Like many dramatic films, Precious Knowledge, a documentary directed by Ari Luis Palos, sets up an inevitable conflict between two forces on a collision course.
On one side is a group of students and teachers at an Arizona high school who want to use education as a tool for self-awareness and empowerment. On the other, is a group of conservative lawmakers who feel their curriculum is divisive and anti-American. When they meet, metaphorical blood is shed, tears flow, and in at least one sense — despite a tragic climax — there’s a happy ending.
There is something fierce and delicious, almost edible, in the alchemic ways of Puerto Rican Spanish. Boricuas don’t merely speak their very own brand of the language of Cervantes with an aspired “s,” a nasal “n” and a guttural “r.”
Eight female state senators in Georgia walked out of the Senate chambers on Thursday to protest two bills that hinder access to abortion and contraceptives. All eight female democratic senators left the chambers together after two bills they oppose passed the Republican-led Senate. From Atlanta’s WXIA, the legislation:
Prohibits state employees from using state health benefits to pay for abortions
Does not allow employees of private religious institutions to demand that their insurance policies pay for contraceptives
“We stood together to protest what we feel is absolutely a war on women here in Georgia and we want to sound the alert to Georgians,” said Sen. Nan Orrick.
Republican state senator Joshua McKoon said of the legislation, “What I would say is the war that’s being waged is on a relative minority in this country that has strong beliefs that are protected by the First Amendment.”
The bills now heads to the House, whereboth are expected to pass.
Three immigrant innovators: Christopher Columbus, Pablo Picasso and Sergey Brin Co-Founder of Google (Photo: wikipedia, pacblopicasso.org and google.com)
A few weeks ago in a piece about Start-Up Chile, I wrote that people were the key ingredient in developing innovation clusters. However, you need the right people. More specifically you need people with ground-breaking, game-changing ideas — let’s call them geniuses. Without them you can forget about innovation.
Since 1917, Puerto Ricans are American citizens by default. We have American passports, and can move to the mainland United States just like someone moves from Kansas to Ohio.
So why does former Surgeon General Richard Carmona, who is running for Senate as a Democrat for Arizona, self-identify himself as the son of immigrants?
“My life I give for the freedom of my country. This is a cry for victory in our struggle for independence… The United States of America is betraying the sacred principles of mankind in their continuous subjugation of my country.”—Lolita Lebrón.
Lolita Lebrón (1919-2010), a Puerto Rican nationalist activist, served 25 years in prison after being convicted of a planned assault on the US Capitol building which wounded five congressmen on March 1, 1954. Lebrón and two of her collaborators were pardoned by US president Jimmy Carter in 1979.
Bet ya’ll didn’t know Puerto Ricans used to be the “terrorists.”
Luis Muñoz Marín, the first democratically-elected governor of Puerto Rico, featured on the cover of the June 23, 1958 issue of Time magazine. Muñoz Marín was born in San Juan 114 years ago today, on February 18, 1898, the same year that the island came under US control following the Spanish-American War.
