Saturday Open Thread

Posted on March 7, 2015 by rikyrah

I hope you are enjoying this weekend with family and friends.

Welcome to the West Wing Week, your guide to everything that’s happening at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. This week, the President broke bread with My Brother’s Keeper mentees, shared the stage with Eric Holder and Aretha Franklin, and welcomed law enforcement officials and Peace Corps volunteers to the White House. While the Vice President was in Guatemala to discuss investing in Central America. That’s February 27th to March 5th or “Just a Souvenir!”

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14 Responses to Saturday Open Thread

  1. rikyrah says:
    March 7, 2015 at 9:15 pm

    Monie @MonieTalks_1
    Many Ferguson officials are the slimiest of all without any help.
    But much of what they did is because they knew they wouldn’t be challenged

    Reply
    • rikyrah says:
      March 7, 2015 at 9:15 pm

      Monie @MonieTalks_1
      After DOJ gives the most damning report of Ferguson police, protestors disrupt Selma instead of gathering stories for class action lawsuit.

      Reply
  4. rikyrah says:
    March 7, 2015 at 2:20 pm

    Scott Walker bid to end integration program has schools seeking answers

    Destiny Huven, an eighth-grader at Bayside Middle School, thought long and hard about where she wants to go to high school next year.

    She made a pros and cons list, assigning point values to features she prioritized at several schools. A track program, lots of electives and Advanced Placement classes warranted high points. So did a respectable selection of cute boys.

    Ultimately Huven, a Milwaukee resident who has attended suburban schools on the North Shore since kindergarten through a special racial integration program, settled on Nicolet High School — a choice made easier by the fact that Bayside is part of a K-8 district that feeds into the high school.

    But Gov. Scott Walker’s 2015-’17 budget could upend Huven’s plans to attend Nicolet through the Chapter 220 program.

    The governor has proposed eliminating the long-standing racial integration program, a move that could redirect $60 million in school funding and have a cultural and financial impact on Milwaukee, nearby suburban school systems and districts like Racine, Madison and Wausau.

    The proposal has districts analyzing the complicated structure of school funding to try to get their arms around the potential impact of ending Chapter 220.

    “It’s hard to speculate,” said Bob Lang, director of the Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau, which has yet to complete its own analysis of the legislation.

    The governor’s proposal calls for phasing out the Chapter 220 program to reflect declining participation by school districts and pupils, according to Walker spokeswoman Laurel Patrick.

    Students currently in the Chapter 220 program could participate through graduation, but districts would not be able to accept new students through the program — including Nicolet, which is its own district despite its network of feeder programs like Fox Point-Bayside.

    The Chapter 220 program, named after the 1975 law that created it, is called “integration aid” in state budget parlance. Its signature feature is a voluntary school integration transfer program that provides busing for children of color living in the city to attend suburban schools and for white suburban children to attend Milwaukee Public Schools. The goal is to improve racial balance between schools and districts.

    Student participation peaked about two decades ago, with close to 6,000 Milwaukee students transferring to suburban schools, and about 1,000 suburban children transferring to city schools. This school year, the program is used by just 1,456 city children transferring to suburban schools and 215 suburban children transferring to MPS.

    http://www.jsonline.com/news/education/scott-walker-bid-to-end-integration-program-has-schools-seeking-answers-b99456791z1-295392981.html

    Reply
  5. Ametia says:
    March 7, 2015 at 11:22 am

    The First Family in Selma thread is up!

    Reply
  7. rikyrah says:
    March 7, 2015 at 8:51 am

    From DonnaDem over at TOD:

    by Donna Dem
    Good Morning TOD

    Today as we commemorate the 50th anniversary of the March to Selma it has allowed me to reminisce about some of my memories of those times and the days since.

    I was raised in what was considered the better part of DC. There were some whites but mostly blacks in my neighborhood. I attended Catholic school whose racial makeup in the mid 60’s was 50/50. Our family traveled every summer but we always went north, never south (in later years I understood why). We rode public transportation all the time and we sat anywhere we wanted to my memory. I was taught by Nuns and never personally witnessed discrimination until I was 16 years old on a summer youth job (thanks to Marion Barry) and overheard workers who didn’t know that I had come back from lunch say, “she doesn’t act or talk like the rest of those people….. This one seems smart and has manners so I guess we can stop locking up the petty cash box when she’s here”. This was greeted with laughter by all within ear shot. I waited a whole minute before walking into the office so they wouldn’t know that I knew how they felt about me.

    Being raised by my grandmother who later in life told me that she witnessed her dad being beaten within an inch of his life for not addressing a white man “properly” was shall I say guarded? As a child I didn’t understand why she was so very protective of our every move. She shielded us from the realities of the world as it existed during those times. The only time I ever saw her react to the incessant discrimination that was actually going on in this country was the day after Bloody Sunday. The evening news was broadcasting those atrocious scenes from the Edmund Pettis Bridge and she took a cast iron frying pan and threw it at the wall and screamed in horror and broke down into tears. The anger and hurt that came from this normally mild mannered woman was immeasurable.

    As a 9 year old watching what was unfolding on that old black and white TV that evening I witnessed the evil that existed and first understood that people who looked like me were under attack in this country. We were never allowed to go to marches or protests because she knew that bad things happen to people who stood up for what was right. She later in life told me that this was one of her regrets. She said she learned that if you don’t stand for something you will fall for anything. She had evolved and understood what a wise man told us when he was running to become the first Black President:

    My only regret is that she didn’t live to witness this magnificent man serve as our President while on this earth. She would be beyond proud.

    God Bless all those who will march today to commemorate this historic moment. We will never forget the sacrifices of those who sacrificed for us.

    Reply
    • Ametia says:
      March 7, 2015 at 10:06 am

      Ditto DonnaDem. I was 9 years old at the time too. My dad did get to vote for PBO before he died in 2010. I’m grateful that he lived to witness this historic momment, because he was a sharecropper, he knew exactly what the makeup and behaviors of this country and its people were and are about.

      Reply
  8. rikyrah says:
    March 7, 2015 at 8:47 am

    Good Morning, Everyone :)

    Off to swim and run errands.

    Reply
  9. vitaminlover says:
    March 7, 2015 at 1:51 am

    Happy Saturday, everyone. Would so love to go see my President but I know that it will be jam-packed. Also nice to see that former President Bush will be there. Sure did want to see President Obama, First Lady Michelle, Malia and Sasha. I know that they are soooooo gorgeous in person

    Reply

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