North Campus Chess Club President Wins Award

MDC north campus chess club president Toni-saccion Baldie was honored on April 11, 2008 at the annual student life “Fire and Ice" banquet. Ms. Baldie received the most outstanding organization member award. Toni is no stranger to leadership positions as she was the captain of St. Hughes High School’s chess team. She has been the president of the north campus chess club for one year, and that year has been most dynamic. Toni helped to organize a rummage in support of the campus United Way goals. She also led the chess club members in a student government sponsored aids awareness march around the campus. She has implemented training programs for novice and experience chess players, and she, along with the executive board, developed guidelines to help the club to function smoothly. The chess club meets every Friday in the College Prep Department, room 6132.

Written by Professor Leighton Spence

Miles in These Shoes by Yasmin Moses

Can you really walk in someone’s shoes?
Underestimated by the abilities one can accomplish,

Obstacles one has faced, achieved by perseverance…

Persistence gives a reward in the end…

Many say: “I’ve walked in your shoes”!

Really, as the doors closes on obstacles faced…

Another one opens to obstacles reached.

Miles in these shoes, you cannot do!

We all walk our own paths,

Cross our own barriers,

Climb for success!

Giving up is not an option!

One conquers the fears of the unknown.

The Miles walked in these shoes are long, sometimes tiresome!

Miles in these shoes, you cannot do!

Strengthening with lessons learned…

I cannot walk in your shoes either, so you can't attempt to walk in mine…

But, Miles in these shoes simply no one can do!

Law, Liberty and Language, by Bert Lorenzo

Occasionally I ask my students to describe humanity’s greatest achievement. I give them this topic when I want to really challenge them because of its difficulty. With so many things that humans have accomplished how do we arrive at the most important or greatest?

To my students’ credit they all do the exercise but when I read their compositions I get a lot of the same descriptions. I read a lot about computers, cars, television, the internet and such. Just a few write about government, medicine or science and technology in general. I discovered many of my students think invention when I ask about achievement and few think of innovation.

Perhaps due to youth or human nature I read almost exclusively about 20 and 21st century achievements. Do humans as a group think them best those things achieved during their lifetime? The new achievements we enjoy today come out of achievements made before. All invention comes from innovation-an evolutionary process. Look at the history of any invention and you’ll see all the work and products that came before it.

Every invention we enjoy today, every innovation that has given us a standard of living in the United States that kings 100 years ago wouldn’t have imagined stem from humanity’s three greatest achievements law, liberty and language.

Law allows civilization. Of course even tyrannies have laws. I refer to just laws the way Moses, Madison, Gandhi and King Jr. defined them. Just laws protect the rights of individuals and minorities against the whims and biases of majorities. Democracies don’t function well without just laws. Many countries have democracies but certain groups in those countries live in tyranny because laws protect the majority only. Minorities can’t own property, businesses nor attend colleges and universities. In democracies individuals and minorities need laws to protect them from the tyranny of majorities. In a truly free society individuals should freely discriminate against each other if they so choose but laws must exist which treat all equal. In a civilized society elected officials must write laws that protect everyone’s right to life, liberty, property and to be left alone. May 1st we marked the fiftieth anniversary of Law Day. President Eisenhower signed the proclamation as a way to celebrate justice, individual rights, individuality and government by law not by the whim of man. It contrasts with May Day which celebrates tyranny and collectivism.

Without law we have no liberty and without liberty we have no human achievement. Humans need liberty to pursue their causes. Enslaved societies stagnate. Chinese society has evolved in the last 20 years to the degree that a select few in that country now enjoy more freedom to pursue their interests but the vast majority still live enslaved without opportunities to innovate, create nor invent. Without just laws or liberty the Chinese have reduced themselves to theft of intellectual property. People in North Korea, other parts of Asia, most parts of the Middle East, Africa, Cuba, Haiti and South America live a horrible, backwards existence because they lack liberty. While in free societies people travel to the moon, in tyrannies people can’t travel within their own countries. In tyrannies people toil to survive. In civilized societies people strive to achieve, to create a better future for themselves, their children and for humanity and to advance civilization the way Aristotle defined it. Without the liberty we enjoy today in civilized societies that evolved over 5000 years of struggle, war and justly written laws we couldn’t enjoy the inventions my students write about today.

In order to achieve or invent anything: law, liberty or computers we need concepts and the tool we use to conceptualize-language-our greatest of all human achievements. Language makes us human. We use it to think, reason and create. Could you love without language? Think of the love letter and the poem and their sophistication and how they separate us from the rest of the animals. Language moved us out of the trees and into palaces. You can thank language for that algebra class you dread. To create computers inventors first had to create computer language- a replica of human language. Will we some day see computers think and reason? I don’t know but I do know that they (computers) would first have to create their own language. In 1999 a group of experts voted Gutenberg the most important person of the last millennium. With his press he started the literacy revolution. Without the spread of literacy we wouldn’t have seen the evolution of civilization i.e. law and liberty and without language we wouldn’t have had Gutenberg. To call yourself educated you must master language. You must understand its history and evolution. You must learn to use it precisely and, I hope, appreciate its beauty and flexibility. You must learn how to recognize and defend yourself against those who use language to manipulate.

Last December I again watched The Miracle Worker the story of master teacher Ann Sullivan and her famous student Helen Keller who wrote the story. When Sullivan first met her student, Keller lived like a savage because she couldn’t see nor hear. Her disabilities locked her out of the world. Sullivan found creative ways to teach Keller words. Without language Keller couldn’t conceptualize water much less love. Sullivan taught Keller language and helped her break out or her psychological prison. Keller went on to earn a college degree and write, lecture and promote just laws and liberty for all including minorities and the disabled.

Copyright Bert Lorenzo, 2008

College Prep Writing Contest 2008, First Place Winner

Congratulations Javas Jackson

First Place Winner

The most painful but rewarding experience in my life

I have a lot of painful but rewarding experiences in my life. The one that sticks out the most is when I got fired from my job at City Furniture without an explanation. The most rewarding experience that came from it was that I became closer to my family. Also I was able to find a great career and go to school to pursue a college degree.

Losing my job at City Furniture really hurt me financially and emotionally. I put my heart in that company and was prepared to spend the rest of my life there. City Furniture was put before my family by me working overnight, every weekend, twelve hours a day and every holiday. Whenever they needed anything from me they got it. I gave one hundred percent on every task with no questions asked. It really hurt the day I got fired because all the people I had worked with for years turned their back on me.

After losing my job I spent a lot of time at home thinking. That's when I realized that I had been missing out of my family's life. I had always thought by making a lot of money everyone would automatically be happy. I was missing out on my kids growing up and being a good husband to my wife. It took me to lose my job to really appreciate my family and how much they mean to me. I love playing, eating dinner and being a great father to my family.

I love my career as a bus operator. I'm a people's person and love to interact and meet different people. With this career it is not demanding as what I had at City Furniture. I make a lot less money, but also a lot less stress. I'll make that trade any day to be able to see my family every morning when they wake up and every night before they go to bed. I see a big future with my career now because its no limit on how far I can advance. Whereas, at City Furniture I had reach the ceiling as a operation manager.

One of my long term goals in my life was getting a college degree. When I started working at City Furniture going back to school started to be less of a goal, especially when I started to move up in the company and get more responsibility. Now I have time to work, be a family man, and go to college. Its kind of fun for me to be doing homework and my son ask me question like he's my father. At the same time it motivates him to want to do his homework. I won't stop until I at least have a master degree.

From experience I learned that money can't buy happiness and to never put anything before my family. Jobs and monetary things come and go, but your family will be there forever. Years I lost can never be regained, but I will appreciate all to come. There are thousand of careers and I just happen to find one that fit in with my family and school. I will always pursue my goals and want let anything side track me from that.

College Prep Writing Contest 2008, Third Place Winner

Congratulations Felicia Terry

Third Place Winner

The most painful but rewarding experience in my life

Some experiences in life can be painful, but also rewarding. In my life, I have encountered several of those acquisitions. However, the experience that I considered the most painful and rewarding in my life was the birth of my child. This has really put things in perspective for me. Some experiences are deliberate and some are unexpected, but whether planned or unplanned the situation can be painful, rewarding, or both.

After the unplanned conception of my child, within months, my life changed and I felt alone and sometimes so disconnected from reality, until I would sleep for days hoping that I would wake up from the reoccurring nightmare. The mere thought of me having to be responsible for someone else life besides my own, sickened me in ways beyond belief. The pain from being neglected from my child father, the thought of disappointing my mother, the feeling of guilt for wishing I was not pregnant, the carelessness for letting my grades slip, and the shame I felt for me even getting pregnant were some of the things that contributed to this painful experience.

From a physical aspect, birthing my son was very painful, but raising him has been even more rewarding. Another thing that made the experience painful was the long grueling hours of labor. It was a process I thought I was physically prepared for, and even looked forward to it. Soon, the excruciating pain that arose from hours upon hours of constant gut-wrenching contractions got the best of me. "Give me the strength is all I can remember me yelling". I somehow forgot the tiny miracle that awaited me and literally thought that death would probably be a relief. Luckily, there were only a few more pushes to me reaping the reward of my life.

In lieu of what could only be described as anything less than sheer torture, raising my son has by far, been the most rewarding experience ever. It has caused me to develop attributes that I have not always possessed. One of the most vital qualities that I have learned from motherhood has been patience. Even though it may take him take 30 minutes to tie his shoe every morning, I sit patiently and watch because not only is he learning to tie his shoes, he is also learning to be independent. Eating every single cheerio and having to drink all the milk even though he is 10 minutes late for school, reminds me of his innocence, because lack of his concept of time. The reward of raising my son allows me to have enough patience to sit and watch him take a bath until he is wrinkled. It does not matter that I have spent all day at work and school, the satisfaction that comes from watching him create a sudsy mustache and splashing water all over the floor that I must clean afterward is astonishing. Nothing in this world can ever take the place of the love I feel as I lift him out the tub into his towel. I feel that he knows he is the most precious gift that has been given to me.

To this end, my appreciation for motherhood could be viewed as nothing more than a true blessing. I believe children are definitely a blessing from GOD. Patience, forgiveness, understanding, unselfishness, and perseverance are qualities that I have learned from having my child. These are some things I did not possess as a young adult and I did not really understand the importance of them. All experiences should be used as a learning tool to grow and learn. Whether the situation starts off negative, let the reward be in the knowledge you obtain. I have learned that raising children is something that a parent mentally or physically cannot be prepared for. I am still learning because motherhood is a day-to-day process. Therefore, if someone asks the question "What is your most painful but rewarding experience", I will tell them childbirth and motherhood and that I would not change it for the world.