What's the Procedure? (UN-Russian Roulette)

STATE VERSUS PRIVATE COLLEGE: EQUITABLE OUTCOMES IN POLITICS

"SM [service member] possesses a perfect recall of timeline events." It is one memorized sentence from a military record in my personnel file, which reads like a debriefing, at least to me, and it does state that I, a retired military intelligence officer I have as a characteristic a worthy of record capability for recollection.

In 1988, with a bachelors at a private Virginia college, which accepts only 19% of applicants, described as "most selective", graduating with only a 2.3 cumulative grade point average, or "Gentlemen's Cs", I opted out from seeking interviews with super regional banks like First Union, Wachovia and NCNB, and leveraged family connections to acquire a job with a money center Manhattan commercial bank, for a starting salary in the fast track management program at Bankers Trust, which had been, at the time, in the vanguard or repealing the Glass Steagull Act, which had prohibited banks from participating in securities, and began adult post college life with a starting salary far higher than a job, as a public policy major, with a super regional banking firm, at $27,500, and, for comparison, $100 dollars in 1988 is the equivalent of $250.36. But do not look for my name on the Black History Timeline, because I ain't really Black, and the President can confirm the fact. Today, graduates from Washington & Lee University can expect to earn a starting median salary of $59,700.

And, with early voting beginning as students commence matriculation at various undergraduate conferring degrees across the Commonwealth of Virginia, perhaps there is an aspiring Justin Wilson, who had studied political science at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), in Richmond, which accepts 93% of those who apply, which is described by U.S. News & World Report as "selective", and where graduates can expect to earn median starting salary of $48,200, and, as they say, we get that for which we pay, in comparison between the private, most selective college, and the state college that is only selective.

Or perhaps, there is an aspiring Levar Stoney, a former double major in public administration and politics, described in an article published by his alma mater as "Being the Change", a college football player, like a regular Hershell Walker, an activist in the College Democrats, and the first Negro ever elected as student government president at James Madison University (JMU), over a decade after the first Negro, Willard Dumas, a direct descendant of Alexander Dumas, the author of popular fiction books like The Three Musketeers and The Man in the Iron Mask, was elected to the same position, at a private college, due south on I-81, Washington & Lee University. And, at JMU, a less selective college than VCU, graduates can expect to receive a median starting salary of $54,600, almost as much as students attending the private college "just down the road." You look like an intelligent person. If you had to make a choice on where to apply for college, and, perhaps, were concerned about costs, to which selective state school would you apply, especially if you wanted to become a mayor of a city in Virginia as Justin and Levar did?

Possessed with a perfect recall of timeline events, I have prepared a short video on everything that you would have learned in a 12 week semester at Washington & Lee University in Politics 101, at least back in the 1980s, which was a part of the very competitive Commerce School, often described as the "C School" because that was what you might expect your GPA to be if you decided to select your major there, and in politics you had to get passed Professor Delos "Easy D" Hughes. And for a contemporary application, I have extrapolated those lesson in relation to current events, specifically the recent decision by U.N. investigators to pursue war crimes in the Ukraine.

As a not a serious option fringe independent candidate for congress in progressive Northern Virginia, where, of report, I have been on the periphery of Northern Virginia politics for over a decade, compared to the Negro Democrat activist, Cynthia Cheatham, the Washington & Lee University DC Alumni Chapter President, described by the University Administration as a "Force of Nature", I invite any alumnus from a selective college who had majored or is majoring in politics, to compare what you learned in Politics 101 compared to what we learned in the same introductory course, and then tell me that all colleges are equal.

Or feel free to play Russian Roulette, with your college selection, applying the metaphor chosen by the Commander of the USAR, for deciding not to be administered the vaccines, the perspective of a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University.