What can get Grover Norquist and the President of the NAACP on the same stage?
A new
report from NAACP:
Misplaced Priorities tracks the steady shift of state funds away from
education and toward the criminal justice system. Researchers have
found that over-incarceration most often impacts vulnerable and minority
populations, and that it destabilizes communities.
And this is not just finger-pointing; it includes pointers on
how to get out of this mess:
The report is part of the NAACP’s “Smart and Safe Campaign,” and
offers a set of recommendations that will help policymakers in all 50
states downsize prison populations and shift the savings to education
budgets.
What about county voters, and what about the combined budget?
Q: “What is the county’s view on consolidation?”
A: CUEE Chairman Leroy Butler answered:
“We did no poll of individuals in the county,
so we don’t have any; anything we say would be speculation.”
Remember,
only one of CUEE’s board is from the county outside the City of Valdosta,
and nobody outside Valdosta gets to vote in the referendum.
They don’t know what the county thinks, and they don’t care,
because legally they don’t have to:
if Valdosta votes to give up their school system, the Lowndes County
school board has no choice but to pick up the pieces.
Kick-off meeting, Community Unification for Educational Excellence, Inc., CUEE.
They’re for consolidation of the Valdosta and Lowndes County School Systems.
Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
http://lake.typepad.com/on-the-lake-front/cuee/
Jerome Tucker explained that there are jobs to be developed
in south Georgia for solar power, in
distribution, installation, and related industry.
First Jerome explained how he heard of MAGE SOLAR, and
it’s pronounced Mah gay.
He toured their facility and saw that they manufacture the panels
in Dublin, Georgia,
and this was impressive to him, who still has his kerosene lamp.
He was especially impressed with MAGE SOLAR’s academy,
which can train everybody from mom and pop operations
to mega installers.
And with this industry there’s opportunity for engineers,
there’s opportunity for electricians,
there’s opportunity for plumbers,
truck drivers,
across the board.
MAGE SOLAR at Lowndes High School, 29 March 2011.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
Elizabeth Pran asks
Who Gets More Tax Dollars… Prisoners or School Children?
Of course, being Fox News, it advocates cutting prison
costs by reducing air conditioning for prisoners.
The real problem is the War on Drugs and Three Strikes.
She does at last manage to mention in passing “alternative programs
for non-violent offenders.”
Yes, like not locking up people for minor drug offenses in the first place!
And indeed, educating students today would cost less than
locking them up later.
Meanwhile, privatizing prisons does nothing to solve these problems;
it just lines some corporation’s pockets with tax money.
“More African American men are in prison or jail, on probation or
parole than were enslaved in 1850, before the Civil War began,” Michelle
Alexander told a standing room only house at the Pasadena Main Library
this past Wednesday, the first of many jarring points she made in a
riveting presentation.
She’s written a best-selling book,
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Color Blindness,
and she discusses the problem:
Continue reading →
After he gave his
goodbye speech,
I
wished him happiness in Myrtle Beach
and thought maybe he’d make a graceful exit.
Nope, he’s still cranking the Edison phonograph on the same old
scratched wax cylinder.
Here he is last week responding to James Wright
and dozens of other people in the same thread
to which I later posted
It’s an opportunity.
In Lofton’s case, he’s still fixated on the losing proposition of biomass fuels.
-jsq
Thanks so much for sharing this and for your continued strong support of our
client’s green renewable energy project. In addition to assisting the
country in reducing our consumption of middle eastern fuel and improving the
environment, this project will provide a much needed economic impact for
landowners of every race, and the Industrial Authority will assist in the
efforts underway to assist local farmers. Google “benefits of biomass
electricity,”
Protestors wearing respirator masks held signs reading “Biomass? No!”
in front of the Valdosta City Hall building on Thursday. Members of
the Wiregrass Activists for Clean Energy, the VSU student organization
Students Against Violating the Environment, and other concerned Valdosta
citizens showed up to protest the construction of the Wiregrass Power:
Biomass Electric Generating Plant.
“We already have solar power resources in place that we could be using
and I feel like money should be directed towards that,” Ivey Roubique,
vice-president of the Student Geological Society, said. “It wouldn’t
be good for the community and even though I’m in college here it
still matters.”
The Spectator article quotes from two speakers for whom LAKE
happens to have video, linked below.
Continue reading →
Erin Hurley provided the very model of how to give a speech:
I’m the president of
Students Against Violating the Environment at VSU.
I’m here representing
200+ members of SAVE, that consists of students, faculty, community members.
We are deeply concerned with environmental issues and
we are networking together to make this city a more humane and
sustainable community
for future generations.
As a student, I feel I have the right to be able to breathe clean air
at the college I attend.
With this biomass plant possibly being built here,
the future for generations to come are in jeopardy, and we want to protect our fellow and future students’ health.
Please take into consideration the future health of this university
and its community,
and don’t sell grey water to the proposed biomass plant.
Erin Hurley, President of
SAVE, Students Against Violating the Environment, speaking at
Regular meeting of the Valdosta City Council, 24 March 2011,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
She said who she was, who she represented, how many, what they were for, what they wanted, quickly enough that attention didn’t waver, slowly and loudly enough to be heard, and briefly enough to transcribe, with pathos, logic, and politic. Even the mayor looked up at “As a student….”
Misplaced Priorities tracks the steady shift of state funds away from education and toward the criminal justice system. Researchers have found that over-incarceration most often impacts vulnerable and minority populations, and that it destabilizes communities.
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