Thursday, July 31, 2014

Corruption on Campus: Fastbuck Operators assigning their own textbooks

Corruption on Campus: Fastbuck Operators assigning their own textbooks. 53285.jpeg

In the decades since World War ll, many American college students have rightly complained of obscure textbooks. The American publishing industry, a complete failure, has produced a superabundance of unreadable books hastily written by college instructors for a quick profit; the only reason that the books were published in the first place is that the college instructor could guarantee a captive market for his book-namely, the students in his own courses!

John Fleming

St. Louis, Missouri, USA

There is the clunker books Economics: Theory and Practice (Welch and Welch), and Social Research: The Craft of Finding Out (McCall and Simmons), but there should not have been the books.

Despite having an obvious conflict of interest in assigning their own texts, college and university professors and teachers are allowed to do so, and hence taking in royalties from books forced on customers who have no choice. The practice has resulted in the production of superfluous titles in one subject after another-biology, algebra, English composition, American history-and of many thousands of useless books entitled Introduction to Chemistry, Foundations of Economics, College Algebra, and so forth ad infinitum. There is no need for thousands of beginning economics texts, most of which tree wastage should never have been published, when there are a dozen like the famous Samuelson and Nordhaus Economics that will do. How to balance a chemistry equation must be explained carefully, but hundreds of thousands of college graduates have complained about obscure chemistry texts that do it wrong.

Gone are the days when the industry published Hemingway, Dos Pasos, Faulkner and Sinclair Lewis, and it no longer "takes a chance" with talented new authors. The economic slump of the 70s brought retrenchment to publishing, with unestablished writers finding it almost impossible to get published. Further retrenchment and corporate consolidation since the 80s in the sick economy have made the business more than ever profit conscious, as it refuses to publish radical works, and headlong oriented to profitable bestsellers like the lamebrain potboiler The Da Vinci Code that can become films, television shows, book-club features, worldwide translations and so on. American publishers are stifled; bookstores are closing down and famous publishing firms face either bankruptcy or monopoly corporate merger, and all too often writers go the route of vanity publication, which is always a mistake.

At the same time the industry is also artistically bankrupt. One only need look at the fiction and nonfiction bestseller lists. The combination of an artistic and financial success is rarer than ever. The publication of incompetent manuscripts of opportunistic college instructors makes each the sovereign prince of his campus, with his book going unadopted by any other campus. Professors often assign a text, which they have not even read, because a friend or colleague asked them to.

Colleague requests are a more tortured form of corruption. A fellow departmental instructor or professor who asks an instructor to use his book in a course is in a bind, since the professor likely will help decide whether the instructor receives tenure; lack of cooperation can easily mean "poor performance." Both the requesting professor and the instructor are aware of the incestuous conflict of interest. When the two are friends it is simple to have one's own text assigned to a course-and give with the royalties. As already mentioned, since the college hierarchy does not interfere, the professor can delegate the book he himself wrote to every course he teaches.

The principal victim of the corruption is the financially-strapped student. College texts are extraordinarily expensive, and assignment of an obscure one compounds the harm. When the publisher comes out with a cosmetically revised "new" edition to boost profit, the students cannot sell their overpriced used texts back to the bookstore. I can still hear the groans and griping at the head of the anxious line at the end of the semester as books are being bought back. Truly, it is "The Student as Nigger," an article by Jerry Farber (1967); the student bears the badge of not being ready yet, of not being good enough, somehow in need of further instruction, and is dumped on. America has never valued education-a fact indicated by the low status and pay of teachers, but it does value credentials and degrees and academic accolades-the trappings of knowledge without the knowledge. In sum, educational corruption has contributed to the universal reign of ignorance in the U.S.

 

John Fleming

St. Louis, Missouri, USA

John Fleming wrote the book Word Power, available

through Amazon.com.

  

Source : english[dot]pravda[dot]ru

Take A Walk To Boost Creativity

Hands up if you like popping bubble wrap? What about doodling on your notepad during meetings? Or perhaps you’re someone who constantly walks while on the phone?

The supposedly insignificant physical actions that we do, while our brains are thinking of other things, are actually not that insignificant.

In a recent study conducted by scientists at Stanford University, Marilyn Oppezzo and Daniel L. Schwartz proved that walking boosts creative thinking. In the tests, the subjects did the ‘Guilford’s alternate uses’ creative thinking test while seated, while walking and after walking. The results showed that walking increased 81% of participants’ creativity. The highest results were recorded following a walk outside.

But what can you do when you’re deskbound at work to increase your creative thinking and productivity?

It turns out that mini physical actions, like desk games, fidgeting and doodling can also help with brain activation. That’s where Fidget Widgets come in. Designed to help with creativity and productivity, Fidget Widgets are portable digital devices that aim to bring tactile play back into increasingly digital work environments.

According to the website, Fidget Widgets are more than just games - “They are small, tangible, programmable interactions that exist not to accomplish a task but instead to experience the interactions themselves.  With them we aim to allow you to choose to create a small boost to creativity or focus or calm while you work just by selecting an interaction you “mindlessly” engage in your physical work space.”

Designed to capitalise on the link between movement, tactile play and brain activation and cognition, these fun mini digital interfaces look set to be the new, improved  ‘executive toy’. Currently in the prototype phase, Fidget Widgets, have been tested on the readily available Sifteo Cubes and have received excellent results, so hopefully will be on the market soon.

Turns out we may have more than a bit to learn from the play habits of our kids.

Source : parents[dot]nickjr[dot]com[dot]au

Tight Outfits (20 photos)

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Source : todaysbighit[dot]com

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Two parallel massacres: Palestine and East Ukraine

By Takis Fotopoulos

Two parallel massacres: Palestine and East Ukraine. 53256.jpeg

The Transnational Elite, (i.e. the Western elites based in the G7 countries) with the fascist Junta they installed in Kiev, and the Israeli Zionists, are fully engaged at the moment in carrying out new massacres in East Ukraine and Palestine respectively.

These massacres share several important common elements.

Firstly, despite the shameless lies of the butchers, both of these massacres basically aim at citizens and not combattants. The people of Eastern Ukraine are punished for daring not to recognize the (self-declared) fascists imposed on them by the Western elites, through a "coup from belowi". That is, a coup which was 'legalized' by the votes of pro-West Ukrainians in Western Ukraine (known for their support of the Nazis in World War Two), who then proceeded to elect a kleptocrat multimillionaire as President. On the other hand, the citizens of Eastern Ukraine (which constitutes the industrial heartland of the country where most of Ukraine's working population lives), stay loyal to the ideals and values of the Soviet Revolution.ii They abstained from the electoral farce, starting, instead, a guerrilla war with no military help from Russia, which has so far has not intervened to stop their effective massacre. The inevitable consequence is many hundreds of victims, many of whom are civilians, women and children. 

Similarly, the Israeli butchers of Palestinians have killed, within a few days, hundreds of people, 80 percent of whom are civilians according to UN data. Nevertheless, the Israelis Zionists continue the relentless slaughter to prop up their racist state (which, from its genesis, was founded on the ethnic cleansing of another people)  with the stated aim of tackling the "mortal" danger posed by the Palestinian rockets (mostly self-made and highly inaccurate kind of elementary rockets), that so far have only cost a single Israeli life, 'paid' by over 200 Palestinian lives!

Secondly, although both massacres, at least indirectly, aim at the ethnic cleansing of the two peoples (Russian-speaking population in Ukraine and the Palestinians), the immediate goal is different. It is, on the one hand, the integration of Ukraine into the New World Order of neoliberal globalization and the effective undermining of the Eurasian Union planiii, as the basis for an alternative world order based on national sovereignty, and, on the other, the consolidation of apartheid in Israel respectively. The systematic attempt at ethnic cleansing arises not only from the fact that the slaughter, in both cases, is basically directed against civilians, rather than the guerrillas, but also from the fact that these peoples are collectively labelled 'terrorists' or 'sub-human', as Ukrainian Prime Minister Yatsenyuk declared the pro-federalists in the East. And all this, simply because they are fighting for the right to self-determination recognized even by the UN Charter as a fundamental right. No wonder that, according to a senior member of the Ukrainian Junta, the rounded up citizens in the re-occupied zones, will be "filtered" in concentration camps for their beliefs and consequently receive appropriate treatment. Yet, historically, the precondition for the success of an ethnic cleansing campaign has always been the previous terrorization of the people, which forces them to abandon their ancestral homes -- as has happened with the Palestinians since 1948, and as is happening now in Ukraine, with hundreds of thousands of refugees moving from Eastern Ukraine to Russia.

Thirdly, in both cases there is a huge asymmetry of military power between the opposing forces. In Ukraine, a few thousand, mainly lightly armed, rebels (except ...3 tanks and some mainly portable heavier weapons) are battling against an entire army of at least 15 thousand specially trained forces, supported by modern warplanes, helicopters and heavy artillery that turned to dust entire Slaviansk areas. And all this is apart from the imposition of a complete blockade and the cutting off of water, electricity and telephone communications. On the other hand, Gaza is itself a huge concentration camp blocked by land, sea and air, with the Israelis using the most modern means of extermination against the elementary military equipment of the Palestinians. This explains why, after any conflict, there are typically 100-fold victims among the Palestinians versus Israelis - not, of course, because of the latters' better organization, or bravery, as it was revealed by a recent video of an arrested teenage boy immobilised on the ground and beaten to unconsciousness by Israeli police.

Fourthly, the massacre in Ukraine, as well as that in Palestine, are presented by the international bodies and organizations controlled by the West and the Zionists (UN, USA, EU, international NGOs such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, etc.) but also by the international media controlled by press oligarchs and transnational corporations, the ruling elites in general (CNN, BBC, major international newspapers in the USA, EU, etc.) as the battles between two comparable camps, if not as cases where the victim is the butcher, i.e. Israel, or the Junta of Kiev, despite both enjoying the overwhelming support (economic, political, military) of the transnational elite. All these international bodies and organizations see crimes carried out mainly (if not exclusively) by those resisting the New World Order and never by the Western elites and Israel! No wonder that even the international liberal Left flagship, The Guardianiv, very recently hosted an article about the rise of anti-Semitism across the world, for which it blames not just the far right, but also the Left (the undersigned has, of course, long been classified by pro-Zionists, and their anonymous organs in the internet, as an anti-Semite, in honorary company of many important people of Letters and Arts). Needless to mention that many 'leftists' are full of praise for the work of NGOs like Amnesty International, despite the fact that even some of their ex executives have publicly denounced it for shameless bias in favor of the Western elites and the Zionists!

A final similarity is that the degenerate international liberal "Left" has played an equally miserable role in both cases, maintaining an attitude of pseudo-impartiality between victimizers and victims. No wonder it has not organized even a single mass demonstration in support of the struggle of Ukrainian workers, or against the Zionists, usually considering the clash between the West and Russia as a kind of intra-imperialist conflictv and the systematic ethnic cleansing in Palestine as just a kind of 'imperialist' war, or, lately, a blood-for-gas energy war!

Takis Fotopoulos

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Takis Fotopoulos is a political philosopher, editor of Society & Nature/Democracy and Nature/The International Journal of Inclusive Democracy. He has also been a columnist for the Athens Daily Eleftherotypia since 1990. He was previously (1969-1989) Senior Lecturer in Economics at the University of North London

 

*This article is an edited version of an article that was first published in TF's weekly column in Sunday's Eleftherotypia (a Greek daily published in Athens) on 11/7/2014. The translation to English was edited by Jonathan Rutherford.

 

i Takis Fotopoulos, "Ukraine - Defeat for the New World Order or for the Eurasian Union?" (published shortly by Progressive Press), ch. 4 http://www.progressivepress.com/book-listing/ukraine-defeat-new-world-order-or-eurasian-union

ii Steve Rosenberg, The Ukrainians who are nostalgic for their Soviet past, BBC News, 8/6/2014 http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27743090

iii Putin signs economic union deal with ex-Soviet states, BBC News, 29/5/2014 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-27619156

iv Noreena Hertz, "Europe must face up to the new anti-Semites" - Noreena's comment piece in The Guardian, 23/6/2014 http://www.noreena.com/europe-must-face-up-to-the-new-antisemites-noreenas-comment-piece-in-the-guardian/

v Takis Fotopoulos, "Ukraine - Defeat for the New World Order or for the Eurasian Union?" (published shortly by Progressive Press), ch. 5 http://www.progressivepress.com/book-listing/ukraine-defeat-new-world-order-or-eurasian-union

Source : english[dot]pravda[dot]ru

Today’s Random Pictures (20 photos)

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Source : todaysbighit[dot]com

Real life ‘Hoverbike’ could become a reality soon

Hoverbike

One thing that has always fascinated petrol heads (or actually most people in general) is the concept of a ‘hoverboard’ or ‘hover car’. The idea of literally hovering above the ground as a mode of transport is an exciting prospect and one that we have only seen in sci-fi films. Until now that is.

Chris Malloy, an Australian designer based in London, has come up with something called a ‘hoverbike’ – and while it’s not a hovering skateboard or a hovering car, it’s pretty much as close as we’ll get to any ‘hovering’ mode of transport.

The Hoverbike concept is kind of like a cross between a motorbike, a four-wheeler and a drone quad-copter. And it really does look as though it just came off the set of the latest Star Wars film.

The Hoverbike uses spinning rotors on both the front and back side of the machine. These create enough energy for the Hoverbike to actually lift off the ground.

However, the Hoverbike isn’t actually in existence yet. Malloy has started a crowd-funding campaign on Kickstarter to get the money together to actually build a prototype of the bike.

They have, however, done some small scale testing based on the technology used and it worked perfectly – which in turn means that even if it is built on a bigger, life-size scale it should, in theory, work. Which of course is very exciting.

The Kickstarter campaign has a 30 000 pound target and has already raised 21 000 pounds. People keen on investing in the Hoverbike can pledge money or even buy remote control models of the Hoverbike for 2100 pounds through the campaign.

The Hoverbike might still be a long way away form going into actual production, but the fact that someone is actually developing it makes us very excited indeed!

If you want to pledge money towards the Hoverbike, you can check out their Kickstarter campaign here and check out the video below:

Source: CarBuzz

Source : carblog[dot]co[dot]za