Vision Circle

Schiavo Brain Spew

Some random thoughts that have arisen because of this sad affair:

• Congrats to Terri's parents for running one of the best media campaigns in recent history.
• Apparently, in Texas there is a law that allows hospitals to end life support if it is deemed futile and if the patient doesn't have money to pay for the continuing life support. If one of the issues in the Schiavo situtation is ending a life of someone who has a "poor quality of life," isn't this Texas law outrageous?
• When Tupac was shot, the doctors brought him back to life a few times. Finally, Tupac's mother told the doctors that if he died again, let him go.

  Suppose what happened with Tupac happened today. Suppose people found out that the mother decided to tell the doctors "DNR". Would his life be worth saving?
  

• We have a situation where a person has enough function to regulate breathing and heart beats. But the person can't feed themself. Someone wants to have the feeding tube removed. Terri is being murdered.
  
• We are in this situation because of the advancement of technology and medicine. Medicine has gotten to the point where someone like Terri can be kept alive after suffering brain damage. Technology has gotten to the point where someone like Terri can be kept alive after suffering brain damage and the story can be beamed across the world via satellite, talk radio, and the internet.

  Many of us will have to deal with this situation, if we haven't done so already.
  

• Updated:Tay–Sachs disease
  
  
  Inherited disorder, due to a defective gene, causing an enzyme deficiency that leads to blindness, retardation, and death in infancy. It is most common in people of Eastern European Jewish descent
  
  

  
  When I worked in the U.K., a woman needed to have the test done for Tay-Sachs disease. She had it done, but the test results got lost in the medical system. She and her husband had a window of opportunity to get the test done and they feared the second test results would not be returned in time.

  You see, on a regular basis, children in the womb who test positive for the disease are aborted.

  And the outcry there is where?
  

• This is worse than O.J.
  

Running on Empty

The leading energy analysts who foretold Enron's demise have an alarming new claim: The world's major oil companies are almost tapped out.

Today, the analysts at Herold -- a research-only firm that issues valuations on several hundred publicly traded energy companies -- are making predictions even bolder than their call on Enron. They have begun estimating when each of the world's biggest energy companies will peak in its ability to produce oil and gas. Herold's work shows that the best minds in the energy industry are accepting the reality that the globe is reaching (or has already reached) the limit of its own ability to produce ever increasing amounts of oil.

Many analysts have estimated when the earth will reach its peak oil production. Others have done estimates on when individual countries will hit their peaks. Herold is the first Wall Street firm to predict when specific energy companies will hit their peaks.

Howard University Middle School of Mathematics and Science Opens

Howard University Middle School of Mathematics and Science Opens

In fall 2005, the University will open the Howard University Middle School of Mathematics and Science [(MS)2], a public charter school committed to academic excellence with a specific focus on mathematics and science. The school is the first component of the University’s planned Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Center.

We plan to enroll 120 sixth grade students for the 2005-06 academic year, and only D.C. residents are eligible to apply.

Applications are being accepted during the month of March. They are available online at www.howard.edu/ms2, or may be picked up from the Howard University Community Association, located at 2731 Georgia Avenue, NW. Any applications received after March 31st will be added to the school’s waiting list.

If you have any questions or require additional information, please contact us at information@middleschool.howard.edu or 202.806.7725.

"Under Achieving" Students

I was reading the Post for news about Johnnie Cochran when my eye caught the link to this article:

Assessing the KIPP Schools -- a New Perspective

When reading it, this paragraph caught my eye:

Some critics (although not Rothstein) have suggested that KIPP's scores have increased so much because they recruit students with the most motivated parents. This seems wrong to me. Those students had those same great parents when they were getting much lower scores back at their regular schools. Their progress would almost certainly deteriorate if all the KIPP schools closed tomorrow and they had to return to low standards and disorganized teaching at their neighborhood schools, no matter how conscientious their parents were.

For some time I have been saying that parents of kids who are under performing are being criticized for their children's performance and the children are also being cirticized for being "anti-intellectual". I thought that some of this criticism may be misplaced because when the children get into private schools, or other schools, many times their grades improve. But the parents are the same and the children are the same. The variable that changes is the school.

So, why is school performance being tied to "anti-intellectualism"?

Harold Cruse passes away

If you aren't familiar with Harold Cruse and his works, and consider yourself a scholar of American life, whether you are a social scientist, or a philosopher, you're on crack. I had the chance to take a class with Cruse as an undergrad, and a number of chances to talk with him while in grad school at the University of Michigan. A few of my boys and I held a conference in his honor several years ago, and Jelani Cobb (no relation to Mike) came out with an edited collection of his best pieces. In fact it was through Jelani that I'd gotten word that Cruse passed in his sleep on Friday. I wish I could've found out sooner. We were in the middle of our annual conference for black political scientists, and it would have been an excellent time to reflect on his legacy. Vision Circle would not be here if it weren't for people like Cruse. He'll be sorely missed.

Mfume and Maryland Senate Race

This is a piece by a Maryland political commentator. He's "plugged into" Maryland Democratic politics and has a decent understanding of what goes on. However, he doesn't get the Black sde of Maryland politics very well, IMO.

But this piece about the senate race to replace Sarbanes is good for some thought:

Here’s the deal: The hypothetical match-up between Kwiesi Mfume and Lt. Gov. Michael Steele comes down to this: Voters will get to choose between a man in a dashiki with six illegitimate sons and an ex-seminarian who goes to mass every Sunday with his wife and kids.

But Senate race 2006 is unlikely to produce such a contrast between the two black candidates. And the reason is that Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin will likely spoil the equation.
Assume that’s the case, and Mfume’s a loser either way – to Cardin in the primary election, or to Steele in the general. Assume further that in a Cardin-Steele face-off, Cardin will carry the election for the Democrats and retain the seat of Sen. Paul Sarbanes.

And if Cardin tip-toes into the fray, as is his cogito, ergo sum approach to politics, he’s likely to squeeze out other Democrats as well.
The new paradigm in politics is the so-called 527 committee, i.e., Swift Boat Veterans, that operate as vigilante groups outside the margins of formal campaigns. Consider how the Swift Boat Vets bludgeoned John Kerry and think, for a moment, how a similar shadow group will decapitate Mfume.

To be sure, Mfume packs a ton of baggage leftover from his incendiary past and his louche life as a wastrel youth, just the right stuff for slice-and-dice attack television ads. To his everlasting credit, though, Mfume picked himself up, dusted himself off and went on to become virtually the president of black America as head of the NAACP.

Schiavo Politics

For the sake of argument, let's accept the premise that the "pro-life side" of the Schiavo mess is a result of "the religous right" being given their due because of their support of the Republican party.

Given that, what does it say about Black politicians who couldn't get Clinton to let the cocaine and crack sentencing disparity to sunset?

What does it say about Black politicians who couldn't get Clinton to pay more attention to the situation in Rwanda?

What does it say about Black politicians who tried, late in Clinton's last term, to address the slavery issue in Sudan and other countries?

What does it say about Black politicians tried but couldn't get Clinton to change the U.S. policy towards Haiti?

What does it say about the CBC?

What does it say about the Democratic party and it's core base?

So, if Republicans are trying to get 20% of the Black vote by going to Black preachers, good for them as long as Blacks get something out of it this time.

America By The Numbers

The USA is "No. 1" in nothing but weaponry, consumer spending, debt, and delusion.

No concept lies more firmly embedded in our national character than the notion that the USA is "No. 1," "the greatest." Our broadcast media are, in essence, continuous advertisements for the brand name "America Is No. 1." Any office seeker saying otherwise would be committing political suicide. In fact, anyone saying otherwise will be labeled "un-American." We're an "empire," ain't we? Sure we are. An empire without a manufacturing base. An empire that must borrow $2 billion a day from its competitors in order to function. Yet the delusion is ineradicable. We're No. 1.

Well...this is the country you really live in:

Image Awards

Prince rocked the Image Awards.
Just flat out to' it up!

In a bass solo, he played the ax just like Larry Graham.

Morris Day and Jerome got some love.

Shelia E got some love!

Little dude can rock.

Race or No Race?

Unpacking the science and the politics could be complicated absent a clear understanding of what *blackness* is. It is fundamentally a unique form of interpersonal communion arising in the uniquely hostile social environment which was chattel slavery and jim crow America - nothing more and nothing less. Now if a simple autodidactic layperson - such as myself - can easily grasp this fact, what's wrong with all these big-headed scientists? Fascinating discussion of the Leroi article posted on the 15th - especially big props to the editor-in-chief of the New Scientist who fundamentally gets it. The Provost at Georgetown shows his behind in a Lawrence Summers on steroids moment...,

Armand Leroi is bound to please the right wingers with his view that "genetic data show that races clearly do exist". I'm sure that is not his intention but I also doubt that everyone will read as far as his belief that "skin colour does not give the measure of a man, that it tells nothing about his abilities or temperament". That genetics has a bad history of being misunderstood and misapplied scarcely needs restating.