Who Will Save The Roma Children?

Maria was found in an area of Greece inhabited by Roma gypsies. There are a great number of children who roam through this same area every day. However, Maria was noticeable since she has blond hair and blue eyes. This automatically caused the authorities to be suspicious of Maria's presence since her appearance was not typical of the Roma gypsies living in the area. So, without performing the necessary investigations, the authorities immediately arrested the couple who indicated that they had custody of Maria, and unsatisfactory judgement of this couple was immediately made through the international media. Fast forward, it is now discovered that Maria was really born into the Roma gypsy community since her parents, from Bulgaria, are Roma gypsies who reside in a rubbish strewn community. They admitted giving Maria away since they could not afford to take care of her. Now, this story would not have become such a popular topic if Maria did not have blond hair and blue eyes. There are far too many children in the same community that need similar attention from the Greek authorities and international press since they are also suffering. Yet, these children have not been singled out since their appearance does not meet the typical world's beauty expectations of having fair skin with blond hair and blue eyes. So, with such a huge international outpour of support from all over the world for Maria, it is quite likely that she will not return to the dismal life and will eventually be placed with people who look like herself. But, what will happen to the other children who are part of the Roma gypsy community in Bulgaria, Greece, and elsewhere in Europe? Who is going to single them out and save them from their difficulty day-to-day life? I do not hear the international press clamoring to get their stories out!

Make IT Contractors Accountable For Healthcare Website Failures

As a supporter of President Obama, his decisions are usually defended. So, the President's desire  for many uninsured people to gain access to heath care insurance was a good decision since this essential benefit was long overdue. However, the truth must be told when it comes to the health care website. It is understandable if a couple of days go by and there are flaws with signing up for healthcare. However, it is a shame that after 20 days, there is no change in users' abilities to easily gain access to sign up for healthcare.  The web-site is not user-friendly and this demonstrates a misuse of taxpayer money since these IT contractors were paid an enormous sum and have not successfully delivered the product. For instance, CGI was paid $290 million of taxpayers money..........for what? There should not be any need at this point to have to gain help from other IT personnel since this is going cost taxpayers even more money to fix the job which the original IT contractors could not do. It is more shameful to know that some business websites that are more complex than the government health care website did not cost as much and there was no such difficulties in launching their websites. So what does that say? Frankly, the IT contractors who have not delivered a user-friendly website needs to pay back the multi-millions dollars for failing to provide a successful product to the American public. Furthermore Kathleen Sebelius should certainly be fired over such a disaster.

Adjunct Faculty - Left Out In The Cold Again

For most Adjunct Professors, life is not easy since they have to struggle to make ends meet. They are more often than not required to teach courses and do grading for classes with a large enrollment plus undertake any other additional responsibilities that come with the course. However, they are not considered in a college, university or even a public school district's medical plan or for any other benefits. This unethical practice results in a win/win situation for institutions since they are not only able to save money from not paying for the adjunct's benefits, but the institution is able to also get the maximum production out of these part-time employees. Does this sound like a new form of slavery?  In the meantime, the Adjunct Professor is so poorly paid that many have no choice but to seek additional employment elsewhere.  Under these difficult circumstances, one would believe that the union of an institution would become involved in such unsatisfactory workplace practices for these employees regardless of their part-time status. However, this is not the case since it appears that when negotiating a contract for an increase in salary, an adjunct is never considered. So, when there is a fanfare that classroom educators are obtaining an increase, this burst of joy, celebrations,  pat on the backs, hurrah, etc., etc., does not rub off on an adjunct. The United Teachers of Dade County is in the process of settling a contract for its classroom educators and, quite naturally, classroom educators are excited at the prospect of obtaining their increases. However, the adjunct is left out in the cold once again since they have been  repeatedly forgotten during bargaining discussion.

PBS Frontline - Football Concussions

The PBS documentary on football concussions was interesting to say the least since it brought awareness to the realities of a sport which the NFL executives would have rather not made public. Some of the interesting observations from watching this Frontline production are:

1. The devious, calculating efforts of Roger Goodell and his team to cover up prior knowledge that head injuries received while playing football have contributed to the deadly deterioration of the mind and body of some athletes.

2. A leading Forensic Pathologist and Neuropathologist, Dr. Bennet Omalu, who had worked tirelessly in the brain injury research area, could not even present his own findings to the NFL executives because he was not invited to their conference to do so. However, it is quite ironic that a white colleague who had less input into the research was allowed to present Dr. Omalu's own findings!!??  Even more astonishing is the NFL's continued deceitful efforts to undermine Dr. Omalu by preventing him from researching Junior Seau's brain injuries. These NFL executives seem to believe that Blacks are only qualified to play football! What does this also say about these executives who invited Dr. Ann Mckee to discuss her research finding on brain injuries to athletes, but were more interested in making her feel uncomfortable with their sexist overtures? These actions of the NFL executives speak for themselves.

3. Even after knowing the repercussions from playing football, people seem to be in denial. Parents are still allowing their boys to play in hopes of them becoming football stars and making money. Fans are still attending football games in droves and millions continue to tune in to their television to watch games. It does not seem to matter to the American public that their favorite past-time is a debilitating, deadly one to its athletes.

Hypocritical WIC Stunt

During this Federal shutdown, the Republicans sponsored a measure to fund WIC. What??!! Are they for real??!!  These are the same people who have made many attempts in the past to gut WIC. In fact, in 2011, Reps. Paul Broun and Virginia Foxx introduced two amendments to cut the WIC program. Broun's amendment wanted the program to be cut by 10% while Foxx's wanted $82.5 million to be cut from the program for women, infants, and children. You would think that, as a woman herself, Foxx would be more sympathetic to the needs of other women especially children, but apparently she doesn't have a heart.  So, it is so hypocritical and disgusting to hear that now, to save face with the public for their poor judgement that has caused the Federal shutdown, the GOP has selected to fund those poor women and children who they could not even care the least about. They never had any sympathy for these poor families, so its obvious that this move is simply to make themselves look good for making stupid decisions that have affected 800,000 federal employees and the country. Thank goodness the National WIC Association has denounced the Republican's move since the organization must know that the the Republicans' measure is fake. Lee Terry proves the insincere, selfish, and don't give a damn attitude of is party when he responded that although 800,000 workers are not receiving any salary, he won't be giving up his because he has a 'nice' house to pay for. Amazing!!