My Beauty Best Teacher

Mutumwa Mawere recently addressed the Nigerian diaspora he stated:

...There are countless examples of African entrepreneurs and professionals who have substantial amounts of money in Africa but it is evident that the prosperity has not been democratized to the extent of creating an African ownership class able to take the continent’s majority into a new and dynamically positive direction underpinned by new values of work, combined with saving, investment and an ownership mentality. It is also important to underscore that there is a distinction between being “rich” and being “wealthy”.
Yes, some Africans have made money but because financial literacy and “platinum rights” was not stressed as much as a sense of public justice and civil rights were by our founding fathers and we did not keep it (the money) and we certainly we did not grow it.
Many have made money but no one has really taught us how to keep it in our communities.
Imagine, after 13 years of South Africa’s democratic dispensation, we still do not have a new mutual for blacks? No one taught us about financial literacy and the basic tenets of a free enterprise system that appears universally to capture the imagination of many progressive and successful nations.
The challenge of understanding the free-enterprise system and making it work for the majority of Africans has to become a core part of any conversation among Africans concerned about wealth creation and creating sustainable wealth addresses for Africans. Most of our wealth addresses are not assignable and transferable let alone from one African generation to the next.
Any successful nation building enterprise must necessarily be sustained by a healthy, robust and growing tax base and not foreign aid. Africa’s post colonial budgets still remain principally funded by bilateral and multilateral sources of finance.
Africa must create its own dominant class of very successful entrepreneurs, at all levels. We should have our own wealth builders and not become a continent specialized in distributing other people’s wealth.
As we approach the 47th birthday of Nigeria, we must focus on converting ourselves from cash economy customers into banking (our own banks), tenants into homeowners, small business dreamers into small, medium and large scale business owners, minimum wage workers into living wage workers, economically illiterate into economically empowered citizens.
Many of us are consumed with directionless conversations that are primarily focused on what governments can do for us and not what we can go for ourselves. We tend to be good at being against something and not for something.
Literacy can be a sustainable instrument for poverty eradication. They often say that when you know better, you tend to do better.
Any when Africans know better, I have no doubt that we can transform ourselves from islands of affluence to oceans of hope and prosperity. We have not invested much in literacy and integrated the literacy challenge in our post colonial agendas.

Any nation is as good as the interests that inform it. The only power we have as Africans in any field on endeavor whether it is in politics or the wealth game is the power to organize ourselves. One hand cannot clap but two hands can surely make a noise.
Why then is it the case that we have not been able to use our collective spent to our advantage? Many of our African governments have benefited from the financial illiteracy of Africa’s intellectuals. Africa has invested in human capital and yet such investment has not been able to provide any leadership on the bread and butter issues.
Surely, it is evident to all of us that any consolidation of our pain and opportunities can create a critical mass that is missing in action. Imagine if all Nigerians resident in South Africa could consolidate their mobile phone expenses into one pool, how much impact would they have in the South African economy.
Equally, if all Zimbabweans resident in South Africa chose to use one bank, how much would that bank be worth? Even the obvious things that Africa needs to do are not so obvious to our leaders.
I think it is self evident that the poor need the rich in as much as the rich need the poor. Can you imagine a nation of only poor people with the same means and possibilities? On the key ideological questions, we have heard many people argue that a free enterprise system is not suited for Africa and many of our governments in Africa have perfected the skill of creating ideological and theoretical entrepreneurs/bureaucrats without asking the question whether in fact if all the rich people were eliminated, Africa would be any better.
The post colonial experience has confused many of us to the extent that we are now looking for intelligent leaders to govern us when leadership may have little to do with intelligence. Even in a family, it would not be normal for all the children to be the same. Those who do well in one generation inspire the next generation to do better.

Is Africa’s future safe with a system where the state thinks for its citizens or where the citizens think for themselves and act in their own self interest? Many believe that governments (created by the same citizens) can and should be expected to lead the anti-poverty crusade and yet human history has not given us any good examples of governments acting in the interests of citizens who are not in government.

We must take ownership of our destinies and we must be the change that we want to see in the continent. No one else is going to do it for us. We must sell ourselves as worthy of investment and we must change our attitudes because in the final analysis, our attitude to wealth determines our altitude.

Anyone can make money in a growing economy than can be stolen in a decaying and dysfunctional system. If we look at Africa’s unmet needs, then we can appreciate the possibilities that exist in the continent and yet we think and act in a fragmented and confused manner. Those who should ordinarily lead appear to be visionless preferring to focus on yesterday (which is gone) and not on actions that create a better Africa.
Before we can think of creating an African pool of wealth, we need to understand the meaning of wealth. Wealth has come to mean an abundance of items of economic vale or the state of controlling or possessing such items and encompasses money, real estate and any personal property.
In many countries wealth is also measured by reference to access to essential services such as health care or the possession of crops or livestock. Accordingly, an individual who has accumulated wealth relative to others is often described as wealthy.
Therefore, wealth refers to some accumulation of resources. In light of the above, Africa is not recognized as a wealthy continent because of the inferior relationship between the majority of us and items of economic value. We are generally challenged in the resource accumulation enterprise...

Ghana's "...Private Enterprise Foundation is a member-based organization and national center for advocacy and promotion of private enterprise. It undertakes policy based research for making effective representation to government in order to influence policies and regulations towards the creation of an enabling environment for a private sector led economic growth..."

In a paper by Kate Meagher:

While the Nigerian Civil War devastated Igbo business activities across Nigeria, and precipitated a mass return of Igbo migrants to their home area, it also laid the foundation for a consolidation and rapid development of Igbo informal enterprise, which has had integrative rather than divisive social and economic consequences for Nigeria as a whole. Operating below the radar of political competition, the demands of informal enterprise development have nurtured strong inter-ethnic and inter-regional links between the Igbo, Hausa, Yoruba and other Nigerian as well as non-Nigerian groups.

Although I am no expert in this, I have always felt that the 1930's were an interesting time period in our nation. The Victorian age had come to a bloody conclusion with World War One, and a whole generation of people were now being raised in a society that saw their parents as failures- their attempts to repress their sexual urges, their attempts to stick to the old ways, their attempts to put in place world peace, their attempts to build multinational nations- all had led to one of the most bloody and brutal and worthless wars of all time. Technology was changing fast- cars and telephones and radio and motion picture- and the children of the 1910's and 1920's thought that they had everything figured out- they thought that where other generations had failed due to their reliance on religion, traditional values, free markets, republicanism, and limited government, they would succeed by figuring out a third way of doing things, a practical way of doing things, a way of doing things that used the power of government to make society a better place to live. This new generation, horrified by WWI and mocking their parents lack of technology skills, had it all figured out, and ushered in an era of fascism and communism and World War Two.

In my post 1930's Are Root of All That is Wrong I cataloged all of the laws that were passed in the 1930's in America that are with us today- such as the Unemployment Compensation Tax (MI, 1936), Oil and Gas Severance Tax (MI, 1929), Social Security Act (USA, 1935), Fair Labor Standards Act (USA, 1938), Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (USA, 1930), Hoover Tax Hike (USA, 1932), National Labor Relations Act (USA, 1935), Private Schools, Act 302 of 1921 (MI, 1921), Roosevelt moves traditional Thanksgiving Day (1939), Regulating Firearms, Act 373 (MI, 1927), US moves off gold standard (1933), Reapportionment Act (USA, 1929), etc. Looking through that list and thinking of how much America was changed by one generation, by one President, by one party, by one decade (mostly), I was always stunned, and wondered how people had let that come to pass.

As it turns out, the Republican Party of 1936 had put together a platform to oppose a lot of these fascist ideas, but people loved their hope and change and returned FDR to the White House instead, and so the Great Depression dragged on for another decade. Via Conservative Hideout, let's take a walk back in history and see just exactly what the GOP was offering as an alternative back then to the high taxes, high regulation, crony capitalism, fascist third way system that FDR was pushing our nation into. Here is a good chunk of the 1936 Republican Party Platform:

1936 Republican Party PlatformAmerica is in peril. The welfare of American men and women and the future of our youth are at stake. We dedicate ourselves to the preservation of their political liberty, their individual opportunity and their character as free citizens, which today for the first time are threatened by Government itself.

For three long years the New Deal Administration has dishonored American traditions and flagrantly betrayed the pledges upon which the Democratic Party sought and received public support. The powers of Congress have been usurped by the President... the rights and liberties of American citizens have been violated... regulated monopoly has displaced free enterprise.... it has intimidated witnesses and interfered with the right of petition... it has been guilty of frightful waste and extravagance, using public funds for partisan political purposes... it has promoted investigations to harass and intimidate American citizens, at the same time denying investigations into its own improper expenditures... it has created a vast multitude of new offices, filled them with its favorites, set up a centralized bureaucracy, and sent out swarms of inspectors to harass our people.... it has bred fear and hesitation in commerce and industry, thus discouraging new enterprises, preventing employment and prolonging the depression.... appeals to passion and class prejudice have replaced reason and tolerance.

To a free people, these actions are insufferable. This campaign cannot be waged on the traditional differences between the Republican and Democratic parties. The responsibility of this election transcends all previous political divisions. We invite all Americans, irrespective of party, to join us in defense of American institutions. We pledge ourselves:

...To preserve the American system of free enterprise, private competition, and equality of opportunity, and to seek its constant betterment in the interests of all.

The only permanent solution of the unemployment problem is the absorption of the unemployed by industry and agriculture. To that end, we advocate: Removal of restrictions on production. Abandonment of all New Deal policies that raise production costs, increase the cost of living, and thereby restrict buying, reduce volume and prevent reemployment. Encouragement instead of hindrance to legitimate business. Withdrawal of government from competition with private payrolls. Elimination of unnecessary and hampering regulations. Adoption of such other policies as will furnish a chance for individual enterprise, industrial expansion, and the restoration of jobs.

Society has an obligation to promote the security of the people, by affording some measure of protection against involuntary unemployment and dependency in old age. The New Deal policies, while purporting to provide social security, have, in fact, endangered it. We propose a system of old age security, based upon the following principles: 1. We approve a pay-as-you-go policy, which requires of each generation the support of the aged and the determination of what is just and adequate, 2. Every American citizen over sixty-five should receive the supplementary payment necessary to provide a minimum income sufficient to protect him or her from want. 3. Each state and territory, upon complying with simple and general minimum standards, should receive from the federal government a graduated contribution in proportion to its own, up to a fixed maximum....

...Nearly sixty percent of all imports into the United States are now free of duty. The other forty percent of imports compete directly with the product of our industry. We would keep on the free list all products not grown or produced in the United States in commercial quantities. As to all commodities that commercially compete with our farms, our forests, our mines, our fisheries, our oil wells, our labor and our industries, sufficient protection should be maintained at all times to defend the American farmer and the American wage earner from the destructive competition emanating from the subsidies of foreign governments and the imports from low-wage and depreciated-currency countries....

...We recognize the existence of a field within which governmental regulation is desirable and salutary. The authority to regulate should be vested in an independent tribunal acting under clear and specific laws establishing definite standards. Their determinations on law and facts should be subject to review by the Courts. We favor Federal regulation, within the Constitution, of the marketing of securities to protect investors. We favor also Federal regulation of the interstate activities of public utilities...

...We pledge ourselves to the merit system, virtually destroyed by New Deal spoilsmen. It should be restored, improved and extended. We will provide such conditions as offer an attractive permanent career in government service to young men and women of ability, irrespective of party affiliations.

The New Deal Administration has been characterized by shameful waste, and general financial irresponsibility. It has piled deficit upon deficit. It threatens national bankruptcy and the destruction through inflation of insurance policies and savings bank deposits. We pledge ourselves to: Stop the folly of uncontrolled spending. Balance the budget—not by increasing taxes but by cutting expenditures, drastically and immediately. Revise the federal tax system and coordinate it with state and local tax systems. Use the taxing power for raising revenue and not for punitive or political purposes.

We advocate a sound currency to be preserved at all hazards. The first requisite to a sound and stable currency is a balanced budget. We oppose further devaluation of the dollar. We will restore to the Congress the authority lodged with it by the Constitution to coin money and regulate the value thereof by repealing all the laws delegating this authority to the Executive....

...We assume the obligations and duties imposed upon Government by modern conditions. We affirm our unalterable conviction that, in the future as in the past, the fate of the nation will depend, not so much on the wisdom and power of government, as on the character and virtue, self-reliance, industry and thrift of the people and on their willingness to meet the responsibilities essential to the preservation of a free society.

When I was in college, the toughest class that I had was a class called Political Economy. The reason why I had such a difficult time with this class is because I opposed on a moral and intellectual level everything that it taught- it taught how to use the power of the state to guide and control companies. We learned all of the great ways and reasons for unelected bureaucrats and corrupt elected officials to deny freedoms and choices to individuals and businesses and use the power of threats of force to create an economy that protects and rewards those with political connections. Oh, of course the class never stated these aims, but they were the aims of the class regardless, and at the end of the year, the real aims of the class were revealed when we were asked for our final exam to write an essay detailing one political system that could best guide and shape an economy that was fair for everyone; I wrote an essay on the beauties and joys of the most brutally oppressive and corrupt and controlling communist system of government, and earned a 4.0 for the class.

Under Democrats like President Barack Obama, Senator Debbie Stabenow, and Congressman Gary Peters, our nation is fully embracing a 'Political Economy', which is an economy that is ruled over and controlled by those connected to the political process. In this sort of economy, those industries that political elites do not like or understand are to be taxed and controlled and driven out of business, and those companies that donate to the correct political elites are to be rewarded and given tax breaks. It is an economy where the guiding principle is not how efficiently can a company or industry produce a good that is most valued by citizens making free choices, but rather the guiding principle for these Democratic elites is whether or not you donated money to them to help them get in office and gain more power and wealth. It is only the right-wing nuts and crazy tea-party people that restrict these people from becoming completely corrupt; even still, the evidence is piling up that the best way to become wealthy in our nation is to get a job as a low-paying Congressman and than retire a millionaire several terms later (the millions all being earned 'under the table'), or donate to these sort of Congressman so that your company can be given loopholes and tax breaks so that you pay nothing in taxes.

Let us to perfectly frank here- there is little to no money to be made by supporting Republicans or Tea Party candidates- they push for limited government and free choices. Even the whole 'George Bush took us to war in Iraq to reward his oil buddies' rhetoric only reveals that those uttering that rhetoric have no idea what they are talking about since most of the oil contracts in Iraq went to non-US companies. Nope- the real money to be made is in donating to and supporting Democrats, who will then give you waivers for healthcare or create tax breaks so that you pay no taxes.

A great example of what I am writing about is GE. General Electric, the nation’s largest corporation, had a very good year in 2010, in spite of the rest of the nation struggling. The company reported worldwide profits of $14.2 billion, with $5.1 billion of the total came from its operations in the United States. The United Stats has a progressive corporate tax rate that punishes companies that are increasingly successful with higher and higher taxes, and for companies making more than $18 million, the corporate tax rate is 35%. So, one could reasonably assume that GE's tax bill in 2010 was $1.785 billion, but they would be wrong.

You see, GE CEO Jeff Immelt sits on Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, and GE owns MSNBC, the network famously friendly to Obama. GE-owned NBC recently joined Hollywood in inserting environmentally-friendly messaging into network programming. Furthermore, NBC promotes two annual campaigns — “Green Week” and “Earth Week” — that focus on environmentalism. GE recently found a loophole and became the biggest benefactor of the Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program, a federal bailout initiative. Over $192 million was recently given to GE in government-sponsored projects. GE has created a new “joint venture” called Greenhouse Gas Services (GGS).  GGS invests in and seeks to manage greenhouse gas credits, and without the government stepping in to restrict greenhouse gases, GGS cannot turn a profit.

After doing all of these things, the reward is that GE does not pay any taxes. Yep, zero. GE not only didn't pay over a billion in taxes this year as you'd assume, but it actually was given an additional tax benefit of $3.2 billion.

Koch brothers eat your heart out! That's how you game the system and screw American tax payers- not be supporting limited government, libertarian, freedom of choice, and constitutional powers, but by backing good old-fashioned done-a-hundred times crony capitalism and government corruption of power.

Oh, and no, this never happened under George W Bush, and George W Bush hasn't been our President for several years either, so I doubt even deranged leftist liberals can pin it on him.

UPDATE: Today my youngest kid was watched, fascinated, as my wife smoothed cold cream on to her face. 'Why do you do that, mommy?' he asked. 'To make myself beautiful,' my wife said, and then began removing the cream with a tissue. My kid watched for a second and then said 'What's the matter mommy, are you giving up?'

UPDATE II: Powerlineblog has a powerful post that is perhaps even better than mine- I suggest you all go read John's post Free Enterprise vs. National Socialism:

GE strikes us as a "modern" company, in that its business strategy consists largely of exercising political influence. In truth, however, the concept is not new: the virtual merger of Big Government and Big Business has long been a hallmark of national socialism.

One can hardly resist comparing GE with another American company--one that has steadily increased its American workforce, rather than cutting it. One that has never gone to the federal government for a bailout. One that lobbies out of self-defense, as all companies do, but not to secure special privileges for itself at the taxpayers' expense. One that pays lots of taxes. One that not only advocates free enterprise, but lives by it, competing for business with superior products and services.

A number of companies would fit that description, but I have in mind Koch Industries. Koch is smaller than GE, although not radically so--$100 billion in revenues vs. $150 billion--but it pays a whole lot more in taxes. One might think that a company like Koch would be honored and respected compared with a company like GE, but that is not the case--not on the left, anyway. On the contrary, it is Koch's very integrity that makes it public enemy number one for the Democratic Party.

So the questions are posed rather starkly. Which company should Americans respect, the company that lays off more and more Americans, or the one that keeps hiring them? The company that dodges taxes, or the one that pays them? The company that makes money by partnering with government to force uneconomic products on an unwilling public, or the one that sells top-notch products that consumers want, without any compulsion from Washington? The company that stands for a Big Business-Big Government partnership, or the one that stubbornly defends, and practices, free enterprise?

The British PM Gordon Brown, seems to have changed his position on Aid.In a speech on international development he stated that:

Some argue that it is the presence of big international corporations that is the cause of the problems in developing countries, but I disagree. Indeed, I believe it is the absence of business - and not the presence of business - that blights the lives of poor people, leaving them dependent on aid and denying them the opportunity to work, denying them the chance to support their families and denying them the means to ensure their children get the chance to succeed.
Economic growth alone has lifted more than 500 million people out of poverty over the last 25 years, accounting for over 80 per cent of poverty reduction.
And the countries whose economies are growing fastest, like Rwanda and Ghana represented here today, are those that are making progress on the Millennium Development Goals - with countries whose economies are growing more slowly falling behind.
So we need to fully acknowledge the critical importance of the private sector in driving development - focusing our attention not on an old one-dimensional welfarist approach but on enterprise, on free and fair trade and open markets, and on harnessing the power of innovation -- the building blocks of growth.
Developing countries - including Ghana and Rwanda - are already working hard to put in place the macroeconomic stability, supportive regulatory environment and measures to tackle corruption that are necessary for business and trade to thrive.

Today we need a new approach --- moving beyond minimum standards, beyond philanthropy and beyond traditional corporate social responsibility - important though they are - to develop long-term business initiatives that mobilise the resources and talents that are the central strengths of global business...From delivering financial services via mobile phones so that millions of people have access to basic bank accounts for the first time; to providing rural farmers with electronic price and weather information so they can decide when best to harvest and sell their crops; to sourcing ingredients from local supply chains to develop the base of the local economy --- each one of these initiatives is providing innovative solutions to the problems we face and spreading enterprise and opportunity across the developing world.

Tom Kenyon reporting on a Enterprise Formalization conference states that:

The most basic requirement is to understand exactly what informal entrepreneurs might gain from formalizing. Their reasons for doing so are quite context-specific. In mining communities, for example, small scale operators don't usually require loans but they do require a reliable means of holding and transporting cash. Linking formalization to credit would make little sense but providing physical security might...Once policy-makers have understood what it might take to persuade entrepreneurs to formalize, they need - as Chanakya(a contributor) says - to think creatively about how to how to link costs and benefits...Another lesson is to identify and work through 'amphibians' - people who have one foot in the informal sector and the other in the world of formal institutions. The advantage of using intermediaries is that they have closer knowledge of conditions on the ground and may be better placed to enforce bargains.

From the The Karatara Project website "...Handouts and charity are NOT the solution for poverty and other problems in Africa - that’s been proven over and over.What Africa really needs is education and enterprise that transforms communities so that they believe in themselves and thrive through trade; not merely survive from aid. This project is all about teaching smart, ‘green’ sustainable wealth creation and profitable business.Africa’s wealth is already here, and we need to unlock it by bringing new thought leadership and truly sustainable enterprise to the people of Africa..."

Kurt Hoffman of the Shell Foundation makes the point that"...Poverty is about a lack of money. With a job and a stable income, the poor can access shelter, education and healthcare. Small enterprise is the vehicle to make this happen, but I'm not sure the aid industry alone can spur the creation of a responsible and flourishing private sector because setting up and running a business is not something aid professionals know much about"...Therefore the Shell Foundation makes the case for reforming the aid industry by applying fundamental business principles to enhance its performance and accountability. It calls on the aid community to give poor people real choice when delivering development, which in turn can be measured against tangible targets such as the number of pro-poor enterprises supported and jobs created..."

• Solitude and Leadership

  A lecture sharing how leaders need solitude. If you study great leaders you will see this to be true. Yet another reason to unplug and get away from the noise.

  tags: leadership news solitude

• My first photowalk with Lytro’s lightfield camera — Scobleizer

  Robert Scoble shares his walk with the Lytro camera that Dan Pink named the technology to watch in 2012. Time will tell.

  tags: education news photography

• Drinking with William Faulkner

  A very random but entertaining piece on William Faulkner that could be used tonprove the point that sometimes authors don't have a clue what they are writing. My son's term paper is on "As I lay Dying" and he has this article readybto use if necessary.;-)

  tags: education news faulkner literature

• January 2012: Free Continuing Education Events | Library Developments

  A list of free continuing education events for librarians and educators. Nice list.

  tags: education news

• Shakespeare Teacher » Blog Archive » Top Ten Posts of 2011

  Love reading top 10 posts. Here are some from Shakespeare teacher. A blog for you lit teachers out there.

  tags: education news

• A. Kipta's Blog: Crayola For Educators

  From a nice edtech resource sharing blog a. Kipta. ". Crayola For Educators: 2011/2012 Grant Opportunity: Champion Creatively Alive Children™ is a collaboration between the National Association of Elementary School Principals and Crayola. Principals who are members of NAESP may apply for a grant (valued at $3,000) to develop an innovative, arts-infused education program. "

  tags: news grants

• Tennessean: Teacher training holds the key « State Collaborative on Reforming Education

  Current report on education in Tennessee. Of course 100% of the states will only be happy when they are all #1. it is time for states to start comparing themselves to how they did last year, not where they are in the rankings. Rankings dont tell you how you have improved. but one big point in this: "One of the key recommendations in SCORE’s report was a charge to ensure that teacher training programs in our state are producing high-quality teacher candidates who meet the needs of local school districts. We proposed revising the “teacher training report card” to measure the success and effectiveness of teachers in the classroom after they have completed teacher training programs.".

  tags: education news

• A Teeny Tiny Teacher: Uno, dos, tres

  This teacher has a contest and over 150 teachers responded. she is an elementary teacher and her blog is a hoot. while it is too late to enter the contest (ended at midnight on the first) it you want to know how to engage and have fun on your blog, you can learn a lot here.

  tags: education news

• Online pirates threaten Kindle profits as thousands turn to sites to download free eBooks | Mail Online

  The pirates are coming to ebooks with 20% of books being downloaded illegally for frew. a scanner and ocr seems to be a simple way to do this. I personally wouldn't download and steal a book but then again, many have stolen music as well. I guess I think those who read would know better.

  tags: ebook piracy news

• The Best Shooting Challenges of the Year

  Photography buffs have got to see this set of best "shooting challenges" of 2011.

  tags: education 2011 news photography

• Private Tutors - Tutorspree

  Tutorspree is an online market for tutors. We will continue to see things like this. i wonder, of course, about the online versus face to face aspect. i would be careful hiring a tutor for my child without really checking them out. however, I guess that vetting, etc. if it uses ebay like rankings would eventually emerge. who goes first?

  tags: education news tutoring

• Google Health's Lifeline Runs Out

  Google kills another service. I didnt use this one. Google Health dies for anemic performance.

  tags: news Google

• 7 Reasons Schools Should Outsource Social Media Marketing

  Edudemic writes about why schoolsmshould outsource social media marketing. I disagree. Genuine, real interactions with real people does more to help a school than some marketing firm. We do it ourselves at our school. the main thing I do wish to oursource,..processing and uploading the film to Youtube and pics. Either way, every school should have a social media marketing plan. No exceptions. you are either part of the message or the message just moves as it will.

  tags: education social media news schools marketing

• Walk

  Need the motivation to walk? share this post with your buddies and get out there.

  tags: fitness news inspiration

• Few teens sexting racy photos, new research says - Lake County News-Sun

  Typical of the panicnthe news media causes about teen habits, a new study shows only 1% of teens are actually sexting nude pics. as always, we must get our facts and often the media gets it wrong. "Only 1 percent of kids aged 10 to 17 have shared images of themselves or others that involve explicit nudity, a nationally representative study found. Roughly the same number said they’d shared suggestive but less graphic photos; while 7 percent said they’d received either type of picture."

  tags: education news digiteen digitalcitizenship sexting

• New year holds hope for particles, planets | The Columbus Dispatch

  What breakthroughs do scientists hope for in 2012? this is one for high school and college level profs to read. nice overview.

  tags: science news education

• AFP: Long-awaited Facebook IPO looms in New Year

  Facebook to go public in 2012 say analysts.

  tags: news facebook ipo

• New Research Brief Defines The Value OF A Best-Of-Breed Approach To Unified Communications

  Although this research brief is touting a particular company, the point that productive companies integrate technology, cloud computing, and telecommunications for increased productivity is ne to consider as we look at helping our students be more "productive" in their learning. i still wonder whybwe ignore telecommunications as a link to our students when it is the one technology they have with them all the time. " top performing companies were more likely to have integrated enterprise communications with other enterprise applications, and with the most current approaches to technology delivery-including cloud computing, virtualization and mobility."

  tags: research news productivity telecommunications mobile cellphone

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Ah, to go undercover and explore the heart of that evil capitalist enterprise, Wal-Mart. The very symbol of what makes America bad, right? Charles Platt did go undercover at Wal-Mart, and has some pretty surprising insights in his article. To be honest, this was one of the most intesting things I've read in a while. I've pulled out the best pieces- the full article is much better- seriously, check out the full article here:

The company is rebuked and reviled by anyone claiming a social conscience, and is lambasted by legislators as if its bad behavior places it somewhere between investment bankers and the Taliban.

Considering this is a company that is helping families ride out the economic downturn, which is providing jobs and stimulus while Congress bickers, which had sales growth of 2% this last quarter while other companies struggled, you have to wonder why. At least, I wondered why. And in that spirit of curiosity, I applied for an entry-level position at my local Wal-Mart.

Getting hired turned out to be a challenge. The personnel manager told me she had received more than 100 applications during that month alone, chasing just a handful of jobs. Thus the mystery deepened. If Wal-Mart was such an exploiter of the working poor, why were the working poor so eager to be exploited? And after they were hired, why did they seem so happy to be there? Anytime I shopped at the store, blue-clad Walmartians encouraged me to "Have a nice day" with the sincerity of the pope issuing a benediction.

I was called in for an interview. I sat at a table that was covered in untrimmed fabric under a protective layer of sticky transparent vinyl, like a couch cover. I'd seen better-looking decor at firehouse bingo evenings. Was Wal-Mart going out of its way to emphasize its commitment to cost-cutting? I guessed that the utilitarian ethic was so deeply embedded, it was just taken for granted.

A friendly lady in her 50s, wearing the Wal-Mart Smile, sat opposite me and started asking questions from a printed form. I managed to satisfy her expectations, and then went through two additional interviews, followed by a drug test, before I received formal approval. It may have been one of the most intense hiring processes I've been through; hardly the schedule of a company that didn't care who it hired, or employees who didn't care about getting a job.

A week later, I found myself in an elite group of 10 successful applicants convening for two (paid) days of training in the same claustrophobic, windowless room. As we introduced ourselves, I discovered that more than half had already worked at other Wal-Marts. Having relocated to this area, they were eager for more of the same.

Why? Gradually the answer became clear. Imagine that you are young and relatively unskilled, lacking academic qualifications. Which would you prefer: standing behind the register at a local gas station, or doing the same thing in the most aggressively successful retailer in the world, where ruthless expansion is a way of life, creating a constant demand for people to fill low-level managerial positions? A future at Wal-Mart may sound a less-than-stellar prospect, but it's a whole lot better than no future at all.

In addition, despite its huge size, the corporation turned out to have an eerie resemblance to a Silicon Valley startup. There was the same gung-ho spirit, same lack of dogma, same lax dress code, same informality - and same interest in owning a piece of the company. All of my coworkers accepted the offer to buy Wal-Mart stock by setting aside $2 of every paycheck.We were given only a handful of outright prohibitions. No swearing in the store, for instance - not even the word "damn," because some people might be offended. No funny-colored hair or blatant skin piercings, because some people might be offended. In fact almost all the rules devolved to the sacred principle of never, ever offending a customer - or "guest," in Wal-Mart terminology.

The reason was clearly articulated. On average, anyone walking into Wal-Mart is likely to spend more than $200,000 at the store during the rest of his life. Therefore, any clueless employee who alienates that customer will cost the store around a quarter-million dollars. "If we don't remember that our customers are in charge," our trainer warned us, "we turn into Kmart." She made that sound like devolving into some lesser being - a toad, maybe, or an ameba.

And so we came to the Wal-Mart Pledge. Solemnly, each of us raised one hand and intoned: "If a customer comes within 10 feet of me, I'm going to look him in the eye, smile and greet him." Having pledged ourselves, we encountered the aspect of Wal-Mart employment that impressed me most: The Telxon, ronounced "Telzon," a hand-held bar-code scanner with a wireless connection to the store's computer. When pointed at any product, the Telxon would reveal astonishing amounts of information: the quantity that should be on the shelf, the availability from the nearest warehouse, the retail price, and (most amazing of all) the markup.

All of us were given access to this information, because - in theory, at least - anyone in the store could order a couple extra pallets of anything, and could discount it heavily as a Volume Producing Item (known as a VPI), competing with other departments to rack up the most profitable sales each month. Floor clerks even had portable equipment to print their own price stickers. This was how Wal-Mart detected demand and responded to it: by distributing decision-making power to grass-roots level. It was as simple yet as radical as that.

We received an inspirational talk on this subject, from an employee who reacted after the store test-marketed tents that could protect cars for people who didn't have enough garage space. He was invited to corporate HQ as a guest at a management conference. "It was totally different from what I expected," he told us. "I thought it would be these fatcats talking about money, but no one even mentioned money. All they cared about was finding new ways to satisfy customers. I met everyone including the chairman of the company."

My supervisor reminded me unfailingly to take my mandatory two (paid) quarter-hour breaks during each eight hours of working time. I was cautioned never to abbreviate my lunch hour. Most of all I was encouraged to educate myself using instructional videos on computer terminals at the back of the store.

These videos served Wal-Mart's self-interest by teaching skills ranging from customer service to the art of lifting heavy boxes without hurting your back. I was paid to view them, and was rewarded with an increased hourly rate when I finished the course.

In our free-enterprise system, employees are valued largely in terms of what they can do. This is why teenagers fresh out of high school often go to vocational training institutes to become auto mechanics or electricians. They understand a basic principle that seems to elude social commentators, politicians and union organizers. If you want better pay, you need to learn skills that are in demand.

The blunt tools of legislation or union power can force a corporation to pay higher wages, but if employees don't create an equal amount of additional value, there's no net gain. All other factors remaining equal, the store will have to charge higher prices for its merchandise, and its competitive position will suffer.

To my mind, the real scandal is not that a large corporation doesn't pay people more. The scandal is that so many people have so little economic value. Despite (or because of) a free public school system, millions of teenagers enter the work force without marketable skills. So why would anyone expect them to be well paid?

Based on my experience (admittedly, only at one location) I reached a conclusion which is utterly opposed to almost everything ever written about Wal-Mart. I came to regard it as one of the all-time enlightened American employers, right up there with IBM in the 1960s. Wal-Mart is not the enemy. It's the best friend we could ask for.

Alex Burger writes about the criticality of information for businesses in Chad (and everywhere else) where he runs an enterprise center. It is:

Based on the idea that small firms need four things to grow: access to information, access to training, access to finance, and a strong business enabling environment...The theory makes sense: businesses need information, training, money, and a good context to thrive.

Mike Butcher writing in TechCrunch:

The internet enables dramatic change in the way that businesses can operate – this is what I have called the new ‘physics of business’.But in any given sector, if that change is going to happen, a number of forces need to be working together. The most critical of these is a healthy cadre of entrepreneurs.Indeed, the commercial story of the internet is also the story of how a remarkably small number of entrepreneurs have caused a remarkably large amount of upheaval, and reated a quite spectacular amount of value as a result.
Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Jerry Yang and David Filo, Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Pierre Omidyar, Reed Hastings, Marc Benioff (Salesforce.com), Andrew Black and Edward Ray (Befair), Craig Newmark and Jim Buckmaster, Natalie Massenet (Net-a-porter),Tony Hsieh (Zappos.com), Evan Williams and Mark Pincus.
The list could fit on the back of a napkin, but this gang have between them created hundreds of billions of dollars of shareholder value. Just as importantly, but they have done so by disrupting the sectors they operate in – from advertising to gambling; high-fashion retail to enterprise software; movie rental to telephony – none will quite be the same again...[continue reading]

From the CIPE Blog:

In Ghana, rural entrepreneurs are gaining presence as a political constituency...With a greater political voice for rural entrepreneurs, the people in poverty can lead the charge to eradicate poverty.The Private Enterprise Foundation (PEF)has several programs designed to bring rural entrepreneurs into the political process.

• With proper resources and training, farmer-based associations can become an effective voice for rural entrepreneurs.
• Engaging the private sector in the legislative advisory process provides a vital opportunity for dialogue on reform issues with policymakers.
• Private sector associations are important for improving Ghana’s business climate and making the broader business community a part of democratic decision-making.

Chukwu-Emeka Chikezie writes "...Today the authority and legitimacy of public officials in Africa must be negotiated with a rich texture of regional, communal and social associations; rapid progress in communications technology is providing Africans with new opportunities for networking and enterprise; and, perhaps above all, increasing numbers of Africans in the diaspora are reconnecting to their home countries in imaginative new ways involving creative “peer-to-peer” development strategies.All these transformations are fuelling changes in the ways Africans nurture the relationships of accountability – embodying practices of obligation, respect, responsibility and mutuality – that underpin their connection to each other...With the rise and rise of remittance flows over the last few years, Africans in the diaspora are Africa’s biggest aid donors and investors. They are, in effect, Africa’s biggest taxpayers, hit by a double whammy. First, they contribute to the overseas aid budget through their tax contributions to their new home government. Second, they make direct contributions via their individual and collective remittances(PDF). The latter far outstrip the former in terms of absolute volumes...African governments are far more accountable and responsive to their bilateral and multilateral aid donors than they are to African taxpayers at home or abroad...Africans have developed fairly sophisticated strategies for avoiding a state that seems hell-bent on obstructing their lives. Income from informal economic activity and remittances; healthcare and education provided by modern-day missionaries (as well as many new Pentecostal churches and their charismatic pastors); law provided by sharia courts and imams; protection provided by vigilante groups and their magic potions. All this and more happens with little state involvement. Africans weave together the fabric of their lives far from the state’s purview..."
Via OpenDemocracy

Beijing, China - 5:21 am, 2/24/2011
4:21 pm EST - USA 2/23/2011



Why China? Why was the first one held in Qatar? Why India last year?

Some has to do with sponsorship - finding innovative schools. But a lot has to do with living it.

You don't have to teach ABOUT China if you can live China. Some of you will participate virtually in the conference and see the sites go up and down, the teachable moments, you'll understand it better because you were either face to face and lived it or because you were virtual and lived it.

I have been living China for almost a week. Just now I'm able to get back on this blog even through my VPN. There are things I have to be wary of discussing even as I type that could cause sites to be blocked or for me to be viewed unfavorably. I am living it.

My students are living it (as you can see in the photo album.) The students who went last year with me to India are comparing and contrasting India and China in many powerful ways. They live it.

I'm living it to. The struggle of getting money into China. The struggle of the time zone differences with the US. The struggle of the ability to communicate with you back in the US. The tears.

Yes, we have a vision, but making visions happen comes at a price. It has been at a price and continues to be.

James Paul Gee has an excellent MacArthur report paper where he talks about that New Digital Media and Learning as an Emerging Area and "Worked Examples" as One Way Forward. The summary of this work says:

"He argues that DMAL will not evolve until a real coherence develops through collaboration and the accumulation of shared knowledge. Gee offers a concrete proposal of one way scholars in DMAL could move the area forward to a more cohesive, integrated, and collaborative enterprise: the production of what he terms "worked examples."

In Gee's sense of a worked example, scholars attempting to build the new area of DMAL would publicly display their methods of valuing and thinking about a specific problem, proposing them as examples of "good work" in order to engender debate about what such work in DMAL might come to look like and what shape the area itself might take. The goal would not be for the proposed approach to become the accepted one but for it to become fodder for new work and collaboration."

Excerpts from participants at a recent Development Research Institute conference:

Yaw Nyarko:
"No nation has ever developed because of aid and outside advice".

Andrew Mwenda:
“Aid money makes African governments accountable to the aid agencies rather than to their own people.”

June Arunga:
"Aid money is diverting African skilled professionals away from private enterprise to writing proposals for NGOs.”

In my post Crony Capitalism Booming Under Obama Rule in February of 2010, I wrote:

One of my biggest fears about the Obama administration is not that it is liberal and not that it is communist, but rather that it is the beginning of a renaissance of National Socialism. One of the common misconceptions that people have about National Socialism is that it was against big business, or that big business opposed it. Free markets oppose national socialism, and individuals oppose national socialism, but Big Business, threatened by government, does the logical thing, and joins in. National socialism leads to an alliance of Big Business, which enjoys government protection against challenges to its market share and in exchange transforms itself into a tool of government control over the economy. Top executives and lobbyists do very well under a National Socialist regime, while the people suffer.

State capitalism, Bremmer writes, "is a system in which the state dominates markets primarily for political gain." From state-owned corporations operating in strategic industries like natural resources or defense, to enormous sovereign wealth funds in the hands of autocrats with opaque operating principles, state capitalism has enabled the world's autocratic states to reap the benefits of capitalist enterprise while maintaining a vice-grip on political freedom.

In Bremmer's telling, the world's autocratic states learned a valuable lesson from the implosion of the Soviet Union: command economies do not work and when they fail, they can bring down the over-arching political system with them. They also watched the post Soviet experiment in crash liberalization with horror. To protect their hides and preserve their privilege, autocratic rulers in China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere have created a "hybrid" system that leverages many of the tools of capitalism to generate wealth while the heavy hand of the state ensures that wealth is put to the service of the elites and rulers of each country.

In 1984 Michael A. Samuels stated:

Sustained rapid economic growth doesn’t occur by accident. It is the logical result of a coherent set of polices designed to unleash the creative spirit and enterprise of the people. Few, if any, African countries have yet figured out what those policies are. The number one challenge to the public sector is to devise policies that will free up the private sector. Policies and people, not resources, are the major determinant to growth...[continue reading]