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  • Politics Is Like Hiring A Hitman
    by Scott Woods inPolitical on2020-08-13

    For me, politics is like hiring a hitman. I have values and things I care about. I care enough about them to at least bother voting for 5 minutes every year for one issue or another. And because I care at least that much, I vote for people who align with the ability to realize the things I care about.

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  • Punching Above Our Weight
    by Roger Madison Jr. inPolitical on2020-07-24

    I believe our vote is the punctuation of our voice. Without that resounding exclamation mark, I believe our voices are just incoherent noise.

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  • BLACK PROGRESS AMIDST SOCIAL CHAOS
    by Roger Madison Jr. inPolitical on2020-06-16

    Recent events have raised the profile of historical injustice and inequities here in the USA. The entire world has taken note of the fact that BLACK LIVES MATTER.   We invite all of our friends to engage in actions that result in the greatest movement for change in our history. It is imperative that we take advantage of this opportunity to affect a positive change by ACTING IN OUR SELF-INTERESTS.

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  • Living in a Black No-Man's Land
    by Roger Madison Jr. inOur Community on2019-10-28

    There are many narratives that define the Black experience in America in this 2nd decade of the 21st century. Our striving over the centuries of our sojourn in this nation is a tapestry of every human experience -- oppression, enslavement, forced assimilation, dehumanization, exclusion, segregation, isolation, struggle, perseverance, achievement, excellence, celebration, mourning, despair, progress, setbacks, lynching, assassination, genocide, terror, self-hatred, low esteem, pride,...

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  • Fighting Racism
    by Scott Woods inOur Community on2018-10-25

    I had a boss who was racist. Not an outright bigot, of course; her toolbox was more subtle than most. We bumped heads a lot over inconsequential things. She frequently couldn’t keep my name out her mouth. Lot of gaslighting. You know…2018 style. I tried a lot of ways to combat or navigate her issues. None of them worked, and that’s saying a lot because I’m really good at fighting racism. But at the end of the day – every day – she was my boss, I had to deal with her, and that was that. Finally I...

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Book Review: Google Pocket Guide

Google Pocket Guide Front Cover

Google Pocket Guide
By Tara Calishain, Rael Dornfest, and DJ Adams
Publisher: O'Reilly Media
Pages: 129
Price: $9.95 at Amazon.com or O'Reilly

Beyond just going to Google website and performing a search like I normally do, the book itself delves a lot deeper in what Google has to offer and what types tips and tricks can be used  to make an effective search on the Internet. The book itself was divided into four parts.

Part One, "What Can You Do with Google?" This section explains what Google isn't (Google index is not a snapshot of everything online) and what Google is (Google is a searchable index).

Part Two, "Asking For What You Want". This section shows you how to use phrase searches by surrounding a phrase (roses are red) with quotes to generate results. There were a lot of search features in this section that one can used which included: using the AND or the OR, using the date range, using the minus sign in order not to include that word as part of your search, and many more. As an alternative, they pointed out that a person can use the Advanced Search to pick and choose what they want instead of using Google search.



Part Three, "Understanding What You Get". Okay you know what you want to search and now you have the searches. The question is "What did you get from the search? This section provides a little bit more understanding as to how use the Safe Search to filter out offensive searches, understanding the different part of the search, and checking your spelling.

Part Four, "Other Google Services and Features". Google goes beyond just being a search engine. It demonstrates how Google offers other services such as a directory, catalog, image searching, news, shopping, and of course groups.

I like the fact that this book summed up all the different searches that can be performed while using Google. I also like the fact that throughout the book, they provided various examples for a person to follow while sitting in front of their computer to practice these searches and to reiterate these searches all together again in one area of the book which was the Appendix.

Provided by Google, here is a list of Google shortcuts for searches that you can use.