Community Matters

(Community Matters) Just read on John Thornton’s Insomniative that Houston/San Antonio dailies & news networks once deployed 19 staff reporters, now only 3.

(Community Matters) Wow, I’m honored – hadn’t seen.

(Community Matters) After an attack on athletes, bombs thrown onto the track. but, hey, no need for hate crimes legislation – people don’t really attack the LGBT community

(Community Matters) I mentioned unexpectedly running into Tom Doyal at the Rino Pizzi event on Sunday. Well, heck, more than running into Tom, since I literally thought he had died years ago. I know this doesn’t sound very respectful but it’s true and I’m just so damn happy he is alive!

So today, I receive in the mail a copy of Mambo Panties and Other Stories of Hulsey County, Texas. Tom’s stories, I haven’t yet listened but looking forward to doing so. I’m about to transfer the CD to my iPod. thank you, Tom

(Community Matters) In my earlier post, I questioned the reasonableness of a 23% annualized return on taxpayers $10 billion TARP equity investment in Goldman Sachs. Stated then that we should be earning the same return as Warren Buffet for his $5 billion preferred stock investment in the company. Guess what . . . the American taxpayer got screwed. Warren earned a 111% annualized return – which sounds appropriate given the risk taken.

Congress should hold hearings on how the hell Treasury settled on $1.1B for its warrants (which when added to the $318mm in preferred stock dividends totaled a paltry 23% for an equity injection of last resort). By my calculations, Goldman Sachs owes US taxpayers $5.4 billion.

(Community Matters) Gov. Rick Perry and the line he walks – I suspect he’d just as hypocritically call another out for these during-the-session fundraising activities which violate the spirit of ethic laws if not the letter.

(Community Matters) Especially when under 30 exposed – this is really bad news. Think of all the college kids who tanned during the last 20 years.

(Community Matters) It’s about time. Must practice care so as not to obstruct legitimate hedging of costs by industry. However, barely legit oil & gas enterprises owned mostly by financial firms, allowing them to skirt limits should be unveiled and capped.

(Community Matters) Big surprise (not) – even in computing (Netflix)

(Community Matters) There has been a myth, I’d been taken in myself

The data suggest, for example, that children 13 and under who commit crimes like burglary and theft are just as likely to be sent to adult courts as children who commit serious acts of violence against people. As has been shown in previous studies, minority defendants are more likely to get adult treatment than their white counterparts who commit comparable offenses.

(Community Matters) This is so extraordinarily true, especially for Christians. Some cannot even hypothesize that there might not be an after-life or that Jesus may not be the “son of God” for fear of undermining their entire identities, life’s meaning & their lives’ work.

Believers’ lives have significance because they and their kind are part of this glorious unfolding. Their faith is suffused with expectation and hope. If they were to learn that they were simply a dead end, they would feel that God had forsaken them, that life was without meaning and purpose.

(Community Matters) I didn’t know Bruce Todd was working on this – one of my long term interests. I’d like to experiment, especially with Hispanic immigrant families, not only incentivizing student learning, but also parent participation, ESL and mastery of technology.