Author's Choice:

Is the money really going into your kids school?

Our schools need help! Will you be the one to change it all for the better?It's time for a change.

When the Georgia legislature passed a private school scholarship program in 2008, lawmakers promoted it as a way to give poor children the same education choices as the wealthy. The program would be supported by donations to nonprofit scholarship groups, and Georgians who contributed would receive dollar-for-dollar tax credits, up to $2,500 a couple. The intent was that money otherwise due to the Georgia treasury — about $50 million a year — would be used instead to help needy students escape struggling public schools.

That was the idea, at least. But parents meeting at Gwinnett Christian Academy got a completely different story last year. “A very small percentage of that money will be set aside for a needs-based scholarship fund,” Wyatt Bozeman, an administrator at the school near Atlanta, said during an informational session. “The rest of the money will be channeled to the family that raised it.”

A handout circulated at the meeting instructed families to donate, qualify for a tax credit and then apply for a scholarship for their own children, many of whom were already attending the school. “If a student has friends, relatives or even corporations that pay Georgia income tax, all of those people can make a donation to that child’s school,” added an official with a scholarship group working with the school.

Spreading at a time of deep cutbacks in public schools, the programs are operating in eight states and represent one of the fastest-growing components of the school choice movement. This school year alone, the programs redirected nearly $350 million that would have gone into public budgets to pay for private school scholarships for 129,000 students, according to the Alliance for School Choice, an advocacy organization. Legislators in at least nine other states are considering the programs.

While the scholarship programs have helped many children whose parents would have to scrimp or work several jobs to send them to private schools, the money has also been used to attract star football players, expand the payrolls of the nonprofit scholarship groups and spread the theology of creationism, interviews and documents show. Even some private school parents and administrators have questioned whether the programs are a charade.

Local Point of Interest:

Midnight Mary

 Is it true? The stories have been told. It's your choice to believe or not to believe.

From what scant historical accounts there are, Mary Hart led an unremarkable life. It was, however, her alleged unusual death and what happened afterward that has made her story memorable.

First off, let’s start with what is known to be fact: That in 1872, a woman by the name of Mary Hart died in New Haven and was thereafter interred in Evergreen Cemetery.

Her very real pink granite tombstone reads:

AT HIGH NOON
JUST FROM, AND ABOUT TO RENEW
HER DAILY WORK, IN HER FULL STRENGTH OF
BODY AND MIND
MARY E. HART
HAVING FALLEN PROSTRATE:
REMAINED UNCONSCIOUS, UNTIL SHE DIED AT MIDNIGHT,
OCTOBER 15, 1872
BORN DECEMBER 16, 1824

Oh, and then across the top, it says: THE PEOPLE SHALL BE TROUBLED AT MIDNIGHT AND PASS AWAY. The quote itself is not some ancient curse or the last words of some poor soul convicted of witchcraft. It is an abridged Biblical passage from Job, chapter 34, verse 20. The complete passage, in the King James original version goes, “In a moment shall they die, and the people shall be troubled at midnight, and pass away: and the mighty shall be taken away without hand.” The passage makes sense when one reads the rest of the marker.

There are three different stories surrounding the demise of Ms. Hart. The first  and most horrific  says her family found her apparently dead of a stroke at the stroke of midnight and quickly had her buried; her aunt, however, had a dream the next night in which she saw Mary still alive in her coffin and plead with the powers-that be to dig her up. After they finally capitulated, dug her up and opened her casket, they discovered a horrific sight: Mary was dead, but apparently hadn’t been quite that way when buried her fingernails were bloodied and the inside of her coffin was shredded as she had apparently tried to claw her way out. Being buried six feet under and leaving her to rot eventually made her all dead.

The next legend surrounding Mary is that following her possibly nasty demise, her restless spirit would wander the area around her former home on Winthrop Avenue (adjacent to Evergreen Cemetery), occasionally taking rides with unsuspecting good samaritans. A variation on the old “disappearing hitchhiker” tale, a woman fitting Mary’s description would bum a ride late at night and when the driver would return the next day to see if she got home alright, they would discover that the person they aided was in fact the spirit of the departed Mary.

The final story is also from the urban legend files; basically going along the lines of Mary having been a witch in life and her grave being cursed anyone who was there at midnight would meet a terrible end when the witch rose from the dead. Since New Haven is renowned as a college town, there was always a student or two who scoffed at the story and tried to stay the night in the cemetery, only to be found dead the next morning, a victim of the murderous spirit of Midnight Mary.

Of course, none of these stories can be confirmed (or denied). The good people of New Haven have always been happy to continue sharing the supernatural stories of Midnight Mary, the woman whose legacy features a cursed gravestone and a tale of great misfortune.

Food Feature:

Traditional Puerto Rican Food:

 

Come and get some! Flan the way of the PuertoRican, do you like flan?

My parents immigrated from Puerto Rican in their early teens, so I identify myself as Hispanic.  Even though I learned how to speak English first and Spanish 2^nd and I grew up In New Haven, CT. There are many foods that I like Papa Rellena, Bacalao, alcapurria, and Flan. 

Puerto Rican cuisine has its roots in the cooking traditions and practices of Europe (Spain), Africa and the Amerindian Taínos. In the latter part of the 19th century, the cuisine of Puerto Rico was greatly influenced by the United States in the ingredients used in its preparation. Puerto Rican cuisine has transcended the boundaries of the island, and can be found in several countries outside the archipelago.

Papa Rellena is a stuffed potatoes typically filled with chopped beef and onions, cumin and other spices. Bacalao is salted cod fish with tomatoes, vegetables with yellow meal and is fried. An alcapurria is made from a doughy mixture of mashed up tubers and root vegetables that grow on the island surrounding a center of heavily seasoned meat.

Flan is as Puerto Rican as the coqui; it is made with eggs and milk.  Although flan is made in many different flavors, like pineapple, chocolate, etc., the one that’s a favorite around the island, in my opinion, is the vanilla flan.  In Puerto Rico if you go to any bakery, store or supermarket, you will for sure find flan there. Flan is one of the most popular desserts in the island. A Hispanic person must have at one point in their life have eaten a variation of flan, weither they liked it or not is their own opinion.

Flan comes from ancient Rome. The Romans had many eggs and used the Greek's cooking skills to develop a recipe. Together they developed a custardy concoction known as a Flan. Flan started out not very sweet, but sometimes with honey. In Spain in became sweet custard made with caramelized sugar. It was mostly made with milk, eggs, and sugar. When Christopher Columbus found America flan was brought about. Almost all of central and south America fell in love with the flan and the different types of custard forms.

There are hundreds of different types of flan recipes anything from flancohco, coconut flan, Mexican flan, caramel flan, chocolate flan, and many more. My favorite kind of flan is the vanilla flan that my abulea makes. There are countless restaurants in Connecticut, that sell flan but I’ve never found one that can compare to my grandmother’s.  I’ve never brought flan from a restaurant, but I have brought the small Goya brand flan from a supermarket; which cost a little over 3 dollars for 2 portions. They were good but not the best they are pre made flan made in a factory not home made. I have no idea what the average cost of a piece of flan is but the average cost for the making of a complete flan is about 13 dollars. In my opinion the cost of any food when you’re at a restaurant; or at home does not matter as long as you like the food.