President Obama’s Weekly Address – 05/29/10
Filed under: Blog Entries, Community, Family, Obama, Society & Culture
Ahead of Memorial Day, the President asks all Americans to join him in remembering and honoring our men and women in uniform who have died in service to the country.
National HIV Testing Day Webinar
Filed under: Blog Entries, Community, Education, General, Health, Society & Culture, Technology
On Tuesday, June 22, 2010, from 3:00 pm-4:00 pm (EDT), AIDS.gov will host a National HIV Testing Day (NHTD) webinar for Federal staff and grantees working with domestic HIV/AIDS programs. National HIV Testing Day is an opportunity for us to work together to promote HIV testing in the community.
The webinar, “The Current and Future State of HIV Testing in the United States,” will feature some of the U.S. Government’s leading voices on HIV/AIDS. Participants will be encouraged to ask questions.
To participate, register here by June 18.
Speakers include:
- Dr. Howard Koh, HHS
- Mr. Christopher Bates, PACHA
- Dr. Kevin Fenton & Dr. Bernard Branson, CDC
- Dr. Deborah Parham Hopson, HRSA
- Dr. Carl Dieffenbach, NIH/NIAID
- Ms. Beverly Watts Davis, SAMHSA
- Ms. Barbara Edwards, CMS
- Dr. Ronald Valdiserri, VA
- And other invited guests
Space is limited. Registrants will be joined on a first-come, first-served basis.
Texas State Board of Education Submits Changes to Curriculum
Filed under: Blog Entries, Community, Education, Society & Culture
A friend of mine alerted me to the Texas State Board of Education’s recommendations for the social studies curriculum and I have to admit they were pretty interesting. According to the Dallas Morning News, some of the proposals that have come and gone as the State Board of Education revised the social studies curriculum dealt with:
Civil rights leaders: Experts appointed by social conservative board members recommended that labor leader César Chávez and Thurgood Marshall, the first black justice on the Supreme Court, be stricken from the standards, but the board opted to keep them in.
Christmas: A curriculum-writing team dropped Christmas from a list of important religious holidays in a world cultures course, but the board ordered Christmas back on the list.
Conservative groups: The board voted to require that U.S. history students learn about leading conservative individuals and groups from the 1980s and 1990s. There is no similar requirement for liberal individuals and groups, although some are included in the standards.
McCarthyism: Social conservatives pushed through an amendment that requires a more positive portrayal of Sen. Joseph McCarthy and his claims that the U.S. government was infiltrated by Communists in the 1950s. McCarthy’s tactics have been discredited by most historians.
The Alamo: In studying the famous battle, students must learn “about the 189 heroes who gave their lives” in the fight, but Republicans rejected a move by Democrats to include in the standards the names of the eight Tejanos – Hispanics who lived in early Texas – who were killed alongside Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie and William B. Travis.
Rock ‘n’ roll and hip-hop: Students will have to study a list of influential musical and cultural movements in America that includes rock ‘n’ roll, Tin Pan Alley, country music and the Beat Generation. But social conservatives beat back an effort to include hip-hop after some members complained that its often crude lyrics are inappropriate for students.
It’s sad that politics plays such a large role in our children’s education. I can’t remember the last time I was asked who fought at the Alamo, but I do know it was something I needed to learn to past the test. The lessons you learn in the classroom are just the beginning and as a father who has a child that’s about to enter the Texas school system, I hope I can teach him to have a love for learning. That in my opinion, is the greatest gift a child can have. Because when you have that, a socially conservative written textbook won’t make as much of an impact as the Board hopes.
Conservatives on Texas board leaving legacy in schools but losing clout
Texas schools board rewrites US history with lessons promoting God and guns
One Million Shirts
Filed under: Blog Entries, Community, Society & Culture, Technology, Think Global
1MillionShirts is a charitable campaign created by Jason Sadler, creator of IWearYourShirt.com, with a goal of gathering one million shirts from people all over the world to give to people in Africa. Some of countries where the t-shirts will go are Kenya, Uganda, DRC, Ghana, Liberia, Mozambique, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Sudan, Swaziland and South Africa.
1MillionShirts has received a lot of criticism, but in a recent blog post the creator, he stated their motives are on the up and up. You are always going to receive criticism when you do something like this on such a large scale, so it’ll be interesting to see how the project turns out. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, but if this really is a scam, the Internet will make it known. I’ll definitely be watching and might even send a couple of shirts myself. If you have a t-shirt you would like to donate, click here to learn how you can participate. While t-shirts are the focus of the campaign, monetary donations can also be sent when you ship your shirt to help defray any cost they may incur when shipping the shirts to Africa.
I like this idea because it is one person’s way of helping people in need. 1MillionShirts was not created to solve all the economic problems in Africa, but it is a start. They are currently undergoing the process to be recognized by the IRS as a 501c3 organization. Once tax-exempt status is reached, all donations will be 100% tax-deductible.
biomedsearch.com
Filed under: Blog Entries, Community, Education, Health, Technology
I received an email asking me to post about this website. While this post may not be of interest to all of my readers, I thought this was worth posting. While most of the articles were beyond my comprehension, some of the abstracts for the journals were pretty informative. See, I like reading stuff other than tech articles.
BioMedSearch is a biomedical search engine that contains NIH/PubMed documents, plus a large collection of theses, dissertations, and other publications not found anywhere else for free, making it the most comprehensive free search on the web.
BioMedSearch also provides advanced account features that allow saved searches, alerts, saving documents to portfolios, commenting on documents and portfolios, and sharing documents with other registered users. Registering for BioMedSearch is free.
President Obama’s Weekly Address – 05/08/10
Filed under: Blog Entries, Community, Family, Health, Obama, Politics, Society & Culture
The President goes through the benefits in health insurance reform that are already kicking in for young adults, retirees, and families, and says more benefits are coming down the pike.
Oprah – There’s An App For That (Her)
Filed under: Blog Entries, Business, Entertainment & Sports, Society & Culture, Technology, Think Global
If you search the internet, you’ll find all types of varying opinions on what people feel about Oprah. But one thing I think everyone can agree on is that she is definitely the queen of the television airwaves. Just last week to increase the amount of face time she has with her viewers, Oprah.com went mobile and released an app for Android, Blackberry, iPhone and Palm devices.
The Oprah Mobile app features allow you to:
- View a weekly calendar of what’s airing on The Oprah Winfrey Show
- Receive alerts and notifications about the availability of reservations for The Oprah Winfrey Show
- Watch video highlights from The Oprah Winfrey Show, including backstage interviews with your favorite guests
- Find out what time and channel The Oprah Winfrey Show is on in your current location in the United States
- Access the latest articles and features from Oprah.com and O, The Oprah Magazine
- Listen to audio clips from Oprah Radio, including Gayle King, Dr. Laura Berman, Dr. Mehmet Oz
- Search by your favorite experts, guests and contributors, including Peter Walsh, Deepak Chopra and more
- Take our latest polls and see how other people are voting in your city and state
- Share your favorite items via email, Facebook and Twitter
- Sign the pledge to make your car a No Phone Zone
- Customize the menu to keep your favorite sections within easy reach
The apps do cost $1.99-$2.99, but according to the review at appolicious.com, there’s a lot of potential for future releases that could increase the social aspect of it.
But there’s more! Yesterday Engadget blogged about her showing off the Sprint EVO on her show while discussing her “No Phone Zone” campaign. Now please note, there is no official release date for this phone (Sprint said Summer 2010)! But if anyone could get a hold of it early, Oprah would be that person.
I can’t wait for this phone to come out and have been anxiously waiting for its release. We all know that when Oprah says go buy something, people do. So I’m curious to see if this affects sales of the EVO when Sprint finally decides to release it.
If anyone reading this is a friend of Oprah, tell her I’ll take the phone if she gets tired of it. Check out the video.
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