Saturday, September 8, 2007

Affordable Success... HUH?

Yup, that's right. "Affordable Success" is the motto of Fort Hays State University, better known as FHSU. For years this college has been ridiculed by others for their slogan as a school that just hands out degrees. This has hurt many graduates in their job seeking voyage. We briefly touched on this topic in class Thursday after I brought up The Hays Daily News' front page article, "FHSU ranks in upper tier" by Will Manly, found in th September 6, 2007 edition.

The article begins by saying how FHSU scored in the top 10 percent of most improved students. "The Collegiate Learning Assessment, conducted by the New York-based Council for Aid to Education, ranked FHSU higher than 90 percent of other colleges and universities assessed in improvement in writing, critical thinking and analytical reasoning skills." From what I understand from the CLA website, the test focuses on real-life situations in which the students have to explain how they would handle the problem.

I am not going to lie. My first thoughts on the "Affordable Success" motto were not positive. I kept thinking how tacky it made the university sound! BUT... it does speak true. FHSU's tution is considerably lower than other universities in the state and obviously from this article they are producing graduates with the smarts to succeed. The motto is short, sweet, and to-the-point. Maybe we should be less worried about how it makes us look and a little more focused on changing everyone's thoughts about us!

Fort Hays State University created a brochure outlining their plan to fulfill the promise of Affordable Success. Their idea is to translate vision into results.


UPDATE... VERDICT IS IN ! !

WAHOO! Yes, i said wahoo. Friday, September 7, 2007, the St. Rita nursing home owners were found not guilty. with about 3 weeks of trail, then 4 hours of deliberations, the jury returned with their decision.

Quoting from the article, "There were a lot of mistakes made, and it should have been a lot of people answering for it," The Associated Press quoted one juror, Kim Maxwell, as saying "So why just these two people?"

WOW the justice system made me proud. (and yes there was sarcasm in my type.) I am proud that emotions were put aside and rational decision making took hold.

Well done jurors of St. Francisville!!!

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Natural Disaster Deaths... Who's Fault Is It?

Ok so today I was reading yesterday's NY Times and I came across the article talking about the governor of Louisiana being summons to testify in the Hurricane Katrina deaths that killed 35 enfeeble nursing home patients at St. Rita's in St. Bernand. The owners, Salvador and Mabel Mangano, face the charges of negligent homicide.

It appeared to me that this situation was more of a blame game and Gov. Kathleen Bablineaux Blanco was not having it. John Reed, lawyer for the Manganos, stated, "You, Governor, never issued an order of mandatory evacuation." Ms. Blanco responded that is was not how the chain of command usually happened. She states that the local officials would have given the mandatory evacuation to the local people.

OK so let me get this straight... the family of the victims are blaming the owners, the owners are blaming the Governor, and the Governor is blaming local officials!

The defense then asked Ms. Blanco why Johnny B. Bradberry, the state transportation secretary in charge of nursing home evacuations, had "failed to do so." She responded with... (and i'm paraphrasing) even though there was an emergancy plan in place, no one had faced a natural disaster of this magnitude and "Everybody was scrambling to make sense out of a situation that had nothing sensible about it."

This is exactly the point of my blog today. God Bless the people who died in Hurricane Katrina but... this was an accident! I understand that when a person is hurting inside, they need someone to blame. America is getting so "sue happy" they forget that people are human, and mistakes will be made! This was a terrible tragedy but will putting someone in jail really make you feel better? Think about it!!

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Sen. Craig: GAY or NOT GAY?

Today in our POLS class we briefly discussed Idaho Republican Senator Larry Craig's scandal. According to many different news sources, the senator allegedly solicited an undercover policeman in a Minnesota airport restroom on June 11, 2007. He plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct on August 1st and then it was filed on that following 8th at the courthouse.

According to this particular article, Sen. Craig did several gestures such as tapping his right foot, extending his feet under stall to touch the undercover officer, and running his hand under stall partition... palm up.

What I do not understand is where the line of entrapment starts and stops? And even beyond that, wouldn't the Senator have to verbally ask for sex? I do not claim to be any type of pro at law but I always thought that it was legal to have sex with someone; it just was illegal to pay for it!

Call me crazy but I think there is more to this story then being told. After reading another blog, Huckleberries Online, and the comments made in regards to this matter; I may have to agree that it sounds like some good ole fashion mud raking. Nothing seems to "add up" in the big picture of this scandal.

Give me a reply back... let me know your thoughts on the matter.