In case you are not aware of Trayvon Martin, then you should read about the unfortunate event that led to his death. It is not my duty to feed you my conclusions. I shall merely defer to commentary and analysis of this tragic situation that offer insight into a contemporary socio-economic issue. Leonard Pitts Jr., [...]
Somewhere in America … every hour someone commits a hate crime. Every day at least eight blacks, four gays or lesbians, two jews, two whites and one Latino become hate crime victims. Every week, a cross is burned. There are things that you can do to stop hate. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) suggests: [...]
It has often been said that one who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client.Justice Harry Blackmun
The above-mentioned quote was written in the dissent of a famous case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that criminal defendants have a constitutional right to refuse counsel and represent themselves in state criminal proceedings. Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806, 852, 95 S. Ct. 2525, 2550, 45 L. Ed. 2d 562 (1975).
Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light; I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.Sarah Williams
I promise you will laugh for eighteen minutes. This video is well worth watching in its entirety.
It is unfortunate that our society has reached a point where the effort necessary to extract oil from the Earth, ship it to a refinery, convert the raw product into plastic, manipulate it into an appropriate shape, transport it to a business, purchase it, and consume it is considered to be less effort than what is required to just wash the eating instrument when we are done with it.
It is nice to see Republicans take care of their own. They felt it was imperative to change the policy in the House cafeteria and terminate the "compostable" utensil program in lieu of plastic utensils. Thank you to the Party of No. Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.
The current fight is between the Haves and Have-Nots. Unfortunately, too many Have-Nots are under the illusion that they are Haves.
Sources for tax break information:
I was greatly disspointed with the Obama Adminstration when they released their proposed 2011 Federal Budget. What ticked me off more than anything was the decision to reduce Pell Grants from the Education Budget.
Pell Grants are post-secondary educational Federal grant aimed at lower-income students. Pell Grants at one point of our American history were able to cover as much as 60% of the students tuition bill. At today’s standards, one is lucky to get at least 30% off their tuition. When one asks what is wrong with our unsatisfactory education system … well there’s your problem.
Neil Aquino over at the Texas Liberal has a great article on the current conservative hypocrisy. He states:
Have you seen any Republican/Tea Party voters refuse government benefits? Have you seen Republican voting government employees volunteer to give up their job so budgets can be balanced? Have you seen any Tea Party backers organizing volunteer parties to build roads and maintain public parks so the role of government can be scaled back?
Well said … Neil. I only wished more people were as reflective of their actions.
Sometimes my conservative friends say the darnest things. Other times they say silly comments that challenge my perception of them. If anyone has noticed, today was a cold day. In fact, when I woke up around 7AM, the news reported that it was 21 degrees but it felt like 8 degrees.
I have always enjoyed the following political cartoon by Joel Pett of the Lexington Herald-Leader.
For any skeptic out there, I highly recommend checking out this 18 panel series by Darryl Cunningham that introduces the reader to climate change information in an interesting way.
