Everyone's looking at Michael Phelps these days.

I admit, he amazes me as well. (good grief!... he doesn't even breathe hard after breaking world record times in swimming!) However, I have just become even more impressed with Cullen Jones. Jones helped the USA team win the 4x100 Freestyle relay.

That's not why he impresses me. Cullen Jones impresses me because he recognizes that his gold medal was only an opportunity for him to open doors for others:

"I've gone to a driving range before and hit golf balls because I saw Tiger Woods doing it on TV," Jones said. "I want more minority kids to go to a swimming pool and try to swim because of me. I know I'm nowhere near Tiger Woods. But I want to make a difference. I want kids to say, 'Look a black swimmer. And he's got a gold medal!' And I want them to get in the water because of it," Cullen Jones mentioned in an article in kansascity.com.

High school graduates have been getting ready to enter the next stage of their development...college.

College can be scary and intimidating for just about any kid, but coming from an urban background, it often creates even more challenges.

It doesn't matter how comfortable you think you are in your own skin... it doesn't matter how much your parents have talked to you about treating everyone the same... the college atmosphere is a whole new lesson.

As one of the teenagers sat in my living room after his trip to Austin for UT's freshman orientation, unprompted, he first comment was, "It was strange. I was one of only about 5 other Hispanics there."

I knew what he was talking about... not because of experience... but because I've heard it before from other kids.

He started telling me about one of the talks they heard about Affirmative Action. Then he talked about a White kid who was, evidently, making comments about it to a smaller group of people, "It's not fair. Affirmative Action hurts kids and people like me who are smarter, but don't get in because of a quota."

An interesting article in the New York Times provided some food for thought about the many different perspectives related to race and politics.

The young... the old. We each have different experiences.

Do we transcend race issues or do we embrace them and deal with them head on?

If you follow race issues, the younger generation, in general, is presented as devaluing what has happened in the past. We didn't grow up in the Civil Rights Era. We didn't participate in the violence, nor were we the recipients of being beaten for the sake of freedom. We don't understand what that was like and, thus don't revere that experience (for lack of a better word) as much as we should.

What many of us don't realize is the Civil Rights happenings aren't that far removed from many people and the wounds are still open and tender.

Phone Victims... P.V. It's becoming our own "gang" symbol.

A couple of weeks ago I took about five teenagers to another church to blend with their teenagers in hopes of creating a partnership.

As we sat in on their meeting, the group was trying to figure out what they wanted to call themselves.

Though the teenagers I know and call on come from many different neighborhoods, I suggested that our teens should come up with a name for themselves as well. We don't meet on a regular basis, but I have several who I know are consistent and will come to take advantage of a good opportunity... or will come if I sound like I desperately need their help. It didn't take very long before Vanessa piped up, "Phone Victims!" she offered.

At the beginning of the summer, Marcus Martin, of Education is Freedom informed us at Central Dallas that we would be recipients of two interns through the Mayor's Intern Fellows program and let me know that I would get one of them.

My intern, Michael, was an extremely quiet guy when he first started working this summer. With our recent staff cutbacks, I was very excited to have been granted a free intern (sponsored by another corporation) but because of his quiet demeanor, I wasn't quite sure how to use him at first.

We started him on several administrative tasks then, as the summer progressed, he helped with our "Urban Experience" teen program. He seemed to open up as the summer went on. I admit, I felt a bit of pride and success when I saw a small grin creep across his face or heard a small chuckle from him. By involving him in our Urban Experience program, he also got to know other teens that I've worked with for many years and quickly became one of the group.