Education

With “fiscal cliff” drama coming to an close, new issues are set to take center stage in the 113th Congress. At the same time, both parties are still responding to the demographic changes in the country that gave President Obama a resounding victory. Democrats feel comfortable that Latinos, who came out strong for the party down ticket, will once again play a vital role in the 2014 midterm cycle. Republican leadership, likewise, is reexamining messaging and policy to ensure they remain competitive in national elections.

Our gun policies have failed, in part, because our system lacks transparency and accountability. That’s why we’re asking teachers to carry guns before we’ve asked gun owners to tell us who they are. Charles Krauthammer recently argued “increasing public safety almost always means restricting liberties.” But here, merely by shedding some light we can better protect society without restricting liberties of law-abiding, responsible gun owners.

In 2008 D.C. v. Heller affirmed our individual right to own guns. Unfortunately, our culture is stuck in a pre-Heller mindset that prioritizes secrecy and obstruction over transparency and accountability. It is time for us to adapt to Heller and redefine what it means to be a “responsible gun owner.”  

On January 1, Time Warner Cable (TWC) rung in the New Year by dropping our network, Ovation, from its channel lineup. Other independent networks may face the same fate. These are not isolated incidents but the disturbing result of years of consolidation in the pay TV industry with a small number of dominant carriers offering the networks of a small number of media conglomerates. The result is the homogenization of cable TV and the betrayal of cable’s promise to deliver diversity. Policymakers, concerned citizens and industry leaders need to understand and seek to arrest this trend before it is too late.

The various hierarchal levels in a corporate business, business mergers, countless statistical formulas for probability, and of course accounting are a few of the topics covered while working on my bachelors in Business Management. Important material you might suggest. Good to know, possibly. My response to that is, “I want a refund”.  What my college overlooked in their curriculum was that little of the previous topics just mentioned held as much weight as the most significant priority in all profit-based industries, that is being able to sell. More specifically, without the ability to be successful as a salesperson in any sector of business, relatively little of the rest proves to be beneficial. Regretfully, this was never a major emphasis in my undergraduate course work, yet something learned outside of this context.

In Washington, legislators continue to hear from executives and investors in the science-based industries including biotech, healthcare, engineering and, particularly, technology, about the need to expand the number of H-1 visas granted to foreign-born STEM workers. Foreign workers are necessary, we are told, for their businesses and the United States to stay competitive. These conversations, and the related congressional hearings, have become a standard part of the STEM conversation in Washington. The result is congressional action (and inaction) on looking at the STEM problem as a shortage that can (or cannot) be fixed through immigration reform. This addresses an immediate need but does little to develop our own national human resource.

I want to start by extending my deepest sympathies to the families of the victims of Friday’s massacre, and to the whole community, and to thank the first responders and all those who are helping in the aftermath of this darkest of tragedies.
 
Three days after the horrors of Newtown, we’re all still reeling from what happened. Any time there’s a shooting like this we’re crushed with sorrow, but there’s no escaping the fact that the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary stands out for its awfulness. The murder of so many little children and the adults who tried to save them doesn’t just break our hearts, it shatters them.
 
The last few days have been searing for all of us, and the days ahead will be too.

This afternoon, the families of Newtown, Connecticut are burying two six-year-old boys – Noah Pozner and Jack Pinto.
 
Noah turned six last month. Jack was a New York Giants fan.
 
In the days to come, many of their classmates will also be laid to rest – the victims of a tragedy too terrible to comprehend.
 
Twenty little girls and boys. Twenty tiny daughters and sons, sisters and brothers, friends and playmates.
 
Twenty children, who will never grow up and learn to drive, go on a first date or graduate from high school.
 
Twenty six- and seven-year-olds who will never have the chance to fall in love, get married or have children of their own.
 
Noah and Jack, Charlotte, Daniel, Olivia, Josephine, Ana, Dylan, Madeline, Catherine, Chase, Jesse, James, Grace, Emilie, Caroline, Jessica, Benjamin, Allison and Avielle.

When a tragedy strikes, it is human nature for us to ask, "Why?" And in the next breath, we wonder, "What can be done so this never will happen again?"
Those certainly were among my thoughts Friday when I heard that someone had burst into an elementary school in Connecticut and murdered 26 people. Among them were 20 young children -- children who were there to learn about their world and to develop friendships.

This time it was in Connecticut. Before that it was in Portland, Ore., and Aurora, Colo., and Milwaukee and at Columbine High School and Virginia Tech.
And in Tucson.

On Friday, as I watched television, I saw the looks on the faces of those parents in Connecticut. And I wished I had the answer that could stop all of this and make sure it never happens again.

When a man kills twenty children and seven others for no reason other than his own demons, the immediate human response is the same anywhere: deep pain, grief, anger and frustration. In the United States, unfortunately, such a tragedy carries an added weight because it is not unique.
 
Last Friday will live in our collective memory, just as Aurora, Virginia Tech, Columbine, Tucson and the numerous other mass killings we have endured will live in our memory. We have become a nation overly acquainted with shock and grief.

Last Friday's incomprehensible tragedy in Connecticut requires every citizen, and certainly every public official, to reflect on our responsibilities to our fellow citizens, because what happened to so many innocent and helpless children and courageous educators in Newtown can happen in any of our towns to any of our neighbors.
 
I have been largely silent on the issue of gun violence over the past six years, and I am now as sorry for that as I am for what happened to the families who lost so much in this most recent, but sadly not isolated, tragedy.