“Really? The NY Times Passes on Obama's 'Buck-Stops-Here Philosophy' - News Busters” plus 3 more

Really? The NY Times Passes on Obama's 'Buck-Stops-Here Philosophy' - News Busters
Modern Philosophy with ‘Live Radio’ - New University Newspaper
Opinion: Schools not doing students any favors with ... - The Daily News Online
Food for thought: New vegan restaurant offers optional meditation philosophy, but without pushing ... - Naples Daily News

Really? The NY Times Passes on Obama's 'Buck-Stops-Here Philosophy' - News Busters

Posted: 09 Jun 2010 12:28 PM PDT

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President Obama provided some conservative belly laughs telling an audience of high school graduates in Kalamazoo, Michigan: "Don't make excuses. Take responsibility not just for your successes."

This from a president who has blamed the last administration (and the Republican Party in general) for various economic and regulatory failures under his watch.

This should have been an easy target for New York Times White House reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg, but she whiffed, even signing on to Obama's "buck-stops-here philosophy" in Tuesday's "Obama Gives Students a Principle to Guide Them."

President Obama has been telling the nation that he takes responsibility for cleaning up the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. On Monday, he imparted his buck-stops-here philosophy to an audience of high school graduates, telling them: "Don't make excuses. Take responsibility not just for your successes. Take responsibility where you fall short as well."

Here are just a few of Obama's blame-shifts, courtesy of Senate Republicans:

"When I Showed Up After Inauguration, They Had Left A Big Mess On The Floor. So I Got A Mop, And I Started Cleaning Up Their Mess." (President Obama, Remarks, Norfolk, VA, 10/27/09)

"By Any Measure, My Administration Inherited A Fiscal Disaster." (President Obama, Remarks, 3/4/09)

"Now, If We Had Taken Office In Ordinary Times, I Would Have Liked Nothing More Than To Start Bringing Down The Deficit. But We Took Office Amid A Crisis." (President Obama, State Of The Union Address, 1/27/10)

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Modern Philosophy with ‘Live Radio’ - New University Newspaper

Posted: 09 Jun 2010 09:08 AM PDT

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Hip-hop group Live Radio, which features producers Mehrzad Sotoodeh and Borna Rangchi both of whom will be graduating from UC Irvine this spring, see their music as more than just beats and rhymes. They see it as something bigger.
'When I write rhymes I like to spit a certain cadence, a certain style, but also drop some knowledge. I consider this whole group like modern day philosophers,' said Live Radio emcee Laidlaw.
Producer Sotoodeh expands on his role in the making of Live Radio's music, one that wouldn't be assumed
'We take samples from here and there and put them together, it's like being a junkyard artist,' Sotoodeh said.
Whatever you would like to call what these guys do, they are passionate about hip-hop music and serious about contributing to the genre. Sotoodeh and Rangchi, who have been key players in UCI's Club Hip Hop Congress, took time away from the free concert thrown by the same club on June 3 to talk about how they came together, their approach to writing and the state of hip-hop in American popular music.
'It all started when I went to Best Buy one day, and I was looking for music and computer programs and whatnot, and I saw this thing called 'Acid DJ'. But, I was like I don't want to buy this. So I just put it in my pocket and walked out. I gave it to [Sotoodeh] and then it was just like everyday. We basically just taught ourselves,' Rangchi said.
Sotoodeh adds, 'We just started fucking around, then we just got more serious about it because people heard our stuff and they really liked it, and then we got really serious when we met [Juggernaut, Laidlaw, and Dynamics],' Sotoodeh said.
This was the origin of Sotoodeh and Rangchi's roles as producers; DJs who came together to create the backbone of what would become Live Radio.
Meanwhile emcees Laidlaw and Juggernaut, as well as DJ Dynamics started writing together after meeting in a party in their hometown of Echo Park.
'I started emceeing when I was younger,' Jugga said. 'Just influenced by hip-hop, you know. I would just go home and try to write a rhyme, because my other homies could spit rhymes, too, that were older than me, so that's how I started.
Laidlaw said, 'The first rhyme I ever wrote I was 11 years old. The reason why I wrote it

Popularity: unranked [?]

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Opinion: Schools not doing students any favors with ... - The Daily News Online

Posted: 09 Jun 2010 08:04 AM PDT

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When two candidates run for president, there is only one who actually gets to become president. When Olympic athletes face off, only one is awarded the gold medal.

So why is it in schools these days that everybody wins?

It is increasingly popular in today's school systems to eliminate winners and losers, leaving everyone as the winners. However, is this a good idea?

According to Grace Chen, author of the article, "Pros and Cons of Sports Competition at the High School Level,'' competition is good for students, something completely wiped out by the ''everybody wins'' philosophy.

Competition helps students develop interpersonal skills and also to learn how to deal with winning and losing. Moreover, competition also teaches kids rules, and sometimes, when in the group setting, how to work as a team. All good skills for students to have because the truth is in the real world not everybody wins.

When there is one job position open and three applicants, only one person is going to get that job. Therefore, how is this new dogma implemented in many schools and student organizations helping students to prepare for the real world?

Everyone winning in high school and elementary school gives kids a sense of entitlement; they've never had to truly compete for anything and now they are not ready for the harsh reality that in the real world everyone does not in fact win.

Everything in life is a competition; students soon learn that in their later years of high school. High school seniors alone are competing to get into college, to win scholarships, for certain dorms, and even spots on college athletic teams, and students within the confines of high school are usually competing for things such as spots on sports teams, clubs, or their school show. Allowing everyone to win in high school and elementary school is not preparing students to deal with all this competition.

However, the National Network for Child Care argues that competition is not in fact good for children. The natural tendency for people to be competitive is an acquired trait and doesn't benefit children. While competition creates a sense of camaraderie amongst the winners, what does it do for the losers?

I understand this argument; young children are impressionable and if they learn that hard work often doesn't always pay off with a large trophy or another kind of reward, they may get discouraged and discontinue doing something that they love simply because they didn't win.

Although, it is my personal belief that if you love something enough it doesn't matter whether you win or lose, you will still have the drive to continue and improve. Though anxiety and sometimes the loss of fun in whatever activity students are competing in sometimes occurs, competition still helps kids deal with these losses. Although, anxiety and the loss of fun of an activity are most definitely negative characteristics of competition.

Too often competition is being eliminated, creating the "everyone wins" ideal. For example, Rochester area school districts, including Le Roy and Batavia, often compete in the Stars of Tomorrow program. This program sends judges to participating schools' musicals throughout the year, judging and critiquing them. At the end of the year there is an award ceremony, awarding schools that have done exceptionally well with certificates.

However, only a few years ago this was a much more competitive program. Rather than having a number of schools recognized for each category, which are announced at the ceremony, the old Stars of Tomorrow program had a much more Tony Awards feeling to it.

Nominations were released and only one winner was chosen and awarded a crystal trophy for each category. However that tradition is now ancient history and all I have to ask is, why? Did people really get that upset that they didn't win; they were told over and over again that just to be nominated was a huge honor, and honestly, who doesn't want a crystal trophy?

It probably wasn't hard to discern my opinion over the matter from my article. I believe that competition should be present in high schools; it is the only way that students can learn to compete in the years ahead. Moreover, winning and losing in competitions is a great way for students to learn their skills and limitations.

Failure to take home the first prize may teach someone that perhaps their skills lie elsewhere, and winning first prize can encourage a student to continue that activity and possibly even make a career out of it. However, I do stand by the fact that everyone should be at least given a chance as a child. Cutting a child from a sport or any other activity is undoubtedly the best way to be sure that they never try again, though, that doesn't mean that there can't be tournaments or MVPs.

All and all I think we have all gotten a little too soft because the truth is our children can handle it if they are not the winners, and if they can't, they will learn.

There will always be somebody better, and we must all learn to deal with that.

-- By Audrey Schultz

Le Roy Class of 2010

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Food for thought: New vegan restaurant offers optional meditation philosophy, but without pushing ... - Naples Daily News

Posted: 09 Jun 2010 03:39 AM PDT

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Loving Hut

975 Pine Ridge Road, Naples

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Hours: 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., 5 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.

NAPLES — This restaurant's story has an unusual cast of characters: Vegan food, meditation and a woman called the Supreme Master.

But the local owners hope Naples residents will embrace their fresh, healthy vegan cuisine, cooking classes and the opportunity to explore a different way of eating in a town where vegan dining is hard to find.

The Loving Hut vegan restaurant recently opened in Naples at the corner of Pine Ridge and U.S. 41 North. It's one of 160 Loving Hut restaurants in 23 countries. There is another in Cape Coral.

"We always wanted to have an option to eat vegan out," said Brenna Tu, who co-owns the restaurant with Paul and Loi Dang and a number of silent partners. "There are not a lot of vegan options here in Southwest Florida, and we want to show people that being vegan or vegetarian doesn't mean you have to sacrifice your palate."

The restaurant's menu is slanted toward Asian cuisine, including Vietnamese, Chinese, Thai and Indian, Tu said. Some of the most popular entrees include rice paper spring rolls with jicama, curries and soy protein cooked with different sauces, spices and vegetables, served on rice.

Mother and daughter Peggy Douglas, 73, and Angela Neumann, 46, sat together inside the restaurant on a recent weekday afternoon, eating lunch. It was their first visit, and although they aren't vegan, they wanted a healthy lunch, they said.

"So far so good," Neumann, said of her vermicelli spring roll salad. "We always like to go to healthy restaurants. This is a needed place here in Naples."

At a nearby table, Brenda Lee, 49, and Victor Tinucci, 62, agreed.

"I thought it was very good and the prices were great," Tinucci said.

You might eat at the Loving Hut and not notice, but in the restaurant's bar seating area, there is a photo of a woman, and behind it, a television playing a satellite TV station called Supreme Master Television.

The photo is the woman they call Supreme Master Ching Hai, a Vietnamese-born spiritual leader who practices and promotes a type of meditation called Quan Yin. She created both the concept for the Loving Hut restaurants and Supreme Master Television, which is shown on satellite TV or at www.suprememastertv.com.

The first Loving Hut restaurant opened in Taipei, Taiwan, in April 2008; each restaurant is owned by a person or group of people, most of whom follow her meditation practice, said David Smugar, Loving Hut spokesperson. Ching Hai does not own any of the restaurants herself, he said.

Ching Hai met a spiritual teacher in the Himalayas who taught her a meditation practice, which she now shares with her followers, Smugar said. Being vegan is part of that spiritual path, because it helps maintain compassion toward animals, minimize environmental effects, improve health and, if a person is interested in spiritual progress, animal products can hold a person back, he added.

Where Ching Hai lives is not precisely known, because she likes to keep a low profile, Smugar said.

Spend some time looking online and you'll find people either singing the praises of her or calling her a cult leader.

Ching Hai, under the name Celestia de Lamour, turned up in Florida before her restaurants, however. She became entangled in a strange saga with a national park in South Florida in 2004 when she started to build a retreat on her property bordering Biscayne Bay in Miami, building structures and an island in the waters of the national park — without permission and destroying mangroves in the process.

When investigators found the environmental violation, she and the workmen vanished, according to media accounts. Miami-Dade County Police Environmental Crimes division took possession of the land, park staff restored the mangroves, and the village of Palmetto Bay bought the land for a park and library.

Tu emphasized that, while the restaurant's concept originated with Supreme Master Ching Hai and the spiritual leader promotes a life path through meditation, the spiritual teachings and the restaurant are separate.

"Our goal is not to talk to people about meditation," Tu said. "That's personal. We are here strictly as a restaurant, to provide vegan meals and then, if people are interested, giving them information about how they can prepare vegetarian and vegan food at home."

The restaurant will be offering free cooking classes, taught by the chef or employees, in the near future, Tu said.

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Philosophy

Wednesday, June 9, 2010