Biden supporter asks, why Obama over Edwards?
Daily Archive for December 31st, 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.
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