The Wordsmith's Forge

This is good to hear, because belonging to more than one minority really stacks the disadvantages:

National Education Conference Focuses On GLBT Students of Color
Kenneth Harvey, The Gay and Lesbian Times: "The National Education Association, representing 3.2 million educators nationally, held its 2009 Joint Conference, at the Manchester Hyatt Hotel on Monday, June 29, where 1,000 educators gathered to discuss 'Public education, the gateway to global opportunities in a diverse society.' The conference took special interest in GLBT students and their teachers, along with GLBT minorities of color and women."

I was pleased to see this article about another facet of the job Michelle Obama is creating for herself.

Social Justice and the First Lady
With Congress on recess and many of the city's swells attending the Aspen Ideas Festival, it's a good time to check in on the Washington that is mostly invisible to the lawmakers, lobbyists and assorted elites that define the nation's capital. It's the Washington that Michelle Obama is determined to make part of her White House neighborhood. Her husband has declined to put a "Taxation Without Representation" license plate on the presidential limousine, but Michelle has become DC's Florence Nightingale, reaching out to the city's poor and neglected in a way few previous First Lady have done.