a student's thoughts on lucille clifton

this poem is stupid. it don't
rhyme or nothin'.
capital letters're all gone.
i don't get what it's about
when it's all talkin'
'bout some conversation
with stuff that don't
make no sense.

what's it even about?
why does anyone read it?
i mean,
you keep sayin' there's
somethin' in there, but
i be diggin' deep in the cookie jar
and it seems all empty to me.

why do you read it?
wha' does that say about you?

Wealth divide and plutocracy

Today there is a higher Gini-Coefficient (which measures the wealth disparity in a nation) than [during] the Great Depression. The US now ranks 42nd from the worst in the world in terms of the gulf between rich and poor, slightly worse than Iran, Nigeria, and Cambodia.

Source: http://newsjunkiepost.com/2011/02/06/the-disastrous-legacy-of-ronald-reagan-in-charts/

A Math Lesson

An urgent lecture by Dr. Albert A. Bartlett: "Arithmetic, Population, and Energy" (2002).



Two great quotes from the presentation:

Democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive it. Convenience and decency cannot survive it. As you put more and more people into the world, the value of life not only declines, it disappears. It doesn't matter if someone dies. The more people there are, the less one individual matters.

—Isaac Asimov

Unlike plagues of the dark ages or contemporary diseases we do not yet understand, the modern plague of overpopulation is soluble by means we have discovered and with resources we possess. What is lacking is not sufficient knowledge of the solution but universal consciousness of the gravity of the problem and education of the billions who are its victims.

—Martin Luther King