FICO: Happy Valentine's Day!

FICO is not some new or fancy whatyamacallit for a woman or a man, but rather it's the Fair Isaac Corporation that's been reporting on how "good" you are, financially speaking, with the likes of Experian. After tomorrow, Valentine's Day, don't expect to be able to get any love from them.

Due to a lawsuit filed by Fair Isaac back in 2006 against the three-major credit reporting agencies- Experian, Equifax and TransUnion- stating that three companies formed like Voltron to create their own credit reporting armed aptly name VantageScore.

For the most part, credit-scoring models use the factors, and Fair Isaac cornered the market by creating a MyFICO.com, which Experian says they'll no longer do business with. But the odd thing about this partnership ending is that it only applies to individual consumers.

Experian did, however, renew its contract with Fair Isaac, stating that a number of businesses have Fair Isaac's FICO reporting built into their underwriting (read: Mortgage Banks).

So, if you're conscience about what your FICO score is, you just might have to twist your bank's arm when you refinance your home to get a peek at your Experian FICO.

You think we have it bad?

Times are tough even in China, where factory workers are having a hard time finding work. And guess who they blame their demise on? Yep, good old Americans. Read the story here.

A Closer Look At What Stimulus Would Mean For MA

Now that Congress has agreed to a plan to inject almost $800 billion to stimulate the U.S. economy, state officials are anticipating a flow of funds.



For Massachusetts, that could mean about $11 billion over two years. Gov. Deval Patrick this week appointed a new "Stimulus Czar," and outlined a long list of projects that are ready for the shovel and a share of the cash infusion.



WBUR's David Boeri takes us on a tour of some less obvious places where federal dollars might land.

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NAACP's Ambitious Beginnings Took Root In Mass.

Feb. 12 marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of the NAACP.



At the dawn of the 20th century, a group of black and white people -- men and women, Jews and Gentiles -- issued "a call for a national conference on the Negro question."



Historian Kerri Greenidge has written about those early days in a book called "Boston's Abolitionists," and she teaches black history at Suffolk University.



WBUR's Bob Oakes spoke with Greenidge on Morning Edition.

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Parenting: Step Your Game Up "Sexting"

This has been in the news recently in Massachusetts and reported about on NBC's The TODAY Show.  

It's just another thing for parents to pay attention to, but with new technology, parents have to stay on top of things and "step their game up".  If parents continue to be naive and think that their daughter or son is not prone to being cyber-bullied, then they're asleep at the wheel.

Parents, protect your daughters from text pressure: Connie Schultz

by Connie Schultz/Plain Dealer Columnist

Wednesday February 11, 2009, 5:47 AM

The mother could see that somebody else's daughter was in trouble.

The teenage girl was standing in front of a school in an affluent neighborhood on Cleveland's East Side. The mother was sitting in a parked car, waiting for her own daughter. Even with her car windows up, sitting 30 feet away, she could hear the girl screaming into a cell phone.

The woman lowered her window, concerned that the girl might need help. For 10 minutes, she listened with growing horror as the girl begged a boy to leave her alone.

"I was driving in my car!" she shouted. "I couldn't answer any of your text messages because that's not safe! You kept texting, you kept texting, and I couldn't answer!"

Over and over, the girl pleaded. "Please stop. ... Please stop. ... Please stop. ... "

Weeks later, the mother can't shake what she heard. To protect the privacy of her own daughters, she doesn't want to be identified, but she doesn't want to remain silent, either. She's read recent coverage about girls being humiliated, and sometimes prosecuted, for distributing naked photos of themselves -- it's called "sexting" -- to boys' cell phones. She also knows, from listening to her daughters' friends, that some boys lure girls into cyber hell by monitoring their every move through texting.

"It's a new stress for girls," she told me, "and parents are real reluctant to talk about it."

Two recent surveys of teens back her up. Teenage Research Unlimited's 2007 study found that 1 in 3 teens say they have received text messages 10, 20 or 30 times an hour from a partner wanting to know where they are, what they're doing or who they're with. A study last year by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy reported that 51 percent of teen girls said pressure from a guy is the reason girls send sexy messages or images; 18 percent of teen boys said the pressure comes from girls.

Pew Research reports that about 70 percent of teens talk daily with friends on a cell phone, 60 percent send text messages daily, 54 percent send instant messages. Nearly 50 percent send e-mail messages daily over social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. Fertile ground, indeed, for what some researchers call "digital abuse."

Too many parents, though, are clueless, which is why that mother called me. "When I tried to bring it up with other mothers, some of them were shocked," she said. "They'd never heard of such a thing."

A new ad campaign might help change that.

The Ad Council has joined with the Family Violence Prevention Fund and the Department of Justice's Office on Violence Against Women to launch ThatsNotCool.com. In addition to the interactive Web site, a television public service ad has begun running across the country. You can view the ad online at www.prnewswire.com/mnr/adcouncil/36936/. It's worth the 32 seconds of your time.

In the ad, a teen girl is followed from morning until night by a boy talking at her through a giant cell phone that bleeps and vibrates with each new message:

G-morning, sunshine. ... Wakey, wakey. Text me. ... Are your parents home later? We can hang. ... L-U-V love you ... JK. ... Holler back. ... Holler back. ... Holler back. ... Are you with your friends? That's lame. ... We're in a huge fight right now. ... X-O-X-O ... Is it something I did? ... Are you on the way to the mall? ... I'm lonely. ... Nude pix, send me some. ... Text me.

Many parents may watch this ad and feel increasingly twitchy as they consider the teenagers in their own homes constantly fidgeting with cell phones. All that reading and typing, reading and typing. How often does any mother or father look at what's scrolling across the screen of that parentally funded phone?

"A lot of parents hear about this and, just like with traditional domestic violence, they never think it's happening with their daughter," Family Violence Prevention Fund spokesman Brian O'Connor said. "We're committed to helping their kids build healthy relationships. This will be a two-year campaign, and we're going to constantly refresh it."

While it would be nice if parents stepped up en masse to educate their daughters, O'Connor said that it's more likely that kids worried about friends will send them a link to the Web site.

"Kids tend to turn to each other," he said.

Especially when a parent turns away.

Driving in The Woo!

This picture was taken on Hammond Street heading towards Main Street
at 8:50 am.

I have always said that driving in Massachusetts is a true test in
'defensive driving', but it takes a special person to drive in The Woo!

Driving in Worcester, well, you have to account for the random
person stopping in the middle of the road to 'hail up' (read: say
hello) someone or, on occassion, reach around to smack the ish out of
kid or sorry back-seat driver.

Thank goodness I had the best driving instructor a person could
have.....my mother and the rolling, steep, cliff-lined roads of St.
John a/k/a/ Love City!

Black History Month Ad rubs folks the wrong way

Acme Markets’ recent Black History Month circular has sparked quite the debate. The company has run the advertisement for seven years and says there has never been an issue before, but the ad is now being called racist.

Products advertised include corn bread, collard greens and grape soda. The Delaware chapter of the NAACP says more than 100 people have complained that the products perpetuate stereotypes: “It’s racist, it’s insensitive, it’s not culturally correct. Don’t assume that to celebrate Black History Month that we must have corn bread. Whoever put this ad together thought it’d be a good joke,” said Delaware NAACP President Cecil C. Wilson who demands Acme run a full-page apology in “all of Delaware’s newspapers”.

In a statement from Acme, the company said the advertisement was designed to highlight Black History Month and many of the items are products supplied through the company’s “supplier diversity program”.

“For example, Glory Foods, an African American-owned manufacturer, is featured with four of its products because it is our way of supporting and strengthening their brand with added exposure during the month of February,” the statement said.

Wilson also said Acme shouldn’t be discounting any foods specifically because it’s Black History Month. In Colonial times, slave owners would discard the remains of butchered hogs, and slaves would cook and season those parts, such as chitterlings and feet, into delicacies. The Acme ad took on a similar theme, Wilson said, by discounting Acme soda and maple syrup instead of the brand-name counterparts.

“This whole thing is cheapo,” he said. “All the products on sale are typically low-grade products that they have to clean off the shelves. I don’t know what their motive is, but it still reeks with suspicion.”

T&G: You know it's bad when...

A traditional print newspaper realizes, too late, that it's time to change and embrace new technology.

I officially give the T&G the "Late Pass of the Year" Award!

Reaction: Shepard Fairey's Boston Arrest

Shepard Fairey, the street artist behind the now iconic red, white and blue "Hope" image of President Barack Obama was supposed to be celebrating his first major solo museum exhibit in Boston this weekend.



Instead he was in jail. Boston police arrested Fairey just before his opening party at the Institute for Contemporary Arts Friday night. He's scheduled to be arraigned on property damages charges today.



WBUR's Andrea Shea visited the ICA exhibit this weekend to talk with people about the arrest.

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Project Dropout: Not Just An Urban Problem

You may dismiss the high-school dropout crisis in Massachusetts as an urban problem. And if you look at the statistics, it largely is. But analysts say the problem needs to be addressed in all communities with high schools.



On Monday mornings in the coming weeks we're taking a closer look at the problem in a series we're calling "Project Dropout."



In our first report, WBUR's Monica Brady-Myerov introduces us to some of the people affected.

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Worcester Youth Soccer

Things are getting heated in The Woo and as a parent whose child plays in the League, and as a coach as well, I really wonder what's good with Worcester Youth Soccer League(WYSL).

Read Williamson's article here.

Black History Month

It took me 8-days to decide whether or not I was going to write
something, about the fact that it's Black History Month.

I've known Black History Month, which began as Negro History Week in
1926, by Carter G. Woodson, since I was 4-years old. Growing up in a
largely Black community, it struck me as comical that I was learning
about what Blacks had faced in the South and even what the slaves had
faced in the Virgin Islands.

It wasn't until I was in the third grade that it started to make sense
and I began to appreciate the contributions by so many determined and
selfless Black people. Still, I was perplexed because there were so
many contributions made by White, Yellow and other folks, that I
struggled to understand why another person would look down on another
human being for being 'different'? It took alot of explaining from my
parents and grand parents, who were born in 1920, in the British
Virgin Islands.

Still, today, some argue that Black History Month should become a
thing of the past, because the United States have elected the first
Black President.

Some see Black History Month or as officially proclaimed by President
Obama on Feb. 2,"National African-American History Month.". Obama
called for," all people of the United States to observe this month
with appropriate ceremonies, activities, and programs that raise
awareness and appreciation of African-American history."

Black History Month has become a fixture in schools, but do we still
need it today?

Some would argue that Black History Month should be eliminated because
it does nothing more than promote division, because of the stain of
guilt that many Whites feel. Does this hinder people's growth of
accepting differences and having frank conversations about them? Some
would say that it does.

So, as I type this on the 8th day in the month of February of the year
2009, I still am perplexed by the question, "Do we need to continue to
celebrate Black History Month?" I do believe that we must know our
history and not run from it, and that goes for the Black, White,
Yellow and Brown. We are, after all, One Nation Under A Groove!