Biden supporter asks, why Obama over Edwards?
Monthly Archive for December, 2007
I can’t remember life sans Google. And Google Scholar rocked my world as a graduate student researching fan culture and edutainment and Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a feminist icon.
In the past year, the web has become an increasingly popular place to turn when trying to amp up your learning. Per Justin Pope’s article “Internet opens Elite College for All,”
Figures from the Sloan Consortium, an online learning group, report about 3.5 million students are signed up for at least one online course – or about 20 percent of all students at degree-granting institutions.
iTunes launched iTunesU allowing people to download choice lectures on a variety of topics taught at respectable institutions across the US. Learn microeconomics for the first time or brush up on developments in feminist political discourse. After downloading the lectures, you can get your learn on anywhere you can take an iPod or mp3 player.
Adding more options for seeking to maximize their brand by offering up sample class experiences to prospective students and the general population, OpenCourseWare is bring a great proportion of the learning experience to the web. Now you don’t have to be matriculated at MIT or Tufts to experience coursework, complete with syllabi and lecture notes.
As the OpenCourseWare Consortium grows its membership and expands its offerings, it will become a great resource to see how like topics are taught in different parts of the world. No doubt the American Civil War is taught differently in the North versus the South but what about in England or Egypt. What spin is put on American history in other countries? Currently Japan is the most well represented country outside the United States, as the costs come down, I’d expect more schools, and accordingly more nations to be represented.
Much of my social circle is swept up in Obama-fever. After reading his latest stump speech in Iowa, I want to get caught up too.
At this defining moment, we cannot wait any longer for universal health care. We cannot wait to fix our schools. We cannot wait for good jobs, and living wages, and pensions we can count on. We cannot wait to halt global warming, and we cannot wait to end this war in Iraq. . .
However, Obama also comments on lobbyists — pervasive and ever present in political settings, driving for legislation to benefit their corporate fatcat clients to the detriment of the American people.
They said we couldn’t compete without taking money from Washington lobbyists. But you proved them wrong when we raised more small donations from more Americans than any other campaign in history.
Is it enough to not accept money from lobbyists when several work for Obama’s campaign? Even having resigned from the lobbying firms they work for, are these workers really focused on the best for the American people or the best for the former, and likely future, clients?
The Hill put together a list of former lobbyists that are currently on the campaign trail with all of the major candidates. For someone campaigning as if he’s going to take lobbyists out of the equation, Obama has quite a few on his own payroll. (Huffington Post blogger Christine Escobar covers the industry expertise of a number of the lobbyists out on the campaign trail over at Alternet.) While Edwards has publicly noted his intent to ban lobbyists from the White House if elected, Obama has yet to pledge the same. Could lies by omission might be an acceptable part of his leadership and campaign tactics?
I want to believe in a candidate that pledges to break all the rules and redefine the political landscape, but only if I can truly believe that candidate will govern transparently.
The NYTimes took a look at the financial fallout of Harvard’s recent announcement to make an undergraduate education more affordable for the middle-to-upper-middle class familes that routinely bypass Harvard because of sticker shock.
…for families earning $120,000 to $180,000 a year, costs will now be limited to about 10 percent of income, meaning that students from such families will pay a maximum of $18,000, a deep discount from the university’s full annual cost of more than $45,600.
Universities around the country now face a price war, with parents seeking the same treatment at other, less endowed universities. The pressure is on for private institutions to make their programs more affordable and further drive diversity.
I can certainly appreciate Harvard’s well meaning efforts, given that I went to UPenn, and my parents managed to just eek out on top of the ceiling for grants/aid direct from the university. My college education sucked up a third of my parents’ income after taxes for 4 years; I have no doubt there were dozens of other ways they’d have preferred to spend that money.
Ultimately, picking a school can be much like shopping for clothes. Sure I’d love to be wearing La Perla lingerie underneath my clothes every day, but Hanes does the job well too. College is about taking advantage of all opportunities presented to you, regardless of the initial sticker price. In college, I learned how to think critically. . . critical thinking is what the History & Sociology of Science major is know for. I probably could have learned how to think just as well at a smaller school that fell a bit further down the rankings.
Researchers at Princeton were able to show that ambition, not college choice, is the ultimate predictor of financial success. After tracking students for roughly 25 years,
In both data sets, Krueger and Dale, like other researchers, find that students who attended more selective colleges tend to earn higher salaries later on than those who attend less selective colleges. However, the researchers not only looked at the schools that students attended but also where they were accepted and rejected. They found that where a student applies is a more powerful predictor of future earnings success than where he or she attends.
Says Krueger, Bendheim Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Princeton University: “It appears that student ambition, as reflected in the quality of the school to which he or she applies, is a better predictor of earning success than what college they ultimately choose or which college chooses them.”
Whether Harvard or your local State University, keeping your eye on the prize is more important than the name on your sweatshirt.
The medical profession knows how to keep the dough rolling in. I’m so horribly nearsighted that 6 inches in front of my face is one big blur unless I’m sporting contacts. Every year I have to swing by an optometrist to have a new prescription written out, even if there’s no discernable change in my vision to the tune of $95.
This year it appears my vision has managed to shift a tad closer to legal blindness. Contacts correct up to -20.0, I’ve hit -10.0.
One of the many items on the “waiting to be able to afford it” wish list is Lasik surgery, since one would shell out a few thousand dollars once for the eye work, instead of a lifetime of contact lenses.
Turns out that depending on the thickness of your corneas, you might not get to be free of visual aids alltogether. It is entirely possible that I could be rescued from -10.0 vision, and brought back to, say, a -2.0. While exceptionally better, I’d still be wearing contact lenses. So I really wouldn’t be saving any money in the long run, it would actually cost more. Regardless of the strength of contact lenses, they all cost the same, so surgery would just be an added cost on top of $250 worth of contacts each year.
The optometrist pointed out that insurance companies are pretty close to approving payments for Lasik surgery it’s just a matter of time. Yes, Viagra is covered by insurance, but permanent improvement of sight. . .
Let’s not even get started on birth control v. Viagra insurance coverage.
As per usual while waiting for a film to start, I was held hostage by the rotating advertisements on screen at the theater.
The best one of the holidays season:
What she wants won’t fit in a box. . . breast implants
Yes. The way to a girl’s heart is through her plastic surgeon.
Do you believe the Bush administration should be held accountable for the lies and gross abuses of power at the expense of the American people and our nation’s status in the world?
If you said yes, join Congressman Wexler’s online petition to encourage the impeachment hearings of Dick Cheney in 2008. Send a message to the current administration and its spokespuppet Bush.
131,291 individuals have already jumped aboard the online petition, myself included. I hope you’re next!
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