Re: banks
--- michael perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Please, do not bring disputes from other lists over here. Don't you think that that is pushing the limits of what a dispute is? Real disputes are why discussions on lists take place, obviously. The main points of my post had nothing whatsoever to do with that other list anyway. C Jannuzi __ Do you Yahoo!? New DSL Internet Access from SBC Yahoo! http://sbc.yahoo.com
Re: [banks
--- michael perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Wessel, David. 2002. U.S. Appetite for Refinancing Contributes to Bond Volatility. (26 September). Fannie, Freddie, banks, Wall Street houses and others who borrow money from one place and use it to buy big pools of mortgages. Their profits come from borrowing money at, say, 6.5% and lending it to homeowners at 7.5%. When a homeowner pays off a 7.5% loan and takes out a 6% mortgage instead, that profit can turn to a loss. Big players are still stuck with paying out 6.5%, but can't find a safe way to earn that much on their cash. The big players may not buy Treasury debt directly, but they make side bets on financial markets, called derivatives, from dealers who buy Treasuries to cover the risk. This WSJ (I believe that is where I first read it)piece begs the question of what is wrong in the first place. Is the problem refinancing to reduce debt, or derivatives? C Jannuzi __ Do you Yahoo!? New DSL Internet Access from SBC Yahoo! http://sbc.yahoo.com
War Against Literacy=$$$$
This one is going to make the ruling regime a lot of money, too. In fact, Bush was giving some sort phonics-based cheerleading session when word of 9-11 came in. He then fled to a bunker in Nebraska. -http://www.guerrillanews.com/government/doc326.html Hooked on Phonics Savanna Reid, February 21, 2002 The McGraw publishing dynasty has closer, longer-standing ties to President Bush than even Enrons ex-chairman Ken Lay. While the countrys attention has been focused on the War on Terror and the implosion of a little Houston-based energy company, Bush and McGraw have quietly pushed through a national education curriculum that many critics fear may drive up drop-out rates, further deepening the educational opportunity gap between wealthy and poor. The law is ironically called the No Child Left Behind Act, and its mandates are coming soon to a school district near you. You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test. President Bush, at Townsend Elementary School, touting his education reform plans, Feb. 21, 2001. On January 8, Bush signed his Education Plan, (the No Child Left Behind Act), into law. Its critics assert that while not only will children be left behind in record numbers, the act will also principally serve as a windfall for McGraw-Hill Companies, a publishing giant with close family ties to the President. Bush implemented a prototype of this plan in Texas. Puffed with pride, Bush informed the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research that, In 1994, there were 67 schools in Texas that were rated 'exemplorary' (sic) according to our own tests. Many teachers and education researchers have been less enthusiastic about Bush-McGraw policies, challenging the legitimacy of the programs reliance on the science of phonics and decrying the punitive testing regimen that cracks down on minority children. Phonics is an approach to teaching reading that emphasizes sound-bites over words as the fundamental building-blocks of literacy. Loosely based on phonetic linguistics and chock full of scientific-sounding jargon like phonemic awareness and phonograms, research on phonics emanates almost exclusively from sub-publishers of the McGraw-Hill Companies. Proponents call phonics instruction an indispensable tool for decoding (sounding out) whole language (words). The systems detractors point out that although 84% of all English words are phonetically regular (easy to decode with phonograms), the other (phonetically irregular) 16% are the words that appear with greatest frequency in text ? about 80% of the time. These statistics have been brushed aside as trivial by outspoken proponents of phonics instruction, who insist that science is on their side. Scientific assessment testing likewise made it into national education reform legislation via heavily-promoted research published by the McGraw-Hill Companies. Congress heard testimonials from professional consultants with vested interests in overstating confidence in the rigor and objectivity of research that links high-stakes standardized testing to improvements in public school performance. Objecting teachers were accused of patronizing the poor by setting low standards for minority students A Texas trial foreshadowed the grim outlook for underprivileged students under 'test-mania' infused education policy. The centerpiece of the Governor Bush-McGraw testing program, the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS), was taken to court in 1999 for discrimination against black and Latino students. Judge Edward C. Prado ruled that even though the test clearly had a discriminatory impact (minority graduation rates fell from 60 to 50% after TAAS was implemented as a prerequisite for graduation), TAAS was deemed educationally necessary - so the policy was allowed to stand. Forget Kenny-Boy: Meet the McGraws The Bush and McGraw families have been close since the 1930s. McGraw connections with the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy are so extensive that the families seem to intertwine seamlessly. Florida Governor Jeb Bush and his brother in Texas both implemented radical education reform policies at the state level to virtually mandate the use of McGraw-Hill products in public classrooms. John Negroponte, Bushs ambassador to the U.N., comes from an executive position in global marketing at McGraw. On his first day in the Oval Office, Bush met with McGraw himself, shortly before announcing an ambitious national phonics-promoting education policy. In a close examination of the Bush education policys many favors for McGraw, The Nations Stephen Metcalf points out, to teach phonics you need a textbook and usually a series of items ? worksheets, tests, teacher's editions ? that constitute an elaborate purchase for a school district and a profitable product line for a publisher. A survey published in the Elementary Reading Market Update for January 2001 found that more than 45%
Max's Guide for the Perplexed
* 09/29/2002 Entry: A GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED ...The demonstrations [in Washington, D.C.] have attracted fewer participants than expected. My hypothesis is that the movement is in a molting phase. The globalization issues are being superceded by the Administration's drive for war. As I've written before, the connection between these things has not been mapped out very well thus far. As the war gets more serious, the anti-war component of the anti-globalization movement will get more serious too. (Yes, there are elements of the anti-globs who support the Bush war plans.) Demonstrations against the war in London and Rome were quite respectable as far as size is concerned. Those will get bigger too when the slaughter commences in earnest http://maxspeak.org/gm/archives/0542.html * -- Yoshie * Calendar of Events in Columbus: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html * Anti-War Activist Resources: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html * Student International Forum: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/
RE: Max's Guide for the Perplexed
Title: RE: [PEN-L:30693] Max's Guide for the Perplexed Max's site is great. I love the picture of Our Noble President watching a child read a book. JD -Original Message- From: Yoshie Furuhashi To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 9/29/2002 7:54 AM Subject: [PEN-L:30693] Max's Guide for the Perplexed * 09/29/2002 Entry: A GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED ...The demonstrations [in Washington, D.C.] have attracted fewer participants than expected. My hypothesis is that the movement is in a molting phase. The globalization issues are being superceded by the Administration's drive for war. As I've written before, the connection between these things has not been mapped out very well thus far. As the war gets more serious, the anti-war component of the anti-globalization movement will get more serious too. (Yes, there are elements of the anti-globs who support the Bush war plans.) Demonstrations against the war in London and Rome were quite respectable as far as size is concerned. Those will get bigger too when the slaughter commences in earnest http://maxspeak.org/gm/archives/0542.html * -- Yoshie * Calendar of Events in Columbus: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html * Anti-War Activist Resources: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html * Student International Forum: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/
RE: War Against Literacy=$$$$
Title: RE: [PEN-L:30692] War Against Literacy= The Bushite teach-to-the-test Bushwa is a disaster (as is the whole Leave No Child Behind nonsense, which seems aimed at helping the private schools), but here's a good word for phonics: different children have different learning styles, some learning to read better with phonics and others with other methods. The problem with phonics is _not_ really about phonics _per se_. Rather, it's about forcing all kids into the same mold. Here in California, the school system did the same thing with a different teaching method (whole language) that may or may not have benefitted McGraw-Hill. We need more pluralism in teaching techniques, more individual-oriented approaches. BTW, I wonder if BUSINESSWEEK and other McGraw-owned media outlets reported on this? Jim -Original Message- From: Charles Jannuzi To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 9/29/2002 5:18 AM Subject: [PEN-L:30692] War Against Literacy= This one is going to make the ruling regime a lot of money, too. In fact, Bush was giving some sort phonics-based cheerleading session when word of 9-11 came in. He then fled to a bunker in Nebraska. -http://www.guerrillanews.com/government/doc326.html Hooked on Phonics Savanna Reid, February 21, 2002 The McGraw publishing dynasty has closer, longer-standing ties to President Bush than even Enron's ex-chairman Ken Lay. While the country's attention has been focused on the War on Terror and the implosion of a little Houston-based energy company, Bush and McGraw have quietly pushed through a national education curriculum that many critics fear may drive up drop-out rates, further deepening the educational opportunity gap between wealthy and poor. The law is ironically called the No Child Left Behind Act, and its mandates are coming soon to a school district near you. You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test. President Bush, at Townsend Elementary School, touting his education reform plans, Feb. 21, 2001. On January 8, Bush signed his Education Plan, (the "No Child Left Behind" Act), into law. Its critics assert that while not only will children be left behind in record numbers, the act will also principally serve as a windfall for McGraw-Hill Companies, a publishing giant with close family ties to the President. Bush implemented a prototype of this plan in Texas. Puffed with pride, Bush informed the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research that, In 1994, there were 67 schools in Texas that were rated 'exemplorary' (sic) according to our own tests. Many teachers and education researchers have been less enthusiastic about Bush-McGraw policies, challenging the legitimacy of the program's reliance on the science of 'phonics' and decrying the punitive testing regimen that cracks down on minority children. Phonics is an approach to teaching reading that emphasizes sound-bites over words as the fundamental building-blocks of literacy. Loosely based on phonetic linguistics and chock full of scientific-sounding jargon like 'phonemic awareness' and 'phonograms', research on phonics emanates almost exclusively from sub-publishers of the McGraw-Hill Companies. Proponents call phonics instruction an indispensable tool for 'decoding' (sounding out) 'whole language' (words). The system's detractors point out that although 84% of all English words are phonetically regular (easy to decode with phonograms), the other (phonetically irregular) 16% are the words that appear with greatest frequency in text ? about 80% of the time. These statistics have been brushed aside as 'trivial' by outspoken proponents of phonics instruction, who insist that science is on their side. 'Scientific assessment' testing likewise made it into national education reform legislation via heavily-promoted research published by the McGraw-Hill Companies. Congress heard testimonials from professional consultants with vested interests in overstating confidence in the rigor and objectivity of research that links high-stakes standardized testing to improvements in public school performance. Objecting teachers were accused of 'patronizing the poor' by setting 'low standards' for minority students A Texas trial foreshadowed the grim outlook for underprivileged students under 'test-mania' infused education policy. The centerpiece of the Governor Bush-McGraw testing program, the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS), was taken to court in 1999 for discrimination against black and Latino students. Judge Edward C. Prado ruled that even though the test clearly had a discriminatory impact (minority graduation rates fell from 60 to 50% after TAAS was implemented as a prerequisite for graduation), TAAS was deemed educationally necessary - so the policy was allowed to stand. Forget Kenny-Boy: Meet the McGraws The Bush and McGraw families have been close since the 1930s. McGraw connections with the Barbara Bush Foundation for
Re: telecom market madness
The capacity will not remain a glut in a globalized, digital economy. It will be aquired for next to nothing having been paid for by investors duped by the Grubman's. It will work out nicely for some factions. The only question I have is will it have only been a happy accident for those factions or something else entirely. This article is fascinating. Market enthusiasts proclaim that markets are magnificant processors of information. This article desribes how markets are driven by frenzy more than by information. TELECOMMUNICATIONS Wildly Optimistic Data Drove Telecoms to Build Fiber Glut By YOCHI J. DREAZEN Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Re: War Against Literacy=$$$$
--- Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The Bushite teach-to-the-test Bushwa is a disaster (as is the whole Leave No Child Behind nonsense, which seems aimed at helping the private schools), but here's a good word for phonics: different children have different learning styles, some learning to read better with phonics and others with other methods. The problem with phonics is _not_ really about phonics _per se_. Rather, it's about forcing all kids into the same mold. Here in California, the school system did the same thing with a different teaching method (whole language) that may or may not have benefitted McGraw-Hill. We need more pluralism in teaching techniques, more individual-oriented approaches. BTW, I wonder if BUSINESSWEEK and other McGraw-owned media outlets reported on this? Jim BW is a McGraw Hill mouthpiece on issues like this (it's also so pro-US on all issues, it makes the Economist seem like a model of fairness). California was the center of the conflict once Florida and Texas were bought out. Yes indeed, McGraw Hill through its Open Court brand was the main beneficiary of changes made in California. Whole Language could never be encompassed by the publishers, hence their need to switch to phonics. See Krashen on this below. I've been reading quite a few interesting articles on the topic. NYT, as usual, is laughable (that's always interesting), but here is the better stuff: http://www.pdkintl.org/kappan/k0206kra.htm Whole Language and the Great Plummet of 1987-92: An Urban Legend from California There is compelling evidence that California's low reading scores are related to California's impoverished print environment, not to the introduction of the whole-language approach to literacy, Mr. Krashen points out. By Stephen Krashen THERE ARE a number of ways to define an urban legend. Here's one from the Urban Legends Research Centre: An Urban Legend is usually a (good/captivating/titillating/engrossing/incredible/worrying) story that has had a wide audience, is circulated spontaneously, has been told in several forms, and which many have chosen to believe (whether actively or passively) despite the lack of actual evidence to substantiate the story.1 I wish to add another urban legend to those that already exist, a legend that I believe ranks with the legend of the alligators living in the sewers of New York City.2 I will refer to it as the Plummet Legend. It goes like this. After whole language was introduced in California in 1987, test scores plummeted to the point where California's fourth-graders were last in the country in 1992. It makes a good story, if we can judge by the number of times it has been repeated. But this sudden plummet never happened. It is an urban legend, a captivating and worrisome story that has been told in several forms and that many people have chosen to believe despite the lack of actual evidence. The Plummet Legend has had serious consequences. It has led to the discrediting of the whole-language approach to literacy and has nurtured a strong movement promoting a skill-building approach.3 I will try to show here both that the evidence does not support this legend and that the legend is inconsistent with the results of studies of literacy development. Did Test Scores Plummet in California? Here is a more complete version of the Plummet Legend. In 1987 a group of whole-language advocates took over the California Language Arts Framework Committee and brought in whole language. Phonics instruction and other forms of direct teaching were banned, and language scores plummeted to the point where California's fourth-graders scored last in the country in reading in 1992. California is now recovering from this damage, thanks to a rational, sensible phonics-based approach to reading. This is not what happened. I served on the California Language Arts Framework Committee in 1987. Phonics teaching was not banned. We simply proposed that language arts should be literature-based. This is hardly controversial. In fact, I regarded it as part of the definition of language arts. Did teachers change their ways in California? Nobody really knows. There have been no empirical studies comparing methodology in language arts teaching before and after the 1987 committee met. Did test scores decline? It is certainly true that California fourth-graders scored last in the country in the fourth-grade National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in reading in 1992. But this was the first time NAEP scores had been presented by state. It was assumed that there had been a decline, but there was no evidence that this was so, for no comparison with earlier test scores was made. Jeff McQuillan examined CAP (California Achievement Program) reading comprehension scores from 1984 to 1990, which I present in Table 1. There is no clear pattern of increases or decreases during these years, which leads to the conclusion that California's reading
Re: War Against Literacy=$$$$
I sort of wrote this up while engaged in pro-Whole Language debate in support of people like Krashen and Goodman (true heroes for language and literacy education in the US). It has since grown into a presentation at the World Congress for Applied Linguistics in Singapore this December (my other presentation is about articulatory phonology so believe me this one is better here). I'll pretend you just woke up at the very end of my allotted 20 minutes in time for the rousing conclusion. Notice how all jargon is carefully explained in context: Why phonological reading skills are top-down subcomponents of whole language Charles Jannuzi, Fukui University, Japan Conclusion In the cases of ESL/EFL learning and ESL/EFL literacy, it could be argued that we need to think more along the terms in which Goodman (1967,1993) originally expressed and later clarified his view of reading as a psycholinguistic guessing game: that is, ALL language processing and comprehension comes together with mentally internalized linguistic knowledge and non-linguistic background knowledge as a TOP-DOWN, wholistic orchestration of many skills, including those that have been traditionally thought of as bottom-up and text-driven. There is no one aspect of a written text that is self-sufficiently bottom-up without top-down cognition. Active human minds and brains have to be engaged in language learning and text comprehension, or no meaning can be understood, interpreted, revised, created or exchanged. Given the complex, irregular, incomplete, partly logographic (like Chinese characters, read as whole words), partly phonological nature of English writing conventions and the reading processes this requires, even phonological (sublexical) manipulation of text and phonics skills must be more top-down, mind-driven processes than text-driven artifacts and bottom-up rule inputs. Texts and external rules do not drive comprehension processes and never will. It is precisely because written English is both alphabetic while so phonologically incomplete and inconsistent that, if it is visually and linguistically processed at sub-lexical levels, it truly is the psycholinguistic guessing game that Goodman has called it (see Figure 1--sorry no attachments for a list like this; I'll have it up online soon). All parts of ESL/EFL reading, then, from grapho-phonological elements to lexical, syntactical, discoursal and schematic ones too, if they contribute to language access and meaningful engagement of text, are best thought of as top-down in nature. And, in the areas that have been traditionally thought of as the linguistic, text-driven bottom-up levels, it is the phonological and lexical elements that may prove most linguistically reinforcing and illuminating. Thus, it is important for teachers to revise and implement more complete concepts of phonology in teaching a SL/FL and in teaching how to read it. As whole language teachers we must help students to learn to read ESL/EFL so that they may then read to learn in English. References Goodman, K. (1967). Reading: A psycholinguistic guessing game. Journal of the Reading Specialist 5, 126-135. Goodman, K. (1993). Phonics phacts. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. __ Do you Yahoo!? New DSL Internet Access from SBC Yahoo! http://sbc.yahoo.com
RE: RE: Max's Guide for the Perplexed
Thanx. That pic was doctored, by the way. I didn't realize it when I posted it. mbs Max's site is great. I love the picture of Our Noble President watching a child read a book. JD
Finale on the Great Uranium Caper
http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/09/29/turkey.uranium/index.html In light of the latest news, Governor Jeb Bush announced that all residents could now come out from under their beds. mbs
Re: War Against Literacy=$$$$
Neil Bush is also involved in the testing business. Is that an omen of impending collapse? -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Singapore
I would argue that due to the 19C. origin as a purely free(sic)-trade port and its entrepot function, that Singapore has always been a city(-state) based on capital rather than on labor (which is expolited elsewhere, but contiguously). The economic geography literature on Asian metropoles would be useful. Certainly it is the case that transportation and communications whether trans-shipped opium in the 19C or 24/7 financial services in the 20-21st C., its success comes from various colonial and post-colonial institutional./ neoinstitutional economic advantages in their most pure urban form as a site for exchange and transaction. (Unlike of course the infrastructure planning in its sterling defence of 1942) No comment of course on all kinds of centralized public health, education etc. regulatory policies, corporal punishment and the controls on press freedoms in such a democracy. It might even bear more similarities to marketization in the PRC and/or cultural China. Ann - Here's an electronic example of its super/infrastructural advantages. Note that perhaps these will be GSM device networks so that everyone will also be kept track of and their coversations easily decrypted (thanks to our CIA): SingTel To Have 150 Wireless Hotspots By Year End By Seng Li Peng Not to be outdone by its rival, StarHub, which has recently launched a Wireless Broadband Hub covering an area of 180,000 square meters (a size equivalent to 28 international soccer fields) at the Suntec City building (StarHub Launches Singapore's Largest Wireless 'Hotzone'), Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel) has launched its own version of wireless hotspots which have almost the entire Singapore covered. This means that more than 300,000 SingNet users and more than a million SingTel Mobile's postpaid customers are now able to access the Internet wirelessly at speeds of up to 512 kilo bits per second (Kbps) in more than 100 outdoor surf zones in Singapore. Each of these zones will be marked with a SingTel 'Wireless Surf Zone' sign and can be found in the central business district as well as suburd areas, Starbucks cafes, Burger King outlets, Shangri-La Hotel, country clubs and various community clubs among others. If unsure, SingTel Mobile customers can easily locate the nearest wireless surf zone by simply keying in *624 on their phones. There is no monthly subscription fee to the service. SingNet dial-up and broadband customers and SingTel Mobile postpaid customers need only to pay for what they use and are charged US$0.11 per minute. They can access the service by using their existing SingNet user IDs or SingTel Mobile General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) ID (i.e. mobile phone number) and passwords respectively. But they would need a wireless enabled notebook computer, or a handheld device, that complies with Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11b standard. According to the company's vice president (Consumer Products), Hui Weng Cheong, SingTel plans to have at least 150 wireless surf zones by the end of the year. We will also offer wireless local area network (WLAN) infrastructure to other operators and Internet Service Providers on a wholesale basis, Hui added. Getting More Broadband Users Onboard The offerings do not stop with the wireless zones that cost the group more than US$560,000 in investments. SingNet Broadband (which has more than 50 percent of the domestic broadband market share with more than 92,000 broadband ADSL lines) has also launched 'Home Wireless Surf' which enables households a wireless broadband Internet connectivity anywhere within the home. As part of its plan to promote the use of pervasive and broadband services, the service comes with no additional subscription fee and usage charges are based on the customer's existing SingNet Broadband price plan. All they need is an Ethernet modem, an access point and a WLAN card which cost about US$280. In addition, users can opt for the new Multi-Surf - a service that allows up to three users (one main plus two Multi-Surf accounts) in the home for concurrent Internet access using the same ADSL connection without compromising broadband speeds. Each additional account costs about US$20 per month. Wireless Services In The Pipeline SingTel has also lined up a host of new value-added wireless Internet services for its customers in the months ahead in a bid to up its mobile and data services profits (which currently forms 48 percent of the groups revenue). These include: * Prepaid wireless surf service where customers can purchase a selected amount of Internet surf time and are given a temporary Internet account and password for use at any wireless surf zone. * Wireless surf for inbound roamers where roamers can request for a temporary wireless surf account. * Wireless broadband roaming arrangements with GRIC and iPASS for both inbound roamers and SingTel customers traveling overseas. * Park Surf service which
Re: Re: War Against Literacy=$$$$
I cannot speak about educational matters in particular, but BW is probably the least ideological of business publication -- probably because they do not seem to be pitching to the rubes, but to business people who profit from information. Charles Jannuzi wrote: BW is a McGraw Hill mouthpiece on issues like this (it's also so pro-US on all issues, it makes the Economist seem like a model of fairness). -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: War Against Literacy=$$$$
--- Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I cannot speak about educational matters in particular, but BW is probably the least ideological of business publication -- probably because they do not seem to be pitching to the rubes, but to business people who profit from information. I should have clarified: I meant its international edition, which seems to be screened by the US government for appropriate propaganda. As is Time, which includes such great stuff as: The US Navy never transported nuclear weapons to Japan; the Japanese were upset because the aircraft carriers are nuclear powered. In fact, the US Navy and Air Force moved tactical nukes all over the place, including Japan (but also my backyard in Chambersburg, PA), and at least the JCP knew this about the activities in Japan(though I'm assuming the LDP and the bureaucrats did too). Still, BW in its US edition sucks, too. It's breathless coverage of .com hype and the new, new economy and productivity growth were through and through in support of US dominance of global business discourse. BTW, I recently wrote up a piece for BW Online, international edition and it was rejected by the NY editors as being 'too insider baseball', whatever the hey that means. I think it was because the piece didn't necessarily have a negative focus on Japan or deal with Japan as exotic outland. At least the Times HE Supplement had the good sense to take it, and they pay better than the cheapskates at BW! C Jannuzi __ Do you Yahoo!? New DSL Internet Access from SBC Yahoo! http://sbc.yahoo.com
SE Asia and Islam
Sorry, I can't find the original post about this, so I started a new thread. Here is my conclusion: I wouldn't make too much of recent 'revelations' about Islamic fundamentalist plotting to create a SE Asian caliphate. Afterall, the same thing was said to justify the bombing of Afghanistan as if Iran or Russia had no say in developments there. China, India and Pakistan, for that matter. The ridiculous idea that there was some sort of serious plot to break away Islamic parts of Thailand and Philippines and join them up with Indonesia and Malaysia is just that--ridiculous. And look what such propaganda is being used to do now: justify US reassertion of imperial rights over the Philippines--oh, and let's not forget all the arms sales to the countries there. PM Mahathir of Malaysia (the one Asian leader to tell the IMF to get stuffed) sees through such maneuvering and quite noticeably diverged with the Bush regime over Iraq. For one thing, Malaysia continues to buy military equipment from non-US sources. C Jannuzi __ Do you Yahoo!? New DSL Internet Access from SBC Yahoo! http://sbc.yahoo.com
Re: Re: Re: Singapore
--- Ann Li [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I would argue that due to the 19C. origin as a purely free(sic)-trade port and its entrepot function, that Singapore has always been a city(-state) based on capital rather than on labor (which is expolited elsewhere, but contiguously). The economic geography literature on Asian metropoles would be useful. Certainly it is the case that transportation and communications whether trans-shipped opium in the 19C or 24/7 financial services in the 20-21st C., its success comes from various colonial and post-colonial institutional./ neoinstitutional economic advantages in their most pure urban form as a site for exchange and transaction. I somehow doubt that all the non-British 19th century immigrants that were attracted there brought mostly capital. They brought labor for the sorting and transport of rubber, for one thing. It was also the locus of British imperial rule for the area, so the origins might better be termed mercantile than simply liberal free trade (I know we always use such terms with offsetting quotes on such lists as this). C Jannuzi __ Do you Yahoo!? New DSL Internet Access from SBC Yahoo! http://sbc.yahoo.com
Pilger on why the more things change...
While US journalists prove again and again to be pantywaist liberals, war wimps and personality politics obscurantists, the UK (by way of Australia) gives us one of the few journalists with a mainstream audience who is consistently worth reading. This appeared in the New Statesman (he is one of the few reasons to read that mag), but I got it from his Carlton site (which curiously enough lead me to mailorder Captain Scarlet and Project UFO on DVD). Posted by CJ http://pilger.carlton.com/print The making of a United Nations fig leaf, designed to cover an Anglo-American attack on Iraq, has a revealing past. In 1990, a version of George W Bush's mafia diplomacy was conducted by his father, then president. The aim was to contain America's former regional favourite, Saddam Hussein, whose invasion of Kuwait ended his usefulness to Washington. Forgotten facts tell us how George Bush Sr's war plans gained the legitimacy of a United Nations resolution, as well as a coalition of Arab governments. Like his son's undisguised threats to the General Assembly, Bush challenged the United Nations to live up to its responsibilities and condone an all-out assault on Iraq. On 29 October 1990, James Baker, the secretary of state, declared: After a long period of stagnation, the United Nations is becoming a more effective organisation. Just as Colin Powell, the present secretary of state, is busily doing today, Baker met the foreign minister of each of the 14 member countries of the UN Security Council and persuaded the majority to vote for an attack resolution - 678 - which had no basis in the UN Charter. It was one of the most shameful chapters in the history of the United Nations, and is about to be repeated. For the first time, the full UN Security Council capitulated to an American-led war party and abandoned its legal responsibility to advance peaceful and diplomatic solutions. On 29 November, the United States got its war resolution. This was made possible by a campaign of bribery, blackmail and threats, of which a repetition is currently under way, especially in countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia. In 1990, Egypt was the most indebted country in Africa. Baker bribed President Mubarak with $14bn in debt forgiveness and all opposition to the attack on Iraq faded away. Syria's bribe was different; Washington gave President Hafez al-Assad the green light to wipe out all opposition to Syria's rule in Lebanon. To help him achieve this, a billion dollars' worth of arms was made available through a variety of back doors, mostly Gulf states. Iran was bribed with an American promise to drop its opposition to a series of World Bank loans. The bank approved the first loan of $250m on the day before the ground attack on Iraq. Bribing the Soviet Union was especially urgent, as Moscow was close to pulling off a deal that would allow Saddam to extricate himself from Kuwait peacefully. However, with its wrecked economy, the Soviet Union was easy prey for a bribe. President Bush sent the Saudi foreign minister to Moscow to offer a billion-dollar bribe before the Russian winter set in. He succeeded. Once Gorbachev had agreed to the war resolution, another $3bn materialised from other Gulf states. The votes of the non-permanent members of the Security Council were crucial. Zaire was offered undisclosed debt forgiveness and military equipment in return for silencing the Security Council when the attack was under way. Occupying the rotating presidency of the council, Zaire refused requests from Cuba, Yemen and India to convene an emergency meeting of the council, even though it had no authority to refuse them under the UN Charter. Only Cuba and Yemen held out. Minutes after Yemen voted against the resolution to attack Iraq, a senior American diplomat told the Yemeni ambassador: That was the most expensive 'no' vote you ever cast. Within three days, a US aid programme of $70m to one of the world's poorest countries was stopped. Yemen suddenly had problems with the World Bank and the IMF; and 800,000 Yemeni workers were expelled from Saudi Arabia. The ferocity of the American-led attack far exceeded the mandate of Security Council Resolution 678, which did not allow for the destruction of Iraq's infrastructure and economy. When the United States sought another resolution to blockade Iraq, two new members of the Security Council were duly coerced. Ecuador was warned by the US ambassador in Quito about the devastating economic consequences of a No vote. Zimbabwe was threatened with new IMF conditions for its debt. The punishment of impoverished countries that opposed the attack was severe. Sudan, in the grip of a famine, was denied a shipment of food aid. None of this was reported at the time. By now, news organisations had one objective: to secure a place close to the US command in Saudi Arabia. At the same time, Amnesty International published a searing account of torture, detention and arbitrary arrest by the Saudi regime.
Re: War Against Literacy=$$$$
Hey Charles, I'm lost. I've taught three children to read using phonics...with outstanding results. Is the point that phonics is a bad method? Or that the tests are self serving? Joanna
Re: War Against Literacy=$$$$
Michael Perelman asked, Neil Bush is also involved in the testing business. Is that an omen of impending collapse? Silverado Neil has a company that produces web-based multi-media instructional support material. That no doubt fits under the supplemental services component of No Child Left Behind. One could view the law in the context of a long term strategy to open up broader opportunities for privatization of public education. To the extent that its philosophy fails, it will of course be the public schools that will bear the brunt of the blame. The obvious solution will be to turn more and more to the innovative and flexible private sector. http://www.ignitelearning.com/home.htm Tom Walker 604 255 4812
Re: War Against Literacy=$$$$
--- joanna bujes [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hey Charles, I'm lost. I've taught three children to read using phonics...with outstanding results. Is the point that phonics is a bad method? Or that the tests are self serving? Joanna I would bet you used phonics methods in beginning reading within a much larger approach to reading, which usually is, in a nutshell, to learn to read by reading so as to have lifelong reading to learn. That might include sight vocabulary/whole word methods, too. My little nephew, he's not even two, very verbal, and recognizes some written language that is highly contextualized. So he clearly is already a whole language reader. The point is that multi-billion dollar programs for phonics and phonemic awareness are not necessary and they can't overcome a lack of books (or good meals) in childrens' lives. The money would be far better spent on total literacy and language development programs (in the case of ESL students or bilinguals who are stronger in a language other than English). Whole language doesn't exclude phonics approaches (though often when people say they are using phonics they are actually using something quite different). I learned to read watching and hearing my older sister reading Dr. Suess out loud. I always thought phonics in first and second grade was some form of maths that didn't make sense. The new spin on phonics isn't really phonics. It's stuff called 'phonemic awareness', and it has a monolithic research machine in Florida and Texas universities behind it. This is the stuff the Bushes are cramming down peoples' throats and it's no coincidence it's going to make billions for those who have made investments in the companies with the teaching and testing software and course materials. See 'Beginning to read and the spin doctors of science: The political campaign to change America's mind about children learn to read' by Denny Taylor (NCTE Press, ISBN 0-8141-0275-1). Amazon has it, as well as a review by yours truly. CJ CJ __ Do you Yahoo!? New DSL Internet Access from SBC Yahoo! http://sbc.yahoo.com
Pac NW labor market
http://www.oregonlive.com/business Many laid-off manufacturing and high-tech workers who are able to find service-sector jobs face new challenges, often including a hefty drop in pay ? 09/29/02 CATHERINE TREVISON On his first day back, Cuong Nguyen was ecstatic. He was nervous. He missed his little girl. In June 2001, a layoff severed him from his job as a high-tech recruiter. A year later, Nguyen dropped his daughter off at day care, walked through the parking lot of a Gresham office building and opened the door to a new career. In his old job at Rulespace, a startup dot-com that made kid-friendly filters for the Internet, Nguyen earned close to $60,000 a year. Now, he's working for less than half that at the state Employment Department. Despite the pared-down paycheck, the new job offers stability for his growing family and avenues for steady advancement. As he moves into his new life, Nguyen no longer yearns for the old one. Before, I was lucky. . . I was riding the same high-tech train everyone was, Nguyen said. That's not important anymore, compared to getting my degree and being stable. Oregon's recession has forced trade-offs on even the luckiest laid-off workers -- those who have been able to find a new job. The new jobs often represent a seismic adjustment to lower wages, new hours and sometimes an entirely different kind of work. The state unemployment rate has fallen from a January peak of 8.1 percent to 7 percent in August, but job openings often don't match the skills of workers who lost their jobs. High-tech companies and heavy-equipment manufacturers have shed the most workers since Oregon's economy peaked in late 2000. The layoffs have slowed, but few of those companies have started hiring again. Instead, job openings are concentrated mostly in service industries. It's not a new trend. Service employment first outstripped manufacturing in Oregon in 1982, during the state's last deep recession. But Oregon held on to a larger-than-average share of manufacturing, in part because the state's high-tech jobs are concentrated in semiconductor manufacturing rather than software or research and development. In 2000, manufacturing made up 33.9 percent of the state's gross product and 15.2 percent of its jobs, said U.S Bank regional economist John Mitchell. Nationwide, manufacturing made up just 17.1 percent of gross product and 14 percent of its jobs, Mitchell said. This recession, coupled with globalization, a weak dollar and increasing productivity, has scraped thousands of manufacturing jobs from Oregon. The August employment survey revealed 233,400 manufacturing jobs, 6,600 fewer than a year earlier. The blade has cut into traditional blue-collar work and the Silicon Forest, as well as nonmanufacturing high-tech jobs. By contrast, nonmanufacturing industries such as medicine, insurance, real estate and financial services have been touched lightly, if at all, said state employment economist Art Ayre. Government employment, which is counted separately but consists largely of service jobs, also has held steady. Some service jobs are highly sought-after. But some of the best-paying service professions -- doctors, lawyers, airline pilots -- demand a lengthy or expensive education, or difficult-to-develop skills. They usually aren't practical for laid-off manufacturing or technology workers. A new way of life Taking a service job reoriented Patricia Nunes' family life, her wallet, and even her mind. Building trucks for eight years drained the 33-year-old former Freightliner worker. Work meant coveralls, steel-toed boots, skin streaked with glue and grease and long hair pulled to a ponytail. Frequent swing shifts limited family life to a quick lunchtime call to her three boys, while other workers waited in line for one of the four pay phones. At 12:30 a.m., she'd arrive home eager to drag herself to bed. But Freightliner was in the midst of a massive restructuring, terminating the jobs of thousands of workers. In early 2001, Nunes joined them. Six months later, she landed at a Nationwide Insurance call center. At this job, it's her head that's getting the workout. She's at her desk by 7 a.m. in sleek office wear, gold hoops sparkling at her ears, a telephone headset crowning her dark curls. At day's end, she's still got enough energy to fix dinner, fold laundry, taxi a son from football practice and chat about the bank robber movie the kids are making in the back yard. But the transition wasn't easy. She spent the layoff using federal aid to take classes on computers -- something she had never owned or needed to use at Freightliner. In the first few months in her new job, she would spend her evenings reading thick books that looked like law books, to study for the required insurance license, said her husband, Nohl Nunes, who continues to work at Freightliner. This was like going to school all over again. Sons Tony Marchi, now 14, and Jonathan Marchi, now 12, pitched in to give her
