The SEO Breakdown

Found this article from CopyBlogger.com, talking about Search Engine Optimization, why it matters, and updating SEO with the changing times. Best of all, it has this interesting chart that looks at Google’s ranking algorithm.

Facebook: Still the One

For younger generations Facebook has been about fun. They connect with friends, share photos and make plans for the weekend. For some of the older generations it’s a way to find your high school friends and keep tabs on your kids. This article suggests that Facebook may become the new largest news reader compared with others like Google Reader.

Shocked? You shouldn’t be. 65 percent of young adults use social networking sites compared to 55 percent in 2008 and much of that is Facebook. They aren’t just keeping in touch with friends anymore. This is where they shop, search and most importantly get information. So do yourself a favor and learn to use and love Facebook for all it’s worth.

Check out this article in USAtoday for even more information.

Formspring.me

Click here for a tutorial on formspring.me.

Highlights from Fred Gray forum

Here are some of the most memorable moments during the Fred Gray forum. Fred Gray and John Seigenthaler talk about the Civil Rights movement, Tuskegee syphilis study and present day social issues.

Excuses, Excuses

Looking back through my notes from the Fred Gray event, one quote by Mr. Gray really grabs my attention. “Don’t let it be an excuse.” I scribbled it down because it must have also grabbed my attention during his talk, but the problem with this quote is I am not sure what the “it” is exactly suppose to stand for.

I could venture to say he might have been referring to our race, gender, inabilities, or a number of different things we let be our excuses all the time, but alas, I simply do not know. Although this is somewhat of an ‘oops’ as a journalist, it still holds great meaning to me, because it can now apply to literally everyone. You simply fill in the blank on what your “it” is that you make excuses with.

For me, I love the excuse of being too busy. I go to class for maybe three hours a day, watch a guy make a giant cake on television, click through facebook pictures of people I have not seen since high school, and somehow that qualifies me as an extremely busy person.

It’s just one of many excuses each of us makes everyday. My question is when do we stop letting the “it” be an excuse for our lack of purpose? When does it no longer serve as a cop out for not doing things that matter?

Fred Gray did not have an “it.” He was too busy fighting for peoples’ rights, and too busy working to help others to dish out a bunch of excuses. He did not let anything become an excuse for him to give up or to stop trying to make a difference.

I am curious as to what it would look like if our generation gave up all the excuses, and challenged themselves to do something meaningful. That something could be working to help the environment, becoming a volunteer at an after school program for children, or raising awareness about the need for clean water around the world.

Getting rid of “it” as our excuse is the first step toward action.

What comes next?

In this fast paced, constantly changing and adapting, technologically driven society, everyone is moving forward towards new and innovative ways to communicate. Everyone, that is, aside from the major news conglomerates.

It can be said that they have ‘jazzed up’ their news reports with bits and pieces of new technology here and there, say with a fancy title graphic or google map. However these elements are just crudely pasted on an old model of reporting that people are simply tired of watching.

Leave it to the Brits to make a video encapsulating this idea and finding a way to throw in a few laser beams along the way. [Apologies for the brief use of foul language.]

Hope you enjoy.

By: Savannah Packard

Tuskegee, what the??

Tuskegee, Alabama is anything but your typical southern college town.

Located about 40 min north east of the states capitol of Montgomery, the city is teaming with students and black history.

View Larger Map

Almost 130 years ago Booker T. Washington founded Tuskegee University.

Washington’s determination took him from a life of slavery to one of academic achievement.

The hard working professor left behind a legacy of hope that results in approximately 1500 students graduating with liberal arts degrees each year, 69% of them Black non-hispanic.

Washington, and men like him, worked to solve a problem facing the uneducated black youth of 1880.

Ignoring the opposition, they fought for the right of all men to have the freedom to educate themselves.

At a conference held on January 20, 2010 at Belmont University, veteran civil rights attorney Fred Gray spoke about civil rights and the role we American’s, race aside, play in the future of our country.

“Each one of us can do something. Don’t ask me what you can do. You can look at the problems, you can decide on those issues. But you can find your niche. And whatever you decide that you can do to help solve the problems of this country, healthcare is one, racism is one, the wars we have, poverty, all of these, the economy, all of these are problems and we are going to have to solve them. But it’s going to take all of us working together to do that.”

Att. Gray argues Civil Rights legacy: highlights

photo by Amber Garner

• Gray set out to “…destroy everything segregated I could find.”
• Gray asks “where we need to go.”
• Montgomery did not just happen.
• Claudette Colvin arrested at 15 for refusing to give up bus seat.
• Rosa Parks knew exactly what to do when she got arrested.
• Young people were important in Civil Rights Movement.
• Many unsung heroes.
• The Civil Rights  struggle is no over.
• Gray poses a challenge: Becomes friends with someone of another race.
• “If we lose, the nation loses.”

40 Years After Tuskegee Experiment, Syphilis Rates Rising

Attorney Fred Gray discusses the Tuskegee Syphilis Case, and how those involved with the experiment were reluctant to apologize following the case becoming public.

• Tuskegee syphilis case a 40-year experiment (1932-1972) that tested late-stage syphilis on 399 black men who were unaware of the disease’s consequences
• The men were “deliberately left to degenerate” (see Tuskeegee University report) by doctors who had “no intention of curing them”
• Fred Gray represented class action lawsuit for men affected by experiment
• Syphilis an STD acquired by direct sexual contact, caused by the bacteria treponema pallidum
• Three stages of syphilis, each with increasing severity: primary, secondary and tertiary
• Symptoms range from sores and swollen lymph nodes (primary) to heart, brain and nervous systems problems (tertiary)
• Penicillin the primary treatment for syphilis
• Primarily affects sexually active adults aged 20 to 29
• 36,000 cases of syphilis in 2006; 64% of these among men who had sex with other men (via CDC)
• Syphilis on the rise in the early 2000s
• CDC developed plan to eliminate increasing syphilis risks by 2010

Att. Gray argues Civil Rights legacy

Fred Gray, the man who represented not only Rosa Parks, but the Tuskegee Syphilis case, as well as many other important Civil Rights cases, spoke at Belmont University on Jan. 20, 2010.

 Gray talked about this life– how a young man, only 24 years old, became the legal council at the center of the storm in Montgomery, Al. in the late ’60s. 

 His core desire what to “destroy everything segregated [he] could find.”

 Among the stories Gray told and things he revealed, was that the Rosa Parks incident was planned. Long has the story circulated that Rosa Parks was a random woman who was merely tired. 

 ”There were so many people who think things just happened in Montgomery. They didn’t happen, they were planned,” Gray told the audience. When Parks was arrested she knew exactly what to do. Not only that, but she was not the first to be arrested. Fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin refused to give up her seat on a bus nine months prior. According to Gray, if there had not been a Claudette Colvin, there might not have been a Rosa Parks as we know her today. 

 Apart from talking about Montgomery in the ’60s, Gray spoke about Civil Rights in the present day.

 ”The Civil Rights Movement is not over,” he said, the struggle for equal justice has not been achieved. 

 Gray presented the challenge  of befriending someone of another race and truly getting to be best friends.

“The races really don’t know each other,” he said, also adding that it will take the help of everyone because of how ingrained racism is in the U.S. 

 He also emphasized the idea that if the fight for equal justice is lost, those who died will have died in vain, and that if “we lose, the nation loses.”