WILL SOMEONE PLEASE TELL HER SHE LOST!!!!!!

Really it’s over….No really this is not a dream and avoiding talking about is not going to make you the nominee! Clinton’s behavior is really crossing over to being ABSURD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HISTORY!!!! Obama Claims Nomination; First Black Candidate to Lead a Major Party Ticket!!

By JEFF ZELENY

Published: June 4, 2008

Senator Barack Obama claimed the Democratic presidential nomination on Tuesday night, prevailing through an epic battle with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in a primary campaign that inspired millions of voters from every corner of America to demand change in Washington.

A last-minute rush of Democratic superdelegates, as well as split results from the final primaries in Montana and South Dakota, pushed Mr. Obama over the threshold of 2,118 delegates needed to be nominated at the party’s convention in Denver in August. The victory for Mr. Obama, the son of a black Kenyan father and white Kansan mother, broke racial barriers and represented a remarkable rise for a man who just four years ago served in the Illinois State Senate.

“You chose to listen not to your doubts or your fears, but to your greatest hopes and highest aspirations,” Mr. Obama told supporters at a rally in St. Paul. “Tonight, we mark the end of one historic journey with the beginning of another — a journey that will bring a new and better day to America. Because of you, tonight, I can stand before you and say that I will be the Democratic nominee for president of the United States.”

Mrs. Clinton paid tribute to Mr. Obama, but she did not leave the race. “This has been a long campaign and I will be making no decisions tonight,” Mrs. Clinton told supporters in New York. She said she would be speaking with party officials about her next move.

In a combative speech, she again presented her case that she was the stronger candidate and argued that she had won the popular vote, a notion disputed by the Obama campaign.

“I want the 18 million Americans who voted for me to be respected,” she said in New York to loud cheers.

But she paid homage to Mr. Obama’s accomplishments, saying, “It has been an honor to contest the primaries with him, just as it has been an honor to call him my friend.”

Mr. Obama’s victory moved the presidential campaign to a new phase as he tangled with Senator John McCain of Arizona in televised addresses Tuesday night over Mr. Obama’s assertion that Mr. McCain would continue President Bush’s policies. Mr. McCain vigorously rebuffed that criticism in a speech in Kenner, La., in which he distanced himself from the outgoing president while contrasting his own breadth of experience with Mr. Obama’s record.

“The American people didn’t get to know me yesterday, as they are just getting to know Senator Obama,” Mr. McCain told supporters. Mr. Obama’s victory capped a marathon nominating contest that broke records on several fronts: the number of voters who participated, the amount of money raised and spent, and the sheer length of a grueling battle. The campaign, infused by tensions over race and sex, provided unexpected twists to the bitter end as Mr. Obama ultimately prevailed over Mrs. Clinton, who just a year ago appeared headed toward becoming the first woman to be nominated by a major party. The last two contests reflected the party’s continuing divisions, as Mrs. Clinton won the South Dakota primary and Mr. Obama won Montana.

The race drew to its final hours with a burst of announcements — delegate-by-delegate — of Democrats stepping forward to declare their support for Mr. Obama. The Democratic establishment, from former President Jimmy Carter to rank-and-file local officials who make up the ranks of the party’s superdelegates, rallied behind Mr. Obama as the day wore on.

When the day began, Mr. Obama needed 41 delegates to effectively claim the nomination. Just as the polls began to close in Montana and South Dakota, Mr. Obama secured the delegates he needed to end his duel with Mrs. Clinton, which wound through every state and territory in an unprecedented 57 contests over five months.

Every time a new endorsement was announced at the Obama headquarters in Chicago, campaign workers interrupted with a booming round of applause. They are members of Mr. Obama’s team — a political start up — that is responsible for defeating one of the most tried and tested operations in Democratic politics.

While the Democratic race may have ended, a new chapter began in the complicated tensions that have defined the relationship with Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton.

On a conference call with members of the New York Congressional delegation on Tuesday, Mrs. Clinton was asked whether she would be open to joining a ticket with Mr. Obama. She replied that she would do whatever she could — including a vice presidential bid — to help Democrats win the White House.

In his speech on Tuesday evening, Mr. Obama paid respect to his rival.

“Our party and our country are better off because of her,” Mr. Obama said, “and I am a better candidate for having had the honor to compete with Hillary Rodham Clinton.”

Before she arrived at her rally on Tuesday in New York City, Mrs. Clinton and a few close advisers huddled at her home in Chappaqua, N.Y., to discuss the timing of her departure from the race. In the afternoon conference call she conducted with fellow New York lawmakers, she asked their patience as she decides upon her next move.

Representative Nydia M. Velásquez, Democrat of New York, asked Mrs. Clinton whether she would consider teaming up with Mr. Obama. “She said that if it’s offered, she would take it,” Ms. Velásquez said.

Mrs. Clinton said she would do “anything to make sure a Democrat would win,” according to several participants on the call. While her advisers played down the remark’s significance, the Democrats on the call said that by not demurring or saying she would simply think about it, they said they were left with the impression that it was an offer that she wanted to at least consider.

“If Senator Obama asked her to be the V.P., she certainly would accept that,” said Representative Carolyn McCarthy, Democrat of New York. “She has obviously given some thought to this.”

Neither Mr. Obama nor his associates commented on the speculation, and he made no reference to it in his speech on Tuesday evening in Minnesota, which was delivered at the same arena in which Mr. McCain is expected to accept the Republican nomination at the party’s convention in September.

“You can rest assured that when we finally win the battle for universal health care in this country, she will be central to that victory,” Mr. Obama said. “When we transform our energy policy and lift our children out of poverty, it will be because she worked to help make it happen.”

The competition between Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama has been sharpening for weeks, but the close of the Democratic primary formally raised the curtain to a five-month general election contest. The race, as their respective speeches foreshadowed on Tuesday evening, will unfold against a backdrop of an electorate that is restless about soaring gas prices, mortgage foreclosures and the Iraq war.

It is also a generational battle of personalities and contrasting styles. Mr. McCain staged an evening event in Louisiana, so he would be included in the evening’s television narrative that otherwise belonged to Democrats.

About two hours later, Mr. Obama responded in a speech before a thousands of supporters.

“There are many words to describe John McCain’s attempt to pass off his embrace of George Bush’s policies as bipartisan and new,” Mr. Obama said. “But change is not one of them.”

HILARIOUS!!!!!

This man is absolutely HILARIOUS! I know that we should not encourage his ignorance but this is TRULY one of the funniest things we have EVER SEEN!!!!!

Jonathan Lee Riches is known for the many lawsuits he has filed in various United States district courts.[1] Riches is incarcerated at Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Williamsburg in Salters, South Carolina, for wire fraud under the terms of a plea bargain.[2][3][4] His projected release date is March 23, 2012.

On April 9 Riches filed a request for a temporary restraining order in a US District Court against Grand Theft Auto publisher Take-Two, developer Rockstar Games, FCI Williamsburg and “Grand Theft Auto” itself, claiming that the defendants “put me in prison.” The inmate stated, “Defendants contributed to Plaintiff committing identity theft. Defendant’s games show sex, drugs and violence which offends me.”Riches continued, “Defendants put me in prison. I face imminent danger from violent inmates who played Grand Theft Auto who will knock me out and take my gold Jesus cross.”[16]

Jonathan Lee Riches v. Michael Vick
U.S. Dist. Court E.D. Va. (July 23, 2007)

Give or Take a Billion Dollars. Michael Vick of Atlanta Falcon football fame, and more recently known for his alleged involvement in a dog fighting ring, has been named in a $63,000,000,000.00 lawsuit alleging the theft of some dogs.

The handwritten complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court in Richmond, Virginia, alleges, among other things, that Michael Vick stole two mixed pitbull dogs from the plaintiff, used the dogs in several dog fights, and then sold them on eBay and used the proceeds to buy missles from the Iranian government.

The rambling fantasy of a lawsuit furthers that Vick has sworn allegiance to al-Qaeda; has subjected the plaintiff to microwave testing; used drugs in a school zone; and is in the business of illegal steroids.

The plaintiff, who is serving time in Federal prison for wire fraud, prays for the judgment to be backed by gold and silver and delivered via UPS to the front gates of the prison.

** Jonathan Lee Riches has become a bit of an icon for filing bizzare and frivilous lawsuits. His masterpiece came in 2006 when he sued almost everyone under the sun — alive and dead, including George Bush, Hillary Clinton, Malcom X, George Orwell, Skittles (the candy), AccuWeather.com, and 57 pages of other defendants.

Taken from: Wikipedia and http://www.re-quest.net/g2g/humor/cases/

The Un-Apology!!!

The saddest thing about this entire situation is, Mrs. Clinton has yet to apologize to Sen. Obama. The disconnected and equally disturbing “explanation” that she gave for her statements first and foremost made no sense.

Secondly, it did not justify why she used RFK’s horrific assassination as the focus of her comment as opposed to referencing the month the campaign ended. Lastly she skipped over several years of primaries that ran into June before she got to 1968, therefore, one must wonder why she settled on that particular primary?

Mrs. Clinton is an intelligent and political-savvy candidate therefore each word that she speaks is carefully chosen and calculated. To try and obtain the nomination by instilling fear, fear of the worst kind, within voters is not only appalling, but it is despicable.

That is exactly the last thing that we need on our hands and in our White House….a President that gains power through our fear!

What Was She Thinking???????

Kennedy Comment Sends Clinton Into Damage Control

By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE

Published: May 26, 2008

The Clinton campaign began a concerted effort over the weekend to try to “set the record straight” and contain the damage from Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s comments Friday about Robert F. Kennedy.

In a letter to The Daily News, published Sunday, Mrs. Clinton said her remarks had been taken entirely out of context.

Her aides also said that the news media and the campaign of Senator Barack Obama were partly responsible for fanning the flames.

The Clinton campaign was knocked back on its heels by the swift and negative reaction to her comments that she should not be pushed out of the race, in part, she said, because other candidates had campaigned into June.

Speaking to The Argus Leader of Sioux Falls, S.D., she added: “You know, my husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California.”

Critics seized on the comments, with some accusing her of suggesting that she was staying in the race because tragedy might strike Mr. Obama.

In her letter to The News, Mrs. Clinton wrote: “I pointed out, as I have before, that both my husband’s primary campaign, and Senator Robert Kennedy’s, had continued into June. Almost immediately, some took my comments entirely out of context and interpreted them to mean something completely different — and completely unthinkable.”

Howard Wolfson, a Clinton spokesman, said the news media and the Obama campaign were among those stoking the fire.

Shortly after Mrs. Clinton spoke on Friday, the Obama campaign jumped on the story, sending an e-mail message to reporters saying her comment had no place in a presidential campaign. It linked to a online report in The New York Post that said Mrs. Clinton was “making an odd comparison between the dead candidate and Barack Obama” — a phrase the newspaper later dropped.

On “Face the Nation” Sunday on CBS, Mr. Wolfson said, “It was unfortunate and unnecessary, and in my opinion, inflammatory, for the Obama campaign to attack Senator Clinton on Friday for these remarks, without obviously knowing the full facts or context.”

The Obama campaign had also e-mailed to reporters a transcript of a harsh critique of Mrs. Clinton on “Countdown With Keith Olbermann” on MSNBC.

On Sunday, George Stephanopoulos, the host of “This Week” on ABC, asked David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s top strategist, about sending the transcript.

“You say you’re not trying to stir the issue up,” Mr. Stephanopoulos said. “But a member of your press staff yesterday was sending around to an entire press list — I have the e-mail here — Keith Olbermann’s searing commentary against Hillary Clinton. So that is stirring this up, isn’t it?”

Mr. Axelrod replied: “As far as we’re concerned, this issue is done. It was an unfortunate statement, as we said, as she’s acknowledged. She has apologized. The apology, you know, is accepted. Let’s move forward.”

In her letter to The News, Mrs. Clinton wrote: “I want to set the record straight: I was making the simple point that given our history, the length of this year’s primary contest is nothing unusual.”

The campaigns she cited, however, began much later than this one did, and, in 1992, Mr. Clinton unofficially locked up the nomination in March, when his last serious opponent dropped out.

Mrs. Clinton said she was “deeply dismayed and disturbed that my comment would be construed in a way that flies in the face of everything I stand for — and everything I am fighting for in this election.”

She also noted that the editors of The Argus Leader issued a statement backing her, saying that she had been speaking about the timeline, not the assassination. And she cited a statement from Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who supports her, saying “it is a mistake for people to take offense.”

Mrs. Clinton said her letter was also meant to “more fully answer” why she was continuing her campaign. She said she was “not unaware of the challenges or the odds of my securing the nomination — but this race remains extraordinarily close.”

She has been arguing that she leads in the overall popular vote, although her tally includes results from the disputed Florida and Michigan primaries. The nomination, however, is settled by delegates, not the popular vote, and Mr. Obama leads there.

The rules committee of the Democratic National Committee is to meet Saturday to decide what to do about delegates from Florida and Michigan. Her strategy rests on the committee’s allowing them to be seated at the convention, which, she hopes, could legitimize her inclusion of those states in her popular vote total and bolster her argument to superdelegates that she is more electable than Mr. Obama.

Bill Clinton, campaigning for his wife in Fort Thompson, S.D., argued Sunday that she had been treated unfairly in the race, according to ABC News. He said the news media had covered up polls that showed her leading in the general election against Senator John McCain and that superdelegates had been bullied to make up their minds.

Mr. Clinton denounced what he described as a “frantic effort to push her out of the race.”

While Mr. Obama gave the commencement address at Wesleyan University on Sunday, Mrs. Clinton campaigned in Puerto Rico, where the primary is Sunday. At the Pavilion of Victory, an evangelical church in Hormigueros, in the island’s southwest corner, Mrs. Clinton urged congregants not to be “deterred by the setbacks that often fall into every life.”

“Do not fear to go forward, do not give up,” she said, adding that if she had listened to naysayers, “we would not be having this campaign in Puerto Rico.”

Larry Rohter contributed reporting from Peñuelas, P.R.

Class of ’91 honor Steele graduate Jason Dusho with scoreboard

by JOHN LASKO News-Times reporter Jason Dusho is described by his best friend and former team mate Bryan Draga as a very successful baseball player who was a fun-loving and caring guy, who had a very gentle personality, as well as someone who liked to have a good time with family and friends. “He definitely cared about his family and looked up to both of his brothers and he was also very respectful to his parents,” Draga said. “He was one of three boys in the middle and he also held his two brothers in very high regard.” Dusho was admitted to a Detroit, Mich., hospital in November, 2006, and died unexpectedly due to sepsis or multiple organ failure on Dec. 19, 2006. He was only 34 years old. What makes this story even more heartbreaking is the fact that his mother died nine months before his death. “Everybody was sad and we all struggled with a way of honoring his memory and also showing support to his family who have been through so much,” Draga’s wife, Kelly, who was also friends with Dusho, said. Shortly after Dusho’s funeral, Draga and some of his friends were thinking of a way they could somehow both memorialize and commemorate Dusho’s life. “We tossed around the idea about setting up a scholarship for students who were going to go in to the field of communications, but then we decided to do one nice thing rather then do something annually,” he said. Dusho, a 1991 graduate of Steele High School, played baseball from his freshman to his senior year. He was a pitcher and also played third base for the Comets during his senior year. He was a two-year letterman within the sport and also earned the title as the Comets’ Most Valuable Player. During his senior year, Dusho also participated in the all Southwestern Conference all-star team as a star pitcher. He then went on to graduate from the University of Cincinnati in 1996 with a bachelor of arts degree in broadcasting. Right after graduation, he worked for WIZS radio in Cincinnati as an on-air talent. That same year, he accepted a position as both the production and creative services director for the Clear Channel radio station group in Norfolk, Va. In 2001, Dusho moved once again and became the new disc jockey as well as the creative services director for 97.9 WJLB radio, which is an urban contemporary station in Detroit. His on-air name was Jason Alexander. He also started his own business called Da Sho Creations, making commercials, doing voice-over work, as well as imaging services for large market radio stations throughout the country. “We felt it would be nice to dedicate some equipment to the high school sports program or I thought maybe we would give something in regard to communications equipment, whether it be new audio/visual equipment when they do their daily announcements over the television system,” Draga said. Two steak fries, other benefits and some large cash donations from the such organizations as the Amherst Eagles and the Amherst Athletic Association later, Draga, along with his sports minded buddies, purchased a $14,000 scoreboard. It was dedicated to Dusho’s memory, before the Comets sectional championship game against Elyria last Thursday. “I think this is a great testament to who Jason was as a person that so many people from different walks of his life would want to come together and work to dedicate something in his honor. It really shows the type of person he was and he was the common thread between all of us,” Draga said. “When you reflect on it, I think this is a really nice celebration of who he was and I think from all of his friends and classmates who now live in Michigan,Texas to Ohio — folks who haven’t spoken to each other in years. They really came together to celebrate his life and in true retrospect, it is a true testament for the person he was and it was an honor to be a part of it.” Jason’s father Dennis, along with his older brother Brian, came from Boise, Idaho and his younger brother Jeremy, who now lives in Rocky River, made the trip to Amherst to honor the family’s middle child. “Jason showed great humility. If he did something right guys would come up and tell me, your son would not show any accolades. He does a great job and when we tell him how great he is, he always bows his head a little bit so he is also very humble,” Jason’s father said. “He’s also a very giving individual and he was a great, very lovable, big teddy bear type of individual who loved kids.” Dusho’s family and fellow classmates gathered around the pitcher’s mound where the dedication ceremony took place. Varsity baseball coach Al McConihe presented Dennis Dusho with a plaque which had Jason’s accomplishment as an all-SWC pitcher along with his number 34 and his graduating class on it. The scoreboard and the plaque are meant to be a lasting memento and tribute for his family to remember the occasion. Before the game started, the scoreboard was officially turned on for the first time. “It’s phenomenal and words cannot describe how I feel right now, It is just great,” Dusho said. “I used to tell Jason all the time that you’re so lucky to have so many friends — he probably had 30 or 40 friends he kept in contact with all of the time.” Draga doesn’t want people to view this as a regular scoreboard which tells the score, the inning and how many balls and strikes are against the batter. Instead he wants them to view this new piece of equipment as a way of remembering a guy who loved the sport of baseball, the same way he cared about his family, his friends, and his community.

Nearly Deaf Professor Teaches English Literacy, One Student at a Time

See this is why WE LOVE THE NEW YORK TIMES!!!!!!!!

By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN

Published: May 21, 2008

ASHEVILLE, N.C. — After three degrees, after five universities, after 40,000 pupils, and after 84 years, 10 months and 25 days, John Kuhlman has circumnavigated his way back to the essentials of education: a teacher and a student in a room.

Decades ago, he was a student, the 6-year-old son of a wheat farmer in eastern Washington, going to a school that fit all 12 grades under a single roof. His earliest memory of academic life is of hiding behind the classroom stove lest he be called upon to wash the lunch dishes.

Now, or as close to now as Monday afternoon, Mr. Kuhlman is the teacher, sovereign of a single room in the inconspicuous brick headquarters of an adult English-literacy program here. The adult seated just inches from Mr. Kuhlman, Raul Funes, had come after working an overnight shift doing maintenance at an inn and then attending a morning class at a local technical college. He had been awake for nearly 20 straight hours.

No pedagogical technique explains why Mr. Kuhlman sat so close to Mr. Funes, or why he peered so insistently into his student’s face. Forty years ago, while he was a charismatic professor of economics at the University of Missouri, Mr. Kuhlman had begun inexplicably to lose his hearing.

With a cochlear implant to capture sound and a practiced skill at reading lips, translating the random noise into words, he had since learned to converse face to face, particularly in quiet settings like his tutoring room.

Disability enabled ability, or at least affinity. For the last four years, Mr. Kuhlman has been teaching immigrants to read and write English, to listen and speak. Like him, his students are awash in a sea of indiscriminate sound, grasping as he does for comprehension and meaning. In 90-minute individual lessons, Mr. Kuhlman currently tutors 17 students in a week, from Mexico, Thailand, Ecuador, China, El Salvador and Ukraine.

“If I were religious, I’d say I’ve been called,” Mr. Kuhlman, who is an unpaid volunteer, said during a brief lunch break between students. “I just fell into it. The wheel of fate, I guess.”

The workings of fate had him retire from Missouri in 1985, move to New Mexico with his wife, lose her to early death, remarry to a home economics teacher and finally, in the last innocent days of early September 2001, move with her to North Carolina to help care for a grandchild with cerebral palsy. Starting anew in his 70s, he no longer went by “Dr.” for his Ph.D or “Professor” for his rank. He is now just “John.” Fate also moved his students here. They were drawn by jobs in the factories and the fields, trading their own sacrifice for their children’s American future.

Those children, by age 4 or 5, often knew more English than their parents did. Only when the grown-ups felt the financial ground secure for their household — and sometimes that took 10 or 20 years — would they sign up for lessons at the Literacy Council of Buncombe County.

A few asked specifically for Mr. Kuhlman, having heard about him from friends. With 215 students and 90 more on a waiting list, most simply took whomever they were assigned. After the fact, some discovered that they were supposed to learn the English language from a man who was functionally deaf.

It sounded at first like some kind of cosmic bait-and-switch, except that in practice it worked. For the student, there could be no getting away with slurs and slang when speaking to a teacher reading lips. And for the teacher, there was a sense of the shared struggle to apprehend all those elusive words.

“A deaf person, a person with damaged hearing, is exactly like a Spanish speaker or a Chinese speaker in a room full of English speakers,” Mr. Kuhlman put it. “If I’m in a room for a cocktail party, I can hear everything, but I can’t understand a word. So I’m pretty good at understanding their problem. I’ve got empathy, sympathy, patience.”

Mr. Kuhlman offers nothing magical by way of curriculum. He uses standard workbooks, with their vocabulary lists, short essays and fill-in-the-blank sentences. His secret ingredient is the personal touch.

He knows why Mr. Funes fights sleep during their class. He knows that Jose Cordova, a student from Ecuador, just had a daughter graduate from nursing school. He knows that Adriana Gloria, from Mexico, drops her kids off at school right before her lesson.

Pointing to the photographs of present and former pupils that adorn one wall of his room, Mr. Kuhlman ticks off the personal details — who runs a hair-braiding salon, who married a man who owns a bed-and-breakfast, who had to quit the lessons because of a 72-hour workweek.

“To teach English, you have to talk,” he explained. “And so we talk. And out of the talking, I’ve become a sort of confessor. They leave here feeling better. And when I have a good day, I leave here walking on clouds.”

In their eloquently imperfect way, his students agree. “He has more calm, more patience with me,” said Mrs. Gloria, 41.

Mr. Cordova, 50, said: “When not understand, he explain to me. He’s nice people.”

“He have a lot of passion. He like to listen to any question. I have find he’s very friendly.”

As for Mr. Funes, he still tends to nod in affirmation at questions and statements he does not understand. Mr. Kuhlman recognizes that gesture as an immigrant’s survival device. And in his chats with Mr. Funes, halting as they are, he has learned some more specific reasons. Before immigrating to the United States a decade ago at the age of 17, Mr. Funes never attended school and could not read or write, even in his native language.

He has been taking lessons from Mr. Kuhlman for three months now, discerning the difference between “birth” and “bird,” reading little stories with titles like “Eddy’s Night Out.” As he recited one at his most recent lesson, he touched the tip of his pencil to each word. Mr. Kuhlman, in turn, brought his pencil to the same point, to the piece of language that formed their human bond.

E-mail: sgfreedman
@nytimes.com

Michigan’s Non-Discrimination Scam!

By Karl Stampfl, Editor in Chief on 1/14/08

The University has gotten pretty good at trumpeting its commitment to diversity and equality. Those words sound nice in the kind of brochures that have photographs of students studying in blankets of leaves on the Diag. When a former University Law School professor, though, went toe-to-toe with the University in court he found out that those words don’t always mean that much.

Here’s the back story: Peter Hammer was denied tenure at the University Law School by an 18-12 vote in February of 2002. Hammer, now a full professor at Wayne State University, claims it was because he’s openly gay.

Discrimination suits are slippery. This one has stretched for three years, and it’s cost the University hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I’m no legal expert, and perhaps Hammer simply wasn’t qualified for tenure at such a prestigious law school. The evidence I’ve seen isn’t overwhelming, to say the least. Maybe there was no bias, no discrimination and no grounds for a lawsuit. Even probably. But pay attention because here’s what’s revealing about this case.

According to court documents, the University has tried to have the case thrown out of court three times. The most recent was in mid-December, but the decision was delayed until later this month. The first two times, the University’s argument wasn’t merely that Hammer had been denied tenure because of some scholarly inferiority, which might be legitimate. The University also argued that its own non-discrimination policies – including the one in the Faculty Handbook for Instructional and Primary Staff that states the University “is committed to a policy of nondiscrimination and equal opportunity for all persons” – are not enforceable in court.

In other words, non-discrimination is a suggestion, not a rule. It’s a guideline, not something that can truly protect you. It’s something we strive for, but if it doesn’t happen, you’re on your own. There are no state or federal laws prohibiting discrimination against gay people. The only legal protection they have, therefore, is the University’s own policies.

Here’s an exchange between the University’s lawyer, Richard Seryak, and the judge from a transcript of a hearing about the request to throw the case out of court:

JUDGE: So in other words, if you tell me that you’re not going to discriminate, I can’t really rely on that …

SERYAK: That’s correct, judge. It’s not a basis for contract –

JUDGE: It’s a scam to get me to come work for you?

SERYAK: Judge, when we say that this is not a contract and we say that it can be modified, that’s an awfully general statement. And I submit to Your Honor that is not the basis for a contract, a damage contract. It says it’s a commitment. That’s our intent. But that doesn’t –

JUDGE: So we can just disregard it at our whim? When we put there in writing, right there, that the University is committed to a policy of non-discrimination, equality opportunity for all persons regardless of race, sex, color, religion, creed, national origin or ancestry, age, marital status, sexual orientation, we’re just kidding? We don’t really mean that?

The University appears to have abandoned that strategy. What’s not clear is why it took years to come to that conclusion. Gloria Hage, the University’s interim general counsel, said she could not comment directly on the legal strategy but that the University’s policies are “not just words on paper.” There are many internal ways to enforce them, she said.

Hammer tried to have his allegations addressed internally, but the Law School argued that its policies prohibited grievances relating to tenure. Paul Courant, then the provost, upheld the decision. Without an internal option, Hammer went to a third party, the courts. There too he found resistance to a fair determination of whether he had been discriminated against.

It’s worrisome that the next time a claim like Hammer’s comes up – when the costs of losing or continuing the case are higher – the University will perhaps choose again to attempt to take the slimy way out.

How come it seems like the University talks a good game when it comes to diversity, but too often when it’s time to prove it – wheelchair accessibility in Michigan Stadium, for instance, or the bold assertions by President Mary Sue Coleman on the Diag the day after Proposal 2 passed that haven’t met their fulfillment – there are complications?

Karl Stampfl is the Daily’s editor in chief. He can be reached at kstampfl@umich.edu

Breaking News!

Sen. Edward Kennedy has malignant brain tumor

AFP/File Photo: Veteran US Senator Edward Kennedy,
pictured in April 2008, is “doing pretty well” in hospital…

By GLEN JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 1 minute ago

BOSTON – A cancerous brain tumor caused the seizure Sen. Edward M. Kennedy suffered over the weekend, doctors said Tuesday in a grim diagnosis for one of American politics’ most enduring figures. “He remains in good spirits and full of energy,” the doctors for the 76-year-old Massachusetts Democrat said in a statement.

They said tests conducted after the seizure showed a tumor in Kennedy’s left parietal lobe. Preliminary results from a biopsy of the brain identified the cause of the seizure as a malignant glioma, they said.

His treatment will be decided after more tests but the usual course includes combinations of radiation and chemotherapy.

Kennedy has been hospitalized in Boston since Saturday, when he was airlifted from Cape Cod after a seizure at his home.

“He has had no further seizures, remains in good overall condition, and is up and walking around the hospital,” said the statement by Dr. Lee Schwamm, vice chairman of the Department of Neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Dr. Larry Ronan, Kennedy’s primary care physician.

They said Kennedy will remain in the hospital “for the next couple of days according to routine protocol.”

Kennedy’s wife and children have been with him each day since he was hospitalized. Senator Kennedy‘s son, Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., plans to stay at the hospital for the time being.

“Obviously it’s tough news for any son to hear,” said spokeswoman Robin Costello. “He’s comforted by the fact that his dad is such a fighter, and if anyone can get through something as challenging as this, it would be his father. So he’s optimistic, he’s hopeful, but obviously he’s concerned.”

President Bush was notified by his staff of Kennedy’s diagnosis at 1:20 p.m.

“He said he was deeply saddened and would keep Senator Kennedy in his prayers,” spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

Malignant gliomas are a type of brain cancer diagnosed in about 9,000 Americans a year — and the most common type among adults. It’s an initial diagnosis: How well patients fare depends on what specific tumor type is determined by further testing.

Average survival can range from less than a year for very advanced and aggressive types — such as glioblastomas — or to about five years for different types that are slower growing.

News of the diagnosis hit hard for colleagues on both sides of the aisle.

“I’m really sad,” former Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., said when told in a Senate hallway about Kennedy’s condition. “He’s the one politician who brings tears to my eyes when he speaks.”

“I am so deeply saddened I have lost the words,” Sen. John Warner, R-Va., said in a Senate hallway. Warner said he and Kennedy had been friends for 40 years. Both served on the Senate Armed Services Committee together.

Kennedy, the second-longest serving member of the Senate and a dominant figure in national Democratic Party politics, was elected in 1962, filling out the term won by his brother, John F. Kennedy.

His eldest brother, Joseph, was killed in a World War II airplane crash. President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 and his brother Robert was assassinated in 1968.

Kennedy is active for his age, maintaining an aggressive schedule on Capitol Hill and across Massachusetts. He has made several campaign appearances for Sen. Barack Obama in February, and most recently last month.

Kennedy, the senior senator from Massachusetts and the Senate’s second-longest serving member, was re-elected in 2006 and is not up for election again until 2012.

Were he to resign or die in office, state law requires a special election for the seat no sooner than 145 days and no later than 160 days after the vacancy occurs.

___

AP reporter Lauran Neergaard in Washington contributed to this report.

Very Sad news for America, and We will keep Sen. Kennedy in our prayers!

On A Positive Note!

Tellin’ Tha Truth has come across a wonderful website by the name of, Share Your Story Now. The site, which can be accessed by clicking the site name above, is a spiritual community of people that openly share their personal joys, sorrows, trials, and tribulations, and how their faith helped to sustain them through each and every turn of their life’s journey.

Before each story the poster or community member shares the passage or scripture that sustained them during that time. This site is particularly uplifting because the stories are stories told by everyday people, and deliver the message to keep the faith through all of the ups and downs of life. We definitely recommend taking time out of your day to check out this site and its’ messages of inspiration. You will surely find a story on Share Your Story Now that touches your heart!

Words of Inspiration…

It seems as though ‘struggle’ is the common theme for our country right now. There are millions of individuals losing their homes, jobs, security, and freedom on a daily basis. With that being said we felt the necessity to post some words of encouragement for those individuals that could use it during their time of struggle…..

A Dream Deferred

by Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore–
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over–
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Let this time of struggle also be a time of realizing and working towards whatever dream you may have deferred….and remember,

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
Romans 8:28

God is moving in your life! Although you may not understand it right now you will ultimately see the purpose for your troubles in due time!

Former NBA Star Joe Pace Goes From Glory to Homeless Shelter

This story is very sad…This Man is Obviously A Fighter!!!!!

AP/Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Joshua Trujillo

May 7: Laura Ditsch, right, chats with former NBA champion Joe Pace in front of the Family and Adult Service Center where he now spends his nights.

SEATTLE — Once the tables have been moved out of the way and the floor has been mopped, Joe Pace grabs a tan mattress off a stack, slides it into a corner and beds down at the Family and Adult Service Center on Third Avenue.

His feet hang over the edge of the mat, so he rolls up a blanket to support them. He shares the room with 60 people. He pays $3 a night for this privilege.

Thirty years ago next month, Pace slept in one of Seattle’s finest hotels, though he can’t remember which one, as a visiting pro basketball player for the Washington Bullets, sharing in an NBA championship won in this city at the expense of the Sonics.

A snack bar, room service and chocolate left on the pillow are no longer an option for this 6-foot-10 man, who is homeless in Seattle.

“Sometimes I don’t want to wake up, I’m so sad,” he said. “Sometimes I wake up crying and say, ‘What did I do to be like this?”‘

Instead of becoming a millionaire, Pace, 54, frequents the Millionair Club, another downtown facility for the destitute that provides meals and job leads. He sits at the front door as a security guard from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m., wearing a gold badge and clutching a black walkie-talkie. He performs this chore more for something to do than as a source of income, regularly limping outside for cigarette breaks.

/**/

Pace spends the rest of his afternoons riding on buses, using a disabled passenger pass he bought for $8. He is afforded this right because he has degenerative disks in his back and is in need of surgery he can’t afford on both knees. He takes trips to Woodinville and Tacoma, simply to kill time.

Then it’s back to his homeless shelter. Pace usually is asleep by 8:30 or 9 p.m.

“NBA players are all looked at as millionaires, but a lot of guys back in those days didn’t make it, and Joe is one of them,” said Zaid Abdul-Aziz, a former Sonics forward. “The image of them as big, opulent people isn’t always true. They take a fall sometimes.”

Of all the things Pace longs for, the simple pleasure of soaking in a hot bathtub ranks near the very top. There have been the rare moments when he has paid for a hotel room just to turn on the water and give his aching, middle-aged body some needed relief. It beats the homeless shelter showers he considers risky at best in regards to good hygiene, especially when barefoot.

For that matter, he doesn’t shake hands or exchange high-fives anymore with people he encounters in a similar situation, and he’s friendly enough. Repeated colds and congested lungs have forced him to adopt this policy. Fist bumps are much healthier.

“That hand could have 5,000 germs on it,” he said unapologetically.

Pace rode a bus to Seattle in 2002 on impulse after wandering aimlessly through his hometown of New Brunswick, N.J., and Baltimore, Charlotte and Atlanta for a decade, unable to thrive without basketball.

“It’s where I played my last NBA game,” he said of his current city. “It was like I can’t do nothing wrong here.”

Pace spent just two seasons in the league, appearing in 88 games for Washington, including a pair of playoff contests against the Sonics, drawing mop-up duty in Game 2 and Game 6 of the finals. He was paid $35,000 each year. The Bullets drafted him in the second round, as the 31st player overall, envisioning the big man as a future replacement for center Wesley Unseld.

The pros became enamored with Pace after he led Baltimore-based Coppin State to the 1976 NAIA championship and was named most valuable player, supplying 43 points, 12 rebounds and six blocked shots in a 96-91 title-game victory over Henderson State (Ark.).

“He was a very explosive, athletic player,” said former Sonics center James Donaldson. “He could jump all day.”

Impatient with his NBA progress — and unwittingly leaving himself one season shy of a receiving a pension — Pace took his game overseas. He got a good look at the rest of the world over the next 12 years. He played in Italy, Venezuela, Mexico, Panama, England, the Philippines and Argentina.

He was married twice, fathering a child each with American and Argentine spouses. He bought a Buenos Aires convenience store and sent money home to family members who never had much.

He became homeless after injuries and a haze of drugs and alcohol. Everything came undone for Pace in Argentina when he dunked and landed on his back, crashing to the floor when a guy grabbed his legs.

“I think they sent him in there to take me out,” Pace said. “My legs went numb. I stayed in bed for eight months.”

His problems multiplied after botched back surgery, a case of gangrene and the break-up of his second marriage. He left South America in poor health and without basketball or any other livelihood to count on.

“My wife said she wasn’t going to stay married to a cripple who couldn’t play basketball anymore,” he said. “We had to close the store and there was no money. Her family was saying, ‘Why don’t you get rid of that bum?”‘

Back in the States, Pace had few prospects. He started abusing alcohol and drugs, and eventually was forced to go through rehabilitation. He sold his NBA championship ring for $1,000 to a Baltimore pawnshop, his biggest regret. He started bouncing from city to city.

He’s still living on the edge in Seattle. He receives a monthly $600 permanent disability check. He has $2 in a bank account. His name is on a long waiting list for subsidized housing.

“He’s my baby,” said Selina Daniels, a Family and Adult Service Center administrator. “My job is to try and help him obtain permanent housing. He’s trying to do something but it’s hard. You just can’t take life for granted. We’re all one paycheck from being homeless.”

In recent weeks, the NBA Retired Players Association has publicized Pace’s dire situation to its members, collecting clothing, toiletries and other nonperishable donations for him. The man wears a size 44 coat and 18 shoe, according to the organization’s Web site.

Mitch Kupchak, Los Angeles Lakers general manager, has provided clothing and gift certificates to his former Bullets teammate and calls him a couple of times a month. Others have chipped in with coats and shoes.

Abdul-Aziz and Donaldson have stopped in to see him. Vester Marshall Jr., another former Sonics player and ordained minister, has been supportive.

Meantime, Pace rolls out his tan mattress every night. The makeshift bed is hard. The floor is cold. His mood is flat. He has significant hypertension and liver problems. He’s trying his best to stay hopeful, to make a difficult comeback.

He’s a long way from the NBA, though KeyArena, a place he used to frequent in uniform when it was the Coliseum, is less than a mile away.

“I’m surprised I’m still alive,” Pace said. “I guess there’s a purpose in life.”

Taken From: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,356470,00.html

Tellin’ Tha Truth: Welcome to HELL…….

Ladies and gentleman I would like to welcome you with open arms to Hell! Or as its’ residents call it, Lansing MI.

In my future posts I will explain in detail exactly what I mean, but for now I’ll only share the most HORRENDOUS stories….

The first being the vandalism that took place in The Lansing Towers located at 610 W. Ottawa St.

A month ago one of its’ lovely, caring, and oh so classy more than likely Caucasian residents who is probably a student at Cooley Law School (upon attending Cooley one would think that the KKK decided to further it’s agenda by creating the largest law school in the Country either that or Satan) decided to write, F*CK NIGGERS, in one of the elevators. And for a month, the management/owners of The Lansing Towers has decided to let it sit there!

Now this would still be appalling even if the building were all Caucasian, but it is not. There are minorities that reside in the building granted there aren’t many but they’re still there…..Here is my question..Do they really expect the non-Caucasian residents to look at that crap until they decide to remove it, and pay rent? LMAO…..they have about as high a chance of that happening as Hillary Clinton has at winning the Democratic Party nomination……

NO JUSTICE NO PEACE…..AND NO RENT FOR LANSING TOWERS!!!!!!!!!

Hillary…Give It Up and Turn It Loose!!!

As we all breathe a collective sigh of frustration watching Hillary Clinton continue her sorry campaign one has to wonder… why one of her ‘people,’ ‘supporters,’ or HUSBAND doesn’t just tell her the truth? It’s over! We all know that the only reason she pulled out her checkbook and wrote herself a check for over $6 million dollars instead of admitting defeat is because for her, for the Clintons, the idea of admitting defeat to a Black man is unheard of and downright NOT GONNA HAPPEN!

We’ve all heard the argument Hillary has made for forging down this dead end road. She appeals more to the, ‘hardworking Americans, White Americans!’ and how Barack Obama is an ‘Elitist!’ After I picked my JAW OFF OF THE FLOOR and WIPED THE TEARS OF LAUGHTER from my eyes, I shook my head in amazement! To say a Black man in this country an elitist has as much validity as me taking my broom outside, hopping on top of it, closing my eyes, and trying to visualize my destination in a hope I can fly there as a reasonable alternative to dealing with the airlines and their foolishness.

Furthermore, I’m not sure if Hillary realized this but…(probably not since she had the ability to whip out her check book and keep her campaign afloat with a 7 figure loan. While Barack Obama JUST PAID OFF HIS STUDENT LOANS!!!) The man’s name is Barack…now of course it has begun to work for him, but I am sure back in the day….that was the same thing as putting, “Quita” on a resume!!! No offense to any of my lovely sistas who have that name, but I know you know what I am talking about. There is a HUGE difference between Hillary and Barack! We haven’t even gotten to what happens when the man tries to catch a cab vs. the cabs lining up for her. LOL ok ok I’ll get serious….

Here is THA TRUTH, with the state that our country is in, Barack simply understands what America needs right now. With gas at $4.00/gallon or IOW costing as much as the car itself, families losing their homes on a daily basis, the options for financing education dwindling, more and more ‘HARD WORKING AMERICANS’ having to choose between food and gas, food and medicine, food and electricity etc. We cannot have a president that has no idea what any of the aforementioned means. Anytime someone can take out a checkbook and write a check for 7 figures for no other reason than her being a SORE LOSER…I really don’t want her having the ability to assist in doling out taxes, creating a budget, or working on the deficit. We’ve already seen what happens when you elect someone who thought education was optional and who instead said, ‘Down with hope up with Dope! Let’s not do that again!!!!!