TUNNEL LIGHTS

I Was watching Tavis Smiley speak with Michelle Rhee and it lead me to thinking about Charter Schools. the hyperlink for charter schools is very general and varies state by state. If you are from California, the bay area specifically, then you yourself or someone you know went to a charter school. You very well could have had an aunt or uncle that went to a charter school that was ran by the panthers back in the day.

I’m somewhat split on the idea. The public school system, especially in California, is in drastic need of overhaul. You can spend the twelve or so years in Oakland, San Francisco, or Hayward public school system and get all A’s from K-12 and still NEVER meet the qualifications to get into SF state or U, Cal Berkeley or Hayward (now called Cal east bay) and don’t even think about Stanford located in Palo Alto California. I would love to see the numbers on how many locals are admitted each year. To me that is a shame. It is one of the best schools in the nation and the world, people from all across the globe send their children to Stanford yet the kid that was born and raised in Palo Alto and was educated in the Palo Alto school district would not and does not consider Stanford and a viable option for higher education, even if they were able to afford it they know they would automatically have to spend 2-3 years in a Junior College then maybe another 2-3 in state and then cross their fingers and pray.   We also know that  UC’s not only are more expensive than they have ever been but actively recruit from outside the state so they can charge those students more on admissions and other fees. That is another issue that I wont get into here.

On the one hand a students surrounded by like minded and other similarly talented students tend to do better in that area. (I.e. art, dance, music, ect) but then it does rob the public school of the natural talents and experience that those students bring. If all your students that live in that area that are talented or have an interest in art all go to the art charter school then why offer art in the regular school. This is what happens and in part, by not creating a need or interest in those area (art, dance, music ect) public school boards see no need to fund, (if there were funds, again another issue), music, art, dance, ect programs. I remember in 6th grade we had one music class (for one day) with instruments, and you could only take choir. Yes until 7th grade I was in school choir and it was nothing Like glee. My high school did not even have a choir or glee club and the kids that were in band in high school had to bring their own instruments. I thought that was bad, but recently my little cousin told me that school does not even have: art, music, or dance in her school. She has a guy come in once a month or so and they do a group project with her grade level (she is in high school and is showing a natural talent for photography)

So yeah talent specific charter schools seem great for the student that expresses a talent from an early age. I would love to see my little cousin shuttled off to some charter school that focused on and helped her build and develop her talent as a photographer. On the opposite coin, If my cousin has this proclivity then im sure there are others that if they were able to take photography (or even art) as an elective, might spark a fire in them. They may not be able to draw in or sing in 5th grade but after their voice changes we could have missed out on the next great tenor because they never had the opportunity to explore and try. Isn't that what are schools supposed to be, places of learning, exploration of self, and education? To prepare them for college and life not babysitters for 5-18 year olds.

“This bill, passed late last night in a 93-7 vote, declares the entire USA to be a “battleground” upon which U.S. military forces can operate with impunity, overriding Posse Comitatus and granting the military the unchecked power to arrest, detain, interrogate and even assassinate U.S. citizens with impunity.
It’s being called the most traitorous act ever witnessed in the Senate, and the language of the bill is cleverly designed to make you think it doesn’t apply to Americans, but toward the end of the bill it essentially says it can apply to Americans “if we want it to.”
The passage of this law is nothing less than an outright declaration of WAR against the American People by the military-connected power elite. If this is signed into law, it will shred the remaining tenants of the Bill of Rights and unleash upon America a total military dictatorship, complete with secret arrests, secret prisons, unlawful interrogations, indefinite detainment without ever being charged with a crime, the torture of Americans and even the “legitimate assassination” of U.S. citizens on right here on American soil!
If you have not yet woken up to the reality of the police state we’ve been warning you about, I hope you realize we are fast running out of time. Once this becomes law, you have no rights whatsoever in America — no due process, no First Amendment speech rights, no right to remain silent, nothing.”
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112%3AS.1867:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Authorization_Act

So its done, Chapter one is up on the web if you want to take a read. Let me know what you think, all feedback is welcome: like, hate, tell me why and what could I do to improve. Aslo check out the new vids, poems, and photos.

http://cfbrown.com/index_files/Page35076.htm

For Blackberry/Document to go users

Ive been trying to figure this out and there is no "tab" button and if you use the "indent" feature it indents the hole thing, so how do you indent the first line. Dont try and google it because there isnt really anything except for spreadsheets. this is what you do:

1. Go into 'edit mode' then go to the beginning of the first line, of the paragraph you want to indent
2. press the options button and go to format
3. go to paragraph (here you will get a list of for paragraph formatting)
4. scroll down to 'indent special' and there will be an option for 'first line'
5. after selecting 'indent special,first line' "indent special by" will appear
6. 'indent special by is where you tell the value of how far you want to indent. (0.5 is the equivalent of hitting the "tab button" once in word.

You would think as much as they charge you for this program they would just K.I.S and build in a Tab button or feature but now. So yeah this is how you do it