I recently did some research on a subject I knew little about, social entrepreneurship.  I went to the library and checked out David Bornstein’s book, How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas.  After all, a blurb on the cover from a NY Times review says it is “A bible in the field.”  Social entrepreneurship is often non-profit and is best known in a global sense—the Grameen Bank and all those NGOs (non-governmental organizations) that are registered with the United Nations.  Bornstein explains that social entrepreneurs bring characteristics of business and competition into the way “the ‘noncommercial’ or ‘social’ business of society is structured. Around the world, this work has been dominated by centralized decision making and top-down, usually governmental, institutions. It has been managed a little like a planned economy.”(p. 276)

But, continues Bornstein, governments are often not ideal: “As in business, advancing…

The second battle in the well-funded war against job protections for school teachers was won last week by teachers. The Washington Post’s Emma Brown  explains that a California appeals court on Thursday overturned the Vergara lawsuit and “upheld the state’s laws regarding teacher tenure, dismissal and layoffs, handing a major victory to teachers unions.”

Last week’s “ruling reverses a lower court’s 2014 decision that found after a 10-week trial that job protection statutes for teachers had created illegal inequalities: Poor and minority children were more likely to be saddled with ineffective teachers who were difficult to fire. The plaintiffs in the case presented a new civil rights argument against teacher tenure laws, and when it was successful, it was widely expected to be the first of many similar legal challenges in other states.” In their lawsuit, plaintiffs had alleged that job protections for teachers caused the poorest children to be…

Sue Deranger with the Newo Yotina Friendship Centre protests outside Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) offices in Regina. Activists have been occupying INAC offices in Toronto, Winnipeg, and James Bay following news of the suicide crisis in the Attawapiskat First Nation in northern Ontario. Occupiers are demanding that the federal government offer more than band-aid “solutions” Don Healy / Regina Leader-Post, April 15, 2016

by Kerry Benjoe, Regina Leader-Post, April 15, 2016

The doors may have been locked, but that did not stop a noon-hour protest on one of Regina’s busiest streets from taking place.

On Friday, protestors carrying signs some of which read: Colonialism Kills, Indigenous Lives Matter and INAC = Canadian Apartheid gathered outside the Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) office on Albert Street. It was held in solidarity with similar protests happening across the country.

Graphic: Rebel Youth Magazine

by Jay Watts, Rebel Youth, April 15, 2016

In 1995, a report issued as part of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples called suicide “one of the most urgent problems facing aboriginal communities.” 22 years later, Canada’s ongoing colonial project is still taking a staggering and gruesome toll on the health and lives of First Nations. In Attawapiskat, a community of close to 2,000, there were 11 suicide attempts last Saturday [April 9, 2016], on top of 100 suicide attempts since last September.

On April 14, 2016, the California appeals court overturned the June 2014 Vergara ruling by L.A. County Superior Court Judge Rolf Treu regarding the unconstitutionality of California statutes governing teacher retention. As the California appeals decision states:

In this lawsuit, nine students who were attending California public schools sued the State of California and several state officials, seeking a court order declaring various provisions of California’s Education Code unconstitutional. According to plaintiffs, these provisions, which govern how K-12 public school teachers obtain tenure, how they are dismissed, and how they are laid off on the basis of seniority, violate the California Constitution’s guarantee that all citizens enjoy the “equal protection of the laws.” … The matter went to trial. After hearing eight weeks of evidence, the trial court issued a ruling declaring five sections of the Education Code… unconstitutional and void. Defendants have appealed this judgment.

We reverse the trial court’s…

Ralph Nader has this up on the actions of Hillary Clinton and why she would not be a good President.  I heart Ralph and wrote his name on a ballot once, along with 26 other souls in my republican stronghold small town.

…former Secretary of State Clinton ordered U.S. officials to spy on top UN diplomats including Secretary General of the UN, Ban Ki-Moon, and those from the United Kingdom. She ordered her emissaries around the world to obtain DNA data, iris scans and fingerprints along with credit card and frequent flier numbers. Not only was this a clear violation of the 1946 UN convention, but after admitting what happened she didn’t even make a public apology to the affected parties.

~~~~~`

Big Brother, meet Big Sister…of course Hillary would not make an apology….she clearly feels she did nothing wrong.  Stunning.  Absolutely stunning the hubris of this politician.

Nader also…

My idealism has become diluted over time. Does age do that to you?