Author: southwerk

I am a 53 year old teacher. I have double major in Speech and Criminal Justice resulting in a Bachelor's degree from Northeastern State University in Oklahoma and a law degree.

Hong Kong’s Monster Parents

On By southwerkIn Capitalism2 Comments
SVG map of Hong Kong's administrative districts.
SVG map of Hong Kong’s administrative districts. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

I think something similar has been happening here for some time. It’s because of neoliberalism, the doctrine that education is a good to be purchased like a car or a vacation house. We, Americans, strive for an education to get and keep a job forgetting that education has other vital purposes like the creation of whole and vital human beings. The Chinese in Hong Kong also pursue an education for a job but also for social status, and, of course, their system of high school ends in a test that determines who goes to college and who does not. Less than half will qualify. Our testing regime is hideous beyond words but it does not carry that penalty, at least not yet.

 

I have a lot of sympathy for Monster parents. There is unfairness for some students. One of my son’s high school teachers told him that he would never go to college. Since my wife (now ex-wife) and I have two degrees apiece, we thought he probably would go to college (he’s attending one now). I let the matter blow over but there is a part of me that wanted confrontation, a confrontation that teacher would not have forgotten.

 

Still, however sympathetic I may be, I can’t see putting a child through a childhood absent play and solitude.

 

James Pilant 

 

 

The Existential Angst of Hong Kong’s ‘Monster Parents’ | Yuen Chan

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/yuen-chan/hong-kong-monster-parents_b_4058306.html

 

For a story about the pressures of early childhood in Hong Kong, my students recently interviewed the mother of a four-year-old who has soccer class on Mondays, piano and violin on Thursdays, extra English and maths on Thursdays and Fridays and music on Saturdays. She was also considering Mandarin and swimming, and all this on top of kindergarten. This may be an extreme case, but there is constant pressure for parents to put their kids on the treadmill and a lucrative industry to promote it.

 

Unsurprisingly, there was much hand-wringing when a survey published by a local university found Hong Kong\’s school children scored higher than those in the United States, Britain and Australia in a questionnaire that detects antisocial traits. Researchers warned that monster parents were creating a generation of over-confident, spoilt brats with a tendency towards aggression and violence to get their way.

 

But it seems too easy to point the finger at parents, simultaneously accused of fostering cowering, over-dependent children and violent narcissists. Parents are trapped in a pressure cooker — an education system that emphasizes academic achievement, as measured in test results, above all else, a culture that deems those without university degrees as failures.

 

What\’s worse, more and more students are attaining the minimum grades needed to qualify to study …(Please visit the web site and read the whole article. jp)

 

via The Existential Angst of Hong Kong’s ‘Monster Parents’ | Yuen Chan.

 

From around the web.

 

From the web site, Education in Japan Community Blog.

 

http://educationinjapan.wordpress.com/parenting-potpourri/monster-parents-and-monster-kids/

 

These days, in Japan at least, there is a great hoo-hah over the

issue of Monster Parents, on the heels of an earlier debate over the

overindulged, selfish and adrift youngsters.

 

These issues are of course not confined to Japan. A quick google on

the internet and you will see that the Monster Parents in India, in the

USA, and the issue of overindulged kids surfaces often in China where

the one-child government policy has resulted in children so precious,

and thus overindulged by society at large. If you ever manage to catch

Super Nanny the British (virtual TV of sorts) series, it’s good for a

jolting confrontation with screaming brats and yelling dads, etc.

 

Nor is the issue as many experts say it is, a phenomenon of our

times. Catching up on a Jane Austen fest on cable TV, and rereading many

Victorian (Regency) classics in the past two weeks, I realized that

“monster parents” and spoilt brats were very much shown up in nearly

every book and often caricatured in ways totally recognizable to us.

 

The Victorian classics were written by young women like Jane Austen

or Charlotte Bronte, who were, being from slightly reduced financial

circumstances, forced to be sensible and to move in the circles of the

clergyhood or governnesses. As such they were highly attuned to the

idiosyncracies, selfish behavioral displays, highhandedness,

snobbishness, vulgarity even, of privileged parents of Victorian high

society…as opposed to the necessary humility, down-to-earthness of the

working or servant classes.

 

The Cyber Schools are Failing

On By southwerkIn business ethics3 Comments
English: Comparison of Charter school performa...
English: Comparison of Charter school performance to public schools. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

And why should anybody have expected anything else? Whose brilliant idea was it to have a cyber school without physical facilities? I teach online and maintain a blog. I don’t know about you but it is hard to stay focused on that keyboard when there are so many other things to do, and I’m an adult with years of education. I can’t imagine doing it as a child. The idea that parents who are often working would be able to supervise their children to stay on the computer for hours each day to take classes boggles the mind. The idea that the discipline and rules of a school necessary to keep children at those tasks could simply be abandoned in the hope of voluntary self education on the part of children was always a bit of a stretch.

It’s not working. Take their state money and send these for-profit failure on their way. We have real schools to fund.

James Pilant

From Junk Bonds to Junk Schools: Cyber Schools Fleece Taxpayers for Phantom Students and Failing Grades | Mary Bottari

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mary-bottari/online-charter-schools_b_4030954.html?utm_hp_ref=business

The Data Is In: Kids Don\’t Learn Well in Front of Computer Screens

So while the public school system is bleeding money to cyber schools, how are those cyber students doing? Until recently, data on performance of these full-time virtual charters has been scarce. But educators at NEPC started to pull together performance data from multiple states for annual and special reports. They confirmed what many suspected: with rare exceptions, kids don\’t learn sitting in front of a computer all day. Using Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) state data, state performance rankings, and graduation rates, the researchers showed that full-time virtual schools lag significantly behind traditional brick-and-mortar schools. In particular, only 27.7 percent of K12 Inc. online schools met AYP in 2010-2011, compared to 52 percent of public schools. Of the 36 K12 Inc. schools that were assigned a school rating by state education authorities, only seven (19.4 percent) had ratings that clearly indicated satisfactory status. The same study shows that on-time graduation rates are also much lower at online schools than at all public schools on average in the United States: only 37.6 percent of students at virtual high schools graduate on time, whereas the national average for all public high schools is more than doubl

via From Junk Bonds to Junk Schools: Cyber Schools Fleece Taxpayers for Phantom Students and Failing Grades | Mary Bottari.

From around the web.

From the web site, Virtual School Meanderings.

http://virtualschooling.wordpress.com/2010/04/06/problem-with-cyber-charter-schools-pa-nj-edition/

I say interesting for a number of reasons, but one is due to the location.  Cyber charter schools in Pennsylvania (and Ohio for that matter) when they were first created did suffer from many of the problems described in these articles (e.g., lack of oversight, fraud in terms of funding provided for students that didn’t actually attend the cyber charter school, lack of participation in state testing regimes, etc.).  While I believe in both instances (i.e., Pennsylvania and Ohio) that things have gotten much better, I do still believe that within the traditional public education community this early “Wild West” mentality gained them a reputation that they still haven’t been able to shake (and that has followed cyber charter schools to other jurisdictions).

It is also interesting because the main focus of these articles is Pennsylvania.  You see a doctoral student of mine, Abigail Hawkins, and I did a study a couple of years ago looking at what policies K-12 online learning programs had with regards to trial periods (i.e., that period of time a student can try out an online course, drop it and not be counted as being officially enrolled) and how they calculated successful completions.  Note that this study will be published in the American Journal of Distance Education sometime this month. One of the results of that study was a finding that in Pennsylvania the state required that cyber charter schools not have a trial period – that their enrollment data was kept in the same manner as a brick-and-mortar public school (i.e., beginning on the first day of school).  This was the only jurisdiction where this was done.  What this means is that comparisons of completion rates, school performance and student performance can be accurately made between the cyber charter schools and the brick-and-mortar schools in Pennsylvania – and only Pennsylvania – because you are comparing apples to apples.

So let’s do some very basic comparisons.  The Standard of education article lists that there was 1 cyber charter school making AYP, 3 cyber charter schools that were making progress towards meeting AYP, and 7 cyber charter schools not meeting AYP.  When you compare this statewide (and you can get that data here), you get the following:

Type of school Made AYP Making Progress Towards AYP Did Not Meet AYP Total
Cyber Charter Schools 1 (9.1%) 3 (27.3%) 7 (63.7%) 11
Brick-And-Mortar Schools 2290 (73.8%) 149 (4.8%) 665 (21.4%) 3104
Total 2291 (73.5%) 152 (4.9%) 672 (21.6%) 3115

The numbers don’t look particularly good for the cyber charter school community.  I should note that it would be a much better comparison is you could compare the overall student data – which I’ve never done for Pennsylvania – although it would make a nice dissertation project because of the whole apples to apples thing.

Literature Promotes Insight

On By southwerkIn Editorial

I firmly believe that literature is a guide to how other people think, an insight into how other minds differ from yours. I recommend to my business students that they take classes in art, science and literature. Business courses prepare you for business problems. Liberal arts prepare you to live a life of meaning and purpose.

 

Of course, my students don’t read enough. Oh, they do, if you count their social media and the powerpoints they see in class but real reading is tackling college level text for more than five minutes. That kind of reading develops brain power, and according to the study here referenced, an enhanced ability to empathize and understand others.

 

James Pilant

 

Statue, Tomsk. "Anton Pavlovich in Tomsk—...
Statue, Tomsk. “Anton Pavlovich in Tomsk—drunkard’s view, lying in a ditch, who never read Kashtanka” Print issues, Siberia. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Jonathan Franzen can help you read people – Salon.com

 

http://www.salon.com/2013/10/06/literary_fiction_helps_us_read_people_partner/

 

Beach reading season is over, so it’s time to plunge into some serious fiction. But if the idea of plowing through a Pynchon feels a bit too much like work, here’s a piece of news that may inspire you: Doing so may help you better discern the beliefs, motivations, and emotions of those around you.That’s the conclusion of a just-published study by two scholars from the New School for Social Research in New York. David Comer Kidd and Emanuele Castano report that reading literature uniquely boosts “the capacity to identify and understand others’ subjective states.”Literary fiction, they note in the journal Science, “uniquely engages the psychological processes needed to gain access to characters’ subjective experiences.” Unlike most popular fiction, which “tends to portray the world and its characters as internally consistent and predictable,” these works require readers to contend with complex, sometimes contradictory characters.According to Kidd and Castano, this sort of active engagement increases our ability to understand and appreciate the similarly complicated people we come across in real life.The researchers provide evidence for their thesis in the form of five experiments, all of which were conducted online. In the first, the 86 participants read either a short literary work (by Chekhov, Don DeLillo, or …

 

(Please visit the web site and read the whole article! jp)

 

via Jonathan Franzen can help you read people – Salon.com.

 

From around the web.

 

From the web site, Stephanie’s Wicked Awesome Words.

 

http://myotts.wordpress.com/2007/02/24/the-importance-of-classic-literature/

 

The great writers of the classics were masters in their craft. They
knew how to write well and effectively, and how to compose pieces that
would continue to instill wisdom centuries into the future. In other
subjects, such as chemistry, calculus, and history, students study those
people who were masters in these fields. They concentrate on gleaning
knowledge from those who were the most accomplished and had the most to
offer. Why should literature study be any different? Although YA
literature is a good device to get children interested in reading, it
should not be the main focus of study in the classroom. In general, YA
literature does not have the universal appeal or level of skill that
classic literature does. That would be equivalent to history teachers
teaching their students only about the lives of ordinary people rather
than those of people like Napoleon, Washington, or King, Jr. That would
be equivalent to chemistry teachers teaching their students only about
experiments conducted in high school labs, and not about scientists and
discoveries that have changed the world. Classic literature has a place
in the classroom, one that should be revered and never substitued with
work that is simply mediocre.

 

From the web site, Writings by Abhishek.

 

http://pravimalabhishek.wordpress.com/2010/02/19/literature-and-its-importance-in-our-lives/

 

Tim Gillespie in one of his essays to ‘The English Journal’ says, “We
rightly worry that many youngsters lives are circumscribed by poverty,
discrimination, low expectations, cultural insularity, and other
conditions that may render them unable to see beyond the limits of their
immediate horizons. Literature does offer-inexpensively-a vision of
other lives and other vistas. One of its potential benefits is to
enlarge a reader’s sense about the many possible ways to live. This
enlarged sense seems to me an important part of our traditional national
ethos. Hope for a better world and belief in the possibility of
re-making oneself or improving one’s situation breed optimism and elbow
grease. We have rich testimony of this imaginative function of
literature. ”

The ability of literature to provoke its reader to imagine is
generalized in the above sentences. What I mean to say is that
literature of any kind has a generalized power to make the reader
imagine things. Of course, Tim throws more light on living life in
various ways and imagining situations that one cannot experience but
literature of any kind, whether a science textbook or a novel makes the
reader to imagine. This power of imagination deepens the intellectual
quotient of a person.

 

“The tale’s the thing, for every generation”

 

Fracking and 280 Billion Gallons of Toxic Waste Water

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics
English: toxic waste sign Italiano: segnale pe...
English: toxic waste sign Italiano: segnale per rifiuti speciali (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have to wonder if this is not one of the great business ethics issues of our time. Fracking is in many ways protected from federal regulation and the energy companies generous campaign contributions (thanks to Citizens United) have warped state regulations and even the tax laws in favor of the frackers.

I can’t help but think that there could have been protections or developments in process that would have made these methods of exploration safer for the environment. We need the feds on the job. I don’t believe we can look to the industry for our protection. Their press releases have been little but the usual work of corporate PR flacks. That kind of media and public manipulation became obvious a long time ago.

Fracking should be done only with effective regulation both state and federal. What part of American history can lead one to believe in self-regulation? How about the patent medicine companies with their laudanum and opiates? How about investment banks and the great collapse of the first decade of the 21st century? Or simply, the history of the petroleum industry itself, leaks in the Alaska pipeline, a long series of tanker disasters and a little problem called the Gulf Oil Spill? What of this give you confidence that fracking is safe and harmless.

I tell you with confidence that in a few years, fracking will be in every business ethics textbook as a cautionary tale of an industry making its own calls on the safety of the public.

James Pilant

Fracking produces annual toxic waste water enough to flood Washington DC | Environment | theguardian.com

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/oct/04/fracking-us-toxic-waste-water-washington

Fracking in America generated 280bn US gallons of toxic waste water last year – enough to flood all of Washington DC beneath a 22ft deep toxic lagoon, a new report out on Thursday found.The report from campaign group Environment America said America’s transformation into an energy superpower was exacting growing costs on the environment.”Our analysis shows that damage from fracking is widespread and occurs on a scale unimagined just a few years ago,” the report, Fracking by the Numbers, said.The full extent of the damage posed by fracking to air and water quality had yet to emerge, the report said.But it concluded: “Even the limited data that are currently available, however, paint an increasingly clear picture of the damage that fracking has done to our environment and health.”

via Fracking produces annual toxic waste water enough to flood Washington DC | Environment | theguardian.com.

From around the web.

From the web site,

http://lewesagainstfracking.wordpress.com/2013/09/07/united-nations-global-environmental-alert-on-fracking/

In November of last year the United Nations released a ‘Global Environmental Alert’ on the risks that fracking poses to public health and the environment. In it they state:

While offering economic and energy security benefits, UG (unconventional gas) production presents considerable environmental risks. These range from potential water and soil contamination from surface leaks or from improperly designed well-casing, to spills of improperly treated water, increased competition for water usage, and fugitive emissions of gas with implications for the global climate…air pollution from volatile contaminants, noise pollution, negative impacts on ecosystems, biodiversity losses and landscape disruption.’

Read the full report here….UN Report

Internet Freedom Slipping

On By southwerkIn business ethics
Internet Censorship Scenario in Europe
Internet Censorship Scenario in Europe (Photo credit: Analectic.org)

This is very bad news indeed.

Much of the media in the United States is not to be trusted or not doing their job. And because of this the Internet while infested with danger is the new media that carries the weight of intellectual and significant thought and story telling.

The government and corporate power do not like a free internet. It is very sad indeed to see the United States with its claims of being a great free society establishing a truly incredible surveillance operation covering every aspect of the internet.

They have usurped Americans’ privacy with no penalty and little oversight.

But America is a great nation and we can hope the wheel turns round and that there will be change.

But the current crisis is important to business ethics for without an open internet, one avenue of corporate accountability is foreclosed. There are not enough counterweights to corporate wrong doing. Losing this one could be devastating.

James Pilant

Internet freedom in ‘global decline,’ report finds | Al Jazeera America

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/10/3/report-shows-declineininternetfreedomin35countries.html

Internet freedom in countries around the world has declined sharply in the past year despite a pushback from activists that successfully blocked some governments’ repressive laws, according to a new report.

The study, by advocacy group Freedom House, looked at online trends in 60 countries, evaluating each nation them based on obstacles to access, limits to content and violations of user rights. It found that in 35 of the countries monitored, governments had expanded their legal and technical surveillance powers in regards to citizen’s online activities.

“Broad surveillance, new laws controlling web content and growing arrests of social media users drove a worldwide decline in Internet freedom in the past year,” the authors of the report concluded.

Of the countries included in the research, Iceland came top in terms of giving its citizens the highest level of freedom. China, Cuba and Iran were listed as the most restrictive for a second consecutive year. The report noted that declines in online freedom in three democracies – Brazil, India and the United States – were “especially troubling”.

Revelations by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden have ignited a global debate about the U.S. government’s domestic surveillance activities, and the report says the changes in U.S. online …

(Please go to the site and read the whole article.)

via Internet freedom in ‘global decline,’ report finds | Al Jazeera America.

From around the web.

From the web site,

http://paolatubaro.wordpress.com/2012/04/25/internet-freedom-and-censorship/

I participated today in a panel discussion at Voice of Russia London, on freedom of Web speech – the future of the Internet, possible restraints, what is and isn’t currently allowed. My angle was that on the unintended effects of censorship, based on research I have done in the last few years.

You may remember our ICCU (Internet Censorship and Civil Unrest) study, which I started with Antonio A. Casilli
during the summer 2011 English riots. We looked at the potential
effects on civil violence of restrictions to access to the Internet
–considered, though eventually not implemented, by the government.
Leaving aside issues of technical feasibility and legal and ethical
acceptability, would net censorship work? Would it stop the violence?

We show
that it wouldn’t. Its effect would be to interrupt coordination of both
unlawful agitation and community pacification efforts, if not even
policing: so neither “positive” nor “negative” social influences, so to
speak, would display their effects. Censorship doesn’t reduce the level of violence, but changes its pattern.
Specifically, it generates a steadily high level of violence, while its
absence produces only “picks” of violence, with periods of social peace
between them.

We conclude that Internet censorship is
ineffective and inefficient: its social cost (in terms of giving up
freedom of speech) is too high for such meagre results.

American Media Fail to Cover Poverty

On By southwerkIn business ethics
English: This is a figure illustrating the dif...
English: This is a figure illustrating the different rates of poverty by sex for Americans over 65 in 2006. It is based on Statistical Abstract data. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The American Media’s failure to cover poverty as a topic is morally wrong and a failure of business ethics. First, they have an obligation to cover important subjects as part of their duty as a functioning press. They are one of the balancing mechanisms that make democracy work. Second, they are ill-serving their largest stake holders, the consumers of news by providing them with a distorted view of reality. “If it bleeds it leads,” isn’t journalism, it’s entertainment and very poor entertainment. Thirdly, they have a duty to themselves to act responsibly as human beings and to leave a legacy for others.

 

Failure to deal intelligently and with an appropriate level of coverage of controversial topics is a business ethics failure.

 

James Pilant

 

About 15% of Americans live in poverty, so why is no one talking about it? | Daniel A Medina | Comment is free | theguardian.com

 

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/05/american-media-ignores-poverty-issues

 

The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism found that out of 52 mainstream media outlets analysed, coverage of poverty amounted to less than 1% of available news space from 2007 to 2012. It’s even more astonishing considering that period covered a historic recession. One of the report’s conclusions was that media organizations chose not to cover poverty because it was potentially uncomfortable to advertisers seeking to reach a wealthy consumer audience. As Barbara Ehrenreich, who contributes articles on social issues for Time Magazine, put it:They don’t want really depressing articles about misery and hardship near their ads.Poverty coverage is seen as non-lucrative, time-consuming and involves high levels of commitment that editors are unwilling to give their reporters in this age of newsroom budget tightening. The greatest irony, however, is that poverty, as Tampa Bay Times media critic, Eric Deggans, told The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard earlier this year “is in some ways the ultimate accountability story – because, often, poverty happens by design”.

 

(Please visit the link and read the whole article.)

 

via About 15% of Americans live in poverty, so why is no one talking about it? | Daniel A Medina | Comment is free | theguardian.com.

From around the web.

From the web site, Poverty and Policy.

http://povertyandpolicy.wordpress.com/2013/09/23/moving-beyond-trayvon-martin-to-issues-of-economic-injustice/

Dr. Martin Luther King opened his famous March on Washington speech by proclaiming that “the Negro is still not free…. [He] lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast sea of material prosperity.”

 

This is still true 50 years later for 28% of blacks, Gutting says, citing last year’s official poverty figure. And the root cause is the way our free enterprise system works.

 

It’s geared primarily toward enabling individuals to amass personal wealth. And them’s what has gets, at the expense of them’s what don’t.

 

The end result is “a socioeconomic underclass deprived of the basic goods necessary for a fulfilling human life: adequate food, housing, health care and education, as well as meaningful and secure employment.”

 

Gutting asserts that “people should be free to pursue their happiness in the competitive market” — an odd conflation of happiness and riches.

 

But, he continues, “it makes no sense to require people to compete in the market for basic goods” because if they don’t have them, they’ve “little chance of gaining them in competition” with those that do.

 

We’ve got scads of evidence for this. For example, we’ve got research showing that more than 40% of children raised in the bottom fifth of the income scale stay there as adults — and more than half if they’re black.

 

And other studies showing that children of wealthy parents start kindergarten ahead of the pack — and stay there, while a very large number of poor children start with disadvantages that cause them to fall further and further behind.

 

And data showing that even the poor kids who make it through high school are far less likely to go on to college — and less likely to graduate if they do. Costs and other financial pressures are, for blacks, the single most important reason, according to yet other research. And probably not for them only.

From the web site,

Adenike Adebayo

Issues of great importance to me as an Economist.

http://nikeadebayo.wordpress.com/poverty-income-inequality-student-achievement/

FINDINGS

 

Income Inequality

 

Pearson’s correlation coefficient (Table 1) for income inequality and TIMSS math test score shows a negative relationship -.655 at a significance level of .002 (p<. 01) where math test score decreases with higher income inequality (or lower income equality). The relationship between income inequality and science is also negative -.631 at a significance level of .004 (p<. 05) where science test score decreases with increased inequality of income (or with decreased equality of income). Income inequality has very little relationship with government spending on primary and secondary education. Child poverty rates are significantly and positively correlated to income inequality at .787, .792 and .742 with significance levels of .000, .000 and .001.

From the web site, Health Voices.

http://povertybadforhealth.wordpress.com/2013/09/18/income-inequality-no-big-deal-according-to-economists/

In North America, the Occupy movement cast the spotlight on an issue that has been the focus of grave concern around the world – income inequality. So the media flurry that came with the release of Statistics Canada’s latest report on the Income of Canadians (September 11, 2013) was no surprise. CBC’s Kelowna-based Daybreak South (September 12, 2013) and the CBC national show, The 180 (September 13, 2013), are two examples that featured leading economists, both of whom were completely uninformed of the health, social and even the economic costs of income inequality.

 

The numbers simply confirm what we all know – the rich are getting richer, leaving the rest of us behind. At an average of $381,000 each, the richest 1% of Canadians earn more than ten times the average Canadian income. More than the numbers, though, it is the response from leading economists that is troubling for the future of our country.

 

Is Grand Theft Auto Unethical?

On By southwerkIn business ethics
Grand Theft Auto (film)
Grand Theft Auto (film) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Of course it is.

You steal cars and commit crimes. It’s a shrine to mindless violence and slaughter. People, even children, should know better. It’s not hard to pick up the meaning in games and decide whether or not you should go along. I used to play the original Fallout game. One of the add-ons provided me with an adventure in which I could end the scenario successfully by doing one of two horrendously unethical things. Those two were my only choices. For you aficionados, it was kidnap the child or join the evil guy. I refused to make that choice. I started a new game and never played that part of it again.

I currently play Fallout New Vegas. I teach ethics. I play as a hero. Nothing else is possible. You fight for the right and if the cause is just, you may have to die for it. There are moral ambiguities but I enjoy them because in this arena I can experiment and see what the outcomes would be of my actions, something denied me in real life.

I understand the occasional need to experiment with the dark side, but as far as I can tell, Grand Theft Auto is the dark side. I don’t think it is good business ethics to buy or play it.

Moral choices are important even in video games.

James Pilant

“Grand Theft Auto V”: Gaming’s dark misogynist cesspool – Salon.com

http://www.salon.com/2013/10/04/were_all_gamers_now_and_thats_just_fine/

I kind of know what Bissell is talking about. I am familiar with cesspool, reflective of so much of the Internet’s worst misogynist, homophobic and racist tendencies. That “internalized residual shame” is one reason why I personally gave up gaming. Solitary play, hacking and slashing, mowing down opponents in a rage of slaughter, just didn’t seem physically or mentally healthy. So I packed it in. Now I worry about what all the time my son spends gaming might be doing to him. Hell, I worry about what a generation growing up on ubiquitous, amazingly immersive gaming will do to the culture at large. Something, surely? A billion dollars was just spent in three days on a game whose structure encourages random violence and brutality. That can’t be good.And yet, at the same time, I don’t know what Bissell is talking about at all. Video gaming culture should not, cannot, be reduced to young men screaming profanities as they play “Grand Theft Auto V” on their dedicated consoles. Gaming, today, encompasses much, much more. My son and his friends spend hours in the cooperative, creative world-building domain of “Minecraft,” or chuckling their way through humor-drenched indie games like “Don’t Starve” (“An uncompromising wilderness survival game full

via “Grand Theft Auto V”: Gaming’s dark misogynist cesspool – Salon.com.

From around the web.

From the web site,

http://breakfastwithspock.wordpress.com/2013/09/05/after-the-war-i-thought-nothing-of-doing-bad-things-a-grand-theft-auto-iv-retrospective-part-1/

Grand Theft Auto is the ultimate male escapist fantasy. Grounded in a heightened reality of prostitutes, car chases and sweltering machismo, the series gives the player the ability to assert authority and control at the barrel of a gun. With only two weeks left until the release of Grand Theft Auto V, I stepped back into this world by replaying the previous entry, Grand Theft Auto IV and looking at a game which defined a console generation and offers clues to the next step. I’ll be trying to focus on some of the game’s elements and themes in each new post and how each worked together to create one of the most important games of this console generation.

From the web site –

Home to Reflections, Opinions, and Beer Reviews.

http://mthrisho.wordpress.com/2013/10/03/grand-theft-auto-v-innovative-mechanics-bad-writing/

When the game starts and we’re introduced to the characters, everything seems very fluid and interesting. After a brief and intense bank robbery to introduce us to the mechanics both old and new, we launch to Michael in his therapist’s office doing a wonderful Tony Soprano impression. The focus then quickly shifts to Franklin, who is walking by on the street and asks Michael for direction. From here the game’s story begins as we learn Franklin is a repo man for a car dealership, as well as a sometimes gangster. Franklin meets Michael while attempting to repossess his son’s car, and Michael offers to help him find ‘real work.’ We meet Trevor, Michael’s old bank robbing partner, after Franklin and Michael rob a jewelry store. This is where we learn that Michael had faked his death after the opening sequence, and is now in hiding, with Trevor setting out to find him while working on his own ‘business enterprise.’

From there the game expands into more heists, some government intrigue, and figuring out exactly what happened years ago between Trevor and Michael. While all of this is interesting, in a sense of the word, it never fully engages us in a solid narrative. In fact, there’s still plenty of ‘story missions’ after the main tension between Trevor and Michael comes to a head. Sadly though, a solid resolution never really comes about. Until the last few minutes of the game, Trevor still pretty much hates Michael and with very good reason.

From the web site, The Grand Theft Auto Blog.

http://thegrandtheftautoblog.wordpress.com/

The series is set in fictional locales heavily modelled on American cities, while an expansion for the original was based in London. Gameplay focuses on an open world where the player can choose missions to progress an overall story, as well as engaging in side activities, all consisting of action-adventure, driving, occasional role-playing, stealth, and racingelements. The subject of the games is usually a comedic satire of American culture, but the series has gained controversy for its adult nature and violent themes. The series focuses around many different protagonists who attempt to rise through the ranks of the criminal underworld, although their motives for doing so vary in each game. The antagonists are commonly characters who have betrayed the protagonist or his organisation, or characters who have the most impact impeding the protagonist’s progress.

Unconditional Income in Switzerland?

On By southwerkIn Capitalism
Switzerland!
Switzerland! (Photo credit: nicolasnova)

RT takes a look at at a proposal before the Swiss Parliament to make everyone eligible for a guaranteed income.
James Pilant

From around the web.

From the web site, RapidBI Ecademy.

http://rapidbiecademy.wordpress.com/2012/04/18/will-switzerland-introduce-an-unconditional-basic-income-for-everyone-lucas-wyrsch/

Dear Ecademists,

Signatures are being collected for a proposal aimed at introducing an unconditional basic income for everyone living in Switzerland.

Organisers of the initiative, launched in Bern on Thursday last week, consider a guaranteed income a civil right and stressed it was neither a redistribution initiative nor a call to abolish social welfare.

The group, including a former senior government official and an ex-chief economist of a leading Swiss bank, has 18 months to collect at least 100,000 valid signatures to force a nationwide vote on the issue.

They believe that with a basic income of CHF2,500 – children would receive one fourth of that – everyone could live in “dignity and freedom”, without being plagued by existential fears.

From the web site, weekidmuze.

Unconditional basic income = for all, CARE & FREEDOM !!!

Development aid, economic growth policies and other measures have failed to tackle poverty effectively. Hundreds of millions of people are still suffering from poverty and hunger. Based on the current policies poverty will persist for many more decades to come. Therefore, developing countries are considering alternative ways. In Brazil, Namibia and South Africa a basic income is now by many considered to be the best way to end degrading poverty once and for all. Brazil is the first country worldwide that has adopted a law that calls for the gradual introduction of a basic income. In South Africa and Namibia, the trade unions, churches and many non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are trying to persuade their governments to introduce a basic income. And in Namibia, the BASIC INCOME GRANT COALITION has conducted a two-year pilot project. The positive results have exceeded expectations.

From the web site, Boiling Frogs.

http://boilingfrogs.info/2013/06/03/basic-income-initiative-switzerland/

Launched one year ago by two basic income groups from Basel and Zurich, the swiss initiative for basic income still has until august to make sure it has the 100.000 signatures to succeed and trigger a referendum, as specified under the Swiss law.

Yet, basic income activists were happy and smiling when welcoming me at the train station in Geneva two weeks ago. With more than 110.000 signatures collected so far, much of the job has been done already.

A referendum within two years?

But even though the press is now unanimous that they are on the verge to succeed, the activists now aim at collecting 130k signatures by august, just to make sure they reach the quorum.

If this goal is reached, then the government will submit their proposal to a votation, where all swiss electors will be invited to vote yes/no to the proposals of the initiative which aims at embedding the principle of basic income into the constitution, like it already is the case in Brazil.

Related articles

Are the Republicans Having a Trantrum?

On By southwerkIn Editorial

I thought this was deliciously funny: a discussion of the government shutdown as an exercise in parenting. It’s just priceless. Please read the whole article!

James Pilant

How to handle the Republican tantrum: What advice do parenting guides have for Democrats?

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/10/04/how_to_handle_the_republican_tantrum_what_advice_do_parenting_guides_have.html

Do not reward the tantrum. As WikiHow explains, “If you allow yourself to be held hostage by tantrums, your child will continue to use them long past the age when they would otherwise cease.” Giving into this Republican tantrum means they will continue to look for every opportunity to hold the government or the economy hostage to extract further demands. As any parent knows, no matter how tempting it is to give them what they want to shut them up, you’ll just be paying for it down the line.

Explain to the child that you will talk to him or her when he or she calms down. Let Eric Cantor tweet as many petulant pictures as he wants of himself and his fellow tantrum-throwers demanding attention, but let it be known there will be no discourse until the tantrum is over and a reasonable federal budget is passed.

Avoid trying to reason with any child who is in the middle of a full-blown tantrum, especially in a public place. There will be many attempts by cable news%2

via How to handle the Republican tantrum: What advice do parenting guides have for Democrats?.

Pope Francis Calls for Church to Humbly Serve the Poor

On By southwerkIn business ethics3 Comments

 

I’m not a Catholic but this is impressive oratory, and I find the message compelling.

James Pilant

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/04/pope-francis-assisi-church-worldliness

The Roman Catholic church, from the lowliest priest to the pontiff himself, must strip itself of all vanity, arrogance and pride and humbly serve the poorest members of society, Pope Francis has said.The pope’s appeal, made in the central Italian town of Assisi where his namesake Saint Francis lived in the 12th century, comes amid a drive by Francis to turn around a church plagued by financial and sexual abuse scandals.Saint Francis is revered by Catholics and many other Christians for his simple values, poverty and love of nature, qualities the Argentinian-born Francis has made the keynote of his papacy since his election in March.”This is a good occasion to invite the church to strip itself of worldliness,” he said in a room that marks the spot where Saint Francis stripped naked as a young man, renounced his wealthy family and set out to serve the poor.”There is a danger that threatens everyone in the church, all of us. The danger of worldliness. It leads us to vanity, arrogance and pride,” said Francis in the richly frescoed room of the residence of the archbishop of Assisi.As he has often done, Francis spoke impromptu after putting aside prepared versions of two speeches, clearly moved by the sick and the poor people present in the room.

via Pope Francis marks Assisi visit with call for church to shun worldliness | World news | theguardian.com.