According to the City of Valdosta’s website 19 August 2011: Continue reading
Category Archives: Education
Alabama bishops criticize ALEC’s immigration law
Some churches actually speak in public on what they profess to believe.
Campbell Robertson wrote for the New York Times 13 August 2011, Bishops Criticize Tough Alabama Immigration Law
Continue readingCULLMAN, Ala. —On a sofa in the hallway of his office here, Mitchell Williams, the pastor of First United Methodist Church, announced that he was going to break the law. He is not the only church leader making such a declaration these days.
Josh Anderson for the New York TimesSince June, when Gov. Robert Bentley, a Republican, signed an immigration enforcement law called the toughest in the country by critics and supporters alike, the opposition has been vocal and unceasing.
Thousands of protesters have marched. Anxious farmers
NAACP calls for end to War on Drugs
Nafari Vanaski, wrote for Gateway newspapers 18 August 2011,
NAACP calling for truce in nation’s drug war
Interesting how the headline writer watered that down: NAACP called Continue readingIf you grew up at the same time that I did, you’ll remember the “Just Say No” anti-drug campaign that became popular in the mid-1980s and early 1990s.
It manifested itself in many ways, from the posters and talks in class to the “very special episodes” of shows such as “Blossom” and “The Facts of Life,” where a character encounters a kid from the wrong side of the tracks who is pressuring him or her to try drugs. Inevitably, good prevailed and the druggie turned out to be from a broken family and needed only a good face-to-face with Nancy Reagan, the driving force behind the campaign, to overcome his addiction. (She appeared on “Diff’rent Strokes,” and considering the real-life histories of Gary Coleman, Todd Bridges and Dana Plato, she probably should have stuck around for a five-episode story arc.)
“Just Say No” was part of the larger war on drugs the Nixon administration declared in 1971. For grown-ups, that war symbolized a lot more than sappy primetime television. Especially for black adults. For them, it meant stricter laws for those found buying, selling and distributing illegal drugs.
To that end, the NAACP took an interesting step at its national convention last month. It approved a resolution to end the war on drugs because of its devastating effect on the black community.
Growing talent instead of population
What are some ideas for economic and cultural growth that don’t require huge population growth? Richard Florida has many ideas for large and mid-sized population areas in the article discussed below. Who’s the Richard Florida for places the size of Lowndes County?
Richard Florida wrote in the Atlantic in December 2009,
How the Crash Will Reshape America:
Big, talent-attracting places benefit from accelerated rates of “urban metabolism,”The question we need to address is how to be a small talent-attracting place, and even more a smallish place that grows its own talent and jobs.
This part is especially relevant: Continue reading
Jack Kingston from Valdosta to Tifton to Atlanta
You may have seen by the front page of the VDT this morning
that Jack Kingston was in Valdosta yesterday morning
and by
the VDT editorial
that he will be in Atlanta today.
The VDT whines:
Well, some farmers in Tifton didn’t take kindly to
the main idea Kingston was pushing yesterday.
Said a farmer:
Why do you have to take the one politician that actually works for us?
Well, some farmers in Tifton didn’t take kindly to
the main idea Kingston was pushing yesterday.
Said a farmer:
I have tried working with probationers and I’ll just say that it was a very inconsistent supply of workers.Hm, the VDT previously was of a similar opinion, an opinion that got quoted in the AJC. Maybe the VDT didn’t know Kingston was pushing HB 87, even though they sat down with him yesterday morning?
We don’t need an ALEC-organized private prison law like HB 87 to profit private prison company CCA, and we don’t need a CC private prison in Lowndes County. Spend those tax dollars on rehabilitation and education instead.
-jsq
Quitman 10, Rally & News Media Whiteout! Nearly 200 Citizens Ignored! —George Boston Rhynes
Received yesterday. It’s a YouTube video. -jsq
Video by George Boston Rhynes for
K.V.C.I. Keeping Valdosta Citizen Informed
George has written up most of this in K.V.C.I. with pictures and YouTube videos.
Also, I appreciate the shoutout, George, and I’m sure the other people involved with LAKE and this blog do, as well.
-jsq
And poverty, and ignorance, shall swell the rich and grand —Charles Dickens
You, too, can end up in debtor’s prison, much more easily than you might think.
Maybe you think you’re safe, because you’re not out on the street. Think again: Continue readingThe most shocking thing I learned from my research on the fate of the working poor in the recession was the extent to which poverty has indeed been criminalised in America.
Photograph: Robyn Beck/EPAPerhaps the constant suspicions of drug use and theft that I encountered in low-wage workplaces should have alerted me to the fact that, when you leave the relative safety of the middle class, you might as well have given up your citizenship and taken residence in a hostile nation.
Your children’s education at stake —Sam Allen, FVCS, 7 July 2011
Good question:
“Are you willing to put your children’s education at stake because somebody has promised you something they can’t deliver? I for one am not willing.”
Here’s the video:
Your children’s education at stake —Sam Allen, FVCS, 7 July 2011
No school consolidation,
Press Conference, Friends of Valdosta City Schools (FVCS),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 7 July 2011.
Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
-jsq
There is more than one option —Sam Allen @ FVCS 7 July 2011
Sam Allen of Friends of Valdosta City Schools (FVCS) tells us
what CUEE didn’t.
“You can read the billboards, you can look at the pretty brochures, but that’s all your going to get.”So what haven’t we been told? Continue reading
FVCS @ 100 Black Men BBQ, Valdosta, GA, 6 Aug 2011
Friends of Valdosta City Schoolds (FVCS) had a table at the 100 Black Men BBQ, Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia.
Their No School Consolidation signs now have both a Viking and a Wildcat paw on them, and they have Viking stickers and Wildcat stickers.
FVCS @ 100 Black Men BBQ, Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia,
Pictures by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
Their consolidating CUEE competition was nowhere to be seen.
-jsq