August 22, 2014

Michelle Rhee steps down from her "students first" org to focus on her family

http://www.studentsfirst.org/blog/entry/our-next-chapter



I have always been drawn to opportunities that challenge the status quo and give a voice to causes that didn't have one before. My passion has always been education reform – to ensure every child has a great teacher and great school – and my commitment to the cause is as strong today as it ever has been.

That’s what I worked tirelessly for during my time running DC’s public school system. That experience and the political resistance to doing what’s best for kids is what drove me to start StudentsFirst four years ago.

While I remain 100 percent committed to the success of StudentsFirst, it’s time for a shift in the day-to-day management of the team and our advocacy work. We’ll be sharing more of the nuts-and-bolts details about that in the coming weeks.

It’s also time for my next step in life, which will be focused on my family and supporting my husband in the tremendous work he is doing as his he continues to move forward with his career. His focus and passion for underserved communities and ensuring access to equal opportunity will be central to whatever comes next for us.

StudentsFirst emerged because kids deserve an organization that will champion their causes – and that’s exactly what we’ve been building. In just four years, we’ve recruited over 2 million members, raised millions of dollars and helped pass over 130 policies across the country on behalf of kids. 

Not only that, but we’ve helped elevate and shift a bipartisan national conversation around education. In states across the country, people are debating education policies including teacher tenure, standards, and accountability through a student-focused lens like never before.

My goal was always to build an organization that would advocate on behalf of kids regardless of who was at its helm, and we’ve done that successfully at the national level.

I’m so proud of what we’ve accomplished at StudentsFirst and look forward to being actively involved as we become an even more effective advocate for kids. We've been successful in challenging the status quo, and that’s something I will never stop doing.

August 22, 2014

big defeat for Catholic church on contraception in Phillipines where birth rates r staggeringly high

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/reproductive-healthphilippines/


But changes are now underway in the Philippines that could help slow the population boom. This past spring, after a 15-year battle that went all the way to the Filipino Supreme Court, a new reproductive health care law took effect. It requires the Philippine government to fund family planning health clinics, provide affordable contraception, and launch comprehensive sex education in schools.

Former Health Secretary Cabral, one of the most prominent supporters of the new law, says it’s about time.

ESPARANZA CABRAL: It’s a victory for all Filipinos, especially women and children. The law can make a very big dent in our problem with poverty and population.

MARK LITKE: So is this a defeat for the Catholic Church?

ESPARANZA CABRAL: I think so.





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MARK LITKE: Dr. Silvia de la Paz, the chief obstetrician here, says they manage the crush as best they can. Often putting two beds together as a tandem bed for four mothers and four newborns.

And from these overcrowded hospital wards, out into the teeming slums of the city, it’s easy to see this country is in the midst of a population explosion, what some are calling a crisis. The Philippines today has one of the highest birth rates in Asia with a population that has more than doubled over the last three decades from 45 million to 100 million.

Once the mothers and their newborns leave the maternity hospital, many are going to return to places like, Tondo — this gritty neighborhood right on the edge of Manila. It’s a place where families struggle to get by on $1 or $2 a day at best. Here, very young children scavenge through garbage in search of something to sell for a few dollars to help support their families.

Families in Asia’s most Catholic country that have had little or no access to contraception or family planning advice. Families that often get larger by the year.

Vilma Lopez has ten children, ages 1 to 20. She had her first child at 19.

VILMA LOPEZ: We didn’t plan it, it just happened every year. It’s just easy for me to get pregnant.

MARK LITKE: Manila is now one of the most densely populated urban area on earth, so congested some are forced to seek refuge in local cemeteries, where they eat and sleep on tombs and mausoleums.

ESPERANZA CABRAL: In the Philippines, there is family planning, but it is available only to the rich, to those who are able to afford to go see doctors, to buy pills.

MARK LITKE: Esperanza Cabral, a former Health Secretary of the Philippines, has been sounding the alarm on the population crisis here, a population growing fastest among the poorest Filipinos — those whose need for birth control is the greatest.

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MARK LITKE: For years the UN has urged the Philippine government to take action, to provide free contraception and family planning for the poor. Recent surveys indicate eight in 10 Filipinos now agree.

But the Philippines most powerful institution, the Roman Catholic Church, has fought family planning policies every time they are raised. In a country where more than 80 percent are practicing Catholics, the church has dominated nearly every aspect of life in the Philippines for more than 400 years —  it’s moral authority and political power rarely challenged, especially when it comes to reproduction.


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August 22, 2014

3 random Ferguson images

http://www.bagnewsnotes.com


http://voices.suntimes.com


http://banter.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com

August 20, 2014

Kinda funny exchange from Dailymail comments regarding Perry

Person 1: The woman is an absolute disgrace, Perry is the finest politician in the country. This indictment is a complete mockery of the legal system.


Person 2: The guy can barely talk. He would stop in the middle of sentences and stare blankly at the camera. His Republican opponents in the primary debates would suppress laughs at him all the time, and you say he's the best politician in the country. You red state Republicans set your bar EXTREMELY low. Let's just call him the best politician in Texas and leave it at that.


Person 3: Perry was suffering from some medical issues at the time. He had just undergone back surgery, was on medication and was extremely sleep deprived. He should not have tried to run in the 2012 primary cycle. He will be different this time.

August 19, 2014

Maine Man Takes Most Meta Mug Shot Ever

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Driving under the influence is no joke, but as we now know, mug shots related to driving under the influence can be. And we know this because a 19-year-old Maine man sentenced to two days in prison for drunk driving managed to put together one of the most creative mug shots of all time.

WMUR reported that Pittsfield resident Robert Edward Burt was arrested for OUI back in June and took a mug shot when he was processed. But Burt posted bail and wouldn’t have to report to Somerset County Jail to serve his 48-hour sentence until August 8.

So what did good ol’ Burt do while he was free for a little over a month? Well, he probably did lots of things, but the only one that we actually know of was that he made a t-shirt with his original mug shot on it.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/maine/2014/08/19/maine-man-takes-most-meta-mug-shot-ever/53hjEx3y4dX5CUhRnuZi8J/story.html?rss_id=Top+Stories

August 18, 2014

As (job) Shifts Vary, Family’s Only Constant Is Chaos

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/08/14/us/as-shifts-vary-familys-only-constant-is-chaos.html?referrer=

“You’re waiting on your job to control your life,” she said, with the scheduling software used by her employer dictating everything from “how much sleep Gavin will get to what groceries I’ll be able to buy this month.”SAN DIEGO — In a typical last-minute scramble, Jannette Navarro, a 22-year-old Starbucks barista and single mother, scraped together a plan for surviving the month of July without setting off family or financial disaster.

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In contrast to the joyless work she had done at a Dollar Tree store and a KFC franchise, the $9-an-hour Starbucks job gave Ms. Navarro, the daughter of a drug addict and an absentee father, the hope of forward motion. She had been hired because she showed up so many times, cheerful and persistent, asking for work, and she had a way of flicking away setbacks — such as a missed bus on her three-hour commute — with the phrase, “I’m over it.”

Newly off public assistance, she was just a few credits shy of an associate degree in business and talked of getting a master’s degree as some of her co-workers were. Her take-home pay rarely topped $400 to $500 every two weeks; since starting in November, she had set aside $900 toward a car — her next step toward stability and independence for herself and her 4-year-old son, Gavin.

But Ms. Navarro’s fluctuating hours, combined with her limited resources, had also turned their lives into a chronic crisis over the clock. She rarely learned her schedule more than three days before the start of a workweek, plunging her into urgent logistical puzzles over who would watch the boy.

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August 18, 2014

convicted felon Bernard Kerik -military tactics needed against ferguson "thugs"

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/nypd-commissioner-bernard-kerik-heavy-handed-approach-ferguson-mo-police-protests-absolutely-needed-article-1.1906620


Former New York top cop Bernard Kerik defended Sunday the military gear and tactics used by law enforcement in Ferguson, Mo., to help quell violence following the police shooting death of an unarmed teenager.

“It’s absolutely needed,” Kerik said on CNN’s “State of the Union” of the tank-like vehicles and automatic weapons used by police officers to curb rioting in the wake of 18-year-old Michael Brown’s death last week. “The police can’t be afraid to do their job, shouldn’t be afraid to do their job,” he said. “When the thugs try to take over the community, the police have to act and do whatever they have to do to keep the peace.”

“There was personal property that was damaged,” he added. “The police have to respond to that. You can't let the thugs take over the city. We saw that the other day. The police had to respond. Were they heavy-handed? I wasn't there.”

August 18, 2014

57 year old has 152k in student loans. will owe $699 per month until age 81

.Anderson's loans are driven from a decision late in life to earn two degrees and paying for them with loans totaling $65,000 from the government and various financial firms.

She earned her bachelor's degree at 37 and a master's degree at 44, both in human resources. While Anderson has never regretted the decision to get higher education, the costs have been severe.

After graduation, Anderson was paying six checks a month to Sallie Mae, Wells Fargo (WFC) and other financial firms. So she decided to consolidate all her loans into one big loan with the Department of Education at the prevailing 8.25% rate.


The catch was that she could not refinance. Since then, interest rates on student loans have fallen below 3% and today can be had for 4.66%.

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http://money.cnn.com/2014/08/13/news/economy/older-student-debt/

Next April, Anderson won't be able to do that anymore and will have to make payments of $699 a month until she is 81 years old. She worries about how she will make ends meet.

Anderson brings home $3,400 a month from her job in business operations at the University of California in Santa Cruz. She has a $2,200 mortgage payment and has to live on what's left, and earning some extra income by finding odd jobs on Craig's List.

August 18, 2014

anti-abortionists adopt a new tactic: tracking license plates

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/politics/texas/article/Anti-abortion-activists-adopt-a-new-tactic-5687420.php


Anti-abortion activists adopt a new tactic: tracking license plates
Advocates say tactic is legitimate; critics contend that it is intimidation

By Brian M. Rosenthal

August 13, 2014 | Updated: August 13, 2014 9:13pm

On nearly every weekday morning between late 2010 and this spring, Eileen Romano stood outside a Beaumont abortion clinic to do what she could to fight a procedure she saw as morally wrong.

Unlike traditional so-called sidewalk advocates, however, Romano did not simply try to talk the arriving women out of having their abortions. She also sought to get the clinic closed with a tactic that is becoming increasingly common in the Texas anti-abortion community: tracking license plates.


Romano wrote down the numbers on the cars that parked outside the facility, checking to ensure the plates showed up twice - for a pre-abortion consultation required by state law and the procedure itself. If a car only came once, she said, it was a sign the doctor had done the abortion without a consultation, and the 63-year-old activist made a note to potentially report to state regulators.



Before the clinic closed in March, Romano estimated that she documented nearly 7,000 license plates. She still has the records.

"We never used the license plate numbers to delve in someone's personal life. Never. That was not the purpose of it," Romano said. "The purpose was tracking and keeping tabs on the numbers and what was going on."On nearly every weekday morning between late 2010 and this spring, Eileen Romano stood outside a Beaumont abortion clinic to do what she could to fight a procedure she saw as morally wrong.

Unlike traditional so-called sidewalk advocates, however, Romano did not simply try to talk the arriving women out of having their abortions. She also sought to get the clinic closed with a tactic that is becoming increasingly common in the Texas anti-abortion community: tracking license plates.

August 18, 2014

woman climbs into giraffe enclosure at wisconson zoo. giraffe kicks her in the face

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2727255/Woman-cited-climbing-zoos-giraffe-pen.html

A 2-year-old giraffe named Wally gave Hall a lick, then before turning and kicking her in the face, police said.

'Zoo staff advised that giraffes are capable of killing lions, and that Hall was lucky not to have been more seriously injured,' the report said.

Police said they ticketed Hall for 'Harassment of Zoo Animals' and fined her for $686.

The police report says Hall revealed 'she climbed into the exhibit area because she loves giraffes.'

Dane County said in a release last year that 12-foot-tall Wally is a reticulated giraffe and earlier lived at Illinois' Niabi Zoo.

Wally lives alongside another reticulated giraffe, named Eddie.