by Judge Greg Mathis

An interesting new study on the time spent with children in a single-parent household.

For the last 20 years or so we’ve been told -- by the media, policymakers and conservative groups alike -- that the increase in crime is a direct result of the growth in single parent households. Children do poorly in school and get into trouble, we’ve been led to believe, because their single mothers have to focus their energy on working and have little to no time left in their day to effectively parent.

We can now toss those theories out of the window. A new study shows that both married and single parents spend about the same amount of time with their children as parents did 40 years ago.

Knowing this, what, then, can be blamed for the increase in high school dropout and crime rates? It’s time to finally take a close look at public institutions -- schools, government agencies and the like -- that have failed our children and our communities. Without the conservative double-talk that seeks to draw our attention away from the real issues by shifting blame, perhaps this country can finally work to fix the broken organizations that serve our communities.

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If you are a fan of Barack Obama and an avid supporter of and/or shopper at Wal-Mart, then you are in for a rude awakening. Because if Wal-Mart is really "the death of America" (soon to be the world), can anybody, let alone Barack wake up Wal-Mart? They are already in China! Haven't you heard of The Great Wal-Mart of China?!?!



Here's BusinessWeek take:

In a much-publicized and carefully executed event on Nov. 15, Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and former Senator John Edwards (D.-N.C.) lent their voices and their political clout to the effort to pressure Wal-Mart Stores (WMT), the world's largest retailer, to change its workplace practices. The two participated in evening conference calls with Wal-Mart workers, organized by the union-funded group WakeUpWalMart.com. The conference calls officially launched a six-week campaign titled "Hope for the Holidays," during which the watchdog group plans to push for changes at Wal-Mart.

Obama, a possible Democratic presidential candidate for 2008, was the first to weigh in, in a call that started at 7 p.m. EST. "Unlike the manufacturers who are under enormous competitive pressure from global low-cost producers, Wal-Mart is making enormous profits and yet it has chosen to go with low wages and diminished benefits," he said. "The battle to engage Wal-Mart and force them to examine their corporate values and policies is absolutely vital to America today."

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Any comments or thoughts?

From The Washington Post
By Benjamin Wallace-Wells

The 2006 elections were for the technocrats and the operatives, pitting the Democratic tacticians against the Karl Rove machine. But the next election is already beginning to look quite different: 2008 may be one for the novelists.

Viewers of the election returns late on Tuesday, after all, got an early start on the iconography of the next presidential race. The cable networks' cameras cut between Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, thanking her supporters for an overwhelming victory in the New York Senate race, her husband standing pointedly behind, and a smiling Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, giving cautious, professorial analysis to the television viewers. Nobody noted the significance, but it stared us all in the face: The two presumed leading contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination are a woman and an African American.

Their candidacies -- coming after elections resulting in the presumed first female speaker of the House and the second black governor since Reconstruction -- suggest that the next elections may play in ways that are more cultural and symbolic than tactical and political. Are Americans ready to put a black man or a woman in charge of the country? And does the hefty symbolism that Obama and Clinton would bring help one of them more than the other -- in other words, is the country more racist or more sexist?

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Is America too racist and sexist...? What do you think?

From the Atlanta Journal Constitution:

WASHINGTON — On a hot August afternoon in 1963, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech to a mostly black audience from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

On Nov. 13, a half-mile from Lincoln's iconic statue, a diverse group of celebrities, corporate leaders and ordinary Americans will help turn the first shovels of dirt for a memorial honoring the civil rights leader who was slain 38 years ago. It will be the first monument to an African American on the National Mall.

"He's an American hero, and beyond that he's a hero for all sorts of people," said poet and novelist Maya Angelou, who is scheduled to join Oprah Winfrey and others who have been working for more than a decade to help build the monument.

Angelou, 80, said the groundbreaking is even more special because it comes almost a year after the death of King's widow. "She never was a person to say 'Why didn't it happen sooner?' That would not be Coretta Scott King," Angelou said of her friend, who died in January at 78.

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Zondervan has pulled off an interesting project. A cast of more than 200 stars including Blair Underwood (Jesus), Samuel L. Jackson (God), Angela Bassett (Esther), Denzel Washington (Solomon), Cuba Gooding Jr. (Judas), and many others, lent their talents to create The Bible Experience, a one-of-a-kind dramatized audio recording of the Bible, complete with an outstanding original musical underscore. Read more here.