Underground Journal of Initiation

Clarence Page on educating Obama's daughters. The education world is waiting to see whether Sasha, 7, and Malia, 10, will be sent to private school while their father continues to oppose tax-supported programs that offer a similar choice to less-fortunate parents. Obama must not sacrifice Malia and Sasha on the altar of the American teacher's unions. Put them in the best school that you can find in Washington and then challenge the educators to rebuke our current Prussian based system of education.

RICHARD SIMMONS WILL APPEAR BEFORE A CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE TO LOBBY FOR MANDATING PHYSICAL EDUCATION IN EVERY SCHOOL. WHAT GENIUS EVER RECOMMENDED REMOVING PE FROM THE SCHOOL'S CURRICULUM? IDIOTS! I SAY, GOOD FOR YOU RICHARD! SIMMONS' WEBSITE

I hope they throw the book at them!

CAIRO, June 26 -- The centuries-old search for the mummy of Queen Hatshepsut, Egypt's most famous female pharaoh, may finally have ended. According to US-based Discovery Channel, Egypt's antiquities supremo Zahi Hawass will announce at a media conference in Cairo on Wednesday "the most important find in Egypt's Valley of the Kings since the discovery of Tutankhamun" in 1922. Egyptology discussion boards have been abuzz with the news that the one of the most important discoveries in Egypt's history could be announced soon. A broken tooth was the latest clue which led archaeologists to explore the possibility they had indeed found Hatshepsut. read the full story... A single tooth and some DNA clues... Wikipedia: Hatshepsut

I cannot talk about the Philippines without mentioning my whiteness. Remember in my first blog I said I was a deer in the headlights? Well, that's pretty much how I felt most of time out in public! Here in the US, my family and friends give me a hard time about being SO white. I'm constantly being told "to get some sun". I'm known for going on cruises and other vacations to warm places and coming back just as white as I was before I left (due the SPF 100 I wear...no just kidding...it's more like SPF 55). As you can imagine, I was completely surprised at the attention I received in the Philippines. My first time there I started noticing people staring at me. It seemed to happen wherever we went; the mall, out to eat, walking down the street. It was as if I was an alien who just landed on their planet. After the first couple of stares my husband said to me "Everyone thinks your beautiful". What??? Why? "Because you're so white" he went on...

Many communities around the country are grappling with what to do about schools, buildings, monuments and public places named after Confederate heroes or people who profited off slavery and racism. The University of Colorado renamed a residence hall after it came to light that the original honoree had participated in a 19th century massacre of American Indians. Brown University did a thorough study of the "grievous crimes" committed by its founders who owned slaves or captained slave ships. California faces its own dilemma: What to do about the legacies of honored public figures who promoted and justified racism in the name of "eugenics," and about the institutions that made them honorable. Eugenics, popular across the globe from the mid-19th to mid-20th century, was politically and ideologically diverse, and ranged from the "softer" pronatalist eugenics of France to the annihilationist "racial science" of Nazi Germany. Story continues...

Leaders at Riverdale Christian Academy are accused of racism after a themed graduation party on Friday, June 1st. The theme was southern plantations during the Civil War. Students and staff dressed up in period costumes for the event. Controversy arose when some school employees dressed up as slaves and wore black make-up on their faces, arms and legs. Pictures from this party ended up on the internet and have caused controversy. One photo shows a scene of a runaway slave as he is taken away. Other photos show slaves working in the field and at a lemonade stand. The scenes were part of a graduation party skit. story continues... Related: Urban knowledge blogs on the christian academy prom in blackface

SASKATOON -- Racism is alive and well and living in Canada, and it's time white people started talking about it, say academics who are aiming to get that discussion going among the country's educators. "There is this idea that racism is a U.S. problem. That it doesn't happen here. It does. We are just more polite about it," explains Darren Lund, an education professor at the University of Calgary. Prof. Lund says his classes of would-be teachers generally start to squirm when he raises the issue of race with them. Most are middle-class, white women who loved school, he says, and they do not want to entertain the notion that the system is not as fair to everyone as it was to them or that they play a role in the problem. "There is lots of discomfort and shame and people get angry," he said. continued...

Scientists said yesterday that they have discovered a tiny genetic mutation that largely explains the first appearance of white skin in humans tens of thousands of years ago, a finding that helps solve one of biology's most enduring mysteries and illuminates one of humanity's greatest sources of strife. The work suggests that the skin-whitening mutation occurred by chance in a single individual after the first human exodus from Africa, when all people were brown-skinned. That person's offspring apparently thrived as humans moved northward into what is now Europe, helping to give rise to the lightest of the world's races. Leaders of the study, at Penn State University, warned against interpreting the finding as a discovery of "the race gene." Race is a vaguely defined biological, social and political concept, they noted, and skin color is only part of what race is -- and is not. continued... Related: NPR: Researchers Discover Skin Color Gene(audio)

Up to five school systems can convert to charter status under legislation signed into law by Gov. Sonny Perdue Tuesday. Perdue called Senate Bill 39, the Charter Systems Act, "a better way to make sure our children are ready to compete in a worldwide economy in the 21st Century." The bill was signed at a ceremony in the Capitol rotunda. Thirty-nine children from four charter schools were among those in attendance. The new law provides $5 million in seed money for the applicants. A charter advisory committee will make recommendations to the state Board of Education on what applications to fund. The charter systems will operate under a contract with the state. In exchange for meeting performance goals, the school systems can ignore many state and federal rules. With that freedom, they're expected to take innovative approaches that improve education.

Scientists examining documents dating back 3,500 years say they have found proof that the origins of modern medicine lie in ancient Egypt and not with Hippocrates and the Greeks. The research team from the KNH Centre for Biomedical Egyptology at The University of Manchester discovered the evidence in medical papyri written in 1,500BC – 1,000 years before Hippocrates was born. "Classical scholars have always considered the ancient Greeks, particularly Hippocrates, as being the fathers of medicine but our findings suggest that the ancient Egyptians were practising a credible form of pharmacy and medicine much earlier," said Dr Jackie Campbell.

The researchers said the artificial blood was easier to store Scientists have developed an artificial plastic blood which could act as a substitute in emergencies. Researchers at Sheffield University said their creation could be a huge advantage in war zones. They say that the artificial blood is light to carry, does not need to be kept cool and can be kept for longer.The new blood is made up of plastic molecules that have an iron atom at their core, like haemoglobin, that can carry oxygen through the body. The scientists said the artificial blood could be cheap to produce and they were looking for extra funding to develop a final prototype that would be suitable for biological testing.

A major relaxation of IVF rules was announced by ministers today. The changes will make it easier for single people and lesbians to receive fertility treatment on the NHS. The move, which is part of a shake-up of laws on the use of human tissues, will also allow the creation of " Frankenstein" embryos - human and animal cells mixed together - for medical research.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US astronomers on Tuesday presented the most solid proof yet of the existence of dark matter, a mysterious substance believed to make up more than a quarter of the universe.

A researcher at the University of Dayton who surveyed hundreds of white college students nationwide found that harsh racist language, the use of the “n-word” and the ugliest of racial stereotypes are common, everyday occurrences when white students are alone. “What I found was there is a profound difference between the frontstage – when whites are with people of color – and the backstage – when they are with other whites,” said Leslie H. Picca, assistant professor of sociology.

LONDON (Reuters Life!) - Pampered, peeled and toned skin is the number one priority for image-conscious consumers around the world and they are going to increasingly extreme measures to get it, a survey showed on Friday. A survey by research group AC Nielsen across 46 countries found that one in three people spend most of their beauty budget on skincare, with Asian and U.S. consumers leading the trend. Skin whitening is the most sought after treatment in Asia, the survey showed, with one in 10 Asian consumers buying bleaching products and 50 percent saying they would lighten their skin if money was no object

DILI (Reuters) - Portuguese is one of the two official languages in East Timor, but you can hardly hear it spoken in the streets of the young nation. The tiny country was a Portuguese colony for more than three centuries, but only an estimated 5 percent of its one million people now speak the European language. After Lisbon cut the territory free, East Timor was occupied by neighboring Indonesia for 24 years before gaining full independence in 2002. Under Indonesian rule, Portuguese was suppressed and speakers of the language now mostly come from the political elite or are older people educated in the colonial era.

The dean of admissions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was forced to resign today after the school confirmed an anonymous tip that she had lied about graduating from college herself. The dean, Marilee Jones, is prominent in higher-education circles as an author and outspoken advocate of reducing the stress of college admissions. At MIT, she redesigned the school's application to include fewer lines for extracurricular activities, saying that too many students were puffing up their credentials to fill the space. But as the university learned last week, Ms. Jones had embellished her own credentials. She attended college for one year, as a part-time student at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1974, but never received the bachelor's or master's degrees that she claimed from RPI. Nor did she receive a degree she claimed from Albany Medical College, the university found. Registrars at RPI and Albany confirmed that Ms. Jones didn't receive degrees there.