Yup… (4.00 / 1)

...definitely gonna be sending this around today.

"This ain't for the underground. This here is for the sun." -Saul Williams

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by: tru blu @ Thu Aug 12, 2010 at 13:59:21 PM UTC

Getting real (4.00 / 3)

It's crap. We all know it's crap. We have to say it's crap.

Well, ahem...yes, of course...the contradictions of capital accumulation...(cough) (cough).

I try to imagine myself, at the next Democratic Party State Committee meeting, buttonholing our senatorial candidate, and whispering that bit of wisdom in his ear. Better I should stay home and put my ink-stained fingers to more productive uses. (Maybe I'll grow a beard, too, and write in German.)

American politics are to politics as Archie and Veronica are to Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny. That, I'm afraid, is the real problem.

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by: William Timberman @ Thu Aug 12, 2010 at 15:50:31 PM UTC

On The Other Hand (4.00 / 1)

Having dinner with the family last night, my sister informed me that Archie has now gone all sci-fi postmodern, with alternative pasts and futures with very, very different alternative worlds.


"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

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by: Paul Rosenberg @ Thu Aug 12, 2010 at 16:14:37 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Oh, goody! Now we can be stupid in alternate universes (0.00 / 0)

I'm not knocking Archie and Veronica, mind you. They are magnificently what they are, and have been since Hector was a pup. And come to think of it, could we really be any worse off if they were chairing the FOMC?

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by: William Timberman @ Thu Aug 12, 2010 at 16:20:01 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Sounds like Archie's been (4.00 / 1)

joining Jughead in his consumption pursuits, and I don't mean burgers or pizza.

Educate, Agitate, Organize, Mobilize, Act!

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by: LibWingofLibWing @ Thu Aug 12, 2010 at 16:37:38 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

70s (4.00 / 3)

The RSA Animate piece talks about labor being cut back because it was too powerful.  Labor has been on a big downward spiral ever since the mid 1930s when labor union participation was IIRC 38.5% of the work force.  BY 1980 that was 20% and now it is 12%.  The excess power (not in my opinion) of labor in the late 1960s was due to full employment.  Real unemployment was a nifty 3.6% below "full employment" according to the economists of the day (4% then).  It's been around 16 to 18% over the past year.  

What really was slamming the economy in the 1970s was the rise in oil prices.  Carter 's economy paid for that across the board, mostly through inflation.  Volcker's deflation spread more of the pain, but by no means all, to labor.  Reagan deliberately crashed the economy to deflate oil prices and crush labor delivering an astounding portion of "morning in America" to the top 0.01% of the population.  Given the slow growth since and concentration of wealth in the hands of the elite, "Mourning in America" was more like it.    

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by: David Kowalski @ Thu Aug 12, 2010 at 22:36:53 PM UTC

RSA Animate (4.00 / 2)

The other RSA Animate videos I've seen are pretty good as well.  I noticed the original lecture that went into this video is also on line.  The original was 30 minutes long.  They reduced it to 10 minutes and added the visuals.

I think there is an educational lesson here as well.  The large room lecture is probably the least productive form of education possible, but our entire upper-level educational system is based on it.  There isn't a lecture ever given that couldn't be improved by editing and given additional visuals.

Obviously, actual two-way communication is better still, at least some times.  But lectures aren't about that.

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by: Mark Matson @ Fri Aug 13, 2010 at 00:39:08 AM UTC

Seminars (0.00 / 0)

Nothing beats a seminar with about 15 people or so.  

Now, how to take that model and improve it online, that's a real challenge.  Blogs can approximate that in some situations, but we're talking about replicability and reliability here, folks.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

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by: Paul Rosenberg @ Fri Aug 13, 2010 at 19:22:07 PM UTC

[ Parent ]