This has been a lousy snow year up here. There are about six inches of snow in the above picture.
I'd like it better if there was six feet of snow. We still have our wild turkey friends begging for food.

This is a sorry excuse for an edition of Tidbits. I've been in Erika's hospital in Boston most of January. Since she will also be there most of February, I'm suspending further editions of both Tidbits and New Bookmarks until life gets back to normal.

Updates on Erika's 2007 Surgeries ---
With Pictures --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Erika2007.htm

Tidbits on January 30, 2007
Bob Jensen

For earlier editions of Tidbits go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
For earlier editions of New Bookmarks go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.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 past presentations and lectures --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/resume.htm#Presentations   

Bob Jensen's Threads --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm

Bob Jensen's Home Page is at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/

Online Video, Slide Shows, and Audio
In the past I've provided links to various types of music and video available free on the Web. 
I created a page that summarizes those various links --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm

"YouTube airs medical help videos," PhysOrg, January 3, 2007 --- http://physorg.com/news87055969.html

The Circus in America: 1793-1940 --- http://www.circusinamerica.org/public/welcome

Digging Your Own Grave Videos --- http://www.digyourowngrave.com/

Burbanked --- http://burbanked.com/2006/11/09/trailer-mash-up-office-space-as-a-horror-film/

A great helper site for HDTV shoppers --- http://www.cnet.com/4520-7874_1-5102926-1.html

Free music downloads --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm

Guitar Never Seemed So Hard --- http://www.glumbert.com/media/mckee

Trio Plays Music for a Nordic Winter Wonderland --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6697302

The British Invasion Meets the Everlys' Elegance (Remember the Everly Brothers?) --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6712619

'Performance Today' at 20: A Look Back (Classical) --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6729424

Urban Legend of the University of Iowa Farm Machine Music --- http://www.snopes.com/photos/arts/musicmachine.asp

From Janie
Happy Birthday Elvis! January 8, 1935 --- http://mjbreck.com/elvisbyjbwhappybirthday2007.html 

100 Golden Oldies on the Juke Box --- http://www.tropicalglen.com/
Be patient with the "Unknown Zone" message. The songs load relatively slow.
The juke box will pass automatically from song to song in a given year.

Hits From the 1960s (original recordings) --- http://oldfortyfives.com/TakeMeBackToTheSixties.htm

Photographs and Art

Proposal for correcting, improving and ascertaining the English Tongue by  Jonathan Swift --- Click Here

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain (1835-1910) --- Click Here

eNotes.com features high-quality study guides, lesson plans, and other reference material in various academic areas --- http://www.enotes.com/

Quotations About Banned and Challenged Books --- http://quotes.forbiddenlibrary.com/

You know you're getting old when all the names in your black book have M. D. after them.
Harrison Ford --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Ford

The only way to have a friend is to be one.
Ralph Waldo Emerson --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Waldo_Emerson 

Money talks...but all mine ever says is good-bye.
Author Unknown

The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.
Vince Lombardi --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vince_Lombardi

It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Much You Want It.
David Maister, AccountingWeb, January 2, 2007 --- http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=102955

A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.
Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956) --- Click Here

The secret of greatness is simple: do better work than any other man in your field - and keep on doing it.
Wilfred A. Peterson --- http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Wilfred_A._Peterson/

The reasons for Xerox PARC's inability to take advantages of its own inventions are debated in business schools to this day. Jacob Golman, Xerox's chief scientist at the time who founded PARC, blames short-sighted managers unwilling to take chances on small-scale, unproven technologies. "They managed the company quarter to quarter and looked at the bottom line," Mr. Goldman says. "They weren't thinking about the future really."
Stephen Miller, "Former XERX CEO Funded Fabled PARC But Failed to Harvest Innovations," The Wall Street Journal, December 23, 2006, Page A6.

In a recent study, fuel cell expert Ulf Bossel explains that a hydrogen economy is a wasteful economy. The large amount of energy required to isolate hydrogen from natural compounds (water, natural gas, biomass), package the light gas by compression or liquefaction, transfer the energy carrier to the user, plus the energy lost when it is converted to useful electricity with fuel cells, leaves around 25% for practical use — an unacceptable value to run an economy in a sustainable future. Only niche applications like submarines and spacecraft might use hydrogen.
"Why a hydrogen economy doesn't make sense," PhysOrg, December 11, 2006 --- http://physorg.com/news85074285.html

This country is not worth dying for.
Cindy Sheehan --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cindy_Sheehan

58% of the American public are with us. We're preaching to the choir, but the choir's not singing, if all of the 58% started singing, this war would end.
Cindy Sheehan --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cindy_Sheehan
Jensen Comment
If you can believe Cindy, her facts suggest that she would be a cinch to defeat Hillary, Obama, and McCain. But she's known for her off-the-cuff and unsupported statistics.  that badly undermine her integrity.

Mr. O'Rourke says he is adjusting well to middle age, or, he prefers, "very late youth": "I can't complain. Well, I can complain. It's a f -- ing nightmare." "I'm still getting out enough, as much as I like," he permits. "I spent about a month in China recently. I was over in Kyrgyzstan. But I can't do it like I used to. It's a matter of age-appropriate. Again, a lot of the fun of seeing the Third World is first impressions. I covered my first war in Lebanon about 22 years ago. Everybody just gets exasperated. Twenty years ago we were all very interested in what was making these people fight each other, and who was right and who was wrong, and after a while you say: Sit down and shut up. Go to hell."
Joseph Rago, "P.J. O'Rourke Jokers to the Right," The Wall Street Journal, January 6, 2007, Page A7  --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116804437270368745.html?mod=todays_us_opinion

Mr. O'Rourke divides his time between D.C., where I join him for lunch, and a country place in New Hampshire. His views are firmly of the live-free-or-die variety, though he is unsparing in his commentary on the last election, in which all but one of the New England Republicans were dispatched in favor of "some left-wing gals and other complete nonentities." "I think it was all about the war, and about George Bush," he says. "They just hate Bush in New England, even in New Hampshire, and I don't know why it is that they seem to loathe him more than everybody else. Is it because he's a traitor to the New England tradition of transcendento-liberalism? . . . Bush went to Groton, and then he goes to Yale, then Harvard, and at the very worst he should have emerged boring like his old man. Instead he comes out this Southern, borderline-evangelical, hard-right conservative." Hold one beat. "Except as a hard-right conservative myself," he continues, "Bush has been a pretty miserable failure on that front. It's called failure. Bush and the Republicans are offering a Newer Deal, a Greater Society. Where the hell did this come from? And there's no other word for it but failure: failure to control spending, failure domestically and failure in Iraq."
Joseph Rago, "P.J. O'Rourke Jokers to the Right," The Wall Street Journal, January 6, 2007, Page A7  --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116804437270368745.html?mod=todays_us_opinion

The United States seems destined by Providence to plague America with misery in the name of democracy.
Simon Bolivar (1783-1830) --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Bolivar

Tutorials and Web Resources for College Mathematics Courses ---
http://staff.southwest.tn.edu/kfoster/links_4.htm#algtrig

University Channel (video and audio) ---  http://uc.princeton.edu/main/

Bob Jensen's links to online mathematics and statistics tutorials and helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#050421Mathematics

A different way to think about assessment

January 26, 2007 message from Carnegie President [carnegiepresident@carnegiefoundation.org]

A different way to think about ... assessment In the most recent issue of Change magazine, I join several other authors to examine higher education's ongoing responsibility to tell the story of student learning with care and precision. Fulfilling this responsibility at the institutional level requires ongoing deliberations among colleagues and stakeholders about the specific learning goals we seek and the broad educational purposes we espouse. What will motivate such discussions?

In this month's Carnegie Perspectives, Lloyd Bond makes a strong case for the use of common examinations as a powerful form of assessment as well as a fruitful context for faculty deliberations about their goals for students. Using an institutional example from the Carnegie/Hewlett project on strengthening teaching and learning at community colleges, Lloyd describes a particular example of this principle and how it supports faculty communication and student learning.

Carnegie has created a forum—Carnegie Conversations—where you can engage publicly with Lloyd and read and respond to what others have to say about this article at http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/perspectives/january2007

Or you may respond to the author privately through CarnegiePresident@carnegiefoundation.org

We look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Lee S. Shulman
President The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

Bob Jensen's threads on assessment are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning --- http://www.georgiasouthern.edu/ijsotl/

From the Financial Rounds blog on January 1, 2007 --- http://financialrounds.blogspot.com/

Using Game Theory On Your Kids

At bedtime, the Unknown Kids get a story read to them and it seems like they always want different stories/ And I'm only going to read one. We've tried a number of methods for choosing which story to read. Invariably, one child ends up happy and the other doesn't.

So this time, I thought I'd try a little game theory (hey, I studied a lot of this stuff in grad school, and I should get some use out of it). So, here's what we did tonight:
 

• I explained that we'd go three "rounds", and if they couldn't agree on a book, no one would get a story.
   

• First, we flip a coin to determine who'd go first. Unknown Daughter (age 6) won.
   

• For the first round, Unknown daughter chose a book. Then Unknown Son (age 8) got to either accept the book or reject it. If he rejected it, he then got to choose one of his own. At this point, Unknown Daughter would get to accept or reject his choice. If she rejected, round one would be over.

• At this point, the choice went back to Unknown Daughter for round two, and she got to choose. And then Unknown Son, and so on.

• The key is that if three rounds went by and a book hadn't been agreed upon, no one got a story.

My goal was to see if they'd realize that if they choose a book that the other party had no interest in, they could end screwing themselves and getting NO story.

Here's how it played out: In round one, Unknown Daughter choose an American Girl book that Unknown Son had no interest in. Then, for his turn he choose a Sponge Bob book that she had no interest in.

At this point, she said "that's no fair - all you're going to do is choose Sponge Bob books, and I don't like them." Then I took her aside and told her that she could reject his choice if she didn't want it (that's exactly what she did).

At this point, I explained once again that if they both kept saying no, after three rounds, there would be NO story. So, if they used their turns to only chose stories that THEY wanted and that their sibling didn't, their sibling could easily decide that NO story was just as good as a story that they didn't like, and they could end up with NO story at all.

At this point, Unknown Daughter took Unknown Son out into the hallway, and some frantic whispering ensued. About 20 seconds later, they told me that they'd chosen a Disney Story book.

So this episode could show that there's actual benefit to this stuff.

Or, it could just illustrate why children of academics turn out so different from their peers.

90,000 plant specimens --- http://www.vplants.org/

"Checked Out:  A Washington-area library tosses out the classics" by John J. Miller, The Wall Street Journal, January 3, 2007 --- http://www.opinionjournal.com/la/?id=110009472

"For Whom the Bell Tolls" may be one of Ernest Hemingway's best-known books, but it isn't exactly flying off the shelves in northern Virginia these days. Precisely nobody has checked out a copy from the Fairfax County Public Library system in the past two years, according to a front-page story in yesterday's Washington Post.

And now the bell may toll for Hemingway. A software program developed by SirsiDynix, an Alabama-based library-technology company, informs librarians of which books are circulating and which ones aren't. If titles remain untouched for two years, they may be discarded--permanently. "We're being very ruthless," boasts library director Sam Clay.

As it happens, the ruthlessness may not ultimately extend to Hemingway's classic. "For Whom the Bell Tolls" could win a special reprieve, and, in the future, copies might remain available at certain branches. Yet lots of other volumes may not fare as well. Books by Charlotte Brontë, William Faulkner, Thomas Hardy, Marcel Proust and Alexander Solzhenitsyn have recently been pulled.

Library officials explain, not unreasonably, that their shelf space is limited and that they want to satisfy the demands of the public. Every unpopular book that's removed from circulation, after all, creates room for a new page-turner by John Grisham, David Baldacci, or James Patterson--the authors of the three most checked-out books in Fairfax County last month.

But this raises a fundamental question: What are libraries for? Are they cultural storehouses that contain the best that has been thought and said? Or are they more like actual stores, responding to whatever fickle taste or Mitch Albom tearjerker is all the rage at this very moment? If the answer is the latter, then why must we have government-run libraries at all? There's a fine line between an institution that aims to edify the public and one that merely uses tax dollars to subsidize the recreational habits of bookworms.

Fairfax County may think that condemning a few dusty old tomes allows it to keep up with the times. But perhaps it's inadvertently highlighting the fact that libraries themselves are becoming outmoded.

There was a time when virtually every library was a cultural repository holding priceless volumes. Imagine how much richer our historical and literary record would be if a single library full of unique volumes--the fabled Royal Library of Alexandria, in Egypt--had survived to the present day.

Continued in article

 

Jensen Comment
In modern days an argument can be making scarce shelf space available for works that are not available freely online --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm

But this deprives stack browsers the opportunity of stumbling on classic works deemed over the years by scholars to stand tall among the millions of other books of less interest to scholars. The issue probably cannot be resolved since this is a zero sum game. With millions of books competing for very limited space it is not possible to simultaneously satisfy those that want the stacks devoted to the best of the best versus those that want new shelf space for books trying to become the best of the best.

Fortunately, the best of the best and the worst of the worst are are or will soon become available online ---

http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm

There are also ways to beat the system. One can imagine a literary club organizing to check out most of the classics a sufficient number of times on a two-year cycle such that none of the selected classics ever meets the test of failing to be checked out often enough to remain of the shelves.

Finding Online Training and Education Programs

January 16, 2006 message from Martha Vasquez [mvasquez@geosign.com]

Dear Bob,

I saw your website and I like it. I am the Assistant Editor of http://www.onlinelearning101.com  and we provide information and advice about studying online and a list of online schools as well.

Would you mind giving me a link on your Bookmark’s page? I believe we would make a useful complement to your site.

Here is the information in case you consider linking to us.

Title: Online Education

URL: http://www.onlinelearning101.com 

Description: Comprehensive resource for information about the extensive educational opportunities available online

Thank you for taking the time to read my message.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Martha Vasquez
Assistant Editor
http://www.onlinelearning101.com

I added Martha's link to my helpers for finding online training and education programs at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/crossborder.htm

Discarded books are not necessarily the same as banned books:  It's all a matter of intent

Quotations About Banned and Challenged Books --- http://quotes.forbiddenlibrary.com/

"If your library is not 'unsafe', it probably isn't doing its job." -- John Berry, Iii, Library Journal, October 1999

"Without free speech no search for truth is possible... no discovery of truth is useful... Better a thousandfold abuse of free speech than denial of free speech. The abuse dies in a day, but the denial slays the life of the people, and entombs the hope of the race." -- Charles Bradlaugh

"There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them. " -- Joseph Alexandrovitch Brodsky, 1991, Russian-American poet, b. St. Petersburg and exiled 1972 (1940-1996)

"Everyone is in favor of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people's idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone else says anything back, that is an outrage." -- Winston Churchill

"You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police. Yet in their hearts there is unspoken - unspeakable! - fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts! Words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home, all the more powerful because they are forbidden. These terrify them. A little mouse - a little tiny mouse! -of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic." -- Winston Churchill

"The fact is that censorship always defeats its own purpose, for it creates, in the end, the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion..." -- Henry Steel Commager

"Burning is no answer." -- Camille Desmoulins' reply to Robespierre, January 7, 1794, on burning his newspaper, Le Vieux Cordelier

"If librarianship is the connecting of people to ideas – and I believe that is the truest definition of what we do – it is crucial to remember that we must keep and make available, not just good ideas and noble ideas, but bad ideas, silly ideas, and yes, even dangerous or wicked ideas." -- Graceanne A. Decandido

"Don't join the book burners. Don't think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed." -- Dwight D. Eisenhower, speech at Dartmouth College, June 14, 1953

"Every burned book enlightens the world." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"This is slavery, not to speak one's thought." -- Euripides, Greek tragic poet (480 or 485 B.C. - 406 B.C)

"If the human body's obscene, complain to the manufacturer, not me." -- Larry Flynt

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

"If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed." -- Benjamin Franklin, 1730

You can read more about banned books at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Banned

"The Changing ‘Place’ of the Library," by Laura Rein, Inside Higher Ed, January 5, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2007/01/05/rein

I run a library at a university of nearly 22,000 students, but I know that two-thirds of them will never step foot in our library. Ditto for hundreds of our professors. These students and faculty are either teaching or learning online or at one of our over 100 extended campuses worldwide.

So when I read any of the slew of reports that come out about the library “as a place,” I worry a bit. What do these on-site spaces mean to our growing population of distance education students and professors? The concept of the “library as place” was most recently reviewed in a report published by the Council on Library and Information Resources entitled “The Library as Place: Rethinking Roles, Rethinking Space.” Few would argue with the authors that the library is vitally important to higher education institutions in helping them achieve their mission. Indeed, if designed or renovated around the institution’s learning principles as outlined in an issue of Educause Review, the library can offer spaces and services to support virtually all of the latest learning theory principles. As summarized by Colleen Carmean and Jerry Haefner, deep learning occurs when it is “social, active, contextual, engaging, and student-owned.” What better place on campus to provide social, active, contextual, engaging, and student-owned environments than the library with its wired reading and study spaces, reference and access services, collaborative study rooms, rich print and digital collections, media facilities and — in many cases — cafes, information commons, conference space, classrooms, displays, and art installations.

How can libraries translate the benefits that our physical libraries offer to on-campus students and professors to serve our distance education students and faculty members in an equitable way? I believe we can do this through careful planning during building and renovation projects, through the creation or revamping of services and collections, and through the creation of specialized services to promote community and active learning.

During library building and renovation projects, space and technical infrastructures should be planned in a new way. Private office space for professionals, for example, is more important when a librarian could be on a lengthy, complicated phone call with a student overseas. Ample processing space is necessary for paraprofessionals providing document delivery and electronic reserves service. Growth space for developing print and media collections and robust technical infrastructure for access to the library’s digital resources also take on new importance in a distributed campus network.

Many other changes are needed that don’t have to do with physical structures but with services and resources that have real costs and need to be part of the library budget. For example, creation or revamping of services and collections should be undertaken with the overarching goal of providing services and resources to distance education students and faculty that are the equivalent of those provided on-campus. Services might include, for example, online request forms and second-day delivery of books and media from the main library to the requestor’s home or office with prepaid return labels; or online faculty reservations of videos/DVDs with delivery to the faculty’s home, office, or campus (if any). Several options might be offered for reference service, including live chat; Web conferencing with the capability to share screens; e-mail with a guaranteed 24-hour response; or low-tech, low-cost toll-free telephone assistance, which some patrons may prefer. Options for posting required or suggested readings might include a full-scale electronic reserves system or assistance with scanning and posting items to a courseware page, university portal, or Web page. Increasingly, libraries are taking a leadership role on campus in educating faculty about copyright compliance, while ensuring that their faculty may make full use of the rights accorded under the fair use provision of copyright law.

Providing opportunities for information literacy instruction to distance education students can be challenging but is possible through a variety of means. Options range from designing an online credit course to creating a series of online tutorials. The latter may be home-grown or adapted at no charge from established sites such as the Texas Information Literacy Tutorial. Webcasting technology offers the opportunity to “visit” remote classrooms at the request of the faculty member and tailor an instruction session to a particular assignment. All that is needed is a camera, computer, Internet connection, and Web conferencing software.

Providing equivalent resources to distance education students has a few challenges but is increasingly becoming easier. The number of academic databases with full-text content is growing exponentially. In many cases, it is possible to use existing funds by shifting resources from print to online. In other cases, consortiums may reduce the costs for a particular institution. Students love full-text articles but appear to be slow in adopting electronic books. If e-books are provided as a supplement to print resources available via document delivery, however, and marketed effectively as a database of information rather than as discrete titles to be read cover-to-cover, they can be useful.

Our challenge increasingly is not the inability to provide sufficient online resources but to make them the resources of choice by our students. We must compete with Internet search engines such as Google to market the quality of our resources and to make them as easy to search as possible. Software tools such as federated searching, which enables searching across many databases, and open URL resolvers, which enable more direct linking to full-text sources, go a long way in making our resources easier to use. However, we need to work with these software producers on continuing enhancements to these products and on new products that make research more seamless.

Perhaps most challenging for libraries in serving distance education students and faculty is creating a sense of community to promote learning. Some libraries are experimenting with blogs to address this, but these seem to have limited reach and focus. One promising direction, however, is helping distance education professors to promote community and active learning. The new library at my institution, Webster University, includes a Faculty Development Center that supports both on-campus faculty and distance education faculty. Resources for off-campus faculty include a discussion forum, where faculty members may discuss any topic on teaching and learning; share their expertise with each other; review new techniques to improve learning outcomes; discuss instructional technology software/hardware; or address common learning issues. Other resources include a new faculty orientation course, an active learning handbook, and most recently, live Web conferencing with a staff of instructional support specialists to offer individualized instructional support to faculty regardless of their location. Many institutions may find similar ways to serve the teaching and learning needs of their faculty in ways that benefit students.

In the last decade, almost a half-billion dollars per year have been invested in new or renovated academic libraries. With this rate of investment, it is imperative that we ensure that these new and renovated libraries meet the needs of our growing distance education population. We can do this in many ways — by investing in new resources, staff, and services; or by leveraging existing resources (in some cases across departments) in creative ways — but do it we must.

Ex-Merrill Lynch Analyst Sentenced for Insider Trading
A former Merrill Lynch analyst caught in a sprawling $7 million insider trading scheme must serve more than three years in prison to show Wall Street that sharing inside secrets will not be met with leniency, a judge said yesterday. The judge, Kenneth M. Karas of United States District Court in New York, said he was sending the former trader, Stanislav Shpigelman, to prison because he did not want those entrusted to protect secrets about stocks to think stellar academic backgrounds and great families would protect them from punishment for financial crimes.
"Ex-Merrill Lynch Analyst Sentenced for Insider Trading," The New York Times, January 6, 2007 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/06/business/06insider.html
Jensen Comment
This is only the first round. Generally scum bags like this get greatly reduced or suspended sentences on appeal. It's far worse to be poor and steal a loaf of bread.

Bob Jensen's threads on why white collar crime pays even if you get caught are at
 http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#CrimePays

Bob Jensen's "Rotten to the Core" threads are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm

Testing for Technology Literacy
Professors, librarians, and other college officials are increasingly coming to grips with the somewhat confounding reality that despite students’ affinity for IPods and their complete comfort with Google, many of them lack the technological literacy they need to navigate today’s information landscape. But recognizing the problem is not the same as knowing how to measure or fix it — tasks that many colleges are puzzling over.The California State University system is drawing a bead on a solution, though. Its officials are putting the finishing touches on a test — developed in conjunction with Educational Testing Service — that they believe accurately gauges students’ technological literacy. And they are contemplating making the test a requirement that students would have to pass to move on to higher level courses, much like they do now for writing proficiency.
Paul D. Thacker, "Testing for Technology Literacy," Inside Higher Ed, January 4, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/01/04/techtest

Researchers Use Wikipedia To Make Computers Smarter
Using Wikipedia, Technion researchers have developed a way to give computers knowledge of the world to help them “think smarter,” making common sense and broad-based connections between topics just as the human mind does. The new method will help computers filter e-mail spam, perform Web searches and even conduct intelligence gathering at more sophisticated levels than current programs.
"Researchers Use Wikipedia To Make Computers Smarter," PhysOrg, January 6, 2006 --- http://physorg.com/news87276588.html

The Wikipedia link is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

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

"Heed these tips to guard against mortgage fraud," MarketWatch, January 4, 2006 --- Click Here

Beware of the So-Called Investor Education Programs (especially beware of infomercials)
"I don't see frankly much out there that really does the job, and that's partially because investors are their own worst enemy," says former SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt. "They refuse to invest skeptically, and are too easily seduced by all the purveyors of financial products that prey upon their worst instincts."
"Investor Education 101: How to Avoid Scams:  Outreach Programs Target Most-Vulnerable Americans, But Success Is Hard to Assess,"  By Lynn Cowan, The Wall Street Journal, May 9, 2006; Page D3 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114713241888747241.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal
Jensen Comment
I personally do not trust the highly-advertised DiTech --- http://www.ditech.com/

Bob Jensen's threads on mortgages are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#MortgageAdvice

Quality Counts in Education
Education Week has released its annual “Quality Counts” look at education nationally and in the states. While the articles and data focus on elementary and secondary education, additional information this year examines state policies and performance in higher education.
Inside Higher Ed, January 4, 2006 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/01/04/qt

Plagiarism: Judge Posner Builds a Reputation Cutting and Pasting Opinions Written by Others
THE club of people accused of plagiarism gets ever larger. High-profile members include Stephen Ambrose, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Kaavya Viswanathan — of chick-lit notoriety — and now even Ian McEwan, whose best-selling novel “Atonement” has recently been discovered to harbor passages from a World War II memoir by Lucilla Andrews. Plagiarism is apparently so rife these days that it would be extremely satisfying to discover that “The Little Book of Plagiarism,” by Richard A. Posner, has itself been plagiarized. The watchdogs have been caught before. The section of the University of Oregon handbook that deals with plagiarism, for example, was copied from the Stanford handbook.Mr. Posner, moreover, is a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and a law professor at the University of Chicago who turns out books and articles with annoying frequency and facility. Surely, under deadline pressure, he is tempted every now and then to resort to a little clipping and pasting, especially since he cuts members of his own profession a good deal of slack on the plagiarism issue. In the book he readily acknowledges that judges publish opinions all the time that are in fact written by their clerks, but he excuses the practice on the ground that everyone knows about it and therefore no one is harmed. What he doesn’t consider much is whether a judge who gains a reputation for particularly well-written opinions or for seldom being reversed — or, for that matter, who is freed from his legal chores to do freelance writing — doesn’t benefit in much the same way as a student who persuades one of the smart kids to do his homework for him.
Charles McGrath, "Plagiarism: Everybody Into the Pool," New York Times Book Review, January 6 2007 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/07/education/edlife/07books.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Jensen Comment
My question is why it is so inconvenient for Judge Posner to add citations to his plagiarisms? His book might be of interest on Barf 101 courses, but that's about it.

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

Fraud: LA learns from New Orleans or vice versa

After downplaying the scope for years, Los Angeles County officials have started to quietly acknowledge that scams by county employees and recipients of county services may be costing taxpayers nearly $2billion a year. While there are no exact figures, the county Grand Jury last summer estimated welfare recipients are defrauding taxpayers of $500million a year. Prosecutors have estimated fraud in the food stamp, in-home care and health care programs costs more than $200million. "It's as though in all the public assistance programs - be it welfare, food stamps, child care or Section8 housing - someone put a pot of gold in the middle of the street and walked away from it with very little integrity controls," said James Cosper, head deputy in the District Attorney's Office Welfare Fraud Division.
Troy Anderson, "County fraud explodes $2 billion annual tab for worker, public abuse," LA Daily News, January 6, 2007 --- http://www.dailynews.com/ci_4965025

How well do blacks and Latino students compete in college? Moving Beyond Affirmative Action
Most colleges provide the public with very little information about racial and ethnic differences in students’ grades and graduation rates. Nor do they provide much information about the effectiveness of their diversity programs. So what should prospective minority students and their parents expect after being accepted? Unfortunately, the answer is that race and ethnicity are important predictors of college performance. Recent research confirms that white and Asian students not only enjoy pre-college advantages in family income and school quality, but on average, they also benefit throughout their college experience in ways that black and Latino students do not.
David R. Harris, "Moving Beyond Affirmative Action," Inside Higher Ed, January 4, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2007/01/04/harris

Bob Jensen's threads on affirmative action in student admissions are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#AcademicStandards

World's Highest Standard of Living --- http://masters-of-photography.com/images/full/bourke-white/b-w_living.jpg

Hot Ghetto Mess --- http://www.hotghettomess.com/index.php

Note from the Editor and Creator of the Hot Ghetto Mess Web site

"As long as ignorance prevails, blacks will be the tools of the exploiting class." --
Charles Hamilton Houston

What’s up my people. To those of you who are new to the site welcome and to my regular viewers, welcome back.

My mission with this site is to usher in a new era of self-examination. And because I am proud member of the black community, they are my priority. However, those of other races take note and if the shoe fits wear it. I think it is time that the black community or (insert your race here) needs to take a good look at itself in the mirror and each of us ask ourselves why are our communities are going to hell.

This site does not proclaim to know the answer to that question, for the answer is different for each of us. I want each and every person that reads these words to look at your life and ask how you can make yourself better, your community better or your kids better.

I am just holding up a mirror to my community so don’t blame me if you don’t like your reflection.

Frankly, the blame game is getting real tired. There is simply no excuse for not maintaining a high standard for yourself and your children. And by high standards I don’t mean expensive stuff, I means high standards of character. We already squander our considerable spending power on stuff and look where’s its gotten us. Yes, yes I know there is racism, there is inequality of opportunity, gross disparities in education and health care. But my reasoning is, BECAUSE there are all these things, it is even more imperative that we look inward and strengthen our communities ourselves. When I was growing up, my mother used to tell me that I had to be twice as good as my white counterparts to be considered equal. And of course we still have to fight the big fights for civil rights, health care reform, equality in education, economic opportunity but I just don’t see how we can do that when our own communities are in shambles. Those fights require cohesion and strength. Two things we are struggling with in the black community right now.

Back in the day, everyone lived together, the doctors and teachers and plumbers and lawyers and housewives and whinos all lived in the same community—so you had standard bearers-- role models, people for the kids to look up to. But now, with our cities economically segregated, there are areas of concentrated poverty where kids have no idea what opportunity is—not because there are none, because there is no one to show them what it is. The black middle class has moved to the suburbs and too often don’t have time to tutor or mentor an underprivileged child because by the time they get off work and brave traffic back to their McMansion, where has the day gone. Now we all bear part of the blame, the middle class has moved up and out never looking back to help our less fortunate brothers and sisters, and some of our less fortunate brothers and sisters conduct their lives like idiots.

And money isn’t always the answer, just because you are poor that doesn’t give you license to live any kind of way. You can pick up the trash in front of your damn door.

Just because you are poor doesn’t mean you don’t have to support your children, respect women, live in a pig sty or you can have 5 kids by different fathers. To say that we shouldn’t expect strength of character from a person because they are poor is insulting to all the hard working folks scratching and scraping to get by but know they must set a high standard for themselves and their children if they ever want to change their condition. Look at black folks in the 20’s and 30’s when we didn’t have two nickels to rub together but we had pride in ourselves and our image. And you’re just as bad if you ARE making money and not helping somebody else along the way.

So again, I ask what are we doing to help each other because as Farrakhan said recently, “the days of the benevolent white man are over.” Power concedes nothing. All we got is us people. We can’t afford to live like we’re living. From school, to clothing to music, to our children—where have our standards gone? And if our own can’t come out and rally for change, who can? Why do we so often condemn the people who point out what’s wrong instead of condemning the behavior?

And I will say again, to all of you who are angry at me for airing our dirty laundry—good I’m glad you’re angry, now maybe collectively, including me, we’ll be forced to finally go wash it. This site is the beginning, the ending is up to us.

Peace.
Jam Donaldson

Also see "'We Got To Do Better'," by Amy Alexander, The Nation, December 20, 2006 --- http://www.thenation.com/docprem.mhtml?i=20070108&s=alexander
 

Updates from WebMD --- http://www.webmd.com/

New Small Business Helpers

From the Smart Stops on the Web, Journal of Accountancy, January 2007 --- http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/jan2007/news_web.htm

The Health Benefits Adviser
www.dol.gov/elaws/ebsahealth.htm
This Web site of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration has all the information employees and employers need to know about federal laws related to workforce health benefits. There are discussions on COBRA continuation health coverage, a glossary of benefits terms and guidance for employees on Medicare eligibility. Publications offers 10 ways to make your health benefits work for you with a detailed review of your coverage.

Get the Word Out
www.givetogetmarketing.com
Business marketer Joe Gracia’s home on the Web offers entrepreneurs and small businesses hundreds of marketing tips. Read advertising case studies, get low-cost promotional ideas and tips for writing attention-grabbing headlines. Find five ways to attract Web visitors, read marketing myths and get tips from David Letterman and Jay Leno on how to grow your sales.

Cybersafety First
www.staysafeonline.org
Is your PC secure from threats? This site’s self-assessment quiz will show just how safe your computer is. Get eight cybersecurity best practices, links for protecting your children when they’re online and tutorials on cybersecurity and data recovery for small businesses. Research business cases on computer security in accounting firms and manufacturing companies and access self-assessment guides and checklists.

Go to the Guru
www.actionplan.com
Marketing strategist Robert Middleton shares tactics for getting your business noticed at his Web site. Register for the 24-page marketing plan workbook and information on how to attract new clients, develop a core marketing message and write an executive summary for your business.

Bob Jensen's small business helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob1.htm#SmallBusiness

Wanting Red to be Read
"Where The New York Times Is Coming From," by George Reisman, December 29, 2006 --- 
http://www.georgereisman.com/blog/

Below are the headlines of four obituaries that have run in The New York Times. The first is that of the recent obituary of the Anti-Communist Augusto Pinochet. The next three are those of the obituaries of the Communist mass murderers Mao, Stalin, and Lenin. Please be sure to note how many are described as having ruled by terror.

December 11, 2006, Augusto Pinochet, Dictator Who Ruled by Terror in Chile, Dies at 91

September 10, 1976, Friday, . . . Mao Tse-tung Dies in Peking at 82; Leader of Red China's Revolution

March 6, 1953, Friday, Stalin Rose From Czarist Oppression to Transform Russia Into Mighty Socialist State; RUTHLESS IN MOVING TO GOALS

January 24, 1924, Thursday, ENORMOUS CROWDS VIEW LENIN'S BODY AS IT LIES IN STATE; Wait Hours in Snow and Zero Temperature Outside Moscow Nobles' Club. COFFIN CARRIED FIVE MILES Members of Council of Commissars Stagger Under Load, Refusing Gun Caisson. LENIN CALLED A CHRISTIAN Archbishop Summons Synod to Declare Founder of Bolshevism Member of Church. ENORMOUS CROWDS VIEW LENIN'S BODY

In these headlines we find utter condemnation of a dictator who was relatively mild as dictators go, but who was Anti-Communist; his leading characteristic was allegedly rule by “Terror.”

In contrast, in the case of Communist mass murderers we find non-judgmental tolerance in the headlines, along with a studious refusal to mention the incalculably greater terrors they caused. More than that, we find positive esteem and enthusiasm in the headlines for the Communist mass murderers. Thus Mao was the “Leader of Red China’s Revolution”; Stalin allegedly transformed “Russia Into Mighty Socialist State”; and Lenin’s funeral was described as a phenomenon of near worshipful enthusiasm: “…COFFIN CARRIED FIVE MILES Members of Council of Commissars Stagger Under Load, Refusing Gun Caisson…”

 

It is patterns such as this that lead some people to think that the reporting of The New York Times is colored by its politics and that the color of its politics is red.

Forwarded by Auntie Bev

More Tidbits from the Chronicle of Higher Education --- http://www.aldaily.com/

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/.

Three Finance Blogs

Jim Mahar's FinanceProfessor Blog --- http://financeprofessorblog.blogspot.com/
FinancialRounds Blog --- http://financialrounds.blogspot.com/
Karen Alpert's FinancialMusings (Australia) --- http://financemusings.blogspot.com/

Some Accounting Blogs

Paul Pacter's IAS Plus (International Accounting) --- http://www.iasplus.com/index.htm
International Association of Accountants News --- http://www.aia.org.uk/
AccountingEducation.com and Double Entries --- http://www.accountingeducation.com/
Gerald Trite's eBusiness and XBRL Blogs --- http://www.zorba.ca/
AccountingWeb --- http://www.accountingweb.com/   
SmartPros --- http://www.smartpros.com/

Bob Jensen's Sort-of Blogs --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/JensenBlogs.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called New Bookmarks --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called Tidbits --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called Fraud Updates --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm

Richard Torian's Managerial Accounting Information Center --- http://www.informationforaccountants.com/ 

Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob) http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
190 Sunset Hill Road
Sugar Hill, NH 03586
Phone:  603-823-8482 
Email:  rjensen@trinity.edu