I don’t know how long the link will be good, but basically, it’s a report of the first college graduate from a mentoring program started by a super-wealthy guy in my county. See, this county is largely pretty affluent, but there are pockets of less-affluent (people like me who do the errands and operate the cash registers and bag the groceries and answer the phones) and areas of truly poor. Marin City is one such area in the latter category. Its residents are predominately black and lower income. ((Its origin is the WWII shipyards, which drew a huge wave of workers, many of them rural Southern African-American men and women.) There are several problematic housing developments in the old urban style. There’s also a thriving community of folks making things better.

Here are the first few paragraphs of the article:

AS A YOUNGSTER at Davidson Middle School in 1992, Natasha Leanna Jackson was among 29 students selected by Ross philanthropist David Guggenhime for a new mentoring initiative he was putting together.

The Marin City Children’s Program – which provided children with volunteer tutors, after-school study programs, social training and cultural field trips – was intended to give a group of middle-class students, mostly in Marin City, the emotional and academic support to stay in school.

As a bonus, Guggenhime, a successful investment manager, also pledged to give the students partial scholarships if they went to college.

For Jackson, the program paid off: She graduated magna cum laude in social work this month from Alabama State University. Jackson, 21, is the first student in Guggenhime’s program to graduate from college….

(Article in Marin Independent Journal, by Gary Klien, 5-25-08)

All these poor people. Parkersburg

There are 18,000 folks without electricity here in Des Moines, but our lights only flickered.

http://www.startribune.com/galleries/19251959.html?location_refer=Homepage

Seven dead just east of Cedar Falls, and the entire town of Parkersburg is now kindling.

I’m glad it wasn’t too bad in your area, and that you’re okay. This has been a terrible year for storms, all over.

My cat is snuggling up to my feet with her furry catnip mouse in hand (paw). She hates lightning.

I think he has like two or three other templates, but I don’t have the strength to look at too many of these godawful things.

Schools need three things to be successful; money, a good leader, and parent involvement. It’s possible to make them better.

I forgot, I know one other homeschooler; my sister. She homeschooled because she wanted the kids to have a Christian schooling. Her children are smart and talented since their parents could afford to spend a small fortune on them. They are also homophobic and closed-minded, as are all their friends. I can’t help having a negative view of it, based on few but very negative experiences.

The program my son is in is normally designed for kids who have illnesses that prevent them from attending classes. We had a liason teacher who gave him his assignments, and we met with her once a week, usually in a coffee shop. It’s been a great program for us. But I agree we don’t fit the mold.

It’s Malkin and her ilk who are creating the stereotype. Frankly, I resent the hell out of it. I’m home schooling for reasons that have nothing to do with stupid fucking religion, nor am I in any way any sort of anti-schooling theorist. In fact, it’s a temporary thing and he should be back in his high school in the fall, but the reasons are none of anyone’s business.

The thing is, it wouldn’t even occur to me to be pissed or upset about home schoolers not being allowed in the contest. WTF? Some people just need to get over this false sense of entitlement, don’t they?

It’s people like Malkin who have caused our educational system to become a shadow of its former self. Starve public schools of tax money, introduce IDiotic shit into science classes, ban great literature because it doesn’t conform to Xtianist religious goofiness.. Fuck her. She’s a thoroughly rotten person.

The only homeschoolers I know are the children of a woman who uses the older children to babysit the younger children while she works or parties. I don’t know if they’re inbred or not, but they are Southern.

Based on the homeschooling magazines I’ve read, the biggest motivation for homeschooling I’ve seen is that parents don’t want their children contaminated by the godless liberal secular masses. Everyone else I know sends their kids to public schools, Catholic, Episcopalian, or Baptist schools, or prep schools.

Nobody cares if people homeschool their kids. That just means it’ll be a little bit easier to get our kids into med school.

Possibly the only virtuous thing she has ever done.

Thus the Dems’ OTHER secret weapon, besides the Bush-Bomb … is the airborne Wingnut Virus.
There is no antidote.