Dancing apart, together: fifty years of dance revolution
By Kevin Bratcher
(NEW YORK) Say the name Chubby Checker- what comes to mind?
The Twist.
It’s the hit dance style made famous by Chubby Checker in 1960 that has left the dance world forever changed.
On Friday Chubby Checker will be back in his hometown of Philadelphia for a free concert to celebrate 50 years of the Twist and to remind everybody who the father of modern dance is.
Chubby, born Ernest Evans, was born October 3, 1941 and was raised in Philadelphia with his parents and two brothers. He would introduce his version of “The Twist” in July of 1960 on The Clay Cole Show, launching a hit that is the only single to top the Billboard Hot 100 twice.
The advent of the Twist, along with a number of other original styles (“The Fly,” “The Pony,” and “The Hucklebuck” to name a few), made popular what Chubby refers to as “Dancing apart…together.”
“People have been dancing by themselves with somebody else for centuries,” Chubby said. “It came along in the 20th century and The Twist happened to have the name on it, and it became a successful thing for the music that young people enjoy…and I just happen to be blessed to be the person that’s doing this.”
Chubby drew a comparison between what he did with dance and what inventors such as Alexander Graham Bell did with their inventions:
“Is Alexander Graham Bell not here when I’m talking on a cell phone to you? The man who made the typewriter, when you’re on the computer, is he not there? When you’re on the floor dancing and enjoying yourself to Lady Gaga or any of those people like that, is Chubby Checker not there?”
Chubby noted that the free concert isn’t targeted just towards the generation alive when the Twist first made its debut:
“It is not limited to your mother and your dad and ‘I remember the Twist,’ Chubby said, “You’re caught up in it. If you’re ten years old, you’re caught up in it. You’re caught up in dancing apart to the beat. Before Chubby Checker brought that, it wasn’t here.”
Asked if he had a message for the new generation, Chubby said, “For the kids that were born in 1989, they’re living in the best time of humanity. They have everything available to them: more information, more technology, and they need to take advantage of it… And one more thing: Behave!”
Chubby Checker’s concert will be at noon in Dilworth Plaza at City Hall in Philadelphia. Additional information may be found at Chubby Checker’s official site at www.ChubbyChecker.com
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Immigration process in need of change
Immigration process in need of change
By Kevin Bratcher
NEW YORK-
Immigration forms the foundational backbone of the population of the U.S. Without immigration the United States would not have been colonized, nor would it have the wide variety of individuals and cultural expressions it has now.
Immigration has, it would seem, become a bureaucratic bog that causes more problems than it helps.
Immigration attorney and former mayor, Michael Wildes spoke to the WJI Times about some of the overall problems immigration is dealing with.
“Immigration is tremendously backlogged in applications such that the retrogression of visas creates collateral consequences for businesses and families who are not reunited with one another,” Wildes said. “Immigration also does not have proper technology and records in place to track departures from the United States.”
With both government and the people calling for a change in the immigration process, stories of miscommunication and abnormal delays give an idea of what sort of reforms need to be made.
One story involves an American man marrying a Canadian woman. After applying for the proper forms and legally marrying, they moved to an apartment in the states, where they planned to wait the allotted amount of time for her to receive a social security number and a work visa.
However, upon visiting the local social security office after a couple months in southeastern Pennsylvania for information, the computer systems informed government employees she was eligible for a social security card already. INS officials later informed the confused couple that she was not, in fact, eligible for a social security card.
Michael Wildes shared another story of a diplomat who has been experiencing an abnormal delay in the processing of his application for citizenship.
“[I have a story of a] diplomat who filed a case for citizenship in 2003 and still in 2010 the case has not been adjudicated,” Wildes said. “He already passed his interview. This is a simple case of a gentleman that actually came forward with great intelligence to help our nation, and this is the reward he gets.”
Wildes referred as well to a number of other cases in which length of time made immigration very difficult and painful for families.
“We’ve literally had clients die while the applications for citizenship are pending…these are people put in harm’s way because of immigration delays,” Wildes said.
These two accounts indicate that there are major flaws in the immigration system which Congress and the President will have to deal with in the coming years. With questions as to how to deal with illegal immigration and recent controversy in Arizona concerning new laws passed, the issue of immigration is increasingly important for the U.S. government to address.
By Kevin Bratcher
NEW YORK-
Immigration forms the foundational backbone of the population of the U.S. Without immigration the United States would not have been colonized, nor would it have the wide variety of individuals and cultural expressions it has now.
Immigration has, it would seem, become a bureaucratic bog that causes more problems than it helps.
Immigration attorney and former mayor, Michael Wildes spoke to the WJI Times about some of the overall problems immigration is dealing with.
“Immigration is tremendously backlogged in applications such that the retrogression of visas creates collateral consequences for businesses and families who are not reunited with one another,” Wildes said. “Immigration also does not have proper technology and records in place to track departures from the United States.”
With both government and the people calling for a change in the immigration process, stories of miscommunication and abnormal delays give an idea of what sort of reforms need to be made.
One story involves an American man marrying a Canadian woman. After applying for the proper forms and legally marrying, they moved to an apartment in the states, where they planned to wait the allotted amount of time for her to receive a social security number and a work visa.
However, upon visiting the local social security office after a couple months in southeastern Pennsylvania for information, the computer systems informed government employees she was eligible for a social security card already. INS officials later informed the confused couple that she was not, in fact, eligible for a social security card.
Michael Wildes shared another story of a diplomat who has been experiencing an abnormal delay in the processing of his application for citizenship.
“[I have a story of a] diplomat who filed a case for citizenship in 2003 and still in 2010 the case has not been adjudicated,” Wildes said. “He already passed his interview. This is a simple case of a gentleman that actually came forward with great intelligence to help our nation, and this is the reward he gets.”
Wildes referred as well to a number of other cases in which length of time made immigration very difficult and painful for families.
“We’ve literally had clients die while the applications for citizenship are pending…these are people put in harm’s way because of immigration delays,” Wildes said.
These two accounts indicate that there are major flaws in the immigration system which Congress and the President will have to deal with in the coming years. With questions as to how to deal with illegal immigration and recent controversy in Arizona concerning new laws passed, the issue of immigration is increasingly important for the U.S. government to address.
Building homes and helping wallets- and futures
Building homes and helping wallets- and futures
By Kevin Bratcher
If someone told you that you could buy a house and end up saving money and eliminating waste, you probably wouldn’t believe them.
However, that’s precisely the idea home designer AmeriSus has in mind with its innovative new line of homes.
Charlie Kamps, managing director of AmeriSus, spoke in an interview recently about the mission of AmeriSus.
“Nobody out there seems to want to really provide the general public en masse with a house that is more affordable,” Kamps said. “[We have] gone through the effort of literally pulling out the waste in the labor and the wasted materials and converting those savings into a higher quality home.”
Kamps noted as well that they went out of their way with their house designs to avoid starting with the cheaper industry standards, which can survive longer. They have companies like Whirlpool, IKEA, and Shaw supplying high quality products for their houses.
AmeriSus’ home designs start in the $200,000 range, which may seem like a daunting price tag at first, until you consider everything included in the house and the savings AmeriSus guarantees on energy costs.
“You get a lot of house with [our designs],” Kamps said. “You get a house that will have a utility bill that is 70% less than a comparable home built by another builder. You get a home that has product in it that is really first class.”
Seventy percent might not sound like a lot to someone with an apartment, but 70% off of $2400 (based on average household energy costs in the northeastern U.S. according to U.S. Energy Information Association (EIA) statistics) per year amounts to $1680 per year in savings. That sort of savings really adds up in the long term.
In addition, AmeriSus offers a line of “net-zero” homes which use solar power to produce as much energy as they use, creating an environmentally self-contained house.
AmeriSus is primarily marketing itself toward middle-tier builders who would be building between one and one thousand homes. They are also eager to provide the very best house to individual customers looking to set up a new home.
“For 2010 our focus is on projects in the mid-Atlantic region, and by 2011 we’ll cover the 48 contiguous states,” he said. “Also by 2011 we’ll be aptly postured to accommodate individuals looking to build a vacation house or just a new house.”
In a market increasingly concerned with energy footprints, where customers have always been concerned with getting the most for their money, AmeriSus promises to be a popular and wise alternative to typical housing designs.
More information about AmeriSus can be found at their website: www.Amerisus.com
By Kevin Bratcher
If someone told you that you could buy a house and end up saving money and eliminating waste, you probably wouldn’t believe them.
However, that’s precisely the idea home designer AmeriSus has in mind with its innovative new line of homes.
Charlie Kamps, managing director of AmeriSus, spoke in an interview recently about the mission of AmeriSus.
“Nobody out there seems to want to really provide the general public en masse with a house that is more affordable,” Kamps said. “[We have] gone through the effort of literally pulling out the waste in the labor and the wasted materials and converting those savings into a higher quality home.”
Kamps noted as well that they went out of their way with their house designs to avoid starting with the cheaper industry standards, which can survive longer. They have companies like Whirlpool, IKEA, and Shaw supplying high quality products for their houses.
AmeriSus’ home designs start in the $200,000 range, which may seem like a daunting price tag at first, until you consider everything included in the house and the savings AmeriSus guarantees on energy costs.
“You get a lot of house with [our designs],” Kamps said. “You get a house that will have a utility bill that is 70% less than a comparable home built by another builder. You get a home that has product in it that is really first class.”
Seventy percent might not sound like a lot to someone with an apartment, but 70% off of $2400 (based on average household energy costs in the northeastern U.S. according to U.S. Energy Information Association (EIA) statistics) per year amounts to $1680 per year in savings. That sort of savings really adds up in the long term.
In addition, AmeriSus offers a line of “net-zero” homes which use solar power to produce as much energy as they use, creating an environmentally self-contained house.
AmeriSus is primarily marketing itself toward middle-tier builders who would be building between one and one thousand homes. They are also eager to provide the very best house to individual customers looking to set up a new home.
“For 2010 our focus is on projects in the mid-Atlantic region, and by 2011 we’ll cover the 48 contiguous states,” he said. “Also by 2011 we’ll be aptly postured to accommodate individuals looking to build a vacation house or just a new house.”
In a market increasingly concerned with energy footprints, where customers have always been concerned with getting the most for their money, AmeriSus promises to be a popular and wise alternative to typical housing designs.
More information about AmeriSus can be found at their website: www.Amerisus.com
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
New York legislature votes for more schooling
New York legislature votes for more schooling
By Kevin Bratcher
NEW YORK- Upwards of 80,000 New York students and parents will now have the power of choice given to them over the next few years thanks to recently passed legislation in the State’s House and Senate.
After a long and difficult battle, the State Senate and House passed the proposal on May 28 to raise the cap on charter schools in New York State from 200 to 460. The legislation marks a victory for the Bloomberg administration as well as for supporters of charter schools such as Andrew Cuomo and Bill Gates.
There are some public school advocates who are in favor of charter schools as well. Edward Tom, principal of the Bronx Center for Science and Math, spoke about charter schools and the raised cap.
“I believe charter schools should be an option for taxpayers.” said Principal Tom. “I don’t think it will be THE solution for the issues we have in urban educations, but I do feel it is a viable option for parents and students to choose.”
Charter schools were approved in New York State in 1998, and there has been a high concentration of the schools within New York City. Charter schools operate with an average of 300 students according to numbers from the Center for Education Reform, which shows the scope of the possibilities offered by the raised cap.
The raising of the cap was controversial not least because there has for some time been confusion as to whether charter schools are private schools. A charter school is in fact a publicly funded school which is operated by a private organization, meaning it is not under the direct control of teachers unions or the government- although what is taught still follows governmental guidelines.
Among the new rules applied to charter schools is a mandate for the state comptroller’s office to audit the schools, as well as a ban on operation of new charter schools by any for-profit organization.
One of the benefits Principal Tom noted about the charter schools is “the non-unionization…and also not being confined by the union contract so that their day can begin earlier and end later.” Mr. Tom also noted that the ability of charter schools to pay their teachers “based on a meritocracy…”
Principal Tom went on: “I think it’s ironic that education is one of the few industries where you can’t hold the stakeholders accountable for actual achievement when our clients are children.” He noted, however, that charter schools seem to be in danger of losing their fiscal viability soon if they aren’t careful, as they must provide benefits and pension funds out of their own budgets.
Charter school critics have claimed in the past that the much-touted better results among students of charter schools are due more to a selective enrollment process than better teaching methods.
The newly passed legislation stipulates that charter schools must accept the same percentage of special needs and English-as-second-language students as their public school counterparts, in an attempt to remove such a possibility. However, Principal Tom offered up a different explanation for the positive results attained by charter schools:
“I think there’s a natural filter,” Principal Tom said, “when you have parents who are more involved in their children’s education, that are more informed…those are probably the parents and kids that are more on top of their game in terms of their academics to begin with.”
As Principal Tom noted, it is unlikely that charter schools will be the perfect solution to the education issues being dealt with both in New York and across the country. New York legislators are hoping that providing more options to parents and students will lead to better results for New York’s educational system, and produce a smarter generation.
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