Charlie Weis, Urban Meyer, Mark Mangino, Bobby Bowden, Mike Leach, Jim Leavitt, Pete Carroll, Lane Kiffin, Brian Kelly…All have left their teams; fired, resigned, retirement, stepping aside, or moving on. But what links all the coaches changes together? Controversy.
Read more here:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2587967/controversy_in_college_football_coaching.html
Every so often, a Christian group comes to the center of the VCU campus to preach the word of God. Supposedly they are there to help people find the light, but instead they cause ruckus and push people away from the idea and ideals of God. What these people say may be the truth, but it is not said in a truthful way. All they do is hold up a Bible and shout idiotically. If their reason for being on the campus is to attract people to God, then they are failing, because they only turn people away. Then certain other people show up, athiests, agnostics, and people of other religions, and turn a failure into a horrible spectacle by arguing, name calling, and using foolish tactics. They allow themselves to be pulled into an argument with fools, and only fools argue with fools.
On all the world wide web, there is almost no information on urban campus crime. There are some news articles, but nothing truly reliable. Searching google with a variety of tags including “urban, campus, crime, university, college, school, safety, and security,” in a variety of combinations only brings up a variety of bs. There is no study linking urban campus crime to poverty, no study detailing how to decrease urban campus crime, nothing. Even searching Google scholar, and other academic search engines are no better. No one seems to care about the safety of college students in cities.
After the shooting at Virginia Tech, there was a common belief amongst most people that Universities should be a safe location. Indeed, this is a belief we should try to uphold. However, many urban schools struggle to reach that standard. In the same state, Virginia Commonwealth University, which now holds the annual Governor’s campus safety conference, is a mile below such a standard of safety. The area is plagued by shootings at a night club, the violent crowd brought in by rap concerts, and homeless or impoverished people hanging around.
It is not rare to hear gun shots from my dorm building, which in fact had a bullet fly though one of the windows in the years prior to my matriculation into the university. In the month before school, someone was shot in the restaurant across the street that is tailored to a night club crowd. Beside the restaurant is the night club, where police have to go nearly every time there is an event there. During my first year at the university, there was a rap concert at the famous Landmark Theater, lying in the middle of the school’s campus, which led to a gathering of people at the Monroe Park corner. I had walked past about fifteen or thirty minutes before some maniac decided to a fire a gun into the air. Due to the shooting at VT, an alert system was created to notify students in the case of an emergency. However, the system has yet to be perfected (There is actually a test in a few minutes…) and is not even used during such instances as I have mentioned. But who’s to say that a guy won’t come running from the club onto the campus firing a gun. If this is the case, the alert system is useless for the most immediate danger to the VCU population. Yet, there are too many incidents at the club or in the streets to sound of the alarm every time something happens. It is best to eliminate this danger, but the school is slow to take such action.
Most of the homeless people in the area are polite and passive, not pestering anyone about giving them money if they say no. But because of the large number of impoverished people in the area who lack the means to buy food on a daily basis, there is certainly a number of dangerous people amongst them. The beautiful Monroe park is known for the number of homeless people who crash there. After dark, it is essentially off limits, mostly due to the potential for incidents. Dating couples can forget about an evening walk in the park, and in fact anyone can forget walking just about anywhere after dark because the surrounding area is worse. VCU has the capability to aid the homeless, even if it is just enough to curb the danger to its students and faculty. And with an image that has been trashed recently, the school should now have the motivation to so. The school spends so much money on construction, but have they considered buying out the club? The school produces and distributes so much food per day, but have they considered helping supply the homeless with food so they won’t ask the school population for money? Have they considered developing plans to help homeless move on and to renovate Monroe Park, the very namesake of the Undergraduate campus? I am aware that the are is better than it was in the past, but it is still not even close to good enough. Some improvement is not an excuse for taking a lackadaisical approach to the future.
It would be of great benefit to everyone; students, faculty, and the homeless population, if VCU would take responsibility of the area and act to truly change the community. “With great power comes great responsibility.” VCU has yet to accept its responsibility for the safety of students and successful function of the community. The school pays the mayor hundreds of thousands to teach a class for which he rarely shows up. I think VCU can spare some effort for the betterment of the students and the community.
The words of Michael Savage led me to creating another sonic sez (says) video. This time I wanted to contribute to the awareness of Autism. Certainly difficult to understand, a lot of people have misconceptions about what autism is. There is no excuse for what Savage said and my video will hopefully inspire some people to learn about autism. It doesn’t have in-depth information, but I think it suffices for a video done on a whim. The definition I use in the video is from http://www.assew.org/what_is_autism.htm. I think i have a little more humor in this one simply because Savage set himself up to be cracked on.
This is the transcript from a presentation I gave about the connection between Homeland Security and the field:
Good Afternoon, I’m speaking about a connection between Homeland Security and the field of medicine that is generally ignored. The two fields are often thought of as completely separate, although cooperative. My presentation is a basic overview on the subject.
The field of Homeland Security conjures thoughts about counter-terrorism, infrastructure protection, and intelligence analysis. The field of medicine brings about images of treating patients; surgery, diagnostics, cardiology, neurology and so on. But, the two are linked by a large number of factors that need to be acknowledged.
The National Strategy for Homeland Security lists six critical mission areas, in this order. Health Care mostly fits under the Emergency Preparedness and Response category. However, it can be shown that, pending the circumstances, it can fit under the other categories as well.
Emergency Preparedness & Response is most often associated with first responders. By the nature of their title, they are usually the first to arrive at an emergency situation. EMTs, and if the circumstances warrant it, hazmat units, are the first to provide medical care. Planning is a basic foundation of preparedness. In 2005, the Homeland Security Council published the National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza. The plan sets aside the department of health and Human Services as one of the lead agencies to implement the strategy. Also, in 2007, President Bush issued Homeland Security Presidential Directive 21 to establish a national strategy for Public Health and Medical Preparedness. A few weeks ago, it was discovered that the water supply of Alamosa, Colorado was contaminated with Salmonella. The cause remains unknown. It is unlikely that it is an act of terrorism, but in an area with a population of about 10,000 almost 400 people have been treated for Salmonella. Jim Martin, director of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and Hans Kallam director of the Colorado Division of Emergency Management worked together closely to solve the problem. The water system has been thoroughly cleaned, water bottles have been brought in with the aid of helpful companies, and an investigation as to the cause of the situation has begun.
The Medical field holds high stakes in the planning for Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear incidents. After an incident of this kind, health care would be a high priority and capability would be stretched to its limit. Bioterrorism does have a small history in the United States including an incident of salmonella poisoning intended to affect an election and the Anthrax attacks. In the case of an attack today, the Department of Health and Human Services is charged with deploying medical personnel and equipment to aid other agencies. The Department of Homeland Security works with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention along with the Department of Veterans Affairs to detect biological and chemical attacks.
The relationship between Homeland Security and Health Care is a two-way street. Healthcare serves the purpose of Homeland Security and Homeland Security also serves the purpose of Healthcare. As a critical infrastructure sector, public health is important to the daily functions of the U.S. Public health services need security and an insurance of continuity of operations.
The area of intelligence and warning is important for taking preemptive, preventive, and protective measures. The field of medicine can be involved here through medical surveillance. David Siegrist from the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies describes medical surveillance as the prospective statistical analysis of health-related data for rapid detection of anomalies that indicate the outbreak of disease in a population. This information can be used to detect a natural epidemic or act of terrorism. It can be useful for medical response and for the capture of a perpetrator. The shooting last year at Virginia Tech has highlighted a need to work more closely with the mental health system and to improve mental illness interventions. It is always helpful to know who is a threat to the security of the nation or the safety of citizens. Any actions in this area must maintain patient confidentiality. This is not necessarily an important term in Homeland Security but it is very important to the area of health care. Trust between a health care provider and a patient has become one of the bases of the U.S. health system, and patient confidentiality should be respected by Homeland Security and other fields that begin to work with mental health organizations.
May 24, 2007 a potential threat to the health and safety of United States citizens crossed the border from Canada to the U.S. Andrew Speaker, diagnosed with multi-drug resistant Tuberculosis was allowed freely into the U.S. despite an alert that he should be restrained and health officials should be notified. In this situation, border security had direct involvement with public health; failing in their responsibility to contact health officials could have put numerous people in danger of contracting TB. Fortunately no one is known to have contracted TB from Speaker and his diagnosis has been downgraded to a less resistant form.
Domestic Counterterrorism is essentially a law enforcement field. However healthcare professionals can provide helpful skills and resources. The Department of Health and Human Services, for example, offers training to protect workers from infection or contamination. Psychologists and Psychiatrists can be called on to help with interrogation. A new, controversial tool for interrogation and lie detection involves Neuroimaging. A medical technique that, in this case, uses Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging. Extensive research and testing has been, and continues to be done on effective countermeasures to biological, chemical, and radiological agents. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, a sub Health and Human Services agency, has computer simulation models for response planning and training modules on bioterrorism.
The connection between Homeland Security and the field of Medicine is expansive and essential. For the field of Homeland Security, securing the nation requires a partnership with the medical community; and for the field of medicine maintaining the health of citizens requires a partnership with Homeland Security.
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