Category Archives: Authors

Authors A-H, Social Issues

There’s No Place Like Home – Unless You’re Homeless – by Susan Dolan

According to Dan McDonald, ‘there’s no place like home’ and most of us would agree unless you’re homeless, of course. That was the name of his keynote speech in Kansas City highlighting the issues around homelessness and what we can do to end it.

McDonald delivered his speech at the annual National Sheriff’s Association 2022 conference. It was designed to raise awareness of how the police deal with homelessness and people who live on the streets. It also highlighted the fact that jails are becoming the largest homeless shelters in many communities and the cost implications of this for the taxpayer.

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Advisors, Authors A-H, Wellness

Diversity and Speech Part 31: Health Equity – by Carlos Cortés and Adwoa Osei

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In July, 2020, the two of us met for the first time as inaugural co-directors of the University of California, Riverside, School of Medicine’s new Health Equity, Social Justice, and Anti-Racism (HESJAR) curricular initiative.   Beginning with our initial conversations it became clear that addressing speech — physician speech, patient speech, medical school speech — would be central to our journey.   

For an entire year (2020-2021) we planned.  This involved reading, particularly about efforts at other medical schools.  It also involved listening: to students; to other faculty and staff; and particularly through a series of community conversations in which medical students interviewed local residents about their experiences with the health care system.  Those conversations deeply informed our curriculum development.   

Continue reading Diversity and Speech Part 31: Health Equity – by Carlos Cortés and Adwoa Osei →

Authors A-H, Social Issues, Wellness

The lifelong regret – by Terry Howard

regretThis picture is a replica of the one from a remote spot in a parking lot across from a local Walmart. Until recently, that spot was occupied by a blue pickup truck with watermelons for sale on the back. I’ll get to the story behind that photo momentarily. 

But first, let’s go to Marriam-Webster for a definition of the word “regret,” the crux of this narrative and for my fair-minded readers, something to think long and hard about when reexamining your life.

“Regret is a feeling of sadness or disappointment about something said or wrong about a mistake you made and wish you could have done differently or better.”

Aha, “done differently!” 

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Authors A-H, Social Issues, Wellness

The Lifelong Regret: Part 2 – Terry Howard

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Apparently my recent, “The Lifelong Regret,” touched (and torched?) a few raw nerves. Proof positives are the many lengthy phone conversations on the topic of “regret” that made me cringe at the thought of the size of my next phone bill.  

You see, some conversations were longer than I anticipated since I’m not skillful at effectively hinting, “hey, gotta go.” And others were of the brief “sorry but I don’t want to talk about that stuff,” category. 

Now the common thread in all those recollections were the immediacy of the responses to my query and the length of time transpired that caused those regrets; a few more than five decades ago.
 Continue reading The Lifelong Regret: Part 2 – Terry Howard →

Authors A-H, Gender, Of Men, Social Issues

Are Men Necessary? (Part 2) – by Terry Howard

I can’t keep up with bad behaviors by men nowadays – not all men before you lapse into cardiac arrest in anger at me – but those dudes who can’t seem to deal with their demons, fears, mental illnesses and hatreds in ways other than through the barrel of an AR-15.

So was it not men who flew planes into the World Trade Center, the field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania and the Pentagon on 9/11? Was it not the “Alt Right” men who marched in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017 protesting the removal of the statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee that led to at least one death and scores of injuries? 

Was it men who murdered nine church parishioners in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015 and who gunned down six Asian women in Atlanta two years ago? Weren’t the gut-wrenching shootings at Texas’s Uvalde’s Robb Elementary School and at the July 4th parade near Chicago committed by men?  Was it a demented man who killed 11 worshipers at a Pittsburg synagogue? And more recently, was men who killed six Muslims in Albuquerque, or a man who plunged a knife into the neck of author Salam Rushdie in New York?
 Continue reading Are Men Necessary? (Part 2) – by Terry Howard →

Academic Articles, Advisors, Authors A-H

Equity Rising: DEI Expertise in the Boardroom – by Dr. Deborah Ashton, Tracie Hall

Abstract

After the killing of George Floyd, Equity Rising, a group of Black professionals, came together to address social justice and equity in the government and in corporations. They believed that diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) expertise is essential to the total sustainability strategy of corporations and, therefore, is an essential boardroom function. The DEI expertise brings both functional and demographic diversification of board members.  This article contends that since traditionally the DEI function has been populated primarily by people of color and women, DEI expertise will add to the demographic diversification of the board. With the increase in demographic diversity for other functional board positions, DEI experts will aide in establishing a critical mass of women and people of color in the boardroom. 

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Authors A-H, Race & Ethnicity, Social Issues

On rustic church pews – by Terry Howard

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If ever there was an eye-catching picture, this one fits the bill.

You see, a fellow I grew up with in a small town in Virginia posted it on Facebook. I’m not sure of its source or time, but think that maybe it was sometime in the 40s or earlier. Who knows for sure?

Okay, I admit to having lost count of the number of times I’ve looked at it, and am doing so right now as Juneteenth is in the spotlight. However, to get other reactions I randomly shared it with several folks.

Authors A-H, Politics

Georgia Election: Herschel, really? – by Terry Howard

Dashing, handsome, chiseled, thick necked and all, at age 60 it looks like Herschel Walker could still blast off left tackle for a first down in an Orange Bowl. But when he opens his mouth lately you freeze, not because of his Southern drawl but what flows out in a mess of confusion, ignorance, untruths, gobbledygook and Lord knows what else.

And here’s the kicker: he has a darn good chance of getting elected the next senator from Georgia. Really.

Now if you find yourself in the exclusive company of folks who look like you and him when he opens his mouth, “c’mon bro, you gotta be kidding,” “clearly too many blows to the head,” or stuff unprintable is your likely reaction.

Now I admit that I don’t know what to make of today’s version of Herschel Walker the ex-football player and today’s senatorial candidate.

Well, okay, that’s not altogether true.

For me there’s two versions of Walker; the record-setting running back on one hand, and the bumbling politician from Georgia – or Texas? – on the other. There’s a danger in blurring the lines, connecting the two versions with the assumption that the former is a precursor to the latter.Do great athletes always make great politicians? That question just answered itself, didn’t it?

Hold on, let me get this said before the “Dawg darts” start flying my way.

I’m a huge fan of the championship Georgia football team. Watching them take down Alabama got me off the couch high fiving around the TV screen.

And let me be even clearer. I was also a huge fan of Herschel Walker the football player but these days not so with him as a politician based on what I’ve heard him say lately. More on the contemporary Herschel Walker shortly.

You see, like Herschel, there was another Heisman winning running back out of the University of Southern California decades ago (I won’t pollute this narrative with his name). Like Walker, that football player had a documented history of domestic abuse against women. So are we asked to overlook the allegation that Walker abused women, and once pointed a gun at his ex-wife, because he rattled of a 75-yard touchdown run against Florida?

Sorry folks but I have a strong distaste for domestic abusers, including Heisman trophy winners.

Back to today’s Walker who is as adept at avoiding the truth as he once side-stepped would-be tacklers on the gridiron. I mean – hold your breath now – Walker actually said that former President Trump never said that the election was stolen from him.

Really Herschel, really? Do we believe you or our lying ears?

And, Heaven help us, there’re more Walker jaw droppers. You may need a “mumbo jumbo” interpreter and a shot of Bourbon to figure it all out:

Jaw dropper #1: He challenged the theory of evolution. His claim is that if evolution is true, why do apes still exist?

Jaw dropper #2: He claimed that he had a cure for COVID in the form of a dry mist that you walk through.

Jaw dropper #3: He claimed then later denied that he said that he was in the top percent of his graduating class at the University of Georgia.

Jaw dropper #4: When asked if new gun laws should be enacted in the wake of the Uvalde, Texas shootings, his reply was “What I like to do is see it and everything and stuff.”

The following day and asked a similar question:

“Well, you know, it’s always been an issue, because as I said earlier on, they want to score political points. People see that it’s a person wielding that weapon, you know, Cain killed Abel. And that’s the problem that we have. And I said, what we need to do is look into how we can stop those things. You talk about doing a disinformation. What about getting a department that can look at young men that’s looking at women, that’s looking at their social media? What about doing that, looking into things like that, and we can stop that that way?”

Wooh Wee!

Now despite all this and more, Walker easily defeated his opponents by blowouts in the primary by skipping the debates with them and appearing exclusively in controlled events with softball questions like “how did you feel during your 85-yard touchdown scamper against Tennessee?”

His Democratic opponent, Raphael Warnock, has proposed a series of three debates with Walker who has said he will debate Warnock but  hasn’t said how many times (brace yourselves for Jaw dropper #5 folks).

So fresh off winning his primaries, and ending his bromance with Donald Trump, “Dawg” Walker recently griped about how Trump is falsely taking credit for his primary win.

“One thing that people don’t know is President Trump never asked me to run. So, I’m mad at him because he never asked, but he’s taking credit that he asked,” Walker said.

Okay, enough is enough. The thought of Herschel Walker as a senator deciding and voting on complex domestic and global issues facing the nation today is as terrifying as him in the cockpit flying me to visit my new grandson in California.

But in the United States of America, stranger things have happened, huh?

Authors A-H, LGBTQ

“Let’s Go High” with Bayard Rustin – by Terry Howard

Growing up in Virginia, my momma used to say to me that I sometimes “run around like a chicken with its head off.” That’s as perfect a depiction of any of my chaotic life as the month of June slips away. Duly noted.

You see, amid traveling, speaking engagements, fawning over a newborn grandson, greeting guests in my wife’s restaurant (and sometimes, yes, getting on her last nerve) and yard work, I failed to write something pertaining to Gay Pride Month. I really wanted to but never got around to it.

So while being confronted with the dual realities of the month coming to an end and the unrelated surge in hate mongering spilling into violence against LGBTQI people, I decided to “go high.”

Continue reading “Let’s Go High” with Bayard Rustin – by Terry Howard →

Advisors, Authors A-H, Race & Ethnicity, Social Issues, USA Culture

U.S. Indian Boarding School Report – by Marc Brenman

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In April 2022, the U.S. Department of the Interior issued the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report. The report was probably prompted by several year’s ago Canadian report on First Peoples boarding schools, and by the appointment of the first Native American Secretary of the Interior. The Canadian report was issues by the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation in 2015. 

The U.S. report has much interesting information on cultural eradication. Native American children were forced from their families and into schools that were little better than prisons, beginning in the early years of the American Republic. Esteemed Founding Fathers like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin expressed anti-Indian beliefs. Interestingly, these sentiments were sometimes expressed in confidential memos to Congress, as if it was known even then that the actions were morally reprehensible. 

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