Tidbits on June 17, 2005
Bob Jensen at Trinity University 

Fraud Updates --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm
For earlier editions of New Bookmarks go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm 
Archives of Tidbits: Tidbits Directory --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm

Click here to search Bob Jensen's web site if you have key words to enter --- Search Site.
For example if you want to know what Jensen documents have the term "Enron" enter the phrase Jensen AND Enron. Another search engine that covers Trinity and other universities is at http://www.searchedu.com/.

Bob Jensen's home page is at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/

Security threats and hoaxes --- http://www.trinity.edu/its/virus/

Music: Games People Play --- http://www.jessiesweb.com/house.htm

Train of Life (Willie Nelson and Patsy Cline) ---  
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/singingman7/TOL.htm   

If you're going to borrow money to buy a home, better to borrow in Florida than North Dakota.
While the media tends to quote national averages on mortgage rates, in fact rates vary widely from state to state -- over time and on any given day. On June 8, the highest rate on a 30-year-fixed mortgage was 6.79% in West Virginia, and the lowest rate was 4.89% in Georgia, according to Bankrate.com.
Steven Sloan, "Want a Good Mortgage Rate? It May Depend on Your State," The Wall Street Journal, June 9, 2005; Page D2 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111816047825153017,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal

Advice about mortgages from Jane Bryant Quinn, Newsweek, June 6, 2005, Page 41.

For great tips on mortgages, visit Guttentag's (a professor at Wharton) site --- http://www.mtgprofessor.com/

For quick quotes, check eloan.com --- http://www.eloan.com/

Ignore the "cheap loan" promises in your e-mail . . . Spammers merely collect names to sell to lenders --- or worse, pry for personal information.

Bob Jensen's threads on Internet frauds are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm

Bob Jensen's threads on investing are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm#Finance

Help for victims of investment fraud --- http://www.helpforinvestors.org/
Think you're a victim of investment fraud? Want to check out your financial adviser? Need to report identity theft? A new streamlined Web site from the Alliance for Investor Education, www.helpforinvestors.org, provides direct links to the right government agencies, regulators, and trade groups.
Lauren Young, "A Tool for Investors in Distress:  The new Web site from the Alliance for Investor Education offers lots of help, including for those who may have been duped," Business Week, June 15, 2005 --- http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/jun2005/nf20050615_4371_db035.htm?chan=tc
Bob Jensen's helpers for victims of various types of fraud are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm

Sharing Professor of the Week
Trinity University's Geology Professor Glenn Kroeger --- http://www.trinity.edu/gkroeger/

Specialties: Geophysics, Seismology, Remote Sensing, Geographic Information Systems

Courses:

• Exploring Earth
• Environmental Geology
• Oceanography
• Geophysics
• GIS and Remote Sensing
• Earth History
• Geoscience Techniques

Projects:

• Java™ Software
• Jennifer Elaine Kroeger
• "Nature Calls"

Women Often Discover Their Business Talent After Kids Are Raised
In addition, it often takes women longer to believe in themselves enough to seek jobs in which they wield power. "By their 40s and 50s, after observing a few male bosses, women finally begin to say to themselves, 'These guys aren't any smarter than I am,' " says Ms. Liswood. Yet few big corporations are flexible enough to take advantage of women's life cycles by, for example, giving them flexible schedules when they are raising young children and promotion opportunities when they are older. A lot of middle-age women have found their own solution: launching their own businesses. There are 10.6 million women-owned businesses in the U.S., employing 19.1 million people, and two out of three of the new businesses being launched are women-owned. "A lot of these women have worked for big corporations, but at 40 or so when a lot are still stuck in middle management they start thinking, 'I can have more influence and a bigger piece of the pie doing it on my own,' " says Marsha Firestone, founder of the Women Presidents' Organization. The average age of the group's members is 49.
Carol Hymowitz, "Women Often Discover Their Business Talent After Kids Are Raised," The Wall Street Journal, June 14, 2005; Page B1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111870963411258724,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace

Mind on Fire
A new biography of Empson has come out recently (or rather, the first of two volumes of a biography, which might just be overdoing it). So that might be part of what’s stirred up the memory. But there is also the fact that I’m at the early stage of writing a book — and at the other extreme from anything resembling the monotonous lucidity Burke describes. Each fact, each idea, every dim intuition seems to connect to all the others. At times this is exciting. The brain blazes; hours of concentration prove effortless. And sometimes it’s a pain in the ass. The problem being that you cannot write a book out of a pure intuition of possible linkages. (Not unless you are a novelist, or the author of one of those fictions of cohesive personal identity known as a memoir.) For a work of nonfiction prose, you have to gather a lot of information — and then control it. So it’s disconcerting to find that your ideas are swarming without a center They keep running to the bookshelves to prove themselves. And if it turns out — as I’m finding it often does — that no scholar has written anything on some topic absolutely essential to the project, then a kind of panicky weariness kicks in. It feels like being obliged to reinvent the wheel without knowing what a circle looks like.
Scott McLemee, "Mind on Fire," Inside Higher Ed, June 14 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2005/06/14/mclemee

Stem Cells Get Brainy
Scientists induce certain mice brain cells, which are also stem cells, to multiply. The discovery could spell good news for fighting diseases like Parkinson's and Huntington's.
"Stem Cells Get Brainy," Wired News, June 13, 2005 --- http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,67843,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_9

Staying divorced is bad for health
Coining a new term, "marital biography," to denote your entire lifelong experience with marriage, divorce and remarriage, the study's co-authors, University of Chicago's Linda Waite and Duke University's Mary Elizabeth Hughes, will show how that history has a cumulative effect on health. Indeed, your marital biography has an even bigger impact on long-term health than whether you are married or divorced at any particular time. The longer you spend in a divorced or widowed state, the higher the likelihood of heart or lung disease, cancer, high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke and difficulties with mobility, such as walking or climbing stairs, according to the 2005 study of 8,652 people age 51 to 61. The research, funded by the National Institute on Aging, will be presented a week from today at a Dallas conference of the Coalition for Marriage, Family and Couples Education, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit organization.
"Another Argument for Marriage: How Divorce Can Put Your Health at Risk," The Wall Street Journal, June 16, 2005, Page D1 ---  http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111888263357661063,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal

Testing a disposable camcorder
Disposable photo cameras have been around for years and have carved out a healthy niche in the overall photography market. But nobody has come up with a disposable video camcorder -- until now. Last week, a one-time-use, digital video camera made by Pure Digital Technologies Inc. of San Francisco went on sale in selected drugstores across the nation. Although it's not yet available in Northern California, pending a regional distribution deal, the company hopes to have it on local store shelves by the end of the summer. Retailing for $30, the pocket-sized digital camcorder stores only 20 minutes' worth of video and won't produce the same quality shots that owners of more expensive digital camcorders have come to expect.
Benny Evangelista, "Testing out disposable camcorder: S.F. firm makes it easy to e-mail clips made on tiny device," San Francisco Chronicle,  June 13, 2005 ---
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/06/13/BUGO0D5OEG28.DTL&type=tech

Are you a prosumer?
Prosumers are passionate about the technology they use for their creative pursuits. ''How much time do you have?" replies Dr. Cyril Mazansky, when asked about his equipment. Mazansky is a radiologist who is also a devoted nature photographer. ''I could happily talk to you about this all afternoon." For technology companies, they're tough customers, more sophisticated and demanding than garden-variety consumers, but less experienced and free-spending than professionals. The word ''prosumer" was coined in 1979 by the futurist Alvin Toffler. Initially, it referred to an individual who would be involved in designing the things she purchased (a mash-up of the words ''producer" and ''consumer.") These days, the term more often refers to a segment of users midway between consumers and professionals. This kind of prosumer doesn't necessarily earn money by making music, videos, or photos, but is still willing to invest in more serious hardware and software than the typical dabbler, and spend more time using it.
Scott Kirsner, "Are you a prosumer? Take this hand quiz," Boston Globe, June 13, 2005 --- http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2005/06/13/are_you_a_prosumer_take_this_hand_quiz/ 

Are you a prosumer?
The Maryland Department of Health says results from a federally funded study underscore the need for targeted HIV prevention programs, especially for gay black men in Baltimore. The research was a risk-behavior study of Baltimore-area men who have sex with men. The study reveals that one-third the participants are infected with the disease. But half of the African American study participants are HIV positive. The study was conducted by the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health between June 2004 and April.
"Study Finds High Rates of HIV Among Gay Men," ABC News, June 15, 2005 --- http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/0605/236070.html

Phonic Ear's Front Row Active Learning System
FDA Clears Phonic Ear Active Learning Systems for Classroom Communication Phonic Ear has received U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearance for medical devices that improve speech intelligibility in classrooms for hearing impaired and normal-hearing children and adolescents. This clearance designates Phonic Ear's Front Row Active Learning Systems design, which clarifies and amplifies a teachers' voice, as a safe and effective means for improving speech intelligibility. Phonic Ear is the first and only wireless technology developer to earn this clearance for these systems. In addition to improving children's listening skills, Front Row Active Learning Systems could also be a relief on school budgets: U.S. schools may lose as much as $2.5 billion annually in sick leave for teachers with vocal problems, according to the University of Iowa's National Center for Voice and Speech.
T.H.E. Newsletter on June 15, 2005

For the full story, visit http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/050608/85337.html?.v=1 

Search the deep (password protected) Web
Yahoo said it had begun testing a service that lets users search information on password-protected subscription sites such as LexisNexis, known as the "deep Web." The move comes as Yahoo (YHOO), Google (GOOG) and Ask Jeeves (ASKJ) rush to give web searchers access to ever more information -- from books, blogs and scholarly journals to news, products, images and video. The service, called Yahoo Search Subscriptions, allows users to search multiple online subscription content sources and the web from a single search box. Users can see content from the sites they subscribe to, while nonsubscribers have the option of paying to see it. Content providers, for their part, get access to the vast audience of web search users.
"Surfing the Deep Web," Wired News, June 16, 2005 ---
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,67883,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_7

Also see http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/050616/165255.html?.v=1

The Yahoo Search Subscriptions site is at http://search.yahoo.com/subscriptions

Bob Jensen's search helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm

Online Classroom Network Set to Launch Major Chinese-English LanguageLearning Portal
ePALS Classroom Exchange will launch a Chinese-English Language and Learning Portal in September, enabling its 103,000 global classrooms to connect with Chinese schools in a teacher-supervised online environment. Initially, the focus will be on matching 60,000 English-speaking K-12 schools in the US, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland with schools in China, allowing Chinese teachers and students to practice English language skills while English-speaking schools learn Chinese history, culture, and, language. The company will integrate basic Chinese and English language learning tools into the portal as well as the company's proprietary school-safe, multi-lingual e-mail and eMentoring tools to power the collaboration between classrooms.
T.H.E. Newsletter on June 15, 2005

For the full story, visit http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050606/nym103.html?.v=10 

Upgrading teacher education programs
Teacher preparation programs have taken a pounding in recent years, from legislators concerned about the dearth of teachers being produced and policy makers who view the programs as outdated and unwilling to change. In 1998, the last time Congress adopted legislation to extend the Higher Education Act, teachers’ colleges (and, in turn, higher education leaders viewed as defending them) were lambasted by Rep. George Miller (D-Cal.), who accused them of turning out poorly prepared instructors. He won passage of new standards and reporting requirements designed to measure, state by state, the quality of teacher training programs. Seeking to shift from defense to offense, the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education played host Wednesday to a briefing on Capitol Hill aimed at “debunking the myths” that teacher training programs are lethargic and ("We’re not grandma’s normal school any more,” as the group’s executive director, Sharon P. Robinson, put it) and at introducing its own draft legislation for the teacher training portion of the Higher Education Act, which Congress is once again preparing to renew.
Doug Lederman, "Playing Offense, Not Defense," Inside Higher Ed, June 16, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/06/16/teachered

Upgrading 'community' college learning
For many low-income students, the gateway to higher education is through urban community colleges. But many of those students have received poor educations in high school, and have a good chance of getting stuck in remedial courses and never graduating. Some community colleges are experimenting with new approaches to educating these students, but there are few examples of concrete evidence of how successful those approaches are. This week, however, a study is being released that suggests that the use of “learning communities” can have a significant impact on the success of students who need the most help.
Scott Jaschik, "Keeping Students Enrolled," Inside Higher Ed, June 16, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/06/16/cc

PLATO Orion Standards and Curriculum Integrator
Largest Idaho District Selects PLATO Orion for Standards-Based Teaching Initiative PLATO Learning Inc. announced it has been awarded a $454,000 agreement with Idaho's Meridian Joint School District for a districtwide implementation of PLATO Orion Standards and Curriculum Integrator. PLATO Orion is an integrated instructional management system that supports the continuous improvement and data-driven decision-making processes of educational organizations. At the district level, it helps curriculum specialists identify standards and objectives for each grade and allows administrators to identify gaps in standards coverage within existing materials and lesson plans. At the building level, teachers use PLATO Orion to access, create, and use formative assessments to identify students' strengths and weaknesses and then identify and assign aligned resources, including PLATO Instructional Solutions, lessons plans, textbooks, and Web sites for individualized instruction.
T.H.E. Newsletter on June 15, 2005

For the full story, visit http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/050609/95097.html?.v=1 

Bob Jensen's threads on the history of computer-based course management systems are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/290wp/290wp.htm

Especially note how to unlock retail codes
I agree with most of the advice below except for advice to buy custom made shoes if you have rather standard-made feet.  Note that in some cases below I quoted only the caption and not the text under that caption.

"Unlocking the Special Codes," The Wall Street Journal, June 14, 2005; Page D1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111871443117158844,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal

From tuition discounts to estate planning to special codes that unlock retail deals, here are some other techniques for saving time and money.

• Don't pay full price for a Broadway theater ticket.

Web sites to check out include BroadwayBox.com, TheaterMania.com and Playbill.com. • Focus on home renovations that enhance resale value:     • Don't pay full price for college     Ask for a discount. Hungry for the brightest students, many of the country's stronger universities are actively discounting tuition. These rebates, which can be thousands of dollars, aren't coming from endowments or government grants.

• The only way to lose weight is to cut calories:   • Timing is everything when it comes to finding cheaper airfares:   • It also is possible to get deals online by using special retail codes:   Just go to one of the following Web sites: naughtycodes.com, currentcodes.com, dealhunting.com or discountcodes.com. Scroll down the menu to find stores, then enter the store's discount code to complete a purchase. Another approach is simply buying something online and then signing up for special promotions and email alerts. Some of these deals can be found on bargain-hunter sites such as DealHunting.com, ShoppersResource.com and QuickToClick.com.

• Consider a living trust:   Assets in a living trust go directly to heirs designated by the trust and avoid probate, saving you legal expenses. If you own homes in two states and want to avoid probate in one of the states, you can put that home in a living trust. Be sure the cost of setting up trusts, and revising them as situations change, doesn't exceed the legal fees and taxes you are trying to avoid. • Buy custom-made shoes:   For men, a leather rounded-toe Oxford lace-up with hand-sewn welting is the most comfortable shoe there is. That is because welting -- where a strip of material is hand-stitched between the sole and the upper part of the shoe -- is essential for enhancing flexibility. It also makes the shoe easier to repair, since cobblers can easily rip and replace, compared to ready-made shoes with glued and molded soles directly attached to the upper. If you can't afford custom-made shoes, buy ready-made shoes elsewhere and bring them into the store to have welting put in. This costs about a third of the price of a handmade pair. • When ordering cocktails, ask for premium tequila but don't bother with expensive vodka:   The most common way people waste money on booze is by asking for super-high-end vodkas when ordering a mixed drink, as the subtle qualities of ultra-premium vodka get washed out by fruity mixers. Save the good stuff for straight-up with a twist. By contrast, the average consumer acts like a cheapskate when it comes to ordering tequila -- yet spending the extra money can make all the difference in a margarita. What you want: a brand with 100% blue agave.

Findings that led Duke to drop supplying students with iPods for course use
"Duke Analyzes iPod Project," by Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed, June 16, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/06/16/ipod

Among the findings:

• More than 600 students were in courses using the iPods each semester of the academic year that just concluded.
• Use was greatest among foreign language and music courses, although a range of disciplines used the devices.
• While audio playback was the initial focus of most of those involved, students and faculty reported the greatest interest in digital recording.
• The effort was hurt by a lack of systems for bulk purchases of mp3 audio content for academic use.
• There are many “inherent limitations” in the iPod, such as the lack of instructor tools for combining text and audio.
• Some recordings made with the iPod were not of high enough quality for academic use.
• The project resulted in increased collaboration among faculty members and technology officials at the university, and the publicity about the project led to more collaborations with other institutions

Bob Jensen's threads on education technologies are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm

New accounting curriculum at a leading accounting program in the U.S.
Professors at Kansas State University College of Business Administration are spearheading a campaign to emphasize the importance of ethics in business education. The call to support Uniform Accountancy Rules 5-1 and 5-2 as effort to prevent future corporate ethics scandals, has been endorsed by more than 200 ethicists, business professionals, two conference boards and, of course, fellow professors.  “The accounting profession, especially the large firms, see a need and have expressed support for ethics courses as part of the accounting curriculum,” says Dann Fisher, associate professor of accounting and the Deloitte Touche Faculty Fellow at Kansas State University. “The resistance expressed by the academic community is what I find disconcerting. In general, accounting faculty appear to be unwilling to change and, at the same time, bitter that an external body would attempt to force them to change curriculum. Regardless of the reasons, the status quo is unacceptable.”
"Professors Call for New Accounting Curriculum Mandate," AccountingWeb, June 10, 2005 --- http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=100995

Bob Jensen's threads on the Enron scandal are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudEnron.htm

Watergate:  The known and the hushed up conspiracies
Watergate involved two conspiracies. The first, now ancient history, was the botched cover-up of a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters, in which President Nixon was briefly complicit. But we now know there was a far larger and more successful conspiracy involving the FBI's No. 2, to rifle confidential files, to help The Washington Post bring down a president who had topped its enemies list since Joe McCarthy had gone to his grave.
Patrick J. Buchanan, "Watergate: The Great Myth of American Journalism," Human Events Online, June 10, 2005 --- http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=7706

Forwarded by Paula

'I Hope You Dance... '

This was written by an 83-year-old woman to her friend.

Dear Bertha,

I'm reading more and dusting less. I'm sitting in the yard and admiring the view without fussing about the weeds in the garden. I'm spending more time with my family and friends and less time working.

Whenever possible, life should be a pattern of experiences to savor, not to endure. I'm trying to recognize these moments now and cherish them.

I'm not "saving" anything; we use our good china and crystal for every special event such as losing a pound, getting the sink unstopped, or the first Amaryllis blossom.

I wear my good blazer to the market. My theory is if I look prosperous, I can shell out $28.49 for one small bag of groceries. I'm not saving my good perfume for special parties, but wearing it for clerks in the hardware store and tellers at the bank.

"Someday" and "one of these days" are losing their grip on my vocabulary. If it's worth seeing or hearing or doing, I want to see and hear and do it now.

I'm not sure what others would've done had they known they wouldn't be here for the tomorrow that we all take for granted. I think they would have called family members and a few close friends. They might have called a few former friends to apologize and mend fences for past squabbles. I like to think they would have gone out for a Chinese dinner or for whatever their favorite food was.

I'm guessing; I'll never know.

It's those little things left undone that would make me angry if I knew my hours were limited. Angry because I hadn't written certain letters that I intended to write one of these days. Angry and sorry that I didn't tell my husband and parents often enough how much I truly love them. I'm trying very hard not to put off, hold back, or save anything that would add laughter and luster to our lives. And every morning when I open my eyes, tell myself that it is special.

Every day, every minute, every breath truly is a gift from God.

If you received this, it is because someone cares for you. If you're too busy to take the few minutes that it takes right now to forward this, would it be the first time you didn't do the little thing that would make a difference in your relationships? I can tell you it certainly won't be the last.

Take a few minutes to send this to a few people you care about, just to let them know that you're thinking of them.

"People say true friends must always hold hands, but true friends don't need to hold hands because they know the other hand will always be there." Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we are here we might as well dance

Forwarded by Betty Carper

A grandmother was pushing her little grandchild around Wal- Mart in a buggy. Each time she put something in the basket she would say, "And here's something for you, Diploma." or "This will make a cute little outfit for you, Diploma." and so on.

Eventually a bewildered shopper who'd heard all this finally asked, "Why do you keep calling your grandchild Diploma?"

The grandmother replied, "I sent my daughter to college and this is what she came home with!"

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Fraud Updates --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm
For earlier editions of New Bookmark s go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm 
Archives of Tidbits: Tidbits Directory --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm

Click here to search Bob Jensen's web site if you have key words to enter --- Search Site.
For example if you want to know what Jensen documents have the term "Enron" enter the phrase Jensen AND Enron. Another search engine that covers Trinity and other universities is at http://www.searchedu.com/.

Bob Jensen's home page is at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/

 

Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob) http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Administration
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
Voice: 210-999-7347 Fax: 210-999-8134  Email:  rjensen@trinity.edu