Keating's blog

So the average American earns nearly $43k each year. Decent some of money so as to purchase a house/apartment, food, utilities and some superfluities. But in this mix of average wage earners rest the $25 million baseball players and the athletes earning a cool $100mill for endorsing Nike or Sprite. While they may be supremely talented in what they do, those proportionately as talented in medicine, engineering, education and technology are not paid a fraction of that, despite working in socially stimulating professions.  Read More »

So in the post-Michael Jordan era, everyone thought the Bulls were stank. Oh, and they were. But, can't you see that was all a ploy to get where they currently are? I mean we grab Elton Brand in the '99 draft with the first pick. Then we keep him for two years and trade him to the Clippers for the 4th pick (C/PF Tyson Chandler) while also picking up Eddy Curry with our own 2nd pick. Then we grab Kirk Hinrich, the brilliant playmaker from Kansas, with the 8th pick in the 2003 draft. And in a draft day eal with the Phoenix Suns, we acquire Luol Deng and following, Andres Nocioni in the second round. We grab Ben Gordon, the scintillating scorer from UConn, with the 3rd pick in the 2005 draft. And we trade Eddy Curry for Michael Sweetney, the garbage that is Tim Thomas and 2 AMAZING First Round draft picks in 2006 and 2007.  Read More »

So CNN writes this article about how a Kansas legislature finally voted to prohibit under 15 year old from marrying. Took them this long?  

"After a pregnant 14-year-old from Nebraska drove to Kansas last year to marry her 22-year-old boyfriend, now serving time for having sex with the minor, Kansas lawmakers decided it was time to set a minimum marriage age."  Read More »

I just submitted my entry for the Holocaust Remembrance Project five days ago. Holland and Knight charitably contribute funds to award students for essays discussing the importance of the Holocaust's lessons and the various ways students can help the cause.

Writing the essay helped me understand the visceral pain associated with that event and with genocides occuring throughout the world. Look to Darfur. Look to Chad. Look to the Rwandan Civil war. Or the Kosovo Conflict in the late '90s. We never looked to the past in those times. We promised never to allow such an "atrocity" to be again committed, but we did. In fact, we tacitly sponsored such violence.  Read More »

AIDS. When you hear the term one generally pictures an African. An gaunt African. A gaunt African, poor and living in a ravaged abode. The idea is that AIDS sufferers are living in such poverty that they could never fathom buying medications and moving to areas with better living conditions. But that is hardly the holistic perspective.

More than anything, the perpetuation of AIDS is based in economic rationale.  Read More »

in my mind, Jhumpa Lahiri is the best modern (post 1990s) author. She's written two books (one collection of short stories and a novel). She won the Pulitzer Prize on her first work, The Interpreter of Maladies. Her novel, The Namesake, is being made into a movie- set to release in late 2006.

Before reading her first book, I had  never taken to contemporary fiction.  Read More »

So what is rap? Literally, the definition would hinge around the use of rhyming phrases aligned to a syncopated rhythmic pattern. Colloquially, rap is the black music that uses rhyming words in discussion of guns, violence, drugs and sex. Who is rap? Literally, rap is any poet, any person that associates their thoughts with some type of rhythmic base. Colloquially, rap is gang banging, drug dealers and dangerous characters.  Read More »

After receiving all my college admission decisions and seeing results of those across the country through online forums, I have come to the conclusion that all applicants are not not created equal in the eyes of admission directors, regardless of school prestiege. From Harvard to (Insert name) Community College, deans and directors look at factors excepting academic record, board scores and personal qualities. First and foremost, they look at name, skin color and nationality, even financial record.  Read More »