Mitt Romney participated in an education roundtable with teachers in Philadelphia, and he suggested that class size doesn’t make a difference in student performance. Several teachers proceeded to tell Romney he was dead wrong.
Side note: Romney’s education policy advisor, Rob Page, referred to the National Education Association as a “terrorist organization”.
350.org declared 5/5/2012 Climate Impacts Day, and people all over the world held events to show that they are “connecting the dots” about the consequences of climate change.
I find this video frustrating. They have footage of people holding demonstrations all over the world, but did this day of action really raise public awareness? I didn’t know that May 5th was Climate Impacts Day until 350.org sent me an email with this video about the event.
Media coverage for the event was not national - I didn’t see anything on NYT, HuffPost, or Politico (my daily news sources). Not to be pessimistic, but I don’t have a lot of respect for these types of demonstrations. Protests in general have a minimal impact. The Youtube video only had 1,254 views at the time I watched it - for a well-known organization like 350.org, that is far from viral.
CIA denied Sen. Bill Nelson his request to be waterboarded
Wow. Apparently during the controversy over the CIA’s use of waterboarding, Senator Nelson requested that he be waterboarded, to fully understand the experience. According to a book by former CIA official Jose Rodriguez (Hard Measures - How Aggressive CIA Actions After 9/11 Saved American Lives), the agency denied Nelson’s request.
“The agency decided that it would not be wise to accommodate the senator’s thirst for knowledge,” Rodriguez writes. And while Nelson, known for liking to do his homework, “appeared to be in great shape,” he was in his mid-60s at the time.
“Even though we would have had medical personnel standing by, we wondered what would happen” if Nelson had a heart attack and died from the unpleasantness.
Funny how Rodriguez insists that waterboarding is not torture, but refuses to allow a U.S. Senator to experience the treatment. The former official describes the procedure as “harsh and unpleasant.”
This is a good reminder of how awesome Senator Nelson is. As much as I love politics, I feel more and more jaded about the intentions of politicians. But Bill Nelson is someone who I trust to do the right thing, and someone who has the best interests of the American people in mind.
[Source: Washington Post]
Florida does poorly on Senior Hunger Report Card
Florida:
Florida scored poorly on the first Senior Hunger Report Card conducted by the Meals on Wheels Research Foundation.
The just-released study placed Florida at No. 9 among the 10 states with the highest percentage of those 60 and older facing the threat of hunger or “food insecurity.”
Florida joins Mississippi, at No. 1, and five other Southern states on the list. Especially vulnerable among the estimated 8.3 million seniors at risk nationwide: senior women.
Nationwide:
The Senior Hunger Report Card also scored America as a whole, giving the nation an F in overall progress due to a 78 percent increase since 2001 in at-risk seniors.
“No one in this, the richest nation on Earth, should face the threat of hunger, no one,” said Enid Borden, the research foundation’s executive officer.
[Source: Florida Today]
Really, the headline says it all.
Reason #4524756823 why Rick Scott is a heartless governor:
Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) shocked the Florida Council Against Sexual Violence this week when he vetoed $1.5 million in funding for 30 rape crisis centers in the middle of Sexual Assault Awareness Month. State lawmakers allotted the money to offset an increase in need and a lack of sufficient funding for victim services.
So, what’s going on at Dartmouth?
The Exposé
I recently read the Rolling Stone exposé of Dartmouth’s greek system, made possible by alum Andrew Lohse. Lohse joined a fraternity (SAE) his sophomore year, and spent some time living up to all of those horrible frat boy stereotypes: drinking, more drinking, sex, drugs, being hazed, then hazing others, etc. When he was caught snorting coke and forced to take a year off school, Lohse decided he wanted to do something to stop the abusive hazing practices and other unhealthy norms of the Dartmouth greek system.
He spoke with members of the school’s administration, which evidently resulted in a few of his own brothers getting busted, but no overarching reforms. Lohse may end up being the only student who is punished as a result of the investigation, since he is the one who initially confessed. (I have to say, that is poor sportsmanship on the administration’s part.)
—John Timoney, former Miami police chief, in a NY Times op-ed on the stand your ground law that has allowed Trayvon Martin’s killer to walk free.
The Florida law passed in 2005 and was opposed by many police chiefs at the time. It establishes two doctrines: “your home is your castle”, allowing individuals the absolute right to defend their homes without legal consequences; and “stand your ground”, giving citizens the right to use force in public if they feel threatened.
This was an interesting, enjoyable piece by Frank Bruni.
Bruni reconnects with a man he knew vaguely in college. What a great reminder that people can always, always change - often for the better.
He shared a story about one of the loudest abortion foes he ever encountered, a woman who stood year in and year out on a ladder, so that her head would be above other protesters’ as she shouted “murderer” at him and other doctors and “whore” at every woman who walked into the clinic.
One day she was missing. “I thought, ‘I hope she’s O.K.,’ ” he recalled. He walked into an examining room to find her there. She needed an abortion and had come to him because, she explained, he was a familiar face. After the procedure, she assured him she wasn’t like all those other women: loose, unprincipled.
She told him: “I don’t have the money for a baby right now. And my relationship isn’t where it should be.”
“Nothing like life,” he responded, “to teach you a little more.”
Interesting analysis on Poynter of the language used to share information on Twitter, especially by individuals who are not members of the press.
As media technologies are widely adopted, so too is the related terminology. It’s a logical progression, but it’s also a source of confusion. That was the case during last year’s Arab Spring. NPR senior strategist and famed Arab Spring tweeter Andy Carvin raised this point when I asked what makes him suspicious of a tweet. For him, the adoption of journalistic terms (or cliches) by a non-journalist can be a red flag.
Just as journalists are being pushed to engage more with the public and work collaboratively, citizens are being pulled towards our sphere as they engage and adopt tools and technologies that offer them the ability to report and share news.
The forces pushing and pulling us together naturally cause us each to adopt from one other. But the public’s understanding of these terms can be different from a journalist’s understanding of them. What we need is a shared vocabulary that can create better understanding and imbue short messages such as tweets with more clarity.
