NEW COLLEGE CAMPUS

NEWCOLLEGECAMPUS

NEW COLLEGE CAMPUS

THE GAZETTE (2008) 11/2

Of the thousands of colleges around the country, only 150 have added this special new

college campus. It is virtual; you sign up for the class and drive to the campus, park your car and go to your own special class room. Up front is an avatar that looks like a professor. There is an avatar of you too.

S/he lectures or gives advice on how to learn and what to learn in that class. Numerous audio-visuals are used and you can ask questions. You then go back to the hallway and head for your car.

Do expect that hackers will put on the website SECOND LIFE folks who want to sell you drugs or sex. Perhaps, they will tell you how to cheat. You call in to the school and see that they are expelled. Some of those others are fellow students. You can contact each other on the SECOND LIFE campus or you can make arrangements outside the class. You must recognize that not all students that are in the hallway are legitimate and so caution is provided.

In the past, DISTANCE learning started with audio feeds, than television, then two way interaction of a number of classrooms across the area where the college is located. Even packet classes with one book for the source and the second to replace the lecture-discussion have been developed. Now comes Second Life and Kirkwood College will be the first in Iowa to offer a way to go to school by going to your computer. It is another way to go to school and the savings of gas and the problems on the streets and highways disappear.

TIME (2008) 11/17

KIVIAT/ global 1

WALL STREET is beginning to recognize that application of math to risk has its limitations. Numerous econometric models have been used that make a name for a

mathematical economists and may even garner Nobel prizes. However in real life, at this time, math can not take into account all variables, the interaction of variables, chaotic butterflies and /or black swans and assess risk. Further, math oriented assessment is not well understood in the market place so that models seem impressive at first. What ever one is trying to do, actions in the past by humans who had a great deal of experience were pushed aside for the computer generated equations and assessments.

Thus, 9/11, the Oklahoma bombing, Hurricane Katrina, and the housing crisis were not part of the equation. This does not mean that all computer modeling should be given up. Rather, there should be a form of triangulation. The computer is one, the second is seasoned human beings who have a great deal of expertise, and the third is a survey of

numerous others are surveyed from many backgrounds that apply to the assessment. It is important that the third group come from different backgrounds that compliment the question that is asked.

TIME (2008) 11/10

128/ KINGSLEY

The redistribution of wealth is not new. From 1980 onward, the distribution went from the bottom and the middle to the top. It was the conservative revolution of Reaganomics.

It was so successful that United States became the most unequal country in the world of western democracies. The redistribution of wealth downward started around the turn into the 20 century with a progressive income tax. The taxes were muted in the Roaring 20’s and returned until the 1980’s. Redistribution can be socialist, or social democratic, or it could be populist. Nearly all western democracies have a progressive tax. A flat tax is generally regressive and the tax that we have now appears to be regressive. As Warren Buffet indicated on an NBC Nightly News, he pays 18% of what he makes annually. Those who work for him pay roughly 30%.

NEWSWEEK (2008) 11/10

Samuelson/26-30.

We are entering a new era of less of everything or many things. Except for the very rich, most of us will have less. One of the premises of modernism is that you can bet that things will be better. There is sure is an element of truth in that when one comes to technology. However, the overall picture becomes cloudier when one talk about being able to pay for things that Americans calls necessities. When revaluating necessities we may find that the basics are not as basic as we thought and that some things will be dearly missed. Economic growth and our self esteem suggest that more Americans will be sad or mad with the loss of funds. On the other hand, no matter how wealthy we become, there is never enough and it can hurt us.

For the elderly it is cuts from the government to pay for social security and medical care.

For the young, it is job opportunities and education. Those in the middle will continue to opt for less children and apartments rather than homes.

Patterson

40-41

Race has always been a difficult issue when black slaves built most of our historic buildings. What appear to be happening are that many different racial groups now

acknowledge that there is some accommodation in public places. However, it does not go any further than that.

That means at schools in the lunch room except for the athletes, most racial groups eat with their fellow racial kin. In some instances, there are doors for whites and doors for others although no signs indicate that this should happen.

IF there should be the next level of accommodation, it would be friendships established

and interacting through various homes. To push this would be a disaster, if it slowly comes about then a new racial harmony may exist. However, it is very idealistic and

perhaps naive to think that this will happen. However, it might happen.