Posts
5:09 AM
Unknown
Showing posts with label New York Times. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New York Times. Show all posts
Sunday, December 22, 2013
Y'all, Youse, You Guys
Posted in: 
Thursday, December 5, 2013
New York Times Report: Poor And Black Men Are The Face Of HIV/AIDS
The AIDS epidemic in America is rapidly becoming concentrated among poor, young black and Hispanic men who have sex with men. Despite years of progress in preventing and treating H.I.V. in the middle class, the number of new infections nationwide remains stubbornly stuck at 50,000 a year — more and more of them in these men, who make up less than 1 percent of the population. Giselle, a homeless 23-year-old transgender woman with cafe-au-lait skin, could be called the new face of the epidemic. “I tested positive about a year ago,” said Giselle, who was born male but now has a girlish hair spout, wears a T-shirt tight across a feminine chest and identifies herself as a woman. “I don’t know how, exactly. I was homeless. I was escorting. I’ve been raped.” [snip]The article goes on to cite the work of the Ali Forney Center and other organizations struggling to serve young black gay men. Read the full article.
Nationally, 25 percent of new infections are in black and Hispanic men, and in New York City it is 45 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the city’s health department. Nationally, when only men under 25 infected through gay sex are counted, 80 percent are black or Hispanic — even though they engage in less high-risk behavior than their white peers. The prospects for change look grim. Critics say little is being done to save this group, and none of it with any great urgency. “There wasn’t even an ad campaign aimed at young black men until last year — what’s that about?” said Krishna Stone, a spokeswoman for GMHC, which was founded in the 1980s as the Gay Men’s Health Crisis.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
New Social Class Division: Married vs Single Parent
The premise of the article is that a correlation exists between one's net worth and one's marital status, particularly among women; married two-parent households tend to do better economically than single parent households.
Beyond just stating the obvious, the article profiled two local families: a married couple located in Livingston County, and a single mother living in Ann Arbor. The NYT cited to statistics suggesting a rapid growth in single-parent households.
What struck us as relevant in the article is the nearly explosive growth of single-parent households. Once reserved for the "bottom quadrant" of the lower class, single-parent households have experienced the most growth in the second quadrant, among the so-called "working class".
Jason DeParl's article detailed the child rearing advantages of a two-parent household, not just from the standpoint of two incomes, but also from a time and availability perspective. DeParl sites to statistics that show the long range benefits gained by children raised in a two parent household. These include better average education and higher self esteem.
By the end of the article, I felt truly sorry for the children of the single mother in Ann Arbor. That mom struggled to make ends meet and to provide basic extra curricular opportunities for her children. The married Livingston County couple, on the other hand, used their dual incomes to provide their children with a host of enriching activities in which both parents participated.
The trend cited in the article is that the wealthier among us are more inclined to embark upon building a family under traditional means: marriage, with both parents contributing to the economic and social development of the children. For the less wealthy among us, single-parenthood looms as a growing specter, with the promise of begetting more single-parent households, as the children born into these arrangements tend to eschew traditional marriage, and embrace the same living arrangement as the parent who raised them.
The article draws no conclusions about our ever-present high rate of divorce and is silent as to how divorce affects the long-term health of family members, particularly children. We here at the Law Blogger believe divorce is perhaps the most significant factor in one's marital status.
As a caveat to this thesis, Mr. DeParl does point out, however, that 2 of our last 3 presidents came from single-parent households.
Go figure.
www.clarkstonlegal.com
info@clarkstonlegal.com
Monday, November 21, 2011
Consumers of Legal Services Force Change in Law School Curriculum
The academic template for law schools has been around, with very little change, since Harvard Law School branded the so-called "case method" in the late 19th Century. This traditional legal pedagogy was memorialized in the 1973 movie, The Paper Chase.
The Socratic case method calls for students to read and break down cases that illustrate a particular, albeit ancient or esoteric, legal principle. A law professor calls on students who must answer hard questions about the cases they have briefed. The law students are forced to reason and think on their feet, like a lawyer in a courtroom.
The Socratic case method does not teach the student, however, how to handle contemporary problems faced by real-life clients in today's unforgiving marketplace. Today, the cost-conscious consumer makes every effort to avoid the courtroom.
In our era of sustained economic downturn, the traditional law school model is under attack from two sides: there are very few legal jobs waiting for the legions of debt-burdened graduating law students; and clients generally do not want to see first or second year lawyers' time on their monthly invoices.
In response, many law schools have attempted practical innovations, introducing a "legal writing across the curriculum" component, and developing various legal clinics where students represent actual clients. The effort has been to produce market-tested graduates.
Former Vanderbilt Law School Dean Edward Rubin has isolated the following areas where corporate clients are demanding better training from the academy:
- A better understanding of modern litigation which now includes an e-discovery component, diligent fact gathering, and a settlement process designed to avoid court;
- Deeper knowledge of transactional law, including how to properly draft, evaluate and challenge a contract;
- How to perform basic corporate due diligence in the modern government regulatory context;
- Stronger legal writing skills (age-old complaint); and
- Getting a clue about the economics of a law practice.
Locally, both the Wayne State University Law School, and the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law (this blogger's alma mater) have robust legal writing programs and have been leaders in developing urban clinics which provide students with practical experience serving real clients.
Like any customer, law clients want excellent service for a reasonable fee. Hiring a law firm that implements cutting edge, cost-sensitive technique is more important than ever in reducing a corporation's or an individual's legal bills.
