November 29, 2007English class studies a tragedyThe lights went dark in the classroom Wednesday morning, and a video of Sean Taylor's greatest hits started playing. Taylor slamming some hapless Dallas Cowboy. Taylor taking out Donovan McNabb of the Philadelphia Eagles. There, on the screen before the all-male English class at William Fleming High School, Taylor laid a hit on Pittsburgh Steeler Willie Parker that rattled my teeth. When Taylor wasn't hitting, he was stripping the ball from opponents' hands or stepping in front of them and stealing their passes -- and their glory. That was the "explosive" Sean Taylor, as junior Tre' Jones described the Washington Redskins' star safety. But when the lights came back up in the classroom, discussion turned to the dead Sean Taylor. "It's all over that quick," Antonio Tucker, 16, lamented. "Just all over." He was referring not to the video but to Taylor's young life November 25, 2007Outtakes with Rehema EllisRehema Ellis is a veteran journalist and NBC network correspondent who has covered just about every story imaginable. Firefighters, the environment, education, the pope and flex-time for working moms, just to name a few. But a five-part series beginning tonight on "NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams" strikes an intensely personal chord. Ellis is the lead reporter in the series called "African-American Women: Where They Stand." "I'm an African-American woman," Ellis said in a phone conversation Saturday from her office at NBC headquarters in New York. "This is my story." She added, "This is an American story." Spotlight finally falls on black womenAs a black woman, Tracey Wilson of Roanoke wants America to know that black women "raise our children with morals and values." Marilyn Kershaw of Blacksburg wants America to know, "I am an independent thinker. I think of myself as a woman, then as a black woman. I have very much an affinity for my race." Her daughter Njeri, 25, asks her fellow countrymen to understand that though she is educated and working on a graduate degree, she, too, has to "go through struggles." Rosalyn Robinson, 49, of Columbia, S.C., implores America not to politically pigeonhole her. She isn't yet backing anyone for president. She has no particular allegiance to Hillary because she's a woman nor to Barack because he's black. "I have problems with both of them," said the substitute teacher visiting Roanoke last week. These black women reflect the myriad of opinions and voices of a demographic too often muted in our country and whose successes and challenges too often are dismissed or overlooked. November 22, 2007Around all corners, impacts were madeIn the rush of our lives, the calendar affords us a reprieve today to take stock and say thanks. Many of our thank-yous are personal, uttered in the private sanctuaries of our hearts and minds. But on this day, we use this space to show public gratitude for friends and neighbors who graced this column in the past year and make a community contribution in varying ways November 20, 2007Mothers' hearts can be blind to dangerThe shooting deaths four years ago of a young mother and her three children simultaneously broke Roanoke's heart and served as a chilling reminder. After Angela Arrington and her children were mercilessly gunned down in their home, the Rev. Bill Lee of Loudon Avenue Christian Church urged women in his congregation to know, really know, the men they were bringing into their lives -- and by extension, their homes. The shooter had been Arrington's boyfriend, who lived with her sometimes. November 17, 2007Caught in a trapA recent blog entry captured the frustration of dozens of readers fed up with speed demons tearing through their Roanoke Valley neighborhoods, oblivious to the speed limit. Readers, meet Granville Hogg of Northampton County on Virginia's eastern shore. Hogg devised a do-it-yourself speed trap to put the brakes on the leadfoots racing down his rural road, killing his lambs, neighbors' dogs and area deer. Hogg had his own speed-limit signs made to state specs and posted them in his front yard. Voila! The speed limit on his road instantly dropped from 55 mph to 35 mph. The signs looked authentic enough to fool even a state trooper who issued a few speeding tickets based on the phony baloney signs. The scam, er, civic activism, lasted about six months until authorities began to smell a rat. Threatened with prosecution, Hogg immediately removed the signs. His neighbor calls him a "hero." I wouldn't go that far, but he sure gets points for originality. November 15, 2007Kaine's take on teens and sex is practicalThere's the take of people like state Sen. Ken Cuccinelli on teens and sex. Teach young people the virtues of abstinence, and abstinence only. Tell them not to have sex, and they won't. And then there's the take of a Roanoke youth I interviewed 2 1/2 years ago. He was a junior at Patrick Henry High School. His name escapes me, but his candor and cavalier attitude about his sexual encounters have stuck with me. "You walk up behind a girl, whisper in her ear and it's on," he said nonchalantly. Continue reading "Kaine's take on teens and sex is practical" » November 13, 2007Dropped out? You can drop back inIn 1990, Dale Carroll dropped out of Albemarle High School in Charlottesville, a half-credit shy of earning his diploma. In late September, thanks to a program offered by Roanoke schools, he dropped back in. Twice a week for three weeks, Carroll, now 37, took a government class in the evenings at Patrick Henry High School. Last week, he received his diploma. Yes, it was that simple. Carroll took advantage of a little-utilized program that Roanoke schools offer to adult dropouts who were short of graduating by only a class or two. November 11, 2007Monday morning quarterbacking...A show of hands for the folks who watched 60 Minutes last night. I'm thinking in particular of Morley Safer's segment on "The Millenials." They need to grow the heck up. No, I didn't walk 20 miles to school through hail storms, blizzards and all that jazz. I'm all for praising employees when they do well. But I can't get with coddling grown people to get them to do their jobs. As my old boss in Detroit used to say, "If it were fun, we wouldn't call it work." That's not to say we shouldn't enjoy our jobs. But the idea galls me of pampering some adult prima donna who thinks he's owed something i.e. the royal treatment just because he showed up. Puhleeeeze!. Admittedly, I don't know technology the way they do. But then again, they don't know life the way I do.
No room at inn for more homelessA couple of weeks ago, I had a dream: I was scavenging through a Roanoke city hall Dumpster and stumbled upon this crumpled-up memorandum: From: Roanoke city officials To: All localities and charities outside our city limits Re: Homelessness. November 8, 2007Medical privacy rules taken to extremesYou've probably read a story in this newspaper in the past month or so about someone shot, or stabbed, or injured in a bad car crash, and that story contained the all-too familiar phrase, "a hospital spokesperson declined to give [injured person's] condition." Or maybe, you have experienced the roadblock at a personal level when you called a nursing home to check on a loved one's condition: No information is available. The latest example is William Byrd High School, where officials this week told an auditorium full of hysterical parents to stand down because there isn't a problem, but golly, if there is, they can't tell you all the facts. Just trust them -- they're doing everything they can Continue reading "Medical privacy rules taken to extremes" » November 6, 2007Hillary doesn't need your sympathyHillary Clinton is no pansy. Do I need to remind everyone this is the same woman who thought nothing of offending the card-carrying devotees of the Country Music Association with her Tammy Wynette "Stand by your man" sacrilege? And for good measure, she blasphemed Ms. Toll House in another interview. November 4, 2007Column evokes speedy responsesIf speeders ripping and running up and down Roanoke Valley streets get you steamed, I hate to tell you this, but get in line. Boy did last week's column on speeding touch a nerve! I asked readers to share the names of area roads that drivers mistake for racetracks. And, whoa, did they respond. The column received more blog posts than anything I've written recently. The piece, "Drivers take the need for speed too far," ran last Sunday. I was still getting responses Wednesday. November 1, 2007A flake -- without the snowGood gosh, did Donald Rumsfeld, the thankfully politically departed HMIC (Head Man In Charge) of the disastrous Iraq war, take the American people for for dolts? Gullible idiots? Come on, we deserved better than that. The Washingon Post got its hands on a series of memos the defense secretary wrote during his time in the hot seat at the Pentagon. Rummy looks like a dummy in these missives, referred to as "snowflakes": We're getting our heads handed to us in Iraq and he writes in a 2004 memo that the challenges there are "not unusual." No disrespect, sir, but I'm sure the boots on the ground would beg to differ. After retired generals called for his head, Rumsfeld's remedy was to change the channel: "Talk about Somalia, the Philippines, etc. Make the American people realize they are surrounded in the world by violent extremists." According to the Post, Rumsfeld flirted with the idea of redefining the terrorism fight as a "worldwide insurgency." He then urged advisers "to test what the results could be" if the war on terrorism were renamed. Rummy's form of governance has an Orwellian ring. I guess we're lucky he was shown the door before he could rename the Defense Department the Ministry of Love.
"...there were significant increases in students taking classes outside the regular school day, including lessons in music, dance, languages, computers and religion." I'm all for personal enrichment. I'm not, however, for kids becoming little robots with their days so jammed up they have to carry palm pilots to keep up with their next appointment. Dang, what happened to the days when kids just went outside and played or curled up with a book at their leisure? Oh, I'm showing my age.
The jury is still out on the tangible results (i.e. test scores) of such classes. However, the intangibles cannot be overlooked. Young men who often are not in an environment that values education surely benefit from being in the presence of other reinforcements with the common purpose of learning. Same with young women. s Needs satisfied for shoe repair businessRandy Mitchell and Chris Lowe come at life from different angles. Mitchell tunes his radio dial to Rush Limbaugh and Neal Boortz. Lowe prefers Soulja Boy's "Crank That," and anything else WJJS 106 FM plays. Mitchell is an older white guy who dropped out of corporate America. Lowe is a young black man who dropped out of college. Mitchell, gregarious and lively, wears his gray hair neatly trimmed. Lowe, soft-spoken and unfailingly polite, wears his neatly cornrowed. Yet somehow in the back-room clutter of Mitchell's business -- Schafer's Shoe Repair on Brandon Avenue -- amid Birkenstocks, Allen Edmondses and Liz Claibornes, these opposites attracted. Continue reading "Needs satisfied for shoe repair business" » |
About this blog In her signature plainspoken style, Michigan native Shanna Flowers peels away the layers and gets to the heart of the issues. No pretense. Just straightforward perspective. Shanna writes about local people whose circumstances reflect decisions made as near as City Hall or as far away as the halls of Congress. Other times, she weighs in on a topic because it is incredibly ridiculous. Or heartening. Or fascinating. Read Shanna's column three days a week, Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, at roanoke.com
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