The elephant's irrelevant

My father asked me my political affiliation today. 

"Are you going to be a liberal?" he asked.

"I'm already a registered Republican," I answered. 

"Why did you do that?"

"I look better in red."

He asked no more questions.

Abdoul the Fool

Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, a 23-year-old from a powerful Nigerian banking family, who studied engineering at University College London, was restrained by other passengers while trying to ignite an explosive device attached to his body on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.

His father was the former president of Nigeria's First Bank.

Portrait of a Leo woman

Reagan Fact #1

Ronald Reagan was the only union leader elected president. 

Lou Dobbs Ad for President

Sinbad signs McRib; plans world domination

Help the quest for world domination by signing the petition to bring the McRib back to Mount Pleasant this April. Follow the link to the petition page and sign it today!

http://www.PetitionOnline.com/mcribme/petition.html

students and faculty rally for graduate student union

 Dozens of students and faculty rallied with passion on the front lawn of Warriner Hall at noon on Wednesday in support of establishing Central Michigan University’s Graduate Student Union. President, founder, and current graduate student, Mike Hoerger, is the man behind the curtain and has been organizing the Graduate Student Union on and off campus for over a year and was available immediately after the rally for an interview.

 

The Graduate Student Union seeks to be a labor union that works with the university to create a more quality education for all of Central’s students and to improve the university in general.

 

If university officials agreed to establish the Graduate Student Union, Hoerger says the most significant benefit for graduate students and other beneficiaries would be the access to a healthcare plan.

 

“I’ve talked to other graduate students and they laugh, in a sympathetic way, to how we’re treated here. Here, our graduate students are living off of food stamps and are eating Ramen everyday. That’s a problem,” said Hoerger.

 The rally was organized in an effort to put negative public pressure on university administrators that do not currently support the establishment of such a union for Central’s graduate students.

“Other graduate students that I have talked to have unions like this—it’s not a new idea,” and according to Hoerger, “ The administration just doesn’t care about graduate students.”

Hoerger graduated his undergraduate program at Central in 2004 and was a graduate assistant for four years and is now on an internship in New York. He flew into town for the rally. He plans to continue his work with the union until it is established on campus.

 

 

 

Civic education is not dead!

This week's article is brought to us by the Oakland Press website, www.theoaklandpress.com from Thursday, October 29th.

The headline read, "Students experience State Supreme Court".

I'm a political science major and am proud that Oakland County's k-12 education made the front page news this week.

Students from Pontiac, one of Michigan's most dangerous cities, had a field trip to the state Supreme Court where they learned about Michigan's criminal justice system.

Civic education is not dead!

This article was newsworthy because it is important that as a community we introduce the criminal justice system to young people when they aren't wearing a suit and tie standing in front of a judge because of a crime they have allegedly committed.

It's a new perspective.

It's a good perspective.

Way to go Pontiac k-12--props.

Until next week!

~aw

Alligator escapes, local man hospitalized

A five-foot alligator escaped from top-secret Pine Street laboratory, Orgo-One, and hospitalized a local man early Monday morning.  The alligator was being trained for an underground communist missal defense strategy by Orgo-One scientists and escaped through an open door. The local man was bitten on the neck and legs by the alligator and called for help. The animal wreaked havoc down Pine Street until 2 am when authorities arrived. No charges were filed and the animal was unharmed. Scientists from Orgo-One declined an interview.

 

Detective Democracy goes to DC

Detective Democracy is like voting's McGruff, Smokey, or Rosie that seeks to motivate young people to participate in government and received national credibility and legitimacy when Central Michigan University senior, Allison White, presented the idea on a full travel scholarship to over two hundred conference attendees at, "A Better Deal '09: Securing Our Economic Future NOW!" October 15th in the Palladian Room at the Omni-Shoreham hotel and conference center in DC.

White was one of only thirty conference attendees that received a full travel scholarship to be housed for two nights at the four diamond resort. White was one of only two Michiganders to receive the scholarship. 

Detective Democracy started as an in class project at central the fall of 2008 in White's political science class on lobbying called "Interest Group Behavior" with Dr. Cherie Strachan.

Students were assigned to read Tamara Draut's research book, "Strapped: Why America's Twenty and Thirty Something's Can't Get Ahead" in which Draut clearly identifies problems facing millenials and why they can't seem to make it like our parents did and then students were asked to respond.

Students were given the pants of a policy maker.

"The more real students make their projects, the more likely they are to earn an A," said Strachan.

White kept working on Strachan's in class project out of class in her spare time for nearly a year after she had completed the class.

"I was really poor and I realized that it didn't cost anything to think. I focused my thoughts and daily conversations about Detective Democracy and talked with people about my idea. It's turned into our community project now, and I am living my American dream--it's amazing." said White.

"I have a van. I have a plan," White said.

White wants to take Detective Democracy and work with the Ad Council and Rock the Vote to launch a pilot motivational speaking program called "The Knowledge Tour" this August to connect with high school students in San Francisco, California.

"You can dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it because dreamers always chase but never get it," White concluded.

Urban City Kitty Killer's on the Lamb!

This week’s article review is brought to us by the Detroit Free Press’s front page from Wednesday, September 16^th’s edition.

 

 

Kitten Murder Scandal’s “Kitty Killer”  Still on the Lamb.

 

 

The front page of the Free Press had a pathos pulling, eye-catching pictorial bandit reward poster for the capture and conviction of robbers who broke into a Detroiter’s home and killed the family kitten, Ruby, in the washing machine by turning it on. The headline read, “Reward offered to nab killers”.

 

 

 

 

 

Money!

 

 

….Action… verbs!

 

 and

 

Death!

 

 Yep,

 

That’s

 

the way we spell

 

 

SUCCESS!

 

 

The kitten’s picture had blue eyes. Innocent kitten eyes.

 

“Kitten! Why are you sad?!”

 

Then I go to read the headline and

 

BAM

 

“Who killed kitty?!”

 

Now here I am at Tim Horton’s with a three times cycled-through-the-booth newspaper with coffee rings on it and I can’t believe my eyes. There’s kitten killer’s out there? If even the blue eyed kitty’s aren’t safe these days, where’s the hope for a brighter tomorrow? Jeez.

 

“The Kitty Killer”

 

Put the kitty

In the kitty killer.

 

The kitty killer

Was quick

When it killed the kitty

In the kitty killer.

 

“Well, what’s the kitty killer? “

 

The washing machine.

 

 

“The dirty laundry filler

was the kitty killer?!”

 

 

“Uh-huh”

 

“NO WAY!”

 

“Uh-huh”

 

“Kitty Killer Killed local girl’s Kitten”

 

“Kitty got Cleaned”

 

“Kitty Killer on the Lamb”

 

“Reward for Kitty Killer Bandit”

 

 

 

 

After a year away from media, I have a lot of “unique” observations.

 

 

Until next week!

 

~Miss White

Ms. White

it's alright Ms. White,

you can write all night long.

Try to think of all the reasons,

now she's there with water in those eyes.

Where's Mr. Hamilton?

In the back of her mind,

at night Ms. White used to write.

She put it together.

She'd think there's nothing better

and write all night as the sun left

and write on to the break of day.

Until she saw the sunshine,

and she knew for sure that she'd be fine.

At night Ms. White --her alter ego named Mamma.

Mamma hold the drama.

I mean to say

that although she's Ms. White today,

tonight?

Miss White?

No. 

It's Mamma,

and there will be hell to pay.

The pen is mightier than the sword,

but the spoken word can hit harder than any written verb.

Mamma's Ms. White's late night counter part

with the coldest heart.

Got the pure raw power of persuasion

that she could draw upon if given the occasion.

I mean

it's about ethics.