White sororities admit black students at U. of Ala

Source: CBS News (AP)

Black women are joining traditionally white sororities at the University of Alabama amid efforts to end racial segregation within Greek-letter social groups, the head of the school said Friday.

University President Judy Bonner said 11 black students and three students from other minority groups received bids, or invitations, to join a historically white sorority. Of that group, four black students and two students from other minority backgrounds have accepted those invitations. Bonner said. She expected the numbers to rise as the academic year continues.

...

The university's Greek organizations have been segregated by race since the first black students enrolled and created social organizations. One oversight organization has been composed of white sororities and the other composed of minority sororities. Only a handful of blacks attempted to join the historically white Greek groups at Alabama, where there are also historically black fraternities and sororities.

But that system came under scrutiny when the campus newspaper, The Crimson White, reported allegations this month that two prospective black members were passed over by all-white sororities because of pressure from alumnae, and in one case, an adviser. The coverage caused a wide-ranging debate, even prompting Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley, an alumnus, to say that fraternal organizations should choose members based on their qualifications, not their race.

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57604001/white-sororities-admit-black-students-at-u-of-ala/

NYT: Administration Orders New Step to Curtail Stiff Drug Sentences

Antarctica's Stunning Secret

August 5 was a big day for sports births (a long list)...

I saw a man on the bus today with a brand-new baseball cap on his head. The back of the cap read: "8/5/1980"

That got me searching for some significance to the date. (I was going to ask him about the date as I exited the bus, but he moved all the way to the back to make room for an elderly woman. Since the cap was brand new, and since my search didn't uncover anything significant about that date, I assume the cap was a birthday gift. He looked like he could be 33, which would be consistent with that birth date.)

In my search, I discovered that an unusual number of athletes was born on August 5...

1866 – Harry Trott, Australian cricketer (d. 1917)
1879 – Wladimir Aïtoff, French rugby player (d. 1963)
1910 – Herminio Masantonio, Argentine footballer (d. 1956)
1918 – Betty Oliphant, Canadian ballerina (d. 2004)
1929 – Ottó Boros, Hungarian water polo player (d. 1988)
1937 – Herb Brooks, American ice hockey player and coach (d. 2003)v
1939 – Roger Clark, British rally driver (d. 1998)
1940 – Roman Gabriel, American football player
1943 – Nelson Briles, American baseball player (d. 2005)
1945 – Csaba Giczy, Hungarian canoe racer
1946 – Bruce Coslet, American football player and coach
1947 – Bernie Carbo, American baseball player
1948 – Ray Clemence, English footballer
1950 – Goldie Rogers, Canadian wrestler (d. 2012)
1953 – Rick Mahler, American baseball player (d. 2005)
1961 – Athula Samarasekera, Sri Lankan cricketer
1962 – Patrick Ewing, Jamaican-American basketball player
1962 – Richard de Groen, New Zealand cricketer
1962 – Otis Thorpe, American basketball player

Beginning in 1968, the list starts to get pretty crowded...

1968 – Kendo Kashin, Japanese wrestler
1968 – Oleh Luzhnyi, Ukrainian footballer
1968 – Colin McRae, British rally driver (d. 2007)
1968 – John Olerud, American baseball player
1969 – Vasbert Drakes, Barbadian cricketer
1969 – Venkatesh Prasad, Indian cricketer
1969 – Robert Scott, Australian rower
1972 – Ikuto Hidaka, Japanese wrestler
1972 – Aaqib Javed, Pakistani cricketer
1972 – Theodore Whitmore, Jamaican footballer
1973 – Sanwar Hossain, Bangladeshi cricketer
1973 – Justin Marshall, New Zealand rugby player and sportscaster
1974 – Alvin Ceccoli, Australian footballer
1974 – Olle Kullinger, Swedish footballer
1974 – Julio César Enciso, Paraugayan footballer
1974 – Antoine Sibierski, French footballer
1976 – Jeff Friesen, Canadian ice hockey player
1976 – Marian Pahars, Latvian footballer
1976 – Eugen Trică, Romanian footballer
1977 – Eric Hinske, American baseball player
1977 – Soraya Jiménez, Mexican weightlifter (d. 2013)
1977 – Mark Mulder, American baseball player
1977 – Michael Walsh, English footballer
1978 – Kim Gevaert, Belgian sprinter
1978 – Cosmin Bărcăuan, Romanian footballer
1979 – David Healy, Irish footballer
1980 – Wayne Bridge, English footballer
1980 – Salvador Cabañas, Paraguayan footballer
1980 – Jason Culina, Australian footballer
1980 – Ali Umar, Maldivian footballer
1981 – David Clarke, English ice hockey player
1981 – Carl Crawford, American baseball player
1981 – Maik Franz, German footballer
1981 – Erik Guay, Canadian skier
1981 – Alester Maregwede, Zimbabwean cricketer
1982 – Jamie Houston, English-German rugby player
1982 – Lolo Jones, American hurdler
1982 – Michele Pazienza, Italian footballer
1983 – Korey Hall, American football player
1985 – Laurent Ciman, Belgian footballer
1985 – Salomon Kalou, Ivorian footballer
1985 – Erkan Zengin, Swedish footballer
1985 – Gil Vermouth, Israeli footballer
1986 – Paula Creamer, American golfer
1988 – Federica Pellegrini, Italian swimmer
1988 – Michael Jamieson, Scottish/British swimmer
1989 – Ryan Bertrand, English footballer
1989 – Mathieu Manset, French footballer
1991 – Esteban Gutierrez, Mexican Formula 1 Racing Driver
1991 – Andreas Weimann, Austrian footballer
1993 – Patrick McBrearty, Irish Gaelic footballer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_5#Births

GOP newsletter author: ‘We most likely won’t try to kill’ pro-Obamacare Republicans

The author of a county Republican Party newsletter in Arkansas says that he and other conservatives in the state “most likely won’t try to kill” Republican lawmakers who voted to expand Medicaid under President Barack Obama’s health care reform law.

In the April edition of the Republican Party of Benton County Newsletter, Chris Nogy argued that “this betrayal deserves a quick implementation of my 2nd amendment rights to remove a threat.”

“I don’t feel the same way about the Democrats as bullet backstops as I do about the Republicans who joined them,” Nogy wrote. “We need to let those who will come in the future to represent us [know] that we are serious. The 2nd amendment means nothing unless those in power believe you would have no problem simply walking up and shooting them if they got too far out of line and stopped responding as representatives.”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/04/21/gop-newsletter-author-we-most-likely-wont-try-to-kill-pro-obamacare-republicans/

No, Michelle Shocked, you're not being "silenced by fear"

I liked this comment by DU's RudynJack so much that I decided it needs its own graphic...



Original thread here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022588288

I'm truly shocked. Some Republicans literally believe Obama is a Muslim

I was just on the phone with a woman I met a year ago at the university we attend. She's 38 years old and has a high (3.7 or 3.8, if I recall correctly) GPA.

She's also an evangelical Christian, and the hundreds of friends she has on her Facebook page are almost all evangelical Christians. She doesn't have a TV signal and doesn't pay a lot of attention to the news, so I'm sure most of her information comes from FB postings, and from conversations she has with other Christians.

On the phone just now we were discussing the presidential race, and she said, "I don't know, there's something about Romney that I really don't like. He seems really untrustworthy, and he creeps me out. But I can't get past that whole Muslim thing with Obama."

I asked if she was serious about the "Muslim thing" -- did she really believe Obama's a Muslim? -- and her answer indicated that she thought it was common knowledge.

Then I asked, "Do you mean he's a 'secret Muslim'? ...that he's really Muslim but pretending to be a Christian, or do you think he actually claims that he, himself, is Muslim?"

The questions apparently confused her. When I didn't get an answer, I asked, "Do you remember Reverend Wright, Obama's Christian pastor, who..." To make a long story short, I covered the whole Wright controversy, but the point I was making to her was that people were having issues over what Obama's Christian pastor had said.

She said she didn't follow the 2008 election closely enough to see any of that. She had never heard of Reverend Wright.

I said, "There are some people who say Obama is secretly Muslim, that he's lying and pretending he's a Christian. Are you saying you think he's actually a professed Muslim?"

She said, "I think it might not be possible to know some of these things."

She's 38, earning a high GPA at a liberal college, but otherwise gets most of her information from Facebook friends who think the way she does. And she can't vote for Obama, even though Romney creeps her out, because of "the whole Muslim thing."

I honestly did not know these people existed. They're living and working among us, connected to the same Internet, and they truly believe we elected a professed (not "secret&quot Muslim president in 2008.

San Francisco couple kill daughter's alleged pimp, cops say (SFGate)

Here's one way Free Republic is spinning the Romney bullying incident

"President Obama was a bully, too!"

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2882611/posts

They're comparing the Romney bullying incident to a passage from Obama's first book:



Compare:

"I ran up to Coretta and gave her a slight shove; she staggered back and looked up at me, but still said nothing. 'Leave me alone!' I shouted again."

to:

"The fellow students told The Post that Romney led his friends in tackling the teenager, pinning him down and snipping his hair with a pair of scissors. The teen cried and screamed for help, according to the classmates, and was out of school for a time, later returning with his shorter hair back to its natural brown color."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/romney-hair-cutting-prank-school-leaders-say-similar-incidents-today-would-lead-to-punishment/2012/05/11/gIQAmvuJIU_story.html

A shove versus an assault. A silent stare versus screams for help. Regret over the offense versus nervous giggling and a fuzzy memory.

"President Obama was a bully, too!"