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LinkedIn and the Promise of Minority Equality in the Age of Internet Access

Yesterday, I posted an image Janna took over the weekend to my social media circles, and I was surprised to read this morning how concerned some were over what I thought was a joyous image of young Black females in the urban core being involved in a connected electronic Age.  The action was happening on LinkedIn, and here is that discussion — I don’t know if you can read it by default, or if you have to be linked to me first or not — and here is the image that started it all:

Continue reading → LinkedIn and the Promise of Minority Equality in the Age of Internet Access

A 21-Second Memorial Day Weekend Blow Up and Beat Down in New York City’s Union Square Park

Yesterday afternoon, I was hanging out in Union Square Park in New York City and I captured this cool, 21-second bite of musical blowing and beating you can enjoy after the jump!

Continue reading → A 21-Second Memorial Day Weekend Blow Up and Beat Down in New York City’s Union Square Park

We Need Proof of Life: Oscar Long is Missing

[UPDATE: June 10, 2015 — I received a phone call from an old friend of Oscar’s who verified Oscar was having financial trouble in New York City, perhaps with loan sharks, but definitely with credit cards he took out in his wife’s name. Oscar asked his father in Lincoln, Nebraska for a $50,000.00 loan to pay off an “identity theft” debt and was denied. Later, Oscar called his mother the morning he went missing and had her wire $200 to him at a money exchange near Penn Station in Manhattan. The friend believes Oscar used that money to get on a train and disappear — he also believes Oscar is, and has been, dead since that day. Oscar sent three suicide notes, one emailed to a friend, one mailed to his wife and one mailed to his parents.  The friend also said there is no way Oscar was Gay or changing sex or is now still alive and playing the role of a woman.  The friend is authentic and genuine and caring and provided verifiable facts that no one could know without direct knowledge of this human tragedy. Please use this updated information to color your reading of the rest of this original story published here on May 5, 2014.] 

Have you seen this man?  His name is Oscar Long.  He’s a talented, long-ago, Lincoln, Nebraska friend who went missing in New York City near Penn Station on November 28, 2007. He left behind a wife and child. He has not been seen alive since then.

Continue reading → We Need Proof of Life: Oscar Long is Missing

Has the War Already Been Won Against Public Schooling?

I come from a long line of public school teachers.  Our family believes in government-sponsored schooling that teaches facts and science and nature.  If one desires something of a Faith-infused-immersed learning, there are Churches for that; we enliven the mind not with mystery or superstition but by hard, verifiable, facts that can be reliably predicted with logic and learning.

Continue reading → Has the War Already Been Won Against Public Schooling?

Quantifying Ubiquity: You Are Eight in Eight Million

There is a fun old saying — “You’re One in a Million” — that is meant to convey a specialness using data-driven facts.  What I find most interesting in the million specialness is how absolutely non-special you are depending where you happen to live in the world.

For example, in my hometown of Lincoln, Nebraska — with a population of 160,000 while I was growing up — I was super-extra-crispy special, because it would take 6.25 times my city’s population to make me unique one time in a million tries.

In New York City, the story is different. There are currently 8.3 million people in The Big City — and that means my specialness is drained in the larger lake from my small pond pool of the Midwest.

Instead of being “One in a Million” in NYC, I’m now, actually, eight in 8.3 million — and that’s a pretty sobering number.

Continue reading → Quantifying Ubiquity: You Are Eight in Eight Million