As an educator, what are your present strengths and weaknesses in technology?

While I have never considered myself overly tech-savvy, at least on the “nuts and bolts” (how it’s all put together) side of things, I do feel I have a very strong foundation in many of areas of technology, at least those one would need to access and efficiently use in an educational environment (as a teacher, student, or as an information center professional). Being computer literate, having a background in the widely-used Microsoft Office suite programs, and being adept at navigating through the online world are just basic skills that I suppose many people my age (29) have used and got better at over the years as part of our everyday function, first as students, then in the professional world. That said, my age and how it relates to my skills in technology is a strength in another way—people near my age are just old enough to remember the pre-Internet-everywhere age, so not only did we get to grow up with the world wide web’s information at our fingertips, we also still remember classrooms without computers and had at least some educational foundation in pre-electronic access to information. In addition to this computer know-how, I am capable in some of the more traditional classroom technologies and used them as a student teacher in a small rural school back in 2003 as I tried to address the different learning styles of my students. The use of videos, live news feeds on television, audio recordings, overhead projectors to encourage good note-taking skills—I used a variety of technology in my classroom, sometimes to augment a lecture on history or government I was giving, or sometimes to be the primary teaching tool for that class session.

STRENGTHS: Basic computer skills, competency at universally-used computer programs, expert researcher using online tools for information retrieval, knowledge of traditional technology as teaching tools, being aware of how technology can be used to accommodate different student learning styles.

WEAKNESSES: Limited understanding of computer hardware and troubleshooting techniques for some technology problems.

How do you plan to use your strengths?

I have already alluded to it, but I think that it is not enough to know how to turn on the equipment and use it, the technology must be evaluated and harnessed in a way that augments learning and can provide a variety of methods of presenting materials, retrieving information, and catering to individual student learning styles.

How do you plan to address the weaknesses?

I have to be honest here, while I see the importance of being able to grasp hardware issues or some of the other “nuts and bolts” of technology, and have had a class or two over the years to address some of these issues, I’ve been spoiled in my current job at our law school’s library because we have a technology department staffed with geeks ready to fix all my problems for me. Ok, ok…that was (mostly) tongue-in-cheek. My weaknesses go beyond “my computer crashed…help!” calls, and I do not have to go very far for an example: when setting up this blog for class, I found myself asking my good friend for some of the blog formatting issues that I never quite understand. On one had, I’m fully capable of logging in, setting up the basics, posting, categorizing, adding links and pictures, etc., but I am fairly clueless when we start talking about some of the stuff that goes beyond that. There is a pretty good chance one day I will need to know how to do that sort of thing for myself if I am going to keep using these technologies—simply knowing a friend who can do that part of it is not going to be enough! There are plenty of ways to learn some of these skills short of taking a formal class, it is just motivating myself to take on some self-learning for something that will make me a better rounded information professional.

Yes, Odd Kung Fu is back, y’all, complete with the first political rant in over a year and a half! Over the next few months, with Matt helping me with the techy-side of things, OKF will transition from the multi-authored political blog you have seen previously to a more general blog, primarily authored and maintained by yours truly. Eventually, you will see posts not only about politics, but about legal issues, sports, life in general, and academics–which will serve both as a depot for papers I have written during my many, many years as a student, as well as a forum for new writings.

So, this is where I am taking you…eventually. Starting today, however, and continuing through mid-May of this year, this blog will serve one primary purpose (linked to the “academics” forum I discussed above): To fulfill the Online Blog requirement needed to successfully complete the 5720:Instructional Materials course I am enrolled in this spring as a part of the University of North Texas School of Library and Information Sciences graduate program. This MLIS degree, combined with my Juris Doctorate from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Bowen School of Law, will be the final hurdle I need to clear on my way to becoming a faculty-ranked tenure-tracked law librarian! So, sit back and enjoy my ramblings about using technology in America’s classrooms over the next weeks…then stay tuned for more.

So, once again, those ridiculous, yet frustratingly effective (politically speaking) Repugs dust off the old fear-mongering playbook, flood our televisions with their mistruths, sway public opinion, and put to bed any real chance of reform that could help millions of uninsured Americans get the healthcare they need and save our economy down the road. All of this despite several attempts by Democrats to compromise and bring them to the negotiating table, especially in the Senate debate, where the public option proposal was first scaled down, then effectively dropped, and the “no state boundary restrictions to buying health insurance” proposal was included.

As a Democrat and Obama supporter, I admit it’s been a tough go the last few months. People like me, who felt that his presidency was the last real shot we had for a new tone in Washington and at accomplishing some truly significant bipartisan reforms were quickly shown that the honeymoon was to be short-lived and that apparently nobody will ever end the gridlock. Friends of mine on the Left feel he’s not living up to what they expected–”disappointed” is the word I hear over and over–while my friends on the Right can’t seem to get past this caricature they’ve created of the president and seem to have quickly forgotten the preceding 8 years that got us here. Despite that talk, it’s not as if the country wants to return to what we saw in the 2000s under Bush–it’s that they’re fed up with the entire process, which is certainly justified at this point, no matter your political leaning. But I hope people see what’s really been happening: we have the political party that controls 40% of the legislative body thinking they should dictate 80-90% of the legislation. That’s just a ridiculous way to begin any debate, especially given the way that many of these same people governed when they had the (slim) majority. That same party is now so fenced in by its own rhetoric that any slight move towards possibly working with this administration is something that could cost them their next election. How will we ever move forward like this?! Are we really in an era where nothing important will ever pass again without one party having complete control of all branches of government?!

BERLIN – He has drawn record-breaking crowds to rallies all over the United States. But it took a trip to Germany for Barack Obama to attract his biggest audience of all: More than 215,000 people packed into a central Berlin park on Thursday to hear Obama call for closer ties between Europe and America.

The sea of people in Tiergarten, Berlin’s central park, stretched a full mile, from the Victory Column where Obama spoke to the historic Brandenburg Gate. For his arrival, the Illinois senator, dressed in a business suit, walked alone around the Victory Column, a 226-foot pillar near the center of the park. It is an ornate monument to Prussian war triumphs of the 19th century, including the 1871 defeat of France, the country Obama will visit today.

The crowd roared as Obama made his way several hundred feet down a makeshift runway to the lectern where he stood for the speech. Obama’s rhetoric was no less sweeping.  Before the largest crowd of his campaign, Obama summoned Europeans and Americans together to “defeat terror and dry up the well of extremism that supports it” as surely as they conquered communism a generation ago.

“The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand,” Obama said, speaking not far from where the Berlin Wall once divided the city.

“The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes, natives and immigrants, Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand,” he said.

Obama said he was speaking as a citizen, not as a president, but the evening was awash in politics. His remarks inevitably invited comparison to historic speeches in the same city by Presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, and he borrowed rhetoric from his own appeals to campaign audiences in the likes of Berlin, N.H., when he addressed a crowd in one of the great cities of Europe.

‘This is our moment’
“People of Berlin, people of the world, this is our moment. This is our time,” he said.

Obama’s speech was the centerpiece of a fast-paced tour through Europe designed to reassure skeptical voters back home about his ability to lead the country and take a frayed cross-Atlantic alliance in a new direction after eight years of the Bush administration. Obama’s overseas trip has also taken him to Kuwait, Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories. Obama is meeting in Paris today with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Obama will travel to London, his last stop.

So, now that Obama has joined ol’ “My Friends” McCain as a party nominee, the attention will soon start shifting to the Veepstakes…I call him (or her…ok, him) “Number 2.”  Yes, Barry O will face a lot of initial pressure to make the “easy choice” of selecting Hillary Clinton in an attempt to merge the 18 million people who voted for her into his camp.  Many Democratic leaders and voters are calling for it.  But, as we have seen throughout this campaign thus far, Team Obama has made the “smart choice” again and again, and I believe this time will be no different.  The smart choice is not Hillary Clinton.

I could easily go into a rant about how Senator Clinton doesn’t deserve to be on the ticket with Obama given some of her campaign tactics–this is one Democrat who won’t soon forget the disappointment I had over the many instances of low-ball politics employed by both Clintons during this primary.  But not selecting Clinton for V.P. is much more than “na na na na boo boo” for me.  The role of the Vice-President has expanded greatly since the days of Dan Quayle, as the tenures of Al Gore and especially Dick Cheney have shown.  Obama needs to select somebody who will compliment his message of change, bi-partisanship, and long-held opposition to the Iraq War.  Someone with extensive foreign policy experience who may ease people’s minds about electing a relative newcomer as Commander-in-Chief in wartime.  Someone who has a geographical advantage on the electoral college map.  Someone seen as a the type of political moderate which served Democrats so well in the ‘06 mid-term elections.  This person is not Hillary Clinton.  This person is Senator Jim Webb from Virginia.

Jim Webb is relatively new to politics, though his impressive military and Washington experience served as a major factor in his election to the U.S. Senate in a race where he toppled the popular incumbent George Allen, a man many expected to be the GOP nominee for president in 2008.  In addition to being decorated for his service to the U.S. Marine Corps and Navy during the Vietnam War, Webb went on to become the nation’s first Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs in President Reagan’s Administration and was later named Secretary of the Navy.  He spoke out against the U.S. invasion of Iraq before the war started, just as Obama did, and has continued to be a critic of the Bush Administration’s handling and misrepresentations of the conflict.  He currently serves on the Foreign Relations, Veterans’ Affairs, and Armed Services committees, and recently authored a new G.I. Bill that will give all veterans free access to a college education (and campus housing)–a bill that Obama strongly supports and has already been a point of contention between he and McCain, who does not favor it.

His newcomer status makes him a change candidate in his own right.  His background in a Republican administration and moderate stances on many issues underscores the bi-partisan message Obama seeks to have be a hallmark of his presidency.  The fact that he was born in Missouri and now represents Virginia–the former an important swing state that Bush won both times and the latter a traditionally Republican state which has started trending Democrat–gives the ticket a unique geographical advantage.  Perhaps most important is Webb’s extensive military experience coupled with his opposition to the Iraq War.  He can be the credible foreign policy expert Obama can lean on when needed, but is also someone who showed the same sound judgment Obama did in rejecting this administration’s drumbeat to war in Iraq and the Bush/McCain notion of being there indefinitely.

Let the Veepstakes begin, but I had to tout my horse in this race.  Obama/Webb ‘08!!!

*It’s also worth noting that if Webb were to accept a V.P. nomination, his seat would still be controlled by a Democrat, as Democratic Governor Tom Kaine would make the appointment to fill the seat.  (Former Democratic Governor Mark Warner is set to replace long-time GOP Senator John Warner.)

In addition to momma cookin’ a breakfast with no hog, here comes the news many of us have longed to hear:

Barack Obama effectively clinched the Democratic presidential nomination Tuesday after a grueling marathon, based on an Associated Press tally of convention delegates, becoming the first black candidate ever to lead his party into a fall campaign for the White House.

Campaigning on an insistent call for change, Obama outlasted former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton in a historic race that sparked record turnout in primary after primary.

The tally was based on public declarations from delegates as well as from another 15 who have confirmed their intentions to the AP. It also included 11 delegates Obama was guaranteed as long as he gained 30 percent of the vote in South Dakota and Montana later in the day. It takes 2,118 delegates to clinch the nomination.

The 46-year-old first-term senator will face John McCain in the fall campaign to become the 44th president. Clinton stands ready to concede that her rival had amassed the delegates needed to triumph, according to officials in her campaign.

Yes, we can!!!

At long last, some candor and honesty from a top Repug:

At the conclusion of a town hall held this morning outside in Denver, John McCain decided to toss in a plug for his upcoming energy policy rollout. But in the midst of decrying the dangers of Americans reliance on foreign oil, McCain seemed to suggest that this reliance caused the current struggle in Iraq.

“My friends, I will have an energy policy that we will be talking about, which will eliminate our dependence on oil from the Middle East that will — that will then prevent us — that will prevent us from having ever to send our young men and women into conflict again in the Middle East,” McCain said.

You don’t say!  So THAT’S what that war was about!  Killing a few thousand Americans and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis to hoard some oil, huh?!  And still letting Big Oil completely wreck our economy by overcharging for gas in the process?!  Well played, you fascist fucks.

We find out today that Wyoming Governor Dave Freudenthal, a Democratic superdelegate, is endorsing Mr. Barry O.  If you’re scoring at home, or even if you’re home alone, that now brings our superdelegate count to 222 for Obama and 255 for The Witch.  Overall, with pledged delegates added, it’s now Obama with 1,638 to Clinton’s 1,507, which by my fuzzy math equals a lead of 131 for our soon-to-be nominee.  And just since March 4, Obama has picked up 11 superdelegates to Clinton’s 1.  You see, although Camp Billary apparently dunna-how do math, I think most of the remaining uncommitted Democrats can and are jumping on board.

To quote someone who regularly just makes shit up and constantly takes credit for things she had no part in:

“I went to 80 countries, you know. I gave contemporaneous accounts, I wrote about a lot of this in my book. You know, I think that, a minor blip, you know, if I said something that, you know, I say a lot of things – millions of words a day – so if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement.”

“You know???” 

As you have seen by now, we are talking about the media finally calling bullshit on one of the many Clinton claims to something that simply did not happen during her tenure as First “Lady” that we have seen during this long campaign. Again and again we have seen her take credit for things she played absolutely no part in during her hubby’s presidency, dismiss the notion that she played any role in things that he did then that are now not so popular (health care debacle, NAFTA), or simply exagerrating stories of things she actually did do to make herself look presidential. Look, nobody’s memory is absolutely perfect, and I guess there are many among us who like to try to see their role in past deeds as a little bigger than they might have actually been, but this has been a pattern throughout her campaign–her campaign of “experience”–that the media has failed to call her out on up until this point. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t see this story hanging over her for very long, it’s not that significant, but perhaps the media is ready to start calling bullshit when she just throws things out there that never happened. Perhaps it will open the door to a little retroactive reporting on some of the other crap she’s been serving Democratic voters this primary season. I can hope, you know?  Here’s the rest of the story from CBS News:

Hillary Clinton said Tuesday she made a mistake in claiming that she came under hostile fire in Bosnia 12 years ago, as rival Barack Obama’s campaign continued to challenge her credibility.

In a recent speech and interviews, the New York senator described a harrowing scene in Tuzla, Bosnia, in which she and her daughter, Chelsea, had to run for cover as soon as they landed for a visit in 1996. But video footage of the day showed a peaceful reception in which a young girl greeted the first lady on the tarmac.

Clinton told reporters in Pennsylvania on Tuesday that she erred in describing the scene, which she now realizes after talking with aides and others.

“So I made a mistake,” she said. “That happens. It proves I’m human, which you know, for some people, is a revelation.”

She claimed she misspoke and was sleep deprived, but CBS News has found several times in the past few months Senator Clinton used the Bosnia trip to try to show her international experience, reports Sharyl Attkisson. Clinton did so in Iowa in December, Texas in February and also last week.

After CBS News video showed what really happened when she landed and greeted officials, Senator Clinton maintained there were risks but explained to the Philadelphia Daily News why she was seen on the Bosnia tarmac greeting a young child if it was really so dangerous.

“I was also told that the greeting ceremony had been moved away from the tarmac but that there was this eight-year-old girl and I said, ‘Well, I, I can’t, I can’t rush by her, I’ve got to at least greet her,” Clinton said. “So I greeted her, I took her stuff and I left. Now that’s my memory of it.”

Once again her memory doesn’t match CBS News videotape, Attkisson reports. She and her daughter Chelsea lingered on the tarmac to greet U.S. military officials, took photos, and then walked to the armored vehicle where she did, eventually, duck and enter.

The more important issue, Clinton said, is whether she would be a better commander-in-chief than Obama or Republican presidential candidate John McCain. Clinton and Obama are competing for votes in Pennsylvania’s April 22 primary.

Clinton’s aides had tried to control the Bosnia flap Monday, saying the New York senator “misspoke.”

But Clinton had to address the issue herself Tuesday, after repeated airings of the 1996 video clips caused critics to ridicule her. Reminded that she had said it was the first time she had misspoken in 12 years, Clinton told reporters: “I was joking. Lighten up, guys.”

In a March 17 speech in Washington, Clinton said of the Bosnia trip: “I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.”

That account was still posted on her campaign Website on Tuesday.

Clinton told CNN last week, “There was no greeting ceremony, and we basically were told to run to our cars. Now, that is what happened.”

Several news outlets disputed the claims.

Clinton began retracting the remarks in a series of private interviews Monday and Tuesday before addressing about two dozen reporters here after a speech.
She told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: “I was sleep-deprived, and I misspoke.” She told KDKA radio in Pittsburgh: “You know, I have written about this and described it in many different settings, and I did misspeak the other day. You know, this has been a very long campaign.”

The Obama campaign fueled the Bosnia brouhaha Tuesday, sponsoring a conference call with Pennsylvania reporters that featured retired Maj. Gen. Walter Stewart of the Pennsylvania Army National Guard. Stewart said he was assigned to the Army’s European headquarters when Clinton visited Bosnia as first lady in 1996. He said her claim that she landed under enemy fire insulted U.S. soldiers charged with her security.

Clinton’s explanation that she misspoke was “really astonishing,” said Stewart, who supports Obama. “She has no sense of what a statement like that does to soldiers,” Stewart said. “She is insulting the command in its entirety. Believe me, heads would have rolled all over if the military put the first lady and her daughter in a position of unacceptable risk.”

At her news conference, Clinton said, “you know, the military and the Secret Service did a terrific job” of handling the situation in Bosnia.

Again, sorry for the end-of-February through all of March hiatus, my peeps.  That whole “getting married, honeymooning, shopping with gift cards, settling in a new place, having to train a newbie in my office while the boss was gone, and having to regularly appease Matt with tales of barbecue dreams” thing got in the way of my all-important political blogging.  Granted, it probably saved me a lot of heartburn anyway, what with all the Clinton “scorched earth” strategy taking effect, the media allowing it to slide AND helping perpetuate the slime-balling, and this whole Reverend Wright business.  The fact of the matter is, even with over a month of trying to knock the front-runner down off his pedestal, it’s true, Barack Obama has taken a beating, but has STILL kept this campaign together and is still talking about hope, fundamental change, and national unity–the same way he started at his convention speech in ‘04, the same way he won his seat in the U.S. Senate that same year, the same way he began his campaign for the presidency over 13 months ago, and the same way he has carried himself in cities all across this great nation of ours ever since.  **yes, you should be inferring that the guy doesn’t have to reinvent himself every three weeks like some ol’ broom-rider we know so well** 

I bring to you today some simple, non-fuzzy math (though Camp Billary, even with the hubby’s ability to finally make some numbers add up and balance a budget, apparently can’t figure out):

If the remaining contests split up “as expected” meaning Clinton wins her base states (PA, KY, WV, etc.) and Obama wins his base states (NC, OR, MT, etc.) and the two split Indiana down the middle, the two campaigns will likely split those 566 delegates right down the middle 283-283 (margin of error +/- 5 delegates). This means Obama would need 34% of the uncommitted superdelegates to hit the magic 2024 number, while Clinton would need 72% of the uncommitted Supers to hit 2024. 

Barack Obama is going to be the nominee, COUNT ON IT.  No chance superdelegates override the will of the people (at least not by these margins) and risk losing the next generation of Democratic voters.  Yes, Hillary’s ready to burn this bitch down to fill her rather disgusting blind ambitions, but all she’s going to end up doing is hurting her own legacy as an otherwise decent public servant and end up hurting Barack’s otherwise all but inevitable chance to beat John “My Friends” McCain come November.

More rants on The Witch, John McCain getting a pass on being a total phony all these years, and the 5-year/4,000 U.S. deaths mess that is the Iraq War coming after April 1.  Please curb your excitement, you don’t want to frighten the small children and elderly people that may be around you.