Say Anything Blog

Dorgan: Grand Forks Air Force Base needs a mission
Kevin Bonham
Grand Forks Herald - 08/23/2008

Grand Forks Air Force Base needs a mission — besides Unmanned Aerial Systems — to propel it into the future, according to Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D.

Dorgan visited the base Friday, meeting with Brig. Gen. S. Taco Gilbert III, director of Strategic Plans, Requirements and Programs at the Air Force’s Air Mobility Command, and Col. John Michel, the commander of the 319th Air Refueling Wing.

The base is preparing for the 2009 arrival of an Unmanned Aerial System mission. Predator and Global Hawk UAS based in Grand Forks will be piloted via remote control from the North Dakota Air National Guard base in Fargo.

The 2009 and 2010 departures of the KC-135 tankers currently at Grand Forks will leave plenty of unused space at the base, Dorgan said.

“Grand Forks Air Force Base is a world-class base with some of the Air Force’s best personnel, and the support it receives from the community is unmatched,” he said. “It will continue to play a key role in our national defense for many years to come.”

Dorgan and the North Dakota congressional delegation are working with the Air Force to assure that Grand Forks Air Force Base will become a home to the new KC-X tanker, which will be built in the next few years.

“It could be five or six years from now, under optimistic estimates, as to when the new KC-X tankers might be available,” he said. “We want to find another use to bridge that gap until, we hope, we’re selected as a home for the new KC-X. Gen. Gilbert’s visit illustrates they’re taking this very seriously,” Dorgan said.

GFAFB is home to three squadrons of KC-135 tankers — 38 planes and 2,050 active duty personnel. Another 4,000 family members and civilian employees also are connected to the base at its current mission strength.

Michel has talked about marketing unused areas at the base for possible commercial uses by federal or state agencies.

“We’re just brainstorming a lot of ideas,” Dorgan said. “Obviously, the solution that would best utilize the base would be a larger Air Force mission. But it’s important to look for all kinds of opportunities, on the commercial side as well.”

Can DC’s schools be saved? Unconventional new chief seeks to fix system where others failed
By BRIAN WESTLEY Associated Press Writer
The Associated Press - Sunday, August 24, 2008
WASHINGTON

She has shuttered 23 schools, fired more than 30 principals and given notice to hundreds of teachers and administrative workers.

Just a year on the job, District of Columbia Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee is making bold changes as she tries to accomplish what six would-be reformers in the past decade could not: rescue one of the nation’s most dysfunctional school districts.

The hard-charging schools chief is unwavering in her belief that she can succeed. “My goal is to make D.C. the highest performing urban school system in the country,” Rhee said as she prepared for the start of classes Monday.

 
In this July 17, 2008 file photo, Washington Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Education and Labor Committee. Just a year on the job, Rhee is making bold changes as she tries to accomplish what six would-be reformers in the past decade could not
It is an audacious task for the founder of a teacher-training organization who had no experience running even a single school when she arrived.

Rhee is an unconventional choice in other ways. The Korean-American is the first D.C. schools chief in nearly four decades who is not black. And at 38, the Ivy-League educated Rhee is one of nation’s youngest leaders of a big urban school district.

She wants to fix a great injustice: the inability of America’s public schools to educate students equally - particularly in the nation’s capital.

Like many urban schools, Washington’s are struggling to educate students amid poverty and violence. Students also have suffered because of entrenched cronyism, which has led to incompetent bureaucracy and fiscal mismanagement.

Although the district is among the nation’s highest-spending school systems, its students rank near the bottom in reading and math proficiency. Schools have leaky roofs and broken fire sprinklers. Bathrooms are decrepit, with broken toilets and missing stall doors.

Not surprisingly, enrollment in the 49,000-student system is shrinking as parents move their children to charter schools, which are publicly funded but independently operated.

“People want Michelle Rhee to succeed because no one knows what’s going to happen if she doesn’t,” said Mary Levy, who has been involved in the schools since her children enrolled in the 1970s.

Levy is wary, though. She has seen school chiefs arrive with great fanfare only to leave in exasperation. Army Lt. Gen. Julius Becton Jr. was tapped in 1996 by a presidentially appointed board. He quit after 18 months.

“I consider it the most difficult job I ever had,” said Becton, who fought in three wars and was awarded two Purple Heart medals.

Urban education experts like Michael Casserly, executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools, blame the mess in part on a long-running power struggle among local politicians, Congress and community activists.

“You’ve had so many varying actors ... pulling on the school system with such strength that ultimately it went nowhere,” he said.

This time will be different, Rhee believes, thanks to Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, who made school reform his top priority when he was elected in 2006.

Fenty quickly seized control of the schools, doing away with the school board. He also won the power to hire and fire the superintendent. He tapped Rhee, founder of the New Teacher Project, which trains teachers to work in urban schools.

“You don’t want me for this job,” Rhee initially told him. She believed fixing D.C.‘s schools would be impossible without radical change, requiring unpopular choices for a politician.

Rhee is convinced a motivated teacher can help even the most disadvantaged student achieve. She said her belief is shaped by three years of teaching in Baltimore.

At first, the 8-year-old students “pretty much ran me over,” Rhee said. She saw dramatic improvements in her second and third years when she combined classes with another teacher.

“The (neighborhood) violence didn’t change,” she said. “We drove the kids relentlessly and they achieved.”

So far, Rhee has streamlined Washington’s central office by firing nearly 100 employees. She dismissed 36 principals she considered ineffective, including one at the elementary school her two daughters attend. She also sent termination letters this summer to 750 teachers and teacher’s aides who missed a certification deadline.

Rhee’s approach has its critics. The decision to close 23 under-enrolled schools was particularly controversial; some parents accused her of rushing the process.

“Anyone who raises concern is labeled as being for the status quo,” said Crystal Sylvia, a D.C. schools social worker whose son is entering kindergarten.

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said the revolving door of superintendents is demoralizing. “It’s the fad of the month, the flavor of the year.”

Even the D.C. Council, which approved Fenty’s schools takeover plan, has balked at not being consulted on decisions and has held up money for school repairs.

Still, Rhee can point to some momentum. Recent test scores show the number of schools making adequate progress in math and reading under the federal No Child Left Behind law increased from 31 to 47 - or about one-third of the school system.

Some say the credit lies with reforms by Rhee’s predecessor, Clifford Janey, who now leads the schools in Newark, N.J. Rhee attributes the change to a culture of accountability - something she is hoping to improve by linking teacher pay to student achievement.

By soliciting donations from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and other groups, Rhee wants to make Washington’s teachers among the nation’s best-paid with salaries that could reach $131,000.

However, teachers would have to give up seniority and spend a year on probation, exposing them to the possibility of being fired.

Weingarten, whose national organization includes the D.C. teachers’ union, said there’s nothing inherently wrong with pay-for-performance plans. But she doesn’t believe they should be based on standardized test scores - something Rhee has indicated she supports. Negotiations with the union are ongoing.

The plan could be a big boost for Rhee in her quest to attract top instructors. But she cautions that fixing D.C.‘s schools won’t happen quickly and has given herself eight years to reach that goal.

Many will be watching, including Becton, the retired general. When pressed on whether Rhee can pull it off, he wouldn’t give a direct answer. Instead, he replied: “If anyone can be successful, she can.”
For the children’s sakes, I wish her luck.
___

Area college leaders refuse to sign drinking petition
Susanne Nadeau
Grand Forks Herald

More than 100 university presidents and chancellors said this week they wanted to start a national debate about lowering the drinking age to 18 — but the heads of area universities are not among them.

UND President Robert Kelley, University of Minnesota-Crookston Chancellor Charles H. Casey and Mayville (N.D.) State University President Gary Hagen all said they were asked to sign a petition seeking public discussion of the issue but refused.

“Without research, I fail to see how making alcohol available to younger people is a good idea,” Hagen said. “I’m not convinced there’s research that validates a movement toward that. And I don’t think we should be making rules that would put alcohol in young people’s hands easier, especially without knowing all the facts.”

The heads of Lake Region Community College in Devils Lake and Northland Community and Technical College, with campuses in East Grand Forks and Thief River Falls, were not among the signers either, though it’s not clear if they were asked.

Lake Region’s president Mike Bower declined to comment and Northland president Ann Temte did not return request for comment.

The stated goal of the Amethyst Initiative, the organization pushing the petition, is not to lower the drinking age but to start the dialogue about doing so. The signers of the petition proclaimed that “21 is not working.”

Instead, it said, “a culture of dangerous, clandestine ‘binge-drinking’ — often conducted off campus — has developed.”

National studies in recent years rank North Dakota high on the list of states with high frequency of binge and underage drinking. Grand Forks has been in the top 10 in the nation in similar studies.

More restrictions

When Hagen got a letter from the Amethyst Initiative a month ago asking for his signature, his immediate response was one of disbelief.

“I’m not convinced at all that this is a solution,” he said, acknowledging North Dakota’s binge drinking reputation. “It’s a very difficult problem; it’s so deeply seated and has been going on for such a long time. I think most families have been touched in some way with alcohol abuse, and it can be a very serious problem.”

The way to combat the problem is not to make alcohol more available, he said, but to limit access even further.

“I think there are better options,” he said. “More increased penalties for illegal providers. We should have increased funding for law enforcement programs. Education programs starting with younger children — the quicker you can indoctrinate people, have a program that enforces good messages in lives, the more beneficial.”

The state has favored restrictions, as well. Lawmakers, for example, have banned the so-called “power hour,” the hour after midnight when some who had just turned 21 would drink as much as they could.

Where’s the data?

UND spokesman Peter Johnson, speaking for Kelley, said the Amethyst Initiative has not provided any data that would convince UND there’s a reason to lower the drinking age.

“We would be very curious to see what kind of research there would be that would suggest it would be a good thing,” he said. “What’s the argument being made? How’s (lowering the drinking age) going to decrease binge drinking? We’re just not seeing any good data that this is a positive move in any way, shape or form.”

The big issue, he said, is maturity. “It’s pretty tough to say a person at 18 would have the same level of maturity as someone the age of 21.”

UND’s campus is mostly dry, with the exception of private businesses and groups, such as Ralph Englestad Arena and the Suite 49 restaurant and bar.

Still, Johnson said, UND is interested in the outcome of any debate. “We will certainly tune into it, pay attention to the discussion.”

Though Casey, the UMC chancellor, didn’t sign the petition, he indicated mixed feelings.

“I just don’t know,” Casey said. “What we’re at right now, we follow the law. The law is 21, and that’s what people have to follow. That’s what establishments have to follow.”

“Obviously, drinking on campus is an issue, and we do a lot of prevention education on alcohol, tobacco and other drugs, trying to raise awareness of some of the consequences,” Casey said. “I think most campuses have been doing that regularly for a number of years. We’re going to continue doing that.”

Binge and underage drinking on his campus, though, are fairly low, he said.

Similar to Johnson’s position, Casey said he’s open to hearing more.

“If it’s about the debate, let’s see if it’s got some merit,” he said. “I think that’s part of what universities and colleges do. They generate some of these discussions.”

“It will be interesting to see what our student representatives have to say,” he said.

Casey would not be the one to get involved, though, he said, because it would come down through the University of Minnesota system.

Online: For more info on the Amethyst Initiative, log on to http://www.amethystinitiative.org.

Grand Forks Herald - 08/23/2008

The college presidents said they wanted a national debate on the 21-year-old drinking age. They got it.

For years, former Middlebury College President John McCardell has been criticizing the law, saying it only encourages binge drinking and pushes alcohol into the shadows.

But then McCardell quietly enlisted about 100 college presidents in a campaign calling for the drinking age to be reconsidered. After The Associated Press reported on the effort this week, the issue erupted into the biggest discussion on the subject in years — in blogs, over e-mail, in newspaper editorials and around office water coolers.

College presidents usually avoid contentious topics because alienating alumni and politicians poses big risks and offers few rewards. So, it was big news when so many leaders of the nation’s best-known institutions signed on to McCardell’s “Amethyst Initiative,” named for the Greek gemstone said to ward off intoxication.

Supporters included presidents of private universities such as Duke, Dartmouth and Johns Hopkins, and public schools including Ohio State and the University of Maryland.

“No matter where you stand on this issue, it’s impossible to look at what has happened over the last three or four days and say this is a settled question,” McCardell said Friday in one of nearly a dozen scheduled media interviews.

“It’s also impossible to say the public isn’t ready to participate in the debate the presidents are calling for.”

Backlash

Critics led by Mothers Against Drunk Driving got their view across, too, accusing the presidents of seeking to avoid the unpleasant work of cracking down on campus lawbreakers.

MADD marshaled critics, including the acting chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, who called changing the law “a terrible idea” that would “jeopardize the lives of more teens.” On Friday, the International Association of Chiefs of Police issued a statement opposing a lower drinking age.

Amid the backlash, two presidents — Robert Franklin of Morehouse College and Kendall Blanchard of Georgia Southwestern State — withdrew their support.

“We welcome an honest discussion and that begins with a clear discussion of the science,” MADD CEO Chuck Hurley said. “We are hopeful that that will be the focus going forward.”

But at least 20 presidents have added their names this week, including the presidents of Montclair State in New Jersey and the University of Massachusetts system, bringing the total to at least 123.

“We’re not burying our head and trying to hide behind laws,” said the Rev. Paul Locatelli, president of Santa Clara University in California, who meets personally with every student written up for alcohol infractions. “We’re trying to say, ‘What is the best way to approach this issue?”‘

Results unclear

Whether the debate will lead anywhere is unclear. Opinion polls suggest most Americans support enforcing current drinking laws.

In a MADD press release, Rep. James Oberstar, a Minnesota Democrat and chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, said he would not consider any effort to repeal or weaken “this lifesaving law.”

Efforts in states including Minnesota, Wisconsin and Vermont to relax the drinking age have been rebuffed. A 1984 federal law limits a state’s access to federal highway funds if it sets a drinking age younger than 21.

But that law is up for reauthorization next year. McCardell wants it changed so states can decide for themselves the best drinking age, without fear of losing federal money. He hopes the drinking age will become an issue in the fall election campaign.

A number of newspaper editorials this week criticized the presidents, calling enforcement a better answer.

The Indianapolis Star questioned “whether the style of behavior demonstrated by a university president or a professor at a dinner or reception will be replicated by freshmen let loose at their first Friday night keg party.”

“Why permit 18-year-olds to vote but not drink?” asked Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman. “Because they have not shown a disproportionate tendency to abuse the franchise, to the peril of innocent bystanders.”

But other editorial pages, including The Houston Chronicle, were more sympathetic — at least to the presidents’ call for debate, if not to lowering the drinking age.

While “it’s hard to believe that the current drinking age is to blame, it does limit the ways colleges can respond” to problem drinking, wrote The Los Angeles Times.

Against the forces of peer-pressure and marketing, “the only educational message colleges can deliver to students is ‘Don’t.’ It’s worth considering ways to teach young people how to drink responsibly — for example, by letting states create limited, provisional rights.”

Predictably, student newspapers were also sympathetic, such as the Duke Chronicle, which praised President Richard Brodhead for signing on.

“We’d even raise a glass to him — that is, if we could,” the Chronicle editors wrote.

On Friday, 21 Aug 08, ABC News reported that the U.S. leads the world in infant mortality rates. As an example they talked about a 12 year old girl who did not get any prenatal care and who hid the pregnacy from her family until about 2 weeks before she was due to give birth. In true media fashion, they focused on the fact that she was Black. Though Blacks have a disproportionately higher rates than others, I am sure that this trend transcends all ethnic barriers. A Black doctor said that we should be ashamed that society is letting this occur. He claimed that we should be shouting from the rooftops and marching against this outrage. I wonder what this is supposed to do. Is it to get the government more involved in something which they really have no power over. I am talking about personal responsibility here. These young girls should not be allowing themselves to get pregnant. I remember several years ago, many girls said they wanted babies because they would have someone who would love them unconditionally. Liberals associated that with the fact that many lived in poverty or high crime areas. Some claim that these girls do not have access to maternity care. I thought that was what Planned Parenthood was all about: providing prenatal care. Maybe I am wrong or ill informed. But I think this a classic case of victimization. And I am tired of it. These girls have made a choice to have unprotected sex. Then they put their health in jeopardy by hiding it from their parents. There are those who advocate that improving living conditions would be an answer to the problem. I think that parental involvement, discipline and a sense of self-worth would go along way toward ending this blight on American society.

For those of you who do not know, a gackle is a large black bird about the size of a crow/raven.
They are normally rather abundant in North Dakota. I have noticed that this summer and last,
the gackles could not be found in my back yard or the lot where I work. I put out 2 phony parrots on my deck. Maybe this scared them away.
But I have noticed that there are just not as many of them as there used to be. Is this an omen of a serious environmental problem? You birdwatchers out there let me know what you think.

According to news reports we routed the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2003. If that is true, why are we still fighting there? I hope it is not to find and kill Osama Bin Laden. I do not feel that this is a mission worth pursuing. Think of the number of innocent people who have already been killed in the hunt to find one man. It makes no sense. Maybe it’s our cowboy mentality. So please tell me why we are in Afghanistan?

All my life I have lived with the creed that understanding and education would bridge the gap between the races. Apparently, I was/am wrong. After my posting of Lift Every Voice and Sing, Graves smugly stated there is only one National Anthem. I do not feel anything to the contrary. Several months ago I posted my feelings on Affirmative Action and you blokes took me to task for that. Maybe you conservatives really are the closed minded people many Americans think you are. People like Neiman and Chief RZ give me hope for the future, though. You cannot engage in any debate with a thin skin. When you come to the table, you better be wearing your full armor or stay home.

Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” was first performed in public in Jacksonville, Florida as part of a celebration of Lincoln’s Birthday on February 12, 1900 by a choir of 500 schoolchildren at the segregated Stanton School, where James Weldon Johnson was principal.

Singing this song quickly became a way for African Americans to demonstrate their patriotism and hope for the future. In calling for earth and heaven to “ring with the harmonies of Liberty,” they could speak out subtly against racism and Jim Crow laws—and especially the huge number of lynchings accompanying the rise of the Ku Klux Klan at the turn of the century. In 1919, the NAACP adopted the song as “The Negro National Anthem.” By the 1920s, copies of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” could be found in black churches across the country, often pasted into the hymnals.

In 1939, Augusta Savage received a commission from the World’s Fair and created a 16 foot tall plaster sculpture called Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing. Savage did not have any funds for a bronze cast, or even to move and store it, and it was destroyed by bulldozers at the close of the fair.

During and after the American Civil Rights Movement, the song experienced a rebirth, and by the 1970s was often sung immediately after “The Star Spangled Banner” at public events and performances across the United States where the event had a significant African-American population.

In Maya Angelou’s 1969 autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, the song is sung by the audience and students at Maya’s eighth grade graduation, after a white school official dashes the educational aspirations of her class.
In 1990, singer Melba Moore released a modern rendition of the song, which she recorded along with others including R&B artists Anita Baker, Stephanie Mills, Dionne Warwick, Bobby Brown, Stevie Wonder, Jeffrey Osborne, and Howard Hewett; and gospel artists BeBe and CeCe Winans, Take 6, and The Clark Sisters. Partly because of the success of this recording, “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” was entered into the Congressional Record as the official African American National Hymn.

Just thought I would enlighten y’all about the “Black National Anthem”. I still do not agree with substituting this song for the National Anthem. It seems there is always someone, on both sides of the aisle, who are dead set on making this presidential election about race and divisiveness.

Like many of you, I am tired of removing my shoes
when going through the airport screening process.
I think that TSA and DHS should review the inspection process and make it easier, while still safe, on the flying public. And they should quit buying these super expensive x-ray machines which will only be employed at a small number of airports anyway.

Yesterday I saw a story on a man who refused to present any ID when purchasing a ticket for a flight in the U.S. He stated that he did not believe that as an American citizen, he needed to provide positive
ID to travel in his own country. Yoo,hoo! I wonder where has he been. Or more than likely who he has been talking too. Probably one of those conspiracy theorists spreading fear about government takeover of the masses. This is post-
9/11 and we are trying to do all we can to prevent terrorism. Insuring the identity of the flying public is one of the essential elements in that process. Did you know that you cannot be refused a seat on an airline if you fail to present proof of I.D? A new law goes into effect next month which will make it mandatory for all passengers to have identification before flying.

I wonder what is going to happen when emissions from our future “green” vehicles start polluting the air. Can you imagine the sweet smell of corn oil in the air? And what about the days when cities declare an “ethanol alert?” Oh. The marvels of science.

Green is evil!

I just picked up my weekly copy of Jet magazine and saw where a Black speaker was booed and cheered for remarks he made condemning affirmative action. In that same magazine there is an article about Florida apologizing for slavery. This is the way I see things.
Affirmative action has outlived its usefulness because, like many other programs of empowerment, it has been hijacked by those who wanted it to fail. Because of affirmative action many Historically Black Colleges and Universities are struggling to stay afloat. It is not that the schools are not good. It is just that many blacks know that they can get into schools which may offer them greater opportunity and exposure. Jackson State University and the University of Mississippi are both state funded schools. Yet, Ole Miss has facilities that Jackson State does not. Also, I am tired of seeing schools where their entire sports teams are all (or nearly all) Black. Where did the white guys go? Some are sitting in classrooms making plans for great futures. Other athletes don’t even bother to try out because they feel they will not make the team.  It seems that that we have come full circle and ended up right back where we started. Many Black youngsters see exposure on national TV as a stepping stone to playing in the

See the latest issue of Field & Stream. It’s really interesting.

Let’s face it. Minorities have a very high rate of crime in relation to their population. We also have a high number people on the welfare rolls. But my question is this: Why are minorities the only faces you see when you Conservatives talk about being tough on crime and complain about those on welfare? There are actually more whites in prison than minorities. Same with the welfare recipients.
Fact: Almost all serial killers are white.
Fact: Practically every school shooting has been perpetrated by whites.
Fact: Drug abuse by affluent whites are rising at alarming rates. The parents don’t have a clue or live in denial.
Fact: White women are more prone to embezzling funds than any other group.
Fact: Most child molesters are white. Did U see the Dateline series on Sexual Predators?
All I ask is that when you try to convince your followers of the threat we face from crime and those who are hoarding welfare, you show the true faces of the people we need to fear.