Fear and Freedom … Kinky Friedman’s Run for Public Office (Wednesday, Nov 20 2013) — a bag of Doritos …item 3.. Building the American Dream one student at a time (Posted on Sunday, 02.23.14) …
Image by marsmet533
"I had a constable in Bandera (Texas) tell me a few weeks ago that we’re never going to win the so-called drug war, at least where pot is concerned," says Friedman. "And this is some guy who would be your worst redneck nightmare in a late-night traffic stop.
"He also told me that he has to go somewhere nearly every night and stop some guy who’s had ten beers or four whiskeys from beating his wife, and that just doesn’t happen with marijuana smokers. The only thing a marijuana smoker is likely to beat up is a bag of Doritos."
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… FLICKRIVER … marsmet532a … interesting
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…..item 1)…. Even Though He Doesn’t Smoke It Anymore, Marijuana Is at the Core of Kinky Friedman’s Run for Public Office …
… HoustonPress News … www.houstonpress.com/ …
Political gadfly Kinky Friedman thinks winning the Agriculture Commissioner race is the key to legalizing marijuana in Texas.
By William Michael Smith
Wednesday, Nov 20 2013
www.houstonpress.com/2013-11-21/news/kinky-friedman/
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Kinky Friedman hasn’t smoked pot in more than 20 years, but that’s not keeping him from running for Texas Agriculture Commissioner with legalizing cannabis as his main platform plank. So far, Democratic power brokers seem more willing to French-kiss a horned toad with bad breath than embrace Friedman’s candidacy.
Friedman says the last couple of years, all the governor and attorney general have done “is rant about Obama.”
The "please, go away" looks are palpable, but no one really wants to debate this guy, look him in the eye or stand next to him in a photo op. You want to "out-Texas" Kinky Friedman? Go ahead on.
So now, if high-profile Alvin fastballer Nolan Ryan enters the fray on the Republican ticket as he has hinted, the race for Texas Agriculture Commissioner just might be Texas’s top political circus of 2014 bar none, the stuff CNN and Fox and MSNBC can turn into CarMax ads for weeks and weeks. Even without Ryan, the race has the potential to create interesting ripples in a state that has been solidly red for two decades.
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Kinky Friedman says he’s the only politician in the state who isn’t too chicken to propose legalizing marijuana.
Daniel Kramer
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Nolan Ryan pauses for a moment at his ranch.
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Don’t worry about the fact that a recent national Gallup poll indicated 58 percent of Americans now favor full legalization and that most recent polls show the same percentage in Texas. Don’t worry that the Agriculture Commissioner can’t actually enact a law legalizing pot. Just understand that the Friedman camp plans to frame the race as a statewide referendum on legalization. Period.
Of course, Friedman’s sincerity was immediately questioned. The day of his official announcement, Republican candidate Eric Opiela quickly issued a press release that characterized Friedman’s candidacy as a joke, saying, "The issues facing Texas are serious. Our Agriculture Commissioner should be too."
"We need an agriculture commissioner," added Opiela, "who will focus on jobs, not jokes; drought, not drama and water lines, not punch lines."
Yes, it was that scripted and wooden.
Eye roll from Friedman, who says he expected GOP candidates would take a dismissive tack in responding to his candidacy.
"But if they really weren’t worried about me, I don’t think they’d have started attacking me immediately."
"Look, I’m 69, I don’t have time for stunts," the musician, novelist, cigar and salsa salesman, tequila distiller, former Peace Corps volunteer and maverick politician explains as he walks up the Drag in Austin puffing his trademark cigar. "I’m dead serious about this run and about pushing for legalization. Marijuana is at the heart of a crucial matrix that, if we can get it straightened out and in motion, will become a great economic engine we can use to solve some of the biggest problems we face as a state.
"It’s time Texans asked themselves: Are we going to secede or are we going to lead?"
Friedman, who lives on a ranch outside Kerrville where he operates an animal rescue charity and a youth camp, bolsters his contention that times and Texas attitudes are changing with examples of lawmen telling him we are losing the war on drugs and that they are wasting their time on small-time pot-smoking cases instead of tackling more serious crimes.
"I had a constable in Bandera tell me a few weeks ago that we’re never going to win the so-called drug war, at least where pot is concerned," says Friedman. "And this is some guy who would be your worst redneck nightmare in a late-night traffic stop.
"He also told me that he has to go somewhere nearly every night and stop some guy who’s had ten beers or four whiskeys from beating his wife, and that just doesn’t happen with marijuana smokers. The only thing a marijuana smoker is likely to beat up is a bag of Doritos."
Friedman cites the cost to the public for enforcement of marijuana possession as "a 0 million economic burden that has zero return for the citizens of Texas."
"We’ve let these corporate prisons become holding tanks for pot smokers, and most of ’em are inner-city minorities," Friedman explains. "That’s a sad commentary on how the system is broken. I doubt most Texans want an economy based on prisoners and prison jobs."
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While the blue-versus-red face-off between Fort Worth Democrat Wendy Davis and current Attorney General Gregg Abbott will likely be the most bitterly fought and heavily scrutinized statewide contest in 2014, the race for Agriculture Commissioner may well be more entertaining. As The Dallas Morning News has already pointed out, that down-ballot race used to be about candidates positioning themselves as the most legitimate rancher or farmer, but that is almost a non-factor for 2014.
Not only is the irreverent Friedman in the race, Rick Perry lieutenant and former state representative Sid Miller — who introduced the sonogram portion of the controversial abortion law that elicited then-unknown Davis’s now-famous filibuster, making her a national name literally overnight — is currently thought to be the most likely Republican to square off with Friedman next November.
Friedman’s name-recognition factor dwarfs Miller’s, but adding to the potential for a circus spectacle campaign as candidates duck and dodge the marijuana issue is the recent announcement that right-wing lightning rod, rock guitarist and gun control opponent Ted Nugent will serve as Miller’s campaign treasurer. But all bets on Miller even winning the Republican primary are off if baseball celebrity and beef purveyor Nolan Ryan enters the field.
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Within days of resigning as the chief executive officer of the Texas Rangers baseball team, the former Astros great launched trial balloons in the press hinting at a run for Agriculture Commissioner. (The filing deadline for the race is December 9, a little less than three weeks away.)
But Nugent and Ryan aren’t the only celebrities throwing their weight into the race. Longtime legalization advocate, marijuana connoisseur and Texas country-music icon Willie Nelson has pledged to help his friend Friedman’s campaign with its fundraising.
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Carolyn Farb is among Kinky Friedman’s supporters.
Jason Wolter
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With all those musicians involved, the campaign songs they generate alone will be worth the price of admission.
Couple Friedman, Ryan, Miller, Nelson and Nugent with the other Republican candidates — virtually unknown Uvalde mayor J. Allen Carnes, former state representative Tommy Merritt of Longview and attorney/Republican strategist/Tea Party favorite Opiela of Karnes City — and the elements for a bizarre who-knows-what-idiocies-will-be-uttered campaign even by recent Texas standards seem to be in place.
"A few months ago I wasn’t sure it was time to bring up marijuana," Friedman explains, waving his cigar for emphasis, "but there’s been tremendous backlash and fallout from the government shutdown that seems to have opened the door to possibilities that didn’t exist before that. And there’s extreme backlash about the Republican shenanigans that took place in the special session of the legislature.
Friedman, the only Democrat on the primary ballot so far, says he also intends to push for the revitalization of the hemp industry in Texas and the legalization of casino gambling. He ticks off drought remediation, water conservation and development, and the growing feral-hog population as urgent problems to be addressed. But legalizing pot will be his go-to issue.
"Couple that with Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s change of heart on marijuana plus recent polls showing the U.S. population in favor of legalization," he says, " [and] that makes a pretty strong argument in my mind that people are ready for some common sense to prevail."
Friedman is referring to CNN chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta, who was against medicinal use and legalization for years but did a complete about-face when his special "Weed" aired in August.
In a summary of the program, Gupta wrote, "I mistakenly believed the Drug Enforcement Agency listed marijuana as a Schedule 1 substance because of sound scientific proof. Surely, they must have quality reasoning as to why marijuana is in the category of the most dangerous drugs that have ‘no accepted medicinal use and a high potential for abuse.’ They didn’t have the science to support that claim, and I now know that when it comes to marijuana neither of those things are true. It doesn’t have a high potential for abuse, and there are very legitimate medical applications. In fact, sometimes marijuana is the only thing that works."
Gupta went on to state, "We have been terribly and systematically misled for nearly 70 years in the United States, and I apologize for my own role in that."
"Twenty states are already allowing medical use," says Friedman. "Is Texas going to be the last state to allow it? This is something we need to put on the table and discuss immediately because there’s all kinds of positive research. This stuff can help a lot of very sick people and that’s the right thing to do.
"We’ve got M.D. Anderson in Houston, the top cancer research hospital in the world, but we’re not even letting them look into marijuana?" he scoffs. "The top cancer experts in the world aren’t looking into this? That’s not just crazy, it’s inhumane."
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In spite of high name recognition and support from celebrities like Nelson, Friedman carries plenty of baggage into the race. Influential Democrats still hold grudges over his 2006 independent run for governor, in which Friedman garnered 12 percent of the popular vote and was blamed by some for pulling votes and money away from moderate Democratic candidate Chris Bell of Houston. Democratic officials also blame Friedman for a lack of support for former Houston mayor Bill White’s run for governor in 2010.
But while most statewide Democratic Party operatives have frostily ignored Friedman’s candidacy, on November 7 the Al Jazeera news network filmed a segment at his ranch. He’s already had one interview with Fox News talk-show maven Don Imus, who supported Friedman in previous races.
Although the race for Agriculture Commissioner is not usually a particularly high-profile contest, the office has been a springboard for numerous Texas politicians with higher aspirations. Most notably, Governor Rick Perry served from 1991 until 1999, when he ran for lieutenant governor.
Despite its lack of day-to-day visibility, with one in seven Texans working in agriculture and an annual gross revenue of around 0 billion, the office affects a crucial segment of the Texas economy.
But if Friedman is expecting rousing support from other Texas Democrats who are concerned about certain marijuana-related issues, he’s likely to be disappointed. In this past legislative session, Fort Worth’s Lon Burnam and Houston’s Harold Dutton sponsored a bill to reduce marijuana possession sentences that never made it out of the powerful Calendar Committee, which decides when bills will be brought to the House floor for debate. Burnam says he hopes another candidate will step forward to challenge Friedman in the Democratic primary.
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…..item 2)…. FSU Hosts Mentoring Institute …
… WCTV News … www.wctv.tv/home/headlines/ … Coverage You Can Count On ! …
By: Lanetra Bennett – Email
Updated: Wed 5:53 PM, Dec 11, 2013
By: Lanetra Bennett
December 11, 2013
www.wctv.tv/home/headlines/Mentoring-Mentors-235474561.html
Tallahassee, FL – Mentors from Florida State University and the community participated in a daylong conference Wednesday.
It was sponsored by the FSU’s Center for Leadership and Social Change.
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Dozens of mentors took part in several different workshops. The goal was to share mentoring practices and be encouraged by one another in order better serve those they mentor.
Joi Phillips, the Program Coordinator for Youth Programs, says, "It’s a great opportunity for them to build on their relationships and to continue to have conversations about life and things outside of just academic work. Also, being able to network with other people."
FSU’s Women’s Basketball Coach, Sue Semrau, and Vanessa Fuch, FSU’s Senior Associate Athletics Director, were the keynote speakers.
This is the second year FSU has held the event. The theme was, "Femina Perfecta: Mentoring Women and Girls in the 21st Century.
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….item 3)…. Building the American Dream one student at a time …
… Miami Herald … www.miamiherald.com/ …
Miami Herald > Opinion > Other Views
IMMIGRATION
BY EDUARDO J. PADRÓN
WWW.MDC.EDU
Posted on Sunday, 02.23.14
www.miamiherald.com/2014/02/23/3952051/building-the-ameri…
For DREAMers, “life” seems to happen a lot more. The unexpected circumstances, the twists and turns of everyday life appear to occur more frequently and affect more severely our undocumented youth. These life challenges occur at the same time they are facing an immigration policy in need of reform, one that leaves them in limbo with their futures on hold.
More than 2 million young immigrants have arrived in the United States as minors. They’ve attended public schools and grown up as Americans. Bicultural and bilingual, they have enriched their communities and fully embraced their adopted homeland.
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img code photo … Building the American Dream
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MCT MAURICIO GUTIERREZ / MCT
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Yet without work permits or access to federal grants and loans, they often struggle to finance a college education. Today, less than 10 percent of undocumented high school graduates go to college — not because they don’t want to, but because they can’t afford it. Some states bar DREAMers from attending state colleges or require them to pay out-of-state tuition rates, as is the case in Florida.
Such is the case of Cristina Velasquez, who arrived in Wisconsin at age 6 from her native Venezuela. Later, during high school in Miami-Dade County at Reagan in Doral, she took honors classes. She got good grades. She tutored math in underserved communities and was vice president of her student government. But she wasn’t eligible for scholarships and couldn’t afford the much higher out-of-state tuition her undocumented status mandated.
With no options, she looked for work with a fading dream of a college education and a professional career. For Cristina and many others, not going to college translates to a waste of immense potential.
But today, there is cause for hope. With the executive action taken by President Barack Obama allowing for Deferred Action for Child Arrivals (DACA), eligible DREAMers can legally work and stay here temporarily. And additional help is on the way in the form of The DREAM.US Scholarship Fund ( www.thedream.us.).
Not content to wait for Washington to act on immigration reform, The DREAM.US founders, led by Donald E. Graham, philanthropist and chairman and CEO of Graham Holdings Company, recently announced the formation of a new national movement. Over the next decade The DREAM.US will provide scholarships and create a community of support for 2,000 highly motivated, low-income DREAMers to graduate with career-ready degrees.
To date, the co-founders have raised more than million for The DREAM.US from philanthropic and business leaders nationally, including the Graham family and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Twelve institutions of higher learning, including Miami Dade College, have signed on as partners, pledging support for the mission of this organization and reaffirming our commitment to our DREAMer scholars.
In return, the students have made a commitment to engage and work hard, and maintain a grade-point average of 3.0 or better. Thirty-nine scholars have already received The DREAM.US scholarships and made this commitment to excel. Twenty-two of these scholars are studying at MDC, including Cristina Velasquez.
She is now enrolled in MDC’s Honors College and wants to become a lawyer. She’ll continue tutoring and aim for a summer government relations program. Being able to study is “a weight off my shoulders,” she says.
On Feb. 11, MDC hosted the first meeting of MDC DREAM.US scholars and their campus advisors. We were joined by the founders and administrators of The DREAM.US. At this meeting we congratulated our MDC students, and they, in turn, reiterated their commitment to fulfill the hopes of their families, their college, their community and nation.
In spite of great odds, these students never gave up on their dreams. And we at Miami Dade College have taken to heart the mission of The DREAM.US as it focuses on “building the American Dream one student at a time.”
Eduardo J. Padrón is president of Miami Dade College.
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