FRIDAY FAST ONES

1.)  The nest is going to empty again this weekend.  Ally is going back to school - actually back to work as school doesn't start for another week.  She registered for an easier semester, class wise.  Last semester she was running ragged between work and some tough classes.  I agreed to pay for summer school and a lighter load this semester.  Got to explore the financial aid opportunities for summer and jump on the new FAFSA.

2.)   I am so thrilled to see that the Obama proposal to stop gun violence includes
$150 million proposal to hire thousands of new mental health professionals and social workers, provide teachers and school officials with training to identify symptoms of mental illness and shore up services for at-risk youths.

The President endeared himself to some mental health advocates when he went out of his way to emphasize that mental illness isn’t a predictor of violence.

“We will make sure mental health professionals know their options for reporting threats of violence — even as we acknowledge that someone with a mental illness is far more likely to be a victim of violent crime than the perpetrator.”

3.)  Just finished reading Barbara Kingsolver's "Flight Plan" and loved it.  Her last book left me cold  - The Lacuna is still sitting on my shelf only partially read; a rarity for me.

4.)  Terrific piece of journalism on Salon.com about the trumped up education crisis on  in our country which is the alleged reason for outsourcing by companies like Apple.

The fact is, while our cash-starved schools would obviously benefit from more resources, and while better schools clearly couldn’t hurt our society, there’s no empirical, data-based reason to believe that improving our schools would reverse the trend of America losing high-tech jobs to slave-labor nations like China. Without a change in tax and tariff-free trade policies that economically incentivize companies like Apple to keep moving production to cheap labor havens overseas, the only “education” that will bring those jobs back is the kind that indoctrinates high-tech American workers to compete with Chinese workers by accepting the horrific labor conditions those Chinese workers experience. Based on the New York Times’ own reporting on Apple, that means an education system in America that teaches our workers to simply accept being paid $17 a day, to work six days a week in 12-hour shifts and to live in crowded dormitories so that they can be stampeded into the factory at any hour of the day.

It is really worth a read.  Especially because it appears that some members of Congress are trying to pass legislation to bring our country's hard earned labor protections down. They are seeking to eliminate overtime pay requirements and soften child labor laws.  Not even speaking of  hard fought for environmental protections being stripped away in the name of global competition. 

Instead of being a worl leader in human rights, environmental protections and corporate responsibility, these people would have our country sink down to the level of unscrupulous, uncaring, greedy, "profits at any cost" third world dictatorships.

5.)  And one more thing, GO NINERS!!