Flexible Work Hours
November 14, 2005
I have spent two months officially making my trek through corporate America. And one thing I know is that this 9-5 gig is kicking people’s butt! I often joke with my friends that I don’t understand how people can juggle work, marriage, children while staying sane. I readily admit my naivete given my age BUT seriously. Something has to give. People are working to die, not live. What’s really good? Thankfully, an article was released today in Christian Science Monitor that talked about a report showing the increased benefits of employers providing flexible work hours. Now let’s keep it real. Even if you could find things to do for the entire work day, you know that after about 3:30-4:00 no task is going to get your complete and undivided attention. And even if it is you are thinking, “This isn’t due by the end of the day, I will finish it first thing in the morning.” Therefore, you waste an hour and a half checking emails, doing online banking, or making task lists for what you have to do after work. (That might just be me.)
Nevertheless, I know that if I could leave at 3:30, I would still get all of my work done timely and accurately. The article stated, “For the business, it just matters that employees are best able to contribute and be productive so that the customers and internal shareholders are served.” In fact, one of the companies included was Deloitte and Touche and their managers had nothing but good things to say about the benefits of providing flexible work hours. Maybe if flex time became the norm, maybe people could remember why they work crazy hours and maybe, just maybe view their job as an interesting life activity as opposed to an activity that drives their live. Just think about the first question you ask when you meet someone. After their name, which you always forget, is what do you do? Maybe if we could provide some flexible work time, the answer to that question would be a lot more interesting.
Civil Rights & Why Voting Matters
November 14, 2005
The Washington Post ran a story Sunday about the changing DoJ Civil Rights Division. In summary, the article is informing us that over the last year, the Civil Rights Division has been losing veteran lawyers and handling less “Civil Rights” cases. That means that instead of working on Equal Opportunity Employment breeches, they have been spending time on immigration matters. Now, I’m not against immigration, but I do believe that if the division is spending 40% less of its time handling the types of cases it was created to be involved in, then there are some serious issues present.
Nevertheless, this has been the case over the past 5 years. Since I believe wholeheartedly in coincidences, I’m going to refer to it as a coincidence that the change in focus of the division as well as its personnel bleeding have nothing to do with the current administrations attitudes towards Civil Rights. Right. The two are unrelated.
Let’s pretend, however unjustifiably, for a few seconds that it is not a coincidence. Then, maybe, I would not be suprised to see that the Civil Rights Division would need to shift focus away from issues such as intimidation of minority voters and disenfranchisement of low-income Americans. Had the Civil Rights Division served its historical purpose, there may have been real investigation at the federal level into the attrocity that became Election Day 2000. I wonder how this administration feels about Sen. Obama’s new voter intimidation legislation? We can’t possibly waste precious resources in the Civil Rights Division prosecuting individuals based on that; there are too many immigrants to harass.
I digress. Instead, lets go down a more pratical road. The SuperSpade is about practicality. How does this information point to personal action(s) that can be taken? This, to me, adds to the infinite list of reasons why voting is important. Brothers and Sisters, all of us who have had illegitimate run-ins with law enforcement, or know someone who has, feels as though their Civil Rights have been violated. Students wanting to attend non-HBCUs that were refused admissions due to factors outside of their control feel as though their Civil Rights have been violated. Individuals who never recieved call-backs, job interviews, or job offers due to the nature, spelling, or pronunciation of their names feel as though their Civil Rights have been violated. The Civil Rights Act of 1957 created the Civil Rights Division on 9 December 1957. This office was established to address issues discussed earlier in this paragraph. Granted, as times change, the definitions of Civil Rights expand, but I am not a fan of the core focus being forgotten. We need our people to be proactive and work towards electing to our representative democratic government individuals that represent our views. Anyone who has encountered the above and didn’t like it has concrete evidence as to why they need real representation.
The age old problem, however, is the “my candidate lost, so what’s the point now” phenomena. Let me offer a suggestion through a simple analogy. Anyone who cooks (especially as badly as I do) knows that it’s hit-or-miss. When what I attempt to prepare does not come out as intended, I am presented with two options: throw it away, or work with it. Lets examine both options:
1. Throw it away
I can discard my food and therefore invalidate the time it took to prepare it, the resources it took to gather the ingredients, etc. This does, however, afford me the opportunity to start over again from scratch. However, I will again need to set aside the needed time and ingredients to prepare the meal a second time; a situation that may or may not be possible now. Not to mention, this effectively makes the meal twice as expensive.
2. Work with it
It doesn’t taste good. Why not? Is it bland? Add some salt. Is it cold? Put it in the microwave. If you were not able to get what you wanted on the front end, you can work with it on the back end until you have something edible.
The same logic applies to voting, or any other form of positive action. If your candidate loses, you have the same options: you can throw your hands up in the air and give up. This way, you’ll end up pissed off because you got racially profiled, again, and have no real legal representation, agian. Or you can work on improving your current situation despite them, while at the same time building up a stronger opponent to the now incumbent to challenge them in the future (which could turn out to be you). Black folks are better than any people on the planet at being triumphant in the face 0f adversity. Why give up because the person you voted for lost. We have more heart than that.
Shout out to truthout.org for referring me to this article. The truthout.org post is here.
Cuts in funding for Sudan
November 14, 2005
The Republican-led Congress is crazy. They voted to trim the $50 million that lawmakers had approved earlier in the year for the African Union force. Let’s take a step back and get a big picture view for a second. Most Americans think that we spend too much on foreign aid when in fact, we spend as a country less than one half of one percent on foreign aid. One half of one percent!! And now the Republicans who all of a sudden want to try and manage this out of control deficit by cutting spending. What’s worse is that we promised this money to the African Union last year and because politicians play on the citizen’s apathy and ignorance, they often times get away with tomfoolery of the grandest scale. Now I know $50 million might not sound like a lot in terms of the trillion dollar budget we wrangle over. But this money will help bring stability to a nation that has been ravaged by poverty, corruption, and the blind eye of rich nations that can’t seem to see understand why they are so despised in the world. Many people say 9/11 changed everything. It changed nothing as we continue to give more reasons for people to kill themselves as they try to break the oppressive will of the United States and its allies.
Image Improvement from the Bottom Up
November 13, 2005
The New York Times Op-Ed section took on the 2005 Detroit Mayoral election today.
Here’s a clip:
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…Mr. Kilpatrick - “America’s first hip-hop mayor,” a sobriquet he once seemed to relish and now wishes to shed - finds himself in the position of Michael Corleone, sitting on that park bench at the end of “Godfather II”: in control, after something of a scare, contemplating how to pick up the pieces…
..He may not deserve an award, but with the auto-parts maker Delphi bankrupt, the credit rating at G.M. and Ford junk, and Michigan having the country’s highest rate of joblessness, he deserves to at least be graded on a curve…
–
Sadly, this is arguably one of the most upbeat articles about Detroit politics written over the past 3 years. It’s no secret that most of the country has a negative view of the city. What’s sad is that there is little national [and to some extent local] coverage of positive things happening in Detroit. Often in news coverage we see nationally syndicated stories about positive local events in othe major cities (e.g. New York, Seattle, etc.), but seldom about Detroit.
How do we combat this? There are many approaches, but the one I suggest requires a three-tier model of all of the stakeholders:
Tier 1: citizens of Detroit
Tier 2: local Detroit media
Tier 3: national media and the US populace at large
How it works is that the actions of the “lower” tiers will essentially require responsive actions from the ones above it.
The citizens of Detroit who are interested in its future will continue their great work throughout the city. Examples of tier 1 efforts are Think Detroit and New Detroit among others. Much of the work of these groups and their peer organizations goes unnoticed due to lack of attention. This attention can be garnered through strategic alliances with each other, as well as with City government and local media. We always complain about how the media portrays Detroit, about how it portrays black people. This is a strugle that will be fought and won by organizing our message and pushing it to a point where it can no longer be ignored. I call on organizations to present themselves as partners with local government. The different city departments could each sponsor a team in each of Think Detroit’s sports leagues. Working together, they can bombard tier 2 with positive information. The interesting piece here is that for t!
his to be successful, tier 1 must SUPPORT tier 2. The way we influence the media is by how we consume it. I propose that instead of a boycott approach to changing the media, we go on the offensive: give them better news and follow up until that better news is what’s on display.
The same logic applies to tier 2-tier 3 dynamics. This bottom up approach in my opinion is much more effective than lobbying some disinterested national media syndicate to change their story. That top down method will fail because it makes the improper assumption that the top even cares. You don’t put the roof on first. That’s the final piece of the Puzzle.
The 20 something generation is tired of the top down ideology. It worked before, but I and my peers have doubts about its effectiveness going forward. However, by creating a solid foundation of positive action, we can achieve our goals: a better community, a better image of that community.
What better place is there to use this approach than Detroit.
–
GDGII
Sent via wireless handheld
Bush’s Veteran’s Day Speech
November 12, 2005
So November 11, 2005 (Veteran’s Day) Bush gave a speech to fire back at critics of the war. But before I get into the analysis, let’s point out two things, 1) Bush billed his speech for Friday, which in the media represents the day where all the news items are swept under the rug. If Bush really wanted to make a statement, he would have given his speech on Monday to set the agenda but the timing is representative of how weak this President is in the polls. Secondly, he focused his criticism on Democrats when many people of all political stripes found themselves in opposition to the war before it began. By limiting the scope of the debate, Bush tried to avoid the deep well of discontent over the rationale for this war and its management.
Now that we got that out the way, I cannot believe Bush had the audacity to accuse anyone of trying to re-write history. To be clear, I will be the last person to try and defend many of the spineless Democrats for their complicity in this atrocious war. But Bush is trying to re-write history because conservative historians will look back during this time and say that “the poor President and Congress were victims of bad intelligence, shame on the CIA.” Just think back to the spin put on the failure of government services to help Hurricane Katrina victims. It is tantamount to saying that since everybody messed up, nobody messed up. I give Bush credit for knowing how to frame the debate to his advantage. However, Bush has proven to be a liar and he can do nothing to save his legacy.
And please my being remiss to not point out that Bush has re-written history numerous times with respect to this war. So twenty years from now when someone younger asks you why we invaded Iraq what will you say? To help you out, I included a link that breaks out the 21 reasons why we went to war. From regime change, the Iraqi connection to 9/11, and those WMD, I wonder what Bush does to sleep at night as he finds new ways to rewrite history.
The Decision is Made; The Action is to Come
November 11, 2005
Tuesday, November 7, 2005 was an important day across America. It was Election Day, Decision Day, and Judgement Day (if you were up for re-election) all rolled up into one. In few places was this more evident than in the city of Detroit, MI. City Council. School Board. Mayor. Ballot Initiatives. Many things were to be decided on that day.
The headline decision made by the people of Detroit was without a doubt the “shocking” re-election of Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick over his challenger, Freeman Hendrix.
What’s important now is understanding what the next steps are for the city. There are many issues that will require the Mayor’s attention in the coming days, but addressing these two may build a strong foundation upon which he can move forward.
First: Establish an effective working relationship with the City Council.
There is tremendous opportunity here given that the Council now has four new members (in: Monica Conyers, Brenda Jones, Kwame Kenyatta, Martha Reeves; out: Maryann Mahaffey, Alonzo Bates). Many of the issues the City faces are financial, and in order to function the Mayor and the Council must be on the same page. Given some of the disputes, the Council and the Mayor appeard to be reading different books. By proactively building a positive relationship with the Council, Mayor Kilpatrick will not only be steps closer to solving the City’s problems, but he will also silence his critics who claim his is arrogant and not able to partner effectively with others.
Second: Establish a realistic city budget
This is an obvious one that was beaten senseless during the election. The Mayor, along with his allies in the City Council, will be able to tackle this issue together more effectively by working as a team. They will be stronger together when coming to the table of negotiation with Union leaders and other groups who that will need to work with the City to address its fiscal responsibilities than the Mayor or City Council were when attempting this individually.
These both will build a strong foundation and solid momentum for the Mayor as he continues his work leading the great City of Detroit. The Mayor has to build on the successes seen during his first term (increased development Downtown, increased housing development throughout the city, improved City services, etc.).
The Mayor has heard from the people. They made their decision. They put faith and trust in him. He now will lead them on to greater days. The best is yet to come.
Kilpatrick Wins 2nd Term
November 9, 2005
The results are in. Detroit has re-elected Kwame Kilpatrick Mayor of the City or Detroit. He defeated challenger Freeman Hendrix 53%-47% in a race that was called around 2 AM Wednesday morning. With this victory Kilpatrick avoided becoming the first incumbent Mayor to be ousted since 1961.
Kilpatrick won by appealing to young voters who are inspired by his own passion and determination. It will be these individuals that Kilpatrick will need to be successful during his second term. I’m young. I’m excited too. Let the symbiosis begin…
