| 12/30 - 01/06
The unfolding 2008 presidential campaigns have brought some unusual names to the forefront of American politicking. Among them, Oprah Winfrey, that citadel of expertise on domestic and foreign affairs, gives her flamboyant support to Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., while the intellectually vacant social activist vote of Barbara Streisand goes to Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.In contrast, consider the preference expressed by retired Brig. Gen. Charles E. "Chuck" Yeager. A true American superhero of unrivaled pedigree, Yeager was the first human being ever to fly "faster than a speeding bullet," as he successfully broke the sound barrier six decades ago in the Bell X-1. He went on to reach numerous other aviation milestones as a test pilot, eventually achieving the rank of brigadier general in the United States Air Force.(Complete Article) Excellent commentary! Exceedingly interesting and informative! .
Excerpt from `Defying Dixie'
In the first three decades of the twentieth century most white Southerners believed that taken at the flood, the racial caste system they had recently institutionalized would spread across the nation and around the world. As black Southerners moved north, and European nations experimented with ways to manage their colonized subjects, white Southerners imagined they heard a long-awaited distress signal that summoned them to rescue a white race drowning in a rising tide of color. Southern experience counted for something: In the most democratic country in the world white Southerners had counted a minority group out of a constitutionally guaranteed political process by legal and extralegal measures. By World War I white Southerners had created an intricate racial system of breathtaking complexity that left no action to chance.
Huge triumph for McCain
Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York won a largely symbolic Florida Democratic primary. None of the Democrats campaigned in the state and no delegates will be awarded because the state party scheduled the contest earlier than the national party allowed. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois was a distant second, with former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina in third. Still, the Clinton campaign claimed a big Florida win. "I am thrilled by the vote of confidence you have given me today," Clinton said at a rally in Davie. The Obama campaign matched the effort to spin the results, mockingly saying it would call the race early and announcing that the candidates were tied for delegates — with each getting zero — when the results were in. The Republican Party also punished Florida for voting before Feb.
Lexus and Scholastic Announce Winners of the Lexus Environmental ...
TORRANCE, Calif., Nov. 15 /PRNewswire/ -- From California to New York, middle and high school students rose to the challenge with their entries in the Lexus Environmental Challenge, a program designed by Lexus and Scholastic to educate and empower students to take action to improve the environment. Fourteen school teams from 11 states were recognized today for their outstanding environmental action plans for the "Protecting the Land" Challenge, the first of four challenges. Each team wins $3,000 in scholarships and grants as well as an invitation to participate in the Final Challenge for a chance to win one of two $75,000 grand prizes. In all, more than $1 million in scholarships and grants will be awarded. The teams' winning Action Plans are posted on the Challenge's Web site (http://www.scholastic.com/Lexus) to help inspire other young people to make a difference in their own communities.
Keeler: Top eight in Iowa athletics for 2008
The formal audition begins March 22, when the NCAA womens basketball tournament graces Wells Fargo Arena for the first time. Player or pretender? In Indianapolis, they wont let you throw the big parties the mens hoops tourney, the wrestling championships until you prove you can handle the little ones.
Its big, Calli Sanders says, really, really big.
You could the say the same thing about 2008. The new year shapes up to be a massive one for sports in the metro from the resurgence of Drake mens basketball to the return of the Indy Racing League (if you leave now, you just might make it) to the quest of Shawn Johnson, that whirling dervish from West Des Moines, for Olympic gold.
But 2008 could also be the year Des Moines establishes itself as a contender, an honest-to-God contender, for big-time NCAA sporting events.
Heavy Snowfall Slows Travel In Southern Wisconsin
MADISON, Wis. -- Another round of heavy snow is pummeling the southern part of Wisconsin on Tuesday, causing traffic slowdowns and leaving residents and snow removal crews busy digging out. READ: Visit Channel 3000's Winter Weather Section | READ: Visit Channel 3000's Traffic Section | SLIDESHOW: See Recent Snowstorm Photos Snow and freezing rain is hitting southern Wisconsin, adding to the slush that caused dozens of accidents, closed schools and caused power outages on Tuesday morning. Milwaukee Public Schools and its 85,000 students are among the many districts that canceled classes. They include Waukesha, West Bend, Kenosha, Racine, Kenosha, Jefferson, Hartford, Fort Atkinson and Germantown. The Madison Metropolitan School District, however, didn't cancel classes, but is calling off most after-school and evening activities.
B-schools with entrepreneurial flair
Why we chose it: The Deming Center of Entrepreneurship is nationally known for its excellence in teaching students to create businesses in clean technology and renewable energy. The center helps MBAs commercialize innovations that they develop on campus and at the US Government's National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo. There is also a school-run business plan competition for clean-tech startups. Colorado also offers Ph.D.s to those with a scholarly bent.
Also appears in: Social entrepreneurship | Undergrads
Notable entrepreneurial alumni:
• Lyndon "Duke" Hanson, Co-founder, Crocs, Graduated 1985 .
Charlie Brooker's screen burn
It's the Fact Ents equivalent of a horror movie. Three of the guinea pigs are simply kept in dark rooms, while the rest are made to wear eye masks that reduce the world to a grey blur, headphones that pump a continual white noise drone into their ears, and gigantic foam mittens so they can't even scratch their bums for entertainment. Meanwhile, a psychotherapist with an unnerving omnipresent grin monitors their progress using night vision cameras, taking notes each time they pace up and down, talk to themselves, or hallucinate. One sits on the end of the bed watching snakes and cars and the occasional human visitor; another (the comedian Adam Bloom, oddly enough) strolls round a non-existent pile of empty oyster shells. These laugh-a-minute sequences are interspersed with talking-head testimony from former victims of sensory deprivation: a guy called Parris who was locked in solitary for years for a crime he didn't commit, and former hostage Brian Keenan.
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