More Administrators hired than faculty!

August 17, 2010, 03:10 PM ET  http://theissueslist.blogspot.com/

Growth in Administrators
Outstrips Growth in Faculty Members

A report issued today says that the number of administrators for every 100 college students increased by 39 percent from 1993 to 2007, while the number of professors and researchers rose by 18 percent during that period. The study of 198 public and private universities was released by the nonprofit Goldwater Insitute, and led by Jay P. Greene, a senior fellow at the institute who is also head of the department of education reform at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. Officials at one university system, the University of Texas, objected to the study's methodology. They told The Dallas Morning News that the study included counselors, deans, and accountants in the administrative ranks, which artificially inflated those numbers. Mr. Greene said the point was to account for staff not directly involved in instruction or research. His report blames this "bloat" for the increase in college costs.

Is Government the solution or the problem?

Effective leaders in various governments have created productive jobs and steered economies from ruin to prosperity.  Freely established nations of good people have banded together to secure the peace, protect their freedom, and realize justice according to a foundation in the rule of law.

Recessions may come and go, but these are merely fluctuations in economic conditions which transcend governments, taxes, and the vicissitudes of nature. Government spending, when creatively administered, demonstrably raised all ships and move us from the great depression into a position of strength and security as the richest and most powerful nation in modern history.

Obama is creating great uncertainty by allowing the Bush tax's to continue.  His surrender to corporate insiders on health care has been a disaster, although what small steps forward which have been made are helpful. The decision by congress to consider heath insurance premiums as taxable income is insane. 

The astronomical debts run up by the Bush and Cheney administration have crippled this nation for the next half century.  If our current president would reject endless wars and occupations as a platform, we might be able to move forward. Businesses in American will hire when our government stops exporting jobs overseas in blatant surrender to transnational economic cartels who have bought this this nation. 

Personal incomes in America have been in decline for the past ten years.  Until we begin to invest in America, incomes will continue this downward spiral.

Bush's Third Term....

In his campaign stump speech, Obama said that he wanted to
restore the moral high ground he thought was lost under Bush:
"We are going to lead by example, by maintaining the highest
standards of civil liberties and human rights."
He explained ways this would be accomplished.
"Close down Guantanamo, restore habeas corpus (the right
to see the evidence against you), say no to renditions,
no to wireless wiretapping."  He also declared that single
payer was the only solution to our health care crisis. 
How did he do?
Obama has not closed Guantanamo -- and some Guantanamo
prisoners have reported harsher treatment under Obama. 
The Obama administration has argued against extending habeas
corpus to some prisoners, and it has continued rendition
and warrantless wiretapping. In fact, Obama went further:
secret sentences. Osama bin Laden's cook Ibrahim al-Qosi
was convicted, and his sentence will not be revealed until it's
been completed.

Obama criticized Bush for claiming that the U.S. president |
has the authority to detain U.S. citizens without charges.
Osama’s administration goes further and says that, without
charges or evidence, the president has the authority to kill
U.S. citizens and even maintains a list of citizens targeted for
assassination. Obama complained about the "revelation of
secret programs" under Bush; yet, as a Washington Post
headline said this summer, "U.S. 'secret war' expands globally."

The Bush administration was criticized for making backroom
deals where the participants weren't revealed. Obama promised
his administration would be transparent and that, for instance,
he would make every aspect of the health care reform debate
open to public view, even broadcasting all negotiations on C-Span.

In practice, Obama held back names of health industry
representatives meeting behind closed doors in the
White House until a lawsuit was filed and didn't
allow transparent health care negotiations or for
them to be broadcast. He has, however, been more
open than any other administration, according to the
Pulitzer-winning PolitiFact, and posts most visitors
online, with exceptions for "sensitive meetings."
Obama criticized Bush for being in bed with oil interests.
But Bush's people were left in place in the Minerals
Management Service, which approved without
inspection at the behest of oil interests the drilling
permit that led to the Gulf\of Mexico spill. Rolling
Stone reported that staffers throughout the Interior
Department refer to working there now as "Bush's
third term."

There are many more similarities, such as in the use of
military tribunals instead of traditional courts,
Middle Eastern strategy and lack of protection
for whistle-blowers.  And the Cheney-Bush policy
of endless war to enforce corporate occupations...
has only continued and expanded.

All that said, there are examples where Obama has gone against Bush policies: abortion, children's health insurance, tax cuts for the rich and the release of torture memos.

The verdict
So would a person have to be "crazy" to compare
George W. Bush's presidential policies with those
of Barack Obama's?

No. Bush and Obama have behaved similarly on
major issues, including energy policy, government
transparency, terrorism, civil liberties, health care,
war & peace.  Obama, like Bush and Cheney,
favor judicial homicide, even when compelling
evidence exists that such laws result in the deaths
of innocents and undermine the moral authority
of the law.

We deserve better.  All we can hope for now,
is that some more progressive candidate may emerge
so that Bush does not get a Fourth Term.

Hiroshima

"In visiting Hiroshima, Obama wouldn't question the service and sacrifice of American veterans. The purpose wouldn't be to make America or Americans feel guilty about the past. Rather, he could begin putting into action his talk of a world free of nuclear weapons. Hiroshima is a stark reminder of the incomparable destruction wrought by nuclear weapons. 

...Obama is ideally suited to alter the conversation on Hiroshima. He has changed America by reintroducing hope into the political and social conversation during a time of financial crisis and war. 

...By paying his respects to those who died in Hiroshima, Obama can show both Japan and the rest of the world that Americans take this history seriously, that we say in one voice "never again."

The U.S. president can also help inaugurate a new era in relations between Washington and Tokyo. The new Japanese Prime Minister, Yukio Hatoyama, stood at the United Nations last month and invited leaders to understand the need for a world free of nuclear weapons from the perspective of those who were in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Hatoyama did so not to blame Americans for this history, but rather to articulate Japan's responsibility as the only country to be devastated by such bombs: Others must never know such suffering. The new Japanese prime minister is also promising a forthright examination of Japan's role in World War II. It's time for President Obama to make this a joint endeavor.

As the president wrestles with the intricacies of Afghanistan's future, recognizing America's past history should be fairly straightforward by comparison. His visit would give him and the United States credibility to move forward in setting the tone for discussions of nuclear nonproliferation, weapons reduction, and, ultimately, their abolition. We can only focus on this future if we deal honestly with the past.

Put differently, if Mr. Obama cannot visit Hiroshima, why would the leader of any other country believe he or any American could turn words about a non-nuclear world into action?

© 2009 Foreign Policy in Focus

John Feffer

On the "decline" of Europe...

Europe is moving forward: securing peace, embracing justice,
and enhancing freedom.  Many all over the world embrace these
articles of faith and have the courage to walk the talk.

Those who indulge in fear-mongering, war, aggression, occupation,
exploitation, and exclusion will not prevail.  Good people are building
bridges to a more abundant future. The cynics and those who do little
but whine and complain will be displaced and transcended by people
of vision with serenity in their hearts. Not to worry."

For the Tea Party Pretenders...

Tea Party pretenders claim government is always bad...

But reality intervenes:

Effective leaders in various governments have created productive jobs
and steered economies from ruin to prosperity.  Freely established
nations of good people have banded together to secure the peace,
protect their freedom, and realize justice according to a foundation 
in the rule of law and the good people among them.

Recessions may come and go, but these are merely fluctuations in
economic conditions which transcend governments, taxes, and the 
vicissitudes of nature. Government spending, when creatively 
administered, demonstrably has raised all ships.

 In America, government job creation moved us from the great depression
into a position of strength and security as the richest and most
powerful nation in modern history. 


Obama is creating great uncertainty by allowing the Bush taxs cuts to
continue.  His surrender to corporate insiders on health care has been a 
disaster, although what small steps forward which have been made are
helpful. The decision by congress to consider heath insurance premiums
as taxable income is insane.  The astronomical debts run up by the Bush and
Cheney administration have crippled this nation for the next half century. 

If our current president would reject endless wars and occupations
as a platform, we might be able to move forward. Businesses in American will
hire when our government stops exporting jobs overseas in blatant surrender to

transnational economic cartels who have bought (and stolen) this this nation. 

Personal incomes in America have been in decline for the past ten years.  

Until we begin to invest in America, incomes will continue this downward spiral.

We can do better.  And the government (which is us) can be part of the solution.
Tim

Dangerous Disinformation

Disinformation is Dangerous


The American people will not allow
King George, Dick Cheney, or Rush Limbaugh
to destroy this nation by making neo-colonialism
national policy.

Allowing transnational economic cartels to
dictate terms for healthcare and misuse our military
for corporate ambitions overseas... clearly destroyed
our economy during the Cheney fiasco and does not
serve us well today. The residual effects of Cheney's
betrayal and collaboration with the oil industry now |
soils our shores, contaminates our resources, and
diminishes our future. No more.

Patriotic Americans will take back this nation.
Corporate ambitions for occupation and exploitation
have cost millions of lives and trillions of dollars.
These crippling blows are not partisan issues.

Taking back this nation is a matter of survival.
Those who depend on infortainment for their "news"
will be in for a surprise during this election cycle.

They were surprised when a black man won the
presidency. And they will be more surprised when
a liberal majority in America (from both sides of the
aisle and beyond) take back this nation from the
Fortune 500 and install principled leadership to
secure prosperity and progress based on
peace instead of war, construction instead of destruction,
and courage instead of fear.

in solidarity and with best regards, Tim

http://sites.google.com/site/constitutionalrightsresource/disinformation

Post Script:  The "pajama party" is not a "news" service.
They deliver disinformation. Pure and simple.
Their product might more accurately
be called info-tainment.
Their various contributors
aim at the lowest common
denominators of ignorance
and fear. We must depend on proactive
journalists to debunk their junk.

Timothy Flanagan,
editor at The Wordsmith Collection

Facts still matter.
Take a look at this offering from http://newsjunkiepost.com/

"The top 50 conservative websites are a fascinating compilation that
seems to be dominated by disinformation. That is, false information
promoted in order to influence public opinion or the government.
They demonstrate a high degree of alarmism coupled with a serious
lack of journalistic integrity, which can be a noxious mix that helps
ignorance grow."

    http://www.unionresource.org/
"Together we make a difference."

Nothin' but the truth...

"I know how easy it is for one to stay well within moral, ethical, and legal bounds through the skillful use of words - and to thereby spin, sidestep, circumvent, or bend a truth completely out of shape. To that extent, we are all liars on numerous occasions."

~Sidney Poitier

"In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
~George Orwell"  

"By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth."

~George Carlin

"The truth isn't always beauty, 
but the hunger for it is."
~Nadine Gordimer




"Wisdom is found only in truth."
~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


"A thing is not necessarily
true because a man dies for it."
~ Oscar Wilde



"Truth only reveals itself
when one gives up all
preconceived ideas."
~Shoseki

“The truth is rarely pure
  and never simple.”
  ~ Oscar Wilde


"Nothing is easier
 than self-deceit.
 For what each man wishes,
 that he also
 believes to be true."
~Demosthenes

"Believe those who are seeking
the truth; doubt those who find it."
~Andre Gide




"The ultimate test
of what a truth means
is the conduct it
dictates or inspires."
~ William James

"Truth resides in every human heart,
and one has to search for it there,
and to be guided
by truth as one sees it.
But no one has a right
to coerce others to act according
to his own view of truth. 
~Edmund Burke

"Ye shall know the truth,
and the truth shall make you mad."
~Aldous Huxley


"It's no wonder that truth
is stranger than fiction,
Fiction has to make sense."

~Mark Twain

"I'm for truth,
no matter who tells it.
I'm for justice,
no matter who
it's for
or against."

~Malcolm X 

"Truth is mighty and will prevail.
There is nothing the matter with
this, except that it ain't so."
~Mark Twain




"What people believe
prevails over the truth."
~SOPHOCLES

"I believe that
unarmed truth and
unconditional love
will have the final
word in reality."
 ~Martin Luther King, Jr.



"All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie."

~Bob Dylan

"I preach there are all kinds of truth, your truth and somebody else's. But behind all of them there is only one truth and that is that there's no truth."

~Flannery O'Connor

"People like to say that the conflict is between good and evil. The real conflict is between truth and lies."

~Miguel Angel Ruiz

"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

~Arthur Conan Doyle

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened."

~Winston Churchill

"Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters."

~Albert Einstein

"There are only two things. Truth and lies. Truth is indivisible, hence it cannot recognize itself; anyone who wants to recognize it has to be a lie."

~Franz Kafka

"The truth is of course is that there is no journey. We are arriving and departing all at the same time."

~David Bowie

"Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake."

~Wallace Stevens

"I talk about the gods, I am an atheist. But I am an artist too, and therefore a liar. Distrust everything I say. I am telling the truth."

~Ursula K. Le Guin

"Only on paper has humanity yet achieved glory, beauty, truth, knowledge, virtue, and abiding love."

~George Bernard Shaw

_____________________________________________________

The Wordsmith Collection: Writing & Creative Arts
http://writingresource.blogspot.com/p/please-donate-to-keep-these-resources.html

Please Donate for Literacy and to keep this resource online

New Arizona Law

The law is unconstitutional.
It will not stand up to judicial review.
The law is most vulnerable to the argument
that it essentially criminalizes "walking
while Hispanic."

1. Under the Constitution,
    federal law is the supreme law of the land
    and states may not pass laws that seek to
    overshadow federal statutes.

2. The law violates the Fourth Amendment
     which protects people from unlawful search
     and seizure.
3. The 14th Amendment is compromised in this "law."
    The amendment clearly states that any person in the
    jurisdiction of a state, not just citizens, should be
    protected equally by the laws.

4. Legislators and experts on the law agree it is unconsitutional.

Senator Lindsey Graham (R) of South Carolina,
Karl Manheim of Loyola Law School in Los Angeles,
and Erwin Chemerinsky of UC Irvine Law
agree the law is “unconstitutional.”

5.  Arizona's New Immigration Law: Unconstitutional, Bad Policy

     Opinion by Southern Poverty Law Center
http://sites.google.com/site/pdxafsc/arizonalaw

Question Authority?

"Unthinking respect
  for authority
  is the greatest
  enemy of truth.

    Albert Einstein

"No oppression is
  so heavy or lasting
  as that which is inflicted
  by the perversion and
  exorbitance of legal authority."
    ~ Joseph Addison ~

"We too often bind ourselves by authorities
  rather than by the truth."
    - Lucretia Coffin Mott

~Benjamin Franklin was often quoted as saying

"It is the first
  responsibility
  of every
  citizen to
  question
  authority."

Those who do not rightly question
authority may surrender to murder,
chaos, or fascism.
...Lest we forget.

If more people asked questions,
we might save millions of lives and
trillions of dollars needlessly squandered.

But too many voluntarily surrender to
fear, compromising their values in silence.

  tmf

"Nothing
  strengthens authority
  so much as silence."
    ~ Leonardo da Vinci


"The disappearance
  of a sense of
  responsibility
  is the most far-reaching
  consequence of
  submission to authority."
            Stanley Milgram

“The only thing
  necessary for
  the triumph of
  evil is for good men
  to do nothing” 

    Edmund Burke


"The ultimate authority must always
  rest with the individual's own
  reason and critical analysis."

    Dalai Lama

"A central lesson of science
  is that to understand complex
  issues (or even simple ones),
  we must try to free our minds
  of dogma and to guarantee the
  freedom to publish, to contradict,

  and to experiment.

  ...Arguments from authority
are unacceptable."
       Carl Sagan


"But man, proud man,
  Drest in a little brief authority,
  Most ignorant of
  what he’s most assur’d,

  His glassy essence,
  like an angry ape,
  Plays such fantastic tricks
  before high heaven,
  As make the angels weep."
    Measure for Measure.
    Act II. Sc. 2. L. 117.

"It is dangerous
  to be right in matters
  on which the
  established authorities
  are wrong."
    Voltaire

"No moral system can rest solely on authority."
    A J Ayer

"The vices of authority
  are chiefly four:
  delays, corruption,
  roughness, and facility."
    -Bacon, Francis,
    Viscount St Albans
     Essays, no.11,
     'Of Great Place'.



"Every great advance in natural knowledge
    has involved the absolute rejection of authority."
       Thomas Huxley

"Authority in science exists to be questioned,
  since heresy is the spring from which new ideas flow."
     — John C. Polanyi

"A position of authority is neither

  necessary nor sufficient
  for the exercise of leadership."
    Eric Werkowitz

"The faith that stands
on authority is not faith.”
    Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Unthinking respect for authority
  is the greatest enemy of truth.”
    Albert Einstein

"No statement should
  be believed because it
  is made by an authority.”
    Robert A. Heinlein

“Anyone who conducts
  an argument by
  appealing to authority
  is not using his intelligence”
    Leonardo da Vinci

“All authority belongs to the people”
    Thomas Jefferson

"I was bold in the
  pursuit of knowledge,
  never fearing to follow
  truth and reason
  to whatever results they led,
  and bearding every authority
  which stood in their way."

    Thomas Jefferson

"Men in authority will always think that
  criticism of their policies is dangerous.
  They will always equate their policies
  with patriotism, and find criticism subversive."
    Henry Steele Commager

“Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.”
    Howard Zinn

|"What you need is sustained outrage...
  there's far too much unthinking respect
  given to authority." 
    Molly Ivins

"The examples of vice at home corrupt
  us more quickly and easily than others,
  since they steal into our minds under
  the highest authority.
    Decimus (Junius Juvenalis)
Juvenal c.55-c.130
    Roman Satirical Poet

"An argument from authority
  is but a weak kind
  of proof,--it being but a
  topical probation, and
  an inartificial argument
 depending on
  naked asseveration."

    - Sir Thomas Browne

"Science is not perfect. It can be misused.
  It is only a tool. But it is by far the best tool we
  have, self-correcting, ongoing, applicable to everything.
  It has two rules. First: there are no sacred truths; all
  assumptions must be critically examined; arguments
  from authority are worthless. Second: whatever is
  inconsistent with the facts must be discarded or revised.
  ... The obvious is sometimes false; the unexpected is
  sometimes true.

     — Carl Sagan

"The reason why the simpler sort are moved
  by authority is the consciousness
  of their own ignorance."
    - Richard Hooker

"Authority has always
  attracted the lowest
  elements in the human race.
  All through history
  mankind has been
  bullied by scum.
  Those who lord it over
  their fellows and toss
  commands in every
  direction and would
  boss the grass in the
  meadow about which
  way to bend in the wind
  are the most depraved kind of prostitutes.
  They will submit to any indignity, perform
  any vile act, do anything to achieve power.
  The worst off-sloughings of the planet are
  the ingredients of sovereignty. Every
  government is a parliament of whores.
  The trouble is, in a democracy the whores are us."

    P. J. O'Rourke

"If you attack the establishment
  long enough and hard enough,
  they will make you a member of it."
    Art Buchwald

"The public school system:
  Usually a twelve-year
  sentence of mind control.
  Crushing creativity,
  smashing individualism,
  encouraging collectivism and compromise,
destroying the exercise of intellectual inquiry, twisting
  it instead into meek subservience to authority."
    Walter Karp
 

"Respect authority while questioning it.
    Randy Pausch

"The wisest have the most authority."
     Plato

"Perhaps nothing in our society
  is more needed for those in
  positions of authority
  than accountability."
    Larry Burkett