Interview with Tom Smith, Executive Director of Long Run Children's Learning Centers Center

I have been working with a Minneapolis-based nonprofit called First Children's Finance for about 8 months now.  We do a lot of training and consulting for childcare center directors, so when I remembered that my Uncle Tom is the Executive Director at a center in the Pittsburgh area, I thought I'd email him with a few questions for the first ever interview on this blog!  As I have mentioned before on this blog, early education and childcare is extremely important.  Here is the interview in full, with a few notes that I have added in.

Question 1:  How long have you worked for Long Run Children's Center, and what attracted you to work there?
A:  I assumed the position of Executive Director in August of 1999. The school opened in 1962, and the founder, Bertha Mae Chaplin, had been its only Director until she decided to retire. It was an attractive job for someone looking for an administrative position in early childhood – a well-established program in a brand-new building, NAEYC-accredited, and (at the time) well-supported financially.

Question 2:  What is the mission of Long Run and why is it important?
A:  The Mission Statement is too long to insert here; let me just say that the Center was created to provide preschool services for children with special needs, a population that was largely un-served at that time. In the years since, the service has evolved, and now consists of inclusive preschool classes which also offer benefits to local typically-developing children. We believe that preschool education in general is of critical importance to the future of our communities, and that no one should be excluded from the opportunity to maximize his or her potential. We also feel that the inclusive program supports broader understanding and tolerance, an outcome that has been reported by a number of “alumni” parents.

The Elroy-Sparta Trail, or not: Part 1

Ready to go...

As you may or may not know, a couple weeks ago I set out on a bicycle ride to Wisconsin.  I took lots of pictures and even wrote a bit about my trip in a journal (which of course I can't find anymore).  I planned to start from my backyard, bike all the way to Sparta, Wisconsin, camp out every night, and then bike back.  I was originally thinking of writing 7 entries on this blog about the trip starting right when I got back, but obviously that didn't happen.... So instead I'm just going to post about the trip when I can, until I've posted about the whole thing.  As always, click the pictures to see the full size, and leave comments if you want.  Here goes:

Knowing that I'd be carrying everything by bicycle for hundreds of miles, I wanted to minimize the weight of all my supplies.  So of course I ended up with more stuff than Jim Carrey before he got robbed by a little old lady:



Here's what my bike looked like before it was loaded up:

"tim pawlenty idiot" - An Historic Moment for this blog!

Just noticed today that now two people googling "tim pawlenty idiot" have now ended up on this site.  I could not be more proud.  Here's the post, for the record.  And here's the printscreen:

Oh, random strangers on the internet, thank you for googling "tim pawlenty idiot" and thank you for stopping by my blog.  I have to ask, though, why did you only peruse my blog for an average time of 32 seconds?  And why did you only view 1.5 pages per visit?

Perhaps I didn't go into enough detail on why Pawlenty is an idiot.  Perhaps you were unsatisfied with my post, thinking that it would be all about how idiotic Tim Pawlenty is, only to see one link to an article by Paul Krugman and a few other links to economics articles.  Well, I can understand that.  Please accept my humblest apologies.  And to rectify the situation, enjoy this hilarious video of Stephen Colbert making fun of Pawlenty's ridiculous campaign ad / Michael Bay movie trailer:

Gotta love Colbert.

-Cy

Pics from my Wisconsin bike ride!

As you may or may not know, I took the week of Memorial Day off and went on a bicycle tour to central Wisconsin.

Click here to see a bunch of the pictures I took during the trip if you're interested.  Apparently there's a monthly limit on how many pics you can post on Flickr, so I'll post the other half of the pictures next month I guess.  In the meantime, I'll organize them and post a few on facebook.  And I plan on writing a blog post for each day of the trip, too complete with stories, pics, and Youtube clips, as always!

So stay patient.  I've been busy/lazy but will try to get some stuff up this week.

-Cy

Another link round-up

I know it's been a while since I posted, and I should make up for that with a really cool, long post but I'm feeling lazy and lots of people have been emailing me interesting articles.  Here are the links:

• This article is from a Minnesota blog about the harm caused by the Bush tax policy in Minnesota.  Kinda short, but still interesting
• Here's a blog post over on Daily KOs about DEA hypocrisy - apparently they have been handing out licenses to pharmaceutical companies to grow marijuana while still placing a high priority on raiding semi-legal pot farms.  They are also trying to legalize some derived parts of marijuana so that Big Pharma can make a profit without competition from ordinary people.
• My buddy Justin sent me a link to this article over on NPR about raising taxes on the rich.  The article mentions that many millionaires have petitioned to pay more in taxes, then questions whether doing so would be "class warfare".  To see what I think about this, check out this post.
• This is not a link, but I fucking hate the term "class warfare".  Why is it that this term only gets busted out whenever fair taxes on the rich are proposed?  Here are a few examples of actual "class warfare":  Poor people and blacks deliberately targeted for subprime mortgage loans that they did not understand / could not afford.  Grossly underfunded schools in inner cities across the nation.  No access to health insurance for millions that can't afford it - and millions of people with health insurance having no access to care.  A volunteer military fighting wars for oil and other mysterious reasons made up of disproportionately poor and minority men.  I could go on, but there would be no room for anything else on this post.....
• Actually, I will go on!!  A failed and disastrous "War on Drugs" that has cost billions and disproportionately imprisoned millions of young minority men.
• And finally, something that Libertarians and I agree on - public funding for stadiums.  Here's a post on Forbes Blog (which I don't normally recommend, as I find it fucking stupid other than their post on the wealth of fictional characters, which is hilarious) about the city of Glendale, Arizona spending millions to keep their losing (games AND money) hockey team in town.  I love my sports teams but this is just straight up giving public money to sports team owners.

Okay, well that was actually pretty good for just a bunch of links right?  I am also currently uploading a bunch of photos from my recent week-long bike trip (more on that soon) to my new Flickr account, and should be able to post that in a couple minutes.

-Cy