BlogHer - Primaries - Comments

Great speech!

objectiva3 — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 22:15:07 -0500

One of the best speechs in last 50 years!

Yes we can!!

This was a brilliant speech

Mata H — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 19:18:26 -0500

My prayer is that America is smart enough to really understand what he said, and visionary enough to take in in .

~~ Contributing Editor, Mata H. also blogs relentlessly at Time's Fool

Re-reading myself

Erin Kotecki Vest — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 13:27:33 -0500

I think I only twittered a few times-I couldn't type. I was mesmerized. Politics & News Contributing Editor
Queen of Spain

I'll be in my child's class

Jill Miller Zimon — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 07:30:10 -0500

But that's what's great about coveritlive - I will come back and read it!

sorry to miss. :(

Jill
Writes Like She Talks

On The Money

Megan Smith — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 09:57:26 -0500

It disappoints me to say it, but he's right on the money. Ferraro's comments were ridiculous and Clinton should have, and should still, denounce them more strongly. And also state that from this point forward, no more of those kinds of statements will be tolerated.

I still don't believe there was anything racist about the 3AM ad, but this other stuff is totally unacceptable.

Megan
BlogHer Contributing Editor, TV/YouTube

Megan's Minute
Video Runway

Arghhh

JenInShanghai — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 09:13:19 -0500

The internet connection is so slow here it took me about 20 minutes to wa th ch th is 10 mi nu te vi de o.

All broken up to boot!

And after all that I think I have officially given up on reading or watching any coverage of this election for at least the next month. It is giving me a headache.
Have at it everyone else!
I'm out.
jen

What do you think of Keith Olbermann's "Special Comment" on HRC?

Kim Pearson — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 08:39:38 -0500

Since we've been talking about allegations of negative campaigning, is KO on the on the money or off the mark?

Kim
BlogHer Contributing Editor|Professor Kim|

I totally agree

theprisonerswife — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 22:16:28 -0500

I wholeheartedly believe that if we mixed in more opportunities for our (minority) students to learn of themselves and their history, they would see and appreciate the opportunities that they have now. There is nothing like seeing yourself ina text & reading about and studying people that look like you. It fills you with PRIDE.

Although I grew up in South Central LA, I never attended public schools. While this helped to prepare me for the rigor of higher ed, it did little to affirm me as a young black girl. In my classes I was always one of the few black faces & when I would get home from school, other kids would say I acted "white" because I was smart. It's a catch 22.

I feel as though we've moved away from putting our emphasis on education. Many of my students don't care if they get an A or F & their parents don't seem to set many boundaries for them, nor reward them for the GOOD things. Instead they shower them with meaningless things like Sidekicks & Sneakers just because. I am only 27, but many of my students' parents are my age & I teach middle school. Do the math.

Until we can make learning be as COOL as hustlin', our kids will continue to choose fast money over delayed gratification. The idea of teaching entrepreneurship in k-12 is WONDERFUL. it will show kids that school & learning is not just some abstract concept that only applies between the hours of 8 and 3, but is a valuable tool they can use to be as successful as their favorite rappers & ball players.

~~
Gimme Love: http://theprisonerswife.blogspot.com

Education, absolutely

Kim Pearson — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 16:06:26 -0500

I'm glad to have your thoughts on this, especially since I know from your blog that you fight the good fight in the classroom every day. I am starting to think that, particularly in impoverished communities, we need to upend the whole curriculum. Mix John Dewey, James Comer, and Booker T. Washington with Du Bois' sympathetic touch.

We know that many kids have absorbed materialism as a fundamental value. What if we organized secondary schools around entrepreneurship, instead of making business courses a secondary track, why not integrate them into the academic curriculum and let students raise actual money? Part of it could go into accounts for them and part of it could go to the school. In the context of having to run their businesses, they would have to demonstrate mastery of some core academic subjects, and others could be brought in as part of the constructivist framework. An intelligent use of social media for communications can provide tools for individualized instruction (perhaps using distributed learning, if needed) in a secure environment.

In this way, perhaps students can become engaged with learning again, and begin to see ways in which it can actually help them improve their lives.

Kim
BlogHer Contributing Editor|Professor Kim|

educate, not incarcerate

theprisonerswife — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 23:33:02 -0500

interesting.

if we spent as much on public k-16 education as we do on prisons, then that would prevent lots of young people from getting locked up. we have far too many reactionary programs & not enough programs to prevent people from going to prison in the first place.

~~
Gimme Love: http://theprisonerswife.blogspot.com

I agree

JenInShanghai — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 22:26:47 -0500

I think that any country's media will be biased to some extent. I turn to the internet and several online sources for news because the television versions that are allowed to be broadcast here are very biased and limited. I can't tell you how often I am watching CNN Asia and the screen goes black for 30-60 seconds. It could be loss of satellite signal, but more often than not it is because a news story is not approved for viewing here (I know I am in very rare situation here).
Regarding your post and media's influence:
I just spoke with my brother who is a wonderful man taking care of 6 kids and working in the military. We started chatting about the election and I asked who he thought would be good. He said any of them except "Billary". Before playing big sister and exposing the myriad of ways in which his three older sisters raised him better than that I paused and asked him Why?
He said because she cries at the drop of the hat.
That response is absolutely a product of the media he relies on for information, television.
After giving him some "not so sisterly" advice and lessons on sexism we hung up. But I still can't help but think that he is not atypical. He has is like very many other folks in a town of 124,000 voters in Illinois.
They are products of the mainstream media that is TV and they will most likely vote.
So I say let it get dirty as long as it is addressing issues that directly relate to the politics of running this country. If that means that the public needs to know about shady land deals in a politicians personal life then give them the truth not deceptive innuendo. Do I think it includes wether or not they drank or smoked when they were young? No. I don't, but then again I am a democrat on the left inside corner. Others might think this too has bearing on a politicians moral compass.
I guess what it boils down to for me is that one can't rely on television for their source of news anymore. Whether its comedic news shows or the so-called "real" news it all seems sensationalized, biased, and for-profit.

On a lighter note, I figured out how to embed a video without buying "Blogging for Dummies". Hopefully now my posts will be catchy enough to get a comment once in a while... or maybe I should look into buying that book anyways...
Have a grand day!
j

Thanks Yvette

Jill Miller Zimon — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 17:41:42 -0500

Yes - that's been mentioned to me re: the context of the movie.

So maybe it says more about me being lame when it comes to social/cultural milestones, seriously - I am just not that familiar with those films! So I don't get that meaning nearly like others do.

How much does the context really matter?

I will say that it opened up a very long discussion between me and the blogger friend who posted it - so that was good.

But, at my core, I still don't like it. What can I tell ya!?

(I do agree - using the n word is far, far worse - I know that - but again, in my house, the "s" word is stupid - not the other one - we really work hard to keep words in their place)

Jill
Writes Like She Talks

What did Obama say?

Kim Pearson — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 16:35:19 -0500

I read about the "tea party" comment, and I read that Taylor Marsh tried to make an issue of him saying that Clinton attacks him "periodically," "when she's feeling down." Personally, I think that's a stretch.

But what am I missing? What did Obama or his minions do or say that was on a par with the race-baiting that has so many people upset with the Clinton campaign?

Kim
BlogHer Contributing Editor|Professor Kim|

Agreed

Denise — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 16:11:25 -0500

Thank you, Elisa.

~Denise
BlogHer Community Manager

Flamingo House Happenings

Interesting video, Jill. I

Yvette Perry — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 11:06:02 -0500

Interesting video, Jill. I had not seen that one. (I've kind of been in a no-media mode for a while now LOL!)

I may be reading too much into this, but this is my take on it. From the movie where that line was borrowed, the punch of it came from the fact that this was a woman, saying t to a female (granted, from a different species). From what I could tell, the maker of the video is also a woman, saying this to a woman...

Now, we can debate whether this is "good" or "acceptable" or not. But the analogy you gave to an anti-Obama video with "n****" would only work if the line was borrowed from a popular culture product where a Black man was calling another Black man the n-word (and there are many, many, many examples of that) and the anti-Obama video maker was also African American.

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