Oprah Winfrey's towering ego.

The books and curriculum are pretty much the same in all of the schools. Wouldn't you say that the high dropout rate is a bigger problem?

 

Oprah politely asked if she could see the bag and the lady behind the counter told her "You can't afford it" more than likely because she is black. Oprah seems to go out of her way not cry racism largely because trolls like Albert would jump all over her but, yes, this does seem to be an overt act of discrimination. I mean the lady is a billionaire so the clerk was obviously making that snide comment based upon how she looked.

 

it probably is a factor. Now, why do you think the drop out rate is higher?

 

Indeed, books and money spent in general is about the same. Per student less money is spent on schools in North Dakota (just one state, of course there are more) where the graduation rate is 90 percent than places like my town where many schools hover around 40 percent.

The dropout rate is higher when you are surrounded by family who themselves
didn't graduate, or otherwise don't care about education. You can have the best schools in the world but if the kids don't attend, they won't keep up and will drop out or get too old to keep attending. When they see others surviving (even if they struggle) without an education or good job they figure things will be okay for them too, so no big deal if they don't graduate. Culture matters.

 

Do you think mandatory sentencing differentials might have anything to do with it? As for family members from earlier generations, did they have the same books and classroom resources?

 

Considering most kids graduate before they are 18 (or shortly after turning 18) they won't be tried as adults so sentencing wouldn't affect them yet. Would sentencing affect the kids' fathers? Wouldn't matter if the fathers aren't in the kids' lives anyway.

But agree past generations may not have had the same resources. You would think those adults would really be putting a foot up their kids (or grand-kids) asses to appreciate the advances in schooling. Maybe they do, but if the vast majority of your peers don't value education you might not either.

 

A big predictor of educational achievement is the achievement of the parents. The point about mandatory sentencing is that in many cases, there is no father figure available to put the foot up the kids ass.

 

Children in poor districts don't deserve the same education as children from rich neighborhoods. If a kid wants a good education they should work hard and buy more affluent parents. It's the American Way! Bootstraps! Hoo-ah!

 

You're missing my point. That "father figure" was long gone the second Maury Povich said "you are the baby's father". So whether he is in prison or the CEO of Ford Motors, if he isn't in the home anyway, what's the difference?

Let's say there is no mandatory sentencing - all sentences are only a fraction. Is the inmate making a beeline for a family he never had anything to do with in the first place other than depositing sperm?

 

Five fucking pages of this? Seriously?

You people like Oprah waaaaaaaaay too much.

 

Cut us some slack Lanz, we haven't even established whether Forbin has heard of Oprah. We're dealing with some serious issues here!

 

Yeah, but you're making me think Oprah might actually be Futurama's hypno-toad.

 

What??? The only way to be a father figure is to live with the kid and the mother?

 

Not what I meant. Let's say "being involved in the kids life." In other words, not being a dead-beat dad. Not cutting-and-running from parental responsibilities.
I know lots of kids are from divorced parents, that's a whole different situation.

 

This. But don't expect the Defenders of the Endangered White Male to read it; they're too busy shrieking about "reverse discrimination" when any little thing dents their armor of privilege.

 

Does she have a cooking show too?

 

Even I have heard of Oprah, and I don't even spend all that much time in the USA.

Of course, I don't know what she looks like and have only heard of her from Wordforge...

 

Hey! Didn't there used to be a much better smilie? Has someone been changing the smilies around, so that the same tags no longer point to the same pics?

That was one of my favorite smilies, and this thing just looks kind of dumb and unmoving.

 

Nope, its the same one that's been here since the beginning.

 

Are you sure?

I must be getting senile, then. Of course, that's always a real possibility...

 

Perhaps you're thinking of flow2? :flow2:

 

You're probably thinking of this one...



And no, it's not intuitively named at all.

 

Gul's got a point. I went to one of those grade schoold in the poor area of town, and most of the teachers are told to be disciplinarians more than educators. As a result, the smarter kids like myself are often bored as the teacher spends all his time and focus playing parent.

 

http://www.blick.ch/people-tv/international/ich-kann-seit-tagen-nicht-mehr-schlafen-id2402940.html

KKK style racism from an Italian saleslady in a Swiss shop, or Oprah getting pissed she wasn't treated like a Diva and spinning bullshit about it after the fact?

Well, the quote from the interview...

 

Oh, and she's pulled this kind of stunt before, too. Back in 2005, Oprah got to a store 15 minutes after it had closed and they dared to refuse her entry:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/23/AR2005062302086.html

 

Throwing the race card has almost become a default, knee-jerk reaction these days. Something doesn't go your way, throw that card first - why waste time?