Mississippi is the fattest state for 3rd straight year, Colorado still leanest, D.C. loses weight.

For 2008 Mississippi has claimed the title of fattest state for the third consecutive year, Most Obese States 

West Virginia and Alabama remained as the second and third fattest states this year. The four states of Mississippi, West Virginia,

Alabama, and Louisiana have obese populations that exceed 30 percent over a three-year average and two-thirds of the citizens of Mississippi and West Virginia were either overweight or obese by CDC standards in 2007.  Update TN moved up to 4^th in Obesity.  

???  Would you like to write a “best seller” and be on the Larry King show.

My name is Sharyn and I have many book “thoughts” based on some of my life experiences

This book needs to be written by an economist yet for the average American to be interested in the topic I can assist you with the “tidbits” that will make this book a best seller.    Your name on the book will be in BIG letters.  Since you’ll do most of the work.   

~History~

Year ago sat next to Governor Martin of North Carolina at a dinner and we talked about the “golden Triangle” and the goal of long term economic success North Carolina.  

I’ve also been exposed in my life to other southern governors and political leaders.   I understand WHY things happened in parts of America.

The Fat and Happy Strategy is not just a concept.   It’s a tool for control (creates oppression) so certain people can maintain power.  It’s one strategy of many that have affected the economies in “certain” states.  Some of these southern governors are VERY smart at strategy.  

Professor, Creating perceived  success is important to those political leaders that follow the “Good ole Boy” rules.
How does that connect with corporate success. ??? whose success it is and who really is profiting.  Long term prognoses for southern success.  How diversity plays a role and is racism “in” in America and how it hurts a corportations “bottom line” in todays Global economy. 

As you know Tennessee is trying to be a “player” in the Global economy and is making  changes for future success so I want a “positive” spin, yet the book needs to be “the truth”.    This book would be about the entire “south”.

The Book Title…… 

Caveat Emptor

How the South Was Sold

The Expensive Lesson that Location Matters

Picture on the cover.  men in white sheets burning a
wooden sculpture of the $....That's a powerful image.


....... After the “deal was done” National and Multi National Companies  challenges  with creating a Global Corporate Culture in Southern societies  and creating success with limited “intellectual” property and  dealing with a domineering “Good Ole Boy” mindset.

By… Leading Professor (Your Name here)

& Sharyn Bovat

??? Why did I select you?

 I understand you got your PHD in North Carolina and also went to the University of Kentucky.  You’re a respected professor in economic at Vanderbilt.   I’ve seen your CV and it’s impressive.  I live nearby so let’s have coffee???

Have A Great Day!!!!

Sharyn Bovat

Love Life~Love People~Love the Planet

Whoever!!!   Today 12-12-09 I CLAIM RIGHTS TO THIS TITLE

Read Below  to help understand how this “mindset” happened. 

Good Old Boys;

Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms helped create an unsettling brand of politics.

.......Like Thurmond, Jesse Helms, a fellow Republican who served as a senator from North Carolina from 1973 until 2003, symbolized the white Southern backlash against racial integration and social liberalism. Helms gained a political following in the 1960s as a commentator on Raleigh's WRAL-TV and the Tobacco Radio Network with his denunciations of the civil rights movement, liberalism and communism. As a senator, he explained that he voted against Roberta Achtenberg, President Clinton's nominee for a Housing and Urban Development position, "because she's a damn lesbian." When Helms encountered protesters during a visit to Mexico in 1986, he remarked: "All Latins are volatile people. Hence, I was not surprised at the volatile reaction." In 1990, Helms stayed away in protest when Nelson Mandela addressed a joint session of Congress.

About Virginia...

UVa's racial problem is larger than simply a few isolated incidents of bigotry. The university is a microcosm of the modern-day Commonwealth, and its students bring to college all of the baggage they have accumulated from birth until the end of grade school. This includes prejudices and biases fostered by their families, communities, and the pop culture that pervades their lives.

The university is part of the context of the new Old Dominion - and the larger "New" South - where overt racism and institutional discrimination are frowned upon, but racial inequality still persists in other, often invisible, forms. There is still a discernable "Good Ol' Boy" network that heavily influences the Commonwealth's social, economic and political life and holds UVA up as a crown jewel. The university's social fabric reflects the society around it -- one that, admittedly, is changing for the better as time goes by. As the Commonwealth becomes more open to all of its citizens, so will the university.

One hopes that the university can leverage its ability to mold young minds in a way that will impact Virginia positively. Some of those who oppose the new steps taken by the university have issued a call for greater colorblindness as official university policy. While current white students played no part in the UVA's past racial problems, they are not absolved of their obligation to be mindful of that history so that they do not perpetuate inequality. By the same token, allowing black students to practice self-segregation from the larger community merely facilitates a sense of victimization and undermines their ability to enhance their American cultural literacy through interactions with others.

Though laudatory as a long-term societal goal, colorblindness is a quaint notion that often ignores real-world inequities and the persistence of historical memory that is alive now. For true colorblindness to prevail, blacks would essentially have to abandon the ethnic heritage that they created over the past 300 years, a culture that buttressed a people against the evils of racism and color discrimination. Otherwise, the larger society would have to fully co-opt black culture as part of its fabric so that colorblindness would cease to be a code for assimilation inherently built on the assumption of the natural superiority of Anglo-American culture.

Given the pluralistic history of America and the Commonwealth, where the dominant culture is continuously shaped by the melding together of many other elements, African Americans should have every right to engage with their own heritage insofar as it does not undermine the values of the larger system. The university has an obligation to make certain that all students can take advantage of the plethora of resources that the institution can offer, as well as, human resources in the form of interpersonal interactions of students of divergent life experiences.

Truly celebrating diversity requires addressing not just conventional notions of race, gender, and sexual orientation to make non-whites more comfortable in a campus setting. It also includes a broader examination of economic stratification, religious pluralism and geographic influences on the lives and worldviews of all students. All too often, diversity and equity are cast in a manner that assigns all whites to a homogeneous category and expects a degree of guilt from them for the suffering visited on non-whites.

News

Judge says Alabama college system discriminated against women; ruling alludes to history of gender bias and "good-ol-boy" patronage

by Scott W. Wright , July 11, 2007

Categories:

An Alabama federal judge has drawn a damning portrait of the state's community college system, describing it as riddled with gender discrimination and rife with political patronage.

"The state's community colleges, junior colleges and technical colleges are major habitats for the beneficiaries of patronage," U.S. Magistrate Vanzetta P. McPherson wrote.

The judge's disparaging comments came in a sixty-six-page ruling issued this month in a gender discrimination lawsuit filed by three female administrators at two Alabama community colleges. McPherson, who heard the women's case against the system three years ago but did not issue a decision until early June, said the women were denied promotions "because they are women."

But even those who believe the thirty-two-college system has been run by a "good ol' boy" network since its inception in the 1960s say it's unfair to cast the entire system in a negative light. They say new blood on the Alabama State Board of Education has altered the system's hiring course and that substantial progress has been made in recent years to hire more women and minorities.

System officials deny there are problems, although they are operating under several consent decrees stemming from a class-action lawsuit alleging racial and gender discrimination.

"I have a problem in that this sort of paints the whole state with the same broad brush," says Dr. Richard Carpenter, president of John C. Calhoun State Community College in Decatur. "We do not all do the same things the same way. And so I think it's unfair to characterize the whole system in Alabama on the basis of this one case."

Carpenter, who became president of the 7,400-student college five years ago and moved to Alabama from California, acknowledges the system "was founded on patronage, and it's been pervasive. But I think it's getting better, not worse. A few years ago, I would not have been hired in this state. I wasn't one of the good old boys, but I was hired anyway."

In the case before McPherson, the judge said that three women - Karen A. Newton, Myra P. Davis, and Sheryle B. Threatt - were denied promotions because of their gender. McPherson ordered the college system to give the women jobs that they otherwise would have gotten. She also awarded back pay and benefits to Newton, who contended that she was demoted after expressing interest in a top administrative job at either Northwest Shoals Community College or Bevill State Community College.

Davis says she was denied a post as director of admissions at Lawson State Community College. And Threatt said she was rejected for the position of financial aid director at Lawson State.

Newton's attorney, Joe Whatley, contends that the colleges hired men with fewer degrees and lesser qualifications. He also said Newton has been retaliated against for filing suit. And the judge said trial testimony revealed that being a member of the Alabama Legislature gave candidates for presidential posts at the state's community colleges a distinct advantage.

Saying that the appointments to the administrative posts that the three women had sought were "designed primarily to advance the power of the appointing officials and the careers and financial well-being of the appointees," the judge wrote, in contrast, "advancement of the students served by the employees, the institutions and the system appears to exist as a mere remnant of the multi-million dollar public trust managed by" the state Board of Education.

Dr. Judy Merritt became the first female president in Alabama when she was hired for the top spot at Jefferson State Community College in Birmingham in 1979.

"If you reflect and look back at year after year of hiring," she says, "you certainly could come up with figures that would make you think women are significantly under-represented."

Currently, three women hold presidential posts at community colleges in Alabama, and another woman has been named interim president of another two-year college.

"Probably one of the happiest days of my professional life was when a second female president was appointed a year later," Merritt recalls. "It was confirmation that I had been okay, that they weren't scared to try a woman again."

Merritt was referring to Dr. Yvonne Kennedy, who became the second female president when she was appointed to the top post at Bishop State Community College. Kennedy, also a state legislator, praised the judge's decision, saying that it verifies "that when you look at the cadre of applicants and the level of the degrees they hold, regardless of the qualifications, in some cases women were not hired."

Renee Culverhouse, the college system's top attorney, said officials have not yet decided whether to appeal the judge's decision but defended the colleges' hiring records. The related consent decrees that set hiring goals for female and Black administrators, she said, have remedied any discrimination, "if, in fact, there was systemic discrimination."

System records show that officials hoped one-fourth of the college presidencies would be held by Blacks in 1996. The actual percentage is 22.6 percent. The system, however, has exceeded its state goal of having 23 percent of all top administrators in the system be African Americans. The actual percentage this year was 23.9 percent.

For women, the system set a goal of having women at the helm of one-fourth of the colleges last year and at half by the year 2005. Only 12.9 percent of the presidents are women now.

"These hiring goals and recruiting and search procedures are in place throughout the system and have been in place for three or more years to avoid problems with discrimination," Culverhouse said.

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