You Can’t “Uninvite” Us, We Weren’t Coming

by with No Comment FeaturedSports

The Philadelphia Eagles, like any professional sports team that wins a World Championship, were invited to the White House to celebrate their accomplishment. As a team with vocal players like Malcolm Jenkins and Chris Long, it came as no surprise that many of them chose not to attend the event, scheduled for today. When President Trump was made aware of the low team attendance that was expected, despite the fact that several Eagles publicly stating that they wouldn’t attend shortly after winning the Super Bowl, he “rescinded” his invitation citing the Eagles’ dislike of the NFL’s new national anthem policy.

Related: Anthem Penalties: We Are Who We Thought They Were

In the White House statement, Trump again associated standing for the national anthem with patriotism and respect for the military. It is unclear whether he is just too narrow-minded to understand the full depth of the issue, or if he just doesn’t care and sees this matter as a win for his base. Either way, he conveniently ignores why the players were kneeling during the national anthem last season, which was in protest to social injustice and police brutality (not to mention that the Eagles’ players did stand for the anthem every game last season). While Trump likes to argue that these men do not care about their country, a strong argument could be made that they actually care more about their country than he does because they recognize injustice and are actively working to address it and make positive changes.

Trump has made it clear that he does not have the ability to understand things past their face value. The Eagles decision not to attend, prior to being “uninvited,” is a sign that they’re doing something right as a group, which has proven to be active in combating social injustice in America. I hope to see them continue to speak up and support causes they believe in, regardless of the bullying tactics that Trump uses to discourage positive discourse.

Subscribe for free to keep up with the debate. 

The Invisible Numbers of a Teacher’s Salary

by with No Comment EducationNews

Very few subjects are dreaded more than high-end mathematics. I for one hated high-end mathematics with a passion. One subject in Algebra that really burned my bridges was invisible numbers. Yes, there’s a subject in Algebra in which you learn about invisible numbers. Essentially, an imaginary number is the square root of a negative number and does not have a tangible value. Did you get that, no tangible value! In high school, I asked my math teacher with true sincerity what was the point and purpose of learning about invisible numbers. What are they used for? What’s the history of invisible numbers? And once again the numbers are invisible! We’re talking about invisible numbers, man, channeling my Allen Iverson practice interview, I stated “invisible” a dozen times. He responded with how most teachers respond to questions they would rather not nor can answer, “It’s in the curriculum and I have to teach it and you have to know it.”

Fast forward to today and invisible numbers came into my mind once more. This time in relation to the recent news of teachers in Oklahoma on the verge of demanding higher pay. They should demand to get out of Oklahoma, hook ’em nation forever! But that’s for the college football season. The Oklahoma teachers storyline isn’t new, its a sad reoccurring storyline of “teachers demanding more pay.”

The general public always has their opinion on this issue. They vary from the usual “we should pay teachers like we pay athletes” to “maybe teachers do make enough, maybe they spend outside their means.”

Most tend to side with teachers don’t make enough, which they DO NOT. However, they will never get Lebron James’s salary for his money comes from entertainment. And teachers money, of course, comes from their respective state or municipality.

That leads me to the main purpose of this article. The focus is only on teachers’ salaries, yet ignore the reason for teachers demanding higher salaries. The reason is cost of living in relation to salary.

Simply put, the rent is too high and teachers’ salaries don’t equal the growing cost to simply live. Not live in luxury, but simply to keep the lights on, put gas in the car, and an occasional bite to eat.

For example… Teachers in New York are the highest paid in the nation, with an average salary of a little less than $77,000 a year. However, when you factor in what they pay for living expenses and taxes they fall to 22nd place with an adjusted salary of $50,022, which is good for Alabama, not Astoria.

The invisible numbers of the cost of living and separating the objective from the subjective means that definition will forever have economists employed. What is needed to respectfully live and not be forced to work ancillary work or do things that may in comparison to one’s career or morals never be truly defined? There are basics that must be accounted for, especially for the most important profession outside health, which in my opinion is education.

So what’s the solution?

On the forefront, educational spending would have to go into one bucket and not be solely based on local property tax revenue, which is the main reason the Philadelphia school district pays its teachers far less than the affluent Montgomery County pays its teachers, which is just the north. Additionally, a review of teachers’ salary in comparison to that school district’s area salaries with the same credentials and standards for employment should be required. Standards like a college degree, background check, working hour amount, etc.

The invisible numbers surrounding teachers salaries are the same invisible working measures they encounter daily – such as driving a kid home because their parent is stuck in traffic or paying for a student’s field trip because his parents can’t afford it. And the most common, buying supplies for their class. The numbers simply aren’t enough to truly calculate a fair and accurate measure to ensure teachers take home the pay they deserve.

Sinclair Will Carry Trump’s Torch

by with One Comment Media

If you didn’t know who Sinclair Broadcasting was prior to this week, chances are they silently crept up on you last week through one of their 193 locally owned TV stations. 193 might not sound like a lot, except it is… Sinclair’s 193 stations makes them the largest broadcaster in the US, which allows them to reach 40% of American homes. Sinclair, which is known for their conservative slant, is a publicly traded company; yet, it’s still owned and run by the founding Smith family who holds a majority interest. Last week their employed news reporters read the exact same script bashing supposed “fake news” that echoed throughout the rest of the country. When messaging is the same, the exact same, it’s no longer news, it’s propaganda… and that’s dangerous to say the least.

Take a look back to World War I. Woodrow Wilson and the American Government’s powerful use of propaganda, which was built on a lack of transparency, was in large part successful in the states and throughout the rest of the world in ultimately convincing people they were on the right side of history.

After major networks like CNN and MSNBC criticized Sinclair for said propaganda, President Trump quickly tweeted his praise for Sinclair calling them “far superior.”

To make things worse, Sinclair has a $4 billion proposed merger with Tribune Media on the table. If the merger is approved, Sinclair would be able to reach three out of four homes in America. Does anyone think our government or this administration is going to suppress this merger?

“He who wants to persuade should put his trust not in the right argument, but in the right word. The power of sound has always been greater than the power of sense.” — Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim, 1900

When telecommunication companies like Sinclair succeed and continue to expand through mergers & acquisitions, democracy, different and honest perspectives, challenging yet compromising dialogue, loses, and nears a painful and regrettable demise.

If you’re a news reporter for a Sinclair owned station, you might find yourself in a career conundrum you never imagined. What should they do? Quit? Protest? Carry on? Make subtle facial expressions in an attempt to let you know their reading another bias politically slanted script? If you’re in one of their local markets chances are you depend of them for your local and national news. Should you not watch? Find another source of media and news?

These tough decisions will shape our nation? Media is a powerful tool, conservative or progressive ideology, it’s not a good idea for anyone, or any one group, to own the majority of our news outlets.

This is what propaganda in 2018 looks like: Sinclair News Clip

If we’re not careful, Sinclair will carry Trump’s torch long after his 4 (or 8) years in the White House. It might be too late.

Subscribe for free and share our content, different perspectives matter.

Change in the Air: The Protests in Iran

by with No Comment International

For a while now, the people of Iran have had two things to be angry about: the economy and the government.

Years of rising costs in real estate and the price of meat have put Iranians in an awkward position. Iranians expected more than what they got. Regional experts like to talk about how Iran is not as dangerous or oppressive as some of its neighbors, and the very fact that Iranians can complain proves this. But the country is still struggling, and if you lived there, you would feel it immediately.

Iran is a hard country, and the desire to separate the economic woes from the political mess might cause one to miss the point. Both issues are intertwined, more so when outcry is met with violent repression.

The protests you have been slowly hearing about started around Dec. 28. The Islamic Revolutionary guards corps and the clerical establishment under the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, are the enforcers of the repression in Iran, as well as the beneficiaries of a system that has performed poorly for everyone else. This fact is not lost on the demonstrators who have vehemently objected to the new budget by calling for an end to the current regime.

The people who are currently protesting are from the lower classes and are motivated by the lack of economic fairness and opportunities in the country. The nuclear deal, with its promise to end the sanctions that never really happened, did not appease the longstanding unemployment crisis. The 2018 budget released last month, revealed in harsh terms the regime’s desire to spend on religious institutions and foreign adventures, even though there have been cuts in cash dispersals and an increase in fuel prices, the threat of drought in the provinces, environmental degradation, and embezzlement have repeatedly incited the public.

Maybe all these issues are growing pains of a country trying to redefine its presence in a globally-minded world, or perhaps it isn’t. The truth for many Iranians is that their country has resources that their family and friends never see.

As of now, the protesters know that they won’t be able to effectively make a change to the current establishment. But what they are hoping is that their cry for change will be picked up and echoed by more and more people in the country and around the world to build enough pressure for the government to make positive changes.

The latest protests have no leaders to imprison or publicly humiliate. These demonstrations aren’t pitting the elites against one another, but everyday people against the state. If there is anything you should know as you read this article, it’s how little we know as Americans about what is happening in Iran. The current regime and its desire to censor everything, made sure of this. So the battle is a two-pronged war. One part is our foreign policy on Iran, and the other is Iran’s need to push everything under the rug.

Iran Wracked by Waves of Protests

by with No Comment FeaturedGen ZInternationalNews

Since December 28th tens of thousands of protesters have gathered all around Iran. The protests first began in the Northeastern city of Mashhad and constitute the largest outbreak of civil unrest in the country since the disputed 2009 presidential election and the wave of “Green Revolution” protests it caused. More than 20 people have died in the protests, which are still ongoing.

The demonstrations were initially sparked by concerns over the state of the country’s economy and the high prices of staple goods. After the lifting of sanctions under the nuclear deal, there was an expectation among Iranians that the economy would recover from its period of stunted growth, an outcome that has been slow to materialize. Youth unemploymenthas reached 40% and, not coincidentally, young people make up a large portion of the protesters. With all of these factors putting the country’s population on edge, the straw that broke the camel’s back and brought Iranians into the streets came in the form of a leaked draft budget which increased spending to the military and the clerical establishment while cutting subsidies for the poor.

Over the following week the protests developed from being focused on the state of the economy to being an open rebellion against the country’s repressive theocratic regime, with protesters chanting slogans such as “death to the dictator.” The country’s activist foreign policy has also become increasingly unpopular as many of its citizens struggle to make ends meet domestically. Iran has spent billions supporting proxies and allies in the region, such as the Syrian government, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and to a lesser extent the Houthis in Yemen.

The Iranian government has accused the protesters of being sponsored by foreign governments to create social unrest in the country and has cracked down pretty heavily on the protesters, using tear gas, water cannons, and other means in an effort to forcibly disperse them. According to human rights groups thousands of protesters have been rounded up and detained. Those arrested could potentially face brutal prison conditions or the death penalty, in a recent declaration made by the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Court. The regime has throttled internet access and blocked social media and messaging apps that had been used by the protesters to organize. As a result, the information coming out of the country began to slow leading to rumors of the protests dying out, but these turned out to be untrue. The government was also able to mobilize pro-government counter protests.

As of right now it is still too early to determine what will come of these protests. Some analysts are predicting the end of the regime while others expect the protests to fizzle out and amount to nothing. The protests seem to have no well-defined leadership, so it is unclear who, if anyone, would be able to lead a regime change. President Rouhani’s position has definitely been weakened and it is likely that the country’s security apparatus, especially the Revolutionary Guards will have seen their influence expanded asa result of their role in dealing with the protests.

Meanwhile, the US government has expressed support for the Iranian protesters. The Trump administration, which has already been openly hostile towards Iran and the Iranian government, has suggested the possibility of more sanctions depending on Iran’s reaction to the protest. The President has tweeted several times in support of the protests including tweeting that Iranians are finally “getting wise”. The United States requested an emergency session of the United Nation’s Security Council on the subject of Iran. The session was held on Friday and US Ambassador Nikki Haley took the opportunity to put Iran “on notice” that the US would not tolerate any human rights abuses. Other countries such as France and Russia voiced their dismay that the US was bringing what they viewed as an internal Iranian affair to the Security Council.

President Rouhani responded by saying that Donald Trump had no right to criticize Iran after calling them terrorists and preventing Iranians from entering the United States. Iranians don’t really care for President Trump and it’s unlikely that his tweets will have any effect on the protests. American sanctions as well as the United State’s wavering position on the nuclear deal are at least partially responsible for the economic stagnation that spurred the protests.