Let's Talk

[JCP]

I figured I should begin putting something more than the date in the subject heading.

so today before the big game I figured I would make my pick. I don't want to be accused of jumping on the bandwagon after the game.

My good buddy Kendall Lewis tells me I have this all wrong, but here it goes:

My heart belongs to Pittsburgh. I never thought that a die hard Cowboys fan would ever root for the Steelers, but here I am.

I want the bus to get his ring and, well there are so many players on the Steelers that I love to watch play and I am rooting for all of them. Something tells me that the sea hawks are actually the better team and that Pitt must play error free in order to win.

In a close game I pick the Steelers.

Kendall also picks the Steelers, but he picks them by 2 touchdowns and swears they are the whip in this game and my worries are misplaced. Okay. Bottom line however they do it -- whether by 2 touchdowns or two points -- Today is the Steelers day.
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JCP

[elvish1]

Sir;
I heard you today on Peter Boyles radio show on KHOW.
I also graduated from George Washington HS, but in 1972.

Peter asked you if George wasn't one of the segregated schools that was forced to integrate... it was.

-------------History of GW riots between dotted lines-------------------------
George pulled most of its students from its neighborhood, which was largely Jewish. Before forced busing a school would reflect the makeup of the churches in its district. The smaller the district the more specialized the religion of the students would be. In this way, by the time high school was reached, students would be learning how to get along with other religions, but because of societal segregation they would not be learning how to get along with blacks (if they were non-black).

In the 1970-71 school year Denver was in court trying to keep from having to integrate its schools. In the spring of 1971 (I hope I have these dates straight) Frank Perrill and James Southworth were running for school board. I still remember the commercial.

narrator: Vote for Frank Perrill and James Southworth. they have your interwests at heart
Perril: "Well Jim , I think the neighborhood school concept."
narrator: VOTE for Perrill and Southworth

Perrill and Southworth won, Denver lost, and 9 days before the 1971-72 school year started, Denver was ordered to integrate its schools.

George, as you remember, is not close to a lot of restaurants, so the rule used to be that you had to stay on campus for lunch.

East High school, where the kids came from who were being sent to George for racial balance, is close to a lot of restaurants and had open lunches. Kids could walk across the street and buy lunch off campus if they wanted to.

That would have been enough irritation for the kids coming to George for the first time. But it got worse.
First, DPS bused the kids in from East at first hour and picked them up at 9th hour. Since peole were only required to attend 6 hours a day this left a group of kids stewing in the north lobby until fourth hour and a group of kids starting to grow in the north lobby at 6th hour.

All the riots happened during 4th hour.

The co-vice-president of the senior class, a student leader, called one of the new kids a little black b****.
At 4th hour lunch that day the offended party pointed out the co-vice president of the senior class with the words "There she is, get her"
A fight ensued involving some members of the football team and the offended girls friends, and anyone else who decided to join in.

School was closed for the day.

I forget which came next, the dice game in the north stairwell, or the black assembly, but I think it was the black assembly.

When the black assembly was breaking up (at 4th hour lunch again) they ran into some kids coming down the stariwell that emptied into the north lobby. Words were exchanged and a fight broke out.

School was closed for the rest of the week.

When it reopened, rules were strict. If you walked into class AS the bell was ringing, you had to report to the office for a tardy slip. Plainclothes officers were placed in the hallways to keep order.

Things went along for a week or so, and then some kids were caught playing dice in the north stairwell. The plainclothes officer who caught the kids tried to send them to the principals office and they wouldn't go. In the ensuing scuffle, someone got the officers weapon and fired it into the ceiling.
Someone in the lunchroom took the sound as their cue to hurl a chair across the lunchroom and the third riot broke out.

School was closed until the following monday. During the closure the seniors were invited to meet and give te administration ideas on how to stop the riots from happening. The ideas that came out of the senior meeting were simplistic.
The luchroom was opened and vending machines installed in order to give the kids who were spending 3 hours a day doing nothing, something to do and a place to socialize.
The plainclothes police were exchanged for uniformed officers

We had no more riots that year. Principal Beardshear made the cover of Time in December.

There is probably a good made for TV movie in that situation. It has never left me. I never had the strength of character you have shown in your life, turning instead into the pedantic reactionary I am now.

If someone has to be blamed for the situation that led to the riots I would blame Perrill and Southworth, the Denver school board, but most importantly, the voters who let themselves be led around by the nose. Perrill and Southworth won by a landslide that year (65/35 or something like that)

It wasn't until Reagan ran for office that I heard something from a politician that struck a chord with me. "Government is the problem, not the solution."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you read the portion between the lines, I am honored. If you didn't, I tend to be long winded as it is.

You are a person of influence. Tell me. How can we get people to live up to the ideals we so uselessly try to teach them? How can we get communities to "look at the individual" instead of the group? How can you escape from being "afro american" while I escape from being "white" and both be just americans?

How can we toss away the hatred and ignorance that elected Perrill and Southworth and threw our high school into a year of turmoil?

Remember, we need to do all this while maintaining tolerance for all cultures and religions, so converting everyone to the same religion or culture isn't a solution open to us.
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All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players. they have their entrances and their exits and one man in his lifetime plays many parts, his acts being seven ages......

[JWD]

I'm new here,but wasn't this a Super Bowl prediction thread in 06??
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"A man who won't die for something is not fit to live." - Dr Martin Luther King Jr.
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