http://jameslogancourier.org/ News from James Logan High School en-us Nucleus CMS v3.24 © Weblog http://backend.userland.com/rss http://jameslogancourier.org//nucleus/nucleus2.gif http://jameslogancourier.org/ http://jameslogancourier.org/index.php?itemid=4020 By Rick LaPlante, New Haven Schools Public Information Officer

The Board of Education on last week received a presentation about the Division of Teaching and Learning’s core messages for 2008-09. Chief Academic Officer Glynn Thompson outlined four key messagesat the July 15 meeting:

Systems Alignment: aligning all District initiatives with the Strategic Plan and budgeting accordingly; focusing on rigorous instruction and curricular alignment; coaching to impact the instructional core; emphasizing that “We are all learners! We are all leaders!”;

Collaborative Culture: providing quality and aligned professional development; implementing Professional Learning Communities; partnering with parents and community;

Accountability: focusing on literacy; improving use of data-driven assessment tools; focusing on results;

Strong Leadership: aligning leadership focus on school support; implementing the Strategic Plan; coaching leadership to impact instruction.

Also on Tuesday night, the Board:

● Heard Superintendent Dr. Pat Jaurequi’s recommendation to delay until 2009 a $150 million facilities bond that had been proposed for the November election, primarily because of the difficult economy and number of competing tax and bond measures expected to be on the upcoming November ballot.

● Discussed a proposed policy allowing for the sale or lease of naming rights to high-profile District facilities such as the Performing Arts Center and the Culinary Arts Institute. All four board members in attendance spoke against the proposal.

● Welcomed Ted Hood, the District’s new Chief Business Officer. Mr. Hood will begin work next week.]]> News http://jameslogancourier.org/index.php?itemid=4020 Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:36:32 -0800 http://jameslogancourier.org/index.php?itemid=4019
"How to Be Single"
by Liz Tuccillo; Atria ($24.95)
By Hannah Sampson
McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)

The question makes unattached women of a certain age cringe: Why are you still single? The answer is simple in this captivating debut novel — because men are married, stupid, selfish or all three — and Liz Tuccillo turns the unwelcome query into an international examination of love, heartbreak and singledom.

Narrator Julie Jensen, a 38-year-old book publicist, hasn't been in a serious relationship for six years, and her New York City friends are in various stages of unattachment when the novel begins. Georgia has been dumped by her husband for a "twenty-seven-year-old whore gutter trash samba teacher." Serena is a vegetarian chef and student of Hinduism who has been celibate for four years. Alice has quit her job as a legal-aid attorney to date fulltime, and Ruby is mourning her recently deceased cat and long-dead relationships.

Left to contemplate the great mystery of dating life — why it is that any man, "poor, boring, bald, fat, arrogant" can get a girlfriend at any time, while the "smart, funny, gorgeous, sane, financially stable, professionally fulfilled, fascinating, fit women" in their mid-30s to mid-40s stay single — Julie strikes out on a book project to discover if there's any place on Earth where women are better at being alone.

The journey takes her into familiar territory for readers of Elizabeth Gilbert's memoir "Eat, Pray, Love." Like Gilbert, Julie makes stops in Italy, India and Indonesia (and adds such other far-flung locales as Iceland, China and Australia).

As Tuccillo alternates between Julie's affairs abroad and her friends' lives in the city, she proves to be a gifted, sparkling writer. Conversational, witty and kind, she's a joy to read.

Julie's physical insecurities are endearing and appropriately shot down. "I have to admit to myself that I'm absolutely sure the reason I don't have a boyfriend is because of my cellulite and my huge thighs. Women are crazy, let's move on."

And Tuccillo's musings, even just a throwaway dig at "yoga done in a room the temperature of Hell," are just plain funny.

The novel probably won't reveal anything groundbreaking to readers of Tuccillo's previous book, "He's Just Not That Into You" (written with Greg Behrendt) or viewers of "Sex and the City," for which Tuccillo was an executive story editor. But "How to Be Single" is a big improvement on some of the junk that masquerades as chick lit.

If Tuccillo packs in an excess of melodrama and tears, she gets major points for giving the girls a hopeful ending that isn't flat-out unbelievable. In a summer when Carrie and Co. dominated the box office, female empowerment rules. So does this book.

(c) 2008, The Miami Herald.
Visit The Miami Herald Web edition on the World Wide Web at http://www.herald.com/
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.]]> Entertainment http://jameslogancourier.org/index.php?itemid=4019 Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:19:50 -0800 http://jameslogancourier.org/index.php?itemid=4017
Self-Portrait
by Norman Lewis

From wikipedia:
Norman W. Lewis (23 July 1909 – 27 August 1979) was an award-winning painter, scholar, and teacher. He is associated with Abstract Expressionism. Lewis was African-American, of Caribbean descent.


Norman W. Lewis was born in Harlem, New York. His parents had emigrated from Bermuda. Always interested in art, he had amassed a large art history library by the time he was a young man. A lifelong resident of Harlem, he also travelled extensively during the two years that he worked on ocean freighters. An important early influence was the sculptor and teacher Augusta Savage, who provided him with open studio space at her Harlem Art Center. He also participated in WPA art projects, alongside his friends Romare Bearden and Jackson Pollock, among others.


Read an interview with Norman Lewis, free from the Smithsonian Institution's Archives of American Art.In 1934, he became a member of the 306 Group, a group of artists and writers who met regularly that included Charles Alston, Romare Bearden, Ralph Ellison, and Jacob Lawrence.

His earlier work was mostly figurative. He at first painted what he saw, which ranged from Meeting Place (1930), a swap meet scene, and The Yellow Hat (1936), a formal Cubist painting, to Dispossessed (1940), an eviction scene, and Jazz Musicians (1948), a visual depiction of the Bebop that was being played in Harlem.

Later work

In the late 1940's, his work became increasingly abstract. Tenement I (1952), Harlem Turns White (1955), and Night Walker No. 2 (1956) are all examples of his style. Twilight Sounds (1947) and Jazz Band (1948) are examples of his interest in conveying music.

One of his best known paintings, Migrating Birds (1954), won the Popular Prize at the Carnegie Museum's 1955 Carnegie International Exhibition, the New York Herald-Tribune calling the painting "one of the most significant of all events of the 1955 art year."

In 1963 he was a founding member of the SPIRAL Group.

His later work includes Alabama II (1969), Part Vision (1971), and New World Acoming (1971), as well as a series called Seachange done in his last years.

Although represented by galleries, and the recipient of many awards and good reviews, his work did not sell nearly as well as the other Abstract Expressionists he exhibited with, such as Mark Tobey or Mark Rothko. His body of work included paintings, drawings, and murals. Mostly he supported himself, and later his wife and daughter, through teaching. In 1972, he received a grant from the Mark Rothko Foundation and a Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 1975 he received a Guggenheim Fellowship.

He passed away unexpectedly on August 27, 1979, in New York.]]> In Quotes http://jameslogancourier.org/index.php?itemid=4017 Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:42:00 -0800 http://jameslogancourier.org/index.php?itemid=4016
LogiTech's Harmony One
universal remote controlBy Etan Horowitz
The Orlando Sentinel (MCT)

As enjoyable as it is to add a video-game console, speaker system or other new entertainment device to your living room, there's always one unpleasant thing you have to deal with — a new remote control.

This week I review two new high-end universal remotes that aim to replace your existing remotes and save you button pushes by allowing you to set up "activities" to get you to the entertainment more quickly. For instance, pressing a button for the activity called "watch a movie," will turn your TV on, switch it to the correct input, turn the DVD player on and pop open the disc tray.


The Harmony One from Logitech ($250, Logitech.com) has a touch screen and must be connected to a computer (Mac or PC) to set it up and modify it. ESPN The Ultimate Remote ($300, Espnremote.com) looks more like a cell phone and connects to your home Wi-Fi to network to display news, sports scores, information and TV listings on its tiny screen. It doesn't need a computer.

Both remotes know the infrared commands for thousands of devices, and if your device isn't one of them, you can teach the commands to the universal remotes.

The ESPN remote is clearly inferior. In short, it's awful.

It comes packed in so much hard plastic it's bound to induce a case of wrap rage in even the most patient user. Once you free the remote, it's complicated to set up and use. It's also uncomfortable to hold.

There are too many buttons and too many unnecessary features, such as the ability to send and receive e-mails from the remote or access your Facebook profile. If you are so lazy that you can't pull out your BlackBerry or iPhone or run to the nearest computer, then finding the perfect remote might not be your only problem. Being able to access sports scores will come in handy for sports junkies.

Consider yourself lucky if the remote knows the commands for all of your devices. It didn't have codes for any Scientific Atlanta DVRs despite its being one of the most common brands of cable set-top boxes. I was able to teach the ESPN remote to learn my DVR's commands, but it was tedious and it wasn't clear whether I should categorize my DVR as a cable device, a DVR, or an HD Tuner, because it's all of those things.

The best feature of the ESPN remote is that it displays the channel listings, including what programs are on and their descriptions, on the remote screen. This allows you to see what else is on without changing the channel or bringing up the on-screen guide.

By contrast, the Harmony One is a breeze to set up. It takes about 30 minutes, and using a computer to configure the remote is much easier than having to do it on the remote itself. The remote has an online database of more than 225,000 devices from more than 5,000 manufacturers, much more than the ESPN device.

Even though I'm missing the remote for a pair of Altec Lansing speakers, the Harmony had the speakers in its database and I was able to use it to control the speakers. The ESPN remote could not do the same without the original remote.

The Harmony feels good in your hand and has about 15 fewer physical buttons than the ESPN remote. You can customize the virtual buttons on the remote's touch screen to give you quick access to your favorite channels or allow you to access functions missing from the physical buttons.

It takes some time to get used to the Harmony, especially if someone else set it up. For instance, if you are watching cable TV but want to adjust the brightness of your set, you have to press a few buttons to switch between devices before adjusting the brightness.

You may cringe at paying $250 for a remote control (though it's on sale for less at Best Buy and Amazon.com), but if you are serious about home entertainment and hate having lots of remotes, the Harmony One is a great investment. Just be prepared for a learning curve.

(Etan Horowitz is the technology columnist for the Orlando Sentinel. He can be reached at ehorowitz@orlandosentinel.com.)

(c) 2008, The Orlando Sentinel (Fla.).
Visit the Sentinel on the World Wide Web at http://www.orlandosentinel.com/.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.]]> Entertainment http://jameslogancourier.org/index.php?itemid=4016 Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:36:33 -0800 http://jameslogancourier.org/index.php?itemid=4015 By Michael Martinez
Chicago Tribune (MCT)

LOS ANGELES — I came in search of my inner geek.

But was it too late?

Gone were the booth babes, flame-eaters and pyrotechnics.

The $40 billion video game industry's annual convention used to be a house party gone wild — with mom and dad away.

This year's E3 Media & Business Summit, held last week in the downtown convention center, is a serious affair, as if parents suddenly imposed maturity, slimmed down to 4,500 invitees only Video gamers grow up, get down to business versus 80,000 public attendees in 2006.

"It was strippers, drugs, fire-breathers and there were explosions going off. It was crazy," Relic Entertainment producer Mark Noseworthy, 28, said of past gatherings.

Even minors got in on the action.

"It was awesome. I used to base my entire year on E3," said Michael Quiroz, 24, a marketing associate working one of the rare booths still featuring young models in miniskirts and futuristic red wigs.

"I've been coming since I was 16, but don't tell the organizers," he whispered.

Business had ranked a distant second to rockin'. But with global sales expected to reach $68 billion by 2012, an industry built on boyhood playtime has been forced to grow up.

"The show had become out of hand," said Michael Gallagher, CEO of the Entertainment Software Association, the trade group that organizes the conference.

"What you're seeing is a hangover from that old, bigger show and an adjustment to this summit format, which is invitation-only and very intimate, efficient and productive," Gallagher said.

The average gamer is now 35 years old, and adult women account for 33 percent of all gamers. (Boys 17 or younger make up just 18 percent of gamers.) Nintendo executive Cammie Dunaway added that digital toys are more than recreational and educational: They also can be therapeutic, such as Wii games enticing physical movement from couch potatoes and even seniors in nursing homes. It's called Wiihabilitation (pronounced "we-habilitation").

There were hundreds of media representatives at last week's conference, mostly 20- and 30-something men in T-shirts and jeans specializing in trade news and game reviews on Web sites and blogs.

"That's because you journalists don't have the competence in (writing about) games," said Gamereactor magazine's Claus Reichel, 41, of Copenhagen, explaining why "mainstream" journalists were outnumbered. He quit his civil engineering career 14 years ago to write about video games.

"If you don't have this knowledge, gamers will see through that," Reichel said. He observed how conference-goers are now only 90 percent male: "As you can see, there are a lot of women as opposed to 10 years ago."

In publisher THQ's demonstration room, game designer Jonny Ebbert, 37, of Relic Entertainment was joined by Noseworthy in showing how to play their "Dawn of War II," which requires players to build raw recruits into an elite strike force to save the galaxy.

"We try to up the brutality of it — in a contextual way," Ebbert said as blood flowed on the computer screen. "We make it visceral and added camera shakes."

The American Medical Association says video games have an educational benefit but calls for further study on whether they can cause aggressive and addictive behavior.

Addictive is the fun, but it won't cause bad behavior, the two designers contended.

It wasn't all business: If gaming seeks a bridge between nerd and cool, he could be Gerard Williams, 25, a New York City rapper with a YouTube serial who calls himself the Hip Hop Gamer.

Wearing a World Wrestling Entertainment belt with a spinner buckle and wrestler John Cena's name, Williams rapped in the media lunchroom: "I got more gore than the 'Gears of War.'''

(Michael Martinez is a staff writer for the Chicago Tribune.)

(c) 2008, Chicago Tribune.
Visit the Chicago Tribune on the Internet at http://www.chicagotribune.com/
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.]]> Features http://jameslogancourier.org/index.php?itemid=4015 Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:31:27 -0800 http://jameslogancourier.org/index.php?itemid=4005 From wikipedia:
Lonette McKee (born July 22, 1954) is an American film and television actress, music composer/producer/songwriter, screenwriter and director.

McKee was born in Detroit, Michigan, the daughter of Dorothy and Lonnie McKee. Lonnie, was a bricklayer and auto manufacturer employee. McKee's career began in the music business in Detroit, Michigan as a child prodigy, where she started writing music/lyrics, singing, playing keyboards and performing at the age of seven. At fourteen, she recorded her first record, which became an instant regional pop/R&B hit. McKee wrote the title song for the film Quadroon when she was fifteen. She had written and produced three solo LPs, the most recent, "Natural Love", for Spike Lee's Columbia 40 Acres and A Mule label.

Visit Lonette McKee's official website.

McKee scored the music for the well-received cable documentary on the lower Manhattan African Burial Ground, as well as numerous infomercials. McKee has toured extensively throughout the world singing concert performances, including the JVC Jazz Festival at Carnegie Hall. McKee won critical acclaim for her Broadway debut performance in the musical "The First." She became the first African American to play the coveted role of 'Julie' in the Houston Grand Opera's production of "Show Boat" on Broadway, for which she received a Tony nomination. Her tragic portrayal of jazz legend Billie Holliday in the one-woman show, "Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill" won critical acclaim, standing ovations and the Drama Desk nomination. She reprieved the role of 'Julie' on Broadway in the most recent revival of the musical "Show Boat" directed by Hal Prince.

Filmography
Her feature film credits include; Sparkle (1976), Cuba (1979), Which Way Is Up? (1977) and Brewster's Millions (1985) - both opposite the legendary Richard Pryor; The Cotton Club (1984) and Gardens of Stone (1987) for Francis Ford Coppola; Lift (2001), for which she earned a Black Reel nomination. Other films include Honey (2003), Men of Honor (2000), Round Midnight (1986) for the great filmmaker Bertrand Tavenier, Jungle Fever (1991), Malcolm X (1992), He Got Game (1998) Recent features include "She Hate Me for Spike Lee "A Day in Black & White" and "ATL". Television miniseries and films include, The Women of Brewster Place (1989), for which she received an NAACP nomination, Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years (1999), Queen (1993) with Halle Berry, To Dance with Olivia (1997) and For Love of Olivia (2001) for CBS Television Network and Blind Faith for Showtime Cable Network. Lonette also received an NAACP nomination for her appearances on the long-running CBS soap opera As The World Turns.


Recent work
Recently, McKee did a recurring role on the NBC hit drama Third Watch. McKee was featured in People Magazine's "Fifty Most Beautiful" 1995 issue. McKee studied film directing at The New School in New York and apprenticed directing with great filmmaker Spike Lee. McKee studied singing with Dini Clark and ballet with Sarah Tayir, both in Los Angeles. McKee teaches a master acting workshop at Centenary College of New Jersey, where she serves as an adjunct professor in the Theater Arts department. Currently, she is producing her first feature film Dream Street, which she wrote and will direct. ]]> In Quotes http://jameslogancourier.org/index.php?itemid=4005 Tue, 22 Jul 2008 00:28:00 -0800 http://jameslogancourier.org/index.php?itemid=4014
A woman operates a pump to mist
tomato vines at a farm in Changping,
China, providing vegetables to the
Beijing Olympic Village.Tim Johnson/MCT
By Tim Johnson
McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)

CHANGPING, China — Guards carefully monitor the perimeter of Lin Yuan's farm, where carrots, peppers, tomatoes and other vegetables will ripen just in time for the hungry athletes arriving for the Beijing Summer Olympics.

"What is special now is the security," Lin said as he strolled out of a greenhouse and pointed to sentries at the farm's entry gate.


Food safety is a sensitive subject as China hosts the Olympics. It weathered global concerns last year about the safety of its exports, amid scandal over tainted pet food and toothpaste, and now China is striving to ensure that the food served to 16,000 athletes in the Olympic Village is healthy and free of contaminants.

It's going to great lengths to explain the care that it's putting into Olympic cuisine.

If security is high at Lin's vegetable farm, a premium provider for the Olympic Village, it's even higher at the ranches and livestock pens that provide meat for the village. Pork for Olympic athletes comes from 10 secret pig farms set up far away from cities, state media report. The pigs get two hours of exercise a day, eat organic feed and are monitored around the clock.

Given the extent of such efforts, Chinese officials naturally bristled when they heard that athletes from some countries — the United States and Australia in particular — were brown-bagging some of their own groceries to the Olympics.

In some ways the matter shows the delicate balance as China tries to overcome long-held foreign suspicions about the safety of its food without stirring up citizens, who may wonder why even the pigs get such special treatment when it comes to what's served to foreigners.

"It's a perfect symbol of what the Olympics is and has become for China. It's an issue of trust," said James Mann, author in residence at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, whose recent book is titled "The China Fantasy." "You've got international athletes and their trainers, who want to control things such as what the athletes eat."

The stakes aren't trivial. Nations can see their prestige rise and fall by how many medals they win at the Summer Olympics, and watching a top athlete fail because of tainted food could derail those dreams.

Despite China's vast efforts on food safety, questions about contaminants still arise. In late June, China banned top swimmer Ouyang Kunpeng for life after he failed a doping test. The backstroker later said he'd eaten barbecue on vacation, and the meat may have contained the banned substance clenbuterol.

Often used as a bodybuilding aid, clenbuterol is prohibited for use by China's farmers, but it still finds its way into meat. In 2006, 330 people fell ill in Shanghai after eating pork tainted with clenbuterol.

"It increases the yield of the animal significantly," said Dennis L. Erpelding of Elanco Animal Health, an Indianapolis company, adding that meat containing the substance could leave residues in the human body. He said China "has taken action not to see it used."

After a New York Times story Feb. 9 said that U.S. Olympians would take some of their own food to the Beijing games because of fears of steroids in meat, startled Chinese officials bemoaned the lack of confidence in their country.

Since then, the U.S. Olympic Committee has said repeatedly that it trusts the quality of food that will be served to athletes at the Olympic Village, where most of the 594 U.S. Olympic athletes will stay and dine.

The USOC is shipping 27,440 pounds of food to Beijing to be served primarily at the high-performance training facility set up on the campus of Beijing Normal University, where coaches, training partners and medical and support staff will be lodged, said Nicole Saunches, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Springs-based USOC.

Much of the food comes from sponsors — such as Tyson, Oroweat, Hershey's, Maverick Ranch and Kellogg's _ and includes foods that either aren't easily sourced in China or are especially low in saturated fats, she said.

"We as an Olympic committee shipped more dry goods to Athens and more products overall to Athens (in 2004) than we are shipping to China," Saunches said.

"The USOC doesn't have any more concerns for food safety than we would have here in the U.S.," she said, noting a recent salmonella outbreak in U.S. produce. "Food safety isn't solely a Chinese issue."

Tyson Foods, the world's largest meat conglomerate, said it had provided a shipment of 4,400 pounds of chicken, beef and pork to the U.S. Olympians and delegates for use at the Aug. 8-24 Beijing games.

The U.S. athletic team "wants specific American cuts of meat," said James Rice, country manager for Tyson's China operations, adding that the matter is "not a food-safety issue."

Australia, too, is sending some food with its Olympic athletes.

"We're taking some snack bars, some packaged cereals and things like that," said Mike Tancred, a spokesman for the Australian Olympic Committee.

All Australian athletes have been instructed to stick to the dining halls in the Olympic Village and drink only bottled beverages.

"A lot of our athletes who competed in the (test) events up there have had stomach bugs," Tancred said.

The head of the British Olympic Association, Simon Clegg, said British Olympians wouldn't take food with them to Beijing.

"We are confident that the arrangements put in place for Beijing will amply cater for the needs of our athletes," Clegg said in a statement provided to McClatchy.

The private Philadelphia company that's providing food to the Olympic Village, Aramark, has catered 13 previous Summer and Winter Olympics, and is set to cook 3.5 million meals during the course of the Olympics and Paralympics.

Lin, the vegetable farm manager, tenderly displayed tomatoes ripening on a vine to a visitor to one of his greenhouses and described how he's providing nine products to the Olympic Village: potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, bell peppers, mushrooms, parsley, turnips and arugula.

The farm uses mainly manure and few chemical fertilizers, he said, relying heavily on natural pest-management techniques. It employs a sophisticated electronic-tagging system to track outgoing vegetable shipments.

Noting the security methods, Lin said that any problems with vegetable safety "won't be because of problems on the farm."

(McClatchy Newspapers special correspondent Hua Li contributed to this report.)

(c) 2008, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
Visit the McClatchy Washington Bureau on the World Wide Web at www.mcclatchydc.com.]]> Features http://jameslogancourier.org/index.php?itemid=4014 Mon, 21 Jul 2008 19:00:06 -0800 http://jameslogancourier.org/index.php?itemid=4013
Brandon Keeler, 18, on the first hole at the
Detroit Golf Club in Detroit, Michigan.
Andre J. Jackson/Detroit Free Press/MCTBy Michael Horan
Detroit Free Press (MCT)

DETROIT — You might think $800,000 in scholarships is a bit extreme. You might think the scholar is a nerd. Well, think again. Meet Brandon Keeler of Detroit.

Brandon, 18, graduated from Renaissance High School in Detroit last month with a 3.8 grade point average. He has been accepted to seven colleges — five of them offered him full tuition or more for four years — and has won more than 10 other scholarships. He plans to go to Yale University.


All this, after being kicked out of Bates Academy for the Gifted and Talented in Detroit in the fourth grade because his GPA dropped to a 2.62. The academy required all students to maintain at least a 3.0.

It was 2000. Brandon was enjoying the school year until he received a notice attached to his final report card stating that he would not be allowed to return to Bates the following year.

Brandon soon found himself in a seat at Whitney Young Middle School in Detroit.

"At my new school, students didn't value education like they did at Bates," Brandon said.

"Kids bullied me for taking education seriously and for the way I talked," he said, referring to his use of standard English.

He made a promise to himself that he "would turn things around and get back into Bates Academy."

Brandon earned all A's from start to finish at Whitney Young. He said he worked as hard as he could to earn acceptance back into Bates.

It took him four years.

After his seventh-grade year, Bates Academy gave him another chance.

"I was nervous and apprehensive about going back to Bates because I didn't want the same thing to happen like it did in fourth grade," he said, "but I was much more confident."

Brandon graduated from Bates the next year with a 3.7 grade point average, and he didn't stop there.
Besides Yale, he was accepted to Michigan State, Princeton, Rice, Johns Hopkins, Emory and the University of Michigan.

"I have chosen to attend Yale because it is an excellent school, and it was one of the better choices academically and financially," Brandon said. "It also looks good when 'Yale' is on a resume."

He plans to study biomedical engineering.

Gila Reinstein, associate director of public affairs at Yale, said getting into the university is no easy task.

"Just getting into Yale is a sign of a student's academic merit because it's extremely competitive," she said. "Only something like 9 percent of applicants got accepted."

Brandon said: "I've always been interested in health and biology. I was at an engineering program at Michigan State that gave medical scenarios and you had to problem solve and figure out what was wrong, and that is when I gained the interest in becoming a biomedical engineer."

Brandon still is what many might consider a typical teen. During his senior year at Renaissance, he was involved in activities including the tennis, soccer and Science Quiz Bowl teams. He also was in the Latin dance club. On the weekends, he works as a caddy at the Detroit Golf Club.

Gail Russell-Jones, principal of Renaissance, knows Brandon as a remarkable student.

"He was very outgoing," she said, adding that he "was involved in a number of activities and had a strong social conscience." She said she met Brandon when he wanted to start a group called Students Coalition Against Genocide to help the refugees in Darfur.

Brandon plans to leave for Yale on Aug. 22 and said he is anticipating success at his new school.

"I'm looking forward to expanding my knowledge at Yale, but I am a little nervous," he admitted.

Brandon said his mother, Angela Keeler, has been a big influence on him, but she beams with pride when she thinks of all he has accomplished.

"I can't think of words to describe how proud I am of my son," Keeler said.

(c) 2008, Detroit Free Press.
Visit the Freep, the World Wide Web site of the Detroit Free Press, at http://www.freep.com.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.]]> Features http://jameslogancourier.org/index.php?itemid=4013 Mon, 21 Jul 2008 18:48:44 -0800 http://jameslogancourier.org/index.php?itemid=4002 From wikipedia:
Christian Abraham Fleetwood (July 21, 1840–September 28, 1914), was a non-commissioned officer in the United States Army, editor, musician, and government official. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions during the American Civil War.

Fleetwood was born in Baltimore on July 21, 1840, the son of Charles and Anna Maria Fleetwood, both free persons of color. He received his early education in the home of a wealthy sugar merchant, John C. Brunes, and his wife, the latter treating him like her son. He continued his education in the office of the secretary of the Maryland Colonization Society, went briefly to Liberia and Sierra Leone, and graduated in 1860 from Ashmun Institute (later Lincoln University) in Oxford, Pennsylvania. He and others published briefly the Lyceum Observer in Baltimore, said to be the first African American newspaper in the upper South.

Read Christian Fleetwood's "The Negro As Soldier," free from MedalofHonor.com.With his wife Sara Iredell, whom he married on November 16, 1869, he led an active social life. Fleetwood was acquainted with most of the prominent African Americans of the period. They frequently visited his residence, and presented him with a testimonial in 1889.

Civil War
When the American Civil War disrupted trade with Liberia, Fleetwood enlisted into Company G of the 4th Regiment United States Colored Infantry, Union Army, in August 1863. Due to his educated background, Fleetwood was given the rank of Sergeant upon enlistment and was promoted to Sergeant Major days later, on August 19. His regiment, assigned to the 3rd Division, saw service with the 10th, 18th, and 25th Army Corps in campaigns in North Carolina and Virginia.

On September 29, 1864, the 3rd Division, including Fleetwood's regiment, participated in the Battle of Chaffin's Farm on the outskirts of the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. During the 4th Regiment's charge on the enemy fortifications, Fleetwood supervised the unit's left flank. Among the charging soldiers was Sergeant Alfred B. Hilton, the bearer of two flags, one of which had been seized from a wounded sergeant. When Hilton himself was wounded, Fleetwood and another soldier, Charles Veale, each grabbed a flag from him before the colors could touch the ground. Now carrying the American flag, Fleetwood continued forward under heavy fire until it became clear that the unit could not penetrate the enemy defenses. Retreating back to the reserve line, he used the flag to rally a small group of men and continue the fight. For their actions during the battle, Fleetwood, Hilton, and Veale were each issued the Medal of Honor just over six months later, on April 6, 1865. Fleetwood's official Medal of Honor citation reads simply: "Seized the colors, after 2 color bearers had been shot down, and bore them nobly through the fight."

Although every officer of the regiment sent a petition for him to be commissioned an officer, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton did not recommend appointment. Fleetwood was honorably discharged from the Army on May 4, 1866.

Post-war life

After the war, Fleetwood worked as a bookkeeper in Columbus, Ohio, until 1867, and in several minor government positions in the Freedmen's Bank and War Department, Washington, D.C. He also organized a battalion of D.C. National Guardsmen and, in the 1880s, Washington, D.C.'s, Colored High School Cadet Corps.

It was his military career that probably inspired Fleetwood's interest in the Washington colored National Guard and the colored high school cadet corps. A Washington cadet corps, organized and commanded by Captain D. Graham on June 12, 1880, was expanded into the Sixth Battalion of D.C. National Guards on July 18, 1887, with Fleetwood appointed major and commanding officer. After reorganizations, several African American battalions were consolidated into the First Separate Battalion in 1891. Passed over as its commanding officer, Fleetwood resigned in 1892.

Meanwhile, he and Major Charles B. Fisher, who had commanded the Fifth Battalion, were instrumental in organizing the Colored High School Cadet Corps of the District of Columbia in 1888. Fleetwood, the first instructor of the colored high school cadets, served until 1897, when he was succeeded by Major Arthur Brooks. These two officers developed a tradition of military service among young colored men in Washington which led some of them to enlist in World War I and others to be commissioned at the Colored Officers Training Camp in Fort Des Moines, Iowa.

Fleetwood never returned to active duty with any military organization. However, many residents of the District of Columbia recommended that he be appointed as the Commander of the 50th U.S. Colored Volunteer Infantry during the Spanish-American War. This request was not seriously considered by the War Department, and the participation of colored soldiers from the District of Columbia was similarly disregarded. It is not known whether Fleetwood's short stature and physical ailments reduced his chances for consideration. His army records state that he was five feet, four and one half inches tall. These records also state that he applied in 1891 for a pension because of "total" deafness in his left ear, the result of "gunshot concussion," and "severe" deafness in his right ear, the result of catarrh contracted while in the army. His application also stated that these ailments prevented him from speaking or singing in public.

For a number of years he served as choirmaster of the 15th Street Presbyterian Church, St. Luke's and St. Mary's Protestant Episcopal Churches, as well as the Berean Baptist Church. Supported by the community, including the wives of former presidents (Lucy Webb Hayes and Frances Folsom Cleveland), his musical presentations were extremely successful.

Death and legacy
He died suddenly of heart failure in Washington, D.C. on September 28, 1914, at age 74. Funeral services were held at St. Luke's Episcopal Church. Interment was in Harmony Cemetery, Washington, D.C., the First Separate Battalion of D.C. National Guards serving as escort. Among the honorary pallbearers were such prominent Washingtonians as Arthur Brooks, Daniel Murray, Whitefield McKinlay, and Judge Robert H. Terrell. The participation by the National Guard, and by Arthur Brooks in particular, was an appropriate recognition of the most significant aspects of Fleetwood's career.]]> In Quotes http://jameslogancourier.org/index.php?itemid=4002 Mon, 21 Jul 2008 00:26:00 -0800 http://jameslogancourier.org/index.php?itemid=4011
By Renee Schoof
McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)

WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency said Friday that it couldn't propose any regulation of greenhouse gases because the issue was too complex and there were too many objections from other federal agencies.

The Bush administration consistently has objected to mandatory limits on the heat-trapping gases that cause global warming. The EPA's decision to issue a 588-page report that calls for 120 days of public comment means that any regulatory action will be up to the next administration.

ON THE WEB
EPA Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.
EPA fact sheet.

The Supreme Court ruled more than a year ago that the EPA must determine whether greenhouse-gas emissions from motor vehicles harm human health and welfare, and, if so, devise ways to regulate them under the Clean Air Act. The EPA document Friday didn't make any policy decision. It contains EPA staff recommendations about regulation and objections to them raised by the White House and agencies such as the Departments of Energy, Transportation and Agriculture.

EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson said Friday that if the EPA regulated greenhouse-gas emissions from vehicles, that could trigger the regulation of emissions from all other sources of manmade greenhouse-gas pollution. The result, he said, could be "an unprecedented expansion of EPA authority that would have a profound effect on virtually every sector of the economy and touch every household in the land."

U.S. and other scientists worldwide have reached a strong agreement that manmade greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels, are causing the Earth's average temperature to rise and that unless sharp cuts are made in these emissions, increasing warming could lead to catastrophic changes in the next century, including extensive flooding of coastal areas, the spread of diseases and mass extinctions of plants and animals.

The EPA previously told the Bush administration that greenhouse gases endangered human health, but the administration didn't accept that finding or allow it to be made public.

Susan Dudley of the White House Office of Management and Budget said in a letter to Johnson that the EPA's draft of proposed rules raised so many concerns that it couldn't be accepted as administration policy but that consensus wasn't necessary for further discussion.

Johnson told reporters that the EPA's staff "has done an outstanding job making a square peg fit into a round hole." But he added that he thought that the Clean Air Act was "ill-suited for the task of regulating global greenhouse gases."

"Based on the analyses to date, pursuing this course of action would take decades and inevitably result in a very complicated and likely convoluted set of regulations. If our nation is truly serious about regulating greenhouse gases, the Clean Air Act is the wrong tool for the job," Johnson said.

"EPA is publishing this notice today because it is impossible to simultaneously address all the agencies' issues and respond to our legal obligations in a timely manner," Johnson wrote in a preface to the document.

The lengthy document, called an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, summarized the EPA's work so far and contained letters by other agencies expressing objections and questions. Objections were raised by the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Transportation and Energy as well as White House offices including the Council on Environmental Quality.

Critics said the administration was refusing to take action.

"The Bush administration decision today to effectively reject regulation of global warming pollution under the Clean Air Act creates a clear and present danger to the American people," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., the chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. "Despite the Supreme Court's finding that EPA was ducking its responsibility under the law to control global warming emissions, the Bush administration continues to block all action."

David Baron, managing attorney at the Washington office of the environmental group Earthjustice, said Johnson was wrong in saying that the Clean Air Act wasn't suited for limiting greenhouse-gas emissions. The Supreme Court already has rejected that view, he said.

"We need action, not just more talk," Baron said in a statement. "The administration is fiddling while the planet melts. If these delays drag on, we will go back to court to force real action."

(c) 2008, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
Visit the McClatchy Washington Bureau on the World Wide Web at www.mcclatchydc.com.]]> News http://jameslogancourier.org/index.php?itemid=4011 Sun, 20 Jul 2008 09:52:00 -0800