In Massachusetts, the latest user-generated crisis has centered around the evaporation of low-cost student loans due to the credit crunch. Families are scrambling to find ways to pay for their children’s university and college education, surprised by this sudden disappearance of what had been seen as a very deep well.

I am not here to comment on the causes of the credit crunch. My thoughts turn, instead, to the revenue foundations that the US higher education system built on. The primary question is: Have institutions priced themselves out of relevance?

Other thoughts also come to mind. Is it time to move away from teaching certain skills/fields in universities and colleges, and consider moving to specialized apprenticeships. This idea is one that conjures up images of the guild system, and it is not a dissimilar idea. Certain areas would benefit from a system led by leaders and experts in the field, teaching real-world practices and implementations, rather than theoretical concepts.

In today’s society, the cost of higher education makes people indentured serfs, chained to a bank loan that they thought would afford them the opportunity to get ahead, to make a difference. If we are going to make people indentured serfs (harsh imagery, but how long have you been paying off your student loans?), then why not put them through an apprenticeship, where they can work their way through their education while learning the skill they have entered into.

Work-study and co-op programs have made a stab at that. But I am thinking of learning and working simultaneously. Developing skills, and paying your way in the same place.

Before you classify me as some Luddite or elitist, you have to understand my perspective. I have a liberal Arts degree (History) and found my place in the business world by learning my primary skills on the job. I have played both sides of the fence, and I would say that many others have as well.

And where a theoretical foundation is good in some fields, it needs to be heavily supplemented by real-world practice.

To circle back to the idea of cost, how much of what we require of people in a higher education is directed at the skills that they are most interested in learning? Does a university or college provide the skills needed to support our economy? How do we most effectively and economically ensure that we have an educated and knowledgeable workforce?

These are not for reasons of nationalism or core political beliefs. Every reader here should know I am a Canadian by now. The idea of rationalizing higher education to deliver what people want/need in a way that is effective, efficient, and economic without compromising the fundamental need for a free and open society to have centers of higher learning that foster debate and new idea is one that should be part of the debate in the current election cycle.

How do you deliver an education system that is open to all, and serves the needs of all, without bankrupting the people in the process is one that needs to be addressed.

Tags: bank loan, college, education, Massachusetts, reform, student loans, United States, universities

A response to the FEC chairman’s C|Net interview, which I commented on yesterday.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Press Contact: Mark Glaze
202-271-0982

Statement of the Campaign Legal Center

Setting the Record Straight: There is No FEC Threat to the Internet

Washington, D.C. — In a recent interview with CNET, Federal Election Commissioner Brad Smith claimed that as a result of new campaign laws and and a recent court decision, online news organizations and bloggers may soon wake up to find their activities regulated by government bureaucrats. That would indeed be troubling, if it were true. Fortunately, Mr. Smith – an avowed opponent of most campaign finance regulation – is simply wrong.

The issue the FEC – and the courts – are grappling with is how to deal with online political ads by candidates and parties, and with paid advertising that is coordinated with those groups. As the Internet becomes a vital new force in politics, we are simply going through a natural transition as we work out how, and when, to apply longstanding campaign finance principles – designed to fight corruption – to political expenditures on the Web. Mr. Smith has advocated an extreme position that politicians, parties and outside groups can pay for Internet advertising with “soft money” - unlimited, unregulated checks from corporations, labor unions and wealthy individuals. A federal court rightly rejected that position, saying that the new ban on soft money in our elections obviously applies to Internet advertising, too.

These laws are decidedly NOT aimed at online press, commentary or blogs, and the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 was carefully drafted to exclude them. The FEC has now been asked to initiate a rulemaking to work out how to deal with different kinds of Internet political expenditures, and there will be plenty of opportunity for public commentary. The Commission’s duty then will be to distinguish candidate and party expenditures, and coordinated independent expenditures, on the Internet (which should be subject to campaign finance law like any other expenditures) from activity by bloggers, Internet news services and citizens acting on their own that should remain unregulated, free and robust.

Mr. Smith’s comments are obviously designed to instigate a cyberspace furor to pressure Congress to reverse the court decision requiring that paid political ads on the Internet should be treated like any other paid advertisements. Mr. Smith has a right to try to win converts to his anti-regulatory philosophy, but he has an obligation to present the issues fairly and forthrightly, and his comments to CNET fail both tests.

For more information on why the sky is not falling, see a chapter on the history of the FEC regulation and deregulation of the Internet by Trevor Potter, former FEC Chairman and president of the Campaign Legal Center, in the Brookings Institution’s New Campaign Finance Sourcebook at http://www.brookings.edu/dybdocroot/gs/cf/sourcebk01/InternetChap9.pdf

For the relevant court decision, please check out the Campaign Legal Center’s website at http://www.campaignlegalcenter.org/attachment.html/Opinion.pdf?id=1257

For information on the future FEC rulemaking, see the agency’s website at www.fec.gov.

# # #

1736 19th St NW
Washington DC 20009

T 202.232.6222
C 202.271.0982
F 202.232.3040

I post this verbatim. For more info, contact Mark Glaze

Tags: ads, advertising, app, blog, book, cro, design, government, HTML, HTTP, IE, IM, information, Internet, IP, Issues, it, media, Om, One, online, opinion, politics, pr, president, reform, Washington DC, web

Hence the need to target those frivolous Asbestos Lawsuits…

W.R. Grace indicted over asbestos claims.

I mentioned this a while back…some people close to The Obsfucator are tied to this asbestos thing.

I have no sympathy for the asbestos industry. A high-school friend of mine lost his father due to a one-time, one-day exposure to asbestos 30 years ago. This material is hyper-dangerous.

It killed Warren Zevon. [here] ‘Nuff said.

Tags: HTML, HTTP, IE, IM, it, Om, One, PHP, pr, reform, truth

The Great Confusicator (Obsfucator?) has spent a lot of time stumping for Tort Reform this week. His primary example has been firms hit by Asbestos lawsuits.

I wonder if this is because Halliburton subsidiary KBR ended up going into Chapter 11 fighting an Asbestos lawsuit? (More here and here)

Wonder why no one is talking about this…or does the Washington press corps have a short memory?

I stand corrected — CBS MarketWatch does mention Halliburton in an Asbestos story. Right at the very bottom.

Tags: ASP, corporate, HTML, HTTP, IE, IM, it, Om, One, pr, reform

I just had a look at the list of domains that I own and realize that I want/need to clean house. There are 3 domains that I want to keep, and 9 that I am looking to get rid of.

Domains that I want to unload include:

mod-deflate.net
mod-deflate.org
performancecore.org
performancecorps.org
performancefreaks.org
performanceguru.org
webcaching.org
webcompression.org
webperformance.org

I will be re-positioning content from these sites to my remaining domains today/tonight.

Tags: caching, compress, compression, content, deflate, it, Om, performance, pr, reform, web, WebPerformance.Org

Link: AlterNet: Free Speech Online.

So, Tort Reform will benefit all Americans, right George?

Tags: HTTP, it, online, reform

In an article posted on TomDispatch, Michael Massing discusses the impotence of the US Media in covering the conflict in Iraq. It is a good solid read, and should not come as a surprise to anyone who has been closely following the war in the "liberal" media.

The problem that this story highlights is that of the increasing lack of editorial control held by reporters themselves. The traditional view of the media has been one of an activist reporter selling a story on its merits to an editorial group. This group grasps that the sources are good and the story is important, and runs with it, damn the fallout.

Today, it is naive to hold that view of the media. For the Wal-Mart generation, news is only good and worthy if it:

• Involves superstars
• Embarasses and/or humiliates a person
• Is a morality play
• Shows the superiority of the American way of life

The lip service paid to the "free press" is becoming a worldwide laughingstock. Aljazeera and Alarabiya, the upstart Arabic news networks sneered at by the US Government and the mainstream media, provide more in-depth coverage of the conflict than the entire Baghdad press corps combined.

This extends to the homefront as well. The lack of critical coverage of the real reason the 9/11 Intelligence Reform bill died (it was killed by Rumsfeld and the Bush Cabal as a result of neglect) shocked me. Why would a bill that is so widely supported be killed?

This act did serve a political purpose, namely allowing the White House to tag the current session as lame duck, and allowing them to spin this bill (that they don’t want anyway) out into a session of Congress that they have more direct control over. But has this been covered or touched on in the mainstream media?

In its history, I would argue that only for the period from 1960-1980 was there any semblance of a free press in the United States. The humbling of Vietnam and Watergate, the Civil Rights battle, and the Iranian Hostage Crisis were the primary highlights of this period. These all served as embarassments to the United States, and helped galvanize and mobilize what is now termed the neo-conservative movement.

The shrieking, jingoistic, neo-conservative outsider of 1980 has become the rational, experienced commentator of 2004. Tempered by the humiliation of the free press, the neo-cons used their superior morality and deep pockets to create (by purchase or bullying) a media that would present the United States to the world as a simplified version of its own myth. The neo-con media agenda feeds a patriotic highlight film, not a critical analysis of American policy, foreign and domestic.

As was often argued on the campaign trail, John Kerry’s message was one that many Americans found complex, lumbering and tempered by the shades of grey found so often in the real world. The media, wrapped up in its new mandate to deliver news as quickly as possible, has lost the ability to delve into the subtlety necessary to handle complex issues. They want the instant gratification that comes with quick-change, sound-bite, easy-think MTV generation.

The coverage of the conflict in Iraq is a symbol for the decline of the American mainstream media. Television news is no better than the entertainment programs that bracket it. And when someone does question the coverage that they see, their patriotism is questioned.

Questioning the media — and the President — is succinctly summed up by Theodore Roosevelt.

"The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else."

Tags: analysis, app, ASP, control, critical, current, EAD, feeds, government, HTML, HTTP, IE, IM, IP, IRAN, ISP, Issues, it, jingoistic, LAN, live, media, Om, One, pr, president, reform, run, tn, truth, tv, United States, Vietnam

Link: No Longer a Christian.

Read this. Understand.

I was told in Sunday school the word “Christian” means to be Christ-like, but the message I hear daily on the airwaves from the christian media are words of war, violence, and aggression. Throughout this article I will spell christian with a small c rather than a capital, since the term (as I usually hear it thrown about) does not refer to the teachings of the one I know as the Christ. I hear church goers call in to radio programs and explain that it was a mistake not to kill every living thing in Fallujah. They quote chapter and verse from the old testament about smiting the enemies of Israel. The fear of fighting the terrorists on our soil rather than across the globe causes the voices to be raised as they justify the latest prison scandal or other accounts of the horrors of war . The words they speak are words of destruction, aggression, dominance, revenge, fear and arrogance. The host and the callers echo the belief in the righteousness of our nation’s killing. There are reminders to pray for our christian president who is doing the work of the Lord: Right to Life, Second Amendmendment, sanctity of marriage, welfare reform, war, kill, evil liberals. . . so much to fight, so much to destroy.

Amen.

Tags: API, cro, dreams, EAD, HTTP, IE, Israel, it, media, Om, One, pr, president, reform, views