Norman Rockwell painting of Ruby Bridges is on display at the White House
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on August 29th, 2011 4:35 am by HL
Norman Rockwell painting of Ruby Bridges is on display at the White House
The little girl in the painting titled “The Problem We All Live With” is walking to school in a white dress, white socks and white shoes. Her hair is parted in neat plaits and she is carrying a book and a ruler. The girl appears confident and proud, even as she is overshadowed by U.S. marshals in muted gray suits. She does not seem to notice the tomato splashed on the painted wall behind her or the racial epithet scrawled above her.
The Norman Rockwell painting, depicting the walk by 6-year-old Ruby Bridges as she integrated William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans in 1960, captures an ugly chapter in U.S. history, a transition between a past of segregation and a new era that would come.
DHS’s chief buyer pushes for more transparency in contracts
Department of Homeland Security officials have to keep many secrets in the fight against terrorism. Nick Nayak, the department’s top buyer, wants to reverse that practice when dealing with the department’s contractors.
For Homeland Security’s $13.4 billion in annual purchases, “the next generation is open, transparent — much more communication with industry upfront,’’ Nayak said in an interview at his Southwest Washington office.
Nayak, 46, left a nearly 20-year career at the Internal Revenue Service to become Homeland Security’s chief procurement officer last September. He is pushing the department’s program managers to talk more with potential vendors about what DHS needs to reduce security threats and respond to disasters. The conversations should happen before and after the agency issues contract requests, Nayak said.
Iowa congressman and his family retell how they fought off a gun-wielding robber
Congressman Leonard Boswell had kenneled his two Rottweilers for the night. Just before bedtime, the 77-year-old Democrat put on his blue-striped robe and removed his hearing aid, turning down the volume on what had been a loud mid-July week of debt-ceiling drama on Capitol Hill.
He was getting a glass of water in the kitchen, and even without his earpiece, he could sense some commotion on the main floor of his farmhouse. He rushed to the nearby bedroom to check on his wife of 56 years, Dody. She was in bed — nothing wrong.
House GOP revs up a repeal, reduce and rein-in agenda for the fall
House Republicans are planning votes for almost every week this fall in an effort to repeal environmental and labor requirements on business that they say have hampered job growth.
With everyone from President Obama to his Republican challengers in the 2012 campaign focusing on ways to spur economic growth, House Republicans will roll out plans Monday to fight regulations from the National Labor Relations Board, pollution rules handed down by the Environmental Protection Agency and regulations that affect health plans for small businesses. In addition, the lawmakers plan to urge a 20 percent tax deduction for small businesses.
