Comments by nisperos
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Posted on September 8 at 10:34 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I think we're going to have to listen to the president...
...else we'll be singing this song:
I Want To Be A Right Winger Now
By Smokey Dymny ©2002
Posted on September 8 at 10:29 a.m. (Suggest removal)
From the president's speech:
"...But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won't love every subject you study. You won't click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won't necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.
That's OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who've had the most failures...
These people succeeded because they understand that you can't let your failures define you - you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn't mean you're a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade, that doesn't mean you're stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying.
No one's born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work..."
Posted on September 8 at 10:24 a.m. (Suggest removal)
"For we are strangers before them, and sojourners, as were all our fathers." 1 Chronicles 29:15
...Of course, I would be remiss if I didn't recommend Barack Obama's book originally published in 1995 called "Dreams from My Father" about his own upbringing.
Posted on September 8 at 10:21 a.m. (Suggest removal)
More inspiration:
Come from an economically challenged background? Try this book (and buy it cheap here): http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDeta...
Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence. By Dr. Ben Carson
"After telling his story of how he overcame an inner-city background to become a world renown neurosurgeon (Gifted Hands), Dr. Ben Carson now gives an inspirational look at the philosophy of life that helped him meet life's obstacles and leap over them."
Got a student with learning disabilities (especially if it's a girl)? Try this book (and buy it used cheap here):
http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDeta...
Stumbling Blocks to Stepping Stones by Shari Rush
"The inspirational story of a young woman's triumph over learning disabilities and life challenges. This book will serve as an excellent reference guide for students, parents and educators seeking strategies on how to overcome learning disabilities and learning challenges"
Posted on September 8 at 10:15 a.m. (Suggest removal)
"Por los templos del trabajo y de los estudios se entra los templos de sus sueños y de la fama"
(Through the temples of work and study are entered the temples of your dreams and of fame.)
A song:
Si se puede (Yes it can be done)
By Linda Allen ©1989
http://unionsong.com/u106.html
A Conversation With Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa. A Surgeon’s Path From Migrant Fields to Operating Room. By CLAUDIA DREIFUS, NYT, 5/13/08: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/13/scienc...
"At the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa has four positions. He is a neurosurgeon who teaches oncology and neurosurgery, directs a neurosurgery clinic and heads a laboratory studying brain tumors. He also performs nearly 250 brain operations a year. Twenty years ago, Dr. Quiñones-Hinojosa, now 40, was an illegal immigrant working in the vegetable fields of the Central Valley in California. He became a citizen in 1997 while at Harvard... (go to link to continue reading)"
Another article on Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa here:
The Alfredo Story by David Dudley, Hopkins Medicine, Winter 2007: http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/hmn/W07/f...
Here's a story about someone who was on the most recent Discovery launch (written before launch):
Former migrant worker to blast off on Discovery. Once a migrant worker, now a shuttle astronaut, José Hernández is ready for space. By Marcia Dunn, AP, 8/23/09: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/na...
Posted on September 8 at 9:51 a.m. (Suggest removal)
The text of the speech is here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/MediaResources...
Church Opens Doors for Obama's Student Address. By STACY MORROW. NBC Dallas-Fort Worth: http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local-beat/Ch...
"An Arlington church is opening its doors Tuesday to show students a national address by President Barack Obama, after some area school districts declined.
Cornerstone Baptist Church is providing the option after Arlington and Mansfield independent school district officials said they won't air the president's address live..."
FCHS reverses decision on president's speech, Fort Collins Coloradoan, 9/8/09: http://www.coloradoan.com/article/200909...
"Fort Collins High School, one of four city schools that originally said it would not show President Barack Obama's speech today, has reversed its decision..."
Posted on September 3 at 10:31 a.m. (Suggest removal)
The Office of Health Facility Complaints Investigative Report can be found here:
Posted on July 25 at 4:49 p.m. (Suggest removal)
@ realchange
Reagan was no high-minded ethical conservative. He (quoting 2008 Nobel Prize winner in economics, Paul Krugman) "began his 1980 campaign with a states' rights speech outside Philadelphia, Mississippi, the town where three civil rights workers were murdered..." In his 1964 nominating speech for Barry Goldwater, he attacked government employees at the federal, state, and local level, yet "[i]n 1964 almost two-thirds of federal employees worked either in the Defense department or in the postal service, while most state and local employees were schoolteachers, policemen or firemen...
Ronald Reagan was nominated in 1980, a year in which the rich were no richer, relative to the average American, than they had been during the Eisenhower years...
Ask the man or woman on the street to free-associate on the name Ronald Reagan, and he or she will probably answer 'tax cuts' or 'defeating communism.' But Reagan didn't start his run for the presidency with rallies on economic or foreign policy. During his 1976 bid for the Republican nomination, he made his mark by grossly exaggerating a case of welfare fraud in Chicago, introducing the term 'welfare queen.' He didn't mention the woman's race; he didn't need to. He began his 1980 campaign with a speech on states' rights at the county fair near Philadelphia, Mississippi, the town where three civil rights workers were murdered in 1964. Everyone got the message..."
[And now we have the Birthers with their silly Obama conspiracy theory... well, McCain's lawyers investigated during his presidential campaign and found no proof supporting the nonsense. Not just the birth certificate which Birthers in their wackiness questioned, but also a birth announcement in a local paper 47 years before the issue even came up: http://politicalwire.com/archives/2009/0... ]
Posted on July 25 at 4:16 p.m. (Suggest removal)
It's true that there is a modest effect on competition for low wage jobs due to the influx of immigrants with low education levels. However, this does not necessarily account for the significant decrease of our middle class and the increasing size of the gap between the rich and the poor and between the very rich and the rest of us.
According to 2008 Nobel Prize winner (in economics) Paul Krugman, "No other advanced country has seen the same kind of surge in inequality that has taken place here." (Most are aware that other countries have their immigration issues too, so that doesn't support the weight some here give to that factor.) Is it trade? Is it outsourcing? Is it improvements in technology? Here's something else interesting which Krugman brings up:
" In the final years of the postwar [WWII] boom General Motors was America's largest private employer aside from the regulated telephone monopoly. Its CEO was, correspondingly, among America's highest paid executives: Charles Johnson's 1969 salary was $795,000, about $4.3 million in today's dollars - and that salary excited considerable comment. Nut ordinary GM workers were also paid well. In 1969 auto industry production workers earned on average almost $9,000, the equivalent of more than $40,000 today. GM workers, who also received excellent health and retirement benefits, were considered solidly in the middle class.
Today Wal-Mart is America's largest corporation, with 800,000 employees. In 2005 Lee Scott, its chairman, was paid almost $23 million. That's more than five times Charles Johnson's inflation-adjusted salary... The wages paid to Wal-Mart workers, on the other hand, do attract attention, because they are low even by current standards. On average, Wal-Mart's non supervisory employees are paid about $18,000 a year, less than half what GM workers were paid thirty-five years ago, adjusted for inflation. Wal-Mart is also notorious both for the low percentage of its workers who receive health benefits, and the stinginess of those scarce benefits...
[However] If technology and globalization are the driving forces behind rising inequality, then Europe should be experiencing the same rise in inequality as the United States. In terms of institutions and norms, however, things are very different among advanced nations: In Europe, for example, unions remain strong and old norms condemning very high pay and emphasizing the entitlements of workers haven't faded away..."
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Posted on September 8 at 12:04 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Live-stream of the president's speech (re-broadcast) at USA Today here (wait for it; may be slight delay in loading): http://content.usatoday.com/communities/...
Wow! Sure, I'd read the speech, but the delivery was awesome, and that Wakefield class president was impressive too! Wish I'd gotten to hear such a speech when I was in HS! It makes you appreciate what the support of adults means to kids, and more encouragement than nagging and the participation of others besides family members may be needed for some...
You can get pretty good grades and still get lost in the crowd or have it taken for granted that you'll do well (while stuff could be going on at home or you are feeling that you don't have any friends or are the only one in you peer group that can't find a job). OTOH, you might have gotten in trouble or got a bad grade and be feeling down on yourself or like a loser and need to just keep trying and not give in and let yourself down...
Thanks, Mr. President, for speaking to our students!
Good luck to all students on their school year. As the president said, "... no matter what you want to do with your life – I guarantee that you’ll need an education to do it..."
On Editorial: Laura Bush is right