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Rigging the Presidential Election

3/31/2013

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Let me start by saying I think the entire electoral college process stinks. It's antiquated and subject to manipulation.  Although I don't think that it will happen in my lifetime I believe that it's time to move to a popular vote process.

If Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act and the need for affirmative action can be argued as outdated, why can't the electoral college process?
Before I get too far into it.  Here's some background information from the U.S. Electoral College's website:
The Electoral College is a process, not a place. The founding fathers established it in the Constitution as a compromise between election of the President by a vote in Congress and election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens.

The Electoral College process consists of the selection of the electors, the meeting of the electors where they vote for President and Vice President, and the counting of the electoral votes by Congress.

The Electoral College consists of 538 electors. A majority of 270 electoral votes is required to elect the President. Your state’s entitled allotment of electors equals the number of members in its Congressional delegation: one for each member in the House of Representatives plus two for your Senators.
From Wikipedia:
Presidential electors are selected on a state-by-state basis, as determined by the laws of each state. Generally (with Maine and Nebraska being the exceptions), each state appoints its electors on a winner-take-all basis, based on the statewide popular vote on Election Day. Although ballots list the names of the presidential candidates, voters within the 50 states and Washington, D.C. actually choose electors for their state when they vote for President and Vice President. These presidential electors in turn cast electoral votes for those two offices. Even though the aggregate national popular vote is calculated by state officials and media organizations, the national popular vote is not the basis for electing a President or Vice President.

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It's Time

3/26/2013

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Are you being bombarded by too much information from social media sites?
Are you knee deep in information overload? 
Is all of this information lulling you to sleep?
Maybe you need to....


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Producers vs Consumers: The Future of Our Youth

3/24/2013

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Go to school, work hard, get a good education so that you can get a good job.  That's what most of my generation heard as we were growing up.  For most of us that was sound advice but is it still valid?

Schools are being closed, college costs are skyrocketing, and good jobs are few and far between.  I think it's time for us to reevaluate what we're telling our students.  I don't think we're preparing them to thrive in the real world.

I think there should be more emphasis placed on teaching students about personal finances.  Students should be encouraged to learn about investing and managing their money.  They should understand how to manage debt.

We need to encourage students to become producers not consumers.  We need to cultivate an entrepreneurial spirit within them.  Consumers do not create wealth, they make everyone else wealthy. Getting a good job makes you a better consumer.  


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This One Is Personal

3/17/2013

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In September 2012 I wrote an article entitled "Racially Based High School Entrance Exams?"  I was not in agreement with the lawsuit being filed by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF), Latino Justice PRLDEF and The Center for Law and Social Justice at Medgar Evers College against my alma mater, one of the "elite" schools in NYC, Stuyvesant High School.  I did not buy in to the concept that a standardized entrance exam could be racially biased.  After all, I took the exam and passed.  I went to Stuyvesant and graduated in 1975.  How could things be worse now than they were close to forty years ago.

I was so  wrong.

The year that I graduated was the high water mark for Black and Latino student enrollment at Stuyvesant. Since then it's been a downward spiral.

In a March 2012 Huffington Post Blog Stuyvesant alumni Richard Buery writes:

Stuyvesant is one of New York City's prestigious specialized high schools; admission to the school of 3,295 students is based entirely on a standardized test. Those 40 black students (1.2 percent of the student body, compared to 32 percent of students system wide) represent a significant decline: according to the article, Stuyvesant was 12 percent black (303 of the school's 2,536 students) in 1975. By 1980, there were 212 black students; in 1990, 147; in 2000, 109; and in 2005, 66. Latino students make up 2.4 percent of the student body, and 40.3 of the school system.
Something has to be fundamentally wrong for this level of decline to occur. This is a systemic problem that has not been addressed. To be blunt about it this is not a problem, it's a crisis. 

When I was in junior high school New York City had three specialized high schools.  There are now eight whose admission is based entirely on the results of an entrance exam that does not consider race or ethnicity. The top score on the exam is 800. In recent years, the cutoff for Stuyvesant has been around 560. 
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Outraged

3/13/2013

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I'm outraged.  

When I'm told there is not a racial distrust of President Obama.

When I'm told we live in a post racial society and there's no longer a need for Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.

When I told Affirmative Action has run it's course and it's time for us to move on.

When I'm told there is no organized voter suppression plan.

When I have to read about this:

On Monday, first lady Michelle Obama had a question and answer session on Twitter focused on her campaign for healthy kids.  On Tuesday the Daily Kos published an article documenting some of the remarks that were posted under the hashtag #AskFLOTUS.  


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    Editor

    Ernest R. Heyward is the Founder and President of the Marketplace for Social Awareness and Social Responsibility Inc. 

    The Marketplace promotes and supports programs, initiatives, and events that address the needs of culturally diverse and economically challenged youth. 

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