Entries by Andrew Odom

The Griffin-Spalding County School System announced Thursday three finalists for the position of principal at Griffin High School. [Full story »] 

In what is becoming an all too familiar strategy, the Georgia Department of Education recommended yesterday to shorten the school year to help schools cope with budget cuts next year.

The Georgia Department of Education says with state funding cuts likely to be above A BILLION DOLLARS, schools should have the flexibility to cut teacher instructional days which would shorten the school year. [Full story »] 

A bill that sets a minimum fine for driving too slow in the passing lane on Georgia interstates and highways raced through a committee of the Georgia House yesterday afternoon.

Members of the House Transportation Committee voted unanimously to send HB1047 to the House Rules Committee. The Rules Committee will decide in the next few weeks whether to send the bill to the full House for a vote. [Full story »] 

According to an article by Errin Haines printed yesterday "the message on dozens of billboards across the city is provocative: Black children are an 'endangered species.'"

As the image depicts, the eyebrow-raising ads feature a young black child being displayed as an effort by the anti-abortion movement to use race to rally support within the black community. The reaction from black leaders has been mixed, but the "Too Many Aborted" campaign, which so far is unique to only Georgia, is drawing support from other anti-abortion groups across the country. [Full story »] 

It is unfortunate but it is true. A cruise down College Drive or a pass of 341 North as well as some Lamar extension, planned communities sit empty, sewage and power lines sticking up from the ground with the haunting allure of a headstone at Greenwood Cemetery.

As with much of the United States tile-roofed versions of a 21st century ghost town remind us of the gambling losses that took place not on the blackjack tables of Vegas but the board tables of America's financial institutions. [Full story »] 

In an effort to ease the strains of drought, encourage lush landscapes and enhance photosynthetic landscapes, some west coast communities are taking aim at a beloved fixture of suburban domesticity: the lawn. [Full story »] 

Originally printed in The New York Times. Adjusted for local audiences.
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The Obama administration, even as it tried to restrain other domestic spending in its 2011 budget request, has called for expanding the Pell Grants, the main federal college aid program for low-income families.

If adopted by Congress, the president’s formula would raise the top grant to $5,710 in 2011, compared with $5,550 this year, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education, and make the program available to an additional one million students. [Full story »] 

There is no hidden agenda today. There is no right or wrong. There is but an empty stage, a microphone and a spotlight. [Full story »] 

I was recently sent an article on Mark Sanford, the South Carolina politician and seeming international playboy.

Pundits are saying that in spite of the danger he faced regarding impeachment for running off to Argentina to see his mistress — his best insurance policy may well have been South Carolina's lieutenant governor, Andre Bauer. [Full story »] 

Microfinancing is the provision of financial services to low-income clients, including consumers and the self-employed, who traditionally lack access to banking and related services.

It is, in essence, the supply of loans, savings, and other basic financial services to the underpriveleged.

More broadly, it is a movement whose object is a world in which as many poor and near-poor households as possible have permanent access to an appropriate range of high quality financial services, including not just credit but also savings, insurance, and fund transfers. Those who promote microfinance generally believe that such access will help poor people out of poverty. [Full story »] 

The headline jumped off the news wire this morning as if to say, "Yes, America, we are in a recession and yes, it is dog-eat-dog." When Wal-Mart begins to cut jobs (not to mention so many jobs) we can all begin to worry.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. announced yesterday it is cutting about 11,200 jobs at its Sam's Club warehouse division as it outsources in-store product sampling to marketing company Shopper Events in an effort to win more customers and boost lagging sales. [Full story »] 

Air America Radio was born at noon, eastern time, on Mar. 31, 2004, and on that first show the host, Al Franken, proclaimed his first mission: to defeat George W. Bush in that year's presidential election. It died a year and a day after Barack Obama's Inauguration, and two days after Obama's Democrats all but officially became a minority party in the U.S. Senate. [Full story »]