Racism is apparently not totally dead in Shreveport as a school bus driver rolls back the clock to an uglier time.

Black students ordered to give up seats to white children

Status of Red River Parish bus driver is unknown.

COUSHATTA — Nine black children attending Red River Elementary School were directed last week to the back of the school bus by a white driver who designated the front seats for white children.

The situation has outraged relatives of the black children who have filed a complaint with school officials.

And it is outrageous…the sheer stupidity of this amazes me. 

Superintendent Kay Easley will meet with the family members in her office this morning.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People also is considering filing a formal charge with the U.S. Department of Justice. NAACP District Vice President James Panell, of Shreveport, said he would apprise Justice attorneys of the situation this week. He’s considering asking for an investigation into the bus incident

Which is appropriate…

and other aspects of the school system’s operations, including pupil-teacher ratio as it relates to the numbers of white and black children, along with a breakdown of the numbers of black and white teachers employed.

Err, well that may or may not be.  The implication here is that instead of an ignorant racist bus driver, we have a racist school system in general, and while that may or may not be true, we should focus first on the problem at hand, which is nine children who were treated very poorly.

"If the smoke is there, then there’s probably fire somewhere else," Panell said in a phone interview from New Orleans. "At this point, it is extremely alarming. We fought that battle 50 years ago, and we won. Why is this happening again?"

Again, let’s deal with the issue at it’s source first.  I agree wholeheartedly that the bus driver acted outrageously, but I am not ready to light the fires of a race war over it and assume the whole school is the problem.

This caught my eye:

State Senate OKs bypassing Electoral College

Sacramento — The state Senate on Tuesday approved an Assembly bill that seeks to bypass the Electoral College system and institute a national popular vote to elect the president of the United States.

AB2948, which received a 23-14 vote in the Senate, calls for an interstate compact where states would commit all of their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote regardless of which candidate wins in each state. The compact would kick in when enough states join that the sum of their electoral votes would represent at least 270. If the largest states join in the agreement, only 11 would be needed.

Proponents argue that such a plan would avoid instances such as the 2000 presidential election when George Bush was declared the winner despite garnering fewer popular votes than Al Gore.

The idea, which was first formulated by Stanford University Professor John Koza, is receiving serious consideration by lawmakers in other states, including New York, Colorado, Illinois and Missouri.

The California bill now heads back to the Assembly after a couple of minor tweaks in the language in the Senate. The Assembly is expected to pass the amended legislation.

I am unsure how this would work, but as the laws are written this would theoretically be legal and constitutional. 

Though I did not fully understand the necessity of the electoral system for years, I now do. And it troubles me that a system that allows for equal influence by small states is under attack by some of the big ones.

Consider this series of arguments, from Wikipedia:

Arguments against the current system

Unequal weight of voters