Thursday, November 06, 2003
posted by Sam at 2:12 PM| Permanent Address
Leaders witness crowded prisons
I've been in one of these prisons (I was part of a team that photographed it for the architect) and I'm sure the over crowding is very real. Way too many first time, non-violent drug busts ended with 20 years without parole, for what my friends and I were told to "dump it and leave" 20 years ago. Give sentencing discretion back to the Judges.
We need the money for schools. Educate or Incarcerate.
posted by Sam at 1:38 PM| Permanent Address
Bake sale stirs debate on affirmative action
OK. I'm a white guy in the Midwest so I have very little in common with affirmative action. However, in every school I went to through 12th grade my white brothers and I were a majority in the order of 45% Caucasian to 40% black, and 5% "other". We were all poor Blue Collar however. My father, from Virginia, had every cultural reason to be racist, but one thing he always believed was that only a fool picked friends, lovers, poker tables, or employees using anything but what type of person they were and what your gut told you. Of course he grew up in a coal town miners family. Some of his family ended up in politics, he worked in the union through the 50s and 70s. But they all distrust "The Man".
I honestly don't understand discrimination. I'm sure it happens hundreds of times a second though.
I also know my education, as good as it was, would have never gotten me into Stanford. There's three or four schools in the mostly white satellite schools that did get their kids into Stanford. Some of them no doubt scored lower than I on the SATs.
Wealth has always been an advantage, and always will, just like strength, good looks, and who you know. That's why I'm trying to give my daughter as much a head start as possible.
The white folks came over as sailors and soldiers and laborers. The black folks came over as cargo. We didn't all start at the same level. In Indiana our Hispanic population is growing very quickly. All I know about this is that my wife, who was in retail management for years, would hire a black or Hispanic kid in a heart beat because they would tend to show up for their shifts, work hard, and cause no problems. The white kids tended to need the job for little more than spending money and worked accordingly.
posted by Sam at 12:03 PM| Permanent Address
Blogging for Dollars
Matt Haughey writes a very happy, or even shocked, user's take on Google's context-sensitive ads, Adsense.
It's been a while since I did a site that really needed to pay for it self, but Adsense seems to make sense. They're non-intrusive and relevant.
That's what I look for in an ad.
