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marmar
marmar's Journal
marmar's Journal
March 1, 2012
PHOENIX -- America's self-proclaimed toughest sheriff finds himself entangled these days in his own thorny legal troubles: a federal grand jury probe over alleged abuse of power, Justice Department accusations of racial profiling and revelations that his department didn't adequately investigate hundreds of Arizona sex-crime cases.
Rather than seek cover, though, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is seeking to grab the spotlight in the same unorthodox fashion that has helped boost his career as a nationally known lawman.
Arpaio scheduled a news conference Thursday to unveil preliminary results of an investigation, conducted by members of his volunteer cold-case posse, into the authenticity of President Barack Obama's birth certificate, a controversy that has been widely debunked but which remains alive in the eyes of some conservatives. Last year, Donald Trump most prominently revived the issue while entertaining a possible bid for the presidency.
The 79-year-old Republican sheriff has declined to offer clues to what the probe may have found - but defends his need to spearhead such an investigation after nearly 250 people connected to an Arizona tea party group requested one last summer. .............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/01/sheriff-joe-arpaio-investigates-obama_n_1312802.html
Sheriff Joe's rancid brain continues its rot
PHOENIX -- America's self-proclaimed toughest sheriff finds himself entangled these days in his own thorny legal troubles: a federal grand jury probe over alleged abuse of power, Justice Department accusations of racial profiling and revelations that his department didn't adequately investigate hundreds of Arizona sex-crime cases.
Rather than seek cover, though, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is seeking to grab the spotlight in the same unorthodox fashion that has helped boost his career as a nationally known lawman.
Arpaio scheduled a news conference Thursday to unveil preliminary results of an investigation, conducted by members of his volunteer cold-case posse, into the authenticity of President Barack Obama's birth certificate, a controversy that has been widely debunked but which remains alive in the eyes of some conservatives. Last year, Donald Trump most prominently revived the issue while entertaining a possible bid for the presidency.
The 79-year-old Republican sheriff has declined to offer clues to what the probe may have found - but defends his need to spearhead such an investigation after nearly 250 people connected to an Arizona tea party group requested one last summer. .............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/01/sheriff-joe-arpaio-investigates-obama_n_1312802.html
March 1, 2012
Published on Thursday, March 1, 2012 by Folha de São Paulo
Brazil Takes the Lead In Trying to Prevent Another Senseless War
by Mark Weisbrot
Brazil’s foreign minister, Antonio Patriota, made a courageous and very important statement last week about the rising threat of a military attack on Iran. He asked UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to weigh in on the legality of a threatened military strike against Iran.
"One sometimes hears the expression, 'all options are on the table.' But some actions are contrary to international law," said Patriota.
The people who keep saying “all options are on the table,” with respect to Iran, include various U.S. and Israeli officials, and most importantly President Obama himself.
And everyone knows what they mean when they say “all options are on the table”: they reserve the “right” to bomb Iran if they don’t get what they want through non-military means, including economic sanctions. .................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/03/01-5
Brazil Takes the Lead In Trying to Prevent Another Senseless War
Published on Thursday, March 1, 2012 by Folha de São Paulo
Brazil Takes the Lead In Trying to Prevent Another Senseless War
by Mark Weisbrot
Brazil’s foreign minister, Antonio Patriota, made a courageous and very important statement last week about the rising threat of a military attack on Iran. He asked UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to weigh in on the legality of a threatened military strike against Iran.
"One sometimes hears the expression, 'all options are on the table.' But some actions are contrary to international law," said Patriota.
The people who keep saying “all options are on the table,” with respect to Iran, include various U.S. and Israeli officials, and most importantly President Obama himself.
And everyone knows what they mean when they say “all options are on the table”: they reserve the “right” to bomb Iran if they don’t get what they want through non-military means, including economic sanctions. .................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/03/01-5
March 1, 2012
A ship dropped anchor off Mombasa, Kenya, and cut the Internet to six African countries earlier this week.
It will take three weeks to repair the damage. In the meantime, the Internet in Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, Ethiopia, and Juba, the capital of South Sudan, is functioning at a reduced speed. It will impede the normal flow by about 20 percent, according to the BBC's Nairobi correspondent, Noel Mwakugu.
The Indian Ocean East Africa Marine Systems (TEAMS) cable, which connects East Africa to the United Arab Emirates, was severed when a ship dropped anchor in a restricted area – restricted because of the presence of the sea cabling. (See here for an interactive cable map.) The Teams cable was carrying redirected traffic from the earlier cutting of three other cables in the Red Sea, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The outage comes at a time when Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, has assumed a much greater profile as a center of technological innovation and entrepreneurship, largely due to the recent availability of fast, reliable broadband connections. These undersea fiber-optic cables, laid in 2009 and which connect Africa to the world, have kicked off Kenya's high-tech industry and prompted an increase in Kenyan Internet users from 1.8 million to 3.1 million in the first year. ..............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://news.yahoo.com/ships-anchor-cuts-internet-access-six-east-african-150000191.html
Ship's anchor cuts Internet access to six East African countries
A ship dropped anchor off Mombasa, Kenya, and cut the Internet to six African countries earlier this week.
It will take three weeks to repair the damage. In the meantime, the Internet in Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, Ethiopia, and Juba, the capital of South Sudan, is functioning at a reduced speed. It will impede the normal flow by about 20 percent, according to the BBC's Nairobi correspondent, Noel Mwakugu.
The Indian Ocean East Africa Marine Systems (TEAMS) cable, which connects East Africa to the United Arab Emirates, was severed when a ship dropped anchor in a restricted area – restricted because of the presence of the sea cabling. (See here for an interactive cable map.) The Teams cable was carrying redirected traffic from the earlier cutting of three other cables in the Red Sea, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The outage comes at a time when Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, has assumed a much greater profile as a center of technological innovation and entrepreneurship, largely due to the recent availability of fast, reliable broadband connections. These undersea fiber-optic cables, laid in 2009 and which connect Africa to the world, have kicked off Kenya's high-tech industry and prompted an increase in Kenyan Internet users from 1.8 million to 3.1 million in the first year. ..............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://news.yahoo.com/ships-anchor-cuts-internet-access-six-east-african-150000191.html
March 1, 2012
from Consortium News:
Regaining a Spirit of Defiance
February 29, 2012
When kids scramble to buy the latest Nike running shoe, they’re mocked for their consumerism; yet, when Mitt Romney mentions his wife’s Cadillacs and other one-percenters tool around in their luxury autos, they’re admired for their success — a commentary on America’s crisis, writes Phil Rockstroh.
By Phil Rockstroh
The course of action taken by the present-day U.S. political class in addressing the era’s rising tide of economic hardship and ecological peril has proven as helpful as tossing an anvil to a drowning man.
The following two, axiomatic headlines reveal much about the dovetailing mindsets manifested by members of both the drowning class and the moral compass-bereft captains of the ship of state:
Inadvertently, Mr. Romney’s declaration, stated in his own blandly deranged way, captures the As Above/So Below nature of consumer-state psychology. By means of incessant, womb to tomb, commercial propaganda, the corporate class has promoted the idea that an individual’s identity is based solely on the sum total of his worldly possessions.
Yet, when young people, denied a decent education and stranded in circumstances where they have been deprived of a means to gain a sense of identity by acquiring the skills and the development of the talents necessary for the pursuit of their individual aspirations, have the temerity to reflect the societal values they have internalized — for example, by acting in an aggressive manner in a mindless pursuit of material items that they have been conditioned to believe will bestow a sense of self worth — then media elites and bamboozled bourgeois should not, as they can be counted on to do, react with consternation, carrying on as if these acts of desperation on the part of the young are wholly devoid of any cultural context. ..................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://consortiumnews.com/2012/02/29/regaining-a-spirit-of-defiance/
Phil Rockstroh: Regaining a Spirit of Defiance
from Consortium News:
Regaining a Spirit of Defiance
February 29, 2012
When kids scramble to buy the latest Nike running shoe, they’re mocked for their consumerism; yet, when Mitt Romney mentions his wife’s Cadillacs and other one-percenters tool around in their luxury autos, they’re admired for their success — a commentary on America’s crisis, writes Phil Rockstroh.
By Phil Rockstroh
The course of action taken by the present-day U.S. political class in addressing the era’s rising tide of economic hardship and ecological peril has proven as helpful as tossing an anvil to a drowning man.
The following two, axiomatic headlines reveal much about the dovetailing mindsets manifested by members of both the drowning class and the moral compass-bereft captains of the ship of state:
“Nike Foamposite Galaxy Shoe Spurs Frenzy At Malls” (Associated Press, Feb. 25, 2012)
“Mitt Romney: Wife Ann Drives ‘A Couple Of Cadillacs’” (The Washington Post, Feb. 24, 2012)
“Mitt Romney: Wife Ann Drives ‘A Couple Of Cadillacs’” (The Washington Post, Feb. 24, 2012)
Inadvertently, Mr. Romney’s declaration, stated in his own blandly deranged way, captures the As Above/So Below nature of consumer-state psychology. By means of incessant, womb to tomb, commercial propaganda, the corporate class has promoted the idea that an individual’s identity is based solely on the sum total of his worldly possessions.
Yet, when young people, denied a decent education and stranded in circumstances where they have been deprived of a means to gain a sense of identity by acquiring the skills and the development of the talents necessary for the pursuit of their individual aspirations, have the temerity to reflect the societal values they have internalized — for example, by acting in an aggressive manner in a mindless pursuit of material items that they have been conditioned to believe will bestow a sense of self worth — then media elites and bamboozled bourgeois should not, as they can be counted on to do, react with consternation, carrying on as if these acts of desperation on the part of the young are wholly devoid of any cultural context. ..................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://consortiumnews.com/2012/02/29/regaining-a-spirit-of-defiance/
March 1, 2012
from Solutions journal:
In your cover story for the Nation last year, you say that modern environmentalism successfully advances many of the causes dear to the political Left, including redistribution of wealth, higher and more progressive taxes, and greater government intervention and regulation. Please explain.
The piece came out of my interest and my shock at the fact that belief in climate change in the United States has plummeted. If you really drill into the polling data, what you see is that the drop in belief in climate change is really concentrated on the right of the political spectrum. It’s been an extraordinary and unusual shift in belief in a short time. In 2007, 71 percent of Americans believed in climate change and in 2009 only 51 percent believed—and now we’re at 41 percent. So I started researching the denial movement and going to conferences and reading the books, and what’s clear is that, on the right, climate change is seen as a threat to the Right’s worldview, and to the neoliberal economic worldview. It’s seen as a Marxist plot. They accuse climate scientists of being watermelons—green on the outside and red on the inside.
It seems exaggerated, but your piece was about how the Right is in fact correct.
I don’t think climate change necessitates a social revolution. This idea is coming from the right-wing think tanks and not scientific organizations. They’re ideological organizations. Their core reason for being is to defend what they call free-market ideology. They feel that any government intervention leads us to serfdom and brings about a socialist world, so that’s what they have to fight off: a socialist world. Increase the power of the private sector and decrease the public sphere is their ideology.
You can set up carbon markets, consumer markets, and just pretend, but if you want to get serious about climate change, really serious, in line with the science, and you want to meet targets like 80 percent emissions cuts by midcentury in the developed world, then you need to be intervening strongly in the economy, and you can’t do it all with carbon markets and offsetting. You have to really seriously regulate corporations and invest in the public sector. And we need to build public transport systems and light rail and affordable housing along transit lines to lower emissions. The market is not going to step up to this challenge. We must do more: rebuild levees and bridges and the public sphere, because we saw in Katrina what happens when weak infrastructure clashes with heavy weather—it’s catastrophe. These climate deniers aren’t crazy—their worldview is under threat. If you take climate change seriously, you do have to throw out the free-market playbook. ....................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/node/1053
Naomi Klein: Throw Out the Free Market Playbook
from Solutions journal:
In your cover story for the Nation last year, you say that modern environmentalism successfully advances many of the causes dear to the political Left, including redistribution of wealth, higher and more progressive taxes, and greater government intervention and regulation. Please explain.
The piece came out of my interest and my shock at the fact that belief in climate change in the United States has plummeted. If you really drill into the polling data, what you see is that the drop in belief in climate change is really concentrated on the right of the political spectrum. It’s been an extraordinary and unusual shift in belief in a short time. In 2007, 71 percent of Americans believed in climate change and in 2009 only 51 percent believed—and now we’re at 41 percent. So I started researching the denial movement and going to conferences and reading the books, and what’s clear is that, on the right, climate change is seen as a threat to the Right’s worldview, and to the neoliberal economic worldview. It’s seen as a Marxist plot. They accuse climate scientists of being watermelons—green on the outside and red on the inside.
It seems exaggerated, but your piece was about how the Right is in fact correct.
I don’t think climate change necessitates a social revolution. This idea is coming from the right-wing think tanks and not scientific organizations. They’re ideological organizations. Their core reason for being is to defend what they call free-market ideology. They feel that any government intervention leads us to serfdom and brings about a socialist world, so that’s what they have to fight off: a socialist world. Increase the power of the private sector and decrease the public sphere is their ideology.
You can set up carbon markets, consumer markets, and just pretend, but if you want to get serious about climate change, really serious, in line with the science, and you want to meet targets like 80 percent emissions cuts by midcentury in the developed world, then you need to be intervening strongly in the economy, and you can’t do it all with carbon markets and offsetting. You have to really seriously regulate corporations and invest in the public sector. And we need to build public transport systems and light rail and affordable housing along transit lines to lower emissions. The market is not going to step up to this challenge. We must do more: rebuild levees and bridges and the public sphere, because we saw in Katrina what happens when weak infrastructure clashes with heavy weather—it’s catastrophe. These climate deniers aren’t crazy—their worldview is under threat. If you take climate change seriously, you do have to throw out the free-market playbook. ....................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/node/1053
March 1, 2012
from Consortium News:
Regaining a Spirit of Defiance
February 29, 2012
When kids scramble to buy the latest Nike running shoe, they’re mocked for their consumerism; yet, when Mitt Romney mentions his wife’s Cadillacs and other one-percenters tool around in their luxury autos, they’re admired for their success — a commentary on America’s crisis, writes Phil Rockstroh.
By Phil Rockstroh
The course of action taken by the present-day U.S. political class in addressing the era’s rising tide of economic hardship and ecological peril has proven as helpful as tossing an anvil to a drowning man.
The following two, axiomatic headlines reveal much about the dovetailing mindsets manifested by members of both the drowning class and the moral compass-bereft captains of the ship of state:
Inadvertently, Mr. Romney’s declaration, stated in his own blandly deranged way, captures the As Above/So Below nature of consumer-state psychology. By means of incessant, womb to tomb, commercial propaganda, the corporate class has promoted the idea that an individual’s identity is based solely on the sum total of his worldly possessions.
Yet, when young people, denied a decent education and stranded in circumstances where they have been deprived of a means to gain a sense of identity by acquiring the skills and the development of the talents necessary for the pursuit of their individual aspirations, have the temerity to reflect the societal values they have internalized — for example, by acting in an aggressive manner in a mindless pursuit of material items that they have been conditioned to believe will bestow a sense of self worth — then media elites and bamboozled bourgeois should not, as they can be counted on to do, react with consternation, carrying on as if these acts of desperation on the part of the young are wholly devoid of any cultural context. ..................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://consortiumnews.com/2012/02/29/regaining-a-spirit-of-defiance/
Phil Rockstroh: Regaining a Spirit of Defiance
from Consortium News:
Regaining a Spirit of Defiance
February 29, 2012
When kids scramble to buy the latest Nike running shoe, they’re mocked for their consumerism; yet, when Mitt Romney mentions his wife’s Cadillacs and other one-percenters tool around in their luxury autos, they’re admired for their success — a commentary on America’s crisis, writes Phil Rockstroh.
By Phil Rockstroh
The course of action taken by the present-day U.S. political class in addressing the era’s rising tide of economic hardship and ecological peril has proven as helpful as tossing an anvil to a drowning man.
The following two, axiomatic headlines reveal much about the dovetailing mindsets manifested by members of both the drowning class and the moral compass-bereft captains of the ship of state:
“Nike Foamposite Galaxy Shoe Spurs Frenzy At Malls” (Associated Press, Feb. 25, 2012)
“Mitt Romney: Wife Ann Drives ‘A Couple Of Cadillacs’” (The Washington Post, Feb. 24, 2012)
“Mitt Romney: Wife Ann Drives ‘A Couple Of Cadillacs’” (The Washington Post, Feb. 24, 2012)
Inadvertently, Mr. Romney’s declaration, stated in his own blandly deranged way, captures the As Above/So Below nature of consumer-state psychology. By means of incessant, womb to tomb, commercial propaganda, the corporate class has promoted the idea that an individual’s identity is based solely on the sum total of his worldly possessions.
Yet, when young people, denied a decent education and stranded in circumstances where they have been deprived of a means to gain a sense of identity by acquiring the skills and the development of the talents necessary for the pursuit of their individual aspirations, have the temerity to reflect the societal values they have internalized — for example, by acting in an aggressive manner in a mindless pursuit of material items that they have been conditioned to believe will bestow a sense of self worth — then media elites and bamboozled bourgeois should not, as they can be counted on to do, react with consternation, carrying on as if these acts of desperation on the part of the young are wholly devoid of any cultural context. ..................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://consortiumnews.com/2012/02/29/regaining-a-spirit-of-defiance/
March 1, 2012
from Consortium News:
The ‘Winners’ Take Everything
February 29, 2012
Exclusive: Many Americans still wonder how it happened, how did a country admired for its Great Middle Class, which sustained strong democratic institutions, end up with Third-World-style wealth inequality and a democracy to match? In reviewing Winner-Take-All Politics, James DiEugenio seeks an answer.
By James DiEugenio
In the last year or so, I have been contemplating writing a book about President Barack Obama and how he reacted to the economic blowout of 2007-08, compared to how President Franklin Roosevelt grappled with the Great Depression.
In that comparison, I thought, one could gauge not only the character and politics of the two men, but also how the Democratic Party had lost its way and why. After all, Obama said on 60 Minutes that — prior to taking office but after being elected — he had read several books about FDR and the Depression in preparation for handling a similar collapse.
Winner-Take-All Politics, the book under discussion in this review, strictly speaking, does not fit under the rubric of the Wall Street collapse at the end of George W. Bush’s presidency. But it takes pains to describe why Obama and the Democratic Party could not mount the kind of program necessary to revive the economy.
And consequently, why, in 2012, five years after the first phase of the collapse, many Americans still find themselves in the throes of this recession, an economic disaster which, unlike any since the Great Depression, has impacted almost every aspect of American public life: cutbacks in municipal and state services and employment, teacher layoffs which have raised some student class sizes to well over 40, a collapse in real-estate prices in many states, leading to a foreclosure and bankruptcy rate that has been unprecedented. ..............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://consortiumnews.com/2012/02/29/the-winners-take-everything/
The ‘Winners’ Take Everything
from Consortium News:
The ‘Winners’ Take Everything
February 29, 2012
Exclusive: Many Americans still wonder how it happened, how did a country admired for its Great Middle Class, which sustained strong democratic institutions, end up with Third-World-style wealth inequality and a democracy to match? In reviewing Winner-Take-All Politics, James DiEugenio seeks an answer.
By James DiEugenio
In the last year or so, I have been contemplating writing a book about President Barack Obama and how he reacted to the economic blowout of 2007-08, compared to how President Franklin Roosevelt grappled with the Great Depression.
In that comparison, I thought, one could gauge not only the character and politics of the two men, but also how the Democratic Party had lost its way and why. After all, Obama said on 60 Minutes that — prior to taking office but after being elected — he had read several books about FDR and the Depression in preparation for handling a similar collapse.
Winner-Take-All Politics, the book under discussion in this review, strictly speaking, does not fit under the rubric of the Wall Street collapse at the end of George W. Bush’s presidency. But it takes pains to describe why Obama and the Democratic Party could not mount the kind of program necessary to revive the economy.
And consequently, why, in 2012, five years after the first phase of the collapse, many Americans still find themselves in the throes of this recession, an economic disaster which, unlike any since the Great Depression, has impacted almost every aspect of American public life: cutbacks in municipal and state services and employment, teacher layoffs which have raised some student class sizes to well over 40, a collapse in real-estate prices in many states, leading to a foreclosure and bankruptcy rate that has been unprecedented. ..............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://consortiumnews.com/2012/02/29/the-winners-take-everything/
March 1, 2012
from Consortium News:
Israeli Public Less Hawkish on Iran
February 29, 2012
A new poll shows that Israelis have a more skeptical view toward bombing Iran than some of their leaders, not to mention the neocon war hawks in the United States, a finding that ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar says should bolster President Obama’s resistance to an Israeli strike.
By Paul R. Pillar
Shibley Telhami of the University of Maryland, in cooperation with the Dahaf Institute of Israel, has just released the results of a poll taken within the past week of Israeli opinion toward Iran and American politics. Israeli attitudes toward the efficacy of a military strike against the Iranian nuclear program parallel the range of views one hears on that subject in the United States.
If there is any surprise, it is that Israeli views are not any more hawkish than they are, notwithstanding the war rhetoric that the Netanyahu government has been disseminating for many months. (Anyone who doubts the ability of government drum beating to build public support for a war should recall the enormous effect on American public opinion of the George W. Bush administration’s drumbeat on Iraq.)
Only 22 percent of Israelis believe that a military strike by Israel would delay Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons by at least five years; another 22 percent estimate a delay of three to five years. Nine percent of Israelis believe the delay would be only one or two years. Thirty percent of the respondents believe a strike would either have no effect on the Iranian program or would accelerate it.
Asked what the effect of an Israeli strike would be on the Iranian government, respondents were evenly split between those who believe a strike would weaken the Iranian regime and those who believe it would be strengthened. ...............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://consortiumnews.com/2012/02/29/israeli-public-less-hawkish-on-iran/
Israeli Public Less Hawkish on Iran
from Consortium News:
Israeli Public Less Hawkish on Iran
February 29, 2012
A new poll shows that Israelis have a more skeptical view toward bombing Iran than some of their leaders, not to mention the neocon war hawks in the United States, a finding that ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar says should bolster President Obama’s resistance to an Israeli strike.
By Paul R. Pillar
Shibley Telhami of the University of Maryland, in cooperation with the Dahaf Institute of Israel, has just released the results of a poll taken within the past week of Israeli opinion toward Iran and American politics. Israeli attitudes toward the efficacy of a military strike against the Iranian nuclear program parallel the range of views one hears on that subject in the United States.
If there is any surprise, it is that Israeli views are not any more hawkish than they are, notwithstanding the war rhetoric that the Netanyahu government has been disseminating for many months. (Anyone who doubts the ability of government drum beating to build public support for a war should recall the enormous effect on American public opinion of the George W. Bush administration’s drumbeat on Iraq.)
Only 22 percent of Israelis believe that a military strike by Israel would delay Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons by at least five years; another 22 percent estimate a delay of three to five years. Nine percent of Israelis believe the delay would be only one or two years. Thirty percent of the respondents believe a strike would either have no effect on the Iranian program or would accelerate it.
Asked what the effect of an Israeli strike would be on the Iranian government, respondents were evenly split between those who believe a strike would weaken the Iranian regime and those who believe it would be strengthened. ...............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://consortiumnews.com/2012/02/29/israeli-public-less-hawkish-on-iran/
March 1, 2012
New Studies Show College Placement Tests are Ineffective
Susan Headden had an important article in the September/October issue of the Monthly running down the problem with community colleges’ high-stakes placement tests, which often wrongly assign students to remedial courses, costing them some very valuable time and money.
A good example is what happened to Monica Dekany, who enrolled at Golden West College in Huntington Beach, California in 2009:
Dekany ended up thriving despite the obstacles thrown up by the Accuplacer, but many students, already throwing their lives into a bit of chaos by fitting in school with everything else, do not. And now two new studies out of Columbia’s Community College Research Center buttress the notion that these tests flawed. ........................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/819248/new_studies_show_college_placement_tests_are_ineffective/
New Studies Show College Placement Tests are Ineffective
New Studies Show College Placement Tests are Ineffective
Susan Headden had an important article in the September/October issue of the Monthly running down the problem with community colleges’ high-stakes placement tests, which often wrongly assign students to remedial courses, costing them some very valuable time and money.
A good example is what happened to Monica Dekany, who enrolled at Golden West College in Huntington Beach, California in 2009:
All she had to do, the registrars told her after she paid her fee, was go down a hallway, pick a cubicle, sidle up to a computer terminal, and take a short test. The “Accuplacer,” as the test is called, was no big deal, they said—nothing she could have studied for. It was just so they could see where she was. Dekany took one test in math and another in English, and was “floored,” as she put it, to learn that she had scored at a level that would consign her to remedial classes, reviews of fundamental material for which she would receive no college credit. “It caught me totally off guard,” Dekany says. The other colleges had let her enroll directly in college-level English and literature classes, and as her transcripts clearly showed, she had passed them. But Golden West told her the test results were all that mattered.
Dekany dutifully enrolled in, and paid for, the remedial—or what colleges euphemistically call “developmental”—courses. She knew everything in the English course already; her daughter’s seventh-grade English class was more advanced. Her math course was similarly low level, but it was taught by a sympathetic professor who helped save her from further remedial work. The college had mandated that Dekany take a second remedial math class before being allowed to take Math 100 for college credit, but her professor thought the requirement made no sense—she was clearly ready for college work. So he arranged for her to take Math 100 at Cal State, Long Beach, where he happened to also teach, and there she got an A.
Dekany dutifully enrolled in, and paid for, the remedial—or what colleges euphemistically call “developmental”—courses. She knew everything in the English course already; her daughter’s seventh-grade English class was more advanced. Her math course was similarly low level, but it was taught by a sympathetic professor who helped save her from further remedial work. The college had mandated that Dekany take a second remedial math class before being allowed to take Math 100 for college credit, but her professor thought the requirement made no sense—she was clearly ready for college work. So he arranged for her to take Math 100 at Cal State, Long Beach, where he happened to also teach, and there she got an A.
Dekany ended up thriving despite the obstacles thrown up by the Accuplacer, but many students, already throwing their lives into a bit of chaos by fitting in school with everything else, do not. And now two new studies out of Columbia’s Community College Research Center buttress the notion that these tests flawed. ........................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/819248/new_studies_show_college_placement_tests_are_ineffective/
March 1, 2012
from truthdig:
Wikileaks vs. Stratfor: Pursue The Truth, Not Its Messenger
Posted on Mar 1, 2012
By Amy Goodman
WikiLeaks, the whistle-blower website, has again published a massive trove of documents, this time from a private intelligence firm known as Stratfor. The source of the leak was the hacker group “Anonymous,” which took credit for obtaining more than 5 million emails from Stratfor’s servers. Anonymous obtained the material on Dec. 24, 2011, and provided it to WikiLeaks, which in turn partnered with 25 media organizations globally to analyze the emails and publish them.
Among the emails was a short one-liner that suggested the U.S. government has produced, through a secret grand jury, a sealed indictment against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. In addition to painting a picture of Stratfor as a runaway, rogue private intelligence firm with close ties to government-intelligence agencies serving both corporate and U.S. military clients, the emails support the growing awareness that the Obama administration, far from diverging from the secrecy of the Bush/Cheney era, is obsessed with secrecy, and is aggressively opposed to transparency.
I traveled to London last Independence Day weekend to interview Assange. When I asked him about the grand-jury investigation, he responded: “There is no judge, there is no defense counsel, and there are four prosecutors. So, that is why people that are familiar with grand-jury inquiries in the United States say that a grand jury would not only indict a ham sandwich, it would indict the ham and the sandwich.”
As I left London, The Guardian newspaper exposed more of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. phone-hacking scandal, which prompted the closing of his tabloid newspaper, the largest circulation Sunday newspaper in the U.K., News of the World. The coincidence is relevant, as News of the World reported anything but what its title claimed, focusing instead on salacious details of the private lives of celebrities, sensational crimes, and photos of scantily clad women. For this and his other endeavors, Murdoch amassed a reported personal fortune of $7.6 billion. ...............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/wikileaks_vs_stratfor_pursue_the_truth_not_its_messenger_20120301/
Amy Goodman: Wikileaks vs. Stratfor: Pursue The Truth, Not Its Messenger
from truthdig:
Wikileaks vs. Stratfor: Pursue The Truth, Not Its Messenger
Posted on Mar 1, 2012
By Amy Goodman
WikiLeaks, the whistle-blower website, has again published a massive trove of documents, this time from a private intelligence firm known as Stratfor. The source of the leak was the hacker group “Anonymous,” which took credit for obtaining more than 5 million emails from Stratfor’s servers. Anonymous obtained the material on Dec. 24, 2011, and provided it to WikiLeaks, which in turn partnered with 25 media organizations globally to analyze the emails and publish them.
Among the emails was a short one-liner that suggested the U.S. government has produced, through a secret grand jury, a sealed indictment against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. In addition to painting a picture of Stratfor as a runaway, rogue private intelligence firm with close ties to government-intelligence agencies serving both corporate and U.S. military clients, the emails support the growing awareness that the Obama administration, far from diverging from the secrecy of the Bush/Cheney era, is obsessed with secrecy, and is aggressively opposed to transparency.
I traveled to London last Independence Day weekend to interview Assange. When I asked him about the grand-jury investigation, he responded: “There is no judge, there is no defense counsel, and there are four prosecutors. So, that is why people that are familiar with grand-jury inquiries in the United States say that a grand jury would not only indict a ham sandwich, it would indict the ham and the sandwich.”
As I left London, The Guardian newspaper exposed more of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. phone-hacking scandal, which prompted the closing of his tabloid newspaper, the largest circulation Sunday newspaper in the U.K., News of the World. The coincidence is relevant, as News of the World reported anything but what its title claimed, focusing instead on salacious details of the private lives of celebrities, sensational crimes, and photos of scantily clad women. For this and his other endeavors, Murdoch amassed a reported personal fortune of $7.6 billion. ...............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/wikileaks_vs_stratfor_pursue_the_truth_not_its_messenger_20120301/
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