Regarding your statement, “…..The study found that 13 former congressmen and 166 congressional staffers were actively engaged in lobbying their former colleagues on the bill….,”
I wonder whether it is necessary to introduce a law that bans congressmen and congressonal staffers from working as lobbiests for industries of special interests or industries that represent “Conflicts of Interests,” after these people finish their congressional terms or quitting their positions in Congress, in order to prevent their corruption and the influence of special interest politics in Congress.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

On Dec. 14th I wrote a story about how Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families (ACF) was engaged in a game of “chicken” with California’s Department of Social Services (CDSS).

The issue: ACF guidance that excludes state-run foster care administrations from accessing federal matching funds for kids already in subsidized guardianship programs before the passage of the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions act of 2008. Fostering Connections provides federal dollars for states that start subsidized or kinship guardianship programs, wherein family members take in kin and receive foster care payments. The problem is that according to the ACF guidance: states can only access the money “prospectively,” meaning that the 27 states including California that have preexisting Kin Care programs can’t draw down federal funds for the tens of thousands of kids already in subsidized care.

So, CDSS is threatening to move kids back into care and out again to make them eligible for federal funds. While I understand why the ACF guidance is written as such, I argue in this piece for the Huffington Post, that rescinding the guidance is a huge opportunity to speed Fostering Connections’ implementation across the country.

Since my story appeared on Dec. 14th, I have been peppering the editorial departments of newspapers up and down the state. So far the San Francisco Chronicle has followed with an editorial on Dec. 21. I have heard that other editorials will follow.

Further, on Dec 18th Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA) sent a letter signed by 31 California members of Congress to have the guidance rescinded: Kin-GAP CA Delegation Final.

Slowly but surely momentum is building to have this guidance rescinded, which will pave the way for the sweeping implementation of Fostering Connections that foster kids so desperately need.

David Goldman will  have a Merry Christmas as he finally has won his five-year international custody legal battle and has been reunited with his now 9-year old son, Sean Goldman.

Sean was taken away from his father by his mother Bruna Bianchi, by lying about a trip to visit her relatives in her native country of Brazil, for what was to be a two-week visit in 2004.

She remained in Brazil and remarried, keeping Sean with her,which is a kidnapping.

She tragically died in child-birth, and it has been reported that Bianchi made her new husband promise to keep Sean in Brazil, for some unknown reason.

Even after her death the family in Brazil would not release Sean to his father,and relentlessly fought to keep Sean in bondage away from his loving and kind American father.

The Brazilian family was very indignant and spiteful after losing the custody battle, and set out to make today’s release of Sean as much of a media spectacle as possible.

The Bianchi family maintained it would traumatize Sean if he was removed from what has been his home for five years,and they kept that reprehensible promise.

Their torture of Sean by parading him through the phalanx of media should be vilified, and shunned by all civilized human beings on the planet.

That is hate, not love!

Sean was seen crying as his step-father helped him through the crowd as guards had to “violently push back photographers and TV cameramen,”

Sean Goldman Rescued From Brazilian Kidnappers By His Dad.

Reuters is reporting that…at times, Sean covered his face from cameras. His teary-eyed Brazilian grandmother, who has campaigned publicly for the right to raise the boy herself and appealed to Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to intervene, entered separately without comment.

Goldman, who has seen Sean only in brief visits to Brazil since 2004, cried out, “They’re hurting my son!” upon seeing the scrum, a witness said.

Ambassador Hillary Rodham Clinton made the following statement….

“I am thrilled that 9-year-old Sean Goldman was reunited with his father David Goldman earlier today in Rio de Janeiro and that they are flying home to New Jersey,” Clinton said Thursday in a statement.

“I want to thank everyone who helped bring this long process to a successful conclusion, including a number of members of Congress and many concerned parties both here and in Brazil.

“We also appreciate the assistance and cooperation of the government of Brazil in upholding its obligations under the Hague Convention on International Child Abduction. I offer my warmest wishes for father and son as they celebrate their first holiday season together in five years.”

The Goldman’s arrived back in the USA tonight safely…right in time to celebrate a very Merry Christmas.The Goldman’s will spend their first holiday season together in five years at Disney World.

Good luck to all!!!

Happy Dad and Sean!!!..finally safe at home together.

Source-

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5BN1MJ20091225

http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2009/12/24/victory-for-nj-dad/

The holiday season got off with a blast in the face for Kendu Isaacs, the husband of Mary J. Blige, who got punched in the face by Mary, and then beat down by her brother at her record release party at club M2 Tuesday night.

The singer slugged Isaacs, drawing blood, after she thought he was flirting with a waitress and some of his favorite video vixens.

The fisticuffs started after Isaacs had Mary’s brother removed from the V.I.P. section of the club, in favor of the video models, whom he was also spotted flirting with.

“She turned to him and was screaming, ‘You’re not going to ruin my night,’ ” our witness says. “They got up in each other’s faces before her brother tried to separate them, at which point she shoved the guy aside, pulled back and popped Kendu in the face.”

Isaacs was subsequently physically removed from the club, and Mary left shortly thereafter.

Read the full story here, from the New York Daily News…..

http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2009/12/24/2009-12-24_mary_j_blige_i_was_just_stopping_brawl_between_my_husband_kendu_isaacs_and_my_br.html

Kendu checking his text messages like Tiger and Chris Brown…He needs to be texting Mary!!!

KENDU LOOKS AWAY AGAIN!!!…Man, you got Mary J. Blige,…you need to stop!!!

A view of the entrance of the Bella Centre in Copenhagen where the UN Climate Change Conference was held. Via United Nations Photo/Creative Commons

Countries from all across the world came together earlier this month to participate in the United Nations Climate Change Conference. Mike Smith flew over to blog for his HuffPo column, The Energy Collective and other content-hungry entities as each day unfolded. Here’s a roundup of events he attended, people he met and opinions he analyzed:

Dec. 7, 2009: Renewables and Grid Depend on Customers; The (Vestas) Answer is Blowing in the Wind

I will be working from Copenhagen where new entrepreneurs GEO and established companies like the 100-person Vestas wind energy of Denmark (see next blog post) are counting on new carbon consumption guidelines from delegates; many also seeking partnerships with like-minded clean energy distributors or smart grid businesses. My role is both blogging for Huffington Post and as contributor to Energy Collectiv. I am also on a trade mission with the U.S. Department of Commerce and working the U.S. trade booth at Bright Green trade show on Dec. 12-14.

Dec. 9, 2009: EU, US Not Doing Enough for Climate Change (Chinese Party News Service);  Deputy Delegate Su Wei Pushes Back on EU Comparisons (The Energy Collective); Deputy Delegate Su Wei Pushes Back on EU Comparisons (HuffPo)

China’s Deputy Head of the Chinese Delegation Su Wei confirmed that the recently announced 45% reduction of GHG emissions before 2020, per unit of GDP, is an internal and domestic matter. He also said China’s ambitious efforts were more remarkable than those of the EU and the U.S. – by offering UNFCCC attendees simple math equations. He is the first delegate to compare “apples to apples” on developed country reduction targets.

Americans Arrogant at UN Climate Conference (COP15) (HuffPo)

American bombast and European Union snark were on full display at Day One of the UNFCC in Copenhagen today. U.S. Envoy Jonathan Pershing said “there is a deal to be done” in Copenhagen but relented that it would not be a treaty.

Dec. 10, 2009: Todd Stern Says No Treaty at Copenhagen

Special U.S. Envoy on Climate Change Todd Stern yesterday arrived at the United Nations Foundation meeting on Climate Change, a big jet-lagged, and went right onto the press conference stage. He said that the United States believes the outcomes here in Copenhagen will become a “politically binding agreement” but not legally binding.

Dec. 11, 2009: The Business of Green at COP15

Today in Copenhagen, the world’s governmental delegates stepped aside a bit as global business took center stage. With the Bright Green expo* and trade event starting on Saturday morning, commercial enterprises and dealmakers started their own negotiations today.

View Mike’s complete HuffPo blog feed here.

Edmund (Eddie) Boyle

An escaped prisoner from England, is on the run, but he is still finding time to update his Facebook status!

CNN.com is reporting that...Craig Lynch, 28, escaped Hollesley Bay open prison near Suffolk, eastern England, back in September, but has continued to update his Facebook status regularly — describing everything from his meals to who his next girlfriend will be.

Even though he is updating his status, and letting us all know what he will do next,..the authorities still seem to find him to be elusive.

Maybe he is lying about what he is actually up to, just like so many people on Facebook, just to throw the police off.

I think they would be wise to be skeptical about the truthfulness of his post, and do some real police work and find him.

Other than that, this takes the term ‘cyber-criminal’ to a whole different level!

Read the full story here….

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/12/23/uk.fugitive.facebook.prison/index.html

V magazine’s upcoming issue on newstands Jan. 14th, is the “size” issue, with spreads proving that being an average size can do all kinds of things for sexy.

See more photos at V magazine’s website, as well as previewed by models.com.

Crystal Renn is the plus-sized model featured in the spread and as reported by the Huffington Post: Renn told the AP in an interview, “I’d like to see everyone take on the attitude that there are women of all different shapes and sizes as ‘the beauty ideal,’ and that it’s not one type or another. There are women who are naturally a size 2–you can’t forget them, and that’s discrimination the other way. All women bring something different to the table and we have to appreciate them all.”

Jon Reiss (filmmaker) gives 10 things you can add to your Christmas (and Hanukah) list to help save independent film.

via videography

The Colorado man who carried out the balloon boy hoax choked back tears as he apologized for the stunt, before a judge read out his punishment for the hoax.

Richard Heene has been sentenced to 90 days in jail.

I think he needed a little time-out to reflect on his crime.

I am wondering what effect this will have on his kids. It will be a different kind of Christmas gift for them…free from dad for a few months…

So ends the saga of the Balloon Boy!!!

SOURCE-

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-balloon-boy24-2009dec24,0,2155885.story

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/21/balloon-boy-parents-acted_n_400119.html

Taking a quick break from car stuff. Enjoy!

Berlusconi’s Blunders: A Year Of Unforgettable Moments

(via Huffington Post)

On Friday, the Wall Street Journal’s Anthony Paletta, in his article “George W. Bush Is Out of the Picture,” made note of the fact that very few critics had latched onto the newly released film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road for any references to the policies of the previous presidential administration.

“For eight [very, very long] years,” wrote Mr. Paletta (with just a smattering of my own words added), “reviewers could be relied upon to construe almost any mildly dark artistic output as a sure comment on the Bush-era cruelty, greed, or amorality.”

To a large extent, my esteemed colleague is right. For the better part of eight years, blue-staters did make it their job to litter conversations at hoity-toity cocktail parties (and then, fancy-shmancy unemployment lines) with jokes, references, and, yes, peculiarly extended film metaphors at the expense of our former president. Read more at The Huffington Post.

I’m moving slowly today, as the time stamp on this post clearly indicates.

I’m in the midst of a job search and that has consumed most of my day. That and lunch at The Diner with a good friend. She’s also looking for a job, but she has the luxury at the moment of being in graduate school. Still, it’s stressful and a good chunk of our lunch was spent chatting about our respective job search efforts.

I have been through this process and it is in no way fun. This time around, though, the outlook is looking more grim than before. It’s hard to keep your chin up with the bleak economy that is moving at a glacial pace toward recovery.

My job search is done almost exclusively online and so I’m often distracted by the internet. I suppose my HuffPo ticker doesn’t necessarily help, but then I wouldn’t have come across this story on 5 tips for maximizing your job search in 2010.

I don’t really give too much credence to these kind of stories as they’re usually pretty generic. This one is actually helpful, though, in that it gives you tips that incorporate social networking. Plus, it provides a much-needed jolt, in case you’re feeling sorry for yourself this holiday season. This is surely something every job hunter should keep in mind. I regularly go through my various social networking sites to make sure that it’s as professional looking as possible. I would add, however, that you don’t need to go overboard and delete all your photos or status updates. I’m not generally a fan of setting up more than one account on facebook or myspace or whatever. For one, it gets hard to maintain multiple sites. I think it also comes across as a little disingenuous. Just make sure your facebook profile is “clean” enough so that your grandma wouldn’t blush upon viewing it.

I especially liked the idea of setting up a Google Voice phone number created solely for the purpose of being reachable by employers.

–Make sure recruiters can reach you easily.
If a recruiter or company has to struggle to contact, it’s over. You won’t get the interview. When publishing your résumé and profile online, use an easy and relatively simple email address. Your first initial and last name will work.

There’s another easy way to be found. You can use a free service called Google Voice to create a phone number that is dedicated to your job search. Publish that number without worrying about stalkers. Although you are worried about privacy, it’s important that hiring managers and recruiters be able to reach you without overcoming a series of obstacles. You are not a celebrity. It’s time to be found so you can get back to work.

One caveat, this is by no means an exhaustive list and you should only incorporate this into your current job hunting routine.

Happy job hunting!

Vets in New York have reportedly diagnosed the first known case of H1N1 Swine Flu in a dog.

The LA Times reports…The virus has been found before in other pets, including at least three ferrets, several cats and pigs and a cheetah named Gijima at a wildlife preserve in Santa Rosa.

A couple of the cats died, but most of the animals recovered.

Full story here-http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-sci-swine-flu-dog23-2009dec23,0,2022503.story

They say we should not be alarmed by this alarming development. Reportedly it is a “rare” occurence.

What do you think? …how are we going to get the dogs and cats to wash their hands?

I am kind of concerned, lots of dogs around here!….

Just released: The Knight Foundation has made a $200,000 investment in Huffington Post Investigative Fund, the nonprofit news outlet founded by The Huffington Post.

The foundation is so-named for those Knights: John S. and James L. Knight, who established media enterprise Knight-Ridder, which was sold to newspaper publisher McClatchy in 2006. (Disclosure: Knight-Ridder was a client of mine.)

Politico reports:

Knight now joins joins the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy, Atlantic Philanthropies, the Markle Foundation and The Huffington Post as the principal backers of the project. 


Headed by Executive Director Nick Penniman and Executive Editor Larry Roberts, the Investigative Fund now has 11 full-time staffers and a $2 million budget. Arianna Huffington chairs the board or directors, which also includes journalist and New America Foundation head Steve Coll and philanthropist David Bohnett.

I’m among the minority who firmly believe that having many more nonprofit news sources would be a good thing for everyone involved, and that nonprofit news outlets are the ideal place for the most-skilled journalists in the industry to work. This is why today’s funding announcement is such welcome news: Two-hundred large can come pretty close to funding two staff reporters, including travel, for a year.

Go here and here for incomplete but mostly accurate lists of other nonprofit journalism projects, both in print (e.g., Mother Jones) and online (e.g., ProPublica).

Dear Arianna I have pretty much given up on blogging for you. I know this is not on your radar screen but maybe it should be.

The last straw was the failure to publish this piece on Afghanistan. It languished in my queue for weeks and finally was so out of date that it made no sense to leave it there. I tried to delete it but could not. I have given up reminding your blogteam that a piece of mine has been languishing for weeks.

I think there is something wrong with the mechanics but I have never been able to unearth someone to check.

It is the height of egotism to believe that one’s thoughts are too original for HuffPo and are being singled out for censure. I do not believe that. What I do believe is that my pieces stack up with the thoughts of others who seem to have no trouble getting heard.

I offer you a large archive of failed attempts to get recent pieces posted. I won’t hold my breath.

Jane Wales, World Affairs Council President and CEO, is now blogging for the Huffington Post. Read her most current blog, about what philanthropists can do to meet the needs of lower-income Americans, here.

MyLifeBits is a Microsoft Research project led by the legendary Gordon Bell, designed to put “all of his atom- and electron-based bits in his local Cyberspace….MyLifeBits includes everything he has accumulated, written, photographed, presented, and owns (e.g. CDs).” 

SenseCam - Click to enlarge

Among other technical means, Bell uses the SenseCam, a remarkable prototype from Microsoft Research.  It’s a nifty little wearable device that combines high-capacity memory, a fisheye lens passively capturing 3,000 images a day, along with an infrared sensor, temperature sensor, light sensor, accelerometer, and USB interface. My group has played with SenseCam a bit, and shared it with quite a few interested government parties and partners. More info on SenseCam here, and more on its parent Sensors and Devices Group in MSR.  

The MyLifeBits project has enormous potential, I think, befitting something which aims to incorporate and outstrip Vannevar Bush’s extraordinary original vision of Memex.  The project has now been captured in a great new book I’ve been reading: Total Recall: How the E-Memory Revolution Will Change Everything, written by Bell and colleague Jim Gemmell. Their Total Recall motto is, “The e-memory revolution is changing everything.” 

In the FAQ section of their website, Bell and Gemmell write: 

“Total Recall works best when capture is completely automatic. For example, we automatically make a copy of every web page we visit, with a note of the URL and the time visited. If this was manual, very few web pages would be saved. Similarly, we get pictures from wearing the SenseCam without having to stop enjoying the moment to become the photographer. Today, at the start of the Total Recall revolution, too much is manual. Part of what will change in the next ten years as Total Recall comes to full fruition will be more and more automatic capture.” 

Here’s a quick video look at it: 

The companion Total Recall project blog also catalogs other interesting projects in the same spirit, for example The Quantified Self (about which Bell writes, “The QS implies capturing and recording everything, but it goes beyond what Gemmell and I describe, by using the data for conducting experiments and for control.”

I find that notion in synch with several thoughts around the idea of “Government as a Platform” and Data.gov, so let’s explore the government potential a bit.

No Leader’s Life Unexamined

Lately it seems that the world – or at least the digerati’s virtual continent –  is divided into two groups of people: those who knew Dr. Mark Drapeau by that name, first and in real life … and those who got to know “@cheeky_geeky,” his ubiquitous online persona, from his widely read Twitter feed, his Posterous blogs, or his prolific online writing at Huffington Post, Washington Life, and so on. Drapeau lives up to the line from Socrates, that the unexamined life is not worth living. His fully examined life quite evidently is. 

I barely fall into the first group, as I met Mark at a National Defense University conference before the Twitter phenomenon really got rocking, but I’ve watched as this talented writer opened up more and more of his private and professional life to the universe of digital eyeballs. The conferences, the dinners, the speeches, the parties – we’re all watching a life examined, reflected through his eyes and refracted through thousands of others. Mark Drapeau’s life is as transparent as they come. To illustrate, he’s even had to introduce a new acronym to his torrential stream; “TPTT” for too private to tweet. 

In the last year, Mark has become an acknowledged thought-leader in the Government 2.0 space as well; he co-chaired 2009’s inaugural Gov 2.0 Expo Showcase in Washington DC (disclosure: I chaired a panel there), and is co-chairing the full 2010 Gov 2.0 Expo (disclosure: I’m on the Senior Advisory Committee for that as well). 

Now Mark is bringing those two parts of his life together, in a musing of the future of government transparency taken to its extreme. Yesterday he posted a provocative piece on Posterous, “What Would an Always-On-the-Record Government Look Like?” in which he proposes something like a Gawker site for government: 

Imagine if someone … wanted to document a day in the life of Senator Ben Nelson. It’s not hard. You check the general schedules of his committees and such beforehand, go through security at the Capitol, find his office, camp out, maybe ask the person at the front desk some questions, find some press in the hallways and ask some questions, stalk the cafeteria and listen for people saying “Nelson,” go back to his office and see him leaving to walk down the hall to a committee hearing, go to the committee hearing and tape it from a Flip in your coat pocket, upload it to YouTube while you follow him to his next meeting, and so forth. 

I’ve a mixed mind on whether this is progress in the life of the public square (I posted some thoughts in a comment there), but I’m a realist. The technology is definitely already here to enable the type of “amateur journalism” Mark writes about, and this past decade has seen an explosion in what is more typically called “Citizen Journalism.” 

There’s a high-minded aspect to this, beyond the Gawker mentality. As early as 2005 Steve Outing at Poynter Online wrote that Citizen Journalism was “one of the hottest buzzwords in the news business these days,” and proceeded to offer a thoughtful compendium of examples.   The next year, PBS put online ”Your Guide to Citizen Journalism,” saying that “The idea behind citizen journalism is that people without professional journalism training can use the tools of modern technology and the global distribution of the Internet to create, augment or fact-check media on their own or in collaboration with others.”  Wikipedia has a good background entry on citizen journalism; and the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism among others now has a program in the subject. 

That’s all outside-in, the citizenry watching their public servants. There’s also another, less explored aspect: the inside aiming out, or having public servants open up the fullness of their lives, transparently for all to see – and judge. 

I’m not certain how quickly we will advance along that front. So far, Twitter adoption and blogging among elected officials in the U.S. and Europe (primarily) have been somewhat faddish, used mostly as another channel for self-promotion. That’s not always a bad thing, as many elected officials self-promote the actual good things they do. Most simply self-promote.  Mark Drapeau is after something more fundamental. 

Perhaps we will indeed find public servants willing to use new social-media technologies to live up to that old saw, “My life is an open book.” In doing so, we would undoubtedly uncover a few Gary Harts along the way – he famously told journalist E.J. Dionne, “Follow me around. I don’t care. I’m serious. If anybody wants to put a tail on me, go ahead. They’ll be very bored.” They did, they caught him with Donna Rice, and his electoral career was finished. 

The consequences might in fact be negative. We’ve been suffering for the past twenty years since celebrity journalism included politics in its swath. Jack Kennedy would never run for office today; he enjoyed his girlfriends too much to give that up, and he’d never get away with them in a MyLifeBits scenario. Abe Lincoln would surely think twice about running, as he was already highly protective of his wife’s reputation and mental well-being… if there’d been some 24×7 spotlight on her and her Confederate relatives, as there is on Michelle Obama, Abe would’ve been toast. 

No Hollywood face looks great in HD television close-up …. and there’s a chance leadership in public service will never look the same under this glare. 

But science demands experimentation… so in the interests of science we must persuade some politician to step up to the challenge and do some real life-casting. Let’s strap a SenseCam around Sen. Ben Nelson’s neck – or better yet, fit it to a string of pearls for Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi!

Talk about open government

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Thanks to a Facebook group they made it to the very top with their ‘92 single “Killing in the Name”. Power to the people. Social networking at its best. It’s possible if you are relevant. 450.000 members in just two weeks of existence. Good job. Emily Henry writes in her article “…In the campaign for Rage Against the Machine to get the Christmas No.1 spot, a salute is owed to Facebook for its ability to organize the disorganized. Simon Cowell and his music manufacturing machine have been reminded of the fact that no one man decides the fate of the music industry. It is a democratic process. “The silent majority has spoken,” said my 15-year-old brother via his Facebook status. Rage has been accomplished against the machine. At least, that’s the idea, right?…” Read the full story at huffington post.

Federal officials should investigate situation at Haskell.

By Dolph C. Simons, Jr. Lawrence Journal World.

December 19, 2009

It appears the time has come for a deep, thorough investigation of what is going on at Haskell Indian Nations University.

Haskell is a unique and important university, and it deserves every opportunity to fulfill its mission of helping prepare American Indians to be involved, contributing members of today’s “real world.”

It’s a good school, but it has the potential to be a far better academic institution. However, it cannot and will not rise to higher levels of excellence and become a nationally recognized and prized university for American Indians unless it has stable, enlightened leadership.

Over the years, there have been far too many changes in leadership at the school. There also have been and currently are elements within the faculty who make it extremely difficult to develop a sound, forward-looking academic curriculum.

Earlier this week, it was learned Haskell President Linda Warner had been shuffled off to some relatively minor Indian-related position in Oklahoma City.

Warner is an able, highly educated administrator, but, apparently, internal politics within the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Indian Education or actions and lack of cooperation by some at Haskell all have combined to keep her from initiating and overseeing a sound academic program for the benefit of Haskell students.

Before shifting Warner to Oklahoma City, powers within the BIA or BIE had her moved to a position in the Albuquerque, N.M., area.

Word of the internal mess at Haskell leaked out through a letter signed by Ted Wright, who spent a year as Haskell’s vice president for university services. In the letter, addressed to Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and all members of Congress, Wright asks for a thorough internal investigation of the school. He wrote, “Unfortunately, Haskell employs a group of about seven individuals who actively work against the administration. This group has been vocal, and since the BIE maintains a policy that does not allow administrators to respond, only misinformation, rumor and innuendoes are spread to the public, to the students and to Congress.”

He added, “I agree with a recent blog that said this should be embarrassing to BIE officials; it was embarrassing to me as a native person that the very group of people who should have native students in mind actually worked to create an environment of fictional drama on campus that was detrimental to the University’s attempt to live up to its potential.”

He then lists numerous situations that he thinks illustrate the immediate need for an investigation. Some of these cover areas such as ethics, hiring policies and budget/money issues.

He said, “You have many issues in Interior; I wonder where Indian students fit in your priorities?”

This letter was dated Oct. 8, 2009, and, according to those close to the situation, there has been no response from Salazar and, until recently, no response from members of Congress indicating they intend to check into what appears to be a very ugly situation at Haskell.

It should be embarrassing, but the reaction or response to Wright’s letter or Warner’s efforts seems to be for Indian officials to try to make Warner disappear, get rid of her.

She is a member of the Comanche tribe and has a bachelor’s degree from Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Okla., a master’s in education from Pennsylvania State University and a Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma. She has held senior positions at the Tennessee State Board of Regents, the University of Missouri and the National Science Foundation.

Haskell would benefit greatly by her leadership.

The sad part of this story is that officials of the BIE, BIA and Interior Department either don’t care or don’t think this is a sufficiently important situation to respond to Wright’s letter or provide information to those in Congress who have asked for information.

Apparently, they think they don’t have to reply and are not answerable to anyone.

Lawrence residents should be concerned. Haskell, founded in 1884, is the nation’s oldest continuously operating BIA educational facility. It currently has approximately 1,000 students representing about 135 tribes from close to 40 states. It’s an important university.

If Lawrence and Douglas County did not have Kansas University and Baker University, local residents would be doing everything they could to help Haskell.

Just as Kansas legislators face severe economic conditions that limit the number of dollars they can allocate to KU, the same situation applies to Congress and what it can, or wishes to, appropriate for Haskell. Even so, it seems Congress has shortchanged Haskell and thereby has limited what the school has been able to achieve in providing an excellent educational facility for American Indians.

The current situation needs to be examined and certainly BIA, BIE and Interior Department officials should make such an investigation a top priority. Also, they should respond immediately to members of Congress asking for information about what is going on at Haskell.

As Wright said in his letter, the current situation is an embarrassment.

There is a decent person among politicians, who is fed up with the obstruction done on the process of health care refom.

This person is Jim Campbell, Maine Republican. He left GOP, saying that “I hope to send a message to the Republican Party – and the Democratic Party – that enough is enough; it is time to stop blocking progress in the hope of partisan gain.”

It’s great to see that there is someone out there with this kind of courage and principle.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/18/jim-campbell-maine-republ_n_397403.html

By Adrienne Ross – www.motivationtruth.com

I don’t agree with everything Stephen H. Dinan has to say about Governor Palin, but I am willing to listen to what he has to say. The reason is simple: he’s chosen to listen to what she has to say. In so doing, he has taken the road less traveled by the mainstream media. He chose to travel down Going Rogue Lane to find out who the Governor really is, rather than who the haters want people to believe she is. He chose to get to know her himself. The best way to do that, obviously, is to read her memoir and hear her words “unfiltered,” as she says. He does just that. For this I commend him.

So what led Dinan on this journey?

Over Thanksgiving, I was hiking with my brother-in-law when he commented that he only knew two kinds of people: those who loved Sarah Palin and those who hated her. Nobody was in the gray zone. While I didn’t consider myself a “hater,” I also knew that she had triggered intense reactions in me when she joined the Republican ticket. After Obama’s victory, the fear of her becoming President subsided along with the negative charge, but I had to confess to a lingering prejudice beneath the surface.

One week later, I bought her autobiography, Going Rogue. Why? To dissolve my own prejudice and to better understand how we as a culture can go beyond the extreme political polarizations that have so paralyzed our country.

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So reading Going Rogue was something of a test for myself – could I find the place of appreciation, respect, and even love for Sarah Palin?

What I found is that it wasn’t really that hard, actually, simply by taking the time to meet her on her own turf rather than through sounds bites, spin, and polarized media battles. Reading someone’s personal memoir is an intimate journey into their inner sanctum, and I developed a real appreciation for Sarah in reading the book.

This brings to mind a quote from my favorite novel, To Kill A Mockingbird. Atticus Finch taught his six year old daughter, Scout, a very important life-lesson when he said:

You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.

This further reinforces my philosophy that most of the lessons one needs to learn can be gathered from Harper Lee’s classic novel.

Stephen H. Dinan came away from Going Rogue with a deeper understanding of Governor Palin, her upbringing, her love for family, her patriotic passion, and her desire to serve. He acknowledges, too, the prejudices she continues to face. He admits what liberals have been loath to admit–that she arouses fear and worry in people–and he doesn’t exempt himself from those same emotions. Furthermore, he states that this has led to

a barrage of distorted stories, inflated fears, and downright misrepresentations, some of which were quite damaging to her family.

It’s the sad truth, yet it’s refreshing to finally hear someone confess what we’ve always known to be true.

The bottom line is that Dinan had the courage to put aside his own prejudices in favor of the truth. And when he did, he discovered the Governor Palin who always existed, but one he had heretofore been deaf and blind to because he had been listening to and looking at others who themselves didn’t know her. Going Rogue allowed him to get a real look.

Although he doesn’t agree with every position Governor Palin takes, he has come to find what Scout finds at the end of To Kill A Mockingbird when she finally sees Boo Radley, the man she has known only through the rumors and smears of her neighbors. Scout realizes Boo cannot be honestly defined by others. The real Boo Radley would write his own story for Scout Finch to read.

To Kill A Mockingbird ends with this exchange between Scout and her father, Atticus, when she realizes Boo is not the monster he has been made out to be:

“When they finally saw him, why he hadn’t done any of those things…Atticus, he was real nice…”

“Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them.”

Dinan made the effort to see Governor Palin.

Stephen H. Dinan’s article is a good one–and it’s published in the Huffington Post, of all places. Maybe they’ll get the message and take a look also.

Read the full article, Dissolving the Palin Prejudice.

(H/T Fay)