like to live off the food grid.

Prior to seeing Food, Inc., Crownover was already a conscientious eater. “I shopped the perimeter of the grocery store and didn’t buy many products in boxes or cans. I didn’t want to eat anything that had been manipulated to cook faster, or be ‘instant,'” she explains. “I had dropped diet sodas from my diet a couple years ago, and was leery of foods manipulated to have a long shelf life.”

When she sought out more information from Food, Inc., the film shocked her.

“Everything about factory farming [in the film] disgusted me. The feedlots packed full of animals standing in their own waste bothered me on several levels. I like to eat beef, but I don’t want the animal to have to live a horrible and unhealthy life so that I can have a steak.”

She saw genetically engineered chickens in the film that were too big to stand and never saw the light of day. “The chickens I get now from a local farm are free range up until their last moment,” she says. “The farmer once told me, ‘We like to believe they only have one bad day.’ And I loved that.”

via Aisle Not: Why One Woman Quit Grocery Stores for a Year | TakePart – Inspiration to Action.

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Filed under Education, Food, Health Care, Pets, Politics, Social Commentary, The Economy, The Environment

January 3, 2011 · 9:57 pm

Virginia Delegate David Englin Proposes Legislation To Fix School Textbooks

I’m glad to see someone is doing something about this…

And notice he’s a Democrat.

Republican’s don’t want well-educated voters, so they don’t support the public education system.  I’ll bet this was vetted and approved by Republican School Board reviewers…

It’s too hard to mislead the educated voters….

After one textbook’s inaccuracies garnered significant media attention in October, Virginia Delegate David Englin (D-Alexandria) is proposing legislation to get school primers properly proofed.

The Washington Post reported that Englin’s bill would hold publishers accountable and require them to prove review of textbooks by subject-area specialists. He said the state of public education is at stake.

“As a legislator and a parent, I was shocked and appalled to learn that Virginia social studies textbooks had such egregious factual inaccuracies. As parents, the bare minimum we expect from textbooks is that the facts are correct.”

“Our Virginia: Past and Present,” published by Five Ponds Press, was released during the fall to thousands of Virginian students. Although vetted by textbook review committees, it included a variety of errors, from wrong dates to misspellings.

One section of the textbook tells students that thousands of African Americans fought as confederate soldiers during the Civil War, a statistic that is not validated by mainstream historians.

Carol Sheriff, a professor at William & Mary, told CNN that the mistakes weren’t just inaccurate, but irresponsible.

“It is the equivalent of holocaust denial being taught in public schools but worse. It’s also equivalent to saying the Jews helped the Holocaust.”

via Virginia Delegate David Englin Proposes Legislation To Fix School Textbooks.

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Filed under Books, Education, Politics

January 1, 2011 · 2:37 pm

Colin Goddard, Virginia Tech Shooting Survivor, Fights to Tighten Gun Laws

This is relates to a Documentary “Living for 32” about one of the survivors of the Va Tech massacre and his journey to being a gun control advocate.

I want to see this…

WASHINGTON — Surviving the deadliest shooting massacre in U.S. history wasn’t enough to make Colin Goddard an advocate for stricter gun laws. Only when he watched another rampage play out on TV two years later did the Virginia Tech graduate realize he had to speak out.

“That took me back to the day like none other,” Goddard said of another troubled gunman who killed 14 at an immigration center in Binghamton, N.Y. “I was watching the body count rise and I was like, this is just the same stuff that is happening to another family now. … I was like, I’ve got to get involved. I’ve got to do something about this.”

What Goddard did was join the nation’s largest gun-control organization, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. At first, he made public-service spots, speaking for the 32 people slain by a deranged gunman on the campus of Virginia Tech. But he also spoke for the 32 people killed every day in gun violence, people whose deaths don’t conjure a million hits on Google.

Living for 32

Colin Goddard was shot four times during the Virginia Tech rampage but survived. Now, he’s working to tighten a loophole in the gun laws.

“Virginia Tech happening every single day is pretty powerful,” said Goddard, one of 17 wounded people to survive the massacre. He was shot four times and still carries bullet fragments in his hips and knee.

Maria Cuomo Cole and Kevin Breslin agreed. With her money and encouragement and his direction, the two scions of New York royalty — she’s the daughter and sister of two governors and the wife of fashion designer Kenneth Cole, he’s the son of legendary journalist Jimmy Breslin — convinced Goddard to let them tell the story of what happened on April 16, 2007.

The result is “Living for 32.”

via Colin Goddard, Virginia Tech Shooting Survivor, Fights to Tighten Gun Laws.

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Filed under Education, Media, Politics, Social Commentary, Virginia

December 29, 2010 · 10:34 pm

Some Va. history texts filled with errors, review finds

It’s even more scary that even a Hampden-Sydney professor was able to recognize this…

I am a W&L Man….

In the version of history being taught in some Virginia classrooms, New Orleans began the 1800s as a bustling U.S. harbor (instead of as a Spanish colonial one). The Confederacy included 12 states (instead of 11). And the United States entered World War I in 1916 (instead of in 1917).

These are among the dozens of errors historians have found since Virginia officials ordered a review of textbooks by Five Ponds Press, the publisher responsible for a controversial claim that African American soldiers fought for the South in large numbers during the Civil War.

“Our Virginia: Past and Present,” the textbook including that claim, has many other inaccuracies, according to historians who reviewed it. Similar problems, historians said, were found in another book by Five Ponds Press, “Our America: To 1865.” A reviewer has found errors in social studies textbooks by other publishers as well, underscoring the limits of a textbook-approval process once regarded as among the nation’s most stringent.

“I absolutely could not believe the number of mistakes – wrong dates and wrong facts everywhere. How in the world did these books get approved?” said Ronald Heinemann, a former history professor at Hampden-Sydney College. He reviewed “Our Virginia: Past and Present.”

More:   Some Va. history texts filled with errors, review finds.

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Filed under Books, Education, History, Politics, The South, Virginia

December 23, 2010 · 11:06 am

Twenty-Something Turmoil: A Tale of Unemployment From a Would-be Young Professional

Great blog post from a Millennial.  Hat tip to Dailykos …

I encourage you to click-through on the link to read the entire post….

Twenty-somethings with a sense of entitlement, high expectations, and a stalled economy have to learn to become entrepreneurial. But how?

Being jobless in the Great Recession is about much more than making ends meet. While we struggle to pay every bill, we — the freshly minted unemployed — carry around psyches that have come undone in ways that we never expected. I should know. I am in my twenties. Educated. Hard-working. Intellectually proactive. And unable to find a job.

I often find solace playing the blame game: If it weren’t for those baby boomers and their Great Society, I never would have been convinced that if I did everything I was supposed to do in life and played by (most of) the rules, one day I would be successful — or at least employed. In high school, I woke up early, did my homework, studied for exams and participated in extracurriculars I wasn’t always very good at, following a grueling schedule that was exhausting and not always rewarding. I remember justifying my heavy schedule because I wanted to get into a good college. I enjoyed college, but I still worked hard and did plenty of things I didn’t want to because in the back of my mind lingered the self-righteous idea that someone like me would naturally be rewarded with a good job.

But here I am, three years after graduation, and it seems that I was wrong.

MORE:   Twenty-Something Turmoil: A Tale of Unemployment From a Would-be Young Professional » New Deal 2.0.

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Filed under Education, History, Politics, Social Commentary, The Economy

December 22, 2010 · 9:06 am

23 Percent Can’t Pass Military Exam, 75 Percent Fail Other Criteria

This tells you a lot about how bad our educational, food and fitness issues have become…

MIAMI -Nearly one-fourth of the students who try to join the military fail its entrance exam, painting a grim picture of an education system that produces graduates who can’t answer basic math, science and reading questions.

The report by The Education Trust found that 23 percent of recent high school graduates don’t get the minimum score needed on the enlistment test to join any branch of the military. The study, released exclusively to The Associated Press on Tuesday, comes on top of Pentagon data that shows 75 percent of those aged 17 to 24 don’t qualify for the military because they are physically unfit, have a criminal record or didn’t graduate high school.

“Too many of our high school students are not graduating ready to begin college or a career — and many are not eligible to serve in our armed forces,” U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan told the AP. “I am deeply troubled by the national security burden created by America’s underperforming education system.”

More:   APNewsBreak: 23 percent can’t pass military exam.

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Filed under Education, Religion, Social Commentary

December 21, 2010 · 10:10 pm

Daily Kos: House GOP targets student aid for spending cuts

Scary….

Remember, the GOP doesn’t want a well-educated electorate.  Well-educated, well-informed voters don’t vote for Republicans unless they are rich and self-centered…

And if people were working and therefore paying taxes, if we weren’t fighting two wars and if the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy had not been extended, deficits wouldn’t be an issue….

From DailyKos.com….

As I noted earlier, House Republicans have pledged to cut spending by twenty percent in the coming year, but at least up until now they’ve refused to identify any specific budget cuts.

Well, now that appears to be changing. In addition to blocking any funding for implementing new regulations on Wall Street, House Republicans are arguing that funding for Pell Grants should be cut in the continuing resolution which will fund government until next March.

Democrats did see fit to use the CR to address an important and pressing problem: covering the $5.7 billion shortfall in the Pell Grant program (which provides college tuition funding to low- and moderate-income students). Due to unexpected demand in the wake of the Great Recession, the program needed a funding fix to prevent grant cuts in 2011. Some House Republicans, however, are displeased that the extra funding was included:

House Appropriations Committee ranking member Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) decried the inclusion of $5.7 billion for the Pell Grant program, which will incur a shortage without additional funding, calling it “a perennial priority of the House Democrat leadership and Appropriations Committee Chairman [David] Obey [D-Wis.]“…The “Democrat majority will cap off the year with yet another massive spending bill that will force our nation into further deficits and debt,” Lewis said in a statement.

Incoming House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-KY) emphasized that he intends to cut all federal discretionary spending back to the 2008 level, which would entail significant Pell Grant reductions. Simply allowing the shortfall to persist would reduce grants for 9 million students, with the maximum grant cut by $845.

Because Democrats still control the House, the GOP objections are mostly hot air, but they do serve as a window into what sorts of programs Republicans will try to cut when they take over the House next year. The only question is whether Democrats — in particular, the administration — will fight the GOP on these draconian cuts, or whether they’ll enable the GOP’s unwise austerity program.

via Daily Kos: House GOP targets student aid for spending cuts.

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Filed under Education, Politics, The Economy

December 19, 2010 · 11:21 am

Christmas Quote of the Day

My partner Steve posted this Stephen Colbert quote on FaceBook.

I hope all the Republicans- especially the Religious Right ones- read this and take time to think about it.

But that’s probably a hopeless dream.  If they thought about things, they wouldn’t be Republicans.

From Stephen Colbert via Steve Willis:

Thoughtful quote of the day–and particularly good for this time of year:

“If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn’t help the poor, either we’ve got to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are or we’ve got to acknowledge that he commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition.

And then admit that we just don’t want to do it.”       Stephen Colbert

I hope this quote goes viral on FaceBook….

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Filed under Education, Health Care, Holidays, Politics, Religion, Social Commentary

December 16, 2010 · 7:59 pm

Blogger’s year of mystery meat: School lunch every day – TODAY Health – TODAYshow.com

This stuff makes airline food sound good…

And kids have to eat this mess every day?

Blame it on the bagel dog.

If not for that sad excuse for an entree, the blogger known as Mrs. Q might never have gotten so disgusted with school lunches that she decided to show the world how bad they are. She never would have eaten, photographed and blogged about 160 elementary-school lunches — one per school day for the past year. She never would have attracted the attention of celebrity chef Jamie Oliver and food activist Marian Nestle.

And Mrs. Q (who hides her identity to protect her job) might have gone on thinking that school lunch is “just food.” Instead, she told TODAYshow.com, “I have learned that food is personal, food is life, food is health.”

She has eaten more Salisbury steak and chicken nuggets than any adult should have to endure — and chronicled the culinary highs and lows on her blog, Fed Up With School Lunch. Her experience has pushed her into the spotlight, made her an activist, and totally transformed the way her family eats.

The fatal bagel dog

But back to that bagel dog: Mrs. Q, who works at a Chicago-area public school, forgot her lunch one day, so she bought the bagel dog at the cafeteria. She figured: How bad can it be?

Turns out: Really bad.

“It was this massive amount of dough covering a hot dog, plus tater tots and a fruit cup. And I thought, ‘This is it?’ ” Mrs. Q recalled.

She looked at her students, most of whom rely on government-subsidized free lunches at school. The bagel dog that turned her stomach would be, for many, the best meal of their day.

More:   Blogger’s year of mystery meat: School lunch every day – TODAY Health – TODAYshow.com.

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Filed under Education, Food, Health Care, Social Commentary

December 15, 2010 · 11:26 am

What Progressives Don’t Understand About Obama – NYTimes.com

Thanks, to my friend Kirk, for forwarding this on to me.  This is very thought provoking to me…

Here is an excerpt and link to full article:

What the progressives forget is that black intellectuals have been called “paranoid,” “bitter,” “rowdy,” “angry,” “bullies,” and accused of tirades and diatribes for more than 100 years. Very few of them would have been given a grade above D from most of my teachers.

When these progressives refer to themselves as Mr. Obama’s base, all they see is themselves. They ignore polls showing steadfast support for the president among blacks and Latinos. And now they are whispering about a primary challenge against the president. Brilliant! The kind of suicidal gesture that destroyed Jimmy Carter — and a way to lose the black vote forever.

Unlike white progressives, blacks and Latinos are not used to getting it all. They know how it feels to be unemployed and unable to buy your children Christmas presents. They know when not to shout. The president, the coolest man in the room, who worked among the unemployed in Chicago, knows too.

via What Progressives Don’t Understand About Obama – NYTimes.com.

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