GO FIGURE; Blog #130; May 9, 2014

THE MESSAGE:

Why are some children, born into today's society blessed with an abundance of talent, the ability to develop good attitudes, an acceptance of proper behaviours and a chance to become productive citizens; while others are doomed to a life of antisocial behaviours, a lack of education, a lack of economic opportunity and a high chance of becoming incarcerated?

PRODIGIES:
ALEXANDER POPE

He was a child prodigy as a poet, with gifts all but universally acknowledged. He is the third most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson.

PABLO PICASSO:He painted Picador at eight years old.

picador

AELITA ANDRE:

Aelita sold paintings worth over $30,000 at age 4 and had international recognition.

MICHELLE WIE:

She qualified for the USGA Women's Amateur Public Links at 10 years old and won the same event at 13 years old, making her the youngest person both to qualify for and win a USGA adult national championship.


BOBBY FISCHER

Bobby won the United States Chess Championship at 14 years old and became, at the age of 15, the youngest Grandmaster in history at the time.AKIANE KAMARIK

Akiane Kramarik is an awesome artist, poet, writer, and budding musician. This incredible girl has a strong belief in God and attributes her work to His inspiration.  She is an internationally recognized 12-year-old prodigy, considered the only known child binary genius, in both realist painting and poetry. She has taught herself to play the piano and now composes her own songs.

 Some Photos of her Amazing Art Work: 

The list of prodigies is long. But I truly admire the average person who grows up in a home with responsible parents, a system of values, a sense of self-worth, an education and the drive to work hard and achieve his/her realistic goals.

ACTIVISTS

Do we need to be an activist in order to change the world or be a useful person? Is activism based on real facts that consider all of the consequences of achieving the desired effect? Does a particular cause have a lopsided, one-sided approach that represents a realistic outcome? Does it have a hidden agenda? Is it based on selfish motives?

SERIOUSLY?

To be an activist is to plunge into the unknown and into a world where guarantees of results do not exist. On climate and the environmental crisis we don’t know how far we’ve already pushed the planet toward destruction; if indeed we have done so; or what impact we actually have achieved in protesting or blocking pipelines, fracking, coal trains etc. What do we actually achieve in demonstrating impassioned pleas surrounding our views or by getting arrested at the scene of a protest?

INCARCERATION

A report commissioned by the National Institute of Justice and the MacArthur Foundation, notes that 2.23 million people are currently incarcerated in U.S. prisons and jails, That number multiplies when people who are on parole or probation are considered. When scaled against the size of the US population, the number of incarcerated Blacks and Latinos is disproportionately large.

Impacted communities have long slammed U.S. policies of mass incarceration that are locking up more people than any other country in the world. Now that criticism is also resounding from the highly-regarded National Research Council (an arm of the National Academy of Sciences), which issued a devastating report this week charging that "unprecedented" levels incarceration are spreading great social harm.

Four decades of skyrocketing incarceration has quadrupled the prison population and torn apart families, communities, society, and the lives of those incarcerated. Those in power have tried to dismiss and disparage the communities and organizations who have been calling attention to these issues and struggling to change things. Studies have been commissioned to try to get to the bottom of the root causes.

Does the solution lie in correcting the number of single parent homes? Why do single black women continue to give birth to children who have little chance of becoming productive citizens? Statistics show that such children have a much larger chance of living in poverty and are much more likely to take to the streets and become involved in gang and criminal behaviours.

IN CANADA

New figures show the number of visible minorities in Canadian prisons has increased by 75 per cent in the past decade, while the number and proportion of inmates who are Caucasian has declined significantly.

As well, Canada’s prison population is now at its highest level ever, even though the crime rate has been decreasing over the past two decades. Ten years ago, the number of inmates in federal prisons was close to 12,000. It’s now more than 15,000. (Does this correlate to an increased population over the decade? Is it a factor of the type of new births or arrivals in the country?) Correctional Investigator of Canada,  Howard Sapers,  tabled a report in Parliament. that states "a quarter of all inmates are aboriginal even thought they make up only four per cent of the population." The rate of incarceration of aboriginal women increased by 80 per cent in the past decade.

Does the answer lie in early education designed to modify undesirable behaviours? There is ample evidence in our schools and in society as a whole, that certain groups of young, visible minorities are reluctant or ignorant of acceptable levels of behaviour.

THE QUOTE: 

"If you are depressed you are living in the past. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the present.-Lao Tzu

HERE'S A GOOD QUESTION:

Is Canada too hard or too soft on crime?

LAURELS:

TO PHILLIPE COUILLARD:
  

The 31st Premier of Quebec, leader of the Quebec Liberal Party and a former university professor. For bringing sanity back into Quebec Politics

THE CLIP:     NOSTALGIA ANYONE