FERGUSON, Mo. — Michael Brown became so angry when he was stopped by Officer Darren Wilson on Canfield Drive here on Aug. 9, his face looked “like a demon,’’ the officer would later tell a grand jury.
via Ferguson Grand Jury Faced Mass of Evidence, Much of it Conflicting.
To read this article in the New York Times click on the title immediately above.
Politics can be extremely frustrating but we must all partake of this bitter-sweet potion if we are truly to be a part of our great democracy. It is hard to look at sometimes, as we all offer our own special ingredients, while the master chef blends the mixture and continuously stirs the pot. Blah, it tastes terrible! The chef continues to stir and blend, adjust the temperature – add a little more conservative spices, a bit more liberal spices and a pinch of independent spices before finally; bam! The porridge is ready. It’s time for a taste test. Hey, not too bad!
To some it is tasty, to others it is okay, and there will always be some who find it to simply be edible. Odds are that no one will find it to be delicious. Despite which category you are in, you will find solace in knowing that you contributed added-value to the final product. The only reason why it is not delicious is because the chef neither used all of your special ingredients nor did they include them in the amount that you specified. You can take comfort in knowing that had you provided no ingredients at all it might not even be edible; and you would be left to either starve or be force-fed until your next opportunity to participate in the porridge preparation.
Okay, maybe it is a pretty dubious analogy but most likely you got the point. We may find many things distasteful about our democratic process but it is what it is. Obviously a democracy is messy but it cannot function properly and efficiently without all eligible voters being responsible and regularly voting. Just because there is a lot of squabbling going on among our politicians in Washington doesn’t mean we should shirk our responsibility as voters. As a matter of fact, it should make us even more determined to make sure to put people in office who are going to do their very best to represent us and look out for our best interest while looking out for the overall best interest of our country.
Keep these things in mind as we move toward the 2016 elections. I mentioned in an earlier post that the damage has already been done – or the repair has already been made depending on whether your color preference is red or blue. Regardless of that preference, the real issue is that we not allow politicians to flaunt the fact that they believe that the majority of voters are uninformed and can be constantly used as pawns to further their political ambitions. We must always vote and show them that we will hold them to account.
In the meantime, following this post are links to articles that you can read to help bring you up to speed on some of the most recent political talk.
I have heard talk from politicians and pundits for many years now about how the electorate needs to be motivated to get out and vote in the presidential and midterm elections. I’ll bet that many of you have heard those comments too. They say things like; voters did not go to the polls because there were no major candidates or issues on the ballot, many voters feel like ‘my vote won’t matter anyway’ and so do not bother to vote, voters are completely frustrated with what is happening – or not happening – in Washington so they protested by just staying at home, the Democrats/Republicans did not do the things they needed to do to motivate their base to get out and vote, and the list goes on.
Are they serious? Whether or not you are a sports fan I’ll bet that at some time in your life you have heard someone say things about their favorite professional sports teams like; those guys are paid a lot of money – the coach shouldn’t have to motivate them to play hard and give it their all during games, in order to overcome your ___________ (you fill in the blank) problem you have to want to overcome it; without that, all of the encouragement and prodding from support groups will be meaningless.
And how many of us as parents have at some point said things to our children like; if you want to be the best at something, you have to be willing to work to achieve it? Or, even made less lofty statements like; if you want to be a ___________ (again, you fill in the blank) you have to believe in yourself and continue to work toward that goal no matter what others might say to try to discourage you.
All of these things are about motivation with the key being self-motivation. My point is that you hold the key and not someone else. Others can help to motivate us by encouraging us, they can try to dilute our personal motivation by discouraging us, or at worst – we can lack the quality of self-motivation and fail to even try to achieve anything unless we are pushed to do so by some outside force.
Whether we are Democrats, Republicans or Independents, the right to vote was not just handed to some of us. Instead, it was achieved through hard-fought battles by our predecessors some of whom even died during this struggle. To treat the right to vote as if it is something shallow and meaningless by failing to regularly vote unless we are constantly prodded to do so by politicians and pundits during election cycles is shameful.
I was in the neighborhood barbershop the other day waiting to get my hair cut. While I was browsing through a magazine waiting for my turn in the chair, I heard a familiar voice on MSNBC talking about the posturing that was continuing between President Obama and the congress.
I was sitting in the young section of the shop. I call it that because that is the section where it seems that all of the young people – and me – get our hair cut. This young barber has been cutting my hair for a long time now and I must think highly of him because he always leaves this bald spot in the top of my head near the back but I keep going back to him anyway. He says that it’s a function of my age but I’m not so sure about that; I think maybe it’s a slip of the clippers. Anyway…
The TV in the young section was not on the same channel as the one in the other section so I moved to that section so that I could better hear and see what the commentator was saying about the president and the congress. It just so happened that there was a young man sitting in this section and he was talking to another waiting customer about his job in one of the local schools.
Living Between the Line Book Video
He talked about some of the challenges that he faced while growing up and the challenges of interacting with some of these young people. He talked with such passion that I stopped listening to MSNBC and began listening to him. He said that those who were educating and guiding these young people needed to work more diligently to better understand them so they could be more effective at mentoring them.
When the person that he was talking to was called for his turn in the chair of the young barber that always leaves the bald spot in my head, I struck up a conversation with this young man. By the time that I was called for my haircut, I had thoroughly vetted him and was convinced that he really cared about the young people at his school and wanted to see them become responsible citizens in their communities.
During the course of our conversation – and my uninvited listening excursion into the conversation between him and the other waiting customer, he talked about the importance of these young students being held to account for their actions, being eligible and responsible voters and being able to effectively communicate and resolve issues without resorting to violence. And on the occasions when violence did occur, being able to effectively communicate with one another after the fact in order to avoid any further violence.
By the time that I left the barbershop I couldn’t stop thinking about how refreshing it was to hear this young man talking about caring for and mentoring these young people rather than about how unpolished and prone to violence they were. I hope that all of the school districts will strive to hire more young men and women like him.
No matter our political affiliation, it is important that each of us do our part to assure that our school district has programs in place that will help assure the hiring, training and retention of competent, proactive, fair-minded educators. To do this we must place people with those qualities on our school boards. In order to do that, we must vote them in. So remember to value the franchise and always vote; not just in presidential elections.
Eulus Dennis
I never was a real Hickenlooper supporter but my sister was from day one. She loved the quirky commercials he did, especially the one where he rode the little scooter. I think that it was called a Vespa. Anyway, she really liked that particular commercial and she was one of his biggest fans. She was always trying to convince me of what a great governor he would be because he didn’t fit the regular politician mold: he was his own man, she said.
After all of this time I have finally come to agree with her. Why now? Because I followed his 2014 midterm election campaign closely and listened intently to all of the rhetoric that surrounded it. The Republicans were doing everything within their power to force him to resort to negative ads against his opponent. He refused to take the bait.
When he continued to run on his record and avoid the negative advertising despite all of the pressure that the Republicans were applying, they made their own add that said he was lying when he said he would not run negative ads. I can’t remember for sure but I think they showed excerpts from the Bob Beauprez ad where he sold a bank that he owned in Colorado and it later failed and taxpayers had to foot the bill. The point was that this was a negative ad and the implication was that Governor Hickenlooper was responsible for it.
As it turned out, the race was really tight. I can imagine that key members of his own campaign staff were pushing him to go negative, but Hick – I read somewhere that this was an affectionate name used to refer to him by some of his closest allies, so no disrespect intended – stuck to his decision. If I’m right in my assumption about members of his staff pushing him to go negative, they must have been going crazy and pulling their hair out by the time that the final numbers for each candidate were tallied. But all of them must have made it through okay because I didn’t see any bald staffers, at least none who had hair just before things really got tight during the race, accompanying him at his victory press conference.
Okay, I admit that I drifted when I started to have fun with this article and strayed from my initial point, which was that I never was a real Hickenlooper supporter. So permit me to get back to that point. As I watched his campaign progress through until the end and he never ran any negative ads but talked about Colorado and his record the entire time, I found that very refreshing.
Although I voted for Governor Hickenlooper in the previous election it wasn’t with the same gusto that I now feel. I’m a real Hickenlooper fan just like my sister was. So, Congratulations, Governor! More politicians should be like you!
Eulus Dennis
FARGO, N.D.—On Tuesday, voters here will decide the fate of a proposed amendment to the state constitution that has provoked excitement and fear among combatants in the country’s never-ending abortion wars.
The ballot initiative known as Measure 1—which would enshrine “the inalienable right to life of every human being at any stage of development”—has attracted millions of dollars in contributions, as well as the involvement of one of the nation’s best-known conservative strategists.
From the start, Measure 1 was aimed squarely at ending abortion. “I’m hoping it will be a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade,” the amendment’s chief sponsor in the North Dakota legislature declared last year. Leaders of the burgeoning personhood movement—who believe that establishing legal rights for the unborn is the key to overturning that 1973 decision and ending the right to abortion—have made Measure 1’s passage a national priority.
via North Dakota’s Personhood Vote Could Affect More Than Abortion – The Atlantic.
U.S. congressmen always tell us that they are looking out for our best interest and the overall best interest of the state that they represent. Some of the things that are happening as we near the midterm elections probably make many of us question their sincerity.
The race for Governorships and Senate seats is tight in a number of states around the country and some politicians are starting to let us see them sweat; not intentionally, of course. But under the circumstances they have not been able to disguise those unidentified droplets on their brows and neither have they been able to use the normal smoke and mirrors routine to distract us. They are too busy fighting for their political life!
Things have become so hot that some of them are resorting to tactics that they only use in emergency situations. A good example of this is what is happening in Kentucky in the race between Republican Senator Mitch McConnell and Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes. According to a report by Jason Easley in Politicus USA, Grimes – who is the current Kentucky Secretary of State, “is calling for a federal investigation into voter intimidation tactics that are being used by Sen. Mitch McConnell in Kentucky.” Stay tuned.
Eulus Dennis
Eric Kennie is a Texan. He is as Texan as the yucca plants growing outside his house. So Texan that he has never, in his 45 years, travelled outside the state. In fact, he has never even left his native city of Austin. “No sir, not one day. I was born and raised here, only place I know is Austin.”
You might think that more than qualifies Kennie as a citizen of the Lone Star state, entitling him to its most basic rights such as the ability to vote. Not so, according to the state of Texas and its Republican political leadership. On 4 November, when America goes to the polls in the midterm elections, for the first time in his adult life Eric Kennie will not be allowed to participate.
via ‘Born and raised’ Texans forced to prove identities under new voter ID law | US news | The Guardian.
While it is true that for many years Denver Public Schools (DPS) forced schools to accept tenured teachers who would have otherwise been let go, to simply flip the script and call that change is unacceptable. In other words, to fire teachers for reasons other than their inability to meet legitimate teaching standards is unfair to those teachers. It is not only unfair, but it is illegal. Putting a law into place, like Senate Bill 191, that allows DPS to shirk its responsibility to address the real problem and make real change is ludicrous.
There is no doubt that Senate Bill 191 allows the district to avoid paying the salaries of unwanted teachers; however, the questions that need to be answered are who is it that does not want them and
why is it that they don’t want them. All stakeholders want DPS children to receive a top quality education because it would be in the best interest of all of them.
It seems that it would be easy for DPS to do the right thing and base its decisions to either retain or release teachers primarily on their ability to teach and motivate their students to learn. Though the answer to what for many years has been referred to by DPS as “The dance of the lemons” would appear to be simple, it is not. Politics and money, not necessarily in that order, have long played a major role in DPS’s decisions.
The Race to the Top (RTTT) provides a good example of how both politics and money can impact on school districts’ decision making. One of the requirements of RTTT is that the applicant schools must be able to show “measureable results,” which too many DPS leaders interpret solely as high standardized test scores. When students do not perform well on tests this is not empirical data that confirms that they have not received quality instruction.
The preponderance of DPS teachers love what they are doing, love their students, and are doing a great job of educating our children. There are some, like in all professions, who do not meet standards that must be let go; but they should be let go for all the right reasons. Those who are let go, for whatever reason, reserve the right to be represented by their union and given due process.
To blame the teachers’ union for carrying out its lawful fiduciary responsibilities to its members and attack it and an arbitrator for their dissent on Senate Bill 191 does not make sense. Instead, it smacks of the attacks on public and private sector unions that legislatures in states like Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin, are pushing. With the situation that DPS is in now and knowing that the futures of Denver’s children are at stake, this is not the time to play politics, posture and pursue a partisan ideology agenda.
The fact that I believe that RTTT provides a good example of how both politics and money can impact on school districts’ decision making does not mean that I also believe that it is a bad idea or that it is the wrong approach to use to solve the problem of “The dance of the lemons.” Likewise, the fact that the teachers’ union and an arbitrator disagreed with some portion of Senate Bill 191 does not necessarily mean they believe it is a bad Bill or that the spirit of this Bill is off base.
If we are serious about providing Denver’s school-age children with the best education possible, let’s put politics aside and work together to solve this problem. There is no doubt that we can do this but in order to be successful we cannot give DPS a “shirk your responsibility” free card just so that they can win RTTT money.
Eulus Dennis