NASA Gives a Chance to Participate in the next Mars Expedition

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NASA Logo | Photo 02

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As this mission develops, more unique ways to participate will be added, especially when the rover gets to Mars!

Source: mars.jpl.nasa.gov

NASA is giving the opportunity to send you name to Mars.  This may not be a huge earth shattering event but could be fun for the right people.  You are able to fill out a form placing your name on a list of others that will be embedded in a microchip that will be on the next Mars Rover.  You may also follow the progress of the mission through the mission’s twitter account.

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Tags: Science | NASA | Space | Mars | Tech & Biz | mars rover

Michelle Obama’s father NOT buried in troubled cemetery (Updated)

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Illinois cemetery becomes crime scene

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First lady Michelle Obama’s father was buried in the Chicago-area cemetery where investigators say hundreds of graves were dug up in a scheme to resell the burial plots, a spokeswoman confirmed Tuesday.

It was not clear whether the grave of Fraser Robinson III was among those disturbed in the scheme. Camille Johnston, the first lady’s communications director, said she would have no further comment on the matter.

Source: cnnwire.blogs.cnn.com

It would seem that The First Lady Michelle Obama’s father may have been another unfortunate victim, all be it post mortem, of this scam being run by the Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois.  So far 300 graves have been dug up and the space in them resold.

Other notable figures associated with the cemetery include Emmett Till a slain civil rights activist, Dinah Washington a Jazz singer, and some Negro League baseball players.

The investigation continues according to the local police department.

As an update Michelle Obama’s Father is NOT burried at the Cemitary in question.  This was a mistake released by The White House and has been retracked.

The White House clarified Tuesday afternoon that First Lady Michelle Obama’s father is buried at Lincoln cemetery, not Burr Oak cemetery.

The White House had earlier told CBS News Mrs. Obama’s father is buried at Burr Oak, the site where gravediggers removed hundreds of bodies to resell burial plots.

Source: cbsnews.com

From: http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/07/14/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry5158726.shtml

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Tags: Crime | World | Obama | CEMETERY | FIRST LADY | Michelle Obama | Emmett Till | Alsip

Racism In The City of Brotherly Love

This has to be one of the most deplorable things I have read about in a long time.  The discrimination of 65 children from a private swim club in Philadelphia.  Children that had, through their day camp, had paid for the allotted time on Monday afternoons to be able to come an swim where turned away.  Club members were reported as pulling their kids out of the pool all together and just standing outside of the pool arms crossed waiting for the minority children to leave.  Children from the camp said they overheard people from the club making comments such as “What are those black kids doing here?.” Its not said whether that statement was made by a child in the club or an adult member but either way this is not something someone would expect to hear at this point in history.

Have we really noted moved beyond this yet?  The majority of people in the country freely elected a black president for god’s sake.  How is this still possible?  It shines a light on a scary truth truth that there are still pockets of elitist groups of people out their that have no respect for their fellow human beings.  They feel because they have money and position they can live apart from the rest of us in their gated communities and private clubs.  What is obviously going on behind these gates, at least in the case of this Philadelphia community is disgusting.

To be fair to the people of The Valley Club, the swim club in question, they claim that the allegations are false and a “misunderstanding.  They have in their official press release stated that the children altered the “complexion” of their club.  If you are trying to defend against allegations of racial discrimination is complexion really the best word to use? Club members have come forward saying that they only were concerned with the number of kids in the pool and not their race. “This has nothing to do with race,” member Lori Slowinski said. “I paid my money for a private swim club…if they’re gonna have it out to camps, then I want my money back.”  That thought is echoed by other members that said they would be asking for their money back.  This doesn’t make the club look much better.  Instead of telling members that it is something that would only happen on day a week they turned these well meaning kids away.  Good job Valley Club.

When you look at both sides its hard to believe that so many of the kids would come up with similar yet different things that members had said to and about them.  Kids are always prone to telling stories but not complex and varied ones that when put together tell a dark tale of racism and elitism.  The club is shut down now and their site seems to have been taken down in the wake of protests.  We would all be better off it if just stayed that way.

King of Pop

So today Michael Jackson is put to rest.  I really don’t know how to feel about this.  I wasn’t really old enough for the music when it was coming out but really loved it as I did pick it up.  I really want to feel sorry and feel a loss but it just seems like its not there for me.  Most of my memories of MJ are of the surgeries or the accusations of child molestation.  I’m not saying that I believe them or not, I’m not fully sure especially after his later accuser recanted recently.  I do know he seemed like a really odd cat but then again I have never had a billion people that wanted a piece of me all the time.  Linving in the lime light when you are just not that kind of person could be hard I would guess.

That seems to not have ended in death either.  There is a live feed on CNN of his memorial which is in The Staple Center where people have had to buy tickets to get in.  There are people that have flown in from overseas, nonfamous regular people!  That seems to be over kill to me. He may have meant a lot to a lot of people but really 3k for a plane ticket when you don’t even have a way into the memorial seems a little over board.  There are ways to celebrate someones life from where you live.  I guess if you have the money to do it I shouldn’t judge.

That all being said MJ will be missed as a Pop Icon and a legend. RIP

Billy Mays

I cant believe that Billy Mays  died.  I know its lame but I think more so than any of the other people that died this month that was the one that really surprised me.  He  seemed much younger and healthier than any of the other people.  Who knows maybe we will find out otherwise but it was very surprising to hear.  I loved the new show Pitch Men that just stared its first season on Discovery.  I just think his style of energy was fun to watch and he really had invented and taken the medium of “as seen on TV” marketing in a new direction.  From watching the show it looks like he also provided great opportunities for people with good ideas but not the means to get those ideas out there.  I know its kind of odd to miss a TV pitch man but I think I will more than any of the other celebs this last week or two.  Good luck and best wishes to his son.

Starting out

Working on a place to store things that I find interesting.  If no one reads this that is fine.  Just looking to practice writing and putting info together from different sources as I work on writing projects.

I finished a large project about the history of Rwanda and now I need to go back and polish that up.  There are areas I need to connect better and flesh out along with some areas that maybe do not need to be there as they repeat.  The idea came today that now that I have the Rwanda project done I need to ask what is next. The next step will be to use what I have written and learned there to combine with research on other ethnic conflict in the area.  The Rwanda project was looking at what caused genocide inside of that individual country and it didn’t really focus on any other African nations.  I want to now look at other nations like the Sudan and see what similarities and differences can be found.  This should with luck make a new project and we can continue to go forward from there.

This new project is just in its initial stages of question formation.  I haven’t even really started to put together any ideas for questions that may lead to thesis.  I just know that many of the African nations went through similar things during colonization and in Rwanda, at least, this lead directly to the Genocide there.  Right now I just feel it would be an interesting path to pressure and may lead to a better more full piece on the causes of ethnic conflict.