Monday

Sugar Free Schools, The border, and the Media's role

What I learned this week:
When we are tired, we don't act, think, or discern things properly. It is essential for me to get at least 8 hours of sleep to perform well in life!


What I am grateful for: I do what I love and love what I do.

Here’s a sneak-peek into what’s on Living Smart and Latina Voices this week.
On Living Smart with Patricia Gras, we interview Yvonne Butler, the first principal in the country to establish a sugar free school. Her work has led to the better health, test scores and behavior of her students. Find out what it took her to revolutionize her school, district and ultimately her city, Sun, 3:00 PM, date—Repeats following Friday at 10 PM)

This Friday night August 6th Watch award winning writer Chitra Divakaruni PhD discuss some of the greatest poems of all time.

To see more of the Living Smart favorite shows go to You Tube and type Living Smart or our website www.houstonpbs.org



Latina Voices: Smart Talk
This show was recorded before the election of 2008. We guessed who might win the Vice Presidential spot. We also interviewed a local Olympic Medal Winner Raj Bhavsar who had failed to make the olympic team twice but never gave up and eventually brought home the bronze. We talked to him and his coaches about what it takes to become an olympic winner. It wasn't easy! We also interviewed Richard Huebner of the Houston Minority Business council about women entrepeneurs and why they fail or succeed when they start a business. Finally Stephen Klineberg PhD and Joan Neuhaus Schaan both from Rice University explain the immigration issues we face in our region and what we are to expect as a result of the border violence in Mexico.

Sun, 2:30 PM, date—repeats Wed, 11:30 PM)

For more on Latina Voices, go to www.latinavoices.com


The Media's role by Patricia Gras

Many were shocked to hear what happened in Bell, California when they found the salaries of City Manager Robert Rizzo, (800,000 dollars) Assistant City Manager Angela Spaccia and Police Chief Randy Adams were a combined $1.6 million a year in a city where the median household income is $40,000, according to the Southern California Association of Governments.

People are mad and they want everyone fired. Understandably, because this has been going on for a long time.

My question was why did we just find out about this? Why is it we always find out after it is too late? Wall street also blew up in our face in 2008 and we are just now slowly dragging ourselves out of an unprecedented recession.

The Los Angeles Times cracked this particular story. Why didn't they catch it sooner?It may be because there are less investigative journalists doing this kind of work.

That's because all across the United States in every newsroom, staff is shrinking. In 2009, 8000 journalists lost their jobs.

What happens when you get rid of investigative journalists? You have less information, less government being covered, from the community to the state to the region. We all pay the price when this happens. Why is that? the old economic model of journalism isn't working. The fact is news organization are trying to figure out what needs to be done to keep business afloat.

We may not live in a country like Mexico where violence for instance has a chilling effect on investigative media. Many journalists there have lost their lives trying to report the truth. In the USA our challenge is to figure out how to make a profit out of telling the truth.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

BRING BACK THE SUGAR! Schools serve pizza and cheese sticks but you want to get rid of a few candy bars?