It’s been around two weeks, a fairly chaotic two weeks, but I’ve caught back up on my emails. At least, I’ve gotten down to no unread emails in my inbox. There are still plenty of emails that are flagged for follow-up. So, this post will highlight some of the things I’ve been reading.

On areas is on telecommunications. A few weeks ago was Freedom to Connect. This is an annual event organized by David Isen. I made it one year and try to participate as much as possible via chats and video feeds on other years. This year, I did tune in long enough to hear Dewayne Hendricks talking about Net Neutrality issues. He says that the battle for Net Neutrality was lost years ago, and urges people to pay close attention to what the IP Sphere Forum is up to.

Yet the battles for better internet access continues, and there are two articles that I recently read about these battles in Connecticut. Esme Vos has an article about an RFI issued by Manchester, CT about installing city wide wireless access. Speed Matters has an article abilt HB 5682, "An Act Concerning High Speed Broadband Access", submitted by Rep. Roberta Willis to foster the build-out of high speed Internet access for Connecticut's underserved communities and allow local residents to fully take part in the digital age..

This fits nicely with a recent discussion about digital divide issues that has emerged on the Second Life Educators mailing list. For more on that, check out Stan Trevena’s blog post.

One mailing list that I’m following is talking a bit about how to deal with crime, and I pointed everyone to a great paper published by Harvard's Center on the Developing Child entitled, A Science-Based Framework for Early Childhood Policy. I would encourage people to read this.

In other topics, it was recently reported that employees from the “Dr. Phil” TV show posted bail for Mercades Nichols. Mercades is one of the girls involved in the Victoria Lindsey beating. My blog post about the beating continues to get lots of hits each day. In a follow up post, I suggested that these girls need serious psychological help. However, I am not sure that Dr. Phil counts, and based on the photographs in this article about the bail hearing, I’m not sure that Dr. Phil chose the right person to work with. I may be reading more into the pictures than is reasonable, but Mercades looks to me like the ringleader trying to finagle something good out of this for herself. I was also struck by the looks of defiance by April Cooper and Cara Murphy. No, if I were reaching out, I’d probably start with Britney Mayes or perhaps Brittini Hardcastle who seem the ones closest to remorse, based on the pictures in the article.

Then, tomorrow, we remember the shooting at Virginia Tech. Friends in Second Life will stop by at the Memorial Park. In Stamford, Protest Easy Guns if organizing a “Lie In” at 11 AM at Stamford Superior Court, on 123 Hoyt Street. The goal of the Lie-In is “To Urge Congress to Close The Gun Show Loophole And For More Common Sense Federal and State Gun Laws”. Other events are noted at http://www.remembrance.vt.edu/

All of this feeds into my mind as I prepare to speak Thursday evening at a talk about the Avery Doninger case, “Fighting to be heard”. The topic is how Avery’s case “informs our thinking about the types of experiences students face in high school and what they bring to community college.” I suspect that not only Avery’s case, but Tori’s case, the fight for better internet access, for safer schools, and even the issues of early childhood education should all fit into our thinking about “the types of experiences students face in high school and what they bring to community college”.